You and Your Lunacy

By Sadho Ram

There dwells an ugliness
in these perversely disgruntled eyes
seeing, witnessing and distastefully savoring
the loathsome ugliness of yours, and your existence
that you, ever so miserably, oh so naïvély, try to cover
to put a pitiable façade, consumed by the ignorance and
filled with the belief that rots the pores of your stinking skin
and bottled up lies, dressed and well-prostituted,
Sold in the name of hope and miracle..

Ah, you and your lunacy, pleasures me much!

Condemn a Writer to Hell and When a Poet Dies. Rejoice. Celebrate!

By Sadho Ram

Writing is a profession of the downtrodden and despicables. For there is nothing more disgraceful than being a 'writer.' For writers are but the carrier of unfulfilled dreams and failed destinations. And, they deserve your strongest of contempt. Condemn them to hell (if such a place exists), or simply neglect them and they will die the very death they keep frightening you with.

And, there's nothing more disgusting a creature than a poet, you see. For a poet's imagination is the reason behind the sadness that prevails in other peoples lives. Precisely the reason why I keep saying that the lives of others depends on a poet and his illusionary imagination. Which is nothing but a sad, sad reality in this sadistic world.

You see what a poet does is not simply write poetry (which at times is shittier than the shittiest of shit the mankind produces in abundance every morning).

What a poet does is that he essentially cripples the mind of the people.

You will ask how?

Well, a poet makes you a slave to his words and stops you from thinking for yourself. And once you become a slave to a poet's work, you start depending on him for things you would never depend on others. For his words don't give wings to your imaginations. They only act as an illusion. It's his own imagination in which you are made to fly or something like that. You start depending on him in such a manner that you expect him to give words to your emotions, expressions to your motions, and tell you how things work. And I will be honest with you here, to me that is just pathetic.

So when a poet dies. Rejoice. Celebrate!

Throw a party and use the pages from his books as napkins, and before you toss the used pages away, make sure the words appear like as dark, unreadable blots. For that is the kind of respect he deserves. For you see, the day a poet is born, is the day mankind dies a death.

Therefore, do not ever mourn a poet. And, never cry for a writer whom you condemned to hell.

Why A Pimp Deserves More Respect Than A Poet Should Ever Get!

By Sadho Ram

There are chances that a Pimp will have more respect for your money than a Poet will ever have for your emotions.

Agreed that the profession of a Pimp is to sell flesh―alive, breathing flesh that has been oppressed to satisfy the naked but natural hunger dwelling inside those dogs who walk the nights on two legs with another hanging in between. But the profession of a Poet is far more worse and loathsome.

You see, a poet not only uses your naivety to lure you in―therefore making you his slave, he even captures the most essential, the most important part of you―your mind and makes you his puppet, and then plays with your emotions in manners that even when you want to curse him, you end up appreciating the myth he created in front of your gullible eyes.

So you see, what a Pimp does is no doubt degradable and should be condemned to the very core of it, but what a Poet does for a living should invite the wretchedest of criticism. And while you condemn the profession of a Pimp (but not the Pimp himself), it IS the Poet himself that you should condemn and condemn like you have never condemned anything else (maybe even to death).

I Come From Far Away Lands..

By Sadho Ram

...where the fields were green and mountains stood tall, where the winds blew like a virgin's shawl, where loneliness never crossed a rambler's path, where the sun played hide & seek with silvery clouds, where stars shone bright and moon never missed its 'stride', where people had a penchant for the 'lives of others', where the doors stayed open, and where someone always waited on the windows, where at times fathers stayed in and mothers went out, where Bhabhis 'played' with their Devars before they were 'touched' by their husbands, where it wasn't taboo to talk about sex, where no child was trafficked, where no women was raped, where murders didn't happen, where riots never took place because religion didn't exist, where love had a fountain and hate had a grave of its own, where people were people and not walking zombies, where culture was celebrated instead of egos, where friends existed, where life mattered, where relationships were build instead of buildings, in the mornings where birds sang and light danced to its tune, where a Kabuliwala always roamed the lanes and kids ran after him, where evenings were spent listening to Nani's tales, and the darkness of nights brought long-lost friends together, where warmth was shared under the open sky and palms rubbed in quick motion to whisk away the cold...

..and which makes me wish if only there existed a place like this, if only!

