The true story of Satya

This was one of Anurag Kashyap's posts on his PassionForCinema blog. My favourite. Now the site is down but I retrieved this from the wayback machine. His posts on No Smoking and In defence of the 'I' are great reads too.
For all the Ramu/ Anurag/ Vishal/ Manoj/ Gulzar saab fans out there-

Satya - The True Story by Anurag Kashyap

There never was a bound script..i did not write the whole film..nobody did..there i a whole lot of myth surrounding the film..it happened..like every other great film..like sholay happened..no individual created Satya..passion did..most of which came from ramu..his being open to moments, ideas, to instincts, created it..it was a different time..it was a different Ramu..

How it began..Ramu was making Daud..there was a new actor he was working with..it was manoj bajpai..i was there when he took that shot of Paresh going crazy and Manoj appearing from behind the door..Ramu fell in love with the shot..he fell in love with the actor..he fell in love with his intensity..he wanted to make an underworld film with him..he wanted to put Howard Roark in the underworld..thats how Satya started..

I met him..Manoj introduced him to me..i was supposed to be writing a film for Mahesh Bhatt which never got made..it was called GIRVI..Ramu asked me “have i read fountainhead..i had..i was an ayn rand fanatic then..i was twenty three..i said “yeah”..he said lets put him in the underworld..i said “wow”..he also had an ending in mind which he remembered from some James Hadley Chase novel..that ending remained..Howard Roark didn’t..

i started working on it ..he asked me how much money i wanted..i didn’t give a fuck about money..then..so i said “whatever’..we began work..whatever we wrote was not ther in the final film..anyways..after we started work Ramu left for Newzealand to shoot songs for DAUD..he disappeared from my life for two months..i thought this is not going nto happen..it was november 1996..February i got a call from him.. no mobile phones at that time..i had a pager..he paged me..he was serious..we made a one line order..Ramu has always worked with an one line order..never a script..this time he wanted a script..i still remember that first one line order..the opening scene was to be shot under the Milan subway..it never happened..

after the one line order was locked in..he wanted it to be written..he didn’t trust me with dialogues..he thought i was too young for it..he met vijay tendulkar for it..Ramu has been a fan of his since ardhasatya..

Vijay tendulkar wasn’t well..he wanted someone more mature..those days alot of people were talking about how Saurabh Shukla had done dialogues for ISS RAAT KI SUBAH NAHIN..saurabh has always brushed it off as just rumour..i had heard that too..but i knew him as a sometime playwrite from Delhi..i spoke about him to Ramu..Ramu offered him a double deal..to play Kallu Mama and write dialogues along with me .. he was to be the boss in that department..we were sent to Hyderabad..on his farmhouse..Ramu’s..At the Mumbai airport saurabh arrived late..he had the tickets..we missed the flight..we took the next one..

we worked more than a week ..we wrote something that looked and sounded like a script..we went back..we started shooting..we began in Goregaon with the chase sequence..the beginning chase..Gerard Hooper was the cameraman..i think i am jumping ahead..lets go back to naming the characters and casting..
but later..have a shoot in the morning..imagine doing this in the middle of my shoot..probably because i met Ramu today..later..

Saurabh and me wrote a draft..he was simultaneously writing a play called KAAL..after we finished we came back to bombay..another thing i forgot to tell you..when saurabh met Ramu for the first time and Ramu narrated him what he had in mind..Saurabh spontanously came up with that scene where bhiku comes back home drunk and shefali slaps him and he slaps her back..Ramu was so goddamned impressed with him..

When we were thinking how do we name our characters..Ramu called his boy to make coffee for us..he said “Bhiku teen coffee”..and i said nice name..Satya was named after a woman called Satya..Someone Ramu knew back in college days..He just wanted her to know that he still rememberred her..Ramu was an engineering student..in some naxalite area in Andhra..then, when ever he got into trouble, he would strike a brucelee pose and make a eeyah sound to defend or protect himself..atleast thats what he told me..slowly all characters fell into place..

