the inglorious bastards

Well here it is once again, a brand new election day!!! So many changes, so many promises, all down the drain. 2 years back when the army came to power and started putting all the crooks in jail we all heaved a sigh of relief and dreamed of better times. However, like everything else that happens in Bangladesh, there was no plan. No plan on how make proper arrests, how to make the convictions stick, how to really put the most corrupt bastards away for good. And in this i guess the preceding political parties themselves are to blame, or to credit. Because no attempt has ever been made to overhaul the judiciary and police systems. Crime and punishment has had a very tenuous relationship, like a fleeting summer fling. I had a feeling that all this arresting people and throwing them in jail was only a very temporary measure and it would ultimately prove futile.

And it has.

All the old faces are back for re-election. I think the only casualty is Babur, who's been thrown out of BNP.


So i'm feeling a tad bloodthirsty. We already know the worst offenders. The army should have just wiped them off the face of the earth. Killed the inglorius bastards and be done with it. We could have later apologised to the UN over this regrettable incident. Can you see it? One night of carnage, and 50 or 60 of the worst offendors and their henchmen 6 feet under. Ahh. Brings a tear to me eye.

one can alweays dream.

The Luxury of Mediocrity, or, the horrible film that is ontorjatra

You know, i can understand when bad films are churned out of Hollywood. They have a huge money making industry and they simply HAVE to release a certain amount of films every business year and the moment you enter a situation when you HAVE to do things chances are some of it will work and some of it won't. So yes we are used to god awful movies from Hollywood. But then there are the indie film makers from US and Europe. The whole point of the indie film makers is that they tackle fresh topics, or bring in fresh perspectives, and on the whole serve up an interesting alternative dish to the mainstream big mac that we consume day in and day out.

As a child of the nineties and the new millennium, i would expect the film makers of Bangladesh to try the same things, especially the ones who are making films for the festival circuit and are not dependent on domestic release to earn back their money. We all abhor the atrocious films from FDC, we all think we can do better than that, but sadly we never really do, do we? I haven't watched anything else by Tarek Masud & his wife and Ontorjatra was the first film of his that i watched. With good reason - the mom of one of my best friends was in a starring role. So i went and bought the DVD and put on the movie. And man what a punishment it turned out to be.

I won't even go into the technical deficiencies of the film, the odd camera angles, the bad sylheti accent, the poor sound direction. I'll just talk about the storytelling. There wasn't any. And with good reason too, because you need a good story in order to tell it in an interesting way. Tarek Masud and his wife had a vague notion of a sliver of an idea and then tried to tell a story about that vague notion of a sliver of an idea. The result? Devastatingly bad script, incredibly insipid dialog, deafeningly horrendous storytelling. You'd expect Tarek masud to be a pro by now, with 3 or more films (that i know about) under his belt. Do you really mean to tell me that a veteran film maker didn't understand you need story sequences which actually progress the story? That the dialogs have to be at least as interesting as what we say in real life? I mean i can understand trying to have a bit of theatricality in the dialog but holy shit they were so insipid!!! I frequently tell my ad film maker buddies that i have nothing but contempt for film makers as they can't make a decent movie. I just got more fodder for that particular line of attack. Will the film makers of Bangladesh please WATCH SOME CONTEMPORARY FUCKING MOVIES AND LEARN THE CRAFT???

Be Afraid, Detective Chapter 2

Chapter 2
The previous day:
Salma knew today was different. For one, she hadn’t woken up with that feeling of throwing up this morning. And the not-so-playful kicks from the new temporary resident in her belly were also absent. Good, Salma thought, the little brat is finally letting me wake up in peace. Hard to believe the months had gone by so quickly. Seems like it was yesterday when the blood stopped flowing, and she mentioned it to Him. He greeted the news with that enigmatic smile that she had come to love so much. She still thought it a bit strange that He was not a bit surprised. Which was weird because she had been on the pill. They had discussed and decided on the pill, because they both hated condoms. Damn those rubbery things. Chewing gum with the wrapper on, as the man said. So she had been on the pill, and had been diligent in keeping track of her cycles and everything. But still something had snuck through. Some little sperm had defeated all her augmented and reinforced defenses and managed to fertilize an egg. And He was fine with the news. Was happy in fact. As if He knew it was coming. Salma never really thought about it before. It was something that was sort of at the back of her mind but she hadn’t found the right moment to ask Him about it.

