2
Midnight Mutterings
Posted by the lazy knight
on
2:09 PM
World Champion, Convicted Rapist, Disgraced sportsman, bankrupt showpiece. That in effect sums up the life of Mike Tyson. A man with unbridled talent now reduced to a broke. As Tyson gets ready to make displays of mock boxing in a Las Vegan casino for visiting gamblers, one cannot but feel sorry for a man for whom everything that could go wrong eventually did. Bursting onto the scene as a teenaged kid who had a streetfighter’s tenacity and the intimidating presence of bully, Tyson was boxing biggest draw. The boy who was destined to rule the ring, to be the champion, one who would reach out globally as Mohammad Ali once did.
Tyson did reach out but in the most internecine of ways…as happens in many sports but more so in the hard and mercenary world of professional boxing, too much success at too early an age coming at the back of a deprived childhood rendered harrowing consequences for Iron Mike. Within a couple of years of his great arrival, he was involved in brawls (many deliberately staged to promote his fights), was running the gauntlet with the cops and eventually found himself in prison for forcing his way on a young woman. He came out years later and returned to the ring but wasn’t the same threat anymore and had to resort to biting his opponent’s ear off to keep himself in the fight – an act for which he found his license revoked. Out of job and out of money, Mike Tyson today is a roving joker in the casinos of Nevada. A man showing his skills to a crowd…but not in the ring of boxing fight but that of a circus.
Was he a victim of too much glamour and money at too young an age? Or did he simply did not possess the strength of character to deal with what professional boxing exposed him too? Or did Mike Tyson never really grow out of streetfighter that he grew up as? We may delve and we may ponder. But the point to consider is this – Tyson today reflects the sad reality of the world of professional boxing. Where success is a flash, careers shorter than starbursts and retirement benefits something unheard of. Tyson is as much of a product of the streets as he is of a sport that at times resembles the staged world of professional wrestling. A sport that must ponder why it creates champions like Tyson…men whom the public loves to hate, men whom you would point out to your kids as examples of what not to be. Boxing must ask itself why it kills the very champions it creates.
******
I must confess I knew I was taking a risk when I bought a ticket for ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’.
‘You survived?’ a friend asked when I told her that I seen the movie. Most reactions ranged from surprise (I am a known Karan Johar baiter) to unbridled criticism from those who had seen it.
Piece of trash, said some. Gross and crap, said others. And for once I found myself doing something I thought I would never end up doing ever in life – defending poor Mr. Johar.
Has he grown up while making the movie, as he claimed to a newspaper? In parts yes and in parts no – if there ever is a thing called growing up in bits. But here’s why I actually sat through the entire three and something hours watching his New York based saga of an extra marital affair - because for some minutes in those long three hours ( by the way, ever wondered why does the length of a typical Hindi movie have to be equal to that of an examination ?? ) Karan Johar goes where Hindi filmmakers never would. He shows the courage and temerity to break up a marriage, make a working woman throw out her husband (the feminists loved this part the best…three cheers for Karan!), shows a father abandon his young son and most of all makes us believe that an aging and dying dad – in – law can ask his son’s wife to walk out of her marriage if she hasn’t found love in it.
Bold? For the surreal brand of filmmaking yes. Even the big daddy of romantic movies Yash Chopra refused to breach the moral legitimacy of marriage in ‘Silsila’.
Pathbreaking? Sadly, no.
The movie remains tacky, packages in songs like any mill of the run romantic fare and never is truly honest with itself. It is an Indian story with Indian characters. So what are they are doing in Manhattan when they all could easily have been in Mumbai? Is that because the movie is aimed for the large NRI market or does putting infidelity in a liberal America with its supposedly loose social and moral values accord it a legitimacy which always remains at a comfortable distance from the pseudo liberal Indian audiences. And why are second generation NRIs speaking in flawless Hindi without even a trace of an accent? (Can you imagine Omakara being dubbed in the Hindi which you and I city dwellers speak?) And why on earth cant Shah Rukh Khan stop grimacing all through the movie? And is crying the only form of expression of emotions? Can we have some subtlety please?
