Monthly Archives: September 2004

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We, The People

That’s the byline for Swades, , Ashutosh Gowariker’s next venture after you-know-which-movie. Somebody gifted me the much-awaited album today. Resisted much temptation while in the office, did not want to be distracted during the first listen, and all that jazz. Went for King of Bollywood in the evening, and finally back, and listening with much eagerness. First impressions follow.

It’s definitely one of the better packaged albums brought out lately. None of that crappy single-inlay-card packaging that HMV excels in – the extremely long fold-out cover includes all the lyrics (in the Devanagari script), and the photographs show Shah Rukh sitting rather morosely in a General Class compartment, in a crowded public bus, in an aeroplane, in a boat and on the back of a rather ramshackle motorbike, where he’s looking not-quite morose. The cd is priced at 125 Rs, which is surprising when you notice that the company is T-Series, which had once publicly declared that it won’t price any cd above 100 Rs. Ah, well, market forces catching up, I suppose, with Sony, HMV, Tips and the rest of the corporate buggers setting a price limit of 150 on their recent releases ( Though, to be fair, Tips has been packaging titles excellently, and has had a limited promotional offer of “buy a cd, take an older Tips cd free”)

Nine songs in all, pretty surprising, because I can’t think of any recent Rahman albums with more than 6 songs. A closer look reveals that two of the tracks are instrumental versions. Even so, not bad value for the money.

The songs:

“Yeh Taara Woh Taara”: Udit Narayan in form. Towards the end, two kids ( Master Vignesh and Baby Pooja, ugh, why are all movie-related kids called “Baby” or “Master”? In this day and age too….) join in, Vignesh’s voice kind of resembling the cute voice with the Bihari accent in the theme song of Jungle Book, and he also goes out of tune – I think it was intended to be that way, though. Pooja’s voice sounds like the kid in the “Ek aur Anek Ekta” ad thingie they used to air on Doordarshan once upon a time. Pretty good inspirational lyrics, the song is built on a phased synth-bass line which sticks in my head, and makes me want to go experiment with Fruity Loops.

“Saanwariya” is a solo song by Alka Yagnik, with shades of her earlier work with ARR ( it resembles Mahive and Jogiya Re from Legend of Bhagat Singh, probably due to the sole reason that Alka Yagnik sings with a dholak-bass-tabla-other-assorted-indian-percussion in the background ) Beautiful tune, loved the stylish use of the harp at parts.

“Yun Hi Chala Chal” would sound like a Colonial Cousins song ( you were right, Mons), except for the fact that Kailash Kher sings in it. Love that guy’s voice. The opening beat has shades of Udhaya‘s Pookum Malarae . Udit Narayan and Hariharan alternate on vocals, and Kailash Kher provides the vocal embellishments ( Herr Kher’s voice aptly picturised on Makarand Deshpande, as I have been told). The acoustic guitar backing, and a couple of rock guitar riffs ( which begin at about 5:01 mins into the song) give the song a peppy finish. Towards the end, a couple of trumpets blast through, and I suspect it’s the same sample ( two notes, actually) that was used in Roja,when Arvind Swamy is kidnapped.

“Ahista Ahista” is a slow ballad, with minimal percussion, a couple of notes played on the harp, and Udit and Sadhana Sargam’s voice.  It’s a good song, unsurprisingly the least interesting one for me. Slow songs just don’t hit me the first time, thank you.

“Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera” –  The mandatory (or so it seems) Rahman song in the album. Dunno why, but the Man ends up singing at least one song on every album of his. Pressure from the director? Self-indulgence? The song rocks, though. Has a very interesting rhythm pattern made up of voices ( filtered and compressed ) saying “hoy hoy hoy” at regular intervals, a deep Bass drum, and a shehnai phrase (by Madhu, according to credits). This is the only song in the album that uses a chorus, highly surprising because none of the familiar names(Febi, Feji, Kanchana, Rehana et al)  feature – it’s just identified as the Chennai Chorale Group in the credits. Towards the end, the shehnai and the tabla take over, and bring the song to a beautiful conclusion.

