Monday, February 13, 2006
IIPM - Expose'
Long time that I have written anything on my blog. Didnt have time to write. But as an avid blog follower, I saw that there is one issue on blogosphere that no one can miss - The IIPM Fraud.IIPM as people in India know is Indian Institute of Planning & Management. More known than the name of the institute is the catch phrase which reads 'Dare to think beyond IIMs'. (For starters, IIM is Indian Institute of Management are a string of six institutes arguably compared to the Ivy league colleges of the US in terms of academic standard!). As an IIM-Bangalore graduate, I remember very well laughing away at that catch phrase with a touch of mockery and nonchalance. Never did I bother, like any other indian, how good that institute is and how many people are trapped by that outrageous marketing claim. However, its only when an ex-IIMA grad, Rashmi Bansal, who runs popular youth magazine JAM has reported about IIPM that I got interested yet again. (You can read it here).The story took yet another interesting turn when a unsuspecting, serious blogger who believes in minor things like Freedom of Speech and Right to Opinion, Gaurav Sabnis, linked up to Rashmi's article in his blog. And with great show of grit and belief in personal freedom, Gaurav had to resign from his job in IBM due to cheap mafia-tic tactics by IIPM. (Incidentally, IBM has IIPM as its big customer. Why not, when IIPM provides free laptops to its students :-). The entire episode is wonderfully covered here by DesiPundit, a Indian blog site.As much for the story, three key things stand out from this episode.1. The importance of free speech, right to expression and standing by your opinion.2. How education in India has become more and more like a business - with an objective of minting money and how easily the institutes can be sold - I dont see any difference now between a 'New Improved Surf Excel with Active Oxygen' and 'IIPM - We teach today and rest adopt tomorrow'. All this coming from a guy with this profile (Note: Everything from IIPM - his dad's institute!)*Professor Chaudhuri did his B.A. with Honours in Economics, Honours Diploma in Industrial *Engineering, M.A with Honours in Economics, Post Graduate Diploma in Planning and *Management (MBA) and Fellowship of I.I.P.M. Professor Chaudhuri has been amongst the *toppers during his B.A. Economics, M.A. Economics and MBA. He was the recipient of the *Academic Gold Medal while completing his Post Graduate Diploma in Planning and *Management from IIPM.3. When the blogosphere is reverberating with the screams and shouts of self-respecting enthusiastic bloggers, no mainstream print or TV channel has picked up the story for a complete coverage. Reason is obviouis - IIPM spent Rs 5.1 crores on advertising in May 2005 alone, making it the highest advertiser in print for that month, according to the Economic Times. So, shall I sit down and wonder why they did not pick it up??However, this issue on the blogspots has revealed some curious and very analytical bloggers who used just the internet to dig out lot of fishy and shady details about IIPM. These are what should get more footage. Gawker brought out really fishy details about IIPM degree here. (For starters, read details abt IIPM academic programs here) and Transmogrified unravels more at http://constructal.blogspot.com/2005/10/web-of-deception.html#linksOverall, a really interesting fight on the blog net. I would love to see IIPM get bashed up for all the marketing gimmicks and intellectual atrocities on the unsuspecting students of India. May the truth win.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
King Kong - Ding Dong :)
Right from the release of Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack's first King Kong movie in 1933, monster of beasts have raked in a lot of enthusiasm and dollars in hollywood. For people who have not seen the latest king kong flick, the plot is neither too complex nor different from the 1933 King Kong (Afterall, it’s a remake of the magic!)
A film crew headed by Carl Denham arrives at the mysterious Skull Island to do some location shooting for a new picture. However, the dark-skinned natives take a liking to Denham's leading lady, Ann Darrow and kidnap her as an offering to their god, Kong. Just as the cavalry, led by Denham and a play writer named Jack Driscoll rushes in to save Ann, Kong - a 25-foot high ape - makes his appearance, snatching his prize from the altar and heading off into the jungle. Kong from that moment is in love with the beauty of Ann. Denham, Driscoll, and a search party set off in pursuit. Various encounters with Kong and a series of prehistoric relics decimate the group. In the meantime, we get to see battles between the giant ape and several dinosaurs. Eventually, Driscoll sneaks Ann away from Kong and, when the beast arrives at the natives' village to retrieve her, Denham uses sleep inducing chloroform to capture him. Weeks later, a live show opens in New York City's Radio City Music Hall, with a chained Kong as the main attraction. He is, as the marquee proclaims, "The Eighth Wonder of the World." Despite Denham's best precautions, Kong breaks free on opening night, grabs Ann, wreaks havoc in the city, then climbs to the top of the Empire State Building. There, high atop New York Kong fights a duel to the death with a group of biplanes. The scene with Kong grasping the top of the Empire State Building with one hand while swiping futilely at the attacking bi-planes in a last resort attempt to protect the beauty and the dream of a home with that beauty. However, Kong was king of Skull Island, but, on Manhattan Island, he is a rampaging nuisance to be dealt with. So eventually he is dealt with and that is the end of a dramatic series of events from adventure, awe, emotions of a beast and the touching end of a beasty miracle and a dream.
