Giving Credit when due

BTW one should take notice, when the casting credits of Taare Zameen Par are on. Just check if you find something unusual. If you look carefully, you will find that Aamir's name comes after Darsheel's name.

Why this is unique is because this is not Indian mindset. We are a race which tries to belittle other's achievements to showcase ourselves. In the movie itself Aamir has shown this as wrong and is happy with Ishan's achievements. However it is nice to see that Aamir is following that outside the movie too. Darsheel is indeed the hero of the movie and he deserves very bit of accolade, even higher credentials in the casting part too.

Aamir is evolvong into a very matured filmmaker and a better humanbeing. Hope to see many more great movies coming out of his production house and his mind.

Taare Zameen Par : Best movie of the Year

भीड़ में यूं न छोडो मुझे, घर लौट के भी आ ना पाऊँ मा
भेज न इतना दूर मुज्क्को तू, याद भी तुझको आ ना पाऊँ मा
क्या इतना बुरा हूँ में मा
क्या इतना बुरा मेरी मा

This para of the song Maa holds the thought process going on inside the innocent mind of Ishan, when he is sent to the boarding school. Life is never easy. Even a child like Ishan has his share of problems. Sometimes he tries to fight against it, sometimes he just ignores it, but all the time, he has in the back of his mind that there is someone who can sort out his every problem. He trusts his Maa, like every child does. But when his Maa does not understand him, he breaks down from inside. This song shows his desperate plea to his mother to come back and embrace him. But there is nobody to hear him. If someone can hold back tear when the song is on, he/she has to have a heart of stone.

The movie Taare Zameen Par is indeed a nice Christmas gift to everybody from Aamir Khan. He is known as a person who uses his mind, while choosing his work, quite unlike others in Bollywood. If he is there in a movie, you can be rest assured that it has to be a stunner. But once in a while, he stars in some dumb movies too. Remember Mangal Pandey or Mela. This movie had no known stars except Aamir and there was a grave danger that this could be termed as a part of parallel cinema. But the final product turned out to be the best entertainer of the year. Its not in the same league as Hey Baby or OSO. But only because they are way below it. Even Chak De can not match TZP. Sweet sound of money, awards and accolades are sure to come Aamir's way again.

But sometimes you can feel some movies are way above the petty affair of money or awards. If these things were on the mind of Aamir while making this movie, then he could never have made such a touching movie. Each scene is so full of emotions and Aamir's golden touch, that viewer is bound to be mesmerized by it.

The movie also tries to explain that not everybody is same. Every person's knowledge can not be judged by comparing him/her against some standard scale, like exam results. Every person has the right to be the way he/she likes and given the opportunity, he can achieve something out of extraordinary. The movie also shows you can bring a lot of difference to somebody's life, if you can actually care (KHAYAL) about him/her. Just a second spent with somebody might mean a lot more to him/her, than anything else. We just need to take a step forward towards them and all barriers will break.

So the question is can we take that step forward? Do we have it in us?

Mini movies : Big experience

Tomorrow, I am going to watch a movie called 'Dus Kahaniyan'. Its an un-bollywood like movie with 10 different short films being shown one after another. Short films!!! Its quite an interesting phenomenon. It can be about anything and not necessarily need to have a full length storyline or moral learning behind it (like the 3 hr movies). But they have to be brief and strong in every scene. You just cant afford a weak second there, unlike the big movies.

Few days ago, the passionforcinema site hosted a short film competition. My previous flatmate Anand was very eager to participate in it. He somehow convinced me to be a part of his mini movie. I had no idea what I had to do and was nervous. This was very new for me. But then he told me that he had developed the concept from a real life scenario and I was already part of that scenario. Hence he believed, I could play the part very well.

