Movies Books Etcetera

The Five Recommended Books of 2024

2024-12-27T08:55:00.002+05:30

Here are my Top Five Books of 2024 - a must-read!

1. The Golden Road by William Dalrymple

2. The Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human by Guy Leschziner

3. The Health and Wealth Paradox: How to Use First Principles Thinking to Achieve Both by Ankush Datar and Mihir Patki

4. The Stoic’s Guide to Life by Rasha Barrage

5. Money, GPT, AI and the Threat to the Global Economy by James Rickards.

About each Book in brief

1. The Golden Road by William Dalrymple

After facing previously backlash for over-emphasizing on the Silk Road which may have emboldened China to launch the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, William Dalrymple comes back to India to weave a fascinating narrative about how India was once the center of the world and traded more with Rome as well as with so many other parts of the globe that in today’s parlance would amount to spectacular multilateralism – and in ways that made “Indosphere” the most influential sphere of World Economy. Whether or not you are an Indophile, this book gives you epic proof of what was once, along with China, the center of the world trade. Sure to become an instant classic.

2. The Seven Deadly Sins by Guy Leschziner

It takes a professor of neurology and sleep medicine to have a deep look at the seven deadly sins that create certain medical disorders which are posing a challenge to the medical world. With cutting-edge science and examples from real patients, Leschziner’s book takes us on a fascinating journey of how our bodies and brains are wired and how the seven sins not only represent our moral failings but also simply human functions that aid us in life or by hardwiring prevent some functions in humans. In no particular order, you can read about these seven deadly sins, viz., Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Lust and Anger. A 373 page-turner.

3. The Health And Wealth Paradox: How to Use First Principles Thinking to Achieve Both by Ankush Datar and Mihir Patki

Two Twitter/X market watchers meet serendipitously and collaborate on what is the most improbable topic that’s a heady combination of Health and Wealth. Most books on these topics do not meet at the intersection of health and wealth but the book above talks about a unique set of first principles deeply embedded in health and wealth which can be applied to both. What is the connection between Ketogenic diet and Value Investing? Or, looking at FSSAI labels on food products and trading on the Derivatives market? How can you apply the power of compounding in equities principle to your fitness journey? With extensive research and latest findings, these two authors condense with fascinating detail and simplicity on the first principles that make up your health and wealth with humbling anecdotes from their personal lives. Twelve chapters and many principles highlighted in each chapter with neat summaries at the end. One of the surprisingly delightful reads of 2024 released in the last quarter.

4. The Stoic’s Guide to Life by Rasha Barrage

Stoicism has been populating bookshelves over the last decade as the essential philosophy of life and living ever since authors like Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday and Darius Foroux have been exploring the many facets of Stoic philosophy and the timeless wisdom on the art of living. Most Stoic books have become voluminous and more condescending than a web series on Netflix with daily reminders, introductions and diarized jottings on everything from fatherhood to war and wealth. This book is the shortest introduction you will ever get on the topic to get started off on this philosophy of 2,300 years. It starts with an introduction on the philosophy from the men who shaped and improvised on stoicism from Zeno to Seneca to Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius. It takes you off on the virtues propitiated with each father-figure into concise chapters on wisdom, courage, temperance and justice and concludes how to blend all of them in our lives. As a philosophy that’s now spreading faster than crypto craze, this book released in 2024 is one of the shortest and inspirational tome that fits in your pocket.

5. Money, GPT, AI and The Threat to The Global Economy by James Rickards

James Rickards is the author who always comes with prescient observations on aspects of world economy which create tectonic shifts and disrupt the status-quo. Most of his previous books like Currency Wars, The Aftermath and The Road to Ruin covered areas whose repercussion are still being felt by forces that shape our markets and economies – they could be trade wars, currency manipulations, or reckless central banking policies. He has earlier touched upon the crypto currencies in The Death of Money. In the above book, he follows up on the most important force that is disrupting our work lives and our world as we know. Taking an example of how a popular magazine “Foreign Policy” published two essays on a geopolitical theme earlier, one by AI and another by a reputed professor, the author builds a good premise of how AI is not fool proof, not a maven, and no motives and therefore builds a case of how excessive reliance on ChatGPT or its many Avatars should not fool us in trivializing the human ingenuity or capabilities. Like Henry Kissinger’s “Genesis” released posthumously this year, James Rickards’ new book is a readable treatise on the pitfalls one should stay clear in the AI overload. He later concludes that traditional asset classes like gold and silver ought to weigh a third of the portfolio representing tangible nondigital assets. With extensive bibliography, this book takes the cake in being the last word on the phenomena of the last few years – ChatGPT, AI and Money in that order!

"Jailor" (Telugu/Tamil) Movie Review: Electrifying!

2023-08-29T23:25:00.001+05:30

"Jailer" is an electrifying entertainer in commercial format by Nelson who always builds a complex web of crime and police with stylish elements. It is not easy for an aging Superstar like Rajni to ace movies with a familiar template (of a heroic veteran looking like on some gardening leave but having massive latticework of connections in the backstory). Rajni acts like a smiling assassin with dignity and grace aided by a whole infrastructure of talent to resurrect his box-office fortunes after three back-to-back duds. The pace of the narrative never lags and whenever it seems to laze into indulgent comedy or silly scenes, the BGM of Anirudh accelerates the cinematic track back into energy or the gang of villains regroup into their next up move against the “Jailor”.

The story: Varman (played by Vinayakan) is the villain of the film who is on a fancy mission to steal statues of ancient temples. Two people stand in the way. One is a jailor (Rajni) and the other is a cop (Jailer’s son played by Vasanth Ravi) who demands a share. He cleverly seems to have bumped off the son (Has he? Find out) but the jailor is a man who outwits him at every turn. The contest between the Jailor and Varman is the most engaging part of the movie. The best histrionics of the film are by Vinayakan (Varman) who got the most improbable break to act opposite Rajnikanth. Any other film industry wouldn’t have given such a generous role to an actor like Vinayakan with his uncharacteristic looks and personality. But for a villain, what matters is the persona and the punchlines - and in both Vinayakan pulls off an incredible feat that surely must not go unnoticed in future. Yes, Rajni has given a free hand to the director in populating the film with the most explicit and graphical dosages of violence not seen in any of his earlier films. To make up for comedy and glamour, Nelson keeps a tightened grip on drawing a compass around the film with mostly the characters in the plot - most notably, Redin Kingsley for comedy. Sunil, the mass Bollywood comedian recruited for a hard purpose miserably fails to deliver and Tamannah, as his incredulous ladylove also flounders.

Overall, the movie rarely seems to plod on despite 165 minutes, except for the raunchy filmy masala scenes involving Sunil and Tamannah. For Rajni, the comeback is strong aided by a lot of his brethren from the South like Mohanlal and Shiva Rajkumar whose limited footage is cleverly used twice in the film for heightened effects. The Rajni formula is intact - and neatly entertains. What’s missing is a romantic track with his wife or lover - but the intensity of the plot doesn’t give you options to look outside of the conflict between the Jailer and Varman. The best part of this violent film with a surprise ending that leaves you niggled with a mixed after-taste is that the hero knows his physical limitations and enlists an impregnable pack of sniper commandos who always give him good cover. This is the hard truth of our lives - which many of today’s younger and other aging mass heroes do not realize - and you can see how Rajni’s heroism and stardom do not shrink one inch on screen despite the sniper props Nelson strategically places at various pivotal points in the film. “Jailor” is watchable but if you don’t stomach graphic violence, stay at home.

My Rating: 3.25/5

A Colossus in Acting (Navarasa Natana Saarva Bhowma) departs – Long Live Kaikala Satyanarayana

2022-12-24T02:39:00.001+05:30

Kaikala Satyanarayana is one of the original greats who rose from abject wilderness into a lifespan of limelight that never dimmed until his last breath. There are very few actors in world cinema who can be compared with his range of acting, his repertoire of characters and his filmography from the B&W era to the color era. Not a joke to act in 777 films and have his own inimitable stamp of assertive body language, a timber and tone that is longer than what you hear when a Texas woodsman saws a 350-year-old tree with his lumberjack, and it creates a long noise that’s heard for a long time. Satyanarayana’s laughter is equally intense and that has been the most imitated sound by mimicry artistes. That they could replicate the tintinnabulate sound is a tribute to KS but how he reproduced that sound in between lengthy dialogues are proof of his verbal capacity. At the age that he passed today, eighty-eight, he has outlasted almost all the Tollywood greats who travelled with him and departed before him from SVR to NTR to ANR to Savitri to Gummadi to the trinity stars of Shoban Babu, Krishna and Krishnamraju. His weight in the film’s success was always under-appreciated but nobody could gainsay the intrinsic weight he carried on his own shoulders. That’s why for most of the films where the titles rolled, if Kaikala Satyanarayana acted in the film, his name with all the sobriquets adorning it was usually mentioned at the end (Like “…And Pran”) or in later years, right at the beginning out of veneration to his body of work. It shows Satyanarayana’s stamp of authority on Telugu Cinema that whoever was there in the frame, he cannot be ignored; he was indispensable, and roles appeared custom-built for his versatile range of acting replete with all the nine emotions as they say.

Much has been said in the TV Channels and across the web about Satyanarayana’s astonishing film career. But some points must be noted in his honor for the record of his class and sustained success over sixty years of the Film Industry.

1. Kaikala Satyanarayana transitioned from a dupe to a character actor to an anti-hero and later as a mighty mythological character or as a full-length comic character. Occasionally, he starred as a hero on request from well-wishers and willing producers, but he never let that go to his head. He realized that amidst stalwarts like SVR, Nagoya, Gummedi, Nagabhushanam and Rajababu, he needed to constantly learn and unlearn and improvise and bag roles that defied any classification or typecasting. For example, after “Taata Manavudu” (where he plays the hero along with Rajababu) he could have settled as a hero also with his tall and handsome looks but he chose to remain menacing and evil-minded on the screen because of the huge opportunity for such characters in the 60s and 70s. Somewhere in the late 70s and early 80s, Satyanarayana starred in another film as a hero called “Moratodu Naa Mogudu” (Heroine: Jayasudha) which became a blockbuster hit. Yet, he was grounded and never insisted on hero roles.

2. KS straddled the world of commercial films as well as roles that made him an icon and a role-model hard to match. Whatever be the camera angle, or the storyline or the director’s cut - Satyanarayana always delivered be it as a rapist, sadist, eve-teaser, drunkard, silly son, wise father, father-in-law, irresponsible son, guardian angel, doting uncle, or a father-figure. The success he achieved in any role speaks volumes about his dedication to the acting craft, his theatrical strengths, his baritone voice, and his attention to detail.

3. Very few actors in Indian Cinema looked the part as much as KS and lot of credit must go to his fussiness over makeup. Perhaps taking a cue from SVR and later, his screen buddy NTR, Satyanarayana had the best of makeup support team to distinguish himself on screen and make him a treat to watch whether he is playing Yama, Ghatotkacha, Sher Khan, Mentor (in “Simhasanam”), Duryodhana, Deceiver (“Brindavanam”), or as a charlatan in “Vetagadu”. His looks and his presentation were always a standout and a draw for the film though he never bothered to check how the credit to a film’s success got apportioned to him.

4. During the tricky years of rivalry between NTR and Krishna when they were making films on the same theme such as Mahabharata, KS has the distinction of being the only actor who starred in both “Kurukshetram” (as Duryodhana) and “Dana Veera Soora Karna” (as Brim). Reports say he was as neutral and professional during this phase keeping confidentiality about the projects racing against time, finally released on the same day. In that sense, KS maintained the same stature and earned respect of every generation of heroes and eagerly welcomed them or encouraged them when they appeared on the screen. From NTR to Chiranjeevi to Mahesh Babu (in “Maharshi his last film), KS kept his tryst with every generation of actors. He never needed to lift his little finger to come out trumps against any actor because of his innate abilities in acting but he will leave you with moments and images of his persona in ways that will haunt your imagination while still appearing as non-threatening to co-actors.

