Random Musings

I am going to trust movie reviews lesser and lesser.

They gave 4 stars and a very flattering review to Khosla Ka Ghosla.
And I went and saw it. And came out wondering if, with the stakes that there are in the film industry now, are all reviews “purchased”??

How can anyone give 4 stars to this dumb ass movie?

Its an extremely ordinary effort, perhaps deserving a slot on DD’s movie channel, for budding film makers, more out of encouraging them, and not for any serious commercial opportunity.

But with numbers panning out the way they are, a good run for a week, and money is recovered, any kind on nonsense comes out, and is getting purchased and released as well. And to get that first week push, they are able to get the reviews manipulated.

Damn!

Saw Dor, the latest effort from Nagesh Kukunoor.
And it was a pleasant experience indeed.

A very interesting script, not really a huge plot, etc. But engaging enough, in terms of the interplay between the key players.

Captured the small realities of life in the interiors of our country, that living in cities, we can hardly imagine. I mean, even as we take mobile phones and the like for granted, there is this location in Rajasthan where at a certain location, standing at a particular angle, you can get a mobile signal, and anyone who wants to talk has to go there and do so. I am sure its real, even though we may find it hard to imagine.

So also, in this day and age, when in cities, we see girls taking rapid strides in society, there is a reality of girls living a clearly backward life, in small towns of Rajasthan.

Where the story could have been drab and dull, there is an introduction of the Bahurupiya character to spice it up and make it a little light and relaxed.

The camerawork and the lights across the desert sands of Rajasthan makes for breathtaking view.

Clearly an amazing, thinking director, Nagesh creates a beautiful picture here. I am very impressed by him. I would rate this along with Teen Deewarein and Iqbal, amogst his best films. Yes, he got famous for Hyderabad Blues, and it was a first effort, but it was clearly amateurish, as compared to these three films of his.

As the radio belts out ads for the new Don, we hear Shah Rukh Khan speak that famous dialogue, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai”. Of course, not half as effectively as Amitabh did in the original (that dialogue itself makes me feel that thw new Don will NOT measure up to the original).

But it got me thinking to the so many great dialogues that have become virtual folklore with Indians. Of course, Sholay had 3-1/2 hours of those, and one can give tons of examples from that film:
1. Ye haath mujhe de de thakur
2. Basanti, tumhara naam kya hai
3. Hum Angrez ke zamane ke jailer hai
4. Maut tumhare sar pe mandra rahi hai
5. Itna sannata kyu hai, bhai

etc. etc. etc.

The list is quite endless with regards to Sholay.
But there have been others. Interestingly, MANY of these have been associated with Amitabh. They had some tremendous scripts for him. He must owe a lot of his success to Salim-Javed, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, Ramesh Sippy, etc. for some awesome scripts, dialogues, etc.

Some of the gems that we can remember are:
1. Mere paas Ma hai (yes, Shashi Kapoor spoke this, but made Amitabh famous; Deewar – what a film, man!!)
2. Main wohi Shantidevi ka beta hoon, aur tum ho mere najayaz baap
3. Aaj to bahot khush honge tum
4. Jao pehle us aadmi ka sign leke aao… Bhai, tum sign karoge ke nahin..
5. Aisa to aadmi life mein do-ich time bhagta hai

Often, simple words, but spoke well, crucial scenes in the film, and ended up ultimately, to become folklore. Repeated by kids and others in routine talk, spoofed thousands of times in other films or on late night comedy shows, etc.

Even today when I hear SRK say, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai.. “, it gives me goosebumps, remembering the original. What longevity.. thats what great films are. Leave a mark for years after its release.

Most times, it is easy to imagine what motivates a person, why do you see someone working so hard, why is he going the extra mile. Often it can be the lure of money, or of recognition, of growth in an organisation, etc. And then you see sometimes, persons acting in a way that makes you wonder. What is it that is driving them? You come across such persons often, in every day life. When you notice them and realise suddenly, that they are doing what they are for seemingly no personal motive, it staggers you. What is it that makes them do this? And most times, the question remains unanswered.

Let me share with you two persons of this kind that I saw in recent days. Both have left an impact on me.

The first one was while we were on holiday to a South India hill station, Coorg. We were taken for a walk of the plantations and amongst other things, we were shown some really huge trees, that would fetch a price of around Rs. 25,000 for the wood they deliver, but which take nearly 20-25 years to come to that level.
This we saw and learnt from the guide.
And as we walked around, sometime later, we came across the nursery, where the plants were being readied for new plantings. And here I saw a man, who must have been around 75 years of age at least. Sitting on his hunches and painstakingly, and very meticulously, getting the mix ready, putting it into plastic bags, for getting the plants ready to be planted. He was completely involved in his work, not bothering to look back at us, visitors. There were several ready bags that he had made and kept, and he had his task cut out for him as we could see a pile of the mix ready, to be put into the plastic bags. And he was going about that task so very diligently.

