Saaransh : Gist of Life

There are good movies that you want to watch again and again and then there are great movies, which even after viewing once have the power to move you, jolt you and make you think. Saaransh is a movie in the latter category. Its a story of despair, search, purpose and above all hope. Its a story that could as a plot would look very simple but requires an extraordinary flair for presenting it onscreen. You see that this comes from the very heart of the Mahesh bhatt, one of the best from him ever, when you understand that it is entirely his movie. Brilliant writing, brilliant dialogues, brilliant direction and brilliant screenplay.

Saaransh is a story of an old couple, B.V Pradhan and Parvati (played by Anupam Kher and Rohini Hattangadi), who are living their lives at a point where there is no meaning to life. Their son, who was studying in America, gets killed in an unfotunate mugging event with no fault of his. Pradhan and Parvati could not even visit their dieing son and all that is left of him is his ashes. Pradhan sprays it over the nearby park. With loss of all the purpose they had in their life, their son, there is no meaning left to their lives anymore. They have rented their house to a budding actress Sujata( Soni Razdan) for the want of money. Sujata's boyfriend Vilas (Madan Jain) happens to be son of a politician Gajanan Chitre (Nilu Phule).

Pradhan in search of finding a livelihood goes on to search a job where he sees young and able people struggling for jobs all over. The state of the country with rampant riots, unemployment and all the problems that an ailing country could have, moves Pradhan, who had once been the freedom fighter for the country. While getting back from the job interview to home, he finds that riots are happening all over the city. He tries to run away in the havoc, but could not find a way to take home. In the subway back, where he is taking each step with a fear in his heart of not reaching home at all, sees some goons, who comes to him, takes his money, beats him up. Humiliated he keeps on saying "Main tumhare baap jaisa hu.." but the goons go only on police's arrival. This event brings to Pradhan's imagination all that his son must have faced before dieing. Though you dont see what he is thinking on screen but his face tells it all.

He does not want to live this life of humiliation any more and wants to die with respect. Vilas saves him from a futile suicide attempt. And just when the couple were about the take poison for killing themselves they discover that Sujata has conceived Vilas' child and Vilas doesnot want it as his father is going to fight an election soon. Sujata wants the child and Pradhans get ready to support them. Parvati feels it is coming home for his son through Sujata and is obsessed with the feeling.

Then starts the story of a 'hopeless' life getting a purpose. An old couple against the might of the big politcian to save a child who is not yet born. The fearless Pradhan gets back to his old freedom struggle in fighting for the rights of Sujata. The story paces fast from here to show how the couple wins against all the odds to save Sujata and Vilas and make them go to another city. The end shows the couple with a zeal to live, with a thought that even if we are not there, life will always be there and it is this life which we should live for.

The best scene that i loved watching in the movie was when a desperate Pradhan, walks in to the minister's cabin (played by akash khurana), and speaks dialogues that i feel can never be forgotten, its a voice of a common man. Anupam Kher has never matched that performance of his till date.

And the best dialogue for the film comes at the end when Anupam Kher after all ups and downs of life decides to "live" and tells his wife who is planning to die that they have to live and that "Tumhari Chehre ki jhurrio mein mere jeevan ka saaransh hai" (In the wrinkles of your face lies the gist of my life) . Very touching. Also at the end we see their sons ashes turning in to flowers of the garden and both of them touching the flowers feeling the life they have, which too is a part of them.

Anupam Kher acts his part with sheer brilliance, he carries the film all on himself. He plays an old man in his first film!! He won a filmfare award for an act in the parallel cinema. He just proves his grasp over the character in certain scenes, depecting despair and hope. Rohini Hattangadi's performance comes just next to her performance in Gandhi. Nilu Phule looks sinster, Madan Jain and Soni Razdan carries their role very well. Then there are certain characters that will leave their mark on you mind even with their small roles, whether it be the pandit, or Pradhan's friend, or Dr.Bhatt, or the goons, everyone plays their part well .

Ajit Varman gives the music as the film demanded, good. Dialogue, screenplay and writing is simply fabulous, all credits to Mahesh bhatt for etching the characters so well. you just live the lives of the characters while going through the movie. I want to see the same Mahesh bhatt back in action.

