THE DIARY OF Z

The other day, I spent an hour in front of the camera rather than behind it. It was my very first proper photo session. The Man magazine wanted to crown me by getting a professional photographer to take my picture for their next issue. The occasion? I had won an international essay contest on The Rape of Nanking (you can read it on this blog). Though I had been taking pictures for the last many years now, I still got to learn a lot from photographer Bhanu Prakash Chandra. To begin with, what I assumed to be a 15-minute shoot took more than an hour. From a staid picture of me sitting on the staircase to raising my eyebrows and being naughty in front of the camera, I tried them all. And kept doing until Bhanu felt he had enough pictures to satisfy his boss. You can see some of the pictures in ‘About asterix786′ section.

Here is what I learnt from the photo session:

1. Lighting is everything. And one has to try out various angles, settings and postures to capture the Kodak moment.

2. Doing photography is about stretching your body all over the place: window sill, wardrobe, compound wall, underneath the chair… the list is endless.

3. You need to be yourself and also be game to pose in a variety of ways… you never know what the camera can capture. What you thought was the stupidest posture will turn out to be the best of the lot. Case in point: The shot where I wink at the camera was a beauty!

4. Photography is a never ending race to perfection! And that’s the thrill of it! So what are you waiting for? Grab a camera and go ‘click, click!’

Okay, the suspense is over. So it’s the Al Qaida who executed Benazir Bhutto! Looks like Osama’s deputies have taken over from him as this operation points out (his deputy ordered her killing according to Al Qaida’s spokesperson). Killing one Osama isn’t going to do any good. But killing one Benazir does (for the terror outfits). There are many Osamas around, but very few dare-devil Benazirs who could risk their family and themselves in the service of the nation.

Who will chop the hand of Al Qaida and many such fundamentalist outfits? Musharaff? Manmohan Singh? George Bush? Or will there be infighting within these terror outfits like it happens in underworld wars, and they will extinguish themselves? Even if this scenario doesn’t shape up, our spies could infiltrate these terror outfits and cause bad blood within the ranks. The best way to take the enemy by surprise is to shoot them from under their nose.

It’s a four-screen multiplex on the city’s Outer Ring Road that opened more than three years ago. When it opened, the food, picture and sound quality seemed quite good, but now it’s becoming progressively worse. Here are my grouses:

1. The management is corrupt. On opening days of big movies, the man at the ticket counter hands out ‘advance receipts’ as ‘entry tickets’. The scam: the advance receipts are not taxed as there is no rate of admission stamped on it. Thereby, the management is defrauding the income tax authorities.

2. Even on week-days when the fare is supposed to be less, the management charges exhorbitant rates. Just last Wednesday (Dec 26), it charged Rs 250 for a balcony ticket for Welcome. And mind you, even the best multiplex in town, PVR, charges only Rs 200 for weekend shows (and Rs 250 for advance booking). Whereas here, I was being charged Rs 250 for a show that was to begin in the next 15 minutes.

3. Unlike other multiplexes, there are no special rates for morning shows before 12pm when even a market leader in Bangalore like PVR has such a policy.

4. The soft drinks given here reek of smell resembling kerosene. Obviously, it’s diluted and yet, they charge Rs 40 for a small can when PVR dishes out the best Pepsi you could ever get anywhere for Rs 50 (regular) and Rs 60 (large).

5. The sound sucks big time. There is no Dolby stereo. And even if they claim to have one, it appears to be of inferior quality. Movie-watching should be a well-rounded experience. Even if one of the things go missing, your experience is that much more hampered. And  Innovative fails on more than one count. Will the management sit up and take notice?

6. To think that it’s the same management that’s going to run the upcoming Innovative Film City in Bidadi, one wonders how bad that experience would be. If things are going so wrong in the heart of the city, god help those who venture all the way to Bidadi. Cheap tactics might add to the coffers in the short term, but in the increasingly consumer-driven  society, entities like Innovative will be shipped out if they don’t shape up.

Assassination of any prominent political leader chills me to the bone. Not because I fear for my life. But because it’s such a chilling scenario. The moment my friend called to inform that former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I was shocked. Not because I sympathise with her or I am a big fan of hers, it’s just the news by itself. There is so much anarchy in Pakistan.

Despite warnings, Bhutto decided to come back to Pakistan after so many years of spending her time outside the country, and this is the reception she gets. The issue is not so much about her assassination. It’s more about the lawlessness taking control of Pakistan. When president Musharraf justified the imposition of emergency because fundamentalism (and thereby terrorism) couldn’t have been curtailed any other way, no one really believed him, including yours truly. But now, I could give that thought the benefit of doubt. Don’t know who killed Bhutto, but one thing is clear. There is an urgent need for order. But is anybody really interested? What say, George Bush?

