where is Recession?

The IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in one of his interviews said "There is no recession for IPL"!  How true it came to be?  The entire IPL entertainment was a big hit with everyone associated with it making loads of money except the poor fans who had to pay through their nose to get into the stadium to have little fun!  For Indians, there seems to be no recession and a striking example is that you do not get air tickets or train tickets to go anywhere during these holidays.  Even if you manage a travel ticket, there are no good hotels or resorts available to spend 3-4 days specially in a hill station where the temperature is cooler than the cities of India?  Who says there is recession?

Kayesare

Raavanan- the God man behind a Bad Name!

The much awaited Block-buster, a complete secret affair from the Ace film director Mani Rathnam is out to finish off all its rivals in all forms to create a new record in the industry!  Mani Rathnam who is known to venture into current politics has once again, approached a bold theme leaving the imagination to the public to understand the logic displayed by the current extremist elements in India.  There are lots of traces of directorial preachings from his mentor K Balachander and sequences that match the earlier films like Roja, Bombay etc..

The director is totally in love with Aishwarya Rai as is evident from the photographic angles and the way the ethnic beauty has been pictured frame to frame!  Aish is absolutely stunning in every frame and looks an awesome beauty who can still give a run for any Miss World title holder even in the next forthcoming years!
Vikram who is a versatile actor has given his life for the role of Veera who has been equalled to the Mythological Asura  Ravanan but known to be a perfect human.  This depiction of parallel characters from Mythology  kindles one's mind of being familiar to the characters and moots the brain to compare and analyse!  This is the secret to the Box-Office success of the film and I would not be wrong in saying that the same yard stick was applied by the Bollywood director Prakash Jha in his latest Rajneethi!

The film can boast of shooting 50% in Deep jungles and the rest 50% in waters!  The song sequences in the jungles splashed with water reminds you fondly of song scenes of Talapathi and the cupid arrows that warmed up the hearts of the lead characters!  It was Bhaunu priya and Rajini then in Talapathy who were blessed during the song sequence!  The first half of the film seems to be fully inspired by his earlier film Roja with the roles of the lead actors inter-changed!

In the year 1975 when Sholay was released, there was this popular dialogue voiced by the villian in Amjad Khan "Jab Raat ko Baccha Rota Hai to Maa bolthi hai.. Beta so ja nahin to Gabbar aajaayega".  The Tamil meaning is that when the child cries at night, the mother fondly tells  the child to sleep as otherwise Gabbar singh will appear!  That was the phrase of terror emphasised.  The Tamil director has replaced those words now and the mothers in the southern states can put their children to sleep by using the word "Veera"!

A R Rehman has scored  conceptual music with jungle themes which are, as usual, captivating and popular amongst the younger generations but doubt very much if any one can render those compositions in a private audience without music?

Prithivi Raj as the cop in pursuit of the dreaded Veera is impressive and looks somewhere like the real police officer Vijay Kumar IPS who was instrumental in killing the dreaded terrorist Veerappan, a few years back! The character of the film is enhanced with the presence and acting skills  of veteran actors in Karthik
and Prabhu who live their roles true to the essence of the film.
The director seems to be so possessive about the lead lady that there are hardly any love or romance in the
film and seems to have disappointed a huge fan following of Aishwarya Rai who would have liked her to romance as well to satisfy their misty-romantic,imaginations!

The film ends with Veera dying at the hands of Dev, the husband of the lead lady re-establishing the belief and saying "Triumph of good over the evil".  One question that holes up your mind is the first scene shot of the heroine who is the wife of the top  Cop hunting the Robin hood , sailing in a boat with just one boatman as her security in a jungle dominated by the dreaded Veera! Its so easy for the noted rebel to ram her small boat and take her in captivity!!  The director goes a minus 1 point in this plot!

