Two Masterpieces!

I was on the seventh heaven when I finally got the CDs of two movies which were in my mind for last two years and I was desperate to watch them. I made every attempt to grab these movies anyhow, but my hands were returned empty and heart disappointedly. Finally, I met a person at Bhopal owning a small video library. He was in his 70s or may be in 80s. He can hardly see due to bad eye sight. I think the reason behind his bad eye sight is more of watching lots of movies than the age factor. He has a great collection and I got both movies at one go. Here is a kind of review of both movies (though I am incapable of justifying my views as these movies as they are beyond perfection)

JAGRITI (1954)

A Filmfare winner movie by Satyen Bose conceptualized keeping children in mind, but was a huge hit with every age movie-lovers. Film is about a rich spoil brat Ajay who was sent to a boarding school far away from his homeland where he continues his way of living with his new friends. Unlike other friends of Ajay, Shakti played by Rattan Kumar (the same boy who played Bhola in Boot Polish and was also in Do Bhiga Zameen - both are Filmfare award winners) was talented and disciplined and unusually became the best buddy of Ajay. The board school is run by Shekhar (played by Abhi Bhattacharya). Shekhar tries to instill good values in the students using unorthodox teaching methods. He gains the students' trust and educates them about the heritage of their country and encourages them to become model citizens. Ajay changes when Shakti died in an accident realizing that it is his stubbornness which took Shakti's life.

The whole movie is so well narrated that you never get bore for a minute. Music, by Hemant Kumar, is a masterpiece threaded with great poetry by Pradeep. The best thing about the movie is bringing out the relationship between friends, teacher and students, mother and son. The pranks played by Ajay and his friends will reminds you of younger age. Performance wise all were up to their mark even above. Not a single character was loosely handled. The film is in black & white and still you see the brightest color of life, character and cinema. Film maker of current generation should watch this movie and put effort in making film with such honesty, because such masterpiece is not going to be revisited henceforth.

PARINDA (1989)

A movie by Vidhu Vinod Chopra which received several Filmfare and National awards. This is a cult movie and a turning point in Indian film industry. This movie introduces the concept of underworld to public beyond Mumbai. Few directors can make movies with such terrific camera work, technical stuffs, crisp storytelling and impeccable casting and Chopra is among them.

The story revolves around two brothers played by Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor. (Interesting Trivia - Anil Kapoor is elder to Jackie, but he always payed younger brother to Jackie). Madhuri Dixit as Paro and Anupam Kher as Prakash are best fitted in their role. It is Nana Patekar who steals the show with his eccentric performance. Nana delivers one of his best performances in this film as the fire-phobic gang leader. He is extremely successful in blending the two diametric characteristics of Anna, intensity and insanity. I am not going to tell you story as it would take another hour.

The technical crew of the movie have delivered their best performance till date, Binod Pradhan´s cinematography is probably the best in comparison to other films released around that time. He is very successful in creating a mood that is necessary for a gripping drama, and which is also able to draw the viewer into the film. Renu Saluja´s editing for this film, remains her best work till date, she fetched a National Award for effort. Chopra´s biggest achievement in the film is that he is able to combine technical finesse with a focused and gripping narrative along with some fabulous performances from his cast. Though I think songs were unnecessary in the film, still music is quite praiseworthy especially background score. Very few movies are close to The Godfather and Parinda is one of them.

I heartfully thank that Dada for letting my anxiety to find end.

The best day at Indore!

The day was behaving in the most lethargic manner as I was busy watching The Karate Kid with background score of some of my favourite Hindi songs. Yea, movie was running mutely as I already watched the marvelous original The Karate Kid starring Ralph Macchio. After finishing my boring day to day works (for me they are on weekly basis), I sat on floor resting my back on the edge of bed and started chatting with some friends. Meanwhile also took a short nap and ate lunch. Ravi made a sudden appearance in the evening and asked for a cool outing. I immediately shook my head in affirmation and asked few more friends to join us. None of them were interested except Ram.

We three met at a place nearby my room. I am really afraid of outings in Indore as the most important thing always keep us in dilemma - the place. You keep searching for eternity and you always find yourself stuck at same place. This time I decided not to go for any discussion and I made up my find for CKD. Its a small bar cum restaurant more precisely in lay man language "dhabha". We arrived at CKD after walking around 1km and playing word-ball with the driver of van.

CKD has two section - one for family and one for gents (biased against females??). We took a table in Gents section. There were around 25 tables with 4 chair each and almost each chair was filled. Most of them were served with bear, Indorites are more into bear than higher grades of alcoholic beverages. We started with whisky, ate starters and talk all bullshit. In the meanwhile the sun has closed his shop of lights and CKD was getting crowded with big and bulky people holding big bottles of bears. I also saw some youth holding VAT69, its one of the best alcohol I ever had in my life. Suddenly, I heard loud voices coming from my behind. I rotated my half body to have a look on cinema. An altercation was turned into burning talks and then finally into a fight. You cant stop your feelings flowing when you succumb to alcohol, but I enjoyed it. Its fun to see people fighting and saying "maro maro"(hit hit). We left the CKD after peeing for almost two minutes in large open space behind the dhabha.

