Dear Zindagi

"Don't let your past blackmail your present to ruin a beautiful future."

Dear Zindagi is the best Hindi movie that I watched in recent times. The fact was that I expected it to be boring when I heard the synopsis first. I felt it would be another usual, silly, childish Bollywood rom-com. But I was interested to see what Gauri Shinde could bring on the table after being impressed with her previous movie, the effective English-Vinglish.

Dear Zindagi is the story of Kaira who has serious emotional issues with her love life. She's attracted to men and falls in love with them, but is afraid of commitment. Thus she's in and out of a string of relationships hurting herself and her clueless boyfriends. Her friends are perplexed and parents are confused and things hit rock-bottom when her professional life crumples in the process.

Jobless and homeless, she's forced to shift to Goa, her parent's place, whom she can't bear. There she decides to take professional help from Jehangir Khan, a psychologist. The crux of the story is how Khan helps her to piece the clues of her past together and makes her ready to face the life again.

The movie has a beautiful and important message- that our mind, just like our body is prone to diseases, both minor and major ones. Not attending to the minor issues can possibly lead to serious, chronic situations in future. Taking up professional help in such cases need not be a matter of embarrassment. This movie is about how childhood trauma can make a person unable to face the present realities and can make serious troubles in your and your loved one's lives. And how with proper help and support, it is possible to come out and make corrections before its too late. Let me quote from the movie

"Let's once try to bring down our parents from the high pedestals we've placed them and try to understand them as common people, like us, who are prone to making mistakes in life."

I would say we do it to everyone who is in a relationship with us and then our life can be better and more easy to live.

Alia Bhatt effortlessly transform herself into Kaira. I have theory that Shahrukh Khan is miles better as an actor when he does a non-romantic role and after Swades, Chak De and Don movies, I'm happy to see my theory stands the test of time. I don't know how scientific his therapy is, but it sure seems convincing on screen.

So, Dear Zindagi is a must watch, inspirational movie. Its uncluttered, easy to sit through and not manipulative. Though the perils of Kaira may seem immature and trivial to many of you, believe me, she has escaped from the mouth of a volcano that had the potential to take away her future.

Shivaay: Ajay Devgn's Gadar..!

Shivaay, the action movie directed by Ajay Devgn seems to be a spiritual sequel of Gadar. Does anybody remember Gadar, the most Sunny-Deolish movie of Sunny Deol? Gadar is a period movie set in the years after partition, while Shivaay is set in the present era. But if we look closely, it is visible that there are certain similarities in the narrative of both the movies.

Gadar is the story about the love between a Sikh man and a Muslim lady and the hardships the guy and his kid has to suffer in retrieving her from Pakistan. Shivaay has a Bulgarian tourist falling in love with an Indian trek guide and the hardships the guy has to suffer to retrieve their kid from the clutches of a kidnapping ring.





In Gadar, the first hour is about how the lovers meet and the hardships they have to endure together. In Shivaay also similar situation occurs. By the end of this segment, the heroines of both movies become mothers. In Gadar she goes to Pakistan to see her parents, leaving the kid with Sunny and her father doesn't allow her to return. In Shivaay the heroine go back to Bulgaria leaving her child back in India with Ajay never to return.

In both the movies our hero, with the kid go to the other country in search of the mother. They fall in some bad situations causing massive manhunt against them by law enforcement. Another similarity is that after the initial one hour setup of premise and characters, both movies totally depend on relentless action sequences to carry the film forward.

In case of Shivaay, Ajay has done a great job with action sequences. Breath-taking is the only word to describe them. And it's almost nonstop too. My issue was with the first one hour which was wasted. The love story lacks any punch and is unconvincing. It doesn't establish a rapport of central characters with the viewers thereby missing a golden opportunity to make us care for them later when action picks up. Also lacking was the quality of dialogues. Dialogues in Shivaay are pathetic.



 Read my post on Force 2 

Force 2 Awakened, Rolled Over and Slept Again...

