The Story of Tublu- A Review

The past week was very interesting and filled with challenges and surprises which took me to highs and also held me down. Happy hours, football, cricket, exams, copying assignments, and then the wonderful package reached me.

Adorned with the author’s signature, the decorated copy of ‘The Story of Tublu’ presented itself to me. This is Jahid Akhtar’s debut novel, and he, as a fellow blogger, gave me the opportunity to be one of the first people to review the book. Jahid, hearty congratulations are in order!

The book is a story of a father and son, Bipin and Tublu, whose life is wrecked by a flood and they have to move to a new place. At their new destination, they meet the Sharmas and this brings a turn in both their lives. The story rotates around the hardships faced by the duo, the new formed bonding between the Sharmas and the father-son duo, the friendship and the unsaid love between Tublu and Maina, the Sharmas’ daughter.

 The book captures various scenarios of the life of an engineer, and keeps the reader connected with a simple yet engaging plot. The plot is quite the life of an engineer and that’s also one of the reasons why I liked the book. Keeping it simple is the key, and Jahid has very nicely managed that while not allowing the book to drop from the reader’s hands.

To sum up, the book is a good read and would be a good choice for your bookshelf. The book costs Rs. 200 and is available on Flipkart and Amazon.

You can read Jahid Akhtar’s blog here.

To read more reviews of The Story of Tublu, click here and here.

Antar-Taarkiya

The 1^st thing I did was save the blank word document in the name as it is now. Google translate, thank you for helping me out there. So the title basically in English is ‘Inter-stellar’. The movie is, as the title goes, and as usual too, out of the world. Performances and a story which takes it to the high it is at, the movie is literally out of the world, and is a must watch, on a disclaimer that you know the basics of physics- Newton’s Laws, the Theory of Relativity, the basic definitions of black holes, worm holes, time, space, and I guess I haven’t missed anything major. Just open your mind, and sharpen your brain, and be ready to think, dream, and experience the unexplored expanses of time, matter, galaxies, and uhm…the fifth dimension.

So, if this is a review, then what’s with the Hindi title and the translation? Poetry is tiring, and then there come those brainwaves, which just sweep you off your feet, suck away your breath, and make you feel light- just like floating, head down. This is one, I hope it is, and I hope that at the end of it, you feel that it was good too. It won’t can’t be as good as the actual, (I’m not Nolan), but, just a try.

This is all about the year 2020. 6 years, ‘cause that’s how much it takes for a Hollywood movie to be copied to Bollywood. Imagining Hollywood at that time is such a pleasure. Robert Downey Jr. has officially changed his name to Tony Stark; Christopher Nolan is making a movie about the particles involved in somescientificeffectwehaveneverheardoff; Leonardo DiCaprio gets nominated for the Oscars for every year from 2014 to 2020, but he still doesn’t have the honor of taking the Lady home; well, that list is so creative, and enjoyable.

Bollywood in 2020. Dhoom 6 is being made, and Uday Chopra is the main hero; Krish 21 is in production, well, they like skipping numbers in between; the 2 mentioned movies go on to earn 500 crores; Salman and Shahrukh have stopped their fight, and are down to just slapping each other in front of the media; Rohit Shetty is now a physics professor and writes books about how Newton and his laws were wrong; Bollywood is now officially known as Copywood, with all movies being copied from different languages. With the creativity right now, I guess this is inevitable.

Within all those copies, Antar-taarkiya is launched. The movie is set in a time when the world is ending, and there is next to no hope for the human race to survive. The hero has lost his wife, and whenever he remembers her, he gets tears in his eyes (unless his eyes are naturally like that), and in the background plays the old characteristic slow song, obviously sung by Arijit Singh.

All of a sudden, the hero meets his old idol, and thus happens the milan. Without any talks, the hero is given a mission, something which would save humanity and get it out from the void of extinction- collection of data to decide which city would be best to survive. (Yes, even when the world is going down, these cities can’t be destroyed, even by nature.)

