waiting for 5th September as Kashmir meets Mumbai onscreen

Am not sure how great will the next Friday be but I think it is going to be a different Friday. 2 unusual movies are going to get released on next Friday and the story they have to tell us looks simply amazing.

A Wednesday is a thriller centered around happening on a Wednesday in the city of Mumbai. It is about how a police commissioner confronts a difficult situation. It brings the two greats Anupam kher and Naseeruddin Shah together along with Jimmy Shergill. I doubt how good the movie would have been executed, but after a Mumbai meri Jaan I do expect decent stuff from UTV.

Tahaan on the other hand has a different hero. The hero is a young boy and the story is about his love for his donkey. Unusual story telling by all standards but that is not what we would be waiting for in this movie. The movie will give us a view of beautiful Kashmir valley from the best eye of camera in the present day Indian Cinema – Santosh Sivan. Starcast for this movie too is impressive – Rahul Bose, Anupam Kher, Victor Banerjee, Sarika and Rahul Khanna. To know more check this out : http://passionforcinema.com/tahaan-exclusive-look-and-theatrical-promo/

Mumbai Meri Jaan : Ek Cheez Ke Hai kai Naam yaha...

Imagine, What happens when your loved one gets a cut on her hand, what are you reactions? What happens if in place of a cut on finger it’s the finger or worse still the hand that gets chopped? It would hurt you, wouldn’t it? Now imagine if you knew you could do something to save this, if you knew that it is your carelessness and indifference that has lead to this? Wouldn’t you feel guilty? You surely will and post facto you feel that you would go to any extent to save your loved ones. But the hard reality is its post facto. A major event like aa 11th sept. or 11th July changes the lives of the people who are affected but for everyone else it is just a gruesome news. Would it require hundreds of blasts killing atleast someone loved for everyone to get us together? I think that is the core of the message that “Mumbai Meri Jaan” wants to pose. It’s a movie that makes an appeal. As the title credits passes on with the videos of our political history being played on the screen, I thought that the movie is going to be a docudrama on what happened during the serial Mumbai blasts in the train and how people tackled it and I almost believed that by intermission. But a movie that starts off with its cast, acting the crowd that we see every day in trains, in buses, on roads, in malls, in colleges, in offices, takes a sharp turn midway and goes on making many comments on the social consequences of an insensitive individualism that we are breeding.

We are the characters :

Mumbai Meri Jaan is about us. It is about things that drive us. Fear, Hatred, Necessities, fame, power, ambition, love and frustration at times. It focuses in the first 5 with its 5 characters Nikhil Agarwal (Madhvan), Suresh (Kay Kay), Tukaram Patil (Paresh Rawal), Rupali (Soha Ali Khan) and Thomas (Irrfan). There is a beautiful small role played by Vijay Maurya (as constable Kadam), who builds in a frustration of not doing what he must do. That small role shows the other aspect of these drives, frustration for not being able to do what one is supposed to do. The story is about how one event and its aftermath changes lives of these 5 characters.

Nikhil’s wife is expecting a child, he travels by train, he wants to do keep Mumbai safe and clean in his own small way. He is a believer that small efforts from everyone will count. He represents an Ideology that a small part of our young, literate, upwardly mobile young people likes. His life changes as he sees that anything could happen to anyone. He is scared for his family and for the society. He has an option of moving out of the country and but he chooses not to run away from the problems that his society is facing. The blast induces in him the fear of the thing happening again during his travels.

Suresh on the other hand builds hatred towards Muslims. He is an educated person, with work not coming his way. The blast builds up this hatred as he tries chasing Yousuf, whom he suspects has some connections with the Blast

Rupali represent that part of the society which is the source of information for everyone around. She represents the press that sensationalizes every issue and gets a story out of pain for their viewership. The blast gets her fiancé killed and the tables turn as she becomes the story herself.

Thomas, is the ignored, unimportant, underprivileged and suppressed part of our society. He is nothing to any body, and so is his family. The world he lives in has nothing for him apart from suffering, all pleasures are for the rich. The blast gives him a chance to become important. His stray phone call makes him feel important as he could see people panicking and police moving around with his one phone call.

Tukaram and Kadam are the mute spectators. Tukaram representing the major part of us who have adjusted to whatever is happening and though he knows what is right and what is not, he has no intentions even trying to correct the wrong, as he knows there are powers bigger than him which would not let him do that. Kadam on the other hand feels he is avoiding his duty by not doing what is right. Some of the most beautiful dialogues in the movie come through their interactions. Blasts changes their lives as they realize that they need to do their duty, however difficult it may be, they need to try getting out of the usual and do things differently. They represent the unequipped saviors that we have in our policemen.

One day...

The movie in place of showing a dark saddening consequence, which real life has, turns to a very optimist ending. Nikhil overcomes his fear, Suresh his hatred, Rupali her hypocrisy, Thomas his need for attention and power and Tukaram, his corrupt life. The movie has a lot to say as the lives of its characters move on. The movie ends with a note of hope for everyone.

