Movie review- Madras Cafe

John Abraham may not have had a very noticeable career as a Bollywood actor but he is going great guns as a producer. Madras café is his second production venture, and he has chosen his theme and his team well (The first one being Vicky donor’, that did very well for itself).
The movie is about the separatist rebel ethnic Tamils in northern Sri-Lanka and their militant
outfit- the LTTE. Although all the key names have been changed in the movie- LTTE is referred
to as LTF and its chief Prabhakaran as Bhaskaran, the decoy is all too evident. The LTTE as of
now is practically non-existent after the death of Prabhakaran, but the sensitivities involved in
he issue can be gauged from the fact that the TN theatre owners have refused to screen this
movie. Not that the film shows any deviation from the truth, and not that LTTE has been shown
in poor light either. In fact, the movie begins with the portrayal of the sorry state of affairs of the
ethnic Tamils in Sri-Lanka. John Abraham plays an Indian military officer, who is chosen by
RAW to carry out covert operations in Sri-Lanka in an attempt to contain the LTTE by hook or
crook. He works independent of the overt Indian attempt in form of ‘Indian peace keeping
force’- the IPKF- a brain-child of the then prime-minister- Rajiv Gandhi (referred in the movie
only as the prime-minister or the ex-prime-minister). While the IPKF fails in its mission and has
to beat a retreat, John Abraham unearths a plot to assassinate the now ex-prime-minister Rajiv
Gandhi (the movie shows the PM to have had resigned his post following IPKF’s failure,
whereas the truth is that he had lost his post to VP Singh following Congress’s defeat in 1989)
The rest of the story is RAW and John Abraham’s attempts to ambush the LTTE’s plan to
assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, and how they fail to prevent the killing in Sriperambadur.

The most attractive part of the movie is the way in which John has been portrayed as a real
RAW agent. Most of the audience would want to believe that military agents and spies are like
James Bond or agent Vinod- completely infallible, heroic, brave-heart, lady charmers and have
the strength of a hulk who can fight thirty villains at one go. John’s character Vikram is a brave
man, but that is all. He has his weaknesses- he is shown to fail; he is shown to be unable to
protect his wife from being murdered, and finally he is shown to fail to prevent his Prime-mini
ster’s assassination. But despite being all this, he comes across as someone who wins the
heart of the audience. In short, he is the real hero, a real human hero.

The female lead is played by Nargis Fakhri who plays a war correspondent for an international
periodical. She helps John in getting leads into the LTTE cadre. Second female lead is Raashi
Khanna, who plays John’s wife, but frankly there’s not much to her role. All she has to do in the
movie is to lament her husband’s constant absence from home to dangerous assignments.

The other important characters are those of the Bala- the LTTE mole in the Indian agency in Sri-L
anka; Anna Bhaskaran, the LTTE chief, and Siddharth Basu, the RAW chief. The character of
Bala is played by a Prakash Belawadi, and he has done his part very well.

Shoojit Sarcar has been brilliant with his direction, so has been Kamaljeet Negi with his
cinematography.

A wonderful movie and a must watch.
My rating- 3.5 on 5

Movie review- Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

It is said that a book should never be judged by its movie. Likewise, I think a movie should never be judged by its theme. Milkha Singh has always come across to me as the ‘flying sikh’ who won medals for India in Asian games and Commonwealth games, and how he missed by a whisker a medal in 1960 Rome Olympics. Therefore I expected the movie to highlight his triumphs; to tell us about his chief rivals at the games, and how he managed to overcome them to bag the medals. Quite frankly, I was looking for a ‘Chak De India’ kind of flavor in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Therefore, I was quite disappointed by the movie. A set of generous media reviews and a decent crowd at the multiplex on a rainy July Monday evening reinforced further my hopes from the film. But not only was the film excruciatingly long, it was boring in most parts, and I found myself looking at the watch waiting for the interval much before it actually happened. I had expected the movie to portray Milkha the ATHLETE and his quest for excellence in the track and field. But alas, the movie is about Milkha the MAN who suffered the pains of the partition (So what, millions others did too, and we have scores of movies on the subject), his struggle for existence post-partition including his knife-wielding days, his days in the army, his love life, his one-night stands, AND also his achievements as a star Indian athlete. The parts that depict his real winnings on the tracks at the international level are run through as a brief documentary somewhere in the dying stages of the three hour long movie, added with a final little-known hurray in which he is shown to defeat an arch-rival Pakistani athlete in Pakistan- a time-tested method of whipping up a patriotic fervor among the audience. But alas, that too somehow failed to leave a mark. The movie, therefore, should be seen as a biography of Milkha the man who happened to be an athlete. The narrative is confusing with the story jumping from Milkha the victim of partition, Milkha the lover, Milkha the army man and Milkha the athlete.

The movie could have been excellent had Milkha’s past as refugee from Pre-partition Multan been kept brief, for example there was no need to show his sister being made furious and noisy love to by her scoundrel husband in a refugee camp tent shared by Milkha and two other unknown boys who wear knowing smirk on their faces as they hear the couple copulate. There was no need to show the gory killing of his family as a fall-out of Partition. There was no need to show a prolonged quest by Milkha for his lady love Sonam Kapoor. In short, many lengthy portions of the movie could have been either done away with completely or could have been shortened.

Most people have been very impressed by the six-pack body that Farhan Akhtar built for his role including his bulging biceps marked with engorged veins and a bulky set of pectorals across his chest. However, there is a technical flaw that all of us seem to overlook. A sprinter does not need a strong upper body. On the contrary, a heavy upper body would impede his run on the tracks and that is why most runners strive to keep themselves skinny and make their leg muscles strong. But we can accept that for the sake of the movie it was essential to show the hero with a six-pack.

Performances have been good. Farhan looks perfect for the job but I would have preferred Ajay Devgan for the role. Sonam Kapoor and other actors did not have much to do though Sonam looked good for a change. However, one is surprised to see Sonam playing a role of a 1950s girl wearing gaudy lipstick and an eye-shadow. Other roles are character roles and the best one is played by Divya Dutta, playing Milkha’s elder sister.

Music by the trio Shankar Ehasaan Loy is good, and the number ‘havan karenge’ is catchy, and has been choreographed beautifully.  Another song that I liked is ‘mera yaar’..

Go and watch the movie only if you are a die-hard fan of Farhan Akhtar.

My rating: 2.5 on 5 

Movie review- TALAASH

Movies are generally divided into genres based on the basic theme of the story- A romantic; a comedy; a thriller; story based on the supernatural and paranormal behavior; action; horror, and so on. Most often, when we go to watch a movie, we know beforehand what genre the film belongs to. Talaash is a film that ideally must be watched without the knowledge of its genre. But because we live in a society where people are so well-connected through the electronic media and social networking sites, that it is impossible to be oblivious of the genre of the film, if not the actual mystery, unless one maroons himself from the world keeping his eyes and ears shut till he watches the movie. I, owing to a few of my good friends on FB, could get an idea about the genre of Talaash, and hence I could not enjoy the movie as much as I would have otherwise enjoyed it. But in the theatre too there were some very extremely helpful gentlemen in our vicinity who kept mumbling future course of the movie and I felt during the interval to bring some action into the whole affair by smacking a few on those gentlemen’s faces. But I refrained eventually considering my frail frame.

