Rab Ne Bana Di Movie

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

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

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?

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

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.