“Pal Pal Hai Bhaari” is a bhajan, and the Lagaan hangover hits the song badly. It not only sounds like a faster version of O Paalanhaare, but also at a point, Navin’s flute sounds like he’s playing “Tumhri Bin Humra Koi Nahin” from that song. A very short time, though. Madhushree sings the song, and Vijay Prakash and interestingly, Ashutosh Gowariker himself have been creditted with vocals – they sing/recite phrases declaiming Rama and praising Ravana ( the bhajan turns out to be one sung at a Ramleela, as the inlay photos prove)  Towards the end, a gubgubi is heard – the usage, as with His Hallowed Orchestration, is near-flawless.

“Dekho Na” brought a smile to my face as soon as the opening bars started. This happens to be a reorchestrated version of “Baba Kichu Tha” from ARR’s Baba, a song that’s been high on the list of under-rated Gems, and deserved a second chance. Sure, all the rest of the rabble-rousers can scream ‘copycat!’ from the rooftops, but “Dekho Na” becomes a different song in this version – the original version was dancey, and well, flirty ( Reena Bharadwaj’s voice deserves that word), while this is more sedate – Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan bring their individual quirks to the composition. I had to listen to this twice, smiling all the while, and then brought out my Baba cd to listen to the original. Listen to the tabla and the tabla-tarang that starts at about 4:00, and the alternating chords that play on the acoustic guitar when they sing ‘Dekho Na, Zara Dekho Na’.

The two instrumental versions of Pal Pal Hai Bhaari and Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera are good, but I suspect I need to listen to the original ones first to get into the alternate versions.

Overall thoughts: Definitely a melody-oriented album, with minimalist Indian instrumentation ( yes, Madhav, none of that trance-techno mishmash ), though with a North Indian tinge. Lagaan-Bhagat Singh hangover persists. Acoustic guitar shines. Amazing non-use of chorus.

AR Rahman is The Man.

And yeah, thanks, Mons, for the gift.

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A contented bloke, sort of….

I am afraid the new Internet connection at home (it’s been a month now) is taking its toll on my reading. Reading, as in real, true-to-life, turn-the-page-and-run-eyes-over-the-printed word kind of reading. There’s another kind of reading that’s thriving, I will get to that soon enough.

So, for almost a month now, I haven’t read any book. The Secret History of The Oscars lies on my bed, with a bookmark that moves forward at the rate of, oh, say four pages a week. There’s also Movie-Made America by Robert Sklar, something I began just before Madhav’s quiz, and I haven’t moved ahead of Chapter 3. Oh, and the unread five hundred odd books in the cupboard and the unopened cupboard.

Come to think of it, I also haven’t played any computer games. The virus attack on the second day of the connection caused me to reformat a major section of my hard drive, in particular the E: drive, that had all the games installed on it. My saved-games (the levels to which I had played whatever games I had installed) are all backed up in some cd, and I have to go look for it sometime. But (sigh) who wants to sit through another game installation, when you can …..uh….download comics?

Download, and read comics, of course.

Recent downloads: Complete runs of The Crow (Kitchen Sink Press, Image), Powers (Image), Tom Strong ( America’s Best Comics), Hellboy ( Dark Horse), Bite Club(Vertigo), Vamps (Vertigo), Battle Royale (Tokyopop), The Legend of Kamui (Viz), Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind (Viz), American Flagg(First), Dicks(Avatar), District X(Marvel Max), Punisher(Marvel Max), Ichi The Killer:The Manga, Daredevil: The Bendis. Of course, loads of other assorted bits and ends.

Ancient Beatzoian history department: The first two manga titles I read in my life were an issue of Mai The Psychic Girl by Ryoichi Ikegami and Xenon: Heavy Metal Warrior by Masaomi Kanzaki. Towards the end of the Xenon comic, there was a beautiful ad of comicbook in which a guy with a sword was upside down in the air, and busy cleaving some unlucky bugger’s head into two pieces. The Legend of Kamui, the book read, by Sanpei Shiroto. I remember writing down the name of the writer in one of those personal diaries I had ( I had quite a few, most of them outdated diaries that were gifted to my father and were later fished out for use by me ). Eight years later, I finally got to read The Legend of Kamui thanks to Bit-torrent.

I read the original Crow series by James O’ Barr with Graeme Revell’s background score from the movie playing in the background.

Bendis and Maleev’s Daredevil, although a little overrated, was a real space-bar hitter ( somehow, “page-turner” doesn’t seem to fit).

