Celebration

I will cook tonight,
All your favourite dishes.
A long drive after that, may be?
Or whatever you say, we will...

Say Cheers, Dear...
Or even if you dont, I will.
Dont be modest, don't you underplay it
(Still, whatever you say, we will...)

I won't nag tonight
(If I say I won't, I will!)
It's time to celebrate, isn't it,
So whatever you say, we will...

Let's make new memories
And let the old ones fade
Let's celebrate tonight,
Each being the other's reason...

A Chocolate cake?
But you don't like sweets...
Ah! I know what,
Veg Frankies and Cheese!

Let's begin the journey again,
The way we did (Remember Feb the 24th?)
A long drive, may be?
Or whatever you say, we will...

The Sycophant Circle

What has the classroom become like?

Simply put, it has become a venting machine of sorts for them to come and puke out their frustrations and inaccomplishments. They call this teaching...

The process boils up to be a personal vendetta table, where you cross each name which begs to differ. It's an opinionated hierarchy. But mind you- the opinions can arise only from one side of the room, any idea arising from a bench- however genuine it may be cannot hold grounds against the table on which the attendance sheet lies...

There's no space for discussions, arguments, there's no space for a difference of opinion. Often the teacher will go round and round a topic, criticising students for their answers till he himself produces his 'right stream of thought'. Was all the prodding merely an exercise of ego-satisfaction? An exercise in which students are tended like a flock of sheep, expected to walk on pre-decided terrains and think only on those lines which the professor thinks right? Today, education has become more or less a passive exercise- questions are not entertained, unless they are the sort of questions which the teacher can answer...

And then there's this Sycophant Circle...

It's a gathering of ambitious wannabe intellectuals who have just about started preening their down feathers and dream big to fly the same dictatorial regimes like their well-chosen idols...

Classrooms have turned into the battlegrounds of bureaucracy, the centre of attention of any educational institution is invariably a dingy canteen, the centre of affection the canteen staff, which doesn't feign hypocrisy while providing low quality food for high rates. They cheat with a sense of open dignity. That's why they win our affection.

Education?! It's cheating all the way through under the mask of pseudo intellectualism...

Bheja Fry....

Bheja Fry is actually therapeutic! It can leave a rib-tickling sense of pleasure long after you have left the movie hall...

The witty storyline revolves around the perverse tendencies of human nature and takes a hilarious turn when our perverse, rich businessman Ranjeet Thadani (Rajat Kapoor) comes across an uncanny 'bakra' for his weekly friday parties.

And then he breaks his back, thanks to which the audience can enjoy Bharat Bhushan (Vinay Pathak), the 'bakra' in his unrestrained lyrical and comical and bhojpuri glory...

Bheja Fry, to put it in the most understated terms is a humourous delight.

To describe the comic nature of this movie is albiet tricky...The sheer purity of humour in Bheja Fry lies in the subtle and keen observations of daily life transformed with utmost skill on the screen by the story writers, artists and the director. Case in point is the 'It's ringing' alert which Bharat Bhushan insists on giving every time he dials a number and the crackling sound of the red and yellow plastic bag when our when he proudly takes out his scrapbook...

The more or less dark lighting, clever camera angles highlight the tasteful interiors, huge paintings and work to keep the two central characters in focus while also successfully giving a rich look. Somewhere under the wraps of sheer laughter, thanks to the utter incorrigible tendencies of Bharat Bhushan, also lies a trail of irony, sarcasm and misplaced morality directed at the businessman whose marriage suddenly seems all set to break- and the timing couldn't be better!

Thanks to his self-chosen 'idiot', a number of calls to trace his wife lead to a lucid plot, fast and happening and full of punch- bringing on scene a nymphomaniac, his wife's former lover, and an eccentric income tax officer...

Debuntant director Sagar Ballary should get a standing ovation to bring to Indian audiences one rocking movie...

-Gauri Gharpure