Random Thoughts

Roadies Audition

2012-02-12T12:15:00.002+05:30

Ranvijay: Naam kya hai tumhara?

XYZ: xyz.

Ranvijay: Matlab.

XYZ: Sir, main variable hun.

Rajiv: Matlab kya hai tumhara. Ye tumhara real name hai?

XYZ: Nahi sir. Pahle mera naam kuchh aur tha. Fir maine maths mein padha ki xyz ko jis bhi equation mein daal do unki value equation ke hisab se badal jaati hai. Mujhe laga main bhi waisa hi hun. Situation ke hisab se badal jata hun. Isliye maine apna naam change kar diya xyz.

Raghu: Tu Roadie kyon banna chahta hai?

XYZ: Kyonki main ban sakta hun.

Rajiv: Tujhe aisa kyon lagta hai ki tu Roadie ban sakta hun?

XYZ: Kyonki main variable hun. Main kuchh bhi ban sakta hun. Roadie bhi.

Raghu: Tujhe pata hai Roadies mein kaisi situations hoti hain?

XYZ: Sir, variable ko kabhi faraq nahi padta use kisi bhi equation mein daal do.

Ranvijay: Ok. Prove us, you are what you say you are. A variable.

XYZ: Aapko kya lagta hai, main abhi tak kya kar raha tha?

Players: Twist in Oliver Twist

2012-01-24T21:45:00.000+05:30

When you hear of 'The Italian Job' the very first thing that comes to your mind is a daylight robbery in the middle of traffic. Then you hear that it is being remade in India, the first thing in your mind would be what better place to set this up in other than Mumbai. Disappointingly the Indian filmmakers who made this remake set it up in Russia and New Zealand and even more disappointingly traffic has very little to do with it. I would have rather admired an Italian Job style robbery in Mumbai using Tata Nanos. Tata probably would have sponsored this few hours long ad-film. In that case the dialog "sau crore ki abaadi waale desh mein..." also would have made sense. But then, you do not expect sense from director duo Abbas-Mastan, whom I have fondly started calling Ab bas Mastan after watching their version of The Italian Job hoping they will get the message and stop making such senseless movies.

Lets go for gold guys.

Players starts exactly in the same fashion as the old Italian Job with Aftab Shivadasani getting killed by Russian (it was Italian in the original) mafia. His wife goes to Abhishek Bacchan, whose character has been creatively named Charlie (just as in the original), to give him a book, which is supposedly have coded message about a dvd hidden in the book with a plan to carry out the robbery of the century. We will later learn that the code was so stupid that anyone could crack it and get to know about the dvd and the plan. Anyway, moving on with the story, we are now introduced to Sonam Kapoor, who hacks into Abhishek's computer from her iPad while driving. How? Because she has studied computer science and apple is magic. Next we are introduced to Vinod Khanna, who is running the con-world through his jail cell just like Mr Bridger in original, without whose help we are told the great robbery cannot be executed. Vinod Khanna decides to help Abhishek Bacchan in his plan for a greater cause i.e. to build the world's best orphanage. Yes. That is his reason. You can imagine what he would have dreamt of about this great orphange since his share of the great robbery would be 4000 Crore. Vinod Khanna helps Abhishek set up a team of world's bests, which includes Sikandar Kher, world's best expert in explosives, who is deaf from his one ear; Omi Vaidya, world's best make up artist, who is still stuck with his 3 idiots character; Bipasha Basu, world's best seductress and Bobby Deol playing his real self as world's best illusionist, who is so bad that at the two occassions he tried to create illusion on one instant he ended up paralyzing his daughter for life and on second he ends up alerting one of the soldiers about the ongoing gold robbery. However at this point I was curious to know what kind of robbery Vinod Khanna had planned, that includes an illusionist as part of the plan. But there is only one problem they also need worlds best hacker Spider. Who is hiding and cannot be contacted. Computer engineer Sonam Kapoor comes to the rescue and locates Spider at his exact hiding place in Goa probably by logging into hacker.com and searching for Spider and getting his exact location on google maps. Or may be because she is a computer engineer and apple is magic.

The Illusionist

With the team of world's best players set for the great gold robbery they leave for Russia and plan for the robbery in the most casual fashion, because casual is cool. Robbery does happen and again 2nd time after Ra.One we are made to believe that clocks run slower on a moving train.

With the help of exit plan e-mailed by Vinod Khanna, they manage to escape and you check your watch thinking the movie is over but wonder why there was no interval. That is when Abbas-Mastan realise there is one more Italian Job movie and one from the group turns traiter to play the part played by Edward Norton and some characters are conveniently killed since there only 4 players needed for 2nd part of the movie. At this very moment you also realise that this is all set to be a very long movie.

Sonam Kapoor trying to be sexy.

Second half of the movie is 2003 Italian Job with some mnior modifications that includes fucking up the whole traffic robber sequence and making it even more lame. In second half Neil Nitin Mukesh (spider) is Edward Norton, Abhishek Bacchan is Mark Wahlberg, Sonam Kapoor is Charlize Theron+the real napster (because she is computer engineer and apple is magic), Sikandar Kher is Jason Statham, Omi Vaidya is idiot and Johnny Lever the car mechanic.

There is not much to look forward to Players. The entire cast seems to be competing with each other to win the worst actor trophy. The story is nothing but both the italian job movies back to back with some twists, which have made the story worse rather than improving it. Like any other recent movie of Abbas Mastan, dialog writer was told to use the key word Player in every three sentences and it gets irritating with every repetition. I would recommend you all to watch The Italian Job, either of them, rather than going for this irritating, laughable and senseless movie.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2012-01-02T00:48:00.000+05:30

Producer Tom Cruise: I don't rememeber when was the last time I was in a decent film. Lets make another of those mission impossible movies and since people in USA have already stopped watching my movies I will make it for the third world countries.

Producer J J Abrams: Cool. A MI movie would involve a lot of computer stuff so lets hire the director of The Incredibles to direct this one.

Director Brad Bird: Wow. My first live action movie and I am working with Tom Cruise and J J Abrams. Dear Sirs! please tell me how do you want to go about it.

Producer Tom Cruise: Since we have already decided the movie will be for the third world countries who still believe I am a super star, we will base it out of Asia.

Director Brad Bird: Cool. What's most famous in Asia? I have heard about this tallest building, Burj something they have in Dubai.

Actor Tom Cruise: Great. We can have a stunt scene in that building. I will get a chance to show that I am still the action hero I used to be.

Producer J J Abrams: Nice idea. Since the building is already famous, it will help in our promotions. By the way, you are not thinking about shooting the entire movie in Dubai, right? What's a MI movie which does not involve some International conspiracy.

Director Brad Bird: We can hire that guy from Slumdog movie and give it an India connection.

Producer J J Abrams: Now you are talking like a businessman Brad. We sure hired a smart guy as director for this movie Tom.

Director Brad Bird: I also have some leftover gadgets from my Incredibles movie, we can use them too.

Actor Tom Cruise: Like?

Director Brad Bird: Like a pair of gloves which sticks to walls.

Actor Tom Cruise: Hey. Why don't I climb that burj building using these gloves? Would be super exciting. Are we using masks in this movie? I don't want to wear a mask again.

Director Brad Bird: Don't worry. We will make someone else wear the mask this time. What is a MI movie without a mask otherwise?

Producer J J Abrams: Now since we have decided everything lets call our script team Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec.

Director Brad Bird: Guys! We are making a MI movie. The movie needs to have an action scene where Tom clims the burj building in Dubai using sticky gloves, it has an insignificant Indian character, it involves an International conspiracy something that could end the world. Something like a third world war.

Writer Josh Appelbaum: A third world war. Then that must be between USA and Russia. Since it has always been that way in Hollywood.

Director Brad Bird: And also, it has to be Tom Cruise all the way.

Writer Andre Nemec: Should we show that he doesn't have any help from IMF and does everything on his own?

Writer Josh Appelbaum: Cool dude. You got some ideas.

Writer Andre Nemec: I got that from Burn Notice.

Director Brad Bird: We cannot call it Burn Notice. Oh dear! burning reminds me of that stupid Nicolas Cage movie Ghost Rider.

Writer Josh Appelbaum: We can call it Ghost Protocol.

Biometric Authentication

2012-01-01T16:01:00.001+05:30

It's a new year so I decided to start with something new. So far whatever I have written in this blog had very little to do with what I do professionally. This is the first post in the series of multiple posts I intend to write hoping that they reach out to relevant people.

With UID coming into picture and being discussed everywhere for reasons good or bad; there is another related topic gaining popularity, which is Biometric Authentication. I have had multiple discussions in the past, some dating even before UID became a hot topic in payment industry, related to authenticating the customers using their biometrics with people from varied backgrounds. I have even worked on and implemented one such solution for my organization couple of years ago. Some of the points put up by various people during those discussions surprised me. Here is what others suggested and what I believe.

Biometric Authentications is required more in rural India.
One common point that most of the people seem to agree is that the need for biometric authentication is more in rural India. I beg to differ. First lets talk about why it is not as much a requirement in rural parts than in urban parts.

The primary reason given to support the above argument is the level of literacy and exposure to technology among rural population. They say that an illiterate person cannot handle the PIN. I say being illiterate and being stupid are two different things and they are not co-related. I have seen semi-literate people running successful business and I have also seen very educated people writing their PIN on the face of their cards (which is very risky and should not be done under any circumstances). I am assuming the assumption is that the group of population we are talking here are semi-literate because we are expecting them to perform banking transactions. So they understand numbers and also basic mathematics. Even if they don't PIN is not a 4 digit number, what I mean is if your PIN is 2645, it is not two thousand six hundred forty five; it's two six four five. As long as each of these images look different and can be matched with the images on the keypad of an ATM or a handheld device, anyone can punch the PIN with or without any education on mathematics.

They also fear that a rural person might not be able to keep the PIN secure. There could be two meanings to it. One, he may share his PIN with others. Well, tell a person that this is the key to access all your hard earned saving and sharing it with someone with mean you risk all of it and then see what they will do. They will keep it as their best kept secret. Two, someone could fraudulently get hold of the PIN. For this I am relying on the assumption that a fraudster is supposedly a smart person and no smart person would go through so much trouble to steal few hundreds/thousands while he can by using the same methods steal lacs from urban population.

So, as per my logic a rural semi-literate person can handle PIN very well and in many cases even better than his urban literate counterpart.

Why biometric authentication is a bigger need for urban India?
This should be easy to explain, since most of the people reading this belong to this section and will be able to relate to it. Here we are talking about a population who needs to remember so many passwords that these days many mobile phone manufacturers have launched smartphones with in-built password keeper application. A common urban person who regularly uses his debit/credit card for transactions also is the person who needs to remember a bunch of passwords. For example: Debit Card PIN, Credit Card PIN (which I presume very few bother to remember and are lost when they need it for some specific transaction), telephone banking TIN, Internet Banking IPIN, e-mail password, workstation password, passwords to many social networks he might be a part of and so on. The list is endless. Now if to such people I tell that they need not remember a few of these passwords and they can be authenticated using their finger prints when they are using their card at ATM/POS and they can be recognized using their voice while using telephone banking, I personally believe they will be delighted. It will also save them the trouble of changing their password every few month for fear of compromising it.

Another point in support of my argument is the level of identity theft and skimming frauds, which are on the rise. As long as there is a PIN it can be compromised, if the fraudster is smart enough. Urban population is more likely target to such fraudster simply because they offer better return on investment to the fraudster. Now if there is no PIN and only my finger print can allow withdrawal of cash from an ATM, what any fraudster can do. If we manage to build a strong biometric authentication mechanism we may even be able to do away with cards. No cards, no card frauds.

Hoping for a brighter future and a happening year ahead for payment Industry.

Politics or War

2011-12-07T20:06:00.001+05:30

Today morning while reading the newspaper I found a news story about some Republican Sena. That again reminded me of an earlier discussion I had with some colleagues about Maharashtra politics.

How come political parties calling themselves sena promise any constructive development? Sena's primary responsibilities are to protect and/or destroy. During peace time what they are protecting and from whom. That leaves us with the only other option and which is what they seem to be doing. Delivering what they are promising.

Some people may argue that it is just a name. Well, name is symbolic to what you are and what you aspire to become. Had I been in any decision making power in election commission, I would not have allowed registration of any political party with name sena in it.

Story Telling: Where RA-One Went Wrong

2011-11-07T15:22:00.001+05:30

After watching RA-One while in conversation with Sunny (my friend who accompanied for the movie) we discussed the one very basic thing that was wrong with this movie and had it been taken care of the movie could have been on a different level. I thought I must write this post so that anyone interested in creating a story benefits from it.

There is one basic rule of any sci-fi story and for that matter any story which is told in another space, time and does not follow the understood rules of the nature in the world we know. The rule is that you need to first define the rules of the environment and then follow the rules throughout the story without defying them. Any exception to any of the pre-defined rules makes the story weaker because you end up ridiculing your own rules. Pick any good science fiction and this rule applies. In Avataar Cameron goes to great length to define the Pandora and surroundings. One of the finest such movie I have seen in recent times Inception spends almost half of its run time to first define the rules and then the entire movie is woven around those rules. For that matter take Judgement Day, which loosely inspired some part of the RA-One's plot. Imagine if somewhere in the middle of the movie the robot somehow develops emotional intelligence. He is a machine throughout the movie and behaves basis his programming. I-Robot is another such example. Where rules of the environment are mentioned multiple times through the movie for the audience to keep tab of the same.

Any creative liberties you want to take must be taken while defining the rules and the environment but one the same is defined your story must stick to them without any deviation. Like in RA-One the character of RA-One in the game is a bot and does not need any third party to control it, however the character of G-One needs a player, i.e. any person wearing the suit, to control it. In the movie sometimes G-One is following the instructions of the kid without being able to act on his own, while in some other scenes he just doesn't need the kid or anyone else to control his actions. Had they remained true to this one rule and would have shown G-One in control of the kid throughout the movie, it could have been more fun. G-One is nothing but a walking-talking computer program out of a first person fight video game and it is silly to show him sing and dance to the tunes of Chammak Chhallo.

I have already spent a lot of words writing about RA-One hence would not go into it again. You can read the other post if interested.

RA-One

2011-11-01T21:57:00.001+05:30

WARNING: Long post with spoilers.

Coming back after spending a week with my family, I was sitting alone at home on a lazy Sunday evening watching Ranveer Singh do something silly hosting GIMA on TV. (Yes, that was the level of boredom and loneliness.) At this point I receive a call from Sunny asking me if I would be interested in watching RA-One. Thinking what could be worse than what I was already doing and also believing in SRK fan following assuming we would not get the tickets and will end up having drinks and dinner, I agreed. Little did I know then, how wrong both these assumptions would prove to be.

I reached R-City and was welcomed by a deserted box office, as I have seen never before. I started getting the feeling that probably I overestimated SRK's fan following. I reach the counter and ask the guy for two tickets of RA-.One for a show 15 minutes later (there were shows lined up at the gap of every 30 minutes). The person at the counter shows me the layout and to my surprise barely 15 seats were booked and I chose two seats in the last row. Now the guy at the counter did something for which I should have thanked him after the movie. He asked, if I would like to go for a popcorn+samosa+pepsi combo offer. Normally I would refuse such an offer, but probably some good karma made me accept the offer this time. I accepted the offer remarking that this might prove to be the best investment of the night. (Yes, that low was my expectation from the movie I was about to watch).

The movie that was promoted in a way that you had to be deaf and blind and extremely lucky, all three at the same time to ignore it, begins with a very irritating video game sequence filled with stupid jokes, silly bollywood references and worst ever cameos by Priyanka Chopra and Sanjay Dutt. The sequence was so irritating that I wished now we will be asked to choose between Ajooba, Toofan, Shiva ka Insaaf and RA-One for next part of the ticket price. I would have happily chosen any of the three anytime over RA-One, that's how irritating the sequence was. I at this point was desperately waiting for my popcorn+samosa+pepsi. The sequence ends with an irritating long haired kid being woken up by his teacher. I felt like slapping the teacher for letting kids with such imagination sleep in her class. It could have saved us some pain. Nevermind. I paid, so I continued to watch hoping at some point I might get the worth of my money. There comes the happiest moment in next 3 hours. My popcorn+samosa+pepsi arrived. Pepsi tasted like nectar at this point.

We are now introduced with the irritating father of the irritating kid, a tamilian struggling with his accent so badly that he changes it in every third sentence he speaks, Shekhar Subramanian. The kid does not like his father and considers him a looser. (then why the hell in his imagination he was playing his father's look alike). You cannot blame the kid though because that's what everyone else around him feels about him. Oh wait, I forgot to mention a very irrelevant sequence where some kind of conference if being held where people are discussing how data is transferred over the air and how monograms work and we are expected to believe that they were talking something clever. Coming back to Shekhar, who is a video game designer or programmer or whatever. He is considered such a looser that his boss threatens him to be given a cook's job he doesn't come up with a decent gaming idea this time. By the way the boss is played by a very irritating looking Dileep Tahil. In this scene we are also introduced with a Chinese guy who doesn't like to be called Jackie Chan and he seems to be there because of his marshal art skills.

We are now introduced to the mother of the irritating kid and wife of the irritating Shekhar played by Kareena Kapoor making you wander how a looser like Shekhar got a wife like her. Then she opens her mouth and you get your answer. She is for reasons unknown to anyone doing a ground breaking thesis on Indian abuses (they are living in London) and starts irritating you with her versions of those abuses. At this point I realised I had eaten my samosa and I started worrying how I will survive the rest of the movie. The popcorn was still there as my saviour superhero. Oops. I digress. We are told that the kid is a video game lover and he likes villains more than heroes and plays using nickname Lucifer. His parents don't find it disturbing at all and the loving father decides to create the most awesome villain ever to mend his relationship with his son.

Thus starts the process of designing the most kick-ass video game ever with the most awesome villain. The villain is called Random Access Version One, so that by some clever thinking he can be named as RA.1 and pronounced as Ravan. I like subtlety. With not so clever thinking the hero is named Good.One popularly known as G.1 and pronounced as Jeevan. So little attention was paid while designing the hero that they even decided to give him looser Shekhar's face. (Such a looser he is that he believes going to work dressed as Michael Jackson will make his son like him. Also nobody told him that making a strong villain and making a weak hero are not the same things). In order to make RA-One the deadliest villain ever Shekhar literally feeds seven deadly sins inside RA-One's program and Jackie Chan literally teaches him how to fight. But with the limited intelligence Shekhar has got, he can only come up with a single player first person fight game with only one hero and one villain, which has only three levels of two minutes each and somehow everyone believes that it is an awesome idea and starts partying. Our Shekhar, who eats noodles with curd, drinks and dances in the party while leaving his son to play the game which has yet not been tested properly and is full of bugs. One big glitch being that you cannot quit the game. When his son playing with the nickname Lucifer pauses the game in between RA-One does not like it and threatens to end the game in real world. He was one impatient villain and couldn't wait for Lucifer to play that game again. So he comes out of the game and kills Jackie Chan, takes his form and kills Shekhar as well.

South Indian Shekhar receives christian burial somehow leaving ashes and bones to his wife so that they can be thrown in the river. The clever kid realises that his father was killed by RA-One, just like that and decides to enquire on that. All this while nobody bothered to visit the gaming lab at Shekhar's office where a dead Jackie Chan was hanging just outside server room through wires. The kid with the help from another technician played by Shahana Goswami brings G-One to the real world by simply copying RA-One's activities from the logs. At this point I had finished my popcorn and Pepsi and was getting restless to get something more to eat to survive through the rest of the movie. All this while RA-One morphed as Jackie Chan was looking for Lucifer in the streets of London. He even searches through logs of an ATM, which somehow stored customer's demographics. Anyway. By this point RA-One gets to know that the kid is Lucifer and decides to finish the game by killing him. He chases the mother and the kid on the streets of London and at last moment is stopped by G-One. Oops, I forgot to tell you about HART, which is similar to the reactor that powers IronMan's suit but don't think SRK has copied it from there because this HART is also the key to killing RA-One and G-One. They can only be killed when they are wearing their respective HARTs (which for no reason G-One wears on right side and RA-One wears at center of their chests) by the gun which mysteriously appears in level 3 of the game.

This is where comes the second happiest moment of the movie. Intermission, and I rush outside to get something more to eat to survive the post interval part.

This part of the movie is dedicated to Rijvaan Khan of My Name is Khan frame. G-One who just saved Kareena and the Kid from RA-One by engaging in a fierce battle with him without any assistance suddenly cannot even move out of a car without the Kid asking him to do so. What follows is another offensive scene where G-One has to wear a lot of body piercings to pass the metal detector to hide his metal frame, while in the same scene we see that he somehow has acquired human skin. G-One now comes to Mumbai with mother and kid and bump into Chitti in a useless cameo, where Rajnikanth looks like his own duplicate. (I still am not able to figure out how UK authorities issued air ticket on a dead man's passport, since G-One was travelling as Shekhar.)

What follows is a series of events any normal human brain cannot fathom, like G-One eating circuit board, releasing some wire like substance off his nose (is G-One a robot with complicated circuit or a character out of a video game?), sitting on top of a builiding with RA-One's HART in one hand for no reason, celebrating Dussehra after Karva Chauth. On this occasion of Dussehra RA-One reaches Mumbai in search of his HART and Lucifer as a bald Arjun Rampal.

RA-One now kidnaps the kid and blackmails G-One into returning his HART but before that he has to save Kareena from a speeding local train entering inside CST station. Our superhero with limited super powers takes so long to stop the train that it results into the destruction of iconic CST station, but giving him a chance to pose for the poster with Kareena in his arms. Then he charges himself with electricity ala Crank and gets ready for a climax fight with mighty RA-One.

In the fight to death climax somehow G-One manages to reach level three and both get the anti-HART gun. RA-One shoots G-One with that gun and G-One in a ullu banaya charkha chalaya like moment shows him how he was not wearing his HART and could not die. Now it is G-One's turn to fire. Smart RA-One splits into ten and challenges G-One to shoot the real one. While everyone could clearly identify the real RA-One, it took Shekhar's poem for G-One and the kid to find out the real one. RA-One who could not learn how to beat the gun from G-One few seconds before, dies and for no reason G-One must sacrifice himself. In order to create the possibility of a sequel in the end somehow G-One comes back out of thin air.

I am too tired now to write any further and am sure by now you all would also be tired off reading this long post so I better stop here. Overall it was a tiring experience watching this movie.

When I Got Conned: Using the Simplest Trick in the Book

2011-10-30T10:46:00.002+05:30

Last night when I landed in Mumbai after a week long vacation with my family on the occasion of Diwali, I was lost in the memories of time spent with my family after a gap of a year. As soon as I came out of the terminal I found an empty taxi on the road and I stopped it. The conversation that followed was as follows:

Me: Powai?

Driver: Haan.

At this point I got inside the taxi.

Driver: Powai mein kahan?

Me: Hiranandani.

Taxi driver moved the taxi behind then moved it forward and stopped it in the same position. (Now I think it could be some kind of a signal to his partner.)

After stopping the taxi, driver turned around and asked me: Aapne parchi li?

Me: Kaisi parchi?

Driver: Ye prepaid wali taxi hai?

Me: Ab parchi lene to main nahi ja raha, itni samasya hai to main utar jata hun.

While I was about to get out of the taxi, another man entered the taxi and sat beside the driver in the front seat.

Con man: (to the driver) Kya hua?

Driver: Inhone parchi nahi li.

Con man: Kahan jana hai?

Driver: Hiranandani.

Con man: Arrey sawari bitha ke utarte nahi hain. Main paise deta hun chhod ke aa ja.

Con man: (handing over a 1000 Rs note to the driver) Ye lo 500 Rs le lo, gas bhara lena aur sir to chhod aao.

Driver: Chhutte do.

Con man: (to me) Aapke paas change hai?

I promptly took out two 500 Rs notes and handed over to the man in exchange of the 1000 Rs. While I looked down to keep the 1000 Rs note in my wallet, the con man exchanged the 500 Rs with two 100 Rs notes.

Con man: Sir, 1000 Rs diye maine.

Me: Haan, to maine diye to do 500.

The con man showed the two 100 Rs notes in his hand to me. At this point I realized I have been cornered and these guys have conned me off 800 Rs but I was not is a position and mood to fight with two guys over 800 Rs, so I decided to get rid of the taxi and pick another one. Even after all this the con man had the guts to ask me, "250 Rs de do chhod aayega."

