Your stories are like your children — sometimes you just have to let the bastards go.
V
The secret to good instant coffee is to stir in figure eights once all things including milk are in the cup.
V
The train works. Flawlessly. The track folds open and it runs!
The client seems interested in the basic premise (or at least the one-line email reply was encouraging) and Samir is to meet them with the mock up as soon as we can.
Please re-position all goodwill emitters this way.
V
When you’re depressed, you come up with Urdu shayari. Not something that could be called a kavitaa, for those require some actual thought. Still, below is the one single time I have sunk to the depths of intellectual depravity required of all Urdu shayars extraordinaire.
And even then I come up with this.
Damn it.
~
Champakali se teen ladke karte thé pyaar
Ek ne kiya chupke se pyaar
Doosre ne kiya pyaar ka izhaar
Lekin woh teesre ke saath chali gayi
kyunki uske paas tha Ferrari car.
V
If it’s 12 pm, it must be time for the talk shows.
Lebanese daily talk shows are, as one would expect, very indicative of their culture. They always have more than one female host, the maximum (including guest hosts) can go anywhere up to the dozen mark for a two hour thing. Subjects are usually restricted to make-up, Make Up, fashion (where the studio is, apparently, contractually obligated to have one of the hosts model everything), nutrition (low fat, she said LOW FAT!) and ornamental plant decoration. The chef usually prepares something bizarre that could only be made in Lebanon. One of them (and this I kid you not) somehow finds a way to make almost all his dishes bone-white. Not clear or of a whitish, roux quality — I’m talking chalk soup.
Egyptian talk shows chuck the cooking and fashion tips and nutrition entirely, and just invite over one of the hundreds of greying socio-political literati that Egypt has birthed post WW2. They come over, talk incessantly for two hours without cracking a sweat or a smile, and the host tries not to fall asleep (I’m sure what the guys are saying must be pretty interesting on the whole, but hosts are just like that). This sort of show is what the Lebanese have in the late night 9-12 slot, when all their people are back at home, snug in their leather couches, and feel the need to get right chuffed about culture and current affairs.
Emarati and Kuwaiti shows tend to be similar to Lebanese shows, except there’s always only one host (female), the chef pops up throughout the thing and cooks (if you’re Kuwaiti) something Western European involving Filo Pastry and (if you’re Emarati) Big Pieces of Meat.
Emarati shows also tend to call in doctors and ‘specialists’ from the numerous ‘specialist’ hospitals that litter this country, and with them thise fine men and women of science bring charts, diagrams and the latest, hi-res digital snaps of a foul looking pox, or fungal tooth rot or other green decaying stuff on the flesh.
The hostess nods, smiles her well-practiced, top teeth only smile and informs everyone that after the break some delicious Big Pieces of Meat will be cooked.
Cut to Commercial.
V
Back from India. Dubai is even worse upon return; the smog has set in permanently now. Or perhaps it always was and I didn’t notice.
V
India good. Monsoon good. Amit’s computer just slightly less messed up than owner. Will revert to Rorshach-speak for sake of terse coolness hereforth.
Hurm.
Puny Amit protests to my summation of his life.
Nevermore, I smite him with a large sarcastic remark. Whee.
Saw Bhoot last week. Apparently it killed someone. On a side note, met Dolly the other day at a *trendy* (READ: Overpriced and horrible product) Bandra cafe and spotted the ghost herself (Barkha Madan) sitting at the next table. Looks kinda cute in real life.
Darna Mana Hai comes out in July. Promos now elaborate on the stories. Run of the mill Twilight Zone stuff. Man who can stop time. Man picks up hitch-hiker who starts talking about ghosts… gee, if that doesn’t end with one of them being a ghost I’ll be very, very surprised. Perhaps Urmila will show up and kill everyone.
Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon has some really crappy print ads. “Two Prems, One Diwani” — No shit. Promos now include one with Kareena Kapoor trying ridiculously hard to steer a yacht in ishtyle, and hence looking like she’s playing pinball with coral reefs. Still, slight improvement over the bicycle skills she displayed in Yaadein. For this we are thankful.
Interesting developments in game-ville. I especially like the part about how you can “successfully suck the blood from these points, you can also help the “victim” to ease their defective physical conditions”
Tales of Symphonia looks awesome. Too bad I don’t have the necessary hardware for it.
