Geo's talkies - Rang De Basanti

Hindi cinema recently has been going to a process of transformation. There's a 'Sarkar' on one end and a 'No Entry' on the other. There's the Ram Gopal Varma school, the Sanjay Gupta school (which includes Mahesh Manjrekar) and there are the Chopra's and the Barjatyas. Karan Johar fits into the Yash Chopra mould perfectly. One school of filmmakers make movies that cater to the audience in a very sweet, bubbly and happy-go-lucky way and the other cater to an audience in a raw, ripped open, reality baring way.

Rakesh Mehra's latest offering 'Rang De Basanti' is one of the movies that's as commercial as a Hindi movie can be and manages to retail a semblance of sensibility with patriotism and some real concerns churned into the narrative. The movie opens in the UK where we find 'Sue' (a budding filmmaker) who wants to make a movie on the Indian freedom struggle after reading a diary written by her grandfather James McKinley who was an office in the British Police force in the 1930's in India. This diary captures the last days of India's freedom fighters who took the path of violence - Bhagat Singg, Chandrashekhar Azad ..... etc.

After some initial setbacks to her vision, Sue reaches India to meet Sonia and figure out a way to make her movie. They have auditions in college campuses which don't quite work and the audience is held in splits in these moments. Diljeet (DJ), Sukhi, Aslam and Karan are a group of friends who quite correctly stand for the youth as they are in the country today. They don't care too much about the heroes from the past and don't look at them beyond the textbooks. They simply have lost hope in the dream that was called 'Hindustan'.

Amidst the fun, beer drinking and the aish-o-aaram of college, the audience is introduced to some right wing elements which we all can strongly relate to. Laxman portrays the role of a hardcore swadeshi who see modern culture as a pollutant to 'hindustani' values. Sue sees her characters in these guys and coaxes them into playing their respective parts for her documentary. It all begins without any commitment or seriousness from all the players. Ajay, Sonia's fiancée is an airforce pilot who get's killed in an air crash.

This incident changes their perception, which was already being swayed by the powerful characters of the freedom fighters, totally. To make things worse, the govt blames Ajay for the crash which precipitates the situation and spirals to a point where the lead characters end up taking an idealistic decision. This leads to a situation where the present day men and the freedom fighters from the past, become one in spirit.


RDB is humorous, it's patriotic, it evokes a strong patriotic fervour in us without sermonizing. The music of the movie has been composed by AR Rahman and to say that Rahman has exceeded his brief would be an understatement. The prayer song composed to go with the situation when the lead characters enter the Golden Temple is out of this world. All songs have been apt and fit the movie well, most of the songs are used more in the background with the visuals taking the main role in the narration except one romantic song and a bhangra song.

Binod Pradhan's camera work is neat and appropriate. Sameer Chanda has excelled in production design and art direction. Screenplay is coherent without any loose ends and the credit goes to Renzil D'Silva. Prasoon Joshi has penned the songs and dialogues and most of the conversation will keep the audience in splits. Special mention has to be made about Kiron Kher, to me she's one of the most under rated actresses. One smirk on her face and you can feel her pain, one smile and you can feel the attachment of a mother, she excels in the role of DJ's mother.

Aamir Khan is one of the finest actor in India and when you see him as DJ on screen you know why. Atul Kulkarni plays the role of Lakshman to perfection. Kunal Kapoor as Aslam plays the Muslim youth role neatly and giving his character depth is Om Puri in a cameo as his father bleating out the normal sentiment against India. Sukhi is Sharman Joshi and in this movie we see him in a new avatar, someone who fears he'd die a virgin. Siddharth (the same guy we in the South saw in Ayutha Ezhuthu) manages to give a convincing performance. It's Madhavan who steals the show as Flight Lieutenant Ajay Rathod and Soha Ali Khan plays Sonia, his love interest, Soha though has a long way to go in terms of acting. Waheeda Rehman plays a cameo role as Madhavan's mother and brings the old school acting and mannerism into the contemporary script, very refreshing. Alice Patton as Sue does justice to her role in the movie and manages to stand her ground, especially in the scenes when DJ seems to have feelings for her.

Rang De Basanti is surely worth every rupee you can spend on it, give it a watch and let's see if you get lumps in your throat during the movie, believe me, there's are more than just one or two moments for that to happen.