5. Subhash Ghai had cast Kaikala Satyanarayana in one of his films. Perhaps “Karma” where KS plays as a bad man opposite Dilip Kumar. Something that shows his stature and his “star value” in non-Telugu films. In K. Viswanath’s films also, KS was one of the regulars and one can take a masterclass in acting from all the roles he played in K Viswanath’s films from “Jeevan Jyothi” to “Shubhalekha” to “Shrutilayalu” to “Janani Janma Bhoomishcha” to “Sutradharulu” and “Apathbandhavudu”, he will be seen in new light - sans swagger and extra-meanness and surrendering himself to the master director. Ditto in films with Bapu (“Sita Kalyanam”, “Sampoorna Ramayanam”, and “Rambantu”), Dasari Narayana Rao (“Thoorpu Padamara”) or K Balachander (“Rudra Veena”) or SV Krishna Reddy (“Ghatotkachudu” and “Yamaleela”). Very rare for an actor to get picked up by so many wonderful directors.

6. KS got the Raghupati Venkayya award for his contribution to Telugu Cinema as an actor and as a producer (making films like “Kodama Simham”). Again, not many character actors received such an honor. Gummed and Allu Ramalingayya were the only other character actors who received this prestigious award. As the standards for the award became tougher, Satyanarayana earned it rightfully in 2011.

7. It takes talent, discipline, and exceptional time-management to wrap up shooting roles in so many films - how Satyanarayana managed ought to be a case study in film studies. In the history of Telugu Cinema, Satyanarayana may have got over-shadowed in popularity by occasional spurt of villains who invent new idioms and idiosyncrasies in voice modulation like Rao Gopal Rao (modulation), or Prakash Raj (intonation) or Kota Sreenivas Rao (accent). But the reasons for eclipsing him are not because he vacated the space of villainy for new entrants. It can be interpreted that he never wanted to be the sole and permanent villain in the Film Industry; he wanted to experiment many roles, get imprinted in public consciousness by playing mythological characters (which requires special talent and demeanor). To that extent, because KS co-acted with NTR in over 100 films and with legends like SVR in over 20 films, he must have studied the art of mastering multifaceted roles from social to folklore to mythology to historical to devotional to comic capers.

8. Tonight, many Indian actors and those who think they are urban legends will regret that they couldn’t act with this phenomenal actor called Kaikala Satyanarayana. For all those who cherished acting or collaborating with this handyman of Indian Cinema, it gives rich memories of a stellar filmography of close to 780 films. For the audiences who grew up watching him on screen and getting petrified or violated or moved or intimidated or scarred or motivated or regaled or deeply impacted by his characterizations, the fact that KS is no more is a big void that can never be filled. If Telugu Cinema is today hailed as the only film industry in the country that gives a sumptuous meal like a Thali meal, then KS has always been that one item or ingredient in the Thali who pulled punches and gave you money’s worth.

9. KS proved that being a part of a film is more important than playing a meaty or a lengthy role. In “Kodama Simham” he can be hardly seen though he produced the film. In “Arundhati” you cannot ignore him as a Patriarch who is both afraid and respectful of Anushka. In countless films, K Satyanarayana entertained us with thrilling combinations - with hero, co-artistes, co-comedians, etc. Another great lesson for those who want to run everlasting marathons in silver screens.

It took 88 years for a man who played the God of Death to reach the afterworld of death. Peace to his well-lived life. Om Shanti.

"Akhanda" (Telugu Film Review)

2022-01-21T22:20:00.001+05:30

“Akhanda” (streaming on Hotstar) is worth the wait for Balayya fans who didn’t dare go near the theaters. A perfect Boyapeeti Seenu mark movie with all the right notes about woman power, climate control and those incredulous, blood-curdling, surreal stunts in slow-motion. Balakrishna shows restraint and composure in both the characters elevating the two roles of a farmer and an Aghori. Screenplay is concise and taut, and dialogues hit the bull’s eye for Balayya fans besides making a point about Hindu culture’s new-age recalcitrance. Music by Thaman is the soul of the film; take it away, and most of the Akhanda’s phenomenal screen-presence would have fallen flat. What can subtract the film is the over-dose of physical violence- when in fact, a brilliant opportunity was lost to showcase the spiritual and the subtle powers of Aghori played by “Akhanda”.

Overall, performances by Poorna, Srikant, Pragnya, Jagapathi Babu give good support to another powerful performance by Balayya. If only some of the stunts got subtler or even cut out at the editing table, the second half would have been more engaging in this 167 minute extravaganza. Still, "Akhanda" lapped up more adulation in Telugu states than "Pushpa" in the way it showed larger-than-life effects without lowering the dignity of women.

A few years from now on, "Akhanda" will be remembered for the taut screenplay and straighter narration sans humour, of telling an improbable story of an Aghori inserted in the most unthinkable way as a twin. Music by SS Thaman will be remembered for the burdens of interpreting the world of mendicants meditating upside down in his own fusion style music which has layers of mantras, strings, and techno plug-ins blended into one long spell of Buddha-bar-resembling sound tracks. It lacks the simplicity we saw of Thaman in the whole of 2020 and most of 2021 but what can he do if the idiom demanded it?

My rating: 3.25/5

"Vakeel Saab" (Telugu)

2021-04-30T03:14:00.002+05:30

Worth the wait and an engaging comeback film for Pawan Kalyan. Not in the same intense class as the original “Pink” which was shorter by 25 mins, but well-adapted to suit the larger-than-life sensibilities of PK fans and his current political career’s work-in-progress. Director Sriram Venu drives the film in graded gears - establishing the plot of how working women land in distress and get out of it with belated but avuncular steering by Vakeel Saab Satyadev (PK), once he steps in rustic contrast, pitted against a sophisticated lawyer Nandagopal played by the mercurial Prakash Raj. Their rivalry, energy and sparring in the court, makes it the most riveting part of the film despite the strange goof-ups in cross-examination. Thaman’s melodious songs and his sonorous BGM score makes the narrative well-nuanced and memorable at times. Pawan Kalyan, undoubtedly, steals the show in the climax, aided by another famous performance by Prakash Raj, Anjali, Nivetha and a surprise cameo by Sharath Babu. Dialogues are sharp and contextually concise within the perimeter of the script. Proud memento film for producer Dil Raju to bring one of India’s most intense and meaningful film to the Telugu audiences, in reasonably entertaining and dumbed-down format about a film that redefined this generation how Indian society paints stereotypes of girls as “Pink” and boys as “Blue”. Watchable, though not with the toddlers - both for the theme and the expletives.

Rating: 3.5/5

#VakeelSaab #PawanKalyan #PinkRemake #PrakashRaj #SriramVenu #DilRaju #amazonprime #ThamanS

The Suez Canal Syndrome: A repeat of "Who Moved My Cheese?"

2021-03-29T18:56:00.001+05:30

I have a different view of The Suez Canal ship incident. I am appalled at the indifference of the Egypt Govt. It again reflects the shoddy way in which a Canal which was the pride of British, an engineering marvel now faces lack of modernisation and efficiency. The Suez Canal became a reality with the efforts of Ferdinand de Lesseps. It became a symbol of the British Empire, it's opening - one of the 20th Century's biggest events. Then, the Suez blockage of 1969 - became a subject of the pride of British Empire. Eventually, the crisis got resolved by making Egypt the new national owner through The Suez Canal Company - through which 90% of the world's ships pass.

But Egypt has done nothing to develop the Canal since which became one of its biggest revenue sources, fraught anyways with desert lands on one side and Pyramid tourism on the other hand. It is owned by Egypt - The Suel Canal Company with few other external shareholders representing British, French and German interests. The company collects around $150,000 per ship every day. So an average of 50 ships pass through the Canal every day. That means around $7.5 million per day. Works out to $2.7 billion per annum. With that kind of easy money just for collecting toll, Egypt could have done so much better in improving the dredging and automating the offloading practices at the Isthmus but no, the government didn't do much to improve upon their practices, still manual and ancient. The Evergreen type of incident will keep repeating unless the world finds other avenues of diverting traffic, or demands more accountability from Egypt. I call it the Suez Canal syndrome - it happens when you get lot of annuity revenue for doing nothing much new. It can happen to anybody and any entity - who cannot innovate and manure their portfolio of cash flows coming in for a good reason now, but do not know how long the good times last. Suez Canal Syndrome, I would call is that syndrome where you take your cashflows for granted without manuring the ground for earning cash flows enough. It can be Egypt today, or Saudi Arabia after 15 years etc. Reminds me of "Who moved my Cheese?" story.

Moral of the Story: Never take your cash-flows for granted.

#SuezCanal #SuezCanalSyndrome

Scam 1992 - The Harshad Mehta Story Web Series Review

2020-10-13T12:12:00.002+05:30

If you want to have a recap of all that happened during the unravelling of India's Greatest Financial Scam and re-live the 80s and 90s evolutionary phase of the Stock Market before it reached the heights of the Y2K boom, please watch "Scam 1992 -The Harshad Mehta Scam" on Sony Liv OTT. Ten hours of unalloyed, gripping story-telling, sincerely drawn and adapted from Sucheta Dalal and Debasis Basu's seminal book "The Scam". We cannot imagine the ease with which we trade in shares and government securities today if we watch that era when we had to endure transfer deeds and outcry times. When the Sensex base was so low that people panicked due to fall in number of points to what we now experience when we measure in percentage falls, its a long way we have come.

Hansal Mehta has captured the essence of the scam in a riveting narrative that will not quench your thirst until you finish all the ten episodes streaming live. Handled with lot of objectivity and commentary underpinned to current happenings - it connects the transitory phase with deftness and maturity - that a three-hour Bollywood movie cannot capture. It is the best OTT output of 2020 and something that is worth all of your ten hours of time - whether you want to re-explain it to your non-savvy mother or driver, or to the Robinhood Investors who haven't yet experienced the kind of "animal spirits", hubris and nemesis that Harshad Mehta once made us experience - when there was no whatsapp and online trading and mutual funds meant only US 64 and PMS. Anshal Thakkar's piercing BGM score only enhances the seriousness of this magnificent film that will soon become a DVD classic. Pratheek Gandhi as Harshad Mehta and Shreya Dhanwantaray as Sucheta Dalal give the performance of their lives. Because it is a retelling that shook the faith in India's nascent capital markets - it deserves wide viewing and patronage - because history keeps rhyming again and again.

My rating: 4.5/5

#TheHarshadMehtaScam #SonyLiv #OTT #Scam1992

Covid Lessons From "Sankarabharanam" Movie

2020-05-01T09:15:00.000+05:30

Just watched "Sankarabharanam" for the umpteenth time on Gemini TV (A week's fest of K Viswanath's films starts today every day). An eternal classic, the film always gives you a message for every season. This time, as my parents, my wife and I were in a trance watching each scene with rapt attention, I noticed a message for the Covid times in "Sankarabharanam". In the pre-climax, as an impoverished Sankara Sastry (JV Somayajulu) walks past the house of his once-upon-a-time percussionist Gopalam (Sakshi Ranga Rao), the former notices the latter trying to tune his Mridangam. Sankara Sastry mildly remarks to Gopalam that his Mridangam is missing a beat. Gopalam then bares out his heart that he has long missed the beat when he deserted the Great Sankara Sastry when he walked out of his "kacheri" in a hasty move - only to regret for the last 12 years. Sastry then consoles Gopalam that it is not Gopalam's fault nor his flaw but the times are such that the crowds can't hear great Indian Classical music. But times won't be so desolate for long, and very soon, good times will roll on and the public will usher in a golden era of good melodious music. Sastry had undying optimism more than the despondent Gopalam about the bad times that will soon be enveloped by sunshine days. And he also gives part of his borrowed surplus to Gopalam to tide over the tough times, even if he himself is struggling to have two square meals a day. Thats the spirit of Optimism and large-heartedness which is needed for Covid times. Be generous in giving to those who are less fortunate than you and never doubt whether good times will come back.

