Random Musings

I am writing after a long time. Some thing or the other came up for a while, and I could not write. And then the inertia factor struck. I just kept putting off writing one day after another, and let too long a time to go by. So this is a big thing.. just getting back to the writing habit. And here I am!

Life has been busy and interesting these last few weeks.

Summer was up on us. Very very hot. Still is. And in Mumbai, its just so sultry and humid. By the time one is out of the shower, one is wet all over again, but with perspiration. And thus goes the whole day.

We did not travel this summer. Expect for a short break to Panchagani. We went and stayed at a ‘sanitorium’. It was quite nice, in fact. A decent 3-bedroom apartment, with a fully equipped kitchen, television, and a great location, with good breeze, all day long. Was a nice break from Mumbai and work. While we chilled out mostly, playing cards and carrom and watching TV, we also went around a bit, to Mahabaleshwar and Panchagani places. The usual Table Land, Mahabaleshwar Lake, Mapro Gardens, etc. were on the list. But in addition, we went to an interesting theme park in Panchagani, called “Sherbaug”. Made well, it is full of natural habitat, trees, flowers, waterfalls, etc. Quite an interesting place, and nice to discover something new in a place where one has been a few dozen times. In addition, tried out a few food places in Mahabaleshwar and Panchagani. Amongst them, Hotel Nataraj for snacks on the way from Mumbai, Hotel Shakunt for a Maharashtrian prepared Gujarati thali at Wai, and the usual suspects, Hotel Rajesh (so-so) and Hotel Dreamland (Mahabaleshwar) for good Gujju meals.

Other interesting things done recently, include a visit to small town like location in Mumbai, called Khotachiwadi. Unbelievable to find this in Mumbai, if one just saw the photographs of the place, one would think, it’s a small town in Maharashtra or something like that. And yet its actually in the heart of Mumbai, in Girgaum, a great mix of cultures, small houses, balconies where you can jump from one to the next house, and then there was their food festival. A mix of variety of foods, including Bengali, Chinese, Catholic, Maharashtrian, etc. I just had the Soul Kadi, as we could not stay for dinner there. The Soul Kadi was great!

We saw a funny Gujarati drama last week, “Bas Kar Bakula”. I had a lot of fun. Was almost falling out of my seat there. So much fun it was. Not that everyone was enjoying as much – I was enjoying a little more than others, I suspect!

Then there have been a few movies seen in recent times – Waqt, Bunty aur Babli, Parineeta. More about these later, in other postings.

So long – glad to break the jink, and restart on the writing. Hope to be regular once again.

McDonals delivers in Mumbai – something they have not done anywhere else in the world. Wonder if processes that have not undergone repeated tests and trials at their end and are introduced in a country like India thus, can become a damaging cause to their brand?? I had a bad experience with a delivery order that I tried to place couple of days back.

Here is what happened.
I was at my Sun Mills Compound office, at around 8:15 pm, and which is bang across the road from Phoenix Mills, where McDonalds has an outlet. I got a call from my daughters and they were in a mood to have burgers for dinner and wanted me to get these from McDonalds, on my way back home.

Since I see the McD scooties whenever I go into Phoenix Mills, I remembered that they deliver, so instead of going to the outlet, I thought of ordering them, and keep working till the order comes in. I had to get the Lower Parel outlet numbers from Just Dial, as I have never needed to call McD in the past. I called the Lower Parel numbers, and got a reply in stuttering English (problem 1 for McD’s image..!) that I needed to dial another number for ordering. Fair enough.. got the other number. After several attempts, managed to get across to that number. It was about 8:25 pm by this time. I told them that I wanted to order. They asked me for my name and telephone number (fair enough, I thought; Domino’s recognises a subsequent call, from telephone number, so no harm in giving these details first). Only after I had given these details, instead of taking my order, he said that someone will call me back. I told him that it had taken a while to get across to you, and again if it takes time for the person to call me back, when will I place an order?? He promised that someone will call in just 2 minutes. Satisfied at that reply, I put the phone down and continued to work. And in my work, it just slipped my mind that the call never came in. I remembered it only at around 8:55 pm (a good 25 minutes later), at which time, I called that number back and asked the person that how come no one had called. Perhaps he did not have a reply, and he mumbled that the slip on which my number was written, must have got lost. I was aghast that first, such a thing could happen at McD, and second, that he would have the cheek to say something as silly as this. Are we talking of a billion dollar valued brand here, or what??