Now writing a review of a film without discussing even the genre, let alone the mystery, is a huge ask. I obviously will not be able to say much about the story itself, but Talaash is THE ‘long-awaited-once-in-a-blue-moon-good-movie’ kind of a flick. The story is extremely gripping, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat for most of the time. This is a movie where you hate that the interval happened, and you actually don’t feel like going out for popcorn and coke lest you should miss a few frames of the second half. Aamir Khan is a police officer who is investigating a mysterious and seemingly accidental death of a film star. He is also burdened by the guilt of his only son’s accidental death that he thinks he could have prevented if he were a bit more careful. During the course of the investigations, Aamir meets Kareena Kapoor, a prostitute, who helps him to crack the case because the meager clues leading to the death of the film star go through the city’s brothels. Needless to say, the ‘accidental’ death of the film star is actually not an accident in totality, and the ‘mystery’ in the film is the reason of this ‘accident’. I can say no more about the story itself without spilling the beans.  

The performances are all power-packed. Aamir, as usual, has done full justice to his role as a police officer dedicated towards his duty, and grief-stricken from his son’s death. He looks handsome in his curved-down moustache and cropped hair, but his hair dye is as blatant as it could get. Every time I see an actor trying to look younger by coloring his hair, I remember Naseeruddin Shah, who looks stunning in his silver hair these days. But I guess the story demanded that Aamir had jet-black hair. Even then, the make-up artists could have done a much better job. I have never liked Kareena before, except in Jab we met, but last night I was stunned by the way she looked, and the way she performed her role.  Simply superb. She looked very beautiful; a bit gaudy, but that is understood coz after all she plays a prostitute. An important character in the film is Timur, named after the famous lame king, a shady character who is afflicted by polio, and carries out odd jobs for the touts in the red-light area. Timur has been played by Nawaazuddin Siddiqui, of the ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ fame. He is a promising actor and I’m sure he will mark a solid mark in the Hindi film industry. Rani Mukerji plays Aamir’s wife, also grief-stricken for the same reason as Aamir himself, and is sans make-up for most of the film, looking plain and simple making you forget how beautiful she looks with the make-up on. She has done full justice to her role too.

Kudos to Reema Kagti for crisp direction. The story, written by Reema and Zoya deserves accolades. It is truly a ‘different’ story, a term that the Bollywood wallahs so much love to use.

Of the tracks, I liked ‘muskaanein jhooti hain’, and ‘jee le zara’. And the music is really good.

  My rating: 4 on 5

Movie review- Raaz-3

Though the censor board does not clarify as to why a particular movie has been awarded an ‘A’ certificate, the reason is most often obvious. It is either too much of violence or sex, or both; or is utterly horrifying.  Raaz-3 must be the first horror movie to have got an ‘A’ certificate for too much sleaze, because horror is entirely missing from this third sequel of the original Raaz that did very well for itself about ten years ago. I have had the chance to watch all three in the Raaz series, and as has always been the case with the sequels in the film industry, Raaz-3 is easily the worst among them all, the first one being the best.  The Bhatt duo has run out of ideas and I really hope there is never a Raaz-4. And as if they knew the amount of real substance that they have managed to put into this one, they unabashedly exploited their nephew Emraan Hashmi’s ‘serial kisser’ image. The only plus point that I saw in the movie was Bipasha Basu. Kudos to her for having managed to look as beautiful as she did in Raaz-1. The less said about the other girl, Isha Gupta, the better. She has neither the looks; the oomph, nor the acting skills. I am still racking my brains as to how she could make her way into this severely competitive world of movies. The Bhatt family has never been reputed to be in the casting couch business. I won’t write the outline of the story here as I have been doing in my past reviews as some of the readers have complained that I end up telling too much. I’ll only say that there is a lot of stupid Mumbo-Jumbo (The worst part is a medical doctor being shown to believe in all this crap); the horror factor is practically non-existent (You’ll perhaps find better horror in one of the weekly horror serials on TV); the numbers are ok, I liked ‘Marhaba’, choreographed very well on Bips. The performances are ok. Bipasha has been the most impressive of all; Emraan has done best in what he is notorious of doing. Isha Gupta has been ‘ugh’. Watch this one only if you are a die-hard fan of either the Bhatts, or Emraan, or Bips.

My rating: 1.5 on 5

Movie review- Shirin Farhad ki toh..

‘Shirin Farhad ki toh…’ is a sweet, soft movie that can only be enjoyed by those seeking some light-hearted comedy, and a bit of a drama. There are no high-flung action scenes, nor there hot romantic scenes (You cannot expect hot romantic scenes in any case with Farha and Boman playing the romantic pair!). There is an appropriate dose of comedy, and with Boman you can expect the comedy to be convincing. But there is a lot of toilet humor as well..you know, farts and all..some even worse stuff so all those who find it ‘ugh’ should be prepared for the ugh..what with Boman running around with the hospital bed-pan full of Farha’s S**T (No, not the reels of Tees maar Khan).

The story is set-up in a Parsi back-ground with every character being Parsi, except a few policemen who were heard speaking Marathi. Boman (Farhad) is a 45 year old single, never married Parsi ‘chhokra’ who is a salesman in ‘Tem Tem’ Bra and panty store (Now how can a full-fledged store sell only bras and panties? A road-side shack is understandable but a store? But indeed the whole store is shown to be stacked with rows and rows of the stuff). Boman isn’t getting a bride for marriage, as is the problem with the community because of the dwindling Parsi population. His mom (played very convincingly by Daisy Irani) is after him to find a girl. All attempts to get him a Parsi girl through arranged matrimony fails because Boman is very honest and every time he blurts out his profession as a bra-panty salesman and other family things that people would otherwise keep to themselves. This turns off all prospective brides. He is very dejected when he accidentally meets Farha (Shirin) in his store who has come to buy a bra. They soon come to like each other but the twist is in the fact that Farha is the secretary in the Parsi trust office, and she has demolished an illegal water tank in Boman’s house built by his late father and so dear to his mom (How can a water tank be so dear. A complete house is understandable, but a water tank?) Anyway, when Boman’s mom discovers that Farha is the one who demolished her tank, she turns dead against Boman’s and Farha’s marriage. Add to that the fact that Farha has a father who has been in coma for many years and she since she has to take care of him, she cannot leave her home after the marriage and hence Boman must become a ‘ghar Jamai’.  The story is about what happens to this pair finally and how.

Boman is a seasoned actor and one of my favorites (His best for me is easily Khurana’s character in Khosla ka Ghosla), and he has done his part extremely well in this movie. And since he is a Parsi himself, he didn’t really need to ‘play’ the part- it came naturally to him. Farha has hopped from being a choreographer to being a producer, director and now acting. She has done her part well too, but her inexperience in acting skills show clearly during the movie.

My rating: 2.5 on 5

Movie review- Ek Tha Tiger

If you are planning to watch ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ because you think of it as a ‘spy-thriller’, you better drop the idea. If you are planning to watch it just because it is a Salman Khan movie,  then  go ahead- it is a typical Sallu film. The promos had made the film look like a Bond-like spy-thriller with lot of action and a bit of romance.  There is a lot of action, a lot of romance but it is far from being anywhere close to a Bond movie.  Salman Khan is a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent who is shown be always on ‘missions’, most often against the ISI of Pakistan, but the story is never about those missions. One would think that with a RAW agent pitted against the whole of the ISI would make an extremely interesting cross-border spy story, but it is not.  

