It takes a brave man to attempt to make features on issues which are sore points with a nation and where much could be argued for and against. It’s a given that where the issue per se is concerned the movie maker will rarely be able to make everyone happy, so the next best thing is to portray it in the most dramatic way possible. It’s easier to make movies on terror where Pakistan is the adversary since every one can readily identify the enemy. But what happens when the enemy is within? The boundaries between the perceived right and wrong get increasingly blurred as emotions will get invariably involved. Excesses occur on both sides and more often than not the sight of the original issue gets lost. The aggressor and the defender exist on both sides and each carries the sword of conviction which more often than not obliterates the defenseless and the ordinary individual. Violent cataclysmic changes in the existing order have had a long presence in the history of mankind but do not find favor in the post industrialized modern world. Hence no matter what the initial justification, all agents of change wrought through violence will have to face the wrath of the state. After a decade of bloodletting in Punjab, the nation faces its most serious challenge from the Maoists.

Although it fails as a telling commentary on a boiling issue but as a simple celluloid narrative of a series of events in the zone of conflict, the movie is racy and riveting and acquits itself pretty well. The story is loosely based upon a series of true events, as is claimed in the beginning but there is an obvious bias against the state where all politicians and businessmen are supposedly crooks and scoundrels. With the exception of the conscientious SSP, the policemen too are either spineless or a little better than criminals which I thought was a wee bit caricaturized. Even the DGP of the state police is portrayed more like a junior flunky. These guys are in a dire need of a lesson in conduct from the current chief of Punjab Police. However the SSP, creditably played by Arjun Rampal, redeems the image of the police by a professional approach to his job despite the fact that he frequently tries to shoot the entire MCC cadre all by himself and more than once tries to engage the enemy by charging in a huge group reminiscent of the Charge of The Light Brigade and rendering themselves as sitting ducks. The intelligence on the movement of the enemy is confirmed by a profoundly searching question “Khabar pakki hai?”. No wonder our boys in khaki keep getting knocked off at sickeningly frequent intervals.

Since the movie is based on the Maoist movement it is but natural that they be shown in a kinder and romanticized light. So you have a western educated ideologue in a kurta pajama, sentimental revolutionaries and wronged women all of whom exchange the red salute at the drop of the hat. Thrown in for a good measure is a profiteer among their ranks who meets with a predictable end. The focal point of the plot is the Trojan thrown in by the SSP who decides to switch loyalties after his lover to be is arrested. It’s a powerful combo and it works for the movie.

Despite the forgettable music I had no problem with the entertainment factor of the movie. You will enjoy all the action which is ridiculous at times but then Hindi movies are known for that. But by adding a song on the exploitation by big business houses and mouthing a soliloquy at the end of the movie why try and pontificate when you really have no position on the issue? Leave it open ended and let the viewer figure it out.

English Vinglish: A Reality Check

I had a friend in the University, an ex Air Force chap, who was some thirty plus and still not married. Whenever we would ask him about his marriage plans he would evade the issue but one day in a weaker moment he confessed that his choice of the ideal girl wasn’t meeting with the approval of his parents. And what was his vision of Miss Right? She had to be fair and beautiful of course, the logic for which was that if you didn’t know a person (as in an arranged marriage) you could at least exercise the choice regarding the looks. She had to be from a village, so that she is untouched by the bad influences of the cities which wasn’t so difficult then since village belles were more or less a cloistered lot (in a manner of speaking) and satellite television hadn’t invaded their lives and taught them how Saas and Bahus ought to be. And, amazingly, she should be illiterate. One may or may not agree with the first two conditions but illiterate? I had to ask why? The gentleman’s plan was to marry a piece of clay that he could mould to suit his concept of a wife. Irrespective of the pros and cons it sounded radical and hence interesting.


