Tere Bin Laden - Watch it or Laugh it

The name of the movie suggests, it’s a satire. It’s a satire on Osama Bin Laden, THE MAN on this earth with $25 million for its headless body and couple of billions or trillions already in the drain for his head. I really admire him for the way; he has made Americans to stalk the Afghanistan. Normally the world wants to stalk or hound Americans till the time they abuse you in public.

For the movie, Mr. Laden raises cocks and hens. He runs a mini poultry farm of his own. He loves and adores his cocks and hens. The irony and parody running in the movie is remarkable and phenomenal. A young Pakistani reporter working with some stupid Danka TV wants to go to America, the land of his dreams. The movie comes at a time when in reality, the Americans have made Pakistan a bigger mess than Afghanistan, that too for supporting America and not fighting them. Though for the reporter, Mr. Ali Zafar should remain stuck to his singing and not acting. He barely knows and seems to show little potential to become an actor.

The irony and parody in the movie, a Pakistani reporter wants to visit America riding on his success of an interview with a fake Osama Bin Laden. What on Earth went in the maker’s mind? Everybody is laughing their way including the producers. I never expected the movie to be a laugh riot. You are laughing and laughing, till it hurts with all the quirky one liners from Noora aka Osama Bin Laden. The best one is “tere behan nu lassi pilawa”. Or Sikander, my star murga, who won the competition; “he, alone has taken control/incharge of 1000 hens”.

The whole effort goes in building the characters, Osama Bin Laden aka Noora, cameraman, owner of the channel, make-up artist, Ted ji, Pakistani brigadiers. Definitely a must watch for all the Asians. In introspection of what we are and what we aim to become and definitely the means we attach to it.

Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoAked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainmwnt world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!

New York - Thought Review

A lot has been said and written about the movie New York. I know I am late, I got to watch New York three weeks after its release and that too, after three months of lockout on multiplexes. All of us know it’s a good movie, amazing story, direction, cinematography. Finally a good movie from Yash Raj productions after boring and disappointing audiences for two years.

I knew John could act and everyone gets better with experience. John fits the bill for intense roles. Remember Jism and its power packed dialogues, monosyllables. As always Irfan Khan was brilliant but somehow I am not convinced with the dialogues written for him. Neil Nitin Mukesh needs to work harder. He was very different from Johny Gaddaar.

Getting back to the issue of the terrorism and the way America has approached this issue. Irfan does tell about the magnanimity of the Americans, the American culture. No doubt, he was right about it. That’s why ‘Barack Hussain Obama’ is their President. But 9/11 also brought the shallowness, double-standards, diplomatic, hypocritic attitude of the Americans in the open. Bush always said, “we can and we always will are committed to fight terrorism and ensure no evil forces touch the American soil in future”. Inspite of the fact that USA may become the only country on this earth with living population.

Kabir Khan has wonderfully portrayed the shallowness and non-intelligence of American intelligence forces and offices. Anybody who would or could have taken the photographs of WTC was taken under suspicion. It seems they had implicated all the Muslims, who went on that street in past ten years and must have framed the person even if he was standing with his back to WTC.

Look at the way, Kabir disguised the full name of Sameer from the audience till interval. Sameer didn’t belong to a religion like most of us from our generation. Our generation belongs to a genre of ideas. Religion is a myth or a belief. Well that’s another long debate? Sameer was made to feel his religion, Muslim in that detention centre. Just before entering one, his name is revealed to the audience, “Sameer Sheikh”. Americans felt the threat in the name.

What they have done to protect America is very disappointing? Radicalizing the Islamism to its extreme, a person is not born terrorist from its mother’s womb. Its only the surroundings which make a human being. They have made them reach a point where only the true path is terrorism.

Everywhere in the world there are mistakes to fight a menace like terrorism. I know I belong to Punjab and grew up during the years of intense terrorism in Punjab. There were mistakes, tortures, innocents became victims. But then the Govt. of Punjab and its law and order forces, that they have to uproot this menace from its underground level. At one time, police was killing more people in Punjab than terrorists. It was painful but then it was the ultimate strategy to restore peace in my homeland.

America (read Bush) acted like a smuggler in a suit. When you let lose the goons (read FBI) in the open market in the name of protecting yourself, that day you are harming yourself more than others can do to you. There have been articles when people were terrified to finding armed cops and agents around everywhere.

The most dramatic thing about movie ‘New York’ is that earlier when Sameer (John Abraham) had not done anything. He was caught and kept in detention centre for nine months. But when he was really planning to do something and FBI was sure of the fact. They could have caught him and could do anything. But don’t know why it was not. I guess then the movie could not be made.