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To be born again you have to die! What say? This catastrophe is an event by which I will be born again. Oh, there I see you too. Oh ho, you too have survived this fall. May I say, we two are lucky ones? Who are you? Really – you are an actor? I am one too! I am India’s most famous star – Don’t you know me? Haven’t you heard about me and Rekha?

Rekha!! Is that you? What are you doing here? What are you doing sitting on that cloud? Rekha! Come to me whilst I fall with this gentleman-you know-our plane exploded mid air! Just like that POP! I say, come to me Rekha! I thought you were dead! Are you archangel? Rekha! You are so much above now! NO! O Ji, I tell you, we are going down down down! Yes, to be born again. To be born again, you see, you have to die first!

Where are we pal? I say, are we alive? What is this happening to me! O Ji, what is happening to you? Did you say I have a halo on my head now? O  Ji, you must be joking, for I see 2 green horns on your head? O Ji, am I the Angel Farishta? What are you? The Shaitan Chamcha?  What are we? AngelShaitan FarishtaChamcha? Oh what joy, me say, you go your way and me goes my way? Lets stay together for a while. You agree? Good!

Oh dear, there are the police! They will take you Shaitan. For it is your fate. Till we meet.

No! I tell you this Mahound, that people of this village shall worship only me. Oh, I see it is you Shaitan Chamcha – you are the Mahound? By what befallen luck are you my writer? Will you write for me – the verses which I command thee? Good! Lets begin then. I tell you what to write, and you tell them Mahound to the people. —–. What they not listen to me Mahound? All I ask is 42 times in prayer a day. No they want 5. So it is then. Write it down. What, they don’t want to hold their fingers in upright position while pissing, I command thee that they do. Oh I am the Angel. But where is the Shaitan. Am I dreaming? Help me o friend of mine. No! I am not schizophrenic, No I am the Angel Farishta. I say what happened to my friend Chamcha? What he married? He is living in London like a wasted soul? I grant him thee to recover. I grant him the wish to recover from his demonic state to human.

I did say I want them to pray me! Pray, who are these ladies with you Mahound? They call themselves your wives! What? The village people pray them? Can we make an adjustment? NO! Okay, on one condition, I must be prayed too as with them? And what happened to my verses? Did you say you deleted them? Why oh you Shaitan, you Mahound! Why? Didn’t I tell you to keep them! What? You put your own verses in the holy book? I condemn those verses – they are the satanic verses. Go Mahound, get lost!

I have no use for you now. I see now clearly. Is it me? I am Angel? I killed. I killed. I plan. I am bad. I am Angel Farishta when the Shaitan Chamcha lives his life like without being one? Has he accepted fate? Shaitan accepted faith? Am I the Angel? Is he the devil?

I see her praying. Oh my dear lady! You need to come to me. Take that voyage beyond the seas. Take all your village folk and come to me. Come to me at the sea of Arabia, and once in my embrace, will the sea split open towards me. O Come to me my darling! Oh the sea didn’t part! Oh you pour soul, you all died! Oh, all of you died! Oh I am the Farishta. Oh! I need to go back. I need to be back amongst the people I know. I live in a foreign country. How am I an Angel in this land which does not believe me? How am I a Farishta in the land which doesn’t own me? I need to go back. What, is Chamcha too back? He believed he could change fate? I must punish him. For he ruined my book – for he thinks I am the Satan! He preached wrong! No! I am not crazy! What? No its not my dreams. It is reality. I need to kill him!

There you are Chamcha! Today we decide! I the Angel, you the Shaitan? You need one more chance in life Shaitan? What for? Are you the Angel who seeks solace in this world, or is I the devil who seeks revenge? By killing you, I will be the Farishta! Get ready to die again Chamcha!! I the Angel, you the devil, you the Angel, I the devil?! To be born again, you have to die.

No! Why are they doing this to me! No! Did I hear it right? They  are protesting against my book? What did I do so wrong? Is my book that derogatory to my own religion? No right! I heard in Hyderabad they had the first demonstration. Oh, the country which born me is banning me? What shame!

Why? No. Its not about my religion. Its not about your religion! Why are you bent upon killing me! Oh please don’t burn me on streets! Oh please king, do not tell me that I need to die! Oh please O king, do not send people to kill me? What did I do wrong? I tell about me and my childhood, I tell about me and my dreams, I tell about how it feels being alone in a land where you are not one amongst them – is that a sin?  I tell about my stories, I tell about stories rich in humor and rich in style – is that a sin? To tell my stories rich in language, rich in words, is this is a sin?

You say your anger is justified? You say your irritation is justified? For what? I cannot believe that my creative freedom ends at my religion! It does? No it doesn’t! Why does it bother so many people? I didn’t tell them! Hear me first to accuse me? I am not the Angel, I am not the devil!

Rare are such stories told. Rare are such words written. Rare are stories told in magical reality. Rare are dreams told in real world. Rare are real stories told in dreams. Rare do such stories enthuse such fury. Rare do such stories get such anger. Rare do such stories get such honor. Rare are such stories read. Rare are such stories understood in right perspective. Rare is it that people look beyond the known and explore the deepness of though. Rare is that a combination of history, immigrant, loyalty, Angel, demon, mythology, religion, faith blended together with such allegory.

Rare is it that I have read such a book.

Review on Tamas.

(Liza)‘Will they fight one another?  In London you used to tell me that they were fighting against you’

(Richard) ’They are fighting both against us and against one another’

‘You are again joking, Richard. Aren’t you?’

‘In the name of religion they fight one another; in the name of freedom they fight against us.’

‘Don’t try to be too clever, Richard. I also know a thing or two. In the name of freedom they fight against you, but in the name of religion you make them fight one another. Isn’t that right?’

