Agneepath: A ‘my-world’ perspective review.

The year – 1977. 

The place – Mandwa. 

The premise – Red hot, unadulterated vengeance. 

With these factoids tucked at the turf, the story opens an array of opportunities impregnating the 3 hour-ed future with possibilities of knives slashing the skin when they aren’t stabbing them, blood faucets spewing it out in fountains uncountable and betrayals abound, featuring a certain creed of quality which has the capacity of invoking the dragon of disgust lurking within the outward covers of each soul. 

They say you shouldn’t redo a role that Amitabh Bachchan has done before. And if the role is the character of Vijay Deenanath Chauhan in Agneepath, then the only thing you should be redoing is mulling over your decision to replay it. But cockblocking all such ideas, Director Karan Malhotra -  taking a tip off an idea shared on the sets on My Name is Khan (where he filled in the shoes of Asst. Director) shared by Dharma Production’s Karan Johar - went on anyway to reconstruct the old and present in a , well, ‘reconstructed’ new. The idea could have found its genesis in the a try to redeem the lost box-office success which was meted out to the 1990 version which Johar Senior’s project. The reasons as to why that had happened ranges from theories stating that it was the improperly conducted audiography to the rather straight-forward one: No one was ready to receive an anti-hero film then. All said and done about whatever the reason might be, we all have at hand a movie which typifies a mainstream Bollywood paisa vasool flick as it brings along a technical finesse which is for sure entering the realm of Indian film industry and is making everyone gape at the perfection with which each shot getting captured. Hello, new world! 

The story opens with establishing the poetry-induced strength of Master Deenanath Chauhan (Chetan Pandit). His oceanic wisdom takes him from interpreting the Bhagwad Gita the way Mahatma Gandhi did it to devoting himself in the task of uplifting a stashed away island by relentless efforts. 

Enter at this frame: Kancha China. If this character is what Sanjay Dutt meant by when he said ‘Nayak nahi Khalnayak hoon mein’ some 20 years ago, then hear! Hear! Absolutely revolting, mind numbingly disgusting, horrendously nauseating. This huge, muscular blob of flesh with a bald top, moves around hanging people on a certain exquisitely placed, coast-hugging tree at his whim. Bullied in his childhood for his repulsive features, he hates mirrors and pretty much the entire spectrum of human emotions along with it. He is dedicated to his idea of ‘karma’. And is a wantless, needless man who is but an agent of the defined evil and his designs. He, at one hand, has the capacity of throwing people down rocky stairways as he sniffs and trades cocaine and, on the other hand, the conviction to justify his perpetrated ill under the veil of his realisations on the matter of immortality of the Soul. The sheer genius of such apt casting with such apt character curve makes you make a big note in your mental notebook. 

And thence, lies are flurried, plots are contrived and Master ji gets hung up in full view of his then 12 year old kid – Vijay. Who then transports himself along with his family to Mumbai where his mother (Zarina Wahab) brings in the world his sibling sister, Sikhsha (Kanika Tiwari – selected against the other 7000 odd girls who auditioned for this role.). And then a ‘Fifteen Years Later’ frame appears to give us the anti-hero protagonist, Hrithik Roshan. 

Roshan’s a character with hidden pain which occasionally comes up in his determined eye. He brings to fore something which is very different from what Amitabh Bachchan is said to have brought. His wider that wide, beefed up shoulders bear the weight of rage, pain and revenge. His sensitive side is explored by the presence of Kali (Priyanka Chopra) in the movie. She is there solely to brighten up the brief windows of general merriment this film offers. In the process of working his way up the drug-mafia ladder to ascertain his invincibility by the virtue of his gained stature, Vijay uses and de-uses many a pawns along the journey. One such heavy-weight pawn which stands aside is Rishi Kapoor as Rauf Lala. 

Think of Santa Claus doing a Voldemort and then add an surma-esque eye-liner to his makeup kit; the kind of cultural shock this setup image would send is not even a flickering flame in front of the surprise that is Rauf Lala. Too explicit, too cruel, too vindictive. Lala deals drug powder, is a butcher by profession, indulges in human-trafficking, and generally speaks of women in tone and content from atop a display-pod to a bunch of lustfully leering blokes that would make your insides crumble and go foetal. 

Om Puri as Comissioner Gaitonde does what he does best: Act awesome. 

