Editorial: The Rape of Shiney Ahuja

Long ago, dearly beloved(would begin Rudyard Kipling’s Classic stories from the Jungle tales(of which mwogli gave America the Jungle book)- Stories of an apocryphal india from the jungles of madhya pradeh and the chambal valley, from an India not recognized by the schoolchild in humid Mumbai who sincerely believed that Kipling Imagined the stories from a foreign backyard of Britain far away behind the ships on the horizon past the gateway of India…

From this never never land comes a modern day tale of bad karma. Bad karma is what this story is, it stains everything it touches. Polarizing dirty stains. Shiney Ahuja has a shiner.  The film industry keeps a conspiratorial silence, as if talking about it or speaking on his behalf will collapse the dog seal pile perched precariously near the gateway of india and unravel misma that was contained only from the incestuous silence of the willing.

Shiney Ahuja slept with his virgin servant maid. There its off one’s chest. In my firm and considerd opinion the facts are unclear beyond this.On merely the girl’s testimony, a case for rape has been filed against him, and medical exams do not reveal force. the injuries to the girl’s vagina are consistent with a first timer having sex with a much  bigger man(consentually..if I were to count bloodstains after sex  after every encounter I know, then I have probably raped about three hundred times, but luckily for me my encounters ended happily and I do not live in india, for people to have second thoughts the morning after and accuse anyone of rape.) I m NOT going to play the game of besmirching the servant maid’s character or motive. Suffice it t say that shiney and the girl came from entirely different social strata.

Imagine if you will, a girl of about 20 in saudi arabia who dresses in a burqua and goes to a mall and there, with her friends, REMOVES her burqua and walks around in jeans. Now if this girl “hooked up”with a tourist from America..or a soldier, and found a place to actually have sex, and the first experience was unpleasant even if not non consentual , that never happens, right? …and she’s alone at home after, feeling pain in her vaginal area…so she decides to  ask her sister to find her a doctor because she feels pain….

Imagine the hell that would break loose after that incident.

India is not saudi arabia in many ways, but in others(including its rigid class structures and its concepts of familial honor), it is exactly like Saudi Arabia. What is worse, in matters of sex, it is perhaps worse than saudi arabia because its middle class have internalized the idea (probably because of vague unstated memories from the past of royal harems and victorian morality of Lord Mc Caulay, ) that “honorable’ means no premarital sex…and little non procretional sex. Ossified in its generational codes is a concept of respect that treats the possibility of older people having sex as risible.

Into this heaven of freedom awoke shiney ahuja who claimed sex was consenting, as if this servant maid could consent to sex. Forget for a moment that he was not picking up the cute counter girl at a mc donalds in louisville Kentucky.  He  was asking the maid in his own home(his zone of comfort, not hers) to bed him. Did he think he was obtaining consent because she kissed him back? whose consent, he certainly did not obtain society’s consent to look the other way(it happens ALL THE TIME in india…you just buy everyone off) , nor the consent of the girl’s family, who were hoping perhaps that she should marry and raise kids and become an beautiful mother providing for her children by thirty five… he did not ask the consent of the feminist in this act of free sex(Imagine! a lonely man and a single woman having uncommitted sex ! how anti feminist is that!)  and he didn’t ask the consent of every sanctimonious motherfucker and his sainted mother. those are really dangerous in India. they stone you for the frustrations they have carried all their lives- sexual or otherwise.

The law factor is the other thing to consider. This episode plays out like a telegu film made by a naxalite(they are hilarious films watch Bharat Bandh , for example). a law intended to stop tribal and homeless women from being raped in police stations is being used  against Ahuja. Here the prerequisites are simple. A woman 1.complains that she’s been raped. 2.Shows evidence of sexual intercourse(not forcible sexual intercourse, but the act ALONE 3. if the Accused does not disprove it, (by taking pictures of the contract being sealed, I presume) he is GUILTY. Thus, in India, in a rape accusation, the defendent is GULITY UNLESS HE PROVES OTHERVICE! Imagine applying that to murder.

No wonder there are so many wankers in India! With a combination of this law and the taboo on all things sexual (noo Ramesh it has changed now you know?! now boys and girls are actually going on dates…yeah yeah I know…) India has effectively outlawed sex outside of marriage beause the por guys are too frightened that the girl will have buyers remorse and cry rape. The only “boys” who seem to have out of marriage sex ae the ones that can actually get awy with rape , thus making the case for all interested parties in tis unseemly conspiracy.

