aaj darshan kare hum

In 1975, two legends were released.

Sholay will always be the ultimate epic of Bollywood, with amazingly well etched out characters and some lovely acting. For years, the characters were used to sell products or crack jokes. It was the ultimate super movie. The other legend was born 5 days later – me. Hah.

The other legend was Jai Santoshi Maa. This was a crazy dumb ass of a mytho meets current life movie in which the harassed but sweet as a daisy female protagonist gets her due. It set off the Devi Maa frenzy into the country with the Santoshi Maa fasts being the thing to do for all ails.

I remember seeing some parts of this movie and bloody hell grew up listening to these songs everywhere. My memories of these bhajans/ devotional songs are of a young kid, images of mother, festivities and dandiya being played. All this interspaced with images of being in Dubai. So it’s a weird combination of sands, air conditioning and parents from a low angle (I was a toddler remember). Writing this blog brought back memories which I now hereby share with you. Here listen to this.

The 70’s and 80’s dandiya beat hitting your head in a rhythmic frenzy. The gujju in me is awakened, albeit temporarily to this beat, wanting to take two bamboo sticks in hand, hold them gingerly in the middle, as I swirl, flirting with my fiancee, making eye contact, briefly and then smiling in acknowledgement, only to turn and twirl again, as fast as possible to catch her glimpse again. Hahahaha. Writing this was funny as it was only half in jest. The greatest memory of my marriage ceremony was the dandiya function which was held by Jasmine’s kutchi family in the true traditional style. I am dying to have a dandiya function like that again. Once more. With Jasmine. We had the best of times dancing to each other’s rhythm. Its been a long time since we danced like that together. I am sure her dancing legs will instantly activate on hearing the beats and seeing the ground set up. AH.

Jai Santoshi Ma was one the biggest hits of the year, holding its own story of love and piety against the simmering anger of Sholay and Deewar. For years, later Bollywood looked towards the feminine divine form for redemption, intervention and inspiration, torturing us with unbelievable stories at the climax, cheating us of logic and plotline. Man a crazy mind f*&K it was.

But who am I to criticize an era, especially since it etched me and gave a lot of my childhood, waiting for some Maa to save me from my Maa when I screwed up ;).  Yesterday I watched my own Jai Santoshi Maa and took my family along for the torture. It was a homage to the God who delivered us our aspirations and rode along in the journey from an awkward teen unsure about my future to an adult with faith in India and its ability to shine at the world stage. This God of India had people waiting for him wherever he went, he could do no wrong, no false step and conjure up magic from anywhere. His mere presence was enough to believe in hope. His name… you have to chant it, the way the world chanted it – SACHIN, SACHIN, dhad dhad dhad (three beats or claps or whatever you could do with any percussion in row, fast). No one made it up nor taught it to anyone; it was automatic and spontaneous from a crowd that was as a whole in dervish whirl to start with.

It was a documentary on the life of Sachin Tendulkar that I inflicted upon my family. It was horrible and disgusting, with no hope of getting any balanced view or insight. It was shit to start with and to finish with. When you have lived in a fish bowl for 30 odd years, not much is not known about you, much you can still try to extract insights from your journey that can be passed on to the youth to whom life may a pitfall be.

(This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him)

Only if you were a die hard Sachin fan would you like this movie. Which I admit, I did. It moved me and brought out some real emotions in me. It ended with his retirement speech during which I could help but cry. Sachin had out stayed his cricket by a couple of years and he was at the end, a shadow of himself but still a force to reckon with. He always played his best at the world cups and the whole country wanted to win one for him. In the end when he had his last chance and we won the cup, it was because the team unlike the past did not depend on him to win it for them, but they wanted to win it for him.

