Jodhaa Akbar

Understatement is not what you look for in an epic romance that’s set in a period identified with pomp. Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar – despite its spectacular premise and ethereal-looking actors – has its neat share of hearty, everyday blips.

Emperor Akbar (Roshan) is stopped before his feast, to be told by Princess Jodhaa (Rai) that the food is low on salt. After his first look at the demure princess, the Emperor strolls down the palace corridor like a lost teenager, as curtains swirl to A R Rahman’s rapturous score. Jodhaa and Akbar cross swords in a duel that would decide if the Princess of Amer would return to her shauhar’s palace that she had left after a fight.

Gowariker’s detailing works fine in these little touches. What really fails Jodhaa Akbar is its compliance to convention. And it’s not just the classical three-and-a-half-hours run. It’s the clunky writing, underwhelming battle sequences (watch out for those cannon balls and deadpan soldiers) and an inefficacy in tapping into the minds of its protagonists, who are already out there on the pages of history.

The story of the feisty Rajput Princess and her politically arranged marriage to the Mughal Emperor, as conceived in the screenplay (Gowariker and Haider Ali) is not quite a story that had to be told again. Not with this grandstand splendour, at least. The set-piece battles and songs are shot like fancy pageants – the rousing Azeem-o-Shahenshah has giant drums and a crowd of minions genuflecting to the all-conquering Emperor – but Gowariker gets it wonderfully right with Rahman’s terrific Khwaja mere khwaja.

Roshan, the stray affected bits notwithstanding, is in top form. Rai puts in a fairly restrained turn as well. But it’s the fringe players who get a better deal from the writing. Particularly engaging is Maham Anga, the Emperor’s overbearing badi ammi (played with spunk by Ila Arun) and Sujamal (Sood), the failed, tragic prince.

Jodhaa Akbar is mounted on the epic romance staples. While the love story, by itself, is engaging, it doesn’t come with the perspective that could have made this a worthier effort. Despite the all-out sincerity of the lead actors, their presence primarily works as a smart product placement tool for the eyeballs. Precisely why the camera closely freezes on a sweaty, topless Roshan, almost calling out for the gasps.

The old, familiar rush

When I picked an old, sodden copy of The Mosquito Coast from the pavement, it was just about the name. I had heard of Paul Theroux. I knew that Theroux is pronounced without the x, making the purchase all the more gratifying. It was a phase when travel writers came with definitive cool for me. He meant everything from Bohemian abandon to sagely poise. He was at once, the hippie and the Buddha.

At 17, when all my miles couldn't have gotten me past my hometown, I wanted to travel and write. I needed the style. I needed the words. Theroux could help, I presumed. Until someone broke in and said my prized, passed-down possession was a work of fiction and probably one of the more departed from the writer's core essentials. I remember flitting through the book with a strange feeling of betrayal. For me, that was the last of Theroux.

On Wednesday, in the bustling Landmark at The Forum, the man had a blunt, dazzling turn. He revived the solitary traveller in all his brooding, glorious disconnect. Theroux traced the interior world of the traveller's imagination, as pitched against the exterior, physical process of being at an exotic destination. "Imagination, too, is an exotic place," went the line. And the anecdotes. On Jorge Luis Borges, the Russian gulags, African Literature, Gujarati settlers in Kenya, the Civil Rights Movement. More.

"When you are at home, it's like a motherly embrace. You tend to become less critical about your surroundings... Good writing comes out of being isolated."

I'm all set for a revisit. This time, suitably initiated.

Culturally correct

Kyom darte ho? Bolo Hindi.

That's the rather quaintly malayalified teaser for a spoken Hindi column in one of those assembly-line career magazines. The pitch, here, is for job aspirants from Kerala looking out of the State. And who can't say their hain from hoon. In these times, when cultural multiplicity doesn't quite mean what it suggests, a bit of functional Hindi shouldn't hurt. Anything goes, as long as it helps social existence.

Migrant population. There's something galling about its sound. I think inter-state work permits. I think tests to prove affiliation to the Local Culture. I think separate queues for the settlers and floaters. Last time I checked, there was no Constitutional provision that validated physical violence on grounds of ethnicity. The local is a migrant, elsewhere. But obviously, Raj Thackeray disagrees.

The mobilisation of Maratha hostility against the corrupting influences on the city of Mumbai is also pegged to a familiar divisive agenda that may even work in favour of political rebels who have drifted off the Sena's first family. But more importantly, the grain of hate has just spun another charged debate on the question of progress at the cost of cultural identity.

In Bangalore -- one of the country's more culturally inclusive metropolises -- posters have come up saying "Learn Kannada or leave Bangalore." These are minor elements of defiance that don't cloud the overall sense of amity and tolerance that this city is rooted in. But it's hard to miss this tone of expectant glee when some of them discuss the Mumbai situation.

This was random talk at a house party. Soon, it drifted to Mumbai and what it meant for the rest of Us. "No offence (you being an outsider, you see), but just wait... this will spread to other cities." Point noted.

Red Sunday

The weathered building sported fluttering blood-red on this muggy Sunday morning. The flags signalled a CPI(M)-hosted seminar on parliamentary democracy. The turnout, however, didn’t suggest anything remotely linked to the loaded deliberations that would spool out in the seminar hall. Well-groomed boys and girls sauntered in, nimbly flitting between small talk and SMS. Parliamentary Democracy? Is this the stereotype debunked, finally? A dapper teenager put doubts to rest, in an acquired accent: “There’s Also a seminar on IT entrepreneurship.” Ah.

The Other seminar. Nilotpal Basu, acerbic as ever, was on the drill: Engels, counter-reactionary forces, India’s Sham Socialist Constitution, conceptualisation of The Change. Nandigram. The bourgeois mainstream media double up as champions of Socialism, while charging the Left forces with a diluted ideological premise, went Basu. A good part of the Sunday down, Bourgeois Journalist walked out, even as the crowd — a neat mix of hope and prudence — was just warming up. The debate is pegged to the old point: How to take Socialism to the people. How to work within the “limitations” of parliamentary democracy and strive for that Tomorrow.

Two boys from the Also seminar, heard outside of the hall.
“What’s with all the flags?”
“Some party meeting.”