Gurgaon-Dubai Dejavu

Spent better part of the last week in New Delhi.
It so happens that most Advertising Agencies have shifted to Gurgaon bag and baggage. Friends have followed suit and prefer to live in the vicinity of their work spheres.
I am as sympathetic towards them and their kin as I am towards my life in Mumbai. Gurgaon makes fun of history in the most palpable manner;
1. There never was a discipline called “town planning” in India or the region. Harrappa, Mohenjadaro, The Indus valley civilization never existed and thus we do not have a tradition of city planning. The Sydney Botanical gardens are of no use to the populace there. So are all the green areas developed by cities around the world a whim and fancy of some urban planner.
2. Global warming is a myth. Climate change has not made India lose an island recently (Lohachara island). The fact that Gurgaon is in a sensitive seismic area & prone to earthquakes is a falsity. There is no danger to our progenies or us. For generations to come, Gurgaon as a city and New Delhi as the capital of India will continue to exist without scars from the vagaries of weather, disease, the lack of water, or the abuse of the environment.
3. The following “non-issues” do not matter to the deciding authorities
A. The depletion of ground water
B. Increasing air pollution
C. Lack of proper solid waste disposal and sewer system.
Hence the powers of the Haryana govt have decided that 58 more sectors will be developed in addition to the already existing 57 sectors in Gurgaon according to the Master Plan 2021.
On the other hand, you could say that this is glaringly true of any new city in India. Or is it that being a mere filmmaker, I do not comprehend the complexity of issues faced by the builders, the planners, and the decision makers…
& In the same vein, it does not pain me to see this plunder and rape of mother earth. India is shining and winning everywhere.
It is not a recession here but just a slowdown.
I go to sleep a without a worry, a happy man.
Cause the next morning will herald a glorious day of new achievements, newer breakthroughs by Indians, and a vision that continually assures me of the bright future that my two boys will have.

Venita's Diwali Saga

I don't know about you guys - but I had a really exciting Diwali.

I was arrested, hauled off to the cop station and held for three hours. I attach my column with the paper 'Herald' in Goa that explains all. If you want to read my other columns ( quite an exciting read I promise - one of them is 'How I started A Riot') you can go to www.savegoa.com

To put this in context - for the last two years I have been involved with the Goa Bachao Abhiyaan - a group that has been fighting to save Goa from an awful fate. The Government is busy making plans to sell Goa to Mining Interests, set up hideous SEZ projects, and turn the lush countryside into a sea of concrete.

In my village I have started the Moira Action Commitee and we have been questioning illegal construction for some time now. This happens invariably at the 'Gram Sabha's which are the village gatherings where one gets to question the Panchayat and those in authority.

Here I thought I was just a writer - but I have become an accidental activist. Right now my life is schizophrenic. I am writing a script for Karan Johar while my life is a film by Shyam Benegal.

Go ahead. Enjoy the story.

The Accidental Activist – Will this happen to you next?


I am an ordinary person. I could live next door to you. I have four dogs, two cats, and a daughter that I adore. I write scripts for business and books for pleasure. Like you - I believed that we lived in a democracy and we all had a right to speak up and be heard. I believed that we were safe in Goa. In the past few days I've learnt to think differently.

On Sunday the police forcibly hauled me off my seat in the Moira Gram Sabha, dragged me to a jeep, drove me to the police station and detained me.

All I was doing was attending a Gram Sabha. I had barely stood up to ask a question when a villager interrupted by producing the columns that had featured in this paper and demanded that I apologize for writing them. My reply was simple. If I had written even one thing that was not fact, they were welcome to protest in the same forum by writing to the editor. I would certainly not apologize. I believed that we still lived in a democracy with the full right to have an opinion and air it. I was told 'We will pass a resolution saying you cannot speak in the Gram Sabha until you apologize'. Instead of controlling the situation the Sarpanch said 'Reply to him'. I refused.

The tactic changed. 'Remove her from the Gram Sabha! She is not on the electoral rolls.' Suddenly the lone protestor was a group of men baying that I be thrown out of the Sabha. They ran towards me, threatening to drag me out of the hall.

I sat firm on my chair insisting 'I am on the electoral rolls. Let the rolls be produced and checked.' ( Electoral Rolls for Moira – Part Number 8 Serial Number 809). This was completely ignored by the Sarpanch and Panchayat. They sat back and watched as I was surrounded by ranting men issuing threats 'we'll see how you live in this village… we'll see how you step out of doors…' Ironically they were also protesting the fact that I had in my columns in the Herald spoken of 'rowdies' at the Gram Sabha. And their protest proved ample proof of what they denied in words.

