I am supposed to be working. Supposed to be this nice little professional guy working his shift and a little more so that the teensie-weensie buggies on his plate are gently put to sleep. Just me and the buggies, one on one, in the corner of a deserted cubicle, that’s the way it’s supposed to flow.

Until The Bat intrudes.

The script for Batman Begins is what I mean. Kick-ass, absolutely. Must-reading for the Batman fan, and also for non-believers who don’t care too much for comic-book movies and would rather go watch Main Hoon Na.

Minor Spoilers…

IIT Madras has been my quizzing pilgrimage for the six years now. I was kindof depressed because I could not make it to Saarang this year, partly because I was trying to convince myself that it was time to come out of the college-quizzing mode and partly because of work, loads of it. I was in Madras the last day of Saarang, for the Odyssey quiz, but I didn’t go to the college. Maybe someone up there was trying to keep my record intact – two weeks ago there was a personal mail in my inbox, and an official quiznet mail, both saying the same thing – an open quiz at IITM. In adherence to my no-arguments-with-Fate policy, I decided to attend.

The train journey was the same as most train journeys are, when you have a good travel-companion. The only problem was that our tickets, mine and Anil’s weren’t confirmed, so we had to use the same berth. At one AM, the TTE wakes us up from our heap-y slumber and directs us to proper berths. As I drifted off to sleep again, I could hear a lot of ticketless dumbheads, the ones who had been happily occupying the berths we were sleeping in, arguing with the TTE, and he saying things to the effect of “Naansense!”

I woke up twice in the night, once when a lot of coins in my pocket fell out, jangling to the floor, and the other time when my cellphone fell out of my other pocket and got stuck between berths.

IIT Madras ( The heat! ) was fun. The quiz ( The heat! ) was held in the SAC which is short for the Students Amenities Centre, and I had this mental image of how the SAC of an institute should be, based on my four years hanging around an SAC in my college. (Oh, the heat! ) Well, the IITM authorites certainly know that a fully equipped auditorium is a Student Amenity. Here I was, expecting a slightly-bigger-than-normal room where you would need to sit crosslegged on the carpet and answer questions, and here was this gigantic hall that’s bigger than the (Oh, the heat! ) average college auditorium.

It’s a little hot in Chennai this time of the year.

Beatzo – redefining understatements everytime. Any time.

Five minutes before the quiz was due to start, we find out that Dhaaji, our third teammate and the only guy who knows our fourth teammate, is in Hyderabad instead of Madras ( where he’s supposed to be doing is summers) , and the guy who was to be our fourth teammate has a team of his own. Freakin’ cool. Thank God for errant IIM Calcutta passouts who come to quizzes Just For Fun, we got ourselves a third partner just in time.

Yeah, the quiz was good. Except for the brief power struggle in the middle of the prelims, that made the students go gaga trying to shout out questions aloud. (Oh, the FRIGGIN heat! ) The finals began well, with a 77-visual connect ( which we cracked midway ) Loads of sitters interspersed with fundoo questions followed. The quiz ended at about 9:30, with us getting the third prize. A firm belief – it’s only in IITM that you find questions with words like macha and hajaar fundaes popping up from time to time. It’s the only place where the preferred mode of questioning is “modified” infinite bounds ( the scheme by which if team X gets a question and none of the teams answer it, the next question goes to team X again. ) Did I tell you that there was a Hattori Hanzo sword on the poster advertising the quiz? We loves IITM quizzes. We also loves hanging around in IITM campus after missing all trains to Hyderabad, swigging Appy and coffee and talking fundaes.

Amusing Anecdote from the IITians: The logo for the quiz was a question mark and an exclamation mark, arranged as your familiar communist symbol – the question mark as the sickle and the exclamation the hammer. The usage of this symbol caused some priceless moments with the Dean ( “If you want to express your political idealogies in a quiz, you can go look for sponsors yourself!” ) and other IITians ( Somebody scratched the words “Headquarters, CPI(M)” on Shamanth’s door, Shamanth being one of the quizmasters )

Menacing voice calls Siddharth up just before the quiz.
MV: Hello!
IITM Guy: Yes?
Is this IIT Quiz?
Yes, we have a quiz on Sunday.
What is the subject of your quiz?
It’s a general quiz, sir.
No, no, what is the subject?
It’s a general quiz, open to all.
Is it Communist party quiz?
*Blink* Oh, no, no. That’s a question mark and an exclamation mark.
Oh. *click*

Monday was Landmark-and-Ritchie Street day. The Day Kill Bill Volume One:The DVD was bought. You know what? It’s not like I am a pirate by choice or anything. I wanted the damn thing, and it wasn’t on sale in a normal outlet, so I had to go buy it at a shady place in a shady street.