It was later that we were told that it was the same plant, that would take 20-25 years to blossom into a tree that would have some value attached to it, thereafter.

And here was a man, 75+ years old, who will never see his work take any kind of final shape, never see the baby mature to a full grown animal, and yet, nursing it with so much passion! Thinking about it now, still gives me the goosebumps. Here we all are, always thinking before taking up any task, as to how its going to benefit us, and when would we see such a benefit! Did he care?

What made him do it? Beats me.. !

Then there was another person that touched me thus.
As a Rotary Club, we have this project, where we work closely with the All Indian Institute of Physical Medicine and Research, and carry on activities to benefit the physically challenged and typically lower income category persons.
At one of the on-site meetings, for this project, we saw a few cases who had benefited from our club’s efforts. These were very young children coming from poor families. What came out of that visit, of course, is that our project has immensely benefited people, to the extent of changing their lives completely, for the better.

But beyond that, what also came out, was the dedicated efforts of the physiotherapists employed by us, and who worked with these patients. In a society where we see medical practitioners turn into business persons (not all, but many) and work with money as a motive, this was such a refreshing change. The therapists had to clearly go way beyond their scope of work, to work the miracles in the lives of these kids. And they had done so, with a smile, with tremendous dedication, with passion and with love. What for?
It was a job, at best. They were serving poor people who were unlikely to offer them anything more, except for their blessings and love. And yet, they put that effort. And changed the lives of the poor souls. These were not some retired persons with tons of savings stacked up, and who were working for the sake of fun. These were young doctors, at an early stage of their careers, still to make any decent kitty of savings for themselves.

What excellent work. In this materialistic age, such persons exist.

There is still hope for mankind… !

Two very interesting films, Omkara and Corporate, intrigue me, for the following reasons:

There is clearly a pattern to a director’s style. Madhur Bhandarkar’s movies are
based on a specific social entity. Chandni Bar was the bar dancers, Page 3 (an
aberration of sorts, in terms of not having a strong story base) was of course,
about the Page 3 culture, and Corporate is about the big bad corporate world! He
does a decent bit of research, builds strong characters and shows the depth of
those characters.

And interestingly, lets the film end with a “no hope for improvement” statement.
Where the good guy loses, because the ills of society will be ‘like that only’.

In Chandni Bar, you see the helpless Tabu left stranded at the end of the movie,
and in Corporate, the same fate holds for Bipasha. So much for the myth that
audience needs a ‘feel good’ end, to make a movie work.
(Not that Corporate has worked that well, in box-office terms!).

Likewise, it is with Vishal Bhardwaj. He made Maqbool earlier, an adaptation of
Macbeth, and now, Omkara, that of Othello. Having not read much of Shakespeare,
one is amazed at these screen adaptations of this writings. One can now
understand the position that he has in the literary world, as we see how stories
he wrote so many years back, are so powerful and capture audiences, even today.
The interesting parallel about these two movies is that both are based on
families in crime, kind of like the mafia. And they both have these characters
with extremely strong emotions – intense emotions. It is an understanding of the
criminal mind, to recognise that it borders on the extremes. Love, jealousy,
hatred, anger – none of these come in mild doses for these guys; all of these
are intense emotions for them.

Also Vishal Bhardwaj is a music composer turned into a director. A shift not
seen too often. Many writers, editors, and film stars, have veered into
direction, but I do not remember other music directors going that route. But in
doing this, one thing is ensured. That the music of the film will have the
greatest commitment and best effort. Vishal manages to get the rustic UP-flavour
into the film, be it dialogues or songs. The “Omkara, Omkara.. ” chant is mesmerising. And of course, the “Beedi..” song has amaaaziing energy seen. You can completely imagine the “lukkhas” of small town UP, freaking out, like nobody’s business, with a single, sexy babe dancing amidst them. All of them hovering around her like hungry wolves, drunk to the core, and having a ball of a time. Extremely well shot, inspite of the ordinary dancing talents of Bipasha (Shilpa Shetty or Malaika Arora Khan would have been so much better here!).

Having also seen Apaharan (a Prakash Jha typical – ‘Bihar in shambles’ film)
sometime back, I continue to be impressed by Ajay Devgan. Not amongst the more
handsome of our stars, he plays some of these hard hitting characters extremely
well. And has a way of “acting” just with his eyes and face contours, without
speaking a word. One of the underrated actors of our times. I am quite a fan of
his. Right from HDDCS times.. !

