Abhi’s Space

Ever seen a movie which you feel is not a great movie but when you exit the theatre you certainly feel good about it. Aaja Nachle is one of those.

The movie marks comeback of arguably one of the best actress in Bollywood, Madhuri Dixit. She makes a comeback after 5 years and undoubtedly the movie will benefit from the fact that she is still a crowd puller. Not even Shahrukh Khan or Salman Khan or Aamir Khan have so much of fan falling, forget about actresses.

The movie is about a girl, Diya (obviously Madhuri), who runs away with a US photographer after falling in love with him in just a couple of days only to realize later that the person did not love her truly. By that time she was already pregnant. They divorced and Diya started training people in dance(in US) to make living. Her Guru was dying and she flew back to India to see him but before she reached he had already passed away. Now she comes to know that local people are going to demolish Ajanta Theatre (an Open Air Theatre) to build a shopping mall at that place. [Ajanta Theatre is the place where she learned dance and hence carries emotional importance to her]

She comes to rescue that and took up a challenge with local MP. Either she performs with local people within 60 days (i.e. get people support within 60 days) or the Ajanta becomes history. She stages a show to get people to the place and there asks for their support. Everyone ridiculed and left. Local ex-MP even goes to the extent of trying to destroy it the very next day. Diya shows the politician a political motive in saving the heritage and gets his support. With a few people in her team, she starts getting support of local public as they get enthusiast to participate in the drama- Laila Majnu. She takes screening tests of all the interested people and builds her team. The team works with dedication towards making the event a success till the time the constructor who had the contracts for building the mall played trick by bribing ex-MP (who was playing an important part in the play). The contractor also manages to do some negative publicity of Diya through his wife (who was a good childhood friend of Diya). The wife’s conscience scolds her after she does the act and she decides to join the play as well. D-day comes. They do the play and do it well. In the meantime Laila and Majnu had already got into real life love as well. The event is a success and Ajanta remains. Diya returns to US and movie ends.

Nothing in movie as such but the play towards the end of the movie is good. Songs are good and obviously Madhuri rocks. The Laila Majnu play is a musical play and engages viewer well (atleast engaged me very well). It runs for about 20 minutes and includes 3 of the songs in the movie but never looked like dragging or something and in fact, director manages to make movie run faster during those 20 minutes. The movie drags during the mid part of the movie and viewer almost loses interest (if any) at all but with no choice sits through. The director tried to explain each and everything no matter how trivial it is and that sometimes looked irritating.

Overall as I said, the movie has no content to boast of but still manages to give a happy ending feeling to the viewer and viewer comes out of theatre happy and smiling.

Overall I rate Aaja Nachle 1.5 on scale of 5

Brownie points include:

Madhuri Dixit!!

Good songs and Beautiful dance sequences (Again Madhuri!!)

Laila Majnu play is good but not worth 150 bucks at all

Brownie turned black for:

Slow pace and drags

Unnecessarily complicating the relationship dynamics (Many relationships did not make any impact on movie in general)

Under-cooked story and Under-utilized actors

Recommendation: Watch it only for Madhuri (She rocks!). No point looking for story etc.

Now this is something that never happened before and I think would not be repeated again atleast in this decade or may be century [:P]

Watch and tell if he is out or not-out.

Dhan dhana dhan GOAL

If I have to speak it in a line, it is a remake of Chak de India!, released this year. Chak de India was based on a hockey player who created a World Cup winning team out of a losing team after being accused of match-fixing and _________. Goal is about a football player who made a losing team win the league championship, after himself having skipped the final game in 1985 due to threats.

The concept is good but another movie of the same kind in a year!! Definitely not a good idea and the second mover had to lose for sure.