A few days ago I and my friend were having a discussion about our independence struggle. Actually the talk began with Nathuram Godse and his book ‘Why I killed Gandhi’ – one reason that Godse gives is that though our freedom struggle was very peaceful, the riots during partition killed millions of both Hindus and Muslims; and that if so many were to die, one could have killed British instead. We digressed on the thread of partition riots and how they have been explained in novels. It was then that my friend suggested me to read ‘Tamas’ (I had seen the televised series when I was young, but didn’t remember it much) if I wanted to know how horrifying partition riots was. In a week I had the book and finished it in 2 days – yes, I had to agree with my friend. Tamas is a novel which shakes you, depresses you, and literally makes you see the horror of the riots of partition. I was left completely numb after the experience.

Tamas is a novel written by Bhisham Sahni recounting true events of riots of partition in 1947. All the events in the book have occurred during 1947 riots in Pakistan, to which the author was himself the witness. Sahni uses a fictional thread to develop a story so that he could relive the riots. Tamas begins with a Muslim hotshot giving Nathu (principal character) to kill a pig under the pretext of giving it to a researcher. Nathu, a poor man, accepts it and kills it. Under the morning dawn, someone takes the pig as instructed from Nathu. A little while later the pig carcass is found on a mosque’s steps. The town which is already in tension erupts at once. Enraged Muslims retaliate by killing a cow. All hell breaks loose and scores of Hindus and Sikhs are massacred by Muslims. Hindus and Sikhs in turn massacre scores of Muslims. Tamas relives the four days of violence through the eyes of different characters in the book and the horrifying experiences of people.

Tamas tells the story of several families and characters. Bhisham Sahni didn’t even change the real names of many characters in the book to maintain the realism. Tamas tells the story of a good Hindu, a good Muslim, a good Sikh, a bad Sikh, a bad Muslim, a bad Hindu and worse than all British. There are some incredibly chilling sequences in the book and to imagine them happening in reality simply sent a chill down my spine. The part where a young kid kills an old man is as chilling as the sequence where many Sikh women throw themselves into a well to save themselves from Rioters. The sequences after the riots are equally chilling where many characters relate their stories to the relief camp managers. The well where the women threw themselves still remains in Pakistan.

Tamas also explores the horrible  politics of those times. At one end there was a freedom struggle, yet at another was the ongoing process to get tickets to elections, get money, and literally think about killing others for the sake of advantage. Tamas harshly reminds that politicians are the first step towards insanity of human kind. Be it a Muslim, Hindu or Sikh, every politician is a bastard, and without telling it, Bhisham Sahni proves it. The events after the riots show how British achieved their divide and rule policy successfully. More than 100 villages drowned in riots for the British to feel contented. The events after that simply belie humanism – The attempts made by bunch of well doers and idiots to behave as if nothing ever happened stunned me. The attitude of people who couldn’t care less for the killings is beautifully put across.

On the downside of this marvelous book is that since this a true account of the incidents, most of the books lacks cohesion. The incidents follow one after another thereby making the novel almost an episode by episode drama. Somewhere down the line, fictional fragment too takes a back seat only to return in the end. But that doesn’t take away any intensity of the book. The events slowly build up and Bhisham Sahni uses his language well to convey the setting of the events. Rarely have I read books where I have been transported completely into an era and feel like a character himself watching the events – all kudos to Sahni for managing to do that. The book moves to a chilling final chapters, after which I was left numb. Simply put.

If there is one book one should read on the events of riots of Pakistan then it has to be this.

Richard shrugged his shoulders. He then lighted his pipe and, stretching his legs under the table said, ‘Wherefrom should I begin?’

‘Begin what, Richard?’ said Liza raising her eyebrows.

‘You wanted to know about the developments that had taken place here, didn’t you?’

This time it was Liza who shrugged shoulders, as though to say –

‘You may or may not, Richard. It makes little difference.’

After our initial apprehensions about this movie being a remake of the bestseller by the same name were displaced, we settled with the hope that it is a product after all from the makers of I-want-to-destroy-New-York-City brand of movies, Independence Day, and Godzilla. At the very minimum, a cataclysmic destruction of New York was anyways expected, thus, our initial interest in the movie was held on Special Effects which the director has already demonstrated in his other destructive ventures.

Only this time, he takes natural disasters, very naturally and assumes that catastrophes are just around the corner if you live up-state New York.

So, in the middle of nowhere, which the director claims as a “UN Convention for Climate” at New Delhi (paradoxically, why would someone hold a climate conference in one of the most polluted cities beats me – fashion statement mayhaps?), the vice-president having a striking resemblance to Dick Cheney (or who knows, given his disappearances from white house, it might actually be him), addresses a scientist who wars about global warming which will bring artic cooling and engulf world into ice age all over again. (Of course, the convention being in India, neither there is a single Indian in the conference, nor, err, what was the vice president of United States doing there in the first place?). Later, we shockingly discover that indeed it is snowing in New Delhi – If wishes were horses, sigh!

Anyhow, weather gods take the scientist’s prophecies rather too seriously and act upon it with utmost vengeance – so you have three super gigantic hurricanes being formed in the northern hemisphere, threatening to take over most of northern hemisphere and plunge the world into ice-age. So while at one end, ice begins to break at Antarctica, hurricanes with humongous force drag the temperatures from stratospheres (???) to sub zero temperatures in matter of seconds, freezing everything in its way to ice age, which the scientists claim will last for few hundred years. Anyhow, given the brouhaha of such cataclysmic events, the center of attraction is yet again New York, which is bracing for the storm, and more importantly the scientist’s son is trapped there – and a father has a “promise” to keep to his son – “I will get to you!”.

