Ghajini-A belated review

The clock just struck 0000. It was a good 2nd last day of 2008. Returned about 15 minutes ago. Was watching "Ghajini" with office friends, courtsey the farewell treat by my (now ex) manager.

I can't resist writing a review. Though it is not to help others decide whether to watch the movie or not.




So is Morugdoss really a grt director? I feel a bit dishonest to admit so. So what exactly has he done to make a movie that rakes 100cr moolah within 5 days?

Sometimes characterisation (which is of course copied to 95% from Memento) overpowers the weak (too predictable) storyline. Ghajini is such case.

Ofcourse those who haven't seen memento may get impressed by a part of storyline, i.e. the characterisation of the protagonist.

Sajay Singhania (Amir), who is a fusion of Anil Ambani (Papa ka sapna har hath mein mobile apna) and Sunil Mittal (Air Voice does resemble AirTel), is a name which every Tom, Dick and Harry knows but hasn't seen his pictures (like Howard Hughes).

The movie has its share of fun moments with puns revolving around his mistaken identity by Kalpana (Asin), who is "Helpin all selflessly" girl. He begins to love her and wants her to love him back, before he should reveal his identity.

Amir's brief face-off with shahrukh's lookalike (the guy from Kya aap Panchvi fail champu hain) is worth some smiles (not for shahrukh though).

She does love him back, to an extent that she sells off her 2nd hand purchased Ambassador for Rs1,35,000 (somebody got cheated), to pay for amir's falsely told ill mother at amir's village.

Before Amir's return trip from UK, Kalpana gets herself into trouble by pissing off the goon ghajini, resulting in him sending his sidekicks to finish her off. Sanjay reaches in time to see her dying, before being hit by Iron bar on his head, resulting in his anterograde amnesia.

Morugdoss(MD) lifts the term from "Memento" without conceptualising it correctly. The term means, man's memory before the accident is intact but he can't make new memories. MD messes up with Amir's total memory.

Now Amir with help of his tatoos,photographs, (unnecesaary) maps and wallpapers (all lifted from memento) along with some infallible help from Jiah Khan (a medical student) hunts Ghajini down.

The film is a good attempt. But, could have done away with predictabilty and weak storyline which were so unnecessary for audience to connect with Amir's medical condition. The result: audience laughs are loud enough when amir goes haywire hitting goons all around and suddenly loses the plot of the things. The good version should have held the audience in awe and palpating when he is humbly duped by the goon, who is about to attack from back.

A good commercial product for Amir's Fans and everybody. Amir is really good with his anger, action and bod, not to mention. A heart put out act by him deserves him the biggest blockbuster of the year at least.

My only wish; rather han making a Tamil Film remake, they should have made a remake of Memento out and out.

Watch Ghajini and then watch Memento. You will enjoy both.
You will prefer you don't do vice versa.


2.83/5 (Being a perfectionist as Amir)

Cheers
Have a great new year ahead.

Yes Sir No Sir......

It's happened more than once in recent times. Something seems to me as a great idea first, I even volunteer to carry out a perfect execution. Then suddenly a wave of lathargy comes and takes me away from it. I feel the idea to be hacknayed, uninteresting, not worth my endeavours to put forth for.

I feel the overwhelming guilt at times. The situation becomes gloomy. The time retains the status-quo. And amongst these all I am lying aimlessly looking for an excuse why I shouldn't/couldn't do it.

I keep telling myself, do not promise something on the pretext of beleiving- If I promise, I will do it. The flame kindles with a spark, and extinguishes in absence of the fuel supply. I am looking for that eternal(life-long) fuel supply, that will solve my Energy Crisis!

Hi Again!!

Its been ages since I wrote my last entry. Its year end so I felt a need to revive a good habit in making. So, why exactly was I writing this blog? The answer is perhaps for "Myself". As like those daily soaps/ movies I can't imagine my voice hitting inside my head. Its always so quiet , in terms of sound. Otherwise its helluva time in and out of my mind.

So what have I got to catchup with myself.

Diwali: Was good. Celebrated at our new home with Mum Dad. Uploaded the pics already in my Orkut Album. Still pasting one here.




Then Mumbai Attacks. Don't want to paste those pictures here. A lot was/is being written/spoken about it all around.


Then we had our company offsite. This time it was even beyond manesar. Never expected it to be a fun like it turned out to be. See I am enjoying it:




Got few late nights following offsite. Some cuz of work, some cuz of Parties/Movies.
Mom got really very pissed off as I arrived quite late on 25th. So I have decided to call off all party invitations for a while and spend some time with family.

