Aparita

Toronto Star, [06/21/2002]

Subculture hopes Saturday festival will spark rejuvenation

Goth culture, with its fascination for the “other side,” often flirts with the idea of immortality.

Yet Toronto’s Goth community is facing a slow death as older members of this subculture trade in their leather corsets and PVC pants for jobs, marriage, mortgages and kids.

In order to bring in fresh blood, metaphorically speaking of course, three members of Toronto’s Goth community decided to put together reJUVenator, a two-part festival running tomorrow at the Kathedral and the Reverb, both on Queen St. W.

While most of the daytime activities are all ages, including Kid’s Spooky Corner, where face-painting and activity books will be available for the young ones, and a writer’s corner and a fashion show, the Goth Gala at night, featuring 12 DJs and three live bands, will be restricted to those above 16 years of age after midnight.

“The Goth community has been going somewhat downhill in Toronto and other cities,” says Dem, short for Dementia, one of the three Goths behind the event. “So we thought of reJUVEnator. We wanted to have something where the younger people meet the older people and just get involved.”

Dem, who wouldn’t give her last name, runs one of Toronto’s popular Goth websites, www.toronto-goth.com.

Co-chair Sinn, a transgender Goth who wouldn’t give his last name, drew inspiration from the Pride Day festivities for a day to celebrate Goth culture.

“Once Goth clubs such as the Sanctuary and the Anarchist’s Cocktail shut down, things were getting a bit slow,” he laughs. “Some of the older members are settling down - not selling out so much, but they’re just toning things down a little. And the Goth community is pretty individualistic. So we thought we would just bring people out of their little corner and celebrate an event as a community.”

Goth culture has often been described as a sub-classification of punk culture, which later evolved into its own subculture.

Goths are thought to commonly dress in black clothing, wear pale makeup and sport body piercings. A fascination with Medieval, Victorian and Edwardian history and a strong tendency for depression are other supposed Goth characteristics.

However, different people have different definitions of what’s Goth, says Sinn.

“The whole idea behind being a Goth is that you’re unique,” he says. “You can’t pigeonhole Goths, which is why Goths are some of the most creative people around.”

Both Dem and Sinn call themselves older Goths, giving their ages as around 30.

“We are pretty vain, you know,” laughs Sinn. “Some of our elders are as old as 60, while the underagers could be anywhere from 16 to 17.”

But while Sinn adopted the Goth lifestyle only three years ago, Dem has been around this scene since she was in high school.

“It’s just something I felt comfortable with,” she says. “There are so many aspects that I liked. The beauty of the dark side, the music and the literature and the club scene.”

Goth clubs are an integral component of the lifestyle and played an important role in the history of Toronto’s Goth culture, Dem explains.

“Some people would say that the Goth culture grew out of England’s punk culture in the late ’70s,” she says. “In Toronto, I would say the Goth culture started in the ’80s - that’s when you had many clubs.

None of them are around now. One of the classics was Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar (located at 732 Queen St. W.), which everyone knew about. There were a variety of events that would happen … seven days a week.”

While new Goth clubs have opened since, Dem says it’s not quite the same thing.

Fulfilling his promise to build another club, Sanctuary’s owner, Andrew “Lance” Lee, is now running The Vatikan. Another Goth club called Savage Garden recently celebrated its eighth anniversary, making it the longest running Goth club around.

Heather Leson, a corporate Goth - i.e. Goths who works in corporate firms - calls it the evolution of the Goth community.

“There have been a number of club closures since the Sanctuary but many other clubs are still around and they are full,” the 31-year-old Leson says.

“There’s no death of the community. It’s just changing, it’s evolving. There are so many different genres of Goth music, for example. There’s industrial music, cyber Goth, ethereal music, traditional Goth and EBM - electric body movement music. It’s very diverse.”

Toronto Star

Life in our first apartment is set to a backdrop of Indian pop music

I met my roommate about 16 months ago at a Bollywood dance class.

“Hi, I’m Mona,” a voice croaked beside me.

“Aparita,” I barely managed to blurt out.

We were both sprawled on the floor after a gruelling class, wondering what two 24-year-old professionals were doing there.

We never thought we’d move in together after a few months of knowing each other. But when we did, we brought a little bit of home with us - our mothers’ saris, a splash of colour and goodies from Little India on Gerrard St. E. near Coxwell Ave.

You see, good Indian girls are usually expected to stay with their parents until they settle down - read get married. The only other possible scenario is a job-related relocation.
But that very convenient arrangement suddenly wasn’t working for us.

I needed to prove I could make it out on my own. She needed to cut down on her daily commute from Oakville to Markham.

