Amitabh Bachchan; an open letter

Be Your Father’s Son - By Najid Hussain ( Courtesy - Tehelka )
AN OPEN LETTER TO AMITABH BACHCHAN

Main hoon unkey saath, rakhte jo seedhi apni reedh... (I am with those who keep their spine straight) FROM MADHUSHALA BY HARIVANSH RAI BACHCHAN

Dear Amitabh,

I remember the day in 1982, when the news of your serious injury on the sets of Coolie broke. It said you may not survive. The country was shocked. Millions cried. Special prayers for your good health and long life were offered in temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras. I joined the prayers for your health and long life.

The writings of your father, the late Shri Harivansh Rai Bachchan, had a great influence on me. From early childhood, I have read his poetry and prose that combined Kabir, Keats, Tagore, Omar Khayyam and Shakespeare into artful construction of ideas with deep reflections. Kya bhooloon kya yaad karoon made me stand up and speak the truth — without fear, or favour — however difficult or awkward it may be. Inspired by his writings and fully subscribed to his views, admiration and love for you was natural.

Natural is also my shock and dismay at your acceptance of the offer from Narendra Modi of Gujarat to be his brand ambassador.

I want to think that you don’t know much about Modi. And so, I must tell you what Modi is and what he has done in Gujarat, which has invited global condemnation, international sanctions and even calls for his arrest.

On February 28, Zakiya Jafri will relive the agony of witnessing the brutal massacre of her husband, former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, and scores of other women and children in her house. On that fateful day, as the crowd chanting Jai Shri Ram started gathering around her society in Ahmedabad, waving swords, trishuls and torches, and frightened people from the neighborhood started pouring into her house seeking protection, Ahsan saheb asked her to go upstairs to the bedroom and stay there until called. From upstairs, Zakiya Jafri could not see what was going on downstairs in her house, but from the unruly crowd outside shouting ‘jalao (burn)’, ‘kaato (cut)’, ‘maaro (kill)’, the cries of women and children from inside, and heat from the walls of her bedroom, she could guess what was taking place and was fearful of what was to come. The immoral dance of brutality, cries, fires, and more cries, continued for three hours. Three hours later, police arrived. As the survivors were taken down and out of the house, which was still smouldering, Zakiya saw, for the first time, several corpses burning inside her house. Mutilated body parts burning outside her house. Little bodies of children floating in her water tank, who having been set afire may have jumped into the tank. She saw one blue rubber slipper — the one Jafri saheb always wore in his office — lying outside. It was soaked with blood. The other one was missing.

Eight years have passed. Zakiya’s memory of that day does not fade — the day when the world she had built, brick by brick, with a lifetime of hard work, full of aspirations, dreams and love was ruthlessly and deliberately destroyed before her own eyes. The most important person of her life, to whom she had completely dedicated her life, loved, adored and revered, and like any traditional Indian woman, could not imagine life without — had been brutally killed. She was shattered. Her deep shiny eyes, full of sparkle and love, went lifeless.

There were 2,000 similar stories that month in Gujarat.

‘YOU CAN STAND IN YOUR FATHER’S SHOES AND SET AN EXAMPLE BY TURNING DOWN MODI’S OFFER’

Modi, as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, presided over and orchestrated that massacre of innocent Muslims in his state, which is widely regarded as a genocide. Modi’s culpability and crime has been well established. Although, to date, he has succeeded in circumventing the legal system, the law is slowly closing in on him. Modi and 61 others, which include Cabinet colleagues, policemen and civil servants, are under criminal investigation by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) specifically constituted by the Supreme Court of India for their role in the mass murder and criminal conspiracy.

You may ask why Modi did this. We are told that the burning by a few Muslims of the Sabarmati Express coach carrying kar sevaks was the reason. But many believe that was just an excuse. Investigations led by the Centre concluded that the fire in the coach was accidental. However, regardless of the truth, can there be any justification for killing innocents en masse? In the minds that are touched by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, killing innocents is never right.

The Gujarat massacre of 2002 was not an act of war in which “collateral damage” of innocent lives occurred. Instead, it was a well-planned operation to systematically target, kill and destroy members of a particular community — the Muslims of Gujarat.

The subsequent speeches of Modi, spewing venom and hatred against Muslims, are on public record. Although Modi would like us to believe he is a Hindu, neither his ideology nor his actions fit our values or Hindu philosophy. Instead, his profile matches that of an extremist and a religious bigot. Noted social scientist Ashis Nandy, who had interviewed Modi long before he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat, had concluded that Modi was a textbook case of a fascist.

You have very effectively played the roles of JCP Dev Pratap Singh and Subhash Nagre — two diametrically opposite characters — one filled with humanity and the other totally devoid of it — for the silver screen. But bringing that change of characters in your real life would be a tragic mistake. A transformation from Dev to Sarkar, if and when complete, would change Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s legacy — from that of a Mahatma to Modi.

Historically, religions have killed more people than all other unnatural causes combined. In his epic poem Madhushala, Harivansh Rai Bachchan asks us to rise above the narrow definition of religions. However much fascists and fanatics dress sectarianism as patriotism, we know your father would never have approved the spilling of innocent blood.

At a time when in their pursuit of profit most business tycoons, including Ratan Tata, are disregarding Modi’s crimes against humanity, if not feigning ignorance about them, in your father’s footsteps you can choose to stand by declining Modi’s offer to be his brand ambassador. You can set an example and a Harivanshrai legacy — a legacy that he and the generations after us can be proud of.

