Aarakhshan

Watched the movie Aarakshan yesterday, first day, last show in a packed movie theater sitting in the second row . I think since the movie was banned in few states in India added the incentive of watching it here in South Africa.

The movie started with a promising opening, showing a glimpse of education system in India, how the reservation era and supreme court decision on reservation divided the masses along the communal lines rather than bringing equity in the society. The movie clearly shows the anxiety of both the sections of society specially the youth who is caught between the politics of reservation and most importantly the teachers who can not be partial about a particular section but are always viewed with suspicion. The initial one hour of the movie was quite entertaining although there is nothing in the movie which you will find new or unheard but the acting of Mr Batchan is captivating to say the least. Some the dialogues in the movie regarding reservation were actually harsh but realistic and I was surprised that they were not scissored by the sensor board.

After the initial one hour, the movie digressed and focused on the role of coaching institutes in education system and also on the personal rivalry between a good teacher (Mr Bachhhan) and a bad teacher (Mr Bajpai)  . It just took the main topic of Aarakshan for a toss and looked to me as a major flaw in the movie. The timings of songs was really bad and they all seemed to be just inserted in the movie and made little sense with the story line. The characters were too strong either very good or very bad which also looked to be the traditional bollywood way of story telling and this aspect also could have been depicted much better by Mr Jha.  

Overall I can say people can go out of the theaters after the first one hour if they have got other important work to do, to make best use of their time or can just remain seated if there is nothing more interesting to do. 

10 reasons why people love regular Bollywood movies ..

Its hard to imagine people loving bollywood movies.. a big statement right .. I am talking about the regular bollywood movie where you can predict the movie right from the beginning, there are cheezy and crapy songs after every 15 minutes, characters which might look 50 year old but can still be shown as teenagers, larger than life lead characters and same old  f***** story. Wow, this is the real bollywood movie .. Hard to imagine why people just fall for it over and over again.. 

I still remember that once upon a time I went to watch this movie " KISNA" and had taken a vow that will think twice before getting into a theater. Yes some of the movies are real awesome but  Goodness me watching KISNA was a real pain sitting in that theater, you can't even sleep, it was so irritating !

So I was trying to think why people might like bollywod movies ..and at times watch the same movie over and over again ..  The reasons can be plenty but the one I can think of are: -

1.  Hero Worship : hmm , rather a costly way .. cant resist the mass appeal hmm ..

2. Songs : Wanna hear to good songs  , Get yourself a I-Pod ..

3. Heroines : Hmm actresses ,  cant find a solution , go buddy watch it again as if she is gonna jump out of the screen..

4. Time Pass : Have you tried the new PS 3 with motion sensors..

5. Accompanying your GF/BF/WIFE/Relatives : Hmm , I can very well understand what you are going through ..

6. Insomniac :  If typical bollywood movie is better than a sleeping pill , wow .. its a new market for theaters.

7. Language Troubles : Can't understand the accent, try the subtitles. You gonna love it !

8. Place for Romance: There are very few corner seats , try the box seats, they are kinds cool !

9. Bird Watching : Never knew you can watch birds in dark !

10. Bollywood movies are real awesome : No comments .

Rocket Singh

When I went to watch Rocket Singh, I was not expecting much from the movie but found it unexpectedly good and a must watch for all management professional. The movie is a story of a Sales organization rather than a sales man, surprisingly a bollywood movie without any hero.

I think the way movie's promos were designed, it couldn't gave a feel of the quality of the story and looked more like a comedy to me. The promos could have been made more meaningful to pass on the real message.

The characters of sales man looked quite original, dialogs were perfect. The experienced sales man acted really well and his dialogue " Jo sales man ulta nahi pad sakta wo andha hai " was awesome.

Few of the important messages from the movie

Importance of values and ethics in a business without which the business wont survive for long.

It also teaches us the importance of customer value proposition . When for one businessman the customer meant just sales value and for another customer satisfaction was more important.

