- Firstly because I believe it’s the first movie made in India based on a sporting legend who is young and still participating actively in competitions. She has not yet retired and in all probability will be participating in the 2016 Olympics.
- Because we all know the production quality of movies made by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (even though he has just produced it).
- Because the sports action director (Rob Miller) is the same who had earlier worked for 'Chak De India' & 'Bhag Milkha Bhag'. This means you can be sure to see good and authentic sporting action unlike many other so called sports movies (I would not like to name them here)
- Because we all love a 'rags to riches' story. We all want to know about people who despite all odds and difficulties comes out very successful purely based on their own hard-work.
- Because it is the story of a woman who has been successful in a sport not considered fit for women.
- Because it tells the story of Mary Kom who had already been World Champion 5 times (twice after giving birth to twins) but most people came to know about her only after she won the Olympic Bronze medal.
- It is the first mainstream Bollywood movie which focuses on a person from the remote North Eastern part of the country.
- Because it will show that people with Mongoloid features belonging to a tiny state called Manipur are Indians to mainstream Indian audiences, most of who had always considered them anything but Indian.
- Because by now we all know that the title role will be played by Priyanka Chopra who had done some fabulous movies and we love her for those roles.
- And most importantly, I believe, because we all love Mary as a person as well as her achievements.
14 August 2014
10 Reasons why one should watch the upcoming Mary Kom movie
31 May 2014
Its about Arnab Goswami
Love him or Hate
him, you can't ignore him. Arnab Goswami has a mastered the art of creating
sensation and playing to the gallery.
It is a fact
that most people like to take sides to various issues and very few people
actually understand nuanced discussions. He understands this fact very well and
takes sides in each and every discussion he conducts. He loves to corner his panellists
on issues he feels the majority will side with his views and arguments. He does
not believe in nuanced and unbiased discussions even though the channel may
claim to be so.
Arnab must have
taken cue from Fox News, the US based news channel which even though takes up
sides and puts up their own biased views on each and every issue, is a very
successful and popular channel. This kind of reporting and conducting
discussion/talk shows also happens in a lot of Hindi news channels and other
vernacular language news channels. The only difference is that the English
speaking, urban and 'elitist' Indian people who think of themselves as very
intelligent and knowledgeable have not seen such behaviour in the other Indian
English news channels.
The impact Arnab
has created by his way of reporting can be seen in the way channels like
Headlines Today (Rahul Kanwal) and 9X News conducts their prime time shows (telecast
during the 9PM to 10PM time slots). They have started emulating Arnab. The only
exceptions being NDTV and CNN IBN who have consciously tried to maintain a
different or rather their original identities. But even these channels can be
seen to telecast such discussion/talk shows with either their Editor-in-chief's
(CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Dardesai) or their top draw reporters/journalists (NDTV’s
Barkha Dutt) during the same time slots as Arnab's Newshour.
Apart from that
this field (journalism) has become very competitive with new channels coming up
every now and then to cover the same news. They have to create their own
identities and brands to grab more eyeballs and stay on top of the others. I
believe we should at least congratulate Arnab Goswami that has become very
successful in creating his own brand (an easy pointer would be one of the
Flipkart ads where politicians are shown discussing the topic of online shopping
in a talk show the host of which acts, talks and behaves the way Arnab does).
24 May 2014
The DEEWAR effect
Remember the dialogue in the movie
Deewar (the old one) said by Amitabh Bachchan when he is asked to sign some papers by his
screen brother Shashi Kapoor. ‘Jao pehle us aadmi ka sign lekar aao jisne mere
haath pe yeh likh diya tha ... uske baad mere bhai tum jis kagaz pe kahoge main
uspe sign kar doonga’.
11 May 2014
Careful Everyone
Now it has become more dangerous in India to hurt someone's sentiment or
feelings than hurting someone physically, stealing, killing, raping or looting
public money. Hurting someone's feelings or sentiments can land you in jail and
various penal codes slapped against you. The people who were hurt by our views
may physically hurt us and our families, vandalize our properties and then go scot-free.
Do not draw
cartoons, do not write articles or books, do not comment, share or like
anything that may give the slightest hint of opposing and criticizing ANYONE or
ANYTHING (person, policy, religion, language, region, community, etc., etc.,
etc.). Do not express your views publicly or even personally. Never ever do it
on social networking sites. Don’t do anything. Just be passive spectators and
view the massive degrading spectacle (sic!) that is going on around you and
become awed by it. You can become a part of it by actively supporting and
participating in it but never ever oppose or criticize it.
Pardon me for being
so vague and for not speaking about any recent or past incidents and not taking
anyone’s name and stop here before someone feels that I have hurt their
sentiments and I get mugged and arrested for it. Like or share this comment at
your own risk. Whew…
20 April 2014
11 April 2014
05 April 2014
Is it enough for us to just vote?
Its election time and with the constant onslaught of
propaganda by different political parties regarding their past achievements and
future promises most of us have decided whom to vote for & whom not to vote
for. Most of us support one political party or the other and show our liking
for their leaders. Many of us have put forth our views about the leaders in
various media. We are encouraged by various agencies through different media to
register and vote during elections so that leaders of our choice get elected. We
are asked to cast our vote and choose our leaders. We are told that our votes
are very valuable and it can bring in change.
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