Dale E Turner says: “We are born with our eyes closed and our mouths open and we spend our whole lives trying to reverse that mistake of nature.” Your father opened our eyes. Yours too. Zakiya Jafri and I pray they never close.

(The writer is the son-in-law of late MP Ahsan Jafri who was killed in mob violence in Ahmedabad)

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Khan Premieres Quietly in Mumbai

Khan' Premieres Quietly in Mumbai

An article by Arlene Chang and comments by Subra Narayan

Courtesy of Wall Street Journal

The movie "My name is Khan" is going to be yet another block buster Bollywood movie, the extremists in India have been destrucitve and preventing it from being shown in Mumbai, India. As an Indian, I have to figure out how to mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill for the well being of my mother land.

I ask the Wall Street Journat to assess the economic impact bullyism will have on Mumbai? It will make every one's life difficult. What about the Jobs that the ordinary people would lose? If it were in the United States, the cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad would scout the businesses to move to their cities, offer incentives, tax breaks and safety and security of every one in the City. When there was electricity shortage in California, Texas Cities advertised in California papers to move to Texas including my own Dallas ... and we wooed some businesses, and Atlanta beat us a few times as well. Let the competition and free market determine the survivability of a City.

For the sake of Mumbai, and every one in Mumbai including the Sainiks, I hope the Mubaikers wake up and stops the bullyism. If the businesses move out, then these guys stand to lose, then they will chase all North Indians out of the city, and when they loose more, they would chase any one who does not speak Marathi and at the end, they may realize that they were wrong. Let's not lookdown upon the misguided, but sit down with them and see if they are a tool of others or if they sincerely believe in it, let there be a dialogue that, let them see the value of India together is better off than Maharashtra, Gujarat, TN, Bengal or others separately. I would urge a real genuine heart to heart conference on the topic.

This article is shared at http://www.mikeghouseforindia.net/ and DallasIndians@yahoogroups.com in existence for nearly 6 years serving the every one in Dallas, prior to that the community was served through Asian American Journal published between 1993-2000 and Asian news Radio, the first Desi talk show radio in Dallas that began in 1996. You are welcome to join, if you have positive things to contribute and to make the world a better place to live for every one, please do so.

We do allow extreme views for us to understand the insignificant but potent hate that pervades in our society and learn to work at it. Hate mongering is not any one's monopoly - there is an equal percentage of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists (alphabetical order) and others who spew nothing but hate, we cannot exclude them, they are part of the society and we hope some day, they can see that hate produces hate, belligerency produces belligerency and it makes sense to mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill.

Let events like this bring people together to find solutions. I hope the comments that flow in here would be suggestions to make life better and not hate mongering or blaming or cursing. I challenge your goodness to write here, you are welcome to show your meanness, because I believe, some day, you will see that it makes sense to respect the otherness of other.

Jai Hind
Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouseforIndia.net
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'Khan' Premieres Quietly in Mumbai
Terror in the Maximum Cityby Subra Narayan

Should Pakistani and Australian cricket players be allowed to play in the upcoming IPL? Well that is a decision best left to IPL, which is a private organization and the Government of India, as it is somewhat of a political issue. But a handful of thugs have no right to decide who can come to India to play cricket or whether its citizens have the right to live and work in any part of the nation. The Sena goons have hijacked and terrorized my beloved city of Bombay, oops Mumbai, for well over four decades, resorting to unlawful means, inciting violence and destruction of public property.

This city was not built in a single day, but these senseless goons waste no time in bringing life to a standstill by way of their infamous bandhs and morchas. And now they have decided it is time to inflict their wrath on Shah Rukh Khan for his comments on including Pakistani players! I don’t care much for his movies or acting talents, but there was nothing wrong when he said that cricket or any other game for that matter should not be influenced by politics. He had every right to speak his mind, in his capacity as the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, whether you agree with him or not, whether you like his movies or not. If you don't agree with what he said, then well write about it, invite him to a duel on multiple TV channels, pick his brains and let him have it in front of an audience.

But why threaten to picket his upcoming movie release, why call him a traitor and why arouse hundreds of misguided folks who have nothing better to do than burn effigies, posters, bash people and destroy property!

Sachin Tendulkar echoed the sentiments of a majority of Indians when he unequivocally stated that, ‘I am a proud Indian first and then a Maharashtrian’. Needless to say he incurred the wrath of India’s moral police, the self-appointed demagogues. Are we living in a civilized society or the Stone Age? It is a complete mockery of the Constitution which upholds every citizen’s right to freedom of speech and expression. India recently celebrated 60 years of being a Republic, not a Banana Republic!

We elect our leaders democratically in the hope that they will uphold the law, ensure citizens’ safety and improve their lives. We don’t elect them so that they can sit and watch helplessly while an unlawful bunch of vitriol spewing hooligans continue to issue diktats on the law abiding, tax paying citizens of the nation. Shame on such a government for letting this happen in one of the largest metropolis whose folks take pride in this wonderfully diverse cosmopolitan hub.The whole country is aghast at the merciless treatment being meted out to Indian students in Australia, rightfully so.

But what about the goondas in Mumbai that rail against their own countrymen who migrate from other parts of the country for a livelihood. In the 60’s when the tiger was young and had just tasted blood, the target was predominantly South Indians and Gujaratis. Now the Uttar Bharatiya is being attacked and forced to learn Marathi or else! Vir Sanghvi’s latest column in the Hindustan Times poignantly captures the essence of the moment as he traces the birth of the Sena in the 60’s and its achievements or lack thereof. Ironically as history has shown us so many times, that once you create a Frankenstein it always comes back to bite you. In this case, the Sena is Congress’s Frankenstein!