As usual, the city suited for the job happens to be Mumbai. The climax involves the hero jumping through black holes and wormholes potholes to get to his destination and to get the job done. Well, relativity is too complex a factor to depict, and thus it is replaced by the usual coma, which, in this case, stops the hero’s age from increasing. There are those prayers, and hysterical crying, and the tears, which add to the drama. Now that would be something to watch.

There are sudden songs which are just added to provide employment to music directors and singers (at least RaGa could influence someone). The cliché- even in the barren city, there are the background dancers, who vanish to be never seen as soon as the song ends. Wow, that was so Nolan-ish.

Coming to think of it, Bollywood could literally do this, and well, the movie would earn around 400 crores depending on the star cast, and the level of promotions.

And, the most remembered dialogue of the movie, “Maut se darr nahi lagta, waqt se lagta hai.” (I’m not afraid of death, I’m afraid of time.)

I hope no Bollywood fanatic gets up and says that Nolan copied this from Dabbangg.

Halfway through, I sent this to a friend, and he was offended, so I dedicate the PS note to him, and all those like him, who become, as I usually say, bhavuk.

PS: This post is just for the purpose of entertainment. There are no spoilers, hopefully; and this is not basically a review, except for the first paragraph. It is just for entertainment, a try at humor, which practically does sum up Bollywood, and its stereotypes. A mention that no political sentiments were to be hurt too (just because of that RaGa mention).

PPS: This movie is a must watch, for anyone and everyone. Do NOT dare to skip it.

Half A Review

Some authors write books for their passion; some write books to spread awareness; some write books to educate; some write because of the readers; and then there is the last class of authors who write to make movies on their books. Well, there are also those who write books just to get criticized, not by the reviewers on the internet or the newspapers, but by people like me, or just me at least.

“Aage padhna hai toh padh, varna kat le.”

Now you know what I’m talking off. This massive 260 page manuscript begins and ends with a bang, like literally, the start because of the excitement and haste to review the book; and at the end ‘cause it ended when I didn’t want it to (way beyond what I wanted it to be).

So, because being mainstream is too mainstream, this book was born. Well yes, it did say the truth, at least a teeny tiny bit of it. Walk in Madhav, a basketball player hailing from Bihar, yes, in bold, italic and in quotes, just for the sake of emphasis. For two vulgar dialogues in the desi tongue; a show of poverty; a display of hordes of people; and a macabre look into the insight of the people there, and their mentalities. His skills in English would make Shakespeare cringe, and that was really expected, ‘cause he learnt it from a famous Indian author, Chetan Bhagat.

With his broken English, this lad manages to get admission into St. Stephens College, in Delhi, in sports quota (which I would like to talk about at length), manages to woo a unhappy rich “chick” (as is used numerous times in the book), and also persuades Bill Gates to sponsor his home-run school. Now, that’s why I is so weak in English, you no?

Enter English teacher, female basketball ace, with features enough to win Miss Universe, the daughter of a rich dad, Riya Somani. So, we know all the clothes she has, due to the bland descriptions of her beauty in each and every type of clothing, and then comes the catch. She does everything the rich way, especially the entrances into the college, (just a BMW), her parties, her dressing, her ideals, and almost the whole of her is a rich brat; but she hates the rich way of life. Now isn’t that so very interesting. Her dream is all the more rich, with her just playing a guitar in a small bar in New York (such a dork!).

Or maybe, that was done to spread a message that we must all listen to our hearts, and not to what others say. Like, really! Just like the Bihar jibe, or the sports quota use. That made me go WOW.

So, we have a rich girl, a normal or less-than-normal guy, and he falls for her, and then there’s the romance, and then…a new term is born- half girlfriend. Read the book to know more, but at your own risk, ‘cause bottom line, its Chetan TheScriptWriter Bhagat.

Continuing, he loves her, and then there’s a drama, there’s flashback, there’s a journal, just like there was a psychologist in another book, and there’s the present which comes back, and then a wild-goose chase, and the end, which was known from the moment Bhagat wrote the first word.

That’s all about the book, and the official review is done here. Now for some fun, and a deeper understanding on the book.

So this is another example of exemplary copying, and it couldn’t be called copying, as it is a new way of lifting altogether.