And in the climax, Madhava Rao (Allu Ramalingayya) re-introduces to the audience who have come to hear Sankara Sastry's public recital for the first time in 12 years (which ironically turns out to be his last hurrah). And he says, even in stark poverty and darkest times, Sastry continued to practice his classical music as a maestro will and didn't mind the absence of audience. Instead, Madhava Rao adds, Sastry actually confined himself to the four walls of his house and made all the unseen parasites and viruses and invisible insects and pests his target audience for rehearsing and practicing his performance. Well, that's how Maestros and professionals adapt to tough times. Like the four seasons, the Covid times will be gone before you realize but we must do what we are good at, and take the tidal wave of Covid Scarcity and negativity with a pinch of salt and overcome with optimism. It will then arm us for a better tomorrow - which is just round the corner. Even after forty years, "Sankarabharanam" has a message to be hopeful, optimistic about the future and never waste a good crisis brooding with inaction. Make it count - in ways you become stronger, better and brighter.

#Sankarabharanam #SankarabharanamForCovidTimes #KViswanath #LegendsOfTeluguCinema #TollywoodClassics

A Lucky Star without Tantrums - Rishi Kapoor

2020-05-01T00:56:00.001+05:30

Rishi Kapoor. One of the most happy-go-lucky actorss in Bollywood. Always cherubic and bubbly. A lucky mascot. For everyone who worked with him. For his father who was reeling under huge losses from "Mere Naam Joker", he became a money-spinning "Bobby". For heroines who got launched with him like Padmini Kolhapuri and Dimple. For co-stars and superstars. And for many producers and directors who found in him the mettle to rub shoulders with multi-starrer giants. He became the proverbial David who charmed many Goliath-like giants with his non-threatening effervescence and ego-less pranks. Most of the films starring Rishi Kapoor became box-office bonanzas for producers though he never got full or deserving credit for his performances that pulled in the crowds.

The only girl he ever got linked with early in career was Dimple who eloped with Rajesh Khanna, even after wearing a ring given by Rishi when they were dating during "Bobby". Of course, he married Neetu Singh finally - and thats one heck of a love-story for a free-wheeling 80s couple who did 13 films together with dazzling chemistry.

Raj Kapoor always thought Rishi would make the most successful director (he did direct "Aa Ab Last Chale" which didn't click). But he became the most successful lover in the history of Bollywood: always walks away with the girl, whoever else in the triangle may be - Vinod Chopra, Kamal Hasan or Vinod Mehra. He became Amitabh Bachchan's most famous Tillu Bhai in many memorable hits of the 80s and happy to play second fiddle to the reigning Superstar. As a nice guy, he has so far given the best shot amongst the Raj Kapoor's sons sustaining himself in a career spanning four decades since he first appeared. Before he came in as "Bobby", Bollywood films used to be all about men and women, as a critic remarked. After "Bobby", it was about boys and girls.

Rishi Kapoor went on to belt out the most iconic dancing hits and Qawali numbers of an entire generation many of which became titles of blockbusters in 2000s. Before the likes of Govind and Mithun, it was always Rishi who was rated the best dancer for a long time. It was quite an achievement for Rishi- to serenade a heroine, and synchronize dancing steps with her without an effort. The disco lights, the revolving dance floors and the psychedelic lighting bulbs of the 80s would have all looked out of place were it not for the elegance of Rishi Kapoor's cadence and ease. He would break into a song and dance and everybody out there would fall in sync - swirling and crooning without an apology.

There are actors down South who followed the same model of Rishi Kapoor in experimenting with new heroines and playing second fiddle in multi-starters as long as they could hold your own - Chandra Mohan in Tollywood and Siva Kumar in Kollywood, they became known as the Rishi Kapoors of their respective Film Industries. Of course, it could be argued the other way too - why not Rishi Kapoor be called the Chandra Mohan of Bollywood? But that's a different topic!

Rishi Kapoor, later transformed into playing played mature characters after his gait and genetic code no longer made him look younger because of the famous Dal Makhni Kapoor staple diet. In the last decade, he became Bollywood's severest conscience keeper raising holy hell every time the Industry stalwarts floundered in responding to the 'crying need of the hour' be it #Metoo or a war-like situation. He also brook no nonsense with his recently released autobiography "Khullam Khulla" (in which he nailed stars like Rajesh Khanna or Amitabh Bachchan with no-holds barred revelations).

Of course, his fine acting continued with the likes of Irrfan Khan and Amitabh Bachchan ("102 not out") and he would have easily given another shot at third innings at a time when his son Ranbir Kapoor is earning solid spurs as the next Superstar of Bollywood. That speaks a lot of about the original first family of Bollywood - the Kapoor Clan whose gene pool keeps gifting Superstars and Divas who became endearing icons of Indian Cinema. Rishi has travelled as far, if not farther than all his great uncles but perhaps will have the last laugh once his son conquers Bollywood one day, if not already. It is quite ironic that the Star who gave India's first song on self-quarantining ("Hum Tum Ek Kamre Me Bandh Ho...") should pass out during India's self-quarantine period. And in his passing, the whole nation says "Om Shanti Om" to the man who sang the most famous anthem of the 80s with the same words. Truly, Rishida will be missed by the 80s generation and one hopes that his legacy will be carried on by son Ranbir Kapoor to the next level.

My favorite films of Rishi Kapoor:

1. Karz

2. Amar Akbar Anthony

3. Chandini

4. Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai

5. Sagar

#RishiKapoor #Bollywood #RKFamily #FirstFamily #KhullamKhulla

Life of an Infinite Actor - Irrfan Khan

2020-04-29T22:34:00.000+05:30

Irrfan Khan. Undoubtedly, the best actor of this generation who gave a stunning range of films that will keep resonating as long as we go. Whether it's a blink-and-a-miss role in "Spiderman" or a brief role in "Slumdog Millionaire" or any of the stylish performances in "Piku", "Talwar", "Pan Singh Tomar", "Life of Pi", "Maqbool", you cannot take your eyes off screen when Irrfan Khan is emoting. It doesn't matter what he is wearing or how he's shaved for the film, you have to be at your best hearing sense to grasp all the text and subtext in his acting with his murmuring accent and a swagger that doesn't look seem like a swagger.

In "Piku" you can see the sweat and blood of Deepika Padukone and a herculean effort by Amitabh Bachchan to compete for the attention of the audience whereas Irrfan Khan made it look so effortless on screen. Likewise whether he is explaining a Siska bulb benefits or a Vodafone recharge ad or doing a jig with Shah Rukh Khan at a film festival whether art films are as good as mainstream films. In spite of the irony of the 2000s where a lead actor's remuneration become as big an overhead as a budget of a film, Khan's swashbuckle and finesse in acting became a toast of every film he got associated with. Hollywood also cast him in many films but when it comes to Irrfan's lines, there was something always ethereal, magical and evocative than the other actor's lines. Yes, and the subtlety he brought to screen didn't threaten the other actors sharing space with him unlike say, a Shatrughan Sinha but enhanced the "repeat watchability quotient" of the film without an elaborate overlay or an over-assertive baritone like that of Nana Patekar.

While we never noticed who really took the baton from the arty films caravan of actors like Naseruddin Shah, Irrfan Khan created his own inimitable and enduring shelf-space in a world dominated by the three Khans until a few years ago. And unlike Naseruddin Shah, Irrfan took the torch of towering performance from film after film and passed the baton to actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and many other stage actors and superstars in mainstream plots and commercial films. Thank God, Tollywood also cast him in a forgettable role as a comic villain in "Sainikudu" with Mahesh Babu and Trisha. But Thank God, Tollywood didn't checkmate his fledgling career with fat cheques that would have merely created another Prakash Raj or Shaji Shinde in South Cinema.

In the finite gallery of films that Irrfan Khan got associated with including the many international collaborations that put him limelight as a draw for Asian audiences, it will remain a nonpareil feat for any other actor to beat in this generation. Most actors of his calibre would have wasted their raw talent with more commercial themes or silly gaffes or sundry makeups of a granny or a transgender or a bandit and so on. Not so in the books of Mr Khan. When he dons a role, the role becomes a reprise in the interpretation of the irrepressible Khan himself - no need for any bells and whistles of the character or any set property. It therefore becomes important that the legacy of Irrfan Khan is a fascinating history of how a late-bloomer annexed chartered and uncharted territories across the globe and built a space that even time cannot erase forever. There will be many more odes to Khan as the world wakes up to cold fact that he is no more. One of them will be how Irrfan Khan's latest film "Angrezi Medium" got released on the OTT platform amidst the Covid blackout of theaters world over. This may well be the future of all small and medium budget films and to get associated with the debut on an OTT platform also goes to the credit of Irrfan Khan. As he passes out in the holy month of Ramzan, I pray that Irrfan Khan finds peace wherever he goes next and strength to his young family who survives him. You were quite a draw, Irrfan whether we saw you first on TV, Silver screen or OTT.

Here are my top picks of Irrfan Khan's filmology:

1. LunchBox

2. Talwar

3. Piku

4. The Namesake

4. Maqbool

5. Life of Pi

6. Life in a Metro

7. Pan Singh Tomar

8. Hindi Medium

9. Qarib Qarib Single

10. Carvan

#IrrfanKhan #IrrfanKhanFilms #LegendsOfIndianCinema #WorldCinemaLegends #Bollywood

Sankranti Movie Ratings (Telugu) "Darbar"/ "Sari Leru Neekevvaru"/ "Ala Vaikuntapuram lo"/ "Entha Manchi Vaadavura"

2020-01-16T00:33:00.000+05:30

Sankranti films are always special. And I have seldom missed in the last twenty years. Didn't have the time to review in detail, though because reviews hardly matter for Sankranti releases. You will somehow watch with your gang of birds flocked together in urban or rustic settings. But I will give my strong opinions (as strong as ever) if it still counts:

1. "Darbar" (starring Thalaivaa Rajnikanth)...Telugu

Average film with below-par story and straight narration by AR Murgadoss. We expect nothing but mediocrity from Rajni and yet fall for his swagger and mechanical drills but are more harsh in our expectations when it comes to other Tamil Superstars like Kamal Hassan, Suriyaa or Vikram. It seems to get incurable and hopeless with each passing year for Rajni except last year when "Betta" had electrifying Rajni effects.

Rating: 2.5/5

2. "Sarileru Neekevvaru" (starring Superstar Mahesh Babu)...Telugu

A routine story with high dose of entertainment and commensurate performances by actors alongside Superstar. Notable are Prakash Raj, Rajendra Prasad, Rao Ramesh and Vijay Shanti. Rashmika is cute but over-the-top in the movie with her ibby-jibbies. Highlight of the film is Mahesh Babu's out-of-comfort-zone acting and body language that reminds you of films like "Khaleja" and "Dookudu". His characterization is also refreshing as to how a soldier would mend civilians losing their civic sense and sense of civilization. If only he allowed more space for etching out Vijay Shanti's character, the film would have gone to another level. But the soldier's take on society is both pleasant and rapturous thanks to Anil Ravipudi's directing. Despite the film moving on predictable lines post-interval, his clarity and grip on what he wants the audience to take away from the film is complete. Tamannah Bhatia gets the most flattering item song for any item girl in the industry so far. Length could have been shorter by 25 minutes. If there is anything for Mahesh Babu to consolidate his position, he should reduce focus on his good looks and screen time and invest in better and more interesting stories. Yet, 169 minutes is mostly watchable once.