Our parents, after some initial trepidation, gave us their blessings. Our friends questioned the idea - disaster often strikes when friends turn into roommates.

And we were polar opposites. I was a struggling freelance journalist, she spent long nights at her computer firm. Her favourite store turned out to be the Home Depot, while I loved hanging out on Gerrard St.

But we got along like a house on fire.
We shared the experience of growing up in India, spoke fluent Hindi and loved Bollywood, the Indian moviemaking industry.

Finding the apartment wasn’t an easy task. It had to be conveniently located but affordable. Driving around on the weekends, Mona finally struck gold near Don Mills and York Mills.

“You’ll love it,” she said. “It’s on the 25th floor.”

Mona had already partially moved in the first time I visited “our apartment.”

Maybe it was the anomalous cool June afternoon, but I fell in love with the place - despite the bizarre combination of bland white walls, the temporary neon mauve inflatable couches, the dining set from Wal-Mart and the many, many paint cans (courtesy of Mona’s parents’ basement) strewn all over the floor.

“We have to paint the walls,” I said.

A “spice red” colour nestled in the palette of the dozen half-full paint cans caught our eyes.

Dedicated fans of television decorating shows such as The Decorating Challenge and Trading Spaces, Mona and I had learnt all about being unafraid of colour and playing with textures.

So, in one hot Saturday afternoon, with Bollywood tunes blaring in the background, the empty living room was transformed into a feisty lounge.

Long before we moved in, we’d decided we would have to throw a fantabulous housewarming party.
We begged our mothers for old saris they no longer used. They generously let us loose in their sari trunks full of gorgeous silks and hideous polyesters. We borrowed a sewing machine from Mona’s mother and my mother taught me how to operate it.

I did feel twinges of pain cutting up the silk saris (of course we didn’t take the polyesters) but was immensely happy when I held up my first cushion cover. I stitched up a storm and in two days we had cushion covers and curtains.

The housewarming party was a success. We’d got some decent furniture and accessories by that time, shopping at our favourite stores - Wal-Mart, Zellers and the nearby 24-hour Home Depot.
Special trips to Gerrard St. took care of other essentials such as a pressure cooker and deities for our mini-temple.

Our thoughtful friends brought us some great gifts: A bookcase from Ikea, which now carries Mona’s computer books and my collection of novels; a stainless-steel cutlery set, which was opened at the party itself.

Since that party almost a year ago, we’ve accumulated many more things.

Every other day Mona barges in with a “Look what I got!” As a result, 3-D jigsaw puzzles vie for space alongside elaborate wrought-iron candle stands. Laptops and a desktop computer (which are regularly dismantled and reassembled by Mona) often become bookends or weights for piles of art magazines.

And Mona and I are still great friends. In fact, some mistake us for sisters. Chores divvy themselves up nicely. I cook, she cleans. I sew, she builds water fountains. But there are always Bollywood tunes playing in the background.

As for the apartment - it’s become our home away from home.

Toronto Star, [06/07/2002]

Wannabe actors flock to Atlantis Nightclub for movie shoot

Fahim Noorally squeezes himself into a spot right behind the camera. In front sit Bollywood veterans Amrish Puri and Kabir Bedi at a table set for a lavish lunch - Canadian style.

Large platters of pasta, salad and fruits cluster around elaborate floral arrangements. The flowers offset a huge swirl of mauve gauze-like cloth girded by a toy train carrying a dizzying load of liquor - Triple Sec, vodka, cognac and whisky.

No Labatt’s for Bollywood.

“Shot three, take seven,” announces assistant director Chitra Shah.

Noorally quickly scribbles down the numbers in the daily shooting report book of the film. It’s hard to manoeuvre in the tight space.

The tenuous periphery of the set teems with camera and light operators, costumiers, spot boys, make-up artists, choreographers, dancers, a chai-wallah or two. And onlookers.

Earlier in the morning, a local South Asian radio program had announced the filming of The Hero at the Atlantis Nightclub in Ontario Place.

A few hours later, security guards are barricading the doors to stop the throngs that showed up in their Sunday best to get a glimpse of their favourite Bollywood actors. Those who get in try to take photos of the stars.

“This is way too chaotic for me,” Noorally grins. “I can’t deal with the stress.

“I was in between school and my friend, who is helping the production team, asked me if I could just drive around. Now I am helping out the directorial team.”

In the balcony above the set, a group of girls chat quietly. Some of the “background dancers” sleep on the floor beside them, one of them still in her pink tutu outfit.

Decked out in evening wear, Natasha James, Jayanthi Venkadasalam, Nerissa Drepaul, Sonia Toor, Neha Goyal, Madeleine Massey and Radha Ramdhin, are part of the elaborate dance numbers.

