Can classics be popcornish?

Once upon a time, there used to be this golden era in the world of Hindi film soundtracks, obviously with stern references to the perennial ones. Then came the rejuvenated 80s and the congenial 90s. The subsequent decades witnessed glory and slump in vivacious intervals. 2011 is here, and I see a clear vicinity of creative inadequacies.

Today we lack the aura of playback singing that could evoke legacy. We miss writers who could pen down words like waves in an ocean that refuse to die and the meanings that could send a shriver down your spine. Yet, we live in an environment of extreme ignorance where the entertainment industry had started borrowing our gems from the past to hide our sustained prejudices. Please do not get me wrong, classics can get revisited but not tarnished.

Mohd Rafi was a legend, Manna Dey was exquisite, Mahendra Kapoor infused life, the genius of Kishore da was eternal. Further down, Udit Narayan and Kumar Sanu erected early nineties and refurbished their brand for almost one and half decades. Sonu Nigam further reestablished the soul of Rafi Saab and Abhijeet/Babul Supriyo/Shaan showed glimpses of the great Kishore Kumar. I miss their fervour and mince no words about it.

Sahir Ludhianwi isn’t there today, Gulzar chooses meticulously and Javed Akhtar only scripts for his children. Where are the writers whose pen was mightier than sword? I see no words these days, they cheat without glitz and publish sans elegance.

I am contemporary and enjoy versatility in music, especially films made in our inevitable Bollywood. I can relish the talents from the glorious fifties to my very own 2011. But I doubt if my children will remember the munnis and sheilas 20 years down under. I have a shalu now but that makes matters worse.

I get a feeling that we have sort of subsidised our talents by cashing in on our very own chartbusters of yesteryears. Remixes have become household cacophony and tracks are nurtured for the sake of animosity.

‘Dhanno’, ‘Mit jaaye gham’, ‘Laila o laila’ are few of those sizzlers which were distinguishably part of pedestrian projects. Have we run out of stock? Are we judiciously inadequate to produce winning tunes? Do we miss our prodigious talents who were instrumental in belting those número uno numbers for more than 30 peerless years?

I am afraid, but I might be bang on.

‘yeh saali zindagi’: the damn riveting consensus..

‘Is raat ki subah nahin, Hazaron khwahishen aisi, Khoya khoya chaand, Love, dosti, etc’ panned fluctuations of a meagre genre that suffice panoramic strokes. Sudhir Mishra doesn’t disappoint and delivers a slickly made non conventional drama of our pedestrian yet fabulous lives.

‘Dilli mein aag laga doonga’ defines the gist of characters that follow suit (the lip licking sequences are aberrations to quote the emergence of modality) and each undermines one another with characteristic élan. Irrfan Khan’s scripture of a lame mind that refuses to wane away despite indifference in commitment appreciates innocence. Saurabh Shukla enthrals (once again) and Chitrangda plays to her skin as the naive inhabitant.

I strongly confess that my outliner for life would be a split congruence: life could be a bitch, at times, even bitchier! YSZ epitomises this poem in abundance. The title song remains my favorite and demolishes the orthodox familiarity of impressive and soothing lyrics. Music as a whole, has been a show stopper in this fickerish drama and surprisingly, aids the cast phenomenally.

Sudhir knows how to extract the best out of his lead actors and YSZ is no exception. They ooze skepticism bundled in feather touch brutality with consummate ease. And, that for me, is the winning element in this dark and gorgeous enactment.

Life is still beautiful but saali yeh zindagi hai badi ajeeb :)!

7 Khoon Maaf: Seventh Wonder!

Ruskin Bond couldn’t have dreamt of such a spectacular brochure of his own work on silver screen; VB’s take on this classic is nothing short of a revelation and is beyond the congruency of the Indian audience to get the reverberation within from a magnum opus like this one.

VB makes it very clear in the credits pertinent to the script and doesn’t mince words; but the treatment of the same stands out. It would be unfair to have this compared with his earlier products (even though Maqbool and Omkara still ranks above all else for me) but this one would hover around very close to be the número uno. Editing and the pace has been persistent without compromising the intensity factor; the vintage solitude and the precarious monument of vivacious crime spells brilliance.

The casting of the dispensable husbands has been near perfect; the pick of the lot being the inclusion of the talented and underrated Annu Kapur; the camaraderie of the characters were stunning. The music was surprisingly ordinary and except ‘Darling’, others failed to grab my attention. Screenplay mesmerised.

