The Datas of Petty Things!

Don’t confuse the ‘data’ in its statistical implications, here it means ‘giver’ (as per some Indian languages) or rather a ‘service provider’—the latter being the most suitable one for our purpose. Because this story refers to a DTH service provider; a service provider that is believed to have legendary origins as far as its services in a range of arenas is concerned. And this story is as told to me by a friend, and I’ve still kept it in first person, meaning him, the narrator.

                                                                                   *

One fine morning as I switched on my modest television set I got setup for an unpleasant surprise, literally out of the blue! The message from the service provider, the Dataslay, got fixated at the baseline of the screen, telling me that my monthly charges of such and such amount are due in four days. Why! I paid an amount much higher than the monthly charges less than a month back, and as per the text message, sent by the service provider to my mobile phone immediately after the payment, my due date was still about twenty days away.

 

I thought it was a mistake which is likely to be rectified in the next two or three days, definitely before the incorrect due date. This thought was in respect of the legendary DATAs who, I persisted, couldn’t possibly cheat an insignificant but regularly-paying customer over an utterly insignificant amount of about 200 rupees. But I was dreadfully wrong.

 

The baseline notification refused to budge, and on the day before the recharge date to prevent deactivation I had to ring up the Dataslay Helpline. I told the lady executive my peculiar problem. To my horror, she didn’t know anything, in all her articulated innocence! I couldn’t believe this: she must be having my account right before her on the computer screen with all the details and the billing statements for months or even years stored there! I repeated my issue telling her to explain how on earth my monthly charges could suddenly increase by about 200 bucks without any new subscribed channels or packages or anything from my side in the last few months. But she persisted with her innocence.

 

She said they were very sorry for the inconvenience thus caused and would do everything possible so that my account doesn’t get deactivated. She kept on asking me what was the package or the extra channels I subscribed to which I told her to check on my account right before her. But she preferred to ignore it. And then she not only did offer an immediate solution but implemented it in an instant without giving me any time to consider it: that my account is re-subscribed with the economical basic package; that my monthly charges become less than the earlier regular amount as, I understood later, all of my additionally subscribed channels have disappeared; and that my new recharge date is in the coming two days.

 

I got as brutally surprised as I was horrified to watch the new notifications on my TV screen. The same evening I sent them an email mentioning all the details and even copy-pasting their previous text message after the payment I made last. The reply mail informed me that I’d be contacted within the next twenty-four hours. At around noontime next day, one male executive contacted me, again asking for the details. Dear me! What details they want now! I just told him that I needed an explanation as to how my monthly charges inexplicably    increased by 200 rupees. At last showing some concern he asked for a few minutes, assuring me that he’d get back soon.

 

However, hours later a lady executive called me, again asking me for the details. As I began by saying she should be the best placed to know she cut the line. In the following three hours there were two miscalls—I noticed that the calls were of extreme short duration so that, perhaps, I didn’t have the time to answer. Exasperated now, I embarked upon a frantic internet search for the top managers of Dataslay and found one top manager whose email address was available. I sent a mail detailing everything about the issue, including the response received so far.

 

Yet nothing happened. Except for me finding another two miscalls the next day, again of extreme short duration. In the evening I found another email asking me to give them an alternative mobile number as if they were so very pained and pissed at not being able to contact me. I decided to ignore that, somewhat resigned to fate now.

 

In the meantime the screen baseline kept on warning me about the impending deactivation if I failed to recharge. I decided to ignore, again. And the DTH connection was indeed deactivated the next day. Holy shit! I couldn’t believe that such a trade giant could be so concerned about earning or losing a meagre 200 bucks. I also had no information that the big giant is in any sort of a decapitating financial crisis. Okay, I decided, let them have my 200 bucks and get the richest among all giants existing. But, of course, I do retain my power of depriving them of one customer, permanently. And I do have my principles too, irrespective of the money involved. Yes, I am not going to recharge and will let the account die an unnatural death while looking for a new service provider of which there is no dearth. Well, I don’t mind for my loss. God has given me enough power still to help the desperately needy or the greedy with those small amounts, for a limited period, of course.

