Kya se kya ho gaya………! Yeah that’s the song which comes to the mind when you think of India's show in the ODI series versus the Windies. India were supposed to win 5-nil, instead crashed to a 1-4 defeat. To think of such a scoreline before the series began would have been scandalous. But its hard reality now. And Brian Lara says they have 'bigger fish to fry'. Well I don’t want to sound like some bad loser but the fact is that the Windies won coz complacency had crept into the Indian camp. Add to that they weren’t match-ready after a long break. Infact this has always been a problem with the team. After their successful tour to Pakistan under Ganguly the team got a long and much needed break. And what happened after that? India kept going down and down, and lost the series to PAK at home…
Ofcourse everyone needs their breaks but the team management should have held a strenuous training camp to get the players match ready. Pathan, Dhoni, Sreesanth- all looked out of touch. Overconfidence and the failure to lift oneself led to a series defeat to the hosts. Windies still are an average team. Their batting surely looks promising but they still have a very long way to go. The bowling is below average, period. Ofcourse Indians were even worse. Kaif got three fifties and all of three of them made things even more difficult for the batsmen to follow. I just hate this guys batting. But he sure has lady luck on his side. Suresh Raina and Venugopal didn’t do anything to put pressure on Kaif. It’s them who are in trouble again. Venugopal doesn’t look ready for international cricket yet. And Raina is wasting good starts. He should have used this series to kick out Kaif of contention. Quite the opposite has happened, just like the Windies coming on top of India. Munaf Patel clearly has a problem bowling in the ODIs. He looks pretty clueless as to what line and length to bowl. Hope he isn’t becoming our Matthew Hoggard. Looking forward to an improved performance in the tests, we really need it. 
Sehwag looks he has got over his bad form. He's slowly getting into the groove. The best part of this series for India was Ajit Agarkar. He's bowling the way he always should. More encouragement will see even better figures, not only while bowling but batting too. But that won’t happen as long as we have people like Kiran More as the chairman of the selectors. You idiot! How could you even bring yourself to say that Agarkar is more of an ODI bowler? Agreed his past record is least impressive but what happened to giving consideration to current form? He's easily the best we have, right now. And he'll be flying back home to cool his heels. Bravo you stupid fool! And who does he send to replace Agarkar – VRV! VRV is bowling quick but needs a lot of roughs to be smoothened. This was supposed to be our best chance of a series win in the Caribbean, of finally making history. Guess India will have to wait for that moment. Best of luck India!
The India-A team which is to tour Australia has also been declared. More, very cleverly has sent Dinesh Karthik to the Caribbean as the reserve keeper. So that his fave- Parthiv can go to Australia and better his chances of making it to the Indian team. And whatever happened of Abhishekh Jhunjhunwala and Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan? Dropped after just one outing, in which they did not get a decent chance to prove themselves. Replacing them are Gambhir and U-19 opener Cheteshwar Pujara. Gambhir deserves his place but won’t say that for Pujara. Pujara has promise but I Vidyut deserved a place. And yes, other additions to the team are Tejinder Pal Singh and Siddharth Trivedi. It’s going to be a long and tough tour. Have high hopes on Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, Gambhir, RP and SS Paul. Hopefully Paul will get a bigger role to play this time. India needs a good reserve opener for Test & ODIs, a middle order bat and a seamer urgently. If you do well in Australia you have to be something. Hopefully this tour will unearth the talent required to fill the vacancies in the senior team. Best of luck to India-A too!
P.S. God damn you Kiran More!
Geez, I really didn’t think this reservation-thing would last so long. Yesterday I even received an sms telling me that some Shalabh Shrivastav had died while sitting on a hunger-strike outside the AIIMS. Someone said the students are into all this taking inspiration from 'Rang De Basanti'! Who care if it is or isn’t, the point is that the student community all over India has united for a common cause and they just wont give up! The govt. has announced that it will raise the number of seats as compensation. This means that the ration between the general and reserved seats will remain more or less the same but yes there will be more openings, more seats. And I'm happy this offer has been rejected by the students. The govt. doesn’t understand, this isn’t what is being asked for.
