Bollywood in 2007

In recent years, Bollywood has produced some excellent movies which has given the viewers ample scope to ponder over the subject addressed in the movie.Drifting away from the usual Masala-type films, the directors are showing the courage to experiment in different ways, and the emergence of a bunch of good actors is helping them to achieve their goals.

I am not at all a film expert, but I like to watch movies. So in this post, I have decided to list some of my favorite movies released in 2007.

• Tare Zameen Par, released towards the very end of last year(Dec 21) will top the list. Being Aamir Khan's directorial debut, this film is unique in many aspects. The topic is new here, the treatment and presentation is excellent and above all,the performance of young Darsheel Safari as a dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi is superb. Tisca Chopra, in the role of the child's mother and Sachet Engineer in the role of Ishaan's brother are worth-watching. Regarding Aamir, there is nothing much to say. Being the most versatile actor of the present generation, he excels himself both in acting (yet again) and direction. Some of the scenes of the movie bring tears to the eyes. The song Maa, penned by Prasoon Joshi and sung by Shankar Mahadevan, is one of the finest songs of the year.

• Shahrukh Khan's Chak De India takes the second position in my list. Directed by Shimit Ameen, this film brings out the best of SRK as an actor. He gives his best performance after Swades as the coach of the national women's hockey team of India. “Mujhe na to states ke naam sunai de te hai, na dikhai de te hai, mujhe srif apne mulk ka naam dikhai de te hai “ is one of the various dialogs which takes the film to a separate level. Each of the 15 girls of the team performed brilliantly, and it was difficult to believe that this was the first film for all of them.

• Mani Ratnam has been one of the very few acclaimed directors of the country at present, and his film Guru takes the third spot in my list. A brilliant performance by Abhishek Bachchan, and able support from Aiswarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty and Vidya Balan makes the film a very special one. Loosely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, Abhishek portrays his character superbly starting from the youth till the old age. He succeeded in bringing out the various shades of his character effortlessly and undoubtedly, this is his best performance of the year.

• I am an ardent fan of Amitabh since childhood, and the way he came back in the 2000's can be compared only with any fairy tale. The film Cheeni Kum, featuring Mr Bachchan and Tabu gave me an immense pleasure to watch. An unconventional love story between two people aged 64 and 32 respectively, this film depicts one of the finest performances of Mr Bachchan and Tabu. Zohra Sehgal as Bachhan's mother and the cute little Swini Khere simply excels themselves. Paresh Rawal is superb as usual in his small role.

• The film Dus Kahaniyan, directed by six directors, and consisting of ten short films, is already unique in its structure. Some of the stories were simply superb, and the top three stories according to me were Puranmashi, Zahir and Strangers in the night, directed respectively by Meghna Gulzar and Sanjay Gupta (the last two). They brought out the best performances from actors like Manoj Bajpai, Neha Dhupia, Minnisha Lamba, Amrita Singh, Dia Mirza and Mahesh Manjrekar. This type of anthology films is certainly a bit of fresh air in recent Bollywood industry.

Without going into the details, other films which I liked were Life in a Metro, Bhool Bhulaiya, Jab We Met, Blue Umbrella and Shootout at Lokhandwala, where each of them is different from the other.

I hope to see the same trend in 2008 also, the making of films which will not only entertain the viewers, but will also leave an impact on them.

Morning does not always show the day

Days of happiness pass away very quickly. My vacation of one month at home went away so quickly that I could not figure out what I did in the last 32 days as I was sitting on the bed surrounded by half-packed suitcases on the evening of my departure (The departing flight was scheduled at 2:50 AM). It occurred to me that a little while ago, sitting on the same bed, I was having a delicious breakfast consisting on hot kachuris and jalebis (that was on the first morning , a month ago !!) , and now, here I am, ready to stay away from home for at least one year living a dull and solitary life.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I have a typical relationship with aeroplanes, irrespective of the airlines. According to my opinion, there are very few people on earth other than me who are (un)fortunate enough to pass through the series of mishappenings as I did in a very consistent manner. This time, probably, fate decided to reward me in a very unexpected way.

In long-duration flights, I always prefer the aisle seat. As it happens, whenever I got a window seat, the person sitting next to me turned out to be a very good sleeper. Normally, I cannot sleep while on board, and so, when everybody else within the plane snores, I continuously shift positions and postures to make myself more confortable so that I can get at least some sleep in order to kill the time. Staying awake for a longer period has its own setbacks, I feel like going to the bathroom once in a while, and for that, I am forced to wake up the sleeping person which I dont like to. So, nowadays, I select my own seat while booking the ticket.

This time, when I finally boarded the connecting flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, I was surprised to see a person occupying my seat . He , very politely, stated that he wants to change his seat with myself so that he can sit with his family. Since it was an aisle seat, I told him that I can do so if his seat is also of the same type. At this moment, came the unexpected statement. The person announced that he has a business seat!!!

I was completely taken aback. I have never heard of an exchange like this before. So, not quite sure about what I heard, I double-checked with him, and also verified with the air-hostess, and when she confirmed that the exchange depends only on the respective persons and has nothing to do with the class, I retreated back, and occupied my seat in the business class.

It was a very fine experience........the seat was extremely luxurious, and it can be adjusted at will - upright, half-inclined, full-inclined, fully flat - and it took me quite some time to understand the features of the chair completely. As the plane took off, an air-hostess gave all of us a Menu card to choose our meal, which had a starter and dessert as well!!! Time and again, they were offering beverages.

For my part, I was able to sleep for the first time on board. It was a solid slumber of nearly 5 hours, which thoroughly refreshed me. It also helped me in another way. As I had less than two hours of time for my next flight, I was able to get out of the plane sooner and reach the immigration desk much earlier than I expected.

The immigration, customs clearence, luggage collection............everything went so smoothly that I was really surprised. Then came the second wonder! As I was about to tranfer my luggage, I learnt that the Wichita flight has been cancelled and the next flight is after 4 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do the erudite label this type of event as poetic justice?????????? I am not sure!