There I was – one woman surrounded by a group of screaming, threatening men. The Sarpanch scribbled a note on a piece of paper and the police swung into action. Did they take into hand the rowdies who were trying to intimidate me? Of course not. They grabbed me and forcibly dragged me from my chair. I was pulled out of the Sabha and shoved into a police jeep. When friends insisted they come with me they were pushed away from the jeep and I was driven off.

Two women panchas sat and watched a single woman being intimidated and manhandled without saying a word. A Sarpanch who writes 'Advocate' before his name ignored every rule of the law and wrote a police complaint without verifying the facts which it was his duty to do so. His complaint said I was to be removed because the Sabha had passed a resolution to that effect 'unanimously'. This is the same Sarpanch who refuses to cancel building licences despite the unanimous Gram Sabha resolution that they be revoked.

I made phone calls. By the time I arrived at the police station press and moral support had started to arrive. The police refused to give us a copy of the complaint until the PI arrived. After a wait of three hours he did. His explanation? 'Madam the Sarpanch is in the authority in that situation. We will do what the authority tells us.' I believed the police were meant to uphold law and order and be the instrument of justice. I now learn that they are merely there to do what the authorities order them to – whether it is right, wrong or motivated with malice.

By the time activists from Utt Goenkara, GBA, Aldona Bachao Abhiyaan, and other concerned villagers had arrived, the police had changed their tune. I was now informed that I had been taken into police custody for my own safety. So was anything being done against those who had made me unsafe in the first place? 'You please write to the authorities and complain about the Sarpanch. We will take up the matter then.'

I believed that we were safe in Goa. I believed democracy assured us the basic right to speak up. But I have now learnt for myself how voices are silenced. By wrongly bending the rules. By using the police as an unquestioning blunt instrument in the hands of those in power. By using strong arm tactics to intimidate and threaten.

It will take more than a bunch of village rowdies to scare or silence me. It is the future of my village that I am speaking up for. The place where my daughter will grow up. I will go a long long way to protect her inheritance.

But what terrifies me is the silence they have already forced on others.

The Assagao Gram Sabha was held at the same time as the Moira Gram Sabha. The previous day in Assagao a seventy year old man had been brutally beaten by goons because he had managed to get the Sarpanch finally brought to book. It should have been a stormy Gram Sabha. Instead there was silence. The topic was not even brought up. In that entire village not one person dared to speak up to condemn what had happened.

The violence, the goondaism is on my doorstep. And I live next door to you.

I know. I understand. You're an ordinary person. You don't want trouble. But you must speak up.

It will be your door that they break down next.


--
'You must be the change you want to see in the world' - Gandhi
Venita Coelho
Casa Coelho
House No. 876
Bambordem, Moira V.P.
Goa - 403507
9867166057 / 832 2470861

Of rain and plastic-the last three months Part 1

The Ghats

When i start out for a shoot or a reccee, the mood is upbeat. Add rain or the onset of monsoon - the promise of a good time to be had. I have tired of Mumbai locations as far as advertising films are concerned. Barring a Dabur in Mukesh Mills, I have shot most commercials out of Mumbai in the past few years.
Had the opportunity to shoot a small Cibaca relaunch film in Pune. I was lucky to have my favorite team in place.
My Favorite Crew
To begin with, Ravi Yadav, the DOP.
He was free from his myriad assignments after RACE, and tagged along happily. It's such a pleasure to work with this simple, unfussy, speedy craftsman who understands the brief in a jiffy.
His team works like invisible silent men; one hardly hears a shout or a bad word from any of them. Efficiency to the hilt.
It has been nearly a decade that i have worked with him, and not once has the man put me down.
He always has a kind word for the assistant directors, a joke or two for the art direction team, and great rapport with the production.

Secondly, my support system of the last 3 years, Dilip More, the Art Director.
Not many people know that Dilip has constructed the set for the goa fest two years in succession. Neither do they know that Dilip has been consistently working with Tarsem on his India shoots.
People do know that he is the only art director in Mumbai who treats his assistants like friends...Check out his chief Mahesh Salgaoncar and his idiosyncrasies. All photos by Dilip himself.

Dilip and Mahesh are from JJ school of arts.












Mahesh also has a striking resemblance to Dilip Acharya, my Production Manager.
To clinch the team was my best assistant director to date, Divya Rao.
Here is an example of art direction team's spirited dare devilry.

