Bioscope: Why I love Pankaj Tripathi?

I had, like everybody else, noted Sultan Qureshi's killer glances and the iconic "Ye Wasseypur hai.." dialogue, rather a statement in an abattoir, when Gangs of Wasseypur arrived on the movie scene. Similarly did I like the Jaago Re campaign where he plays a politician canvassing for votes. Being a selective, infrequent movie watcher, that was pretty much about it. Last year, during the productive wastage of time from my work I happened to watch a series of interviews of actors that I deeply admire. It is there on YouTube- Guftagoo on Rajya Sabha TV.

It so happened that I started discussing the lives of those actors and how they evolved as actors as a result with a close friend. It was then that he suggested that I watch the Guftagoo episode featuring Pankaj Tripathi. It was then that I realised this is a person whose observations of life are so deeply rooted into reality that despite being above par in his profession, he is just a witness to the drama that is life. This, in a profession full of narcissistic personalities, which anyway is becoming more commonplace in the age of Fb and Instagram, is in itself a towering achievement. He does not carry any weight. And his observations of life are a gold standard for even non movie watchers, people interested in society, psychology, human behaviour, literature, and even spirituality. Post that, I have watched almost all his interviews available on YouTube, and make it a point to watch as many of his movies as I can make time for.

Unlike most actors &/or people who live in a delusional world, it feels like he is mentally sorted, realistically. Most other actors of his calibre would feel wronged or not being given their due despite being acting powerhouses. Unlike most, he seems to have just enjoyed the flow without letting it become a "struggle". Having a wife who is well educated and earns well has helped, he quips. But having the intuitive ability to not rush through the self created pressure is what sets him apart. Organic growth is his personal style, not disestablishmentarianism.

It is not just his career that seems organic, it is also his characters. When he is nice, he is not overly nice. When he is cursing, he is not overly cursing. When he is humorous, he is just as much is required. And, most importantly, he is always contemporary to the context. Who else could have thought that even a bhootni could have access to Aadhar card numbers!

He almost has mastered the fine art of being in the headspace of the deadliest cold blooded criminal kingpin, a rural /semi-urban nautanki company owner and a Buddha at the same time. Whatever he plays, almost seems like has come out to be done by a real person placed in that time, space and those situations. And, on top of that, he sincerely promises he will bring down his acting a notch when he senses that the insecurity of his fellow actors is threatening his acting ki dukaan !

Needless to say, his entire body of work must be on anyone's watchlist, be it "cinema" cinema or "entertainment" cinema. Here are a few of my observations from some of his works that I have watched so far. Thank God he got rid of his local gunda avatar tag on screen!

Gurgaon- It is one of his finest performances. This movie reached a very limited audience and hence I mention this at the top of the list. The movie is a thriller and I won't give away spoilers, but his eyes and his body language speak much more than he does in this. It couldn't have been a more bone chilling realistic thriller in fiction on celluloid. The movie reeks of the smell of dust, concrete and blood that Gurgaon is beyond the city lights.

Anaarkali of Aarah- Who could have imagined that the ruthless butcher Sultan Qureshi from Wasseypur could have turned into a Rangeela who dons a nachaniya type gait on stage as he introduces a Bhojpuri local singer of double meaning songs! And with the same agility, he turns into a hapless man whose wife runs away with a milkman and into near-pimp shades when pressured by the powerful. And all of it is every bit believable.

Bareilly Ki Barfi- Mishra ji is any reasonable relatable uncle who does not fret about the unimportant, unlike the most in his place and time.

Mirzapur- Kaleen Bhaiya Ka Bhokaal needs no introduction. Watch it to believe it.

Newton- Men in uniform are mostly portrayed as either too stiff or too macho and heroic. But Atma Singh is neither, yet he has an impeccable sense of duty, and a reasonable dose of aam aadmi's reality check on fresh youthful idealism, humourously or otherwise.

Stree- The omniscient Rudra Bhaiya can also turn into a witch- fearing normal male to avoid being hunted down in a haunted haveli. It does not matter how small face time he's given. He manages to steal the show despite only comparitively fewer minutes- which must bring me to...

