Balika Vadhu- Kachi Umar ke Rishtey सप्टेंबर 26, 2008

Balika Vadhu-Kacche Umar Ke Rishtey is a new tv serial broadcasted mon-friday at 8.00 pm on newly launched channel Colors by viacom 18.Set in the backgrounds of royal rajasthan the plot deals with the journey of child bride from teenage to womanhood. The story deals with a child bride Anandi who is married at tender age of eight to equally young Jagdish from nearby village. To Anandi marriage means new clothes, new bangles, a nice mhendi and lots of relatives bringing in gifts. After anandis mother saw anandis married friend eloping with one of the village boy she decides to send anandi to her in laws. Anandi enters into the new world which is quiet confusing and alien to her. Poor anandis jounrey starts with her end of education and acceptance of new rituals and customs.On the forst day of mariage when anandi akes up and findds herself in a different house with nknown people she starts crying and says “Mujhe mere asli maa ke pass jana hain”. Where touching which will moisten your heart.While her in-laws are extremly supporting her inlaws mother9dadisa) and in laws brother tuaji are the perfect in laws. Dadisa with her always menacing ways tries to straighten up ANandi by forcing her to cook for 5 people, not allowing her to read books or play. However Anandi who is very fond of studies is secretly supportred by in laws allow her to study books.

Anadi asks different questions as ” when my friend Bhoomi is a widow shes not allowed to wear makeup then why Tauji who has recently lost his wife is allowed to wear good clothes” or why Jagdish can study even though hes married and why am i not allowed aftewr marriage?” or why Jagdish is allowed to eat ghee on roti and why i cant eat ghee?”

For those who think Child marriage is not prevalent these days in some parts of Rajasthan,MP and HP this custom is still followed. This serial shws how child marriage is actually happening in India and still prevalent in 21st century. When government has banned child marriage a meagre amount bribe is enough for the officials to allow this practice.
Most of the dialogues arein rajasthani hindi and one can easily related to them. The shooting is mostly carried out in different parts of rajasthan and minute details have been provided such as the food, the dresses and the language.
The program begins with an important note in Hindi: “According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) 2005-2006, a research shows that approximately 45% women between 20-24 years of age in different parts of the country have been married before they turned 18. For a nation to be successful, such malpractice has to be eradicated from the roots to secure a better future for the forthcoming generations.

Chini Maati-Meena Prabhu सप्टेंबर 22, 2008

A good book is one which keeps you engage for days.. and even if you finish it it keeps on getting back to you.. one such book is Meena Prabhus ” Chini Maati” literary meaning soil of China.
Meena prabhu has written two travelogues before one is London diary, mexico parva and egyptyan.. all crafetd beautifullu in simple lucid language….

The books starts with Meena Prabhu landing up in hospital due to her ankle problem.. Soon after recuperation, Meenas daughter gifts her a trip to China, Though excited about the trip, shes bit reluctant because of her left ankel.
The journey beganbs through Bangkok and end in remote part of China covering alomost entire province. Mostly the writer quotes some of the funny quotations, analogues and reminders of her childhood especially the cycle rides and her experiences on it. The exhilariting feeling of climbing the great wal of china and some of her shopping expeditions.
what i like personally about Meena Prabhu is she travels same destinations as a tourist does but yet she adds some schools, local bazaars, public places and less known hotels to know more about local culture. She is more inquistive about the communism and ill effects on the general people.
A must alteast once…………
I hope she writes something about her countryland one day…. and hope to cover australia by her….

Customer is King….. सप्टेंबर 10, 2008

It seems that Bollywood has now gotten over with its no brain comedy season. Everytime someone tries to make yet another senseless comedy( which used to be a big hit with the audiences a while ago), it just fails big time.

Same has happened with the Singh is King which opened up with house full shows, but as people came out of the theatres, the disappointment was clear on their face.

A few days ago, Akshay Kumar was heard accepting that the movie was scripted because he loved the titled that he once read written behind a truck…..what a joke…..So now in this so called scripted flick (which totally lacks a script), Akshay Kumar plays the character of Happy Singh and the movie begins with an action stunt, for which he is quite famous.

