The uninvited guest in our house!

It was 6 PM in the evening and getting dark slowly. We have generally good amount greenery in our layout. There are many houses in Royal Park Residency which is our layout; we do have some vacant sites too. Once in a while we see some strangers too!

But we had an uninvited and totally unknown guest yesterday getting into our house premises. The guest was looking quiet and calm, but appeared to be dangerous if not handled properly. My wife and kids were alone there at home.

In the evening my wife was trying to check the water level in our underground water tank and opened the first stone slab placed over there. So far so good.. but when she opened the second slab… Alas !! She got the shock of her life !!!

By now, you must have guessed it.. our guest was none other a Snake..! Not a king cobra.,. but a junior one.. 3-4 feet in length! probably one of kids! For a moment she did not know what to do, whether to place the stone back or take out the stone completely. Any of her actions would have caused either harm to the animal or herself.

She immediately called our daughter Anushree slowly pulled out the stone. By now even Anu was also little scared the way mother screamed. She approached her mother in lightening speed. But while all this was going on, our junior cobra fell into the water tank !! Water level was hardly 2-3 feet.  Mother and daughter duo looked at each other questioningly. Of course they had recovered now to good extent now, because they knew snake could not fly out of the tank and harm them ! J

They thought now for a while,  how to protect this guy, without harming him and themselves. In the meanwhile my son Chirag also joined them. All of their focus was now our guest. Initially they took a pipe and inserted into the tank. Naa..naa!!  Our guy is not able to hold onto that and come up..! Without losing hope, they inserted a think rope and asked the junior cobra to hold on to that and climb... still no..!! Probably he is not understanding their instructions.. what to do…? Language problem..!! :)

Now they were running of ideas.. suppose if the snake dies inside the tank..we have empty the whole tank and clean it up..naa..?  That would cost somewhere around Rs.1500 to 2000..! Oh my GOD..! Big financial risk!

You can imagine now, all three of them sitting on the side of water tank and doing some serious brainstorming on "how to protect this uninvited guest..?". At the same time, they cannot take their eyes off the gentleman who was swimming inside !!

Already 20 minutes passed by. Suddenly a thought flashed in Anushree's mind and she blinked her eyes! She said "Mummy ! We have got a fishnet like laundry bag.. no..? It is about 2 feet in length . Why don’t we tie it to a pair of strings and drop it inside the tank. Our snake maharaja will listen to our instructions and get inside the laundry bag!. (What an idea Sirji..? Sorry Madam ji..? )

But my wife Teju was not in a state any one's suggestion now! She immediately got into action.. rushed inside the house and brought the laundry bag. All of them like a sincere project team members tied the bag to two strings and dropped it inside the water tank.

I am not sure whether they were singing "Mai teri dushman" song from Sridevi starrer "NAGINA"...! But definitely after few attempts , our gentleman Snake got into the soft trap laid by my family members !

 

First hurdle cleared..! What next..? They slowly pulled the snake GOD along with the bag out of water tank. My wife Teju, the project manager of this massive rescue operation asked our two wonderful kids to get away from her. She walked a little distance away from our house and released this gentleman Snake to the greenery in a vacant site. The junior cobra quietly moved away without troubling any one!

Happy Ending!! Abba..! Teju sighed in relief, but could not help appreciating her daughters timely wisdom!  When I returned home in the night, there was a big story in store to be narrated!

My intent of sharing this story is not to boast about my family. I am sharing it for few reasons.

·  Our children are not burdened by other hassles of materialistic life outside. They are able to think differently. Their thoughts are so clean and innovative. There is nothing wrong in approaching them when we have problems in hands.

 
· If the same incident would have happened 10 years back, we would have killed the snake! I guess the awareness on wildlife is increasing slowly. Not even for a moment they thought of killing that snake! I appreciate them for this thought process and felt very happy for that. 

·   Most importantly they did not panic in crisis and took the right decisions. A slightest mistake would have either harmed any of them or the animal itself.

These are some of real life lessons. We don’t learn them in any classroom. I try to focus more on such lessons. I don’t mind if my daughter gets 60 or 70 marks in class tests, but on this occasion she got 100 out 100! I am very happy for her.  I wish and do hope our kids will score well in their real life's lessons.

My request to all of you would be – Please orient your kids and family on such things.  It will be a great help!

The role of thought provoking Movies in our life..

We all know the books you read, the places you go and the people you meet will all add up to your personality. We can gauge any one's personality by speaking to them for just 15-20 minutes. You can very well see that the variety of books they would have read, the places they would have visited across the globe and different personalities they would have met would be quite visible when we converse with them. Right,…?

But I would also strongly like to believe even the movies, plays and cultural shows add to our personality and definitely help enhancing our own self. I have always liked and appreciated such thought provoking movies, be in any language. I have my own collection of such movies. Whenever I find time, I just watch them again and again. It is such an amazing experience because these movies give you different perspective every time..! That is the beautify of such movies.

