It begins in the small Gujarat village of Idar in the 1950s. A young lad called Gurukant Desai (fondly known as Guru) faces the ire of his headmaster father for dreaming big. Yet he succeeds somehow in convincing his father for traveling abroad to Istanbul, where he works in an oil company. The praise and the promotion for his hard work prompts him to return home and invest in his own ‘bijness’ of textile. Upon reaching the dream city of Mumbai with his wife Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) and brother-in-law ‘Jignes’ (Aryan Babbar), he realizes that the textile market has been monopolized by individuals and takes up the fight to free the same from their clutches with the help of a Gandhian philosopher called Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty) who runs a newspaper called ‘The Independent’. Guru’s labour of love starts bearing fruit and his textile trade expands by leaps and bounds; he decides to build a manufacturing unit of polyester yarn in his home town of Idar. His oratory skills coupled with his intelligence leaves the crowd spellbound at a shareholders meet where he assures them that Shakti Corporation is a big family itself. However the trail of his accomplishment gets smudgy and he takes the ultimate test of his character to clear his name in front of an inquiry commission in a case of misappropriation of funds and custom duties.
entertainment
Transamerica (2005)
To get me refreshed for the next year, I decided to take a complete break from my mundane lifestyle. It was a going to be a long weekend for me so I decided to pick 7 DVDs from various genres ranging from fantasy to realism to horror. Some of them could hardly make it to my favorites list but this one did. It’s called Transamerica (released in 2005) which was released in 2005 starring Felicity Huffman in the lead role. Before I go any further, I must applaud Felicity’s performance and rate it as one of the best I have seen in American cinema. She deserved something more precious than just an OSCAR for the same.
Dhoom 2 (2006)
Bikes, babes and battering blows, machoism and hip music; that’s Dhoom (excitement) for you. But unlike Dhoom, the prelude, which had John and his team modifying their mobikes and going for the loot, the sequel lacks substantially in a convincing plot (the script had inspired a gang of real thieves in Mumbai which were apprehended by the police some time ago). The mantra of the sequel seems to be gadgets and disguise and the story banks on both to move forward (ala The Saint). Therefore we have a hunk called Aryan (Hrithik Roshan), an elusive high profile con man, skydiving on a speeding train in the middle of the Namib Desert which is carrying the Queen’s crown. A few implausible acrobats later, the mission is accomplished successfully. Incomparable with the train dacoity sequence from the movie Sholay, the best in the history of Hindi cinema. But that’s for later.
Don (2006)
I am back from my long vacation and it’s a great relief to have taken this break. The pleasant weather of Nasik has rejuvenated me to take on bigger things in life which I am expecting to be coming my way in the next days (or weeks). The salient feature of this current visit was the discovery of a vibrant and a youthful Nasik city, especially elating for me because Nasik is claimed to be a pilgrimage hot spot in India. The 3M syndrome seems to have finally hit this sleepy city now – the Malls, the multiplexes and McDonald’s, identifiable with the true blue globalized economy of India. Not to mention the other ‘M’ – the powerful Middle-class which was seen shopping at various places and thronging the streets for the Diwali celebrations. So thank god for not making me visit the Godavari ghats and the shrines this time around. BTW, you can view some of my favorite shots from the recent trip here.
Bye-bye Cable Guy!
I have ushered myself in a self proclaimed new era of entertainment. I have finally shifted to TATA-Sky, the DTH (Direct-to-home) service provider from yesterday and I am glad I have taken that decision. In fact I had been waiting eagerly for TATA-Sky to launch their services from last year and finally decided to take the plunge when they introduced the ZEE channels on their platform some two weeks ago. Check out the channels currently offered over here .
The experience of getting the Digicomp™ wasn’t worthwhile and the engineers came 2 days prior to the scheduled appointment day. Nevertheless the excitement of getting to say goodbye to the cablewallah was more than I would’ve imagined. To say the least, things had come to a level where nothing else mattered to the cable guy then the monthly fees despite serving poor picture quality channels and doing nothing about it. Moreover, he would dislike the logical questioning about the substandard services offered and would not hesitate to mouth dirty words. Being totally an interactive medium, I now feel in control of the channels I want to watch and in the language that I prefer (Discovery in Hindi is a preposterous idea). Not to mention the various camera angles that I get to select while watching a cricket match. Currently I am enjoying my viewing experience on TATA-Sky and wish them all the best for the future.