I asked to speak to a senior, and was put in touch with Mr. Augustine Alfonso, the shift supervisor. He heard me out, and was mildly apologetic, but started giving me an explanation. That there were so many terminals, and all of them were busy. I queried that Domino’s delivers in thirty minutes and you have not even taken an order in this time!!

I suggested that I will complain to the senior management and to McDonalds, USA, but that did nothing to him. NOT ONCE did they suggest that sorry for the time that has gone by, but let me take your order right away, and get you the orde soon. NO – THEY DID NOT SUGGEST THIS AT ALL! Ultimately, I gave up and did not order and had to give the sad news to my disappointed daughters!

I have written to Mr. Amit Jatia, and posted the complaint at McDonalds’ corporate site. Have not heard anything from either of them so far..

– Sanjay

If a person went into coma few years back and returned back to life now, he would think that Martians have invaded our earth!

OR a huge case of deafness has struck the people on our planet!

Yes, I am referring to the funny ear pieces and dangling wires hanging out of people’s ears nowadays.

Remember those times when such ear pieces and wires were associated with earing pieces, or devices that helped deaf persons to listen better? And now we have just so many people walking around with these pieces and wires, and talking on their mobile phones!

And then there are some with those funny looking Bluetooth wireless devices. Those that stick on the ear and appear like one of those fancy large sized ear jewellery that are in vogue nowadays. Hey how about if that Blue tooth device was shaped and designed a little better, with some nice stones or beads on it, and perhaps of golden or silver colour, and hey, it would disguise well as a piece of jewellery. Anyway, men often wear their ear jewellery on one ear only, so it will not appear to be out of place if its only on one ear!

Some funny and interesting anecdotes as a consequence of this present day ear wires connecting the cell phone:

– In year 2000, these ear pieces and wires were not quite common yet. In fact, I had not seen one or heard about one till the time I took a flight in the US, on one of the domestic airlines there. Interestingly, this airline had a few seats where passengers face each other – like 2 passengers in a row, and 2 others in a row across them, and facing each other. I got into one such seat, and the plane was yet to take off. And just then the person who had come and sat across of me, started talking. There was no one else around, and so I thought he is making some conversation with me. But there had been no introductions, no greetings, we had scarcely come and sat at our seats, so this conversation took me by surprise. And I looked at him and tried to make sense of what he had said. And I saw him continue talking. At that time, I noticed this wire hanging out of his ear, and thankfully, it hit me soon enough that he was talking on a small microphone. Later he took out his cell phone from the pocket, to switch it off, before the take off. That completed the set of explanations to me.

I was laughing inside of me, imagining how it would have been, had I tried to respond back to his initial ‘conversation’! Reminded me of the extremely funny “One black coffee, please…” advertisement of a mobile phone, long back. I don’t even remember what brand was being advertised, but the ad itself has stuck on in the head. Beautiful one, it was.

– The other interesting consequence of this wired ear pieces, has been to my singing. You ask, ‘What? Singing? How is that connected??’
Well, its like this. When I am driving and either on account of the radio or tape that is playing in the car, or just because I think of a song, I feel like singing along. But earlier, if I was driving alone, and having people look inside cars, especially at traffic lights, I hesitated to sing. What if people thought I was mad, moving my lips as if I am talking to myself? So I controlled myself. Now, thanks to the wire that hangs from my ears, as I drive, I am relaxed. If I sing out loudly in the car, and if anyone happens to be looking at me, they will only think that I am making conversation on my hands-free instrument. They will not think of me as crazy, and I can go ahead and keep singing!!

– And I have a question now. At parties and meetings where lot of people have these wires hanging out from their ears, I find many people keep receiving calls all the time. And my phone hardly rings. Is that bad? Do I have to feel that I am not wanted? Or do I feel better that work has been well organised and it can happen even in my absence? I need answers. I am feeling so insecure.. 😉

– The other day I got this salesman show me an MP3 player in a watch. And just as I was wondering whether it will have some wireless ear piece to go with it, he showed me this wire and earphones. The wire needed to go into the watch the ear phone to the ear. And just imagining how it would look, freaked me out. Its like when they take a convict from one place to another in a train or an airplane, they handcuff the person. And then when the policeman accompanying the guy needs to go to the rest room, he puts a chain on the handcuffs, and chains it with a lock, to something, so that the convict does not run away. This wire running from the wrist watch to the ear, and going swish-swash, back and forth, as you walk around, would seem something like that, wouldn’t it?

