Change gives a new lease to life

Robert L Sungte

bengaloored English (U) Cast: Harish Raj, Meghana Mudiyan Director: Swaroop Kanchi

One of the dialogues in the film rightly declares: “You can’t stand still in Bangalore. You have to keep moving.” But there are people like Babhru, a young bestselling author who returns to Bangalore, to find that his city has undergone a radical change after ten years. So much so that he finds it hard to cope with it. Everything — from the old Coffee House being shifted to the old Plaza being brought down to pave way for a Metro station, our Babhru is just amazed. Besides, Babru’s life is also full of cynicism with regards to his estranged father and friends. However, the most shocking truth comes when he learns that his inspirational teacher has denounced all what he had stood for. Can Babhru find the meaning of life in Radha, his high school sweetheart?

“Bengaloored” is a totally unexpected, yet refreshingly realistic take on the cultural, economic, industrial, commercial and sentimental transformation in Bangalore.

It shows that Bangalore is not just about IT, but is also about normal people having normal problems. This film has just one mention of the IT industry when Radha tells Babhru how she got her accent.

The film set up is also realistic with simple digital camera work which gives you the feeling of watching a play or a Doordarshan serial of the early 90s. This simple strategy seems to instantly connect the audience with the protagonists. The contradictions in the plot are brought out in the rich dialogues more than the acting. This film is for both the old and young alike. It clearly conveys a message that materialism has little to do with true happiness.

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Getting ready to be Bengaloored

Bhawna Gera Vijan

First Published : 03 Jul 2010 07:29:31 AM IST

Director Swaroop Kanchi says he is eagerly awaiting the response to his English film Bengaloored, which was released this week. Kanchi, who has been making short films since the age of 16, is so nervous this time that he has actually locked himself and refused to take calls. “Actually, I’m not worried about what people have to say about my film. I’m concerned about whether people will like the way I project it,” says the 26- year-old director who feels that he has done his job as a filmmaker and is open to criticism.

As the title suggests, the film is about the changing times of Bangalore city. The film revolves around Babruvahana, a young author, who had just returned to Bangalore after 10 years, to find that it’s a far cry from the city he used to call home and how this heavily impacts him. “I think people are going to watch the movie expecting to see Bangalore but instead they’ll be seeing themselves. In a way it’s their own story.

I think there are many things that have changed in the city. But most importantly, the intimacy and innocence of a small city is lost, along with physical changes like losing trees, old ancestral houses and coffee shops.

Kanchi, who grew up in Malleswaram, says there have been some positive changes as well in the city. “There’s more money here now. Many more people are empowered today.Young women are supporting their families. People from small towns and villages are now doing so well here. The good economy is helping the city in many ways,” he puts it.Shot in Majestic, Malleswaram, MG Road and other localities of Bangalore, Bengaloored stars Sandalwood actors Harish Raj, Meghana, Srinivasaprabhu, Laxmi Chandrasekhar, RT Kumar, Suma Vinod and Prakash.

Kanchi is even doing a cameo in the film. “In my life nothing is pre-planned. The decision to act too was quite spontaneous.I didn’t think too hard and things seem to have worked out pretty well,” he says.There are not any plans of acting in the future, as he says, “I think life has its own way of working things out. I can’t say anything right now.”

The director of critically acclaimed films like Acid, Taxiwallah and Hongkong Dreaming says that what’s really important to him is the story and how it is told, and not the genre. “Would I like to make a masala movie? To be honest, I don’t care about the language or the industry. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a masala film or an offbeat attempt. I’m only interested in telling good stories,” he makes a point. Bengaloored, he says, has a message for society.

“Why hate when you can love? Why live in denial when you can accept? Why not go with change, since there isn’t a choice?” he asks.

Kanchi says he desperately needs a break now. His future plans include “more wandering around the world and drifting aimlessly till existence needs me and drags me back to make another film”.

Vasu Dixit is the Music Composer for our film & is also the front man of a folk/Rock band called Swarathma . This is his first film as a Music Composer and has really given the listeners a treat with his array of songs of different genres & styles and had the complete freedom from the director to go all out and create a new vibe with the Bengaloored Album.

Unlike other films the songs for this one was recorded after the shooting and the editing was complete. When the director Swaroop Kanchi & Vasu Dixit got together for the first time to create the music. They knew they had something special going on musically.

The first song “Ell hogali Shivane” lyrics was penned by the director & Vasu within less than 2 hours on a busy day in Swaroop’s office, what started as an experiment on that day had the rest of the people amazed when the impromptu jamming quickly turned into the First track of the film. The Indian drum that is used in that song was actually bought from an Old Shiva Temple in Bangalore. Vasu has done the Vocals himself.

