Bollywood

CharactersRani Mukherji as BadkiBadki is a fun-loving and happy-go-lucky girl, drunk on OCTAVIUS: He’s a tried and valiant soldier. ANTONY: So is my horse, Octavius; and for that I do appoint him store of provender.
the masti of Banaras, but with eyes as crystal clear and innocent as the waters of the sacred Ganga. If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Her life is full of laughter and the love of her family. When problems crop up, she takes them in I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain. An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a “quarter-metre square.” That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimate of 1 1/2 square metres; that’s a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate.’ A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven’t seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist’s poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. ‘How can there be such disagreement?’ How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don’t know, but I’m on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field.
her stride, not letting them tarnish her smile. So when the family falls upon bad days, and her The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
studies are stopped, she just girds her loins and helps her mother to keep things going. Protective There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.
to a fault, she shields her younger sister Chutki from the problems dogging the family. She is A man that advances in spiritual and in temporal matters at the same time, minding to keep the spiritual first, will not let the temporal lead him; he will not place his heart upon his farm, his horses, or any possession that he has. He will place his desires in heaven, and will anchor his hope in that eternal soil; and his temporal affairs will come up as he advances in the knowledge of God.
deeply hurt though, when her father keeps wishing she was born a son. Even when the going gets I am not basically a conservationist. When the last great whale is slaughtered, as it surely will be, the whales’ suffering will be over. This is not the whales’ loss, but man’s. I am not concerned about the wiping out of a species — this is man’s folly — I have only one concern, the suffering which we deliberately inflict upon animals whilst they live.
tougher, and she finds herself battling the hard and ruthless city of Mumbai, she does not buckle In this temple As in the hearts of the people For whom he saved the Union The memory of Abraham Lincoln Is enshrined forever
under, but faces it all with exemplary courage. And she does not hesitate in paying the highest Plant on a whim. Lay the footpath where your heart says it should be. Change things because you feel like it. Garden for the love of it.
price to support her family.Konkona Sen Sharma as ChutkiChutki is a spunky spirited and crazy young The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to serve others as much as possible.
girl, with eyes that sparkle with mischief. Playing pranks on her hapless victims, teasing her Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction.
sister Badki, and harassing her parents are her favourite pastimes, but she also loves her family Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
with a fierce passion. Innocent and protected from the harsh circumstances of her family by Badki Since you have to do the things you have to do, be wise enough to do some of the things you want to do.
and their mother, she revels in their love. Gifted with a sharp and intelligent mind, she is unaware Death is a part of life, each individual should be permitted the time to deal with it in his own chosen way
of the sacrifices Badki is making to keep her education going. When she moves to the big city, she After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.
finds a wide open sky to open her wings and soar. She excels at work, and actually finds a man who Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
loves her with all her madness and eccentricities. Jaya Bachchan as SabitriSabitri is the backbone Real improvement in our schools is not simply a matter of spending more, it is a matter of expecting more.
and anchor of the Sahay family. She bears the brunt of every crisis the family encounters. She is He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose. . . .
dismayed as she sees her husband turn bitter with his failures and turn away from the family. She In America the geography is sublime, but the men are not; the inventions are excellent, but the inventors one is sometimes ashamed of.
works hard, making both ends meet, protecting her daughters, facing up to menacing relatives. But The possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason.
her husband’s illness is the last straw that breaks her spirit.Alone, bewildered, she leans hard on Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
Badki, her only solace. In her crisis, she does not realize when Badki has reached her own breaking The greatest attribute of Heaven is mercy.
point. And she is the only one who bears the burden of the terrible knowledge of Badki’s enormous Ask with urgency and passion.
sacrifices. Sabitri tries hard to ferret out a future for her family from the hard unyielding If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
circumstances of her life. Anupam Kher as Shivshankar SahayShivshankar Sahay is a retired professor Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
of Economics who has turned bitter and pessimistic after his pension was unfairly suspended by the Beloved, let the fact of what our Lord suffered for you grip you, and you will never again be the same.
college. Instead of fighting against the resulting poverty, he has accepted defeat, and hopes that We’d all vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.
the numerous lottery tickets he buys will land him a fortune that will bring back the glorious days Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.
of the past. He vents his frustration on his family, and particularly his elder daughter Badki, as Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time.
he believes that things would have been different had she been born a son. He strongly opposes Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.
