Why Most Sports Fans Are Stupid

Intellectuals are often critical of sports fans. They have a very good reason. Most of the sports fans are bigoted, fanatical, stupid and extremely jingoistic. Let it be fans of cricket, football or pro-wrestling, they all are the same. Of course not all sports fans are stupid. There are many rational, intelligent sports lovers. My cousin, Bundy, is a big fan of football and has very good knowledge of cricket. But unfortunately such people are a minority. Here are some outrageously asinine remarks or acts of some cricket fanatics:

—“Pakistani bowlers are considered to be legends, yet none of them feature in the list of top-ten highest wicket takers in Test cricket. [Followed by a laugh.]”

This is such a stupid argument. Judging a cricketer on statistics alone is ridiculous. Statistics don’t reveal the quality of the bowling, conditions and many other factors like injuries. Every great batsman who faced Malcolm Marshall considers him the greatest fast bowler ever but he doesn’t doesn’t even feature in the list top fifteen wicket takers. In fact, apart from Courtney Walsh, none of the great West Indian fast bowlers including Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding feature among the top ten. Does that mean they were inferior bowlers? Any batsman would agree that Marshall, Ambrose and Holding were the most difficult bowlers to face. Mashall took 376 wickets. Compared to him Muralitharan and Warne had 800 and 708 respectively. Does that mean he was only half as good as they were? Surely not.

If statistics alone were to judge greatness, then Sachin Tendulkar never scored a triple century. In fact, he doesn’t feature in the list of top-90 highest scores made in a Test innings. Does that mean he’s not the best or one of the best?

Number of wickets are also dependent on the matches played. Imran Khan played cricket for twenty years but he only played 88 Tests, simply because Pakistan didn’t play enough cricket in the 1980s.

—“Md. Hafeez has a better batting average than Ian Botham, Mike Atherton and Nasseer Hussian. Hence, he is better than them.”

Obviously, the idiot who made his claim knows little about cricket. Comparing two different eras of cricket is ridiculous. Firstly, Botham and company didn’t have the luxury of featherweight, ultra-powerful bats of today and they faced much higher quality of bowlers than Hafeez does. Moreover, most of Hafeez’s runs have come against weak bowling attacks. Hafeez has a batting average of 39, which would be equal to an average of 25 in the ‘80s and the ‘90s.

If Javed Miandad and Vivian Richards played today, they would have averaged 70. Saeed Anwar was a great opener. Statistically his average is only six runs higher than Hafeez’s but he was a vastly superior batsman. In fact, he never scored a double century in his prolific career. But that doesn’t mean that he was an ordinary cricketer.

—“Sponsors and TV channels like Twenty-20 cricket because it draws more audience. But when it comes to films, people should only watch highbrow movies.” There is nothing wrong with this argument in isolation but the same hypocrites cry like sissies whenever Anurag Kashyap’s movie fails to float at the box-office. They abuse people who don’t see his movies. They ridicule common people for choosing entertainment over austerity. They belittle most of the blockbusters with their bigoted, inflammatory remarks. Akash Chopra shares propaganda videos that criticise blockbusters but gets offended when anyone criticises IPL. If public prefers T20 cricket over Test cricket, then they also prefer movies of Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar over the likes of Anurag Kashyap. If broadcasters want more of T20 cricket, then the same way distributors and exhibitors prefer 3 Idiots over Raman Raghav 2.0. Their double standards only reaffirm the fact that they are stupid Fascists.

With such irrational, jingoistic arguments any reasonable discussion is unexpected from such hardliners. One thing is for sure, Adolf Hitler would be proud of them. 

Manufacturing Consent on Quora

There’s trouble with unanimity. It is no doubt reliable but it shouldn’t be trusted blindly. In the 2002 elections in Iraq, there was 100 percent turnout of voters and all 100 percent voted in favour of Saddam Hussein. Obviously, the unanimity was not reliable.

Quora.com is somewhat similar to that. It is a very good tool for sharing knowledge and asking questions but only up to a certain limit. After that it is a mind control cult and a tool to manufacture consent. Take for instance the assertions used by the “happy family” of Quora:

-Most of the users of Quora claim to be employees of high-profile companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple etc. Their answers on Quora are long and anecdotal with incredible details. Where do they get time to write such long answers? People who work in those companies are well-paid but they also work long hours: sometimes 15–18 hours in a day. They not only work hard but they have families and active social lives. So where is the time to write such long answers, unless they are paid by corporations and government? In times when an average person brags about having a short attention span and gloats about having no time for anything other than work, it is quite amazing that they not only manage to post regularly on Quora, but they also find time garnish their answers with little details.

-“Quora broadens your horizons. If you don’t like Quora, you are narrow-minded and detached from reality.” The assertion itself is utterly narrow-minded and bullies anyone who dares to question them.

-Quora is like a happy family, where most of the users agree to one another. Isn’t that a little odd? It is difficulty to get unanimity in a family of four, then how could thousands of users have same opinions on almost everything from cinema to politics.

-Governments use Quora to brainwash people. The top four–five search results to most questions searched on google lead to Quora. It is a dangerous trend. Quora is influencing our actions and what we think. Quora has taken over every aspect people’s lives. Bigotry is rising. Beware.

-It is filled with thirty-odd-year-old lifestyle gurus who claim to know everything about everything. They indoctrinate people on every aspect of their lives. They tell people how many children they should have, what movies they should watch, how they can be successful (but ironically their own lives are miserable), the ideal quantity of happiness they should have in their lives (two teaspoons? in other words, no one is allowed to be happier than the prescription of lifestyle gurus), what career they should take etc. And anyone who isn’t like them or doesn’t watch the movies they watch is declared unsuccessful by them. They are a gang of bullies who harass people who ask for career advice. They discourage people from getting into high-paying careers by scaring them and feeding them with their pessimistic pabulum. If everyone listened to Quora for career advice, then many of the successful entrepreneurs, doctors and engineers would be doing minimum-wage jobs.

-Almost every Indian on Quora loves Anurag Kashyap. The ratio of his lovers on Quora to those in real world is highly skewed. You cannot even find one critic of his. Even Nardendra Modi will have more critics than Anurag Kashyap. Does that mean Anurag Kashyap is more loved than Modi? That’s ridiculous. The reason given is that Quora is only used by intelligent people and only intelligent people love Anurag Kashyap. That’s a highly preposterous claim and just another example of how Quora manufactures consent.

-There are provocative questions like “What do you think of people haven’t seen Gangs Of Wasseypur”? In other words, they mean “What should be done to people who have no interest in Gangs of Wasseypur?” It’s a well-made film but not everyone has interest in films like these. Not everyone has to watch it to fulfil their lives. Watching highbrow cinema doesn’t get one admission to Mensa. Religious fanatics share this parochial outlook with them. They too think that their religion is the best and anyone who doesn’t follow their religion is a loser. Strangely, the religious fanatics are ridiculed for such bigotry but the movie buffs are hailed as the champions of democracy.

-Quora is professed as a saviour of humanity. But what Quora has done is nothing new. Yahoo Answers did the same thing for years (it still does) but people shunned it by saying that they didn’t have time for such online activities.

-Another autocratic claim made at Quora, which I wrote about in my previous post, is that All India Bakchod is extremely popular amongst India’s youth. Just like Saddam Hussein’s “victory” with one hundred percent votes, it’s preposterous. When more than ninety-nine percent of India’s youth would not have even heard of AIB, this only speaks of their bigotry; their utter disregard for the common young people is a reflection of the class divisions flaring up in India.

-Most of the Quora users love BJP. The reason given is that most of the sensible Quora users are intelligent and educated. Hence, they love BJP. It implies, that everyone who loves BJP is smart and intelligent.

-There is a typical question that the happy family of Quora likes to ask “What advice would you give to your children or so-and-so?” Among the typically lame answers, one is “I will ask them to sign up for Quora”. Again, it’s an obviously sycophantic reply to manufacture consent.

-It is filled with racist questions and answers. The sole purpose of flashing those questions is to spread hate and bigotry.

There is no doubt that Quora is a good tool for sharing information but the cultization of Quora is extremely dangerous. Like religion, it is getting misused. It’s all about manufacturing consent by government and media to control people. Unless Quora learns to respect common people, the day is not far when it will turn into a hub of extremists. 

Manufacturing Consent with AIB

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” — Noam Chomsky.

