Salman Khan vs. Milkha Singh... and the league of ranters

“Imagine if the American contingent for the Olympics had George Clooney as goodwill ambassador!” stated the TV anchor, shock in his voice. He, and some of his panelists, were essentially foaming over the fact that actor Salman Khan has been chosen as goodwill ambassador of India for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. All hell broke loose. Why Salman? What has Bollywood got to do with sports? Is this not insulting to our sporting heroes?

While some sportspersons like boxer Mary Kom and shooter Abhinav Bindra seemed to welcome the move, former athlete Milkha Singh – the legendary Flying Sikh – did not. He said:

"I am of the view that our sportspersons, be those from shooting, athletics, volleyball or other sports, they are the real ambassadors of India who would represent the country in the Olympics. Still, if we had to pick an ambassador, it could have been from the sporting arena.”

Salman Khan is not representing any particular sport (and we do know about the sort of one-upmanship that exists among the different sports), so he is a neutral figure. Our players work under great stress not only on their skills, but in dealing with bureaucracy, harassment and pathetic facilities. We do not see many people raising their voices against these, not even the tall players who are now commenting about this selection and how wrong it is.

Here are some of the reasons dished out:

We cannot see beyond Bollywood.

If you spend a little time on social media or television, you will mostly see films being discussed. Yes, there is cricket and the World Cup football games, but since most are watching it on a screen, this too qualifies as, in a sense, a portrayal of the game. We see the players as characters with quirks, with different style statements. How often do you get deep analysis of a game completely devoid of these aspects?

Salman Khan had a simple thing to say after the announcement:

“It is a matter of great national pride that our athletes are performing better and better at the Olympic Games and I think we should all join hands in giving them every support and cheer for them so that Rio 2016 becomes our best Olympic tally.”

He is not replacing a sportsperson but an official.

He is promoting his film Sultan in which he enacts the role of a wrestler.

He has not said anything that might indicate it, but there could be soft marketing. Now, soft marketing takes place all the time if we consider the very ‘being’ of a celebrity as a public relations exercise. Sachin Tendulkar owns a restaurant; he could be promoting that. Mahesh Bhupathi has an agency to promote sportspersons; he could very well land a few deals. We can go on with this.

Human being are usually glamour-struck. That is the reason you get these angry comments. You think they would have bothered if a fairly unknown sports star was appointed goodwill ambassador and somebody had an objection to it? Does anybody even remember who the earlier goodwill people were?

Salman has a criminal and bad boy image.

He does. [Just a thought: Would Americans cry foul if Tiger Woods – bad boy and sportsman – was chosen to represent the US?]

Salman has been to jail for shooting black bucks and when his car killed a pedestrian and injured three others. In the latter, the courts have let him off. There is no excuse for either of the crimes, to whatever extent his direct involvement may be. But, in all these years he has acted in and produced films that went on to become huge hits. Do all those who are raising his criminal image now not watch his movies?

If we ask how can such a man represent India, then we should also ask how can we permit so many MLAs and MPs from sitting in Parliament. Who is voting for them? Do we raise our voices enough? No. We aim at the softer targets. Salman Khan has clout, and he must surely be using it. But in comparison to the political leaders, he is fair game.

And to think some people in the media take a high ground on this. These people whose newspapers and TV channels promote politicians and their photoshopped lies, real crimes too, should be the last people to object.

Celebrities are arrogant.

When was the last time people mentioned Milkha Singh, whose honour they are so frenziedly protecting now? It is ironical that it took a Bollywood ‘insult’ for them to wake up to the legend.

Salman’s father Salim Khan responded to Singh’s statement with these tweets:

• “Milkhaji it is not Bollywood it is the Indian Film Industry and that too the largest in the world.”

• “The same industry which resurrected you from fading away in oblivion.”

Here, let us break this down. In the first he is just expressing distaste for the term ‘Bollywood’ that is often used pejoratively. As an award-winning screen writer, he is permitted to be protective of his industry.

It is the second statement that has caused problems. They say he is being arrogant, and how dare he suggest that a figure like Milkha Singh needs Bollywood.

If we are a little honest with ourselves, the truth is, yes, Milkha Singh as many of this generation know him, did come alive in the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. There can be no doubt that it resurrected him, unless we want to bury our heads in the sand or just pretend we can barf nonsense as long as it sounds ‘moral’.

