The Brew March

MARCH 2013 VOL 03 ISSUE 06 ` 40

EDITOR’S NOTE FOLLOW US>// http://www.facebook.com/ thebrewmagazine

Dear Readers, Welcome to yet another exciting issue of The Brew which features none other than my all time favorite director Quentin.

Its twenty years since reservoir dogs and we are eagerly awaiting the release of his latest film in India, set in the antebellum era, “Django unchained”. This has been Tarantino’s highest grossing film till date.

We have other exciting things brewed up as well inside.

Keep Brewing, Until next time.

Sameer Bharat Ram Editor

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The Brew takes no responsibility for unsolicited photographs or material. All PHOTOGRAPHS, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED ARE USED FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSE ONLY.

CINEMA, MUSIC & ART WITH THE

Creative Director 01 Mihir Ranganathan Art Director 02 Sibiraj Bastin 01

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Graphic Designer 03 Abhilasha Kushwaha 04 Kaushik Ramani Sub-Editor 05 Sanchayan Deka Operations 06 Niteesh Menon

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BRAND PARTNERS

Marketing 07 Manish Magesh Kumar Circulation & Sales 08 Seeman Ezhumalai

www.thebrewmagazine.com Edited and Published by Sameer Bharat Ram, and owned by SM BrandMuni Consulting Pvt. Ltd, Published from No.609, Lakshmi Bhavan, Anna salai, Mount Road, Chennai - 600 002. Tel.: +91 44 4208 9392.

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Editor: Sameer Bharat Ram

CONTRIBUTORS AND ADVISORY BOARD Sethumadhavan N. Sethumadhavan.N holds an MBA from XLRI-Jamshedpur and has a background in the FMCG & Retail sectors.

It was while leading the editorial team at PassionForCinema.com ( a popular movie portal that’s now defunct ) that Sethu realized that his true passion was Cinema and everything connected to it, including the business side of it.

Currently based in Mumbai,Sethu works in the education sector and also runs www.madaboutmoviez.com, a portal dedicated to Indie/Small films,Regional Cinema and World Cinema. Sethu has also been associated with filmmaking workshops and film festivals.

Venket Ram Venket Ram is a leading Indian celebrity & fashion photographer, who has shot principal photography stills for several notable films as well as portfolios. He quit his engineering studies to work with cinematographers for a while, then joined a course in Visual Communication at Loyola College. After that, he worked with photographer Sharad Haksar and in 1993, started his own studio. He recently released the first two editions of his annual calendars in 2011 and 2012 with an overwhelming response.

Kavita Baliga The young American Soprano, Kavita Baliga has sung in concerts around the U.S., Switzerland, Italy and India with repertoire ranging from Opera and Oratorio, Musical Theatre to Indian film. In 2008, Ms. Baliga joined A.R Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory as a faculty member and founded the KMMC Chamber Choir. She is presently developing performance programmes in India.

Mallika Sarabhai Educated as an economist and a business manager, Mallika Sarabhai is one of India’s best known Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancers. She has taken her work and her company Darpana to not only over 90 countries around the world, but also to the farthest parts of India.

Ashok Verghese Is one of the youngest education entrepreneurs who is making a great difference in this field in the country.

He is the Director of the Hindustan group of Institutions, again one of the pioneering educational groups in the country. He supports the cause of promoting young talent in art and music.

Neeru Nanda A graduate from Delhi University.

Passionate about writing, she freelanced as a feature writer for ten years before switching to publishing.

Author of a collection of short stories titled “IF” (Rupa & Co), Neeru is now working on two novels and a series of books for children.

Veejay Sai An award-winning writer, editor and a culture critic. He has written and published extensively on Indian classical music, fashion, theatre, food and art, and loves traveling, researching literary and cultural history. He is an editorial consultant with over 40 brands and designers in and outside India and is on the jury for several prestigious awards in the arts across the country.

Dr. M. Lalitha and M. Nandini Internationally acclaimed, award winning Violin Maestros Dr. M. Lalitha and M. Nandini have been widely applauded as the ‘Queens Of Violin’ and have enthralled audiences across the globe. They have been selected as Cultural Ambassadors and dignitaries to the US and UK respectively. They have published books and written numerous articles relating to Music and religion..

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CONTENTS

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20

16

VOL 03 ISSUE 06

COVER STORY

20

DJANGO UNCHAINED

FEATURE

10 of aan, baan aur shaan & all that jazz 30

16

A Tribute movie of a special kind

30 a welcome jolt of meaningful fears 40

32 re routed to roots

34 indian literature on silver screen

INTERVIEWS

14

sinners from heaven

vin nair

40

the garbage, guitar & the guests

Suryan Stettner

CINEMA

- Sethumadhavan N

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These were the very people who did not readily agree to give up their royalty and their right to rule their kingdoms, before eventually having to agree for the integration of course. Post the Indian Independence again it has been interesting to note the fate of some of these erstwhile Princely States and their rulers. While a lot many of these ruling families were at least financially well off, there were many who had nothing but their past legacy, which remained in the form of a few family heirlooms, to talk about.

In a very logical move a lot many of these former rulers and/or their descendants went on to enter the Indian Political scenario to ensure that they stayed in power and control in some way or the other. Now why am I writing all this here? Well if I am sounding full on crazy by disclosing my fascination with royalty and their ways, then I will only blame Tigmanshu Dhulia and his latest film, Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns. In 2011 Tigmanshu came back from hibernation with back to back films like Shagird and Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster (followed by Paan Singh Tomar in 2012). While the former did not set the screen on fire as such, the latter took everyone by surprise. A tale of a Nawab and his begum and the Nawab’s political rival and the machinations surrounding them, the film had sex, lies, deception, and intrigue in the right doses. The tone clearly bordered on the lines of Hindi pulp fiction novels of writers like Surendar Mohan Pathak, Ved Prakash Sharma etc.

During my days in school History/Social Sciences was one of my favourite subjects. The World of Kings and their Kingdoms always fascinated me and in addition to my history books I would fulfil my curiosity by reading more; be it Amar Chitra Katha Comics or any good book suitable enough.

Growing up I also started reading and appreciating the Indian independence movement, starting with the Sepoy Mutiny of Meerut in 1857 (one of the earliest known reference points of the Indian independence movement). As much as I found the fight for freedom interesting it was also fascinating to see how the various numerous Indian Kings and their Kingdoms reacted against this backdrop. We all know that while we gained our independence in 1947, it took more than 2 years to integrate all the independent kingdoms/provinces into the National amalgamation of states and finally lead to the formation of the Indian Republic in 1950.

While a few Kings and their Kingdoms did wholeheartedly fight against the British and even embraced Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s plans of integration there were many others who preferred to actually pay obeisance to the British in return for being allowed to run their rule like before.

And now less than 2 years since the release of Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster we have the sequel and it’s a sequel in the true sense.

The film literally takes off from where the earlier film ends and during the opening credits you even get a fleeting glimpse of the entire (earlier) film. The Saheb i.e Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy Sheirgill) is now crippled and is trying hard to recover back to his earlier fitness and make up for lost time among political circles. The Biwi i.e Madhavi Devi (Mahie Gill) is an M.L.A and virtually surviving on alcohol as she pines for the attention of her husband while he is clearly not interested in her anymore. In the meanwhile there’s Indrajeet Singh (Irrfan Khan) of royal vintage who’s desperate to restore his family’s lost respect and royal heritage.

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Indrajeet loves Ranjana (Soha Ali Khan), the daughter of Birendra (Raj Babbar), and things take a different turn when Aditya also falls for Ranjana. It’s again time for another round of sex, lies, deception and intrigue as its business as usual of sorts.

With Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns we see Tigmanshu look and sound as if he has not been in control as the film’s structure is a bit uneven. The background score (Sandeep Chowta) is loud and in various places of the potboiler vintage variety, but this is deliberate and in line with the tone of the film. Similarly when it comes to characters we see one too many and some of them more than loud for their part, again they add a lot of character to the film. The writing is also of similar fashion, clearly not refined but more on that later. All these are enough pointers to suggest that actually Tigmanshu has been in complete control of the film and in fact must have had a blast during the making of the same.

The film touches upon the classical case of people with people royal lineage trying to maintain their earlier customs and show of grandeur. As seen in the earlier film here also we continue to see Aditya employing a band of dacoits who kill and loot and using their spoils to boost his coffers. Aditya clearly wants to be a political biggie but does not want to be seen as a ‘neta’ and this is just one of the examples of the smart writing seen in the film. The film has a lot of wonderful moments in the film and many of them have smart dialogues to match as well. One of the highlights is indeed the politician (Rajeev Gupta)’s interview by Indrajeet posing as a journo, a moment that’s filled with superb humour and also sets the tempo for future developments in the film.

The dialogues by Tigmanshu have a lot of spunk and character and clearly it is one of the best things about the film.

Sample this-when Indrajeet asks Ranjana as to how does Aditya look; she candidly replies that everyone looks the same in a wheelchair i.e helpless. Another good example is when Aditya tells Madhavi that men swear more because they cry less . It’s not that the film is without any blemishes, the songs in the film which include 2 item numbers (featuring Anjana Sukhani and Mughda Godse respec-

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tively) really make no impact. In fact the only song which reaches out to us is ‘Lag Jaa Gale’ (from the yesteryear hit Woh Kaun Thi, composed by Madan Mohan and sung by Lata Mangeshkar)which works more or less like a recurrent theme song over here. Also at times there’s a feeling of too many things happening with Tigmanshu desperately trying to bring in twists but that’s why I mentioned earlier on that it does fall into Hindi pulp fiction novels in terms of storytelling in a way.

In terms of casting it’s another ace delivered by Tigmanshu and the casting director as it works very well for the film. Pravesh Rana makes a confident transition from T.V to Cinema and even gets good mileage in the film while Raj Babbar is super effective as Birendra, as he gets to unleash a wide range of emotions. Rajeev Gupta plays the politician with considerable aplomb and is a treat to watch and Deepraj Rana is good once again as Kanhaiya though this time his role doesn’t carry much scope. Soha Ali Khan as Ranjana plays her character of a girl caught in the intricate web between the other characters quite well enough and Irrfan is of course first rate as Indrajeet. Be it in the initial scenes where he’s playing the wannabe politician or later on as the power broker, he’s clearly in his elements, but this is something we’ve more or less begin to expect from him.

Mahie Gill plays an over the top character, someone who’s clearly not in control of herself early on, only to swing things her way once again towards the end of the film and she does make it look easy to the eye. But its Jimmy Sheirgill as Aditya who is indeed the pick of the lot, strange as it may sound but very true as well. The role requires him to carry off shades of vulnerability, control, anguish, romance etc at various points and he traverses them comfortably. This is a performance that he can be proud of.

Eventually Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns is a throwback to books like The Private Life of an Indian Prince by Mulk Raj Anand and at the same time give us a glimpse of the days of the Raj in its present avatar. If you liked Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster then there’s all the more reason that you might like this one too.

Note- This was originally published in www.madaboutmoviez.com

Cinema, Music & Art with the Brew | MARCH 2013 | 13

MUSIC

SINNERS from heaven - Sanchayan Deka

The B Bar presented for the first time Vin Sinners, one of the most popular bands in the Middle East with their Loud, Heavy & Melodic sound who had selected Chennai as one of the only two cities for their first India tour of live concerts on the 22nd and 23rd of February, 2013. Looking forward to coverage.

Vin Sinners was founded by Vin Nair, who is also Global Head of Marketing at Xpress Money, one of the world’s leading remittance companies.

That’s what he is by day, but by night this gentle ‘giant’ (Vin is 6ft 2”) is most often belting out “melodious hard rock” as lead singer and frontman of the band Vin Sinners he founded in 2010. Recent chart listings on popular musical social network for musicians and bands, reverbnation. comranked Vin Sinners, the #1 band in Dubai.

Vin Sinners released their debut album ‘An Element of Surprise’ in Dec 2011in its physical form and was released digitally in July 2012, in India. The album grabbed the Top Three positions on the India charts per radioandmusic. com. (See grab attached) Vin is a Malayali from India, late-30s, married, with a child, and has been a marketing and advertising professional most of his life.

Oh, and he also believes in and swears by his duty to inform and inspire young school- and college-goers with talks and his recurring live-a-substance-free life theme to them is: “You don’t need to be smokin’ to be rockin’”.

A little talk with the man!

Q : Why the name Vin Sinners?

A : Well, if I tell you the truth you actually may not even believe me, I will tell it to you anyway. I lived a big part of my life in Chennai, and now for me Chennai is like coming home and doing a show here, for me, is like a wow factor.

Back in 1994, there was this college newspaper that was started by this friend of mine and I used to write for that.

I was writing an article on Guns and Roses and one fine morning I was like you know what I’m gonna write with a pen name. It just didn’t feel right writing my full name, just didn’t seem cool enough. So one fine morning I actually woke up with that name in my head and I gave it to my friend and he was like “Are you crazy what kinda name is this” and I said “I don’t know man it seems good” and then I remember the article got published and was sent all over the place and the response was really good. I had put my phone number below, never knew what was gonna happen. So I got this call at home, we had landlines back then, my mum picked up the phone a nd “Can I speak to Mr. Vin Sinners?” and my mom was like “what the hell is going on man!” (laughs). So afterwards it just stayed with me and thought this should be the name of the band.

Q : Tell me something more about the band?

A : I started the band in 2010. Element of Surprise was the first album and I was working with some musicians to put the sound together. But by the time I was done with two songs I realized that this kind of music would require an band. My co-producer Atif asked me if I wanted to perform it live because if you want to, you would need five musicians on board.

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I thought okay that made sense. So I went around identifying the kind of people I needed in Dubai who had the similar wavelength and understood what I really wanted to do with the band. Some criticized how me being a 37 year old will be able to pull this off with work and family. I went around meeting people. Some people stayed with the band some didn’t. Since the material was taking shape, 2011 December, we launched our first album. It did extremely well in the UAE. We had a huge launch and tremendous response from bands and friends. We got cups and T shirts printed and I did not want to do one of those soft little things in the corners, it’s just not me. And the band stuck with us. Our response in India was phenomenal. Our fanpage on Facebook grew and then we topped the charts in radioandmusic.com Q : Which came first, writing or singing?

A : Oh nice one. You know what I wouldn’t really be able to tell but I think but I think singing started earlier because I was in church choir in boarding school.

Q : Are we talking about gospel being your inspiration?

A : Not really, but I got that initiation in church. I went to church and I told my priest I hate my study sessions, please get me out of this. He said come join the choir and there

was no looking back. I sat in the choir and used to sing my lungs out and he recognized me to be a high pitched voice.

He asked me to sing seconds and I was very happy doing that. I did that for four years and then I was part of the school choir, took part in plays, etc.

Q Did you form a band back then too?

A : No I did not but I used to be in my school band and I still have this dear friend of mine, Robert who inspired me. He’s also from Chennai and he was this giant of a man almost 6’7” and now must be in U.S somewhere. He’s been a close friend for many many years probably since I was 9 years old. And his band used to play music from 80s and I used to be like wow man these guys can play music. And that was it, I wasn’t making any music back then. It was in college when I started writing my own music. Our music is never political and never will be. I write about personal experiences and what’s worth to me. It just came naturally and I just kept writing. It was like poetry, thoughts that would flow in a sequence. But of course, I formed a band in college. I was introduced to a friend of mine called Gerrad in class. I went to Loyola college in Chennai. I did my B.Com from the evening college 4 to 7. 3 years and I had a blast. There was a point when the entire band was pulled out for attendance (laughs).

