Some family this!

Dharmendra and his two sons, Ajay (Sunny) and Vijay (Bobby), come together for Apne ("our own people" or "our loved ones"), a movie about a father and his two sons.

The director makes his intentions clear right in the beginning. Baldev Singh Chaudhry, played by Dharmendra, was a prodigous boxer who was falsely accused of doping and banned from the sport. Thus humiliated, the fighter pledges to redeem himself through his son, and the film essentially follows his troubled relationship with his elder son who won't box and younger one who can't.

While Baldev is the main protagonist, he is far from being "the hero", having his own vulnerabilities and flaws, which only make him that much more real. Similarly, the sons Angad and Karan have the best of intentions. It's just that their visions don't coincide. But, of course, when it comes to the family, each one rises to the occasion in his own way. This is reminiscent of an era when movies had no villains, just adverse circumstances. Even the rouge betting-fixing ring has not been personified in this movie - a dramatic departure from Bollywood movies in general, and the Deol movies in particular.

The boxing choreography by Chris Anderson (Mad Max, King Kong) is realistic and impactful, quite at par with Rocky Balboa and Million Dollar Baby. It is really a shame then that the boxers, including Aryan Vaid, don't seem even close to being heavyweight fighters. And it's not as if Anil Sharma had a dearth of people with suitable physique. Why, he could just have drafted the sardarjee from Baldev's gymnasium as Gaurav.

This is not a film about boxing, though. It is about a simple family that fights for honor, family, country, and the sport. More importantly, it is about the relationship between a disgraced father and his sons.

This movie does not try to ride the coattails of a popular sport, a la Lagaan. Instead, it picks up a sport shrowded in obscurity in the country, and engages the audience intimately. Also, unlike Lagaan, Apne does not believe in giving a blow-by-blow account of what happens on the path to progress. It provides the highlights as far as the sport is concerned, and focuses on the family drama.

SPOILER ALERT

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Sunny Deol's Angad is out-of-shape and unfit for a competitive boxing match, let alone one with a world champion. Interestingly, that's what keeps it real. Angad pants and puffs profusely while training, and is told by Baldev, "Boxers retire at your age". In the ring, he is pounded by Luca's machine-gun punches, and takes numerous jabs and hooks.

But he's not looking to become a world champion. For him, it's not about how hard and how frequently he hits Luca; it is about how much punishment he can take and still stay standing to deliver the final blow. I half expected someone to say this, but the treatment has a delightful subtlety quite uncharacteristic of recent Sunny Deol movies.

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Then again, it's not really a Sunny Deol movie. This one belongs to Dharmendra, who got Amitabh the break of his career in Sholay. Most people would remember Dharmendra for his "He Man" image and action movies, which is understandable as he is undeniably the original action hero of Bollywood. Moreover, he was the protagonist of the first decent war movie made in India - Haqeeqat.

However, before he was Veeru (Sholay) or Kumar (Shalimar), he was Bipin (Majhli Didi), Rajesh (Baharon ki Manzil) and Jai (Aaya Sawan Jhoom Ke). In fact, he gave The Burning Train and Professor Pyarelal as late as 1977 and 1981 respectively. And who can forget the comedy classic Chupke Chupke, one of the best ever Bollywood comedies, if not the best. If one had any doubts about the histrionic prowess of this method actor, all one needs to do is watch the song "Mere dushman" from Aaye Din Bahar Ke.

Like another accomplished actor, Mithun Chakraborthy, Dharmendra too has done some pretty bad movies, especially late in his career. But in Apne, he proves that stardom may fade, but actors just get better.

Sunny Deol probably has the shortest footage among the three Deols, but he is very effective while on screen. And he doesn't have to scream at the top of his lungs either. One wishes that someone had found him better hair, though. Brother Bobby, the youngest of the three, looks good and acts well, sensitively depicting the frustration of one crushed under the uncomfortable relationship between his two idols.

Shilpa Shetty and Katrina Kaif don't have much to do except looking pretty, which they manage to do well. In fact, Shilpa has hardly ever looked as good as she does in the peacock dress in the song "Ankh vich chehra yaar da". Kirron Kher has a lengthier and more substantial role than the girls, which is great as she's quite the thespian. Victor Banerjee is as efficient as ever. Divya Dutta has been wasted, which has become the case of every film she is cast in. More's the pity, because she is one of most underused, underrated, brilliant actresses of her generation.

