Yesterday i noticed that a kind-hearted soul had written a comment to one of my blog entries; the blog entry in question relates to india's pathetic performance in the virtual quarter final with australia in the champions trophy. at the very least, it just proves that there exist people who do go through this blog! Hallelujah!!
there was a question that the aforementioned kind-hearted person had raised, namely, what would be an explanation of india's passion for the game. i am not sure if he was trying to elicit a funnny answer out of me or whether he just left a comment there out of courtesy but i indeed found that a rather interesting question in its own right. why indeed?
i have two answers to this question - a short one and a long one. contrary to literary tradition, i shall deliver the longer version first. a warning, though: all that follows is an elaboration of my notions based on the little history i know and remember. it is of course likely that my high school history exam scores were simply a reflection on my well-formed 'cramming' (mugga) abilities than anything else.
having said that, here we go:
sport, historically speaking arose as a war-like activity. after all, the first sportsmen were the pristine hunters. as there arose some semblance of culture, the same war-like activities took a more moderate form. this is not to say that sport became what we understand of it today because after all gladiators and gladiator sport was a very popular sport at the time. it didn't seem offensive when a man was being torn apart alive by hungry wild cats - rather people loved it. that was the present day equivalent of pro boxing - expensive, violent and moronic.
The first instances of a more toned-down and less violent version of sport is probably benchmarked by the advent of the Olympic games. of course, in the initial days, it still was largely a recreational period for the spartan warriors and so was still quite violent.
Anyway, if we allow ourselves to get back to the real question, my main point is that the history of sport is one, deeply connected with war-like activities and so it is but natural that the countries with a long history of violence have always been the better sporting countries.
IF we accept that point of mine, how do we explain india and india's passion for this particular sport?
of course india or 'the land beyond the indus' consisted of several little kingdoms and it is difficult to say(probably wrong too) that our land didn't have a violent history. rather, it is difficult to conclude one way or another. on the one hand, hinduism encourages vegetarianism which would lead one to believe that we are animal lovers. but we also have violent forms of 'sport' which involve, i'm sure a very long history, a lot of cruelty like bull fighting(especially in tamil nadu) or cockfights.
India however became a country only after becoming a part of the british empire. in fact the real unifying factor in that case was the subjugation of common lands by the imperialists. so, notions of patriotism and indian-ness are more modern-history consequences, as far as india is concerned.
and here, somehow, the influence of gandhi or gandhigiri is unmistakeable. i am not saying that indians are incapable of violence(there are several counterexamples here) ; rather what i'm suggesting is a certain acceptance of non-violence and soft-naturedness that have become a part of the psyche of the huge middle class, who were always survivors as opposed to becoming martyrs. the bloodshed in our lands have been largely cleansed, so to speak, by large doses of gandhigiri.

the game of cricket has always been called the gentleman's game. you accept the authority of the umpire even if it is erroneous. you applaud a great shot by the opposite team, or a terrific unplayable delivery, and you lose gallantly, in other words, the game though a british invention is tailormade for this indian psyche i have been referring to, although only in mental terms.
so, was cricket the most popular game in india at all times? perhaps not, because hockey was dubbed our national game(though of late, i have become sceptical as to who really does all this name-calling. is it declared in the constitution? if not, what sort of claims are made that hockey is india's national game?considering its present day condition, are we to allow a change of our national game? if that is the case, considering how few tigers survive in our lands and how the common crow seems to represent india in a very real sense, should we declare the common crow as the national bird/animal? these are vexing questions, but as always, i digress). anyway, hockey was popular at one time because we were rather good at it. seems ironic but not really. at the time, field hockey was played on surfaces which were far from even. so a long pass invariably led to an interception by the opponent. the game therefore favored those who could skillfully make short passes and dribbles and this was something indian players managed quite well. in fact so well that in the 1936 berlin olympics, we beat germany 3-0 in front of adolf hitler!
i think the real resurgence was with india winning the prudential world cup. somehow to the common man, it gave a glimmer of hope that indians could succeed even in a hostile environment. we were huge underdogs and a miracle won us that game(never mind that shortly afterwards the windies came to india and thrashed us 5-0 in a one-day series). it is exactly that feeling of coming on top that probably drives the common indian to so much passion for the game; it no longer represents just a game. it becomes a sort of belief that (s)he can compete with the best and come out on top. this is well reflected by the fact that we as indians don't make a fuss over the rather ignominous reality which is our olmypic record or involve ourselves in any other sport -mentally or physically.
to give the simpler answer, all i need to do is call your attention to a little statistic: even if i suppose that india's population consists of about 30-40% average or above average intelligence, it still means that a whopping 60-70% of us are dumbasses. and when the number of dumbasses can rival the third most populous conuntry in the world, what 'reasons' can we ascribe to their behavior?!