Pinky Virani, an activist and author of “Once was Bombay”, tackles the negative forces that are responsible for the decline of this once beautiful city and comes down heavily on the Sena. And now decades later the tiger may be aging but doesn’t seem to have given up its old habits. Many people are of the opinion that India’s time has finally arrived on the world stage and we are racing speedily towards becoming a superpower.

The events in the last couple of months tell a different story though. How can a bunch of ruffians be allowed to decide who has the right to settle down and live in Mumbai? Or for that matter how can petty politicians decide whether Hyderabad belongs to Telangana or AP? You may disagree with me on this issue, but the founding fathers did a big disservice to the nation by allowing the formation of states on a linguistic basis.

The Bombay Presidency should have been left untouched in 1960 which eventually gave rise to linguistic, regional and parochial jingoism. We should all be proud of our mother-tongue, but that shouldn't form the basis for who gets to live in your mother-State. Languages cannot be forced down someone’s throat, they should feel free to learn and enjoy it.

I love to sing in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada & Malwi, although my singing abilities are questionable. But the point is that language should not be a determinant in who gets to settle down in which part of the country, if it is a free nation. Every schoolchild knows to recite the Pledge, which glorifies India’s rich heritage and cultural diversity.

We were unified as one country in our freedom struggle against the British. But somehow after 60 years, we seem to have become more disintegrated, parochial, fanatical and even fascists on our way to becoming a superpower. Is “India Shining”? Jai Hind!

February 11, 2010

'Khan' Premieres Quietly in Mumbai

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703525704575061174036495404.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world

By ARLENE CHANG

MUMBAI—The film "My Name is Khan" premiered in Mumbai Friday amid tight security and on a much-reduced number of screens after right-wing protesters earlier this week damaged cinemas slated to show the new movie by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.

Activists of the Shiv Sena party, a Hindu nationalist group, earlier this week vandalized movie theaters scheduled to show the film, ripping posters of the movie and breaking windows. They were protesting the views of Mr. Khan, who said that Pakistan's cricket players should be allowed to participate in India's professional cricket league. Mr. Khan is co-owner of Kolkata's cricket team and a hugely popular star in the sub continent.

Police took 2,739 protestors into custody and 108 have been charged with damaging property, said D. Sivanandhan, Mumbai Police Commissioner.

View Full ImageReuters
Indian police personnel stationed outside a theater scheduled to screen "My Name Is Khan."

Originally, 63 screens were scheduled to show the movie; only 13 did so Friday. None of the city's theaters screened morning shows for the film. Fun Cinemas and INOX were the first two multiplexes to start screenings for the film with their matinee shows.

"There were people who came in to buy tickets early in the morning, in anticipation of the shows starting, and some obviously went away," said Vishal Kapur, chief operating officer of Fun Cinemas. "But, when we opened bookings, there was a huge rush and our first show was a full house." An official at BIG Cinemas, another multiplex chain, said: "We have screened one show and the response good, but we have still not decided the fate of a full opening; we are still testing the waters."

Many theaters across the city resembled a fortress, with hundreds of police personnel stationed in and around their premises.

The distributors of the film, Fox Star Studios, expressed relief at the film's phased release in Mumbai and were optimistic about the film's prospects. "The past few days have been very difficult for us and business in Maharashtra has definitely been impacted," said Vijay Singh, CEO of Fox Searchlight. "But, what's important is that the audience has loved the film and the response to it has been absolutely rock solid."

Fox Star Studios will market and distribute the film throughout India; Fox Star is a joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox and Star, which are owned by News Corp., owner of Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Analysts say the Shiv Sena is trying to put up a show of strength and regain its hold on the Marathi-speaking voters of Mumbai, the capital of the state of Maharashtra, by resorting to violence over Mr. Khan's comments. The Sena, which was founded in 1966 by cartoonist Bal Thackeray, lost many voters to the rival Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in last year's state assembly elections. The MNS was formed by Raj Thackeray, nephew of the Shiv Sena founder. Both compete for the votes of Mumbai's natives, many of whom feel they have been bypassed by the city's growing wealth amid an influx of immigrants from elsewhere in India.

"The Sena has been a powerful party in Maharashtra and the fact that they did not do well in the last assembly elections is definitely still playing on their minds," said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst at Delhi University.

"They are trying to regain lost ground by their tactics."
arlene.chang@wsj.com

You are welcome to share your suggestions at:

http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2010/02/khan-premieres-quietly-in-mumbai.html#comments

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5 reasons to watch 'My Name Is Khan'

Movies - Indiatimes - Movie news, views, reviews from across India

5 reasons to watch 'My Name Is Khan'
08 Feb, 2010 12:00 am ISTlSmrity Sharma/INDIATIMES MOVIES

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As Shah Rukh Khan – Kajol starrer ‘My Name Is Khan’ gears up to hit screens this Friday, we give you 5 good reasons to not miss this one.

Karan Johar has previously given us hits likes ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, ‘Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham’ with Shah Rukh and Kajol. The director returns again with My Name Is Khan with the two talented actors. Karan has self admitted that SRK- Kajol bring out the best in him. He said in an interview, “I’m blessed to have them in my film. I don't know what it is about them.. It's just magic. They build an inexplicable energy on screen. When I direct a scene with Shah Rukh and Kajol, I know I'm doing my best work.”

No doubts then that MNIK will be a complete entertainer and get you your ticket money’s worth.

A different kind of love...

Lead actors Shah Rukh and Kajol are all over the place saying that MNIK is a love story but a different kind at that. And one aspect that makes the love affair between SRK and Kajol’s characters in the film different is that SRK is playing a person suffering from Asperger's syndrome – a kind of autism where a person shows significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.

