Monday, April 6, 2026

[Live Blog] Poll Verdict: Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

6:58 PM – That speech was an extraordinary exercise in positioning oneself on the national stage. It was clearly meant for a national audience, hit the right spots (good governance, praising the people, attacking his critics for damaging Gujarati asmita, completely ignoring 2002) and was almost inspirational in its hyperbole. It has been a great day if your name is Narendra Modi.
The final Gujarat tally came in during the 45 minute address. Heerabhai Patel (Congress) came back to win Lunawada by 2,201 votes, which means the BJP ends on 115 seats, with 61 going to the Congress. Bhattiyat remains undecided in Himachal Pradesh, as the BJP candidate leads by 111 votes. The Congress has won 36 seats so far, while the BJP has 25. It’s been a pleasure bringing the day’s returns to you. It’s also been exhausting. Thanks for reading.
6:33 PM – He asks journalists who came to cover the rough and tumble of the elections to take the other, less dramatic qualities of the state and tell the world about them. He says that the news of his unique hologram speech wasn’t spread around the world because they didn’t want to praise Modi. “I don’t want to stop, I don’t want to tire, I just want to  fulfil the dreams of the Gujarati people,” he says.
6:27 PM – Modi says he wants to serve the people of India by building a better Gujarat, that will support other parts of the country. This is really beginning to sound like a campaign speech for national office.
6:25 PM – “I don’t work for certificates and medals from the global community. I’ve won so many; I don’t have any space left. I work for the betterment of my people.” He says he will visit Delhi on the 27th, and a “PM!” chant breaks out.
6:20 PM – “This election is a landmark one because we worked honestly on a development platform and won. The people who wanted to stop us from winning resorted to lies and more lies. I salute the voters for not listening to these lies, even when finding the truth was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. I am happy that I did not resort to these tactics. I wrote a poem once where I said that I take the stones people throw at me and make it into a staircase. And this staircase has taken me to a hat-trick.”
6:14 PM – He trains his guns on the political pundits who have been struggling to come to terms with the Gujarat verdict. He asks his people to pray for them, so they get a good night’s sleep tonight. Ouch. “Why are these people so desperate to belittle Gujarat?” he asks.
6:13 PM – “12 crore eyes watch me as I work for them. This victory is not mine, it belongs to the 6 crore people of Gujarat, and to every person who desires good governance in this country. The sweat of the lakhs of my party workers beat any amount of money. I bow my head to these workers, who toiled under heavy pressure. What I am is because of my party. It is because of the work of party workers over the last 60 years that the BJP’s flag flies in victory over Gujarat today … I want to do great work for this state. There was a time when governments used to do one or two good deeds in their tenure of five years. I am someone who needs to do something new every day.”
6:07 PM – “God knows what has been written about me over the last few years. But when the postal ballots were opened, the naysayers were shocked to see the BJP  getting 70 to 75 percent of the vote … I understand that government servants today probably leave at 10 PM when they left at 5 earlier, but that is because they are serving the people of Gujarat … I am happy that I have kept the values instilled in me as a child. I apologise if I made any mistakes … After every election I won, people expected that I would take it easy. They were proved wrong every time. I promise that I will dedicate the next five years to work for the people with all my capacity.” He asks the people for their blessings so that he doesn’t make any mistakes.
5:59 PM – “If a government provides good governance, the voters will reward it despite everything else. That is what this election has shown. Political parties should realise that instead of making hollow promises, they should understand the hopes and aspirations of the people and work to fulfil them. We have made many difficult decisions, probably angered many people. But I did what I felt was best for the people of this state. And the people have rewarded me by embracing our party.”
5:55 PM – “The people used to think that governments came and went every five years. But they have now made government accountable by giving it stability. This shows that the electorate has matured. They refused to listen to the opposition’s lies, refused to take the bribes offered in the guise of election manifestos. This is why political pundits across the country are talking about Gujarat today. The 6 crore people of Gujarat are the true heroes today.”
5:52 PM – Modi asks his supporters to extend their love and respect to the defeated opposition. “The election results have shown that this country’s voters understand what is good for them,” he says. “They have shown how mature the voter has become. Political pundits will have understood that Gujarat has experienced the communal tension of the 1980s, and do not want to return to those conditions. Gujarat’s voters have risen about parochialism and communalism to think about the future.” No mention of 2002.
5:46 PM – Modi’s speaking in Hindi. So much for our translator. She’s being returned to her cupboard.
5:43 PM – And Modi’s on stage now. Our one Gujarati-speaking colleague is on hand to translate. The MC announces that Modi is here in person and not through a 3D hologram. Glad they cleared that up.
5:00 PM – In Himachal, three seats are still counting. That includes Bhattiyat, where Bikram Singh Jaryal of the BJP leads Kuldeep Singh Pathania by 226 votes. If Jaryal hangs on and the other two seats stay as they are, the Congress would win 36 seats to the BJP’s 26.
4:51 PM – Eleven seats in Gujarat are yet to declare their results. Of these, six are substantial Congress leads, while four will probably go to the BJP, which would leave the count at 115-60. The eleventh seat – Lunawada – is the interesting one, as Kalubhai Hirabhai Malivad of the BJP leads Heerabhai Haribhai Patel of the Congress by 59 votes. That is out of more than 1.4 lakh votes cast. This one’s probably not going to be decided anytime soon.
4:29 PM – The wait is on now for Narendra Modi’s address to his supporters. The Election Commission website suggests Chidambaram might be able to claim victory at the end of the day, as the BJP’s projected tally remains static at 116. That would be a loss of one seat from 2007, and a gain of one seat for the Congress, which is projected to win 60.
4:06 PM – Modi and his former political mentor Keshubhai Patel feed each other sweets in a show of camraderie.
4:00 PM – It’s official: the BJP has now won more than 93 seats, securing an absolute majority. Narendra Modi will be sworn in for his third term on 25 December. He’s met his mother, and is now off to build bridges.