Salman Khan aka Tiger is an unmarried RAW agent working directly under RAW boss Girish Karnad (Mr. Shenoy). The movie begins with Tiger tracking down a traitor in the RAW who had started working for the ISI for money. The scene is somewhere in the crowded streets of Iraq, and after a lot of action through these streets, breaking and damaging local people’s homes and businesses in the process (reminiscent of Bond movies), Salman Khan kills the errant RAW agent and is back in India reporting about it to Mr Shenoy.  Here his conversation with Shenoy reveals that Tiger has never been married and is a dedicated RAW agent, always preferring field operations to desk jobs despite the dangers that come with it. Also, he has not taken a day’s leave from work in the last 12 years. Needless to say, he has never even had a girl-friend either for the above mentioned reasons.

Next, Sallu Miyan is sent to Dublin to ‘keep an eye’ on a Dr. Kidwai, a scientist supposedly developing war-related technology that could help Pakistan. Kidwaii is played by Roshan Sheth (Remember him? he played Nehru in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi). Now with a seasoned player like Sheth in it, this plot seemed as if it would thicken. But it does not- the Kidwa- being-a-scientist-secretly-helping-the-Pakistani-nuclear-cause fizzles out and never concludes. Sheth appears in a few frames later but that is only frivolous. The real reason for Sallu being in Dublin is to make him meet Katrina Kaif (Zoya, addressed as zee by friends), who is an apparent ‘house-keeper’ to Kidwai (I felt so envious of the old fart Kidwai for having a house-keeper like Katy baby). But Katrina is actually an ISI agent (Don’t say ‘awww’ for me revealing this ‘suspense’ because it is hardly one) but by the time both Sallu and Katy baby discover that they are what they are, they are already in love with each other. Needless to say, Katy’s ISI colleagues discover the real identity of Sallu and they get after him. There is a lot of action here as he fights them and finally returns to return to India, both of them deciding that duty is far more important than love and they cannot betray their nations and love their enemy. But Sallu accidentally meets Katy again on another assignment in Istanbul where they both discover that they still have the fire in them for each other. They decide to chuck their respective agencies and elope to some remote place to start a new life. They successfully escape to Havana, Cuba, where they are soon discovered and once again both ISI and RAW are after them to chase them and kill them/arrest them for their blasphemy. The rest of the movie is about this chase, and they are shown finally to escape to a secret location where they ‘live happily ever after’.  

Regarding actors and performances, Saalu you know how he is…he is the same except the fact that he has shown signs of aging on his face in this movie..his hair is so blatantly dyed jet black that it appears out of the place. I remember Sallu looking at his best in Baghbaan, but he has lost most of the charm since. Katrina is a big disappointment. God knows what she has done to her lips; she looks all puffed up. At places her face appears to have been stung by hundreds of bees. Gone is the charm that she oozed in ‘Singh is King’. As a couple, Katy and Sallu look un-fresh. Girsh Karnard has played his part well, as has Ranvir Shenoy (Of Khosla ka Ghosla fame, Konkana’s real-life husband), who plays yet another RAW agent shown to be Sallu’s shadow/associate. The rest of the actors don’t have long enough roles to make an impact. Roshan Sheth should have refused this role unless he was running short of money. Kabir Khan’s direction is good, as is the photography. One good thing about such films is that they take you on a world tour, traveling thru several countries and by putting in songs, they take you sight-seeing. I waited and waited for the number ‘Mashallah’ but it never came..I guess they were to play it with the credits in the end but we never sit thru the credits. I liked one another number ‘Jaaniya’. 

My Rating: 2.5 on 5

Movie review- Gangs of Wasseypur

Cutting short my Sunday afternoon siesta, when I dragged myself to the multiplex to watch ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, I had not expected the hall to be full. It was not only full, it comprised almost exclusively of men, most of them in large groups. I could sense my wife getting uncomfortable as the movie progressed, because it was replete with all conceivable content that it takes to qualify a movie for an ‘A’ certificate- Violence, sex, and gaalis. And these days watching a movie in expensive multiplexes does not guarantee decent audience, and the theatre continuously rang with vulgar laughter, cat-calls and whistles.  Thankfully we had left our daughter at home owing to the ‘A’ certificate.

I had high hopes of Anurag Kashyap, and this was the first of his directorial ventures that I saw. I have been meaning to see Dev D for long, but haven’t been able to do so.

Even if the best of the cooks sets out to bake a cake with all the right ingredients, the cake can still get spoilt by over-baking. This is exactly what happened with Gangs of Wasseypur (GOW). Anurag had the perfect story-line, a set of brilliant actors, and he himself is a good director, but he simply overdid everything, including the length of the film. While watching a film if I find myself waiting for the interval in the first half, or waiting for the movie to end in the second half, I declare the movie as boring. And this happened with GOW in both halves. So, I was rather surprised to find the movie boring when everything about it was good- The rawness of rural Bihar; the ruthlessness of the gangs; the violence; the sleaze and the works. Then what went wrong?  It was simply a case of too much of everything. The story spanned over three generations, and I don’t think there was a particular need to do so, since the truth about the scenario in mafia-ridden rural Bihar could have been driven home in a single-generation story as well, with interspersed short flashes into the past. There was nothing drastically new happening in any of the generations, and on the contrary, there was added unnecessary confusion with a plethora of characters getting added with each generation. The violence was simply too much, nauseating, in fact. Murders were committed through the movie practically every ten minutes, and the lead actor (Manoj Bajayee) was shown murdering at least a dozen people with his own hands, ruthlessly cutting down people at times, choking bathroom drains with their blood and body-parts. There was no need for such garish display of violence, and certainly not in this quantity. The sleaze was in form of an explicit adulterous sex scene involving Manoj Bajpayee and Reema Sen, who plays his mistress, and also in the form of overt dialogues about sex between Bajpayee and his wife. As expected, GOW was full of cuss-words, the worst sounding ones heard regularly in the bad-lands of north India. In order to show the crude reality of the gang-ridden towns of Bihar, Anurag left no holds barred, and I dare say he even exaggerated a bit.

The actual story can be summarized in just a few lines: Though the tale spans through three generations, it is all about rivalry between two major groups of Wasseypur. The fight is for power, control over the local coal mafia, and all other illegal activities like kidnapping, murder, protection for money etc etc. Manoj Bajpayee is the middle generation of the Khan family, which is in constant fight with the local political family of the Singhs- mainly Ramdhari Singh, who uses another local Muslim group of Qureshis (butchers) against the Khans. One major flaw in the film is that though the rivalry between the families starts in 1941, in the generation of Bajpayee’s dad Shahid Khan and Ramdhari singh, Ramdhari Singh does not age much even when Shahid Khan’s grandsons become goons themselves in 2004. Meanwhile, Ramdhari Singh’s family is shown to be still stuck in the second generation. Another shortcoming is that police and administration is practically non-existent in the whole movie. Except for a few scenes where the lower-rung policemen are shown behaving timidly before the gangsters, it appears that law is practically non-existent in rural Bihar. It is agreed that there is utter lawlessness in the Wasseypurs of India, but it is not that the law-keepers don't exist. In fact, they have their own sinister role to play in the police-politician-gangster nexus. Therefore, while no one expected the good cops to be around, the rogue policemen are badly missed in this story. 

There is no flaw in the performances, and all actors have done their parts extremely well. The direction is bang on and the cinematography is beautiful. Still, the movie would have been more watchable if everything were a bit toned down, including the length. All in all, watching this one wasn’t a very good experience for me. I wouldn’t recommend this one at all, and is a strict no-no for the weak-hearted. The numbers with folk touch are good and I plan to include some of them on my playlist.    

