Bandh ki gandh machi thi
Dukaano ne apne naak bandh kiye.
Mehengaai ki duhaai machi thi
Sarkaar ne apne kaan bandh kiye
Aam aadmi ka yeh zukaam hai
Najaane yeh kaise, kab jaayega
Saadhe saat rupiye ka bawaal hai
Nayi khabaron mein dab jaayega
Latest Entries »
Five film school students await their turn outside Factory, the office of director Ram Gopal Varma. After umpteen numbers of cutting chaais, the peon finally beckons. A skimpily clad lass walks out of the office humming some alien words like dan dan dan. A stout guy follows her humming thodi si jo pii li hai. A guy looking like Sanjay Dutt walks out along with a tall guy in the get-up of Subhash Nagre of Sarkar, wearing white instead of black and a little bell tied to his wrist.
Guy 1: Mate, were they original?
Guy 2: I don’t think so…
RGV is checking a fake gun, points it at them and commands: Shoot!
Guy 1: Shoot what?
RGV: Anything that you see here.
The guys take out their Cannon 5 D cameras and start clicking. Guy 1 burrows himself under the table, Guy 2 climbs atop a cupboard, Guy 3 seems to inebriated to care and simply presses the click button while jumping, Guy 4 lies on the floor and clicks RGV’s moustache and nostrils, Guy 5 goes a tad lower and targets his crotch.
A single glance at their pictures makes RGV jump in excitement and proclaim: You’re hired!
Guy 2: Sir, what’s the film about? Story….Script…?
RGV: Do exactly what you did now…don’t bother yourself with such stupid things.
Guy 4: One more question sir…
RGV: Shoot
He immediately goes under a table.
RGV: Not that shoot, idiot! I mean…ask!
Guy 4: Sorry sir…I wonder those guys who walked out were original Sanjay Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan?
RGV: Let the audience figure it out.
The shoot is on. RGV wields megaphone and announces: Whoever uses the craziest angle gets to work in the film’s sequel!
The five guys scatter in different directions and start shooting frantically. The shoot is over and so is the competition. They all win hands down (or rather pants down). The editing guy spends sleepless nights watching all the footage.
On the day of editing, he musters up courage to ask RGV: Ramu which footage should I line up and in what sequence?
RGV: Let the audience figure it out.
The writer walks in, hands over a file and says: After watching Shiva, Satya, Company, Sarkar, Sarkar Raj back to back, here’s what the best I could come up with.
RGV goes through the loosely filed pages and says: Add this line to Sarjerao Gaikwad’s dialogue – mein legal kaam illegally karta hoon aur illegal kaam legally.
Writer: But what does that mean?
RGV: Let the audience figure it out.
The film is released. RGV fans and RGV haters flock theatres to watch ‘Department’. The others wait for the reviews. The audience finds Department’s premise intriguing, where there’s a department within police department (come on, when you can have a dream in a dream in a dream in the film, Inception then what’s wrong with a department in a department?).
This department is run under the aegis of Mahadev Bhosale (Sanjay Dutt) and Shivnarayan (Rana Daggubatti) who annihilate (feeble) henchmen of gangs led by (more feeble, almost skeletal) Sawatya (Vijay Raaz) and Mohammad Ghori (played by a voiceover who will probably make an appearance in Department-2). Sarjerao Gaikwad, a politician controls them all (rings a bell? It’s supposed to be a ‘nasty version’ of Subhash Nagre from Sarkar).
Well, something happens between these characters but unlike what the director anticipated, the audience could just not figure it out. Blame it on the dizzying camera angles that leave one completely zoned out of the entire scheme of things. You are literally deported from your senses to a world of Cannon 5D-gone-crazy.
An item number by Nathalia Kaur perks things up (don’t ask what), but is followed by a torturous male item number by an oversized choreographer who tries teaching Sanjay Dutt to dance on a version of ‘thodi si jo pii li hain’. Despite having immense potential of being a comeback of an auteur, Department loses its steam amid a haze of self-indulgence. One of the audiences asked his friend: Who will spend 150 bucks to watch this film? I couldn’t resist saying: Let RGV figure it out.
13 stories @ the price of a 1 multiplex ticket i.e. Rs. 150/- instead of MRP Rs. 200/- . Offer valid till stock lasts 
To book your copy mail me at: prakashgowda1979@gmail.com
Jiska naam box office mein lagaaye chot
Jis ke Tashan se phate! atom bomb 
Ho jaaye bisphot
Audience ki hai shaamat, ya YRF ki aafat hai
Habib baby hain aaye, qayamat hai.. haaye!