Masaan- If Sadhya Ji would have fed me poison, I would have happily consumed it, what to say of the kheer! It is his warmest and most sincere on screen character, which he confesses is closest to his actual personality. He actually chose to play this 2 minute ,2 scene character over the one of Devi's father played by equally gifted Sanjay Mishra, which has a much longer screen time. Reason- packing more of himself into a smaller screen time forces him to be more effective with his acting toolbox, and his intimate personal connect with the role .

Sacred Games fans are already waiting impatiently for the next season where his part becomes more pivotal in the plot. I am no exception.

Watching him and other such contemporary actors makes me cringe even at the thought of watching the trailers of the big Khans of Bollywood.

I just happened to watch the Actors' Round Table 2018, and there he happens to mention how acting for him is a yogic experience (and so it is for other brilliant actors on this show with him), and how he is the actor and witness at same time. He also mentions how connect with literature and society around gives him fodder for his performances. In one interview, he even lightly says he's becoming more known for his interviews than his actual work- and for this, I am totally guilty of being one such fan :D

Happy Pankaj Tripathi interviews binge watching! If you haven't already, what are you even doing?

Bioscope : My Experiments with Audio Visual Entertainment Forms

I have no particular penchant for fads. Bhed Chaal, or mass hysteria in the age of viral news can be quiet misleading. Hence I refrain from being swayed away by the trends. This doesn't mean I completely rule out what's "in". But, it simply means that I give them time and energy only if they mean worthwhile to me. I never quite got into the film/TV series crazy college fraternity because for me, dragging myself through the onerous task of watching something for 2-3 hours had often turned into an ordeal. The last time I have into the mass hysteria was for the movie "Kites", for I was a somewhat crazy Hritik Roshan fan, more so after Dhoom 2. Not anymore, I vowed.

Hence I gave the likes of Friends, How I Met Your Mother, etc a miss as I could not enjoy them as much at that time. Since then, I have taken up watching movies, or TV/online shows only if I find them relatable enough. I have since discovered that I have a decent liking for the thriller drama type shows especially. In comedy, I have only been hooked substantially by only The Big Bang Theory, Khichdi and Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. In drama, I just cannot get over Mahabharat (the new one that aired on Star Plus). Desperate to get me out of my self imposed TV series moratorium, my brother after gifting me a Friends DVD and seeing it gathering dust, introduced me to Sherlock. I could not not like Benedict Cumberbatch. I found him and the series equally gripping. Then I got into the Mahabharat phase. Introduced to me by my mother, I thoroughly enjoyed the ethical dilemma laden series. I loved the grandiose and the dialogues. It was a refreshing return to the real "tatsam" Hindi and the granular dissection of the situations that the characters undergo that hooked me. The music, the sets and the dilemmas live up to the longest epic ever composed. I have been told by people that the Doordarshan version of early 90s is the best, and my mother has watched both and liked both. For lack of time I haven't watched the older one. But this one lives up to the expectations really well. Mahabharat was composed by sage Vyasa to act as the catalogue of all possible human emotions, and it is said that whatever happens in this world is there in the epic, and what's not there doesn't exist. So when the works was going crazy for GoT, I devoured this.

I  consciously skipped watching Game of Thrones until 2017, much after it became a rate- partly for lack of time from other interests, and partly because of the aversion of being blindly driven by viral content on social media. When I did, I finished off 6 seasons within less than 4 weeks, in between some back breaking projects at work. And I could relate to much of it, without being excessively overawed by the Machiavellian realpolitik. I now try to watch content from a space where I can grasp the finer details of the character relevant to me, without being too swayed by their brilliance. And I think if the character has helped me internalise the situation, its brilliance is materialised :), especially in case of drama or thrillers.

Now, I have become more discriminating with the content I watch, so I pick them up when I'm mostly convinced totally of the return in time and obviously relation with reality. A recent criteria of watching movies has also come from watching the interviews of good actors, writers and directors. For instance, I  have watched most Pankaj Tripathi interviews online last year, and have been picking up some other artists, most of whom are very realistic in their profession and portrayal, and above par in their execution of the story.

