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.