Gangs of Whaa(?)sseypur...

Sometimes, some things happen that shake the blogger in your heart to the very core. Shake him out of his self-imposed (not deliberate) exile and make him take up a pen, umm keyboard, again.

Anurag Kashyap you great, great guy. You made me come back to the blogosphere.

So as the sophisticated and intellectual reader base of this blog would've understood by now, this post is about the modern day classic, Gangs of Wasseypur.

Now, the problem with modern day classics is that they seem to be made with the intention of making a 'modern day classics'. 

And that's not how these classics should be made. They should be telling a story in a way that is stylistically true to the directors vision, in a way that lingers with you after you leave the theatre. Unfortunately, the only thing that lingers as you leave the theatre here is a sense of "Whaa?? What just happened here?" And of course when during a film you glance at your Dad, and both of you start laughing as you try to figure out just what the hell was happening in the film, you can be sure that things are not going well with the film.

On the positive side, it did help me in continuing what is fast becoming a family tradition. Whenever I choose a movie and take my parents and/or my grandmother to watch it, I invariably come out of the theatre thinking "What the hell were you thinking SB! Why did you choose this movie?"

To give you a background I have taken my parents and grandmother to watch Dus Kahaniyan which was mostly fine, except six of those Kahaniyan were on infidelity, extramarital affairs, drugs and violence. And then I took them to what I thought was my magnum opus Kaminey. Yes, I know I was asking for it, didn't the name strike me as a potential problem?

Yes it did.

And yes, I still took them.

And yes, I banged my head against a wall afterwards.

Coming back to this film, it is a kaleidoscope of excellent pieces. The performances are powerful and individual brilliance is positively reeking from the film. But does the story come together tightly, or even loosely? No, I'm sorry to say it doesn't.

Now, I loved Dev.D. Really, truly I loved the film. It was a known (and by then fairly commonplace) story told in a stylistic and truly different manner. Against many a riling people I defended the film, recommended it to one and all, and waited with baited breath about what this brilliant, quirky director would do next. But since then there seems to be a movement towards more style and less substance. Add to that the aura that has been created that if you do not like his work, you're probably not smart enough to understand his vision, and I think he's just taking his avant garde-ness too seriously.

Gangs also begins promisingly. Excellent opening sequence and the way the character of Shahid Khan was etched and then evolved had me asking for more. The first part also strongly established the raw brutality that could be expected in the film. But then it just devolved into a whole mixed pot of brilliant short films. New characters appeared by the dozen, did their little parts and then either disappeared or got relegated to the sidelines. So many characters, with similar mannerisms, that it was difficult even to connect them all.

There were also some plat gaps which I will not go into detail as it may be a spoiler. However, for me one question that I could not reconcile to was that when life was such a casual commodity in Wasseypur/Dhanbad, why didn't the powerful vidhayak just shoot Manoj Vajpayee's character when he was still weak? I couldn't understand it and AV and I were both convinced that there has to be a back-story that explains this. If there isn't, then I'm afraid the story loses its plausibility. For me the love/lust angle of the story was a bit unnecessary. It was good, and well done, but did not carry the story along, nor did it really throw up any insights on how the main character functioned.

As a clubbing together of excellent short films with powerful performances, Gangs of Wasseypur works. As a coherent story with well etched characters, I'm afraid it doesn't.
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Now that I've come back to the blog after a long time, I should probably not have such a negative post to start off.

So on a positive note, we also saw a play Hayavadana last weekend. Its a play written in 1971 by Girish Karnad. Excellent performance all around and a captivating story. It was open to a lot of interpretation too and it is always nice to watch a play that you want to discuss and think about later. And the icing on the cake was that as it was the last performance of the play in Bangalore, the playwright, Mr. Girish Karnad, was also there at the venue. We didn't really talk to him, but as AV says, she had samosas with him during the interval. He, in one corner of the room, and she in the other!

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Foul Play...