After leaving the taxi I do not know what I did was the best thing to do at that point or I could have handled the situation better. This incident has made me more alert though. I am posting this so that others reading this also are alert and avoid getting caught in such situation. It's not the money gone which hurts, that's not that big an amount, it's the thought that you were outsmarted that hurts more.

Welcome to Goa, Singham!

2011-09-04T19:16:00.001+05:30

When I watched the trailer of Singham, first thought in my head was, "Is Ajay Dvgan (or is it Devgn? I hate these numerologists giving weird suggestion to our actors) playing Sunny Deol in this movie? (since all Sunny gets to work on these days are his family home videos)" Since Rohit Shetty is the director, you are bound to see some flying four wheelers without any apparent reason. Devgn's dance (making claws with his fingers) in the title song reminded me of Mithun's Cheetah. So I kind of knew what to expect from this movie.

The movie starts with Inspector Kadam committing suicide after being implicated in a corruption case and his wife claiming that the man behind all this is Jayakant Shikre. Then the movie sifts to a small village called Shivgarh, where Bajirao Singham is running to local police station is his own way and being loved and respected in the entire village for the great work he is doing. It all changes when he hurts Shirke's ego. Shirke gets him transferred to the same police station where Kadam committed suicide. Singham takes time to adjust to the change and when he does adjust all logic is forgotten. He does whatever he want, which includes verbally bashing his senior in public, beating up a minister in his office, convincing all the corrupt and timid policemen in Goa to turn honest and brave with his speech (he must be invited for one such speech in our parliament, that would save Anna from fasting), last but not the least abusing Newton by defying all three laws of motion. We also get to learn that Singham and gravity cannot stay together, so when Singham is transferred to Goa, gravity quietly leaves town may be to save it from the embarrassment of being insulted by Singham. In the end in a highly dramatic climax we get to see entire police force working together to get rid of one corrupt politician wonderfully played by Prakash Raj.

Later I learned that it is remake of a South Indian movie so it was stupid of me to expect the existence of gravity in the movie, since gravity left South India long ago (cannot attach a time line to it since carbon dating has failed to estimate Rajnikanth's age, he was found to be older than carbon). The entire story can be said in one dialog repeated many times by Shikre, "Kuchh bhi karna, mera ego hurt mat karna." The entire movie is the consequence of Singham hurting Shikre's ego. Prakash Raj is brilliant as Shikre and Devgn is playing Sunny Deol, how difficult can that be. Oh there is Sonali Kulkarni also along with the lead Kajal as Kavya, however I am still thinking about the significance of their presence in the movie. The movie was about Singham representing pure good vs Shikre representing pure evil. Songs are unnecessary and could have been avoided to make the movie shorter. Overall it was an entertaining watch.

Corporate Jadugar: Time Manipulation

2011-08-07T00:09:00.001+05:30

We are always told so many things about time being constant, you have to follow time, it doesn't follow you and so on. Now such fundamentals are for us mere mortals. For our magicians they do not apply because they have mastered the art of manipulating time in their favour.

Following example will illustrate the way these masters of the corporate world play with time.

In case you write a mail to Mr X and he does not reply to you in lets days 2 days, you will escalate the case to his boss. Now X is smart. He does something which in the face of it will look very normal and logical thing to do, but in doing so he is actually creating time for himself that nobody takes note of.

X forwards your mail to one of his subordinates Mr. Y, marking all the concerned parties and asks him to action on that particular actionable. Now if Y does not revert in next 2 days, what will you do? Well, you will write a follow up mail to Y, because you have never written to him before. If Y doesn't revert even then, you will write back to X after 2 days asking for his intervention. Subsequently after 2 more days if X does not revert you will escalate to his boss.

If you analyze the above event closely, you would see the escalation that would have happened 2 days from the day you wrote to X will now happen after 6 days, so he actually created 4 more days for himself by doing something very simple seemingly harmless thing which did not require any significant effort on his part.

While everyone was too busy looking at the end point X quietly shifted the starting line behind. :D

Corporate Jadugar: Illusion of Approval

2011-08-04T23:11:00.000+05:30

It's been almost 6 years since I have first ventured into corporate world. Although all these years I have worked in only one company, my job role allowed me to interact with a lot of people from different parts of business within and outside our organization. These people have different ways of approaching any situation depending on the position and business vertical they are in. Some of these people have been really special in their ways of dealing with their responsibilities. I have recently started calling such people Corporate Jadugar. In due course you will understand the reason I have chosen this term.

In my attempt to put forward some of the common illusions these magicians pull off during their today life, I am starting this series. Here is my first post among a series of posts I intend to write in future.

Illusion of Approval

One of the very first thing I learned after entering to corporate world, was that you require approvals to perform any significantly important tasks. Sometimes you may even require approvals for not so important tasks as well. Dictionary meaning of the word says "The action of officially agreeing to something or accepting something as satisfactory." So the person who is approving anything takes over the responsibility of anything that particular action will result into. If the result is desirable, nobody has any problem but in case of undesirable and harmful outcome the approver might get into trouble.

To save themselves from such troubles in case of an undesired outcome our Corporate Jadugar have come up with this magic trick called "illusion of approval". In this case you will get the approval from the CJ but in case of any mishap the approval will suddenly disappear.

Here I describe the curious case of disappearing approval. It is very simple but effective trick.

Lets assume I need an approval from a Function Head for some action I am going to perform, which I believe is going to benefit the organization. In such a scenario I write to the person at my level in the respective function. The communication would be something like this:

"Dear X, I intend to do this action which will result into certain benefits for the organization without adding to any risk."

Mr X here is very smart and is trainee Jadugar. He will send following communication to his Unit Head.

"Dear UH, Gaurav says this particular action is beneficial for the organization and also does not involve any additional risk, hence based on Gaurav's recommendation please recommend this."

Now point to be noted here is that Mr X himself has not made any recommendation. He is asking is boss to act on my recommendation. Now Unit Head, who is a Jadugar himself will write the following mail to his Function Head.

"Dear FH, Mr X says this is good, hence request your approval for this based on X's recommendation."

To this our senior Jadugar will revert.

"Dear UH, based on your recommendation I am approving the following."

At this point you will believe that you have received the Function Head approval and proceed. Now in case of any mishap you will be asked to reproduce the approval. When you reproduce this conversation, you yourself will realize that the approval has suddenly disappeared. When you read the entire conversation again you will know that the approval you received was based on X's recommendation you actually did not make any recommendation in the first place. So if anyone is to be blamed for the mishap is you.

This reminded me of an old joke I heard very long ago. The joke goes something like this:

One guy walks in to a sweets shop and asks, "aadha kilo jalebi dena."

When shopkeeper starts packing the jalebi's the guy says, "ek kaam karo, jalebi rahne do. uske badle mein aadha kilo rasgulle de do."

When shopkeeper starts packing rasgulla's the guy changes his mind again and says, "accha rasgulle bhi rahne hi do. uske badle mein aadha kilo gulab jamun de do."

Shopkeeper packs the gulab jamun and hands over to the guy. When shopkeeper asks for the money the guy says, "kis baat ke paise?"

Shopkeeper replies, "gulab jamun ke"

The guy responds, "lekin wo to rasgulle ke badle mein liye."

Shopkeeper, "to theek hai rasgulle ke hi paise de do."

The guy, "lekin wo to jalebi ke badle liye the."

Shopkeeper, "haan to jalebi ke hi de do."

The guy, "lekin jalebi to maine li hi nahi to uske paise kyon dun."

Messenger from God

2011-07-06T22:03:00.001+05:30

Today morning while driving to work, it was wonderful weather and I had my windows rolled down. While most of the distance I covered without any special event when I was about to reach office, would be almost one Km away I realized something came inside the car through the open window. My first reaction was, it would be some leaf. I decided to check what was it and looked down. As I look down I see an ugly, grey about 3 inches big lizard sitting at the edge of the driving seat. I was driving at around 60 KMPH then. Whatever I am going to tell you happened really fast within a minute.

My first reaction after looking at the lizard was; well, I don't know what the first reaction was. Fraction of a second after discovering the presence of an alive lizard on my seat, only half inches away from my knee, I was thinking, if this lizard is little patient and can stay in this position for a little while I will get rid of it after I reach office and park my car there. With my seat belts tied and no scope of movement, that was the best I could come up with. But that lizard was an impatient one, without loosing any time it jumped on my knee. I felt a weird sensation flow across my entire body. I now had to get rid of her and could not wait for reaching office because now I was thinking if it falls off my leg in the car somewhere, it would be a really difficult task to get rid of it. I was hoping it stays on my leg for a moment while I get my card on the side and manage to get it off.

I managed to slow down the car and bring it at the side of the road, yet I could not just open the door because of moving traffic. I could also not let my eyes off the lizard because I had to know about its movements to get rid of it. It was moving downward on my leg while I was waiting for the signal behind to stop the flow of traffic. I was hoping to get an opportunity asap to open the door and get the lizard out because had it managed to reach my foot, the possibilities I did not want to even imagine.

At the first opportunity of opening the door I took my leg out and stamped my foot on the ground till that ugly creature got off my leg. I looked at it lying on the road, very much alive for a moment, closed the door shaken my entire body and slowly drove off.

Later when I posted this incident on my FB wall, following conversation followed:

what would you do when you are driving at 60 Kmph in traffic and an ugly lizard falls on your lap through the open window?

Akash Dongre: Thats a sign of good luck!
Gaurav Tiwari: It must be better than good since the messenger from god took the trouble of jumping inside a moving vehicle through a vertical window.
Akash Dongre: ‎:)
Amit Baranwal: curious... what did you do?
Gaurav Tiwari: I had shown tremendous courage and calmness. Slowed down the car and stopped at a corner. Let the traffic pass and wait for the signal. Let the lizard move to a position my leg so as it is easy to let it fall with little force. Opened the door, took my leg out stamped it on the ground till that lizard fell off. And then drove to office to tell the tale.
Anshu Bhatia: lizard n apka pichle janam ka koi nata hai :P
Gaurav Tripathi: so now lizards r in love with you :P
Gaurav Tiwari: ‎@GT yeah so much so that they jumping in the moving car through window.

X-Men is First Class

2011-06-19T22:07:00.000+05:30

In between raining sequels, Marvel came up with the prequel to their four movies old successful franchisee. It is more difficult than it sounds, coming up with prequel to a story which has already made a mark in people's mind. The creators of the movie have done a very fine job to make this movie an entertaining watch for people who have seen earlier movies and even for those who have no idea of X-Men series. However you enjoy more if you are familiar with the franchisee.

The first scene of the movie is the first scene of X-Men (first movie), where a young Erik in a Nazi concentration camp bends to iron door using his mutation (ability to control metal). This is being watched by a doctor Sebastian Shaw, who dreams of experimenting with Erik and using his ability to fulfill his motive of world domination. To make Erik show his ability the evil doctor shoots his mother in front of his eyes. This leaves a permanent scar in young Erik's memory, whose only motive in life now is to avenge his mother's killing.

On the other hand there is young Charles Xavier, who can read other people's mind and finds another of his kind in Raven. Charles grows up to become an expert in mutation and when he is not working on his thesis, he uses his extraordinary ability to charm women.

The action shifts to 1960s and an evil Sebastian Shaw with his army of mutants a telepath diamond skinned Emma Frost, teleporter Azazel and tornedo spinning Riptide wants to start world war with objective of near human extinction establishing mutant superiority over humans and eventually rule the world. An enthusiastic CIA agent Moira recruits Charles to fight Shaw, who subsequently meets Erik and instantly become fast friends. With a common motive of stopping Shaw they recruit other mutants extraordinarily intelligent Hank, screamer Sean, fire blasting Alex, adopting to survive Armando. Although it's Erik and Charles show, there mutants impress in their special appearances.

What follows is so convincing and well directed that you actually seem to believe that it was evil energy absorbing mutant Shaw who plotted the Cuban missile crisis and had it not been for Charles and Erik and their army of mutants world would have almost ended after world war three. Yes, that's how wonderfully the movie is made that it almost makes you believe on this outrageous idea.

Kudos to the writers for writing the screenplay keeping the previous movies in mind and ensuring connection. There is Wolverine also in an special bad-ass appearance. You actually can relate the relationship between Charles and Erik with the relationship shown between Prof X and Magneto in other three X-Men movies. Kevin Bacon is in top form as evil Shaw and James McAvoy makes a wonderful and believable Charles but the show belongs to Michael Fassbender as Erik aka Magneto. He is so awesome that despite shifting to the opposite side to humans by the end, he makes you sympathize with him and believe in his ideology. Also two of the best scenes in the movie belongs to his awesomeness (you will know which scenes, when you watch the movie).

I was watching this movie with a friend who has not watched either X-Men movies before and after the movie his reaction was, "baki ki bhi ab dekhni padengi." That more or less summarizes the effect this movie has on you when you go out of the theater. In one sentence; X-Men is first class, Magneto is awesome and I want Mystique as my girlfriend. Go watch it, if you haven't already.

Shagird

2011-05-18T01:14:00.001+05:30

One of my and many of my friends' all time favourite movie Haasil was directed by then first time director Tigmanshu Dhulia. It was then I knew that this guy had talent. He seems to be a storyteller. I had seen Charas and realized that this guy is a storyteller but he seems to falter when it come to choosing the right cast. Nothing could justify casting of Uday Chopra in that film. When I went to watch Shagird today, I did not know its star cast except Nana Patekar. While watching the credits I came to know that it starred Mohit Ahlawat among others. Yes, Mohit "James" Ahlawat, who cannot even stand straight. It was at this point my expectations from the movie dropped to ground zero.

The movie begins to a promising start with a dramatic arrest of dreaded gangster Bunty Singh, played by Anurag Kashyap. Hearing Bunty Singh speak made me believe that this is going to be an enjoyable ride, since it echoed the same level of dialog writing I witnessed in Haasil. It is then we are introduced to Mohit, played by ever confused Mohit Ahlawat. In the very first scene he makes me pray that he should have a very limited appearance in the movie. Then we are introduced to the way of working in Delhi Crime Branch immediately followed by an encounter sequence introducing Hanumant Singh, played by Nana Patekar. "Hanumant Singh bhagwan aur insaan ke beech ki cheez hain. Hanumant Singh ji bhagwan se darte hain aur insaan Hanumant Singh ji se." It is then we are also introduced to the female lead of the movie, TV reporter from Aaj Tak, Varsha Mathur, played by Rimi Sen. Again making me wish that she does not have much to do in the movie. (the only good thing she has done in her career is dance to Shikdum from Dhoom). Another important character in this story of deceit is Minister Rammani Yadav, played by Zakir Hussein. What follows next is a twisted tale of everyone trying to double cross everyone else for their personal benefit. Shagird Mohit learning the tricks of the trade from guru Hanumant just to later use them against him only.

Since the movie is a suspense thriller I must not reveal much about the story. Only thing I can say that it is a very well crafted story for a suspense thriller. Nana Patekar is brilliant and so are Zakir Hussein, Anurag Kashyap and rest of the supporting cast. Only exceptions being Mohit Ahlawat and Rimi Sen. I cannot come up with any justifiable reason to their casting unless Tigmanshu Dhulia was doped or forced into this. This guy cannot even stand straight and is so confused that he does not know when to show what expression. To compete with him in bad acting there is Rimi, who manages to smile when one of her kidnappers approaches her with cruel intentions. The way the encounter and the chase sequences are shot is remarkable and shows the talent of the remarkable director Tigmanshu is. Dialogs are very well written and sharp specially Nana's.

I would recommend you to watch this movie and if you are not allergic to Mohit Ahlawat, you will enjoy it. This could have been India's departed, had it not been for this great acting non-talent.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 7: Recovery

2011-04-23T17:19:00.001+05:30

"Recovery: the regaining of something lost or taken away."

I was smoking again. I was buying cigarette and smoking every time I went out for tea. I was no longer thinking or feeling guilty before lighting a cigarette. I in fact bought a packet again. When I took the first cigarette of the first packet I bought in months, it got me thinking again.

I thought, who was I fooling. Was it wise to let go of something, that I have achieved with so much effort. Something which is so difficult to achieve that I have seen many attempting but only few succeeding. I could not deprive myself of this achievement because of someone else. I respected myself a lot, a lot more than I cared for anybody else, for that to happen.

It was my respect for myself, which did not allow me to insult the effort put in by me in achieving the non-smoker status. How can I expect someone else to respect me when don't respect myself. Lakh take ki baat hai, gaanth baandh lo.

After the above thought I did not light anymore cigarettes from that packet I bought and so far that is the last packet of cigarette I have bought.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 6: Relapse

2011-04-22T21:14:00.002+05:30

"Relapse: To fall or slide back into a former state."

Remember what triggered my decision to quit smoking? Well let me save the effort of going back and reading the part 1, it was because I did not want someone to hate me. Almost 5 months as a non-smoker, I realized that whatever I did could not prevent that person from hating me. Suddenly the reason for quitting smoking was no more. I was wandering alone in the streets of a town unknown to me, thinking about everything. Playing back every concerned event in my head. Every shop selling cigarettes again started to tempt me. Every time I passed a tea shop, I wanted to have tea and smoke as I used to do.

After struggling for few hours after the revelation, I gave up. I stopped at the next shop and bought two Classic Milds. I did not like the taste of it when I smoked the first one. It felt like I was smoking wood. It did not stop me from lighting the second one. I smoked the next one with much more ease and did not dislike the taste of it.

Next day morning I woke up and smoked my first cigarette of the day with morning tea and then every tea I had that day was accompanied by a cigarette, like it used to be. I was returning back to my old smoking ways.

Toofanon Se Jahan Nahi Badle Jaate

2011-04-19T21:48:00.001+05:30

"Hawa tej chalta hai Dinkar Rao; topi sambhalo." was the dialog in my head when I first heard about so many youth pledging their support to Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign. Whosoever has seen Agnipath doesn't need to be told, what happens after that. Dinkar Rao is ousted at once by the tej hawa, but the change was short lived. I am sure if the movie continued for few more minutes we would have seen that not much changed in that village, except for faces. The reason to me looked very simple. Toofanon se jahan nahi badle jaate, uske liye barson tak ek disha me hawa bahni chahiye; because change caused by storm is destructive and short lived, because after the destruction normally the tendency to restore the original rather than re-invent. However constant effort in same direction will bring the change, which will be long lived and acceptable.

Call me whatever you may, I am just referring to something which was taught me in school. "karat karat abhyas ke jadmati hot sujaan, rasari awat jaat se sil par parat nishan." Which means, with constant effort even the biggest assholes can turn into gentlemen just like with repeated friction against the stone even a fragile rope can make a mark on the stone.

So the celebrations are premature. We need consistent effort in the desired direction and that can start any level. The important thing is, it should not stop till you start seeing markings on the stone.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 5: Testing

2011-04-12T21:24:00.001+05:30

"Testing: Take measures to check the quality, performance, or reliability."

Once I successfully managed to spend few days without smoke, it was time to test myself. Test whether I can resist it in most tempting situations. That very day I said no to my boss when he asked me to accompany him for smoke . Coincidently that evening Ajay was drinking. I don't know what he was celebrating; but he offered me a drink. I poured some whiskey for myself and started drinking. My target was to last that drinking session without smoking. It was made even more tempting and hence more difficult by Ajay's constant smoking right in front of me. No matter how much I was expecting it; to my surprise I passed the test. I did not smoke.

Next day was Saturday and I decided to test myself further. I don't know about others, but in my case cigarettes used to be a must while drinking beer. So Sat night, I was treating myself with beer and giving me company was my good old tv with some South Indian Super Star, who I am not able to recollect right now. I was determined to not smoke but somewhere down the line my mind tricked me. My mind decided that I needed a cigarette. I used the option I had kept for myself; the packet of classic milds. I lit one cigarette from it and was really surprised to notice that I did not like the taste of it. It was then I realised that I have quit smoking.

Curious case of Shahid Kapoor

2011-04-11T21:53:00.000+05:30

While watching Dil Bole Hadippa; yeah, yeah; the same movie where Harbhajan Singh dresses up like Rani Mukherjee and bats like Virender Sehwag; I realized how most of the movies acted in by Shahid Kapoor are so socially relevant and address to one social cause or other.

While Dil Bole Hadippa addressed the issue of male-female equality and how unfair it is to not let women play in the same team as men; his kismat connection highlighted the relevance of corporate social responsibility and how big corporate are damaging the society and nature in their rat race to earn profits. I remember hearing the words "global warming" somewhere during that movie. Then there is masterpiece Badmash Company, where he teaches us how success achieved by unethical means is short lived and unappreciated. The movie teaches us that it is ok to be stupid rather than unethical. Then there is pathshala questioning the commercialization of education.

His movies Shikhar, Chance pe Dance, Jab We Met teach us how we should follow our heart and we will achieve happiness and success together.I wish he learned some lessons from his movies and achieve happiness and success.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 4: Struggle

2011-04-09T13:36:00.001+05:30

"Struggle: A forceful effort to get free of restraint."

First day after the decision. I woke up looked at the packet, for a moment held it, then realized that I don't smoke. Waking up in the morning and not lighting the cigarette was very strange. So I decided to use the flexibility I had factored. "I will for some days smoke only one cigarette in a day" I told myself. This decision helped me not light the cigarette then. The two options I gave myself were, light it now and don't smoke all day or delay it for later. I chose the second. Since I am the first one to wake up in the house, I was not subjected to the torture of watching Piyush and Ajay smoke.

Fortunately my boss was not in office that day. That meant one less temptation. I kept the packet I was carrying in my drawer and got to work. At 11 a colleague called me for tea. I went out for tea with him, did not light the cigarette. At least five people asked me why I was not smoking. "sala koi accha kaam karna bhi chahe to ye jamana nahi karne deta with all their questions." I told them that I am trying to cut down on smoking, since I had been smoking a lot lately. One irritant was not satisfied with this answer. "Why? Kisne bola?" he asked. "accha kaam karne ke liye bhi reason chahiye hota hai kya?" I answered.

After lunch, which supposedly is the most tempting part of the day for a smoker, I decided not to accompany my regular gang down and I directly headed back to my desk. I realized one good thing about smoking, if you delay the urge for couple of minutes, it doesn't kick in for few hours. I was planning to use this to my advantage. :)

I kept on delaying the urge and did manage to delay it till dinner. After dinner, I desperately needed a cigarette. I decided to compensate that urge by having some tea. What I did not factor was the fact that Piyush will also have tea with me and he will light his cigarette then. So as promised to myself in the morning, I did light and smoke one and only cigarette of the day.

Then I made another promise to myself. To put a deadline to this one cigarette a day arrangement. The deadline I decided was one week.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 3: Flexibility

2011-04-04T00:34:00.001+05:30

"Flexibility: the capability to adapt to new, different and changing environment."

Just to paint a picture in front of you. At home I have Piyush smoking in front of me with cigarette, lighter and ash tray at arm's length where I spend most of my time at home i.e. in front of my TV. If I go to the other room I enter in a cloud of smoke created by Ajay's non-stop smoking. At work I have my boss asking at least thrice a day, "coming for a smoke?" Then there are so many at work and friends circle offering me a cigarette or wanting to borrow one. To top it all my grocery shop owner adding to whatever I order, "aur ek packet Classic Milds." Whoever has ever had the habit of smoking would understand what a task quitting it would be with everything around you prompting for it.

To begin with, I decide to carry a pack of cigarette with me even though I had no intentions of smoking from it. The idea of carrying the pack was, to not look at Piyush when he is lighting a cigarette from his pack, to be able to offer it to the friends and colleagues whenever they asked for, to tell my grocery guy that I already have a pack with me so I don't need and to top it all to convince myself that I can always light one whenever I feel like smoking but I am just delaying it. The longer the delay the urge to smoke will die down. That's what I thought. The most interesting part is, whenever anyone asked me, "have you quit smoking?" I answered, "I haven't quit. I just don't smoke anymore."

We humans are sucker for flexibility. This is how I fooled myself, the flexibility to fall back to the packet I was carrying in case I didn't like the idea of being a non-smoker.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 2: The Mind Games

2011-04-04T00:32:00.000+05:30

"Mind Game: An act or series of acts of calculated psychological manipulation, especially in order to confuse or intimidate."

Once the decision was made the biggest task at hand was to convince my mind that I do not need cigarette. This was a tough task considering the number of smokers around me, who have been my partners in crime for past more than 8 years. There is this thing about partners in crime. It is not easy to let go of your partner. I could think of two reasons; one, aadat and two, it is difficult to find a new partner. Another problem with being surrounded by smokers is, you see cigarettes around you all the time and it becomes even more difficult to resist. It is too tempting. Like they say in movies, "is duniya me kadam rakhna jitna aasan hai, isse bahar nikalna utna hi mushkil."