This could very well describe the modus operandi of All India Bakchod. They like us to think that they have challenged the fundamentals of free speech. They assert that they are continuously stretching the spectrum of democracy. Media is even comparing Tanmay Bhat to the likes Baba Ambedkar and Nelson Mandela. In reality, All India Bakchod’s spectrum of acceptable opinion is extremely limited. Try criticising them. Try criticising their favourite movies. Try liking the movies they don’t like. You will find out that they are as “tolerant” as Hitler.

They, along with their political sycophants, have an Information Technology department that bullies people who speak out against them. When an actor criticised their road show, they harassed the online trading company he was endorsing by making thousands of purchases and then returning everything. Moreover, they inundated review websites with negative reviews against that company. The company’s stocks plummeted subsequently. Imagine what they do to small businesses and common people. They have thousands of IP addresses at their helm, which allows them to create fake profiles on IMDB to manipulate movie ratings. It is no coincidence that their favourite movies are rated highly and the movies of their enemies get flooded with low scores. IMDB is the best way to manufacture consent from public and they know how to exploit it to their advantage. They create fake profiles on Twitter and other social networking websites. Tanmay Bhat has millions of followers on Twitter, which is strange since he isn’t that well-known. His account has had Twitter’s verification tick-mark for a long time, when even India’s legendary cricketer like Bishan Singh Bedi’s account is still not verified. Does he have links with Dawood Ibrahim or does he have dark secrets of someone really important — (a kinky video of Kamaal R. Khan with some stupid politician)?

All India Bakchod has dictatorial views on what movies we should see and how many children should we have. They tell us what to feel, what to laugh at, what to think and how to think. They practically control every aspect of our lives. They are billed as great intellectuals. But in truth they are narrow-minded idiots. 

Their links with political parties are becoming more and more apparent on Quora.com. Many users there who support BJP and also devotees of All India Bakchod and their crony channels like VFV or TVF. They use subtle indoctrination to manufacture consent. If anyone asks why most of the Indian users on Quora.com support BJP, the responses are as follows:

-Quora users are only intelligent and educated people, hence they love BJP.

-Which implies, only intelligent and educated people support BJP. If you don’t support BJP, you are stupid. 

-Since most of the users support AIB, the implication is that only smart people like AIB.

AIB proclaims to be the voice of India’s youth when more than 99 percent of the youth would not have even heard of their name. This is an extremely effective ploy to get youth vote, since the implication is that if you are young and you don’t support AIB, you are not a part of the cool crowd.

The class divisions have only sharpened since All India Bakchod’s rise in India. If in the past, there were divisions on the basis of religion or caste, now there are divisions in cinema too. The supposed fans of highbrow cinema have a high social status. Getting a government job is not difficult as long as you like Breaking Bad. 

In the past it didn’t matter what they said but now it does. Gone are the days when they were just a bunch of hostile comedians. Now they have branches in cinema, corporations, information technology, media and politics. It is time that Mr. Narendra Modi should clarify as to who is running the country: BJP, Mohan Bhagwat or — heavens save save us —  Tanmay Bhat? Forbes has ranked Narendra Modi as the eighth most powerful man in the world. Tanmay Bhat must be on number seven.

Tanmay Bhat is a sick movie buff who likes controlling what people should watch. There was North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, who was also a highbrow movie buff and who liked policing people’s taste in cinema, like Tanmay Bhat. Kim Jong-il arrested people who didn’t have a “good” taste in cinema. He gassed those who watched cinema for entertainment. He abducted a North Korean director and actor to make critically-acclaimed films. Looking at modern Fascists like Karan Johar and Kamaal Rashid Khan, the same patterns are ominous.

India Under AIB

Free speech is a two-way street. If you don’t respect the freedom of speech of your dissenters, then you don’t believe in freedom of speech. All India Bakchod (AIB) expects everyone to respect their freedom of speech but they get in a moral outrage whenever anyone disagrees to their views. However, anyone who is calling for the arrest of AIB’s honcho Tanmay Bhat after his gormless video on Lata Mangeshkar is giving him exactly what he wants — sympathy vote. Asking for legal action against such idiotic videos is ridiculous. If the critics want to take him down, they should do it with the most powerful weapon of modern era — criticism. Kill the Fascist bastard with criticism. Slaughter his sick ego by making offensive video on him. Bully him into chronic depression. Slut shame him by uploading his lewd three-some video (with Karan Johar and Kamaal Rashid Khan) online. Make him commit suicide. If nothing works, settle scores in a good old-fashioned fight: crack the fat bastard’s skull in a boxing ring. By crying for his arrest, they have needlessly turned him into a hero. Or is this just another publicity stunt by his closet cronies to promote him? After all, we have seen times and again how certain sections of Indian media and corporations are trying to promote him and his Fascist group.

Tanmay Bhat has the face of a prehistoric man, an unevolved specimen of Great Apes. He is a product of bestiality or incest or a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. The end result is a morbidly obese dictator masquerading as a clown. He makes fun of people who don’t conform to his diktats but everything is justified under the pretext of “free speech” by his naive apologists and brainless disciples. That’s fair enough. The have the right to ridicule anyone they want. But if we make fun of his obesity or his incestuous family, we are called insensitive. (What else can we expect from his hypocritical supporters?) He abuses, ridicules the elderly but they way he is bloating, he won’t even make it to thirty — a massive heart attack will take care of this burden-on-the-earth. Or if he manages to get old, he will rot in a squalid old-age home, paralysed and demented, neglected by his family, raped by some deranged employees, kicked and pissed on by teenagers and his hideous face nibbled by mice. What a pleasant sight it would be for the connoisseurs of highbrow cinema. The comedians of his ilk would find humour in his misery.

He also is a bonafide paedophile. His tweets about children are disturbing. (I have cropped his ugly picture on purpose.)

In times when people get upset so easily, his hideous remarks are conveniently ignored by intellectuals and mummy bloggers. A person like him should’t be allowed to roam near schools. It’s obvious that he is protected by someone very powerful. He and his AIB cronies prey on young children, which explains why they claim to be representatives of the “youth”. Their love for the youth is disturbing.

Has anyone noticed how most of the comedies like Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai, The Great Indian Comedy Show, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge etc. have been systemically deleted from Youtube? Has anyone noticed how even decent comedies get trashed by media? All this points to the fact that the ruling elite intends to make AIB as the face of Indian cinema and entertainment. Nobody makes good comedies anymore because humour doesn’t get any respect in this country. (Even an intelligent comedy like Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola failed for the same reason.) It’s only to establish AIB’s monopoly in the entertainment industry.

AIB is one of the main reasons behind the class divisions in the society: it typifies the supremacist, imperialist, casteist, racist elite who control everyone by spreading hate and politics of guilt. They give false sense of superiority to their fans by telling them how great they are for watching highbrow movies. Their disciple Darshan Jimmykant is worthless because of such false admiration showered upon him by them. If they really cared for him they would show him the mirror, kick his servile buttocks to make him find a job instead of being a stoned couch potato. For them, watching Bombay Velvet is activism. It is ironic that these bastards wear watches worth thousands of dollars, but they have the nerve to guilt-trip people for watching feel-good cinema. They tell people to embrace austerity and shun larger-than-life movies, yet these sanctimonious pontiffs lead luxurious lives filled with expensive cars, discos and booze; they preach austerity, but they never talk in anything less than crores (ten million); they buy luxury cars just to attend weddings but watching cinema for entertainment is a sin according to these hypocrites. They police people’s taste in cinema, they present themselves as well-cultured, intellectual linguists, yet they thrive on cheap and lame words like chutiyapa and bakchod. It just shows they are boring hypocrites. They preach people to develop shades of grey in their characters since idealism is uncool according to them; they preach that nobody is good or evil but anyone who criticises AIB is declared evil by them and their bhakts. (Aren’t their critics allowed to have shades of grey? Shouldn’t there be a margin for the supposed flaws of their critics?) Their ideologies are full of such grave contradictions and inconsistencies. They have the blessings of media, corporate world, politicians and possibly the underworld. Their worthless brains are infected with leprosy. They call Kamaal Rashid Khan the top film critic and an intellectual. That idiotic assertion itself warrants butchery to death.