For ex :

I have watched two 1975 block busters “MAYURA”(Kannada) a movie starring late Dr. Rajkumar and bollywood all time hit movie “SHOLAY” again and again at different ages..say....7, 16, 27, 35 and then now at 40+!! J
 
Every time these movies have given me different perspective and view point. I have been able to appreciate their freshness and thought. But the point here is not that! There are some movies which actually influence the way you start thinking. Many times you may be able to overcome some of the flaws in your personality. There are many life's valuable lessons we get from such movies.

We, Indians many time don’t know how to feel proud of ourselves and suffer internally. Either we have tons of EGO or extremely low inferiority complex. While dealing with these two extremes, we forget ourselves and lose sight of objectives and goals in life.

With that back ground, I would like recommend two such movies which compel you to think about yourself. They are "English Vinglish"(Hindi) featuring Sridevi and "Queen"(Hindi) starring Kangana Ranaut. These movie speak extensively on one's personality, inhibitions, inferiority complex and tolerance to something that is very unreal. For me, “Queen” looks like advanced version of “English Vinglish”. Please do watch them in that order.

Both the movies are directed very well by respective directors Gouri Shinde and Vikas Bahl. The two leading ladies Sridevi and Kangana have very portrayed the role of protagonists amazingly well! These are some of the best roles they would have played in their entire career.

Those who missed watching them please go ahead, buy DVDs and watch them today itself.

Just one word of caution here!

While "English Vinglish" is a pure family entertainer which you can watch with everyone, "Queen" is a bit bold movie and only for 18+ audience. You should avoid watching "Queen" with your kids.

References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Vinglish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayura_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholay

Message here is – do catch up on some good thought provoking movies whenever you find time. There are many of them!

Have a nice weekend!

A review on the book "Why I failed " wriiten by Shweta Punj

 

"Failure in life is quite shocking, an insult, a humiliation..You should not fail in life, it leads to embarrassment, lets you down..".  This is what I used to believe decades ago when I was a student. But over the years as I sailed through life, I learned failure is not everything, there is even bigger purpose and life ahead. That gave a sense of calmness and helped me take a more meaningful view of failure.

Recently this interesting title "Why I Failed" caught my attention when I happened to visit Sapna Book Stall, Bangalore. (By the way, they are celebrating their 47th anniversary and offering very good discounts on many new books! Go and make the best out it ! J ). When I flipped through the book briefly, I felt it would make a great weekend  read ! Believe me it did and stood up to my expectations.

Failing is not a mistake. You need to pick up the pieces and move on. That’s what I used I believed so far. This book further not only reinforced my beliefs, but took my perspective to a different level. A level where failure can be by design, can be a great experience in itself !

The book "Why I failed " is a great compilation stories from 16 Indian leaders from different fields about the failures in their lives and career. The author Shweta Punj,  business journalist working with Business Today,  has attempted to take a refreshingly fresh look on failure in this book.

The leaders have spoken their heart out and candidly narrated their stories. The language throughout the book is very motivating and inspiring and makes a breezy reading. You may finish the book in one go!

"Never confuse your being with your doing. You don’t have to live the way the world expects you to." Says Anu Aga.

"Do what you love. It is better to be the king of hell than be a slave in the heaven" advises Madhur Bhandarkar.

Every chapter is designed well with reasons for failures and key take aways from each leader. What appealed to me was the sheer honesty and openness from these leaders in sharing their failure stories. It definitely needs courage.  

The grit and determination with which these leaders carried themselves during  such situation is remarkable. The message that comes out very clearly is "Never give up when you are right. Believe in yourself. When your purpose is clear, you don’t have to fear any one”.

Every story is told very passionately and is quite engaging! I particularly liked the stories of Madhur Bhandarkar, Sabyasachi Mukerji and Narayanan Vaghul. Especially the last line in the Introduction "Happy Failing Everyone! " has a very deep meaning.

I would strongly recommend this non-fiction for

·         Those who have suffered because of the way people looked at their failures.
·         Ones who is in search of a purpose in their lives.
·         People who are willing to go experiment, take bold decisions, commit mistakes  and make a difference to society and system

It is very difficult for everyone to go and speak to such leaders personally on their failures and how they managed it. So this book serves as one single compilation which serves that purpose. Each chapter is life's one valuable lesson!

Some of the things that could have been better are - the cover page, but it seems keeping it understated was by design.
Overall, I feel the author has achieved her objective in terms of giving right perspective on failure. I would rate this book at 4 out of 5.

Happy reading… I mean Happy failing very one ! J

"Krrish 3 (K3)” : A preview ahead of its release!

So far I used to write reviews about a movie, but this time I am attempting a preview of a movie for the first time before the release of the movie.

My first preview is about the most expected movie of this Diwali "Krrish 3" or “K3”  starring our Indian Cinema's Greek GOD Hritik Roshan, produced and directed by his father Rakesh Roshan.

