The Indigo Affair

It happened one rainy night. I discovered her by accident. Like it was always meant to be. To an observer it might have seemed like a classic cinematic setup - a Mise-en-scène in a film noir if you please.

She beckoned. I obliged.

The place was basic, bold and minimalistic. Wood-paneled walls, a well stocked bar, the aroma of sizzling beef in the air, sexy little sprigs of parsley and the goodness of Gorgonzola cheese enveloped my senses. The dim lighting seemed like it was perfectly set, to enhance the mood. Sinful treats gazed longingly at me from a corner display, begging to be eaten – my will weakening.

And then came the culinary cavalry, in a menu, Dozens of them. Garnished to the teeth. Salads, Sandwiches, Soups, Breakfast, Burgers, Dogs and Main Courses. I was outnumbered. The mind and the taste buds raged their own battle for supremacy within.

She pushed some more. I gave in to gluttony. And then she came, like a delicious surprise. I didn’t know then that I would long for her feast, every waking hour, for as long as I lived, since that day.

Entrees included the Seared Pork Sausages - dipped in oil and brushed with care. Not too crisp, not too soft, not to dry, not too tough, just perfect! Next, The Garlic Prawns - fresh prawns soaked in wine, with a dash of the chopped garlic, and some, salt black pepper, sauteed for a few minutes and deglaze with white wine. It left a tingling taste along with its melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Quickly following it, are the Barbeque-Chicken-Wings. Tender, and bathed in the right amount of a sweet-tangy BBQ sauce, the messy entrée, makes up in it’s (spicy) electric taste.

Ditto for the sea-salt rubbed grilled chicken. The marriage of the incredible flavors of chicken with a “secret” ingredient is the secret to this grilled god of a chicken that goes deliciously with the Sulet White wine.

Then, main course, the Medium Filet Mignon (quality beef) made love to with just the right amount of coarsely ground black pepper and salt and lovingly sprinkled with a light dusting of pure sea salt. Its full-of-flavour brown exterior hadn’t compromised on consistency on the inside or the outside of the steak. It also carried a deliciously smoky savor from the wood flame. The accompanying mashed potatoes with a little milk, cream, and butter mix goes very well with the fresh ground pepper and greets your senses with a glazed texture.

When there isn’t place to struggle any more – the dessert options appear. From cheesecakes, to lava-chocolate and muffins to coffees – everything here competes for your longing affection.

Choosing the Molten Lava Cake seemed to be a great choice. The pouring rain outside, perfectly complements the steaming (literally like a Lava) chocolate. Arranged like a newlywed bride, with sprinkles and sauce, it’s probably a sin, for something to taste this good. This French classic dessert literally melted in my mouth – how could it not? Butter on the bottom, then butter on the sides, wiping from the bottom up to the top. If anything, it helped the chocolate to rise even more

Soon after, the strawberry compote traipsed in with the mud cake. Fresh strawberries, sliced, melted and sauted with a hint of lemon. Chocolate layered with a truffle mixture between layers. If you are a chocoholic, look no further. Served slightly hot, you will realize at first bite that God does exist.

And thus ended the night. A night filled with passion. A night that delighted the senses. And A night, that I recall in vivid sensory detail to this day.

It all started with a broken tail-light…

My Indigo Affair!

New Year Resolutions

Yes, it’s that time of the year when the most insipid inquiry that floats around the social circuit becomes, “So, what’s your New Year Resolution?” Then once you take the trouble to spell some of them out, the obvious joke becomes, “But New Year Resolutions are meant to be broken, no?”

If that were the case, this joke being the obvious intent to end the meaningless banter, you realize how redundant, the conversation was, in the very first place.

So, before someone pulls that New Year nonsense on me, I’ve decided to be ready with my own witty retort - an online list, in which I will attempt to pen my top 10 resolutions for 2010.