Obligatory disclaimer: To those concerned about my ripping off creators of their much-deserved rewards for their work, I can vouch for the fact that I am buying all the stuff that I read in digital format and loved ( and some stuff I didn’t entirely love, but got for cheap). The Authority series is one such example – I read 29 issues in one night, drove vrikodhara up the wall until he read the twelve issues the same night, and the next day, placed my bid on Richard’s lot on eBay. Most of the mainstream comics (Hush, The Ultimates and the rest of the Ultimate line are being reprinted in India anyways, though very slowly ), and I will be buying the other stuff by and by, as and when I have the money or (highly unlikely) find them in Indian stores.

Didn’t I tell you about the other kind of reading? This is it. The CBR format is going to be the savior of the Third World, as far as comics are concerned.

This wednesday, I got a a package from adgy, with the complete run of The Authority I had bought from him on eBay –  29 issues, and 5 issues of the Jenny Sparks miniseries, and the first five issues of The Monarchy. Four cds – a PJ Harvey mix cd to get me hooked onto the lady’s music (mission accomplished, Richard), a cd of Bill Hicks’ live comedy performances, and (hold your breath) two cds by Alan Moore, David J and Tim Perkins – Angel Passage and the grandly named The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theater of Marvels. While I admit this is not as droolworthy as the UN-sanctioned airdrop of comics he promised me sometime back, it still made my week. Thanks, mate. (In case you haven’t realised yet, I am highly underplaying my jubilation, and hence the non-mention of the obligatory War Dance in The Room.)

But now I am back to reading a normal book. Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale. I watched the movie last Sunday, and after I am done with the book, I shall go read the manga.

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Wikipedia!

Right, so my first contribution to Wikipedia was about this gentleman who can lay claim to a major chunk of my childhood.

Mr Anant Pai.

Of course, I will have to do some heavy-duty research to get his complete bibliography in, but something’s better than nothing.

Coming soon: entries for Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Target, Indrajal comics. Also Chandamama, if I can sniff out enough information about it. Seems like my next trip to Guwahati will involve some major back-issue digging.

P.S: I don’t think I will be filling in anything about Pran or Chacha Choudhury or any of those darned Diamond comics. Let Mr. Vishal Patel do the honours.

P.P.S: Vishal, the poor chap ran out of bandwidth for his site. Double damn.

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Comics, Manga

Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 1: Chapter 9 – The Assassin’s Road

Shogun Assassin is a comic-book lover’s gift from heaven. A movie that follows the original comic-book ( Kazuo Koike and Gosei Kajima’s Lone Wolf and Cub) manga almost panel-by-panel. Of course, it is a pastiche of two Lone Wolf movies – there being six of them made between 1971 and 1974, all but one directed by Kenji Misumi, and all starring the formidable Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Itto. Itto the Lone wolf, assassin for hire – who along with his three-year old son Daigoro walks the road to perdition. Pretty straightforward story, or so it seemed when I began reading the series – the standard format of the nine chapters in the first book being X hires Ogami to kill Y, Ogami hatches plan, kills Y, kills a lot of other people in the bargain.

But the last chapter of the book signals an end to the journey that was beginning to appear a little too familiar, or one might say, this chapter actually begins it after leading you through eight episodes and settling you in, depending on how you look at it. And I thought I would share.

It starts off with the image of Ogami Itto and his son watching a couple of children playing, they are bouncing a ball, and singing a song.

As the song of the children attain a hypnotic tone – we flashcut between Ogami’s eyes, brooding, grim and alert, and Daigoro’s, innocent and yet full of loss.

The scene shifts. It is the house of Ogami Itto, and both him and his son, in noticeably better times.

“Daigoro”, the father says, “The Kenshiyaki will soon be here…but your father is resolved to defy the Shogun and escape.”

He continues – “To avenge the Ogami clan and clear the name of the Kaishikunin executioner, I abandon the way of the Samurai, and travel the path to hell, a living demon of Meifumado! Listen well, Daigoro! Your father now walks the Assassin’s Road, a path of blood and corpses, slaughter and heartless cruelty. There is no other way to avenge ourselves on the assassins of the Yagyu clan…No other way to assuage the spirits of our dead, denied Buddhahood by their unavenged murders.”

At this moment of truth, the father offers the son a choice, a way to find his own path.

“Choose the sword”, he says, “and join your father on the Assassin’s Road. Choose the ball, and I will send you to join your mother in the land of spirits.”

This is what happens next.

“You would have been happier at your dead mother’s side, child”, Ogami Itto says, as he holds his son close to him. “An assassin with child. Remember, Daigoro, this is our destiny.”