Cinema, Music & Art with the Brew | MARCH 2013 | 15

CINEMA

A SPECIAL KIND

Tribute movie of

- Sethumadhavan N

Against the backdrop of films like Lincoln being under the spotlight we keep hearing of why there are very few biopics in India getting made of late. In fact it’s true that Paan Singh Tomar was one of the rare biopics in India last year and a rather good one at that. This post is not about exploring the scenario of biopics in India (we can save that for another day) but to acknowledge a really well made biopic in Malayalam, Celluloid. While we have had some good biopics on some of the most important Indian personalities like Gandhi (though an international film, it had an Indian soul), Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Swami Vivekananda, Subramania Bharathiyar, E.V.R.Periyar, Sree Narayana Guru etc, most of them have been political personalities in some way or the other.

So of late it is good to see films like Harishchandrachi Factory and Paan Singh Tomar being made, films on non-political personalities and yet people whose stories need to be told. So in keeping in lines with this trend it’s heartening to see veteran Malayalam filmmaker Kamal paying tribute to J.C.Daniel, the Father of Malayalam Cinema with his latest film, Celluloid.

Truth be told I did not know anything much about J.C.Daniel till a few months ago, except maybe fleetingly having heard/read somewhere in the past about him. But the moment I came to know about this project I was intrigued and decided to read more about this legendary figure. But it finally took the trailer of the film and the songs to move me completely and I was somewhat like a man possessed.

As I dug into the past of J.C.Daniel and found out whatever I could about him it also struck me as to how odd it was that no one before Kamal had decided to make a film on this personality and the subject surrounding the same. Kamal as a filmmaker though slightly inconsistent with his output, is still one of the more prolific filmmakers among his peers. So I knew that he could easily handle this subject with reasonable comfort and adding to the confidence was the casting of people like Prithviraj, Mamta Mohandas, Sreenivasan etc, all competent actors in their own right. Even before the trailer was released the initial posters indicated that the film was trying to get the look and period fairly accurate as much as possible. The trailer and the songs only confirmed it. Along with the actors already mentioned, Chandni a singer who shot to fame on a T.V show looked good as the choice for Rosie, who played the heroine of J.C.Daniel’s film, Vigathakumaran.

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The film follows a fairly simple structure and does not pretend to sound or look desperate to be perceived as a trendsetter. While most filmmakers would have been tempted to make this a non-linear film today, Kamal keeps it simple and starts off the story in the 1920’s when J.C.Daniel (Prithviraj) is shown as a youngster keen to put Kerala on the map of Indian Cinema by making the 1st Malayalam film. Daniel travels all the way to Mumbai, meets Dadasaheb Phalke (Nandu Madhav) and manages to gain some practical knowledge by being present on the sets of a film and observing the happenings. Of course he doubles up the practical knowledge by doing a lot of reading and later on even visiting the sets of Tamil films, thereby only determined all the more to turn filmmaker.

To fulfil his passion Daniel decides to sell of most of his property, a move that makes his wife Janet (Mamta Mohandas) a little cautious but nevertheless she stands like a rock solid pillar and supports all his decisions right till the end. The 1st half of the film is all about how Daniel goes about setting up his studio and makes his feature film, Vigathakumaran. We also get to notice the social scenario of those days like for example how tough it was for women especially those from the lower castes to act in movies and plays. Throughout the 1st half there is also an undercurrent of humour which also ensures that the proceedings are lively enough. Take for example the character of the Kathakali artist who is assigned one of the key characters in the film by Daniel and how he finds the whole process of acting in a film so different from what he is used to.

Here I need to necessarily pause for a moment and add that Kamal has based this film on 2 books, Nashta Naayika by Vinu Abraham (which talks about Rosie, the heroine of Vigathakumaran) and Life of J.C.Daniel, a biography of J.C.Daniel by Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan. The pause is important because the film takes a leap forward by 3 decades once the shooting of Vigathakumaran is over and we see that both the film and J.C.Daniel have faded away to obscurity. That’s the time when Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan (Sreenivasan), a film journalist starts taking interest in the story of J.C.Daniel. On realizing that Daniel’s contribution to Malayalam Cinema was largely unknown and that he was living a life in anonymity and penury, Chelangatt decides to push for the recognition of Daniel and enable some financial assistance for him. The rest of the film looks at how Chelangatt goes about this crusade, the kind of roadblocks he faces, his encounters with Daniel and Janet and getting to know what went on in the lives of Daniel and Rosie post the making of Vigathakumaran.

Celluloid has been in the news for the last few weeks starting with the film sweeping the Kerala State Film Awards by grabbing 7 awards including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Music.

This was later followed by the controversy over the film suggesting that renowned writer and civil servant Malayatoor Ramakrishnan and the then Chief Minister, K.Karunakaran were allegedly responsible for denying the recognition of J.C.Daniel as the Father of Malayalam Cinema. This led to accusations and counter accusations regarding the issue as many writers, politicians and social and cultural icons had their own viewpoints to project regarding the same. While I wouldn’t say that

the film got noticed only due to the controversy (the film actually doesn’t mention either Malayatoor or Karunakaran by name) it cannot be denied that the State Awards and the controversy have helped in extending the shelf life of the movie at the theatres.

As mentioned already the film is a fairly straightforward tale of J.C.Daniel and probably what went wrong in his lifetime.

Even in a serious subject the use of subtle humour in the 1st half works in favour of the film. If the film manages to get the period details right be it the 1920’s, 30’s, 60’s etc, then credit needs to go to so many people- Kamal for his vision, Ubaid the co-producer for supporting Kamal’s vision, Suresh Kollam for the fantastic art direction (which won him a State Award too), Venu’s cinematography, Pattanam Rasheed’s makeup (superb contrast among the 3 different getups of Prithviraj in the film), S.B.Satheesh’s costumes (which won him a State Award as well) and also all the others who worked with these people.

M.Jayachandran’s music is perfectly in sync with the needs of the film and he truly deserves the State Award not just for composing the 2 lovely songs (Enundodi sung by Sithara and lyrics by Engandiyoor Chandrasekhara and Katte Katte sung

by G.Sriram and Vaikom Vijayalakshmi with lyrics by Rafeeq Ahammed) but for also ensuring that his singers also get recognition- Sithara won the Best Female Singer and both G.Sriram and Vaikom Vijayalakshmi won Special Jury Mention, at the Kerala State Film Awards, recently. Kamal’s mastery over his craft and the subject comes across clearly in the way he has not hogged all the attention and enabled all his actors and technical crew members to have their contributions made visible clearly.

Eventually despite everything else working a film like Celluloid can fall flat if the choice of actors goes wrong and/or the actors do not put in believable performances. Thankfully Celluloid does not have anything like that to worry about. Sreenivasan is as usual reliable and is effective as Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan, Chandni as Rosie is a find alright and she easily slips into a slightly difficult character. Mamta Mohandas is dignified in her portrayal of Janet and she acts as a solid pillar of support to the dreamer and the passionate J.C.Daniel. Sreejith Ravi and T.G.Ravi play the younger and older versions of Sundarraj with considerable charm and a whole host of prominent actors like Siddique, Nedumudi Venu, Thalaivasal Vijay etc play short but effective cameos. And finally I come to Prithviraj and I must hereby admit that seeing his portrayal of J.C.Daniel it looks tough to think of anyone else who could have done justice to this landmark character. Prithviraj is composed and in superb control as J.C.Daniel and as his youngest son and lends the film that special touch which elevates the film completely. With Molly Aunty Rocks and Ayalum Njanum Thammil Prithviraj ended 2012 on a good note after a not so great start and with Celluloid it looks like he has turned over a new leaf.