Two important people involved in this movie but were not so famous then who are worth mentioning are David Dhawan and Sooraj Barjatya. The movie was marketed by Rajashri production and Sooraj Barjatya was the assistant director for the movie. He later went on to create a cinema style of his own. And so is it true with David Dhawan who did the editing of this film.

Do watch the classic. If I was born then and had to rate this, would have rated it at nothing less than a 4.5*.

Johnny Gaddar Film Review : Sriram Anand, Sriram Hadley Chase, Sriram Raghvan welcome back...

Once in a time comes a movie that creates a genre of its own. Johnny Gaddar is one such movie. It takes how-did-he-do-it and how-was-he-saved stories to a totally different level. Bollywood is changing and there is now a whole new range of movies coming in.

Sriram Raghvan comes out as a very good director in the new lot of director. There are a very few directors in India who get inspired from popular fiction books (thrillers to be precise, cheesy at times) and can craft it well in to a picture, Sriram Raghvan seems one of them for sure. Earlier he had done a well made Shidney Sheldon type of thriller "Ek Hasina thi" (I thought it was inspired from "If tomorrow comes") and now he does a James Hadley Chase.Would be waiting for his 3rd flick, when he tries comedy(Happy Birthday starring John Abraham and Amisha Patel) for sure.

Johnny Gaddar is a story of 5 cons who are going to have a big deal with a corrupt police inspector Kalyan (Played well by Govind Namdeo), making a quick fortune in the way. The whole plan is well planned by Sheshadri (played by Dharmendra) with 4 of his partners Shardul, Prakash, Shiva and Vikram (Zakir Hussain, Vinay Pathak, Daya Shetty and Neil respectively).

The plan falls apart when one of them, Vikram betrays the others for money(and there are no spoilers here as you know it from the beginning that he is the one). The story then continues with a maze of well planned smart moves by vikram to save himself. And as the fortune favours the brave, Vikram moves on with some good escapes unexpectedly turning his ways. There is a subplot running through out the film where Vikram falls for Shardul's wife (Rimi sen). Unwillingly (a spoiler here) Vikram ends up killing all his partners as and when they come to know that it was he who did it to them. The story is neither very different nor new, but it is the execution of the film that makes it worth a watch. Though the movie does not have what we can say exactly twists and turns, there are many unexpected things happening on the screen that keeps your interest alive.

As far as acting is concerned all the characters in the movie are aptly played by the actors. The underplayed act of Neil as Vikram is definitely the most impressive debut this year till now. He has a pretty innocent face to carry on the conning part well. He needs a crash course in dialogue delivery though. Vinay Pathak as Prakash is very good. Must watch is the scene where he gets introduced, definitely his type of humor.

Zakir Hussain turns up with a performance that suits the situation. Eccentric but stupid at times. But for the last Hamming special scene from Dharmedra, his performance too was as good as others.Govind Namdeo plays his part well with a good comic timing. Rimi Sen, Ashwini Khaleskar and Rasika Joshi are just OK, which is way belo average compared to their male counterparts in the movie.

Sriram Raghvan has a definite knack in presenting his things differently. Great work by him as a director. There are so numerous scenes that he has shot so differently that at times I feel he should be teaching in a film making school. Special mention to his tribute to old hindi movies. Really good. The credits for the film when the movie starts is trend setting... absolutely wonderful.

Music by shankar mahadevan is good, especially the part where the music from old movies is played at an interesting point in the movie.

So am I completely impressed with the movie? The answer is definite NO.

I think this movie goes on to prove for me that movies are more than Direction, acting and presentation. Weak areas as per me for the movie were not so good Editing (Pooja Surti), absence of a thick story line and Characterization. Only Niel had his motives, role and details well etched out but for others though it must have been defined very well at the time of writing, it did not come out in the movie. Visit the official website of the movie and read about the characters. These were the things that I could not figure out very clearly in the movie.

Moreover there was no guilt that I could see Vikram had when he was killing all of them but after killing you see a fine little glimmer of guilt in his eyes in other scenes. That made the killings almost unrealistic for me.

The side plots apart from Neil and Rimi's were all weak. Dharmendra listening to his Dead wife's audio cassettes, Vinay Pathak fighting with his wife, Shardul's club, Shiva's Mother and girlfriend all were not properly developed and compared to the main events of the movie, this part of the movie was a big let down.

