Calcutta Chromosome

The Mine by Arnab Ray: A Review

2012-01-28T22:25:00.000+05:30

I attended the Delhi launch of The Mine yesterday and had a good time. Arnab (a.k.a Greatbong) read Jaal's back-story from the book and ended the reading with the disconcerting revelation that every incident mentioned in the section (which described a riot situation) was true and had happened in India. During the reading, my wife was quite amused because of the rather colourful language that Arnab read out in the presence of his in-laws!

After the reading, Arnab and Jai Arjun Singh discussed the lack of too many horror novels in India (probably because horror - made popular by Bollywood - in India isn't supposed to scary but quasi-funny), Arnab's influences (Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe and even Mukesh Bhatt) and the cinematic quality of the book.

I finished the book in one breathless burst and had tweeted my first reaction - "A mind-slashing thriller that grabs your balls and doesn't let go. Even after you finish it." And a few days on, that remains exactly my reaction.

The plot is about five shady characters being brought to a hi-tech mining facility ostensibly for expert advice and confronting their past in unimaginably gory ways. The book is written almost like a screenplay and instead of chapters, there are shorter 'scenes'. There are impressive 'dialogues' in true Bollywood style. The blurb ("The greatest evil lies deep inside.") is one such line. Another favourite of mine went something like this - "Necessity is the mother of invention. Cruelty is the father." The screenwriter's work is almost done here as the action moves breathtakingly fast and almost every 'scene' ends with a line conveying a deep sense of foreboding.

Arnab opens up different strands of stories - sometimes innocuously - that get resolved so smartly that sometimes you have to go back to the earlier pages to confirm the sly detail he had slipped in. And the ones that he keeps unresolved are more of open strands, open to different kinds of interpretation rather than being merely loose ends.

I also enjoyed how Arnab slipped in several references to popular culture and our growing-up years, which stood for something of a relief in the relentless bloodiness of the Mine.

A doctor named Anaida. Caligula, in the context of mass bestiality. Randeep Kalra, a film star who stood accused of rape by his maid. The concept of losing a talisman bringing about misfortune, made famous by the billa number 786 of Deewaar. The concept of ancient punishments being given a modern, wicked twist - made famous by South Indian director Shankar.

Two acknowledged influences on the book are Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None as well as Mahabharat. One story is about a group of ten being meted out justice for their past sins. In the latter, the Mahaprasthan scene is all about the five brothers and their wife meeting their ends in a quest to go from darkness to light.

The real horror of the story is - quite devastatingly - taken from our daily lives. Our day-to-day fears, paranoia, insecurities are exaggerated manifold to create a yarn that keeps coming back to you. Taking the visceral emotions of blood relationships (a father-daughter one, for example), Arnab twists them into a macabre tale and forces you to ask "what would I do in a situation like this?"

And the horror is that the truth is not the answer you would like to hear.

After I read the book, I had a reaction similar to the one demonstrated by Mr Krishnan Iyer MA in Agneepath (1990). Taking Vijay Chavan's son, he went around proudly proclaiming "mere family ka bachcha...". Coming from an earlier batch of Arnab's college, I also wanted to prance around saying the same.

The bestselling novelist from Jadavpur University took a while to come but completely steamrolled the output from the IITs, now that it had! By the way, we of the Jadu bansha are no pushovers. Kunal Basu is also from our college, in fact from my department!

Dear Karan,

2012-01-27T09:18:00.002+05:30

I am told that a production of yours that released today(and getting great reviews & collections) is a remake of the 1990 film,Agneepath. The media and people of this country are making this assumptionbecause the names of the two films are same. But then, you produced a filmcalled Dostana a few years back that had no resemblance to the story of the1980 film of the same name.

I haven’t seen the latest Agneepath yet (and I don’t think Iwill, either). But the reviews – or more importantly in today’s Bollywood – thebuzz seems to be quite positive. People, especially of the female persuasion,seem to have loved Hrithik Roshan’s ‘uber hot’ screen presence. The biggestpraises are, however, reserved for Sanjay Dutt (playing Kancha Cheena) andRishi Kapoor (playing Rauf Lala, who seems to be a new character). Nobody seemsto have noticed Priyanka Chopra or missed Krishnan Iyer MA yet.

Which brings me to the question I want to ask you – why thehell are you calling this film a remake? Though to be fair, it is being said thatAgneepath is not a ‘remake’ but a ‘tribute’… whatever that means. In that case,I must point out what – at least, what I feel – was the crux of the originalAgneepath and what needed to be paid a tribute to.

When you pay tribute to an ‘angry’ film and the biggestpre-release buzz is about an item song, then one can safely say you’ve failed.

When the tribute is to a film with some of the mostaccomplished ‘dialogues’ in Bollywood and not a jot of the post-release chatteris about the lines the hero speaks, then you’ve failed.

When most people end up discussing Kancha Cheena’s unholy,hairless looks after the film and they don’t remember anything about the heroexcept the biceps, then you’ve failed spectacularly.

In paying a tribute, that is. I am sure that the film willsucceed in every other way.

Also on a different level, the real Agneepath was about aproducer’s courage.

Yash Johar took an ageing leading man and an insignificant heroineto lead his film. The leading man was known for his voice but for this film, butit replaced with a rasping, new voice. The hero was said to be nearly 37 yearsin the old. And the hero died a bloody death at his mother’s feet when all ofBollywood was singing ‘saanson kizaroorat hain jaise…’ and riding into the sunset.

You pay a tribute to this risk by taking on Bollywood’s mostconventional leading man and the No. 2 heroine. You then take on Bollywood’sNo. 1 heroine to dance to one sizzling number, for good measure. And you promotethe hell out of the song, using the money you’ve saved from not having to hirea dialogue writer.

You could’ve made exactly the same film and called itInteqaam or some such. I think the film would have been just as successful andthe old fogeys (we, 35+ year old viewers and the producer of the original) wouldn’thave felt so restless.

Wishing you great success in all your films –

Dipta

(My earlier post on Agneepath - here.)

'Bad' Films

2012-01-10T00:00:00.000+05:30

This post is that obvious publicity gimmick in today's Bollywood - the sequel (or the remake).
Even if you make a film that has a passing resemblance to an earlier classic, it is cool (and probably profitable) to call it a 'remake'. So, you have a remake of Agneepath - a film on the world's most articulate, angry, not-so-young man - that features only an item number (and a fleeting bedroom scene) in its promos.
For me, Agneepath (remake) is a bad film.
And this post is a genuine sequel of an earlier post on Bad Songs.