Due Credits

I would absolutely and loudly like to appreciate the director Nishikant Kamath for not sticking to the real life situations that we face in the second half of the movie and giving a critical statement on society through his work. The second half of the movie moves the normal people he shows in the first part to their edge. It was a kind of storytelling post interval that I enjoy the most. I would have loved it even more if the director would have featured the why part of the movie well. There was no mention on the motives of the people who do this. They too are as much a part of us as the other characters are.

Another person who I think should be given as much credit as Nishikant for the movie is Yogesh Vinayak Joshi. He is the one behind the screenplay, story, dialogues and lyrics. Screenplay is very tight and leaves you spell bound. I thought there were few artistic masterpieces that he brought in as the story moved. Few of the scenes will leave a long impact. A few of my favourites were :

• One where Irrfan as he gets down from his cycle, buys a 2 rs. Parle-G biscuit to have as food with a cup of tea looks over a rich brat, smoking a 100rs. Cigarette and throwing his mobile worth a few thousands on road in anger, crushing it. Beautiful.
• Other scenes were the ones like Madhvan watching the potholes thinking of the taxes he pays and the government, a small sequence where the reporters making story out of Rupali, walks over the reflection of hers on the tiles of her house, also the one where Irrfan Khan spreads his arm and feels powerful after the phone calls, One where Kadam tries to kill himself and the one where Madhvan watches India and then America in the google earth depicting the difference. All these without a single dialogue will leave you with a lot of food for thought and few tears in your eyes.
• Surprisingly the person who wrote these beautiful scenes also wrote the beautiful dialogues in the movie, with most of the Kadam – Tukaram dialogues written with great panache. “Dil ke theatre mein picture ko chalne dene ka, par act nahi karna” , “ hum kab se yahi kar rahe hai… kisi ko to kuch alag karna padega, agar tu mujhe dhakka mare aur mein tujhe nahi maru to ?” “Sir insaan ko hevaan banne mein sirf 2 minute lagti hai” “ Ye Log Piyenge nahi to Mumbai mein Spirit Kaha se ayega” … and so on.

Cinematography by Sanjay Jadhav captures the life of mumbaikars in the office, in the trains, in the chawl and in the small shoddy hotels very well. Editing by Amit Pawar fits the narration best. A special mention I think should be given to the visual effects by Rajiv Raghunathan as the blast scenes are absolutely moving. They jolt you in your seat and make you feel the pain of the victims.

Irrfan Khan and KayKay I thought were the real winners amongst the actors. Beautiful expressions, bringing life to even those scenes that hardly had any dialogues. Paresh Rawal shines as was expected from him and so does Vijay Maurya. Soha Ali Khan apart from a few jittery dialogues does very well in a few of the scenes. Madhavan I thought was a perfect casting in the role he played.

One department that I thought could have been better was music and the back ground score (Sameer Phaterpekar). Barring this and the fact the movie left a stone or two untouched, not getting in to a territory that could lead in to a cluttered story line or the fact the movie gets into the preaching mode at times, the movie has a little to get criticized about. Ofcourse, the technical parts of the movie making have been far better in many other movies, but storytelling, which is the most important of it, has been beautiful in the movie.

With a bias for the fact that the second part of the story telling was more towards my liking I would like to go with a 4* for this movie.

Vonamor Quizzing : Started On the Rocks

You know not what a kick of alcohol could mean unless you taste it. Same it seems is true for most of the feeling of elation in life. I never used to understand why would Abha feel too happy on giving an answer on stage, I knew it must be thrilling, but “Thrill” cannot be defined but can be felt. It was Tata Crucibles Corporate Quiz Pune Round Yesterday.

Firstly, for everyone I have not been a full time quizzer and quizzing came to me in my dowry. Thanks to my wife, she has introduced me to quizzing, which I find enjoyable.

Sunday evening event I am sure anywhere with the right ingredients could be a real good crowd puller and in this city of college students, quizzing it seems is a very famous sport. The crowd yesterday at the Taj Blue Diamond Hotel in Pune was huge and amazing. People poured in slowly but by the time the quiz started it was a packed house.

Tata Crucibles event is divided in to 2 tracks : A tata track for tata companies and a non tata track for all the others “who could yet not make it to tata” (as Giri Balasubramanian, pick brain says).

In Tata Track My wife Abha was representing TCS along with Soumya , who came down all the way from Mumbai for the quiz. Along came very cute Antara, her daughter. Soumya’s husband Arnab and his partner Arka represented the TIFR team. In non Tata Track, I had participated with Sandeep Singh.

