Indian Movies Thread IV

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Knot or not? Ash, Abhishek spotted in temple </b>
Link
IBNLive Specials
Posted Monday , November 27, 2006 at 08:01
New Delhi: Did they or did they knot? When the entire Bachchan clan arrived in the holy town of Varanasi with Aishwarya Rai in tow late on Sunday night, it sent rumour mills working overtime.

Did Bollywood's first family fly to Varanasi to solemnise the much-anticipated wedding between scion Abhishek and his lady-love Aishwarya?

Or was it just a ritual being conducted to observe the 99th birth anniversary of Amitabh Bachchan’s father and noted poet late Harivarnshrai Bachchan?

Well, no one can say for sure.

With Bachchans and Ash remaining tightlipped over the issue, the mystery continued.

<b>Early on Monday morning, when a garlanded Abhishek and Aishwarya – accompanied by the Bachchans - emerged from the Sankat Mochan temple it sent the media - camping overnight - aflutter.

According to reports, Abhishek's father and Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, mother Jaya, sister Shweta Nanda, uncle Ajitabh and his daughter Namrata and Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh took part in a 'Mangla Aarti' and 'Rudra Abhishek' rituals at the ancient temples.

The family also offered prayers at Ram Janaki temple near Sankat Mochan temple and participated in an 'aarti' for Lord Hanuman there. </b>

The Bachchans and Aishwarya reached temples amidst heavy posse of police personnel and a battery of media persons on Sunday night.

"They performed the rituals with great zeal. Amitabh and Jaya offered the 'jalabhishek' (offering of water to the diety). I also requested Abhishek and Aishwarya to do so," Kashi Viswanath temple priest Srikant Tripathi was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.

Quizzed on the reasons for Bachchans conducting such pujas, Tripathi said he was not aware of the reasons and that there was no specific ritual performed to reduce the influence of Mars on the actors.

Astrologer Chandramouli Upadhyaya, who met the Bachchans late on Sunday night, said there was no discussion on the marriage and the family had gone there to offer prayers at the temples to overcome a problem relating to the horoscope of Aishwarya.

There have been considerable speculation in the media about marriage between Abhishek and Aishwarya but neither family has confirmed it.

Amitabh had said in London on November 9 this year that he wanted Abhishek to settle with a "good girl" of his choice.

Asked about the prospect of Abhishek marrying Aishwarya, the older Bachchan had quipped: "I have also heard about it. You should ask the people who spread the rumour".

Abhishek and Aishwarya have starred together in Hindi films like Dhai Akshar Prem Ke, Kuch Na Kaho, recently- released Umrao Jaan and soon-to-be screened Dhoom II as also Mani Ratnam's forthcoming Guru.

The Bachchans flew into this temple town by a chartered flight late on Sunday night and were staying in seven suites in Hotel Taj Ganges.

The star guests entered the hotel through the rear entry giving a slip to the media and a surge of onlookers assembled at the lobby and outside. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

'93 blasts: Dutt gets mixed verdict
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt has been pronounced guilty in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case under the Arms Act. He has however been acquitted under TADA<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

Anyone watching the tele series Ravan on ZEETV on Sundays? They are presenting the story from Ravan's prespective based on Ramayana. Even here the greatness of Rama comes thru. He not only wanted to win but win fairly.

The first episode starts with death of Meghnath. They have a geopolitical angle to it.

[Guest]

Ramana: I did and was left with more questions than before - hopefully future episodes will shed some light on it.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The first episode starts with death of Meghnath. They have a geopolitical angle to it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sita's abduction is mentioned as a "political move". How and what was it?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Even here the greatness of Rama comes thru. He not only wanted to win but win fairly.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Compare with Krishna in Mahabharata who's more practical.

[ramana]

Thats why Rama is the ideal purush and maryada Rama.

Have you played chess? Abduction of the queen is an important move.

While at it anyone watching the Rai- Bachan marriage moves? They will have significant impact on the social mores.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Clooney wants to act in Bollywood</b>
link
movie 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
NEW DELHI -        George Clooney says he'd like to appear in one of India's spectacular song-and-dance movies.