It left me wondering about the man woman equation which only got more complicated as one got into relationships, fell in love, got older, mature, married and not necessarily in that order. Most of us have had two decades or more of married life or relationships behind us and I am sure some us would have, at some stage, taken a stock check of what it means to us. What makes it work? What creates the magic? How does that chemistry come into being? Some are lucky to find compatibility while others struggle all their lives to find a meaning in it. Pretensions of married bliss are oh so common and yet the truth unveils itself in unguarded moments. The most frequent pearl of wisdom (a lament more likely) that is bandied about is that it’s all about adjustment. And who does that most of the time? An honest introspection would be interesting but the real question is why it should be more or less for either sex. And more importantly do we honestly assess and appreciate this so called adjustment of the spouse. Like my friend had sought to do somehow it always boils down to what you want the other person to be rather than appreciate what that person is and that to my mind is the root of frustration in married couples. Unfortunately the ‘adjustment’ reigns supreme and millions live on with their unrealized potential, suppressed emotions and fatalistic resignation to fate.

English Vinglish is an attempt by a woman to break that mould. A loving wife, a devoted mother and a proficient cook (the three ingredients desired by the seekers of the perfect wife) she is nevertheless the classic victim of a country obsessed with proficiency in the Queens language. Her comfort zone is shattered when she is required to fly alone to Uncle Sam to assist in her niece’s marriage. An alien environment heightens her insecurity but her desire to fight back leads her to train herself in the language. Her class mates are people with a similar quest but for different reasons. However she finds acceptance and appreciation for her abilities which results in redemption for herself in her as well as her skeptical family’s eyes. A simple story is brilliantly played out with a powerful message. Do NOT take you loved one for granted. Although the main protagonist is a female the lesson is for all to perceive. It is not enough to accept. It is not enough to adjust. It’s important to realize who you are but it’s equally important to let the other person be what he or she wants to be. The dynamics of life are never going to let it remain unchanged and therefore it’s vital that we grow together and in our respective spaces. Sri Devi has excelled as the demure, scared, insecure and yet a determined woman bent upon correcting what is perceived as a shortcoming by her family. Age may have marginally lined her face but she remains a fine actor. It’s totally her show and worth a serious watch. And of course, one could do with a revised reality check with oneself too.

Mughal-E-Azam Redux

This is the story of Cassius Clay, oops, Jalal-ud-din Mohammad Akbar whose name was changed to Mughal-e-Azam. He was always busy in conquering the country, marrying Rajput princesses and listening to Santa-Banta jokes of Birbal as result of which he was unable (despite his best efforts I am told) to sire an heir to the sprawling empire. On royal command an email was sent to the mandarins of Aastha Channel who deputed a full time mumbo jumbo man to invoke divine intervention. Finally, the joint and/or several efforts of royal exertions, mumbo jumbo man’s incantations, Vicky Donor’s ancestors bore fruit and a dude was born. My extensive knowledge of Hindi movies bears me out that this Salim dude took his royal privileges very seriously and had a keen eye for birds. The feathered kinds went into the cooking pot and the others moved to his boudoir. Then on a fateful day he saw one that refused to move or date him and like countless idiots since then who fall in love with the first girl who refuses to play ball, he too succumbed to her nubile charms. What’s your name babe, he asked? With a flick of her finger in her hair she pouted, I am Miss Pomegranate Bud and I don’t dance. The dude’s knees buckled and his pajama fell on the marble floor and with his tongue hanging out he panted his way to his dad’s study and blurted his wish to get married. The great Mughal gave an imperious look at his horny progeny and thacchhack, one tight slap landed on the royal left cheek. Salim’s undies joined his pajama on the floor. Salim wailed, I want Bomegranate Pud… I mean Stun Grenade..I mean the Puddy Bomb !! The King gave another suspicious look and thought; what kind of name is that? Looks like westerners have made an entry into India before they were supposed to. However seeing his little one’s ardour the father softened a bit and asked “How can you jump into bed with a gal with an unpronounceable name”. Salim quickly adjusted his undies and flashed his iPhone 10 (oh yes, everybody knows we were far more advanced in ancient days) and with tears of happiness reported “Jahanpanah, Google translator says it means Anarkali”. Thank God, Mughal-e-Azam thought, at least now I know whom I am going to bury alive. So, what’s it gonna be, Salim queried? Do I get the chic or shall I join Che Guvera? Akbar blinked, Che who? You know, the bearded rebel dude whose face is on everyone’s dress! ‘Bagaawat’ the King thundered, ‘are you going to defy I, me and myself for a roll in the hay’?

