The Untitled.

To look you in the face, to see my smile on your lips, to burn, to covet, to pine and die; I feel you in the wet alleys of myskin. There’s a boy downstairs; with polka dot freckles, he sings me to sleep and says I smell of your dreams. Blue-grey, scissor-paper dreams; stuck on nursery scrapbooks.

To taste you in the air, to worship you like the moon, to melt, to seethe, to dissolve and die; I feel you in the moist palms of my destiny. You linger like smoke in my memories; alive and ancient; dense and dark. Thus, you emerge, from wisdom’s tragic ruin; blessed and anew. All at once, you become the disease and the cure.

Do you remember? When nights came cascading down the hills, twisting and writhing, petulant like a child stopped from mischief for too long; I hid behind you. And a pebble, round, smooth, made of sifted silk-flour; slipped in your throat. I loved you then, like stars on my lap and roses dipped in ink.

The things you brought me; my childhood, a broken wand and a handful of dirt. On a toy-shelf, between your plastic cars and your plastic soldiers, I lived; I belonged to you. Happily, I scooped out my heart; set it out on the road to Neverland; and then suddenly you grew up. But I still follow you; in autumn colors; in bamboo breeze; in the droopy branches of dusk; as days cease to be.

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Swati.

It's all about the Copy, honey.

Dil Bole Hadippa- Review

Dil Bole Hadippa stands as a singular testament to the death of Yash Raj Films. Yet another disaster, in the long string of disasters unleashed by them in recent times, the box office now reacts to such debacles the same way we Indians deal with real crisis- pretend it doesn’t exist.

This film joins the ranks of other crass and similarly mediocre movies that have become the standard fare in a Yash Raj buffet- films like Tashan, New York, Dostana, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, the list is endless. Oh, and if you can’t bring yourself to remember these names, it’s all right.

There was a time, in my younger days when a Yash Raj production would mean big things. We would all be swept up in the nationwide hysteria to channelize Simran and Rahul. They became instant cultural icons. To the masses they were mythic figures, intended to be idolized and revered. All that these characters did, all that they said, their hairstyles, their clothes, all of it was internalized to such an extent- it became a part of our everyday.

We projected our new-age aspirations unto them, revelled in their adventures, took personal pride in their victories and shed copious, melodramatic tears in their losses. We memorized the crisp banter, the light-hearted conversations and used it every chance we got. More than anything else, I have always thought these films possessed a certain charm, a certain personality. To me, they appeared to be grounded in realities, not our immediate realities, just the ones we wanted to adopt. In a way, Yash Raj understood young India, imported its quirks, its lingo and superimposed it against an essentially Indi-Punjabi set of ethos- the sentiments were honest, so we overlooked the ambiguous sermonizing and the overzealous value-spouting. The plots were exactly what we wanted them to be- escapist, sweet-natured fantasies that fit in well with the contemporary zeitgeist, so we smiled indulgently and said to each other, ‘…not implausible, no?’

Ah, those were the days, the days of heady euphoria. Sadly, today is not like those days. Today is the day of Dil Bole Hadippa, the day the memories of an old romance fade completely.

The film occupies a bleak landscaspe, although ironically replete with some of the most gaudy, blindingly colourful costumes and sets ever seen in filmdom. Everybody is a caricature- ready to burst into a song-and-dance sequence, mouthing dialogues that are so flat and uninspired, the only thing that occasionally rescues the lines from drowning is the ‘punjabification’.

Yes, there is a story, and it does look good on paper. We’ll feign ignorance at its similarity to ‘She’s the Man’. Better still, we’ll accept it and imagine how the whole shebang could be bettered due to its relevance, its resonance with the kind of society we live in. And that will leave us to marvel at the physics of how so much potential energy was converted to plain inertia. At its best, the story is like a lost kid, going through the motions of looking for the parents without having any faith or hope.

Shahid Kapur and Rani Mukherjee are good actors but they have nothing to work with here. Shahid Kapoor is patchy. There is no other word for it. He has actually taken bits and pieces of other roles and patched them together. You can spot the ‘Jab We Met’ and the ‘Kaminey’. Heck, you can even spot a little Shah Rukh Khan from ‘Chak De India’. The only saving grace is Rani Mukherjee who imparts some irrepressible freshness into her ‘Babli’. If one smiles at all, it’s because of her valiant refusal to be bogged down by the deadweight of a script.