Producers main jiska title Titanic
Muaah hathoda dikha kar ke dooba de gaya
Jhalla, Ishaqzaade jhalla wallah
Writing bhi jhalla wallah
Directing bhi jhalla wallah wallah aa aa..
Humne samjha tha promising debut jise
Oh woh to raw acting dikha kar raw deal kar gaya
Jhalla Arjun Kapoor jhalla wallah
Bana woh Parmaa, jhalla wallah
Cinematography badhiya, baaki jhalla wallah
Kya batayein jisko heroine-oriented film maante rahe
Woh story second half hote hi phurrr ho gaya
Jis ko scriptwriting ka teacher kehte rahe
Woh phateecher interval ke baad fail ho gaya
Jhalla Parineeti jhalla wallah
Bani woh Zoya, jhalla wallah
Performance badhiya, baaki jhalla wallah
Kaske jeans pant hum gentleman jo bane
Director story ke pajame se ladta raha
Hum jaagate rahe paisa udaate rahe
Writer bas goliyaan barsaata raha
Jhalla Ishaqzaade Jhalla Wallah
Yeh picture jhalla wallah
Mera paisa jhalla wallah wallah
Mera Sunday jhalla wallah…Jhalla!
While awaiting my turn to buy tickets for Vicky Donor at a multiplex, I heard a woman in the queue asking the guy behind the counter, “What is Vicky Donor? Is it a comedy?” “Madam it’s about a donor… sperm donor…it’s a good movie madam,” informed the box office guy with a strange embarrassment.
“Yuck! Give me that comedy movie’s ticket. What kinds of films are being made these days!” The woman walked away with two tickets of a mindless pot-boiler in guise of a comedy film that shows a crocodile biting a guy’s behind and a python grabbing another guy’s crotch and expects us to laugh at it.
This incident speaks volumes about our perspective on sperm donation and our film industry’s coming of age. The film Vicky Donor reiterates this fact in the most flawless fashion. Director Shoojit Sircar in his film, Vicky Donor steers clear of desperate measures like risqué dialogues or scenes replete with sexual innuendoes to ‘entertain’ you and chooses to keep it simple.
It is said that the first fifteen minutes define a film. In case of Vicky Donor, you’re so engrossed in the story that you wish there was no interval. By the time the word ‘interval’ flashes on screen, you can already hear guys saying, “Let’s go and get some LCD TV”, while heading towards the loo, while their female friends giggled at them.
The writer, Juhi Chaturvedi is undoubtedly the hero of the film. The writing of the film is so exceptional that you already want to vote her for the best scriptwriter award for this year. Ayushmann Khurana is a revelation and it’s high time he bids farewell to his career in VJ. The actor sinks his teeth into the gem of a script (or rather sperm of a script) and wins the audiences’ hearts hands down (no pun intended). The actor is in his full form and ‘straaas’-free in every frame of the film. His song, ‘Paani da rang’ is already among the most viewed song on cyberspace.
Yaami Gautam, essaying the role of an independent Bengali girl coming to grips with life after a divorce is one of the reasons to watch Vicky Donor again. In an age where female actors can barely act and rely on their stock expressions, here’s an actor who scores high in every section, be it acting or screen presence. For instance, how many times have you actually wished the guy would accept the heroine’s proposal?
The character actors carve a niche for themselves in Vicky Donor. So much so that calling them character actors makes you feel guilty. Annu Kapoor as the proprietor of an infertility clinic and Kamlesh Gill as the modern grandma indeed deserve applause.
The film also delves into regional differences without going overboard or offensive. The slangs from Delhi lingo often sound repetitive, especially the word, ‘fuddu’, which again is something you’d conveniently overlook in this film pregnant with outstanding performances and fertile imagination.
The highest number of star rating that Vicky Donor could receive was the sight of the same woman wearing an expression of frown while climbing down the staircase after watching the no-brainer entertainer, while the pack I was leading were singing praises of Vicky Donor – the middle-finger flashing moment!
“To be, or not to be: that is the question”- These immortal lines of Shakespeare’s Hamlet found resonance when I received the invitation of ‘Manch Parva 2012 – World Theatre Day Festival’ from my close friend, Jay Merchant, to attend the four-day theatre festival at CC Mehta Auditorium, Vadodara. To begin with, my experience of watching plays had never been enjoyable.
