Desicritics Author: Lomi

Movie Review: 3 Idiots

Lomi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:41:52 EST

I was very lucky to get hold of a movie ticket to this movie for almost the first day first show (actually it was second day). The reasons were obviously Aamir and Hirani. Both of them haven’t delivered a flop or a dud at box office for a very long time. I knew the perfectionist that Aamir and the entertainer that Hirani is, this movie is sure to be engrossing if not fulfilling. I have to say that I was more than happy with the outcome of the movie. It was natural, soft and last but not least touching.

The Movie started in all too familiar way of a search for a person. It is not uncommon in Hindi cinema to search for a person. But the difference here in was not the search component but the person they were searching was quite different from any normal person. Well the name itself was very different Ranchoddas Shaymaldas Chajaad. This guy was not either the typical Hindi romantic hero or even the typical action Hero that we come across in each and every Hindi cinema. He was sensible, charismatic, entertaining and also very joyful character. Well I have to say that Aamir fitted in perfectly into this role and it didn’t seem odd at all that a forty plus person was playing a college student.

The other characters in this movie also contribute equally and make a difference to the overall feel of the movie. The work of Sharman Joshi and Madhavan from RDB fame was expected to be good but what caught everyone the most attention and also the real surprise component in this movie was Chatur character. He was well suited to his character and made everyone in the theater to laugh his heart out. His Balatkar scene and his atypical Hindi accent were all the more good moments of the movie. The scene where Chatur impresses the most is when he reminds Madhavan and Sharman of the oath that he took of revenge and here he is delivering a perfect kickback. It sounded too childish and laughable but to think of it that is how a normal elite student of a premium institutes pit against each other nowadays. It is childish for us but that is the dirty world out there in those premium institutes.

The theme of the movie is very much coherent with Taare Zameen Par and the script of the Movie also had the feel of Munnabhai. The difference was the delivery of the whole package by different character with different story, screenplay and direction. The Movie is sure to be loved at first shot by everyone and may be people will not mind spending some more on the repeat viewing too. It is already breaking Sholay records and looks like becoming the all time favorite of Hindi cinema. Even then this Movie had certain shortcomings which needed to be addressed like for example not everyone will be as successful as Madhavan’s character if he goes away from the prescribed path. One example could be the US where every person has the maximum freedom that one can actually wish to have and you now have US president requesting his people to concentrate on Science and Maths. Well in a country like India it becomes doubly difficult to cross the paths.

Kareena Kappor did not have much to do in this Movie and it seemed more of a small role for her and Boman Irani’s character was again like his Munnabhai role where he was the same strict principal albeit in a engineering school. The NASA pencil scene and Balatkar scene is something we have heard of in our emails and school jokes yet it seemed different when it was put in as a movie scene. Javed Jaffrey’s brief stint was a nice gripping moment before interval but unexpectedly he just withers away after the interval.

The music didn’t seem all that great on TV and CD players but when seen in the context of the story and script, it seemed to make the cut. “Give me some sunshine” song had a nice feelings attached to it and seemed to cut across many people’s college days. Aamir’s courage in dealing with sensitive issues like student suicides, Indian education system, youth power, crossing new bridges are positive moments of the Movie. Overall this Movie felt like a complete package of message, music, masala (pregnant scene), sentiment and some non hand fights (between Aamir and Irani).

Music Review: Blue

Lomi — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:59:28 EST

I'm reviewing the soundtrack of the Hindi movie Blue after nearly a month of its release because unlike others I believe a musical review needs time and cannot be reviewed in an hour after listening to the songs unlike the movie which could connect to you instantly or if it doesn’t then it means you didn’t like it. Thus there is a delay in the review of this Album.

The Music director of this Album needs no introduction and movie coming from him after nearly six months gap which is long kept everyone interested. AR Rahman had a spurt of movies in a short burst namely Sakkarakatti (Tamil movie), Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na, Yuvvraaj, Ghajini, Slumdog, Delhi-6 in a span of about four months. Of late, he did not have any movies and being a fan of his, I was expecting a bit more from this. The Blue music definitely doesn’t disappoint.

The first song that I liked the most and may be the catchiest song of all is “Chiggy Wiggy”. If you listen to this number the first time, you will be instantly attracted to it than the rest of songs. The English lyrics makes a nice soothing feeling to ears and also the Hindi word coming at the mid of the song adds to its charm. Overall this song is a beautiful one but the Rahman fan always look for his melody and in “Bhoola Tujhe” we have a nice melody song. The song goes very slowly and captivates your heart as you listen to it three or four times. The USP of this song is why the review of this movie comes late as it takes time to both appreciate and enjoy this song. It also has nice visuals when watched in the theatre.

