Criticize all you want, I won’t be perfect
talk all you need, I won’t change
laugh at me and I’ll laugh back,
there’s no shame in being myself
I’ll show who I am
and you’ll wear all your masks,
your backed into the corner
from all your insecurities
one day you’ll fall,
along with all,
your whispers of cruel words
and that’s all they are…
whispers; hardly heard.
Billed as the largest Bollywood musical extravaganza, Zangoora — The Gypsy Price is one of the first musicals to be staged in India along the lines of musicals staged abroad. Since it’s being staged at the Nautanki Mahal at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon, I had to go watch it. My only worry was that the husband might balk at the prices — the extravaganza doesn’t come cheap, with prices ranging from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 6,500 — as he’s not into musicals and theater, but he agreed without batting an eye!
Zangoora - the gypsy prince
The Nautanki Mahal is done up in old-world style. It follows a predominantly red and gold color scheme, evoking the grandeur of a bygone era, with beautiful, huge chandeliers dominating the central dome in the waiting area, throne-like chairs scattered around, a bar at both ends of the waiting area, and walls painted to look give an inlay effect.
Photography wasn’t allowed inside the theater, while the play was going on, though I did get a shot of the stage before the play began. 😉
The story itself is simple. The play opens with the Prince Rudra’s first birthday celebrations, during the course of which the king declares that he will not charge taxes during the year, and asks his kingdom’s three chieftains to make the same declaration in their provinces. The three — Thodamal, Daulat Rai and Zohravar — are none too pleased with this decision, and hatch a plot to wipe out the king and his family.
Opening scene: elephant throne
Prince Rudra, however, is saved, and ends up with a gypsy caravan, where he is brought up as Zangoora (Hussain Kuwajerwalla), the leader of the gypsies, who sets the stage on fire with his gypsy dancing partner Laachi (Gauahar Khan). Meanwhile, Zohravar (Sadanand Patil) takes over the throne and launches his reign of terror on Shaktisheela. Of course, since this is a Bollywood musical, the story has to end well, with good winning vs. evil and Zangoora, a.k.a. Prince Rudra, winning back his rightful place on the throne as well as his lady love, Sonali (Kashmira Irani).
The dancing gypsies outside their caravan
A typical Bollywood plot, you say, whose chances at the box office may not be that great? But hey! This is live…and it’s magic!
Right from the opening scene, where you have the king and queen holding court on the back of an elephant, to the electrifying, high-energy dances, the play keeps you captivated and begging for more! The cable work is excellent, reminiscent of a Broadway musical, as actors fly through the air, spin cartwheels, fly into a dream sequence, or come onstage, suspended upside-down, to deliver prophesies to Zohravar. The sets and props are excellent, breathing life into the different sets — be it the forest, the gypsy caravan, or the throne room. One scene in particular, which is set underwater, is breathtaking. LED screens and special effects are used to show fishes and plants, while two mermaids swim through the water suspended on cables. Pure magic!
Celeberating Zangoora's coronation
If you’re around Delhi/NCR, this musical should be on your must-watch list. It’s slated to go on until December, so you have plenty of time to catch it!
Still need some convincing? Check out this sneak preview of the musical. Note: this is a shot from a promo night, so it doesn’t showcase all the scenic elements.
Liked what you saw?
Images from Reuters blogs.How has the week treated you so far? My week has been really hectic — a lot of high-pressure deadlines that I had to meet at work, driving through some absolutely crazy traffic, long nights and early mornings.
With all the craziness, I really needed to find some peace during the weekend, and was fortunate to stumble upon some beautifully relaxing music. I hope this piece is able to soothe your frazzled nerves as well as it did mine!
Hope you liked this music.
In Empires of the Indus, Alice Albinia traces the route of the River Indus from Pakistan and Afghanistan, upstream through west India and to its source in Tibet. Part travelogue, part history lesson, Albinia goes where angels fear to tread in her quest to trace the route of the River Indus. During the journey, she shares details about the myths and legends associated with the river, which through millennia, has been worshipped as a God and used as a means of imperial expansion.