Salim crooned “She is beautiful and therefore to be wooed. She is woman and therefore to be won and Cupid, dear Jahanpanah, is a knavish lad, thus to make females mad”. Damn, Akbar thought, this is the height of the West meddling in my affairs. Even this Shakespeare fellow is in league with Che Guvera. But the man wasn’t a king for nothing and he knew how to take quick decisions. He took off Salim’s pajamas again, spanked his bottom with the iPhone 10, summoned a trusted general and dispatched both of them to the Sothern part of his empire with strict instructions that the only bird the prince would see is Chicken 65. While the prince’s entourage and his mood headed south Akbar summoned Anarkali and threatened her with a fate worse than death. She screamed ‘oh pullllease, anything but Ranjit & Shakti Kapoor’. But, Akbar stuttered, I only want to bury you alive. Oh cmon Kingling, she pouted, the days of mummies are over and women are about to be empowered and we are getting voting rights and I am going to sue you for gender discrimination and sexual harassment and tell me what’s wrong with me and by the way are you straight or bi ? The King of Kings, the ruler of a nation was flummoxed and at a loss of words and all he could mumble was ‘Anarkali, you gotta die”! Oh no, she replied, I am alive and I want to break free and I wanna love somebody. Having had enough of medieval pop for the day, Akbar sent her away and ordered a double Royal Salute.

Meanwhile down South Salim was up to his throat with Kingfishers and Chicken 65. Every time there was a call to arms he raised his beer and promptly flopped back on his couch brooding for Puddy Bomb. Since time immemorial it’s always been your friends who volunteer to help and ultimately get you into trouble. Seeing his friend wallow in beer and self pity one Mr Goody Singh from Rajasthan suggested that Salim ought to show some balls and revolt against his father. The royal dude was already seven bottles down and in his heightened sense of perception found the idea romantic. He got up from the couch, furiously shook his beer and yelled ‘Love shall prevail and Daddy I’ll be back’. An invitation was sent to Che Guvera with a carbon copy endorsed to Mughal-e-Azam and a blind carbon copy to Anarkali. Guvera took the next ship out from Cuba, Akbar started the march to the South with an army of a hundred thousand and Goody Singh took Anarkali out on a date to Chandni Chowk. The two armies clashed midway and a furious battle ensued. Akbar unleashed his 61^st Cavalry and the elephants of the 89^th Armoured Corps who ran rampant on the brave but lovelorn troops of Salim. The night before the battle he had made a long and a passionate speech for the cause of lost love which had the soldiers in tears. All you need is love, he cried and the troops ardently responded ‘She loves you; yeah yeah and with a love like that you know it can’t be bad’. However the tremendous motivation of love was no match for the might of the Mughal army and ultimately it came down to a one on one match up between the father and the son. Both the warriors were clad in iron armours and with razor sharp swords they let loose their primal instincts at each other. Salim lunged at Akbar with his sword who caught hold of it with his left hand and wrenched it out from the prince’s grip. And with the right hand, thacchhack, another tight slap landed on the face of the cheeky prince. The pajamas and the undies of the horse fell to the ground as well. Salim was promptly picked up, laid across Akbar’s horse who then spanked his bottoms all the way to Fatehpur Sikri.

EPILOGUE

Anarkali eloped with Goody Singh and became Miss Jaipur, Miss Mewar and Miss Chittorgarh in rapid succession and ultimately became a leading lady of the Bhandarkar Nautanki Company.

Goody Singh, who screwed his friend was last seen in Afghanistan having others do unto him what he had done unto others.

Che Guvera had his ship hijacked to Venezuela and was never seen thereafter.

Shehzada Salim struck a contract with Kingfisher which ensured his unending supply of beer and birds.

