Banking on your name

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Sure. That may have been true for my man Willy but then he had no bank accounts, PAN numbers or driving licenses to maintain. It’s not like he got a cheque for writing “King Lear” or a wire transfer to his online account for “Macbeth”. Unfortunately, today a strange name could keep you away from your earnings or get you killed, depending on the gravity of the situation. Allow me to elaborate.

It all started in 1983 when my parents decided that the world they were living in wasn’t turbulent enough. So after causing my mother considerable pain, I arrived into this world. Little did she know that the pain of raising me would make the delivery seem like a peck on the cheek. My parents were trying to zero-in on a name and some friend suggested Vinil. The logic (whatever little) being that my father’s name begins with V and my mother’s with L. And if that wasn’t stupid enough - my parents agreed. Now that I think of it, does anybody remember when they first realized or understood what their name was? I don’t. But by the time I knew what my name was and had to tell other people what it was, I realized that I was fucked. I mean I have never met someone who got my name in the first go. Vineet? Vilin? Milind? I swear I have been addressed by more names than Lord Krishna. As far as chicks are concerned, sadly I haven’t been as lucky as him. Sometimes I give out common names like Vinay or Vineet. Saves time and effort. And you might think that’s enough to mess up someone’s life. But the plot thickens.

I come from a part of the country where it is a common practice not to have surnames or last names. What we do instead is add the father’s name to the first name and the name of the village mixed with it. So my father is Venugopal Kolothuparambil Gopala Pillai or Venugopal K.G. So my name would be Vinil V.K or Vinil Venugopal Kolothuparambil. Once again I had a tough time pronouncing and spelling out “Kolothuparambil” which is my father’s village. After graduation, I’d had enough so I cut it down to Vinil Venugopal. But the government had other plans for me. At my current place of employment, I have given my name as Vinil Venugopal but my driving license and my bank account (which was made through my license) says V K Vinil. So my hard-earned money will be a distant dream till I change my name or get a new cheque. This might seem funny to all you Singhs, Aggarwals, Srivastavas and Iyers (these are the only people who read my blog) but this what I go through everyday. It isn’t much considering people get killed for being a Salim or Hussain. Whatever the Bard may say, a there's a lot in a name.

So I've decided that my child will not go through what I went through. I have already begun looking for a cool-sounding last name. Any suggestions are welcome.

Now I must go. My boss will kill me if she finds out I’m blogging instead of doing my work.

“Wait a minute! Did you say ‘she’?”
“Yes?”
“You have a female boss?”
“Ya, so?”
“What her name”
“Natasha”
“Whoa whoa whoa. She hot?”

Yeah, right! What’s in a name.

How Dumb is My Valley!

When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake said Ed Norton’s character in Fight Club. Exactly my sentiments. I have joined a new organization where I will be working nights till the end of this year. Though this provides me with ample time and bandwidth to download movies, I hardly get time to watch them. Watching movies on the big screen almost seems like a luxury.

But finally after 2 weeks, I made it! I got the chance to watch Johnny Gaddar on Monday. I was really looking forward to it cos Sriram Raghavan’s debut Ek Hasina Thi was a mind-blowing experience. I really liked JG cos it was very different from the average Bollywood thriller. The title sequence, for example, is amazing. Not since Casino Royale have I seen a title sequence this good. The film was a tribute to James Headly Chase and Vijay Anand and many scenes and shots paid direct homage to them. Some of the shots and transitions were very clever. One might say that it was not really a slick film but I believe that is where JG’s style lies – simplicity.

I was loving the film and then came the climax. It reminded me of some of the telephonic conversations of B&W Hindi films. It goes like this….a character is busy doing something when the phone rings. He/She picks up the phone

“Hello……..kya?.......Bhaiyya ka accident ho gaya hai?........Unki jaan khatre mein hai?”

You know what I mean? This is what I call the DA or Dumbness Allowance. Through some ridiculous dialogues (and acting), we are told something that the filmmaker thinks we are not intelligent enough to interpret. Subtlety, common sense and interpretation go out the window.

I don’t want to spoil JG for those of you who haven’t seen it but simply put, the ending insults your intelligence. Same thing happened with Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. I know the film took a beating at the box office but I loved the film. But I felt like shooting Shaad Ali in the head when I saw the end. A movie that screams class till the end, turns crass. On the other hand, consider a movie like The Prestige by Christopher Nolan. The whole movie is littered with clues and when you watch the movie for a second time, you realise that it was all front of your eyes. Here is a film that challenges you every second and thus keeps you glued to the screen.