Prelim I thought was tough. But it was absolutely wonderful. Unlike the quizzes where you answer the crammed questions this was more of working out the answers / Knowing current affairs. There were in total 25 questions and cutoff for both tata and non tata track, I assume would have been around 11. (Questions at the end of the Blog)

Then came the Tata finals with 6 teams on the stage. Abha and Soumya, Arnab and Arka, all made it to the stage with other teams from (pardon me if I get the names wrong , TACO, TAL, Tata Motors, TIFR, TCS and CRL). The first round was a direct question round and it looked like a warm up round for the teams. The teams got pumped up with the next buzzer rounds. TAL had been leading confidently with the rounds and were playing safe. TIFR and TCS were close enough to get them in any round. The questions at times were absolutely very difficult and at times it felt that yes this can be done. Last round was a buzzer round with possibility of scoring 10 points on each question, TAL leaded TCS with 10 points. In came a question, “ whom have Ranbaxy tied up with for distributing the free samples of their drug at a public place?” I knew Abha knows this answer and was sure with this answer they will tie with TAL. Tata Motors (who had by then given many wrong answers and had scored good negative scores) were in a hurry to score and come back, they went for the buzzer and gave a wrong answer again (they said Daiichi Sankyo, whereas the answer was PVR cinema for the drug Revital), Abha lost it on that question and they came second. But the improvement in quizzing that I have seen in Abha over last 2 years is simply fantastic. I could have never imagined my wife cracking a question on Football. She stumped me with an answer to a question “Which Football club has Tata Tea tied up with for …? “ … bang ! came her answer “Arsenal”. Amazing quizzing and amazing fight for a seat to the national finals. Congratulations TAL. Beautiful Effort Abha and Saumya.

Post the Tata track final came the non Tata Track round, I was hopeful and could get through on to the stage with Sandeep Singh. We were all pumped up with first question of the quiz directed to us “which company, incorporated in 1950 produces Trademark brands Zebra, Eastern Star and Army at their Sonepat Factory?” And I knew how difficult it would be for us to perform well :), (the answer was Atlas cycle which none of us got correctly). The first round passed on with BMC software team of Harish and Subhadip and Kotak’s team of Asit and Samrat being the 2 teams that scored. Then was a round on Tata, we gave a wrong answer and a right one(Sandeep Singh Cracked one on Tata Communications), which brought us again to zero. Third round was of connect and we had to guess the connect form the multiple clues. This was a difficult one. We cracked a passed question in this round. It had a song played “Chura ke dil mera”, “had a colourful ad as a second clue” “A flag with black yellow and white horizontal stripes” and a “Mascot with Mcdowells logo” … Shilpa Shetty features in Romanov Ads for Vonamor, I see her in newspapers all the time , how could we go wrong … First 10 points.

The penultimate round was of code busters identifying logos and guessing the answer. 3 questions passed, I knew answers for most of it, people were fast on buzzer could not get a single one on my plate. Sandeep was not ok with it, he wanted me to be aggressive, the last 2 questions he pressed the buzzer even before we could see the logos :), and thanks to my training from Abha I could crack both. We were the underdogs with just 5 points away from the second position. I think we were tense and we messed up with a wrong answer in the last round. But still ours was a performance that was absolutely unexpected.

One more thing about human psychology that I learned was, Audience love underdogs till the time a winner emerges. We as audience wants to see a good fight, we want to see comeback stories, we want the unexpected. Being an underdog feels good those times, but winners are the one who deserves it the most . Kotak Mahindra Team was fantastic and they won the quiz with a good lead at the end. Harish and Subhaeep too, I thought, truly deserved the second prize. Congratulations to both the teams..

For me, I discovered another enjoyable hobby for myself which gave me that Kick:).

Vonamor Quizzing.

