Just Watched Amitabh's Deewar For The First Time

Just watched Amitabh's Deewar for the first time, I am surprised I had not seen it already.

Amitabh Bachchan: Deewar

I mean, I don't believe this. I grew up watching this dude. I am his evergreen fan. I don't think I have ever watched a full Paul Newman movie, and if I did I probably watched it when I had no idea who he was, maybe I have watched one, but I don't remember, but I have seen Americans revere Paul Newman. And recently I left a comment at TechCrunch.

Lincoln is like Gandhi. Paul Newsman is like Amitabh Bachchan, correct?

Deewar was Amitabh's first hit. Otherwise he had been struggling in the industry for years, he had given flop after flop. And this movie became a super hit and he never looked back. He has ruled Bollywood for three and a half decades since.

You should watch it. They have put the full movie on YouTube and it comes with English subtitles.



I mean, how did I miss it? I have known the storyline forever, I have known the name forever. I have known its famous lines forever. Beats me.

Amitabh is not only the most amazing actor that ever lived, he is also an amazing human being, and the two perhaps go together. He is the most recognized face on the planet, and don't think it is because India has a lot of people. China has more. People watch him across Africa, in Russia, you name it. The most famous person on the planet handles fame better than anyone else I know. And he is the ultimate family man. His wife Jaya was a big shot actress in the industry when he was a struggling actor. I happen to think she is a better actor than him in the early movies they did together.

Here are some other full length Amitabh movies I found on YouTube. There must be more.

Don
The Great Gambler
Satte Pe Satta







I have not seen these last two, Ek Ajnabee, and Shoot Out At Lokhandwala, which I am proceeding to do right now.

Amitabh Bachchan: Deewar

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Kick It

I just got back from an amazing event. I don't know where it was, as in I can't tell you the name of the neighborhood, but it was walking distance to me, 40 minutes one way. I am on the L line. Walking was faster than taking the train through some kind of a circuitous route, and on a day like this, I mean.

This poster was the theme poster for the event, and I did not need any more convincing. I did 1300 squats yesterday and practiced a few kicks of my own.

But the event was nothing to do with martial arts, and I knew that going in. The guy who organized the whole thing came over to share a few comments about this blog of mine. He said it was "crazy." He thought mixing music and tech into one blog was a volatile situation. You know, I had never thought of it that way. He did not click around long enough to realize I also throw some Bollywood into the mix. That would have really made him sit up.

The weather outside was breathtaking. They even served food. Although I had just had lunch, I helped myself to what felt like a second lunch. The food was so good. Met some great people. There was this young woman sitting to my front and left. She said she was from England, but now lives in the city, does PR, based in Chelsea. I bet she took the train.

It was an eclectic mix of people. Some cool projects were presented. The woman sitting to my right had a Masters in Fine Arts in film and was in the industry. She did makeup. I asked her if she had met anyone famous. She mentioned the names of two rap artists. Then she mentioned an actress who had won an Academy Award. I had not heard of any of them. They must be on TV. I have never owned a TV.

The final presentation was from this dude who was getting people to show up at his dance studio. He had me and two women put on this device that showed how many calories you burned. And the music was turned on. I did not even move that much. But I won. Apparently I got a "free massage." But I got nothing, no voucher, nothing like that. I guess I was supposed to remember the street address of the place, which I don't. Oh well, there goes a missed opportunity. For the record, I give great massages. I once sent someone to sleep with a neck rub.

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Nick Gray: Bollywood Moves (2)

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Nick Gray: Bollywood Moves

(Via Soraya Darabi)
Photo by Clay Williams

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BollyBrook Says Hello

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Kaante (2002)
Bollywood Over The Decades (6)
Merry Christmas (2)
Bollywood Over The Decades (5)
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Economic Reforms In India

My friend Ashutosh Tiwari posted an article of his on his Facebook wall. It was first published in the Nepali Times.