I would have loved a dark ending with Neil surviving everything and getting what he wanted.

Another thing that Sriram Raghvan missed on during the screenplay was clarity. The entire reason and planning for the incidence that starts it all did not come up very clearly. The end is not exactly predictable but is not surprising too. At times Unpredictability gets monotonus in the film.

But overall a very well crafted good movie, that will definitely be liked by people who wants to see "different" cinema. Thumbs up to the director and actors for carrying this risky part off with aplomb.

Though good, could have been better 3* for this different kind of thriller.

The Moscow Vector by Robert Ludlum and Patrick Larkin : Good In parts

Well this is going to be my first book review. And as I have not been reading book reviews (or for that matter a lot of books) it might not be a standard good to read kind of book review.

Moscow Vector, the second last book from the Robert Ludlum's covert-one series which was completed by Patrick Larkin after Ludlum's Death is a fair thriller with espionage and military angles attached to it.

characters and story

The book tries to extend the cold war days to the present day with an Over ambitious Russian president Victor Dudarev, at the helm of the sly malign intentions of capturing the other states and building the lost glory of USSR again. Its a story of military aggressiveness by the Russian president backed with a precise, lethal bio-weapon HYDRA which attacks a persons DNA and alters the cell growth eventually stopping it completely. The biological weapon is funded by a Serbian Billionaire Malkovic, who wants his piece of pie from Viktor Dudarev's aggression. The business man hires a bio-weapon expert German scientist Wulf Renke and an organization giving cover to all of them which is headed by Eric Brandt. A whole list of villains, who wants to give an answer to the ever increasing American power, plans the mission to perfection.

Now it is up to the good guys to save the smaller countries with which Russia shares the border and also lives of many American Military heads and ministers. The flock of the good guys led by Dr. Jon Smith, who happens to be a Medical doctor studying the genesis of a lethal disease killing many of the top notch ministers, and is also a secret agent with CIA on the covert-one mission to work on this project. He is accompanies by a beautiful, ever charming Fiona Devin and Oleg Kirov, an Ex Russian secret agent. The 3 of them together tries to find the details of the deadly disease as well as the intention of the Russian premier for America. The cat and mouse games between them and the Russian militia have been depicted in detail throughout the Novel. There is one more good girl, Randi Russel, working for CIA in Germany spying on to find Wulf Renke and his latest ventures. All of them connects at the end to destroy the power of bio-weapon and makes the ugly intentions of Russian President a failure.

Thumbs Up

The story moves on quickly from one clue to another and from one escapade to another for the good guys ending into the end of bad guys’ bad intentions. The good thing about the story is there are no side stories; there is nothing to get you off the roller coaster ride planned for you. The way the events shape up and continues spreading across the geography of all continents keeps your interest alive to read on. 2 good things that I liked about the book were:

• The discussion that the US president Sam Castilla has with the Russian president at the end. Blunt, straight to the point, American style.
• Author lures in the reader to think for romantic angles between the American spies till the end but does not explicitly write anything about it till the end. The last lines hence brings a smile to your face before you keep the book down.

Thumbs down
But the Novel had its own set of shortcomings. Firstly, it has a very one-dimensional characterization of the different lead characters. That totally works against connecting to the characters. Certain sections within the novel seem over the top and unbelievable. There being no side stories at times it seems that you are going through similar events and situation again and again, though it is not making the story monotonous but it does not make you run to the next page with excitement.

For me the book was a good read with Fair story, not so good Not so bad treatment, uninteresting in parts read with a lot left to be done. The author could have written it a lot better.

Read it if you have to go on a long journey or want to concentrate on other things too along with the book.

2.5 * out of 5 for the book from my side.

India Beyond Cricket

India is world champions in the 20-20 format of cricket....... WOW, everyone will always remember who won the first world cup of 20-20 form of cricket. Great. All congratulations to the winning team.