XP is the devil’s OS.
Hurm.
Puny Amit defends XP. Exuse me, chores to attend to at 2:45 in the morning on a rainy night.
V
It has been noted that Nestle’s Peanut Lion Chocolate Bars are far superior to their regular Lion Chocolate Bars, owing to the fact that their Peanut Lion bars have less chewy caramel, and of course peanuts, which are better than not-peanuts.
Ahem.
V
I’ve decided to stop wearing my glasses so often. The other day I took them off and noticed that even half an hour later things were a bit more out of focus than they should be; I can only surmise that wearing my glasses too often has caused some kind of diminished unassisted vision, and I’ll be damned if this continues.
Step one is getting rid of them. Sure, I haven’t changed the lenses since 2000, and the frame itself is in pieces that have been masking-taped together. I want to stick to my promise of only ever having one pair of glasses in my lifetime; I’m too damn young and too damn Not Stupid to go on the quick ride to coke-bottle eyes, which if three months of actively wearing my glasses outside indicates, will be where I would be in a year or two’s time.
‘They’ (don’t you just love a good ‘They’?) say that not wearing your glasses is going to diminish your vision, and the only way to keep your number steady is to keep them on. Well that hasn’t happened to me, quite the opposite, in fact (and since their my eyes I suppose I’m the de facto expert).
Oh sure, I can see pretty fine, and function in most all ways important; about the only time I imagine I’d need to put my glasses is when driving, and since I don’t even know how, well, moot point. For a few years, anyway. Thankfully I don’t need them to read.
Believe it or not, there is a freakish upside to the whole deal, one which I had quite forgotten about. Walking around everything starts to get this impressionistic smear effect, including people, and just looking at the pretty colour-forms is interesting enough.
Upside two is even more arbitrary, but nonetheless noteworthy to a male: All the women start to look good.
Over the past few months I have been struck by the sheer lack of even halfway-attractive women in Dubai. This problem too has been attributed to my spectacle-wearing affliction of the past few months. Without my glasses I can barely discern their physiognomies at twenty paces anyway, so imagination fills in the gaps and someone I probably would consider second only to the ugliest spawn of hell is transformed into someone I wouldn’t mind waking up next to for the rest of my life.
Sure. Dubai is full of beautiful women. Your eyes just need to be a bit off.
V
Achievements:
Nil. Unsurprisingly.
Also-Rans:
Thought up one of those ‘mad and beautiful ideas’ that Alan Moore seems to have every second minute. Not a half bad idea for a continuing, open-ended comic series. Certainly something worth looking into.
Did some mental decision-making on the Great Hyperbook Project. Still don’t have a name I’m happy with, but now I have decided that the world will have a progress-oriented history, that it doesn’t just remain in misty magic land forever, but does indeed have indsutrial and beyond phases. Also decided that it would feature all sorts of things beyond encylopaedic entries; this major shift was mostly due to the ‘thesis’ page at the back of the first issue of Alan Moore’s Promethea, and my frequent reading of Warren Ellis’s Newsmine, Die Puny Humans. I figure I might as well flex all of my nonexistent talents when I can. The Hyperbook seems the better for it. Now if only I ever get around to doing it (I’m halfway against even starting, as even in the long term I doubt i”m going to make any money — no matter how measly — off it).
Entertainment
Resident Evil (movie) — I suppose people will find it strange that I consider this to be one of the best English movies I have ever seen. It’s arguably one of the best shot and lit; not quite as good as the average Hindi movie (Let’s face it, they don’t have any cinematographers even approaching the quality of Santosh Sivan, Anil Mehta and Johnny Lal), but superbly executed visuals without a single shot that looks like it wasn’t planned and viewed from a Graphic Designer’s POV. And the movie itself was great, the soundtrack was, at last, something very different but still very good, and Milla Jovovich can do as she pleases with me, any day of the week.
Star Trek, “Shore Leave” — Mildly surprised that one of my favourite Star Trek episodes was written by Theodore Sturgeon. I’m dismayed that that doesn’t happen too often these days (‘That’ being a well-known SF writer actually scripting a major SF TV show episode).
Recurring Thought Proccess of the Day:
The Conduit. The Conduit. The Conduit. Mmmmm….
Today has been the nillest of nil days. God, I hate writing blogs on days where it’s just “Oh, I didn’t do anything. Maybe Tomorrow.” I should just resort to this.
