12th June 2020 – an important date in the annals of the Indian Entertainment Industry. The first time a mainstream Bollywood movie released directly on an OTT platform – Gulabo Sitabo starring Amitabh Bachchan & Ayushmann Khurana released on Amazon Prime. After a long time, I watched a movie on the first day of release. It was a nice movie about relationships in the backdrop of Lucknow City.
The movie centres around the characters, Mirza (AB) & Baanke (AK), and the house where they stay. It beautifully portrays how immediate needs supersedes long term relationship goals. And, how the value of a person is sometimes best understood when that person is no longer there with you.
Watching this movie made me think about Price Vs. Value. As a customer, what you pay (to get a service or product) is the “Price” and what you get is the “Value”. Hence salespeople should train their minds towards value selling. Multiple times we make this cardinal mistake of using the price as a negotiation tool and we fail to sell the value. This happens because we probably think it as cheap and hence don’t value it. This is exactly what was portrayed in the movie especially in the last scene about the “Chair”.
So have you watched Gulabo Sitabo yet?
Thoughts?
It was around late 2009 when the promotions of the movie 3 Idiots were in full swing that one of my colleagues told me that the movie was based on a novel, Five Point Someone written by Chetan Bhagat. Till that time I had not read any book written by Chetan Bhagat. Just to get an understanding about the movie, I read the novel, Five Point Someone. I instantly liked it and ordered some of his other books, namely 2 States & The 3 Mistakes of My Life.
In 2013, I came to know that a movie based on the novel, The 3 Mistakes of My Life was being released. The name of the movie was Kai Po Che. Frankly a movie with unknown stars won’t get you excited but I wanted to see the movie because I liked the book when I read it a few years back and hence went to see the movie with my family. I really liked the movie. The story of 3 friends and their entrepreneurial journey with a backdrop of Cricket was well made and did full justice to the book. The character Ishaan, played by Sushant Singh Rajput remained as a high point because he not only looked very natural but portrayed the character of a cricket coach and showed the natural flair of a cricketer..
Couple of years later, I saw a Coming Soon poster about a BioPic on M.S. Dhoni. MSD is a living legend for cricket fans and quite naturally the movie was expected to have huge expectations. I came to know that Sushant Singh Rajput would be seen playing the titular role in the movie. The act as a cricketer in a movie means you need to have a good understanding of the game and should not be a novice in playing cricket. Sushant’s performance in the movie Kai Po Che aptly showed his love for the game because the shots he played (though in front of camera) looked genuine. I was not at all surprised to see him playing the role of MSD. But he left me stunned and spell bound when I watched the movie. His mannerisms and his way of playing the strokes including the helicopter shot made me feel as if MSD himself was playing the role. Quite expectedly the movie became a huge hit. A few days back when the movie was running on TV, me and my son watched it again. The movie helps us to go back to India’s world cup win and that’s a great feel good factor especially during these tough times.
In between I did watch some of his other movies like PK (a small but important role) and Detective Bomkesh Bakshy. After the Dhoni Biopic Sushant’s career should have skyrocketed but unfortunately it didn’t but last year he came back with a brilliant film, Chhichhore. It was a sleeper hit and I watched it when the film released on Hotstar. I liked it instantly both due to the overall fun factor (The hostel and college days are always fun to watch because it takes you back to your own younger days) as well as the moral of the story that suicide is not an option, giving up is not an option – Keep fighting and give your best.
Today, as the country comes to terms with the shocking news of Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide, my mind goes back to one of the scenes in his last movie, Chhichhore where he keeps saying to his son who had tried to commit suicide, “You gave your best and that’s good enough – Don’t give up, you don’t know what the future holds for you.”
Gone too soon, Sushant! You will remain alive through your movies!
Hum haar jeet, success failure mein itna ulajh gaye hai … ki zindagi jeena bhool gaye hai … zindagi mein agar kuch sabse zyada important hai … toh woh hai khud zindagi
Om Shanti!
It was an afternoon in May 2007 when my phone rang. I was at my office in SDF Building, Sector V. As I picked up the call, I realised that my very good friend, Asif was on the other side of the line. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, he said that our good friend (and an old roommate during our college days), Sabyasachi Das was in town and he wanted to spend the day with us. I was a person who hardly took any leaves from the office. So requesting a half-day leave and getting it sanctioned at such short notice was not a problem. So, there I was all set to meet Das after a long time. In fact I had not met him after 2003.