*

My friend ends the story there. What do you think of it? Personally speaking, I found it utterly unbelievable, considering such desperation from one of the top giants nearly implausible. What about the poor then who struggle for less than 200 bucks for a daily existence?

Movie Jalsa: Poor Storyline And Half-Baked Characters Make It An Immensely Forgettable Viewing!

Thanks perhaps to the conditional benevolence of the OTT streaming platforms some filmmakers, ostensibly under the pretense of being serious creators, get the rare opportunity to indulge in their experiments or otherwise while always managing to rope in talented actors to create a pre-release hype about their ‘darkly serious dram/thriller’ movies. They always prefer to choose female-centric themes or stories with female protagonists/antagonists, and most of them deliver their favorite ‘emancipation of women’ templates by making the ‘swear-word liberalism’ gender-neutral. They get the much-needed support too from similar or like-minded souls of the mainstream media who praise the movies to the heavens. Fortunately, the Amazon original movie ‘Jalsa’ that released on Prime Video on 18^th March, 2022, is totally free of that ‘liberalism’ while still sticking to the female-centric theme with three major roles of women protagonists/antagonists in the movie given to the immensely talented actors Vidya Balan, Shefali Shah and Rohini Hattangadi.

 

‘Jalsa’ tells the story of a popular TV anchor/journalist, Maya Menon (pivotal role played by Vidya Menon), who is established at the very outset as a fearless and ethical journalist. Although in that episode of her supposedly celebrated interview series she just reclines on the chair gazing smilingly at the restless Judge Gulati (actor-comedian Gurpal Singh totally miscast in that small role) without speaking a word.

 

Anyway, working late hours after the interview a tired Maya bumps off a girl while driving back home. And, a journalist of the fearless brand sits inside the car paralyzed with fear despite knowing clearly that it was not her fault as the girl came in front of her car out of nowhere, and horror of horrors, decide to escape from the scene leaving the bleeding teenaged girl victim on the road. Hit-and-run drivers are considered as scourges of the modern society and we always curse them in all our righteous indignation. However here in the movie, we’re forced to sit through the explorations of the guilty mind of Maya for the simple reason that the role is played by none other than Vidya Balan. Unfortunately, the viewers lose sympathy with her instantly and scoff at her eventual trembling fits, screams and a final confession at the very end.; and that’s why, we preferred to keep the options of ‘protagonist’ or ‘antagonist’ wide open earlier in this piece.

 

More agonizingly, the girl’s boyfriend (one of the deadwood performers of the movie) also decides to get paralyzed with a fear of an entirely unknown variety and leaves her bleed to death on the Mumbai Road. The movie director (Suresh Triveni) does not bother to tell us who finally finds her and admits her in a hospital. The victim is revealed to be the daughter of Maya’s maid Ruksana (played powerfully by Shefali Shah).

 

Maya, of course, decides to tell her secret to her boss or colleague or whatever the next day. As is revealed the boss or colleague or whatever possesses an even dirtier mind and goes on scheming cunningly for her or his own interests, not known so far, after the truth of the victim’s identity comes out. Obviously, the director has little knowledge about the functioning of a TV channel and therefore less about the functionaries involved in management, production, reporting, live feeds and so on. This particular channel office hardly anyone other than Maya, her boss or colleague or whatever and a fat editor are shown.

 

Of course (with the boredom of repeating), Maya acts in full responsibility taking care of Ruksana’s daughter, admitting her in a good hospital and bearing all expenses. Policemen—the about-to-retire More and the younger Pradeep come in now— and the duo, for reasons very unknown, had a drunken party out in the open inviting dead trouble from the local politicians or mafia or whatever along with a possible fatal blow to More’s unblemished career. So, they are hellbent on doing a cover-up job.  A suspense element is thus introduced.

