Kartikey Sehgal

Rated Mature.
Swami: A title given to a monk or a spiritual master

It may be an uncomfortable truth but swamis have hair on their body. When they recline on their bed and if the robe around their body is loosely tied, then it will pull up, exposing to anybody interested, hairy thighs. Sometimes they may even scratch those thighs.

Yet when they sit in their robes and talk about spirituality and science, many listeners don’t imagine such basic truths about the swami. They think about and talk of his mind and his spirituality, with their fulcrum in the brain that they describe as holy or brilliant.

Since sex has been relegated to a secondary or tertiary position by the society, they don’t imagine that the swami must be indulging in something so trite and lowly. This is true especially for women; consciously, many of them imagine that the swami sees them ‘purely’ i.e. without sexual thoughts. Perhaps that’s what draws them to the swamis in the first place, that he would be able to help and explain without the entrapments of a sexual brain.

They expect him to talk of worldly matters and of matters pertaining to beauty but without a direct involvement or any experience. The experience is supposed to be spiritual, which for them means that the swami should be guided by ‘pure’ thoughts and observances on matters relating to sexuality. Since he is enlightened, they imagine, he is supposed to have successfully parried the lesser affairs of life that include sex and money.

Why would you listen to a swami who talks solely out of observance and not a psychologist who has experienced stress and health and sexual issues.

The fact of the matter is that swamis are supposed to have experienced life before guiding others about its nuances. They may remain celibate and successfully preach about a better life but nothing stops them from marrying, which would include, obviously, partaking in sexual pleasures.

This shouldn’t be a surprise if you consider the fact that a swami is not like the priests of other religions. He is supposed to be guided by his own sense of propriety. He should be a thinker. This is substantiated further if you consider that the Indian scriptures are reference books and not the absolute law. To regard them would be to hold their contents in high esteem and to draw lessons or ideas from them. They were not written so that the followers could be punished for their deviance from the book.

Evidently, if the swamis are defined by their thoughts and subsequently their work, and if the thoughts and work are not binding to the book, then any common man or woman can assume the prestige associated with the title of ‘swami’. Or if not the title, then they could attain every prestige that comes with the title solely through their work. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not a swami and he was given the title of ‘Mahatma’ because of the density of his work and ideas. But his admirers give him the respect reserved for swamis and saints. And while Mohandas gave up sex after consultation with his wife, he did mention to his associates about his failed attempts at curbing sexual thoughts and penile erections. No respect for the man was lost among his followers because of this failure. It was not considered a failure in the broader spectrum; it was an issue between a man and his beliefs.

So unless a swami announces his celibacy he should not be considered as sexually inactive. The rule shouldn’t hold the swami as sex-free, and for that to happen, the societal perception to the place of sex in life must change. Sex should be considered as a part of man and not distinct from him.

Women, especially, should not expect the swamis to not see them in the idiom of beauty and desire, for there’s nothing wrong in admitting the natural dynamics of man-woman relationship. The society that holds sexual pleasure as inferior is corrupted in it’s thoughts owing to misplaced conceptions about Indian scriptures and general miseducation.

And though they are not forceful to existing societal mores, the Indian scriptures contain insights to the nature of humans and their various relations; they are not averse to sex. The society must recognise this truth and recognise the nature of their being. And who better than the swamis to promote this thought.

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Ananth Venkatesh

Secularism is a laudable concept that has been constitutionalised in several countries of the world. France and Turkey are two examples of nations that come to mind. They have an intransigently secular constitution that is vehemently opposed to the infiltration of religion into the affairs of the state.

The Turkish military remains a bastion of obdurate secularism that feels threatened by the Islamist personality of the party that is currently guiding the country. However, it would be prudent to mention that the Justice and Development Party, though Islamist and conservative ideologically, has largely protected the secular nature of the Turkish polity. The example of the justness of Turkish laicism has, deplorably, not been emulated by a majority of the Muslim world. The secularism of the Turkish nation is laudable and must be a ‘role model’ for other Islamic nations. One mustn’t forget that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim nation. It underwent constitutional secularisation in the aftermath of the dismantlement of the sickly Ottoman Empire.  Mustafa Kemal, the procreator of modern Turkey, believed that Turkey must journey on the secular path.