Questions for the Prelims :
1. Which fairly big international brand produces cricket bats under the brand names “Ballistic stealth, velocity, and Atomic”? Puma
2. Which arms company, recently in news which started as Volcanic Repeators by Tom Kins was in news in India recently? It thought of chaning its name to SW at some point in time ? Smith and Wessel
3. There was a print ad, with a man looking down on a small opening in the ground and “he had dropped something” what is it? Lenovo Slim Laptop
4. Mark twain is supposed to have used this word in 1871 for the first time in the his work “roughing it”, it later went on to become name of a magazine. They tried Trademarking it, but being a common English word, it could not be patented. What? Hello
5. Which Famous Novelist appears on the notes of Scotland? Sir James Walter Scott
6. Owned by Random house which publication house is famous for “Borzoi”? Options were Mcmillan / Penguin / Alfred Knoff : Answer Alfred Knoff(I guess I have got the spelling wrong)
7. Which beer brand is made in (a set of places were given, goa, shivalik in Rajasthan….)…. There is a book written on this beer brand ? Cobra
8. JSW + Terapin came up with a set of 6 books for environment consciousness targeted towards children. Who is behind it ? TERI
9. In the world of Online Search what did Yahoo named its technique recently ? Datamine / Gluepage/ undertaker …. The answer was Gluepage
10. Airtel is having a JV with IFFCO to change the face of agriculture, who has now joined them ? Kishan sangh
11. Photo of YC Deveshwar
12. Which Indian Cricketer (with a link being fast) is going to endorse the Fly Brand of Mobiles? Ishant Sharma
13. Which Fames Jeans maker is going to produce OYO (On your Own) brand of kids wear? Spykar Jeans
14. Who was the sponsor for Fairplay award for IPL? Kingfisher
15. A logo was shown. Which famous brand in Rural Area? Avon Cycles
16. Dabur has come up with its health and beauty store. It is a new concept for you consumers. What is its name? Nu u
17. Which famous beverage company has come up with an idea of getting in to a totally different luxury segment with hotels called “The Serai”? The places which makes their beverage are being turned in to holiday spots? CCD
18. Which company has test marketed its brand Probase entirely in Pune. It is known more for its brands “genesis” and “Basics”. Name comes across as a kids company? Hasbro
19. In 1956 Time Magazine called this publication “A short lived Plup”. They say “True to our name we are ________” who? MAD
20. Hearst Corporation , Daily Inc owned Syndication company, one of the largest distributer of comics and text features in newspaper? Kingfeatures / Reuters / Peanuts ? Ans. Was King features.
21. “Nightingale” brand of diaries are made by whom at the beginning of every year? Srinivas Fine Arts
22. N Rangarao, who started this company producing this house hold commodity . what brand. It was in troubles for its name during election time? Cycle Agarbatti
23. Which Hollywood Studio gets its name from a famous landmark in Vancover? Lions Gate Productions
24. Ad of Camlin Markers (one where the husband comes back to life after death when wife’s bindi could not be removed)
25. Ad of SBI life (one where all very old ladies are going for wishing their younger brother chhotu , another elderly gentleman for his birthday)

After long long time ....

Last I wrote a post on my blog was 30th April, 4 months have passed after that, 4 long month when I had many things to say and express. Bigflix membership, Cricket matches, My 2nd marriage anniversary and my wife's birthday, A promotion and a little frustration at work, pay hikes, a new season beggining for singing competitions, Ranbaxy is sold, Jane tu ya jane na, A quiz from sakaal times and another from landmark, a few visits from our parents, a broken leg for my brother in law, marriage of 2 of my best friends (with each other).... a lot went into these months which I had to write but could not. Finally, I am back. I really missed writing in my space for all these days. Hope I will be able to catch up with my backlog soon and well.

God's Debris : from the mind that made Dilbert

Few are the times when something that you have thought of gets reflected in someone else's creation. The coincidence of views bring a unique kind of happiness. I had written a blog on Reincarnation and science (click here), where I tried to understand what reincarnation is from a scientific logical thinking, well the book that I read today was absolutely entirely viewing everything in a similar light.

God's Debris comes from the man who I think has given one of the best management books of our times - The Dilbert Principle. His style of writing is as simple as the way he has written the Dilbert . This book too like Dilbert tries to cover everything in its entirety. The book gives a solid philosophical point of view, that might interest the reader as he keeps on moving from one page to other. The book has been written in the form of dialogues, which reminds me of nothing else but Plato and Aristotle.

Scott Adams comes up with a philosophical piece that in its content, as is noticed by critics, has been strongly influenced by the Hindu scirputres, vedantas and the concepts of Karma, Avtaar etc. are seen throughout the book. Making a philosophical note, based on culturally different scriptures, and making it concise and understandable for everyone is no small feat. The book precisely achieves that and more.

Philosophical Questions that the book discusses

In a very simple manner, Adams has depicted a dialogue between an Old man and a young to list down and talk of those hunderds of things that we keep thinking of. who are we? who is god? does god exist or is it just a concept? what controls our mind? what is soul? who governs our actions? Do we have a free will? Are we more important then rocks, rivers, plants as living beings? how should one's life be? what is awareness? The list of questions that he has asked and that he has answered in his own way is definitely interesting.

The concept behind the book was something that impressed me the most.

What Adams say in one of the most important chapters of the book is, what / who is God?

• God is the at a very tiny level the dust that makes all of us, the very fundamental elemenatary piece of being and
• God is also the probablity that governs the world

At the very first glance considering god as nothing but dust and probability sounds absolutely absurd but a detailed dialogue on it makes us think in a line that we might not have thought before. Its the very improbable situation of getting hit by a lightening for example that keeps our life running. It is the high probability of living. There are odds and the way we need to live the life is to support the odds that goes for common good.

Concept of God's Debris

For an Omnipresent, Omnipotent God, who knows the future and the past, who knows his decisions and the aftermath of his actions, who knows everything that is there to know, who can do anything that he wishes to, who can create, who can change, there are no major challenges.