I define a bad film as one that fraudulently creates expectations contrary to its content. (I wrote about it some time back. For me, Aakarshan is a bad film because it bored me to death and tried to sneak in a story while only promising sizzling 'hot scenes'. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna pretended to be a 'serious look' at marital infidelity while it was a comic-book on the topic.)

There is, however, another kind of films.. the So Bad Its Good (SoBig) genre. Just as one man's Kurosawa is another man's Kanti Shah, one woman's Bad is another woman's SoBig. Actually, one man's Good might be another man's Bad and yet another man's SoBig. While most people would puke in their own shirt pocket rather than watch Benaam Badshah, some people actually watch it willingly and even like it.

Whatever the label the film might be saddled with, there are increasingly large number of people who are willing to come out and say out aloud how much they love Mohan Bhakri. As I noted in an earlier post on Kanti Shah, it was not possible earlier. The ease of finding like-minded people on the great World Wide Web makes it possible for us to confess our guilty pleasures with confidence.

This post (and the long-winded introduction) was prompted by the latest issue of Open magazine, which contains a treatise on - what they call - C-grade cinema, profiling purveyors of this genre and their reasons for liking them.And I thought this is as good a reason as any to list down some of my favourite articles on good films, bad films and ugly films. Only the same film can be classified in each of the three categories by three different people.
So, here are five of my favourite articles on personal choices in Bollywood.

The first one is by Suketu Mehta, who wrote in The New York Times on why Indians loved movies. It had some of the pithy generalisations that become inevitable when explaining the concept of an ichhadhari nagin to an American audience but overall, the happiness and pride of seeing a second-grade school production in Brooklyn set to the music of Lagaan!

Anupama Chopra claims that having to review all films every week is a dirty job but somebody has to do it. She retains her sanity by remembering the really bad ones. And laughing out loud at Dunno Y Na Jaane Kyun. She - in a moment of possible blasphemy - laughs at Jimmy as well, possibly causing deep anguish to the devotees of Prabhuji.
Bonus Article: Her undying love affair, for the treasure trove of stories that abound around Bollywood.

Sandipan Deb recounts his love affair with Hindi cinema - which began with almost suicidal passion but had to meander and end because it remained one-sided for the most part of it. All of us would have given our all to the cause of Bollywood and only a few are lucky enough to have something to show for it.

One of the few people who do indeed have something to show for their childhood passion is Dibakar Banerjee. If a skinny Bong from Karol Bagh had to hold the attention of the likes of Conan the Barbarian of East Patel Nagar, he had to commandeer his entire learning gleaned from cinema shows at Liberty. The greatest screenwriter of our times honed his skills on Bus C2 and told us all about it.

And finally, you have Bollywood's hottest young Turk telling us about his guilty pleasures that made him the director that he is today. Anurag Kashyap is our Quentin Tarantino - who not only walks the far edges of creativity but eggs (and even funds) proteges to do the same. He should have named his article Tarantino Dhishum Dhishum!

Lovely, no?

The Art of Satyajit Ray... 3

2011-12-31T10:09:00.001+05:30

Illustrations courtesy: Boimela, Tanmoy Dutta's Flickr photostream.

Before the year ends, I thought I should complete what I set out to do in putting together a series of posts on beautiful cover art of Satyajit Ray. As a graphic designer par excellence, he did a series of covers for reprints of Bengali classics and a series of magazine covers for two magazines consistently.

The final part of the series should be the cover he did for his own books - all of which are a study in simplicity.

Satyajit Ray was a prolific writer of short stories. Each collection contained 12 stories and the names were a play on the Bengali words for twelve (baro) or dozen (dojon).

Ek Dojon Goppo (A Dozen Stories), Aro Ek Dojon (One More Dozen), Aro Baro (Twelve More), Ebaro Baro (Twelve Again), Eker Pithey Dui (Two on One) and Bah! Baro (Wow! Twelve).

His second-most popular series was, of course, Professor Shonku. The Shonku series started with mock-seriousness almost bordering on parody in the first story. However, the durability of the character was established with that first story and Ray had to invest a lot of gravitas into the character to make Shonku into a world-renowned, genius inventor.

As a complete contrast to Feluda's modesty, Shonku was immodest in matter-of-fact manner. He had no qualms in calling himself a genius and his adventures took place across the globe. The covers reflected his slight eccentricity as well as the international settings.

I particularly like Swayam Professor Shonku, where his beard and hair are made out of international newspaper cuttings and Punascha Professor Shonku, where his face has the topography of a globe.

And quite obviously, Feluda has to bring up the rear in true 'last but not the least' tradition. The structure of the typical Feluda cover never changed. It had Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohanbabu in the foreground and a distinctive landmark of the story's location looming - sometimes menacingly - in the background.

It would be interesting to see some of the earlier covers - which are also in the same format - though Feluda and Topshe are much younger (and Lalmohanbabu missing).

The first illustration is not a cover but the full-page illustration at the beginning of the first ever short story (when it first appeared in book-form) and Topshe is almost a kid. Interestingly, the first Feluda story also did not envisage the durability of the sleuth and showed Feluda as a hobbyist, who happens to solve a crime while on vacation (from a regular job) in Darjeeling.
When the story first appeared in Sandesh magazine, the illustration on the first page was almost like a caricature!
By the time it was published in Ek Dojon Goppo, a few more stories had already appeared, the Bengali bhadralok had got as hysterical as they could have possibly got and Feluda was on his way to become the highest-read and second-most popular Bengali fictional character ever.

That, I think, caps off this series for the time being.

Bad Songs

2011-12-27T20:24:00.000+05:30

This was meant to be a public-service post.
There are bad songs. And there are bad songs that you can't get out of your head... You hear them once and you are doomed. Like ear wax, they take up permanent residence in your ear-canal. This post was meant to point out those bad songs you are not supposed to hear lest you cannot forget them.
But there is a problem.. if you click on any of the links to be warned, you will have to hear them and... suck that, Joseph Heller!
Anyway, here goes...

Aye Hip Hopper - Ishq Bector
This is probably the worst of the lot and keeping in mind the august company, that is saying a lot! A domestic help who has been certified by the same institute which gave Rakhi Sawant a secretarial degree is wooing her master with a strange mix of erotic bai-giri - eggs, rose-petaled baths, foot rubs and so on. And the voice, oh the voice!