Ramu’s screenplay writer of Daud had been to Boston University Film Course..Gerard Hooper taught Cinematography there..he still teaches there..his two students made “THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT”..the writers name was KANNAN..kannan recommended Gerry..as he was fondly called..
We started shooting somewhere in August 1997..three days of shooting..third day we were shooting..it was that sequence where Sushant Singh came to collect hafta from satya and satya refuses and slashes him..the way sushant reacted..he improvised or i didn’t know what..Ramu reacted in a way i never saw him reacting..he said now i know what my film is all about and he trashed the script me and Saurabh wrote..he fucking trashed it..he also cancelled shooting the next day and guess what.. Gulshan Kumar was shot dead..Ramu stopped shooting..Underworld equations had changed..script needed to go through a change.. somedays after that was Daud’s release..i remember..because it rained so much that day that noone could reach the premiere venue on time..anyways..Daud bombed..i still fucking loved it..I thought Neeraj Vora rocked in that film..

So Ramu threw our script in the bin and we started rewriting script..Ramu always treated me like a kid..he was fond of me but never took me seriously..i was the kid in the gang..only other kid was Apoorva Asrani..the editor..Bhiku Mhatre’s laughter was never written into the film..he just laughed one day when we were shooting at his fictitious house in bandra..we loved it so much that it became his character..The first day we shot with the lawyer Mule..Makrand deshpande ,who played the character overacted so nmuch,the scene was never kept in that film..it was the scene where chandar appears in court..just before “goli maar”song..Mule was shown sleeping in the court..his Yawn was louder than Shakti kapoor..it just did not work.. at that time goli maar was not even ther in the film..the whole party sequence was shot on “Mera piya ghar aaya oh Raamji”..later the songs came into the film..Goli maar song had a different version..it went“gham ke neeche bam laga ke gham uda de”..sung to the same tune..Gulzaar sahab wroteb “goli Maar”..we all including Ramu and Vishal prefeered the GHAM version..but who would tell it to Gulzar sahab..i was known to be blunt, so they chose me to tell it to Gulzar sahab..next meeting with him ..they took me along ..and i said “sir gum work nahin karta” and he said,”Gum nahin gham,Pehle bolna seekho” andi was out of discussion..everyone agreed to Goli maar and thank god they did..what a song..

Media?!

Wrote this essay for my GRE sample test. I think the topic was something about the media reflecting the world or paving a path for it. When I was searching for something else today, I found it tucked away somewhere deep in. Reading it, I thought I'd post it. So, here is goes.

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The Media. What exactly constitutes the media. The media, in the present context, can be vaguely defined as a platform through which individuals state their opinions, views and probably discuss facts in the view of the public eye. In the last decade or so, what the media exactly constitutes has become a very debatable issue.

For the entire length of the previous century, the media basically was books, films, music and television. That is how the world worked. A few people in the media industry, who were competent enough told the rest of the world what was happening elsewhere and they had the liberty to voice their opinions because people had no way to cross check the authenticity of the news. Apart from news of course, there were other media such as films or music, which were entertaining vast audiences. Very few people had access to the high glitz world of movies and television and those who sought for it and succeeded, were rewarded with the ability to influence the world at large. They could tell the world what they wanted to and with films catering to such large audiences, they could trigger cultural uprisings overnight. Books have always been a mark of the classic elite and though pulp fiction has had its share of devoted followers, books are still more about the ability to think different rather than dress or be different.

Now, with the advent of the internet, all this has changed. Everybody has access to stardom and large audience. The mantra is, 'If you have it in you, you can be it.' The biggest advantage with a society like this is that since it has become such a mass media, everyone has access to altering the way the world lives. You don't like something posted in a website, you can always comment on it. You can blog about what you think would be the effects of the latest Government order regarding Health Insurance. You can discuss topics with like minded people over forums. And you can upload your very own movie in a video sharing website and know what people think about it. All of it is also media.

The media has changed from creating values to reflecting values.