HOUSEFULL 2: The Dorky Dozen

By Sadho Ram

(Un)direction: Sajid Khan | (Un)screenplay: Tushar Hiranandani, Sajid-Farhad

(Un)music: Sajid-Wajid

Nothing fascinates me in a film (regardless of the genre) more than that rare combination of a well-told story with finely crafted characters. A craft which, although seems to be flourishing and gaining new depths in "underground" cinema, is surely on the verge of extinction, at least in mainstream Bollywood. The Hindi film industry has gone through numerous cinematic transformations in which it has given us movies that are true gems but then it has also given us uncountable numbers of the most ridiculous movies ever made in India. The sad part is that those ridiculous movies are the ones that have become the whole idea and identity of Bollywood. Housefull 2 is one of those ridiculously cheesy films, where you don't know whether you should cringe in embarrassment or laugh at the cheesiest of dialogues that hold the stamina to even make a few rotten corpses roll in their graves.

Sample this: "Sirf bhokhne se kutta kamina nahi ho jata"

BLOOD MONEY: A Gastronomical Fart

By Sadho Ram

Starring: Kunal Khemu, Amrita Puri, Manish Choudhary, Shekher Shukla and Mia Uyeda

Direction: Vishal Mahadkar | Story: Upendra Sidhye

Music: Jeet Ganguly, Pranay, Sangeet & Sidharath Haldipur

I just recently started reviewing movies. And after reviewing some of the finest movies that I've seen in less than a month (Paan Singh Tomar, Kahaani, Machine Gun Preacher,The Visitor), I let go of Agent Vinod, because it was established from its very first trailer that Agent Vinod will become what Players could not - the father of duds for the year 2012. But then Blue told me that if I am going to review movies then I'll have to review all kinds of movies that come out, irrespective of the fact that they are good or bad. Which is right. She is right. So I decided I'll go ahead with my Blue's advice and try to review at least one movie that comes out every week.

Image Courtesy Google 

So came BLOOD MONEY, and also my chance to review it. I decided to watch it first day, first show. You know, like a crazy movie buff! So I did not sleep at night so that I can go in for an early morning show. Left house an hour early and walked for about half an hour because there was a huge traffic jam between Santacruz east and Milan Subway (that's where the Inox is), so I figured if I walk I'll not only save some money but also reach in time.

And anyways, a walk in the morning is always good for health, so I've heard.

I reached Inox before the time of the first show (10 AM), so had to wait outside for about 15 minutes, before the cinema security finally let me in. Rather then taking the elevator,  I climbed 3 stories of stairs to go up to the ticket counter to buy myself a ticket. Before printing the ticket, the girl at the counter, skeptically, asks me -

'Sir, you're the first and the only one to buy a ticket for this movie. Are you okay with that?'

I ask her what do you mean by "Are you okay with that?"

She says - 'No, it's just that nobody else has bought, so we don't know if we'll run the movie.'

'Just give me a ticket and I'll see later what happens.'

And thus I became the first person to buy the first ticket of BLOOD MONEY on the first show of the first day. Voila.

But guess what?

Just not worth it.

The half an hour of walk. The 15 minute of wait outside the theatre in the scorching sun (the temperature in Bombay is raising by the day). The 3 stories of stair climbing. And though very precious but still the least of all, my 100 rupees, which in other circumstances provides for my two meals a day.

If you're still here and reading this, then bear with me some more, because trust me, my suffering is a lot greater for being able to sit through the entire bullcrap and still come out alive than what you might be going through by reading me vomit the diarrhea that I've acquired after being exposed to the shame called BLOOD MONEY.

Here's a little bit of the plot (or should I say absence of a plot). BLOOD MONEY tells the story(?) of a simple but ambitous guy named Kunal Kadam, played by Kunal Khemu, who after winning some MBA scholarship in Bombay (India) is offered a job at a big diamond making firm in Capetown (South Africa). He is newly married to Arzoo, played by Amrita Puri, who last appeared in Aisha. Together they move into a huge house and immediately break into song & dance. After the song & dance, we see Kunal getting carried away in pursuit of his ambitions, while Arzoo, being left alone in the huge house, getting lost into oblivion. The story(?) takes a turn when Kunal discovers the real truth hiden behind the glitter of diamonds at his company, and gets entangled in the vicsious web of a mutiltude of crimes.