 
3:51 PM – Here’s Amin’s full quote: “The Congress leadership – Rahul Gandhi, Mohan Prakash, CP Joshi – is responsible for this loss. The state leaders were busy in getting tickets for their aides, leaving the party in an orphan state. Even the Congress senior national leaders were unhappy with the way the tickets were distributed in the state. This was also reflected in the fact that even the topmost state leaders lost in their constituencies.” Amin was a former deputy CM of the state and a senior Congress leader, who quit the party to join the BJP after being denied a ticket.
3:34 PM – Tehelka Special Correspondent Brijesh Pandey has met with Congress rebel Narhari Amin. He tweets:

 
3:20 PM – So here are the results as they stand. In Gujarat, the BJP has won 77 seats and is leading in 39, bringing their total to 116, one less than 2007. The Congress has 42 wins and 18 leads for 60. The GPP has managed only two. In Himachal, four seats remain to be called. The Congress has secured an absolute majority with 36 seats, while the BJP has won 24 and is leading in two more.
3:03 PM – Twitter’s been abuzz all day, as expected from the occasion. Much of the talk has been about Modi, but Chidambaram’s reaction has attracted its fair share of flak.

 

Narendra Modi, meanwhile, is off to meet his mother before he addresses his supporters.
2:53 PM – Former Karnataka CM BS Yeddyurappa has reacted to the Gujarat verdict. “The victory of Modi in Gujarat is not the victory of BJP,” he says. “It’s the victory of brand Modi. We can make out the impact of BJP through the result of Himachal Pradesh. The party should be called Modi’s regional party: the victory is Modi’s personal victory.”
2:16 PM – Jagruti Pandya, widow of slain former home minister Haren Pandya, has lost heavily in the Ellisbridge constituency, winning only 9,075 votes. The GPP candidate, who claimed that Modi had IB officers following her, finished behind Rakesh Shah (BJP), who won 1,06,631 votes, and Kamleshkumar Shah (Congress) who came second with 29,959. Meanwhile, Arjun Modhwadia has resigned as GPCC chief.
1:58 PM – Manish Tewari has a unique glass half-full approach. “All the constituencies where Rahul Gandhi campaigned,” he says, “the Congress has won.” Wow.
1:42 PM – Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has tweeted his reaction to Modi’s victory:

1:37 PM – It is important to note that the numbers being flashed on TV include both actual results and leads. In Gujarat, the Election Commission has so far officially declared 31 seats, with 23 to the BJP and eight to the Congress. Narendra Modi, fittingly, was the first to be declared a victor, winning Maninagar by 86,373 votes. Shweta Bhatt (Congress), however, managed to keep her deposit, winning 21 percent of the vote.
1:23 PM – One interesting facet of the election has been defeats for second rung leaders of the Gujarat BJP. Four ministers are projected to be losing: Dilip Sanghani, Fakir Vaghela, Praful Patel and Jaynarayan Vyas. Vyas is trailing by 4,000 votes in Sanand, the site of the Tata Nano plant.
1:06 PM – Kapil Sibal puts in his entry for the quote of the day contest. “The campaign in Gujarat was 3D,” he says, “but the result was 2D.”
1:01 PM – Outgoing Himachal CM Prem Kumar Dhumal is addressing the media, congratulating the Congress for its victory and promising to introspect on the faults within the BJP. Narendra Modi will address the media at 5 PM.
12:54 PM – BJP senior leader Shanta Kumar has conceded defeat in Himachal Pradesh, saying: “We accept the verdict. All people in the BJP had fought elections together. The people did not vote for us. We accept it.” The Congress is now leading in 38 seats, to the BJP’s 24.
12:50 PM – Another major Congress setback is Arjun Modhwadia, who is losing his Porbandar seat to Babubhai Bokhiria (BJP) by almost 17,500 votes.
12:46 PM – The Congress has made gains in Saurashtra, increasing their tally to 18 from 14 last year. The BJP has lost five seats to fall to 36 seats in the region.
12:43 PM – Even as the tallies seem almost identical to 2007, the elections have by no means been an incumbent’s dream. As many as 81 seats have changed hands so far.
12:36 PM – “It is a victory for the Congress in both states,” claims Chidambaram. “The Congress has improved its tally in both the states. 2014 is 16 months away. The vote percentage has increased. The BJP had two states; in Himachal, the Congress has won. In Gujarat, the real winner is the Congress’ development plank. The BJP was claiming 140 seats but has been contained below 114.”
12:29 PM – Finance minister P Chidambaram had the quote of the day earlier, claiming that the Congress secured a moral victory by restricting the BJP to less than the 117 seats it won in 2007. Even that claim is now suspect, as the BJP is currently leading in 120 seats.
12:15 PM – Gujarat home minister Praful Patel is trailing Rajubhai Chavda (Congress) in Himatnagar by over 11,800 votes.
12:10 PM – Prem Kumar Dhumal is being projected to have won the Hamirpur constituency, beating the BJP’s Narinder Thakur by 9,302 votes. The Congress is leading the BJP by 10 seats in the state, 36-26.
12:01 PM – The GPP’s general secretary Gordhan Zadafia, home minister of the state during the 2002 riots, is also trailing in the Gondal constituency, trailing Jayrajsinh Jadeja (BJP) by almost 20,000 votes. Party president Keshubhai Patel, however, is leading his Viravadar constituency by over 23,500 votes. Both seats are dominated by Leuva Patels, a group that was expected to catapult the new party to great heights.
11:56 AM – Shaktisinh Gohil’s woes continue, as he is projected to lose his Bhavnagar Rural seat by over 20,000 votes to Parshottam Solanki. This is probably the biggest individual upset of the election.
11:42 AM – The networks have been calling Maninagar for Modi sporadically over the last two hours, but the Election Commission website still says counting is in progress. Shweta Bhatt is in danger of losing her deposit, trailing Modi by over 80,000 votes.
11:37 AM – As pundits all over the TV begin the inevitable discussion on Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions, the Congress is romping home to a majority in Himachal, leading in 38 seats to the BJP’s 24.
11:34 AM – The exit polls seem to have overstated Modi’s performance somewhat, as the BJP seems headed for a repeat of the 2007 verdict, with 115-117 seats. That is no mean feat; it is almost a two thirds majority in the state.
11:24 AM – Controversial BJP leader Amit Shah, main accused in the Sohrabuddin false encounter case, is leading in his Naranpura constituency by almost 50,000 votes.
11:21 AM – The breakup of the Gujarat results is instructive. In rural seats, the BJP and Congress are tied at 48 seats each, while in urban seats, the BJP has 46 seats to the Congress’ 7. In Muslim-majority seats, Modi’s party leads in eight seats, while the Congress has only four.
11:05 AM – In the first of our podcasts on the elections, Tehelka Special Correspondent Ashhar Khan says that the Himachal result is symptomatic of the cyclical nature of the state, which has a history of anti-incumbency, but the real headache for the party will come after the results, when it has to choose a new chief minister.