"I'd love to. There are some filmmakers whose films when you see (them) you say, `That could be an interesting story to tell,'" the 45-year-old actor said in an interview Thursday on the private CNN-IBN channel.

Clooney said he's a fan of Bollywood, India's prolific Hindi film industry, and is impressed by the way it has expanded.

"I was watching a film the other day and the music was just amazing. It's become such a huge industry," he said.

"There is a small market in the (United) States as of now, but it will be fun if it catches on because it is such a positive way of looking at filmmaking and I really love that. I truly think it's fun," he said.

Clooney, a favorite among India's English-speaking middle and upper classes, won a best supporting actor Oscar for 2005's "Syriana."

"It seems like the Indian filmmakers are pushing boundaries in terms of pushing the censors. I think it's (Bollywood) an interesting place for filmmakers to go," he said.

Clooney's upcoming movie, "The Good German," will be released by Warner Bros. in the United States later this month. It will be released in India next year
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Now, I may start watching Indian Cinema <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[ramana]

Ravan serial update. There is a heavy dose of Aryan vs non Aryan conflict. I see it is a different world view between that of Ravan and Rama. People in India need to watch the impact of this serial on the South.

[Guest]

Ramana: It's the standard devas-yakshaks-asuras war with Aryan vs non Aryan bit. The serial started smack in middle of war and in very third episode Ravana's ready for Bhramastra's which has left Rama's bow.
I hope the serial goes back and digs into the initial stages of Ravana's life, his birth, his parents etc.. it could clear some myths. In a separate thread we might be able to piece this together with help of the gurus around here.

[Guest]

I forget the complete details but one of our tauji used to tell an old family story that Sri Rama had arranged a ceremony and invited all brahmins to atone for Ravana (Brahma) Hatya. Our family had boycotted it and had been cursed as a result of that.

[ramana]

Book Review from Telegraph, kolkota 15 Dec 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->RING OF TRUTH
- Ray unpacked and re-assembled 


Apu and After: Re-visiting Ray’s Cinema
Edited by Moinak Biswas
Seagull, Rs 495

“Now, erudition is something I singularly lack.” Coming at the very beginning of Satyajit Ray’s Amal Bhattacharjee Memorial Lecture, delivered in 1982, never has scholarly diffidence been so magnificent, yet so sparely and elegantly expressed. And that is the problem with Ray today. Very few of the inheritors and explicators of his legacy in Bengal — film-makers, reviewers and academicians alike — would be able to pull off the casual stylishness of that ‘singularly’, and the impeccably sly pseudo-humility of that initial ‘now’. This has kept alive a monumentalism (or its obverse, iconoclasm) that comes in the way of proper critical and creative engagements with his work which are of comparable distinction. One is left, therefore, with such things as the horrific effrontery of Gautam Ghosh’s Abar Aranye, or equally deadening ritual affirmations of the family line.

This anthology of critical essays brings together some of academic India’s most formidable minds (and prose styles) in order to redress that imbalance. Inevitably, there is a great deal of erudition informing this book, not only of the kind that Ray would have been grateful for, but also the sort from which he would have distanced himself humorously. Yet, the possibilities of reading opened out in the editor’s finely-honed introduction were already there in Ray’s 1982 lecture, especially in Ray’s masterly translation of the first seven minutes of Charulata into descriptive-analytical prose. <b>The relationship of his films to earlier and contemporary Indian and European cinema, and to a cosmopolitan medley of literary, graphic, pictorial and musical traditions was one of the themes elaborated in Ray’s brilliantly lucid lecture, as it had been earlier in Our Films, Their Films.</b>

