Thursday 5 July 2012

Braving bijli crisis with crap Bollywood


You know what is the worst thing ever! You check the schedule at your local cinema, you go there and you find out that the film you want to see will be screened three hours later. I mean why have a bloody website when you are not going to update it at least 24 hours before the screening. 

S and I have been wanting to catch a film but when we went to the cinema, we found out that the film we wanted to watch will be screened hours later and the only two films starting within next 45 minutes are Rowdy Rathore and Teri Meri Kahani, as S refused to watch Rowdy Rathore ( I did not probe her deep seated loathing for Akshay but I am sure she has good reason for that) the only other option was watching Teri Meri Kahani. S thought it would be better than Rowdy Rathore – how wrong she was! I actually wanted to come back and watch the latest episode of Masterchef (yes, I am obsessed like that) but then I realized that there won’t be any electricity at home for a couple of hours. I decided to endure two and half hours of misery that passes for a Bollywood film these days for a chilly air conditioned hall (yes, I have my priorities right – mental agony must be endured for bodily comfort – that’s what one has got to do when the mercury hits 46 degree Celsius) and I think it was a good decision. 

For starters, how in the God’s name can Shahid Kapoor be an A list actor? His teeth are more crooked than my neighbour’s paan eating 80 year old grandfather, what’s the point of making all that money if you cannot invest some of it on decent dental veneers! Would have been better if he had invested money in teeth instead of a chin implant, but I digress.

There are three alternate stories where Shahid Kapoor gets to romance Priyanka Chopra and they are all so lame that I was physically cringing every time he gets amorous. In the first one, Priyanka is a Bollywood actress in the 60s who fell for a struggling musician while bonding over kachay aam! I mean it is just 1960s not dark ages where women would fall for guys who will get them 5 slices of kachay aam! And she was a film actress FFS!

The other story is set in 2012 England where two students fall for each other over BBMs, MMS, tweets and facebook updates because the girl was a student at Nottingham and the guy was going to one in Stratford-upon-Avon. Wait! Does the town of Stratford-upon-Avon even has one? No, it does not, the nearest university is Warwick but Kunal Kohli – the idiot who wrote this crapfest – was too lazy to google university towns in England and chose Stratford-upon-Avon to use some cheesy lines about Shakespeare and romance and what not! I have a feeling that the Bard must be turning in his grave like crazy over this one.

The last story was set in 1910 Pakistan – or part of Punjab that now constitute Pakistan – and the place they mentioned was “Sargodha, Lahore.” Seriously Mr. Hot shot Bollywood writer, how long does it take to google either Sargodha or Lahore to find out that they are two different cities and were two different cities even back then. I wonder who will take more offence at this, the Lahoris or the Sargodhvis that they were bundled like this! The hero, a Muslim stud muffin who was sleeping with “alhar mutiyars” (village belles for lack of better translation) of all kinds – Sikh, Hindu and Muslim – fell in love with this girl and joins the protest against evil colonizers to impress her dad. He was jailed and under some really strange law, the village girls were allowed to hang out, make out and sing dance with the inmates in their finery. Sargodha had some really messed up permissive jail laws back then, I am sure the inmates in 2012 are turning green with envy for the fun the guys had back in 1910. Even though her dad was Sikh, the heroine was referred to as "Yeh Hindu Bewa Aurat" (yes, the stud muffin was the reformist who wanted to get nikah-ofied with the Hindu widow lady)

Oh and someone needs to tell all the Bollywood wallahs that being a Muslim does not turn Punjabis ghabroo jawans from Sargodha and Lahore into paan eating, poetry spewing young men from UP who throw adaabs at every random person, use sentences like 'Hazoor tabiyat tau nasaaz naheen', 'ama apkay kya kehnay', 'miyan purzay wurzay tau theek hain na' etc. I am sure India has enough Punjabis that they would know how they behave and Punajbi men speak the same way whether they are Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Hindu, Islam does not turn them into hardcore Lucknow bwoyz! 