The question is, can he come out of it clean and stop himself from losing the only real thing that he ever earned, his love, his wife - Arzoo?

The answer is, go figure! If you have nothing else, and I mean seriously nothing else to do and about 200 bucks to throw away, then please, do not let me or my verbal diarrhea influence you and stop you from giving yourself a bullcrap treat called BLOOD MONEY.

To be precisely honest, BLOOD MONEY is the kind of Bollywoodised version of a fairy tale that falls into the category of cinema where the very lack of any purpose whatsoever of telling a story is actually to just escape it. Rather than sticking to the reality and telling it as it is,  rather than hitting the audiance with something concrete, rather than offering substance of any kind, movies such as BLOOD MONEY are just a mere egotistical fart of an ignorant director who believes that gloss & glitter are enough to fool an audience, who is so used to being taken for granted that nobody seems to care that there are limits to everything. There a limit to us for being taken for granted that we will gladly feast on the gastronomical nonsense directors such as Vishal Mahadkar throws at us once every week.

With bad music, worse background score, more badly written characters, awkward acting, pretentious dialogues and the total absence of a story, BLOOD MONEY is just gloss & glitter, which fizzles from the word go.

Therefore, I refuse to write anything more in or against this utter gibberish.

#Edited by: Rabia Mehta

Machine Gun Preacher: Fighting a Demon Within

By Sadho Ram

“If we allow ourselves to be full of hate, then they’ve won. We must not let them take our hearts.”

We are all fighting a war here. It doesn’t matter of what kind or with whom, but a war nevertheless. While everybody is busy fighting their share of war, there is however a man in this very world of ours who is fighting a war which was never his own and ironically, even after fighting it for over a decade now, it still isn’t his, but he still fights.

There is no better way to put the kind of war he is fighting except how he himself did – another man’s war.

Official poster of the film

In 2011 came a movie called Machine Gun Preacher, an action biopic about Sam Childers played by Gerard Butler, a preacher-defender of African orphans. The film tells the story of Sam Childers, a former gang biker, and his staggeringly selfless efforts to save the children of South Sudan in collaboration with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) against the massacres of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The film is based on Childers’ memoir Another Man’s War, which it totally appears to be so, only if looked without dwelling deep into it. But there’s more to it than what connects us to it. There’s another story, almost hidden, which runs parallel to the one being told; the one about Kony’s army (RLA) killing and abducting children and forcing them to become part of it. There’s a war of a different kind, a deeply intimate one, which Childers is constantly fighting alongside the war which is not his. A war where although there are no bullets are being fired, where no one’s blood is being shed, where everything appears to be normal to the ignorant eyes, but where a tsunami is on the verge of destroying the very last bone of spirit.

Throughout the movie we see Childers, played exceptionally well by Gerard Butler, fighting with his own demons, conquering them one by one, but there still lives one demon which he is not only failing to fight with but which is also growing stronger and deeper inside him, making him vulnerable to his own faith and slowly turning him into the very thing, the very idea he is fighting.

On the surface Machine Gun Preacher is full of violence where blood is being shed and lives are being lost, where the future of Africa is lost to the barrel of guns and where its present lies scattered around, blasted away in bits and pieces. It’s a violence we are all sort of accustomed to, but Machine Gun Preacher’s real violence lies within its main protagonist Sam Childers, who slowly finds himself stranded with no faith in doing what he is doing, he fights the demon within which threatens to thwart the very good he has done. It was in that moment when the white preacher (as he is fondly addressed by the people of Africa) is paid a visit by the child who had earlier saved him from being blown up. The silence before the kid speaks in that scene allows us to connect with both of them, making us painfully aware of Childers’ state of mind and enabling us to comprehend the words that are to be preached by the child.

Machine Gun Preacher is a film made with complete passion and heart, written by Jason Keller and directed by Marc Forster, it’s a well told story with balance of both, love and war. Being a true account of a real life hero working selflessly, fighting someone else’s war, Machine Gun Preacher must be applauded for its honest effort in trying to address an issue, the tales of which are only disturbing. The entire cast has done a fabulous job; each of the character has its own voice, which reaches to us in an attempt to pull us in.

Watch it for the reasons that there are still heroes out there, outside the fictional realm of comic books and superhero movies, who are trying a make a difference in this indifferent world, who are out there saving the lives of innocents fighting who-knows whose war; heroes who haven’t given up on hope for a brighter dawn and better tomorrow.