The movie does not have anything to offer except some lame punches that only manage to bring a smile on your face, though that too vanishes because of the irritation due to such a situation of an Anees Bazmi film.

For all of you who are going to watch it…Best of Luck guys….And please do not complain that we did not warn you of the consequent headache.

The movie begins with normal irritating Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar) who always tries to be a helping hand but ends up being a nuisance to everybody and then a King. Happy is asked to leave his village as the villagers gets fed up of his magnanimity which results in number of hilariously disastrous situation. Happy even drags his good friend Rangeela (Om Puri) to accompany him in his unknown journey, once out of the village.

Lakhan Singh aka Lucky (Sonu Sood) is the King of the Australian underworld who is accompanied by his associates Javed Jaffrey, Neha Dhupia, Manoj Pahwa, Yashpal Sharma, Kamal Chopra and Sudhanshu Pandey.

Happy’s journey which starts from a small village in Punjab travels around Egypt to Australia and it is during this journey when he coincidently meets his lady love Sonia (Katrina Kaif). He also finds warmth and affection in an elderly lady (Kirron Kher) in his journey to become King.

As expected, Akshay has given some mind-blowing action sequences. Also once again Akki has proved that with time, he has really excelled in his comic timing. Movie takes cinematic liberties but the strong points are some of the situational comedy and some witty dialogues. Om Puri is brilliant and his chemistry with Akshay Kumar is one of the strong reasons to watch the movie. Sonu Sood too has performed well. Neha Dhupia undoubtedly looks hot and has done a decent job. Javed Jaffrey is funny and succeeds in touching the laughter bones of the viewers. There’s no need to say that versatile Kirron Kher has again done justice with her character. Ravir Shourey’s acting talent has been wasted in the film.

With inputs from Prach Mehta

Bachna Ae Haseeno( Literally means Bagho Public) सप्टेंबर 10, 2008

Yet another Yashraj’s product, Bachna Ae Haseeno, is a flick which would be especially liked by the youth. This romantic movie deals with a young guy Ranbir, who falls in love with 3 ladies at different time, first, when he is in HSC (1996), second when he starts working with a company in Mumbai (2002) and third when he moves to Australia.

The guy breaks heart of first 2 girls so badly and he never realizes it until his third girlfriend breaks his heart and makes him suffer the pain associated with a spilt up.

The movie starts with a guy going back to his flashback and taking us to Switzerland where he had fallen in love for the first time (with Minnisha Lamba). The director had tried very hard to show us that it was actually 1996 but somehow it feels, the actors looked lot older than those 18 year olds.

2nd story takes place in 2002, with Bipasha Basu. The guy is shown working for Microsoft’s gaming section. Okay, now here the guy looks younger whereas Bipasha looks older. It is a kind of mismatch but here, there are few comedy scenes and the performance looks much real. Especially, Bipasha has really done a wonderful job.

Now, year 2007, the guy is in Sydney where he meets Deepika Padukone. There is indeed some kind of spark between Ranbir and Deepika. Maybe being a real life couple has helped them to showcase a beautiful chemistry on the celluloid. Deepika certainly has done justice with her character.

The movie seems quite ok in the first half but as it reaches interval, the whole movie becomes very predictable. The second half is emotional and a bit too long. The execution of the script by the director especially in the second half could have been better. The editing too could have been much crisper. As expected by the Yashraj productions, the music is superb, especially two songs, the classic Bachna Ae Haseeno and Khuda Jaane, really stand out. The cinematography is fantastic; the locales of Australia and Italy have been beautifully captured.On the acting front, Ranbir looks pretty good though he was kind of over the board in first story but overall he has done a good job. Minnisha again goes overboard like Ranbir in first story but later it is all good. Bipasha despite of looking bit older in front of Ranbir is the best of the lot. Deepika too is good. Actually, she did not have much to do.

The movie could have been made much better, in terms of execution, story et al. The concept of 1 guy falling in love with 3 girls is great but the way it is turned out is bad. They could have made it thorough romantic comedy flick rather than adding some drama and all.

So, overall, it seems that the movie would do good business. It may be liked by few while few might not like it. It should get mixed reactions.

Rating 4/10