 

And then comes the deadpan trainee-reporter Rohini who, for her very existence’s sake, tries to uncover the story tormenting the guilty-minded Maya more with her scary leads. The suspense element gets confounded when we witness Rohini laughing like a hyena while talking on phone to her outstation mother. In the meanwhile, the ‘covering-up and the uncovering’ process sets the ball of lies/bargains rolling and alive as far as the emotional Ruksana and her other deadwood accomplices are concerned.

 

The deadwood boyfriend has to be beaten up confess the full accident details to Ruksana and then the movie races for a climax that leaves you shattered and without a clue in the end. The web of blackmailing tactics involving Maya’s driver, Maya’s boss or colleague or whatever and the deadpan trainee-reporter also leave you shattered. The director and the writers actually wanted to capture everything black about Mumbai like corruption in police or in police-politician-crime nexus or in journalism or even in poverty, but found themselves with too much loads to do justice to the final delivery.

 

This writer is too foolish even to understand why the title ‘Jalsa’ (normally meaning fun gathering or musical gathering or just celebrations) is taken, and when he watches the title flashing up on the screen during the scene of the local politician’s birthday celebration out on the roads, he is rendered totally helpless. The write also doesn’t know why at all Maya decides to give her confession to the deadpan reporter during the climax.

 

Vidya Balan, the powerful actor for her memorable performances in movies like ‘Kahaani’ (2012), ‘The Dirty Picture’ (2013) and ‘Mission Mangal’ (2019-Orbiter Mission to Mars), is a pity in this role as she is unable to breathe life into it. Shefali Shah, with much more motivation to drive on, delivers a more powerful performance as the maid. It’s also refreshing to watch veteran Rohini Hattangadi as Maya’s mother after a long break. Other highlights include the absence of class or religious or caste divides in the movie.

 

Photo: neweynews.co.uk

The biggest highlight of ‘Jalsa’ belongs to the child actor, Surya Kasibhatla, who in reality is a victim of cerebral palsy and is from Texas of Indian origin, plays the role of Maya’s differently-abled 10-year-old son Ayush with an endearing and enriching naturalness cum freshness. His role is very well-defined to the credit of the director, and brings out the nuances nicely in the boy’s bond with Ruksana and her son Imaad, his daily chemistry with his grandmother and his protesting outbursts against the wrong acts of his mother. For this foolish and rude writer, the movie belongs only to the duo of Ruksana and Ayush.

Why Should Death Be A Good News?

Media-persons, including this writer, have the habit of prioritizing news stories/reports on the basis of how many people have died or are adversely affected, which is actually necessary to structure a news bulletin, always a tough job doing justice to the stories, selecting them and giving the prominence a story deserves. When a reporter comes in to the newsroom stating that an accident or any kind of such tragic happenings has occurred in which 2-4 people have died the news editor would just grimace it away and most often would ask it to be included in the scroll. If the fatalities are around 10 it normally gets into the bulletin as an important story, and when the toll is more than 15/20 then it becomes a headline news story. Well, this is unfortunate indeed; but in a hyperactive newsroom it becomes unavoidable. However, such stories are never taken as a good news story.

 

Deaths are always unfortunate whatever be the number, because for the person who succumbs in an accident or is killed it signals the end of the world for him/her. Yes, death is a very normal and inevitable part of human existence as we live with deaths all around us till our turns which always seem to be unreal and elusive. But dying unnecessary or avoidable deaths always hurt the most. If there is an outbreak of a disease or an endemic or a pandemic people die in varying numbers; but the question remains as to why at all should they die. Why such deaths are not preventable in the age of the most advanced modern medical science and amenities?

 

What has suddenly prompted me to write these words? Well, in a very well-known private news channel in India I had the misfortune to watch and hear the anchor reporting a few deaths as a ‘good news’! The anchor was narrating the Omicron-led COVID-19 pandemic spread story in Mumbai that more than 20,000 new cases were reported in the city in the last 24 hours which is the highest ever of all the three waves, and then said ‘but the good news is that there are only 4 deaths in the same period’. Sure, the anchor said this while making a comparison with the disastrous second wave. But, terming the fewer deaths as a ‘good news’ is extremely unfortunate. Recently, in the same channel, one sensitive doctor echoed my thoughts by saying that if the country is fully prepared to face the third wave why at all people should die, whatever be the number.  

