Death of Parallel Cinema

There are now two decades over after the demise of parallel cinema.Literature and Theater are the main sources of parallel cinema in India.The turbulent situation of the 1970's gave birth to the ‘parallel cinema’ movement in India.With the open market policy in film industry and decay in government funding,this movement dies out slowly after economic liberation.Indian Cinema is thriving today thanks to an audience who is hungry for films, however, our works have degraded over the years, and regional cinema and few great filmmakers are marginalized to the film festival or art house circuits.

Regional films constitute of high percentage in parallel cinema. The regional cinema, obviously in majority formed the alternate cinema. Ever since the decline of regional cinema throughout the nation, and the dying out of the parallel movement, the viewers have been feed with repeated image, sound and music.Most of us had used to watch regional films on DD on Sundays. With the advent of cable and dish culture, the regional cinema has suffered huge setback. There is no information either in the print or electronic media about alternate films.Dish Channels do not show off alternate movies even in non prime time.

Today, the films of ' New Wave' are hard to find, and the aesthetics of these filmmakers were never carried forward, meaning, the tradition not only got lost, but never translated or taken further- explored in new avenues. Not only that, the lack of availability of the films of ‘New Wave’ in the market is another important factor which slowly spelled death for the filmmakers and their films. It’s sad, because, even when one wants to rescue these films most negatives are either lost or destroyed or its in hands of people who are not willing to part away with them for reasons unknown.

For,deep view in the subject:

-To each his cinema.
-Wikipedia Link about Parallel Cinema.
-Indian New Wave- a potrait.
-Old vs New Parallel Cinema.
-Parallel or New Cinema in India.
-The demise of parallel cinema.
-Demise Of A Different Kind.
-Parallel Cinema not getting visibility at global festivals.

While other directors other mainstream directors usually try to be time consumer and economical by saving on cuts and indulging into unnecessary zooms and moves of the camera, it feels positive that there existed what we call Indian Parallel cinema, wherein the directors were at least trying to find their style with a sense of aesthetics .

As Andrei Tarkovsky once said, "Cinema can never be a true art form till it’s confined by the constraints of money."

Training & Placement Cell, IT-BHU

After long time a great change has came taken place in TPO website of ITBHU.
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/tpo/index.html
This is really cool stuff from administration after long time of hibernation.

Saga of Mechanical Engineer from ITBHU

As stated before, I was great fan of opening scene of RHTDM. A firing dialogue was delivered -“Mechanical Engineer mein fire hone chahiye”. Then in next scene of the movie, R. Madhavan ignites a lighter for smoking cigarette. That snap makes mechanical engineering as a coolest and macho field of engineering. Mechanical department is more cussed fore lesser grades and strict professors than any other department irrespective of engineering college.

A really handy research predicts the stronger aptitude – between verbal and numerical – in children by the relative lengths of their fingers. Now, how cool is that? Apparently, if your index finger is shorter than your ring finger, then your numerical aptitude is expected to be stronger. And if the index is longer, then your verbal ability is stronger. Of course, my longer index finger explains – in hindsight – why I scraped through four years of Mechanical Engineering. And do not miss the use of middle finger used for sign language....

I walked into the massive building for the first time while a long guided tour of Department of Mechanical Engineering was given to us. It was a really long procession – as there were almost all 60 of us although Roll no. 42,'Sagar Singh' was missing.

Academically, it was probably the best decision of my life to study Engineering and I realized that after studying(just enjoying) 1st week in college. This decision also looks back firing when in the first thirty minutes of the first Engineering Drawing class. R S Singh and his company makes life more difficult than ED (Engineering Drawing). R S Singh is a good teacher, it was just that I was lacking imagination for 'plan' and 'elevation' with possessing scary drawing skill. One class was just not over when few of us were literally scolded for being 1 minute lab at Engineering mechanics lab.

