It Was Atul's Wedding on Last Saturday.

Now that's what i call a peer pressure. why? well, most of my friends from my age are getting married. and worst is when u accompany him to give away the invitation card of his marriage. Moreover, Everybody literally hounds you by popping up the same question till you answer it. So, when are you getting maried? and I answer that by saying, 'ya, pretty soon. May be next year?'. Then oldies retort to me by saying, 'What next year? don't marry untill you find the right girl.' Well, I would say that was the best advice I could hav had on getting married.

Atul was not my batchmate. he was one year ahead of me. But we used to go to school together. we had been to the same tutions for several years till the 10th Exam. We stayed in the same locality. Evern after Atul left our society, he still did not lose touch with us. We always used to meet on weekends. he was very introvert.

It was friday (the day before his marriage) and Atul was calling me over the phone to remind me time and again to drop in at his house before 7'o clock. We adhered to the Indian tradition and went in late. He was furious. Atul's nature is like that. he gets angry pretty fast and soothes faster than that. The reason Atul was insisting us to come early so that we dance as much as we can since DJ was only till 10'o Clock. But we all gathered around 9 at his place and we only had one hour in hand. but Boy, did not we make most of it? yes, we surely did. We danced on the tunes of Jai Ho, Aloo Chaat and other typical marathi songs.

It was 10. and Atul's dad came from his house to the DJ. To my surprise, He asked him to put the music off. surprised. because Atul, being the only child of them and he, himself serving in the police department, he could have easily extended the mood but he remained firm on his decision. I admired that honesty in him a lot that day. Woh Kehte hain na, 'Charity begins at home'. We wrapped up the programme and went to sleep after promising Atul that we would visit the hall well before you in the morning.

We did not keep the promise that we made the previous day of reaching the venue. It was more embarassing when Atul called us on the way to remind us what happened on that promise that we made. and we kept assuring him that we would reach there in a flash. The moment we reached we were welcomed with one symbolic honking instrument called, Tutari, on the reception. We felt elated and fortunate that it beaped at the time when we entered the hall. But the fact was the person armed with it alwasy had to honk it when someone is about to enter the hall. so, we were not the exceptions. There was one more nice thing to tell about this wedding. There were Phetas being offered to everyone to be draped around their head. But to our dismay, we could only chance upon one of them and that too was worn by a friend of mine who had accompanied me. It was fun when we came out of the hall to look for present packet for him and he felt really ackward wearing that pheta outside the hall in that bustling street (he actually came to know of it when people started staring at him while passing by).

The marriage took place at the scheduled time. There is one ritual in the maharashtrian marriages to lift the groom-to-be when bride goes to offer him a garland. We chatted after the marriage as to why nobody lifted Atul like that, when one of his realtive promptly replied back, 'who would dare to lift him?'. since Atul, being a bit plump, nobody wanted to take chance on this one.

Marriage came to an end. we accompanied Atul till he got into the car with his bride. I reminded myself that one more amongst my friend have settled down in his life and I would hardly meet him on weekends now. I will miss you Atul.

MSR2B's message is not secluded. it's more global.

There had been very few occassions when a film creates so much of hype not only amongst maharashtrians (obviously since it's a marathi movie) but also amongst non-maharashtrians. It was pulpable when a colleague of my company came to my neighbour's desk and aksed her if she has wathced the recent marathi film 'Mi Shivaji Raje Bhosal Boltoy'. I was amazed to see her curiosity to watch that movie even with subtitles. The film went on to create record breaking box-office collection and is now being touted as the most highest grosser movie amongst marathi films.

We (I, along with my friend) watched this movie last weekend at Parel. it was my insistence that we went to Parel, a largely marathi-dominated area, because I wanted to enjoy this movie amongst this old bastions of maharashtrians and see them appreciate the movie with decent claps and not whistles. It was already a third week of the movie and we thought we could easily grab the tickets for the last show. But hardly did we know that the movie was still running in packed theatres.

We both were ready to take tickets in black but fell short of cash and that led to last minute rush of looking for the neasrest ATM. But to our dismay, We failed to find one and thought of returning back to home since we had already missed 15 mins. movie. that's when the ticket-blacker himself offered us two tickets at whatever cash we had at that point of time and we got the tickets in mere 50 Rs.