K3  is already creating lot of hype because of its trailer released in Nov and aggressive promos that are going on as of now. The promo activity is so aggressive that in the last 1 month itself we saw 8 different articles in Bangalore Times" on "Krrish 3" alone. 3 on Hritik, 1 on his father, 1 on his uncle Rajesh, 1 each on Vivek, Kangana and Priyanka. Last 5 days to go now for the movie’s release! You might see some more heavy stuff coming your way before the release. :)

 If promos are any indication of this movie's success, then this movie must be a super-duper hit. But sometimes I feel, the promos are so aggressive that they might increase audiences expectations unnecessarily and that might affect K3’s fate adversely. A movie becomes a hit when a viewer goes to theatre with least expectations and movies delivers more than that.

 As we all know, K3 is an Indian Super Hero's fiction story where the good wins over evil at the end, the movies promises  with great special effects.

No doubt, Hritik always gives his more than 100% for any work he does, so you can be fully assured that you get your paisa vasool for all action scenes , dance sequences and his acting skills. If you have seen the trailer, the cinematography, music, sound effects you can say they live up to your expectations.

But there is so much discussion going on in the media and public about whether K3 will break the box office record set Chennai Express which is more than Rs.400 Crores ! We don’t know whether K3 can do it at this point of time!

Because Box office record just does not depend on these technicalities. For that, a movie should have something for every age group in the audience. A lively narration(whether fiction or non-fiction), a good plot, catchy music, pleasant cinematography , good contribution from all artistes and of course, some x-factor that brings in audience to the theater again and generates repeat business for the producers. There should be sequences which cannot be enjoyed on a normal pen  drive or a DVD.

K3 is coming after a long time compared to earlier two installments i.e. "Koi... Mil Gaya" which came in 2003 and second one "Krrish" in 2006. Roshans have spent close to 3 years in pre-production and production of this movie and claim that this is costliest and biggest ever movie made in India.

About the success of the movie, after having seen the trailer, I would say the following would play a critical role, if they are not there in the film, K3 might suffer.

A good story, a convincing narration of the plot, a lot of highs in the script which attract children, special effects which appeal to Indian common audience and not just multiplexers and of course a good bone tickling funny moments is what a generally every one will be lookin for.  And if Children don’t accept the movie, it might severely affect the end results. Remember this class of audience played a huge role in the success of movies like "Chennai Express" which beat all other movies hands down.

 As far as technical excellence is concerned, director Shankar has already set a bench mark on how to make large scale sci-fi movies in India with Super Star Rajini starrer "Robot(Enthiran)". They recovered the whole of movies budget in flat 3 days! On Sunday evening, the movie producers were already celebrating in Chennai!

Shankar himself might take many more years to make yet another technical master piece like "Robot".

If the audience has to like this movie, the quality has to be much higher than that.

So I would say, K3 has to give something more than "ROBOT(Enthiran)" and "Chennai Express" if it has to be biggest hit of this year.

Risks with this movie:

·         If fun quotient is not there, K3 might turn out to be an absolute serious sci-fi thriller.

·         There is a good long weekend from 1st to 4th Nov, on which K3 can encash on.
·         But in the meanwhile there are 3 more bug budget movies like ‘Ram-leela', ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein', 'Bullet Raja'  are also releasing in the same moth. They can dilute the free run of "K3.
·         Hrithik is repeatedly telling that it will match the quality of a Hollywood movie and can take us to all together a different level.
·         This definitely raises audiences expectations. Hope Roshans have really done their home work well and live up to our expectations.
·         Audience expects that the plots are not directly lifted from any Hollywood movies.
·         Media is already pitting Hritik against Aamir for their respective movie releases.
·         On top of this, Aamir Khan is trying to get the theatrical release of his upcoming bug budget movie “Dhoom-3” 2 days before K3 hits the screen. Don’t ignore the perfectionist ! He can play a great show spoiler and divert the attention of the audience!

My Projection on the K3’s success:

This movie may not break the records created by "ROBOT(Enthiran)" and "Chennai Express", but might do very well do well in box office and recover its budget.

Star Cast of K3:

Director/Producer   : Rakesh Roshan

Cast                            : Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Vivek Oberoi, Kangna

Story                           : Rakesh Roshan

Music                          : Rajesh Roshan
Cinematography     : S. Tirru
Editor                          : Chandan Arora

Wiki Page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krrish_3           

All said and done, I personally like Hrithik, his versatility as an actor, his dancing skills, the way he carries himself on anfd off screen and of course his wonderful personality.

I wish this a movie a great success at the box office and hope it definitely satisfies the entertainment appetite of all the Indian cine lovers across the globe.

Our career is our own baby!

Everyone around us will help and support our baby grow...

But ...it is our responsibility to
- provide right nutritious food at right time...
- admit baby in good school at right time...
- provide right financial support for baby to grow and stand on its own.
- provide love and care for baby and spend sufficiently good personal time with baby...
And of course to clean up our baby's diapers and wash baby's bums when in mess..!

Everyone loves the baby if it is good looking..!
Everyone will notice how well or not you are taking care of your baby...!
But truth is knowingly or unknowingly ... we ourselves forget our baby, don’t provide support and take baby's life for granted!!

Remember whatever we say and do... we cannot afford to ignore our own baby for the consequences are far more serious in the long run!

 

Music knows no limits and boundaries!