Whenever there are talks of peace amongst various faiths or cinematic values, whenever highbrow and lowbrow cinemas try to peacefully coexist, the demagogues like AIB intervene by spewing hateful videos, comments, fake mass-voting on IMDB to thwart peace dialogues. They incite hate through their intentionally flawed reasoning and red-herrings to distract people from the core issues. And their impressionable fans think that watching Slumdog Millionaire will reserve them a spot in heaven or Salman Khan’s films will dispatch them to hell. IMDB is a hub of such rabid fanatics. The brainwashing that goes behind the forums of IMDB would even make Nazis proud. There is a reason why feel-good films (like Shandaar, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola) from serious directors failed; they were sabotaged by such rabble-rousers who cringe at the very thought of variety and coexistence. If people had the confidence to stand by their choices, nobody would look for AIB’s approval.

Contrary to what people think, Fascism doesn’t manifest as a tentacled monstrosity with posters of Adolf Hitler and placards saying “death to infidels”. Fascism is’t humourless either. In fact, it shows up as your saviour. It reminds you of your highbrow values; it divides you in the name of religion, caste, film connoisseurship etc.; it beats up anyone or anything you feel doesn’t match your values. It doesn’t tell you that its agenda entails militia, bullying, mass imprisonments, censorship, honour killings and gas chambers. 

Character Assassinations of AIB’s Bhakts

AIB’s disciples undertake character assassination of those who disagree to their views. Therefore, I will engage in character assassinations of two AIB’s cohorts with pleasure.

Russell Peters — When dunces rule the roost, it’s no coincidence that drug addicts are their followers. The so-called comedian Russell Peters, and a rabid apologist of AIB, is a former drug addict and a drug trafficker. What sick times of moral decadence the modern society must be in when when rabid junkies like him are considered role models and intellectuals. He didn’t kill anyone but he wrecked thousands of innocent lives with drug peddling. But all that is never accounted for. No one has the courage to confront him.

He can make fun of anyone but no one is allowed to criticise him. Russel Peters can drop dead and rot in hell. I am not afraid of him or his Fascist fans. He has the face of a rabid mastiff dog sewn on a human body. He is a cross between a human and a rabid dog.

Any dictator would be proud of him. The ruse of comedy allows him to spread hate with ease. There is nothing wrong with making fun of cultural and religious stereotypes. But it’s the intent that matters the most. Russell Peters’ intent is that of a Fascist, his comments full of hatred and downright contempt. To those who find him harmless, ask yourselves a question: would think the same if he were a Caucasian? There is no way the people would find him funny if he were a white British boy. He would be chastised by the Left and the Right and deemed racist.

He is embarrassed of his Indian ancestry and calls himself an Anglo-Indian. It’s a shame that Indian media and politicians put him on such a high pedestal, just because of his supposedly Indian roots. They call him “one of us” when he clearly considers himself superior to them. The shameless politicians and actors click “selfies” with him, treat him like a God whenever they meet him. Despite his condescending attitude towards India, this hypocrite likes to meddle with India’s internal matters. He criticised Aamir Khan for not liking AIB Roast. However, when his buddy Anupam Kher criticised AIB, he didn’t say a word. It’s obvious that both have common political interests with BJP. But what’s perplexing is BJP’s sycophancy towards him. This bastard gloats about championing equal rights, yet he supports frauds like Baba Ramdev who claim to have a “cure” for homosexuality. 

Like many Fascists, he uses snobbery to sell himself. “If you don’t like Russell Peters, you are not smart” — that’s the killer motto exploited for centuries to spread Fascism. 

Dixon Loda — The second disciple is not a celebrity. He is just an ordinary loser named Dixon Loda. He is in his late thirties, yet he has no job. His biggest achievement in his life is that he watched an entire season of Breaking Bad in a day. He shows pride in doing a great “social service” by watching movies that AIB recommends. That’s fine. He can do whatever he wants but the trouble is that he abuses people who watch Satyamev Jayate. He makes fun of Aamir Khan’s remuneration thereof. Of course, a loser who has never earned a penny in his life is bound to be outraged at that. He has problems with Aamir Khan’s high fees in per episode but he never questions Tanmay Bhat’s income; he has no problems with Russell Peters’ exorbitant earning from his asinine shows.

Media likes to tell us that people who like AIB are better than others. It’s anything but that. This stupid bellyacher, who is an portrayed as an ideal fan of AIB, lived on his wife’s income after marriage. She tried persuading him to work. She took him to counsellors and psychiatrists, but to no avail. When all the modern techniques failed, she hauled him to the desi quack Baba Ramdev but even that couldn’t save this pathetic loser. On top of that, he is an alcoholic and a proud drug addict (like many other bhakts of AIB). After years of struggle, his wife had no choice but to terminate the wedding. Now he is back to his parents’ house, living on their income, popping pills and sniffing cocaine with his like-minded zealots of AIB. His only qualification is that he pretends to like highbrow cinema. That’s all it takes to succeed these days. 

Propaganda Model of AIB

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise. Voltaire could very well have said that for All India Bakchod (popularly known as AIB) channel. Aamir Khan found that out last year when he politely — I repeat, politely — criticised AIB Roast. The “intolerance gate” surrounding him is a mere repercussion of his comments on AIB. It all began from there. Nasseeruddin Shah has talked about “hate mongering” but he has never faced any wrath, because he has never crossed paths with AIB. Justice Markandey Katju has called Narendra Modi a “fraud” but his patriotism is never questioned by BJP’s supporters. Unlike Aamir Khan, Katju is a political person; hence, his political opinions should be taken more seriously but they are ignored. Why? Because AIB doesn’t hate him. Vishal Dadlani is a huge critic of the Right-wing. He barely draws any ire. It’s no coincidence that he is AIB’s sycophant.

AIB is a group of pseudo-intellectual Fascists in the guise of comedians. They are ruthless, powerful and evil. They are backed by top corporations like Amul, powerful filmmakers to spread propaganda, film studios like UTV, top politicians, Godmen and influential writers like Shobha De. I won’t be surprised if they have the support of mafia as well. They follow a devious propaganda model. They can say anything in the name of humour, but if anyone objects or even mildly criticises them, it is portrayed as an assault on art and freedom. It’s ironic that they don’t value the freedom of speech of their critics, yet it is a very cunning tactic. Thereafter, their enemy is subject to serious character assassination and much more, just like Aamir Khan. He has lost his advertisement contracts with major corporations. (Is it a coincidence that a criticism of AIB Roast has cost him all the endorsements contracts.) Moreover, he is no longer an ambassador of Incredible India (a campaign to promote tourism in India). He has become an object of wrath and ridicule on social media because of AIB and Shobha De’s treachery.

Their propaganda strategy for AIB Roast was exemplary. It was sensationalist propaganda to promote their channel and Anurag Kashyap’s then-forthcoming film. At first, media and Right-wing politicians severely rebuked it. Some political activists (like Ashok Pandit) filed lawsuits against AIB and Anurag Kashyap. Curiously, the hysteria died down as soon as the Roast gained publicity. The people who were on a rabid rage against the AIB Roast, took a sudden U-turn: they started slandering those who didn’t like the Roast. The only explanation is that they were always on AIB’s side. Now Ashok Pandit is their biggest sycophant. It was a cunning marketing gimmick.

Another propaganda tactic they use is by spreading rumours or “trending tweets” of how some people want them banned. But in reality, hardly anyone is interested in banning AIB, except for a handful of idiots. But this propaganda gives them moral wattage and sympathy votes. How can the Right-wing call for their ban, when a hard-core Rightist like Shobha De fanatically defends AIB? How can the authority want them banned when they are a part of the authority?

Shobha De’s inflammatory comments have worked wonders for them. She has gone on a rabid rage, degrading those who didn’t like AIB Roast. The ageist gorgon made fun of Aamir Khan’s age and proclaimed that most of India’s youngsters wouldn’t relate to his views. So, would they relate to Anurag Kashyap’s thinking, for he was an endorser of AIB? That deranged druggie queen sits on her rocking chair and fabricates her deep fetishes. Ninety-ninety percent of India’s youth would not have even heard of Anurag Kashyap or AIB. Whereas, many of many of Aamir Khan’s fans are in their teens or twenties. In particular, his movies like Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par and 3 Idiots are very popular amongst the youth of India. Hardly any teenager cares about Gangs of Wasseypur or AIB’s propaganda videos. Even if a few did, it would be out of fear rather than admiration. If people over a certain age shouldn’t express themselves in public then maybe Shobha De should jump off a hill because she is a few decades older than Aamir Khan. Or is it just that the imperialistic harpy is only interested in carrying out character assassination of actors with a certain last name? If she is so worried about AIB, then why didn’t she speak against people who filed lawsuits against AIB?