Of course, French laicism is accompanied by the notion of the identity of the French civilisation. Now, the Frenchification of the immigrants is integral to them being embraced by the French society, which is a wholly legitimate demand. In this regard, the legislative decree that debars the ‘burqa’ in public and penalises the imposers of the ‘burqa’ has been defended by many French secularists as a measure that is compatible with the French laicism. A right-wing national government, shepherded by Nicolas Sarkozy, was the progenitor of this motion. 

 
(Photo Source)
What the Islamic opponents of this move fail to grasp is that the French identity, of which secular principles are intrinsic ingredients, is implacably attached to the intellect of a majority of French citizens, who are, predominantly, white Gauls.  The burqa or the Islamic veil that is symbolic of the subjugation and submissiveness of Mohammedan woman is incompatible with the French civilisation. In any case, French secularism doesn’t demand the obliteration of mosques in France or doesn’t decree that the French Muslims, largely of Arabic descent, from the ex-French colonies in North Africa, disassociate themselves from their faith in their faith. It merely calls for the acceptance of certain norms of public behavior that embody Gallicisation. It asks for conformity to the tenets of the French constitution that anyhow are not vitriolic detractors of the idea of freedom of speech and religion.

Mohammedanism, according to many honourable Islamic theologians, doesn’t mouth that the embracement of the oppressive veil is mandatory for the Islamic females. This can certainly be said. What the Muslim fanatics in favour of the veil claim is that Islam mandates the wearing of the burqa. This is nothing but poppycock. The declaration of such claims stems from a parochialist and chauvinistic mindset that is ill at ease with the reasonable thought that Islamic ladies too can compete in a fair manner with their male counterparts.

Those who unswervingly smack Hinduism as the principal force that has the potential to bulldoze the constitutional secularism of India fail to remember that it is the paradoxical Hinduism that permitted the two ancient religions of the world, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, to function in India. Zoroastrians, who fled Persia after its subjugation by Islamic marauders, arrived in a dire condition in India. Hinduism, the dominant religion in Bharat, requested the Zoroastrians to amalgamate significantly with the Hindu characteristics. The Parsees, as the Zoroastrians are also known, did assimilate terrifically in the sense that they acquired knowledge of the Indian languages, principally, Gujarati of Gujarat, where many of them settled. There is no better method of integration than being able to speak in the language of an area to which you have emigrated.

 
(Wadiaji’s Atash Behram Agiari, Marine Lines, Mumbai; photo source)

Also, the Parsees acquainted themselves with some of the Hindu mores. Mostly, the delegates of Hinduism in India never dictated that the Parsees jettison their religious traditions. Bellicose and macabre evangelisation, for the most part, didn’t exist in the vocabulary of Hinduism like it always did in the voyage of Christianity across the world. So, the Parsees constructed ‘agyaris’, many of which exist and continue to operate even today. If the history of Hinduism was indeed as barbarous as the self-appointed secular brigade in India would like us to believe, then the Parsees would have undergone conversion to Hinduism or faced slaughter at the hands of Hindu bigots.

In fact, Hinduism allowed Judaism, a religion that predates Christianity, to live in India. Some Jews of Iberia, who encountered and witnessed the butchery of hapless Jews by the uncivilised warriors of Christianity during the ‘reconquista’ of the Iberian Peninsula by the Christian forces, fled to India. Bharat is probably the only nation or mass of land in the universe that didn’t subject the Jews to the indecorousness and venomousness of anti-Semitism, a tradition that prevailed throughout Europe for centuries, much before the political ascension of the National Socialists in Germany. Again, if Hinduism was the manifestation of demoniacal tendencies, Judaism wouldn’t have survived in India. The pulchritudinous synagogues in different parts of Bharat are the testimonials dedicated to the enlightenment of Hinduism. Such was the decorous reception for the Jews here that many of them voluntarily intermingled with the natives of this land. These instances demonstrate that the persona of Hinduism has been synonymous with secular ideals. After all, one of the many meanings of laicism is the coexistence of several religions within a specific zone. Hinduism, being the predominant religion, exhibited a gigantic heart by letting the foreign religions reside here. Axioms such as ‘the whole world is one family’ and ‘guest is akin to a God’ that are immanent components of the Hindu evolution serve to remind us that tolerance has always been a virtue associated with Hinduism.