Biswas’s introduction takes as a real achievement the peculiar “elegance and nobility” of Ray’s best work, its “distinctive restraint” and “quiet dignity”. The critical project, then, is “a kind of dispersal of the iconic work”, the “unpacking and re-assembling” of the historical convergences that make up its rich weave of “cultural composition” and “tonal calibration”. But the elegance and reticence of Art are founded on problematic “imperatives of exclusion”. Hence the question binding the essays together becomes, “What is it that is kept out of the frame so that Ray is able to say what he seems to say?” This is ultimately “the question of realism”. <b>How does Ray’s cinema negotiate — by creating spaces of exchange and of interrogation — the pressure of the “contemporary”, the aesthetic and political demands of Modernism as well as modernity? History and experience, nationhood, personhood and the market, the presence in time and space of bodies, things, places and money, together with the perceptual, mimetic and ideological universes in which they exist, are what make up the pressures of the Real. How do Ray’s films represent these pressures, while forging their “internal distance” from them? What is the nature of his cinematic modernity’s break with the past?</b>

Biswas’s own essay addresses these questions in a nuanced and detailed reading of Bibhutibhushan’s Pather Panchali and Aparajito, alongside Ray’s Apu Trilogy. For Biswas, the trilogy becomes a re-description of “a world touched and transformed by a literary tradition”, creating a “sensate space…imbued with intelligence and feeling”. “Life in a poor village does ramble,” Ray had realized while preparing to shoot Pather Panchali, and for his film to have the “ring of truth”, the director, in Biswas’s words, had to “reach out to a life and its rhythm, life perceived as rhythm”. <b>The “truth” of the films thus encompasses not only a “sociological perception of poverty from ‘inside’”, but also such human nuances as the mother-son relationship: “Ray is unsparing in exposing the basic cruelty of the situation, a cruelty for which there is no visible person to blame.”</b>

Suman Ghosh’s reading of the Kanchenjungha screenplay shows Ray perceiving Life and Art not so much as rhythm, as in terms of musical structure, especially the sonata form as developed by Mozart and Beethoven. A properly documented, rather than randomly impressionistic, study of what Adi Gazdar had called “Manik and his Music” is long overdue. Ghosh’s analysis will have to reach beyond the plot-structure of the films, their literary-textual skeleton, to look at how their visual and aural matter, their cinematic essence, is informed by a sensibility steeped in the musical and intellectual structures of Indian as well as Western classical music. In fact, there is a crucial tension within Ray’s entire corpus, and in some individual films, between the structures and principles of Indian music and those of Western music.

This is not confined to their background scores, but in the way the films visualize space and sequence, situation and story, and order their internal conflicts, connections and resolutions. Also, it is not just the sonata form of Mozart and Haydn, but also the counterpoint of Bach, the two traditions coming together in Beethoven (Ray played the Grosse Fuge in his radio talk, “What Beethoven Means to Me”), that is essential to Ray’s musical sensibility (as it was to Bergman’s), and determines his arrangement of the spaces and sequences of cinema. The sonata, fugue and rondo (and, at a somewhat different level, the concerto), and the temporal and ornamental elaboration of the raga, become distinct narrative and structural principles — “ideas of order” — in Ray’s cinema. It is also worth thinking through the complex relationship between Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The analysis of the carnivalesque “peasant gaze” in Mihir Bhattacharya’s reading of Ray’s musical, through the dialectic of classical and folk music, would be reinforced by such a comparison.

Both Supriya Chaudhuri and Sibaji Bandopadhyay are enthralled by cinema’s strange relationship with memory, and with the disorienting “bad faith” of history as experienced by bodied selves in urban and sylvan spaces. “Isn’t it very very difficult (if not impossible) to deal with the phenomena of memory in cinema?” asks Bandopadhyay in his reading of the Memory Game sequence from Aranyer Din Ratri. “In what sense is a film a record of anything?” asks Chaudhuri in her beautifully personal, intellectually rigorous, and Proustian revisiting of Pratidwandi, Seemabaddha and Jana Aranya. (The horizons glimpsed in the essays by Biswas and Chaudhuri, leaving Film Studies quite a way behind, remind one of such experiments in interpretation as William Arrowsmith’s book on Antonioni or Enzo Siciliano’s celebrated biography of Pasolini.)

