Showing posts with label Popular culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Popular culture. Show all posts

Ghajini- My View!

31 December 2008 वेळ: Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Pardon my discretion but what the f#$k was “the perfectionist” Aamir Khan thinking when he signed on the dotted lines for Ghajini. Between catching winks and the giggles and the ohhhhhhh- aaaaahhhhs(Girls still go all ga ga over Aamir) of my hostel mates I was forced to watch this movie yesterday! If I have to frame my Ghajini experience in one word, It has to spell DISASTER.
The Director Murugadoss has copied the 2006 Ghajini Tamil frame to frame. I think he didn’t even bother to change the look and feel of his movie for the Hindi movie-goers.

I have a few points against Ghajini, don’t worry I have a handful of good ones too.
First of all, for all these months I was under the impression (Like thousands of others) that Ghajini is the title role that Aamir Khan plays. But Lo and behold, Ghajini seems to be the name of a South Indian Villain who talks in a Hariyanvi accent (wow we have started getting cosmopolitan villains. Isn’t this display of national integrity at the wrong place?) and who seems to be getting a high out of playing iron-rod head-banging (literally) rather than smoking weed. Now we get a movie named after a Villain who is vaguely the central character of the movie. Was this supposed to be funny, coz it’s absolutely not!! Why Ghajini, it could have been Sanjay Sanghvi ki Amar Dastaan or whatever!!! We still wouldn’t have cared less. But my persistent question continues- Why Ghajini of all?

The new Hindi debutante Asin looks exceptionally beautiful in plain dresses while playing a simple happy-go-lucky girl. But in a private confession, I accept that her acting (overacting) was way too overboard for Bollywood standards. Sorry dear Asin, no favourism here! Gotta be honest! She still has a lot to learn. Her expressions were way too loud, however I did like her act in her death scene. She just needs to understand that acting in movies demands a certain depth or as they say thehrav which is very different and demanding than selling hair oils and soaps on commercials.

Jiah Khan(Do you remember her, the one that got luck with Amitabh Bacchan in the notorious Nishabdha) AAAH the same Jiah Khan is absolutely wasted in the Movie. I don’t understand why she was so furious when she was excluded from the films publicity, she should be happy bout it! She ends up doing a next to nothing kind of a role of a medical student and wraps up as a negligible character who we hardly take a notice of. I mean I noticed the bloody iron-rod more than I noticed her, for Christ Sake. You can certainly do better than playing a side-kick Jiah!

The action sequences are gory enough to make you puke(Suggestion: carry a brown paper bag). The blood oozing from the tap in stomach sequence churned my tummy and the death scene of Asin(though mellowed down after the intervention by our censor board) got me goose bumps. There are many such sequences, especially when Aamir becomes a patient of short term memory loss. At a point you start thinking is such kind of mental inability inversely related to the physical horse power of your body? Coz he seems to be unstoppable after his memory loss!

Though the hype surrounding the movie, I am brushing off the idea that the movie is worth spending 150 hard earned bucks in a Multiplex.
The acting, dialogue delivery looks like it’s for Tolly-wood and not Bollywood. I was tormented with a continuous feeling that I was watching a cheap dubbed movie- which was South-Indian at heart and Hindi at words. The only saving grace of the movie is perhaps the good storyline though the premise has not been excellently exploited. We are taken in and out of flash back sequences with the help of diaries. Another and perhaps the most important reason that will bail this movie out is the mature and seasoned acting by Aamir Khan otherwise the movie has gone for complete doldrums. The musical score of this movie is hitting high on the chart busters and seems to have caught the audience fancy. Also, the songs are shot in lush foreign locales and in deserts (reminds you of Suraj hua madham from KKKG) which help to bring in the masala quotient.

Mr. Murugadoss, please understand no level of strange hair-cuts, heroine and story line controversies, steroid pumped eight pack abs of heroes or outlandish publicity stunts are going to compensate for an almost average film!!! You will get all the publicity but will you get the audience? I have my own doubts. Over all I give 2 stars out of 5 for Ghajini! Only for a creative story-line and of-course “Our Man” Aamir Khan!!

The Gods Aren't Angry!