Yes, Hinduism has experienced intellectual debauchment, which led to several ill customs that simply bloodied the reputation of India universally. Unhealthy traditions such as ‘child marriage’, ‘suttee’, maltreatment of widows were evidences of the degeneracy of Hinduism. But every religion on earth has behaved degenerately at one point in time or the other. One mustn’t fail to point out that the egalitarian nature of Hinduism in India produced ‘reformist’ movements during the era of British imperialism. Many of these movements for the rejuvenation of Hinduism were immensely victorious.

Secularism doesn’t mean that an honest discussion of the deathly persecution of Hinduism in Bharat during the Islamic reign and the Christian governance, especially in Portuguese Goa, mustn’t be conducted. The fact is that several small and enormous places of worship of the Hindus were razed by the invading barbarians and on which the transgressors built their holy sites. An expression of this historical reality doesn’t make one a vampirical communalist. The indefensibly wicked proselytisation of the helpless Hindus by the Christian and Mohammedan aggressors is, indubitably, a sordid historical fact with which the soul of Hinduism and of this land will always have to progress.

The ills that plague Hinduism today are candidly debated. Fair enough! But what is pretty revolting is that the scum that has permeated the Islamic community, even its literate constituents, is not debated with as much candidness. The answer is that nobody wants to offend the fundamentalists of that community. This fear of inviting the wrath of the fundamentalist Mohammedans prevents the country from having a constructive conversation about the future of the Mohammedan community and the path on which it must voyage. The ferocious but eloquent denunciations of the mistreatment of Mohammedan women by eminent Muslim women such as the controversial Tasleema Nasreen and the educated Somali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, are not given adequate coverage. These two passionate females have acknowledged the rottenness that has percolated into the domain of the Islamic clergy and, thereby, into the wider Islamic society, more so, in a nation such as India. But to provide a forum to these valiant women so that they can voice their voice freely is considered an affront to secularism, specifically, by the mainstream media in India. There are robust discourses and dissertations on the need for further renovation in the Hindu society, which is splendid. But a corrupted and brazenly improper definition of secularism that has captured the psyche of the Indian media has killed the chances, at least in the near future, of a frank discourse on the status of the Islamic community in India.

It is necessary to state that it is the benevolence of Hinduism that has maintained the secular identity of India. It has sustained and stabilised secularism in Bharat.  It is the generousness or selflessness of Hinduism that has, historically, educated the Hindus about the necessity of the maintenance of the revered sites of the invading religions. The fact that, today, there are thousands of mosques, majestic and modest, and hundreds of churches, extraordinary and decrepit, in India, is an illustration of the welcoming and all-inclusive persona of Hinduism. Muslims can adhere to the teachings of their religion and the Christians too can practice Christianity. Hinduism has never claimed that it is the truest and holiest religion in the world unlike some of the Semitic religions, especially two of them that altered the status of a large part of the world through proselytisation and conquest.

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Ananth Venkatesh

“Undue reliance on tranquil international diplomacy and forceless intranational diplomacy can backfire badly, thereby humiliating the national ego.”

The monstrosity of terrorists demonstrated by the recent bloodletting in Pune [Photo: top; source] illustrates the deviousness of Islamist fundamentalism. The blameless victims of the blast at a popular store of bakery in Pune are the latest in the enormous list of unfortunate Indians who have been wolfed by Islamist bigots.

India is a nation that has juddered continually due to the remorseless personality of Mohammeden violence. The appearance of an Islamist insurgency in the paradisiacal Jammu and Kashmir in the 1980s signalled the ascent of Islamist fundamentalism in India, which has been aided incontrovertibly by our western neighbour in order to solidify its extra-territorial goals.

