Avoid getting on the train babyyyy!!!

Eid Mubarak folks!!!

Wishing for love, peace and understanding to take over all negative emotions of hatred and destruction across boundaries.

With the Eid holiday falling on Friday, this was a long awaited weekend  and more awaited it was for the temple doors would be thrown open for its worshipers once every year. And that once was today.

Getting off the bus, the sight before me was greeted with collective gasps. A lone building stood beside the not-much-frequented road with hundreds of people crowding the decent empty space it overlooked. The place was brimming with people who were overflowing onto the nearby road.  Long queues of head-strong visitors stood patiently waiting for the ticket counter to open. Getting tickets won’t be any easy this time. After all, it was the most awaited day for the holy followers.

The devotees waiting patiently for the tickets

One hour into the line, it started raining. But, even the rain gods couldn't deter their strong will.

We friends took turns standing in the line for tickets.  As, I was serving my turn, I caught myself blankly staring at the huge poster adorning the front wall of the building. The afternoon sun’s rays shone on the poster that had the goddess striking a pose with a knife mostly used by butchers.

The god, not far behind, was in full black attire and black glares striking another pose of running in the opposite direction. Waiting in the queue felt like forever. Staring at people and their clothes helped a bit. My turn, again. Again I looked up. Now, orangish-red light of the setting sun illuminated the poster.  It had been close to 3 hours. The poster helped immensely in gathering courage whenever we were losing it out. To spread the word of holding a little more, the pilgrims shouted his name, 3 times in a row with full devotion and a certain kind of hope. We were almost there.

A still from the movie. Photo Courtesy: Internet

Chuck the not-so-important part. Cut to scene 2. 

Inside, was a spacious hall. Most seats were already occupied. We managed to get the front seats. It began and the crowd behind welcomed them with whistles, claps, hoots, screams all overflowing with love. We were on- board on one of the most awaited movies of 2013 and SRK’s Eid gift for his fans, CHENNAI EXPRESS.

 The movie has a phisss start. Starting credits have Deepika’s name flashing before SRK’s. Nice! The movie’s scene transitions have been creatively dealt with. Interesting! Deepika is good. SRK with his peculiar pose of spreading hands in the air with both legs apart, strikes to connect with his fan base with his punchline “Don’t underestimate the power of a common man”. Music by Vishal-Shekhar is soothing. Tera raasta and Title are my personal favourite. South superstar, Priya Mani comes in for 1 2 3 4 get on the dance floor to shake a booty with SRK in fluorescent pink and orange glittery skirt blouse.

The movie can be referred to for its excessive display of lungis, fat strong built, dark skinned men, Tamil twang and words, and the utterly disappointing but feet thumping Lungi dance song ( Puhhleesss, respect the ‘r’ people! The word is ‘Thalaivar’ and not ‘Thalaiva’ as used by Honey Singh Ji.) 

A poster of the film. Photo Courtesy: Internet 

Rohit Shetty makes his presence felt. Yes! He is there in the movie. But not as a character but as the colorful cars which keep flying from this corner to other, blowing up, turtling over in between. Some sequences are illogical. Well, don't look for logic when you are watching a masala Bollywood film like this.Not to forget, a very predictable story-line. Few of the concluding action sequences can remind you of those from Om Shanty Om. In many of Rohit’s interviews, when being asked," What is different about your film?", he spontaneously answers, “SRK”. This can be so vividly felt from watching it. Its SRK all the way, be it the famous songs from his earlier movies which he aptly twists to suitably convey whatever he wants to say to Deepika in the presence of her so-called cousin brothers. 40 % of the movie is in Tamil. Has a long tried and tested climax of having a lengthy emotional dialogue delivery by the hero wherein he preaches about the basic message of the film followed by the tussle between the protagonist and antagonist. No brownie points for guessing. The hero beats up the villain to near death, getting drenched in blood and mud along the way. To fill up the frame standing in a corner is the cruel dad holding on tightly to the daughter’s hand. There, the hero suffers a bone-fracturing punch from the ugly villains and here the daughter screams his name repeatedly. All this happening simultaneously for almost 20 minutes. Urrrghhh!!! I m bored!  :(

Few sequences after the interval try hard to make you laugh but fall flat on the face. There is no romance between the lead pair in the first half and suddenly they make good use of the second half to feel love and make the other partner realize it. The movie easily loses track just after the interval. The first half is pretty entertaining with SRK himself taking a satire on his famous train sequence from DDLJ. SRK tries keeping the audience in splits and succeeds to some extent. You can’t take out Rahul from SRK. Can you? Or would you?There are a few scenes that give us the uncontrollable giggles but that wasn’t enough to hold our interest in the film for too long. 

