Monologue with THYSELF

Janne bhi don yarron..

Evertime I watch that film I get reminded of Imago Somehow,
The crazy love for acting, laughs, stage, passion, insanity,, ......Imago.....,,, we thought we would be like Barry, never do an MBA, make PVR into a theatre performance area, make peace with Pakistan, Direct aamir and shabana aazmi someday, make cinema like hazaroon khwahish, Change the gross content in news media someday, hang Manu Sharma and vikas yadav, ban saas bahu serials and ofcource change the world.
I see myself such a changed person after all these years (just been 3 actually), not that the fire has died but the ideas have changed, it’s the same person trying to do the same thing but differently. I see life much more in grey now rather than those black and white patches as a 21 year old, understand why people do things that I think are ‘Unethical’. Have become mature (even though mom doesn’t think the same). Have been having great chats with Benoj about life and I realise how when we all grow up we become more patient and understanding. When working with NDTV I started realizing the pressures media people can go through, how it is not about news but money by the end of it, have we lost the point somewhere in that journey is what I always asked myself? No, it’s a journey which was meant to be from that path, it’s a maturing country which is in the phase of adolescence, and it is bound to go wrong somewhere on the way I answered to an ignorant self.

Now talking about cinema I think its matured with time, I felt proud seeing films like parzania and black Friday (im glad I have met anurag kashyap personally), I spoke about it fondly with theatre friends in Glasgow and felt that there still are people back home who haven’t fell in the trap of 'just' making money, getting settled and married. They want to make good cinema, explore creativity, light the stage on fire, and give people goose bumps through visual magic. Parzania, nothing can be said about Naseer; I have always believed he is an actor with amazing versatility and spontaneity. Sarika is brilliant as ever, Rahul dholakia take a bow.
Final solutions is another film on the same issue I had loved , I was one of the fortunate ones to be in the interactive screening of the film by Rakesh Sharma in Imago for the theatre students and his believe in the cause made me look up to the man.
Films like hazaroon khwahishein Aesin(my favourite) on naksalvadi's in Bihar (Sudhir Mishra cinema)have given parallel cinema a new dimension and along with Nagesh kukunoor, Rakesh OmPrakash Mehra , Mira Nair, Satyajit Ray , Shonali Bose(Amu), Shyam Benegal and many more there is a hope that our cinema has come to a maturity stage.
As far theatre is concerned, it’s a known fact that it’s dying a slow death in our part of the world. In Delhi, theatre is a storm in a tea cup. The same old faces (includes me) who keep repeating performances and plays. Theatre vallas are the only people who come to watch the form of art when they are not performing and that small group of people keeps rotating amongst each other. Directors like Royston Abel, Barry John, Feisal Alkazi , Sohaila Kapur, Mahesh dattani, Lushin Dubey, Lillette(I hate her plays) dubey, Bubbles subherwal , Arvind Gaur , AAmir Raza Hussain and Nasseer are the only names that I have been seeing consistently perform since a child and I guess much before. The sad part is that no new Directors have come up (Exceptions like Abhilash Pillai who made Mid Summer Nights Dream in Hindi for NSD which I thought was brilliant) in the last many years because of reasons I have seen personally that theatre by the end of it is becoming unviable, you do it only for the LOVE of it and half the people go to Bombay and start acting in Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi and kasauti zindagi ki when they have had enough. I hope it gets better in the future and more people try make this real form of expression come alive before it dies a painful(for us theatrevallas) Death.

Print News has been transforming from talking about issues to gossips, to the exception of Indian express and Hindu most newspapers talk more about page 3 than sexual abuse nowadays.
It’s a sign of our societies growing interests in the materialistic world than real which sometimes is scary.

Politics in India is more like seeing a circus or a Striptease and pay for the cheap thrills of some other's who are generally either criminals or under world dons. Life is short so I wouldn’t mention the bureaucrats and corruption involved in the whole game which is quite frustrating by the end of it.


So what do you think we should do?



Most of you would believe that the point I am making is that its all dark with the future even more bleak , No, not in the least .Im just trying to show myself a mirror and to light that fire again rather than saying

'JANNE BHI DO YARRON'