1. Watch my Wallet

It amazes my CA how one person can spend so much money on restaurants. The other night, I instinctively called out to a server at Indigo by his first name, the other day I pulled my own chair at Delitalia and on yet another occasion, one that took the cake, ordered specials on the phone whilst in transit to Rice Boat. (Yeah, I’ve memorized the specials by day-week and month). The familiarity with menus, waiters and ilk, like you may have guessed is marginally bizarre if not creepy. Plus, its really really really HARD on my poor wallet.

PS: My wife and my Mom are BOTH excellent cooks

2. Curb Afternoon Feasts

That’s right. Food is my Achilles heel. While most people bring dabbas and stuff to an office, I find living from meal-to-meal the highlight of my day. And to give me company and feed my dark passenger are some of the most hardcore foodies. On an average, a meal in my office consists of 3 starters, 2 main courses, rice, Imported lemon coke and at least 2 varieties of sinful dessert.

PS: It’s all absolutely 100% non-vegetarian.

3. Control Impulses

Earlier this year, when I was at the peak of being broke and jobless, I walked past a Bose store with a friend. To cut a long story short, the Mastercard card isn’t really priceless. It comes with a hidden annual fee and a 10% late payment fee. Sure, I salivate silly every time the bass clocks my heartbeat but sadly, I bartered a medi-claim policy in lieu of incredible mid tones. NOT COOL!

PS: The Bose was just “one” in a long list of impulses

Health is Wealth

As of this positing I possess neither. After putting the pro in procrastinate, I ordered fried chicken, went back to sleep and donated to a non-tax-deductable organization – The Local Gym. This year, I promise at least a few good games of tennis, some rugged rounds of squash, firmer calves and one more pack to the paunch.

PS: I will NOT frequent the snack counter at the Club immediately after

5. The Celluloid Dream

I’ve been struggling to write a film for so long, I actually came up with a non-fiction format called ‘Strugglers’ which might ironically see the light of the day before my films hit the silver screen. So I’ve come up with a math. I’m going to write 100 screenplays before I die. Of which, 2 will get made. 1 will be a super hit. Sounds reasonable, right? Or am I being an Idiot?

PS: On the bright side, my TV career is doing all right. SWELL!

Poseidon Adventure

It's been a roller-coaster wave, this 2008. Amongst other exciting events, I got married, left my house, quit my job, completed Call Of Duty 4, downloaded Memento, watched Ghajini, learned to use a coffee maker, saved money, spent some more, panned Rab Ne..., ate tons of Subway melt, swore upon the South Indian, enjoyed Uno and started reading about writing.

Today marks my two month shaadi anniversary.

I've had plenty of time to settle in. People often ask me the stupidest of rhetorical questions about marriage - I've really resisted head slamming them with my quintessential acidic remarks. Now, as the 6th floor of Poseidon, my new residency begins to recognize me, I've slowly come to terms with all the decisions I've made. I'm more comfortable with my pin code now. Firm conviction does comes with a side dish of repercussion - and I'm loving it.

I'm my own person now.

I'm smarter. I'm wiser. And I'm more ambitious than ever. I jump started the drive within. My spark plugs are waiting to strike a barrel of over-priced recession-proof crude oil to blast me out of here. The ride home to Bandra, begins today. I don't want to be in Bandra because I'm a snob. I also don't want to be there because all my friends live there. I'm not a seaside person and I'm not one to gauge the sway of the real estate. It's not where I live, it's who I am. Like Hiro Nakamura would say, "I'm ready for my spirit walk "jaaa-ney."

So I'm going to make it all count now. I'm going to blog, I'm going to write, I'm going to direct and I'm going to be happy. I'll morning walk, I'll kid myself, I'll gym some and then some more, 'll read, I'll heed and I'll do the deed.

...I can already see the shoreline

From the brilliant Blog of Hank Moody...