The next two songs are fast paced songs in “Blue Theme” and “Fiqrana”. Both these songs are catchy numbers too and the “Blue theme” song has some amazing video to add to it. These songs are also very catchy and you feel, “Hey we are getting our value for money”. The other song “Yaar Mila tha” is actually very good too, but I do not remember seeing it in the Movie, perhaps it was edited out in the last touch.

The title song “Rehnuma” is little unique in its way as it first starts as a slow paced song and gradually picks speed that you could probably relate to this movie storyline which starts sedately to pick speed in the climax. The last song “Aaj Dil” has the AR Rahman written all over it. It’s a very neat song in its lyrics and keeps you reminding that Rahman rules as far as Indian music industry is concerned. The visuals of this song makes elderly people in your home say “we did not have this much shortage of clothes even in our freedom struggle times”.

Overall the Music of this movie is really good. It’s unique with its new techno instruments that we have not heard of before. Those who are still wavering over whether to buy this album or not, please go fast and grab a copy of this album. It’s Goddamn good!

Cricket: Five World Cups In Last Three Years

Lomi — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:59:54 EDT

Yes will you believe it, there have been five world cups in last three years and we used to think world cup comes once in four years. There have been five world cups in three years:

1) ICC Champions Trophy 2006
2) ICC Cricket World Cup 2007
3) ICC T20 World Cup 2007
4) ICC T20 World Cup 2009
5) ICC Champions Trophy 2009

ICC has become cash rich body and still it wants to milk the cash cow. Players have become fatigued and there has been same winner (Australia) on three occasions but still ICC wants to conduct T20 every 2 years, champion’s trophy every two years and world cup every four years which gives roughly 5 trophies in one rotation. If you go back little more time, there has been one world cup every year in the period 2002-2004 and 1998-2000.

In the year 1998 when Jagmohan Dalmiya (the clever business magnate) was the ICC president, he introduced this new trophy called champions trophy. The main reason given then was that even though ICC was the main governing body of the cricket game, it did not have any money in its kitty. Thus he gave birth to this idea of champions trophy every two years which would cough up so much money to make ICC self reliant in its methods and help to develop its smaller member countries.

Now when ICC is so rich, do we need to see so many global tournaments at such a fast pace. What it does in short is to take the sheen out of such tournaments and the main source of income (spectators) loses the interest in global tournaments. With the result that India was world champions only 2 years ago but still do not get the deserved attention. The reason why the tournaments of grand scale, be it Olympics, soccer world cup, European championship etc comes once in four years is to keep the general public always glued to such tournaments which in turns gives such tournaments such a huge popularity.

I think it is high time that the Champion’s trophy is scrapped and the T20 world cup gets lesser participating countries (probably six is right). This will give the spectators some open space to think and more importantly gives the winner the necessary attention. Pakistan the present T20 champions will be defending their trophy in nine months time is something totally inconceivable. This makes us to think whether making money is the ICC’s sole objective. Shouldn’t the tournament deserve the much needed respect?

Cricket - How Many LOIs Do we Need?

Lomi — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:58:32 EDT

For those of you who have seen so much of cricket and still don’t know this term LOI, LOI stands for limited over international. It’s been about roughly three years since the first Twenty20 game was played. Since the advent of Twenty20 the main question in every cricket lover's mind is whether we need two separate LOI (20-20 and 50-50) or do we need to gradually finish off 50-50?

The important point here is Twenty20 is still in nascent stages and is yet to fully establish itself but its attraction has been huge. It’s never been common in Indian domestic cricket to attract such huge crowds. Of course, the case in point here is that there are so many foreign stars in display but still people get to see almost 40% foreign players in action. If India plays, say a foreign country, on Indian soil it of course attracts huge crowds where we have 50% foreign representation. But the important thing to keep in mind with IPL is the winner is always an Indian team irrespective of who performs.

Do we see the end of 50-50 or is it going to coexist with Twenty20?

Twenty20:
Pros: Time, Speed of the game, boundaries, close games, evening out the teams, unpredictability
Cons: Better team need not always win, no comeback chances, too fast, one person can change the game, fielding becomes irrelevant, bowlers getting demoralized

50-50:
Pros: History, comeback chances, Better team always wins, Team game, Fielding important, bowlers get more respect.
Cons: Time, speed is too slow between 15-40 overs, predictability of the game easily, very few many nail biters, fewer boundaries.