The music by Himesh Reshamiya is the Archilles' heel of the film. But then again, one doesn't expect much from Reshamiya, despite his recent meteoric ascent in the Bollywood music scene. The saving grace, I suppose, is that Sharma has not picturised complete songs except for a couple. The only good one is the title song, sung by Sonu Nigam, who is clearly in his element. Good to have you back, Sonu!

Kabir Lal's cinematography deserves accolades as it brings out the best of Chandigarh and New York, without taking the focus away from the cast or the story.

While the climax is a bit lengthier than it needed to be, the screenplay by Neeraj Pathak provides the Deols the perfect platform to re-establish their acting credentials. And truly, Anil Sharma could not have chosen a better story to bring the three Deols together on the silver screen for the first time.

In India many, if not most, youngsters still choose careers based on what their parents tell them, rather than on what they themselves want to do. This film should strike a chord with them, even though the young, cineplex crowd tends to stray away from Deol movies. On the other hand, parents should like the movie too, not the least because of parental dilemmas so realistically depicted by an actor from their times.

Bollywood has churned out numerous capers, from Avtaar to Baghban (which, by the way, are reminiscent of Do Raaste), that depict the sacrifices made by parents for ingrate children. Apne takes a different route: it is about how even though everyone is doing their best, sometimes rifts can emerge in relationships. It is about how blood is, after all, thicker than water.

With this desi-at-heart movie, I think Anil Sharma is back with a bang. And so are the Deols.

Tell Every One

"Ne le dis à personne" is fairly atypical for an independent French film in that it is a thriller of sorts.

While the promotional posters depicting François Cluzet on the run may make you think that it is an action-oriented movie, don't be misled by that. This is not a Bourne Identity sort of thriller, but more of a Seven kind of suspense drama, though nowhere rearly as gory...umm...so more of a The Client kind of suspense drama, I guess. It stays close to the plot and the characters rather than leaning on special effects and fight-sequences for support. And most importantly, it is not pretentious.

Dr. Alexandre Arnaud Beck (Cluzet) sorely misses his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) who was murdered eight years ago by a serial killer. To get through life, he has immersed himself completely in his work as a pediatrician.

But then, Alex Beck's world turns upside down when by a stroke of fate two more bodies are discovered close to the site of Margot's murder. The police reopens Margot's case and Alex is once again the prime suspect. Wait, there's more - he then gets an email suggesting that she’s actually alive. And the games begin.

The direction is brooding, the audience follows the mystery along with the protagonist, and the characters are eccentriacally real. While the plot is not quite gripping, it does keep one interested and engaged. And while the twists and turns flirt with the ridiculous, they stay on the right side of the line.

Not that it is a perfect film. Far from it.

First of all, the music, though good, is completely out of place.

Then, the acting is not universally good. While François Cluzet is delightfully understated and mature, and most other actors (especially Kristin Scott Thomas and Andre Dussollier) support him very well, his two friends from "the dark side" leave much to be desired.

The editing is somewhat uneven, and the pace could have been faster.

Overall, a movie to watch.

The War on Democracy

Passing by Curzon in Soho, I bought a ticket for the documentary on a whim, and like so many times in the past, it turned out be a great decision.

"Loo"ney Brits

London has arguably the best public transportation system in the world in terms of reach, network and schedules. "The tube" as Londoners lovingly call the London Underground, is just so convenient, especially in conjunction with the feeder buses, that one wonders why one would ever want to own a car in this city.

There is much to be desired, though, in terms of technology, infrastructure, accessability, etc., which is understandable considering that much of the underground railway system is a century or so old.

What shocks one, though, is the conspicuous absence of "rubbish bins" from the station platforms, and in fact entire train stations. Can you really blame the teens that leave empty beer cans on the stairs, tourists that stealthily throw away their empty bags of potato chips on the platforms or the commuters that leave behind scores of tabloids and evening papers in the train compartments?

Also, there are apparently no public restrooms ("loos") at the tube-stations, except at Picadilly Circus. If I were a town-planner, I would consider this unacceptable for a city that boasts of more tourists/visitors every year than Paris, Las Vegas and New York put together.

While it doesn't look like the Mayor of London can be bothered about such trifles as loos and rubbish bins, there certainly seem to be major works underway with regards to the modernization of the infrastructure.



Found among the numerous informative posters about the repairs/ maintenance/ upgrade of the London Underground, at least one station's poster reads, "We will also be installing tactile flooring on platforms and coloured handrails to help visually impaired people when using this station". Now, I am no expert on accessability, so will someone please explain how colored handrails will help people with visual impairments?


