A confused 'Salaam' to the confused concept of 'Ishq'

My Thoughts on SALAAM-E-ISHQ

All of us know what 'Ishq' is? Ya, of course. We know what love is all about. The 10 year old Tom in the neighbourhood knows what love is. His friend Tina knows about it too. The college going Prakash knows about it all. His crush Sonali also has a mushy idea about it. You know what Ishq is and I know about it as well.

Thats the thing about Ishq, about love. Everyone knows about it but everyone has a different idea about it, has different expectations and has different ways of expressing it. When I was watching Salaam-E-Ishq - the latest release by Nikhil Advani - I was thinking... perhaps thats the idea about the movie... showcasing love and its manifestations from 6 different angles. And it would be interesting... but as we all know you can't expect too many things from bollywood movies made for the masses. And it was a massacre of an experience.

I know its difficult to pull out a movie through 6 different narrations. So many movies in the recent past failed at the attempt. More famously, Naseeruddin Shah's movie on multiple stories all ending with the twin towers in US. What a mess of good sub plots within a plot! And I thought one would and should learn from other's mistakes and escapades. However, in Salaam-E-Ishq, none of the stories moved ahead and they all finished without a trace of developmental or moral logic. What is the director trying to convey; or did he have too many things to convey? He got so entangled that he fell flat on his own cobweb.

I still feel there is a lot of meat in the concept of expressing (salaam-ing) Ishq from six different angles. But Salaam-E-Ishq could not do justice to any of the six angles. It started well but lost it soon after. The follow-through and the string to pull all the six stories together were not strong enough.
The most poorly portrayed angle was the angle of lust. If I was Sohail Khan, I would have killed Nikhil Advani for giving such a mindless treatment to his character. Ishq and lust or Ishq with lust could have been such a great powerful story..... if only the director could see it. Instead he killed whatever he weaved in the beginning by giving a comic twist to such an extent that you wonder that the director could have taken Johny Lever if he wanted to give a comic fillip to the movie just for the fun of it. Sohail goes flying through a wall in one scene.... what was Nikhil thinking!!! Thus he gave such a tragic end to a great potential story and the sixth angle became an object of mere pun. I weep in distraught.

The other two potentially great angles handled slightly better were the Akshay Khanna-Ayesha Takia and the Anil Kapoor-Juhi Chawla angles. Who does not get cold feet and butterflies just before marriage? And who does not go through a phase of confusion after 5-7 years of marriage, when one sees other beautiful woman? These are such universal concepts of (confusion in) love for strong story telling. But our Nikhil Advani could not do much justice here either. I would however say they were the best two stories in the movie as far as the narration of the 'Ishq' angles is concerned. Akshay did a great job and carried the movie all through. Anil Kapoor anyways is a class apart and adds tremendously to the screen play of every movie he does.

And then there is this ambitious woman who forgets love for famedom. And her ashiq who is bent on winning her back. What do you think? completely bollywoodish in smell and taste, isn't it?... definitely not as strong as the other stories which had a base and foundation in true emotions. But the producer had to do a justified investment and need a Salman Khan to safe keep his investments in crores. So no points for this angle.... The producer can make an independent movie on this theme however... the mass may love it...

And please don't force, I just wont talk about Govinda's re-entry into Bollywood... completely a hogwash of a story among such strong stories. Completely took away the maturity of the other stories from the film. What crap? A taxi driver - some sort of a prem pujari - falling for a foreigner and ultimately the foreigner falls for him. Oh man, give me a break.... that foreigner was a cutie and only that kept me awake. And I can't figure out what angle of 'Ishq' is this? What is the foundation or rationale for including this story in the movie. You cannot mix real and unreal. Either you stay completely real or completely unreal. One doesn’t expect reality in unreal movies like Hera Pheri and therefore don’t curse such movies after watching them.

And then we have our sweet upcoming actress Vidya Balan and our hunk Mr. John Abraham... He was a media planner in Ambience once, can you believe it? Anyways, in the movie he loved his wife (she is not from his religion and caste) like no tomorrow. He has fought all odds and family to marry her. He can do anything for her and so forth. So is that a big deal? All heroes love their heroines and die for them.. Amir Khan died in his very first film - Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. Here, too I cannot see the logic and morale of including this story with the other 5 stories. Perhaps the message was true love never dies whatever be the situation.

On the whole a not so good movie from the story telling point of view. Much below my expectations. I would like to think that people do not have much expectation from the movie. At least they wont come out of the cinema hall with the unsatisfied look. From the technical side, all movies these days are great from camera and choreography point of view. The money that a producer spends has to come out in the screen.

