Dum Maaro Dum : A Story Of Replacements

Since I have had the fortune of interacting with Jaideep Sahni, lyricist of DMD, at length, I will refrain myself from commenting on the title track of the film. Besides this, I have many good and a few not so good things to talk about the film. I saw the film, like an avid film-goer on first day first show, primarily because it was my first film after quitting my last job. Though I ended my previous day in a dazed state, I still listened to Pancham on my parting moment – Musafir hoon yaaron!

So what about DMD? The internet is spewing mixed reviews and results about the film. Though director Rohan Sippy with his trademark handlebar mustache and a strange sense of humor said that it grossed about Rs. 6.2 crores on the opening day and hence will have a great opening weekend. True! Abhishek’s last film “Game” was so ill placed with its release date being 1st April, a day prior to India-Sri lanka world cup final. Not that movie was any great shake to talk about. DMD on the other hand, releases when IPL is throwing surprises and barring a team or two, the tournament is strictly open for the rest.

To begin with, DMD is taut. It is tight as a screenplay. It is entertaining largely and it has some really well shot scenes and a couple of glimpses of good performances. It has Pritam’s music which is (besides the title track) really interesting and popular. The styling of film and the titles is superb and captivating. The back ground music is just fantastic and works for the film. It has Deepika Padukone doing the item number which is so sexy that the film should get A certificate only for the song. That’s about it.

In my opinion, DMD is a classic case of “Replacements”. Anybody could have done anybody’s job yet somebody was taken hoping that nobody will be able to replace them. First thing first. The film could have been directed by Rohan’s assistant as it did lack the panache and the zany feeling of Rohan that we say in Bluffmaster. Shridhar Raghavan’s story has been converted in to a strange screenplay, and could have been written by any desi James Hadley Chase. Everything in the film could have been done by anybody else and therefore has no distinct signature to it. This I think is the reason why film will not be remembered for something. The super-controversial DMD track is not by Pritam, its Pancham so they could have used the original instead.

DMD is not Bluff Master and so all the people who went to watch the movie expecting Rohan and Abhishek will be giving us another con-comic (abhi term banaya baap) movie, they are in for an almost rude shock. Bluffmaster was a clever and present day version of Paul Newman-Robert Redform starrer “The Sting”. Now those who remember Bluffmaster will remember it as a very stylish ubercool con movie with Nana Patekar stealing the limelight and Vishal Shekhar’s sexy music and a lot of mixes of the songs done by various artists. I think, Rohan was under pressure of expectations while making DMD.

In the first half, the film runs very tightly and doesn’t allow you to shift eyes from the scene. Prateik Babbar has a long way to go as far as acting is concerned. In all his films, he has the same confused expression and a half-cocky attitude which originates from nothing. I think he will take some time to realize that both Raj Babbar and Smita Patil were top of the line actors and didn’t do films for jaywalking in them. His role, while being the continuing thread, could have been done by anybody and I mean anybody. There was nothing special in him, a far cry from the role of a loner he played in Jane tu ya jane na. His bohemian streak and various colorful holiday pictures of Goa add nothing to his character. It is in this film, I came to know that India smuggles cocaine to US. Whatever happened to the Cambodian mafia and South American drug cartels? His girlfriend in an almost nonexistent role is played by Anaitha Nair whose role could have been played by anyone else too.

Then comes the role of a 6ft 3 hunk of all muscles called Rana Daggubati. While a lot of tweets and facebook statuses by girls were devoted to him, hoping him to be their arm candy, he has the looks of a star but none of an actor so far. For the lesser informed, both the grandfathers of Rana (maternal n paternal) are famous filmmakers D. Ramanaidu and Nageshwar Rao. His father is another great film producer D. Suersh Babu. Rana is also nephew of filmstars Nagarjuna and Venkatesh. So basically, this boy comes from a totally filmi family and his first film “Leader’ (with fleeting reference to Godfather) was a huge hit. He runs a VFX company and has been trained by none other than Barry John. While he was impressive in Leader as it was a writer backed role, his impressive personality was not put to good use in DMD. I have a hunch that he has more to offer than just a tall and muscular frame.

Aditya Pancholi as the villain called Biscuit, was almost like a “Chai mein dooba”. He was grossly wasted. He was almost pathetic and evoked no fear in anybody’s heart. I believe his character underwent changes due to a lot of after-thought by the writer or I can put the blame on editor who wanted to shorten the film. Biscuita missed the quirks. He did nothing to establish himself of the boss of the cartel. Otherwise a very good looking man with a unique voice quality, Aditya has done some very good roles in the past. This one was totally wasted. Again, any actor could have played the role of Biscuit.

