Rang De Basanti

In about an hour or so, I shall be watching the movie Rang De Basanti in Esquare and I'm already excited about it.There are two reasons behind the excitement:
1) The movie itself - which I am told is very different.
2) The fact that I will be watching this movie with a group of close friends after a real long time. In the company of witty and humorous friends, even a dull and boring movie can be enjoyed...    

Postscript – My thoughts on the movie

• One can easily relate to every aspect of the movie (the characters, their wardrobe, their thoughts and more importantly their dialogues)


• The first half of the movie, where Alice Patten is involved in casting and convincing people for the roles, brought back memories of the DVD (Dil vs Dimaag) play and the fun we had making it.


• The editing is flawless and it does an excellent job of carrying the story forward meticulously. At one moment, it gives you black and white glimpses of the revolutionaries fearlessly fighting against the British Rule and then suddenly it leap-frogs into what-can-we-do attitude of youngsters in the colorful 21st century.


• The narration style is unique and brilliant. It superimposes characters belonging to two different generations and cleverly juxtaposes their thoughts and ideas in different frames. This takes the unassuming audience by surprise and silently encourages us to perform a collective soul-searching exercise. This technique also allows the director to convey his message without falling into the traps of preaching (remember Swades). Kudos to Rakeysh Mehra for exploring this technique !!!


• The publicity team of RDB definitely deserves a pat on their back for not revealing how the movie interlaces events in the Indian history with the present state of affairs in the country. After coming out from the theatre, I had a second look at the posters and I again appreciated the strategy of not putting in images of Bhagat Singh or Chandrashekhar Azad in the movie posters.


• The song picturization deviates from the traditional lip-sync model. Infact I think, there is not a single song in the movie that required lip-sync. The actors gave the right expressions to the camera-man, A.R.Rahman pitched in with an excellent sound-track and the editing table did a perfect job of reeling the song.  


• Last but not the least, I hope this movie wins an Oscar.

Handover Memories

Handover – the act of relinquishing authority/responsibility – is a pretty common term used in the software industry and if your company has a high attrition rate – chances are that you will hear this term very often.

A couple of years ago, one of my colleagues unintentionally split the word giving it a humorous twist - “I will give my hand over to XYZ”.

So whenever I hear the term handover, I tend to recollect a brilliantly executed scene from my all-time favorite movie – Sholay…

Gabbar Singh (brandishing two swords in air and declaring his villainous intent) – Ye haath mujhe de de – Thakur…
Thakur (intensely expressing his fear and anger in one word) – Nahi…
Gabbar (smiling more wickedly at the helpless-ness of his enemy) – Ye haath mujhe de de – Thakur…
Thakur (with more intense emotions) – Nahi…

The flashback mode ends with splashes of blood and an equally intense music. Thakur for the first time is shown without his shawl…