As you can see from the list, the main pro for Twenty20 has been its speed. It’s not normal for a cricket game whether a Test match or 50-50 to have the spectators so closely gripped to their TV screens. Yes there have been many close 50 over games but if you look at it as percentage of games played, its very low. Moreover the 50 over game gets interesting only in the last 10 overs or in its initial stages which makes it watchable for say 20% of the time then what do you do with the rest to keep the spectators interested? They like to see action and Twenty20 brings loads of it and that keeps everyone interested. Also you get more close games in Twenty20 unlike 50-50.

50-50 has its own advantages of its very long history (including its ancient 60-60 days) but the main advantage of 50-50 over Twenty20 which any cricket lover would agree is its fairness. By fairness, I don’t mean the discipline here but rather the necessity that the team that played better cricket needs to win and that is more or less true here. You could always argue that a test cricket is more correct cricket than 50-50 but that is a different debate in itself. The main argument here is that in 50-50 if you need to win a game you need to do lots of things correct whereas in Twenty20 you need to do say one great innings. You could always play a commanding knock in odi but unless you bowl well you need not win. Also the bowlers get so much more respect that a batsman cannot literally close his eyes and swing its bat and still are called a hero. Well in one line “50-50 is more real cricket than Twenty20.”

We already have another format called Test cricket which will always be the cricket in its purest form and the question is do we need one “middle pure” and one “completely impure cricket”. The thing is 20-20 could never become a fixture in international calendar like 50-50. The reason for it being it’s not possible to always get a fair result. But club Twenty20 games would be the most popular form of the game. Looking at the initial interest, it is possible people might show more interest in these country leagues like IPL, the Champions League than say a international 50-50 games. But its interest will probably rest with club matches and may be occasional international games (World Cups). The test and 50-50 could be the fixtures in any tour calendar. What will die is probably not the 50-50 game in itself but those meaningless 50-50 tournaments we used to have in Sharjah, Malaysia, Singapore etc and also possibly the champions trophy.

Champions League: The Caribbean Flair

Lomi — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:46:49 EDT

It has been a great Champions League and one team that has stood out in this campaign has been Trinidad & Tobago. The Caribbean flair has been at its best in this tournament. The way they have played has made people go nostalgic of their supremacy in seventies and eighties. Though the Twenty20 format doesn't give too much ground to exhibit fast bowling action, the little bit we have seen hasn't been that attractive and it's more of their spin bowling that has attracted spectators to their team.

Let's get back to their batting prowess that has kept every one of their opposition teams stunned. In the initial stages, whether it was the Deccan chargers or Somerset, the thing that caught my eye in their batting was relentless hitting even when they lost continuous wickets. In the match against Somerset they were tottering at one stage due to loss of bulk wickets but they kept the run rate going and did not get bogged down at any stage. The important thing in Twenty20 is not to lose momentum. Because unlike in an ODI or Test match where you get at least 3 to 4 comeback points for ODI or even more for test matches, the Twenty20 gives you none. Once you lose momentum it means the game is out of your hands.

One important comparison here would be the semifinals between India and Australia in the inaugural Twenty20 world cup. Australia were literally cruising at one stage and just one wickets turned the tide in India's favor and Aussies never got back into the match.

The next stage was even more interesting when their bowling department which is their weak point was exposed to a great deal. They simply didn't have any bowlers to restrict rampage from the New South Wales openers. They were continuously hitting their way to take T&T out of finals in one innings but they were kept somewhat tight down to a reasonable total of 170. This was the perfect setting to test the Windies batting flair versus Aussie bowling machines. The stage was set nicely but the main question in everyone's mind was would the T&T batting hold its end till the target is achieved? What unfolded was something remarkable. The bloke from Trinidad called Pollard had something we hadn't seen for long time, at least in the Common Indian Viewers context. He simply destroyed NSW bowling and did something which everyone in the world except Australia of course loves to see, the perfect Aussie demolition. We have seen umpteen batsmen in the world trying to threaten Aussie bowling but what Pollard did on that special night was something totally outstanding. He not only made sure T&T won that match but he also made sure there were absolute no hiccups in achieving the target and NSW bowlers were totally stunned at the end. This flair just continued in the next match in this second stage against the Eagles where we saw the highest score of the tournament. What T&T achieved in these two matches was very enjoyable to watch for any neutral spectator.

The next stage was the semifinals and T&T was the only team out of the four teams who qualified for the semifinal to be unbeaten. Therefore the expectations were as expected huge this time as they had gathered many more fans than their usual T&T fans. But the way they won this match against S. African champions Cape Cobras was again very pleasant to watch. They chased down this time an even bigger target than the NSW target but the more important point was they did it without using Pollard and Ramdin who had been their stars in other matches. This set them up for a title clash against NSW who have already had a taste of their bitter medicine.

