Indian Movies,

I went to watch the movie, 'Salam E Ishq' right on Thursday without waiting for the verdict of the movie. I was quite curious about how the director had managed to squeeze in so many leading characters and well yes the songs of the movie, which is quite catchy, and so I went to enjoy them. When one goes for a Hindi movie, they very well expect songs and the melodrama which is always an integral part of packaging of commercial cinema. The director successfully gave a sincere portrayal of love across various genres and situations. The story of anil kapoor facing mid life crisis at 40 strikes a chord. You almost can feel his longings for the firebrand young girl. The love marriage between John Abraham and Vidya Balan was also quite refreshing. Equal treatment was meted out to all the six pairs almost. Vidya balan, Anil kapoor, Akshay Khanna again proved their consistent acting skills.

The movie was quite long as in almost 4 hours including the break. The second half could have been trimmed. Desperate need for an editor out there. Some people did get cramps sitting for that long. By the time 3 stories were coming to an end, the thought about another 3 stories was getting into the nerves. The ghost of Karan Johar kept on scaring the audience. Ayesha Takia was wasted and infact it was ridiculous of her to just marry under any circumstance.


But the thing which I found very irritating was the attitude of the audience. I went to a multiplex where the crowd was quite affluent. Infact, they constituted many students from a premier engineer institute. They were commenting right through the entire movie criticing the Hindi cinema in general. I wonder why people go to watch Hindi movie right on the first day show. Why don’t they wait for the movie reviews and then venture out to watch a movie. They need not come to the theatre and waste their precious time and money. They always have an option of watching Hollywood movies.

We Indians thrive on our movies. It is the easiest available option for recreation. Even when an Indian settles anywhere in the world, they cannot do without the Hindi movie with its generous dose of masala. Infact our Bollywood movies and songs are an established brand.

The inheritance of loss- Kiran Desai

I got to know about the book as anyone could guess after the knowledge about the Booker Prize, about the young Indian in the circuit, Kiran Desai. There have been columns written about Indian writing skills. I remember how I have grown up thriving on foreign authors from all over the world except for Indians. How I loathed Indian writers especially for their hypocrisy except for few like R.K. Narayan. No definitely now I perceive Indians are happening for example the book “The Hungry Tide” by Amitav Ghosh was such a delight, so captivating that I had nearly tasted the fish curry cooked on the sunderbans.

Kiran Desai has perfectly etched the details of the character which ranges from grudging judge who did his graduation from US to the poor cook who pines on his son who is working in Amerika as a cook illegally. The story traverses from Kanchenjunga in India to New York. It is the story set up in early eighties with a panoramic background of the small village on the border of India. The peaceful place with rustic inhabitants gets changed after the insurgency when gurkhas, native of the place revolts to get their power back over the migrants.

The story about the Indians leaving India in seventies in search of opportunities and the treatment meted out to most of them is very revealing. The desperation of the Indians to get a green card and somehow reach America to escape from poverty. How families saved their last penny to send one child to America in hope of getting dollars and prestige for the whole family. The prodigal sons then have the burden not only of surviving in a foreign land with foreign language and carve success but also to cater to a huge list of relatives who dream of coming to America and change their destiny.