But still, since he was two years older than me, his destiny was tied in with me as we saw a childhood of less to an adulthood of plenty, as we transitioned the economy to global inter connects and brashness of action but with a demeanor (almost false) of humility and good luck. In many ways, this 390 bucks that I spent on three tickets was my last piece of homage to the man who brought me endless hope, belief and joy. How can I explain when God hits a ball in the air and your hearts jumps with a weird type of joy and scare at the same time? Is it a six or will it be out. Should I leap in joy or should I hold my heart till I see the ball clear the fence (invariably). Oh god. How do I explain this?

But it still was a bad documentary. One sided and – ya – my era’s Jai Santoshi Maa where in the end, divine intervention solves everything! Here watch this, but go fast to the 6 minute mark when divine happens, or don’t say I did not warn you.

If you have belief and submit yourself to the higher lord then you will be delivered! JAI SANTOSHI MAA

And here see this miracle. When we as nation were facing the our fears, with Shoaib, the fastest bowler in the world, coming charging down on a hard wicket, bowling fast and Sachin hitting him for six with a shot never seen before by his devotees. That shot will forever be etched in my memory. This one comes in the one minute mark itself in the video. Have fun. But come on, don’t insult the devotee and go forward. See all his three miracles of the world cup.

See this one at the 4min:38second mark. That defined the God forever as it was against another God in this mega inter galactic battle

And I also know where I was on 27^th March 1994. I was in Panchgani in a hotel room when I woke up early to watch the match with dad as we saw Sachin open the innings for the first time to give Darshan and forever change the pecking order of the batting Gods of India. He sowed the opening the batting with the field restrictions is all about the gaps the aerial shots. We all wanted his century so much and it was so disappointing when he got out to a soft dismissal.

But here. The God has long retired paving the way for the others to follow. Creating an era as he walked on the 22 yards. And I paid my dues by watching his shitty documentary. I will always be beholden to him but at least my dues are paid, with money in the donation box.

But while going, listen to this aarti and then go please.

Jai jai Santoshi maata jai jai maa…. Jai jai Santoshi maata jai jai maa…. Jai jai Santoshi maata jai jai maa….Jai jai Santoshi maata jai jai maa….

I cant tell you what to do

Jispa is turning 13 and with that she is also turning into a monster that I have no clue on how to control. But the hell… why should a parent even be controlling anything about a child. It’s just not right. I don’t think as parents we really know what is in the best interest of the child. Of course we know some stuff from experience that we know is dangerous – like smoking kills or that liquor is something that’s not really advisable or weed is bad. But most of the other stuff – we have no clue. We think we do… we believe we do but really – we don’t. Hell we don’t even know what the hell we want from our lives – yet we try and control a lot for our children – I don’t understand why we do it. Today I fight…. Almost every day I fight myself. There are certain dos and don’ts that I would try and implement. Besides that I try and fight the need to bear over her and try my best to let her be. Of course mommy is right. The more you let her be the more she will get into trouble that she herself doesn’t want to. But then isn’t the role of parents to stop her from getting into trouble versus the role of growing up is to get into trouble all the time and then figuring out two things. How not to get into trouble in the first place then figuring out how to get out of it, once you have gotten into it. This is the weird dichotomy of parenting. We don’t know. I think we naturally think we are good at stopping trouble and we don’t realize that stopping trouble now is inviting trouble later on. So what’s the right answer? In parenting there is possibly no right answer. You invent things as you get along. Especially if you have one child…. There are no mistakes to learn from.  Just simple stuff that you think you would have loved to have as a child and the stuff you don’t want or want to have for your children. In many ways that is simple parenting.

I want Jispa to be free… I want her to say that in someday that she is what is … thanks to herself and not thanks to anyone – not her dad, not her mom not anyone else…and definitely not God. She has to be like the apocryphal story of Napolean who on coronation – lifted the crown from the hand of the Pope and crowned himself – saying that none me is fit to crown myself. In many showing that he owed his entire rise to himself and to no one else. I have had many mentors in my life. I have a learnt a lot from so many people. Not all tried to teach me, but the simple act of observation has helped me more than anything else. I am so happy that my dad never could pick up the phone and get me going on anything. He also passed away way before I could really use his help. My college my girlfriend (now wife) my job and I dug my own mentors from those around me.

