2021: A Roundup

During 2021 – for a couple of months – I wondered (for the first time) if I would end the year in a position to write about books, movies and the good things in life. It was the year where all our privileges came in handy and we encashed all of that to live to write another year-end writeup. Annus horribilis, it was! But the books and movies helped…

 

I read a little less than I would have liked to. Watched more trailers and fewer movies than I should have. I found immense solace watching Kapil Sharma and Akshay Kumar carrying on a banter about who earns more (Spoiler alert: Akshay does.) and snippets by comedians (Heartfelt thanks to Vipul Goyal, Abhishek Upamanyu and Abijit* Ganguly) on Insta Reels.

[*Pedantic Bong curiosity: Bhai Abijit, tomar naamer H-ta baad kyano?]

 

So, here goes my lists of five favourites in four categories: Sports, Shows, Movies, Books.

Feel free to ignore. You’re welcome to disagree. Only condition for the latter is that then you’ll have to then make your own list! 

 

Here goes…

 

SPORTS 

5. Indian men’s hockey at Tokyo 

The literal crowning glory of the tournament was goalkeeper Sreejesh sitting atop the goal – after a nailbiting bronze medal match against Germany. His wall-like saves in the last quarter of the game was a fitting finale to India’s campaign, which led to a medal after 41 years. [Some drought, this!] The bonus good news was the Executive Director at my office was ecstatic enough to order samosa and jalebis for the entire building.

 

4. Neeraj Chopra 

With his Olympic gold medal, Neeraj Chopra hit the bigger milestone of being featured in a Cred ad before becoming a yesteryear star! I watched the winning throw with a bunch of batchmates and we raised a toast when the announcement was made, singing the national anthem with gusto! We knew so little about javelin throwing that we weren’t sure of the medal till it actually said so on the screen.  (Yes, we figured 87.5m > 86.5m but still wasn’t sure how many backup throws everyone had.)

 

3. India W vs Britain W in Field Hockey, Tokyo 

I was walking towards my office instead of hailing an auto or cab when Vandana Katariya (who was abused for her caste after a previous loss) put us ahead. I stopped right there and just willed for the 3-2 scoreline to hold, crossing my fingers and praying fervently – not so much for the team as for myself, because I needed the fairytale more in the middle of a depressing year. It didn’t end that way but a team that finished last just four years back had already scripted such an unbelievable story that I rank it higher than India’s two medal-winning efforts.

Please read Sharda Ugra’s pieces on the team: Betiyaan to badasses. The Grand Furies.

 

2. India M vs England M, Second Test match, Day 5, Lord’s

The fourth innings target is 250+ and the team is bundled out for 120 in less than 50 overs. Indian fans of the 1990s see this situation like a stinking cliché, a recurring nightmare. It starts with early wickets, usually two gone in the first couple of overs. Some middle order pottering to prolong the agony before wickets fall in a heap, with fans grimacing at the inability to negotiate pace and marveling at the assembly line of pacers the opponents are able to line up. Hell, even that raw newbie got four wickets!

Except. Except. Except this time, the newbie’s name was Mohammed Siraj. And he was supported by Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma. The pace battery – oh, the joy of saying this – was finally ours.

And whenever I will feel sad from now on, I will open this tweet and stare at the chart. We are better than Ponting’s Australia. Hell, we are better than Lloyd’s West Indies. *weeps uncontrollably*  

1.       India M vs Australia M, Fourth Test match, Day 5, Brisbane

Gabbatoir, they said. Didn’t win in three decades, they said. See you at Gabba, he said.

The last India-Australia Test series started in the 1990s and ended in 2021. We started with a 36 all out. We managed to lose half (and more of) our team in the first three Tests and then went into the fourth with eleven scrappy kids who probably weren’t old enough to watch cricket in the 1990s and didn’t know that Australia had to be respected. In a Whatsapp group, we started by wondering if we can last 90 overs but by the time Rishabh Pant had taken charge, we were a screaming, shivering mess – cancelling office meetings and begging unlucky people not to switch on the TV.

We ended the year with a win at another stadium we have never won before… but after Gabba, it seemed almost natural.  

And you must read what Gideon Haigh has to say about the match!

 

SHOWS

This was the year of the shows. Or maybe, from now on, all years will be years of shows? The amount of non-English, non-Hindi content that we now consume, discovering new niches and unsung masterpieces, is here to stay for good. I hope.

Disclosure: I haven’t watch Succession. Sue me.

