Some of my recent readings and viewings

One Night at the Call Center: After having heard not too good reviews about the book, I was quite ready to a day or two of boring reading. But once I started the book, I found it engrossing enough. The story had a good start and I kept on reading to find out 'so what will happen at the end of the day, or rather the night'. But then God enters and my interest in the story exits. I don't know, the book started realistically enough and then all of a sudden God intervenes and makes it completely unbelievable. Seemed to me that the author had no clue how to end the story and came up with this weird idea. A disappointment.

The Hungry Tide: This is my first book by Amitav Ghosh. My brother recommended this to me saying that he is considered to be the best among Indian writers. The story is set in the tide country of the Sundarbans and is told from the perspective of the two main characters, Kanai Ghosh and Piyali Roy. Even though the book does not have constant action, thrill and suspense, it is still fast paced enough. Amitav Ghosh keeps the pages turning taking us through the history of the Sundarbans, the perilous ecology of the endangered cetaceans and the conservation projects surrounding the great Bengal Tiger, the stories of the local deities along with the stories for each character. He also reveals the shocking incident of the Morichjhapi where thousands of refugees trying to settle down are violently evicted by the government in the name of conservation. However, I have to admit that at times I got bored by the lengthy descriptions and skipped few paragraphs here and there.

Guru: What was the hype all about? Guru, to my opinion was quite a boring film. I had entered the theatre with a lot of expectations, but was very disappointed. Agreed that Abhishek did a good job, but that's not enough for a movie to be interesting, is it? The story was flat, about a poor guy who makes it big by bending the law. Even though the law manages to catch him, he is sent free after he makes an impassioned speech to the commission, which by the way he manages to speak in a strong voice in spite of having suffered a paralytic attack that weakened him! What was the movie trying to tell? That its okay to bend the law and get you thing done? Or was it trying to give a message that India needs to have less restrictions on entrepreneurs and business starters? Somehow, the message didn't come through clear. Aishwarya has acted her part good enough. Vidya Balan and Madhavan are pleasing to the eye while it was nice to see Mithun in a good role (seen Chingari? You'll know what I mean!). A passable movie, see if you must.

Eklavya: After quite a while did I get to see a movie that kept me fully entertained. The missing song and dance sequences was quite a relief and not missed. I felt the movie was made splendid. The direction and cinematography was arresting and the acting superb. No one, not even the Big B, did I feel overacted. Jackie Shroff - whom I always felt went too overboard with his roles, specially in the few movies that he has appeared in the last few years - even he seemed have acted 'just enough'. Saif is once again brilliant and looking awesomely good while Vidya Balan, my favorite these days, looks beautiful. Boman Irani has portrayed his role of a jealous king very well and Sharmila, still looks gorgeous even to this day. Sanjay Dutt gives a comic relief to this dark story about jealousy, faithfulness, betrayal, ambition, love and revenge revolving around a royal family during present times. A must see!

The Science of Sleep: This is a French movie which I saw at a friend's place. I have always been fond of French movies, their story-line is always simple and involves around regular believable people and I love the sound of their language, so soft and polite! The Science of Sleep is in French and English with bits of Spanish thrown in. This is a story of a talented illustrator Stephane who returns to his childhood home for a job which he soon finds out to be pretty shitty. He meets his equally creative neighbor Stephanie and soon falls in love with her. But that's just a part of the bigger story - Stephane often has trouble differentiating dreams from reality and he finds himself slipping back and forth between them causing havoc on his waking life which starts to take it's toll on his sanity. The movie is created by the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The surrealism you see in Eternal Sunshine is evident here as well. The movie is beautiful and artfully done interspersed with comedy, inventiveness and quirkiness. Watch it if you like out of the box movies!