In Defense of the 1980's Bollywood (Or Why Some of Us Love Bappi-da)

The Answer is simple: some of us grew up in the 1980's with Bappida's music, and Mithunda's dance. But that will not make a blog posting, hence let me redundantly elaborate.

A few years ago, I had watched a French movie "Le Fils" (The Son) made in 2002. Now I must confess that I like watching weird, boring, slow movies with subtitles that put emphasis on otherwise neglected, and apparently useless aspects, such as script, acting and storyline. I could even happily watch Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry" (condemned by a Hollywood genius as "The film is such a lifeless drone that we experience it only as a movie"), a boring, mundane movie where nothing much happens, just like in real life. (It may be noted that Iranian moviemakers make some of the most boring and slowest movies, which are also, at the same time, ripe with minimalism and subtlety, if one cares for such things. It is probably only in Iranian movies that you can see , for example, a person banned from making movies for 20 years watching Khatami giving a speech on Freedom of Speech on TV, or two women wondering why they have been sacked from job and concluding that they have no clue, but the Mullahs who terminated their service must know why it was done, them being the scholarly people. Of course, some of them, like Bahman Ghobadi, also add humour to their movies depicting harsh realities of daily life.)

I'm sure, most of you are not interested in such boring stuff; but if you do, then visiting the Cannes Film Festival website could be a good idea. (And it is not being very snobbish either; our own Chetan Anand's "Neecha Nagar" won at Cannes way back in 1946).

The central character in Le Fils (which also, incidentally, won at Cannes) was played by Olivier Gourmet (who did it too!), who does not contain the essentials to be a star: no stunning looks, not dashing or handsome...nothing. Instead, he possessed something non-essential: acting capability.

What more impressed me, however, was an interview of his that was included in the DVD. In it he said that our adolescent years are the most formative years of our life, and people should pay more attention to people of that age.

Iranian terrorist Abbas Kiarostami (well, not exactly a terrorist, but a master filmmaker, about whom Jean Luc Godard said, "Film begins with D. W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami", and leading figure of Iranian New Wave cinema, under whom others, such as Jafar Panahi, trained) also echoed exactly the same sentiment as Gourmet's in an interview I watched. I do not remember where I watched it, and when.

That Which Does Not Kill You Leave You Insane: 1946

Syd barrett
Peter Green
Black magic woman
LSD

A Visit from Mugniyeh II

From a few months ago (seven and a half, to be precise):

Almost 2 years ago, I had written the first sentence of a blog with the above title. While I always thought of completing it, I never actually did so. Imad Mugniyeh, about whom this blog was to be, has recently been assassinated. However, I will still write the blog the way I had planned to do: A write-up about the deadliest man alive (in front of whom Osama Bin Laden appears to be just a novice).

Edited on 16th Oct., 2008:

Prologue:
A colleague of mine recently wrote to me, asking to let her know if I would ever start writing my blog again! Since she was the sole reader of my blog, I think, I should respect her wish!

Hence, I am going to blabber some more.

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In 2005 (or was it 2006?), I started reading a book entitled "Is New York Burning". I read it, because I have great respect for its authors, whose book "O Jerusalem" let me, for the first time, understand the basics of the Middle-East Israeli-Palestine problem. I love their analytical balanced way of writing; it is the perfect way that a chronicler should write.

(Now, to be fair to the readers, "IS New York Burning" is apparently a recycled version of their older book, "The Fifth Horseman" (that has Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi is the central character). I have not read it, so cannot comment on it.)

In the very first chapter of "Is New York Burning?", a meeting takes place between Saddam Hussein and Imad Mugniyeh, a character which is matter of much fascination and worry to a large part of the World. In it, Mugniyeh comes with a proposal for procuring nuclear weapons and seeks Saddma's coopearation for it, which the dictator declines for various reasons.

The book presents it as fiction, though the autors mention that they put a lof of research work into the background. Of course, the book mentions that, due to the nature of the information their research obtained, they could not reveal sources or document references in support of their statements in the book. However, going by the meticulous way in which they gave references in "O Jerusalem" I knew that it must be true, or at least, something very near the truth.

It may be interesting to know that Mugniyeh had met with Bin Laden in Sudan way back in the mid 1990's (a time after which Al-Qaeda became more poweful and tactical in its terror acts), and the book mentions that Mugniyeh talks about bringing Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein togehter, during that meeting.