The Story: The movie is about Southall Football ground, which was to lose its existence if the management fails to pay 3million pounds in 11 months. Players from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh origin play for this club and this club is an identity for them. They now have only one chance to get this amount and that is by winning the league championship. But it is not that simple. They do not have a coach, the team is good for nothing- physically and mentally, the manager died of heart attack. And here steps up our hero- The Captain- Shaan Ali (Arshad Warsi). He approached a veteran player of the club,Tony Singh(Boman Irani), and somehow convinced him to coach the team. One of the player mortgaged his garage to raise funds for the player kits, team bus etc. The coach worked hard on the team and brought them in shape. He also brought in a player from other club- Sunny(John Abraham).

Same as in Chak de, they start with losing first game due to no coordination among team members and then coach inspires them to play for team and forget about personal grievances. The team finally turns into a team, which nobody can beat. But with two matches to go in the championship, Sunny signs up with another club. The team manages to end the second last game in a draw but needs to win the final match to win the league championship. Sunny comes to know the story about his father and his dedication to the Southall club and he joins back Southall in the final match. He played in spite of having line fracture in nose. The opponent team targets his nose but he, being the hero of the movie, doesn’t really bother and inspired by his father’s dedication, he keeps on playing and takes the team to victory.

Southall wins and the stadium and club are saved.

As far as performances are concerned, Arshad Warsi is just fine, John doesn’t look very natural and Boman Irani is unnecessarily loud. Other actors put up an average show in overall. Director did a fine job but Producer needs to be blamed for late timing of movie release. Had this movie released before Chak de India!, it could have been a different story altogether.

Overall the movie scored 2.5 out of 5.

Why to watch?

If you have missed Chak de India!, then the movie is definitely worth watching

Inspiring movie

Why not to watch?

Remake of Chak de India!

Anout average acting performances

A lot of inconsistencies and movie drags at times

Recommendation: Your wish [:)]

NO SMOKING (2007)

Genuinely speaking, I did not expect a Bollywood movie to be of that class. Deeply impressed by the concept and the way abstractness is handled in the movie. HATS OFF!! -

A miracle indeed.

The movie switches on and off dreams so beautifully that sometimes you just can guess it being real or illusion. The movie runs in good pace and the surprise factor is created beautifully as well. The acting department has certain glitches at places but still it manages to score above average in that. The characters had their roles to play and none of the character looked under developed. Although the director failed to show the emotions properly at places (As for example, the scenes with Ram, Shyam, Balram could not depict what the director really wanted to). And more importantly, I failed to understand the purpose of keeping the names as K and J..may be trying to imitate James Bond (I am K..only K) or may be trying to portray the ego (which was clear from the actions and hence did not make any impact).

The Story: Mr. K(John Abraham) is deeply into smoking and feels ashamed even about the idea of leaving it. His wife( also secretary) (Ayesha Takia) decides to leave him and it was then that he decides to quit smoking. He is referred to ‘Baba Bangali’ by his friend and then the real drama begins. Beyond this point the movie runs into illusions and imaginations. Mr. K is put to agree to condition that he will do whatever being asked to do. What happens next: watch it for yourself!!

The movie does preach of downsides of smoking but does that in a style. It talks about the cost one incurs on cigarettes etc.. It talks about the impact it has on friends and families. It talks about the diseases it spreads. It talks about the impact on health and expenses due to that. It talks about it all but in such a style that it never looks like some preaching. Well Done!

Phoonk de!

Ratings:

Overall No Smoking gets 4.5 out of 5

Why to watch? (I hope you dont need a reason after reading the plot above)

- If you want to quit smoking

- Good concept

- Well executed

- Decent acting

Why not to watch?

- If you do not want to quit smoking [:)]

Well before the placements started, I was on back foot.
I missed out on uploading my CV for 13 firms, most of them Slot 1 and most of them non-fin. That’s a huge number but did not really bother in the end.

