A National award- late or right time?

After couple of Anandalok and Shananda awards, now it’s time for a National award to move into the shelves. Is it a calamity, is it a shock, is it news or is it a hard fought dream? No it’s a sheer truth. No chance of ABP backing the results, so you can’t say it’s an “I am looking after you, you better look after me” kind of scenario. But there’s something really weird about Rupam bagging the National award because these days neither his voice is at any close of being at its best self nor songs of mahanagar@kolkata for which he got the award are out of this world kind. Though it’s weird but its ok for you as Rupam got it. You feel like you won the long lost battle against your mom and dad and all the other haters who had been asking you not to play any of his numbers in your room during those hay days and you kept on saying its rock, a different genre!

But don’t you think Rupam deserved a lot more few years ago, when he didn’t host a single show in radio station, he didn’t write a single article for any big newspaper group, he didn’t took interest in solving anybody’s love problem? Didn't he deserve it when no body knew how Rupam looks, nobody knew who is Mou (even many thought it as Mon), whats the surname of Rupam?

Yes Rupam deserved something big during those days when a Layman crooned “Bessabritti kukurer bichhanay” (instead of “Dupurer”) and never felt like he had been singing something quite bizarre, as he had wanted to see the prostitute that he still sketches in mind, on bed with a dog! Rupam deserved it when a school student enhanced the volume of his transistor a few notches higher when RJ had played a rare “Ekla Ghar” or a “Hashnuhana”, Rupam deserved it when a guy cried in a live concert while listening to “ManobBoma”.

Rupam made your anger worth of its value. Rupam gave words on your mouth as he interpreted your reactions to a failure. Every college going youth had once synchronized his life with his songs. There's been so much of life in his lyrics.

For the past 10 -12 years Manashi has been asked to come near the door for just once; I think even a living Manashi would get pissed off and say “Hang on Rupam, you know I won’t come”, but you, the listener don’t get bored. A “Dekho manashi” or a “Nishkraman” still charms you like the way they did when you had listened them for the first time in your life. You brought the Fossils 2 in your home and played it. On first listening you said what the hell is this, but still Rupam somehow accumulated your love for all the numbers of Fossils2. You didn’t buy it you brought it.Mission F arrived, end of piracy for you if its Fossils. You understood its worth buying because you are not only loving the man, you are respecting him in your subconcious mind. You understood Rupam's songs are like slow poisons and demands patience of 5-10 time listening, You saw Rupam on stage several times, you learned what is head banging, you went mad for his songs, and you quarreled with others when someone had said Rupam’s screws are loose. There was a period in your life when no song in this world sounded better than Rupam’s. The unplugged show on a FM station put the last nail on the coffin of your doubt. You understood your love for Rupam was absolutely right.

End of story, period. Rupam got married. Even ROTR stopped; really the show was getting boring, because Rupam was making it as boring as possible. By that time every session of those 2 hours at late night introduced yourself with the poet with in you though. You said hang on even I can write and speak like Rupam.

Rupam became an umbrella term. The English medium going school students even started talking Bengali the way Rupam used to and even gathered interest in the songs of Fossils. Suddenly there’s a new breed of fossils fans, who radically became fossils fan. Though they will never understand what these songs actually mean but they will never leave a single stone unturned to speak about some shithead implication of those songs. A sliver too generated in between the fans and the veterans kept on leaving the place and the glory of legacy, because they knew it’s not happening any more. Taking the burden of these wannabe Bengali’s would have been too much for them.

Suddenly there’s a rise of a business man whom you never knew, who is probably selling his songs not singing them. From solving love problems to dandruff on hair, Rupam started to show interest in many things those have no relation with music. Interaction with the Fans was just an excuse, it was just like a bollywood star promoting his/her film.You don’t feel the charm the way you used to. But the love never died; as it was a love of a different kind. Fossils 1 and “Neel rong” always help to bring back the lost love and you kept on crawling back down memory lane.

For a listener, a good listener, whats important an award or quality stuff from his Guru. Rupam killed his million doller voice emulating Mariah Carrey time and again, though it did give him the range but it lost the magic of giving you the pleasure when you were alone and you played an “Ekla ghar” in your lonely room. Tell me how many songs you got from him of that standard after the 1st album. You got nothing except one “Shasti”.

A song writer who has been writing songs on lost love for ages, there’s has to be honesty in him and among his co workers. Either it seams he is selling frustrations to the DEV D’s or he is no more the man we listened.

Rupam was best and the best when he was a man of Utopia, a voice who bounded others to see his face, but when every body looked at him, he said “well if you are looking at me, what to do with my voice”.

Udaan : All that T(or F)akes to be a Man !