With such an ensemble ready to be exploited, the story ticks fluidly with myriad drums blasting every second of the entire duration. Each scene is a declaration with an overdose of melodrama. Some scenes are, though, right fully understated and that makes you grip onto to it even more. As the curve progresses, we see huge number of people getting send to the astral plane and brutally so. And just when you can take no more of the intense bomblastic images coupled with sound that is about to throb your brain out, you are treated to larger-than-life showdown between two almost-ends of the Evil-Good spectrum. Stabbed and battered Roshan derives required strength from the poem recited by his father to him and offers divine justice to the entire premise. And then, lets his soul evaporate in the lap of his mother as he views his father and a little him walk away offering smiles of conformation with his act. The climax that this is, is a hands-down marvellous treat to watch. 

The background score by Ajay-Atul duo almost tells you to think in the direction in which they want you to think. The Soundtrack of the movie won’t offer any chart busters, save for Chikni Chameli chiefly due to innumerable innuendos, but are nevertheless so in sync with the narrative that they actually feel like a part of the fabric.   

The Art direction by Sabu Cryil deserves all the mentions it can get and more. The colors, the settings, the ambiance, the robust imagery, captured handsomely by Kiran Deohans and Ravi K. Chandran’s lens makes the view twice as real and convincing. Editing by Akiv Ali is seamless and fitting as although it seems a bit long, you can’t point a finger to section which could have been left out. 

The movie brings back many things from the yore: The despicable baddie, the unrelenting avenger, the Maa-ka-tough-love and the rest. It also infuses in the ‘new’ by portraying a group of eunuchs as warriors, always ready to help Vijay in time of danger and there by vindicating this section of the society from the caricature-esque bull we have seen in most of our past movies. 

There are many reasons why people will walk out of the theatre midway after putting an ear-muffin on. But there more reasons as to why this movie will tick, as it has. And one as an audience is free to make either choice. For me, the movie has proven to be a fitting tribute to the brand that it tried to reconstruct. It has given us a new villain to hate as it has made hate a Khalnayak even more. It has also topped up Hrithik Roshan’s credit-balance in the industry. Here one will again unfailingly say “He has surpassed himself yet again” yet again. Harivansharai Bachchan’s lines have, surely, in a way, given us a more-than-gripping cinema. 

Enlightenment - Editorial - Jan 2012

You can feel fire in the night lying here

Baby it’s like we’re walking on a

wire through the fear

Take my hand, we’ll get there

The fear inside, the hills we’ve climbed

The tears this side of

heaven, all these dreams inside of me

I swear we’re gonna get there

Sooner or later, I swear we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make it,

Sooner or later, I swear we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make it.

So goes Mat Kearney’s words which set the tune for Google’s ‘Google Zeitgeist’ – a now annual affair video  where they turn back and throw a retrospective glance  at the year bygone – and aptly so, it hits the bell bang.

As we experienced the just-gone set of 3,15,36,000 seconds comprising 2011 – either as an agent of something done, or a casual witness – one can’t but gape in awe the events that have come to pass. And with speed and quickness hardly ever before witnessed. Whether it be nations rising from under an oppressive regime, or the seemingly well-to-do-and-merry questioning the Status Quo. To either a people marching ahead asking for bare minimum of honesty to percolate in the processes of driving a country or be it the nations and its people facing, fighting, sinking, rising to natural challenges abound – from where the stories of courage, dignity, incessant pursue-al, emerge and touch the vessels of our heart with warmth unknown as it plants an Orange sized lump in our throat.

One thing’s for sure: The cycle of evolution of our shared human experience on this blue-green dot surely went speeding up in the year we just sent-off.

So long, 2011. Take care.

Where one can write of miles long lines of words expounding the past and place dotted expectation-lists for the future. We at Enlightenment prefer to differ. We, hereon, shall use this space to make certain wishes. Wishes- for you, for us, for the entire spectrum animate and in-animate things – all of whom/which are on an inexplicable journey to get someplace somewhere.

Here goes:

May we adopt the phrase ‘Thank you’ as our most cherished Prayer.

May we realize the fallibility of our ‘Verbosity off Fleeting Bursts of Emotions’, aka. – ‘Opinions’ and learn to not place so much onto them.

