It is that time of the year again! Festivities, celebrations and the ever tiring charade of endless gifting! Lights, everywhere you look! An atmosphere of general revelry!

I wish you a very happy Diwali. Not just to you, but to your family, friends, friends of friends, children (if any), grandchildren (if any), great-grandchildren (if any), friends of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, neighbours (those you love), neighbours (those you hate), spouse(s) (if any), ex-spouse(s) (if any), flames and ex-flames (if any, though I’m damn sure they exist!), strangers you happen to meet everyday (or atleast frequently) and all others I may have missed. May you have a very happy Diwali indeed.

You celebrate Diwali every year, isn’t it? And why not? It is the National Festival of India – the brightest amavasya of the year! Diwali celebrates the act of homecoming, which is why it is celebrated as the festival of lights. May the lights guide the paths of those who have lost, may the lost not succumb to darkness, may the darkness fade away into the oblivion…

That is why I request you let Diwali be the festival of lights, only. The modern tradition of bursting crackers on this auspicious day has made it a festival of noise, pollution, fires, injuries, and sadly, even deaths. Our fragile environment is already caving in with all those fumes we earthlings have a habit of spewing out. Please don’t add to the kitty. Please don’t burst crackers…

This year, celebrate Diwali in a traditional, non-toxic way, and convince others (including all those whom I’ve mentioned above!) into doing the same. Lets go Cracker-Free, and help our environment. Its never late to start.

Consider this post as a part of Blog Action Day 2009.

Radio Jhankaar is perhaps the best bollywood radio station out there! Today, it just kept playing my favorite tracks! Sample this – Pathshala from Rang De Basanti, title track of Dil Chahta Hai, Tumhi Dekho Na from KANK, Bum Bum Bole from Taare Zameen Par, Lamha Lamha from Ganster, O Re Piya from Aaja Nach Le, Khabar Nahi from Dostana… The list goes on!

Unlike some of my friends (read: Mohnish), I’ve grown up listening to bollywood music. I still have a formidable collection of audio cassettes to back this up! (Though with the advent of MP3, this collection is a little obsolete )

I’d heartily welcomed the private FM channels when they’d made an appearance in Delhi. However, these days they aren’t quite up to the mark. They provide us with mindless blabber, and have a habit of playing the same track fifteen times a day – so much so that after some days, even the little sound of that wretched track becomes a pain in the ass!

Radio Jhankaar is a different equation altogether. No Ads, No Blabber, No Chattering, and No Repitition. Their track selection is awesome… Not only do they play the latest hits, they also play the choicest songs from the byegone era (read: tracks older than a year or two). In short, listening to Jhankaar is a pleasant experience.

Radio Jhankaar is available on Channel 46 on the WorldSpace Network, and they haven’t paid me to write this.

After more than a month of cultivating the habit, I am proud to announce that I’ve set up a new online space where you can read my thoughts.

Rajat’s Diary

My previous attempt at starting a tumblog didn’t quite see the light of the day. I started it with much deliberation, but never really got the hang of it. So the next time I decided to start one, I made up my mind not to announce its existence as soon as it got overboard – so that I can get some time to breed a habit of frequent postings as required by such a means of expression.

Its been a month since I’ve started Rajat’s Diary, and it boasts of 40 posts already! Compare it with the 57 odd posts I’ve managed to come up after a year and a half of blogging here.

Though I’ll continue to post here once in a while, Rajat’s Diary will be my primary vehicle of self expression on the internet. I hope you enjoy it.

Subscribe to the RSS Feed of Rajat’s Diary.

(no spoilers)

As a sequel to the 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has given us The Lost Symbol, which is a thriller about the secret brotherhood called The Freemasons, interspersed with a family drama.

Set in Washington DC (again!), the book explores the one-night-wild-goose-chase of Robert Langdon (again!) against a dreadful lunatic (again!) and a highly powerful government agency (again!), protecting a secret that has the potency to change the world (again!), making profound discoveries by carefully observing well known pieces of art, literature and bible (again!), while trying to save all those murders that happen along the way (again!). You get the drift.