The curriculum in the third semester in department, at its best, has the same level of complexity as the mandatory seat-belt instruction 'training' prior to takeoff. Every day we fled the department faster than a fire-alarm would evacuate Pentagon. We went to many more places than the first generation Aryans went to find newer pastures in gangetic planes. The lanes of BHU were well covered by our cycle trips and never to forget the nostalgia of Cafeteria in 15 minute break. However mass evacuation of mech students at 10:15 due to arrival of G-9 is also a scene to remember forever. However, the clear winner was an ambiguously named place called "Limbdi Corner". I know it is named after limbdi hostel but who the hell is limbdi? It was neither air-conditioned, nor really hygienic. But the taste of Samosa and Khasta is unforgettable.

When other departments finished the only mandatory "fitting" lab - where one has to build a T-joint with cheap wood pieces, we still had 13 more left where temperatures of burning metals could often exceed 500 degrees. And people call our sufferings at workshops as true and evergreen engineering. Only other 'labs' from rest of the departments had either chemicals or computers with as 128MB RAM. The main mechanical lab had, and still do, a Wesson lathe machines - always reverently garlanded on the day of "Viswakarma Puja". Try that with your jar of Sulphuric Acid, Chemical!

For those who came to ITBHU after 12 years of "boys only" schools, counting - or other related number crunching - would only involve girls. At least on that very first day, we had only one dream about gender ratio. But it was thrashed due to grass root realities of IIT JEE system. Mechanical Engineering was the hotbed (pun not intended) of activity, being the home base of a few thousand technically-inclined, hormonally-charged, muscular people. Most of them were totally unable to comprehend how girls fell for wimps who recited Pablo Neruda and had no time for macho men who thought nothing of hammering a cast iron flange for three hours straight. As I write these lines, I get a feeling that people must be wondering if Mechanical Engineers are a modern version of Spartans.

Before anybody tries to protest at what seems like an exaggeration, let me add that we never let anybody finish a match we had the remotest chance of losing. The constant boycott on losing the match was sight to watch again and again in memory lanes. So, every single Arena followed a predictable path for Mechanical. For these modern-day Spartans to flex their sporting muscles, there was an aptly named tournament called CS and AOE Arena.

For Chemical, it was time to show off that they had the maximum girls in the department. For Ceramic, it was time to show off that they had really good dancers. For Meta, it was time to show their bench strength in theater performance. And for Mechanical, it was a time to pulverize the rest of the Engineering faculty into dust, swallow them with a gulp of Thumbs Up and pee it out in the center of the pitch. We had shown it countless in time in cricket or CS and AOE match. The random and chaotic dance of our seniors at cult fest KY-07 was such memorable event. Also, KU & Technex were managed by our passionate batchmates despite of consistent sarkaari type hindrances from the administrative system.

We have done cuss word fights several times in CS match against final year Cera Branch (2006). Lot of words were exchanged between us but they never bothered us with their super senior attitude. 3rd Electrical Branch(2007) do not have courage to stand our outrage. The fight was much a scene and video recording by JD of pre-arguments before dispute between us and them was sensational. It was shared on LAN with more input of Student Language than English or Hindi. Even it was test of VKS next day, our batch of Mechanical Engineering attacked the Electrical Engineering Department with stumps over a small case of mess in hostel only. That day, even Warden watched from the sidelines!)

Socially, it was probably the best because in those four years. I had the privilege of knowing most intelligent and entertaining people. Even though it is a engineering college, there are bond guys in field of academics, music, sports, theater & technology. I was lucky to be part of such geniuses as college mates. This lengthy tour de force cannot end without paying tribute to Photocopy machine at which we have spent more time than Guttenberg has done at his inventory printing press.

However, graduating in Mechanical Engineering was like being perpetually in a place that's a homogeneous mix of a crowded men's locker room and a sports bar that does not allow females. Hell, we did not even have a "Ladies" toilet in the buildings that our department owned in our first year. I read the below lines in some one's blog about Mechanical Department,ITBHU-- "If You have passed your 4-5 years course here at IT-BHU,then you can survive yourself in any condition of your life". I am not saying these words but students of this department say together.........."