At first it was all about whether the baby would be kept. Because they weren’t married, it would be a legal and social mess. And He had made it clear that they would not get married. Something about this not being the right time. That’s another thing Salma never understood. Why wasn’t it the right time? She loved Him, and He loved her back. He had a nice job with lots of money, they had an appartment. True Salma never figured out what He did. He had to leave the city frequently. Apparently they (whoever “they” were) needed him to go all over the world and do their work for them. At least that’s what He said. And Salma believed Him…didn’t she? So what if she didn’t know what He did…didn’t know where He worked…where He was from…wait a minute wait a minute…

Didn’t know where He worked? Didn’t know where He’s from? Suddenly Salma started feeling apprehensive. What the hell was going on…Of course she knew where He worked, who He was…He worked for…umm, ok, we’ll get to that one later ladies and gents, His family lives on…ok, so the family question is another blinder…but lets not panic yet, thought Salma. But she couldn’t help herself. She felt panicky. So she did what she always does when she feels panicky. She blamed it on her condition and got busy making a sumptuous breakfast.

Two omlettes, bread, butter, and a potato salad later Salma sat back in the living room watching TV. But her mind kept going back to the questions which she had never asked or thought of. Not in the last 8 months. Eight months? She had been with Him for EIGHT months?? And where exactly WAS here? Suddenly the panic was back. She suddenly realized she didn’t know where she was. Yes, she was home, but where the hell WAS home? It isn’t natural for people to forget their own address, is it? What exactly DID she know about her situation? And why the hell hadn’t she thought about all this before? “Calm yourself Salma, there’s nothing to worry about” she told herself. And as she said it she knew she didn’t believe it. She had a bad feeling. Something was different today, and not different in a good way either. She felt as if she had been asleep, her mind turned off all these months. And now that it was turning on again she was faced with a situation she just could not explain. She closed her eyes and tried to think of Him. That’s what she normally did when she felt anxious, or alone. She would always remember His face, His smile, and it would calm her. But she couldn’t picture Him now. Could not visualize Him at all. How could that be? What the hell was going on? The panic started rising. Salma turned off the Tv andf started pottering in the kitchen. She decided to cook a feast. Her larder was well stocked. She would make a special dinner for Him and He would explain everything and it would all be fine.

Little did Salma know at that time that it would be the last meal she would ever cook.

Be afraid, Detective

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. But there was no beauty to this crime scene. Oh sure, there were the bodies, blood splatters, signs of struggle. A lot of misery and violence had happened in this room. But it didn’t make sense. The door, locked from the inside. The windows with grills, all intact. No sound had been heard from people living across the hall. The guards downstairs said no one had come visiting deep in the night. And yet…and yet…here it all was. A mother and child, dead, brutally slain, bellies slashed open, guts hanging out. What made it all the more gruesome was that the child had been ripped from the womb…and then stabbed. And hacked. And slashed. Why all this violence? The killer could have finished the job much more neatly with a simple slash across the mother’s throat. That would have taken care of the unborn child as well. But no. The killer went graphic. As if he wanted to make a statement. But a statement to whom? The dead victim? Or the police? Or to someone else who may be next on the list?

So yes, it was a singularly ugly crime scene. Not because of the horrible scenes of mutilation and bloodbath. But because it didn’t make sense. And Detective Inspector Delwar hated crime scenes that took more than 5 minutes to figure out. He called them “ugly” crime scenes.

cryptic fate A.D. (after danob)

Danob came out in 2006. Sreshtho came out in 2002. Ends are Forever came out in 1995. Long, LONG gaps to be sure. But that is what happens when you're a full time career person and a part time musician. And when your drummer keeps skipping out on you. Wll it wasn't really his fault, as he had his career goals and they were all centered on settling in the US. Especially since he was a green card holder, had graduated from a top college there and gotten his MBA from an ivy league university. But all that resulted in the rest of us staying back in Dhaka losing our momentum and generally shooting the breeze as regards music.

I remmeber it was very hard getting into our groove for Danob. In fact the first song we attempted to compose sort of fell apart at the seams. It refused to evolve from its basic primary nature into a complete flowing song. In the end we just discarded the song and moved on. Another thing with Danob, we wanted a very dark album. We wanted to the music to have a groove, but it had to be dark. And complicated. And according to others, experimental. Because i never felt we were experimenting. We were doing what came to us naturally at the time. But later on people who heard the album claimed it was a complicated and experimental album. Those who liked it liked it for these reason. And those who didn't think much of the album did so for these reasons as well. You can't please everyone.