AIB also typifies the disturbing class hierarchy of India. The comedian Kiku Sharda was arrested for impersonating Godman Gurmeet Ram Raheem Insan. Would AIB have been arrested had they put up a similar act? (It’s another thing that the Godman is likely to be their cohort.) But even if they aren’t his bhakts (disciples), nobody would have dared to arrest them. The reason is simple: Kiku Sharda is a lowbrow comedian who entertains common people; whereas, AIB constitutes of the so-called elite of India, the English-speaking, American TV and Hollywood-fanatic brigade of peanut-brained yuppies. There were voices of dissent for their mockery of Salman Khan’s sister, but the voices were silenced. But AIB are a bunch of bullies who only pick on non-violent targets, who prefer to critique with reason. If those rabid bastards ever insulted someone’s sister in rural India or the drug-free zones of Punjab, no one would reason with them; instead, they would be neutered and battered vigilante style and their stupid testicles would be fed to cats.

Their foreign ally, Russell Peters, scowled like a mad dog when some people didn’t like AIB Roast. But the racist coward didn’t say a word about Kiku Sharda’s arrest. It is because of the same class hierarchy. Kiku represents the same average Indian that he racially degrades in his so-called comedy. On the other hand, AIB represent the powerful, pseudo-intellectual yuppies who get their buttocks licked by the likes of Russell Peters.

AIB is just one example. They have crony Youtube channels (like VFV) who do the same kind of work. They consider themselves thekedar (custodians) of Indian cinema and society. They have turned cinema into a private club. They decide who is eligible to watch Satyajit Ray’s movies or not. They police people’s taste in movies. They intimidate those who don’t like Anurag Kashyap’s movies. Ship of Thesus is called “Ship of Pretentious” because it’s produced by Aamir Khan’s wife Kiran Rao. However, their choice of reviews is highly selective. They have never reviewed the Godman’s movie. It’s either because they were afraid to ridicule that movie or they were afraid to admit that they liked it. Remember, AIB acknowledged Kamaal R. Khan amongst the top film critics of India. How can such brainless bastards be taken seriously? A few months later Kamaal R. Khan ridiculed Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet and even issued a stupid challenge where he would chop his genital if the movie made one billion, to which Anurag Kashyap replied earnestly. It was just a subterfuge to create sympathy for the film. Because even though the movie was a disaster, hardly anyone criticised it. But his phoney criticism allowed them to cry that “look everyone is trying to sabotage our film”, “Anurag Kashyap is too good for Indian public”, “death to those who watch cinema for entertainment” etc.

If you think that AIB is not powerful, then try to criticise them or search for their critics. You will find nothing. And it’s not because everyone loves them.

That Magical Moment

When chips are down, I often ponder when I will find my mojo or talisman or epiphany. It’s the sudden magical moment, the turning point of life from where things only get better. Like in Lage Raho Munna Bhai when Munna is in a quandary, his friend, Circuit, advises him to go to Gandhi’s memorial; there he finds his mojo when he comes face to face with the man himself. In Hera Pheri when the three friends are down with debts, they find their moment when they receive a phone call. Tom Cruise’s eponymous character has an epiphany in Jerry Maguire that changes his life.

In the past whenever I felt stuck and hopeless, I wished for that defining moment, the turning point of my life. Yesterday night I found that magical moment. It didn’t pop like an epiphany nor did it ring like an ethereal phone call. It had been right under my nose for months, yet I couldn’t realise that it was the unmistakable breakthrough I was looking for. Now it’s time to relax and to let the good times roll.

Orgasm of Connoisseurship

The time has come to declare Hollywood a cinematic deity.
 
Lo and behold! The time has come to declare Hollywood a cinematic deity. It is human nature to bash the present and deify the past. But Hollywood is an exception. There is no wistful sentiment for classics: the current era is unanimously viewed as the golden era of Hollywood. Every year Hollywood’s (over)-exuberant fans proudly beat the drum that the coming year would be another “good movie year”. It’s a blissful picture of fans totally submitted to the superiority of Hollywood’s present.

The crowd at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises is not just an ordinary throng of audience — it is a congregation of intellectuals gaping at the screen in awe. A film festival showing the likes of Man of Steel, Avengers, Iron Man, Transformers etc. is not just another film festival — it is an orgasm of connoisseurship. In the West, movies like Fast And Furious are sometimes dismissed as “just another blockbusters”, but in the East they are viewed with veneration. People in India wear Hollywood like a badge of honour. Nobody in India can criticise Hollywood without being ridiculed. Hollywood’s moral clout is so huge that even a guild like RSS never says a word against Hollywood. It’s another thing that underneath their tirades against the West, most of RSS activists enjoy watching Hollywood movies.

At times it seems Hollywood follows a regimented approach with a dedicated team of writers churning one screenplay after the other, meticulously planning for years ahead. If in the past, action films were met with reverence, now there are science-fiction, fantasy and kiddie-flick genres that generate oomph from the devout audience.

An Indian writer once wrote that modern Hollywood reminded him of the “grossly deprived childhood” he had to “endure” because his childhood was merely filled with friends, books and outdoor activities. As ridiculous as his self-deprecating confession may sound, it shows the veneration that Hollywood’s popular genres command from mature audience.

Things move fast in contemporary Hollywood. One critically acclaimed blockbuster comes and another follows quickly in the assembly line. A multitude of blockbusters have passed since the mighty Avengers conquered critics’ hearts merely three years ago. Hollywood keeps pumping one masterpiece after the other. At IMDB, contemporary Hollywood movies earn such hefty ratings from devout film buffs (or hired programmers) that anything below the rating of eight looks inadequate. 

However, Hollywood’s biggest breakthrough is the implementation of reboots. Earlier there was a perception that reboots had to be a few decades apart but The Amazing Spiderman opened new horizons of connoisseurship when a few honchos decided to reboot the Spiderman series only five years after Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman 3. Who would have thought that? The concept of reboots is an unlimited mine of connoisseurship. When in 2006 Superman Begins failed, they rebooted it again as the much celebrated Man Of Steel in 2013. Hollywood can keep rebooting popular franchises infinite times till the last few human beings walk on the earth. There is no reason why they shouldn’t reboot the feted Harry Potter saga with a new cast, vastly superior visual effects and so forth. For that matter, even James Bond series can have another reboot in future — when Daniel Craig decides to move on — featuring a younger Bond in his teens or twenties who traces the murder of his parents and comes face to face with the nemesis. The James Bond scenario is a hyperbole, though not by much, but there is no doubt that when it comes to sci-fi fantasies and kiddie flicks, Hollywood is on the pedestal of eternal glory.

Truth About Anurag Kashyap’s Fans

We have heard about Anurag Kashyap’s cult following by the coveted yuppie brigade of India. We have heard diatribes of his rabid fans (are there any other kind?) whenever his film fails to attract audience. If anything, his newest release Bombay Velvet has brought out the truth about his so-called fans. The dearth of viewers at the screens has proved that his fans are a bunch of phonies who only pretend to like his movies to look high status. Earlier the rabid animals masquerading as his fans got away in his low-budget films where profits or losses weren’t huge. However, in a film of this colossal stature they have nowhere to run. If they really liked his movies, would Bombay Velvet have had such abysmal box-office returns?

The biggest irony of his rabid fans is that they watch his movies on pirated DVDs or online torrents but they disparage Indian public and filmmakers when his movies don’t do well in cinemas. When Ugly went unnoticed, media assailed Indian movie-goers with snide comments; notwithstanding that the movie had released abruptly, with a disdainful sense of entitlement by Kashyap. They sarcastically pleaded him not to have sad endings in his movies since Indian public preferred  happy endings, as if Anurag Kashyap was a pioneer of sad endings in Hindi cinema. The hypocrites overlooked the blatant fact that sad endings were nothing new in Hindi cinema: movies like Dil Se, Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Gangster, Ishaqzaade, Aashiqui 2, Ram-Leela and many others had sad endings and most of them were big hits. That specious claim itself busts the myth of Anurag Kashyap’s superiority. Why should Indians listen to the tirades of his sycophants? Is he in the Indian army? Has he found cure for cancer? Nobody owes him a living.