Jodi kamal ki....

They have made you laugh, they have made you cry, they have made your heart skip a beat, they have made you fall in love... and now they both return to entertain you yet again.

Music...

The music of ‘My Name Is Khan’ has got great reviews and the songs have been topping the chartbusters, with ‘Sajda’ and ‘Tere Naina’ being the hot numbers played on radio stations very often. Picturized on a dynamic jodi of SRK and Kajol, the songs will come alive on the big screen for sure. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are the music directors of the album that boasts of some beautiful singers like Rashid Khan, Adnan Sami, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Ghoshal, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Richa Sharma and Shafqat Amanat Ali.

Theme...

Unlike the general perception, ‘My Name Is Khan’ is not about terrorism. So after the average success of John-Katrina’s ‘New York’ and Saif-Kareena’s ‘Kurbaan’, all those who are in second thoughts about watching MNIK should now make a decision in the positive.

As Shah Rukh Khan puts it, “‘My Name Is Khan’ is not about terrorism but it focuses on themes concerning the relationship between the Western world and Islam and how that has changed over the past few years. The movie revolves around the journey of one family and how it changes because of 9/11.”

SRK adds, “MNIK is a disabled man’s fight against the disability that exists in the world — terrorism, hatred, fighting ... My Name is Khan is also about Islam and the way the world looks at Islam but we are not taking any sides.”

Forbes India: How Aamir sold 3 Idiots

Forbes India: How Aamir sold 3 Idiots
Elizabeth Flock / Forbes India
Published on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 13:16, Updated on Sat, Feb 06, 2010 at 09:19 in Business section

When Aamir Khan, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and director Rajkumar Hirani, sat down and watched the first half of the first cut of 3 Idiots together, they knew they were watching something that had the potential to go “big time”. A boisterous drama about three friends dealing with the pressures of engineering school, and one friend teaching them how to dream, was a story they knew would stick. They guessed multiplexes in cities would overflow. They figured they had a fair chance at beating Ghajini, an Aamir Khan starrer and the biggest grossing Hindi film of all time.

But something bothered them. In smaller towns, regional cinema was still king and Hindi cinema just a joker. In Gujarat, a star like Vikram Thakur at his peak, could bring in close to Rs 7 crore. A top grossing Hindi film on the other hand could hope to rake in just Rs 3 crore.

“We felt we aren’t connecting enough with our audience… There’s a business capacity of seven, but we are only doing three. So there’s a lot of business we aren’t reaching out to,” says Khan as he talks to us from his Pali Hill apartment in Bandra, a Mumbai suburb. He’s wincing from a leg injury sustained earlier during the day, but is intent we hear what he’s saying.

“Do they want to be entertained? Yes. Do they like watching films? Yes. But are they watching our films? No. They’re watching regional films.” It could only mean two things, he reasoned. One, Hindi films aren’t marketed well. And two, film makers from Mumbai don’t understand small town India. Khan was determined to figure out both answers. But how?

The ball begins to roll
When a team of 25 marketing people met in August 2009, led by Prabhat Choudhary of Spice PR, who helped market four of the top five all time hits of Hindi cinema, the team didn’t know what the central idea to market 3 Idiots could possibly be. Khan’s brief though was clear. Whatever they did, they had to get to the man in Bhopal, and the man in Varanasi.

For a while, Khan had been toying with a rather vague idea. The movie starts with Aamir Khan, who essays the role of the central protagonist, having disappeared into oblivion. The rest of the flick is about his friends looking for clues to find him. How, Khan wondered, would people react if he disappeared in real life? Would people wonder where he was? Would the media write speculative stories on Khan’s whereabouts? But more importantly, how could the whole thing be orchestrated?

Through all of August last year, they debated on the plan. They tied up with online gaming firm Zapak. And that was where they found the answer: A-R-G, or Alternate Reality Gaming. Participants in these games interact directly with characters in the game, work with other participants to solve challenges, analyse the story and stay connected on email, telephones, and the internet. The main narrative for this form of gaming is usually based in the real world.

By September, ARG took over 60 percent of 3 Idiots’ marketing efforts. A Facebook profile “Amir the Pucca Idiot” was created, a page that would be controlled and updated entirely by Khan. It became a talking point because it was the first time an Indian celebrity had done this. People wondered whether it really was Aamir Khan’s page. His status updates appeared in the papers. “Aamir the Pucca Idiot” would be an instrumental part of Khan’s disappearance to remote B towns, too.

By October, the 3 Idiots team had to activate the game. Before that, teams needed to be dispatched to do a recce of all the places Khan would visit during his disappearing act. They would be dispatched to small towns in Gujarat, Punjab, Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh, among others. It would be expensive and logistics would be a nightmare. “We’d only marketed to 6-8 metros,” Chaudhary told Khan. “But there are 80 towns with at least one multiplex we had never even marketed to.”

Of doodles and bum chairs
By October, two months before the release of 3 Idiots, no one knew much about the movie. There were no hoardings. No signs at theaters. And to build the suspense, multiplexes were sent bum chairs (like the ones the 3 Idiots sit on in the film); stickers that read “You are the 4th idiot”. No one knew what it all meant.
But on October 30, the 3 Idiots team made their first break of communication. They launched the film’s trailer to a gathering of trade people, multiplexes, and media. Ghajini was in the media for a year and a half before it released. 3 Idiots would only be in the media for two months.

In December, Khan was also busy designing T-shirts. “I said I can’t design, I’m not a designer, but I can give you my doodles,” says Khan. Pantaloon created a T-shirt line with the doodles, and 3 Idiots Converse sneakers.