Be impulsive...they said

Be 'more cultured'...they said

Stop watching WWE...they said

Be more aware of your 'sensitive' side...they said


And fool that I am, I believed them and followed the instructions. Little was I to know the horrors I'd have to face on this arduous path.

Stop thee, of weak hearts, this tale is not for thee.

I had gone out on Friday and it became quite a late night (or, umm, early morning). Obviously I got up late and was spending a totally relaxed Saturday mostly watching season 2 of Dexter.

As an aside I'm not sure whether I really like the series. The serial killer in the show is not callous / intelligent enough methinks.Also, the plot is a bit weak, especially the Harry angle

A perfect day wouldn't you say? But was I going to let it remain so? Was I going to stop myself from interfering with the diktats of the higher power who wanted me to actually relax?

I would've, except the first few lines of this post flashed infront of my eyes. There is a theatre festival of English language comic plays running in Rangashankara. I've been planning to go for the last couple of days to two very interesting sounding plays. However, I just haven't been able to (had to meet someone after a long time, got late at work and tickets ran out). There was another play called "All about women". Truth be told, this sounded like the least interesting play of the entire festival but at 6 in the evening, just as the dark clouds burst forth, I had this impulse to go for this play.

Now I don't really look for company while going for plays. I mean, it's not like you can nudge the person next to you and crack silly jokes on which both of you guffaw.

Everyone knows that kind of behavior is only acceptable in movie halls and strategy meetings.

So I pulled on my jeans and rushed down the stairs to my car. And then I came back up to pick up my car keys. Rushing down again I negotiated the puddles with elan and eventually managed to step into just one before getting the car started. Stealing a quick glance at my super cool watch I took a little sigh of relief. I had an hour and a half to reach the theater. It was tight what with the traffic, but could be done. Afterall I had done this earlier with an even lesser margin when I'd gone to see a Anton Chekov play (which by the way, was quite bad).

Ha, the games fate plays with us mere mortals

Almost as soon as I got out of my colony I ran into a massive traffic jam amidst shin deep water. Car engine being run to prevent any untoward stalling, I wormed through the jam. As I escaped the reaching-for-me clutches of the jam I had a victorious smile on my face as I saw a clear stretch of road ahead of me and the hands on the face of my watch still looking on favourably. Strange, no one seemed to be taking that long empty stretch, choosing instead to turn right into another water infested jam. Now why would that be?

And suddenly I had a vision! Yes, a real live vision.

And the content of the vision was PS. A couple of days back he had told me that due to some underpass construction they had blocked off the road which had the straightest route to Rangashankara!

I was already beginning to rue my impulsive decision to become more sensitive and cultural. Already I was seeing the merits of watching two (or more) heavily muscled wrestlers beating down on each other in the safe confines of my living room. But I had started, and by God I was going to become cultured today!

I took the most circuitous route possible. On occasions my car took on amphibian qualities to wade through the water pools. The clock was ticking and I could feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead. Would I be able to reach? Would I be able to immerse myself in the luxurious presence of the play? Would the old aunty in the Premier Padmini car move out of the way...ever?

To cut a long story short I zoomed near the theater with 15 minutes to spare. And as if God was rewarding me for my tenacity and dedication I saw what I have never seen near the theater recently - a free parking spot. Parking the car and tearing down towards the box office was a matter of seconds. Stopping suddenly, returning, and locking the car was a matter of another few seconds.But I knew from the parking spot incident that the Gods were smiling. And really, how difficult would it be to get just one ticket.

Apparently, very. As I approached the box office with an expectant smile on my face, I was faced by yet another smile. The lady there was smiling and shooing away the stragglers trying to get a ticket. All sold out. Yes, it's true.

I'm going to watch another play tomorrow. This one with PS and Z. And we have tickets already. But by God, I'm going in PS' car. If I had to drive there again so soon, I swear I'd cry.

The wounds are still too fresh

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