My 50th Post...................PAA...

Its been again a long time since my last post. Was genuinely busy with studies for my final MBBS exams. Anyways, I was going through my blog one day when I noticed I had already posted 49 posts and next one was to be my 50th one. Here it comes, my 50th post in a time of 20 months (of course, not a good speed but is OK with me presently). This is about the new release I recently saw............PAA..
Paa, the latest release in bollywood is a much promoted and and as much praised movie. Having seen promos of the movie so many times on the TV with a large-headed, wrinkled, old-looking, young boy dancing his favourite monkey dance with everybody else had created much interest inside me as to what and how the movie is actually like. It was already known to us that this boy was suffering from an extremely rare genetic disorder of premature accelerated aging called Progeria. This was sufficient in itself for anybody to make an idea that the film was going to focus on the gloomy life of such a challenged child (maybe something like Taare Zameen Par did for dyslexia) but let me clear at this very opportunity that the movie was nothing like that. What I had thought of it to be like, it wasn't. Anyways...
The movie is directed by ad-maker R Balki, who comes with this straight after Cheeni-Kum. The two movies are not similar in any way yet they have some similarities, the biggest one being the witty humour of the two movies. Paa stars Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Arundhati Nag, Paresh Rawal and introduces Amitabh Bachchan (as given in opening credits). The movie starts with the name AB Corp Ltd, a quite surprising name to see indeed. Already knowing Abhishek and Amitabh are in the movie and the name of ABCL being associated with it, one very innocently think why Jaya and Aishwarya are not in it and in comes Mrs. Jaya Bachchan with her ever smiling, ever fresh face reading out the opening credits; of course a fresh idea of sorts but fails to create much magic for someone like me and for many others it was like why really.
The movie is about a child (Amitabh) who is witty, is intelligent, lives with his unwed mother (Vidya Balan), and in the end brings his separated (well before his birth) parents (Abhishek and Vidya) together. The same age-old saga in the form of both of them pursuing their studies at the Cambridge when they come together, have an affair, she becomes pregnant, he refuses to marry for his upcoming career and she decides to give birth to the child. They both are separated for 14 long years when he somehow meets his son. These two don't know about their relationship, become friends and ultimately the ailing child brings his parents together in form of his last wish. Well, this is all about the plot of the movie; nothing special, nothing new in it.
Anything else in the movie from this looked merely as a fill up to complete the timeline specified for a normal family drama in bollywood and was nothing but crap or shit! Abhishek plays a new-age politician/MP who is made to make one think of someone like Rahul Gandhi with a bright vision of future India, who move from house to house and meets common people, sits with them, talks to them and works to cure all their problems. For a film that is based on politics, his is a great protagonist role but I wonder what a character like him is doing in this very film. I think this part of his character that is a politician's, was stretched too far fo comfort. Moreover, he was too good to be a politician in India. He looked more like Mr. India or Superman, the messiah of sufferers or something like that. Some parts of the film like Abhishek's fight against the mediaperson was completely wasteful and indigestible.
The character of Auro, the progeriac child (Amitabh) with his great sense of humour, his innocence, childish yet mature activities was the real entertainer. It won the hearts of many and man! what did Big B do with this character. Despite being his fan, I had not expected this sort of performance from him. For me, this very performance was at the top with his performances in films like Sholay, Deewar or Zanjeer. With this, I think, he adds one more dimension to his already multi-dimensional career. One of the most illustrious careers in world cinema, I think, gets completed with this very role. In fact, it was this character and his performance that made me complete the movie otherwise I would have gone out of the theatre much before the end.
Vidya Balan as Auro's mom has looked beautiful and so has she performed. The best part for me was her look, where she looked gorgeous as the lover at Cambridge, she was mature too as Auro's mom. I have been an admirer of her acting right from Parineeta and this time too she fulfills well my expectations. Arundhati Nag as Vidya's mom is being praised for good work in some reviews that I went through. For me she was not impressive at all. I was completely disappointed in her. Paresh Rawal as Abhishek's father reminded me of his own role in Cheeni-Kum. The bechara baap!!!
Music by Illayaraja was OK, sometimes touching your heart sometimes not so, reminding many a times of Cheeni-Kum again. The direction was good. With screenplay I had serious problems. I have already mentioned some parts feeling like fill-ups, I was wondering why exactly there was so much of politics in that. The media-sequence was really bad both concept-wise and presentation-wise. It looked more like Ram Gopal Vemra films (that too the forgettable ones).
All in all, apart from Auro and Amitabh there is nothing in this movie to look for. Can watch it only for Amitabh's performance!!!

Recently Watched: from Bollywood

This time of the year has been very hectic for the last three years for me. I have been busy these days preparing for my final MBBS exam and hopefully these will be the last of those. Well, alongwith the exhaustive studies these days, as usual, movies haven't quite dried up for me. Every such time, frequency of my watching movies are quite high and this time it is simply at the top level in my lifetime till date. Movies almost at a rate of 1.5 movies for past 20 days or so are in no way infrequent. The variety of movies is also quite staggering that includes both Hindi and English movies, both first-timers and revised, of varied jenres and well of completely different moods. This post will be about some of the Hindi ones.

Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani: There is no particular reason to start with this very film. Anyways, this is a kiddish comedy directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi who holds the credit of seriously serious films like Damini, Ghayal, Ghatak, Lajja etc and for him to direct this comedy was a bit strange. Having said this, one is compelled to remeber Andaaz Apna Apna by him too and what a comedy that was. There was something common in between 'Andaaz...' and 'Ajab...'. The kind of comedy in both these films are quite similar, you go, you watch, don' think much, and just enjoy. Being somewhat kiddish no doubt, it was completely different from the kind of comedy being served to us these days by films like No Entry or Partner or Golmaal (of course the Ajay Devgan version) and Golmaal Returns. Today, mostly what we are getting in the name of comedy is a bunch of non-veg jokes with sexuality at its central theme. At such a time, APKGK brings us a refreshing, clean, with-the-family, cartoonish comedy which, as far as I am concerned, I enjoyed completely. So, not highly recommended but easily tolerable.

Ardh Satya: It is quite strange for even me to follow APKGK with this Govind Nihalani directed 1983 masterpiece starring Om Puri and Smita Patil. The two films are literally antonyms to each other in each and every respect. Where APKGK is a sheer comedy, this one is a damn serious movie. Being a well decorated film from India's golden era of parallel cinema, this has to be special. Its about the internal conflicts of the protangonist both as a police officer and as a human being. I won't deny the fact that there were some parts of the movie that I was not able to understand completely, yet overall, I could make out of it that this has to be one highly recommended movie for everybody. The story, the direction, the dialogues, the performances everything is just perfect. One special mention to Om Puri's performance, HATS OFF to you sir!!!

