Jai Ho Slimdog*

Watched the first show of the movie here in Gurgaon yesterday.
Technically, it was the premiere show, which was a first for me. I think that this movie will get a few Oscars. I will tell you why I think so. After the movie got over, the song 'jai ho' started playing while the credits rolled. Not one person got up. Usually, the last shot marks the beginning of the race to the exit, then to the stairs and then to the car park. The end-of-movie race is a 'working model' of the rat race. All defining characteristics are present. It is not ex, every one else is your enemy and there is no real payoff. But race is always there to be played and participants take it very, very seriously.
This movie paused the rat race in this small movie hall by about 5 minutes.
This is why I think it will win.
The movie was about India, had only Indians in it, was very mainstream and still was not Bollywood in the least. I did not think such feats were humanly possible.

* Oh yes, I want to be a Slimdog. (Thanks Ved!)

What's the Catch?

It was love at first read. The first time I read it was in college. It helped me during my MBA entrance interviews as well, as it played the part of my favourite book, favourite author and also the last book I had read (it probably was). There is something about the Catch because of which I keep coming back to it. So do a lot of others it seems. It has been voted one of the best novels of all times in several surveys.
Someone once told me that one of the reasons I was not floored by "Catcher in the Rye" was probably because I did not read it at the right age. With Catch 22, I think I got it right.
What did I like about it?
The humour. Black and dry and variations of the same.
The confusing narrative, which jumped from place to place and person to person and forward and backwards in time - all in the same sentence some times.
The characters - Yossarian (the anti hero, ofcourse!), Ex-PFC Wintergreen, Milo (The capitalist) and Dunbar. in fact, all the characters were like different possible roles one acts out in real life. Many a time, I have spotted Wintergreen, Cathcart, Yossarian and Dreedle in real life.
The book is also a melting pot of so many underlying themes - the arguments of one person's welfare versus many, the sanity inside insanity, heroism and the lack of it, the absurd extremes of bureaucracy, the absurd extremes of normalcy as well, love versus lust - it never fails to excite.
Heller also made disguised references to earlier works and usually let his characters take the opposite position. For example, Yossarian is the opposite of Achilles all through the book when he always chooses his life over others. He is also the opposite of Jesus, when he choses to make a deal with the colonel.
I used to have a very worn out copy, which had survived the college hostel, numerous train  rides between Delhi and Mangalore and long rainy evenings in London. I got another copy as a birthday gift a few years ago. Getting something you really like is nice. Always.
The next book which comes anywhere close is "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. But that is another post.
(Also, blogger sucks!)

Oh Calcutta!

So I went to 'Oh Calcutta' yesterday for Lunch. There were four of us and I was the first one to show up, so I had some time to look around. This one is built opposite the Satyam at Nehru Place (which is a new movie theatre built on what used to be a parking lot) and has quite an expensive parking lot (Rs 50 for 2 hours). I parked outside on the road and then made my way inside. The maitre'd was nice and quickly got me a table. He was quite helpful. I had mentioned that I was waiting for three others, and I saw him ask quite a few groups of three poeple they were looking for Saurabh.

Back to Oh Calcutta!

What were the other things nice about the place:
- the restaurant is well spread out and they have not tried to cramp the place up
- there are various seating options - tables for 2/3/4/5/6/8 (I think!)
- The service was prompt. They did try to upsell (regular water or bottled water and the like), which is something I personally dislike, but managed to sound very genuine.
- The prices were reasonable. Actually, I do not really know as my friends paid for it (A resounding round of applause to the Jains and to AR). But I think the buffet was around Rs600 (including taxes)
Some astute readers might have realised by now that the restaurant review has overlooked mentioning the food so far. Good point, I will say. Well made, I can add to that. The central theme here is Bengali food. Since I have not had too much Bengali food (all my bong aunties used to make sure they were well stocked in chole-bhature every time I went to their house), I can not be an authority of the quality of the jhol or taste of the steamed Hilsa.
However, since many a large meal have passed through me, I know a good one when I get one. Overall, the meal was fantastic. It was very mild and had the taste/look/feel of home-cooked food. I had the fish curry, the lamb and the prawn curry. The prawn curry was labeled 'thakurbadi', which means that it had been cooked as it used to be cooked in Tagore's kitchen.

I would recommend Oh Calcutta! to people who like normal north indian food - rich in variety and flavour, low in oil, lots of courses etc.

Shootout at Lokhandwala

I could also call it - The Ambush at The Trocadero... because I felt physically hurt as I walked out with envigoman after watching this movie.

You can find the plot details here but nothing can prepare you for the mess that the director and the scriptwriter have concocted. The cast of the movie had its highs and lows - Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunit Dutt but also so called heroes like Suni(e)l Shetty and Tus(s)har Kapoor. The plot is based on a 14 hours shootout which happened in the early 90s in a residential suburb of bombay, where 6 goons were shot dead by the police. The story, being a real story, is real enough here too. (I like saying positive things about a movie, I need to be balanced in my approach).
Bad things about the movie -

1. Music
2. Tushar Kapoor + Vivek Oberoi + the other four goons - they looked more like high school bullies from a boys only school who then get to meet women for the first time.

Overall, I am not sure about what the director was trying to achieve - Was the movie about police brutality or about how the police has had to evolve to counter the new breed of criminals? Or was it just some cash rich produced who wanted a tax writeoff? Amitabh for the whole movie was mouthing one cliche after the other, the encounter sequence had exquisitely bad screenplay, the movie had songs in the flashback and if I remember correctly, even had a dream sequence :)

Avoid this one more than plague - the plague can only kill you.