So all that I have or don’t - is thanks to me. At my death bed I have myself to blame or thank. Of course Jasmine has helped me achieve whatever I could have or couldn’t have (you have to take both). But at the end – I have realized – you are alone. You stand alone – you die alone. The faster you realize that the better you are. It’s like the story of Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana – he takes to being a ascetic when he realizes that his family refuses to take his share of sins as your sins are yours and you have to bear the consequences of them. In many ways sins are the metaphors for your decisions. You have to bear them yourself. Others have their own to bear.

In the years that I have worked or taught – I see that many times – in fact I feel most of the time – parents are wrong. After a point of time they can’t really tell you what to do in life. I think all advice is stupid. People have to decide what they want to do for their own. Your children, my child has to decide for herself on what to do. What can I do? I can advise, I can guide, I can push, I can convince – but do I really know what’s right… no I don’t. Experience will tell me something – something that tells me that the process of decision making may not be right – but it doesn’t tell me if the decision is right or wrong. To add to this – we don’t believe that quitting is the right option.

Right now Jispa is swimming. Realistically – she is not a great swimmer. She is a good swimmer, but I don’t think she would be counted as amongst the great swimmers. She finds it tough to break in to the state team. She does well to represent Mumbai. Now what’s the right thing for her? One of her seniors from another club was applying to American Universities. The university looked at all the certificates of the national champion and kept them aside and asked for her timings. Her timings were nowhere the ones desired by the University… so now what? Apply of academic merit. That’s all. Jasmine and I were thinking about this since some time. What the hell should Jispa be doing? He swimming regime is tough and her school regime is now going to get really tough. Academic excellence is something that will give her choice on what to follow in her years to come – not swimming. Indian Swimmers are nowhere on any stage. They have no careers and they can barely earn enough to make ends meet from swimming. It’s not an independent profession. In any case that’s hardly a choice to be made for now. Sure she can always be a sports led profession here she can use her swimming knowledge to great advantage but it still require s a decent academic grounding. So we thought that we let her swim this year and then the next year she focusses on studies while swimming just enough to enjoy and not really to break through. In any case she has to now trust her coach and really improve in this year.

Jasmine and I are tired parents. It has been really tough. Thanks to Jispa’s swimming we have made some crazy number of sacrifices. Waking up is the least of them. The Sundays spent at swim meet, the nutrition, the holidays foregone etc. we have had some great returns but physically / mentally we are done. Right now I am concentrating on something simpler – what does Jispa do next year, in three years and then in five years from now. I am glad that Jispa has no clue what she wants to do. Right now she says that she doesn’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. Her subject she likes are Geography and History. I love that. I would imagine having a child who wants to be an engineer… yuck! So we have to figure a lot of things for her. Actually see – that’s exactly what a dad says but shouldn’t. Why “we” figure what to do. She has to figure what to do. I should be only a sounding board… an absorbent as well as a reflective material at the same time. Hopefully she will figure.

On this here are two videos that I came across – very interesting ones. Believe me – they are right. see them!

Both are amazing characters who do really well on youtube

End game - One of our friends is an amazing gentleman form Denmark. He was telling me that his son was a really good tennis player and he took him to London to train at the Wimbledon. His son played a few matches there and just wanted to give up Tennis and then just did not want to play anymore and wanted to come back home. His mom said – fine – come over and you need to study there or train there if you don’t want to. Today after many years – his son says – you should have pushed me then.

pasta at the movies

We had a long weekend this time and we got a chance to catch up with the new Avengers movie. It was quite a disappointment. The story went berserk and the action went even weirder. Well what do you do when you have Hulk on your avengers team. The guy is out of control and indestructible. You can nuke him or shoot him or anything else. Anything you do only makes him madder! But what the hell. A movie that I could finally discuss with my daughter. She too thought it was a bit over the top. Then I tried to explain to her what the artificial intelligence they show is and how the basis of AI in the movie is in reality. It’s quite interesting how clued in good quality fiction writing is. They can take an idea from reality and close make it work with the story. Basically take the most simplest of future gazing and take it to its ultimate mess. Even hulk and the others were all products of the nuclear age where you needed to be radiated to  have super human powers.

