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Unbelonging
We boil at different degrees. But the bubbles are always there, beneath the surface calm. Waiting for the right temperature or the wrong provocation. My threshold varies. There are mornings when, like Kilgore, I love the smell of Napalm. I want to get blown up, teeter on that edge and fall off into a glorious abyss. And then there are days when I’m weaker than English tea, and the provocations in form of insults flung by aliases and pseudonyms shake the very root of my faith. The many manifestations of rage.
But, before I spew any further, let me answer the ubiquitous questions that assail all of my writings. ‘What the hell is she writing about?’ I’m writing about anger. ‘What’s the point of this post?’ It’s an attempt to analyse why we usually fire all our rage in the wrong direction. ‘Is she trying to be clever or sarcastic?’ Clever? Couldn’t if I tried. But yeah, sarcasm has often been a useful refuge… Not on this occasion, though.
The world is made up of the good guys and the bad guys. And we are, every one of us, but of course, the good guys. With a whole lot of anger against the baddies. Cinema-wise, referring to the only world I know – that of Hindi films, it’s the Indies against the Chopras and the Johars and the Bhansalis and the Barjatyas and the whatchamacallit. We the people against them, the Establishment. And if you want to be a part of this world, if you love the movies, if you’re passionate about cinema, hey, you gotta pick a side. You gotta know where your loyalties lie. And those that don’t belong; let’s stone ‘em.
I don’t particularly relish the thought of being stoned (the other kind of ‘stoned’, I don’t mind!), but I don’t really want to belong to either side. No, not even among the good guys, because the degree of cynicism that this kind of delineation elicits is alarming. And most of us here are not even thirty!!! I can’t bring myself to subscribe to the second-hand smoke of world-weariness where I turn into a cynic, when I haven’t seen anything, faced anything and it’s required that I don’t believe in anything… Pushing the ‘stoned’ plant for a pay-off, I prefer to inhale the opium of optimism.
‘You may say that I’m a dreamer…
but I’m not the only one.’
When I decided to write for the movies, I wasn’t aware of these worlds within the film world. I didn’t know I would have to belong to a group. I didn’t know that the people I worked with would define what I was perceived as. I just wanted to write. Like this friend who just wants to edit. Or another, who just wants to create music, and another who just wants to act. We’re all just trying to find our feet and our voice and struggling to stay afloat. Any commitment is purely toward the dream of being able to do what we love and love what we do. It is a deep visceral urge that is singular and pure and selfish. This desire isn’t a part of a crusade or a revolution or a movement. It’s like a relationship between two lovers; it excludes the rest of the world.
My first film as a writer sealed my fate. ‘Black’, the movie that’s become the definitive deciding factor to differentiate between the good guys and the bad. An instantaneous trigger for Anger Management therapy. You like ‘Black’? You’re an idiotic cinema-illiterate bourgeoisie moron who knows no better. You hate ‘Black’? Ah, now we’re talking. So, I can never be one of the good guys, I’m right away excluded on grounds of association. As if that weren’t enough, like the mother who loves her disabled child more than the prodigy, I love ‘Black’, unapologetically and proudly, warts and all.
And yes, I could call Sanjay Leela Bhansali a friend, we’ve shared some great times. Arrogant, pompous egomaniacal perception notwithstanding, this was a man who’d always look out of his car window with a deep sense of belonging every time we passed a chawl, reminiscing about times when he used to live in one. Whose perception of cinema shall always remain strangely skewed because most of his memories of movies watched in his childhood are from the other side of the white cloth on which movies were projected during Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav because he couldn’t afford the ticket to watch it from the right side. I may not subscribe to or agree with what he did with what I wrote. But I admire that he used his anger and got where he did. And anyway, why does he have to be wrong for me to be right? Not every bad guy is a sinner, and every good one is not a saint.
‘To be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way is never easy.’
Anger is a great emotion – causes action, wins wars, produces change, creates history – I love anger, it burns pure and clean. Without anger, we’re condemned to an existence of passivity and submission. But a collective rage that reaches its boiling point in tandem doesn’t always result in an uprising. The arts are strangely a very individual form. Excellence and revolt is usually embodied within just one person, not a commune.
