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Few hours away …
Update: First day first show is something special…no matter how the movie is..
Photography is too good. Background score & costume design closely follows. The new kid is cute. And, of course, there is Kads above all
But the final product is anything one can expect a Bollywood-YashRaj to churn out. Can’t believe Kajol believed the script was so out of the world to make it the choice to break the sabbatical…anyways, no one is complaining.
These are the first impressions…now back to work…will be back if time permits…. Subanallah…..

Update: Review

After mulling over it again and after getting over the initial reactions, my views about the film are still unchanged. It is not a superlative film and does not do any better than an average bollywood one.

After the success of the debut directorial effort, Kunal Kohli, falls flat on his face on the second one. His dialogues too were uncanny and he better save it for some experts in his next attempt.

Flaws in script are plenty and are unconvincing. Be it all-prepared-parents for a Shehzada (as if they had already seen the movie), immediatlely falling in love, a tiring second half[just after the screen flashes after 7 years I had guessed the rest of the film], a nagging “trigger”[have begun to hate the word...such a pitiable excuse?...could he not think of a stronger mission/ ideal ?], old book stylish drama, inconsistent flow, not at all impressive dialogues including bad taste supposed-to-be jokes (student biting ?? of teacher, kid choosing to make Rahul Dravid his father), meaningless characters(like wasted Tabu), the length etc etc. [There is advt of LG-Tataindicom phone but that can be noticed only by a clear observer!]

But there are few good things as well. Cinematography by Ravi K Chandran is one. Background score another. Child actor Ali Hajji is fine. I felt the pair of Aamir-Kajol was quite good(I mean to say, not much damage done as SRK fans will claim to…but yes, in one song I almost saw SRK instead of Aamir!). Aamir Khan does well in few parts (but is overshadowed by Kajol in others!). But there are two good reasons to watch the film - Kajol and Kajol.

She, in a role that was easy to make a mess of, breathes life, makes it natural and convincing. Her screen presence is to be seen to belive and easily overshadows Aamir. From a bubbly-jovial-all-happy-blind-girl to a mother-widow and unforgiving wife she carries it off with aplomb and ease. Add to that, her picture-perfect looks, colourful dresses - what more a fan can ask for.[I had just hoped she does not need to cry a lot and Kunal Kohli has oblized! First half is a treat anyways!]

After watching every recent movie of hers, I feel more and more convinced that even if I had entered the hall being a non-fan, there is no way to come out of the hall in the same state. If you dont believe me, check out every other reviews in the town! Her charm, screen presence, beauty and of course acting is mind boggling and it is a pity that she self-imposed a hiatus and that there is no news about her next movie.

After having turned down offers from her close buddies (like Karan Johar), if she had finally accepted the offer, it had to be a good and “different” script. Or so it was told. I entered with curiousity as to see what has made the script so special. But exited with disappointment.

It is getting undue attention due to controversies(1, 2 sorrounding it. It is watchable once. Or twice, if you are like me, a Kajol’s fan

[For all I know, this can become a boxoffice super grosser...for I did not have high views of KKHH or K3G either.]

Khaled reviews here and you can see that my views more and more subscribe to his rather than the sugar coated one at Rediff. But this one is quite ok!

Now let me address few media raised questions. “Can Kajol match Rani”..Of course this was keeping in mind that Rani played blind. Our Kajol’s character gets intelligent and “opens her eyes” (pun unintended) and does away with blindness just before the interval with a surgery! Competition over, ha!! Fun apart, it is highly unfair to compare two different roles. One can compare only if there is a remake. And to compare any contemporary actress with Kajol is unfair…Kajol was/is miles ahead of her closest competitor! And there has not been any role that has managed to do justice to her talent. Rani got lucky.(And that too, she would not have, if Kajol had not quit the arena…SLB had a soft corner for Kajol from beginning and he had apparantely offered Khamoshi to her and for HDDCS as he himself accepted, Kajol was his first choice.)