10:57 AM – Tehelka’s Aymen Mohammed has been talking to Gujarat Congress spokesperson Hriday Buch. “The people have voted for Modi and not the Indian National Congress,” he says. “However, the benefits of (Modi’s) development programme have not reached the rural areas and the people in these areas, especially in the Saurashtra region, have reposed their faith in the Congress.”
10:42 AM – Virbhadra Singh refuses to comment on whether he will be the chief minister of Himachal if the Congress comes back to power in the state.
10:39 AM – In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress is saving face, leading in 33 seats as opposed to the BJP’s 24. CM Dhumal’s son, Anurag Thakur says it is too early to say if infighting led to the party’s downfall.
10:31 AM – Gujarat Congress spokesperson Chetan Raval is refusing to concede the election, saying they will wait for the people’s verdict to come in. To be fair, not one seat has reported a result. A Congress comeback is still possible, but very, very unlikely. Meanwhile, the BJP is leading in 115 seats to the Congress’ 59, which is very similar to 2007.
10:24 AM – Keshubhai Patel, who is contesting from Visavadar, is leading Kanubhai Bhalala of the BJP by 2,500 votes. His party, however, hasn’t managed to live up to expectations, leading only in four seats.
10:15 AM – In Himachal Pradesh, chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal is leading in his Hamirpur constituency by 1,430 votes (with only about 11,000 votes counted).
10:09 AM – As for Narendrabhai himself, he is leading Shweta Bhatt by over 30,000 votes in his Maninagar constituency. Bhatt is the wife of IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who has alleged Modi was instrumental in planning and executing the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms.
10:05 AM – The Election Commission website is showing 104 leads for the BJP in Gujarat, with 59 for the Congress. In Himachal, it’s 28-20 in favour of the Congress.
10:03 AM – The leader of the Opposition in Gujarat, Shaktisinh Gohil, is trailing in his constituency of Bhavnagar (Rural) to the BJP’s Purshottam Solanki by over 10,000 votes.  In this interview, he had predicted victory, as Solanki was, in his opinion, a “lousy candidate”.
9:47 AM – The Congress has gone ahead in Himachal Pradesh, with 30 leads to the BJP’s 22. Also, vote shares are in from Gujarat, with the BJP getting more than 49 percent of the vote to the Congress’ 41.
9:44 AM – A couple of interesting trends coming in. The BJP is doing very well in seats with a sizeable minority population, leading in nine of the 12 that have reported so far. On the other hand, it’s tied 8-8 in the cluster around Modi’s hometown of Vadnagar.
9:23 AM – Abhishek Manu Singhvi is on Times Now, curiously in black and white. He says that it’s too early to comment, that nothing can be said before 10:30 AM. And there you go, Himachal Pradesh is now tied 19-19 for both national parties.
9:19 AM – The BJP seems to be running away with Himachal Pradesh, with 20 leads to the Congress’ 14 so far. But the exit polls suggest a close race, with the Congress edging out the BJP. C-Voter gives 30 to 38 seats to the Congress, with 27 to 35 for the BJP. Chanakya gives it 40-23 to the Congress, while CNN-IBN gives 29 to 35 to both the Congress and the BJP.
9:14 AM – The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition has this nugget. Pure gold.
9:07 AM – Leads in from 105 seats in Gujarat. The BJP leads in 66, while the Congress has 34 leads. In Himachal, it’s 11 for the BJP and 5 for the Congress.
8:52 AM – You wouldn’t know it from watching TV right now, but there is also an election being counted in Himachal Pradesh. Seven leads are in, with the BJP leading in six and the Congress in one.
8:49 AM – Leads are in from 25 seats in Gujarat, with the BJP leading in 17, while the Congress has 8 leads.
8:47 AM – Speaking of factionalism, Tehelka’s Brijesh Pandey, who is in Ahmedabad, has talked about the disunity in the opposition Congress in this article.
8:43 AM – Everybody and their uncle has had an opinion on which way the count is going to go. But what do the exit polls say? It’s good news for Modi, as most polls predict him increasing his 117-seat haul from 2007. CNN-IBN has the BJP getting 129 to 141 seats, while CVoter gives him 119 to 124, and ABP Nielsen says his tally will fall slightly to 116. His victory is all but assured, despite factionalism and anti-incumbency.
8:28 AM – It’s 20 December, which means the world could come to an end tomorrow. Modi-baiters would suggest that the Gujarat CM coming back into power could have something to do with that. The count has begun, and the networks are promising three hours of commercial-free awesomeness. No figures are in as yet.
8:07 AM – D-day for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly election results. The counting of votes in Gujarat and HP will begin shortly. Tehelka Special Correspondent Brijesh Pandey is in Ahmedabad, tracking the latest updates…