Milkha Singh was fully involved with the movie on his life. It was fascinating to see Farhan Akhtar transform into him. The athlete did not charge anything for the rights. He asked for a token mount of one rupee. The filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra arranged for a currency note issued in 1958, the year in which he won the gold medal, a first for India, at the Commonwealth Games.

I do not understand the argument against the film earning crores “on his life”. This was not some sneaky production; he was a part of it. Indeed, the film had to make money because the producer spent on it. Milkha Singh had a choice to demand money. It is said that he was upset because he was expecting 10 percent of the profits. Since it was in the papers, how come none of his now-vocal supporters took this up on his behalf?

There are other sports biopics. We had one on Mary Kom, and there is one on Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dhoni was paid Rs. 80 crore and Mary Kom Rs. 25 lakh. It is obviously all skewed, but it has a lot to do with economics. Incidentally, both of them do enjoy being as glamorous as film stars. It was surprising to see Ashwini Nachappa questioning Salman’s choice; she herself had tried her hand at acting in films, as have a few others.

Many would not remember, or might not have been born then, but some decades ago when P.T. Usha was riding high a news magazine, India Today, had got her all dolled up for a feature. They too needed to grab eyeballs using glamour.

It is possible that under pressure, the Olympics Association of India decides to withdraw Salman Khan or the actor might do so himself. It would be interesting to see what happens next. If one goes by the general slovenliness of our new sports lovers, they will go back to their organised lives, smirking at the ‘fans’ when they are the ones really obsessed with celebrity.

Saving Kate MIddleton's skirt from flying

The summer breeze lifted Kate Middleton’s dress as she stood with Prince William paying their respects at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. The photographers who might have been clicking away also captured that. It made it on the front page of the Times of India, as well as to the international press.

One can pull up the TOI for many things, but as far as I am concerned this was not it.

Why does a candid moment cause so much consternation? I’ve read social media anthropologists and feminists huff and puff over this. Culling a few points I shall respond.

The newspaper was being asked, “Do you want to be Playboy?” Ridiculous. Is this pornography? Unless somebody gets excited it is not, in which case they have no business to get moralistic.

They complain that this was a sombre moment, and I suspect there was more outrage because it was at a memorial. Was she wearing a dress that was inappropriate? Not really, although I see the point of the advice Vanity Fair offered:

With pins like Kate’s who wouldn’t want to show them off? But at such an important and somber moment during the tour, flashing so much royal flesh wasn’t ideal. The Queen has small weights stitched into her hemlines to avoid such wardrobe malfunctions. Kate’s stylist might want to take note!

This was no a wardrobe malfunction; it was, if anything, Nature getting frisky. However, this is not about how she conducted herself, but how others did.

Not only were many of them reproducing the ‘offensive’ picture but also adding their own fantastical thoughts to it. Like, “If it had the opportunity, Times of India wudn't have hesitated from publishing an upskirt pic of Mother Teresa.”

Before the criminal newspaper even gets there, the male gaze has imagined the female form, and a revered one at that. Why not, say, South superstar Rajanikanth, who wears a lungi that is susceptible to the wind?

I am amazed at how easily people call out sexism by themselves being voyeuristic by reproducing it. It is justified as using it as ‘evidence’ to shame. There is too much naming and shaming, which only results in throwing darts during a local fair. 

Buzzfeed, social media’s favourite historian on dope, had reproduced the front page and even encircled the picture to emphasise that this was sexual harassment. Stunning.

Online feminists, men and women, too use the term sexual harassment so loosely that it reduces harassment to some kitty party game. They complained that this was not a Marilyn Monroe moment because there was no choice involved here. Of course, there was not. Just as the photographers did not lie down on the floor or peep up (many concerned people in fact used stok photographs of children peeping up skirts to draw an analogy with bad boy TOI, forgetting they were misusing kids to suit their agenda). The Times photographers are not forecasters that they’d know when the wind would blow and the dress would fly.

Buzzfeed again carried a photograph of William’s coat from the back riding up to reveal his shirt. They care a lot about equality so they wondered why that did not make it to the front page. Probably because it was the back? Probably because Kate looks willowy when she is billowy? Had the media flashed Will, would they be discussing sexual harassment? What would have been their argument? And if not – which is the probability – then why?

On a related note, there was much praise for Kate Middleton wearing India-inspired prints, but an Indian actor would be expected to be an ambassador for the country even at sponsored events where they might go to market a product or a film, such as at Cannes.