My rating: 2 on 5

The economy of Petrol price hike

A Rs.7.50 rise in petrol price seems whopping by any standards, and after periodical increments in fuel prices in recent times, petrol cost is now in excess of Rs 75 a liter across India. I am not an economist, and I wouldn’t understand the nuances of national economy but I understand that cost of anything is based on the simple rule of ‘demand and supply’. I think most of us as aware of this little fact.  Sometime probably in the seventies, my father owned a scooter, which he used only on Sundays to take us on pleasure rides just because he couldn’t afford petrol at Rs 8 a liter for daily use. And now, even at Rs 77-78 a litre, I’m sure the teenagers won’t hesitate to zoom their bikes across the towns for no reason at all. Even my dad, now retired, and unlike in the seventies, won’t hesitate to use his self-start scooter for his needs. So, for my dad, petrol in the seventies, @ Rs 8 a liter was much more expensive than it is @ 77 a liter now. I’m sure this little calculation would apply to almost all of us. Just look at the roads- Fully choked with traffic at all hours, and impossible to maneuver through, during the peak hours. I’m sure this is not going to change, the compulsory whimpering among the masses after every price rise notwithstanding, and the traffic conditions, and hence the air-pollution conditions, and hence the sedentary lifestyle-related diseases would continue to be on the rise. Automobile manufacturers proudly announce their sales growth each year saying that sold these many more thousand units of their vehicles this year compared to last year. I touched my first automated two-wheeler at the age 24. These days children as young as 11 years drive activas and whatnots. And now imagine the situation if the fuel prices were to reduce to Rs 50 a liter, something I think most of us dream of happening if we changed the government at the center. Vehicle manufacturers would increase their production even more thinking that there would be more purchases owning to cheap fuel costs. People would choke the roads even more with their vehicles. Is this what we really want? The fuel prices would drop automatically if the consumption falls. Just for the sake of imagination, think what would happen if ALL of the bikes on the roads are replaced by bi-cycles, and the number of cars are reduced to about 25%. Less consumption of fuel would lead to stock-piling and that would lead to reduction in prices! So, in a way, we, the consumers, are the only ones responsible for the increase in the fuel cost! Everyone wants to use a vehicle but does not want to pay the market price of his fuel, something that gets decided by consumers like them! I have seen people comparing fuel prices in India with that in other countries. How can this be justified when the gross economy of every country is different? We all go for vacationing in foreign countries. Do we not notice the difference in prices of various commodities? Then why not fuel? In Singapore, a one liter bottle of mineral water costs Rs 90 in INR. See? In the middle-east water  is more expensive than fuel. 

Another thing: We all customarily fume at every rise in fuel prices. I don’t. Am I a millionaire? No, but for me, economy has always been RELATIVE. My economic position in the Indian society will remain the SAME even after the price rise because the price rise will affect ALL of the society, and not just me. I’d have been damn worried if the price rise had affected just me and not my neighbor, coz then, my neighbor would get a chance to be richer than me by spending lesser than me on fuel consumption! Everybody would adjust economically to the price rise in their own ways, but the economic sum-effect of the price rise would remain the SAME across the society. Some, who can do without the use of vehicles, would find an alternate way to travel, such as car-pool or metro trains. Others who cannot reduce fuel consumption, would reduce their expenses in other things like cutting out on ice-creams after dinner. What I mean to say is, in the end, a societal commodity becoming expensive does not change the gross appearance of the economy, because it affects all the members of that society in equal way. As I said, economy is always relative. For my dad, at Rs 8 a liter, petrol was far more expensive in the seventies that it is at Rs.77 a liter now. 

Movie review- Ishqzaade

Sadly, the banner of Yashraj films has stopped being reminiscent of the great Yash Chopra. It is high time he removed his good name from the banner if he is unable to contribute in any way other than his name to the productions because the people who have succeeded him are not doing justice to his name. Ishqzaade has the signature undertone of Yash Chopra’s works in the past but hardly has the same effect. In fact, Ishqzaade has disappointed me thoroughly. One factor that I guess has contributed to this film’s failure to leave an impact is the fact that the entire cast and crew is rookie- from the director, lyricists, actors to the music director.  The storyline appears promising in the beginning, but couldn’t be developed into a great story, and the acting, dialogue delivery by the main actors leaves a lot to be desired. One major flaw is that the male lead (Parma, played by Arjun Kapoor), who is to be shown to be having grey shades to his character ends up being portrayed more grey than white. In fact, for most part of the movie I hated Parma for his doings. Even when he is supposed to be actually nice, he is unconvincing, and appears as if he’d back-stab any time. He’d have been better as a proper anti-hero, rather than a hero.

Parma (Arjun Kapoor) and Zoya (Pareeniti Chopra) are scions of rival political families in a town, probably in Uttar-Pradesh, who have grown up together under rather a unfriendly political and personal atmosphere, with the opening shots the showing school-going version of our protagonists  indulging in generous exchange of gaalis (Not the BC, MC kinds but the haraamzaada, kutta-kameena types). Both families have gun-totting goons around them all the time who never think twice before shooting a volley of bullets on anything and everything. Zoya’s father (Aftaab Qureshi) is a sitting MLA, and Parma’s grandfather (Surya Chauhan) is the rival, and the assembly elections are imminent. Both families are hard into preparations for the elections and keep looking to scoring brownie points over each other. Parma is a spoilt brat, and moves around with his goons in open jeep on the streets of his town terrorizing and plundering the local people at will. He sets fire to a local diesel supplier’s depot just because he is reluctant to sell him diesel owning to a prior commitment. How can the director expect the audience to fall in love with such a guy under any circumstances, no matter how much time has elapsed in the movie? Zoya is shown to be a pretty girl with political ambitions who doesn’t think twice before swapping her ear-rings for a gun. She too drives around in an open jeep, chases Parma’s goons on it when needed and fires upon them as well. Once, while she is holding a ‘rally’ on her dad’s behalf, addressing mostly college students, Parma shoos off the audience with a string of crackers and pee’s upon her dad’s poster. This infuriates zoya who slaps him in the full view of everyone. The story takes an interesting turn here with both of them falling in love with each other after this episode but I can’t tell you what happens because it’ll spoil whatever little bit of interesting stuff  there is in the movie for you all. The rest of the story is about the drama of these two young lovers trying to be together and their respective families trying to separate them off.

The movie theme might be reminiscent of ‘Veer-Zaara’ with the same theme of inter-religion love story but I’d say Ishqzaade is nowhere close to being anywhere near Veer-Zaara. The location, photography, the selection of local dialect, everything is to order but the story as a whole disappoints.

The performances are ok, below par, I’d say. Arjun Kapoor might appear hot to girls with a muscular raw body with a stubble on his chiseled face, and Pareeniti Chopra’s girl-next-door looks is sure to attract a lot of young men, but their acting skills leave a lot to be desired. Their dialogue delivery is poor and unconvincing. Pareeniti’s giggles, at times, appear so artificial that I felt like pulling my hair out. There are explicit sex scenes involving the two lead actors, but I’d say that the storyline needed them to be there, so if you have children along with you in the movie (Ishqzaade had a U/A certificate), you might need to close their eyes just a bit, but then, on second thoughts, WTF…

The numbers are ok..they might need to be heard several times before I start liking a few tracks but they’re not great for sure.

