early mtv

clearly, i'm on a nineties trip.

vincent vega

can travolta dance or what?

now playing

kshana kshanam

how often do you find yourself discussing a 20+ year old movie? i find myself talking about kshana kshanam a couple of times a month. something about that movie always comes up in conversations. a line here, a scene there, a song, a character, ram gopal varma, paresh rawal, paresh rawal's sidekicks, venkatesh, brahmanandam's 2-minute side-splitter of a scene. and where to begin with sridevi?

of so many movies before and since 1991, why does kshana kshanam endure so? it was one of the freshest, funnest movies of its time, and in the context of telugu cinema, it was a huge surprise. for once, here was a movie where people spoke and behaved like regular folks. the locations, language and characters were so familiar, the movie could be unfolding down the street from your house. no other filmmaker has managed to capture hyderabad's languid casualness the way varma did with kshana kshanam. the scene where sridevi haggles with autodriver makes me grin every single time. it's a nothing scene. a casual throwaway of an exchange that could've only been written by someone who knew the city intimately.

then there was the music. it was quite the rage in my school too, where most kids didn't speak any telugu. andanantha etha was performed on stage and brought the house down. sheetalvyas has more to say about the movie and the music here.

and then, the humor. always deadpan, to ROFL effect. paresh rawal's telugu dialogues: "music sense ledu", "dabbu ante andariki ishtame", "iddaru chaala... friends aipoinattunnaru... mmm", "bridge evaru kattaru ra, ikkada?". brahmanandam's "nenu, neeeenu, neeeeeeeeeenu pedatanu", "changing room antee... just ala, snanam avi cheskoni..." oh heck, why don't you just watch them?







all this was a big deal for its time. it gave us a glimpse into what the future of telugu cinema could be like. but unfortunately, those years from 1988-93 ended up being just a blip. after the promise of geetanjali, shiva, kshana kshanam, nirnayam, aditya 369, govinda govinda, jagadeka veerudu atiloka sundari, telugu films inexplicably pivoted to crassness and misogyny. the exceptions have been few and far between - okkadu remains a standout in the last decade. it's pity, for there couldn't be a more movie crazy place than hyderabad, and surely the local industry could do better. so while we wait, we go back to the precious few films that we love. again and again.

bollywood bond

just caught anupama chopra's front row special on bond films. she had a hilarious segment on bollywood bonds. i think i saw a sheikh being hauled up into the sky by a bunch of balloons - not entirely sure if that's what i actually saw, but surely i'm not creative enough to imagine such a thing. now i want to find all of them and do a bolly bond marathon! here are some of the names if you're feeling similarly inclined: farz (jeetendra), agent vinod (the one from the 70's, with mahendra sandhu), mr. bond (akshay kumar), suraksha (mithun's famous gunmaster g9). i have vague memories of a tolly bond as well - krishna's gudachari 116.



but before anything, i need to beat out fellow hyderabadi crazies and book first day first show tickets to skyfall. craig vs. bardem should be ridiculously fun.

the thing about rahman's music

is that it catches you unawares. you can be totally indifferent the first time you listen to his songs, maybe hate them even. and then when you're absently looping them, one of them breaks into you. and then they all make sense. 

case in point: the yuva soundtrack. and it just happened with the jab tak hai jaan soundtrack.



p. s.

20 years since roja. sheesh

dasara

it’s dasara. it’s hard to tell. except maybe from the lack of traffic on the roads. used to be a time when we used to count down to the big day. new clothes. the big feast. spotting the paala-pitta. the jambi gathering. 100 rupee notes in exchange for bangaram leaves. time was when dasara used to be special. we never managed to create an alternate city tradition.