Maybe when Rajkumar Hirani made 3 Idiots, he assumed that the public would have forgotten Munnabhai MBBS. He assumed that Munnabhai MBBS would be so out of circulation that it would have gone out of people’s minds, eclipsed by the more successful sequel Lage Raho. What he didn’t bargain for was that Munnabhai MBBS was on the menu on the New York JFK  to Dubai Emirates Airlines flight, and that people like me would watch it within 3 weeks of watching 3 idiots.

The similarities are uncanny. Both colleges are “Imperial”, have Boman Irani playing the “big prof” (diro here, dean there), and acting similarly in both. Both have a nerdy Tam who comes 2nd in class, 2nd to the hero. Yeah, Chatur is caricatured in 3I while Swami is given a more positive role in Munnabhai. Both are about the system, about how the larger-than-life hero fights the system and makes the big prof realize that the way he has been running the institution is wrong. The hero’s love interest is the big prof’s daughter. And so on..  Just that Munnabhai and Rancho use different methods to achieve their goals, that’s all.

I suppose most of you would have watched 3Idiots recently. I urge you to pick up a DVD or a torrent of Munnabhai MBBS and watch it, again. And keep an eye out for the similarities. You will be convinced that Rajkumar Hirani is guilty of copying, from his own stuff. It is indeed sad to see a good director such has him stooping to Anu Malik* depths.

While on the topic of 3Idiots, my esteemed colleague Baada wanted me to do a stud-fighter post on the movie. I suppose all of you who have seen the movie will easily figure out why the framework fits. I don’t think it needs any more explanation from the resident stud-fighter expert, that is me. Also, if you recall, I had taken a vow that I won’t do any more stud-fighter blogging. Though I must mention that my book on the topic is going nowhere.

* Listen to the prelude music of Ae Mere Humsafar from Baazigar, and then to the title song of Ishq. Next, listen to the interlude music of Kitaben Bahut Si, again from Baazigar, and then to the title song from Fiza. The self-copy is obvious. And I must mention that I had used this concept in a quiz question, twice. Yeah, I’ve also been guilty of “petering” my own questions.

It’s a fairly simple and fun (though can’t be played for too long or too often given that the number of letters in the alphabet) but what makes it interesting is the scoring system. You get points for each UNIQUE movie whose name that you have written. So basically if you’ve written down the name of a movie which at least one other person has written down, you get no points for it. So apart from knowing the names of lots of movies you need to know movies that others don’t know (and it’s useful to have a resource such as IMDB handy).

So basically correlation matters! If there is one other player in the group who has similar tastes as yours, you are bound to get screwed. For example, the two people with whom I was playing this game today are sisters, so there was a major overlap in the names of the movies that they knew, which meant that on a relative scale I performed better than I would have considering the length of my total list.

I found the game extremely interesting! Now, here is a modification that would make the game more interesting. Put a cap on the total number of movie names that a player can write, all other rules staying the same. Currently, with no limits, you will end up writing names of all movies that you can think of. There is no strategy per se involved in the game. It’s more a test of memory.

However, once we put a cap, that brings in an element of strategy to the game. Now you will need to pick and choose the movies whose names you want to put down – to choose the movies that you know other people won’t know. And in case the cap is really low, then to pick and choose the movies whose names you know others won’t write. Insane game theory scope are there!

This also makes the game more repeatable – you can play it more often with different sets of people, and each time you’ll be trying to read the minds of different people and that will make things fun. With the same set of people, you can play with different caps, giving a new strategy each time.

It’s a simple game. A kids’ game. Something that might appear to be all too simplistic on the face of it, but this simplicity allows easy innovation, and that can make the game extremely fun!

Maybe the thing with the Bollywood movies is that they don’t engage you enough. They don’t engage you enough in order for you to be immersed in them. And that leaves you with enough CPU time to start thinking of other things. Then, it is easier to empathise (in some form; maybe some 10% empathy if not more) with certain characters in certain Bollywood movies, which is impossible to do in case of characters such as James Bond or The Man With No Name. And this empathy will end up directing your spare CPU time to thinking about yourself.

