 By Samir Shukla Sanya Malhotra and Nawazuddin Siddiqui appear in Photograph by Ritesh Batra -- Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios Directed by Ritesh Batra Cast: Nawazzudin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra, Farrukh Jaffar In our video-driven world, a still photograph can still impact lives. The film Photograph is a quiet tale of friendship and romance opened by a single photograph. A very subtle entanglement of the characters guides the film, written and directed by Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox). He takes time unfolding the story. Rafi (Nawazzudin Siddiqui), a struggling photographer, and Miloni (Sanya Malhotra), a shy middle-class student, cross paths at the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Rafi convinces a hesitant Miloni to take her photo and prints it out on a portable printer in his backpack while she waits. He loses track of her when she is called away by a family member, taking the photo without getting a chance to pay Rafi. Rafi is working in Mumbai to help pay off family debt back in his native village. He lives in a dark, grungy room with several male roommates while saving money to send back home. His grandmother, dadi (Farrukh Jaffar), meanwhile writes to him that she refuses to take her medicine unless he finally finds a wife. Rafi decides to track Miloni down and asks her to play along and pretend she is his fiancée, so dadi will resume her meds. Miloni goes along with Rafi's scheme while living out her life, even meeting potential suitors her parents arrange for her, in her comfortable middle class home. In the meantime, feisty dadi decides to visit her grandson and meet his future bride. No, the film doesn't turn into a comedic farce at that point. Batra deftly guides the story and characters further into a study of friendship, longing, class and caste differences that inform people's lives. Both Rafi and Miloni keep up the charade to please dadi, who of course in no amateur in such matters. Rafi and Miloni begin to develop a friendship that slowly suggests a budding romance. Photograph is a nuanced, slow strolling film. It's the space between the silence and subdued conversations that make it tender without being coy or corny. Interspersed with Hindi and Gujarati dialogue, the film unfolds ever so gently, while navigating cultural differences, societal expectations and the invisible forces that attract two people. The film gives nods to classic Bollywood while Batra and the cinematographers capture the daily lives of street denizens of Mumbai - the taxi drivers, chai sellers, vendors, small shopkeepers. The densely packed lives of Mumbai streets come alive where the different inhabitants in Rafi's local street market all have heard that his grandmother wants him to find a wife or she will not take her medicine. Somewhere along the way I was expecting tense moments, conflict between the two protagonists, maybe harsh words being exchanged, some physical action even, but Batra sticks with a serene mood. Both Siddiqui and Malhotra, respectively playing middle aged man and young student, work their parts with subtle warmth. Jaffar steals more than one scene as the world weary grandmother.  By Samir Shukla It's the slow thickening of summer. The soft spring is rapidly dissolving. The road to the 2020 American election is also hardening month by month. Special Counsel Robert Mueller released his report in April, and reset the political parameters. I'll let you make up your mind, and, sure, there's no smoking gun pointing to President Trump on matters of collusion. But there are layers of untruths, most of them unnecessary for governing, surrounding this most amoral of a president. The ball will continue its roll, history will judge. Bernie Sanders did a townhall on Fox News and it was a hit for him, he is on a roll and already making other candidates as well as the general Democratic political establishment nervous. Joe Biden has now tossed his name in the ring, further shaking up the Democratic tree. This historically diverse slate of candidates is now gathering money, chatting up talk shows, and will go into next month ready to prep for the first two Democratic debates…slated for late June on NBC and late July on CNN. Each will be spread over two days. It is yet to be determined how the Democratic National Committee will mix up the batch of candidates to make the debates fair to all. Each of them will have shorter times to explain their agendas. Trump was the “way off the grid" outlier in 2016, Bernie is already emerging as the expected outlier of 2020. Will the new generation of Democrats elbow their way upfront and take the reins or will the old guard tamp down the youngsters and emerge as frontrunners saying, “Not so fast young'uns." The first order of business is the tug of war between the young squad and the “we're saving these seats" squad of grizzled political veterans, namely Biden, Warren, and Bernie. There are many intriguing characters in the young squad. Finding the balance between exciting the activists and partisans and getting noticed by the wider mainstream is the challenge for all here. In the meantime, India is in the midst of its massive election. The voting will wrap around the third week of May and the Commission will announce victors a few days later. Ahhh, democracy.  