Here’s hoping that we see more such films from Kamal and Prithviraj from here on.

And yes here’s also hoping that we get to see more such biopics on personalities who have largely remained unsung heroes and whose stories need to reach out to a larger section of society.

Cinema, Music & Art with the Brew | MARCH 2013 | 19

CINEMA Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award®-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award®-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles – dead or alive.

Success leads Schultz to free Django, though the two men choose not to go their separate ways. Instead, Schultz seeks out the South’s most wanted criminals with Django by his side.

Honing vital hunting skills, Django remains focused on one goal: finding and rescuing Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), the wife he lost to the slave trade long ago.

Django and Schultz’s search ultimately leads them to Calvin Candie (Academy Award®-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), the proprietor of “Candyland,” an infamous plantation. Exploring the compound under false pretenses, Django and Schultz arouse the suspicion of Stephen (Academy Award®-nominee Samuel L. Jackson), Candie’s trusted house slave. Their moves are marked, and a treacherous organization closes in on them.

If Django and Schultz are to escape with Broomhilda, they must choose between independence and solidarity, between sacrifice and survival…

Written and directed by Academy Award®-winner Quentin Tarantino, DJANGO UNCHAINED is produced by Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone. The executive producers are Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Michael Shamberg, Shannon McIntosh, and James Skotchdopole. DJANGO UNCHAINED will be released in the U.S. on December 25, 2012, and internationally

by Sony Pictures.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION DJANGO UNCHAINED’s journey to the big screen began over ten years ago, when writer-director Quentin Tarantino first thought of the film’s main character, Django. “The initial germ of the whole idea was a slave who becomes a bounty hunter and then goes after overseers that are hiding out on plantations,” Tarantino recalls. “I just started writing, and Django presented himself to me. At the beginning he just was who he was – the sixth slave from the seventh on a chain gang line. But he just kept revealing himself to me more and more as I wrote.”

Although DJANGO UNCHAINED takes place in the Antebellum South, Tarantino found that Django’s story might best be represented as a Western. “I’ve always wanted to do a Western. I like all kinds of Westerns, but since Spaghetti Westerns have always been my favorite, I thought that the day I do one, it would be in that Sergio Corbucci universe,” Tarantino says.

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For Tarantino, Westerns represented grand, masterful depictions of good and evil. He found that the genre’s scope and structure were fitting for this particular story of one man’s struggle to infiltrate a notorious plantation in order to rescue his wife. “It can’t be more nightmarish than it was in real life. It can’t be more surrealistic than it was in real life. It can’t be more outrageous than it was in real life,” Tarantino explains. “It’s unimaginable to think of the pain and the suffering that went on in this country, making it perfect for a Spaghetti Western interpretation. The reality fits into the biggest canvas that you could think of for this story.”

Producer Reginald Hudlin agrees that the genre was an unconventional but appropriate fit. “The shifting moral tone, the dark corners, the moral complexity of both A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and the Corbucci films was a huge influence on Quentin’s storytelling. Quentin’s intense study of the genre led to the inspired idea of mashing up the slave narrative with the Spaghetti Western which creates a movie we have never seen before.”

Shortly following the release of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Tarantino worked feverishly on the screenplay for DJANGO UNCHAINED. Christoph Waltz, an Academy Award-winner for BASTERDS, was present for much of the creative process. “I read the script as it was in the making,” Waltz, who plays Dr. King Schultz, remembers. “It unfolded in front of me, more or less. I went up to Quentin’s house and he sat me at his table and put the pages in front of me and then watched me read it. It was a wonderful ritual. I was very touched that he would actually let me participate not in the genesis of the script, but in his train of thought.”

As an early fan of the Spaghetti Western, Waltz took to the script’s close connection to the genre. “The big time of the Spaghetti Western was really the time when I started to get interested in movies as a kid, the late 60s, and then early 70s, and onwards.”

The name “Django” is familiar to fans of Spaghetti Westerns: Franco Nero first portrayed the character in 1966 in DJANGO. Nero joined the production to make a cameo appearance in DJANGO UNCHAINED. “For us in Austria, ‘Django’ was a household name. Not necessarily Franco Nero, but ‘Django.’” Waltz says. “Every Spaghetti Western that came out, even the obscurest ones, in the German version had ‘Django’ in their titles, even though there was no Django in the plot or in the story. They just put ‘Django’ in because Django really was the distilled key word, so to say, to name the genre. If it had ‘Django’ in it, you knew it was a Spaghetti Western.”

“I like evoking the Django title for what it means to Spaghetti Westerns and that mythology,” Tarantino says. “At the same time, there’s a 40-film series of nonrelated DJANGO rip-off sequels that are their own spot of Spaghetti Western history. I’m proud to say that we are a new edition to the unrelated DJANGO rip-off sequels.”

Tarantino completed his script on April 26, 2011 and began sharing it with friends and colleagues. As “publishing day” approached, the producers began gearing up for production, the reaction to the script was overwhelming. Hudlin, for one, admired the script’s unique and honest depiction of slavery in the years before the Civil War.

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“We have to remember not only the best of who we are, but the worst of who we are,” Hudlin says. “And we’re not going to appreciate the best of who we are until we see and celebrate the heroism of people who saw evil and faced it down. Even though these characters are fictional, they represent hundreds, if not more, of real men and women, Black, White, who stood up in the face of evil and said ‘no.’”

With the script in place, Tarantino set out to find the right actors for the ensemble. Jamie Foxx, an Academy Award winner for RAY, won the role of Django. “We got together and he was just terrific,” Tarantino recalls. “He understood the story, the context of the story and the historical importance of the film. He got it 100%. He’s a terrific actor and he looks perfect for the character, but there’s a cowboy quality to him. When I met him, I was imagining that if they cast black guys in the 60s to be the stars of Western TV shows, I could imagine Jamie having his own TV show. He looks good on a horse, and good in the outfit.”

Foxx responded to the script’s honest portrayal of the brutality of slavery. “It was the most incredible script I’ve read in all of my life,” Foxx says. “I thought, ‘Who has the guts, and the knowledge to tell it like it really is?’ I thought that the way he’s telling the story -- as true and as honest -- if it rips your flesh off, so be it. That’s what was exciting about the process.”

Foxx notes that Django and Broomhilda’s devotion to each other allowed for a personal, intimate window into these characters. “Back at that time, to be married was taboo. You could be killed.

They forced marriages back then – or they forced copulation – so the strongest buck would mate with the strongest black woman and they could get stronger slaves.

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They didn’t want black people to be married. So Django being married was a big thing for me. This is a love story. And that’s what fuels him. He’s not trying to stop slavery. He’s not trying to do anything but find the love of his life – which is like trying to find a needle in a world of haystacks.”

“The reason that we tighten up because it was a bad place,” Foxx continues. “It was a dangerous time, and we sometimes feel that it does hold us in captivity without the chains, metaphorically.”

Kerry Washington, who took on the role of Broomhilda, also connected to the bond that exists between Broomhilda and Django. “The thing that most drew me to the project was this idea that in a time when so much of the world was committed to the idea that people of African decent were not human, that you could have this love story take place between these two human beings who love each other so much at a time when they couldn’t legally be married on their own accord because they weren’t even their own people.

They were property. These two people find a way because of the power of their love to be together, and to honor their commitment of marriage to each other in this historical context. It’s just so powerful.”

