Friday, January 16, 2009

THE DELHI MANIFESTO

I have got a mail from the Nitesh;It was a manifesto about Indian cinema and cinephiles.;
Content---
Our manifesto is up on Indian Cinema, do read it chip in your support and spread the word. The more we can gather over the months will help in the cause of seeing cinema in the right direction.
Original Link
THE DELHI MANIFESTO

  • Our cinema screen has become an ill-constructed, and conventional portal to a world we aspire of, rather than a mirror, which reflects us.
  • Our emotions are guided by leitmotifs placed deftly, and religious beliefs exploited.
  • Our spirit of inquiry has become dead and we have been reduced to mere receivers in the process.
  • Cinema and television has replaced interaction with imposition of thought. Its thought. An artificial, fake and ill-created thought, a manifestation of our needs to escape ourselves.
  • The medium has become a symbol of cheap entertainment, devoid of any examination of the form, and a victim of our collective need to create personalities, perfect alternate universes, and images of our aspiration.
  • Our criticism has become trivial. Stories take precedent over the intrinsic qualities of the cinematic medium.
  • Our film lovers are snobs, indulging in their wholehearted pseudo-intellectual diatribe, condemning the ignorant, and the ignorant have become so used to a cinema that’s meager that they are satiated with films from the West.
  • Our parallel offerings remain strictly entrenched in the tradition of the mainstream, and hence, are versions of the same, rather than its replacements
We reject a system that encourages the above, despite its realization, and seek:-

a) To incite discussion on the possibilities, limitations and viability of the application of the auteur theory as a critical prism.

b) To use criticism and our theories to both champion and strive for innovation and cutting edge in form, form and content.

c) To attempt a formulation of a pure love for cinema, a middle ground between the pseudo intellect of the snobs, and the ignorance of the unknowing, and attempt to mobilize their film loves to this new ground.

d) To attempt a critical theory that moves beyond the supply of the story and the statistical rating points.

e) To observe, notice, and champion upcoming films, filmmakers, and technicians, who remain obscured in the looming shadows of commerce and a faux parallel cinema.

f) To champion cinema that creates dissonance, repulsion, interpretation, confusion and discussion rather than loud claps, whistles and scrupulous satisfaction

g) To work towards a film love which adopts a middle ground, to reinstate the cinema director to his deserved position, to celebrate Indian cinema of the past and the present, to examine its potential, we propose ''The Delhi manifesto.”
- A Delhi Suburb, 1st Jan 2009

SIGN IN:-
People who agree and think we are in need of a dire change.In the way our cinema, our social realm functions, support us.Leave a comment with your name/profession/country to add to the list and spread the word.The vote of support is open to the world.

Signatories

1) Supriya Suri
2) Satyam
3) Kshitiz Anand
4) Ronnie Sen
5) Anuj Malhotra
6) Ankit Choudhary
7) Indranil Kashyap
8) Srikanth Srinivasn
9) Nitesh Rohit
10)Himanshu Rai
11)...

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Being Himanshu Rai

You cannot imagine what it feels to stuck into the body of Himanshu Rai. It is like burning desire to become free from the clutches of emotional attachment. To carve a niche for something, neither fame nor money. It is constant pursuit to search for true meaning of life. The abstract feeling of escapism with the relations, materialism and world. Something inside is pushing me to rebel against mundane and sensible.

On seeing images, videos or natural beauty, a feel of transformation through barriers of time and space is achieved. The characters of the image get me hooked to their life through emotions. I rise and fall with their hopes, dreams and struggle.

We have become vast in our information about past and future but our present has become limited somewhere during this process of discovering time. Time experience becomes relative and feeling of pulse/second arises i.e. I became time conscious. When you are trapped in a remote situation, there is loss of sense of time and place in mind. An urge to run away or hide emerges from inside. Sense of what a wonderful world just sublimes away!!!

I was born in Neverland, traveled far in Bohemia, searching for Terabethia and want to die in Utopia. My body is rigid at one place but my sub-conscious(soul) wanders like Yayaver [A Hindi word, meaning an avid traveler.. or rather a person who is constantly on move ] in divine space filled with ideas. I am in Transit world traveling through time and universe. This world is cruel place where bullets are more exchanged than ideas. People preserve dead but ignore the living around them. Just want to say: Good bye cruel and chaotic world filled with everything but for whom ? Cosmos only.

From pages of diary--

Zerkalo(Mirror) : I am watching mirror at this moment of late night. Chaotic hair style, rough beard (facial hairs), untrimmed mustache and philosophical gesture adds charm in it. I am amazed by the sharp smile which seldom appears on my face. I look deep into my reflection of my eyes and feel the unlimited potential in myself. Now, the mirror takes me through it into deep and uncorrupted part of my soul/consciousness.

I am thrilled by thundering of ideas with a tinge of vanity inside chaotic mind. Then a sudden vacuum appears. Solitude inside me suddenly grows infinite in the silence. First vanity, then feeling of nothingness appears in mirror. I do not become mere observing protagonist but converts into the butterfly of chaos theory. Walls of time surrounds me before a feeling that we are more than a speck of sand in the universe.

I am not even bored by gazing a familiar face again and again. But the feeling of being just a stalker in present haunts me to do something. Everything will be lost in time. Only infinite and zero will prevail in future of nothingness....

Sunday, January 11, 2009

2009 in Blogworld

Y2K +9=2009
I finally woke up on blog-land to wish my readers happy new year. All of us human suddenly go into mass hysteria about a 'much talked and less known event' (like Y2K),then one by one recover from the impact.Same rule is applied for this new year celebration also.

About previous year: What might have been abstract, the remaining is perpetual. A wonderful void in professional life..

New Year 2009: No Resolution or Commitment for anything. It is well said that things which matter most should not be at the mercy of those things which are of least value. I am fighting with me for priority list of important things. Only an idea to start a new blog to gather interviews,speeches and thoughts of parallel India/World is in my mind. Technology can only provide time and cost saving solution but its about old habits. Even after the advent of newer technique, the implementation fails due to lack of will power. Knowledge can be generated by gathering of information both tacit and explicit.Wisdom is one more step ahead of knowledge.

"Facts and data are the fundamental building blocks of intelligent thought and action, but in themselves, have little value until first, they are vertically integrated into patterns of useful information, and then second, these patterns of information are further vertically integrated into useful knowledge. Value rises exponentially with each degree of integration, and sometimes -- when accompanied by a bit of experience and intelligence -- a bit of wisdom can result."[ref.]

Also,I will revise 'Sparsh' to edit grammatical mistakes and to remove the traces (in heaps) of copied sentence. I will try to be more neutral because hate/love can blur the just decision. No bollywood bashing from now on as sarcasm is veiled violence. And for change of mood: Life has a way for rewarding those that back themselves.

Word of the Year---
P2C2E : Process to Complicated to Explain.
I feel B.H.U. tender process reflect the true meaning of the word.

For readers, Never suppress your curiosity while searching about a topic. It may be about latest trend in fashion industry or issues like global warming. I had ventured into various web links of Wikipedia until becoming mentally exhausted,not bored. Be Diverse, Dynamic and Distinct in life. Just do no walk the line,follow the middle path.....