The new world and its new ways…!

Remember the popular song, ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’?
That song may have had posed some questions to some people at the time when the song became a hit, but another question that has plagued people for years, has been, ‘Burkhe ke peeche kya hai?’

In this day and age, one often wonders about the relevance of the Burkha. Muslim women have scaled many heights and being beneath the burkha does scant justice to them. However, this post is not about the merits or demerits of the burkha culture.

What I am talking about is the mystery that is, the burkha clad woman!

Sometimes the face is visible and there is lesser mystery. But many times, its only the eyes that are visible, and occasionally, even the eyes are kind of hidden with a cover of sorts. That is when imagination comes into play.

In that, if you get a chance to see well manicured toes and soft feet sneaking out from below the burkha, that can conjure up a notion of what else is above it. And if by chance, you have the previlege of listening to a beautiful voice from under the burkha, there is no way that you can stop your mind from creating a vision around it all!

So what is it that fascinates men about such burkha clad women?

Is it that whatever is a mystery attracts extreme curiosity?

Is it a question of the forbidden fruit being the most chased after?

If the burkha was not there, there may be disappointment about what lies beneath, in most cases! But as long as the burkha is present, you only have your own imagination to conjure up a vision of what lies beneath. And perhaps in that imagination is the fascination of discovering the mythical diva or the apsara, if you please!

Many a scene in early Indian films, have been inspired by the burkha and its mysteries. I even remember a famous song featuring Rajendra Kumar on stage, at a college function, singing,

“Yaad hai mukhko un aakhon ki paheli woh nazar,
Jab tera husn mere ishq se takaraya tha…”

He has accidentally bumped into the burkha clad woman, only seen her eyes, and has pretty much fallen in love with her, and penned a classic poetry!!

Likewise, there is the classic dialogue from Pakeezah, where Raj Kumar writes,
“Yeh pair bahut haseen hai.Inhe zameen pe mat utariyega.. “

In praise of just the feet of Meena Kumari, that he saw, in the train…

Yeah, the enigma of the burkha clad woman!

—–
P.S. Just to make it clear, this posting has not been inspired by any burkha clad woman that I have recently come in contact with! 🙂

These days I take a new road from work to home, and it passes through an area where traffic slows down, and where also, there are a lot of burkha clad women on the streets. And observing them every day, I was inspired to write this piece..

(Necessary disclaimer had to be given… !)

BLACK, the film by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, is a masterpiece. It is made with a tremendous heart, with a lot of courage, sincerity, dedication, detailing and of course, huge passion.

Black has all the makings of an Oscar winner, not just in the foreign film category, but in the mainstream category as well.

And yet, I am afraid that Black may not be a blockbuster on the Indian box office!

Don’t get me wrong – it will do decent business, but it may not make as much money as say, Dhoom did! So you get the idea.. at the box office, we are unlikely to see Black become another Sholay or Gadar or Hum Aapke Hain Kaun…!

I would be too pleased if I am proven wrong in my above mentioned assumption. If indeed, Black becomes a big hit, it will mean that the Indian mass audience has matured tremendously, and is appreciating good cinema. Black will certainly succeed in the multiplexes, and in metros. That is a taken. Whether it can impact the interiors to that extent, I am not sure. And why do I doubt it?

The subject and the story line is very intense. It demands your total concentration through the movie. There are no light moments when you can relax, or when some people can go out for a smoke, for example. The colours are not bright – well, they are black! There is no song and dance, and not much comedy either. Forget fights or villains, or item songs! There is substance, and more substance. There are amazing performances, not just by Amitabh and Rani Mukherjee, but also by the child actress. There is a lot of English dialogue and no sub-titles. All these reasons make me wonder about its commercial potential, in India. Sure, the NRIs will love it. They will be proud of the cinema, they may even take their foreign friends to show them what India can do, in cinema!

Well, so much for my doubts about the commercial success for Black.