Since there was talk about how the royal couple was so humble, could not this moment in the breeze be seen as part of them being human and fallible? But, no, these are largely supremacists whose high-mindedness will protect Kate Middleton's 'honour'. Had it been our own Mallika Sherawat or Rakhi Sawant's skirt flying they would be busy enjoying the memes.

And mind you, we are talking about people who use their mobile phone cameras to click sundry strangers at restaurants and other public places to make a point, to post on Instagram, to tell the world that they find others so funny, so disgusting, or to name and shame, never mind that they do not even know the name of the person nor will they care about the ‘issue’ once the picture gets its retweets and likes and they are honoured for the day as people with a conscience.  

Fly like an Egyptian...and how not to cover a hijack

“He’s not a terrorist, he’s an idiot” does not sound particularly reassuring. Yet, this was an official statement from Egypt’s ministry of foreign affairs after an Egypt Air plane on the Alexandria-Cairo route was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. After hours, it is over. All passengers have been released and the hijacker arrested. His motives remain unclear, though. Homer Mavrommatis from the Cypriot foreign ministry crisis center said: "He kept on changing his mind and asking for different things.”

The way this episode unfolded is immature. Firstly, where did the idiot bit come from and how apt is it for someone who held a plane full of people and two governments to ransom?

Weird. Passenger Ben Innes took a selfie wth the hijacker

The idiocy, according to one theory, was that he wanted to deliver a letter to his Cypriot ex-wife. This is naturally humour territory, accustomed as we have become to more dangerous reasons for such acts. It is funny, but only for those of us sitting afar. I cannot imagine what the passengers – and their families upon reading bits and pieces of trivia – must have gone through – their fears, their concerns, their fervent prayers.

After most of them had been released, negotiations continued as there were still seven people on board, three of them passengers whose nationalities were not being revealed.

Egypt’s Civil Aviation minister said:

"Negotiations are underway and we cannot disclose any specific demands. We cannot determine the duration of the negotiation; our priority is the safety of all onboard. I request you not to listen to any reports, only to information released by me. Certain information cannot be disclosed, we cannot be overwhelmed by journalistic instincts. Let us do our duties and then we can release all the pieces of information at a later stage. Any reports on names or nationalities is not in the best interest."

It was Egypt Air that started the humour mongering. At that time nobody knew that the hijacker did not have explosives on him or a suicide belt as he said. If anything, the airline should have been talking about security lapses.

Social media getting into LOL mode is one thing, but did it behoove of the Cyprus president Nikos Anastasiades to say, “It’s all to do with a woman”?

Worse, after all the wooing wife jokes, it turned out that the initial information released was a case of mistaken identity:

An Egyptian woman has said she is the wife of Ibrahim Samaha — the name given earlier by Egyptian officials as the hijacker. She says her husband, with the same name, is not the hijacker and that he was on his way to Cairo en route to the United States to attend a conference.

How terrible. His identity and purported motivations and madness have been tagged online already. The real hijacker is Seif Eldin Mustafa as per some reports wants the release of female prisoners in Egypt. Does this sound like an idiot? It is possible that these demands were also false. Maybe he just wanted to land on Cypriot soil, or did it for a lark. But, how normal would this be?

News has become a mere fix for most, a device to flash. And please let us not use dark humour as an excuse. Dark humour is after a tragedy when all is lost, not when something is happening and could be lost.

I'm a Woman Phenomenally

The Revenant and Heroes

Hugh Glass gobbles up a raw fish; he bites into a piece of still warm raw bison liver and vomits right into it; a grizzly bear rips his flesh, leaving his bones visible; he pulls out the entrails of a dead horse and then snuggles into the carcass to keep himself warm. There are steep falls; animals and men torn to the barest. 

Here are a few random thoughts on The Revenant, in no way a review or even an analysis.

I usually wince when there is any violence, overt or covert. I shut my eyes for a few minutes. While watching The Revenant, I did not. There could be two explanations, both worrying: Either I have become immune to such scenes or the violence in the film is gratuitous, a sort of play-acting between big hunters and hunted with their positions alternating. 

The former reason may be ruled out, for I subsequently noticed that I continue to be squeamish even while watching National Geographic. But I am also not quite ready to dismiss the film’s bludgeoning aggression to gratuitousness simply because of Jim Bridger. 