Another one asked “Can Kajol recreate the magic she created with DDLJ”. Huh! Where is the need to “recreate” it when we havent come out of her magic itself !! Fun apart, to recreate the magic you need a strong script, my friend. And apart from BigB who gets role written “for” him, nobody has been able to “recreate” the magic. But that too after a dark patch during which he appeared “lost”.

But Kajol is as flawless and as easy as if her previous movie was done just yesterday and not 5 years ago. Breathing life into a character that, to be fair, had not much to challenge an actress but was enough to be flawed if left unattended to.

How I wish she gets a completely author backed role written “for” her. SLB, are you listening ?

PS: Looking at previous posts, there has been mostly movie talk…which is not a good sign…I feel I should take a break from watching. Post Da Vinci, I plan to take a sabbatical

Update (Final!):
More thoughts
When I think of the title Fanaa as destroyed in love, I am immediately reminded of Gangster which was better suitable for the title.

On screen Chemistry:
Lot has been talked about SRK-Kads on screen chemistry. So I had naturally expected SRK fans to complain about no-chemistry of Aamir Khan and Kajol in Fanaa.

I personally believe that on screen chemistry is a hyped subjective concept. The great proof is totally contradicting opinions about Aamir-Kads chemistry. Yeah, certain level of comfort between the actors always show on the screen but then the best actors’ job is to make things look natural on screen. In that respect, Kads and Aamir gel completely well and co-operate finely on screen. All those who are whining about no-chemistry between this pair are either SRK fans (who are plain jealous!) or had decided that this pair lacks chemistry even before entering the hall. People see what they want to see!

Traces of other movies:
Dil se / Fiza
And sadly even this did not completely utilise the buildup!

Songs:
Though initially I was not very impressed with the songs, after seeing the movie (greatly due to picturisation) and after repeated hearing of the songs, I liked quite a few songs. Also when I realize that this is going to be the last movie for the “Jatin-Lalit” pair (though they will continue to compose separately), I feel bad to be missing them. One more trivia is that the “whistle” (in Subahnalla song) is from Nagesh Surve – can you believe that he is the only whistler for Bollywood from almost 35 years ? Including Soudagar (Ilu Ilu) to DDLJ,KKHH and what not, he has lent his sound (whistling!) to almost 1400 films!

My favorite songs in Fanaa are (except last, all on same rank) :
Destroyed in Love (Lounge Mix): This is a beautiful musical blend of Dekho Na and Mere Haath Mein. I feel this symbolizes “Jatin-Lalit” blend.
Chand Sifarish (For picturisation, whistle and Kailash Kher’s Subahnalla…)
Des Rangila (Had not liked this before watching movie ;-). Colourful and patriotic !
Mere Haath Mein : Super romantic; Mohabbatein flowers and Kads in red saree!
Chanda Chamke: Playing in snow! By the way, did anyone notice that this is a repeat song from Hum Tum - Yaara yaara (Don’t remember if it was shot in movie or not).

Scenes I liked : (In no particular order)
Antakshari – I felt this singing of Kajol and Aamir are better than they have sung in songs (which was news!)
Rose petal – Oh so sweet… feel like doing to someone
Rehan carrying her … damn sweet… ditto
When Zooni says, “now you are afraid”, the look on Aamir’s face was the best scene from Aamir and is enough evidence of his insuperable talent.
Opening scene – saluting to wrong direction
Opening scene between the lead pair –“Andhi hai kya” “Haan dikta nahin hai kya?”
One tight slap to Rehan from Zooni.
Another lovely scene from Aamir is the look on his face and the way he falls when he knocks on her door years after.

And I liked it everytime when a meaningful old song was played in the background. They were infact better than few filmy shayiris.