The brutalization meted out to our security forces and the blameless villagers by the terrorists of the far left in the ‘blood corridor’ highlights the excruciatingly inept contestations of the federal government to the gruesomeness of the Communist terrorists. In this regard, credit needs to be given to the West Bengal CM for enabling the anti-Naxal operations to continue uninhibited. But the lack of adequate knowledge of the Naxal designs and the even shoddier execution of ruthless measures against the Naxalites has exposed and maimed our police personnel and our paramilitary forces. With inconvenient equipments at their disposal and the predominantly abysmal infrastructure offered to the security people, especially the constables, who have to do the bulk of the work of battling the menacing Maoists, the task before them seems insuperable. Refined weaponry and sophisticated military gadgets, often used to buttress our politicians, must be bequeathed to the departments of the police of the provinces bulldozed by these terrorists.

The technological renovation is a measure for the satiation of the police forces, which direly needs fructification. Ultimately, ruthless force will have to be employed to crush the Maoists. This will enable real development to happen in the ‘blood corridor’ since the Maoists have disrupted developmental work in villages consistently by killing, raping, kidnapping and wounding people.

In order to uphold the national constitution, the state will have to use power because the other tactic is to succumb to the Naxalite goals, which is the elimination of the present constitution, and the enslavement of India to the brand of terroristic communism. The Naxalites will never behave like the ‘moderate communists’ in WB, Tripura and Kerala by throwing themselves into the democratic arena. One must memorize that the eventual aim of the evil ‘far left’ in India is the dismantlement of democratic civilization and the installment of a regime of barbarousness, like the Stalinist regime of Communist Russia, with all of its purges and bloodiness.

Initiatives in India for tranquility with Pakistan are laudable but are appallingly idealistic. Peaceableness is an idiom with which the terrorists are unacquainted. These racists, desirous of the Islamisation of India, and their strengtheners and sustainers across the western frontier, have always interpreted the tranquil moves of India as a sign of the limpness of the soul of India. All in all, such serene ideas might augment the sale of newspapers and enable them to attract luminaries to their ‘peace functions’ [Photo: top]. But on the ground, the reality doesn’t transform.

This year, the indefatigable military personnel in J & K have encountered a ceaseless flow of barbarians nurtured by Pakistan. Encounters have led to the evaporation of the terrorists but also of our gallant ‘jawans’, who, in any case, perform a thankless vocation. Industries and factories of anti-Indian terrorism are functioning brazenly in Pakistan-held Kashmir; that is an argument backed up by credible pictographic and telephonic evidence. Not that we need American approval of our evidence, but the U.S. too has consistently, in the recent past, acknowledged the legitimacy of the Indian claims. The weak-kneed pacifism advocated by the influential members of the Indian electronic media is bamboozling and quite obnoxious. Pacifist advocacy might win you a Nobel Prize but it is the feeblest way of overthrowing the terrorists. History has manifested that a perspicacious application of power is necessary for a nation in order to instill fear in the minds of its opponents. Lamentably, our foes in Dhaka, Beijing and Islamabad have never evaluated that India is a nation that has a secret service and a polity to be feared and lauded. Can’t say the same about Mossad, can we? The answer is a resounding ’No’.

A dialogue with Pakistan is going to be fruitless. Pakistan wants the issue of Kashmir to be resolved. The only interpretation of that can be that Pakistan wants to control Kashmir in one way or the other. Surely, any other solution, which doesn’t involve the direct or indirect absorption of Kashmir, is not going to satisfy Pakistan. Joint administration of Kashmir by Pakistan and India is a solution that is bandied about by Indian pacifists and idealists, but that is like opening a route for the frightening political Islamisation of J & K, with all the vitriolic ramifications it will have for the religious minorities there, and outside the province i.e. the exiled Kashmiri Hindus. Their piteous plight must be kept in mind.

Anyway, our soldiers haven’t been mutilated and haven’t sacrificed their precious lives so that a time will come when their sacrifice and valour is disregarded by officially allowing the Pakistanis to manage the politics of Kashmir, joint rule notwithstanding.