Talking about radiation, when men discovered radioactive substances we went berserk. We thought that this is cool new scientific stuff and therefore lets sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We put radium in toothpastes and even in water. In fact we sold a canister which contained radioactive substances mean to radiate the water before we drank it. Obviously people drank this to die! Don’t believe me – try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator. The revigator was the big thing in the 1920’s.

But forget that… yesterday I got Jispa to watch the movie ‘for a few dollars more’ with me. this was the movie I had loved to watch. It was a cult with the guys and Clint Eastwood was the ultimate cool hero with a billion dollars of attitude. This was Jispa’s first western and as I explained to her – it was her first Spaghetti western. These were called so as they were western movie produced with American actors but largely meant for the Italian market. They were shot without sound and then the lines were in Italian. The English versions were an afterthought. Released in 1965, these movies had an indelible impact on the movie loving public. And of course a ton of filmmakers. These westerns in their plot were inspired by the Japanese – especially Kurosawa and his band of films. We in india got inspired and made a few movies. One was a decent hit called Khotey Sikkey, which starred Firoze Khan in the lead and directed by Narendra Bedi. Narendra Bedi was the brother of my mom’s best friend and that’s why I knew some of this past story. It seems they all around the same time watched these westerns and decided to make movies. Narendra Bedi made Khotey Sikkey but the movie that created the maximum impact was – what else – Sholay. Sholay while being an absolute super grosser and a great movie – it still to my mind was a well made rip off. It seems to me that the villain in ‘for a few dollars more’ was an inspiration in many ways for Gabbar. The hairdo, the built, the beard, the laughter, the madness, the brooding – everything seemed so Gabbar in the movie. A la Gabbar, this guy too smashes insects on his hand, while brooding over. While I knew Sholay was inspired, watching this movie took a little sheen that I had in my head for Sholay. Of course Sholay was well picturised, they had some amazing dialogues, love story, music, everything… but still, it was copied.

Even the background score by RD was heavily inspired by the movie, the shots, the wide angle landscapes, the signature tune. I had taken Jispa to watch Sholay and when this movie was being played, I kept reminding Jispa of the similarities.

You can see the amazing title sequence here which sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jispa and I were having fun with the background score and the tones of attitude the movie oozed.  The full movie had hardly anything that made sense. Everything was just a lead up for a large dollop of attitude to be served up. Of course as teen boys in our time, we loved it. Jispa enjoyed it but couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was about. She found the shoe scene particularly dumb. Which Shoe scene? Oh dear – see this scene, where the two heroes face off against one another. One is obviously trying to better the other! And who of the two is really the Big Boss! And you really have to be a teen age boy to get the real fun kick behind putting sand on another’s shoe. It’s so stupid that’s it so much full of attitude. Complete spaghetti with sand!

Jump jump!

A  few years ago … and I have blogged about this… I used to teach Jispa elocution and then she nominated herself into a singing competition. She thought, it would be simple, dad will teach me. Of course she did not even qualify, with me as her teacher.  This time it was sports day! Her school is actually quite a small school. In sense – that there are only two divisions in her standard – so that 60 kids per year and that too is divided into girls and boys. So in a sports day competition – there is hardly any competition. At best you have to beat 120 girls as the age groups span two years. For sports within girls that a dumb ass number. That is no number. Three fourths in any case don’t know how to run or jump. And from the remaining there will hardly be anyone who does serious training.