I first came across the name of Imad Mugniyeh in 2001, when in the aftermath of 9/11, I was reading about terrorists and terror acts around the globe.. (The Jackel had probably been sentenced just a year or so ago. Abu Nidal was still alive; Gaddafi was still standoffish). I was still not a Wikipedia-Junkie, but I remember reading about Mugniyeh in Wikipedia, after I accidentally stumbled upon it. According to it, a CIA officer,who interrogated Mugniyeh long ago, concluded that he was a pasychopath incapable of remorse; the officer also later concluded that compared to Mugniyeh, Bin Laden was just a kid!

Imad Mugniyeh, a ruthless man and perfect mastermind, was the Chief of Special Operations, as well as, a founder of Hezbollah. If someone perfected the art of large-scale death and destruction through terror acts, it was he. It was he, who perfected the art of suicide bombing, later utilized abundantly by the LTTE.

Imad Mugniyeh was a shadowy man! Like Mullah Mohammed Omar's, the CEO of Taliban, very few photographs existed of Mugniyeh; nobody was sure where he lived. So much so that the US called off a Commando operation abroad a ship at the last moment, because they were not sure that Mugniyeh was there! To quote Time magazine:

Imad Mughniyeh was a man of the Middle East's shadows. He was a terrorist mastermind behind political causes. For him, though, it was as much about the fight as the cause. He shunned the light. He never gave public speeches or lectures. He is not known to have given any press interviews, not even to sympathetic or politically aligned journalists. Western reporters like me who sought the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah's help to arrange a rendezvous were politely but sternly advised not to go there.

A ruthless man, Mugniyed died in a car bombing in the heart of the Defense area in Damascus, in February, 2008. Like his life, his death too remained shrouded in mystery. There is no final and conclusive answer as to who killed him: Iossible candidates include Mossad of Israel, Iran (his surrogate country), Syrians or the Hezbollah itself.

(Interestingly, the same Hezbollah, who had gone so far as to claim that Mugniyeh was a figment of imagination of the West and/or Israel, gave him a full military funeral claiming him to be a Hezbollah hero.)

And thus, end came to a violent man, who had, in an Israeli officer's words, few vices that could compromise his position:

“We accumulated intelligence on him, but the closer we got, the less information we gleaned – no weak points, no women, money, drugs – nothing.”
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References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imad_Mughniyah
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847481137&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Lebanon&article=662
http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Burning-Larry-Collins/dp/1597775207/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224270279&sr=8-1
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm1815.cfm
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=96550
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2008/02/20/2003402081
http://time-blog.com/middle_east/2008/02/who_killed_imad_mughniyeh.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3382343.ece
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847479660&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203343709715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203019395821&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847481137&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DEFDB1138F934A25752C0A9649C8B63&

The Saint

I do not remember where I read it, but the story was about Tolstoy, who led a life of debauchery in his youth, and when his marriage was fixed with Sofia, a virtuous and innocent noblewoman of young age, Tolstoy sent his diary to Sofia, asked her to go through it, and then decide if she would still like to marry him. After reading all his exploits in graphic detail, Sofia naturally decided against the wedding. But then her mother persuaded by saying, "This man is a saint. Only a saint can tell you everything about himself without hiding anything. Would you miss the chance to marry such a man?"

Sofia eventually married her. Tolstoy, all his life, abused her. Finally, at the age of 83, Tolstoy left home for good, because, according to him, he was unable to live under the same roof as this evil woman.

And as the writer of that article mentioned, after a week or so, Tolstoy died in a stable, 80 miles away from home, lying on Sofia's lap.

I do not remember where I read it (it was about 25 years ago, when I was still a kid!), and I would never know how much of this is true.

The thought of a saint again came back to me, when decades later I was reading Marquez's short story collection, "Strange Pilgrims" where one of the stories was Entitled "The Saint". In it, Gabo talks about a father, who brought the dead body of his beloved daughter from the Latin America to the Vatican in an effort to get her beatified, because her body would not decompose.

Only after reaching Vatican, would the father realize that there were many other people with similar cases waiting there for years. The father would, in Gabo's infinite capacity for exaggeration, wait for 22 years (unless I am mistaken!) to get her beatified. As Gabo puts in, whenever he saw that old man carrying his dead daughter around, he felt that the old man himself was turned into a saint, a feat he never intended to achieve.

Why do I refer to this now?

Return of the Native: Once More

After keeping away from blogging for almost 6 months, I am back. I will try to write blogs again every now and then.

Now It's Jazz: The Messiah of the Beat Fraternity

Ever since I read Allen Ginsberg's poem 'Howl' (and the accompanying 'Footnote' and the "Dedication of Howls"), Ginsberg's madness, creativity as well as the Beat Generation as a whole have hold certain amount of fascination for me. The "Dedication of Howls" is also the place, where I came across the name of Jack Kerouac for the first time.