So who are the conspirators whose interest not having unmarried non procreational  sex , serves? The conservative family Khandans, for sure, but there are others. This preventing sexual release is really a means of social control. It keeps society stratified and ossified, it lets men be as angry as heroes of sam fuller films and makes women bra burning uteres tearing angry militant feminists. It raises a generation of angry ambitious people who know they want change, not realizing that a big part of that change is sexual liberation. With its under 30 population rapidly increasing to 50% more men than women, India is creating its army out of sexual frustration.

All this from Shiney Ahuja “raping” his servant maid ? you ask… This is a symptom. You only need to look at one miscarried case of justice to diagnose this pox afflicting Indian society.

I don’t really care I live in Ojai in the US

Kambaktth Ishq (khan 2009): The joke’s on US.

Chick flic meets stoner buddy comedy. Universal Studios theme park meets Pammal K Sambandan(Kamalhaasan).Harry bhai meets sallyben, (Ramesh meets Moitra ).  Nadiedvala grandson meets white women in progressive states of undress. Indian paisa vasool meets Eros international. Ought to be a winning combination, right? So where did it go wrong?

KI has so much going right for it. For one, the raw charm of Akshay kumar , (sincere meets hairy) and then the correctly updated feminist attitudes of Kareena Kapoor (stomach meets backbone) and all that white flesh maan! like you stumbled on to a backyard bbq at a trailer park in John Mc Cain Arizona! So What went wrong?

Early word from the film’s headquarters is that Kambakkth Ishq is minting money hand over fist like any critic proof superbad comedy. (I reserve the right to take this out if the early word turns out to be hype) .So what went wrong?

This is an occasion for us the good reviewer to go and take a time out. All your angreji vangreji  will nahi chalega. we were plain wrong(all us except taran adarsh who was like a bloodhound smelling the moolah) . All our theories of film ,of our second guesses about what those people in the US may like, of our not trusting our guts, and instead choosing the easy way out – of Kareena bashing and trivializing crass mass entertainment as if that is the why our fathers educated us in English – to work the old lady of bori bunder into a credible elitist threat to pop culture of the vernacualr desi – maybe this is what went wrong , along the structural fault lines of Mumbai’s demographics. Maybe ,we deluded ourself into thinking we were fighting Shiv sainiks in Mumbai when we faulted the films they liked.Maybe we are the jehadis. Maybe we simply DIDN’T Identify with the  banarsi taxidriver whom we use every day to get from VT to BCCI. Maybe WE are what went wrong.

Kambakht ishq is a Superbad film , and not even well executed. The only thing it has going for it is its heart. It drip an earnest desire to entertain, and this is contagious (I would compare it ,in this respect to Kung Fu Hustle) . You want to forgive Kareena’s bony boosom, Akshay’s Hairy chest and  kadva expression..the fact that Denise Richards looks like a lap dancer and that Sly Stallone looks like Aahnold’s seventy year old chest(pic)  .

The film still feels like a seventies martial arts comedy- the films of a generation where people made b flics with sheer raw talent (in their case, for Karate) and didn’t let the loose strings show through in their knitting. It’s a good two point two five hours at the moves but would we listen ? Oh noooo… we are working for our reputations, which would be mud ..MUD ! if word got out that we liked Kambakkth Ishq.

The Joke’s on US.

New York(Kabir Khan, 2009): educating on terrorism.

**Disclaimer** This is a FILM REVIEW and is not a DECLARATION OF FAITH or IDEOLOGY or INTENTION. The ideas expressed in this piece are no pointer to how the author would think or behave in the past or future.

New York is the Godfather of terrorism films. It takes a complicated subject and simplifies it into a series of gut check reactions framed in a fast paced thriller.  You end up cheering for the terrorist protagonist in this complex sensitive piece of counter propaganda that took its time coming(has it been eight years after sep 11 already?). The other comparisons you draw are to the HBO miniseries with no end – “The Wire” and the Fredrick Forsyrth written Fred Zinneman directed 1973  film “The Day of the Jackal“.

This is the power of popular cinema. It is entertainment, propaganda and a reinforcement of your core beliefs- in the people you love, in country and in yourself, most importantly in yourself. You cheer for the taxi driver that kills a cop(who did no wrong), even if you know it is wrong to do so. You feel the rage of the protagonist being interrogated using bush Administration tactics and you sympathize , when you discover he’s planning a bombing. Poor Irfan Khan , is the ugly face of law enforcement speaking the unpalatable truth to the audience that is in no mood to listen.