30 December 2008 वेळ: Tuesday, December 30, 2008

I fall short of words (bad ones actually) when it comes to expressing my angst against people who forward me these emotionally blackmailing chain mails. Usually I delete the blackmailing lines and then forward these messages. But I am still up in arms against them. Such mails catch you off guard where the headlines are mostly Miracle, Full-fill all your wishes, Believe it to be true, See it carefully, See it to believe it. Then there is a picture of some deity and its importance. At the bottom of which begins a long list of examples of how the deity in the picture blesses those who forwarded them to 20 people, 30 people, even infinite people. How a man got his lost job, how a girl go her love back, how it cured a Man’s disease, Blessed couple with a child and the list continues.


And then comes the flip side, marked in red ink and bold font are the terrible repercussions of what doom will befall us if we do not forward the mail to others. Or even practically delete the mail from our inbox. There are short stories of how one lost his love, his leg, his job, his son and practically everything he owned including his dentures because he took this mail very lightly and was too ignorant to forward it!


Frankly when I read this sentence, I relate it to some gangster forcing me to shell out my expensive belongings at gun point! The undertone of the mail is if you don’t forward it then you pay!! And you pay big-time for it!

And then you end up harassing your other poor friends in return by sending them the message to save your ass and set theirs on fire! Once forwarded, you get a soothing relaxed feeling that probably Atlas would have got after he kept the earth down from his shoulders. It’s then the problem of the people whom now you have passed the heavy emotional burden.


I get at least a dozen of these mails every week and I finally decided to voice my opinions brutally against this enforced cruelty. So when I got such a mail today, I gave it back royally to the person in question. I just sent him a mail, the content of which was as follows:-

Thanks for considering me the lucky one (or the vulnerable one) to be part of your prestigious chain mail group. I am forwarding this message back to you, as I think it’s my duty after the huge help you have been doing mankind in spreading wrong stories about our gods

and killing your productive time at work behind this entire time pass even in the days of recession when our jobs need to be guarded the most.

If you don’t forward this same message to yourself 50 times then something terrible might happen to you!

The probable list of which is as follows:-

Your husband might run away with your servant

You might go blank in midst of a presentation in front of your MD

Your new car will start giving less average everyday

Your cat will turn out to be gay and will fall in love with the neighbor’s Pit bull

You will have a bi-polar boss as a new year’s gift

Your atm card will get stolen on your Salary Day

You will have a 500 Rs. note and the Autowala won’t have any change

The guy you love will fall for your best friend

Your expensive Reebok shoes will be stolen from a temple

Your promotion will be given to your assistant

You will be transferred to Pakistan on official duty

Your inherited jewelry with turn out to be a faux pas bought from Crawford Market

Your wife will catch you with a porn magazine AGAIN!!!

You get selected in Dus Ka Dum and loose badly to a 6 year old child

You will be the lead model but for a Viagra ad

You will pay hi-taxes for the next 5 years

You will become bald but beautiful

I am not a skeptic, I believe in god and his goodness and that whatever happens happens for the best! But I find it hard imagining the gods sitting up and relaxing in heaven really deriving great pleasure in scaring poor mortal souls and punishing them for not forwarding their messages. I think they are too occupied with other important issues rather than resorting to these kind of self- promoting endeavors! And I thought this was a prerogative of our Politicians……….or wasn’t it? : )

Depiction of Women in Indian Television Commercials! Counter Argument!

