The rivalry has been dissected endlessly and many reasons have been offered as to why Federer seemingly runs into a wall against Nadal.   Questions have been raised about Federer’s temperament and mental strength and whether he has conceded a mental edge to Nadal.  In my view, a player who has won 16 slams cannot be all genius and no temperament.  Recall that he prevailed 16-14 in the fifth set of the 2009 Wimbledon Final against Andy Roddick, while also breaking Sampras’s record for most slams in the Open Era in the process.

He must have the appetite to win and big match temperament to be able to pull off such achievements.  Nadal seems to have a bigger heart and more stomach for a fight but a player can’t hold all the aces.  Nadal would love to possess Federer’s ability to produce aces at crucial moments, for instance.  I think there are deeper reasons than only motivation and character as to why Nadal so overwhelmingly owns the head-to head (18-9) against Federer.   Three of those that make sense to me are:

1. The left-right match up and the one handed backhand: 

From the beginning, Federer has grumbled about the disadvantages he faces in playing a left hander.  With good reason.  As a left hander, Nadal’s forehand targets Federer’s backhand.  And Federer still plays a classical one handed backhand.  Now, the classical one handed backhand may be a sight for sore eyes and gorgeous to behold but it simply doesn’t provide Federer the power he needs to counter Nadal’s high balls.  Often, Federer simply chips or floats his backhand and Nadal duly obliges with a punishing forehand winner.

Today, Federer’s backhand drive, down the line as well as crosscourt, worked well except for a patch in the 2nd set and this allowed him to stay with Nadal on several points.   This is the reason two sets had to be decided by a tiebreak, Federer even winning one of those.   But even these drives only work when Nadal is forced to keep the ball low.  The moment he serves it up at chest or shoulder height, Federer’s backhand is rendered relatively weak and Nadal immediately gains an upper hand in the rally, irrespective of its final outcome.

I imagine it would be very difficult to train a top level player out of a one handed backhand so it is no wonder Federer gets hassled when he has to play Nadal.  This also explains why Novak Djokovic could bully Nadal at the Wimbledon and US Open Finals last year.  Because he does have a powerful double hander, among other weapons, to negate the potency of the Nadal forehand.

2. Federer does not regularly play doubles

Federer has a powerful serve and he could get closer in matches against Nadal in spite of the left-right disadvantage if he could hone some other strength.  Time and again, players have attempted to draw Nadal to the net because it is near impossible to penetrate his defence from the baseline when he is on top of his game.  But Nadal is actually very competent at the net and regularly outplays his opponents when they draw him forward.  Federer has a good netgame but not quite good enough to consistently prevail at the net over Nadal.

He could have possibly changed that had he played more doubles.  That would have improved the speed of his responses at the net and he’d need to be really snappy to outdo Nadal at the net.  Federer has the shots but can’t always play them in the nick of time and when he loses a few crucial points at the net, he returns to a baseline oriented strategy, which only makes it even harder for him to beat Nadal.    Notice how many routine volleys he botched today against Nadal.  That is partly the pressure of a high profile clash but it is also the speed at which you have to react when you go for serve-and-volley.  Playing doubles would have helped him execute volleys and drops more fluently.

3. No coach during his prime years

I believe not having a coach from 2007 through to 2010 may have been a costly decision for Federer.  Today, even though he lost to Nadal, he was able to make Nadal fight much harder for his points than he has in a long time.  And that is even though Nadal plays better now on hard court and grass court than in the peak of the rivalry around 2008.  He also appeared to approach rallies with a method and a plan with which to win them.

At times during the height of the rivalry, Federer would appear lost and frustrated, relying heavily on his incredible flair to find a way.  Perhaps, it was not enough against a player of Nadal’s caliber and whose style also matched up uncomfortably with Federer’s.

The problem with much analysis of Federer’s failures against Nadal is it is too Federer-centric and doesn’t take into account how tough an opponent Nadal actually is.  Nadal’s preparation for big matches is thorough and his execution immaculate.  He had  and has a coach and for a long time, Federer didn’t.  Today, under the guidance of a coach, he appeared to be poised to break the jinx.

But he is nearing 31 now and probably can’t play at his limits as much as he could earlier.  It may be a bit too late in the day now to make amends in a contest in which he was disadvantaged from the beginning.  He probably knows a few things now about how to bell the cat in his mind, but his body doesn’t always obey.  Besides, Nadal has just got better and better, all the time.

When Bernard Tomic made the quarter finals of last year’s Wimbledon, he was the youngest to do so since Boris Becker!  At 19, he is still a young hope and ‘bright star’ of men’s tennis.   Which basically means he will have to bide his time.  Although barely 2 years older than him,  the current no.1 of women’s tennis, Caroline Wozniacki is hounded with questions over why she still can’t win a slam.  People urge detractors to lay off Tomic and give him some time.   Wozniacki will field more uncomfortable questions after her straight set loss today to Kim Clijsters.