We rushed in to theatre and quickly grabbed our seats.(By the way, we both were allotted diffrent seats). 'MSR2B' is very much contemperory story of a middle class family man, 'Dinkarrao Maruti Bhosale', who has got irritated by the hardship he and his family has to suffer because of him being a marathi. he is terrified by a builder named Ghosaliya to vacate his place and instead shift from the prime location of south bombay to far away place like Badalapur. In helping to vacate his room, he is helped by maharashtrian people like BMC workers and a hooligan named, Usman Parkar. His daughter does not get a role in the movie only because her surname is Bhosale. there's a scene in the movie where she goes on to change her name from Shashikala Bhosale to Twinkle chopra through an affidavit. His son is not able to secure an admission in the engg. college even after getting 95% in CET since all the seats have been usurped by other caste students by paying hefty donations to the college though they secured much less than 50% in CET. here too, the principal himself is a maharahtrian who advices Bhosale's son to get him admission in B.Sc. rather than securing him a seat in engg. college which he very much deserved.

Annoyed by this frustration, He asks himself why he's getting such a severe punihsment of being a maharashtrian and why this very much society where he lived in does not want to accomodate him anymore. since hailing from an ancient family of Great maratha warrior Shivajiraje Bhosale, the maratha warrior himself comes to his rescue to cleanse his mind out of negativity and instill in him the spirit to give a ferocious fight back rather than sheding tears for his identity for which, Shivaji himself sacrificed his own life. and of course, Our very ordinary man retaliates in very extra-ordinary way to regain his self-respect.

On tehcnical terms, hats off to Mahesh Manjarekar who has penned down such a fantastic story and the director, Santosh Manjrekar, who could replicate his visualisation through his sensitive direction. The film sounds exceptionally well, both the background music and the playback music. here, I have to mention the song which comes in the second half of the film on which enormous money is spent but have to admit it's well spent. the song is really an encouraging one, brings tears to your eyes and adulation to the wisdom of Great Warrior Shivaji. The film's cinematography is also something which is to mentioned of, especially a chasing scene where an antagonist in the movie, Usman Parkar, is after Dinkarrao's son. A special vote of thanks to Sachin Khedekar without whom the role of Dinkarrao Bhosale would not have had its fair justice. Last but not the least, Sukhvinder Singh has voiced an exceptional song in the movie which you would definately hum while coming out of the movie hall.

Finally, I would like to end this post on a note that MSR2B could be any ohter regional movie since it only reiterates the fact to the viewers not to loose their basics and not to be ashamed of.

Dev D teaches to move on

What's with this character of 'Devdas Mukharjee' of the very famous novel 'Devdas' written by Sharachandra Chattopadhyaya that our very own bollywood is crazy about. There's this old version of it directed by Bimal Roy with Dilip kumar as protagonist which was again remade by Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Shahrukh Khan in the lead with a whopping budget beyond 50 Cr.s on mammoth sets designed by Nitin Desai and ravishing costumes adorned by the lead actresses.

The movie that we saw was one more contemperory take on the much beloved character of bollywood. it is being directed by Anurag Kashyap. this devdas, though, was a bit different. a contmperory remake of the old one. Anurag moved the story out of kolkata to the northern part of India and brought characters from the 1960's to the 21st century. the director did not confine himself much to the original novel and inspired by only the main plot of it.

The occassion on which we saw the movie was also the one we would never forget for the rest of our life. it was Valentine day. I was asked by one of my friend(Sachin) to give him a treat since it was my birthday on 9 February. he settled in for the movie. two of my friends joined us later whom sachin had not seen but heard of. About Sachin, well, He recently had had a split with his girlfriend whom he was seeing for past 1.5 years and someone who broke off with him just over an SMS without any clarification (pretty rude na.). My other friend knew of his break off and pranked on him saying to me that 'I hope he does not resort to any thing that Dev D does in the movie.'

Dev D sees a confluence of two unorthodox players in the movie business coming together. The main lead of the film, Abhay Deol, and its director, Anurag Kashyap. the film recounts the stroy of Devdas who is in love with his child hood girlfriend, Paro, but does not marry her due to their egoes being hurted over a small spat. paro ends up marrying a delhi businessman who has already got kids from his previus wife. Shattered by this, our very own Dev moves on to delhi and resort to all wrong-doings which we possibly can expect from a heart-broken man like boozing, visting brothels where he meets Chanda, a girl of a diplomat who was caught in an MMS scandal due to his boyfriend's mischiviousness and later on dragged into this vicious world. where Dev voluntarily deserts himself from his family, Chanda has been forced against her will to exile from the very society she lived in. egotist Dev gives in to Chanda after knowing her past and how she coped with it.

Where the old devdas ruins his life for his child hood love and keeps his promise of letting himself die only in her(Paro's) hometown, Anurag finsihes the story on a very positive note. it's chanda who convinces him to let his egotism die rather than his own life. she teaches him to move on in life and film ends with a happy ending.

Delhi Was Delightful

It's been 4 months since i had been to Delhi but its memories still lingers vividly on my mind. I had been there to attend my friend's sister's wedding whom i met in my previous company's Training Schedule held in Chennai. I was accompanied by one of my college friend.after being there for merely a week several movies shot in Delhi realeased in quick succession of time namely Oye Lucky Lucky Oye!,Dev D, Delhi 6(I did not see it's previous 5 parts, have you?) etc.