We decided a few months back that we'd start working on the new album. We wouldn't wait another 4 years. And unlike Danob, we hit success with our first song in our first practice session. To be fair it was a riff that we had toyed around with previously, around the time Danob was being recorded, but still it was a good sign that things were flowing smoothly. Since deciding to work on the album, we've jammed quite a lot and we've come up with 4 solid songs. And in fairly quick time too. This time, we want songs that are fun to play and sing, songs that are simple and songs that are melodic. Not melodic in a dark sense (our primary concern in Danob), but just melodic. I guess we had a lot of things to prove in the last album and we feel we have proved them. Now we have nothing to prove. Now we just want to do straight out heavy metal.

Even as i write this, the band's future is in a flux. Things are happening that will steer the band in one dedfinite direction or another. Who knows which will be for the better. But whichever way our fate lies, we are all hanging on for the ride. Because come hell or high water, we will finish the 4th album in the enxt 6 months.

anatomy of a live

My band's been around since 1993. As fortune would have it, from the beginning everyone in the band was a huge maiden and metallica fan. That meant we got to do a lot of maiden and a lot of metallica over the years. And it's been a lot of years. And a lot of live shows. But no matter what we played, we got to be known as "the" maiden band of Bangladesh. And so it was a real joy and pleasure when we are invited by BATB to perform in one of their Tribute shows. And we would be giving tribute to my favorite band of all time, Iron Maiden.

First things first - the setlist. We made a list of around 16 songs we would like to play. But then we were informed that we would have an hour so we had to make a list of 10 songs. And boy was it difficult to make that list. There were so many songs we wanted to do! I always wanted to do Phantom of the Opera, one of the 3 instrumentals maiden has, Killers, Tailgunner, Infinite Dreams, Be Quick or Be dead etc etc. But then we settled on the absolute classics, plus one song which is not so popular but we absolutely wanted to play live. And then we started to practice.

Most of the songs in my own band are on the D scale. Whereas almost ALL the maiden songs are on E. So i was scared that i wouldn't be able to pull off 10 maiden songs in a row at the E scale. A so i suggested to my band lets tune down our guitars so i can sing more comfortably. But even as i made that suggestion I felt like a cheat and coward. It's like I was letting my favorite band down. Which is kind of ridiculous as they don't even know I exist. And my guitarrists grumbled and mumbled that dropping half a note on the guitars would make it go out of tune. So i said lets try it on E first, and if i can't hack it we'll drop down to D sharp.

So the day of the first practice comes around and I put on the set list on my winamp. The first 2 songs had me coughing and hacking and almost throwing up. In fact i later fibbed to everyone that i did throw up. But i didn't. Came close to it, but I didn't. But one wonderful fact emerged from this painful experience. I was able to sing the songs. With great difficulty to be sure, but i could match my scale to the ones Bruce was belting out. So it was with great joy i told everyone we'd be doing the songs in the original scale. No need for flummery of any kind. And than we got down to the brass tacks. We practiced like we've never practiced for a show. Every other day we got together, we played the songs, we identified problem areas, the drummer came under a lot of flak. It wasn't untill we threatened to throw him out of the band that he start taking his duties seriously. The 2nd to last practice, we went all out. We all geared up and then i announced that we'd be doing every song again if anyone of us made any mistake whatsoever while playing the song. Well we all made mistakes. And we ended up playing 5 or 6 of the songs thrice, even four times. But at the end of that practice session we felt really good. We had ironed out our demons. We were ready.

Then came the day of the live show. And we did good. Not as good as i wanted, but about as good as i thought. And the best thing was the sound engineer recorded our live performance. We now had our very own Live after Death. Farshed ma'man, wish you were there.

Good morning Sun!

