This has been my longest absence from the website since I started out. The reasons are aplenty but by and large it was the frustration of not being able to resolve issues that had kept me away from writing. So the good news is that I have successfully implemented Wordpress 2.1 albeit with some riders.
As many of you would notice, the Links section has gone. Wordpress apparently made some changes to their bookmarks framework which broke my original design up. Since the migration to 2.1 was on priority and with my limited developing capabilities, I had to dump the idea completely. At one point of time, I had decided to alter my website design to accommodate the links section. However, a user-friendly theme like BLIX would be difficult to find. So either I will build a new link section from scratch or I will wait for someone to provide me with a workaround.
I am back on track now for further development unless Wordpress releases some awkward version which I have to fight again. Just kidding, I wish Wordpress many more successful launches in the future :-)
All must be aware that Wordpress launched it’s most important, version 2.1 (codenamed “Ella”) which promises to be a scalable CMS. It’s good news for many of us who are always looking to push the envelope of Wordpress functions. However, unlike previous versions, 2.1 has undergone major code changes which makes it difficult for non-techies to fully understand and implement the system on the server. Some might know that it’s not as easy as taking a back-up and overwriting the server files and boom! it’s done.
I am facing some technical issues with Wordpress 2.1 code and I have almost come to a state of abject delirium. I am spending some time at the Wordpress Support to see if answers can be found. Meanwhile if a good soul has implemented WP 2.1 and is willing to offer advise, do get in touch with me.
We have yet again failed to get a nomination for the OSCARs in the foreign film category. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti (Paint me Yellow), the new found mantra of the indian nextgen was rejected even before the final roll call. The last time an Indian movie made it to the five was Aamir’s Lagaan in 2001; a riveting account of a small village lad taking the British Raj up in a captivating cricket match. Before that, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay and Mehboob Khan’s Mother India have graced the coveted final OSCAR nomination list. None of them won the award though. The chinese film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (CTHD) won 3 OSCARs at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony, giving the director Ang Lee a godlike status in the Hollywood precincts overnight. CTHD was masterfully made with martial art sequences at its best and a traditional chinese story which is expected from oriental directors. Years later, he made a comeback by winning the OSCARs again for his work in Brokeback Mountain at Hollywood.
In complete contrast, our filmmakers develop themes which appeal to the western audiences, in an experiment to seduce the crowd and prove our technological advancement. In the end, we do a patchy job of something which the west had already mastered eons ago and fail to impressthem. Take into account typical indian movies like Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham, Yaadein and even Pardes which have done exceptionally well at the box offices around the globe. The message taken from the movie fans globally is that they want to see pure indian fanfare from our scripts and not poor, crap, rehashes of their own stories. The storyline of Rang de Basanti, to the astonishment of its million fans, has been borrowed from a canadian movie called Jesus of Montreal. We are thus, killing our unique artform of story-telling by aping the hollywood movies. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Deepa Mehta’s Water which deals with the caste oppression of the 1930s India, has been shortlisted to be nominated for the foreign film OSCAR. Such a shame that certain caste based organizations stalled its shooting in Varanasi and the film was finally completed in Sri Lanka. Sadly though Water is Canada’s official entry for the OSCARs.
The Indian film industry thrives on its audience which has a taste and dreams of its own. Our sensibilities vary from our friends abroad and our emotions are well reflected in the kind of movies we make here. Due to our socio-ecomomic structure, we also take the help of the film medium in imparting knowledge to the population at large. That explains the legitimacy of banning of cigarette smoke forever from the silver screen but that’s another story altogether. If the audience is different and the movies are made for their minds then why do we need the seal of foreign institutions like the OSCARs to prove our legitimacy over what is good or bad film-making? isn’t it degrading to call ourselves ‘Bollywood’ which sounds like a poor distant cousin of the big brother?
It’s disgraceful that with a wide variety of movies being churned out in India since the past 100-odd years, we haven’t yet formed a film body that respects and honours film talent and oversees the distribution of citations as well. Hence, I propose the formation of an autonomous institution that is truly representative by the people of this great film industry and which has no interferences whatsoever, both political or corporate that could cast a shadow of uncertainty over the allocation of awards. Cinematographers, directors, actors, technicians, etc. cutting across the film industries of India would play the role of the jury. Let the members pay a registration fee for the upkeep of the organization and let the ceremony be bereft of all the glitz and the hoopla so the focus is back on honouring talent rather then the jiving and jiggling actors. Let us free ourselves from the shackles of foreign influences yet again and strive to maintain our traditional art and culture. Finally, let us pray that we enjoy our movies without any malaise.