Rating: 3/5

3. "Ala Vaikuntapuramlo" (starring Stylish Star Allu Arjun)...Telugu

Trivikram created an entertaining narrative of 165 minutes about a theme stealth-borrowed from an old Telugu film classic starring NTR and R Nageshwar Rao "Inti Guttu". He re-interpreted the film for the new-age audience well but there are fatal flaws in the film which are not discernible to the audience. Yes, you can ignore baby-swapping as a doable crime 20 years back. But Trivikram who defends middle-class moralities and lectures on their upkeep has created a story which has faultiness on middle-class morality. Firstly, no middle-class father foregoes his baby boy to enter a billionaire family so he may get ahead in life and riches. Secondly, no adopted son disowns his past upbringing to crave for a billionaire's mansion at the very moment the secret unfolds. Thirdly, it is irresponsible on Trivikram's part to paint the picture as rosy as a "Lion King" destiny in picturing Allu Arjun's moment of destiny just like in Walt Disney tale where a baby Simbha learns that his blood is leonine and hence cut out for bigger things like ruling the kingdom. Yes, blood is thicker than water but in reality your upbringing and environment makes all the difference in how you shape your daily moments and destiny. In characterizing the contrasting roles played by Sushant and Allu Arjun, director shows as if none of the inputs or parental guidance provided by either set of parents has any bearing on the way their personalities are shaped. This is ridiculous and self-perpetuating myth which only leads to inequalities in society. The most famous case is the "Nobel Prize Winner Sperm Bank Experiment" where someone thought it is best to impregnate as many women with the sperm bank of Nobel Prize winners so that mankind will get more geniuses like Nobel winners. Trivikram's thesis in the movie is that outrageous and preposterous. I am appalled that along with many other flaws as pointed earlier, it is middle class audiences who are raving about the film as a cult classic. Nonsense. Despite that, the film is carried entirely by Allu Arjun with a never-before performance that stands out in all departments. Thaman's BGM and musical score are also a stand-out; his transformation from copying fast-track western albums to creating new sounds with refreshing mix of traditional and western instrumentation is the story of the last three years as to who is ruling the sound waves in TFI. Stunts are always creative in Trivikram's films but when you are surrounded by so many bashers, how does anybody get so creative to wield a woman's dupatta or a car windshield to polish off the villains beats me! Entertainment quotient is high though comedy content is low. What disappointed me is lack of clarity in Trivikram's taking in the film right from points mentioned above to Murali Sharma's unrepentant characterization. At least a minute out of the 165 minutes could have been taken to round off Murali Sharma's litany of crimes. Watchable once.

Rating: 3/5

4. "Entha Manchi Vaadavuraa" (Starring Kalyan Ram)...Telugu

Vegesna Satish comes with interesting concepts that hold some message for the new generation drifting apart from the world we grew up in the 60s and 70s. This time he comes with a theme of filling the void left by growing generation gap in our society. Like buying bottled water and twiggy-ordered food, he builds a beautiful plot around hero Kalyan Ram and his fiancé Mehreen. Kalyan sees every family has an emotional bond missing with the loss of a dear one be it a grand-father, son, sister, daughter or an aunt and so he sets up a company which "leases" the missing kin until the emotional needs are fulfilled. It is a slow narrative of 144 minutes with only three songs but content is unique and layered with good performances by hero and heroine besides a galaxy of vintage actors like Annapurna, Suhasini, Sarath Babu and Giri Babu. Like "Shatamaanam Bhavati", Satish has a knack of presenting relevant messages to keep our social structure intact in the wake of increasing nuclearisation of families and isolation of the elderly generation with the dawn of new technologies and general apathies. It is tough to expect jazzed up entertainment in this kind of narrative but if you are patient for the first thirty minutes, you will get some moments of epiphany in the film. Music by Gopi Sundar is outstanding. Watchable once with the elders.

Rating: 2.75/5

#Darbar #SarileruNeekevvaru #AlaVaikuntapuramlo #EnthaManchiVaadavuRaa" #SankrantiReleases #SankrantiMovies

Narayanaguda Nostalgia

2020-01-08T23:36:00.000+05:30

Narayanaguda. YMCA. Used to be an epic dimension of our daily lives in 80s. It is all set to change from this Sankranti as the last of the metro train stations (part of the green line) will open this festival connecting one of the busiest areas to the bustling Hyderabad Metro to one of the most vibrant areas which had its sparkling days filled with fun and frustrations (of traffic). Narayanaguda metro once opened will go all the way to Mahatma Gandhi Bus Depot in Gowliguda taking the narrowest roads of Sultan Bazar, Badi Chowdi, Chikkadpally all the way to Secunderabad Railway Station. This part of Hyderabad, this dense part of Hyderabad is where we lived for a large part of our lives once my parents decided to settle down in Hyderabad. Where do I start recollecting the symbols of our childhood which have now disappeared or relocated to other ares?
Padmavati Stationery. Still one of the best stationery shops for artists and students with the best of paper and drawing materials but fragmented so much that each brother of the third generation has taken one part of the Stationery business.

The Petrol Pump of Narayanaguda has survived. But opposite Padmavati Stationery there was another famous stationery shop called Anil Stationery. While Padmavati was run by close-knit Vysya community, Anil Stationery had two big shops run by marwaris. Both these shops competed with cut-throat pricing and competitiveness but once the patriarch died, both the groups fell out but Anil Stationery folded up sooner, giving way to a commercial complex that houses some quick service restaurant and another Padmavati branch of the brothers who split.

Next to Anil was the Camlin shop - still the original favorite for school-kids - which had the best of charcoal pencils, postal colors and orange-color geometry boxes proudly branding Camlin. That shop disappeared almost a decade back but while it lasted it was the sole distributor of Camlin products and one of the best-kept secrets of Narayanaguda. They hardly sold retail products and encouraged walk-in customers to buy wares from Padmavati or Anil next-door. But our family had a great relationship and I used to draw and paint in my middle-school using all the special high-quality colors from Camlin including oil pastels and oil colors. The high-point for me was in 1979 when I won the All India Children's Painting Competition conducted by an agency as popular as Shankar's.
Right next to our house, which was atop Padmavati was a famous tailor called YAK's tailors. The fellow was more famous than today's Reid and Taylors or Manyavars or Kochin's. He was designing bespoke suits and exotic dresses for aristocratic men and corporate executives. I don't remember having anything bought for myself because I was still a toddler and by the time I wore pants I was out of that area. My father had a great rapport with YAK's. The highlight of YAK's was in the 80s when Megastar Chiranjeevi burst open in Cinema. After the film "Devanthakudu" was released which had Chiranjeevi tame the mighty god Yama, YAK's owner got an idea to produce a film with Chiranjeevi by launching his daughter as heroine. The film was titled "Dhairyavanthudu". I don't remember much about the film but it bombed at the box-office leaving YAK's Tailors financially crippled. Within a few months, YAK's folded up and disappeared from the Streets of Narayanaguda.

RK Library used to be at the place opposite Deepak bus stand. It was the single-best library of the twin cities and used to be one of the heritage icons of Hyderabad. Everything from "Competition Success Review" to "India Today" to Archie Comics to TinTin to Amar Chitra Katha and PG Wodehouse used to be there. It was the best watering hole for youngsters as well as elders looking for sensational headline copies of "Blitz" and "Illustrated Weekly of India" or "Sunday" magazine. Within a constrained room of 300 sqft, Rashid and his father who ran the shop with passion and commitment to keep the reading habit alive those days. It formed the bedrock of my reading habit, made me win several quizzes including the Tinkle Quiz where I stood Second in 1983 beaten only by Vamsee Juluri, actress Jamuna Ramana Rao's prodigal son. RK Library, when I last saw a few years ago disappeared as Rashid became less interested to keep the circulating library alive, his interests were into skating since then and that became his main bread-winner vocation. What I miss is those scribbles in a long-rule registers Rashid used to maintain which had on each page the name of the book renter, the rent of one rupee to two rupees per day for each magazine and the deposit money of around Rupees Twenty Five to Fifty. Magazines like "Time", "Newsweek", "Life" and "Punch" had higher rents and hiked deposit fees. It used to be quite a sight those days to see all the boys and girls park their BSA-SLR bicycles and pretend to browse the books and periodicals when actually we were all interested to observe each other and flirt if possible. After we moved out of the area and moved away from Narayanaguda, when I started building my own book collection which is sizable by any standard, I always had one eye on Rashid's collection. If there was anybody on earth who had all the books of PG Wodehouse, I knew it has to be Rashid. But Alas! I lost touch at the crucial time he made up his mind to dispose off all his collection to one of the used-book sharks of the city.
As you walk down the path of Deepak theater from YMCA, many other shops which had epic followership have disappeared from the street. Keerti Medical Shop next to the Irani Restaurant was the most famous medical shop of those days run by Gujarati brothers - met with the same fate as Padmavati. Lack of succession planning and split among the brothers. Bapujee Electricals was another famous electrical shop which had seen better days. Swatantra Medicals, one of the best medical shops opposite Deepak. It survives but as a pale shadow of what it used to be. BN Brothers - undoubtedly the best grocer and supermarket of the 70s and 80s - it had the best variety chocolates, talcum powders, dry fruits and other confectionary items. Households flocked to BN Brothers to give any fancy general store item or edible item including the knick knacks for birthday parties. Next to them was a bakery run by Aga Khan muslims - it had the best salt biscuits and crescent chand biscuits and fruit juices those days. Again disappeared. Rao & Co, another famous dealer of electronic items had a loyal customer from our house, my mother. In those days, my father had a salary of six hundred rupees and my mother drew one hundred and fifty rupees from their vocations but Mr Rao always found a financing solution to everything we added in the eighties including USHA sewing machine, Dyanora TV, Philips Radio, Sony Taperecorder and so on. The last time my mother and I visited Mr Rao was in late nineties when cable television already became a rage and my mother bought another color TV for my Baamma on finance.

Back those days, it was possible to breeze through any distance of unto 3 kms in manual-pulled rickshaws. It cost us just fifty paise to go to Chikkadpally to meet my cousins. And most theaters were in the vicinity of Narayanaguda. Shanti theater is still around, Deepak was next-door too, Venkatesa and Srinivasa we used to walk to, Basant theater and Venkataramana and Padmavati theaters we used to walk to. We took rickshaws only to go to RTC X Road theaters like Sangam, Sudarshan, Sandhya and Subhash (now Usha Mayuri). Odeon and Saptagiri came much later. Or even to go to Thyagaraya Gaana Sabha in Chikkadpally. That reminds me of Kishore Theater and the funny story about it when my father started practicing and also did some project consultancy.
Kishore was one of the best theaters those days and had an unsusually elegant facade. You could walk into the door by buying the ticket right next to the door - it gave you a nice cosy feeling. No other theater gave you that ambience except maybe Liberty theater in Himayatnagar. But Kishore was a great theater and it was so close, closer to our home than either Deepak or Shanti theaters. So close that once my parents goaded me and my brother Aditya to go to "Alien" a scary movie about a creature popping out of your stomach in space. The movie scared my younger brother so much that he said I am walking back home while I said I will hang on. He ran out of the theater scared while I selfishly watched the movie - but it was so safe and close those days to watch a movie in Kishore. If I remember, two of the biggest flop films of the 80s had their movies inaugurate the theater. One was a Jitendra starrer "Aasha" and the other was a Telugu film called "Buchibabu" starring ANR and Jayaprada. Both bombed at the box office but Kishore gave us amazing memories including films like "Rahasya Goodachari" starring Krishna and Jayaprada and countless Hollywood films including Bond thrillers. Then all of a sudden the theater was shut and everything from Supermarket to Furniture shops sprung up on the outer facade of the theater.