Sarfarosh: After already having watched it so many times, I still went up for it and was as overwhelmed as I was 10 yrs back when I first watched it. Personally speaking, this movie is something special for me. It gave me my superstar in form of Aamir Khan. I watched it, I liked it, I became his fan and I still am.

Black and White: Just a random selection, was on my too-watch list for quite some time. A strange movie, only this is what I have to say about it, a strange movie! Never expected Subhash Ghai to direct such a film. I knew that this film was his production but after watching it completely I rechecked for the director and found it to be Mr. Ghai himself. Well, this is about a suicidal terrorist attack. So many movies have been made on this topic now and this one is not different except it has no "दूध मांगोगे खीर देंगे कश्मीर मांगोगे चिर देंगे" kind of offensive dialogues against Pakistan and it has no "कोई माँ की कोख से आतंकवादी बन कर नही पैदा होता" kind of cliched concept. All in all, a good one!!!

Shaurya: Where having Rahul Bose in the lead role is enough for anybody to expect a high class performance, if you are given alongwith him Kaykay Menon and a serious version of Javed Jafffey, it had to be fantastic performance-wise. Again, recommended!!!

Haasil: I thought not to write about it yet I am doing this because this needs one special mention. I have not felt a more drastic transition of my feelings for a movie from more than very good to extremely bad as I felt with this one. After such a promising half an hour of student politics, it suddenly changes into a dirty game of love and lust and even good performances from Ashutosh Rana, Irrfaan or Jimmy Shergill couldn't save this one.

Alongwith these movies there were several others that I watched but I don't really feel like writing this time. Maybe some other time, I might be writing but here a passing mention of their names:
Sorry Bhai, Bawarchi, Jashnn, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Mithya, Wanted, No Entry, Bandit Queen etc.

Disclaimer: I have not written about these movies doesn't mean that I didn't like them. Some of them, I really liked and others were just useless.

"The Death of Indian Democracy"

Recently, the results of the assembly elections of three states are announced and as was being speculated, Congress won the elections at all the three places. Where in Arunachal and Haryana, Congress won with its head high after performing well in the last term, in Maharashtra, the victory for Congress didn't come due to their performance at the helm rather it came besides its performance which in no way was up to the mark.
Congress was up there in the government in Maharashtra for the last two consecutive terms amounting to a total of 10 yrs. There was a complete list of failures for the govt which were going against them and included the suicides of farmers, the meagre situation of electricity, the hiking prices, the terrorist attacks, and above all a double anti-incumbency. Despite all these factors and many more others, Congress led alliance managed to get the majority seats in the elections and are again forming a government for the next five years.
Watching the performance of the government the result of the elections must be bewildering but when seeking the answer to this bewilderment comes into the mind one question, whether it is Congress' victory or BJP's loss. Now, this is a very important question to be answered in the context of democracy in India. A government that has failed on all the posts for 10 consecutive years, if manages to be in power again is a serious question in itself to the democracy.
In a democracy, the government is, no doubt, important but the more important aspect is the opposition. Being people's rule, Democracy is not only about government being formed by people's representatives, but it also has to have a machinery that makes the government answerable to the public and this machinery is what we call the Opposition. In the path of constructiveness, criticism is the best guide. This makes opposition as responsible as and some times even more than the government itself.
In Maharashtra, if the 10 yrs of Congress governance have been bad the opposition is even worse. Except for protesting against the north indians, the opposition (paticularly Shiv Sena) have never been seen bothered about the policies of the government. If this was the scene in Shiv Sena, the other pillar of the opposition in Maharashtra, the BJP have been in a phase that is probably the worst in its lifetime. The internal conflicts that came so superficially in the party after the General Elections debacle has started to show its consequences. Losing Rajasthan, getting only 4 seats in Haryana and now failing to grab the golden chance of anti-incumbency in Maharashtra have all exposed the real status of BJP as a national party. Going with this speed, maybe I am exaggerating somewhat, in the next decade we are only going to see BJP as a party restricted to states like Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh only.
The most disheartening thing about results of this election has been the response of BJP to this loss. They have hit a new low for their standards here in being bad losers. Having lost such an opportunity, BJP is still not ready to admit to its failure. An important top national leader of the party Mr. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, after the loss, is found on a national news channel saying that this EVM, the electronic voting machine, has become electronic victory machine. I don't know what he really meant by saying this. If he was raising the question of some technical faults then why not his party has got any benefits anywhere; are these faults predujicially engineered in favour of the Congress, I don't really understand. If this was not what he meant then it must be a question on the Election Commission itself and then it is even worse a situation.
The failure of the opposition to cash in on a golden opportunity like this and then not admitting to its failure is nothing but its failure in imparting its duty to the motto of Democracy. If this remains the scene in the country all the times, it really is nothing but The Death of Indian Democracy.

