A Tribute to Humanity.....

With my exams coming to an end a week back, I was desperately looking for something to keep myself busy or entertained. I couldn’t find any TV sitcom or drama, and sadly there was a scarcity of good movies on the college lan with people leaving for home. But on the shinier side of things the download speed was ridiculously high, which also brought upon the toilsome process of selecting movies to watch through out the holidays. To set the tone for my month long cine fest I wanted to see an El Clásico, which could keep me revered for a long time. After hours of contemplation and browsing through the net for possible Clásico recommendations I stumbled upon a ‘Best Films of The Century’ list by The Village Voice which ranked The Godfather 12th, tied with Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (The Song of the Little Road). Though there are host of such lists by various magazines, but this was alarming, since the number of people here who have seen The Godfather would easily outnumber the ones who have seen or even heard of Pather Panchali. Considering the movie was filmed not far from were we stay, this was no more than a shame for all those who brag about the Orson Welles and Marlon Brando(no disrespect to them). Not surprisingly I couldn’t find the movie or any part of the trilogy in our college lan which even boasts of a collection of Korean and Thai movies, and I wanted to unveil this mystery..,that why a movie of such stature is utterly ignored by people who spent half the time of their day watching movies???, and no better way to find out than to watch the film itself.


Though I had seen it a long time back, but after watching it for the second time, it still managed to leave me stunned. With all the technological advancements in film making it still stands out as a piece of gem and is immaculate in all the technical aspects of film making. Its exceptional way of story telling, flawless sequences, shadow play and its candid simplicity takes one’s breath away. As the title of the film suggests it is a poetic fable demonstrating hope, tragedy, innocence and love without any artificial emotions and melodrama. Actors who played the lead roles in the film never acted in a film again. Before this film Ray had absolutely no experience of film direction and had a cinematographer who had never used a camera. Some of the initial shots of the film were taken with a 16mm camera as he had serious budget constraints with him mortgaging his entire life insurance for funds. But Pather Panchali comes closest to the portrayal of human life than any other movie. It does not have any complex plots but the sheer simplicity in which various complex facets of humanity are depicted keeps the viewers spellbound. The naivety and the innocence of the two children (Durga and Apu) touched me more than anything else, which was deepened by Ray’s artistic brilliance. Scenes in which Apu discovers the train at the outskirts of the village and runs towards it to find out where it is heading also the one where Durga and Apu chase a candyman across the village roads and Ray follows their reflections in the pond are only a few examples of Ray’s ingenuity. Not surprisingly the international audience was quick to take notice of Ray's cinematic artistry, and consequently Pather Panchali had put Indian cinema on the world stage, inspiring many more films of this genre. Lastly to the mystery which drove me to watch this film again(I don’t regret it..i can watch it again), I still have no idea but to all those who haven’t seen this movie or any Ray movie, I would just quote Akira Kurosawa…

“Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."

Let's set our own house in order...

A profound shift from the last post, but nevertheless requires some grave attention as a fortnight has passed since the Terror attacks on Mumbai and still the people of Mumbai are coming to terms with those 60 hours of horror and trauma. The only thing that has looked upright in these days is that the people have not gone tired speaking about it as the reverse usually happens after such attacks. People have actually acknowledged the seriousness of the attacks this time as it has comfortably surpassed even our standards as a front line state reeling under terror.
In the past fortnight I have been watching the political blame game and the leveling of accusations on the politicians over the Terror Attacks, something which was definitely not surprising to see, as our politicians see these times ripe enough to cash in on some valuable vote banks. Things have become real gloomy as the Government has failed to give a clear assurance to its people that such heinous acts will not be repeated. But one still begs the question that how much we have contributed to set things right,… how often do we follow traffic rules if we don’t see a policeman in sight, on how many occasions have we even cared to cast a vote during elections, we can’t even stand in a simple queue for 15 minutes if we don’t see someone in khakhi wielding his lathi around. Surely it is about time to rise above the usual practice of blaming our politicians for all that is grim. We must have a good look at ourselves before we damn our politicians, who have continued to fail us no matter how bad things are…Maybe it is something inherent in our way of doing things, time and again we see after every terror attack, the government blaming Pakistan responsible, but we cannot do anything further than that, cause we cannot bombard them as both of us have a nuclear arsenal and might lead to a serious international crisis. So the government waits for the people of our country to forget about it and then it is usual business again before there is another such attack. But can you believe the Pakistanis executing such acts with unerring execution without internal help. The never-ending corruption in our country only makes things easier for these terrorists. How can every chapter on terror in our country come to a close with the damning of Pakistan when we have groups like ULFA, Naxals and Bodo roaming around with AKs and planting bombs in trains without fear. I think it is wiser to set our own house in order before we pelt stones at someone else’s, and for that we have to first change ourselves before we expect any change in the mindset of our politicians. American Presidents are known for some real catchy quotes and one of them applies here very aptly…”Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.

Wasteland....

Well, I feel so proud being part of a hapless group of people, a breed that has reached the zenith of wastefulness, we do nothing but stay glued to the comp screen, watch any movie that is rated in imdb, download any crap on mininova with a high seed to leecher ratio…...we have no stress of our own, but we get worried if Hiro Nakamura loses his power of time travel or when Michael Schofield feels he has to wait for a few more episodes to get rid of T-Bag....but when we do have some stress or any kind of latent hostility, it usually amounts to attending three lectures a day..or worse could be getting bulldozed over in a viva….some of us even make forlorn faces after getting a zero in a class test!!!(which is something you can ponder over if u have made an attempt to study…)

But we let all that out before it becomes trouble for our heavily underutilized grey cells...even if it is the utter disgust of being completely wasteful or just the frustration of not being useful to the society…we flush all that down by just sitting in front of our beloved comp for hours.... slaughtering jihadis in counter strike, refreshing the mail inbox, watching porn, if you don’t find us gaping in front of the screen you would know that the lan server is down...and all this crap that I have scribbled is also part of this wasteland...its too long for my first post i guess....