 

Death can never be a cause for celebration even if one of your deadliest enemies dies suddenly. Some perverted and sadistic souls may rejoice within themselves, but it just can never be made official before the general public. During the pandemic years it has, most unfortunately, become a habit with the governments or authorities boasting of reducing the fatality figures and thus bringing the virus under control. I must emphasize again that even though only one person dies unnecessarily it is the end of the world for him/her and for his/her family.

 

Of course, it is also true that most ignorant or careless people do rush to their deaths by throwing all precautions and norms out of the window. Governments or authorities can only issue the rules and regulations, they cannot force all citizens to follow them. Finally, it is the duty of the citizens to take care of themselves and their kin, particularly the elderly people in their families. In India people of all religious faiths believe that their heavenly protectors would always protect them and, in that spirit, they throng to the temples or any places of worship in large numbers to offer their prayers and get the blessings, even if it amounts to blatant violations of the norms. All the true saints and preachers have said since times immemorial that Gods or your protectors live within you and all around you, and you can seek the blessings from the confines of your heart, it is not at all necessary to rush to the places of worship, stumbling, stampeding over each other. 

Movie Dybbuk: A Standard Indian Horror Flick With An Interesting Plot!

The latest Hindi movie to premier on Amazon Prime Video, on 29^th October 2021 to be exact, is titled Dybbuk directed by Jay K who also directed the original Malayalam movie Ezra(2017) and started shooting this Hindi remake in 2019 and due to the pandemic could not plan a theatrical release, selling the rights to Amazon and premiered as an Amazon Original Movie. It is a horror movie with some elements of suspense and an interesting plot. Perhaps for photographic reasons the shooting was done in Mauritius apart from a little scene in Mumbai. The leads are Emraan Hashmi and Nikita Dutta. The film has all the elements of a horror flick like an overly loud background score, jump-cut scares, moving figures behind your back, an ugly face in the mirror or in the almirah and quite a few scary scenes that turn to be humorous inadvertently. However, the movie a bit better fare than the traditional Ramsay Brothers type or the Vikram Bhatt kind of horror thanks to its interesting plot involving a Jewish community in Mauritius and their folklore, faiths and occult practices.

 

The movie begins with a death of a Jewish dignitary whose house was full of antique pieces, and then to a murder of the assistant of an antique shop while being attracted to a mysterious-looking box that was procured from the dignitary’s house. As he opens the box a poltergeist kind of shaking happens all around inside the closed shop and he was supposedly tossed against the walls and killed. The police began investigations, but the process stopped abruptly as the focus shifted to the lead couple who had to move bag and baggage from Mumbai to Mauritius as the husband was transferred to handle a sensitive nuclear-waste factory there for two years. They were given a huge bungalow by the company. The bored wife who was thinking of taking up interior designing of the bungalow visited the same antique shop and was fascinated by the antique box. She brings it home, opens it and things begin to happen. As is usual in all supernatural films the husband refuses to believe till he starts experiencing the strange happenings himself.

 

The plot is interesting because, at least for me personally, I never remember a Jewish community being the focus of a Hindi movie along with hearing Hebrew or Yiddish dialogues, mercifully with subtitles, and knowing about their folklore. The word ‘dybbuk’ in Hebrew or in Yiddish means a devil or an evil spirit, and the Jews had an occult practice of imprisoning such spirits in boxes for various reasons and objectives. That the antique box had something evil inside was obvious from the beginning, and so the element of suspense about it was missing. Yet, the plot still had a lot to build a scary atmosphere, suspense and tension.