My rating: 1.5 on 5

Bangaru - The punching bag

I really pity Bangaru Laxman. Time and again, this fellow has been used as a punching bag by all and sundry in Indian politics. His crime was accepting a measly rupees one lakh, most probably for party fund. At least, at the time of accepting the cash, I think he believed he was being offered cash for party fund.  And everyone knows that all political parties accept ‘party funds’ from anyone, in any form, and at any time. And much, much larger sums than one lakh. The sting operator from Tehelka, who filmed the entire transaction clandestinely, had definitely used the phrase ‘party fund’, and then under his breath, he mumbled ‘New year party fund’ meaning to sound like he was offering cash for the ‘New year party’, meaning for the use for personal pleasure, meaning a bribe. Now, if it was a ‘Party fund’ cash, as I am sure Laxman understood it to be, it would not have amounted to bribe, and would have simply been liable to be penal taxed if not declared in the next year’s party’s IT returns. So, Tehelka guys simply stuck to their claim that Bangaru Laxman accepted ‘New year party fund’ from them, and hence it was a bribe. However, as far as the matter meant for Laxman, he was simply doing his job as a party president by accepting funds for the use by the party. I strongly believe that he had never intended to use it for personal use. He never realized he was being offered ‘New year party’ fund; he simply thought it was ‘party fund’ as in ‘Bhartiya Janta Party’ fund.  Immediately after the incident, no one cared to listen to this poor man; he was unceremoniously removed from the party president’s post and has virtually gone into a political oblivion since then, not to talk about the blitzkrieg by the opposing congress and other parties, as if no one ever received party fund in unaccounted cash in their lives! Now eleven years later, as the court pronounced its verdict, the punching bag is being revived once again. The congress is using it to counter BJP’s cornering them on Bofors issue and BJP is once again playing holier than thou by distancing itself from the poor man, saying that they had expelled him from the post and sent him into political wilderness long ago. So, in a country where scams worth thousands of crores are getting unearthed every day, an old man is being humiliated repeatedly for accepting Rs one lakh as party fund.  As it is said, everyone is a thief but only the one that gets caught is the one that gets crucified. 

Movie review- Tezz

It cannot be by chance that all the last three movies that I saw were of international quality in all aspects. Therefore, it is very safe to say that I have been choosing my movies well! LOL! Yes, I know, only about ten percent of movies produced by Bollywood are really watchable. When I say ‘international quality’, I don’t mean to say ‘Tezz’ is a flawless venture. Tezz has some great action sequences, on-the-edge kind of thrilling moments, wonderful performances, nice numbers, great photography, and has been very well directed. However, it has a major flaw in its story-line- The protagonist, an illegal immigrant to the UK from India, has been shown to be deserving sympathy despite his illegal occupancy of a foreign country, and working there without a work-permit; and, worst of all, despite keeping 500 passengers in a train hostage for ransom, and even getting the cash in the end! I mean, I am patriotic Indian, but I'd never feel sorry for such an Indian.

Aakash Rana (Ajay Devgan), an Indian citizen living illegally in London, married to a British citizen of Indian origin, Nikita (Kangna Ranawat), is forcefully separated from his pregnant wife and deported to India when the authorities discover his illegal status in the country. His wife is left behind who delivers a son. Four years later, he returns to London, again illegally, this time to take revenge on the country that separated him from his wife four years ago. He has help in the form of Adil (Zayed Khan) and Meghna (Sameera Reddy), both staying illegally in UK just like Ajay Devgan himself. Ajay had helped these two in settling down in UK while he was ‘settled’ running his wife’s business in UK, and they needed shelter and support in their initial tough days as illegal immigrants. With the help of Zayed and Sameera, Ajay plants a bomb in a Landon-Glasgow express passenger train, and then calls up the authorities telling them about the bomb on the train which would go off if the train’s speed dropped to below 60 mph (definitely reminding everyone of Keanu Reeves starrer Speed, but don’t worry, there are no more similarities). He demands 10 million Euros in cash in return of defusing the bomb. He has also planted a similar bomb on another goods train which he detonates just to show the authorities that he means business. The authorities have about 12 hours’ time before the train reaches Glasgow. To add drama and thrill to the story, the chief of railways in London (Boman Irani) has his teen-aged daughter travelling in that train alone (definitely reminding everyone of ‘The burning train’, but again there are no more similarities). Anil Kapoor, who has retired as the chief of the counter-terrorism command in UK, is requested to cut short his return journey to India and re-join his duty for just this case (Now, this is definitely reminiscent of many Hollywood movies).

The rest of the movie is a thrilling rat race between the UK police and Ajay Devgan, Sameera and Zayed. Though I have already mentioned that Ajay Devgan manages to get the cash from the authorities, but there are lots of whethers, hows, whats and whos..

Drama and thrill is enhanced by some anxious moments on a fast-moving train that cannot be stopped, and by adding a brother to Sameera Reddy who needs to be operated for a medical condition, and for which ‘a large amount of cash is to be immediately deposited’ in the hospital, otherwise they won’t operate upon him (I mean, c’mon, no hospital would do that!).

Performances are immaculate- I have always liked Ajay Devgan for his acting skills; Zayed Khan, Sameera have done their parts well as well. Boman Irani is as realistic as ever- a superlative performance from him. For the first time I could see some signs of ageing on the ageless Anil Kapoor’s face, but he has acted well. Kangna Ranawat is one of my favorite girls in Bollywood, so I enjoyed her presence on the screen and she isn’t a bad actor either.

Like I said, apart from the basic flaw in the storyline that asks the audience to feel sorry for an outright criminal, just because he is separated from his wife owing to local law, this movie is very watchable, especially for those who like the adrenaline rush thru their veins as they sit popping in popcorn.

The numbers are very hummable, I especially liked Rahat Fateh ali Khan’s rendition- Tere Bina. Then there is the inevitable item number filmed on Mallika Shrawat who looks very ‘different’ under loads of make-up, but the song itself is good. Over-all, a good movie, watch it once.

My rating: 2.5 on 5 

Movie review- Agent Vinod

First Kahaani, and now Agent Vinod. It is very rare to see two really good Bollywood movies back to back. Though I wouldn’t put AV in Kahaani’s league, I must say I was pleasantly surprised after watching AV. Bollywood seems to have really come of age. Gone are the days when crime-thrillers would involve a slightly paunchy romantic hero, a heroine, and a lethargic villain who’d keep on saying funnily, ‘Mona, kahaan hai sona?’ We hadn’t got any real reviews from the usual movie-goers in our neighborhood about AV, despite repeated digging onto people who’d gone to see it first-day-first-show.  So, last night we went with our fingers crossed. A quarter an hour into the movie and I could make out why weren’t there any reviews. The movie is unusually fast-paced with more twists and turns than there would be in a fun-fair maze. It is not a movie for the casual movie-goer who loves his popcorn more than a few hundred missed frames; it is not for the ones who prefer to catch up with the local gossip with the person in the next seat. This movie needs to be watched without blinking. Once the track gets lost, it becomes really frustrating trying to put the loose ends together. My wife carried in a really large tray of junk food after the interval ten minutes into the second half and I wasn’t surprised to know from her after the movie that she slept thru most of it. That was after I brushed away her ‘what did I miss’ question a couple of times.

Agent Vinod , played by Saif, is a RAW spy trailing a fifty million dollar transaction in Morocco, allegedly by some traitors within RAW itself. The trail leads him to a plot for bombing Delhi with a nuclear bomb, with an aim to trigger off a third world war like situation. In trying to bust the plot, the movie goes thru several African and Middle-East countries, and there is an apparent stark connection with our not-so-friendly neighbor Pakistan, and the usual suspects LET etc.  Kareena Kapoor, who plays Erum Parveen Bilal, is a Pakistani, with a past history of being involved in terrorist bombings in London and elsewhere.   Through the movie she either seems to be on Saif’s side or on the terrorist’s side. However, Saif seems to trust her with his heart despite overt back-stabbing by her a couple of times. So, the essence of watching the movie is finding out on whose side Kareena really is, and who the real perpetrators of the planned bombing are, and whether the bombing really happens. There isn’t much to write about the plot itself without revealing the meaty part but I can only say that the whole movie is full of action; and the another thing that touches one’s heart is the love-hate chemistry between the two lead actors.  Though there are some unbelievable scenes where AV survives fighting tens of machine-gun totting goons with just a pistol, the action scenes don’t really seems preposterous. Though the movie immediately reminds the audience of a James Bond flick, this desi version is bereft of high-flying gadgets, a do-all wrist-watch, fantastically paced cars, planes, and the works. So, all this really make it palatable.

