All's well with this one :)

There are movies, and there are more movies. And then there is ‘3 idiots’. Not many reviews would begin with this but to put it on the record: Muraleedharan C.K.'s cinematography is awesome. Though that won’t be the only thing you’ll want to watch this masterpiece.

Whenever in life someone tells you to be ‘realistic’, they often want you to comprise on your ideals, or about what you really feel for , vouch for....deep inside a thing which makes every other piece of ‘work’ as fun, that something, a little spark instigating passion..they more than often want you to chuck it away. Coz it’s impractical, idealistic. This movie is one of the biggest and the finest and superlatively fantabulous slap on the face of such a commonplace societal conformity. Period. And doesn’t the that very society limp away after the slap’s based but offers a helping hand to regain posture and really follow what it wishes to do and wants to be and that too in a stitched to T level perfect Bollywood flick style.

Self seriousness and over the top preaching in today’s presence of curt and no nonsense satirical comedies from the west would have made a lot crunch their noses up. That point is well realised by the makers of this movie. Awesomely written screenplay by Raju Hirani and  Abhijat Joshi alongwith screenplay associate Vidhu Vinod Chopra so easily wards off any occcurance of a situation where the public goes “be yaar....” No, that friggin never happens. The scenes are dealt with such finesse that even internet/email humour jokes, which probably were thrown at you for like a 657 times by spammers would retain it’s freshness on screen, and you’ll wait for the punch line to still come and laugh harder than what you did the first time you read the same joke in FWD email.

Aamir makes you totally forget that he was, right time of the year last time, a burly buffalo with a stupid movie doing awesomely well at bix office. Hell he even makes you forget that he is 44 and a hyper duper Bollywood star. He makes you see him in a totally new light as an incorrigible free thinker who is governed by passion not by obedience, who is looking for excellence and not success. Coz, as goes the most catching dialogue of the movie “Kabiliyat ka peecha karo, kamyabi toh jhuck marke tumhare peeche aayegi”

R. Madhavan narrates to you the whole story and you never even for once feel that you have had a rough ride. This film’s narrational aspect has truly set a lofty benchmark. His performance too is one of his best, as all of his already were. Sharman joshi has by far the toughest character to potray and he does more than a fine job of it. Kareena kapoor is the symbolic representation to say the best. If guys in Indian middle class become Engineer then girls have Medical to opt for. And she is that medical student. Her role has freshness and bubliness to itself which you thought was passé after her “Kambhakat ishq” escapade. Boman Irani, so very expectedly, delivered yet another ‘blame-it-all-on-him’, perennially hated Director of the institute. The characterisation is one of the most comic one yet not frivolous. All in all, a tribute to Casting finesse and Characterisation and no other movie in the past can be compared to this for it.

The backbone of the story all along has been the way in which it has been told plus ‘what all’ has been told. This film takes about a)Education system b)Youth aspirations c)Family expectation d)Stress propelled suicides e) Passion f)One of the best philosophies ever g)Something i have definitely missed and how does it manage to do all this? By telling it in a way never seen before all the while preserving the ‘Bollywood way’ of doing it with immense cliché busters.  Raju Hirani brings in a pot and concocts flash-backs, dream sequences, tales of woes, scenic journeys, superbly conducted situational songs and stirs the pot with a chiselled spoon so well that you transpire anything and everything that must be going around.

You realise the importance of screenplay and story board presentation and you actually see as to why was 2 years taken to draft this screenplay when it was already based on an equally game changing novel by Chetan Bhagat. Each and every word belongs to second when it is delivered adding the charm are the songs. With their perfect placements and apt lyrics they are sure to become something which would linger in your head the moment you leave the hall – ‘Aal Izz Well’ is a sure shot campus anthem, ‘Zoobie doobi’ makes you want to fall in love that very moment, ‘Give me some sunshine’ will be a song which all the engineers up at college would like to chant around as a perfect story depiction of their lives. ‘Behti hawa Sa tha’ will set your mood from the first scene in a way which you never expected this film to begin with.

The direction has by far crossed any bar previously set. The act of a perfectly feel good song leading to tragic end or that of the scene when Shraman Joshi decides to call it quits, or the scene when you enter interval makes you pop out of your 150 bucks rented cine-seat like a gecko. One of the best story told in one of best way possible. Raju Hirani has done it again.

And why is it something more than a movie? Because it talks to you, to your parents, to you neighbour uncle to everyone and anyone you would have come across ever. The ‘Rat Race’ which you have so well become a part of. Where ‘liking what you do’ always presides over ‘doing what you like’. Where in a wish to be envious to someone who won’t even gossip about you for more than two mins, intitated the building up of these many ‘engineers by planned accident’ who anyway would end up squandering away all the resources expended at them all the while cribbing and cursing the system and their inability to handle such cruelty. It shows all sides, the one of a zeal driven ‘engineer by choice’, the one of ‘parent pushed’ engineer, the one of a ‘future fearing’ kid on the block from whom you expect a lot, the one of their all’s family and their insecurities – some justified, other’s just a show-off one timers, the one of a vehement, belligerent director who after these many years of experience has come to realise without doubt that ‘yes, life is a race, accept it or suck it up bitch’ , the one of a perfect ‘product-of-the-game’ rattu – chatru (omi) (he is someone you always wished the other to be so that you could call yourself ‘cool’). It talks about all of them, it brings in all the POVs possible and does it with an innocent panache of it’s own.