Well; I was determined to do the mushkil part. Aasan kaam kiya to kya kiya. Besides, ek baar commitment kar di to fir main apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta, specially when the commitment is to self.

I had to play mind games with my own mind. Sounds weird? Weird it is. May be this weirdness made me succeed where many failed.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 1: The Trigger

2011-03-28T23:32:00.002+05:30

"The Tipping Point: The critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development."

So many people in last six months have asked me, "what made me quit smoking and how I did it?" Here it is for the benefit of others.

26/09/2010 at around 1:40 AM, I was chatting with someone and the following conversation followed:

me: you hate cigarette or smokers?

her: both

me: hmmm.. ok

her: :)

me: :)

good

any reason you hate them?

her: bas i dont

u knw dere are smthngs dat u jst feel from within

its one of dose things

me: ok..

It was then, I decided to quit smoking. I did not want her to hate me. :D

This was the tipping point in this case. This event which triggered a new and irreversible development in an already evolving situation .

Way to Jim Corbett

2011-03-07T08:44:00.006+05:30

We were back after watching super boring "Tanu weds Manu" on Siso's recommendation. Back home while having dinner over few drinks Siso mentioned about planning a trip to Vaishno Devi in coming weekend. We got to know that next day was holiday for Siso and I was already on vacation. So we discussed and decided to go to Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve. We left for Jim Corbett at 11:30 pm with Siso's GPS enabled phone as our guide. Few kilometers away from home we realized technology is not always helpful when the aunty from the GPS system made us make 2 full circles to bring us at the same spot. That is when we decided to not follow aunty's instructions.

We hit NH 24 and by around 2 am, just before Moradabad we met a long queue of trucks, with no way to pass them. Finally we managed to cross the long queue and got confused by the policemen, who had blocked the entry of heavy vehicles on the flyover. So, instead of taking the flyover, we took the by lane. When we reached the turn that connected to the the road we missed, we were met by few policemen blocking the entry. Following conversation followed:
Me: Hume Nainital jana hai. Ye rasta kyon band hai?
Policeman: Lekin ye rasta to band hai.
Me: Lekin upar se to chalu hai. Gadiyan ja rahi hain.
Policemen: To tum yahan kaise aa gaye?
Siso: Wo trucks ko nahi jaane de rahe. Hum galti se trucks ko follow karte hue idhar aa gaye.
Policeman 2: Theek hai idhar se nikal jao.

And we managed to come back on NH24 again.

Few kilometers ahead, we stopped at Choudhary Highway Tourist Dhaba and there we had awesome tandoori parathey and tea. We spotted a unique college behind the dhaba. Well, that was the name of the college and also Ahsan Para Medical College. Not sure students yahan padh ke teachers pe ahsan karte hain ya fir it's other way round.

At this moment Siso decided to consult his GPS system and aunty told us Nainital is 387 Kms ahead. At this point Siso said, "aunty pagal ho gayi hai." Next mile stone told us that Lucknow was 321 Kms from there. Aunty ne pata nahi kahan ki distance calculate kar li thi.

Finally when we took the turn to Jim Corbett, it was around 4 AM and we were almost 60 KMs away. We thought we can make it there by 5:30 AM and go for 6 AM safari. Lekin khuda ko kuchh aur hi manjoor tha. We again met long queue of trucks and this time there was no way we could cross them. On inquiry we were told that the jam will be cleared by 2 in the afternoon. At this point following conversation followed betweem me and Siso,
Siso: "main wapas jaa raha hun."
Me: "abbey pareshan mat ho, koi dusra rasta bhi hoga."
Siso: "arrey dusra rasta nahi hota. ek hi chadhai hoti hai."
Me: "aise kaise. delhi to kitni saari directions se enter kar sakta hai."
Siso: "nahi. hill stations me aisa hi hota hai. ek hi rasta develop karte hain. Mount Abu me aisa hi hai."
Me: "abbey mount abu me hota hai to iska matlab duniya ke sare hill stations me same hoga kya."

We found out that there was an alternate way via Rampur. That somehow got Siso excited.

Siso: "arrey Rampuri to chaaku hoti hai naa."
Me: "haan, filmon me to yahi dikhaya hai."
Siso: "abbey sahi hai. ab agar hum jim corbett nahi pahuche to wapas jaake kahani suna denge ki hume rampur me dakuon ne rampuri chaku dikha ke loot liya."

At this point we realized, we were driving on such a bad road and I pointed out that we are in UP and all the budget to develop the road has been consumed by more important Mayawati's statues. I told Siso, "priority samajhte ho?" Siso was cursing the road and UP government so much, I am sure next day Mayawati would have woken up with swollen face and viral fever.

From Rampur, we had taken left turn to NH 87, which was leading towards Haldwani. On the way we did not find any mile stones about Jim Corbett, however all the mile stones informed about the distance and direction towards Nainital. That got Siso worried. May be his Mount Abu formula was not valid for Nainital and may be this way was leading to Jim Corbett via Nainital. So we decided to ask the way to Jim Corbett at Bilaspur. People there were clueless when we asked about Jim Corbett. I think aisa angreji type naam un logon ne pahli baar suna tha. (we were only 60 KMs away from Jim Corbett). Finally one intelligent person suggested, "Newspaper wale se puchho, use pata hoga." To this I told Siso, "chal yahan se. jis gaon me sabse samajhdaar aadmi akhbaar wala hai wohan hume kuchh nahi milne wala." We drove on.

Finally we stopped at Haldwani for tea and there we asked the way to Jim Corbett. We were told that we will have to go to Ramnagar for that. Ramnagar-Rampur got us little confused but we managed to reach Ramnagar. Since we had no idea about what, how, where; we drove on NH 121 and finally stopped at one of the gates of Jim Corbett. It was 9:10 AM. At the inquiry counter there, we were told that next safari will be at 2 PM and we will have to go back to Ramnagar for that. The guy at the inquiry counter gave me contact number of Chandan, who will do that arrangements for us.

We reached Ramnagar, met Chandan and gave him our name and ID details. It was 10 AM and we were to meet Chandan again at 1:30 PM. We decided to eat something. We went to a place which claimed to serve food. The menu at that place even claimed to serve chatpata indian. I couldn't take any risks and asked for maggie. Siso settled for cheese sandwich. The guy who was taking our orders made me repeat the order 5 times. Looks like nobody before us ordered cheese sandwich there. We ate whatever they served. We then got a room for 3 hours to rest. Siso went to sleep. I kept awake playing solitaire.

At 12:30, we left the room and went out to eat lunch. The menu there inspired by IPL categorized foods under Delhi Deardevils (not Daredevils), Mumbai Indians and Chennai SuperKings. We ordered food, it was unexpectedly decent. Then we left to meet Chandan at our agreed spot at 1:20 PM.

For the pics refer SmokerJoe's facebook page.

Master Director Adapts Another Story to a Screen Gem

2011-02-20T12:58:00.005+05:30

Vishal Bharadwaj, whose worst work so far is better than the best work of many directors in Hindi film industry. When he directs a movie, what you expect? When I saw the trailer, my expectations were that high. The trailer sure raised curiosity. Then there were people who watched the movie and gave reactions as strong as, "7 khoon Maaf. The biggest blunder to watch in 2011." Since I am not someone to get influenced by someone else's opinion I yet wanted to watch it, but it definitely lowered my expectations. So here I was watching 7 Khoon Maaf, starring Priyanka Chopra with a bunch of actors of different age groups ranging from Neil Nitin Mukesh to Naseeruddin Shah playing her husbands, with not that high expectations.

The movie is the story of Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes, who is in search of a perfect life partner. In her search she marries a one legged super possessive, super suspecting army major, a cross dressing, drug addict rock star, a poet with violent sexual fantasies, a cheating Russian nuclear scientist, a pervert intelligence officer and a filed businessman who had plans of acquiring her wealth by killing her. The twist here is, Susanna is a woman who when threatened by a dog on her way to school as a kid decided to kill the dog with her father's gun rather than changing her way. "Madam rasta nahi badalti, raste me aane wale kutton ko maar deti hain" as put by one of her three servants who assist her in killing these dogs and digging their graves.

Keeping up to his tradition of adopted screenplay's this time Vishal has chosen a story by Ruskin Bond, which I have not read so cannot comment on the adaptation part. However it is a difficult story to make a into a movie and even more difficult to make people like the movie. Priyanka Chopra plays the role of Susanna, who ages from 25 to 60 in the movie and her husbands are played by Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irfaan Khan, some Russian guy Aleksandr Dyachenko, Anu Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah. Her three faithful servants and partners in crime are played by Usha Uthup, Shashi Malviya and I missed the name of the third one. Then there is Arun, a kid who she raises and helps him become a doctor played by Vivaan Shah and Konkana Sen Sharma playing Arun's wife in a cameo. Finally a tribute to the original story writer a cameo by Ruskin Bond himself. That's a lot but the master director gets the best out of each of them. Direction is top class and he relies on audiences' intelligence rather than explaining every piece of the story. One thing that impressed me a lot was the way time line in tracked through historical events using news headlines and cross conversations. Operation bluestar, Fall of VP Singh Government, Babri Demolition, 2nd Nuclear test by India, cannot recollect and 26/11 terrorist attack are the historical events used in the movie. Then there is a photograph with a message and a year 1964. 30 minutes in the movie you come to know that there is someone in the cast with 6 fingers and almost in the end you see who that is and how cleverly Susanna hides that despite a blunder from Arun. She is a smart woman and her story needs to be viewed with smart attention. In IIT while writing scripts/screenplays we used to look for introducing wow factors, this movie is full of those wow factors.

Music is top class and supports the flow of the story. Gulzar is great and shows the glimpses of his greatness in the lyrics. Each song is so full of meaning and appropriate that you feel like clapping for the master. Visually also the movie is appealing and a treat to watch.

I would call it another masterpiece from the director of Makadi, Maqboool, Omkara and Blue Umbrella. Pay attention to the whatever is going on in the screen and you will love the movie. Look away and you might end up regretting being in the theater, this from the experiences of others who hated the movie.

The Legend of Tees Maar Khan

2011-02-16T14:31:00.004+05:30

Tees Maar Khan, so appropriately named movie it is. I am sure the movie would have killed at least 30 people so far if not more. It almost killed me thrice (managed to watch it completely in four attempts. fell asleep-half dead in three attempts). Thanks to life saving medicine named after the most faithful animal, I survived. You people would be thinking why I dared watch this much appreciated cinema after hearing so much about it from so many sources. My answer to those truly well wishing friends is, "mahanta balidaan mangti hai."

I am sure after reading above introduction, you would be super curious to know the details. As Farah Khan would have said in one of her TV show as judge, without much ado, here it is. The movie is about Tabrez Mirza Khan aka Tees Maar Khan aka TMK, who is described as half Robin Hood by buffoon police commissioner played by Sachin Khedekar, because wo ameeron se lootata to hai par gareebon me bantata nahi hai. If you did not laugh about it, you are an idiot according to Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder and Akshay Kumar because I am sure all three of them had believed it to be a really funny and would have expected the audience to laugh their asses off after hearing this. The movie is full of such wonderful one liners, which looks like Farah's attempt to make the world go bald, because everyone with a thinking brain would pull his hair off.

After this hair pulling introduction to legendary TMK, we are told that he is hired by Johari Brothers (played by Raghu and Rajiv of Roadies fame) to rob Bharat Ka Khajana, which is being transferred by super cop Sachin in a train. TMK being the super intelligent thief he is, comes up with the idea of hiring an entire village along with Oscar obsessed super star Atish Kapoor (Akshaye Khanna) in the name of shooting a movie, to rob the train full of precious ancient jewels worth millions being transferred under the security of two cops.

By this time I had already died twice. I do not have courage to write further about the story of this masterpiece written by highly talented Shirish Kunder (I wish he is kept away from all form of writing material after this). If you are brave enough watch it yourself and if not, you haven't missed anything you shouldn't have. The only thing worth watching in the movie is Sheila Ki Jawani, which I am sure all of you would have watched multiple times already and will do so many times in time to come. ;)

Everyone tries their best to act stupid in the movie. Every character is such that he/she has just been released from a mental asylum without completing his/her treatment. Someone please tell these guys, they don't have to be buffoons to create laughter.

Yeh Saali Zindagi

2011-02-08T21:41:00.001+05:30

After very long gap there was finally a movie I wanted to watch in theater. There were three reasons, it starrs irfan khan in the lead (he rarely disappoints), it is directed by shudhir mishra (who has made movies like is raat ki subah nahi and hajaron khwahishen aisi) and last but not the least in the trailer I heard a man hit by a bullet on the verge of getting unconscious say, "sala aise mar gaya to log hasenge ki chutiya pyar ke liye mar gaya aur laundiya bhi nahi mili."

So there I was watching the movie. As the movie starts after a super emotional performance by disabled kids on national anthem, I see irfan hurt, chitrangada supporting him and consoling him that everything will be alright, I hear saurabh shukla's voice in the background saying, "ishq aur goli me koi farak nahi hota, dono seene me chhed karne ke liye chalte hain." I felt like clapping. At that very moment I knew I am not going to be disappointed. I was already expecting wonderful acting and fine direction, now I knew I was going to be treated with some brilliant dialogues. (as I have written this it got me thinking, was I expecting a haasil? May be.) if any of you have not seen haasil (watch it right away without fail) and don't know how much I admired that movie, you would not understand how big that expectation is to match.

Lets not drag and get back to YSZ. After the impactful first scene I have explained earlier, the movie goes into flashback, something you often see in master of the craft Martin Scorsese's movies. Next scene you see Irfan hanging onto the balcony of his apartment trying to call someone. Another brilliant scene which sets the tone of the film. Then starts the roller coaster ride called Yeh Saali Zindagi. The movie is about how you do not have any control over life (as the title song says) and it take it's own twists and turns irrespective of all your planning. It becomes even more complicated, when you are in love. Even more complicated when you are dealing with underworld, corrupt politicians and policemen. Adding to the complication is loads of black money stacked in some bank account overseas. Movie moves similar to what we have seen in the movies made by a guy named Guy (yes, that guy). :D

Leading the pack of very fine actors is Irfan Khan, very well supported by a brilliant cast the includes Shushant Singh, Chintrangada Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan, Sourabh Shukla, Arunoday Singh and Aditi Rao (she looks superb). Even the smallest of characters have been played by wonderful actors. Dialogues are the highlight of the movie, they are sharp, witty and to the point. Background score supports the flow of the movie and no songs are forced into the screenplay. Once I was out of the theater I did not remember exact details of many scenes and dialogs. That's because there were so many brilliant scenes and dialogs. Need the dvd. :)

In the end I would suggest it's a well made brilliant movie and will recommend it to all who do not have problem with using abusive words in their conversations or hearing them in others' conversations.

Rise of Pappu Pager and Fall of Azghar Jurhad

2011-01-02T13:31:00.003+05:30

I have grown up watching the movies of 80s and 90s like Shaan, Mr. India, Tiranga, Vishwatma, Tridev etc, where there used to be a distinct bifurcation between the good guys and the bad guys, we can call them hero and villain respectively. Hero used to too good, which effectively means, he used to be an underachieving loser, with a BA degree and ghar me and andhi maa aur vidhawa behan, oops vidhawa maa and andhi bahan to support.

Villains used to be too bad with names like Azghar Jurhad, Bakhtawar, Shakal, Dr. Dang, Gaindaswami, Mogamgo etc (imagine how ugly the boy has to look for his father to hold him into his arms at the time of birth and say, "kitna katarnaak dikhta hai, iska naam Azghar rakhte hain."), and all they could dream of was ruling India, with a very simple plan in hand i.e. firing missiles at three metros Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta (I have always wandered why they always ignored Madras now known as Chennai), some had even simpler plan, blast a missile in Delhi only and be the King of the country as big as India. Most of them had a foreign hand helping them, normally played by Bob Christo (he was Macmohan of foreigner goons, who played same role in so many movies without even changing his get up). Minimum ticket size for all the transactions for these villains would be in tunes of Crores. Nashte me sau, do sau crore idhar udhar kar dete the. They would make the state and central government fall matter of factly. A typical breakfast conversation would be something like this:

Chamcha: Wo chief minister humare liye sar dard ban gaya hai.
Super Villain: (taking a sip) ek kaam karo, sarkar gira do. Humare videshi agent X ko bolkar yahan itni tabahi machao ki mukhya mantri istifa dene pe majboor ho jaye. use is kaam ke liye 100 crore bhejwa do.

Then suddenly came Satish Kaushik playing Pappu Pager, a dumb goon with silly antics. People laughed at his stupid actions and idiotic conversations and came the era of villains like Vasuli bhai, Munna mobile, Aslam bhai. Basically now the hero is no longer a loser with no vidhawa maa and andhi behan, he doesn't even care for a job anymore. The role of the loser has been taken over by villains. I don't like these loser villains who are abused, beaten and made fun of by all and sundry. I miss Amrish Puri, I miss Azghar Jurhad.

An old conversation with some credit card customer care

2010-12-27T19:06:00.004+05:30

Found this conversation in my e-mail archive today. Pasting it here as it is. I think it might be a good read for some of you.
.....................................................................................
me
25/02/2008 01:39 PM

To
abc@xyz.com
cc
headcardservices@xyz.com, cardservices@xyz.com
Subject
Complaint Regarding Credit Card Application

Dear ABC,

I used to hold one of your gold credit cards (XXXXXXXXXXXX2684), which I have got cancelled last week. This card was issued to me in March,07.

As soon as I received above card, I started getting promotional calls for your One Credit card, I received and answered 27 such calls in my memory. 27th time I agreed to apply for that card. Application Ref. # 080218021

I met XYZ Bank representative twice, once for filling up the form and 2nd time for collection of certain documents.

Post which I received 9 confirmation calls, asking for same details (mother's maiden name, date of birth, address etc) and after answering these nine confirmation calls, I receive following mail from cardservices@xyz.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date : 31/01/2008

Dear MR GAURAV V TIWARI,

This is with reference to your application for an XYZ Bank credit card - Application Ref. # 080218021

We have reviewed your application and express our inability to process the same, as we could not establish contact with you.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in the XYZ Credit Card product and look forward to a valuable relationship with you in the future.

In case you require any assistance, please feel free to call our Bank by Phone service in your city and our executive will be glad to assist you.

Assuring you of our best services always.

Warm Regards,

XYZ Bank "Active Alert" Services

This is an automated message, please donot reply to this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason for rejecting my application was stated that XYZ bank could not establish contact with me. (Have highlighted that part of the mail). After answering 9 confirmation calls and meeting your representative twice, the reason stated in the mail is as absurd as it can possibly be.

I called up your bank by phone service to enquire about the same, but since they did not have any clue, I was transferred to Mr Rishikesh, in your customer loyalty department. He heard my query and promised to get the same resolved.
Post which I received three of your Gold Cards in a span on 4 days, (XXXXXXXXXXXX7262, XXXXXXXXXXXX0266, XXXXXXXXXXXX2677), for which I haven't applied or filled any froms.

Every time I received the card, I called up XYZ bank and spoke to Mr T or Mr R in your customer loyalty department. Finally Mr R promised to process my Credit card Request for One Card and assured me, that I'll not be receiving anymore gold cards and anymore phone calls.

For next 15 days I did not hear anything or received any communication (written or verbal) from XYZ and realised how insensitive you are towards your customers and decided to end all the relationship with XYZ bank and got my original gold card (XXXXXXXXXXXX2684) cancelled.

I also got all my phone nos (99xxxxxx71, 93xxxxxx46, 022xxxxxx98 and 022xxxxxx54) registered for DNC (DNC registration provided on website is not working have tried multiple times in a span of 8 months, get that fixed asap, else if someone complains against it XYZ bank might be in trouble).

Yesterday (24/02/08) again I received one call on 022xxxxxx98 and another on 99xxxxxx71 for confirming the details for my credit card application (which I have already confirmed 9 times). I instructed the caller not to call again as I am not interested in having any relationship with XYZ bank. Still I received another call today (25/02/08) on 022xxxxxx54 for the same thing.

Request you to stop this nonsense and do not test my patience. Please don't harass me with those nonsense calls asking for same details again and again.

I am expecting to receive a positive response from you. Also hope after this mail you will change certain processes in your bank related to telemarketing and credit card processing mainly to ensure that no other customer has to go through what I have experienced.

For now, I am not recommending XYZ bank to any of my friends or colleagues as I don't want them to go through this kind of tormenting experience.

For your information, I also work in Cards department of A Bank and have an idea of how card issuance process work, so please don't send me any absurd response.

PS: I registered for NDNC on 19/11/07 (Reference No W10xxxxxx31), can anyone in your bank explain how my promotional calls did not stop post same.

-
Thanks & Regards
Gaurav Tiwari
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."
.....................................................................................
abc@xyz.com
26/02/2008 16:11

To: me
cc: def@xyz.com
Subject: Re: Complaint Regarding Credit Card Application

Dear Mr. Tiwari,

Thank you for sharing your feedback. I regret the inconvenience caused.

My colleague Mr DEF will facilitate a resolution in this regard. I regret that you experience has not been commensurate with our service standards and request you to treat it as an exception.

Regards
ABC
.....................................................................................
me
13/03/2008 10:54 AM

To
abc@xyz.com
cc
def@xyz.com
Subject
Re: Complaint Regarding Credit Card Application

Dear Mr. ABC,

One of your executives called me up last week, but it seemed she hadn't read my mail carefully, because she kept asking me about the same details that I have already written in my mail below.

Anyway, I got even more irritated with this and requested your executive to just stop any promotional calls to all my phone nos.

Today again I have received one call from XYZ bank (012xxxxxx51) asking for gold card application. Request you to tighten the processes at your end and stop such nonsense calls.

I have clearly mentioned in my earlier mail that I have my no registered for NDNC, have got all my nos registered for DNC with XYZ bank.

Expect some action, else I'll be forced to complain against XYZ bank to respective regulatory authorities.

-
Thanks & Regards
Gaurav Tiwari
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."
.....................................................................................
abc@xyz.com
13/03/2008 13:32

To: me
cc: def@xyz.com
Subject: Re: Complaint Regarding Credit Card Application

Dear Mr. Tiwari,

I regret to note your experience. I request you to share the numbers from where you have received the calls and on which telephone number to help us investigate and revert to you.

The information sought above which will help us establish the root cause and address it. I would aldo recommend that you register your telephone nos. on the NDNC with your telecom operator.

Regards
ABC
.....................................................................................
me
03/13/2008 02:43 PM

To: abc@xyz.com
cc: def@xyz.com
Subject: Re: Complaint Regarding Credit Card Application

Mr ABC,

It seems you have not read any of my mails clearly. In both my mails I have mentioned that I am registered for NDNC with my telecom operator, my NDNC registration is active from 19/11/07 (Reference No W10xxxxxx31).

There is clearly some flaw at your tele-promotions end. Either your marketing team is not bothered about NDNC and they are simply ignoring it or there are some process gaps.

I have also mentioned the no on which I am receiving these calls (99xxxxxx71) and the no from which I have received the recent call (012xxxxxx51) today at 10:46AM.

You can not expect me to remember all the nos from where I have received all my earlier calls. Only thing I remember about those nos is all of them were Delhi nos, starting with 4, if that helps.

-
Thanks & Regards
Gaurav Tiwari
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."
.....................................................................................

Humne Jeena Seekh Liya

2010-12-18T21:13:00.002+05:30

जिस राह मे हम थे बढे चले, उस राह मे तेज हवाएं थी;
हम गिरे, उठे और फिर से चले, तूफानों से लड़ना सीख लिया.
थी कठिन डगर लम्बा रास्ता, पर हमने जीना सीख लिया.

चाहा गुलाब को छूना जब, मेरे हाथ छुभे थे कांटे भी;
हमने सीखा एक और सबब, काटों से बचना सीख लिया.
थी कठिन डगर लम्बा रास्ता, पर हमने जीना सीख लिया.

मेरे पांव पढे अन्गारों पर, अन्गारों ने हमे जलाया भी;
चल कर इन् आग की राहों पर, अन्गारों मे जीना सीख लिया.
थी कठिन डगर लम्बा रास्ता, पर हमने जीना सीख लिया.

Attempted to write poetry after very very long time. Hope you guys like it.