By Samir Shukla The serene sounds of the Appalachians, American music and more, with chatting banjos, guitars, the vocalists, piano, drums, will once again fill the air at MerleFest. The annual family-geared music festival, sorry no booze served, is spread over four days in the foothills of North Carolina. Music literally fills every corner and hilltop at various indoor and outdoor stages of varying sizes. Organizers tag MerleFest as a celebration of “traditional plus" music of the Appalachian region. I say it's a celebration of music. Period. You can expect plenty of bluegrass, country, rock, Celtic, folk, gospel, blues and more. Over the past several years, I've learned to jaunt about the stages, spread around on the campus of Wilkes Barre Community College, to make the most of the performances. One of many special features this year include the Steep Canyon Rangers premiering the “North Carolina Songbook" set on the Watson stage on Sunday afternoon, which will feature the band covering music from NC luminaries including Earl Scruggs, James Taylor, Thelonious Monk and many more. Among the dozens of performers lined up this year, highlights include Brandi Carlile, The Trailblazers, Pete Wernick, Si Kahn, The Avett Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Wynonna and the Big Noise. MerleFest, founded in 1988, is held on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC. The annual event has become the primary fundraiser for the WCC Foundation, funding scholarships, capital projects and other educational needs. MerleFest takes place April 25 – 28, 2019. Full artist lineup and other details can be found at www.merlefest.org.  By Samir Shukla Ok, so the 2018 American election is still not over, at least in a neck of the North Carolina woods. The debacle of North Carolina 9th Congressional District shows how fraud can undermine the voting process. An investigation into possible election fraud is under way. Republican Mark Harris looked as though he won in the 2018 election in November, defeating Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. Not so fast. After reviewing the numbers, the NC State Board of Elections has ordered a new election, citing irregularities among mail-in absentee ballots. We are off to a redo. The NC State Board decided to first hold a primary election on May 14. After that, September 10 will either be the date of the runoff primary election, if it's necessary, or the general election. If a runoff primary is needed, the general election will be held November 5. The sad part is that the winner will be seated in the House of Representatives for about a year; in essence the winner will start working for reelection just as soon as being seated. McCready is running again, unopposed in the Democratic primary, while 10 Republicans are going to fight it out in the Republican primary to get a chance to take on McCready. Turning to the mushrooming numbers of Democrats running for president, now Beto O'Rourke has tossed his name into the ring. Joe Biden is pretty much going to run, he's just taking his time to announce. He is still a landline kind of guy. I have said this and will continue to say that, in the end, the Democrats need a close-to-center candidate to beat Trump. I can hear the howls of left-wing Dems giving me an evil eye already. Let me put it this way, all the talk of reparations, taxing the wealthy, Medicare for all, increasing social security taxes, New Green Deal, may fire up the progressive base, but unless they are spelled out in fiscal detail, they are just talk. Primarily, even if the money is worked out, they require massive changes in people's habits, behavior, and status quo. There's a substantial number of Republicans and Conservatives looking for someone to vote for that's not named Trump. They are not going to look at the increasingly hard left turn of Democrats, just as they are turned off by the hard right turn of the Republicans. Also, Republicans have become masters of simplifying their message where the average Joe can grab onto it. Simple words, simple concepts. I know the primaries are where the hard-progressives and hard-conservatives lurk. The Democratic candidate that can learn to balance the activists with a message of workable policy, long-term views, specific incremental changes, and, yes, fiscal responsibility, will emerge ahead of the pack, even victorious. Imagine a Democrat talking about fiscal responsibility when the current crop of Republicans and so-called conservatives are spending money like drunken gamblers. A simple advice to all the progressives duking it out with other progressives on social media, it's way too early, don't eat your own, it will sort out. It's funny how we are becoming more tribal in the political sphere, but at the same time during events such as sports and music, we untangle our usual tribalism and weave a different community. A couple of Carolina or NC State fans high-fiving each other every time their team scores maybe politically polar opposite, but in that one moment, after a slam dunk, or during a soaring guitar solo in a concert, the tribes merge into a whole. Candidates that understand these commonalities will prevail. The Democratic National Convention 2020 will be held in Milwaukee. That's a smart move as Trump flipped Wisconsin, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania (three states Hillary