Chiriyakhana ( The Zoo) 1967

Chiriyakhana marks the coming together of many greats of Indian Cinema, and when i say Greats, i mean it.
The directorial craftsmanship of Ray, acting excellence of Uttam, storytelling of Saradindu Banerjee and the charecter of Byomkesh Bakshi( the true indian inheritor of sherlock holmes).So, when i started watching it,i expected nothing short of a masterpiece.And what i saw was nothing short of one.
Nothing, it seems, can take away the fire. Ray's eye for detail and the old magic of his genius can't let go of this one too, a tour-de-force. The camera is wielded like a conductor's baton as it strikes chords deep in the mind. For first timers watching Byomkesh,the characterisation is swift and deft and for Byomkesh fans,it takes his fan following to levels of fanatism.Be it the setting of his room, be it the phisophical talks with Ajit( His watson), the setting up of the suspense, Ray shows how a movie made in 1967 was still way ahead of its times, and one sadly feels while watching that no single bollywood director has been able to match up to this kind of filmmaking till now, even in the 2000s when the technology has advanced so much.Ray proves that a story and story alone makes a movie and nothing else!!.
I, in no way fit to review and comment on Ray would take the liberty of marking it as one of Ray's best, but in an interview with Cineaste magazine, Ray described Chiriakhana (The Zoo) as his most unsatisfying film. He said, "Chiriakhana's a whodunit, and whodunits just don't make good films. I prefer the thriller form where you more or less know the villain from the beginning(the format he follwed in Sonar kella and Joi baba felunath years later with one of his greatest muses 'Felu mitter' ). The whodunit always has this ritual concluding scene where the detective goes into a rigmarole of how everything happened, and how he found the clues which led him to the criminal. It's a form that doesn't interest me very much". It's after reading comments like this that you realise that how much of learning is still left in the art of Filmmaking.

Coming to the story, An out an out whodunit which takes place in post independence bengal, in a colony outside calcutta set up by a retired judge,Mr. Sen with misfits, criminals and outcasts.The judge initially comes to Byomkesh with a minor case, that of finding out the origins of a movie song, but the plot thickens when the judge himself is murdered.The sheer number and nature of the suspects involved is huge and complex, but one never feels that Ray fails to do justice to any of the characters, and in a film where he could have easily have lost his grip on the screenplay, he excels.
The story and screenplay is a must study for all the current Bollywood directors who are trying to come up with multiple story movies like saalam-e-ishq or HTPL.
The ideas, the treatment and the dialogues are excellent.The twists and turns leave you spellbound.The murder leads to another one, that of a witness and you see secrets tumbling out of the closets of the colony where each character has a notorious past.With subplots ranging from illicit relationships to failed marraiges, to a doctor with a criminal past and a tollywood startlet who faded into oblivion after a single hit, the complexity of a whodunit does not get thicker than this.
Finally as Byomkesh says, he was able to solve the case as he trusted no one, not even Ajit, but only his pet snake, Basuki.
Acting wise Uttam delivers a knockout performance, straying away from his ritiualistic romantic image.The film is a milestone of Uttam Kumar's film career as he won Bharat Award for this film.Uttam forces one to wonder what would have happened had he played 'Feluda' in the other whodunits by Ray.I know, Soumitra has his own fan following and i am also a huge fan of his and the Feluda movies,but Uttam's potrayal of Byomkesh is bang on and perfect, to say the least.
For the cinephiles, this is a must watch( even with the unapt subtitles) and for the novice, there is nothing like it to spend your sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and hot pakoras at the 'Chiriyakhana'.