So this time Jispa had to choose her track and field events. Go for the long jump and the high jump. I told her. She had no clue what a high jump was. She was wondering how they would judge who jumps the highest. She thought it was like how you jump while standing up, jumping high. Haha. Jispa is so underexposed at times. But I explained how it’s done and left it at that. Yesterday morning I come to know that the trials were on for that day. Ok. How do you explain what to do to jump high? First, one had to explain how high jump actually works. So while going to school in the car, I just simply got her to switch on youtube and search for high jump. There… now you understood. Now she understood what high jump really was. Then I told her that that will not work as that Olympic technique of jumping from your back is next to impossible without serious…. Really serious training. So I told her to search or the straddle style for high jump. She searched for it and understood. I said that’s the way you do it. She got it and then in the evening I got the message that she got a bronze. It was a stupid thing in the end. I had told her a few things that I thought were technique – don’t jump of two legs (I don’t think that’s allowed) and approach the jump from an angle. I told her to throw her upper body when she jumps. I had no clue what advise I was giving her, but it seemed to make sense for me. She then told me that she got the hang of it after a few jumps. They kept raising the bar; till one girl cleared the bar and the other three were left trying. At the end – all three trying for the second and third place couldn’t clear so when it was close to finishing time, the sir just declared from whatever he saw – one girl as the silver medalist and Jispa as the bronze medalist. Whatever. So great. Youtube meets Jispa meets Bronze. That too with Jispa being the youngest amongst them all.

But what I found most interesting is that I pulled out the word straddle style from some deep corner of my memory. I remember reading about this if I am not mistaken in a book we had at home when I was Jispa’s age. It was the Guinness book of world records, in which there was a mention of the high jump record with a photo of one guy with a caption that said, that he was the guy who jumped the highest with the older straddle style of jumping. After 30 years, I came to use that little bit of information to help my daughter do well.

You should always read and it’s doesn’t matter what you remember – you never know what is going to come your way. What is it that you will retain and use and at which time. I used a word after 30 years and it helped explain and mean something to someone I love. What more can you ask for?

So what exactly is straddle style?

And If I had the time I would have possibly discussed this link with her in detail. That would have been fun. Key thing I missed – get your other leg high… but hell. There is only so much you can do with swimming taking away all the time we have.

give and take for life gulabi

It takes two to tango.

The last weekend we had a great time – Jispa and I.  It was awesome fun as you would have made out from my blog post. On Sunday evening as Jispa and I were obviously having a lot of fun, I told her – you have been a really good girl. She was really well behaved. And so was I. I asked before we did anything. She took care to take my opinion in as well. She realized I was putting in an extra bit of effort and that she too kept pace. She would do the house work and be enthusiastic about helping me. We cooked together, we choose movies together and we did everything by talking to each other.

It’s really that simple to have a great time with others. All you do is put in an extra bit of effort, recognize the effort that the other person has put in and voila – good time. If two people come together and simply put in a little extra – you are game.  Many young kids who talk to me expect love to work by itself. I probably expected that as well. Love doesn’t work like that. It’s not magical, is not automatic. love takes effort.  I explain to some of the kids – just because you are in love doesn’t mean that you will get along. Get along for elongated periods of time require work. It requires taking an extra bit of effort.

I told Jispa – you know we are getting along fine without any friction because there is no pressure as well. You are swimming and hence you have time for fun. You don’t have to pack your bags, eat your food, do things on time etc etc. there is considerably less pressure and the suddenly we are great parents and you are one outstanding chick.

If it’s tough being a parent, it’s even tougher being a sports parent. There is so much to do and to take care of. I don’t know if we are doing the right thing by letting her become an athelete. We are putting in all the effort into building a lifestyle that we hope will pay off in the long run.

Dam it – there is so much pressure on being a parent. So much seems to be in your hand. Its overwhelming at times. My sister once said – of course babies are cute. If they didn’t look so cute we would never go through all this trouble with them. I guess that true. If it weren’t for the fun time we have and the love and affection bestowed, it would have been impossible to cope.