Jalal-ud-din Mohammad Akbar banned Aastha channel and started his own and guaranteed his place in the Mughal Hall of Fame. 360 years later he was immortalized in the movie classic Mughal-e-Azam but of course as you all know now, K Asif got all his facts wrong.

Heroine: The "Bai" Feature

One day Madhur Bhandarkar decided to make another movie. He racked his brain for a new story and after numerous ideas he decided on something new. The title of the movie-Heroine ! There must be some law in place which prevents you from naming a new movie with the same one you made a few years ago. And since this enormous effort of discovering a new title had already extracted the last vestige of original thought in his brain he decided to bring out the scripts of Page 3, Corporate and Fashion from his closet and gave them all to his “Bai” with the brief that in the time it takes for her to brew a cup of tea she will have to come up with a new script or else she will have to look for a new job. Please appreciate that those were the hard “policy paralysis” times and Manmohan Singh had not yet worn his reform crusader cloak to save this country from ruin. The US was going slow on outsourcing jobs and services to third world countries, read India, and the “Bais” were finding it hard to make ends meet. Desperate times need desperate solutions. Thus Heroine was born and a job saved. What the mentally exhausted director and writer (?) hadn’t accounted for was that the Bai was also an avid follower of Bollywood gossip and borrowing heavily from her sneak peeks into the tabloids she incorporated every juicy tidbit that she could remember into the new script. Hence in about five minutes flat the tea was brewed and the “Bai” delivered, a story you sensation seekers!

For an inexperienced Bai it may be a tremendous effort but for an experienced film maker it is a slap in the face. The film suffers from fatigue. You have the same neurotic, ambition driven characters whose search for God knows what makes them do strange stuff. I had always thought that the pill popping and alcohol soaking individuals ceased to exist after the Harold Robbins novels albeit with some notable Hollywood exceptions. You also have the same scheming men and women with their saccharine smiles and plastic features constantly trying to manipulate each other. With a few doses of sex and a hinted lesbian romp we are supposed to stand up and applaud the great travails of a slipping superstar although at no stage is it clear when she rose and fell from grace. I had to wait for about forty minutes before the story graduated from the prologue onto to the next level. Page 3 was a ground breaker and although it looked and sounded like a gossip magazine, which it was supposed to, it had its moments of quirky humor. No such luck here. It’s flat, monotonous and a rank bad effort.

The only good thing that happened to the film is Kareena. Playing a high strung I-want-it-all movie star she has given a creditable account of her histrionic skills. The weakness of course is that too much emphasis is laid on her reliance on drugs and booze to combat her insecurities rather than the under played war game that ought to have been the buzz word for her resurrection. It looked all too clichéd and Kareena, for all her talent, tries way too hard. It’s amazing how the television media is playing that up as her ultimate obsession. No doubt it is a promotional ploy but it sickens me to see how these guys are trying so hard to sell something which obviously stinks. They must believe that we are a bunch of idiots to lap up this piece of nonsense.

Unfortunately economics takes precedence over art. Hordes of people, me included, go to the movie halls on the basis of its curiosity value alone and it has already had a decent opening. Music and satellite rights must have been sold at a premium and at the end of the day it will be declared a commercial success. Wait for some rigged award function where everyone, saccharine smiles and all, will back slap each other and in between some listless performances declare the movie as a Bollywood classic. That would be the ultimate insult to the common movie goer.

Barfi-Life Celebrated

The pristine joy of innocence captured as poetry on celluloid ! Fresh like a breath full of fragrant air on a beautiful morning in the hills, Barfi will plunge you into a vortex of emotions from the word go. What makes it different from other movies of the same genre is that despite the physical & mental challenges the main leads are born with there is no room for mushiness or tear jerking. There is a joyful acceptance of the inevitable and there is celebration of life. There is so much spontaneity with which the characters deal with their lot that it evokes wonders and awe in the viewer rather than sympathy and that in my mind is the USP of the movie.