The only curiousity / challenge that he could have is to know what would his creation be if he is not there. It is this self destruction that god has imposed on himself creating the universe with his fragment (an idea of big bang). In that sense we are all God's Debris. And it is this debris that is coming together to form him again and hence the motto of our life should be to live a life that aids the creation of GOD.

Concept of Awareness

At the end of the book, Adams tries to put forward a concept of Awareness that could help us deal with the philosophical and worldly issues in a better manner.

The basic idea for the book is that the mind creates delusion, delusion to tackle the things unknown. Delusion to explain the unexplained. We consider most of the information that comes to us as true as it comes from sources which we believe are factually correct. we never question our assumptions. These assumptions that our minds construe creates delusion. Our minds hence is nothing but a delusion generator. Delusions help in simplifying things and understand the practicality, hence they are important and useful. Only important thing about awareness is hence to know the delusions for the way they are.

He hence divides people into 5 levels of awareness : From the very basic level of just being aware about our existence to the Avtaar level where we figure out our delusion generating machine correctly. And it is the Avtaar level where the main purpose of being is to serve. One can be equally useful being in each level and there is no inherent superiority of a layer on the other. Lower level brings happiness and higher level brings disenchantment.

Based on these above concepts the book discusses various social issues and understanding of these issues. Some of the things discussed with the above concepts and coming to logically understand the concepts are Free will and the concept of its existence, Science as we know it, the concept of soul, mind and ideas that we have, Reincarnation UFOs and GOD -all are but a concept, God's motivation, God's debris and its physics, Skeptics disease - irrational thinking, Understanding the concepts of light, concept of ESP, will power, Understanding actions required in living life the way it has to be lived and so on.

Criticism

A book that tries to cover everything definitely would have flaws that are evident. There were a few things that I noticed and thought could have been written better in the book :

• The later part of the book, especially the last 3-4 chapters seems to be unconnected to the things that Adams discsses in the earlier chapter. The social usefulness of awareness is defined and discsussed well, but its connection to God's Debris is not entirely explained.
• At few times the sentences explaining the concepts become too long and complex to understand.
• Lastly, It would have been great if Adams would have kept a dialogue on how can we with our understanding of probability and God's existence make a difference. The concept of fear, knowledge, rationalism, Goodness all could have been discussed in a little more detail.

Overall, the book comes out to be simply fantastic and it according to me is must read for any one who wants to delve a little in developing his own philosophy. The book will question you, move you make you think and wonder, make you rejoice in appreciating something you knew. It makes a great read which does not drag and keeps the point up in less than 150 pages. A definte 3.5* for the book from my side.

Free E-Book: To download the free E-book of "God's debris" please click here. I am not sure which site it is and whether or not it is a legally free copy but it does have a PDF for the book.

The Agony and The Ecstasy : A Book Review and an Essay on Michelangelo

Let me first accept, that this might turn out to be a long post. I have almost lived Michelangelo's life in the last couple of months as I read this book. Would not like to edit any thought that is coming to me about this book.

Beauteous art, borught with us from heaven,
will conquer nature; so divine a power
Belongs to him who strives with every nerve.

If I was made for art, from childhood given
A Prey for burning beauty to devour,
I blame the mistress I was born to serve.
-Mihcelangelo Buonarroti

He strived with every nerve, he served with every nerve and he rejoiced his creation in ecstasy through the years of agony he suffered with his every nerve. The story of Michelangelo is as interesting a read as his life must have been. Michelangelo said "Life is but to suffer, to work", a self induced agony of living a life that he knew was bringing the best moments the arts he traded in ever saw. The book takes you through the life of the great master of art and makes you live the moments which made him create the works he did. The book achieves a rare feat of exploring an artist's mind, without writing any critical essay on the work of art he creates. The book, though written in 1961 makes you feel that the book is a live account of Michelangelo's life, the way he lived it, 500 years back. This makes "The Agony and The Ecstasy" a phenomenal book.

Author : Irving Stone

A small research on the author of the book, Irving Stone, would make you realize the reason behind the success of creating such an Epic from a life which was illustrious in all sense. Irving Stone had a real love for art which shows both in the list of the books he has written and also in the book when he describes the creation of Michelangelo at every point.

"The Agony and The Ecstasy" is his second celebrated book after "The Lust for Life" (which was a biographical novella on Vincent Van Gogh). A note worthy appreciation that you feel after the reading the book has to be the fact that 95% of the long bibilography for this book is written in Italian and not English. Irving Stone followed the path of Michelangelo to create this masterpiece. This American writer, stayed in Italy for years , translated innumerable Italian documents (especially the 495 letters written by michelangelo), worked as an apprentice to a Sculptor Charles de Tolany to understand what goes through the mind of marble carver when he is making his sculpture, all this to write a masterpiece on life of a great master. Irving stone has also been awarded with many honorary awards for this by the Italian government.