23 October 2008 वेळ: Thursday, October 23, 2008

An article in today's Asian age has induced me into posting my view. I felt this article (Read it here) by Rai Umaraopati Ray holds true when we see it from one side. However the writer fails to explore the other side and justice is left unserved.
In a nut-shell the writers view- The author continuously talks about how Indian television Commercials are enforcing us to think and follow stereotypical ideologies that are complete passe for the new India incl. Particularly, the whole article stresses on the point of showcasing women in each and every Ad merely as an object for sex appeal. Women are portrayed in a way that they seem to have no life and love if they are not beautiful, gorgeous and fair. Women are showcased as nothing but playing second fiddle to men. An example cited by the author is that of the life insurance ads which show men undertaking life insurance so that their wife's, mothers, daughters are taken care of in case of their deaths. Which according to the author shows that women are incapable of earning for themselves and is indirectly exploiting the Indian women as a weaker sex.
With due respect to the above article here are some of my counter arguments:-
1] Jo Bikta hai woh Dikhta hai theory- Firstly, a lot of research goes in before deciding the appeal for an ad. A correct appeal needs to be chosen before the story board stage appears. This generally depends on consumer surveys where people are asked various open ended and close ended questions inclusing what kind of theme appeals them. The salient features of the product are then woven in a story-line on the lines of these popular themes. And yes most of the time sex and attraction win hands down. So we see a lot of products with no direct connection to sex or attraction exploring them as their central themes. Say for example, Must chips. Where the lady news reader does all kind of strange erotic lewd tactics to convince you that Must chips are really the chips for you. Clearly, you may feel what is the relation of chips and sex. But yes, their target audience is clearly the younger attraction driven crowd between the age of 18-35 years. And this appeals to them. Television is not a piece of cake, the Big Bosses know whats gonna sell and whats not. Everybody is here to ultimately sell the products and hence they have to cater to what people like to see. And that's exactly why jo bikta hai woh dikta hai!!!!!!
2] Pragmatic Approach- My second argument is in continuation with my first, ad makers are not here to make charity or do public service. They are here to sell their clients products and if this is what it takes to do the same then why not. An ad should not only be entertaining but it should be convincing enough to grab you out of your seat and make you go to the market and actually buy the product. All of us remember the famous award winning Fevi-Kwick ad where a fisherman looses to a localite who uses fevi kiwck to get fishes from the water. Now the concept is excellently executed but are you convinced that it is going to have the same impact on Viewer. Is it going to transition the viewer to a prospective buyer and then to an actual buyer. I really doubt the possibility. Now take the axe chocolate ad, my male readers I am sure you will agree that you are tempted by the fact that Girls love chocolate and putting chocolate deo is surely going to lure girls to come around you. Now the USP of axe is sex and attraction appeal. Hence they have tired to portray women going crazy behind men who use axe as that actually triggers a connection with the Consumer Male mind and prompts him into buying the product.
3] The ultimate decision-makers- Whether my male readers agree of not, most of the times the decision makers for them whether directly or indirectly are females. You go to buy a shirt you will think 10 times how you will look in it. That means you will give a thought to what my Girlfriend, my female colleague, my female boss etc will say about it and eventually how it will present me in front of the fairer sex. What does the Raymonds Ad show ? It shows the woman actually feeling your fabric and thinking you are a man of substance and style because you wear Raymonds right! The advertisers try to pick up your fantasies and put them in a 30, 60 or 80 seconds mini-film so you realise that a particular product will fulfill your fantasy. And this leds to you ending up buying it!
Another example is the infamous Amul Macho Ad, where the women in question is amused at Monkeys wearing these underwears and indulging into strange activities. Personally I feel this is the most vulgar ad I have come across in my 25 years of life and I don't understand why PETA has not taken any action? But returning back to our point of argument, Men buy underwear which will attract the female attention. Hence indirectly it is the choice of his female partner that prompts him to buy a certain brand. That is exactly why a women are always shown in almost all ads that involve Male undergarments. Most of the decision form FMCG products to expensive luxury segment of cars are taken by Women though the money for it might be provided by Men. But the ultimate-decision maker is the women and this goddess has to be appeased. Hence Most of the ads from pens to laptops have Women in them.
4] Sorry depiction of women- Women are no longer shown just house makers- or lalithaji's who have no work but to bear the brunt of their dominant working husband and wash his clothes clean white so that he can impress his boss. They are depicted as confident career minded women who have a determination to condense their dream to realities. The ad of an insurance brand where the working girl gifts her dad a car or for that matter the parachute ad which shows a series of women acheivers saying" Sirf khubsurat nahi Mai Majboot hoon. Hann Mai kuch hoon" is very appealing. Then the new Scooty pep ad which shows the young girl learning the Scooty on her own without the help of her brothers shows her as a very independent new age Indian girl.
There are many such examples. Hence, I don't completely agree with the writer of the above mentioned article as I think everything in the popular culture comes with a reason and with a rhyme! And we cannot have n archaic lop-sided view by ignoring the truth! I have just put my ideas on a larger canvass. I hope you will find something worth redeeming from it! Clearly Women are depicted as a lot more than just an eye candy!

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