Inside Man

As far as my taste of movies are concerned, I am a big fan of suspense thrillers and have seen most of the films in bollywood of that genre and some of them from hollywood also (mostly the murder mysteries and the famous 50s 0r 60s black noirs). This film, Inside Man, is again a suspense thriller directed by Spike Lee but this time its about a bank robbery i.e. a perfect bank robbery.
There are times after watching such movies when I am left spellbound but watching this movie for the first time some 10-11 months back I was not only spellbound but was completely shocked. Since then I am thinking of writing something on this but everytime before starting I watch it once again and something interesting happens to me regarding my view on this film. This change of my views is so drastic that presently I am holding a view that is completely contrary to what I had when I first watched it. Well if that happens to everybody I simply don't know but this is a very regular affair with me. Very recently, I watched 'Perfect Stranger' and wrote a full blog of praise on that and now when I think of that movie, my opinion is a lot different than what was written by me.
Anyways, coming to Inside Man, I have already said about my experience when I first watched it. I was so overwhelmed by the movie that I right away watched it again. I was completely shocked right from the start of the movie. The movie started off with the audio of famous hindi song 'Chhaiya Chhaiya' in the opening credits. I was so shocked that I stopped and checked whether I was watching the right movie or not and found out that it really started with that and then provoked me to browse and search for details of this song on internet and found out that in an international poll conducted by BBC about most popular songs of the world it was 9th in the list.
Coming back to the movie again, the opening scene with Clive Owen introducing his character Dalton Russell was a terrific scene. What followed was some 2 hours of terrific screenplay and a suspense that was enough for raising goosebumps on several occasions. It looked to me a completely different movie with something really great in it. In very short, this was how I felt about the movie at the first sight.
Nevertheless, as I went on watching it again and again, my opinion kept changing. Now, when I think of it, it only looks to me as yet another Hollywood movie with NYPD and some private agent engaged in denying a holocaust; something like Volcano or Men In Black or Mission Impossible or the ever famous in India, Spiderman to name a few. Well in these cases there is somebody fighting against some paranormal power in order to save the city as well as his own pride. Inside Man also seems to be one such thing with one difference that here there is no paranormal power to fight with but again you have a paranormal plan of a bank robbery to deal with. You again have a hostage situation, NYPD officially entitled to deal with it but a private detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is there whose job is at stake and has to crack this case in order to revive his career as well as marry his girlfriend and above all you have the extraordinary robbery going on.
These are only small points that I could recollect about this movie. All in all, for a first timer it is quite an entertainer as a suspense thriller. Clive Owen and Denzel Washington are good at their job. Jodie Foster' character is a waste and others have very little to do with this. Full points to the story and screenplay and direction is also above par.
For somebody who doesn't believe in putting much thought into movies, it is a great experience but somebody like me who thinks what was good or bad about the movie this is just another hollywood flick.

Wake Up Sid!!!

These days in bollywood, its becoming a fashion now for established producers to give break to new directors, the new age ones with serious talents and for these new age directors it again has become a fashion to bring to us a movie based upon the life of 21st generation youth, about their aimlessness in life, about their kinda weird approach to relations and towards themselves.
Now, since this is becoming a fashion it is getting somewhat stereotyped in bollywood for such movies. You have a handsome young guy in his cotton printed t-shirts and jeans, spending hours and hours in front of his Apple laptops and loves to feel the breeze over his face from the window and roof pan of his Honda CR-V and when asked about what he does, his reply is "I spend my papa's money." Now, to go with this son-of-a-rich-man, there has to be some rich man as his father to take care of the bills of his credit cards and who has, obviously, yet another story of starting his career with a ten rupees note in his pocket. Then, as he is worried about his son, the relationship between them is not a perfect one and hence as a link between the father and the son there has to be a cute sweet mom who wants to be her son's friend by speaking her tooti-footi Hinglish. To go with all of these there must be one chhotu to pull the curtains off in the morning when the sun rays starts disturbing that guy in his sleep; some friends at the college to pass his time off and make use of his credit card and above all one lady who is career oriented, has her ambitions in life and changes that guy, makes a man out of that boy.
Well, this story must have been looking like the first half of Lakshya but wait, this is Wake Up Sid, first-timer Ayan Mukherji directed new release from Karan Johar. This is the story about this stereotypical character Sid, Siddharth Mehra (Ranbir Kapoor) who says "who cares about tomorrow" and why should he if he has credit cards in the pocket whose bills are being paid without problems by his father. This wikipedia article gives the synopsis of the plot.
Even if the movie is a stereotyped bollywood new age film, it is fresh and doesn't bore you. The acting from everybody is simply perfect. Ranbeer is improving with every film and Konkana, with every film it seems that she has given her best but in the next one she simply outperforms herself and thats what she has done here too. It seems that if sometime she does underperform in some film then it would be the top breaking news on AAJ TAK. Anyways, Supriya Pathak, the Konkona of early 80s, looked too cute and sweet as the mom. Anupam Kher as the father is brilliant, of course, it is also obvious for him. The debutant director Ayan Mukheji's work is highly appreciable and for Karan Johar, I think its better to get out of Shahrukh's shade. I think he was ruining himself with Shahrukh Khan and his style of even more stereotyped bollywood dramas.
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music is refreshing and youthful. All the songs are beautiful and the one 'Iktara' composed by guest composer Amit Trivedi, the emotional atyachar fame, is the best for me. And then, once again, another of the 'stereotypes' of today's bollywood, you have some old numbers playing every once and often in the film and no prizes in guessing, yes, Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Ye is again there but this time with this there are some others also that includes Hemant Kumar's ever-beautiful 'Na Tum Hame Jano.'
All in all, a good movie that worths watching............................................

Perfect Stranger

Perfect Stranger is a 2007 murder mystery starring Halle Barry and Bruce Willis. Going into the film, I had no idea what it is all about except that it had Halle Barry. Being frank enough, I was searching for some erotic scenes on Youtube and Berry was just a random choice from a whole bunch of Hollywood actress. I got to find some scenes involving her though not so erotic ones. From a not-so-large list of scenes I finally randomly selected Perfect Stranger and thats how I got to find this movie.
'Perfect Stranger' is about a secret and about how far one can go to keep a secret a secret. It is a suspense thriller with Halle as Rowena Price, an undercover journalist busy in getting interesting news involving secrets of some of the most influential people of the society. Dejected by the rejection of one of her such stories due to the infulence of that 'influential people', she leaves her job and incidentally meets her childhood friend Grace Clayton (Nicki Aycox) who hands her another interesting story about advertisement tycoon Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) whom she is dating with. After a few days, Grace is found brutally poisoned with belladona and then Rowena with her associate Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), a professional technobrat, starts her operation against Harrison Hill in order to collect the evidences related to Grace's murder and to prove that Hill is the offender. And with it, starts the whole series of physical and internet chat room disguises and leads to a highly convoluted storyline with a shockingly surprising ending that is worth kept secret at this place. I would certainly like everybody to watch it and experience the suspense themselves.
Well for me, the movie was a real good experience. I, being a fan of suspense thrillers, liked it very much. The acting by different actors is awesome and for me Ribisi as Miles, the hacker has done the best job with his role. The background score keeps very well alive the essence of a thriller. With the story line, there have been several reviews at different places like NY times, Metacritic, Rotten tomatoes etc. describing it as too convoluted to be good. Well, I was completely surprised by the story itself in the first place as I watched the movie but this comment in the reviews and the generally negative reviews were even more surprising for me. For me, it was just as much convoluted as a murder mystery should be.
Well, whike watching, I was being reminded of Basic Instinct sometimes but was only because these both are murder mysteries. Where Perfect Stranger is more about the mystery and secret, Basic Instinct looked more about sex and perversions much like the thrillers we have here in bollywood especially in recent years with either Imraan Hashmi or Mallika Sherawat or even sometimes both of these. Anyways, Perfect Sranger was undoubtedly better than both Basic Instinct and its bollywood counterparts.
I don't really understand what actually caused such a negative review about the movie but in my opinion this movie worths watching.......................

