Episode One: Seize The Day

When a person spends close to four years in the land of opportunities, you'd think that the person would be conditioned to understand the basic algorithm of a successful life – Grab all the Available Opportunities and Seize the Day.

Unfortunately you'd be surprised to know that there is one man on this planet who, in all the wisdom acquired by spending four years in the United States, has not got the essence of the way of life there. All he learnt in the land of opportunities was to wait for his turn everywhere.

So when he returns home to Hyderabad, India he decides to show his well natured personality to the unsuspecting Hyderabadis.

That alone can explain why he, in other words "I", waited patiently for fifteen minutes after entering a famous food joint in Himayat Nagar of Hyderabad. I was waiting to be seated. However no one paid any attention to me. People, who came after me, gave me a sympathetic look and grabbed all the available opportunities while I stared at them with disgust in my eyes. "Uncivilized people" I thought.
I should wait for my turn. Perhaps some people would draw inspiration from my resilience.

However after fifteen minutes of standing there like a dork, my resilience was showing signs of wearing out. When an esteemed patron called me and asked me for "Iced Tea on the rocks" I snapped and grabbed the next available opportunity much to the frustration of a young lad who arrived at the doorstep moments ago and looked as if he had just got off the plane from California.

When I finished my dinner, that guy was still standing there with a puzzled expression on his face – waiting to be seated.

This is not an isolated one off incident. Last week I went to a mobile phone showroom and expected a friendly salesperson with a warm smile on his/her face to guide me to the counter and pamper me with brochures etc.

Nothing of that sort happened though. I patiently waited for five minutes. The salesmen simply chatted amongst themselves. There was no other customer in the showroom. Finally I went to the group and politely asked, "Excuse me please. Do you sell mobile phones?"

They looked at me as if I had just escaped from the famed Nehru Zoological Park. "Yes sir."

I asked again, just to be on the safe side, "Are you open now?"

The look turned into one of sympathy. "Of course we are open."

I realized I needed to grab my opportunity here and make the first move. "Can you show me the latest Nokia models?"

When I came out of the showroom, a friend of mine, who was with me all along, told me in clear terms that I had to change my ways if I had plans of settling down in Hyderabad or for that matter anywhere in India. I readily agreed with him. It may sound a little odd that just four years of exposure to the American way of life, actually a grossly incorrect interpretation of it, could change a person so much. However in my case, it was pretty real. Maybe it was due to my limited exposure to the metro lifestyle of India prior to my Great American Stint. I come from a sleepy little hamlet in South Andhra Pradesh and customer service there meant the warm smile of the next door green grocer!

It is pretty clear to me now. I failed to read the American script properly. I should have read the line "Seize the day. Grab the opportunity with both hands." instead of "Wait for your turn." Well, to each his own.

Celebrate life. It is so precious and unique and yet taken for granted by most of us.

Believe in God. Those who believe in Him, have a channel to vent their feelings. Those who don't, have no such reprieve.

Finally - Learn to appreciate every minute of your life. For all you know, maybe there won't be any minute after the current one.

It has been an eventful two weeks for me. I consider this period as a life altering period. I had to go through a sea of emotions - sometimes barely managing to keep afloat and sometimes just engulfed by it. I learnt quite a few aspects of life in this period.

1. Man proposes. God disposes.
2. That doesn't make God a bad guy!
3. Everything in this world has a reason and a purpose.
4. Money has no meaning at all in the bigger schema of things.

We are still awed by Mother Nature and Her surprises. We may be beating our chest that we achieved a very high degree of scientific quotient perfected over the centuries but at the end of the day, Nature (or as I prefer - God) has the last laugh.

My dear Ishaan - You have shown me the meaning of life. It is really unfortunate that it had to come to this for me to understand the finer aspects of how life fits into the bigger picture. You have just turned 18 months old but you have achieved something most of us - adults - couldn't achieve. You have saved two lives and given the power of eyesight to two more. That's four people thanking you for the rest of their lives.

My dear Ishaan - May your soul rest in peace. Thank you for being with us all these 18 months. I understand you have other important tasks to handle. Wherever you are, I hope you achieve what you are set to do. And when you feel like returning to our world, please do consider us again. We are just waiting for you. We will wait for the rest of our lives.

Love
Venu

Atidhi - Mahesh All the way

Movie making is an art. Some people spend all their energy on the scripting part to ensure there is a solid screenplay with twists and turns thrown in between to keep the narration engrossing and interesting. However some people start by assuming that the role would be done by a specific actor and then weave a story around him/her keeping in mind the body language of the actor and the expectations people have on the actor.

Atidhi unfortunately seems to be product from the second school of thought. It doesn't have a story worth speaking of. It relies heavily on the screenplay and the amazing screen presence of Mahesh Babu, a man who singlehandedly rescues this movie from sinking at the box office and what more! he even makes it enjoyable for most part of the movie.

It has traces of a few movies we have seen before (Pokiri, Athadu, Man on Fire) but what makes this different, and I assure you it is different, is the freshness of its screenplay. Some of the sequences are well shot and are imaginative. A case in point is the very first Fight episode. Another is the sequence with Ashish Vidyarthi in the middle of the movie. And then we have the ICICI episode towards the very end.

