An end to the bad-luck with movies..2012 and Paa...

Finally, my uneventful binge watching boring movies ended with ‘2012’ and ‘Paa’.

2012 is a big, splashy and loud movie, more exhilarating that anything I had experience before. The movie portrays the year 2012 as the end of the world. For some, the story would be an example of idiocy, but it can be seen as a possible future outcome of happenings like solar storms, global warming, etc.

The problem with the movie is that it straight away jumps into the core issue without a build-up. It uses an ancient Mayan prophecy to establish the doomsday scenario. With some complains that it is a preposterous film, there's enough cheese here to satisfy the wildest of action movie buffs. Massive explosions, colossal waves, flipping cars, tumbling trains, cracking and drowning cities improbable escapes, mammoth sized arcs, it’s all there. It’s irresistibly entertaining.

But Paa, for me, is the star of the year. Yet another blockbuster from the Big B, it is a simple film told in the most simplistic manner.

Auro is a 13-year old progeria patient, a disease which causes accelerated ageing. Defying his looks of a 65-year-old, Auro is the same naughty 12-year old boy, who runs around, asks for piggybacks and plays in puddle. Auro has completely percolated down into Amitabh; it is only the vulnerability of the character that touches you, not the trademark baritone voice of Amitabh. It is indeed a casting masterstroke. Vidya Balan plays single-mum Vidya, who raises Auro with some help from her mother, after dumping her selfish boyfriend in college, when he suggests an abortion. Amol (Abhishek Bachchan) is not ready for marriage; he is keen to follow his father into politics. Years later, Amol, who is now a Member of Parliament, accidentally meets Auro at a school event, both oblivious to the fact that they are father and son.

Contrary to what the film’s marketing conveys, Paa is actually a mother-son story. The first half of Paa unfolds breezily, with witty dialogue and clever scenes. Even in delicate scenes, the obvious pitfalls have been avoided, that come with stories about characters suffering from grim conditions.

The only problem in the movie is an embarrassingly scripted tiff between the politician Amol and the media. Other than this, the excellent prosthetic make-up, dazzling cinematography and shooting score make Paa and easy, enjoyable watch. The movie clearly establishes how Indian film industry is trying to push the boundaries to a different level. Amitabh surely is going to bag awards for his brilliance in ‘Paa’.

Theatre vs Cinema..Brief Candle...

There has been a great change in people’s way of entertainment. To my mind, today most people prefer going to cinema or clubbing than spending a weekend watching a theatre. I can’t say that I am a theatre goer, but I am very much fascinated by the live performances and appreciate their talent a lot. I believe, the only thing that can popularize dramatic art is our passion for acting alive, our passion for pondering over our feelings and life problems, which theatre actors can make us do playing this or that character just before your eyes. It's a great experience to feel vividness and energy of actors who act for a limited audience. Theatre will be inferior to movies (in terms of its popularity) as long as we are not accustomed to experience the greatest feeling of being involved into the storm of emotions shared by the public in the auditorium.

Nevertheless after a long wait, I watched a play in Prithvi Theatre Mumbai. The last time I went there, I failed to get a ticket. But this time I reached well in time.

I witnessed the ‘Brief Candle’, a play directed by Lillete Dubey, starring well-known artists like Suchitra Pillai, Joy Sengupta, Amar Talwar, Zafar Karachiwala, Satchit Puranik and Manasi Parekh. The story goes like...

Avedna is a hospital and hospice for cancer and the terminally ill. The founders have requested for a cultural event on founder's day. Dr. Dave, Shanti and some of the terminally ill patients feel that a play written by an inmate who died of Aids related cancer will be an ideal choice. The play is a farce with some extremely funny situations revolving around a hotel room near the airport. As they rehearse the play, the actors discover similarities between themselves and the characters they are playing. It is clear that the dead playwright is speaking to them. The metaphor of arrivals and departures for life and death leaves them with a reflection of their own struggles and needs.

It is a poignant, tale that is also humorous and moving.

Awful Movie Spree continues..Tum Mile and Kurbaan...