For quite some time, the men’s circuit has become extremely demanding and highly competitive.  As a result, only the most seasoned and accomplished players tend to go the distance at the slams.  The youngest player left in the men’s draw at this point is Kei Nishikori and he’s already 22, older than Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova!  Hot favourite for the men’s title Novak Djokovic  turns 25 this May and is looking at a window of 2 to 3 years in which to bag as many slams as he can.  Beyond that, the wait can get excruciating as new opponents raise the bar.  Ask Roger Federer!

With Rafael Nadal to play Thomas Berdych and Andy Murray to take on Nishikori, the most familiar semi final draw is all set to be reprised.  Don’t rule out an upset yet but time and again, those four gentlemen, Federer, Djokovic, Nadal and Murray, have kept rivals away from even a semi final slot, let alone a slam.  The last one to breach this impenetrable wall was Juan Martin Del Potro, who won the US Open in 2009.  Today even his best appeared not nearly enough against Federer.

Things couldn’t be more different in the women’s draw.  Maria Sharapova and Clijsters are the only familiar faces left in the women’s draw.  Don’t believe me….ask somebody who is a bit out of touch with the women’s scene.  If you told him Kvitova or Victoria Azarenka are among the top contenders for the title and Serena Williams is not in the hunt,  he would be shocked.

It’s not their fault, really.  For the last two years, the women’s draw has been anything but stable.  Upto 2010, Serena Williams could walk right into a slam and more or less duly collect the trophy if she so pleased.   Clijsters followed suit.  In last year’s Wimbledon,  even a hugely unreliable ball toss couldn’t stop Sharapova from strolling to the finals.  Sharapova, 25, is already a veteran and winner of three slams.  If it seems as if she’s been around forever, it’s because that’s indeed the case.  Young, up and coming players didn’t seem to have the answers and faltered either on account of inconsistency or simply a lack of depth.

In the meantime, seasoned players who could not overhaul the might of either Williams sibling or other multiple slam winners have cashed in on this vacuum to collect a slam for themselves.  Francesca Schiavone and Li Na helped themselves to French Open titles and Sam Stosur fetched a US Open title, beating a below par Serena.

At this year’s Australian Open,  Serena could not even halt the march of unseeded southpaw Ekaterina Makarova.  Her elder sibling, Venus, is physically incapacitated at the moment.  Clijsters is the last player from that generation holding fort for the old.  She has publicly declared that this is her last fling at the Australian Open.   The old appears more and more unable to resist the new in the women’s draw.   On the other hand, the new kids on the block in men’s tennis turn up at the slams only to find themselves confronted with ‘new’ questions as the old continue their relentless march.

Today, both draws briefly converged.  Del Potro’s powerful ball-striking was not enough against Federer’s formidable repertoire.  While it was not a walk in the park, Federer more or less out-thought and outplayed him all the way.  In spite of nerves and the resulting errors,  Clijsters too had a relatively comfortable win against Wozniacki. What was common to both matches was also that the veterans here showed more willingness to come forward and take on their opponent at the net, who were caught well behind the baseline.

And that’s where the similarities will likely end.  Clijsters will probably find the rest of her opponents more fearless and aggressive.  And Federer will likely meet old nemesis Rafael Nadal!  Normal service resumes.

Men’s tennis is already, according to ATP executive chairman Brad Drewett, enjoying its best ever position.  He may well have meant that commercially but the last few years have been phenomenal for the tour with a strong and consistent top 4 and a very competitive top 20 to push them to the limit.  Men’s tennis has got faster, more power packed, more intense and more aggressive in these years.   But there was a danger of a bit of sameness creeping in.  While there is a rich diversity of styles as between just the top 4, leaving aside the likes of Tsonga or Tipsarevic, the tempo of the game has tended to move in one direction.

Along comes young Australian Bernard Tomic to show us another way…and that it is possible even in the current uber-competitive state of men’s tennis.  He deals in slices, drops and some really weird looking shots that I don’t know what to call and plays at a pace not many current players are comfortable with.  A look at clay court matches from the 80s might give you a bit of an idea.  But Tomic mixes it up a lot to camouflage his lack of too many killer shots.

He is able to serve himself out of trouble decently for such a young player.   He also produces a very effective wide forehand from time to time.  But, stripped of his intrigue,  he is essentially a defensive counter puncher….yeah, just like Caroline Wozniacki, just like Lleyton Hewitt.

Oh, but what intrigue!  His encounter with bright American hope Sam Querrey was a study in contrast.  Querrey served big aces with Roddick-like frequency and produced booming forehand winners to back it up.  A typical hardcourt game, that is.  But Tomic’s backhand slice confounded him to the point of distraction and he committed double faults at crucial junctures to eventually hand him the match.  You’d think with a big serve, powerful groundstrokes and decent net game, you should be home and dry against all the top six or so on hardcourts.  Not if your opponent is Tomic.

Today, he had to play, as Jim Courier put it, his mirror image – Ukranian Alexandr Dolgopolov.   Dolgopolov too employs deft touch to great effect to break the rhythm of opponents and has already risen to 13 in the rankings.   He also has a more potent serve and astounding ability to spike the power of his forehand.  He also showed a lot more propensity to attack and charge forward while Tomic, as usual, lacked footwork and preferred to lurk well behind the baseline.