The novel is repetitive, to say the least. If you have read his earlier books, say Deception Point, Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code, you will find the latest one utterly boring and monotonous. I mean, Dan Brown should move over to some new theme, rather than reusing this art-science-religion crap over and over again. We know that there are secrets in the world out there waiting to be discovered, but we would like to read something refreshing, thank you very much.

If you’ve read The Da Vinci Code carefully, you will find so many parallels with it in The Lost Symbol that the plot will become almost believable. Trust me, if you are paying attention while reading, you will be able to predict the final outcome some halfway through the book. Yes, it is that predictable -  more predictable than a B-grade bollywood flick!

And please, don’t talk about the finale. It is as excruciating as anything to read! A literal pain in the a**!! Even after everything is over, after the supposed National Security Crisis is averted, and the lunatic’s identity revealed, the author brags on and on about the symbol that was lost. Peter Solomon manages to extract another meaning from the Pyramid, which is bland. At this point, all the reader wishes is that the book should end, which doesn’t happen.

However, if I keep the monotonous plot aside, I must confess that Brown has really evolved as a writer. The grammatical errors in the book have greatly reduced [ ], the number of shorter sentences has considerably decreased [ ], and some of the chapters aren’t too bad. Especially Chapter #77, in which the antagonist relives his past. Pure genius!

Dan Brown also seems to have grown technologically [ ], for you find references to iPhone, Google, Wikipedia and Twitter (yes!) strewn all over the book.

What’s the verdict then? The Lost Symbol is sapless, run-of-the-mill, unimaginative, and wearisome. You can add more adjectives if you want, in the comments.

P.S.: If you want some adventure, you can try the SymbolQuest at the book’s website. Quite an interesting game. Here’s a screenshot:

A very happy Ganesha Utsav to all my readers! On this occasion, I would like to share a very interesting article in Hindustan Times by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Without much ado, here is the link – http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=24_08_2009_011_007&kword=&mode=1

Food for thought!

[As far as my longer posts are concerned, I'm in process of writing a magnum-opus. So it will be a while before you see something posted in here. Stay tuned, though! ]

After watching Kaminey, I have become sure of one thing – you can trust Vishal Bhardwaj.

After sitting through New York and enduring Love Aaj Kal, I had become wary of the kind of movies Bollywod was offering these days. However, with Kaminey, the trust has returned. The movie is the sixth directorial venture of Vishal Bhardwaj, and I daresay that it lives up to his reputation of being one of the leading filmmakers of India.

The movie tells the story about twins Charlie and Guddu (Shahid Kapur, each ) on the run. While Guddu seems the quintessential good boy who stutters, Charlie is someone who believes in taking fotcuts to earn money. And then there is Sweety (Priyanka Chorpa) too, who is Guddu’s girlfriend, who gets pregnant while flaunting her knowledge of Home Science, and tries to marry him in a hurry.

Guddu is a social worker, Charlie is a horse-race fixer and Sweety is the sister of a corrupt and powerful politician. Once, Charlie gets embroiled in an incident involving cocaine and lots of money, and manages to make a reasonable amount of enemies for himself. As luck would have it, Guddu gets caught in the controversy too – owing to his resemblance to his bad-boy twin. What happens next is a mixture of fate, politics and quick thinking. It so happens that the two brothers are at loggerheads with each other, and haven’t come face-to-face ever since their father died. However, as the circumstances bring them together, they must help each other to be able to survive.

Perhaps the best thing about the plot is that there are no extras. No parallel storylines, no endless roundabouts, and no wavering from the central theme. Everything happens in a spate of a day, and to be able to make a full length movie out of it is indeed remarkable. The director receives full points on that front.