And the reason to that is simple. As already mentioned above, to state simply, the size and breadth of the media has changed. Back then, there were few people who made a point, and a lot of people listened. Now, everyone can talk and listen. That is a lot of freedom. History tells us how this happened. Back in the 60s, when America was in the upheaval of a huge social, cultural revolution, the tools of mass media were books, films and music. That the birth of The Beat Generation where people proclaimed hippiedom, freedom, love and traveling. On the Road played a huge part in that cultural revolution, when Kerouac wrote about Sex, Drugs and Travel. Bob Dylan came along and took over from Woody Guthrie and started singing songs about Peace and Brotherhood. That was the birth of Rock n' Roll. Some of the classics were made in that era, like American Graffiti, which created values for a whole generation of people. Twenty years on and it was time for a bigger revolution. This time the Television and PC took over and thus created values for an entire generation of people. The world was becoming smaller. And now, it is the Internet which is the forefront of the other revolution that has taken place.

But unlike preceding revolutions, which basically created a lot of social values, responsibilities and outlook toward life, what the new age media is doing is that it is giving everyone an equal chance to proclaim their ideas. Of course, it could be argued that this is creating another form of values but unlike the influence of old media where there was this one big wave everyone had to get over or risk drowning, the new age media is a collection of a lot of smaller waves and if you are good enough, one of them could well be yours.

Telangana Ravaging Savages

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2009

It all started on the 29th of last month. The fateful day when KCR started his fateful 'Fast Unto Death' for a seperate Telangana. Seperate Telangana, why? KCR says, "Because everyone else has been taking advantage of the innocent, hospitable Telangana-ites who've welcomed guests into their houses and who are now being snatched from their food." Pretty dramatic, haan? Now, between the lines. "I'm just another drunkard goon with big dreams and the ability to manipulate the emotions of millions of people who would give their lives to the cause." For a seperate state, we ask. "(laughes)No. So that I get to play the CM."

Loads of hungama happening all around Telangana. Its weird. Probably, deep inside, everyone knows we are not getting the state but everyone has an opinion about it. KCR's fasting for the state, a few are fasting for his good health, a few are selling fuel at about 300% the normal rate, a few are attempting suicides in processions, a few of us who really don't care what's going around and are challenging if the police would really stop us; but of the majority, half are TRS members and the other half are the Policemen. The former are trying to act important by closing down shops, mobbing them up with stones and threatening students. Meanwhile, the latter are trying to instill peace during the bandh, disrupt mobs and threaten students.

And you know what's worse than all this. The media. The over-excited media, a bunch of hyenas with immense power, folks who'd do anything to ensure people stay tuned to them. And what do these people do, us people, we catch onto every 'Breaking News' and then curse the reporters for making a big issue of everything. WTF. Who to blame? When everyone's equally responsible for the damage being caused and the inconvenience suffered by days after days of bandhs.

I ask you, are you people dumb? You are fighting for a seperate Telangana. For the welfare of Telangana people. Then why the hell are you ravaging Telangana. Go loot Visakhapatnam. Go burn down Kakinada. Go shut down Chittoor. I know you don't have the freaking guts to do that. And that you know that whatever you are doing is wrong. Your conscience knows it. Fuck KCR. Fuck the politicians. Fuck the society. Listen to your voice and you'll realise. Renaming Andhra Bank as Telangana Bank is ok. But Thayagaraya Gana Sabha to Suddala Gana Sabha. Abey, hadh hai yaar. And you insult Potti Sree Ramulu. My blood's boiling. Lousy ________. Drunkard losers.

When states have already been divided vernacularly, why all this again? If and when we have a seperate Telangana, will we next fight for a seperate Hyderabad?For a seperate Karimnagar? And then for what? Where will this stop?

The guy's who's responsible for all this is Bal Thackeray and his family. And those dumb goons who support them because they are too lazy to think for themselves. It ain't the fault of people coming into Bombay(Fuck you! I'm not calling it Mumbai) as much it is of the native Bombay-kars who've never dreamed big or done big. They are just envious that someone else is getting better than them and instead of competing, they're just complaining.