Secularism has been one thing impacting my views since childhood. I feel strongly that all religions should be treated equally. To generalize all equal things should be treated equally, so is it with sports. But do we treat sports equally? Definitely not. Being the Hypocrite that I am like many of my fellow countrymen, I do say that well there are more sports that we should look to and not restrict our reach as well as reach of the younger generation to just a few games. The sports that earns the maximum money spends the most in publicity and hence are famous. Simple economics plays its part here too. But that keeps many of the other Heroes, whom I think are as great a sportsman as Yuvraj Singh in their respective field, away from the adequate due appreciation and adulation that they deserve.

I gave it a thought and tried to pick a few sportsman whom I have not known so well before but feel that they have made remarkable impact for India in their sports in recent times. So here are a few games and a few more heroes to be applauded.

Car Racing

While most of us sitting here were cursing India for losing to Newzealand on 16th of September 2007 in a crucial 20-20 match, there was a happy man standing on the podium of the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, tears flowing down his cheeks as he was proudly standing straight, with a head held high, listening to the tune of Indian national anthem being played for the first time for a GP2 Series winner. Karun Chandok was the man of the moment. He made his father's (Vicky Chandok, a Motor Sport Veteran himself) and many others' who are looking at car racing as a career, dreams come true. A true hero, appreciated even by Alonso, was missed back in India for that was the peak 0f 20-20 world cup.

Archery

While the people of the country were looking at the awesome performance of RP singh and Rohit sharma snatching the match from the home team South Africa, there were a group of archers in China fighting to get a spot and qualification for India in Olympics 2008 . Archery has been traditionally the sport of Tribals in India, but recently a whole lot of non-tribal youngsters has been making waves in the world archery. India had to qualify for the Olympics 2008 in archery and the whole effort had to be put in by group of 3 archers, lead by Jayant Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Rahul Banerjee. South Korea were the favourites to win the gold and chinese being the host nation had an advantage in itself. Malaysia came up with an upset beating South Korea in the semifinals while India went past the home team China in a nail biting 220-214 win. In the finals on 20th It was even more closer as India beat Malaysia 222-219 to win the men’s recurve team gold at the Asian archery championships. Surely this is a sport to look out for in Olympics for Indian sports fan.


Billiards

After the impressive array of sportsmen like like Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira and Geet Sethi comes the name of Pankaj Advani. One of the finest billiard players in the world today. Winning many different championships across the world, he is one of the only 2 players to have won both the billiards and snooker amateur world titles.

While the cricket fans were watching a treat of a match between India and Pakistan which led to the first bowl out of a 20-20 match, there was a man standing over a cloth covered cushioned billiard table in Singapore defending for the first time in his life a world title. Pankaj Advani won that thrilling encounter to defend his title and retain the IBSF World Billiards title. What more could you ask for the person he defeated was also an Indian Dhruv Sitwala.


Hockey

Ofcourse we need to mention over here the Asia cup win that we had in hockey this year, an unbeaten team going on to win over the favourites. There is more to come for sure from this bunch of enthusiastic youngsters. Watch them in Olympics 2008.

Apart from them there are many who not just need to be mentioned but also to be encouraged so that they bring Indian glory in their field of sports. Why dont we fight for Olympics the way we want to fight for Oscars.

Badminton

There are many whom you might remember for this game but I just heard about a truly gifted child Rohit. Though not one of the best India has ever produced and the stories thereafter here is a child who fought his shortcomings to become a true champion in life. He is an inspiration to thousands of deaf and dumb children across the country. A 15 year old Rohit Bhakar, has recently beat the national under 16 champion in badminton thrice. Let us cherish these heroes who have come over a thousand things apart from learning the sports to reach to the very best levels in sports.

Squash

Joshna Chinappa, and Ritwik Bhattacharya, two of the real good squash players who have won coveted British open under 16 and under 19 championships are 2 players for us to look out for. Not to forget the coach for the game of squash who is taking the game to a new level Cyrus Poncha is going to bring India many accolades in the year to come. Saurav Ghosal and Deepika Pallikal are the other two players making it big in their world rankings.

Apart from this there are many in the shooting sports, Athletics, Boxing, wrestling, our own game of Kabbadi, swimming, wushu, Hockey and football whom we need to cheer for them to perform and take India to international glory.

Let us not ignore the world of non-cricket sport which is as important for the country as cricket. Let us cheer our boys and girls , wherever they are and whatever game they are playing.
Let us come together and celebrate the rising power of emerging Indian sports.

