Following your dreams

You stand in a cloud at S1. Everything is hazy. Like tenacious pugilists, One and Another prepare for battle.

Follow your dreams. Ah - the everhyped philosophrase. Another begins sparring, "So you have a dream, right? And you want to chase it? What if you're not good enough? What if a simple lack of ability puts your life at peril? Aren't things going smoothly enough right now?"

One says, "Put aside all doubt and believe in yourself. Capability is not a constant as they show in your 'appraisals', and is fuelled only by self-belief. Believe." Another says, "It's not practical. How often do people at your age switch careers? You're just being a quitter. Haven't you done that enough times already? It's a recession, man! Pull up your socks. You're a family man now, this is not like the days you were playing in the band."

Part one retorts,"Do you remember how happy you were playing in the band? Do you see your ex-band members and how happy they are to have followed their heart?" Another counters, "You just THINK they're happy, but are they? They struggle and they do what they love for a living, meaning they have to sell out. Their very purpose of doing it is destroyed." "Aha!", One says, "But when was the last time you practiced the guitar for 9 hours in a day, heck, even for one hour and had that infinite moment where you felt one with everything around you?"

"You may have a kid one day, how are you going to secure your family's future with music? And that too, starting now. You have to got to be kidding me. I can't believe you're even considering this!", you hear Another spout. "Not only music. Follow your dreams, man. Did you want this 9-to-5, sometimes 9-to-9 shit with all the insane jargon-to-cover-up-flawed-language-basics people? Remember the kind of visionaries you used to hang out with? Did you really want to take orders and have to do stuff day after day that strained your you-ness?"

Another, "Who says that there won't be highs and lows when you follow your heart? What if you turn to writing and fall out of work? What good is passion, love and all that without the money in the bank to feed the shell that houses your 'you-ness'?" One thickens the cloud, "Of what use is an empty house?"

You are still at S1, in a cloud that thickens with terrifying portent.

An adjective called beauty

The grammar gaffe of the day comes from Chennai Times:


Actually, dear Gul Panag, beauty is a noun.

Regards.

'Obama steps out in jeans and sneakers in hometown'

Useless information of the day from DNA: Obama steps out in jeans and sneakers in hometown.

Tomorrow - Obama thinks that the color magenta is slightly overrated.

Friendly neighborhood barber

He is easily accessible and has a personality that contrasts his run down shop. He makes up for the lack of air conditioning by making you feel warm and welcome, he makes up for his 'uneducated' hands with experience and the shrillness of his radio set is offset by his constant chatter, the poor lighting is illuminated with his bright smile. He is the friendly neighbourhood barber.

In the post-liberalization era when RoI-seeking big corporates have added a professional edge to the business and modern salons with 'educated' 'hair dressers' seek to garner market share from small-time barbers, the friendly fingers, the clicking scissors and the free one-minute massages are on the brink of being wiped out by forces of evolution. Fancy devices, unnecessary hygiene and all too scientific methods are on the verge of replacing the hair-filled floors and 'free combing and mirror' services that the barber shop used to offer.

These were the places our fathers used to go to when Gillette Mach-3's and aloe-vera based shaving foams for super-sensitive-skin were not available in retail stores, but were luxuries purchased occasionally by your 'abroad' relatives. These men trimmed nose hair and shaved armpits without a second look. They stocked cheesy film magazines, titillating enough for adults, but safe enough for the children who cycled to their stores after school. They didn't color their own hair or wear it in a special way, and often were the epitomes of lack of fashion sense. The walls displayed charts with numbered hair styles, and you thought to yourself, "When I grow up, I will have style no. 17."

As incomes rise and people switch to the large air-conditioned saloons, one looks back at the neighbourhood barber shop one last time and feels sad to watch it slowly disappear from one’s life, alongwith the many little secrets and tips their owners passed down through generations. The next urban generation may not give a second look to these places as they drive by.

However, as we move forward into a brave new India, let's spare a thought to these 'small' people who made our lives so special for so many years. These men who trimmed the hair of bawling infants and walking-stick wielding octogenarians alike; these men who were part of our culture, a term that was not as abused or misused in those days, men who in their time made the word 'barber' anything but derogatory.

A 13 year old father!

This is just unbelievable! Brit dad is 13, mum is 15 and politicians are outraged. And take a look at this quote:

Asked what he will do financially, (the father) Alfie replies: "What's financially?"

