new hobby after a "brief" hiatus
इत्स अनोत्हर वीक्दे मोरनिंग woah...watzis
okay...this place has definitely changed. I've been gone that long?
There hasn't been too much going on. Most days start exactly like this one. Unless I'm in lab, I spend hours sipping on chai and watching the nth episode of the Gimore Girls for the nth time. Then I consider the prospect of practicing some Yoga and usually ditch the idea in favor of sipping on chai for a longer while. Before I know it, its noon and its time for the most important event of the day... Lunch . Post lunch, its hardly any time at all before its time to go back home and make some more chai. And then sip on it.
4th year's turning out to be the chillest (chill-i-est? imagine that, one i can entirely change the temperature of a word!) ever...there's too much time to bum around, too much time between classes and too few deadlines. And it suits me just fine. Don't get me wrong, its not a good idea to slack through your FYP...in fact, lab is one of the more serious, organized areas of my life but considering that I work with protiens (with proteins? sheesh...as if they were people) now, that have a mind of their own (like some people, in fact), its usually weeks before I have any results worth writing home about it. In fact, such an opportunity is so rare, that I haven't written home in months (figuratively speaking).
Since I don't want to talk about that achy-breaky feeling in my heart (which might just be my asthma acting up), we shall talk about other things that have recently occupied the minuscule margin of my mind that's reserved for the examination of things like Indian Popular Cinema and such.
Laaga Chunri Mein Daag
( I imagine that the people concerned with the making of this film, saw the full length horror of it for the first time, covered their faces and sang the second line in between wails... "dikhaoon kaise...!?")
Its a baad film. On several counts.
Its beyond me how the same person who made Parineeta, could make this film. But then, as a friend pointed out, the story of Parineeta had only to be scripted from a well-loved novel.
In short- its a baad film. But I must admit, the actresses (Uh.. sorry, I mean female actors {wtf}), sport some totally covetable ethnic-wear. Otherwise, totally waste.
To make up for this highly disagreeable experience, God sent to the earth a cutesy romantic comedy called-
Jab We Met.
On any given day, I will tell you that I detest Kareena Kapoor's guts. Now that I've seen this film, I hate them (her guts) even more. Because as another friend pointed out, in this movie you can almost see how the Shahid-Kareena romance might have flowered (and then she had to go and ruin it). But freaky fan-sentiments aside, what I mean to say is that their chemistry on screen is S-O-L-I-D. But that's hardly the best thing about this film.
Lets see...where do I begin.
O yes, the dialogue, definitely. It's like listening to a conversation between you and your friends. The lines just dawdle down the screen, like it was lifted off of an ordinary day from the ordinary people of urban India. The sad, sad little industrialist boy Aditya meets an unreasonably happy (and go-lucky) Sikhni girl Geet, on a train. Now she could have pissed you off with her uncomplicatedly rosy take on life (Geet could so easily have been a different kind of "Lucky"-if you remember the one with no time for love?). But the character sketch is so thorough and the exchange between the two so crisply hilarious, that you start to love this girl with the balls to be so shamelessly happy in this big ugly world, even though those guts are brought to life by those of Kareena Kapoor (which, as I mentioned, hate).
Other things I like about the movie:
But instead, the script writer just ignores all those time tested rules and makes the girl say (and I translate),
"You really like me, don't you?!"
and then makes the boy say,
"Oh yes. But you don't worry about that, its my problem, really."
Pleasant little surprises like these are littered about this film so unselfconsciously, that I feel its only fair to overlook a mild dose of cheeziness that has also crept in. Its forgivable. They'll do better next time, you can just see that much promise floating around for this wonderful new director, Imtiaz Ali (this is his second movie).
So grab your friends and go watch this film as soon as you have a free evening, I say.
There hasn't been too much going on. Most days start exactly like this one. Unless I'm in lab, I spend hours sipping on chai and watching the nth episode of the Gimore Girls for the nth time. Then I consider the prospect of practicing some Yoga and usually ditch the idea in favor of sipping on chai for a longer while. Before I know it, its noon and its time for the most important event of the day... Lunch . Post lunch, its hardly any time at all before its time to go back home and make some more chai. And then sip on it.
4th year's turning out to be the chillest (chill-i-est? imagine that, one i can entirely change the temperature of a word!) ever...there's too much time to bum around, too much time between classes and too few deadlines. And it suits me just fine. Don't get me wrong, its not a good idea to slack through your FYP...in fact, lab is one of the more serious, organized areas of my life but considering that I work with protiens (with proteins? sheesh...as if they were people) now, that have a mind of their own (like some people, in fact), its usually weeks before I have any results worth writing home about it. In fact, such an opportunity is so rare, that I haven't written home in months (figuratively speaking).
