All the Best ... Paisa Vasool

3 movies releasing on Diwali long weekend. How do you decide which one to go after? Well after so much of marketing hype with each one claiming to be the best, you just make a pick. BLUE was simply not chosen because it was over-marketed. Also I had already burnt my fingers, sorry wallet, on a similar Akshay Kumar movie (Kambakht Ishq). Mr & Mrs Khanna was left for DVD viewing.

So we end up watching All The Best. Interestingly, the 9pm show on the first day was half empty. So we started the movie by wondering whether it was a wrong decision.

The movie is Ajay Devgn’s production (please note there is no spelling mistake. Mr. Ajay has dropped an “a” for good luck). And he sure has got it this time because this movie was certainly a sparkler.
Don’t bother about the plot, storyline, sense, logic because Rohit Shetty’s movies defy all of it. Rohit Shetty who shot to fame with the Golmal sequels (which by the way also propelled Ajay to comic league) has advanced this time. The movie is much better than his previous two. The movie revolves around the usual confusion, chaos, madness and too many characters intertwined for a common cause.

But that one thing that makes the movie clicks is its one-liners which in most cases are first-class. And they keep coming again and again and again making the movie a series of PJs, jokes and in some cases double entendres (though very subtle and unless heard properly might have gone unnoticed). Their timings are really good so the credit should be given to the editing team. The conversation between Sanjay Dutt and RGV (sorry don’t know his real name) on “Geeta ka Saar” is just one of the many examples.

Among the main star cast, Sanjay Dutt is the best with his low voiced perfect witty andaz. In fact the movie picks up only after his entry. He seems to have found his genre as he himself says in one of the dialogues… “comedy to abhi start ki hai … 30 saal se to action kar raha tha..”. Ajay Devgn does a classic Arshad Warsi while Fardeen Khan is his usual self. His role is ditto replica to some of his other multi-starrer comedies for instance No Entry. Bipasha is OK and Mugdha doesn’t have much screen presence. The real show stealers of the movie are the satellite actors, many of who are from Rohit Shetty’s earlier movies. Each one of them are perfectly cast for their roles and they all give their best.

The movie is shot in Goa and any paint company could have used it for in-branding promotions because the movie is full of vibrant colors.

Over all the movie is as people say “paisa vasool”. Just leave your brains at home and have fun!

Wake Up Sid...A fine refreshing film...

No twists, no turns, no drama sequences. The entire movie moves in a straight predictable way, yet thoroughly enjoyable.

Both Ranbir and Konkona are brilliant. While powerful acting is expected out of Konkona who has created her own niche in cinema, Ranbir really brings life to the character of Siddharth Mehra (Sid). A confused teen, who is not sure of what he wants to achieve in life, is well portrayed by him. In fact by the end of the movie, you feel that this character couldn’t have been played better by anyone else. Supriya Pathak and Anupam Kher also suit their roles. Supriya trying hard to meet the expectations of a modern mother. Kashmira adds to the glam quotient. I don’t remember seeing her after “Yes Boss”.

There are very few movies made in Indian cinema wherein a hero will be shown romancing a girl who is above his age. This movie not just does that but does it in such a way that at no point in the movie, the relationship seems odd. The differences in their characters are accentuated by their varied lifestyles, their opposite aspirations and their own friend circles; yet their chemistry is appealing in its own way. After all as someone said opposites attract.
The movie also highlights the fact that at the end of the day one enjoys work only if it’s an extension of his hobby.

The music is another plus. I have always felt that a movie already achieves half its success if the music is good. Some of the songs, especially the title song and the “boond boond” number, are wonderful and grow on you. Just like the storyline, there are no forced songs, item numbers or even sad parting songs. There are a few songs and they all justify their presence. The background score also keeps pace with the storyline. While initially the tune of title song build up the confusion of the hero, it gradually shifts post interval to “boond boond” for the romantic angle and hero’s slow transformation.

The only drawback I felt with the movie was its duration. Somewhere in the middle, the story drags a bit and a 15-20 mins cut at that time would have made it much better. But as I started, the movie is different and has its own life.
With respect to rating / stars, do you really care how many I give... Its the worth the money you will spend so just go for it.

Just one last thing about the so called controversy. Mr. Raj Thakeray should have watched the movie once before raising objections. Whether the city is called Bombay or Mumbai, the movie well demonstrates its spirit and makes you fall in love with Mumbai again.

By the way, also saw the other movie released this week... David Dhawan’s Do Knot Disturb starring Govinda, Ritesh, Lara and Sushmita. I will only say - you need not disturb yourself for the movie. The movie is a typical David Dhawan (or may be even 50% of some of his previous ones) venture... loud noise with forced jokes at various intervals. The only saving grace being Lara looks absolutely stunning.

We Hindus are a bit colorful in nature...

We Hindus are a bit colourful in nature. Sample some of the points below:

We have approximately 330 million Gods (and Goddesses). Yes the no is right; in fact the list keeps increasing because we also keep including our family Gurus in this list. So we see people worshipping Baba Ramdev, Yogdev, Somdev and so on and so forth. By the way, Hindu population is 885 million. So almost 1 God for every 2.5 Hindus…Now that’s called focussed attention.