And to those who might not see any point in the war that Sam Childers and hundreds like him are fighting, I will leave it on  Childers himself to answer…

“For me to sit here and give all kinds of excuses to make it right. I can’t do it. But what I wanna ask everyone out there, everyone that has a child, everyone that has a brother or a sister, if your child or your family member was abducted today, if a madman came in, a terrorist came in, abducted your family member, or your child, and if I said to you, “I can bring your child home, does it matter how I bring him home?”

The original Sam Childers

Watch it for what it has to offer – reality.

#Edited by Rabia Mehta

When Art becomes Life: The Visitor

By Sadho Ram

Our life is a most vibrant, continually progressing, richly overwhelming canvas in motion; a never-ending work of finest art, which keeps on getting larger and larger until its final movement, where everything stops mattering except the whole sum of life which it leaves behind in the form of that vibrant canvas which it was processing, for others to reflect on it. We may think that we are the one filling in the blank spaces of our life, but the reality is very different. It’s actually our life that is filling us, from inside and out.

Art is one such form of life, where life becomes art and art becomes life. But when art becomes life, you know how good that art is, you realise its absolute beauty and the power it holds in it. For life becoming art is one thing, but imagine the beauty, and no, not just the beauty but the quality of that grace and intellect, coupled with which, that very form of art becoming life. A transformation which can never be forced or faked, for the very reason that life can’t.

The Visitor is one such form of art which becomes life. Immaculate. Unbound. A very fine and vibrant canvas in motion with no shock value or element of surprise in it, but one which warmly opens up to you and sucks you in so comfortably that before you realise you are completely lost in its grace and beauty.

Just for the record, those who are still guessing what it is that I’m talking about, The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy.

The Visitor is a story of Walter Vale played  by Richard Jenkins, a widowed, Connecticut college professor of economics, living a solitary life, who fills his days by sometimes taking piano lessons, in memory of his wife, a classical concert pianist, while sporadically writing his new book in an effort to fill his empty, boring life. He is suddenly asked to present a paper at an academic conference at New York University, about which he is not keen at all and so refuses to accept the request, until he is forced to by his department head Charles, played by Michael Cumpsty.

And just like that Walter’s life changes at a blink of an eye. He becomes part of two unmarried couple, Tarek played by Haaz Sleiman, a Palestinian-Syrian djembe player and Zainab played by Danao Jekesai Gurira, a Senegalese designer of ethnic jewellery, who he later discovers are illegal immigrants. Walter’s rather simple but boring life, suddenly changes track and becomes what he had never thought it would become. He is forced to deal with issues of identity, immigration and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City.

The crux of the story lies in the metaphor where we see him becoming the lone hope for the couple, (while being almost hopeless himself) and the only source of comfort for a mother, Mouna played by Hiam Abbass, (while never being at ease with his own self).

Thomas McCarthy has written a very real and moving tale which he directs with such precision and brilliance that it leaves the viewer wanting for more yet satisfied with nothing to complain about. The last time he did the same was with his equally moving tale of a man seeking solitude in an abandoned train station, called The Station Agent.

The Visitor is so beautiful in its presentation that you just want it to go on, forever. The whole movie is a complete treat in itself. But there are scenes so powerful and original that they just pull the viewer inside, making them part of it, allowing them to breathe in the harmony of the beats being struck. While the entire cast of The Visitor is just impeccable, it is really the Walter Vale’s character which stays with you even after everything is over. Richard Jenkins does a brilliant job as Walter; he makes his character come alive in the screen, bringing in the kind of sincerity not often found.

The Visitor is that continually progressing canvas in motion, which keeps on getting larger and larger until its final movement, where everything stops mattering except that one thing where it leaves behind the canvas, now complete, for us to reflect on it.

Grab its DVD and watch it or wait till you catch it on TV like I did. For such films are eternal, no matter how old they get, they never loses their quality. The kind of feeling films like The Visitor invokes in us is worth the time it takes from us. Films as such may leave you wanting for more but will never leave you feeling empty or unsatisfied. Never.

