To the moon Read online

  But that little VJ voice inside my head hadn’t fully died yet, so when I heard Channel [v] was auditioning for new faces, I thought I’d give it another whirl. This time I went prepared for the audition in an – at best – questionable outfit, that involved a too-snug beige strappy top, floral print chiffon skirt and knee-high brown leather boots. Yes, in the Bombay summer. (Hold on, I think my stylist just fainted, I’m sorry, Nelly. We all have a past.)

  My friend Nikki had arranged professional hair and makeup for me on location at someone’s shoot, where the makeup artist boosted my confidence BIG time, as he shaped my eyebrows saying, ‘You have a nice face, you should do print modelling.’ So, I got to the audition and apparently killed it! I read the teleprompter to perfection with a kind of ‘VJ’ enthusiasm that requires an almost unrealistic excitement about everything you’re saying, but they all seemed duly impressed. In fact, they said, ‘You’re short-listed, we’ll tell you when to come back.’

  I was thrilled and thought – wait till I tell PK! I went back to the next audition (but did my own makeup, maybe not the best move) and arrived at the poolside of the Sun-n-Sand Hotel in Juhu. The audition this time was apparently going to be conducted IN the pool and they had asked us to carry bikini tops and shorts.

  I remember the model Carol Gracias was there too. It was the first time I had ever met her and while the Channel [v] stylist was going through my very average selection of swim wear, Carol sweetly volunteered that I could borrow any of hers if I wanted to. In fact, I think I did. I was struck by how kind that was of her, especially since we were auditioning for the same job. We got to this pool and we were each supposed to ad-lib something while sexily walking out of the water. I did this about four times, rambling happily without a hitch, but apparently just not sexily enough. At the end of the audition they said, ‘Well, you definitely have the gift of gab,’ but stopped short of saying ‘just not the on-screen sizzle we’re looking for’. And that’s when I decided I didn’t want to be a VJ anymore.

  Blog #13: Love in the Time of Bollywood

  If you know me, you probably already know by now that my one true obsession in life is LOVE. Especially the kind you see you in the movies. Yes, I blame Bollywood and you, Meg Ryan.

  I even have a tattoo of a quote from the movie Moulin Rouge on my ribs that says, ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.’

  And now my job was to write about it too. I remember that one of my best friends in high-school, a wonderful guy called Sushant Mukherjee, once shared with me an article he had written on love.

  He wrote about his experience at a local radio station in Senegal, West Africa, where he was struck by how far and wide the net of Bollywood had been cast. Where people would listen to hours of Bollywood film music on the radio and talked fondly of Dilip Kumar and Nargis, saying they had found hope in the kind of love stories we told in India. The larger-than-life, all-consuming, impossible love stories that made you want to fall in love. The overwhelming kind that the movies promised surely existed, but no one could ever say for certain, because it was so hard to come by in the real world. I asked him if I could share the article he wrote and he was kind enough to say yes.

  THE LONG REACH OF BOLLYWOOD: TALES OF AN INDIAN VOLUNTEER IN WEST AFRICA

  By Sushant Mukherjee

  A few years ago, when my family was living in Egypt, I remember being told a story by the young son of an Indian Foreign Service officer. He had been taunted and threatened by classmates in his school in the Suez Canal town of Port Said for daring to claim that Amitabh Bachchan was, in fact, not a Muslim. ‘Didn’t you see him recite from the Quran in Coolie?’ they angrily demanded. Surrounded by a crowd of belligerent schoolboys, the frightened young boy could only manage a bewildered, ‘Why do you even care?’

  Like my young friend, I too have long been struck by the intensity of passions aroused by Bollywood films and actors in lands far from India, and particularly in countries with no local Indian population. Yet nothing in Egypt prepared me for what I was to experience on my recent three-month sojourn in a very different corner of Africa.

