Wearing Flats..

A few days back I had gone out to the city centre mall for shopping some stuff before I left from Chennai for home sweet home, Jamshedpur on my summer holidays..I finished off my shopping by 3:30..I was fully exhausted and tired and was having the exact feeling for a power nap, the kind which ViruS used to have in 3 Idiots..So finding one lone corner and a bench just below the air conditioner vent I dozed off..

I woke up around 4 and was fully rejuvenated..Suddenly a beautiful young lady caught my attention..She was good looking, smart, sexy and above all Tall..So being the average heighted guy, my vision slowly shifted over to the height of her heels..Alas!!I was shocked..This bomb shell was not wearing any stilettos..On the contrary she was wearing Flats..This raised my suspicion and made me sit down for a while and ponder..

I clearly remembered telling my mom in the late 90’s and early 2000’s to wear high heels..She always wore flats and I kept on pestering her to wear heels because all girls among my friends used to wear stilettos on any occasion they could get other than school..Be it the girls from my school or the girls from sacred heart convent who I knew pretty well..All of them used to keep lurking for opportunities to wear stilettos..And my mom, being her sexy self, never ever looked towards high heels..This pissed me off pretty badly..She used to have just one dialogue on her lips always, “One day you’ll see that comfort is more important than style..”

Was this day THAT day??Sitting on a lonely bench of city centre, being around 5000 miles away from me, my mom made me wonder at her foresightedness..I kept sitting on that corner bench and checking out the ladies passing by towards the exit..You won’t believe it, 95% of the girls and ladies I noticed for that period of half an hour dint bother to wear high heels..One or two in intermittent spurts came wearing a little heel but that too not something of the stiletto standard..

Amidst this turmoil and remembrance of the past I completely forgot about the girl I was looking at (oh please, come on, I was not ogling) who inaugurated this thought in the deepest corners of my grey matter..I just stepped up and walked out of the air cooled mall and walking in the sweltering sun’s heat just thanked that girl for making me think and increase my trust in my belief that my mom could really see the future..

Surely my mom was right then..Comfort does come before style and it took me so many years to believe her prognostication..

Jaishree Ram,

Prats..

Rajneeti----The game of politics..

Come the morning of the 11^th of June I finished off with my classes early and headed off for the movie which I had been eluded off for a long time..Rajneeti..The movie released around a week back and all my friends had already seen it and I was the only unlucky one in the group who was unable to have the pleasure of this movie..I had been down with malaria the week this movie got released and thus I was unable to go.. But I was not one to give up on a movie with such a huge star cast to boast of..Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Katrina Kaif, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ajay Devgn and Naseerudin Shah..This was just a glimpse of the whole star studded cast..Anyone can imagine what the movie offered with this full long awesome cast..The star cast in itself shouted their lungs out for what was at stake in this movie..All my friends had raised laurels of praise for this movie and now I had to (read HAD TO) see this movie..

So I saw the movie..

3.5/5..

Don’t go on the rating of this movie..This is a movie that I had seen after a long time which portrayed the stark reality of the dirty side of the Indian politics..This movie, pre-release, had created speculations of it being colligated to the most sovereign Indian political family..The Nehru-Gandhi family..The family which had been the blood stream of the most primeval Indian political party..The Congress..But after I saw the movie I could relate very less with the Congress..This movie was less of Congress and more of politics on the lines of Mahabharata..

This movie portrayed Nana Patekar as Lord Krishna, Ranbir Kapoor as the ace archer Arjun, Arjun Rampal as the eldest and most politically correct Yudhisthir with traits of the very strong Bheem, Ajay Devgn as the most loyal and wronged Karna, Manoj Bajpayee as the evil brother Duryodhan, Darshan Zariwala as the grand old man Bheeshma Pitamah and the two brothers, the fathers of Ranbir-Arjun and Manoj Bajpayee, as Pandu and Dhritarashtra respectively and last but not the least Arjun Rampal, Ranbir Kapoor and Ajay Devgn’s mother as Kunti..

This was the only thing that I personally dint like in the movie..The characterisations on the lines of Mahabharata, the epic which is considered so sacred by the Indians all over the world..The things that are shown in the movie are exactly as they were in the epic and thus full points for the screenplay on those lines but but but, we should not forget that we Indians do take our myths and Gods pretty seriously and thus any joke or any kind of disrepute or any sort of defiling or any form of defaming on their part is not taken in that well by us, Indians..But when you have a story as strong as this then do you care about the small mistakes done??

Another thing that I dint like in the movie was the dialogues part..The movie dialogue writer forgot one thing that the dialogues which were applicable in the Mahabharata are really not applicable in the real life of present day..Dialogues such as “Tum mere Jeshtha putra ho” are really not acceptable..These dialogues more than creating the impact caused the audience to burst out in guffaws of laughter spells..All the dialogues especially of the mother of the house, the Kunti of the family, were like the sole comedy provider of the movie..

Before seeing this movie I was of the opinion that the political scenario of our country had become very fair..I was proved so so wrong by this movie that I had to rethink the idea of a fair election..The elections in our country are indeed heading towards being more or less perfect and devoid of horse trading and we are almost on the verge of having perfect fair elections but inside the party???There lies the big question..Inside the political party there is every bit of back biting, back bitching and horse trading..Just to get a party seat from a certain electoral ground these politicians leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of their happiness..