Horizon

2010-12-18T21:11:00.000+05:30

When I was small and used to live in my village, during my visits to my farms I used to look at the horizon and actually believe that far away there is a place where earth meets the sky. At times I used to run towards it spreading my hands in the air in order to touch the sky. The longer I ran, farther the point where the earth meets the sky gone.

Now I have gone through schools and college; and have been taught that there is no such place where the earth meets the sky. Call me a fool, I am still running hands spread in the air trying to touch the sky. Although there is one thing that sometimes scares me. What if I manage to touch the sky? What will happen then? No running, no spreading of hands in the air. Will I be happy or sad? I don't have the answer. I just know one thing. In all these years I have started to love the running.

Vampire Diaries

2010-11-28T13:14:00.002+05:30

Don't be confused by the title of the post. I am not going to talk about the recent craze love struck vampires of hollywood, neither it is about the more traditional blood sucking ones. However it is closer to the later, since it is about not a fictional creature, but a very real vampire of our time i.e. Ram Gopal Verma. After sucking audiences' blood for last few years, he has gone sanskritified and ab wo logon ka rakhta chuste hain.

What expectations one would have from a movie, which is being aired on TV exactly 3 weeks after it's release? That's how excited I was while watching this master piece, Rakhta Charitra, from master story teller, RGV, starring master actor, Vivek Oberoi. (Or is it Viveik? Someone please tell him mandir jaane se, naam badalne se ya fir jagah jagah logon se mafi mangne se accha actor nahi bante. Uske liye actually thodi si acting karni padti hai.)

The movie started with a very irritating voice narrating the story of Veerbhadra, who happens to be the right hand man of local MLA or MP or some political leader in some capacity Narasimha Reddy. Narasimha Reddy is somehow made to believe that Veerbhadra is actually using this closeness to build his own ploitical career and without waiting for a second both Veerbhadra and Narasimha are political rivals wanting to kill each other. Nagmani, who was responsible for this conflict plans for Veerbhadra's Murder by the help of one of Veerbhadra's aide Munda. What then starts is Rakhta Charitra, someone is killed in every 30 seconds by either Pratap Ravi or by Bukka Reddy or some random character. They make killing look such a simple and easy task. Matlab chai peete hue decide kiya ki Naagmani (who happens to have an army of people protecting him) ko maarte hain aur lunch me Naagmani ko hi kha gaye.

After all this blood bath our hero decides to join politics and wins the election just like that by help from actor turned politician Shivaji Rao.

We are then told that there is more about the movie, which we will come to know on 3rd of Dec, when the second part of the movie releases. By this time mere shareer me rakhta ki kami se I start feeling weak.

We are told that it is a true story and our creative geniuses have conveniently picked up all the killings and only killings in that story and made a movie out of it and subtly named it Rakhta Charitra. Very few details are offered and whatever is offered is offered in that irritating voice of the narrator. You so much want to mute your TV, while the narration is going on. The only expression of the entire movie is anger. So all the leading characters of the movie look angry in all the scenes, hence no need for a second expression. Every leading character has a dedicated irritating back ground score, which is used to suppress the dialogs spoken by these characters saving useless expense of dialog writer and leaving the audience wonder what the hell these guys would be saying to each other leading them to take drastic decisions. OR may be there was a dialog writer who would have quit because of not being able to handle the challenging task of using word Rakhta in all the dialogs.

RGV must get rid of his obsession for zooming on to the faces of his actors so often. You can even count the hair inside the nostrils of all the actors. Gross, isn't it? Exactly.

I am sure none of you would be interested in how much I rate this movie out of 10 after what I have written above. So I would not go through that exercise. I watched it on a lazy and boring Saturday, when I had absolutely nothing to do and nothing better on TV either. That is the only situation this movie can be seen.

Once Upon a Time

2010-08-02T23:47:00.002+05:30

Once upon a time there was a man named Sultan Mirja, who ruled the sea of Mumbai and he had a say in all the illegal trade across Mumbai by virtue of being the king of the sea. He was a visionary, because he knew the rout to smuggle anything inside Mumbai is the sea. He also had a heart of gold, helping every needy person around, or may be he always felt guilty about the things he did and wanted people to pray for his well beings. Anyways, people believed that he was their savior. He falls for a starlet Rehana and she is impressed by his power. The fact that both of them had a tragic past brought them closer and the promise of a brighter future kept them together.

There was a young man Sohaib who, so impressed by Sultan's life, wanted to be like him. He kept himself busy committing petty crimes and gifting the winnings from those to the pretty sales girl next door, Mumtaj. Of all the ugly things he did all his life, while dreaming to be the King of Mumbai, Mumtaj was the only pretty thing in his life. By fate he manages to get into the gang of Sultan and manages to win his trust.

Then there was an ACP Agnel, who vows to put an end to the rule of Sultan Mirja and in order to do so he ends up ignoring the crimes committed by Sohaib, believing that he is the answer to the question named Sultan. In the end, he puts it appropriately, it's easy to choose between good and evil but it's really difficult to choose between two evils. By the time he realizes that he chose the worse of the two evils, it's too late.

So that's the story of what happened many years ago in Mumbai, which changed the face of the Mumbai underworld for time to come. In the movie Ajay Dvgan plays to the role of Sultan Mirja, a role similar to that he perfected in Company. The only difference being he wore black in company and white in OUTM. Emran Hashmi plays Sohaib, but is not able to show the rawness required to play the dreaded don. Kangna and Prachi play the two leading ladies Rehana and Mumtaj. While Kangna's role is vital for the story Prachi's story seems to be forced into the proceedings of the story, however both the girls have performed well. The name that requires special mention is Randeep Huda, playing ACP Agnel Wilson, who proves that given a chance and a role, he can deliver. The story is simple and everyone knows how it unfolds. The only thing that really disappointed me where the dialogs, it sounded more like philosophy lessons than real life conversations. Don't understand why everyone has to talk in metaphors all the time. The costumes and music has the needed feel of the 70's.

I would rate this movie 6 out of 10. You can go and watch it on a lazy Sunday without being disappointed.

More Than Just a Dream

2010-07-21T22:12:00.006+05:30

He is the world's best extractor, who can enter your mind in your dream state and steal your secrets. He did so in Batman movies. Then the idea of planting an idea in your brain came into his head and he made Inception. Yes, Christopher Nolan has that ability. Everyone dreams, everyone wants to dream but Nolan thought a step further. He analysed your dreams and created a masterpiece out of it. Yes, that's what Inception is, a masterpiece. I wonder nobody would complain even if they were made to watch this movie sitting on stools, because I don't think anyone used the back rests and whoever did would have left the theater even before the interval. What makes it a masterpiece is the fact that it involves you in the proceedings and makes your brain work throughout. The movie doesn't allow you to take your eyes and ears off it for even a second.

Cobb has the ability to extract ideas from your mind by getting inside your dreams and this ability makes him a wanted man. He is offered a chance of a lifetime by Saito, which can bring him back into legitimate life and allow him to go back to his children. The problem is, he doesn't have to extract the idea, he has to plant one. Cobb, with the help of Arthur assembles a team which consists of Ariadne, the architect; Eames, the chameleon and Yusuf, the Chemist. The problem is Cobb's dead wife Mal, who keeps on appearing inside his dreams and messes with the plan.

To be honest, first fifteen minutes of the movie I was almost clueless about the proceedings. Then all of it was explained in next almost an hour through conversations among team members. The more you learn, the more you admire and enjoy the movie. I wonder how many hours of thinking in real world and dream world would have gone into creating this story. Truly one of the most original movie I have seen.

The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Ellen Page as Ariadne, Tom Hardy as Eames, Ken Watanabe as Saito, Dileep Rao as Yusuf, Cillian Murphy as Fisher and Marion Cotillard as Mal in lead roles. You can also see Michael Caine who is part of all Nolan's movies since Batman Begins, in special appearance. All the actors seem perfect for their part. DiCaprio is in top form, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is superb, watch out the zero gravity scenes, Ellen Page looks stunning, Tom Hardy gives you some of the moments to laugh in this otherwise intense film, Marion Cotillard compliments DiCaprio's emotions. But the real star of the movie is the script. I am truly blown away by the thought process of this man named Christopher Nolan. Just when you thought The Dark Knight was the peak, he takes you even higher with Inception. The way he presents the whole story is truly amazing, there is no chance to blink. There are a lot of wow moments in the movie, like city of Paris fold like a book, how you drop someone in zero gravity, the ending.

Well I hear some people complain about the ending, but after thinking about it for 24 hours, I haven't been able to come up with a different and better ending. So I would say, it's the perfect ending to a perfect story. I would rate this movie 10 out of 10 and recommend it to all the movie lovers. Go be a part of the dream world of Christopher Nolan.

Talk to strangers

2010-06-08T19:13:00.001+05:30

I believe I am a friendly person and do not have any reservations in talking to strangers, since it is only natural. All our lives we talk to strangers. When we open our eyes in this world we see few strangers looking after us. Most often we find ourselves in the arms of an stranger who calls herself our mother and we believe her without any question, because at that moment our minds are not corrupt. We are not used to the fact that people are not always nice. Later as we grow up we meet more strangers, some we are told are our relatives and some we choose and be friends with.

As we grow we start hearing about bad things that people do or can do to other people. Why only bad things? Because negative emotions are stronger and survives longer in our memory. If you don't believe me, turn to any news channel and find one good news reported against 5 bad news. Surprisingly most of us agree to the fact that the bad people who mean or can cause us any harm would be less that 5 in every 100 people we come across. Yet in order to avoid these 5 people we end up avoiding all 100 and loose 95 good people whom we could have known.

As we grow, such feelings get stronger and that is the reason we make better friends during school days and fewer friends during college days and even fewer during our professional life and almost none after retirement. The reason is, our trust in others keeps declining as we grow because of the negativity surrounding us.

As far as I am concerned, I take the other approach. I talk to all hundred with the assumption that they are nice people and keep my senses open to spot the 5 and save myself from any harm. If I fail to spot anyone of these 5, which I have at times and get harmed, which again has happened, I had 95 others to support me, which I would not have had in other case. I have learned that this harm is a small price to pay for meeting the nice people I have met and befriended over the years, I for that fact have made more friends during my 4 years of college than I have in my 12 years of school and having so many friends has helped me in many ways.

Recent Encounter with Credit Card People

2010-05-06T01:17:00.003+05:30

03/05/10
11:00 AM
I get a call from Mr X, who claims to be calling on behalf of XYZ Bank and is offering me a premium segment credit card from the bank. I like the offer and agree to take the card.
11:30 AM
Ms Y calls from the same bank to verify certain details and ask me to be ready with the copies of all the necessary documents. She informs me that one of the Bank's agents would visit me at my office in the afternoon to collect the documents.
4:30 PM
Mr Z from the XYZ bank visits me at my office and I hand over the relevant document copies to him and fill the necessary details on the application from.

(The funny part begins now)
04/05/10
2:00 PM
I get a call from Ms Y and the conversation goes something like this:
Ms Y: Sir I am calling from XYZ bank regarding your credit card application and need to verify certain details.
Me: Ok.
Ms Y: Sir, you stay in a rented place in Mumbai or owned? (this was already mentioned by me in the form)
Me: Rented.
Ms Y: What is your permanent address?
Me: I have a house in my village but nobody lives there anymore, will that work?
Ms Y: No sir. Where do your parents stay?
Me: My parents live in Kanpur, but that place again is rented.
Ms Y: Sir, do you have a landline there?
Me: No.
Ms Y: Sir, in that case when you get a call from our head office confirming for details, please tell them that you live with your parents.
Me: But I don't live with my parents, so why should I lie.
Ms Y: Sir, otherwise you would not get the card.
Me: Then please don't give me the card. Reject my application.
Ms Y: Sir, there is nothing wrong in it, there is anyways no hard verification for such things.
Me: But I would not lie for getting a credit card. I already have other bank's cards and in no desperate need for additional card.
Ms Y: Ok sir.
(She hangs up.)
As soon as she hangs up, I get a call from Mr X, who sold me the card.
Mr X: Sir, this is X from XYZ bank.
Me: Yes X, tell me.
Mr X: Sir, I need a small favour from you.
Me: If it is to lie about my details, forget it. I don't need your card.
Mr X: At least you can say that you are married. (he was one step ahead)
Me: Listen X. You have a criteria to issue this credit card and it seems I don't fulfill the criteria. So you simply reject my application. I wont mind.
Mr X: No sir. You fulfill all the criteria and would be a valuable customer for us.
Me: Then give me the card. Why are you making such a simple thing so complicated?
Mr X: But sir, if you have a rented place in Mumbai, you will have to either be married of living with your family to get the card.
Me: Which means I don't satisfy the necessary criteria.
Mr X: If you could just say you are married, your application will be processed.
Me: Listen X, I don't like to lie.
Mr X: But sir, it's no problem, you don't have to produce any evidence.
Me: It's not about evidence. I am just not the kind of person who would lie to get a credit card. You are asking me to change as a person to just get a credit card.
Mr X: Ok sir, we will forward your application.
Me: Thank you.

I thought the conversation was over.

05/05/10
2:35 PM
I was just out of a long meeting and to my surprise I again receive a call from XYZ Bank. This time it was a new person, lets call her Ms A.
Ms A: Sir, I am calling on behalf of XYZ Bank. Just needed to verify certain details.
Me: Please go ahead.
Ms A: Sir, your date of birth is 04/07/1983.
Me: That's correct.
Ms A: You live in a rented apartment in Mumbai.
Me: Yes.
Ms A: For how long you are staying in this place.
Me: Almost one and half year.
Ms A: Sir, when you get a call from our office for verification, just tell then you are married.
Me: I think I have been through this before with X and I clearly told him I am not gonna supply any false information. You can happily reject my application.
Ms A: Sir then can you give us your parents land line no.?
Me: They don't have a land line.
Ms A: Any neighbors no.?
Me: No.
Ms A: Sir any friends' contact nos.
Me: Are you out of your mind. I don't understand what my friends', family's or neighbors' nos are relevant for my credit card application and I am not going to provide you any. Please reject my application and don't bother me with such ridiculous calls again.

I am hoping I don't get another call tomorrow.

India: a country of extreme emotions.

2010-04-18T23:53:00.003+05:30

I have always been told human race is superior to other creatures on the earth, because they have got a brain which is more advanced than any other species and they understand and feel emotions better than any other living being. Well, I always believed it; but when I look around and see the way people behave I seriously doubt what we have been taught all our lives. First most of the time we do what we are being asked to do by our elders at home, by our boss at work, by our celebrity cricketers and actors, by our politicians, by our news channels. The list is endless. The amazing thing is, we don't tend to use our brains before doing any of those things.

The other fact that disturbs me much is that we always show extreme emotions to everything. We don't know any middle way. There is no grey, we either see black or white. Sachin is a great batsman, we start calling him God. Rajnikanth does good in some of his movies, we start calling him God too. Suresh Raina does well in five innings and we start seeing next Sachin in him. India fails to win a series, we start throwing stones at the houses of the same cricketers who we were worshiping couple of series back. Someone marries against our wish, we kill them. Someone refers Mumbai as Bombay, we stone their offices.

Why do we always behave in such fashion? I hope to find an answer to this question and a solution to this problem some day.

Pyar Impossible

2010-03-26T21:57:00.003+05:30

After a lot of days from its release I finally managed to watch the much awaited Yashraj films' product re-re-re(don't remember how many)launching the home grown talent Uday also playing a new role of a script writer proving his extreme talent in various aspects of film making. Then there was another home grown talent directing the film, making it a complete family film. Trailers projected it as a beauty and the geek love story, Uday Chopra obviously playing the geek and beauty naturally played by Priyanka Chopra.

The movie opens with a college setting with Abhay (Uday) telling us that he is infatuated towards Alisha (Priyanka), who doesn't even know Abhay exists. No time is wasted here because just after a song, we are shown Abhay saving a drunk Alisha from drowning and then Alisha taken away by her father. Many years after, Abhay meets Sidhu (Dino) an investor interested in Abhay's brilliant idea of an operating system UNITY. Well actually the idea is actually crap but probably nobody dares tell that to him considering he is producer's son (may be the same thing happened with the script too). By the way Sidhu also thinks that idea is so brilliant that he steals the source code (referred as program files in the movie for the benefit of the ignorant audience, so thoughtful of the Uday and Jugal) of the OS on a pen drive.

Abhay realizes about this theft when an Indian software company, who he tries to sell his idea tells him that another company in Singapore is coming up with an OS on the same concept with an innovative name UNIFY. (we have to admire the information network of the Indian information technology company, because we are shown that Sid hadn't yet finalized the deal with the Singapore company). Abhay on his dad's advice and encouragement decides to go to Singapore to confront the thief and get what is rightfully his.

On reaching Singapore, he realizes that Alisha is also there working as a PR executive in the same company and he suddenly almost forgets about his mission and takes a new mission of winning his lost love. How he does it? Well, by playing a nanny to her 6-7 year old spoiled daughter, who is an expert in harassing her nanny. Movie starts getting sillier and sillier from this point onwards leading to one of the silliest climax ever seen. I know I am being a bit sadist here, but since I have been through it, I would want you to watch the movie to know the details.

None of the actors in the movie impressed with their acting talent. Only watchable thing in the movie was Priyanka, that too only in the few minutes of college scenes, not because of her acting though. Looks like Uday wrote the script when he was 7, or may be he has stolen it from some 7 year old. In the end, it looks like another disaster from Yashraj camp.

Eklavya: Not the movie

2010-03-11T00:37:00.003+05:30

Continuing from the thoughts in my previous post, another thing which is crippling the creativity among us is we only learn what we have been taught, without using our intelligence. Irony is, we are also taught that we have a wonderful analytical brain unmatched in any other living species. Don't know who to blame, the education system, which is fit to produce only clerks, the society, where we have always been taught it's not polite to question your elders or ourselves, who chose to believe whatever we have been taught and decided not to question.

I have asked this question to many people in recent past, what is the most important thing you learn from the Eklavya story that has been told to us plenty of times as a kid and probably as a grown up too. The usual answers I got are, respect your teacher, if you respect your teacher you can even learn from his statue etc. Some who probably don't understand the question answer, what Dronachaya did was not right and not ethical, Eklavya should not have given in to Drona's demands.

Well, I think the most important thing we learn from the Eklavya story is that, in order to achieve anything the most important thing is the intent to achieve it and and honest effort towards the same. If you have the right intent, you can achieve whatever you want despite not getting the desired environment and support. In order to do so you will be innovative and discover something of your own, which you probably would have never achieved had you given the desired environment and the intent was missing.

Think for once, had Dronacharya accepted Eklavya as a student, all Eklavya would have learned was what Arjun learned. But with the right intent and right effort, he learned some things that he could have never learned, had Dronacharya actually been his teacher (remember the barking dog incident, that took even Drona by surprise).

I am not saying that this is the best and the only interpretation. I am just requesting you all to start thinking beyond what you have been taught and start questioning.

PS: I believe that any literature that we read has been written from the point of view of the author and sometimes has been modified from the point of view of the editor, translator or compiler and but it is written assuming that whoever reads it is an intelligent person and will derive his meaning out of it using the gifted brain he has got.

Blind Faith

2010-03-07T15:52:00.003+05:30

I am not sure about the rest of the world but we all know that a typical Indian blindly follows whatever he/she is asked to follow, without asking any questions. Some people reading this might not agree with me. For those people here is a recent incident from my work life.

We recently shifted to new work place and till the new automated attendance system was in place we were asked to mark our attendance in a register. The register was not kept at the entrance, it was kept in the far corner of the office where many people would not go all day if it was not only to mark the attendance. Because of this many people missed to mark their attendance in the register. Since the office was not very strict about the attendance, nobody bothered and the register was kept at that far corner for couple of months.

Later the management became very sensitive about the attendance and people started cribbing with in groups about the place where the register was kept, but nobody raised a concern. I took the initiative and placed the register at the entrance so that anyone coming to office can notice the register and mark his/her attendance. But to my surprise I noticed that next day the register was again moved to it's original place.

I decided to reason with the person who was made responsible for attendance register, and was really surprised with the reason given by that person. Before going to details of the conversation, let me tell you two things. The minimum qualification of people working in my office is graduate and since it's an analyst profile I would assume they are supposedly people with good logical reasoning ability. So following was the reason given by a highly educated person with supposedly good analytical skill.

The person in question, told me two things. One, why the register was kept at the place where it was kept and two, why it cannot be moved at the entrance. The reason for keeping the register at the far corner of the office was that the unit head used to sit there and he wanted to monitor when people are coming in. I thought that is justified, but since the unit head has moved to the cubicle close to the entrance by that logic the register should also be moved. To this the person gave me a reason which I did not understand then, he said, the register cannot be moved because now people are used to it.

Few days later I was talking to some friends about the blind faiths in India and could relate that to the above incident. What is a blind faith? We start doing something because of a reason, but keep on doing it even if the reason doesn't exist any longer. Because we are not the questioning type. The above incident is a very good example of how a blind faith is born is a period of 70 days and here we are talking about 100s and 1000s years of history and tradition.

So, people start questioning what you are doing without even knowing and understanding the reason behind that act. May be the reason doesn't exist any longer.

Is Ashok Chavan SRK's bodyguard, asks Thackeray

2010-02-13T19:32:00.002+05:30

"Is Ashok Chavan SRK's bodyguard, asks Thackeray" reads the headline on Times of India web edition today. Had I been Mr Chavan, I would have said, "Yes, I am the bodyguard of SRK and all the other people living in Maharashtra, including you Mr Thackeray. That I think is my duty as the elected Chief Minister of the state." In addition to this, I would have also added, "Had I not been the bodyguard of yours, what would have happened to the Z+ security given to yourself and your beloved son. So you better be grateful for me taking the bodyguard's job and keep your mouth shut from spitting hatred among the people."

Reality Shows (some random thoughts)

2010-02-07T16:18:00.004+05:30

These days there is a flood of reality shows on TV and there so many types covering many walks of life. Some of them test your talent and some test your smartness and some are game shows and some are just there to create controversy. I watch a lot of TV and since I cannot relate to any of the daily soaps, I switch to some of these reality shows. Once during a training on presentation skills, I was asked to present something on a topic of my choice and was given 5 minutes to prepare. I chose to present on reality shows and will try to write down some of those thoughts here.

I have read somewhere that the concept of reality shows was introduced by TV series COPS, started in 1989 because of Writers Guild of America strike. The show is still running and is based on real life cops work. First time something like this was introduced to Indian audience in the form of Antakshari. This idea of a reality show was introduced to me by the 1998 Jim Carrey starer popular movie The Truman Show. After coming to Mumbai in recent years I started watching Roadies, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Americal Idol, Dance India Dance, Splitsvilla, BiG Boss, KBC, many Comedy shows etc and very recently Marriage shows, Dare to Date, Emotional Atyachar, and Music ka Maha Muqabala.

Many times people tell me that everything in these shows is scripted and well rehearsed and I tell them, what difference does that make. In the end it's all about entertainment and I am more entertained if I assume that it's real, then so be it. I am enjoying.

You need to PROVE yourself to DESERVE the RESPECT. Prove, deserve and respect being the most commonly used words in the reality shows. Sometimes it's funny to hear these words misused in weird situations. While talent based reality shows are popular the more popular ones are based on group dynamics, like Bigg Boss, Roadies, Splitsvilla. What makes audience stick to these shows is their involvement in the shows. Critical decisions in many of these shows are based on audience votes. So starting episodes focus on knowing the contestants and once audience decides on their favourites, they start voting for them. Once you vote for a contestant you want to see how he/she is performing. So it becomes like a cycle, you vote for the performance and then watch the performance because you voted. This is true in case of many talent based reality shows.

Another reason behind the popularity of these shows, which is more applicable for the shows based on group dynamics, is that they make the audience relate to the characters. In my personal opinion, since there is not much social life left in urban Indian society, these shows make the audience feel closer to the society. These shows become a part of the social life for the audience.

Last but not the least you have some usual suspects who have perfected the art of being on a reality show. Himesh Reshamiya, Malaika Arora, Abhijit, Alka Yagnik, Anu Mallik, Ranavijay, Nikhil Chinappa to name a few. Then there are star appearances to promote their upcoming movies, most popular appearances being of SRK, Salman and Amitabh.

I don't read the newspaper, because they all have ugly prints

2010-01-24T20:49:00.003+05:30

I used to read newspapers earlier but now a days the only thing close to a newspaper I read is Mumbai Mirror. There are two reasons for that, one, it's magazine sized and easy to hold when you are doing something that doesn't require eyes and hands. Other is that they claim to be a masala paper and they print what they claim.