The next day, Ogami is paid a visit by the Shogun’s henchmen, his house surrounded by sword-wielding guards, and as the representative, holding the official scroll in his hand, walks into the house, he finds Ogami Itto and his baby son sitting together, both dressed in white. The formal announcement is made, “…Your innumerable insults against our Lord and Ruler leave us speechless. Know that you are stripped of your title of the Shogun’s Executioner, and your family name striken from the lists. Your sentence is death by Seppuku for you and your only child, Daigoro.” Having read the scroll, the official sniggers at the silent man arrogantly – “You greet us in the white robes of death. Your resolution is admirable. I would expect no less from Kaishakunin Ogami Itto, whose sword is known throughout the land. Magnificent determination!”

And then, let me just say that all hell breaks loose, as Ogami Itto, with his son in one hand and his sword in the other faces off against the armed guards. “Can you kill me?” He roars. “Can you kill the Shogun’s own executioner with those feeble arms?”

The answer’s obvious!

“Why rush to die?” Itto asks them, as he cuts a bloody swathe towards the door of his house, and freedom.

And suddenly, the door opens, to reveal a band of grim-looking men waiting outside the threshhold of the condemned man’s house. An old man, obviously in control of the other younger followers behind him, challenges Itto – “Cut open your sword with dignity. Refuse, and we will be your opponent. Even your Suio Ryu cannot break the sword walls of the Yagyu clan.”

So it’s them, then. The infamous clan of Ninjas who were responsible for bringing the shogun, Tokoguwa Ieyasu into power, and his personal bodyguard. Led by the old Lord Yagyu, head of his clan, the men are aghast to find that beneath his white robes, Ogami Itto was wearing his Executioner’s dress – bearing the hollyhock crest of the Shogun himself. The ninjas find themselves in a dilemma, for to strike the man wearing the Shogun’s crest would be to dishonour their master. Itto laughs in their face. “I have faithfully served the crest for twenty seven years. It’s time I got some use out of it.”

The old man then takes matters into his own hands.

Ogami Itto accepts Lord Yagyu’s offer, and as the two foes face off, there is a bit of history for us, which presents an answer of sorts to whatever is going on right now.

Two warriors, Lord Yagyu’s son Kurato, and Ogami Itto face off in the middle of a clearing. “Heh heh heh”, the crafty Yagyu leader thinks ( and yes, he does say “heh heh heh”, which shows that I am not the only guy saying that at the drop of a katana) “Kurato has the setting sun at his back….and Ogami Itto his son at his.” The Lone Wolf goes to battle with his child slung across his back.

The sky darkens. And katanas at the ready, the two duellers rush towards each other. What happens next cannot be expressed in words.

And thus it ends, the way it began.

The sequence that happens here is copied word-for-word, nearly, in Shogun Assassin. For that matter, it’s a frame-to-frame copy as well, as the duelers are transposed from Ogami’s house to the clearing where the duel occurs in, literally, a blink of an eye. Not coincidentally, Kazuo Koike was the scriptwriter on the original movie (Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance) as well. The only thing that ruins the movie, in my opinion, was the cheesy synthesizer-heavy background music, and the terrible dubbing of the villains, who sound every bit like villains sound in badly-dubbed South-East Asian movies — nasal, with clipped sentences and bad pronunciation. Ogami Itto’s dub is a magnificent baritone, with an English accent —  and Daigoro’s is that of a slightly affected American child artiste, the kind of kid who knows he is dubbing for a Japanese movie.

So now you know why I am all jacked up about reading the complete series. This was a manga written sometime in the seventies, and it stands a landmark of it’s genre to this day. If you read Frank Miller’s Ronin or even Sin City, or see Road To Perdition, you will find the ghosts of Ogami Itto and Daigoro looming large behind these great works. Salut, Koike-san and Kojima-san.

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Happiness is….

….watching Shogun Assassin and Battle Royale back to back.

Giggliness, on the other hand, is the download status bar on Battle Royale:The Manga and Lone Wolf and Cub: Volume 4 proceeding at a brisk pace.

Note to self: Damn, I need to complete my Lone Wolf collection ( 28 manga volumes, 6 DVDs), and fast.

Ladies and gentlemen, a Big Hand for the Man of the Week, Vasu, who has very ably demonstrated that the best way to watch a movie is to indulge in semi-Industrial espionage to get at it. You rock, my man.

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