OMG - Oh My God (2012)

OMG, what a delightful film!

Paresh Rawal stars as Kanji Lal, an atheist businessman, who, ironically, owns a store that sells religious memorabilia - from statues of Krishna, which have 'miraculously' risen from Mathura, to vials of 'Ganga-jal' which have been refilled from the faucet - everything that gullible hordes will buy to ensure their place in heaven! His wife, on the other hand, is a typically devout Hindu woman, who frequently deplores her husband's lack of piety. When his store is destroyed by a freak accident, it does seem to be a form of divine retribution. Kanji Lal, however, is undeterred - he has an insurance policy - until his claim is denied by the insurance company citing the 'Act of God' clause. With his livelihood at stake, Kanji Lal decides to sue God...

The premise of the film might sound heretical, but strangely enough, the message it imparts is totally different. By means of his lawsuit, Kanji Lal challenges all the ridiculous superstitions that pass for religion today - from offering hair at the Tirupati shrine to pouring milk over Shiva-lingas to even lighting candles at churches and the chaddars at dargahs! The tone is very light-hearted, and the arguments put forth are logical and believable - it is not religion that is being targeted, but its questionable customs!  And through all his research, Kanji Lal himself comes closer to finding the true meaning of religion!

Paresh Rawal absolutely owns this film - what a fine actor he is when taking a break from mindless comedies! Of course, the dialogue - the witty one-liners and repartee - contribute greatly to his performance! The film is weighed down in the end by heavy melodrama, but Rawal keeps the audience engaged. The coterie of godmen led by Mithun - another excellent performance - are too obviously evil, but that didn't stop me from rooting even more for Kanji Lal! Akshay Kumar, in my opinion, was the surprise package of the film! Letting Rawal do all the heavy lifting, AK is in fine form as 'Krishna Vasudev Yadav'. Right from his entry, twirling a peacock feather key chain, he makes a very modern and suave Krishna!

The film ends with a rousing message about God being everywhere around us - and not just in places of worship! I think this would have had more of an impact if AK had not been so obviously divine - I would have liked to be just as surprised as Kanji Lal by the revelation of AK's true identity. Also, I would have liked to see a more balanced debate - a truly learned man to offer a rebuttal instead of the vein-popping Govind Namdeo - surely, we do have holy men for whom religion is not merely a profession? But in the end, this is popular cinema - so a bit of exaggeration is not really out of place!

In attacking the whited sepulchers of organized religion in such a gently persuasive way, OMG gives voice to the frustration and repugnance that so many of us have towards ceremonial procedures and rituals. I truly believe that the true form of worship is compassion and empathy - and no amount of prayer will measure up to a helping hand offered to a person in need! So, go ahead, enjoy the film - but also take a moment to contemplate the place of religion in your life, to ponder what you believe in, to step closer to finding your God!

Sacred Games

'Sacred Games' written by Vikram Chandra should come with a warning - right from the first page, it will suck you in, and not let you go until you've finished the entire book! I don't have the time to finish a book this size in one sitting anymore, but I lugged this behemoth around everywhere - stealing moments to read a few pages here and there! Coming in at just under 1000 pages, this is a novel to sink your teeth into, a story that will enthrall you!

At its very heart, the novel is essentially a crime thriller. The notorious gangster, Ganesh Gaitonde, is found dead in what-could-be a nuclear shelter in a Mumbai suburb. Sartaj Singh, of the Mumbai police, is the inspector who finds him. The story then follows 2 prinicipal arcs - Sartaj's investigation into Gaitonde's mysterious death. and Gaitonde's narration of his own meteoric rise to become the most wanted gangster in India!

Sartaj Singh is an ordinary policeman - battling his own personal demons of despair and disillusionment, he sets out every day to bring criminals to justice. Practical enough to understand that bribes and give-and-takes are necessary evils of the system, he is simply a man trying to do the best with what he has been given. His sheer doggedness and perseverance make him a good policeman, but it is his personal relationships that fully define him - be it his indomitable mother, his partner Katekar, or his slowly budding romance with Mary!

Gaitonde, on the other hand, is a flamboyant, larger than life character. He bursts onto the Mumbai crime scene with a spectacular heist, and slowly but surely carves out his empire, taking on the might of the Suleiman Isa cartel. Starting with his stronghold in Gopalmath, and then from the idyllic locales of Thailand and Indonesia - he runs his nefarious organization, going from strength to strength. And yet, Ganesh Gaitonde is anything but an one-dimensional gangster - he is a man riddled with insecurity, struggling with betrayal and paranoia, while trying to present the facade of a confident 'bhai' to his 'boys'!

Chandra has done a remarkable job with his dramatis personae - each character is sharply etched and fleshed out. Even the minor characters - Shalini Katekar and her family, bar owner Shambhu, the Pandeys, the Khan family, Mr. Yadav, even Dr. Anaita - are all living, breathing, flawed people who jump off the pages and draw you into their lives. Sartaj's mother, Nikki, and her memories have a palpable nostalgia, and Shalini's grit and determination to make a better life for her sons strikes a deeply empathetic chord. Mr. Yadav and Anjali are imbued with a steely patriotism, defending their country - even if it means getting their hands dirty, and the Pandeys exemplify the self-indulgent lives of the privileged! The dregs of society, and the do-gooders and all those in-between - they are all present here!

