Idle musings

REVIEW OF "DWEEPA" ==================     Last weekend, I saw a Kannada movie called "Dweepa". Here are my comments on it.     To sum it first, the movie is mainly about attitudes and relationships and in particular about dealing with change. It has made me think and has raised questions. Bottomline : I like the movie !     The story is of a couple who live in an island off the Karnataka coast. Due to the construction of a dam, the people in the island are asked to move. The reaction of the couple and the husband's father form the main plank of the movie.     The husband's father (played by Vasudev Rao) wants to stay in the island. His livelihood comes from the ritual of "Naima", a kind of soothsayer in the village. In the evening of his life, he can think of no alternative livelihood. The husband and wife, Nagi, take him to the Nagi's father's house, but the old man returns to the island due to his reluctance to change his lifestyle.    

THE HEAVY RAIN IN BANGALORE ===========================     Yesterday, 25-Oct-05, it rained heavily in Bangalore. http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/oct262005/state18505420051025.asp has more details !     Perhaps, the mist in the early morning was a pre-cursor of things to come. At around 7:00 a.m. in the morning, there was a mist that made Bangalore resemble a hill station. The morning was pleasant enough. As the day progressed, the skies turned grey and a fine spray of a rain started. I was at work, absorbed in activities. When I looked out of the window, I was surprised to see the wet roads - had it really rained ?! The rain kept coming and stopping. It felt like the rains in Mumbai - and that can be really something as one day in July this year has shown us !     What was different yesterday was the duration the rain lasted and its intensity when it rained. Bangalore's infrastructure crumbled. What made matters worse (probably !) was the communication network .... pe

MY IMPRESSIONS OF "SARKAR"     In the last couple of weeks, I saw a movie called "Sarkar".     It stars Amitabh and his son Abhishek. In the beginning of the movie itself, the credits announce that the picture is inspired by "The Godfather" and the parallels are unmistakable. Amitabh plays Sarkar, an underworld don whose enemies are out to depose him. A few of his own associates turn backstabbers (ouch, I should have used another word !) in a power struggle to claim the title of uncrowned king of the underworld.     Sarkar is a sort of Robinhood and the punchline of the movie is that "When the system fails, a power will rise". In the movie, it is not explained how Sarkar becomes the underworld kingpin, but it is shown that he is not all criminal. When he thinks that injustice has been done, he uses his power to set things right.     The problem with this, of course, is that there is no way that "right" and "wrong" can be defi

MUMBAI RAINS     I took the day off from work yesterday. In the morning, I completed the work for which I had applied leave. In the afternoon, I switched on the TV and felt a blast from the past as I saw the news channel : there were heavy rains in Mumbai. I have fond memories of the monsoon deluges in Mumbai !     My school is in a low lying area and when the rain came down heavily, I would leave home for school with a hope in my heart that school would be closed ! During school, I had such holidays in school perhaps only twice, but the memory of those days lingers and form an indelible part of my "happy memories of school". A close friend and I used to walk, wearing raincoats and gum boots to school. We used to walk up a bridge, then descend from it - and there was our school. If the rains were heavy, the water used to come up to the knee level and walking (or wading !) in it would become an exciting experience for us ! To reach school and then learn of the holiday trigger

TELEVISION MEDIUM: IS IT REALLY A "BAD THING" ?     25-Apr to 1-May was TV turn off week. I don't see the point of having such a week. What were the people who kept their TV off during the week trying to prove ? Was it that television is a medium that dulls the intellect and spreads ignorance ?     I don't dispute the fact that some (or even most !) of what television provides us is indeed "unpalatable". Whether it is the titillation offered in the music videos of old Hindi remixes or the regressive values in a few Hindi soap operas, that is the ugly side of the television medium. What I don't like is to mistake the medium for the message. The story about messengers being killed in Roman times is being played out even in our times ! Television, as a medium, cannot (indeed, it should not !) be blamed for the content that people create - and then consume !     All media have their strengths and weaknesses and when the media are new, there are always appre

REVIEW OF "BLACK", THE HINDI MOVIE     My wife and I saw "Black", the Hindi movie today. It is a moving film, which is a director's showpiece all the way through. I am an Amitabh fan and this is one of his best performances as an alcoholic teacher Devraj Sahai to the deaf-blind Michelle McNealy, played by a deglamourised Rani Mukherji.     Sanjay Leela Bhansali likes playing with light, shade and the elements. A case in point is the scene where Aishwariya Rai runs towards the gate in search of Devdas in that movie. The white sari that blows in the wind behind her, in my view, represents both wind and water when I see the sary billowing like the waves of the sea. The elements of light, water and wind are always present in all of Bhansali's movies.     "Black", despite its name, is no exception. The movie starts predictably with the screen in darkness and Michelle introducing us to her world of blindness and silence. It is later that the elements of

VEER ZAARA     I saw more than half of Veer Zaara yesterday. My comments are below. THE STORY =========     The tale is of an Indian squadron leader, Veer (Shah Rukh Khan) who rescues a Pakistani girl, Zaara (Priety Zinta) and falls in love with her. When she returns home, Zaara has to marry a man selected by her parents, but Veer's declaration of love haunts and torments her. Her friend summons Veer and the two meet, but when her mother requests him to give back her daughter, the gallant Veer concurs. Zaara marries the man selected by her parents, who also arranges the arrest of Veer, supposed to be a spy named Rajesh.     Veer spends 22 years in a Lahore jail as prisoner 786, so that Zaara can be happy. As it turns out, Zaara's marriage ends in a couple of years and she and her friend go to India seeking Veer out - in vain, of course. Meanwhile, an idealistic lawyer Samia (Rani Mukherjee) vows to restore Veer his identity and his country and reunite him with Zaara. She goes

    BULLAH SHAH     Most of the music videos for Indipop that I see on television have provocative visuals and old Hindi film hits remixed. It is as if the director wants to compensate the plain and simple lyrics of yesteryears with titillating images to grab the attention of today's generation ! It is rare to find a video that is sensitively made and even rarer to find music, song and video all finely blended. After a long time, there is such a video and the good news is that the video got the recognition it deserves, in my opinion : it ruled the Indian charts until a couple of weeks ago. I am talking of the song by Rabbi which starts "Bullah ki jaana ....". The web page http://store.indiatimes.com/music/PlanetMMusicDetails.jsp?albumid=alb14687 has the details of the album for those interested.     What attracted me to the song in the first place was the strumming of the guitar in the song. Rabbi, the Sikh singer, blends rock music from his guitar with age old poetry wr