इश्किया - Just short of intelligence

Vishal Bharadwaj is back, thankfully, after the cinematically disappointing Kaminey (though commercially successful) at least as a producer and kudos for giving a break to debutante Abhishek Chaubey. For a debut movie, the director has done a commendable job. Tight editing, superb performances by established actors, and recreating an earthly UP locale which is less filmy kinds गाँव का देश but more real, are enough to classify this as one of the better movies of its times.
Naseer's brilliance is a given, so not point talking about it. Arshad Warsi seems to have developed the knack to get under the skin of a character so naturally, and his only test remains an out 'n out serious role as even this role had the usual comic element associated with him usually. Having said that, his comic sense of timing still is very enjoyable in the movie.
Vidya Balan, well, I am only too happy to see her doing a purely performance based role, and which she delivers with the utmost ease of a veteran. Her performance in परिणीता was outstanding, and this as a follow up is only a little short particularly due to a smaller role in the movie.

The two shortcomings of the movie

• A weak story though an interesting one, which could have been elaborated more
• "Cheating" on the part of Balan's character in the movie, as it is conveniently moulded from a temptress to love torn lioness. In the end, her character was that of a strong woman who demands justice for the betrayal, but from the start it was just built as that of a manipulative and flirtatious woman. The transition of a character in such cases demands more intensity and detail. The director seemed careless/impatient on this count in this otherwise fairly 'intelligent' flick

Two more minor positives

• Intelligent music, which is given for Vishal Bharadwaj, but for the fact that he didn't get entangled in creating local/folk sound for the movie given the backdrop of rural India etc but experimented with the arrangement wrapping a rock-ish feel around the music
• Minor characters like the old woman and the young boy Nandu, add a different tinge to the screenplay, and were reminiscent of this style used by Sudhir Mishra in हजारों ख्वाहिशें ऐसी

In all a 4/5 to the movie

Strategy breaks

Well, for a change, the shorter it gets, the more exciting it becomes!! Well, before you get really excited on this new discovery, we are talking about cricket, from Tests with a day's break to Karry Packer's Pyjama cricket, down to the latest T20.

But in this age of instant karma, the organizers still want more sex out of the game. Here comes the controversial 'strategy break' between the innings. While some wonder if this is just to give more air time to slot hungry broadcasters and advertisers, I could think of more exciting ways to strategize the game.

Ok here it goes...

before the start of the match, the teams should be given a 10 min 'strategic negotiation' slots. In this case, one team can make the other team an offer, to have a particular player not bat/bowl in exchange for a fixed amount of runs/wickets. e.g. if Royal Challengers are fairly confident that Sehwag from the Daredevils is likely to score at least 35 runs in the match based on recent/past form, they can offer the Daredevils 30 runs (35 or less basically) in lieu of Sehwag not batting in the innings. To prevent the cricket match from completely becoming a strategy and negotiation play, such offers could be restricted to 3 players per team etc. This in a sense reflects the confidence level of the opposition team against a particular player.

While there could skepticism about this knocking down TRPs as there'd be lesser cricket, the live 'reality tv' broadcast element of the 'Strategic Negotiation' would only shoot up the TRPs given the recent fascination of the public towards this sickening show format.

Well, while you may wonder about the role of my Strategy lineage in such thoughts, if you look closely, this is likely to to create more job opportunities in my current profession of a quant wannabe, which is fairly important given the dearth of such opportunities in my current industry....

Hey......who woke me up!!!!