Rab ne bana di jodi was an average film. Went to see Ghajini Premier Show. It turned out to be a Preview. Saw High School Musical 3 instead (was recommended by someone). Now there was this girl who had a discount coupon which said 2 tickets free with 4 tickets. She was delighted to know we wanted 4. She was playing cheeky. while explaining the offer to my friend I apprised all of the fact that she has agreed to part with the 2 free tickets with us. The couple had a smile like they were being cheated. How on earth were they expecting that gesture from the "Cunning Me".

I was lauded by my 3 friends for that. It reminded me of Spiderman3 Premier I attended during college days......

My few female friends got married. I haven't heard much from them since then. Which is kind of good, I presume, that is in congruence with them being over occupied with happiness and not with boring people like me.

Many heartful wishes for a wonderful new year! To me! and to You! :)

A moment which I recalled...

Class 8th(or 9th)

I was sitting on a bench alongside the bench of "my" 3rd Crush of life. To say "my" would be a bit unfair cuz "my" doesn't include "couple of dozen others".

GIRL (along with her Specy fried; I found her cute too.. ;))
Hey Praveen, Have you ever read Blue Magzines.

I: Of course.
(saying, with esteem and thanking god that a couple of months ago a friend of mine told me what blue magzines are, infact he told me he had a magzine called "Playboy" with a topless picture of someone called "Pamela Anderson")

GIRL: How many have you gone through?!
(excitement was growing in her voice..)

I : A dozens, my dear (I never believed though such magzines existed. After all how the hell can anybody strip in front of a camera?)

GIRL : What all things are therein? (She was curiously forcing me into inquisition. Though I Was loving it

I : Oi...its adults' magzine. Lot's of that kind of stuff.

DON'T REMEMBER MUCH AFTER THAT....



A scene after about couple of months of this conversation:

I found a keyring in the feild. I was bioscope-camera-slideshow hybrid. Hoping to see something interesting I slid the roller on.

YUCCCKKK...SHIT...AARGHHHHHH....(I tried to vomit there and then)

After all first unexpected porn exposure can cause that much....


DON'T REMEMBER MUCH AFTER THAT EITHER....


These memories will stay with me for life as also some of these:

1. An LKG Kid who asked Ma'am for her permi ssion to go to toilet. But was denied. And after he did the enevitable. He is taken to his home, though a block across the road, but his pants off!

2. A kid who flunks in his admission test for class 1.

3. A kid who came 2nd in class 1, 1st in class2 and when he came 1st in Class 3, he cried saying to his mom "Mom, sorry i broke the trend, the series 212121212...."

4. A Class 3 kid who is afraid to go to school, because of a Class 4 Bully kisses him on his cheeks at every oppirtunity he has.

5. A Class 5 kid running in school corridore with 5 girls chasing him to pull his cheeks and kiss them. (I feel lke kickin myself now for that.)

6. Few Class 6 Guys laughing and bullying another guy who read from his Doc Father's book how babies are produced.

7. Bio Lecture of Life Processes-2 in Class 7 and revisited in Class 9, though by a female teacher in bromidic tone)

8. A girl who stays back with 11 Class nerd in PT period, to know more about Organic nomenclature, with her legs rubbing against his. And her ***** against his elbows as she leaning over so much on him getting involved in the book. He thought that might have happened due to cramped spaces and continued the lesson.

9. Perfect 4 years of college life, which I wouldn't ever forget. It had drama, suspense, thrill, action, romance, sleaze, friendship, trust, mistrust and of course 8 semesters with 68%!!!

Raping...In the name of God

It haapened in 1947 (partition), it happened in 1984 (riots following Indira Gandhi's assasination), it happened in 1990 (after bombay blasts), it happened in Gujrat (after Godhra) and it happened again in Orissa (following a VHP leader's assasination).

In world's largest democracy, everytime there are people who would hold ransom, the entire nation, stripping everyone, even of the fundamental rights.

There are some satyromanaic men (mind you many men are satyromaniac) who look for these opportunities to rape women, without being held by law.

Either they are restive or people at concerned positions unwilling to reign them in, I can't comment, precisely.

Recently, I read in a newspaper, An orphanage was ransacked, a few of teenage girls were taken in a room and brutally raped. Later the room was set ablaze by the same incendiaries. They did all that in the belief that the girls were Christians. Later it did turn out they were Hindus.