While fighting all these thoughts and arriving at ‘convoluted’ conclusions, something wonderful happened a few days ago that put everything into perspective. My unbelonging friends and me went out for a couple of drinks. I first regaled the poor helpless souls to a recitation of Alexander Pope’s ‘Eloisa to Abelard’ (more popular as inspiration for the movie title ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’) and then, much to their delight, to a Hema Malini soliloquy (which I’m excellent at, by the way!) and we were all doubled up in laughter when these amused watchers decided to join us. It was the grouping that made the moment so piquant. Some of them worked at YRF and UTV and a couple of others were FTII grads trying to get their brilliant avant garde thoughts and films underway. The good guys, the bad guys and the in-betweens. All together. Not fighting, not tearing each other down. And while we were all collectively turning the place into a mad-house, one of them commented, ‘At the end of the day, we’re all here to tell our stories and make a living’.
It’s as simple and as profound as that. We could do so much better directing our ire and rage at a cumulative abstract than at a solid entity. Whether that’s wishful thinking or not, I shall remain in the fringes or continue sit on the fence, whichever way one chooses to look at it. I shall continue to write and then wriggle into the spaces between the words and lie there coiled like a cobra or a worm, depending on viewpoint. I shall probably again incite misdirected anger and hold the record for the most number of trolls held by any author on PFC. I only hope they catch me on one of my Colonel Kurtz days and not the Earl Grey ones.
38 Responses to “Unbelonging”
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bhavani, i’m sure some of the idiots responding to your previous posts might have you thinking otherwise, but pay no heed to them and please continue writing on PFC, because believe it, you belong here :)
Hi Bhavani, was just reading all your posts at one go because I just joined a couple of days back. And that’s really great material in there. Keep churning more magic out of your Bell Jar. And a little bit of Black magic goes a long way. :)
I only hope they catch me on one of my Colonel Kurtz days and not the Earl Grey ones.
- Classic! :)
Bhavani: every line in the paragraphs constructed by you screams loud about your being a first rate writer. Your passion of writing is so visible. Even if its a blog on an online portal about cinema, you do it with in a proper way as if you are writing for a high class print media based journal. Most often most of us bloggers are culprit of this casual attitude while writing on a blog and thus avoid many things. Many have different interest in cinematic world and thus they can afford bit casualness in their blog but you are so clear that you have to be associated as a writer.
Like any other film, Black has good and not so good moments/factors. It was/is not a film which could be ignored, one had to be in favour or against of it and this is a success and hence reactions. But in between these two kind of extremists(you have pointed out), there are cine lovers living in middle for whom Black also can be discussed for all its positives and negatives in same way as we discuss other films, with no personal cynicism attached and any art deserve viewing by these healthy viewers only and rest all extremists just settle their personal grudge against creators and their opinions dont hinder
the creative journey of creators.
Surely so many people have spread clouds over Black and as Sanjay Bhansali has been non responding and you wre also not available, scene has been created where product was given an ambigous image, but your writing is the proof of first grade writing and Sanjay Bhansali’s future films will be helpful in making his right image , whether he scores above Black or not.
a nice read. :)
Excellent Bhavani! Completely agree with RK. You are a fantastic writer. Your writing is chicken soup for the soul. Go on!
Now, moving on….
You may not know, this is one of the scenes Black was copied from.
Thank to one of my friend for providinf this.
Exact, Ain’t it? Even if you haven’t seen TMW, SLB has surely seen it. Maybe that part was written by SLB.
Just PERSONALLY I did not like Black that much. It was very weak at places. Maybe because of direction, hamming and mannerisms of AB Sr. Rani was good. Ayesha may have also seen TMW. Raja Sen of Rediff made a wonderful ‘proper’ assessment of BLACK here: http://www.rediff.com/movies/2005/sep/27paheli.htm
Keep up good work!
Sorry! the link is here: http://www.youtube.com/v/mRq9G_B9yWY
Even with Unbelonging,u BELONG here. Good to hav u back :-) n tell me one thing, have people told u this…ur language is too good to be part of this bad bollywood. whatver i hav managed to read so far,atleast i wud hav said the same :-)
Phoenixnu: your fear may be right, Hindi cine poeple are so fond of mediocre works that its said many filmmakers did not like Suresh Wadekar because in their opinion he sang too good and besically came under semiclassical category which they did not need. They need chalu work.
But surely inclusion of Bhavani like writers quality is a sure shot there atleast now and onwards.