I know there’s a very weird being inside me, who keeps on talking about something or someone it loves, and never stops though the normal side of me knows that others sitting around ,who are 100 times more normal than my normal being, are getting extremely bored and on the verge of stitching up my mouth. When I thought about writing this down on paper, my weird side was obviously on a very high note and at its wildest best. So there was hardly any chance that the normal side could have conquered his opposite down. So please forgive me or rather that weird side.

First thing first, I liked the movie “Udaan”, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, and I was very disappointed on myself, for not being able to take out ample time to write something about it when it had released in theatres.

Most of the Hindi movies of recent times do not even bother about keeping the title of the movie reasonable, as Shakespeare ushers his hello on bollywood; “what’s in a name” you know. But we are neither talking about any Shakespeare nor about any Karan Johar, we are talking about Anurag Kashyap, the genius and his talented assistant and now the director of his very own film, Vikramaditya Motwane. Udaan’s title was a very puzzling one for me at the beginning when I just came out from the theaters. I mean, Udaan for what? Why Rohan needs to take off? Is it because he has been expelled from school for watching B-grade Hindi movie, jumping the walls of the hostels? Is it just like “Wake up side”? Is “taking off” synonymous to “waking up” like the way Sid (Ranbeer Kapoor) did?

The answer is big and loud “No”. There’s a huge gap, between a Rohan coming from an industrial town like Jamshedpur and a Sid, coming from the city of Mumbai. You see, Dil Chahta hai, you find a group of three friends, who cares about life partners, having fun in life. There’s no pressure of future, if nothing turns out properly then there’s a father to hold his shoulder. On every thing said and done, there’s a clear cut Farhan Akhtar stamped all Over DCH. The Farhan we all know the son of a renowned lyricist of India. For small town guys like Anurag himself, if you don’t do it all by yours, you are finished. You may a have a father, but he is not your Godfather you know!


For me Udaan is neither about the generation gap between a small town Father and his son nor about the fight of a son against his Hitler like dad, who wants to make a prototype of his wishes in the form of his son. Udaan is about men, and masculinity! And this movie defines the flight (Read Udaan) of a man, as he fights (not flight again!) the gravity of the perception rooted in this male dominated world of him being hailed like a hero, truly because of his masculinity. How clichéd that sounds for Rohan, the protagonist of Udaan, when he faces no female characters around him, to stand his authority that he deserved by his inheritance. Yes, Udaan does not deal with any female characters, and has a very definite reason behind it.

Udaan is a tight slap on the face of male chauvinism, when the boy is left alone in his growth and no girl is growing up side by side. Is it not true that when we present a doll to a girl, we are squeezing her down in choice of something different that may relate to independence or freedom? Similarly should not some one stand and say that presenting a computer game of gun fight to a boy, is making him incomplete from the beginning of his life; as he will continue to live like a hypocrite throughout his life, thinking oh I have brought so many down, I am at the peak of manliness, what he is not? Its like hitting a six by a tap of a key on a keyboard and not even holding the bat properly when balls are bowled over 80 miles per hour. We live in a very male dominant society, where valor is supposed to be men’s right and chastity is girl’s virtue. But when a boy grows up to a man, he genuinely feels that the results happening around him are extremely biased and that decays him from inside as he hardly complains.

A MAN CAN ONLY FEEL AND FIGHT, WHEN SOMEONE BREAKS THAT BARRIER OR THE FENCE OF INEQUALITY. YES, THE JUDGEMENT DAY ONLY COMES WHEN THERE’S ONLY MEN AROUND A MAN.

There are three male characters in the movie, which represents three different stages of manliness and you will be really thinking on the wrong side of it, if you judge their activities by their age. Each of the character has his own share of clash with the other in terms of manliness. Bhairav Singh (Ronit Roy) plays a very rude and disciplinarian father in Udaan, and you can easily think him as a psycho. Don’t do that I say, because you will be trapped. Now why I am saying that, let me explain.

Do you remember the initial battles between Rohan and Bhairav Singh? The two men trying desperately to knock the other down; if not by the muscle power, then by words I guess. EXAMPLE – Bhairav wants him to be called a Sir rather than Dad or Papa. You will see clearly a Bhairav grooming somewhere inside Rohan [“Ghumiye ache Sokol Pita sob sishur e Ontor e” There’s every father sleeping inside his child]. Though Rohan does not express himself strident, like the way Bhairav does, but he too claims his superiority over Arjun and reacts the same to Arjun as his father does to him. Remember Arjun getting stuck between His father and the big brother, and jumping the stairs up and down like a shuttle-cock. Udaan very quickly settles the priority queue of manliness.