One of the less-known secrets of Kishore was that he asked my father to prepare a project report on alternatives to a movie-flex. My father gave a detailed project report and said it will cost Rupees Fifty Thousand those days.The owner agreed to pay but after collecting the Report dodged payment for several weeks and months. Eventually, my father realized he rendered charity to the owner. After a gap of over a decade, Kishore became SaiKishore theater and I remember watching a movie called "Alladin" in 90s. That was the last we saw Kishore screen a film. It went the same way as Sangeet. In the entire street of Narayanaguda, only one theater remains and that is Shanti.
As you stroll past Shanti theater, few shops retained their character and personality. A general store run by an aunty, a typewriting institute run by two committed brothers which gave Oriental Typewriting a run for money, an Irani restaurant that was buzzing with people right until midnight, an Excise Police Station and the Narayanaguda Police Station. All of them have disappeared. What remains are few icons like the YMCA, the watch repair shop tucked between two garment outlets, the Andhra Bank and the Sivananda Mithai Bhandar (which still has the best Palak Pakoda in town!),Kalpana Hair Dresses, the Cane Furniture Shops and Canara Bank. Unlike the Sultan Bazar merchants, the Narayanaguda shop-keepers never got pressurized to move out elsewhere. But they were disrupted, or got short-changed by the cross-currents of technology, business cycles, family feuds or change in consumer demand and tastes. It makes for a more detailed examination of street history that changed forever well-before the Metro Station can dismounted many motifs and icons of small business history for good. Narayanaguda was once the epicenter of everything happening in Hyderabad. This post doesn't cover so many other outlets including Balaji Bajrang Mithai Bhandar (still has the best Dhokla, Ajmer Kalakhand, Gulab Jamun in town), PT Reddy Museum (which had a great collection of a Dentist who used to have a TV Set - the only one those days - so residents of Narayanaguda used to flock to the TV every Sunday when Doordarshan started showing movies every Sunday, Srinivasa Hotel (which had good idly and Sambar) and Vijay Cottage (which had good sweets and tasty curd).

Many of them had seen epic booms but couldn't survive to pass on the baton to the next generation. Like Apollo Ice Creams which had the best Tutty Frutty ice creams and other mouth-watering desserts in Hyderabad (almost like Ajanta Cool Drinks in Vijayawada near Besant Road!).
Narayanaguda had other infamous bits of history too. In the 1980s, the YMCA Chowrastha next to Shanti theater used to see everything from 7th Class to Tenth Class exam question papers leaked on the streets in the wee hours of the day. It was a sight to behold when anxious parents of mediocre students jostled with each other to pay hundreds of rupees to buy subject question paper - and all this happened right in front of the Narayanaguda Police Station. With Metro Station getting hooked to Narayanaguda at Madapati Hanumantha Rao school, a new era dawns in an area which had the best entertainment, education and shopping ecosystem once upon a time in Hyderabad. It is all history now.

"Bigil" (Tamil)/ "Whistle" (Telugu) Film Review

2019-10-30T23:59:00.000+05:30

"Bigil" is a fine example of how a blockbuster unfolds and ends with 178 minutes of Vijayana. Yes, its a sports film and also has gangster movie shades. Hence, you see a combo of "Chak De" and "Baasha". Director Atlee has given a pass to many rules of soccer game but the energy levels never drop - infact the second half is the brightest second half ever seen in recent films. Vijay shines well both as father and son Bigil and this must be his finest performance. BGM by AR Rahman and almost all the songs scored are gold-diggers which will haunt you long. Go for 'Bigil' ('Whistle' in Telugu) even if you are not a Vijay fan. From the times of doing remakes of Mahesh Babu films and doing chocolate boy films, Vijay has come a long way. As for Atlee who is now sought after by the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and NTR Jr to direct films for them, this is crowning glory. If only the first half is pruned a bit, and those over-the-top football moments edited out, "Bigel" would have been a cult classic. The highlight of the film is the sequence of getting a housewife and an acid attack victim into the team - much impact without much ado there. Despite the director and the hero flaunting their religious leanings in close camera shots, the film will mint its way to the top this year at least in Tamil belt.

Rating: 3.25/5

#Vijay #Bigil #Whistle #Kollywood #Tollywood #ARRahman

“Syraa” (Telugu/Hindi/Tamil/Kannada) film review

2019-10-02T16:17:00.000+05:30

Director Surendar Reddy has given an exciting and energetic twist to Megastar Chiranjeevi’s most ambitious project to date about Pre-Independent India’s forgotten freedom fighter Syraa Narasimha Reddy. With an iconic star cast assembled from Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Bhojpuri film industries, Surendar weaves a inspiring and pacy, sheer pacy narrative in 170 minutes about the times before Sepoy Mutiny or Rani Lakshmi Bhai with some highly convoluted cinematic liberties. Is it watchable? Absolutely, you will not sit restless even for a minute. Is it convincing? Yes, even if you nod in dissent because the director doesn’t let the action scenes steal the intensity and depth of emotions. Until the interval bang, the film builds steady tempo but after that assumes an unstoppable momentum right to the finish - never letting any scene go waste in highlighting the steadfast patriotism and leadership qualities of Syraa in galvanising other satraps and the masses into revolting against the British. To be fair, the film has always hid the making and the production values in the shooting phase and that makes watching the film an epic cinematic experience truly worth it.

Authentically, we may have our doubts about the claim that Syraa single-handedly eliminated 10,000 British soldiers but the bone-chilling sequences of his rise and his bradvado in death deserve to be well-told and captured with all the paraphernalia that a Tollywood film can afford. From that standpoint, #Syraa is another Pyrrhic victory for how good an action film about a lesser-known freedom fighter can be without the fuss about a Mangal Pandey or a Manikarnika or the distractions of “Thugs of Hindoostan”. #Syraa is a winner in all departments and deserves to be more widely watched for the crafts in display. Ratnavelu’s cinematography, Julius Packam’s background score and Amit Trivedi’s high-pitch compositions all stand out in enhancing the dramatic appeal of the script. There are quite a few spectacular moments which elevate the wow factor of the film. What deserves mention is that, Chiranjeevi and Ramcharan gave such free hand to director Surendar Reddy in extracting an intense portrayal of a warlord who tames the British in his own crude ways before more follow. Having two fair damsels like Tamannaah and Nayanataara, nothing stops Chiranjeevi from serenading them in dream sequences with silly steps but no, he didn’t and that raised the dignity and stature of the megastar in submitting himself to the script in his 151st film. Entries by special stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sudeep, Vijay Sethupathy, Jagapathi Babu, keep the excitement alive and the variety high, their exits equally dramatic and make you thirst for more. For a change, Tamannaah outshines Nayanataara. - a rarity considering the experience of the latter and the girlish tendencies of the former. Chiranjeevi delivers yet another mature and convincing performance as Syraa N Reddy, his dialogues are few, his emoting with eyes powerful and his stunts well-worth it. For someone who was obsessed with telling the tale of Syraa, he deserves credit but for whom the Telugu would have lost another opportunity to hear about another freedom fighter who never entered folklore. Some of the dialogues by Sai Madhav embellished by Parachuri brothers were epic but some more mention about the contemporaries and about the economic hardships of the Telugu would have added insights. Surprisingly, production values of the film stand out without much fuss - a rare feat considering Surendar Reddy has never before directed a historical or a mythological. The film’s only shortfall is the degree of skulduggery and atavistic violence which perhaps is justified given the time of the protagonist. As the titles roll on, we noticed only one glaring omission of the long list of freedom fighters who took the mantle on after the first war of independence - Veer Savarkar. How did they miss him? On the whole, a well-made film and watchable once. Watch it for the screen presence of Megastar and many other megastars who set the screen on fire with great performances. Even if you like nothing about the star cast, the story itself will draw you in from the first frame. Vouch for it.

#Rating 3.75/5

#Syraa #SyraaNarasimhaReddy #MegastarChiranjeevi #AmitabhBachchan #VijaySethupathy #Sudeep #JagapathiBabu #SurendarReddy #AmitTrivedi #Tamannah #Nayanataara #JuliusPackam #Tollywood #Bollywood #FreedomFighters

"Gaddalakonda Ganesh" (Telugu) Movie Review

2019-09-23T08:41:00.000+05:30

"GG" is a crude attempt to showcase the transformative power of cinema on hard-core criminals, if at all. Varun Tej plays the infamous and cold-blooded gangster who is chased by an aspiring Assistant Director (played by Atharvaa) to make a larger-than-life film on his life. How Good is it? It's a long 173 minute watch which has flashes of brilliance in second half and around interval bang with good performance by Varun Tej and great performance by Atharvaa (who has better screen presence). The film's chief fault is the dosage of violence and adult-content in the first half which should deter family audience and kids away and is longer by at least 25 minutes. Sans that, the film takes off in the second half with pace, energy and twists and surcharged emotions.

What redeems the film is the build-up in the second half and the balance achieved by Harish Shankar to give equal footage to the hero of the film who wants to highlight the "villain" of the film as the hero - this rarely happens in star films. The love angle of Pooja Hegde and the remix hit from "Devata" gives good relief from the tiring violence but still the soul of the original song is not transmitted - as it happens in most remix songs. Varun looks menacing in his portrayal but could have used a standard one-liner to register mass-appeal presence - its a missed opportunity. The Mega Factory brandsters have done the right thing by anointing Varun Tej in titles as Mega "Prince" because Varun is the closest the Mega factory have to Prince Mahesh Babu. The film can pull more masses into building the market-cap for Varun Tej given the brighter second half. As it is, Varun has had better luck amongst the next-gen of Mega family and this could still achieve more. Harish Shankar has tweaked the mass elements of "Jigarthanda" and given good uplift to both Varun Tej and Atharvaa who is the real show-stealer. Music by Mickey J Meyer is forgettable and inept. Entertaining but could have been cleaner and crisper.
Rating: 2.75/5
#GaddalakondaGanesh #VarunTej #Atharvaa

"Nani's GangLeader" (Telugu)

2019-09-15T22:57:00.002+05:30

Once in a while, a Telugu film comes with a winning script which defies genre, packs a punch and loads of entertainment in each scene, pulls you deep inside a pacy narrative with great story-telling, energetic performances and hits the bulls' eye with a non-formulaic approach. Director Vikram K Kumar is known for making films where the dimension of time is sliced in clock-wise and anti-clock-wise directions often confusing the viewers without any defined storyline. But in NG, he surprises us with a well-written script and simpler narrative nuanced as the story unfolds; he puts an unthinkable starcast and concocts an indigenous but rare story that can only happen in crime-fiction novels. Yet, the output is engaging, outrageous, funny and thoroughly entertaining, joined by cinematic twists and a social cause at the end. The story has an audacious premise to start with - a gang of five different-aged females come together to polish off a deadly killer who killed one each of their respective members. Enter Naani, the gang-leader who comes with his own agenda who offers to help the gang reach their targeted villain. What conspires later is a premium range of thrills audiences haven't been treated before in a long-time with lots of fun and fluent narration. The last time I experienced new thrills of this variety was when I watched Gunnam Gangaraju's "Aithe" which was a path-breaking film defying all genres and yet wholesomely entertaining. NG is still a few notches below Yeleti's "Aithe" but nevertheless good to watch once.

Naani pulls off another sensational performance sublimating his screen-presence to accommodate senior talents like Lakshmi and Sharanya and also sharing his screen space with a villain Karthikeya who is at his swashbuckling best. There are moments when Karthikeya steals the show over Naani, Lakshmi dominates Naani with her inimitable style of acting. In over 157 minutes, director weaves a predictable story with intensity and adrenalin-pumping action - romantic track is subtle and neat. He takes time to build the tempo in the first half but makes up for lost time with a brilliant climax. Technically, the film should have been a clean "U" certificate except for the gaffe in the first half and second half about male dating - oops...it still draws good laughs thanks to Vennela Kishore. Naani deserves a pat for choosing a film where story is the real hero - no swagger, no female skin-show, no indulgent talk. His filmography reminds you of the Chiranjeevi's first fifty films where story defined everything - a lesson here for all the rising stars, superstars, power stars, omega stars and rebel stars whose self-centered dialogues and narcissistic camera angles have been depriving the audiences of great cinema. Naveen Nooli's editing seems like a masterclass in editing and provides good support to Anirudh's music score. There are only four songs in the film but the pacing of the songs and the BGM with music leveraged out of the four tunes make it a draw. After "Jersey", this looks like a film which will keep the cash registers ringing for Nani. Karthikeya, the hero who looks like an Adonis perhaps gets the most stylish villain role that Tollywood hasn't seen for a while. By insisting on better shot-selection and introduction and build-up of his character, Karthikeya steals thunder from Nani in the same way Vijay Deverekonda did in "Evade Subramanyam". Flaws of logic permeate the script on why police are kept in the dark, and how banks share CCTV footage so easily and so on. Despite all that and the predictability of the film, a Paisa-vasool film and a great family entertainer. Must watch.