Grow up guys. Try doing better than them. Succeed in it. And then win your right that way. And importantly, don't let someone else decide your fate.

Why the forced mourning?

The climax to the gripping episode of YS Rajashekhar Reddy's missing helicopter came to an end today morning at around 11.00, after more than 24 hours of anxious wait. And following his death, tomorrow has been declared an holiday and all TV channels and shops have been ordered closed.

But why the forced mourning? Why should we be forced to watch his funeral procession because that is the only thing that is being repeatedly telecast. One thing to remember here is that I have nothing against the guy. A Good or bad person he was, that is my personal opinion. All I am trying to say is why don't I have a right to watch something I want to just because some guy(doesn't matter if he was a VVIP or not) dies. If, for one, his life was so very valuable and special, adequate care should have been taken to avoid the crash. But when he is already dead, what difference does it make to anyone if I mourn for him or not.

This is India in 2009. One, this is no communistic government we have. And two, this isn't Germany under Hitler, Uganda under Idi Amin or Iraq under Saddam Hussain. We live in the world's largest democracy, a constitution whose chief underlying principle is the freedom of people. When I don't even have a right even to watch whatever I want to, what kind of freedom are we talking about. Luckily, we atleast have the right of speech. Or if I was in a communist regime, I might have been detained for writing this piece.

What I think about YSR and if I really mourn his death has got nothing to do with my right for doing whatever I want to. I miss him, I will mourn for him. I don't, I won't. But that does not mean that someone has a right to inflict upon me his opinions. And the worst part is, all the financial loss of the 'bandh' will directly affect the 'Aam Aadmi'.

The Aam Aadmi who has got nothing to do either with YSR's death or the bandh, will actually have to pay money in the form of tax and added to that, he cannot go to work tomorrow, nor watch TV and can neither go out. This is a virtual prison inflicted on us by the Government we elect and who we pay to 'take care' of us. This shows the flaws of the kind of civilization we live in and the system we have built around us to live in.

The person is already dead. We cannot help it. But then why should our lives stop for someone who is not returning and who we(and our Netas) wouldn't remember a week later. I don't get it.

Holden Caulifield, this is 'Phoniness' at its bloody best.

Sports Journalism

Journalists are not essentially writers. They are mere mediums of transfer of facts from the speaker/doer to the listener/receiver. But Sports Journalists need to be good writers. They just don't jot down facts. They live the moments. They experience the super-human spirit. And most importantly, they keep up the spirit of mankind. Ever since I decided to be a journalist(one in my long list of careers), I've wanted to be a sports writer.

Sports have been a major part of people's lives since time immemorial. In the ancient times, we had Gladiator fights and Olympics. In the colonial era, Cricket and Football were the major sports. Now, we have everything to cover from Chess to Golf and from Rugby to Baseball. And a sports journalist should know all those sports and the legends who played them. And then, he should be able to hold the attention of the reader and act as the bridge between the genius of an athlete and the indifference of the reader.

An athlete, I believe, is an epitome of the unbending will of human spirit. It is in the sports arena that humans surpass their limits and for moments, transcend into gods. I have always loved reading about athletes and am still a very regular reader of Sportstar. Some of my all time favourite articles include those by S.Ram Mahesh, S.Dinakar, Nirmal Shekhar and Nandita Sridhar. Today I read an articles about Tiger Woods' return to professional golf and the piece was beautifully penned. It somehow looked familiar(every writer has his own signature) and so I checked it up with my all-time favourite article. And yes, it was the same guy, Rohit Brijnath. That article, my all-time favourite, came out in The Hindu back on 25 April, 2007 before the French Open. And I was struck by it the first time I read it.

Here it goes.

The not-so Slumdog Oscar phenomenon!

Before beginning this piece, your author would like to convey that he has nothing against patriotism and nothing more against showing the world, the hard realities of Mumbai's slums. The author, as an Indian, is proud of Rahman and Pookutty but his opinions here are purely in the view of cinema as an art form and awards as unbiased, impartial appreciation to all the hard work put in.

