The story of a warrior caught in a time warp – Veer!

A period romance with no history to follow or flout, Veer works in parts at a surprisingly emotional level. The Pindaris, let by Dadda Mithun Chakraborty, are betrayed by the Raja of Madhavgarh (played by Jackie Shroff), who is hand in glove with the British and traps and kills many of them! Eternal enmity is sworn as Mithun manages to hack off the Raja’s hand. Cut to two sons being born to Mithun and growing up to be Salman and Sohail. Why oh why does Sohail have to be the spoiler in every Salman film? He is even less funny than Uday Chopra and should be selling cars, or even worse, car insurance. The boys are rowdies and in a Pindari raid on a train Veer, Salman, meets the princess of Madhavgarh, Zarine Khan, and their eyes meet. Need we say more? A romance is about to brew.

Is My Name is Khan timely or out of sync with the times?

A specter is haunting the world, the specter of radical Islam! Yes there is centuries of history behind this, and we can do all the ‘they did, we did’ that we want, but don’t you think at some point someone has to stop and say “This is here and now!! I do not care about the Crusades or the Shaka, Hun, Kushan and Moghul invaders. Why? Because we are supposed to learn from history, and not treat it like a vendetta record book.”

A missed chance at superstardom – Chance pe Dance!

Shahid Kapur was on a roll after Kaminey and it seemed like nothing could go wrong, his time to grab at superstardom had finally come. Then came Dil Bole Hadippa – and while Rani was more than satisfactory in a tailor-made role, Shahid was merely there as a bored kind of presence. He should have seen what makes superstars by watching the glorified extra role that Subhash Ghai gave to SRK in Pardes and what SRK made of the role! After Hadippa, Shahid had one other chance in Chance Pe Dance. Ken Ghosh had the right ingredients in the film – a film centered around the rise of a dancing superstar with none other than Mr. Dance himself to play the role, a cute and peppy co-star in Genelia D’Souza, just enough romance, emotions and drama to make the proceedings interesting. It should all have worked really well.

The music of My Name is Khan – the eyes have it!!

After a gap of 3 years Karan Johar is in the director’s chair again and directing his favorite jodi of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. The claim is that this is not his usual drama, set in the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Though they do exist, as we were told by Ram Gopal Varama when he went to the AbhiAish wedding – he came back saying he now understood Karan’s cinema!! But Karan moves out of his comfort zone, where he had last played out his version of ‘The Dangerous Liaisons’ set in New York City, and now he promises a film that deals with a “challenged” man, Shahrukh with autism of the Asperger’s variety, and his quest to win back the love of his live and in the process show a nation that religion does not determine who the fanatic is. The film is said to have no large song and dance spectacle, and in fact no lip-sync singing at all. A Karan film without the Shava Shava, Mahi Ve, Where’s the Party Tointe numbers would make one wonder what kind of music is in store for us.

Dulha Mil Gaya – fluff stuff that was not half bad!

The film promised exactly nothing, for what can a film with Fardeen Khan in a lead role promise? Yes there was Sushmita, but what has she done since Main Hoon Naa that worked? She has the rare distinction of being an intelligent, talented and exceptional looking woman whose career has gone nowhere. The director, Mudassar Aziz, a debutant, seems like a kid out of high school and Vivek Vasvani, the producer, had earned some negative press for roping in Shahrukh Khan to do a cameo that got more and more extended and hyped by Vasvani (SRK’s best role ever – really?). Then there was an unknown girl, Ishitta Sharma, playing the naive Samarpreet (though I could have sworn I saw a glimpse of her in Dil Dosti etc). But I decided the brave the film nevertheless.

Yeh Duniya Agar vs. Duniya – from Sahir Ludhianvi to Piyush Mishra!

The story goes that Director Anurag Kashyap was depressed over not being able to release his film Paanch and was watching Pyaasa! Let me add that there is no better state than a depressed one for watching Pyaasa, just as there is no better state to get drunk in as one of disappointment in love! Out of this state emerged a film called Gulaal. I am a huge fan of Gulaal, but I particularly the music in the film. For me the music makes the film, and the lyrics make the music of Gulaal! In the film there is a track called Duniya – which of course owes inspiration directly to Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye to Kya Hai. One is written by the noted Shayar Sahir Ludhiyanvi and composed by the maestro SD Burman, the derivation is written by fledgling (Comparatively speaking) poets Swaanand Kirkire and Piyush Mishra, and composed and sung by Piyush Mishra – his first stint at composing/singing. So are the two songs directly comparable and is the derivation at all distinguishable from the original? I decided to revisit both and listen to them more carefully:

My Name is Khan – theatrical trailer, Sajda song!

The dust has settled on the MNIK theatrical trailer that was unveiled a couple of weeks ago and another promo “Sajda” has come out recently. So here I am to share my thoughts on both!

First up is the theatrical trailer:

It is 3 minutes long and seems to reveal most of the story. Here is what people have pieced together. An autistic boy, the young Khan played by Tanay Chaddha, (Asperger’s is part of the autism spectrum of disorders) is told by his mother that people are either good or bad based on the deeds they do. Cut to the grown up Khan telling us that he is different, but he is VERY SMART! The way he taps his forehead as he says it makes that scene for me.

Dining like Moghul emperors – Karim’s!

The family served as cooks to the Moghul Emperors. The last in the line was the chef for Bahadur Shah Zafar. Then royalty was never the same again – and the family decided in 1915 to open Karim’s.

Karim's

The main establishment is spread over many buildings in an alley opposite Jama Masjid, and there is a brach in Nizamuddin. And yes there is a “uniformed” guard at the entrance to the alley! There are degchis of cooking Korma and grilling seekh kababs with an aroma that will tempt a converted vegetarian back to being a carnivore!