The Hobbit: Jackson’s film fails to recreate the fantastical

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

As an engineering student, I copped a lot of grief for refusing to worship at the altar of JRR Tolkien. It wasn’t so much that one didn’t respect the sheer awesomeness of the world the mild-mannered English professor had imagined, but the fact that one couldn’t be bothered to read through thousands of pages of arcane trivia about a non-existent universe in order to parse through a plot that wasn’t gripping enough, didn’t justify the exercise. Fantasy fiction is at its best when it tells us something about the real world. The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) was perhaps the same prescriptive tale of heroism that had turned me off organised religion by then. Tolkien’s trilogy triggered an aversion for the genre — filled mostly by bad imitations of itself.
So when one says that The Hobbit is as poor an attempt at providing an origins tale to a popular trilogy as The Phantom Menace was, one is perhaps prejudiced by a jaundiced view of Tolkien, but at least there’s an acknowledgement of the possibility of the said prejudice. Peter Jackson’s treatment of what is a very different text from Tolkien’s trilogy is more of the same and is sleep-inducing at best.
One could be charitable and say that his decision to expand the book into a trilogy was because he missed immersing himself in Tolkien’s imagination; others would say he wanted to cash in on it. Whatever be the reason, it fails: at 300 pages,The Hobbit is a tenth of the size of the LOTR books, which means that unlike those films, the challenge for Jackson is to add stuff, rather than remove it. He does this not by adding depth to the characters or playing around with storytelling methods, but by adding extraneous plot and introducing more characters, some of whom appeared in the trilogy but were left out of the films. The perfectly sane, animal loving wizard Radagast, for instance, is metamorphosed into a mushroom-abusing lunatic riding a sleigh driven by rabbits. All right, Sylvester McCoy is awesome (used here in the more commonplace sense) in the role. But there’s also an arc involving an orc with a grudge against the dwarf king Thorin (Armitage, as badass as ever), which is never given any more depth than snarling wargs giving pursuit. This is settled in a double climax, with the all-important war with the goblins from the book, on the sidelines of which Bilbo comes across The Ring, getting second billing to settling this invented rivalry. The end of the battle has been abused as a deus ex machina by Jackson so many times that when the first time Tolkien used it comes around, one says, “Oh, no. Not again.”
The words, “Oh no, not again” work as a refrain during the run time of the film. Jackson is a better technician than a storyteller, and has a limited repertoire of expression. The Hobbit is different from the trilogy in its lightheartedness, but that is because it was primarily a children’s story. However, there’s not much difference when it comes to the grammar of the film; why change a successful style just to please an insignificant critic? It feels like a fourth film, which has positives, especially if you’re a sucker for the New Zealand countryside, but also negatives — such as the fact that it feels like a fourth film.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com

The Family That Poses Together

By
Aradhna Wal
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WHEN HE was 18, Sean Lee picked up the camera only to never put it down again. The 27-year-old photographer from Singapore has been making waves with the latest edition of his evolving series Homework, initiated in 2010, which is showing as part of the exhibition Postcards from the Interior at Exhibit 320, Delhi. Initiated by Singapore-based artist Nicholas Foo and curated by Delhi-based photographer Tanvi Mishra, the show brings together photographers from India and Singapore in an attempt to explore self and identity. Lee’s work fits right into the framework. In Homework, he turns the camera onto his family. “He can’t extricate himself from his work. It is as much about him as it is about his family, albeit in constructed fictional scenarios,” says Mishra. She emphasises the importance of touch in his images — his parents hugging, his mother sitting on top of his father — something so simple yet so alien to children growing up in Singapore, or for that matter South Asia. Photographer Prashant Panjiar, who also selected Lee’s work for 2011 Delhi Photo Festival, adds, “The root of affinity is family. It is yet another way of going into the self. Looking at family is looking at the self.” Lee has also shown at the New York Photo Festival, the Arles Photo Festival and the Angkor Photo Festival where he won the Special Jury Prize (2007).


The exhibition is on till 7 January. It also features Sumit Dayal, Ankit Goyal, Carrie Lam, Akshay Mahajan and Nguan
Aradhna Wal is a Sub Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

Weeping Murder

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Talaash
DIRECTOR
Reema Kagti
STARRING
Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Raj Kumar Yadav, Shernaz Patel, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vivan Bhatena

IT IS impossible to talk about Talaash without talking about its ending, a curveball that follows in the footsteps of Sujay Ghosh’s Kahaani in providing truly gamechanging plot twists for a strong female character. Or so it proved on social media over the weekend, as status updates, not always complimentary, by shocked moviegoers infested timelines. They were inevitably followed by irate return tweets or comments, cursing the shocked moviegoers for spoiling the end for them. Joy Bhattacharjya, quizmaster and fount of trivia, recounted on Facebook the story that you always tipped the cabbie well while going to watch Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap in London’s West End, for fear that he would yell out the murderer’s name while driving away.
Reema Kagti’s climax, while not much less shocking than Christie’s, does not have the same impact. I burst out laughing, I’m afraid, though in hindsight it wasn’t that bad. And it is the ending that shapes one’s impression of this otherwise decent film, driven as it is by plot. Of course, this isn’t a simple whodunnit. What begins as a routine police procedural transforms into a ponderous look at loss, or at least what passes for a ponderous look in mainstream Bollywood. For a director who is part of a movement pushing the boundaries of conventional cinema, Kagti plays it surprisingly safe, relying on exposition, flashbacks and over-the-top outbursts to tell her story, with too few of those poetic moments that make a great film.
Aamir Khan plays Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat, a tightly wound policeman who’s been handed a difficult high-profile case of the mysterious death of actor Armaan Kapoor (Vivan Bhatena), who has managed to “off” himself without the customary drug overdose. As Shekhawat plods on, trying to find the murderer, we discover he is fighting inner demons, blaming himself for negligence leading to the death of his child. These two arcs work in parallel, as Shekhawat seeks to unravel the mystery as he slowly unravels himself. It works to an extent in a grungy, neo-noir way, but the writing lets it down. Neither arc is compelling enough to stand on its own, and there is little interplay between the two until the climax. While that does make the end more dramatic, it means that until the end does finally come, the audience is trying to decipher what the film is fundamentally about.