No matter what the critics have to say about the Apple iPhone. Scratches or no scratches, after watching this demo, it’s difficult to resist the temptation of buying one. The innovative design, the iPod plus the touch screen features make the iPhone a must have device of the new era. Apple Inc’s Phil Schiller shows John Blackstone the many features of the iPhone which launches in the US in June 2007.
It begins in the small Gujarat village of Idar in the 1950s. A young lad called Gurukant Desai (fondly known as Guru) faces the ire of his headmaster father for dreaming big. Yet he succeeds somehow in convincing his father for traveling abroad to Istanbul, where he works in an oil company. The praise and the promotion for his hard work prompts him to return home and invest in his own ‘bijness’ of textile. Upon reaching the dream city of Mumbai with his wife Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) and brother-in-law ‘Jignes’ (Aryan Babbar), he realizes that the textile market has been monopolized by individuals and takes up the fight to free the same from their clutches with the help of a Gandhian philosopher called Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty) who runs a newspaper called ‘The Independent’. Guru’s labour of love starts bearing fruit and his textile trade expands by leaps and bounds; he decides to build a manufacturing unit of polyester yarn in his home town of Idar. His oratory skills coupled with his intelligence leaves the crowd spellbound at a shareholders meet where he assures them that Shakti Corporation is a big family itself. However the trail of his accomplishment gets smudgy and he takes the ultimate test of his character to clear his name in front of an inquiry commission in a case of misappropriation of funds and custom duties.
The film clearly rests upon the acting brilliance of Abhishek Bachchan. Three cheers to the man who we can proudly say has now matured as an actor from the days when he was written off as just another star son (remember him in Shararat, Dhai Akshar Prem Ke, Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai?). With Guru, Abhishek has taken his acting to the next level. Especially noteworthy are the sequences of the old Gurukant paralyzed from the right side with his detractors are baying down his neck or the speech which he gives in the heavy rain in front of an angry crowd (the Bombay High court is clearly visible in the background - it’s Cross Maidan).
After successive partnerships in films like Roja (1992), Thiruda Thiruda (1993), Bombay (1995), Iruvar (1997), Dil Se..(1998), Alai Payuthey (2000), Yuva (2004), etc. the Ratnam-Rahman duo have done it once again with Guru. Songs like Barso Re (Shreya Ghoshal) and Mayya Mayya (Mayyam Toller was especially roped in for this song) have been mixed with some Gujarati folk music making them irresistible while others like Aye Hairathe (Hariharan and Alka Yagnik) and Tere Bina (A R Rahman, Chinmayee & Murtaza Qadir) are more sufi based songs. The picturization and the choreography sets each song apart from the rest. Also blessed is the art direction where an entire street of the 50’s Mumbai complete with trams has been recreated for the movie. In my opinion, Guru is clearly Mani Ratnam’s best attempt at making cinema till now.
The Dhirubhai Ambani Connection
The media was speculative about Ratnam portraying Dhirubhai Hirachand Ambani’s (founder of Reliance Industries Limited) story cinematically. Dhirubhai like Gurukant Desai in the movie, also made it big in the corporate world from a modest beginning just by his sheer courage and intelligence. There are a couple of parallel instances which makes one wonder if the movie is indeed inspired by the business tycoon’s own story - Guru’s father being a teacher in a small village in Gujarat (Dhirubhai’s father himself was a teacher in Chorwad in Gujarat), the protagonist going abroad to work with an oil distributor (Dhirubhai worked in Aden, Yemen at a distributor of Shell Oil; in the movie you can see the young Guru sitting on cans of Shell Oil at the back of a truck), Guru setting up the textile business first and then moving into petrochemicals (Dhirubhai started the brand Vimal, a polyester yarn manufacturing company and then diversified into petrochemicals), the shareholder’s meeting in a pandal and the the one in Cross Maidan as mentioned earlier (Reliance Indistries has the rare distinction of being the only company to hold annual general meetings in stadiums. In 1986 it was held at Cross Maidan which was attended by 30,000 people), the paralysis attack on the right side (Dhirubhai had a brain stroke in 1986 which left his right arm paralyzed). Also similar to the movie, the Reserve Bank of India had indeed inquired into the NRI investments and their subsequent routing into Reliance Industries through lesser known companies registered abroad. They found nothing unethical or illegal. You can read more in this article here.
