A Potpourri of Vestiges Feature
By Nataranjan Bohidar
"A huge shaft block of E.T. material of Khadga kind comes flying through the air and embeds in the middle of what will be Delhi.To some it appears to be a very sophisticated dagger...preciously jewelled handle, shining shining in the low light...as it embeds into the earth, handle first, pointing up, phallic like, swelling pyramidal, you hear the swoosh and the shaft and the smokes and sounds of a rocket landing ...or lifting...
"Sound of airplanes rushing to put out fire as smoke fills the screen uncannily familiar U'khand strafing visuals...sound track : napalming Vietnam...Francis Ford Coppola...Lungs of Darkness....Baldy Brando caressing scalp....thick nicotiny fingers....one by one fingers turn into fags...palm thrusts into audience face...STOP.... finger tips light up one by one... SMOKE BILL-OWS....in green currency colours....red, pink, grey,famous pictures and wildlife on a turntable of currencies...back to front, front to back...
"Sound Track : "Mistah Kurtz , he dead", as camera pans miles and miles of wasteland, uncannily dry scorched cracked...shot in Ethiopia."Super : Statutory Warming : SMOKING KILLS , SMOKING BILLS
By Nataranjan Bohidar
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| The Dawn of Man |
For 6 million years, the space that we call Eastern Africa today, cradled the Australopithecus, the Homo Habilis, the Homo Erectus and the baby in the making we call Homo Sapien and sent them to our Western frontier in waves after waves. Including some cults and culturals with them that have not diminished but have only grown exponentially in the modern habitat. Here is a film idea for a student production that celebrates, or tests , if you like, civilizational cradles, credulity and credibility...
"Camera opens on a very thick forest.
"Super: Dilli. Circa 8000 B.C.
"Camera tracks massive foliage, water, birds, pre-historic exotica in animals and MONKEYS, animated...
"Suddenly, a monkey comes running...points to a Westerly direction... excitedly...v.exciTEDly...
"An entire simian community lopes, starts running together in its journey to discover Harappan civilization.
"It reaches the edge of the forest...the border...the foliage margin.... the folly-edge... a clearing....the agri landscape!
"Super: Dilli. Circa 8000 B.C.
"Camera tracks massive foliage, water, birds, pre-historic exotica in animals and MONKEYS, animated...
"Suddenly, a monkey comes running...points to a Westerly direction... excitedly...v.exciTEDly...
"An entire simian community lopes, starts running together in its journey to discover Harappan civilization.
"It reaches the edge of the forest...the border...the foliage margin.... the folly-edge... a clearing....the agri landscape!
"The monkeys first hear then notice men and women laughing enjoying relaxing flirting trading smart city building puffing SMOKING. It's a busy busy busy civil-ization...very very Cecil B. Demille... In the far corners are Turkana Boy look-alikes, Lucy and Tumai skeleton shapes fading disintegrating, cigarette holders between their bony chaps. Camera zeroes in on their "big brother" like watching-you eyes...you can hear "Look at the eyes, look at the eyes" in Mia Farrow intonation...eyes popping out of underdeveloped frowning foreheads...then their eyelids are pared open in Clockwork Orange fashion...
"The monkey community returns.... From the Edge...Contended...
"The monkey community returns.... From the Edge...Contended...
"Ominous Kubrick music strikes up...Beethoven?
"A huge shaft block of E.T. material of Khadga kind comes flying through the air and embeds in the middle of what will be Delhi.To some it appears to be a very sophisticated dagger...preciously jewelled handle, shining shining in the low light...as it embeds into the earth, handle first, pointing up, phallic like, swelling pyramidal, you hear the swoosh and the shaft and the smokes and sounds of a rocket landing ...or lifting...
"The monkeys go crazy...they jump about the shaft...hot...but slowly cooling...touching it - caressing it - scared tentative. A giant among them...with matted hair moves up close ...pours water on the shafty pyramid...close up of matty's face reveals one forehead eye.....cyclopic....and in there deep zoom in we see Sandra Bullock turning twisting contorting and spewing anti-space gravity loaded painful uhs aahs grunts...