In Ginsberg's words:

"Jack Kerouac, new Buddha of American prose, who spit forth intelligence into eleven books written in half the number of years (1951-1956)- On the Road, Visions of Neal, Dr. Sax, Springtime Mary, The Subterraneans San Fransisco Blues, Some of the Dharma, Book of Dreams, Wake Up, Mexico City Blues, and Visions of Gerard- creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrases and the title of Howl are taken from him.
William Seward Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, an endless novel which will drive everyone mad.
Neal Cassady, author of The First Third, an autobiography (1949) which enlightened Buddha.
All these books are published in Heaven." (from, Dedication of Howls)

These words came back to me, as I watched a documentary entitled, "What happened to Kerouac" a few months ago.

Now, I do not aim to write an essay on Kerouac; I am not qualified to do that. Nor is there actually any necessity to write a blog on him, as there are many interesting and important essays on him by many different people. Rather, my interest in this blog is focussed on Herbert Huncke.

Before watching, "What Happaned to Kerouac", I never heard of this man. But as the documenraty progressed, this man, Huncke, seemed to have taken the centerstage while narrating the stories of the past about the Beat Generation. It was apparent that this person, more than anyone else, had played the most crucual role of the central figure in the development of the whole 42nd Street group (which would later became the Beat Generation) and their philosophy, without much conscious knowledge or intention.

Later, I would borrow Kerouac's book "Desolation Angels" (which I would call part diary and part autobiography) in which Kerouac pays a glowing tribute to Hencke as follows:

"Hunky, whom you'll see on Times Square, somnolent and alert, sad, sweet, dark, holy. Just out of jail. Martyred. Tortured by sidewalks, starved for sex and companionship, open to anything, ready to introduce a new world with a shrug."

Herbert Huncke was an interesting character: Writer, homosexual pioneer, common criminal, drug addict, friend (and enemy to some) of the pioneers of the Beat Generation, one of America's most important social movements of the 20th century, all in one. A man who moved in and out of jail for a large part of his life, he also lived a remarkable life, spending decades writing. "Human, all too human", in Nietzsche's words!

It was Huncke who introduced Williams S. Burroughs to drugs. Burroughs, in turn, made Huncke a lead character in his first pulp novel, "JUNKIE: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict."

However, what I liked most about Huncke in the documentary was his straight-talk, brutal honesty and nonchalant openness. In spite of being a homosexual person himself, he candidaly refered to people such as Borroughs as "fag" and told that, for a long time he considered Kerouac to be a "fag" because, during his earlier trips to Hencke's place on the 42nd street, the handsome and single Kerouac was often accompanied by (and were friends with) other "fag"s such as Ginsberg and Kerouac.

All in all, he appeared to be an immensely humane person, who was not ashamed of his past, or of who he was, and was candid about everything. He also appeared to be a great storyteller. But then, this was no new observation. As Wikipedia puts in:

Huncke was a bisexual hustler, drug user, thief and burglar. His autobiography, entitled Guilty of Everything, was lived in the 1940s and 1960s but published in the 1990s. He was a non-violent man and an exceptionally good story teller."

Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs, who met him when they were aspiring but unpublished writers, each was inspired by Hencke's stories, his criminal life, his street slang and his experience with drugs. Hencke also initiated them to drugs.

A lion-hearted man, Huncke never ratted out on his friends. Once Ginsberg, and some of his friends flipped a car, while trying to run down a motorcycle cop. Although not present at the crime scene, Huncke was picked-up, because he lived with Ginsberg then, and received the heavy prison sentence. Huncke never opened his mouth; "Someone had to do the bit.", was all he would say years later.

It was Huncke who coined the term 'Beat' that eventually came to describe an entire generation. He lived for many years (during the later part of his life) in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, supported financially by his friends, and his rent for the hotel room being paid by Jerry Garcia (of The Greatful Dead), a man himself no less eccentric, and whom Huncke never met.

Probably the world needs more whimsical, crazy people like HUncke, and I am sure, Kerouac would have agreed.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' "
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Sources: http://imdb.com/title/tt0090312/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac
http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/page.jsp?what=JackKerouac
http://www.literaryrags.com/litragsmain.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Sprayberry/poems/dedicate.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desolation_Angels_(novel)
http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/jack_kerouac/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Huncke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs
http://www.litkicks.com/People/AllenGinsberg.html
http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/page.jsp?what=AllenGinsberg
http://www.spress.de/author/ginsberg/english/poetry/list.htm
http://imdb.com/title/tt0261558/
http://imdb.com/title/tt0107411/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Garcia

Photo Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HerbertHuncke.jpg

A Visit from Mugniyeh

tob e written.

La[pierre, collins, is new york burning..