In spite of these weapons, he lost the long rallies more often than not and Tomic prevailed in a five set epic to move to the fourth round.   The many patient and thoughtful rallies that punctuated the match were a world apart from the rush and hustle of modern men’s tennis.  I love men’s tennis the way it is, I don’t yearn for the past.  But variety never harmed any sport and it is interesting to watch these two talents carve a niche for themselves with starkly different methods from what most players today prefer.

Tomic’s Sunday encounter is even more pregnant with context.   He has to play perhaps the one man who knows this kind of tennis inside out.  Really, Swiss ace Roger Federer slices and slides feline like a lot, a lot more than people notice.  He is just much more subtle in his tactics than either Tomic or Dolgopolov and somehow manages great touch with great rhythm at the same time.  Tomic will also find free points hard to come by against Federer’s maddeningly consistent serve.   He may be forced to take the initiative and charge on the offensive and it will be interesting to see how that comes off.

Tomic is already being hailed as the future of men’s tennis, a champion-in-waiting.  Federer is THE champion, the owner of more slams than any other male player in the Open Era.  Will he masterfully put a young upstart in his place and smoothly book a quarterfinal berth?  Or will there be a change of guard and, possibly, drawing curtains on Federer’s hopes of another Slam for good?  Last year, Federer failed to reach the semis of Wimbledon, the turf he was once king of.  A fourth round exit will surely be a real bummer….IF it does happen.

As much as Tomic has shown maturity beyond his years in his tennis craft, ousting Federer may be a bridge too far yet.  But, sorry Federer, I would love to see an upset come Sunday!

You could have mistaken it for a football clash, going by the electric, supercharged atmosphere.  Tennis is famously conservative when it comes to etiquette.  So…between literally each point, the players had to wait a few minutes just for the ceaseless chanting of the crowd to ebb just enough to resume play.   I have watched tennis since the mid 90s or so and I have never seen anything like this.  That, and Rafael Nadal and Del Potro punching the air with passionate fists after every big point, depending on who won it.   No bad mouthing or bad manners but a lot of passion.  And that’s when I realized just what Rafael Nadal has done for tennis.

As I said in the title, I am a diehard Roger Federer fan.  I…uh, can’t help it.  It was watching Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf play that got me into tennis so I love the ‘classical’ style and one handed backhands and all that.  Federer took this classical game to new levels in the age of power hitting and enriched tennis even more as competitors were forced to raise their own level to stop him running away with the tour.   Nadal in many ways seemed to represent a contrast, getting there through sheer determination and energy and the will to compete relentlessly.  I admired his killer instinct and champion qualities but not so much his tennis.

But even as Federer has left fans frustrated over the later half of his career,  Nadal has made it harder and harder to play sides.  It just seems stupid to begrudge him admiration for merely aesthetic reasons.   Besides, what we lose sight of in talking up his determination is his phenomenal accuracy, court coverage and reading of the game.

Federer may not give the appearance of being very aggressive but make no mistake, he wants these titles badly too.  So Nadal is not just about being aggressive and determined.  His court craft, even if not highly elegant, is impeccable.  Serve and volley freaks bemoan his being a baseliner but it is in fact his ability to retrieve drops and volleys from virtually any corner of the court that forces opponents to play him in his comfort zone, the baseline!  And over the years, he has pulled out the occasional deft touches too.  In the 2011 Wimbledon semifinal, he had answers for Andy Murray at the net, all the time. Even his serve, once a severe liability, has improved to the point of getting him free points from time to time.

Above all, his sheer passion is just so endearing, so winsome.  I have nothing against players absorbed in the intensity of the moment or feeling too shy or awkward to express themselves through gestures.  I appreciate that a Federer or a Graf were generally graceful in defeat and did not disrupt play by getting into animated arguments with officials.  It is not very charitable to call players boring for basically behaving.

But Nadal doesn’t misbehave either.  How many champions could you imagine giving a shoulder to lean on and cry for the vanquished, as Nadal did for Federer in the 2009 Australian Open final.  Certainly not the Big Mac, for starters.   But he captures the drama of the moment and his burning desire to win through the range of expressions his face passes through in the match and gestures of aggression and anger.   He doesn’t just get the crowd involved, he lets them have a peek at what is really going on in a tense, high profile match.  Not just stiff jaws and perspiring bodies, when Nadal is playing, you really know how big each moment is in the context of the match.  And you also know just how much he loves the game.

Curiously, by watching Nadal, I can understand why some people were drawn into tennis by a McEnroe or Agassi rather than an Edberg or Sampras.   Just the sight of two players playing what is decidedly not a violent or aggressive sport in front of a very quiet and civilized audience may not always be very attractive or convert people.  On the other hand, it can lead to an unhealthy tendency to celebrate the bad boys and rebels without proportion.

So, I really dig that Nadal celebrates the passion of playing a great game at its highest level without demeaning his rivals or the officials or lacking grace in defeat.  Let it be said yet again that Rafael Nadal is a true champion and a perfect sportsman.