No Touching Only Seeing - Himesh Reshamaiya
If you mute the sound and watch the video (from a movie called Damadamm), it is superior WTF material - which has wowed seasoned commentators like Amit Varma. Police constables, Singh is King, Shahenshah, Bangkok hostesses, Lucknow courtesans, Batman, Phoolan Devi... stupendous! And just when you thought you had come to terms with Himesh's voice, came the female voice...

Tandoori nights - Himesh Reshamaiya
If the many Zzz-s in the remake of Karz was not enough, they packed in as many bad songs as they could. The crowning glory of this monstrosity was Tan tan tan tandoori nights... sung with passion by Himesh and danced to with abandon by Himesh and Urmila. All of Urmila's sexiness cultivated from her dances in Rangeela got pissed away in this tandoori masala.
(But you'll have to admit the name of the song is catchy. I have seen many thekas/roadside joints in Gurgaon bearing this name!)

Chiggy wiggy - AR Rehman
My fingers quivered a little bit as I typed the last 8 letters of the previous line. But Rehman is nothing if he's not memorable so in a superb twist, his worst ever song remains unforgettable. Kylie Minogue (or whoever it was) shook her chiggy wiggy (or whatever it is called) as Akshay Kumar flailed his hands and screamed alliterative words like khatoon, khidmat, khiladi and khwahish before collapsing in a heap (along with the song or whatever it was called).

Do me a favour let's play Holi - Annu Malik
Actually, any of Annu Malik's songs he has sung himself deserves to be in this list. But I will avoid the temptation (or its exact opposite) to include Oonchi hain building, lift teri bandh hain and restrict myself to only this. The biggest tragedy of this absolute inanity of a Holi song appeared in a film which starred Amitabh Bachchan, the God who sang the Holi anthem.
Do me a favour. Don't let Mr Malik sing. Ever. Again.

Dr Dhingra - Baba Sehgal
Little children - who have only heard Himesh in movies and Annu Malik on Indian Idol - have vaguely heard of names like Rafi, Kishore et al and always wondered that Indian music has been a heaven of sur and taal.
They don't know Baba Sehgal and the terror he unleashed in a short burst of popularity in the early days of satellite television.
After a hugely successful and moderately tuneful first album (helped by Pooja Bedi in the video), he came up with a second album which was called Main Bhi Madonna (featuring Baba - Sehgal, not to be confused with present-day Ramdev - in drag). If people thought this was monstrous, it was followed by Dr Dhingra MBBS (Music By Baba Sehgal).
Look no further. Hear no further.

Hachhi aati hain - Jamai Raja
Only in India can composers & lyricist be so creative that they can make romantic scenes out of coughs and romantic songs out of sneezes. (What's next? Romantic scenes out of farts? Thankfully, that hasn't happened. Yet.)
Two leading stars of the day - Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit - enacted a complete song (composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, no less) interspersed with entirely believable sneezes as the junior artistes danced energetically and we watched enthusiastically. But when even a marginally audible song has loud sneezes happening between the stanzas, it enters your ear and refuses to leave. Yes, Jamai Raja released in 1990 and I still remember it.
(However, the film wasn't a total washout. There was one brilliant scene in which Hema Malini and Anil Kapoor faced off with dialogues built out of names of their previous films! Watch here, from 10:00 onwards. And excuse my excitement since I remember the scene to be much better than what I saw just now.)

Resemblance Entirely Coincidental

2011-12-21T23:18:00.002+05:30

Warning: A very, very long post. Recommended only for students of Engineering.

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was anengineering college with an extremely illustrious Mechanical Engineeringdepartment whose fame spread far beyond the furthest reaches of the galaxy.

* * * * *

“Have you completed the Design project?” Deepak asked.

“Gone mad or what? The submission is two weeks away”,replied Nabendu with an air of finality.

This was the final semester of the final year. Nabendu wasalready placed – along with 3/4^th of the batch – in a softwarecompany and submission of design projects was not his priority. In fact, hisonly priority was to make dreadful jokes on his employer including one whichpoked fun at their indiscriminate hires – “Trespassers will be recruited”.

With a large group placed and a substantial group accepted ininstitutions for future studies – truth be told – submission of Engineering Designprojects was not anybody’s priority.

Usually, these design projects needed a ‘mother’ – asolution (typically done by a topper of the previous batch) – to get going.Once we knew from an acknowledged master how the ferocious flanges were beingsubjected to treacherous torque, the calculations seemed infinitely easier. Andonce the calculations were done, slapping a drawing sheet on the previousyear’s drawings and tracing it out was a cinch!

This being the final year, the ‘seniors’ had already leftand finding a ‘mother’ was not proving to be easy.

In a rare display of enterprise, Nabendu and Deepak wentaround asking classmates on the progress of this design project. Of course, youcould argue that speaking to 7 classmates over cha-shingara isn’t a greatdisplay of enterprise. Even that ended swiftly enough when they found anantakshari gang in the Canteen. Nabendu joined them with gusto and startedsinging “Romeo naam mera, chori hain kaammera…” completely out of tune but with exact dance movements. Deepak wenthome with a mixture of unease (flunking a course in the last semester was the –well – last thing he wanted) and comfort (after all, even Uttam hadn’t startedon it).

* * * * *

“Arre, let’s go and ask him once…”

“He won’t help… he doesn’t know enough design to help…”

“At least, he can waive off the submission requirement…”

“Hmm… that’s an idea…”

Nabendu and Deepak squabbled unnecessarily for 5 minutesbefore deciding that the only person who could help in this project submissionwas the professor himself.

Dilip Kumar Chatterjee – DKC for short – was popular for allthe wrong reasons. Firstly, he was said to have a comely daughter. Secondly, hewas horrendously un-punctual leading to frequent class cancellations. Thirdly,he was – or seemed – as clueless about his subjects as the students he taught!Overall, he seemed to be the sort who could be requested to postpone (or, inthe extreme case, cancel) academic requirements without the fear of gettingone’s head bitten off.

They knocked on his door and waited. After a few minutes,they peeped in and were greeted by an empty room. It was one of thoseinexplicable things why they still walked in.

Nabendu marveled at the empty table and the computer whichhad probably never been switched on. Deepak saw something else – a cupboardtowards the far corner of the room which was so stuffed that the door hadn’tclosed properly. The papers inside seemed like… he walked over, took out one ofthe files, glanced through it, stuffed it in his backpack and was out of theroom in a flash.

Nabendu caught up with him almost after the jheel. “What thehell did you do?” he asked Deepak after managing to catch his breath.

Deepak took his time to answer. He was panting harder. “Its.A. Mother. Last. Year’s. File. Just. Picked. It. Up. Will. Need. It.”

“What are you saying, bastard?”

