Saturday, March 14, 2009

Backdoor blogging

I don't often use this space to showcase blogs by people I don't know, but Briyanshu's Bollywood Butt Blog was a great discovery. It's run by a "white American gay guy" who fetishizes Indian film and TV actors so much that he has entire sections, with lots of screen grabs, dedicated to such legends as Himanshu Malik - whose butt crack has been located in a "Briyanshu Exclusive" - and Mohnish Behl (in addition to the more obvious names like John Abraham). There's a Kasautii Zindagii Kay section. There are stills from old Rajendra Kumar and Manoj Kumar films (who knew you could see exciting butt shots in those!). And in the Puneet Issar section, there's the scene from episode 90 of B R Chopra's Mahabharat where Duryodhana goes to Gandhari naked but runs into Krishna (described here as "a friend of his - sorry, didn't catch his name") who encourages him to don a loin cloth. Here and here.

I also love that the blogger's short list of favourite movies includes both Wild Strawberries and Aakhri Inteqam. Such pluralism alone will save the world.

8 comments:

  1. LOL! there are really lot of crazy guys going around . This man has a craze on 'Puneet Issar' , apart from 'Mahabharata' I don't even remember him in a lot of roles.

    Looking at the Photos the man has a powerful burly physique much more suited to mace wielding heroes than Ekta Kapoor's Six pack wimpies.

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  2. Shwet: this is probably off-topic, but since we've discussed the Chopra Mahabharat on comments before, here goes: the same episode was on Star One just a couple of days ago and I thought it was one of the most impressive episodes in the series - that is, apart from the farcical scenes built around the loin-cloth. It's the episode just after Karna's death and there's a very fatalistic sadness about it, apart from a rare glimpse of Duryodhana's humanity; never thought I'd say this, but Issar's performance is seriously good here!

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  3. "Such pluralism alone will save the world."

    That was nicely said -- a sentiment applicable to these times, where the likes of Mutalik propose contesting Lok Sabha elections. I wonder how the Sene might react to a gay American's Mahabharata fetish.

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  4. O.T.
    Saw Atish Taseer's interview in Outlook. Should I expect your review soon?

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  5. S.O.B.: will put it up after a couple of days. But yes, please do leave comments on the relevant post.

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  6. Hi Jai: you've mentioned several times in your various posts on the Mahabharata that its nuanced take on all the characters is what appeals to you. In particular, the Kauravas are not merely comic villains. I wonder, though, if underneath this appreciation of motivations and character of the Kauravas and their supporters, Vyasa was not staking his own viewpoint - by giving them names like Duryodhan, Dushasan. Linguistically, at least, the Du prefix suggests negativity, no? Surely Dhritarashtra and Gandhari would not have named their kids so inauspiciously. Their names, instead, would have been Suyodhan, etc. So, Vyasa, by negating these names, is fundamentally casting them as evil. What do you think?

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  7. Feanor: I'm not sure if the "Du" (or "Dur") prefix was originally meant to suggest negativity, but yes, I am confused about the whole Suyodhan/Duryodhan business. (Incidentally Ekta Kapoor's Mahabharat treated it as an Anakin/Darth Vader thing: he's originally a sweet-natured boy called Suyodhan but then transforms into Duryodhan when hatred and unrest enter his mind!)

    See, if you look at "Vyasa's Mahabharat" (whatever that means - the original version Jaya or the later Bharata or Mahabharat as it is today), the Kauravas are the antagonists - even in the earliest versions where Krishna isn't a divine figure who's puppet-mastering a Good-vs-Evil battle. But there's enough there for the reader to be able to see shades and complexities in the characters. This is what many of the modern translators have done - see for instance Kamala Subramanian's sympathetic portrayal of Duryodhana as a tragic Shakespearean figure with one fatal flaw. The point is that the original text is so rich that there's plenty of scope for extrapolation of this sort.

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  8. I'm completely agree with Fëanor's comment. I think Mahabharata is just a story book written by Vyasa, and hasn't any kind of Holiness in it. What u think?

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