The final was initially completely dominated by T&T bowling which seemed to have cut across the spine of the NSW batting but T&T were in for surprise as Brett Lee adopted T&T tactics of not getting bogged down by flurry of wickets and he continued to show positive intent throughout his innings. This led to a more than respectable total of 159 which they successfully defended too. What let down T&T this stage was too much of hitting and very little sensible batting. Especially Pollard's wicket where he had just scored couple of sixes and the target was still at some distance and he needed to stay till the end. His hot at that's stage was inexplicable.

Anyway, even though T&T did not win the tournament, they had won the hearts of many spectators around the world. Hope there is lot more Caribbean flair in future for us to enjoy.

My Experiences with Cricket Part 1

Lomi — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:27:44 EST

I have been a student of a game called cricket for 17 years now. I am 23 years old now, thus my journey started when I was a six year old kid.

I was first introduced to this game by one of my relatives who was cheering for India in a classic India-West Indies clash. Yes, that India- WI clash of 1991 Australian World Series. India was all out for a paltry 125. Then we saw Windies struggling, all my relatives were so glued to the screen and so was I, not understanding what was going on. Everyone had tensed faces. I wasn’t feeling the tension but I also became tensed. I was a cute little kid as a 6 yr old but boy, my relatives didn't seem to care for me. They liked this game called cricket and were cheering for our Indian team. Then I as a somewhat intelligent boy understood if one is in Rome, do as the Romans do, so I also started having a tensed face and started cheering India India!

Hush, they were getting close. All were so tensed. Wickets were falling, runs were made. I heard my relatives say, our captain is our man, Azharuddin; he will win it for us. I then cheered Azhar, Azhar! (I also liked him because his name rhymed similar to mine Asad). Then they said he is very intelligent and cool captain. I obliged. Then finally it got to one run to win, one wicket in hand. Some cute little kid-like face (Sachin) was going to bowl. I was asking my relatives, what is happening, what is happening? But they didn’t listen to me and said shut up and were again glued to the screen. O.k. fine I again start cheering India India!!! They said, shut up close your mouth. Here runs Sachin to bowl to some black colored Windies player, The ball edged to the slips, I suppose Azhar caught a diving catch. The match was tied. Wow, all were shouting their throats out and I followed them, shouting the slogan, India India!

The match tied, all are dancing. I am also dancing. As a 6 yr old kid, am laughing and dancing, shouting India won India won (actually tied). This is how I became a cricket-crazy kid and till date I am cricket crazy although I have changed a lot. That whole day I was thinking only about cricket. I was also thinking, I would become a cricketer one day and blast all bowlers and make India win every match. Hurray! India is so strong!

This is how cricket was introduced to me. I would henceforth support India whenever they played and would never miss a match. From that match till today I haven’t missed one match of India and have been a student of this fabulous game called cricket for sixteen long years. From a kid who was 6 yrs old to a 22 year old so called professional, I have followed every movement of the Indian team and also most other teams.

I will divide these 16 yrs into 4 parts of how I followed this game. There have been umpteen occasions when people have taken various forms in distracting me away from cricket. Despite this, I am still a student of this game.

Stage 1: Initially for the first 5 yrs from 1991 to 1996 I had virtually no one distracting me from the game in this period. Of course because I was a 6 yr old kid to 11 yr old kid (I still consider myself a kid though others don’t). My mom never said anything when I was glued to screen for 5 years postponing everything for cricket. I saw 2 WCs in this period. The first one was the famous 1992 WC which we lost very badly. The only consolation was that we defeated Pakistan. The next WC was an emotional one for me. I was a typical grown up Indian in this stage, emotional, patriotic and unselfish for cricket. I used to jump in joy when India wins (emotional). I used to be supporting Indian team so patriotically even when there was no chance of winning. I used to be unselfish in prioritizing cricket over everything else like studies, play or my mom's work.

The most emotional period came in the 1996 WC semifinal. We were watching the game as a family, when India restricted SL to 241. We were chasing well with my hero Sachin murdering Lankan bowlers. I had high hopes of India lifting WC, I cheered India all the way through the campaign emotionally, patriotically and unselfishly 100%. Then came the fateful time, we lost wickets in a heap and were suddenly struggling at 120/8. I was shocked and down and out. I was crying. I of course had some crap midterm exam next day (WHO CARED!!!). Still, it was my favorite subject Mathematics. So I said to my parents "don’t worry I will get good marks."

My dad was very understanding but my mom was like a pain in the neck. She said "You can only see the score every 30 minutes."