 

Honourable mention: I must start with a standalone gem. Geeli Pucchi was part of an anthology (Ajeeb Daastaans) whose other entries were nowhere as good. With his short, Neeraj Ghaywan cemented his reputation as one of the sharpest filmmaker of our times, socially aware and with an outstanding talent for visual storytelling.

 

5. Ray (Netflix)

I love the source material. I loved three of the films enough to squeeze it into my list of Favourite Five. I (kind of) fought with possessive Bengalis who thought ‘sexifying’ Ray isn’t the done thing. I even wrote about it in detail.

Only one question remains: Where is S2? What are the stories? Who are the directors? (Okay, three questions remain.)

 

4. Aranyak (Netflix)

Raveena Tandon stood watching one of her masterpieces get murdered on the altar of box-office success before she decided to join the streaming bandwagon. She played Kasturi Dogra, a Himachal cop out to solve a murder that might well be the return of a serial killer or a brazen politician’s son’s escapades. Or both. Or neither. She was well-matched by Parambrata Chatterjee, who has now made a name as the cop who’s confident enough to match female stars in their adventures. Police procedurals with a hassled, middle-aged woman as the protagonist is a streaming platform trope but with good performances, direction and a strong local flavour, it is far from becoming a cliché.

3.       Mandaar (Bengali, Hoichoi TV) 

Fahad Faasil’s Joji was the Macbeth remake that everyone talked about (and FF’s physical transformation as a nearly wasted youth was phenomenal) but for me, the show-stealer was the Bengali remake of the classic. Set in a coastal town of rural Bengal (Medinipur), Mandaar is visually striking and aurally arresting. The accent (of the region) added an eccentric layer to the tussles in the fishing town involving crooked politicians, crooked businessmen and crooked police. Debasish Mondal in the title role and Sohini Sarkar as Laili (Lady Macbeth) gave two legendary performances – making this one of the most inventive Shakespearean adaptations from India.

2.       The Family Man S2

This was supposed to be the crowd pleaser and – as rare as this gets – the second season lived up to its promise. But what’s eye-popping in something starring Manoj Bajpayee is when the antagonist steals the show. And Samantha Ruth Prabhu did just that. As the suicide squad soldier of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause, both her mental and physical preparation were spot on! When she first appeared on screen, I had to move closer to the TV to confirm it was indeed her and after that, I couldn’t take my eyes off.

1.       Hellbound

What was supposed to Squid Game’s year turned out to be something else for me. Hellbound is an allegory set in something like a fantasy world in Korea but all of us have seen this story unfolding around us. Over millennia, we have codified crime and punishment, blessing and damnation, sin and virtue, God and Devil into seemingly immutable codes. In six hours, Hellbound recreated this process of building a random code, that eventually becomes a religion. It’s as spellbinding as it is scary.

 

FILMS

[Have selected only 2021 releases. A Bengali film, Anik Dutta’s Borun Babur Bondhu turned out to be a lovely 2019 film that I watched this year. 2020’s Palm Springs was sci-fi-dark-romantic-comedy that will also stay with me for a while.]

Honourable mentions: Pagglait and Ramprasad ki Tehrvi

These two films are essentially two sides of the same coin, but both throwing up a winner. Set in the aftermath of an untimely death in a UP joint family, both films approach the sensitive topic very differently and end up as very different films. Keen eye for detail, razor-sharp writing and brilliant ensemble casts distinguish both films.    

5. Shershaah 

In a country that doesn't feel patriotic till they have screamed out their love for the country and rubbed the perceived enemy's face in it, Shershaah reminded us how good guys do patriotism. Siddharth Malhotra was an ace Captain Vikram Batra, who secured our borders with a photo in his wallet, a smile on his lips and a slogan on his lips. The music, the warfront action, the ensemble cast, the presentation of a soldier's dilemmas were all top notch. Real, goosebumpy and not jingoistic. I'd want more war films like this. Yeh dil maange more.

4.       Sarpatta Parambarai

As a Bollywood fan, Toofaan was supposed to be the boxing film of the year but the ‘national boxing champion’ from Dongri was upstaged by a 1970s Madras dockyard labourer, whose sparring identity is defined by his lower caste clan. Ranjith’s writing and Arya’s performance are so good that it is impossible not to get caught up by the boxing bouts happening in an unknown suburb, two generations back. And the boxing action gut-spillingly real!

3.       Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar

In a year with two Salman Khan releases, the catchiest ‘Salman Khan’ item number (complete with a hook step!) was in an offbeat Dibakar Banerjee film about two people on the run, two people who couldn’t be further apart. A surly Haryana cop and a suave Gurgaon executive go on a road trip packed with real-life parallels of the shady kind, their journey dotted with scenes and characters with top end writing and acting. And with not-so-gentle reminders that a bank scam is just one reckless turn away.