Traditionally, visitors have run for cover at the thought of battling it out at Perth. It has a monstrous reputation as a bowlers’ paradise, generating pace and bounce not seen anywhere else in the world, with only Durban and Australia’s own Brisbane – though friendlier in comparison – coming close. In that lies the closely guarded secret of Perth: it also plays true all five days and therefore presents no demons to the set batsman. Besides, the sheer bounce generated on this pitch makes the short pitched delivery a liability and forces bowlers to bowl length or pitched up to make a contest. Ergo, Perth definitely assists the bowlers, but only if they bowl accurately and incisively. And a bowler of that calibre would probably do well on any pitch that ain’t dead as a Canberra dodo, oops, sorry!!!

Even if one takes India’s victory out of the equation, there are other pointers to the real Perth: South Africa and New Zealand both drew their last-played match at this ground…both teams comfortable with pace, seam and bounce. So too, a positive approach by India from the outset undid the Aussies and their failure, except Brett Lee, to penetrate the corridor of uncertainty on the first day cost them dearly. By contrast, the extra bounce made the Indian seamers – who tend to pitch it up as they don’t hit the deck as hard as the Aussies – lethal and unplayable. This could be the analysis of a match played at windy Wellington or Edgbaston …so that is what Perth is indeed, a harder, zippier and hotter version of those venues, with the sea breeze, more than anything else, aiding the seamers.

Sections of Australian followers have said Perth simply wasn’t what it used to be this match. That is not really true if you listen to Chris Rogers’s pre-match statements. He said his highest score for Western Australia at Perth in the season of 06-07 was 60, despite having played there all his life. He did indicate it would be a brute of a pitch and hoped to roll over India in 3 days. Going by that, the pitch seems to have been true to type; the Australian approach was what was wrong.

Right, over to Melbourne. The reason it is tough to beat Australia in Melbourne is that the ground is just very difficult to play in. It is the largest cricket ground in the world, has a lush outfield and in recent history has a slow pitch with occasionally uneven bounce. A ground of comparable dimensions would be India’s Eden Gardens; however, it is significantly smaller, has a quick outfield and shorter boundaries and generally plays true though that ground too has produced its share of quagmires, notably the 96 World Cup semifinal. Ergo, at the G, the ball doesn’t quite rush onto the bat, the boundary is a distant object in the horizon and even after a good strike, the thick grass stops the ball in its tracks. Hello, this also makes life tough for the bowlers; they have to maintain a tight line and length relentlessly and neither half volleys nor long hops will do. And the fielders have to run long miles all day long. The sheer Herculean labours of performing on this ground daunt most opposition players…except, for a strange reason, they never seem to expect it. The ground’s deceptively benign reputation and the apparent absence of demons in the pitch lulls opposition into near-complacency and by the time a long, hard day of chasing leather has undeceived them, the initiative is lost. And you know what they say: give Australia an inch, they will take a mile.

On the other hand, Australia know MCG for exactly what it is and always approach it cautiously and watchfully, quite unlike their normal tendency to dominate the opposition from the start. Matthew Hayden said a zillion times during the Melbourne Test of last year against India that it was the toughest Melbourne pitch he had batted on; India came to realize this…with a huge deficit staring them in the face at the start of Day 3. This is why, on precisely the ground the opposition give themselves a good chance, Australia have a formidable record. Sure, Australia being who they are have done well in all their grounds, but make no mistake, Melbourne has played host to some ‘benign’ innings or two hundred run/ten wicket defeats over the years. TV Channel Star Cricket even has a series ‘Boxing Day Knock Outs’ to satiate the appetites of hungry Aussie fans!!!

So how did Australia come to lose an admittedly tight-fought contest to India yesterday in their grand fortress?? Well, they did what you can call an Adelaide 2003….the pitch was tough but not tough enough to support a defence of a sub-200 total and even Ponting admitted this. A flurry of early wickets did not instill the instinctive caution that it should have in the Australian batsmen. They lost only two of their specialist batsmen – Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin – to pure indiscretion; the rest, barring the unlucky Gilchrist, fell to good bowling efforts. But that was enough to nip in the bud a famous Australian recovery; they could only manage phlegmatic resistance with the tail, or to be precise one of the tailenders Brett Lee. Australia fought lion-heartedly with the ball, but 160 was never going to be enough, especially after a quick start that whittled down half of the target with barely 2/3 of the overs completed.

The Twenty-20 match played at the same ground was a characteristic display of the Melbourne nemesis; the boundaries were farther and harder to scale than Durban or Wanderers, but by the time the Indian batsmen realized this, they had lost more than half their side and were in no position to recover. Perhaps this early nightmare made the Indian batsmen more circumspect in their approach, simultaneously inducing rare complacency in their Australian counterparts.

Finally, I had planned this piece even prior to the ODI fixture of yesterday…..I had a feeling deep down though that against the run of play, India would clinch this one. I waited to know the result, but my opinion is only reinforced, not changed by it. Kudos to India and God bless Ishant Sharma, the first real Indian tearaway!!!