Sincere peacefulness can be a valid diplomatic option only if the nation you converse with is eager to reciprocate with the same earnest peacefulness. The Irish Republic unequivocally condemned and refrained itself from supporting the Irish extremists (the IRA) in Northern Ireland, who wanted all of Ireland to be one. It enabled the British government to isolate and defeat the Irish terrorists. The Irish Republic enacted a constructive role in the peace process. The Irish State never strengthened the members of the terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA). One can’t say the same about the ‘quiet intentions’ of Pakistan.

One must, however, credit the sagacity of Pakistan since it has carefully satisfied American demands by periodically arresting Pakistani terrorists wanted by America. No tangible action has been taken against anti-Indian ideologues, who continue to flourish in Pakistani madrassas. A conclave organized recently by the influential terroristic ideologues to mark the ‘Kashmir Solidarity Road’ at Mall Road in Lahore had Hafiz Saeed as one of its speakers. India has declared him to be the principal mastermind of 26/11 and has reliable evidence as well. Saeed had the audacity to claim during his speech that the execution of ‘jihad’ was the only option unless India ‘unchained Kashmir’. He ranted about unshackling Hyderabad from Indian governance. We don’t want to surrender Kashmir or let the foe enter Kashmir to govern it with us in the name of peace, do we? That the Pakistani government allowed this function to take place, which glorified and warned of terrorism against India, is indicative of the disingenuousness of the Pakistani establishment.

Undue reliance on tranquil international diplomacy and forceless intranational diplomacy can backfire badly, thereby humiliating the national ego. If we continue to believe in peace when our enemies misinterpret it as a symbol of our scrawny fervour and bony zestfulness, when our rivals misconstrue it as an embodiment of our pathetic resolve to defend our motherland, then the future of India will be lugubrious. India will have to acquaint itself with the art of perspicacious projection of force nationally and externally in order to deter our demonic enemies and to make them respect us, even if it be grudgingly.

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Kartikey Sehgal

Can this be a tourist spot. May we make it into one. The area is Verova Village that connects to the popular Mudh Island area by ferryboats. When you are in Mumbai you may like to go to the beaches at Mudh. The ferries at Versova Village are an easier way to reach Mudh; they are economical and save you hours of road traffic.

Versova Village holds a capacity for magnificence; if you can go past the filth and pollution. Any lover of land–and Indians claim to be land lovers—will make this area into a popular tourist spot and use the money to develop the village.

Or some of the emancipated and educated people will criticise the place, the people and the culture; which will find place in the newspapers.

Here are some photos from the place:

 
The ferries are a lifeline for people. Rs. 2 for every trip.

When not in use, the boats can be used to seat people. The locals can run small eating joints. 

Clean this up. Waste of space. 

Boat rides, hired musicians playing as you surf the waters.

Perhaps lodges? Swimming lessons?

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Kartikey Sehgal

“Happiness will not come from happiness; but only from pain. We know the value of standing in shade only after roaming in the hot day sun.”
–Atharva Veda

Pain is fun. Pain is natural. Pain is the word given to describe a feeling that is not like happiness. Humans crave pain. Often they are not able to understand the true nature of pain and hence they give in to drugs and sadism. To know pain is to understand a simple duality.

You know about night because of the day. In summers you think of winters and in winters you think of warmth.

Happiness is different from pain but pain can be a happy experience. It can heal you and make you stronger. And I say again, humans crave pain.

When you walk barefoot on hard and cold rocks you feel pain. When you walk alone on a lonesome night and cry you feel pain. This is the nature of pain. It exists to remind you of the times you didn’t remember it. So the next time you are happy you remember it and be prepared for it. Pain is a reminder of individuality. Of the uniqueness of an individual that lives and functions in a community. So that the next time you are in a group, you will remember your individuality.

Some people are scared of pain so they give themselves pain. Better I control pain than the other way around, they feel. They wait for pain and they shy away from happiness because it would be followed by pain. They become unhealthy masochists. Such people confuse fear with pain. Pain becomes fear for them. Separation from a friend for them is not pain but fear.

