Burnout

It was 12 noon and everyone had already gathered to office, on their respective desks. As ever, being a Monday some of them including my boss - were fully enthused and stalwart to start the week. On the other hand, I was with the same old manic-monday mood! with still a blanket on my mind, reaching office early as ever. Paralysed, I was gazing to catch an eye of the waiter, for a refreshing and astonishing, hot - "adrak-chai"which is as always a benediction for me. The week was to start full of campaigns and campaigns and some really really innovative creativity to come out of me. My thaumaturge of design is already been a word of apprehension amongst all and this time the expectation is a paramount. But my aesthetic designs is not complete without the words from the expert, the extremist, the fanatic, the ultraist - who's words are just meant to define and derive the world of creativity and perfect-paradisaical-blameless and authentic advertisement. Sometimes it's a case where one has to actually search for the word and it's meaning in dictionary. He is my colleague who's also a great advisory.
He came in & we started flinting spark as we had to build a blazing fire. We started of with a simple thing of forming a sentence from a word - this sounds simple as the word brainstorming. Yes, the word brainstorming - sounds simple when pronounced. But in actual - a brainstorm is as even as a storm created around your brain. The storm of words all around our brains. To come up with only one word - which meant all for both of us. One word - which would prove our creativity reaching a milestone, as the campaign was a Hats-off.
With just a pencil and a paper & were in a middle of an imaginary muddle created by us, in the conference room - with chilling AC running and a quite window giving the view of statues of angels on famous Deutsche Bank! which was hardly a matter of concern as we were almost zonked and still in urge to up the hill. For the final, I had an eye-to-eye contact with my friend, and he seemed consumed by silence. I later realized that our three hour discussion is fading into silence and he seemed more lost than me. I asked him whether to stop at a conclusion we had decided but we both weren't happy.
His eyes were lost, he looked like he was lost or rather drunk - comfortably numb. I approached him and shook him, I had to make him realize that we were in the conference room. He SCREAMED!! he sounded like a doped athlete reaching for the ring to fight. His mind seemed lost. He was lost in imagination of words, confused and gathered in his mind, too many of them that he forgot the outer world. He was in a brainstorm. An mental world different from reality. That he for forgot his senses. And I was scared, for me, I thought he was a victim of panic attack as I was once. He was silent and numb. He spoke something which I could'nt figure out even today, some language, wasn't hindi or Punjabi (his mother tounge), I called the security, they rushed in soon, other colleagues including my boss reached. Offered him water, but he was not in his senses. It seemed a panic attack for me, but he did not seem to be afraid of the world around him (as one does undergoing panic attack).
Later he went asleep. For about 6 hours in the conference room, we called a doctor as well. He injected a sleep medicine and recommended to show him to a psychiatrist.
I was surprised, and consumed by my thoughts whether was he in black magic or panic attack or a stress level-busted.
A day later, when he reached office as fresh as he always is - and I told him let drop the shit of this campaign and we are not doing it. He laughed, he said it was a burnout .
The extreme stage of stress. His thought level had extended. He said, he was struck in with thoughts of his argument between his girl friend, his parents at home. And then by coming out with forming a sentence which was out of reach.
We had a go for it! The campaign was a success all over. With shaking hands, and e-mails from the Sr. Management for the work.
Indeed a great campaign which ran over a month. As I was observing my colleague who was staring out from the window for some time. A view in peer silence - towards the angels on Deutsche bank.. And I had the song running on my iPod.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

The Classic Vacation

I happen to have the best vacation of my life - this diwali. A lot to eat, sleep, photograph, booze, crazy discussions and of course - films. I had decided to watch most and the best of hollywood classics this holiday, actually made a list of "The Films" to watch. My father is more of Nazi less Hindu, enthused as ever by the astounding Germany and Nazi rule during the World Wars. Trust me, his knowledge is depicted from all the literatures, films and his study of Nazi reign, a perfection ate about all the dates, facts and figures about the German rule in eastern Europe during the war, the concentration camps, the caused for chaos for Jews, the strategy applied to conquer countries, the SS (secret services) - all seem to be a work and memorandum when it comes from my father.

I watched 11 films, hollywood classics and they ever can't be remade. A few of them were:

Stalag 17

The film is a simple, neat and carrying you forward. A British Columbia production of a Billy Wider (well known for the scripts and screenplay for war based films) film. The movie focuses a German prisoner camp named Stalag 17, a place for POW's from which no one has ever escaped.
William Holden, plays a cool Sargent Marshal and his attempt to escape the camp.
Amazingly dialogged and good fun created among the POW's of prison camp, excellent editing and great thrilling suspense till the end.





Operation Crossbow
A German flying bomb of which everyone is worried about, even Winston Churchill. The plot to investigate it, starring Sopia Lauren and a team of complete spies. Excellent action, great german secrecy and surprising informers, blackmails, torture and Gestapo. Wonderful entertainment.

