Kites

…Couldn’t attain much of the height

After a long wait, finally we got to see Kites. After so much of dramas and suspense as a tool of marketing, first week was expected to be housefull. Well, opening week may be crowded yet this Kite failed to attain the height of expectations of masses.

A regular love story, better to say drama because there is no solid story line, well packaged with little bit of Hollywood of 90’s, car chasing, love on loose, police, bounty hunters, etc. and u have much awaited Kites ready to serve.

Barbara Mori, finding of Rakesh Roshan and Anurag Basu, is definitely a delight for viewers. But Roshan trio failed to create the same effects of “Kaho Na Pyaar Hai.”

Plot: Mr J (Hrithik), a dance teacher, living in Las Vegas, want to make lots n lots of money by hook or by crook. He also does part time marriage business with ‘Green Card aspirants’ for money. Gina (kangana), falls in love with J, which is his way to the other side of the world which has everything he dreamt for. Things are going great with his lies, until he meets Natasha/Linda (Barbara) and love happens.

Now as love doesn’t come alone, brings with itself lots of trouble also. So after both share their love for each other, their chasing for life begins. This takes them from Las Vegas to Mexico, from sin city to deserts. After a long chase and car chase and rescue stunts, for some time, things get better and marriage, romance also happens in between.

But good time has short life span, so again trouble haunts them and lots of drama and revenge and action happens and story comes to a sad ending.

Performances: Hrithik, a cool chap, rocking on dance floor with every single beat. He amazes again with his dance moves. But this is it, although he tries to carry the story less drama on his shoulders but all in vain.

He didn’t get much chance to show his muscle power this time, but he did flaunted abs in a song. Overall, director couldn’t get all from him.

Barbara, the beauty takes precedence than performance and she is a delight on both. This Mexican beauty not only charm with her looks but also tries to match up with actor at performance level and does well too. If she learns Hindi like Kat, she has very good prospects here in bollywood.

Kangana, with so less for her to do, a actor wasted for such a role.

Music: Other than Hrithik and Barbara, only good thing about the flick is music. My favorite is ‘Zindagi do pal’ and also the climax music was very good. Also, with so many singers, songs are good to ears and music goes very well with the action packed love drama.

I didn’t like the presentation though, flashback popping up in between and sometimes it seems they are showing flashbacks in between present life or present life in between flashbacks. Mixing of past could have been done better.

Climax was filmed really very well, and the location was also breathtaking.

Also, the part, where they reach Mexico and get married, that is worth watching.

In nut-shell, for action-love drama lovers, it’s a reveling. Nothing much of a story, but music is good. Doesn’t live up to the hype created.

BadmashCompany

A company worth spending time with…

Definitely Parmeet Sethi has come a long way from Kuljeet of DDLJ to this latest flick ‘Badmash Company’ based on his story and direction. The story relates to the today’s youth and their quick money dreams very well. A movie based on con jobs, not a rare but definitely not much available in bollywood video galleries. Although, it’s a movie yet few con tricks didn’t look that unrealistic as the case with some old flicks even by the YashRaj Films.

Plot: The seeds of con are formed when three college friends Shahid, Vir and Chang go on a trip to Thailand sponsored by a smuggler and enroute they meet Anushka and hence starts the Badmaash Company of Friends. Shahid, as he is hero of the film, so he is supposed to be top in studies, with sharp mind and a dream of lots of money, so he is. Chang and Vir, both always weak at the knees, one for Sharaab and other for Shabaab. And Anushka, ultra modern girl, wanna-be-model, started journey from Jaipur till Mumbai, now just stuck here.

Well, all four has one thing common, all wanted quick money and they all had Shahid. The honesty and morals take a deep plunge when Shahid’s honest father (Anupam Kher) gets admitted to hospital and his mom has to prawn her bangles and this gives a push to his urge for quick money and hence Friends & Co. gets into business.