Clinton was expected to win) in 2016. The decision by Democratic National Committee to not do any debates on Fox News shows a sign of weakness and, more importantly, a missed opportunity. If you want to win back independents and soft Republicans, don't preach to the choir. Go into the lion's den and defend your beliefs. The current crops of politicians are admirable in that they want to do something big. Big economic policies and social policies. Slow down folks. You can talk of going as big as you want, but in the long-term, incremental changes tend to stick and do the greater good. Big economic changes tend to help a certain segment while screwing another segment. There is never a win-win. Social change doesn't do big and quick. It is naturally slow. That's where a stroll is better than a road race. By Samir Shukla India's national election is now underway. The numbers are mind boggling. There are nearly 900 million eligible voters. Think about that. It is an exercise in democracy unprecedented in human history. The closest cousin in numbers is of course the United States. India's Election Commission has announced the elections will be held in seven phases, between April 11 and May 19, 2019. The results will be declared on May 23. The big battle is set. Narendra Modi is running for reelection while Rahul Gandhi challenges him for the seat of Prime Minister. Social media played a large part in Modi's rise in 2014. Now, five years later, social media, especially WhatsApp, will have a huge effect on the elections. There's no way to conduct India's election in a single day. India's Parliamentary system has myriad political parties that must form coalitions to win and survive. United States' two-party system is not going anywhere for a while. The world's biggest democracy and the world's most powerful democracy are brothers in arms and natural economic partners, not to mention the most diverse countries in the world. If America's upcoming presidential election is a rumbling road race, India's national elections are a double-barreled locomotive, fully-loaded and brimming with people hanging on to every corner, compartment, doorway and rooftop, while careening toward the horizon. The awaiting future.  By Samir Shukla Line up on the fences folks. Pull up the lawn chairs. Wait for it. Here it goes. The starting gun goes off. Bam. Vroooom…it's off to the races. Well, maybe more like a slow sprint. The engines aren't quite revving yet. The race for the White House in 2020 is now on. Really on. Of course, it's been bubbling for a while, since the wrap of 2018 mid-term elections and now Democrats are lining up and announcing their candidacies. Elizabeth Warren was the first out the gate and now old favorite Bernie Sanders has thrown his hat into the ring, along with other senators, congress folks and a few oddballs. Joe Biden may give it a go, as well. Sanders will be formidable. If Biden runs, he will be formidable. Of course the newbies and fresh faces are elbowing each other, trying to create a narrative for their candidacies while taking hard left turns of varying degrees on policies and ideology. Democrats have started raising funds, holding townhalls, and begun visiting the early caucus and primary states. Here we are in the swivel month of March, the juncture between chills of winter and the warm promises of spring, and the political battles are being drawn. Electioneering has begun slowly and will invariably pick up speed. Most candidates are working to turn the Democratic Party further left. This will galvanize hard progressives while turn off moderates. For all the talk of revolution and massive policy initiatives, incremental changes have always worked better. Yes, all ye youngsters ready to light the world on fire - social, economic and political changes take hold when done in a steady, calculated manner. That's just the way it is. Revolutions have a tendency to burn out rather quickly. Some Republicans are not quite sure of the finality of Trump's candidacy. Trump has never stopped campaigning and is, of course, confident he will be the Republican nominee. He is itching for the fight against the Democratic nominee, but it's not a sure bet that Trump will be the nominee. I would not write off a strong primary challenger to Trump in the sodden and scarred Republican fields. Here's the basic gist. Like it or not, voters will fall into percentage camps come Election Day. About 40 percent of voters will vote for the Democrat no matter who it is. Another 40 percent or so will vote for Donald Trump, barring storms, damning revelations that sideline him, or a strong primary challenger perseveres. The point is that about 40 percent will vote for the Republican nominee. Even in our bloodied fields of partisan wars, it is still about swaying the middle camp when it comes to the general election. Sure, both parties will caress and fuel their bases during the primaries, but once pieces fall into place, victorious candidates, yes even Trump, will do a two-step toward the center for the general election. The midterm elections offered a message massage to both parties. The democrats feel a bit more limber with the House in their corner. The Republicans feel a little less tightness in the upper neck holding on to the Senate. Both parties received voter massages they now spin in their favor. Here's a suggestion. It's time