Technically, the movie seems flawless- impeccable direction, cinematography, editing etc. Performances are flawless too- Saif the one time chocolate hero fits well into AV’s character and delivers well. Kareena has done her part really well, too. She has left behind her ‘size zero’ and appears quite plump. In fact she looks quite ‘voluptuous’, if you know what I mean ;).  An aging Prem Chopra makes a comeback in the role of a Moroccan feudal lord. There is a horde of other characters but with small, small roles, like the one by Ram Kapoor- the famed TV actor. But they all have done a good job.

I really don’t really concentrate on the tracks while watching a movie, unless the song has a real catchy tune. So, last night I could notice only ‘Dil muft ka’ picturized on Kareena and another equally voluptuous female, not just for its catchy tune ;).

My rating: 3 on 5

Movie review- KAHAANI

Disclaimer: Though Kahaani is a suspense-thriller, this review does not give away anything by the way of clincher/suspense/mystery…so go ahead and read this review without the fear of losing out on the pleasure of watching it first-hand, and also to know why you should not miss this one for anything.

After a long, long time Bollywood has succeeded in giving us a true thriller. A spell-binding, don’t-dare-to-take-a-loo-break kind of story that makes you sit on the edge of your seat through its two odd hours of screening time.

Vidya Balan, playing her namesake Vidya Bagchi, and getting constantly irritated by people pronouncing her name as ‘Bidya’ in Kolkota, where she lands from London for the first time in her life trying to search for her missing husband Arnab Bagchi, who had supposedly left London about a month ago on a company assignment, but suddenly disappears fifteen days ago (Vidya suddenly stops receiving his calls/mails/texts). Vidya is six months pregnant (But looks 12 months pregnant with an oversized belly- unless she is harboring quintuplets in her womb!). What baffles her, along with the police, who are genuinely trying to help her in locating her husband, is the fact that no one has apparently ever heard of, or seen an Arnab Bagchi! She locates the cheap guest house where her husband has alleged to have stayed, but the staff there doesn’t recall anyone by the name Arnab Bagchi. Nor do the hotel records say anything about the guy. She then visits the offices where Arnab had alleged having assignment at- The National Data Centre (NDC). Here too, the story is the same- No one has ever heard of an Arnab Bagchi! However, from a photograph that Vidya is carrying of a freshly married herself and Arnab, a senior staff member, going by the name of Agnes, at the NDC finds eerie similarity between the faces of Arnab and one Milan Damji, also an ex-employee of NDC. But as soon as Agnes attempts to dig into Milan Damji by the way of company records, she gets killed! The rest of the movie sees murders of two more people for the same reason- deepening the mystery to unimaginable levels! What happens to Arnab Bagchi? Who is Milan Damji? Why are the people trying to locate Milan Damji getting murdered? Is Vidya able to finally find her husband? For answers to all these very valid and mystifying questions, go and watch the movie ASAP!

There are many other reasons that make this one a must-watch. For the starters, apart from Vidya Balan, and another familiar face from Hindi cinema / TV, the rest of the cast is new to Bollywood. They probably belong to Tollywood, but all of them have given a stellar performance. Every actor seems to fit perfectly into his/her character, including the toad-like, smiling, dyspnoeic and lethargic murderer (there’s no suspense here- all this guy does thru the movie is kill people from the word go). Vidya Balan has done her part extremely well, and all credit to the director Sujoy Ghosh for a flawless job. The cinematography is excellent and one gets the feel of being in Kolkata even if one has never been there at all.

Like all thriller movies, this one too is song-less, except for a track, ‘Ekla cholo re’ which plays in the backdrop of Durga Pooja celebrations in the city. Well, I can say nothing more without running the risk of revealing even the gist of the suspense so I’ll stop here with an advice to go and see this one- more so if you love suspense-thrillers (I don’t know if the comparison is justified, but I was reminded of the Bourne series of movies while watching this one- Yes, it is that good!). And yes, don’t try to make any guesses- you won’t get it! :) :) 

My rating (maybe because I’m a fan of thriller stuff)- 4.5 on 5

Movie review- EK MAIN AUR EK TU

‘Ek main aur ek tu’ is an ordinary movie with an extraordinary twist in the final stages, which makes it a bit better than the mediocre. Imran Khan and Kareena Kapoor are two young people all by themselves in Vegas (Ve-gus, and not Vegaas, for God’s sakes!) and both are incidentally unemployed when they accidentally meet. Imran is the only son in a stinking rich, socialite family in posh upmarket Mumbai. His parents, Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah are control freaks and they have raised their son as their puppet, who does everything according to their choice and wish- from selecting ties, clothes and hairdo, to whether to eat with a fork or chopsticks, to compulsorily chewing his food 32 times before swallowing. He has been ‘made into’ an architect, against his choice of course (he wanted to be a photographer), and after being employed by the 11^th best architectural firm in the world briefly, he is sacked, a fact that he is unable disclose to his parents, for obvious reasons. He however, is rich enough to sustain himself well till he finds another job for himself. Kareena, on the other hand, is from a completely unorthodox and broad-minded Christian family in Mumbai, though not as well off economically as Imran’s family. She is a hair-stylist, who also has been without a job for some time, has had four ‘screwed-up’ relationships before she meets Imran; is a fun-loving, everything-goes kind of a girl. Imran and Kareena meet each other when the former helps her with some petty change at the billing counter of a store. Circumstances make them meet a few more times on the same day, making Kareena believe that Imraan had been sent by her ex boy-friend to spy on her, and she smacks him a few times. Soon Kareena realizes her folly and to make up, she offers to have a drink with him. They end up getting drunk that night and walking into a wedding chapel and getting married! Next morning Imraan is aghast to find himself in 69 pose with Kareena in his bed (don’t get ideas; they just sleep on different ends of a double bed, fully clothed, including their shoes!). Once sober, they decide that the wedding was indeed a stupidity and they should get it ‘annulled’ a la Britney Spears. However, Kareeena’s landlords chuck her out of their apartment for the lapse in rent payment, and Imran once again offers help and allows her to live with him for a few days. Soon he discovers that he is in love with her. Kareena herself is shown to be quite pally with him. They touch and hug each other, but there is no sign of romance between them. They even share the same bed for a night but all they keep doing thru the night is switch the light on and off and talk to each other about their career options! I mean, Imran might have been brought up to be an absolute upright guy with morals and all, but if anyone is in bed with a stunning beauty like Kareena, and does not feel the physical spark, then he is either gay, a saint, really high on ‘moral values’, low on testosterone, or he really wears his underwear very, very tight! And Kareena herself, despite her past four ‘screwed up’ relationships does not feel romantically attracted towards a handsome bloke who by her own admission is ‘perfectly average’. Imran, of course thinks that she loves him as much as he does, only that their love is yet undeclared one. Circumstances lead them to visit Mumbai, and Imran is forced to live with Kareena’s family coz he couldn’t tell his parents of his visit to Mumbai coz he could not tell them that he has lost his job. Kareena’s folks are shown to be a bit too broad-minded, with the first thing her dad asks her on seeing them is whether she slept with him. God, Pa, no! Kareena takes Imraan around Mumbai including her old school where she shows him places where she, as a school-girl, did more flirting and kissing boyfriends than study. Finally, when she takes him to the ‘kissing spot’ of the school- a secluded staircase, Imran, thinking she’s giving him a cue, bends forward to kiss her on the lips. She withdraws with a frown, and bang comes Imran’s world tumbling down on his head. Kareena tells him she likes him as a friend but never felt romantically for him. Imran loses his cool for a short period but gathers himself soon, realizing that Kareena never in fact loved him romantically. A frustrated Imraan finally rebels with his family (he meets his family accidentally in Mumbai), and thankfully starts wearing clothes of his own choice. They both return to Vegas, and Imraan actually keeps his hopes alive with Kareena, and dreams of re-visiting the wedding chapel once more with her, this time in their senses.

