Burai Ko Tode Hai...Hum

I have written a lot about Bollywood, Hollywood, politics, and what not in attempts to create some humor, some satire; just a try to tickle your funny bones. My writing curve has gone down exponentially, and the frequency of posts has quite so reduced to a trickle of what it used to be. Well, exams do take a toll on activities, and writing is what usually takes the cut for me, seeing the amount of time it takes to think up a post, and then read, re-read and then again re-read before putting it here.

After a thoughtful weekend, as I opened my nonexistent textbook of mechanics, I managed to convince myself to do it. “I must write,” I said to myself, and at that moment I knew what I had to write on.

The past week was a blur, with time being just like those flashes portrayed in Interstellar. The massive pressure of mathematics, coupled with football, and a tiny issue I brought upon myself, apparently at the wrong time- Breaking Bad.

Now what can I say about that. Last weekend I finished season 1, in less than a day, and the whole week went in waiting for the next season (my exams are it seems, more important for them than they are for me). All I did was bury myself in those sums and equations, and all I saw were those serials which my grandmother watches. I pity myself.

A senior citizen racing through the streets with her daughter-in-law for her granddaughters, who have been kidnapped, on an Activa decked in the whole ‘shaadi ka joda’ complete with jewelry, and touched up with the 3 Idiots helmet; not to mention the fact that she jumps out of the window and runs for her life, when she can’t walk straight due to pain in her knee.

This is what we have here, and elsewhere, we have classics like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, and all those names I’m forgetting. I’ve written on what Game of Thrones would be if made in India, and now it’s time for Breaking Bad to visualize its worst copy made, ever. (The most insane ideas come during exams, and I’m not sorry to say, it’s fun to take that extra risk and write that one post more, than study those couple of hours. Shh…don’t tell mommy.)

Starting with the title, which is completely ruined way better than what it presently is: ‘Burai Ko Tode Hai…Hum’. That keeps it in the league of all those serials going on right now on Indian television, and the Bhojpuri touch takes it above them as it presumably involves the language. Now, who could have imagined Bhojpuri Breaking Bad!

Methamphetamine- the substance being cooked in the original series. But it’s really farfetched to even think that Indian serial makers have that much substance inside their heads to use crystal meth and chemistry to such effect. So, here we have a new product on the market- Rajnigandha.

‘Muh mein Rajnigandha, kadmo mein duniya.’

The slogan is said in another context, but the drug connection makes it sound fine too.

Let’s get down to business. As I do in each post, I’m going to work on who becomes who. The first match was the easiest and it’s quite self-explanatory too. and with all those posts I’ve done you will be able to make the guess yourself. ACP Pradyuman for the role of Hank Schrader. Well, the whole of the CID team replaces the DEA squad. Their record is soon impeccable, and they don’t face any obstacles in their cases. A scene to remember: Tortuga’s head on a tortoise/turtle, I don’t know which, and I don’t care which, blowing up in the middle of the desert:

ACP (on seeing the head): My God, yeh kya hai!

Abhijeet: Sir, lagta hai gala kaatke maara hai.

ACP: Bahut berehmi se katl kia hai khooni ne. Aaspaas dekho kuch milta hai kya.

A blast ensues and in the original, there were a lot of physical injuries as well as a lot of mental trauma sustained, but here, not a soul gets injured. Well, the CID is unbeatable, invincible, and uhmm…unavailable, in Breaking Bad that is.

Marie Schrader, Hank’s wife and Skyler’s sister, would and could be played by any of those vamps from Indian television. Those cruel faces, tons of makeup, and those meager dialogues and bad habits. Sums up Marie I guess, talking about the shoplifting or her views during family meetings, the high self proclamation, and those moments of meanness like running the car over a kid’s toy-pure evil.

Seeing that the vamp role is taken by her sister, Skyler follows in being somewhat the same, but in a different manner. Dominating, manipulative, aggressive, overly selfish, and very keen to get back at others, Skyler would fit into the roles of one of those equally evil mother-in-laws of Indian television. 2 words for her: mainstream and boring. Personal note: I would rather skip her scenes and ignore her presence.

Walter Jr.- a 15 year old with cerebral palsy, who gets kicked aside and made fun off by everyone including his father when he’s made to drink three shots of tequila. That’s not quite different from the pitied good daughter-in-laws of Indian soaps, or those sons who do not know what conspires in the house after their departure. Well, they are fun to watch, aren’t they? Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny.

Last but not the least. Walter White. The lead of the whole series, he could only be played by one of the greatest and finest actors of India, Amitabh Bachchan. A look similar to that of Amitabh in Paa, and a persona relating to the family man in K3G, along with the leadership and shrewd business skills of Sarkar. Cutting off the humor for a moment, I would love to say that none of the current guild of young actors could fit in and display such immense talent- not now, not ever.

There are those other characters who are more important than the one I’m going to mention, but he does deserve a moment here- Hector ‘Tio’ Salamanca. With his bell and pug face, he could have been played by a pug, but I’d rather have him brought in from the States in order to hold intact the feel of his role.

 

Hector 'Tio' Salamanca

The scene takes place in the interrogation room, with Jesse Jassi is seated and in come the DEA CID.

ACP: Jassi, tum bhale kabool na karo. Par hum tumse karva kar rahenge. Hamare paas saboot hai tumhare vahan hone ke. Abhijeet, le aao usse.

In comes Tio.

Jassi: Yeh kya batayega mere baare mein. Isse toh khud nahi paata ke hum konse grah par hai.

ACP: Zara bataiye, kya hum Mangal grah par hai?

Tio:

ACP: Kya hum Shani pe hai?

Tio:

ACP: Kya hum Prithvi par hai?

Tio: Ding.

ACP: Toh yeh baat hai. Iska matlab samjhe Daya?

Daya: Kya sir?

ACP: Yeh haan ke badle 1 ghanti bajata hai, varna kuch nahi. Hai na Tio ji?

Tio (a smile on his dog face): Ding.

Tio (in his mind): Meri nurse bhi bata deti yeh toh.

ACP: Kya yeh uss din aapke ghar aaya tha?

Tio:

ACP: Dariye mat, kuch nahi hoga aapko, bass aap haan ya na bata dijiye.

Tio:

Abhijeet: Sir, isne 17 saal jail mein ana muh nahi khola, aur ab kholega?

Tio (in his mind): Vohi toh takle ACP. Mujhse tujhe sirf 1 chij milegi.

ACP: Haan Abhijeet haan.

Tio (turns and almost falls. He dirties his pants and the room in the original, and considering the movement of the hands): Abe ACP, yeh le Babaji ka Thullu.

I’ll end here, and I must say that I should now study. Did you like the post?

 

An answer to my question

PS: This post was just for purposes of entertainment and wasn’t meant to hurt any sentiments.

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.