As regards performances and films, I am sorry for all other film makers and artists whose films are going to be released in the rest of the 11 months of 2005. At least as far as Indian awards are concerned, the following category awards are as good as gone, and I say this, when there are 11 months to go in the year, and when I do not even have an idea of what kind of films are going to come in the rest of the year:

Best Director – Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Best Actor Male – Amitabh Bacchan

Best Actor Female – Rani Mukherjee

either Best Debutante or Best Child Actor – Ayesha

Best Cinematography – Ravi Chandran (I believe)

Perhaps, best Editing may also go to Bela Bhansali (SLB’s sister), although a great movie in the year, may yet pip her for the award!

Even without knowing what kind of cinema is yet to come in 2005, and with all due respect for Aamir Khan and his ‘The Rising’, I cannot believe that Indian Cinema can produce in the space of 11 months, a film better than Black. If it did, then 2005 will be the golden year of Indian cinema!

So the rest of the film makers and artists may as well accept that they are competing for second position in the films that they are releasing in the rest of 2005!

SOme of the highlights of the movie:

– The story completely draws you in, and from the early part of the movie, you are totally engrossed and absorbed into the story and the characters

– The editing is very good. When you are done and out of the cinema, you look back and realise that there is scarcely a scene that was unnecessary or overdone. That clearly indicates very crisp and confident editing

– The photography is also wonderful. A lot of it is in shades of black. So the cinematographer has not had the luxury of using colour to make the picture look good. It is the different shades and hues of black that he has used and made the picture so compulsively endearing. It leaves you breathless. The scene when Rani’s mother comes to see Amitabh to ask him to leave the next day, is when Amitabh’s face is captured totally as a reflection on the glass door. A superb idea. The closeups of the artists and especially of Amitabh earlier in the movie, and later as he grows really old, are also great. The creases and the wrinkles on his face are very well shown.

– The perforamce of the child star is something unbelievable. She has acted so well, in a very difficult role. I would rank this performance as better than Mcaulay Caulkin’s in the original Home Alone. That boy went on to make his millions on the strength of that one performace. Here the young girl has acted better, but besides applause and some awards, will she get any other commercial benefits? I doubt it!

– There are several extremely good scenes and screenplay and which will surely bring some tears to your eyes. The scene on the dining table when Rani’s sister it to be engaged, and the ‘speech’ of Rani read out by AB at that time, is one such scene. The time when AB pushes the girl into the water fountain, and at which time, she learns to recognise words is also a very engaging scene. When Rani graduates and talks to the rest of the students, at the convocation ceremony, that is one more fabulous scene. Then there are many others too..

– Of course, AB and Rani are superb. They have worked extremely hard on this film, as is clearly visible.

Of course, it is a director’s film. SLB made Khamoshi earlier and which was about the deaf and the dumb. He seems to have a clear soft corner in his heart, for this section of story types. But now SLB is different. He does not ‘hesitate’ like he did in those early days. He has gone full strength ahead with this theme.

Cheers.. to Black.. !

After all the great reviews in the papers and the recommendations from few friends, finally went and saw the film, Page 3. And I was pretty disappointed by it, to say the least.

I mean, what IS there in the film? Some of the descriptions that I can give to the movie:

Life and times of the Rich and the Famous – well, the dirty behind-the-scenes part!

A soap opera with bits of thin story lines – on TV, that is THE formula – as they have to drag the thing on for weeks and months; in a 2-3 hour movie, you do need a complete story, which this film does NOT have.

The most complimentary a description that I can provide for the film is that it is a good documentary about the Page 3 culture. Without bothering about any serious story line, it tells you what happens and how it happens in the hi-society as represented by Page 3 culture! Time was when documentaries were on socially sensitive and more important subjects. Well, in current times and in present day, we get a documentary on Page 3. Fair enough! But that is what the status of this movie should be – not a feature film that it portrays itself to me.

The director had done a wonderful job with ‘Chandni Bar’, where also he had done an expose on one of the malaises of society, namely the exploitation of girls in dance bars, but where he had managed to do it with a great story line woven within. Sadly, in the present case of Page 3, he has not felt it necessary to worry about the story!

Waiting to go and see BLACK now… !

Ramesh Sippy perhaps knows that he does not know, so he refrains from directing now..