Some good did come from today. By early evening we had to go out with one of Dad’s friends who’s come over from Oman. So, this being Dubai, we headed for the malls.
Mercato was the first stop; now that it’s a few months old and has been through its first sandstorm and shower it looks a bit of a mess (not that I was ever impressed by it). The fake painted cracks and wear are now accompanies by muddy lines dried and trickled down the outside walls; when you have real dirt and artificial dirt competing for your attention on an ersatz Venetian facade in a sandy desert city, well…
It was as crowded with decked out posers as it could be; Munna and I were struck by the utter lack of any woman remotely approaching attractive. To think that I thought up a whole short film at Mercato.
Speaking of which, while Munna and I drifted off from the rest he remarked, “For a mall we don’t even like, we sure come here often.”
“I just came here to scout locations,” I said, then launched into one of my impromptu narrations of a film, in this case, a short which I had first conceived at one corner of the very same mall a few months ago.
I found that just above the main entrance on the second floor the bridge overlooks an alcove with a bench that would be much better suited to the film than the rather dull corner bench where the real-life girl that inspired it sat last November.
Munna liked the story after I narrated it to him on the bridge, and promptly solved my one main problem with the whole thing: the dialogue. I have good characters, and a good enough plot for a 10 minute film, but I hadn’t thought of any snappy dialogue yet, no killer lines. I can, and usually do think up a good line or two within a week of thinking up a project; like the whole scene that starts off Benchmark and has led to one of the funnest character and team building experiences I’ve had.
But I Digress. Samir’s suggestion? Make it silent.
Bulbs the size and number of a Las Vegas Casino facade went off in my brain. Brilliant!
Ambient sounds, people just walking around; there will be dialogue, but since most (well, all) of the necessary dialogue takes place inside shops we’d just keep the camera outside looking in. It solves the problem of having two main Indian characters talking without switching between English and Hindi (my initial idea) and makes the whole thing so universal I could kiss it.
Inadvertently, it also solves the one snag I imagined with the fourth character, that of the neurotic sales-lady (who, if I ever get the money to make this thing, I would like Spyder to play). See, she keeps popping up in every single mall and store our protags visit; in the talkie version she’d just say that she needed the extra cash, but this seems a bit flimsy in Dubai where you can legally only work for one company; having her pop around in everything from Burger King to Trussardi would be stretching it).
But now it works! In a silent I can be as surreal as I want without having to explain things. It would be one of those ‘cool’ things that people remember about the film.
Samir went on to come up with a host of kooky ideas (all of which I took good note of). It’s a frantic, energetic thing as it is; to do some of the stuff Samir suggested would be a but alienating, methinks.
So, Mercato done with, we headed for City Centre, where at some point in the snails-pace journey through IKEA I started telling Samir about another movie again.
(Come to think of it, I first told Munna that plot in the car on the way to Mercato the same night I saw the real-life girl who inspired the other short. Huh.)
I went further in depth this time, talking more about the characters and what I want to say rather than the base plot, which is what he heard the last time. We both agree that more than anything — good actors, good direction, good editing — it’s a type of story that needs to be written very very well. If I put my mind to it I can do it, I hope. Sometimes I wonder why I should, because I would like to see it as a motion picture (photographic) and I’m not about to jump into film-making in a non-animated capacity anytime soon. Oh well, it was good to get it out and prove to myself that it is indeed a yarn worth telling.
At one point Dad even listened in to my fervent narration and asked, “Which picture are you talking about again?” Makes me feel nice.
And that’s all I did today. Other than laugh at the fact that the Picture of President Musharraf on the Greenpeace deck of cards is not that of Mush, but one of his underlings.
V
Achievements:
Nil.
Also-Rans:
Had epiphanies about short films
Samir and I thought up some new experimental film-making techniques that I’d love to use sometime; will have to come up with a suitable plot for those.
Convinced myself that ‘MBR’ as a story is not complete crap, and that its protag is not a completely unrealistic character.
Entertainment
None, would you believe.
Brain Screensaver(s) of the Day:
Lollypop Girl (both original real-life cute short Arabian girl as well as film-version tall, dark, toffee-skinned goddess)
Shaarda, protag, MBR! Played by you know who.
Well, I’m a class one gadhaa.
