Indian Writing

Some TV cameramen in Gaya apparently encouraged a man to set himself on fire. It is alleged that one cameraman soaked the man’s towel in diesel and coaxed him to light it up assuring him that it would be put out after they recorded the pictures.

TV pictures clearly showed that Mishra failed in his first bid to set himself on fire. He succeeded in his second attempt. His 14-year-old son Prabhakar said as he waited to claim his father’s body: ‘‘The media present there did not save my father.’’

From the BBC report:

Frequent sting operations and graphic news presentations are seen as having contributed to its success. But critics say news programmes often degenerate into shocking reality television-type shows.

Recently, a news channel showed the wife of a teacher in Bihar beating up a girl, who the reporter said was having an affair with her husband.

A channel also showed a man being beaten to death by a group for allegedly stealing a buffalo in northern India.

Here’s a Jan 2006 column by Rajdeep Sardesai on another immolation that was covered on television:

The latest debate on media ethics though is a little more complex. It’s been sparked off by a news story that showed a man self-immolating in the heart of Patiala. The visual images were compelling: a trader with garlands around his neck, pouring kerosene over his body, and then set himself aflame. He was surrounded by a police man, fellow-traders, the aam janta and of course, the ubiquitous camera….

I wrote about Omkara for Himal:

Apsara is an old Bombay cinema that has recently been converted into a multiplex. Garage-sized lifts bring us up to the fourth floor for Vishal Bhardwaj’s new film Omkara. Around us, parts of the building are being stripped down and reinvented to make the glossy metallic surfaces of the new Indian bazaar. Outside the rain-drenched windows are the surrounding buildings, some of them close to a hundred years old, filled with the families of migrants who have built this city. Down below, on the narrow street, are lines of waiting taxis, their black-and-yellow roofs glistening in the monsoon showers. Many of the drivers have come to Bombay from rural Uttar Pradesh, seeking a better life.

Omkara transports the audience back to the heartland of western UP, where other young men wait restlessly for life to give them a chance. Some, tired of waiting, have been drawn into a life of crime. After all, in this unforgiving landscape, a gunshot fired from a barren hillside can prevent a wedding from taking place; the man who fired the shot can return calmly to a small-town hostel to play a game of marbles; and when a posse arrives to seek him out, just one call on the cellphone can end the matter…

The rest here.

Mukul Kesavan gets effusive about Konkona Sensharma’s talent - she’s the best young Indian actress, the best Indian actress, the best Indian actor in the business. He bases this declaration on two films - Mr and Mrs Iyer and Omkara - and while I don’t agree with his dismissal of Omkara as little more than a vehicle for her work, I agree with him that she’s very talented. I also liked her in 15 Park Avenue, Titli, Amu, Page 3.

I do think he’s right when he says that

she belongs to a generation of young metropolitan Indians whose speech isn’t as conspicuously marked by their mother-tongues as that of an earlier generation of Indians was.

That’s true of all of us who grew up in cities and project sites across India, far from our ancestral roots. And Hindi, especially the Hindi of the movies and television, is everywhere. It’s one of the languages we end up speaking anyway. So the Hindi that’s spoken in Bollywood can’t be too difficult either for Vidya Balan* who (I think) grew up in Bombay, or for Konkona who, as far as I know, grew up in Cal and studied in Delhi. But Tamil? I thought Konkona made a valiant effort in Mr and Mrs Iyer but there were moments where the accent went wonky. However, what I really appreciate about her work is the effort she’s willing to put in for a role.

Picture of Konkona from Amu.

* Parineeta isn’t such a great example because it had other examples of mispronunciation - such as Lolly-ta for the Bengali Low-lita.

Ram Guha impact?

Twenty-five years after I first heard Bismillah, I was able to repay — in small measure — a debt that had by then accumulated beyond all repayment. A friend who was a high official asked me to write a piece for the press urging that M.S. Subbulakshmi and Lata Mangeshkar be awarded the Bharat Ratna. I accepted the commission, since I likewise believed that it was past time that India’s highest honour was rescued from the politicians, and returned to the artists and scholars for whom it was originally intended. However, when I wrote the article I strayed somewhat from my friend’s script, and added the names of Ravi Shankar and Bismillah Khan to the ones he had given me. All four, I am happy to say, were awarded the Bharat Ratna in due course.

The rest here.

!!!

(via Mogadalai.)

Have been listening to it for days in the car. I didn’t care for it that much the first time I saw the film, but the next time it began to make an impact. No, it doesn’t jump out of the screen and grab you the way Rehman’s music does even in a weak film like Rang de Basanti (I can’t think of anything Rehman has produced that I didn’t like, except maybe the Taal music, which has Subhash Ghai written on it as much as Rehman).

But in Omkara, right from the opening credits, Vishal Bhardwaj’s music blends seamlessly into the film… I especially like Raahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Naina (and I love the way Dolly’s voice is narrating the story of their relationship while the song ebbs and flows around her). I also like Laakad and the two dance songs Bidi and Namak.