Guru Of Business: Ashutosh Tiwari

During the 'licence raj' in the 70s and the 80s, while India was posting its so-called 'Hindu rate of economic growth' of around 3.5 percent a year, Bollywood portrayed industrialists as villains. These were rich men who lived in palatial buildings, befriended politicians for licenses and permits, smuggled goods, evaded taxes, and exploited labourers....... Since the mid-90s, however, with India's annual economic growth averaging about seven percent, Bollywood has churned out decidedly pro-capitalist movies. The bad industrialists are gone. So too are the pitiable poor who tug at the heartstrings of socialists everywhere. It's not labour and factories that make up the plots of today's movies. Instead, they are about the intra-family relationships of wealthy multi-generational clans with roots in India and branches elsewhere.

The current Prime Minister of India started economic reforms in the country in 1991 when he was Finance Minister. Thanks to those reforms India has seen almost China like growth rates for almost a decade now.

The word Guru in Ashu's article comes from the famous Hindi movie by the same name. It is based on the rags to riches story of India's most celebrated entrepreneur.

Dhirubhai Ambani - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. Dhirubhai founded Reliance Industries in 1958 and today the company, with over 85,000 employees, provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue.

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Music is an integral part of our lives, our being and our existence, irrespective of what the others may have to say on the subject. It lifts, cajoles, caresses, envelopes you in a bind which never leaves you. A piece heard at an impressionable age remains with you for a life time. Music and song collectively is a force, which has serious physical ramifications. We have heard of the great Tansen stories and the effect his music had on weather conditions. We have seen strong and sharp classical music notes and chords, demolish glass and shatter it to pieces. We have seen and heard the power of religion when it encompasses the rituals that connect it to sound. The prayer meetings of different faiths - the ‘bhajans’ the ‘azaan’ and the hymns bring a feel of religiosity. Strengthening belief with its repeated recitation. The Gods are pleased it seems when they are sung to. Music has the power to impress them to. And of course I miss mentioning the singing of Anthems and the fervor of patriotism it invokes. Your own anthem of your own country does something to us. It instills in us a sense of belonging. This is my land, my country, my flag and my anthem. I belong to it, and it belongs to me. That is a lot to be said about any other music heard.

There is that other little matter of football and the singing crowds and the belief that the energy of collective singing shall most certainly move mountains, or least of all a goal in favor of your home team. The beauty of all this being that the singing invariably gets carried along from the playing field to the nearest bar for most of the day. Sometimes many days !! And when it does it may not all turn out to be pleasant.

So …. melody ! And the strange effect it has on our psych irrespective of age and place and moment .. !!

Top Bollywood Songs 2010

(Source: Bollywood's Top 10 songs of 2010)

Brooklyn Loves Bollywood

Bollywood Loves Brooklyn
Bollybrook

I was just on the phone with Anne Marsen. She is the woman in the video.


Bachna Ae Haseeno (BollyBrook Remix) from Anne Marsen on Vimeo.

She was a friend of a friend of Nick Gray who happened to be in Mumbai. So one day Nick calls and talks about his idea for the music video. Would she do it?

She had only seen some clips of videos of the Bollywood variety. But there was much immersion once she was in Mumbai.

The street scenes were not at all hard to shoot, she says. It is not like they had to pay off police officers or shopkeepers. Maybe one shopkeeper.

Group dance choreography would have been nice, she says, but that was beyond the scope of the project.

"Who is the lad?"

She met him on Couchsurfing.org. She was using Couchsurfing for her travels in India, staying with strangers. And the actor Yatharth Agnihotri approached her saying he thought she was the female version of him. And they clicked. Clicked enough to do a music video together.

He is shortly coming to New York to study hip hop dancing.

I suggested to Anne they should do a NYC sequel. Nick Gray has Times Of India ambitions. The sequel could take him there. What I have in mind is a sequel where about 20 characters from NY tech get inserted into the video, 20 or more.

Anne says her wish is that Amir Khan sees her music video.