Bollywood gets it right,  this is a movie that could only have been made by an Indian, spoilt as the billion of them  are in the delights of a democratic civil society, the privileges of eastern and western education and steeped in  beliefs about fundamental  human rights and justice in the world .  Liberal (G8) western democracies behave like gated communities  with conspiracies of silence. Their movies reflect this. Much of the Judeo-muslim world is ruled by tyranny. France , mired in it’s own racial identity problems, seems too busy sucking up to Studio Hollywood which itself  behaves like a Chinese  despot cloistered away in it’s own middle heaven of computer animated fantasy .

And  in  midst of all this, the Yash Raj film(and brand Bollywood) seems to ask the global Indian “who’se looking out for you?”.

Forget the fact that the producers are located (at least culturally) in Switzerland out of the sparsely populated Chopra Lake preoccupied with chasing bollywood booty, forget the fact that Bollywood is so busy selling out to Industrial magnates (think BIG) and Hollywood studios. Forget the fact that  John Abraham and Katrina Kaif come from the  dumb model  school of acting. This is entirely a Director’s  film. Kabir Khan (and Sandeep Srivatsava, writer ) bring in their conversant familiarity with the post September 11 2001 plight of Brown skinned Caucasians from asia to make a tenable thriller about an US created terrorist. The illegal detention/ torture depicted in the film could have happened in practically any gated community(liberal western democracy) , it only appears to be an outrageous violation of civil rights in the US(which is idealized as a model to strive for in such half educated tyrannies as iran and china). In most  other countries(the UK, France, Germany, Australia…) this thuggery by the state against immigrants is routine and almost expected.

New york is also a definitive film for the genre called Bollywood, And after much navel gazing , the industry seems to have decided that the studio money is all very fine but , really, they’re not going to toe any ideological line set by Hollywood. Bollywood’s message to the west  has been consistent from its earliest efforts in the mid ninties(pardes) . The American dream is not enough. The white picket fence is stained with blood of innocents (as it always has been) .and we remember in text through New York.

While a debate over the power of cinema to influence society has been had, and done to death on the left bank in france most of the billion Indians don’t know any deatails of this, and it does appear incorriguous to be having it in  in popular film, we are happy that films in the language are not completely insensitive to the preoccupations of their core audiences.

New York is a must watch , not only because Katrina Kaif look like edible milquetoast inlayers and tanks, but also , one suspects, from the facts in it that it will be required reading/ watching in every south asian cinema course on university campuses in the years to come.

99 (Raj nidimoru, Krishna D K, 2009)

99 is a buddy caper film . its losely based on pulp fiction(the gangsters in it are straight out of  the big lebowski). It has a cohen brothers feel to its narrative commentary without the cohen’s smart alecky snark.  Populated with real and laugh out aloud funny charecters ,the film allows for neo realist social commentary(the Bhojpuri film industry) while , at the same time being a giggle a minute brain dead comedy.

Apart from the good directing of the duo(who belie a sophamore slump – this is their second film after the much praised NRI sleeper “flavors”)  it features awe inspiring performances from a set of unforgettable charecters : Mahesh Manjrekar’s Gangster (called AGM), a testosterony pipsqueak (Kunal Khemu) , a restrained doestoevski hero (boman irani), many many others…and not the least from cyrus baroucha playing the indian vesion of “The Dude(lebowski ref)”. The dialogs are by film critic raja sen .Kudos.

Ok fuck it.

fuck this review go see the film .It has dazzled me into an academic incoherence. Its smart its talented its likable and its nuanced. bollywood needed the NRI comedy influence because they are so bad at producing anything like a real comedy . the films were either so slapstick that they went hoarse (every Johhny lever film) or so nuanced that it felt like shatranj ke khiladi over again.

This film  is a good time at the movies, its a pity it was launched without fanfare. now theyre just going to quietly take it to video and sell it fo two bucks a DVD in indian grocery stores in St Louis. Im bleeding through my eyes that this film gets so little attention while inferior star vehicles are being pushed like ganja from the big production houses with a budget.

How many buddy caper films can you remember?

pulp fiction,The big Lebowski.nine queens,Buthch….kid,Sholay,Bunty aur bubly… this film is more raw talent than all those films put together.