As a kid my parents and school teachers used to tell me to read newspapers to be aware of the goings on around us. Since I always liked to read I used to read the newspaper and it was my only way to be aware of the recent events. Today there are so many modes available for the same and my favourite is internet, because of very obvious reasons.

Besides availability of other mediums these newspapers have lost what they used to stand for. What would you say when Tiger Woods' sex stories are covered in sports pages along with what Eva Langoria bought on her b'day and what is Victoria Beckham's shopping schedule and what is Cheryl Cole's holiday plan. When all you can get on the cover page is IPL auctions, film awards and celebrity b'day parties.

I think the reason for calling these so called news stories page 3 news was to restrict all these stories in one single page and that is the 3rd page and not front page. Unfortunately there are so many page 3 these days. These days journalism is not based on stories rather it's based on persons. Like sports news is not sports news, it's sport person's news. Water quality is Hritik Roshan's bathroom happens to be a bigger news than many thirsty Mumbaikars.

By the way, I would rather read Filmfare, if I had to read about celebrities. At least they use better pages and print.

How obviously fake can it get?

2010-01-24T19:58:00.004+05:30

It's funny when Shiv Sena talks about not letting Australian cricketers play in Mumbai, because of the attacks on Indians in Australia. If anything Shiv Sena should be supporting Australians in their attacks. If we go by the ideology of the party that brought this very particular party into political map, people from other parts of country should not be allowed to come into Mumbai for job opportunities and if anyone does so they should be thrown out by force.

Not sure about the realities in Australia but even if we go by whatever is being claimed in media, they are not doing anything different from what Shiv Sena and MNS did and are yet doing to non-Marathi residents of Mumbai.

In a classic case of opportunism I heard the party leader saying, "agar IPL walon me thoda bhi desh prem hai to wo Australians to IPL me khelne nahi denge." I just want to ask one question, "where is this desh prem when your party workers beat up the citizens of the same country?"

3 IDIOTS

2009-12-27T13:44:00.003+05:30

Long time since I have seen a movie in theater (I know, so unlikely of me), blame it on the disappointing 2009 for Bollywood. Watching 3 Idiots makes me believe that the future is definitely bright. 3 Idiots is a movie questioning the very way kids are being raised in our country, where your father decides what you would become as a grown up the moment you are born. 3 Idiots is a movie questioning the entire education system in our country where students are taught how to get good grades rather than being taught how to learn. In Rancho's words, we are trained, not educated. Sounds heavy stuff. Before you take any decision, just remember the director, Raju Hirani, the man who gave us Gandhigiri.

The movie starts with Madhavan's Farhan, getting a call inside an Air India aircraft, which is about to take off and he brilliantly makes the plane halt, takes a cab meant for someone else, and reaches Sharman's Raju's house and picks him up without pants. Such hurry to meet Rancho. Who is Rancho? The story goes in flashback to show us Aamir's Rancho, who enters Imperial College of Engineering (ICE), while the ragging is going on and you hear the buzz word "aal izz well". This scene shows Rancho, putting some basic laws of Physics to practice, that to in 10 seconds. You now know Rancho is brilliant and unlike Chatur, he believes in learning than memorizing.

The story proceeds and Rancho at every step questions the education system, sharing his views like, subjects should be taught in simple language that everyone understands instead of sticking to the book, grading system creates divide and discrimination, teaching should be used to educate people not train them etc. and all this he does without being melodramatic (remember the way Hirani taught gandhigiri). Rancho takes his two roommates Raju and Farhan along and teaches them a different way of looking at life, where you don't need money to study, you need a uniform. In this process Rancho meet's Pia, ICE's director VIRUS Buddhe's daughter and sings Jubie Dubie in a dream sequence.

I could write so much about the movie, about each and every scene in the movie, because every scene was so relevant to the story that none of the scenes made you feel disinterested. The scene I found most touching is the one where Lobo, commits suicide after singing "give me some sunshine, give me some rain, give me another chance I wanna grow up once again" and his body hanging to the ceiling of his room is discovered by his own invention.

Overall what makes the movie so awesome is that I could relate and feel for each and every character, at times it looked like some scenes are picked up from my life. We are talking about our IIT days and our IIT professors after the movie, that was the brilliance of the 3 Idiots, Aamir, Raju and Vidhu.

To all who don't know it already, the story of 3 Idiots is not "Five Point Someone", the premise is taken from the book, but the script is very different from the book and that is what you expect from Raju Hirani and Abhijat Joshi, who have give us the finest of the stories of recent times. This is what happens when creative people take inspiration from something, they make it their own. The dialogs are brilliant and very college student like, to give you an idea, some samples, "jab apna koi dost fail hota hai to dukh hota hai, but jab dost top karta hai tab dukh jyada hota hai.", "life is a race, if you don't run fast, you will be like a broken anda.", "meri wife ko nahi, uske peeche bangle to dekho idiots, 3.5 million dollars". Acting department is full of competent actors like Aamir, Boman, Madhavan, Sharman all of them have done justice to their roles and touch your heart with their performances. Kareena Kapoor makes her presence felt in a role smaller than other four leading characters. Chatur is also brilliant, don't know the name of the actor. Shantanu Moitra's music and Swanand Kirkire's lyrics are well suited for the movie. Drive to Laddakh from Delhi via Shimla and Manali is brilliantly shot and captures the beauty of these location very well.

There is so much to write, I think it would be better if you go and watch the movie yourself and do yourself a favour. I would go with 9.5 out of 10 for 3 Idiots.

What BIG BOSS 3 has that 1 and 2 didn't?

2009-10-09T23:45:00.002+05:30

So, after two successful seasons BIG BOSS is back with TRITIYA. While seasons one and two had more or less similar dynamics the only differences were anchors and the contestants. This time again these two factors are obviously different, but there is something more to tritiya that 1 and 2 did not have to offer.

Since BIG BOSS is all about group dynamics, what better than put a married couple in the house. Yes, this time it's Tanaz and Bakhtiyar together in the BIG BOSS's house. (I personally think they have lost their identity as individuals and are identified only as couple. They are together always. Talk about inseparable.)

You got Rakhi is season 1 and season 3 brings you Rakhi ki ma (yes, that is how she is identified). Now you know from where Rakhi got her undoubted faith in Jesus and her dancing skills.

You also got KRK. Yes, KRK is unique and cannot go unnoticed. In his own words, "KRK itna chhota star nahi hai ki itni jaldi eliminate ho jaye." I only have one doubt, they spend so many crores for the show and 2 paise ki akal lagana bhul gaye. You have to SMS KAM to save KRK and not KRK. wtf, ye KRK ke khilaf bahut badi sajish hai.

Last but not the least, you have got Rohit. There are 6 boys, 6 girls and 1 Rohit in the house. You would not have imagined people getting cinfused between which bedroom to choose in the previous two seasons.

So guys.. ENJOY...

Giving attention where it is not required.

2009-10-04T23:43:00.004+05:30

It's been 4 years I have started my professional life. I have learned a lot many things in these years and am still learning and hope to keep on doing the same in coming years. Whenever I am at loggerheads with any of my colleagues for some reason or the other, I get really agitated and I overreact at times, and every time my boss tells me, "you are giving him/her more attention than he/she deserves."

I think Indian media is also suffering from this syndrome. They are concentrating most of the their attention where it is least required. Recently word Bombay was used instead of Mumbai in a movie and some good for nothing people have protested against the same and lead the director to apologize to their so called leader, and this news took 1/4 of the front page of Times of India, the most read English daily in our country.

If you had to name the most covered people by Indian media, they would probably be Rakhi Sawant, Raj Thackeray, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, M S Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Gandhi and recently joining the band wagon is Shashi Tharoor, for all the wrong reasons. In case of Shashi Tharoor, the reason he is covered so much is because he keeps on giving free news through twitter.

I wish our media also learns what I am trying to learn i.e. not waste your attention where it is not required.

Falon Fach Fach Bolo Kaminey Kkkkaisi Lagi

2009-08-21T01:05:00.003+05:30

One of the most anticipated movie of the year, at least for me. The reason is only one man associated with the movie, Vishal Bhardwaj. He has never disappointed me in the past. Every time he made a movie, no matter what the cast is, he did wonders. Did you ever expect Saif to do a Langda Tyagi? This time again, the expectations were huge and I was hoping not to be disappointed. Something was not right with Kaminey, the reason could be it was not inspired by Shakespeare but by Guy Ritchie. The difference can be seen clearly when you watch the movie. This does not mean, it's bad movie. It's much better than many movies you would have seen recently, yet it's not as good as you expected it to be. It's not brilliant. May be I would not have written so much above, if it was not made by Vishal Bhardwaj.

Kaminey is story of one night and how it affects the lives of twins, Charlie and Guddu. The only thing identical about these twins is their looks and that is precisely the reason they are not talking to each other (then why the hell they had each other's cell nos). While Guddu is in love with Sweety, who cons him to get married to her, against her brother Bhope Bhau's wish. Bhope Bhau happens to be a politician promoting son of the soil in Mumbai and our Guddu happens to be from Barabanki. On the other hand Charlie, who fixes horse races, land up with a Guitar case full of Cocaine, which belongs to Tashi the great (that's how he addresses him once and nobody seems to recongnise him) and is being delivered to him by Mumbai Police Anti-narcotics Cell's Inspectors Lobo and Lele. By the time you hit the intermission, both the brothers and fallen into hands of the wrong party. What happens next is nothing but a long list of coincidences, which result into both brothers realising the bond of blood.

Here again Vishal takes the best out of his actors. Every actor has done good job, specially Priyanka and Shahid as Charlie (there is something about bad guys in Vishal's movies). Surprise package is Amol Gupte as Bhope Bhau, hope to see more of him in front of the camera. The trouble about short length stories, (here it covers barely 24 hours) is that they mostly are a sequence of events and the flow of the script depends on many God-only-could-create coincidences. This is what happens here too, although Vishal tries to put some sense to the proceedings by the use of narration (thank God it was Charlie narrating the story not Guddu), and some flash back. Another problem is, I could clearly see Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels while watching the movie. Some scenes are shot brilliantly like Guddu-Sweety encounters, while some I found over dramatic and lengthy like where Mikhael is shot. I realise, I have talked so much about the film and have not talked about the background score, Dhan te nan. Well as soon as the movie starts, you get to hear the soul of the film, Dhan te nan and every time you hear that sound you get alert expecting Charlie to surprise you. Overall the movie is good and should be watched at least once, but don't expect it to be an Omkara or a Maqbool. Just go there with your brain else by the time you realise what's going on you would be seeing end credits.

I would give this film 7 out of 10, it's a nice film but I expected more.

I feel weak

2009-07-14T19:07:00.002+05:30

I have been taking all my decisions since I was 9. There have been many decisions I have taken in the past, big or small, which were not liked by many people. Some people even suspected those to be wrong decisions, but time and again I have made things work and proved the sceptics wrong. That made me feel so strong. I started believing that I can do no wrong.

Some of the decisions taken in the past, I thought were the biggest decisions of my life, but I was wrong. I have many more big decisions to take and the one I have to take right now seems to be the biggest so far. This time, for the first time, I am not able to decide. Which is making me feel weak. Weakest ever. Never before in my memory, I have felt so weak.

There have never ever been so many variables to consider while taking a decision and never before there have been variables which are controlled by someone else, but they affect me so directly. I am loosing control and that is what is making me feel weak. The worst part is, even when I decide, the decision needs someone else's approval, which is something I have never experienced before.

The problem is, I don't want to feel weak. Nobody does. I have two options, take a decision and wait for the consequences, but consequences in this case can be so strong that they might haunt me all my life, if my decision proved to be a wrong one, or don't take a decision and let things go as it is and forget that this kind of situation ever arose in my life, which certainly is not going to be an easy task either.

It happens only in MayaPuri: 8 year old booked under Goonda Act.

2009-06-21T03:50:00.006+05:30

My friends from MP don't be mad, but I have a thought of changing the name of UP to MP (MayaPuri). Where things are happening that nobody else can think of. Talk about out of box thinking and here it is. Who could have thought that an 8 year old boy would be booked under stringent anti gangster law aptly named Goonda Act.

There can be only two possibilities. UP kids are now becoming very enterprising and taking on the profession they would be taking at a later stage very early. After all it helps to start early. Or UP police have become really talented in recognising the promising talent very early. Whatever it is, kudos to Behenji for bringing law and order in the state. Book all the future goondas at and early age and you have a goonda free UP for the future.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/UP-8-yr-old-booked-under-goonda-Act/articleshow/4681953.cms

Indians in Australia

2009-06-02T22:14:00.003+05:30

One of the news doing rounds of various news channels is recent attacks on Indians in Australia. We are cursing Australians for doing so. Everyone is appealing to Indian government to do something about it.

First talk about cursing the Australians part. Well I have heard from the same news channels that Australian government is makings laws against such attacks and trying to make the existing laws more stringent in order to discourage such attacks. At least they are doing something about it. They are not keeping a mum like our government did when few MNS workers were beating students and taxi drivers from UP and Bihar in Mumbai, for trying to earn a living in their own country.

Now talk about appealing to Indian government. Well isn't it expecting too much from a government to stop attacks on Indian in a foreign land, who is not even capable of stopping such hate attacks against Indians in India. I would have appreciated it more if PMO would have clearly told the appealing students and their families that they are not capable of doing anything in this regard, because they are not even capable of stopping such attacks in their own country where they hold the power, forget about any foreign land.

Now talk about the biggest irony of them all, a very prominent political figure has made an statement today appealing BCCI to not allow Australians in IPL in order to penalise them for the attacks on Indian students in Australian soil. This sounds ridiculous coming from the mouth of the same person who has build his political career by coming up with the idea of son of the soil and beaten up so called outsiders in order to force them away from their so called land. Well, if son of the soil is applicable for people of Mumbai, how come it is not valid in the same way and even more in case of Australians.

Gulaal

2009-03-10T13:40:00.000+05:30

What they claim!

2009-02-16T23:50:00.002+05:30

Just noticed two commercials being aired on TV. The claim is SBI happens to be the best life insurer in India but ICICI Prudential is the best life insurer in Asia.

How the hell same is possible? Which one of the two is making a false claim? Who has rated them?

Well if you ask them, they will definitely come up with two different rating agencies or criteria to prove their claim. Shouldn't there be some standard?

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-27T00:11:00.003+05:30

Slumdog Millionaire a movie made popular by the Golden Globe Wins, Oscar Nominations and a lot of discussion in Media for good as well as bad reasons. There have been movies made earlier about the life in Mumbai slums, but this one is special because this one is directed by a foreigner Danny Boyle. The movie is based on a novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup and talks about the journey of two kids Jamal and Salim from childhood to boyhood to adulthood. It's the story of their survival and how Jamal ends up having all the right answers on one of India's biggest quiz show Who Wants to Become a Millionaire. How does he know all the answers? He has not read them anywhere, he has neither heard about them from someone nor he is cheating. Life has taught him all the answers and how is the screenplay of Slumdog Millionaire.

Jamal is interrogated by the Police on charges of cheating in the game show and the entire is movie is about Jamal narrating the Police how he knew those answers. Each question asked by Prem (Anil Kapoor) in the show is related to some significant incident in his life and that is how he knows the answers. The story starts from Jamal and Salim two kid brothers trying to survive in the slums of Mumbai in the middle of poverty and crime. In their bid to survival they meet Latika and Jamal finds himself attached to her. The movie like all other bollywood movies is about love and hate, good and evil, separation and reunion and in the end there is hope. Hope that a boy from slum can be a millionaire overnight.

We have seen two boys running after a train and then growing old in many Hindi movies. Danny Boyle shows how difficult it is grow old for two orphan kids in this bad bad world. Many scenes in the movie look like a tribute to 70s Hindi cinema. The kids have acted well and are true stars of the film. The screenplay is brilliant and has been supported well by able direction and top notch cinematography. A R Rehman's soundtrack takes the narrative to entirely different level. Danny has used Rehman's talent very well for his film.

I have heard many opinions about the film before and after watching the movie and would suggest don't by the opinions you hear in this case because at many occasions the opinions might be biased because of the fact that the film is made by a foreigner. I would suggest everyone to watch the movie and form there own opinion or better just enjoy the journey of Jamal and Salim. For the first time in my life I was watching a movie alone in a theater and it didn't bother me, I found the movie so gripping. Would go with 9 out of 10 for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire and wish A R Rehman all the best for Oscars.

Find Him. Kill Him.

2009-01-11T16:27:00.003+05:30

A man wakes up in a room and is not able to recognize where he is. He enters the bathroom, with a perplexed look on his face. He looks confused from his body language. He reads the sticker pasted on the mirror in the bathroom, "TAKE OFF T-SHIRT". He follows the instruction and takes off his t-shirt, looking even more surprised. While taking of his t-shirt first thing he sees "REVENGE" written on his stomach. Even more surprised, he takes his t-shirt off and now he knows what is it all about. Now he knows, "KALPANA WAS MURDERED" "FIND HIM" KILL HIM" "GHAJINI". The man is full of pain and anger and he screams, may be to ease his pain and anger. Now the man knows, he is Sanjay Singhania, love of his life Kalpana was murdered and the only thing he knows is the name of the murderer, GHAJINI. To make things worse, Sanjay is suffering from short term memory loss and can't remember anything for more than 15 Mins.

If you have a bad memory and want to remember something important you write it down. Your brain is not able to remember things so you build your memory in the form of notes. That's exactly our hero does in Ghajini and that's what Guy Pearce did in Memento. So what, Ghajini is not Memento and it's good that nobody in the movie is trying to match it with Memento. I don't think we have guys like Christopher Nolan in bollywood. Back to Ghajini. I personally found the movie well made and everyone has acted their parts very well. The chemistry between Amir and Asin is a treat to watch.

Amir Khan has already proved his acting skills many times and a good performance was expected out of him and he did brilliantly both as a sophisticated business man smitten by an upcoming model and as a disabled man in pursuit of revenge. He is believable when he smile at Asin's innocence as well as when he breaks the neck of people with a single punch. Asin fills the otherwise violent movie with light moments and you love her when she is on the screen. Pradeep Rawat, who played Deva in Lagan and Sultan in Sarfarosh, has done a brilliant job as Ghajini. You can see the fear inside him when he is shouting. Jiah Khan didn't have much to do in the film but wherever she was, she looked convincing. I wish there was more of the Lattoo song. By the way, there weren't any songs needed in the story except may be Kaise Mujhe. The songs seem to be disturbing with the pace of the film. On the other hand it's a good sound track and the magician A R Rehman never fails to deliver the best. I like all the songs, specially Bacchu.

Overall I think Ghajini is a well made film with great acting. The only point against the movie is that it's not one of those feel good films you can watch again and again. It's a disturbing film with so much violence in it. Violence or no violence, this movie deserves a watch. I would rate this one as 8 out of 10.

PS: Don't blame me for not mentioning the Tamil version, I haven't seen it hence can't comment on it.

Rab Ne Bana Di Movie

2008-12-26T01:18:00.003+05:30

Don't be confused by the title of the post, I have selected this after much thought and it's very much relevant with the movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Well if you pull rab out of the movie there is nothing left. Like the leading characters in his film, Aditya Chopra would have also thought that Rab sab theek kar denge. Well God helps those, who help themselves. In this case God doesn't seem to be helping Adi, because you don't expect an almost empty theater in the second weekend after release of a SRK movie. Is there a decline in SRK's popularity or Rab nahi chahte ki Aditya Chopra aur movies banaye.

By now everybody knows the story so I would not waste words in telling you the same. It could have been a brilliant film if Rab was not to decide everything, somethings could have been left on Bobby, played by Vinay Pathak. Whenever there is a difficult situation Adi looks up to Rab for help. Well Rab has given you a brain so that you can help yourself sometime. Not to take the credit away, some scenes are really beautiful and I enjoyed them and had a good laugh on some of them. The only problem I have is with the over dramatic scenes, which seems to have become a trademark of each YRF film and may be the whole country agrees with me, which explains the 100 crore loss, which is being talked about these days.

I always knew SRK can act, you have to just let him not be himself in the movie and I have again been proved right after watching him as Surinder Sahani. Surinder Sahani, Panjab Power, lighting up your life ji, this dialogue is enough to light up your faces, when they are spoken by Suri, not by SRK. On the other hand Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte, really irritated me. That's one irritating way to say bye. They should have put a disclaimer "never try this at home", whenever this dialogue was being spoken.

It would have been a nice film and I would have liked it better if it was 20 minutes shorter. While I enjoyed the first half in pieces, second half didn't seem to end. While SRK is good as Suri, he irritates as Raj*. Anushka Shrama has done a good job. Special mention for Vinay Pathak for his special role. Rab has also done a brilliant job by entering on his convenience wherever he felt like and making the movie more predictable. If you are an SRK fan, you would like this movie, if you are not go and watch Suri.

*Raj is played by a well known celebrity, please do not try these tactics to woo girls in your colony. In case you get slapped, beaten or caught by Police, the producers of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi can not be held responsible.

The unfailing Indian ability to turn disability into philosophy

2008-12-21T22:01:00.005+05:30

I just read an article in Times of India, by Swapan Dasgupta and would like to quote one phrase from that, "the unfailing Indian ability to turn disability into philosophy". We have been invaded for centuries. Some of those invaders stayed back raped our women and raised kids. Now we say Indian culture adopted them. Please open your history books again, Babar came with his canons and we could not compete with them. We failed in keeping him away, we did not adopt him by will, it was by force. If someone robs you at gun point, you don't say that you were generous and helped the needy. If you say so and don't resist, there are chances of you being robbed again and most likely by the same person. Why? Because he knows you are weak and can not fight back.

What is happening currently in India in the name of Pakistan sponsored terrorism is the outcome of the same inability to accept the truth as it is and handling the same. Every time we are attacked, instead of taking some action, we hide behind the curtain of forgiveness. We not only pretend to forgive, but also forget. Why we forgive? because we are too weak to fight.

When we ask for extradition of criminal and terrorist like Dawood, who is and Indian citizen wanted for crimes done in India against Indians, Pakistan has the guts to say that he will be put to trial in Pakistan provided India provides ample proof (which never is ample).

I don't understand, when India TV can reach Dawood, why can't our RAW agents. Why can't he be abducted by RAW and brought to India or assassinated? This failure is being turned into which philosophy? Mr. Pranab Mukharjee, I am waiting for a response.

Not that Lucky

2008-12-10T23:36:00.002+05:30

Mumbai terror strike has an unlikely victim in the form of our film industry, that is the reason I did not see the crowd one would expect on a movie from the makers of hilarious Khosla ka Ghosla. So in that sense Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! did not turn out to be that lucky for it's makers.

Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! is story of a thief Lucky, who steals anything and everything from rich homes and sells the stuff in black market. His catalog includes anything from kitchen utensils to Mercedes. In his stealing spree Lucky meets many people and the story moves forward with Lucky meeting the girl of his dream. That all to tell as far as story is concerned. I wish they had a tight story for the film.

The film has some very funny moments and witty dialogs. I would have liked the kid Lucky's story to go on instead of the grown up Lucky. Nothing against Abhay Deol, I think he is growing up real fast as an actor, but grown up Lucky's story is not as interesting as the kid's. The movie has been very well directed backed by a fine performance by lead actor. However there were some loose ends, like the story with Lucky's brothers. We really could not understand the point behind those scenes. May be those incidents pushed Lucky towards opening a restaurant, but they didn't look very convincing.

Overall it's a fine film and deserves one watch, but please don't expect Khosla ka Ghosla, you will be disappointed. It's not a match for Lucky is no match for Khosla. I would go with 7 out of 10 for Lucky.

Three Days of Terror: What Now?

2008-12-03T00:07:00.004+05:30

Suddenly after recent terror attacks in Mumbai, I see a lot of patriotism in people. People who never talked about India as a country before have also suddenly become the biggest patriot you could see around. There is nothing wrong in being patriotic, in fact everyone should feel that way. But the problem starts when people start doing stupid things in this overflow of patriotism. Like 4 youths in Rang de Basanti suddenly started feeling patriotic due to one particular incident and did something very stupid i.e. killing the defence minister.