Well, at least it would be the smallest generation gap in existence.

Seven Pounds - The review

I have nothing against slow movies. I like some of them, I really do. But I don't like slow and stupid. And that's exactly what 'Seven Pounds' is. This Will Smith starrer had me reaching under my skin and pulling my organs out!

During the first half of the movie, you feel like you're being set up for something - a wild twist or at least an interesting ending, but by the end of the movie you just feel plain set up.

The movie follows an IRS agent Ben Thomas who goes around meeting people to make judgments about whether they are basically good or bad people. That very notion makes the movie a little immature as against something like 'Crash' which showed different sides of human personalities so beautifully. You have no idea why he's doing this (or at least that's what the script assumes you think), but you don't need any exceptional prescience to feel a crappy revelation coming on; and this is what the the fate of the movie rests on - a mushy, boring and contrived 'twist'.

As it plays out, the ending scores high on the cheesometer (a couple of notches below Hancock maybe, but that's still quite high) and some bizarre structuring fails to pick it up. After a few flashbacks and leading hints questions like, "What happened in his past life?" and "What does this lead to?" start giving way to "Why are they tormenting me so?" and "Where should I have dinner after this?"

The characters are poorly developed with the judgmental protaganist being the most ordinary of them all. Will Smith has acted well, so too have most of the actors, but there's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. Gabriele Muccino's direction fails to come even close to the magic of 'Happy-ness' and the movie's meandering dialogue and uni-dimensional plot fail to engross you at any point . The teary-eyed characters are a constant reminder to the fact that you are completely wasting precious minutes of your life.

One-line review: Slow, boring and entirely missable. It's a 4 on 10.

Muthalik's hidden agenda

Also read Bosey's take.

Oh and yeah, happy birthday me. I love me. I love me so much. God bless me.

Stayin' alive

Amitabh Bachchan wants to stay alive. Who's da Big Bee Gee!

Base system!

Randall has outdone himself again!

Luck By Chance - The review

Last year's Om Shanti Om (I know, I know. You hate it.) had some incredible hamming by Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan as actors from the 70's in the Hindi Film Industry. I found this refreshing in that the industry was finally learning to laugh at itself. This year's 'Luck by Chance' takes it one step further by casting a meticulously constructed, critical yet fairly realistic eye on the workings of the Maya-nagari dream factory.

Farhan Akhtar plays a smart, confident, struggling actor trying to make his mark. His big break happens when a major star, played by Hrithik Roshan turns down the producer who gave him his first break. Rishi Kapoor is awesome here, he plays a very atypical role. However, the movie-within-the-movie needs to succeed as it is a debut for a starlet played by Isha Sharwani who's mother (Dimple Kapadia) is one of those Bollywood moms obsessed with ensuring their daughters do well. The gist of it is [minor spoiler alert] that Farhan gets the role and plays a lead character of the movie, but finds it difficult to keep his old life going. His girlfriend played by Konkona Sen Sharma, also a struggling actor goes through all the ups and downs and more on account of her relationship with him.

The interesting thing about the movie is that it works a very real premise - that of new stars being given headlining roles only when starlets or already established stars refuse to do them. The film cites Amitabh Bachchan in 'Zanjeer' and Shah Rukh Khan in 'Darr' and 'Baazigar' to lend credibility to that claim.

The movie is anchored in reality; the characters are not too shallow and it leaves a few ends loose on purpose (for example, Farhan never knows that Konkona had a hand in him getting his break). However what starts as a light comedy, moves into a slightly more serious mode with the protagonist using whatever means necessary to get ahead in the business - some smart and some not necessarily ethical. The end is a bit of a let down and what should have been about 10-15 minutes of material has been stretched to at least half an hour. There are a couple of songs (overall, I didn't like the music much except the one song where Farhan waits for the audition) which leaves you wondering whether they should have been there at all and maybe one too many characters.

Overall though, it's a very good, real look at the Hindi movie industry (I'm not using the term 'Bollywood' after seeing one of the characters dislike for the term!). Technically it's a good film, a few archaic scene fadeouts notwithstanding. The irony of it all is that there are so many star kids in the movie themselves, starting with the hero and all those making cameo appearances from Abhishek to Viveayik (is that how it's spelt now?).

One line review - a fine, fresh movie and a definite must watch. I give it a 7.5 on 10.