May we learn to look inside of us to begin the search of an Honest government, an Honest person, an Honest nation. And make this inner-search the greatest one ever adventured.

May we be blessed with the timeless self-realization – ‘As many Faiths, that many Paths’ – and make our insides rise above the squabble off exterior variance to unveil the Divine Oneness of the interior.

May we learn to wake up everyday with a smile adorned our lips, an harmony vibrating our ears, a sweetness caressing our tongue, a fragrance embracing our nose and a cloudy touch cuddling our skin. And take the energy derived from this experience to wherever we go during the day.

May we learn to appreciate our co-travelers on this journey to such an extent that we rise beyond Envy, Spite, and Belligerence.

May we glean the know-how to quiet our Ego down. And, with it, quiet down the relentless mental chatter and familiarize ourselves with blissful quietude of desireless calmness.

May we enable ourselves to take better care of our health. And understand our bodily rhythm better still – For, our body is the greatest organic machine ever invented.

May we come in possession of the discretion which makes us ‘do’ things. For, the things are to be ‘done.’ Done, at that, delinked from the outcomes it is supposed to beget. And do more things with tireless rigor.

May we teach ourselves to:

Think less and Feel more.

Frown less and Smile more

Talk less and listen more

Judge less and Accept more

Watch less and Do more

Complain less and Appreciate more

And beyond all

Fear less and Love more.

These next set of 3,16,22,400 seconds – mind you, it’s a leap year- are for us to grow, for us to flourish, for us cultivate – a sense of belonging with ourselves unknown yet, a perception of interconnectedness unfelt yet, a view which pars all that’s conventional – for us to dive to the depth of our discovered and undiscovered dimensions and turn up with pearls of wisdom – many of which already embellish the pages of ancients texts – and put ourselves on the trajectory to Accession. Set this momentary anxiety aside, for, as the opening phrase suggests – ‘Sooner or later, I swear we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make it.’

From all of us here, this New Year, wish you the best of you.

Welcome, 2012.

‘Rockstar’ : A ‘My World Perspective' Review

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, a 13th century mystic poet, once wrote:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, 

there is a field.  I'll meet you there. 

  

When the soul lies down in that grass, 

the world is too full to talk about. 

Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ 

doesn't make any sense.”

And the first part of this verse is what binds the Movie discussed here – Rockstar – through itself and aptly so, at that. ‘How?’ You ask? Let’s see.

Clearly there’s huge leaf taken from ‘Heer Ranjha’ , the popular tragic love-story told from Punjab via various Poetic renderings. Not entirely, but still in part. Janardhan Jhakar (JJ, and later - 'Jordan'), a Jat boy, stands bewildered out of reverence for the poster of James Douglas "Jim" Morrison, pasted across his unplastered wall. Agog, as to how does one get it? That sound which he is told he lacks, that vibe which he is made to learn he can’t propagate, that depth which he is relentlessly made to believe to accept he just can’t touch. He wonders, and wonders a little more. Which is when a blindingly convincing character actor’s (Kumud Mishra) advice touches his ear-drums and the stone is striked across forever : He has had a pretty breezy existence. He is neither adopted, and never was molested. He suffers from no life-altering ailment. Bottom-line: He lacks tragedy in his life. And, misguidedly enough, he chalks up the courage to manufacture his own Heartbreak by asking the College heartthrob – a devastatingly cute, undisputed stunner and defaulted-ly unavailable Heer Kaul – out. Hoping that her rejection would catapult him to the place where sound leaves your senses as though they will make even the strings cry by rendering them a certain creed of pain which posses the required capacity. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. Though what does happen, is another discovery altogether.

Heer is a presumed ‘Neat-and-Clean’, high-society damsel, who’s born with a silver spoon in her mouth and is about to marry a guy who too was, well, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Her life story, as she sees it, is already penned down with a water-tight screenplay in place alongwith a story-board predicting a bore of a post-marriage existence. And, to add the required spice, she wishes to precede this stated duration with 2 months of unbridled, all-gates-open indulgence of senses with her new found non-judgemental friend (Janardhan) – a kind of indiscriminated immoderation which includes gulping down country liquor, watching a B-Grade flick in seedy down-town talkies and asking ‘Sab theek hai na, bhai saab?’ to unsuspecting gents care-freely wetting away a common wall with Uric liquid by-product of human body.