This was Divya's fourth film with us, and Ms. Dependability was all over the place, with her beaming persona.
The film was not difficult. But the approach I had taken was a bit labored. I was doing a Colgate film for the first time. The sensitive-sensible creative Sneha Nihalani had crafted a charming film for the brand. However, the pan-india-small-town-but-not-rural-not-down-market look, feel, and tone was a grey area for everyone. There were concerns galore whether the client will buy in to the look-'why don't you just shoot it in mumbai', etc. fears and apprehensions.
I wanted the client to get a feel of the India outside of Mumbai - our sensitivities have got smudged by the Film-Industry-recreations-of-India-within-Mumbai. The real India is out there, a few hundred kilometers away.
Coincidences Cibaca is lal-red, and on the day of the shoot, the entire art direction team accidentally wore red.
A musical Discovery
The films chief Harish Mishra, suggested a new music director, Ajit Varman. I met the man and was floored. I was sitting across this great composer who has given music to vijeta, saransh, and a load of other films. His compositions are being copied to date, and the man is wonderfully brimming with new music.
In less than 2 months, i have done four TVCs with this great man.
Took a while for the client to buy in to his indigenous clutter breaking tune. So we rerecorded with another music director duo. Finally, the client saw reason.
Another Colgate
By then they offered me yet another colgate film.
For this one i had the perfect location fit in kolhapur.
Kishyabapu's mala
Kolhapur is a fun place. You get to stay in a palace, see varied sights and people that enrich your senses.

images from my cel: new office

The wall by Laxman PatilThe smoking zone
The view from my room
From the smoking zone
they are still drilling holes in the walls.
i am penning the list of 'to dos'. There are tons, including this post.

Ravi Deshpande Pictures New Office

396/13, Ground Floor, Prem Villa, Diagonally Opposite Gurudwara, 16th Road, Near Rajesh Khanna Garden, Santacruz West, Mumbai 400054. Tel: 26602667.
9820017223 - Ravi Deshpande
9820230510 - Dilip Acharya
9820730254 - Swati Deshpande

Kalesaheb

It's 2 months since I shifted from the old office in Bandra.
What i miss is Kalesaheb-Arun Kale!

Kalesaheb was across in the opposite garage. Kalesaheb was a partner with Mohammed Khan in the glorious Enterprise Nexus days. To date, Kalesaheb's work is of a higher order than the norm in Indian Advertising.

Kalesaheb came much after i started working out of Excella.

& over the years I have grown fond of this simple but yet great man who evokes respect by his work, his work ethics, his passion for design, his endearing benevolence for the young, the talented, and the needy, and his endearing relationships (Advertising people who had worked under him used to rush to meet him the moment they came to know that he was in the garage opposite).

Every now & then, his friends (A directors, painters, and artists) of 40 years and more frequent his office to share, to discuss, and to thrash!!!

& I have learned to tread with trepidation to restrain my eagerness when i show my completed TVCs...

Mrs. Kale is sunshine-easy to smile. And as eager to lend a helping hand; a bounty of energy!!! & the talented Apu Kale that i lost to the US. I had nefarious plans to use him as an AD.

I’ll miss them…

Adieu to the Bandra office

On the 1st of Jan, 2008, my landlord lands up at the office I've had for 8 years.
"I have sold the property, Ravi. You will have to vacate..."
For 8 years, we have inhabited this beautiful, quiet office in the by lanes of Bandra.
"Some misunderstanding...My sons made the deal when I was in America."
He has been a nice man to know all these years.
"I would not have thought about this had you not told me 3 years ago that you wished to shift to a bigger place..."
He is still a nice man cause he can face read me.
So be it. Welcome 2008 with the first poke!
We will leave this place with fond memories, attachments to moments stuck to these walls; ppms at midnight, diwali get togethers and ganesh aratis. Heated discussions, breakdowns, and the air filled with mirth and laughter. My assistants will remember the endless nights on edits, and the early mornings before the shoots...
Me and Swati will miss it for the warmth we infused in to it...I had designed the office interiors with all my love for Swati, while she was far away in Australia...

Kolhapur shoot

Tanned to near black, hoarse throat from shouting at the unit, and apprehensive about the end result. Isn't it always like that???

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Finished the book last night at 1.30. Tossed and turned for a few hours. Saw a bit of Jackie Chaan's Medallion on some tv channel for a while. But the color of the film was too goddy and vivid as contrasted with the evocative, black and white world that i had inhabited for the past three days.
The images of the book, and Dr. Babasaheb's angst kept me awake till the wee hours of the morning. Wished the Doodhwallah good morning and managed to doze off.