Rating: 3.5/5

#Nani'sGangLeader #GangLeader #Nani #Lakshmi #Saranya #VikramKKumar #VennelaKishore #Anirudh #NaveenNooli #MaitriFilms #Tollywood #NaturalStarNani #NaaniGangLeader #NanisGangLeader

"Saaho" (Telugu/Hindi/Tamil/Malayalam)

2019-08-31T09:56:00.002+05:30

How do you evaluate 171 minutes of action flick laced with stunning background score, melodious songs, deafening-decibel graphic violence amidst a neat romantic track between Shraddha Kapoor and Prabhas, and intense villains strategically chosen from various languages? It is a mixed bag, and half-way through you realize you are in a dead-slow track with convoluted story-line which defies logic - its a story of a team of cops who set out to unmask the great gangster group of a walled city called Waji City (where the hell is this sky-scraper paradise?). The twists of director Sujith's screenplay are all about who is the real cop, who is fake, who is under-cover and who is finally uncovered.

As you see, there is limited room for maneuvre in the story plot - you will have to introduce a bevy of villains, the team of investigators, the hero, the heroine and then build the interplay with some concocted humor that doesn't register. Within the framework imposed by the director, and that is the right thing to evaluate the film rather than get swayed by the memes unleashed by anti-"rebel" forces on the social media, Sujith does a neat job in giving us an authentic film without the bells-and-whistles as seen in a "Dhoom" franchisee or the ultra-sophisticated stunts of a MI series. He is aided by two technicians who give life-support to the skeletal script - Ghibran's BGM score and Madhie's cinematography. Both of them give the surreal texture, feel and mood-mixing to the various high-octane scenes of the film. Subtract Ghibran's score from the film and see the movie rating drop by 1.5 points - his work is so priceless in the film with a range of techno-instrumentation.

Who fails Sujith? It is the editor Sreekar Prasad who seems to have gone for many breaks instead of chopping chunks of mindless violence. You don't need too many stunts to project heroism and Prabhas has shown it so well in "Mirchi" his last film before the blockbusterization of his career started. These stunts, and many dragging scenes in the first half make it boring to watch - and they don't sit easy with whatever little messaging Sujith and Prabhas wanted to give.

The best part of the film is not Prabhas but "others" including a cute-looking Shraddha Kapoor who gets her most meaty role as a cop who can also prance around in vest-applied shining skin in exotic bridges wedged between snow-capped mountain ranges. But the real "others" who shine the most are Arun Vijay, Prakash Rawalade and Chunky Pandey. Normally, Tollywood directors can inter-mix three dozen villains in six frames without anyone being remembered beyond their names but Sujith has characterized each of the mean-looking men so well that every one of them right from the man who played villain in "Pandem Kodi" to Mandira Bedi to the one who played the bad guy in "Chatrapati" has a space to die for in the film - and that is no mean feat. Entertainment cannot be a given in a film of this genre - fans and reviewers must note.

Prabhas could have easily settled for a cool Telugu film after the monstrous success of "Baahubali" but he re-invested another 1000 days into the making of "Saaho" and backed it with his home production team. Hitherto, nobody from the South - Kamal Hasan, Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, Nagarjuna, Dhanush or Rana Daggubati - has ever scaled this kind of altitude with so much audacity before - with back-to-beat hype. Even if the film fails to deliver as per the audience's expectations, Prabhas deserves a pat - so what if he fails grand. He could have shied away like NTR or Mahesh Babu but he stood there like a rock knowing all the brickbats and bouquets will come his way. Those few dialogues in the film about hitting six out of the park in a stadium or that dialogue by Murali Sharma that Saaho is like a feel-good ad that comes before a film - visuals can be disturbing even if the content is good - they pretty sum up South India's most audacious challenge to Bollywood. No, this is not as bad as "Rebel". No, this is not as repetitive as "Dhoom". No, this is not as bad as "2.0". No, this is not as bad a film as the herds are branding. If you can sit through the first half till the first twist comes, you may find the second half interesting and pleasing to watch, never mind the elaborate overlay of action stunt excesses that the director relies upon. A reviewer cannot convince anybody but having seen far more worse films from the South including Shankar's "I" or Muragadoss's "Spyder" - I must say this: the makers of the film UV Creations didn't hide the genre of the film in the teaser, they didn't mislead the audience in the trailer (unlike Shankar's "I" where a lion-man is shown as if it is the third role of the hero), they never projected it as a message-oriented film, they gave the right high-octave moments of the film without giving away the plot till the movie released. They packed quite a punch in this screenplay based film. For all that and taking away what could have been missed opportunity, I stick to my rating. Audience can check my ratings of other Prabhas films on my blog and elsewhere where my reviews abound.

Go with an open mind, and decide if you can experience the thrills of an action thriller.

Rating: 2.75/5

#Saaho #Prabhas #Sujith #Ghibran #ShraddaKapoor #ArunVijay #ChunkyPandey #PrakashRawalade #JackieShroff #MandiraBedi

"Mission Mangal" (Hindi Film Review)

2019-08-16T09:52:00.000+05:30

ISRO's evolution of the last fifty years since inception couldn't have been better celebrated than the successful Mission Mangalyaan circa 2014. The film "Mission Mangal" captures that exciting milestone in 133 minutes of unbridled entertainment laced with energetic screenplay, peppy starcast and loads of cinematic Pax Indiana that will get animal spirits of "Made in India" back roaring. And who better to drive the narrative than Akshay Kumar, our hero for films with patriotic fervor releasing on national holidays - a metrosexual version of Manoj Kumar!

Director R.Balki, the creative brain behind the film helps director Jagan Shakti pace a well-written script which has a good prologue, middle story and an epic finish which though predictable gives some tense moments before the Mission becomes a success lauded by the world including NASA. But if you were to chronicle the saga of how a resource-starved ISRO built this mission like a bootstrapping startup entrepreneur, you need more cinematic ammunition than just being a minutuaeing National Geographic docu-maker. That is provided by a killer cast of two men and four women (played by the likes of Tapsee Pannu, Nithya Menen, Sonakshi Sinha, Sharmaan Joshi) and the worlds they inhabit (at home and in their minds) - they create a panorama of world views which first limit the mission and later unbottle their true potential for Mission Mars. But Akshay Kumar as Mission Director needs a shepherd to rein in these micro-Indians who run amok with their own agendas - one wants to migrate to NASA, one believes in astrology and was told to avoid Mangal planet if he has to get married, one just wants to pass time to vest superannuation benefits, one just underwent infertility treatment to become a mom, one wants to re-unite with her Army husband and so on. That shepherding is done brilliantly by Vidya Balan, let's call her the master of the project who steers the team to meet the deadlines and the deliverables. With her mercurial and multi-nuanced acting, Vidya Balan steals the show one more time acing up each scene with her own inimitable style - sparkling eyes, face as a pointer and modulation worth its weight in gold. She fights the many battles shown in the film that Indians, argumentative Indians fight every day in life with their biases, fears, doubts, naysaying beliefs, debilitating concepts at home and office - whether it's her son turning to Islam out of blind love of aping AR Rahman or a retiree who sees Mission Mangal as just as a job not as a mission.

Director Jagan Shakti and writer R.Balki must be complimented for creating a multi-layered script that shows India as an improbable bundle of flaws and contradictions to be overcome before anything great can ever be achieved - it is a cinematic feat that makes Space Mission theme seem more colorful and exciting to watch than a tik tok documentary reel. In between there are excursions into astrology (thought not well-explored because Astrologers in India predicted everything from World Wars to World Cup defeat in Semi Finals to Kumaragowda government collapse in Karnataka and are a happy punching bag in the quest for "scientific temper"), parenting (let the new gen be themselves!), call of duty (why any job than serving in army is no less!), bootstrapping (how long ISRO pulls off financial miracles without going public or crowd-funding!)and so on. The film is nothing short of achieving a miracle in convincing pundits and masses about the odds that ISRO goes through before you see a tense countdown of -15 on live TV. Akshay Kumar has given another fine performance of being a Director who takes all the brickbats on failures and then pats the team when met with success - those one-liner songs of Dev Anand hummed at critical points in the film tell a lot through hidden subtexts, do not miss them! Music by Amit Trivedi gives the exhilarating fuel needed to punctuate the right emotions throughout - one hardly feels a lag moment ever and the subtitles for Hindi is a welcome initiative to ensure nothing lost in translation. Cinematography by Ravi Varma and the VFX are also quite pleasing. A few more outer world shots would have made the film more immersive in experience.

Without explaining the complexity of fuel tanks and orbiters and what goes on in rocket science, the directorial team uses simpler narratives of how the final execution of Mission Mars looks like in the initial scenes to make the audience tether to a surcharge of emotions later and then make them go through the drama and believe some outlandish logic too (like using wolverine clothing for the outer covering and using non-recyclable plastic as light-weight fuel and so on!).

On the whole, the film is immensely watchable and achieves multiple goals of appreciating what ISRO does without sounding theoretical or boring. Hollywood has paid more tributes to NASA and made space shuttle travel a routine affair! Instead of making looney comic stories about life on moon (like some Telugu films did), this is a good attempt to bridge the gap between Astronomy and Public. A film like this will do more education than a hundred trips to Birla Planetorium.

Rating: 3.75/5

#MissionMangal #RBalki #JaganShakti #AkshayKumar #AmitTrivedi #VidyaBalan #RaviVarman #ISRO #SpaceMovies #MissionMars #NASA #IndianSpaceMission #Chandrayaan2

"Dear Comrade" (Telugu/Tamil/Malayalam/Kannada) Film Review

2019-07-27T10:23:00.000+05:30

The most hyped Vijay Deverekonda in recent times comes with an elaborate buildout of 169 minutes about a love story which has many overt and subtextual messages - of which the main message is about how a lady cricketer fights sexual harassment at work with help of her lover who stands like a wall for her - whom everyone calls "Dear Comrade". Bharat Kamma directs this colorful film with dazzling cinematography and enchanting musical score by Justin Prabhakaran. The film takes you into the world of Bobby and Lilly (played by Vijay Deverekonda and Rashmika) whose journey has many fateful turns, most of them predictable and self-created. Performances-wise, the film's honors go to Rashmika first and Vijay Deverekonda next for raising the bar. Rashmika gets a role of a lifetime which even top-paid heroines don't enjoy these days, she seems to speak a lot with her eyes and packs quite a punch with classy costumes and neat acting without much ado. Vijay must be complimented for taking on a role that supports the heroine's character throughout.