Talaash has enough tension to start with, but spends too much time struggling to describe Shekhawat’s demons

The pacing plays an important role in this. I do not subscribe to the general reaction that the second half dragged, as there is nothing I like more than a slow-burn drama paid off with a thrilling conclusion (I just wish the thrilling conclusion was something, well, better). But even The Killing, the glacially slow Danish TV series — remade in the US — that deals with the process of grief against the backdrop of a murder, understood the need for a strong plot with enough twists (the problem with the American remake was the plethora of such twists) to keep the audience engaged.Talaash has the requisite amount of tension to start with, but spends too much time struggling to describe Shekhawat’s demons. It doesn’t help that neither Aamir nor Rani step out of their comfort zone, and that Kareena plays a streetwalker with such little believability that you expect her to break into Zoobie Doobie at any time.
Oh, but Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Is there anything the man cannot do?
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com

Dumb Gets Dumber

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Khiladi 786
Khiladi 786
DIRECTOR: Ashish R Mohan
STARRING: Akshay Kumar, Asin Thottumkal, Mithun Chakraborty, Himesh Reshammiya, Raj Babbar

BOLLYWOOD REVIEWERS have for long given genuinely terrible films a fig leaf by calling them mindless entertainment. Leave your brain at home, they say, and you will enjoy this film; a statement as ridiculous as a restaurant reviewer asking you to leave your stomach at home to enjoy the food. Bollywood has accepted the compromise and begun to create films that cater to that easy out. Of course, these films do on occasion become successful, especially if there is enough star power to draw audiences. Which is fine, as people are free to do what they wish with their money, but for someone who gets paid to judge films on their merits to not call these films terrible is providing a disservice to their readers.
By all yardsticks, Khiladi 786 is a terrible film. As a commercial film, as a slapstick comedy, as a soundtrack (Hookah Bar? Really? No, really?), it is genuinely bad. That’s not a surprise when you consider that an actor in a central role, the singer of most songs, the music composer, the genius who came up with the story, and a co-producer are all Himesh Reshammiya, Bollywood’s resident backpfeifengesicht. That delightful German word, translated as a face you have an innate urge to punch, is an apt description for his voice (no, voices can’t be punched, but admit it, you want to), which means one ends up contemplating violence against him and Kumar, who his terrible songs are picturised upon.

As a commercial film, as a slapstick comedy, as a soundtrack (Hookah Bar? Really?), Khiladi 786 is genuinely bad

The film is the eighth instalment of the Khiladi series — Bollywood’s largest franchise, with the films having nothing in common apart from the fact that they have the word ‘Khiladi’ in their title and star Akshay Kumar as a badass. Reinforcing the idea that there is somebody for each of us in this world (and implying that it is preferable that that somebody is an Indian), Khiladi 786conspires to tie into holy matrimony 72, yes, 72 Singh (Kumar), a badass, if not entirely legally kosher, catcher of smugglers on the Punjab border, and Indu Tendulkar (Asin), the badass sister of Mumbai mafia boss Tatya Tukaram Tendulkar (Chakraborty). It is by no means a star-crossed love affair; the two are brought together by the incompetent wedding broker Mansukh (Reshammiya), who convinces the two families to lie to each other and pretend to be respectable policemen, secure in the knowledge that once the wedding is over, the film will end and his character would’ve disappeared into the oblivion of its creator’s mind — in this case, his own. Of course, he is not as postmodern as all that, and his general strategy is to simply wing it and hope for the best. Thankfully for him, 72 and Indu end up falling in love and live happily ever after.
But, despite its terrible premise, plot, acting, directing and music, it is very hard to actively hate this film. God knows it tries hard enough, with its racism, misogyny and, worse, factual inaccuracy. But perhaps it is the delightful idea of giving characters numbers as names (the Singh clan is made up of 70, 71, 72 and 74; 73 having been lost in a fair). Perhaps, it is the wink-and-nudge embracing of the ridiculousness of the film by itself, or the throwaway meta moments and some genuine zaniness, byproducts of throwing the kitchen sink to make the audience laugh. Perhaps, it was just Chakraborty’s ridiculous Bong-accented Marathi bhau. Yes, it was quite terrible. Yes, it was mindless. But was I entertained? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com