As a sign of no remorse, these Terrorists (I prefer to call them so, they had done nothing less than those crossing over border, in kashmir) blatantly continue to commit futher atrocities, swaggering around the streets like they have salvaged their religion.

The nation's soul is being pushed into a inquisitorial room, with questions being thrown into left, right and center from every corner of the world.

I feel ashamed that in this land of "Maryaad Purushottam ShriRaam", the women (even in national capital) are nowhere safer than the red-light areas of the West. All they fear, if a riot is waiting round the corner of next street.....

Wanna Puff??

"Cigarettes and Tobacco products banned from being consumed in public place"

A good but delayed concrete step, accoding to me.

I puffed my first Cig when I was 12, in 7th Standard probably. Smoked one each for three consecutive days. Tried to figure out what respite/enjoyment people get after inhaling in and breathing out a puff of smoke. Failure at that, fortunately enough, resulted to my shunning of the "habit-in-making".

Seven years later, I was holding again the "White-Brown (4:1) Stick" between my Middle and index finger. Its an age when cigarettes may end up being your buddy or better to term as a "nemesis" for the rest of your life.

In winter of 2005, I smoked 13 Marlboro back-to-back, celebrating life with my friends at Goa. Searching for rave parties to groove upon some sexy "Phoren" chicks who would have lost consciousness enough to our liking. But, sadly we couldn't find any. And spent entire nite boozing and puffing.

A very dear friend of mine, who found that I continued to smoke even after returning from GOA, scolded me badly, as his younger brother and sarcastically said "I will finance your Cigarettes for the rest of our college lives".

The "White-Brown Twig" which i threw down from the 3rd floor of our Hostel hasn't come back. Ask me If I am only glad about it.

Well I could have been happier if that friend of mine hadn't ended up being a habitual smoker himself.

May God give all of you the courage and will to shun the Tobacco-Pipe.

A Compromise!

No matter how liberal, conscientious, conscious and acknowledging we may have become towards the "Right to Equality" in past 61 years, but some orthodoxy simply refuses to go away completely, though it may be under recession.

A friend of mine told me about this friend of his, who will be getting engaged in a couple of weeks time. The girl, who was working in an immensely popular organization at a respectable position has to resign from her job, to relocate and live with her would be husband. Just a compromise, we may say and escape. But there is no escape from the realms of this sphere of truth, that, this is only one of the thousands compromises in waiting in the girl’s future’s kitty.

Compromises start early for a girl child in India. I have seen them all – from the worst to the subdued.

It feels totally outrageous when even the phenomenally educated people in this era put forth demands before the marriage alliances get arranged. Eg. No working bride.

For thousands of years old human beings chronological history, physical strength has been whole and sole reason for discrimination and oppression of the fairer sex. Male sexuality was unquestionable with proofs of polygamy in all major civilizations across the globe. Female sexuality was a question itself.

Cases of burning innocent women on allegations of Witchcraft have been equally prominent in West as well as East. Renaissance changed the ways of life in West. We are still waiting for ours. Aping Burger-Pizza phenomenon is simply not enough.

About Vampires, Rabies and Terrorism

Rabies, as written is previous post, is most vivid explaination, I found for Vampires.

Upon pressing the Ctrl+Z buuton, a few thousand times, take me years back and I recall seeing a TOI front-page pic, a Rabies Patient in a cell, chained from head to toe, who, doctors said would die in another 3-4 days.

He was shown scratching walls of that barely 8X8 ft room, helplessly. There was no toilet for him. The soiled floor was an apparent indication.

The image stayed with me forever.

I am not going to pen down all symptoms and effects of rabies. Briefly said, a rabies patient loses mental balance partially, always itching to scratch, bite others; Thus the disease spreads.

The only remedy therefore, once a patient gets past the treatable stage, is to put him in a scluded place till he dies and then cremate him immediately. (I don't want to sound callous and sadistic)

Bats, dogs and monkeys apart from man, are known to bear the Rabies virus.

Conclusively the myths revolving around Vampires are nothing else but Rabies cases that went off control.

Terrorism

Similar to Rabies, the affected person (A man fused with all those eternal knowledge about how to kill to attain heaven) , if beyond a treatable stage has no other treatment. Rehablitation won't work because by the time you will rehablitate him, he would already had infected couple others.

Its awesome how these mathematical things called Geometric Progressions work.

Remember that riddle :

a guy offers you 1000000 Rs per day of a 30-day month.
you have to shell out single buck on day 1, 2 on day2, Rs 4 on day 3 ........
Would you accept his offer??