Rohan makes his Father waiting in his car intentionally and eventually Bhairav leaves the place dejected, or should I say that was his punishment to Rohan. Instead of giving Arjun the company Rohan, just like his Father, leaves for his work. The poor little Arjun helpless by the battle of two superior masculine tries to hold the hand of Rohan. Rohan takes his hand away. Arjun understands the first lessons of masculinity. What it takes to be a man, when he is living with two out and out men, devoid of any feminism inside. Arjun walks alone.

Smoking, Driving, Big tattoos on Muscles, Drinking alcohol and committing sex; that define Masculinity for Bhairav. He checks with Rohan whether he has done all of them or not, and when he finds the last one is missing on the list, he jumps on Rohan and abuses him straight way “Aare tum toh ladki ho”. The pride of being a man is on forth and roaring.

Arjun smallest of the lot, who can’t stand on his rights does the same when there’s no one watching him. He takes his small toys and abuses the bigger one of Rohan. That’s his own battle you know, within himself. A rage of angst was building inside Arjun too, as he continues to call his elder brother “disgraceful” on loosing the sprint against his father on each and every morning. Eventually he lands his anger on a girl in school, bullied by the lot continuously.

Even if we talk about Appu, the home left Senior of Rohan; we will only see continuity across the families of Jamshedpur. Appu could not stand on the fact that his drunk father beats his mother day in and day out. So when he puts his father out of his house, his mother could not agree to the fact that Masculinity is loosing its stride against feminism. Appu leaves the room for ever.

Now a single incident turns it all around for Udaan, generating the fuels for Rohan to take off and fly past this rude, pathetic Bhairav-ish attitude by a long way.

Bhairav Singh beats Arjun badly and admits him in Hospital. Rohan stays there in the Hospital for taking care of Arjun. There’s still that barrier between Arjun and Rohan, you see. Arjun does not agree to get naked in front of his elder brother. That white screens drawn by Rohan was not just a mere cover, its pride curve of masculinity that was just on the scratch move from the nascent stage inside Arjun.

Do you know what turned Rohan around, what made him to put this barrier down? It’s the photos that he saw of his mother. For the first time he understood what love of a female means to a man, otherwise how incomplete he becomes as a personality. Do you remember him saying to Arjun, that there’s a different smell to mothers love. Arjun listens to his elder brother, as he does not know what its means, he never enjoyed it. Arjun does not even remember his mother’s face.

Rohan gives the love back to Arjun that was on priority not to make another Bhairav Singh in this world. Do you remember him writing on his last letter to Bhairav that one piece like him is enough for this world as he does not want another devil to come up in the form of Arjun. The DNAs that Rohan inherited from his mother seems to be working slowly. Suddenly, we see a different Rohan altogether, as if he is the mother of Arjun. He gives away his best toy, books and poems that he has been keeping with him like treasures till that date He reads out his poems and stories to Arjun, to make him feel good, to give him the motherly love at the best he can give.

In the end he does not leave Arjun alone in Bhairav Singh’s dome, he takes Arjun with him. But what he leaves is more important than what he takes with him. He leaves the wrist watch that his father gifted as the sign of his inheritance in this family. By the leaving the watch he not only denies his father's gift, but on the broader point of view he denies the tradition of extreme ugly masculinity that this family is imposing on a boy in the form of inheritance.We see a complete man, taking off, ready to face all the challenges of this world has to offer, with a feministic touch that he developed during his stint in his motherland, Jamshedpur.

P.S: Anurag’s last movie was on Devdas. Devdas is a frustrating idol of a void, a complete pathetic scenario of the highest order. If men start to believe in being a Devdas, living a life like that alcoholic lived, and then it will bring only extinction of masculinity, just like Appu, a Devdas in the making. Someone once said to me “Death is not the biggest tragedy of life; it’s what dies with in you”. Udaan hits the perfect balance between a Devdas and Bhairav Singh, in the form of Rohan and probably as Arjun in future who will aim at the eye of the fish rather being fishy of his own self as a gender and about life on single failure of love life, work or study or anything else.

Paanch - A High 5!

While the cricketing world goes high on spot fixing threesome, CNN-IBN asks the view of former Pakistan skipper Imran Khan on the match fixing issue. The Glam dog politician says a very interesting line in his interview which brings me to write this review of “Paanch”, a film by Anurag Kashyap that didn’t see the green signal from our pious-bias censor board [Saif Ali Khan, was that enough for Sharmila to show the green signal for Omkara!]. The line said by Immi was “Crime does not pay you”. It’s a very simple sentence. It may hold no value for a common man like you and me as we don’t get the time to commit a crime [:D], but for a person who commits crime or has been committing crimes, it means big.


Crime is toxic and cumulative if it enjoys success. Like telling lies one crime can derivate hundred more. Intoxication of crime is hard to get rid off, though it pays you nothing in the end.