Dumb gets dumber

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Film: Khiladi 786
Director: Ashish R Mohan
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Asin Thottumkal, Mithun Chakraborty, Himesh Reshammiya, Raj Babbar
Bollywood reviewers have for long given genuinely terrible films a fig leaf by calling them mindless entertainment. Leave your brain at home, they say, and you will enjoy this film; a statement as ridiculous as a restaurant reviewer asking you to leave your stomach at home to enjoy the food. Bollywood has accepted the compromise and begun to create films that cater to that easy out. Of course, these films do on occasion become successful, especially if there is enough star power to draw audiences. Which is fine, as people are free to do what they wish with their money, but for someone who gets paid to judge films on their merits to not call these films terrible is providing a disservice to their readers.
By all yardsticks, Khiladi 786 is a terrible film. As a commercial film, as a slapstick comedy, as a soundtrack (Hookah Bar? Really? No, really?), it is genuinely bad. That’s not a surprise when you consider that an actor in a central role, the singer of most songs, the music composer, the genius who came up with the story, and a co-producer are all Himesh Reshammiya, Bollywood’s resident back pfei fengesicht. That delightful German word, translated as a face you have an innate urge to punch, is an apt description for his voice (no, voices can’t be punched, but admit it, you want to), which means one ends up contemplating violence against him and Kumar, who his terrible songs are picturised upon.
Reinforcing the idea that there is somebody for each of us in this world (and implying that it is preferable that that somebody is an Indian), the eighth installment of the Khiladi series — Bollywood’s largest franchise, with the films having nothing in common apart from the fact that they have the word ‘Khiladi’ in their title and star Akshay Kumar as a badass — conspires to tie into holy matrimony. 72, yes, 72 Singh (Kumar), a badass, if not entirely legally kosher, catcher of smugglers on the Punjab border, and Indu Tendulkar (Asin), the badass sister of Mumbai mafia boss Tatya Tukaram Tendulkar (Chakraborty). It is by no means a star-crossed love aff air; the two are brought together by the incompetent wedding broker Mansukh (Reshammiya), who convinces the two families to lie to each other and pretend to be respectable policemen, secure in the knowledge that once the wedding is over, the film will end and his character would’ve disappeared into the oblivion of its creator’s mind — in this case, his own. Of course, he is not as postmodern as all that, and his general strategy is to simply wing it and hope for the best. Thankfully for him, 72 and Indu end up falling in love and live happily ever after.
But, despite its terrible premise, plot, acting, directing and music, it is very hard to actively hate this film. God knows it tries hard enough, with its racism, misogyny and, worse, factual inaccuracy. But perhaps it is the delightful idea of giving characters numbers as names (the Singh clan is made up of 70, 71, 72 and 74; 73 having been lost in a fair). Perhaps it is the wink-and-nudge embracing of the ridiculousness of the film by itself, or the throwaway meta moments and some genuine zaniness, by-products of th r owing the kitchen sink to make the audience laugh. Perhaps it was just Chakraborty’s ridiculous Bong-accented Marathi bhau. Yes, it was terrible. Yes, it was mindless. But was I entertained? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Delhi Underbelly

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Chronicling the city Mayank Austen Soofi  Photo: Vijay Pandey

THE YELLOW Line of the Delhi Metro is a fascinating journey connecting multiple Delhis separated by space and time. Moving north from the high rises of Gurgaon through the glitz of South Delhi, then passing under the corridors of power of Lutyen’s capitol into the labyrinthine streets of the old city, it is a journey that takes you back centuries.
Mayank Austen Soofi’s latest book came out of many trips along this route: from Green Park, close to his home in the posh Hauz Khas Village, to New Delhi station, the point of disembarking for GB Road, Delhi’s red light district. The author of four ‘alternative guidebooks to Delhi’ writes about the lives and loves of the city’s prostitutes in Nobody Can Love You More. Like many other old Delhi institutions, however, the district is a decaying relic of Mughal and British times, where sophisticated courtesans have been replaced by Nepali call girls struggling to eke out a living. As Delhi goes elsewhere for its nocturnal fix, the area has become a fiefdom for police to harass its inhabitants at will.
It is a fascinating subject: artists, writers and photographers have been documenting daily life in GB Road, Kamathipura and Sonagachi for decades. These places make for touching stories of desperation, pain, love and community; of children growing up and old whores being forced into retirement. Soofi’s book has all of these, with the many stories of ‘teen sau number’, a kotha on the street, and its inhabitants.
Soofi, who entered the house as an English teacher for the children, is drawn to the human stories of Sushma, an ageing prostitute facing impending retirement with serenity; of Sabir Bhai, the philosopher maalik who trusts no one, least of all the girls who live and work in his house; of Rajkumari, the bed-ridden religious madam next door whose marriage to a Nigerian led to her being ostracised from an otherwise classless social structure; of the painfully self-aware children of the brothel who’d like a better future for themselves. A common thread tying all the stories is a disconnect with ‘society’, a world they left behind in order to survive and know they cannot rejoin. “GB Road is a quicksand,” says Sabir, and the people Soofi talks to are often surprised he would leave south Delhi to come talk to them.
Nobody Can Love You More
Mayank Austen Soofi
Penguin
240 pp; Rs 399

ACCESS IS the primary obstacle for a book of this type, and Soofi is forthright about his struggles in getting his subjects to talk to him. Outside ‘teen sau number’, he is rebuffed by prostitutes, pimps, musicians and maaliks, and Sabir Bhai’s brothel often becomes a refuge from the world outside. His failure to get more human stories diminishes the book somewhat, and eventually makes the narrative tedious.
The major problem with the book is the continuous presence of the narrator at the centre of the story. There is no denying that Soofi knows the city, that he understands the dynamics, desires and distresses of the inhabitants of GB Road, but there is always the sense that perhaps this book is not about them. Like Suketu Mehta, Soofi nominates himself as the ambassador of the chattering classes to the underbelly of the city they live in but barely understand. That is well and good, but again, as with Mehta, the intersections between the two worlds in the book serve only to highlight his progressive credentials; how, while the rest of rich Delhi is wrapped up in its own world, he is going out among the great unwashed. Such a characterisation may be a bit unfair to someone who has spent years exploring all aspects of the city, but by ditching the reporter’s distance, he denies these powerful stories the chance to stand on their own.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com