So the very first thought was: To be, or not to be a theatre audience. Whether it’s nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of slow progression of a play replete with heavy doses of words laced with literature, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by attending, end them? To die the death of ignorance or to sleep at home after witnessing an inspiring performance: That is the question. Fortunately, I chose the latter. Each play infused life in the script with performance of tall order.
The first play (Hindi), ‘Aur Tamasha Na Hua’ written and directed by Bhanu Bharti was indeed an eye-opener, in fact, an ice-breaker. The moment it began with a group of youngsters enacting the play ‘Muktadhaara’ by Rabindranath Tagore, I was sure this one was going to be yet another addition to my ‘theatre torture’ experiences. The reluctance was shred to pieces in the first ten minutes of the play, where an actor seated among the audience, stood up and indulged in a debate with the actors.
The actors expressed their grudge of enacting a play which the audience might not understand. The director convinces them that it’s worth performing and commands them to focus on their performance. However, the actors aren’t convinced and break into a heated argument. The debate flares up the frustrated patriots in them, and ensues to a conflagration where the play doesn’t take place, precisely what the title states, ‘Aur Tamasha Na Hua.’ Actors like Ravi Khaanwilkar, Teekam Joshi, and Danish Iqbal truly steal the show.
The second play (Hindi), ‘Hum Tum’ reiterates the quote, “Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.” by Irish actor, Cyril Cusack. Based on Arbuzov’s Russian play ‘Old World’, this play completely catches you unawares with its witty dialogues and spontaneous performance. Actor Dakshina Sharma essays the role of Sarita Hazarika with aplomb and lends certain amount of dignity to the light-hearted dialogues, which are mostly used in slapstick comedy.
Actor Ramesh Manchanda plays Dr. Singh, the head of a Sanatorium where Sarita has been put up to recuperate from her illness. A stickler for discipline, Dr. Singh finds Sarita Hazarika a nuisance in the Sanatorium and they end up arguing each time they bump into each other. Gradually, they find their common ground in their age and they begin to bond well and celebrate life. The play has an undercurrent of a strong message, which is peppered with humour and served live on the platter of the stage. The use of background score is indeed worth a mention, especially when the characters are cooling their heels at a beach. Suddenly, the wooden stage appears golden sand and the clapping hands seem like rising waves.
The third play (Gujarati), ‘Viral Rajvi’ portrays the helplessness of a king during the colonial regime in India. Written and directed by Avinash Captaan, ‘Viral Rajvi’ is a play based on His Majesty, Shri. Sayajirao Gaekwad. Actor Anil Aadi brings the Maharaja alive with his excellent performance. The tone, the tenor, the gait – this actor seems to get everything right, when it comes to playing one of the most prominent figure of Gujarat. More so, there hasn’t been any other major play on Maharaja Sayajirao for him to refer, which is both boon, as well as bane. The dialogues sound so authentic that the actors manage to transport you to the days of yore.
The humour and sarcasm are aptly placed to keep those ‘history yawns’ at bay. The play never loses its focus on portraying the Maharaja as a ‘in the closet’ patriot. As a king, his duty commands him to bow before the British, but as a patriot, he rebels in his own way. The scenes where he covers up for his ‘mistakes’ truly stand out, though one wishes they could have done away with the emotional scenes of his son being passed away. The scene served just one purpose – depicting the Maharaja’s commitment to nationalism despite personal grief. The scene deviates from the theme a bit, but the director is smart enough to end ‘Viral Rajvi’ on a positive note of ‘the show must go on’.
The fourth play (Gujarati), ‘Sagpan ek ukhaanu’ is undoubtedly the most hilarious play among the ones staged at ‘Manch Parva’. In fact, it belongs to a different genre altogether, which makes it a cut above the rest. Directed by Rajul Mehta and Prabhakar Dabhade, the play is based on a German play. The original play, ‘The Good Person of Szechwan (German: Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, first translated less literally as The Good Woman of Szechwan) is a play written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau.
The play is embellished with live music and dance performances based on Gujarati folk dance, Bhavai. The actors, Prabhakar Dabhade (playing Lord Bramha), Mehul Vyas (playing Lord Vishnu), and Chirag Bhatt (playing Lord Shiva) steal the show with their nuanced performances. The bonding between the actors is evident in their performance, which flawlessly makes you believe that they are actual incarnations of the gods in guise of western outfit and seeking shelter in a village.
