'Om Shanti Om' - the real review is here = 4/10.

Skip it if you can, and watch it if you cannot skip it.  I watched it because it was playing 200 meters away from my home, and being single I didn’t have much to do on a Sunday night.

If I you grade satisfaction/happiness that you make by seeing a movie on a ten-point scale, I expected a six and I got only a four. Loss of two points. I am sure I will not to worse with Sawanriya (expected is a zero, I am sure I will get about a negative two).  This movie  should go down as the most incorrectly hyped movie of the year 2007, but on a second thought I guess hyping a movie is ok, it is like marketing a product, which has almost nothing to do with the product.

So what is this movie all about? Farah Khan is like so many other hard working and talented people, who always dream of making movie, but due to spontaneous unfolding of the universe, they ended up doing something else. She became a choreographer, a big time choreographer (Bombay Dreams on the Broadway).  Once she collected lots of money, she decided to spend it on her dream i.e.  to make movies. This movie (her second attempt, first you don’t even want to know) is a random sketch of her fantasy.  She surely had been very clever in making her point thoguhr diathat even though this story does not make sense, you should watch it because you watch so many other things like one hero fighting ten goons. What she misses here is that scenes like a hero fighting 30 goondas is a dramatic exaggeration of confrontation between hero and goondas, while her reincarnation stuff (which is anyway totally flicked from a old classic) is not even something that dreams are made of.

So, yes the story is not original, it has strong inspiration from classical movie Karz (even filming of some important scenes of OmShO will remind you of this movie).  Even though Farah Khan had done her best to shout over the rooftops to deny this, which was expected.  This movie is a time pass, though Deepika Padukone is wasted in her debut movie.  Hum to bas yahi sochte rah gaye… ki ye kaisi picture banayi hai, mere dost!

Phase Transition

A major phase transition is about to get over. It took almost three months and that should explain my absence from the blogging. It was busy time, but very exciting. I had my PhD defense in May, June went in wrapping up the Thesis work followed by relocating to a new city for a new job. Settling in the new job, getting a hold of a new life. That was the busy part of it. Exciting part is the new place is lot bigger than my previous place, it is a big city minus the high-risers. Lots of Indian food places, grocery are available in a radius of few miles, other than so many great Malls for shopping all around. This is Olathe, a suburb of Kansas City. I have already got hooked to 98.1 while driving to anywhere. I am really looking forward to sunshiny days of new life after seeing lots of snowy days of student life. Student life is a lifestyle that should be lived as much as one can, it is the one thing that i will miss for sure. And those amazing friends who have been there in good times for sure, but also in not-so-good times and that is what matters the most.

It just does not make sense

“I finally came to the conclusion that maybe he was right maybe there are no such things as heroes maybe there are just people like my dad, I finally came to understand why they were so uncomfortable being called heroes. Heroes are something we create, something we need. It's a way for us to understand what is almost incomprehensible, how people could sacrifice so much for us, but for my dad and these men the risks they took, the wounds they suffered, they did that for their buddies, they may have fought for their country but they died for their friends. For the man in front for the man beside him, and if we wish to truly honor these men we should remember them the way they really were the way my dad remembered them. – Flags of Our Fathers (2007)”

 

This succinctly describes not one but two movies – twin movies I should say – ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ and ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’. They are no tearjerkers, they are the heartbleeders. It is an attempt to do something that is truly beyond imagination and fantasy, how some people can DIE for rest of us. Nobody knows the answer to this but only few agree that they do not the answer. War is like a coin with two faces, one side having the real cost on it and the other side having some symbol. Former is a side that can only be lived (and died) while the later is one projected by the rulers in front of people of the nation for all good reasons such as to meet the cost of the war so that the nation can be safe. Mind you this cost is not only financial but also social, it makes us poorer, destroys existing infrastructure and negates the progress of the society. What is perplexing here is when this loss of life in a war and related cost is such a common knowledge, why do people still decide to fight with each other. I do understand there are disputes but with such a long and abundant history of war the whole world should try to learn how to avoid wars. That is a difficult problem, more difficult than inventing an atomic bomb but the final solution has to be of that difficult problem. Bottom-line is that those who have died in wars - do not matter which side - deserved a full life and their families deserved a normal life.

