Bollywood

  After a month long vacation, there was quite a lot of backlog that He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
I had accumulated when it came to Bollywood and Hollywood flicks. And guess what I was ignorant Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace, The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
about most? That in the interim there was this Tamil film that had released which ultimately turned What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
out to be the first film that I wanted to watch as soon as I landed back into the town!No Jhoom No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
Barabar Jhoom, no Ocean’s Thirteen, no Shrek 3, no Chain Kulli Ki Main Kulli no Fantastic Four - I’ve always believed that it’s important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure.
what I wanted to catch up was, you guessed it right, SIVAJI! Not that I won’t be catching up on the Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
flicks mentioned above, yes I certainly would, but then within a couple of hours of landing, I Encouragement isa a necessary part of supervision.
marched straight to catch the first available show of Sivaji at my neighborhood multiplex. ‘No We give advice, we do not inspire conduct.
English subtitles sir’, I was told by the Box Office attendant. ‘Oh no’, I sighed. Quick I The apple of his eye.
ring up by my Chennai based Tamilian buddy Bala and he promised that it definitely was not a bad Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
idea at all to watch the flick even without subtitles. It’s a lethal combination of Rajni and Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odors, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.
Shankar, he educated me, and I won’t miss out on all the adrenalin rush even if I won’t understand a All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
word. He turned out to be so very right! Yes, first one hour into the film did make me feel that Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.
Sivaji was a lot more hype than it actually warranted. In fact, the endless wooing scenes between Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.
Rajni and Shreya Saran [I am looking forward to seeing her again in Awarapan today] were turning out Christmas parable: The stable boy had finished work that day, Had filled the manger with new, fragrant hay, Had fed the beasts, and usually would sleep Snuggled for warmth among the placid sheep; But not tonight, for he’d conceived a plan To join a merchant’s camel caravan And travel to far places. He had heard Exciting tales of cities which had stirred His longing for adventure. He would go Where things were happening; his friends would know Why he had gone. He often said to them, “Oh, nothing happens here in bethlehem.” He looked back once, before they traveled far, And wondered vaguely: why that brilliant star?
to be yawny and oh-so-predictable. An occasional chilly scene did bring on laughs but references to Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.
a couple of dark skinned neighborhood girls seemed in bad taste. I started wondering what the big O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
deal about the entire film was. Agreed that the screen sparkled whenever Rajni along with his buddy [upon losing the use of his right eye] Now I will have less distraction.
[I would love to see this guy do some light hearted stuff in Bollywood too!] struggled with all the if i should enter the house and speak with my own voice, at last, about its awful furnitutre, pulling apart the covering over the dusty bodies; the randy father, the husband holding ice in his hand like a blessing, the mother bleeding into herself and the small imploding girl, i say if i should walk into that web, who will come flying after me, leaping tall buildings? you?
politicians and bureaucrats of the world to get their 200 crore project in place, but then the Sweet springtime is my time is your time is our time for springtime is love time and viva sweet love.
expectations were a lot higher. Yes, this is where Shankar came to fore as one could remember the I believe I’ve found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.
treatment in his earlier films like Gentleman, Indian and Nayak where he showed a common man trying A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.
to fight against the establishment. But then the trouble was that after every such interesting The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
sequence, there was a song or a romantic rendezvous that seemed like a painful roadblock. Make voyages! Attempt them . . . there’s nothing else.
Thankfully, Shankar still kept the film sailing smooth by bringing on the antagonist Adi [the guy is Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to abate it by setting genius-traps in its way.
a powerhouse on screen!] at regular interval who seemed like just the right opponent for Rajni. You Why do they put the Gideon Bibles only in the bedrooms, where its usually too late, and not in the barroom downstairs?
want to see more of him. You want to see more of him v/s Rajni. You want the drama to revolve around Frustration is when you have ulcers but still aren’t a success.
the two BIG guys. Shankar teases you by depriving you of all the fun. And action! And soon you know The things taught in colleges and school are not an education but a means to an education.
that it is due to all the right reasons. Because soon after the 200-crore-ka-maalik Sivaji is turned There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.
into a pauper and a one rupee coin is handed over to him by Adi, you know that it is going to be Babies don’t need fathers, but mothers do. Someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of.
drama time soon. Intermission sign is flashed and there is such a buzz in the auditorium that it has It is the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin it.
to be experienced to be believed. Ok, so the character of System Software Architect Sivaji who has Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better.