Box office collections:
As I predicted earlier (above) (My predictions about box office collections and award winnings have been right most of the times! though I don’t understand the logic behind both of them), it has made quite a good collection on the opening week. And it might as well become biggest grosser of the year (Not to forget the competition from “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna”). This is the Box Office stats for first week:

Yash Raj Films’ latest offering ‘FANAA’ creates history at the box office. ‘Fanaa’ is the highest grossing film on the first weekend, in the history of Indian films. Fanaa’s magic has spread all around the world. All India collections (4 days): Rs. 22.79 crore - highest ever first 4 days collections (These figures are without the film having released in the entire state of Gujarat) First 4 days Worldwide figures:
USA: US$ 900,000
UK: £ 414,835 (US $ 788,187)
Australia: US$ 94,713 (2nd highest opening ever for an Indian film)
Total OVERSEAS Gross (4 days): US$ 2007688 (INR 9.33 crore approx.)
Total INDIA Gross (4 days): Rs. 22.79 crores

Some reviews

Collection of Media reviews - Sarah - the owner of this site is the one whom I can give away the title as No.1 Kajol fan. Her energy and her time spent is unbelievable.
NaachGaana, A very neutral and somewhat excellent review there

Khaled Mohammed
Subash Jha
Rashmi Bhansal
Megha Murthy
Sudhish Kamath
Great Bong

I read loads of reviews on internet and in the group, when I got free time last week and I must say I had observed most of the points. So I am finally somewhat convinced that I do not write bad reviews .I till now hesitated that there is special qualification required to write good reviews. May be I need to put little time and effort on presentation.

But then, some of the reviews just made me look at it in a totally different view. Wonder how something ticks someone but fails to do that on others and realize that, that is why reviews are what they are – highly subjective

Final Verdict

All said and done, as I said in comments, movie is average except for Kajol and partly Aamir, if you ask me.I repeat, Fanaa is not a bad movie (we already had Veer Zaara) but is not a great movie either. A good chance wasted. But then, as someone said, it has its moments and it might even trigger a financial and awarding success to those involved.

And to end the post and to celebrate, here are the shayiris:

Bul karke bhi humse koi bhul hui ho to,
Bhul samjkar use bhla dena,
Lekin bhulana sirf Bhul ko,
Galti se bhi Hume na Bhulana.

Humse dur jao ge kaise,
Dilse hume bhulaoge kaise,
Hum to khushbu hai jo sanso me baste hai,
khud ki sanso ko rok paonge kaise.

Baithe hai hotho ko si kar,
pachtayengi aap,
Ishq jag uthta hai akshar,
Aisi khamosi ke bad

Dard se aankhe char kar lenge,
Hum odti me imtiha de denge,
Teri dosti ke khatir Ae DOST,
Hum bhi dushman se pyar kar lenge.

Insan ki khwaish ki koi imtiha nahi,
Do guj jamin chahi ye Do guj Kafan ke baad.

Tumhari Khubsurti ne Khuda se eik khata kara di,
kahi khud se nazar na lag jaye, is liye tumhe Nazar na Di.

Tere Dil Me Meri Sanso Ko PANAH Mil Jaye,
Tere Ishq Me Meri Ja FANNA Ho Jaye.

E Khuda Aaj Ye Faisla Karde,
Use Mera ya Mujhe Uska Karde.
Bahut Dukh Sahe He Maine,
Koi Khusi Ab Toh Muqadar Karde.
Bahot Muskil Lagta Hai Usse Duur Rehna,
Judai Ke Safar Ko Kum Karde.
Jitna Duur Chale Gaye Woh Mujhse,
Use Utna Kareeb Karde.
Nahi Likha Agar Nasib Me Uska Naam,
To Khatam Kar Ye Zindagi aur Mujhe FANAA Karde.

Tere Dile mein meri saanson ko panah mil jaaye Tere Ishq mein meri Jaan Fanaa Ho jaayea.

Ankhen to pyar me dilki zuban hoti hai,
sachi chahat to sada bezuban hoti hai,
pyar mai dard bhi mile to kya gabrana,
suna hai dard se chahat aur jawan hoti hai….