As I said earlier, love as an emotion has different interpretations for different people of different age, gender and background. And as such it is a confused emotion if you look at a summation of all the different interpretations. So I agree it must have been very difficult to bring six interpretations into a single movie. I can give it that much to the director as the subject taken was indeed difficult. But it would be a complete disappointment if the real reason for this disappointing movie is that Mr. Nikhil Advani could not understand the different interpretations of love in depth and therefore could not visualise the movie and made a complete mess of the movie.

I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Parthiv Patel deserves a place in the Indian Team

Parthiv Patel scores a century against Bengal at Eden Gardens Dec'2006

I might be biased. But I admire this guy. Look at his temperament and maturity at such a young age. He is the captain of the Ranji Trophy team of Gujarat.

I like his batting style. He opens in style. Look at his exploits in Australia and Pakistan. I think he has a very dependable technique. He is also hard hitting. He pulls, drives and cuts with so much passion.

If I go by the challenger series and the ranjis, his keeping has also improved. He is more of a gymnast the way he go for the ball.

And you know his appeals behind the stumps. He was fined once.

So why he should not be in the Indian squad. Pat Symcox said Indians lack a left hander. He is the one. I would invite your contention and why he should not be in the team?

Few pics of the future little master..............

Riots - Need to get to the real cause

Just a thought that I had when I saw the pictures of burning trains which followed the desecration of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur. I do not want to argue whether these riots are justified or if they are necessary evils of democracy.

The point that came to my mind is that RIOTS COST MONEY.

All the news clips and articles that I read said something to the effect "DALITs in several parts of Maharashtra went on a rampage on Thursday, setting three trains on fire, damaging over 100 buses and clashing with police in violent protests........"

Now the point is "Have we ever given a thought as to how many litres of petrol and kerosene it would require to burn a train... sorry three trains and over 100 buses....". Several hundreds of litres at least... costing thousands and perhaps lakhs of rupees.

Where does the money come from... Dalits are the so called poorer section of society and even if they are rich... would someone spend their own money to buy petrol to burn trains?...... I can fathom such jingoism... and refuse to believe that riots are well planned that rioters pool in money a day before and then attack the roads... !!!

I have spoken to many people. Some completely condemn riots, some are disillusioned, some support it but I have not found a single common person saying that I want to burn a train to prove my support.

Durlovspeath: Someone else plans and budgets the riots and the common people just implements the riots. And it is a organised crime of sorts.

I urge the media to dig deep into this and instead of just blaberring about how many people died and how many buses got burnt, the media should find out the real culprits of riots, the real financer of riots, the mastermind of riots...

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar Should Quit Or At Least Have a Chat with his Wife !!

I fear that Sachin Tendulkar might also get an unceremoniously exit from cricket. The fate that azhar had to face, the fate that Dada had to face.

I have always felt that performers should bid adeau when the going is good. And as for Sachin, he should quit immediately when the going is still not that bad.

He should realise and admit that age and injuries are catching up to him. It needs great maturity and wisdom to understand his mental and physical capabilities. Just because Lara can make a century at the age of 37 does not mean that Tendulkar also can.

It is not how much run is one making; more importantly it is how is one is getting out. A good batsman might get out cheaply continuously for a couple of innings. If he is getting out for good deliveries, yorkers and googlies, it is completely acceptable. But if he is throwing his wicket for average bowling and bad bowling continuously for a series of innings, then there is a big problem. If we take the last year into perspective and analyse how Sachin has thrown away his wicket most of the time, you feel like agreeing to what Sanjay Manjrekar has wrote about him. It makes me pretty adamanant in saying that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar should quit.

Lets take the last one dayer with South Africa and understand how Sachin threw his wicket. He was going for the ball and then at the last moment tried to leave the ball; touching the ball in the process and giving a easy catch. The ball was not a greatly swinging ball. It was an average delivery.

This throws up many questions. Why was he trying to leave the harmless ball? We dont remember Tendulkar leaving harmless deliveries. Is he not confident of hitting them? Is he trying to be safe because he knows that he has been getting out cheaply lately. Is he scared of bouncy pitches? Has he lost his sense of timing because of persistent injuries?

Whatever the reason is things are not looking very positive for our little master. Sometimes I feel he needs councelling. Perhaps, Gavaskar should spent some time with him. Perhaps he should speak to his wife. She is the one who knows him the closest. It is not essential to understand cricket to the core for the wife to know the husband about his cricket and his cricketing attitude (left in him).

It is high time that Tenduldar decides the future course of his career. I have great regards for him and I pray that he is able to quit the game with respect.