In my humble opinion....

Despite noticing the fact that the handful of readers this blog has, have largely ignored posts penned by me relating to political news or media, I continue to write such posts, for the simple reason that I would like to write them.

Today, on CNN-IBN, I was watching honourable Chief-Justice of India K G Balakrishnan talking to Karan Thapar of 'HardTalk India' fame. The talk show covered mainly the judiciary, it's accountability, and the growing perception among people that there is corruption in the judiciary. As always, Karan Thapar, posed a lot of questions, and posed them well too. But, frankly, with due respect to our Chief Justice(Judiciary is one arm of the Government, that I still respect a lot, despite what people say about it.), I felt the answers weren't satisfactory.

"Do you think the Chief Justice of India(CJI) should also come under the scanner of the National Judicial Commission being set up to probe charges of corruption against judges?", asked Mr. Thapar.
The CJI, although had no objection to put himself under the scanner, he did not quite like the concept because it would "denigrate the office of the Chief-Justice". Now, this is a very deceptive and dangerous logic(again with due respect to the Honourable Chief Jusice), that I find hard to buy because the same logic will then be cited by our politicians to include Prime-Minister, President, Chief-Ministers, and other 'nationally or regionally important' ministers to be out of the purview of any anti-corruption agency.

Then came a question about making asset-declaration mandatory for judges. To this the answer was totally unconvincing for me. The CJI opined that, that would deter 'self-respecting advocates' from becoming judges. Now, when we talk of transparency in the government, we should remember that the government includes the judiciary. If transparency is expected to deter talented advocates to become judges, this is really very disheartening for an ordinary citizen like me.

The CJI said that he is not opposed to any new ideas that can better the judiciary in the country. But the above two steps, to which he is not favourably inclined, go a long way in cleansing any doubts in people's minds about the integrity of judges and strengthening their belief in judiciary. A strong, working, clean judiciary, and that is also perceived so by the people, is very essential for our democracy to survive and succeed. Mr. Chief Justice, please do a rethink of what you have said.


Here's the full interview.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/devils-advocate-k-g-balakrishnan/top/32742-3.html

Yeh Jo Des Hai Mera

A terrorist who has been convicted in multiple courts of attacking parliament and has been sentenced to death by the very same courts, is not sent to gallows yet. His mercy petition is being processed at such leisurely pace that in any other country there would have been huge protests against the Government of the day. But here, for us, 'secularism' is more important even if it means being soft on terrorists. The media along with it's sponsored intellectuals and secularists backs the government wholeheartedly.

Then, one day, Balasaheb Thackeray says, “Now the President cannot see what is happening. His long hair has come before his eyes. He cannot see what is happening before him." in reference to the mercy petition lying with the President. Now this becomes a matter so grave to our terrorist-friendly media that on news channels there are panel discussions on how to punish Thackeray for these remarks on criminal grounds. Such personal comments, especially termed at the President, is very insulting, believes our media. Now, it does not bother to them, that when M F Hussein paints Goddess Saraswati nude, sentiments of so many people are hurt. The freedom of speech that holds good in the latter case does not apply to the former case. I think, what Thackeray has said is not as insinuating as what Hussein did. If the latter gets the protection under the umbrella of free speech, so should the former.

By the way, in this process of "Target Thackeray" and "Target Modi", we are forgetting the nation and it's security. It's time we wake up to it.

Guru - Not a winner

The quality of his oeuvre, naturally makes one to expect a lot from Mani Ratnam's movies. And in most of his movies he has not disappointed us. But in Guru, his latest release, he is far from meeting such expectations, let alone exceeding it. For all the hype it generated, 'Guru' was a disappointment.

'Guru' starts off well. A young Gurukant Desai(Abhishek Bachan) returns from Turkey to do business back home. After marrying Sujata(Aishwarya) to get the dowry to fund his business (or 'bijiness' as Gurubhai would say), he moves to Bombay to start a textile mill. Barring the initial struggle to get a home in Bombay and acquiring a mill, there is nothing in the film that depicts his struggle to become the big industrialist he turns out to be. It just takes a couple of scenes spanning a couple of minutes for our Gurubhai to turn to a powerful influential industrialist from a small entrepreneur in Bombay. Very Bollywood style.