“Rang Mahal” is a song penned by the famous Indian poet-Saint Kabir Das, it’s a beautiful song written by the saint full of rebellion, love and wisdom. He taunts people asking why they wander searching for God everywhere when he lies in their own hearts. It’s a folk song in Malawi, which is a dialect of Hindi. What’s interesting is the use of ik tara-an Old Indian String Instrument used in the song- The instrument was once a favourite of poet-saints in Maharashtra and was lost to history but bringing it back with this song is a joy and it adds a very folk feel to the song. Vasu Dixit again croons & bring Kabir’s words back to life with his soulful rendition.

“Baawara” was the song to be finalized last and it appears at the end of the film. The song describes the mood of the protagonist and & the entire film. But somehow this was the song that was hardest to compose, as the director just did not appear to like whatever the composer and programmer Abhilash Lakra came up with. They tried to make it a Rock song, and then they tried to make it seem more traditionally Indian But only after many permutation & combinations finally the song was made and it quickly became the favourite song of the composer & the director.  It’s a track that slowly creeps into the system but once the listener is tuned he’s hooked on to it & haunted by the tune.

“Neel Nadi” written by Imran choudhry, it’s a song between a Mother & her son. In this case the mother is no more but her heart still weeps for her son who is finding his life incomplete without her. She sings that everything in Nature is his mother, the breeze that soothes him while he’s feeling hot is caring for him like his mother, the first rain drops that moisten the earthy & bring joy is also his mother, so metaphorically she’s saying that mother nature still cares for him and existence itself is mothering him. The beauty of the penned lyrics will be lost in translation so it’s better to listen. Ritisha Padmanabh has the done lead vocals matched equally with melodious flute and strings.

“Pal Pal” seemed like a disaster from day one. The lyrics were penned by vasu & director in a car within 2 hours. It was an experiment, a big leap for vasu Dixit, front man of band “swarathma” who has never composed a song this way. It’s a combination of Hip-Hop , Bhangra & Pop. The rapper who was bought in for recording just could not get his tempo right, he had the right accent & got hold of the texture and the groove but just could not get it right, so after a few hours Joel Dubba who sang “Piya tori Naina” stepped in and gave the perfect take & the hip-hope bits were recorded. Another singer who came to record another song for the album somehow also had a bad day and left without even trying to record as she didn’t feel she could hit the notes that Vasu had composed. But somehow when Vasu got to know that she’s Punjabi, he coaxed her to translate a bit of the lyrics in Punjabi and thus we got our bhangra beats for the song.

“Piya tori Naina” is one of the favorite songs for most who have previewed the album. Penned by Swaroop Kanchi with additional lyrics from Joel Dubba, the song was composed keeping in mind a scene in the film where the lead actors ride on the bike and play around in an open field. It’s the only romantic track in the film. The mouth organ is used in the song and gives a great texture to the song adding a certain sense of romance. Though it’s a romantic song & the hero keeps confessing his love to the beloved, the lyrics are written in such a way that she says she understands what he feels like but stops short of confessing her love in return in a very tactful manner. Watching the movie will shed more light on the meaning of her words in the song. Joel Dubba & Ritisha Padmanabh have done the lead vocals for this song.

Overall the composition of the album took over two months in a far away suburb in Bangalore, The director & the Music Director worked during the nights & often slept on the carpet in the studio after working on a session till early hours in the morning. The director would then head to another studio to re-record (dub) the vocals with his actors and would return in the evening to continue the composition. The crazy hours of work & wandering seems to have paid off with the initial good reviews the movie & its music seem to be getting.

The Music is being Digitally distributed by

During pre-production none of us felt the heat, as we were having a lot of fun and we didnt realise the  magnitude of the project. But the day shooting started I had the most tiring but the most knowledgable time of my life. Once shooting started it was a completely different experience. Learning more & more everyday and working harder everyday. There was something to learn from each and every member of the cast and crew. Learning to use the Digital SLR from Anand- our official stills photographer was completely unexpected but as I kept on using it i got into it and it became one of the major thing that i did on set.