The tart and mischievous core of Bandopadhyay’s Marxian-Freudian-Derridean critique — that the Memory Game is a game of “unwitting self-betrayal” — is placed within a daunting, bravura feat of over-interpretation. One finds oneself wanting to read it like a vengeful parody of its own unstoppable copiousness. For Bandopadhyay, from the very first shot of the film, Ray is preparing us for “the enactment of a prank”. This lovely phrase is then expanded as “a sudden eruption that blurs the distinction between ‘travel’ and ‘tourism’ and a consequent involution of the principle of assignment upon which are predicated the norms of knowing and aesthetic evaluation of the ‘other’ in both the discourses of (colonial or para-colonial) travelling and (postcolonial) tourism”.

One remembers Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak telling her Columbia University audience last year, with evident glee, that what she realized while writing her memoirs is “how much I really liked to write my obscure and terrible things.”

AVEEK SEN
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[Guest]

Interesting article.. Secularism in Hindi cinema has primarily been a Hindu’s responsibility: Javed Akhtar

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->He said that if one makes a list of Hindi film villains over the last few decades, he can actually learn everything there is to know about society’s evolution in India. In the 1940s, we had the Zamindars as villains, which was a reflection of the actual state of affairs. In the 50s, this villain lot was replaced by the factory owner bully. In the 60s, however, the underworld don of big cities ruled the small screen as the bad guy. “In the 70s, this underworld don became a hero,” quipped Akhtar. In the 1980s, the villain in a Hindi film was invariably a policeman or a politician – yet again a reflection of societal affairs. “In the 90s, Pakistan became the villain,” said a candid Akhtar, to everyone’s amusement. “In the new millennium, we don’t have any villains; such characters in today’s movies frighteningly resemble us!”
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On secularism, Akhtar said that while we can have a ‘Vijay’ getting saved by a ‘786 billa’ (metal arm band that Amitabh Bachchan wears in ‘Coolie’), one is yet to hear of a Muslim character being saved by a Ganesh idol. “I haven’t seen a Muslim character play Holi in any film, although millions of them do so in real life,” Akhtar added. Further, while a goon can hide gold behind a Hindu deity, one can’t show a similar situation in a mosque, as filmmakers are afraid of hurting the sentiments of a minority. This is getting reflected in society too. “We find that few got arrested for the Gujarat genocide,” Akhtar said. <span style='color:blue'>(comment: of course any talk of secularism has to involve Gujarat! though the facts are that this riots have had more arrests than most other riots combined)</span>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>It all boiled down to one point: filmmakers know exactly what society can take, and what it won’t accept.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

X-Posted from BR

ramana wrote
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Has anyone seen the new Umrao Jaan and saw the strains of social decay in Islamic heartland in India, that led to the revival in post 1857 society?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Kakkaji wrote
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->ramana:

The 'social decay' of the Delhi-Awadh heartland in that time (after Aurangzeb) is well-known and personified by Mohammad Shah 'Rangeela' and Wazid Ali Shah. It was one reason why many Indians helped the British during 1857 because they did not want to bring back the Mughal+Awadh rule.

Post 1857, when the 'old' order had been brutally and finally put down by the British, the environment became conducive for social reformers to rise from among the new english-educated elite like Raja Rammohan Roy who could confront the social evils that pervaded Hindu society. Even among the Muslims, Sir Syed Ahmed brought about a new, english-educated elite which could not have been possible before the events of 1857.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

AnandK wrote
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The "Mohammedan Revival" following 1857 Revolt sought a <b>return</b> to those very "good old days" of Nawabdoms, fawning European lobbyists and salesmen, Tawaifs and Nautch Girls, pan, pulao..... and the occasional old Mullah/Sufi to add some cool "spirituality" to life. IIRC right here in BRF, Singha(?) said something about the RAPE/Indian Islamist's nostalgia for the "Umrao Jaan" and "Pakeezah" lifestyle.