Mia - my little sister

Timepass, thanks to GE

Keep refreshing this URL to see various styles of animation come up ... neat job
An innovative HONDA commercial
Here is the gallery of a multimedia artist in Mumbai, superb work

Cable wars in Tamilnadu - State v/s Private operators (read SCV)

I believe the state has no business in deciding on what people should watch. I do admit that there is blatant wrong doing of the cable service especially in Chennai where there is this horrendous set-top box and no other metro in India had the guts and gumption to embrace this fine concept which could have brought a lot of transparency to the cable service industry.

As a customer we should be sure of one thing, there is no such thing as free lunch. Many of the so-called cable channels that are supposedly fleecing the customers are off the highest quality and the procure transmission rights to sports events and exclusive telecasts at exhorbitant prices and a small part of that is passed on to the subscriber. The programs that are telecast on those channels don't generally cater to the normal soap watching crowd. An example I'd like to cite is Formula One. Thanks to Narain Karthikeyan, Formula One is covered extensively in the media. There was a time in the past when the national newspapers would cover the event on a column on their sports page. After the advent of PRIME sports we got a chance to see them all live and this channel later became Star Sports.

News was not a commodity those days as it is today in India. It's sad to see the amount of interest an Amitabh Bachchan on a strecher can generate when he surely should be deserving a lot of privacy in times like that. The media can't feed people of enough junk, that's the plain fact. All news channels resort to some sort of political bickering or sensationalising news like a rape or a horrendous murder. But there are also one or just a couple of balanced new providers who when viewed discernly can be identified because they don't resort to who is bigger.

The state has hardly done an angelic job with the services it provided as a monopoly in the past nor is it today. Electricity theft is rampant and is dubbed as tranmission loss. Freebies are doled out in the name of welfare and that causes a big loss to the exchequer. When DOT was the sole service provider of phone connections, we have all faced the various difficulties involved in getting a telephone connection and problems with the quality of service. Bringing in competition has levelelled the field and is putting the consumer in a seat where he can choose the best that in there on the plate.

Let's imaging a scenario where the cable services is in the hands of the government and please pardon my humor. General elections are round the corner and the govt decides to give out free cable connections to poor farmers in thanjavur, and pass a bill wherein all the rural unemployed will get one cable connection free. How is that for a novel idea? I know I am kidding and trivialising this debate, but this is entirely possible. What if the government decides to play it dirty and blank out certain channels like SCV is doing? What if the government decides to put up a box in each box (free of cost) and regularly keep an eye on the channels a household watches? Why should the government be subject to this exclusive information? Isn't it an invasion of one's privacy?

Instead of talking about taking over another man's business, the government if it's concerns are genuine should work towards setting up it's own cable infrastructure, believe me, the profits it can make from this is huge. Our country's thirst for petrol and bandwidth is exponentially increasing and apart from cable services, the govt can sell bandwidth on it's infrastructure for voice and data services. Let the government take up the challenge of living up to it's name, provide budget cable services and believe me, there won't be a huge reduction in the cable TV charges. I have always believed that a normal Thamizh household's viewing needs can be fitted into a Rs.50 per month subscription assuming that we can have a couple of Tamil Channels (which require a decoder included) and a host of other free to air channels.

Viewers who need anything more than what is offered can be charged extra monthly/annually depending on what their viewing preference is. If this plan succeeds, people who are currently having service connections from other service providers will automatically be pulled towards this because they'd see no sense in them coughing out exhorbitant charges only because there was no competition. It will also prove to be a watershed for the current service providers who will have to eventually straight up their act and come up with competitive rates and better services. Monopoly at any time in any service industry will corrupt people, competition will straighten it all out. Maruti, BSNL, Computer manufacturers, mobile service providers are some examples where competition had made things difficult for them to survive in a scenario where once they had to competitors. These companies to our joy have found better ways to attract customers and provide top-notch services for almost the same price as their competitors.

Some links related to this post ....

News in chennaionline.com, a popular e-zine
News reported in business line

Snapshots - Pope John Paul II

A noble life ....

Champion of human freedom

Pope John Paul II, the most charismatic and deft leader in the Catholic church's recent history left this world late night yesterday in Vatican City, Vatican. By far the most orthodox and conservative world leader in today's progressive and open world, he was still revered and respected by billions. The most travelled Pope, he's been to 130 countries multiple times, made his final journey into another world. The Catholic Church in his death has lost a strong personality and once energetic leader who until a couple of years ago was the most vociferous voice against abortion, spoke about upholding the dignity of every human beings life who was affected severly by Parkinsons disease in the past couple of years.