Sadly, such glimpses of brilliance are a minority in this three hour long saga which takes nearly an hour and a half to get into the real plot. The entire first half rides only on Mahesh' extraordinary sense of timing and Amrita Rao's Girl-Next-Door charm. Just when you begin wondering whether anything is going to happen at all, the story picks up momentum and prepares you well for the action packed second half, which is a whole lot better than the first albeit a terrible climax - or Anti climax in the last ten minutes of the movie. A climax like this in any other movie would not have seen so out of place as it does in this movie - purely because of the brilliant run up to the climax. The end did not live up to the expectations set by the director.

Coming to the performances, this is just a one man show - Mahesh Babu. He is in his elements in this movie. While the blockbusters and the superhits he has delivered so far have seen some aspects of his acting prowess, this movie exploits him to the core - bringing out the best in him. You get to experience a roller coaster ride of emotions - frustration, helplessness, confusion, love, hatred, joy - you name it - you have it. Watch out for his brilliant portrayal of anguish right at the end. It is fair to conclude that Atidhi is just Mahesh all the way - from start to finish

Amritha Rao, with her girl next door looks delivers a good performance and could match the leading guy eye to eye in most of the confrontational episodes. The new guy stepping into the shoes of the notorious Kaiser steals the show. Kudos to his efforts.

The rest do their part as required. Sunil and Brahmanandam provide a few laughs but their roles are not properly written.

Mani Sharma's music is pretty good and the songs look great on screen. Special mention to the cinematographer for his efforts on the song - Satyam Emito. Outstanding contribution. Rerecording could have been better what with some of the punch lines getting drowned in loud background music.

There was a comment by someone when the show was over. "Boss! Everything is great about this movie. Only problem is the director!". Aptly said - Surendar failed to use this opportunity. It could have been a very good thriller but unfortunately it doesn't rise to that level. Surender tried to put in twists and turns wherever possible and in the process forgot completely about the IQ of the average movie goer in Andhra Pradesh. Some of my friends who have accompanied me to the movie today could not understand some of these well shot episodes.

At the end of the day, Atidhi could have been better. For a change, do not leave your thinking cap outside the theatre when you go to this movie. You will need it very much! Just watch it for Mahesh Babu and his outstanding effort.

My opinion - Good.

The Art of Reviewing - Where to draw the line?

This is not a review of any movie but a generic take on what exactly are the responsibilities of a movie reviewer?

Let me set the context first. Suppose I am a great fan of a screen idol A, and I go to one of his movies on the day of its release - find that it was the worst movie I've seen till date - and say so in my review afterwards, am I cheating anybody?

For that matter, consider the second hypothetical scenario. Screen idol B, a rival hero to A, comes up with a movie that I find very good. If I mention this in my review, am I guilty of double crossing my favorite hero "A"?

What follows next is just my personal opinion on this issue. As a human being, I can have my own favorites - but when I don the hat of a movie reviewer, I need to approach the movie as a neutral person and judge it solely based on the movie - not based on the history of the actors in it.

Calling it a spade itself is quite an art. To do so without being bogged down by people's expectations on YOU and YOUR REVIEW is probably the toughest job you as a reviewer should take care of. Before entering the movie hall, you need to leave behind all baggages including your own favoritism.

Also you should resist from posting a detailed line by line account of the movie's plot. Avoid speculating on the movie's box office stamina because you simply are in no position to "predict" the audience response. If possible try not to get into the usual rating game (3 stars out of 5) etc because these ratings are seldom based on scientific analysis. It is often the gut feel of the reviewer. While I have nothing against the gut feel, (In fact I feel the gut feel should drive the tone of your review) it is wrong to assign a rating to the movie based on this. However you can do so by specifying clearly that it is your personal rating of the movie.

Either way - decimal points in a rating do not make any sense at all. It will only result in "Why 3.25 for this movie and 3.5 for that movie" discussions. Decimal points signify a more accurate number. When the whole rating fiasco is just a subjective take based on your gut feel, reducing the movie to a decimal point rating is doing a great disservice to the movie and to yourself.

If you have to have a rating, have a descriptive one instead. Something like Bad -> OK -> Good -> Very Good.

Remember, you need not bash a hero to bash the movie. And you need not bash a movie to bash a hero. These are two different things and try to separate these two when you are set to write your review.

All the best for the up coming Atidhi.

Signing off....
Platy.

Alright, let me make it very clear in the first sentence itself - The only reason I picked up this book last weekend in Crosswords was the reference to IIT. And no, I am no way connected to IIT but I love campus fiction and most campus fiction these days are centered around an IIT campus.

Thanks to a very average Five Point Someone (FPS) and a bad "Anything for you, Ma'am" I was not expecting a great read when I started this novel. However it was a pleasant surprise. It did manage to surpass my meager expectations.

"Above Average" by Amitabha Bagchi was written in 2000 much before Chetan Bhagat's ground breaking novel made its way to the stands across the country. "Above Average" is all about Arindham or Rindhu as he is commonly known as inside the campus of IIT Delhi. The narration is devoid of any frills and does not pretend that it is holding you on the edge of your seat like some of the other campus thrillers do. However it manages to hold your interest.

The book has a non linear narration which seems absurdly random at times but a careful reader will be able to appreciate the jumps in the thought process of the narrator. It is the USP of the book. The book also describes the campus life in a much better manner compared to FPS.

To cut a long story short, this is a nice book to read and it stays with you long after you've finished reading it. It takes you back to your campus, your professors, your crushes and your ambitions.

At 195 rupees it is a bit steeply priced (By FPS standards) but then this is worth every paisa of those 195 rupees.

My rating: Above Average :)