There have been a number of movies made in Bollywood based on the crime world. Anurag himself wrote the script of “Satya”, one of the biggest blockbusters based on underworld. But “Paanch” is a different kettle of fish, because it tells you how the youth gets involved in crime business rather than showing how the business works in crime world.

The story of Paanch is based on a struggling rock band named “Parasite” made of five different personalities; Luke (Kay kay), Joy (Fernandez), Murgi (Aditya Srivastava), Shiuli (Tejaswini kolhapori) and PornD (Vijay Maurya). It’s a movie of many blasphemous dialogues and some very high end characters; each holding a reason behind his/her place in the movie. Let’s find how they are sketched:

Luke: Luke is the boss of the rest and an absolute canon. I have rarely seen a character sketched so dark and murky in a Hindi movie. He is evil, a true evil. You see the sketches on his walls, you will understand, how many pieces of personalities are fitted inside his single soul. Throughout the movie several change of events tugs and disturbs those pieces and you see the stitches going hay wire. Luke turns demonic when some body hits him. He himself confesses what he did to his father, when his father had beaten him once in childhood. The Graffiti on his wall tells –“Franz Kafka, Van Gogh, Michelangelo were unrecognized geniuses in their life. Recognize me”. Frustration, dreams, struggles and some delirious illusions; all boils down to a rage for money for Luke, and soon you find the guitar going missing from the front man’s hands.


Joy: A monster with a huge build, but a ‘chamcha’ inside. An extremely loyal friend of Luke, often called as “Genda” too, who can never find a fault in Luke’s doings. Again an alternative character, as people with that sort of bulk, hardly live like “yes man” in today’s world. But Luke gave him the shelter, so you got to understand why he comes in this package. He is the victim of friendship, which you discover later.

PornD: A boneless creep, target of every joke, who is bullied through out his life. You can see a character like him every where and any where you go. Being a typical “phattu” by default, PornD makes it worse for him as he develops a crush on Shiuli.

Shiuli: Ok! a single line can define Shiuli. Shiuli might have dated more guys in her life than the number of Handkerchiefs she has lost. She is promiscuous by nature and all done for money. I like Anurag’s definition of Shiuli’s character. No where in the movie do you find the reason behind Shiuli’s date-bed business. No sympathy, just the character she is; Straight and rough.


Murgi: The most level headed character in the movie; speaks less and sees all. Murgi understands Luke the most, but hardly goes against Luke’s decision to turn up as a cannon fodder. He quietly does what he is asked to and calmly expresses what he feels a few times. He is the perfect balance between the two, Joy and PornD.


These guys need money badly to record their first album and a rich guy's son who often comes to their live show and practice sessions, gives them the idea of kidnapping him only. Paanch agrees as Luke likes it and the heist follows into a series of ransom- rage killing, serial killing, ego clashes and mistrusts and self doubts.

What happened to them, what’s waiting for them in future, to know these answers you got to see Paanch.

And if that’s not enough for you then Kay Kay Menon can be a good reason for watching it. Brilliant actor. You see Manoj bajpai in Satya and Shool; He sweeps you off your feet. But that’s Manoj’s range. After watching Gulaal, Shaurya and Paanch I have no doubt that Kay Kay’s repertoire is far stronger than Manoj’s.


Music: Well, Anurag has a different taste of music than others; very alternative and ever changing. He does not stick to a single MD. Vishal Bhardwaj gave the music for Paanch. It’s easily one of the best albums from Vishal’s stable. Lyrics are “fadoo” though positioning of the songs are not. The last song is quite forced and not really needed.


If anything that lacks in Paanch; is the ending. Tarantino or Scorsese would kill it if they would have worked on Paanch. But as Vishal does to his movies many a times, Anurag too missed the plot for Paanch which could have been a thousand times more gripping and darker finish than what it is shown. I have always felt directors of this genre (Like Vishal and Anurag) coming from India have a weak link on finishing up with female characters, an urge to show the female character as the “bad-a**”, they often commit the mistake of making it melodramatic.


I liked that illogically logical part of the movie, where the gang goes inside a room to burgle and starts eating and playing music inside the master’s room. Though it sounds weird, you got to understand these characters are not quite the tom dick and harry we see in your daily life around you. They are impulsive by nature and that’s what makes them draw evil faces in their room and beat a bus conductor on the road.

Paanch was restricted and banned with reasons of extreme drug abuse and violence by censor board. It’s available in some file sharing websites (Like Torrent) as preview copy. If you think, it’s worth a watch; watch it for sure.

P.S :ROCK ON IS FOR KIDS , PAANCH IS FOR MEN ! YA I HAVE SAID IT !!