Although I have not seen the Hindi version of the film, I sincerely feel that Abhi with his baby face will not suit the role of Beera in Hindi and will not impact! Vikram as the police cop in pursuit of Beera will naturally be a very strong actor who will ease Abhi out of the frames through his versatile acting.  abhi and Aish should have cleverlly eliminated Vikram from being cast in Hindi as he will be a very potential threat to Abhishek, acting wise!

K balachander, noted film producer and director used to employ these plots of controversy in every film and spark a public debate which used to linger on for several months from the release of the film!  Mani Rathnam has used the same skills in this film enough to spark debates and create a catch 22 situation even amongst the individuals to ponder and analyse this film and accept different plots which run parallel to the Religious epic Ramayana!  One requires not one head to analyse this film, probably 10 heads!!

Rajneethi- Politics

Prakash Jha, the courageous producer/director has once again given a movie which commands respect all by itself and takes us in a journey of knowing the lives and thinking of political minds of our country. Although the first half of the film is little taxing on the minds figuring who is who and the relationship, the second half steals the show taking the audience along with the story line which becomes gripping.  The director smartly leaves the thinking of relating the characters to the present day politics to the viewers and one can draw assumptions on their own.  It is also not true that the role  of Katrina resembles that of the congress President Mrs Sonia Gandhi.  However one similarity that both these women have is their looks which is stunning at all times!

Prakash Jha, seems to have taken tips from the south based director in Mani Ratnam who always weaves stories based on ancient epics and creates parallel characters to match them so that viewers are familiar with the story line that leaves them happy of hearing the good old ancient epic that were told to them by their mother and grand parents while making them eat food or sleep!

The ancient politics was created in our history and  lives hearing and reading Maha-Bharatha and the same principles are seen to be adopted in this film making it more interesting!  For a change, there are no romantic songs or dancing around trees except for a couple of bold bed room scenes.

The young mother revolting against her own father who happens to be the Chief Minister by joining hands with a  rebel much older  in Nasiruddin Shah and eventually giving birth to a male child who is left all alone in the river Ganga seems an ancient plot which does not go well in modern times!  This boy transforms into an adult belonging to the Dalit class as in case of Karna who happens to be the foster son of a chariot driver.  Here instead of a chariot, the father is the driver of a Mercedes Benz belonging to the politicians! When the mother discovers that Ajay devgan is her child who was given away to mother Ganges, she pleads with him to come back which he politely refuses.  He also does not shoot his younger brother in Ranbir Kapoor due to emotional reasons and eventually gets shot by Ranbir who acts upon the advice of Nana Patekar who is always seen grinning and smiling as Lord Krishna does in Maha-Bharatha!

The dirty politics of retaining family power and the lust to hold on to the chair has been described and shown explicitly by the director.  The academician in Ranbir Kapoor who gets drawn into the whirl pool of  family politics and power has been well handled.  Both Ranbir and Kat have donned different kinds of roles and is a welcome change for the cine-goers!

There are some brutal killings in the film which might have forced the censors to give the film some kind of trimming that it deserved.  The role played by a woman aspiring to become an M L A by offering herself to the politician is something which will make the general public think and ponder about the woman politicians in a political party and create a serious debate about 33% reservation for women.

Its the bloodshed, hatred and lust to power and hold on to the party post at any costs that remains as  headlines  in your minds when you come out off the theatre and makes you wonder if these politicians have any humane consideration,, love and affection for anyone including their own  families?  Is money and power, the ultimate goals in one's life?  Prakash Jha, being a seasoned politician himself is quite right in telling the people of the country about the current day politicians and well, he is and must be correct!

