PFC New York City MeetUp – The report
I arrived at the location a full 37 minutes after the witching hour, figuring I’ll still be the first. IST and all. But no, Badmash and Evelyn were standing outside the bar. From their unbridled disappointment at seeing me, I figured they were PFC.
We air kissed our hellos (Not), got a round of drinks and headed to the patio, It was Evelyn’s wedding anniversary, yet she said husband can wait. A PFC Meetup is more important, and hung out with us for most of the evening, while waiting on her husband to pick her up.
It was a small and intimate group and PFC author Shripriya put in a cameo.
I would be lying if I said that I was disappointed with the turn out. Not the folks that came(they were fun, and charming) but the people that couldn’t make it. It reminded me of every birthday party I threw till the age of 15 when no one would show up. Some times not even my parents, which of course led me to believe I was adopted and I swore off celebrating birthdays. I also promised them a good nursing home in their old age, a lesson I learned from that epic social drama Jaise Karni Waise Bharni with the only difference that I didn’t have Kader bhai as my affectionate and benign grandpa. I thought the rabid hordes would come out in full support, but I take it people had other pressing engagements. This time it is ok, but next time please take care.
Our discussions covered an alarmingly wide range of subjects, from Badmash’s adulation of Gulzar, and disdain for actor celebrities, to how Salman has so many fans and who they were (friends of Evelyn), the anger in Shah Rukh, plagiarism in Indian cinema, discussion of plagiarism on PFC, the difference between Sanjay Gupta and Bhatt form of inspiration, and the Bheja Fry/Manorama form of inspiration. All of this in the first 45 minutes.
We also delved into how Evelyn discovered Indian cinema (her salman loving friend), how the Chopra/Johar brand is the face of Indian cinema around the world, what’s up with Anurag and not blogging, why do filmmakers insist on insulting the audience, why do they take our money, spit on our face and say “In your face motherfucker,” and other charming thoughts.
Our conversation was interrupted by a befuddled bartender clutching a cordless phone, and trying to ask for …for…for…his look said it all. Figured it was Shripriya or Anantha who was supposed to come (what happened?), and were calling to see if we were still there. Of course, since no one knows my name, and I go by dabba, it must have been confusing.
Shripriya joined us shortly after, gave us the dope on her life, and deferred admission to NYU film school. We talked about recent movies watched, and how I cried during Kung Fu Panda, how Badmash cried during TZP and felt cheated because it was not a good film yet he could connect with the boy, hence the crying and then feeling annoyed at the crying. I also let out that I watched PS I Love You right after TZP (and having the same reaction as Badmash), and cried during that film as well. Led Shripriya to conclude that I cry at all films, which may not be that far off the mark.
I hopefully convinced Badmash to send in an iView on topics that were of interest to him. Shripriya left for some sort of High Society soiree, where people sip cryofrozen martinis out of long-stemmed glasses, and discuss their recent acquisition of exquisite Harappan pottery and bass reliefs, while a tipsy Evelyn had to finally join her husband for anniversary and all.
Then there were two and some Indian-Chinese was eaten (food, you naughties!), and we talked more about films, PFC, and striking the balance between living a comfortable life and hurting while pursuing one’s passion. We were both in agreement. Comfort trumps. It reminded me of that dialogue from Falak where Amrish Puri’s evil industrialist says to a starving factory-worker or perhaps a fellow capitalist, “Subah Naashthey kay saath ek gilass orange juice, dopahar lunch ke saath do ghoonth gin, aur raat ko khaane ke saath teen peg whiskey. Iske bina zindagi main mazaa hi nahin.”
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
wow I got linked to Karan johar… Aapki khabar lunga saturday ko!
you cried during KKKG. come on, admit it. Main aap nahin tum/tu hoon.
here is confession only nri who hasn’t seen kuch kuch hota hai, saw kkkg last year… Loved hrithik roshan… But the movie had so many factual errors . And I don’t like when directors don’t do home work on facts… It was just a showoff movie and KJ admitted it himself in an interview to tehlka. Anyway bashing KJ here will be like preaching the masters… Of course he is the best when it comes to present naach gaanas.. in lavish style
I am not sure but will try to make it.
Nitesh
NY/NJ/CT tri-state area……why do people hate boston….i know patriots,red sox and celtics might be one reason but why PFC’ians from boston are not invited?
@ Nitesh, Vineeth:
Do try and make it.
no hate for boston vineeth. didn’t think anyone was crazy enough to make the trip. if you are, you’re definitely one of us. please come on down.
@dabba
hey..just kidding….cant make it this weekend but will be there for next one for sure
u guys hav fun and take some pics also…
Is Karan Johar also coming???