 

Linkys: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418689/ Flag of Our Fathers] and [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498380/ Letters from Iwo Jim]

We don't need no guns

What happened in Virginia Tech on April 16^th morning could have very well happened in any other university, and if that were my university then I could have been one of those who died in that massacre. Thirty three innocent kids were shot dead by one lunatic guy for none of their fault! Nothing can get worse than this. How did the killer become so insane to kill 33 strangers and how did he acquire those two guns were two very important questions that hopefully would get answered in due time to bring the case to a closure. But these answers would not be of much use in avoiding such incidences in future. What might help are two questions derived from the previous questions, firstly how to stop student on campus from loosing their sanity and secondly how to stop availability of guns in a normal society. First question needs to be answered at local level i.e. at school level, by keenly observing folks with any unusual behavior (without invading anyone’s privacy), making counseling service more active and vigorous, etc. The second issue of having guns being easily available should also be addressed once and for all in favor of a policy of not selling guns in super-marts. Let us learn a lesson from this massacre, and make our best not to let this happen again in future. That will be the best way to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in this incidence.

 

 

The Fountainhead - There ain't no water anymore.

Yes. A fountainhead which does not spring water anymore is nothing but a reminiscent of past, with no bearing on present and future. The Fountainhead of Ayn Rand lost its water long back (assuming it had lot of water when it was written). She says a building is a function of its purpose, I say her fiction is a function of her time and her past. I agree I have minimal knowledge of her time and her past but I am sure of my time, and in my time society is never an enemy of geniuses and one need not to sacrifice self to help the society. A person who does not have an established self is not even capable of contributing towards the society. I know lot of people who are brilliant and who do not compromise with the work ethics; and still they take time to help others around them in their own ways. That is real genius. Society is an act of symbiosis between different individuals, each contributing based on their capacities and constraints. Society expects only from those who can help themselves, others are expected to try to help themselves and improve. A society has never been a fair playground. There is a theory of dependency which says interdependence is an interaction between independent people and dependent people are not even independent. How to deal with those people who always seek help without trying to be better and become parasite in the society is a different problem altogether.

I am not commenting on her writing, it might be true when she wrote it. I am commenting on the reading by people who converted that work of fiction into a philosophy, for this so called philosophy is totally flawed in present time. It has no vision of interdependence as if being independent is everything and the pursuit of happiness in one’s life should end there. Thanks heaven it is not, but it is indeed prerequisite for the next stage of interdependence. Only happy people can increase others happiness.

For me the hero of The Fountainhead is Mr. Gail Wynand.  The man who redeemed his self by sacrificing himself for someone else. And that is the point.

A linky for those who never read the book (don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead

Alter Idem

An alter idem exists here vikasy.spaces.live.com which more frequently updated than this place for some technical reason.

God-like truth is the beauty worth living for.

Water (2005) is a movie by Deepa Mehta about widows in pre-independence India, who were forced by men to live in inhuman condition for the rest of their lives (whether it is in ‘vidhwa ashram’ or home). It will not come as a surprise if in rural part of India i.e. two-third of India, widows are still facing this 2000 year old curse in letter and spirit. Anyways following are my two cents:

1. It is not worth the Oscar nomination in a foreign film category. For it is not perfectly made, there are clear signs that this is not shot in the banks of river Ganga, all the folks in the movie (except the star cast) were south Indians (or Sri Lankan). Acting is superb by all the actors, especially the little girl. But, nothing is exceptional. Maybe they nominated it just because it is an entry form Canada and not India. It surely had exceptional idea of story, but movie is not Oscar-type. By Oscar-type I meant movies like Apu’s trilogy.
2. This movie was shot in Sri Lanka because it was not allowed by Hindu leaders to shoot in India as they found it offensive!!! I think they could not tolerate the pain of those widows, even if they were acting and not real widows. This clearly shows the concern of Indian society for women.

IMDB Link for Water (2005) = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240200/

PS: Mahatma Ghandi ji appears in the climax scene of movie and really does the job of concluding the movie. Truth is God, and thus by following truth, we do not violate any Shastra or any other holy scripture.

 

Lost in Indian streets in New Zealand!

How about a New Zealand visa for visiting Khandallah!

Broadmeadows, Wellington NZ has something special to notice for people form Indian subcontinent. It has lots of streets named after places in Indian subcontinent e.g. Kanpur Rd, Gaya Grove, Satara Cr etc. Here is the Google maps link for you to see for yourself.

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=broadmeadows%2C%20new%20zealand&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

 

Surely a place to visit if you happen to be in or around Wellington, which has a very good Indian community.