The last nugget for the day: In central London, there's a place called, I kid you not, "St. John's Wood"! That's right. Not St. John's woods (which would have meant forest), but wood. I know they perhaps mean a walking stick or something, but it is pretty funny nonetheless.

And for all the cricket enthusiasts among you, this is the area where the mecca of cricket, the Lords stadium, is located.

Ah, the joys of being in London!

"Smoke free" England?

England goes Smoke Free on 1st July. Or so claim the numerous roadside hoardings (billboards) and bus & tube posters (signs).

While I welcome the initiative, I find the whole campaign hilarious. First of all, if you strip-off the spin, England is not going smoke FREE; it is going smoking PROHIBITED. Yes, you guessed right! Factories won't be shut down, and vehicles won't be stopped from running.

Secondly, the ban applies only to enclosed public places and workplaces, meaning that one can still smoke in open public places. Not a bad idea at all, but it does mean that "England goes smoke free" is a bit of hyperbole.

What takes the cake though is the fact that, ironically enough, among the entities exempted from the ban are hospitals (though not all hospitals). I wonder what the thinking behind this policy is...were they thinking, "Well, you can smoke at the hospital, as you can be provided quick treatment in case you faint"?

Another interesting fact is that while the leaflet for individuals is available in many different languages, the "Everything you need" guidance manual for businesses is available only in Arabic, Bengali, Classiscal Chinese (I assume they mean traditional Mandarin), Gujarati, Polish, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu apart from English. Is that a sign that the Arabs, Chinese, Indians (four of those eight languages are Indian), Poles and Turks own and/ or run most of the pubs/ bars and other establishments that contribute to smoking in enclosed public places?

Apologies to Heathrow

A few months earlier, I had suggested that London Heathrow might be the only airport in the world that make connecting flight takers go through security again. Well, I was wrong. Evidently, Newark does that too. It was built so that people could drive almost right upto the gate, so there is really no large common area for single security screening between the gates and the exits. Thus, every terminal has its own security screening area.

Another interesting bit: apparently Virgin Atlantic doesn' care for the connecting boarding passes issued by other airlines. So if you are connecting to Virgin, you need to get in the check-in line, show them the connecting boarding pass, and get the red boarding pass. That's precious!

The Gods must be crazy

They start boarding the plane to Newark about 15 mts. late, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Once we get on the plane, the pilot informs us that Newark is busy and he's been instructed to wait for 30 mts. That doesn't happen with every single flight, but it is not out of the realm of the ordinary, albeit a little bit of a rare occurance. After the 30-minute wait, we are taxied as promised, and we get onto the runway, and the engines start humming. And then, they die. Apparently, Newark is facing very high traffic and has asked us to wait another hour. So then we wait for an hour ON THE RUNWAY! That, my friends, is pretty unusual.

The Missing Notebook

The saga of my stupidity continues.

Firstly, I slept off the whole day yesterday, instead of taking the opportunity to go around and take some goodbye shots of the city. In my defence, it was pretty gray and rained quite a bit, and the hotel bed was warm and cozy.

But there's more! As I stand in the luggage check-in line, I'm hoping that no one will notice that my wheeled duffle-bag is larger than the allowance for carry-ons. While the books inside would probably fit into a regulation carry-on, the base of the bag has a metal frame due to the wheels, and that frame is longer and wider than what's permitted. In short, if they ask me to put the bag in the carry-on bag measurement checking box, I'll need to go shopping for bags in a hurry. So I try to keep it out of the line of sight of the agent as I approach the counter.

As the lady at the "Kiosk Assistance" checks me in, she automatically asks if I am checking in any baggage. I tell her that I am, but that I'd like to get them wrapped in cellophane at Wrap-a-Bag before I do so. She goes, "Why don't you use TSA locks? If you wrap them, if the TSA wants to have a look, they'll tear all the wrapping off."

"I'm not worried about pilferage, I'm worried about the bags tearing off and opening", I tell her. "But tell me, what's a TSA lock?"

"Oh, these are locks that you can get here at the airport or Wal*Mart or practically anywhere for which the TSA has the master-keys. So they can open them up and have a look inside if they want to."

This is great! After 3 years, and 35,000 airline miles, I discover the concept of TSA locks on the day I'm leaving the country for good.