One of the movies we saw together was RV. A Robin Williams starrer. If you don’t want animation but you still want to see a fun movie – you are likely to get tired of seeing this one man over and over again. But yes – in that movie – it starts with Robin Williams making his daughter laugh while sleeping and mom urging the two to get to sleep. This happens all the time with us. Jispa and I will be giggling before I put her to sleep and Jasmine will scream out – you have to get up early – off to bed now. Then the daughter in the movie tells her dad that when I grow up I will never marry and go away. I will be with you all the time. Jispa and I start mocking each other with “awwwwwwwwww”. The movie then cuts to the present where the daughter is grown up and now obviously finds her dad a pain and an embarrassment and etc.. you get the drift. I start asking Jispa – see this is what you will do nah. Now you find it funny and then you will find it too ridiculous.

As she grows up I have to keep on inventing newer and newer ways to keep her connected. I keep kissing her on the nose and she hates it. in the middle she was generous and she gave me a 100 such kisses. So every night I would use one of that till it hit the 70’s mark. After which I started doing cute things to get free ones. The figure inched upto 97 where its stayed there.

Jispa protested that I was angling for too many free kisses. So she and I were having a fight on this. Every time we are at the bus stop waiting I think of newer and newer ways to entertain her. For some time it was the man going to the market and buying and eating sweet corn. The corn was her hand. That was fun. Then there were the missiles (my hand) which launched from my window and she had to block them. The ones with wings (outside fingers outstretched) could maneuver and the simple ones went straight at varying speeds. Then the era came of missiles where they at about launch time just go boop. And now it’s the man. This is my fingers trying to act like a man walking and doing acrobatics and go from my window to her and he always fails. For some stupid reason or the other. This is a great hit with her. So I did the thing that any Machiavellian dad would do. Bargained with her… see if you want to keep getting the man then you have to agree on the kiss. I promise not to overdo the kiss thing and you will keep getting the man..  a lot of times.

I think she understood the bigger picture. That of give and take. You give love and respect you get love and respect. Even in a child father thing – it’s a lot of give and take at its core. As long you understand that you are cool. If you are expecting a Utopian dream, then be prepared for a nightmare.

Here is  a completely unrelated treat. I like the feel of the song. Gulabi...

Reimagine

Some time back we had a party at the club. This was a swimming pool party where we invited all the pool members and we had a DJ. Normally at parties which I attend – obviously my age group, I have often noticed that the crowd swings to the Amitabh songs and the Kishore kumar numbers – suitably remixed. The old is gold. They are the best numbers and they don’t make them like that anymore. That is my general feeling. So typically for a great time I get the DJ to play those classics to the modern beats.

When I was in college the pubs would exclusively play English music. Hindi music was too low market to be played. All out college socials and bazaar day would be full of English music. A few odd Hindi numbers would be played – like meheboba from sholay or something. If you are young and in college and you want to dance then it was English all the way. I think the first ever hindi song that created a rage and was played at clubs was the Bally sago remix of chura liya.  People loved it and it created ripples. I think that as far as my experience goes – that brought Hindi  songs back to the listen and dance hep music circuit.

It also started a trend of everyone and anyone taking an old song and remixing it and releasing it for an eager audience. It also prompted a lot of purists to say that a classic must not be tampered with. these are great songs, why would you want to mess with the original.
Fair point. I really dint care so much.

So back to the MG club swim party. The dancers at the party were all really the young turks aged from 8 to 15. These were the swim kids who had the chance to party their heart out. With their mothers watching these danced till the DJ finally called it a day. There is no better thing than peer pressure. Jispa refuses to dance. No matter how much I egged her, she sat in her chair refusing to move a muscle. She is the same at dandiya meets. She refuses to get up. So I let her be, only to find her dancing some time later at the insistence of her friends. Ya sure.  I reminded of the Aesop’s fable of the sun and the wind arguing on who is better at removing the coat of a traveler. The wind blew hard in an attempt to blow the coat away only to find the man pull the coat closer while the sun simply silently shined down on the man who promptly removed it.