They start in India and nothing is illegal yet, just a bit of mind playing. But soon the route of profit gets blocked. So now they eyes towards USA, where Jazz mama is well settled. Now the tricks gorras and they fall for their tricks too. But as they say ‘Time acha ho ya bura, badalta jarur hai’, so their time too changes and the Friends are out of the Friends & Co.

Now, Parmeet Sethi takes the tour to moral heights and honesty valley with our Hero (Shahid). And now he wants to set records straights. With the help of Jazz mama and some special circumstances he does set it right. And now we have a Friends & Co. but not a Badmash one.

Performances:

Shahid does very well with character of an ambitious yet prisoner of other’s dreams, pulls out a cool and stylish apt. Innocent at some times when he crosses his fingers, cunning when at business and all fun when enjoying the money he made.

Anushka does very well with her role of a bindaas kinda girl, yet the looks didn’t match up with the outfit. Also, get to do little bit of emotion drama, which she is very good from the days of RNBDJ.

Vir Das and Chang, both were good in their roles, makes very good chemistry in Friends & Co.

Music: Didn’t sound like Pritam and once you come out of hall, you just forget which songs you just heard in past 2+ hours.

Story and Direction by Prameet was really good, considering it is his debut as writer and director. Very well done in both aspects.

In nut shell, I will go for the movie for interesting story, good performance by the foursome. Best way to Chill in killing heat.

PaathShala

Good subject…yet too many paath in one PaathShala

Education has taken a long leap from being a Nobel profession to a source of big revenue generating business. Loads and loads have been talked and written about commercialization of Education but no major break through has happened till date, even after a long battle in Supreme Court, nothing much has changed.

No changes can happen until as Nana Patekar says in his striking speech ‘upgradation of facilities is definitely a necessary, but more than that upgradation of thoughts is more essential for proper delivery of the new education system.

With this idea, Milind Ukey comes with ‘PaathShala’.

Nana Patekar, in role of the Principal, in starting resembled Amitabh Bachhan of Gurukul in Mohabbatain, still takes education as Nobel profession, a way to create society, was forced to restructure the paathshala to a 5-star School.  He tries all his ways to make things work but looses hope in last.

Shahid Kapoor, as an English teacher, becomes a leader of school and ask explanation from school principal for his unethical money making rules and regulations along with students and colleagues.

In between, writer tries to cover all the problems that too in highly exaggerated way to make audience shed few drops of water.

Performance: Nana Patekar and Shahid Kapoor, already proven, give a very good performance yet it feels like director could not make use of their full potential. Shaurab Shukla, the management, performs in sync to the melodrama script. Ayesha takia and other engaging actors are just to fill the gap and script has nothing much to offer.

Music by Hanif Shaikh, gives the movie the much needed push. ‘Aye Khuda’ is still runs on my system every day. Other songs are also good.

Direction by Milind still has lot of room for improvement and script can be improved to hold audience till the end.

Over all, it’s a movie to go for its good idea and lead performers and music.

Well Done Abba

Political satire….very well done

Indian Cinema is taking new turn with new breed of writers and directors, trying their hands on realistic and wholesome meaning cinema, portraying social issues, political mess and changing lifestyle. Shyam Benegal, creator of a new genre in Hindi Cinema in 1980s, strikes again with his latest venture ‘Well Done Abba’, which does nothing but puts the bar a bit higher for new genre.

Story: Story starts with Armaan Ali, played by Boman Irani, a chauffer returns back to wok after a month’s leave and narrates his escapades while driving him on Pune-Mumbai expressway.

He visits to his village near Hyderabad to find a suitable groom for his daughter Muskaan (Minissha Lamba), a tour of few days gets long-drown-out when he comes across a government scheme to dig a bavadi(well) to overcome the problem of water scarcity. And the drama begins, to avail the scheme, he runs from office to office, bribing everyone from village-head to chief engineer and everyone involved in the corrupt government machinery but even then ends up with no well.

With no results in hand and so much of running and pleading, he decides to give the corrupt officers and politicians the taste of their own medicine and this uproar unsettles the whole government.

