AmreekanDesi

The latest Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots is being widely acclaimed as one of the best movies of recent times. I managed to catch a show last week, and came back impressed.

Not just impressed. I learnt a lot from the movie. What follows is ten important lessons in life that the movie taught me.

This is not a review. Millions have already been written so i wont go there. If you want a positive review try here, and here. If you want a bad one, check this out, and for a really nasty one, read here.

Ok. So back to the ten lessons i learnt from 3 Idiots.

Ageing can be stopped. There is after all, such a thing as the elixir of life. Obviously Aamir Khan has found it; there’s no way a 44 year old man can look so incredibly young all of a sudden. If only he shared some of that with Madhavan…

Or science has really made immense progress over the past years. They probably stole the face of a college kid and stuck it on Aamir’s.

Those tiny, baby scooters come in handy in medical emergencies. You can drive ahead of an ambulance clearing the way for it to pass, or if an ambulance isn’t available, just use the little bi-wheeler as one. As an added advantage, hospitals will let you drive the scooter right up to the operation theater so it works out quite nicely.

Poverty and illness may be touchy topics, but if tinted in sepia tones they become funny. All you need is a mom cribbing about the family’s pathetic financial condition in black and white, while the paralyzed dad lies in bed, and audiences will roll away in their seats. Some will ROFL, while some others may even ROFLMAO.

(more…)

Welcome back to Amreekandesi! Subscribe to our RSS feed and get regular updates in your favorite feed reader.

So Ram killed Ravana, and everything was good. They were supposed to live happily ever after, but in a twist of fate i have always failed to understand, a pregnant Sita suddenly found her abandoned in the forest.

A few thousand years later, Nina Paley has created a brilliant modern day story about the life of Sita. It’s called Sita Sings the Blues.

Here’s a trailer.

Watch the full movie HERE (There is an option to watch the movie online, as also one to download the entire thing)

Nina derived inspiration from her own story, after her husband broke up with her via email when she was traveling. The movie is entirely Nina’s baby, and took a few years in the making.

The movie has been winning critical acclaim all over the place. It has been released on the internet under a creative commons license, so it is essentially freeware, starting a new movement in the distribution of digital media.

I saw the movie a while back when it aired on PBS back in New York, and was very impressed. I was going to write about it but somehow missed. Better late than never, like Ram once said.

More information about the film on the official site. Try to watch it if you already haven’t.

Happy Dussehra, BTW!

There’s a new song in town.

Not just any song, but a Kylie Minogue song. For a Bollywood flick.

Yes sirs, the same Kylie Minogue who gave us Red blooded Woman and Cant get you out of my head. The same Kylie whose album has stayed on my ipod for a couple years now, when others came and went away.

As excited as i was, the song came across as a bummer. The movie is called Blue, the song is titled, of all titles, Chiggy Wiggy, and the music has been composed by AR Oscar Rehman.

“Three days – that’s all it took,” she revealed. “I presented Rahman the award at the BAFTA, next day we met to discuss the concept of the song and the lyrics, the third day we recorded! [link]

Maybe they should have spent a little more than the three days on the song. It could have been a completely different story, and a much nicer one at that.

It may not be the worst song doing the rounds, but certainly not what you expect from the promising team of Rehman and Minogue. Not when you could buy a few singers for life for what her highness was paid for the song.

A million dollars. That’s about Rs 5 crore!

If Shashi Tharoor’s suite cost $1000 a night, then he could live in five star luxury for three years for that sort of moolah. Not too long back, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja gained fame as the most expensive movie ever. The total cost of the movie, if i remember correctly, about $2 million.

I mean, if you are spending so much on a song, at least give it a better title than the ridiculous Chiggy Wiggy. And maybe even some lyrics.

As it turns out, the Rs 125 crore movie has gotten too expensive for distributors, and seems to be in a bit of a soup. As reported here, looks like the millions dollar song might even end up getting panned.

Seems like Blue is in for the Blues.

Till a few years ago, India’s claim to fame used to be Taj Mahal (For most people the one in Agra. The Beer for some others), spicy food, cows, snake charmers, and poor, naked people. The past decade has added another important entry to this list. Call centers. Millions of Indians working late night shifts answering customers’ calls are the new face of India.

They speak flawless English with American accents. They may be sitting in Gurgaon but go by Michael, Jennifer, or Elizabeth. They sleep in the day and work at night. They may be thousands of miles from America, they most often have never even been to the country, but spend most of their time talking to Americans. The brave men and women of Indian Call Centers.

