CHAT CAFE

Exactly after one week of watching ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, I got a chance to watch another good movie. It was ‘Luck By Chance’ directed by Zoya Akhtar. I had heard about Zoya for the first time around eight years back when she was the casting director of ‘Dil Chahta Hai’. At that time, my younger brother was new to Mumbai, and was struggling to start his innings in Bollywood as an actor. He had met Zoya in connection with screen test for ‘Dil Chahta Hai’, and it was he who had mentioned to me about her. Well, for me at that time, she was just the daughter of Javed Akhtar, and who was involved in a film that his brother Farhan Akhtar was directing. This combination is again out there in ‘Luck By Chance’, but assuming different roles this time... Farhan is the lead actor in this film. This film is in all together different genre than what ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is in. Yet it entertains you well. No, it is not pure entertainment as such...it is an insight into the liv...

Yesterday, when I was writing a comment on a friend’s blog, I got carried away. Mine was a not a comment on the post, but on a comment made by someone else about the post. I am not a person who usually likes to correct each and every person, or tries to emphasize my own point of view upon him or her. I take this pain for (or liberty with) a very few chosen ones…where I don’t think twice before saying what is there in my head, and say it straight without even thinking about the right way to say or choosing the right words. But this time I could not control myself and let myself go loose. Well, those were last two lines in that comment that made me write a full commentary. What irritates me is when people talk superficially but they try to sound very concerned. We show our concern for the society, we talk about national unity… but are we initiating or pursuing any action? Do we know from where to start, or do we really want to make a start?? Are we contributing in any way towards ...

I enter the auditorium with a lot of expectations…as the movie has been getting raves and high accolades all over the world. But as the movie progresses one fact keeps becoming clearer in mind minute by minute. I am surely in for a surprise. The film is not what I had expected…it is much more than that. What mesmerizes your imagination in this film is the pace with which it moves ahead. Never ever there is a moment when you can afford taking your eyes off the screen. The moment you dare do it, you are going to miss something. The shots are amazing and tantalizing too… As the camera zooms through swarming narrows bylanes of Dharavi, you keep getting lost to the awe it inspires within you. Beautiful work behind the camera!!! It is first time that piles of garbage don’t make you feel sick… these, in fact, arrest you mind. And you find yourself totally lost in what is happening before your eyes…as if this all is real. And how beautifully the scenes of the famous game show have be...

My coming back to Chandigarh has helped ignite in me a new passion- photography. Till now, it was only an interest. But thanks to my editor Prabhat Singh who keeps on telling me- and all of us- about the finer aspects of this art. And he takes delight and satisfaction in it. He, being an accomplished lensman himself, told one very interesting thing sometime back- that photos are   not clicked, they are   made. What he said changes one’s whole perception. Anyone with a camera and a good scene in front of him can click a photograph. No matter who is behind the camera, that scene is going to be captured anyhow. It is very much true, especially for static scenes. And better and expensive the camera better will be the details! But, if you go with a mindset of   making   a photograph, it is then that you create a photograph. Many things are lying before you, and the photo you wish to   make   out of them depends upon your eye and mood. What surroundings...