KAHAANI: A Mother of a Story

By Sadho Ram

Starring: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Saswata Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Direction: Sujoy Ghosh | Story: Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala

Dialogues: Sujoy Ghosh, Ritesh Shah and Sutapa Sikdar | Screenplay: Sujoy Ghosh

Additional Screenplay: Suresh Nair & Nikhil Vyas | Music: Vishal-Shekhar

It is said that a very long time ago, somewhere in the magical realm of Hindu mythology, when the demon called Mahishasura had unleashed terror on the three worlds, creating havoc and chaos all around; made so powerful by the blessings of Brahma that no god could ever defeat him. It was then that a goddess was born, summoned by all the gods, to liberate the world from the clutches of Mahishasura, she was the culmination of the energies of all gods. According to the mythological tale, she is the original illusion caster and the material manifestation of the Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Godhead, (the universal Spirit that is the source and support of the phenomenal universe). 

KAHAANI is the story of one such world (in here Kolkata), where terror of the demon has been unleashed, creating havoc and chaos all around; and when everything else fails to stop the demon, a goddess, somewhere from the far off world, arrives in the form of an ordinary, 7 month pregnant woman.

We are told that she is a no one, just an ordinary, 7 month pregnant woman looking for her missing husband. That she seeks nothing else, but the truth which seems to have somehow vanished her husband into the thin air of Kolkata, made almost mystical by the superb direction of Sujoy Ghosh. But the reality of KAHAANI is nothing what has been established from the moment it unfolds.

Vidya Balan is the Durga of this KAHAANI. Her character has been written so exceptionally well that it is almost synonymous to what the Durga is. Filled with fierce compassion and creative feminine force, Vidya seems to exist in a state of total independence from the universe and anything or anybody else, in other words, she is self-sufficient,  just like Durga. You take her out of KAHAANI, and you are left with nothing else but a dead canvas incapable of evoking any emotion whatsoever. You put her back in KAHAANI, and the same dead canvas comes roaring back to life, ready to invoke the emotions you least expected it to. Vidya’s character, in her search for her missing husband (as we are told), shows fearlessness and patience, and never loses her sense of humour, even during the situation of epic proportion. She becomes a child when she is with Subash at the guest house she is staying in, who is crazily in love with his radio, which he keeps with him all the time, and the nervous and diffident Partho at the chaiwala. She becomes what the situation demands her to be, and at times she herself becomes the situation where she can be what she wants to be.

The story of KAHAANI, though not once losing track, ticks only because of the way Vidya’s character unfolds itself throughout the KAHAANI. Has the character of Vidya Bagchi (played unlike anything else seen in a long-long time in Hindi cinema by Vidya Balan) been any less in terms of emotional proportion and substance, KAHAANI would have been just another wham-bam story that we witness in bundles every other Friday.

While Vidya Balan deserves all the admiration that is being showered on her for her role in KAHAANI, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, in his portrayal of young cop Satyaki fondly addressed as Rana, is a natural. A new face for Hindi cinema, Parambrata Chattopadhyay is a big name in Bengali film fraternity. He lives to the character name of his role as Satyaki, the chariot of Arjuna, guiding, following, and even protecting Vidya from the risks and threats of people from both sides; the good and the bad, in her quest, as we are told, to find her missing husband.

Supported competently by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in his portrayal as the foulmouthed IB agent A Khan; Saswata Chatterjee as the dishevelled and grouchy contactor killer who greets his targets before shooting them down, along with a bunch of other superbly crafted extras, KAHAANI is almost infallible.

Sujoy Ghosh, who previously gave us unmentionable duds like Home delivery and Aladdin, seems to have woken up from his slumber, completely transformed into a master story teller, who keeps you thinking, even challenging you it at times, and not letting your attention go haywire with his smartly written story and almost tight direction. He seems to have understood that the basic art of story-telling lies in making your audience part of it and not just mere spectators. And rightly so, you find yourself moving along with the KAHAANI as it unfolds the mystery that lies beneath its camouflage. KAHAANI doesn’t let you rest from the moment you step inside its world, surprising you, even shocking at times, hitting you with twists and turns, one rarely gets to see in Hindi cinema these days.

I would not want to, but if I have to sum up what KAHAANI is, then it’s a mirage, an illusion, a wholly different story in garb of a camouflage that at the end will leave you, shocked at first, and later smiling in admiration at the talent that the whole team of KAHAANI has brought to it.