Of green cards, H1Bs and onsites

After more than an year of introspection, self realization and complete scanning of my mindspace, and then dissecting my ‘needs’ gingerly on Maslow’s hierarchy and standing at the twilight zone of my MBA where i have to decide on the sector i want to branch into in my placements, here is what i have decided.Read on-
I still vividly remember the look on my project manager’s face when I handed over my resignation at Infy, ‘stay on Lalit, you will be moving to US shortly'.
I gave him a contemptuous look….poor soul doesn’t even realize that I am destined for higher things in life -investment banking, consulting and so on.
Well, after an year, the economy is picking up but unfortunately consulting & investment banking sectors are kinda small and software sector is still big; even Infy and IBM are recruiting massively again…..
"You get monkeys, if you pay peanuts" …..please, please, look closely at my face…do I look like a monkey?
I am here for the holy grail, ‘gyan’!
I am here for learning, the quest to be a complete professional (Comically I realize I still don’t have a ‘Raymond’ suit L ).
So Software it is, and hence my quest for THE Company starts.With more than 8 months to go for my placements i guess i still have time to zero in on my Prey.
The search starts with good old Infy.All my batchmates are at Onsite now.People who had joined in my batch, my client, my IBU, all of themi mean ALL THE PEOPLE i knew seem to be at onsite.People of all kinds, who were great, regarded as 'Fundu' to people whom i remember getting backs in all semesters of engg. are at onsite now.how did i know??
Well one Mr.Orkut Buyukkokten is to be blamed for this.How does one identify a techie cooling hisheels in onsite.Simple.
Follow the folowing steps for a postive match.

Step 1. Go on to his Orkut Profile.The Location will read something like "New Jersey, USA" or "Toronto, Canada". But his Brown skin ( you can call me a racist pig for this, but this aint no Big Brother!!)and a very Indian face flatters to decieve and you realise that this is the same person you knew who belonged to a Bandra, Mumbai or a T.N.Road, Chennai.

Step 2. Next stop is the Album section in Orkut.Believe me it shall be full(12/12) with atleast two snaps taken on snow, two in front of NASA or Eiffel Tower ( depending on which part of the globe you are in) with the person you knew wearing a very trendy western outfit as if he/she was born with it.Dont be decieved by the clothes or the shorter and trendier DCH Hair Cut that you see.The chap knows how big a hole that Hair Cut and that trendy coat made in his/her pocket.Don't you understand..?it was for the photo session you see!!

Step 3. Lets move on to the scraps.Lets see the scraps and my reactions to them embedded in brackets inline. Here you will find exclamations like "Ohh you know it Snowed out here..My God it was unbelievebale" ( yeah it is..unbelieveable!!) or "It's so cool out here, i mean everything is so organised so unlike India"(wait till they organise your Visa expiry, then you will realise how orgainsed they are). Some self appointed patriots will try showing off their psuedo patriotism thinking that they are brand ambassadors of 'India Shining' with scraps like "Whatever you say, India is India, Ohh i miss india so much" ( Dude!! who's stopping you??pack your bags and take the next flight home!!) One more very common scrap is of friends and lesser mortals enquiring "Wahin settle hone ka iraada hai kya, ki wapas aa rahe ho??"(Do i see a blush on the 1/4th NRI's face??Dont worrie dude, he wasn't Born there , as soon as his PM decides that he is done with this Guy he will chop him off, and the next in line will have his VISA stamped!!)

Step 4. Chat with the Guy and you find the Americanisation of his Vocab. 'Petrol' has become 'Gas', he has stopped watching the DDLJs and KANKs and has started watching the Firangee movies. He even asks for the rates in Dollars.Good Lord!!Don't worry Dude, you are not on a green card, it's just a H1B and the day they shove you back you will be paying the Autowalla 20 rupees for the ride back home and not 20 dollars!!

Don't tell me that i am bitching and don't tell me the story of sour grapes.Even i am in the queue.Even i will get my turn at Onsite some day, my'Nirvana', the 'Moksha'..I will get that state of bliss. All great men have been enlightened under one tree or another - Buddha had his bodhi tree, Newton had his apple tree. Unfortunately for me, I will attain nirvana under a Coconut tree.By the way, do they have Coconut Trees in USA?? ;)