वक्त (Poetry) (Time)

Parched : Movie Review

Parched: The Quest for Freedom & Equality!

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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark

Leena Yadav's 'Parched' is a pitched battle between the present age Durgas and Mahisasurs of our society. It is a peek into the age old gender insensitivity and inequality existing in our country. Leena chose a desert village in Rajastan as the backdrop to narrate a compelling story about three women Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee), Lajjo (Radhika Apte), Bijli (Surveen Chawla) and a child bride Janaki (Lehar Khan) who battles with the harsh realities of their life.

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Parched, beautifully narrates the quest for freedom and equality desired by these four women. Rani a widow is left to take care of her bedridden old mother-in-law and is under debt because of the loan she has taken to pay the dowry to bring a daughter-in-law for her wayward teenaged son Gulab (Riddhi Sen). She has no one except her friends to vent her emotions and anger which she keeps otherwise veiled from the rest of the world. Lajjo goes through silently an abusive marriage where her husband batters her day in and day out for being barren. Bijli a modern nautch girl who camps in villages with her master's travelling troupe not only dance but also entertain clients who are interested in carnal pursuits brought in by her boss. Janaki a reluctant bride has her own secrets to keep and is constantly abused by Gulab.

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Last week we had Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's Pink in theatres and for discussions on blogs, dinner tables and cafes. This week we have Parched set in rural India. Both the movies raise  common issues like - gender bias, domestic violence, marital rape etc.  

The women in the movie has given a fabulous performance duly supported by the actors like Adil Hussain, Sumeet Vyas, Riddhi Sen, and Chetan Sharma. Riddhi Sen and Chetan Sharma are actors who need to get more opportunities to display their talents. Chetan Sharma's 'Saankal' directed by Dedipya Joshi is yet another women centric movie which has already made waves in many film festivals in India and abroad. Mirch Masala, Angry Indian Goddesses, Kajarya, Jugni, Nil Battey Sannata, Pink to name a few has made a very positive impact on its audience and has left many for wanting more from these filmmakers.

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 Parched since its release abroad an year ago is on a high worldwide and I am sure its release in India has already generated positive responses and constructive discussions around the cause it raises.  Parched is a must watch not because of its story but because it makes us reflective and more responsible towards all humans irrespective of gender, class, rural and urban divide. It reiterates the importance for freedom for women and celebrating womanhood.

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 4/5

Cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee (Rani), Radhika Apte (Lajjo), Surveen Chawla (Bijli), Leher Khan (Janaki), Adil Hussain, Sumeet Vyas, Sayani Gupta, Riddhi Sen, Chetan Sharma

Genre: Drama

Director: Leena Yadav

Producer: Ajay Devgn

Written by: Leena Yadav

Music by: Hitesh Sonik

Cinematography: Russell Carpenter

Production: Ajay Devgn FFilms

Release Date: 23rd September, 2016

Duration: 118 Minutes

Language: Hindi 

Banjo : Movie Review

Banjo: Riteish's Solo-Hero Outing Fizzle!

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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark

Ravi Jadhav's Bollywood directorial debut Banjo fails to enthuse the audience full scale. Riteish Deshmukh tries hard to hold on solely till the end to give his audience a fair deal but succumbs to poor story line, haphazard sequences, and a misfit heroine (Nargis Fakhri) who fails to complement his acting skills. Banjo had all the potential to be a fabulous musical treat laced with the story of a bunch of street musicians who make to the world stage with original and credible music due to sheer grit, commitment, passion and focus. It could have been truly motivational and an inspiring story about a girl who travels from New York to cherry pick some raw talents to polish them into gems to present to the world. It could have showcased the power of music that can bind the world together irrespective of its color, creed, religion, and culture. Well, it's unfortunate to say that Banjo that evoked high expectations through its trailers and posters fails to fulfill what it promised. It terribly missed an opportunity.

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Banjo is about four slum dwellers: Taraat (Riteish Deshmukh) is an extortionist under the aegis of a corporator, Grease (Dharmesh Yelande) is a car mechanic, Paper (Aditya Kumar) is a paperboy, and Vajaya (Ram Menon, accompanies his father to small musical shows). These four friends apart from their trade to earn a living they also bond together on music as a ragtag band who play at different festive events organized by individuals and local slum committees. In one such event they are heard by a sound recordist Mikey (Luke Kenny). Mikey impressed by their talent sends the glimpses of the show to his dear friend Christina (Nargis Fakhri) in New York. Christina an Indian American musician is highly fascinated by their music and decides to come to India to make two music tracks to participate in an upcoming international music competition.