‘7 Khoon Maaf’ will go down as Priyanka Chopra’s most exquisite till date. She was passive, restrained and versatile; she looked ominous in every frame of her diverse portrayal. I must say that she is one actor who has immensely matured in the last five years and the performance here has been the icing on the cake.

VB’s efforts have always caught my attention; this one enthrals to the core.

When nostalgia kissed me..

As I happened to have ventured towards the northern territory of Chennai or the old Madras, as it is popularly syndicated, the flashback in me triggered unsurmountable waves.

This is was probably one of those first instances when the need arose to be wandering in the vicinity of the legendary city and I must admit, that I fell in love with ‘ Madras’ more than the inclination of this modern city that has captured my life for the past 7 years. As a person, I have always valued my roots and am a strong believer in legacy; this part of the mercurial city took me back home, to Calcutta.

The adjoining areas that progress from Anna Salai towards Central, the elongated stretch beyond Parrys and the track that paves the way towards Royapuram is reminiscent of ‘North Calcutta’. MG Road, the legendary BBD Bag Dalhousie Square, The ever resplendent ‘College Street’, the panoramic ‘Writers and High Court’ structures, the ‘GPO’, the ‘RBI’ landmark and the towering ‘Howrah Bridge’ played havoc within me as I surged past these landmarks gleefully on a serene Sunday.

Perhaps, the oldest cities in our country (obviously the four metros) replicate themselves via strong resemblances towards their vintage history and the fight to renewed existence. Moreover, their charm lies in their maverick past of staggering occurrences. History was one of my revered subjects as a student, but it is certainly one of my inspirations which is voraciously visible when I pen down acquaintances clubbed with live experiences.

Mumbai (Bombay, rather)and Delhi, I am coming for you!

Mumbai: Common man’s penchant for paradise

The more elusive is the portrayal of Mumbai, the greater becomes the inquisitiveness to garner more about this talked about city in India, and contagiously, the world is equally famished for this provocatively charming hub of social and political interference.

‘Dhobi Ghaat’ resurfaces as yet another depiction of intermingling human relationships and conflicting diversified in this city of vigorous debonair and sultry ambience. ‘People’ have always triggered themselves in to unceremonious situations astonishingly, figure out their own classic ways to come out of it with struggle and ease as their closest aids. This 1 hour 50 minute drama is a bundle of sequences stitched together with few non compromising characters from the versatile strata of our evolving society. I liked it for the way all the characters divulged in to one another in an array of concurrent yet non segmented closets; the simplicity was striking and casting evoked substantial rhythm.

Yet another piece of vibrant cinema in packets of the streets in ‘Amchi Mumbai’ has been a collateral effort. And I am delighted to have such subjects being explored and rendered from the pervasive house of ‘Aamir Khan’.

Goodness has never confined itself to any caste, creed or religion; DG oozes this aspect of our dispensable lives in a poignant fashion.

De-biographically, evolution has been enchanting!

A submissive kid used to be once quite and submerged in self confessed union. He was, reluctantly part of a regular ‘pada’ football match and was oblivious of the concurrent events that was going to change his life. He caught hold of the pervasive ball like ‘Eknath Solkar’ but to his dismay, he was ridiculed to eternity and was unceremoniously rejected out if this entire proposition of playing with pros. He left, sobbing and humiliated.

Few weeks down the line and out of sheer sympathy and pity of discarding a child from being exposed to hopeless opportunities, he was called back and emphatically offered the role of a goal keeper. The amateur failed but showed promise. A year and two frisks past and shockingly in the same fraternity, a soccer game never commenced without the champion player who once sulked in to ominous ignominy of not understanding the crucial chapters of the great game. Gloriously, locals touted him as the little ‘Maradona’. Exaggerated but defines relentlessness and capacity to emerge for contention.

Time moved on, but childhood and adolescence did not prevail adulthood in a day and testimony exuded. The little boy was caught guilty of lying about his gorgeous scorecards that seldom reached dad’s stable and fathers usually hate liars! A corrigible and raunchy hit ruined his self esteem and shattered his nullified aspirations. Yet, that was to become his most important lesson as a relegated student and a bewildered teenager. The fruits, however, are now being reaped with acceptable pride and humility.

Sounds like obvious and known trivia? Subsequent and tranquil episodes to follow suit.

As a decade comes to an end and another journey commences..

I wish all my quantified readers, a delightful, accomplishing and sedate 2011!

‘Manmadhan Ambu’ – Vivaciously yours, Kamal Haasan!

