Facts n Fiction

Last Saturday, while in Mumbai, I witnessed a power failure and ‘no-electricity’ condition in some places that I visited that evening (strange coincidence, I thought). I was kind of irritated and while sharing this distress with my friend, I came to know about an initiative “Mumbai Unplug: Batti Bandh” . However, my friend wasn’t sure about what it was either. I later found out that Mumbaikars can voluntarily switch off their electricity on Saturday for an hour from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. This was something that had derived its inspiration from Sydney’s “Earth Hour” concept, an initiative to fight against global warming. Some articles in newspapers next day carried detailed information on the “Batti Bandh” initiative. However, all reported that the response to this initiative was poor with people participating only in few pockets of the city. Many corporate houses, restaurants, offices, residential complexes took part. However, hoardings, malls, and multiplexes remained brightly lit. The ...

You will make a fool out of yourself if you go to watch “Dus Kahaniyaan” with intentions of finding something common in the 10 short stories shown in the movie. There is no common plot, no common origin or end between the stories. This anthology of short films is nothing but an attempt to showoff, polish, and learn directorial skills. All fail however. I did not understand what Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Dutt were trying to do with all the money that they have, as “Dus Kahaniyaan” turns out to be a real messy viewable experience. One would quite surely get impressed with the style, camera effects, shots taken etc, but that’s if you don’t understand movies. The content and the story telling are pathetic. I think Ram Gopal Varma is good at this – taking some stories and weaving them into a thriller. The short stories, “Matrimony”, “Zahir”, “High on the Highway”, “Sex on the beach” are a real pain and unbearable in terms of content quality. All these just bring out negative elements like d...

Ever since my childhood, I have seen people recommending something to someone; it could be their friends, relatives, colleagues, and so on. For e.g. my mom used to tell some aunt the new mixer we just bought is very nice and even she should buy it. Then there was my uncle who used to tell my dad to buy some policy or invest money somewhere or buy a house at a particular location. As I grew up, I saw many people doing it to me as well. When it was buying school uniform, some recommended me to ABC tailor and some others to XYZ tailor, for books it was either stationery shop or some other. A little older, then it was the turn of college friends, “udhar ka wada khate hai, mast hota hai”, “buy a jeans from that shop, its good quality and reasonable” , and many such recommendations floating around me and each one of us ofcourse all the time. And I grew older, out of college, ready to start a career. Again a lot of recommendations, which company to join, what and where to eat, and what to buy...