Mumbai forms a sultry, shimmering backdrop to the dramatic unfolding of the story. Backdrop? I take that back -  Mumbai definitely takes top-billing here! The daily grind of millions struggling to survive, the sprawling slums, the immaculate high-rises, the heat and dust and traffic - this is the Mumbai we know, the Mumbai we pretend not to see! Mumbai of Bollywood hopefuls, who throng to the city with dreams of making it big, Mumbai of illegal immigrants searching for their fragment of heaven. Mumbai - the financial pulse of the nation, where debilitating poverty lives cheek by jowl with immense fortunes! The city comes to life with vivid detail, and eventually, all the threads of the story converge convincingly in this fascinating city.

The scope of the book is colossal - from the horrors of the Partition, to the 1993 Mumbai bomb-blasts - from the 9/11 attacks to the looming specter of a nuclear explosion in the heart of the sub-continent - Chandra takes us on a unforgettable ride! The invisible but very real connections between the politicians and the underworld, the unsavory face of the flashy film industry and the numerous beauty pageants, the religious leaders who cloak their sectarian, fanatical selves with profoundly spiritual discourses - they are all woven into this riveting tale.

And again, at its heart, Sacred Games, is a crime thriller. Bullets fly fast and furious, the story is littered with corpses, police brutality and gang violence are presented in horrific detail. Violence, deceit, greed, lust, corruption - a trail of counterfeit money, cross-border terrorism, RAW agents, smugglers and drug dealers - this book has absolutely everything! The language fits beautifully with the context, but would be definitely rated 'R'! Not for the faint of heart, this one!

The book ends very satisfyingly - all loose ends tied up, all conflicts resolved! Sartaj Singh begins a new day, and in my opinion, his optimism reflects the resilience of the human spirit. Battered by life, in the shadow of terror - the living keep living, finding joy in the most unexpected places! To say I loved this book would be an understatement! An immense pot-boiler, it has something for everyone! Pick up a copy and dive straight in - I promise you won't regret it!

New beginnings

There are times when I wish I hadn't studied to be an engineer. Times when I wish I had a liberal arts degree, and that I would have actually learned the craft of writing professionally! Then I remember that this wonderful life I have today I owe to the education I do have! No engineering, no Michigan Tech, no Ajey, no Caterpillar...so on, all the way to no sitting in my little eyrie in Suzhou - embarking on my second blog! So, absolutely no regrets!!

So why a second blog? Well, the first one is more of a journal - a memoir, if you will, about our years in China, and our incredibly diverse experiences! This one will be more of a catch-all. Here will be found, for lack of a better word, reviews of books and movies I enjoy - not critiques or technical reviews, simply my thoughts! Also, since it's a little difficult to get new releases - both books and movies - my posts will consist of mainly all-time favorites to begin with.

'Have blog, will write' is what I feel every time I start a new post! It is an exhilarating feeling - and it seemed to be a very appropriate name for this new blog! The rest of the title - of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings - comes from one of my favorite poems, 'The Walrus and The Carpenter' by Lewis Carroll. The phrase seems to capture precisely what I hope to do with this blog - a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a whole lot of everything!

I enjoy reading all kinds of books - I'm actually a pretty indiscriminate reader, when it comes down to it. From children's books, to biographies, to all kinds of fiction and non-fiction, anything goes. Sci-fi is probably the only genre I'm not too fond of. It has been bit of a challenge to find English books here in China - I have been barely managing with the school library and the online Peoria public library! Right now, I'm really excited about re-reading all my favorites so that I can write about them!

And, finally, I now have a place to say it loud - I absolutely love Hindi films! Even so, I'm surprisingly picky about what I'll watch - I don't do 'serious' or 'realistic' - when I watch a movie, I want 'escapism' all the way! No matter how improbable and illogical, I love the drama, the emotion, the grand gestures, the sweeping panoramas and of course, the melodies! I do watch Hollywood films, and some of them will surely make their way onto these pages - but this will a space mainly for Bollywood movies.

I'd like to end this post with a word of acknowledgement for 2 bloggers who have been my inspiration for many years - Nupur, of One Hot Stove and Baradwaj Rangan, of Baradwaj Rangan. One Hot Stove is a food blog, and Nupur is a wonderful raconteur, seasoning her incredibly easy-to-follow recipes with personal stories. I actually toyed with the idea of starting a food blog myself after reading Nupur, but regretfully, I'm just not that good of a cook! Baradwaj Rangan is a National Award winning movie critic - he writes for the Chennai based Hindu. His writing has such a lyrical quality that often his reviews are much better than the movie itself! Both these blogs have one thing in common - their authors have a passion which shines through their writing - and that is exactly what makes them so readable!

I'll be back soon with the first review post....until then, Happy Reading!