How good is the film? To be fair, the treatment is honest and leisurely but the director misses out in leveraging the right mix of emotions at crucial moments. The first half is painfully slow and listless, takes too much time to establish the character of Bobby and Lilly, their divergent paths, their friends and their world views with too many songs. The number of songs and scenes in the college could have been cut down brutally just like the 'canteen song' which got removed n the film. After a series of lovely films on cricket like "Jersey" and "Majili", here's an opportunity to create a feast of visuals about Women's cricket (and what ails it from taking off?) but crucial moments fall flat as the director jumps-cut to another scene. Like in the first half, when Lilly begs to play in gully cricket played by the boys, the director should have shown how she batted then itself instead of jumping to the stadium scene where she plays with a flourish to win in a big match. Cricket is an adrenalin-pumping game for Indians which can surcharge emotions in any scene but in the entire second half, Lilly's cricketing exploits were missing in action. Moments like this were under-capitalized which makes the film drop into a lower orbit of a routine love story where hero's antics are shown more mileage than a lady cricketer's struggles to build her dream innings. In both the first and second half, many scenes give you a deja vu sense of earlier films of Vijay like "Evade Subramanyam", "Geeta Govindam" and "Arjun Reddy"; most of the early scenes seem a modern version of Nagarjuna's "Shiva". For Vijay Deverekonda, this film doesn't add much to his powerhouse acting skills that he seems to possess because at times he subtracts the film's intensity with his performance. Focus on him in the first half is the fatal flaw which deprives the audience of that extra wow factor. Add to that there is an unexplained inconsistency towards the end where the hero is unrepentant, impulsive and emotional throughout the film but capitulates to admission of guilt in the end in a crucial courtroom scene - could that be better handled to raise the heroism quotient or was it necessary to get the "heroininism" we leave at that. Despite that Vijay's histrionics and stunts come out good but he has to quickly re-invent himself to change the diction and body language lest it fall into the zone of lazy acting, for want of variety. His dancing skills have definitely got better, it must be said.

Technically, film's editing and dialogue-writing departments are lackluster and could have done a lot better with sharpness. Director Bharat Kamma has good sensibilities to create stories with strong underlying messages but he has to somewhere overcome a struggle between commercial intensity and visual aesthetics a'la Mani Ratnam. The films which became cult classics are usually films with intensity, laser-sharp focus on main plot without detours and distractions. Unfortunately, "Dear Comrade" touches upon many small themes like student politics, communism, anger-management, career aspirations of modern lovers and finally kicks the can down too late with the main theme of sexual harassment in cricket's highest echelons. If this was driven home earlier, it would have created a massive impact. It doesn't. Music composer Justin Prabhakaran deserves a hat-tip - his album will sail through the tunnel of time for its versatility and melody. His music has more maturity, finesse and balance between Indian and Western music than some of the new-age composers we have heard. His BGM with half-violin strings and rhythmic percussions shows his class and makes it one of the most exciting scores in recent times. One cameo that stands out is co-producer Yash Rangineni's outburst as a BCCI chairman - that whole episode upholds the dignity and seriousness of the world's richest cricketing body. On the whole, you can watch it but once though with lots of patience but don't go with great expectations and let it sponge on you.

Rating: 2.75/5

#DearComdrade #RashmikaMadanna #VijayDeverekonda #YashRangineni #BigBenCinemas #MytriMovieMakers #JustinPrabhakaran #Tolllywood #Mollywood #Kollywood #Sandalwood #Telugufilms

"Oh Baby!" (Telugu Film Review)

2019-07-18T08:33:00.000+05:30

Apart from consuming Korean smartphones for years, we Telugus have been served Korean film content indirectly in many of our films - mostly unacknowledged. But "Oh Baby" is the first official remake of a Korean film "Mrs Granny" now brought to you in India by a crew of producers including D.Suresh Babu who is now famous for entering a good script film late like a Series A Venture Capitalist. Nandini Reddy, one of the most endearing directors who is known for DVD Classic catalogue films variety crafts a delightful family entertainer. The film runs for 160 minutes but you rarely feel the duration as it takes you on an improbable though intensely emotional roller-coaster ride of an old woman who can reverse-age.

The highlight of the film is the characterization of four actors - Samantha (in the lead role), Lakshmi (as the Granny), Rajendra Prasad as Granny's best friend and Rao Ramesh as Granny's son. The rest of the crew hang around with their lines but the soul of the film revolves around these awesome four who treat us with their range of nuances deftly directed by Nandini Reddy. I have never figured out how Nandini Reddy gets such a fine balance between poignancy (in showing weighty family sentiments), subtlety (in caricaturing moms and dads like we find in our midst) and light-heartedness (in painting heavy emotions with a humorous touch). But she indeed pulls off a coup this time with iconic and experienced actors. For example, the delicate and platonic friendship between Rajendra Prasad and granny (find out who she is really in the movie!) is a rarity in Telugu films who are used to typecasting a man and a woman as either lovers or as friends. Similarly, Rao Ramesh's presence in the film and the magical outburst on at least two occasions in the film make you squirm and cry at the same time. Then I realize the word magic is created by Lakshmi Bhupal who has been minting for Nandini Reddy in all her films so far. Samantha definitely steals the show all the way right from her first appearance on screen and this film will get her more accolades than "A.AA". It must go to the credit of Nandini again for reining in Lakshmi's over-acting urges to give sublime performance. Otherwise, any crossing the line would have made this film no different than "Jeans" performance for madam Lakshmi. Naga Shourya is effective as Samantha's brief lover and carries potential to hold his own screen presence against a Diva's. One point to note: this is perhaps another rare occasion where mother (Lakshmi) and daughter (Aishwarya) act together!

Technically, the film's songs by Mickey J Meyer were average and could have been better except for the title song. One expected special output from Mickey after the enchanting score in "Mahanati". What he slipped in songs, he covered up in BGM. Editing by Junaid Siddiqui is quite sharp and different without seeming like a commercial format - only in the second half, some chopping would have energized the overall output. Personally, I felt the film's intrinsic value and the messaging deserve to get picked up by Annapurna Films more than Suresh Films - because the overall stardom of Samantha and the cameo by her darling would have been picture-perfect for ANR family production. Overall, "Oh Baby" is uproarious, intense yet light-hearted, clean and classy, and soul-satisfying film for all generations of family audience. Missing the film will mean missing a part of your childhood and memories with loved ones. I hope the film by Nandini Reddy will soon be celebrated in all South Indian and other languages. Go watch it!

Rating: 4/5

"Super 30" (Hindi Film Review)

2019-07-18T08:26:00.000+05:30

Films about academicians and pedagogy rarely make an interesting script, least of all from Bollywood's point of view which seeks drama in every real story. But Hrithik Roshan's "Super30" achieves that rare distinction. In 154 minutes, director Vikas Bahl re-constructs the surreal life story of a living legend Anand Kumar who's academy in Bihar has been handpicking thirty students every year for making it to the IITs for the last decade or so. From that point itself, the film deserves appreciation - because a subject of how a poverty-stricken passionate Mathematician finds his mojo in life after failing to muster all the money to go to Cambridge University, and later strikes gold by getting paid a bomb at corporate coaching centers where the rich pay princely sums to get their inert kids through the IIT entrance and finally, leaves all that addictive remuneration to start an academy which proves a leveler, on behalf of the poor students from humble backgrounds. The story of the film is an exaggerated cinematic depiction of that struggle of Anand Kumar (who is today celebrated all over Bihar and India as a poor man's passport-giver to the rigorous IITs) but Vikas Behal creates an exciting screen output of a story that needed to be told, aided by the Roshans (minus their in-house music director), a sharp technical crew of writer (Sanjiv Dutta) and editor (Sreekar Prasad) and an acting ensemble who know their lines well (including Pankaj Tripathi and Aditya Srivastava).

What makes the film authentic is the attention to detail in every frame, even if parts of that are dramatized for emphasis. And in doing so, the director never misses an occasion to milk emotions - whether it is the fleeting romantic moments with Mrunal Thakur (she shines even in the briefest lover role ever in a Hrithik film), or with father (Virendra Saxena) or the brief but frustrating encounters with the librarian, or the home which takes papads from him and immediately thrusts his Cambridge letter into a fire pyre (but how did Hrithik have the heart to wrap his papads into it?). The director's precise thinking can be seen from just one scene in the library: Hritihik smuggles himself into a corner of a library trying to steal visuals of one Mathematical Gazette that could be his passport to glory. Any other film-maker could show another corner of a library, but Hrithik is shown in the corner of books about Post-War British History and Economics ( a corner which we can safely assume will be undetected by the librarian who later yanks him out). Throughout the film, visuals like these show a director in command of his craft and wants to pack as much excitement into telling an inspiring story. The build up to the interval is interesting as are the different episodes in the second half which show his innovative pedagogy (methods of teaching concepts in maths, physics and chemistry), the Holi sequence (which is the only lovable item song in the film) and the electrifying climax (where the students distract and destroy an enemy camp out to eliminate them).

Music by Ajay-Atul is one of the most haunting scores in recent times which meet the criteria of a real-life reel drama - measured, melodious, heart-stringing and comprehensive. All the five songs show the class, range and mettle of the composer duo as they have the ability to trigger the right emotions, capture the ethos and yet make the music sound so distinct and clear. Reminded me of the times when Amit Trivedi burst on the scene many years before. If the songs are good, the BGM score is a different class apart - using sanskritised voice-overs of prayer song to invoke the blessings of Goddess Saraswati, the composers build a crescendo in the second half throughout that is at once piercing, soothing and brilliant in orchestral magic. That song that culminates in the climax and throughout the second half is unfortunately, not in the OST but will surely linger on long after you leave the theatre. Performances-wise, Hrithik Roshan is apt and comes out alive after a long time since there is no iron-pumping or Greek beauty to show - he practiced his Bihari accent well and delivers a neat performance that should get some brownie points (pun intended). What subtracts from the film is that the kids (whom you wanted to know more about after the Basanti Song) should have been highlighted more in flesh and bone. But I fully subscribe to the view that the film is dramatized to full measure because of which it has become so engaging to watch - any other treatment would have rendered it less exciting. If only the director spent a little more time to dig into the pedagogy happening in these money-spinning corporate centers, and the suicides happening into IITs, this would have been a seminal film. But overall, a soul-satisfying film and one for the Roshans to be remembered for. Never a dull moment, even for the kids. Go all out for it!
Rating: 3.5/5
#Super30 #Bollywood #HrithikRoshan #VikasBahl #AjayAtul #MrunalThakur #PanjajTripathi

Dear FM, Please remove customs duty on Imported Books

2019-07-09T09:58:00.000+05:30

As a compulsive book-buyer and an avid book-collector, I strongly protest the imposition of customs duty on imported books. Earlier, it used to be Nil duty on imported books but now we have to pay five per cent. This is quite absurd and ruinous for those who love books and share knowledge. One of the greatest good that India's first Prime Minister Nehru did for our country (himself being a book-lover) was that he said NO to imposition of even Sales Tax on books. Because he felt knowledge should move seamlessly and cross borders and nobody should think twice about buying books. Books never attracted sales tax or any other indirect tax. If the NDA government thinks that books should also follow the MAKE IN INDIA doctrine, it is making a grave mistake with regard to knowledge acquisition in particular, and book-buying in general. As it is, most books now imprinted by global publishers like Random House, Hatchette and Bloomsbury follow the simple INR pricing model where global titles are assumed at a static foreign exchange conversion rate. This is because these publishers play on large volumes which ensure the absorption of royalty to foreign authors, a higher currency rate etc. Imposing customs duty and getting GST through the backdoor on imported books will eventually hit Indian publishing industry growing at 30 per cent annually and is the second-largest in English-speaking world. Publishers like Pearson, Cambridge, Oxford etc have so many reciprocal arrangements with concessional pricing in South East Asia with India as a major hub - now a lot of that trade will shift out of India. That makes educational books a tad costlier for Indian students as well. Only an uninformed and short-sighted policy maker will take such an extreme step of bringing books under customs duty and nipping a booming book trade in the bud - at a time when paper costs are high and digital trends are disrupting many publishers out of business. Getting customs duty on books is also a gross violation of a constitutional commitment that Jawahar Lal Nehru made - never to tax books. You can tax imported items like Gold, liquor, cigars and cigarettes, even petrol and diesel, but please do not tax books and get GST through the backdoor. Start thinking like a knowledge-worker and do what it takes to create a knowledge-economy. Otherwise we will only be reading the glorious books of the past and history books. By the time you read this post, there will be a knowledge-intensive imported book that is waiting to be opened in the container ship in India or so many new imported books just released for purchase on Amazon.