A major portion of the book is set in Pakistan, and as an Indian reader, it gave me a rare glimpse into that country’s culture and history. While it is a known fact that Pakistan is a Muslim dominated country, what is not so widely known is just how badly it treats its minorities.
Sheedis of Pakistan
For instance, Sheedis — an African-Muslim tribe — have worked very hard to erase their rich musical past, having all but given up playing the mugarman, an African drum, and singing and dancing in order to better assimilate themselves into Pakistani culture. Still, the community largely remains mired in poverty and illiteracy. Another tribe that is tenuously holding on to its culture is the Kalash, who live in the remote Bumboret village, 150 km north of Pirsar.
“Neither Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, the Kalash religion is syncretic, involving a pantheon of gods, sacred goats, and a reverence for river sources and mountain tops. [But] Such is the pressure from Islam in Bumboret, few young Kalash seem proud of their pantheon, or even to know of its existence.” — p. 225
Albinia travels through remote areas of Pakistan, through the now Taliban-infested Swat region (which at the time of her travel itself was seeing a resurgence of that fundamentalist faction) and into Afghanistan on foot, as she traces Alexander the Great’s route along the River Indus as he set out on his campaign to conquer India. What is most surprising is the danger she knowingly put herself into in this quest, but it is heartening that she met a number of helpful people along the way.
River Indus, Skardu, Pakistan
Vast swathes of regions that Albania travelled across are now disconnected from the rest of Pakistan due to the heavy floods there, which have set back the country’s infrastructure by at least 30 years. So in a way, her book serves as the most recent glimpse into the culture, geography and people of that area.
From Pakistan — the bulk of her 305-page book is about her travels through Pakistan and her two cross-overs into Afghanistan — Albinia travels into India and then Tibet as she traces the Indus to its origin — the Senge Khabab. Her trip to India is covered in one 22-page chapter, while the last chapter, 24 pages, details her travel through Tibet, up to the source of the river.
Though her travels through these two countries are glossed over, this is an interesting novel given the breadth and depth of history and geography that she covers. If you want to know more about Pakistan, or are an avid historian, you’ll definitely like the book.
If you’ve read this book, do let me know what you thought about it!
Cover of Disappearances
No one here,
and the body says: whatever is said
is not to be said. But no one
is a body as well, and what the body says
is heard by no one
but you.
Snowfall and night. The repetition
of a murder
among the trees. The pen
moves across the earth: it no longer knows
what will happen, and the hand that holds it
has disappeared.
Nevertheless, it writes.
It writes: in the beginning,
among the trees, a body came walking
from the night. It writes:
the body’s whiteness
is the color of earth. It is earth,
and the earth writes: everything
is the color of silence.
I am no longer here. I have never said
what you say
I have said. And yet, the body is a place
where nothing dies. And each night,
from the silence of the trees, you know
that my voice
comes walking toward you.
Munna, aka Balram Halwai, the narrator and main character of Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger, narrates the story of his journey from a village in the Darkness to becoming an entrepreneur in the Light.
Starting out as a cleaning boy in a small tea shop in his village Laxmangarh, Munna moved to the city of Dhanbad with his elder brother to become a cleaner at a bigger tea shop. But his yearning for a uniform and a better life attracted him to the drivers that he saw at the tea shop, and he convinced his family to let him learn how to drive. By a strange quirk of fate, he soon gained employment with Mongoose, the son of a landlord (Stork) from his village. Learning the ways and means of the house, his cunning and intelligence enabled him to move with Stork’s younger, US returned son to Delhi, the city that eventually corrupted him. Detailing the sequence of events that led him to murder his master and flee to Bangalore, Balram narrates his life story in the form of seven letters to the Chinese Prime Minister who is visiting India shortly, in order to acquaint him with the “real India.”