Bridger and his demons

Jim Bridger and his face. A face registering pain, anger, loyalty, pusillanimity, and guilt. A face held together by wisps of gossamer that seem to have been jaded in the weather to give it a certain ruggedness. A face that can break. A face that deserves to be punched one minute and caressed the very next.

I did not know who the actor was. (Will Poulter, it turns out.) I have the advantage of distance — distance from Hollywood, even as trivia. In fact, it is only after watching the film that I got to know it is loosely based on a real story. Therefore, for all the difficulties a film crew faced, we realise that the reality must have been far worse. Yet, my appreciation of the film increased with this knowledge, for it could then be seen as a tribute to a period of hardship, of struggle, and of man and beast fighting for the same space and becoming like each other. 

Even in the much talked about skirmish with the bear scene, and despite the fact that after a couple of minutes of relentless assault it becomes a pantomime, the questions stand out: Was Glass pushing his animalistic limits or was the bear fighting for her humane space in protecting her cubs? 

The demarcation between man and beast is often blurred, and the moral queries are as much the animal’s as the human’s. Hugh Glass finding shelter in the carcass of a horse has a Pieta-like resonance; it is more familial than his relationship with his son, Hawk. For, the latter comes with the strings of fealty. Glass is concerned about co-traveller and opponent John Fitzgerald [Tom Hardy] killing Hawk, “because he was all I had”. Whereas the horse, belonging to another camp, helps him escape, proving to be useful even in death. 

Hugh Glass carries his son Hawk

Digression: I can imagine how in a Bollywood film, the hero would have named the horse Raja or Shera and the steed would have even shed a tear in the last moments! Perhaps I am replaying all this in my mind without the melodrama, although The Revenant has many moments of melodrama and of stylised pauses.

Leonard DiCaprio said in an interview:

They’re [Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki] very specific about their shots and what they want to achieve, and that — compounded with the fact that we were in an all-natural environment, succumbing to whatever nature gave us — was something that became more of a profoundly intense chapter of our lives than we ever thought it was going to be. It’s epic poetry, an existential journey through nature, and this man finding a will to live against all odds. Yet he changes, nature changes him and I think those elements changed him while we were doing the movie.

Glass’s pursuit of living is more than about survival for exacting revenge. He wants to live to be heroic. Part of the reason may have nothing to do with being left to the elements. It could be Hollywood. I do not keep count of awards. I have not watched enough DiCaprio films to be a fan. Exultations like, “Leo owned the Oscars” do not impress me. But, the first thought that came to my mind as The Revenant opened was indeed, “So Leo owned the Oscars?” 

The Revenant has several layers that will be visible only after the Hollywood star mask is scraped off. I am not an actor or one who even understands the intricacies of the craft. What I do know is that one should see the character, and not the actor, much less the star. 

Some critics have pointed out that Fitzgerald stands against Glass because he is a racist and cannot imagine why a white man would have married a Pawnee woman and then felt so protective about his half-Native son. But, while he does sound racist (explained as his own experience of being partially scalped by one), Fitzgerald is as much a fighter as Glass in the survival sense. He has plans for the future — despite the tortuous journey ahead, he wants to carry a heavy burden of pelts that they worked to get and that would be profitable. He agrees to stay back with a badly wounded and almost dead Glass who he’d prefer dead only because he is promised $300; it will buy him a home. He is the Ordinary Guy who makes an immobile and directionless Glass seem extraordinary. 

Fizgerald and Glass confront each other

Towards the end, when Fitzgerald is finally dying, Glass pushes him upstream to meet his fate. Heroic Glass does not take the responsibility to kill him for killing his son; he leaves it to god,  a lesson we are told he learned from the Native American who had nursed him for a bit, which again shows he has not learned too many lessons himself. His version of god seems to be the Arikara on the other side of the river who are certainly not going to spare Fitzgerald. Makes one wonder about Glass and his moral prism. 

Glass has no motive except to mourn for the fact that he has nothing to live for anymore, instead of finding a reason to live. Even the young Bridger, perhaps the youngest in the team, takes the risk to stay behind with someone who might die any minute. Bridger is a hero because he sees duty as beyond doing a job, and when he does leave Glass, he not only leaves behind his canteen but also an image of a caring person who is not so much saving his own life as preferring to stay away from witnessing one who he admires give up on life.

