Lens

Gaurav has translated Phu La Deshpande’s marathi essay “Mumbaikar, Punekar ..”. Makes an interesting and fun read. I loved these parts and I kept on nodding “Yes yes..I know people like this…”

Firstly, do not nurse the notion that you are inferior to anyone in any aspect of life. You are not. You are a superior being. Secondly, learn to express dissent on every issue possible. I mean seriously, stop thinking about minor things like who you are, how educated or uneducated you are, what your achievements are….. don’t think about any of these things and just express a contradictory opinion. Whatever the topic under discussion, your opinion needs to be strongly voiced, and it has to be contrarian. Even if the topic under discussion is “How to get the American economic machine back on track”, and you are just an employee of the Pune Municipal Corporation’s Rat Extermination Department, don’t let it stop you from holding forth.

Dissent is of primary importance. Logic is secondary.

RIGHT!

Phone mannerisms and that public speech is good too.

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Once I was walking with Sai and there was a 5 or 7 star hotel. The entrance itself looked majestic what with 2 security guards and all. I whispered “One day I shall enter and have a ball here”, to which Sai replied in lighter vein “Say one day you will own it”¹. “Yeah, I said, if I am dreaming why should I dream small. Dream big!” ² Suddenly I realized that I am not dreaming enough and in someways surrendering myself to the realities.

So I have decided to drop my dream of travelling abroad either from organisation (onsite) or on personal tour. There goes my long held dream out of the tiny window. I want to upgrade my dream.

I want to travel in space. Like Ansari.

Dreams are, after all, dreams.

PS:
Most people I talk to do not have any dreams. Not the possible ones. Not the impossible ones. I am not sure if the growing up, at one point, manages to curb that beauty of dreaming that we all have enjoyed during our childhood. I am sure all of us have dreamt on something or another. To fly a plane. By becoming invisible and punishing those who irritate us. To be all powerful with an all powerful gun and car. Such like.
Coming back to the point, the other day, when we were waiting for our big boss to come and address our gathering at a star hotel, I, in as usual blabbering mood, said “One day I shall come like this and address and there shall be people waiting for me”. To this Vishnu smiled and said, “Good..so you want to become an entrepreneur”. I smiled and asked what about him. What has he wanted to do or become. He said “I do not get any such ideas at all. All my ideas sorround my village and never leave my village. I want to have a large cattle farm.” I was all ears.
“You see people in our village pay Rs 12 per litre of milk. They need to get it from outside. I am sure if we self manage, it can be made available for just Rs 6. There are many such things I want to do that will help our village” I was very happy to listen to some dream. And it is very unlike of the gibberish I do - without a plan, without a direction. While I maintain this blog and spend time to talk all about my life, intentions with a self-focussed tagline “Life, thoughts and opinions of a Known Stranger”, he is striving to bring up a site for his village.³ More power to dreamers like this who might just realize the development of India by believing in Gandhiji’s belief that villages’ development is India’s development.

PPS: This is a light post. A serious one about why I feel giving up is not bad, will follow sometime.

1. I had had made such huge sentences earlier but then, I had lost it somewhere [back]
2. Our headmaster in my 10th had told a story where our aim should be for gold, then at the least we shall get silver or something on that lines. [back]
3. And I take small credit in suggesting him about websites and providing him links like this. [back]

Tunak is a craze esp on youtube which has in excess of 350 videos on the same. I learnt about this mania via Vivek :

What is with the new craze about Tunak Tunak Tun?

First, you have to check out the Tunak Trailer.

Then, you should watch Tunak Tunak Brown.

But StarCraft Tunak-Tunak is not so good.

My favorite is Tunak Tunak Jesus. Get the link from here.

Rediff on Woh Lamhe

If there is one reason you need to watch Woh Lamhe, it is Kangana Ranaut. She is a brilliant, outstanding actress

Rangan on Woh Lamhe :

Kangana inhabits Sana wonderfully. At first, this seemed to be a reprise of the boozy moll she played in Gangster, and all I could think was that she’d better find herself a rom-com fast, or all this lacerating, baring-of-soul acting – the slurred shrieking, the eyes glistening with unshed tears, the drinking straight from a bottle while perched precariously at the edge of her first-floor verandah – is going to end up affecting her in real life. But I can’t imagine another heroine today who could have pulled this off and made Sana so compulsively watchable.

I too wish she gets out of this stuff otherwise she would be stereotyped and forgotten soon. There is not much I wanted to say about the movie apart from that - it is intense and full of pain and it drains emotionally. So much that the heart goes out for the characters and for their helplessness. Movie has some unwanted awful moments as well as some untied ends. It has soulful music and editing that cuts slack as well as allows for slow moments keep the movie going. And another point, that lady (Masumi Makhija) did scare me too much. 19 yr old actress, 25 yr old director and such movie - man, good times ahead for cinema.

After all these days, I finally went to Innovative Multiplex. And btw, impressed by this service too : iTicket.in

Coming to the movie, it is as tender and as powerful it can get. Shot beautifully in Himachal Pradesh and most of it in Rajastan, this movie is how a meaningful cinema should be - it is not void of entertainment, but it is in small touches by a character created for only that purpose - tells a story, gives a message - in very small details again - and most important of all, it works.

Zeenat is played by Gul Panag and Meera is played by Ayesha Takia. Both the ladies look like apt choices for the role, with Gul carrying off it with such ease that I wonder where was she all these days. She looks like an ideal replacement for Tabu ¹ having both beauty and talent to match. Ayesha’s acting is also just right.
And there is Shreyas Talpade, whose is the character I mentioned above, who ensures that we dont get all that weepy and lumpy-in-the-throat. His role is responsible for the few refreshing laughs but yet in some ways stays with us. Probably for that just one scene - “ek mahtva poorn baat kehni thi”. Not to say that other scenes were any bad.

The dialogues were all intense like when Meera says “Keh doongi bhajan sun rahi thi, ab naatak shuru hoga” and puts on her veil. When Zeenat says something on the lines -”Who laughs and dances with her friends when she knows her husband is on the doorstep of death”. One more I can remember is something on the lines of “society is as merciless as heat of Sun”. There are moments as well, like when Meera dances in the lane, very cautiously fearing if the society observes that act of a widow. When all of them dance to their hearts content in the midst of the desert. Two scenes, my most favorite, are
1) the ritual when Meera is de-bangled.
2) “Ek mehtva poorna bhaat kehni thi” Given the background, this was supposed to be just funny. But it wasn’t, and that we come know only later.
Messages thrown here and there about liberation of women or even about girl infanticide is so below the surface, but it hits the target.

Such dialogues and moments, not completely breaking away from our melodramatic style, yet not exaggarating it or not highlighting it, are at the heart of the movie which also succeeds in its primary motive - that of telling a story and that too in grand colour and picturisation.

Nagesh Kukunoor, more power to you. If I recall Hyderabad Blues and such like, I can not imagine this is the same Kukunoor.

1. only an other person who could have done this role and btw where is Tabu [back]

Have not read such funny reviews recently. Check this from Khaled:

Our laadli Moushumi even plays a double role in Tanuja Chandra’s Zindaggi Rocks, which turns out to be the scariest screamer you’ve seen since The Exoricst and Omen.

He passed away, presumably because of overreading. Sad.

He he !

And 7 islands and a metro gets 4 stars!

• CNN.com - Scientists teleport two different objects - Oct 4, 2006
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