Originally posted in PFC---- http://passionforcinema.com/the-pop-generation-nostalgia-revisited/
I grew up in the 90's when DD Metro was taking it's baby steps ,and cable was in it's infancy in India ,people who have grown up during that time will recollect what it was like ,our childhood was synonymous with uncle Scrooge ,Baloo ,Mowgli and others.
A time when kids still eagerly awaited the Sunday morning for their dose of Chandrakanta ,Shaktiman and Disney Hour ,anyways I am getting nostalgic here and perhaps digressing from the topic of this post.
Anyways it all came to my mind when I saw the post on Doordarshan classics in PFC a few months back ,I still see people digging it out of it's grave and commenting on it ,if I am not wrong the number of comments are past 300 ,a testament to the love and nostalgia that the 20 something generation has for that bygone era ,anyways I thought that the post didn't capture the other aspect of the 90's ,the music videos and private albums.
It all started with Baba Sehgal and his pop brigade ,the "aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja" and "peecha karo" songs ,the catchy tunes and the youthful feeling of the songs was lapped up by the audiences who were perhaps tired of listening to Kumar Saanu and Alka Yagnik crooning their voices in every other song(no offence to the fans of the two singers ) and it started a whole generation of video albums ,with many others following in his footsteps.
But the mai-baap of all pop videos was yet to arrive ,an album which would turn the music world upside down ,yes "Meherbaan and Kadardaan" I am talking about none other than the album "Made in India" by Alisha Chinai ,boy you would have to be there in that time if you were to see the hysteria that the video generated.
Everywhere I went ,the paan-wala ,the chai-wala ,our doodh-wala ,the subzi waala ,the mechanic ,even the machhi wali ,everyone was singing "japan se lekar russia" and every channel and countdown show(another land mark program of the 90's) ,there were tonnes of them (not the channels ,the countdown shows), and each one of em was playing the song ,I bought the cassette on the second or third day of the song hitting the air waves ,it still plays itself dutifully whenever my father wants to listen to some tunes from his past.
As if this milestone in history wasn't enough ,down came our very own "dharti-puttar" "Daler Mehndi" in his fashionable trademark matching Pagdi , Lungi and Kurta , his "tunak tunak tun" started it all ,the flood of Punjabi music videos, and from then on if I remember correctly every third music video was a Punjabi music video ,the theme was always the same in those videos ,either the singer himself was the lover or there was always a sadda desi hero who fell in love with this pardesi babe like girl wearing Mini skirts or a short one-piece ,walking around with a gunda like villain in a high-end automobile ,the boy would try to catch the attention of the girl and fail but in the end like all traditional Indian love stories ,sadda desi hero used to walk away with the girl leaving the villain with munh-kala (black face) ,it got boring after a point but the "babes" always spiced up the videos in case the music couldn't.
And in between there were other revelations whom we enjoyed a lot like KK ,Shubha Mudgal ,Rajeshwari ,shivani ,Sunita Rao ,Lucky Ali ,and bands like Strings,Aryans ,Euphoria,many Pakistani bands others ,even Sonu Nigam debuted with his sweet love story based videos. In fact if you look back many of the artistes we see today made their mark in those days.
Some things which I recollect from those times
--Falguni Pathak's videos ,very melodious songs(I guess a too much melody for my tastes) with
. almost always the same kind of setting ,a young girl and puppy love.
--Euphoria ,they came with a bang in their first song ,interesting videos ,though Palash didn't
have the best voice around ,his songs had a kind of energy in them.
--Lucky Ali ,abstract videos with an all white theme.
--Remixes ,good ones by Suketu ,I still listen to "Hum Bewafa hargiz na the".
--The fact that some videos had interesting story lines ,which stretched into the second or third
releases ,for eg .the song "Piya Basanti Re" ,I remember the curiosity it generated.
But like all cultural phenomenon this was also destined to expire and so it did ,with the advent of the Yash Raj brigade and others bollywood music came back and the ageing video album stars couldn't sustain the youthful appeal any longer.