I vividly remember seeing him in Marina Beach, Madras (now Chennai) in the late eighties when he came to India the first time. Pope John Paul II will remain dearest to all those who loved peace in this world, may God give rest to his soul. We'll miss you Holy Father especially your guidance in issues where the world is heading into a dangerous direction. The Pope's life is best summarised here.

Tsunami hits South Indian coastline

On the day after Christmas a fierce calamity struck the southern coasting of the Indian sub-continent and a number of other countries in the Indian Ocean including Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Somalia. The extent of damage caused in terms of human lives is huge. Nagapattinam, close to the Catholic religious shrine of The Lady Of Health (Velankanni) was the worst hit with casualties hitting more than two thousand and still counting. Most of Nagapattinam town shares it's boundaries with the sea and there are a number of hamlets that bordered the shoreline. All have been totally wiped out now, what remains are beaches lines with corpses of humans that were sucked into the sea.

The sight in Velankanni is even more ghastly, the makeshift roof setup for the midnight service on Christmas day was now sheltering dead bodies of people recovered from the sea and adjoining areas. Bodies lying to be identified or handed over to the near and dear ones. Imagine what would have been running across the minds of the innocent people, children especially when this had to happen when they were undertaking a pilgrimage. Without going into the ethical concepts involved here, none would have even dreamt of the calamity that was to befall them in the holiest place where people came to get rid of their sickness and handicaps. Is there a message to this? I am not sure, but this is definitely an indicator of one thing. No matter how much man thinks he is in control, that much more things are out of his control.

Cuddalore, a small town on coastal Thamizh Nadu (Tamilnadu) was hit badly. Chennai (Madras) and it's adjoining areas were hit too. Here the disaster was caused primarily because of vested interests allowing people to live dangerously close to the sea all along from Toll Gate, Kasimedu down to the Harbour. Kalpakkam, the site of MAPS (Madras Atomic Power Station) was shutdown to keep things under control. The township accorsing to witnesses bears a batterred look with virtually nobody there. I should say, this place has hundreds of families whose bread winners are employed in IGCAR and MAPS is quite a lively place in normal times. I cherish the moments I got to spend there in a pal's house in 2000/2001. The youth there are involved in all sorts of activities from sports, cultural and social. You can find elder people taking a walk in the township which has well laid roads which are brightly lit and it is absolutely safe to take a walk at 0000 hrs in the night.

Kanniyakumari, the southern most tip of the south indian state of Thamizh Nadu (Tamilnadu) was hit badly. There were visitors stranded on Vivekananda Rock when the Tsunami hit and had to rescued later by the Coast Guard. Thoothukudi (Tuticorin), Vedaranyam, Rameswaram, Pondicherry were all hit badly by this Tsunami. Loss of human lives would have been minimum had the civil authorities followed basic town planning rules of not allowing hutments and settlements close to the sea. The lack of political and administrative will is what should make us squirm because despite the tall promises that our politicians make, we know that they are all directed at appeasement. A long term solution would be to hit the root of the issue, make sure people are provided with the basic needs and stop dividing heads in religious lines.

One thing that is evident in the whole rescue operation is the coming together of human minds. Nagapattinam town is a Muslim majority area, you could find them running around to be of help in the rescue operations. Nobody wanted to save only a Muslim, all they wanted to see was one breathing soul in a heap of breathless bodies. This spirit was evident in all the areas, there was not a single instance where a person of one religion would hesitate to help another on religious lines. It's only the politician who keeps pointing to the dollar hanging around our neck, that sandal paste on our forehead, that thread across our arms. If not for them I doubt if we'd even care to notice that. At the end of the day, all of us breathe the same air, live on the same soil and one day will leave this place for sure. If only we can stop fighting in the name of God ........ I am sure we will. Adios !

Pawn or Porn

Technology has grown exponentially in the past 55 yrs and more so in the past 10 yrs. The MMS clipping that has raised ripples all over recently must be seen in this perspective. Before getting in that, we need to ask some questions to ourselves. What is it that bothers us when we hear about two school children and their private activities. Is it the act that nauseates us, in the light of the fact that these were two minors in school? Are we concerned by what constituted the act? Is the technology that is used that demands our attention? Or is it simply the voyeur in us that is getting excited at the thought of getting a peek into these kids lives?