You know me, I said I forgot my pencil. I forgot my notebook, I left my bag, I left my slippers and made umpteen trips to the living room to know the score.

Then when the wickets were falling, I was so emotionally down that I didn’t move an inch. I slowly started crying. People were throwing bottles, papers everything they had. I felt like breaking my TV. Kambli was crying as well. I felt so bad that day that I failed in my favorite Mathematics exam for the first time or I got very low marks. My mom knew the reason. I consoled myself and my parents consoled me saying it was just a game but I wasn’t ready to listen. I said Indians deserved to win the WC and we would definitely win it next time. Though after 2 days I was back to normal, it was an emotional phase in my experience with cricket.

STAGE 2: 1996 to 1999 was a period when Indians performed very badly under leadership of Sachin and then unbelievably excellently under Azhar and finally ending with a super six exit in the WC.

Under Sachin, we lost everything. I was very disappointed and used to feel very bad. I basically lost interest in game as we couldn’t even defeat small teams. This was a time when Azhar lost form. Kambli, Manjrekar, Prabhakar were all dropped. New guys like Robin Singh, Sourav and Dravid came and Sidhu was also doing well. I loved it in 1998 when we won most of the tournaments under Azhar. We won everything in reach. We defeated the Australians in the 1998 Sharjah cup, the Champions trophy and at home as well in the Test series (though we lost the one day series). We also won against Pakistan in the Independence cup. We defeated SL too after hiatus. We looked so invincible that people started saying Indians could win the 1999 WC.

Then came the shocker 1999 New Zealand series. It was a shocking series and then the 1999 WC was even worse. Although we played well individually we lost badly against Zimbabwe, South Africa (a game we should have won). I did have my tenth board exam but that was before the WC so no hindrance to the WC. I did fairly well in the exam. I followed the game very vigorously again from 1998 after dull 1997 but was again disappointed that we lost the WC again. This time I didn’t cry. Come on I was from 11 to 15 and I was grown up. But I felt for Indian team a lot.

Movie Review: Guru

Lomi — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 13:31:51 EDT

What a heck of movie it was, once again from the guru of directors Mani Ratnam. I know it's not a mega hit, just a hit or maybe even lesser according to Bollywood sources which are nothing but crap according to me. Otherwise how else can you explain films of real sub standard quality when compared to Guru like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Krishh, Dhoom-2, Don, etc. becoming mega super duper hits. Please give me a break; these movies are not even 5% of what Guru is. And Mani is like so much times better director than Karan Johar, Nikhil Advani, Farhan Akhthar put together. They have loads to learn from Mani. This just explains the politics in Bollywood. They just don't want another Southie there. Already AR Rahman is the best music director, now they cannot stand Mani being called the best director. What makes it personally exciting is that both are from my state and by, we Tamilians should be real proud of these two jewels from Tamil Nadu.

Coming back to the movie, could Mani have done better? I don't think so. Everything was perfect. Dialogues, characterization, cinematography, music, background score, etc. A few songs seemed out of place but one cannot do without songs in Bollywood or Kollywood. I haven't seen a better movie in Bollywood for a long time. This movie was better than Yuva for the message and execution was more subtle. Abhishek according to me, acted well for the second time in his career after Yuva. Aishwarya didn't have much of a role except during climax when she speaks for Abhishek. I am too humble to comment on other people in the movie. They are just awesome. Whether it is music, cinematography, choreography, direction, screenplay, story, dialogues, etc. they are just extraordinary.

Then why isn't this movie a super-hit? Well as far as my friends go, all of them loved it except maybe the climax. Even so, this ought to have been a bigger hit than those one line movies of Karan Johar but unfortunately as shown in the movie itself, the big players (Chopras, Johars etc) don't want a common man from the South to make big in Bollywood. They know they will go bankrupt in five years time. Such is the politics in Bollywood that Mani has to be content with just a hit.

Now about the climax, people say Abhishek should have been punished. Guys wake up, wake up please. When will Indians realize that there are no white or black people in this World? Everyone is gray. Only the shades of gray vary. One guy could be darker gray, one guy could be lighter gray but no one is white or black. Abhishek was medium gray. He wasn't dark gray by any chance. Yes he cheated the government and made millions of money but who is to blame for that. The government itself which never supports the middle class or lower class and is always obsessed with upper class people then how could he make big. Moreover he cheated government, not the people. In fact people made huge money from his impeccable business tactics through stocks. Now when middle class start getting money, what should government do, close his industry and let everyone suffer. Because if his industry is closed then it's not Abhishek alone who loses money, it's all his share holders which includes countless middle class families. Rather the government fined him like 63 Lakhs or Crores (I'm not sure of exact amount) I suppose and let him free. Amazing decision by the court and three hurrahs for Abhishek for convincing the judge with his four and half minute speech. Again he made 30 seconds profit.