After watching three bad movies on my last stay here in Mumbai, spanning Acid Factory, Surrogates and Blue, my awful movie spree continued with Tum Mile and Kurbaan. Tum Mile was absolutely pathetic, while Kurbaan at least gave me some return for my money.

Trapped in the deluge of 26 July, 2005, carefully navigating around half-submerged vehicles and dodging death on the flooded streets of Mumbai, Tum Mile is intended as an emotional drama about how a life-changing event makes Emraan Hashmi and Soha Ali Khan realise that they've always loved each other.

The problem is there's not enough drama in the screenplay to begin with. The first half of Tum Mile is spent setting up the relationship between Emraan and Soha, who play Akshay and Sanjana, a struggling artist and a successful journalist in Cape Town. Over the course of an hour we watch as they meet, fall in love, squabble, and ultimately part ways. Post-intermission, the action shifts to Mumbai where the couple is reunited years after calling off their relationship. With a convoluted story, poor photography and special effects, and uninspired leads, Tum Mile put a hummable show.

The other flick ‘Kurbaan’, noticeably, is set on the same plot of ‘NewYork’. However, it has been a more compelling and convincing version. With a credible performances from its leads and a comprehensive screenplay, the plot holes in the film are overlooked.

Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) teaches at the university and falls in love with colleague Ehsaan Khan (Saif Ali Khan). The duo marries and shifts to New York City. There Avantika becomes witness to some terrorist operations in her neighbourhood headed by a Muslim fundamentalist (Om Puri). Soon she realizes that she is a pawn to a huge conspiracy. She secretly seeks help from a television reporter Riyaaz (Vivek Oberoi) who attempts to infiltrate the terrorist outfit to foil their big plan.

The flaw with Kurbaan, however, is that it can't decide if it wants to be a serious film addressing a burning issue, or a commercial potboiler set against the backdrop of terrorism. Kurbaan starts as a love story, swiftly changes identity to a social film and keeps the viewer engaged throughout with its thriller treatment. Sensibly the romance is kept short and succinct without losing out on the chemistry of the characters. Once the terrorist activity comes to forefront, the love story is given a backseat as the story intends to highlight and discuss serious issues related to global terrorism.

Amidst all this, Kurbaan is a one-time watch, which you can’t remember later, but can’t regret either.

Truth or Happiness?

There is so much truth to the statement that truth or happiness, but not both. Since we encounter occasions where mostly truth and happiness do not go together, should one seek truth or happiness, is a question hard to answer. It requires a cognisant decision to be made as to which direction does one consider important – truth or happiness.

There is a quote that “The Truth shall set you free”. However in no shape or form does it say that happiness comes along in that freedom. And a learned person said that Wisdom is a burden if it does not make you free. This statement actually brings out the ultimate fact of life that we seem to overlook today. It essentially implies that wisdom is of no use if it is directed towards just imposing what is right or just finding what is right and not applied towards finding happiness for self and others.

This is completely true, I believe. I have been on the wrong path many times. My intention often turns out to be "find what is right", instead "let’s be happy". My experiences in life now say that – happiness is the better path, looking from the holistic point of view.

For example, I had already mentioned numerous times that a substantive answer to address most of the problems is having “No Expectations”. Now I want to also take another example, "Judgement". These days I have gotten stronger opinions about morals and right doing, as I now look at behaviour from a very keenly observant point of view, and find many "wrong" intentions in daily normal behaviour. For me, "ego" also falls in the wrong category, and this is one of important reasons why I find all behaviour "bad" these days. However, I do find the right ones, don’t worry. In fact I find more right ones than bad ones than many other people do, and hence I consider myself close to many people.

But I recently found that it was not helping me. Judging everybody was taking me nowhere. I needed to like the people as they are. Even though they are bad, they always have a good side, if not apparent, sometimes we need to dig it out from them. And most people need love and love can be the means of relationships. (These days, when it is becoming easy to live, people are more tending to not needing love with other people, but I am sure, if they have the proper experience, they will ultimate realize it regardless of how individualistic they are).