Rakesh Roshan knows that he knows, so he keeps churning out winners..

Subhash Ghai does not know that he does not know, so he keeps trying.. and failing..

Kisna is a case in point.

Made with lot of fanfare, it obviously appears to have costed a bomb, it was also promoted well. Only to disappoint ultimately…

There is a fundamental escape plot. How Kisna helps Catherine to escape to Delhi.

That being the case, the escape starts fairly early in the first half. And it is supposed to sustain till nearly the end, when the climax has to happen.

In other words, all of it is Act II, with no major sub-plots, and repetitive, trivial challenges that the hero has to face on the way. There is no strength in any of those incidents that happen right from middle of first half, to nearly the end of the movie. Everyone in the audience knows that he has to succeed, so it had to be something else that keeps them interested in their seats, and sorry to say, nothing else comes up. So the Act II drags on… almost endlessly.

Some other serious flaws of the film:

– Kisna is supposed to be the warrior poet. So says the byline of the film. Neither the poet part nor the warrior part is shown to be developing. Almost forced upon like an afterthought is shown, Vivek Oberoi scribbling away like he was writing down a grocery list, and you have to assume that its our ‘budding poet’ at work! As for the warrior part, half a scene is what is shown to convey that he is warrior too.

– There is an out of the blue scene of Amrish Puri, mama of Shankar and Kisna, taking a bribe, for inciting violence. He is shown to have personal interests and none of the patriotic ones. And yet this scene remains in isolation. You wait till the end to see if some connection to that one scene is established later on, if at all. But no.. nothing. Wonder if it was changed due to Amrish Puri’s ill health. In which case though, the earlier scene of his personal agenda, should also have been cut off. Anyway it had no other direct connection to the story, and would have not been missed at all!

– New actress Isha Shravani’s only purpose in the film it appears, is to show off the amazing flexibility of her body, as she goes into calisthenic dance sequences, although they tend to repeat after a while, and become a bit too much

– Remember the last scene in Sholay when Hema Malini and Dharmendra meet in the train? The ‘and they lived happily ever after’ scene. Most films have one, and most films have it for like 30 seconds to 2 minutes at most. Kisna has a 15 minute scene after the main story is over and done with! It was absolutely unbelievable. How can anyone do this? Why waste so much raw stock of film? Just about every person in the theatre got up and walked to the door and most disappeared out of it, and the scene kept going on and on. In case Subhashji felt that part of the story was worth telling, it should have been woven into the central portion of the story. NOT after the main story was all over and everyone knew it. If it was not possible to weave it in the central part, it should have been left OUT!

– Isha Shravani (character Laxmi in the film) is shown to be this amazing dancer with a super body, while Catherine is an average person. Both are shown to be of similar age, in their youth. And yet when the old Catherine returns from the UK to India, she is able to travel all these miles on her own,walk around alone, look a fighting fit oldie. And Laxmi, on the other hand, is shown to have aged, and needs two persons to help her move. With the kind of physical fitness that Laxmi was managing, we would have expected a fitter old lady in Laxmi!

– But yes, the voice of the 80 years old Laxmi was still like that of a 20 year old. Subhashji did not bother to change that. Here is exactly where the detailing counts, and where young dedicated directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Farhan Akhtar would not be caught on the wrong foot. Laxmi sounded so young at 80, that you might as well have expected her to be swinging from her favourite rope also, at that age!

Actors like Vikram Gokhale and MOhan Agashe, both of whom have so much talent, have been wasted. Vivek Oberoi might be happy to think of this as a big banner film that he is doing as a solo lead, but he has nothing much to take away from the effort.

Sorry Subhashji, but you might just be better off sticking to production now.. leave direction to the youngsters. The 2.5 stars rating that the Times gave was sheer flattery!!

I have done it a couple of times before, and I did it once again over this weekend. Saw a whole lot of movies at a trot. While earlier on couple of occasions, I have seen 3 movies in a single day, this time around, it was 5 movies spread over 3 days.

On Friday night, we saw ‘Hulchul’.

Then on Saturday night, we went for consecutive shows, at 7:30 pm and then at 10 pm, for ‘Shwaas’ and ‘Bridget Jones Diary’ respectively.

And then on Sunday, we saw ‘Khamosh Pani’ at 11 am, and ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ at 8 pm.