Many thanks… Oz, where are the trolls? Eight comments and all wonderful warm ones?!!! Seriously though, thank you all. Pratim, welcome to PFC. Citizen Kane, thanks for the links. Phoenix, Striker, RK — you guys are great. I’ll treat you to a very exclusive Hema Malini special act, open to an encore the next time you’re in Bombay.
Bhavani…the selfish side of mine is wondering if i can hav the act exclusivly for me n with hema malini…can imagine :d . when RK, striker come to mumbai we will have encore. being in the medium of tv news, we anyway think that everything is exclusive n is meant 4 us only.
Yeah, we could have hemaji too, but I can still do the ‘nahin’ better than her! But yeah, she looks like an absolute dream, so you’re better off with her!
Phoenxnu: we are audience of Channels also, so you can settle us with video recording also. BTW it was wonderful once to see Hema Malini’s live performance in Ganga Mahotsava. She is a Dancer!
Bhavani: Hema Malini act? whats that?
In acting its very rare that someone is immitating a female actor, some do it with class like Rekha and Sri Devi were well versed in this art but on an average female actresses have been away from this mimcry art. Few days ago had seen, a female contestent on GILC, where she immitated styles of Meena Kumari, Rakhi, Sharmila Tagore and she was very good in copying Aishwarya Rai. :)
What the heck! Forget Black, I like your posts here in PFC! =d>
RK, I don’t think I’d be anywhere as good as that contestant, but I can do a pretty mean HM. ‘Sholay’, ‘Satte Pe Satta’, the ‘tumne mujhe dhoka diya’ dialogues, I am quite the mimic when it comes to the Dreamgirl!
Bhavani, between black and white there is lots of gray/to hell with trolls/ you are here to stay/ let anger reach its gestalt and get closure/ you keep brewing your posts from masala tea to earl gray…
And keep regaling the captive audiences with orgasmic oohs and aahs of HM…
A writer and a mimic—unique combo!
“Unbelonging” ??? surely you belong to this place or space(depend on you).
You know when tulsidas star writing of “Ram charitmanas” in Banaras,at that time people of Banaras were very angry on him with one excuse “if you are residing in Banaras then you have to write in Sanskrit ( you can say in dev vaani )” but now days Ramcharitmanas is more famous than Valmiki “Ramayan”.
Bhavani this bollywood (sorry for this abusing word ) needs you and we common man also need you as a story writer so please keep writing on this beautiful platform.
bhavani, i’m going to take you up on your offer of that dreamgirl act! see you in a couple of weeks.. don’t back out now :)
Now we’re talking!! Welcome back my hero! :)
Forget Black. There’s nothing wrong in writing *a* movie. To keep the pen or the pan going, one will have to write blacks, shakalaka-boom-booms, and darling-yeh-hai-indias. Now stop being self-deprecating and shower upon us more of those excellent, profound and erudite poetic prose of yours. Coming to trolls, leave it to the admins; however, I am sure that you can, if you set your mind to it, dole out slick zingers and smart comebacks which will make em smile and hurt forever at the same time.
Bhavani… Great Post and you know you ought to write books too, the way you express your thoughts and your use of words- just awesome. I like this idea of UNBELONGING…. very often I find myself sitting on the fence. The “Mainstream” guys find me too “Offbeat” and the “Parallel” cinema guys find me too “Mainstream”… and all I have to say is “Guys I am making my films…why do u want to slot me?”: but it is difficult to escape the trap. I realize that I do not belong to any film camp…. am on the periphery of the industry trying to make my films…
What a relief to read your post Bhavani! “The good guys, the bad guys and the in-betweens. All together. Not fighting, not tearing each other down. And while we were all collectively turning the place into a mad-house, one of them commented,
:d/:d/:d/:d/:d/:d/:d/:d/:d/
bhavani it seems from your comments that u r looking out for that someone…lol
I agree with every word that you have written. Yes, at the end of the day we’re all trying to tell our stories and make a living. Labels should never be taken seriously, they serve no purpose. As for belonging, you only belong here till the time you are successful. Chadhte suraj ko hi yahan par salaam karte hain!
Great read this one!!
anjali // loved your comment. “Chadhte suraj ko hi yahan par salaam karte hain!” Amen.