And as it were to be, while scaling the foggy streets of the national capital to the scenic snow covered expanse of Kashmir - which is more-than-brilliantly captured by Anil Mehta's lens, they 'unexpectedly' and 'unintentionally' fall in love with each other. Only to later have Heer married in a most unconventionally covered wedding sequence on Indian Silver screen in like all times. And that’s where our Mr. Protagonist wraps himself up by the Namesake garb – Rockstar. Where he will watch himself transform from a school-boyish naiveté to an emotionally unstable, though a mature, tortured soul.

The movie after this point of time has to be rather experienced more than just being passively witnessed.

The movie, as it must be pointed out, has its share of shortcomings too. The script jumps way too much to-and-fro in time dimension for one. Secondly, the revelations of crucial, poignant movements - which are yet to arrive – in many a sporadically placed musical montages as Flashback and Flashforwards almost kills the effect one would have had had they been allowed to arrive only when they were chronologically slated to. The Original Soundtrack, composed by A.R. Rahman and enmeshed into Irshaad Kamil's soul-stirring words, when just listened to from point A to B, develops its own narrative and a story-flow which gets slightly marred by this story-point-hopping. Questions also would be raised upon the decision which directed the inclusion of Nargis Fakhri in the main cast. She fails to justify the casting judgment. One, at times, fails to digest that such a plastic character actually warrants such level of passion from a person highly, deeply, madly in love with her – A contrasting and amazing character portrayal by Ranbir Kapoor. Although, at times one, also, falls short of fathoming as to what exactly is Jordan so angry about? Is it the filial abandonment or the not so healthy bohemian food? Is it the dejections and rejections or the dichotomy associated with 'Fame'? One never gets it entirely.

Moreover, a major creative risk has been taken by making a mainstream cinema which deliberately leaves so many loose ends to be tied by individual viewer’s personal discretion. The place where one would lie upon the ‘Hate-It' to 'Love-It’ spectrum would be decided by where that person currently is in his/her personal life and what is his/her current take upon his/her surroundings which are either shaping them or are getting shaped by them. And that’s one more reason as to why this movie would leave the audience-set highly polarised. As mentioned, there is a mighty chance of having, at hands, two islands of extreme opinions getting pitted against each other.

But, for me, what pars all these musings is the kind of intensity and passion which Imtiaz Ali manages to attach to the undertone of this part Musical outing which is unprecedented in form and content. The volatility of Human emotion is laid bare and made available to be gaped at by a very honest attempt, hereto largely unseen. Some scenes would leave the prudes highly scandalized. And that’s trademark mitiaz Ali for you. The intricacies involved in the path traversed from ‘Want’ to ‘Need’ are set under a high-strength spotlight too. These minutiae make a certain point be reached - the point in time when ‘Love’ manages to leap over ‘Logic and lands on 'Instinct.' The point, where imagination triumphs over intelligence. The point, where the societal standards of wrong-doing and right-doing come crashing down. A point, where Angst, Rage, Jealousy, Guilt and Passion all come together to produce a humanely polished outcome.

Which is exactly why - to answer the question raised in the opening para - Rumi’s lines are so very essential to the narrative.

Overall, an amazing attempt at telling a story in a very different and unconventional way. And kudos to the fitting sound track and vocals by Mohit Chauhan which seamlessly becomes the protagonist's in the movie.  Watch this one for Imtiaz Ali - a raconteur who has yet again managed to touch the untouched-yet. Watch it for Ranbir Kapoor - a 29 year old actor portraying the embodiment of a character who goes from being an awkward nobody to a stoic-when-in-public, massively loved and hysteria-inducing 'Rockstar' and with what panache! An 'actor', truly, is born. Watch it, above all, for understanding the depth of the phrase ‘Human Attachment.’

It's a differently made dish. If you are done having it, savor the after-taste. If you haven't yet, try it.

Editorial - November. Enlightenment.

Time to open-up those trunks, dust-off those covering sheets, take out those naphthalene-ball infested woolens and cease procrastinating at the thought of soaking them in Genteel solution to set them clean and breathing again. Because, the 11th month on the Gregorian calendar is here to set you shivering and how! As we go along welcoming a spine-chilling north Indian winter, let us also keep in mind  to welcome you all back in the campus after a sweetly decided upon hiatus. Yes, Enlightenment’s happy to have you all back here!