Washington also saw a connection between DJANGO UNCHAINED and Tarantino’s overall body of work. “He is not afraid of violence, and darkness, and the dark side of the soul,” Washington says. “I think that you need someone who isn’t afraid of those areas to be able to tell a story that takes place in this time. Because it is fundamentally a love story, you also need someone who believes in the goodness of human beings, and believes in love, and believes in beauty to be able to hold onto the love story in the space of all that evil and darkness and greed. I think it’s amazing that he’s able to hold both of those spaces.”

“Love, rescue, transformation: that’s the destination. That’s the journey Quentin has written for Jamie and Kerry in this movie,” producer Stacey Sher agrees.

Samuel L. Jackson, who starred for Tarantino in PULP FICTION and JACKIE BROWN, explains that his interest in DJANGO UNCHAINED was twofold: “It’s a piece of our history that generally gets sort of whitewashed or perfumed in a way that this film just doesn’t do,” Jackson says, adding, “It’s always great to find a character on the inside of one of Quentin’s stories to wrap myself around.”

Production began on November 28, 2011 at a familiar location for fans of the western genre: Melody Ranch, in Santa Clarita, California. Once owned by Gene Autry, the western town was used in countless classic movies and television series, including STAGECOACH, HIGH NOON and Gunsmoke.

Clear communication and weeks of preparation were required when the production moved to Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, CA to film the sequence in which Spencer Bennett gathers a mob together to raid Schultz’s wagon. Given the skill needed to pull off the elaborate sequence, Dashnaw brought in the most capable horsemen he could find, resulting in a multi-generational group of the most gifted stuntmen working today. “Their timing was impeccable,” Dashnaw remembers. “We had kids from nineteen years old to fifty-five years old in that shot. It just kind of leveled everybody out. It was very satisfying because there was three different generations of stunt people there from grandsons, to sons, to fathers, they were all there.”

“I think we had about thirty-five horses in that scene at one time,” Hendrickson says. “And then we carry a core of twenty horses that are randomly in the film throughout, mixing and matching. Some horses are paired with three different actors that come and go.”

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Following their tenure at Melody Ranch and Big Sky, the production saddled up and relocated about two hundred miles north to Lone Pine, California, just outside of Death Valley. HIGH SIERRA, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, and THE OX-BOW INCIDENT are just a few of the hundreds of films that used Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills as a backdrop. Django (Foxx) and Schultz’s (Waltz) first meeting was filmed in the stark woods of Independence, just north of Lone Pine.

Lone Pine was just cold enough to give the effect of the frigid temperatures Tarantino wanted to represent. “It was very, very important to Quentin because he believes in the magic of effects being created without CGI. And the impact of movie magic on people. And so we’d go out to this place where we were going to shoot the opening scene of the movie, and there was a production assistant that checked to make sure that you could see your breath, that it was both cold enough, and moist enough so that you could see your breath,” Stacey Sher remembers.

Due to a lack of snow in Mammoth, California, the production made a hasty relocation to Jackson, Wyoming, where the Grand Tetons provided the backdrop for the film’s winter scenes, production designer Michael Riva explains.

“The move to Jackson Hole was serendipitous. Filming in Wyoming made this movie bigger in so many ways. It made Django’s journey even more epic,” Savone enthuses.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, Walt Goggins, Dana Gourrier, Nichole Galicia and Laura Cayouette joined DJANGO UNCHAINED when the production made its way to a warmer location: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Evergreen Plantation, a historic site about an hour outside of the city, doubled for Don Johnson’s Bennett Manor.

“You can imagine it was quite a sight at that time -Django in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and Dr. Schultz riding on a wagon with a giant tooth with a gold filling on waggling back and forth. This is a sleepy plantation in Tennessee.” Johnson says of the absurdity of the scenes that were shot at Evergreen.

Johnson was a welcome addition to the cast. Contrasting Johnson’s white suit is one of the more bold costume choices in the film: Django’s “Blue Boy” outfit.

“Jamie loved the Blue Boy,” costume designer Sharen Davis says. The slave quarters seen in DJANGO UNCHAINED were also part of Evergreen. “You can’t walk through those places and not shed tears and feel something,” Foxx says of the experience of shooting on the plantation.

Following Django’s showdown with the Brittle Brothers, the production moved to the Candyland exterior, overlooking Evergreen Plantation’s sugar cane fields.

The Candyland interior was housed on a stage at Second Line Studio in New Orleans. “I clearly saw Leo’s character as the devil, so I wanted to surround him with as much red as possible as I could,” Riva said of the design of the plantation. “For Django and, and Schultz, it seemed to me that they were Western heroes, they were the warm nicotines, and the ambers. I tried to keep those colors in each set. At the end of the movie, things get darker, things get redder, things get more serious. It’s not very complicated, but for me it helped to separate the two worlds that come clashing together.”

Michael Riva passed away during the production of DJANGO UNCHAINED. “I feel really blessed that I got to work with and know Michael Riva on a day-to-day basis. He was a magical, mischievous, creative, brilliant, loving person, and artist,” Sher says.

Candyland is the nucleus of a hostile, dysfunctional, powerful operation, run by Calvin Candie. “One of the things that was interesting about the Antebellum South is the fact that when you had slavery you had the equivalent of big corporations today,” Tarantino says. “You had big corporations then, but they would just be families.”

Leonardo DiCaprio took on his first truly villainous role in playing Calvin Candie, Candyland’s owner. “He let me know he was interested in it,” Tarantino says of DiCaprio. “I tried not to be that specific with the character in the script, and I tried not to describe him too much, so it could be open for interpretation. But I was thinking, possibly, of an older actor. And then Leo read the script and liked it and we got together and started talking.”

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DiCaprio made an impact, and Tarantino’s concept of the character shifted. “I just started imagining how much easier it would be to reconfigure the guy as a Caligula; a boy emperor,” Tarantino says. “His daddy’s daddy’s daddy started a cotton business and his daddy’s daddy continued it and made it profitable, and his daddy made it even more profitable. Now, he’s the fourth Candie in line to take over the cotton business and he’s bored with it. He doesn’t care about cotton: that’s why he’s into the Mandingo fighters. But he’s the petulant boy prince. He’s Louis XIV in Versailles. So I wanted to really play with that idea, of King Louis XIV, but in the South. Candyland is a completely enclosed community, about 65 miles long. That’s a fiefdom. He has the power of a king; he can execute people, or do whatever he wants.”

“One of the most vile aspects of his character is that he’s just got this charm, and yet he doesn’t really think he’s doing anything wrong,” Remar says of Candie’s rationale. “He’s this guy that’s got too much money, too much power, too much time on his hands, and he can run people’s lives. He’s a Caligula. He’s quite mad, but he justifies all of it. People aren’t gonna like him. But they’ll respect his work. I mean I’m watching it and I’m very drawn in. He is very precise. He pays a great deal of attention to detail.”

Samuel L. Jackson’s Stephen has perhaps the most complicated relationship with Candie. “It’s an interesting relationship between Leo and I that works out very well in terms of Django’s relationship to Dr. Schultz. Their relationship is almost shadowed by our relationship.I was here since his father was here, and probably spent a lot of time with him as a child and kind of raised him. I’m almost like the father that’s gone,” Jackson says.

Jackson worked with makeup artists Allan Apone and Jake Garber to design Stephen’s aged, weathered appearance.

“We did about seven, eight makeup tests until we got to this particular place.”