As D-Day approaches, Winston Churchill is concerned about rumors of a German flying bomb, and orders Richard Johnson, to investigate. He is convinced by intelligence and photo-reconnaissance reports that the weapons exist, but scientific advisor Professor Lindemann dismisses the reports as extremely fanciful. He is proved wrong when V-1's start falling on London. Bomber Command launches a raid to destroy the factory producing them.

The Germans move their factory underground for protection and rush ahead with the development and production of the larger, more deadly V-2. The head of British intelligence learns that engineers are actively being recruited for the new weapon and decides to infiltrate the factory. He finds three qualified volunteers, all experienced engineers who speak German. They are hastily trained and sent to Germany via Holland.

Too late, they learn that Robert Henshaw has been given the cover identity of a man wanted by the police for murder. Sure enough, he is arrested, but released after being blackmailed into becoming an informer. But he is recognised by a security officer Anthony Quayle and interrogated. Refusing to reveal his mission, he is tortured by the Gestapo and then shot.

The two other, Lieutenant John Curtis (George Peppard) and Phil Bradley (Jeremy Kemp), manage to infiltrate the underground factory. Bradley is only able to get work as a porter/cleaner, but Curtis manages to work his way into the heart of the project, where he is assigned to fix the problem of engine vibration that is holding up the V-2's development.

The two agents send back information and learn that the RAF is mounting a nighttime bombing raid on the facility - but the protective doors on the ceiling must be opened to expose the plant and provide a landmark for the bombers. The controls are in the powerhouse; Bradley is shot, but Curtis is able to get in. As the Germans frantically try to break in, the fatally wounded man manages to open the doors before he dies. The raid succeeds in obliterating the factory.

And some of the other war films I saw were The Great Escape, From Here to Eternity, Escape from Sobbybob and many more. The other non-war films I liked were - Gone with the Wind - 3 hours and 20 min film starring Vivian Leigh - her award winning performance with Clarke Gabel.

And the Best was
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
based on the critically acclaimed and bestselling book by Fredrick Forsyth, the film was supposedly a box-office flop, for the drop of Michail Caine, but performance of Edward Fox (also starred in Bridge too far) was highly appreciable.

Dissatisfied with French President Charles de Gaulle's decision to give independence to Algeria, the OAS, a militant french underground organization, decides to assassinate De Gaulle, believing they can restore the glory of France by killing De Gaulle. The leader of the OAS, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry botches the attempt, and along with several other members of the plot, end up being caught and executed. The remaining leadership of the OAS, demoralized and having fled the country to escape capture, realize that they cannot finish the job they have started through their organization and have to hire a professional assassin to do the job.

After examining the dossiers of several candidates, they settle on one man, who comes to visit them. He points out that they have no choice about hiring a professional assassin, not only is their organization riddled with police informants, but their bungling has now made the job even more difficult because De Gaulle's security has been dramatically enhanced due to the attempt. He agrees to take the assignment provided they pay half of his very large fee in advance, and comply with several minor conditions. There will be no further contact between the four men, other than they will set up a telephone number in Paris he can call to get information. He will only be known by his code name: The Jackal.

The movie follows the methodical preparations the Jackal makes, including the determination of how, when and where to perform the hit (which is not disclosed to us), creation of a number of fake identities and obtaining the resources to do the job, such as a rifle modified to look like something else, and photographs of himself as an old man. Despite being the title character, in the movie the "Jackal" seems to talk the least of all the characters; we understand his motivations and his cunning brilliance by his actions. The violence also seems very subdued; the additional killings The Jackal performs in the process of covering his actions are brief and almost invisible, or are performed off-screen.

Meanwhile, French security forces, upset because of the sudden rash of bank robberies in France, discover that they are being done by members of the OAS, who do not know why they have been ordered to do them. Realizing that the leadership of the OAS are using the bank robberies to finance something, French Security decides to detain their chief clerk: Adjutant Viktor Wolenski. Rather than request Wolenski's extradition from Austria, French Security decides to invoke self-help: they kidnap him from Italy and smuggle him across the border into France.

Torturing Wolenski to death, French Security extracts enough information to discover that there is quite possibly a plot on the life of President De Gaulle by a foreign assassin whose code name may be Jackal, and if that is the case, it represents a national emergency. The Prime Minister convenes the entire cabinet, and the head of the State Police admits there is no way they can find this Jackal by normal means. They can't detain him at the border; they don't know his name. "Action Service" (the government's professional assassins) can't destroy him if he's in another country: they don't know whom to destroy. They can't arrest him if he's in the country; they don't know who he is. They can't search for him, they don't know what he looks like. Without a name and a face, they can do nothing to stop him. In short, they need the best detective they can find to put out a total effort to discover who The Jackal is - and do it in secrecy - before he succeeds and plunges France into a crisis.

The Police Commissioner admits there is one man - one of his employees - who can do the job: Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel. Lebel is told to drop everything, focus on finding The Jackal and stopping him. He will have full powers and any resources he needs, subject to just two requirements of the job: no publicity, and do not fail. As in the novel, Deputy Commissioner Lebel is given a seemingly impossible assignment. Lebel's assistant Caron asks, "But no crime has been committed yet, so where are we supposed to start looking for the criminal?", to which Lebel answers, "We start by recognizing that, after De Gaulle, we are the two most powerful people in France."