“We’re not quite sure,” says Drepaul when asked to describe the dance. “It’s a modern dance.”

Ranging in age from 13 to 20, the girls say that the long hours of shooting can be tiring. But Toor says she might do this again.

“I want to be a Bollywood actress,” she says. “This is a great way to get at it.”

“It would be cool to stay there (in India),” says Goyal. “But I am not sure about the food. It would be different, right? And (the crew from India) laugh at my accent.”

Marc Anders peers down at his brother from the balcony. It’s his second day on the set and he still isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. Yesterday he heard many of the extras wouldn’t be showing up, so he brought his girlfriend along. She’s got the role of a waitress.

“I think I am a security guard,” he shrugs, pointing to his long green (liveried) coat. “My brother has managed to get upgraded to sitting at the (lunch) table. He just hung around (down) there long enough.”

The North Bay resident was in town to promote his band when he heard of the shoot through a friend. He figured it would be an interesting experience.

Toronto Star, [06/07/2002]

Increasing numbers of South Asian movies are being shot here, with Canadian locales playing a featured role

They were playing a much different tune than the normal pop recently at the Atlantis Nightclub at Ontario Place. Glorious in a peach gown bejewelled with spangles and diamantes, former Miss World and upcoming Bollywood starlet Priyanka Chopra was being serenaded by popular Bollywood action hero Sunny Deol.

Deol plays an international spy in The Hero, a Bollywood co-production of Keshu Ramsay and Time Movies, which just wrapped shooting in Toronto.
Starring Deol, Chopra, Preity Zinta, Amrish Puri, Kabir Bedi, Pravin Dabas (of Monsoon Wedding fame), Shahbaz Khan and Rajat Bedi, the movie is veteran director Anil Sharma’s first venture after his blockbuster Gadar.

Indian filmmakers have long used foreign locales to shoot song sequences they insert in their features, but in the last five years there has been a sharp rise in Bollywood movie plots situated outside of India and, as result, the booming Toronto filmmaking industry has another player.

Big-budget movies shot against the Toronto skyline and magnificent backdrops such as the Niagara Falls and the Rocky Mountains appeal to both the huge Bollywood audience in India and the South Asian diaspora in other lands, including Canada.

The growth in Indian movies being shot in Canada is big enough to warrant local business offshoots, such as acting schools and production houses.

“We have audiences all over the world and when you budget a movie you think about these things,” said Deol, whose directorial debut Dillagi was released in 1999. “It’s great, it’s bringing awareness about Bollywood all over the world.”

“With Lagaan’s nomination for the Oscar and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams project, Bollywood has gone beyond Bollywood,” says Bedi, whose credits include American soap The Bold And The Beautiful, European miniseries Sandokan and the Bond movie Octpussy. “And in India there is an endless curiosity of how people live abroad.”

The surrealism, then, of watching Canadian cities and lifestyle being profiled in Indian cinema is becoming increasingly common. There’s no definitive list, but Bollywood aficionados estimate that at least 20 movies have been partially shot in Canada in recent years, with several set here, including Tum Bin, Shakti, Bekhudi, Bekabu and Pardes.

In Tum Bin, released last July, corporate whiz Shekhar Malhotra (Priyanshu Chatterjee) accidentally knocks off Canadian industrialist Amar Shah (Rakesh Bapat) and travels to Calgary to admit his guilt.
But when Malhotra lands in the snow-laden city, he finds a grief-stricken family and an ailing business. He decides to stick around Calgary, helping the family and the industry through the disaster while also falling in love with Shah’s fiancee.

More recently, in Na Tum Jaano Na Hum Rahul (Hrithik Roshan) decides to bow out of the love triangle with his best friend Akshay (Saif Ali Khan) and Esha (Esha Deol). So, he escapes from India to the West Coast of Canada.

The Toronto skyline, CN Tower and the SkyDome form a backdrop for many of the potboiler plots
The fleeting footage of Vancouver forms a minuscule part of the plot - a family discussion about Rahul mentions that his father lives in Canada.

Call it Bollywood documenting the great Indian dream - successful NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) living in palatial homes abroad and zooming down the highways in latest-model luxury cars. And Canada, figuring high on the list of “exotic foreign locales,” has become the unofficial Bollywood North.
The NRI angle is the new masala spicing up the bubbling cauldron known as Bollywood. It’s the latest trend in an industry known for its over-the-top productions in a wide range of genres - action, romance, tragedy, comedy and drama offset by five or six songs - in one panoramic sweep of the camera.

With more and more films boasting a multiple-star cast and substantial budgets (in the $10 million to $17 million range), big bucks are being spent on the Canadian portions of movies such as The Hero.
There are enough Indian movies shot here to spawn spin-off industries, such as Bollywood acting schools like the Mississauga-based Ramsay Acting Institute and production houses like Celebrity Productions.