Despite being a good director and a brilliant dialogue writer, he is an overrated, overhyped product of smart Public Relations machinery. His fan-following is extremely limited to a few zealots and a bunch of propaganda Youtube channels that intimidate people to like his movies: rest of his fans constitute of people who just pretend to like his movies out of fear or snobbery. His sycophants make fun of blockbusters; they make sardonic videos on “how to make a hundred-crore film”, but Bombay Velvet has showed that making money is not that easy. It’s easy to resonate with a few hundred sycophants than with millions of people with divergent sensibilities. It’s easier to make so-called niche films like That Girl In Yellow Boots than so-called lowbrow comedies like Hera Pheri and Lage Raho Munnabhai. 

The rabid animals masquerading as Anurag Kashyap’s fans demean people who watch movies for entertainment and dub them unintelligent, yet they themselves pimp for IPL. If sports can be watched for entertainment, then why not movies? It’s difficult to find any benefits of following professional sports. Even Noam Chomsky calls it a waste of time. If they want to educate themselves then they should read a book. It’s another thing that most of his phony fans have never read a book in their lives. 

Anurag Kashyap is billed as an underdog by his PR machinery, yet he has a nexus with bigwigs like Karan Johar. He has propaganda Youtube channels at his disposal who not only venerate him but ridicule the movies of his rivals. He likes talking about hypocrisy of other people but he and his rabid fans are bigger hypocrites. He used to express contempt towards Karan Johar and ilk but now he has formed a powerful faction with him. Who is a hypocrite now, Mr. Kashyap? His so-called fans intimidate those who like mainstream films; they bully those who criticise him; they let loose tirades on audience when his movies open to dismal attendance. It is fear that makes people feign admiration for his movies. Intimidation can get you false admiration but it cannot make people buy tickets for your movies. Those who dig pits for others fall into them.

RGV — The Tiger Hunted By A Pack Of Rabid Dogs

Why do Indians love Gangs Of Wasseypur and ignore Rakht Charitra? Why is Anurag Kashyap deified and Ram Gopal Varma ostracised?

Indian audience have the tendency to play chamchas (sycophants) to a given filmmaker at a time. Ram Gopal Varma was once media’s darling, until he botched up the remake of Sholay. It was a mighty botchery. It was a big choke. That one mistake butchered his reputation.

He is still a respectable filmmaker, an important filmmaker whose name has been safely etched on the memorial wall of intelligentsia, but only for his past work, mainly Satya and Company. There is a premeditated rejection manufactured by power brokers for everything he does now. They claim that he has lost his creative instinct, and consequently, public has lost confidence in him. In the hindsight, now it seems that he has lost confidence because of his butchered reputation.

There is no doubt that his recent films have suffered with obsessively dull lighting and utterly generic, cacophonous background score, alarmingly channelling the background music of Indian soaps. After the fiasco of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, he has made desperate attempts to get his grip back on the box-office. He tried outright lowbrow horror with Phoonk and Aggyat. He made a hideously lurid crime film in Not A Love Story, only to be overlooked. Had Anurag Kashyap made the same film, it would have acquired a cult status for its realism and perverse climax. Then he made an ostensible sequel of the iconic Satya to cash in on its brand name. Satya 2 wasn’t a bad film per se, but nobody cared about it. It is safe to say that most of his weak films after the weak-minded Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag have sprung out of desperation to regain public’s confidence. However, he has also made good films after after that. Sarkar Raj was a fine film, afflicted by the pernicious side-effects of Aag. Contract was well-made film, but it was pelted with brickbats, hence, audience shunned it. Rann was a decent film chastised by propaganda connoisseurs. Rakht Charitra saga had all the ingredients that higbrow crowd loves: it had melancholy, austerity, sad ending, no lip-syncing songs and no melodrama. But media remained low-key about it. It was Rakht Charitra that set the framework for Anurag Kashyap’s highly feted Gangs Of Wassseypur saga, yet both films drew opposite reactions.

Karan Johar calls him a “mad man” with pomp. If he used that epithet on any other respectable director, his house would be stoned by moral police.

Anurag Kashyap had minced no words about his hatred towards Karan Johar and his brand of cinema. Now, years later, he has a nexus with Karan Johar, percolating through power brokers, corporations and media. Now he stands head-to-head with him as the most powerful man in Hindi cinema. He also had acrimony with Taran Adarsh, which was evident when the latter irrationally panned his earlier films and the former riposted that a person like Taran Adarsh didn’t have the acumen to understand his films. Gradually Anurag Kashyap realised that making a good film wasn’t enough to get accolades. He had to shake hands with the Devils. (Wherein the euphemism “handshake” came about in That Girl In Yellow Boots.) He had to join the social circuits of the moral police. He had to puff on the chillum with the animales. Since then Taran Adarsh has given hefty ratings to his films, even That Girl In Yellow Boots, which is far-flung from his predilections.

Anurag Kashyap has become a cult of connoisseurship. The elitists venerate him. Critics spill their blood for him. But five years ago, the same people ridiculed him, calling him “the self-proclaimed torch-bearer of Indian cinema”. It is ironic that now they call him a maverick filmmaker, since they marauded him when he attempted David Lynch-like surrealism, intellectually challenging abstruse art in the brilliantly-made No Smoking. He is far gifted, far more versatile director than people accept him for. In many ways, they now make him work with his hands tied. The elite audience, the self-proclaimed representatives of good cinema, have a blinkered outlook of quality. Either they like masala films or austere cinema. Anything that diverts from their parochial outlook, is declared unintelligent. Anurag Kashyap understands that handicap and now he plays accordingly to their needs. He’s still brilliant but capable of a lot more.

If a Ram Gopal Varma’s film fails at box-office, it’s considered his own fault. But when an Anurag Kashyap’s film flops, the film industry and the audience get the rap for it. Take for example, the poor box-office returns of Ugly have led to diatribes from the moral police. However, the Cabal is flagrantly ignoring the fact that Ugly was released abruptly without any publicity. If fans don’t know that an Anurag Kashyap’s film is releasing, how would they see it? Gangs Of Wasseypur filled the coffers of exhibitors because it was released with proper planning. Even Aamir Khan would struggle to find audience if he released his film abruptly. The reason they overlook the simple reasons is, because it defeats their propaganda. Deep inside, these elitists wanted Ugly to underperform at box-office so they could sell hate and propaganda.

So, why is it that they have deified Anurag Kashyap but ostracised Ram Gopal Varma? The reason is, everybody worships the rising sun. They claim to love Anurag Kashyap, but they are opportunists, riding on his coattails to manipulate public. They are like those propaganda activists of ‘Khap Panchayat’ and ‘Bajrang Dal’ — the self-appointed protectors of society. Anurag Kashyap is not their favourite director. He is an image to boost their social status; he is an opportunity for braggadocio; he is their trophy wife.

Connoisseurship is Sham

Connoisseurship in India is sham. Connoisseurship in India is a propaganda of the so-called elitists to control audience. India must be the only country in the world where there is an ongoing lobby for class divisions in the name of cinema. The self-proclaimed protectors of “good cinema” condemn people who watch movies for entertainment, but the same elitists have no qualms when people revel in T20 cricket for entertainment. Why is honourable to watch cricket for entertainment but unpardonable to watch cinema for the same? What’s wrong with varied cinema? Why can’t feel-good films co-exist with austere films? They can, but the elitists don’t want that. They want absolute control. The biggest problem is their khap mentality.

Sangh Parivar and their honchos tell India to shun western culture but they deride Indians who don’t like Hollywood films. They ridicule people who don’t like American television shows: anyone who doesn’t like Breaking Bad, Dexter, or Game of Thornes is called uncultured. What kind of a deranged, self-contradictory mindset is this? This aptly describes the confused, conflicted state of mind of Indian audience. In the 2000s when lip-syncing songs reduced, Indian audience whined, calling song-and-dance routine a part of heritage. Now again they are again embarrassed of songs. These days they hate South Indian remakes of masala films. But they were the ones who made such films fashionable at the first place by fanatically supporting cinema like Wanted, Rowdy Rathore, Ghajini, Golmaal 3 etc. How confused can Indian audience get? It’s about time that the rabid organisations stop thrusting their personal quirks on society.

Indians are more fervent about Hollywood than U.S. itself. In U.S. if anyone didn’t like The Dark Knight trilogy, it wouldn’t be given a second thought. But in India any such Philistines are ridiculed and browbeaten by power brokers. Indians crave for realistic fight scenes. But the same scholars don’t spew any vitriol while watching even B-grade Hollywood movies like Shoot’em Up and Cave.