I am a diehard fan of the legendary Musician A R RAHAMAN and his music. But today I discovered something interesting on net! A kind of someone doing a cover for an original ARR track.


Listen to this cover made by Alaa Wardi!! Jiya re from Jab Tak Hai Jaan!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoSdrc3_FdQ

It is truly amazing and sounds even better than original in some places! I tried my best to find any traces of any musical instruments, but could not! It is just human voice and some technical innovation!

This form of music is called A Cappella Music. In the simplest common usage, it is music sung without instruments accompanied. All sounds are created by voice, mouth and body only.

And in this form, this guy Alaa Wardi is a Rock Star!! Hats off to himi!!

You can listen to his other tracks here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WikcPREx0DM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QakBtoOIlIc

Who is Alaa Wardi..?
http://www.youtube.com/user/AlaaWardi

Enjoy the music!

Hit Movies … Flop Movies.. Why..?

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still images. These still pictures when projected in a theatre at a certain speed through a special projector, give an            effect of a continuous motion picture i.e. the picture which has a motion and in which the characters can speak, sing, dance and can do almost anything!

These pictures are produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The world’s earliest motion picture produced was "Roundhay Garden Scene" in 1888. Since then the movie making process across the world has undergone humungous changes and it has developed into an art form and industry.

Entertainment consists of any activity which diverts your attention or helps you to relax in your leisure time. Entertainment can be anything, such as watching a play, a show on a TV or a movie..etc.

Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreational activities. Activities such as personal reading or practicing a musical instrument are considered to be hobbies.

There are many types of channels for entertainment. But movies have become one of the mainstream entertainment channels because of the latest technology innovations, the evolution of internet, mobile world, the availability and speed of processing of information, the quality of movie production that is available now a days, the ability to reach broader audience in a short time. People enjoy and feel entertained watching movies from different languages, themes and with different star cast on different categories made by different nationals.

Because of this very reason, even the taste and expectation of the audience has gone up and new bench marks have been set up for movies. Long long ago, we had only black and white movies,  that 35 mm movies, then we got into Eastman color movies, then Fuji color movies and then cinemascope movies... then 70 mm movies. Even in sound track, we had only mono live sound, and then moved onto studio sound and then to stereo sound track.

After that many innovations like DTS and Dolby Sound have taken place. No wonder each department of a movie making process has undergone huge change and evolution. All this was possible only because the cinema throughout the world has embraced technology very well and kept pace with it.

At the same time, the audience has also kept pace with movie quality and their expectation is also quite high now. We don’t expect anything less than a decent storyline, a 70mm, Cinema Scope with DTS, a decent choreography, a great action sequence, a warm photography and a soothing music track and of course great action by all lead actors.

What makes a particular movie a super hit..? As we discussed above, the bench marks for any good movie have been set very well. Every cinema loves goes to theatre with certain expectations. Today’s audience is quite aware and well educated about what to expect from the movies. There are some very basic ingredients each cinema lover would expect from the movies.

Some basic expectations are..

·         A good storyline and screenplay, so that there is some meaning for the whole 2-3 hour production.
·         Storyline can cater to different types of audience based on the taste (Ex: Action movies, romance, comedies, thriller, period movies..etc)
·         No one wants to see a group of disconnected scenes and bundled as a movies and thrust upon the audience. There should be continuity in the storyline.
·         Good performance for most of the star cast.
·         A warm, decent cinematography, sound track, choreography, direction, production quality etc
·         Some wow factors in the movies.. Something that is unique and has not been done before.

Overall theme of the movie caters to a particular set of audience and based on the size of such audience across the world, it becomes either a hit or flop.

We very well know that all the movies produced in all the countries will not have all these characteristics. But still they go ahead and become block busters! (Read as Dabaang-2 ! ). Sometimes it is quite surprising how this happens, but there are many reasons behind such success.

We can see there are some prominent reasons behind such block buster stories as shown below.

 

The advertisement that used to be done for movies has changed drastically now. The budget spent on marketing, creating hype about the movie, PRO etc have gone up. The whole movie production cost has jumped by leaps and bounds. For Ra-One , a recently released bollywood movie, a whopping Rs.52 Crore was spent on was spent only on marketing through various partnerships, which set the record for the largest marketing budget in India.

Such kind of investments, approaches, strategies create lot of interest, hype among the audience and expectation about the movie goes up. Everyone would like to watch the movie in the first 2-3 weeks itself and more in the first week.

The producer would like to encash on such mindset. What they do is release a large number of movie prints  across the world and have more theaters screen the movie at a time. So even if the movie is an average movie, it might well become a hit because of no. of prints released! You might be surprised to hear that for Ra-One almost 3100 cinemas in India and about 900 across the world were showing the movie in the first week!!

So it is the marketing strategy of the produces that sometimes plays on the mindset of the audience and movie becomes a hit.

On the other hand, some movies though not so great, still become a hit because of a reverse strategy. That is, the producer puts in his best effort to make the movie, but does not unnecessarily hype the movie and keeps his expectations at realistic level. In this case even the audience does not have much expectation on the movie. But when it is released, they would have gone to watch the same with least expectations and it would have actually exceeded their expectations and won their hearts!