Phool hun Gulaab kaa
Chameli ka mat samjhnaa
Aashiq hun aapkaa
Apni Saheli ka mat samjhnaa

Dur Humse Jaa Paoge Kaise,
Humko Bhool Paoge Kaise.
Hum Who Khushbu Jo Saanson Mein Utar Jaye, Khud Apni Saanxon Ko Rok Paoge Kaise..

Bekhudi Ki Zindagi Hum Jiya Nahi Karte,
Yun kisika ka Jaam Hum Piya Nahi Karte.
Unse Kehdo Mohabbat Ka Izhaar Aakar Khud Karein,
Yun Kisika Peecha Hum Nahin Karte

Rone de tu aaj hamako tu aankhe sujane de
Baho me lele aur khud ko bheeg jane de
Hai jo seene me quaid dariya wo chut jayega
Hai itana dard ki tera daman bheeg jayega.

tere dil mein meri saanson ko jagah mil jaaye
tere ishq mein meri jaan fanaa ho jaaye
adhoori saans thi dhadkan adhoori thi adhooren ham
magar ab chaand poora hain falak pe aur ab pooren hain ham

• Snap
  A different way of search.
  (tags: web)

• Finger Art
  
  (tags: Fun)

The title of this post was initially supposed to be “I do not have to know an answer“, a quote from Feynman, [from the video, link given below], a thought that has been with me for quite some time now. With the risk of sounding proud/immodest, let me say that it gives much pleasure to hear our own thoughts when it comes from others. And when it comes from the very Feynman, I am thrilled at myself :). Watch the video of approx 40 minutes - much to be learnt from it - like, more important is to know something than to know the name of something, then there is a mention about how people respect “positions”, about “doubt” and many others.

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Finally, the video is available here.
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By now you might have heard about the BBC mix-up for the interview of a “Guy”. The video is here. Related stories here and here.
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Isn’t the following video wonderful ?
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Other interesting video from him is this.
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And I guess you have already seen this one. From the first Animusic DVD. Pipe Dream has been voted one of the 50 greatest animation projects ever (by 3D World magazine). A group of percussion instruments perform music by way of metal balls that fly out from pipes.
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This is a funny video of an computer using employee (am fed up of the word software engg…) in office. Have fun
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And this is absolutely fun. On cricket
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Here you find an interview of K K Mookhey founder of NII about how he left Engg to start off with his own business. He didn’t know “what” or “how” to do apart from that he was clear that he would be starting on his own. He did not have any business plan nor does he have now.
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Another interview from The Kamla Bhatt Show is of Amit Agarwal about his full time blogging at Digital Inspiration using which he earns more than he would have earned in his previous profession - Software Engineer. Given that most of his earning comes from Adsense, he is India’s own version of Problogger. A success story here and there but many Indian bloggers are of the opinion that Adsense would just provide for a meal or two a month.

• Bhangi devarige henDaguDuka pujari
  (tags: Kannada)
• Seven Rules of Motivation
  (tags: lifehacks)

Well…its been much time since I finished reading Shantaram and this is just an effort to organise the thoughts I had written that time. There will be lot of discontinuity (proper bulleting should be imagined) and lack of flow (which has become common with any thing I do these days). Lot of spoilers and also might not make sense if you have not read the novel.

When I read Shantaram, I had thought it was all real-story (word to word) as the cover page claims, but it was much later did I come to know that it was a dramatisation of the real events. It means that the characters were real, the events were more real but there was lot of decoration as well. Nothing wrong with it, infact is very necessary and is completely given as “creative freedom” of a writer but my not knowing it meant that I did not consider the things “with a pinch of salt”.

So here goes sequentially the thoughts as I procedeed reading. Arranging this formally was a monstrous task and which explains the delay. Even if you don’t read first 2 parts, do read the third one. That is the one written after the finishing of the novel and makes more sense than the others and is kind of total summary.
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Read the rest of this entry »

Some questions on human memory I have from quite some time. I might get some answers via Google if I wish, but felt like recording it here to get some ready answers !!