Whenever I look back at those days I remember that the thing which most appealed to me about private music albums was that they were less costly to make and more people could get a chance at making their name in the music Industry plus video albums were always more imaginative ,in addition to the song you had something else to look forward to hah! that is not the case anymore......guess I am getting nostalgic again.....will stop here for now.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
What is the definition of a good movie ? Is it about
1 . Technique ?
2 . Execution ?
3. Story ?
4. Screenplay ?
5. All this and everything I forgot to mention.
The answer according to me is none of the above ,it's when a movie kicks you in your guts so hard that you keep thinking about it all the way to your home and even after.
The experience of watching “The Revolutionary Road “on Saturday was similar, the purposelessness of existence ,the banality of everyday chores ,the repetitiveness of routines and finally the hopelessness arising out of it has been so brilliantly captured in this movie that it sent me hurtling down into a sea of personal memories ,memories which I have kept at bay for a long long time ,images of my mother sacrificing so much and so often for the sake of raising her two kids ,in fact it is the story of every Housewife who eats after her family has finished eating. A mother whose very existence is defined by her capacity to serve her kids and husband ,an everyday struggle so selfless that tears well up in your eyes.
It doesn't make for a spectacular suffering ,the ones that many film-makers and photographers like ,the ones that adorn the pages of a national geographic or TIME , but a prolonged and quiet one which does not interest many ,the movie had the same haunting feeling to it as the one I felt after watching “The Namesake” which brought back the memories of my Bengali father coming out of a traditional setting and struggling in an alien environment to provide for and raise his two kids and his wife ,watching his kids talk in an alien language at home and following an alien culture.
It is very hard to capture this pain of existence and this is where the genius of the director comes alive ,many overdo it by putting in too much dialogues and monologues ,while relegating the silence of suffering to the background. No wonder the most moving moments of world cinema are actually without dialogues and the most riveting description of human tragedy are actually still photographs.
The scene with Kate standing in the room after the botched attempt at self-abortion ,blood dripping onto the carpet ,staring on into the open is one of the most poignant scenes that I have watched on screen ,in terms of impact ,I rate it second only to the scene in Namesake where Gogol stands in the university room where his father died ,and spontaneously bursts into a sea of grief , it's the depiction of pain in it's most fragile and subtle form .
This is not an objective analysis of the movie but an emotional one because I never believed in objective deconstruction of things which are supposed to appeal to your heart and mind ,I wanted this post to be a bit longer but the I feel the profoundness of an experience cannot measured by the abundance of words by by the lack of it.
1 . Technique ?
2 . Execution ?
3. Story ?
4. Screenplay ?
5. All this and everything I forgot to mention.
The answer according to me is none of the above ,it's when a movie kicks you in your guts so hard that you keep thinking about it all the way to your home and even after.
The experience of watching “The Revolutionary Road “on Saturday was similar, the purposelessness of existence ,the banality of everyday chores ,the repetitiveness of routines and finally the hopelessness arising out of it has been so brilliantly captured in this movie that it sent me hurtling down into a sea of personal memories ,memories which I have kept at bay for a long long time ,images of my mother sacrificing so much and so often for the sake of raising her two kids ,in fact it is the story of every Housewife who eats after her family has finished eating. A mother whose very existence is defined by her capacity to serve her kids and husband ,an everyday struggle so selfless that tears well up in your eyes.
It doesn't make for a spectacular suffering ,the ones that many film-makers and photographers like ,the ones that adorn the pages of a national geographic or TIME , but a prolonged and quiet one which does not interest many ,the movie had the same haunting feeling to it as the one I felt after watching “The Namesake” which brought back the memories of my Bengali father coming out of a traditional setting and struggling in an alien environment to provide for and raise his two kids and his wife ,watching his kids talk in an alien language at home and following an alien culture.
It is very hard to capture this pain of existence and this is where the genius of the director comes alive ,many overdo it by putting in too much dialogues and monologues ,while relegating the silence of suffering to the background. No wonder the most moving moments of world cinema are actually without dialogues and the most riveting description of human tragedy are actually still photographs.