Featuring Khan’s doodles instead of just replica merchandise worked. Pantaloon sold more than 1000 pieces per day in its opening week, and then sold out of the merchandise twice. The doodle T-shirt was also created as a gift friends could send to one another on “Aamir the Pucca Idiot” Facebook page, whose profile now had almost 2 lakh fans.

BusinessofCinema (BoC), who did the digital marketing, launched the Pantaloon gifts on Facebook, plus ticketing applications, and 3 Idiots videos and songs. Most of all, BoC readied themselves for the launch of the ARG game. And then, on December 12, Aamir Khan disappeared.

Director Hirani and Producer Chopra claimed not to know where he was. All that was left behind was a video on the film’s website, idiotsacademy.com. “I shot a video, and I said, ‘If you want to be a part of this of game, well... For two weeks, I will be traveling around the country. I will appear seven places, will give you seven clues to find me. For the first clue you need to get it from Sachin Tendulkar.’ And then I kiss my wife goodbye and walk out the door,” says Khan.

I am not here
Khan first reappeared in Varanasi, disguised as an old man. “I couldn’t tell anyone who I was,” he says. The 3I team shot footage of what he was doing, but no TV stations could find him. Choudhary worried, “How will media take it? Will they think it’s a gimmick to ignore?” And at every stage, someone on the team said this would not work.

It didn’t help that a lot of the 3I recce team’s planning didn’t work out. Choudhary broke his collarbone in a rickshaw accident. Instead of spending the night at Varanasi station as planned, Khan decided to find his mother’s home in Varanasi.
“I really went to Varanasi to make friends over there. It had to be a genuine process. I didn’t know who I would meet or how they would react to me. It was happening organically,” explains Khan. He talks for more than an hour about Varanasi, recounting the story of a rickshaw driver he calls “damn funny”, and the four men who help him find his mother’s house.

After Khan left Varanasi, he let it be known he was there. 20,000 people trampled the tea shop where Khan had just been. The local media went crazy. “They found the story fascinating because they saw how unplanned the whole thing was. The English media picked it up only four times in those two weeks, but Hindi news channels and local print and TV media went ballistic. I was on the front page. They would report every new clue we announced, and interview the people I had met,” says Khan.

Khan not only evaded the media, but also goaded them. “I had been given the names of 15 editors in each city. So when I left their city, I wrote each of them handwritten letters on my letterhead that said ‘I was passing through your city and felt like having sweets. So I bought some mithai and got you some as well. Love, Aamir’. It was a like a tease,” Khan says and smiles.

Khan gave only four interviews to TV stations during the entire tour, all to regional TV stations. Regional stars were selected to interview Khan. On Mahua TV in UP, for example, Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishnan interviewed Khan. “Other than those four, I thought TV stations shouldn’t get me. All they get is what I shoot and send to them. I don’t have a deal with them, so I don’t know if they will bite. But I had not been available, so I knew they were thirsty for me,” says Khan.

The strategy was deployed for the print media as well. He stayed clear of mainstream English dailies and spoke very selectively to regional newspapers. For the first time in recent history, B towns were clamouring for an upcoming Hindi film.

Final notes
When they started, the ARG game was just a small part of Khan’s disappearance. It was more like a contact program, “something like what Obama would have undertaken,” explains Choudhary. But soon, many fans found out about idiotsacademy.com. They learned to play the ARG (a first ever for a Hindi film), competing against one another to find out where Khan was. Fans played other games on the website, too, racking up around 4.5 million plays, says Rohit Sharma of Zapak, which designed the game.

And not once during Khan’s journey was 3 Idiots mentioned. When he went to a girls’ school in Palanpur, Gujarat, to highlight the importance of the girl child’s education, Khan asked the girls to shout their message to TV cameras. “The girls didn’t say ‘3 Idiots releases on December 25!” Khan laughs. Instead, they said girls need as much a chance to go to school as boys do. “Now people will either connect to that or say the guy is bullshitting. I think we made a strong emotional connect.”While Khan was in the middle of this journey, and excitement was at a peak, “Aamir Khan the Pucca Idiot” decided to hold a Facebook live chat with fans. Khan would be on video, and fans could type in from Twitter, Facebook, and Youstream.

The BoC guys expected Khan’s live chat to happen from Mumbai. At the last minute, they were told to take their hi-tech equipment to Delhi and then set it up in a small village outside.

On December 19th, without a single hitch in streaming, more than 1 lakh users chatted with Khan from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the US, and cities and many B towns in India. It was the first time an Indian celebrity had done something like this. Over 300,000 status updates were shared that day, according to Facebook’s international communications team. On Twitter, #AamirKhanLive was the sixth most buzzed keyword in the world.

Six days after the chat, 3 Idiots was finally released.

How much could all of this have worked? The biggest opening any film had ever had was Ghajini, with a first day collection across India of 9 crore. 3 Idiots’ collected Rs. 13 crore on the first day. Over that weekend, the collections added up to Rs. 100 crore. The film was watched in 40 countries. Nineteen days after release, the film set a box office record for the industry, grossing Rs. 315 crore worldwide. It is the highest grossing Bollywood film of all time, not adjusted for inflation. As we go to print, 3 Idiots had grossed Rs. 365 crore.
Khan didn’t forget Vikram Thakur and his magic number: Rs. 7 crore. 3 Idiots beat it by a mile at Rs. 9 crore. Choudhary says from Ghajini to 3 Idiots there’s been a 30 percent jump in collections in B towns like Benares, Bhopal, and in Faridkot.