The film targets the corruption running through our bureaucracy and eating into benefits of the development schemes. How these schemes ends up making these bureaucrats more rich and the poor more poor. Why people are happy with BPL status? How a husband of village-head runs the governance in the village? And how is the percentage system in offices?

Performance: Boman Irani has just added another feather to his crown with his brilliant performance and proves the caliber to run a movie successfully on his own. Minissha Lamba was good, but was very loud, not sure if character demanded it or it was because of her. Ila Arun, having nothing much to perform in the main drama other than shouting or cursing, does just ok. Ravi Kishan, does good to add up little humor from his side.

Shoots of village are done very well catching all intricacies of typical rural background. The composition by Shantanu Moitra is not of the level of ‘3 idiots’ but goes parallel with movie’s theme. Dialogues and costumes are in sync with the rural locality.

To sum this up, Well Done Abba, is very well done by all the performers and the crew. Two thumbs up for the team.

Karthik Calling Karthik

KARTHIK calling KARTHIK

A call with no special offering for audience…!!!

Movies based on or revolving around human mind and related mental disorder have come long way in Bollywood. As long back my memory serves, starting from classic ‘Khamoshi’ to ‘Who Lamhe’ (Schizophrenia),’ U Me Aur Hum’ (Alzheimer) and continuing the subject are ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’, and ‘My Name is Khan’ (Autism).

And now Vijay Lalwani, a film maker from ad world, adds one more name to the above list with his first and latest flick ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’, starring the multi talented director-actor-singer-producer Farhan Akhtar (as Karthik) and the stunning Deepika Padukone (as Shonali), on its exploration to still not fully explored territory of human behavior and psychology.

The movie depicts the transformation of a person from being zero to hero. And then the downward journey from the heights.

Story: Karthik, a looser, who is bullied by every person, being his landlord or his boss or colleagues or even the office boy. One day he receives a mysterious call from another ‘Karthik’, which helps him to confront the tormentor and gain back his lost self confidence. He even finds his love, the sizzling Shonali.

But, one day he shares his little secret of transformation and things takes a round turn from there and life changes drastically with an unanswered call. Later on the course, life reveals some hidden facts, which connects the pieces of puzzles and solves the mystery of another ‘Karthik’.

Performance: Farhan, gives good efforts but sometimes good is not enough. As story is not well versed and without proper research and work on script becomes draggy. Deepika does her part very well, adding glamour to screen, more with her gesture.

The part where Farhan tries to woo Deepika and initial part of love story which is un-complicated, is definitely worth watching because of the very striking dialogues and some punch lines, can come handy for lot of romeos.

Direction: As a director, Vijay fails to engage audience and the pace of film is another nail in coffin.

Music is ok type. One song ‘uff teri ada’ does help Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to get some appreciation for this film.

Few things which are really very good and worth mentioning are Location and costumes. Locations give a lift-up and costumes go accordingly to the character.

Finally, the film is worth watching only once and no more.

Rann – a naked truth of news-room

rann

Media, the fourth pillar of Democracy, entrusted with its power because its goal is to give the balanced prospective on functioning of government and its policies. And bring out the truth to the masses and let the people decide on their on and form their opinion.

But when Media changes its course of action and gives a biased story with molded facts, falsified visuals and sensationalizing the subject to thrust the opinion in the minds of masses with sole purpose of getting high TRP thus making lots and lots of Money, then it becomes a RANN, a war field where spirit of journalism is dying with every passing second.

Although many writers have framed their stories around the media and its functioning and many directors have presented the naked truth of news room but RGV goes few steps forwards and get into the raunchy dirt-field and present us the intricacy of politics-media-business trilogy and their dirty game plans. The games which are played for soul aim of Power and Money, without thinking a bit about the people who have led them to the helm.

Amitabh Bachhan, in his role of a Media Baron and respected journalist, definitely gives a superb performance. Speaking lots of words with his silence and when he speaks about differences rather indifferences people from different religions have, I wish our self-claimed protector of religions are listening. Sudeep, playing Big B’s son, justifies his role of a person trapped in game of TRP, politics and money and success.