This is what exactly happened in the case of DON-2. The movie is not great compared to Hollywood movies, but the sheer production quality, some great locales and action sequences have made it a hit and people feel it is worth watching once.

There is another category, these are low cost movies but have a little good story line. Don’t spend much on gimmicks and hypes. They are made with a pretty low budget and become super hit merely because of storyline supported by good performances by lead actors. Once such movie was No one killed Jessica. They made it in plain Rs. 9 Crore, but this movie grabbed about Rs.47 crore in box office and then went on get another Rs. 45 crores in Satellite rights! Really good gambling!

Having said that, there is no master formula for making a super hit movie. Every movie is kind of a lottery for both producer and the audience. But understanding the taste and expectation of the audience is a biggest challenge for every producer.  He has to constantly keep playing between ‘trying too hard’ or ‘not trying at all’.

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose!

Death and Truth

Death uncovers many a truths..
And buries many a truths...
It makes many a people realize many a truths..!
Death pulls down many a false perceptions..
And many a false images…
Death is so strange..!
It is so sudden...yet inevitable.
Still we take it for granted.
Death plays with truth in so many ways!
Yet it is the ultimate and supreme truth!


What an irony…!

“Ra-One” does not live up to its hype..!

Good or bad ..there were two movies in production last year at the same time with similar plots. People were spreading rumors that one is the copy of other. Both were made with almost equal budgets and equally powerful star cast. But one of them was released first and set a bench mark good movie making in India with all its innovative techniques, approaches, a good story line and many other good things. But the success of this movie became a bottleneck for the other. No one knew what the plot was all about, but the hype around second movie was quite high before its release. At last the movie got released and unfortunately it turned out that it was nowhere near the bench mark set by the first movie.
That is what happened to the latest release Sharukh starrer "Ra.One". It has not been able to break or even match the bench mark set by "Robot".
For all the hype created by Shahrukh's "Ra.One" I watched the movie with my family. Coincidentally even ROBOT was coming up on the same day on SONY TV. That’s all the more reason to compare both of them.
I never get carried away by any reviews on any movie; I just go, watch, feel for myself and then try to see if the director has genuinely tried to deliver a good movie. I watch any movie for the actual movie and not for any stars.
A movie’s success primarily depends on its storyline/plot, narration, screen play, star cast, editing, music, cinematography and then followed by choreography, special effects and sound design..etc.,.
If the primary functions are not doing well in a movie, the enabling functions just become helpless. End result is the movie falls flat on its face. We cannot lift any movie just by doing great in enabling departments.
The storyline of "Ra-One" is quite simple; it is a story of a father and his relation with son, where the father is ready to do anything to impress his son. As per son's wish he will design a computer game where in the bad guy is more powerful and is pitted against a very normal hero. But due to unexpected turn of events, the villain gets into the real life of father, mother and son and tries to kill them. And at the end good wins over evil forces and it is a happy ending.
It is a good imagination..! Not bad all! We could still have got a decent movie had the story been treated with some sensitivity and caution.
As soon as the movie begins , there is a one deliberate sequence involving Sharukh, Priyanka and Sanjay Dutt with some old Bollywood tunes coming up in the background. Till the end I could not relate this anywhere to the main story. It just stands apart. There are many such sequences which do not gel well with the primary story.
The first half revolves around the hero Shekhar Subramaniam, his gaming company, staff, his wife and son and how the bad guy of computer game enters their lives. The characterization of Shekhar as a Tamilian Father settled in UK, his bonding with his MTV class son should have been handled very well. The treatment given to this part is very shoddy. The director would like to say that Shekhar is a traditional Tamilian engineer who respects all family values and a little orthodox and expects his son to be a good guy always. There are many way how this character would have been groomed. We could have borrowed from Sharukhs own character of a NASA Scientist in Swades.
But here hero is eating noodles and curds with hands !!! I don’t think any of our Tamil friends would agree to these kind of scenes. It just does not look authentic. The movies wiki page says they have done close to 3+ years of pre-production work from 2004 to 2007. But unfortunately I don’t see any of that work showing up in the movie. Anubhav Sinha has clearly shown his inexperience here. I personally felt a genuine good Tamil Movie director should have directed this whole sequence.
Now moving onto Shekhar's son Prateik. Why such a girlish like look to Prateik..? My daughter actually asked me whether he is a boy or a girl..? No explanation!
There is one sequence where Prateik calls his father as Coward. In another sequence Shekhar actually confronts the bad guy Ra-one to save his son. Both these sequences needed lot more punch, some good dialogues and action to showcase father-son relationship and their bonding.
Then comes the owner of the gaming company and his staff. I did not understand why the owner has been shown like a comic character when we are making a serious sci-fi movie. Being a technical company head, we never see him as a serious person, when so much has happened in his company and the gaming characters have actually entered the real life of some one, he is simply selling the same software and looks totally unaware of what is happening.
So problem with first half is lack of emotional punch, continuity in story and poor grooming of characters. We see the movie in bits and pieces which distract the viewer.
When Shekhar dies, the G-One the good character of the computer game comes in to rescue and protect the family. This is where the film actually picks up some space and looks quite promising. There are some really good action sequences here which you would enjoy seeing in a bollywood movie.
But again after the interval, the director loses control and struggles to narrate and take the story forward. The whole second half is a simple computer game with only two characters G-One and Ra-One. There are not many characters to support them and make the story interesting. You might feel you are playing one simple computer game sitting in the theatre.
The pre-climax sequence with Mumbai Local Train is one silver line in the movie. It is done very neatly. The two songs Chammak Challo and Dildaara are good. Acting wise there is no challenge for any one here. Whatever opportunities were there in the movie, they have been wasted. Playing the role of Tamilian Gaming Engineer Shekhar would have been good challenge for Sharukh. But as I already mentioned, he does not seem to be comfortable in that role at all. He looks great in super man role and Chammak Challo song.
Overall the movie does not appeal to you as a single piece, it appears as more of series of events packaged together. There is serious lack of research in the movie. Special effects are good, but not great. Songs are good, but Vishal-Shekhar's music looks little loud in the second half. Cinematography by Nicola and Manikandan (of Tamil movie Ravanan fame) is great. Editing by Sanjay and Martin is decent.
At the end, a strict focus on story, screenplay and narration would have made this movie as one of the best in recent times. A little rigor on the characterization of hero, his son, wife and Ra-one character would have helped a lot. At some point, it seems director has tried too hard to deliver a decent movie and failed because of that.
Because of all these, the hard work of technical crew, singer Akon, brief appearance by Rajini sir and Voice over by Amitabh Bachchan seem to have gone in vain.
This does not mean that Sharukh will lose money in this movie. The producer is a smart business man, he has released 3500 prints across the world. Satellite rights have been already sold. Even if the movie runs in all the theatres for decent one /two weeks, the producer will recover his investment and make good profits.
One last thing, there is an attempt in the end to keep the story open and bring up a sequel to Ra-One. But unless a serious attempt is made to do good research and exercise control on the story, screenplay and narration, I don’t think the sequel is worth producing!
I would give TWO out of FIVE for this movie.