"A fire goes up on a nearby tree.
"It glows at the tip, burns, smokes, crumples, turns into ash , like a cigarette .being dragged to its dregs...
"A fire goes up on a nearby tree.
"It glows at the tip, burns, smokes, crumples, turns into ash , like a cigarette .being dragged to its dregs...
"Nature sounds start changing into vehicular sounds...only engine revs...rpm's...no honking...
"Camera pans to show block of original khadga shaft has become a metallic bus stop. Or turns into one in front of your eyes...
"Monkeys are sitting on bus bench, waiting for transport, relaxing SMOKING chatting...ogling, stalking, Stephen Hawking..on metallic wheelchair...waiting...
"Camera pans to show block of original khadga shaft has become a metallic bus stop. Or turns into one in front of your eyes...
"Monkeys are sitting on bus bench, waiting for transport, relaxing SMOKING chatting...ogling, stalking, Stephen Hawking..on metallic wheelchair...waiting...
"A bus comes along...reins in screeching straining struggling like a chariot of the Gods drawn by a ferocious set of horses...smoking at the nostrils...
"Some monkeys take the bus while others rush to inhale the exhaust...
"Deep breath...aaaaaaaahhhhhhhaaaaa!
"Cut to surgeons table.
"Open monkey hearts are lying ....palpitating....or are they lungs...pumping...
"Beating. Black. Burnt. Diseased.
"Flashing lights.
"Some monkeys take the bus while others rush to inhale the exhaust...
"Deep breath...aaaaaaaahhhhhhhaaaaa!
"Cut to surgeons table.
"Open monkey hearts are lying ....palpitating....or are they lungs...pumping...
"Beating. Black. Burnt. Diseased.
"Flashing lights.
"As cameras take pictures of the burnt out case...an entire community of paparazzi...aggressively shooting away...ratatatatata...on the sound track...a fashion photographer holding a cellphone like a gun...a pistol spewing bullying bullets...smoking smartphone of curvaceous mms...a surgeon slicing up the cadavers, brandishing a Tutankhamunic scalpel...
"Pounding packaging industrial production staccato sound of machines stamping burnt diseased lung shots on to cigarette packs...splendorously gruesome...delectably non-veg...chianti sucking noise...Tony Hopkins feeding delicately on an exotic African butterfly, a Fosters beer in hand...
"Cut to market....buzz buzz buzz...JCS' what's the buzz, tell me what's happening, in the track....fades into Judas' my mind I clearer now...
"Cut to market....buzz buzz buzz...JCS' what's the buzz, tell me what's happening, in the track....fades into Judas' my mind I clearer now...
"Heavy sales ongoing . Vendors brandishing cigarette sticks from bus windows to bus crying loudly , Smoke.. Smoke.. have a smoke cheap cheap cheap only ₹15/- a stick stick stick...
"Industrial romantic slo mo shots of matchsticks and cigarettes gently wafting in the air , catching fire, burning, love making...series of shots of sex and the cigarette...revolutionary smokers...Cuban cigars to menthols...bidis to filters...Walter Raleigh.... Nehru-Edwina shot...Sartre ... Camus...Che ? Fidel....popping out of newspapers...newspaper ads.
"Industrial romantic slo mo shots of matchsticks and cigarettes gently wafting in the air , catching fire, burning, love making...series of shots of sex and the cigarette...revolutionary smokers...Cuban cigars to menthols...bidis to filters...Walter Raleigh.... Nehru-Edwina shot...Sartre ... Camus...Che ? Fidel....popping out of newspapers...newspaper ads.
"Camera zeroes in on newspaper front page in a smokers hand...in the bus...
HEADLINE: HARAPPA LOST TO CLIMATE CHANGE!
