A while back Madhoo wrote about people who refuse to live in the present:

…Does it make any sense whatsoever to react to decades-old stuff just because it has just been declassified? Nixon is no more, Indira Gandhi is not alive and Kissinger is in no way involved with the current administration – what is the point on making a big deal about this now?

I think this is what is the problem is with us – living in the past. We refuse to let go of the demons of the past and refuse to look ahead. Every time there is a remote chance of us getting anywhere better, we go into a self-destructive mode and shoot ourselves in the foot. Idiots!

On the other hand, it seems living in the past isn’t the exclusive preserve of the Rediff webmasters but also senior American policymakers:

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) condemned the agreement as a “dangerous proposition and bad nonproliferation policy” and said he will introduce legislation to block it. “We cannot play favorites, breaking the rules of the nonproliferation treaty, to favor one nation at the risk of undermining critical international treaties on nuclear weapons,” he said in a statement. “What will Russia say when they want to supply more nuclear materials or technology to Iran? You can be sure that Pakistan will demand equal treatment.”

Bolton, Bush’s nominee to become U.N. ambassador, argued that such cooperation would mean rewarding a country that built a nuclear weapon in secret, using technology it obtained under the guise of civilian power. Both North Korea and Iran are believed to have tried the same route to develop nuclear weapons. Some within the administration said the deal would be damaging at a time when the United States is trying to ratchet up international pressure on both those countries to give up their nuclear-weapons ambitions.

Non-proliferation made sense in a world where few nations had access to nuclear weapons. In a changed world where ‘responsible’ superpowers ship fissile material to irresponsible anarchies (which then scatter the lethal technology amongst the world’s worst), proliferation is a fait accompli and non-proliferation is a lame duck. Yet the policymakers for whom non-proliferation is an end, not a means to peace continue their sad, irrelevant dance on the DC stage.

What is interesting about non-proliferation is that it has worked for as long as it has: countries like Brazil and South Africa which signed up for the NPT did not do so primarily for the carrot of civilian nuclear tech, rather their national threat perception did not indicate the need for a nuclear deterrent. In the shadow of nuclear China and belligerent Pakistan, India obviously saw things differently.

The fact that the non-proliferation hawks in DC can still talk about ‘favorites’ and ‘breaking the rules [for India]‘, can still equate India with Pakistan and North Korea indicates that they are far more out of touch than the tactless webmasters at Rediff. For the rules have already been broken and the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, and the posession of the genie must today be predicated on a nation’s record rather than its level of technological accomplishment in 1968.

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These are not the images of September 11 — people walking in one direction out of the city. These are Londoners walking left, right, up the street, down the street, going about their normal lunchtime business.

We have faced terror before — Nazi terror, Irish Republican terror — and have not been beaten. This will not beat us either.

The overwhelming feeling round our office is “Is this best they can do?” – it looks and sounds much worse on 24hr news channels than in person.

… in the National Review

Just a word. My sister was at Tavistock Square at the time of the explosions, and my daughter and nephew were also in central London. We had some anxious moments, the more so because the cell-phone system was down (probably due to overloading), but we’ve all spoken now by land-line and email and they’re all safe and well.

For those of you who are anxious to know how the UK will react, we’ve been bombed for years by the IRA, and no-one spoke of quitting. Half of London and much of Coventry was flattened by the Luftwaffe a generation or two back, and no-one ran. Before that, in my grandparents’ time, we were bombed by Zeppelins and didn’t give in. We gave up appeasing after Czechoslovakia. There’s no panic today, and there won’t be, but we, all of us, are bloody angry. Al quaeda may think we’re going to run up the white flag, but I promise you nobody else does.

… in the Mudville Gazette.

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The Slime of India (I know, I know) is running an article about Bobby Bedi’s (of Bandit Queen, Fire and Saathiya fame) plans for his next project after The Rising
: an ambitious three-film retelling of the Mahabharata.

Now, I’m sure Bedi can pile on the creative talent — Maniratnam, arguably one of India’s finest directors, will apparently be at the helm — but what interests me at this stage is the budget for the trilogy (Rupees 300 crores, approximately US $70 million) and his stated desire to create a ‘historic’ epic with production values similar to that of The Lord of the Rings.

Interestingly, $70M would make this the most expensive Indian movie venture ever, with Devdas at $10M a distant second. Bedi obviously hopes for a long and lucrative run in foreign theatres and in DVD sales, because the biggest Indian hit so far — Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (HAHK) — made not more than $30M after a marathon year-long stint at the box office. Of course, in Bedi’s favour is the fact that the Mahabharata will find a ready market when dubbed into various Indian languages, as also in DVD collections across the country. Obviously the producer will be hoping for a HAHK-style blowout in the very first film that’ll ensure audiences can’t stay away from the other two. On the other hand, sequels have never done well in India.

Of course, an open question would be how well the scriptwriters and the director balance Indian tastes in drama (which tends towards the melodramatic) with Bedi’s goal of taking the epic to the ‘American, British [and] Japanese’.

A bigger question is about production values. One reason Bollywood films look relatively unpolished is because a greater chunk of the budget goes into paying off the stars without who no big-budget Bollywood feature is complete. As the article says, Bedi is looking at casting not one but two A-list actors (Shahrukh and Aamir Khan) and an A-list actress, who together will eat into at least 10% of the budget. The question is therefore: can Bedi get LoTR-level gloss into three films for the money it took to make the Matrix?

As I’ve written before, great effects on small budgets have been done before: Crouching Tiger took $12M to make, for example, and 28 Days Later took $8M. But the limitations of those movies compared to the big FX films are apparent, and so are the budgets. The Titanic sank in $300M, The Matrix weighed in at a relative shoestring $65M and LoTR, made in New Zealand to cut cost and making use of extensive digital technology for its FX, needed $270M to recreate Middle-Earth on the silver screen.

Can diminishing digital costs, the availability of Massive and Massive-like packages, filming in India and using Indian post-production staff create the same FX quality for a third of the cost? As an FX geek I’m not holding my breath, but it would be great if good FX let Indian filmmakers think outside the boy-meets-girl box. And I’m sure Hollywood would love to add India to Mexico, Australia and now New Zealand as a low-cost destination for making movies.

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