If u did, You stood at a loss of 30-40 Crores at the end of the month.


My cousin, in army told me once, after release of Mohd. Masood Azhar (the man we released during Plan hijack of IC 814), they used to kill any surrendering Terrorists too during a Combat.

Why put them behind bars?; so that they can ransom the country against their release.

I sometimes dichomitized between whether to laugh or get angry, when all those media reports-

"Stoical Mumbai/Delhi back on track after attacks. Refuse to kneel down before Terrorism"

To hell with Stoical....Sirs and Madams, there are too many indifferent people around. They are indiffent as long as they are not the ones who are affected.

People don't even know who they share their apartments with.


MERA BHAARAT MAHAAN....

Vampires and Dracula

I read about "Vampires" over past few days.

Like all good things they come in "Variety"

From Chinese vampires (with red contact lenses and hair colored green or pink) to Japanese vampires (Foxes) to Greek Vampires (i found them particularly intersting, with bust of a woman and lower of a serpent, reminded me of my Nagraaj Comics days; remember Visarpi :-).....)

Our modern concept of Vampires, theoritacally, is of a neck-biting, blood-sucking character, who can't be killed; Thanks to all those hollywood oldies as well as recent flicks like Blade and Van Helsing.

I can't help myself from quoting the following text which says India has the oldest history of Vampires:

The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul.

The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.

Don't know what hindu fanatics can do to this naive writer, who thinks of "Kali" as a Vampire

No discussions about Vampires is complete without "Count Dracula" and "Bats"

DRACULA

Dracula, a fictional vampire character, is believed to be iconic among all the vampires. The first description about Dracula in 1879 novel by same name is as follows:

face was a strong - a very strong - aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Bats

There are just three (some may argue for four, specially batman fans) species of Bats around the world. And only one of the feeding upon blood. The drawn analogy was inevitable.

The Truth

The most convincing, credible and cogent explaination is Rabies (to be written about in next post)

God bless all!!!

Elvis has left the Building

is a phrase that was often used by public address announcers following Elvis Presley concerts to disperse audiences who lingered in hopes of an Elvis encore. - Source-Wikipedia


Its so amazing, how sometimes, simple worlds convey so much!

I was born nearly a decade after Elvis had died and I havent heard any of his songs, but nonethless agree, without a doubt, they would have been nothing less than phenomenal.....

हिन्दी...

हमारी राष्ट्रभाषा है। परन्तु आज ऐसा समय आ गया है कि कुछ मुट्ठी भर लोगों को किसी व्यक्ति द्बारा हिन्दी बोले जाने पर ठेस पहुचती है। आने वाले समय में हिन्दी कि क्या गति होने वाली है, इसका अनुमान लगाना कठिन नहीं है। मुझे अति कष्ट तब पहुचता है जब हिन्दी चलचित्रों के कलाकार गर्वित होके कहते हैं कि वे हिन्दी के पाठ पढ़ रहे हैं।

कुछ समय पहेले मेरे एक मित्र द्बारा मुझे एक बोध कथा भेजी गई। वही बोध कथा जब मैंने अपने सहभागिओं को वितरित की, तब उनमें से अधिकांश को पढने में अत्यन्त कठिनाई हुई। परन्तु ऐसी स्थिति में कभी किसी को कोई ग्लानी ये पश्चाताप नहीं होता। वे गर्वित अनुभव करते हैं। परन्तु किसी को अंग्रेज़ी ना आना उसके अशिक्षित होने का पर्यायवाची हो जाता है.....यह अत्यन्त दुखदायी है।

चलचित्रों की यदि बात करें.... तो याद करें की पहले नाम हिन्दी, उर्दू एवं अंग्रेज़ी में आते ठे....परन्तु अब द्रोण द्रोणा और राम रामा बन गए हैं।

हिन्दी चलचित्र के सभी पुरस्कार वितरण समारोहों में हिन्दी का शुन्य समान प्रयोग किया जाता है। हमारे अभिनेता जिस भाषा का प्रयोग चलचित्रों में करके प्रचलित होते हैं, उसी का प्रयोग करने में लज्जित होते हैं। यह लज्जा की बात है......




