total timepass...

We recently saw a play called 'Dara' at the National Theatre in London. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Dara portrays the struggle that had taken place between Shah Jahan's eldest son, Dara and his youngest son, Aurangzeb for the Mughal crown. We all know who had won, but most of us don't know how he had won it. This play is a story of what had happened between the two... Dara had been his father's favourite forever, his chosen heir. While Aurangzeb had always been one of the other sons, younger and ignored. This childish rivalry had taken the shape of adult hatred, to the point that Aurangzeb killed Dara and enslaved his father for years to get to the crown. The play details scenes from their childhood to adulthood; interactions between the brothers, with their sisters and father; of Aurangzeb's love for a Hindu woman; his getting together with his brother Murad to beat Dara; Dara's running away but getting caught due to his naivete; and then Aurangzeb ...

The play "Dear Father" stars Paresh Rawal and was playing recently in London. I wasn’t able to find any reviews of the play and went for it purely because of the star power of Paresh Rawal. He is a great actor and so this would be a great play. Dear Father is a comedy-thriller-suspense-social-message play all rolled into one. It is based on the lives of a son, his wife and his father, which is turned upside down when the father (Paresh Rawal) ends up in hospital after falling from their terrace. A cop (also played by Paresh Rawal) lands up at their place, and what follows is a dissection of the last few days of the household leading up to the father’s accident, and also an unraveling of the issues between the three that had cropped up over those days. This play actually felt at times like a saas-bahu serial except that there was no saas but a sasur:). The issues were the same, the father had a lot of time at hand and found mistakes with the wife. The wife did not like t...

I don't like watching Hollywood movies much. And the reason is that they make me think (and sometimes make me feel sad). Much longer than having watched the movie. And Imitation Game is one such movie. For one, it was about something I had not heard about till now. About Turin, about his contribution to the World War, about his machine, about how even though they broke the German's code, they decided not to go all out with their breakthrough, but balance out the short term gains with the long term aim; decide with their brains and not their hearts. It was very very interesting, and I think the director and the actors did a brilliant job of it all. Benedict Cumberbatch was perfect for the role and he did it justice. It was all perfect. But what I was left thinking about after the movie, was just the last 10(?) mins of the movie - what happened to Turin afterwards. The movie was about the Turin machine, and what happened after was just mentioned in passing. But that was a...

Its a bit late to review a movie seen two months back, but I think Interstellar requires one. It was a Christopher Nolan movie. I would not hold the same standards for a lot of movies, but I think his movies need to be more.. and Interstellar wasn't! To be fair - it was amazing at a lot of levels! The visuals, the creativity in the vision - linking space travel, a grim future, black holes, singularities, gravity between time and so on requires a lot of courage and vision. But it failed. And for me, it failed because it tried to do too much! By the end of it, I was confused about what the movie was trying to say and do. Was it trying to give reasons for ghosts and superstitions? Was it an emotional movie on relationships? Cooper and his daughter? Amelia and her father? Amelia and her boyfriend? Was it a science fiction? Did it want to talk about the great human spirit? Or just show an awesome visual movie? Did it have a message on the fraility of human character? Or the import...

Quiet is a book which talks about introversion, and introverts' perception in today's world where extroversion has become the personality ideal for everyone. Its a very interesting book to read, based on many researches carried over the years on this topic, but with a geographical limitation of being a very American book. Many interesting examples are discussed to make it real, and its very easy to relate to what's written. The author starts with how extroversion has become the aspirational personality type in today's world. All cultures across the world used to be 'cultures of character' not so long ago - where everyone knew each other and one'e character was what took him/her forward in life - and now they  are moving towards a 'culture of personality' - where people do not know each other but form impressions based on what is presented to them. She then goes on to break two myths. The first is that all leaders of the corporate world are e...

Was it the expectations that killed it? Or was it the content? Any Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani movie builds up expectations for everyone. Their movies have till now all been enjoyable, almost flawless in their flow and script. To the point that I have grown to expect the same from all their movies. And that is where PK lost out for me. PK is conceptually different and strong - using the viewpoint of an alien stuck on earth to highlight how meaningless some of our religious practices have become. But what the movie lacked was a well balanced script. It got too long, too winded and pedantic at times. There were too many typical twists and turns which made it a drag at times. For example, the multiple interactions with the guru and Aamir did not come out as natural as they could have been. And Anushka's acting wasn't natural either. I got disconnected many times from the script because of that. Also at no point did I emotionally connect with what PK, the alien is going t...

Its been a long time that I have come out of a movie theatre, affected. Given the kind of trashy movies that have been coming out of Bollywood recently (and becoming blockbusters!), Haider felt like it was from a different movie industry altogether! Before going for Haider, I had a vague idea that it was a mixture of Hamlet and Kashmir. But the way this was done completely blew my mind. We went for a 11pm show after a very busy day, and came out fully awake still, with my mind alert, awake and running in all different directions.

 The movie starts with a Kashmiri doctor taken away by the army in Srinagar, as he was treating a terrorist in his house. His son, Haider (Shahid Kapur) looks for his father after he comes back to Srinagar and finds his mother (Tabu) cavorting around with his uncle, Khurram (Kay Kay Menon). Haider's searches lead him nowhere, while his mother gets more and more close to his uncle.

 And then a stranger called Roohdaar (meaning ghost) comes to him wi...