Sunday, March 06, 2005

India Today

The weekend so far has been relaxing. Went for an aroma therapy massage.
It was very relaxing.
Also I saw 2 Hindi movies. I usually don't see any Hindi movie unless it's a really good one or it's a Hrithik Roshan movie. I rented the DVDs of 2 movies, Page 3 and Swades.

These 2 movies, in my opinion, really portray the present India. I don't believe in coincidences. So for anyone, who doesn't know about India and who wants to know what present day India is like, should see these 2 movies.
The movies picture the 2 entirely different worlds in our country.
Page 3 is all about the rich high society plastic life people and their parties and get-togethers.

Swades is all about the poor farmers and villagers and their struggle in their day to day life.

I was particularly impressed with the screen writing of Swades. I thought it was very realistic and I really couldn't find any loopholes. Later when I mentioned this to Dixita, she said the movie was based on a real life story. So it all makes sense.
Shahrukh's acting was good. Different from his stereotype roles. Gayathri Joshi looks very beautiful and glamorous. She resembles and reminds me of one of my friend from college. This is her first movie and she has appeared in numerous TV Ads in the past.


One more thing I liked in this movie is the scene where Gita(Gayathri) challenges Shahrukh to name the five rivers in India, new state and number of lions in Asoka pillar. It's funny when people in India call NRIs as Non Returning Indians(Swades) and Non Reliable Indians(Page 3) and accuse NRIs of not knowing about what's going on India.
I just can't buy that argument. We people here don't ignore what's happening back home. Sometimes I feel that people here in US know more about what's happening in India than the people living there. Thanks to Internet and Satellite TVs.

Now come on...you have to understand that we are in US and all we do at work here is browse :)
Do you still believe we don't know what's happening back home?

5 comments:

kvman said...

I can kind of guess which "college friend" you are talking about, I can't really be sure. Do you want to reveal it yourself ;)
I saw Swades too. I thought the screenplay was hackneyed, torn between telling a story and preaching a message. Songs were good, though.

vimal said...

Well...one more guy found the name right, first guess. Please do not post the name here, you can confirm with me outside this blog :)

Well, I liked the screenplay because it was very realistic. In nature, if you see the reality, everything is slow. But in movies everything is fast. Take for example the Hollywood movie 'The Day After Tomorrow'. It shows what happens because of global warming. Within few hours New York froze. In reality that will take few hundred years to happen. But in movie you can't show few hundred years. So they make it happen in few hours, which is fascinating(with all the graphics) but it's not reality. If you see Balu Mahendra movies, like 'Veedu' and few others, you will know how slow a movie can go. But it's so realistic.

By the way, I identified one song which was copied from Baba (Baba...kichu kichu thaan)
Well.. both are A R Rehman, so I guess it's kinda ok :)

kvman said...

The Swades version of the song is much better I think. Maybe thats because I hated the other movie.

Lg said...

hmm...I think I can kind of guess who the "college friend" is. The resemblance seems pretty close once Vimal mentioned it.

I enjoyed Swades inspite of all the seeming flaws. And Page3 was totally realistic in portraying the ephemeral interactions of the world of glitz.

vimal said...

"inspite of all the seeming flaws"

???

I thought the movie did not have any flaws. Dammit! I need to drink less beer before watching a movie. I had the sub-titles turned on. I thought only my hindi sucs. Now it looks like even my english...huh...

Anyway, hey can you tell what were the flaws. Just curious to know.