to loosen personal ideologies. I know that's like asking many people to stop breathing. That's alright. The American Republic needs sober voices of reason to persevere. I really couldn't care less about conservative, liberal, progressive, neoliberal, neoconservative, democratic socialist, socialist, libertarian, or any other label. I'm a proud LibConProgertarian (Lib-con-progur-tarian). A Libertarian on Mondays, Conservative on Tuesdays, Progressive on Wednesdays, and a vegetarian all seven. Seriously, though, ideological labels only feed tribal urges. They are simply labels that mean nothing in a globally-connected, vastly diverse population of the country. Most people are a combination of both, really, multiple ideologies, but somehow refuse to acknowledge that. I know social progressives who are fiscally conservative, I know fiscal conservatives who are very socially progressive. Libertarians can really be the strong third party that we need, but they can't get past hyper-individualism and Ayn Rand-spewed nonsense. We are a community, no matter how you try to slice it up. I am an independent individual who can be that way because of the support of family, friends, and the larger community. It takes all to run a vibrant, peaceful, opportunity-giving neighborhood, town, school, county, state, country. I'm convinced we are not that divided. On the surface, yes, it sure as hell looks like the country is torn apart with divisions, especially in political sphere. Sure, there's plenty evidence of regionalism, red states and blue states, states of fear and hate, a nagging discomfort over the direction of the country. The bane of our generation, social media, feeds these tribal beasts. The reality is that most Americans are reasoned and good folks. Outside obvious extremists, even those who lean hard left or hard right are essentially seeking to do well. The reasoned majority will preserve America. They are not angry, they are exhausted. They understand differences and want logical, workable solutions. People understand that income disparities exist, subtle to overt racism and other isms exist, that getting an education and seeking health care shouldn't make one bankrupt. But they don't want to blow stuff up either, or build walls, they want to build bridges. The reasoned majority must toil harder to keep the partisans from stealing the national conversation. In the meantime, all hail the fact checkers and those who make an effort to put the fire of truth under those who make spurious claims. Politicians, spokespersons, media, journalists, social media hacks, all benefit from the vigilance of truth. I will dissect the madness of American political shenanigans on a regular basis while we proceed onward with Road Rage 2020. Pull up a chair and join me.  By Samir Shukla Everyone wants everything instantly. This is the dilemma of our times. This need for instant gratification will only accelerate as technology moves exponentially forward. Access to evolving technology and our digital lives have made this need for instant gratification and instant communication an untamable beast. Add to that the inevitable and incoming Artificial Intelligence infusion, which is intriguing and will make our lives easier in many ways. It will also contribute to reduction of common sense and instinctive intelligence that humans have evolved over the eons. Patience is no longer a virtue. This is not only true of young people; corrosive impatience afflicts pretty much all age ranges. Of course, the ability to access instant factual information has enormous value. The prime dilemma is that instant gratification and communication also comes with a price. This need for immediacy often replaces or reduces quality with vast amounts of useless quantity, unravels patient thoughtfulness and dialogue, often reduces simple decency and, worst of all, spreads misinformation at a rapid pace. Our attention spans are getting worse due to information and sensory overload. Social media feeds this insatiable beast. The impatience I observe among contemporary youngsters reminds me of my own impatience and restlessness at that age. The difference obviously is that we didn't have the instant access to what we were looking for and didn't instantly communicate random thoughts and emotional outbursts. This helped in holding distrust and conflicts at bay. A slap on the face gave a bit more time to think about why you received a slap on the face. Today that slap, or simple critique, is immediately returned with a punch, even though you may have deserved that slap. I also fall into this trap of immediacy now and then, often grabbing my phone for updates, maybe out of boredom, but usually because it is there, waiting for me to tap in. This happens even though I have turned off all notifications. It has become such a distraction that I'm now working on purposeful slowness. This slowness doesn't have to be at the cost of productivity or the basic things that need to get done during the day. It means limiting my time on social media and taking thoughtful time to respond to queries or critiques. It means sitting face-to-face with family and friends, setting aside devices and connecting in that warmest mode of information exchange, a conversation. We must devise pauses to technology lest it pummels us into mushy submission. Sometimes a quiet and studied pause will