What is so good about Slumdog Millionaire that it is a better movie than either of Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or The Reader? And considering the fact that the other four movies have been talked about for a purely cinematic reason, is Slumdog Millionaire a winner purely because of its merit? And why are all of us Indians so ecstatic about its win when the major part of the crew is non-Indian and when co-director Loveleen Tandan was neither mentioned in the nominees list nor in Danny Boyle's acknowledgement list?

Slumdog Millionaire was nominated in 9 categories, Best Picture, Directing, Music(Song), Music(Score), Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay and Sound Editing, of which it won in 8 categories. Many critics view that it was worth an Oscar only in the categories of Screenplay, Film Editing and Music(Score). So, how is it that it won so many awards? Many of the people who have seen the film believe that Danny Boyle's Trainspotting is a much, much better work, AR Rahman's 'Jai Ho' pales infront of many of his other masterpieces and that how can a film with none of its shots ranging more than a few seconds, could have been nominated for the Oscars in the Cinematography category in the first place?

Well, the plain fact is that this year, the Oscars were not about just films. All of the other four nominees in the Best Picture category were better films than Slumdog Millionaire and the harder truth is that people's feeling are being exploited. In a country where people wake up at 5.00 in the morning just to watch the Oscar ceremony live, this year's Oscar Committee has played a trick to commercially utilise Indians' passion for cinema and their reverence for the Oscars.

Forget Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire, in the first place, is a poorly directed movie. A person who has been short-circuited wakes up the next day unscathed, where the host of a live television program humiliates his contestant as the Chai-wallah and then dances away to glory, and where kids who speak hindi, suddenly fall off a train and converse in impeccable English. And the worst part is yet to come. The only bearable part of the movie is the part with the little kids and it was scripted, cast and directed by Loveleen Tandan, who wasn't even mentioned. To all you so-called patriots, isn't that an insult when a British takes credit for the brilliance of an Indian. But we aren't bothered about it are we? We are busy patting our backs for the not-an-Indian crew, where the protagonist is a British citizen and for the commercialization of human emotions.

Your author would like to clear it that he is not bothered with the showcase of Indian slums. Because that is what the hard truth is and the life in those slums defines perfectly what India is- hope, loyalty, forgiveness and diversity. That doesn't mean we should be proud of it and pseudo-name it "True Colours of India". India needs to outgrow its Oscar mania and not be overjoyed with something as trivial as awards when much more pressing matters are at hand, and many of them we should be proud of.

This year's Oscars will remain as a blotch in Cinema history, where Art was neglected and where money was put before appreciation. The Oscar Committee should be ashamed for letting itself be manipulated by the not-so-cinematic factors and this goes to prove that we cannot judge a film by its Oscars anymore.

split personality me | The Journo Guy

This category, now, will be a means to satisfy my deepest desire...to be an out and out Journalist and uncover the truth, share my views and impose my ideas (and also be in running for the Pulitzer ;)). I'll be putting forth real-time, non-fictitious, eyebrow raising events and also my opinions on them.

All the views put forth will be completely personal and I hope I succeed in bringing forward my thoughts with clarity. I'm not just writing this for my dream to be a journo but also to satisfy my urge to share my feelings (and also, this may help me write for my diploma thingy!). Whenever I come across something really interesting or moving in a newspaper or a magazine, I'm filled with this energy to write about it and also tell everyone what I think about it and that is what I call the-urge-to-write.

Anyways, folks, the topics may range from Women Rights to Indian Cricket team's performance, from Global Warming to health tips. Oops! I forgot. Topics dealing with the environment, nature and global warming will be dealt in the section, "Going Green", starting pretty soon. And the more philosophically inclined topics about poverty and human social behaviour will be dealt in the section, "humanity".

So, get ready people! You are soon about to witness the most daring, honest and crude opinions on our news-makers. And trust me, if I can't change your opinion about something, I'll at least give your grey cells a tough competition and make you reconsider your views.