The biggest problem with this sudden patriotism is that everyone wants to flaunt his feelings for the country and they choose various ways to do so. I have been witnessing some of these in last few days. People start sending forwarded messages, start signing different petitions, organise public gathering and some of them go to the extent of filing PILs in courts. I think all this has been done before and none of these have worked most of the time, instead these ways of demonstrating your feeling use a lot of valuable resources and time. Some well educated and well known faces have even suggested stop paying taxes. I don't know if these guys actually think about how these suggestions are going to be implemented and most importantly are they really the solution to our problems. By the way, not paying your taxes can never be patriotic. Instead everyone should pay taxes. Can you guys imagine if trillions deposited by Indians in Swiss banks is just brought back to India and deposited in Indian banks, we will not be talking about liquidity crunch for years to come.

I think the best way to deal with the situation and show your patriotism is to do whatever you are supposed to do with honesty and perform your duties before enquiring about your rights. Do whatever possible to educate the next generation and vote for the right candidate and not against the wrong candidate.

The new Bharti campaign comes to my mind. Think about what a billion Indians can do.

Three Days of Terror: Mumbai Spirit

2008-12-01T02:03:00.005+05:30

Whenever any unfortunate tragedy strikes Mumbai, be it a natural disaster like flood few years back, bomb blasts or riots, we instead of reforming and rediscovering ourselves we start talking about Mumbai spirit and how every time it bounces back in no time. First of all Mumbaikars don't have a choice than to bounce back and go back to their daily lives no matter what has happened yesterday and this not having a choice has given a wrong impression to our politicians sitting in Parliament and Vidhan Bhawan. Our friends in Parliament and Assembly think that now the tragedy is over and everyone seems to have forgotten about it, let us forget it as well. Digging too deep into it might cut some of our votes in next election as some people might rightfully take this as the failure of the government and vote against the ruling party on next election. So sooner we forget about it the better for our politician who seems to be suffering from short term memory loss and it always takes some big tragedy to awaken them from their sleep and refresh their memory. A job which these terrorists have been doing so efficiently.

These terrorists seem to have taken a pledge that till government does something concrete to equip Mumbai to help itself in time of crisis they will keep on doing this and nature seems to be on terrorists side by killing a number of people in form of rain every year. I have been taught as a kid that God help those who help themselves and in this case God seems to be helping terrorists because they are putting a lot more effort in destruction than we are in construction. Help yourself and hope that God will also help you.

I am a great admirer of Ratan Tata and when I see him so sad after witnessing the damage of Taj, I highlighted that to one of my friends. I said, "I have never seen him so sad". My friend promptly replied, "he is paying the price of being an Indian". I think we all are, by being subjected to such situations. We are all responsible for this in some ways because we allow all this to happen. We Indians have a very short memory and we forget everything so soon that by the time we decide to take some corrective action, we have already forgotten what needs to be corrected. No wonder a certain Raj Thakarey would rise again tomorrow and again try to divide us in the name of region and language. Or a certain Sonia/Rahul Gandhi asking for votes just because they belong to a particular family. Or a certain Advani trying to teach us about Hindutva, without even understanding what Hindutva means. I wish for once we Indians start using our brains instead of doing what someone else wants us to do.

One dialogue from Krantiveer comes to my mind at this point, "uparwale ne bahut kamal ki cheese banayi, insaan. Neeche jhank ke dekha to sab sale keede makode ban gaye the." I wonder for how long we can keep on living like keede makode. I hope this time Mumbai does not bounce back as it does after every disaster, and reforms itself instead.

Three Days of Terror

2008-11-29T22:47:00.004+05:30

Last three days everyone was glued to their television sets watching the live coverage of the terror attacks at various locations in south Mumbai, covered by all the news channels across the globe. The whole operation took more than 50 hours to be over and that was done by only 10 armed and well prepared terrorists, who managed to kill cops with more experience that their age. DO you think it was their preparedness that allowed them to hold for such long, considering there was no hostage situation or negotiations? I think it was more of our lack of preparedness rather than their preparation that helped them hold so long.

When it all started everyone thought it's a gang war and by the time we could realise that it's much bigger than what it seems, we were clueless what to do. Nobody seemed to be equipped with the necessary skill or training to handle such situations and that's when we are constantly under terrorist attacks for last so many years. Looks like we don't want to learn from our mistakes. Every time there is a terror attack, we talk about spirit of Mumbai and how it bounces back. Does Mumbai really has a choice than bouncing back. Since Mumbai bounces back, we forget to prepare ourselves for next such attacks. I mean how ridiculous it is that in case of terrorist attacks in the financial capitol of the country, we have to bring in NSG commandos from Delhi. By the time these commandos arrive terrorist would have already done the damage and taken secure positions. Lack of decision making ability of our politicians actually allowed terrorists enough time to make bunkers inside these fine buildings.

The worst thing Congress government has done to the democracy that it has given us a spineless Prime Minister and Cabinet. I wonder why these office bearers in the cabinet consult Sonia Gandhi every time they have to take a decision. I think they are taking decisions as an office bearer of Cabinet and not as a member of Congress working committee and as per my knowledge Sonia Gandhi doesn't hold any office in the cabinet. She is just an MP and there are more than 500 for that matter. In such situations decisions need to be taken at the blink of eye, others can be briefed about the decision later, if need be. As per my understanding a Union Home Minister is fully capable of taking such decision on his own and if anyone needs to be consulted are the NSA and their staff in such matters and not Sonia Gandhi. I doubt if he has consulted NSA before taking the decision instead he preferred consulting Sonia Gandhi as if she is an expert in handling such situation. Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan, when heard about the unfortunate incident (as if he didn't know about it already), guess who he calls up. Your guess is as good as mine, Sonia Gandhi. I find it unfortunate how President of ruling party has become more important person that Prime Minister and that's the kind of democracy we keep on bragging about.

I have so much to write and don't think all my feelings can be covered in one post. So that's all for now. Will take this further in my next post.

Divide and rule

2008-11-04T01:31:00.004+05:30

I was speaking to a guy few days back about recent Raj Thakarey fiasco and realised how easy it is to influence the common man of India. It was the day Raj got arrested and for obvious reasons I don't subscribe to the tactics (not calling is ideology) employed by Raj to gain political mileage. I asked the guy, why so many people are supporting Raj and going around burning buses and beating harmless people. The answer I got was "wo jinke liye lad raha hai, wo log uska sath denge hi." I mean people really believe Raj Thakarey is fighting for Marathi people's rights and that is why they are supporting him so violently. On the above answer I asked, "buses jo jalayi hai wo Maharashtra me hi jali hain," so how can you fight for Marathi people by destroying public property in Maharshtra. For a moment I could not believe the answer I got for this. The guy said, "wo to government ka loss hai." As if those buses were meant only for government or non-marathi's.

If there are people like these there will be many more Raj Thakarey's and he is not to be blamed for whatever has been happening in recent times. It's the people who are following him without giving it much thought. Indian public gets influenced too easily. I may not be able to pin point the exact reason for the same, but in my opinion, it's lack of education and employment. You would have heard of old saying "Khali dimag shaitan ka ghar." I don't think anyone who has a job to do and earn breads for his family would have even thought about what Raj is saying, till it was blown out of proportions by our news-deprived media.

I think it's the lack of education that we have a political party by the name of Maharashtra Navanirman Sena and there are people who would actually vote for it in next general election. My only question is, how can a political party be called Sena (army), and since when armies started participating in Navnirman, they have always been known for destruction and what kind of Navnirman these MNS people are doing by destroying the public property. On the expense of sounding funny, they are actually justifying their name, they are fighting (which armies do) and destroying property so that same can be replaced by new establishments thus making the path for Navnirman clear.

Bachelors not allowed

2008-10-03T21:52:00.003+05:30

I am sure this would have happened to a lot of people looking for an apartment to stay in Mumbai. You walk into a housing complex looking for an apartment and someone tells you "bachelors not allowed". I wonder what's wrong in someone being a bachelor, I mean all those so called family persons were bachelor some day.

Renting a flat to a bachelor is much more convenient than renting it to a family. Why? Bachelors don't crib for small small things, they just come home during the night mostly just to sleep, hence the furniture and other stuff is less used, they don't have any problems in leaving the flat in case required, because families form an association with the flat because their kids are studying in a particular school, which has to be changed in case they change the flat. So many positives of renting a flat to a bachelor, still so many issues have been created out of nowhere.

There could be some things associated with bachelors, which probably these family men used to do when they were themselves bachelor and think that all bachelors are like this. The problem has to be with some things, which are associated with bachelors and not any person. If this is the case don't allow those things, why deprive of bachelors staying away from their home and family of a roof.

I have noticed, most of the times it's not the owners of the flat who have a problem, it's the society. If you ask these society people about the real issue, they always fail to provide a logical explanation for this ridiculous demand. Some site some hypothetical or real incident/experience they had with some of the bachelors staying in one of the flats in the society, well I also can share many such incidents involving married people. Just because one person behaves in a particular way does not mean everyone is same. In the end each individual is different and has different behaviour and attitude.

In the end only one thing, most of the bachelors looking for a flat in Mumbai want to live with their family but they can not afford a flat alone, with the rent so high, to keep their family with them. That is why they decide to share the flat and rent with their colleagues or friends and sometimes even with people whom they have never known before.

We (me and couple of my partners in crime of bachelorhood) wish to build a huge high class housing complex with all the facilities and rent it to bachelors in half the market rates. In case some family man wants to rent a flat in the complex they will have to pay the market rates and will have to go through an interview before they are be allowed to stay in the locality. We might be married by that time, but still we don't want bachelors to go through all the trouble just because they are not married. In fact looking at the population in the City/Country, we should be encouraging the bachelors instead of forcing them to start a family just for this very idiotic reason. Common guys, think about the future.

He did it on a Wednesday

2008-09-06T14:47:00.003+05:30

Thanks to Ronnie Screwvala, that we got to watch movies like Aamir, Life in a Metro, Rang De Basanti, Khosla ka Ghosla and now A Wednesday. A Wednesday is a movie based on the backdrop of terrorism, but it's different from plenty of other movies on terrorism we got to watch recently. The movie brings two of the finest actors of Hindi film industry together in well defined no-nonsense roles.

Commissioner of Police Prakash Rathore gets a call from an unknown number claiming that he has planted bombs at different locations in Mumbai and to prove his claim he guides the Police team to a bomb planted at Colaba Police station. In return the unknown caller demands release of four terrorists. The caller is played by Naseeruddin Shah and Prakash Rathore is a no-nonsense cop played by Anupam Kher. This leads to start of a high speed thriller involving two other cops played by Jimmy Shergil and Amir Bashir and a news reporter played by Deepal Shaw. There is a twist in the end and a brilliant monologue by Naseeruddin Shah about problems of the common man.

There are so many movies getting made on terrorism, but this one is different. It has a story to tell, which it does without deviating from the objective. There are no subplots, not forced songs in the movie. The movie progresses in a straight line and it's a short film and does not take much of your time. All the actors have performed their part brilliantly and dialogues are very well written. Specially the last conversation between Naseer and Kher. You don't want any songs in such movie and I am glad there are none. This is one good thriller made with a twist in the end and it forces you to think. Not to forget, this is first attempt of the director Neeraj Pandey, who has written the script as well. I am looking for more from him, he certainly seems to be a good story teller.

I would rate this one as 8 out of 10 and would recommend it to everyone.

Chamku can't die sala

2008-08-31T02:23:00.003+05:30

Dear God! forgive me cause I have sinned. I was so out of mind (it can happen after having a couple of drinks) that I have decided to watch Chanku. Oh God! forgive me, I have sinned.

Chamku is story of Chandrama Singh aka Chamku (Bobby Deol), who joins naxal movement after his father is killed by Thakur (Akhilendra Mishra) and he is saved by naxalite leader played by Danny. He becomes an active member of naxal movement before getting caught by Police and taken for encounter. This time he is saved by Kapoor (Irrfan) and recruited for a covert team of political assassins. During his stint in the team, he meets Priyanka Chopra and falls in love with her. He also comes across Thakur during one of the operations and decides to kill Thakur. After a failed attempt on Thakur he is again captured by Police, taken for encounter but again saved by Kapoor.

It's an outdated script and has been shown many times on silver screen. Presence of Bobby Deol is reason enough for not watching the film. Priyanka Chopra is doing so many movies these days that she herself would have not known she has worked in this film. She looks out of place, her character is also not well defined. Irrfan has very less to do in the film. None of the songs in the film are worth listening and irritate when they are played out of place in the film. Overall, there is nothing to talk about in the film.

I would not dare to rate this film and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Two powerhouses of acting together

2008-08-24T23:46:00.001+05:30

Mumbai Meri Jaan

2008-08-24T19:03:00.003+05:30

When something is done with good intentions it shows and Mumbai Meri Jaan is a movie made with good intentions. On 11th July 2006, 7 bombs in local trains rocked Mumbai. You saw people getting with their day to day activities from very next day. You heard numerous news channel talking about Mumbai spirit. What is Mumbai spirit? What was it that kept Mumbai going? Mumbai Meri Jaan tries to capture the answers to these questions.

Mumbai Meri Jaan is story of 5 characters and how they deal with the sad incident. Madhvan is a senior executive in some corporate house and uses local trains to commute though he can very well afford a car. He happens to be in one of trains, which exploded and is lucky to survive. Soha Ali Khan is a TV reporter and her fiance is killed in the incident. Paresh Rawal is a hawaldar in the verge of retirement. K K Menon is a computer salesman, who happens to suspect every muslim he sees around. Irrfan is a poor coffeewala from south India, who after being insulted in a shopping mall, makes hoax calls to police to create havoc is malls. The movie explores how Mumbai returned to it's self after the incident through these characters.

Everyone in the movie has acted really well. Soha Ali Khan is one actor to watch out for, she is growing into a fine actress. All others have already established themselves as fine actors and don't need any introduction. Vijay Maurya has impressed with his performance as a policeman, whose leave has been canceled because of the blasts. Although the movie handles a sensitive subject it doesn't get heavy at any point. Dialogues are very well written. I am really impressed by the way the subject has been handled.

I would give this movie 8 out of 10. Would recommend everyone to watch this film, make this film work. I want more such films to be made and encourage the filmmakers to keep up the good work. It's better than spending your money on watching various meaningless films being made these days.

PS: Happened to watch the trailer of A Wednesday during the interval and the movie seems interesting. Looking forward to watch this one too. It would be interesting to watch two fine actors Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher confront each other in a fast paced thriller (that's what it looked like from the trailer).

Singh is King: Not Exactly

2008-08-09T22:47:00.006+05:30

What would you expect from a film whose story is derived from the title instead of the other way round? Well, since Akshaya Kumar is there I expected it to be a no brainer laugh riot. No brainer it is, but laugh riot it isn't. The movie doesn't have a script at all and the entire cast and crew looked confused about what they wanted to show to the audience. Sometimes it seems like a comedy, sometimes a movie with a message, but in the end it turns out to be a big joke on you.

The movie starts with Lucky Singh AKA King (of Australian underworld) being attacked on his birthday and Lucky played by Sonu Sood catching the killer by performing a gravity defying stunt. The scene is shifted to Punjab where Happy Singh (Akshaya) is making everyone's life miserable by trying to help them. All the villagers decide to get rid of Happy by sending him on a mission to bring Lucky back to his home. Happy on his mission to bring lucky back meets Sonia (Katrina) and ends up becoming the new King. Entire movie is full of crap except only a couple of good scenes (which actually made me laugh) in the entire 2 hrs runtime. Most of the scenes don't even make sense like why Puneet's father resembled Mika (King's brother), sudden change of heart of every character in the King's gang, why Puneet surrenders so easily during the climax, well there are plenty such loopholes. The couple of scenes I liked were the one with "King ka khoon khaul raha hai." and the one where paralysed king is used as a tray to pass things among people.

There is no story in the movie to talk about. The director should go on a sabbatical and learn some skills before trying his hands again in this trait. Akshaya Kumar should not be over confident and relook at what he is doing. Katrina Kaif is so beautiful that she I don't care about her acting. Yashpal Sharma shouldn't try such kind of stunts again; he is so good at playing bad guys that he should be doing more often than doing such silly stuff. I had great expectation from Neha Dhupia after watching her in Mithya and Ek Chalis ki Last Local, but she doesn't seem to be serious about her career. Om Puri should retire, it's better than doing such roles. It's sad watching him in roles he has been playing lately like in Mere Baap Pahle Aap, Buddha Mar Gaya and now this one. None of the songs including the one with Snoop Dog sound good, actually I got irritated whenever any song was played. Not to mention all of these songs were forced into the script.

In the end, when it comes to making movies Script is King and not Singh, in this case there is no king only a bunch of Jokers (just talking about the joker in cards, don't confuse with the brilliant act of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). This movie does not deserve anything better than 4 out of 10, 2 points of these are for the two jokes, but I think 200 Rs is huge price to pay to watch just two jokes. It's not a fair deal. If you are Akshaya Kumar's fan don't watch it because you will be disappointed and if you are not, you are anyways not going to watch it.

Wah Aamir Wah!

2008-06-07T23:22:00.000+05:30

It seems perfection is associated with the name Aamir (okay lets forget the rash Paki opener Aamri Soheil). This movie is simply perfect. I couldnt find any flaw even after spending one night think about the movie. Its just the perfect thriller India has ever produced. Ekdum hollywood estyle picture hai baap! The story starts with a wonderfull casting song and some nicely taken shots of Mumbai. And then one great scene starts following another. Unfortunately I can not tell any more about the story, it will spoil every thing but surely some extremely splendid scenes can be discussed. 1. Small Victory Scene: This scene comes up when everything is going wrong in Aamir's life. The way he beats up those thugs is awesome and the audience also feel like kicking their asses. This scene is enhanced by the beautiful Qwalli which goes on in the background. When the scene end I felt like clapping for the person "Aamir" , he seemd so real! 2. Realization Scene: This best part of the scene is just for a second when Aamir realises what has actually happend to him. This time I felt like clapping for Rajeev Khandelwal, the actor this time. His emotions are simply outstanding. Actually there are many more such scenes like when Aamir goes to the public sandaas, the power of the scene is so much that the audience also feels like pukinh when Aamir does. As I am trying to remember such scenes, the more scenes are cropping up in my mind, but such aalsi I am, I can't describe any more scenes. The direction of the debutant RK Gupta is awesome, infact awesome is also an understatement. My vocabulary is too small to describe the art of this man. The cinematography by Alphonse Roy is out of the world stuff. The OST of the movie is brilliant and I wonder why such beautifull songs were not promoted. Seriously bad marketing of such a good product. Editing is perfect, the movie never drags and it ends exactly when it had to end. Total 1 and a half hour paisa wasool. Finally some words for the splendid actor, Mr. Khandelwal. He, along with the director, deserve standing ovation whereever they go. Rajeev could have done atleast a dozen TV soaps uptill now and could have married 19 times but he chose to be a part of this movie. I hope a certain Ms. Kapoor is watching this movie and think of funding these kind of movies, not the ones in which her brother plays a dreading don. This movie is a must watch and that too ONLY in theaters coz the only thing that I found disappointing was the 3 quarter empty cinema hall.

The Dark Knight Trailer

2008-05-16T01:00:00.000+05:30

The truth is, I am Iron Man.

2008-05-05T00:41:00.007+05:30

I wanted to say those lines after watching the movie Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr in the title role. I have never read any of the Iron Man comics before and neither knew that any such superhero existed. So it's a movie about the lesser known hero of Marvel. But it seems to have the potential of become a bigger franchise than Spiderman in movies. This movie is not about a hypothetical Gotham city, or a guy from another planet or someone who has powers of a spider, this movie is about a real person, living in a real world dealing with real life problems, using his extraordinary scientific brain. This movie is one superhero flick someone can actually relate to.

Tony Stark is a brilliant scientist, a playboy and CEO of Stark Industries, the biggest arms manufacturer in the world. During his visit to Afghanistan for demonstration of one of his innovation Jericho missile, Tony is kidnapped by some terrorists and is forced to make one of the Jericho missile for them. In the captivity Tony builds a escape suit and the Iron Man is born. In the captivity Tony realizes that the arms he is building for world PEACE are being used by terrorists for killing innocent people and he decides to use his newly acquired powers against terrorists. There are some interesting twists here and there just like any other super hero flick. Just like any other super hero flick there is love interest of super hero, this time she is Pepper Potts, Tony's personal secretary, played well by Gwyneth Paltrow. There are close friends, Colonel Jim Rhodes, played by Terrence Howard and enemies, Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, played by Jeff Bridges.

The movie is brilliantly made and is contemporary. Robert Downey Jr seems to have born to play Tony Stark/Iron Man, he is absolutely brilliant and makes the character even more interesting. I think it's the brilliance of Director Jon Favreau that has made the Iron Man look so brilliant on the screen.

I have seen many super hero flicks in the past and this one is one of the best. I would rate it as 8 out of 10. Get over IPL, go for Iron Man and I assure you full entertainment.

Tashan: How worse it can be now?

2008-04-28T00:27:00.004+05:30

Bade bade stars ko cast karke, ek ghatiya story pe ghatiya presentation ke sath unse ghaitya acting karwana. Yahi hai Yash Raj films ka Tashan. At least that's what seems after watching last few films (except Chak De) from Yash Raj Banner. I think distributors of Tashan knew that the movie is not worth 200 Rs, that is why they haven't released it in multiplexes. I did not expect the most awaited film of the year to be like this. That too when Akshaya Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor are a part of the film. I mean whatever these four are touching turns into gold these days, but alas Yash Raj Films could not benefit from them and have given all four of them a flop (may be) after a long run of hits at box office.

The movie is about Pooja (Kareen) who works for Bhaiyaji (Anil). Pooja hires Jimmy (Saif), a call center employee to teach Bhaiyaji English. Jimmy falls in love with Pooja while teaching English to Bhaiyaji. Both of the decide to run away with Bhaiyaji's 25 crore. Here comes the man everyone was so desperately waiting for after being bored by watching badly shot scenes with some even worse dialogues, ten headed Akshaya Kumar. Akshaya's Bacchan Pande, who is a collection agent in Kanpur is sent after Pooja and Jimmy to recover the money. Entire second half is about the chase and many badly shot senseless action sequences.

Frankly speaking, after watching Tashan I have realized that "Cash" wasn't that bad, this one is even worse. There is some story but nobody cares when the same is presented so badly. Akshaya Kumar is the only one who impresses (again) with his acting. Yash Raj Films owes everything this movie earns to Akshaya and Kareena (for 3 seconds of bikini shot). Only watchable scene where Akshaya Kumar is not there is Kareena in bikini but alas that lasts only 3 seconds. Anil Kapoor irritates with his badly written dialogues. Saif has nothing great to do in the film. Songs sound good but when you watch them they don't look that great. Overall the movies is a big disaster only saving grace for the movie is Akhsaya Kumar and he has also been made to so much silly stuff that he also looks stupid in many scenes.
I would rate this one as two out ten, one for Akshaya Kumar and one for Kareena Kapoor in bikini.

Khuda Ke Liye

2008-04-08T22:12:00.004+05:30

Before watching this film, I used to think all Pakistani movies are like those B-grade Bhojpuri films, with names like Sasura Bada Paisa Wala. To be frank when I first heard the name of this movie, first dialogue that came to my mind was "Khuda kay liye mujhe chhod do," something similar to "Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chhod do" from our very own Hindi films. Then I read about the appreciation this movie has received all over the world. Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India has given this movie 4 stars and said "There have been a number of post 9/11 offerings from Hollywood, but it takes a Pakistani film to create the maximum impact". Though I am not a big fan of Mr. Kazmi but such strong statement about the movie made me watch this film. BTW, don't read too much between the lines, the movie is not about 9/11, it's much more than that. It's about how some fanatic Moulanas influence youths in the name of God and how people get effected by that.

Khuda ke Liye is a story of one family living in Lahore. Two brothers Mansoor and Sarmad, who love music and have an small band of their own. One day Sarmad's friend takes him to Mullah Tahiri and gets influenced by his views of Islam, which include quitting music, changing dress code, wearing beard etc. One day their uncle, who has been living in London for years and married a British come to Lahore to marry his daughter Maryam to one of the two. Reason, she was in love with a British boy and was ready to marry him. Sarmad, against the will of everyone else in the family takes Maryam to Afghanistan Border and marries her with the help of Moulana Tahiri and keeps her captive. Why, according to Moulana Tahiri, it's against Islam for a girl to marry outside the community. In the meanwhile Mansoor is in USA studying music, and falls in love with an American girl, who he later marries. Then 9/11 happens and everything changes in everyone's life. Mansoor has been arrested and tortured and Sarmad has unwillingly, influenced by Moulana's views joins Taliban. Everything changes. What follows then is an eye opener for all the orthodox, so called religious people.