The quotidian-ial course on all floors seems to be someone becoming the scapegoat of a point-and-laugh session for the excess holiday weight that one has put on and returned with. Or it is an event bordering onto near fatal assaults on some unsuspecting people who have with them, as per what the air holds, boatload of homemade delicacies under their possession. Also, as some people share their F1 Grand Stand experience with all, some others, who were made to shoo away from the parking lot of Metallica concert area, fume with sour envy. Many others who visited their hometown have returned with sweet tales of filial merriment and airy joy in their backpack. And that’s exactly what festival does to all – either it blankets everyone in its snuggly embrace of jollity or it makes one take stock of our diverse culture and its capacity to seek bliss in most places and in most number of ways.

And, as it so is with every other month in our campus, there’s no reason for this festivity to hit a halt. If at all anything, it is going to be accelerated up further. As the outsides would, in just some days, be filled with elation of Eid-Ul-Adha and Guru Nanak Jyanti, the insides would have something equally  universal to offer. Ignited Minds from the House CREST are planning on surprising us all with their offing this month and so are the Dream-Weavers. LnT Dhanush is ready with its Organogram and the people on that Organogram are ready with effervescent ideas to make you dance, play, sing, speak or mime. Or do all of them as per what the case shall be! Watch out their space and information channels for more dope on this matter in coming days. With Annual Sports Day being just a stone throw time away, people are advised to  take out their pair of trainers and hit the sector garden early in the morning for adequate amount of warm-up. Enlightenment wishes to append to this list by announcing -  

As we go along making way through testing political scenarios, uncertain global economical future, trying daily existence dotted with ever increasing real estate and petrol prices and all the other self-made, overthunk woes and worries resulting out of bottomless coffer-esque wants and desires so very typical of humanity, let’s set a moment aside for the humble men and women who lift up your white tea cup from your cubicle-desk after you are done consuming it, who set clean the office floor before you enter-in in the morning and who clean-up your personal dustbin after you have exited the building, who bring your evening snack-pack from food-court to main building every single evening  dot on time every single time. Who water your birthday-gift plant-pots and maintain the general well-being and greenery of the campus. And greet all these unassuming co-travelers with a word of kindness or a smile of gratitude. And , also, let’s remind ourselves that we all are, at the end of the day, mere talking apes on a blue and green, organic spaceship going around a ball of helium at around 29.3 Km/Sec and ask ourselves to  imbibe in a sense of perceiving the Oneness of the ‘whole’ and not merely whack away passing seconds in squabbling over the ‘parts.’

Hoping you find your much cherished newsletter a bit grown-up but as exciting as it always was. Here’s taking your leave for the time-being. 

Smile and breathe well. Thanks to you, all’s fine with the Universe. 

Take care.

Editorial - October. Enlightenment.

Is it just us or did September really flew away like it was never here? Crazy thing, huh, ‘Time’, isn’t it? Well, time to help it push the accelerator up hard again and enter into the month of – October.

The curious month will witness the onset of a leaf-falling, rejuvenating and revitalizing Autumn for us people and a breezy, maritime-ical, comfortably cool Spring for the South Hemispherians. And the zing of this new-ness is just too omnipresent for us, people in the campus, to miss it. Hoards of GETs, bubbling with fresh ideas and conviction ridden idealism have flocked into our campus recently. Enlightenment wishes to extend to them a most warm welcome. The new temporary Canteen porta-cabin coming up is a sign of the New for the land that we are on. Soon there’ll be structures around reaching for the azure, and that would dot an another ‘New’. New too is the initiatives, the endeavours, the activities taken up by many groups present on the campus – Whether it be CREST’s hugly popular ‘Quizofire’, or LnT Dhanush’s any of the many projects it undertakes – The Vollyeball tournament won by L&T-MHI and just recently, the Football Cup taken home by L&T-Valdel, or be it the members of Ladies club, ever on toes to enter a place and never leave out without spreading a hundred smiles. The sparkle of the said ‘New’ is both humbling and invigorating.  

The bygone month saw a massive earthquake jolt the regions on and around the Himalayan belt. We wish for the situation in Sikkim to quickly return to the quintessential normal as we send out a bout of positive energy for all the life-forms still stuck deep there. May we all set aside a moment of quietude to lend them some vital vigour as we go by.

