Open Letter to Karan Johar from Late Mukul Anand

Dear Karan Johar,

Sub: Agneepath Redux - Reviewed & Cremated

First things first. Why would you wanna fix something that ain't broke?? I mean..really!! You are running a production house that may have had good commercial success of late but is devoid of any class whatsoever. The only semblance of respect it commands is in the form of a gangster flick that I directed and your father produced some good twenty years back by the name of 'Agneepath'. You wanted to remake it and earn some quick bucks from your gullible overseas market (especially with the current exchange rate) under the garb of paying tribute to a 'classic'. Fine, its technically your property now and you did have your way. I anyways never paid any heed to the IPR mumbo-jumbo during my time, so I wont harangue you about copyrights. Art is all about copying and inspiring others to copy you. But for Ganpati Bappa's sake, you could have done it with some style - at least match it up with some clever writing, crisp editing, and contemporary story, the stuff my film is still revered for.

The original Agneepath,for all its script loopholes and bad music (I keep hearing that from pseudo film critics), is still considered a modern cult-classic. I'll tell you why - primarily for three reasons:
> First and foremost, Vijay Dinanath Chavan - the vendetta man who'd take bullet after bullet but come out stronger each time to kick some more butt. He doesn't sing, he doesn't dance and he doesn't run around trees. He just kicks ass, plain and simple. It was a character that would've done Pacino's Tony Montana proud.
> Second, Kader Khan's signature thunderbolt dialogues. Never before or since then have you felt the sarcastic twitch of "Bandook bhi dikhata hai aur peeche bhi hat ta hai" or the analogy driven threat of "Hawa tez chalta hai Dinkar Rao" or the food chain insight of "Jungle ka Kanoon" or the economic repercussions of "Rupees three taenty five". It was content marketing at its best.
> And finally, a collage of the background scores that I blatantly ripped from Giorgio Moroder's Scarface to Mory Kante's Yeke Yeke to Jean Michel-Jarre's Rendezvous-2. But boy, what a rip-off it turned out to be. If there's any work of plagiarism worth being sued for, this was it! In fact, if Agneepath were ever to be remade, it should have been made with same rigour, intensity, passion and sound. Or never made at all. It's as simple.

Your film, son, was deprived of all three. But I must say, in spite of that, your namesake Director started rather well...conveniently copying the scene from A Bronx Tale to get the young Vijay hooked to crime (I just love rip-offs!). You even got the age difference between the siblings right this time. But what made you go all bonkers after a decent start like that? Why was Hrithik trying to be both Vijay Chavan and Krishan Iyer? Where the hell did you come up with the idea of celebrating his sister's birthday every year?? And what's with this beauty parlour comedy track anyway? Also, I am curious, what made you keep Commissioner Gaitonde's name as Eknath! What's wrong with 'M.S. Gaitonde' (you didnt realise they were MY initials, did you?)? Is that why you're calling your film different? And most importantly, where the heck is Terylin (Sharad Saxena)? Son, you can't make gangster flicks without gathering an assembly of notorious sidekicks like Terylin, Shetty and Insp. Pathan in the picture. You still there...?? Good. Read on.

This was your chance to use Dharma Productions' financial muscle and buyout the rights for that Jean Michel-Jarre's soul stirring background track and use it right, left and center of the film, till it's done to death. But no. You chose to go ahead with a brother-sister goody-goody song on the beach and even brought Udit Narayan back from slumber to sing a drunkard song, reflecting Hrithik's sudden transition from a sad drunk man into happy jubilant family guy. Somewhere around here, my eyes lit up on seeing the poster of Tehelka (1992) in your film, which made me want to switch over and start seeing that instead.

And please for the love of Mary Matthew, don't use the word 'tribute' with this film. Your facade remake made me turn in my grave ten times before I found enough room to carry out the Kill Bill style 'fist-punching' escape from coffin. If you really wanted it to be a tribute, you needn't go farther than Master Manjunath (of Malgudi Days fame) to play Vijay Chavan. It's only fair that he played that role, now that he must be 36. You may have vindicated Agneepath commercially, but you did that by chopping out Mithun Da's role to please your multiplex audiences. And that is something I'll never forgive you for.

Next time your incompetent team of sophomores tries to remake my films, pick up Trimurti. I want to see how much worse can you get with that film. In fact, with a name like that I'll allow you three remake attempts to perfect it. But get one thing straight bugger... if you touch any of my Bachchan films, I am gonna take a FLAMETHROWER to this studio of yours. I'll show you the real Agneepath then.

Best,

Late Mukul S. Anand

PS: "Galat cheez banaya 'remake'...Aadmi sochta kuch hai, bolta kuch hai, banata kuch hai."

Facts Without Wikipedia

Everyone looked concerned on the day when Wikipedia staged a 'Blackout' in protest to certain SOPA(Stop Online Piracy) and PIPA (Protect IP) Acts being tabled in Congress.
They say it's a black day for the internet. Guys @FightingInternet even came up with its SOPA version of 'Hitler reacts to' videos. But no matter what happens to those bills in the Senate, the fact remains that the world without Wikipedia will, indeed, not be the same. Here are ten defining facts that our present & future generations could end-up believing hook, line and sinker once Wikipedia is taken down (No..seriously):

Fact#1 Taj Mahal was made by Pakistan, which is now India.

Fact#2 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was actually inspired by A.K.Hangal's autobiography.

Fact#3 When Ashish Nehra retires, cricinfo will too protest with a black-out.

Fact#4 Once Sardar Milkha Singh, while chasing a thief (who'd broken into his house), over took him and left him far behind.

Fact#5 Mithun Chakraborty turned black with a plastic surgery in protest to Michael Jackson turning white.

