BOMB'e Meri Jaan

People look at Mumbai as a city of dreams and also they call it a city that never sleeps. That's not fair! You can't have dreams without a sleep. But this is what Mumbai all about. I see it as an unfair city.

Mumbai is rude, arrogant and sometimes unfairly supportive to their people (that is evident from crowd's showoff in cricket stadium) but still we just love to be the way we are. We never claimed that it is the best city of the country (we can not), living here is just a constant struggle but it teaches the survival in it's own way.

The city that is paying more than 50% of country's tax, have been an economical power house for decades, is now dying. Be it natural calamities or political power game or the terror, that strikes the city every now and then.

It got hits at every places where it hurts the most. The city is still standing tall. I always wonder what keeps this city going? Is that what they call a MUMBAI SPIRIT? or it's just a glorified name we have given to our fear and helplessness that says "We just can not afford to hold back"

I, Being a Mumbaikar by birth was very keen about the movie 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' that claimed to talk about spirit of Mumbai city.

That reminds me, one more thing about Mumbai, everyone here is Mumbaikar as you do not need to born here to be one (perhaps that is the best and the worst thing with this city). As soon as you learn to board in local train during rush hour you are Mumbaikar,

you started loving Wada-Paav you are a Mumbaikar,

Irrespective of how filthy it gets in rain, if you still enjoy Mumbai rain you are Mumbaikar,

you find Juhu and Girgaon chowpatty beautiful, you are Mumbaikar,

If you call cops "Pandu" , if you ask for extra paav with Paav Bhaaji and finds nothing wrong with Bhelpoori\PaniPoori and Chinese stalls, then for sure you are a Mumbaikar.

So, 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' talks about Mumbaikar, about the pain, fear, tribulations and constant struggle Mumbaikar faces, particularly post 7/11 bomb blasts that stirred the city all over again. The 5 protagonists of the movie belongs to different stratum of the city.

The first one is Madhavan, a well-to-do, white collar professional who thinks and cares about the society, prefers public transport over a personal vehicle just to avoid pollution and traffic chaos, turns down every foreign opportunity just to stay back with the family ( and in his own nation). But one fine day he discovers that his city is not as safe as it used to be. He survives in bomb blast but develops a phobia about it.

There is Soha Ali Khan representing breed of new born journalists, who believe in selling the sensational breaking news rather than telling it with sensitivity. Her life gets thrashed upside down when she becomes news herself. Rupali (Soha) loses her fiance in a blast and her own channel try to capture and capitalize on that incidence. The special report "Rupali banee Rudali" excellently depicts today's TRP Crazy News media.

Third one is K Kay Menon, an unemployed Mumbaikar, a fanatic who believes every Muslim is a terrorist. The one who prefers to stay unemployed rather than working for Muslims.

Irrfan Khan, representing that class of Mumbai, which is continuously denied, refused by so called upper class of the society. Soon he finds out his own way of taking revenge on these people. He utilizes the post blast panic and trauma, as his weapon.

And then there are Tukaram Patil\Inspector Kadam (Paresh Rawal\ Vijay Maurya) from Mumbai Police;the so called guards of sanity and harmony of this city. One who is about retire from his duty and another is still new, enthusiastic and sincere about his job. Learning the psyche of the city in their own way.

All the above 5 protagonists represents every Mumbaikar in one way or the other. There are few threads that ties them together, that are their helplessness but at the same time, a hope for better tommorow. The movie amazingly blends both the things. It touches some more areas like Sunil More (a constable who raped a teenage girl in Police Station), attack on World's Super Power, brain drain etc.
If you like to watch the movies that make you think. Then 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' is movie for you.

It's surely at least 30 minutes stretched, sometimes gets boring, sometimes overstates its point and sometimes goes in documentary mode. But if you can neglect these, then Movie is good.

Bloody Hell!!

Let's face it!, Babel is not meant for Indian Audience. At least people like me, who enjoy watching Dulhe Raja and No Entry.
"Babel is a great movie"
"It has been nominated for 5 Oscars", many recommendations; enough for me to hop on.

But all those so called Babel Fans forgot to mention that, this movie is been narrated in 4 different languages.

I literally suffered watching this movie (as much as I did watching Tashan, Via Darjeeling, Rama Rama kya hain Drama...) No, Babel do not belong to that league of cinema. But yeah It makes you feel like a loser. As the characters from the movie are going through hell, so I am, as there were no subtitles support for the movie.

What's Babel means? uncle wiki says:
Ba·bel / Pronunciation Key - Pronunciation[bey-buhl, bab-uhl]
–noun
1.an ancient city in the land of Shinar in which the building of a tower (Tower of Babel) intended to reach heaven was begun and the confusion of the language of the people took place.
2.(usually lowercase) a confused mixture of sounds or voices.
3.(usually lowercase) a scene of noise and confusion.

So I take it as "a scene of noise and confusion. " because all that was happening on the screen was sheer noise to me and yeah, confusing too.

Why am I so pissed of?
Because I don't know Mexican, I do not know Japanese, I don't know Moroccan and yeah not even sign language (despite watching Black and Khamoshi many times, I am still not good in it.) Every time you misses something in movie, Director scores the point.
Here, the makers simply refuse\deny\decline\rebuff\disinterested to have subtitles for the movie. I just hope they have equally valid\acceptable\justifiable reason to do so.