Time ahead seems dotted with a lot of festivity vibe, sweet-tooth surrender and umpteen train/flight itinerary tickets printouts.  Starting with Durga Puja to Dushera to Diwali and many other manifestations of our  fragrant, diverse culture we have reasons abound to let our feet up and spend times of merriment among family and friends. And the ‘said’ merriment is already on-the-mark to get-set-go! Starting today we have children and family members from our extended family coming in to witness Magic Shows, take part in Painting and Fancy dress competition and make some beautiful Rangolis as they go about it. And ‘let-their-hair-down’ they would. What with an electric ‘Dandiya Nite’ planned right after this all by our friends from the Ladies Club. So, here’s looking forward to have the colours and hues imbibed in tonight to extrapolate their effect to an entire month.  

So here’s taking your leave as we serve you with this month’s edition of the newsletter. Wherein you’ll find all that you look out for, sitting right there for you to go through. Special mention’s warranted by September’s Idea-Of-The-Month contest. So as to know why, just guide yourself to the ‘Result’ page and check out the total number of votes registered. And it goes without saying that we, as always, solicit your participation in making your Enlightenment experience richer. Please contribute in big-heartedly with your words, pictures and ideas. Hoping the clarion call gets responded by a rampaging answer.

Till the next time, take care, be well, breathe easy.

Mausam gone bad.

Pankaj Kapur’s directorial debut – Mausam - starts off by being intriguingly fresh and sparky and snowballs into a cold, hard, rolling-downwards, tonking-bluntly-on-your-head kind of, well, Snow-ball. From being light and likable it metamorphoses into being completely irritating and implausible right in front of your eyes. And the premise which leads it to such a state is made up by the help many aspects – The protagonists, among them, being the main contributors.


Shahid Kapur portrays the role of a youthful, vibrant Punjabi munda, living his life on the edge in the fictional town of Mallukot – a character-sketch he wades through with cheek and vigour. His surroundings are just as common as any right out of umpteen Bollywood flicks based out of similar sounding locations, but still, thanks to veteran Pankaj Kapur’s eye, embodied in an unmarked, warm cutesiness of heart and flavor. And extra marks to Binod Pradhan for his camerawork where he fluidly blends in and makes the medium of transfer of images into being a part of that very imagery. The quintessential banter of the elderly gents and ladies of the small town is again similar in depth of the texture but still remarkably different and watchable. The songs set in this location too are gut-thumping when they wish to be so and soulful when they want to be so. The character curve of mostly all the actors on screen is aptly sketched. At this point in time, one is implicitly urged to presume that, barring a few unrelated Sonam Kapoor-esque scream-y outburst and/or giggles, the experience can only head northward thenceforth. Unfortunately, that is where the good news ends.


The underplaying carpet of the story is one which would sound a brilliant piece of writing in terms of vision that’s required to be summoned for such a script: A tale of love and lovelorn-ness, woven on the platform of milestones of erupting communal/regional/national/international chaos of Human existence, traversing a span of over a decade and places from Punjab-Scotland-America-Switzerland-Punjab-Ahmedabad (and I think one more Europian nation I just can’t seem to place), ultimately leading to a La Happily-Ever-After end.  But where it eats major mud is in the Editing department. 


It takes a quantum jump from Mallukot to Scotland. And the Bizzaro-ride begins. Cut to 7 years ahead – Our Mr. Protagonist is an IAF pilot, who tends to walk with a rod straight spine, and sports a tiny moustache, grits his teeth often, and tries to speak with Victorian grandeur of expression. But instead he turns out to be one of the most bothersome elements up on the screen. His take-no-prisoners no-nonsense exterior is a far cry from everything that is convincing whether in form or in substance. In gist - way too self-serious to be taken seriously. Our exquisitely named – Aayat (Sonam Kapur) lacks the maturity required to portray the demeanor expected of her in such a setting. One moment she is a Shop-owner selling Kashmiri shawls and the next a Ballet student/teacher (We are never told) and next movement an Opera-Show ticket seller! The story changes her job faster than what an entry level Software Engineer would in Pvt. Sector India. 