FORCE does matter!

Sometimes there may not be anything great in a story and end is predictable. But it is because of the sheer magic touch that director gives to the narration, packages the sequences and takes audience along with him, that movies do make an impact.
You would have seen what happened in Dabaang! It was just the refreshing touch given to a good old story of two brothers.

This is one such movie where the director comes up with an innovative narration, gets the right set of people on board, keeps the narration pacy and delivers on end product. Force is one of the recent best bollywood action thriller films by John Abraham, directed by Nishikanth Kamat.

It is the story of a top cop Yashovardhan (John Abraham) and his team fighting against the drug mafia spread across the country. How the drug mafia runs, how NCB handles them, what are the limitations of system and how honest officers and their personal lives suffer in the hands of anti social elements. This forms the core of the story.

But this simple story is been narrated well with a backdrop of fresh romance between hero and heroine in the first half. Some of the sequences between John and Genelia are brilliant for their sheer simplicity and realism. You will never get to see a single scene between the two which is 'extra'.

The characterization of heroine Maya (Genelia) by director is really good. After a long time I saw a heroine's character not being dumb in an action movie dominated by hero and his actions. Genelia is quite lovely and lively! Don't miss that !

First half goes very fast with encounters between cops and criminals, good action sequences and a romantic track. The entry given to both the hero and villain are simply superb!

John is very comfortable in his role and has truly delivered a power packed performance as macho top cop. But it is the villain whom you simply can't ignore! The negative character Vishnu played by new comer Vidyut Jamwal is very strong and very well groomed. Vidyut comes up with an equally powerful performance against John. Some of his action sequences are so real and believable! I heard he is a model turned martial fighter turned actor who won the audition for this role among the stiff competition from 500+ people. Vidyut is quite promising in his role. Hats off to director for giving equal weightage to both these two characters!

But the icing on the cake is equally impressive star cast and their performances. Everyone has given their best. Coming to other technical aspects, the picturesque locales captured by Cinematographer Ayananka Bose, melodious music by Harris Jayaraj (Don’t know whether he has copied them from his own Tamil movie Khaka Khaka), the crisp and pacy editing by Aarif Shaikh, great Sound Design by Sanjay Mourya & Allwin Rego and last not the least the paisa vasool action by Allan Amin form the core and support the director in his narration in a big way. Overall it is a great team work under a great director who never loses control.

Having said that, there are few grey areas which could have been handled in a little better way. The drug mafia details, how the criminals exactly operate and what different channels they use, would have been narrated in some more depth (like how Manirathnam handles a particular domain.). In this movie it is handled at a peripheral level with more focus given to John and his crew. Also, there is a mention of limitation of the system in handling the whole mafia. This is also treated as a secondary topic.

There is a concept in Hollywood called 'frenemy' where enemy sometimes appreciates his enemy for his intelligence and skills. Many Hollywood movies are based on this concept and come up with more intelligent and innovative action sequences. May be director could have adopted that kind of concept here.

