Arunoday Singh

So begins another week of mishaps, misadventures, and hopefully, monsoon.  Had a lovely weekend that began with the premiere of “X-Men Origins - Wolverine” in Bombay.  Had the movie been about any other comic book character than Wolverine, and of course, Batman, I wouldn’t have cared so much.  But to take one of the truly iconic figures in Comicdom, a character that is by far the most complex, tragic, dare I say it, Shakespearean of all Marvel heroes and pretty much piss all over him is all that Hugh Jackman has accomplished.

The script writers clearly did no research beyond some basic comic catch-up, ignored the main elements of the character’s personality matrix, completely distorted the man’s history, and in the end basically made a Bollywood melodrama.  It was pathetic.  Hugh Jackman, for whom I have an immense cinematic fondness, has revealed to me just how Broadway his sensibilities really are.  People tend to forget that the man did an entire Broadway production in New York, singing and dancing to showtunes.  The fact that he is a brilliant dancer and a fine singer are things he should be proud of.  But please, keep your nancy sensibilities away from a character like Wolverine.  But the damage is done, the shitty film made, and fans all over the world in a state of apoplectic rage.  Well done, Hugh.  Well done indeed. 

The only thing that saved the night from being a completely disaster was the ray of sunshine sitting beside me.  Had it not been for her, I would have come out of the theatre sulking and bad-tempered.  As it turned out, she got more pissed off than me at the film, which I found instantly endearing.

From there we decided to ditch the group and share some coffee and conversation at a nearby after-hours spot.  Again the trickster gods had a laugh at my expense by seating the world’s most pathetic male specimen directly behind me.  Picture a man with a face like a starving rat and the voice of a whiny twelve year-old.  This dumb shit was sitting beside a completely charming woman with an American accent complaining about the Indian Cricket team’s destruction at the T20 World Cup.  She mentioned that the Pakistani team was doing well, good for them.  And that was it!  The fellow starting shouting obscenities and saying things like “Fuck those pricks.  I wouldn’t piss on a Pakistani even if he was on fire!”

No one in the place said anything.  My own impulse to evict the man out the front door was handcuffed by my date, who insisted that I behave myself.  Which I regretably did.  I’m disgusted by people like that man.  Who hate so strongly for a reason as juvenile as a sport.  And then have the nerve to get angry when they encounter hatred and racism in places like Australia.  Hatred breeds only hatred.  That is how the universe works.  Whatever you transmit into the world is returned upon you tenfold.  That asshole in the bar, one day, is going to get the holy hell beaten out of him by running his motor-mouth in a place where not everyone is so polite, or with a girl who abhors confrontations.  And I pray I’m there to at least witness it.

There’s an article in the Hindustan Times today about the hypocrisy of racism.  How we Indians can get so angry at a few brainless Australians beating up our fellow countrymen that we completely forgo all logic and reason and start tarnishing the entire continent of pretty decent, laid back people with the same negative brush.  But then look at how we treat those Africans who are either working or studying in cities like Bombay.  They get treated like thieves or criminals or worse just for being black.  Nevermind the fact that Africans and Indians were the most enslaved people during the Time of Colonization.  Let’s hate them!!  Pathetic.

Saturday was all about green tea and my new stack of books.  From which I can thoroughly recommend Geoff Dyer’s “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi” and Milan Kundera’s “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.”

Sunday was another great day spent at the Del Italia in Juhu, Bombay.  For a brunch that lasted almost six hours.  Good food, good wine, great music, perfect weather, pretty women, pithy conversation - I am one contented son-of-a-gun.

And we come to Monday.  A monday that began with great weather and the greater urge to be creative.  Hence my current blog entry.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I shall go sketch something or the other.  This is how I wait for my films to begin, or release, or just stop breaking my heart.  I write, I sketch, I dance around the town in search of women who wouldn’t mind dancing around me for a song.  There’s a better life out there, but I’m quite happy with mine.

I wasn’t going to touch this issue.  I wait for things to strike me before I write.  And these last two years, things have been striking me ever more intermittently.  Perhaps I’m getting lazy, or perhaps it’s merely the lack of exercise I give my talents.  But the second I saw Shiney Ahuja on the news with the headline saying “rape” I wanted to write something.  Not in his defense, or in condemnation.  Merely my thoughts on the way this whole circus has erupted around him.

None of us know whether the man is guilty (of the worst crime this side of infanticide) or not.  None of us except for the man himself and the maid.  What we know for certain is that they did indeed have sex.  The man’s admitted to it (which is another entirely more convoluted sociological/psychological discussion - “why the hell would a good-looking actor, with fans, need to sleep with a maid?”), claimed she gave him consent.  But when the socio-economic divide between them is so skewed, what does the word “consent” imply in that situation?  Did she initiate, did she seduce him, did he imagine consent from her silence or lack of resistance?  The media, of course, is interested in none of these ambiguities because they have headlines to sell.  Good for them.