Watch it for what it is – KAHAANI, an illusion. Because as Durga, upon emerging from the pool of the light of all gods, had said that it was not they who created her but her lila that she emerged from their combined energy, KAHAANI too it seems as if has not been created by the team of Sujoy Ghosh but by its own lila that it emerged from their combined talent.

A Rebel called Paan Singh Tomar

By Sadho Ram

What would you call a man, who after joining the army and accidently becoming the seven-time national winner in steeplechase, retires as a Subedar, only to pick up the gun again, this time to fight a personal battle, and thus becomes a dreaded man?

I’m guessing – a rebel. Because that’s what he calls himself.

Who is he?

Well, you’ll know.

But no matter whomsoever this rebel is, there has never been a rebel whose story didn’t have a tale in it. So, just like every rebel has a story to tell, of himself and how or what made him a rebel,  this rebel too has a “story with a tale” in it of himself and how he became what he finally became.

And just for the record, this rebel goes by the name Paan Sigh Tomar, who occasionally delights in the mouth-watering taste of hot gulab-jaamun and ice-cream, and doesn’t like to be addressed as a daket (dacoit). Because as per him, “daket milte hain parliament me.” (Dacoits are found in parliament).

So rightly in the beginning of this “story with a tale” when the interviewer, who after boasting in the morning to a paanwala that tomorrow he is going to become famous, and now at night panting (after climbing long stairs) and nervous in front of our rebel, asks, “aap daaku kaise bane?”, Paan Singh Tomar, with his piercing eyes and equally piercing voice replies, “bihad me baagi hote hain, daket milte hain parliament me.” And thus sets the premise of this gritty (yet jovial in parts) “story with a tale” that our rebel is going to narrate in flashback, taking us with him wherever he goes, making us feel - and at times even reflect on - what he feels.

Brilliantly directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and magnificently acted out by Irrfan Khan, as soon as Paan Singh Tomar the film begins, it catches your attention and pulls you into the biopic drama of a hero long forgotten by the country, and doesn’t let you go even after it ends. It lasts within you, only to make you feel the grit that Paan Singh Tomar the man had in him.

Such movies are rarely made, just like rebels as such as Paan Singh Tomar are. Tigmanshu, after successfully practicing the genre and the nuances required for such kind of story-telling, has given us his best effort as a director and writer. Paan Singh Tomar shows the effort he has put in and the skills he has used. If not until now, then Paan Singh Tomar is what will give him the due recognition and respect that he rightly deserves. It is something he has worked very hard for and unlike many others in the industry; he is someone who has earned it.

The less is said about Irrfan Khan the better it will be. Because words do not do justice to what that man has become. Since the time I’ve seen him acting, that man has only grown and outperformed himself in almost every film that he has done. We all know the kind of actors that throng the industry now. Rotting on weekly basis, the graph of acting talent in our Bollywood has only gone down. But there are few, still around, still growing, and going only strong, who are keeping the ship from sinking completely. Irrfan Khan is one of them, a rebel of sorts who refuses to stop evolving. In Paan Singh Tomar, he rises to a level that was not expected, but not surprising either. It’s hard to tell whether Paan Singh Tomar became him or he became Paan Singh Tomar.

A final word on the film: It’s a true delight in such genre, possibly expected from the likes of Dhulia and a few others. The story is well-written, well-woven, well-told, with attention to detail and specific highlights, thus making it worth the money and time, both.

Watch it for the sheer talent that Dhulia and Khan bring to it. Watch it for the rare masterstrokes Indian Cinema has to offer. Watch it for the 7 time national winner, who died a rebel. Watch it for all those unsung national athletes who lived a life of misery after sports and died penniless.

But if you still can’t (won’t) watch it for any of those, than watch it at least for the sake of it.

DIRTY 2 DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT

By Sadho Ram

[With Photographers Swapnil Shahane, Shruti Chheda and Deven Saxena]

Of everything that is expressive, I’ve always found written poetry to be the most expressive form of art. It could be for the sole and selfish reason that I like to play with words myself, but then looking away from blank pages and the pen kept beside me, and looking at the above Black & White picture I try to wonder over this enigma as to what makes this picture a poem? There are no words in it, no play of any kind or role of words in it. It is just as it is; a portrait where a poem is alive. Open almost like a faded sky. Inviting as if to share the world and experience what you wish in her simple Joy! Call it what you wish, address her as you desire, but if anything describes who she is, is that even in DIRT she smiles unperturbedly with hope in her eyes, for a better tomorrow, for a DREAMY tomorrow.