Through this series Bioscope, I will try to present my perspective on various aspects of movies, acting and television, as and when I can.  They will not be reviews or criticisms per se, but my observations and takeaways from what I came across, as a common feeling-thinking human being

Spirituality for Dummies 3: The Intangible Benefits of Meditation

The intangible benefits are the more subtle benefits that I believe manifest in the tangible ways over a greater period of time. In fact, I'm using the word intangible just because for most people, it might not be naturally obvious, although it is still very real.

1.  Clarity of thoughts- As we grow in meditation, we get fewer unnecessary thoughts bombarding the mind. Hence, the mind feels fresh and energetic more often with consistent meditation.
2. Less need to bond over bitching/complaining- regular meditation makes it clearer that wasting too much energy with a Bollywood style "kandha" is actually too draining on the energy levels. We actually feel more tired after complaining. I lost appetite for complaining too much about boss/colleagues/bullies/landlord/maid/Uber/Ola/anyone whose work Durant match my expectations. If things go your way, will and good, if not, keep moving and wait for the right time
3. Less hustle, more work- we often notice that the more hurried people are, the less work gets done. Meditation leads to a state where the mental hustle is in check and more work happens nevertheless. 
4. Multitasking- less hustle means more mental bandwidth gets freed up for other useful purposes, like trying out different hobbies or interests. Not with excitement, but with stability. Things started with just excitement rarely last long. The excitement needs to be tempered by intuition and calmness to transform it into a lasting thing. Meditation does that 
5. Greater appreciation for haves than have nots- i have been through depressing phases in life, so have many of us. When we come out of it, we almost laugh at it. When we are low, even if we have the best of things, we seem to find fault in our lives. Meditation made me realise that there is so much to cherish even when we don't have our next goal at hand. When we deeply cherish the present moment, we take care of it responsibly. We are aware of what may take us up or bring us down- with greater clarity. Hence we are totally aware of actions and potential consequences. This makes our actions more conscious. I have nearly stopped bargaining present moment for any transient distraction. Unlike popular misconception, I have enjoyed life much more than I earlier did. The love for heightened energy levels of such a state of mind are a reason to not take anything for granted. This automatically increases the awareness in the present moment :)
6. Golden Mean- Often we feel a high is a victory in life and a low is a defeat. We are too short sighted to realise that nothing lasts and each action comes with consequences, sooner or later. In life, we rarely are able to practice steadiness in thoughts and actions. We get swayed by good and bad times and often miss the larger picture and action. This creates a vicious circle of sub optimal decisions and acts. Meditation naturally slows down, cools down and calms down the system that reacting to situations becomes less and less relevant and we begin to respond to things. We become less extreme in our attitude and are better able to tread on the tightrope of life. Balance is easier said than done, but meditation makes it hardwired into the being.

More such benefits will be coming in future posts :)

Keep meditating!

Fam Jam: Baap Baap Hota Hai!

My father is passionate and curious about many things, newspaper, talking to random strangers and travelling count more than most others. When I was a kid, we had quite a few family vacations to many parts of India, mostly North India (plans to visit other places got tragically cancelled for reasons beyond our control). As kids, my brother and I were mostly happy to get multiple photo--ops at beautiful places during our summer vacations. But I now realise how much his passions have made us into better, more content people.

I remember when my brother hadn't even joined a school and I had just started my schooling, Papa was posted elsewhere and used to visit us only on Sundays. We used to grab his fingers early in the morning and walk to the newspaper stall half a kilometre away. There, he would spend at least an hour browsing through the numerous newspapers and magazines. Then he would buy one or two. In the meantime, we glanced through the Nandans, Champaks, Wisdoms and Chacha Chaudhary-s. Then we would walk back home, and bro often bruised his knees. Don't know why his eyes were on the sky while walking! On holidays, racing to pick the paper from the doorstep early morning before Dadu or Papa could take it was a grand ritual. As a kid, I remember watching regional movies with subtitles on DD1 on Sunday afternoons with my family. Whenever Mile Sur Mera Tumhara came up, Papa made sure I was able to recognize the different musical instruments, the different classical musicians, singers, dances, languages and regions as well, not just the movie stars! It was a shame to not being able to distinguish between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, or Telugu and Malayalam and which language belongs to which state. My GK scores were always good at school, and to Mr absolute horror, when I grew up, I discovered most people proudly term all South Indians as Madrasis😱😮. In my home, it was an unpardonable sin😅😂!