Basically I loved this character of Abhishek, what India really needs is thousands of Abhisheks who don't make profit only for them but for thousands of people trusting him. He enacts an amazing character. People say he cheated, he cheated, who doesn't cheat in this world. When your mom said sleep, otherwise some ghost will come and eat you, she was cheating you, when your boss said wait two more months, you will get promotion, he was cheating you. When the politician said I will give roti kapda makaan he was cheating voters. When Abhishek said he will make profit to his shareholders, he didn't cheat. He didn't smuggle heroin or ganja, he didn't kill people at his will, he didn't bribe a honest person. In fact till the end he respected his godfather Mithun. Awesome.

Yeah I know there is an analogy in this movie to a real character which Mani is known to hide as always. Like he did with his Tamil movie Iruvar. What ever it doesn't matter, as they say in the Hindi song. Samajne wale samaj rahe hai, jo na samje, woh anari hai.

Paruthiveeran: A Movie of Real Class

Lomi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:42:24 EDT

I saw this movie with little high expectations, thinking that its director Ameer will not disappoint me and I should say that I got more than what I bargained for. Though the movie is rural-themed and had no real city values attached to it, I liked it. I personally did not like the rude story, rogue hero or heartless heroine. But when you consider that the amount of effort that the director has put in to each of the scenes and each and every character of the movie then you cannot do anything but bow your head to this breathtaking director.

Ameer used to be another great director's (director Bala) assistant and I personally feel he has become touch better than Bala in this movie. People talk of Selva Ragavan as next Mani Ratnam; I think now they should think of Ameer as next Mani Ratnam. The reason is not that his direction is great but is rather unique. His parallel clips (showing two different shots in same clip) show he is not afraid of experimenting. Ridiculing fan clubs of famous and top actors shows he is not afraid of anyone. His audacity to pick newcomers and make them act in his movie shows that he wants himself and his story to be the heroes and the movie the selling point and doesn't want to rest on a hero's laurels.

Talking about the hero of the movie, Karthi, he has done wonderful job. In fact Superstar Rajinikanth was surprised to hear it was his first movie and his brother Surya said that in his first movie he did no acting and this performance from his brother was impeccable. The scene where Karthi impresses the most is when he shows love for heroine. He looks so natural and his witty scenes with his uncle are very comical. For first time, atleast for me, I saw a Tamil heroine in a Tamil movie having equal character as her counterpart. The heroine of the movie has proved that when given a proper character the heroines can also influence the movies. She was so good and true to her character that it seemed as if she were living the character and not merely acting. She was simply breathtaking with her dialogue delivery and performance. The comedian deserves a special mention for his simple yet wonderful scenes in the movie.

The credit for these should go to the director, for bringing out so much from newcomers is remarkable achievement. This is where Ameer impresses me the most and promises a lot for Tamil Cinema.

The movie is a must-see for all village people, though the city dwellers might not quite like movie and would certainly hate the climax. This means movie might be hit but will not have huge collections. It is every critic's hit movie but am not sure how good will it be at the box office.

I would love to see Ameer take a city subject next with bigger moolahs and that would probably set the ball rolling for making him the next Mani Ratnam.

Watching Movies Like Rang De Basanti

Lomi — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:19:23 EDT

If I had to rank the great patriotic films I've seen over the last few years, the list would include Yuva,Swades,Rang De Basanti, and Mudhalvan a.k.a Nayak

All these movies had something in common - the power of contemporary youth. In all these movies the hero was youth, the youth power, what the youth can achieve, etc. And now the interesting part - I am one of the youth of this great nation called India; so, after watching all these movies, what do I do? Do I replicate the hero of the movie? After I watched RDB, the latest among these movies, I found it more appropriate, especially in the first half, to what the youth of our nation is thinking. The youth of our nation is least bothered about anything that is happening in our country. There is no Nayak like journalist (when I say no its mostly) who cares so much about the nation. There is no Yuva-like youth who wants to enter politics, despite the hullaballoo (an exception being the founders of Lok Paritran). Again, there are no Swades-like youth who give up their fortune in a dreamland called USA and come back to serve their motherland (once again, with the exception of Lok Paritran).

Thus, the majority, if not all, of our youth are pretty much like the folks in the first half of RDB; they are least bothered about the nation, who think in terms of what nation has done to them and not in Kennedy's terms of what they have done for the nation. They need that spark like in RDB to transform themselves like the youth did in the second half of RDB.