There is pain in the open green meadows for once an army lay dead in it. For farmers were moved or killed by governments. For lovers were separated here.

There is pain in nature for it is destructible. For you will not be by its side forever. For you wish your child would be here to see it.

The passing of sunrise and sunset reminds you of your time on earth. With the pleasure, there is the pain.

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Kartikey Sehgal
Part One
Part Two

Another theatre writer, Vikram Kapadia, whose play is undergoing adaptation for film, thinks that “there is no fixed formula as to what makes a film work”.

Vikram’s play ‘Black With Equal’ is a black comedy in English about the trials and tribulations of a housing society and has been staged more than a hundred times.

Like Aatish, he is comfortable with placing an item song in the film but his concern is avoiding the ‘dumbing down’ ‘of content. He wants the audience to understand his film but doesn’t want to sacrifice the richness of the content; the reason the play was popular.

“This much I can do; I can shift some of the scenes from the building to, say, a garden”. But is he going to agree to the producer’s demand for an item number in the garden? For instance, a scantily clad girl dancing around the fighting residents? “This would mean giving too much importance to the song”, he says, pauses, and adds, “however, there is a role of a bar dancer in the film and we could include the song somewhere”.

Vikram is currently writing the final draft of the film that he shall also direct.

He says that he has so far faced no pressures from the producer regarding his vision for the film.

“I am noticing that the trends of filmmaking are changing and producers are realising the importance of the content of the film. That is why you can show one minute of any song in the film and people can hear all of it in the audio disc”.

Sanjay concurs; “Some directors and writers may have differences regarding item songs and marketing but finally they align with the marketing concepts”.

He illustrates the synthesis; “Khosla Ka Ghosla had a foot tapping Punjabi song that was used as a promotional song but was not a part of the film. Similarly, the item song in ‘Jab We Met’ was used over the closing titles of the film”.

And though Suhail would not want an item song to be placed out of context, he is okay with their inclusion in a film like Vishal Bhardawaj’s ‘Omkara’, where the songs were absolutely integrated with the film.

Atul is currently working on an adapation of a novel to film and also on the screenplay of Kamal Haasan’s ‘Marmayogi’ that is currently on hold. He hopes to keep his screenplay free from needless songs and item numbers.

“So far, I have not had to compromise”, he says. “I am trying to keep myself away from projects that require such adjustments.
But it would be difficult, I feel”.

Table

After talks with producers who don’t want to be named.
Films are made for different segments of an audience and each segment is targeted differently.

Example: a film like Dostana would fit mostly in the first three categories. It had ‘catchy’ songs, big stars and contemporary content (homosexuality) that was humourous.

This concludes the story, ‘One Item Less’.

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Kartikey Sehgal
Role of songs in a film’s success and a filmmaker talking about his film losing out to an item song and marketing.
Part One here.

…continued
But Sanjay feels that though an item number does not define a film, “there is at least a chance that more people will go to theatres. Because of the item song and any marketing ploy, the film is not going to lose out on audience”.

This logic, however, does not justify why the film ‘Summer 2007’, directed by Suhail Tatari, lost out on success. The film dealt with farmer suicides but it was touted as a romantic college tale. Instead of the problem “that 70 percent of India has been facing forever”, as Suhail describes, the item song was given more prominence by the producers and newspaper headlines claimed that the film will ‘redefine item numbers’.

Suhail is sure that the item number and some other songs in the film were a hindrance to its success. “They made the screenplay look long and awry”.

 
Summer 2007: The film dealt with farmer suicides but it was touted as a romantic college tale… the item song was given more prominence by the producers and newspaper headlines claimed that the film will ‘redefine item numbers’.

Suhail believes that his film lost out due to “improper marketing”. He particularly opposes the usage of songs in trailers to promote a film.

“A film can work wonders without any song. How many songs were there in ‘A Wednesday’ or ‘Aamir’? ‘A Wednesday’ was carried to success by two old men”.

Although Suhail had agreed to the inclusion of the item song, he now feels that it added nothing to the film that showed farmers dying due to hunger and debts.