Watching Force 2 turned out to be a total waste of time for me. It has some fabulous action sequences, but what point is there in watching a movie that is totally lacking in plot development and characterisation? Atleast adding some humour or melodrama would have done the trick.

The first part Force was remade from Tamil movie Kaakha Kaakha which was a realistic portrayal of the life of encounter specialists. The charm of the Tamil movie was the stark contrast between the romantic and professional sides of the personality of the protagonist played by Surya. Hindi version was not that good, but it hugely benefitted from the ready made script. The makers seriously botched up the sequel when they thought they could compensate the lack of good script with tons of action and car chases. 

One good thing about John Abraham that I like is his sincerity. He tried his best and failed honorably like he did in many other movies. He has his limitations as an actor, but he had transcended them in few of his movies like No Smoking, Madras Cafe and Taxi No. 9211. It's a pity that's not the case in Force 2. I hated those scenes where he walks menacingly towards villains and in closeup suddenly displays a cute puppy look.

The villain is given impressive screen timing and he shines through most of it. But his role was poorly written. The revelation of his motives in the climax spoiled the whole film. Sonakshi Sinha doesn't have much to do other than run around behind John Abraham in chase sequences. Her character arc is pathetic, unconvincing and doesn't make any difference in the movie.




But one curious thing that I noticed is that Force 2 bears an uncanny similarity to a Tamil movie that I watched recently- Irumugan. Both movies have villains trying to destabilise India from a foreign country. Both movies have reluctant protagonists taking up the responsibility of stopping the menace. In both movies the heroes are tormented due to the death of their wives. In both movies it is RAW who conducts the operation. In both movies our hero is assigned with a female partner, who is officially the leader. In both movies the hero easily bypass the partner. In both movies this causes ego issues in between them. In both movies, villain get a better deal role-wise. In both movies there are tremendous action and chases, but lack of a proper plot spoiled the whole thing. Both movies waste a lot of time in characters running behind one another without any interesting pay-off.

It's no fun ending up watching two similar disappointing movies back to back.

Book Review: The Blaft Book of Mizo Myths

Mythology of a region is essentially the collective memory of generations of people who inhabited the place. A myth is like a species of organism that evolves, adapts, spreads and perpetuates itself through oral re-tellings. With each retelling, a myth absorbs something from the person who tells it and those who hear it. I believe introduction of verbal languages has seriously caused a threat to the evolution of myths. By writing down a myth, its organic nature is threatened. It attains a state of permanency which totally stops its growth.

Having stated that, today it has reached a stage where the recording of myths and study of mythology has become important. Otherwise these amazing amalgamation of cultural snippets from past will cease to exist. In Malayalam this attempt had begun a century back when Kottarathil Shankunni recorded the mythology of Kerala in an exhaustive volume called Aithihyamala. Today every region in India have become aware of the cultural value of mythology and are taking serious steps to collect and do research on them.

That was the reason I was thrilled to receive a book from Blaft Publications about mythology of Mizoram. The book titled The Blaft Book of Mizo Myths is written by Cherrie Lalnunziri Chhangte who is a scholar doing research in comparative study of Native American and Mizo literature. To be frank, I was disappointed by the length of the book, I expected more. (It is 50+ pages book). But after fully reading it, I believe it was a sensible decision.

The book introduces you to a very different world and I would say the stories are unlike any myths that I, possessing whatever limited exposure of Indian mythology, have come across. What make Mizo myths and fairy tales distinct from others is that, they have a childish inquisitiveness, an intent to probe the unknown and come up with simple answers to every puzzle that they meet in their lives. Another factor that I noticed is that the content of these stories are pretty mature. For the kids of today who are overprotected from the contact with nature and outside life, these stories of unrestricted congruence with the amazing world out there, may be hard to adapt. But once they adapt, I believe it has the potential to be a treasure trove with life altering possibilities.

The book contains six stories, and each of them take you to a different surreal atmosphere. There are stories of lovers, warriors, otherworldly creatures like weretigers and Mura, a huge predatory bird (I was envisioning a pterodactyl while reading about it), supernatural demons like Lasi and much more. I loved The Story of the Beginning of the World which is a rich introduction of Mizo mythology. I feel moving this story to the beginning would be more beneficial to the readers. But I loved the way the book ended- with a sad and brutal story of unrequited love that brings the reader back to the mundane world which he inhabits.

