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