Fact#6 Narendra Modi was travelling in the United States when Godhra broke out.

Fact#7 India's first case of brain drain was that of Steve Jobs in 1974.

Fact#8 Salman Khan forced Shahrukh Khan to make Ra.One at gun point.

Fact#9 Congress' think-tank was outsourced to IIPM on retainer-ship model for 3 yrs in 2011.

Fact#10 Navjyot Singh Sidhu is the only batsman in the history of the game to get out bowled after laughing out aloud and tumbling over the stumps on a wicket keeper's joke.

#FactsWithoutWikipedia is still trending on Twitter. Hurry up...enlighten the world with more facts before they get distorted by Internet Censorship lobbies.

Holmes vs Moriarty - When Heavyweights Collide

“What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”, Joker once asked Batman. The timing of the question was probably wrong as Joker was himself hanging upside down from top of a building and Batman was too pissed off to give a fitting verbal reply. But it is surely a fascinating scenario (if you think about it) – two champions of their respective fields, advocating conflicting ideologies, coming face-to-face for the first time to outwit, outperform and outclass each other. It is always a battle of gigantic proportion, where you have Goliaths on both ends and Davids watching from the sidelines. It is, as my good friend ‘CJ’ calls it – a COLLASH – a bastard son born when collision has sex with clash. For the stakes are higher than they have ever been, and post this encounter the reputations will never be the same again, unless they share the honors. The adversaries do change according to scripts but the intensity and excitement of having finally met your match remains intact. It could be Good vs. Evil, Savior vs. Destroyer, Capitalist vs. Communist, Gandhi vs. Hitler, Pacino vs. De Niro, Sampras vs. Federer, Ali vs. Frazier, Tendulkar vs. McGrath, Roark vs. Gault or Sherlock Holmes vs. Prof. James Moriarty.

Guy Ritchie has encashed on this salivating proposition of bringing two fictional adversaries together in the sequel to his 2009 revamped version of Sherlock Holmes and let me say that Madonna’s ex-husband has done a pretty good job of it. Robert Downey Jr., an actor who, considering his talent, tasted commercial success pretty late in his career, once again delivers a master class performance as an eponymous detective and towers above the rest – something you expect. But it is the little known Jared Harris, playing Moriarty, who gives the kind of performance that literally ensures that no one ever calls him Jared ‘who?’ again. What makes his performance more credible is the fact that he had to work his way around the initial dampener of seeing him, and not Bratt Pitt, donning the role of Moriarty and still leave you impressed. Well, let me just say that A Game of Shadows is one of those rare movies that are able to pit two strongly built characters against each other, build a thrilling crescendo and pull it off perfectly. And of course, it’s better than the first part. But this is not a movie review (although partially it is.) This post is more about finer details of the history behind this great rivalry, something left out from the movie for obvious reasons and I cant keep myself from writing about.

When you cherish your gift of immaculate observation and delectable presence of mind to nab even the toughest and wackiest of problems that police itself has given up on, you’d usually find yourself in a spot of bother when pitted against a criminal mind that has an extraordinary dangerous streak and intent to propagate crime. Moriarty, in many ways, is a perfect antagonist for Holmes. Holmes, younger of the two, has always known and heard about Moriarty’s legend but never met him till their famous encounter in Conan Doyle’s The Final Problem. In spite of being a man of immense ego and self-esteem, Holmes respects Moriarty’s mental powers and treats him as his equal in terms of intelligence. He even knew full well from the very start that sooner or later their paths would cross, and when they do, he cannot afford to let his guard down, not against the master criminal, the ‘Napoleon of Crime’ as he fondly called him. Moriarty on the other hand, was of course the mafia of the crime syndicate in Europe with a vast network of immensely to moderately talented delinquents working under him. With his irreconcilably corrupt mind, he would leverage his Machiavellian intelligence to plan everything that is deviously wrong and that comes under the domain of illegal activity and then lend it the most ingenious execution.


He knows every trick in the trade and is too shrewd and much too savvy for the customary police to suspect him, let alone plot his arrest. Nobody has seen his face. Nobody knows if he is for real. But nobody denies his existence too. He is the idea, the thought and the voice behind all that is going mysteriously wrong in London.

Moreover, he acknowledges Holmes’ unique talent but I doubt if he ever thought of him as his match. Unlike Holmes, who had a good prior knowledge about Moriarty’s legend, Moriarty only hears about Holmes after he first foils his plan in The Valley of Fear. The famous BBC TV series starring Jeremy Brett, also inferred ‘The Red Headed League’ episode to be Moriarty’s brainchild. Though Moriarty does concede that Holmes has all the ingredients to be an interesting adversary and that it would be disappointing to lose him, but he can’t let his business suffer because of pleasure. He won’t let Holmes continue to foil his subterfuges and fuck with his reputation. It is therefore sad that Holmes and his bete-noir came face-to-face just once – The Final Problem – their one and last encounter.

Before finishing this fictional trivia let me just enlighten you about one great parallel between Prof. Moriarty and the cult Indian comic kitsch villain Grand Master Robo. The way both characters were introduced in the franchise before being brought fully in focus in later editions is actually quite fascinating. The fact that both Moriarty and Robo went on to become the arch-nemeses of the respective protagonists makes the comparison that much more symbolic. But the similarities start and end there. Where Moriarty is known for his intellectual deviousness, Robo is known for his physical abilities – he is half human and half machine. In a way, one can call Robo a poor cousin of Darth Vader too! But more on that later - when, in near future, some ingenious Indian filmmaker (with access to ludicrous amount of money) picks up an old Raj Comics copy of Grand Master Robo from the stack of Guptaji’s worn out comic books and decides to adapt it on screen. Till then savour the vintage Moriarty-Holmes standoff.
The End?