Is it possible for these people to lose perspective along the way? Is it possible for them to start identifying more with American culture and ethos as compared to the country where they actually live?

More interestingly, is it possible for them to actually fall for the people they talk to over the phone?

That is the plot of the 2008 movie The Other End of the Line. The movie was co-produced by Ashok Amritraj, and a joint effort between Adlabs and MGM.

Priya Sethi (Shriya Saran) works at a call center for a bank. Priya by day, Jennifer by night.

(more…)

Journalism is probably one of the most fascinating professions out there. The media has an important role to play in modern society and could act as a very efficient tool towards smooth and accountable functioning of the various facets of modern society. The media can serve as a watchdog that keeps governments in check. It can serve as the medium that binds society together. It can be the perfect channel for spreading public awareness on critical contemporary issues.

Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. There are many factors at play, economics being one of the prominent ones. Then political ideologies sometimes creep in, and objectivity goes for a spin thereafter.

I saw two outstanding films this past week, both pertaining to journalism. One of them talked about the dirty side of the business, and the other was the story of a woman’s fight to uphold her journalistic principles. These are probably among the most powerful movies i have seen in recent times. Credit to Mrs Amreekandesi for rummaging through Blockbuster to find these gems.

Shattered Glass (IMDB)

This movie tells the true story of Stephen Glass, a reporter with a magazine called The New Republic. Glass is a young guy eager to make his mark. To get that extra edge he starts cooking up incredible stories devoid of any truth altogether. This goes on for a while before he gets caught up in this web of deception and his story on hacking titled ‘Hack Heaven‘ comes under scrutiny only to reveal that none of the colorful details portrayed in the story were true.

The real Stephen Glass got caught in 1998 after Hack Heaven was investigated by Forbes reporter Adam Penenberg and found to be an utter lie. It was later discovered that 27 of the 41 stories Glass wrote over the years were fabricated.

Shattered Glass is a fascinating, gripping drama.

More importantly, it raises a very important question regarding journalistic integrity. Given the commercialization of journalism, just how high are the chances of reporters fabricating facts that cannot be otherwise verified, to create a more entertaining story? Can we trust anything we read in our favorite newspaper/magazine?

I was reminded of that news item from a flooding incident a few years back where this news reporter was sitting in a canoe in water, giving the impression that there was such incredible flooding that you had to use boats to commute. As she was doing her bit on live television, a person walked right past her. There was barely a few inches of water on the road!

Our Indian news channels have become experts at over the top sensationalism these past few years, and i have always wondered how much of what they say is fact and how much is exaggeration, if not absolute fiction.

Media was supposed to be the watchdog of society. Who watches the media if it decides to go in a different direction?

(more…)

Every once in a while, you come across movies that stay with you. Movies that make you think. Movies where you pause between mouthfuls of popcorn to actually absorb whats going on.

Every once in a while, we see a movie such as Slumdog Millionaire.

The movie is a Hollywood movie based in India, has an Indian cast that speaks English (mostly), the music is Indian (AR Rahman got nominated for a Golden Globe for the music of this movie), and the India portrayed is very Indian.

The director Danny Boyle, is no Aditya Chopra. No nonsense. No song and dance. In your face. To the point.

The movie is about this young guy who wins two Crore rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire is his story.

(more…)

Remember those days when you loved chewing gum? You could go on and on for hours at stretch, before finally getting sick and tired of having the rubbery piece travel between the various extremities of your mouth.

Sometimes film makers do that with movies. And we get Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. It starts off fun and happy, but drags on and on for hours before you start wishing for it to end.

Shahrukh Khan is King. No doubts about that. He is the king who never seems to age. Or so we used to think till his 43 years started peeking through the 25 year old facade somewhere in the middle of the song and dance and fooling around.

Reminds me of one of those Math questions from high school. 8 years back he could play kids 10 years younger, but in 7 years he will be double the age of those kids as of today.

(more…)

For the non punjabis, this phrase means ‘i know you’. Coming from Steve Carell’s mouth, it doesnt quite sound like punjabi though.

In a blink-your-ears-and-miss-it moment from the super fun movie Get Smart, this is precisely what he says to the Indian Giant in the WWE, popularly known as ‘The Great Khali‘.

The first time I didn’t even realize what he was saying. Then it hit me…this weird thing that Mr Carell is saying while getting bashed up by a seven feet tall monster human  is actually punjabi!