The movie is made with good intentions and the director knows what he wants to show. He is always to the point, with no nonsense. All the three lead characters have been developed well and the transition in Sarmad's character is justified by his conversations with Mansoor and Moulana Tahiri. Everyone has played his part well. Music of the movie is top class.
I would rate this movie 7 out of 10, go and watch it.

One, Two, Blah Blah

2008-03-30T19:04:00.001+05:30

Straight coming to the point, One two three is NOT worth wasting your money in a multiplex but if you are a chiller party like yours truly and dont mind the single theater charm then this movie is a must watch!! (BTW I watched it thanx to the piracy, not much single theaters in Gurgaon). This movie is about three idiots named Lakshminarayan and the usual Priyadarshan type confusion that occurs. The plot ends here, yes there's nothing more to write about the plot instead the director Ashwini Dhir needs some mention. It seemed the final output was far from what he wanted to show. I believe it because of the fact that this is the same man who gave us Office Office. The glimpses of such artist is seen in the scenes between Manoj Tiwari's gang and Anna Shetty. Special mention to ever underrated Sanjay Mishra (As Pintos) who does a Jeevan impersonation brilliantly. If I had to pick two performs of this dim wit movie, then they have to be Manoj tiwari and Sanjay Mishra. Rest all are plain and simple BAD. Yes to add to misery of the viewer, Upen Patel and Tannissa (or whatever her name is) are also there in a role which would have been rejected by umpteen junior artists. Apart from few genuine moments, this movie is full of double meaning jokes and corny dialogs. Whatelse we could have expected from a movie which had a leading character as a lingerie supplier. Background score is also a minus point, the behan de takke track which keeps on playing during Anna's scenes is simply irritating. Music is poor, cinematography poorer but a good comedy need not have these two things still it can be successful but this movie isnt good comedy either.
Now coming to the point why this movie can be enjoyed in single theater cinema halls. Firstly in that sort of ambiance, you will certainly laugh on 80% of the gags in the movie. Afterall its jokes are better than Anil Kapoor jokes in Race, which is running to packed houses. Secondly when the ticket costs you just 40 bucks then you dont mind sitting through any movie :D.
I am still hopefull for Ashwini Dhir and his second outing as writer, Krazzy 4. In One two three it seems he wanted to make an Andaz Apna Apna but ended up making a Priyadarshan remake instead.

Race: Sex, lies and style with lot of confusion.

2008-03-23T03:52:00.004+05:30

There is one thing common in all recent Abbas-Mustan movies, all the characters in the movies have their defined game plan. All of them are scheming against each other. I think now I know how Abbas-Mustan make their movies. They are two brothers with clearly distinct way of thinking. They first discuss one idea and write their individual scripts and in the end they club each others script and the result is a movie like Race, where everyone is conspiring against each other. I am not against unpredictability but, the way these movies are made it's more confusing and sometimes even director seem to forget, what exactly they want to show.

Race is a movie about two brothers Ranveer (Saif) and Rajiv (Akshaye). Sonia (Bipasha) is an upcoming model, who is falling for Ranveer and Sofia (Katrina) is Ranveer secretary, who secretly loves him. At least that is what we are told by Anil Kapoor's voice in the beginning. But after watching the entire movie, it seems that Anil was trying to confuse the audience by giving them irrelevant and incorrect information. Soon after we are shown some scenes involving Saif and Dileep Tahil, which we later come to know had nothing to do with the basic plot of the film. Finally we are told about Rajiv's master plan to earn 100 million from Ranveer's insurance policy by killing him with the help of Sonia (confused? you thought Bipasha was in love with Ranveer. Hold your breath may be she also has her own master plan. May be she actually loves Ranveer and is just double crossing Rajiv). By interval Ranveer is dead and RD (Anil Kapoor) is the investigating officer of the case. In second half we are told that Sofia also has her own plan of claiming the 100 million insurance money. We see confused faces of Rajiv and Sonia, but to your utter surprise Sofia and Rajiv are together in this plan. Confused again? me too.

May be some day Abbas-Mustan will learn that not everyone in this world is scheming against each other, there are actually some normal characters who react to the situation instead of having everything planned in advance. May be we can someday get to watch something like Bazigar or Khiladi from the director duo. I am certainly not expecting another Naqaab or Race.

This movie promises to be full of sex, lies and style, and that is what it delivers, with overdose of confusion. The movie is a visual treat with several good looking faces and beautiful locales of South Africa. I think in action movies don't require great acting, so wont talk about acting performances except mentioning Anil Kapoor, who is good in an underdeveloped role, speaking double meaning dialogs. None of the songs have anything to do with the story and could have been avoided. Minus the songs and some other irrelevant scenes, the movie could have been a better watch.

I would rate this as 5 out of 10. If you have Johnny Gaddaar's DVD, watch that instead of Race, if you are looking to watch a good thriller. Else you know what to expect from Race.

PS: If Anil Kapoor knew everything from the beginning, why he took all the trouble of investigating the case. Specially going to Capetown and meeting the real estate agent, he could have easily asked Ranveer, what happened there.

What toothbrush do you use?

2008-03-13T23:35:00.003+05:30

Every time you switch on your TV there is a fair chance that you will end up watching some commercial, no matter what channel you are watching. I find those toothbrush and toothpaste ads where someone posing as a dentist will claim that he uses this particular product because 80% of dentists across the world use the same.

If you notice, you will find that 80% of dentist use colgate, 80% use pepsodent other 80% use oral b toothbrushes and so on. Sometime I wonder how many dentists across the world brush their teeth multiple times and each time they use a different brand toothbrush.

10,000 BC or was it Ramayana? (incomplete)

2008-03-09T02:11:00.005+05:30

We have seen and heard about Ramayana. Sita is kidnapped by Ravana and Ram goes in search of her. Ram with the help from local tribes crosses the sea and destroys golden kingdom of Ravana to bring Sita back. Well, the story of 10,000 BC is more or less the same, except here our hero crosses the sea of sand instead of sea of water.

The movie is all about D'leh, we will refer to him as Symonds because of similar hair style. So our hero Symonds lives at a very cold place may be North or South pole, there Badi Maa keeps on telling stories about some prophecies. Symonds is not liked in the village because all think that his father was a coward and he abandoned his people. But while hunting mammoths Symonds somehow manages to kill one accidentally and everything changes. One fine day Symonds girlfriend Evolet is kidnapped by warlords along with many others from the tribe. Now it's time for Symonds to get his love back and release his fellow tribesmen. He along with great warrior Tic Tic, Karan and Baku go on the search of his love. On his way, he meets various tribesmen and has to face some wild creatures. Karan and Baku are also captured during the search.

Now Symonds along with Tic Tic, joins hands with many other tribesmen, whose brothers and sisters were also captured by the same warlords. So these allied forces decide to bring their fellows back. In their search they cross the sea of sand and reach Egypt. Where all the captives are forced to work as construction workers to build the pyramids. Finally our hero manages to free everyone and kill the almighty ruler of Egypt.

Vantage Point: Storytelling Rediscovered

2008-03-02T23:39:00.002+05:30

I wonder how easy it is to kidnap or kill US President. We watch so many movies on same plot every year. Vantage Point is again a movie where the target is US President addressing an anti-terrorism summit in Spain, and falls prey to a terrorist plot. In this movie it takes only 5 well placed terrorists to kidnap/kill the president, unless they had one super agent in secret service.

The movie is about a 20 minute long incident, and we are shown these same 20 minutes 5 times from the eyes of different characters looking at the incident from different angle, different point of view. First we get to see US President getting shot at through the camera of a news channel, then our super agent in secret service, an American tourist shooting the event through his handy cam, a local cop, who somehow happens to know one of the terrorists. We even get to see the same event from the eyes of US President and finally we see the same event through the eyes of the terrorists and find out what actually happened.

Story of Vantage Point is very simple and straightforward, it covers a 20 minutes long event, but the beauty of the film is non-traditional narrative. We have shown the same event from different angles and that is what is the USP of the film. Some people actually didn't like the repetition of same scenes again and again, but I guess they did not notice the difference every time same scenes were played on the screen. Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker have done brilliant acting. Others also look convincing. By the way the movie is not about acting, it's about the narrative and the pace. It's story telling rediscovered in true sense.

My rating for Vantage Point is 7 out of 10. Worth a watch.

O Michael! Dear Michael!

2008-02-27T23:25:00.003+05:30

Tony Gilroy, the guy who has the screenplays of The Devil's Advocate and the Bourne series to his credit, takes the directors seat for the first time with Michael Clayton. The subject he has chosen for his directorial debut is a legal drama. Legal dramas are difficult to make, because the pace has to be slow, the dialogs have to be carefully written so that the audience can understand what exactly is going on and trust me people don't like to watch slow paced movies unless the movie is really good and has some substance to keep the audience glued to the screen. Well, Tony has chosen a difficult subject for his first film as a director and see how successfully he has done so. I mean, how many movie have managed to get seven Oscar nominations and how many of them were made by first time directors.

Michael Clayton is a fixer in one of the biggest law firms in United States and he is really good at his job. He is one person who can make his clients problems disappear except his own. His business has gone bad, he has debts to pay and he is addicted to gambling. His company is handling a high stake case for U/north, but a sudden change of heart of his friend and colleague Arthur Edens changes everything and Michael is given the job to clean everything up. Micheal is trying to pull everything back together, but when Arthur is killed, he decides to dig deeper.

The movie has enough stuff to keep you interested. Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton have done great job as Arthur Edens and Karen Crowder respectively. George Clooney is brilliant in the title role. The movie starts with a scene from the climax and the most of the story is a flashback, may be it's inspired by Martin Scorsese but it certainly made the screenplay much more interesting. I would give Michael Clayton 7 out of 10 and am certainly waiting for more movies from Tony.

Jumper: Anywhere is Possible

2008-02-27T22:21:00.004+05:30

What will you do if you have the ability to teleport yourself to any location of your choice? Sounds interesting? Well that is what Jumper is all about.

Jumper is story of David Rice, whose mother has left him when he was five. He stays with his father. He secretly loves a girl in school Millie. One fine day accidentally David discovers that he has the ability to teleport himself and decides to have fun with it. He visits various places around the world. Robs some bank for the money and lives a lavish lifestyle. Just when he starts getting used to his lifestyle, enters Roland, who has vowed to kill all the Jumpers. Second half is all about David trying to escape Roland and save Millie from him. How he does it is quite interesting and there are couple of surprises to keep you interested.

The concept is interesting and a series of movies can be made on it. Movies like Jumper are not about acting, so lets not talk about that. Having Rachel Bilson is bonus. She looks great. You get to see some great special effects and beautiful locations around the world, that to a different view. Have you ever wondered how Sphinks look from the top. The movie is average and there were occasions in the first half, I wished I was a Jumper. My rating for Jumper is 5 out of 10.

Jodha Akbar: was it Suraj Barjatya directing the movie?

2008-02-17T22:39:00.006+05:30

Ashutosh Gowarikar said in one of his interviews, Jodha Akbar is an epic romance. I just want to ask, why? How this romance was different from the life of any average Indian couple, whose marriage is an arranged one. In an arranged marriage both persons don't know each other and they get to know about each other by living together and observing each other's life style and behavior. Like our many TV serials, here also there is an scheming mother-in-law (kind of), trying to destroy the developing love. How many times have we seen people marrying each other for political or business advantage, in our movies, serials and in real life as well. Then why this is an epic romance and others not. May be because this involves one of the most celebrated character of Indian history or may be because of the money involved in making this film or the sets. This somehow looked like a movie made by Rajshree Productions.

People who might go to watch this movie for getting the feel of Moghul era, the wars fought during that time or the politics. This movie is not about all that. This movie is entirely about one arranged marriage and the couple sort out their differences and fall for each other. One of the biggest disadvantage for this film is, it's length. The run time is too long.

The movie starts with voice of Amitabh Bacchan giving a brief about Moghul history and how Jalaluddin became emperor and how Bairam Khan helped empire grow. You are shown one war scene, which failed to impress me. Akbar grows up and decides to take his decisions and we are shown that he doesn't want slaves or to kill people. He wants to rule their heart. In the mean while we get to know that Jodhabai's marriage to Ratan Singh is called off because Jodha's father, king of Amer, decides to surrender to Moghuls. This leads to an agreement between King of Amer and Akbar, and the first condition of the agreement is that Akbar will have to marry Jodhabai. Jodha reluctantly decides to go by her father's decision, with a little resistance of course. Then starts family drama. There you find husband and wife sleeping in different beds. Husband trying to impress his wife by showing his body and some skill with sword and wife trying to impress husband by cooking food for him. Then there is Maham Manga, who doesn't want the relationship to grow. By interval some confusion develops between husband and wife, curtsy Maham Manga. But as happens in every Hindi film, by the end everything is hunky dory between the couple.

I don't know the history behind Jodha Akbar but if what is shown in this movie, this doesn't look like a great story. Dialogs sometime are not consistent with the language spoken during that time, but such incidents are quite few, so can be ignored. I don't know how Akbar looked like, but somehow I didn't feel like I was looking at one of the most talked about emperor of Moghul era, by looking at Hritik in the movie. He neither talks like an emperor nor walks like one. Aishwarya somehow looks convincing. All the songs seem too long and make you feel restless. The pace of the movie is another weak point, the movie could have been better if the length was somewhere around two hours, but this one is almost 3 hour 15 mins. More value has been given to the sets than the story.

Overall, I didn't like the movie, but would like you to give it a try, because a lot of money and effort has gone into making this film and who knows, you might like it. My rating to this film is 5 out of 10.

PS: If someone close to Akbar did something wrong, he/she was not imprisoned or trailed. He/she was just sent to Makka Shareef. Did historians anywhere mentioned about any travel agency owned/run by Akbar?

Mithya: Welcome 2008

2008-02-09T00:13:00.000+05:30

Finally the year 2008 has started for bollywood. All other movies released before this one in 2008 were not up to the mark and somehow failed to impress. I was waiting for this film since I read about it about four months back. And after watching the film I am glad that I watched this film. My friend was really hesitant about going for this movie (he was insisting on watching Fool's Gold) and I persuaded him and I am glad the movie did not disappoint me. After Mixed Doubles and Bheja Fry, Rajat Kapoor, Ranveer Shorey and Vinay Pathak trio has again done wonders. Rajat was not acting this time and was more keen on making other act.

The movie is about the life of a struggling actor VK (Ranveer), who finds himself in the middle of a gang war just because of his looks. This movie has a lot of twists and it will be unfair on my part to give away those here. In one line, the film is story of a guy who finds himself at the wrong place in the wrong time and how that changes his life. Although the movie is not a remake of Don, but this is how a Don remake could have been.

Rajat Kapoor and Saurabh Shukla have come up with a brilliant script, which is very unpredictable. Although I somehow knew the end, but the way movie reaches it's end is worth watching. The story has comedy, drama, action, romance, love, almost every element of a good script. Arindam Chaudhary has made up for his mistake (Rok Sako to Rok Lo) by producing this film. Rajat Kapoor has presented this brilliant script beautifully.

If we talk about acting, everyone in the cast has played his part beautifully. Ranveer Shorey has performed really well in a very demanding role. Vinay Pathak leaves his mark in a small but significant role. Other actors Naseeruddin Shan, Saurabh Shukla, Iravati, Brijendra Kala, Harsh Chhaya all are good in their part and have been suitably cast. Neha Dhupia has proved that she can act, if she is given good roles. By the end of the year, this movie will definitely find it's name among one of the best movies of year 2008.

I would rate this film as 8 out of 10 and would recommend every cinema lover to go and watch this film. I am sure you will be glad that you watched this film.

We Own the Night

2008-02-02T00:08:00.000+05:30

What do you expect when 6 times Oscar nominee (one time winner) Robert Duvall, 2 times Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix and one time Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg come together in a movie? I at least expected some people in the theater but to our surprise, we were the only two people watching the movie (later on we were joined by 3 more).

Robert 'Bobby' Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is manager of a night club, which is frequently visited by Russian drug mafia boss Vadim Nezhinski. His father Deputy Chief Albert 'Bert' Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) and brother Capt. Joseph 'Joe' Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) are after Vadim. When Joe is shot by one of Vadim's hit man, Bobby decides to save his family from the bad guys.

This movie is only the third by writer-director James Gray, and he has done a brilliant job here. The movie is not an action packed crime movie. It's a drama. A story about a family, about relationships. All the three leading actors have done brilliant job, as expected. The characters of Bobby and Joe have been developed really well. In run time of almost 2 hours, you get to watch a good story executed by able actors.

To see how good an actor Joaquin is, watch him in the scene where Vadim tells him about the hit on his brother and he is planning to target his father next. Also watch him confronting with Jumbo, when he finds out that Jumbo betrayed him. I have never been a fan of Eva Mendes' acting abilities, but she has done a fairly decent job here. Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg are great in their part.

Overall, I would rate this movie as 7 out of 10. Go and watch it, it's worth your money.

Mithya: A movie I am looking forward to.

2008-01-20T19:00:00.000+05:30

Same Same but Different

2008-01-19T21:04:00.000+05:30

Like the tag line of the movie this movie is same same (Hyderabad Blues, Bollywood Calling) but different (Dor, Iqbal) from Nagesh's previous work. Nagesh is one of the film makers I really admire, because he is daring, he is not afraid of experimenting, he knows what he is doing and he is one thinking film maker. Who else than Nagesh can come up with something like "Jeevan Dhara ka Jwalamukhi". With this movie Nagesh is back to what he has started his career with.

The movie is about a cook Shankar Singh, who steals money from gangster JAM-K AKA Jamal Khan and lands in Bangkok with a group of doctors. On his first night in Bangkok he meets one Thai massage girl Jasmine and feels the attraction towards her. The same girl is working as a volunteer in the medical camp by day, where Shankar has landed by the turn of fate. They don't understand each other but are attracted to each other and over the course of events they fall in love. There is another story of Eminem worshiping wannabe rapper gangster JAM-K, who lands in the same medical camp following Shankar and meets Dr Rati, a psychiatric just to realize that she is the love of his life he has been searching for so long. There are many funny incidents in between the story and in the end there is a twist, which is a bit weak, but who cares.

Nagesh has yet again chosen a different topic and has been successful to certain extent. I was really impressed by the actor who played JAM-K, he made us laugh most of the time he was on screen. Shreyas is a good actor and should keep on doing such films. Lina (Thai actress) is good in her part. In the supporting cast I liked Rash, the guy who was interpretor for the two lead actors. The idea is brilliant but the story could have been better and a little bit fast paced. There are some scenes, which should have been shot differently. Like the one, when Shreyas dances singing gas thi bhai gas thi.

Overall the movie is a decent light comedy and deserves at least one viewing. I would recommend it to everyone who liked Hyderabad Blues. Would rate this one as 6 out of 10.

My Name is Anthony Gonsalves

2008-01-13T22:23:00.000+05:30

I read in Bombay Times some time back that Nikhil Dwivedi (hero of MNAG) is asking close to one crore for every film and after watching the film I have realized, either he is highly overpaid or I am highly underpaid. I was very impressed with E Niwas' first film Shool, but something happened and he lost his touch. Love ke Liye Kuchh Bhi Karega was light comedy, decent one. Then he made Dum and Bardasht, two really bad films. Dum even managed to kill the rising star in Vivek Oberoi. So, frankly speaking, I did not have very high expectations from the film. The only thing I was looking forward to was watching Anupam Kher as a bad guy and Pavan Malhotra.

There is one small boy, who is spotted by a gangster and the gangster decides to take care of the boy and make him a good human being. The boy grows up learning lessons in order to become a good person. The same boy, now grown up crosses paths with the same gangster who gave him a new life. DejaVu, isn't this the same story we did watch in many films, when we were kids.

Anthony (Nikhil) is an orphan, who has been brought up by Sikandar Bhai (Pavan Malhotra) and has learned lessons of life by Father Braganza (Mithun). He dreams of becoming a film star and works in a pub. Anthony gets a lead role in a film and falls in love with the assistant director of the film Riya (Amrita Rao). One day Anthony sees something he should not have seen and then starts all the trouble in everyone's life. What will Anthony do now? Will he sacrifice the man who gave him life in order to do the right thing or he will keep quite about what he saw? What will Sikandar do? Will he go with Murtaja Bhai (Kher), the man who brought him up, or will he save the kid, who he brought up and decided to give him a good life? You can guess the answers by your experience from watching old Hindi films.

Just by copying the looks of SRK, no one can become him and just by copying the name from a hit song, film can not be hit. The only good things about the movie are Pavan Malhotra and Anupan Kher. No other actor has been able to impress with his acting. The story is age old and has been shown many times in many different versions. Music also is not very impressive. By the way I liked Hrishita Bhatt in the item song 'na baba'. Nikhil Dwivedi has to learn a lot many lessons in acting before he makes his second film. Waise soch raha hun main bhi hero ban hi jata hun.

Overall, if you have anything else to do, don't go for this movie. I would rate this one a 4 out of 10.

Halla Bol: He has got balls!

2008-01-13T02:20:00.000+05:30

Although I am not a big fan of Rajkumar Santoshi (I liked Andaz Apna Apna), I was looking forward to this one. Pankaj Kapoor was reason enough and fortunately he didn't disappoint me, as usual. The movie is supposedly inspired by Jessica Lal murder case and life of Safdar Hashmi (who was killed during one of his street plays). The two events mixed together can really make a good script.

The movie starts with the launch of biography of super star Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgan) and we are told that he is the kind of person who can go to any extent to remain at the top. He is even ready to sacrifice his marriage for his acting career. Then in a party he witnesses the murder of Rashmi Sahani, by sons of two very influential persons, one a state minister and another a liquor baron. He decides to keep quite in order to stay out of any controversy. Sameer Khan's past is told to us, using flash back. We are told that he was Asfaque, who used to work in street plays on social issues by a retired (not sure about the choice of word) decoit Sidhu (Pankaj Kapoor).

By the time movie reaches towards interval our hero decides to fight for the girl and appears in front of police claiming that he can identify the killers. Suddenly his life changes. Fathers of two accused try everything in their power to stop him. Over the course of the film, his wife and friends join him in his fight and then Rajkumar Santoshi's Safdar Hashmi, organizes a street play 'Halla Bol'. No points for guessing what happens next.

Rajkumar Santishi has yet again tried his hands on socially relevant subject. The movie is being compared with RDB, but let me tell you. This one is different. RDB was a class, this one is not. RDB was targeted to awaken the masses, this movie does not do so. The movie has a very bad supporting cast. Except the brilliant lead cast, none of the supporting characters impress you. Pankaj Kapoor is brilliant as always. He has made 2 time national award winner Ajay look dwarf in acting department. I liked all the scenes involving Pankaj Kapoor. I have seen sword fights in many bollywood movies and none of them looked real, but give the same sword to Pankaj Kapoor and he makes it look real. Look forward to scenes where Sidhu is talking to media outside hospital and where Sidhu confronts with two truck drivers who are sent to kill Sameer. I am also not convinced with casting of Ajay Devgan as a superstar. I feel Santoshi is missing Amrish Puri badly. The movie lacked an impressive villain.

The story has many flaws in it and one of them is, it defies logic. Someone should tell Mr Santoshi, that there is a huge difference in Shayan Munshi and Sharukh Khan or Safdar Hashmi and Sharukh Khan for that matter. A Safdar Hashmi can be beaten to death in front of a crowd, but nobody would dare touch SRK in public, no matter how powerful he is. The story would have a been a bit more convincing if Sameer Khan was an struggling actor instead of a super star. I am also not very fond of watching villains who make weird gestures and speaks even more weird dialogs. Negative characters could have been written better and also Santoshi should have casted better actors to play those roles.

Overall, the movie is not a masterpiece but it deserves one viewing, if nothing, watch it for Pankaj Kapoor, one of the greatest actors we have in bollywood. I would rate this one as 6 out of 10.

Steve Bucknor: Umpire of the Year

2008-01-08T11:24:00.000+05:30

I am amazed to hear that 96% of the decisions taken by Mr Steve Bucknor is last 2 years were correct, which is very impressive while the average for the elite panel of ICC umpires is 94%. Bucknor should very well keep on officiating during important matches, if we go only by this statistics.