Since I don't want to talk about that achy-breaky feeling in my heart (which might just be my asthma acting up), we shall talk about other things that have recently occupied the minuscule margin of my mind that's reserved for the examination of things like Indian Popular Cinema and such.
Laaga Chunri Mein Daag
( I imagine that the people concerned with the making of this film, saw the full length horror of it for the first time, covered their faces and sang the second line in between wails... "dikhaoon kaise...!?")
Its a baad film. On several counts.
- Its a baad film that actually portrays grooming to be a high class hooker analogous to grooming for a career in modelling.
- Its a bad film that wastes the beauteous Hema Malini, (who has preserved that youthful, angel-faced glow by drinking glasses of bittergourd juice day after day, year after year), do a hideous Mujra that only stops a little short of looking cheap.
- Its a baad film with Jaya Bacchan wasting a "Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa" performance on a worthless B-grade role.
- Its a bad film that makes it seem that every small town girl who doesnt know "kampyootter" can't make a living in big, baad mumbhaidoing things like stitching or tailoring (which incidentally, Rani's character actually puts on her RESUME in the film) or as a "Meena fancy store" shop keeper girl...or something, anything other than as a hooker.
- Its a baad film which, I imagine, that a reasonably good actor like Kunal Kapoor and a brilliant actress like Konkona Sen, were most certainly extorted into doing.
Its beyond me how the same person who made Parineeta, could make this film. But then, as a friend pointed out, the story of Parineeta had only to be scripted from a well-loved novel.
In short- its a baad film. But I must admit, the actresses (Uh.. sorry, I mean female actors {wtf}), sport some totally covetable ethnic-wear. Otherwise, totally waste.
To make up for this highly disagreeable experience, God sent to the earth a cutesy romantic comedy called-
Jab We Met.
On any given day, I will tell you that I detest Kareena Kapoor's guts. Now that I've seen this film, I hate them (her guts) even more. Because as another friend pointed out, in this movie you can almost see how the Shahid-Kareena romance might have flowered (and then she had to go and ruin it). But freaky fan-sentiments aside, what I mean to say is that their chemistry on screen is S-O-L-I-D. But that's hardly the best thing about this film.
Lets see...where do I begin.
O yes, the dialogue, definitely. It's like listening to a conversation between you and your friends. The lines just dawdle down the screen, like it was lifted off of an ordinary day from the ordinary people of urban India. The sad, sad little industrialist boy Aditya meets an unreasonably happy (and go-lucky) Sikhni girl Geet, on a train. Now she could have pissed you off with her uncomplicatedly rosy take on life (Geet could so easily have been a different kind of "Lucky"-if you remember the one with no time for love?). But the character sketch is so thorough and the exchange between the two so crisply hilarious, that you start to love this girl with the balls to be so shamelessly happy in this big ugly world, even though those guts are brought to life by those of Kareena Kapoor (which, as I mentioned, hate).
Other things I like about the movie:
- I like the way they include an obscure Ratlam, one of those ugly little shanty towns that you pass by on long train journeys across north India, with its of Hotel Decent (s) (LMAO).
- I love that Geet's family in Bhatinda do not live in an impossible white washed haveli (you know, the ones with a living room as big as a football field, complete with a sweeping staircase in the living room that could fit 5 elephants standing breadthwise), but is one of those carelessly planned small town "terrace" homes from the 70's that's completely believable.
- I like the way the Grandfather of the house looks at Geet's halter top and says" Agar tum yeh pehankar ghar aayi ho, to Mumbai mein nanga ghoomti hogi!", yet is spared from giving long lectures about bharat ki sanskriti and such (which is a right this role may have totally abused).
- Similarly,
- Geet is spared from playing te stereotypical bimbo( she thinks, this one),
- Aditya is spared from being the stereotypical Knight in shining armor- (he doesn't save her and then claim her, rather just saves her and steps out of the way) and
- The Punjabi family is spared from brandishing stereotypical hockey sticks when Geet comes back home with her lover 9 months after eloping.
But instead, the script writer just ignores all those time tested rules and makes the girl say (and I translate),
"You really like me, don't you?!"
and then makes the boy say,
"Oh yes. But you don't worry about that, its my problem, really."
Pleasant little surprises like these are littered about this film so unselfconsciously, that I feel its only fair to overlook a mild dose of cheeziness that has also crept in. Its forgivable. They'll do better next time, you can just see that much promise floating around for this wonderful new director, Imtiaz Ali (this is his second movie).
So grab your friends and go watch this film as soon as you have a free evening, I say.