After watching these four movies, especially after RDB, I was inspired to write something along similar lines. So an idea struck my mind, let me make a drama of this script and present it to the youth of the nation. The difference is that, I am studying in the U.S. and the youth to which am showing this, at least most of them, have come to make their fortunes in the U.S. and don't want to even dream about going back to India. So I decided to show them the situation replicated at my own university (Anna University). I show how the youth become the Vice Chancellor of university for one day and changes the happening of university in one day so that the foreign people start coming to this university for their studies. You see glimpses of my play here and here.

The response for this play was mixed; of course the acting, coordination, etc. were great, which pleased me. I did not hear any comments along the lines of "Great concept, but will it happen. You were joking weren't you?" Most of them knew it was just a play and boy, they have seen so many movies in the same fervour and very well accept that these things sound good in movies but in reality are least practical.

I wonder if it is really hypothetical or are these things that we see in movies really possible?

Post Mortem of Indian Cricket Team

Lomi — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:41:41 EDT

It is said in cricket that it is easy to pinpoint errors after the loss but difficult to judge before it starts. Actually if you had followed my blogsite I gave India very little chance of advancing to semifinals but they beat me on predictions by not even qualifying for the Super 8s.

As you all know the excitement of Cricket World Cup 2007 is just starting but unfortunately two of the most followed teams in the Indian subcontinent, India and Pakistan, are out of the tournament. So, I thought why not analyze the Indian team and see what really went wrong with our team.

First, here was our team:

Opening Batsmen- Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virendar Sehwag, Robin Uthappa

Middle Order- Rahul Dravid (Captain), Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Virendar Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dinesh Karthick

All Rounders- Irfan Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Wicket Keepers- Dinesh Karthick, Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Fast Bowlers- Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Sreesanth

Spinners- Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh

Fielders- Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Dinesh Karthick

Note there are only fifteen players in the team but some players qualify for more than one position.

Opening Batsmen:
India's opening batsmen are the World's best; there are no two ways about it. You won't get any better. On one hand you have the best ODI batsman Sachin with 40 tons, on other hand you have Ganguly who is arguably second best ODI batsman in the world. Then Sehwag on his day is the most destructive ODI batsman and Uthappa is what Sehwag was six years ago.

In simple words this is the best and it doesn't get bigger than this in terms of statistics but on field we had so many deficiencies even in our best part of the game. Moreover cricket is not about what used to be, it's about what is now. We found that Sachin was batting in middle order, which he has not done in recent past or leading in to WC. Then did why our captain ask him to play in the middle order?

Ganguly was in form but not as we know him. Uthappa came a cropper, which was expected as he was a youngster with hardly 3 or 4 matches under his belt. This again raises the question, why did the selection team pick such a youngster for a major tournament like WC and why did Dravid play Uthappa ahead of an all-rounder like Pathan?

I think we just had too many openers unnecessarily for WC. We could have picked someone like Kaif or Raina ahead of Uthappa for the simple reason they have played more.

Middle Order:
The middle order also did not come that good. In the game against Bangladesh, once Ganguly got out, others failed to chip in and India bundled out like a pack of cards which was sorry to see for an Indian cricket fan.

Also the running between wickets was very poor, anyone watching cricket with bit of sense could say that we should have picked at least one of the two - Kaif or Raina, which would have improved our fielding and running between wickets a lot. By putting Sachin in middle order we further weakened our middle order.

Except Dravid, there was no experienced solid middle order batsman who could wage a battle against strong teams (it was a different matter we did not even need to face them). Players like Dhoni, Yuvraj, Sehwag or even Sachin for that matter should understand what type of responsibility is required to play in middle order.

All Rounders:
Did we have anyone called as all-rounder? Oh, we never did for like the past 10 years and all we had at most were batsman like Sachin, Jadeja, Sehwag, Ganguly, Yuvraj, etc trying to fill in that 5th bowler slot.

Still they did the needful with Sehwag being the best among them for his ability to bowl at death. Who can forget his impeccable bowling against South Africa at ICC Champions trophy 2002?

Now there was one guy touted as the next Kapil Dev and still possess excellent average in both bowling and batting. Then why wasn't he used in this WC? Yes I am talking about Irfan Pathan. Yes of course his form was not that good but there is classic saying in cricket that "Form is temporary, Class is permanent".

Pathan has lots of class in him. He could have commanded a place in the team ahead of Uthappa in terms of his batting alone. It was sorry to see Dravid backing a couch potato but not Pathan.