Teachers : they are everywhere

Teachers' Day celebration are on and all of us are remembering the days when we were young or the days of college where we had the best days of our life. But is it so that people who have taught us have only been inside the schools and colleges. I think everyone of us have learned from a thousand other things in life.

Well so today, I am thinking of all those teacher's of my life whom I have not mentioned in any of my alumini meets.

The first name that comes to my mind is Victor Hugo, rather I would say the first thing that would come to my mind is a book that changed my view on life "Les Miserables". Lessons that Jean Valjean learns in the novel while going from a Vali to Valmiki teaches you all the lessons without going through it. Every character even "Eponine" a good young girl in the house of villans teaches you devotion at the time of her death. A true masterpiece which can be reffered to teach you things at the time when life is under crisis.


The next group of people that comes to my mind is a set of slum workers who were involved with making Ganesha Idols in Ahmedabad. My house used to be very near to this slums which people of ahemdabad call "Hollywood". It is one of the most stinking and unclean place that I have ever been to. Still, I never saw these people cribbing about the place or the life they were living. In hot summers of Ahmedabad, after a whole day of hard work working on the idols, they used to sing and enjoy in the evening. Their Loud speakers in the night singing Altaf Raja songs was irritating me and disturbing me in my studies ten, but I feel it has taught me that the place that you are in is only as bad as you think it to be.

There are hundreds of NGOs that you might have heard of, trust me, go and see closely the people involved in any of it and you will strongly relate to them and learn that life is a lot more than you. I during my college days got closer to a group of people from an organization called i-volunteer, two people from the team, Rahul and Sujata are those who changed my view and made me more sensitive towards the world around me. Had talked with Sujata many times after that. She was fighting against "Child Abuse" at that time after leaving her job in the a Media company. She was there because she strongly felt about it. What difference being sensitive about the things you do can make is what I have learned from her. Last time I called her she told me, "Jay, I really think these boys and girls want to make a difference. The waters of Ganga and Yamuna are getting polluted every day and we have been doing nothing for this. Tomorrow I am going to put up a small road show along with these guys (the 15-20 like minded people that she might have found) and would like to send across the message to the people everywhere". Lesson "Do whatever little you can to change lives".

Message to everyone on this day : Look around, you will see many teachers moving with their naked little feet on the road, doing the little work of non-existence with the utmost dedication, doing things that goes unnoticed but creates a difference that is satisfying for noone else but them .

Dark horses run faster on a sunday afternoon

Every good thing has to start somewhere.

This weekend was a start of 2 such things for us.

1. we have registered a new flat on our name which is like investing all we have in something.

2. Started taking Quizzing a little more seriously.

Well am writing this blog to talk about the second. It is my wife and wife alone who keeps me pushing for attending all the quizzes and especially business quizzes that happen in the city. I also get to read a few things along with her for her preparation. Atlast it seems it was all for good and am starting i got a good Morale booster this weekend.

This Sunday at Taj Blue Diamond, happened the Pune regional Finals of Tata Crucible. There were about 125 teams which were participating in the quiz and the first round was of prelims where there were 25 questions asked based on which 2 tracks Finalist were to be decided (6 tata track teams and 6 Non Tata track teams). My wife had participated in the TATA track and me in Non-tata track. My Partner, a particularly bright quizzer from my own college and company, Adheer had lost the touch since last 1 year but was far better than what I could have ever been. And he knew many of the prelims answers ( I too knew a few, so there was definitely some contribution from my side too, Thanks to my Abha for all pestering that she has done in last one year).

The prelims were over and started the TATA track immediately after that. Abha and Deepak (Abha's Teammate, very bright and old time quizzer indeed) both started in a wonderful wonderful form and were leading the quiz in the first two rounds, and it was in the last and fourth round that the questions were to be answered on buzzer and they missed it all as the other team from TCS mumbai was very quick on buzzer. But at the end it was a very very good competition where Abha and Deepak were Runners up by a fraction of seconds. A very proud moment for me indeed :). And it was the first cash prize for my wife in her quizzing career. TATA track ended very well.

Abha's answers about the Darjling Tea logo and a Nescafe add were simply outstanding. Deepak worked out Insulin as an answer to a genric brand in cross word in an awesome manner. The other team was very very good but for me they were the winners.