Scene 1

Guy walks in for recruitment, talks brashly with the recruiters, tells them the truth about his life, about how he wants to be happy, and then gets offered a job, which he happily says no to, and then heads back to his village.

Nobility, with a 3 Idiots-y shot. Well, I hadn’t seen it before.

Scene 2 States

Mother retorts rather angrily to her son, and ignores his friend, who he has brought without informing her. With the Bollywood-y drama and the Hindi dialogues said by every mother in Bollywood, this scene was so innovative.

So very original! At least not copied, because lifting from your own books isn’t termed as copying.

When my as-he-wanted-me-to-quote-him editor Anil read this review of mine, his first reaction was that the review was way too short, and somewhat not precise. He also gave me the title, and from there, it inspired in me a thought.

“This is a half review. And well, frankly, the book is such that it deserves a half review and not a word more.”

PS: Special thanks to Simran, who gave me the book for a day. But yes, no thank you for purchasing it. :P

PPS: The views in the review are just my own, and it is at your own risk to follow them and decide to not decide to read the book.

Lage Raho Shetty Bhai

There is Bollywood, and there are those who copy and do remakes, and earn crores and crores, and there are those sequels which don’t even try to touch their prequels.

“Aata Majhi Satakli!”

These 3 magic words are what I can say to them, and no, not as Yo Yo Honey Singh, who finds himself singing in almost every blockbuster movie, but as Bajirao Singham. With no complete resemblance to Lungi Dance from Chennai Express, this song sizzles with Kareena Kapoor (who is thankfully absent for the majority runtime of the film) and those cute kids who keep shouting out loud those 3 words. Thank God, the audience was allowed to leave the hall at the end to not withstand the torture, cherry seed sitting atop a pastry.

An actress in Rohit Shetty’s films is as useful as Alok Nath in a Chetan Bhagat story, or like logic in Salman Khan’s movies, or like a tune in Honey Singh’s songs. Unlike part 1 where Singham and the ‘I-don’t-know-who’ actress romance and dance and spoil the whole flow of the movie, Kareena is better left away from a majority of the film, as I said before. But whenever she’s on screen, she plays the character she usually does in all her films, a bubbly beautiful babe (well that was for alliteration). Enough said.

But there is 1 person who shall die watching this movie, feeling extremely pained and insulted- Newton. The 3 laws of physics are destroyed by Rohit in all his films, with the cars flying, and the assailants flying, and also the hero flying around, taking down an army of villains with his trusted comrades. There could be just 2 explanations for that. The first being that Rohit Shetty doesn’t know the 3 laws of motion, or the probable one, he detests them just as we do and is doing it to intentionally avenge for the pain caused by Newton.

So in the star cast we have Narendra Modi Anupam Kher, (Sri)xN Pandit Ravishankar Amole Gupte, and Arvind Kejrival, General V.K. Singh played by actors whose names Google couldn’t provide me, and lastly, we have the Bhartiya Janta Lok Party which is fighting against corruption and black money.

Where there is Rohit Shetty, there is humor. With Daya from CID playing a police officer, there is less doubt that maybe the Police Commissioner in the next part would be ACP Pradyuman.

ACP Pradyuman has been repeatedly asking everyone, “Pata lagao yeh Singham ne mera dialogue churaya, toh churaya kaise!”

The dialogue in question is, “Darvaja tod do Daya”, which is used by Singham.

To end, there was a lot of similarity spotted in the movie. No, it wasn’t copied. NO!

The gunfights bear a lot of resemblance to the game we all have played at some time in life, Counter Strike. With bullets racing through the air, the magazines of the pistols do get over, and then the cops, including the havaldars and constables, pick up the dead attackers’ AK-47s and shoot the rest of the goons. Man, that is so Counter Strike-ish.

The absence of numerous songs, a pesky irritating heroine, and the mainstream Bollywood Karan Johar love story drama makes the film an entertainer, and I could seriously say that it did beat the 1^st part in terms of story and action.

PS: Some people sincerely missed in this movie are Gotya, Jayakant Shikre, and Ashok Saraf as head constable Savlekar.