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Warning: This is not a review. This is an extremely personal letter to K - the protagonist of No Smoking. No one forces you to read, leave alone comment!

Dear K,

Hey! I saw the film they made about you. It’s about your smoking habit, they think. I don’t think so. It didn’t have an email address to reach you so I am posting the letter here.

You know, when I was getting into the auto rickshaw to get to watch No Smoking, a madman followed me. I ignored him and he started to follow all the way into the rickshaw. The other side of the rickshaw was blocked as well. The driver was a bit stumped and took time to react, he thought that man was with me, but I panicked for I didn’t know him. The auto rickshaw man took charge and began hurling the choicest abuses at once. …

[updated: second video of PFC's first on camera reaction after the premiere]

Had good fun at the premiere, thanks Navdeep and PFC.

Here’s my opinion about the film and a quick home video footage from the premiere!

I enjoyed it especially because it was refreshing to see a character like Satyaveer on screen. I am glad he got a place in a release rather than being relegated to just the film festival venue. Even going by the hundreds of stories that aspiring writers from all over the country send out to film people in Mumbai, probably hoping to further their ambition and break from the mundanity of the life they are born into, this character seemed real and I am not even talking about the hindi pulp that we see stocked up in railway stations et al.

It is ironic that in those single screen B and C centres where a …

I was looking forward to watching ‘Jashn-e-Azaadi’, the documentary by Sanjay Kak at Prithvi on the 30th and i get this email today:

“Dear Friends, We write to bring to your notice yet another violation of the freedom of expression in India. On Friday, 27 July 2007, a posse of policemen attached to the Dadar police station in Bombay broke into a private screening of Sanjay Kak’s documentary, ‘Jashn-e-Azaadi’, and confiscated the DVD. The screening, which was hosted by the Vikalp group of independent filmmakers, was intended to bring to a Bombay audience an eloquent cinematic argument for dialogue beyond anguish and antagonism; for an understanding of the ‘Kashmir issue’ in human and cultural terms. Kak’s ‘Jashn-e-Azaadi’ dwells on the experience of the Kashmiri people during the protracted period of strife they have suffered — with equal elements of militancy, State repression, criminal violence, and a struggle for self-articulation. According to …

I was in Delhi when Oz called. The Mumbai Meri Jaan shoot was on but I couldn’t make it. Got back to Mumbai and got in touch with the gang to catch up with PFC and get a chance to spend a few hours on a shoot and get back to Mumbai-mode. I am glad I did.

Another interesting film but we can’t talk much yet. Wait for it, you’ll know.

It seems like a film that wants to get into the Mumbai spirit passionately to capture part-reality part-fiction.

The day I landed on the sets of Mumbai Meri Jaan, Nishikant and his crew was shooting a conversational scene outdoor, mid-traffic somewhere in Dadar and then shifting to an Interior location in Mahim.

To my still-outsider- to- Mumbai eyes it was quite wonderful to be out on the streets in rainy Mumbai. Well..Delhi has rain too..but you’ll never find …

Light salad with mild seasoning. Good for health! I liked some of the ingredients.. but a bit bland still. Maybe because I am North Indian and non vegetarian!

In short: a sweet little honest film that relies totally on performances.

Film about Food:

This connect about food and emotion - maybe it’s cultural or just purely human but to me it’s interesting. When the movie opened, I was instantly transported to one of my favorite films about food. Allow me to write a bit about that …

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) Ang Lee’s early work.

The film is set in a house in Taiwan about a widowed Chinese master chef who lives with his three grown up, single daughters. He’s ageing and losing his sense of taste but continues to communicate with them by hosting elaborate Chinese dinners every Sunday. But things change, …

Alright!

Whoever said the Black friday party video will be my next post is absolutely right!

Here it is .. ‘The Aftermath!’ -

By the way, i am quite impressed with how much Windows Movie Maker can accomplish!

Watch it - you’ll know.

So - here it is - The Aftermath - kitsch at its worst! (but a few laughs guarenteed)

Starring - Sanjay Gupta, Anurag Kashyap, Karthik Krishna, Vasan, Chaitanya, Manjeet

additional camera credit - Vasan (he shot the only portion that;’s actually lit up..when CT speaks)

Enjoy!

Go here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbmzv3JyUBw

or:

[youtube]Nbmzv3JyUBw[/youtube]

Reactions from Delhi:

Two of my writer friends from Delhi have requested to forward their reactions to Anurag & team, on watching Black Friday with the Dilli crowd. These are fairly long emails so i am pasting them here as a combined post.

