Tag Archives: Politics

Verve Man: The mysterious appeal of these men…

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Features & Trends, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, October 2012, Verve Man supplement

The Mysterious Appeal of These Men: Salman, Chetan, Rahul, Karan and Sachin. (Admit it – you knew their last names as you read it.)
In a perfect world, we want to see people who are famous because they know their craft exceedingly well – the ones who are untouchable because you can’t surpass their talent. It puts them on a pedestal of excellence and it silences detractors. Sometimes there are those who may or may not have talent, but have an x-factor, which makes them incredibly appealing to a large number of people. Sitanshi Talati-Parikh decodes the controversial appeal of five successful men across industries

 

Salman Khan, actor
In a recent TV interview, Salman Khan said something that sounded ridiculously ostentatious. But if you take it in context of who he is as a person – simple and direct – you would understand that he was just stating the obvious. Ek Tha Tiger’s release and people’s reaction to that movie and others before it, Dabangg and Bodyguard in particular, lend complete strength to the fact that Salman Khan exists in the industry for his fans. (And he has many of them.) As he points out, if you need an actor to play a role, there are many people to choose from. A director and producer will think of Salman Khan, only when they want the full Salman-Khan-ness in a particular film. He’s unapologetic about who he is or what makes him popular among the masses. He’s also matter-of-fact about his popularity, without being self-propagandizing. It doesn’t matter whether the movie has a story, or whether the film is completely OTT, or even that the character does the strangest things – like manage to pop the buttons of his shirt as he struts. His style of dancing – not updated over the years, but true to form with certain pelvic thrusts or iconic hand gestures; his action sequences, where he isn’t a hero, he is a super hero; his romancing – which is stilted and subdued; are all aspects of the Salman Khan phenomena that his viewers expect. It’s suggested that he dresses like James Dean and picks nuances from Dharmendra; two actors he believes should be closely watched. And in his smile, lies his resemblance to Dean, though he doesn’t smile enough – off screen and on it. While his cinema may be regressive in it’s form, it’s appeal – rather his appeal – remains eternal. He has consciously chosen to be a performer and entertainer, and removed himself from being an actor. And yet, maybe it was his cleverest move, the secret formula to being one of the biggest movie stars of the Indian film industry. Behind his rather simplistic appeal, quotes and choices, lies a sharp brain that has managed to find a bankable spot in the industry. He has, very possibly gauged his strengths and weaknesses, and put his money in just the right place.

 

Chetan Bhagat, writer
Some time ago, on an episode of Love2HateU, the celebrity guest was Chetan Bhagat. The poor girl – the ‘hater’ – stood no chance against Bhagat’s generous Gandhi-ism, so beatifically patronizing and condescending. But that’s Chetan Bhagat – a huge icon and idol to some and an even huger eyebrow raiser to others. Bhagat’s success – and he is astonishingly successful – is because he has crawled through the cracks and found his target audience. And what a target audience that is. The non-readers. Instead of churning out a highbrow book filled with beautiful metaphors and aiming for the Booker-reading intellectuals, Bhagat does what he does best – appeal to those that have admittedly never read a book before. And therein lies his claim to fame. Bhagat has automatically found his safety in numbers. While Bhagat makes no pretentions about his literary aspirations, he basks in his own stupendous success, often lying on a raft of self-appreciation. And what irks people is that his raft never, ever capsizes. Top models can have a bad hair day, brilliant directors can have a box office flop, the Sensex can crash, but Chetan Bhagat only goes from strength to strength. As he smugly states, ‘I’m happy to be on this show (Love2HateU) because my new book has just released and I want to know that there are people who don’t like what I do, not just people who enjoy my books.’

 

Rahul Gandhi, politician
Is it possible to bank a country’s future, its political aspirations on a set of irrepressible dimples? While our democracy is far more discerning than that (we hope) it is true that as the younger Gandhi scion grew up, a great deal of hope was vested on his future. He had the political pedigree, and most importantly he looked the part. It didn’t really matter what he said – or didn’t say – he was just so easy on the eye. Every woman could imagine him at the helm of India, attending the topmost international discussions and global summit roundtables looking stupendous representing India. And yet, that hasn’t really played out well for him – while remaining a member of Parliament, he hasn’t proven himself as a strong candidate for the topmost office of the country – despite the looks. Whether he manages to get any further, we can only wait and watch, and hope that there is more depth to him than his dimples, or India may end up having her own frat-boy-politician in the making, served up American style.