Wicket Keepers:
This could a quiz question for the WC 2007. Which was the only team in the WC that had two specialist keepers? (I know the Aussies have two but that's a cover for Gilchrist who wanted a two or three match rest.)

Answer: India. Correct answer! And you win cash prize of 1 Lakh rupees and free ticket to India vs Sri Lanka match in the WC 2007.

Seriously, why did we need two keepers - because Mr. Dravid doesn't need to keep for even one match? Being captain, couldn't he even do this small thing? If at all Dhoni would have got injured then Karthick could have reached Caribbean in 3-4 days, which meant losing one match that could have been filled in by Dravid.

Thus this points to a question why do we need two keepers? In simple words Mr. Dravid likes Dinesh Karthick. Why this favoritism? Also Dhoni needs to work on his keeping more than giving advertisements. His keeping lacks some general technique and he is covering up with his batting which is not good.

We could have had both Raina and Kaif instead of Karthick and Uthappa in which case we would have had youth with sufficient experience for WC. The problem with Dinesh Karthick and Uthappa was that they had no match experience leading into such a big tournament like WC.

Fast Bowlers:
I feel this set of fast bowlers were the best India has ever had in world cricket in the past 15 years. I have followed the Indian cricket team for the past fifteen years and seriously it's only of late that I can proudly say that we have great fast bowlers.

On one hand we have the great upcoming swing bowler Pathan, then we have Zaheer who with his experience is damn good. And now I want to dig a little on Indian media.

The Indian media highlights Zaheer's WC 2003 experience as his performance in the finals, it's another matter that none of them bowled well that day and only he gets highlighted. But why, Media, do you forget he was India's highest wicket taker in WC 2003 and he was the best in the show overall.

I call it ridiculous. Judge him by overall performance and not just one match. Also Munaf Patel is good upcoming fast bowler along with Sreesanth. Ajit Agarkar with his so called all rounding abilities still gets to find a place in the team though I seriously don't know when he will ever make it permanent.

Agarkar always comes a cropper when he is put under even a little amount of pressure. This means he should remain a standby pacer at most rather than a frontline. Also I would have had both Sreesanth and Pathan ahead of Agarkar because he just lacks basics in bowling under pressure. He has been around for nearly 10 years now and still is 2nd or 3rd fast bowler and rather than the leading paceman.

Spinners:
Our spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhajan were world class, one with so much experience behind his name that he has done it all seen it all and another a really established spinner. But that was only on paper.

Anil Kumble should have retired from ODI cricket 4 years ago along with his compatriot Srinath in the last WC. He obviously was a passenger in the team and blocked the place for Ramesh Powar who could have made a world of difference to this already very heavy headed team.

Fielders:
Everyone knows it, we have the worst fielding set in the world, maybe along with Pakistan. Then of late we had a good set with people like Kaif, Yuvraj and Raina.

Only one of those was selected and he was also not 100% fit. Other two were dropped for I don't know what reasons. Dropping Raina is a bit understandable as he is a youngster and needs some time in Ranji trophy to regroup but I would have had Kaif in my team any day.

People talk about his batting ability but what about his running between wickets, runs saved and his continuous encouragement? Please give me a break with your selection, you couldn't seriously have told him to go back and correct your technique in Ranjis. He has been around for more than 7 years so that his strengths and weaknesses are well known.

And who did not have weaknesses? Everyone has them. If you were to believe me, even Sachin did. Sachin cannot score boundaries when the score is 85-100 even when he has 40 tons behind his name and it's a fact.

With all this I would have had Kaif for Dinesh Karthick any day. Why can't people remember it was Kaif who instigated the collapse of England vs India in that WC 2003 match. Who knows, if that run out would have been affected England could have won that match and our whole WC 2003 could have been different?

Overall:
Our team was very good on paper and would have won WC 3 times in a row but unfortunately this cricket WC was not played on paper. Instead it was played on something called a cricket field, which required things like strategy, captaincy, fielding, running between wickets, pressure, team skills, etc to name a few.

And all that counts for 50% and skill set counts for 50%. With our strong skill set even if we had got 50/50, our other abstract factors were so bad that we just were too exposed in this WC.

The ideal team if our coach and captain had used more mind than heart was:

Dravid �
Sachin
Ganguly
Yuvraj
Suresh Raina
Sehwag
Kaif
Dhoni (wk)
Pathan
Powar
Harbhajan
Zaheer
Agarkar
Munaf
Sreesanth

Well as they say there no ifs and buts in cricket, what happened is the past and we should look towards the future. Bad luck for both Dravid and Chappell but there was something much more than luck that was wrong with them.