Cut to 2005. Sania Mirza, fresh from a decent and encouraging showing at the Australian Open, wins the Hyderabad Open, a Tier-IV event (read: easy opponents). An eager, and lamentably uninformed, Headlines Today correspondent announces that she, unlike the Indian cricket team, showed real fighting spirit. Remember our team was in the throes of the “To sack or not to sack Dada” crisis at that time and the amazing victories against the world’s best team in Kolkata (2001), Adelaide (2003) and Mumbai (2004) were already well and truly forgotten. Ironically, today there are calls for Sania to draw from Sachin or Dravid’s example and accept controversy as part and parcel of fame.

To digress, much water has since flown under the bridge. Sania Mirza’s doubles performances have been steadily improving but in the singles, she is unable to go beyond the last 16 of a Grand Slam simply because she neither has the firepower nor the consistency to break into that league. Form is fickle, but class is permanent and the Indian cricket team meanwhile have gone where no subcontinental team, not even Pakistan of the 80s , have ever gone – beating Australia at Perth. India also won the Twenty-20 World Cup in the meantime, putting cricket firmly back in the throne as far as Indian sports is concerned.

Perhaps the effect of that was to somewhat negate the wave of sympathy towards other sports that was gathering strength in the wake of the ODI World Cup debacle. Maybe or maybe not. But the first thing I said when the controversy of Mirza resting her feet “near” the Indian flag arose was “Chak De!!!”. If you have seen Chak De India the film, in the opening scenes, Kabir Khan misses a penalty shot that would have equalised the score in an India-Pakistan hockey match. As he goes down on his knees dejected, a sympathetic Pakistan player commends him for his efforts and offers him a handshake. An opportunistic journalist immediately photographs this gesture and cooks up a match-fixing slur on Kabir Khan. Doesn’t the Sania Mirza incident strike you as uncannily similar (maybe the photographer was – in the great tradition of Bollywood – inspired by Chak De??) ?? Henceforth all photos must come with the warning, “Objects in a photograph may be farther than they appear.” Rohan Bopanna has said that the flag was nowhere near as close to Mirza’s feet as it appears to be in the photo. He may only be expressing his solidarity for her, but there is a lot of truth in that statement. It also appears from the photo that there clearly was no intention to offend the tricolour in anyway by Mirza; for God’s sake, she was just watching the match!!!! It is easy for me to see that the insidiousness of the whole thing must have deeply shaken and hurt her. It is as if a billion pairs of eyes are watching her actions – Truman Show, you bet!!! – to spot anything ‘condemnable’ in them. If indeed it is so important that her conduct must be worthy of a Goddess, surely she might as well not risk playing in our beloved country, right??…it solves the problem for everyone – everyone, except the media. Now there’s one less story to crow about, to sensationalize, to ignite fires with….it also offers a certain tennis player the chance to fire a volley at his one-time doubles partner.

It is ironic that she used to sport a shirt with the caption, “Well-behaved women don’t make history”. Sadly, it seems that’s what the zealots and the swadesis are affirming unwittingly. It is also ironic that I should write a piece in defence of Sania Mirza….I have always been critical of her performance on the tennis court and scoffed at those who said she will get there with time – on the evidence of her records, she hasn’t. On her day, she can topple the top seeds – not necessarily by playing superlative tennis for there are too many weaknesses in her game for that to be a possibility!!! But even the top seeds aren’t always at their best and especially in the early rounds, they take time to get into their rhythm. If Sania plays close to her best tennis on such an occasion, she can and has beaten top seeds. What is required is for something that is merely an aberration at present to become habit. She has to capitalise on opportunities to advance and needs to be a little more disappointed about losing to Venus Williams after serving for the first set, not satisfied that she NEARLY got a set, the nearlys of the world are never even nearly recorded in history. I have been afraid that she’s just a little too satisfied with what she’s got – much like Harbhajan Singh – and doesn’t quite seem to realise that she needs to work harder to get to the next level.

However, all that cannot excuse such rampant, self-righteous scrutiny of what she does off-court and she has driven exactly that home in her original Sania isstyle. Way to go, Sania!!!!

Hmm…. there’s not much to say about Madame Bhutto’s assassination, except that by and large, the coverage of her whole campaign to return to power and then the ultimate untimely death by our English TV media, particularly NDTV, has been rather disappointing. She may have been chanting the Indi-Paki bhai-hai mantra in interviews this year, but back in the 90s, when she was in power, I distinctly remember she was looked upon as the enemy, the hardliner, the threat. More measures to break the ice have been undertaken in the General’s regime (though he has arguably done much more to fight proxy ‘jehadi’ war in Kashmir…in fact India??) than in her time. Don’t people get it, she was just playing to the gallery, as any consummate politician would….much like Metallica want to go back to their roots. Why??? Not because they finally heard their fans, but because United Abominations, A Matter of Life And Death, Enter the Grave all these albums have sold well, it’s cool to be heavy metal again..and St Anger isn’t exactly what gives Korn sleepless nights anyway!!! Has our media become so base, so opportunistic, so vulture-like that anybody in power who is assassinated automatically becomes a martyr – the Kurt Cobain syndrome, eh?? A word for Dr.Roy, as Prannoy Roy sometimes calls himself: your channel, right or wrong, is perceived as pro-Pak in a country of Indians….and now, you are seemingly proving all those believed so to be right. Of course, good ol’ journalism comes first, but um…do take care of the TRPs…we can’t afford the risk of “Sansani” sweeping the English TV media in NDTV’s hypothetical absence.