 

Karan Johar, director
You watch Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and you see that plump friend of the hero, put there so that the hero can shine. A school misfit, no one would have guessed that Karan Johar would become a phenomenon. Johar has lived his high school misses through his films – creating the candy-floss make-believe world that he would have liked to be a part of, making his protagonist (more often than not played by his buddy Shah Rukh Khan) the popular kid in school. The kid Johar should have been, going by his current personality. What he may have been unable to achieve in his school years, he’s more than managed in his adult life. He is the force behind one of the biggest production houses in Hindi cinema, Dharma Productions, his movies do record business, he can make or break an actor or director, and often can control the future of a movie star, as evidenced by his power over the future of one top actress who wound up in his bad books. His talk show became an iconic talking point at every Koffee-table conversation. His rapid-fire questions allowed for his sharp wit, humour and personality to shine through, even if he did demonstrate that he lives happily in his own industry bubble. Only on Simi Garewal’s show did any of his vulnerability come to the fore. Johar is a complex animal, but his success is because of these complexities and layers to his personality. With Student of the Year in the offing, we wish we would move beyond the chasm of his youth to the brilliant success of his grown-up years in his directorial offerings. But would that be a cathartic story worth telling?

 

Sachin Tendulkar, sportsman
The Master Blaster. Anything said against him is akin to blasphemy. How did a supremely talented teenage kid manage to bear the weight of a nation’s hopes on his young shoulders? One who should just concentrate on the game is made to feel like the savior of the country. Every poor man’s hopes, every rich man’s dreams are with Sachin Tendulkar as he takes strike after strike. As if that were not enough, he had to attempt captaining the Indian cricket team. It’s a wonder he didn’t retire early, just to find inner peace. He has dealt with it all with equanimity – reminiscent of great players like Roger Federer in tennis – where nothing sways him. Victory brings a smile
, and when he’s down, he’s generally outwardly calm. Children are named after him in quick succession, he is revered to the point of blind faith, and he can do no wrong. Even if he gets out in duck thrice in a row, it’s okay because he has given us many centuries before. People cannot be logical around Tendulkar, he is more than human, he is God. With anyone else it would be dangerous, this blind idolization. As Wright Thompson in an insightful study on his charisma pointed out – Tendulkar’s meteoric rise took place in parallel to India as a country and economy opening up. He symbolizes everything we dream and wish for, all that is balanced and good. He steadies our racing hearts; he lives our greatest hopes. And he does it all with a clean chit. He makes people feel good – about themselves and their country, and he gives people a sense that we can be better, that we can be the best. And he forms the bridge – between the insecurity of the past and the brash confidence of the future.

iManage iNDIA

08 Friday Apr 2011

Posted by in Musings

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Our democracy has given us the ability to make so many choices – a few decades ago, we chose to leave for better opportunities elsewhere, recently we choose to return because of plum prospects in India. But whenever we have to choose to be alert citizens, we choose the easy road – the road of oblivion, escapism and feigned ignorance. Even worse – something I am guilty of, too – cynicism and haplessness.

When an elderly man decides to fast, we tweet. When scams are exposed, we update our status in horror. When our status quo is breached we respond with anger, criticism even shock, but no solutions.

We, the urban intelligentsia, have found no way out, and have preferred to let the zoo animals that are our bureaucrats and politicians rule roost while we hatch eggs – shaking our intellectual manes over the evils at fine soirées.

We may #tweetforwickets in a strong show of national spirit, we may cry in emotional joy at national wins, but we make no move to change what’s wrong.

It’s true, the answers are often not with us, there needs to be a collective consciousness that decides to take no more sh*t. Everytime there is someone who inspires us, or something that appalls us, we make a stir, think about a rising, and then, in one collective motion, sit our asses right back into our plush la-z-boy recliners.

It’s unfortunate that we have the option to leave, or the money to ignore the crap that goes on in our backyard, or the cynicism to empty every full glass – because the moment we run out of our options, we may be fasting like good man Anna Hazare for our future, as our men steal every morsel from our homes.

Gandhi fasted for independence, its a shame that 60+ years hence, a man has to fast merely to get a bill noticed in parliament. Elle Woods would be charmed. Tsunamis may be hitting the Pacific, but it is the wasteland of Indian inaction that requires attention.

There is no “I” in Teamwork…

25 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in Musings

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It’s an observation I picked up from Twitter – that teamwork doesn’t have an “i”. And while that’s simple to understand, it means the making or breaking of a country. Sounds monumental? It is. Let’s start with what triggered this thought. Actor Imran Khan’s column in HT today (see excerpt below) on teamwork in movies and my catching Raajneeti on TV last night.

Imran Khan talks about how movies are made by teams, even if they are temporary, they are loyal:
“I wanted to talk about how we all come together for a few months, work till we fall down from exhaustion and then go our separate ways. You see, most people never realise just how much teamwork plays a part in what we do. An actor could be giving the performance of a lifetime, but if the cameraman doesn’t capture it correctly, nobody will ever see it. Each and every shot depends upon each and every person from each and every department doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. It’s stressful and demanding… but it also creates a kind of bond that few other things can. For example, as I sit and write this, there is a game of cricket underway. The actors, director, ADs and light boys are all taking turns batting and bowling, and there is no hierarchy. Or, when we’ve been shooting for hours and it’s past lunch time, no one complains, because we’re all in it together. Nobody starts eating until everyone has broken for lunch.