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The film is botched due to unwanted subplots, builder-corporator nexus, extortion, Pseudo NGOisms and poorly portraying slum dwellers as women oglers. Banjo's lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya and music  by Vishal-Shekhar are the only relief we get as audience.  But then it is better to watch its music videos on YouTube or on Television rather than spending your money in a theatre. As the lead protagonish Taraat says repeatedly in the film - "Zindagi mai do choices hoti hai...", I would also like to quote that Banjo gives us two choices : One, to watch and forget it forever and two, not to watch it. Go for your choice, it's a free world.  

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 1.5/5

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh (Taraat), Nargis Fakhri (Christina), Darmesh Yelande (Grease), Aditya Kumar (Paper), Ram Menon (Vajaya)­­­­­­­­­, Luke Kenny (Mikey)

Genre: Musical Drama

Director: Ravi Jadhav

Producer: Krishika Lulla

Written by: Kapil Sawant, Nikhil Mehrotra, Ravi Jadhav

Music by: Vishal-Shekhar

Choreography: Bosco-Caeser

Production Company: Eros International

Distributor: Eros International

Release Date: 23rd September, 2016

Duration: 138 Minutes

Language: Hindi

मेरा हर रिश्ता (Relationship) (Poetry)

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मेरा हर रिश्ता उस चबूतरे की तरह है

जहाँ से गाँव का हर कोना नज़र आता है I

जहाँ कभी दिवाली के दीये भी जलाया जाते है

और जहाँ नशेड़ियों का अड्डा भी जमता है I

मेरा हर रिश्ता

कभी गाँव की उस मासूम लड़की की तरह है

जिसको किसी से नज़र मिलाना भी पाप लगता है

तो कभी उस वेश्या की तरह भी है

जिसको कभी न बुझने वाली प्यास और वासना है I

मेरा हर रिश्ता

गाँव के उस दालान की तरह है

जहाँ पंचायत कभी न्याय-अन्याय का फैसला भी करती है

तो कभी वहाँ मासूमों की बली भी चढ़ायी जाती है I

मेरा हर रिश्ता

गाँव का वह चौराहा है

जहाँ सारे दिन तो हलचल होती है

लेकिन रात के वीराने में कुत्ता भी

उसका साथ छोड़ जाता है I

मेरा हर रिश्ता

उस दीवार की तरह है

जहाँ कभी तो समय दरक कर

अपने निशान छोड़ जाता है

तो कभी पर्व-त्योहार के बहाने

उसकी सफेदी भी कराई जाती है I

मेरा हर रिश्ता ...

(थोमस मैथ्यूज)

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परछाई (Poetry)

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परछाई 

तुम मेरी परछाई कभी न बनना

परछाई से मुझे नफरत है और ड़र भी I

यह कभी है तो कभी नहीं

कभी करीब तो कभी दूर I

जब अपना राक्षसी मूह खोले

सूरज सामने से चला आता है

हमे निगलने

परछाई छिप जाती है कहीं पीछे

और बिखर जाते हैं सारे सपने

साथ निभाने के

तुम मेरी परछाई कभी न बनना I

तपती धूप में जब हो सूरज सर पर

परछाई छिप जाती है कहीं

एक क्षण के लिए ढ़ह जाती है

सारे वादे

तुम मेरी परछाई कभी न बनना I

जब हो सूरज पीठ पीछे

अपने औजार लिए

एक और वार की तलाश में

परछाई भाग जाती है आगे

तुम मेरी परछाई कभी न बनना I

जब सूरज मायूस हो

अपने विफल कोशिश से

जा छिपता है किसी ओट में

करने को आखरी वार की तैयारी

एक बार फिर

अंधेरे में अकेले, असहाय और घायल

छोड़ जाती है परछाई

तुम मेरी परछाई कभी न बनना

परछाई से मुझे नफरत है और ड़र भी I

(थोमस मैथ्यूज)

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Pink : Movie Review

Pink: She is on the Warpath!

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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark

Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's 'Pink' is a must watch to know what actually a 'No' means because a 'No' is not just a word; it means a choice, right, and decision of a woman to execute her feeling she is going through then and there. And men need to learn to respect their choice and right to say 'No' and that a single woman, a friendly girl, or a woman who shares a drink doesn't mean that she is available. Rashmi Sharma and Shoojit Sircar, the producers of the movie has teamed up with the Shahenshah of Bollywood to give us an entirely different message through 'Pink'. Shoojit Sircar had already won many hearts for his previous film 'Piku'.  Ably directed by Aniruddha Chowdhury who has given some memorable and remarkable Bengali films like Anuranan, Antahin, and Aparajita Tumi has indeed made a dashing Bollywood debut through Pink.