DON - A REVIEW

Note that I simply said Don and not the new Don movie.
first things first. i did see the new Don movie and surprisingly, it is quite good. Of coure there is the odd movie-unbelievability part here and there and a new 'twist' to the old story which many lamented as unnecessary and all but frankly i think the new twist is not bad at all and the director has placed clues to help us guess. why i did like the movie ( believe it or not, SRK is not bad at all) is because it is really snazzy and a big leap by bollywod standards. the movie is shot in sync sound and except for a couple of scenes or so, i thought the movie was fine. even the song "Khaike pan banaraswala", though very unlike the original is not bad(though i didn't like the techno aspect of the score, i see that SEL have been faithful in some sense to the original score, even in recreating some new songs, like in the title song, where they incorporate the background score of the original movie rather seamlessly). so thats that.
since that was not much of a review, let me proffer the question on your behalf: what/where is the review?
Well, it is going to be a review of the old movie. since all in the media have been comparing and have more or less been unanimous in their vote in favor of the older version, we(i with a couple of friends) decided to check out the old movie again. we had all seen it before, but this was more than a revisit since none of us remembered the old movie anyway(except for the main story line).
to start with, what sort of name is Don?! i can understand someone naming their dog or cat so, but who names one(self) don? is that supposed to be a christian name then? i know that the 70s cinema in india have a high positive correlation between baddies(thugs and guys who are only on screen to get thrashed a couple of times) with christian names-robert, michael, mac...-there was a mac here too. i always kept thinking he was don urf something, but no. he is called don by all-his friends enemies...
anyway, i digress.
as we get to know that all international smugglers and drug dealers had made bombay their operating center and abode, we are introduced to how cruel this man is supposed to be.
Helen's acting is terrible to say the least and actually i was happy that 'Don' decided to do away with her, because that would mean we don't get to see her histrionics any further.
The introduction of Zeenat Aman and her desire for revenge were probably standard fare in those days but now they appear quite corny. Her 'lessons' with the karate guru-i'll come to this guy in just a sec - are ridiculous. atleast farhan akhtar had the sense to coalesce that attribute into her character itself and do away with the karate master.
this karate master character appears totally sleazy to start with. And when ZA gives him a slap for trying to get fast with her, and he approves of her tight fists as an indication that she possesses bravery or whatever nonsense, i could see why the man had those fat swollen cheeks. i had initially attributed that to heavy overeating - after all there was the heavy luggage right in the abdomen area he was laboring over as part of his very existence but this new teaching technique seemed to me a rather masochistic exercise.
Once again, i have to draw myself away from another fascinating character to get on with the review.
one thing i never could relate to in any way was this: if the helen character and the ZA character could so easily get into 'Don's' lair and could in fact keep telephonic communication with the the cops, then why couldn't the cops arrive there in the first place? the new version has a more satisfactory answer to this question but the old one simply presumes(and by the acting of those few extras in khakis, that presumption is more than amply justified) the lethargy and hideous incompetence of the aforementioned.
Next 'Don' is killed and in a freakish way and then he is replaced by Vijay who is basically playing monkey to 2 foster kids of his.
another smart thing that FA did was to get rid of one of the kids. why 2 when 1 would have sufficed? is it that doubling the number of kids doubles the sympathy? usually with the calibre of actor kids in hindi movies especially in the 70s, one is,as the movie progresses, often consumed with strong feelings to lose one of the tykes. so two kids in the original movie probably were needed for some specific purpose.
and the purpose is pretty clear once you are exposed to the character of JJ(aka jasjit) played by Pran.
i thought that rather ironic since the man is literally battling for his life all the scenes you see him on screen. to somehow make things more interesting(or comedic, i really can't say) he is seen as an acrobat (sporting white canvas shoes but that is probably a fashion statement) who also possesses an ability to crack safes.
so of course, Pran has to for some odd reason which is again connected with the same villian party do a job he has long quit-i.e., breaking safes. and while he is trying to get away he is apprehended by the inspector and ends up breaking one of his legs (could have been his neck-that might have simplified things but that is too much optimism) and landing square in prison.
as he leaves, he insists that the man standing by the jail gate keep the jailgate open(??!@) cos' he was planning to kill the %#^*@!@ who @#$%*@ his @#$%*.
sorry, i just got a bit carried away. basically pran's messages are loud and clear throughout the movie. in the sense that the way the dialogue begins there is only one route it could take.
but you have to listen to pran labor over this and finish the sentence which was complete in your head a few minutes ago. In fact pran is probably the reason the movie went over 19 reels.
i understand some of his initial dialogues were longer and were cut short for technical reasons(aka we have no more reel left to shoot this blasted scene!).
finally as always, the inspector-the one who holds all the keys dies and vijay is exposed to the goons who know he isn't 'Don' while the police believe he is. a few other scenes where he is being chased all over the place and some general masala later, it turns out that only way to prove vijay's innocence is some kind of confessional diary-a who's who of all the baddies which conveniently contains their names(i guess 'Don' was still 'Don' even in that diary so the mystery remains), postal addresses, habits, pet peeves, hobbies and what not which he handed over to the now dead inspector(very convenient!). Ad the diary is missing from his house as well, since...
pran gets his hands on this diary. and when he tries to sell it to the same baddies who want it at any cost, he realizes that his kids are actually captive there and as is wont with such characters, comes up with a cunning plan where he lassoes a rope onto the adjacent building and tightrope walks from this building to the other with the children-each one hanging on each arm of his.
THAT, my friends, explains why you need 2 children! one to balance on each side. left and right. male and female, yin and yang. (ok, Mr. Brown?)
lets not talk about the graphic part here since to be fair to them, we are talking 1970s.
finally as AB, ZA, and pran get together, they decide to monkey around for a while with the baddies by throwing catch with the diary along with the villain gang. and when the main villian gets hold of the diary and throws it in a fire nearby, vijay comes up with the 'real' diary and exposes all the villains.
Frankly, i don't see any reason(s) why this movie was better than the new offering. Yes, in those days, it perhaps had some kind of appeal but that doesn't make it a better movie.