Plus, the movie comments on various issues that are occupying the centrestage in India these days in a very unobtrusive way. While the character of Guddu makes an entrance in the film singing about AIDS awareness, Sweety’s on-screen brother Bhope Bhau (Amole Gupte) is a Raj Thakery-ish politician who detests everything non-Maharashtrian. The director has also dared to comment on the murky business of politics. The way these current issues are made an integral part of the plot is again, remarkable. Also, the movie is quite secular. We have Bengali characters and we have Punjabi characters. We have Marathi characters and we have African characters. These characters have no qualms about speaking in their mother tongue either.

Notice the way humour is injected in the story and you will want to applaud the man who did that. It happens spontaneously, without effort. You laugh at Sweety’s comic dialogues, but you don’t do that when Guddu stutters or Charlie lisps. You laugh at the situation, but never laugh at the characters, or even actors, for that matter. There are no forced jokes, and the humour is dark.

Talk about performances, and Vishal Bhardwaj still gets full marks. Seriously speaking, I haven’t seen Shahid Kapur act so well before; and I didn’t have a clue that Priyanka Chopra has got a terrific comic timing; and that the person who wrote the emotional story of Taare Zameen Par (Amole Gupte) would fit into a role of corrupt Marathi politician so effortlessly. These performances have spoken for themselves and made Kaminey a fine-tuned product.

And this film has memorable dialogues! Here are the few samples:

Life badi kutti cheef hai. Aur iff duniya mein kutton ka baff, ek hi jawaab hai…

Politics bhi pesha; power aur parivaar. Purn Viraam.

Par mere paas toe kapde bhi nahi hain dhang ke.

I toe like you without clothes only…

I have seriously forgotten when was the last hindi movie I was compelled to remember dialogues of. This is some real good news. Trust Vishal Bhardwaj to write them!

The cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain is snazzy. And though the narrative of the film is a hybrid of linear and non-linear, it is something an average viewer can easily follow without losing a beat. Vishal Bhardwaj has experimented with the background score with excellent results. (Take for example, the fight scene in a hotel room is shown over the sound of a 70’s hindi track!) The music is excellent too, with Dhan Te Nan already being the chart topper for a while, and Pehli Baar Mohabbat Ki Hai being a number you can’t stop listening. You can easily guess who the music director is. Vishal Bhardwaj again! And hence, Full Marks again!

The climax, however, did not appeal to me as much as the rest of the movie. There is too much blood and gore – way greater than required. Too many people kill and get killed in the free-for-all scenario. Still, after so many killings, it remains a happy ending movie.

With Kaminey, Vishal Bhardwaj has made sure that most of the major film awards of 2009 will come his and his film’s way. You just have to watch this film, there’s no other option!

Go for it, you will enjoy the dark humour.

The Would Be Intern (TWBI) is very happy. If this is not all, even the mom, dad, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors of TWBI are very happy. And why not? The very fact that TWBI is TWBI makes them immensely gay.

It so happened that after months of preparations (read: writing and e-mailing hundreds of cover letters along with her resume to hundreds of organizations and institutions in India and Abroad), TWBI has finally bagged a prestigious internship with Freie Universität, Berlin in the Department of Neuro Biology. TWBI is a student in Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology in New Delhi (a very prestigious institute to be in, mind you!). This fact, now you know, made anyone even remotely connected with TWBI immensely happy.

Now came the part where formalities kicked in. She didn’t have any passport, and applied for one in April itself. but got one made pretty soon. (She had a slight adventure to get that, though. There was a month’s delay in getting a ready passport in her hands! Blame the Indian Government System )

She required a No Objection Certificate from her college authorities, and she acquired it after some fight. (Oh yeah! She had to wait for a whole day, sweating out in her college to get that! The concerned officer was supposed to come at 10:00 ‘AM’, but only showed up at 5:00 ‘PM’) Meanwhile, as things were progressing here in India, TWBI started getting emails from Freie Universität about the kind of work she was required to do while in Germany. TWBI started to acquaint herself with the software program she was required to use. Also, the University had also worked out the details of her lodging and other mundane things. Also, the university had agreed to provide her with €2000 for her passage to and from Germany and for other expenses.