People seem to be getting dumber and dumber. I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The Internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it’s really given us is Howard Dean’s aborted candidacy and 24-hour a day access to kiddie porn, you know. And people don’t write anymore, they blog; instead of talking, they text; no punctuation, no grammar. LOL this and LMFAO that. You know it just seems to me that it’s just a bunch of stupid people psuedo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the king’s English.

Demonic Funnies

It wold not be an exaggeration to say that I have seen every English B Horror Movie Ever made. I have only the Ramsay's Veerana to blame for my childhood initiation. I love horror movies. I love movies with blood and gore. I love creepy faces, possessed souls, satanic rituals, ghost ships, haunted houses and demonic dolls. You get it - I LOVE horror movies. So naturally, I pre-booked my 1920 tickets and sauntered into the movie theater, stealing a smirk from my poor goosebumps. They had no idea, what was in store.

Being a film-student and an avid cinephile I can tell, more or less if a film is working for me with the opening shot. And I can almost always predict a successful screenplay 7 and a half minutes into the film. Recently, I only went wrong with Jaane Tu... that didn't appeal to me at all in the beginning. So the lights dimmed and a horse carriage trotted across a British looking road (perfectly colour corrected) and the dull autumm leaves whoosed against the camera. When ambient horror works, it is almost always, obvious from the first frame - so far, so spooked.

As the film progressed, I cringed at the awful disbelief of suspension it asked for. I know its a supernatural soiree but even Satan himself cannot pull of Yorkshire as Palanpur. After the film, it was painfully obvious that the "period" was gimmicky and would have avoided insulting an intelligent audienece if they had stuck to facts. It could have been contemporary, and the castle could still have been in Yorkshire keeping the back story the same. Rebirth can always occur thousands of years later and spirits don't have an expiry date. Also, to each their own, but serious-minded Sunday preaching (Raj Zutshi) mixed in with the occult, is just not my cup of witch's brew. Sure, Father knows best; the Church knows best, and never mind all those lurid stories about child-molesting doctors (Vallabh Vyas) but sorry Vikram, the power of Christ didn't compel me on this one.

But despite the loopholes and obviously inserted songs, 1920 did appeal to me on a certain spook level. It avoided the gratuitous gore and the shocks that provide the backbone of most horror films abroad and seemed more interested in the spiritual questions at hand. Unlike Ram Gopal Varma, this one did not crank up the decibels in the name of lame scares. The atmosphere worked wonders, the subtle ambience sucked me in and the long still shots re-iterated the fact that Vikram Bhatt knows his stuff.

The style of the film is intentionally oppressive. A very limited color palette is used with colors keyed to themes. Greenish hues are used in scenes of confinement, red for danger. The convinently cliched blue is avoided. Background sound in very low registers contributes to the viewers' unease as does a score that has little or no melody. A scratched record scene (while remniscent of 8mm) works really well. The visual movement relies heavily on handheld camera and other flexible camera effects. There seem to be many echoes of THE EXORCIST, though it is hard to imagine a film about exorcism that does not echo that film.

But surprise, surprise - what I enjoyed the most in the film, was the Demonic Humour. Yup! While some horror films are unintentionally funny, this one turned it around and mocked the protagonost. The humour was creepy, witty, sexy and highly entertaining. It was matched with a visual treat combning great camera angles, super-clean, well-done special effects and a superb performance by debutante Adah Sharma with her seizures, demonic visions, speaking in different voices and personalities and crooked sense of glee as a posessed soul. I canot remember a recent horror movie where I enjoyed a cynical laughter this much. The 'test test test test' and 'Tick Tock' were brilliant srokes of terror.

I only wish, the spirit was introduced as a Mad Hatter, instead of a dull, limping, lifeless figure. It would have been spinechillingly funny (in a good way) to see a character like 'The Joker' die and return with his twisted sense of humor intact.

Come on Mr. Bhatt, take your chances - do away with the unnecessary rounding up of characters, excrutiating long back-stories and distributor enforced songs. Give us a slick, twisted horror movie, screw resoulution and give us a tingler that challenges our imagination. I know you can do it - Am rooting (or Bhooting) for you and I'm counting down...