I know this will never happen in India, not for now but the whole business of reservation should be done away with. Reservation doesn’t uplift the backward and the downtrodden. It just allows a few of them into a world of better opportunities. The rest suffer, as always. Reservation is nothing but the politicians’ good ol' trick of winning votes and support. A very cheap trick that is. He isn’t bothered about any welfare, etc. All that matter to him are the votes, and he gets them. What people really need is better education facilities. Better education will uplift the poor in the real sense. Instead of getting this 'special treatment', they'll be empowered to compete with world. This will not churn the lucky few but an entire generation which is ready to the next step, to take on anyone on equal ground. For that the govt. needs to make higher education compulsory for everyone. Pay teachers and be strict so that they have a good reason to do their job well. Better education is the only way out.
But then all this is a lot of idealistic stuff. This aint gonna happen. There aren’t many (or should we say any) politicians who have the political will and foresight to stress on education rather than reservation. Don’t you think it would be more practical for all communities- of all caste and creed to take out their separate protests and demand reservation for themselves. That way everyone should be happy. So out of the hundred seats, we'll have one seat each for every community in India. Oh we have more than a hundred different communities, well we can increase the number of seats to match that, cant we? Ofcourse the politicians will play game to our demands. Forget roti-kapda-aur-makan, the one who gets a seat reserved for the community gets the vote. Simple. Believe me, this is the only language these guys understand! I think its everyone's right to fight for a place for himself. So if there is reservation for the backward castes there should be some for the upper castes as well. Not to forget all those who come in the between! Cheers!
Thanks to all the free time I have these days I am getting to watch a lot of good movies, both from Hollywood and Bollywood. The one I'd like to talk about now is Sai Paranjpe's 'Katha'. 'Katha' stars Farooq Sheikh, Naseruddin Shah, Deepti Naval and Mallika Sarabhai. Rajaram (Naseeruddin Shah), a simple, caring, warm human being, lives in a chawl, in Mumbai. He secretly loves Sandhya, a pretty, homely, neighbour, but is tongue tied to express his love. When his childhood friend, Basu (Farooque Shaikh) walks in one fine day, everything turns topsy turvy. With his smooth talk he wins over the chawl people, finagles himself to a job at Rajaram’s office as his superior, seduces Sandhya, and when the going gets hot, he leaves Sandhya stranded at the marriage altar, leaving Rajaram to face the music. Sandhya's engagement is called off and Rajaram once again comes to the fore, and agrees to marry Sandhya with no strings attached. A very simple story but very well executed. You keep hoping Rajaram isn’t a loser at the end, and at the very same to you detest Bashu. I had heard a lot about Sai Paranjpe and I wasn’t disappointed a bit. Naseer and Farooq are the stars of the show. This movie was released in 1982-'83, the time when the Big-B was at his peak. So the only movies one gets to hear about that time are those of AB, Kumar Gaurav's debut and Mithun.
Naseer, Farooq, Deepti, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil- they have been amongst the finest actors India has produced, right up there with AB, Dilip Kumar, etc. But they never got the recognition they deserved. But you have to give it to them. They continued the good work regardless of what they got in return. That’s why I find it difficult watching an actor of Kay Kay's stature playing second fiddle to the likes of Fardeen Khan and Koena Mitra in 'Ek Khiladi EK Hasina'. Pathetic.
I feel lucky to have got the opportunity to see this movie. Will try to dig up more stuff from the 'New Wave Cinema'-genre. Naseer, Farooq- am really amazed with their performance. Deepti Naval and Mallika Sarabhai look gorgeous. Won’t say 'Katha' is an all time great but it is one movie one should watch if given the opportunity.
One album which is always enqueued in my Winamp playlist these days is Pritam's 'Ankahee'. He delivers another hit after 'Gangster'. Pritam came into the limelight thanks to 'Dhoom'. Like Himesh Reshamiya, Pritam is in form and 'Ankahee' is proof to that. No you wont find 'Ankahee' rocking the charts simply because nowadays people want Reshamiya-genre of music, the dhin-chik dhin-chik genre. Not that I dont like HR's music. Its just that I'm a bit sick of him! Never has a music director's compositions been all over the place. Its just too much now. And 'Ankahee' is such a welcome relief, a breath of fresh air. It is a must-have, surely after having four very good numbers – 'Tumse Yoon Milenge', 'Aa paas aa', 'Ankahee', and 'Ek Pal'. All four have very beautiful lyrics and music, just perfect for soft listening. Nothing better than 'Ankahee' songs when you are on a long drive, in the evening and no traffic ofcourse! Wonder why the album isnt being promoted aggresively. Anyways, you can click here to listen to the whole 'Ankahee' album, Cheers!