Oops, I have given away the whole story there. So where is the review? The review can simply read "It’s a huge monkey kickin’ ass and if you’re looking for that sort of entertainment value" but here you go with what I thought of it! In one line, Jack Peterson disappointed me big time. After Lord of the Rings, may be my expectations were not rightly set. In terms of graphics, I think Peter Jackson's king kong pales in comparison to Spielberg's magic in Jurassic Park. But I think we have to appreciate the use of bigatures (A technique to show small models as big buildings etc, probably as opposite of miniatures termed by Weta Workshop!)
Other than that, I have to confess that I am one of those really few people who didn’t like the movie much. Stained with the over-exposure to giant beasts (starting from dinosaurs, snakes, spiders.. What did hollywood leave out, I wonder?!) and slithering, slimy hemipterous insects of all sizes pushing me to the limits of nausea (wonder what the director expected of me, if it was revulsion yes he succeeded!!), I felt watching King Kong today is useless if you want to be awed. Yes, if I am living in 1933 or even if I am watching the original king kong today, I would have really appreciated the creative imagination of the director for thinking up of a place like that. But no thanks, not today! And there is this usual horror stuff in the form of native tribal people using words that you, logically, don’t understand. Just for the fact that they too like the beast are drawn to Ann. There are parts of the movie where it feels good to watch king kong - mainly the animal emotions of love, wonder and fury. I like that 20mins of the movie. And before I really started appreciating it, its all gone. There is a wild sequence where the hero sneaks heroine away from Mr. Kong and wonder what, to escape holds on to the leg of a giant bird which drops them safely close to the ship of their voyage. And then there are a few more emotions that are left out - 'Feeling sorry, feeling tensed and feeling relieved and happy'. That is taken care of in the last sequence of scenes where the Kong is captured, tortured and where HE searches for his beauty and love, and unfortunately tramples on the city cars before the military bi-planes chase him and take him down. Ok enough. I am a reasonably sensitive person but this is not touching. Even though I couldn’t put my finger on the reason for my petrified emotions! The worst part of the movie is the last sentence that appears out of nowhere - "Its not the planes that killed the beast, it’s the beauty!" It sounded so out of place…!!
So, I left with a feeling of being cheated. What are you supposed to appreciate in the movie? It's for each one of us to decide. There are way too many things in the movie to appreciate - so you can pick your part and love it. For me, the only best part is the representation of how a classic old movie can be made to look better with the new techniques of story-telling. It certainly looks better, is it a better movie - I beg to differ. I might sound curmudgeonly and repitititve, but I really appreciate and envy the ppl of '30s for being able to watch such a movie at that time and those directors, I salute them. But sorry Mr. Jack Peterson, Not today and certainly not you for this flick!