Back at work, but need to pen some immediate reactions before i can switch hats to this mundane world of immediate and perennial crisis.

Mr. Vijay Surwade spent most of his working life collecting photographs and memorabilia about Dr. Ambedkar!
Wherever that he lived; from small shanties in Ulhasnagar, Thane, or Kalyan, he saved the originals from leaky ceilings, and damp walls - whenever that he had the faintest clue of finding a photo or a scribbling, he would rush to the place
(whether it be Aurangabad, Nagpur, Baroda, or Nagpada-Dadar), and chase the original owner to part with the invaluable asset. He would coax, cajole, pay, and what have you till the owner relented.
Thus we have an unbelieavably rich harvest of history speaking through photographs and the text by Vasant Abaji Dahake (but not in that order).
What is interesting is that Dahake does not illustrate his writing with the photographs. The only division that the text allows itself is paragraph breaks; no chapters, headings, date wise dissections at all!!! Vishwasrao does not underline the photographs or the events by any undue, unwanted 'editorial' tippani, asterixs, references, etc. The text is as clean as the presentation of the photographs is; easy on the eye - let the content speak for itself!!!
The book comprises of a very brief introduction by Prakash Visshwasrao, followed by Dahake's factual text, and then the rich collection of photographs and documents.
And then are beautiful sketches of his colleagues, and lists and details...A mammoth task. At the end of the read, its not a history lesson, and yet, i remember every event by it's date as i see the event illustrated by a photograph. But it is with heavy emotion that you look at each phoyograph; Vishwasrao has already inducted you through the introduction of those events writen by Dahake.
So it becomes a personal experience as one gazes at these photographs, and time flies past. The photographs speak of many more stories. These portraits of warriors, thinkers, revolutionaries...At times lost in their thoughts while the photographer clicked the event for posterity, at times not so preoccupied but belonging to one another in an indescribable bond that is crystal clear with the sameness of their countenance, sameness of their purpose-how else can 50 people in a photograph have the same expression???, at times displaying the tenseness of the moment, at times using the moment to be somewhere faraway...and most importantly always with an intensity that bespeaks the responsibility of the cause that they stood for.
It is rare to come across a photograph completely framed, or dictated, or 'directed' as a PR exercise or for some motive. There is a certain purity to each of these portrayals of events and faces.
These are portraits of a man engrossed with his mission, and of his people who by their body language speak a truth that they lived - the truth of a struggle of a higher order!!!
Amidst these gems, one sticks out as the only mirthful photograph.
Dr. Ambedkar resigned from his ministership in Delhi and returned to Mumbai on 18th November 1951. RaoBahadur C. K. Bole had no place to sit on the Boribunder Station. So Dr. Ambedkar plonked him on his lap. And behind them, the police are perturbed and issuing instructions to the followers. Unaware of all that, Dr. Ambedkar, his wife and old Rao Bahadur share a moment they will cherish. So will I.
I wonder whether the English version will be able to retain the charm of the marathi...More as I digest it further...

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

By Prakash Vishwasrao for Lok Wangmaya Griha. Sanjay Surwade. wonderful book. Still reading it. After a long time fell in love with a book. Last was Francis Fukuyama's Trust.
Although I am happy that the copy that i have is in Marathi, it's also available in Hindi and English.
The story of the collector of memorablia and photographs, Vijay Surwade is stuff one can make a film out of.
Morning spoke to my father in Pune about the book, and the relevance of Ambedkar's views today. He vision is inscribed in our constitution, but we have forgotten most of what is pertinent to society this very moment.
"Hard as it is for someone my age understand, the generation of Poles who have grown up since the fall of Communism have virtually no historical memory of what it represented; they take Poland’s contemporary democracy for granted and feel little emotional connection to the great struggles of their parents’ generation."
That's Fukuyama on Nov 22nd on his blog.
The same applies to the youth of India.
We have Ambedkar's photo just about everywhere; in schools, colleges, at weddings, in all the government offices, in public places and what have you. We have made a God out of him and forgotten his teachings, nay his guidelines about how society and the government should behave.
A revisit is of utmost importance for sanity to return to a nation steeped in the whirlpool of a post modern consumerist kitsch. There will be more of ambedkarism here on my blog as i continue reading this fascinating book...

Veer

My 6 month holiday is over. Veer is born. He and Swati are well. He is beautiful!!!