Boarding Gate -

NDTV Lumiere in association with PVR Cinemas, screen acclaimed world movies in the metros. The target audience is the newly aware and indulgent viewers who have been exposed to world cinema and are not limited to the idea of cinema to just what Bollywood can offer them. The viewership for these movies are usually students, media personnel, seasoned movie goers, foreign nationals from the countries were these movies are originally made. The numbers are usually sparse and the ones who drop in are not bothered about others and the only thing which draws them is the passion for cinema.

I was quite surprised to see an almost full auditorium with people from various age groups and an assortment of all sorts. I got the third row from the screen and still people were pouring in; old couples, older men, young couples, non-English speaking type common man. I really could not fathom how a movie like ‘Boarding Pass’ could draw a crowd of this sort, the one you can still attribute to movies like ‘Titanic’. It was only after 20 minutes down the line I figured out what was the drawing crowd. This is my reading of course. It was the ‘sleaze factor’; Asia was drawing audience from all over. The theme, the background, the production house, the critical acclaim – all of it did not matter. It was just about nudity on screen.

Suddenly I felt repulsive to be amongst people who came for self gratification w/o any respect for cinema as an art and a medium beyond boundaries. I no longer felt that the purpose for which we were watching the movie were diagonally opposite. I felt like walking out, to show my dissent, but that was not rightful. It would be insult to the cinema as well. To each one, their view.

Love in the times of money

An unexpected delight, an unusual plot, an unusual narration - it simply made my day.

Junior Bonner

An absolutely definition cool rodeo movie. Steve McQueen was awesome.

The Remains of the Day

Impeccable performances by Anthony Hopkins and Emma, makes this movie an absolute delight. Rightly as Stevens puts it himself - "I don't believe a man can consider himself fully content until he has done all he can to be of service to his employer." His life revolves entirely around his duty; in fact he would be what someone could rightly descrice as beyond the call of duty. Emma kindles the passion in him but nothing is beyond his duty, or is it?



For the sake of repetition, the subtlety in communicating and conveying aroused my interest. There is an old world charm; I am quite smitten by it as always.



There are moments, too many of them, sort of one after the other, which are delicately shot and delivered to perfection. Like the one where two of them sit on the bench and talk about people being excited always to have the lights switched on, in the evening. The inferences are many, and usually never explicitly mentioned. The mystery, the longing, the need, the repression, the honour, the fire...

India’s fixation with ‘He’; why did kids in my class always use ‘Ram’?

When Indians narrate an incident and suppose that person could be a guy or a girl – guess what would the typical Indian quote the gender? ‘He’.

Strangely even when the person herself is a woman, the tendency to use ‘He’ still remains. It appears perfectly normal to say that the doctor, cop, surgeon, jailor, supervisor, lawyer, builder, director –is a ‘He’. It does not occur that there is every chance that this person could be a ‘She’. The men could be attuned to think of their gender as the gender to associate with. What makes the women pick the male gender as the preferred gender?

Is it because all the scriptures talk in the mail voice. Is it because the scriptures always say ‘Aadmi’ meaning ‘Man’. Or does that imply that from ages before, whenever mankind had to foretell, record or write – the preferred gender was male? Does it also mean that man was considered to be a the suitable candidate when explaining behavior?

Even the Indian adages and the sayings do they have a special affinity for the male gender?

“Aadmi ka naseeb”, ‘Khuda Bande se pooche’, ‘Aadmi ka karam’, ‘Bhaichara’, ‘Andho mein kana Raja’, ‘So sunar ki, ek luhar ki’, ‘Chor ki dadi mein tinka’…

All of it seems to be have been written keeping the man in mind. So well that was the fixation part.


‘Ram’. Practically every kid in my class in junior school, for any essay, any sentences to be made the name which they always used – ‘Ram’. Why? Still do not know? It always was

‘Ram rescued the drowning child’,
‘Ram was scolded by his father’,
‘Ram remained silent throughout the interrogation’,
“Ram hid behind the giant wheel’

I was in awe for the names like Albert and Michael and thought they were really cool. For the names for girls I think it was Jenifer. I had noticed that the other kids had a fixation for Ram, so whenever I used to make sentences I used to use these cool names . I always thought that my teacher would take notice and give extra credit. But as usual they were cool names only for me.

King Arthur meets Achilles

King Arthur fought war - not for a nation, not for a king, not for killing but for a cause beyond all this. He had the best knights and they could capture victory right from the jaws of defeat. Each of the knights - a soldier par excellence, with valor and patriotism beyond belief. Together they were undefeated.

Achilles and his Myrmidons are not fighting for a nation or for a king. Achilles is one of the fiercest and brave warriors anyone has ever known. He and the Myrmidons had the reputation to win any war they wanted no matter at what stage the war and might be. Together they formed a clan which withstood the test the endurance and perseverance.

King Arthur was on his promised last mission to rescue the godson, 'who is destined to be Pope one day'. He sets free the pagans kept in bondage and he discovers Guinevere. She transforms and influences King Arthur more than what he could have ever imagined. She is the reason for giving him a meaning to fight and the vision to look beyond the fighting and unification of England.

Achilles on the first day of the war, against Troy lands on the beach and desecrates the temple of Apollo and his men take the Hector and Paris' cousin Breseis as a prisoner for his amusement. Both of them influence each other in life transforming ways. Not intentional, but fate brings these minds and persons in contact with each other.