Bipasha Basu’s job was to look sexy and she did. Again, the role is not like what she did in Ajnabi or an otherwise forgettable Corporate. It has no distinct Bipasha angle to it, except for the fact that she looks smoking hot in some of the scenes. But again, there are other girls who can play the same role and yet not get noticed. Apart from that a few forgettable characters like Govind Namdeo, Muzzamil (guy who plays Mercy and cribs about having a shitty job), the latino hottie with a delicious figure, some firang looking dope pushers, Vidya Balan (So much hullabaloo over her miniscule guest appearance) and few more forgettable characters are there in the film, and they can be present in any other film too. The worst part of trying to create an aura around the mysterious character called Barbossa just creates frustration, like any other Abhishek movie.

Now what stands out in the film are a couple of things. Abhishek’s look and intensity on screen. In certain scenes, his face filled with anger and disgust is really likeable. For a change, he has gotten rid of his hip-hop swagger and he acts like a cop. He looks and acts tough and especially in the flea market scene where he nabs the shooters swiftly. His scene while drinking with his colleagues is also impressive and some of the dialogues that he delivered were really show stealers. He looks mean in the interrogation scene. While Bluffmaster was a film made for Abhishek, DMD doesn’t do justice to Abhishek fully and barring the scenes that I mentioned above, anyone could have done the job.

The high point of the film is its music. Leave aside the title track, the song Jiye Kyun by extremely popular Assamese pop sensation Papon (Angarag Mahanta) is a worthy composition and explores the depths and baritone of Papon’s voice. I think he was recommended by the Medival Punditz who did the background score for DMD along with Karsh Kale. Papon’s album Jonaki Raati is a hit with electronic music lovers across India. This song will sustain the tests of time. The other song “Te Amo” is already popular amongst lovers and has been climbing the charts since release. Jaana Kahan is another beautiful composition by Pritam and this time for another Assamese singer Zubeen Garg. The only misfit in the whole album is a quasi hip-hop cum rap song sung by Abhishek which he incidentally lip synced in the film and hence looked totally out of sync in the movie. Story behind the maha-controversial lyrics of Mit Jaaye Gham, I hope will be unveiled some day but till that time, I would say…the guitar riffs and the break rhythm of the original part has been treated amazingly. Despite of being a hardcore Pancham fan, I think Pritam did a good job here.

The song picturised on Deepika titled “Mit Jaaye Gham” has been in news before and after the release. The song is truly something else. Krumping style of dance choreographed by Bandra boys Bosco-Ceasar and Deepika’s sexiest outfit till date designed by Anaita Shroff Adajania is something that will be remembered for a long long time. This is no Munni or Sheila but this song is pure, raw sex in your face. With this one song, Deepika has risen many ranks in the hotbods of films, especially when the Nescafe coffee commercials where she gyrates her South Indian Kundi in the most provocative and titillating way. She may turn out to be the new Zeenat Aman.

For those who dig Medival Punditz and Karsh Kale, the background music is a delight and for those who don’t, it’s time to get exposed to the masters of electronica. Such an apt background score and Goa trance played very well. Another mentionable thing here is that Amit Roy captured a new Goa in the movie, which is laced with drugs and not just the beaches where our lead actors keep frolicking, singing absurd songs in non-Goan tunes. Goa seems to be an integral part of the film and hence this one thing that remains irreplaceable.

Despite of all the issues, the film is a good entertainer. It has some really interesting conversations. The velocity of the film is worth the watch. Amazing cinematography and Rohan’s understanding of Abhishek as an actor are things to watch out for. May be Abhishek should stick to sensible directors who can do justice to his abilities and work on his shortcomings as an actor. Its time for him to realize the potential of script otherwise he will meet his “Replacement” sooner than later.

364 Pages of Pure Pancham Bliss

Circa December 1975. City Indore. The area was called Chhatribaug and the place where my parents and I were living was a 2 room house which was built in the premises of a Sai Baba temple. Apparently it was quite famous. I was 12 months old. As usual, I used to cry a lot. My dad being the super genius he was (he still is a super genius) he would peacefully take out his record player ( I forget the make and so does he) and put the record of a film sound track, not that he was listening to any other kind of music. As the needle would scratch the magnetic groove of the black vinyl, a strange sound, a strange sounding singer would belt out an even more stranger sounding sound. I would stop crying in an instant and would enjoy the music in my own way. Now don’t ask me what the ways were because I don’t remember. The song, to my surprise, was “Mehbooba Mehbooba” from Sholay, sung and composed by Pancham. This was told to me some 15-16 years later by my dad and amongst a zillion things I wish to thank him, I added one the most prominent thank you for introducing me to Pancham. Incidentally, the first movie I saw as a toddler of couple of months was another Pancham gem “Aandhi”.