It was a mini-reunion of sorts and I later realised that Das came to Kolkata to invite us for his marriage in June. After picking me up, we went to Aquatica and from there we went to City Centre Mall to do some marriage shopping. Sudden decisions have always been the forte of my good friend, Das’. So out of the blue, he proposed that let’s go for a movie. It was almost 9 PM when we went to the INOX counter and we got the tickets for a movie called, “Life in a Metro”. I was not so interested to go for a movie but then with friends around, one shouldn’t think much but should rather go with the flow.
That was my first experience of watching Irrfan Khan. It was not a great movie but the chemistry that Irrfan Khan and Konkona Sen Sharma reflected on screen was very unique and made you love the movie. The comic timing of Irrfan was a relief in the movie which had serious undertones as a theme. Irrfan definitely in my books was a bright spot in that movie other than of course the super hit song, “Alvida”.
As soon as I heard, that Irrfan Khan passed away on 29th April, my first thoughts went back to the above incident.
I have not been a regular movie buff post my college days in Bangalore, so frankly I have not seen most of the movies that Irrfan Khan acted in. But whatever I saw made me like him a lot. His simple looks with an obnoxious smile and his way of getting into the teeth of the characters he played in were very likeable.
The movies of Irrfan Khan that I have seen in theatres after “Life in a Metro” are:
Over the past couple of years, I did see a few other movies of his either on Television or on OTT service and they were:
The best part about Irrfan Khan’s last 3-4 years was the kind of movies he did. I guess over time he realised his forte and signed movies where his wings of acting were not clipped. Though Hindi Medium was a big hit and many around the country would have seen it but he was equally good in small-budget movies like Karwaan and Qarib Qarib Single. Both these movies I saw last year just by chance and I thank myself for that specially, Karwaan. The journey and the relationships between a parent and son were so subtly handled that they will bring tears to your eyes.
English Medium which ended up being his last movie couldn’t get an extended run in the theatres because of the lockdown imposed due to Covid-19. The makers smartly released the movie digitally and it was another movie with Irrfan Khan’s stamp all around it. Another movie with the underlying theme of the Parent-Child relationship.
One of my favourite dialogues from the movie, Anand was “Babu Moshai, Zindagi Lambi Nehi, Bari Honi Chahiye!” You truly lead a “Bari Life” Irrfan Khan. Thank you for all the movies that you gave us, which will make you remain alive in everyone’s hearts forever!
A couple of days back as I was entering my office, it felt awkward to see a bus driving along the wrong way. Its not that we should be surprised with such activities in India but to see that happen at Sector V, Salt Lake was pretty odd because here the roads are quite broad and not as narrow as in the Northern or Central parts of Kolkata. When I reached my destination, I realised that one part of the road was blocked with lots of people around. No, there was no accident or untoward incident, actually a film shooting was going on. Isn’t it amazing to see that a main road in a business district getting blocked by innumerable office going youngsters to watch a movie shooting? Well, that’s India and that’s the magic of Indian Cinema.
We all dream, we all have ambitions and Indian cinema fuels those dreams. Great locations (places where you dream to go for vacation – The Late Yash Chopra brought the beauty of Switzerland to every Indian movie goer), great costumes, the bad guy gets beaten up and at the end Truth and Love wins. No wonder we buy these dreams and even if, our personal lives are not following the dreamt out path, these movies make us believe that we are virtually there.
All this also leads to idolisation and stars are worshipped. So whenever a movie shooting is going on, people will surround the place not to see how shooting is done (who bothers with technicalities?), its only to see who is the hero/heroine (the lead actors) and catch a glimpse of the star. If the people realise that not a known star is there then very soon you will find the place empty.
After I entered office and settled down at my desk I had an urgent work with one of my colleagues. Hence I went on the lookout for him on the office floor. Since I could not find him, I came outside to the balcony which oversees the main road. I could see the shooting is still on but the crowd is running thin. I quickly realised that it must be a movie with new comers or unknown actors. But the bigger question that lurched me was, “where was my colleague?” – I had an important meeting with him. As I asked about the whereabouts to my other colleagues, someone pointed to the thinning crowd at the far side of the road and lo behold, I could see him along with another person of our office trying to peep into the happenings (shooting). Looking by his actions I could very well realise that he was trying to get a glimpse of the lead actors. After a couple of minutes I could see him walking back to the office with a straight face.
After he got back to work, probably someone told him that I was looking for him hence, he came to meet me. As he entered my room, I asked him what he was doing in the road during office hours. His answer was hilarious, “ I was told that Deepika Padukone was shooting”. I queried, “Really? He answered straight back, “No, it was just a rumour. Some unknown lady was shooting, hence I came back”.