The original Kotha culture vanished because there were no more Nawabs and assorted Pooh-Bah's to patronize these institutions. The Angrez masters, being the true "Wham! Bam! Righto, Ma'am!" British they were, preferred discreet little Zenanas while the lesser officers/subalterns/sepoys were presented with whole Red-Light *Districts* like Kamathipura, G.B.Road, Gandha Gully etc. They had no time for the elaborate rituals, (the usually educated and cultured... and hence too expensive) Tawaifs and their performing arts, the splendor of the Kotha or the social etiquettes the Tawaifs were supposed to teach the adolescent members of Nobility.
Dalrymple's City of Jinns talk about some old Ashraf types's nostalgia for the Kothas..... some maintain these Kothas weren't "just" brothels, but finishing schools, extended arts appreciation tours and what not! <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo--> Well, there might be an amount of truth in this too... given Ulema's stance on Music and Dance and of course, <i>Zina</i>. Can't learn all that stuff in a "vetted" Mullah Fakruddin's Madrassa for Young Men [estb. 606 H.E.], eh? Kothas which functioned under direct patronage of the high and mighty, and hence out of Shariyat jurisdiction and other such trifles could provide that....

The point is, loss of this grand lifestyle was a major blow to H&D. AFAIK, the "debauchery" was not seen as any virtue by the beards (and even the reformist beards), but they didn't hold this singularly responsible for loss of power. There were no serious efforts to teach the Moimeen about the real stuff; the virtues of Emancipation, a little Victorian Morality, Monogamy, Science etc..... and they didn't rail against all those Medieval Islamic *institutions* as such. What the Syed Ahmad Khan types did was to infuse a wee little bit of modernity to Muslim society, learn some <i>Angrezi</i>, toady out some preferential treatment from the Brits.....<b> so that they (at least the upper class Muslims) don't get left behind too far</b>.
----------------
BTW,
The character played by AB is a Pathan.... and apparently their types are all around the heartland as Chota and Bada Nawabs. This points to that period in History when Afghan freebooters and soldiers-of-fortune entered India and took advantage of the twilight of the Islamic and Hindu powers. (IIRC our Nawab of Pataudi's ancestor came to India as a mercenary for the Nawab of Bhopal). This is another aspect of the decay in India during those times....<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

and
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Quote Kakkaji
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The 'social decay' of the Delhi-Awadh heartland in that time (after Aurangzeb) is well-known and personified by <b>Mohammad Shah 'Rangeela'</b> and Wazid Ali Shah. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Ahhh yes.... if you think Urmila went too naughty in her Rangeela, you haven't met THIS guy. A hilarious, yet pathetic (mebbe exaggerated) picture is given in Khushwant Singh's "Delhi" :oops:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

ramana replied:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So Kakkaji and AnandK, How much of the Shia power was swept away from the heartland of Northern India in the British respons? I think this led to the rise of the Sunni hardliners in that area post 1857. Maybe in another thread?

BTW one comment I heard was that this version lacked substance when compared to the older version.

There was a desire to present the Mallika e- Jahan in Nawabi grab for the sake of the pure ones across the border to let them know what was missed when they chose to go away. Please look for images in IRoT of this film to get my drift.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

Actually Javed Akhtar's remarks that secularism is the Hindu's responsebility is reflective of the society as well in all other aspects of discourse- political, social and cultural. He is calling a spade a spade.

[Guest]

Lot of free old and good movies by rajshree, excellent collection of short historical and religious movies and documentary. [those without rate are free}
http://www.rajshri.com/movies/movies.asp?page=1

[Bharatvarsh]

Anyone interested in Telugu movies, the following pauranik movies are a must watch:

1) Dhana Veera Sura Karna (NTR plays Karna)
2) Mayabazaar (based on the marriage of Sheshirekha and Abhimanyu, NTR plays Krishna)
3) Pandava Vanavasam
4) Sri Krishna Pandaveeyam (NTR plays Krishna)
5) Bhookailas (Ravana's bhakti towards Shiva, NTR plays Ravana)
6) Lavakusa (NTR plays Rama)
7) Bhakta Prahlada
8) Narthanasala

In almost everyone of these movies NTR plays a major role, in one of his other movies I forgot the title he played 5 roles in one movie including Arjuna, Krishna, Karna, Duryodhana and some other role. By the end of his career he was practically identified with Sri Krishna in Andhra, as a kid I even used to think that the real Sri Krishna must have looked like NTR only.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jan 1 2007, 04:02 AM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jan 1 2007, 04:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->....... I forgot the title he played 5 roles in one movie including Arjuna, Krishna, Karna, Duryodhana and some other role. By the end of his career he was practically identified with Sri Krishna in Andhra, as a kid I even used to think that the real Sri Krishna must have looked like NTR only.
[right][snapback]62649[/snapback][/right]
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Srimad Virata Parvam...