The other day, I read an ad in the newspaper for a grand do at Sahara Star, Vile Parle. Apparently, Mika Singh, Tanushree Dutta (or is it Datta) and Shakeel are coming over. One look at the price of the passes made my mouth open wider than I would have laughing over Shakeel’s jokes. Fucking 11500?? And I thought the threat of 7500 passes for Scorpions was insane??? Seriously, how much more overpriced can you get, guys?? And then I read between the lines: it is possible that all the ads for international rock gigs and their subsequent coverage in newspapers didn’t escape the attention of those outside the rock circuit. And possibly, looking at the thrilled faces of satisfied rock fans after a gig, they feel left out, envious even??? So here it is…event organisers, sensing the existence of such a market for so-called ‘rock shows’ organise a New Year’s Eve ‘rawk show’ for this market, except of course, Shakeel has to play Ozzy, Mika has to play umm…Hetfield, perhaps?? and Tanushree is going to be Shakira or Beyonce…because this new “I wanna rawk” crowd will find the real deal “too hot to handle” to quote UFO. To compensate for this slight problem is the price…they are paying much more, much much more than the average rock fan can afford for an evening’s noise…if it’s costlier, it got to be better right?? What of course is lost on them is that we get a kick out of the music, the sheer spectacle and not the money..if anything, a high ticket price is a deterrent!!

I must say it was very disappointing to see such a poor response for the one-time heavy metal pioneers. We in Bombay have always complained that high taxes keep the big gigs away from our city and then when the prices were actually within reach, we kept away..oh well, guess it was the VIP factor for them too. Seriously, what happened to the 7500 stand, because I didn’t see one!! In fact the few people in the 1000 stand (including yours truly) were emptied into the 1500 stand to create an illusion of a packed arena. Whatever, it gave me the chance to get real close to ze Scorps.

So, first a doomed duo covered some country/folk rock classics on acoustic guitar and vocals. They were decent but not spectacular and soon the crowd lost patience…better luck next time boys!!!! Then, after a seemingly endless wait, came ze Scorpions. The first thing everybody would have noticed:

a) They were so fucking heavy, heavier than Iron Fucking Maiden, that wasn’t something I expected, no sir.

b)  Klaus Meine still sings soooo well….maan, anybody who can still maintain his voice at 60-plus is blessed a thousand times over.

Talking of Meine, his frontman-act is rather unique. With his short build and curly hair, he lacks the charisma of Bruce Dickinson or James Hetfield. He compensates by being an absolute joker – what with a ridiculous grey jacket complete with loosely worn tie, Cyrus Broacha-ish dance steps (sorry Cyrus if you are reading this) and comical, heavily accented Hindi to boot.  Best part, it works superbly.  We loved him, every minute of it…well, he helped his own cause by doling out drumsticks ceaselessly, keeping us hooked to his every move.

But the real revelation was Rudolf Schenker.  Also over-60 and the main man (and rhythm guitarist) of the band, he was a livewire on stage. People who debate endlessly about whether Scorpions are heavy metal or not only needed to watch him play the rhythm parts of Dynamite at some incredible pace for proof. If you don’t think THAT is heavy fucking metal, go suck your own sorry cock, is all I can say. By contrast, Jabs looked occasionally lost; maybe the crowd noise made it difficult for him to pick notes but he’s been on stage for so many years now. He more than made up with the usual stunts and the whole lot; besides the sound was rhythm-heavy, so we struggled to hear Jab’s leads anyway so it didn’t really matter.  The relatively younger bassist and the drummer had a full fifteen minutes of jamming to themselves and they made the most of the time.

Now, coming to the organisation: it was very well done, much much better than Bangalore, thank you. Only one thing: do the MMRDA have to dig up approach roads so strategically…the road leading from the Bandra-Kurla complex arterial to the ground was a mess, potholed and dusty, coming from a Bombayite, so I ain’t cribbing. And while I had my friend’s vehicle to get to the nearest railway station, many others were waiting to get into the nowhere-in-sight ricks. Maybe with more and more concerts taking place, those guys will get know about this rawk show thing and line up in droves to fleece passengers next time!!   Another thumbs up for the Bombay gig: though Scorpions wound up at 10:00 as opposed to 9:15 odd for Iron Maiden, water, snacks was still available at the venue when we left and a few shops in the neighbourhood were still open, with no policemen imposing curfew, unlike oh so high-tech Bangalore.