Badki’s departure for the big city, predicting that she will fail to achieve anything. All this It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
comes back to him when he discovers the enormity of the struggle and sacrifice that Badki had to go A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
through. Kunal Kapoor as VivaanVivaan is a living embodiment of Indian youth today. Irreverent, The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
iconoclastic, totally laidback, yetvery good at what he does. He is rude, messy, and unfazed about A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; A never dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky.
his lack of manners. Full of wit and humor, he loves a laugh, wherever and by whichever means he can The cat could very well be man’s best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.
get it. Typical of the urban youth, he does not have a clue as to how the rest of India lives. So Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.
when Chutki joins his advertising agency, he dismisses her as a small town girl. But Chutki’s spunk, Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.
spirit, and insights blow him away. She matches him barb for barb, retort for retort and he finds Where Nature’s end of language is declin’d, And men talk only to conceal the mind.
that he is headover heels in love. Vivaan and Chutki’s chemistry is so potent; they set off sparks How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
when they are in the same room. For her, he is willing to go to the end of the world, or on his Dr. Livingstone, I presume?
knees. Abhishek Bachchan as RohanRohan is a highly educated and world-renowned attorney, sought Be sincere. Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you.
after throughout the world for his expertise. However, inside this suave and smart young man resides There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendancy over all others.
a mischievous, impish spirit. When he encounters Badki this spirit takes over completely. Bowled I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it.
over totally by Badki’sinnocence and guilelessness, he is intrigued by her homegrown wisdom and her When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
deep faith too. This chance encounter leads to a bit of stolen time for both, when the child inside “Do you not realize that the whole thing is miraculous? It is exactly as though you were to cut off your wife’s leg, stick it in the lawn, and be greeted on the following day by an entirely new woman, sprung from the leg, advancing across the lawn to meet you. Surely, you would be surprised if, having snipped off your little finger, and pushed it into a flower pot, you were to find a miniature edition of yourself in the flower pot a day later.”
Badki makes her acquaintance with the imp inside Rohan. They forget the rest of the world as they The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and in short you are for ever floored.
revel in each other’s company. What is happening between the two is like a flower just beginning to Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.
blossom. But the harsh realities of their lives intervene, and the magic is shattered. Rohan is The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its ‘debt’ in the penitentiary or the poor house.
determined to get to the crux of things, but will he be able to handle what he discovers? Be yourself, but always your better self.
SynopsisBadki and Chutki live a fun-filled life in Banaras, playing pranks, sneaking off to see a Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
forbiddenmujra, and soaking up all the excitement that goes on the ghats of the Ganga. Badki is Love is love’s reward.
aware that the family is in dire straits, but she and her mother protect Chutki at all costs. When Calm on the listening ear of night Come Heaven’s melodious strains, Where wild Judea stretches far Her silver-mantled plains.
things get worse, Badki decides to go to Mumbai and seek a living for the family. Alone and It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.
unsupported in the midst of the urban jungle of Mumbai, Badki battles with dark forces, keeping her These guys from the nation’s capital — now they do a lot of thinking. Referring to boxers from D.C., not politicians.
focus on her purpose to support her family and continue Chutki’s education. She deliberately morphs I can’t stand a ballplayer who plays in fear.
into someone else, leading a secret life full of murky compromises.When Chutki comes to Mumbai to The lunatic fringe in all reform movements.
work, things take a dramatic turn. Badki’s life turns into aminefield, as she has to hide her We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
secrets from Chutki. Chutki finds success at work, and love thatdelights her heart. Badki finds the It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
magic of love, but lets it slip away before it can blossom, as she believes it’s not in her destiny. Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
She battles menace and blackmail alone, not letting these dark shadows fall on Chutki or her family. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
But her dual life is revealed, and the two sisters are face to face, in a confrontation neither Forever most divinely in the wrong.
hadexpected. And when love beckons Badki again, the whole family is thrown in a tumultuousstorm. We cannot dispair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings.
Everything threatens to explode in their faces, destroying all of them. Will Badki get the happy Let us seek to reign nobly on the throne of our highest self for just a single day, filling every moment of every hour with our finest, unselfish best. Then there would come to us such a vision of the golden glory of the sunlit heights, such a glad, glowing tonic of the higher levels of life, that we could never dwell again in the darkened valley of ordinary living without feeling shut in, stifled, and hungry for the freer air and the broader outlook.
ending she deserves? Or will the shadows of her past douse the lamps of hope? Will her secrets ruin An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.
Chutki’s happiness? Can their parents face up to all this?

Original post by Pankaj