  Six weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a recording booth of a radio station in the coastal town of Saint Louis, in northern Senegal. I cleared my throat, fidgeted nervously, tried to scribble a few notes, and wondered how I had gotten myself into this situation. In a few minutes, I was to be co-hosting a national call-in show on Hindi film music. My qualification for this role? Merely the fact that I was, to the best of people’s knowledge, the only Indian currently living in Saint Louis, and one of very few who had ever spent more than a passing weekend in this part of the country.

  It had been my friend Malal, a young local radio journalist, who had first drawn my attention to the fact that every Wednesday evening between 9 to 11 p.m., Senegal’s biggest private radio station aired a popular show on Hindi film music. He urged me to go to the radio station the following Wednesday, and promised to speak to the DJ who ran the show. ‘Indian music is everywhere here, it’s in our blood,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘But a real Indian, in the flesh, now that’s a novelty.’

  By this point in my stay in the country, I was not all that surprised to hear that there was a weekly Hindi music show. I had arrived in Saint Louis two months earlier to work as a volunteer teacher, and was amazed from the outset at how familiar Indian culture seemed to be to the Senegalese people. One evening, as I sat eating dinner in front of the TV with my local host family, I almost choked on my fish when I heard a character in the Wolof (Senegal’s national language) soap opera we were watching, slap her forehead, and exclaim melodramatically, ‘Nahin, baba.’ My host family snickered at my surprise, and the father explained that Hindi films were so popular in the region that common expressions to be heard in the films had made their way into everyday parlance in Senegal, particularly among the older generations. For example, he remarked, one of the common ways of saying ‘crazy’ in Wolof is ‘paagal’. Another friend later told me about a certain gentleman in Dakar who was renowned throughout Senegal for his impersonations of Indian actors and renditions of Bollywood song-and-dance numbers – fittingly enough, the man went by the name of Amadou Bachchan.

  Even so, when Malal introduced me to his DJ friend Yacoub, and the latter greeted me effusively with ‘Namaste, bhai sahib…Aap se mil kar badi khushi hui,’ I was a little taken aback. Yacoub, it turned out, spoke fairly good Hindi, learned almost entirely through years of watching countless Hindi films. He insisted that I co-host that evening’s show with him on air, despite my feeble protestations that I was the furthest thing from an expert on Bollywood films and music. It didn’t matter – I was Indian, and that, apparently, was more than enough.

  The next two hours passed in a blur. After a brief introduction, in which Yacoub asked me what I was doing in Saint Louis, and who my favourite actors and actresses were (I think I stammered something about Kajol), he opened the phone lines, and events took a decided turn for the berserk. The calls poured in, and I was welcomed over and over again – in a combination of broken Hindi, French and Wolof – and asked questions ranging from whether life in India really was like what one saw in the movies, to why Hindus cremate their dead. My French, which is passable at best, was sorely tested by some of these explanations, as was my very superficial knowledge of Hindi film music – when one gentleman asked me what my favourite Manna De song was, I had to skilfully change the subject. Another old man called in and serenaded me with Kishore Kumar’s ‘Zindagi Ek Safar’. During a commercial break, Yacoub brought me a tattered edition of an Amar Chitra Katha comic and asked me to help him with his diction.

  By this point, I had begun to get overwhelmed by how surreal it all was, and was relieved when the show finally came to an end. Yacoub thanked me for my participation, and asked me if I could become a regular feature on his show, as he had never received these many calls. I explained to him that, sadly, I was leaving the following week to travel a little in
the region before returning to India.

  I returned from West Africa less than a month ago. As I had expected, my time there was a magical experience and an incredible cultural education. The unexpected bonus, however, was that after seeing how respected and valued Indian films are in the region, I returned with a newfound appreciation of this aspect of my own culture. At a time when the urban, middle-class youth of India are increasingly fascinated by all the trappings of Western culture, I think it is important to acknowledge that there are still parts of the world for which India – and not the West – represents the possibility of a better world.

  I am reminded of a conversation I had with an elderly proprietor of a hostel in the dusty little town of Kidira, on the border between Senegal and Mali, who held my arm and said to me: ‘Indians need to understand what their culture has meant to us. It allowed us to dream of a world full of romance and passion and hope. The youth of today prefer American films, but when we were young, Dilip Kumar and Nargis were the king and queen of the world. They need to know that.’ I promised him solemnly that I would do my best to relay the message.