Lets focus on the incident first. It happened a few days back, when all of a sudden our main door refused to shut down, without the lock from inside being used. The problem was that both of us had different office timings. Mine was from 9 AM to 6 PM and Anand's was from 2 PM to 11PM. So when it was time for me to leave for office, he used to be asleep. Without disturbing his sleep, there was no way we could close the door from inside. And the idea of the door opening up due to wind or human force, when he is sleeping, was scary. We could have lost valuable stuff from out house or there was danger to Anand. We had to find a solution and I found one, which was very effective. I tied a shoe lace to the chitkani (lock to close the door from inside) from inside and took the two ends of the lace to the outer part of the door. Now when I pulled the shoe lace from outside, the chitkani got closed from inside. Thus I could close the door from outside without Anand's help and Anand could later open it from inside.

our home was safe now, because of a very simple idea. Didn't get the idea??? Then watch the short film that we made on this. Click on the below URL and watch the movie 'THE DOOR'.

http://passionforcinema.com/pfcone-2007-day-three/

Then when I was shifting to a new place, Anand asked me to star in another movie, in bargain for the advance that he had to pay me :). I agreed due to the fun I had during filming the first one. This movie was based on a fiction, with the only truth behind the story being the death of our fishes, Sania n Sarapova. May their souls rest in peace.

In order to watch this movie, go to the below URL and watch the movie 'FISHES'.

http://passionforcinema.com/pfcone-2007-day-four/

When these movies were hosted on the site, we got some good responses and some bad. I guess the effort was really there and we did a good job, considering that this was our first attempt at it. After watching some other videos, I realized how a good short movie can be made. Especially the short movies, 'Itch', 'A Day In The Life Of India', etc. Do watch these movies once you are there.

The Real Come Back

The Prince of Calcutta, DADA, The god of off-side, The captain courageous...he has been given many names. Now the press has given him a new name, The comeback man. Everybody is eager to shower praises on him. Why?? Because he is the man of the moment. Because He is a success story.

But then what really brought this change. You can find quite a few reasons here. I don't agree with all of them. Especially the part where Ganguly says that the way he was ousted was not right and this motivated him to perform better. If that was the case, why was not he performing well in the first class matches, when he was kept out of the national team? His Ranji average was pathetic and his average in English county cricket was in single figures. Once when Laxman was kept out of the team in 1990s, he went back and scored 9 conscutive first class centuries. He was immediately brought back. Recently when Dravid was thrown out of the team, he scored a double century and a century in 2 matches. How can anyone keep these players out of a team after such performances?

When Ganguly was brought into the team in 1996, it was due to regional politics. Again when he was brought back in 2006 South Africa tour, it was because of his experience and not because of his performance (much like the way sehwag has been selected for the current Australian tour). When did his performance pave the way for his entry into the team? So to say that he is motivated to do well, because he was not treated well, is all rubbish.


Again his achievement in the Pakistan series has been great, but in the context of the series, it has not been significant. His performance in the test which India won in Delhi was nothing great. Scoring 2 centuries when the pitch least suits the bowlers and when the opponent team has actually just 2 good bowlers, can’t be taken as a sign of greatness. So I shall wait for his performance in Australia. I pray to god that he plays well. If he does, then it will be great for the team and for the cricket loving public. But more than anything else, if he succeeds in getting the man of the series in Australia (by helping India win the series there), he will become the true come back champion of all time. Till then let’s just wait and watch.

Manjilen aur bhi hain

Ruke hue har saans ko chalna sikhaya tha is dil ne
Har ek saans mein tera naam firoya tha is dil ne
Apni ummedon ko thokar maratha maine tere pyar mein
Kyun ke mujh pagle ko deewana banaya tha is dil ne!!!

Bheegi hui raat mein, halki si barsaat mein
Haathon mein tere tha haath mera
Chal rahe the hum sapnon ke sehar mein
Maan ki umango ka na tha koi thikana mera!!!

Woh bhi ek raat thi, yeh bhi ek raat hai
Tab zindagi mehki hui thi, aaj tanhayi ka hi saath hai
Khule darichon se sard hawa ake ruh ko pighla rahi hain
Beimaan mausam mein tumhari bewafayi hi to bas mere paas hai!!!

Par jeene ki kashish aaj bhi jinda hai mere maan mein
Aasmaan chune ke khwab aaj bhi buland hai
Is safar mein tera saath na raha to kya
Manjilen tay karne ko mere pair aaj bhi taiyar hain!!!