Visa was the next hurdle, and this was the very hurdle that brought about an end to this endeavour.

TWBI, in her visa application, had filled in ‘Internship’ as the reason for going to Germany. Now, working as an intern in Germany requires a certain type of documents known as ZAV (read the rules here). As stated in the document, nationals of certain countries are not required to submit ZAV. However, India is not in the list.

Prof. Dr. H.C. Randolf Menzel, who was coordinating TWBI’s visit from the German side, suggested that the apt term for her work in Germany would be ‘Study Visit’, rather than ‘Internship’. In that case, ZAV was not to be required.

Feeling happy, TWBI went ahead and corrected her VISA application. As she was positive that her VISA application was bound to be accepted, she went ahead and booked her passage to Germany as well, for a sum of Rs. Twenty Eight Thousand. Things started going bad from this point onwards, sadly.

The German Embassy in New Delhi reiterated that ZAV was required for her visit to Germany, even when her visit was termed as ‘Study Visit’. Perplexed, TWBI contacted Prof. Menzel, who reiterated that ZAV was not required. Prof. Menzel even got in touch with the Embassy officials directly, but to no avail. The ZAV was required, after all.

The VISA interview date was nearing, and though the ZAV was in process, it was expected a moment too soon. Thrice the interview date was postponed. Thrice the airline tickets to Germany were cancelled and re-booked. Thrice TWBI had to endure the pain after excitement.

Until it was too late.

The costs of this endeavor were escalating, for when an airline ticket is cancelled, the full amount is not refunded. The VISA application fee was going in vain too, for the ZAV was nowhere in sight. The VISA interview date was fixed on 24th of June, when the tickets purchased were for the 20th. Time was running out fast, and nothing else could be done.

Sadly, TWBI did not remain TWBI. The internship was called off.

It should be noted that TWBI had to let go of a tremendously good opportunity for a mere formality. If only people were more informed! Some mis-information and some mis-communication led to this fiasco, which could be easily avoided. The visit would have been a great addition to TWBI’s CV when the employers came recruiting in her campus. A mere formality!

This aspect represents a sad reality about… things. We have too many people, who have too many talents. If all of them were to be recognized properly, consider the progress we would have made in any field possible! But we are lazy, and don’t want to work, and let those talented ones run around in circles gasping with mis-informations. We can’t change, can we? TWBI’s story is not an isolated one, and I know that.

Whose mistake is it, anyway?

This is a true account of things that happened this summer. However, for privacy reasons, I am not permitted to use TWBI’s name. The rest of the details are correct to their best possible extents.

With Love Aaj Kal, director Imtiyaz Ali of Jab We Met fame returns with another romantic comedy; or so it seems. Starring Saif Ali Khan (who also doubles up as the producer) and Deepika Padukone in lead roles, the movie revolves around the life and times of Jaywardhan Singh and Meera Pandit. The duo is in love with each other but cannot continue the relationship for supposedly practical concerns. Long Distance Relationships don’t appeal to them, apparently.

The premise of the movie is understandable, if not apparent. It is about the trials and tribulations of a new age couple and the seemingly innocuous way they treat the feeling of ‘love’. It is about the stark comparison between love stories of the past and the present. It is about the notion that love needs to be taken care of beautifully, and not be treated like waste paper – throw away when you’re done with it. The title is apt, for one.

With Love Aaj Kal, the director aims to communicate that the olden (and perhaps, golden?) brand of love still exists. That people actually want to fall in love and share the whole of their lives with their loved ones, even in this fast paced world. That the virtues of affection and longing are still present, only that they are buried deep down.

The only glitch is that Imtiyaz Ali fails to tell the audience anything like that.

