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Movie Review: Khosla ka Ghosla (2006)
Memorable lines:
- “Yeh theek hai, same ka same, change ka change.” (Banti)
(This is good. It is same. It is different.) - “To hum bewkoof hain jo pee rahe hain? Saahni saab bewkoof hain jo roz roz peete hain?” (Kamal Kishore Khosla)
(And are we idiots that we are drinking? Mr. Saahni is an idiot that he drinks every day?”) - “Waise ‘Chiraunji Lal’ software programmer kam aur paan wala zyada lagta hai.” (Saahni saab)
(You know that name Chiraunji Lal doesn’t really sound like a software guy. Maybe like a cigarette seller.)
Must say that with this one movie, we can wipe away the era of pretentious, unpractical dialog writing in Bollywood. The dialogs are very down to earth, like normal people talk (imagining for a sec that you can define “normal” for a country with 1.1 billion people). The script is largely believable too – I am not 100% sure whether some guys can pull off such a trick and get away with 24-25 lakhs, but I have heard similar stories happening.
So, the plot is largely this: a hardworking family man (Kamal Kishore Khosla, played by Anupam Kher) works hard to buy a piece of land in a upscale neighborhood. Barely a few days after settling the deal, he takes his family out to see the land, only to find an occupied boundary wall with a clear sign outside “Yahan peshaab karna mana hai” (not allowed to pee here). He logically points out (to no one in particular) that he hasn’t come this far just to pee, but to look at his piece of land. So, it turns out that his piece of land has been illegally occupied by some political big shot and that it is going to cost him 50% of his original buy price to get the land free again. He doesn’t have that sort of cash, but luck brings him in contact with some one who understands these matters, and together they set about beating the bad guy at his own game.
The character that I enjoyed the most was Banti. He is the brother who is not considered academically brilliant (at least is not shown in that light), but is a practical guy. Perhaps this could be pointing to the fact that when I was little I longed for a brother. The brother that I longed for didn’t have to be Einstein or a glam or a movie start – just a normal guy.
Thoroughly enjoyed this movie – double thumbs and bigtoes up!
July 21st, 2008
Book Review: Red Tent
I have had the book for a long time, just never got around to reading it, until I just got this book on tape! So, I heard the book, then read the book again, so some of my comments may be reflecting the voice that I heard as I “read” the book.
Red Tent is a book about the clan of Jacob, who presumably lived about 2000 years before Christ. Thus, this book captures an era that was four thousand years ago. One of the biggest things that stands out is the timelessness of the story and that of the story telling. I am yet to make up my mind as to whether that is a strength or a weakness of the book. If the book’s articulation is correct, we can conclude that lovers’ games, their nervous first contacts, love and rivalries between siblings, interaction between cousins, loss felt by a mother when children grow up, none of those emotions are any different now than they were four thousand years ago.
About the only thing that seems to be different four thousand years ago and now is the ability to travel. Due to limited means, people traveled less far back then, and it used to take longer (Duh!) . Another thing that has changed is the apparent lack of jealousy of husband’s desires in those times by the multiple wives.
Author Anita Diamant writes incredibly poetically, and the book written in Dinah’s mellifluous first person voice is a delight to read as well as to hear.
One of the criticisms I heard of this book was a rabbi’s angry tirade about how this book is trying to distort history since the concept of the red tent does not exist in Jewish tradition. When I read this book, I did not get the hint that this concept exists in Jewish tradition, only that it was in this particular family as a small family tradition, and the entire family story is a piece of fiction anyway. There is no way to please an orthodox religious person.
A significant portion of the book is about child bearing and midwifery, and those sections are handled very delicately by the author.
All in all, a great book – highly recommended.
July 20th, 2008
Movie Review: Wall E (2008)
“In a Nutshell”® rating: 7/10.
I had heard good reviews of the movie, and that was basically the reason I went in to see the movie. Some of the nice images that the movie conveys – an obese human who can no longer stand up, humans being dependent upon robots for their very existence, robots trying to take control of the world, a male robot flirting with a female robot are all very nicely done.
Also, this is a different kind of animation from pixar, and the first half hour of the movie has only sounds, no words.
That being said, the subject matter is old, the movie does not provide any more insights, and it appeared way too long, as compared to the information they wanted to show. There was a Czech movie (I hear) that presented the dilemma of technology much better – in that movie the robot has nothing to do either and the robot finally shoots itself.
One also notes that while science fiction writers have been telling us that with technology one day we may not have anything to do, currently, with technology, we have only become busier! Also, while it is true that sedentary jobs may not be the best for our physique, again, the technologists of today are leaner, taller and more athletic than farmers of yesterday (or is this not true?)
July 9th, 2008
MetLife: Interesting Customer Service
I recently applied for life insurance from MetLife. Today, I got a cryptic mail from MetLife, which says “… we have found it necessary to take the following action: ######. …”. It also had a bunch of wording on how I had the right to ask this information and that information and all that, so I did exactly that (ask for that information).
It does not reflect good on MetLife to send a cryptic letter to a potential customer using an internal code (“we have decided to take the following action: #####..”), when the customer is not expected to know what the secret code means. I find it very surprising that a company of its size, and billions of dollars in turnover cannot get its customer facing messages correct.