At the party, the kids were very clear. They swayed only to Hindi music and only the latest hot hindi numbers. No amitabh, no Kishore, nothing. Hot fast tempo hindi number. Old songs with great melodies and beats don’t count for anything. What counts is – that its new young and popular. So the purists can take the songs and shove it up their……

On Sunday I was at another party. Here because of the age profile – a mix of old and new songs were being played when I suddenly figured that a lot of old numbers which were remixed and reinterpreted in the Bollywood were the rage. It made me think. It may be a classic but even if that is not constantly reinterpreted for a younger audience it is not going to be accepted. There is no point of a great old song if no one is going to dance to it. An artist’s primary goal in Bollywood is to reach out to as many as possible (to those elitists who sneer at this crass commercialization, I sneer back at them). They were made for a mass audience and that’s why they were hits and hits must be allowed to be reinterpreted again and again. A few flops will emerge. A flop will make the classic dearer and a hit will make the classic go further. In any ways it furthers the original. The fun bit with popular culture is that if it’s not got good, it won’t be popular so why bitch.

So as the DJ played back to back Bollywood reinterpreted songs, I stood back a bit and saw the crowd loving it. These were not simply remixed by Bollywood or the DJ. These were what I would call reinterpretations of the old ones. These are ones that I and Jispa (when she wants to) agree to dance on at the same time.

Like this one

This features Rishi Kapoor in what in his time was possibly a bit of irreverence. Bachana ae haseeno. It’s a classic hit and I am sure it was antiestablishment at the time – check the red heart that he wears on his silver costume.

And now you have his son practicing a brand of irreverence. The father would pine for one chic and his son will danced with three and gets away with it. This too is possibly antiestablishment. See – he doesn’t love any of the chics he is dancing with. He is flirting with them, all in control. He is the Casanova.

Here is another one – the original one was never meant for movies I think. It was a pop single that caught the imagination across borders. Nazia Hassan is the iconic pop singer who sang this one. Disco Deewane!

And cut to the present – this what my daughter loves and would dance to. The Disco Deewane from the ‘I hate it its so bad but the kids love it’ movie – Student of the year. Jispa – I will forever judge you for this one.

And the last one –

The original – Rishi Kapoor again in Om Shanti Om. I remember this as a kid. The huge set piece where the protagonist is dancing on a record player. It forever imprinted my mind with what a dance piece should be.

Cut to the present – Shah Rukh Khan dancing to a completely reimagined Om Shanti Om

All of these are not simple remixes and are reimagined and reinterpreted for the audience. All of them have English set pieces inside of the songs. Sit back and play all of them. Enjoy them all. The original and the new. Change is the only constant – be it, actively propagate it and allow it.

Hindu philosophy has one flaw – from the triumvirate Brahma creates, Vishnu protects and Shiva destroys. It necessarily means new has to rise from ashes – but there is no one who simply copies or is inspired or is happy to reinterpret and reimagine what is old and put it in a new context. Some god that simply copies. Someone akin to Bill Gates – who gave the world CCP – cut copy paste.

tischiawn

This is freaking hilarious. So would it be Clint Eastwood or Bruce Lee? To someone who grew up on a diet of Clint Eastwood films and was fed the one magic film of Bruce Lee, it’s a tough choice to make.  On one hand you have the legend wooden face who came in these spaghetti westerns (called so because they were produced by the Italians) and shot the shit out of the baddies. On the other hand you have the one film wonder. I think he has come in a few more movies, but Enter the Dragon was the only movie I have seen of him. I think the tragedy was that he died before its release making it a bigger cult. I would emulate both in my childhood depending on the movie I had just seen. Enter the dragon was I had seen many times. In Dubai, when I  was a little boy, the club would have a movie night every week and we would look forward to it. Largely the movies were repeated and Enter The Dragon was favorite. Yaaaiiieee. There comes my Karate chop.