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“Samuel Jackson was a true juggernaut.” Foxx says DJANGO UNCHAINED also allowed Jackson to re-team with Kerry Washington, his co-star from MOTHER AND CHILD and LAKEVIEW TERRACE. “She was the one who we all cared about the most,” Foxx recollects. Broomhilda’s second language provided a welcome distraction for Washington. “Learning German was actually really helpful for me,” Washington recalls. “Once the role was offered to me I became paralyzed with fear because I had a sense of how difficult the role was going to be for me emotionally. I didn’t know how to enter into it. I was concerned for myself in the process because I could just feel how raw her world was. The German lessons, and wrapping my head around the German helped me to hook into Broomhilda in ways that were not emotionally overwhelming at first. Developing that part of her helped me approach the character without feeling like I was going to suffocate from the sorrow of it.”

Laura Cayouette plays Lara Lee, Candie’s sister. “I think her part in Candyland, and also in this movie is to sort of bring a bit of lace to this very brutal, brutal world,” Cayouette says. “In a larger sense, I think she represents the old South. I think she represents the thing that, that men

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went off to war to fight for, and, and the ridiculousness and beauty of what it takes to dress like that, and you know, have your hair done that way.”

“The first time we see her, she has a little bit of a Blanche Dubois kind of thing. She pulls it off. Her next change, she comes down like Queen Elizabeth. The tiara, and you know, royal colors. Her whole life is probably putting on clothes.

She’s not married anymore, she’s head of household. The family’s rich, so she’s always themed,” costume designer Sharen Davis says.

Dennis Christopher, who plays Moguy, found that the production offered him an unexpected chance to study the realities of slavery. “Slavery was not just a little blip in history. It’s something that built this country, and the cruelty that it embodies is something that we really have to look at.

I did a lot of research before I came down here, and one of the things that I walk away with is how little I really learned about it in school. And you can never know the depths of evil that a man can sink to unless you talk about it, unless you start the conversation, unless you illustrate it.”

James Remar returned to the production, this time portraying Butch Pooch, Candie’s bodyguard. “I’m not a Southerner, I’m a very professional bodyguard, not really involved.

with the whole symbiosis of Candyland. I have one job, and that’s to protect Calvin Candie,” Remar says.

The production made one last trip to the Los Angeles area to wrap on July 24, 2012. “It’s been such an adventure,” Washington says. “We’re in Wyoming one week, and the next week we’re in Louisiana, and then we’re in Los Angeles. We’re all over the place in the same way that this character is trekking across the United States to find his wife. I think the adventure of making the film, and the adventure that Django goes on, are epic journeys in the name of love, which I think is pretty awesome.”

- Anjali Malhotra

CREW

Quentin Tarantino (Writer/director) Stacey Sher (Producer) Reginald Hudlin (Producer) Savone’s (Producer) Harvey Weinstein (Executive Producer) Bob Weinstein (Executive Producer) Michael Shamberg (Executive Producer) James W. Skotchdopole’s (Executive Producer) Shannon Mcintosh (Executive Producer) Robert Richardson (Director Of Photography) J. Michael Riva (Production Designer) Sharen Davis (Costume Designer) Jeffrey J. Dashnaw (Stunt Coordinator) Camille Friend (Hair Department Head) Heba Thorisdottir’s (Makeup Department Head)

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UNCHAINED SO Far...

Reservoir Dogs (1992) Pulp Fiction (1994)

- Academy Awards, Cannes Film Festival, Independent Spirit Award, BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards

Four Rooms (1995) Jackie Brown ( 1997) Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) Grindhouse (2007) Inglourious Basterds (2009)

- Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

Django Unchained (2012)

- Hollywood Film Festival, Academy Award, BAFTA Awards Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Golden Globe Awards

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CINEMA As a horror enthusiast weaned on the classics of Universal and Hammer as well as far more disreputable producers, I’ve been dismayed at how the genre has gone to the dogs — and the mindless zombies, motiveless poltergeists, and indestructible psycho killers in remakes nobody needs. I’m sick of all the unhappy endings with their nihilist final shots confirming that evil can never be put down — partly because a lot of people no longer buy the idea of closure in our senselessly violent culture, mostly because studios need their demons evergreen for those cheap, income-generating horror “franchises.” I’ve started to avoid horror movies — my life’s blood.

But I got a healthful transfusion from Mama, directed by first-timer Andrés (Andy) Muschietti and produced by lifelong genre freak Guillermo del Toro.

The plotting isn’t fresh, and the politics are a tad reactionary, but the movie is also shapely, rounded, satisfying — a classical ghost story. It ends with a heartrending primal trauma, and yet it has the sort of closure you don’t see anymore in horror pictures. You’re left with more than the feeling that you’ve been mugged.

Del Toro gravitates to fairy tales of imperiled children torn between good and evil guardians — and often torn apart by the process. At the center ofMama are two little blonde sisters, the watchful Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and the wee imp Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse). In the tumultuous prologue, they’re kidnapped by their crazed father — he has just shot their mother — and on the verge of being murdered in an abandoned house in the middle of a snowbound forest when … Well, what happens is in one way very, very good and in another very, very bad. Which is an excellent way to start a horror film. Our sympathies are confounded.

Five years on, the girls are discovered in that cabin by trackers hired by their uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and are, at first, barely recognizable as human. (CGI helps.) They hiss and claw and scamper around on all fours. Lilly was barely a toddler when she entered that cabin and is particularly far gone.

Whisked away, she calls out, “Mama.”

Uncle Lucas is the male hero, but he’s sidelined for most of the picture. It’s his live-in girlfriend, Annabel, who’s the protagonist. She’s played by Jessica Chastain, hair cut sharp and died raven-black, her eyes rimmed with mascara. Apart from her bone structure and that dimpled chin, you can barely recognize Chastain from — well, any of her eight or nine parts in the last two years (which is presumably why she took the role, to show off her Streepishness). Annabel is a Goth rocker who doesn’t want kids, which we know because in her first scene she takes a pregnancy test and exhales with relief when it’s negative (a little on-thenose, but the plot point registers).

It’s quite a challenge for Annabel to care for two feral girls at the behest of a hovering therapist (Daniel Kash) who thinks that the kids belong not in a hospital (or, in the case of the younger, a zoo) but a stable, sweet home.

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What’s obvious from the first few scenes is that Mama will come down to whether Annabel will selfishly desert these girls or bond with them and, in the process, discover her own maternal instincts — the only effective weapon against the title character. This is the kind of conservative, moralistic theme (independent women aren’t natural) that has given horror pictures a bad rep among university genre scholars. But I’m bound to say, without spoiling anything, that the movie’s example of a devoted mother is a lot more terrifying. The title character is, as I’m pretty sure you know, a ghost, and one of modern cinema’s eeriest, a spidery thing with a face that’s a dry-rotted mask of pain and rage. She looks too unnatural to be anything other than CGI, but apparently she’s (mostly) flesh and blood, embodied by an actor named Javier Boutet with something called Marfan syndrome that allows him to dislocate all of his joints. I know: Ew.

A Welcome Jolt of Meaningful Scares As in most modern horror films, too many of Mama’s scares come with a fortissimo orchestral “Boo!” to make you jump.

But others owe their power to Muschietti’s fluid staging and knack for putting Mama in the part of the frame where you least expect her. Fernando Velazquez’s deliciously hammy music helps: First growly and foreboding, it can swell to gratifying heights, with vocals that sound like a chorus of children in a sepulcher. The music accompanies swirling, swooping, eye-popping expressionist dream sequences — visions, really, telepathically induced by this jealous and very volatile spirit for reasons that aren’t dramatically clear. (Why would she be telling her story to Annabel, whom she’s trying to kill?) But I like the look of those sequences too much to complain.

The most wrenching question in Mama turns out to be not whether Annabel can be a mom but whether either or both of these little girls will have the emotional capacity (and smarts) to forsake a steadfast but demonic psycho mama for one who might be less constant but won’t suck out anyone’s innards.

I was guessing right till the bitter, scary, transcendent end.