Why in this world this is happening in this weekend only?The busiest(only busy one) in last 2 month when I was alone. Can not commit but will love to make it there.
Whatever is keeping you busy, bring her, it, him, them also.
If it in NY, cant we meet on some weekday??
some folks are coming in from Jersey etc, so they may not be able to do weekday. i travel a lot for work, so i’m rarely around during the week.
when i’m back on a somewhat regular basis, i’ll be more than happy to get a drink on a week night. it will have to wait till july though.
do try and make it though. do u live in the city?
I know, its not possible on weekdays.I live in NJ, but work on Wall Street.So to get any where in NY on weekdays is easy.
Unfortunatly, this saturday is really really busy.I came on net just to check ur replies and drop message.
Have a good time guys…may be sometime later we can have a unofficial meet again.
I m real movie buff, and havent met someone who likes the movies as much. So it will be great to meet few more frnds of same likeness.
drop me a line whenever. we’ll go grab drinks and talk shop.
great. Have fun today.
PFC NYC –
2 hours to The Happening. seee ya’ll there. someone bring a camera. alls i got is a cell fone.
yes we want pics! camera nahi to use cellfone. hav fun.
what happened?
I came and left early-ish at the meet-up, so I’m waiting for our fearless organizer to report back on the big picture. However, I can say that everyone who was part of the small early shift was really sweet and had encyclopedic knowledge of movies. Dabba, thanks for arranging this on short notice.
coming soon. badmash, if you’re reading this, i don’t have the pics. send them asap please.
i did email you the picture on saturday night.. okay will email you again..
hi dabba
i just email the pictures to you again.. let me know if you got it.. if not then either i got your email address wrong or it’s going in your spam box..
I am very sorry for not making it. Was caught up with some work.
I will surely make it for the next meet, if there is one. I hope you all had fun at the meet.Do post the account of the evening.Would love to read it.
Nitesh
Hahaha, Dabba, your childhood birthday parties were just like mine, except at least my parents showed up.
The way I figured out Badmash was the first one to arrive was that he was standing out on the street looking anxious. I queried him, “Dabba?” He replied, “No” and looked away. Then the realization crossed his face that I could indeed be there for the meetup. Before five minutes had passed, we were discussing the merits and demerits of Karan Johar movies.
Only 4.5 weeks left to my graduate program, then I’ll be able to keep up better with PFC.
Dabba, please e-mail me so I can send a request back to you.
topiwala dabba..hehe..nice guys…did dabba reco you guys some beers? he is great at it..
Good to see faces to the names…evelyn, shripriya, badmash..hope you all had a great time…next time will be bigger..keep the fire..ahem burning..
Indian Chinese? Say it wasn’t Chinese Mirch!! My FAVORITE indian chinese joint in all of Manhattan. How bummed am I to have missed that??
Chinese Mirch had an hour long wait so we went to my alternate Indian chinese place, indo Munch a new place three blocks up on Lex and 31st, and dare i say it was every bit as good. Next time you don’t feel like waiting, give it a shot.
evelyn, where have you been? i thought i had your email, but lost it, and you went missing too.. just wanted to say i watched your film and thought it was bloody good. is it still doing festival rounds? either way, you should write about it.
btw.. PFC-NY, one of my films is playing in NY on july 24/25th.. come out, watch it, trash me, and i’ll buy you a drink. let’s make a meetup out of it. will pass on the details to dabba and maybe he can coordinate another one of these shindigs.
@ 28 striker –
sounds good.
@ striker..
July 25th sounds good..
i was suggesting to Dabba to have movie nights once a month .. maybe in the city or in NJ so we can get together to watch something and then go to a bar/café for discussion..
so we can definitely start with this one…
i am game.. but are you sure you want your movie reviewed by Dabba.. he was pretty brutal butcher .. when he ripped Aamir apart..
badmash, mine’s a short film, so dabba can only tear it apart so much.. plus after his new found autopsy fame, i’d almost consider it an honor to be ripped apart by him. in fact, i’d say i’d be downright disappointed if he didn’t. if you guys want to tear apart one of my feature films, rent “alucard” from blockbuster or netflix. watch it over a few drinks, and enjoy!
sthalle.. motta!!!
striker, you made me smile! Our doc only went to SAIFF. I don’t feel like calling Adlabs, even though they were very gracious, for permission every time we wanted to show our movie at an event, since it has clips of Salman’s movie in it. Perhaps private screenings are a possibility at one of these meetups someday.
Maybe one day I’ll write about the experience. Do people here care about documentaries (even funny ones)?
I’m there for July 25. Remind us when the time gets closer, will ya?