The fate of a film can never be predicted; it may do well, it may disappear without a trace. I’ve seen both happen. But that can’t change the way we approach our work. We still have to give it everything we have, and we still have to come together and work as a team. And that’s reflected in the term for an entire cast and crew of a film; it’s called a unit.” (Full column here.)

On the other hand, there is politics, where there are teams and more teams and even more teams that spend their time bickering, playing games, manipulating and buying each other out. While some people thought Raajneeti was a bit extreme, I find it quite a relevant movie of the time – where politics today is not what the Greeks intended it to be when they coined the term.

Ref: Wikipedia: “Politics (from Greek πολιτικος, [politikós]: «citizen», «civilian»), is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of ‘social relations involving authority or power’ and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.”

What is the problem with our country, or many other countries today? Is it really what we learnt in civics and political science and sociology, the things we rattle off, the terms that NRIs sit back in their la-z-boys and shake their heads over while munching betel nuts? Corruption, over-population, illiteracy…these are the buzz words. Yes, these problem exist, and yes, there are important issues that need to be solved for our country to move forward. But is this the real problem at the very foundation of our issues? I think not, I think it is a genuine lack of team spirit. We don’t think like one nation, one people. Whether it is because of religion, caste, money, social structure or an age-old belief in hierarchy…or even just survival of the fittest (because we’ve had to survive to make it here – fight to get anywhere), it has made us individualistic. At the very most, we may include our family in our concerns, but that is also getting few and far between and we find ourselves largely driven by selfish concerns. Some of our wealthiest people do not contribute to charity, rather build towering monuments to denote their status. Recently, while visiting the Jai Vakeel school for the mentally challenged, I learned that the government hasn’t paid salaries there in four months. So even when something good is being done, they can’t simply cough up the change to keep it going, but they can pocket the change from CWG and other big projects. While lining one’s pockets, can’t one at the very least ensure that some good comes of some of the tax payers’ money?

Another quote popularised on Twitter, “Indians are privately smart and publicly dumb” – is exactly the same thing, we don’t believe in treating our country like our own. The streets are not ours, we can trash them. The public loos are not in our house, we can leave them filthy. The movie theatre isn’t our own, we can mess it up with food and drink. Publicly, we notoriously behave like pigs in a pigsty, and yet, we follow stringent hygiene and cleaning rules in our homes – remove your shoes before coming in, they will track germs from the outside in! Is it that we believe that someone else will take care of our mess? Is it simply because we don’t care enough about anyone else that it doesn’t matter?

The reason we admire sports so much is that as humans we crave bonding and togetherness – and there are very few places that show mutual respect and warmth for other humans than in teams that come together for a common cause. I admire the film industry – despite their bickering and issues and camps, a group of people come together and work hard to make a film – even if they never see each other again once it’s complete, they gave it their unselfish best when required. In fact, the movie Chak De is a metaphor for Indian society – we are too mentally segregated to think like one, and when we do, we can possibly reach heights we have never considered possible.

Why can’t we as social citizens do that? Why must we treat other people as “others” and not a part of our own team, own country, own race? Why can’t we think like “we” rather than “I”? If we were to, everything would be very different. A simple shift in perspective would make a huge difference in thought and a huge difference in where we are as a race or nation.

Short-sightedness – where we can’t see beyond our own noses and houses, is what makes us an ultimately selfish race. And this is the root of the trouble – global warming, social evils, unhappiness all boils down to being able to think as a bigger identity than oneself. Can we be bigger than we think we want to be?

 

Political Balance Sheets and Media Glory

15 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Musings

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When we consider how ineffectual our political system and our elected representatives are, we often wonder what we can do to make them accountable or care. Obviously, seeing the recent barrage of films and reportage, we believe that the media is responsible to a very large extent in the lack of accountability. In much the manner that in a democratic set-up we elect representatives, we also ‘elect’ our media to play an important role in defining our thoughts, opinions and in ensuring that we remain protected and taken care of at all times. The easiest way for the media to do this is through responsible journalism – by not distorting the news, not grabbing eyeballs just for TRPs, not sensationalising but simply stating facts and pointing out areas that have gone awry. So, very simply, if the political dailies were to – every week or fortnight or month – run an impartial page on a political ‘balance sheet’ – a report on what promises were made at the time of contesting an election, and what the current standing is for all our elected reps., where the problems have occured and what is expected now…. This can’t be an occasional expose that happens in India Today or TOI etc, but rather, a regular accountability system that keeps the people abreast and the reps on their toes. So, you can’t fake it, you gotta do it and then find yourself written about and held accountable. This would keep the political media busy enough that they don’t need to create drama and fanfare over trivial issues, and political debates that lead nowhere, but rather an administrative system of checks that we can refer to at the time of elections.