Movie Review: Jogwa(2009)

Jogwa released in 2009 but somehow I missed it, so I watched it today and now I can't get it out of my head. That's why I decided to write a review on it. First of all, this is one of the best movies I have seen including all the amazing Hollywood/Bollywood flicks.

Story:
If you look at it from a thousand feet, the story is quite simple. As IMDb says- "Two strangers are forced into a life of servitude to the local deity. They fall in love and want to start a new life but will the wrath of a highly superstitious community let them live in peace". But as you go deeper, the story is really dark, extremely focussed and inspiring. I won't tell the story here as it might spoil the experience for someone who haven't yet seen the movie!
Acting:
Acting department holds some incredibly talented Marathi actors including Upendra Limaye, Mukta Barve, Kishore Kadam, etc. I will specifically talk about Upendra Limaye. He is featured as "Tayappa", a young man having a small medical problem in his penile area because of which he is forced to wear feminine clothes, behave like a woman and beg for food. Tayappa falls in love with a Suli(played by Mukta Barve) but cannot express it because of the fear of wrath of his Deity. Upendra did a convincing job and makes us feel the emotions that the character is going through. Suli is sweet, helpless and fierce at times and Mukta Barve played it extremely well.
Direction:
Direction is quite good. The locations and camera angles create the necessary darkness required by the storyline, at the same time it shows some beautiful situations to support the love story.
Music:
Ajay-Atul has done an awe-inspiring job in the music department. Songs are so mesmerising that you can't get it out of your mind. "Lallati Bhandar" takes you into the trance and you feel the passion of Marathi folk music. "Jeev Dangala" is a masterpiece, sung by Hariharan and Shreya Ghoshal, extremely romantic and visually sensual.

Overall, the movie is a great piece of art and made with extreme passion. I can recommend it to anyone any day!

Good People Bad People!

Take 1 - Many years ago, A man killed millions of innocent people including men, women, children because they belonged to a certain religion. He slowly rose to power and nobody around him was able to stop this. Today we say that he could perform all those ungodly acts because Good people were silent, they did nothing.

Take 2 - Few days ago, we saw on TV, Youtube that some school girl was being molested by bunch of goons just because she was drunk (or whatever reason they came up at that time). This did not happen on a deserted forest. Alas! the abomination took place on one of the most crowded streets of the city. You could see dozens of cars standing on the street and people watching the girl being manhandled and they did nothing. Again shall we call them Good people who remained silent?

Take 3 - A small city in UP started their own law, they stopped their women from leaving their home in the evening. They banned love marriages. They are forcing the couples who had love marriages to go out of the city. If you would listen to the explanation the Panchayat gives, you would die wondering if the logic you used to believe in, has become outdated? Police tried to stop them from breaking the law, but came back with broken bones and burnt vehicles. I again ask the same question, Are good people still silent?

These are just a few examples out of thousands of such transgressions happening everyday, and it should be stopped right away, you cannot ignore it however small it might be! Satyamev Jayate showed some cruel things happening in India and they were unbelievable. If you are still thinking that those people who remained silent were Good people, then I believe we disagree on the definition of Good and Bad! Protest for a good cause if you don't want to get counted in those "good" people! Also respect women, one of them gave birth to you!

Book review: Revolution 2020

This is my first book review, so I thought I will start with the last book I have read. I had bought Revolution 2020 long ago, but did not read it. Somehow In the last boring weekend, I read this book.
Revolution 2020, written by Chetan Bhagat.

The plot: Its the story of three childhood friends Gopal, Aarti and Raghav in Varanasi, the place where everybody goes at the end for cleansing their sins. Gopal, who is the main character in the book, is a mediocre student, who fails to get into a decent engineering college and in the struggle, loses his love(Aarti) to Raghav. Raghav is not only intelligent and good looking, but also has passion for Journalism and cares about the society. Owing to the losses in his life, Gopal surrenders to the corruption and starts a new Engineering college on his disputed land. Raghav starts his journalism and criticizes Gopal and his college for corruption, thus they stand against each other. Gopal has given up on Aarti, but when he sees her, he could not resist and somehow convinces Aarti to break up with Raghav. Inspite of all the obstacles, Raghav starts his own small newspaper and manages to send the corrupt MLA behind the bars and hinders Gopal's dream. Gopal doesn't care about it as he has got Aarti. But at the end Gopal realizes how wrong he has been and gives up Aarti to Raghav.

Review: The story is not new, we might have seen parts of the story in movies, but the writing style of the author is quite good. The characters have been given enough preference in the story and we get connected with them. Chetan Bhagat has always been outstanding at describing the intimate parts of the story in all his books, so if you like reading love stories, you must consider this book. Although the name of the book is Revolution 2020, the story does not justify it as much, instead it revolves around the love triangle between the three main characters. Even in the half way through the book, you won't see a glimpse of any revolution. The corruption, society, journalism, malpractices all seems like an addendum to the story. So if you are looking to read any serious political story, this is not it. But if you are not an avid reader and want to read something lite and quick, or if you are too bored to read something thought-provoking(like i was), you can read this book.

Mr. D.K.Bose and the briefcase!

Life of Mr. Bose was quite simple, he was working 9 to 6 to take care of all the three generations of his family, i.e. his parents, his wife and their children. He would go to office in the morning with his black briefcase decorated with nice stickers flashing his name "Mr D K Bose" (he could not put his full name because there were so many E's in it). His work was sufficiently challenging to keep him engaged for 8 hours. He would empty his tiffin box in lunch time and have a serious discussion on Bollywood, Politics, Cricket, etc. And mind it, he was quite witty in those discussions too, he would crack a nice joke on exponentially decreasing size of dresses in Bollywood or how naive the young generation is. He remembers the day when he sang a nice old song of Mukesh and everybody appreciated it and congratulated him on completing 10 years on the job.

And how time's changed, those were the days when people liked him, talked to him with respect, consulted him for suggestions. And now, not a single person look at him without a malicious glee in his eyes. People around him just cannot control their mirth, some even pull a taunt on his half-moon. He always feel the murmur of people around him whispering that song, the song that changed his life or shall we say ruined it. He does not dare to participate in any cultural events, he didn't even attend the parent's day function in his son's school. Each day of his life starts with a curse for the song. Once, he thought of suing the producers of the movie but gave up when he heard his lawyer chuckle on his name.

Anyways life goes on and now he has adapted the new nickname that his colleagues has given him - "Forest" (he finds it milder that "Run D.K.Bose Run"). Sometimes he makes fun of himself and try to jell in the young mass! He still feeds his three generations, the only thing that has changed in his life is the briefcase, now it does not carry his old badge of glistening letters : "Mr D K Bose".
Thanks for reading! do comment if you liked it!

IndiBlogger

Its been a year since I wrote my last post on this blog(I have been writing on Rubydubee fairly regularly). Recently I have been introduced to IndiBlogger, Its a very active and huge forum and community of bloggers. Since then I have been reading lots of blog posts by various bloggers on various topics. And somehow I remembered this blog that I have started with so much enthusiasm in my college days(and written some posts that i read and laugh now!). So I have decided to regularly write posts on this blog as well(I hope I do keep this spirit).
Starting with this one!
IndiBlogger is an awesome forum if you want to read random blog posts on random topic and laugh. People categorize their post when submitting to IndiBlogger so you get to read the latest posts on the things you like. To me it looks like just what I wanted! Real people, Real blog posts, Real experiences!
Plus you get to submit your blog posts and track how many people liked it. You get more visibility in the real blogosphere!
And you will also like some witty jokes they have written all around! like this one : "No dogs were injured during the making of this website." Cool eh!
Cya!