Like any other boy I too had an interest in guns. I loved guns and it helped that I was naturally good at aiming and keeping my hand steady. I loved the guns I had and would play with them every day. even today I would love to play and practice with a toy gun :). I remember playing so much that once the servant in the house put a really small parrot toy in one corner of the room and challenged me to hit it from the other side of the room. And whack… it flew. I was pretty cool. Then I remember trying to hit while moving and all sorts of different situations. It was fun. Clint Eastwood gave me a lot to dream of.

So for sheer breadth of movies and the dreams that followed guess in my head it was clint Eastwood that won. After all I don’t remember ever wearing that yellow track suit but I do remember wearing cowboy boots. The cowboy western image is still more resonant with me that the lanky pants flexi kick kung fu. Guns defeated the nang chaku in my life. Aiiiieeeee….. yaooo… Bang. Poop.

And nothing else exemplifies this philosophy than this scene from the greatest of them all – INDIANA JONES. The epic adventurer, searching the worlds for lost treasure and an unlikely action star.

And here is another legendary one from a Clint Eastwood movie, though not featuring him.

a tough act

Ever since we took up a major research exercise last year, we have been screaming hoarse about the need to simplify the jargon associated with finance in general and broking in particular. A large number of people want to invest and a large number open their trading account, but you see a large amount of dormancy within the system. The reason is simple – the whole environment is far too intimidating. Way too much rubbish is used for a lot of the names. The money you give a broker to carry out transactions is called ‘margin’, then there is the ‘ledger’ and ‘payout’ is done on a ‘T+2 basis’ after which the shares hit your ‘demat’ account and of course  there is the ‘bid and ask’ as well as ‘spread’, ‘impact cost’, ‘PE multiples’ available. All this is scary especially when you are looking to invest money in bid to exercise control over your destiny. Basically the poor soul feels constrained and helpless when trying to invest in shares.

But no one seems to be listening. You will find even more incomprehensible offers with thousands of lines of fine print for everything and the dice firmly loaded against you. In the back drop of all this is the Union Budget. You have the jamboree every Feb end where the finance minister gets up and presents what is essentially a nonevent. But the TV channels have managed to hype it and create enough buzz so as to charge astronomical premiums for advertisers and attract eyeballs. No one understands jack of what is presented and no one understands jack of the impact of these proposals. Key terms are misunderstood and people are watching in a bid to see where the markets react to the whole charade.

So in light of all that we decided to set up a micro site called budget simplified. Among other stuff we decided to shoot videos explaining the budget to the common person. What is it and what does one look for in the budget. Short two minute videos that give a fair idea into the whole process. Having less money we decided that I would be the model for the videos. Nine videos should be easy enough. One day shoot and we wrap it up. Boy I was wrong. One shoot it was but the videos were bloody difficult to shoot. One is at first pretty stiff in front of the cameras. It takes time to get a bit lose and to free up. At first the lights and the focus is a bit intimidating but over the day it worked out pretty fine. The other problem is the energy level. One has to maintain an energy level through the day. You have to perform at higher degrees of energy every time you are in front of the camera. Afternoon was tough for me. It showed on the screen. One can actually feel it when the cinematographer tells you that “sir, energy nahi aa raha hai performance mein.” Yes of course. I had to actually pull off reserve energy form the system to give a ‘performance’. Wow. It’s a tough job. I now have new found respect for models and actors and have a small insight into how they must be going about their everyday life. I did not have the additional burden of trying to look good. Those guys need to manage that as well through the day. And the stakes are ridiculously high for them and everyone. Here I was the boss on the set, so everyone was forced to be patient with me and I could modify the lines as I saw fit as I was the quasi script writer as well. Imagine if you are getting paid for this and your opinion on script counts for jack. Wow. Running around trees can also be stressful. Nevertheless, at end of it, the videos did come out pretty cool and I did manage to remain standing. Here are the videos.

They are pretty simple explanations for a lot of the stuff. If finance or economics hold no interest for you, you have bets leave these videos unwatched, but if you have even a passing interest in these topics then you may find the same quite interesting and educative. We have tried to keep things at a very simplistic level and repeated a lot of the concepts. Have fun and let me know.