Here hero and villain are always after each other. Had it been the Hollywood way, the director would have got some more head space to introduce even more adrenaline pumping action and a different ending for the movie.(On the lines of Fast & Furious-five where you would see edge of the seat action till the last minute.)
Remember this is not a plain vanilla NRI love story. You many not watch it with your family. This is a truly for action lovers.

But that does not disappoint you at all. Do watch it purely for John's beef cake physique and actions, an impressive debut of Vidyut, bubbly Gelenia and a complete 10/10 performance by all the supporting cast and technical crew.
I have a suggestion for this director, make it a franchise and come up with a sequel soon! :)

Just Dance...!

Opportunity... Determination to prove..exposure to different forms, sheer talent , pure form of dance, fight hard..win at any cost...if you ask me.. all these vocabulary , words were quite unheard in India at least about 10 years ago. Life has changed so much in India in last one decade. The revolution of media, the impact modern reform policies, the awareness in Indian youth..everything has an impact.

I feel many times people born in 1980 or after are really lucky ones for having landed in India just in time! At the same time, I also feel bad that I should arrived 10 years late into this world!

So there is clear cut difference in the way this youth thinks, plans and executes his/her strategy..and achieves success. Obviously they are called "Gen Y", the true face of today's youth.

There are umpteen examples happening today in India which we can quote. But today I would like to take the example of Dance as one such revolution where Gen Y is really making lots of news.

Traditionally many forms of dance have existed in India and abroad for many many years. But the many talented youth of this country, did not get that required exposure, training and awareness though there was a huge potential to perform. I am watching all these dance reality shows regularly for last 2-3 years. I feel some of them have been really good in terms providing a great plat form for upcoming artists of India to perform on a big stage, to provide right coaching, to correct their flaws and lift their confidence.

Some of the good dance reality shows I have seen are Dance India Dance , DID Little Masters, DID -2 etc.., I myself am not an artist and my knowledge also was quite minimal on dance and its various formats. But today, I feel I have fair amount of knowledge in that area. When someone says “locking and popping” or “contemporary” or “lyrical” I know what kind of dance to expect. I can difference between stunts and dance, classical and modern types. If someone is dancing on the floor I can confidently say whether he\she is a good dancer or not.

I liked the dance numbers choreographed by Terrance Lewis, Remo D'Souza and Geeta Kapoor, Sandip Soparrkar, Marzi Pestonji, Rajeev Surti and of course Shiamak Davar!

Shiamak and his troupe are an ultimate team..they are one of the best I have ever watched. His knowledge and expertise on dance, technicality involved and more than that his attitude and humbleness towards people and his achievements in last 25 years are simply amazing! He is one person whom I respect a lot. (Sachin, A R Rahman are some of the other people in my list.)

I feel somehow ZEE TV which presented these shows has a better handle in managing these kind of shows. Their reality shows have right mix of Rich Content, Learnings for participants, Good coaching from Gurus, Entertainment Quotient and Value for your time. Other channels did not have this for some time. I watched coupe of other dance shows on SONY and STAR TV etc.. but I felt they were copied from some other shows in USA kind of countries and lacked in depth and providing that desi touch. But now after 3 years…this year I can say.. all of them are catching up with ZEE and may be even overtaking them.

STAR TV did it this year by signing Bollywood dancing sensation super star Hrithik Roshan as its host for their upcoming reality show “JUST DANCE !“. That was a kind of Master Stroke from STAR. Also they have roped in Farah Khan and Vaibhavi Merchant as mentors for this dance show which is icing on the cake.

I have seen all their auditions so far. I can confidently say the quality of dance and artists is really really high. The bar has visibly gone up. It was very difficult task for choreographers Farah Khan and Vaibhavi Merchant to select among all the talented guys and gals. And now the 51 contestants from across the world have been selected for final audition to dance in front of Hrithik in MUMBAI.

It is going to be a tough test for even Hrithik to choose among these best talents.

Dance has been always a pleasure to watch for me.. it helps you relax.. it heals your mind..and you really feel good. You feel good when whole world watches Indians performing in these shows. I feel amazed we have such a huge pool of talent hidden in India!

Please watch the show “JUST DANCE” on every Saturday and Sunday at 9PM IST. It is truly PAISA VASOOL ! J

Meeting my teacher - Ms.Sevanta Kadam after 30 years!

It was one of the wonderful and memorable occasions for me when I met one of my school teachers recently!

I met my teacher Ms. Sevanta Kadam after a long gap of 30 Years!

I had been to my native place Yamakanmardi (Dist.Belgaum) last month and planned it well and could meet her there. It was not only nostalgic but also rejuvenating to see her, meet and seek blessings again after such a long gap. I couldn't have asked for more.

She was quite updated about my where abouts through my family members there, but she took some time to recognize me and matching the face of this stout Arun uncle with that of that lean young school boy Arun whom she taught for 3 years in a row.

We used to have only one teacher per class as I was studying in Govt. Kannada Boys School. She taught us for three years in V, VI and VIIth standards. I was one of her pet most students in the class. I always used to remember her whenever there is Teachers Day. But due to some or other reasons, I was not able to contact her.