The family vacations were planned months in advance. The relevant editions of Sarita were carefully used by Papa to shortlist places to be visited and the places of interest within the tourist place that needed to be seen. After wide consultations he had zeroed in on a Yashica camera. We always complained that two reels of film were way too insufficient for the photos that we wanted to click. And we waited with bated breath after each trip for a couple of weeks till he got the films developed by the best studio in town. Recently when I visited Amritsar with my parents, he insisted on taking a picture of all of us at almost every monument!

I have grown up among HT, Editions of Yojana, Kurukshetra, Economic Survey and Pratiyogita Darpan. The India Today college rankings edition was a must have. When my peers had parents saving for their marriages or college donations, my father wanted us to have the best of education purely on merit. When I was disappointed with my results vis a vis my aspirations, he always believed hard work pays for sure in the long run, despite sometimes getting much more worried. He wanted and still wants me to learn, earn and grow. In the place where I come from, that is a bold decision. For I have seen my peers in engineering earning their degrees just for the sake of having it. I have heard guys and men, friends and colleagues, much better off financially, wanting their daughters and sisters to finish their education and having dreams of marrying them to a suitable boy. Nothing wrong with that, only my father dreamt much beyond that, despite keeping expectations low. Financial independence, married or otherwise, was hardwired into our brains growing up. So was taking independent, well thought decisions and commitments. My Mom says my father had planned that he would send us to the school we went to even before he got married! Meaningful education is close to his heart :), and so is growth. And despite me complaining that his standards are too difficult to cope up with, I think nothing else could give me my perspective that I deeply cherish. I consider him to be a visionary for giving us the exposure that he did and the lessons of intellectual honesty, value of (even if unrecognised) hard work, genuine interest in whatever is happening around in the world, and standing up for our values, no matter how difficult it gets!

My father never took a promotion till we finished our schooling. Still, he always studied for the promotion tests and kept abreast of everything, and worked overtime to make up whatever was possible without a promotion. He knows more about any exam or college or score we're shooting for, than us. I have seen my peers fool their parents and lie to them about scores and stuff with so much jest 😉😂. But, it is impossible to fool him 😎! His research interests in different career options and random conversations with strangers in those streams stretch far beyond an adolescent's capacity to lie 🤗😅 ("Baap Baap hota hai or beta beta" was probably tailor made for him). He is just keenly observant and smiling when people share with him their misadventures of life. And those observations are communicated to us as precautions for the future!

I have often accused him, sometimes angrily and at other times playfully, that his standards are way too lofty and impractical. But, the truth is, whatever realism, stubbornness and perspective on life I have had, I owe much of it to him. Often, that amounts to nothing more than that feeling of "meh" when people go gaga on their selfies at the Taj Mahal or Hawa Mahal or Sun Temple while I think "ye to Papa me bachpan me hi dikha dia tha😂😏". But more often, it has made to do just what I want by being totally deaf to unconstructive criticism and if need be, then being dumb as well 😁

My brother and i have undergone tons of pressure in living upto his standards. And we've finally made our peace with it, and with our capabilities and failings. But our lives' trajectories have much to thank him for.

He has spent continuous sleepless nights guarding us as kids even as we slept in AC train compartments during our summer vacation tours, to protect us from being lifted/kidnapped, even outside Bihar. He didn't give us too many toys and stuff, but a good book was just a phonecall away. Unlike most fathers who gladly save for their daughters' marriage over education, he was more than eager for me to start earning soon and not need him for money. And love of news now runs in the family genes, for more even my mother follows national news with operatic regularity! Sure he's had his own tantrums and quirks, but he is the fiercest, most honest and grounding critic that one can have. Thanks to that, peer pressure and need to fit in has never been much of a problem, and any delusion goes through umpteen reality checks ad nauseum.

We used to get homeworks in kindergarten to write essays on Mother and Father. I think that's too early to write it. My Yes Plus teacher often quotes some famous man, probably Churchill, who said that when he was 16 years old, he thought his father was the most foolish man in the world, but when he turned 25, he was surprised to realize that his father was much smarter than he had thought! He couldn't have been truer.