Ok, anyway for more information on the film and the differences between the 1933 version and 2005 version, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(2005_film)
A film crew headed by Carl Denham arrives at the mysterious Skull Island to do some location shooting for a new picture. However, the dark-skinned natives take a liking to Denham's leading lady, Ann Darrow and kidnap her as an offering to their god, Kong. Just as the cavalry, led by Denham and a play writer named Jack Driscoll rushes in to save Ann, Kong - a 25-foot high ape - makes his appearance, snatching his prize from the altar and heading off into the jungle. Kong from that moment is in love with the beauty of Ann. Denham, Driscoll, and a search party set off in pursuit. Various encounters with Kong and a series of prehistoric relics decimate the group. In the meantime, we get to see battles between the giant ape and several dinosaurs. Eventually, Driscoll sneaks Ann away from Kong and, when the beast arrives at the natives' village to retrieve her, Denham uses sleep inducing chloroform to capture him. Weeks later, a live show opens in New York City's Radio City Music Hall, with a chained Kong as the main attraction. He is, as the marquee proclaims, "The Eighth Wonder of the World." Despite Denham's best precautions, Kong breaks free on opening night, grabs Ann, wreaks havoc in the city, then climbs to the top of the Empire State Building. There, high atop New York Kong fights a duel to the death with a group of biplanes. The scene with Kong grasping the top of the Empire State Building with one hand while swiping futilely at the attacking bi-planes in a last resort attempt to protect the beauty and the dream of a home with that beauty. However, Kong was king of Skull Island, but, on Manhattan Island, he is a rampaging nuisance to be dealt with. So eventually he is dealt with and that is the end of a dramatic series of events from adventure, awe, emotions of a beast and the touching end of a beasty miracle and a dream.
Oops, I have given away the whole story there. So where is the review? The review can simply read "It’s a huge monkey kickin’ ass and if you’re looking for that sort of entertainment value" but here you go with what I thought of it! In one line, Jack Peterson disappointed me big time. After Lord of the Rings, may be my expectations were not rightly set. In terms of graphics, I think Peter Jackson's king kong pales in comparison to Spielberg's magic in Jurassic Park. But I think we have to appreciate the use of bigatures (A technique to show small models as big buildings etc, probably as opposite of miniatures termed by Weta Workshop!)
Other than that, I have to confess that I am one of those really few people who didn’t like the movie much. Stained with the over-exposure to giant beasts (starting from dinosaurs, snakes, spiders.. What did hollywood leave out, I wonder?!) and slithering, slimy hemipterous insects of all sizes pushing me to the limits of nausea (wonder what the director expected of me, if it was revulsion yes he succeeded!!), I felt watching King Kong today is useless if you want to be awed. Yes, if I am living in 1933 or even if I am watching the original king kong today, I would have really appreciated the creative imagination of the director for thinking up of a place like that. But no thanks, not today! And there is this usual horror stuff in the form of native tribal people using words that you, logically, don’t understand. Just for the fact that they too like the beast are drawn to Ann. There are parts of the movie where it feels good to watch king kong - mainly the animal emotions of love, wonder and fury. I like that 20mins of the movie. And before I really started appreciating it, its all gone. There is a wild sequence where the hero sneaks heroine away from Mr. Kong and wonder what, to escape holds on to the leg of a giant bird which drops them safely close to the ship of their voyage. And then there are a few more emotions that are left out - 'Feeling sorry, feeling tensed and feeling relieved and happy'. That is taken care of in the last sequence of scenes where the Kong is captured, tortured and where HE searches for his beauty and love, and unfortunately tramples on the city cars before the military bi-planes chase him and take him down. Ok enough. I am a reasonably sensitive person but this is not touching. Even though I couldn’t put my finger on the reason for my petrified emotions! The worst part of the movie is the last sentence that appears out of nowhere - "Its not the planes that killed the beast, it’s the beauty!" It sounded so out of place…!!
So, I left with a feeling of being cheated. What are you supposed to appreciate in the movie? It's for each one of us to decide. There are way too many things in the movie to appreciate - so you can pick your part and love it. For me, the only best part is the representation of how a classic old movie can be made to look better with the new techniques of story-telling. It certainly looks better, is it a better movie - I beg to differ. I might sound curmudgeonly and repitititve, but I really appreciate and envy the ppl of '30s for being able to watch such a movie at that time and those directors, I salute them. But sorry Mr. Jack Peterson, Not today and certainly not you for this flick!
Ok, anyway for more information on the film and the differences between the 1933 version and 2005 version, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(2005_film)
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Sitcom about Nothing!