The film is getting an iconic status, of a level that I have not seen in my life. Yes, I saw people come out of Rang de Basanti, and swearing to do something for their country. That was an immediate impact, but beyond that, there was no real road for them, to get down to actually doing something.

As against that, the Lage Raho theme has the Gandhigiri franchise and that is taking off, like nobody’s business. Amazing.. now here is a real winner, for the film makers. When the product can have such a huge impact on the masses, the society, then you have really created some magic. Perhaps without even intending to create so much of an impact.. !

My own impressions of the film, in general:
I enjoyed it thoroughly. A few thoughts on the film are:
– Good, clean comedy can still work. We don’t need to be slapstick or sexist to have a laugh!
– There is serious potential for the sequel business in India too, when there is good effort behind it; Krissh was also a decent follow up to Koi Mil Gaya. Of course, a phenomenal commercial success.
– A 45-year old Sanjay Dutt and his not-much-claim-to-fame sidekick can still hold the audience for 2-1/2 hours,
– Raju Hirani, I believe, is an FTII product; also the producer Vinod Chopra is a class filmmaker (1942 a Love Story, Parinda, Mission Kashmir to name a few of his fab films). They make a great combine to deliver a really good product. Clean comedy, a nice face (Vidya Balan), some take home value (like the jadoo ki chhapi factor in the first one, here we have Bapu’s principles doing the trick) – things we would have thought to be passe in films, actually working for the audiences!

An aside..
I truly believe that Vinod Chopra has a way with presenting women well, on the screen. I am sure he has a role to play (besides the camera persons and the make up team). Manisha Koirala has never looked as good as she did in 1942, a Love Story. Likewise, I still remember the magical change in presenting Preity Zinta in the Bhumro song in Mission Kashmir (Preity of course, has had many more opportunities since then, and has looked good in several other films thereafter). And this time, its Vidya Balan. A far cry from her Parineeta presentation – which of course, was
also a Vinod Chopra production, but which was a film based in a different decade.

Have you been in a situation on the Mumbai roads, when a BEST bus hustles you up on account of its size and clout, and scrapes your car or worse, bangs it up?? Many of us who drive on the roads of Mumbai, would have experienced this. And usually, except for getting very angry, there is little that we can do about this.

I got into one such scrape off, with a BEST bus few months back. Certainly not my first time. I did not know what I was going to do about it, at that time, except use it in the FIR to claim my insurance money, but I went ahead and took down all the details, including the driver’s name and tag number. The car was not damaged a lot, but I was just very upset because he had bullied his way into my car. I did the police FIR although I was not even sure, if I would claim the insurance money, since it was a minor scratch.

Thereafter, for the heck of it, I looked up, found the BEST website, and located a PRO office email there. I wrote to the person, just to lodge a complaint against the concerned driver, and expecting at best, an apology. And more likely, a “no reponse”. Forgetting it completely, after sending off that email, I was surprised then, to receive a letter from BEST, after a few days.

Typed out (yes, not word processed, but actually typed out on the relic typewriter machines!), the letter did not say much, except that the complaint was noted and being looked into. Subsequently, I got an invitation to take the car to the BEST garage, which is centralised in Mumbai, but luckily, it was close to my home. Here the car was inspected. I got a hint that some kind of claim was being lodged in my favour. This had nothing to do with my own insurance at all. After a few days, there was one more invitation – to visit the depot where the driver was based, for an interactive session with a senior officer there. I dreaded it as I did not know whether I wanted to go all the way, and face the ire of the driver, who might have got some questions asked to him, as a result of my complaint. But intrigued at what was going on, I went ahead and attended that “hearing”.

And then I got a letter that my claim was lodged and I would hear from them later. It took a while thereafter, a fair amount of telephonic follow up, and ultimately, an RTI (“Right to Information”) enquiry, but finally, I got a cheque for Rs. 900 from BEST. For having damaged my car.

Its not the money – in this case, being a small scratch, I guess, I could have not asked for more, in any case – but rather, the realisation that one can actually make a complaint of this nature, directly from the BEST website, that its taken seriously, and that, with some effort, it can actually deliver some compensation to you.

Worth the effort, for me, and certainly to share with everyone.. !

Posting this, after what seems like ages!
After a very long time, have a hint of a feeling that there is less of a backlog on work and home stuff, and I have time to breathe, and hence time to blog!!
Yeah, its been that sort of life, last few months.

Its still very busy but a lot better than say, a month ago.

So hopefully, I will manage to post more regularly now.

Fingers crossed..