Ritesh Deshmukh, proves his ability with expressions, plays a role of an journalist who still gives a little hope of true journalism and changes the game and exposes a neta (samaj sevak) hiding behind the white attire, a businessman who is playing politics behind the curtains and greedy media persons who just want to take advantages of the circumstances.

Paresh Rawal in role of the corrupt Politian and Rajat Kapoor in role of the businessman and Mohnish Behl, running another channel who believes news is all about presentation, gives a peek into the system we are living in.

Music gives the high beats to the strong lyrics. The whole team of lyricist an music directors has worked well and gave one more support to the script.

A line from the film:

We (film-maker and news person) both make films, we (media) call it the NEWS and you call it movie.

Ishqiya: not so pretty obvious love story

ishqiya

A movie, very different from regular love stories and romantic drama coming directly from KJo factory, has a very strong plot, virtuoso performance, story to keep you wondering what’s next and beautifully placed music parallel to story .
It looks like a whole new breed of directors is setting a new stage and they are not here for run-of-the-mill stuff and ready to experiment with unpredictable and take risk on unseen. Debutant director Abhishek Choubey is one among them. During the film, you never feel like it’s a work of first-timer. Although I am sure, our hero, Vishal Bhardwaj would have been there to give some inputs but that doesn’t take away the due credit to our debutant.

A glimpse of rough yet true life of a distant village in UP and peek into crime and caste equations. First half sets the stage for coming up twisted and gloomy saga in following half. Also, makes you little bit comfortable with desi dialect, which has roughness attached, but depicted aesthetically.

Naseeruddin Shah, as always, lives by his character and brilliantly plays the emotions of a lover first then the anger of a heart broken. Arshad Warsi, after MUNNABHAI, gets another chance to showcase the talent and he just proves himself again and matches up with Naseeruddin. And Vidhya Balan justifies the different shades of the character with her dynamic performance and sets another benchmark for herself.

Both our heroes playing role of rouges, whose crime take them to the “Gorakhpur” where they meet with Krishna (Vidhya Balan). A thin layer of love appears between Naseer – Vidhya, which soon truns into love triangle, when Arshad takes the third corner. And a dirty game of love – hate, anger, conspiracy and revenge starts. The game continues and later the layers of truth unveil in very unpredictable way.

Music by Vishal Bhardwaj, very striking with ongoing story, gives one more option to love the movie. All songs are juxtaposed in the plot beautifully and don’t look like out of sync at all.

Last words, a must watch. Super charged trio performance, unbeatable music with striking lyrics, twisted plot to keep your mind busy little, go for any of theses reasons and definitely you won’t be disappointed.

Chance Pe Dance: difficult to hold till the end

Chance Pe Dance

–Audience definitely didn’t get that chance

Chance pe dance

The movie, which has very common, straight forward story, or should I say bunch of lines picked from different movies of Hollywood and bollywood revolving around same one line idea.

I think this concept of struggling actor/singer has been exhausted and milked enough now and people should come with some new and fresh concept and definitely a better story. After 3 idiots, this was my next movie in theatre, so my expectation level was little higher, but this movie doesn’t even come to the level for consideration.

As Dance is in the name itself, so you will get to see loads and loads of dance. One thing you can go to watch is Shahid’s moves and a good performance. Genelia also gives some good tips for energetic dance moves and add a bit of tickle.

Music, you will forget the words once you step outside of the theatre. Adnan Sami was not able to deliver the same charisma of ‘Tera Chehra’ and Ken Ghosh has a long way to go.

Bhutan-1

Bhutan in December

…… ……..In the land of Thunder Dragon

Bhutan, the dragon country,  was on my to-do (go) list for long time and finally I got the chance to go there, thanks to my friend, Hari Krishna for taking me with him on his home trip. We finalized on dates and planned to start on 24^th December and booked train tickets from Hyderabad to Kolkata accordingly. But from Kolkata to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) all the trains were already booked as it was Christmas time. So “tatkal” booking was the only option left, although bus services are available from Kolkata to NJP, but this being the peak time we didn’t wanted to take any chance which may further delay our plans. After all the bookings, we were all set for our expedition to nature.