So I finished reading RD Burman : The Man The Music – A book by an IIT Kharakpur grad and another one from Jadavpur university who are enjoying their corporate life as an SAP Consultant and a Banker. A couple of days back a colleague of mine, another Pancham buff Sudha Sadhanand (a person whom you can bond with over everything under the sun) called and told me about these two friends of hers. Their book on Pancham is all set to come out to the market and we should do something about the book on radio as this is a book on Pancham. I looked at Pancham’s picture which is on my desk (gifted by another friend Geetanjali). A lovely picture where he is sporting an all while ensemble including a golf cap and a red muffler looking at you intently and his hands posed in a unique way, quizzing the person looking at the picture – Dude, do you even know what you are doing?

So a lot of people like Pancham. I am biased towards Pancham. I am obsessed with Pancham. I am a borderline lunatic. Probably would have turned a stalker if he was alive. Like a whole lot, I was a part of Yahoo groups of Pancham, interacted briefly over emails with Vinay who gave the world www.panchamonline.com and also met then Punekari Ankush through the same group. Also, thinking of Pancham also makes me remember a school senior called Sunil who had a huge collection of Pancham songs in cassettes. Songs on Akashwani, and yes, my first job as a Head of Programming of an FM radio station where my Station Head Alok Purohit and I shared the same madness – Pancham. Without asking anybody and having the power to buy any music I want as Head of Programming of a music station, I painstakingly bought all the popular numbers of Pancham from the market. It was not the entire collection but it was one of the best collections with all the hits and some rare gems of Pancham. It reached to an extent that the music store I used to buy CDs from, would send me CDs that he would scout for in the wholesale market.

I have a strange love for Pancham, almost Gulzaresque. Once more, I took benefit of my position and decided to host a show on Pancham on radio. In his memory on 4th January, 2002 I was to host a 3 hour show to be broadcast at 9 pm. All the years of listening to Pancham, dad’s guidance, me and Alok singing songs before short-listing the 34 songs (I think so) we would play in the show and then amidst all the preparation, creating a sales package for the show which my dear friend Nitin Patodi went and sold to Patwa Motors of Palasia, Indore saying that we are celebrating Pancham’s birthday. My sound engineer and friend Ravi Harry and me spent 3 days to cut the show. The show started with me saying “Pancham tum nahi rahe” in a true Gulzar style and later on I went on talking about a subject which I could talk on for hours – Pancham. The show also caused anguish to some Pancham fans as I also played some of the songs which Pancham got inspired from including the song that stopped me from crying – A unique song that Ravi and I thought was a path-breaking idea where we mixed Mehbooba Mehbooba and Say You love me (Demis Rousso). It took Ravi close to 2 hours to match the chord and create a seamless song. Don’t remember clearly but there were other inspirations too which we played on my show. Prateik Sharma, an RJ then who used to work with me, claims to have the recording of the show. Looks like will have to hold him to gun point to get hold of the amateurish RJing attempt of mine.So coming back to the book.

I saw Jitesh Pillai’s tweet and Sudha’s facebook status saying that they are enjoying the book already. I was almost red and hence ran to the Landmark book store, which incidentally is in the same premises where my office is (I know, blessing in disguise). To my shock, the book hadn’t come to Landmark. I asked my team mate Shreya to call up another book store “Book Lover” to find out about the book. No luck. I was damn pissed. Jitesh went on tweeting. In the mean time, some reviews also appeared on internet. This is really not done, I thought and pinged Sudha on bbm (Blackberry messenger). She in turn called up one of the authors Balaji Vittal and complained to him. Probably 15 minutes had passed when my phone showed a couple of missed calls. I don’t usually pick calls from the numbers that I don’t have in my phone book or prefer to get an SMS from the caller before answering. For some strange reason, I called back and it was Balaji’s number. For all the right and wrong reasons, he turned out to be a very very sweet chap and was stepping out to send me the book via Blue Dart courier so that it reaches me in the morning. We spoke for some time and he said, he will call back in an hour with the details. I sent him my address as discussed. In an hour, he said, the book will be delivered to me post 12.30 tomorrow as the distributor and publisher have promised.

Next day, at around 2.05 in the afternoon, this guy from the book shop “Book Lover” was standing at the reception with my copy of the book. I also stole a glance at the person who was going to receive the other copy he was carrying. It was addressed to Vishwas Nerurkar, a man who is known as an official Hindi Film music buff and a Pancham Bhakt. In between, I joined Balaji’s list of facebook friends, and soon to the facebook page created for the book. Soon, Aniruddha also joined my list of facebook friends and I started reading the book. I have just finished reading the book. For the first time, I have read a book so carefully and lived the book with the writers. I was a part of the journey that Pancham took. I don’t understand the music the way the two gentlemen writers have written. I don’t understand the guitar riffs and Bassa Nova rhythm, or 4 X 4 progression leave alone the technical part like Komal Dha or Teevra Ni or lower Octave. I only love music the way it feels. I appreciate music because the way it is able to evoke emotions in me or any living being so beautifully. A near hypnotic effect of music has been witnessed by me when my friend Utkarsh Naithani did a music appreciation course for all me and my team where I saw individuals feeling the same emotions as the composer had felt while creating the music. Its uncanny. It was spooky but the truth is that I saw it happening to 3 different individuals with 3 different compositions. Must do it again sometime. But this book took me to all the songs that I grew up listening to. I remembered some of the most obvious and some hidden gems of Pancham.