The Remains of the Day

'The Remains of the Day' is an award winning novel by Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was the very first novel in my life that I started reading. It was in the year 2001 when my elder brother came back home from IIT Guwahati with a B.Tech degree and this very novel from IIT library and asked me to read this novel. Since then it was on my to-read list but owing to my lack of interest in literature, I could never read it. Anyways, of late, I finally read this novel in August this year and since then was on my 'to-write' list and finally, I am writing this.
Being a highly recommended novel by somebody who has read over thousands of novels, there was a very high amount of expectations from this.
It is a story about an english butler of Darlington Hall, Stevens, who, being provoked by his lord Mr. Farraday, goes on a break on a motor trip of England and recalls his past, about his dignity towards duty, about his relationships with his father and amongst many things about his lost love that he cherishes to re-visit in this motor trip of his.
The whole thought of the motor trip came into a reality for Stevens after he recieved a letter from his ex-co-worker Miss Kenton about her married life. Stevens deduced from the letter that she was not very happy with her life of late and could well be thinking of coming back to Darlington Hall. Now, this is completely an interplay of his thoughts and reality. Those days he was facing problems with the shortage of staff at the Hall and was always recalling of his happy days there working with people like Miss Kenton. At such a time getting a letter from her was purely a coincidence but thinking about her coming back was out of sheer human emotions. When you think of something about someone, his or her every action seems like supporting your thoughts. This is what happened with Stevens. He was thinking of getting Miss Kenton back and when he got the letter he quite unknowingly deduced that she was not happy with her marriage and might be considering of coming back.
Well, in the beginning of this novel, I thought it to be a kind of a travelogue that will get us to different places and different expeiences and will tell us all about the things Stevens feels and experiences in his trip. As, slowly and steadily, the story unfolded it turned into many faces. Sometimes it was completely about his earlier lord, sometimes about the post-war politics in Europe, sometimes about the Darlington Hall itself, sometimes about his duty and butlery at the mansion, sometimes about his relationships with his father and sometimes about his clash of ideologies with Miss Kenton, a co-worker. With time it all unfolded into a recall of his lost love with Miss Kenton and the main motto of the car trip came out to be meeting her and taking her back to Darlington Hall. The swift progress of the story from one face to another, in itself, is something that imparts a greatness to the novel.
Apart from the way the story was written and the put of the real human emotions, there were several other things in the story that made it worth reading. One such thing was Stevens recalling many incidences of his life. They all, at the beginning, seemed useless but they very efficiently pointed out many of the aspects of Stevens' character like his loyalty, his punctuality, his responsibility and others.
All in all, I think after a few failed attempts with Chetan Bhagat, I finally got something in English literature that I will cherish long in my life. Once again, I would like to thank my brother for recommending this and I would also like to recommend it to one and all.......................

Apologies Again!!!

Once again, I am starting my post with this ever favourite line of mine!!! Its been a long time since I wrote my last post on Kaminey. Again, I am looking into the reasons behind this long gap and as excuses, this time, I have a lot. Well, there have been two 0r three posts in the drafts stage from a long time but sadly, for most of them I am not even willing to complete. Again, I have excuses for this also.
My blog has mostly been on hindi films as the central issue and since, there has not been any new hindi film after kaminey that worths even watching so writing on them is a long shot. Its been a festive season here but sadly, it has not been that a festive season in bollywood. A few films that are realeased after Kaminey include 'Dil Bole Hadippa', 'Wanted', 'Whats Your Raashi' and others. Dil Bole.... being one of the Yash Raj banner film could have been good for many but looking at the recent trends of that production house I could not gather the courage to go to the movie, and in fact, after 'Tashan', 'Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic' and 'Bachna Ae Haseeno', I had even promised myself that I am not going to watch any movie from Yash Raj's. As far as Wanted is concerned, the reviews have not been so bad but by promos it looked like just another action movie of Salman's, something like Tere Naam. Frankly speaking I don't like Salman much and neither I liked Tere Naam as much that I could go and watch it again; so wanted was out of the reckoning. About 'What's Your....', being a Ashutosh Gowariker's directed film, it arouse a bit of curiosity in me but thinking about it in some detail, it was again out of the list. No doubt, Ashutosh has been a fantastic film maker after making Lagaan, Swadesh and Jodha-Akbar. All these films have something in common, they all are serious movies with something of a new look in them. One more thing that was common was the lenght of all these movies, they are too slow and too long. When looking at Ashutosh from these angles it was hard to believe that he is making a romantic comedy. And now looking at the reviews of the film, it seems he has failed miserably. This movie is again very long with 12 boring songs and for such a movie, wasting that much of time is nowhere a healthy option.
It was about why I could not write anything on hindi films. Then, I had a few drafts on some 'current affairs'. They only remained in the draft stage and are now expected to be in that stage forever since those 'current' affairs are not current any more. First there was the issue of swine flu spread in India then there was the internal crisis in BJP and then there was this austerity issue of congress'. Thanks to the present day media that we have, these were the burning topics in each and every household on each and every channel for the last copule of months or so but presently, this same media forgot all these topics after one or two days for each of them. Finally, I decided to write on the state of media in our country and then I thought there have been already many voices for this and many debates have already taken place on what should be the role of media and hence I decided against raising my voice and adding to already a maximal voice on this very topic.
Lastly, I had decided to write something on 'The Remains of the Day', a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was my latest endeavour in the field of English Literature and I admit I liked it very much.I wanted to write something on this but it could not come out. Well, this time I have no any concrete excuse for this and it was out of my sheer laziness that I could not write it. I still hope to write on it someday and hope that day will come soon.............................

