Rumi Nations

Honestly, I got thinking about this after reading this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html? So we make friends when we are younger. Well may be we are less choosy and have more time. Let's face it, we are not very smart when we are just KIDS! We do not choose our school or classmates. Our parents decide those based on their economic circumstance or their religion or whatever. We do not choose our relations, our cousins. If even after we grow up, we continue to confine our lives to a small circle of family relations, we prove that we are pretty antiquated in our mindsets. As we grow older, we have less time. We do less exploring. I think that's our loss. And how do you RETAIN those old friendships if and/or when you discover that the paths you have chosen in life diverge rather than converge. Just because you happen to have studied in school together, you cannot ov...

            Movies are fiction. A good movie is merely a good story. But stories and logic are not mutually exclusive. It’s interesting to look at Bollywood’s way of telling a story and whether that includes or excludes logic. Munnabhai MBBS was a hit sequel to a hit movie. It’s a comedy movie just as its predecessor was. But it tries to send out a message as well. So we get to see the principal of the medical college lecturing medical college students on the first day that they shouldn’t get emotionally involved with patients. Doctors should merely treat the patient and not get too attached to him or her. Clearly this is standard practice. But the way it’s projected in the movie makes it apparent that doctors are villains for not dealing with patients as if the patients were their nearest and dearest loved ones.

When a director manages to combine the mythic heritage of the Mahabharata with the cauldron that is contemporary Indian politics, you inevitably get a searing saga. Unlike the usual Bollywood movie, Rajneeti is painted on a broad canvas and events happen at a fast clip and the movie does not grow stale at any point. From the start itself when it tells of a romance between an ageing idealist and a young protege, the movie somehow manages to acquire a mythic ambiance. The movie moves on to scheming politicians and feuding family members, a romance that is one-sided, one brother who's only too trigger happy and the younger brother, who's a cool schemer, and Nana Patkar cool as always. As we witness one planned murder after another, one is reminded of gangster country. But this is really the reality of life in politics in India and indeed, perhaps, the reality of life itself, in India. I don't know why the movie did not garner greater accolades. May be, people ar...

That's how I would rate 3 Idiots. I am loath to apply different yardsticks to judge Bollywood and Hollywood movies. So, when I saw 3 Idiots, I immediately sought to measure it against the best of Hollywood that I had experienced. And I thought I could immediately name 10 Hollywood movies that are 10 times better and that I have seen multiple times and would continue to watch in the future ... I thought like every Bollywood movie, this movie was too long as well ... the jokes seems forced ... and not so funny. Let me mention a few random Hollywood movies that are my favorites ... Crimson Tide Clear and Present Danger Armageddon Forrest Gump A Few Good Men The Pursuit of Happyness Enemy of the State Terminator 2/Men in Black/Mission Impossible I/II/III As Good As It Gets Something's Gotta Give Well, that's my random list ... as the list shows, I am no connoisseur of Hollywood movies, but ...