I could feel myself floating on the surface of emotions the film had to offer. My wish was to get drowned in it. Anyways, worth a watch to have a fine, entertaining evening . And if you ask me, whether it was a paisa vasool movie, after standing for tickets for 3 long hours, then, well..hmmm... not really.

 How do all the bad reviews matter? After all, whenever God will descend on earth to bless his devotees, he can be sure to be showered upon unconditional love. ;)

A still from the movie. Photo Courtesy: Internet

P.S. If you are a die-hard SRK fan, then I think I can assure myself that after you have read these 1000 words,  my life is critically in danger.
  
P.S. Any suggestions for future posts? Feel free to send in your suggestions and requests here or on my e-mail id: aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com . Hope to hear from you soon :) 

Happy Birthday Ma'am! *blushes

To the B'day girl,

Photo Courtesy: Internet

K-A-J-O-L. Every letter of your name spells magic to me.  You are not just any other actor for me. I like how strong-willed and resolute you are about the things you are keen on doing. You are passion personified .You make me feel good about myself. When you are on-screen, I so willingly give you all my attention. I submit to you. My heart, my soul, you rule. When my eyes enjoy the visual treat witnessing you enact varied roles, my mind and heart in unison say it out loud, "This is exactly how I would have said the dialogue had I been in place of her."
You are the sole reason why I THINK and would go on to BELIEVE (rather shamelessly, though) that I can act. I know, if ever I pursue acting in life, you'll be my inspiration for doing every scene, just the way you do, EFFORTLESSLY.

Photo Courtesy: Internet

When people used to compliment me, on sharing somewhat similar resemblance to you , in my young days, my chest used to swell with pride and I blushed uncontrollably. It gives me a feeling that I am being celebrated. My mother keeps taunting me why I don't maintain (inspite of having) a uni-brow like you. And I till date don't know why. Maybe, because I... I don't know... I like it more on you. :)  
 I dream of becoming you! All thanks to you, I have already charted how I would go about my marital life. Just like what you do now. :) 

Photo Courtesy: Internet

If by any fortune, life does bring us face-to-face, I have no clue how I'll react or how I'll manage to arrange for a pen and a piece of paper or how I'll convince you to pose with me for a photograph. Or maybe, just stand in a corner of the room, away from the crowd that would blind you from seeing me, standing there, numb, awe-struck, trying to absorb every little movement that you would do and then coming back home, enclosing myself in my room and enacting things the same way as you did. I think, the later has more possibility of happening.

Watching you film, is my dream. 

Photo Courtesy: Internet

You are G-O-D to me! I bow down to you Ma'am and with my pure and innocent heart I offer you my genuine regards on turning a year older today. Wish you many more happy years ahead. Dying to catch you on screen. Make that happen soon!!!

Lots of love,

Your genuine-est admirer ever! 

(P.S. This blog post has turned out to be my first ever love letter!!! GLEEEEE!!! ^_^ )

Photo Courtesy: Internet

*Casuale*- The Big Fat Filmy Family... Part-I (The Kapoor clan)

Hallo, people!!!

Guten Abend!

.................................

Ohhkay, WAIT!!

Before you, my favorite-favorite people, not waste a single more second to hop to some other random blog to read, the first two lines were my heartiest greetings in German to you on this rainy, pleasant Sunday afternoon in Manipal. Hmm... weekends are synonymous to relaxing. Why not do the same with this blog post? Instead of hitting your head with overload of information (I doubt if this post fails to do so :P ), let’s have some fun!!!

So, today, if not for anything else for time pass sake, I’ll take you through a maze which might make you feel all confused, lost or just amaze you. The big fat filmy family awaits you!