Anyway, since the attachés are already bordering on 71, I decide to not get them wrapped and ask the nice lady to check them in as they are. $70 takes care of the excess weight for both of them, and I'm off to the security gates without having my carry-ons commented on.

One down, one more to go. You see, the duffle-bag is not just large, it's pretty heavy because of all the books inside. In fact, I weighed it yesterday before the airline staff came in; it came to 27 kg, while the allowance is 10 kg.

The suspence reaches its climax when to put it into the x-ray machine, a TSA agent actually has to pick up my duffle-bag. She is surprised by the weight, but lets it slide. Whew! Elated, I collect my my bags, shoes, belt, cellphone, wallet, and $17.87 worth of coins.

As I am going down the escalator, I get that sinking feeling - I don't remember having put my laptop back in the knapsack. For one second I convince myself that maybe I did and just don't remember it. But that doesn't seem right. Can't check on the escalator, with all the hordes of people flanking me on all sides.

Upon reaching the bottom, I get out of the way of the crowd and open the knapsack. The laptop is not there. I need to get back up to the security screening area to get back my laptop. But I don't see any escalator's going up!

I ask the next guy with a badge that passes me by. He points me to the elevator. Right! I stow both the bags in a corner and press the button to call the elevator. I hope this elevator takes me to the space AFTER the security screen. The geography seems right, but if it takes me beyond that area, I don't want to take the bags through security again.

The elevator car finally comes after what seemed to be an eternity, but in reality was closer to 5-6 minutes (pretty long time for a lift running only 3-floors, I'd say). I go up to the security gate I had passed through and ask an agent, who points me to a desk. Apparently, that's TSA's lost and found counter. The officer there asks me a few questions, makes me boot-up and log-in, and makes me sign a form before giving me back my laptop.

This could have been a pretty expensive mistake. But as they say, "no harm, no foul".

Pesky Canadians!

This is embarrassing! When the check-in staff arrive finally, I am told that I can't board the plane as Canada requires a transit visa, and my Canadian visit visa expired in April. Aarghh!

The truth is that so far in my travels I haven't had to have a transit visa for hops/ stopovers when there is not need to step out of the airport. So, while I had written to the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. inquiring about it, I did not follow up when I didn't receive a response from them.

Hmm...so was it merely a coincidence that my travel agency for this trip is called Adventure Travel Service?

Anyways, after several hours of trying to figure out the best way out, I've booked a Virgin Atlantic flight from Newark for tomorrow (thank you cheaptickets.com). Adventure Travel's rep says I wasn't marked as "no show", so I might be able to get something back for that unused ticket. I certainly hope so.

So, what's the plan for today? I could take a last look at the city, maybe click a few pictures. But first, let me get some sleep - haven't had much of that in the past couple of days. Holiday Inn, here I come.

Oye oye in the airport

So, my Air Canada flight was scheduled for departure at 6.20 a.m., and deciding to follow the "for international flights reach the airport at least 3 hours before flight time" rule for a change, I arrived at the airport at 3 a.m. only to find it almost completely deserted. Airline staff arrive only at 5.30, whispered another early-bird.

"Lovely", I thought as I sank into the apparently only chair in the whole ticketing/ check-in area.

Imagine my joyous surprise then, when as I was waiting for the airline staff to arrive, the music being piped into the airport changed to "Oye oye", probably the most insanely popular song in 1989's India.

In fact, I remember that singing this song in public was banned in several districts of the nation for quite a while as it had become the weapon of choice for eveteasers.

Within a few seconds, however, it became clear that it wasn't Tridev's Tirchhee topee waley (Guy with the tilted hat) that they were piping.

Turns out that like numerous Bollywood favorites, "Oye oye"/ "Tirchhee topee waley" also borrows heavily from a foreign song, specifically "Rhythm is gonna get you" from the 1987 album "Let it Loose" by Cuban-American Latin-pop rage Gloria Estefan of the Miami Sound Machine band.

Now, I have appreciated Estefan's songs like "Don't wanna loose you now", but I must admit that I was not familiar with her earlier work. It took some effort to figure out that it was her song that was being played. That Pitbull and Beyoncé have "Oye", Santana and Tito Puente have "Oye como va", and Estefan herself has "Oye" and "Oye mi canto" didn't help.

All plagiarism aside, the overture of "Rhythm's gonna get you" flows better as the signature and essence of "Tirchhee topee waley", in my biased opinion.

Anyways, I do feel a bit disappointed about the rip-off even though I know fully well what Bollywood music is: mostly a mishmash of popular music from around the world.