This time my trip to US ranged from uneventful to enlightening, all at the same time. Houston, a city where you drag your life along, is quite a turn off after my first trip to California last year. But interesting it has introduced me to a new perspective to watching television. I love the comedy timing of a lot of Americans. Particularly, the one sitcom that rocks is Sienfeld. I dont know how many of you have already seen it before -but its the most hilarious yet so subtle sitcom I have ever seen. It makes 'Friends' look like an overkill - (except for Joey :))
What's the sitcom about? As put in the words of George Costanza in one of the episodes - "It's a sitcom about NOTHING. Everyone is making sitcom about something and we would just create one with a refreshingly new idea - NOTHING". To get into details when asked who the characters would be in that Sitcom, as the 'Lord of Idiots' George Costanza would say "I can be a character. Dont laugh. Seriously, I can be a character. Lot of people told me that I am quite a character". And now that explains it. This George Costanza is a friend of the protagonist, Jerry Sienfeld, a NY city stand-up comedian. Subtlety is the word for this guy. No making faces or stressed consonants to make the dialogue sound funny - just a plain witty retort. Elaine, is a female that Jerry once dates but is now some really close friend. She takes Jerry for granted and has a knack of getting into some really trivial and sometime dangerously hilarious relationships. Stealing the show with his characteristic entrance and a confused soul is Kramer (No one knows his first name for long time only to find out later that it is Cosmo!!!). He doesnt believe in knocking doors when entering, asking people before eating at their place, infact any conceivable etiquette for friendly interactions!
As his friend George Costanza puts it "Kramer wants to go to a fantasy camp ? His whole life is a fantasy campm ! People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"
I love George in the sitcom - thanks to this sitcom I could bear this dull and otherwise really boring city of Houston. It made me realize the essence of life.
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no reponsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating... then you finish of as an o*$^%sm !!!Amen"
What's the sitcom about? As put in the words of George Costanza in one of the episodes - "It's a sitcom about NOTHING. Everyone is making sitcom about something and we would just create one with a refreshingly new idea - NOTHING". To get into details when asked who the characters would be in that Sitcom, as the 'Lord of Idiots' George Costanza would say "I can be a character. Dont laugh. Seriously, I can be a character. Lot of people told me that I am quite a character". And now that explains it. This George Costanza is a friend of the protagonist, Jerry Sienfeld, a NY city stand-up comedian. Subtlety is the word for this guy. No making faces or stressed consonants to make the dialogue sound funny - just a plain witty retort. Elaine, is a female that Jerry once dates but is now some really close friend. She takes Jerry for granted and has a knack of getting into some really trivial and sometime dangerously hilarious relationships. Stealing the show with his characteristic entrance and a confused soul is Kramer (No one knows his first name for long time only to find out later that it is Cosmo!!!). He doesnt believe in knocking doors when entering, asking people before eating at their place, infact any conceivable etiquette for friendly interactions!
As his friend George Costanza puts it "Kramer wants to go to a fantasy camp ? His whole life is a fantasy campm ! People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"
I love George in the sitcom - thanks to this sitcom I could bear this dull and otherwise really boring city of Houston. It made me realize the essence of life.
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no reponsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating... then you finish of as an o*$^%sm !!!Amen"
The Forbidden Apple (24th March, 05)
The Forbidden Apple (24th March, 05)
-Written as a parody targeted at people getting married :)
God said to Adam:
How many times will you enter the grapple?
Miss the snake for the lure of the apple
Advised not to, you thought it was just being prissy
Raring to jump into the same old fancy!!
Wake up Adam! I have created you on purpose
And it is that foxy Eve or the evil Satan, I suppose
That taught you all this “Importance of Yin and Yang”,
And made you forget how to enjoy, dance and sing a song!!!
I guess that was a story from the yore
When someone tells you “Don’t”, you want it even more
My grandpa told my dad and my dad told me
But I just got married, and there was my dad to see!!
Smiling, there He was – who created the apple and the snake
All for an enigmatic cosmic plan’s sake
For in the first place, the apple is there to be eaten and a snake to bite
And knows well, poor Adam, you can barely resist an Eve with all your might!!
-Written as a parody targeted at people getting married :)
God said to Adam:
How many times will you enter the grapple?
Miss the snake for the lure of the apple
Advised not to, you thought it was just being prissy
Raring to jump into the same old fancy!!
Wake up Adam! I have created you on purpose
And it is that foxy Eve or the evil Satan, I suppose
That taught you all this “Importance of Yin and Yang”,
And made you forget how to enjoy, dance and sing a song!!!
I guess that was a story from the yore
When someone tells you “Don’t”, you want it even more
My grandpa told my dad and my dad told me
But I just got married, and there was my dad to see!!
Smiling, there He was – who created the apple and the snake
All for an enigmatic cosmic plan’s sake
For in the first place, the apple is there to be eaten and a snake to bite
And knows well, poor Adam, you can barely resist an Eve with all your might!!