His experience has wisened him to the marketing aspects of a film. “Marketing is not about gimmicks. It should involve telling the people what the film is about. In India we hide the story behind the songs”.

While talking about his film’s marketing blunder he says, “The producers decided to not show or mention the village—which was central to the film— in the promotional campaigns. Only the trailers shown in theatres hinted that the protagonists go to a village and find something very amiss. Otherwise, people didn’t know what the film was about”.

Suhail says that he knows the reason why the issue was hidden from the people. “The producers thought that it was a financial risk to show a village to the city audience” and “we have an apathy to what is not ours”.

Like Suhail, Aatish has grievances with some of the songs in ‘Aankhen’.

Although the film was a big success, Aatish feels that “some of the songs hampered the storytelling and distracted the audience from the plot”.

Aankhen was an adaptation of Aatish’s popular Gujarati play Aandalo Paato (Blind Man’s Bluff). There were no songs in the play but Aatish had agreed for songs in the film to cater to commercial requirements of the producers. On his part he had wanted that the film doesn’t slack due to their placement.

 
Aankhen: Aankhen was an adaptation of Aatish’s popular Gujarati play Aandalo Paato (Blind Man’s Bluff). There were no songs in the play but Aatish had agreed for songs in the film… Although the film was a big success, Aatish feels that “some of the songs hampered the storytelling and distracted the audience from the plot”.

Despite the experience, Aatish doesn’t mind if songs are not integral to a film’s plot. “They must be ‘catchy’ and should not come in the way of the pace of the film”.

Aatish is assured that more than the songs it is the film’s content that brings success. However, he also feels that it is difficult to determine what the Indian audience really want.

He illustrates; “People who liked Aankhen and Waqt (another play adaptation) also liked some other styles of films. If I make a Venn diagram of the trend, then I will discover that the number of people who like two opposite styles of filmmaking is very large. The number of people who like only a particular style of filmmaking is very less.”

Written first for DNA

In Part 3: A theatre director adapting his popular play for the screen. Will he go for songs and item numbers?

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Kartikey Sehgal

Written first for DNA

Director Shyam Benegal, who has captured myriad expressions of life in his various films, had to free himself from the clutches of the item-number when he was making ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’.

“He did not want to include songs in the film. He did so on the behest of the producers”, says writer Atul Tiwari who has worked with the director.

In one of the songs, that was probably required to be the item song of the film, a village girl wears tight pants and extensive make-up as her lover dreams of a life of bikes, cars and aeroplanes.

The song from Welcome To Sajjanpur: “The dream sequence was an attempt to avoid making the song into another raunchy item number.” Image source.

Atul, who has written the screenplay for Shyam’s ‘Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero’, speaks in the director’s favour.

“The dream sequence was an attempt to avoid making the song into another raunchy item number. It is to his credit that he tried to make every song integral to the plot of the movie”.

Perhaps the song and dance decision was propelled by the commercial failure of Shyam’s ‘Bose’. The epic was based on the last five years of Subhas Chandra Bose’s life and was without any item songs or self-generated controversies. It did not even create rifts out of the differing personalities of Subhas and Gandhi as some other films on Indian history had successfully done in the past.

Atul feels that  none of these gimmicks would have in any way proven beneficial to the film and could have, instead, spoiled the message.

The epic was based on the last five years of Subhas Chandra Bose’s life and was without any item songs or self-generated controversies… Atul feels none of these gimmicks would have in any way proven beneficial to the film and could have, instead, spoiled the message.

But producer Sanjay Routri feels otherwise. “Anybody who talks of marketing as being detrimental to the film in any way should put himself in the shoes of the producer; the man who is spending money and taking risks”.

Sanjay has worked as the executive producer of ‘Johnny Gaddar’ and ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ among other films. His range of work includes the assurance of the marketability of the movie; from getting saleable actors to listening and deciding if the item number would find favour among the audience.

He contrasts Atul’s line of thinking; “Songs and controversies are the best marketing tools for a film”, he laughs but doesn’t want to give examples. “In foreign films, trailers are released periodically to garner attention for a film; in India, our songs are our trailers”.