Then comes his fight against Manikanth(Mithun Chakraborty), the newspaper owner. This story too is half-baked. Madhavan's role as a journalist too is one that probably could have been done away with. His fight against Gurubhai looks too filmy to be credible.

If there was one role in the movie that did not deserve its place in this story, it is that of Vidya Balan. This role, sort of breaks the film's continuity and logic. It makes one wonder, is this a film made by the same director who gave us films like "Nayagan', 'Bombay' and 'Roja'?

When, in the second half, you start to feel the movie has picked up some temp now and you hope for a strong climax, the film ends almost abruptly. Of all the films of Maniji that I have watched, this one has the weakest ending.

The music of A R Rehman has been wasted in this film. "Tera Bina", a wonderful melodious romantic song is used at an inappropriate place. And "Jaage Hain", which had a lot of cinematic promise, is never completely used. Ek-lo-ek-muft was one song which did not have any significance in the scheme of things.

Well, it's not as if this film does not have its moments. The rain-song Barso Re is brilliantly shot and its a treat to watch. Abhishek Bachan's performance stands out. His is a very powerful performance. He makes the character of Gurukant Desai look very real. Watch Guru just for his acting and that of Mithun Chakraborty. Aishwarya Rai too has done well. Camera work, art direction too are really good. Recreation of 1950's-1960's Bombay has been done stunningly well.

With a story that does not fully develop any of the characters, Guru is a movie that any ordinary director could have done. It did not require Mani. It's as if he has left the film's logic to go in disarray. What happened to Mani's amazing directorial skills? Is this film just an aberration? Honestly, I do not know.

That's it for this post. Good night.

A Memorable Victory

These days, I do not follow Indian cricket(or cricket, in general) as passionately as I did a few years ago. Many a time, I won't even be knowing when is India's next match. Despite that, that I am writing a post on the Indian cricket team's win over South Africa today, is because, this was not just a test match win for the team. It was much more than that. It was victory against unsporting, manipulative tactics. It was a victory against ugly arrogance. It was a victory for fair play. It was victory for the gentleman's game. It was a victory for the Indian people.

It's a universally known fact that pitches are prepared to suit the home team. But what the South Africans did was doctoring the pitch in the worst possible way. They watered the pitch on the evening before the test match in anticipation of an Indian batting collapse on a wet pitch. On the contrary, not only did the match start late due to this misadventure, but also it was the South Africans who surrendered to a high quality Indian pace attack and that too after India managed to put up a respectable total. It was a sort of poetic justice that the South Africans were bowled out for their lowest score in test cricket since their readmission to international fold.

As if all this was not enough, the South African team showed arrogance that did no good to the game. Andre Nel, who looks like a pussy cat against the Aussies, tried to intimidate Sreeshanth by sledging. Sreeshanth's reaction(which did not include verbal counter-attack), is now of course, well known. The humiliation on Nel's face when Sreeshanth hit that famous six and did that famous bat-dance, is something that I can never ever forget. Players like Nel are a shame to the game.

On the other hand, Indians played it fair. They maintained their calm. They did not get into ugly things like sledging, true to their indian nature. They instead, let their cricket do the talking. They did not crib about the pitch even on day one(If it had happened in India, the whole world would have joined to condemn the curator and the Indian board to hell.). They made the most of a wet pitch.

To sum it up, it was a victory for the good. Congratulations, team India. You did all of us proud.

What a movie, ya!

A few months ago, I watched Nayagan - one of the best movies in India in my opinion, which engendered in me, a love for Tamil movies, especially those by Mani Rathnam and Kamal Hassan. Although, I do not understand Tamil(I can only understand very basic Tamil), this new foumd interest enabled me to see such good movies as Anbe Sivam, Kannathil Muthamittal and a few other movies(Thanks Arjun, for giving me those DVD/CDs). The latest in the list of Tamil movies I have watched is, Iruvar, which I viewed today.

As with all other Maniji's films this too was brilliant. Yes, I could not understand Tamil poetry which was in full flow in that movie. This, I am sure, would have taken half the sheen off it. Yet, it was a great watch. This was because of the simply amazing storytelling combined with A R Rahman's music composition that was perfect to say the least. Mani Rathnam's direction ensures that, a film, that could have so easily slipped into a documentary, is transformed into a must-watch-movie, one that has used Tamil political saga to perfection.