The pampered film critics of India moan that henchmen in Hindi movies are cheerful compared to the joyless henchmen in world cinema. Clearly, their information library is licked by termites of mental slavery. Way back in Sholay, Veeru was a humorous outlaw, while Jai was a silent, solemn man. There was a reason why Amitabh Bachchan was known as the angry young man in 1970s. In recent times too, Ek Villain — a drab film nonetheless — showed a joyless henchman in the lead role. These critics throw tantrums that films are detached from reality, yet they don’t complain when Indians themselves are detached from reality in real world. How can a privileged Indian show such callous indifference to the poverty and social inequality around them? How can an average Joe ignore the 2002 Gujarat riots where 2000 people were massacred with impunity? In other words, they want realism in cinema but not in real life. It turns out that that they are the ones who are detached from reality.

‘Hasee To Phasee’ — Cricket’s Perversion in Popular Culture

In Indian popular culture, IPL or Twenty-20 has become a superseding synonym for cricket. The movie Hasee To Phasee, despite being refreshingly unconventional, pays pimping service to T20 cricket with shameless sycophancy. Is it a mad scientist’s influence or the director’s kinky predilection? It is a great example on how popular culture indoctrinates the impressionable minds of Indian audience.

In a scene set in 2006, the girl supposedly prophesies that cricket should be of twenty overs, hence finishing in three hours. Three hours? The length of cricket is three and half hours, not three as fiendishly proclaimed by her. Secondly, the scene is supposed to show her innovative tendencies and foresight. But in truth, twenty-over cricket was England’s invention, already in existence at that time. But of course that’s overlooked in the film. Another subliminal message given there is that T20 cricket is for intelligent crowd only.

After hearing the girl’s sick views on cricket, the boy proffers some creepy ideas about the game:  a total of thirty-three players in a team — eleven separate bowlers, batsmen and fielders. (Why would anyone need eleven specialist bowlers and batsmen in a short twenty-over innings? Eleven bowlers would be too many even in a timeless Test. Eleven specialist batsmen would be wasted in T20 game. What would this stupid rule do to all-rounders?) Then he vomits a rabid suggestion that cricket should be played on a revolving ground and have two (literally) flying fielders in the inner circle. According to his sick mind, it would complete the evolution of the game. How? What? Why?

Are these mad scientists a part of the cabal formulating the tenets of cricket? No wonder why cricket nowadays is run by bolshies like Srinivasan and his rabid sycophants.

How can any sane human being spew such militant ideas on a sport? Although it’s the girl who is shown to be a “mad scientist”, in reality it’s the boy who is unhinged. Under the facade of worldliness, he is a craven and insecure flagellant. Under the delusion of pragmatism, he is a martyr of masochism. He lives in denial of not loving his girlfriend, which he professes for stability. He considers domestic violence a connubial norm. He dutifully bears abuse and blackmail from his disagreeable girlfriend, who threatens to jilt him at the drop of rain. In return, he grovels at her to save their bondage-domination relationship. He gives up too easily on his ambition of becoming a police officer because he is too lily-livered to stand up to his father. Bankrupt of self-respect, the bootlicker frequently implores his prospective father-in-law for money. He is a crackpot who blathers on asinine business schemes as an escape from his miseries. Since he has no control over his personal and professional life, he conjures a fantasy world filled with sick drivel on cricket.

The girl’s malevolent schemes for cricket are at least offhanded. It’s easy to make allowances for her because of her rough childhood, of being abused by her demonic patriarchal uncle. However, the boy is not worthy of any sympathy. He is such a rabid bore that it is difficult to blame his girlfriend for being a psychological browbeater. How can one expect her to stay attracted to that yellow belly? How can her animal instinct let her respect that doormat? It’s no wonder that she keeps him on his toes.

Every astute entrepreneur snubs his loony business propositions. (Why would a common entrepreneur be bothered with the laws of cricket?) Then he squirts his diabolical schemes about cricket to a shady businessman who looks more like a pimp. It’s no wonder that the delusional pimp — possibly a drug addict — loves his drivel. (What that pimp has to do with cricket is a mystery. And again, looking at the draconian state of contemporary cricket, you wonder if such pimps are really controlling cricket.)

Watching this movie makes one realise that this is what happens when mad scientists run the show. There are rabid suggestions that LBW rule should be eliminated since it is based on conjecture. Some fanatics recommend that boundary scores should be changed to five and ten (instead of four and six), ensuring a rounded metric system; an over should be of five balls, making T20 game a total of 100 balls instead of 120, ensuring an easier calculation of run-rate. (How stupidly they forget Tests and their pet ODIs). There are proposals for split-innings ODI matches, as if the current changes weren’t enough. A crackpot journalist, Rob Steen, made a hideous suggestion that an Ashes series should incorporate all three formats. (It happens in women’s cricket, but one must understand that women rarely play Test matches; hence it makes sense for the women’s Ashes to be sprawled across all three formats.) People like Steen are sick power brokers, in other words: trans-national pimps, who would stoop to any level for their perverse pleasures. As much as I dislike BCCI, I can’t help but thank heavens that at least BCCI isn’t infested with rabid minds like these.

‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’ — Anurag Kashyap Ki Dulhania

A juxtaposition of old-world simplicity and modern-day savagery.

The poster of Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania is a “selfie”, aptly depicting the pretentious times we live in. On face value it is a lightweight tribute to the feted blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, but at a deeper level it is an ode with a sociological twist and an introspection of our modern times. It is as much a reflection of Aditya Chopra’s opus as it is of new age auteurs like Anurag Kashyap. It is juxtaposition of the old-world simplicity and modern-day savagery. We live in tough times. We live in brutally competitive times. We live in a society that champions libertarian socialism, yet is consumerist to the core. Kavya won’t settle for anything less than a  500,000-rupee highbrow wedding dress. She, nonetheless, has the oomph, enterprise and chutzpah to raise the required money. Modern society is full of contradictions and paradoxes. Perfection is new-age imperfection. Lowbrow is new-age highbrow.  Kavya rejects Angad, who is better than Humpty in every way. He is a doctor; he is financially successful; he has more brawn and brains than Humpty; he has good social and clubbing skills. But despite that, it is Humpty who charms Kavya with his glaring flaws.

Like any self-conscious modern film, it pays obeisance to Facebook. But it saves us from the seeing Humpty imploring her with stupid and creepy platitudes like “I want to do friendship with you”. Instead he sends her a friend request at Facebook, which unkbeknownst to his mental powers is a subtle approach to take things forward. Their transition from friends to lovers is seamless without any melodrama or jingoistic rhetoric.

The film’s most hilarious scene — the teary-eyed Humpty while watching his favourite movie — is rendered subservient in the opening credits. It’s a big waste. Shashank Khaitan (the director) does well in fashioning unsophisticated characters. But like many Indian directors, he makes the mistake of confusing unsophisticated characters with unsophisticated filmmaking. A story like this needed a more polished approach.

Both films centre around patriarchy. In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Amrish Puri was a non-violent patriarch. He didn’t rely on rage or rants to exert his authority. His commanding presence was enough. However, subtlety doesn’t sell in today’s snobbish times; hence, the modern patriarch has to have violent tendencies to be accepted by the impressionable modern society. The patriarch here, Ashutosh Rana, from his humble beginnings as a mechanic, is now a rich and powerful transport honcho. He could even be a disciple of a libertarian-socialist Godman, whose feet he washes with mineral water and then drinks the same. He believes in solving his problems without any authority’s intervention. He is his own authority. He is the stentorian voice of a once-common man he was. He sends Humpty and friends packing in a truck, battered savagely by his sycophants. The father-daughter relationship is relaxed. She’s daddy’s princess, pampered and over-protected by the typical modern-day big poppa daddy. But he can impose his preferences on her when it comes to her marriage, for he believes that his choice would be better for her in the long run. The patriarch knows that he is not a perfect husband to his wife, but he aspires to be a perfect daddy.

Humpty is a run-of-the-mill exponent of yuppie breed, who any average six-pack Joe can relate to. Like modern-day heroes he guts it out in the gym and flaunts six-pack abs with pride. Many social commentators look askance at the shaved torsos and muscular physiques of modern heroes. In the past, heroes didn’t need gymnasiums to exhibit machismo: hirsuteness was an emblem of masculinity. But things have changed. So have the ethos of machismo. The parameters of modern masculinity are tougher, as drudging machinery in the gym calls for hard work and dedication. Humpty strips himself of dignity to seek the patriarch’s approval, ready to undergo an excoriating examination under his daunting supervision. At the patriarch’s behest he could submit himself to humiliating stress positions, holding his ears by looping arms behind his knees. The patriarch doesn’t literally put him through the aforementioned murga punishment, but one can feel that Humpty has lost his soul. It is apparent that even if Humpty succeeds in marrying Kavya, he will never get respect from her family. In Kavya’s family there will always be gossips of their epic mismatch and how Humpty’s insistent implorations, like a singing beggar, led to the patriarch’s reluctant approval.

