rear window

..sitting by my window watching ray on hbo...across from the window a lightbulb comes to life...she's late tonight, another bulb lights up and the tv...from light to silhoutte she walks around the house, comes back into light...changed clothes, pours herself a drink and settles down in front of the tv...very quiet very alone so far away. don't seem like she's enjoying her drink, but then neither am i...

...meanwhile on tv, ray's painful childhood haunts his successful present, the water rising...tears welling...can't seem to hear the music. lost her. no end credit roll no goodnight...

brokeback

watched ang lee's brokeback mountain this evening...just so beautiful, so understated, heartrending, haunting...need to see it again (preferably with subtitles!)...ah and what music! don't feel like writing more... like the film less is more...

heartbeat

...so we shoot the first episode of heartbeat today!...weeks of pre-prodn finally seem to be paying off...managed to get the look almost perfect, and that feels good. leart a whole lot - esp new lights. the challenge to light a 20x30x10ft sealed space was most exciting...with seamlessly even colour-changing walls and pockets-of-light interior...

of course all this makes no sense without knowing anything about the show...a new 30min quiz game show for star one where one person enters this sealed opalescent green space. s/he's got 500 heartbeats to answer a qn thrown at her by this booming voice of god! inside she can hear her own heartbeat and see no one in the outside...come to think of it, why am i telling you so much!..watch it! mid april it goes on air and then we'll talk!

meanwhile, c! got back...but that didn't change our "away" status!...we'll almost...dinner together past 11 and straight off to bed too exhausted to talk!

amidst this mayhem, being that time of the year...got that dreaded call from my CA..."my dear"...how are we doing? of course he wasn't asking about my general well-being but how (dis)organised i have been with my financials this year!! don't think i have imroved much on this front, so he's going to be having to do a lot of fire-fighting!! sigh!...maybe in my next janam.

hadn't written in some time now...wondered if i was being missed. long time no responses...

c! saw...

c! flew off to goa early this morn for a 6day ad film shoot. we've increasing been seeing less of each other and i'm begining not to like it anymore...the stress we hear/read about working city dinks sounds all too familiar. don't really know what to do about it...this i guess is what it is all about! the freedom, independence, career...the missing! by the time she's back i will have begun my "heartbeat" shoot which will keep me busy until the 22nd!! c'est la vie! sigh...

dhak dhak!!

next week i start work on a new show for star... the gameshow king strikes again! no, that's not the name of the show :) heartbeat - a trippy new dutch (since we don't believe in ourselves)format game show...one person alone in a sealed luminous green walled room is given 500 heartbeats to answer a set of questions...with each right answer money increases and difficulty too. no host no audience...i'm excited n nervous...hope i can achieve the unusual look! keep watchin'

cherubim!

cherubim - my dad's middle name! yes, believe it or not!! don't know how he got it...much like i didn't know a lot about him. thought i'd make a film - getting to know my dad... begun working on it in oct 20000 - audio recordings, filming with friends n relatives, gathering photographs...kinda trying to construct or rather re-construct his life n times for myself...i was six when he died...

for myself! that's what i had thought initially that i was making it just for myself, until a few friends thought it might be a good idea to make a film n let everyone in on it...seeing mukul's "snapshots from a family album" only increased my enthu...

just finished dumping to vhs all that i have shot so far and its a frightening 38mini dv tapes already! that's close to 38hours of material i have no idea as yet how to shape.

very stuck with treatment...formalistic issues...just so bored of talking heads (and i've got a lot of them!)...unsure about how honest i can be with myself and the film...good ol wishy washy charlie brown...not clear what i should focus on...my own search? piecing together his life? photographs and memory? my mum? a burnt family album?

paro once told me that i might like to think of myself as a documentary cameraman but am really a fiction kinda guy...suprised me then, but i do like the imagery of bergman, tarkovsky, wenders, von trier...maybe its that what i'm battling in my head...and as always consume myself with form before content!!

so help me god!!!

gupt-godavari!

...ssshh! this is IT! the epic-entre of the ram-laksman-sita threesome...some froliky troika this must have been!! besides being the source of the river godavari. the rest is evident ;)

woke up early one morn at chitrakoot to do darshan at this v imp dharmasthala...climb a flight of stairs before you ease yourself into this "orifice" on a hillside...all squishy with ankle-deep water as you splosh along in relative darkness with bats flitting overhead...illuminated suddenly by gennie-run halogens. voila! ram kund...all cavernous, echo-ey and plonk in the centre a vermillion weilding baba...raamji ka darshan dus rupaiya chanting mantra-like though threateningly...i duck n go around leaving behind a procession of freshly shaved devotees who meekly pay up n are hopefully cleansed of any previous paaps...tap tap tap! these hindus are crazy!

chitrakoot ahoy!