"Kaminey"

Watching and getting thrilled too many times with crime classics from hollywood these days I would always think what exactly is there that we don't get to watch such movies in bollywood. Whatever the answer may be I don't want to get into detail of that but one thing is clear that Vishal Bhardwaj with Kaminey has presented one such movie now and more importantly that is not a remake of some foreign film.
With this original work Vishal presents India, doubtedly, its very first noir. Its a story about twins Guddu and Charlie. Guddu stutters and Charlie has sigmatism. The plot of the story is present here. I don't want to say much on the story or the plot, I only want everybody to witness it themselves. There are many interesting parts in the film. The very start of the film in Guddu's lisping voice is fantastic in itself and the dialogues here and later in the whole film are fabulous in themselves. The "मैं 'फ' को फ बोलता हूँ" and Amol Gupte replying with "साले फ को फ नही बोलेगा तो क्या ल बोलेगा" and then that dialogue "फुबह फुबह उफ़ मनहूफ़ का चेहरा देख लो तो रात को मय्यत पक्की फमझो" are some of them that I still remember. Above all you have "अपना हाथ जगन्नाथ"..........fantastic.
Amol Gupte as 'Bhupe Bhai' is superb. There are many instances in the film where one would get a glimpse of the immortal Bhiku Mhatre in Bhupe Bhai. He is one of the most entertaining parts in the film. Shahid Kapoor is completely new in the movie and is superbly brilliant. Priyanka had nothing much to do but whatever she had to she did it perfectly.
The acting and the dialogues are brilliant but surpassing all this is the music and the lyrics. Nobody would have thought about 'dhan te tan' that this favourite day to day slang of every indian will come to us in this very form. The duo of Vishal Bhardwaj with Gulzaar sahab has given us many hit music like maachis, omkara etc and they haven't fail here either. The duo is once again fantastic. All in all Kaminey is a great movie to watch and get entertained.

Love Aaj Kal

These days I have seen many old english classics mostly of the black noir genre from the black n white days of hollywood. Amidst these, I got to see this new release from bollywood, Imtiaj Ali's "Love Aaj Kal". One would think what exactly is the connection between the noirs and this movie; really there is no connection or even a similarity between these except that I liked all of these.
After successfully directing 'Jab We Met', Imtiaj brings us another one that has something of a newness. Having seen the character of Geet (Kareena in 'Jab...'), it was hard for me to leave behind its freshness while going to watch 'Love...'. It was easily expected from Imtiaj to bring back the same freshness again on the celluloid and this time he has Saif's Jai Wardhan Singh for us. For a guy like me who is so keen in comparing everything to the past, it was not a surprise that I was looking for a comparison rather similarity between the two movies. Well, I got one right up in the title.........hehehe........like the title of the earlier film, 'Love...' has also a hinglish fusion :)
Having said all this, I would like to say that though both the films are about the youths of today and their take on love, they both are completely different. Where 'Jab...' was about a girl who is her own favourite, has her own ways and definition of life and lives every moment of her life and changes completely after breaking up with her boyfriend, 'Love...' is about a boy who has ambitions in life but is completely enjoying life to its fullest, has fallen in love for 13-14 times and celebrates his break up and after it again becomes a छुट्टा सांढ़.
Anyways, 'Love...' is something more than this. The first half an hour are completely about this all but the theme changes with Rishi Kapoor (the london cafe owner) coming into the picture. He starts comparing Saif's time to his own jawani ke din, interstingly, played by Saif himself (but this time with turban on).
The film is a nice attempt to compare the two generations, their values, their views on life and love etc etc etc. The two love stories go collaterally. The black tea in one becomes black coffee in other; The bicycle in one becomes the sports car in other; जिया बैंड, दिल्ली becomes Jia Band, Delhi and so on. Imtiyaz puts a lot of effort and succeeds also in showcasing the essence of realtionships in the two times. The decency of the past times and the carelessness and career orientation of present times is very well evident in the film. The scene where Saif (with turban) goes to calcutta just to have a look of his love and gets a cup of black tea that also not directly in his hands and the scene where saif (without turban) announces his break-up with Deepika and decides to celebrate this are all sufficient to show the differences in the two times.
Maybe, it was never an intent of the director to make a comparison between the two love stories, but as I said earlier for a guy like me who is always keen in comparisons, it is hard not to do that. For me, the Rishi Kapoor love story was the one that won my hearts. The decency and the heartfelt emotions in this love story was fabulous for me and above it all, it was the suspense in this love story that kept me bound to my seat and also propelled the story forwards.
Saif in both the roles is fabulous. Deepika has also done justice to her role. Music is a mix of different genres, where we have Aahun Aahun..... rocking, Aaj Din Charheya in Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's voice is soothing. All in all, for me, it was a good experience with Love Aaj Kal.................

My Conflict With Sudhir Mishra

Recently, I saw Khoya Khoya Chand which was on my list of films to watch right from the time when it was released in 2007. I cant say why I could not watch this earlier but can only say well it could not just happen. Anyways, finally I have watched it and ever since then I am thinking about Sudhir Mishra and his films.
From a brief filmography as a director that he has, I have not seen many films but those I have seen, like K.K.C., had all been on my list for quite a long time before being watched. I had long been waiting to watch Dharavi and Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi and could only watch them only a few months back. Few things were in common in these three films that I could notice.
The first thing was that all these films were artistically great as far as the individual performances are concerned. Be it Om Puri & Shabana Azmi in Dharavi or Kaykay Menon, Shiney Ahuja & Chitrangda Singh in Hazaaron... or Shiney & Soha in Khoya..., everytime Sudhir Mishra has done a great job in bringing us such fine performances.
The second thing that I could observe was Sudhir's commendable hold on the varied topic and the even more diverse backdrop of the films. The bumbaiya masti of the jhoparpatti in Dharavi can easily be seen in whole film. The student politics of Delhi university and the naxalite movement in Bihar became the issues in Hazaaron....... and indeed, I, till date, have not seen a better use of bihari accent of bhojpuriya hindi in bollywood. Everytime, this accent was used for comedy purposes in hindi films but Sudhir in Hazaaron..... gave it an altogether different look. Special mention of Dil Dosti Etc. which also saw a great use of that particular accent. Khoya... saw a periodic drama with the hindi film industry of 50's ad 60's as the backdrop and with the use of the brown filter in the whole film Sudhir managed to take us through that very era. Really commendable!!!
The third thing that I noticed in common to all these three films was my conflict with Sudhir Mishra. The movies are packed with such powerful performances from the leading artists of the industry everytime but fail to connect to me and, I am sure, to a large chunk of audience also. With such wonderful topics in hand and a commendable hold over them, why does the movies look out of sort and actually boring sometimes is the essence of my conflict with Sudhir. I look to him (rather he is presented) as a mature film maker, still he fails to maintain a momentum in his film that could have managed to bind audience with throughout the length of the film. Many a times while watching these movies, I was not able to understand what actually he wanted to show us. For eg in Khoya...., I was not able to make out what exactly was the film about. Was it about an exploited girl in the industry or centredness of the industry on a particular powerful star or the struggle that the newcomers face in this industry or a personal conflict between two talents or the industry of 50's as a whole? Such confusing issues are common in all the three Mishra films that I have seen and I can see only two reasons to that; either he himself is a bit confused about what he wants to show or he is trying to showcase his talent and while doing this ends up doing a lot of things that finally point into different directions and lead us into confusion.
Earlier, I mentioned about the essence of my conflict with Sudhir Mishra. What exactly is the conflict between me with Sudhir Mishra is that despite all these facts that I pointed out earlier I still want to watch his films more and more. May be, this is because of the fact that he brings for us something that is different from the mainstream everytime and presents us with something that is drama but a drama told in a different style. I don't know why but yes, I won't deny, I am looking forward to his next film..................................................................