Is human memory unlimited ?

[Is it possible to keep on memorizing ? For eg, is it possible to memorize everything that is there in a dictionary ? ]

I guess, ability to recall from memory does not only depend on when it was stored (or when it happened). Then, is there someking of “frequently accessed” area in memory from which it is easy to recall and from other areas it is difficult ?

• Animusic-Pipe Dream - Google Video
  From the first Animusic DVD. Pipe Dream has been voted one of the 50 greatest animation projects ever (by 3D World … all » magazine). A group of percussion instruments perform music by way of metal balls that fly out from pipes.
  (tags: videos)
• The SimCam: Film and Digital Camera Simulator - Photonhead.com
  Easy to learn basics of photography with the help of a simulated camera
  (tags: photography)

• From Weblog to CMS with WordPress
  (tags: Wordpress)
• Photo Matt » The Blogging Software Dilemma
  The thoughts behind birth of WP.Well, it would be nice to have the flexibility of MovableType, the parsing of TextPattern, the hackability of b2, and the ease of setup of Blogger. Someday, right?
  (tags: Wordpress)
• Whitepaper: Pingback vs Trackback
  (tags: web)

Orkut, a simply phenomenol social networking site in this part of the world, was introduced to me lately. As many other things, orkut is best when you have access all the time, people use it as alternative to messenger. At that time I was as ignorant as my other friends whom I sent an invite.
But many of them did not take it up and I slowly lost interest (have seen many people building quite healthy relationships with new people on orkut and have heard orkut is an addiction for many..but I only used it for keeping in touch with already friends..). But over last few months, it seems many from my friends’ circle have suddenly taken to orkut and I keep getting friend requests (even from those whom I had already sent an invite years ago but did not respond then) and getting scraps written, only to remind me more that now I do not have access to that site.
One more example that illustrates - I was early.

Wont say much about the movie, but let me bet Kangana Ranaut(19 yrs) is gonna win all the debutant awards this year. It was very much author backed role alright, but she is the one who makes it look the character real. She looks/dresses pretty, acts easily, screams till you go crazy and her voice is somewhat drunken, somewhat sleepy, somewhat painful and contributes very well to the character.

Camerawork is fine in many parts - the colorful nature background, the breathtaking terrace, the scene in the rain etc. Gripping and refreshing.
And of course there is one more plus point in the movie and that is super music from Pritam. Am hooked to two songs and was enjoying all the songs(except the weeping song-was that a pun??) during the movie. The songs not all necessary,but what the heck, we forget movies but songs will have more life. For that reason, no complaints about the songs. Shiney did not have much breadth but had good intensity. Emran does underplay his character well. Both have done a wonderful job. Very little was shown to justify the ‘gangster’ status. Just love the way Daya goes and beats up Akash.

I do not think I can straight away praise this one as rediff does. I felt the story was very much predictable. And relate to what Khaled (oh yes, found him back !) says here, but I shall not write it off as he does. People often confuse story with story-telling and this again is an example where the former is weak but the latter is very refreshing and strong(so what, if it was slow). The sheer complexities to characters and especially that of Simran is what makes it different.

Rating too - not a great one but worth a dekho once.
Or twice - for Kangana and her voice and her mannerisms.

Okay..this is blogmela post again. Hopefully this will be regular. The procastrination was only to make this not hog the main page but to get buried inside like the Linkblog. But due to various reasons, I have to wait for someone to come up with plugin/code that allows to hide more than one category posts on the main page and but to still allow it in the feed.

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Kiruba mentioned about cycling sometime back and I immediately pinged Guru. Discussion, planning, booking happened and right now they must be travelling on their cycles from Bangalore to Chennai. Am eager to hear their experiences. Guru mentioned that people were laughing at his adventure and when I spoke of it here, I too faced that. I did not really expect people not to appreciate people doing different things. One person said, they could just circle around a big ground number of times. I burst out laughing. I said you would also suggest that climbing up and down our terrace 1000 times is equivalent to climbing Mt.Everest. Of course I remembered this quote as well:

“Because it is there.” - George Mallory (1886-1924), answer to the question ‘Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest ?’.