High-fives happened before they both left campus with the firmbelief that if God does exist somewhere in the universe, he is probably perchedon top of the stairs in the Mechanical Engineering department.

* * * * *

Deepak returned the file to Nabendu the next day. He hadmanaged to copy out the entire calculations and the complicated drawing in onemarathon night-out. The plan was to finish off both their projects in 48 hoursand return the file to the cupboard in DKC’s room. But these things never turnout the way they are supposed to.

For starters, Nabendu decided to gloat over theiracquisition to half the University and their maternal cousin. Even batchmatesin the Electronics department weren’t spared the details of the ‘daring raid’ –which seemed to grow on every successive retelling and soon resembled one ofthe dangerous expeditions his father – a senior police officer – undertook.

Very soon, there was a queue of classmates who wanted the ‘mother’to finish off their projects and it didn’t look like the file was returning tothe cupboard anytime soon. Nabendu magnanimously handed over the file to thequeue and remained quite satisfied in telling the story again and again. Aftera point, Deepak lost track of the people who completed their projects from thatfile and just assumed that Nabendu would have done it as well.

* * * * *

At 9 PM, Deepak was wondering what movie they would beshowing on the local cable channel when the phone rang. It was Nabendu.

“Do you have some drawing sheets?” he asked strangely.

“No. Bought and used the last sheet for the Design project”,Deepak replied. “But why do you need it now? We don’t have any othersubmissions after the…” and then it dawned on him. “Nabendu, you STILL haven’tdone the Design project? The submission’s tomorrow!!!”

“What crap? Of course, I have done it. I have copied out thecalculations. Now, I only have to draw the damn thing out.”

“****er, why didn’t you do it earlier? Where will you getdrawing sheets now?”

“Shut up. Just because you don’t have it and the Univ shopis closed doesn’t mean drawing sheets have vanished from the face of theuniverse. I will pick some up from the hostel… errr, what’s the 11 PM movie onJain TV?”

When Deepak put the phone down at 9:32 PM, the Designproject was not on his mind. But if it had been, he would have prayed for it tobe on Nabendu’s mind as well.

* * * * *

“You got the drawing sheets?” Deepak asked as he sawNabendu’s smiling countenance come through the nervous group of studentsassembled outside the professor’s room for the final Design viva.

“Done.” Nabendu smirked.

Having spent much of the last four years with Nabendu,Deepak knew the solution his friend had adopted was not the conventional one.“Show me your drawing”, he demanded.

“Let’s go over to that side. Its emptier.” Nabendu repliedwith uncharacteristic diffidence.

Subbu, Shamik and Dipanjan had gathered around by now. Thevivas were conducted in groups of five and their roll numbers 90 to 92 whileNabendu and Deepak brought up the rear.

They ambled over to an empty classroom and Nabendu’s broughtout his design file. The design calculations were supposed to be the first 20pages, which were normal A4 sheets while the large thick drawing sheet wasfolded at the back to fit into the file.

Nabendu’s sheets seemed to be a lot less. Without anyoneasking, he volunteered a response – “Have skipped a few steps in between. Who’sgonna check all of it, anyway? Managed it in 12 pages. Had run out of sheetsand…”

“…and the Univ store was closed.”

This was not a major problem since project calculations –done under extreme time constraints – of most students were shortened and closescrutiny would reveal many skeletons from the last 4 years.

They turned to the Design drawing at the back of the file.

“Son of a… what is this?” exclaimed Subbu. The drawing sheetseemed to have been taken straight out of Tutankhamun’s tomb. It was creased,frayed at the edges and had duct-tape holding out the folds.

“Mother*****…”

“B*****…”

“F***face, what have you done?”

Nabendu was his usual cool self. “Oh, don’t over-react! WhenI started on this last evening…”

“Why did you start last evening?”

“…I didn’t have any drawing sheet. The store was closed.Nobody in the hostel had any either. On top of that, it was getting late. So, Ijust erased last year’s name and wrote my name there. Even his roll number wasthe same as mine…” Nabendu seemed to take this last bit of coincidence as somedivine hint that assured him this was the right thing to do.

As they stared at the yellowing papyrus with horror, theycould hear their roll numbers being called at the end of the corridor.

* * * * *

The panic had gripped all four of them.

A viva group was susceptible to mood swings of the professorbrought about by one bad apple. While none of them were terribly well-prepared,they expected to steer through DKC’s usually calm manner and silly questionswith a mix of common sense and obsequiousness. But this cavalier bit ofplagiarism had thrown everything off gear.

They filed into the room and took their seats in order oftheir roll numbers. As they handed in their files, the usual greetings weremade with a quiver in the voice.

DKC calmly took their files and started going through them.Many years later, when Deepak first watched a show called Masterchef and sawthe judges pause for inordinately long periods before passing judgments, he wasimmediately reminded of vivas.

DKC went through the first three files with some sillycomments and bonhomie, only to be rewarded with nervous grunts. He finally tookup Nabendu’s file. He flipped through the pages without too much attention tothe details of the calculations.

Then, he came to the drawing. His frowned at the duct-tapeas he started to unfold (unravel would probably be more appropriate) the sheet.For the first time in their lives, they heard paper creak!

DKC’s frown slowly turned into round-eyed amazement as heunfolded the ancient parchment to reveal pencil-cravings from ancient times,probably symbolizing some pagan rituals. The group held its collective breathas he carefully examined the description panel on the bottom right of thesheet. The only bright pencil marks on the sheet seemed to be ‘Designed byNabendu Mitra’ while the name of the original owner was clearly visible underthat as Nabendu’s erasing was clearly half-hearted.

DKC fixed Nabendu with a stare as the other four startedadmiring the ceiling fan, the window grill, the door stopper and the outdatedBengali calendar on the wall.

“I will ask you a simple question, Nabendu. And you have toanswer it truthfully.” DKC solemnly asked. “Did you do this design projectyourself?”

If this had been a movie, a gong would have sounded forsure. But only the murmur of the waiting students outside punctuated thesilence.

Nabendu cleared his throat before replying, “No, sir. I tookthe file from that cupboard.”

Cue for louder gong… with echo effect.

Later in his life, when Deepak had attended many marketingworkshops, he got to know a term called ‘moment of truth’. Whatever the realmeaning of the phrase was, nothing came closer like the moment at hand.

And DKC decided to lift the dead-weight of the silence withwhat eventually became the ‘quote of the century’.