Gordhan, a village bumpkin brilliantly played by Rakesh Modi comes to their rescue and takes them to Gomti, a village nautch girl played to perfection by actor Sonia Nihalani. The Kathyawaadi accent of the actor is commendable, but it also becomes deterrent to decipher the dialogues, yet Sonia Nihalani’s electrifying performance makes you ignore the dialogues and keep watching ‘Sagpan ek ukhaanu’ (which roughly translates as: Relations are a puzzle) with rapt attention.
Each play of Manch Parva 2012 offers a glimmer of hope to the waning number of theatre enthusiasts. The packed houses go on to prove that theatre still has the power to pull audiences and enthrall them with quality content rather than brainless comedy films and escapist cinema.
Our unreliable source, ‘Agent Pramod’ claims to have discovered this transcript of telephonic conversation between actor Saif Ali Khan and Shriram Raghvan, the guy who directed gems like ‘Ek Haseena Thi’ and ‘Johny Gaddar’. The authenticity of the source is surely doubtful, but after watching the film ‘Agent Vinod’, this nonsense transcript suddenly makes sense.
Saif Ali Khan: I want you to direct my film where I play a different role…James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy type….
Shriram Raghvan: Mahendra Sandhu chalega?
SAK: Who’s Mahendra Sandhu?
SR: Agent Vinod. It was a hit in the eighties. I have a story inspired from this film…story of a spy who travels from one country to the other…around a dozen of locations.
SAK: Well you might as well title it as ‘Travel Agent Vinod’!
SR: I am serious.
SAK: Even I am…just imagine…a travel agent who’s actually a spy.
SR: Travel agents need not be globetrotters.
SAK: That’s the twist. By the way, twist reminds me of ‘Twist’ song in Love Aaj Kal. I’ll ask Pritam to copy his own song instead of Korean films.
SR: He must have already done that. I’ll ask him to explore Iranian tunes…I recently gifted him a CD of Boney M and some Iranian DVDs…hope he’s able to lift something and pull it off.
SAK: Perfect! How about Rasputin by Boney M? Ra Ra Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen…there was a cat that really was gone…Ra Ra Rasputin…Russia’s greatest love machine…It was a shame how he carried on.
SR: Great idea. But I am worried about the ‘Ra Ra’ part. People haven’t recuperated from the RA One syndrome and might mistake our film as yet another video game…
SAK: Bingo! There you go! This is exactly what I have on my mind. Let’s make Agent Vinod like a video game hero.
SR: But my concept was something else…
SAK: There’s always scope for a sequel Raghvan…we’ll make it in 3D!
SR: The leading lady will also be a spy who outsmarts this guy…you know…not a mate, but checkmate.
SAK: Nah…she would be a spy, but a victim…intense look…teary eyes…Kareena will do ‘Dev’ act again.
SR: But I had some other young actor in mind while writing the character.
SAK: What do you mean ‘young actor’? Isn’t Kareena young enough?
SR: I meant to say…okay…done…so the story goes like…
SAK: Oh stop worrying about story Raghvan. We are creating an action video game where the hero showers bullets all the time without dishevelling the pleat of his hair or crease of his shirt. The hero keeps disguising and outsmarting people.
SR: What happens next? Won’t the audience smell the rat and make out that there’s no story?
SAK: Before the audience figures out what’s happening, we’ll change the location…from Morocco to Moscow, Somalia to Latvia, Afganistan to Pakistan, and London to India. We can add some nuclear bomb angle in the story and make some business honcho the main culprit…play some cat and mouse game between the terrorists and the hero. Write anything Raghvan, doesn’t matter much….
SR: That’s right. Exotic locations captured by cinematographer C K Muraleedharan edited by Pooja Ladha Surti, action by Peter Heins and Parvez Khan, interesting pop-up characters played by ace actors like Ravi Kisen, Ram Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, and Co., background score by Daniel B. George, what else do people want!
SAK: Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.
SR: You mean a cameo by Vidya Balan?
SAK: Nope. Mujra song by Kareena Kapoor. We’ll also have a music video kind of sequence where bullets are firing around us and a love ballad is being played in the background….
SR: But you said she’ll play a sobbing and majboor girl…I already have a mujra sequence and decided upon the actor.
SAK: No issues, Kareena will dance along with her.
SR: But two actors in a mujra sequence…?
SAK: Who’s the producer?
SR: Agreed…better Saif than sorry.