And then there is the usual self-congratulatory referencing. It’s really becoming tiresome- we get it. You are ‘YRF’, the purveyor of our collective dreams since time immemorial, the true star who enjoys an undisputed monopoly over bollywood.

Yet…Does all this deliberate, almost systematic brow-beating and chest-thumping mean what I think it means?

I am quite sure it does.

Give this one a miss.

Swati Naik.

Can you smell the copy already?

Smoking is injurious to health.

She holds the cigarette between her tentative fingers. The pungent smell of burning tobacco overpowers her nostrils and she holds her breath. She must get used to this. Damn it, she must like it. Crave for it, even. Her lips close in on the cigarettes as she tries to balance it in her mouth. With a flick of the lighter, she sucks in all the air her lungs will hold. The flame sets her cigarette alight and now, just now, the cigarette feels comforting. Slightly wet, it illuminates the dark room with sporadic bursts of dotted amber lights when she releases her breath. She can hear sharp protests emanating from the uneven brown flakes as they crackle and pop, stuffed inside the thin white paper. With each noise, a thin wisp of smoke reaches upwards like tendrils. Combining with the other strands of smoke, they dance seductively around her. For a moment she is lost in identifying the shapes of the smoke as the breeze twists it, contorts it and plays with it- moulding it in its bizarre wily impulses.

The others, they look at her with an expression that is curious and yet disinterested. They ask for her to grow up. They ask for too much.

The rancid tobacco haze progresses with impunity in her mouth. It inspects every nook and corner, leaving behind a sticky smell that clings to her pores, forcing them to open and absorb every detail of its peculiar aftertaste- it’s hoarse somehow, a little bitter. Its complex, she can tell. There are layers in it, hidden and conspiring, which reveal themselves only after successive drags. She tastes a virgin nymph- blue eyed innocence with a streak of cruelty. She tastes sarcasm- wry words laced with desperation. She tastes nostalgia- sepia memories fast fading into oblivion. Her tongue, shocked at the onslaught, keeps very still, taking it all in.

Slowly the tobacco haze seeps into her veins, running through her limbs, paralyzing her senses, incapacitating her thoughts, dousing her being. She is suddenly limitless, suddenly weightless and suddenly transparent. All that which existed before, the struggle, the pain, the sheer humiliation- it ceases and the future evaporates. Nothing matters, anymore.

Posted By

Swati.

Saving the world one copy at a time.

A tale of the crippling disability to cross the friggin' road.

As I stand at the edge of the asphalt roads, ready to spring forth and devour the distance in a few leaps, with the raw kinetic agility of an Olympic athlete, I have to pause and remind myself. I can’t even walk straight without bumping into a lamppost. I am as sure-footed as a nervous goat on a tightrope. I have always regarded gravity with a sense of disbelief. And gravity, in turn, has frequently scoffed at my impolite dismissals, unleashing the full force of its wrath on me, especially in my school days when I was forced to participate in the very physical games of Kho-Kho, Kabbadi, Volleyball, Badminton, Hockey, etc. Ugh.[Shudders at the thought of wilful persecution by certain very vindictive teachers.]

Still, I persist in my rejection of it. I know, I know. Some really bored guy, who rather fancied himself as a genius, saw a falling apple and said, “whoop-tee-doo”. The whole world believed him. But why should I? At least in my mind, gravity is just another word for bad luck. It kind of accelerates the klutziness, giving it more momentum and sort of makes me more self-destructive than a mujahidin suicide-bomber. Anyway, coming back to the point, before I made the fatal mistake of overestimating my road-crossing capabilities, I curbed myself. And I stared helplessly at the nondescript crowd situated around me. Perhaps, somebody would rise to be my reluctant hero, eyes smouldering with disapproval and faint amusement, his strong arms stretching out authoritatively, causing the traffic whizzing past us to stop dead in its tracks. And then we would cross over to the other side, taking our own sweet time as he would give my hands a reassuring squeeze and say to me in his brooding baritone, “Close your eyes and think of me whenever you are at a crossroad. I’ll be there to carry you through it.” Yuck. [Must get the ‘Stephanie Meyer’ out of my system immediately.]