True to the IITM quizzing spirit, I did not opt for a reserved train ticket while coming back. Bought a general class ticket, paid a coolie 20 rupees to “reserve” a seat for me, and sat on a wooden chair for fourteen straight hours. Finished T Coraghessan Boyle’s Road to Wellville and Gaiman’s Coraline on the way.

A weekend well-spent!

Give me the name of a Hindi movie that connects Assam, Delhi, Kerala and Ladakh.

If your answer isn’t Dil Se, let me add another small clause to the question above. Give me a Hindi movie that connects Assam, Delhi, Kerala and Ladakh pointlessly.

Yes, you score 10 points if you said Dil Se.

Which is too bad. Dil Se was the movie to Look Forward to, once upon a time (or to be precise, in the summer of nineteen hundred and ninety eight ), a time when naive young lads were about to leave home for distant shores, a time when the three names “Mani Ratnam”, “AR Rahman” and “Gulzar” together on a movie poster elicited enthusiastic huzzahs, a time when college students incorporated discussions on the relative hotness of Manisha Koirala in the Indian Movie scene. Add to the mix the unverified rumour ( there was no Internet, after all, and Stardust was hardly a reliable source, even in those bygone days ) that this was going to be about familiar subjects – terrorism in, hold your breath, Assam, and there you have it. A mental countdown to the release date, with much listening and relistening of the Soundtrack.

If I remember right, Dil Se was released when I was on the train to Warangal. Thoughts about when I would see it were superseded by those of whether I would see it at all, horrific tales of …er…senior-junior interaction manifesting themselves in my consciousness. I did see it, of course. It was part of the regimen. Every Mess, every hostel room played Dil Se songs. Everybody was talking about the movie and everybody was aghast at the fact that The Guys From The Land Of Dil Se hadn’t seen the movie yet. “Go!” They yelled. “Go and don’t come back until you’ve memorised the film.” All part of the regimen.

We went, me, my father and my state-mates to this theater called Amrutha. I have a lot of happy memories about Amrutha theater, folks, and it all began here. It began when the titles came up, and it began with the collective cheer that filled the hall as scene by scene went by. I missed dialogues, but the enthu ( new RECian word ) was contagious. When Sapna Awasthi’s vocals heralded Chaiyya Chaiyya, somebody threw a mass of streamers into the air. They fluttered slowly among us, their shadows shimmering on the screen ( do shadows shimmer? ), and transforming the song from something really good to something unforgettable. It was magic.

And of course it was crap. The movie, I mean.

Dil Se didn’t make too much money – less gently said, it was a flop. The kind folks at REC Warangal tried very hard to increase profits by going to watch it multiple times ( later in life, I was to do the same for Ramgopal Verma’s Mast ) but that didn’t do much for it.

It was all wrong, of course, the rumours and the hype. About it being part of a trilogy, the Mani Trilogy of Indian Politics ( Bombay and Roja being the first two ) It wasn’t about Assam, it had the first half an hour set in Assam, and oh yes, the heroine was supposed to be Assamese. Forget the fact that she spoke better Hindi and worse Assamese than any other Assamese girl I’ve met. Also forget the fact that she spends her childhood in a place where it snows. ( Assam had a snow-making factory? I am even more clueless than I thought. ) and there are mysterious hands shooting at passersby from windows. It’s not even a Love Story set in Turbulent times, let me assure you, there being no love between the characters as we see them.

Nosirree, this movie is about that Pestilence of Indian Cinema of the Nineties – the man known as Shah Rukh Khan.

Note that I do not use the word “actor” anywhere in the rant above. Thanks.