Our Gods come in all shapes and sizes: Gods with 10 heads; Gods with 3 eyes; Gods with a trunk as their nose; Gods who resemble a monkey; Gods who have a river flowing out of their hairs and the list goes on. To top that, most of these Gods will have an animal as their rider. So we end up worshipping cows, snakes, peacocks, rats etc…

We have Gods for everything. So I have full choice. If I want wisdom, I goto one and if I want money, I goto another. In fact, we even have a God for love and Sex. Kamadeva is our own handsome Hindu love god. His attributes are quite similar to Cupid; difference being Cupid is not a God in Christianity. Kamadeva rides a parrot. By the way, he is supposedly son of Lakshmi who represents money (wow so there is a connection between love and money afterall)

Adding to the color, Hinduism as a religion have promoted alcohol (You don’t believe me …remember all the devtas used to have “madira” flowing through their parties). In fact that reminds me we also do not have any objections to “nach ganas”. So we read about beautiful females seducing Rishi munis in our “granthas”.

Ours might be the only religion where we have allowed polygamy and polyandry. (please refer to Arjuna having two wives and Draupdi having 5 husbands).

We also enjoy the “leelas” of Lord Krishna which is nothing but healthy flirting in modern terms.

We have multiple festivals. In fact going by the Hindu calendar, I might end up celebrating every day. While talking of this, no festival is complete without a proper show. So we see firecrackers, colors, “nautankis”, rakhis etc.

Our mythology has talked about every invention that has come in this era. So we see aeroplanes, modern weapons (brahmastra), “door drishti”, in our Ramayana and Mahabharta etc.

By the way, does anybody know who founded Hinduisum? For every religion, there is a founder but Hinduism as far as I could study doesn’t have any founder.

So what do you think…aren’t we a colourful race?

Shahrukh's detention at US airport

Recently, Shahrukh Khan was detained at Newark airport for approximately 2 hours. The problem, his name cropped up as a potential terrorist on US immigration system and hence taken to a separate room for questioning. This resulted in major hue and cry in India with condemnations coming in from all flavours of people ranging from bollywood celebrities to cricket stars to our 'beloved' politicians.

Our Information & Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni even suggested that India should do a 'tit-for-tat' towards Americans (And I always thought politicians are supposed to be diplomatic in matters pertaining to two countries)

Anyways I don’t want to debate on what happened there... I also feel it was inappropriate. 15 minutes of reasonable questioning / internet search would have eased the authorities anxiety on his indentity. This only highlights the inefficiencies in US immigration system. But my blog questions the justification of the reactions of us Indians post this issue.

My first comment on what happened: Let me put back an alternate scenario. Let’s say someone like Tom Hanks or Eddie Murphy lands here at Indian airports and face immigration enquiries by someone who is least interested in Hollywood movies. Their name crops up as a “suspect”. What do you think would have happened? Don't you think Indian authorities would have questioned them as well? Wouldn't the Indian officer complete all possible investigations and release them only after he is 100% sure that the person he is allowing inside India is definitely not a terrorist. Please note I am not even talking of celebrities from other countries like China, Europe etc... God knows if anyone would be able to recognize them.

Second thought on the reaction: Every year, thousands of people are questioned extensively at immigrations by US authorities. I know lot of my friends whose visa has been denied. Even in Bollywood, recently Kabir Khan and John Abraham were questioned extensively because of their trips to Afghanistan for their movie “Kabul Express”. I am sure all those who have travelled to US will agree that the authorities work on a “robotic” basis and are totally dependent on what steps their system suggests (I will reserve my personal experience of entering US for a later blog). Well no one raised issues then. Why is it that someone like Shahrukh Khan’s case has to prompt this kind of national ? Also does it justify a diplomatic channel to expect an apology?

Will end this blog with a question? Is it because we worship our celebrities to such an extent, that they are not considered as normal human beings and are a part of different league all together?

Role of Luck in Freida's success?

Recently, on my flight from Dubai to Mumbai, I had the privilege (at least I initially thought so) of sitting next to Ms Freida Pinto. That girl (and an overnight star) displayed oodles of attitude (you can safely read it as arrogance).

Her behaviour prompted me to think what role luck plays in today’s environment. All those who would have seen Slumdog Millionaire would admit that Freida’s role was miniscule as compared to her co-stars and even to the little slum kids, Rubina and Azhar. She hardly had any dialogues to speak or scenes to act in. Yet, she was hailed as a huge find of the film to the extent that some of the world’s best directors including Woody Allen have cast her in their supposedly next venture.

Her popularity these days is more than some of Bollywood’s top actresses. She was recently included in the World’s Top 20 most beautiful actresses much above some of the prettier faces of Bollywood. She has won some of the most plum modelling assignments which so far only Ashwarya Rai could boast of.

So what do I call of this success?