The characters have been very well characterised and played by the actors..The story goes on a specific storyline and the best part is in the direction..The direction is miraculously done by Prakash Jha..Prakash Jha always tells the world by his movies that he is a perfect genius of the political situation in our country..He does his home work terrifically and then gets on with the business of movie making..He earlier showed this by his movies Gangajal and Apaharan and yet again he has showed his prowess in Rajneeti..

Thus once again I would want to state that Rajneeti did what not many of our previous movies had done, put light on the horse trading inside the political party and the back biting and back bitching inside the four walls of the legislative secretariat house or the parliament but it could have done it without tarnishing the image of our sacred epic, The Mahabharata..

Jaishree Ram,

Prats..

Y Bollywood still can’t and Hollywood still does it once again..!!

This article is not about the age old battle that we Indians keep playing in our minds as to which is better and finally conclude that Bollywood is in its place just as Hollywood is in its place..This article is abt Hollywood proving it once again that it knows the world market much better than Bollywood..This article is abt the last two movies that I saw..KITES and PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME..Both of which promised to be of international flavour..

On the 21^st of may along with my friends, I woke up in the morning in full enthusiasm..The zeal was of going out to see Kites..A movie which we were expecting for the past one and a half years to get released..Finally a Hrithik Roshan movie..Finally a movie after the terrific portray by him of the gorgeous, handsome and very dashing Mughal king, Akhbar..A movie which had a Mexican beauty, Barbara Mori, flaunting a bikini on all the promos in front of a perfectly chiselled torso of Hrithik..A movie which created so much buzz even before it had started the shooting schedule..A movie which got delayed firstly due to 3 Idiots and later due to My Name Is Khan..Finally the movie was hitting the screens..So we all left in full eagerness to see this super hyped movie..

We saw the movie..

2.5/5..

Can you believe it!!That would be the maximum I would give to this movie and that too only for the director and the actors..This is a movie which according to me had everything in it..And everything was at its supreme peak..The only thing lacking in the movie was a STORY..The movie had very good acting from both the lead actors and as well the supporting cast and the villains too..The movie had some very good action sequences which were looking of international standards..The movie had a very good director in Anurag Kashyap who did a terrific job and kept up to his expectations..Just had Rakesh Roshan hired a good story writer the movie would have been far better..Coupled with all of this the music of the movie was bland and insipid..Excepting one song none of the others left a mark..Hrithik on his tweet once said that the movie is well accepted by the foreign audience..That may not be a hoax..The movie was actually not made up to the Indian mind set..We Indians however much we become westernized we still want our hero in the movie to get the gal..We Indians can’t see sad endings..We strive to see happy endings..That’s y the phrase “Happys Endings”.. Thus I would finally like to conclude by saying that the movie which the producers claimed to have been an international standard Bollywood movie was a dud and did let every Indian down and did not prove even one bit of its worth of being an international magnum opus..

Next lets jump to the first of June..Morning 10:30 I finished off with my classes and planned to go for seeing the movie Prince of Persia: Sands of time..This is another movie whose trailer I saw around 6 months back and instantly fell in luv with..This was the movie which was life based of one of my favourite childhood computer games of the same name, Prince of Persia: sands of time..This game had two more parts and I loved them all equally..I especially always loved Prince Dastan..And the way he always saved the princess..The graphics of the game are so superb that I just keep on playing it for hours whenever I start the game..My other friends were not able to go with me because they had their classes still on so I, being an ardent fan of the game and even more enthusiastic after seeing the promos, set out alone for seeing the movie..

I saw the movie..

5/5..

Can u believe it..A Hollywood movie set nowhere near about the western modern world nor in any stylishly gorgeous European country but in the deserts of the present Persia..The country which is considered as the father of all civilizations, Mesopotamia..The lead character played by Jake Gyllenhaal as prince Dastan reminded me of the game which I used to play and in all manners Jake was a better prince Dastan than what I had been all these years..And the actress, Gemma Arterton, was looking an actual Arab beauty..She was the perfect Damsel in Distress..The best part was the story..Adapting a movie from a game is not very easy..Previously many movies had done good business like Lara Croft but many dint do well even..So it’s hell of a risk..But still the makers Walt Disney took it onto them to make this movie a grand one..The action sequences were spell bounding, the cameraman-ship was outstanding and above all the direction was impeccable..The shooting locales, although half of it was built in the studios itself, were awesomely portrayed and depicted to a life size image..Finally but not lastly in any way, the animation work..It was something that I had never ever seen so beautifully done..The transformation of a life sized person into tiny miniscule particles of sand grains was a tough job but none the less was shown in a breathtaking way..Coupled with all of this the movie had a very good background score and the stunt sequences were as real as the game..The stunts were depicted by Jake Gyllenhaal just as they are in the game itself..

Thus I would end my argument by saying that Hollywood yet again showed the world that it does not require to make a movie set up in the western world or the flashy Europe but they can make a miraculously stylish film for an international audience anytime..Whereas Bollywood which claimed this Hrithik-Barbara starrer as the first movie to be made in Hindi and English simultaneously could not muster up the masala quotient that it was supposed to garner..

So once again a thumbs down to Kites and a holla ho to the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time..

Jaishree Ram,

Prats..