So while whole world and sundry is heading south, the crux of the story is how a father reaches New York to reach his son, while his son and his few followers, and a lady love, manage to wither the ice age. Of course, for what purpose defies me.

Why would you want to see this movie then?

— You like special effects, which actually are pretty good to say. Indeed the cyclonic storms are breathtakingly beautiful to watch… err. ..In, cinemascope only. Though I wish I had a storm surrounding my work place for first 5 days of the week perpetually.

— You like trashy Hollywood “summer” movies which give you chills thrills and frills. Only in this case, the chill in New York never thrills you enough, instead might just frill you enough to leave the theatre with a head-ache and head home to real world, and possibly gallop a head-full of aspirins to warm you.

— You actually believe that temperatures can drop 13 Degrees per second – and in no time you are seeing temperatures of -200 degrees?

— You actually love to wonder that a father survives the ice age sitting in ice and sleeping through it, while continents above him, people are dying by the hundreds?

— You actually believe that humans can beat the speed of air! Proof – at the cataclysmic moment of the movie, the son and his friends are running across the library hall, behind them everything is freezing to ice. Of course, our heroes are one step ahead of the “icy” wind.

— You love seeing New York destroyed. After the initial brouhaha about climatic disorders, you are willing to believe that New York is the birth and death of civilization, and that only people that mattered were New Yorkers.

— You love the humor when Americans turn refugees and head to Mexico since it is one of the safe places of world which might escape the cold wave?

— You love the fact that just when the storm passes New York City, it simply puffs away and weather is all beautiful and sunny. Ditto for other parts of world too (Yea, did I remind you earlier that there were three hurricanes targeting strategically to cover entire northern hemisphere?)

— You love watching bad performances, cliché dialogues and over done situations of man against a government not willing to listen to until last moment thing. You also love the mush when lovers declare love towards each other while the world is freezing.

— You love the fact that when you are frozen up cold, your girlfriend undresses you and then presses her body towards you to “transfer” heat from her body to you to warm you up. And then also ask – “how do you feel now?”

Or simply the dumb fact that you actually cancelled plans of watching Shrek 2 and bought the tickets for this movie online, without bothering to check a single review of the movie?

If you don’t stand for anything, you don’t stand for anything!

— The Great Dubya, George W. Bush.

I just read a fabulous review on Chandni Bar and almost gave upwriting this review. However, I couldn.t resist writing one. This has been one of the best films I have seen; However given that I also felt that that somewhere along the line the movie left too many questions un-answered. Whether it was intentional, I don.t know however they remain.

Brilliant Film

I won.t waste much time here, because everyone must know the story by now. However to make it short, here is what is all about. Chandni Bar tells the story of Mumtaz, a simple girl, who comes down to Mumbai with her relative. Once in Mumbai, her poverty and her uncle.s force take her to .Chandni Bar., a Beer Bar (Night-Club for the benefit of Non-Indian readers). The story chronicles nearly 20 years of her life and how she is exploited all along. She tries to improve her life, yet is never able to. She marries a goon, has kids and then loses her husband too. She raises her kids to the best she can, however, despite that, she is not able to change their fate when time comes. Her daughter enters the same profession, while her son follows his father.s footsteps to become a goon.

Madhur Bhandarkar who assisted Ram Gopal Vermal for a long time made this movie. His first movie was Trishakti, which no one even heard about, let alone see. His brilliance in directing is seen every frame of the movie. He maintains the tempo of the movie throughout and gives supreme importance to each scene in the movie. His master Ram Gopal Verma touch is there with him as well. The camera angles following from the ground to the roof in the supremely shot rape scene is simply mind blowing. He shows that gory scenes are not needed to make an impact. You can make an impact with just your camera. He is well supported by his writers and music directors who do well to maintain the look of the movie complete. The supporting star-cast is superb too, especially the beer bar girls whom Mumtaz interacts. Each of them have acted superbly.

But the movie wholesomely belongs to Tabu who plays the role of Mumtaz. Right from the first scene where she is an innocent girl to her transformation into a beer bar girl is played with great confidence and convincement. Never ever do you feel in the movie that someone is enacting a role in the movie. She is Mumtaz in the movie. The best scene where she improvises is un-arguably the scene where she decides to enter the profession to bail out her child from prison. The mere twitching of phone wires in the scene indicating her nervousness indicate how deeply she had read the character and how amazingly she carried forward the movie. Simply put, its her best performance to date. She is worth every bit of the movie to be watched.

Un-answered Questions

The movie was brilliant in all respects, no doubt. However, towards the end I couldn.t help thinking that the director did leave lot of questions un-answered. For example, we are never shown Mumtaz to be a person who could do anything on her own. She agrees rather too meekly to her uncle to become a prostitute and sleep with other men. Even when she is molested by her own uncle, she doesn.t really do anything at all to make her life better. She just accepts it as a bitter part of life and goes on. Similarly, she never really knows why she married the goon. She simply lets her life dominated in all ways possible by every person around her.

I kind of also felt surprised because the same woman who was so meek and has given up on life tries in every way possible to make her children lead a better life. I found it rather strange that she had the nerve to do it, when in the first place if she had little guts she could have had a slightly better life. Even towards the end, when we realize that she is not able to change the fate of her children, all that she does is join the bar again for the rest of her life.

Finally

I kind of thought at the end . Is this life? Was this what the director wanted to convey? That people who went through this business never really made it out in the good part of life? I came across his interview few days ago on the web, and I was surprised to read his answers that what he managed to show in this movie is just 20% of what goes on there. He didn.t have the courage to show more. Thank god.

The best part of course is the director doesn.t take sides. He neither glorifies Mumtaz.s life, nor does he despise her life. He shows it as it is, and that.s what makes this film brilliant. Don.t miss this film for anything in this world.