So starting from the start:
I was fortunate enough to have figured what I wanted to do in my life and was sure that it was not i-banking. I was clear that I did not want to pursue a career in Finance and hence was out of the blind rat race(as it seems to me @ IIM-Cal) for slot 0. No offense meant to finance guys - I respect them as well. It is just that I did not find much interest in the field. In fact, quite surprising for people who know me as before getting admit into IIM-C, I always wanted to get into IIM-C just for it being the best B-school wrt Finance. Anyways, priorities and preferences do change and I grew anti-fin.

So for an anti-fin person, it had to be a consulting job or a marketing job or a systems job and the preference was clear: 1. Consult 2. Marketing 3&4. Toss between fin and systems. Consulting profiles with non-big4 doesn’t make much of a difference and hence to be precise it was 1. Big4 consulting firms 2. Consulting /Marketing 3. Fin/Systems.
Obviously big4 is something most of the people strive for and with an IT background with 1 year work experience and not much extra-currics, it definitely asks to set the expectations straight. More importantly, leaving out i-banks and big4 consults, there is nothing like slot 0 existing for you. No problems anyways. Slot 1 again looks the same except countable marketing and consulting firms. A bad day and no success there as well.

End of the day, Dabur, a slot 2 firm initiates the process. Calls me for interview and, with reasonable assumption, willing to give an offer. What to do now? A lot of firms still to come and a not so attractive offer. At that point of time, I wanted to give Microsoft a try coz with a profile like mine I was almost sure of getting through Microsoft. (I have 1 year prior experience in mobile solutions development for Windows-mobile based devices and Microsoft was looking for people to manage and market Office-mobile based projects.) But that doesn’t really matter as I was not even shortlisted for the interview. Happens!
Anyways life moves on!
Arrives Slot 2. Not many wait for so long to be placed and this time as well, just 65 left to be placed. The number doesn’t really matter. I knew this was much for my choice. With marketing being my preferred field and marketing firms lined up on Day 0 of Slot 2, I had no issues at all with being amongst last 65.
So the day starts with test of Futures First and I decided not to appear for that. While most of the people focused on getting a job, I had my priorities clear. Trading in Futures First was equivalent to working with some firm in rolling(Unplaced students work with some firm through off-campus). So the day started at around 8 o’clock for me and while I was still having the breakfast, I was called for the interview by Johnson n Johnson Consumer Products, which conducted GD the previous night and had shortlisted 12 students for interviews. I was called first. I went to the venue and there was no Covol there, only Company representatives standing there waiting for process to start. So as soon as I reached there, they kind of started the process. And obviously when Covol came, he was still waiting for me to report.
The interview started very casually and then picked up gradually. I was always very excited about everything and even got to hear the comments like “Your life seems to have been really interesting” [:)]. As expected, it was based on personals and a bit on marketing fundae. I was caught on wrong foot once for not having attended the Pre-Placement Talk conducted by the firm but they did not mind it much.
And guess what! I was given a spot offer.
I did not know really what to do. Should I accept? reject? Which firms are better than JnJ and which are at par? Should I go for Coke, which is paying handsome amount? Is Cadbury’s or Nestle a better brand than JnJ? How does it affect future prospects if I join JnJ now?….blah blah…
Now this is what they call network. I called up 5 of my friends and asked them to get back to me with regards to all above concerns withing 5 minutes. They called up their friends and in some cases further chain. And within 10 minutes, I got feedback from more than 10 persons who had fair enough answers for above concerns. The bottomline everyone talked was same. JnJ is good and a few of others are comparable but difficult to say better. It made sense to accept the offer and I did.