The screenplay is abrupt and disconnected. The director wants to follow a non-linear storyline, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, I would have liked it better if he took it slower. In the opening credits itself we are presented with incoherent scenes from the film, leaving us bewildered to say the least. As the movie progresses, we are presented with the worst-est (yes, doubly superlative!) dialogues we have ever heard in any recent movie (I haven’t seen Kambakkht Ishq though!). As the story builds up and things finally start making nonsense (some kind of sense, at least), we are presented with an overly obese Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor in his sardar avtar), who becomes a kind of Love Guru to Saif.

Veer Singh narrates his love story to Jay (and that’s where the blast from the past comes), who listenes with rapt attention – not exactly mesmerized, but intrigued nevertheless. Having just broken up with Meera (and throwing a party to celebrate the occasion), he gives an impression that nothing has changed. He is happy and she is happy, problem over!

However, for we can never trust a Bollywood movie to come up with something ever so simple, complications arise. Jay and Meera get into separate relationships while still remaining in contact – never apparently realizing that they actually love each other, even after the break up!
Throughout the movie, Veer Singh keeps Jay in good humor by reminiscing parts of his love story in frequent intervals, completing it just before the climax – which is as unconvincing as the rest of the film.

As far as the actors are concerned, Rishi Kapoor is in fantastic form and Sail Ali Khan acts well. Deepika Padukone would want to brush up her dialogue-delivery skills before signing up for another film. The supporting cast has performed their roles with apparent ease.

Music is perhaps the best thing to happen to Love Aaj Kal. I certainly liked the sound of Chor Baazari and the lyrics of Ye Dooriyan. However, since it is given by Pritam, it will turn out to be plagiarized from some foreign album sooner or later.

By the looks of it, Love Aaj Kal could be one of the best Indian movies ever made with its unconventional story and equally unorthodox way of storytelling. However, it fails to leave a mark. The screenplay has too many faults to overlook and Deepika certainly disappoints. I would not recommend any of you to go and watch the movie if I had my way. Even Bachna Ae Hasino was better than this, and that’s saying something!

This post is dedicated to my dearest friend, Pritha. It is because of her that I got the inspiration to write this.

Life is full of paradoxes, but they tend to break the sad monotones. – Rajat

Do you remember the times when you were a child, and frequently used to hear your elders say that childhood is the best thing that can happen to a person? That childhood is the best phase of one’s life? Perhaps you hear such things even now. And, if you are somewhat nostalgic, you may even frequently dream of becoming a child again, isn’t it?

Being a child has its own advantages. You have no decisions to make, no responsibilities to fulfill, and certainly no tummies to fill except your own. A child can be as carefree as a bird, believe in fairies and wait for Santa Claus! A child knows nothing about secrets, of relationships, and perhaps about love?

Recently, I had the chance to meet Pritha after a really long time. It must have been a year since we talked, if you know what I mean. We spent the time catching up with each other’s lives. It is amazing to think how fast the time flies, isn’t it? One moment, we were the best buddies in school. Another moment, we are meeting up in a random mall trying to figure out how much time has passed since we had a proper,  heart-to-heart talk.

It is very easy to feel nostalgic during such encounters. While talking to her, I was invariably reminded of the fun times we used to spend at school. About how we were virtually inseparable. (So much so that even some of our teachers used to think that we were having an affair! Jokingly perhaps, but nevertheless.) About … well, just about everything! It was an emotional bliss, if not anything else.

Invariably, our discussion ventured into relationships. Amazingly again, we found out that we had something in common this time around too… Broken hearts! It so happened, as we found out, that we had been in relationships with people (one each ), and had to suffer the misfortune of ending them. However, that is not the point. The point is how much we have learnt from these separate encounters.

While she was filling me in about her (mis)adventure, I had this peculiar feeling that I was able to understand her better than I would have, say, a year ago. And I have this shrewd idea that my misadventure had a major role to play in this.

It is very easy to lose your head when you are young. Appreciating a situation for its complexity is an art young people do not possess.