Bollywood movies also have a lot of “slow moments”. Passages in the movie where nothing really happens, and this includes the songs. Passages where nothing enough happens, and which allows you to be able to switch off and devote your entire CPU time to the other thing that you are thinking of. Also, the language is generally easy enough that even if you were to miss a few dialogues (when lost in thought), you are able to catch up with the rest of the movie.

Maybe it has to do with the intent of the filmmakers. Whether they intend to make a gripping movie that will help the audience go off on an escapist trail, or whether they want to purposely keep the movie light so that it doesn’t demand much brain power from the audience. Or maybe it has to do with implementation. It may well be the case that someone wants to make a gripping movie, but does such a bad job of it that the minds in the audience start meandering. Or maybe the filmmakers try to make a movie where the audience sees the movie through the eyes of a certain character. But the problem with that is that in such cases, there is the chance that the viewer equates himself with this character, and starts thinking of the similarities and differences, and focuses on himself rather on the movie.

It also depends upon the intent of the viewer, as to what he is expecting when he goes to the movie. Does he want the movie to present him a mirror so that he can see himself in the characters? Mostly not, I think. Does he go for general entertainment? Mostly yes, I think. Does he go to the movie for some sort of an escapist experience so that he can momentarily be detached from his normal life? Maybe yes, which I think signifies a higher fraction compared to “mostly not”.

I don’t see too many movies. Even those that I see are those that have generally been certified as hits. i don’t normally see art-house kind of movies – which are perhaps actually made to be thought-provoking. The last three Hindi movies I’ve seen (approximately) are Jaane Tu… , Jab We Met and Rock On. I have no clue what the intent of each of these movies was, though I would imagine they were made for general entertainment. Each of them ended up holding a mirror to me, and made me ask myself lots of uncomfortable questions while watching. Maybe the last Hindi movie that involved me enough to distract me from myself was Omkara. I wonder which of these movies I should regard as being better – the one that held the mirror or the one that made me detached.

Overall, I liked the movie. People have cribbed about Farhan Akhtar’s singing, but I think it’s ok. He’s not a great singer, but if he was, it wouldn’t have come out as being  too authentic for a band that didnt’ end up doing too well. Better singing (say Shankar had sung it) might have helped boost record sales (ok I think the record actually sold quite well), but in the movie it wouldn’t have come out to be too authentic. And then yeah, not having a bass guitarist was a bit inauthentic, but they do partly make up for it during some intros – when the keyboardist is introduced as providing the bass also (maybe inspired by John Paul Jones).

Spoiler Alert

The movie was also a bit spooky. In the end, the band is showing reuniting for one last concert. And at the end of this concert, they are seen standing in a line, each of the members looking very different from what they looked like when the band was at its peak, and holding hands high above their heads like Chandrababu Naidu does whenever he announces an alliance with some new ally.

This picture reminded me of a picture taken during Live 8 about two years back (or was it three?) at Earl’s Court in London. A visibly aged Pink Floyd getting together and holding hands in the same Naidu pose at the end of their performance. Actually, Pink Floyd wasn’t exactly in the Naidu pose, but came somewhere close. Here is the picture.

Pink Floyd at Live 8

The end credits of the movie are used to tell the “after story”. And in that, they inform that the keyboardist of the band in Rock On dies two months after this performance where they do a Naidu hand-hold.

Two or three weeks after Rock On was released, Rick Wright died.

if you remember my review of Jab We Met (which I wrote about a month back), I had said that I hadn’t liked the ending. I had said that if I’d written the script, I’d've made Anshuman a stronger character, and made Geet marry him; and have Aditya walk away into the drizzle. I had said that this was because Aditya and Geet had added as much value as they could to each others’ lives.

So, now, if you look at it in terms of tenure matching, things will become clearer. Both of them had their own problems, which needed solutions. And neither of them had a problem for which the solution involved marriage. Ok wait. Geet did have a marriage problem. She wanted to marry Anshuman, and needed to find an efficient way of eloping with him and marrying him. So looking at it from the scope sense, all she needed was someone to guide her in her efforts to do the same.

Aditya’s problems, too, weren’t something for which marriage was an obvious solution. He had put extreme NED at work, and was on the verge of killing himself. All he needed was someone to guide him out of NED. Someone to show him that life can be beautiful, and happy, and that he shouldn’t take any extreme steps.

