Adi Ne Bana Di Jodi!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a commendable attempt by Aditya Chopra to provide the audience a wholesome family entertainer. But let me warn the viewers beforehand. In order for you to enjoy this film, you have to acknowledge the cinematic liberty Adi has taken – he wants us to believe that a wife will not recognize her husband after he shaves off his pencil moustache and undergoes a wardrobe change. But isn’t cinema all about bringing alive a make-believe world! So, just as we embrace a Spiderman or Krisssh, knowing very well that it is fantasy, I’d allow Chopra this expediency.

Through a not-so-long-back flashback sequence, we are introduced to Surinder Sahni who, least expecting, gets to marry the girl he has fallen in love-at-first-sight with. Only problem is, the marriage is a result of circumstances rather than love or even a pondered arrangement. The end result is two individuals, with very different love quotients, set up to live life together.

It is a very interesting premise and what makes it more so is the manner in which Aditya Chopra paints his characters.

Surinder Sahni is a person who is as diffident as it gets, and depicts a love so pure that it is almost incredible. Shahrukh, in this avtar, excels and is at his winsome best. Your heart goes out to him as he goes about his daily chores, or requests his wife to entertain his friends, if she can, he politely adds. In this another scene, where he gazes the lunch box, prepared by his wife, he leaves you in splits. This perfect look of naivety, love & admiration has King Khan’s signature all over it. This and many such brilliant moments etch out the ingenuous character of Surinder Sahni.

On the other hand is Taani, the once-ebullient girl, who is willing to forego her past self to a new life as Surinder’s dutiful wife. But even while she would pack his lunch, clean his room and entertain his guests, because she has “willingly” accepted this marriage, she can’t love her husband and tells him so. There is a real element to Taani’s character and Anushka Sharma brings forth her predicaments with a quiet confidence.

Also, praiseworthy is Vinay Pathak’s portrayal of the loud-mouthed yet sensitive friend of Surinder. Like all his performances before, Pathak makes his character believable. He has some good dialogues to boost of and he fits well in the method of things. It is he who helps Suri transform into Raj, so he can woo his better half by being the “hero” she craves.

This might seem a silly premise and it is actually that, but still Aditya manages to add some substance to it through his screenplay and dialogues. He has generously used SDIPA (Shiamak Davar’s dance school) and their actual instructors to take the story forward. I wasn’t whole-heartedly convinced of Raj’s character as it could have been depicted better from the over-the-top yet inadequate Jat that came across. Also Shahrukh’s performance of this manifestation pales in comparison to the taciturn Suri.
What I think Aditya wanted to show was a clash between the extrovert and the introvert and he was out to (predictably) make the underdog win it. And I think it is this bias that shows.

At a point in time, when I feared that the film would turn into another musical (Dil To Pagal Hai – II), Aditya carefully, and thankfully, steered the screenplay back to the main plot of Suri and Taani. What however, he could have done better was to emphasise more on Suri’s display of love (even though Suri mentions to Bobby that he wants Taani to see it on her own) which would have made the choice Taani makes more convincing. Perhaps Aditya wanted things to be more subtle and left it for the audience to fill in the lines. The end message that he wanted to convey is that, with time and patience love conquers all!

The music, which has always been the hallmark of an Aditya (or Yash) Chopra presentation, is surprisingly understated in the movie. The songs are situational and again far fewer in number in comparison to earlier movies. When I first heard the songs, I found them of a pretty low standard for an Aditya Chopra movie, but after watching the film, they grew on me. In the same breath, let me add that it is still nowhere near the high standards that Yash Raj has set for itself.

The predictable story could have been a damp squib had it not been for splendid performances. The screenplay keeps slipping but picking up soon after at many places. The cinematography is adequate and though there are no Swiss locales to be shot here, Amritsar has been captured well.

As director, Adi Chopra sparkles in a number of places. Consider the scene where Surinder places the rose on the table and then, true to his reticent self, puts it back, or the lunch box scene, or the heart-to-heart tête-à-tête between Suri and Bobby. And I’m sure thanks to Adi, a number of Amristari lads will queue up for being recruited in Punjab Power so they can propose to their girl in the innovative manner Raj does!

In this quite unlike Yash Raj film, the medley song “Hum hain raahi pyaar ke, phir milenge chalte chalte” stands out with high production value. It is a tribute to Bollywood’s yesteryear actors and you wish it goes on and on as one leading actress after another is serenaded by Shahrukh.