Ah, I haven’t talked about the selection of songs yet: it was ex-ex-cellent. All the classics and no songs from the abominable Savage Amusement and Eye II Eye. They didn’t play the 70s songs but they haven’t ever since Roth left, so no point fretting about that. They played Blackout, they played The Zoo, they played Dynamite, they played Bad Boys Running Wild and this alone would make the gig a rockin’ one for me. But they also played Send me an angel, Always Somewhere and Holiday unplugged and then of course those three songs without which no Scorpions gig can ever be wound up, you know them if you are a Scorpions fan so I won’t mention them.

All in all, those of you who can’t stop blabbering about Metallica, Iron Maiden and Guns N Roses (why is it always these three bands, wherever I go, no seriously!!!) and thereby underestimated the Scorpions, you seriously missed out bigtime. Scorpion stung like only they can and it still feels sweet. Do be back sometime soon, Mr.Meine. Still loving you, baby!!!!

Now, I must disgress a bit before I get back to the topic. I have had a small craving for long: would I be able to see a contemporary romantic flick that would actually be satisfying and at the same time not essentially deviate from the love story formula?? You see, whatever romantic pics I have seen over the years were either not “quite the thing” or they were crossed with a divergent sub-plot,i.e, hybrid.  Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa was probably my first vivid experience of a romantic movie and it was great. After that: Yes Boss – essentially comedy, Ghulam -gangster/dadagiri angle, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai -  lookalike/murder twist, Dil Chahtha Hai – friendship, Cheeni Kum – age gulf and its perception in society…thus, all these films had something other than the love story to keep them going. On the other hand, classic love stories that didn’t quite do it for me – DDLJ, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Raja Hindustani.  Yes, I am aware that these films were landmark blockbusters , but every blockbuster is not necessarily a good film; even if it is, it need not have an universal appeal.

That said, I went to Jab We Met with absolutely no expectations. I had, as mentioned in my earlier post, burnt my fingers with OSO, though the reviews were universally gung-ho. Plus, I was wary of what to expect from the Shahid-Kareena  jodi. Above all, ironically, it was just A love story, how good could it be anyway. As the opening scenes captured a depressed Shahid ambling down Bombay’s streets aimlessly, my fears appeared to be confirmed. And then, as Kareena jumped onto the train she never missed in life, it suddenly seemed to take off and then seemingly skipped all halts en route to the destination. When the movie was over, not only did I feel it was money well-spent, I felt good and refreshed (though not too good a thing when the movie is getting over at 11 in the night ). What happened??

Well, it is a love story alright, but one told with lot of conviction and sincerity. At no point did I get the impression that the crew were going through the motions, looking to complete just another romantic flick. On the other hand, the movie was bubbling with life in every frame and exuded palpable energy without getting too boisterous or too loud for its own good.

Ah, that’s the other great thing about the movie. Somehow, in Himesh-era Bollywood, these guys had the guts to actually make a movie that is not too loud, too jarring. Particularly, the songs and the background score are cheerful and breezy without getting on your nerves while even the flow of dialogues is crisp and fast but uncluttered and devoid of overt melodrama.

I also noted a tastefulness in ‘executing’ the frames quite unusual for a commercial flick like this. For instance, the choreography for the songs is graceful, elegant and colourful rather than loud and attention-grabbing. The lighting too finds the perfect balance of the gaudy and the grim – or rather it looks REAL. Most importantly, this ‘tastefulness’ finds its way into the acting – a casting coup, if you will. Everybody seems to be perfectly cast and go through the frames naturally, without the shrill histrionics of perhaps a decade earlier.  Particularly the lead pair deliver a pleasant shock: Shahid and Kareena, whatever be their status as a pair off-screen, share some amazing chemistry.

Wait, there’s still something else. You know what, I was wrong: the conventional love story devoid of sub-plots doesn’t really exist. The sub-text in this movie is in two parts: one being the positive, albeit dreamy, attitude of Kareena’s character prior to rejection, the other being the repeated displays of great character by Shahid. Be it supporting a girl he has never met before to help her fulfil her dream, be it understanding and respecting his mother, be it being honest to the girl’s family and taking on the responsibility of searching her out or be it stepping out of her way to join hands with the man he thinks is her true love.  Perhaps, in our increasingly amoral times, this nice man who does a lot of good things without the pomp that generally comes with it in the movies strikes a chord at some level. For instance, today I let a guy who was in a hurry to get his train go ahead of me at the ticket queue because his need was greater than mine. Let’s face it, one part of us wants to be nice to everybody but circumstances conspire to make us less hospitable, so the rich industrialist scion with a golden heart seems to be a great ideal to look upto?? Don’t know, but what I do know is these moments of great character make the movie stand apart from the mundane, from the run-of-the-mill – it enables the characters to transcend the formulaic and come across as real people you actually relate to.  And when the predictable happily-ever-after ending eventually transpires, you are not grumbling,”Bah, I knew this was how it would end.” You feel happy for the imaginary couple in spite of yourself.