Looking at the movie from this context, it is clear that marriage between Geet and Aditya wasn’t warranted. Ok it might have been a “no-so-bad extension” but it wasn’t required. It wasn’t a solution that fit in any way with the problems that they were facing in their lives. Which is why the ending stuck out like a sore thumb (and that excess song-and-dance and loudness and all that contributed in no measure) .

Ok now I realize that I shouldn’t be analysing Bollywood movies from a logical standpoint. but still…

Two and a half years down the line, I don’t seem to have changed. I still feel the same about a number of scripts. I don’t daydream anymore, at least not as much as I used to a few months or years ago. I don’t write movie scripts for fun any more. If I think I have an idea for a movie script, I start thinking about it from a commercial aspect. And end up ruining it. And though I continue to dream, and dream heavily, I don’t seem to remember too many of them. However, I’m sure that this kind of script still occurs once in a while in my dream.

I was reminded of this when I was watching Jab We Met earlier this evening. I thought it was a fantastic movie. Though Shahid Kapoor was playing a Lala, I could fully identify with his character. The first half, or maybe three fourths, was brilliant. The way his initial exchanges with Kareena Kapoor have been written is awesome. The entire bit starting from the time he walks away from his car till he is back in his company was compelling. At that point, the movie held so much promise that I was kicking myself for not having watched it for almost a year after its release. (rest of the post below the post. spoilers are there)

I don’t know if it was just the effect of the dreams and daydreams and imaginary film scripts on me, or if others also felt this way, but after the scenes in Shimla, I was convinced that Aditya should not end up marrying Geet. Looking at their contrasting characters, at that point I was convinced that Aditya was too good for Geet. That Geet didn’t deserve someone like Aditya, and Anshuman was in line with her level. If i were to have written this storyline, I would’ve shown raindrops flowing down Aditya’s spectacles, hiding any possible tears, as he was walking away into the drizzle after he had reunited Geet with Anshuman.

Instead, what we got to see was half an hour of unbearable Punjooness, and from that point onwards, the movie became jarring. It was clear that the director wanted to reunite Geet with Aditya, and in the process put KLPD to Anshuman. And he decided to get this message across by embedding it in half an hour of the depths of punjooness. And in this process, he spoilt the amazing experience the audience had gone through in the preceding two hours as they watched the relationship unfold between Geet and Aditya. The amazing first part of the movie was gone. Forgotten. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was the showcase of the worst of Punjabi “culture”.

It was sad to see such a sad ending to what was a great plot. Geet’s and Aditya’s lives are shown to be in a phase difference of pi. They get together at a time when they clearly needed each other, or each needed someone like the other. Aditya had sunk to the depths of NED, and hadn’t gotten into the train in order to get to his destination. Geet couldn’t care about anything, and could definitely do with some sobriety in life. Nine months later, Aditya had managed to turn his life around and by then Geet was untracable, and putting major NED in life, and desperately needed someone like Aditya to help her out – and that happened.

Once this was done, each of them had made probably the best impact they could have on each other’s life. After that little hug in the hotel room in Shimla, each had imparted to the other as much value as they could have. It didn’t seem like there was much more to be exchanged in the relationship. It was simply time to move on.

Two and a half years ago, a couple of weeks before my mother told me that I was dreaming the wrong kind of dreams, and thinking of the wrong kind of scripts, I had got an email, from I’m sure you can guess who. It had mostly bounced over my head back then, but each time I’ve read it after that, it seems to tell a lot. I think it is pertinent to quote one line from that here.

i believe people enter your life exactly at a point when u need them to grow together and exit/fade away from your life at the right time, enabling you to move ahead. its sad but true.

I basically need music and movies. Movies of all hues, in all languages (as long as there are subtitles for all non-English, non-Hindi and non-Kannada languages). Music – classic rock for bread and butter. Instrumental carnatic classical. Indian rock (downloaded Avial; too strong). Trance. Anything else you might htink i might like.

As it stands now i wont’ be going out of gurgaon for a month (except for the odd trip to delhi). So stuff should be procurable here. if you know any way in which you have some stuff i may like, and may  be able to give it to me, let me know. put a comment here nad we can figure out.

We decide to explore the Lido Mall until the movie begins. We find it quite pathetic, and wonder where they get all the footfalls from. It’s a weird design. There are two small buildings, one contains the cinema halls and the food court. The other contains shops. I don’t know which bright guy got the idea to separate the two buildings. At least if they were together, people who visited the cinemas would also end up shopping at the malls.