In the end, does Glass give up? He looks blankly ahead and then straight at the audience. His Native wife* floats in and out of his dreams with aphoristic fervour telling him that in a storm if you look at the branches you will see them bend but the trunk will not. Glass has internalised this, but then so does everyone else who is not yet dead. 

---

* Grace Dove who played the role of his wife tweeted: "Not gonna lie... Pretty bummed I didn't get an invite to the #Oscars."

scattered

Still life with four sunflowers:Van Gogh

still unawake.

we zombie walk over coals as we would on grass

drinking moonbeams

it would seem

like skin soaking sweat

the wet set

leaves scatter

dispersed pollen

flowers bloom

in the undergrowth

~FV

The court of yarns

The other day, I was in court. I needed stamp paper for some official letter. It was a little after 9 am. A busy day had begun. Shops opening shutters, pedestrians walking purposefully towards train stations and bus stands, cars honking. It had the look of rush.

As I was about to enter the court building, it seemed as though life had stopped. I couldn't move. One side of my sandal had given way. I'd have to limp. I chose to pick up the sandal and pull out the dangling sole. Quite nonchalantly I wore it back. That's when I heard a short laugh. A lawyer. I smiled back. 

"Affidavit? I'll do."

"No thanks," I said. 

Suddenly, as if the silence had been broken by a click of the heel, I found about six men in coats offering to notarise and legitimise any form I'd give them.

It was a sad sight. These men (no women were around) had earned a law degree. Yet, they were reduced to hawking their services in the streets. Think of the disparity between the uncertainty of their jobs and the famous lawyers with their well-appointed chambers earning in lakhs for just a one-hour consultation. 

I stood near the lift and asked where I'd get the stamp paper. "After one hour," said a man chewing paan. 

I decided to go up, anyway. 

It was dark on the floor. "Kya?" I turned around. A peon wanted to know what I wanted. "Aadha ghanta baad," he said. It was progress. From one hour my wait had reduced to half. There was a room to the left. I stood at the door. A big-built man in a white bush-shirt smiled. "I am looking for stamp paper. May I wait here until they open the counter?"

He invited me in and motioned towards the chairs near the windows. It was bright, so bright that every speck of dust on the tables was visible. For the next 30 minutes, I watched. 

Plastic chairs were stacked over one another and some staffers sat on them in their stacked state. Umbrellas were opened to dry, even though it wasn't raining. The sweeper began work, and dust flew leaving a temporary cloud of smog. 

There were lockers with names of lawyers. One of them entered. There was a picture of a deity on his locker. He bowed before it. Then he brought out his papers, locked it again, and bowed before the image once more before sitting down to open the files. 

This was repeated by at least two other lawyers while I was there. One of them, after performing his religious duty for the day, did not seem too happy with my presence. I might have intruded into his private space, and although I had tried not to gawk, I'm sure even a sideways glance would have bothered him. 

It was nearing 10 o'clock. I went to the counter. "Five more minutes," said the woman. I went back to my window-view seat. The room had filled up, everybody was working, yet there appeared to be slumber in their air. It reminded me of holiday afternoons of my childhood where everybody was busy reading, knitting, playing cards, or just snoozing.

I realised it was past ten. There was a queue at the counter. This was unfair. Would I have to go and stand in line after having waited this long? No. I was asked to go to the other side. The task completed, I returned to that room and sought out the gentleman, a clerk, who had let me sit there. "Any problem?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Just wanted to say Thank you." 

He shook his head all around and spread both his hands and said, "Work done? Good, good."

I stood near the lift. A board in Marathi read, "Thooku naye." Do not spit. The peon made a fixing lightbulb-like gesture. "Neeche nahin jaata." No lift to descend. 

With sole-less shoes I started on my way down. The staircase walls were peeling, the steps were dirty. As I reached the ground floor, I was shocked. There were commodes and a flush tank. Hay and cardboard were spread around. These must have been the toilets. A woman was sweeping. She kept sweeping into the spot and from it. I waited on the second-last step. She saw me and gestured that I could pass. 

In less than an hour I had experienced without barely any verbal exchange the lives of a few — from their worship to the way they drank their tea, from the dust on their files to the sweat on their faces, from umbrellas drying to eyes squinting at the sun. Lives we pass by everyday without pause for thought. 

And to think that all I needed was a stamp paper that would certify an identity.