Is this what we call entertainment?

My parents are back from the UK.  Along with them, my sister and my little niece also have arrived in the country (my baava who too had come along, has since returned owing to his work commitments).  Despite my work pressure I'm trying my best to spend some time with all of them - most importantly with my 'sose' Tanvi - the darling of everyone at home.  

Thanks to the return of parents I have been getting to watch a lot more TV than usual (which says a lot as I rarely watch TV beyond the mandatory news on NDTV 24X7 once, the odd sports and English Movies channels).  While watching the TV viewing pattern of folks at home and those that visit our place, I was dismayed at the level of attraction the serials held for all women and men (yes, men too).  Possibly because all these serials reinforce the 'Aadarsha Bharatiya Naari' image most men lap them all up more eagerly than women (and possibly secretly encourage their women to watch them and even emulate them). 

However, what is even more shocking (and dismaying) is the kind of 'news' covered by the local (local language and English) news channels.  I caught myself staring open-mouthed at these incidents being graphically depicted:

1.  A woman who's been thrown out of her husband's house berating, crying and alternately trying to re-enter the husband's place, along with talking to the guys from the news channel and relating her story.

2.  Another woman was shown crying and relating her harrowing experience of having to live with a husband who wanted her to perform in the bedroom a la women in porn.  

In order to grab more eyeballs and keep their audiences salivating for more the news channels seem to have stooped to a place from where it is near impossible to come back and make amends.  They had not even made any perfunctory attempt to blur the face of the 'victims' that they were trying to create sympathy for.  

What kind of news coverage and reporting are these?  How do they help the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse?  Don't we have any standards for these news channels to adhere?  I don't see anyone protesting.  And, I see the viewership of these channels growing and their revenues doubling (and with each passing day one finds that more news channels are cropping up on the TV horizon).  

Is Justice (retd) Markandeya Katju listening/watching all this?

Kahaani Mein Twist

What could one write as a review of a movie that’s already become the darling of the critics and audiences alike?  Difficult but I’ll try being the fault-finder that I’m known to be (apart from giving a ring-side view).

It’s about Kahaani, alright!  After two back-to-back hits last year (Vidya started and ended the year 2011 with NOKJ and TDP and both were BO successes) and a National Award for her portrayal of ‘Silk’, Vidya’s Kahaani had made all the right noises in the pre-release buzz.  But, the director’s previous two outings were BO Turkeys and hence there were sceptics too. 

Sujoy Ghosh’s latest outing – a thriller this time - is satisfying on many counts.  It starts off slowly and before you start wondering what’s happening you’re hooked to it completely and there’s not a moment to pause from the tension to ponder if the plot has any loopholes.  The performances by all the actors are above par, the background music blends in perfectly and the photography captures the mood evocatively and incorporates Kolkata as an integral character to the story. 

By now everyone and her uncle knows what the movie is all about.  So I’ll steer clear of what the movie is all about.  All I want to say is, ‘Guys, don’t miss this.  This possibly is one helluva thriller to hit Indian screens in a long while’.  What works BEST for the movie is nowhere does the director tries to bring in the Western (read, Hollywood or whatever else) style of story-telling.  It’s completely the time-tested Indian style of storytelling (minus the compulsory naach-gaana that we most times suffer and sometimes long for). 

So, what am I cribbing about then? At last here I come to them:

1.    The film credits show Ms Mamata Banerjee as ‘honorary’ Chief Minister.  It should be ‘honourable’.  How come nobody noticed this blooper?

2.  An ex-IB Officer is introduced as ‘Captain Bajpai’ but Vidya repeatedly calls him ‘Colonel’.  Promotion suddenly?  (Unless he originally was a Navy Captain but ‘somehow miraculously’ made it into the Army and got his equivalent Colonel rank)

3.  Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee) is so stylish that he wears low-waist trousers as a police officer.  Special concessions?

4.   In a scene the second-in-command from IB slaps Rana, the Police Officer (twice).  Why was this necessary at all?  Since there’s no further talk of the incident, it gets reflected as if it’s acceptable to do so.  Poor!

5.   There’s the reference at the end of the movie to ‘Durga’ (voice-over by Amitabh) as the destroyer of the demons and her arrival every year for this purpose.  I somehow thought it jarred and didn’t sync with the movie.  

There are other plot-holes but pointing them out would mean giving away the plot completely to those readers who may have yet not watched the movie.  So, mum’s the word (pun intended). 

Go watch it, pronto!  Don’t wait for it to appear on your telly.