Ek Vivaah Aisa bhi and the protector of Gardens…

After seeing the poster of yet another movie by the illustrious Barjatya clan (of the Rajshri Productions fame) based on the Indian marriage, innumerable songs, joint family and roughly about 1000 actors, I was forced to dig deeper in this “direction” (Excuse the pun). I was intrigued by this director, who year after year churns out similar kind of movies with the same actors and music directors. I found a few disturbing facts though. “Ek vivah aisa bhi” is a remake, nothing surprising is what you would think. But what is disturbing is that this is a remake of one of their own movies made roughly 25 years ago called Tapasya. This is the first instance that I see of someone remaking his/her own movie. This is what I call a serious case of director’s block.

The idea of Hum Aapke Hai Kaun is also based on one of their earlier movies called Nadiya Ke Paar, which according to my research had roughly 200 songs. Needless to say, this was their top grosser in 1979. There was a brief attempt to venture into the action genre through a movie called Agent Vinod, in which Vinod a CBI agent is out to hunt a certain villain called Scorpion. This movie won the Filmfare for the best sound recording. The way I understand, this was their only foray into this genre and soon they were back making movies like Sun Sajna, Rimjhim Geeton Ka and Maine Pyaar Kiya. I truly salute this genre of film making. I never have and will never comprehend this kind of film making.

But, surprisingly and surprisingly is the operative word here, they were the ones who produced Saaransh, which one of the finest movies Indian cinema has to offer. I think they have already atoned for making Hum Saath Saath Hain and Mein Prem ki diwani hoon.

*---Change of topic----*

I henceforth declare myself the protector of gardens. A new crime wave sweeping across the gardens of West Bangalore (which are also my usual places for running) is people stealing flowers as if it were ones own backyard. While jogging today, I requested a certain pilferer of blue flowers to stop his act. He calmly replied saying he needed them for his “puja”. My retort was going to be, “So why in gods name wouldn’t you buy your own flowers?” But I froze there, too shocked to reply at the utter disregard for a very well maintained public garden. Next on my target are certain aunties, who prefer some orange flowers from the garden. Hmm, I ought to have a nickname somewhere on the lines of Blade, Iron Man etc. The Flower Warrior seems to fit the bill perfectly. Maybe the esteemed reader can suggest a better name.

The Diwali Cracker Discoveries this time…

The Diwali Cracker Discoveries this time…

The recently concluded Diwali saw me return to the Diwali celebrations scene with the gang again after an absence last year. This year’s celebrations saw substantially more participation on account of some new entrants.

One thing heartening to note about crackers this time is that they came with “No Child Labour Employed” printed across them. But this time, I saw brands that I had never ever before seen in my life. Standard Fireworks were no where to be seen, while KRS and Navarathna fireworks seemed to be very prominent. And this particular KRS brand has sub-brands like Calf Brand and the Sheep Brand. While I was in the process of using the product called Aero Dance, I also noted that the company provides additional specifications of this cracker like Original Name: Shell, Class 7, Sub-Class 3. I was under the impression that only navy ships, planes and missiles had a classification system like this. This goes to show how our firework companies have reached a new level of sophistication and they probably have a new database system as well.

While the packaging is very professional these days, the names of the products are extremely hilarious. The Red Gangster cracker had Amitabh Bacchhan, Rajnikanth and Kiera Knightly on it. The Lazer Show (note the spelling of lazer) had extremely suggestive and provocative pictures from a movie, whose actors I don’t recognize. And then there was the Pearl Hunt fire cracker, which had the Pirates of the Caribbean pictures all over it. The Tamil actress Asin also made her presence felt on one of the crackers. As mentioned earlier, Rajnikanth was a standard feature on all of them. The celebration ended with a lousy fancy cracker called Jukebox 100 which looks like a car battery and which is supposed to fire around 100 small rockets at will in all directions making a rather irritating noise while doing so. To the best of my knowledge, only 30 or so of them fired in ALL possible directions that left people scampering for cover. The jukebox 100 package also mentioned that this product was the pinnacle of the company’s innovation. Somehow, I do not happen to think so.

Lastly, the company is also careful enough to inform the prospective user that for best results crackers should be lit at night only :-)