Few things about Bhutan:

The Buddhist Kingdom is nestled in eastern Himalayas and sandwiched between India and China. It also has its long history of foreign attacks and civil wars. In 1907, the country got its current form and the King was selected. Bhutan has remained shrouded in a veil of mist and clouds for centuries.

Now with the changing world, Bhutan and its people are also catching up with the rest. Democracy is 1+ year young now, the country has moved from absolute monarchy governance to democratic monarchy.

This is a country where tradition, myths and legends still find their way in inquisitive and learning minds. People are happy, relaxed and fun-loving, which doesn’t come as surprise, because here development of country is measured in terms of happiness of people rather than in terms of mere production, spending or earning.

Welfare state, a concept based on which our Indian constitution was architected, a vision for which our freedom fighter fought and a dream which our political leaders are chasing for past six decades, but yet it’s far from realization. That welfare state is what Bhutan is, of course they have very small population of 7-8 lakh in comparison to India’s, but more than that the reason is good governance and their will power to do better for people, which we definitely lack. The facilities available to its citizens for Education, Medical, Sports are far much better than what we have in our books of law.

One thing which I found missing there compared to so much more developed India, is the absence of beggar in around city streets, markets, bus stop…

Well, these were just few thought I wanted to share, nothing against anyone. Just to make a point that we can do a lot better, once we rise above the fray.

Now, let’s get back to the treasure which is dispersed here openly, the treasure of nature.

Glimpse of the treasure

The journey around the country will takes you to deep lush green valleys, abundant forests, snow-capped mountains, dramatic passes and clouds kissing the sky through the curves of nature, river flowing on one side and standing as tall as skyscraper, Blue Pine trees and the sunshine coming through these trees, passes on a very warm and smooth touch.

Few pointers for fellow travelers (If you are not going through any travel agency or agent):

1. Travelers from India need a permit to go to Bhutan, which we can get from immigration office in Phuentsholing. You need to specify all the places you want to go in the form, otherwise you can’t visit that place. Carry ID proof, passport or driving license.
2. To visit a Dzong, special permit for Dzong is need, which can be collected from immigration office in Thimpu. Here also, all Dzong name has to be specified in form.
3. Currency conversion is not a problem. At most of the places in Thimpu, transaction can be made in Indian currency till rupees 500 currency note.
4. Other than the regular medicine you take, carry some medicines for cold suitable for yourself, if you catch cold fast, because you won’t get all brands there and for getting some medicine from medical store, you will even need doctor’s prescription.
5. Don’t worry about food, even for pure vegetarians also, if you can manage with rice. Otherwise also, few other options are available. So go without any worries about fuel for stomach.

And last but not the least and most important of all, leave ‘haste’, ‘hurry’, ‘fast’ ,’busy’ kind of our regular lifestyle words at home before leaving so that they are there to welcome you once you are back and pick some words like ‘relax’, ’slow’, ’relieve’ , which we have bundled and kept in closet long time back.

Continue to travelog

Bhutan-3

Day 2 (Paro):

Today we are going to Paro, the second largest city of Bhutan, connecting the country to the rest of world, with its airport. Paro city is spread over plain area unlink Thimpu, that is the reason this city has the one and only airport. This city has lot of hotels and a market, having lot of shops for handicraft items.

Nature’ beauty

Paro market

@ Drukgyel

One hour and 45 kms ride from Thimpu and you are in Paro. One went 20 kms further to see the ruins of Victory, ‘Drukgyel Dzong’, a mark of victory over Tibet some 50 years back. Now this place is at utter silence and abandoned after some fire accident in past. But still the place is worth a visit, because it offers the view of picturesque white snow covered ‘Jhomolhari’ peak and other high mountains with soaring trees standing beside it.