But, should this be the only criteria to judge an Umpire's performance. If an umpire is giving 96% correct decisions, it means he is physically fit and able to see and hear the ball clearly. Have ICC ever looked into the fact that most of the wrong decisions by Bucknor have come against team India. Doesn't that show a clear bias on Bucknor's part. I would prefer to have an umpire who is less accurate, but unbiased rather that taking someone who is biased against any particular team or country. The only purpose of having umpires in the game is to have an unbiased decision. Having umpires like Bucknor defeats the purpose of umpiring.

Cricket Australia at it's peak

2008-01-07T12:52:00.000+05:30

Yesterday Australian cricket reached it's peak and this is one achievement no country should be proud of, but Australian cricketers seem to be enjoying that. They looked really happy in achieving what they achieved. Ricky Ponting and his team looked so hungry for putting their names in record books for one more time that they didn't even feel bad about whatever happened on the field.

Steve Waugh justified the behavior of team Australia by saying, "Teams playing against Australia fail to understand that banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call. It is just the way Australian kids joust and play on the schoolyard and backyards." So Mr. Waugh is saying gali dena while playing is a part of Australian culture. well then Mr. Waugh please note that gali khana is not a part of our culture and the same stands good for any other cricket playing nation for that matter. If gali dena is a part of your culture, then don't run around complaining when someone replies to your galis.

I also fail to understand, since when monkey has become a racist comment. Let's assume Bhajji called Symonds Big Monkey as claimed by him and his team mates Hayden and Clark and Symonds thought it was racial. In these matters feeling of the person who said this should be taken into consideration and not of the person to whom the things have been said. In this case it's what Bhajji's intention/motive was after calling Symonds a Big Monkey is more important than what Symonds felt about the same.
Since I have mentioned motive here, what motive Bhajji could possibly have after calling names to Symonds, when he was batting and Symonds was fielding (not even bowling). I have never ever seen something like that in my entire life. If Bhajji said something to Symonds (by the way, TV clippings clearly show that Symonds started it all, as this is a part of his culture according to Steve Waugh) and he took it into the wrong spirit then Symonds should be banned not Bhajji.

Well, if we look back, Bhajji has never been accused of racial slur or any other kind of sledging before, while Symonds has complained against players and spectators around the world regarding being targeted to racial slur. This shows there is some problem with Symonds and his attitude and not with Bhajji.

Ban Symonds for at least 6 matches for spoiling the spirit of the so called gentleman's game. Also, Ricky Ponting should be punished appropriately for supporting Symonds in this wrong deed. And yes Mr Ponting, I am questioning your game spirit.

Edit1: I have just heard that after facing the 3 match ban for calling Symonds a monkey, Bhajji falls more into trouble as monkeys all around the world along with Peta and other lesser known animal rights organizations have decided to protest against Bhajji for insulting their race by calling Symonds a monkey. Bhajji what have you done, you should not have hurt monkey feelings, by referring to Symonds by same name.

Edit2: I am amazed by the fact that Mike Procter believed Symonds and Clark over Bhajji and Sachin. Symonds is the same person who did not walk out of the crease even though he knew he was out and admitted the same in press conference after day 1 of the match. Clark is same person who claimed a catch that he picked from ground and then grassed the ball. Dear Mr Procter has chosen to believe their word over Sachin's.

Edit3: There is another theory, which says Bhajji did not call Symonds a monkey, he actually said Teri Ma Ki and Symonds thought it's monkey (ma ki). But I think even if this is proved, Bhajji will still be called a racist, because he did not think Symonds was worthy for the complete gali because of his race.

Welcome to the funniest wedding of the season

2007-12-23T22:06:00.000+05:30

It's a proven fact by now that Akshay Kumar in a comedy is the safest bet for an audience. It's always been a paisa wasool affair so far and this time also Akshay doesn't disappoint his fans. There is bonus also in Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor. Katrina Kaif is so beautiful that I wont mind spending 200 bucks just to see her. Overall it was a must watch for me and so I did this Saturday. Also, this movie proves that Fardeen has learned his acting skills from his dad. You seem to dislike the film whenever Firoz Khan is on the screen. Why did he come back from his retirement.

The movie is the story of Rajiv (Askhay Kumar), whose mama (Paresh Rawal) is looking for a girl to marry him. But there is one condition, the girl should be from a shareef and izzatdar khandan. During the course of events Rajiv falls in love with Sanjana (Katrina Kaif), who happens to be the sister of don Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar). Who along with his friend and fellow bhai Majnoo Bhai (Anil Kapoor) is also looking for a shareef khandan to marry his sister. The movie is about how Rajiv convinces his mama to let him marry Sanjana. There is also the efforts of Uday and Majnoo to add to the laughter. The story makes you laugh with some twists here and there and some really funny scenes in between.

Akshay, Nana and Anil are first rate in the acting department. Paresh Rawal is also good as Rajiv's mama. Malaika Arora adds to the oomph with the item song "hoth raseele". There is Mallika Sherawat also, she has done OK. The only person who really irritates you with his overacting is Firoz Khan. The story is OK, full of twists here and there to keep the audience occupied and every twist add to the laughter. I also did not like the climax of the movie. It really didn't suit the mood of the film. I think Anees Bazmi didn't really found a good way to end an otherwise good film.

Overall I would rate this movie as 7 out of 10. Watch it and enjoy your Christmas.

Best Debut 2007: Darsheel Safary

2007-12-22T00:34:00.000+05:30

When something is done with heart, it shows. Like everyone else I was also waiting to see Aamir Khan, the Director, since he has already proved himself as an actor and a producer. So it was obvious to have high expectations from the film. The promotions being aired on TV made it clear that it's different and it added even more to the expectations. Finally, after watching the film I can't stop myself from admiring the Director in Aamir Khan.

The film got a lot of media attention when it was being made. The film was supposed to be directed by Amol Gupte, writer of the film. Aamir was criticized by some people for taking Amol's film away, but I think Amol should be happy with the way the film has turned up. Amol would have also thought that Aamir is giving a better shape to the mold he has cast and probably that is the reason he has let Aamir direct the film. By the way, I don't think any other film star of recent times would have backed this idea, but Aamir did (that could be another reason for Amol to stick with Aamir) and has pulled it of well.

The movie revolves around one dyslexic child Ishan (Darsheel Safary) but it is not about dyslexia. Ishan represents every child who is trying to survive in this competitive world. No body wants to have an underachiever in his/her family and when parents think their child might remain an underachiever, they be hard on him without understanding what child actually wants and sometimes the child is not able to survive the hardness. Every parent can relate with Ishan's parents. When 8 year old Ishan is not able to perform up to the expectations in his school, his parents decide to send him to boarding. There also Ishan is not able to survive the curse of being an underachiever and he even stops doing what he used to love, painting. He is noticed by an unconventional art teacher Nikumbh (Aamir) and Nikumbh decides to take care of that boy and presents a different, more confident and talented Ishan to this world and to Ishan's parents. How he does that is worth a watch.

Entire movie belongs to Darsheel and the boy have done a brilliant job. The boy is so good that you don't even realize that Aamir Khan is missing for the entire first half. Second half is a bit slow, but it is bound to happen with this script. Aamir Khan, the actor is good as usual. Direction is first grade, and the way Aamir has pulled of such a difficult subject, hats off to him. All the songs have been picturised very well and help the story. Thanks to Prasoon Joshi for beautiful lyrics. Music is refreshing. Over and above everything, this movie is with a message. This movie should be watched by every teacher and parents to learn how to deal with children. They should not be treated as machines, all they need is love and care.

I would rate this movie as 8 out of 10. A must watch.

I AM LEGEND

2007-12-18T01:15:00.000+05:30

I am Legend is a movie where you see only one character for the most part of the movie and believe these movies are difficult to make. One such movie I remember is Cast Away, where you get to see only Tom Hanks for the most of the movie. I mean when there is no one else, there can not possibly be any conversations. The writing of whole screenplay becomes difficult. And with minimum dialogs you have to convey all the happenings in the movie to the audience. Such movies are difficult to write, difficult to direct and difficult to act in.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a great scientist, who is the only person alive in New York city. He is immune to the virus that turned every living person in earth into night seekers (zombies). He is dedicated to the task of creating a cure to the virus and reversing the process. He has been alone for three years, all these years he has spent finding other survivors and the cure to the virus. The only living companion he has is his dog.

Zombies in I am Legend are different from the ones we have seen in other movies. They are intelligent, fast, powerful, emotional. They are also full of rage and are not able to control it.

Will Smith has again proved his acting prowess, any lesser actor wouldn't have been able to pull this off. The screenplay is brilliantly written. The way Will Smith is shown talking to mannequins is brilliant. The only and the biggest problem with the movie is, it fails to hold the audience for two hours. Somehow the idea of zombie movies is still not welcome in India.

Ant & Grasshopper

2007-12-14T12:42:00.000+05:30

I received this forward sometime back and was thinking to put this here. Go through the story and let me know, if you are also one of the ants. I think the ants in the story is a metaphor for all Honest Indian Tax Payers. Here it goes:

Original Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.
Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Modern Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for 'Bharat Bandh' in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial inquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes ' Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes,it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it 'A Triumph of Justice'.

Lalu calls it ' Socialistic Justice '.

CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later...

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley .

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India...

As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India is still a developing country !!!

65th Annual Golden Globes: Nominations

2007-12-14T12:20:00.000+05:30

Complete list of nominations for the 65th Annual Golden Globes:

FILM

Best Motion Picture, Drama

* American Gangster
* Atonement
* Eastern Promises
* The Great Debaters
* Michael Clayton
* No Country for Old Men
* There Will Be Blood

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama

* George Clooney, Michael Clayton
* Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
* James McAvoy, Atonement
* Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
* Denzel Washington, American Gangster

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

* Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
* Julie Christie, Away from Her
* Jodie Foster, The Brave One
* Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
* Keira Knightley, Atonement

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

* Across the Universe
* Charlie Wilson's War
* Hairspray
* Juno
* Sweeney Todd

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy

* Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
* Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl
* Tom Hanks, Charlie Wilson's War
* Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages
* John C. Reilly, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy

* Amy Adams, Enchanted
* Nikki Blonsky, Hairspray
* Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd
* Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
* Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

* Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
* Julia Roberts, Charlie Wilson's War
* Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
* Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
* Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

* Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
* Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
* Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
* John Travolta, Hairspray
* Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Director

* Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
* Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
* Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
* Ridley Scott, American Gangster
* Joe Wright, Atonement

Best Screenplay

* Diablo Cody, Juno
* Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
* Christopher Hampton, Atonement
* Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
* Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War

Best Foreign Language Film

* 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania)
* The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France/U.S.)
* The Kite Runner (U.S.)
* Lust, Caution (Taiwan)
* Perseopolis (France)

Best Animated Film

* Bee Movie
* Ratatouille
* The Simpsons Movie

Best Original Score

* Michael Brook, Kaki King, Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild
* Clint Eastwood, Grace Is Gone
* Alberto Iglesias, The Kite Runner
* Dario Marianelli, Atonement
* Howard Shore, Eastern Promises

Best Original Song

* "Despedida," Love in the Time of Cholera
* "Grace Is Gone," Grace Is Gone
* "Guaranteed," Into the Wild
* "That's How You Know," Enchanted
* "Walk Hard," Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

TELEVISION

Best Series, Drama

* Big Love
* Damages
* Grey's Anatomy
* House
* Mad Men
* The Tudors

Best Actor, Drama Series

* Michael C. Hall, Dexter
* Jon Hamm, Mad Men
* Hugh Laurie, House
* Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors
* Bill Paxton, Big Love

Best Actress, Drama Series

* Patricia Arquette, Medium
* Glenn Close, Damages
* Minnie Driver, The Riches
* Edie Falco, The Sopranos
* Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
* Holly Hunter, Saving Grace
* Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Best Series, Comedy or Musical

* 30 Rock
* Californication
* Entourage
* Extras
* Pushing Daisies

Best Actress, Comedy or Musical Series

* Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
* America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
* Tina Fey, 30 Rock
* Anna Friel, Pushing Daisies
* Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Best Actor, Comedy or Musical Series

* Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
* Steve Carell, The Office
* David Duchovny, Californication
* Ricky Gervais, Extras
* Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies

Best Supporting Actress, Series, Miniseries or TV Movie

* Rose Byrne, Damages
* Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
* Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy
* Samantha Morton, Longford
* Anna Paquin, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
* Jaime Pressly, My Name Is Earl

Best Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or TV Movie

* Ted Danson, Damages
* Kevin Dillon, Entourage
* Jeremy Piven, Entourage
* Andy Serkis, Longford
* William Shatner, Boston Legal
* Donald Sutherland, Dirty Sexy Money

Best Miniseries or TV Movie

* Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
* The Company
* Five Days
* Longford
* The State Within

Best Actress, Miniseries or TV Movie

* Bryce Dallas Howard, As You Like It
* Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
* Queen Latifah, Life Support
* Sissy Spacek, Pictures of Hollis Woods
* Ruth Wilson, Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre)

Best Actor, Miniseries or TV Movie

* Adam Beach, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
* Ernest Borgnine, A Grandpa for Christmas
* Jim Broadbent, Longford
* Jason Isaacs, The State Within
* James Nesbitt, Jekyll

Khoya Khoya Chand

2007-12-13T21:40:00.000+05:30

Some wise man said sometime back, "Never bite more than you can chew." Sudhir Mishra probably did not hear of this, otherwise his film could have been a masterpiece. It could even qualify for screenings in film academies for teaching students about film making during 50s and 60s. The film actually takes you that era with ease. The only problem with this film is that the director has tried to show too much. He has actually tried to cover entire film industry of 50s and 60s with the help of 5-6 lead characters, which I think is very difficult. He actually succeeds, but in pieces.

The story revolves around Zafar (a budding author/scriptwriter turned director), Nikhat (struggling actress turned star), Prem Kumar (super star), Khosa (producer), Ratnabala (star), Shyamal (AD turned star secretary turned producer), Noni Da (director) and Ravinder (rising star). The whole story revolves around all these characters. I actually got confused, if it was primarily the story of entire film industry or about Zafar and Nikhat. The director has shown all the possible combinations of relationships between the lead characters Zafar, Nikhat and Prem Kumar. At some point of time it starts becoming so complicated that you actually get confused that what these guys really want. The story starts with Nikhat meeting Prem Kumar, and Prem Kumar helping her in her career. During shooting of a film, Nikhat meets Jafar and both fall for each other. But for Nikhat's career it's important to stay with Prem Kumar. Finally they both decide to marry but they don't, again it's career or something else, you don't clearly understand. Nikhat is not able to do Zafar's first directorial venture, and Zafar is not able to handle this fact. He does his movie with Ratnabala and the movie is a flop. Heartbroken Zafar disappears from Mumbai. He comes back again and makes the best movie of his and Nikhat's filmy career "Khoya Khoya Chand", which is actually based on real life story of Zafar.

The movie actually takes you to the 50's thanks to the way it is shot and the set design. All the actors have done good job. Shiney Ahuja has to really learn how to act in sad scenes. Soha Ali Khan looks cute. Editor has probably done overtime for this movie, because the scenes seem to end and start abruptly some times. Some dialogs are really witty like the scene when Prem Kumar finds out about Zafar and Nikhat's relationship. The scene I liked most was where Nikhat and Zafar throw stones at the Producer's house, whom she met at the age of 14. The direction sometimes lack the old Sudhir Mishra of Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi and Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi. The story could also have been more gripping, if they would have concentrated on one of the relationships and tried to make it less complicated for the audience. Music is really good and I liked all the songs. Shantanu Moitra-Swanand Kirkire combination does it again. Overall I would rate this movie as 5 out of 10.

Move over Moulin Rouge: We have learnt how to make musicals

2007-12-04T00:43:00.000+05:30

One of the most recent (claimed)musical I saw is Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, and my reaction was, we can not make good musicals. The same thought has changed now after watching Aja Nachle. All the filmmakers (who want to make a musical) in bollywood should watch this film and learn. This movie is different. The entire story moves forward with the help of song and dance. Madhuri Dixit could never have got a better comeback film. The entire film revolves around her and she carries it off well.

Ajanta theater is being demolished in two months and Dia (Madhuri) takes the responsibility of saving it, because the place is a symbol of art in the city and she has some of her very fond memories attached to it. She decides to do so by awaking the actor/dancer buried inside the people of the town. And she decides to do so by doing a play on Laila-Majnu at Ajanta. The entire story revolves around Dia's effort to convince people to act/dance in her musical, train them and finally putting up a show beyond imagination. For once we get to see one MP, who is not corrupt and thinks about doing, what people want. The characters in the movie are much real than shown in many films. The cast of the play Laila-Majnu consists of a local gunda (Kunal Kapoor), a restaurant owner (Ranveer Shorey), a government servant (Vinay Pathak), an irritating girl (Konkana Sen Sharma), a stock broker and few other (I should not reveal those here).

The movie is a musical, so the music has to be good. Dance sequences are very well choreographed. Thanks to Jaideep Sahani, he does it again. The script is different from traditional musicals and it's good. All the actors have done justice with their roles with special mention to Madhuri for the brilliant comeback. The movie is clearly one of the best musicals made in bollywood recently. The only sad part was the empty theater. When would Indian audience learn to appreciate a good movie.
I would rate this one as 8 out of 10 and would recommend it to anyone who likes to watch movies.

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal

2007-11-27T15:47:00.000+05:30

What do you think when a football team, which has not won any match in last 25 years, where average age of the team is 35; wins a tournament in UK and that too without any good training. The person coaching this team has no prior coaching experience and hasn't probably been to football field in last 25 years. I know what you must be thinking. What rubbish, that's absurd. Well that's what this movie is.

The movie is about a football club Southall United, which doesn't have any sponsor, any coach and they probably wont have any ground, if they don't win this year's football championship. Captain of the team Shan (Arshad Warsi) is the only decent footballer in the team (no other player in the team is able to hit the ball straight to goalpost). Coach of the team Tony Singh (Boman Irani) is running from his past, because he let his team down when they needed him most 25 years ago (Deja Vu, remember Kabir Khan from ChakDe India). According to coach the most important things to win the tournament are team jersey, team bus and a physiotherapist (what about football, coach?). The team is able to arrange for these three things somehow but loose first two games in the tournament. Now the coach realizes, they need a good striker. The coach select Sunny (John Abraham) for the job, who despite being the best is not selected in the Aston team because he is an Indian. No points for guessing what happens in the end.

I wonder how a film based on football can be so dull. The film is full of a lot many loopholes. Director hasn't bothered to develop any of the characters and that is probably the weakest point of the movie. Because of lack of character development, you don't seem connected to the characters. This disconnect lead to disinterest. The relationship between John and his father is awkward. The way coach tries to bring Shan and Sunny together is very lame and there are some enforced emotional scenes. I think Vivek should have waited for sometime and should have watched ChakDe before starting this film. There isn't much to talk about acting, except the actor playing Shan's wife none of them are impressive. John, Bipasha, Arshad and Boman are strictly OK. All other are either confused or overacting. Fortunately there are only two songs in the movie. The direction is poor.

Overall the movie is not as good as it could have been. I would rate this as 4 out of 10.

Beowulf: Tale of a Hero

2007-11-25T16:56:00.000+05:30

Robert Zemeckis' last movie I saw was Cast Away (missed Polar Express) and was impressed by his way of storytelling. The other reason to go for this movie was Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie.

The movie is about making of a hero (Beowulf) and this hero is not from another planet, he does not have superhuman qualities, he is very human and has weaknesses of normal human being. He is confident, powerful, daring but he also is hungry for fame, wealth and power and is seduced by beauty. The tale has been told beautifully with a lot of help from CGI. I really liked the climax of the film as it tells you the essence of heroism.

There was not much to expect as far as acting is concerned, it was all about visuals. The story is good and has been directed well. Sets and background has all been created by CGI and it looks like watching an animation at times. Overall, the movie is worth a watch, if nothing, watch it for the climax.

Dil me mere hai dard(-e-disco)

2007-11-14T02:18:00.000+05:30

Finally I watched it tonight and have seen Indian cinema being murdered. I also saw many people who are a part of it enjoying it. This does not mean that it's the worst film ever made or something like it. I am sad looking at the rave reviews this movie has got from many famous reviewers (yes, I did read reviews of Om Shanti Om, before going for the movie). I am sad about the fact that movies like Dil Dosti etc., Johnny Gaddaar, Manorama SFU didn't get the audience they deserved, while Om Shanti Om is running houseful even on a week day. Does this mean, with good marketing, money and star power anything which can be shown on a 70mm screen can be called a good movie. If this is what is gonna happen, god save Indian film Industry.

I was waiting with my tickets in my hand to let the crowd pass before I enter the theater and the crowd didn't seem to end and that too for a 10:45 show on a week day. When the movie started I got the feeling that this seems to be a spoof of Karz (the movie started with the famous Om Shanti Om song). I am not against spoofs, they make people laugh. They are sometimes more entertaining than the original film. But you can't call them a movie. The movie starts in the 70s, with everyone overacting, wearing flashy colorful costumes, imitating some of the stars of 70s, this went on till interval. There were some moments, which made me laugh, like the picture on Manoj Kumar's driving license. Just before the interval both our leading characters die and SRK's character Om Prakash Makhkhija, reincarnates as Om Kapoor. Post interval there is only one scene that made me laugh and that was Return Of Khiladi trailer played during filmfare award function and that too was picked up from somewhere. Click on this link to see the original video.

The only good thing about the movie is Deepika Padukone. She is so beautiful that her presence is more than enough to bring a smile on my face. It was sad to see SRK doing something like this after a great performance in Chak De India, though he made me laugh sometime with his overacting. Kirron Kher and Shreyas Talpade have given the worst performance of their career in this film. Arjun Rampal looks good in his new avtar (only first half) but he also is not able to impress me with his acting abilities (which I doubt he has any). Dialogues could have been better and some of them have been repeated so many times that you start hating it when they are delivered for 3rd or 4th time. Shirish Kunder should have used his scissors more generously and should have kept the climax a bit shorter. One thing worth mentioning is films music, Vishal-Shekhar and Sandeep Chauta have done good job in that department. Oh! how can I forget about mentioning the the much talked about SRK's six pack abs, well he looks like a coal miner. SRK please leave this to Salman and john.
In the end I would rate Om Shanti Om 5 out of 10 as a spoof and 2 out of 10 as a movie.

Talking about the less talked about.

2007-10-30T23:03:00.000+05:30

I have been reading about movies like RGV ki Aag, LCMD, JBJ etc all over internet (I have also been participating in the discussions in some blogs) and felt bad about movies, which people either chose not to watch or not to talk about, although they are better work of art and far more entertaining than all the films mentioned above and many others being discussed around. There are movies I watched in recent past and really liked them, but when I ask my friends about those movies, they seem to either not have heard of the movie or chose not to watch it, because they were made by some not so famous people and lacked good promotions (may be because of budget restrictions). Here I am listing some of these films, which I think deserved better fate at box office.

Haasil (2003) *ing: Irfan, Jimmy Shergil, Hrishita Bhatt, Ashutosh Rana
Written and directed by first time director Tigmanshu Dhulia, this movie is one of my all time favorite, I have watched it more than 20 times already and I can watch it infinite times without getting bored of it. The movie is a love story in the background of UP college politics. You get to see great acting from Irfan and Ashutosh Rana. The dialogues are so good that we even repeat them in our day today conversations. The language is exactly the same as being used in UP and dialogue delivery by actors is top class. The story is well researched and gripping.
This is one movie I would rate 9 out of 10. I wish Tigmanshu makes many more such movies.

Sehar (2005) *ing: Arshad Warsi, Sushant Singh, Pankaj Kapoor
Written and directed by Kabeer Kaushik (has anyone heard of him ever, what is he up to these days), this movie is one of the best Hindi movies released in 2005. The movie is based on the story of Lucknow STF (Special Task Force) in pursuit of UP railway mafia. This is one of the very few movies showing the Police business in great details and the difficulties faced by them in tracking down and eliminating the criminals. You get to see great performances by Pankaj Kapoor and Sushant Singh. I still can't forget the seen where Pankaj Kapoor's gun hating professor character picks up a gun and shoots Sushant Singh. Today's actors should learn some things from this great performer.
The movie has been made with very limited budget and probably makers of the film did not have enough money to promote it well. It hurts when such movies get unnoticed. Hope someday big banner and stars start supporting such efforts.

There are many other movies in the same category like Manorama SFU, Dil Dosti etc, Johnny Gaddar, Maqbool and many more. I wish after reading this post people go and watch these movies and support these talented film makers in serving the Hindi film industry to the extent they are capable of.

signing off, with best wishes to the talented budding film makers of bollywood and hope they get the support they need from industry and audience.