What it does best, is that it becomes the first Indian movie ever to talk about – Self Actualization’ and without being a grandma. It speaks fluidly about the ‘Aal Izz Well’ philosophy which re0inforces your conviction that you have lost it. Because all this is a freaking beautiful illusion! It just doesn’t friggin matter. Our worries, qualms, doubts, uncertainty they all have life span only as long we let them endure in our heads and hearts. So it, very cutely tells you, that you number one job is to keep yourself away from ‘frustration’ and away from any sort of ‘fear’..because my dear..’Aal Izz ver very very well’

Do yourself the biggest favour of all time and watch this one for sure. It’s inspiring, it’s emotional, it’s enlightening and above all it’s entertaining. It’s something that if it is not yet a habit with you, you will want to sit through the end credit roll. And slap me hard if the audience around you doesn’t break into a unanimous applause the moment the movie ends.  

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Reblogged - CAT stuff

CATcalls for scrapping test 

Aspirants Say They Have Lost Faith In Once Prestigious Test

Nikhila Henry | TNN 

Hyderabad: With a million errors seeping into CAT-2009 , students and Common Admission Test (CAT) experts have put their foot down and have asked IIMs to call it quits with the online test experiment.
While IIM heads have decided to hold a review meeting next week, B-school aspirants from the city said that they have lost faith in the sanctity of the once prestigious test.
According to test takers, CAT in its first online format had opened up a Pandoras box of woes. Ranging from bugs in computers and lack of trained invigilators to guide students, to questions on privacy and security of personal details including fingerprints given to Prometric before CAT 2009, the online test has seen it all. Now its time to shut the server down for the year, and go back to the pen and paper model, students said.
Sharing some of the CAT horrors , the students and experts said that there was nothing called strict time limit this year, though the stipulated time frame for the test is 2 hours 15 minutes. The students invariably got less or more time, observers said. The systems on which we were to attempt the test were not formatted , to clear it of bugs and viruses. The system kept rebooting and many of us lost plenty of time, said a test taker from the city.
Meanwhile, experts claimed that some students also got extra time due to the bug problem. Bugs in the software had given some students extra time for the test. In an exam where every minute makes a difference in the scores and percentiles, many students got a huge unfair advantage over others, said P Viswanath, director, TIME in an open letter to IIM heads. He explained that many students reported the problem and asked IIMs to cancel the test which was not conducted in a fair way.
A student said that he was allowed to attempt only one question as the system he was using was virus infected. As I moved from one question to another, the answer of the previous question would get cleared automatically. I kept ticking the same answer over and over again wasting much time, said a bewildered student who wrote his test from a centre in the city.
According to students, some invigilators too were a source of trouble. I accidentally hit the review button and wanted to exit the page. The invigilator interfered and pressed the end button which ended the test three minutes after I started it, a student said. She managed to submit only one answer.
The systems should have been formatted before the exam. Why should students be put through this erroneous test The IIMs should cancel the online test and get back to the pen and paper model for this year at least. In 2010, they can introduce a flawless online model. Peoples careers are at stake here said A Vamsidhar, director, IMS coaching centre said. Trained professionals should have been recruited , he said.
Apart from the four cancellations at three test centres in the city and numerous delays, students said that they had received wrong directions from Prometric, the private partner in CAT-2009 .
There were SMSes and emails sent stating that my examination was cancelled even after I took the test on November 29, a student who wrote test at JNTU, Hyderabad centre said.
Some CAT observers said that the problems had sprouted even before the commencement of the test.
Private companies had sent marketing emails to many CAT takers after taking information about them from the CAT database . This itself is a violation of privacy terms and conditions. What if students fingerprints submitted with Prometric is misused , said a senior CAT expert from the city, adding that the system has lost its sanctity.
While those concerned across the country are crying foul over CAT, through open letters, blogs and social networking sites, the IIMs are, however, silent. The test takers are hoping for the pen and paper test to be back, replacing the glitch-ridden online test. 

RTI activist moves CIC on CAT deal 


An RTI activist and CAT observer D Rakesh Reddy from the city has moved the Central Information Commission, New Delhi, asking the IIMs to disclose tender details of their deal with Prometric, the company in charge of the online test, CAT 2009. Reddy filed a petition with the commission on December 2 and is awaiting reply. He had approached the Public Information Office, IIMAhmedabad in September, seeking details on the tender process and his appeal was rejected. If all is fair, why the IIMs rejected the plea There is something fishy about the deal and according to the RTI Act, the plea should not have been rejected. So I went further with my petition, Reddy said. His plea was rejected by the IIM-A on the pretext that Prometric had threatened legal action if business information details were made public. Meanwhile, students turned up in large numbers at MVSR Engineering College, Nadirgul and JNTU, Kukatpally test centres where examinations were cancelled in some labs on Friday to inquire about further cancellations. Alarmingly, some of the students whose test dates were intimated as cancelled were allowed to write the test. In JNTU, Hyderabad centre, a student who was sent email notification about the cancellation and reschedule of her test was allowed to take the CAT. Things are pretty much muddled, Jaideep Singh Chowdry, coordinator, TIME said. It was also reported that some of the students whose test were scheduled were asked to attend the test from centres other than Hyderabad. TNN