Hate Story 2 Review

Hate Story -2 Indepth Review

Hate Story 2 in a nutshell is a revenge drama which showcases a heart wrenching portraiture of a damsel in distress against a conspiring world,masterfully told from the perspective of an able director.

From the very first opening shot, you get inkling that unwittingly and without much resistance on one's part, one would be sucked into the melodramatic maelstrom of the movie and, sure enough, a few minutes into it ,you witness the epic struggle of the heroine,to stay afloat in a gripping saga that slowly gets into your breathing thanks to haunting and epic background score rendered skilfully and weaved into the narrative. 
The premise isn't new but the the rendition of it is good enough to keep one entertained till the last scene and delivers something more.

What's Good:

CINEMATOGRAPHY :  Almost flawless and some very good camera angles gets the story unfold in a pace that keeps one's hooked, lapping everything dished out in such exotic and very well contrived shots. Each scene gets the perfect blend of treatment that might be said top notch!..Yes you heard that right! 

The songs are wrapped in scandalously soothing takes, that teleports the audience to a whole new level of experience. The mesmerizing chemistry between the two leads is pitch perfect and the locales are wisely chosen with very good cinematic work. For the photography enthusiasts , many scenes have been narrated with still frozen frames that adds a touch of rare beauty rendering it almost poetic and the one that will linger in one's mind would definitely be the shot wherein the children each with a rose, dancing ecstatically like a ballerina pirouetting in the air. Pure delight!

CHARACTERIZATION:  The flow and pace of the narration mayn't be perfect but Yes! it does hold itself very well in a cinematic complex storytelling. The characters are well threshed out with the leading lady , her passionate lover and the villain are meaty and are multi-layered and multi-dimensional that just about adds an extra punch to a very satisfying conclusion. Fans of Surven Chawla and Jay Bhanushali would be mighty pleased of  their respective performances but it is the brutal , sadistic , masochistic , tyrannical and overpowering characterization of Mandar excellently portrayed by Sushant Singh that steals the show. He is raw passion personified sans compare , his mercurial disposition and irrepressible   impatience shoulders the substantial weight of the movie and the lion share of its charm.

 VERDICT :  It is an out of out heroine dominated movie and the lead actress renders enough justice to her character akin to Uma Thruman of Kill Bill series . Jay is lovable but doesn't have much screen time to leave a mark, Sunny leone sizzles with dazzling effect that lightens the grim mood of the storyline. Overall, its a beautifully sketched film with very good pace, excellent performance by Sushant Singh and tight editing with over the top back ground score that will have you seated the edge of your seat till the gory saga ends in catharsis for the audience. 

Highly Recommended.

NASHIK - TRIMBAKESHWAR

TRAVELOGUE TO NASHIK

After having a lip smacking south Indian fare of Dosa and Idlis we embarked on the Nashik leg of our travelogue. Nashik situated on either side on the banks of Godavari is a spiritual Dham for most Hindu devotees. It is on must vist list for everyone who visits Shirdi for the first time. Nashik lies about 80 Kms from Shirdi on very well paved metalled black top roads and one can travel faster than 100Kmph without any kind of worry.

MUKTI DHAM

Our first padaav was Mukti Dham, a marbled superstructure of a temple. It houses the divity of Lord Krishna and Goddess Radha. Interior is spacious and well ventilated. The stationed traffic police was a bribe hungry man and tried to intimidate our driver to pay him a bribe.So travellers beware,avoid falling into the trap as the car parking is free.

The Temple complex houses a couple of well maintained shops selling dried grapes and other snacks as well. The whole temple is unremarkable and quite small by standards but very peaceful. Worthy of a visit.

ENROUTE TO TRIMBAKESHWAR

From mukti Dham we proceeded to Trimbakeshawar , another one jyotrling that dots the entire landscape of india. The roads are very good in shape and are dotted on either side by wild Cosmos flowers which render it beautiful. I stopped to click a few of these and was very pleasantly surprised of them to have come on so well.

Trimbakeshwar is surrounded by beautiful valleys, wherein emerges the holy river of Godavari. One can read atlength all about the place from the internet but for a first time traveler a few things if taken a little heed may save a lot of trouble and money. Trimbakeswar can ve visited on shared vehicles,taxis etc but the most preferred way is hiring one’s own taxi.

• COIN MUSEUM

10 kms into our travelogue from Mukti Dham we halted  by the Coin Museum. Entry fees is Rs 5/person. Its quite modern and houses replicas and original coins from various periods of India and abroad.

