I Too Loved This Story

Would you like to read a story where you clearly know that the main plot is based on some random man's love life? Most importantly, after knowing that the story will end on a sad note? I would not and that's why I kept avoiding 'I too had a love story' for a long, long time. I had no interest in taking up this book, the cover was uninviting, the publisher was a little known company, and most of the reviews shot down the grammar and logic of the book. Ignoring the book was bliss, until a few days back when I could no longer hold back the mystery of its success. I ordered the book online. New cover, new publisher. Same story.

'I Too Had A Love Story', is an autobiographical take by the author, Ravinder Singh, concerning his love life where he lost the girl he was intending to marry just two days before engagement. The novel tells the story through the eyes of Ravin, who meets a girl Khushi on a matrimonial website after a bet with his friends.  The two connect instantly and the relationship grows gradually to friendship and then love. It is a very unusual kind of love story. As much as I believed it to have a 'Chetan-Bhagatish' feel to it, it was very dissimilar inits feel and approach. No over-the-top sequences, no clever usage of humor, just plain language telling a simple tale. This very plain language attracted the ire of grammar nazis and literary critics. But no Shakespeare extracted tears from me. This one did.

The story, the narrative and the whole feel of the novel is very down-to-earth. Most probably, it can be an indirect impact of the author's humble background. He comes from, as he tells in the novel, a small locale called Sambhalpur in Orissa, India. He has a regular IT job, and likes hanging out with friends, boozing occasionally to give his friends some company. Khushi, on the other hand, is a modern happy-go-lucky girl also in an IT firm. She wears modern dresses, her family member have a modern outlook too, which the author clearly depicts in the various episodes and incidents involving him and Khushi's family. The love story looks all set to meet a happy conclusion with both the set of families agreeing to bond, and the couple busy in their respective preparations for the wedding. And then the girl meets with an accident and dies. With this incident the book reaches its climactic end which it hinted at the very beginning by the following words: "Not everyone in this world has a fate to cherish the fullest form of love. Some are born, just to experience the abbreviation of it"

The book won my heart with its many emotionally-drenched lines about two people in love with each other. And trust me, knowing the end does not in any way hampers the pleasure of reading the book, instead it connects you even more closely to the story. Every little happy incident makes you sad because of the unfortunate end you know the protagonists are going to face in the end. As you approach the latter part of the book, every turn of the page makes your heart skip a beat as you pray for the end to get delayed by a few more pages. You start relating to the protagonist, as they come to life with the various commonalities of ordinary life of people in a city. The pain is heightened by the fact that Ravin and Khushi live in two completely different cities, miles apart in the geography and met only two times in the whole story before she left her forever.

Not very much a fan of lovey-dovey stories, I found myself holding this book before my eyes for hours at stretch and finished it within two days. Initially I was skeptical about the book and the pace was slow, but as the story moved towards the main plot, the book became hard to put down. But I had to put it down in between. To take breaks for my heavy heart and occasionally to wipe away any drop of stray tears rolling on my cheek.

I have read Chetan Bhagat and they have touched my heart too, but surely not in this way. Here, the tragedy was the king, and I as a reader its slave, hoping, praying, crying, knowing very well that the end is near, and it is not good. The last book I remember which managed to bring out my tears was Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' which was a long time back. That book brought me out of the illusion that books can never make you cry, and this book reaffirms that lesson. What it is, if not the power of words which moved me, like thousands of other fellow readers?

'I Too Had A Love Story' made me learn that tragedy can be pleasant to read. I also learnt to never judge a book by its cover, or language or grammar, again in the future. I loved this love story, and so will you. Take a leap of faith.

Book: I Too Had a Love Story
Author: Ravinder Singh
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs. 140

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola: Review [3/5]

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola
Directed by: Vishal Bhardwaj
Actors: Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma, Pankaj Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Aarya Babbar
Rating: 3/5

 

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola [MKBKM] is a shock when you consider the movie in a Vishal Bhardwaj frame. But then, widening the angle will give you the man’s perspective on the issues of a small hinterland. MKBKM has been in Bollywood news ever since Bhardwaj expressed his interest in directing a comedy. And this is comedy served in his flavor, with a wacky “anti-smoking” message at the start on the lines of the one we saw in Barfi!

MKBKM has its basic plot circuited around land-mafia operations by filthy rich-politicians-bureaucrats nexus which is very rustic in its approach. Pankaj Kapoor, plays the role of Mr. Harry Mandola to perfection. Imran Khan is Matru, and above the average he usually does and Anushka  is Bijlee, who again gets her type of role of playing a chirpy, casual girl, which she indeed portrays brilliantly. Shabana Azmi plays the role of a Devi ji, a minister in the govt. of Haryana and Aarya Babbar plays her son, Baadal.