I hope Blaft continues publishing such collections of beautiful mythology from other parts of the world and the author Cherrie Lalnunziri Chhangte comes up with a more elaborate volume of Mizo Myths.

ഘണ്ടാകർണ്ണന്മാരുടെ നാട്ടിൽ...

ഈ കഥയോ പാത്രങ്ങളോ സാങ്കൽപ്പികമല്ല.
ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നവരുമായി സാമ്യം തോന്നാൻ തന്നെയാണ്, അതിന് വേണ്ടി മാത്രമാണ് ഇത് പറയുന്നത്. 

ഘണ്ടാകർണ്ണനെക്കുറിച്ച് കേട്ടിട്ടുണ്ടോ? നാം അറിഞ്ഞിരിക്കേണ്ട ആളാണ്. കേട്ടോളൂ..

കഥ തുടങ്ങുമ്പോൾ അങ്ങേർക്ക് ഈ പേര് കിട്ടിയിരുന്നില്ല. മിക്കവാറും പഴയ പേര് ശശി എന്നാവാനാണ് സാധ്യത. ശശി വലിയ വിഷ്ണു ഭക്തനായിരുന്നു. കുഴപ്പമില്ലാത്ത കാര്യമല്ലേ? പ്രശ്നം എന്താണെന്നാൽ അയാൾക്ക് മറ്റ് ദേവതമാരോട് കനത്ത വിരോധമായിരുന്നു. വിശേഷിച്ച് ശിവനോട്. ശിവനെ ആരെങ്കിലും സ്തുതിച്ചാൽ ശശിക്ക് കുരു പൊട്ടും. പിന്നെ തെറിവിളിയായി, ട്രോളിംഗ് ആയി, പൊങ്കാലയായി.

ഒരിക്കൽ വിഷ്ണുദേവൻ തന്നെ ശശിയുടെ രോഗം മാറ്റാൻ നേരിട്ട് പ്രത്യക്ഷപ്പെട്ട് നോക്കി. തങ്ങളെല്ലാം ഒന്നാണെന്നും തമ്മിലൊരു പ്രശ്നവുമില്ലെന്നും വെറും പ്രത്യയശാസ്ത്രപരമായ ഭിന്നത മാത്രമേ ഉള്ളൂ എന്നും ശശിയെ ബോധിപ്പിക്കാൻ ഹരിഹരവേഷത്തിലായിരുന്നു വരവ്. ശശി ചന്ദനത്തിരി കത്തിച്ച് വിഷ്ണുവിനെ സ്തുതിച്ചു, ശിവന്റെ മൂക്ക് പൊത്തിപ്പിടിച്ചു. അതോടെ ഭഗവാന്‍ സുല്ലിട്ടു.

നാട്ടിലെ പണിയില്ലാത്ത ചെറുപ്പക്കാർ ശശിയെക്കാണുമ്പോൾ ഉച്ചത്തിൽ ശിവനാമം ചൊല്ലാൻ തുടങ്ങി. പലരും ശിവസ്തോത്രങ്ങൾ വോയ്സ് മെസേജ് ആയി ഫോര്‍വേഡ് ചെയ്തു. ആദ്യമൊക്കെ ശശി കലി കൊണ്ട് തെറി വിളിച്ചു.

അവസാനം സഹിക്കാതായപ്പോൾ അയാൾ രണ്ടു അമ്പലമണികൾ വാങ്ങി ചെവികളിൽ തൂക്കിയിട്ടു. ശിവനാമം കേൾക്കുമ്പോളെല്ലാം തലയാട്ടും. അപ്പോഴുണ്ടാകുന്ന മണിമുഴക്കത്തിൽ ഒന്നും കേൾക്കില്ല. അങ്ങനെ ശശി ഘണ്ടാകർണ്ണനായി (ചെവിയിൽ മണിയുള്ളവൻ)...