“Nabendu, your father is trying his best to stop crimes inthis city. And you, yourself, embark on the path of crime…”

Deepak had visions of Nabendu running down an airport runwayas his father chased him with a revolver in his hand. But he couldn’t laugh ashe was too busy wondering what this statement would lead to?

Expulsion from the University? Repeating the year? What?

* * * * *

Deepak went on to do a MBA and sells soaps for a living now.

Subbu, Shamik and Dipanjan joined software firms aftergraduation. All of them lead large project teams now.

Nabendu is also a software engineer and is very curiousabout computer aided design software that don’t require paper to createcomplicated designs.

This is a work of fiction.

All characters are fictional. All the described events are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No Reply

2011-12-04T17:21:00.001+05:30

For the last few weeks, I have been calling up offices of several production houses in an effort to source photographs for the book I am writing. Everywhere, people picked up the phone and gave directions on what to do next.
Only the phone at Navketan kept on ringing.

Thappad ki Goonj: Seven Tight Slaps from Bollywood

2011-11-25T01:46:00.001+05:30

On the enquiry of @vicramb and @GabbarSingh after today's momentous event, I decided to compile my list of favourite Bollywood slaps. You see, what we lack currently is a good book that will contain all such quirky and funny lists. If one comes out any time, do remember to pick it up (*ahem*).
Hindi movies have a profusion of slaps and that tends to reduce the impact over a period of time. Hence, it would be good to look at some of the iconic ones.

So - here goes - in no particular order, a quick list (of which I have managed to dig out the videos of most *clap clap*):

Lage Raho Munnabhai
In a bid to get Atmaram's son to attend his birthday, Munna walks into the son's office and tries to convince him vinamrata se baat karkey. But Vinamrata is a very useless person and usse baat karke koi faydaa toh hota nahin. In fact, the prodigal son threatens to get into fisticuffs since he was a boxing champion. And that's when Munna announces that he is a Lafaa Champion. And proceeds to prove his credentials by slapping the guy to an inch from death.

Beta
Mothers and fathers have slapped children quite indiscriminately, especially when caught eloping. But a son slapping a mother is quite unheard of, really!
Aruna Irani - after a lifetime of sucking Anil Kapoor's lifeblood - has a change of heart when Anil lay dying after she poisoned him. She asks her own son to give up the property as her stepson Anil is the rightful owner. Her own son - drunk on impending richness - refuses and when things get ugly, he slaps her. Probably for the time in Hindi cinema, something like this had happened.
And continues to slap her while Aruna Irani screams her lungs out, calling for Anil. You know the rest, right?

Saudagar
In the Subhash Ghai multi-starrer of generational enmities, violence was not uncommon and slaps a little less so.
Nevertheless, Raaj Kumar proceeded to slap Amrish Puri with a satisfying crackling sound (for suggesting Raaj's grand-daughter marry a jerk)! And in a triumph of film editing, Amrish Puri's face almost came apart in a series of cuts.
Never able to explain these in words. See the scene.

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar
JJWS showed college life with a perfect balance of realism and style. And nothing was better depicted than the poor-boy-masquerading-as-rich-boy charade. And when the whole drama fell apart, Pooja Bedi and Aamir Khan had a fight in which both were found guilty of lying to each other. And when Pooja called Aamir a sham, he called her a 'bloody gold-digger' (which eventually went to become a catch-phrase in our college days). And in retaliation, Pooja Bedi gave Aamir Khan ONE TIGHT SLAP!
Immediately afterwards, Kulbhushan Kharbanda joined in when he discovered his younger son was siphoning off his hard-earned cash and Aamir was given the same - once more!
Incidentally, Aamir pretends he is from the multi-billionaire Thapar family and is referred to as 'Thapar ka beta'!

Lamhe
Yash Chopra's best film had a veneer of style lesser filmmakers can only aspire for. And in the only scene of marginal violence, the style saved the day.
Sridevi's haveli is about to be usurped by his evil cousins who have won a court battle. In order to have her wedding pass off peacefully, Anil Kapoor starts to negotiate a later date for the occupation. The cousin turns out to be a complete jerk and Anil slaps him.
When asked to name his price for delaying the haveli occupation, he says - "chhe din ka chhe lakh. Aur iss thappad ka ek lakh."
Anil Kapoor walks up to him, slaps him thrice, turns to his munimji and says, "inhe 10 lakh ka cheque de dijiye."
JHAKAAS!!

Karma
What can I say about this scene that has not been said already? It is a thirty-year old film and yet the echo of the slap reverberates in the corridors of our memories.
Iss thappad ki goonj...

Khakee
In a brilliant but under-rated film, Amitabh Bachchan is pitted against super-criminal Ajay Devgan and in a pre-climax encounter, AB manages to slap Devgan despite being cornered. Ajay has him and his entire police team on gun-point and asks a constable to slap Amitabh, the DCP.
What happens next? Who gets hurt and who does not? Watch the scene, no?
BTW, read this post on Khakee - which points out another scene in Khakee where Tanuja (a convict's mother) slaps AB in a later scene. Amitabh probably has never been slapped so many times in a movie.

So, aap ko kaun sa thappad sabse achha laga?

Updated to add: I have just been informed by the good people of BlogAdda that:

5 Tall Tales that Happened even before the Titles

2011-11-21T22:28:00.001+05:30

I have received curt feedback that my previous two posts may well warm the cockles of the Bengali intellectual's heart but this blog may lose its 'mass appeal' (*snigger, snigger*) if I don't churn out a Bollywood post - pronto!
So, I thought I will kill two birds with one stone.
1. I will thulp a Godzilla-sized Bollywood post (2500-words).
2. I will also give a quick update on the book. Book? What book?
Oh you heartless people - you have forgotten that The Book of Bollywood Lists is in the making and you are expected to purchase large quantities of the book shortly.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is a zeroeth draft of the first chapter of the book (from the time when it still existed in my mind) before stern well-wishers asked me to cut down the length instead of Amazonian rain-forests. That I have... right now, not a single chapter is more than three A4 sized pages.
Once my editor is done with her gig, it is rumoured that the book might even be readable.

* * * * * * * * *

The concept of this post owes its origin to Rajorshi Chakrabarti, who propounded it in his essay ‘Perchance to Dream’ in the anthology ‘ThePopcorn Essayists’ (edited by Jai Arjun Singh). Great essay, great collection – BUY it!

The censor certificateflickers off.

A ‘Dedicated to theLoving Memory of’ card is followed by garlanded pictures of the producer’sfather and/or mother and/or elder brother and/or mentor and/or Mohammed Rafi.