The love-story, which supposedly is the basis of the entailing shenanigan, is portrayed to have gone awry purely because of under-communication. In an age ridden with ever/over-present electronic communication channels, we are told to believe that the boy and the girl couldn’t convene just due to lack of forwarding addresses and an bitter-internally, unrequited-love struck dame. And when they, somehow inexplicably, do get hold of each other in some other nation 3000 miles from the other, they coyly retreat just when they shouldn’t. And when this act begins to get played again and again you just stop giving a damn about letter piling over in an unpopulated-now courtyard. And even if one does manage to overlook this massive oversight, one just can’t bring themselves to finding even an inkling of chemistry between the lead pair. 


The story curve too gets frustrated of itself and dumbs down the Gujarat Riot act to such ridiculous end that it tries to redeem and vindicate itself by using a lost, supposedly orphan girl child and a white Horse. And I am not even kidding. 


All in all, it is a film which had the heart-of-gold on paper but played out exactly as a limpy handicap with an artery blockage on the screen. It has its moment of poised poignancy and some really attention-grabbing breezy flashes. But as a whole it leaves a bland taste in your mouth and bad back-ache to carry back from the movie-hall after having spent upwards of three hours in-there. 

Editorial - September. Enlightenment.

So, here’s presenting your yet another monthly dosage of fun, frolic and funtooshgiri. 

August has always been the month which is characterized by a certain vibe of patriotism which it leans to invoke in many of us. This time’s was no different. Only, the cause tended to be different. And, thereby, the effect even more so.

Clouding the news-circuit was The Anna-tomy of Ramlila Maidan. Where footfalls reached dizzying heights and heartfelt support-ism touched even a farther horizon. Since the J.P. movement and Anti- Mandal movement, veterans say, they haven’t witnessed anything so spontaneous turn into such a big force with which you just can’t but reckon with. Jan Lokpal Bill movement, if not anything (which we know it has), has achieved in giving a People’s republic a booster short in the arm of Morality and Righteousness –if, that is, everyone begins walking their talk. Also, the country would never be the same again, as this movement has ended up educating the masses about the functioning of all the four pillars of democracy like never before. The race to reach to what now remains to be achieved is not going to be a sprint but, instead, a Marathon. A Marathon – and this requires suitable stamina. 

If the civil society, at large, was all up for making their voices heard, the GOVT wasn’t far behind in reaching out either. The Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan was adopted by the Planning Commission on Aug 20th. It was for the first time ever that when the making of the same was underway, they had opened online portals for the youth of the nation to come forth and get their pulse gauged. Around 950 civil society organizations have already placed in their inputs. A page on Facebook, managed by an organization called “India@75” is doing this very thing on that portal to get in touch with the classes and the masses to later send out these acquired bits feedback to around 150 working groups of experts who will, thereupon, lay down the Plan later. 

We at Enlightenment, urge you to go and get your suggestions, whatever they maybe regarding, turned in through - http://12thplan.gov.in/ . Remember, information must always precede opinions. And to arrive at a scene of tangible “change” – viz, freedom from apathy, corruption, and unaccountable government - one must act and not merely complain. It would be doubly inspiring to see us L&T-ites surging ahead with a vision of a less corrupt and a more just society than merely a High-On-Consumption with a double digit GDP-growth-percentage one. 

Phew, so that’s what an August does to you!

The month we see ahead of us, if not be as “Holiday-Friendly” as the one that just went by, is surely an equally Excitement-Promising one.  With the completion of Volleyball tournament, LnT Dhanush will take us into Football thenceforth! CREST, emboldened by a successful launch and two-season run of Quizofire will surely go onto to find new ways to keep you all triply engaged. 

It only deems fit, to congratulate the idea, the vision and the execution panache of LnT Dhanush’s Uplift India Movement – 2’s volunteers, who have successfully completed rendering 72 sessions of Basic Computer Knowledge to kids of SOS Children’s Village, Greenfield, Faridabad. Do expect more from this corner in coming times. 

Moreover, L&T’s 66th Annual General Meeting was held on Aug 26th. Wherein, listening to our Chairman speak on Performance Overview and path to future Developmental Projects was just as welcoming as was to listen to him speak about strides taken in the direction of Corporate Social Responsibility and on our establishment’s unrelenting ways to adopt a path to Sustainable Development. 

So, here’s bidding a temporary adieu only to sneak back up from your shoulder and shout a loud “Boo!” in your ears next month. Till then, breathe well, breathe deep. And forget not, to sustain that curve on your face. Always. 

Take care.