[Bharatvarsh]

The other day I came across Vivah and watched it, thought it was ok (better than some of the other trash I saw recently) but some of the reviews I read seemed to have a different agenda of their own, according to two of these progressives the movie is "unbelievably regressive", I didn't get that part because from what I know the majority of marriages in India are still arranged marriages (especially in small towns and villages) and most people who have arranged marriages do meet in the way shown in the movie, the shuddh Hindi part was nice although I thought it was a little unrealistic (maybe people from Hindi speaking states can correct me about whether villagers still talk in shuddh Hindi or not).

I have never seen these guys criticise movies where the heroine dresses so progressively that she would put an NY City hooker to shame, maybe I am one regressive Hindu fascist talking but my own experiences show the movie to be closer to reality than other trash, these attitudes of being "oh so much more progressive than thou" I found come from people in big cities like Mumbai or Delhi, these people never seem to have been to an Indian village (and whether we like it or not, the majority of India still lives in the villages) and seem to be totally out of touch with the ground reality. I even read an article by our progressive Rahul Bose (from Mr and Mrs Iyer) about how regressive Karva Chauth is.

Here it is:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mumbo-jumbo

Hindu religious ritual has too great a presence in Indian public space

BY RAHUL BOSE

In a post-9/11 world, where the secular space shrinks every day (ask Brit-Asian
males in London), the very definition of secularism needs to be constantly
refreshed and contemporised. As Amartya Sen writes in The Argumentative Indian,
"Indeed, there are two principal approaches to secularism, focusing respectively
on (1) neutrality between different religions, and (2) prohibition of religious
associations in state activities. Indian secularism has tended to emphasise
neutrality in particular, rather than prohibition in general". Therefore "the
secular demand that the state be 'equidistant' from different religions." Mr Sen
goes on to indicate the advantages of the neutrality aspect of secularism rather
than the prohibition of all religious associations. I could not agree more. The
former interpretation has an inclusive, humanist exposition of the issue rather
than the absolutist, 'take-no-prisoners' position of the latter. The point of
examination in this piece is not whether India's implementation of its secular
ideals has reflected this neutrality. The answer to that question is painful in
its unambiguity.

Successive governments have failed spectacularly. Whether it is Shah Bano, Babri
Masjid or the state-sponsored pogrom in Gujarat, at crucial, defining moments of
the secular character of this nation, we have made choices more suited to an
intolerant, biased, opportunistic state. And while these outrages must propel,
must compel us to fight the hypocrisy of our political masters, equally I find
my attention of late being drawn to a gentler though deeply insidious form of
bigotry in our polity. I refer to the daily, almost unconscious use of Hindu
religious symbolism and practices in forums where religion should have no entry.

Consider the arti done on foreign dignitaries when they visit the country. The
lamp-lighting ceremony at government-sponsored cultural festivals. Advertising
films selling motorcycles to the chant of Hindu scriptures. The breaking of a
coconut when a new film is started. Admirable symbols of tradition, piety,
sanctity, but clearly, religious symbols. More specifically, religious symbols
of one religion, the religion of the majority. I recollect visiting a Bombay
college owned and run by Hindus where I was greeted with an arti ceremony. At
the conclusion of the lecture I had been invited to deliver, I asked the college
principal what connection a Hindu ceremony had with an address on gender
equality. Bemused, she replied that it was the Indian way of showing respect to
a guest. Is it the Indian way? Will I expect a similar welcome if I go to a
college run by Christian missionaries? More probably, will it be a Christian
version of the arti? What then, when I visit Aligarh Muslim University?