Is she really that beautiful (I will leave this to debate as most of the times people say that beauty lies in the eyes of beholder)? Did she display a power performance in the movie? What about some of the more talented actors in the movie like Irrfan, Anil Kapoor, Mahesh Manjrekar etc. They all had roles much larger than her. In fact her co-star Dev who had the entire movie to himself is also not much talked about as compared to her. All the little kids have hardly got much in return as compared to the success/revenues the movie has generated.

This blog is not to pick upon her. I hope she will definitely be worth the hype that she has generated and the next few movies will prove that. I am just trying to use this as an example for the role sometimes luck play in somebody’s life.

And we all continuously try to convince ourselves with the traditional quote “Hardwork is the key to success”.

Should our country be run like a corporate?

In the current scenario, every 5 years (most often earlier), a general election is held in which almost 50-60% of the population doesn’t vote. A bunch of 500+ MPs are selected. Most of them old, uneducated, corrupt and inexperienced. To top that, many have criminal backgrounds. Ministries are allocated based on the muscle, financial, political power (read vote bank / seat share power) to individuals who would have NIL experience and background of the responsibilities entrusted upon them.

Why not consider an alternate and hypothetical scenario?

The various ministers should be selected based on their extensive experience and educational qualifications within their required fields. For instance, the Finance Minister should be atleast a CA/CS or an MBA in Finance. He should have a min of 15 years experience in either a financial institution or in finance organization of an enterprise. Let’s say someone like D Subba Rao (RBI), Bhatt (SBU fame) Deepak Parekh (HDFC fame) and many others.

Minister of external affairs should be run by someone who has spent his career in corporate communications and political affairs. IT ministry by someone who has been a pioneer in the field like Murthy, Nilekani, Premzi etc. Same goes for other ministries like tourism , energy, education etc.
A proper background and financial check should be conducted prior to their appointment. They should sign a character certificate.

Every year, there should be 5-10 focus areas for GDP growth. It can be anything based on country’s potential, political climate, industry trends, global climate, economic scenario and most important internal capabilities. So we focus on areas like IT, Agriculture, tourism, and so on.
KRAs should be set for each area which are quantitative and measurable. They should be achievable with sufficient efforts put in.

Each department should carry a fixed budget that can’t exceed their costs. Salaries and perks should be comparable to any industry standard (which will help counter the need for corruption). The compensation for each of the Ministers and their ministries should be divided in Fixed and Variable components. The Variable component should be paid only if the quarterly or annual targets are achieved. So if the Tourism department fixed a KRA of increasing the number of tourists by 50% (and revenues by 25% yoy), then they get their variable compensation only if the increment is achieved.

Every foreign visit has to be justifiable and a complete report presented with action items immediately after the visit. At the end of the trip, a detailed expense report should be submitted and should have proper channels for authorizing any expense which is non-standard and above threshold.

At the end, awards and bonuses should be given to the Ministries who outperformed others.

There are so many similar scenarios possible if we start seeing around our own corporate environment. The above is just a teaser.

Will this lead to a more efficient and transparent government? Will this enable faster reforms and economic growth? I don’t have ready answers. But why not give it a shot (even if it has to be in phases)?

Mumbai Waterways

Since ages, Mumbai has been plagued with traffic chaos. Mumbai being a linear city and most of the offices confined either to South Mumbai (Nariman Point, Fort, Colaba) or Central Mumbai (BKC, Andheri SEEPZ), traffic literally flows in one direction. Cheaper housing available only in Northern suburbs adds to the traffic woes as majority of the residential community is now based at Kandivali and onwards.

Mumbai is also surrounded by water everywhere and is actually a 3-sided island. What I could never understand why this is never used to its advantage? I have stayed in London for some time where water is used as an effective and efficient transport medium and could never comprehend the reason of not using it in India as well?

Imagine someone who has to travel from Borivali (W) to Nariman Point. He first takes a local bus to the nearest railways station (Borivali) – journey time can be anything between 15-30 mins depending upon traffic. Then he takes a local train to Churchgate and then a cab from there to Nariman Point. Total journey time would be a min 2 hrs. Even if the person belongs to upper middle class and above and drives to work, he would still take anywhere between 2-2.5 hrs. On top, add the stress level due to traffic jams, overpacked local trains / buses and excessive noise and air pollution.

Vice versa, if a water transport is available, he just neads to reach the nearest jetty, take a catamaran or ferry service to Nariman Point (journey time can be anything between 45-60 mins).
A similar case can be built on Harbor line for people travelling between Vashi and Nariman Point.
But so far, this medium has never been explored. Interestingly, there are ferries available to take you to Alibaugh, Mandwa and Rewas which are 4 hrs by road but 1 hr by ferry.
I strongly feel that water transport should be explored as a medium to decongest the roads. This can be further sub-divided into two: First, normal ferries which can accommodate upto 100-150 passengers every 3-4 mins and priced low for daily local wage passengers. Add local stops at all key places like Versova, Bandra, Juhu, Dadar etc. The second would be to have stylish water boats which can accommodate 25-30 passengers and offer comfort for business travelers and tourists (price can be same as first classs train ticket). This will surely reduce the number of cars on the roads. Even if we make this sector private, it has huge potential.