Though the movie is entirely about two people, Kareena and Imraan, making the audience actually think at times if there are any other characters in the film, the story is interspersed with scenes that supposedly help build the protagonist’s character- quite literally! Early in their friendship, Kareena forces Imraan to call up his ex girl-friend and ask for a date.  As it turns out to be, she is a horny female, who on hearing that Imraan could be ‘wild’,  and that he has ‘done it’ at times in the loo, rushes to the loo of the restaurant they are sitting in, dragging him along and tries to do things with him. Imraan can be excused here for not playing up with her given the circumstances, the location and the looks of his femme-fatale! Ugh!

And then there is the aging wife of his father’s friend, who never misses a chance to pinch his bottoms! Poor guy!

And then there’s a technical goof-up, which I bet most of the audience missed. Kareena supposedly didn’t want to be a hair-stylist. She in fact wanted to be a ballet dancer, but couldn’t because she broke her ankle in her childhood and now she has a ‘steel ball’ somewhere in her ankle! I am an orthopedic surgeon but I have never heard of ‘steel balls’ in ankles! (Balls to that)  

Overall the movie is ok, watchable once. Performances are ok as well, and kareena looks stunning at times. Imraan looks too thin in his orthodox clothes, and even after Kareena redoes his hair, he still looks unkempt. Top class actors like Boman and Ratna Pathak don’t have enough meat in their roles, though Ratna’s role reminded me of her part as ‘Maya Sarabhai’ in the famed TV show ‘Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai’.  The numbers are hummable but I wouldn’t keep them on my playlist.

My rating: 2.5 on 5

Gagging the Net

Kapil Sibal must be out of his mind. Or perhaps he’s just being what he is- A politician. Following some supposedly objectionable images of some Indian politicians being flashed on the internet, Mr Sibal has been demanding of the sites to remove the content. Not only that, he has asked the administrators of these sites to prevent future uploads of the similar variety. If the silver-haired gentleman can be smart enough to be the IT minister, he should know that the internet has always been full of ‘objectionable’ content. It depends on the perspective and the threshold of the person raising the objections. With thousands of gigabytes of content being transacted on the internet everyday, and with millions of users doing so, it is impossible to monitor the content of the internet. It is strictly user’s own discretion on what he or she prefers to access. At best, some sites offer links like ‘report abuse’ and ‘report as spam’ to objectionable content. Regarding personal insults to celebrities, the internet is full of such junk. There are hoards of people masquerading as important people on social networking sites. There is a plethora of obnoxious adult content made out of morphed images of well known cine actors. I am sure Mr Kapil Sibal must have been aware of all these things but he chose to act only when it came to objectionable images of politicians being flashed on the net. So is the law there to be invoked only when it is the turn of the politicians to bear the brunt of technology? And he had the audacity of saying that these images would have angered ‘all Indians’. All Indians, my foot. And perhaps realizing his folly of being seen as concerned only for the politicians, he was quick to add to his statement something that he knows drives the sentiment of the whole nation- religion. He added that there were objectionable images of Indian politicians and Indian Gods and Goddesses. But thankfully, the public did not bite the bait and Mr Kapil Sibal was quick to be reprimanded on the very platform he sought to put a gag on.  The social networking sites were flooded with posts ridiculing Kapil Sibal. Very rightly, the administrators of sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc refused to reassure Sibal of preventing any future ‘objectionable’ material on their sites, because it is practically impossible to do so. If in the middle of this nice looking piece, if I were to say that Kapil Sibal is a @#$%$#@*, how would the blogger site know, let alone prevent this from being read? Internet is a tornado that Kapil Sibal is trying to stop with a flimsy canopy. It would have been alright if he had sought to track the perpetrator of the offensive posts through proper channel and subject him to the law, but seeking a blanket ban on certain sites, or expecting the administrators of these sites to continuously monitor their content for the sake of Indian politicians is a bit too much. I’m half-convinced that Mr Sharad Pawar threatened to pull NCP out of the UPA coalition unless Sibal did something about the internet being flooded with jokes about his slapping episode. Otherwise, I have always thought that Kapil Sibal himself was a man of reasonable sensibilities. 

Sharad Pawar slapped?

As soon as NCP chief and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was slapped the other day by a frustrated youth in New Delhi, there were appropriate responses all around: The veteran minister himself played the incident down like a mature politician that he is, by remaining stubbornly unperturbed and saying that he wasn’t hurt at all (really? but that appeared to be quite a blow, sir); the police personnel quickly rounded the youth Harvinder Singh, a small time transporter from Rohini, in New Delhi, the media persons rallied behind him to interview him as he was being dragged towards the police van; Harvinder himself made the best of the limelight and thumped his chest in front of the cameras as if he were another Bhagat Singh walking to the gallows; the news channels churned the ready-made masala into ‘breaking news’ and gleefully broadcast the whole thing repeatedly till the mourning of Sachin’s another missed-hundredth-ton-in-nervous-nineties took over; the cartoonists got a new topic to depict humor; and the public at large scrambled to their laptops to mock the minister on social net-working sites- jokes were conjured, posted and laughed at; Harvinder was eulogized thoroughly for his ‘bravery’ and his photographs in blue striped t-shirt was flashed across the pages of Facebook and twitter. In the parliament, the ruling party and the opposition agreed in one voice to find ways to prevent such incidents and appropriately punish people who dare to slap them for their ‘service’ to the nation. End of the tamasha? Yes, very much, but not for the poor Harvinder Singh. He has been sent to the judicial custody for 14 days and he is sure to cool his heels in jail, his family’s claim of his mental instability notwithstanding. His fifteen minutes of fame faded and forgotten, no one will ask him for a glass of water as he wears out his footwear languishing between the courts and the jail. His business as a transporter will suffer as will his family; the minister will be unlikely to mend ways just because he was slapped; the news channels will find something more interesting and the public will eventually stop laughing at Harvinder Singh-Shard Pawar jokes (there’ll be many fresh ones). So was he a fool to have slapped a minister of a union government tainted of corruption on several counts? Yes, of course he was. And he was most probably seeking attention and publicity. A few days ago, this same Harvinder had slapped Sukhram in New Delhi court premises when he was sentenced for his involvement in a 1996 telecom scam. This piece of news didn’t make it to the channels probably because Sukhram is no longer in active politics and would not have positively affected the TRPs at all. So Mr Harvinder decides to pick a more prominent target this time, and while he was being dragged to the police van after the Pawar the incident, surrounded by the media persons, he saw his chance and shouted on top of his voice to stake his claim on Sukhram’s slapping as well, which you media people were so stone-hearted to not cover at all. So what was Mr Harvinder Singh angry about? Was he angry because the politicians are looting his country? No, in all probability, he was angry because the politicians are in a position to loot his country more than he himself could loot it. He shouted slogans that all netas were chors. But, are we all not thieves? We all thieve our country as per our capabilities and opportunities. Except for the salaried class, we are all required to ‘self-assess’ ourselves for the income tax payable to the country at the end of each financial year. Do we do that in all honesty? If not, we are looting our country. We execute our property transactions half in ‘black’, and half in ‘white’, to save on the income tax, stamp duties, and other municipal taxes. This way, we are looting our country. Do we accept goods without bill so as to evade VAT and other taxes? If yes, we are looting our country. We all want black-money-stashed-in-Swiss-bank-accounts to come back to India. How many of us business-class people don’t have black money? Are we angry about the black money in Swiss accounts because it is enormous in amount? In fact, all the black money in the civil society put together would perhaps amount to much more than the politician’s black money put together in Swiss banks.
 Each one of us is ready to loot the country at the first available opportunity. The only thing is that such opportunities are limited for us ordinary people, while they are tremendous for the politicians. So, are we angry that they have better opportunities to loot the country? Yes. Even Harvinder Singh himself, by being in the business of transport, must be, in all probability, doing his share of illegal manipulations in his business deals to make more money than he would have otherwise made in honest transactions. However, he is not to blame solely. The system is such in our country that he would not have survived the transport business market in Delhi had he been totally upright in his transactions. So, in the end, it is a matter of who gets to loot how much, and not who’s looting and who’s not. This is not to say that the errant politicians and other corrupt personnel must be allowed to go scot-free. No, but catch them if you can. A corrupt system is unlikely to catch and punish a corrupt part of itself.  Corruption is so deep-rooted in our system that it is now almost a way of life for us Indians. Take it or leave it. 