The scene with Kate standing in the room after the botched attempt at self-abortion ,blood dripping onto the carpet ,staring on into the open is one of the most poignant scenes that I have watched on screen ,in terms of impact ,I rate it second only to the scene in Namesake where Gogol stands in the university room where his father died ,and spontaneously bursts into a sea of grief , it's the depiction of pain in it's most fragile and subtle form .
This is not an objective analysis of the movie but an emotional one because I never believed in objective deconstruction of things which are supposed to appeal to your heart and mind ,I wanted this post to be a bit longer but the I feel the profoundness of an experience cannot measured by the abundance of words by by the lack of it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
A uselsss post and a useless dream
The old monk rolling on the pavement.....empty to the last drop ,The Fountainhead half open ,last few pages missing .I try and shrug off the hangover as the street dog around the corner barks at me , and the reflection of the sun coming from the "chavannis" and "one rupee coins" blinds me .
I am sleeping on some street ..... ,am homeless ?? ......I was mugged ?? or am I in my fucking dreams ?? dunno what happened........a black T.......tattered cargos , a pair of chappals and a "VIP frenchie" is all that I have on me.......I try and sniff ,I smell of vomit and shit or a mixture of both ,hard to tell........ I rumble through my pockets for anything which might explain where I am or what am I doing here......but they turn out to be empty.......
and before I can get any further my alarm bell rings......like a movie this dream always ends at this point ,at this precise fucking point........and in spite of my repeated efforts I have never been able to get past the last point.......If there is even an iota of truth in the saying that morning dreams come true.....then I am in deep shit coz the number of occurrences of this dream has crossed the statistical boundaries of probability.......
dunno what I wanted to say really by writing this post........guess I am lost just like in my dreams..........sorry if I wasted your time.
I am sleeping on some street ..... ,am homeless ?? ......I was mugged ?? or am I in my fucking dreams ?? dunno what happened........a black T.......tattered cargos , a pair of chappals and a "VIP frenchie" is all that I have on me.......I try and sniff ,I smell of vomit and shit or a mixture of both ,hard to tell........ I rumble through my pockets for anything which might explain where I am or what am I doing here......but they turn out to be empty.......
and before I can get any further my alarm bell rings......like a movie this dream always ends at this point ,at this precise fucking point........and in spite of my repeated efforts I have never been able to get past the last point.......If there is even an iota of truth in the saying that morning dreams come true.....then I am in deep shit coz the number of occurrences of this dream has crossed the statistical boundaries of probability.......
dunno what I wanted to say really by writing this post........guess I am lost just like in my dreams..........sorry if I wasted your time.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
I have been listening to
Dilli-6(yes I will pronounce it like the desis do): Fucking awesome ,Rehman saab at his best again ,if a Rehman track is ever played in a quiz in front of me I am sure I will hit the buzzer first.my picks(in descending order): "arziyan" ,"ye dilli hai mere yaar" ,"masakalli" rest can be put in any order.
Lu
ck By Chance :Ah the SEL-Farhan combo again ,lovely soulful music ,reminds me of DCH ,it's a fresh music like the first rain of summer.my Fav :" pyaar ki daastan " and "O rahi re" other tracks are equally good.
Viva La Vida :I found it better than X&Y ,the first 50 seconds of "life in technicolor" is just awesome ,the sitar is mind blowing. "violet hill" has a rock element ,"the escapist" is soulful. Ok I give up every song is good ,please listen to it.
Dev D: Psychedelic Trip ,it's like grass ,the more you have it the more you want ,need I say more.
Gulaal :Anurag has brought back the soul of a song back into the song "the lyrics" ,it's a poet's dream ,am still shaken from listening to "Aarambh hai prachand" ,the political satire in "Ranaji" is brilliantly captured in the lyrics.
Dev D: Psychedelic Trip ,it's like grass ,the more you have it the more you want ,need I say more.
Gulaal :Anurag has brought back the soul of a song back into the song "the lyrics" ,it's a poet's dream ,am still shaken from listening to "Aarambh hai prachand" ,the political satire in "Ranaji" is brilliantly captured in the lyrics.
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