Then we have theAcknowledgments – including (but not restricted to) any or all of the following– financiers’ fiancée, staff of the hotels where the crew stayed, PoliceCommissioner of the outdoor location, some assorted goons and the caterers whohadn’t been paid yet!

And the first scene comeson.

Oh? Who’s in the film?Who directed it? Who sang the songs? WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE FILM?

Well, this was a deviceof great popularity till the 1980s – the pre-credit back-story compression – by which directors took economy of expression to a completely new level andsaid more in these 22 minutes than in the next 222!

In a burst of adrenalineand creativity, they managed to knock off the socio-historical context of film,motivation of the hero and the emergence of the key characters so that the‘real’ story can begin!

Here is a look at five famoussuch back-stories – of which three are from the acknowledged master of thedevice – that could well have been subject of cinematic epics in less creativecountries.

Amar Akbar Anthony

The most familiar façadeof Bollywood – Central Jail – comes on. We see Kishanlal (in a white driver’suniform) come out and count the few pennies he has in his pocket.

Kishanlal has bought somegifts and laden with them, he enters a slum only to be informed by theneighbourhood crone that his family is in shambles – sons hungry and wifesuffering from TB. When he enters his house, he finds proof of these twoassertions by way of a wife coughing, elder sons fighting and youngest sonbawling.

A quick flashback revealsthat he had gone to jail taking a rap for a hit-and-run accident his bossRobert (pronounced Raabet) had committed. He was promised a ‘jail pension’ byRobert but obviously, that had been forgotten.

Kishanlal leaves home toget his dues from Robert. On his way out, he sees his eldest son burying a toypistol to hide it from his brother.

He arrives at Robert’smansion (while the big man is celebrating his daughter’s birthday) and asks forredressal. Robert – obviously in a jolly frame of mind – gets him to polish hisshoes before he pays up. When given an anna for his efforts – immediate andpast – Kishanlal snatches a gun and shoots at Robert, who remains unharmedbecause he’s wearing a bullet-proof jacket.

Kishanlal runs to thegarage and escapes in a car which has gold biscuits. Robert’s goons chase him.He manages to elude them and get home to pick up his family.

He finds his three sonsand a ‘suicide’ note from his wife – who has left to commit suicide because ofher debilitating disease. Completely distressed, he leaves with his sons.

To completely escape fromRobert’s gang, he deposits his three sons at a park (under Mahatma Gandhi’sstatue) and zips off. The eldest son runs after him, gets hit by a speeding carand falls by the roadside. He is picked up by a Hindu police officer. Thesecond one too runs off and takes refuge in a church. A Christian priest takeshim in. A Muslim gentleman sees the youngest son in the park and picks him up.

On her way to committingsuicide, the mother has a tree fall on her and she loses her eyesight. The sameMuslim gentleman rescues her and drops her home (with her own son in the samecar – oh, the pathos!) She is devastated to find it empty.

Kishanlal, meanwhile,hoodwinks his pursuers – who think he’s dead – and returns to the park with hisbooty of gold biscuits but there is no one there.

Years pass as we come toan accident site where a blind flower-lady is hit and urgently needs blood.

A Christian do-goodertakes her to the hospital. At the hospital, there is a Hindu police inspectorto lodge the case. A Muslim qawwali singer is also at the hospital flirtingwith a lady doctor. All of them are found to be the same blood group as theblind lady and they are co-opted to donate some blood.

As the transfusionstarts, a doctor asks them their names.

And as the titles come on,they tell us their names… Amar… Akbar… Anthony…

Naseeb

We open in a bus-stopwhere Namdeo is seeing off his wife and son, John. They are being accompaniedon trip by Salma, Mrs Gomes and her daughter, Julie.

At the bus-stop, they aremet by John’s best friend, Vicky and his father, Damodar. It is Vicky’sbirthday and he insists on being fed a ‘mawa’ cake on this one and everybirthday from now on.

After the seeing off,Namdeo and Damodar quickly make way to the restaurant where the former is awaiter. They meet their two other friends – Jaggi and Raghu – who are beingbadgered for not paying the restaurant’s dues. Namdeo – as a good friend –offers to pawn his three rings to pay of the dues. These three rings have thesymbols of Allah, Om and Christ on them andare the gifts from his three wives.

In the meantime, adrunkard is discovered who does not have money to pay his Rs 4 bill. However,he does have a lottery ticket worth Rs 5 and he offers that to the four friendsat a 20% discount. Each of them pay one rupee each and draw cards to decide whokeeps custody of the ticket. Jaggi wins and gets to keep the ticket.

We cut to the place whereNamdeo’s wife, son, Salma, Mrs Gomes and Julie are staying and there’s anearthquake in the night. All of them get trapped in the falling debris.

The next morning, Jaggiwakes up to see his wife and two daughters off. He picks up the newspaper andis delighted to find their ticket no. 112061 has won a huge prize (of indeterminatesize). Delirious with joy, he calls up Namdeo, tells him of their good fortuneand asks him to land up.

Raghu and Damodar arewaiting just outside his door and Raghu walk in immediately after the call. Ashe stabs Jaggi in the back (literally), the title appears.

We could go on for five minutes after the titleand see how Damodar takes pictures of Raghu stabbing Damodar, how Namdeo walksin to get framed for the murder and he gets dumped into the river by his twofriends. But that would be cheating. This is supposed to be ‘pre-credits’!

Mard

A British governmenthoncho (slyly called Curzon) packs up priceless Indian treasures. When anIndian mob protests, they are gunned down by his henchman (even more slylycalled Dyer). One bleeding heart (literally) manages to crawl to the palace oftheir Raja, Azad Singh – who has just been blessed with a baby boy.

On hearing, the burlyRaja gallops off to an airstrip from where Curzon is making an escape, lassoesthe tail of the plane and pulls it to a stop. For those reading these linesopen-mouthed, let me clarify that the Raja was played by Dara Singh who madethis feat look absolutely normal.

The scene changes to aquasi-courtroom presided on by Lady Helena who promises to help Azad Singh’scause but not before he nearly squashes some of the Britishers and not afterthe Britishers pump a bullet into him but he escapes.

A half-Indian doctor isbribed to help arrest Azad Singh – who promptly visits the Raja’s secret den totreat his bullet wound. The doctor gives him a sedative and promptly the policethrow a perimeter that’s tighter than a gnat’s ass.

Azad Singh now realizestwo things – one, his wife and newborn son need to make a break for it. Two, itis supposed to be his son’s naamkaran ceremony. He solves the first issue bygetting them on to his trusted steed. He solves the second one by making JohnRambo look like a wimp playing with Barbie dolls. He takes out a knife andcarves ‘mard’ on his son’s chest as the little tyke giggles! Woo-hoo!!