For starters, this isn’t a Kamal film; it’s one of his usual gimmicks for a preparatory project before one of his magnum opus gets it’s financial dues. But it has glimpses of the Master and that is indicative of his relentless presence in MA.

I have always been critical of his screenplay and provocatively, he is staunch and unorthodox when he is at the helm of affairs to script and envision the dialogues. ‘Manmadhan Ambu’ has his touch crafted in periodic parts of this flick; and that remains it’s inevitable strength to hold the reins together.

He has the plot dimensionally quadruple; the usual choppy lines with courageous sense of humour is pivotal to the existence of all the characters (though nowhere when compared to his earlier gigantic works like ‘Michael Madana Kamarajan’, ‘Sathileelavathi’ and ‘Magalir Mattum’. But the flair is visible and even more explicit is the way Kamal has restrained himself by not sinking in to his own. He keeps reminding all of us that this is KS Ravikumar’s directorial venture, throughout. Indeed, it is. The entire cruise is on a roller coaster ride of entangled human relationships and spurious characters always oblige in such credulous pipelines. MA throws them as entertaining interventions, to say the least.

My favourite scenes are couple of them; the sequences when he is narrating his past with heart wrenching quotations of life and way of living it (including the derailed condition of his best buddy) has our quintessential Kamal in awesome flow. The reverse flashback of getting his dead wife in to the loop was shot impeccably.

The casting was decently etched. Madhavan was impressive, Urvashi played herself and Sangeetha walks away with the chunk of the cake. As a female counterpart of one of the protagonist in the film, she grabs accolades gleefully. Trisha was submissive and probably over awed in the company of the genius. There is nothing called chemistry between Trisha and Kamal in the film; it was evidently meant to be that way. And, honestly, I liked the way they confront each other when the former tries to approach him to divulge the painful truth behind the occurrence of the calamity in his life.

The music and background score are story-centric and revolve around individuals in a implicit fashion; nothing much to talk about it though. The songs as such are forgettable.

MA will once again throw the mantle over to the writing credentials of Kamal; his screenplay was taut but story telling could be a touch better, especially when it is targeted for audiences who are not so adept in understanding his exploits with the pen. An entertainer with something for everybody. And, a touch of interim class from the debonaire Kamal Haasan.

When God came down and thanked Centurion!

I agree that the innings defeat took the sheen off the humongous achievement of 50 test tons. Wow!! What are we talking about? How could a cricketer who is human ever achieve this milestone?? I am sorry, but did you say 50 test centuries?? Crazy man…!!

Well, that’s exactly would have been the words uttered when you ask a Gavaskar or a Richards or even a Bradman for that matter, to even dream about those elusive figures. But not today.

Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome or rather, let’s worship and put our hands together for the one and only, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

I have and will continue to adore him for what he is; as a player and a human being. I have been his devotee ever since he scored that scorching century in Manchester or the ominous innings in Old Trafford at the tender age of 19. His 155 against the rampaging Aussies, the painfully staggering 136 against a world class attack of Wasim, Waqar and Saqlain, the divine 248 in SCG and the 6 majestic knocks against the potent Proteas are vivid in my mind as I recount the stories of inarguably the most gifted batsman the world of cricket has ever solemnised. Well, I certainly haven’t seen anybody better. I agree, I missed Bradman and Sobers; I have not seen Gavaskar or Boycott either; I even bypassed Barry Richards, Clive Llyod and Vivian Richards. Trust me, I have no regrets. I was probably delayed to have the finest at my disposal.

I have seen Sachin gone past numerous turmoils in his career spanning over a miraculous 21 years; I would probably land myself in the graveyard if I played a sport that long for my below ordinary credentials. But the Master has always exceeded expectations in style. Passion, simplicity and humility have been his hallmarks; tenacity is his watchword and discipline has always been his greatest armoury. I believe, that’s almost, nearly almost, the perfect package for any individual to succeed and accomplish. He is gifted, but talent has to be nurtured and Sachin has never taken his capabilities or success for granted. And for me, that’s what makes him what he is today. A superstar of the nation, a legend of the game and an all time great in the annals of world cricket. Yet, today, he manages to safeguard his cherubic image with an astonishing blend of wavering passion and devotion for his profession, which is contagious to say the least.

I need not state these today when he is on the pinnacle of his game; I found myself aptly placed to write about one of the greatest role models in my life.

As I sign off, I salute him for what he is; not for his achievements but for the way he has accomplished every feat in a fashion of indispensable maturity.