Welcome to the DIRTY TO DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT, an attempt by the inspired people to add some colors of varied moods to an otherwise grey and grim area of SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE.

It is not much, you know, this place SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE, spread over about 2 and half kilometers in straight line, a toy-like rail track (now closed) in the name of road in middle, which divides the place in two parts, both filled with crumpled houses made up of concrete, some plastic, and some other materials. In between there’s a school, newly opened, two well maintained gardens, transformed from dump yards and garbage disposal places by the inspiring efforts of a MAN from foreign KANE RYAN and a MAN from the ruin ASHLEY PARRIERA of JANVI CHARITABLE TRUST, who had organized the DIRTY TO DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT to give a new shape to one more dump yard where about a month ago kids gambled, fought & hurt each other, the male adults of the Slum area lay in corners, under the influence of drugs & alcohol.

This is what IT WAS about a month ago, and on 6^th February 2010 the very dump yard had became a JOINT of Artists and Art Lovers, Photographers and Dancers. All present there, just to fill in the space, with their presence and in their own sense. With efforts from KANE RYAN and ASHLEY PARRIERA, the dump yard has been converted to a community place for the people living in that Slum to make good use of it and garden cum playground for the kids to have some quality time.

So I was talking about poetry. Well, though I’m a poet but I feel that poetry, in general, should not be limited to written words, as poetry is nothing but a vibrant impression of a mere expression of variedness of the feelings and or desire that we, humans, have, possess or build in our day-to-day life and in fight for our life. And though it is being expressed in several forms, but somehow we have not taken notice of it. Of all those forms which besides everything else, carry a poem inside, living, breathing, staring blankly or simply blinking at us, at our arrogant ignorance and at our self-imposed hurriedness.

But everything else takes a back seat when poetry just doesn't stick to where it was supposed to remain/be but gets down and dirty to force people to take proper and appreciative note of it, in a place least expected but most celebrated in manners not imagined but moments well captured.

Pictures have the power to tell stories in most vocal manner, yet there are times when people have taken refuge of written words to tell the tale instead, people like me. You can well label me as a hypocritical narcissist, someone who sometimes will make use of double standards just for the sake of it or even for the pure selfish reason to satisfy the inner greed of self to tell the story my way.

When I reached there at around 12 PM, after little direction searching, along with my friends, a dark man greeted us, standing just steps away from the dingy stairs that fell and lead to the SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE.

SHITHOLE was the first word that came to my mind after getting down and taking a first view of the place. It was an unlikely village NOT inside but UNDER the city, which I along with several few still call  Bombay and others, now Mumbai. At first sight, it’s the perfect example of what the glossy media describes as – “A breathing shithole; an amalgamation of people, piss and potty!”

But hold it; it is here that I found poetry alive and kicking with joy and spirit to infatuate anyone who came even remotely close to it.

You can curse me for being honest here, but at least I’m not hiding behind any lie. I could have written that, ‘oh, it was just awesome, people living and shitting almost at one place and yet not complaining, kids roaming around naked with smile and amusement on their faces. It was just fucking awesome.’ Well, it was exactly like that, though I doubt if it could be called awesome. Anyways, the dark man, who I latter came to know was the very ASHLEY PARRIERA, who had greeted us just above the dingy stairs, took us to the place, the dump-yard converted into a community cum garden, which as soon as fell into the full view of my sight, hit me with the colorful freshness that at least I had never imagined I would experience at such a dingy place.

It was a riot there. Only that this time there wasn’t any blood being spilled or people being butchered. It was a riot of people and paint and music and dance. Cultural riot is what I thought it was. There were people from all strata of society and each community. The number was astonishing for me, I had thought only few would show up, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the huge number of people present there to paint that 100 meter long and about 20 feet high WALL to paint, to give it a new face, a new identity of its own, unique yet familiar with its surroundings in a very keen way.

The WALL had ironically become the reason for the people to be present there and do what they wished to do with it, but their action, their emotion and above all their compassion had what people living in that Slum needed the most; UNIFORMITY. A sense of coming together of people with a desire to help by doing their bit, of culture to bring harmony, of dreams of the lesser ones and of efforts of the capable ones, of love of the uninhibited kind and of care for fellow human beings. It was a celebration of its own kind, not witnessed daily, never experienced twice.