Monday, January 03, 2005
Excruciating Silence
Excruciating Silence
I was surprisingly silent that day. Sitting in an auto-rick, listening to the continuous screeching turns, the banging of loud honks, hollering lorries wrenching the guts of their age-old engines, ringing bells of hawkers on the road, shouting kids – inspite of all I was silent. Or for the first time in my life, was it BECAUSE of all??
Lost in an awkward quietness of thoughts, I suddenly bumped onto the idea of how much I am used to this noise. How much I am attached to this noise and how much do I inherently love it. I am used to those loud voices with loud expressions of love and hatred. In all this as I grew up, I became a part of the sounds around me, of nature and of people. Without that noise, I feel lost. I feel left out. I am used to equating silence with death and the noise with life so much so that I started to think silence as a word that succeeds ‘crematory’.
I started to count the number of times that this has happened to me. I sit in a loud environment and I hear nothing - Just the stillness and me. The calmness of thoughts shutting me in and I feel one with life. How many times have I encountered this feeling before! When it doesn’t matter what is around me and all I see is what I was looking for an answer for. Such alacrity of thought in a place where you least expect it to see.
As a kid, I always used to wonder if I am not living the life as I should be. Should I not be allowed to be myself? Should I not be allowed to sit in my house, in quietness secluded from the rest of the world? Why should the neighboring aunty care to ask at the top of her voice, if my upset stomach is alright now, with the cute-looking girl who I had crush on, overhearing it? I thought we in our country don’t value privacy. ‘Loud people, intrusive neighbors and relatives’ – I used to curse to myself. However, I had no choice. As a kid, living in a semi-urban locality, we had some painfully friendly neighbors, who wanted to know where I stood in my class in my half-yearly examinations, why I got such less marks in social studies and why wearing short pants even in your ninth grade is a symbol of humility and no humiliation. And on numerous occasions, I cried out loud with my voice muted, “Why do you care?”
As time passed, I got used to this noise- the loudness and complete lack of silence and privacy. Concentrating inspite of all the noise is a skill that the kids in India develop. I was no different. I was glad that I can complete my math homework and physics assignment inspite of the loud whistles from mom’s pressure cooker in the kitchen and wailing dialogues of soaps from my neighboring aunty’s TV. Incidentally, after my education I had to fly abroad on a business trip. I have reached my childhood’s ideal place, though a little late – the place where there is little noise, no intrusion and your privacy is respected.
I had to enjoy every moment of it – silent reading of my favorite novels, a calm drive down the road and a complete stillness all around. That was what I always dreamt of. But strangely, how much ever I told myself that I am enjoying it, my heart was breaking with pain. The silence is too heavy for me to bear - the stillness unnerving me. I had to talk to someone; I had to laugh out loud. I switched on to listening rock music – I had to admit that till then my love for rock music was fleeting. My ideal environment for good and clear thinking turned out to be wrong. I couldn’t think when everything around me is so calm and I couldn’t concentrate. However, rock music wasn’t filling in for that missing feeling in me.
That was the point when I realized what is the difference between noise back home and the noise of rock music? Thoughts flew back home and I realized how everyone cares for you back home - The loudness of care and warmth; the noise of emotion not of a boom box. I realized that I remembered that aunty humiliating me before my childhood crush and forgot how she got me that medicine later. I wanted to get back to the mad-rush back at home. I could not fit in to that structure of quiet culture and an un-intruded private life. I wanted to belong, loudly so, with every moment.
I was rocked back to life when the auto-driver switched on to the song - “Naatho pettukunte ……!!” from a Telugu movie. The glimpses of that song I watched a while before on TV flew over my mind – hero dressed in a yellow shirt and white trousers, with a maroon hanky around his neck, dancing heavily to that beat, whistles strewn all over the song, drums blowing at full volume. Just for a minute, I thought it was loud and awful. When I inadvertently started tapping my feet to that rhythmic beat, I just smiled to myself. I indeed am a loud guy and I love to remain so, forever!
I was surprisingly silent that day. Sitting in an auto-rick, listening to the continuous screeching turns, the banging of loud honks, hollering lorries wrenching the guts of their age-old engines, ringing bells of hawkers on the road, shouting kids – inspite of all I was silent. Or for the first time in my life, was it BECAUSE of all??