The book is a treasure trove. For people who live on Pancham, and for people who have no idea who Pancham was. It is a meticulously written book or should I say a song with each stanza adorned with beautiful words. The best thing about the book begins when the authors dedicate the book to people Pancham worked with. I dreaded to see one name appearing in the book but the best part, the authors were thorough in their research when they wrote almost non-judgmental about Sapan Chakraborty. It is not a usual book of anecdotes and the greatness of Pancham. We all know about them. The book also shows the lazy, lethargic Panchm who trusted people a little more than required in the commercial world. While he agreed to play “Harmonica” for Lakshmikant Pyarelal, they back stabbed him in the end causing a major setback to his career and life. The books also talks about his assistants and his army of musicians leaving him.

The book is so accurate in its descriptions and I know for a fact that all the people who worship Pancham will agree to every single thing it has to say. The author duo have spent hours in talking to people who worked with Pancham, many other film music aficionados , writers, journalists and film historians but unlike all other books, this books shows Pancham in the right light. His obsession with Asha Bhonsle who probably was too commercially oriented to be with her “Bubbs” when he was going through his heart surgery or when he breathed his last. This books talks at length about many legends who gave the best creatives of their lives to Pancham – The legendary Bhanu Gupta, Manohari Singh, Basu Chakravarti, Homi Mullan, Kancha, Tony Vaz and many such artists who were the breaths that the soul called Pancham took.

At no moment, the books gets preachy or gets in to the anecdotal mode where a thousand fake stories were associated with the genius of Pancham. It deftly touches the quirks that he had like “I don’t know, I want this sound any how” and left his team to create the sound. It doesn’t talk about his idiosyncrasies at all which is a relief to people like me. For all the books that I have read in my life, especially books on great people written by some, they all are borderline worshiping bibles. Aniruddha and Balaji have managed to steer clear of the classic trap of making the man larger than the work which my opinion is a commendable achievement. But the real beauty of the book is the ease that these two authors have shown in explaining the finer nuances of Pancham’s songs. As a listener, all of us have enjoyed the wizardry that Pancham often displayed in his songs, the expectations that he would bring to his compositions, the unique treatment that he would offer in his most average songs and his crazy arrangement stories, we have enjoyed them all. The book, however, explains the journey of composition of many of Pancham gems. How he borrowed from his dad’s repertoire, how he got inspired from various tunes, how he was forced to create something similar, From ABBA to Boney M to Pink Floyd….all the influences. The book covers it all and that’s what makes the book stand apart. It fills the gap that all of us have felt.

Many Pancham fans have contributed in the making of this book, including discussions on Pancham’s yahoo group which eventually became victim of some crazy zealous people who wanted to compare Pancham to AR Rahman. Well, there is hardly any comparison between the two. Both of them are similar to share the dissimilarity in their music. AR Rahman has admitted listening to RD Burman, SD Burman and many other Hindi film composers in his growing up years (his book with Nasreen Munni Kabeer) and also accepted that as a kid he was singing Dum Maro Dum without realizing the meaning of the songs. These are two different musicians, born in two different eras and have contributed to film music in ways that nobody else did. The book, however, stays clear of comparing Pancham with any other music director and hence does not tread the path, once again proving the intent of the authors to write a clean book on Pancham, a true dedication. Hats off to Aniruddha and Balaji was being able to stay true to the core of the book, retaining the soul of the book throughout by not giving in to the cheap gimmicks many great authors have resorted to. They themselves have admitted in the “Author’s note” that there are people better qualified to write a book on Pancham but since this is not a “Mahima Mandan” of Pancham but a mere glimpse of musical journey of his and how his music has survived ages and how he is one of those composers who got his due only after he left. I truly believe in the book and the authors as there is not one single “give in” trick in the book, not even one cheap paragraph which can be used to promote the book (there are authors who wrote about sexual orientation of Mahatma Gandhi to sell the book). In the age of commercial writing, this is a herculean task but the duo carried the cross on their shoulders.



Yet, I have a complaint to make to Anirrudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal both – just 364 pages?

PS : The book makes you burst in to singing, smiling, whistling, jumping and crying almost at the same time. Read it if you are not worried about the surroundings and people around you.