King Arthur is driven by duty to fight for the Pope; however he supports the cause for which Merlin stands for. He affirms his faith in the cause and takes it up as his own call of duty.

Achilles is called to war to fight for Agamemnon, but he proclaims that King Priam is a better king than the king he fights for.

Slumdog Millionaire and The White Tiger - What do they share in common?

To begin with 2009 has been a peculiar year, at least when it comes India, its offerings and the recognition it received. Me being an Indian, being born in India, national pride and all that, I am keeping that completely at bay. What I may write may not be the most politically right point of view either. Still I am convinced I have a point to make.

Slumdog Millionaire and The White Tiger, what do they stand for, probably the Indian Diaspora in the 20th century. Is this reflection of India - panoramic? Let me put it in a different way, is this the shade of India, which we wish to showcase. Whether we liked it or not (I mean the Indians) and whether we really agreed to what was represented, we were hardly left with any choice. Both these works were received well, I must say, more than what we all Indians put together were able to achieve in a decade.

Now what is interesting in this whole success journey is, that this view of India and its people is what took the world by storm. Not the fact that Indian is a growing economy, not that we are trying to bring the retail and mobile revolution across the nation, not that we have much more English medium schools now or that we are now a more liberal nation or that our we more secular.

So what we perceive to be the Indian image or the image which we wish to highlight is not where the moolah is. The real moolah still lies in India's image as a nation which thrives. How Indians intrinsically have a different DNA, which makes them thrive, in spite rain, hell or fury. It is the Indian spirit, the undying, unrelenting Indian spirit which triumphs.

So how different is the Indian spirit from the human spirit which triumphs. Its absolutely at the same level, but there is more charm, there is more awe and there is more appeal in the Indian circumstances in which these characters allow the spirit to triumph. Its different from the pursuit of the American dream, it cannot be associated with the French romanticism, like how Javed Jaffrey used to say 'It's different'.

So whether we like it or not, whether we believe in it or not, India still remains a far different entity from what we wish to portray, far different from what we believe we actually have evolved into. So this is how things are, good for us, but not for what we thought what we were good for. But for what we thought we need to get rid of sooner the better.

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Slumdog Millionaire - 8 Academy Awards including Best Motion Picture.
The White Tiger - Man Booker Prize
Danny Boyle, British film maker and producer, his acclaimed movies include Trainspotting, The Beach and Slumdog Millionaire.
Arvind Adiga, Indian journalist and author, The White Tiger is his debut novel.

Downloading Nancy

A plot I have never thought about, a director Johan Renck, I never knew off, a great review on Amazon by Chris Pandolfi, a compelling tagline 'the most controversial film you will see this year', suicidal woman, rugged demon lover, self obsessed husband, academic counselor, dreams, realities, fantasies, drudgery, abuse, unpleasant, unusual, based on true events, good music score (I didnt realize it though), stunning performance, need to feel pain...I mean when all of this takes the shape of a movie on screen, you can squirm, you can curse, you can pass it off as baseless, you can kick if you like, you can walk out too, you feel repulsive, you could feel a blast, you can sense an explosion...


I just let it be, the way it is, how it is...Not affected, not moved, not stired, just a spectator.

Keeping Mum

This time let me put the list of lead actors in the movie to begin with - Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Tamsin Egerton.

The movie was being screened on HBO, and for a lazy Saturday afternon it was good watch. There are some parts of it which are kind of intense for this genre, a bit of comedy and quick sucession of events kept the pace. I liked the performances from Kristin and Rowan. I recollect having seen Tamsin before, I think it was in 'Driving Lessons'.

Un coeur de hiver

It’s an interesting and intriguing plot, with a lot of attention to detail - performance, delivery, music and professional lives. The attention to detail for me is one of the key highlights for the movie. Every recording, practice sessions, making of the violin, re-tuning of the violin...it's all about precision and finesse. It requires more than human patience to achieve that kind of attention, I mean not to direct the movie but to be in the profession in which these actors are shown to be engaged.


Stephane is amusing, contradicting and hauntingly charming. Camille is mysterious. Together they make a deadly duo, but the plot does not let them. That's the beauty of the plot, what the audience ask for, wish for, it never happens, which makes it directors movie to say.

My stint with Plagiarism

I was visiting some of my relatives in Bombay; and it was my first visit to the city. I was quite young, may be 10 years old, and was quite amused by all that the city had to offer. Fast locals, city bustling with people, high rise apartments with lifts, pretty girls and so on and on.

My relatives kids were our age (me and my brother’s); and during our exploring sessions at their house I got hold of their school magazine. I liked reading their magazine and flipping through it. Then it strangely occurred to me that this was probably the biggest treasure I could lay my hands on. A magazine full of articles which I could pass off as my contributions to my school magazine. Quickly, I searched the sections and took articles published by kids of my age. I took the ones which I felt would be sure-shot selection for my school mag. I even used the tracing paper and traced the images from their mag.

I was quite content and satisfied with my short-cut to fame; I submitted my articles. I was sure of them being selected, because these had been selected by the other school’s editorial board. I waited earnestly for my mag to be published. I had thought of playing it absolutely innocent if anyone were to question the source of the article and to stick to the story that I myself had scribbled it.

Well, the mag was published but without my article. Till date it remains a mystery why my articles were rejected by the editorial board.