It.s a brilliant film. Period.

….more and more of our imports are coming from overseas..

                                  -- The Dubyaman, Bush, On NPR's Morning Edition (9/26) (<i>Where else do imports come from?!</i>)

It was well decided that an only a C grade Hindi movie do and nothing else yester night. My creative juices suggested to my friends that few days ago I read a review on this movie and how about going for it! I had to get back my revenge on my friends for refusing to watch MPKDH with me. This, I thought provided the perfect way! At the very outset I reminded others that this movie was a cross cultural, cross country, inter racial, patriotic, family oriented, sacrificial and above all a triumph of true love movie. Looking at the epic scope of the movie, my friends loved the idea.

The movie has a superb script to speak of. I mean the imagination and the thought given to write the script is really commendable. Right from the first frame to the last frame, a mark of a genius is stamped all over it. Such originality is rarely seen in Hindi movies. What follows is what we tried to comprehend of the movie, scene by scene.

Scene 1: After an exasperated show of patriotism towards Kashmir from both sides of the border, the movie finally settles down to begin with a song . hum veer jawan is desh ke.

Scene 2: A bunch of Jihads, A bunch of army men and a bunch of Pakistani commanders decide Kashmir hamara Hain and we will have Kashmir. Together they organize an attack.

Scene 3: A valiant Aditya Pancholi, trying to pass off as Sunny Deol manages barely to save Indian soil. People shoot not like soldiers but some kids who have been given diwali guns. Expectedly, militants have no brains or brawns and just succumb to Indian power. The Pakistanis are enraged. Aditya Pancholi remembers just then . my brother. Meanwhile he also holds a militant hostage.

Scene 4: Song again – Hum veer jawan is desh ke reprised – full with octopads and drums. The Brother and he now are breaking into a break dance over the song. Apparently beyond a point, the choreographer decided that soldiers cannot move their hands 10 degrees east or west . what follows is a dance of robotic expressions. Behind the dance is of course is our Bharat Maata.s statue. One look at it.and Pakistanis should be happy.We had difficulty whether it was a woman in the first place.

Scene 5: Cut to Pakistan. Commander in Chief.s daughter is about to be married to Mubaraq. DDLJ is fresh in her mind, so she asks her dad that she wants to visit India once before she marries. Dad agrees; next day she and her irritating granny are in India. Granny calls up the family of long lost friends of partition, a Hindu, the Darasingh.s family.

Scene 6: Just in time the family re gathers! Hero too now (Faisal Khan) has come home and has his brother too (Aditya Pancholi). A Jawan sister is also around. I was hoping she gets raped (according to Bollywood formulas) and hero does something.

Scene 7: Nargis and the Hero fall in love at first sight, first touch and first talk. Their love lacks any kind of romance or chemistry; Most of the times hero looks as he has been bitten by the cocks flying around the house.

Scene 8: Shaadi in the house! Whose shaadi? Of course the sister. Me grunts . she was to be raped.what is this?! Anways, shaadi is a good opportunity for more love between Nargis and the Hero (sorry folks remembering hero.s name is a Herculean task!). One of my friends remarked here that Faisal Khan actually has a black eye. Not one but two. Who beat him, ate him, no one knows; but in this makeup he proposes, she accepts.

Scene 9: Harsh realities of life . I am Indian, you are Pakistani. Didn.t they think before they fell in love? Of course how could they.they fell in love even before their mouths spoke to each other.

Scene 10: Militants have no other targets than this Indian family and his bunch of weirdos. The spot the Indian and the Pakistani discussion the vagaries of life on a river bed. The Indian runs to get a goat for the Pakistani. The militants capture Pakistani and hold her hostage and ask India to return the militant they captured if they wanted the Pakistani alive. Indian and India agrees! The Indian is the Hero and the Pakistani is you know who? So simple ain.t it? How often do you see Pakistani Militants holding a Pakistani hostage and making India agree to their terms?

Scene 11: Pakistani Nargis wants to go home! (why didn.t she ask her brethren who captured her.they could have done that. More still, why didn.t she tell that she was a Pakistani herself? She instead chooses to rant on Islam.). After much Rona Dhona and kasme vaade of true love, lovers depart.

Scene 12: Papa Pakistani is not amused. He fires the granny for taking them to the Hindu.s place. (Amuses me too. What did the Pakistani think? He had no idea where in India his daughter was going to live? More still.they don.t contact for months together?)

Scene 13: Beti Pakistani refuses to marry Mubaraq. Mama Pakistani explains the laws of life. Meanwhile, Sudesh Berry springs from nowhere to lead and train Jehadis. Pakis are happy.

Scene 14: A Paki mission goes hopelessly wrong . all for good reasons. How many times do u see a militant walking in broad daylight to kill an Indian and assumes that he won.t kill him back?

Scene 15: Sudesh Berry is enraged. He trains more Jehadis. But is caught by Indian army? How, when, why , where, don.t ask. He refuses who is at the top of the ladder of Kashmir terrorism. ( I wonder why ask him in the first place.everyone knows!)

Scene 16: Another Twist . Sudesh Berry.s twin brother is a hardcore Indian patriot. He takes his place in Pakistan to gather sensitive information. He is found wounded by Pakis. Pakis declare he has lost his Yaadash.

Scene 17: Miraculously enough, next scene his Yaadash his back. He sends sensitive information to India using militant.s phones. Gets killed immediately. (We wondered, what was his whole purpose in the movie??)

Scene 18: Did you forget the love story? No! The hero is preparing for a war with Pakis. Meanwhile, Papa Pakistani sends the whole Pakistani army to capture the Indian who captured the Beti Pakistani.s heart.

