Sunday, February 14, 2010

Terror in Pune

Life has suddenly become scary. Or scarier. The threat of terror is always there at the back of your mind, especially being in India. But until it stares you in the face, you never realize how easily… how fuckin easily it could have been you. And how easy it is for people to treat it as just another event, unless they actually confront it. I was at the site a few minutes after the blast. And I dont think I can forget. Ever.

The German Bakery was one of my favorite joints in Pune. As it was for many others. The atmosphere and the relaxed ease with which people from different parts of the world milled around at virtually the heart of the city, made it a pretty popular spot. On Saturday, the day before Valentines, that all changed. I was in Koregaon Park that day, less than a Kilometer away from the place when we heard the blast, and the building shook. Me and my cousin looked outside and saw the smoke billowing up into the evening sky, but we couldn’t ascertain the cause. My cousin’s hubby and I went to the place, wondering what happened. When we reached there, barely 15 minutes after the blast, the site was chilling. The German bakery was totaled. Burnt and dead bodies were lying around and people were rushing around trying to get the injured to ambulances which had just started arriving. I was almost paralyzed at that point. It is one thing to see these images on television and another to actually see it up front. My cousin’s hubby tried to help lifting some of the injured onto stretchers, and his hand at the end of the ordeal was covered in blood and specks of flesh from the injured. I realized why it was so scary. The thought that it could so easily have been you. How many weekend evenings had I sat there, enjoying the mashed potatoes or the scrambled eggs with the pot of Earl Grey tea. I couldn’t help thinking… these people were also sitting there like that without a care in the world, when suddenly… I had passed by the place less than half an hour before it happened.

What is probably more disturbing is the fact that people have almost become apathetic towards these incidents unless it actually affects them. A nice story to talk about, muse about for a while and leave it at that. The few friends who actually thought about it enough called up or asked me if things were fine in Pune. Somehow the thought that I could have been in there did not seem to register in their minds. It almost seemed an event had happened in my city and they were enquiring after it. And I do wonder about the news channels which started reporting it as a cylinder blast, when even the cops and people at the site did not know what had happened. How did these guys ascertain so fast that it was a cylinder blast? Anybody who heard it could not believe that. Of course, later on, they revised their stories and it came to light that, like Leopolds in Colaba, the German bakery was another symbol for the haters to vent on.

Somehow it felt funny when people started wishing me on Valentine’s Day the day after. Yea, there seems to be a lot of love around.

Kerala Café

I finished watching Ranjith’s experiment, Kerala Café the other day. Ten different short stories by ten different directors combined to form a single movie. The experiment has been done, of course, in other languages, including in Bollywood (Dus Kahaniyaan). However, in the barren wasteland of creativity that Malayalam cinema has become since the turn of the century, Ranjith is one maker who keeps trying to revolutionize the industry, almost as a one man army out to repair the damage.

The movie has various stories from 10 directors, some established and some new. The opening is a story of NRI angst and memories, in a story fittingly called Nostalgia. Though this is not among the best, it does in a way capture NRI attitudes with respect to Kerala, and Dileep does well portraying a character with shades of grey.

After this, we see Prithviraj in all his effortless dashing best, talking about Jesus, Frankenstein and Mangalassery Neelakantan and about his ‘bitch’. As only he can do these days, he pulls it off, in what turns out to be a touching story of a gathering of people from different walks of life, who bear common witness to a tragedy which affected them all. Called ‘Island Express’, this stars Jayasurya and Rahman as well and is one of my favorites from the collection.

The next was a story on adultery by Shaji Kailas with Suresh Gopi. It’s a relief to know that Shaji hasn’t totally lost it. Another decent effort to add to. After that is Uday Ananthan's Mrityunjayam, which has Fahd Fazil in a new avatar as compared to his last outing a few years back in his dad’s venture. A horror movie, it does manage to send a chill or two down your spine, but still not one of the best here. Despite that, Fahd definitely does look much more assured now.

The next story is Anjali Menon’s Happy Journey. This one beautifully captures the mind of a middle class Keralite male(Jagathy) who, on a night journey in a bus, tries to get flirty and touchy with a young co passenger next to him. What follows is a brilliant game of one-upmanship between them, which keeps the viewer guessing. I do hope that Anjali’s Manjadikuru gets a release in Kerala. If this short feature is anything to go by, her full length movie must be great.
After this, there are a couple of nice efforts including one on the effects of recession (brilliantly acted by Siddique and Shweta Menon) and another by Shyamprasad. Good to know he can do the light hearted ventures too.

However, one of the best here is Anwar Rasheed’s Bridge. A brilliantly metaphorical and hauntingly sad tale about a son who tries to lose his mother, much the same way as a dad tries to lose the stray cat his son had brought home. The story talks of themes of helplessness, desolation and love and is beautifully acted (mainly Salim Kumar). Amazingly, this is done by Anwar Rasheed, the same guy who did those mindless potboilers with Mammooty and Mohanlal before this. I sure hope he continues on this path rather than go back to those.

PuramKazhchakal, starring Sreenivasan and Mammooty, is the last one, and another fine one. Sreenivasan is a traveler on a bus thinking of his past, when suddenly a man in a hurry gets on the bus. Throughout the journey he pesters the driver and gets ridiculed also, while trying to get the bus to move fast. The ending of this is touching and speaks a lot of how we may not realize why someone does what he does. Mamooty is shorn of all his star power here and does brilliantly.

Seeing these 10 minute stories, I couldn’t help wondering… If these guys can do so well with short stories, why the heck can’t they start replicating this onto their longer counterparts?