And then, when I found somebody who was really not understanding how things work and his/her lack of empathy was causing trouble for everybody, instead of finding solutions to the problem that lead to peace and happiness for all, my ego and anger started rising and I started finding ways which gave support to them (ego and anger) instead, causing bad consequences. However, hopefully I have realized soon, and I can swerve the future.

Finding truth in world, and living with is almost next to godliness now. Sometimes, living in a myth or amidst a false belief is essential. What I consider important is that we don’t lie to ourselves. And then everything is on track.

Let us all be successful in finding joy for everyone. Let was walk vehemently on that path, with determination to never fail.

Establishing my existence

Hey folks, I am still alive. After a prolonged unexpected gap, I have found bit of time to get back to my niche. Its a nostalgic feeling when I have a look into my blog, just takes me back to the time when I used to spend a dozen of hours everyday in front of my system. Once I have got into the corporate hub, I just got screwed with work and I feel happy that somehow I could find some time now. I am currently working on a couple of projects which makes me hop often from Indore to Mumbai and vice versa. Working late hours, and stretched at both ends, now I feel I have got imbibed into the corporate life. I hope I would be able to proceed with putting my thoughts into words more often.

A World In Motion...

I wasn't required to spend time in deciding this title for the post. It is the name of the event I am talking about here, and with which I am associated with. The concept is good, and I found it relevant as well.

A World In Motion (AWIM)

This curriculum joins together teachers, students, and industry volunteers in an exploration of physical science while addressing essential mathematic and scientific concepts and skills. Industry volunteers play an essential role in motivating the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math by bringing their everyday experiences into an AWIM classroom.

The abandoned citizens of Mumbai...

My current project office in Mumbai for SAP implementation is on Reay Road.

Reay Road Railway Station on harbour line is a landmark and a heritage railway station in Mumbai. But I doubt if one can get that sort of feeling on going there. Probably most of us who visit Mumbai, would not have heard of this place, forget about visiting it. But me visiting it the first time popped sever

What I saw there was another portrait of an underdeveloped Mumbai, where you see no signs of proper living conditions. So what seemed to be restricted to known areas, like Dharavi and Byculla, is definitely not the case.

Since the beginning of the city, slums have been a part of Mumbai’s landscape, posturing as festering wounds on a civic space. When you land or take off from the Mumbai airport, you get a good glimpse of the habitat.

Often we hear and read about plans to clear Mumbai, and provide housing to the slum-dwellers. But this looks like an intractable task to me. The reason being, that a place like Dharavi can be considered for redevelopment because it would be an striking proposition for the builders, but there are a whole lot of others which are along the roadsides, railway tracks or on footpaths. There is no money to be made there, so it would not attract the builder. The government also has been benign with their approach to the issue of slums and their proliferation. With these pictures of Reay Road, which are still a lot “human” as compared to what I actually witnessed but could not gather the courage to photograph, you would see that the appalling sores on the cityscape speak volumes of the fortitude of people. They are also the rightful citizens of the city, but have been left abandoned with their fate.It needs a conscience, a tremendous political will and the mindset of non-slum dwellers to get rid of this inhuman state of living, which is a blot on Indian civilisation.

At last, I rode my new bike...

October 31, 2009. Finally relaxed my nerves of excitement to ride my bike.

Well, to inform everyone, I have cleared the clouds of confusion of which bike to take by eventually buying a Hero Honda Hunk - a strong muscular black coloured beast.

Now I am not writing this post to elaborate on how my bike looks, or how good it is. But if I say that I got the bike on 21st October, but did not ride it for 10 full days, you would surely look at me with surprise. But that is the truth.

Actually my Mumbai trip from 22nd, and thereafter me going down with cold and cough made me reach this long waiting period. My hands were itching to get hold of the grip, and go zooming out for a long long ride. And when it ws Saturday approaching, I knew that finally the wait was about to be over.

It was bliss. The feel and ownership of a new bike is surely amazing. It might be short-lived, but at least in the initial few months, I am going to relish and cherish it like a treasure. (For 10 days, it was covered with a bedsheet and tied with a rope to prevent dust from settling on it.)

And to my relief, Sumit also approved, after his ways of testing, that the bike is nice. :)