Facebook v/s Real Life

Dear friends,
A few months ago, a friend of mine on Facebook posted this on his status: 'No one looks as good as his/her profile pic on FB, nor do they look as bad as their Voter ID card photo!' How true! We use social networking sites as a showcase of our lives, and tend to display to the world the brighter side of our day-to-day living, leaving aside the gloomy parts. And why not? No one would be interested in knowing that you had a bad argument with your spouse last night, or that your kid did pretty badly in the last exams. Looking at the profiles of friends on FB, I feel how happy everyone is, living  content professional and family lives. We also tend to exaggerate a bit about ourselves; no one would like to appear just mediocre on a social networking site. I have taken a look at the lighter side of this human nature, with the help of a few cartoons. I hope you all like them :)) (Please click on individual cartoons to enlarge them)

Film Review: Mausam

Nothing is more difficult for a writer than to write a review of a bad movie. It is so difficult to recall all the rubbish that’s there in the film to write one!

            Pankaj Kapoor’s ability as an actor does not need any vouching. He has been in Hindi cinema and TV for decades and has enthralled his audiences with some stellar performances. But he has failed miserably in his directorial début- Mausam. He has clearly overdone things with this one.

The movie starts on a promising note, and the plot seems set to burgeon into an exciting tale but alas, it fails to keep its grip on the audience. There are just too many twists and turns, most of them unnecessary and almost all of them too circumstantial to be believable. The writer has tried to encompass important events of the decade between 1992 and 2002 with the Ayodhya tragedy, the 1993 Bombay blast, the Kargil war of 1999, the 9/11 event of 2001, to finally the Gujarat riots. And during these ten years, the hero and the heroine, amidst everything, meet and separate n number of times, with confusions galore about each other and their families. And because all of the above events were to be included, none of them could be portrayed to satisfaction.

The film starts with the issue of terrorism in Kashmir, where the Kashmiri pundits are being driven out of the valley by the separatists. Aayat’s (Sonam Kapoor) father sends her to a village in Punjab from Kashmir to live with his sister (Supriya Pathak) to escape the situation in Kashmir, and also help his Kashmiri pundit friend Maharaj Singh (Anupam Kher) escape the terrorists. Shahid Kapoor (Harry) lives in this village, and when Aayat arrives, he is shown waiting for an important letter from the Govt of India. And while he is waiting, he just hangs out with his gang of friends, playing pranks on the village folk. Sonam and he see each other and they fall in love (obviously). While their courtship is just taking off, suddenly, Sonam departs from the village early one morning, on the beck and call of her father in Bombay. She is unable to inform Shahid who feels left out high and dry. In the meanwhile, the important letter arrives, which is the confirmation to his posting with the Indian Air force.

Cut to Scotland seven years later.. Shahid is there as a part of ‘Air-force’ exchange programme (God knows what that is), and Sonam is there too, as a part of a music group. How and when Sonam’s family reach Scotland from Bombay remains a mystery. They bump into each other (what a co-incidence) and find out that they still have the fire in them. And when they are set to get engaged / married, Shahid has to leave immediately for India as Kargil war has broken out. This time, Sonam is left high and dry. I wont bore you with any more of this, because the rest of the movie is full of such twists and turns where Shahid and Sonam are unable to even talk to each other for months together (Strange in the era of mobile phones), with they changing their locations from the village in Punjab, to Mumbai, to the USA, Switzeralnd, Scotland, and finally Ahmedabad.  Obviously, when one of the two is at a particular location, the other is not. Or, if they are in the same location, they fail to meet up, and if they do, there is confusion about Sonam’s martial status (Confusion, confusion!). Then there is a girl in the village who loves Shahid by herself (one way), and there is a distant cousin of Sonam, who she was once engaged to, in her childhood, that add to the misunderstandings. Further, to add to the drama, Shahid is shown to sustain a brachial plexus injury to his left arm following a crash landing of his bomber jet when he is returning from a successful bombing of enemy targets on Tiger hill. The arm is left fully paralyzed for some time, which is shown to recover in bits and pieces through the second half of the film. This is shown as one reason why Shahid avoids meeting Sonam for several months, as in how could he present his ‘incomplete self’ to his beloved (Drama, drama!). To top it all, and to rub salt on the audience’s wounds, his arm is shown to recover fully in an instant when he is trying to save a stranded child from atop an abandoned merry-go-round at a fair in Ahmedabad, which is now engulfed in riots. Can anything be more clichéd?!

In the end, finally, after many more of the kind of ‘filler sequences’ described above, they do marry each other. They have a girl child, whom Shahid is shown so predictably rushing gleefully from his bomber jet to hug (thank God it is not in slow motion), while Sonam watches happily pregnant with another one.

            The theme of the movie is good but Pankaj Kapoor and his writer failed to capitalize on it. Though they seem to rush through the important events of the decade in question, the movie is painfully slow and appears dragged. We actually waited for the interval.  

            Performances are just about ok, Shahid looks dashing in and out of the Air-force uniform (I mean in plain clothes, you silly), but Sonam disappoints with her looks. She looks emaciated, as if inflicted with tuberculosis. She looks ugly at places and since we know what make-up can do to women, I dare not catch Sonam without one! If Kareena was once upon a time size zero, Sonam in this movie is size minus 10. Her acting too has lots to desire. There are some new faces in the rest of the cast and they are nothing to write home about, either. Anupam Kher did not have long enough role to do justice to, and Supriya Pathak was as usual in the role of Sonam’s aunt.

The songs, done by Pritam, are the few bright spots. I liked ‘Rabba main to mar gaya oye..’ and ‘Poore se zara sa kum hain hum..’ sung very well by Rashid Khan.

My rating: 1.5 on 5