Tick Tock Tick Tock!!!

The Big Picture

I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be working with a TV production house known for its melodrama, bullet zooms and swish-pans - elements, I absolutely detest. Call it bad karma, or just a quirk of fate but here I am, questioning my decision to abandon an NBC internship a few years ago.

I remember telling my friend Eric in a windy by-lane in Brooklyn that I never imagined that guerrilla film-making would send such a thrill down my spine. I was young and stupid. We were shooting a short, with two women acting as lookouts in case the cops caught us. We zipped through a lane, the biting winds and sea-gusts lashing our insides while we shot using a steadi-cam. Not just because it was cool but because, that's the only option to use, when you know that you might have to break into a run. I don't know what makes me more unhappy today - not writing content that flows from my heart or the fact that everyone in American television seems to doing exactly that.

Today all I have is hope - that my film career may take off (which thankfully it is slowly but steadily) and eventually make me a power-to-be. Then, I shall unleash the creative muscle. I will, go Guerrilla. I will make gut-wrenching twisted films and seek vengeance on my oppressed TV working years.

I will prevail.

Don't!

How often has one heard that word? But here's a thought - if one were to rephrase the question, How often has one heard that word, in India? Bring out the roller coaster for the statistics to ride on now. I am aware that what I'm stating is blatantly obvious; its just that it hasn't bothered me so much until now and suddenly, censorship is sawing the crap out of me.

Let's begin with my first love, (Sorry Shim) Movies. Unfortunately for me, I've acclimatized a section of my brain to get its gore fix. I lean towards the dark side in Cinema and like a friend describes - my keywords aka criteria for 'Good Cinema' must comprise of the words, Disturbing, Nudity, Disturbing Nudity, Brutal Non-Stop Violence and Gratuitous Gore. Yeah, not your ideal date movie.

Now the fun part of the entire endeavor is that R rated films rarely release in India. It's bad enough that a bunch of morons are levying cuts galore (in the nation that prides itself upon free speech), the film is re-rated in India. WTF! I mean 3 post menopausal women and 4 pervy sadists play moral police to chors like me and say 'Don't, Don't Don't.' I can still hear their saidtic laughter as they jerk off to the uncensored footage.

But thats not all. The 'adults' want to play Invasion of the Body Snatchers with us and will follow us right into our homes and our heads. DVD's are re-re-censored on Indian soil, so that our rich, cultural heritage of adultery, child marriage, sati and dowry aren't tarnished. After all, its the nations dignity at stake. And yes, an A certificate means no nudity and no violence. Just obviously bad cuts that jerk the video as it skips frames. After all, the connoisseurs of good cinema have enhanced a story-tellers vision. Who needs the chainsaw in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' Front pagers in India like roasting their wives in tandoors. Americans - they have no imagination.

And in a rejoinder to the first love theory, lets scoot over to my other love and my passionate proclamations of love. Oh Wait!

This is a nation where decisions are made in advance by those in the know. The weak are oppressed with the wow of money and power. An authoritarian state, us, Nah! We are a peace-loving democracy. So what if we enjoy a little cultural S&M for kinks. We learn Community Living to love (and rape in some editions I probably missed) thy neighbour. In school, we actually attend Moral Science classes that preach and poach simplistic values of good vs. evil. Balderdash! I distinctly remember asking on one occasion, what I thought was a relevant question, about the existence of God. I was caned.

...Didn't moved mountains for my faith, I must admit.

But I shall have my revenge towards those that stand in my way. I will not hesitate to stab the enemy in the back. I will ensure the shrapnel dangles from his eyelids. I will prevail. I question, I ask and am not afraid to go into battle. After all, building bombs and exhuming hatred against all things unjust (and white) is ensconced onto my Islamic DNA. Isn't it? Don't u dare say don't.

Don't!