Was it that hard to understand?
Yes or rather I am too dumb for this movie. I never heard when they mentioned about the locations. All this time, I was trying so hard to have a hold on movie and paid so much attention to it, that I felt exhausted towards the end.

What's wrong with the movie?
Babel is the movie, which works on Theory of Estimation. Those who don't know, Estimation is the calculated approximation of a result which is usable even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or noisy.

So what is the incomplete input data here?
There are 4 stories happening across the different strata of the world.

First an American Couple on a vacation (Yeah I got this right :-)) in Morocco (I missed this one, and Director scored a point)

Same place, a family living in remote deserted land quite away from civilization, two teenagers from that family, looking after their goats, suddenly their uncle offers them a gun to guard their goats from fox (??or wolf or tiger or avid non-vegetarian_estimation in full flow)

Just for curiosity sake (or to have a good hands on experience), one of the guy shoots a gun on passing bus. The bullet hits a lady in her shoulder. The terrified teens decides to run away from there and hide their gun in rocks.

Then there are two American Kids staying with their Mexican nanny (I got this one right too, wooppie!) One day nanny gets a call from kid's father that they (American parents) will be late and she needs to look after them for some more time. As Mexican nanny needs to attends wedding of her son (My Guess !! that guy could have been her grandson\cousin\x-boyfriend _Keep Guessing as Director scores one more point)

One more story of deaf and dumb girl, happening somewhere in busting city of Japan (My friends say that they did mention that it is a Japan, I could not get it). A sexually frustrated girl craving for attention.

All these stories woven smartly around a single gun and bullet. BABEL is spectrum of human nature specially how they behave under the trauma. We have a helpless American couple in totally alien land, An illegal immigrant lady from Mexico, trying her level best to survive along with two kids, two Moroccan kids found themselves in a situation they would have never dreamt of and a Japanese nymphomaniac going through an intense turmoil.

Initially it looks like all these 4 stories happening in parallel, but NO. Towards the end you realise some of them are serially arranged.

BABEL brutally displays that how a single bullet can affect many lives at a time? It creates the drama, ambiance and drags you into their turmoil. It is a must watch experience if you know 4 languages mentioned above. Or at least try to get a CD having subtitles. If not we still have option of watching BABUL...

Jalsa with Khalsa_SIK Reviewed

Sat`sriyakalji!!
Yeh joh world hondda hain na, inne do type de lok hondde hain, ek jo sikh hote hain aur ek joh sikh nai hote hain! In short this world is made up of two kind of people one those are sardars and second those are not sardars and all this is evident in "Singh Is Kinng" where you find only sikhs in Egypt, Australia and in sadda Punjab pind.

"Singh is Kinng" is one of that kind of movie where you would hate to admit that you actually enjoyed the movie.
If you feel that OSO was "The royal SHAHRUKH KHAN circus" then undoubtedly SIK is "The great AKSHAYE KUMAR laughter show'.
The movie has no logic what so ever and the entire screenplay is bunch of stupid situations woven in non-sense gags but still it has potential to keep you revetted to your seats all movie along. Credit of course goes to Akshaye, Aneez Bazmi and the entire crew. If Mumnnabhai is brainy comedy then SIK has it's heart at right place. The plot has nothing much to offer.

The entire village want to get rid of notorious Happy Singh (Akshaye)for that they decide to send him on mission to bring back some of misdirected Sikhs from their own town, The leader amongst then is Lucky Singh aka KING (Sonu Sood) who is ruling the gang in Australia. To accompany him Happy they deports Rangeelay (Om Puri)and then the journey begins. They accidentally land up in Egypt where Happy finds his Sardarni (Katrina). As soon as Happy reached to Australia he finds Lucky along with his league of pretty ordinary gentlemen (Jaaved Jafry, Sudhanshu etc etc.) When Happy was about to convince Lucky for getting to home, Lucky somehow becomes incapable of running the gang and mistakenly (not again)his gang appoints Happy to rule the kingdom as a KING. There are few sidetracks also Ranbir Shorey, Kirron Kher, Neha Dhupia and Jaaved Jafry (in awfully dull double role) but they add no value (?)to the movie. All you feel about them is "What a waste!"

Akshaye kumar leads and literally rules the movie. This is tailor made role for him and non other actor could have carried it with such an immense charm, he neither irritates nor bores you. And for a change doesn't look stereotypical either. Katrina, well she looks as stunning as she looked in Welcome, or in Namastey London or in Race. But "Hello! we know, this chick can bring few expressions on her face as well" Mr. Director, please keep that in mind, Supporting cast, total waste,
Music, well whatever Pritam is doing these days and getting clicked. The songs are foot tapping and quite catchy and gels well with the mood of the movie (Including one rap song by Jaaved Jafry).

Singh Is Kinng is definitely better than many other releases of this year. But that is not a good sign.. It is definitely better than Aneez Bazmi's last release Welcome but not as entertaining as No Entry. Not an entirely laugh riot but has it's own moments. A good paisa vasool, strictly enjoyable with good bunch of buddies.