On dreams and everything else...

A few days back I had this dream. I saw myself hastily running to a notebook and jotting down some brilliant poetry that had come to my mind. I don’t really remember the words, but remember seeing my dream-me thinking how exquisite the verses were. Then I saw two people (probably friends, though their facial characteristics weren’t central to the dream) who came to me and asked me why I was in such a hurry to take these lines down. And then I mentioned that these were some words that had come to me in a dream, and I just feel like taking them down.

When I remembered this dream-on-a-dream (Parag dream?) days later, I first thought how ridiculous this was. And then tried hard to drill deeper in my head, and extract those words. They must be hidden somewhere deep down in my subconscious, I reckoned, ala the ‘Answer to the Ultimate question of life’ which supposedly lay programmed in every being who was created as part of the earth experiment.  The words of God (or any overlord rat-person) haven’t come to me yet. But I guess I am listening, hard.

Reading H2G2 (and I still haven’t read the last two of the five book trilogy) lent me a whole new perspective towards rats. And I see a whole lot of them scurrying across the road around Worli, where I live. Ever seen those creatures scurrying across the road? There is so much purpose in every little step. It all fits. They made themselves so insignificant, so that nobody would ever get a whiff of their master plan. Then, some days I find one flat on its back, squished mercilessly by a careless driver. I see the insects feeding ravenously on it, and I shout out, “O Rat-god. Forgive them, for they know not what they have done.” Ganesha, the Hindu deity, has a rat as its vehicle, too. Couldn’t be mere coincidence?

With this I think I should retire for the day. I was in a mood to write something completely random and ridiculous. Success. Also, I deviously hope I have left the reader with the image of a horrible rat, belly-up (literally) with monstrous insects feeding on its flesh. Ok, I am sure now I have.

Movie Review: Kai Po Che (2013)

Release date: 22nd Feb 2013
Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Rating: 3.5/5


Passion, chasing one's dreams, undying friendship in the toughest of times, all peppered with young, innocent love blossoming secretly. I am so sure Mr. Bhagat knew he would see his story take the shape of a Bolly flick the day he penned it.

The story, and especially how it pans out in sync with the tribulations of the incidents that occurred in Gujarat in the early 2000s, is appreciable. The young, and hitherto little known cast has also delivered commendably. Yet, just after the characters take shape in your head, and you start getting interested in the juggernaut of events that are panning out in their lives, the movie comes to an end. You are hastily fed a heavily awkward, partly happy conclusion to the tumultuous chain of events that had transpired ten years earlier.

Still, this is worth a trip to the theater- for the freshness of its cast, for the joyous sequences which remind us how the religion of cricket binds this nation, for the touching back-slapping camaraderie, and not to forget, for the demure Amrita Puri. One also has to commend the team for boldly depicting an issue as sensitive as the Gujarat riots.

But for the lackadaisical and abrupt ending, the movie lives up to the substantial media hype it had garnered. A good background score definitely helps (Music review here).

Music Review: Kai Po Che

Music Director: Amit Trivedi


Listening to the tracks of this one, there is only one question that perturbs you.

Why is there so little of it?

There are merely three songs on this album. However, as has rapidly becoming a given with Trivedi, each one is extremely rich and colourful. Our man here has mastered the art of bringing together sounds from different parts of the Indian hinterland, and fusing them to create exactly what the auditory aesthetics demand.

'Meethi boliyan' flip flops between the dreamy vocals of Mili Nair, the carefully timed harmonies and the youthful throw of Trivedi's voice. The incredible guy returns with the soulful 'Manja' deeply entrenched in the music of the Rajasthani heartland, peppered with beautiful lyrics. Somewhere, the music with this one reminds me of that from Nagesh Kukunoor's 'Dor'.

The third track 'Shubhaarambh' (or perhaps, considering the title, the first track), replete with the garbha beat, is a reminder of the amazing number of good vocalists storming the Indian music scene. Short and pacy, this adds some necessary groove to the album.

This is Amit Trivedi just doing his casual flick of the wrist!

Movie Review: David (2013)

Release date: 1st Feb 2013
Director: Bejoy Nambiar
Rating: 2.5/5


So, David. With not one, not two, but three Davids. Three stories set apart in time and place. Do the stories marvelously intertwine through a surprising turn of events? No. Does the scriptwriter force them into each other anyway? Hell, yes.

Having talked about the desperate juxtaposition of events to justify the movie’s title, perhaps the only part of the movie which is a definite no-go, I shall move to a lot of good things the movie has to offer. Firstly, the movie has an unassuming, yet effective lead cast. Vikram (haven’t seen much of his movies but have heard of his reputation down south), one of the Davids, comes through as a very believable and likable character. Vinay Virmani, of ‘Speedy Singhs’ fame (playing one of the other Davids) gets another chance, and takes it up well. He was put in scenes where he had little to speak, and bring out the intensity on his face. And with the benefit of doubt for being a newcomer, he does deserve a pat on the back.

And that brings us to our good old friend, Neil Nitin Mukesh. Now there are only a few Indian male leads who can carry off an onscreen name like David. The director had no misconceptions about Neil’s acting and dialogue delivery talents. And this is where the scriptwriter plays a masterstroke. He builds up a lead character with really little to talk and/or emote. Frankly, there was precious little to screw up in that role. Talking of screwing up little roles, the ravishing Monica Dogra comes close to doing just that. Her character’s relevance to the plot is as much as that of Javed Akhtar to the Indian Cricket team’s pace bowling attack. She is pretty convincing till she is looking right at you from that giant screen and giving you that enticing look. But woman, don’t talk.

Which is precisely what our other leading lady Isha Sharvani does. She looks stunning, and plays a deaf and mute girl – the muse of two Goan fisherman, who have little else to do apart from getting horribly drunk. Save the completely avoidable and insensitive jibes dished out at Roma (Isha), this was my favourite story from the movie. Saurabh Shukla plays David’s (Vikram) dead father whose ghost talks to his son, and doles out meaningful advice from time to time, sometimes as this apparition visible merely to him, and at times, by entering the life forms of people around. Yes, it sounds ridiculous when I describe it here, but adds for some much needed comic moments. Also, the Goan melodies bring life to a movie where half of the sequences (well, one of the three stories) is in black and white. And did I mention, Isha Sharvani looks delectably pretty. Oh! And not to forget Tabu, managing to look wonderful after all these years, who has a well-scripted role as a massage parlour owner and go-to friend for Vikram, and pulls it off with her usual aplomb. Much love.

Another eye-catching part of the movie is the number of well known (and mostly jobless) faces it manages to bring together. Sample this- we have Lara Dutta playing a ridiculously inconsequential role, we have yesteryear’s beauty Sarika appearing for a song. We are surprised by Milind Soman playing a vile businessman…wait for it…’s henchman. Nikhil Chinappa appears in a blink-and-you-miss-it cage fight sequence (which again seemed to be there for no apparent reason. “It seems to be a symbolic ‘David’ beats Goliath sequence”, I quipped to my friend in the audience when Nikhil manages to vanquish a much heftier opponent, although I was probably making sense out of nothing.)

All in all, if one can get over the first half hour of randomness, and ignore the disappointing end, the remaining one and a half odd hours offers a good entertainment package. However, considering the empty rows of seats that greeted us, I am not sure if the audience is too keen to give this one a try.

Two-and-a-half stars for the movie. Another half for the pretty ladies.