As the Jackal has set up his methodical preparations to commit the crime, Lebel also methodically prepares every method he can devise to try to determine where The Jackal might be from, how he might perform the act and when and where he will do so. With assistance from the old boy network of police agencies in other countries, they discover a lead by looking for British subjects who have obtained passports as an adult using birth certificates of deceased children, and find a dead child, Paul Oliver Duggan, who applied for a passport decades after he had died. British authorities also discover whom they suspect The Jackal might be, Charles Calthrop, and realize that - while it may be a coincidence - "Cha" in Charles and "Cal" in Calthrop spell the French word for Jackal.

The police search the apartment belonging to Calthrop, and recover his passport. Which brings up the question, if they have his passport, what's he traveling on? French authorities are notified of Calthrop's identity as Duggan, and will look for him. Lebel discovers only a few hours too late that Duggan - The Jackal's false identity - has already entered the country.

The Jackal stops in a hotel, finds an attractive, bored married woman, Madame Montpellier, whose husband is away on holiday, and carries on a fling with her. He goes to her home (after secretly discovering her address from the hotel register) to see her for a few days. She mentions to him that the police were there, asking questions about him, and she knows he stole the car he has because it has local plates, but she's willing to protect him if he'll tell her what he's doing. He kills her and escapes out the window.

In the mean time, Lebel discovers that there is an informant in their midst: a telephone tap exposes that one of the members of the cabinet has a mistress, and has been revealing the top-secret details of their investigation to her in pillow talk. It turns out that she was feeding the information to a contact that The Jackal was calling. One of the members of the cabinet is curious, how did Lebel know who's telephone to tap to find out who the informant was. Lebel admits he didn't know, so he had a tap placed on all of their telephones. Several of the cabinet members are shocked.

The Jackal disposes of Calthrop's identity, and substitutes that of a Danish schoolteacher. He travels on to Paris. Meanwhile, the police discover Madame Montpellier has been murdered, so now Lebel no longer has to look for The Jackal in secrecy, police can simply make a full public search for her murderer. They discover that the Danish Schoolteacher, Per Lunquist, whose passport was stolen, got on the Paris-bound train. They race to the station only arriving a few minutes too late to prevent The Jackal from escaping.

Lebel realizes that they have only a few days to find the Jackal because he realizes he will strike during a medals ceremony at the next public holiday. Apparently dissatisfied at Lebel's presumptiousness in tapping their phones, the cabinet dismisses him with their thanks, saying they no longer need his help.

At a gay bathhouse, The Jackal is approached by another man, who picks him up. They go back to the man's apartment. Later the man sees a TV in a shop without sound, recognizing the Jackal's face but not knowing why. As he mentions this to The Jackal, the TV in the apartment has a newsflash telling that Per Lunquist is wanted for the murder of Madame Montpellier. The Jackal kills the man off-screen in his kitchen, then calmly sits down and watches the TV.

The Prime minister recalls Lebel, realizing that despite having in excess of 100,000 police and gendarmes looking for The Jackal, they can't find him, he's disappeared and they need Lebel after all.

On the day of the celebration, The Jackal passes a gendarme who inspects his papers. The Jackal has become a chameleon: by using certain tricks, he has made himself look like an elderly amputee. The Gendarme, seeing a one-legged old man on a crutch, lets him pass. The Jackal goes into an apartment, kills the landlady, unties his leg from behind his buttocks, goes into a top-floor flat, and reveals to us that his crutch had a more sinister purpose, as he disassembles it to produce the rifle which was disguised as the crutch.

The Jackal sets up his sniper's nest and aims his weapon at the spot where De Gaulle will stand as he gives out medals at the procession. He waits. Meanwhile, Lebel is continuing to circulate, trying to figure from where The Jackal will strike. Lebel runs into the gendarme who had met the disguised Jackal, and the two of them run toward the apartment.

Meanwhile, De Gaulle is presenting medals to war veterans, and The Jackal has him in his sights. De Gaulle has stopped for a moment, and is standing. The Jackal takes the shot.

De Gaulle moves, and The Jackal misses the shot. As he attempts to reload, Lebel and the gendarme bust down the door. The Jackal uses his rifle to kill the gendarme. As he is attempting to again reload, Lebel grabs the gendarme's machine gun, quickly figures out how to use it, and before The Jackal can also kill him, sprays a hail of bullets which tosses the body of The Jackal across the wall of the room, dead. Lebel looks out the window as the oblivious De Gaulle continues with the ceremony, unaware of how close death came to him that day.

As British police are looking over Calthrop's apartment, he walks in, and demands to know who they are and what they are doing there. So now we discover that the Charles Calthrop that they had investigated was not The Jackal.

At the end of the film, as we watch The Jackal's coffin being lowered into the grave, we are left with the question: "Who the hell was he?"

Courtesy : Wikipedia.org