Guzarish – An ethereal request and a sublime denial marks the jubilation of SLB’s classic

‘Guzarish’ has the quintessential class of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It also marks the return of the filmmaker after the obvious debacle of ‘Saawariya’ (I know he terms it as his most valuable work till date). Even before I begin, I would like to conclude: if ‘Black’ gave the much needed impetus to the credentials of SLB, then ‘Guzarish’ catapults him to the elite ranks of ‘Numero Uno’ status in our country.

The life of a quadriplegic is summed up in a painful yet supremely exquisite fashion with sumptuous quantity of humane content. ‘Guzarish’ is not depressing; it augurs the inevitability of life with a positive fragrance that becomes the influx of this film with dramatic proportions. ‘Guzarish’ does not promote Euthenasia, it visibly states the agony and excruciating life (cannot be termed as pain since he doesn’t or cannot feel anything) of Ethan from the sole perspective of him being alive with the fact that he would never live his life on his own terms. ‘Guzarish’ clubs intensity with human emotions and judiciary indulgence at the expense of atrocity that Ethan has been a part of for the last 14 years.

His life is a quadrangular affair with Sophia (played emphatically by Aishwarya Rai) complimenting his life with roles of a friend, lover and wife, his best friend who loves him but detests his pain to forego the annals of the lawful system and his doctor, whose sole achievement in terms of sharing, perseverance and hope is Ethan. Yet, Ethan decides to call it quits after 14 years of vegetable-ism. Notwithstanding, his ‘Radio Zindagi’ is an outright success due to his phenomenal approach to life and inducting others in to the hall of fame for the sake of this beautiful life, which he feels, is to be lived and loved. Yet, he dispatches the news of his petition to the world with a pride of a god and convinces all that he is human.

Bhansali has dominated this film throughout and deservedly so. Sudeep Chatterjee’s cinematography is top class and the screenplay has been precise. For a subject like this, the editing has been almost perfect and the casting has delivered power house acts.

Finally, the performances. Let me not mince words here – ‘Guzarish’ will go down for Hrithik Roshan as his finest. He has evolved as an actor and Bhansali has discovered the true potential beyond measures. His moves, his posture, the magical aura and the disabled hunk has been depicted with rare authenticity. But he is not taking the cake alone. I would also rank this as Aishwarya Rai’s bravest attempt in celluloid and she impressed me with her histrionics here; whether it is her oblivious reaction to Ethan’s decision or when he proposes her before the ultimatum, her expressions were brilliant and covertly toned to the demands of the scene. Aditya Kapoor is a good prospect and I am sure we will see more of him future.

Well, I guess, my verdict is pretty clear. ‘Guzarish’ is SLB’s greatest offering since ‘Black’ and he has not disappointed me. I would be heading towards the theatres on a couple of more occasions to watch this spectacle unwind in front of me.

Flashback: Parzania – A story that leads to the glorious hell

If candy floss entertainment is your bane, then Parzania will be a very hard pill to swallow; I do not recommend it for those who are in a pretext to focus on the non-essentials.

‘Parzania’ is a heart wrenching tale of a middle class self satisfied yet open minded and suave family whose life comes to a standstill when pandemonium breaks in the form of the devastating riots in the heart of Godhra, Gujarat on the sinful day of 27th February, 2002.

Gujarat was and has never been the same place since and India as a nation, visited apocalypse, again.

The sort of portrayal of a simple yet jovial family reaches it’s fulcrum of defeat and agony when one fine day, hundreds and thousands of Hindu activists romp in to a muslim community in retaliation of the murder of around 59 people (predictably Hindus) who were reportedly returning from Ayodhya in a train in Godhra. What follows is sheer madness and the utter sense of disrespect amongst cannibals for human lives. Women are raped (even little girls are not spared), men are tonsured and brutally murdered in front of their kith and kin and children are just dismissed as another set of commodities who breathe. ‘Parzania’ is a true depiction, inspired by real life events that unfolded on that fateful day in Gujarat and India, and very few would want to recollect those shameful events that marked yet another ignominious chapter in the annals of Indian history.

Dholakia directs admirably with an impeccable star cast; Naseer is rock solid and Sarika is an able ally. The little kids exude innocence, especially Parzan, whose pseudo image and could-be evolution of the fantasy zone is the sole soul of ‘Parzania’.

‘Parzania’ is a must for very Indian who is proud for what India is not. If given a chance, I would give it a miss, for my heart bleeds when I watched those tearful moments on screen and would urge you all to watch it for our future generations. I beg you, this is not the India I want. Neither do you.