व्यर्थ रहा जीवन में जो भी प्राप्त किया मैंने
ज्ञात को ताज प्राप्त समस्त अज्ञात किया मैंने
स्मृतिया मधुर सभी सालती रही यद्यपि
जीवन समस्त विस्म्रित्यो को प्राप्त किया मैंने
ज्ञान वो जो अज्ञात के ज्ञात होने से हो प्राप्त
कर विचार प्राप्त समस्त अज्ञान किया मैंने
नश्वर संसार की अनश्वर प्रवृति
बिसार आत्मा को आकृति पूजन की जगत रीति
सम्पूर्ण ज्ञात जीवन कर्म का प्राप्त एक-मात्र
अंत अवम आरंभ से हीन अज्ञात मृत्यु !!!

If only life had Ctrl+Z ......

Life would have been a lot easier.....

No longer tormentising (is it a word!!) decision making phenomena.

No placatory processes for making somebody cross with you.

No fear of your accidental infidelity getting ahead of you to keep punishing you for the rest of your life

No reticence in conversating with your superiors

No mugging up of all that rubbish banal bromidic academic content before your exams. You could always go in the exams and then use that "wonderful combination" on your's life's keyboard, to mug the least that was required

Or on a serious note:

If only you could have informed those who went offices on that fateful morning of September 11, even after missing their morning Buses.
Those poor people of bhuj
Those children who were in the bus that fell in yamuna, on that Friday, the 13th, years ago.


Everyone of us, wishes silently or loudly to have this magistic key combination, in real life.

My thanks and congratulations to Mr. Bill Gates and his Microsoft Inc. (I am sorry Mr. Balmer, Microsoft will always be Mr Gates'.) for coming up with this great idea of rectifying our mistakes.

But Life usually is in a bigger mess than "Deleting few rows of Excel by mistake".

I strongly believe there is a "Ctrl+Z" always around us, limited by need of going back in time. But finding that is no less acheivement.

It may not be as vivacious as a dinasaur to spot, but it is there for sure. "Sorry" is its foster "Granddaughter", which we use in most of the cases to escape some discomforting consequences.

Consider yourself very lucky and thoroughly deserving if you are able to locate it within the "Tome of Life". If you are try to put a bookmark there, as for even years down the line though you dont need it, but when you do, you might not find yourself on the wrong side of the 4th dimension......



If only I was able to locate my "Ctrl+Z"

Perpetual HappYness....

Is Perpetual Happiness just a theoretical concept, that is impossible to realize?

If it is, Why is it so? Perhaps, it is our mind that tells us after a string of joyous moments, another string of despairs is bound to follow. We start to believe, as gained from our experiences, perpetual happiness can't be acheived.

I happens so often, that we are afraid to have a hearty laugh, fearing we would need to cry our hearts out for one or the other reason. Does happiness proscribes celebration? It doesn't , but there are moments when we feel it does.

I have a friend, who used to remind me everytime, i shared a joke, "Please don't make me laugh so much. I have to bear an equal amount of pain later"

So many of us, have this congenital and inveterate belief that life comprises of equal shares of bundles of joys and sorrows. So according to the theory, if you have 100kg bundle of Joys and Sorrows, kindly preserve your joys for the moments of need, usually in your later life.

So, is it easy to dichotomize things into - joy and sorrow? Probably not!

If a flood victim is given chapati and onion to eat, its a joy for him. But try offering the same to a "born with a silver spoon"!

Referring to a same person, also may confuse us further. We may think an event to be a boon one day and a bane the next day.

Finally it all comes down to relative happiness/sorrow.

So, if the definations of joys/sorrows are relative, isn't it incongruous to believe the equal share of each?

I named this blog Everything because....

That's what I vie to do things/live lives/experience stuff.....but  just like most of you, ( i said, most of you).... I end up doing nothing!!

Doesn't sound strange. Does it?

My comfort zone is very dear to me, probably. I am afraid to walk over traditional courses, people follow. I do get shaken up many times, specially when:

1)  Shahrukh Khan pleads to me "Aap mat ho santusht", "Dream Bigger, and when you dream bigger you can be the king of the world"

2)  When I see movies, where "Ek aam insaan", makes it big, not always monetarily though. Yes, it does happen all around us in real. We may refuse to turn a blind eye towards it, but, they are everywhere around. Maybe they are clouded by hundreds of failures surrounding each of them. Maybe because most of us aren't willing to leave their comfort zone, because they are as humane as I am.

3) When I actually see people, who actually know what they have to do in life, and actually work towards it. I feel happy when they meet with little successes which they chose to share with me. I despair when, a brave attempt by someone is thwarted by others or destiny.

I have started with this blog, to help myself in knowing, what I want from life and what my life wants from me.