Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Film India
Our girl from Santa Cruz was recently a big hit in Hanover, Germany. I8217;m, of course, referring to film critic Meenakshi Shedde who is the current recipient of the President8217;s Gold Medal as quot;India8217;s Best Film Criticquot;.
In Hanover, she was invited to be a jury member at the quot;up and coming film festivalquot; where she and co-jurists watched some 200 short films, experimental videos and documentaries and awarded seven prizes. Not content at doing one job at a time, Meenakshi was to be seen darting around between screenings conducting interviews and investigating story ideas for articles she plans to file and write from politics to social issues to her favourite subject, cinema.
At the over-crowded and much fan-fared opening, fellow curator and feminist-in-arms Bishakha Dutta was feted for the excellent work on display. Bishakha, who is a talented film-maker and social activist, was visibly pleased with the response and was being swamped by critics and writers hoping to interview her. Between mouthfuls of cake and acidic wine I caught up with the Mumbai toli visiting New York including omnipresent Anuradha Tandon, the self-effacing Vikram Chandra and irrepressible Janet Fine.
Also present was the diminutive Lea Jacinto who half remembered me from days past when she was a gossip columnist and I was a star in my own mind. Jacinto is now settled in New York and promised to catch upwith me at a later date. If she is anything like her old self I won8217;t be holding my breath.
Rave raves
In Bombay for the Jhunjhunwala-Vaidya society wedding I took a few hours off to visit the new night-clubs and entertainment centres that have mushroomed all over the place. Walking into the spacious quot;Bharat Shah Jr Presentsquot; Fire amp; Ice I was amused by how everyone around me kept commenting on the high ceiling and sense of fresh air as the main attraction of the place.
Just goes to show how 30 years of corrupt and rampant building boom has deprived a whole generation of Bombay youth the joy of celebrating life in wide open spaces. The club itself seemed well run and excellently publicised a job undertaken in large part by the maverick and tireless team at LinOpinion, headed by that suave king of spin Amir Ismail.
The only let down at the place was the music which seemed stuck in a doldrum of chart favourites of yesterday. Luckily, the next night I was whisked off to a quot;happeningquot; rave partywhere the music was spun by one of the few creative DJs in this country, that hunk of manmeat, Hussain Whosane. The party was held at Superdrome which is this strange bowling alley-cum-pool bar nestled in the womb of Filmcentre at Tardeo. To get to the place we had to walk down a long corridor, then up couple of floors, passing slit windows through which we could see old-time editors checking spools of film on Stienbeck editing tables, a rather Martin Scorsese-esque walk, if you get my drift. Once inside the Superdrome the sight abruptly turned Fellini-esque.
What should normally have been a brightly-lit entertainment complex was now plunged into a mind-warping haze of neon colours, mutely glowing like embers under the anti-glare of UV lights. At the bowling pit, androgynous humans took turns rolling the balls down the alley trying to dislodge the pins which were also painted in neon colours. If you half closed your eyes the whole scene looked like a magical blend of Dum Maro Dum meets Grease 2 meets theBlair Witch Project. Yes, Cory Walia was present as were other assorted artists, models and muses.
Walia, who I hadn8217;t met in a long while, glowed brilliantly under the UV lamp and told me how his work he is the most talented make-up artist of his generation was proceeding splendidly and how after many years he was planning to take a short holiday next year. That8217;s if the film and advertising industry not to mention his bewitched, bothered and bewildered retinue of minions ever let him. After all Cory brought the concept of glamour back in fashion when he returned to Mumbai in the early 8217;90s. Gosh! that suddenly seems such a long time ago!
Calendar call
Retro To be Hetro? Like everyone else I too have jumped on the bandwagon and begun asking people I meet where they plan to spend that most glorified of date changes the Millennium. The best idea I heard thus far came from a friend who doesn8217;t want to be named. quot;I plan to spend it in the one place I cannot go back to ever againquot; he said.quot;The Closet.quot;
Riyad Wadia, avant garde film-maker, finds himself back in Bombay.