Coming to a screen near you

By
Aradhna Wal
-

As the Video Wednesday II festival celebrates 20 years of video art, Aradhna Wal traces the medium from its early days to its tech-savvy present

Moving with time Stills from Archana Hande’s Panorama
Photo Courtesy: Gallery Espace

IN THE 1990s, Nalini Malani, Vivan Sundaram and Ranbir Kaleka began experimenting beyond the traditional parameters of art. They incorporated moving images and television sets into a form, now known as mixed media, which has grown so diverse that whittling it down to Video Wednesday II, a new video art project, puts the motion picture back in focus.
Moving with time Neha Choksi’s Minds To Lose

A series of animated shorts play on loop, projected onto the main wall at New Delhi’s Gallery Espace. Divided over three storeys, the false walls and black box rooms turn the gallery into a maze. Turn one corner to a beautifully eerie animated feature on Nagaland; walk into a room for a series of archival photographs intercut with the moon’s surface; tucked under the stairs are videos exploring humanity. “Video allows a flattening. Unlike a biennale or a museum, we’ve got established names and newcomers playing on the same surface. There is no separation in terms of size and how spectacular a work is,” says Gayatri Sinha, the curator, who used only themes to group by. Sundaram’s Wigwam Tune shares space with upcoming artist Shaheen Ahmed’s Refuse/ Resist. The genial older artist builds a wall of thick books representing constructs we live with — love, life, the city — till he collapses. Ahmed stands in counterpose, sullen and defiant, shaving her head as images of conventional beauty play in the backdrop.
Moving with time (From top) Vishal C Dar’s Fire, Sarnath Banerjee’s Sophistication is Fragile and Atul Bhalla’s Alaap to the River

The surreal journey through the festival suggests shifts from the 1990s to now, from the performative to the animated. An early example, Nalini Malani’s seminal response to the 2002 Gujarat riots — Unity in Diversity— used Nehru’s phrase for a work that morphs a Raja Ravi Varma painting, showing how women are primary victims of genocide. “That’s performance. A plot or a reference to earlier works is subverted to show something new,” explains Sinha. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, of the Raqs Media Collective, agrees. “With any new medium, there is a process of discovery. Artists turn the camera onto themselves and become the subject,” he says. The ‘self as subject’ is still alive but evolving. Sonia Khurana explores the neurosis of the body image and the beauty myth, changing clothes frantically in Closet. Khurana could represent that middle generation of practitioners who straddle early performance and newer techniques, such as reportage and commentary.
Sundaram cites Raqs and Amar Kanwar, documentary filmmakers who segued into art, as heralders of a new documentary-based narrative. Raqs’ The Surface of Each Day is a Different Planet explores cosmonauts and old letters and photographs from the 1857 Revolt. Visually, it is not very arresting. But, as the images slide and the voiceover deconstructs the work it accompanies, it becomes strangely hypnotic. “The documentary mode produces a sense of curiosity. It invites the viewer to get inside our heads, to see what we see,” says Sengupta. Animation creates a confluence of craftsmanship and technical skills. Steeped in memory, identity and mythology, Aditi Chitre’s Journey to Nagaland, a feature requiring hundreds of drawings, harkens back to spooky classic cartoons.
Artist Vishal C Dar believes if his video goes viral, giving millions ownership over their copy, that is a marker of success. BM Kamath argues the original DVD is protected by a Certificate of Authenticity, bringing the work back into the sphere of traditional ownership. “Art is seen as object-based in India, something that can be owned, traded, displayed,” says Sinha, explaining why buyers are not receptive to video art. As Sengupta says politely, “The most enlightened collectors also buy video art.” Is that the medium’s greatest strength? As it redefines art in form and content, it may find its highest expression in being unfettered by the market.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

‘In a riot, two sides clash. This was a massacre’

By
Aradhna Wal
-

FORGOTTEN CITIZENS 1984, SEEKING JUSTICE, a travelling photography exhibition initiated by senior advocate HS Phoolka, commemorated 28 years of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Arpana Caur, 58, artist and one of the organisers, tells Aradhna Wal about the need for public intervention in cases of marginalisation of minorities and how art must record history to prevent atrocities from happening again.
EDITED EXCERPTS

Arpana Caur

The project is called Forgotten Citizens Seeking Justice. What is being recalled?
I knew of this senior advocate, HS Phoolka, who had been fighting nearly 100 cases related to the 1984 Sikh riots for 28 years. Two years ago, I met him at an environment conference. This exhibition came about when he realised, with only four cases left, that he had only been dealing with words and that there was no visual impact. People gave up out of exhaustion and lack of initiative. Eyewitnesses died. So Phoolkaji called some of us and said that we need to draw public attention to this. He, together with the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Lok Raj Sangathan and a handful of young volunteers, put together the exhibition.
How can art agitate for justice?
The photographers who captured the riots are eyewitnesses. Ram Rahman was there in Trilokpuri and Sondeep Shankar worked for The Telegraph then. Phoolkaji had 30 images with him already. Ram visited Trilokpuri, especially Block 32 where 400 men — the poorest of the poor carpenters, rickshawallas — had been killed. He had an image of a mother holding the finger of her son. The rioters had cut off the finger to remove the ring after burning the body. Phoolkaji felt that a travelling exhibition was needed to remind people that this happened, so that it doesn’t happen again. It seemed appropriate to start with Jallianwala Bagh.