Lost in an awkward quietness of thoughts, I suddenly bumped onto the idea of how much I am used to this noise. How much I am attached to this noise and how much do I inherently love it. I am used to those loud voices with loud expressions of love and hatred. In all this as I grew up, I became a part of the sounds around me, of nature and of people. Without that noise, I feel lost. I feel left out. I am used to equating silence with death and the noise with life so much so that I started to think silence as a word that succeeds ‘crematory’.
I started to count the number of times that this has happened to me. I sit in a loud environment and I hear nothing - Just the stillness and me. The calmness of thoughts shutting me in and I feel one with life. How many times have I encountered this feeling before! When it doesn’t matter what is around me and all I see is what I was looking for an answer for. Such alacrity of thought in a place where you least expect it to see.
As a kid, I always used to wonder if I am not living the life as I should be. Should I not be allowed to be myself? Should I not be allowed to sit in my house, in quietness secluded from the rest of the world? Why should the neighboring aunty care to ask at the top of her voice, if my upset stomach is alright now, with the cute-looking girl who I had crush on, overhearing it? I thought we in our country don’t value privacy. ‘Loud people, intrusive neighbors and relatives’ – I used to curse to myself. However, I had no choice. As a kid, living in a semi-urban locality, we had some painfully friendly neighbors, who wanted to know where I stood in my class in my half-yearly examinations, why I got such less marks in social studies and why wearing short pants even in your ninth grade is a symbol of humility and no humiliation. And on numerous occasions, I cried out loud with my voice muted, “Why do you care?”
As time passed, I got used to this noise- the loudness and complete lack of silence and privacy. Concentrating inspite of all the noise is a skill that the kids in India develop. I was no different. I was glad that I can complete my math homework and physics assignment inspite of the loud whistles from mom’s pressure cooker in the kitchen and wailing dialogues of soaps from my neighboring aunty’s TV. Incidentally, after my education I had to fly abroad on a business trip. I have reached my childhood’s ideal place, though a little late – the place where there is little noise, no intrusion and your privacy is respected.
I had to enjoy every moment of it – silent reading of my favorite novels, a calm drive down the road and a complete stillness all around. That was what I always dreamt of. But strangely, how much ever I told myself that I am enjoying it, my heart was breaking with pain. The silence is too heavy for me to bear - the stillness unnerving me. I had to talk to someone; I had to laugh out loud. I switched on to listening rock music – I had to admit that till then my love for rock music was fleeting. My ideal environment for good and clear thinking turned out to be wrong. I couldn’t think when everything around me is so calm and I couldn’t concentrate. However, rock music wasn’t filling in for that missing feeling in me.
That was the point when I realized what is the difference between noise back home and the noise of rock music? Thoughts flew back home and I realized how everyone cares for you back home - The loudness of care and warmth; the noise of emotion not of a boom box. I realized that I remembered that aunty humiliating me before my childhood crush and forgot how she got me that medicine later. I wanted to get back to the mad-rush back at home. I could not fit in to that structure of quiet culture and an un-intruded private life. I wanted to belong, loudly so, with every moment.
I was rocked back to life when the auto-driver switched on to the song - “Naatho pettukunte ……!!” from a Telugu movie. The glimpses of that song I watched a while before on TV flew over my mind – hero dressed in a yellow shirt and white trousers, with a maroon hanky around his neck, dancing heavily to that beat, whistles strewn all over the song, drums blowing at full volume. Just for a minute, I thought it was loud and awful. When I inadvertently started tapping my feet to that rhythmic beat, I just smiled to myself. I indeed am a loud guy and I love to remain so, forever!
Swades - Review
Swades: We the people
A movie from Ashutosh Gowariker and I knew even before I landed in the theater that it’s not going to be ‘yet another Bollywood movie’. Swades, as a movie, I would say is certainly different. However, if you are reading this review, to find out if you should go watch the movie or not, the verdict is – “You should go see it”.
Swades – is the story of a NASA engineer coming back to India is search of his childhood nanny, Kaveri Ma, and then being touched by his experiences in a small village - Charanpur - which gets him to think. At some level, probably Ashutosh Gowariker believes and drives home the message - that we, the as citizens of India, have to do something as our part about this country to make things happen. However, I felt Gowariker has lost track of his message, entangled in the sheer numbers and astronimity of the issues gripping India today – Illiteracy, caste system, poor power infrastructure, corruption and the (clichéd) brain-drain. To handle a myriad of these issues, and to logically drive home a point I felt Swades could have done with a lot more intelligent editing. Coz, the movie is too long, a little flat at times, and when songs break out in the second half out of the blue, you can hear people in the hall sigh, yawn and hoot.