There’s a certain choreography to comedy that the film gets just right. every classic comedian has it – charlie chaplin..groucho marx, laurel and hardy…

Cyrus baroucha has it.

The dude.

Youre smiling before someone delivers a punch line and guffawing after, but the pitch has moved on. The Bhojpuri cinema scene is an example. (you gotta be there) te other s when the dude(barocha) finally beats someone up …in the climax..

Two cell phone sim card hackers(Khemu and Baroucha) get stuck doing collections  of gambling debt for a gangster(mahesh manjrekar). Teir travel takes them to Delhi where they must square off against the terrible goon Kuber (Amit Mistry) and his evil sidekick dimple(uncredited, regretfully).

The film untangles the existential crisis in all their lives and bollywoodizes a happy ending. Soha Ali Kahn is the groupie that hangs out with the cool kids.

like I said . go see the mother already!

Short Takes(june 09)

• Shiney Ahuja slept with his servant maid. The national conference of women, the press,  the chief minister of maharashtra state and the maharashtra police found him guilty of having sex (also called rape in India). It’s now time the court to follow suit , or else.  In class conscious India, this “having sex  across class lines” attracts a punishment of being figuratively stoned by every sanctimonious motherfucker and his sainted mother…unless you are a mistress in rural Andhra…or something.

• The lower castes in Iran revolted against their well off upper castes and clergy. It’s always fun when it happens in someone else’s country.

• The Obama Administration unveiled a healthcare plan. It involves spending 1.7 trillion and doing substantially what we are doing now. Everybody seems to like it. The Stock market rose 1400 points in the last three months just in case someone decides othervice.

• Google(also known as the yellow pussies) agreed to let china censor/gather information from searches within their country. A spokesman for google said “We are already the largest totalitarian organization in the world, we’re not threatened by china” . A chinese army captain, from the nathu- la pass  simply waved  a platinum card. Officials from the company rushed to dharmasala , India in a bid to get the Dalai Lama to sell a rinpoche or two to the chinese for a good price.

• The presidential dog was photographed . Many people expressed concern about the Obama family trying to poison it by feeding it tomatoes. My opinion? pets taking the last name of their owners feels vaguely racist.

2009 ten most beautiful in bollywood.

This is in no particular order..This is  a somewhat south India weighted list, but thats just how it happens to be…if more beautiful gujaratis or oriyas come to work in films there’ll be more of those ..

1 Anushka shetty

2. Shradha Sharma

3. Sneha(suhasini) rajaram

4. Deepika Pudukone

5. Meera Jasmine

6. Tanisha Mukharjee

7.  Sonam Kapoor

8.  Freida Pinto

9. Bhoomika Chawla

10. your name here..

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi : A poetic translation.

Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi is the Anthem of the ghazal buff. Everyone that reads Ghalib and Urdu sher has a translation. To some it’s philosophy (where inexplicably, the beloved is god, and the winestore is “nirvana”. ) to others it’s drunk poetry where , as the poet goes deeper into the ghazal it becomes bloodier and filled with morose thoughts of self mutilation and pain(..funerals…death…last breath….).

This is an attempt to translate the poetry, and it tuns out all is well in the romance.

Presenting…

(The clip above is from the serial “Mirza Ghalib” Gulzar directs, Naseerudin Shah acts, Jagjit Singh Sings the Ghazal)

hazaaro.n Khvaahishe.n aisii ki har Khvaaish pe dam nikale
bahut nikale mere armaa.N lekin phir bhii kam nikale

There are thousands of ambitions that each such wish could consume my life

My desires , and I experience them all intensely, aren’t enough for this one lifetime.

Dare kyuu.N meraa qaatil kyaa rahegaa usakii gardan par
vo Khuu.N jo chashm-e-tar se umr bhar yuu.N dam-ba-dam nikale

so don’t cry , my love, you didn’t cause this pain

It was my fault that I fell so intensly in love with you.

nikalanaa Khuld se aadam kaa sunate aaye hai.n lekin
bahut be-aabaruu hokar tere kuuche se ham nikale

Of the(unclean* ) birth of man, from the womb, one has heard

but you must see my rebirth when I passed shamelessly by your door!

bharam khul jaaye zaalim tere qaamat kii daraazii kaa
agar is turraa-e-purapech-o-Kham kaa pech-o-Kham nikale