Well, it doesn’t happen. And I am jolted out of my reverie by a shrill horn that rebukes me sharply for harbouring such sickening thoughts. I take a step back and realize I am all alone. It’s been five long minutes and the humans that were previously consuming the air around me, causing my oxygen-deprived brain to spasm and hallucinate thus, have all crossed. How do they manage it? How do they spot the fleeting gap between the blur of the fast approaching vehicles? How do they manoeuvre their mortal bodies to pass so comfortably through the seemingly endless lanes of impending doom? Why is it that whenever I have to cross a particular road, the entire wheeled population of the city converges towards that point? And why o why do they never stop coming at me, trying to run me over for a vendetta that I have no knowledge of? Grrr…[Bristles with fear which rivals that of Marion Crane’s when she was discovered bathroom singing by her knife-wielding, cross-dressing motelwallah with mommy issues.]

It must involve mathematics. That’s why I am so bad at it.

Posted By

Swati.

Chief Copy Bouncer or something to that effect.

Bombay. A midnight rediscovery of the city.

In the dead of the still night, I walk into darkness. The city lies stretched out before me in obscure circles. I spiral downward with the elevator as cold fingers rub the sleep off my eyes. I stare and find myself seated in a cocoon that reeks of leather and old spice. This beast that encloses me, it wraps me in the safety if its arms. The glass window rolls down and I finally smell Bombay. Yes, this is my Bombay. The Bombay I have waited for all my life. A Bombay that is soft and decadent, full of secrets like a demure bride. This is in contradiction to the Bombay of the day- wanton, crude and unrelenting. Tonight, I feel a part of her, my soul seeps into her veins and I think to myself. I think even if I die one of these days and the world moves on like I never existed, this city will mourn for me, always remember me and maybe a part of me will live on through its memories. Time feels like dewdrop upon a blade of glass- unmoving and contemplative. The rain has slobbered the entire city with its eager, wet tongue. The streets glisten with a satisfaction that could almost be post-coital. As we gather speed, the engine hums a melancholic lullaby and I feel the wind stroking my hair. I stretch my arms out to soothe its wild desires. This is a city of shadows- silhouettes that grow, suddenly acquiring rigid, rectangular shapes and then rapidly dissolving into a haze of neon. Strange yet familiar faces pass by in a distinct blur. If the city were a song, it would be ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It’s devastating, overwhelming and deeply operatic. As we accelerate forward, the sea-link begins to make an unlikely appearance. It has somehow negotiated the wide vacuum between two islands, floating lightly above the untamed swirling waters. Even from far, I can see its absolute miracle. It’s poetic in its precise engineering. I marvel at the humans who saw it in their minds and were able to transform that obscure dream into architectural plans and blueprints, using nothing but science and some cranes to turn it into this. I see clearly the thin strands of white- elusive and slippery. They seem to magically hold the giant slabs of concrete. It reminds of a spider’s web as the cars from afar look like tiny insects caught in its invisible fold, unable to even stir. These white threads, they start at the same point, from the same elevation, stretched in a perfect symmetry from both sides of the giant pillar. However, they end up angled at regular distances from each other, its proportions strangely equidistant. Upon close inspection, it is revealed to me that these threads are reinforced by other threads placed at parallel degrees. As you move between them, they give the illusion of intersecting at various points. These points are somewhat transitory, as you tilt your head from one side to another. And again, the threads do their wild dance. They run towards and then run away from one another, tracing straight lines against the black sky. As the music rises to a crescendo, I think of a guitar somewhere, its strings being plucked by impatient hands. We don’t stop. We just keep going till we reach queen’s necklace. I remember my first tryst with Bombay and that one evening when I fell in love. I just sat at Marine Drive and I gawked, at everything- the people, the dogs, the cars, the buildings. The sun turned from white hot to golden yellow to burnt amber to crimson red till finally embarrassed at my overtures, it resigned and drowned itself in the Arabian Sea. Suddenly, I am shaken out of my stupor. The beast screeches to a halt, the traffic light says red. Red- it is definitely the colour of Bombay. Defiant. Passionate. Seductive. I now know the reason why I am so greedy for Bombay. Because she is mine, all mine.

Posted By

Swati.

Your friendly neighbourhood copywriter.