How I look at Dil Se is this. Southern Director wants to go Northie, tries to hook known Star ( with NRI Potential and all )into pan-Indian debut. Southern Director knows Star’s histronical limitations, so he distills previous roles from the Star’s career, adds a tweak or two. By then, the Star refuses to work until there is more creative freedom for him, so Director agrees to whatever Star says. All songs must be a figment of my imagination, says Star. Yessir, says Director. There should be extended death scene, says Star. Yes Boss, says Director. ( Stop being smart, retorts Star, I liked that film. One of Aziz’s best, and mine too. ) And yes, adds Star, I need more excuses to wrinkle my eyebrows.

Ok, so I am being too kind to Mani Ratnam, and probably too unkind towards Shah Rukh Massa. But what to do? I have faith in one, and none whatsoever in the other.

Whatever be the case, Dil Se reeks of Shah Rukh Khan. It is infected by him. He’s like the fabled itch on your back that goes an inch away when you scratch it. He’s….ah, I could go on and on about this….he’s pestilential. And he ruins a movie already on the verge of collapsing under the director’s overindulgence. Which is a lesson for you. If you want someone to topple a movie, call Shah Rukh. He will drop his Pepsi Bottles and Airtel Recharge cards and come running.

Back to our topic -does anybody remember the story to Dil Se? It goes something like this –

This guy from the AIR, named Amar ( and who incidentally looks and talks and behaves exactly like Shah Rukh Khan ) comes to Assam, and he wants to catch the Barak Valley express. It’s a dark and stormy night, of course, and since everything interesting happens on dark and stormy nights, we know something’s coming. There’s a figure sleeping on the station, and one does not need to see two Mani Ratnam films to know that there will be a gust of wind and that the sleeping figure will be Manisha Koirala who will look soulfully into the camera. Well, she does. And our man wrinkles his eyebrows a little and goes to get a cup of tea for her. He’s in love, as any self-respecting AIR employee who looks at Manisha Koirala circa 1998 should be. He comes back, only to find the train leaving the station with the mysterious female already inside. And thus begins Ye First Song.

Now the next fifteen minutes is devoted to whatever our man does for a living – antagonising terrorist leaders by asking them moronic questions, antagonizing the locals by asking them stupid questions, and antagonizing the Lovely Lady He Meets again by asking her stupid questions. I mean, c’mon, when you’re taking an interpreter along, wouldn’t it be better to take an Assamese chap than a Bihari one? In course of time, he gets beaten up by some Assamese guys, all of whom speak better Hindi than any Assamese I have known. But he is steadfast. He is resolved. He hijacks the radio station and plays an AR Rahman song ( hallelujah! the man has taste! )and then ruins it by trying to enact his love story ( I take that comment about taste right back. ) There is another “figment of the imagination” song, in which the guy is obviously outrunning the Indian army and impressing the lady that way. More wrinkly eyebrows, of course.

Then suddenly the Lady Vanishes ( Yes, I have a DivX of that movie, muhuhahaha ), and the guy follows her to Ladakh. Nobody knows why they are there, except to get stuck in a sandy desert with a broken-down bus, and then to spend the night in a deserted monastery, with the guy having a semi-wet dream about dancing dervish girls in various colours. Right. So the girl ditches him again, and he feels depressed and wrinkles his eyebrows. Meanwhile, we finally discover why the girl has come to Ladakh. She’s there to indulge in a favourite Terrorist pastime – extending hands together and reciting Terrifying Terrorist Oaths in dark loghouses, all in fluent Hindi. Intermission time, fellas, and remember, if the girl you’re running after makes odd faces after you try kissing her, instead of slapping you or complaining to the police, in all likelihood she’s a terrorist. There, you don’t even need to see the first half of Dil Se.

Now we are in Delhi, and the guy is about to be engaged to – duh – a girl from Kerala. Man, what a nifty way to introduce pan-Indian appeal. On top of it, you have the girl discussing stuff like “honka-bonka-bonks” ( believe me, you don’t want to know ) and yelling for no good reason. The twist in the tale, the Maiden from Assam and Leh reappears, and she wants a room to stay and a job to boot. Man, talk about demanding females. Talk about stupid males. The girl gets both, and now that we know she is a terrorist, and that Republic Day is coming closer, and that bombs are the focal point of the film, not guns – the rest of the storyline is very predictable. Add to it Shah Rukh Khan’s turmoil ( more wrinkly eyebrows ), a Deep Dark Secret Origin of the Terrorist, one more Wet Dream set in the backwaters of Kerala, and there you have it. The ending is stupid, as if the director ran out of ideas and said “Chuck it, I am through with this movie, get me the next script, the one with the homely couple”.