A strong breeze was started blowing and we thoroughly enjoyed walking more than 3 km. We talked to each other about love, hate, life and so many things. I always wonder people become philosophers after drinking. The next best moment was about to come. As we hire a van, we were sharing van with other people. I took no time to start a conversation regarding useless topics and cursing teetotalers. Listening shayari from driver corridor was enjoyable too. Ravi and Ram had a shot with bidi. One young guy who was sitting with us and wearing a yellow t-shirt was so engaged in our conversation that he forgot his stop. When we reminded him of his stop, he thought we were fooling around. When he realized his mistake and asked the driver to stop, we laughed as never before. That laugh is going to be in my memories for ever.

We deboarded the van and went for a walk for another km to find a huge bunch of people standing outside GK and waiting for their turn to enter the hotel as if free meal is being offered by GK. We somehow found a place to stand in the queue and fortunately entered the hotel in around half an hour. We had dinner in GK - a nice and sumptuous food of Indore. A very quick service is the essence of GK even you cant find a place to step your foot on floor.

I finally hired a auto which dropped me to my room and I caught my bed and went to sleep.

This was my the best day at Indore. I will never in my life forget the enjoyment of five hours.

Raavan

When you are watching a movie with an expectation of impeccable storyline and mind-blowing performances then there is a two-way road, either you feel delighted or you get disappointment, there is no mid-way. Certainly your expectations are at peek when the movie involves Mani Ratnam, AR Rehman, Abhishek Bachhan and gorgeous Aishwarya Rai.

Raavan is the biggest disappointment of the year. I don't know where to start. Everything seems disappointing - script, performance, music, editing etc. Music for me is the most disappointing factor. Shooting of each song is horrible. I still enjoy the video of Dil Se, I don't know what has happened to Ratnam ... where his creativity has gone. Amateur shooting of songs was apparently visible. Performance wise Abhi and Aish were not good. Raavan seems to be a holy god and Ram on the other hand a devil. Abhi act dull and uses redundant expressions. Aish only found to be screaming at beautiful locations of Kerala. Vikram was OK but saving hands were Govinda and Ravi Kishan. The movie was too much predictable and the only enjoyable part was last 5 minutes. A good camera work has gone wasted 'coz of weak plot and bad performances.

I heard Tamil version of Raavan is better. I don't know, but after seeing this Raavan, Beera is not going replace Raavan at Dushera this year. Beera is already dead.

Read these remarks about Raavan (lifted from Twitter)

RGV said:
I want to remake Raavan and I want to request Mani to remake Aag.

Someone said:

LOL with raavan movie...cant able to figure out...Raavan ko kisne maara Sri Raam ne ya Sri Mani Ratnam ne.

Beera had a sister still he was singing "Behne de mujhe behne"

A Rural Marketing!

You feel like heaven when you accomplish the task and that too in a impeccable manner. I have crossed the bridge and reached the end of tunnel. Its a feeling of achievement and day of celebration. The best way to celebrate is to share with you.

After writing down the prerequisite and checking them with preparation, I started rehearsing my presentation, slide show where ninety percent words are not between a to z. Yea, I made a whole presentation in Hindi with the help of one of my colleague. Reason: the whole bunch of attendees is unfamiliar with English terminology. They were Surpanch, Sachiv etc. from local villages. I presented the whole presentation in Hindi with words like "uttaradhikari" (nominee)। The best thing about the presentation was the way audience accepted my presence and responded in a affirmative way.

Now we talk about marketing. The whole presentation was about a product from Govt. of India. As I was pondering over how to make this product a real success, I got a call from a Surpanch of a nearby village for PAN card. I took this opportunity to discuss NPS (the product) with him. He grabbed the idea and appreciated the effort of Govt. of India. He also said that some more people might also be interested in NPS. So I thought why not organize a meeting with 20-30 surpanch from the nearby villages and tell them about NPS. They automatically pass on the information to their village. Surpanch is a opinion leader in a village. Organizing a meeting was just the first step of long journey. So I customize the presentation to suit the audience. I have never seen a presentation in Hindi, I swear. We also arrange a small high tea where food was much like "gaon wala". We also gave them return gifts.

First time, I had an experienced of rural marketing. I am happy it turned out very well. Gathering was huge. I know product was affordable, my job was to make them aware and accept the product. Availability is no problem.

Rural India - here I come.