Last year Bollywood produced more than 1,000 movies, double the number that Hollywood makes annually. The Indian market that laps up the three-hour escapes, replete with songs and dances, is huge.

Revenues in India last year were almost $1 billion (U.S.).

But the recent success of Bollywood blockbusters outside India has made the industry sit up and take notice. Globally, Bollywood is reported to rake in $3.5 billion (U.S.) and export revenues are predicted to jump 120 percent by 2006.

Last year, movies such as Lagaan and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham managed to push their way into North American and British Top 10 box office charts, thanks largely to a growing South Asian population outside the subcontinent. (The 1996 census cited by StatsCan puts 670,590 South Asians in Canada, 390,055 in Ontario.)

It’s too big a market for Bollywood to ignore.

Shootings in foreign locales, then, are no longer relegated to dreamy song sequences featuring snow capped mountains, rides on tourist buses or vast green meadows. The Toronto skyline, CN Tower and the SkyDome actually form a backdrop for many of the potboiler plots.

“About 60 per cent of (The Hero) is set in Canada,” explains director Sharma, who won’t reveal much about the movie’s storyline except that it’s about an international spy.

Exhausted after a long day of shooting on the streets of Toronto and in a downtown hotel, he can spare only a few moments in between shots on set at Atlantic Nightclub at Ontario Place.
The set teems with the 85-member production that was flown in from India, augmented with local staff, junior artists and extras.

A group of young girls stands in one corner, observing the proceedings. Decked out in evening dresses for this scene of a corporate lunch, they say they’re students of the Ramsay Acting Institute.
The Ramsay Acting Institute, one of the operations of India Today Inc., is run by Dinesh and Mayur Ramsay, co-producer Keshu Ramsay’s sons. The Mississauga office of the scions of the Ramsay clan serves as a designer showroom and acting studio.

“My father has been shooting in Canada for the past six years,” explains Dinesh Ramsay. “He did the Khiladi series. They were all blockbuster hits - each film brought in about $2 million Canadian.”
Great locations and a helpful government made Canada an obvious choice for Dinesh and Mayur to set up shop. The Toronto acting school opened two years ago, followed by another in Vancouver last year. A third one is slated to open in New York later this year.

Dinesh started out assisting his father in the film business, but then gave it up to pursue a career in couture.

“I design only by appointments,” he says. “I have designed for (Indian film actresses) Mahima Chaudhary, Raveena Tandon, Rekha and Rati Agnihortri. My personal clients fly in from England and United States. Today I have a woman coming from Ottawa for her bridal outfit.”

Two students walk in. The portable racks of bridal and formal wear are pushed back to make space for classes that teach its students everything from “dancing, acting, facial expressions to action.”

“Since it was unfeasible to bring actors from India for small roles, we decided to use local talent,” says Dinesh. “Our students don’t work as extras, they have small roles. Ramesh Kaushal, who is local real estate agent, played the role of Akshay Kumar’s father in Khiladi 420.”

The nine-month course includes training from Bollywood experts who are flown in for a month from Mumbai (Bombay). Mayur and Divya Kumar, a Toronto based-choreographer who was trained in Mumbai, carry through the remainder of the course.

Bollywood shootings outside India have also seen the emergence of local line producers such as Raj Shah. Shah founded Celebrity Productions Inc. seven years ago, with head offices in Los Angeles and Calgary. Two out of the 25 movies he’s worked on were shot in Canada - Tum Bin and Kaash Aap Humare Hote. He will start work on another after The Hero.

The Atlantis pub’s setting with Toronto’s skyline in the back and the variety of locations offered by Calgary - mountain views, scenic lakes and some big towns - made them ideal places to shoot, says Shah.

“The tastes of people in India have changed, they want better locations,” he elaborates. “And artists have bulk dates for foreign shoots, which expedites the movie.”

Shooting Bollywood films in Toronto brings money into the Canadian economy, says Shah.

“The movie’s budget is about $10 million (Cdn.), out of which about $7 million will be spent in Canada,” he says. ” We are spending about $100,000 just for this Atlantis shoot. We have hired about 20 local staff - electricians to gaffers to bus drivers to caterers to junior artists.”

But, recent problems encountered in obtaining visas, as well as Canada’s unpredictable weather, might mean seeing fewer shoots here.

“We lost $15,000 to $20,000 per day because of cancelled shots,” he says.

Still, he believes that Bollywood is here to stay.

“(South Asian) people here want to keep in touch with their culture, and Indian people are crazy about Bollywood. There are many people who appreciate our efforts.”