GURU

I was thinking that maybe this film does not deserve my criticism.. but all said and done, it is "Maniratnam"....
Well getting a ticket in itself was a big challenge.. but lucky me, I got an elite seat, that too a center one. But all that hard work was not justified.... at least not completely. Starting with the disclaimer, things did not ring true. It claimed that "all characters were fictitious and any resemblance to existing persons was pure coincidence." Pure irony.Maybe the director meant it that way.....
The initial portrayal of guru as a sales boy was as "Mani" as it gets... and Abhishek Bhachan has to be commended for the seam-less transformation....
Aha! Now here comes the next false note. It has to be noticed that Aishwarya Rai is a wee bit too old to continue to dance in the rain with abandon... and none of her reactions in this part of the film are natural...Though she does get better with time...
As said before, the disclaimer is a mockery, the story,if it can be called a story,is about Dhirubai Ambani.
Abhishek gives us a good,if not the best portrayal of the character. The Shakti corporations idea,his struggle to get there,the strifes,the roadblocks,the helping hand,etc.. is believable(barely). But the film drags...around here,losing its initial pace,uncharacteristic of Maniratnam.
Then theres another infusion of pace as Madhavan is introduced. The actor deserves credit as he produces another of his superb,underplayed cameos..
Chakraborthy is a revelation. I cant imagine why the actor was in for such a long hiatus.
Vidya Balan pulls the pace down further, as her character in itself only bogs down the pace,but she is natural and honest in the portrayal of a chirpy but handicapped girl...

So these are the films plusses: Abhishek to a certain extent,Mithun Chakraborthy, Madhavan,great background score and really powerful dialogue.
and these are the minusses: Aishwarya Rai,A needless Vidya Balan(though no fault of her own), less usage of Madhavan,needless song and dance sequences,a meandering screenplay and ofcourse lack of the "Mani" stamp.

But the director does redeem himself with the last dialogue sequence,followed by the hero's address to his share holders. These two scenes coupled with Abhishek's screen presence manage to bring the movie back to a semblance of being a MANIRATNAM product.....

my holiday resolve

The holidays had started and I was bored. Totally, completely bored. At some points I was so bored that looked at from an outsider’s perspective it seemed fascinating….. At such points I just slept to ward off the boredom…. Including the time when I am at my keen, alert, creative best…… midnight.

I am by habit a nocturnal creature… with my day starting at somewhere around 10 p.m. but I had to change all that. I had just finished my exams. Though exams don’t bother me much they are a little straining on the mind… so i came home with a mind full of holiday plans...

Then came the rain……. never ending, ever heavy rain. The rain was a dampener both literally and abstractly. A wide, endless stretch of nothingness…… I came home thinking I couldn’t do enough and I ended up in the worst possible situation, I couldn’t do anything.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I believe that I am usually helpful around the house. Though I do a lot of chores, being a little lazy (genetically), I do them slowly, taking my time to start… but this time things were different. I literally flew from the word go. I did everything I was told and more. There couldn’t have been enough jobs to keep me busy and happy and guess what.....there wasn’t!!

This stifling freedom was getting to me and I had to find a way to keep the boredom at bay. So I grew into this habit of spending my lazy afternoons talking with my mother. We talked and talked and I couldn’t have enough of it. We talked about anything and everything… politics, history, love, the world at large, me, my brother….

Well this particular day we were fresh from a visit to my aunt’s place. My aunt has a 4 year old kid and like all kids of today he was hyper. His antics were quiet amusing, especially to my activity deficient brain. But my aunt was getting irritated… but fortunately she was an old hand at this game and chose to ignore him. She went on to tell us a joke, saying that when her friend’s kid behaved oddly in public, the friend would exclaim loudly,” Sumathi (my aunt), why is your kid behaving so oddly? ” But by this time I was only maintaining a polite façade of listening, while actually deep in thought…….

My thought process was as to how I behaved when I was a child. Except for some standout incidents (which usually involved getting slapped, or being in an exceptionally uncomfortable situation) I don’t exactly remember my childhood. So that day, during our interaction hour I began enthusiastically bombarding my mom with questions… But my mom wasn’t in a really talkative mood and just gave me a lazy smile. So I started asking her specific questions… When I asked her whether I did odd things like the kids of today, she gave me a tolerant smile that said I had. To my question on how she had tolerated my fibs towards escapism she gave me an angry smile that said,” try it now!!” To questions on my innocence and sweetness, she gave me a sad smile that said I ‘had been’ both sweet and innocent. And finally to my question on whether I was better behaved than my brother she gave me a radiant smile that lied that I was. She probably would have given my brother the same smile…..

Looking back one might think “boy, he must have been real bored to find these things interesting.” But on second thought I feel that even if I were very busy and couldn’t stop to look up…. I wouldn’t have missed these moments for the world. These talks with my mother were very interesting and shaped my character, leading me to think on how I could be a better son to a most wonderful mother.