The Day of Departure : 26/11 The Unforgettable one.

We had booked our ticket well in advance still it took several weeks to get confirmed. It was Rajdhani. I had heard lot about it. After travelling in it I realized it was well worth it. we left mumbai at 4:45 in the evening and luckily both of us had got window seat. As soon as we reached 'Baroda', We were accompanied by two middle aged married men, one of whom, originally hailed from Rajsthan but settled in Gujrat from past few years for business purpose, was very friendly to talk with. the other one, fatso, slept as soon as he had his dinner. It was through him that we heard the shocking news of mumbai's elite hotels (Taj Mahal, Trident) were being attacked by Terrorists. Initially, we did not take it seriously but it was only when my cell started flooding with calls from my acquiantences that i understood the seriousness of the incident. Being a mumbaikar, i was moved by the incident.

The next day morning we were awake by 6:30 and we had reached somewhere near Uttar Pradesh when i unveiled the curtain of the window. I was immensely excited about having to know that we would actually be reaching Delhi within few hours. That few hours journey toward Delhi in the morning was the most exciting, enthralling moment in my life till date. nothing could compare it. however, my friend was a bit worried about how the accomodation would be at Delhi.

Finally, we reached Delhi. The train was 45 minutes late something which had been the tradition of Indian Rail and this time was no exception. They made sure that they lived up to its tradition. Meanwhile, Lokesh had been calling me to inform that he’s waiting for us outside the Railway station. It took hell lot of time for us to get our way out of the station and look for the dog from the famous ad campaign of ‘Vodafone’ (well, it was the centre point where we were supposed to meet.) Winter was just around the corner but political atmosphere was burning like anything due to the upcoming elections.

There he was. Extra-ordinarily fair. He looks very much of a foreign breed something on which I had complimented him when I started talking to him during our tenure in Chennai. He had worn a winter Jacket with T-shirt inside it and a Track. He was looking handsome as usual. I introduced him to my friend and we headed off to his house. During the traveling, I observed that there were no buildings in Delhi. Not at all except some official buildings in Connought Place which was very much a replica of Kala Ghoda in CST. Later on I heard that the resemblance between both the places because they had been built by the britishers.

When we reached his house, we freshened up and had our first share of Paratha. His Bhabhi had prepared delicious parathas for us in the breakfast. Lokesh asked us if we would like to rest a bit but we refused to be at home. Especially with very few days in hand we decided to see delhi as much as we can which we eventually did.

Day 1: 27/11

Lokesh brought us to a nearby market which was called ‘Rajouri Garden’. He told us that Girls from affluent families visit here to shop. Oh Boy, were not they pretty. They were so fair and beautiful that I was obliged to ask myself ‘Yeh Delhiwale Apni Betiyon ko Kaun si Chakki Ka Aata Khilate Hain’. From there, We moved to a near by mall where we just freaked out like everyone else. While taking a leave from the exit gate we had our first glimpse of Delhi Metro. That was something. It was sleek, fast, and stylish. The track of the metro rail were laid somewhere around 60-80 feet above the ground level. It was even well above the highway bridge that was built. We waited there to shoot it in our camera. (Thanks to its frequency after every three minute, we finally managed to click that.). We asked Lokesh if there is any place where we can reach out to through Metro Rail. Lokesh thought of taking us to Connaught Place where there’s famous market called ‘Palika Bazaar’ and a garden named after Rajeev Gandhi.

Traveling in Metro was an awesome experience. First surprise was the disciplined queue in which everyone has to be in order to board the train. It was surprising because having traveled in Mumbai for so many years we never stood up in the queue to get into the train. When train did arrive, we got into it once all the passangers got down from it (more civilized and sophisticated way of traveling I felt). Inside the metro, I was witnessing an exciting journey which I felt should never end. I wished if I could have such convenient transportation to go to my work in Mumbai. In this way half of the energy I could have easily saved which I exhaust in getting in and out of Mumbai locals. The best moment was when we passed a gigantic statue of lord Hanuman who was well above the level of even the metro’s track (Just to give you an idea, metro itself was running 60-68 feet above the ground level). After reaching Rajiv Chouk, we freaked out in the market and strolled in the garden, before we left for the home. After reaching home, everbody from Lokesh’s family had arrived from their daily activities. We met his elder brother, his father, his nephew and niece. They all greeted us with warm and affection and talked to us introducing them to us rather than formally being introduced by Lokesh. That’s what I liked about them the most.