...here in delhi on my way to chitrakoot for the third time in 5months...this boondock village in central india on the border of mp n up. this ngo - vanangana's been working there for 19years now on dalit and women's rights. and they got this hi8 video camera from witness.org in recognition of their excellent work...that's where i come in - teaching 6 field-level workers how to use this camera...and that too in hindi!!

...but with just 6-8 hours of electricity a day, i never was convinced about video being the medium to be pursuing. but then who are we to be denying them this "sexy new technology"??! but for me, its been fun, challenging, exasperating (how do you explain perpective in hindi, among other things), a huge learning (my hindi remains embarassing - lugaee (gharwali) instead of ludaiya (gud ke ladoo)!!)...so much entertainment for the natives!!

what boggled the mind was how far from my reality this place is...a few hundred kilometers from the city but lightyears away in mindspace. this is phoolan devi territory where gangsters greet you with guns even before the camera is pulled out. kbc? never heard of it forget seeing it!!

hopefully, by the end of this week they should be able to choose good from bad, log and transcribe what they've shot...so let's see! more when i'm back!

o what fun!

...begining to like this now...esp that a few friends have begun to stop by to read n respond.

ah! this works! 

have you ever been hit?

...it finally happened yesterday!...got slapped hard (on my left cheek) for the first time in life! some lumpen in an st bus in an fracas over c! knew it was coming but still didn't do enough to duck it!...the hit as it resounded in my left ear, numbed me to inaction. thought of several things i'd have liked to do after he'd gotten off the bus. but then, what remained was my overwhelming inablilty to deal with physical violence. gandhi n christ might have well turned the other cheek, but me, i just mustered up some gaalis, didn't suck up enough saliva to spit on him!
no one in the bus reacted save one man, knew that wasn't enough to "tackle" the lumpen. several variations flashed my mind's eye, but none saw me standing victorious over the slain tiger's head. gulped several gulps as i put on a brave face trying not to think of the sting on my left cheek. silence along the thane creek as the bus rattled into the sunset..what do you do?
pepper spray! my swiss army knife...what a chicken! saala, aurat ko chedta hai!!

...but tomorrow never came!

...felt some pressure about not having written for the last 3 days. but then, also got excited to know that i've had some hits already! got busy with a music video shoot. suprised?? well, its not any ol music video, but one for the troppen museum junior in amsterdam! they're featuring bombay over the next two n half years! and figured that instead of running an arbit set of images in a loop, why not make a story out of it and even got asha bhosale to sing a song...which i put pictures to!

my first music video...low budget, low on time given..hope it don't turn out too bad. but i enjoyed it thoroughly, made a few mistakes, learnt some new tricks, met some fab people...like sashi - our production guy, who'd run away from his home in benares 19years ago when he was just 13!! walked out of VT straight to gateway, lived there on the pavement and slept inside the dome! today, he is married to this bawi and has 2 sons (who go to st xaviers) and lives in lamington road!! took me back to my days at cry and my street children's project. over irani chai n brun maska, we dipped deep into the past leaving me completely awestruck n humbled.

with that kind of background, it wasn't suprising to see how he'd get things done and with a smile but without a bribe, so unlike the usual harami production guys...

and lisbet from the troppen museum junior...to think she's been been with the museum for 27years! her first job since she was 22!!

on turning 30 (yet again!)

it's no longer funny how, after 30, i've stopped counting! they even made me blow candles this time...phew! luckily, last year round i was away in carefree braahzil! but it felt so good to be home with family and friends and some good ol' together-times...with ethan making his maiden entry all the way from vashi and sanah, the youngest regular!

but lying back on my bed after the clean-up, i wondered what if i didn't "celebrate" my birthday next year?...no stress, but then no pleasure either!

the newness of this paralyses me momentarily, constantly checking rechecking, to write or not to write. had read kurt kobain's diaries earlier in the day...such irreverance. photocopied it for sruti - her birthday gift. know she'll love it. has been sometime since i didn't labour about what to buy/get?

i miss writing in my trademark print italic style, but this will have to do for now. c! screams out for me mid-sleep...and its quiet again, just the click of the clock to remind me how long its taken me to write just this much!

watched jarman's "last of england" finally (at home) and then went to see "rang de basanti". but more about that tomorrow...

En fin!

Have been wanting to do this for months now...feels kinda weird! Wanting to do this...yet reticent. By n by...let's see how it shapes up.