Another thing I loved: There’s no sequel in sight.

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ART

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roots

Re Routed to

- Deepshikha

The mall culture of the present generation provides a refreshing experience after a hectic office schedule. We are obsessed with the entertainment provided by the multitude of electronic gadgets that surround us and the technological advancement of the computer age has reduced boredom. Primitive modes of entertainment developed by civilisations centuries ago have exploded beyond magnitude. This article shares the different ways in which people amused themselves in ancient times.

Rome’s oldest and most popular pastime was chariot racing which was held in a U shaped arena with elaborately ornamented barrier called Circus. Gladiatorial matches were held in amphitheatres. The word ‘arena’ in latin means sand that was present to soak spilled blood. The gladiators were of four different types, one with a helmet adorned by a fish crest, second with a dagger or trident, third with a sword and an oblong shield and fourth with a curved scimitar and round shield.

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Greeks invented the theatres where only men acted wearing masks and wigs for shows which were mostly comedies or tragedies. The orchestra stood in the proscenium, an area in the front of the stage to explain the background of the act.

The first permanent Roman theatre was ordered to be built of stone for a seating capacity of 27,000 by Pompey in 55 BC. During First century BC pantomimes became popular which involved mime with dance and music, similar to ballet.

cousins. The modern day chess called ashtapada (Sanskrit for spider; consisting of 64 squares) was played with a dice on an 8 X 8 chequered board. In 600 AD this game was learned by Persians who named it Shatranj. Even the word ‘checkmate’ is derived from the Persian term Shah Mat which means ‘the king is dead!’ and Kshatra Mruta in Sanskrit. The popular game of cards also originated in ancient India and was known as Krida-patram.

A roman daily routine would include the ‘thermae’ or the public bath like modern day fitness club. The most well preserved baths of ancient Rome are the baths of Diocletian (32 acres) and Caracalla (27 acres). Present day sauna concept was known to Greeks as early as 5th century BC and to Italians at 3rd century BC.

Theatrical culture in India originated in the times of Rig veda . The Indian drama unfolds itself in Bharat muni’s description for ‘roopaka’ which means ‘portrayal of reality in a very subtle way’ in the elaborate Natya Shastra. It emerged as a narrative form and later incorporated dance, music and recitation. The themes were daily life, rituals tradition, dance and music. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the first recognised classical plays that initiated in india while Ratnavali, bhasa, kalidasa and shudraka and vishakhadatta are also the renowned ones.

Olympic Games were held at Olympia would gather an audience of 40,000 to witness chariot racing, wrestling, discus throwing, horse racing and other events to honour Zeus was the father and the most powerful of all Greek gods. Pottery was both a hobby and occupation for Greeks. They were mostly in red and black because the iron rich clay turned red in kiln and the clay paint applied turned black at high temperature.

The Egyptians went hunting birds and hippos that crushed crops, for pass time. The pharaoh would hunt with nobles and brave ones would hunt crocodiles. The children played leap frog and tug of war and also with dolls. Ullamaliztli, the famous Aztec ball game, was played on a tlachtli ball court. The aim was to hit the ball through a stone hoop using only the knee and the hips. Goals were difficult and spectators placed bets. Patolli was a type of Aztec board game played with red beans from where it derives its name. Totoloque was another gambling game popular in Mexico at the time where the object of the game was to hit a target with gold pellets. Aztecs also enjoyed poetry and story telling. Chaturanga (quadripartite) was known to India nearly 4000-5000 years ago as Mahabharata describes it being played by two groups of warring

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The game of snake and ladders (moksha patam) was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev to teach Hindu Dharma and values to children. The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. The squares for ladders were 12, 51, 57, 76 and 78 which represented faith, reliability, generosity, knowledge and asceticism respectively.

While the snakes were present on squares 41, 44, 49, 52, 58, 62, 73, 84, 92, 95 and 99 which represented disobedience, arrogance, vulgarity, theft, lying, drunkenness, debt, murder, anger, greed, pride and lust. The Square 100 represented Nirvana or Moksha.

Numerous civilisations emerged, flourished and perished and what they left behind forms foundation of the existing strata. Civilisations over millions of years survive by few written evidences that contribute to the dynamism of the global culture. So before the angry birds crash the grunting pigs or my radio sings another song, three cheers to the genius of ancient times!

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CINEMA

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INDIAN

LITERATURE on S I LV E R S C R E E N glory or disaster - Aashish Shubhanshu

Books provide inspiration for many movies every year across the globe in various film industries. Everything from classic literature to contemporary bestsellers are represented into movies. Children’s books especially, with their fantastic charm, inspire many movies every year. Children’s books that were made into movies contain blockbusters and bestsellers. Whether you’re into the supernatural, love stories or coming-of-age tales, in every field we have literary and film art collaboration existing.

Some famous combinations will include Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Ek Chadar Maili Si was made into a film by the same name, Benegal’s Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda was based on a novel by the same name, Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam on Bimal Mitra’s novel of the same name, Paheli was based on Duvidha by Vijay Dethe, Heera Moti - Based on Do Bailon ki Katha by Munshi Premchand, Amrita Preetam’s Pinjar became a moie with the same name, Pather Panchali Directed by Satyajit Ray Based on Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Bapsi Sidhwa’S Cracking India was the basis for Deepa Mehta’s Earth.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri – Can’t you imagine how GOGOL would be in the movie after picturizing the novel.

Gulshan Nanda - a Hindi writer who has given bases for many successful movies during the 1960’s and 70’s like Saawan Ki Ghata, Patthar Ke Sanam, Kati Patang, Sharmelee, Jheel Ke Us Paar, Jugnu, etc.

Shyam Benegal certainly sticks to literature - his films even now are often based on novel or plays. For the rest, it seems like it is usually Bengali film makers who adapt literary stories for the Hindi big screen. There is Gulzar too, but since he tends to adapt Bengali writings for his films, I sometimes forget that he is not Bengali!

Great literature personalities have repeatedly said that the task of bringing Hindi literature to movies is beyond the scope of Bollywood directors and personally I agree to it.

Books, using only a single medium is more effective than multimedia in movies.

Many books are turned into movies every year, drawing readers into the theaters and making movie goers head to book stores to find the source of the characters they came to love on-screen. Screening of the books is adding fuel to the debate about whether movies based on books are ever as good as the books themselves. Despite the debate, many fans cannot resist seeing their favorite books made into movies.

But I can recall several examples of Indian literary classics that did make it to Bollywood, though were not very popular.

Here are the ones I’ve seen and liked. They’re from Hindi literature as well as literature from other Indian languages.

Though not large in number, they do refute my claims that Is Bollywood is incapable of making quality movies based on Indian literature?

Junoon (1978) – Ruskin Bond is a well known Indian writer (of British descent) who writes in English and most of his stories are based in the Himalayan regions of Uttarakhand.

Junoon, a Shyam Benegal classic about the crazy infatuation of a Pathan (Shashi Kapoor) for his young Anglo-Indian captive (Nafisa Ali) amidst the chaos of the Sepoy mutiny of 1857, was based on the short story “A Flight of Pigeons” by Ruskin Bond.

Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) - Premchand’s writing was characterised by his realistic depiction of mostly rural protagonists and the use of vernacular Hindi as opposed to the more Sanskritised version preferred by other writers. Shatranj ke Khiladi is among the master pieces created by the Kalam Ka Sipahi. When you read it you will be as engrossed in the story as the Khiladdi are engrossed in Shatranj in the story. The movie is based on a story by renowned Hindi writer Munshi Premchand, and stars Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey and Sir Richard Attenborough. Legendary director Satyajit Ray’s only foray into Hindi cinema is a sumptuous historical drama set in the turbulent last days (1856) of the reign of Nawab Wajed Ali Shah of Avadh.