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Dreamvendor quits blogging which is kinda sad. More so because he wrote some of the finest stories in Coffee and Stories. Mansi,Siddarth and coffee, I will dearly miss.
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Chitra was wondering about some confusions. I tried to share my views. The questions and comment is reproduced here. If any of you have questions, do ask me. But do not expect to get answers or to clear your confusions, you will plainly get *my* views.

After reading the following, if you agree/disagree do let me know.

Questions:

Companionship + comfort + support + mutual respect + chemistry = Friendship?

Friendship + desire = Love?

Love + commitment = Marriage?

The best compliment that can be paid to anything artificial is being compared to the real thing. What about the real thing?

A house built on compromise can never be a home?

What exactly is meant “striking the right balance” in life? Does it mean the right kind of compromise at the right time?

Too much of money is too bad, so say the rich?

Is honesty or hypocrisy the best policy?

Is there anything that’s more destructive than ego?

Do men deserve women?

Where does all the money paid in tax go?

Is vanity always the name of thy woman?

Is there an upper limit set for compromise?

Can we fall in love as and when we wish to?

Why do some people derive a perverse pleasure in causing pain to others?

What’s responsibility? Towards self……or towards your loved ones?

And what’s that which stops us from expressing ourself whole-heartedly? Fear of being ridiculed or fear of being rejected?

When we spend time with people whom we like, are we doing them a favour…or ourselves a favour?

My replies:
1) Might be one equation. It need not be the “only” one.

2) No. Much more or totally different.

3) Huh! Again very generic and acceptable definition for a short temporary moment of time.

4) Good question. A lame attempt at answering (I want to attempt all questions…never did it in school/college) Real thing gets its compliment from being useful. (again a narrow defn..but ..)

5) Can’t say. If just the belief can be percieved as truth the whole life without encountering/producing proofs to change the belief, anything on earth is possible.

6)Yes…very right…even you can relax the time axis.

7) Not quite an irony, for they have seen the other side of the grass which is supposed to be green.

Justify that hyprocrisy is best policy !

9) Yes. Jealousy. Hatred. Revenge.

10) The very first thought - do women deserve men ?
On more thoughts, men deserve women either as much as women deserve men or more than that.

11) Karmanye vaadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachana

12) Dont know.

13)For the weak minded, no. For the strong willed, yes.

14) Immediate response - what crap….Thoughtfully, question is too general and subjective. And implementation specific ! But importantly, how do I know ??!

15)Dont know.

16)Self first. Which in most cases will in turn be towards loved ones. In case if not, no probs. [No, I was not like this. But it really is meaningless to be more responsible to others than to oneself]

17)Dont know, bcoz nothing stops me. I believe in say what you want to say, do waht you want to do, -those who matter dont mind and those who mind dont matter etc etc. Simply put, I hate keeping the ball in my court, I hit it back first and then worry if it was a good shot or it went out of court. But then, the act is already committed

18)Of course ourselves, bcoz the inverse relation is not specified in the question. (I mean, if those whom we like really didnt like us, then it is a pain they are enduring and it is never our favour to them.) On the same thoughts, when you spend time with those whom you dont like, will you do them a favour or will you do yourself a favour (by saying bye) ?

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70mm moves to 70mm.wordpress.com
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Bro shares his experience on that day of disturbance after Dr Raj’s death. I have never seen (*touchwood*) a mob or voilence and it must have been a scary-n-confused ordeal.

I passed quietly through the black smoke of burnt tyres.

I wished he had a camera though.
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Sripathi has an account of his trip to Madikeri and some previous posts had good pics of the same. Now, coorg has been one another most elusive picnic spots for me and incidentally in last one year all my friends have toured separately to that place and now I am left with no company