Born of mind

At last !! The music for Ashutosh Gowarikar‘s Jodhaa Akbar has been released and The Rahmania is here to stay.. (I had been sincerely waiting for this ). So.. whats it like ? We all know about the magical partnership of Director / Music Director and their previous successes. Can they do it again ? Only time will tell if this historic movie is going to create history.. but as far as the music is concerned, its raining Rahman again . This man works wonders, album after album and never fails to disappoint listeners. Last year The Taj Anthem had made a big impact.. an impact big enough to inspire many Indians (and people all over the world) to vote for Taj as one of the new seven wonders of the world. and do I need to say anything about GURU..

We can always find movies with good music.. but rahman has once again proved that what he composes is of entirely different genre, standard and caliber. I have no complaints to make against the other music directors.. but they should learn from this guy. The way he uses musical instruments, the way he takes care of the intricate details and the way he uses Indian classical music (the raga base..) alongside western orchestration. I mean, just listen to Jodhaa-Akbar (or any of his previous albums).. he stands in a place where there can be no competitors and his is a level that can not be matched. Only the trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy come closest to him.. No praise is too high for this musician (or you can call him a magician ..) whose compositions are spectacular and invigorating. Any doubts on that ?? Then go and listen to the Jodhaa-Akbar soundtracks…

(you can find them here..)

Life is a game .. play it. and play it to get the most out of it.
Pause..

Not everyone of us can consider life to be a game, for life is complicated enough.. but Geet’s favorite game is life in ‘Jab We Met‘ (JWM). Movies are far from real life, isn’t it. This fact can’t be generalized though.. you would agree with me if you have seen JWM. Story revolves round two people of opposite sex, who meet in a train and become close friends during the course of their journey (Geet missing the train contributes to their friendship immensely). Of course, you have to be non filmy to be not able to guess why would one get down from the train for a stranger’s sake. What I want to share here is not a review of this movie but the thoughts i was bombarded with (literally) after watching it…

1. The names Anshuman (Geet’s so called boyfriend) and Adithya (who loves geet) are synonyms of Sun (god). Is it a coincidence ? When Anshuman dumps Geet, sun seemed to be setting in the horizons of her life but Adithya’s come back gives a ray of hope and sun starts rising in her life again. (Incidentally there were a couple of scenes of sunrise and sunset shown figuratively, if I am not mistaken.)

2. Adithya is a musician (singer in particular) and Geet (which means ‘a song’ in Hindi) is something close to his heart. He can’t pursue a career in music for reasons more than one. At one point in his life when nothing seemed to be going right, he meets Geet in a train and then on he slowly realizes that there is much more to life than just cursing it, thanks to Geet (the song of his life).

3. Geet believes : “zindagi mein tum jo bhi real me chahoge, actual mein.. tumhe wohi milega.” i.e. in life whatever we really (and actually) want, we get only that. But i guess, i dont really know what i really want.. in my view, in life you only get what you need and what you deserve and that may not be what you really want. To get what you really want you will have to earn it !!

4. Geet misses the train not once but twice. The second time actually Adithya helps her reach the Ratlaam station. The third time when Adithya is with her in shimla, she doesn’t. The dialog goes like this..

Geet : Mujhe na bahut dino se bure sapne aate hain.. Ke main na train ke piche bhaag rahi hun aur train choot gayi..
Adithya : Ab to pakad liya na.. chalo.

In her life too she misses Adithya twice as she isn’t sure of what she really wants in her life. Anshuman was the sole reason for her existence then and Adithya helps her get back Anshuman. But once she gets Anshuman back she realizes that she has made a mistake of letting Adithya go earlier. This time she doesn’t fail to catch the train.
The train missing scene was symbolic indeed. but there is another aspect to it.

Did sequence of events happening earlier in her life gave her enough hints and clues about how her future life is going to be ??
Did she fail to understand why somethings happened in her life, the way they happened ??

I really don’t know the answers to these questions. but yes I have seen this movie more than once.. and each time i watched it, i got different thoughts and questions.. [ I don't know why.. 8( ]

I have missed few trains earlier in my life and I did have the chance to catch them.. But i guess it was better that I had let them go then..
Peace.

When did u last watch a movie and said, ‘Yeah, it was worth my time “.. Well, I watched this movie called Taare Zameen Par (TZP) couple of days back and it has left a lasting impression on me. I have always admired Aamir khan for his versatile acting abilities. But he has made a strong statement through his directorial debut movie and his career as a director can go a long way. Some of the sensitive issues were dealt with a lot of care.

Its extraordinary to see a nine year old kid (Ishaan) acting with such immense maturity. I guess acting comes so very naturally to some kids.There are some scenes that stand apart from others, at least a couple of them. Whats heartening to see was the way a teacher (Aamir) takes up the responsibility of helping Ishaan in getting rid of dyslexia. In this competitive world where teachers (not all of them though) are always behind children to make them good grade getters and no one has even time to ask (an academically) struggling kid about the problems (that he faces), here is a person who not only tries to help this kid but also makes his parents (who apparently had no time whatsoever even to talk to their kids) aware of the situation.

Great teachers are rare to find. But they are still existing.. Every child is indeed special and parents do play the most important part of its life. Unless there is a balance between their professional life and personal life, its gonna have a negative impact on the child’s psyche and this is the strongest message given through this movie. Hats off to you Aamir for making such a thought provoking movie !!

kho na jaye yeeee.. taare zameen par..