Not to mention, I was the first person to get an offer on the day. So Topper of the Slot in that sense [:P].
However the process did not end for me with that. I was required to go for all the interviews scheduled for me and it was a good experience “Tank”ing them all. [;)] I had already ‘tanked’ 7 by the time they decided to let me go. I really thank them for that as I was supposed to go for atleast 6-7 more companies. [:)]
Anyways, overall it was a happy story for me and I never really had moments of stress during those 5 days. And that is precisely why I said myself fortunate.(Refer start of the post)

Looking forward to exciting summers this time. [:)]

~~Private Post~~

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Nothing new with this but I fail to understand why are these producers/ directors considered top shots.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who brought a new dimension to Indian Cinema with Amitabh Bachchan-Rani Mukherjee starer Black and revived memories of old Devdas with his version of Devdas, failed miserbaly to deliver this time.
Farah Khan, made a dream debut with entertainment movie “Main Hoon Na” but seems like she used up all the masala in her first movie. Om Shanti Om, is terribly tasteless.

Saawariya: (Rating at the end)
Following the tested funda of narrator, movie starts with Gulabji(Rani Mukherjee) telling the story of true love although she sells false love every night(being a call-girl by profession). The movie is about Raj,a singer (who God or may be SLB knows does what to survive-had a job of singer at bar which he left for Sakina) and Sakina, who still lives in ancient era and waited for over a year for a person she had met for a few hours. Don’t get surprised, there are a lot more elements like this in the movie. The movie marks a debut for two new Kapoors in the industry, Ranbir Kapoor, grandson on Raj Kapoor and son of Rishi Kapoor, played Raj while Sonam Kapoor, daughter of Anil Kapoor, played Sakina. Sonam is beautiful but failed miserably to make an impact with her acting. Ranbir looks cute (Handsome or not..subjective!) and I would advise him to take some inspiration from Shahid, who started of in a similar fashion with Ishq vishq and then made a image makeover with his subsequent movies and definitely avoid becoming another Sonu Nigam(wrt acting). In such a role, it is difficult to comment on acting skills, although he looked pretty natural in most of the frames.
OK. So the story goes as: Sakina goes daily to a small bridge in the area to see if her love, Imaam (played by Salman Khan), is back to take her. On one such night, Raj met her and fell in love with her (I thought this was a thing of past!) She also felt good in his company and and made friends with him. The next night, she tells him about Imaam. (I dont understand this as well. She tells a stranger about her love life in second meeting itself!!). Our hero is hurt but after listening to the complete story makes a ridicule of the girl for she fell in love with Mr. Imaam in just a meeting or two, who then left her without even telling about his whereabouts and when, if at all, he will come back?!. She asks Raj to help her find Imaam and the ship(movie) sinks further.
Finally when she is all set to get along with Raj forgetting Imaam, Imaam reappears. She goes to Imaam. He proposes, she accepts and movie ends.!
Add further to this ‘jhelao’ story line the fact that no 10 mins of movie go without a song. Too much of trying audience patience!!

Om Shanti Om:(Rating at the end)
Rishi Kapoor did wonders with Karz 30 years back but the concept of something from this and something from that killed this movie. Farah Khan gave an impression from her debut that probably she knew the recipe of making a good masala entertainer but this time she disappointed as this time, it was all disproportionate. OSO features a story line which probably is a mixture made from a dozen movies or so.
SRK is a junior artist, so is his mother(Kiron Kher) and so was his late father. He had ambitions to become a star and his friend suggested him change his name from Om Prakash Makhija to Om Kapoor, making ridicule of ‘Makhija’ (as Makhi-ja). [ I do not understand why is not there any protests against this and in fact, even not being Makhija, felt it as like a ridicule on an ethnic group.] He is also in love with a star ShantiPriya(Deepika Padukone), who is secretly married to the producer “Mukesh Mehra”, played by Arjun Rampal. Mukesh Mehra was planning his next movie as the biggest movie ever and had the sets ready for the movie but since ShantiPriya tells her that she is pregnant with her child, he planned to get rid of her. She took her to show the sets of this new movie titled Om Shanti Om and set the sets on fire and locked her in. Om saw it all. He tries to save her life but lost his life as well. He takes a re-birth as child of one of the most successful heroes in the industry and goes on to become a hero himself. During shooting of a movie, he starts getting memories of his past life back. He also happened to visit the sets of Om Shanti Om and that brought back all the memories from his past life. He decided to take revenge from Mukesh Mehra and found Sandy who looked exactly like ShantiPriya. He planned some mind games for Mukesh and succeeded significantly till Mukesh finds out that this girl was alive and not a ghost or something. Om threatened Mukesh but Mukesh had realisation that nobody will believe the incarnation story of Om Kapoor and the ghost of ShantiPriya appears and killed Mukesh Mehra at exactly the same spot where whe was buried. The movie ends!
There were still a few good points in the movie like the dressing sense, styles, sets, language etc looked contemporary to correct periods. SRK showed that he can act as well (Yes you read it right..he acted well this time and showed some diversity in his acting this time).