When Kavya decides to elope with him, Humpty’s paternal instinct kicks in and he persuades her to stay under the patriarch’s aegis. In spirit, he is a younger version of the patriarch. He is a conformist like him. His methods are different but his ideologies are the same as his. Like the patriarch, he is a savage at heart. When his desperate attempts of critiquing Angad fail, he almost gives up, but Kavya’s wit saves him. She artfully incites Angad to pick a fight with a lecherous hooligan at the dhaba. But instead of getting in a mad-cap brawl, Angad calmly calls the police; whereas, the frantic Humpty, throws himself on the hooligans. Although the patriarch reprimands him for his imprudence, he cannot help but see his younger self in the savage Humpty. But he snaps out of it: Humpty is too big a risk for him. He cannot let his daughter marry a lad from unfamiliar background with rickety finances, compared to Angad who scores heavily in familiarity, finances and personality. Angad is not a bad boy like the patriarch’s reflection, Humpty, but the patriarch would rather prefer a good boy than a like-minded bad boy for his daughter. It is ironic that he himself was a mechanic at the time of his marriage; but like every big poppa daddy, he seeks a better life for his daughter than he did for his wife.

The climax has an oneiric feel — a salute to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. At the eve of Kavya’s wedding, Humpty is guzzling a bottle of alcohol in despair. And he does something that is considered uncharacteristic of the modern breed: he bawls. Thereupon, the patriarch emerges to bless his approval for Humpty. But he is too brutal a pragmatist to have a such a romantic change of heart. It is a very dream-like scene. Then Kavya’s standing on the patriarch’s decorated truck, calling Humpty, is another surreal moment. Angad’s abrupt dismissal seems more of Humty’s reverie, which had no room for Angad. Humpty always yearned for a Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge-like idealistic finale to his love story. Alas, he should know that idealism does not exist in the modern civilisation. It’s a Kashyapian world.

‘Dhoom 3’ — Rhetoric On Ropes

© Yashraj Films

Iqbal Khan (Jackie Shroff) is a misunderstood artist of his generation. He is a visionary. He is not interested in rendering a generic circus machinery: that of hackneyed antics, animals (ill-treated behind the stage) and forced glamour. The callous bank executive — metaphorical of Philistine corporations and close-minded audience — is predisposed to reject his plea, with hidebound contention that viewers only expect puerility from circus. The director, Victor Acharya, sets the scene of Iqbal Khan’s plights within seconds of his introduction. Jackie Shroff, a seasoned campaigner that he is, portrays the character’s frustrations with ease. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in this role, albeit the length.

The casting of the young Sahir is crucial to the narrative. For one, he has to be a gymnast. And he has to be a good actor. He evades bullies in an act of mini-parkour. It’s a swift and effective introduction — a tap on his potential, for things to come. Siddharth Nigam is a real-life gymnast, so that takes care of acrobatics; where he excels the most is with his innate skill as an actor.

The trial circus show of 1990 is filmed very well. There’s soft “malang” tune in the background. (It would evolve into a full song and a proper circus act in future.) The circus props would also evolve in the future acts. The hat-throwing trick of the father and the son would later be replicated in the final robbery with motorbikes replacing hats. So far, so good from Victor Acharya.

Although Dhoom films are set in real world, they are quasi-fantasy films. The director makes sure that the implausible stunts are shot aesthetically. This is what separates a good director from an ordinary director. Every scene in Dhoom 3 has a function. There is a circus motif in each robbery. Tightrope walking is a common feature in circus and riding bicycle on a tightrope is a possible feat. Accordingly, the motorbike on high-rope is fully thematic in the quasi-fantasy realm of Dhoom. Since motorbikes are essential in Dhoom series, it makes for a thematic correlation between the Dhoom trope and circus. (Upon a closer inspection, preferably in high-definition, one can see that the tyres are mould in the shape of the rims to grip the rope.)

Victor Acharya uses slow-motion and ultra-slow-motion to a great effect in the motorbike scenes, without relying on gaudy tableaus. Then he immediately gets back to the normal speed: it enhances the effect of motorbike’s acceleration.

The second escape adventure is a riveting spectacle. The taut background music underlines Sahir’s predicament when the motorbike reaches the bridge. Sahir underplays well through his countenance of predicament. The scene also harks back to James Bond films where Bond uses gadgets to get out of trouble. Herein, the motorcycle unbelievably transforms into a Jet-Ski. After all, magic is meant to be unbelievable: a mix of sleight, contrivance and deception. Sahir, again, relies on circus acrobatics and magic tricks to escape. The VFX transformation is top-notch.  The entire scene is wonderfully executed without any toffee-nosed rush or jumpy chopping. The editor does a fine job in knowing when to chop and when to spare.

In both robberies, Sahir uses the disappearing trick (taught by his father) to circumvent the police.

The “malang” song is well-timed at a crucial juncture before the interval. The prelude has a sense of grandeur, silhouettes representing the young Sahir and his father, with an oration of the poem “bandey hain hum uske” in the background. Sahir’s father passes a flambeau to him and the curtain opens. Malang has so much potential that it could have become a meta-movie in the song itself. But it is still impressive, grandly expressionist with colours, shadows, outlandish creatures and magic. The qawwali version of the Dhoom tune is noteworthy. The epilogue has a sense of achievement, as Sahir somersaults out of the box to a resounding applause. The movie shows an extended version of the song, which is not there in the official video or soundtrack.

Unlike Hollywood, background music seldom gets due appreciation in Hindi cinema. Like the previous Dhoom movies, the background music is superlative. Julius Packiam blends it finely in the narrative: at times subtle, at times prominent as per the situation. It lingers on even after the movie ends. One gets to appreciate the background music more during repeat viewings. (For the record, Salim-Sulaiman did the background score for Dhoom and Dhoom 2.)

A big revelation comes at the point of interval. This scene, again, is very well directed. The good thing about Victor Acharya is that he knows when to accelerate and when to slow down. Following the confrontation with Jai, Sahir ensconces towards his room. It’s a long take with no dialogue. The length engenders a feeling of suspense. As Sahir sits on the chair, probably facing a mirror (a common mode of cinematography), one can hear his breathing. The camera circles slowly, the silence adds to the anticipation. The interval point is worthy of applause.

Abhishek Bachchan delivers his best performance of the Dhoom series. He shares more screen-time with Aamir Khan than he did with his adversaries in Dhoom and Dhoom 2. He shows a menacing streak in the scene where he interrogates Sahir. Since everything has to be done in the Dhoom framework, the film misses out on opportunities of what they could have done with Jai’s character, as well as a few other things, because in many ways, it’s Jai Dixit who comes across as a stubborn antagonist. The result, however, is still effective. Jai’s beard in the amusement park scene is shoddy: almost a blot on the great picture. Although it is probably done on purpose since he is working unofficially and he is no master of disguise like the Hrithik Roshan of Dhoom 2. It almost seems like an unintentional nod to the ostensible masquerades from the old movies where a hero (or sometimes a heroine) would put on a moustache and become unrecognisable by one and all. The computer-generated shorter beard in the later scenes is much better.

Much like Dhoom 2, Ali (Uday Chopra) is in an adjutant position. He is affable, unsophisticated character who listens to lowbrow music, wears tawdry clothes, but considers himself stylish and poetic. He is a polar opposite of Uday Chopra because of their disparate backgrounds; in spite of that, Chopra gives an unaffected performance. And that makes his performance special. 

A propos the act in India, the idea was to play it to the gallery with a rustic fight scene. The auto-rickshaw feature, however, is unbefitting to the Dhoom template. Ideally they could have harked back to the brilliant chor bazaar (black market) scene from Dhoom 1; that scene had a riveting escape (with Jai and Ali being the absconders instead of chasers) and a little story behind it. But here, there is no back story, no motif and no Dhoom twinge on the rustic tableau.