Whew… so that’s now over and done with.

Getting ready for the coming weeks with good movies coming up, in the form on ‘Swades’, ‘Raincoat’ and ‘Kisna’, from Ashutosh Gowariker, Rituparno Ghosh and Subhash Ghai respectively.

Its fun to do such movie marathons once in a while. In the planning and execution of these itself, is a sense of passion and fun. And you are happy if the choices turn out to be good, and you end up seeing a host of good movies.

In the present case, my score was 4/5. Four of the five movies were worth watching, while one of them, I could have given a miss.

To start with, it was Hulchul on Friday night.

A typical situational comedy, with a desired sense of exaggeration, typical from Priyadarshan, the maker of the film. A long list of stars acted in the film. Akshay Khanna, the hero, is good material. Highly underrated overall, in context of Indian cinema. Has a flair for comedy, a cute smile that he inherits from his father, Vinod Khanna, can dance well. He does all of these in the movie. Arshad ‘circuit’ Warsi, at the cost of getting typecast, plays a fun character. Kareena and the host of other stars do their bit, in this film that gives you sufficient laughs to make it worth your while.

The next movie that we saw was ‘Shwaas’. Quite outstanding, the best of this lot of 5, by far. A separate posting on this film gives details of how I felt about this one.

The one after that was the exception, in that I felt it to be a waste of my time. This was Bridget Jones Diary… this is a sequel to an earlier film, and I am surprised that people actually find this to be good stuff. In fact, I had also gone for the movie based on a decent review, in one of the papers. But I was thoroughly disappointed.

Sunday morning we went for an Indo-Pak joint venture film, “Khamosh Pani”. The movie was completely in semi-Punjabi, with sub-titles. This is the second film in recent times where I see this. The earlier one was Veer Zaara, where there is a lot of spoken Punjabi. In case of Khamosh Pani, it was completely so. But it is easy to understand as it is similar to Hindi, and in fact, in many ways, it sounds good on the ears. This is a film which captures the consequence of history, the history of the Partition. It also captures the society that is Pakistan. It does show rural Pakistan, and I am not sure if rural India also has such extreme orthodox thoughts. The difference of course, is in India’s adoption of secularism, so the extent of extremist thought that one saw in this film, is unlikely to prevail even in rural India. A story of this kind is good to see, to understand how society is shaped as a result of certain historical events, and thereby it may help in understanding attitudes as well. Kiron Kher has won awards for her performance in this film, and well deserved too. It was a Sunday morning well utilised as the film was captivating, from start to finish.

To top it off, on the Sunday evening, we had “Ocean’s Twelve”. As contrasting as a film can probably be, to Shwaas and Khamosh Pani, seen earlier in the weekend. Not much to say about Ocean’s Twelve, except that it was fast paced and fun, again with many stars (like Hulchul), and well made. Not an outstanding film but good fun, all the same.

And now looking forward to Swades (have a hunch that this could be _the_ film of the year; promos and story appear to be perfect for this day and time, and Ashutosh Gowariker – Shah RUkh Khan combo should pull this off well).

I had read a lot about this Marathi movie, Shwas, which is India’s entry for the Oscars this year. Having a sketchy idea of the story, from the reviews, I felt that it would be a tear jerker, and did not wish to subject myself to such sentimental misery, and hence resisted seeing the movie for so long. However with the increasing publicity for the film, temptation overcame the resistance, and I went all the way to Regal cinema (after ages, I must add; after IMAX and other multiplexes have come to the suburbs, who wants to go all the way to town, and see movies in those old theatres!) to catch the one show a day of this film.

And I am glad that I did so.

For it was an experience to cherish. For me as for the 50 or so others, in the balcony for that show, including several foreigners, who must have come obviously out of curiosity about the Oscar entry movie. It helped, that the movie had English subtitles.

I do not much care for its Oscar prospects, and will not jump into celebrations were it to win the Oscar too, as I believe that seeing the movie and promoting it only because its India’s entry for the Oscars, is jingoistic patriotism, which has no place in this global and connected world. I mean, I may as well appreciate a Spanish or a French classic, if it were a great movie! Anyway, I digress.

Coming back to Shwas, it does make you hold your breath.. or almost take your breath away.