So yes, I did survive. And yes of all the Karan Johar movies this one is the most watchable and attempts to make sense. Now if only our directors did not grow up in parts.
Tyson did reach out but in the most internecine of ways…as happens in many sports but more so in the hard and mercenary world of professional boxing, too much success at too early an age coming at the back of a deprived childhood rendered harrowing consequences for Iron Mike. Within a couple of years of his great arrival, he was involved in brawls (many deliberately staged to promote his fights), was running the gauntlet with the cops and eventually found himself in prison for forcing his way on a young woman. He came out years later and returned to the ring but wasn’t the same threat anymore and had to resort to biting his opponent’s ear off to keep himself in the fight – an act for which he found his license revoked. Out of job and out of money, Mike Tyson today is a roving joker in the casinos of Nevada. A man showing his skills to a crowd…but not in the ring of boxing fight but that of a circus.
Was he a victim of too much glamour and money at too young an age? Or did he simply did not possess the strength of character to deal with what professional boxing exposed him too? Or did Mike Tyson never really grow out of streetfighter that he grew up as? We may delve and we may ponder. But the point to consider is this – Tyson today reflects the sad reality of the world of professional boxing. Where success is a flash, careers shorter than starbursts and retirement benefits something unheard of. Tyson is as much of a product of the streets as he is of a sport that at times resembles the staged world of professional wrestling. A sport that must ponder why it creates champions like Tyson…men whom the public loves to hate, men whom you would point out to your kids as examples of what not to be. Boxing must ask itself why it kills the very champions it creates.
******
I must confess I knew I was taking a risk when I bought a ticket for ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’.
‘You survived?’ a friend asked when I told her that I seen the movie. Most reactions ranged from surprise (I am a known Karan Johar baiter) to unbridled criticism from those who had seen it.
Piece of trash, said some. Gross and crap, said others. And for once I found myself doing something I thought I would never end up doing ever in life – defending poor Mr. Johar.
Has he grown up while making the movie, as he claimed to a newspaper? In parts yes and in parts no – if there ever is a thing called growing up in bits. But here’s why I actually sat through the entire three and something hours watching his New York based saga of an extra marital affair - because for some minutes in those long three hours ( by the way, ever wondered why does the length of a typical Hindi movie have to be equal to that of an examination ?? ) Karan Johar goes where Hindi filmmakers never would. He shows the courage and temerity to break up a marriage, make a working woman throw out her husband (the feminists loved this part the best…three cheers for Karan!), shows a father abandon his young son and most of all makes us believe that an aging and dying dad – in – law can ask his son’s wife to walk out of her marriage if she hasn’t found love in it.
Bold? For the surreal brand of filmmaking yes. Even the big daddy of romantic movies Yash Chopra refused to breach the moral legitimacy of marriage in ‘Silsila’.
Pathbreaking? Sadly, no.
The movie remains tacky, packages in songs like any mill of the run romantic fare and never is truly honest with itself. It is an Indian story with Indian characters. So what are they are doing in Manhattan when they all could easily have been in Mumbai? Is that because the movie is aimed for the large NRI market or does putting infidelity in a liberal America with its supposedly loose social and moral values accord it a legitimacy which always remains at a comfortable distance from the pseudo liberal Indian audiences. And why are second generation NRIs speaking in flawless Hindi without even a trace of an accent? (Can you imagine Omakara being dubbed in the Hindi which you and I city dwellers speak?) And why on earth cant Shah Rukh Khan stop grimacing all through the movie? And is crying the only form of expression of emotions? Can we have some subtlety please?
So yes, I did survive. And yes of all the Karan Johar movies this one is the most watchable and attempts to make sense. Now if only our directors did not grow up in parts.
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