(Image courtesy:allposters.com)

Talking of Steve Carell, i just love this guy. His character in ‘The Office‘ is so insanely awkwardly horribly sadistically nasty, yet sometimes he comes across as a person you just feel for. He grosses me out most of the times, yet i don’t hate him as much as i think i could.

Back to the topic…watch the movie if you are a Steve Carell fan. Actually watch it if you are an Anne Hathaway fan, a Rock fan, or a Khali fan. Or if you simply feel like going out and having some fun!

So me and the missus went to watch Sarkar Raj. The Verdict: Disappointing.

I was mightily impressed with Sarkar, and was looking forward to Sarkar II. But this movie seemed more like an advertisement for the great Bachchan family, and their loyalty to the state of Maharashtra.

More about that later…

About the movie. Big Daddy Bachchan is still going strong; a kingmaker who blesses the government as well as anything of importance that happens in the state. Small Bachhan (Chhote Sarkar, anyone?) meanwhile has grown up and is taking the ‘business’ forward.

Who is Sarkar? Is he a gangster? Seems too socially inclined to be that. He is the Hero, and portrayed as a people’s hero. But whats the place for such characters in a democracy? A person who is so poweful that he is bigger than the government?

Anyway, the Bacchan bahu rani Aishwarya (NRI industrialist) wants to setup a power plant in the state that would displace just some 40,000 people. Sarkar doesn’t like this social injustice, but Chhote Sarkar feels this is good for the long term benefit of the state. And this is the movie’s entire premise.

“It will solve all our power problems”
“For long term gains we would have to overlook short term losses”

(Image courtesy: moviewallah.com)

Here the electrical engineer in me winced at some numbers. The project cost is Rs 200,000 crore, which translates into 50 billion dollars. All this money for just 5000 MW. As far as i know this money might get you some 10 times that much electricity. Plus there is mention of Rs 20,000 crore profit in the first year! Power plants have long gestation periods and take a long time to make money. Little technicalities…

This movie is a family drama…the Bachchan family drama. Hum saath saath hain they sang…

(more…)

We always think about Mahatma Gandhi as the freedom fighter, fighting for India’s independence, leading millions of people in protest against the British, liberating the country in his own unique way. What about Gandhi the person, a husband and father of four children?

The movie Gandhi My Father takes a close look at one of Mahatma Gandhi’s life’s biggest personal regrets. A rare movie that talks about his family and the problems in his own personal life. That he was able to rise above them in achieving what he did is just an illustration of his being the great man that he was.

It isn’t easy being great. It is harder being a father when you have greater things to achieve. This movie is about Gandhi and his relationship with his eldest son, Harilal Gandhi.

(more…)

A few days back i saw a screening of this movie called Outsourced at the South Asian International Film Festival SAIFF. This movie is about an American guy whose company outsources his work to a call center in India, and sends him to train the person who was going to be his replacement manage that call center! Interesting enough for a dekko.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LImhTTFu4b8&rel=1]

So our man, the hero - Josh Hamilton, very reluctantly travels to India because his stock options are all locked and quitting the job would mean he loses it all. Very valid reason. Smart man.

He lands at the Mumbai Bombay airport only to be surrounded by about 1000 taxi drivers (Ok. I added a zero to that to add some spice. Btw hero likes spicy food, and the boss made that a point for him to come to India). He finally picks a guy who turns out be be, well, an Autorikshaw driver! Funny scene that one.

What does Mr white guy eat first thing in India? A gola (some sort of ice cream. Only with ice and no cream). Obviously his stomach doesn’t quite like it. Then he is taken to auntyji’s guest house. Aunty looked like the ba of tulsi fame. A typical indian woman who doesn’t like the fact that hero is not married despite being so old (a little over 30), or that he doesn’t live with his parents, or that he eats with his left hand (Please. i am not going to describe the reason for that. Go watch the movie if you must know)

(more…)

Chak De! India is one of the best movies to have come out of the Bollywood factories in recent years. The beauty of the movie lies in the fact that besides being a thoroughly enjoyable movie, it effortlessly raises so many relevant issues.

The issue of national pride. What a classic moment when Shahrukh tells the team that they are from India, not Haryana or Jharkhand or Railways. “Play for your country first, then for your team, and if anything’s left after that then maybe for yourself”.

How many of us actually care about India ? Everybody seems to want to take her for a ride. Make a fast buck…country be damned.

(more…)