Two movies and a headache

I had the misfortune of watching two movies back to back which almost belonged to two different hemispheres of creativity, intelligence and sheer ‘masterpiece moviemaking’ (a word that can be rarely uttered when you walk out of after a Bollywood movie).

The first one brought my faith back in cinema that thrills and entertains you simultaneously... the other brought me closer to the ‘mindless IQ less’ audience that we have been reduced to by the Bollywood flick-makers!

Kahani is a tribute to all facets of moviemaking ! Be its camera shots that completely absorbed the beauty of Kolkota and then dissipated the spirit of that city across the big multiplex screen! Its story is sheer thrill and suspense rolled into a neat bundle and drags the audience through the entire journey from start to finish! And as for the actors, each one nudges each other till the finishing line with their performances and no jury can make a decision in unison....but in all fairness Vidya Balan’s performance is muted and yet brilliant...no histrionics..no dramatic sobs...just plain humane reactions that strike a chord with the audience...she looks weathered, tired,  pregnant  and beautiful all in one go! The cast almost look like they have been sculpted and tailored to fit each role and they lend that rock solid support for the movie! All in all, as the credits rolled by, I sat at the edge of my seat riveted by the brilliance of the movie maker and content in spending a weekend witnessing a worthwhile performance.
And now I move on to an experience called 'Housefull 2'! My maiden Akshaya Kumar Ritesh kinds movie...I can start off in their defence that the movie met and exceeded my expectations..Forced into the movie hall, I walked in ready for a few hours of mindless slapstick ‘comedy’ (for lack of a better word that I can use in its place) and the creator granted me exactly that! The movie from the word ‘action’ to ‘pack up’ is a slew of scenes packed with senseless witless actions which have no relevance to each other and wipes out any sense of ‘logic’ that the audience can be credited with! The actors (too strong a word for the puppets that dotted the screen) seemed more like amateur school kids doing their ‘action song’ at an anniversary celebration... I was awed at the audacity of the movie maker in imagining that scenes like people falling over each other and pet crocodiles (yes can you believe) chasing people around can tickle laughter reactions??? The plot is astounding in its height of imagination I must confess....characters that are transported from a ship to an island to a waterfall and finally to a resort cannot be imagined by  a ‘less fertile’ mind...some more startling ideas that the movie threw in at intervals were mind boggling (not the Inception kinds trust me)...a  ‘dhakkoo’ (think Gabbar Singh) converts himself into  a ‘Forbes’ industrialist of the year at London...The industrialist converts himself to a ‘dhakkoo’ at his son’s wedding and Prince Charles tries to intervene (‘in the name of Majesty’)..and I can go on but I wouldn’t want to take away the ‘suspense’ for the less fortunate who haven’t had a chance to catch the movie! And as if to add some ‘finishing’ touches to the masterpiece, there are sudden outbursts of ‘morality’ and scenes dedicated to friendship, family and relationships..Overall, I laughed my way out of the hall...gaping at the stupidity of spending crores in making a movie like this and the wastage of talent bundled in legendary actors who were ‘misused’ in the charade..am not sure about the ‘houseful’ but I had my ‘mouthful’ and would have spat them out if I did confront the man behind this performance!

Coalition Drama

I am not sure why coalition has an uncanny resemblance to the term collision but over the days and weeks that India witnessed I guess the two words are slowly becoming synonyms for each other! Coalition dharma seems to be the one and final excuse for the paralytic limp that India suffers from..it’s the easiest way to shirk one’s parliamentary duties..it’s the one word rebuttal for any fingers pointed at our policymakers incompetence! And as if to give more meaning to the word, our coalition partners time and again make their presence felt not in furthering the interests of the country but in breaking open any small steps towards good policymaking! Foul cries, conflicts and drama have further paralyzed an already mute government who is in no hurry to act or clean (more importantly) the mess!

Sometimes I wonder if we need to bring a ‘two-party’ system in our country for ‘something’ (good or bad) to happen? Action being the operating word….Maybe we are over democratized..too much representation at the cost of too little action..maybe it’s time for a trade off? What is a country without new and refreshing policies and a path forward? We can’t live in the shadows of rules made in the ‘black and white’ British era when the country has lunged forward and painted itself multicolours.  We cannot rest on imaginary laurels, look up at the sky and imagine a day when we will become a super power!  Maybe it would mean that the country chooses from the devil and the deep sea but atleast the party in power will have to put in force the policies it promises in that all important manifesto. Atleast the excuse of coalition dharma and drama cannot come in the way of execution of promises to the electorate. Atleast the mass loot and corruption cannot last beyond 4 years in a single sitting..Atleast the true head of our country will have the powers to bring the thieves and crooks to task if it truly has the will to weed out corruption!

It is definitely not the idealist nation that one wants to look forward to but maybe it’s better than sitting on the fence without the will to act and without a plan of action? A thought to ponder over till such time all I can pray for is ‘coalition karma’!

The External Factor

We symbolize a generation that has fallen head over heels for the ‘externalism’ in every individual….we live a lie from dawn to dusk and bask in that external silhouette of ourselves...and perhaps over a period of time, we start to believe that lie we live, eat, drink and speak!

We are defined by the company of brands we keep….within each of us, we believe that’s who we are! The culmination of all our efforts and dreams are no longer states such as ‘happiness’ and ‘peace’…rather we quantify every milestone by the brands that we acquire at those important junctures... the keys to your branded elite apartment stamps your entry into the ‘next phase of life’, the transition from a small car to the dream SUV catapults you to a ‘high achiever’ tag, the acquisition of the exclusive club membership determines your social ‘strata’.  There is a price and a tag to everything and everyone in our lives….We judge people by the cut and tag of their clothes….we choose friends who belong to our circle of branded existence….we ‘sniff’ out the best in a crowd from their fragrance…we admire not the virtuous from the lot but perhaps the one mouthing the best sounding accent!

Our actions are restricted to what is ‘deemed uber cool’ and not necessarily what we love doing the best! It’s not important if we truly relish the taste of the obscenely priced wine in an upbeat restaurant.. but what is important is if we have been caught with that glass for a precious ‘page 3’ moment! We go on exotic holidays where we experience less of the place and think more of the snaps that we need to share with our circle on our return…It all boils down to dropping those words that matter in our corridor, wedding, workplace conversations…a European holiday here, a golf weekend there …..effortless words that change perspectives magically….the onlookers’ eyes transition from disgust to admiration as we spell out the words that matter! I was amazed to hear of a website which gives you enough information to ‘appear’ to have read the books that broke into the best selling category..Imagine a world where it’s not about enjoying the experience of reading a book, but it’s about telling people about a book that you ‘appear’ to have read!

This externalism follows us faithfully from family gatherings to our private 8*8 area called workspaces. The package we create of ourselves and the blitzkrieg marketing of our strong holds create that lasting impression and may break or make our path of glory in the corporate snakes and ladders. Words like packaging and branding no longer associate with objects but relate much better to people… The sum total of your net worth of sincerity and brilliance is measured in the onlookers’ eyes..the word ‘seem’ never had a field day like in this day and age!

The charade that we display to others slowly and steadily becomes our character and before you and I know it………the thin line between what we are and what we appear blurs into oblivion!