Generated, Organized and Destroyed

After wearing a helmet you feel safe on roads, but if roads needs a department of disastrous management you have to rely on your luck. I have never understood why governments are floating tenders for construction of roads when they are destroying the future of human life. If there are no human life on earth then are monkeys going to use these roads? I even doubt the survival of monkeys.

Roads are being made by contractors supported by the lobby of cement industry. On the other hand, these lobby grease government's official palm to float tenders of cements roads construction.

If we analyze the pros and cons of these roads then result may be 1:10. The only pro cement roads is that they stay for long periods, but and a big but comes to stay at what cost?? Cement roads are rendering assistance in global warming. They are reflect more heat than a tar road. They don't observe water - that will create water logging at low lying areas and also result into lowering of water table. Both reason are very hazardous. Still not able to understand the reason behind the flourishing cement industry?

We can blame ourselves only as contractors, government's official and lobby is nothing but bunch of jerks and inconsiderate idiots. We have made the rooms to live for them and we have made the chairs to sit for them. We have allowed them to rule and use our life for their own good.
We have Generated, we have Organized and we will Destroy it and still we say there is GOD above there.

Sail as soon as possible!

You can't stay for a long time on a island even it is glorified with sumptuous fruits and picturesque scenes around. You can enjoy for few days but a man doing a monotonous job become frustrated after some time even he is getting handsome moolas. A city with legacy of hundreds of years and mostly commercialized long time ago still not reached the level of sensual delight for outsiders. I have hardly seen people with native place outside MP living in this city forget about the foreigners and why the hell foreigners will visit this un-tourist place.

Routine of a typical Indorite can be explained in few lines. They wake up at around 8 in the morning, have poha and jalebi in breakfast, went to office at 10.30, have dal batti in lunch and then go to TI in the evening and eat lot of junk food there. If you ever want to go for a business in Indore (though I never want) it should in hospitality sector. Even a small stall at the corner of street can make you millionaire as Indore people are fond of eating. I think they just have one job to perform and that is chewing something with gums.

I have never understood why people are freak about TI (its a short form of Treasure Island mall in Indore - TI to Indore is like US to other countries). There is parking problem on Saturdays and Sundays and you wont be able to find space to park yourself in the mall. I have never understood the positioning of this mall, there are families, couples, boys with girls, boys looking for girls, children with bland ice-creams. Third floor is almost deserted because of affluent class shops. Two shops are always filled with crowd as if fair is organized and Big Bazaar and Max are distributing things for free. Meanwhile you can look around for eye tonic and can enjoy 1-2 hours with friends but I would advice not to bring your girlfriend along with you, its better to roam in Central Mall and if you have some extra money you can buy her a present also.

Sometimes you feel like kicking your head on a wall, however its hard to find a wall in the city. Its an island of inconsiderate creatures. You find stingy people who spend only on foods. Its to better to sail from this island as soon as possible before you become one of them.

I was sitting under a wrong tree

I was searching for an apple, which will fall one day and brings the revolution in my life just like it brought for Newton. Waiting. Waiting. After waiting for a long time I picked up a stone and gave a shot at one of the bunches of fruits. I realize that sometime you cannot depend on your fate and you have to take aggressive action like Lord Rama took when he was asking for the path from the ocean. He prayed for days to gratify God of ocean, but there was no response from the latter. Furious Rama took his bow and arrow and was about to fire, when God of ocean came out and apologize for his stubborn act. No sooner had I took the fruit from the ground when I realized that I am sitting under a wrong tree.

I was fortunate one who got the job in big time recession (I always see glass as half full), though I landed on a wrong runway or you can say that I did a crash landing. Recession is the word which is haunting me for the last two years and I think it will for the rest of my life. Other things are also not better to make life cheerful. You can spend your life without money but without friends seems to be impossible. Indore is a good place to live if you have spend some part of your education life here. I came to Indore after spending three months in New Delhi to setup a new branch at Indore. I thought the whole drama of setting up of an office will end soon and I will return to my normal life at Delhi. But life would be much simple if things go according our wishes and desire. Shweta took the charge of most of the official work and coordinating with HO and I have no idea what I was doing may be I was rendering assistance to labours, suppliers, Shweta and all the people involved in the mission. Shweta did the hardest job of coordinating with HO especially with Alok sir and I am really proud of her the way she managed things cleverly and skillfully. No sooner did office started its functioning when real mazaa started blossoming in our office.

We celebrated Christmas Day and New Year Day with all the employees amidst the bombs of performance and targets. No feeling of insecurity while sitting on the revolving chair and showing authority to more than 15 individuals. No motivation from higher management establishes a resolution of reluctant to involve our self in mutual growth. The cardinal truth 0f a management system is defeated by a long margin. If you are developing a city and you find a tree with strong roots, you dare to touch it but if roots are not strong then vibrations caused by equipments are enough to chuck the tree out of its root and the person sitting under have to say loud "I was sitting under a wrong tree".