Friday, August 20, 2010

4 Reasons not to Watch Peepli Live

I usually have very high expectations from an Aamir Khan's Flick, which was further reinforced by movies like TZP and 3 idiots, but peepli live to say the least has been disappointing. Here are some of reasons which i found quite bizzare in movie :


  • Is it Satire?

Well while seeing the promos of the movie, i got the feeling that the movie would be a satire on the plight of the farmers, who are so helpless that they are left with no other option than taking their own lives .Treatment of the movie was certainly not in line with that. Yes, the situation can be shown in a humorous way, but then director should have cared about a thin line between the fun and the message he want to convey by the movie. Suicide by farmers are a serious issue, and in the movie it was ridiculed more or so as a resort of extracting money from the government. They can take a leaf out of the book from "Munnabhai MBBS" which had a very delicate balance of emotional and comedy scenes. In this movie, there is hardly a poignant scene at which you feel moved.


  • Media as a Joker

Alright , we have several movies depicting the act of media as a bunch of paid jokers. If my memory serves right " phir bhi dil hai hindustani" was based on the sensationalism of media, and there are few other movies too. More than that, we in our daily lives , experience this hoopla for media. So, apart from 15 minutes of entertainment, there was nothing more in the media circus shown in the movie. Media is the fourth altar of democracy, and there were instances where media had played its role in a very responsible way. It could have been much better if media had been depicted as a responsible agent. May be it has served as a model for the prevalent media in the country


  • Acting by 'Natha'

Despite all the hype by Natha, the acting was sub-standard. The expressions were not there, body language was not apt. In place of looking as a despised farmer, he looked like a minor caught in a soup. At this moment , i can hardly recollect any substantial Dialogue by him. Most of the dialogues are given to Raghubir Yadav, who no doubt is a good actor, but then it became an overkill. I sincerely believe that much work could had been done on his character.


  • Abuses in the Movie

okk, i agree to the point that this type of language is common in villages. But i sincerely believe that, director had been over-enthusiastic in using the flowery language. Words like G***d, Be****d, M*****d galore in the movie. Supposed to be a family entertainment movie, it places lot of people in a very uncomfortable situation. I also found it the tough way, went with my aunt and mom, and constantly had to fix my eyes on screen during the movie to avoid eye contact.


Movie is good, but then its not according to the status we associate with Aamir Khan. He had set the the standards high, and this movie really looks half-cooked. At best an attempt to score over the prevailing issues of ailing farmers and agriculture in the country. In my opinion. this is not worth a movie to watch spending your hard-earned bucks.





Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Why Facebook ?

Many will detest this note, because it's antithetical to the concept of 'Facebooking'. Status updates and more recently notes have engulfed the interests of all and sundry. My love with facebook started with some desired and strange applications like predictions, lover of the day, friend of the day, ideal job et al. These applications asked some questions and popped the results. Even if there was no connection, I thought I've achieved something. I'm sure same is the case with others. People feel happy if they see something extraordinarily nice about themselves. For me, it was a confidence booster. It's hard to acknowledge though. It also works as a proxy if not enough friends are online and thus keeps us busy.


To increase the networks of friends, Facebook suggests names randomly. Mind which feels hesitation in requesting friendship, thought of loosening the shackles gradually. FB is preferred over Orkut because FB is a broadcast network unlike Orkut which came across as a point to point connection. The more friends you have, the more people you reach out to. Wall updates can be seen on all friends' news board. Orkut implied a concept of scribbling on the other person's scrapbook.


The habit of lingering on this social network is effectuated by the lack of result oriented work and worthy substitutes. I don't know about other B schools, but this one is surely hooked on to FB. People release unique status updates and there you see a series of likes and comments within no time. This brings us to analyze the dearth of student activities which has propelled deviation on to the web world. As common in every B school, student managed clubs and committees are active in the college. But most prefer to ignore them due to reasons best known to them. Academics as usual, attract little attention. Credit must be given to high frequency of exams which resist us to delve deeper into understanding of the subjects. We tend to behave like machines. Input -> Process -> Output with least retention. This is what I feel, respect to those who have managed to learn regularly.


By garnering applauds on writing a witty remark or by creating a thought provoking video/pic; we feel belongingness to the FB world. This world is 'real like' but not real. After all, nothing has replaced the intricacy of analog human interaction. Try executing a project without meeting a single time and you would know. We are still bound to excel using age old methods of convincing naysayers through table discussions and spoken presentations. Hooking on to FB undermines our focus on the what should be the strength of a modern day manager. Plain confidence does not make up for paucity of facts and analysis.


How to use FB to one's advantage ? I've tried few things. During the summer break, games like Scrabble kept me indulged. I hope I've improved my vocabulary to some extent(God knows!). Creating pages and raising support for causes justifies our passion. 'It's my Earth' page was created as part of a contest organized by one of the IIMs. I'd decided to continue with the initiative, though it demanded only one investment - time. Lots of friends have accepted it. Thanks folks! The idea was to change the way our mind thinks about the environment. Believe me, I can't tolerate wastage of electricity now.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Game(s) People Play

Smoke came out from the pistol...sprinters started to run for their lives in a 100 m race with crowd getting behind them...they just got pass the 50m mark... suddenly the race track collapsed... and i saw my cell phone it was 0345 AM in morning ....!!! Thank god... it was a dream..

With so many stories unwinding around the CWG'10.. i am certainly very anxious about it. Do not be surprised if swimmers find algae in the swimming pool, or one of the football just cant arrive to stadium . because of the traffic jam.. most possibly because 2 cars have brushed each other..and the owner of those vehicles decide to settle the matter on the road itself.

Being in NCR for almost 3 years.. one thing i am pretty much sure about.. you can bring CWG to Delhi.. u cant take Delhiite mentality away from here... and believe me for most of the people the brazen social class of Delhi is an unpleasant experience at least in the beginning. Now the news channels are running rhetoric episodes on the dismal state of affairs.. and any tom dick and harry is giving expert comments here. As to put one of my friend's comment " Jisne aaj tak ghar mein shaadi bhi nahi karwayi.. wo bata raha hai ki CWG kaise karane chaiye".

Yes we are very concerned about the image of India.. by the way what is the image of India!!! A developing nation whose stock market is outperforming the rest of world, no matter few 100s of farmers commit suicide every year, or is a nation where people run crusades over Sania marrying Shoaib.. while youths are murdered in the name of honor killing. A nation of billion + people could not manage to create a decent football team... a nation where the gaps between the haves and have-nots is increasing day by day. A country where a chief minister can brazenly defend its communal minister or a state when traveling by a train demands an insurance!!!...

Anyways, we have to protect the image of nation, because various foreigners will visit the country. Its like putting a nice curtain on the door, so that people feel that everything is well and beautiful inside. But the curtain is now started having holes.. where people can peep to see the divide between India and 'Bharat'.

No i am in no way recruited by that psycho 'Mani Shankar Aiyar" who is praying to rain gods to unleash havoc and destruction upon the commonwealth games.. well its almost praying for a death of a person... i seriously wish that games go on smoothly..coz once u had taken up a commitment.. you should follow it tenaciously.. but the buck should not stop here.. these games ought to play a bigger role in developing a sports culture in the country.

P.S. As per Swapnil.. we indians are masters of doing things at the last moment.. so when India wakes up on the inaugural day of CWG... they will see a picture perfect games... Japanese may have invented "JIT".. we will put into rigorous test here