Anne says the take home lesson is, it bothers her that New Yorkers, American in general look so depressed walking out and about, in the subway, wherever. We could use some of the Bollywood playfulness/happiness/frivolousness, she says.

As for Nick, he says he just had so much fun working on the video.



This video has been making the rounds in the NY tech circles today, which is how I found out about it. It just hit 10,000 views. I have a feeling this thing is going viral big time.

The cross cultural tint of the video is what grabbed me. We are different, but we can be together.

New York Magazine: Meet Nick Gray, Thrower of ‘Culturally Significant’ Williamsburg Parties: Nick Gray, who has styled himself as a sort of Lois Weisberg for the Tumblr age. Every month or so, Gray, who is 27 and lives in Williamsburg, has a party for a whole bunch of young people who are largely strangers. Some he's met on Facebook or through Tumblr. Some he meets at McCarren Park or Whole Foods or bowling; he hands them his card, which has his e-mail address on it, and adds them to his "Friends Newsletter," which gets sent out once a month and updates everyone on what his friends are doing. ...... Last night, Nick — whose day job is working for the family business, which manufactures entertainment equipment on jets — greeted everyone as they walked through the door. Even though everyone gets a name tag, he seemed to remember all the names, even those of people he'd only met once. In the kitchen, a young woman named Rachel Eakley had provided hors d'oeuvre like Parmesan polenta, Gruyère and thyme crackers, and pommes annettes. ....... "Nick's parties are all about togetherness — not about exclusivity," said Anthony Volodkin, the 23-year-old founder of mp3 blog aggregator the Hype Machine. "It's very un–New York." ...... "These parties are very culturally significant in Williamsburg," said David Karp, who is the founder of the blogging platform Tumblr and is also Eakley's boyfriend. He said this completely without irony...... being un-ironic and nice seemed a key qualification for attending a Nick Gray party. Also, doing things. There was a furniture-maker, the founder of a dance troupe, and two women who had just started an ice-cream company called "Milkmade." There was a band, the Freelance Whales, who performed on instruments like the banjo and the glockenspiel. With all this business, perhaps it stands to reason that a Nick Gray party has a schedule, which had been sent out in an e-mail the day before. The third item on the itinerary was "Juggling Lessons."

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Bollywood Loves Brooklyn

Bachna Ae Haseeno (BollyBrook Remix) from Anne Marsen on Vimeo.

Kk: (Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa
Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa
Husn Ka Aahsiq Husn Ka Dushman
Apni Adaa Hai Yaaron Se Judaa) (2)

Hey Ho
Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa

Chorus: Pa Pa Pa Rum Pum Pa (2)
Zu Zu Zu Zu Zu Zu Zu Zu

Kk: Hai Duniya Main Nahi Hai Aaj Mera Sa Deewana
Pyaar Walo Ki Zubaan Pe Hai Mera Hi Taraana
Sab Ki Rang Bhari Aankhon Mein Aaj
Chamak Raha Hai Mera Hi Nashaa

Hey Ho
Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa

Female Singer: La La La La
La La La La La La La La La

Kk: Jaam Milte Hai Adab Se Shaam Deti Hai Salaami
Geet Chukte Hai Labon Pe Saaz Karte Hai Gulaabi
Ho Koyi Pardaa Ho Ya Baadshah
Aaj To Sabhi Hai Mujh Pe Fidaa

Hey Ho
Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa

Ek Hangaamaa Uthaa Doon Main To Jau Jidhar Se
Jeet Letaa Hoon Dilon Ko Ek Halki Si Nazar Se
Mehboob Ki Mehfil Mein Aaj
Chhaayi Hai Chhaayi Hai Meri Hi Adaa

Hey Ho
(Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa) (2)
Husn Ka Aahsiq Husn Ka Dushman
Apni Adaa Hai Yaaron Se Judaa
Hey Ho
Hey Bachnaa Aye Haseeno Lo Main Aa Gayaa
Hey Hey Hey