Vachan for Pran

Every event is now a bandwagon for politicians to ride.

IE reported the prime ministers’s eulogy to Pran:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight paid rich tributes to Bollywood veteran Pran, who was declared dead at a Mumbai hospital, describing him as an “icon” who entertained several generations with his “riveting performances” in a myriad of roles in films.

DNA reported a day later that Narendra Modi followed suit:

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has condoled the demise of legendary actor Pran, saying he will be remembered for generations.

It promises to be a bruising fight next year. Neither party can promise anything positive. It will be more of this tit-for-tat politicization of everything under the sun.

Mr. Clean speaks on the law

IE brings its comics to the front page:

Terming the gangrape of a medical student here a “shame”, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan today said that such criminals need to be taught a lesson.

“The first thought which comes to the mind is – such people should be killed – but there are too many things which we have to follow. It is a shame that such a thing has happened, how can somebody commit such a heinous crime.

“If not death they should be sentenced for life so that they learn a lesson. Rapists are beaten up in jails also,” said Salman, during a press conference.

This is so much worse than driving a car over sleeping people or going hunting protected species. Shameful that the cops don’t beat these guys to death.

You decide which is the hottest

The item number from Tees Maar Khan

… or the one from Dabanng

… or an older hit

… or the mother of them all

Spin makes the world go round

All you need to know about this news is the headline:

Salman Khan to play Jesus Christ?

Teacher leave our kids alone

Rajeev Masand reviews 3 Idiots in CNN IBN:

3 Idiots, starring Aamir Khan, produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, is a film of impeccable pedigree. It’s a breezy entertainer and it’s got its heart in the right place, but it appears to be lacking in the naiive idealism and old-fashioned sincerity that propelled Hirani’s two Munnabhai films to cult status.

Loosely based on Chetan Bhagat’s pulpy bestseller Five Point Someone, 3 Idiots takes light-hearted but pointed jabs at the Indian education system, raising pertinent questions about the relevance of learning by rote, the obsession with high grades, and the dangerous repercussions of parental pressure to pursue traditional streams.

That’s the second film in a row by Aamir Khan which addresses the need for a kinder, gentler education system. But ever stop to consider why the system is cut-throat?

Why is the number of good schools so limited? Unless you pay an astounding, and often unaffordable, amount of money, your child is likely to end in a school where s/he is made to do large amounts of rote learning.

Why has the number of seats in colleges have not gone up in proportion to the growth of numbers passing school exams? In the ’70s entry to IITs was mildly competetive. Now entry to coaching classes is killing.

Why is teaching not an attractive profession? If there were more good teachers at every level then school would be a fun and learning place (as it was for me, very fortunately). With enough good schools, there would be no need for youngsters to spend another full school day in coaching. There would be more play, less heart-break. If the number of colleges with quality teaching were 50 times larger, then getting to college would not be a nightmare. Also, people would actually learn something in college. Conversely, by paying teachers much less than other professions, the education system is filled with people who come it not because they like to teach, but because of other reasons. Hence the memories of horrible teachers that we, as a nation, seem to carry. The honourable exceptions, when they exist, light up our memories. More citizens of our neighbouring countries, Bhutan, Nepal, the East African states, seem to have wonderful memories of Indian teachers more often than Indians do.

A society decides what is important to it and pays accordingly. One which is unwilling to pay teachers is a society that does not care for its children.

Dev. D

From Mumbai Mirror:

Not too long ago, Sudhir Mishra and Anurag Kashyap had simultaneously decided to make their respective contemporary versions based on Devdas.

Although they were inspired by the same story, the two filmmakers kept insisting that their films were different from each other.

While Anurag said that his Abhay Deol starrer Dev.D was a modern version of the classic, Mishra said that he was giving the classic a political angle in his Shiney Ahuja-Lara Dutta-Chitrangada starrer Aur Devdas.

But Dev.D released much before Aur Devdas and after watching Anurag’s film, Mishra has now decided to shelve Aur Devdas.

He said, “I have decided to not go ahead with my film Aur Devdas. Dev.D is such a brilliant film that it doesn’t make any sense to make a film on the same subject.”

I saw Dev. D last night and was just blown away. If you were disappointed by Slumdog Millionaire then see this.

Chandni Chowk and China, but not Nepal

From Reuters:

Nepal’s Maoist-led government banned a new Bollywood film on Thursday after angry protests over a reference in it to India being Lord Buddha’s birthplace, an official said.

Nepali film censorship authorities had removed the controversial scene from “Chandni Chowk to China,” but many had already seen the unedited version on illegal CDs/DVDs smuggled across the porous border with India.

“We have banned the film from being screened throughout Nepal,” said Narayan Prasad Regmi, spokesman of the Information and Communications Ministry.

Another instance of people who’ve seen the movie (and in a pirated version at that) not wanting others to see it.

Slumdog rising

From Hindu:

Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup, author of the novel on which the award-winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ film is based, says he was inspired to write the story when he read a news report on a project in a slum where scientists had installed an Internet connection.

“Under the project called Hole in the Wall, a group of scientists had installed a computer with Internet connection in a wall in an Indian slum. When they returned after a few months, they found that the children living there had started using it,” India’s Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa Swarup wrote in The Sunday Times on Sunday.

“These were the children who couldn’t read and speak English but they were logging on to the worldwide web. It made me think that there must be an innate ability in all of us that can come to the surface,” he said.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t say whether it is poverty porn. Even after watching it I can’t say how someone in some other country may think of it. But the story seems like pure old fashioned Bollywood: poor kid grasps at fame. If Bollywood forgets its wonderful slumdog origins, someone has to remind them.