accomplish more than a shout or burst of action. Things unsaid during heated moments will soften conflict and endure more than blasts of emotional tit for tat hurled about either in person or in texts or messages or social media. The soft power of thoughtful dialogue seems to take a backseat to 24-hour information and news cycles. In our current climate of political and ideological grandstanding, it seems that reasonable voices are drowned out or have simply decided to not waste their breath or peace of mind. This can change. It can change with people that form the quiet and reasoned majority becoming involved with subtlety but razor sharp focus. Those who want to connect with friends or other communities, but not wallow in the mud pits of social media, have to forge the slower paths. They must construct their own methods of slowness. Conversations caressed with facts and spoken with personal experiences that are refined with the passage of time can and will repulse negativity and falsehoods. This effort requires thoughtful slowness, layered with requisite maturity. I often wonder and think back to a time just a couple of decades ago, just before the advent of the internet and cell phones. We did everything we do now, but there was measured pleasure in slower information. Of course, we also didn't know what was technologically possible until it happened. But comparing the times, it seems phone conversations were warmer and less hurried, good information was more valuable because it didn't come easily while bad information had to work much harder to gain ground. Now text messages and social media posts fly at the speed of light. Isolation, distrust, hate, pettiness, and narcissism mushroom and permeate the senses like white noise. I'm not interested in turning back the time, just turning back to slower, thoughtful connectedness. Everyone has some personal space or interest they can crawl into or draw upon to slow it down and regain focus when needed. There's one place I can return to a slowness I love. Yes, it's very convenient to have access to music instantly on my phone, and as a fervent music lover, that's a benefit. But I'm finally working on getting my old turntable repaired and dusting off my record collection. It's been too long since I've heard the faint crackle of a record when the needle hits the vinyl, just before the song kicks in. Today, I've decided, I'm putting the needle down in the grooves on a happily spinning record, the ongoing record called life, and transport back to a time of cherished slowness. It's a start.  By Samir Shukla
The Romani or Roma people, more commonly known as Gypsies, traveled out of India and headed westward several centuries ago. Now, Charlotte-based musician Vadim Kolpakov and his VS Guitar Duo have assembled musicians and dancers to take the audience along a Romani (“Gypsy") Trail in the two-night performances of Gypsy Soul – A Thousand Year's Journey. They will perform two nights, January 25 - 26, 2019 in Charlotte. Here is the story and details as posted in Saathee, a magazine I edit... www.saathee.com/news_editors-desk-samir-shukla-gypsy-soul-a-thousand-years-journey  By Samir Shukla It was a continuation of our family's migration. One final jump. The first big jump was from Amdavad to New York City, circa 1974. We shifted to New Jersey a couple years later and then made the final family jump from the North (Yankee land as one of my southern friends called it) down to the South (a bunch of hicks as one of my northern friends called it), from New Jersey to Charlotte nearly 40 years ago. We planted our roots in Charlotte, the Queen City. Um, Queen City, you ask? Americans continue to yield in subtle ways to their former rulers, the Brits, such as not so subtle obsessions with Royal weddings, and in the case of the city's name, a southern town named after a British royal, Queen Charlotte. The town was named before the Revolutionary war. Charlotte the city turned 250 on December 3, 2018. Charlotte, the Queen City, of late has become the Crane City. Construction is booming all around. Old, quiet neighborhoods are being gentrified, roads are expanding, and toll highways are on the horizon. This rapid expansion has been going on for the past couple decades. Much of the first 250 years, this little southern outpost lay sleeping, factories coming and going, civil war, civil rights, until a few decades ago when reinvention and foresight of business and community leaders sent Charlotte careening forward to becoming a larger, world-class city. Charlotte can now be named with just the first name. There's no need for a comma, followed by NC. Just Charlotte will do, thank you very much. The Queen City we have lived in for nearly 40 years is visibly a Crane City these days. A drive down or up on I-77 showcases a jumble of cranes building this or that and the other thing. It seems most parts of the city are in a building frenzy. It's a boom town booming further. It is situated just right, the largest city between DC and Atlanta, a short drive west and you are in the mountains, a short dive east and the Atlantic Ocean beckons. Charlotte has become hometown for our family after the initial shift, followed by years of toil and progress. People wind up in places that become home in multiple ways once they uproot from distant lands and set up roots in new lands. Sometimes the trek is