returned from US couldn’t get into the ‘typical’ Rajni mode all through the first half but then the No man is born unto himself alone; Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.
second half more than makes up for it. And how! The coming-back-to-power game of Sivaji begins as he Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: — ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’
transitions into THE BOSS who forms his own team to extract all the black money from across the It is hard to be truly excellent, four-square in hand and foot and mind, formed without blemish.
globe. He gets into the riches once again as he forms his own private government and creates an The strictly logical mind is usually if not always at fault in its valuations of that defiantly illogical thing known as human nature.
establishment to serve the poor. The Robinhood act is hard to be missed and though there are those No memory is ever alone; it’s at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.
predictable moments, what the heck! I was thoroughly enjoying them even though there are some Nayak When men speak ill of you, live so as nobody may believe them.
references with all the red tapes being cut and the signatures being taken, by hook or by crook! The You cannot do anything by doing nothing.
drama is compelling and Rajni moments are also into force. Big time! The tricks are all there. So God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
much for the Rajni fans, you know! And it is not difficult to imagine that there would be many more Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!
of the clan after the release of the flick. Goggles keep swirling in the air with utmost charm, In love there are things — bodies and words.
coins keep moving one palm to another while defying gravity, a jeep races over a dozen odd other big The heart that loves is always young.
cars while throwing them in air as if they were sleeping dogs on a pavement. But mother of all If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come back empty-handed. The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.
stunts take place in the per-climax song when a revolver thrown by Rajni finds its own target, Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
shoots it and returns back like a boomerang into his hands. Well, there is one more. A bullet racing People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
towards Rajni manages to reach him but stops millimeters away from his forehead. And now as he No day is so bad that it can not be fixed by a good nap.
walks, it continues to move back too. Yes, I got my money’s worth by this time. But then there was It is legal because I wish it.
more to come. And this was not just the gimmicks/style but some real drama. After an attempt on his PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
life, Sivaji returns back in his new avtar. And this is what one calls style. One would have never Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
imagined being bald to be so cool, but Rajni makes it all so plausible! This time around he is Roses red, and violets blue, And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.
called MGR and just when it seemed that the movie had come to an end with a possible sequel being in There is nothing of which we are apt to be so lavish as of time, and about which we ought to be more solicitous; since without it we can do nothing in this world.
the mind of the writer, there are some more intense scenes between him and Adi to follow. The 3 hour It is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions. On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons
film comes to an end with a Matrix style choreographed action sequence and the seetis-and-taalis are It was a saying of Demetrius Phalereus, that “Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had, — being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity.”
eae deafening. If this is the kind of frenzy in Delhi, what would be the kind of scene down South, I People. I knew some of them, but not now. On the moon, I wander among the many pot holes. Their shadows make me feel planet-stricken. Display model #1: Clusters of magnetic liquids. I would like to uncover the mystery of the scrim. Will I rise to the occasion when it decides to fall by? A tiny walled-off angel lays an egg. A secret life-the ruminations of a creature that walks without legs, eats without a mouth, breathes without lungs, feels without nerves, then divides and conquers. What happens when you try to squeeze a puddle of gravity in your hand? It dissolves into hundreds of silver eggs. Me too. The incubation period was over. Display model #2: People backed up into a dark corner. Unearthed puzzle, the same the moon all over. Next stage? Parachute, the final explanation arising as I make my slow descent.
wonder? My friend was right. I didn’t miss on any of the fun even though the only words I could Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and thought of other things if you did.
understand were a few mouthed in English. The hype was worth it, I realize, even as I move out of Eldorado Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old — This knight so bold — And o’er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow — “Shadow,” said he, “Where can it be — This land of Eldorado?” “Over the mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,” The shade replied — “If you seek for Eldorado!”
the theater promising myself to catch it again as and when it came in it’s Hindi dubbed version or Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.
with English subtitles. Yes, I am a little guilty about the fact that I ignored a few movies, Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
especially Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Ocean’s Thirteen over Sivaji but I can convince myself that after If you seek a lovely peninsula, look about you. —Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice
all it was worth it. I will certainly give each of the backlog films also a dekko but till then I am Never wound a snake, kill it.
sure the Sivaji hangover would be hard to resist. After all it is due to all the right reasons that Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt.
when Rajnikant’s name flashes in the opening title rolls of each of his films, it is prefixed with I saw two clouds at morning Tinged by the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on And mingled into one.
SUPERSTAR. Yes, he truly is!  

Original post by kapil