From Sucharita:

Dear Anurag,

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Do not cast pearls before swine”?

You’ve made the most brilliant movie that has ever come out of the film industry in a long, long, time. But i won’t dwell on what i liked , didn’t like, etc. It was the audience reaction in the darkened halls that got my attention.

I went to watch the second show of the film, at PVR Priya, late night. Most of the crowd was made of young people. The kind who’ve come to watch a maar-dhaad film. The rest were the posh, globalized crop, the IIT-types, which …

Two more videos from Anurag’s discussion with the PFC team

1. Chaitanya asks Anurag about whether the stay order on Black Friday was justified and AK explains..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVa_rp_nTYA

2. Kartik asks Anurag whether the Badshah Khan track in Black Friday was required to be so long…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab6OXo2rAlY

All for now!

Here’s a video snippet from Anurag’s discussion with PFC. You’ve already heard the entire discussion that Chaitanya and Vasan uploaded earlier. I am just pulling out some portions from the video that i shot . Here’s one in which he explains how dialogue affects an actor’s performance. Enjoy!

or go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcxOlWQbHtQ

(With thanks to minds who invented ink and the pen - The Chinese? for paper and to God for trees..I wrote the following using pen and paper and am typing it out of a cybercafe somewhere in bandra..so thanks to technology and to Oz for PFC)

WHY AM I DOING THIS? WHY THE ^&%% am I HERE? in mumbai?

last night.:08:30 pm - I email OZ, that i just put down 15 pages of an interview with a film maker that should be up on PFC soon…my mind’s so charged up that i feel like finishing up a lot of writing, editing (want to put up some parts of Ak’s black friday discussion with PFC and something else i shot recently) and put it all up. i feel powerful.

09:30 PM ;Life makes its presence felt. Tells me who really is powerful. and it’s not me! The adaptor cable of my laptop goes …

New releases on smritivideo…

You’ve already read/heard Chaitanya and Vasan’s post about the discussion AK had with the PFC team yesterday.

I am uploading one video for now ….

(as you can see, this was shot on the day mosquito man took PFC by storm…so well…watch the video!)

(for the observers - loads of continuity glitches to catch but i am sure you’ll also catch ‘remain oblivious’)

Enjoy!

Here are two more videos from the final day of the No Smoking Shoot in Mumbai…ENJOY!

AK wraps up No Smoking in Mumbai

…in this video look out for Anurag with his sister Anubhuti, the PFCwallahs - Kartik, Vasan n Manjeet, the unique numberplate of the snazzy car - MCP - K1, Ak in his dark-comedic element, Ayesha Takia, John and Ak with the No Smoking team.

the youtube link: LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQz6dK_xpM

Ak inspires a prank on the final day of the shoot

… and a unit member’s bike goes missing instantly…(of course he got it back safe..)

the youtube link: LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG3LkDFczX8

Only images..no words..well..just a few…

Video 1 - On the final day of the shoot at Kamalistan studios in Mumbai –

This one is a sample of a scene being rehearsed and shot

(more coming…)

Watch it here:

Friends!

I don’t think i’ve done such appalling photography ever in my life. Have been resisting from posting these online, but PFC are a determined lot. See, as i posted earlier, i landed at the No Smoking shoot only with the intention of getting a feel of the shooting, milieu and of course to observe AK at work.

Capturing images was incidental…never thought i would be posting anything here ..not even the experience…

So do excuse the terrible pic. quality - exposure, contrast, levels — all wrong.

good thing is, i like my photography unhearsed, candid and raw .. one day when i make my film i want my doP to have lots of work to do. ok.i’ll stop dreaming now…lot of hardwork to do in life…

Hope to post more..when i have work and a decent internet connection — or sooner…who knows.

…

(Warning – no offence to anyone – but my words have potential to be injurious to health! They’re usually honest n sharp!)

….ACTION!

This year I learnt,

‘Films are about people’

–Those who work on the film – crew, cast, everyone who puts in their sweat, blood, grey cells – black hair that turn grey…etc …

– Those who are in the film itself – the characters – their world, their spaces – life as it is lived.

– Those who watch the film or even choose not to.

This is why when Anurag mentioned on PFC that he’d be shooting at Dharavi I couldn’t help but pester him to allow my annoying presence on the shoot for that one day, for how else and where else would I experience film making on all these three levels and that too with a script that’s exceptional at level 2 – that …