We Are Not Indians!!!

Its 26th July, 2009............................All the news channels in India are celebrating 10 years of "Operation Vijay" in Kargil, remembering the martyrs and their martyrdom and condemning the govt for its negligence towards the celebration. Watching all this, I couldn't resist myself from remembering my time 10 years back.
I am one of the many privileged Indians to see our country coming out of a war with flying colours. I am also one of them who saw our country going through such a tough time. It was in June-July '99. As a 12 year old, I was not having that very much of understanding of what a war was and what our relationship with Pakistan was like. We at that tender age and being cricket fabs were only concerned with the Indo-Pak rivalry on the cricket field and had nothing of a political view or something like that. We had seen till then some of the war movies and so knew there was something between the two neighbours that was not good but the Delhi-Lahore bus service that was launched earlier that year brought some good for the realtionship between the two countries, at least for us, which certainly didn't later on.
I was in standard 7th then and had just finished our summer vacation. It was the time when something like a war emerged in Kashmir valley. We, at that time, had not the 24 hrs news channels like today and me, personaly, had no access to the cable connection at home. I was completely dependent on the 8:30 news on Doordarshan and the morning daily for the news on the war. In fact, it was the time when I started reading newspaper daily as a hobby. Listening and reading about how many soldiers gave away their lives without letting our country down, it certainly filled me with passion. In the school, I was the monitor along with my friend Mickey Anand. We decided to have a silence of 2 minutes every morning before our class started in order to condole rather celebrate the martyrdom of our soldiers. This act of ours became famous in the school and it became a regular practice in the whole school every morning to stand and remember our soldiers till the war ended. I can proudly say that we celebrated all the 527 martyrs and didn't wait for 10 years to do that.
One more thing that I still remember today about Kargil war. Our school collected some money from all the teachers and the students for the fund to support the Indian Army. We were expected to donate freely whatever we could or afford. I, at that time, had an envelope containing Rs. 51 given to me by somebody on my birthday as blessing and decided to donate that money to the fund. I did that and indeed in my section, I was the one who came up with the highest donation. I was again very proud to help my own armymen to the best I could do at that time.
Remembering this all today, 10 years since, again feels my heart with a feeling of proud but this feeling is diluted with a stronger feeling of shame for me. I didn't even once bother all these days to feel proud of our martyrs except when watching some war movie. I think many of us Indians of my age would be just like this. I am sure about my generation, I am not the only one and still there would be many more who are even worse than me. Do we really deserve to call ourselves Indians? Today, we all are condemning the govt and politicians for forgetting our heroes. But are we anywhere better than them? Well, it was expected like that from the f****** politicians but being the common man of our country, was it not our proud duty that we never felt proud of doing?
SHAME ON ALL OF US!!!!
F*** ALL OF US!!!!!!!!!

New York

Its been too long, almost 3-4 months that we could watch a new movie here in India thanks to a spat between producers and distributors. The strike is over and here we have again movies to watch, movies to talk and movies to write :)
New York is the latest released hindi film directed by Kabir Khan and comes out from the Yash Raj production house starring John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Irrfan Khan. It was a highly anticipated movie not for its star-cast but for the draught of the movies and straightaway is being seen as the biggest hit of 2009 so far. The story is about the evil treatment of the muslims in America post 9/11 and deals with a complex political issue of getting back the respectful place for them in the american society. The whole plot of the movie is given here.
There are many things that is new in the movie. I think its the first time in Indian cinema that a theme is taken which concerns an international issue. Films with serious political issues are rare in India and that too an issue that, if not the world, concerns south Asia atleast, is still rarer. The other novel fact that I noticed is the place of Muslims in Indian films (esp terror-centred films) which was always given an ugly look and audiences have always condemned them. On the contrary, here we have muslims fighting to regain their pride and respect and the audience is applauding this; indeed a nice change that Kabir Khan brings for us. Like many other terror-terrorist films, we have a terrorist who "is not born a terrorist but circumsatnces have made him one" but this time it is not sympathy that is gained for that change of character but the film very clearly points out the mistake. FBI agent Roshan (Irrfan) admits the mistake on FBI's part for detaining all the innocent muslims post 9/11 as terror suspects and also points out the mistake on Sam's (Jhon Abraham) part in chosing the path of terrorism to take revenge; hopefully Indian cinema is, of late, coming out of its traditional stereotypes and changing ways towards a much positive future.
With these new things what else the movie also gives us as something new is Katrina Kaif. As an Indo-american she stuns me the most and undoubtedly its her best performance till date. Being originally an anglo-indian, this role suited her the most and she was too original for her hindi dialogues with english-accent. John Abraham is improving film by film and this movie will always be rated as one of his best. Neil Nitin Mukesh was good in his first film Johny Gaddar and has impoved a lot in this film and indeed is the show-stealer. I liked him in his first film and now I am his fan. I skipped 'Aa Dekhen Zara' (his second), but now I want to watch it too. No words for Irrfan, he is as usual at his best.
Kabir Khan as a director has done a fabulous job. After his first film 'Kabul Express' being more of a travelogue, I didn't expect much from him but he has really done a great job. Music is good and songs are only there where they are needed. Cinematography is brilliant and captures different mood of the movie very aptly wih the camera.
Of course, there are some negatives also about the film. There were part of movies where there was emotion well in excess of what was required. One such scene was when Omar (Neil) comes to know that Maya (Katrina) loves Sam (John). Omar's reaction looked a lot expressive and could have been better if his emotions were kept somewhat concealed. The climax of the film is also not upto the mark and could have been better (again emotions spoiled it).
All in all, after a long time, something comes out from Yash Raj films that is watchable and even more than that. A good movie, watchable+, 3 stars out of 5!!!