Did I regret watching the film? Not really, I got to sit in an air conditioned room for two and half hours – something that has become a distant dream with hourly load shedding. Hai Allah Mian ji, bijli ki adam dastiyabi hum se kya kuch karwatee hai!

PS: This post has too many exclamation marks, yes, it was deliberate.  

16 comments:

Unknown said...

haven't seen it. won't see it. yout fault.

Anonymous said...

To think all these years I used to complain about how terrible David Dhawan-Govinda movies were :(

Tazeen said...

Aray, ek tau apkay paisay bacahy phir bhi fault mera!

Ibrahim said...

David Dhawan-Govinda movies were actually quite funny

Sabahat Zakariya said...

Hahaha...too good

shaistaq said...

Not a fan of indian movies in general....and this just proves it!
Anyhow, thandi jagah kae liyae insan kia kuch nahin sehta!!

Rachna said...

There is only one lesson in all this. Read reviews and go for a movie and I don't mean the paid newspaper ones. And, lady these people make caricatures of all cultures and people. Besides, I belong to UP, and I doubt that men there behave in this manner either :). Basically, KK must have lost it. The movie was stinking in the promos. Thank God, I did not venture anywhere near it :).

Anonymous said...

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DM said...

Tazeen - always read the reviews before watching a movie ;) specially of the ever-cynical Raja Sen in rediff.com.... And No! I am not paid for advertising for him :D

Didn't Sanghai release in Pakistan? Critics have applauded it. As far as Rowdy Rathore is concerned, it's rowdy but I heard it has it's funny moments. Every1 is now talking abt Bol Bacchan! U can watch it if there is again power cut in your area :)

Anonymous said...

Haha! So funny, you had me with the crooked teeth and chin implant. But I do take a lesson from this, if Melbourne gets its run of 40+ temperatures next summer, I'll hit the library. We do lose power, believe it or not, and I pay huge rent for a place with nil a/c.... :[

Swati Chawla said...

Power cuts galore even here in Delhi! My friend and I decided to wear skirts for a change, and since such an occasion demands an outing and this was the only suitably timed film, we went for it! My dada-dadi are from Sargodha, and yes, even I cringed at "Sargoda, Lahore" and promptly altered my Bengali friend, who by this time was beyond caring! She had lost interest at Shahid Kapoor's Chaplinesque movements enforced by the background music (just in case the viewer missed how lame the spoof was!), and was on a long call in the multiplex lobby through most of the England bit.
My first Sargodha movie, and they butchered it! I don't know what I hated more- Shahid Kapoor's contrived Urdu poetry, or Priyanka Chopra thinking that just stretching a vowel sound in the middle of the world makes it sound Punjabi!
On a lighter note, I do concede that lyrical Urdu has a better shot at romancing women than thait Punjabi, but I may be speaking only for myself! :P

Custom Essay said...

interesting, dayum, more post like these should be published!!

Aditya said...

Does Stratford-upon-Avon even has a university???

i think that sentence requires as much remediation as Shahid's teeth do.

DIGIVORE said...

lolz @ Sargodha, Lahore.

Bollywood is spitting out some real crap out there. Loved the way you quoted the "Muslim Punjabi Stud Muffin" who (to me) doesn't seem to have anything Muslim or Punjabi. :|

Thanks God I didn't chose to watch Teri Meri Kahani. Madagascar 3 was a better choice to pay for. Still enjoyed the 2.5hours of fully air-conditioned, loadshedding-less entertainment :) better deal :)

Anonymous said...

F**ing awesome write-up. I think, as a nation, we are all apologetic about the barbarity called bollywood that we thrust upon the unsuspecting world. A few years ago, I actually sent a letter to Subhash Ghai asking for a refund - I never got a reply :-)

Perhaps you should do the same !!

Meher said...

Lol, Fun read :) I had to google Shahid Kapoor to see his teeth.