Politics or War

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

"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

"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

"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

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

"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

"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

"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

"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

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

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

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

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

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.