Last weekend, Chance pe Dance was released. Its net collections on the first day release were 2.15 crore for all India. 3 Idiots got 2.75 crore that day, meaning it’s still number one three weeks after release.

Ambani goes to Hollywood

Reliance Big Entertainment
Director Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider of DreamWorks with investor Anil Ambani (second from left) and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, far right, an executive with Big Entertainment's parent company, Reliance ADA Group

It is good to see globalization in every aspect of life, it takes away the territorialism and opens up access to every one of the 7 billion of us. It is about serving the common man for the long term sustainability.

However, as a society we have to take precautions to prevent new big corporate hegemonies, and bring in the culture of public good and responsbility. It is in the interest of corporations to promote long term good to sustains its existence. Whenver, we have resorted to short-terms gains, empires have collapsed; be it political, corporate giants or others.

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
Indian Firm Takes a Hollywood Cue, Using DreamWorks to Expand Empire
By ERIC BELLMAN

MUMBAI -- When Amit Khanna arrived in Hollywood two years ago, few knew who he was. But the chairman of India's Reliance Big Entertainment was ushered into the homes and offices of Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Will Smith because they knew his billionaire boss was looking to pump money into movie production.

"Everyone wanted to meet us," says Mr. Khanna.

Mr. Khanna's boss, Indian industrialist Anil Ambani, wants to move Hollywood into Bollywood in a big way. In August, Big Entertainment signed a deal where it paid $325 million for a 50% stake in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG and the right to distribute its movies in India.

Big Entertainment's deal with DreamWorks marks the arrival of a new global player in the entertainment industry. After only two years, Big Entertainment has spent a billion dollars expanding its entertainment empire -- which spans theaters, television and radio -- and plans to spend billions more.

Mr. Khanna, who recently outlined plans for Big Entertainment in an interview, says they hope to begin the distribution with one of Mr. Spielberg's films next year.

Big Entertainment has entered separate pacts with Hollywood stars to provide financial backing for scripts, which in return, would give the Indian company an option to co-finance any of the resulting films that are picked up by Hollywood studios.

Mr. Ambani, in asking Hollywood to supply the content for his Indian customers, has essentially engineered a reverse outsourcing deal -- and Mr. Spielberg is the company's test-case.

Big Entertainment will take DreamWorks movies in the works, such as "Cowboys and Aliens," "Dinner for Schmucks" and "39 Clues," and sell them through its theaters, its satellite networks, its movie-rental service, its radio stations and even its phones.

"We have a presence in every platform," Mr. Khanna says, referring to the media buzz phrase of "four-screen presence," meaning the big screen, cellphones, computers and televisions.

Big Entertainment's parent company, Reliance ADA Group, owns India's second largest cellular company, Reliance Communications. And because more Indians have cellphones than computers, Reliance is hoping to push pieces of the Hollywood content -- such as music, ringtones and movie clips -- through mobile devices.

In addition to its TV and radio stations, the company has built Bollywood's biggest movie studio, a satellite-TV service and a global chain of movie theaters as well as India's versions of Blockbuster and Netflix.

The Indian movie business has long been dominated by mom-and-pop shops that make films without the budgets, schedules or story boards that are the norm in the U.S. industry.

In contrast, Big Entertainment is embracing the Hollywood modus operandi of big budgets, publicity spending and wide distribution. The company is shopping Bollywood films around at film festivals at an unprecedented rate, Mr. Khanna says.

Big Entertainment will test its lessons from Hollywood with "Kites," a movie that aims to target audiences outside of India. With a budget of $30 million, it is one of the most expensive Indian movies made.

"Kites" stars the hunky Indian actor Hrithik Roshan and is written and directed by Indians. But it's set in Las Vegas and performed in English, and the foreign version of the film has chopped out all the song and dance sequences that are hallmarks of traditional Bollywood productions. (The numbers will be included in the Indian version.)

The 50-year-old Mr. Ambani is an heir to one of India's great corporate fortunes, a textile, telecom and power empire called Reliance group. After his father died, Mr. Ambani and his older brother Mukesh split the group. The Ambani brothers, who don't get along, were at one point worth more than $70 billion combined.

More than Mukesh, Anil has become a part of Bollywood -- the name for the Indian movie industry based in the city of Bombay, now known as Mumbai. Mr. Ambani married a former movie actress and hangs out with some of India's biggest stars.

While Mr. Ambani is also a big fan of Mr. Spielberg -- "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is one of his favorite movies -- his associates say he's in the venture for fortune not fame.

Some analysts and investors think Reliance's connection to Mr. Spielberg could provide the scale needed for an eventual public offering of stock. Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, group managing director of Reliance ADA group, said they aren't planning one any time soon.

The history of foreign investors in Hollywood is long and rocky. The 1980s saw a flood of Japanese investors without much success. In 1994, for example, Sony Corp. had to write off $3.2 billion on its investment in Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., which the Japanese electronics company had bought five years earlier for $5 billion.

Reliance executives say they hope to avoid mistakes by not becoming too involved in making the movies.

"Do you think I will go and tell them where to place the camera?" asks Mr. Khanna, who has written hundreds of film songs and a dozen movie scripts for Bollywood. "That would be stupid."

—Lauren A.E. Schuker and Sonya Misquitta contributed to this article.

#

Bollywood Busts Out

http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/0216/078.html

ForbesLife
Bollywood Busts Out
Richard C. Morais, 01.29.09, 05:00 PM EST
Forbes Magazine dated February 16, 2009

Indian films have long been dismissed by the West as formulaic Hindi fare. Signs are that might be changing.

