Digging for Meaning

I saw two Mumbais this weekend.One through the movie- ' Dhobi Ghaat ' and another through ' City of gold' ; two completely different mumbais but all the same. Completely different narratives, but still gave the same stale smell of mumbai's stifling sea of humanity. While one movie had its politic about mumbai, the other was completely personal and intimate. Both talked about classes, but while one made me glad that I am from the privileged class the other once again filled me with nostalgia. I found 'City of Gold' to be very dark and over powering. I couldn't help but identify with the narrator's constant disgust, this sense of suffocation throughout the film. Even the scenes of happiness were quickly curtailed with the knife of cynicism laced violence. The movie laid out its politics, its helplessness, its accusations bare. The rich mill owner's disgust of the workers ("Bhikari" he keeps on barking, even before his imminent death) a...

Mumbai. city of dreams. city of refugees. the camp city of private soldiers, who paste dreams made by private soldiers who came before them on their foreheads, and forge ahead. they maime, rape, throw at the city, extract returns in hope of enriching their real home; never knowing that mumbai won't let you leave you this soon having used her. they had removed their humanity like old clothes on the border of the city. they enter naked into the jungle. grimy serpents run on her back incessantly. little pesky soldiers pull up their sleeves, ball up the fists and fight to get inside the serpent. the door, that is always open seems like evanescent port to untold riches, to them. the ever open door, indeed is a port. a port through which the human transforms into a wild hog who just got untethered. once inside, they again transform into guilt ridden, gaze avoiding crabs. walking sideways. its only after getting out of the serpents, do they inhale some air, not fresh, but air nevertheless...

india is a free country. we are free to conform. 1. Khar Road Railway station - 10-15 women are squatting on the platform. curiously all are carrying exactly similar bags. grey squarish bags with black straps. quite fashionable actually in that abstract expensive way. i thought bulk deals only happened in MICA. 2. Santacruz Railway Station - strangely many men are wearing the dirty bronze colored full sleeves shirt. the shirt uniformly not tucked in. the cuffs linked. Surreal. 3. popeye - i don't get this at all... all of a sudden the market is flooded with shirts with popeye pictures.. t-shirts, collared shirts.. they are un-escapable. go to colaba's narrow galli fashion streets, all stalls will have a popeye T. which company is dumping all these popeyes on mumbai's youth? why popeye? 4. grown men in half pajamas and full sleeved untucked plain shirts. so many people adhering to this code. the color of shirt is usually light.. cream or version thereabout. these are mostl...

its 6: 50 AM now. its raining pet animals outside. already had a failed attempt at tea with far too much water, and nearly not enough milk. lets not talk about tea and sugar and proportions thereof. i am proportionally challenged. what to do? what needs be done is, to take hold of the umbrella... pry it open. open the door and out of it. presently pleasantly wading through sheets of undulating water. walk through the narrow gully in my neighbourhood of slums. strategically place umbrella so that the water streaming down the plastic/vinyl or corrugated n rusted sheets don't bathe you. on the road to the left, i see a battered auto rickshaw split open. I walk ahead, buy 'the indian express' and sit down at the local tea stall in an august company of folks. two of them working at the stall. one a middle aged man with rouded eyes and round face and a rotund belly. he is preparing garam garam bhujiya! :D :D :D (hot pakoras, if u will.. ) the other a older guy in half pants si...

I saw 'Mumbai meri jaan' .. and let me assure u, its a kickass movie. Brilliant it is! The movie is like a crow.. it nibbles at your wounds and makes noises that you would not like to hear. Its naked. A friend of mine was complaining '.. but I don't want to see this mumbai'. I won't give a description of the movies, or the details of the scene, (and I am so tempted to.. the sheer brilliance of them shots.. every shot has its politics.) or venture into an analysis of how this movie has shades of anti capitalism and so on $ ... but the beauty of the movie is in it's truthfulness and politics. I hope there were more crows like these. :P Another friend was complaining at the climax of the cliche therein, but then again why be non- cliche for the sake of it. The director pokes with the sensibility stick to the jaded zombified couch potato audience, and after the audience wakes up and becomes responsive, he holds the open soul-mouth of the audience so th...