No matter whether or not, you like the movie, but please do stay till the end credits roll. Adi had saved the best for the last. Suri’s narration of their honeymoon to Japan is the high point of the movie, it’ll surely make you laugh and you’ll come out of the hall wanting more of the endearing Surinder Sahni!

Miss you Nike!

Ya, that’s what I called my iPod nano – Nike.

I still remember the day when I pulled Nike out of that uber-cool packaging and held it tenderly in my hand, lest it got scratched. The shiny back of the first generation Nano was the first thing I noticed and once I it switched on to see the small display light up in colour, I knew I was in love.

The love affair had actually started a couple of weeks before, when I first saw the pictures of the newly launched iPod – Nano, they called it – on Apple’s website. I had already heard about iPod’s sound quality and I couldn’t wait to have one of my own. It was overpriced considering my budget and I was in a dilemma if I actually needed this expensive music player, when there were cheaper options available. Obviously nothing, at that time, matched the aesthetics of Apple’s products. And the opportunity of possessing the latest from the iPod family (and be able to show it off once I returned back to India) was too hard to resist.

I spent the next hour intuitively playing around with iTunes and added the few mp3 songs that I had on my laptop to my new toy. I hooked up the earphones and caressed the outer wheel with my finger, lightly making a circle on it. The songs scrolled by and the Nano made a light “clik-clik” sound; happiness suddenly had a new sound! And as I played my first songs on Nike, I could not help but marvel at the incredible clarity of the sound that filled my ears.

I’m not one among those persons who blindly copies entire albums from the internet to their music players. I have a distinct, even if eclectic, taste in music and I ensured that unless I really liked a song AND I had entire information about that song, it did not find a place in my Nano. Consequently, I devoted a lot of time in the next days with my audio CDs, internet and iTunes swelling up iPod to a sizeable library.

I noticed the many apparent deficiencies of the iPod Nano – not having an in-the-box charger, no FM Radio, no sound recording, no ability to add tags, no sorting of songs – but I chose to live without them. And this was because iPod did what it did, best – play amazing music! I’m not exactly an audiophile, but I love to hear my music in its pure and brilliant form and Nano did an awesome job of it. In the initial months, it used to stay with me constantly whether I went to office (even though it wasn’t exactly allowed, I fitted neatly in my pocket to go unnoticed) or out on trips. On a bus journey, it made hours go past like minutes. I can’t keep track of how many times I’ve fallen asleep to the tune of my favourite songs playing on this little thing.

I still remember that rainy day very vividly, when I had to urgently be at work and had no means of transport to take me to office. I yelled out to rickshaw-wala outside my apartment and as I settled under the leaky hood of the rickshaw, I carefully pulled out Nike from my pocket. So fond am I of rains and rain songs, that I created a special Genre for Malhar and Classical Songs of Monsoons in it. Just as I played Anand Malhar sung by Kishori Amonkar, I was transported to a different world. Suddenly, the incessant blowing of horns by vehicles around ceased to exist. The only sound that remained was that of the divine notes praising the rains and clouds. It seemed as if the rain drops had started dancing to the exquisite notes of “Barsat Ghan Aayo Rangilo”. It was truly an ecstatic moment and one that will stay with me forever. And I have to thank my iPod Nano for many such special moments.

I’ve had a wonderful time playing the Music Quiz on the Nano, and in fact it is a great way to remind yourself of a certain song that you’d have forgotten existed in your library of some 400 songs. I almost always got all the songs right, considering I had every song hand-picked and tagged correctly.

I’ve had to buy accessories for the bare Nano in the form of a USB charger and an FM transmitter. The FM transmitter is a handy tool which turned my Nano into a mini-radio station; a great way to listen to it on long road trips in my car with an outdated music system. I found the iPod covers available in the market way too pricey. My mother very lovingly made out little sleeves at home, so I could keep my Nike snug. My thoughtful sister brought a cover for it when she came back from USA. I never had the heart to remove the transparent film that came stuck on the front of the Nano, even though it had started peeling off from a side.

A couple of weeks back, after Nike turned 3, my wife least-expecting asked me for a mirror to check her makeup. I polished it against my shirt and held out the shiny back of my Nano to her face. She smiled and I proudly returned it to its case.

Then last week, out with us on a trip, Nike vanished. I got down at a couple of places during the journey and by the time I realized, I couldn’t figure out where it was; the thorough search of the car was in vain. I still cannot come to terms with the fact that I’ve lost my favourite possession. This piece is an ode to Nike – my iPod Nano. I’m not sure when I can replace it but definitely it is a must have for any music lover.