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Pink unrolls an incident of molestation and attempt to rape that embroils the life of three working women Meenal Arora, Falak Ali and Andrea in Delhi which results into a nightmare for them. A late night out at a rock concert followed by a dinner invite at a resort in Surajkund by three boys whom they met through a common friend triggers a chain of unpleasant incidents that rocks their peaceful life.

Some incidents can break you or it can make you strong. When you are pushed against the wall you have two choices: one, to succumb to the pressure and two, to gather all your might to push back and free yourself from the opponent to let him know that you are not yet ready to accept defeat. The three women in question opted for the second as they were not left with any other choice like many other women in our country by the men who have a patriarchal and feudal mindset of seeing women as weaklings and lesser beings.

Pink goes ballistic through its plot against the atrocities that is unleashed every day in the life of millions of women in our country and around the world. Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgal, a retired lawyer has been a silent witness of the whole ordeal the three girls have gone through who actually stays across his flat, decides to take up the case as their defense lawyer. The courtroom drama that hovers around the incident takes many satirical digs on male chauvinism, conservative mindset of our so-called progressive society, its misconception about perfect womanhood and their selective moral yardsticks for women.

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Amitabh Bachchan in his unique style and baritone voice spews anger as the defense counsel and list down points that can be made into a  'Women Safety Manual Rule Book' based on the arguments presented by his equally talented counterpart and prosecution lawyer Prashant played by Piyush Mishra in the film. Both Amitabh Bachchan and Piyush Mishra are outstanding and ups the court room drama by their performances, though, at times they go a bit over board and are found to be rhetoric. Dhritiman Chatterjee as the presiding judge makes the whole proceedings intriguing by his comments and timely interventions between the warring lawyers defending their clients.

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Angad Bedi who plays the spoiled brat Rajveer who is the son of a politician stands apart and has done an impressive act. He is well supported by Raashul Tandon as Dumpy and Tushar Pandey as Vishwa who tries to broker peace between the girls and the boys. Vijay Varma one among the boys who actually was not there during the said incident plays a perfect misogynist pig who is hell bent to teach the girls a lesson for going against them. Mamta Malik as the Haryanvi SHO who manipulates with the FIR register and is found to favour the politician's brats leaves a mark through her performance.

All the three girls are so realistic in their performance that you go through the ordeal along with them. The pain, embarrassment in the court, the anger, the outburst, the helplessness and all those emotional upheavals they go through becomes your own. They have only one to look upon that is their guardian angel Deepak Sehgal. Taapsee Pannu as Minal is brilliant, consistent and credible in her role. She is well supported by Kirti Kulhari as Falak Ali. Kirti's outburst followed by a breakdown moves you and numbs you. It's hard to take humiliation and even harder when the world casts doubt on you for no fault of yours. She turned the tables on her tormentors by her bold and shocking statement and makes a point loud and clear that a 'No' is a 'No'!  Andrea Tariang as a girl from Meghalaya representing the 'North East' tag enacts very well her vulnerabilities and fear of being considered as the 'Other' in her own country and how hard it is to escape the prying eyes of the perverts who think that girls from their part of the country means 'Available'.

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Pink despite its strong social message and stellar performances from all the actors has its share of flaws. A few to mention without revealing much: why the boys and their family remains low once the case goes to the court even after being in power and having all the muscle power is not mentioned or justified; after the Surajkund molestation bid there is another kidnap and molestation that happens with one of the girl in a moving car in the busy streets of Delhi which is not raised or even mentioned in the court by the defense lawyer Deepak Sehgal; the kind hearted and supporting house owner played by Vijay Nagpal is not even called or mentioned in the court as a party to collect evidence against the boys; the defense lawyer and his bipolar disorder is fleetingly mentioned and conveniently ignored; the ailing wife of the retired lawyer and they being a childless couple in the story doesn't further the story telling in any way.

Nevertheless, Pink is a must watch because such movies need to be appreciated for its social relevance and for its potential of being a change catalyst.  It is powerful, brave and unadulterated. Go and watch along with your family because women play a significant role and completes a family and this film is about her. Pink has a message for both men and women - Men who doesn't understand the value of a woman and women who still thinks and believes that Men needs to be in control of everything. While you watch the closing credits roll with the scenes of that fateful night at the resort in Surajkund you will also hear a powerful poem in the background recited by Amitabh Bachchan. The poem will stay with you and remind you to be bold and fearless to stand for your rights and equality.