The story is not about disability but the amazing ability of the blessed individuals who see life as God’s gift. Just look around and you will see a zillion people, able in mind and body, make a trillion complaints about their luck, their jobs, their spouse, the system, the neighbor, the car, the list is endless and turn their lives into a miserable existence, something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Despite their normalcy it unfortunately makes them blind to all that life has to offer. The trick of experiencing joy or sorrow is the ability to sift through the challenges of life and identify all that makes us better humans. It takes a great deal of honesty with one’s thoughts and emotions and those who have it reflect in their faces. Barfi & Jhilmil epitomize that glow. Their handicap and their world within doesn’t deter them from reaching out for what their heart perceives as right for them.

After the fabulous portrayal of Rockstar, Ranbir Kapoor raises the bar further in a fantastic display of acting capability. Consider this; he has precisely three words to speak in the entire movie and the rest is an emotive roller coaster. His eyes and expressions render dialogues redundant. There is so much energy in his movement that he leaves you gasping. And Priyanka Khosla never ceases to surprise me. Portraying an autistic child woman, her innocent insecurity is heartwarming. Illena D’Cruz is another surprise package as the woman battling her emotions in split loyalties. The movie has been crafted with love. Beautiful hills of Darjeeling vie with the sights and sounds of Bengal.

An amazing love story, it is rich with laughter and replete with mischief and no, you will not slyly wipe your tears but your heart will constantly be tugged towards a beautiful cocoon of trust and innocence which somehow always redeems one’s faith in the goodness of creation. A masterpiece, no less !!

Gangs Of Wasseypur 2

So does lightning strike twice? Anurag Kashyap would have you believe that. The second part of the desi gangster saga is here. I was immensely curious to find out if the steamrolling drama would maintain the pace it had set. It takes a huge skill to do that and I came away with mixed feelings once again. The concept of GOW 1 was new for the audience brought up on a steady & redressed diet of Godfather clones; hence the visuals and appeal of the drama set in the small towns of Bihar had a tremendous impact. Happily the sequel effortlessly picks up the narrative but creates a direction of its own. The third generation gangster has evolved from being a fist fighter and an ice pick stabber to a Ganja smoking (a la Scarface) wielder of automatic weapons. The geographical boundaries of operation are redrawn but the principal protagonists in this story of vengeance and the struggle for dominance & power remain the same. The changed scenario understandably has new generation characters with quirky traits, hunger for money and power per se but lack the depth and conviction of the older set. Rather than a single minded pursuit of revenge as claimed in the promos and its logical culmination it seems more like a journey on the gravy train with the declared objective of eliminating opposition popping up only at periodical intervals. The game plan is missing and perhaps it’s the perennially stoned psyche of the hero which could be the reason.

Having said that, the roll out of the events is taut & gripping. Unlike its predecessor there is hardly any dull moment. One is also partially spared from the barrage of expletives and whatever is said sounds good. The love play between the main leads is superb and Huma Qureshi brings the house down with her rustic sexuality. I loved the mischievous and subtly erotic onscreen banter between the two. In fact the screenplay is the greatest strength of the movie. Not once does it lose pace or direction and constantly maintains fidelity with the background of the characters. The performances of almost everyone are exemplary. Richa Chadha effortlessly transforms from the hot blooded wife to a sedate widow. Piyush Mishra seems wasted in the what’s-he-doing-in-the-movie role. The new comers with crazy names like Definite, Perpendicular and Tangent look the part. And Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the lotus eater turned gang lord was amazing.

The single biggest difference is that it lacks the understated menace of latent violence. It’s much grosser here. Jean clad youngsters brandishing Kalashnikovs look a little out of place. I’ll prefer the ice pick Bajpayee any day. There seems less method to the wham bam action which gets gorier with the developing story. I hate to say this but the climax is overly bloody and reminiscent of the Kill Bill sequences of Tarantino. And since I am at it, the music was hugely disappointing. Piyush Mishra & Varun Grover slipped up here. Each song of the earlier version is potentially a cult classic but here with the exception of the old world sound of “Taar Bijli Se” and the incredibly loony and foot tapping “Chhi Chha Ledar” all others are forgettable. Of course these are isolated observations but as a package Kashyap has pulled it off again. It’s a great watch and effectively stitched but will remain in the shadow of the first born.