Need for a Change!!!

I was going through the news headlines today where I got this interesting headline about the Union HRD ministry thinking of some innovative ways to bring a reform in the present day education system of our country. Whether its simply a crap or a real innovation, only time can tell; but this news provoked me to think something about our education system of which we are a part of and which we always keep condemning.
Now, where from this system actually came and when? Was it right from the times of our grandfathers or their fathers or is it an evolution of a much better (or worse) system that existed sometime in the past? Recalling a short story 'बरे भाई साहब' by Munshi Premchand that I (and probably many of us Indians) read in our coursebook of std 5th or 6th, I think, this examination-ruined education system prevailed in the society from the very beginning. This story was about an elder brother's pity with the exams and his scolding of his younger brother for not giving much attention to studies despite which he himself kept on failing in the exams as opposed to his brother who always stood first in his class. The story dates back to the early 20th century and shows the fear and dread of exams and studies even at that time. So, certainly, a torturous sort of an education system was there from very early a time. But, has the system been the same or has it evolved? If evolved, then either positively or negatively?
I remember stories being told to us about our grandfathers who didn't even bother to see their results of intermediate exams or graduation exams for the number of students passed in those exams was so less that the whole district knew the names of such students. Then came the time when a larger number of students started passing although mostly with second or third devision. I know my father getting something around 70% marks (or even less, certainly, not more) and securing a respectable position in the state matric board examination (he was in 40s in the rank list of whole Bihar state). My brother, 15 years ago, did his matriculaton and got 80% marks but was not even the topper of his school. I, myself got 93% marks in the matric exam 6 yrs ago and was along with 11 other students of only my section to get over 90% marks that too in a school where 9 or 10 such sections existed. One can easily estimate my rank in the school. Only 6 yrs since, people are now getting 96, 97 or even 98% of marks in the same exam conducted by the same board. Yes, the system has certainly evolved too much and with this trend of increasing marks and increasing number of students getting such marks, we can say, it is a positive evolution. But, is it so?
Going back to the time of my grandfathers or even till my father's, the basic aim of education was something different. They got education because they had to acquire knowledge, knowledge about the numbers, knowledge about science, our past, our present or even our future. Then, the time came when the students were told that knowledge is nothing but what is written in the textbooks and we students started slurping and swallowing everything written in books, to a height where we could learn by heart even a mathematical equation or a numerical problem of mechanics. Aquiring knowledge is not even a tertiary aim for present days students. They usually say, "Yaar, knowledge can be gained even later first be able to score good marks in the exam". When was the time this change actually occured and what brought them? We need nothing to answer this question but only a little bit of introspection inside our social build-up. It is a gradual process that got the education system to such a point and it all started with the growth of the race to become superior and for that establishment of examination and marks obtained in them as standards of superiority.
Certainly, we do need a change in our present day education system but is this the only thing we should be changing? Do we have nothing to do with our thinking?
We certainly have. We ceratinly have a need for a change.................a change in our thinking, our views and most of all ourselves.

The AB(C) of Bollywood

Recently, I came to know (through a daily) that Reliance Anil Ambani Group is going to organise some kind of a ceremony to mark 40 years of Amitabh Bachhan in hindi film industry. It seems too obligatory for Mr. Anil Ambani to do so for Mr. Bachchan and none in this world can deny the presence of Mr. Amar Singh on this 'auspicious' occasion to felicitate his 'बरे भइया'. Anyways, whatsoever be the relationship between Ambanis, Bachchans or Amar Singh, its not a matter to be discussed in this post. I wouldn't say anything about the aptness of Ambani's idea but one thing I must like to admit that idea about this post came to my mind only after reading about his idea.
This blog of mine, although not strictly filmy, preferentially includes topics of hindi films and bollywood and for such a blog, its hard to restrain for too long from a topic with Amitabh Bachchan, undoubtedly the greatest actor of bollywood ever, as the central theme (though, a post Adorable Awesome Amitabh exists but the central theme there is the film 'The Last lear'). Not much to say about his greatness as an actor or any such thing coz every such thing will be a cliche and a disrespect to the man himself. This post is only my overview of his extensive filmography as seen from my perspective.
In the year 1969, when the hindi film industry was searching for its new superstar after Dilip Kumar, came the film Aradhna starring Rajesh Khanna which made him a susperstar overnight. With this film also came another film 'Saat Hindustani' with AB as a debutant actor in the role of one of the seven protagonists of the film. Fresh with the success of Upkar in '67 and Aankhen in '68, film industry was looking at the patriotic films as ' सोने की चिरिया ' and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was no exception either. Though the film didn’t fare well at the box office, the film industry saw a young guy with a cute face and a manly voice standing upright in front of the acting giants like Utpal Dutt and got him a National Award for the best newcomer. One more thing that connected Amitabh to us biharis was his character who incidentally was a Bihari. Anyways, Rajesh Khanna became a superstar with Aradhna and gave many beautiful romantic melodramas in the successive years. In 1971, they both came together in Anand, a heart drenching emotional melodrama about a man suffering from a deadly disease. Khanna was the lead actor and AB played his doctor friend Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee. Though, Khanna stole the show with his powerful performance, AB was not behind either. He gave the glimpse of his talent in the climax scene when a calm, composed, self-possessed man suddenly turns into an anxious, agitated and emotional friend on seeing his friend die in front of him. Alongwith Anand some other movies like Parwana, Reshma aur Shera etc were released that year but none were successful. 1972 was also not different and despite 4 or 5 films released none of them were hits at box office.

Then came the year 1973 which can easily be called a year that turned the fortune of AB and with him the film industry and the lakhs of audiences. Zanzeer gave birth to the Angry Young Man of India and heralded a new era in bollywood and what was to follow is everything history now. The rivalry between Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai was at its peak and besides AB, we the audience were the most privileged with this rivalry. The angry young man was growing angrier and younger with each film and gave us movies like Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Namak Halaal, Lawaaris, Parvarish, Sharabi, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, Mard. In between all this rivalry between Mehra and Desai, AB did some of his best films with other makers that included films of different genres in which AB played a complete set of different characters. The list includes Kabhi Kabhie, Kala Patthar, Silsila, Deewar, Trishul, Mashaal etc with B.R. Chopra and Yash Chopra; Sholay, Shakti, Shaan with Ramesh Sippy; Chupke Chupke, Namak Haraam with Hrishikesh Mukahrjee. His other notable hits included Majboor, Abhimaan, Mili, Kashme Waade, Satte pe Satta, Mr. Natwarlal, Khuddaar, Yaarana, Kaalia etc.