WIth the start of Non TATA track, we were never expecting our names to be called as we had seen some of the best teams of the region around. Infact team 1 and team 2 were called and team 3 (who eventually won the quiz) was savoir faire (who had won the Brand Equity Quiz from the region earlier this year). I was in complete awe of that team and was looking forward to a great quiz when the fourth team called was our. Absolutely unexpected. After our team too we saw a team from Persistent which had been participating in other good quizzes. I definitely thought that we have lost it and we actually did. But getting on to the stage for the first time for a business quiz was an experience in itself for me. And that was a very proud moment for my wife :).

We knew answers to just 3 questions in the entire quiz out of which one was directed towards us ( I could guess the brad advertised and was very happy on that :)). Another thing I knew was TISCROM material was used entirely to make Howrah Bridge. Adheer knew that Date palm from india is Tamar-e-Hind which brings the present day name of Tamarind. Adheer made some wonderful guesses to work out the other questions which I had absolutely no clue about. But in the end we stood 4th with 2 other teams loosing to the 2nd and 3rd team which were ten points ahead of us. Savoir faire did it again this year. They were absolutely amazing.

But the day marked some very good moments for us. and the day shall always be remembered:).

For more details on the contest visit the website of tata crucible :http://www.tatacrucible.com/

Jaafar Mia Ki Aashiki

In the muddy construction site of a soaked monsoon, lakhi in her dirty, filthy and wet saree was walking down from the top floor of the building for which she carried the processed cement from the floor beneath.

The free bird that Lakhi is, climbing down the stairs, hardly realizes the happenings around her and enjoys singing the rajasthani songs which her Mai taught her when she was very young. Now at 19 it seems she has left her childhood way back. Suddenly, a voice from within one of the flats which is getting plastered came :

“Ae Jaafar, sala tum logo se itna kaam bhi dhang se hota nahi hai. Tere ko andar wali room ko ghisne ke lie bheja tha idhar bahar kya kar raha hai.”

Lakhi looks at the site supervisor who is scolding Jaafar for reasons that are out of Jaafar’s control. A love lost look in the eyes of a man wooing a woman is the same whether it is in the dirty inroads of a messy slum or in the posh gardens of a Kingly palace.

Jaafar not even looking at the person bullying him was watching Lakhi climb down the stairs to fetch another lot of the cement. Supervisor Nilesh was trying to avoid Lakhi who was giving him piercing looks for all that had gone unsaid before. Jaafar Oblivious to this, standing on the 12th floor of the building which in its coarse cemented look appeared as bad as the looks in Nilesh’s eyes, was just looking at a girl whom he so dearly loved.

After Lakhi was out of site Jaafar went in to plaster the walls in the rooms of the flat but could not get Lakhi out of his mind even for a second.

Jaafar wanted to express his love and desire of Lakhi to her but the hardworking rustic hardly knew how to talk to girls. Jaafar had been looking at her for the last 5 months and now the construction was going to get over in a month’s time and he knew not when would he meet Lakhi again. Lakhi silently watched all this as she flirted with half the men working there.

Jaafar at last could not resist expressing his feelings and on the wall that he was plastering, taking the broken piece of a red brick wrote “Jaafar Mia ki Aashiki”, a thing that all the other workers were to mock at in the month to come. Lakhi came to know about Jaafar’s writing on the wall and was sure for whom was it written.

Mr. Mehta stays on the 12th floor of the most elegant building in the city “Hirani Palms” with his wife and kids. The company that he owns is located in the best part of the city but it hardly gives him the time to go and enjoy the beauty of the world. He generally leaves for the office at 8 in the morning gets back by the time his children are fast asleep. Children generally spend with him their weekends. Today after coming back his house at an exceptionally late time of midnight, he went in the rooms of nisha and nidhi, his 2 sweet daughters, saw the wall which read some scrambled alphabets saying “Ni – Ni Loves Daddy” which brought a glimmer of fatherly love in the eyes of this rich man.

The wall made two people feel loved, Lakhi before a year felt equally touched with the writings of Jaafar on the same wall which was neither colored nor polished.

(This blog is inspired from a building which i visited yesterday while searching a home for myself. There was a wall on the top floor that read "jaafar mia ki aashiki")