Today I was looking through old Savant stuff and came across a file called Bender.rtf.
“Hmm,” I said, “what’s this? Don’t ever remember….”
Double-click.
Blank Stare.
“Oh…”
Bender featured a character called Sansaarika. Pretty much the same Sansaarika who is in that other thing called, well, Sansaarika, only little older, a lot wiser, and technically a world-class sorceress with an unbelievably hot body.
Er, come to think of it, that other Sansaarika has an unbelievably hot body too.
So, problem: Two Sansaarikas. Two nearly exactly alike Sansaarikas as far as character traits go. The first one, I believe, had been assigned the physical characteristics of a woman I once saw in a Cerelac ad (god, she was cute), while the latter, well, I have a few ideas…
I spent exactly two seconds thinking about it before I went, “Well, that older one will just have to go; the other has my whole dreams of a movie career resting on her pretty imaginary shoulders, and I had all but forgotten about the Cerelac Girl Variant (But MY GOD, SHE WAS CUTE) …Fine? Fine.”
Well… except until I reached the Savant Timeline file, specifically the point after Cleaving of Xaria which reads:
Bent ( 550-600)
Short Story Collection. Start off with Bender and work your way from there. Apparently the spell can only be reversed when three comets, sixteen moons, forty-three planets, three stars and a dozen nebulae are in alliance… and nobody knows when or where that will happen again. So Savant searches for 50 years. Stories range from downright hilarious to deathly serious. LOTS OF LESBIAN JOKES. Enjoy, my future self.
Okay… so now I have two very similar characters who are named the same who are both pivotal in their own way; one is the main character of the best movie idea I ever had, and the other is partly responsible for 50 years worth of Savant stories, and is part of the official canon which I don’t want to change, because now that my memory is refreshed I remember why I loved that character (Old Sansaarika) in the first place.
The easy way out, I know, is to just claim alternate universe flukes and call it a day, but I don’t want to do that. I suppose the characters are different enough now to just change the first one’s name.
That one is problem number two. So right now one of the most beautiful women to ever inhabit my mind is nameless. Well, unless you count “Character based on that woman in the circa 2000-or-so Arabian Cerelac Commercial (MY GOD SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL)” It’s a start, I guess.
And that’s all I did today. Sometimes I surprise even myself.
V
Achievements:
Nil.
Also-Rans:
Found continuity errors and hopefully put myself on a course to repair them. Unresolved as of now.
Entertainment
Star Trek, TOS, Court Martial — Just when you thought perky female lawyers in ridiculously short skirts started with Ally McBeal, good ol’ Trek reminds you that it had them simultaneously in 1967 and Star Date 2973.8.
Brain Screensaver of the Day:
Cerelac Commercial Woman (MY GOD SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL)
So I finally remembered that I do have a blog. Editorializing in my head was getting to be so much fun again that it kinda had me there.
So, Birthday recap:
On the whole had fun. For the first time in years I actually got presents from people who aren’t my family (and, in both cases, thank god for that). The presents I couldn’t choose (which were probably — I shudder to think — hand-picked) were three shirts.
Unfortunately these were trendy shirts. Indian Fashion Movie Star Trendy shirts. I swear, that black one, I’ve never displayed more cleavage than in that. The tan one is nearly a short sleeve kurta but the proportions are all wrong; I look like some kind of peasant from 12th century England, and hell, even back then I wouldn’t look good in it. The white one is the same as the black, only, you know, white. And it itches less.
Needless to say I haven’t worn any of them out of the house. I may be a freak, but I’m a freak with taste.
The second present-giver let me choose, and so we ended up at the Book Corner in City Centre. You wouldn’t expect the best bookstore in Dubai to be dab-smack-center in the most crowded mall in the city. It’s a shame that in five years it’s still the best book store, shelf-space wise. Our raddi-waala opposite Ranade Road has a larger selection of books (and frankly, a more interesting selection), but it was just nice to be around books in this town. And in one corner at the bottom of the children’s section, I found my birthday present: a Watchmen TPB. I was chided for buying ‘comic books’ but I didn’t care, because, well, WATCHMEN!!!!
Now when I actually get some money to burn you can expect me to buy up as much Warren Ellis stuff as I can manage. DC comics, please restock now.