"Wow! Says his girl friend ...smoking hot...or pot ...or both...leathered liberated nicotinic....(inter-cut, quick in and out , Ali McGraw or lookalike, hospi bed, tubes in and out)
"Anthroplogy is koool , man", she says....Woodstocky thin build...Richie Havens strikes up Freedom..(in Rastafarian locks ?!).Her boy friend takes a long drag. Puts the paper down and says "You bet" ! Smoking gambling den...one guy dealing cards with cricketer visuals...on flip side...coin flips...
"Anthroplogy is koool , man", she says....Woodstocky thin build...Richie Havens strikes up Freedom..(in Rastafarian locks ?!).Her boy friend takes a long drag. Puts the paper down and says "You bet" ! Smoking gambling den...one guy dealing cards with cricketer visuals...on flip side...coin flips...
"Bus conductor says " You can't smoke here, sir" . Sir looks surprised, irritated. Tries to slip a tenner...or is that a twenty...oh no, it's a ciggy...ohhhh yes...perhaps a bidi! Or is that a hookah or a chillum (alt. He slips in palm full of coins that melt in conductor hands like chocolate drip Dali like, timelessly stripped animal skulls chopped mutton steaks..that turn into...
"Smoke in conductor's hand morphs into rusted metal sharp screw-driver, pun intended....Delighted male voices cry "Catch", in relay...Nirbhaya screams rent the air....
"Camera zeroes in on newspaper...lying on bus seat , wafting paper, deliberately slowly rolls into an exhaust manifold and then a cigarette...and tip lights up...Nirbhaya screams throughout, fading sobs...
"Camera zeroes in on newspaper...lying on bus seat , wafting paper, deliberately slowly rolls into an exhaust manifold and then a cigarette...and tip lights up...Nirbhaya screams throughout, fading sobs...
"Film ends on thick forest of Circa 8000 b.c. And one, just one tree lit at the top ...burning like a candle...turns into cigarette....smoking.
"Sound of airplanes rushing to put out fire as smoke fills the screen uncannily familiar U'khand strafing visuals...sound track : napalming Vietnam...Francis Ford Coppola...Lungs of Darkness....Baldy Brando caressing scalp....thick nicotiny fingers....one by one fingers turn into fags...palm thrusts into audience face...STOP.... finger tips light up one by one... SMOKE BILL-OWS....in green currency colours....red, pink, grey,famous pictures and wildlife on a turntable of currencies...back to front, front to back...
"Sound Track : "Mistah Kurtz , he dead", as camera pans miles and miles of wasteland, uncannily dry scorched cracked...shot in Ethiopia."Super : Statutory Warming : SMOKING KILLS , SMOKING BILLS
( with tribute to Stanley Kubrick).
"Deep throat focus : Burnt out foetuses in the womb floating in the air, in dark dark space!
"Mars, here we come" , music and song by the Philip Morris Hugh Hefner Jazz Band.
(Inspired by: u-tube debut by ... Murtaza Ed Wood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG2PYbkVuMw); article by young reporter on Ethiopian GDP growing faster than India's; and a short sequence in "Mangal Pande" where an Indian mother-maid puts her crying hungry baby to bed with a lick of apheem, so she can cradle her British colonial mistress's child to earn a living...and , of course, D.W.Griffith cradle dissolves....and all other cinema references in above SCRIPTOID )
"Mars, here we come" , music and song by the Philip Morris Hugh Hefner Jazz Band.
(Inspired by: u-tube debut by ... Murtaza Ed Wood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG2PYbkVuMw); article by young reporter on Ethiopian GDP growing faster than India's; and a short sequence in "Mangal Pande" where an Indian mother-maid puts her crying hungry baby to bed with a lick of apheem, so she can cradle her British colonial mistress's child to earn a living...and , of course, D.W.Griffith cradle dissolves....and all other cinema references in above SCRIPTOID )
About Author -
Nataranjan Bohidar has 40 years of teaching, training & transformational expertise. His interests are socio-cultural symbiogenesis & citizen positioning. His current initiative is to position India as a democracy within a continuum where cinema is a key subtext.
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