The employees/ sales force does not meant just to be exploited, pressurized for targets. Just keep your employees happy, targets will itself follow.

The best message was to all the people who are employees and think that things can be done better . Become a Entrepreneur, its not that tough. " Risk to spiderman ko bhi lena padta hai, mai to sales man hu".

3 Idiots !

Just watched 3 Idiot yesterday, truly refreshing movie with great messages. The movie reminded me of good old Engineering college days and the fun I had there with the friends. Yes it has larger than life character of Aamir Khan which looks a bit stretched at times but we need to discount it for the sake of bollywood.

Chetan Bhagat has all the rights to feel cheated as the movie actually has twisted all his scenes and non of it truly resembles 5 point someone but I still think that the real Five point someone story would have been tough to sell in the market. Five Point someone was a great story full of realistic scenes but something which is too specific to the Engineering colleges..

Interestingly movie also touches upon the real problems with Indian education system, fear of failure and pressure on children to perform and excel in regular educational streams . The freedom to choose your own profession is a bit subdued in Indian context and the problem is very clearly depicted in the story. The message is loud and clear to the parents which try to force there children into certain profession just for the sake of there own prestige and societal pressures.


Two of the personal learning from the movie

Al iz Well

Don't delay your dream for Long, do what you really want to do in life.


Some of the Dialogues I loved in the movie ..

Agar dost fail ho jaye toh dukh hota hai aur woh agar woh first aaye toh aur bhi dukh hota hai

Hum science ki taraf se hain

Millimeter Virus Ko bahar nikal

Saari umar hum Mar mar ke jee liye Ek pal to ab humein Jeene do Jeene do

Give me some sunshine

Al iz Well

Celebrity Blogging ..

As more and more people are adopting technology even our celebrities are using internet in a big way to reach their fans and audience. The latest offering is blogging. Yes, after much publicized blog of Amitabh on big adda.com for which he was paid a handsome amount, new celebs like John Abrahim , Amir Khan , Kiran Bedi, Shekhar Kapoor and even Mr Lalu Ji etc have also started blogging . Certainly a cost effective way of reaching the target audience. Whether these blogs are true voices of these celebs remains questionable.

Celebrity blogging also showed me another level of hero worship which I found hard to digest, people write thousands of comments on each blog and some of them are pleas and request to meet and sign autographs or to visit their blog to make their day. Why ! 

Some of the blogs have created quite a controversy in the recent times, most prominent of them being Amir’s blog which called Shahrukh a dog licking his feets and Mr Bachhan calling the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ as poor depiction of India, interestingly there is no publicity like bad publicity and such controversies have only improved the popularity of these blogs. Few blogs are quite interesting too; the blog which I like the most is Shekar Kapoor’s blog. It is full of interesting anecdotes which seems to be his honest expressions. Even Amir’s recent campaign about spreading awareness about the importance of exercising the voting right is quite exemplary.

You can visit this URL to find links to some of the Indian celebrity’s blogs  

http://thejeshgn.com/wiki/indian-celebrity-blogs/

Slumdog Millionaire revisited..

Today I had a long discussion about Slumdog millionaire with my friend Bedu who is studying in US .His views were different than what I expressed in my last post about Slumdog Millionaire “About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..”.

My initial reaction after watching the movie was that the movie did well in west because it allows them to claim that Indian is still a country of hungry and poor, denying us of all the progress we have made in the last decade , when Mr Bachhan came up with somewhat similar theory on his blog I was patting myself of thinking like him. All the euphoria was short lived as I found Bedu’s argument much more apt and logical explanation of why the movie is doing wonderful overseas. As per him the movie remind the people in west about what London was 200 years back, they wanted to improve and they did improved a lot and now a progressive nation.

People won’t go to watch a movie in recessionary times by paying 15-20 $/ticket just because it portray India in bad light , they are watching the movie as it shows them hope that even a slum dweller becoming a millionaire (Feel good factor ) and the story is quite engrossing full of twist and turns. They don’t want to see the poor condition of slum but how a person can struggle and rise even from difficult conditions. They are comparing it with the likes of Oliver Twist..