Whatever it is, one thing is for sure. This trend is not new in our schools, especially the so-called 'public' schools and boarding schools. Our society needs to be educated more on the values than condemning entities for transgressing what is perceived as right and wrong. Nobody is raising questions about the awareness that needs to be created. Sex has to be defined as intimate and personal connection between two people who have some bonding and is not something a school girl should be risking her personality and health with. The core issue is more of understanding and being comfortable with the most contentious topic on earth. Every living human being is a result of two people's carnal interests. What's the big deal in hiding behing a veil then?

Before getting into technology, the first question that I thought was that did we really need cameras on cell-phones? This was simply the case of one company wanting to create more value for their product. Today the market is not defined by need or value, but absolute reasonless additions in the name of offering the latest in technology. The fact that the sexual act was filmed shows the playfulness of two teenagers who were experimenting with their sexuality. The age is addictive where one person can easily get the other to submit to one's whims and fancies. These days students are not students anymore, they are pawns at the hands of their parents and peers.

Every parent wants his son/daughter to become a 'somebody' in society and keep pushing them to the edge of sanity and tolerance. Many become super-successful, some become sick mentally, others get into all the shady activities while there are a number who simply believe that there is place for every person on earth, but this reality dawns at a later stage in their lives. The third groups thrives on shady dealings solely with no other escape route. This coupled with the amount of secrecy and hush-hushness associated with sex, drugs, gambling creates a cult value for the act and gets people interested in it. One doesn't need to look beyond the TV to get an idea of the way the creators of the programmes perceive the market and their target audience.

Does every music video need to be accompanied with a sultry siren baring it all within its bits piece of cloth which would only be enough to cover one's face? Keep thinking while I'll go and get some more insight into the human psyche.

Into God's own country ..

After a long gap of almost an year I had the chance of stepping into Kerala for a friend's marriage. Driving has always been a pleasure, especially on the NH 47. 22 kms from Coimbatore Tamilnadu ends and Kerala begins. The transition is quite contrasting, this time the dam in the border was full of water. Kerala is a unique place for a couple of reasons. One is the presence of greenery everywhere and another is the different shades of people one can meet there. There are simply myriad types of Malayalees (Mallus), each has his/her own distinct trait. We had to go to this place called Shoranur which is almost between the road connecting Palakkad and Thrissur. The easiest way to reach Thrissur from Palakkad is to take the NH 47, but this one runs parallel to it and passes through places of traditional significance. A Nair malayalee wedding meal is a sight to the eyes as much as to the palette. There are 3-5 different kinds of vegetables, 3-5 different kind of dishes you can mix with par-boiled rice before gobbling them. There is a sweetish-sourish-tangy paste called 'injhipuli', banana chips, sweets and ofcourse, payasam - 3 types of them with pappad.

Driving back from this place to my hometown was tedious because of the road work that was in progress between Shoranur and Palakkad which took apart the speed off the vehicle. Secondly it was 27 hrs since I last slept which was causing considerable fatigue. But once on the wheel I am quite a steady person (this is what all drivers think, even alcoholics) and made it home in 2 hrs and 15 minutes. There is just one thought running across my mind now, the next time I'd get into Kerala and spend some time in my maternal grandparents place. Enjoy the early morning walks in the field with my Granny (she's 87 now), fresh milk direct from the udders of the bufallo. Baths in the stream running alongside the field, driving tractor in the ploughed field. Tapping rubber trees for sap and treating it before it becomes rubber sheet ...... I guess I am more a farmer than an engineer, it's the root I inherited from my parents. Make no mistake, my parents were not farmers either though my grandparents were. But there is this liking towards earth deep sown in us that it at times make us wonder all those good time a 100 years ago.

Who am I?

That's quite a fundamental question, all of us keep wondering who we are at some point of time in our life or should I say at many times in our lives? This is one thing I keep hitting quite frequently, wish I could answer it in simple and understanding terms. Alas, this is a question that has been asked through the ages and I am no different. I guess in the end, it's not who we are, but what we do with ourselves that matters. Destiny holds the ultimate answer ..... but who cares ....... whoever am I? That is not something pertinent that I need to break my head about.