After every exhausting day of work i used to wonder how I could come up with the energy for the next day, but the enthusiasm of the team and being a part of something special was enough to keep me going day after day. The amount of work the director, the cinematographer and the rest of the crew put in in one day is truly hard to believe. Ive realized making a film is not just about glamour but so much hard work goes in to it & somehow the true heroes, that is the crew are always under-appreciated by people who watch movies who tend to just idolize actors but never bother to give credit to the crew who are so important in making a film.  We worked as one unit and the actors and the director and the crew all of us ate together, sat together without any hierarchy whatsoever and truly enjoyed making the film. I wish everyones hard work and passion is going to pay off and the film will be successful and a hit. This experience I will cherish for the rest of my life. THANK YOU SWAROOP AND EVERYONE IN THE TEAM OF BENGALOORED !!

Change. everything is changing. The only thing permanent is change.

The change that is happening in Bangalore is very rapid and not many people are able to deal with this change. The city is just a mirror to the consciousness of Man, every person & society in general is moving rapidly trying to be more successful, trying to transform and trying to find that balance through which peace & happiness can be gained. But not everyone is successful in doing so.

Though dreams are unlimited, time & space is limited in everyday living and life always does not work according to the will of an individual. But every instance of loss makes way for something new, helps you re-discover your self and sometimes puts you on the right path.

Bengaloored is a film that deals with this idea of self-discovery and seeking.

When you are done with a film & finally screening it, people dont care about how much hard work you put in or what limitations you had or what things you had to do to accomplish something like this, all they care about is watching a good film, that befits their taste and something that amuses their minds for those few hours. That’s all it comes down to. ENTERTAINMENT.

The event was a huge success. Firstly I had to come face to face with my worst fears. Not so much about what people say, but more to do with the projection itself, I always fear that something might go wrong while projecting the film. That too on an important day like this. AND IT DID. The technology we were using failed..suddenly abruptly and people were left in the darkness quite literally. So it took us more than 15-20 mins to fix it and we did. But those few minutes drew me and my assistants crazy. it was scary and embarassing but the good thing is I faced my fear. The worst case scenario I had imagined I actually went through. And it was okay. I was left all alone to fix it and I did. I had to make a tough decision and I did. I had to stay strong & I did. But in the end it turned out to be not such a big deal afterall.

Having said that and gone through that, the easy part was to just let the film play out. The ovation, the good wishes and the great feedback was truly very heartening, we made people who watched the movie fill out anonymous feedback forms and what I found was truly very motivating and made my day. People I did not expect to like the movie loved, Houswives, businessmen and college kids and even some of the Kannada Film Industry & press Photographers wrote really good reviews. And obviously a lot of my target audience actually came up to me to talk about how they saw themselves in the main characters. That’s the victory, relatability. everything else is secondary. If you can relate to the story, if you can relate to my protagonist, then Im done. I can pack my bags & go home.

ofcourse you cant please all, a few didnt get the movie or found it incomprehensible or just didnt seem interested, it’s okay, there are always few you cant please no matter how hard you try. So you just accept it and move on.

I am Me, Ive done my job & without a doubt given all I have made an honest attempt to make a good movie. We had a good cast & crew. Like one big family, and ofcourse like families there bound to be different views and opinions we got to respect that and celebrate this journey.

Now the ball is in the air with the distributors/exhibhitors before it descends onto the  audience’s court. What’s gotta be done will be done, what needs to happen will happen. Bengaloored is  flowing with this current called life. Let’s hope for Light.

-Swaroop Kanchi

Here are some Pictures from the preview. The event was attended by a few friends from the film fraternity, comprising of a few actors, Directors & Producers.

Dubbing. Its a bad word in my dictionary. I am a lover of live sound. for those who dont know the technicalities Let me explain. When you shoot a film you record video and audio. The audio is not suitable for use to project on a big screen in most cases because there is too much ambience noise and when you cut from long to mid and to close ups the ambient noises changes. So there is a huge jump with regard to coninuity. Basically its a no-no unless you spend heavily on shooting with live sound. that has its own complications, we’ll leave it to another post.

So basically like my previous films I am re-recording the voices of all my actors in a studio. The important thing to keep in mind is the tone of the performance itself and matching it or even bettering it. But personally I am not a big fan of being locked up in a studio for days..even weeks to get all the actors re-recording done. having said that I need to stop cribbing and express that the dubbing has gone well and now we are on our way into music and back ground scores and the sound design.

Exciting to see the film come to life in a sound studio. I know many are looking fwd to watching the film and I myself am excited about sharing it. So much work goes into making a film. And I can say that personally I have worked probably the hardest with this film and also trusted people the most with my baby. Hope all the work and all the craziness is worth it. Making it is turning out to be a thoroughly ^%(&%THGKGHG*&%$&^ experience.

-Kanchi