I have to admit that I approached this book with a great deal of skepticism, which is why I read it this late! (It won the Booker in 2008.) I typically do not like Indian authors (chicklit authors aren’t included in this discussion), as they seem to write solely for a Western audience, depicting India as a completely backward country filled with murderers and marauders, and Indians as either backward, narrow minded people or people who fawn over white skin and want nothing more than to ape Westerners (think Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss). But there are some, like Suketu Mehta, whose hard-hitting Millenium City took a brutal and honest look at the underbelly of Mumbai; Jhumpa Lahiri, who beautifully evoked the pathos and stories of Bengalis living abroad in Unaccustomed Earth; and Chetan Bhagat, whose books have mass appeal because he can connect to readers, young and old alike. (His 2 States took an honest look at the difficulties that youngsters face if they want to marry outside their caste.) I add to this list of believable authors Arvind Adiga.
Dharavi slums, Mumbai
(image via Wikipedia)
Representing India as two Indias, the Darkness and Light, Adiga takes a dig at the “India Shining” campaign launched by the BJP. The Darkness represents rural India, where poverty and illiteracy and feudalism still exist, the Light refers to the metros and fast-growing Tier I and II cities, which were the focus of the India Shining campaign. The Great Socialist, the political party that features in the novel, takes a dig at Mayawati, who rose to power in order to empower Dalits, but since then has only lined her pocket with cold hard cash. Adiga’s character sketch of Munna could fit almost any migrant worker, the so-called floating population that comes into big cities in search of work and a way out of their grinding poverty. His eventual corruption and betrayal of his master is a reflection of the corruption we see all around us.
Though he does focus on poverty and illetracy, on the great divide between rich and poor, this is a novel that is believable because India still remains a land of contradictions. The gaps have narrowed, but the economic and social divide remain.
All-in-all, it’s an interesting read, and I’d gladly recommend it to anyone.
Have you read the book? What do you think about it?
Image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr
A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden’s beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.
Image via stanford2008
Most of all, though, I think this topic brings up a bigger question for me – a question of identity.
We go through life with various labels — girlfriend, wife, mother, employee, friend…the list goes on, but which of these really defines us? None of these labels is all-encompassing. If someone asks me who I am, my answer would change based on the context, my life experiences at the time, or maybe even my mood! But is that really my identity?
I don’t think so. My identity is my name — a window into my culture and myself, linking me with my parents and my spirituality — combined with my belief system, values and preferences.
What do you think is your identity? Given a chance, would you like to change your name?
I’ve been dreaming of prawns recently. (Don’t laugh, it’s true! You can dream of food!) Anyway, I ordered some stir fried rice with ginger garlic prawns the other day at work, but the craving didn’t go away — it got stronger! That’s when I realized I wasn’t craving just any ol’ prawn dish; I wanted me some prawn rice!
But, before I could even think of making some, I had to find fresh coriander. Seeing as it’s monsoon season here in India, that was going to be a hard task — it sure wasn’t available at the grocery store near my house! But I was on a quest. I mean, I was literally dreaming of prawns, remember? So I picked up my car and drove around to a few of the fancier grocery stores, and finally managed to get my paws on some coriander. Now, I was ready to get cooking!
Prawn rice is served as a main course, with some plain yogurt and onion as accompaniments. You can also substitute the prawn with any firm-fleshed fish like halibut or cod (directions for that are at the end of the recipe).
You’ll need:
1 packet frozen prawns
1 cup finely chopped coriander leaves
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp salt
juice of 1 lemon
1 medium sized onion, peeled, cut into fine rounds and halved
1 fresh green chili, finely sliced (optional)
4 tbsp oil
250 gram long-grain rice (you can also use short-grain rice)
Method:
In a bowl, mix 1 tbsp of warm water, coriander leaves, green chilies, lemon juice, turmeric, garam masala, and 1 tsp salt.
Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a frying pan, put in the contents of the bowl and stir on high for about 2-3 minutes, until the fresh green color changes to a darker green. Tip in the prawns and fry them with the spices on medium heat for about 4 mins.
Turn off the heat and fish out the prawns with a fork, transferring into a tightly covered dish; it will continue to cook a bit in its own steam.
Pour 275 ml of warm water into the pan and scrape up the spices stuck to the bottom and sides of the pan. Simmer for about half a minute.
In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat the remaining oil and fry the onions until the edges brown. Then add in the rice and stir around for about 30 sec. Pour in 360 ml of water, the contents from the pan and 1 tsp of salt. Stir and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to very low.
Check in about 5-7 mins. Once the rice is almost done, add in the prawns, stir, cover and cook for another few minutes until the rice is cooked through.
(ps: that isn’t the best snap; it’s a little blurred – sorry! I was trying to click the picture covertly; didn’t want to dear husband to catch me at it, he’d think I was losing my marbles! ;-))
If you want to substitute the prawn with fish, you’ll need 340 gm of cod or halibut (or any other firm-flesh fish) steaks or fillets. Make sure they are at least 1-2 cm thick. Cut the fillets into bite-size strips, at least 4-5 cm long and about 2.5 cm wide. Follow the preceding recipe.
Serve with plain yogurt and chopped onion with a dash of lemon.
Enjoy!
Meaning: Dabang – someone who cannot be suppressed.
The story:
Dabang, set in Lal Gunj, UP, tells the story of two step-brothers Chulbul (Robin Hood) Pandey (Salman Khan) and Makhan Singh (Makki) Pandey (Arbaaz Khan). Unhappy about the treatment meted out to him by his step-father, Prajapati Pandey (Vinod Khanna), Chulbul vows to overturn things once he’s on his feet. Fast forward 21 years, and Chulbul is a corrupt UP cop with a heart of gold, his father has fallen on hard times and Chulbul has no respect for him whatsoever.
Following a bank robbery, Chulbul traces the robbers to their hideout, only to pocket the loot and let the robbers get away. Thus begins his rivalry with youth politician Chhedi Singh (Sonu Sood). In the meantime, there are two love stories to drive the plot forward. Makkhi wants to marry Nirmala (Mahi Gill), the masterji’s daughter, but his father opposes the match as he wants dowry, which her father cannot afford. Chulbul falls in love with Rajo (Sonakshi Sinha), who refuses to marry until her drunkard father is alive.
What follows are the twists and turns of the rivalry between Chulbul and Chhedi, and the simultaneous development of the love stories.
My take:
I loved the movie! Part of it was due to the crowd, which whistled and clapped at Salman’s entry, before all of the songs, and during some of the fight sequences. It just adds to the overall mood and excitement, what say?
Dabangg is a total masala movie. It works because of Salman Khan and Salman Khan and, did I say it already? Salman Khan! And no, I am not a huge Salman fan. It works because of its raw machoness. No wimpy lover boys or feeble attempts at fights. The director, Abhinav Kashyap, has copied a couple of fight stunts from such English movies and Transporter, Matrix and The Hulk, and has also given some of the sequences a humorous touch, by throwing in a little impromptu dance to a caller tune, no less!
The cinematography is excellent, capturing Uttar Pradesh in all its notoriety – dirty old shops, winding lanes. There were flashes of directorial brilliance as well, with attention paid to costumes (Dimple Kapadia’s anklets and toe rings) and mannerisms. The many songs are interspersed effectively in the plot, and each song, from Hun Hun Dabangg to the romantic Tere Mast Mast Do Nain , the drunkard’s anthem Humka Peeni Hain and the hugely popular Munni Badnaam Hui have excellent recall value.
There’s something for everyone in the movie – action, romance, comedy, drama. All in all, fultoo paisa vasool. Go watch it!
Have you seen the movie? What’s your take on it? If you have a review on your blog, feel free to leave a link to it in the comments!
(Images via http://www.dabanggthefilm.com)