There were as many poetries in each soul present there but I can only share a few of them here. These might not be the best poetries that were present there but are certainly the ones that deserve the most to be shared here. While the event was completely successful and was true to the purpose of it, but I know that this post of mine has not done any justice to it. I've been trying to come up with this post since that day itself but one thing or the other has been stopping me from doing it. Please bear with the abrupt end and incomplete story presented in this post of mine.

The pictures used in the post are all copyrighted to their original owners and have been used by their permission.


#Special thanks to Richa Jain for her inputs on grammatical aspect of this post.

For those who wish to know more about the Project and the Men behind can visit:

http://dirtywallproject.com/blog/

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies)

By Sadho Ram

Life is just life. It’s just as it is. Like a movie running on theatre. Both possess the distinct quality of being as they are – unique. While some are just lame, damn, wham bam and all that. Some have the ingredients, each single one, which makes them stand apart. Those, with ingredients to stand apart are like a celluloid celebration of vivaciousness building in between the momentary silences which is ought to go unnoticed for the reason that the viewers are too engrossed in chatters and fizzles. Life is just like that. Its goes, for the most part, unnoticed and at the end of it, the viewer, the one watching that particular life, complains that it never lead him/her anywhere. It has betrayed him/her and has left him/her with nothing worth the pain he/she took all through the time while watching it. And the final conclusion: It was just a waste of time… and money!

Image Courtesy Google

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies) is one such life. It’s a blank canvas with vividly painted borders kept in some random corner of a long gone painter’s dilapidated house. To those looking at it with an restlessness of a man holding a little bucket full of water and his tummy, waiting outside the gate of public loo for his number, it will only give an impression of an irritating, vulgarised wall containing amateurish graphic details of private parts and of rage to break open that damn door.

In the similar manner, dhobi ghat, to those looking at it with an already a judgemental mind and concluded thought, it will only give the impression of random frames and very Kiran Rao’s inability to write and tell a story.

It’s an attempt to re-create life as it is but on celluloid frames, and it so does, implacably and impeccably. In a crowd full of herds thriving on mediocrity and mindlessness, Kiran Rao dared to stand apart if not alone and show the crowd of its own mediocre and mindless gibberish that it throws at each other and also gleefully accepts. Dhobi ghat straight away gives the impression that it does not matter to her that she would be condemned by them for trying to show what they see daily, of course, without bothering to take notice of it.

If I were to describe of my emotions while watching the film then I would be lying if don’t tell you of the little joys and of curiosity and empathy and of sudden loss of self that Yasmin experiences while filming the digital letters to be sent to her brother in a faraway village in UP. I would be lying if I don’t tell you the sense of amusement and of enlightenment coupled with unfelt emotions that were not available to Shai till she has not come to Mumbai on a paid sabbatical to get the perspective of city. And I would be utterly dishonest if I don’t accept all that Munna feels and thinks of Shai, while showing around her the localities and places and people that grows on her through him. The helpless desire of Munna to touch her while watching a film with her, the immensely burning fire inside him to kiss her irresistible lips while she lay asleep on the couch and the understanding of the life that he, Munna comes to realise and accept that he has to lead now.

But above all I would be untrue and this little piece in ode to dhobi ghat will be incomplete if I keep all that Arun, the reclusive painter living a life of a loner by choice as well as circumstances, goes through each frames shot in the mannerism of lifelike suddenness. His sense of awkwardness among the very people inside the gallery of his solo art exhibition, and the realisation of his own growing restlessness inside him in presence of the very person he just spent the entire night in drunken cuddling and kissing, and finally the sense of a life, complete and compelling, in the company of an absent Yasmin and her present digital letters which she had filmed for her brother.

It all came to me while watching this utter beauty named dhobi ghat, this muse called Mumbai dairies, this whore the inimitable Bombay of Kiran Rao, which she treats her with the utmost honesty otherwise ghastly missing from other so called true representatives of the city and its life.

Last words –

dhobi ghat will grow on me, inside me, with me as this city, this very Bombay has been growing in past 3 years, with the realisation that it won’t stop, that the feeling is mutual, and is without any bounding.