3 Idiots (Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone)

3 Idiots:Wikipedia and Imdb link.
A new movie is directed by Raj Kumar Hirani which is based on the novel "Five Point Someone" written by Chetan Bhagat. I hope that some decency will be maintained by Hirani in the movie, i.e.exact representation of certain scene will cause turbulence in young generation. Certainly, all of us know that this novel is best seller by Indian Standard and based on the backdrop of IIT campus. A rare place to study in student life. 4500 selected in 0.3 million of students choose between 7 IITs, ITBHU Varanasi and ISM Dhanbad. This movie will remove the myth that only studious student can make it top notch. 3 idiots are students of mechanical engineering, the worse and macho branch of all fields of engineering.

The gender ratio may be little to worry about but graduating in Mechanical Engineering was like being perpetually in a place that's a homogeneous mix of a crowded men's locker room and a sports bar that does not allow females. But we have even then one girl in our batch in 1st year.

Perfectionist Aamir Khan, cool R. Madhvan and cheeky Sharman Joshi are there for full fun of audience. I am dying to see Boman Irani as HOD, Mechanical. My only complaint is Kareena Kapoor as heroine of the film. But, you have to make lot of compromise in making bollywood film. Wase, Aamir Khan’s character in 3 Idiots is named Rancho.

Idiots will definitely have something meaningful to say, with gentle humor and zero pretension. Aamir Khan has been quoted as saying that 3 Idiots is very different from 5 Point Someone. I don’t know why, but that makes me very happy. Maybe because Bhagat’s One Night at a Call Center filmed as 'hello' bored me to death. Wase bhi student life is not all about uni-dimensional thinking about grades.

Thought of the Year:
American politics is like ITBHU Engineering.
Democrat is Computer Engineering --- full of geeks and philanders.
Republican is Mechanical---You are always looking for a scrape. No matter how much you screw up, you are proud of yourself. And of course, if there is a good-looking woman standing for election, you vote for her.

Calcutta Chromosome

I was going through all post of Calcutta Chromosome and after reading 100 posts from archives, posting some of the funniest lines here. FYI, I and that great guy has a similarity that we have degree in mechanical engineering.

1-'I hate Ekta kapoor fans' will find it interesting.

"Religion is the opium of the masses – Karl Marx.
Karl Marx did not know about Ekta Kapoor – Anonymous."

2-Manmohan Desai fans will love and hate it for same reason.

" Manmohan Desai wrote only one story in his life.
x (where x = integer greater than 1) siblings and y sets of parents (where y = integer greater than 1 but not equal to x) are separated due to evil relatives or natural calamities. They have a unique common trait in physical (locket, letter, tattoo) or metaphysical (secret, habit, song) form. They grow up (old) while coming in contact with each other at regular intervals but are unable to recognize each other. They are united after 7 songs, 4 fights and one drunken scene featuring Amitabh Bachchan.

Manmohan Desai: At least two brothers separated at birth. Three religions. Shuddering Nirupa Roy. Doddering Pran. Amitabh Bachchan. One gibberish song. One trained dog/hawk/cow/Easter egg/heroine's bodyguard. One operating theatre scene. One natural calamity (not including Kader Khan's wig). Divine intervention to cure blindness/TB/AIDS/obesity. Fourteen coincidences, each having odds of 786,000,000 to 1.
And he directed 21 films, of which at least 16 were box-office record-breakers."

3-X rated article(not for everyone.....)
I find that after 'Garv' the pride,its gay pride coming into our bollywood by Karan Johar,the fighter of lost causes.Lot of Dostana here.....
"Konkona Sensharma has already become to this what Nirupa Roy was to motherhood! She has already done in twice (Page 3, Life in a Metro) and looking good for more. With more and more films being made on a realistic gay relationship, it is only natural that the most dominant theme – closet homosexuality – will have to be depicted pretty regularly.
What will make it tiresome is the way it will be shown. In both the films mentioned above, the scene unfolds in exactly the same manner in which the hetero partner (cuckold?) arrives at the apartment of the closet-gay for a celebration (Konkona was even holding exactly the same things – a bottle of wine and flowers) and sees her lover in bed with (an)other man.
How long before a man walks on to a lesbian couple? I can bet the expression would not be the aghast look which Konkona had!"

For more post like this just wait for few days or read the blog of that guy only....