Scene 19: Shaadi Byah. At last Mubaraq (Akshay Khanna) comes along to marry Nargis. She tells him the truth. He is just out of HDDCS feeling . he agrees to take her across the border to her love. Love knows no boundaries . an enraged mubaraq declares and starts walking with his love to send her across.

Scene 20: Randomly Mubaraq kills people. He wants to send her you see. They walk for a while . voila . border is here!

Scene 21: However border is not near as it looks . there is a song . a wild dance in front of a tomb . and the whole Paki army and the whole Indian army in no man.s land.

Scene 22: Indians and Pakis fight. The two idiots are still walking.the border is close. Indians and Pakis kill each other without any planning or thought. Aditya Pancholi gets shot 15 times, stabbed 4 times.

Scene 23: Aditya is still fighting after 15 minutes. He kills the villain, utters another rant for 10 minutes and finally dies. Across the border, she crosses it, mubaraq doesn.t. Lovers run to catch each other in arms . however all they manage to run is a couple of meters.

Scene 24: Bade Pakistani shoots . mubaraq comes in between lovers . doesn.t die . pleads to papa to give up arms . he does . rants for another 2 minutes and falls. Before he can even mutter a few words, Papa Pakistani closes off his eyes.lest he speak more!

Scene 25: All is well that ends well. What were the hordes of Indians doing during fight- don.t ask. What were Pakistani soldiers doing in the end? Don.t ask. Is love worth deaths of 1000 people in the movie . don.t ask! What happened to the sister . to my utter misfortune, nothing much happened to her. What was the whole point of the movie . don.t ask.

Kaizad Gustad is in the glitterati now-a-days. Pre Boom, he would be available any time you call him for an interview . he would go to the extent of accommodating you instead of the movie at hand. However post Boom all that has changed. You now need an interview appointment with gentle man. Boom according to him, exceeded all expectations and more, and he never thought he would get such a response! .Boom Boomeranged. he would exclaim later! Immediately his date calendar was full, and I was assigned to interview him yesterday at 3.00 am in the morning. By a strange co-incidence, I had viewed Boom yesterday, and was armed with enough armory to ask tackle his Boom movie. After another hour wait, Kaizad Gustad arrived, in a t-shirt and underwear; seeing me shocked, he said .nothing, it was just Pavitra cleansing me.. What follows below, are the excerpts of the interview .

Me: First of all I want to congratulate you on Boom. This is cinematic art meets commercial gimmick at its best! I had the privilege of watching Boom yester night. So tell me, KG: (as Kaizad Gustad will be referred henceforth), what was Boom about?

KG:: You said you watched the movie! Didn.t you figure it out?

Me: Of course I did! Definitely . I mean, wow, superb, words fail me, I mean, you see, maybe our, you know, our audience might, u see, might want to know it from you what was Boom about.

KG:: Boom is a complex movie. I mean, you can either look at it as a whacko movie, absurd movie, a woman.s liberation movie, gangster movie, fashion extortion movie, vulgarity meets grossness movie.and such. The beauty of Boom is it leaves the viewer to extrapolate what the movie is about. In essence, my audience will first see the movie from their .perspective. and then .think.. Boom is a movie which will linger in peoples minds.

Me: I am sure, wow! I mean, Bollywood is certainly bereft of people with visions! I agree, I also had to think hard to understand boom.err.frankly, between you and me, I couldn.t make heads or tails of it.AHEM.Yes.still, I am sure there are people who like to know about a movie before they go, wouldn.t you tell them what Boom is all about?

KG:: Okay, if that is the way you like it! See basically boom is collage of ideas . ideas that germinated within me for the last two years. Boom is a canvas on which the painter paints his modern art. Just like modern art, you need to look deeper to get the hidden meaning, Boom is one such collage of ideas, dispersed and merged at the same time. The audience needs to see .more. and .deep. inside the movie.

Me: Wow! Now this is art meets cinematic vision. Have you met M.F. Hussein? I am sure he shares your artistic vision. So you are saying Boom is what Gajagamini was to Hussein . an extrapolation of ideas painted on a canvas. But spare those mortals please, the viewers like me, who actually are devoid of any brains. Wouldn.t you want them to understand the movie is about?

KG:: Of course, I don.t make cinema for the unintelligent! Boom needs a certain level of understanding . a vision . a view . a ray of light . its needs an opening by which you will understand. Its not your everyday girl meets boy romances!

Me: True True!! Boom was not even a girl meets boy romance!! Wow! Such thoughts. However you said you don.t make cinema for the unintelligent, which makes around 50% of viewers out, so then do you make your movies for the upper .class. socialites.

KG:: NO NO! My movie crosses boundaries . it doesn.t cater to any class. It.s a crossing over movie!

Me: Crossing to where I mean? Did you make the movie then for models?
KG:: No! Boom was not meant to be a movie about models!

Me: Really?! Maybe you made the movie for gangsters?
KG:: No!
Me: International Audience mayhaps?
KG:: No.
Me: Martians, Jupiterites, Saturnites.
KG:: No No No! You don.t understand! Boom is about me for me by me! Boom is a director.s vision!
Me: EXACTLY!! All we want to know is your vision!

KG:: I don.t think the audience has matured enough for such movies. Let me explain . Boom is about models who get entangled in a diamond smuggling gone haywire who get entangled with three whacko gangsters and weird gangster modeled on me, and who when their three plans crash BOOM bang, decide to play it up to the crooks and loot a bank in confusion seduce the three idiots who shoot each other while the assistant takes money and models run with the cash to an island with a maid who had conspired with one of the wierdos and had begun to boss them but is left stranded somewhere in the end while another is thrown off the plane and still three more shoot each other, and the already confused dumb bimbos who didn.t really want to be a part of this sh*it walk away rich!