Four days after I first watched Taare Zameen Par, i went to PVR and watched it again by default. Here is what I felt during the course of the film:

1. I cried on three occasions, exactly when Aamir cries on screen. And this was exactly how it went when I watched the film for the first time, too!

2. I thought Aamir had lessened the impact of the first half by concentrating on dyslexia in the second half, and not on how some children just don’t like to study the usual subjects. Upon second viewing, i don’t think it lessened the impact at all. In fact, because of dyslexia, Aamir could romp home the point that children suffering from this can be brought into the mainstream. Also, Aamir was able to tear down his protagonist’s ‘duffer’ image with the ammunition of dyslexia. Otherwise, he would have landed in a moral dilemma: are schools good or bad for children.

3. I felt the first half was quite long and painfully delightful (quite a feat!) the first time round. But this time, i felt it was short and someone had done some very crisp editing where all the boring bits are taken out. And where some seemed to be separate sequences, he’s done a mosaic and inserted them in the song sequences itself. Succinct thinking.

4. Though I wasn’t a duffer at school, i could still relate to the protagonist because Aamir the director takes us inside the mind of 9-year-old Ishaan Awasthi. Close-ups of the puddle in front of his classroom window, swinging on the gate, seeing alphabets dancing in his book… they all make you feel one with him. There’s so much empathy created in his every naughty act, be it bringing his eyes together when his mother says, ‘Ishaan, concentrate!’ to scowling at his father when his mother calls off his dad’s bluff that he’s leaving home because of his bad showing at school.

5. I thought there is room for improvement, particularly in the second half. But on repeat viewing, i felt the film was good as it was, because i felt the film was viewed, reviewed and revised a million times by the perfectionist Aamir, before it made the final cut.

6. Aamir’s idea of getting Ram Madhvani to direct the song ‘Bheja Kum’ which scored on photography and sophistication that you come to expect from TV commercials, was a great way of infusing some excitement into the frames. Similarly, showing Pandey’s documentary on children when the credits roll at the end was a masterstroke. By this, Aamir is saying that Ishaan could be anyone, a Chinese, a Nepali, a rich or a poor child because Ishaan belongs to just one age: Innocence.

7. On a working day, i saw several people dragging themselves out of bed to watch the 10am show at PVR. Some collegegoers were heard saying, “I know many guys like Ishaan who had the same problem man, and i thought they were just dumb!” If the film was an eye-opener to them, their comments were an eye-opener to me.

8. The distributors problem with multiplex owners over TZP and Welcome has helped TZP atleast at all the PVRs in the country at the expense of Welcome. Take my case. I had gone to see Welcome at PVR in the morning, but at the ticket window, i realised there was only one show of Welcome at 10pm. So the man behind the counter handed me a ticket of TZP instead saying, ‘I have only one ticket left.’ With no other option, I bought it… and didn’t regret!

Do you thumb down films made purely for lightweight escapism? Do you scoff at films that lack artistic credibility? Then this film festival might just do the trick. Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy and the Government of Karnataka are presenting the second Bangalore International Film Festival this January. It will showcase 110 critically-acclaimed films spread over a week from over 40 countries.

Here are a few must-watch films:

The Lives of Others: Is your private life really private? This Academy award winner by Florian Donnersmarck makes you think deep when a successful playwright is constantly being monitored by the socialist regime.

Lovers of the Arctic Circle: Julio Medem’s multi-layered film explores chance and destiny in the lives of two lovers. Arresting cinematography and a haunting sound track.

Blow-up: This Michelangelo Antonioni film examines the existential nature of reality. A bored high fashion photographer takes to documenting the seamy side of London and gets caught in a murder mystery.

Turtles Can Fly: This Bahman Ghobadi film is a wrenching tragedy and an amusing comedy revolving around children of refugees.

Balkan Brothers: Encounter raw racism in Bozidar ‘Bota’ Nikolic’s film that shows a crippled war merchant’s drug smuggling racket involving people he hired from war-torn ex-Yugoslavia to sew labels on fake jeans.

A Letter of Fire: Asoka Handagama’s film about a shaken aristocratic family after their 12 year-old son gets accidentally involved in the murder of a prostitute.

Vertical Rays of the Sun: Anh Hung Tran’s film about a buffalo boy in Vietnam raping a woman who later turns out to be his real mother.

It’s a sensitive cinematic hug this New Year’s.

Jan 3-10. Films being screened at Vision Cinemas Complex and KH Patil auditorium, KH Road and Suchitra auditorium, 9th Main Road, B V Karanth Road, Banashankari 2nd Stage. Delegate passes (Rs 500) issued at the Suchitra Film Society office in Banashankari (Ph: 26711785). For the detailed schedule, visit www.suchitrafest.in.