We do live in a brave new world where social media has made interaction amazingly easy. In the old days only media behemoths had power, now every little blogger has a piece of the empire! Facebook, Twitter and Google + have made it possible for ordinary people to nurture revolutions and push for the popular choice.
And now Bollywood actor Abhay Deol has come up with a creative innovation- First Release Cinema on Facebook!
‘Raanjhanaa’ – we don’t see men like that anymore – men who are willing to annihilate themselves, subsume themselves for the woman they love, bringing almost a noble, heroic luster to unrequited, unconditional love. ‘Ranjhanaa’ is a Grecian tragedy set in Varanasi, on the ghats and alleys of the holy city and you won’t forget it easily.
I have to admit the film became somewhat of an obsession with me when I saw the pre-release Youtube videos of some of AR Rahman’s songs. They totally blew me away, especially the song ‘Tum Tak’ – so rich in its Sufi textures, so overwhelmingly about a higher love that it had me totally obsessed. I found myself watching the videos again and again, trying to piece together the story from dialogues.
When the movie came out, I was there right in the front char anna class, like a genuine filmi fan, drinking it all in.
With all the fashionistas in New York, this was bound to happen. Against the grand canvas of New York Fashion Week, a group of young South Asian women entrepreneurs created their own hurrah, a showcase of the sparkling talent of desi designers from the US and the Indian-subcontinent.
At the Fashion for Compassion event at the Ritz Carlton honoring Ranjana Khan, there was a happening buzz with lots of star power on the red carpet : Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Archie Punjabi, Samrat Chakrabarti, Janina Gavankar, Anusha Dandekar, Pooja kumar, and Shenaz Treasurywala.
“I was looking through the list of runway shows at Lincoln Center and saw that there was not one South Asian woman designer presenting,” says Reema Rasool, the founder of SayWe. “It actually made me mad, with all of the amazingly talented South Asian women designers we have worldwide! I wanted to do something to correct the situation.”
The result is the upcoming Fashion for Compassion event which honors noted designer Ranjana Khan and showcases the collections of South Asian designers.
“These are amazing, inventive films and it makes MOMA a home for the most vibrant and intelligent cinema coming out of India, and this is a rare privilege.”