Me: I am sorry.err…can you repeat the story?

KG:: Boom is about dumb models who go smart over a period of time, and their intelligent quotient increases by 1 % whenever a goon who the first thing to is touch their boo*bs and answer a quick quiz question of their Bra size, and if correct the model.s intelligence grows by 1%, hence by end of the movie, turn out smarter than the goons themselves!

Me: I am sorry.errr.never mind! Wow! Such a complex interpolation of ideas! Amazing work KG:! I am sure with this much information; the audience will have no problems .viewing. and .understanding the movie.. Now to some acting . why did you take Amitabh Bachchan?

KG:: Between you and me, I had this dream of getting Amitabh to do a humiliating degrading role . Heh! Remember I never made this statement! I mean Amitabh is the best in the industry, and I felt only he could share the vision of Boom. But I was wrong, the three models shared my vision more than him!

Me: Really! This is news!

KG:: You don.t know how hard it was to write this movie. We struggled for ideas day in and out and these models came up with trumps after trumps. You know when the dead guy sings in the movie out of no where, or when Javed Jaffrey scratches his crotch or when Jackie zips his underwear back, or when Amitabh Bachcan rides a toy car . such fabulous scenes were the mastermind of the models!

Me: Was pretty apparent anyway! How about screenplay, script?

Boom: What nonsense, I don.t make movies the conventional way! I give full freedom to my artistes to interpret and enact the scene in their own way! My artists write their own scenes and dialogues! As I said it.s a collage . not a painting!

Me: Then pray, KG:, what did you do in the movie!

KG:: I am a director . a director with a vision. Boom is an vision of not just mine, but everyone involved! It.s NOT a movie about passions, emotions, drama, thriller, comedy, romances, or any other fuc*ing genre! My movie doesn.t belong anywhere!

Me: But that is exactly what we felt too!! And that.s why the question . what is your vision?!

The next moment I was thrown out. Me beleaguered, dazed by KG:.s vision, set out home. As an act of gesture, KG: towards the end told me that anyone who could understand his vision behind Boom, would get a role in his next movie! Anyone interested?

carefully avoided reading any review on this movie because I wanted to see this movie without any premonition in mind. I am a strict believer that one cannot enjoy a horror movie with any kind of premonition. Ram Gopal Verma is one of my favorite directors, and it was all the more reason for me to watch this movie. I was sure he wouldn.t make another movie like Raaz where the ghost warns before scaring you! I loved his previous experiment at horror . Raath, and with a superb star-cast, this movie seems to have it all. Does it really have it all? Read on.

What is .Fear.?

After reading several reviews here on MS which nonchalantly go on and on about the movie, no one surprisingly explained the reason behind the movie. Horror movies are supposed to scare you. How does a horror a good horror movie scare you? You see it yet you don.t know what to expect. It runs at the back of your mind what is going to happen next, yet you cannot predict at which moment it would happen. That sudden burst of music, that unexpected signal, that sudden chill . they are essential in making person get scared.

Fear is the key to any good horror movie. Fear is nothing but the feeling of not knowing something and the behavior of that unknown. Fear generates when something unexpected happens . something which the mind is not yet ready to accept. A good horror movie needs to scare its viewers with this unexpected, unknown. When something unexpected, unknown strikes you when you are least prepared for it, you are more likely to get scared and enjoy the feeling in a movie. A case in point . I told my brother over and over again that .The Ring. was a horribly scary movie and probably one of the most scariest movies I.ve seen. The effect was, my brother was so well prepared for the movie that he couldn.t get scared nor enjoy the movie . simply because he was well prepared even for the unexpected.

That is itself the key to enjoying Bhoot. If you are already ready for the unexpected, already know when and where to get scared, then in most cases you will not get scared either because (i) you are already expecting the unexpected (ii) You have already presumed what will happen next. Unless you are un-prepared, there is no way to enjoy Bhoot, and more the reason why I didn.t rate, read or comment a single review on Bhoot at MS.

Bhoot

For the very same reasons above I am not going to give away the story line. Suffice to say . A couple walks into 12th floor of a building and occupy. Strange things start happening to the hero.s wife after a few days. Slowly but surely something is going wrong with the heroine. She is hallucinating, dreaming, sleep-walking . something is going wrong somewhere. What happens to her . why is she behaving strangely? Is she possessed? Is there something wrong with the flat? What is it that is wrong? Well folks for this and all more, see the movie.

Performances

Good performances are very necessary for such a movie to convey its effect. The movie is supported by some wonderful star-cast. Each and every actor and actress acts aptly, but it is Urmila.s show all the way. From the first scene where she is vibrant to her deteriorating condition, she is flawless all the way. She puts in a great performance and never goes over board in her acting performance. Must and Must I must say, she has given it all and comes out the winner. Ajay Devgan as Urmila.s Husband gives ample support and acts superbly. One of his best scenes is probably the reaction he shows when the Bai touches him on the balcony . the shrugged expression was just perfect, showing signs of great acting in that scene. Nana Patekar gives a great performance and so does the ever dependable Seema Biswas (I wonder if there is anyone who can be more convincing than her in any role given to her).

Sound

Any good horror movie needs good sound to scare you. Or rather the lack of it to scare you. Bhoot does an excellent job of sound in the movie. The sound is used sparingly at the right moments. Ram Gopal Verma does a good job of using it properly in the movie.

Direction

Ram Gopal Verma is certainly one of the best directors in Bollywood. For one thing he directs each movie with panache. This one too has all his typical Ramu Shots . The ground shots, the slant angle shots and the hurried shots . and he excels in each of them. Bhoot defies all norms of normal Hindi horror movies and goes a step beyond. The no use of songs make it only more enjoyable.