A little criticism (which I am not sure if I am qualified enough to write)

The book moves through each phase each year of life of Michelangelo detailing the various events that were happening around in Rome and Florence as Michelangelo was spending the years creating his great work. The book details beautifully the first 60 years of Michelangelo's life, slowly unfolding the events of life, along with his sculptures, panting and poetry with a rare panache. It is the last 20 years that I am a little disappointed for. The last 20 years that made him dwell in to a trade which was not his through his life - Architechture, and which also details probably the most intense and greatest of his love - Vittoria Colona. Both the style of writing and detailing on his work on marble and painting, as well as his early love stories with Contessina Medici and Clarissa, seems to be a more interesting read.

Life of Michelangelo - as you live through the book

Stone has divided Michelangelo's life into Eleven chapters to make readers live each stage of his life come through in most intersting manner. Following is a small summary of what each phase is for for the Master's life.

Book 1 : The Studio : This part of the biography, is about the early years of Michelangelo Buonarotti. It describes how Michelangelo lived with his family, his father Lodovico who did not like art as profession, his step mother Lucrezia who has treated him like her own son, his grandmother who supported Michelangelo in all his confusions. This book is about Michelangelos first brush with art of painting at the Ghirlandaio's Studio. His fascination and experiments with painting. Michelangelo's childhood beautifully flows with introduction of some of the very best of renaissance artists. At Ghirlandaio's , he met Grannici with whom he was to share a life long friendship. The book also depicts his relationship with his brother Buonarroto with the stone cutters Topolino, who were like a second family to him throughout his life. Most importantly the book details development of Michelangelo's passion for art and his hard work.

Book 2 : The Sculpture Garden : The sculpture garden of the first family of Florence, Medici, was the place where Michelangelo was to put the foundation of his career. Here he meets his enemy Torrigiani as a fellow sculptor for the first time, he meets the first love of his lfe, the one who would influence his feelings of heart till his death - Contessina, daughter of the great Lorenzo Medici, Il Magnifico who exposed michelangelo to the world, so that he can be a learned man. The Book introduces Michelangelo to Lorenzo whose philosophies Michelangelo inherited for his life and Bertoldo from whom he learned sculpture.

Book 3 : The Palace : With Lorenzo insisting Michelangelo's company, he shifts to live with the Medici's in the Palace with a closer learning of the art from Bertoldo. The Plato four formed by the four of the greatest thinker of his time, stimulates his mind, makes him think about philosophy, spiritualism and religion and the purpose of each. They teach his the art of Poetry, which he had kept with him till the very end of his life. He with his christian beliefs had a mind that visualized the beauty of the world inthe most Pagan Greek point of view. If people thinks in the language they speak, Michelangelo started thinking in the language of art from the palace.

Book 4 : The Flight : This book marks the rise of rebellious Savanarola, death of Lorenzo, and growing need of michelangelo to understand the anatomy of human body to sculpt it and to paint it. Michelangelo approaches Prior Bichhelini for help him through his spiritual dilemmas. He dissects later the dead bodies, in the dark of night, without telling that to the world to understand how the human body is inside the skin. It is a treacherous path through blood and muscles that made him the master of understanding the anatomy of human body. He had to flee to Bologna, where in the political background of conspiracies of Piero, he meets mistress of Aldovrandi, Clarissa, the second love of his life. A love that consumed him as much as sculpture in a passionate embrace of expressions.

Book 5 : The City : This book takes Michelangelo to Rome, which becomes home for his second part of life. Rome marred with plague and a corrupt papacy, brings michelangelo closer to the pope as well as his art. This phase of his life makes him work the most as his fames spreads across Europe. He travels places sculpts bachhus and st proculus and other impotant works of his during this period. He meets clarissa again only to make her realize that Sculpture is what he loves the most and nothing else could fit in his life well. But this time marks one of the most beautiful of the sculptures he created - The Pieta. His Pieta was like one that never had been created. It becomes the only sculpture on which he carves his grieved by the confusion of its creator.

Book 6 : The Giant : Book 6 takes us through the part of creation of The Giant - David, the most remarkable and famous of Michelangelo's work. It is this time when he interacts with the best of the renaisance artist with pride, with envy, with emapthy and with respect at different times. His interactions with Leonardo da vinci, Raphael and others who happened to be his contemporaries are interestingly portrayed. The Giant brought about the good things that Florence had seen, marking the silencing of the political turmoil. People used to quote David's installation as a milestone in time, quoting contracts and writings with dates like "4 months after the giant" . His interactions with his friends, Jacopo Galli, Sangallo and others are interesting too. His interactions with Doni for the painting of the holy family made him worldly wise.