After continuing Baadshahat at the box office for almost a decade, the star started fading after he started his career in politics in ’84. He tried to make a comeback in the industry but was not the same AB as before. With only occasional hits like Shahenshah, Aaj ka Arjun, Agneepath and Hum, he was soon out of reckoning and eventually led to his financial collapse.

In 2000, Kaun Banega Crorepati, a TV game show gave his popularity back; he was out of his debts and again restarted his career this time with character roles. He started appearing in big banner Chopras’ and Johars’ films opposite the contemporary superstar Shahrukh and often folding his hands and bowing in front of him was the preferred climax of such films like Mohabbatein, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham which for me was not at all good for such great an artist. Anyways, lately, he did many more movies and is still doing playing different roles, different genres some digestible and many not.

Whatever, the AB which everybody loved in Deewar, Don, Sholay or Amar Akbar Anthony will never be back to us and we as his fans will always be loving him for that. THANX AB!!!

The Infrequency

It has been too infrequent on my blog for a post to be published by me for all these months now, and to this, amazingly, I don't see any concrete justification. These days, I was going through the most earlier of the posts on my brother's blog and happened to read many things that could incite lots of thoughts inside the grey matter, more on those some other time but here is an excerpt from one of his posts that I found very 'अपना सा' in describing my infrequency on the blog.

"Sylvia Plath, the famous American poet, once said:

'Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt.'"

Whenever I was busy thinking about the reasons why I don't write posts these days, it always came in my mind that there is nothing happening to me that holds even the slightest of 'writability'. But this Plath's statement has shaken my beliefs from inside. I always believed I had the necessary bit of imagination and guts in me to write something and had nothing of the sort of 'self-doubt'. But reading this statement, I couldn't, for even a second, live in the delusional world created by me and fell right on the floor upside down. Now I completely agree to the statement and feel really pathetic for myself for not writing frequently. Interestingly, now I feel that I have left many things in all these months that could well have been the topics of my posts and suddenly, now, I have many things which are 'writable'.

Johny Mera Naam

In one of my earlier posts titled 'Jhonny Gaddar', I have reflected my lack of knowledge about Vijay Anand (as a thriller maestro) to whom the film was dedicated. Now, after watching Jhony Mera Naam and reading a few articles on him from different sources and knowing about his other films, I have understood why he is called thriller maestro.
Anyways, Johny Mera Naam is a suspense thriller released in 1970, a time when such movies were losing their postition in bollywood to the romantic Rajesh Khanna films. The late half of 60s saw many thriller dramas that are always remembered for their art. Johny Mera Naam is one amongst them, the other notables include Waqt, Gumnaam, Teesri Manzil, Mera Saaya, Humraaz, An Evening in Paris, Jewel Thief, Ittefaq and others. This film could also be kept under the other hit genre of hindi movies, the 'lost and found' ones which became a regular feature in indian cinemas in the mid and late 70s with the upsurge of Amitabh Bachchan.
Johny Mera Naam is a crime movie with revenge, romance, comedy, suspense every single thing that a movie needs to be a hit. I think it must be one of the very first occasions where a femme fatale gets a place in hindi cinema. The song 'Husn ke Lakhon rang' has a charecteristic essence of Vijay Anand's style with a most possible seductive voice of Asha Bhonsle.
Talking about the songs, Kalyanji-Anandji's music is good, the singing better and the picturisation special. Nothing about the film is complete without mentioning the extremely interesting type of picturisation of the song 'Pal Bhar ke liye'. Dev Anand running from one window to the other and Hema Malini closing each one of that and while all this camera rolling without cuts is beautiful, you really got to expect such unique song picturisation while watching Vijay Anand's movie. I can't resist myself from mentioning about 'Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar' being picturised wholly inside the Qutub Minar.
I.S. Johar also needs a mention here for his award winning triple role as comedian in this film. He comes in the film with packages and never fails to bring smile to the audience. For Hema Malini, being her 2nd film, it was very important and with her strong show here she deservedly made her place in bollywood and also in everyone's heart. Pran is as usual great and Prem Nath has looked as ferocious as he could rightly for his character.
All in all, a great movie to enjoy.............a must watch.......

Slumdog Millionaire

I got to watch the movie a few months ago and again re-watched it some days later. It was not because I liked the movie rather it was to search for somethimg that made this so 'GREAT' movie (of course, not for me!!!!). With such a statement, I think its clear about my opinion of the film. Too many criticism and too many blogs have already been written on this 2008 megahit at oscars and I don't want to reiterate all that once again. Only a few words about the film some positive and some negative:

The Positive:

After searching much for what I liked in the film I came out with only few points. One was the exciting musical score that everybody liked. The other one was the excellent use of the flashbacks of Jamaal's life in answering the question at the game show. Technically it was not that great but yes, the concept was appreciable.

The Negative:

For me the biggest setback about the film was the hype about the film. I didn't see anything in the film that deserved such hype. In India, the song "Jai Ho..." was hailed as a song of praise for the Indians but I couldn't see one single thing in the film that could arouse the patriotic feeling amongst us still it did for many amongst us. The image of India is itself not that great in the western world and with this film its not gonna get better anyhow.
A.R. Rahman got an oscar for this film. This is really a matter of pride for us Indians but hasn't he created much better soundtracks for other hindi and tamil films? One of the songs (Ringa Ringa...) is a copy (although tributory) of Laxmikant-Pyarelal's 'Choli ke peechhe kya hai' from Khalnayak. Could he get the award and acclaim that he got for this film had the film was a bollywood production. I don't think so.
I even didn't like the acting of the lead actors. All the children were good at acting but when it came to the older ones it was horrible.
And above all the dance sequence in the end at the railway station was pathetic.

All in all, a much hyped film that could easily be skipped.

The Best Scene Ever In A Bollywood Film.........

Although I don't like Shahrukh much but Swades is one of his few films that I admire. A great movie about an N.R.I. (the so called Non Returning Indians) who comes to India in search of his childhood caretaker and sees the pity and the "Becharapan" of Indians here and realises what at all, despite being an Indian, he is doing for his nation.
The first 2.5 to 3 minutes of this scene are sufficient to tell the whole story and for me this is the best possible scene in a bollywood movie...................................
Thanks Ashutosh Gowarikar! And Thanks Shahrukh!