Try recognizing these already mentioned Kapoor personalities!! Photo courtesy: Internet

Try recognizing these already mentioned
Kapoor personalities!! Photo courtesy: Internet

 Considered to be the first family of bollywood is the Kapoor clan. The most familiar star from that family is the young heartthrob, Ranbir kapoor. His ancesters have occupied the Hindi cinema industry for the longest time since its inception. The family tree has its roots to Prithviraj Kapoor who started working here as early as 1940. Raj Kapoor, his son, was a noted Actor, Director, Producer being active for 50 years contributing to the industry.

 His sibling was  Shammi Kapoor who married Geeta Bali from whom were born two kids, Aditya and a daughter, Kanchan. Geeta Bali is also the niece of Yogeeta Bali, a former Hindi film actress who shared a short married life with Kishore Kumar for two years and later went on to marry the disco dancer of the 80s, Mithun Chakraborty and has four kids with him, of which the first one , Mimoh Chakraborty, is struggling hard these days to find a foothold as an actor.

             Try recognizing these already mentioned
Kapoor personalities!! Photo courtesy: Internet

Next in line is Shashi Kapoor, another of Raj’s sibling who married Jennifer Kapoor Kendal, a british actress and had three kids Karan Kapoor, Kunal Kapoor, Sanjana Kapoor who has done her share of bit roles in feature films (read: Salaam Bombay) and has for a long time been looking after Prithvi theatre, a venture set up by the family's head, Prithviraj Kapoor. 

There were other two of their siblings too who died in infancy.

Many others also boast to be part of the Kapoor clan but it is Raj Kapoor's descendants who have carried on the family legacy. He had three sons,namely, Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and Rajiv Kapoor, the least known and most unsuccessful of the three siblings.

Randhir Kapoor married an actress of her time Babita Kapoor but they started living separately soon after. They have two lovely daughters who have been at the top of the game during their times and one of them is still ruling the roost.  Karisma Kapoor is the eldest daughter while Kareena Kapoor is the youngest daughter. Karisma is the second wife  to a Delhi-based businessman, Sanjay Kapoor who also happens to be her childhood friend. While Kareena, as is well known, is married to the Nawab of Pataudi, Saif Ali Khan. Now this alliance brought two culturally rich and prominent families together. Saif is the son of Bollywood actress, Sharmila Tagore, and Indian cricketer, Mansoor Ali Khan. 

Try recognizing these already mentioned
Kapoor personalities!! Photo courtesy: Internet

Both his grandfather, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, and father were professional cricketers. His mother, Sharmila Tagore, an actress within her own rights, is the grand-niece of renowned Rabindranath Tagore, who converted to Islam after marrying Saif's father, and changed her name to Begum Ayesha Sultana. He has two sisters, Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan, who is currently head-over-heals in love with Actor Kunal Khemu, who debuted as a child artist in the 90s and fashion designer Saba Ali Khan.

Saif Ali Khan married Bollywood actress, Amrita Singh, during October 1991, and has two children, namely daughter Sara Ali Khan, and son Ibrahim Ali Khan. The marriage ended in a divorce during 2004, and both the children live with their mother. Kareena became his second wife on 16th October 2012, amidst much glitz  and glamour.

Oops!! Where did we wander off? See, here, everybody is related to everyone. You never know when you hop from Peshawar ke Punjabis to the Nawabs of Pataudi!!! :)
Tracing out footsteps back to the K Khandaan, let's talk about the youngest of the Raj's sons, Rishi Kapoor.

Photo courtesy: Internet

Rishi Kapoor, the most successful of his two brothers, married his co-star of many films Neetu Singh and produced a superstar of today’s times in Ranbir Kapoor. His sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahani is a designer by profession and has her own fashion label ‘Ara’. 

Wait wait!!! This does not ends here. this post is just hardly 5 % of what we'll call The Big Fat Filmy Family. The Bachchans, Sridevi and Sonam Kapoor will all be in the maze waiting for you. There are many more such families which are interconnected, and I bet you'll enjoy those more than this one! So, watch out for the future posts of  *Casuale* right here! :)

P.S. Any suggestions for future posts? Feel free to send in your suggestions and requests here or on my e-mail id: aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com . Hope to hear from you soon :)