“I already figured out the suspense!” boasted a youngster on his way out of the auditorium, after watching the film, ‘Kahani’. “Yaar who cares about the suspense as long as we’re watching Vidya act?” quipped his friend about the film starring Bidya, oops Vidya Balan, Vidya Balan, and Vidya Balan. Hold your horses folks, for there are other brilliant actors too in the ensemble like Parambrata Chatterjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and Saswata Chatterjee, who are surely worth a mention.
To begin with, the review of ‘Kahani’ can never be written unless one sings hymns of Vidya Balan who, on one hand can give the Khans run for their money and on the other, offer viewers value for their money with entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. After ‘The Dirty Picture’, the actor seems to be riding on the crest of her booming career, and this film takes her to yet another level. So now that we’re done with the obligatory ritual of praising Vidya Balan, let’s give the devil – the director his due.
After ‘Jhankar Beats’, a tribute to the legend, RD Burman, the filmography of director Sujoy Ghosh finds poetic justice with ‘Kahani’, where Kolkata is a character that hums a background score sprinkled with Pancham Da’s compositions. Like a phoenix, Sujoy Ghosh rises from the ashes of ‘Home Delivery’ and ‘Aladin’ to ‘Kahani’. A self-taught director, who grew up on Satyajit Ray movies, Sujoy Ghosh refrains from slow-paced narration like his idol to narrate the engaging plot of ‘Kahani’.
Apart from the leading lady, another woman who deserves applause is Namrata Rao, who has films like ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’, ‘Ishqiya’, ‘Love Sex aur Dhokha’, and ‘Band Baja Baarat’ to her credit, and edits ‘Kahani’ with an exemplary restraint. A deep fascination for comic books, especially Amar Chitra Katha and experience in documentary films reflects the way Namrata Rao edits the film, employing a seamless way of unfolding the story – a must for any suspense thriller worth its salt.
A revelation: ‘Kahani’ is a suspense thriller and not a lament of a pregnant woman in search of her missing husband, like what the initial promos of the film would like one to believe. This could perhaps be one of the reasons why many were sceptic about watching the film. One of my friends opted for an escapist Hollywood film as he didn’t want to watch a pregnant woman crying and puking all her way to hunt her man. Maybe an alternative approach to its promos could have helped it cross its commendable initial box office collection of 13.5 crores in the first four days of the film’s release. Watch the film and you just might nod in acquiescence.
The story by Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala (author of the bestseller ‘Almost Single’) and screenplay by Sujoy Ghosh, Suresh Nair, and Nikhil Vyas lends the film warmth and tautness walking hand-in-hand. For instance, it kicks off with a jet lagged Vidya heading straight to the police station looking for her husband, while lingers over the ice-breaking conversation between her and policeman, Satyaki/Rana essayed by Parambrata Chatterjee, talking about the tradition of a person having two names in Kolkata.
Cinematographer Setu captures Kolkata in its full splendour, be it the riverside conversation between Satyaki and Vidya, to the tea stalls and Durga Pooja. The close up shots of Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a fuming cop offer the actor a deserving platform to demonstrate the histrionics that his character demands. If you might have missed observing this fact, the credit goes to immaculate cinematography. After all, a cinematographer doesn’t make his viewers notice camera angles, not even the close up shots, and yet effortlessly converse with the audience in visual language.
Director Sujoy Ghosh takes a leaf from Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri (he’s also adapting the original novel by Sunil Ganguly into a film), by letting camera follow the lead character, hence making the viewers feel like passengers embarking on this edge-of-the-seat entertainer called ‘Kahani’.
The director’s commitment to the film’s narration is evident by the way he uses or rather ‘not uses’ Vishal Shekhar’s mellifluous compositions in ‘Kahani’. The restraint persists despite the Bangla Rock ‘Aami Shotti Bolchi’ by Usha Uthup and Vishweshwar Krishnamurthy, and Amitabh Bachchan’s rendition of Tagore’s poem in, ‘Ekla chalo re’. Sadly, compositions like ‘Tore bin’ by Sukhwinder Singh, ‘Kahani’ in two versions by Vishal Dadlani and KK and a solo by Shreya Goshal, ‘Piya tu kahe rootha re’ by Javed Bashir will be confined to the music album. Hope these songs find pride of place in its DVD as additional features.
To sum it up, it’s the film’s director, editor, cinematographer, writers, music composers, and entire team of Boundscript Motion Pictures Pvt. Ltd. that make ‘Kahani’ a must-watch film, and Vidya Balan is an integral part of it. But let’s face it – sirf Bidya chamkegi!