The beauty of your flowing, offending, tresses can be fully exposed/experiened

only when I let down my hair (proper attitudes) as I would open my turban.

magar likhavaaye koii usako Khat to hamase likhavaaye
huii subah aur ghar se kaan par rakkhar qalam nikale

( for a long while), I wanted no more than that I get to write the poetic letters

your many admires make me write to you,

huii is daur me.n ma.nsuub mujhase baadaa-ashaamii

phir aayaa vo zamaanaa jo jahaa.N se jaam-e-jam nikale

and I was acquainted with such intoxication during this period(of knowing you), my love

that the world , after ,  appeared  passionless and dry.

huii jinase tavaqqo Khastagii kii daad paane kii
vo hamase bhii ziyaadaa Khastaa-e-teG-e-sitam nikale

I wandered looking for sympathy (to god)

who was himself , it turned out,was  lovesick for you

muhabbat me.n nahii.n hai farq jiine aur marane kaa
usii ko dekh kar jiite hai.n jis kaafir pe dam nikale

then for me, there was no difference between living and dying

and I lived , each last breath looking at you (the infidel) from afar,

zara kar jor siine par ki tiir-e-pursitam nikale
jo vo nikle to dil nikale jo dil nikale to dam nikale

I then steeled myself and  prised out the arrow of cupid from my heart

so that when it left, it took my heart with it, and with it, my last breath.

Khudaa ke vaaste pardaa na kaabe se uThaa zaalim
Kahii.n aisaa na ho yaa.N bhii vahii kaafir sanam nikale

but now you come back to me, and ask me to lift your veil(marriage for the moslems),

Stop!  because you may find me as unfaitful(as you once were) in love..

Kahaa.N maiKhaane ka daravaazaa ‘Ghalib’ aur kahaa.N vaaiz

par itanaa jaanate \nhai.n kal vo jaataa thaa ke ham nikale

And now my love, that we have  both been love sick like this , I wonder

Where were those days of intoxication, and what is this call to faith

(it’s like we’re in revolving doors..You now want me to be married and faithful, when at one point I would have been nothing but that, from my intoxication! )

hazaaro.n Khvaahishe.n aisii ki har Khvaaish pe dam nikale
bahut nikale mere armaa.N lekin phir bhii kam nikale

All these desires now drive my heart

and I could die of each

that no matter how much I suffer from them,

it’s still not enough .

Sita Sings the Blues (full movie), Nina Paley 2008 (I think…)

Available for free download at archive.com vide a creative commons liscence by nina paley at sita sings the blues dot com

The film features the comic soundtrack of three “learned Indian voices”

Our very own Assem Chabbra,  the filmmaker Manish Acharya and Bhavna Nagulapally..

Nina Paley on copyright.

Extra!! : Sita trailer

Movie catchup

Terminator salvation(franchise, 2009):  Part (the 2002 film) Reign of Fire and part disaster film 28 days later, This CGI instalment is only distinguished by its unrelenting sense of Celtic purpose as the franchise holds on to its joycean visions of privileged humanity, that elevated Aahnold into a universal studios ride. The only thing I really got was : John conner = good.

Heaven on Earth : Deepa Mehta (2008) : Woman confronted by domestic violence stares down the bullies with the aid of an imaginary cobra, in an inefficient attempt at personal mythology by the director of the feminist trilogy. It is obvious mehta misses Lisa Ray (I would too, if she were my bitch . Giles Nuttgens (Earth , water) Camera makes people look like museum specimens preserved in formaldyhyde.

Gulal(Anurag Kashyap, 2009) : This unfocussed redcam film is a set of patchy still shots of mock art of no filmic meaning. The film is tone deaf, and the visuals reference a faux film noir tradition dating back to Sanjay Gupta ramgopal verma and Sriram Raghavan. This film is more meaningless tho. full credit for getting it made, I wouldn’t even have dared.Near about I can make out, its a film about rajput politics.

Stoneman Murders(manish gupta 2009) : A delicious mood piece remiscent of david cronenberg, this is narrated straight with goofy ramsey brothers music. the blues and blood reds take you over and threaten to haunt your dreams. The Jack the ripper style killings in Sion – Matunga in mid 80’s mumbai is only an excuse for kay kay menon’s underplayed romp through wet mumbai nights in search of the serial killer that used to brain his footpath dweller victims with a big stone (hence stone-man-killer, geddit?)

The Ojai Krishnamurti film festival

To the people who showed up, thank you!