In my case, when it was clear Shreya* and I cannot move along together without some obvious differences, I decided to call it quits. Even my elders (actually, its only one of them who knows about this ) appreciated my line of action. I myself regard my handling of the situation as the best I’ve ever done. In fact, I regard it among the wisest decisions I’ve ever taken in my life, and that too, without losing my head. I did that because I had appreciated the situation for its complexity.

Perhaps that is why, I regard growing up as better than being a child. You get to worry about a lot of things, agreed. But you get to understand various things in a better way, something you couldn’t have done a couple of years before.

Some people (read: adults) still want to become children all over again. Because they want to be away from all their worries. They are stupid. And they are cowards.

I have a lot to learn before I am ready to face this big, bad world. However, I shall be a little less concerned from now on. The clock is ticking away, and I am getting older. I’ve already come this far, and I’ll get to learn all what I have to, perhaps at the right moment too.

* – Name changed.

Three actors, each a heartthrob in his/her own right. A love triangle. Treading the grounds of terrorism. Giving out a social message. No extraneous song-and-dance routines. Yash Raj Banner. No big ticket cricket season to distract the moviegoers…

By the looks of it, director Kabir Khan’s New York was the kind of blockbuster Bollywood needed to relinquish itself from the economic recession and the two month long standoff between the producers and the multiplex owners. Except that it has failed to bust any blocks, yet.

Samir Sheikh a.k.a Sam (John Abraham), Maya (Katrina Kaif) and Omar Aijaz (Neil Nitin Mukesh) are the three, seemingly protagonists of the movie. They are the undergraduates studying at the New York State University, and classmates of each other. Sam is the sporty, attention seeking and intelligent guy who believes in enjoying life to the fullest. Maya is equally vivacious, and proudly proclaims that her mother will readily elope with Shahrukh Khan given the slightest chance. Omar, on the other hand, is a shy, “good boy” kind of a person who is new to the American brand of life, having moved in recently – all thanks to a scholarship. Both Sam and Omar secretly like Maya. And Maya secretly likes Sam. The two meet, get married, have a son, and they are off. Omar, on the other hand, is reduced to the sidelines – never to return in the lives of two of his best friends. Or is it?

Years afterwards, Omar – who still lives in the city, gets some unexpected visitors. The FBI, out there to arrest him. Agent Roshan, played by now stereotyped Irrfan Khan, wants him to act as an undercover agent for them, because they suspect that Sam is running a terror camp in New York.

Omar, having reluctantly agreed, enters into the lives of Sam, Maya and Daaniyal (their son) yet again. And a curious turn of events follow up.

The story, written by Aditya Chopra, is intriguing – but the buck stops there. The first half of the movie, dealing with college, love, friendship et al, is almost weird to watch. There are too many awkward moments and the screenplay falters frequently, as if being paid to do that. You get sick of Hai Junoon, for it plays continuously for the first half an hour! John Kat and Neil are just too old to play collegiates. Further, the story keeps jumping up and down nine years apart, and this hasn’t been done tastefully, to the likes of, say Rang De Basanti.

The music is as good as Pritam can give you. As I’ve said, there are no song-and-dance routines in the film. The track tune jo na kaha is good, but I think that its a matter of time before someone unearths its original – if you know what I mean There are no tracks worth remembering, and certainly no tracks which strike a chord.

As far as the performance goes, John and Kat have done their usual, mediocre stuff, but Neil has done loads better. He brings out the inner conflict raging inside him superbly. However, he looks very childish in his avtar as a college student. Irrfan Khan has portrayed his role as an FBI officer well, owing to the fact that he has played a lot of similar roles (Slumdog Millionaire, A Mighty Heart to speak of a few). Like the music, there are no performances worth remembering, and certainly no performances which strike a chord.

On the whole, the movie has its strong points, but the weak and the mediocre ones clearly outstrip them. Watch it only if you are sick of waiting for movies to release, or if you are a really big fan of Irrfan Khan