 

The movie’s screenplay made a mess of the potential despite the director having the first-hand experience of creating a tense atmosphere in the original Malayalam film that he himself directed. It is unknown if had to compromise with the demands of a Hindi filmy formula apart from shifting the sets to picturesque Mauritius. The making of the movie looks like an assembled computer as if the all the parts, that is to say, scenes were created separately and then assembled together due to which the natural flow of storytelling is missing that miserably failed to make the scares and tension effective. Normally an able hero with a sexy image Emraan Hashmi looks exactly like a hired actor who just goes on doing the chores assigned to him for his pay package. Almost the same applies to the heroine Nikita Dutta, although she is not in the same bracket of celebrities like Emraan.

 

The police investigation could’ve been continued in the proper manner to link it to the happenings with the couple in a parallel treatment which would surely have added to the build-up of suspense and tension. As we have hinted all the characters, except perhaps the roles of the Father and the Rabbi, have just been pieces to be joined together by an editor, not the director. Superficial scares are also unnecessarily built like the stiff-faced housemaid who finally turned to be just an ordinary human being. There are indeed some scary moments, but they just end then and there letting the film meander aimlessly for some time till the time of creating more scares comes. When the final twist in the tale comes it is too late, because all the previous connecting scenes are not shown fully, hiding the crucial signs or signals which amounts to a case of cheating the audience. Cheating is a part of filmmaking for various reasons, but it should not be too obvious and deliberately motivated.

 

A flashback is imposed to explain or justify the spirit and that turns out to be a clichéd romantic story ending in gore and horror. I feel it is an opportunity lost to make a positive addition to create a ‘different’ horror genre in India. On the positive side the movie is technically sound in photography, the frames and the camera movements. The performances cannot be called powerful, because the screenplay did not allow it. Still, the movie does not bore you to leave it midway, it compels you to go through the entire length expecting something more, and finally you’d feel it was okay for a one-time view. The reviews seem to be too harsh, perhaps because most of the critics had seen the original film and felt utterly disappointed as the same director let them down in this remake. As is the general rule one cannot ever expect sequels or prequels or remakes to match the originals, barring a few rare exceptions in world cinema. So then, the horror genre remains mostly where it has always been in India. Alas!

Newsroom Humor: Hapus Mangoes in America!

Hapus and alphonso mangoes are grown mostly in the Rantagiri district of Maharashtra, a state of India. They are called the kings of mangoes. The taste is pure, deliciously sweet and fibrous yet very soft. The look is green-brownish-pinkish. The shape is a delight to the beholder and the size fits the palm.

The mango season begins in around April in this western state of India when the price remains very high—about $10-$15 a dozen. In June-July it falls to tolerable levels. Mango festivals are organized in Mumbai around this season where growers from different regions of the state open their stalls of the priciest mangoes and sell at wholesale rates. Folks throng such festivals and try for a good bargain. Here pricing rates per dozen are not so much adhered to. The customers look for a peti, that is, a straw padded wooden case of rows of mangoes sealed tightly that can be bought at bulk rates.

The newsroom of a local TV channel got the news that hapusmangoes are being exported to America after a long break of 18 years. That was big news. It occupied the headline slots for whole of that day. It was newsworthy and also sentimental as it evoked a sense of pride among the local newspersons employed there.

Two days later there was a shortage of hard news and it was becoming very difficult to manage the mandatory three headlines for a bulletin ten minutes and above. The chief reporter discovered something and rushed to the editor gushing out, “Sir, hapus mangoes in America! We’ve got our headline!”

“That was two days ago. We made full use of it. No way!”

“No Sir! The mangoes have reached America!”

“Are you crazy? You mean to say we make another headline that the mangoes have reached America now; and then we go on making headlines how many Americans have devoured how many mangoes on a daily basis! Don’t get too patriotic, man! Now, get rid of that mangola mania and hunt for some hard news!”

         (This article was written in 2007 and published at Ezinearticles. Since the topic is relevant any time we have decided to publish it again here. We plan to republish several other Humor articles later here. Enjoy! )