made by an ancestor on a whim or out of necessity. Other migrations are calculated; still others are driven by escape from violence and economic instability. A place called home doesn't happen overnight. A sense of abstractions like the aura of the surroundings and a state of mind melds with concrete ethos of house, buildings, food, economy, and opportunity that get soaked into the skin and bones, and a town where one moves to, becomes the hometown. We become part of the place we live in all the while we try and make the adopted place into our heritage, instill traditions, with the necessary invention and reinvention. Somewhere after the migrations and travels, setting up roots awakens the soul. A place once rooted with a feeling of home and belonging gives grounding to those who call it home. These roots are especially and firmly planted when your children are born in the city. There wasn't much going on in downtown Charlotte in the late 70's and early 80's. Slowly it turned around, evolved and now we have a vibrant downtown. The Blue Line light rail cuts through it, giving easy access to the activities downtown. The rapidity with which Charlotte has grown in the past 20 years is extraordinary. Familiar venues and landmarks are remade or are completely gone and new ones have emerged. The other night I sat in a craft brewery, sipping a cold beer, in a building on a street once abandoned by the city, most buildings on that street boarded up for years. When we first moved to Charlotte, I would not have thought much about this street. The same street today is no longer abandoned. Many people, young and old, families and couples, frolic about the street and others connecting it through the day and night. This is an era where once unremarkable street corners around the edges of the expanding downtown have now become highly prized morsels of real estate. But this is about more than real estate. It is about home or, more precisely, hometown. Rootedness is a warm feeling after uprooting from native lands years earlier. On that cold December night, in that brewery carved out of an old industrial building, beer snug in hand, I thought of a time three and a half decades earlier. Back then I wanted to “someday" skip this town and go “somewhere" else. Now, I want to skip that “somewhere" else and stay here, in my hometown. The beer goes down easy sitting in warm surroundings, while the giant cranes stalk buildings and cast shadows onto streets like an alien invasion, remaking my hometown.  By Samir Shukla Man, Jeff Bezos sure knows how to pull off cons. Bezos is of course CEO of Amazon and for the past year or more Amazon has been pursuing a location for their second headquarters, HQ2, if you will. Over 200 cities originally put in applications and 20 were selected as finalists. Amazon wound up picking two locations that will split its second headquarters - Long Island City, NY and Arlington, VA. Both areas already have some of the highest numbers of Amazon employees outside of Seattle, its home base and the Bay Area. So, the big announcement about the final picks was anticlimactic. My astute guess is that Bezos already knew he was going to select these two locations as it makes sense to beef up their existing workforce. It was never going to be Raleigh or Nashville or wherever. Amazon had cities and states salivating at the idea of a major company pulling into their area and creating thousands of jobs. Cities put together proposals and sent Amazon massive amounts of valuable data, absolutely free, that the company will now use to sell more trinkets online. Amazon extracted some 1.5 billion dollars' worth of concessions and tax breaks from New York alone. Hey, New Yorkers, Amazon needs you more than you need Amazon. Folks, this was all about free publicity, free data mining, and getting cities to cough up massive tax breaks and incentive packages as they try and land Amazon. I call it the Great Amazon Con. I'm betting Amazon had already decided on these two locations months earlier, or even before they announced they were seeking HQ2. Amazon received tens of millions of dollars of free publicity with the ploy. They received vast caches of valuable data given up freely by cities. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. How do you know this? Ok, admittedly I don't have proof that they would have picked these two locations anyway. But anyone with the capacity to see through the hype can spot the con a mile away. If not, I've got a NY bridge to sell you. Cheap. You see it connects these two boroughs…oh, never mind. Amazon didn't become a dominant company by luck. Bezos is clearly a marketing genius with the foresight to see the advantages of changes in technology and buying habits years before most. Amazon has become a behemoth that doesn't need tax breaks. It can buy some of the smaller cities that were vying for its HQ2. Small businesses and startups struggle to raise funds, get tax breaks, yet Amazon can just belch and cities will line up to give them money. Amazon recently announced they would pay $15 per hour to employees. This was no charity on their part, you can thank Bernie Sanders for putting the pressure on them. Of course, the positive effect of this will be that many other companies will announce better, living wages if only as a PR move. |
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