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!

बीते हुए लम्हों की कसक साथ तो होगी

Last few months of my life have been quite different for me as far as my mental status is concerned. There have been lots of mood changes and too much of depression getting in my life and probably they have let me to a state where I don’t feel like doing things which once I loved to. I feel irritated all the time and to add to this irritation, I don’t know the reason behind it. Whether it has to do something to the failures I got in certain competitions in the college or to what I felt during exams or even before that when I was preparing for the exams, I am completely confused but really they have all got too much of depression for me. I was not like this before, depression was not in my dictionary, but yes, the situations were also not like this before.
Too many films, too much of internet, too much of casual timepasses all leading to too much of load just before the exams superadded with the load given by people close to me making me feel for the lost hours. All this led me to a near-breakdown and then came the examinations. They were as horrible as anything can get and only led me further towards my ‘near-breakdown’. The exams were just apt to how I had spent my valuable time in immaterial things on the expenses of my studies. First two papers were like never before. Unlike my reputation of one who helps everybody in exams this time I was seeking for help from everybody I could. I was cheating and only cheating myself. Then came a bit of relief in the last two papers. These were the subjects whom I gave relatively more of the attention and this, to some extent, paid off in the exams (and more so in result as I got honours and gold medal in one of these). The exams were over and a whole new term was before me asking me for better attention this time. The college foundation day celebration were round the corner and had many things for me to participate in. I prepared for all of those and the irony struck me once again as I fell miserably everywhere, be it the quiz in obstetrics or in medicine or in surgery or in cinemas or even the cricket matches. I don’t know whether I ever handled these many defeats together before in my life. To add to the pain was the names of the people who defeated me, I had always seen myself before them in such competitions and over all of these I had my ‘people close to me’ saying me I didn’t prepare sincerely for these. The ‘near-breakdown’ was again a lot nearer.
Then came 25th February. I was awarded the gold medal for Pathology + Microbiology topper in the 2nd MBBS exam. Then came the week of nikki didi’s (my cousin) wedding in Dhanbad which ended with another good news for me with the results of 3rd MBBS where again I got honours in E.N.T. Of course, last few weeks have not been so bad for me as the earlier ones, but “बीते हुए लम्हों की कसक साथ तो होगी”………………..

"UNTITLED"

Its been a long time since i last posted on my blog. I think this statement is all set to become my custom statement as a start to my posts with too many posts already beginning with this. I am not the only one to blame for this irregularity, the large chunk has to go to the pathetic condition of broadband connection in my city. The condition is really pathetic and to add to it, this is further receding to worse.
Anyways, these days I am busy studying for my exams scheduled to commence 1 week hence. The study is more of a compensation for the lost hours which I, quite comfortably, spent on doing things at internet, blogging being noteworthy and many others being 'un-noteworthy".
I can't really say from when I will be able to regularise myself though I hope it won't take a long time..............