Don't tell me "good morning" unless you're talking to me sometime after 10 a.m. All my life i waged a war against waking early in the morning and its a war that i finally won after i entered university. i clearly remember those sad days of school when i was forced to rise at the crack of dawn (7 a.m.). But i never rose willingly. My mom used to start the assault against my sleep by coming every two minutes to my room and gently trying to make me conscious. And i used to mumble something, turn away and go back to sleep. And this would usually continue until my father would enter the room and let out a bellow. Usually followed by threats of various bodily harm if i did not vacate the bed immediately. That got my attention every time. In fact there were a lot of times when i felt my father's presence before i heard him, through a not so gentle cuff on the head, or a not so mild kick or whack with the handy curtain rod. I was not allowed to close the door to my room because who ever has heard of privacy in Bangali middle class families? So the best i could negotiate was putting in a curtain to separate my room from anyone's viewing pleasure from the dining room. And it was this curtain rod which on many occasions have come in contact with my backside for such transgressions as not going to the mosque, not doing well in studies, and most often -- not waking up early enough. For you see, not only was there a vast difference between my definition of early and my father's, i suspect there would be a difference in meaning with most people.

My father comes from a family of 9 siblings.Yes NINE. In fact they were supposed to be 12 but due to poor medical facilities available in those days 5 of them died young. They're buried somewhere in Habiganj. I wonder if my father and his siblings ever visited those graves. Its really strange, the death of a new born baby. I don't really know if those 5 died as newborn babies or not, but i do know they all died very young. Possibly before much attachment could be formed with the family. A cousin of mine went through this tragedy of losing a newborn baby a few years back. In this case it was very sad because it was her first child. And for some strange reason, strange because I'm never around my family, i was around and i accompanied my cousin's husband and my father and gently laid the baby to rest in the mirpur graveyard. It was very sad. A tiny little grave. Just the 4 people attending the funeral. I didn't even see the baby. I doubt if anyone did.

But as i was saying, my father comes from a family of 9 siblings and they lived in Habiganj town. My grandfather was a hotshot mokhter, which is some sort of a lawyer, i don't know what sort. And as is usual in those days in small towns, he was very religious and led an active life. So active that it started with the Fazar Azaan. And as the head of the house woke up for the Fazaar prayers, so did the others. They didn't want to for sure, but they had to. And it wasn't a simple matter of waking up, saying your prayers and going to sleep. Oh no. There was no going back to sleep. They had to wake up, the boys had to go the mosque, and in fact sometimes some of the boys had to wake up really early because sometimes my grandfather arranged for one of them to give the Azaan. This is another prestigious thing in our religion and definitely in small towns. It is a great privilege to give the Azaan, which basically calls people to prayer. So woe to the boy who had this additional privilege because he had to wake up EVEN earlier then the others! And once the prayers were done, the children were expected to sit up and read the Quran. This is another popular past time in small towns and middle class families who are slightly religious minded. And my father's family was very religious minded. Not in a fanatical way, because they enjoyed their movie shows, they dressed in all the outrageous fashions of those times, but they were also very religious.

Coming back to the present and to me, my father actually expected me to follow that kind of a lifestyle. The fact that we now have electricity, for which we go to sleep late and thus can't really wake up so early is something which completely escaped him, even after i pointed it out. He actually expected me to wake up, say my prayers (preferably in the mosque), read the Quran, then study. STUDY. Well, my father tried for 5 years. And failed for 5 years. After which he gave up. I took it all. I took all the verbal abuse, the occasional beatings, the constant haranguing, i took it all and STILL didn't wake up before 7 a.m., and that too with the gentle ministrations of my mother and the bellows of my father.

Well all this was a long time ago. It all ended for me in 1992. 15 years? yeah 15 years. Long time. And in that time man did i sleep!! I slept in class, i slept in rickshaws, i slept in office (the bathtub in the office bathroom with the towel as the pillow), and on weekends i slept really late. Well not so late in the early years, when i used to wake up by 10 or 11 a.m. but nowadays i wake up really late. Say in the afternoon.

I actually gave up on a job because it required me to be at office by 8 a.m. I was like, haven't i done enough of that in 12 years of school? And then sometimes in university? I'm done with all of that and as an adult i refuse to wake up at 7 (in order to be in office by 8) and so i quit. And now i work in an ad firm, one of the bes tin Bangladesh, where i am the creative director. And as creative director i get to take creative liberty with my office arrival time, averaging between ten thirty and eleven on good days. On bad days? Ask my colleagues!

Nowadays, i LOVE staying up all night on weekends and going to bed when the fazar azaan hits the airwaves. Now thats the kind of good morning that i like. Where i say "good morning" and go to sleep!