He died in the movie and that suggests the movie should make good business but I have a feeling that his lucky charm might not work this time.

Rating:
OSO gets 1.5 stars

Why to watch?:
Consistency in styles as per time
SRK finally acted!

Why not to watch?:
No entertainment with no storyline
You watch almost the same twice (Post-interval =Pre-interval after 30 years)
Read the above post, if you haven’t

Saawariya gets 1 star
Why to watch?:
Melodious songs
Cute Hero, Beautiful Heroine

Why not to watch?:
No storyline at all
Melodious songs! (The frequency makes it very frustrating)
Drags are there
Rani Mukherjee and Salman Khan both wasted!!

So overall a poor week for Bollywood and for cinema lovers. Do not bother your pockets for any.

BTW my placements start tomorrow morning 7:30 a.m. and I have been writing this for now over 2 hours since 10:00 p.m. Definitely a stupid time to do this but anyways this is who I am!

Today Kanpur’s Green Park hosted 3rd ODI of ongoing India-Pakistan series but the Park was not the same as it has always been. The Green Park was found Blue today.
Not very difficult to understand the reasons with Bahujan Samaj Party being the ruling party and with a colour theme of Blue.
This I would say is very cheap ( as in cheap mentality) and is something that bothers citizens like me a lot. This is how the tax I pay is being spent!! What a pity!
They have rules prohibiting election campaigning in election days..what about these days? Aint it a simple case of Office of Profit? Why doesnt IT department asks about finances for this expense? If it is public money and is coming from share of Sports, is it really what it is meant for?

Anyways the bottomline is that I am reconsidering whether or not should I pay taxes!!

Here is a professional news item: (No point rewriting)

Kanpur Green Park stadium painted BSP blue

Kanpur’s Green Park stadium, the venue for the third India-Pakistan One-Day International, has been virtually given a blue hue - clearly resembling the official colour of Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

No wonder everyone seems to attribute it to the proposed visit of Chief Minister Mayawati, who is to give away the prizes at the end of the match Sunday.

The painting began shortly after Mayawati consented to being chief guest at the event.

What followed was incredible. Officials from the chief minister’s secretariat personally monitored the large-scale renovation by the state government to give the place a face-lift.

It started with refurbishing of the VVIP pavilion and the special enclosure for the chief minister but later large parts of the giant stadium were also painted entirely in blue.

The manner in which the colour has been used shows that care has been taken to ensure that right from her entry into the venue, Mayawati gets a total ‘blue view’.

All entry gates are draped or painted in blue and all chairs in different enclosures visible from the VVIP pavilion have also been painted the same colour.

Even road-dividers in the city have been painted blue.

No one is however willing to divulge as to how much money has been pumped into re-doing the stadium, which otherwise has often suffered gross neglect.

Unofficial reports estimated the expenditure to be around several million rupees.

The chief minister is scheduled to spend just about 30 minutes at the felicitation function.

Top aides of Mayawati have made at least 17 trips from Lucknow to Kanpur to personally supervise the face-lift of the VVIP pavilion.

Unprecedented security arrangements have been made in and around the venue, particularly between the police lines where Mayawati’s helicopter would land, and the Green Park stadium.

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