“You can check that in most films, it is either the item number or the controversy that aids the film”.

Atul, on the other hand, says that he belongs to a school of thought that consciously wants to avoid the pull of the item song and its interference in the film. He knows that in an industry where over 90 percent of the films find sustenance difficult, it has become mandatory to include an item song.

“But tell me, how many films do you remember that were declared a ‘hit’ because of the item song?”

Sanjay agrees that songs, and particularly item songs, are a tool only for awareness. “The solution to increase the success rate of Hindi films is better content. But songs and item numbers, if at all, will only attract more people into the theatre and not detract from the viewership”.

Writer Aatish Kapadia holds the same view on the power of the item song to garner attention but doesn’t think that people would go to theatres because of its presence.

He is the screenplay writer of the commercially successful film ‘Aankhen’ and had no qualms in including an item number in the film. “I look forward to the item song in every film”. Aatish is a fan of the song ‘Kajra Re’ (photo: right) from the film ‘Bunty Aur Babli’; “I adore the song”. But he doesn’t believe that an item song can attract more people into the theatre. “People went to the theatre to primarily see Bunty and Babli and they looked forward to the item song”.

In Part 2: A film that lost out due to songs and an item number

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Kartikey Sehgal

Discipline is to do with fear. Basically we fear what we should do with our time and so we invent discipline. With discipline there is no fear as to what we have to do with our time. Though I am not fearful, I had decided to use this time for other kinds of writing but I am now writing on fear and discipline

So discipline should come from within. You should be bothered as to what you are going to do with time so that you make discipline. External discipline is then useless; it is at least not as useful as internal discipline. With external discipline fear persists and it is not lessened; the fear of punishment; of verbal abuse and more.

Nature is disciplined. The river flows and trees grow on the banks. Pollination of flowers. I imagine that discipline is a state of human misery. As living beings we should naturally be disciplined, which means that we should be doing the things we like. If we do the things that we like then we won’t make trouble for others and we will learn from others’ lives. But we are brought to misery by people tampering with our nature, i.e. instilling fear in us, and to get rid of the fear we have to invent discipline. We have to be disciplined to achieve our natural state of creative existence.

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 Kartikey Sehgal

I walk to the theatre and think that it’s not too much to ask for any man. Some security and movie-watching with your family.

“Tell me”, says Bhupinder while manoeuvring his auto-rickshaw through the police barricade, “won’t the terrorist simply take the bus?” A set of three policemen, huddled together, ask for the vehicles to slow down; the bus and heavy transport is let through without scrutiny. “The Police simply adds to traffic woes. In the morning they are on one side of the road and in the evening they are on the other side. That’s duty for them”.

At some distance there’s more traffic and Bhupinder points out to a boy sitting in the adjoining rickshaw. “People like them should be checked”. The boy is clad in shirt and jeans and is wearing several tattoos and chains. It is discriminatory, he agrees, but adds that that is how it should be for state security.

The rickshaw breezes through a Juhu road for some seconds and the change in speed prefaces change in our conversation.

“It’s a very popular theatre of Mumbai. As a child I saw several films there with my family”. We are talking about Chandan Cinema, a popular single screen theatre that has survived the onslaught of multiplexes.

“Those were the days when the ticket was priced at rupee one”. The roads have given way to Bhupinder and he presses on the pedal. “I have also seen films for barah anna. We went to the movies as a family. But the films of the sixties and seventies are not made these days.”

We slither through the turns while avoiding potholes. Bhupinder is close to his favourite theatre.

“Now-a-days we don’t go to theatres to watch films. There’s too much skin show. And we can watch any film on cable. It saves money”. A sigh and then he adds, “taking your family out can set you back by many days. There’s not just that amount of money”.

As I pay the fare, Bhupinder tells me about his son who is set to join the police force. That’s how he keeps tab on the policewallas and security. He invites me to meet him sometime and hang out with him.

I walk to the theatre and think that it’s not too much to ask for any man. Some security and movie-watching with your family.

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