  I thought that was just about the best thing I had ever heard.

  Sometime later I came across a novel about a guy who hitchhiked his way across Russia because taxi drivers would give him free rides if he told them about Raj Kapoor movies and sing ‘Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja Aaja Aaja’ in return!

  Jaane kahan gaye wo din

  Kehte the teri raah me

  nazron ko hum bichayenge

  Chahe kahi bhi tum raho

  Chahenge tumko umra bhar

  Tumko na bhool payenga

  – Mera Naam Joker

  That.

  In fact, once I was in London with a friend, walking down Tottenham Court Road, and a random guy stopped us and pointed at my salt-and-pepper-haired friend, saying, ‘Amitabh Bachchan?!’ I wish he had said yes and made that guy’s day.

  Blog #14: Bombay, 143*

  *143 – I Love You. (Get it?)

  There’s another movie concept I am somewhat obsessed with. Two films called Paris, Je T’aime and New York, I Love You. The latter came out in 2008, the same year I started my blog. Both are anthologies, each short film by a different director, where each film relates, in some way, to the subject of love against the backdrop and flavour of that city. How brilliant is that?

  I have always maintained that Bombay is a curious beast. Every single day its population of millions swells by a find million as countless dreamers pour into the city for their daily bread and butter or with dreams of becoming the next Shah Rukh Khan.

  Did you know, by the way, that well before he became famous (back in 1991 I’m told), Shah Rukh himself stood on Marine Drive with the setting sun behind him and proclaimed, ‘I will rule this city one day.’ How crazy is that?

  ‘Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho toh puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.’ – Om Shanti Om

  Move over Miami, how do you not love a city that can make THAT happen?

  The other thing about Bombay is that you either love it or hate it. If you land here channelling Russel Peters anticipating ‘the smell’ to hit you and the bodies to bump you, that’s exactly what you’ll get. If you come here with an open mind, ready for an adventure, the city will go Shantaram on your ass and take you on a trip of a lifetime! What’s your poison – red pill, blue pill?

  I’ll tell you this though, when it comes to living in Bombay, location is EVERYTHING. And I don’t mean having a fancy ‘SoBo’ (South Bombay) address. If you ask me, the joy of your experience of living in this city is directly proportional to the distance between your office and your home. The closer you live, the happier, less stressed out you’ll be; especially come monsoon.

  For many years, I lived at the Rewa Bungalow in Mahalaxmi. Most importantly, it was walking distance from a bar called the Ghetto. The bungalow is owned by the Princess of Rewa, Madhu Singh. Rewa is famous for its white tigers and the bungalow even had a few white tiger skins as part of the décor. I lived in one of the rooms at the back with a view of Haji Ali on the water. I spent eight years of my life there and threw some legendary Holi parties in the garden too. To this day, when my friends and I talk about this house, we say these unforgettable words from Mr India, ‘Bangla, bangle ke aage balcony, balcony ke aage garden, garden ke aage samundar!’ (‘A bungalow, a balcony in front of the bungalow, a garden in front of the balcony, the ocean in front of the garden!’)

  Yes, I know it’s crowded.

  Yes, I know there are places that reek of poor civic sense.

  Yes, I know there’s an ugly underbelly of corruption and greed.

  Yes, I know.

  So, to all the expats and ex-Indians and foreigners that come here and complain about how crowded it is and how much it smells, I say you’re just making it more crowded and smelly then, aren’t you? But you’re in luck. There’s a red eye with your name on it back to wherever you came from around 2 a.m. Auf Wiedersehen!

  PS. You’ll miss your maid and driver a hell of a lot more than you think.

  But for those who choose to stay, there’s also magic in the air sometimes. You get a whiff of it when you see your dreams unfolding in front of you. You catch a glimpse of it when you hear people tell their stories of going from ‘zero to hero’ with a twinkle in their eyes. I know, because I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Bombay let me be the best that I could be. And I don’t think too many cities with cookie-cutter living can claim to give you that.

