One Hell Of A Small World!
The coolest thing happened today. It all started with an excited and frantic phone call from Ali, who was waiting to tell someone about this. Tejas was busy, and Romit was being stubborn - he just refused to believe it. But this actually happened.
It all started back when...
Tejas Menon, a very good friend of mine, got entangled in the world of blogging, and quite unknowingly started his own Vlog (a video blog - yeah that phrase does exist) on youtube. I followed, and then it was Romit's turn. What we do, when we are really really bored, is make videos. The Backstreet Boys were our inspiration. We just had to deride their gayness, and that lead to the rise of 'The Frontroad Mans'. (wait, read on, you will find out more) We made a video imitating the Backstreet Boys - with all the 'Yeah's and the 'I Want It That Way's. We then dwelled into other spheres of videography and also tried to make a scary video (it wasn't successful so we called it 'Not So Scary'), some 'Matrix Shit', a news report, a puppet show, a music video (literally) and lots more. So what we did was that we put it up on the World Wide Web for the public to see. And we were waiting for some kind of a reaction. We got views but no comments. We brave souls didn't give in and kept uploading videos, still waiting anxiously for some reaction. That's when Ali's phone call comes into context.
Ali told me to go check out this link, and it left me flabbergasted. We were the topic of discussion for the past two days among some people we don't know because they came across our video on the internet. How cool is that? He had his roots in Dubai and therefore watched our video, more precisely our first production - 'The Frontroad Mans - Incomplete'. Joseph Akkawi (he) put it up on his blog and there are two pages, yes two pages of comments on it. Unbelievable! And as Ali put it, 'We are famous!' I bet you are eager to see our videos now and the comments page too, so if you are as jobless as we are, do the following, you will enjoy it!
1. Visit this link - http://youtube.com/results?search=ali+romit+tejas+anish+harry&search_type=search_videos (This has all our uploaded videos - see as many as you want and do leave your comments. But definitely see Frontroad Mans - Incomplete)
2. The Visit the link below and watch how a bunch of people marveled about the video 'Frontroad Mans - Incomplete. http://www.phride.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12133
3. If you are really really jobless, also visit this link. My short-story, which I had written when I was in Grade 9, and which got published in a very amateur magazine - Young Times, caught the attention of some person. He liked it and put it up on his blog. I find that too cool. It is an okay story, but again the brilliance of the World Wide Web is what I want to highlight.
http://www.xanga.com/mukundh/72468088/item.html
The internet has certainly made the world smaller and has connected us, the people, all over the world. The connecting power of this medium is unbelievable and God bless the person who came up with this, that is if He, as in God exists.
P.S. Shrivats please comment on this. You can start off by telling me who this person is, as in the person who discovered the internet. I know I can just 'google' (I just love that word) it, but I am feeling very lazy, and it is a good excuse to get you to comment!
Rang De Basanti Adds Colour To Bollywood
This past Tuesday night, I witnessed a glimmer of maturity and intelligence in the Indian film industry. Yes, Rang De Basanti has struck all the right notes, and delivers a strong and awakening message. I am very critical when it comes to films, especially Hindi ones, but this one was pure class.
From the introductory scene to the very last shot, every scene was well thought out and brilliantly directed. Every shot was either an emotional punch or a gut-wrenching laugh. The first half of the movie was truly commendable, extremely funny, and beautifully set up for the finale. But as I absorbed the second half, I felt a sense of unrealism. The unrealistic nature of Hindi films is what I hate the most, so before the movie ended, I almost made up my mind about it - it had a good start, but then it became too unreal. But only after the movie got over, did I realize the genius of the film. The extreme nature of the end was the reason why, the message, that the film wanted to deliver, came out so strong. So even after I got a feeling of 'what the hell' in the middle, I have to appreciate the brilliance of how the movie got out its message. It was strong and hard-hitting. It affected me and most others. I laud the effort of the makers of the film and hope that more movies of similar nature are produced.
I find Bollywood quite shameful, because even though it produces the most number of movies, it produces the crapiest ones. Only a few have stood out to me, like Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and now Rang De Basanti. Unrealistic, unoriginal and not satisfying are the three adjectives I normally use to describe any Hindi movie. Bollywood is plagued with the worst sickness. Its sole aim is to earn money, and now it has found another way to earn more ‘cash’– sex! And then they say, look the Indian film industry is maturing. Indian producers produce movies to please the general public, which clearly does not include the intelligent or well-educated class, and feel that producing serious or thought-provoking films will not give them enough money. But what they are unknowingly doing is throwing the fickle-minded into an unreal world, a world where they start to believe that impossible miracles can take place, like ‘Jadoo’ crash-landing on earth, or ‘Shaktiman will save me’! This just continues to highlight India’s backwardness, and instead of using media to, in some way or the other, help the country grow, they are contributing to its stagnation. Yes some films are taking steps to incorporate both aspects – please the public and also leave them with a sense of reality. But it’s rare, and let us hope it doesn’t stay that way. In that sense, Rang De Basanti was quite uplifting. In its own way it has made Bollywood more colourful. Its high time Bollywood produces more films like that.
And about the Television industry of India, don’t even get me started. I think that they spent the most amount of their time on sound effects.
It is a very open topic, so please feel free to give me your opinions.