Book 7: The Pope : The encounters that Michelangelo had with Pope Julius II are one of the best documented and intersting portion of his life (so intersting that a movie was made out of this chapter of the book starring Charlton Heston). Michelangelo argues, gives up, fights, confronts the pope as he goes on creating the best of his work in times of pope Julius II. The most important of his work in this time was the paintings on Sistine chapel, which he first though was "Not his trade". His work for tomb of Pope Julius II and its commission is also one of the event that Michelangelo had to suffer from for next 30 years of his life.

Book 8 : The Medici : The Medici's again took prominence as a family as the pope after Julius, Leo was a Medici that Michelangelo had known for years. Under his papacy and the rule of cardinals from the Medici family he was to start work on Medici chapel. This marked his tribute to Il Magnifico. His interaction with the signoria (governing committee) of florence too happened in the meanwhile. But the most important part of his life in this phase was the years he spent at Carrara to excavate and chose the best marbles for his work.

Book 9 : The War : His unfinished works on Moses and the 4 captives, his work on the other commissions that he had recieved, Medici Chapel all went into a back burner as Florence faced a war in which Michelangelo comes out to play one of the most important roles in developing the defence. He created the defense around the fortified Florence and was appreciated for the work on it, but a few traitors made Florence lose the war and Michelangelo had to flee for safety.

Book 10 : Love : The later part of Michelangelo's life made him introduce himself to two of the people who loved him the most and admired him equally. Tomasso his apprentice and Vittoria Colona, who herself was a very celebrated and revered writer. The platonic relationship that Michelangelo shared with Vittoria was one of the most important part of his life. He was feeling the energy being poured into to himself as he lived this loved 60s and 70s of his life creating some of the architectural wonders, which too was not his trade.

Book 11 : The Dome : The last phase of michelangelo's 80s went creating architecture that still brings glory and pride across Rome. He had been appointed as the chief architect of St. Peter's Bassilica which he had envisioned along with Sangallo while facing Bramante in times of Pope Julius II. He wanted to create a place which would survive the flow of time and will be a marvel in itself. The Dome of St. Peter's basillica a 335 ft. giant structure talks of the great visionary and his architectural flari. As he dies in the arms of Tomasa, the reader wishes only that he could have lived a little more and could have created the Magic of his art for a few more years.

The Review of the book, which i would like to end here, is of one of the very best books I have ever read. If I were to rate it, nothing less than 4.5* is what I think this book deserves. But with Review does not end my post, If we talk about the book without the works of the master himself, it will mean little. So here is a small snapshot of what Michelangelo built in his life time.

Michelangelo : The Mater Artist

The entire life of Michelangelo was marked with passion for his work and with ups and downs of an artist's world who was concerned only with his trade and nothing else. He had excelled as a Sculptor, as a painter, as a poet and as an architect in his life. Here is a small view of his works as he did in the 90 years of his life. The sheer magnitude of this collections make you think, how did he achieve it in just 90 years !!

Michelangelo the Sculptor

Battle of Centaurs (1492) was one of his first try while working on Marble.

Tondo Taddei, crucifix and Madonna on the stairs were of his early creations :

The Pieta is one of his best work in Marble. The idea of keeping the face of virgin mary young, as she was pure and the purity cannot be withered by age, was what moved me the most while reading the book. Pieta is defintiely a master piece.

Bachhus, St. Proculus, St. Protionious were the next masterpieces that he created at Bologna and Rome.

Then came the Giant David which did not just defeat Goliath but it also stood at 18ft, as a mark of identity for both Florence and Michel angelo.

Michelangelo had spent most of his life, which you can count in decades, carving sculpture for tombs. Both the tomb of Pope Julius II and the tomb of Lorenzo Medici shows the best scupture talent that the world has ever seen.

Tomb of Pope Julius II

Tomb of Lorenzo Medici

Following is a snapshot of other great works in Marble from the best of the Sculptor the world has ever seen :

Michelangelo - The painter

As a painter the two of the most beautiful paintings that Michelangelo ever created can be found at the same place, in the sistine chapel. The ceiling of sistine chaple with the frescos of genesis and the walls with last judgement day are absolute master pieces.

The details of each of the painting on sistine chapel is very difficult to discuss over here, but every single inch of this ceiling claims to be part of a painting that has inspired generations. The most remarkable being the image of god giving life to Adam. The whole cieling is full of such masterstrokes.

The Last Judgement too is an enormous painting spread across the 40ft wall of the sistine chapel. The hundreds of figures, the way they were created, awaits the decision for going to hell or heaven.



Following is a look at other important paintings of Michelangelo.

Michelangelo - The Architect

Here you can see the grandeur and details that visionary conceived in making structures that has truly transcended the centuries.

Michelangelo - The Poet

Looking at around 300 poetries that Michelangelo wrote and produced in his 90 years would be near impossible task and I would close this tribute of mine to Michelangelo with his own words.

How can that be, lady, whilch all men learn

by long experience? Shapes that seem alive,

wrought in hard mountain marble, will survive,

their maker, whom the years to dust

His work has truly survived all test the time had to put on to it.