Dinner was nice that day, at the Chinese place down the road; highlight was the Honey Chili Prawn (which present-giver, who was footing the bill, didn’t particularly like). Not as good as its chicken variant (prawns just don’t absorb sauces the same way). All in all a fun Birthday, and a nice way to ring in a new decade of me.
And I did not get a single kiss!!! Yahoo!!!!
Professional:
Let’s see… since then I finished Dolly’s flash portfolio. Not completely satisfied with it, but certainly more than any of my student work.
Personal:
Wrote an outline for Sansaarika that didn’t sound completely stupid. God, I would so like that movie to be made. I will probably have to settle for a graphic novel — movies are not the easiest of things to make properly — but I can imagine it so well it hurts to know that I’m not waking up tomorrow to head to the set and inform people on a megaphone to, “Ignore Kareena Kapoor, she’s supposed to be invisible in this shot.”
Maybe I’m just deluding myself. Outline was decent, though.
Ooh, and I finally got an opening!! Sansaarika had been floundering for a while because of its lack of a solid opening. The one that’s there now is a little surreal and not very exciting, but I love it anyway, and I unconsciously re-worked it in such a way that it fits in perfectly with the second-to-final scene. I’m still unsure that the final scene is necessary; audiences may not be too big on villain redemption, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to keep it in there. That’s what editing is for.
Sansaarika as it stands now would be a 3-4 hour film, which is alright for a Hindi film, but on the long side if it was made in English. I don’t ever want to make it in English. I would be able to stand a graphic novel version in English, but not a movie.
Meanwhile I’ve reworked Jaadoo into a very appealing, if Hollywood-ish plot. Gone is the thinly-veiled Video Girl Ai in a Salwaar romantic comedy, replaced by a pretty straightforward but nonetheless fun Urban Fantasy detective/action/comedy thing. And I can use the same opening without changing a bit!! It’s a very character-centric tale, like all my work, but still a bit of an American Movie. Scratch that; it’s still an Indian film plot, it’s just more like a western graphic novel than anything I’ve seen succeed in India.
But then, I’ve never made my films, so you never know, people may actually like them.
Yeah, right.
I’ve been coming up with a few good saleable plots. By saleable I mean that they’re English 90-120 minute stuff that doesn’t require songs, and are very America-centric. I come up with these because if I do write them one day I will try to sell them to US studios; they pay the most, I assume.
The plots themselves are pretty tame: Legal Dramas, Romantic Comedies, Disaster type things which are character-centric. Only one of them is remotely Indian, and that one is more Merchant Ivory than Yash Raj.
I have also been coming up with more mad and crazy Indian film ideas that have no chance of attaining commercial success, but I love them like my kids anyway. The latest? Something called Beat-em-Up Babumoshai.
Yes. I know.
I was looking through my Grand Plan file and sometimes it makes me feel a bit useless. All those plans and things to do, and here I am still fighting to sit down at the keyboard or the desk or the pad and do something towards achieving at least some of it.
Samir was looking at it the other day and we both agreed that if I stop thinking up new ideas right now and only flesh out the titles that are in my plans folder I’ll have a remarkably prolific lifetime career. I mean, 40 novels, 30 films in at least two languages, ten comic series and a few dozen miscellaneous bits is a good career, right?
I’m penis-waving. Ignore.
Currently writing a Savant story. I’m saying ‘Damnit all to hell’ and just writing from the heart; this one deals with his first visit to Xaus Vassa during the Nepaari days. It’s thick with dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere, and its plot is iffy, but I just like writing Savant so much that it doesn’t matter. It’s a backstory piece, throwing Savant and company into a light that they have never been publicly seen in before. I know about the sordid history, but what few readers I have don’t; they still think these people just got along from day one and all was hunky-dory. I’m interested in seeing the responses, if any, to this gargantuan story (I predict, at this rate, to finish around 10K words). One day I may be able to just transplant the story directly into First Days, the book in which it would logically take place. That would be good.
V
Achievements:
Finished Dolly’s Portfolio. My first professional assignment ever. Whee.
Also-Rans:
Sansaarika outline.
Jaadoo reworking.
3000 words of rambling Savant.
Lots of miscellaneous good ideas.
Entertainment
Star Trek, TOS, Various Eps
Perfect Blue – if you haven’t seen this anime, you must do so at the earliest
X2: X-Men United – not perfect, but still a damn fine movie, unlike some other second parts *cough*TwoTowers*cough*