An obviously low budget film, made in regional language (Marathi), shot for most parts in a village and in Pune, yet its made with an amazing sensitivity, where you, as a viewer, are drawn into and absorbed completely, into the story.

There is the character of the grandfather, who so loves his grandson, and would do anything for the young child. He is from a village and seems overwhelmed by the big city. Not as much by its buildings and vehicles as by the educated and literate citizens, in front of whom, he feels almost servile. And yet, for the sake of his grandchild, he opens up many times, conveying in no uncertain terms, what he feels is right for the child. His fearful, yet strong, scared yet caring emotions are brought out very well by the director and the actor portraying the role. To me, he is as much of an acting star in the film, as is the child.

Yes, the child. Acting the part of the innocent village kid, who comes to the city. Fascinated by the city scenes, by the people, yet fearful, because he knows that he has some big problem with his eyes. His tantrums when he ‘knows’ he is headed for some trouble but does not know what, his fascination for simple city things that he has not seen in the village, his wide eyed swollen and silent face of helplessness, his embrace of his granfather, all appear so natural that its hard to believe that its a child actor who is ‘acting’ the part!

There are many moments in the film, where for as much as 2-3 minutes, there is scarcely any dialogue at all. Just scenes from the past, scenes which tell their own story and which require no words at all. Beautifully picturised, captivating. Even one period of 2-3 minutes of random shots, can test an audience’s patience, and here the director has used several of these. But rather than becoming impatient, as the audience, you are caught into the web of the story through such scenes.

During the scenes at the hospital, before the surgery is to happen on the child, the emotion certainly grips you. In the midst of the movie, I got conscious of the fact that my knees had gone weak, and my hair was standing on my arms. That is indeed proof of the fact that the director has managed to get the audience thoroughly involved with him, inside the story.

Another thought that I was left with, from the film, was this. That when we have something or get something easily, how little value we attach to it. Yes, that can certainly be said about vision or sight that we have and take for granted. But I also refer to material things. When you see the obvious fascination of the child by simple things like a car seat belt, or a Mickey Mouse toy, you realise that for a village bred child, all these are new things, and its a whole new world. And then when I think of myself, or specifically my kids, I realise that even a new toy or a new video game or a new computer does not excite them half as much. Simply because of the fact that they have seen so much, and the newness of anything is only to a certain extent. I am not sure if that is good… maybe not.

Shwas is a great film… it will stay with me, inside me, for a few days at least!

In the past 3 decades (the time that one has followed Hindi cinema), we have seen two clear superstars of our times, viz. Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bacchan. There were many other successful stars (Jeetendra, Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, and what have you) as also there were other good actors (Sanjeev Kumar, Amol Palekar, Naseerudin Shah, etc.), but if the term superstar had to be used, it would have to be for these two gentlemen only. Sure, in current stars, one may also include Shah Rukh Khan in the same genre, but he is still around, so we will restrict this discussion to Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh.

Rajesh Khanna truly ruled the screens during the 70s and had a huge fan following. He had a style and a charisma of his own. He of course, had a lot of successful films behind him.

By now, there is no real denying that Amitabh had become an even bigger superstar, a true legend of our times, and a name beyond comparison.

I would like to draw attention to an additional factor that is a difference between these two stars. And I got this, while listening to music on the radio, daily, and also at parties and at clubs, where popular music is played.

I could see that even today, some of the most popular songs continue to be the ones from the 70s, and especially from the Kishore Kumar – R D Burman combo. And in fact, a very large number of these were featured on Rajesh Khanna. That these songs continue to be popular after so many years, is an indication of their brilliance.

So the point to be made is that a LOT of the success that Rajesh Khanna got, must be owed to this musical genius of R D Burman primarily, and to Kishore Kumar, the voice behind Rajesh Khanna’s songs. How much of a success would RK have been without these songs and music? That is something we will never know.

As against this, the songs from Amitabh’s popular films are not that famous. Sure, when the films were hits, the songs were also hits, but they have not sustained their popularity to the extent that RD-Kishore songs of Rajesh Khanna’s films have done. Which would lead me to conclude that Amitabh’s films stood on Amitabh primarily, while Rajesh Khanna’s films owe a very large part of their success, also to the music.

That Amitabh on the other hand, had Salim-Javed, Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, and others writing and directing great roles and characters for him, is another matter..