#CustomsDutyonImportedBooks #ImportDutyOnBooks #GSTonBooks #NehruVsModi #KnowledgeSociety #KnowledgeEconomy #IndianPublishing

All About Indexing Books

2018-07-31T09:28:00.000+05:30

What can enhance the value and utility of a book, especially a Nonfiction book? A good cover, an enticing title, a blistering blurb, a lovely outer cover, or a Bata-price tag of X99 rupees? None of these, methinks. Index, be it subject index or name index, is in my mind the most important enhancer of value. A good index can make you curiouser about the book you are about to buy – and even after you have bought, it makes it worthwhile to ration your time to it in a world of unending attention-grabbers. I have been reading books since third standard, buying books on my own since sixth standard and building up massive collections with moonlighting income from writing and copywriting from my Intermediate. Having seen books galore for a lifetime, I find it puzzling to see why so many book publishers especially in India miss the golden rule of indexing. I can understand why indexing is not worthwhile in Fiction books –who wants to read names you are about to get introduced in racy narrative? But for nonfiction books, Indexing is well in order. And even in case of a memoir or an autobiography, one can introduce a subject index if no name index is desirable in the eyes of the author.

For busy folks and executives who thumb through many titles of professional interest, from architecture to markets, from bitcoins to espionage – an index can be a life-saver besides being a time-saver. Yet, I find that Index is amiss in the multitude of books that are coming out of India, by Indians and by Indian/Global publishers. It tells me that there is some uneasy reluctance or sheer laziness by both the authors and publishers about indexing the books. Let me give some concrete examples of why a good index can ensnare a browser of books at a bookstore to buy the book. Look at some of the books released in Non-fiction category recently. James Crabtree’s “Billionaire Raj”, Monika Halan’s “Let’s Talk Money”, Rasheed Kidwai’s “Ballot: Ten Episodes that have shaped India’s Democracy”. Only one book by James Crabtree carries an Index Page. The book is actually rotten in content, and rubbished by the reviewers but the index page has references to Andhra Pradesh, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, and an entire chapter on Andhra Industrialists. It becomes easy to cite the book and quote anecdotes and insights from the book when you have an index which runs to half-a-dozen pages. Remember, Index for a book also means respect for reader’s time and hence, professionalism. You may have reasons for not including an index – when you feel the contents are explosive and may lead to a lot of backlash and defamation suits, but those are exceptions like a Lewinsky report or a Rajneesh Chronicle.

Seymour M Hersh, a reporter par excellence just released his book of memoirs. Lovely book but sans Index. On the contrary, a book of memoirs by AnandBazar Patrika’s impeccable reporter Suman Chattopadhyay - “My Date With History” is intricately indexed and makes you want to read fast and furious. What stumps me is that even global imprint publishers like Harper Collins and Penguin skip an Index when it comes to books by Indian writers. Take the case of the riveting book by a career intelligence officer Vikram Sood’s latest book on Insights on Espionage called “The Unending Games”. The book reads like a John Le Carre or Tom Clancy book full of irreverent digs into the world of spies from the Mossads to the KGBs of the world. But alas! No index! Giving an index means not just a big thumbs up to the visibility of the contents of the book but also aspiration to make it a global bestseller – to be lapped up by millions of readers outside the Himalayas. From what little I understand, most times, the decision to have an index page is either that of the author or both the author and the publisher. For the author, the reluctance comes not from shyness to put the referenced names in the Index page, but some contribution that is coming in as royalty from the publishers gets deducted from the author to the extent an Index is done. For example there are professional indexers and indexing software which cost a bomb and unless the author does the job herself or himself, the publisher may think it is an extra line item to the litany of expensing like marketing, promotion events of the book. A typical contribution from the author for indexing the book comes to $1000. So, one understands why there is a reluctance from Indian writers to index their works of non-fiction. But as much as you buy a good index service from professional software, nothing comes closer to having a good one than having the job done by the author herself – because the author (and the publisher) know best what is worth indexing and referencing. Cindex, Sky or Macrex are good index programs but despite that if one doesn’t know what to highlight in a book, even the best of such programs can hamper the credibility of a book, if the index is poorly done. Since I have a lot of publishing friends and writers in my feed, I wanted to highlight this aspect which is grossly under-exploited in the overall marketing and promotion of books. The next time you see a good book of non-fiction, remember to look up if it has an Index page after the acknowledgements page. If the publisher is serious about reaching a global audience for the book, chances are eight out of ten that there is a good index page in the book. Having an Index Page, sells a book. In this age of #hashtags and #keywordsearches. I rest my case.

#Indexing #IndexPage #BookSummary #BestsellerBooks #BookPublishing #Publishing #BookMarketing #GlobalmarketingofBooks #Booksellers #Authors #Publishers #IndianPublishers #Nonfiction #Fiction #HowToMarketBooksUsingIndex #Citations #BookBlurbs #ReferencingBooks #BookIndexing #IndexingSoftware #AuthorsAndWriters #IndianPublishing

Lessons from the Walmart-Flipkart Deal

2018-05-11T09:40:00.000+05:30

Walmart's acquisition of Flipkart for $16 billion is the most exciting news for a variety of reasons and means a world for Indian Retail Industry. It is exciting because for a team of co-founders who braved the odds of running an E-Tail startup against all rejections, criticism and hardships for 11 years, this deal is the proof of concept that startups in India can not only succeed or become a unicorn (having valuation above $ 1 Billion) but get scaled upto a level that attracts the attention of the world's best investment bankers and giants like Walmart, Amazon (in the way its been pumping before and after the deal was announced) and Alibaba (who is also eyeing the Indian E-tail space). The deal happened to a company that is yet to enter "teens" but it will fire up the imagination and enthusiasm of millions of young people in India and South Asia to dream big in startups. The deal is also going to make bankers sit up and take notice as many of them are still unable to determine using conventional templates how to value and finance a company having negative EBITDA or higher cash burn rates. There has to be a way for project-financing bankers to participate in growth opportunities without collaterals. On the day of the deal announcement, Flipkart had accumulated losses over Rs.24000 crore (almost $ 4 Billion) but the ones who will make money from this deal will be Softbank (if they exit), Tiger Global, Accel Partners, Tencent Holdings and others who took risks. The deal is going to sizzle up the Investment Landscape too - with Alternative Asset-Class becoming worthy of Investment-grade by UHNWIs and HNWIs. OF course, not every deal will be a runaway success but we are at an inflection point today just as we were when we only had Templeton, UTI and Canbank and Indbank peddling Mutual Fund Schemes. The deal is also going to make all those Billionaires in India wake up to threats of their brick-and-mortar businesses without focusing on areas of impact - Artificial Intelligence-based Algorithms, Supply Chain connectivity, Top-notch managerial talent and Financial Innovation. And finally, the deal is just a scratch on the surface of the $750 Billion Retail Merchandise industry. Walmart is known to upend most of the Retailing oligopolies wherever they set foot and their move here will sure trigger agitations and backlash from existing stakeholders in India's vast Retail order but it is one of the tipping points for a host of reasons as above. There have been enough poison-pill reports by startup commentators in the last few years about whether India is going overboard with obsession over unicorn valuations and startup movements. This deal is an answer to all that fuss over valuations. The next time someone kicks their job to start up a company (even if it is not IT-related) or gets a campus offer from a startup or raising funds via crowdsourcing, respect them and wish them well - there is honor and promise in such risk-taking. Lastly, welcome to the benefits of Flexible thinking. We live in an era where a Tech-averse Warren Buffett has mended ways to invest in potential $ 1 Trillion tech companies like Apple. Follow the cheese, wake up and smell coffee! Congrats Bansals. #FlipkartDeal #WalmartFlipkart

Air Chief Marshall Idris Hasan Latif - A complete life of 95 years!

2018-05-04T08:51:00.002+05:30

Air Chief Marshall Mr Idris Hasan Latif is no more. I have been privileged and fortunate to know and handle his finances as far back as in 1996 when I was a greenhorn in Financial Advisory. When I was handpicked to handle him, I shuddered. The first time I met him and his learned wife Madam Bilkees Latif at the bungalow which is now Saakshi TV Headquarters, I was floored by his hospitality, his congeniality and his charms. Wonderful imported tea, foreign cookies and elaborate spreads used to greet me every time I met him. Even though his office was a stone's throw from my office @ Karvy, meeting him meant comprehensive, nerve-wracking preparation and unmissable punctuality. All those meetings steeled my greenhorn ways into becoming Pro at work, very early in my career. Everything from writing out his name to the way you spell had to be spick n span. You put an extra "S" into Hasan or you miss the AIR CHIEF MARSHALL in reference, you get a glare that will shame you. Taught me a lot about professionalism, importance of name as wished to be written by a client, knowledge as a conversational input and the relentless need to be punctual as well as expedient. He kept minutes of the meeting as detailed as I and was cordial but firm in reprimanding on slippages in service. There was one complaint made against me for some shares not being dematerialized for which Karvy was not the registrar. Once again braced me up for pacing my speed of followup and expediency. Mutual Funds were just about to take off those days but somehow I felt despite the frenzy for Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund, I must not give Mr Latif the application and hardsell. I used to tell him, " Your portfolio has the best of the bluechips that is the envy of even fund managers. Don't sell it now. Sell it when you think you won't have time and energy to manage yourself." Neither did I tell him to put money into many of the Fixed Deposits marketed aggressively by Karvy which went kaput later. Mr Latif appreciated my advice and my convictions in simplifying but not over-complicating the portfolio with needless risks and diversifications. His family way back in the nineties itself was a global family - sons and daughters in China, US with foreign citizens as daughter-in-law and sons-in-law. He had the most exquisite artifacts sourced from all over the world from days of travel in Airforce to the days of being a French Ambassador.

His command over languages, English, French, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and bits of Telugu was inspiring. Years later, it inspired me to learn French when I was working for a french bank BNP Paribas almost the same way he taught himself when he moved to Paris. He used to maintain a lovely collection of books most of them coffee table books and inspiring biographies. Some of the less-important ones were kept on the staircases dotting the steps. He maintained pets, mostly cats and dogs and plenty of birds safely protected from the canine creatures in a separate aviary in the backyard of his house. Madam Latif always greeted me to acknowledge my presence and perhaps moved away to do her chores, of which I later gathered were mostly writerly. Her books on cooking and remembrances of things motherly have been iconic best-sellers. Throughout their lives, Mr Latif and Mrs Bilkees Latif were never apart from each other and even to the parties and rendezvous events, they were in it together, mostly seated in the first or primordial row.

Mr Latif was also a raconteur and sharp-witted but never slighted the guest. Those days, I used to drive an LML Vespa. And he had already few cars parked at the front of his house. For all others his guard kept the door closed for business disposed from inside but for me he instructed my Vespa be driven right inside and parked next to his cars. His kindness and goodness bowled me over and taught me that treat everyone with respect and dignity of a human being. What is small today can be large tomorrow. Years later when I met him, he told me he sold all his shares plonked into Mutual Funds and he is quite happy with the returns. He appreciated the thought that I told him that one day Mutual Funds will be as big as shares and until the variety improves, stick to your stocks. We met a couple of times later after he moved away from that sprawling bungalow on Road No.1 to a place not afar on Road no.2. But I will always admireAir Chief Marshall Mr Idris Hasan Latif for the things he taught me, the way he treated me when I was small and for the opportunity to learn. I wish he ascends to Jannat in peace and happiness from a life so richly lived. One of the privileges of being a Financial Advisor is the free entry pass you get inside the lives of the rich, the famous and the most successful. Air Chief Marshall Latif Sir was all of that. A lot of the ninety five years of his life has a load of lessons. I hope his children will put his life's work in publishing domain.

#AirChiefMarshallIdrisHasanLatif #IdrisHasanLatif #BilkeesLatif #CitizensOfHyderabad #LessonsOnWealthAdvisoryFromClients