RAAAN - not RA ONE

If the readers think that I am a lazy man watching movies and ranting about them, they are almost correct. There are so many serious topics in one's life that when I think of writing about the lighter side of life, I feel safe in writing about the movies.

RAAAN - "Ranjana Ami Aar Asbo Na" is a far far better movie than the King Khan's latest venture "RA One". If anyone disagree, please make sure that you know the reality behind these two movies. RAAAN is the story of a Bengali rock singer and his relationship with a budding rock singer, who is a "Bengali" girl. "RA One" is somewhat a mixture of terminator II + terminator III + Bollywood masalas (spices).

For a very good review of RAAAN, please visit this link.

Why RAAAN made me to write this post? RAAAN shows Ranjana, the girl, who is a budding "Bengali" rock star. RAAAN shows Abani, our Anjan Dutta, the real Bengali rock star surrounded by Lew Hilt, Amyt Dutta and Nondon Bagchi.

Just think of Bengali rock star, a term that only emerged in the late nineties. A girl as a Bengali Rock Star? A new term that comes up in 2011 with the movie RAAAN. The voice of Ranjana, Somlata simply rocks.

I loved the way Anjan portrayed the inevitable frustrations of the creative people of loosing or fearing to loose their creativity in this movie. And in a short but strong role Suman was splendid. Both Parno (Ranjana) and Ushasie are amazing. And Kanchan Mullick, no doubt is good. A five star movie in my opinion.

Icche - A must see Bengali movie

If an effort comes within your hearts core, full of desire to stand aside and to do something new, may be some day you can create an excellent product like "Icche - the desire". Now, the question is, who is this "you". Of course the first name comes in mind after watching "Icche" is Sohini Sengupta. She has proved herself in another movie called "Paromitar ek din - A day of Paromita" and now again in "Icche", she has proved too strong an actress to be used in any common movie. The new comer "Samik : Samadarshi Dutta" is no doubt excellent. Hats off to the directors duo Nandita Roy and Shibaprasad Mukhopadhya. And of course, my respect to the famous Bengali writer Suchitra Bhattacharya for the amazing concept of this novel of her's "Iccher Gach - The tree of desires". I wish all the luck for the cast and crew of this movie for getting grand success, which they have already achieved. But, question is, why am I writing this post when I am not going to write a review of this five star movie, already appraised and criticized in all the Bengali medias?

This is because, the movie has shown something beyond the normal convention of movies about relationships. Beyond the normal phenomenon of "Sans - Bahu (The mother in law Vs the newly wed bride)" staff always shown in Indian TV soaps and movies. It has a very strong point to guide the society towards a very obvious truth of mankind. Some way similar to the thoughts emphasized in recent movies like "3 - idiots". Your desire should never be challenged in your education, your family or by any circumstances. You should become what you want to become and that independence is more important than anything in your life.

The viewpoint of the movie gives the "other" perspective of a relationship that grows up between a mother and a son, which we mostly suppress all the time. The truth behind many relationships that we never dare to express in our whole lives. A must see "Bengali" movie and a thought provoking one.

Dipawali - down memory lane

I can still recall that every Friday there is the "Haat" (special market) at our small suberb and because of Dipawali, the haat used to be full of local made crackers on those days. There were fantasies among the young people like me to purchase the best quality crackers available in the small town and most of them being high-decible fireworks, now completely banned.The evening was excellent as only lights available being candle lights and there used to be a long (around 2 to 3 hrs.) load-shading on those days (even in the eve of Dipawali / Kalipujo - the worship of goddess Kali). The candle lit houses of the neighbourhood, which are actually very same old simple houses we used to view everyday, got turned into very mystic, romantic, thrilling unknown places in their half lit, half darkened appearance.

We used to keep running around our houses to keep an eye on the sky for rockets, which produced either sound only or sometimes a parachute/garlands of red-green-white combinations. There were huge sound producing "chacolate bomb", "gach bomb" (this one used to be hanged from a tree - gach in Bengali) and "dodomas" (two sounds, one cracking sound and the other after the cracker gets lifted to a height of ten twelve feet by an internal rocket). The sound crackers I really loved to enjoy was "jal bomb" (jal - water). This one, after being lit on hand, were to be thrown in a pond and they kept rolling for a certain time as long as the fuge is burning. And then, there were huge sounds from the cracker followed by the sound of the falling water, lifted up by the explosion.

Now that we are using electric lights of hundred types on the eve of Dipawali and Kalipujo, we are really missing the old days of candle lit mysticism we used to enjoy. And of course the new generation fire crackers are much more astonishingly beautiful in their fireworks, still I miss something inevitably in them, may be because I am getting old. I have so many beautiful memories of this very day that this is the best festival for me from my childhood till date.

Wish you all a great Dipawali and Kalipujo followed by Bhai Phota (a special day for sisters putting mark on their brother's forehead praying for the brother's long life).

Se7en Deadly Sins

Watching Se7en. The "V" representing the seven deadly sins. The movie is about the two cops one veteran (Morgan Freeman) and one rookie (Brad Pitt) who search for a serial killer (Kevin Spacey). The same Hollywood crime thriller kind, but with several interesting twists. I am not going to write a review here but two things about the movie is, it has lots of cruel and sick scenes, which are very relevant. An excellent movie for those with strong hearts. After watching this movie, I tried to analyze myself with all the deadly sins I possess.



Wrath - I loose my mind frequently in anger when in despair.
Lust - Should not dare to reveal the truths about me, but I strongly believe in forty plus phenomenon and I am going to be forty very soon.
Greed - Money doesn't make me greedy but sometimes I think of having a much better bank balance than I am currently having.
Envy - I never get envious to others for their fortune or success. But sometimes I feel that most of the people around me is much smarter than I am, and that leads to...
Pride - I don't feel proud all the time, but my neighbor's envy sometimes fill me with pride.
Sloth - I am very hard working sometimes, but most of the times, I feel, I can do much better.
Gluttony - I am not foodie and I never over eat. That's good, but you know, it turns out sometimes that I am too hungry to resist food... and then...

This is not me, not you, not anybody specific, but consider any living human being, who is not a real saint, is struck by the "Se7en".