Mr. Mandola is a rich landlord of a village in Haryana that is named after him. The villagers are angry at his land acquisition plan and demand their land to be free. Matru wants to free his villagers of all their debts and protect his village from all the pressure-tactics of the banks and bureaucrats to give away the village farms at throw-away prices.  Bijlee is betrothed to Baadal and this alliance is done by Devi ji – Mr. Mandola to satisfy each other’s need of power and money. Mr. Mandola wants the minister to pass the villagers land as barren and hence he would be able to develop it as a Special Economic Zone. Ms. Devi wants the money which Mr. Mandola preserves in the shape of a huge castle, a private aircraft and airbase among other luxuriant possession. The villagers keep receiving anonymous letters to guide them through the situation, all signed ‘Mao’. Eventually it is discovered that Matru is playing Mao to save the village from the oncoming crisis. Meanwhile, Bijlee discovers her love for Matru and the plot gets a love story. The situation would have kept going messier and the movie darker if Mr. Mandola would not have been there. Mr. Mandola suffers from Dual-personality, one which he is and the other he becomes after drinking. Mr. Mandola starts to see Pink Buffalos whenever he’s not drunk, which is most probably a symbol of his constant greed and lust for more wealth and power, which will come at the cost of the villagers. And this dual-persona gives the movie its lift and a climax with an end which gets a bit predictable somehow.

MKBKM has its moments which tickle you and certain satires that make you think. Sample this: A heavily drunk Mr. Mandola takes Matru on a ‘night walk’ in his aircraft and manages to crash it. Media gathers to cover the big news of a ‘UFO crash’ and the reporters ‘sensationalize’ their voice to convey their seriousness. They interview a blind boy, who’s the sole ‘eye-witness’ of the crash in his village and the reporter asks him how the UFO looked, while the boy keeps complaining about his indigestion and a lost underwear.

Pankaj Kapoor deserves every word of the praise for the class of work he has pulled off. Clinton Cerejo-Simaab Sen’s music, Vishal Bhardwaj’s research and Gulzar’s lyrics successfully give the movie its required authenticity and compliments the pace and plot of the movie.

Overall the movie manages to do okay, sometimes feeling too long in its 2 hours 20 minutes of runtime. But then, the director’s name is Vishal!

Lovebug For A Housefly

Will you ever shed tears for a creature as minion as a housefly? Probably not, unless of course if you are not one of those skimpily-dressed PETA activists. But recently, I cried watching the antics of a housefly. Yes, the previous statement is real, but the context belongs to a piece of fiction. I am talking about Eega (dubbed in Hindi as "Makkhi"), a movie belonging to the South Indian movie industry, Telugu cinema to be precise.

Though not very much a fan of Tollywood (as South Indian movie industry is casually referred to), I got interested in Eega after reading constant reports and reviews, most of them positive. There has been a huge buzz for Makkhi (Pun intended) and curiosity got the better of me. A week back I saw S.S Rajamouli, Eega's writer and director, nominated for the Indian of the Year 2012 award, for his contribution in the field of entertainment through this movie. That propelled my interest in this science-fiction flick which has a housefly as the protagonist. Initially I thought it to be a dead-plot, stupid in fact. But post watching the movie, I feel how stupid was I. I should stop judging the book by it's cover.

The basic plot of the movie felt interesting when I first heard about it a year ago. But to imagine a full-length movie being made on this concept seemed to be either an act of incredible confidence or incredible foolishness. I discovered the former to be true after watching the Hindi dubbed version of the movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly and loved the performance of all the actors. The movie stars Telugu film industry actors, Nani, Samantha and Sudeep in the lead roles. I haven't seem them earlier but they all suited their roles perfectly. Nani's character has a limited screen time, but he brings in chirpiness to the movie playing Samantha's love-interest. Sudeep is a multi-millionaire and plays the negative character in the flick.
Eega is an emotional love story replete with Computer Generated Imagery. It is a usual revenge drama with an unusual angle. An insect taking revenge from a human.

The high level of VFX shots involved in the production is the reason attributed to the delays this movie faced in reaching the theaters. Rajamouli is a director well-known for his masala movies. With the current South Indian fascination of the Hindi film industry, many of his films are being remade in Hindi and all of them are getting great response. Rowdy Rathore and Son of Sardaar are some examples. Rajamouli knows his audience and has packaged the contents with all the features typical to the genre and region. But still, the story gets to you like a wonderfully illustrated comic-book. The version of the movie that I saw had some dubbing-gaps, where the Hindi dialogues were missing and the original Telugu audio came to the fore, yet I never lost interest. I was continually involved with every frame to the end-credits, irrespective of the language barrier.

I don't know how much I must have been missing with all the preconceived notions or due to my knowledge insufficiency regarding other languages.

With Eega, Rajamouli has captured the imagination of millions across the globe, when all the time he was focusing on his home industry. That's one of the signs of a great work.

Do watch Eega/Makkhi - your hate for the irritating little monsters may well buzz off.