weekend update

Its always surprising how fast time flies when you aren’t employed. I haven’t yet gotten over the weekend and its Friday again!! Yay!! Not that I am complaining….i love it….especially when every day is the weekend for me….. a few days ago I had a comment from Advaita Kala….the lady who’s written the book Almost Single that I finished a few days ago….pretty good…the ending was abrupt and a let down…it had much more promise than what ended like an M&B……but I loved the quirkiness of the lead character….it gave me quite a few smiles and I think was a good effort for a non writer type person’s first book………

Wednesday was such a full day….it was a total roller coaster ride….woke up early to make a batch of chocolates for U to take back to Syracuse….that’s the day the maid decides to come in late and hey imagine her thrill when I ask her to just do the dishes and leave!! Went over to U’s, she was getting the last things done….spent some time with her, got into an argument which led to a fight, hot words, and lots of tears……of course we hugged and made up because there can be no other end can there?? I guess the heightened emotions brought it on……no sooner had we bid goodbye for another year that K and I decided to have lunch and catch a movie…..Chak De! India……to say that I was looking forward to this movie is correct if only for that one scene that I have been watching on the promos, of shah rukh running with the 16 girls behind him…in slo mo…..hair, beard and the fantastic at forty khan having the kind of screen presence that has made him what he is…..i am no fan of SRK, I admire him for something else….he’s hammed in all movies but one, one of my most favorite movies of all time Swades…..he seduced me in that one…. I never wanted to be Simran to his Raj, but wanted to be Geeta to his Mohan Bhargav in Swades…….

According to me, and this is my personal belief and a long digression….. SRK is what he is today because of his insecurity and intelligence……his rise in filmdom is unbelievable with a man of his talent (or the lack of it)…..all his roles have been extensions of each other….the persona is bigger than the actor of course, but he took what he had and made himself into what he has become with his astute business sense…..i cant sit through most of his movies, quivering lips and flaying arms et al…..but he has calculated and plotted his ascent and has stayed there…is till remember more than a decade and a half ago, at the film fare awards when he received the promising newcomer award, he said that he was waiting for a time when people would quit asking “for the way Amitabh Bachchan does it and ask for the SRK way”…I was appalled and never thought this bow lipped, arched eyebrow, shaggy haired youngster with his hands all over the place would survive, but survive he did…with his outrageous comment, horrendous clothes and hair…..he became the icon of the people…it amazes me…..even if all this is just media created, kudos to the PR agency that works for Shah Rukh Khan……what they made of him, is phenomenal……..

That he is intelligent, is a reflection of his success…..he isn’t the best actor around, but he is super successful and no one can grudge him that success……I have never seen him atleast in the last five odd years, making a fool of himself in public, you will find him making a controversial statement, I’ve never seen him drunk / misbehave, he’s always so well behaved and has said the same boring things in zillions of interviews with more enthusiasm than the interviewer……..if not for anything, for this he deserves his success…..and he has said so himself that he is insecure about losing all he has and hence works non stop round the clock and has become an insomniac…and no, I am not on his or his PR agency’s payroll……I’ve never met him…nothing….I just respect him for the success he has made of his life…..there will still be the rumours of his bisexuality, being on drugs and thwarting the budding careers of other actors…. but who cares!! You rock dude!! And I think he’s never looked better than he does in Chak De….beard and all…….Fabulous at forty!! now if only i can watch it again without K to tell me to stop drooling.....i mean, i am the same person who is disgusted when people think SRK looks good......ooo but you should see him with that beard....its salt and pepper...the stylists sure missed many spots....and he looks so fit....there are scenes where you can make out his toned body through his clothes...and yeah the white shirt, beige trousers look better on him than any of those fancy armani clothes he's worn.....plus there he is running in the front in his track suit!! totally worth the miserable traffic....

Ok, back to the movie now……its possibly the best sports movie made in india….not that we have many, but counting all the ones that have been made….the script is king…the nuances, characters, etc have been worked out well….and SRK has only been used to get the audiences into the theatres…it could be anyone else in his place….he had less than quarter of the duration of the movie as footage and is just the character Kabir Khan……and it’s a treat to watch him become the character and not the star……the girls surprise you, with the realism and credit to Shimit Amin…who’d have thought he’d pull this off after Ab Tak Chappan?? Infact what I loved was how stereotypes were brought in and then conquered……for instance the regionality of the players……. The lady who plays bindiya(Shilpa Shukla) is a great find….she’s cocky and makes you want to give her a nice tight slap…..the pretty Segarika Ghatge who plays Preeti is a pretty good actress too and handles her scenes with finesse…..i loved the Punjabi Balbir (Tanya Abrol); and of course the pint-sized, defiant Komal (Chitrashi Rawat) takes the cake, the accent, the lisp and the devil may care attitude, so well captured on screen…..its a hockey flick from the beginning to the end…..it keeps you gripped and proof of the pudding was that the audience in the theatre exploded when goals were being scored like they were in a stadium!! It isn’t without fault…..There are a couple of trite dialogues….and very obvious scenes…but he’s allowed all of this for the net result of the movie….bottom line….Watch it!!

But it didn’t end there!! Post the movie we partied till 3 a.m cos it was our friend S’s birthday…we went out for dinner and she invited us up to her place…she shouldn’t have….cos we stayed till the wee hours of the morning!! Well….looks like I’ll have to spend the weekend recovering from this!!