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Pinjar (2003) - This Urmila Matondkar - Manoj Bajpai starrer is the story of a woman’s travails in pre-independence India and the impact of Partition on her small family. The movie is based on acclaimed Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam’s novel of the same name. Pritam wrote primarily about women and their trials and travails visà-vis Indian society. A much decorated author (she was awarded the highest literary awards in India), Pinjar is not her first novel to make it to the big screen. According to Wikipedia, another of her novels - Daaku was made into a film by Basu Chatterjee in 1975.

Parineeta (1953, 2005) - This Sharat Chandra Chatterji novel of romance between a spoilt, rich, young man and his lovable, orphaned neighbour has been the subject of several films in both Bengali and Hindi. Bimal Roy’s 1953 Hindi version had Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari in the lead, and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 2005 version had Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan as the lovers. There was also a 70’s movie starring Jeetendra and Sulakshana Pandit which had a similar storyline.

A very popular Bengali writer, Sharat Chandra’s writings usually involved beautiful, strong women protagonists who more often than not, loved proud, weak men. Several of his books made it to Hindi cinema of which Devdas is probably the most famous and was remade four times (1928, 1935, 1955 and 2002).

Film ‘Sarsvatichandra’ was based on famous Gujarati novel of Govardhnram Ttipathi with the same title. Nutan played the pivotal role. This film had music by Kalyanji

Anandji and Songs ‘Main toh bhool chali Babul ka desh’, Chandan sa Badan’, ‘Phool tumhe bheja he khat me’ were very popular.

One other big name in the list is ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ by Vikas Swarup. Vikas Swarup originally titled his book Q & A, however, it was re-released with the same title as the movie after the film won the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008. Slumdog Millionaireis the story of an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, when police arrest him for cheating because they assume he couldn’t know so many answers. The movie works through his life and knowledge in flashbacks.

Three Idiots – This movie has been in news and disputes for being based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel 5 points Someone. There have been debates but no one has a clue what has happened exactly. The movie led by Amir Khan and Kareena Kapoor has a very good picturization and was a HIT! 2 states – There have been News that this work by Chetan Bhagat is up for Cinematization. Everyone is awaiting to see how a very good literary work of Bhagat look like on the silver screen.

On the contrary we have cases in the reverse direction as Author Bapsi Sidhwa wrote the 2006 novel based upon the film, Water by Deepa Mehta. Next we will see how Bollywood has been a source of inspiration for the Literature.

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MUSIC

Effortlessly interweaving his life as a young musician, singer and an eco-warrior, Suryan from Auroville, shares his personal journey as a musician where through his inspiring music he dreams of a more conscious world.

Dharmesh Jadeja in conversation with Suryan Stettner Photo Courtesy: Dhruv Bhasker 40 | MARCH 2013 | Cinema, Music & Art with the Brew

G

THE

arbage uitar & the uests

Strange worldly combinations in names & even stranger combinations in their occupations somehow direct you to go deeper into lives of these residents of Auroville, an international community near Pondicherry. What makes this place so special? How do you discover yourself through life changing conversations with people of this community?

My personal contact with Suryan has been limited through his work in Eco-service; managing the collection of garbage from construction sites & other places, while trying to work against the financial odds & set attitudes of people towards garbage. His passion for music & environmental concerns intrigued me to take this conversation further towards his other areas of work. And to my surprise I discover a young inspired artist, whose self-expressive songs say much about his dreams & his concerns for a better world.

Suryan Stettner is one such personality; Radiant, humble & full of passion for his work in diverse areas, Suryan represents one such

journey & a story that this place has hidden under its obvious charm of greenery, innovative architecture & ecological concerns expressed through its emerging culture. Born to an English mother & German father, who were early settlers in Auroville, Suryan discovered his passion for music early in his childhood. One envies each child of this place for what a free childhood they get in this place; through its free progress education & growing up freely amongst diverse nationalities, rural Tamil Nadu & forest cover regenerated by hard work of its green belters.

So tell me a bit about your love for music?

“I’ve always had a love for music and was always deeply drawn to and touched by it. The wonder of music to me was largely its ability to express that which otherwise may be difficult; the subtler

realities which we often give little credence to. I started singing early in my life & used to make my own songs as a young child. Slowly as you move on in life, you are inspired by several things & happenings around you, I discovered my passion for music.”

“It wasn’t so serious until I went to England for my higher studies, even managed to go to a music college GIT, Acton, London; ‘Listening and playing music would somehow bring balance to my whole being, and this I believe is the esoteric magic that music possesses. One goes through a lot in young age when you are discovering the world as it is, my case was no different; and music was always there when I needed it most. I’ve always hoped that through expressing myself through my music it would bring

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healing to people in general, but more specifically, healing those hearts that too often do not feel the true joy that is as I believe their very nature.”

What is the inspiration? How does Auroville experience influence your music?

“My music inspires me. I live my music; make my songs whenever I get moments in between my other work, my guesthouse & my ecoservice work. Auroville’s economy does not allow one to follow fully ones passion for music.

It pins you down to the reality of life where art is not everything; I embrace this though, as I feel it brings balance through variety. I have my guesthouse that keeps me going financially. I love this work too, as I meet many beautiful people that come and stay with me here and sometimes even the odd inspired musician.”

His guest space is almost like a community in itself. Built with locally available materials and very organically grown buildings, this place has a character of its own. Well taken care of by Suryan and his team, I see a typical Aurovilian at work, instructing his help in fluent Tamil. This says a lot about how one expat born and bred here, who has made India his home while connecting to the culture of the land effortlessly. A glance at Suryan’s own space on the first floor tells you a lot about his taste of things. Elegant, simple & rich, his space reflects his taste for beautiful things in life; old furniture, comfortable seating corners, wine glasses, books & his music studio tell a lot about how he spends his time!

How is Auroville artist community connected?

Do you have friends where you connect through your music?

“Auroville, though much known & appreciated, is too small for a good music scene. We have a few musicians, singers, etc. but it is difficult to find a similar company to make music on a regular basis. There are no bars, clubs, etc where one can go and play, improvise, meet other people, etc.” Pondicherry scene is slowly developing.

I do play the odd gig there; but there could be much more in Pondy considering how much is going on the music front these days in India;

there is a vibrant culture developing here unlike in past years. Auroville and Pondicherry need to discover the Indian music scene and connect with it. I am sure we will come up with something very innovative if we do so.”

What about your other work? What is this connection between garbage, guitar & guest service?

“We all look to some kind of calling, a way to give back to society, I found eco-service. I am saddened by the attitude of people towards garbage; even in Auroville, which is a very conscious community, & internationally known, we need to work on our attitude towards garbage. Even when we claim of the most innovative architecture and planning, there is no comprehensive plan to deal with the garbage we generate, our own, our villages & our daily visitors, which number in thousands.

We still create an unsustainable level of filth; we are barely different. We are working towards developing a self sustaining model for garbage collection in Auroville, which is difficult but I am hopeful.”

Do you connect with the Indian Music scene at all?

“My songs do get influenced by my work with eco-service at times. But my music is more of my own self-expression & my own experiences. As of now, I am content with my music sessions, a few performances; of course I would like to take it further, to Chennai, Goa, Mumbai, somehow playing at Bluefrog in Mumbai has always been one of my goals. I look forward to sharing my music more in future elsewhere too, as and when the opportunities arise.”

As we try to wind our conversations, I am already enriched by the power of one’s conviction to clean up the world & entertain it at the same time. India has always welcomed talent from all over the world; Auroville artists open up another window to enrich the Indian music scene with their unique way of life & art. It may not be far when such gems of talent hidden in such corners of south India get noticed by the who’s who of the India’s music world.

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