However the film is not without its share of flaws. One can.t help feeling of loads of .inspiration. of Hollywood movies for this movie. Not one, but more than 3 movies form the inspiration for script for this movie . I did expect Ramu to be more original here. Also, there are cliché and repetitive scenes in the movie which don.t really add anything to the movie, but do manage to bore you. Add to that Ramu could have done with some more editing and perhaps a more thoughtful end to the movie. Several scenes in the movie have the all too famous old Hollywood movie background score . what it is, I leave it up to you to find out. Several actors are wasted in their roles.

Finally

All in all, Bhoot is a pretty decent entertainer. In fact, if you know nothing about the story or where to expect the unexpected, then you are probably going to enjoy the movie more. I have not given much information on movie for the same reasons. However if you have a weak heart, then definitely read all other reviews on MS! Forgive the cliché scenes, and I am sure you will sit up and take notice of this movie. With a running length of just 110 minutes, it is worth it.

Happy viewing!

A.I : the movie

Stanley Kubrick was a great film-maker. And he did total justice by giving the script to another genius Spielberg. The outcome of both of them is a brilliantly depicted, thought-provoking, science fiction-philosophical movie. A.I manages to capture the very essence of the subject beautifully by showing all that there is to it. The movie can be seen as in four parts:

1. The birth of A.I

Its sometime in future, where the world has nearly come to an end. Most of the world is deserted. However somewhere in America, people are building Mechas ( organic robots with A.I), which can feel emotions and is capable of love. One such creation is David, a child robot capable of love, and is almost as real as can be. He is unique because there hasn’t been any one like him before, and he is the first of his kind. He is the experimental robot on which future A.I robots would be built.

Spielberg captures this part of the movie by mixing a little philosophy and science fiction. During the meeting before creating David, a woman asks a deep philosophical question : If a robot is capable of loving humans, what responsibility does the human have towards that robot?. This was something that blew me away! Wow! That is something really to think upon. If I had a A.I that loves me and relates to me, will I love it the same I love humans? There is no answer to the question in the movie, and largely because the very question is answered further in the movie.

1. The Vision of A.I

Part two: A family is coping up with their child who has gone into a coma. There is nothing they can do about to bring him back to life. The father Henry, who works for the company that built David, decides to get him home as a replacement for his child whom they have lost in coma. However his wife Monica is reluctant. David comes home and wins over her heart by his innocent look and words. He is so real like that Monica believes he is son.

Trouble crops up, when their son who was in coma comes back to life. Suddenly, the human gets more attention than David. The human kid Martin despise his presence in his house, and tries his best to get him out. He challenges him to tasks to which David agrees to prove his superiority. One fine night, while Monica is telling a story about Pinnochio to her human child, he over-hears the part where the blue fairy makes pinnochio a real-life boy…and this stays within him. As tensions in the family rise due to the escalating differences between David and Martin, the family decides to abandon David. Monica, his mom, abandons him at loose in the forest and goes back.

The second part of the movie is mixed with some nice humor with emotions. The vision of what A.I can actually achieve is beautifully shown here. A.I learns with time, and how humans too can get attached to it is shown beautifully here. Monica almost believes he is her son, till her real life kid comes back. Once trouble starts, Henry asks another brilliant question to her: If David is capable of love, he must be capable of Hate? Think about it! Even when David is meant to love everyone, he cant help developing some kind of hate towards his brother. The very essence that A.I learns with behavior is shown superbly in this segment of the movie. David also understands that his mommy is going to leave him alone in forest because he is not a real kid. This part of the movie really makes one wonder of the same question again as to what responsibility do we have towards a robot who loves us.

1. The Danger of A.I

Once Kubrick establishes the best part of A.I, he then progresses to show what COULD be the worse side. Once dumped in the forest, David is all alone. He is captured by Psychos who are humans, and who take pleasure in killing all mechas ( robots with A.I) as they think they have taken over humans. They are humans who believe that A.I has made them dumb because, those robots are too clever. The scenes following this are quite gross in nature, and this is where most of the viewers feel a let down. The scenes don’t progressively suggest much, but in themselves are very gross. Certainly, Spielberg could have add his own bit here. But David gets saved from their clutches, because of his so real behavior and people mistake him for a human. David meets a male gigolo, who helps him run away from there.

Spielberg’s use of gross scenes was not necessary in this part of the movie. In trying to present the other side of A.I, he became too gross, and nearly created a horror show!

1. The journey of David

The last part is certainly the most imaginative part of the movie. Once free, David thinks that if he became a real boy, his mommy would love him more. So he sets out in quest of the Blue fairy of the pinnochio to ask her make him into a boy. What follows next a set of brilliant photographic and cinematic special effects. They are superb! Finally, David does get to meet his creator, and as well as the blue fairy ( which is a idol in a submerged New York MANhattan, the last place on earth). David sits there asking the fairy to make him into a real boy for ages together, and 2000 years pass by. Humans have completely eliminated, the world has frozen and nothing is alive. Some aliens come to earth, discover him and read his mind. They then create a Artificial World for him based on his thoughts, where in a fairy too lives. The fairy finally fulfills his wish, but just for one day by making his mom come back. The aliens do this by taking his thought process, with a physical sample of his mom’s hair and looking back into a time-space warp to find her instance!!! Some physics this!

Spielberg’s final twenty minutes of the minutes are simply spell-binding. David’s progression from a mecha to a human-mecha who sheds tears in the end is simply breath-taking. All along, the journey Spielberg makes the importance of A.I and how it evolved over time. But there in he also balances the limitations of A.I. For example, David never grows out of his mommy love throughout the journey. All he craves is that one day with his mom where he can prove that he is real. This really is something to wonder that What if and A.I wanted to become real, and very nearly became one?. The movie ends brilliantly with David in that Artificial World created by the aliens for him!