"Tu Khud Ki Khoj Mai Nikal                                                                                           Tu Kis Liye Hathash Hai                                                                                                    Tu Chal Tere Vajud Ki                                                                                                    Samay Ko Bhi Talash Hai"

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 4/5

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan (Deepak Sehgal), Taapsee Pannu (Minal Arora), Kirti Kulhari (Falak Ali), Andrea Tariang (Andrea), Angad Bedi (Rajveer Singh), Raashul Tandon (Raunak Anand aka Dumpy), Tushar Pandey (Vishwa), Mamta Malik as Haryanvi Police officer Sarala Premchand), Dhritiman Chatterjee (Judge), Vijay Verma (Ankit Malhotra), Dibang (ACP), Mamta Shankar (Sara), Vinod Nagpal (Kasturi Lal), Sudhanva Deshpande (Javed), Pawan Mahendroo (Minal's Father)

Genre: Thriller, Drama

Director: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury

Producers: Rashmi Sharma, Shoojit Sircar

Story by: Ritesh Shah

Screenplay: Ritesh Shah

Music by: Shantanu Moitra, Faiza Mujahid, Anupam Roy

Cinematography: Abhik Mukhopadhyay

Edited by: Bodhaditya Banerjee

Production: Rashmi Sharma Telefilms Limited

Distributor: NH Studioz

Release Date: 16th September, 2016

Duration: 136 Minutes

Language: Hindi 

Freaky Ali : Movie Review

Freaky Ali : Fails to Exploit Nawaz's Calibre!

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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark

Nawazuddin Siddiqui a dependable and a terrific actor struggles hard to keep the film Freaky Ali from sinking by his acts and dialogue delivery. But we know, little can be done by an actor like Nawaz when the plot is weakened with predictable situations, ‘rich and poor divide’ clichés, rags to riches situations, 8o’s kind of a sidekick and goons who are less dreadful and more of buffoons. While watching Freaky Ali one would definitely wonder what would have made Nawaz to sign this film.

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Freaky Ali could have been a good sports film if it had been handled with the required amount of panache and cinematic sense of excellence. But unfortunately after watching the movie one can easily gauge that the filmmakers didn’t have that kind of vision to offer a class film to the world of entertainment. It seems they just wanted to cash in the rising popularity of Nawazuddin Siddiqui by offering him the titular role of Freaky Ali and Nawaz may not have had any other option but to oblige the ‘Khandan’ out of love and regard.

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Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the role of Ali a Muslim orphan, found on the steps of a Dargah by a Hindu lady (Seema Biswas) who he calls ‘Aaayi’ fondly. The film open up to a busy market where Ali is found selling undergarments of all hues. The scene is funny and arouses chuckles in the theatre but soon fades out due to below the belt jokes. Ali thrown out of his job by his shop owner due to some flimsy reasons ends up teaming up with his childhood friend Maqsood (Arbaaz Khan) in his extortion business. Both works for ‘Danger Bhai’ (Nikitin Dheer) who is accident prone and is more of a buffoon who is always in company of his clumsy and dumb headed cohorts.

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In one of Ali and Maqsood’s extortion bids they happen to meet a golfer Vikram Singh Rathod (Jas Arora) and this chance meeting on the golf ground changes the destiny of Ali. Later, armed and trained by a caddy Kishen Lal (Asif Basra), Ali challenges the champion in many tournaments. What follows is breach of trust, fixing and disappointment on the field. The film fails miserably even after having some best talents in the industry like Seema Biswas, Nawazuddin, and Asif Basra because of its weak story line, very poor execution, disjointed narration and sequences. Amy Jackson as Megha, the manager and love interest of Ali has nothing to do. She doesn’t even add the glamour quotient by her presence. Jackie Shroff in his guest appearance as the big baddie is disappointing and unbearable.   

This plot of Freaky Ali had the potential to become yet another inspirational sports story if made by any other deft filmmaker and storyteller. In short, there is nothing much to write and appreciate about Freaky Ali except to pray that may good sense prevail in the future projects, if any, by Sohail Khan and his likes in the industry.

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 1.5/5

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Ali), Arbaaz Khan (Maqsood), Amy Jackson (Megha), Seema Biswas (Sulbha), Jas arora (Vikram Singh Rathod), Nikitin Dheer (Danger Bhai), Asif Basra (Kishen Lal)

Genre: Comedy

Director: Sohail Khan

Producer: Sohail Khan

Written by: Sohail Khan, Raaj Shaandilyaa

Based on: Happy Gilmore by Tim Herlihy

Music by: Sajid-Wajid

Cinematography: Mahesh Limaye

Edited by: Prashant Singh Rathore

Production: Sohail Khan Productions

Release Date: 9th September, 2016

Duration: 120 Minutes

Language: Hindi 

Baar Baar Dekho : Movie Review

Baar Baar Dekho: Rewind, Forward, Rewind and Dekho!