Coming back to the mall, there doesn’t seem to be an “anchor store”. So it’s the adjoining theatre only that is driving footfalls, we presume. There are way too many dead ends. Too many random stores. And they are stores that can be found elsewhere in town also. Again we wonder about the wisdom of the builders. Then, we find that there is no escalator going down from the second floor. What a climbdown!

Anuroop decides we need some popcorn before the movie. We hit upon a combo offer that gives us two large packs of popcorn and two glasses of pepsi for some extraordinary amount. I’m reminded of Richard McKenzie’s book which I badly want to read. Then we realize we need one more pepsi. It says “medium: Rs. 50; large: Rs. 55″. I start thinking of McKenzie and Dan Ariely and the rest and start wondering what is the better option. I decide to take the extra 200 ml of pepsi for the extra five bucks. I look at it in terms of marginal cost and marginal “benefit” – benefit being defined in terms of extra pepsi.

The opening credits to the movie are great. Excellent visuals. Then the movie begins. There is some kind of disconnect as we watch it. We find the characters way too kiddish. We aren’t able to connect it. I had seen Dil Chahta Hai about seven years back with approximately the same company. I remember a couple of these guys saying even back then that it’s kinda kiddish, etc. I had absolutely loved it. I don’t know if it was because I first saw it at such a young age, but I still sit down and watch DCH whenever it plays on TV.

Jaane tu… is some kind of an even younger version of DCH. My take is that its appeal will be mostly to audiences just out of school. People who have just learnt what a crush is about, and who are trying to understand what romance is about. The kind of people who are currently going around singing Govinda songs in front of girls, as some of us used to do over ten years ago. The kind of people who would be bunking class for the first time in their lives to watch a movie – I’m sure these types are going to thoroughly enjoy the movie.

The problem is that we aren’t able to identify with any of the characters. Even as a twelve year old, I had completely empathised with Aamir Khan’s Munna in Rangeela. A couple of years later, it was Shah Rukh Khan’s Rahul in Dil to pagal hai, though I’m not sure if I would’ve liked that movie if I’d first watched it when I was in my mid-twenties. Over the years, in most of the movies I’ve watched and liked, I’ve managed to identify myself with one of the characters. Even in movies such as Omkaara and American Gangster, where I haven’t really managed to connect with any particular character, some kind of tautness in the plot has kept me interested and engrossed. Engrossed enough in the movie to not think of anything else at that time.

I won’t give a good rating for Jaane tu… since this I kept thinking of a number of other things during the movie. One of the benefits of watching a movie is that it enables you to in a way step out of your current life and think about something totally different for a while. When that doesn’t happen, it is definitely a letdown. As the movie wore on, we were getting more and more pained with it. I was forced to apologize during the interval for dragging these guys to this movie. This was the first time I’d followed Baradwaj Rangan’s advice and gone to see a movie. And there was no fit.

The thing with multiplexes is that they have different entry and exit points, and in the exit route, there are no loos. You can go to the loo before and during a movie, but not after it, which is when the pressure is at the zenith. We assumed there would be a loo in the food court below, but there was a power cut which had rendered the loo unusable. We got out of the building and ambled across to the mall in the light drizzle, hoping to find a loo there.

I have already commented about the bad design of the mall, but the position of the loo takes the cake. It is in one corner of the second floor, and the only way to get to it is to walk through the Pantaloon store. It was a matter of great relief as we finally managed to locate it, and we found that we were some sort of pioneers, hordes of people, presumably coming out of the movie, had followed us all the way to the loo. The Pantaloon store in which the loo is based need to revise their definition of footfalls, since most of it seems to occur on the way to the loo. What these guys need to understand is that most people on the way to the loo are in too much of a hurry to buy anything, and on the way back, there is way too much of a relieved feeling to look at the clothes.

I checked my credit card details online in order to find out if indeed only one set of tickets had been booked. To my horror, I found that I’ve been charged for the tickets THRICE. It seems like it will be a long battle with the Fame and ICICI guys, before I manage to get back my Rs. 900. I’ve written to customer care at fame, but don’t really know how to take this forward. Can someone put fundaes on this?