We started back and some 10 kms after we reached to base place for ‘Taktsang’, very sacred monastery situated over a very high cliff. It took us (me and Hari, as Suraj opted out from the trek) 2 and ½ hours to reach to the monastery. We covered some 2000 ft height, trekking in dirt trek through the mountains. But this trek has definitely lot of scenic views of mountains covered with greenery to offer. We ran out of breath but we continued

Dirt trek to Taktsand

through undefined territory. On mid way, there is one canteen, we has nice lunch and snacks to offer. We got some energy to complete our rest of journey to the top.

Once we reach to top, the downward journey to the monastery starts. Once we leave the dirt trek and start the route of small steps, it becomes a bit difficult and we need to be very cautious over the steps we take. But the view of monastery right on the other side, keep the spirit up to continue.

The Legends being that Guru Rimpoche, very respectable religious leader of 8^th century, flew there on back of a tiger and mediated there. People from all walks of life from all around the world come here to pay a visit to this amazing place, some for faith, some to get glimpse of the marvelous architectural work, some to get a fresh breather and some to get lost in

Taktsang on cliff

astounding natural beauty, which will hold you spellbound.

Although way down was only of 1 hour but that also has its part of steep slopes of short cut, which we opted to save some time. It was only 5 in evening, when we reached to parking base, but it was getting dark and by 6 when we reached to Paro, city was sparkling with all lights lit up. The Dzong was looking magical under the shade of yellow light.

We reached back to Thimpu and set around bukhaari to heat up. We were so much exhausted that right after settling into bed with all the blankets, I fall into deep sleep. Next day we rested for whole day and roamed around on streets to get a peek into their city life.

Day 4 (Punakha):

After a day of rest, we were ready for other mountains, but this time we were lucky, as road have made their reach into, so we can go by car. Today’s itinerary included Dochula, Punakha and Wangdi.

We started at 9 and made our first stop at ‘Dochula Pass’,

Dochula Pass

after 40 kms of drive. The charm of this place will make you stop there. This place is alsoused as shooting location to capture the clouds, posing in different shapes and mountains in same line of focus.

108 Stupas @ Dochula

Adding another jewel to this crown is 108 stupas overlooking the northern mountain chains.

From there another 40 kms for the Punakha, former capital city of Bhutan, on route were Misina and khuruthang. Punakha is very small town, nothing much to see here, other than small market and houses. Only thing worth visiting here is ‘Punakha Dzong’, a bridge over river connecting to the dzong.  We need special permit for entering into the dzong. We didn’t had the permit, which is issued from Thimpu, so we roamed around the dzong and tried to capture the immense

Punakha Dzong

beauty around the dzong with the river passing aside into frame and also tried to fit ourselves in one corner.

After the photography, we moved toward Wangdi, another small town having another dzong, which is built over a hill which looks like elephant’s back. Soon we started back for Thimpu, as it was getting dark and we had a 3 hour journey back.

Day 5:

It was my last day of Bhutan tour and it was the day when Thimpu had its first snow fall of the season. They even get public holiday also for first snow fall of the season. At last I wasn’t going without experiencing snow fall, which was one of the reasons for my visit.

and the snow fall

I stepped out of the house, to see how it feels to be amidst falling snow. Well, let’s just say it’s amazing and can’t be written in words, at least not by me. And when you look around, even a regular neighborhood looks magnificently beautiful with tree leaves under snow, sapling with snow cover giving an impression of strikingly white sheet and roads having small white spots over it.

Now it was time to say adieu to host and friends. Hari accompanied me till bus stand and I bid good-bye to my friend, to the wondrous landscapes, to a developing country where traditions, culture and row form of nature are yet preserved.

After the snow fall, the whole scene was changed and journey to Phuentsholing became memorable with classic hindi songs, amazing views of fog rolling over the mountain slops and clouds kissing the notch. No matter how much you try to capture the beauty into digital frame, the beauty is never captured 100%.

This was the memorable end to my trip. It also brings a close to this post. Although I have tried to put as best as I could, but I feel binary bits can’t exactly describe the feeling of actually being there, which is both vivid and thrilling.  Both bouquets and brickbats are welcome about this travelog.