However, the Gowariker magic of the protagonist cajoling the ignorant/adamant villagers to be motivated to help themselves and better their village still worked as well as it did in Lagaan. The emotional scenes where Mohan Bharagava is moved by what is the state of rural India was very well handled. And the dilemma of Mohan Bhargava is something a lot of educated Indians can associate with. Gowariker should be appreciated for his refreshing subtlety in narration.
Gowariker once again proved that casting is as important to the movie as the script. Shahrukh Khan (as Mohan Bhargava) has acted extremely well - no hamming, no over acting, just the regular intelligent thoughtful educated Indian guy - the idealism of Mohan Bhargava shows through. Gayatri Joshi is brilliant in her debut too. She looks very much the part she is playing. Actually, all characters have acted extremely well. In that sense it feels very real.
Music is just above average. I felt the charm in the music is lost mainly due to the misplaced because of some poor editing. However, I liked "Chala Chal Rahi" and "Yeah tara, woh tara...", and background score by A. R. Rehman ranged from being good to excellent in some scenes. Javed Akhtar as ever has written some enchanting lyrics. Cinematography is good too; it is a good looking movie without making you awkwardly feel that too much of effort has gone into to making it look good. (Like the movie “Devdas”!!!) On the whole, Swades could have been a lot better. That was my first reaction when I left the hall. And yet, somehow, I can't stop thinking about it. It stirs the Mohan Bhargava inside you because sometimes the Honesty of the expression is more important than the Polish in expression.
A movie from Ashutosh Gowariker and I knew even before I landed in the theater that it’s not going to be ‘yet another Bollywood movie’. Swades, as a movie, I would say is certainly different. However, if you are reading this review, to find out if you should go watch the movie or not, the verdict is – “You should go see it”.
Swades – is the story of a NASA engineer coming back to India is search of his childhood nanny, Kaveri Ma, and then being touched by his experiences in a small village - Charanpur - which gets him to think. At some level, probably Ashutosh Gowariker believes and drives home the message - that we, the as citizens of India, have to do something as our part about this country to make things happen. However, I felt Gowariker has lost track of his message, entangled in the sheer numbers and astronimity of the issues gripping India today – Illiteracy, caste system, poor power infrastructure, corruption and the (clichéd) brain-drain. To handle a myriad of these issues, and to logically drive home a point I felt Swades could have done with a lot more intelligent editing. Coz, the movie is too long, a little flat at times, and when songs break out in the second half out of the blue, you can hear people in the hall sigh, yawn and hoot.
However, the Gowariker magic of the protagonist cajoling the ignorant/adamant villagers to be motivated to help themselves and better their village still worked as well as it did in Lagaan. The emotional scenes where Mohan Bharagava is moved by what is the state of rural India was very well handled. And the dilemma of Mohan Bhargava is something a lot of educated Indians can associate with. Gowariker should be appreciated for his refreshing subtlety in narration.
Gowariker once again proved that casting is as important to the movie as the script. Shahrukh Khan (as Mohan Bhargava) has acted extremely well - no hamming, no over acting, just the regular intelligent thoughtful educated Indian guy - the idealism of Mohan Bhargava shows through. Gayatri Joshi is brilliant in her debut too. She looks very much the part she is playing. Actually, all characters have acted extremely well. In that sense it feels very real.
Music is just above average. I felt the charm in the music is lost mainly due to the misplaced because of some poor editing. However, I liked "Chala Chal Rahi" and "Yeah tara, woh tara...", and background score by A. R. Rehman ranged from being good to excellent in some scenes. Javed Akhtar as ever has written some enchanting lyrics. Cinematography is good too; it is a good looking movie without making you awkwardly feel that too much of effort has gone into to making it look good. (Like the movie “Devdas”!!!) On the whole, Swades could have been a lot better. That was my first reaction when I left the hall. And yet, somehow, I can't stop thinking about it. It stirs the Mohan Bhargava inside you because sometimes the Honesty of the expression is more important than the Polish in expression.
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