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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark

Nitya Mehra’s ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ is an earnest attempt to tell that life in the ‘Here and Now’ is more beautiful than in the past and the future; therefore, stay in the ‘Here and Now’. And it is the most challenging task for many of us because the past haunt us and the future is too promising and hence, we lose sight of the present. In the quest of making the future ‘picture perfect’ we avoid ‘the moment’ in hand that can give us assured happiness than the one in the future.

Nitya Mehra’s lead protagonist Jai Varma gets baffled to find himself time traveling and seeing visuals of his life in the future that can make him lose and ruin his personal life. Shuttling from past, future and the present Jai Varma learns the most important lessons of life to stay happy and make it worthy. Through Jai Varma and his lady love Diya Kapoor aka DK we also time travels and tries to pick up possible challenges and mistakes we are committing or may commit. In due course of time in the movie hall many of us may end up realizing the importance of the ‘Here and Now’ and may also decide to ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ our life to escape or deal with the impending danger of losing out the subtle happiness present in our life.

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The story of ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ hovers around two childhood friends Jai and Diya who are about to get married but are locked up in a dilemma because Jai wants to focus more on his professional life and career. He doesn’t want to lose the most cherished offer of pursuing his research on Vedic mathematics in the prestigious universities like Harvard and Cambridge. And he gets more perplexed and finds himself on the crossroads whether to say yes or no to Diya when he receives one such offer from his most liked university and that too a few days before his marriage. Shattered by Jai’s reluctance to get married, Diya walks out of her newly bought fully furnished apartment by her rich father Mr. Kapoor (Boman Irani) leaving behind Jai to deal with his dilemma. A drunken Jai wakes up to find himself in a different time zone that is ten days after his marriage in Thailand celebrating his honeymoon with Diya. This leap of time zones continues from 10 days, two years, 16 years and then 34 years ahead.

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The debutant director Nitya Mehra along with her writer friends Sri Rao and Anuvab Pal in the haste of telling us life philosophies forgot or may have missed the importance of entertaining the audience by etching out fully each characters in the movie and creating moments and scenes to get convinced to what they want to convey as a message. For instance, Jai doesn’t appear as a selfish and self-centered boy, lover and a husband; there are no sufficient family moments to show their relationship turbulence; the parents and friends are having very less role in the whole happenings shown in the leaps of time zones and there is not a single moment of humour in any of the frames. Unfortunately, the most attempted concept of time travel in Hollywood could have been done much better by the team of ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ which they missed by a whisker.  

Sarika (Mom of Diya), Ram Kapoor, Rajit Kapur (Pandit), Sayani Gupta (Common Friend) are good in their respective roles but deserved more space in the plot to justify their roles. When Dharma and Excel join hands it’s bound to give a damn good look to their movie and we find it here too with fine production values. Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography holds your attention and the locations are very beautiful.

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Katrina Kaif as Diya Kapoor looks stunning but doesn’t look or act differently from rest of her movies. She has a copycat effect which she may need to work on. Siddharth Malhotra as Jai Varma is handsome and is left with no choice but to remain bewildered throughout the movie because of the untimely and unexpected time zone leaps he encounters. He does age because of the expensive and sophisticated prosthetics but could have supported the same by his acting skills which he fails to pay attention to.   

In short, Baar Baar Dekho has lessons for life but very little to entertain. Though, the film ends with the already hit item song ‘Kaala Chasma’, you walk out with a clear lens to revisit your life with a resolve to be worthy of what you have in your life in the ‘Here and Now’ and live each day at a time. Go and watch ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ but not ‘Baar Baar’ only once!

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 3/5

Cast: Sidharth Malhotra (Jai Varma), Katrina Kaif (Diya Kapoor), Sarika, Ram Kapoor, Sayani Gupta (Chitra), Rajit Kapur, Rohan Joshi, Taaha Shah Badusha (Tarun)

Genre: Romance

Director: Nitya Mehra

Producers: Hiroo Yash Johar, Karan Johar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar

Written by: Anvita Dutt (Dialogues)

Screenplay: Nitya Mehra, Anuvab Pal, Sri Rao

Story by: Sri Rao

Music by: Amaal Mallik, Arko, Badshah, Jasleen Royal, Bilaal Saeed

Cinematography: Ravi K Chandran

Edited by: Amitabh Shukla

Production: Dharma Productions, Excel Entertainment

Distributor: Eros International

Release Date: 9th September, 2016

Duration: 141 Minutes

Language: Hindi