Runaway hit: Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor in 'Slumdog Millionaire'.
The year's hot film, Slumdog Millionaire, tells a classic Bollywood tale of love and revenge through the postmodern storytelling frame of a TV game show. The film is fresh because it fuses Eastern and Western filmmaking techniques. But this crossover of Eastern and Western celluloid skills had been taking place in Bollywood and Hollywood boardrooms well before it ever showed up in an editing room.

Last September, for example, Steven Spielberg officially dropped his longstanding ties with Paramount for a $1.5 billion deal with Indian billionaire Anil Ambani. Disney (nyse: DIS - news - people ), meanwhile, has for the last year been systematically buying into India's UTV. Disney's recent Hindi feature film, Roadside Romeo, was about a pampered pooch released into the mean streets of Mumbai and reportedly cost $7 million to make. Low production costs are certainly one reason Hollywood is attracted to India, but tapping the nation's growing middle classes, and their voracious movie appetite, is equally part of the heady mix.

Warner Bros. wants a piece, too. It just released Chandni Chowk to China, a Hindi feature film about a roadside chef from Delhi mistakenly believed to be the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese warrior. Reviews are dire, but box office sales are curry hot. The film was the fourth-highest-grossing film ever to open in India. Warner quickly followed up with a three-film deal with an Indian production company, People Tree Films.

Budgets for Bollywood extravaganzas usually peak, according to one report, around $5 million; most cost around $150,000 to make. In contrast, it costs $107 million on average for a major Hollywood studio to make and market a film, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Back-alley Bollywood is further believed to make around 1,000 films a year, sell 3 billion low-cost tickets and generate an estimated $2 billion in revenue. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that India's film industry will grow at a 15% rate a year until 2012, when it will be a $4 billion industry.

Hollywood makes only a few hundred films a year but sells, in the U.S. domestic market alone, close to $10 billion worth of tickets. So Bollywood is still far from Hollywood, even though the latter has been struggling recently with overproduction and fallout from the credit crisis. But in this fertile environment India's famously parochial film industry, with scripts chock-full of weeping, singing and dancing, is slowly opening up to outside influences.

UTV World Cinema, NDTV and Palador Pictures recently began, for example, showing the best films of the West to India's middle-class audiences. One of the surprise hits of last year, according to India's Financial Express: Palador's Ingmar Bergman festival, which drew crowds in six cities across the country and, by popular demand, repeat shows in Mumbai.

Comment On This Story
Do Knot Disturb is a Bollywood film not yet released but filmed last October at the Filmistan Studios in Mumbai. During shooting, paparazzi clamored by the studio gate, hoping to get a shot of starlet Lara Dutta. The studios, some of the oldest in India, are crumbling warehouse edifices on a rutted lane. Young men and women with earpieces, elderly men carrying trays of tea and carpenters constructing sets for the next shot all scurry through the narrow passageways in a dusty haze of feverish activity.

Inside, director David Dhawan was shooting a dance scene with 110 Bollywood hunks and starlets. At the assistant director's order the set suddenly erupted in a blur of azure, crimson, gold, pink, yellow, mauve and mustard costumes as the 110 hotties burst into their frenetic dance moves. "Now boys and girls, listen. No circle. Just follow the actors," barked Dhawan's deputy.

If India's industry continues to absorb some of the best ideas of Western cinema traditions--song-and-dance routines that move the plot forward, for example, a technique established by American musicals in the early 20th century--it's hard to predict what will happen to this lively local industry.

In the late 1950s a small group of French directors and actors drew inspiration from Hollywood B films. Adapting film techniques established by Hollywood directors, they unleashed a flowering in French films eventually known as La Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). Perhaps a similar movement is in the making in India: films that are both innovative and popular with global audiences.

La Naya Vague, perhaps?

Slumdogs and Millionaires

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2009/02/05/slumdogs-and-millionaires/

Slumdogs and Millionaires

By Partha Banerjee

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2009/02/05/slumdogs-and-millionaires/

Slumdogs will always be slumdogs, and millionaires will always be millionaires. An Indian slumdog will never be a millionaire. At least not the fantastic way the movie flaunted it.

Oscar-coaxing producer Christian Colson, director Danny Boyle, and the now-famed storytellers Simon Beaufoy and Vikas Swarup together create a violent, obnoxious, and even not-so-artistically-sound celluloid big-frame that’s likely to be showered with more profits and trophies. Talking about art, of course, in this day and age of in-your-face, obese entertainment, who’s afraid of Satyajit Ray, or even Ronny Howard or Spike Lee?

Slumdog Millionaire is completely in line with the new-trend, part-documentary, part-fiction, part-narrative, part-activist, West-glorified exploitation of Third World’s poor and vulnerable: Born Into Brothels, City of Joy, or Lagaan would come to mind as immediate examples. There’s no sense of history, peoples’ grassroots struggle, and in case of Slumdog, dignity; the big, loud screen shuffles fast in a vacuum. At least, Lagaan was fun.

I feel sorry for the young performers who poured their hearts out on and off camera (even though Westernized Dev Patel or Freida Pinto is too cool and sophisticated to be slum bastards; Freida’s Latika would quickly contract HIV from her years of Pila Street prostitution); I feel even sorrier for the young-generation Bollywood patriots who crave to see some Indian honor on a real international scene (as opposed to the 10-nation-only cricket gold rush). If I were their age, I’d be charged up too and pump my fist. After all, it’s all make-believe; after all, it’s all for the big green bucks. The axiomatic, end-of-the-day message is: “Don’t think too much into it.” Or plainly, don’t think.