For Bollywood, not much has changed since those B&W hindi films. Filmmakers still think that the audience is not smart enough to take a hint. Today’s audiences are capable of appreciating good cinema (Bollywood, Hollywood and International). And don’t give me any of that, 80 percent-of-India-lives-in-the-villages bullshit. Villager is not synonymous with dumb. Some of the urban movie-goers, on the other hand, might need a crash-course in common sense.

There's no point in making a smart thriller for dumb people and you cannot expect people to get smarter by watching dumb thrillers. Give the audience a chance. We may not look it but we’re pretty smart. And for those of you who just don’t want to use their brains while watching a movie, Partner is out on DVD.

Hip Hop! Ya don’t stop!

A good-looking black guy singing (or maybe talking) with the some brilliant beats in the background. Some beautiful young women dancing around, flashy clothes, cars and beautiful locales. I remember that I just could not keep my feet still. The music blew my mind. It still does.

“Getting jiggy wit it” by Will Smith remains on of my favourite songs till date. The video by Hype Williams still gives me goosebumps. This is how I discovered Hip-Hop – on a Sunday afternoon in 1995. Back then I had no idea what Big Will was talking about on the song. It took me a while to figure out that he was indeed speaking English. But it didn’t matter cos the music was what got me.

Living in a small town, I had little access to international music in the early 90s. It was only cassettes and they were rather expensive by my pocket-money standards. It was MTV that got me started and I started watching some crazy music videos. Somehow rock music never made sense to me then. Rap and Hip-hop was what got my attention. For the first 5 years I listened to only Will Smith. I even bought a CD of Big Willie Style, which cost me 450 bucks in 1995. I had to skip a meal for the next 6 months.

After a year or two I said to myself, “Hey this guy actually seems to be saying something”. Curious, I checked out the lyrics on the internet (which was again an expensive proposition) and voila! Not only was he saying stuff, he was rhyming! Shit just got deeper!

I really got into black artists and started watching out for their videos. All those videos were filled with flashy clothes, shiny cars and well-endowed women – and I wasn’t complaining. Then one evening, watching MTV select, I was hoping to hear Sisqo’s “Thong Song” as Nikhil’s pick of the week but what I heard instead was Marshall Bruce Mathers a.k.a Eminem. I was disappointed but I recorded the song onto my tape recorder anyway. Later that night, when I listened to it, I realized that this guy’s pronunciation was much easier to follow as compared to the black guys and that this guy was absolutely and positively INSANE!

He was spewing venom in every direction and in such style! Abuses flew around like mikes in the parliament. He was abusing his mom, wife and god knows who else. He was using poetry to vent his frustration. “The Real Slim Shady” wasn’t exactly one of his best songs but when I heard “The Way I am”, I realized that this guy was destined for greatness. His rhyming, flow, delivery were all magical. From there on, a whole new world opened up – Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, Ice Cube, Nas, Jay Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco and so many more.

Hip-hop today is the most popular form of music. Yes it has overtaken Rock-n-roll! But here in India, I have hardly found hip-hop fans. People are still crazy about rock music and those who do listen to hip-hop couldn’t care less about the lyrics. They want something that they can dance to. That’s all!

Rock lovers on the other hand, look down upon hip-hop. “they keep saying the same thing again and again”, “it’s just dhikchik dhikchik music”, “there are no meaningful songs” are some of the arguments I hear against hip-hop. Well assholes, have you ever tried to listen to what they’re saying? Yes they talk about sex, drugs and violence. That is how some of them have lived their lives. That’s how they came up. Are you trying to tell me that rockstars have nothing to with these 3 things? Sex, Drugs, Rock-n-Roll, does that ring a bell, numb nuts? Hip-hop chooses to express it’s lifestyle in the songs. So when rock stars want to write about puppy love while they’re giving it doggy style to a bunch of hippies, it’s fine? Tripping on acid, they want to point fingers at a rapper who talks about smoking weed?

I love my U2, I enjoy my Pink Floyd and I worship my Doors. Rock has changed the world but that does not mean that hip-hop is in anyway inferior. 2pac, Biggie, Nas, Rakim, Jay Z - they are all poets who have revolutionized the game in their own way so first listen to them before you say that hip-hop is trash. I am still discovering hip-hop. There are expressions and slang that I still don’t understand but I try to read up and understand. I’m not telling you to make an effort to like hip-hop, but if you can’t then shut up.

“Cos I am, whatever you say I am
If I wasn’t, then why would I say I am
In the papers, the news everyday I am
Radio won’t even play my jam

Cos I am, whatever you say I am
If I wasn’t, then why would I say I am
In the papers, the news everyday I am
I don’t know it’s jut the way I am”

Eminem, The Way I am