Day 2: 27/11

Day 2 was India gate. While heading towards India gate we went through safdarjang road where all the big shots of politics had their homes. There were security personnel’s at every nook and corner of the road especially after 26/11 Mumbai attack. The India Gate is one of the largest war memorials in India. It is a prominent landmark in Delhi and commemorates the members of the erstwhile British Indian Army who lost their lives fighting for the Indian Empire in World War I and the Afghan Wars. The interesting thing we found at near by garden of it was the several couples getting cozy in front of the whole crowd. After india gate while on our way back, we decided to booze a bit but being election the day after tomorrow all bars were closed. So we straight away came back home.

Day 3 : 28/11

Day 3 was the main reason why we had visited delhi. We were scheduled to visit the wedding of my friens’s sister late in the evening. We decided not to go out and stay home. Lokesh had arranged a cab on official code of his manager. ( I was surprised to know that Lokesh had resigned from that job but still he was able to book a cab and that too maruti Sx4. we were thankful to Lokesh since our stay in Delhi was so royal that we never had to travel through public transportation except in the metro. That too we insisted him to do so.)

When we reached the place. ‘Baraat’ had just arrived and I saw Anuj after so many years. He had not changed at all ( here, I am talking about the size). That was some wedding. The wedding couple were looking gorgeous. All the males had darted formal suits and females draped in sarees. There was one ‘WagonR’ wrapped as gift for the groom, Lucky he! It was the first north indian family’s wedding that I had attneded and I loved it for sure. Aftere wishing the couple, we left for home.

Day 4 : 29/11

We were very unsure of which place to visit on this day. Especially being Sunday. There were many option being thrown but we finally decided to go to ‘Lotus Temple’ which was adviced by Lokesh’s nephew, Simar. The Bahá'í House of Worship in Delhi, India, popularly known as the Lotus Temple due to its flowerlike shape, is a Bahá'í House of Worship and also a prominent attraction in Delhi. I loved the peace over there especially hailing from a very noisy place like mumbai. We were made to sit inside the temple and we could hear our murmuring In the echo no matter how hard we tried to talk in a soft tone.

On the way back, We visited Akhardham temple. Security had been tigtened up because of the recent terror attacks. But we never had to jostle through the crowd as we thought so since there were not many people came to visit the place. The temple, which attracts approximately 70 percent of all tourists who visit Delhi, was officially opened on 6 November 2005. Designed in accordance with ancient Vedic text known as the Sthapatya Shastra, it features a blend of architectural styles from across India. It is constructed entirely from Rajasthani pink sandstone and Italian Carrara marble, and has no support from steel or concrete.

We were pretty early to reach keerti Nagar. But in the midway we decided to have some small pegs. We arranged alcohol, snacks and glasses before reaching a dhaba. We made a make-shift bar in the car itself. Lokesh told us about his desire to go abroad ( he is curious towards Australia). We had had a nice time except my friend who was disturbed after having received a call which was supposed to be her friend (who he loved unconditionally) informing him about her marriage plans. I could really understand what severe pain he must be going through at that very time. But he really did not make us aware of it at that time.

Day : 29/11

It was Monday and lokesh had to resume his duty after several days of leave. He suggested we could go back to old delhi and visit chandni chowk and Red fort. We went to Red fort. But after reaching there we could not stop ourselves laughing at. Well, why? Because Red Fort is closed on Mondays. We could not help but watch it from outside. Disappointed by this fact, we did not even pay a last visit to chandni chowk as per the schedule. We did not know what to do for the rest of the day. My friend adviced to go to back to Connaught Place where we had been to on the first day since he wanted to do some shopping. Shopping was done but it was still 7: 00 p.m. and we wondered going so early at home would be very boring since Lokesh was not there. We decided to sit there as much as we could. Finally we left to leave for home. We already had food from outside. When we reached home, we were treated with so much affection( asking us whether we had food?, how did we like delhi?, telling us how was the expereience of them having visited mumbai)that I was really touched by their hospitality. We had already been delighted with the kind of treatment we had from the very first day.

Day : 30/11

It was the day of the departure. It was the end of the all new and exciting things that had happened over the last few days and going back to the same old world again. Our train was at 4:30 in the evening from Nizamuddin Railway Station. After having lunch and greeting all his family members, We went to a sweets shop to have some sweets to take back home. We spent lot of time shopping for it that it was already 3’o clock. Lokesh excused himself since he won’t be coming at the station to drop us. We hurriedly started looking out for Rickshaws. As soon as we got one. We shifted all the luggage from his car into the rickshaw. And that was it. The moment came in a flash. The moment that I hated the most when I had to say bye to Lokesh. I hugged him whole heartedly and thanked him for treating us so wonderfully through out our stay in Delhi.
Delhi was not the first place that I visited and would not be the last one for sure. But there was something about it because of which the its memories would never fade.