Clear expression of thoughts that convey the inner struggle that is inherent in any creative person.
A hattrick of great posts.
I am a film watcher.
Fortunately or unfortunately I don’t belong to any camps. I am seeing camps emerge and gather momentum and become their own establishment. Other camps break out and challenge what was once a camp of anti-establishment.
One thing I am certain, this change and turmoil is eternal. However a writer is a person belonging to a common camp. It is film makers who twist and interpret the writing to their tastes - again driven and established by the camp they belong to.
So you ‘belong’ to the sanjaya and vidhura camp. Who detail and document the war without playing a direct role. You belong to the whole and not to a part as it is your idea and word transformed into a million different shades by people of either camps - black or white, good or bad.
So keep your fire burning.
Keep supplying ammunitions to all in need. Lets see who wins the day and sing laurels of them while eulogizing those who died a valiant death.
A very nice post Bhavani. Enjoyed reading it as I did the others that you wrote. Keep writing…
Also, do write about how you go about writing scripts, your thought processes, methods, challenges you faced etc. A little peek into your
mind as it works would help some of us trying to write our own scripts…
Thanks! :)
Bhavani,
iss kaan se sunane ka usse nikaal dene ka… Jyada tension nahi lene ka, dene ka!!! LOL
Bhavani,
Ever tried writing a novel. Methinks you can do one better than Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” if you tried writing a novel in prose.
Vikram Seth is one of my favourite writers, so compliments don’t get any bigger than this, Venky. Thanks! I don’t think I’m that good by any stretch, but felt good to hear… I have written two books, about a dozen short stories and maybe a million poems.They just adorn my hard disk, have no clue how to go about getting them published… Frankly, haven’t really tried all that hard. Sent some manuscripts to a couple of publishing houses and got no response…. Darn, you wouldn’t happen to be an editor at Random House, would you?!! Thanks again…
wb, v.p., krysh, prasanth, anjali — thanks.
Smriti, I’d love to see your HM act!
dazedandconfused — I’ll keep your suggestion in mind for future posts, thanks.
Onir — you said it, periphery… that’s the best place to be. One gets a great perspective. Center-stage ruins it all, all the attention fills your head with so much air, you float like a damn helium balloon and think you can actually levitate!!!
onir,
u say the mainstream guys and arty guys try to slot u and dont let u be… but arent u the one who are slotting them here in the first place by either calling them ‘parallel cinema guys’ or ‘mainstream guys’?? arent they too making their own films??? think about it..
NU!!! By God ki Kasam, if you don’t write a post on your experiences of the last 6 months I will slot you as NU GADDAAR and make a film on it more sleeker than Sriram’s Johnny :)) Jaldi Jaldi post dalo
NU
I think you did not get me right. By putting “” while using the terms mainstream and parallel one is not accepting the terms and trying to say that these need to be redefined. Unfortunately whether I like it or not there are these slots…. I do not believe in them…. and think that the lines are more and more merging everyday….
hey oz,
bro my film isnt over yet.. it will be as soon as we get SRK’s dates.. then i will have enough time to pen down all my experiences.. will be gr8 fun then!
I completely agree with most people here, you must write books. Your language seems to be really nice for literature.
And its amazing that how I can identify with what you’ve chosen to write about in your blog. Its like one of those thoughts or dillemas or may be concerns which exist in your mind but never really manage to slip on your tounge and you convineintly remain completely oblivious to this, that you have something to express, something to say. And I am sure you know how it feels when somebody else talk exactly about what is there in your mind, I mean only in your mind figuring out how to come out, how to express.
Still being a beginner, I find it really hard to accept what you call profound and true,
Hey Adesh. Many thanks. Telling our stories, wanting to make a living doesn’t exclude idealism at all. I think everyone who is here wants to make a difference, do something remarkable and leave a footprint. Like I’d mentioned, I wouldn’t want to be a cynic based on other people’s experiences. But underneath all the hope and optimism lies a common thread binding us all — on all sides of the good-bad commercial-non-commercial divide — is the fact that we simply want to tell our stories and make movies.
Regarding ‘Black’, my brief was a story based on the life of Helen Keller, a kind of homage to her. And no, I wasn’t asked to watch ‘The Miracle Worker’. I did however read William Gibson’s play on which ‘The Miracle Worker’ is based.
“My first film as a writer sealed my fate.