But I’m older and wiser, and can still think. I’ve seen quite a bit of slum, poverty and destitution in my life; I’ve even seen how an open-air, wood-platform, makeshift toilet seat actually works. I have a feeling none of the millionaire moviemakers experienced the thick of it. Their deliberate attempt to desensitize the younger audience thus doesn’t work, not because it’s grotesque, but it’s violent with its horror, lies and distortions.

And would Amitabh Bachchan off his helicopter really sign an autograph for a feces-smeared rat who somehow rubbed past throngs of star-crazed crowd? No way -- it’s a lie. And that’s why it’s really horrible. Show poverty, show disparity – it’s fine, it’s even more than fine: show it the Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal way. But don’t raise false optimism, don’t create false hope.

That “yellow” situation sets up the grimy, slimy, slithery and smelly theme early on; we quickly get to sense how the rest of the melodrama will unfold. In a disjunct, average-made way, Slumdog entertains us, with all the prescribed elements right off the Hollywood-Bollywood book, including the Devdas-type sacrifice of Salim and his Godfather-style death. In its fervent zeal to show a “real” India, the movie steals poverty, kiddy sex, hunger, shooting guns, and even attempted comedy from Salam Bombay, Born Into, and that fresh line of products.

The laundry list of essential elements was complete even with a communal riot scene; of course, Hindu fascists in Mumbai have slaughtered Muslim slum dwellers in the 1992 post-Babri-Mosque demolition era. But even the dumbest Shiv Sena or BJP goon knows that mob lynching is never a smart thing to do without provocation; and Jamal-Salim’s mom and washerwoman neighbors were suddenly rounded up and butchered without a provocation. Heck, even Aparna Sen in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer had set a believable stage for Hindu-Muslim violence.


The overarching, majorly ludicrous thread is the game itself. It appeared as if Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the Indian variety was tailored into Jamal’s opportune and handy slum experiences: an American tourist couple to display their American generosity put a 100-dollar bill (!) in suffering Jamal’s hand, and the blinded singer boy – whom Jamal rediscovers years later – touches it, knows it’s a dollar bill, and helps him to learn the name of Ben Franklin printed on the money. Talk about preposterous!

Oh yes, blinding of the poor is not unheard-of in India: we remember the Bhagalpur atrocities during Indira Gandhi’s regime, and similar grotesque human rights abuse in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.

But in the movie, it was too imposed, too far-fetched, and tear-jerking. Such was the array of meaningless police torture situations; I’m yet to figure out what it was really all about, and what Irrfan Khan – the good-bad-good cop was trying to do in the first place! Then again, today’s it’s not the time to reason; it’s only time to accept whatever is thrown at your face, especially if it comes from the millionaire movie powerhouses, and especially if it’s blessed by corporate media, Hollywood, and AMPAS-Oscar.

A slumdog will always be a slumdog; a millionaire will always be a millionaire, especially if you can deprive the poor shanty actors and their parents of their dues, and profit more. The Indian slumdog will never be a millionaire, however hard Hollywood-Bollywood wants us to believe it.

###

Taare Zameen Par

This is one of the best written film reviews I have seen, and it happens to be by a mature teen journalist Alyzae Feroz, my grand daughter.

Taare Zameen Par
By: Alyzae Feroz

The Bollywood film ‘Taare Zameen Par’ portrays a strong and important message that transcends through culture, race and religion. The title of the film directly translates from Hindi to ‘Stars upon the ground.’ The director Aamir Khan uses this metaphor to enlighten audiences of the idea that children are like stars in the world, and that every child is special in his or her own way. Unlike the conventional bollywood film that consists of romance, comedy, fight scenes, songs and more romance, Taare Zameen Par is not an entertainer, but rather an eye opener.

The film touches on a social disorder predominately within the Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia. Parents are constantly pressuring their children to excel in all areas of life especially school; therefore no one has patience or sympathy toward slow learners. Everyone is required to join the rat race and win it too.

The story of ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is about eight-year-old Ishaan Awasthy who suffers from dyslexia. He has failed the 3rd grade twice now, and things aren’t getting any better. Ishaan complains that the words on pages ‘dance’ and writing and spelling is terrible. Despite this, he has an abnormal inclination towards art and successfully creates captivating paintings. His parents and teachers fail to realize his problem of dyslexia and send him off to boarding school with the accusation of insolence towards schoolwork. Things only became worse at boarding school; he slips into depression and misses his mother. Fortunately for Ishaan, a new art teacher joins the boarding school and re-habilitates the young boy so that he may legitimately compete with fellow classmates.

Taare Zameen Par is so compelling because it evokes the emotions of a scared little boy who does not understand his place in life. No matter how hard he tries, he keeps walking into the same wall, his struggle and bravery to face the world is truly inspiring. Ishaan is the character who stood out the most, child artist Darsheel Safary accurately portrayed every nuance of a gifted child who suffers from such humiliation, trauma and torture.

In terms of technicalities the director took a spin on things by adding animations to depict what was happening in the little boys head. For example, during a song sequence, (its still bollywood) giant spiders come crawling out of Ishaan’s back pack, this portrays his animosity and fear toward school work. The music is another plus point of the movie, particularly the song ‘Maa’ that illustrates Ishaan’s first days at boarding school where he cannot co-op without his mother.

A motif in the film is drawings of various marine life, because marine life is so diverse it explains the theme which is that every child is special, thus used effectively to express individuality. Taare Zameen Par deserves five stars, because it is the first motion picture that has ever made me cry. One thing is for sure, remember to bring a box of tissues, the flood gates are guaranteed to burst open.