  Which is why we need our own compilation of short stories. Because Mumbai, I love you. (Geez, now I’m tempted to write one.)

  In fact, I even tweeted to Anurag Kashyap* that he should make a movie on Mumbai and this was his reply:

  Can we request that one out of the archives please? I’d love to see it.

  On that note, another anthology I’m looking forward to is Bombay Talkies Part 2 (not a sequel I’m told). You know, I got a lot of flak for giving Bombay Talkies five stars on my blog, but I guess it spoke to me. Ashi Dua, a producer, knew that in 2013 Indian cinema would celebrate its hundredth year, and to commemorate that she asked four directors – Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee and Zoya Akhtar – to put together a short film each as their ode to Indian cinema. Each film pretty much takes you on a GIANT roller-coaster ride through all the Bollywood emotions I love best: hope, drama, dreams, desire, joy, pain, want, love, longing, ache and sorrow.

  Rashmi, my senior-most Bollywood blogger, has always had this to say about love and longing; ‘If there’s a feeling stronger than love, it’s longing. You can love someone a lot, but you can’t love someone as much as you can want them, or miss them.’

  Sigh. Be still, my tortured heart.

  But, of course, one of those brilliant films was by Anurag Kashyap. Aside from the expected ache in his short story, he also threw in one of my favourite dialogues of all time, ‘Allahabad ka paanwalla bhi intellectual hota hai!’ Damn straight. And fist bump Mr Bachchan from a fellow Allahabadi.

  But looking back now I think I was just so fascinated by the concept of a short story that touched a chord, teased an emotion or captured a moment that I hoped one day I’d get a chance to do something like that. And if you think about it, what else is a blog but one little story at a time? Okay granted, not all blogs are meant to make you cry (or at least I hope not all mine do), but to me they each feel like little tales because the blogger is a storyteller after all. You know there’s a real person on the other side of those words, who was feeling something and was then compelled to share it. Whether it was a passion for motorcycles or movies, for travel or trends.

  The world can be a lonely place until you stumble upon someone you can relate with and whose words speak to your heart and mind in a way that you’ve always wanted them to. And that’s why the World Wide Web is my favourite playground in the world. Remember ‘Friendster’? Like that. With an infinite number of matches.

  Blog #15: Dot Gone />
  Soooo, I appear to have gotten a bit derailed here by the topic of love but in my defence, it was also my job for three years, until one day, they pulled the plug. Basically, the whole ‘dot.com’ bubble burst and they down-sized us (a word you would hear often back then) from a team of fourteen to four. My boss Anil, two eccentrically awesome colleagues, Ashok Cherian (whom I called Cat for some reason) and Clyde D’Souza, and me. I remember they would both call me ‘Ramani’, you know like after my namesake fashion designer whom I hadn’t met yet – Malini Ramani? They did this for years. Funny how the universe leaves you little nuggets of foreshadowing everywhere, isn’t it?

  On the upside, when the internet bubble burst (or in my opinion had a temporary deflation), they marched the surviving troops into the main MTV India office from our previously separate digs on the other side of the building. As I walked across the oh-so-familiar basketball court to my new desk, I thought – well, isn’t this funny.

  Four other major things happened to me during this time.

  I made my first legitimate Bombay best friend – Diya Kurien. She was interning at MTV before returning to Boston University. We spent many weeks smiling politely at each other with little to say (I now know it was pure shyness not judgement of my utter geekiness), till one day someone brought up the movie Memento and we got involved in dissecting the film. The person who had brought it up hadn’t seen it, so we were banished outside to continue our conversation. Funny are the things that start a friendship, aren’t they? In 2017, Facebook alerted me to the fact that we’ve been friends for a whole decade. Happy frieniversary, DK! #MoveItShakeItRockIt (I feel like we had a hashtag before anyone else had a hashtag. We also had friendship half a decade before Facebook was invented, so technically happy fifteenth frieniversary!) #JustSaying DIYA KAPOOR