Shaurya : Movie Review

The Review will soon be up on http://www.planetbollywood.com/ .
"Shaurya - Courage to make right... Right" , a movie from the director of "kuch meetha ho jaye", definitely did not raise any expectation from my side when I first saw the promo. And hence It defintely outlives the expectations I carried in the movie hall. Movie is about " Shaurya", about valor and its interpretation.

The issue
What is right? Who decides it? How can we classify people? Who draws the line that says you are different than what I am? What should happen to people who stand by and support things that they consider right? Everyone has a view point but how right is someone's right that makes some one else bleed hatred? The story had a premise that takes you through these and many such issues in backdrop of Army affairs. It talks about power and the corruption of character it brings along, It talks of friendship and the space to have opposite views within it, It talks of duties and courage to do what is right.

Joydeep Sarkar, Samar Khan and Aparna Malhotra comes up with a story that has a lot to say. But the problem is Movies are a visual medium, you can't easily decode what a person is thinking by looking at his face, you cannot be very obvious in posing the questions that you want to pose through your story. And that is where the writers get the film wrong. Story needs to be backed by an equally strong screenplay, which in my thought was not the strength of this movie. Unfolding of events for the movie are little too slow, little too straight, a little too obviously done.

The Story

Coming to the Story, it is about Captain Javed Khan's (Deepak Dobriyal) Court Martial Trial for killing a fellow senior of Rajputana Rifles.

The Trial is fought by two best friends, who have two different views in the way they take life. Major Siddhant Choudhary (Rahul Bose) the defense lawyer is very happy-go-lucky person with least interest in fighting the case and Major Akaash Kapoor (Javed Jaafri), a serious army lawyer and the best friend of Siddhant. The trial takes them to the tense and disturbed valleys of LOC and to Srinagar. The story revolves around Siddhant who matures as a person as during the trial he converts himself in to a person who is trying to uncover the truth behind the entire episode.

Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh (Kay Kay Menon) plays nemesis to Siddhant. Pratap is an fearless, arrogant, confident, intimidating army officer, who knows what he is doing and has a judgemental view on the communal issues. He is a Goliath to be fought and our David, Sidhhant takes the challenge.

Every confrontation that he has with Pratap, brings humiliation which makes him tough. He fights with himself and his nemesis to unearth the truth, in which he is helped by Kavya (Minisha lamba), a journalist whom he starts falling for, and Kavya's assistant Subhendu. Getting Javed to speak for himself, knowing how he has been for all the past years from his mother (Seema Biswas), knowing how the person he killed was from his wife(Amrita Rao) are all done in a cliched not so inspiring fashion. The movie ends with an emotional outburst from Pratap that gets him caught.

Performances

First things first, I think the true superlative performance for the movie comes from Kay Kay Menon. He lifts the movie and his character to a different level. His is the best etched character and he plays it with with a great finesse. Even in a rather unbelievable climax, he pulls of the scene with his sheer brilliance. It is one of the finest piece that we have got from the actor.

Rahul Bose is good and the role fits him well. You can see that with every passing movie, he is a more mature actor. Javed Jaffri does his role fine which did not have many shades to it. Minisha Lamba, Seema Biswas, Amrita Rao, the ladies who look like unnecessary details of the movie performs their part honestly and if they had not acted their parts well, it would have become sore to our eyes. Deepak Dobriyal, with little dialogues and a small but important role shines.

The music (by Adnan Sami) of the movie is just about OK. "Koi Arzoo..." is the only hummable song of the lot. The point of view of writers I guess is very well recited Javed Akhtar's poem by Shahrukh Khan in the Album. It reminds me of another classic from Javed Saab "Mere dushman, Mere Bhai Mere Humsaye...". Javed saab too sounds repetitive in other songs.

Cinematography by Carlos Catalan is one of the best part of the movie. He shows the fear of the valley and beauty of it both with great flair. Dialogues are beautiful in parts, especially the ones given to Kay Kay which he acts equally beautifully.

And now coming to the culprits for the movie, the first one that I can think of is Editing by Sanjeeb Datta. The movie could have easily been trimmed by half an hour. It gets so slow at times that you just want to get a nap in between. And then lastly and most importantly, all goods and bads of a film goes to its director. Ofcourse, Samar Khan has made a film which is a lot better than his previous one, but he still makes the disastrous mistakes of the movie not being as good as such a topic could have made it. Firstly, The story could have been unfolded with more twists and turns. Secondly, he spends a lot of time, developing each character which is fine in a way and then rushes into an unbelievable climax. A character that is so intelligent and shrewd just lets himself in in the emotional surge. If not Kay Kay Menon, there would have been more bricks Samar Khan's way.

Overall, the movie has a message that should be heard and a director who needs to improve.

2.5* is all it gets for falling in to mediocrity of details.