‘The exhibition has caused people in different cities to break down. This isn’t driven by anger; it’s a plea for justice’

The dead wait Bodies of slain Sikhs lie unclaimed at the New Delhi Railway Station
Photo: Ashok Vahie

What has dominated your memories of the 1984 riots?
I have vivid memories of living with my mother in a rented house in Niti Bagh. Our landlord was a Supreme Court lawyer and a member of the Rajya Sabha. During the riots, he approached the court and said that a prominent sardarni (my mother) was his tenant; hence his house was in danger. The court ordered us to vacate in six months. We were without a home, and had to stay in a friend’s drawing room for six months.
We were two women helpless in front of a powerful man. That’s when you realise how much of a minority you are. From a friend’s balcony I could see the smoke rising from the burnt shops in South Extension in Delhi. I knew a man, all of 5 feet, nothing with a squeaky voice, who used to give me rides to the studio on his motorbike. He and his children were killed. By the time we got to his place to save his wife, she had lost her mind. I worked in the relief camps later, and can’t even describe the suffering I saw there. You can’t call these riots. In a riot, two sides clash. This was a plain and simple massacre.
Mob fury A bus driver is dragged out and beaten by a mob
Photo: Ashok Vahie

The campaign includes a petition to the government for proper investigation and legal action. Has there been a response to that?
Art here is used as a tool for recording memories. Teesta Setalvad’s activism for the Gujarat riots, using art and photography, has been an eye-opener. The judgement set a precedent and bolstered Phoolkaji’s initiative. If there is protest, if there is media support, then maybe something can happen. The exhibition has caused people in different cities to break down. This isn’t driven by anger; it’s a plea for justice. As for the legal response, only time will tell.

‘Rahman had an image of a mother holding the finger of her son. The rioters had cut it off to remove the ring after burning the body’

What has been your own response as a Sikh?
I, like all Sikhs in 1984, felt marginalised. Your sense of belonging gets destroyed. The men who killed Mrs Gandhi deserved punishment, but not the innocent poor on the streets. Why wasn’t the Army called in on time? Sikhs have always been a large part of the Indian Army and sacrificed so much for it because they saw themselves as Indians first. Such marginalisation creates a feeling of insecurity. All these tarkhans, who earned Rs 100-200 a day, lost their lives. They were the easy victims. The rich people in South Delhi were only looted. But the poor lost their lives. And that is sick.

Mute witness A Sikh resident of Delhi is burnt to death
Photo: Sandeep Shankar
A slice of pain A mother holds her dead son’s finger
Photo: Ram Rahman

In Rwanda, they say forgetting a past atrocity is the best way to move on. As a culture we memorialise and archive our collective tragedies. What is the wisdom of either course?
I saw an exhibition on the Rwanda genocide in Germany. A white artist had done a lot of work on it. The site he chose was a gas chamber where Jews were killed. It is important to remember. People are helpless in front of mobs. But if there is media awareness, if there is justice, perhaps it won’t happen again. Otherwise, our country is a tinderbox waiting to be lit up.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

Making Sound Waves

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Neptune Chapotin plies a mouth harp like his mythical namesake wielded a trident and he’s determined that the unassuming instrument doesn’t get drowned out, says Ajachi Chakrabarti
NEPTUNE CHAPOTIN’s parents met, like so many others did in 1969, on a journey for self-discovery on a psychedelically painted bus from London to India. He got on at London, she at Paris, they fell in love in Turkey and got married in Varanasi. They made several trips to India, and in 1984, when Neptune was about to be born, his mother insisted that her third child would only be born in India. They flew to Goa for the birth, stayed for the season, and went back to California, where he would grow up and live, until 1999, when he and his mother bought a one-way ticket to India.
Growing up with counterculture parents — his mother insists she isn’t a hippie, calling it a label rather than a state of mind — Neptune and his two older sisters were home schooled and spent childhood summers at Camp Winnarainbow, a circus and performing arts camp run by Wavy Gravy, the 1960s icon who served as the official clown of the Grateful Dead. He learnt unicycling there, which he now teaches as a camp counsellor. He also teaches the mouth harp, the current passion of his life.
With a conspiratorial glint in his eye, Neptune, 28, digs into a bag and pulls out several keyhole shaped instruments with single metallic strips through them. He puts one of them to his mouth and strums the strip, producing a magical droning sound. The waiters and the people at the next table stop in their tracks to watch the crazy firang, who has interrupted their afternoon drinking with the soundtrack of bad Bollywood music. A waiter does a little jig, while the manager gives a beatific smile. “This one’s from Hungary, this is from Siberia, this is from Kyrgyzstan…” He shows his harps from all over the world, collected over his travels and performances. All of them sound different, a unique sound for each culture.

Harping on and on Neptune Chapotin performs
Photos: Artur Striker

The mouth harp, or Jew’s harp (“It has as much to do with Jews as it is a harp,” he says) is a part of traditional music all over the world. But did it evolve independently or travel? “Yes and no,” he says. “The question is: did it originate in one country and spread around the world, or is it such a simple concept that the same thing was invented around the world?” In India, the harp shows up in Assam as the gogona, where it is an integral part of Bihu, as well as in Rajasthan (morchang) and Tamil Nadu (morsing).
NEPTUNE’S OBSESSION with the instrument has led to a number of performances around the world, and journeys to find the makers. His collection sprouted a business called World Harps, which buys and sells harps from all over the world at the Saturday night market in Arpora, Goa. “I create my own market,” he says dramatically. “If someone is curious, I play it for them and teach them how to play in 30 seconds. The odds of someone wanting to take one home once they learn to play are high enough for me to continue selling.” He now wants to organise India’s first international mouth harp festival in Goa next year.
“My mother was very surprised when my two sisters went to university,” he says. “She couldn’t see the point of a degree and said we should choose what we want to do and do it.” Neptune never finished high school and decided he wanted to study art. He went to Kerala and studied temple mural painting for five years. “I don’t have any degree to my name. But I do more different things than I could have done with one. There’s always something to do,” he says, pulling out a leather mouth harp case he designed. “I’m always on the edge of running out of money. But I know that I have enough skill sets that if I’m not doing one thing, I can always do something else. Life will always move on.”
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com

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