Herbal T Music Session

                                Bala, Raju, Deepa and Shoba- an evening of music!
This time I invited my friend Balachander to play Piano-Accordion, an acoustic instrument which breathes like humans through the Bellows and produces ecstatic music, soothing to ears! This instrument was very popular in early 1930s up to 70s and was played in the erstwhile U S S R, Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries. Raj Kapoor, the legend of Hindi Tinsel world had a special place in his heart for this instrument and insisted inclusion of songs containing this instrument which was readily obliged by the great mastero Shankar Jaikishen who composed songs for many of his films. Pyar hua ikraar hua, Har dil jo pyar karega, jeena yahaan marna yahaan, jane kahaan gaye woh din, pyar ka nama hai are some of the popular songs which contained this instrument. Its very sad that there are no players willing to take up playing this instrument as this is replaced by the electronic Key-board. In chennai, there are a only a few left playing this instrument. I have a close friend in Delhi named Ganesh, an I I T graduate who used to play for me in my younger days. His right hand fingers appeared to flow all over the accordion while his left hand fingers pressed the matching chords to give a face lift to the entire music and a cushion to the singer's voice! Music world is poorer with this genius not choosing this line as he opted for a career in electronics in which he is doing extremely well. Piano-Accordion is a divine Western Instrument on is own!

Army and its role?

The News channels are hot with stories about Kargil war which seems to be a joke played on the citizens of India who regard and keep the army at the highest esteem.  Unless proved otherwise, the confidence of people on the Indian army will be lost and start treating them as ordinary policemen on beat!  Adding salt to injury is the time when Army is called by State Administrations to rescue children who fall into bore-wells dug by any one and everyone, everywhere! This has become a regular feature for the army to exhibit this act of bravery just to reinstate  the confidence in the minds of people specially when News about Kargil war is believed to be fake?  There are hardly any wars fought these days and the army does not know what to do during this time?  Probably they also await calls from various quarters to rescue either a child from the bore well,  pull out a Samba Deer from a well from within a Raj Bhawan premises, or lend some of its cadres to subsidiary forces to throw a protective cordon around a politician and walk around with a sophisticated machine gun in hands!  The role of the army is beyond these social obligations and political compulsions.  On the other hand, there are these Maoists who massacre and murder as many para-military forces and civilians as they want any time, any where and get away Scot-free without traces. The government is not interested to call army or deploy them to tackle this problems and are hoping that the extremists would eventually turn up at the negotiating table, one day or the other!!  Yes, the belief may come true but then half of India's paramilitary forces and civilians would have been seen off from this planet!  The Defence Ministry and the Home Ministry should  come to an understanding to exchange positions in such a way that the Army does the role of Para-military and vice-verse?  As such, there are no wars fought  and this exercise can be given a fair trial so that the army is refreshed to fight another army of Maoists who are well equipped and mentally motivated to fight and kill people. This way, both the forces will justify their presence and for which they are trained!  There are stories that during peace time, the army jawans are ordered to dig up a huge pit somewhere and close it at the end of the day just to keep the jawans and the officers fit enough to muster courage at the time of a war! If this is true, my proposal to the army to switch sides with the Para-military would justify their recruitment and service to the nation.  Jai Hind!!

Visa procedures

The entry to the U K has become very difficult.  The application is so cumbersome to fill as they ask for so many minute details other than your own self!  The date of birth of your parents one of who is no  more living really irks you when you fill the forms, basically because you have never thought of recording their date of birth and other details and they did not have any passport or travel abroad, to put it straight!  The demand for the statement of accounts from your bank for the past 6 months is something which intrudes straight into your privacy and discloses your personal savings and assets to people and officials whom you do not even know.

The Indian girls sitting on the counters behave like U K immigration officials and ask you so many questions that you tend to get irritated since the questions are silly in nature.  Submission of personal IT returns for the past 3 years disclosing all your income and sources is something which can not be accepted.  I really wish that our Indian Embassy also adopts such measures of asking the Britisher if he has 3 year record of his bank accounts and IT returns etc.. and ask for submission of the same for scrutiny!  I am sure half the tourists will not even have 2000 pounds in their savings accounts! With all these formalities, the agency also takes an authorisation from you to scrutinise your documents and a no objection for cross verification of the documents which makes you feel very belittled!  All said and done, we are Kings in our own country and no one can dispute that!!  Mera Bharat Mahan !! My country is great!