P.S. You can listen to the 'Ankahee' album by clicking here!
I am really surprised to see the Indian media’s response to Feroz Khan being condemned by their Pakistani counterparts. The man has time and again proved what a big jackass he is. I mean how can you go to someone else’s country and bad mouth them and their culture. I don’t give a damn whether what he said was right or wrong. First of all he was there to promote Bollywood and harmony between the two nations. Instead he goes and tells them that we are better than you, that Muslims are better off in India than in your country. How dumb can people get?! And then we have the Indian media which instead of keeping the whole affair low-key goes about saying that the Pakistani media are over-reacting and have forgotten that Mr. Khan was your guest, whatever happened to your hospitality? It’s like taking the side of your undisciplined and misbehaving kid no matter what he does, no matter what he says! I wonder what the Indian media would do if some firang said some not-so-good-things about India. They ofcourse would be ready to crucify him at the earliest! Hey you can’t come to our home and tell us we are bad! Yeah ofcourse that rule doesn’t apply on us. Hypocritical? Not us! If Pakistan are being accused of being bad hosts, wont FK also qualify as a bad guest. Don’t know who sent this idiot to Pakistan, anyways! Is there a dearth of more qualified people in India? Forget that, I wasn’t surprised with what FK did. Didn’t expect him to do any better. But the Indian media, whatever happened to them? Aren’t they the ones who happily take potshots at FK when he keeps goofing up at award functions? Guess they are pretty content with the ‘He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard’-policy.
To say that I am a big Kay Kay Menon fan would be an understatement, infact I am amongst the biggest and most fanatical! Yup, that’s how good I think he is. He was a stage-actor who gradually moved onto the silver screen. He hasn’t done many movies but whatever he has done is exceptional work, barring ‘Deewar’ and ‘Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina’ ofcourse! I have seen ‘Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh’, ‘Black Friday’ (yes I have and don’t ask me how!), ‘Dansh’ and now ‘Bhopal Express’. I like the way Kay Kay goes about his job and his sincerity towards it. He gets into the skin of the character so well.
‘Bhopal Express’ is a movie about the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, 1984. This was not only Kay Kay’s debut movie but also the director- Mahesh Mathai’s debut too and both leave an impression on the mind. The film also stars Naseerudin Shah, Nethra Raghuraman and Vijay Raaz. Mathai has told the story of this tragedy in a very compelling way. I felt the movie did have some minor flaws but overall the result is close to brilliant. Very good for a first timer. Naseer is flawless in the role of Bashir Khan. I know I’m repeating myself but he truly is one of the very best we have got. And Kay Kay along with Irrfan Khan are his worthy successors.
A little about the story – it revolves around Verma (Kay Kay), his wife Tara (Nethra) and their close friend Bashir (Naseer). Verma is a supervisor at Union Carbide while Basheer, an ex-employee is an autorickshaw driver. Basheer doesn’t have many good things to say about the company and keeps asking Verma to leave his job and join him. Tara leaves for Baroda to meet her parents and Verma & Bashir decide to have fun at a bar. On their way back home they discover that there has been a gas leak and then the aftermath of what is called the ‘Hiroshima of the chemical industry’.
It was difficult getting this movie’s DVD. Most video parlours had not even heard of its name before. And that is the problem with us in India. We keep wondering as to how small nations like Iran and Bosnia are able to produce movies which win accolades all over the world and us; Bollywood- the second largest film industry in the world is hardly noticed. Its not that we don’t make good movies. We make good cinema and plenty of it. Sadly only the trashy and run-of-the-mill kinds of movies get promoted. I wont say ‘Bhopal Express’ would have won us the world but it surely is way better than the kind of stuff churned out daily in India.
Just checked imdb.com and was surprised to know that ‘Bhopal Express’ is the only movie Mahesh has made all these years! ‘Bhopal Express’ was released way back in 1999. The lil good news is that he’s just completed a Hollywood movie – ‘Broken Thread’ starring mostly unknowns. The only names I recognised were of Roshan Seth (now where has he been all this time) and Prem Chopra. It’s in the post-production phase, no idea when they play to release it.
The latest on Kay Kay is that he’ll soon be seen in two new movies- ‘Go’ from the RGV camp, in which he plays a corrupt cop and the multistarrer ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd’. What’s more mouth-watering is the project he has just signed in which his co-stars include Irrfan Khan and Naseer! Now does it get any better than this?!