Azad Singh gets arrestedby the British while the horse carries away his wife and son. The wife keepsthe son in an orphanage while escaping from pursuing British soldiers and thehorse picks the baby up and deposits him with a childless couple. When themother realizes his son is missing, she promptly loses her voice in shock.*aarrgghh*

Meanwhile, in the Britishpalace grounds, Azad Singh is about to be tortured when he delivers a rousingspeech against the British, promising revenge which his infant son hears fromthe crowd. Lady Helena (see above) arrives to save Azad Singh from death (whichwas not getting executed by the sissy Britishers anyway) and he is incarceratedfor life.

We cut to a decade or twolater when the Doctor’s (see above) spoilt daughter zooms off in her car withher bodyguard. She manages to tangle Azad’s wife’s saree in her bumper whocan’t complain (see voice loss story above) and drag her off.

Enter a tanga-wallah, whostops the car, beats the bodyguard to a pulp and extracts an apology from thebrash girl. When asked for his identity, he tears open his shirt and proudlydisplays the name etched on his chest – MARD.

And, the title comes on.Amitabh Bachchan As…

Karz

The film opens in acourtroom that’s so packed that it looks like a Mumbai local!

The contesting partiesare one Mr Ravi Verma and one Sir Juda. The judge solemnly rules that Sir Juda– who was Ravi’s father’s business partner – has not done well by trying tousurp the Vermas’ Ooty property and Ravi isthe rightful owner of the same.

Ravi celebrates this verdict by immediately gettinginto a clinch with his girlfriend, Kamini, right outside the courtroom whileSir Juda’s ominous looks hint that we may not have heard the last of him.

The scene changes to SirJuda’s den where his lawyer (“Bharat kesabse mash-hoor vakil, PP Roy”) is summarily executed for losing the case(and suggesting a Supreme Court appeal). We are now made privy to two earth-shatteringrevelations:

1. Kamini – thegirl in the aforementioned clinch – is a Sir Juda mole (moll?), who is told tobecome Ravi Verma’s wife by 8^th January and his widow by 11^th.For the trivially inclined, the date of the scene is 5^th January.

2. Sir Juda ismute (but not dumb, as his admiring henchman Macmohan points out) andcommunicates by smiling, flexing his voluminous cheek muscles and beating out atune on glass tumblers with his fingers.

As soon as the advance toKamini is paid, she gets hitched to Ravi Verma in a mandir as her brother putson a hyper-happy façade marrying off the two.

As they leave the mandir,we cut to Ravi’s palatial mansion where hismother is presiding over a major round of spring-cleaning to celebrate her onlyson’s only marriage. We are also introduced to Ravi’ssister, who does the usual simpering sibling routine templated by Farida Jalal.

The newly married coupledrives down to their Ooty estate in a jeep (with a ‘Just Married’ heart on thefront), his favourite tune plays on the stereo and all is well with the world.Till the car radiator runs dry and Ravi getsoff to fill a can of water.

And – to theaccompaniment of clanging music – Kamini runs him over (again and again) infront an idol of Kali.

There is muchchest-beating and head-banging at Ravi Verma’s mansion as the mother threatensgoddess Kali that she cannot take away a mother’s son at such an inopportunemoment and wants her son back. As her shrieks reach a crescendo, the titlesstart.

As the titles go on, asolemn voiceover reminds us that a mother’s sincere wishes are never unheardand as years pass, we have one Monty who’s the ‘inheritor’ of Ravi Verma’scurse (or Karz).

As Monty bursts on to astage (helpfully marked 1980) and starts singing the first hit song of the film– Paisa yeh paisa – the titles keepon coming…

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak

The film opens in theestate of landowner Jaswant Singh, who has just received an invitation toattend the wedding of Ratan Singh, the younger son of Thakur Raghuveer Singh.We are introduced to his ‘city-educated’ younger brother, Dhanraj Singh.

In a family scene,Jaswant’s brother-in-law – Bhagwan Das – tells him of the possibility of movingto Delhi andexpanding his textile business. In this conversation, the wedding of Ratan Singhcomes up causing some discomfort to their younger sister, Madhumati.

The scene moves to thehaveli of Raghuveer Singh where great festivity is on. Benarasi sarees and elaborate jewelry are being purchased, with Ratan Singh being an active part of it. In between the bonhomie, Ratan comes out for an errand and sees Madhu striding purposefully towards his haveli. Despite thefact that he has impregnated her, he tries to wriggle out of his past promises. His offer to go into town and abort the baby is met with the familiar indignation sisters of Hindi films are hard-coded with.

Madhu leaves in tears but Ratan’s mother overhears this conversation.

On hearing their sister’splight, Jaswant and Dhanraj go to Raghuveer Singh and plead for the marriage tohappen but they are insulted before being turned away. The confrontation is not helped by Ratan's own flat denial of the affair. Ratan’s mother tries tointervene citing the overheard conversation but she is ignored.

After returning home, thetwo brothers decide to escape their impending ignominy in the village by selling off their properties and move to Delhi. After Jaswant leavesto meet a prospective buyer, Madhumati is discovered with slit wrists.

And this becomes too muchfor the hot-headed Dhanraj.

Ratan Singh is about toleave with his wedding procession when Dhanraj Singh enters with Madhumati’sdead body. He reminds Ratan of the broken promise ("tumhare vaade ke mutabik isse aaj tumhara dulhan banna chahiye tha...") and announces that there’sgoing to be more than one corpse. With that, he shoots Ratan and all hellbreaks loose.

And as Dhanraj Singhtakes aim once again, doomsday hits the two families and the titles come on.

Quite ominously, thetitle seems to suggest there will be one more doomsday in the future.

* * * * * * * * *

So, what do you think?

If I tell you the edited chapter is, say, 23 million times (*cough cough*) better than this draft, will you buy this book?

The Art of Satyajit Ray and an Appeal for Sandesh

2011-11-02T23:51:00.000+05:30

Images courtesy: Satyajit Ray Film & Study Centre - University of California, Santa Cruz

In the second instalment of tracing the art of Ray, I have just put together examples of magazine cover design. Ray's favourite format of design was to experiment with the fonts & typography of the magazine's title. For two magazines, he did this with an incredible inventiveness.
The first was Eksan (Now), a literary magazine edited by Soumitra Chatterjee (among others). The second was Sandesh (the famous Bengali mithai, also meaning news) - which was Ray's family enterprise started by his grandfather and revived by him.