That, there, is the hallmark of good cinema. No, it need not have a powerful message, it need have no impact on society, it need not take cinema places technically, all it needs to do is get you to buy into the story, buy into the dream…for all commercial cinema is just one big fantasy ride. Difference is, most of the rides are boring, some are so awful they make you wanna puke, a very few like Jab We Met leave you with that “Wow” feeling when you’re through. What are you waiting, take the ride and enjoy it whole-heartedly before Yashraj films and Madhuri Nene nee Dixit take you for yet another marketing ride (oh, how I wish they would prove me wrong :/ ).

Ok, what did I like about the film? I thought the cinematography was mighty impressive, particularly the fact that in the first half, the 70s feel was introduced even in the lighting…a rare eye for detail that I don’t generally expect from Indian commercial cinema. The parody of Bollywood by Bollywood itself was very funny (though I will delve on said parody again later). There were touches of a promise that the film could go deeper into the underbelly of Bollywood, particularly in the scene where the actress tells the junior artiste that the best part of shooting for her is “pack-up”. Deliciously cynical!!! What was however more impressive for me was that SRK is seemingly able to get the whole of Bollywood (except the other K, Aamir Khan, oh did somebody say Sallu??) to dance in one seemingly endless party song for him….Shabana Azmi, Vidya Balan, Aftab Shivdasani, Govinda, you name it, they were all there for that one song. What is it, his goodwill in the film world as such, or that he knows how to talk the language of money better, I don’t know, but the output is an impressive feather in his cap, yessir.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, Farah and SRK are not quite cynical enough to believe that making a cynical film about the cynical film industry with a cynical spattering of age-old Bollywood cliches will be lapped up by the not-so-cynical audience. All the cynical potshots at what Bollywood is all about, of which mind Farah ji is very much a part, is enjoyable and all but you can’t make a film on that.

Or, you actually can, if you have a linear, gripping storyline and some crisp direction. When you are randomly weaving together oh-so-filmi-oh-so-funny moments for 2 hours, then you need to give some largesse to the audience for the next half hour so that they don’t whine about money gone down the multiplex drain when they exit. Thankfully, Farah & Co do realise this need and so the film must culminate in a grand filmi finale.

But wait, like Mukesh Mehra’s dilemma in the film, who is going to write it? Remember,this is the new “Chak De” India – everything, from Indian cricket to Hindi cinema, got to be spectacular, we can’t spare no expenses no more,right?? Unfortunately, the well of creativity, atleast for this film’s ensemble, seems to have dried up long ago. So!!! Farah madam got an ingenious idea…why not “uthao” a scene from a good film that was made a good 50 years ago…aakhir people who were old enough to remember that film may not even come to watch OSO…agar aaye aur pata chala, people will say, buddhe logon ko aur koi kaam nahi, wahi puraani baaton me dube huye hein. But what their cynicism cynically prevented them from foreseeing is the existence of connoisseurs even for so cynical an affair as Bollywood. Yessir, I wasn’t born when the Dilip Kumar – Vyjayanthimala starrer Madhumati was made, but out of my own interest in great cinema, I happened to watch the film. And mon ami, the climax of Om Shanti Om is – as we say in Bombay – a chaapa of Madhumati.

I am sorry, madam, but asking me to buy this also as a tribute-shibute of Hindi films is a bit too much. Every little detail, right down to Sandhya arriving late for the climax and missing the magic-wagic, is copied from that landmark film. Now, I know ki many Hindi films are copied from Hollywood and maybe Madhumati was too, but apne hi ghar me chori karna…na re na. It does appear that the pre-release buzz about Karz being the inspiration for this film was the proverbial red herring to divert focus from the asli kahani.

And, either the red herring worked fabulously or movie critics are more cynical than I had bargained for…because I have scanned reviews in the papers, on the net, but nahi, Madhumati yeh shabd nazar nahi aayi . Ironically, reviews on the film Sawaariya have faithfully noted that it is ‘inspired’ by some Engleech peekchar. So, it boils down to the SRK effect, eh?? Even professional critics will bend over to serve the King of Bollywood and allow him to get away with anything – even being the co-architect of a cynical attempt to pass off plainly incompetent scriptwriting as great masala cinema. I won’t stand in the king’s way, no sir, but I have but a little wish….it would be so delightful if Farah madam or Shah Rukh sir read this and it had on their minds the same effect that Sandhya’s mysterious appearances have on Mukesh Mehra in the film….somebody was there to see through your bery bery clever trick…I rest my case here, fully expecting this film to succeed hugely, maintaining the status-quo of literary incompetence and artful deception that is Bollywood..salaam Bollywood, ha!!!!

Edit:  Well, the post-release publicity is still very much in full swing and Farah Madam has now given an interview to rediff.com. When asked how much 70s and 80s cinema influenced her, she said and I quote verbatim, ” I’m not at all inspired by the 80s because that was the worst era in the history of cinema – - the worst movies were made during that time.” Oh really!!! What is so undistinguished about Shekar Kapur’s Masoom and Mr.India or Govind Nihalani’s Ardhsatya, or maybe you decided you won’t be able to make movies like them and so won’t be influenced by the 80s…lol!!! Let the show go on!!! *sigh*