What is interesting however is that the initial reports from the police suggested that the maid’s physical state had no visible signs of forced entry.  She claims she was bound and gagged, and thus must have struggled, but there were no signs of welts on her hands from the binding, or bruises around her mouth from the gagging etc.  So why now do they now claim that there IS evidence of rape.

Then there’s the rather glaring absurdity in our constituition that the woman’s word is always given more weight in such matters.  What about evidence? What about testimony? What about being innocent until PROVEN guilty?  Rape is among the most heinous of crimes in my opinion.  But a law that unilaterally sides with the woman is a law that doesn’t even understand the complex variability of sex amongst human beings.  I had an acquaintance in college who was accused of rape by a girl that had completely consensual sex with him after a party.  However she wanted a relationship and he thought it had just been a one-night stand.  She cried rape.  He didn’t go to prison, but got expelled from university and his reputation forever tarnished.  In India, he might have ended up in jail.

Is that not a possibility here?  Can it not seem conceivable to us that Shiney and his maid were having consensual sex, she thought it would lead to some monetary gains for her, he denied her what she felt he owed her, and she cried rape?  I read in the newspaper yesterday about a journalist who claims that the police are not looking at the matter at all from the angle of blackmail.  Shiney is a successful actor (not recently sure, but better than most in this dream-destroying town) and there seems to be an unsavory character in the form of the maid’s boyfriend.

And while I understand, and support to an extent, the zealotry of seeing everything from ther perspective of the victim, I must remind myself, that people are stranger, deeper, crazier, more twisted up inside, than they appear to be on the surface.  I hope justice is done diligently and honestly.  I hope they stop telling us that Shiney is being held in a cell but receiving better food and more cups of tea because of his “status”.  Find the truth.  Forget the pageantry.

Rejoice!!!! (Or fucking despair, mortals) For he of the Dawn light, he of the Hungry Mouth, he the Loquacious Lover has returned.  Internet finally up and running, and my hands dancing across the keys.

The battle against the Arch-Daemon Idleness continues, amigos.  The dreaded strike has passed, and we have survived.  But picking up the pieces of our film in this new post-apocalyptic wasteland where super-mutants in the form of HUGE films roam, cannibalizing and tormenting the smaller films, is proving to be harder than I anticipated.  Of course, that is only because the people that own the film, Big Pictures, are proving too timid to come out and face even the weakest of these Super-Mutants head on.  They may have a point saying that we cannot compete with the likes of “Kambakht Ishq” (I flipping refuse to spell it with multiple k’s) and “New York”.  But they even shy of releasing “Sikandar” in the weeks after these monsters releases, in case these films prove to be huge hits and their second weeks are as busy as the first.

What happened to faith in one’s own film.  There’s strategizing, and then there’s saying “Let’s wait till the other army lays down their weapons, then we’ll attack.” 

I suppose, for prudence’s sake, I should be a little more tactful in my blog, being as BigAdda is owned by the same company.  But they can blame God, he blew breath in my lungs.  This is who I am, and this is what I think about this situation.  Any wise person, respects and listens to criticism, so I’m hoping Big Pictures is paying attention.  Class is in session, children.  Get off the ground, stop crying, pick up a rock, and hit the bully right between the eyes.

Meanwhile, during this summer of discontent, I have moved on to other projects.  Now I never speak of my work until it’s ready for releasing, but they are all exciting scripts that I’m hoping come together soon.  For in this time of recession and tightening purse strings, everything seems to be delayed or, Goddess forfend, shelved indefinitely.  So I sit and I pray, and then I get dressed to go out, and I play.  Lord how I play.  Even though I’d rather be working, I’m learning the art of staying contented in the moment.  We cannot control our lives beyond a point.  But we can be adaptable and adventurous enough to roll with whatever our way comes.  Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can’t touch what your eyes can’t see.   Only I float like a will’o'wisp and slap like a tiger.  Your eyes can’t see what’s always floating higher.

Feels good to be back on the blog.  Internet up and running, green tea simmering, morning breeze free of the stench, and the Doors lighting my speakers on fire.  Damn it feels good to be me.  Hope you are all feeling that spring of contentment bubbling up within yourselves.  Don’t walk like you own the world, walk like you don’t care who does.

To the lunatics that read my blog.  The deranged writer of this here shall be away for a while.  I’m in the middle of shifting apartments and my internet provider has declared that my new building cannot handle the unparalleled power of Tata Broadband.  Not only that, the bastards are not giving me a refund.  So while I go to the nearest outlet and beat seven shades of shite out of everyone in sight.  I have set in motion whatever it would take to get Internet up and running in my new place (which is beautiful, so I’m not missing the Internet THAT much).  But thought it was de rigeur to inform y’all that you will not hear my ramblings for a few days.

THE STRIKE IS OVER!!!!
Look out for the release date of SIKANDAR around you on posters and promo videos and go see that movie!!!!  Support the cause of making me a ridiculously successful and respected actor.  Viva Arunoday!

Hope all of you are well and still nuttier than those around you (only way to stay happy)

One love….