2.       Jai Bhim

What is commercial cinema? Who is a filmi hero? Superstar Suriya and director Gnanavel turn these questions on their head in their take of the story of lawyer (and later High Court judge) Chandru and his crusade of police brutality on tribespeople living on the fringes of society. Without sacrificing drama or thrill, and without the hero ever breaking character, Jai Bhim is a brilliant reminder of how even message-driven films can be gripping. Suriya – the original Singham – inspired an entire ‘cop(y) universe’ in Bollywood. But don’t hold your breath about the Suriya-vanshis remaking this one in Hindi!

1.       83

This is the ultimate nostalgia trip, the ultimate feel-good movie and the greatest superhero origin story ever made. Those three magical weeks of 1983 gave birth to the part-industry-part-juggernaut that is Indian cricket now. Painstakingly recreating the era, Kabir Khan delivers a thrilling ride that is a must-watch for Marvel-happy kids. Ranveer Singh becomes Kapil Dev with an uncanny mix of cricketing action, body language and voice modulation as he leads his band of devils to the unlikeliest cricketing victory of all times. After all, what else he here for?

 

BOOKS

The choices are clustered under topics, not in any ranking order.

 

Cricket 2.0 (Wigmore and Wilde) is a lucid but exhaustive guide to how T20 has changed the face of cricket as we know it. It uses statistics judiciously to make irrefutable points about the genesis, growth and evolution of the format – covering everything from the club-based leagues to the country-level tournaments. And tries to answer that million-dollar question by devoting a full chapter to it: “Why RCB lose? Why CSK win?”  

Honourable mention: Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town (Mukherjee & Sengupta) is amazing mix of research and construction that puts together a history of India-South Africa cricket (and much more) in the context of a single partnership.

 

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) is a deliciously rambling insider's account of 1960s Hollywood, giving a feel of a vintage gossip mag crossed with present-day fan site. The connection with the film seems almost tenuous, as the novel changes the chronology and even the focus to tell the same tale of how cool people made – and continue to make – Hollywood cool.

 

Bangla Satyajit Ray Sakshatkar Samagra (edited by Somnath Roy) is the first volume of the mammoth task of compiling the filmmaker-polymath’s innumerable interviews on a bewildering array of subjects. Ray was accessible, erudite and articulate – leading to both pithy takes on a topic as well as free-flowing chats on his life, universe and everything. An invaluable addition to the Ray library.

Honourable mention: 3 Rays – Stories from Satyajit Ray is the perfect gift to start someone on the genius of the Ray family. This handsome volume contains works by three generations of Ray (everything translated by Satyajit), breathtaking in their width and inspiring in their depth.

 

The Silent Coup (Josy Joseph) is a sobering reminder of the failures of our so-called intelligence infrastructure across era and geographies. Joseph's reputation as an investigative journalist has been sealed by his many decades of stellar work, making this something of a 'best of' compilation in terms of range but embellished with a lot more research and analysis that gives the book wings. This is also an exceptionally well-written book, and one of the most rewarding aspects is the idealistic citizen peeping out from under the cover of a cynical journalist.

 

Unscripted: Conversations on Life and Cinema (Vidhu Vinod Chopra with Abhijat Joshi): For me, stories trump  analysis and that’s what I loved this lovely collection of anecdotes, exclamations and pronouncements framed with several unseen photos. VVC’s reputation as a maverick shines through every page, even though the focus is not on the cinematic thoughts behind his films but more on his attitude towards life.

Honourable mentions:

-          Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story (Yasser Usman)

-          Bullets over Bombay (Uday Bhatia)

-        Pure Evil: The Bad Men of Bollywood (Balaji Vittal)


Postscript

2021 saw the publication of BollyGeek: The Crazy Trivia Guide to Bollywood – my sixth book. And the release of a new edition of Bioscope: A Frivolous History of Bollywood in Ten Chapters.

They are now/still available at an online store near you.


As I set them out for a photo, the Christmas tree formed a nice, bright background and reminded me once again what a gift it was to be able to write on things I love and be able to share it with lots of people. As an introvert, this is the most unobtrusive way of having a conversation.

In 2022, a new project of mine will hit the stands. As you can make out, I have made good use of the time/energy that I saved by not commuting in Bangalore during the 2020 WFH season. Watch this space!

 

Wishing you a lovely 2022. May all your wishes come true. And then some.

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