© Yashraj Films

There is an unsubstantiated criticism that Dhoom 3 lacks the essence of the Dhoom series. In that way, Dhoom 2 was very different from Dhoom 1: Dhoom 2 showed robberies, while the first Dhoom barely got into robberies; Dhoom 2 was also a love story, while Dhoom 1 wasn’t. Similarly, Dhoom 3 doesn’t show any robbery, and much like Dhoom 1, it emphasises on escapes, yet it has its own identity while inheriting the quintessence of the series. Besides, just adding a new antagonist without making any changes would be assembly-line cinema, much like The Hangover Part II.

Dhoom 3 also succeeds in bringing old-school rhetoric to the fore. The poem “bandey hain hum uske” is orated throughout the film in different tones, each at a key moment. Sahir and Iqbal Khan disperse a few memorable dialogues: “Jo duniya ko namumkin lage, wohi mauka hota hai kartab dikhane ka. [What appears impossible to the world is an opportunity to perform a feat.]” This also makes the implausible stunts apt.

Katrina Kaif plays a spirited and somewhat quirky girl. Her smile after “malang” is moving, so genuine and heart-warming. She leaves a strong impact in songs with her adroit moves and expressions. And none of the songs are forced in the narrative. This time she really unleashes her inner kamli (her passionate self), which she couldn’t do in Jab Tak Hai Jaan.  Although, excluding songs, she has a small role, her character is vital in the grand scheme of things.

It’s hard to think of any other actor with such a wide-ranging repertoire of films (acted or produced). Aamir Khan takes care of aesthetics and nuances in a remarkable performance. As always he stays true to whatever character he plays. There is no reliance on past glory, self-reference or braggadocio. His poised countenance and that remarkable stance make the motorcycle scenes more effective. He gives Sahir an aura of mystique when he goes to meet Jai Dixit at the police headquarters. His fine hat, tilted a tad upwards, gives him an air of a sly jester. In a brilliant cinematic moment, we hear Samar speak for the first time, stammering “bandey hain him uske—” in pain.  It is Aamir Khan’s brilliance that enhances the scene’s effect. In another noteworthy scene, Sahir impersonates Samar. Aamir adds a bit of Sahir in that impersonation. Since he is acting like Samar from Sahir’s point of view, not his own, he has to act not only like Samar but also incorporate Sahir into the act. It’s a subtle difference but crucial. In the same scene, where the audience cheered the loudest, Sahir says, “Hoshiari, tarqeeb aur dhokha —teeno mil jaye to log ussey jaadu samajhte hain. [When sleight, contrivance and deception converge, people think it’s magic.]” During the dialogue, he scratches his face with the gun with an old-fashioned panache. Whether it’s a nod to the old-school acting or personal mannerism, it goes well with the rhetoric. This is the closest he can come to self-reference.

Confused Connoisseurs of Cinema

Double standards of brainwashed connoisseurs. National sense of inferiority in cinema.

Snobbery, impressionability and intolerance — when they converge, people mistake it for connoisseurship, but in reality you get the gist of Indian audience. Plagiarism subsists in Indian cinema (not just Hindi cinema), but these days any similarity with a foreign film is pronounced plagiarism by lifestyle gurus. And there are gross inconsistencies in the accusations. Take for instance, Dhoom 3 is called a copy of The Prestige just because both movies feature a similar magic trick. (Rabid critics whine that both films dealt with revenge too; hence, it’s a copy. In The Prestige, a magician held a fellow magician responsible for his wife’s death and became his enemy as a result. It wasn’t a classical revenge tale. It dealt more with obsession, rivalry and magic. On the other hand, in Dhoom 3 a son seeks revenge of his father’s death from a bank owner. That way the revenge theme in Dhoom 3 is similar to that of yesteryear Hindi films like Trishul or Akayla. But revenge is one of the most commonly used themes in Indian cinema.) The core similarity between Dhoom 3 and The Prestige is the magic trick involving twins. I doubt if most of the accusers have even seen The Prestige. If that similarity makes it a copy, then the French film Irreversible should also be called a copy of Memento. Like Memento, the narrative is in reverse chronology. In both films, the protagonist is in pursuit of his spouse’s killer or rapist. But of course Irreversible, being a foreign brand, is venerated by the weak-kneed moral gurus of India. Barfi is practically a collection of copied scenes from a few foreign films and Charlie Chaplin’s gags, yet everything is brushed under the carpet because it is supposedly intellectual cinema. Even the recently released Imtiaz Ali’s Highway’s plot bears resemblances with The Chase (a 1994 Hollywood film): a rich girl is kidnapped by man from ghettos; after initial antipathy, she develops a strong bond with him. I do not mean that Highway is plagiarised work (it’s more of an inspiration), yet the same stratum of lifestyle connoisseurs, who get in a moral outrage over minor similarities, have stayed quiet this time — simply because Highway is a highbrow film. Aamir Khan’s own Ghajini had striking similarities with Memento, yet not many people made a fuss out of it — because it came in as a remake baggage from the highly feted south Indian cinema. Salman Khan’s Jai Ho’s premise is lifted from Hollywood’s Pay It Forward, but it has barely attracted any notoriety from lifestyle gurus and connoisseurs. The 2007 blockbuster Jab We Met was quite comparable to My Sassy Girl, yet Indian audience dote on it without any fuss. The yuppie breed’s front runner Hum Tum had many similarities with When Harry Met Sally, but the lifestyle gurus stayed quiet. Dhoom 3 is also called a copy of Now You See Me. There are certain similarities, but Now You See Me came only four months before it — a long time after Dhoom 3’s shooting had finished. It’s downright absurd to proclaim that they modified the script, re-shot the film, did all the complex post-production work (visual effects, editing etc.) just after seeing Now You See Me’s trailer and got everything ready for Christmas.

©Yashraj Films

In Dhoom 3, people found the motorbike’s transformation into a Jet Ski ridiculous. If a Hollywood film had done that, the same crowd would have gaped in awe. When James Bond’s car turned into a submarine, it was greeted with whistles and cheers from connoisseurs. Many Hollywood films have implausible action scenes: in Goldeneye (1995), James Bond jumped off a cliff on a motorbike and entered an imminently crashing aeroplane. It was a conspicuously impossible stunt, notwithstanding in contravention of the laws of physics. Nevertheless, it met with negligible disapproval. Had it been executed in a Hindi film, even with the same finesse, it would have led to bigoted moanings from the national bellyachers. Tom Cruise wore sticky gloves to climb vertical surfaces in Mission Impossible 4 and the propaganda connoisseurs applauded with deference; yet a similar gadget in Hindi film would be received with rabid disapproval. In Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Uma Thurman killed hundreds of assassins with a sword in one scene. In another scene, a girl decapitates a man, pumping a fountain of blood at a high pressure for a few seconds. But none of the weak-kneed connisseurs winced. The comic book themed Sin City (one of my favourites) was full of implausible fight scenes, but the spineless Indian audience didn’t complain. They would never extend the same level of tolerance for an enterprising Hindi film like that. If a film like Sin City were to be helmed in Hindi cinema, it would become an object of national scorn for its “unrealistic” fights and “stupid” comic-motion scenes. This is one of the reasons why Indian writers dread trying anything out of the box. Anurag Kashyap endeavoured Franz Kafka and Federico Fellini-style surrealist world in No Smoking. It was received with hateful hysteria from film cults. Since then, he has limited himself to easy-to-comprehend austere cinema, though he hasn’t pandered to the lusts of lowest common denominations. Imagine if Virender Sehwag had only played T20 cricket. He would still be a great cricketer but it would be such a waste of his enormous talent. People received intellectual orgasms with Gravity after it had received global acclaim. If made in India, the same film would get sardonic responses like “there is no story”, “it is like a documentary”, “it is too slow” and so forth. This is the reason why nobody would even dare to envisage a concept like this.

Lifestyle gurus, whose bellies start aching over long Hindi films, have no qualms about the lengths of long Hollywood films, namely, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Titanic etc. Even the second-grade Hollywood movies like Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, G.I. Joe Cobra, Cave are treated as cinematic deities by the class-conscious connoisseurs of India who even deride movies like 3 Idiots. How can it not be anything more than mental slavery? Choice seems to be either manufactured by peer pressure or it just does not exist. 

The level of ignorance, impressionability and intolerance spewed by snobs is metaphorical of mob violence. If in the past, Indian audience were afraid to express their opinions, now they are afraid to form an opinion; as it shows, media and lifestyle gurus do all the thinking for them. Mob mentality is considered a virtue in Indian society. Lifestyle gurus exploit this sentiment to manipulate mental slaves. Snobbery and impressionability always go hand in hand; add ignorance it, and it becomes a fatal combination.