Comfortably dumb

Do I need to have point of views on life? Am I allowed to be self-centred all my life, interacting with the world through the windows on my floating cocoon-ed life, and being well ensconced in there, without caring to come out, Do I need to know what am I looking for, and the best part, is it ok if I still don't care much :) ?

Hello, hello.........is anybody in there........

....you may feel a little sick.......I do believe its working.....a distant ship's smoke.....

.......when I was a child.......okay...just a little pin-prick....aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

"Ze kya bakwaas hai, bhai?"

Jashn - The music within

Okay, this was audacious. I took the risk of going to watch the "typical" movie. Apart from an uncanny desire to do some cliched stuff, I went in primarily to see Shahana Goswami's performance. Had really liked her in Rock On. Also, as per some review, this could be an old Mahesh bhatt style movie exploring the intricacies of human relationships.

Hedged my risk to an extent by watching the movie at Gaiety theatre (75/- only), the now-old but once-upon-a-time revolutionary multitheatre concept. Deja-vu was in the air, with touts psssst'ing around for selling black tickets, something we have forgotten in the multiplex era.

The 'crowd' too was from pretty much from all walks of life, unlike the middle/upper middle clas which we find in multiplexes.

I knew I was in for some entertainment, if not from the movie, then at least from the crowd, as slogans of "vande mataram" and "bharat mata ki jai" took over just as the mandatory national anthem got over.

The movie, though fairly predictable in its plot, is an earnest effort. Over-acting has been avoided, no songs running around the trees, a trend catching up these days.

Shahana Goswami has again delivered a natural performance, though in the end you wonder, what was the emotional-pana all about. Adhyayan Suman has a long way to go to become a complete actor, but I do admire his honest effort, and probably the character he plays, that of a young & wayward artist, who is still trying to figure out what he wants to do in life, may not be too far from his real life persona, hence the fairly natural performance.

The stand-out part of this movie for me was the new age realistic portrayal of a brother-sister relationship, who are the closest buddies, instead of the tiring "mere bhaiya, meri behna" types portrayal, which has been beaten to death in Hindi movies.

Overall, I give it a 3/5, for the honest effort by actors who are more or less newcomers.

and things, they-are-a-lookin' up!!!

Stock market is doing okay, I have survived the humid Mumbai summers without an AC, mosquitos haven't paid much of a visit this monsoon, me finally did some meaningful work this year (repositioning pitch for a business line, ok it was just a ppt, so what :) ), probability horizon of keeping a job has gone up to over 6 months, looks like I may be able to afford a house in Mumbai (at least the loan-wallas think so) , AND I HAVE LOST 3 kgs of weight, yippeeee!!!!!!!

Sri Jimi

Managed to attend a concert I had been waiting forever, the Jimi hendrix of Carnatic Rock, Prasanna. From Carnatic Fusion to Rock to Pure Jazz, this guy is master. And the rhythmized version of Thriller/Bad as a tribute to Michael Jackson was outlandish but brilliant.
And could finally add company to my gifted lone Prasanna CD, including an instructional DVD which hopefuly will be useful to the 'forever' beginers like me.

P.S: This guy left a cushy job post his B.Tech from IIT-Madras to pursue Music from the Berklee college of Music, he is my personal Hero.

गुलाल

How I wish I could command myself to write & update my blog!! But as with most things with life, I am a true 'naturalist', can't force nothin' on myself.

Having grown up in the environs of BHU (Banaras Hindu University, for the uninitiated), films related to student politics instantly strike a chord with me. Apart from the numerous कॉलेज-ishtudent kinda movies with an opening song like"ख़ुद को क्या समझती है, कॉलेज में नई-नई आई एक लड़की है"..., Gulaal & Haasil stand out in their realistic representation of the north-Indian neta-infested university campuses.

While Haasil stood out primarily because of an outstanding performance by Irfan Khan, Gulaal is remarkable because of a multitude of characters, and all of which look very real. The confused-yet-resolute Dileep, Mahi Gill in a cameo, Deepak Dobriyal as the confident sidekick, all did justice to their characters. KK Menon probably for the first time gets a very meaty role in the movie, and though a bit repetitive in terms of the characters he plays, delivers a very strong performance.
For me, the standout part of the movie was the treatment of "Prithvi Bana", played wonderfully well by the ever-reliable Piyush Mishra. It is not easy to put a theatre-like character in a movie and still pull it off. His cynicism expressed in a deranged manner through weird lyrics and hindi poetry-sque dialogues was timed very well through out the movie.
Abhimanyu Singh as "Ransa" too put in a brilliant cameo.

On the minor negatives, I still can't quite figure out what was Jessy Randhawa doing in the movie, plus Ayesha Mohn didn't do enough for Kiran's character.

All in all, a brilliant movie by Anurag Kashyap, and a much better product than "No Smoking" & "Dev-D"
Am waiting for the next.