Now if the movie sucks so bad, you might say, why on earth am I writing volumes about it?

Simple answer, the film has its moments. And incredible visuals. One offshoot of having pointless exquisite locations to shoot your movie in is of course the exquisite location itself. The music rocks, the background theme ( If you know me and you have heard my cellphone’s ringtone, you’d have memorised the tune by now ), played on orchestral violins, a solitary flute and sung by Sukhwindara Singh at various points of the movie forms the leit motif of the doomed “love story”. If I had my way, I would buy a DVD containing only the songs. But then, the music gives you a heightened feeling about how the film actually fares ( which is why I saw it the second time which is why I am writing this ) Manisha Koirala plays the distressed, semi-detached Terrorist well, to an extent. Her deadpan responses to Shahrukh’s playacting ( “What if we were married and had kids” kind of sweet-talk) are the highpoints of the dialogues. Incidentally, the dialogues sound as if they have been copied verbatim from some other language. None of them sound believable, not the repartee, not the endearing pleas, not the sweet premarital talk between our man and the Kerala lass.

Here’s to a film that could have been much better, to a film that wouldn’t make me cringe when I come back to the story at hand after a song plays. Here’s to a movie that deserves to be remade, that deserves a second chance. Tone up the story a little, make the characters characters instead of brainless dialogue-spouters and eyebrow-wrinklers, keep the music the same.

Shah Rukh Khan better stay away this time around.

Afterword: Gaurav Sabnis wrote a neat review of the same movie sometime back, and I can’t seem to find the link to the post. His opinions and mine differ a wee bit. I agreed with his views then, but then, I saw the movie again yesterday.

I am running out of book space in my room. My clothes are on two shelves in the cupboard ( it has eight shelves in all ) and the rest of it is filled with books ( one shelf has the mp3 and game cds). I transfer the books that I am done reading to the cupboard in the Big Room , beside the TV, and even that’s fast filling up. The two crates that I had bought in the MR Book Stall sale are in my room now, and I have not opened them because there’s no place to keep them. Well, actually, I did open them – to show the stuff to Rishi and to read one of the books, but they are still in the crates. Chandru says he will give me a wooden box that can double as a table. He has been saying that since last month, and now when I think of that box I see it as an ornate Treasure Chest, huge and heavy, that can fit all my books with space to spare. Great Expectations!

My computer’s screwed. The hard disk, actually. It’s on the verge of crashing again, and the least I can do is to burn all the unwritten stuff ( not too much ) and take backups of Game-saves. A remarkable coincidence – but the two days I linked peripherals through the USB port, the OS crashed – it says there is some VFAT problem. I had to reinstall Windows again yesterday, the third time in the last four weeks.

Eight months after I bought my computer, I have managed to get the audio system working properly. Mostly becuase I installed PowerDVD-XP 4, which supports Dolby 5.1 audio now – listening to the Boys DTS cd is a genuine pleasure, as if I have grown extra ears and can hear more bits of the music now. Some instruments/voices get highlighted differently in 5.1 audio, so there is the occasional surprise.

I can never get my room cleaner beynd a certain point. Whenever I go back home, I see dust on the monitor and dust in the corners and assorted stuff lying on the floor and some clothes on the bed. I clean them up. I sleep. I come to the office. I go back home. The dust is back.

I just read what I wrote so far. My brain feels like it’s been subjected to a burst of Mr Freeze’s popsicle gun. I am so boring. And bored.

Hark, a light on the horizon. oooky, Beelzubeb bless his kind soul, has helped me download the complete runs of Fables and 1602. And The Girl Who Would Be Death. And Loads of JLA superspecials. Read 1602 #1 five times, Read the annotations just now. Interesting! I can hardly wait to find out what happens next. But, softly, love. The Boss Awakens.