Top five songs

I recently read this on a blog, when you can't think of anything, make a list.

Also, since I have lost a lot of my music a few times and have not been listening to much music for long having recently heard rumours that my Ipod also has been stolen (it was a gift, those were the days :( ), there might be old favourites which are missed out, or recent upstarts which get included in this esteemed list, but please forgive such oversights.

In no particular order, here goes:

Kashmir by Led Zeppelin


This post has taken me the longest time to write because of the decision involved:
- which song of Led Zep to take?
- Do I mention songs like Rabbi below on the same page and list as songs like Kashmir. Will such songs stay with me for as long as Led Zep has?
- Which Led Zep song to take?

In some ways, Led Zep could make up quite a few top 5 lists of mine and figure in a few more. Sometimes they dont make sense, sometimes there are just plain mad, but overall, I do not think too many people came close to the sound and the impact which they managed to generate.

Time by Pink Floyd

and then one day you find,
ten years have gotten behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run, you run to catch up with the sun,
but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Again, Floyd with its lyrics and the sound and the willingness to invest in long lingering melodies, which are more like a story makes me wonder about why I like music which is so different from each other...
Well for one, I like the meaning of the song much more than how it sounds. Actually, that is wrong. for me, All of is has to fall in place.
(Like the way Joe Cocker sings the Beatle cover - "With a little help from my friends". Now that is the way the song had to be sung. So what is the Beatles sang it before him). This way, I can explain the long musical jump I am going to take...


Kishore Kumar Songs
- Pal Pal Dil ke Paas
- Aana wala Pal
- Tere bina Zindagi se koi
- Honton se choolon tum

and so many more. Each song is a unique mix of hope, joy, sadness, longing - I wish I could write like this, or sing like this, or atleast knew about all such songs, some of the songs I am referring to and even some of the songs in this short list above might not even have been sung by him... even so, I am referring to this genre of Hindi film music - not too many instruments, a quick buildup, a song which said something and meant something and made you feel a bit (So soppy I sound, apologies)

Tere bin by Rabbi Shergill
I heard this song thanks to another song by him named "Bulla ki Jaana". BKJ in itself is a really nice song. It told me that some of the things I feel about myself are more common than I thought. That someone in the 16th century was also feeling a bit lost! Anyway, songs, like most other things in life, have a time and a place. BKJ did, and now it is Tere bin. The special thing about this song is the acceptance of love lost and the regret. At a deeper level, it also shows how in retrospect, regret can have all the detail and richness of the present. The words are quite simple (once you get your hands on the punjabi to hindi/english translation).

Mann ki Lagan (Paap)
Lingering melodies day it seems to be today. However, again, one's likes and dislikes are like a mirror to ones' heart I guess. Well, I have not watched the movie or seen the video - but the song just makes me stop whatever I am doing. I think the singer is Nusrat, actually I know the singer is Nusrat and his voice lends the right amount of longing to the words. It is again, quite a clear and simple song, made special by the words, the singer and the music.


Phew!!! well making this list definitely was tougher than I had anticipated...
Which songs to pick, which not to. Such decisions.. let me just go back to spending money for my employer!

Munnabhai part deux

Short review - without the plot spoiler - Nice movie, which tugged a bit at the heart and more on the brain than usual (more on that below) - This time our hero, who is beginning to look old, falls in love with a twenty-something radio host and as usual, lies to get into her good books. After a lot of help from Circuit, his sidekick, and an apparition of his brain, is able to get the girl, sort out a few issues and also leave the audience wanting more as well as showing the way of living our lives in a better way. No, no - I am not being cynical here, the movie seemed exactly that to me.

The set of questions which came to my mind (and now there are more details about the plot, so dont tell me I did not warn you if you have not seen the movie yet) were somewhat like this.

In the movie, Munnabhai reads up about Gandhiji and starts having visions of him. (It is explained in the movie itself that Gandhiji who is talking to Munnahai is not real and a figment of his imagination - phew!).

First level, there was this discomfort of seeing Gandhiji on screen. He is someone whose picture is always there on walls behind ministers and police officers, but that is that. I was very worried about what the producer wanted to do with this character. Second, I was uncomfortable at some of the patronising which went on.

Gradually, I felt uncomfortable because of the questions which I then asked myself - Do I love my country? Do I acknowlege and respect the sacrifices which happened for a 100 years by an entire country to give me the free air I used to breathe (Irony of ironies - I live in England now)?

It is true that there is a sense of pride for being an Indian - for a feeling of belonging to and being a product of a great culture and history and sharing a heritage with some of these poeple. But then, what have I done to deserve it?

I know that I feel bad when something happens at the borders and when innocents die in Kashmir or Assam or Bombay. I know that I will give money for such a cause - be it army widows or war bonds. In some small way, when there is a crisis, I will try to help. But what about business as usual? I know that I have bribed ticket collectors and government clerks - speed money. I know that I turn a blind eye towards friends and family when they use their connections to get things done - small things and big things - be it a phone connection or a gas connection or a fake birth certificate.

What does one do, when one is not sure if one is of the system, by the system and for the system?

It is very easy for me to say that I am just one person and this is just too big for me to try and change anything.
Would I not thank God that Gandhiji, for one, did not think that?