Harry Osment’s performance as David is brilliant. If you pay close attention, he never blinks his eye through out the movie except once. Over all, this is definitely one of the most ORIGINAL and IMAGINATIVE films I have ever seen in my life. If there is Kubrick’s imagination in it, Spielberg combines it with his own genius to give a thought provoking movie. The movie really makes one wonder about Artificial Intelligence! This movie is certainly not for every one. To appreciate this movie, one should see this film, not as a movie, but a as exploration of artificial intelligence.

And it definitely made me wonder: What if this were the future?

Happy Viewing!

”Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.”
–George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 25, 2003

UNDAAZED

That is exactly what I felt after watching ANDAZ. Try as I might to be dazed by this spectacle, I was just left dark and gloomy that I had watched it. The movie is an exercise in predictability – predictable story, predictable acting, predictable situations, predictable songs and a hopelessly predictable climax. Even when Priyanka Chopra declares her noble intentions wrapped in not so noble actions in the end, except people on the reel, no one actually is shocked or bemused . instead, you just yawn and say . This was anyways going to happen!

So begins ANDAZ with a blooming .friendship. between Raj and Kajal. After Kajal does a Forrest Gump . .run Raj run. and restores his legs, their .friendship. grows beyond bounds. That you have no premonitions or expectations of any kind, the fact that they are .best friends. is iterated at least a dozen times . its almost an exasperated try at making us hammer in our brains that they cannot fall in love . no. Not so soon perhaps. But of course, we always knew that a man and woman can be everything but friends. And if they are best friends, it follows that best friends fall in love only when either of them in on the thin red line of getting engaged/married with someone else . providing handsome situations for (i) The hero / heroine to do his I want my girl / boy Boo-Hoo act (ii) The second hero / heroine to make that valiant sacrifice by giving away their love, without of course realizing their good luck. Don.t worry, ANDAZ is no different. Didn.t I tell you its predictable?

So just when the hero conveniently joins the air force, the damsel in friendship also falls in love . pretty easily by a millionaire. Of course, the hero cannot bear to see tears in her eyes, asks her to marry him. Really . what would he do anyways? Anyhow, to complicate matters, just when she is about to leave, she comes to know oh-my-dear-he-loves-me-i-am-such-a-fool situation. As conveniently as everything else, she just quips . .Why didn.t you ask me before?. to which the devastated hero has frog like face with eyes popping all over the place. So much love for friends eh? Now as if to redeem himself, our hero puts his mind out in flying and is sent to Europe for a Indo – *** joint exercise. To his misfortune, he has to meet the .other. heroine Jiya (or whatever her name was) and she falls head over heels (literally, she is drunk in the scene) in love with our hero . of course our hero cares a hoot. All it takes for him to fall in love eventually is one Kadva Chauth and one Hamming session on Rocks-don.t-have-hearts-and-cannot-love philosophy. Really, the kadva chauth left a bitter taste within us . come of it . I can now write a thesis on the Kadva Chauth . If someone cannot change the script, at least for heaven.s sake change the occasion!

Anyhow, turns out, the hero who has barely fallen in love discovers that Kajal is actually Jiya.s Bhabhi. Conveniently for all of us, right after marriage, Kajal.s husband died . just in case he would create any problems further. Gates open, love blossoms and Jiya schemes a sinister plot to give us a surprise twist in the end by uniting the lovers . surprise! we are not surprised though! Tsk! Tsk! They just might have killed Jiya for the added effect of sacrifice and make the movie more predictable. I mean, if it was this predictable, why not a bit more. Everything is back to happy days, and best friends realize they are the friends in love . while a valiant sacrificial lamb of a heroine looks on. Oh lovely . And as if to justify how predictable things get, every character of the movie then embraces the couple and camera just stops with all 16 people showing their 32s and standing arms in arms. I only hoped they didn.t display the banner . .The beginning.. Shudder!

From acting point of view, really there was nothing much to act. The scenes and situation were ones which even I might act out with finesse, then why even bother about the cast. Though Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta look hot respectively and together (why they even have a song together), they don.t do much in terms of acting . Though Lara does look to have potential. Akshay.s second act as I-am-lord-Ram after Deadcan (for the un-inspired, its Dhadkan), fails again miserably. He is best suited for Wham-Bham roles and must stick to that. His facial expressions change from extremely happy to extremely sorry . whether for us or himself we don.t know.

The music is also predictable as if to keep up the mood of the movie. Almost every song has been sung by Kumar-nosy-Sanu, and with each song he increases his aalaps progressively. Every song takes away 6 to 7 minutes easily, and there are 8 to keep you interested in the Loo. The songs fall in predictable situations . you can almost hear a song coming! We didn.t try guessing the lyrics, but I am pretty sure we would have. A movie with a predictable script doesn.t need any direction to speak of, but whatever direction from whichever angle to wherever, deserves a kick in the butt. There is no screenplay to speak of (oh come of it, I could have written a better screenplay!) , and its pretty evident by a lack of script. I had heard the girls of the movie scream how different their role was . I suggest, they take a look at DDLJ, K3G, KKHH and realize how stupidly common they are.

In the end, why did we see that movie? Well, we saw another movie . OOPS! And to get over the hangover of seeing my own species strip, and before we changed our sexuality, we decided to view some hot chicks to restore our sanity and sense. However, in comparison, the other movie at least had an element of surprise. But then, we had not prepared our selves for such a predictable fare- in retrospect . it didn.t matter! In the end, well, I had just thing in my mind.

Oops we saw Andaz!

”I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.”
–George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003 (And I thot finance minister had a grasp of everything else….)