She worked for Govt.Kannada Boys School for a long time in her life and towards last few years ofshe got promoted as Head Mistress of service Govt.. Kannada Girls School.

My teacher got retired in 2001 , i.e. 10 years ago! But as you can see here, I was amazed to see that she is still so active in life, goes around places on her own and does all her work on her own.

These teachers are wonderful people who built the basic foundation and primary blocks of our life and career. They are so self less always.

I am happy that I met her ! It was some strange feeling of fulfillment away from all this mechanical and machine life...!

This time I have got her phone number also. Will not lose touch again! J

Thought of sharing this with you all.

CONGRATULATIONS Team India ..!

“No champion, no victor and no victory comes without staying focused and staying the course.”

CONGRATULATIONS Team India !

You have really made all of us feel proud of being INDIANS !

A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU..!

We LOVE YOU ALL..!

Best of Luck!!!

Life is a pre-paid mobile !

Life is a pre-paid mobile !

I experienced this fact many times in my life. I keep getting this analogy in my mind again and again. Many people might argue that I am a pessimist. But this fact cannot be ruled out just like that. Every one's life is a like a prepaid mobile with some fixed currency. It is a beautiful mobile with full of SMSs, calls.. incoming calls..outgoing calls only as long as this currency lasts. But interesting part of this fact is that, we will never know how much GOD has loaded in our mobile nor how much is available balance!

We only think that we have been loaded with infinite currency and we spend it senselessly. The very feeling of infinite currency does not allow us to think straight. We do many wrong things..we expect unrealistic things from others.. we yell at each other.. we get angry.. we stop talking to each other, we don’t care for relations.. we just take people for granted. We might even forget to think even other person has ONLY some fixed currency.

All in all, our view on life or perspective on life is not just real. We just take our life for granted. That diminishes our thinking in some or other way. What could have been a careful usage of currency, turns out to be a lavish spending.

Currency here refers to our life time and its beautiful moments and days. At times, apart from spending our own currency, we may end up spending currency of others too.

The no. of days in our life is finite and beautiful moments even more limited. I keep telling all the people I know about this. I still remember when I was working for Syntel, I used to tell all my team mates (Suyash, Muniesh, Priya, Swati, Avanish, Shriveni, Rajesh and many others..) that I am going to complete 10000 days in my life on so and so date! They used to laugh at me saying "stupid fellow, he even calculates how many days he has been alive"!.

Knowingly or unknowingly I used to do such calculations. But today when I look back, I feel this perspective is so true..! We only have so many days and moments in life. Life is so uncertain! A very well performing Senior Project Manager, happy family man may die suddenly die in an accident tomorrow. A top most executive or a top most company , a fitness freak might collapse at the entrance of his gym on a fine morning...an honest govt official might get kidnapped or even killed the next day. We just don’t know what is there in store.

My sincere request to my friends, colleagues, family and all those people whom I know is that, please do not waste your currency, do not spoil a beautiful today for unnecessary reasons. Every day , every is precious for everyone. Live every day and every moment to the fullest and make it more beautiful for you and for others. One fine day when I am in last days, I should be proud and satisfied that I have lived my life correctly to the best possible extent, spent my currency sensibly, I did not waste any of my currency or that of others.

To be little more realistic, even with the best possible equations today, with the best possible health and social conditions, I think I can live up to another 6000 to 7000 days at the most. That way if you see, I guess I have already completed more than 70% of journey. What remains is just only about 28 to 30 % journey. Yaane, only so much currency is available now in my mobile..! I want to ensure that I give my best and this remaining currency is spent sensibly, to give my best to life always, make it more meaningful for me and every co-passenger of my life.

This view of mine may seem to be very negative and pessimistic to others. But this is what keeps me going. I will never take life for granted. Life is very precious for me. I have only so many moments in life. This realization and enlightenment helps me always to give my best in anything I do .I feel satisfied with that. I have tried to apply this realistic view in my life wherever possible . It has worked also.

I don’t know whether I was able to successfully convey and pass on this perspective on life to all of you. But that’s what I believe in always. Coincidentally my mobile connection is also a prepaid connection ! J

Recently I watched one beautiful Hindi movie "Dasvidaaniya", I felt this movie is very close to my thoughts and has been able to convey the message correctly. This is not a lolly-polly , NRI hero and India Heroin kind of movie. It is a very simple, real yet beautiful little movie. The central character of the movie has been essayed extremely well by Vinay Pathak. In the first half at place, you might find it little boring, but it picks up pace in the second half.

It made me really sit back and think and introspect about my own life. It could be due to the fact that I watched it all alone. Watching this movie all alone has been one of the memorable experiences recently for me.

I am not a great book reader, but I believe some movies like this one convey the theme more effectively what many books could not convey in hundreds of pages. If you find time, please watch this movie. It is worth giving a try.

For more details on the movie, please check the following URLs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasvidaniya

http://dasvidaniya.in/

Thanks for your time and patience in reading this blog!