But first, another angle of his versatility.
Being approachable, Ray got thousands of requests for contributions to magazines, anthologies and special issues - which he refused only on extenuating circumstances. For example, somebody approached him for an article on Pablo Picasso for a special issue on the legendary artist. Ray refused since he was in the middle of shooting a film.
But being the bhadralok he was, he got a little embarrassed by the disappointment of the people who came to him. He offered to sketch a portrait of Picasso for their cover.
Totally delighted, the magazine's publishers asked when they should come to pick up the sketch. He asked them to wait, picked up his drawing book and drew out the portrait you see here.

For Eksan, he also did quite a few portraits for special issues on a really diverse group of people. The three I found have Karl Marx, Manik Bandopadhyay (a fantastically, under-rated Bengali novelist) and Alighieri Dante on their covers!

All the covers of Eksan were radically different despite being essentially reprisals of the same three letters. Using the concept of negative space, different styles (from ancient scriptures to modern) and motifs, he made them look completely fresh.

And then, we have Sandesh - which follows the same principle as above but the visual imagery is completely different, keeping the audience in mind. Sandesh being read - and occasionally eaten - was the leitmotif here.

Sandesh ran almost entirely on Ray's creative output as he illustrated entire issues of the magazine, wrote stories and novellas, created puzzles and brain-teasers, judged contests and even answered fan-mail. His involvement can be summed up by the opening paragraph of this article by Sandipan Deb.

I met Satyajit Ray only once, when I was seven years old. Like every month, my father had taken me to the office of Sandesh, the children's magazine that Ray co-edited, to collect my copy. We rang the bell, and the door was opened by the tallest man I had ever seen. Far above me hung a huge face seemingly carved out of granite, which now turned and called inside in a voice of distilled thunder: "Mini-di, here's a subscriber of yours." (Mini-di, or Nalini Das, was Ray's cousin, whose home doubled as the Sandesh office.) As we waited, my father kept prodding me in the back: "Ask him, ask him!" So, finally, shyly, I did. "I sent in a story three months ago..." I squeaked to this unknown giant. (Sandesh had a section which carried the literary efforts of its underage readers.) "What's it called?" asked Ray. I told him. "I'll see," he said, and we left. The next month, the story was published in Sandesh.

The office that he talks about was a rambling building on Rashbehari Avenue, not very far away from my home in Calcutta. Every time I walked past this building, I imagined Ray to be somewhere inside - maybe hunched over proofs or changing some element of the typesetting.
In a comment on the earlier post, Sue mentioned that the office was being demolished and I have felt incredibly sad ever since. Here was a place which I can literally call my Palace of Memories and that was going to make way for - presumably - a swanky apartment block.
I wondered how apt it would have been (and a friend echoed my thoughts later on) to build a Feluda Museum in that plot.
I have no clue of the property prices of South Calcutta but surely, it couldn't have been too difficult for a million Feluda fans to contribute a small amount each and make it happen through a publicly funded trust? I believe a Feluda Museum will easily draw enough footfalls to be run profitably through ticket prices and merchandise sales.

Tintin has many museums and even parks dedicated to him. Surely, Feluda deserves his spot under the sun too...

The Art of Satyajit Ray... 1

2011-11-01T22:13:00.000+05:30

Images courtesy: Satyajit Ray Film & Study Centre - University of California, Santa Cruz

Recently, Blaft Publications (in their Twitter avatar, @blaftness) put up some antiqueBengali book covers. While their dated value was undeniable, they were not reallythe 'classic' variety or the best of cover design. In fact, any discussion ofcover designs for Indian books cannot exclude Satyajit Ray. So, I managed topick out some covers designed by Ray from this wonderful collection.

I had come across some of thesecovers (on real books!) when I was a child and while I marveled at some ofthem, I did not know they were designed by Ray.

Some of these covers are for starsof Bengali literature while some of them are for unknown books. But theattention to detail, the play with typography and the connect to the contentare present in each of the designs. I wanted to present them without commentbut for the non-Bengali reader, a bit of description becomes absolutelynecessary.

Aam Aantir Bhnepu is a part (abouta third) of Bibhutibhushan's classic, Pather Panchali, which (roughly)corresponded to the plot of Ray's film. It was while illustrating a children'sversion of this book that he discovered the film. The cover has all thesimplicity of an idyllic village life that distinguished the film.

Abanindranath Tagore,unfortunately, has to be introduced as Rabindranath Tagore's nephew. He was notonly one of the major Bengali artists but an amazing author for children.

The following cover is for hisautobiography, Apon Katha, and has a simple - yet perfect - portrait of theauthor.

Along with the above, I would putthe cover of Raj Kahini - which was a rendering of the historical tales ofRajputana and its valiant rulers. As kids, we all got to know of the honour& valour of the Ranas from this wonderful. (If you want to convince yourkids Chhota Bheem is not the bravest bloke around, you can pick up the book here.)

Talking of bravehearts, I havewritten about Shankar of Chnader Pahad earlier.This cover for the book brings out the dangers of African jungles and a singleboy's adventures quite chillingly. (My father and aunt had this book, which Iread as a kid and never realised it was Ray cover).

The following book cover is by acompletely unknown (at least for me). But Suruchi Senguptar Sreshtho Golpo is acollection of short stories, with the words of the title presented like theflowers in an arrangement.

Lila Majumdar- another stalwart of children's literature in Bengali - wrote this book calledTong Ling (which I haven't read) for which the cover is a wonderful play of theBengali fonts as two letters have become the eyes of sort of scary character.

The next book on - as is evident -Charlie Chaplin was written by Mrinal Sen has a lovely sketch of theauteur-actor on the cover. And it highlights how one top director lent hisskills for the project of another (despite having many professionaldifferences).

Banalata Sen is the mostenigmatic woman in Bengali literature and the cover of the book of poems(containing the poem about her) keeps her exactly that way.

Bede (pronounced bay-day with asoft d) has a wonderfully done play of the two Bengali syllables put togetheralmost like mirror images.

And finally, an eternal favourite -Khai Khai - by Sukumar Ray (who's also, unfortunately, only Satyajit's fatherfor non-Bengalis). It is a simple re-creation of the title which, literally(but inadequately) means "Eat Eat"!

That's the first 10. Any othersuggestions / links?

As you can see, I have every ambitiously numbered thispost as '1'. Evidently, more such posts are being planned. Hopefully, onefor magazine covers and logos and one more for covers and illustrations from hisown books.