My growing concern is not with the use of ceremony to mark an occasion. It is
the use of religious symbolism. Occasionally when I have raised the point I have
had Hindus say I am making too much of the issue. That these symbols have now
taken on a pan-Indian significance. That they capture the ceremony of a moment
most appropriately. That they are accepted and practised not as Hindu traditions
but as Indian traditions. A soothing, tempting position, but not entirely
correct. If I do not ever see a Muslim family conduct a grihapravesh ceremony as
they enter their new home (probably in a Muslim neighbourhood they have been
ghettoised into, in places like Narendra Modi's Gujarat), why then does a paint
commercial use this ceremony in their latest television advertisement? This is
where it all gets worrying. Looked at any which way, consciously or otherwise, a
Hindu-dominated advertising agency is selling the idea to a Hindu-dominated
paint company that is selling a product to a Hindu-dominated country. As
one-fifth of your market with their belief in other religious persuasions,
notwithstanding atheists and agnostics, watches - helpless, unmoved or even
resentful.

If indeed this country professes to practice a secularism that is founded on the
theory of neutrality or equal distance from all religions, then surely it should
follow that either we remove the use of Hindu traditions to mark non-religious
gatherings or ensure all religions find equal expression in all forums. The
latter option will result in a political correctness that promises chaos, not
all of it without humour. Bewildered dignitaries will find themselves accorded
the traditional Zoroastrian greeting at one five-star hotel and a Buddhist
welcome at another. Government functions will automatically expand by a couple
of hours as they start with a reading from religious scriptures of all different
faiths. The latest advertising commercial will feature a Sikh couple racing to
bless their new car through an Ardas at their neighbourhood gurdwara.

Clearly the case for removing religion from the non-religious sphere is a strong
one. Any step to erase feelings of alienation that Indians who are not Hindus
might feel both within and without this country is a step towards peace, not to
mention prosperity. Why cannot children tell us about their dreams for India at
the inauguration of a cultural festival? Why cannot dignitaries be invited to
have tea with their designated hospitality staff as a welcome gesture? Why
cannot we see a TV spot about a couple marking their 25th anniversary, not by a
recreation of their Hindu wedding, but by donating to their favourite charity?
Underlying all of this will be the quiet belief that religion has no place in
the public sphere. It will require the correct interpretation and implementation
of our Constitution to firmly steer the nation away from this sense of
divisiveness so deep-seated that questions that should be asked lie unspoken.
But make no mistake about this. One hundred and fifty million Indians watch in
resignation every day as a car maker uses Karva Chauth to sell its latest luxury
model. Whether this incredibly regressive ritual should be used at all is matter
for another article altogether.

http://www.sab rang.com/gcolumn/rahulnov05.htm
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I think Bose should be deported into Bangladesh where he will finally escape from having anything to do with our mumbo jumbo and can live out the rest of his progressive life.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->a little unrealistic (maybe people from Hindi speaking states can correct me about whether villagers still talk in shuddh Hindi or not).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, people speak in shuddh Hindi in UP, Uttranchal, part of MP and Chattisgarh.
So called progressive journalist are perverts. Have you seen them writing about eve-teasing or molesting in public places? They are against civil life. Some journalist from India came to San Francisco Bay Area to cover IT company press briefing; first place they want to visit was Gay and nude Bars.

[Guest]

Bharatvarsh

I have seen similar stupid reviews about Vivah.

Talking about whats realistic - entire movie industry is based on unrealistic stuff - thats one of the most bogus criticism that one can think of. I didnt see vivah, wife did see it. She liked it. I usually like comedies, dhishoom-dhishoom and hence didnt see it.

BTW recently I was reading interview of this singer Shaan. In his interview he said he grew up in Bandra (Mumbai) and you were supposed to 'regressive' if you listen to hindi music (but he was a kishore kumar fan anyways). I bet these stupid reviews are written by inferiority-complex-is-my-middle-name nuts who grew up like this onlee.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Mr and Mrs Iyer<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I dont remember this movie completely but wasnt this movie anti-semitic ?