The whole discussion was indeed lot of learning.

About Bollywood Stars and Power Politics ..

Sports, Politics and Acting are arguably the three most glamorous profession in the world . Few of the people in such profession keep shifting to other professions to keep their name and charisma alive .May be the fame and attention are the most desired elements for people who have achieved a lot in their career or life and they keep doing different things to seek attention to remain in limelight or Page 3 of the newspapers.

It was not surprised to see Sanju Baba agreeing to contest elections from Lucknow when he is nowhere related to the issues or politics of the place. One of the prime reasons of the actors entering politics is their dwindling acting career which can no more guarantee them the popularity of their past. Likes of Rajesh Khanna ,Govinda,  Vinod Khanna , Darmendra etc all have tried their hand at politics with little success at the fag-end of their careers . What differentiates Sanjay from other politicians is his checkered past and his experiments with AK-47 which may not help him in becoming the Nawab of Lucknow but can certainly revive the ugly stories of his past.

Lord Byron says “What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.” But in this world of people seeking power and attention, the charm of fame will remain as the illusionary power which will keep driving the people to fall for it.

About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..

Slumdog Millionaire, a tale of impoverished Indian slum dweller who goes through troubled time but went on to become a millionaire by winning the game show “ Who wants to be a millionaire “. The movie showed abject poverty and humiliating conditions which will make you say the F word umpteen number of time .It’s a typical Mumbaiya bhelpoori with emotions of anger, pity, disgust, romance, action, evil, lust, crime all mixed together with music and a happy ending, good enough to be seen once but is no different than lot many other bollywood movies. 

Bollywood has a habit of over doing things, shows stuff which seems larger than life and involves far too many coincidences which are hard to believe, this time it was Hollywood to follow our suit and people just loved it.

If we actually go to dhaaravi, the second largest slum in the world, it houses a population of nearly 2.5 million people with an average density of population as high as 17000. Life is tough there and people are living in horrible conditions but things shown in the movie looked a bit over stretched. No wonders the film is doing great in western world. They are allowed to see what they proclaim India is about and it was not surprising to see the long list of awards and recognition the movie has got since its release.

I went to many movie discussion forums to get the feel of the opinion’s about the movie, people from different parts of the world are claiming that the movie shows ‘Real India ‘ , which may be a truth for about half of India but is definitely hard to swallow.

The main issue which remained unhighlighted in the movie is about the great divide between the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires. The country which boasts about the richest people in the world also houses the poorest amongst the poor. India’s Gini Index has increased from 34 in 1950 to 38 in 2000’s; it clearly shows that the wealth is getting concentrated among far fewer people than desired, certainly a cause of concern and requires some action.

About Hollywood Movies and Indian Remakes ..

When I today sat to see the new Movie ‘ Dasvidania ‘ ,the very first scene reminded me of the Hollywood classic “ The Bucket List “ . My first reaction was to leave the movie as I thought there is no point watching another Hollywood remake, but as watched it for some time, I really liked the movie.

The plot of the movie has some inspiration from the Bucket list where two dying man forms there wish list and planned to enjoy their life before the D day. The star cast may not have the brilliance of Morgan Freeman or Jack Nicholson but I enjoyed the movie more than the Bucket list due to some obvious reasons. The main reason of it being something I can relate to , something which I see every day , something which is not copied and something which had lot of meaning.

It really feels good to see young Indian Directors coming up with fresh thoughts and making some meaningful cinema but the agony remains that people still want to see the old boring plots with no room for creativity and thinking. 

The movies like ‘Wednesday’ or ‘Dasvidania’ may not be doing very good on box office as majority of the people still want to see the likes of ‘Om Shanti Om’ but the things are changing for the good and it’s just the matter of time before people start appreciating the change.