 It is certainly a worthy visit and can be planned to spend a few moments of solitude enroute to returning from Trimbakeshawar.

• ANJNERI  

Anjneri is the next attraction after coin museum enroute to Trimbakeshwar. They say Lord Hanuman was born at this place but it isn't so. The temple houses a huge idol of Lord Hanuman in meditative cross legged posture.

Photography is allowed with a few representatives of a trust sitting on desks to the left of the main entrance collecting donations for a new enhanced temple in addition to the existing infrastructure. The entire temple complex is situated on a hillock from which the vast area that sprawls below it, can be surveyed to reveal a lovely countryside.

  Do spend a few moments before finally embarking the final of your travelogue to the Jyotrling.

• TRIMBAKESHWAR: After revving up the engines the hungry tyres again kissed the beautifully laid metaled road slowly gaining elevation with each passing mile. The remaining journey was scenic with green verdant hills overlooking the entire landscape. Somewhere close to Trimbakeshawar ,noticed this abandoned temple , cordoned off to the public. 

 

The parking space was crowded and had absolutely no idea where the temple was located. We just followed the crowd and not long we had a glimpse of this ancient temple for which we had embarked on a rather long sojourn.

The way to the temple was awash with cute souvenirs strewn on a piece of cloth on either side of this busy thoroughfare.

The temple compound is littered with shops with the main entrance to the temple guarded by uniformed policemen. The entrance into the temple premises is a frisking affair and one cant take one's mobile or any photographic equipment inside, its prohibited. Similarly, one's shoes are also prohibited. So fellow travellers do take note of this and plan accordingly.
However, before depositing my cam in a cloak room , I fell for these lovely flowers.

Proceeding in a long queqe , entered with a joyous heart to have a darshan of Lord Shiva and little did I knew and wasnt prepared what was yet to come. The queuq to the temple was like no other I have witnessed before. It was a tortous hell. One had to travel in a never ending zigzag serpentine queue that stretched till eternity. It took 95min after I entered into the temple to have a darshan. So travellers beware, do empty your bladders and your bowels before entering for the darshan.
Once inside, it was rush and was pushed away without being able to behold for a second the sight of the Lord. Even before recovering from this bewildering mad mad rush I was standing outside the temple, in the courtyard.

Taking a last click before leaving , I contemplated the meaning of it all, to have come here from so far away.

I'm not a religious person but often find intriguing to visit religious places. Having traveled the length & breath of my amazing country , Trimbakeshwar is unique in many considerations.  The architecture of the temple is a eye-catching with sloping parallelepiped structure and constructed of an unique stone,perhaps endemic to the area.
They say there are 12 jyotrlings in India, well certainly it is the most scenic of them all.

Au Revoir!

SHIRDI - SHANI SINGHNAPUR

MANMAD

 We reached Manmad Station just before noon and almost all of the passengers seemed to get-off the train with a remaining few, who traveled to Mumbai,its final destination. The scene exuded a sense of deja-vu as if I had earlier stepped on this very platform sometime in my past for all the religiosity associated with this station, it was unremarkable,quite bland except scores of devotees who peopled this small station , busting at its seams. Women outnumbered Men in 4:1 ratio but does that make them more religious?....well letz find out.

Through internet, I had arranged a pick-up at the station from Shirdi and the driver for the day, had been waiting for my arrival for over 4 hours. After loading all our stuff, we headed to Shirdi on an Indica,the staple choice for the discerning Indian traveler.

Manmad is approx. 62 KMS from Shirdi temple complex and takes an hour to cover the distance non-stop. The road is well paved with very little traffic with many a hillocks to keep company all through the way. As you travel , you notice a peculiarity prevalent in these parts, yes! you guessed it , the Anna Hazare Effect is in full display. Almost all men don an Anna Hazare cap.

 

After having checked into Dwarvati-Bhakta Niwas , we had a free meal at the Canteen inside the Niwas premises. The food was good. The Bhakta Niwas Complex boasts of an Hospital, an Apollo Dispensary, a Canteen, a beautiful garden and a multipurpose shop.

Dwarvati is well manned and well maintained by BVK’ staff all rounds the clock, keeping the facility spic and span. The Niwas also has a discount counter within it, where Tea , biscuits,
mineral water etc can be had in nominal heavily discounted
                                                                                                                                                 

SHANI SINGHNAPUR

Our car was waiting and we started off to visit the famed temple that lay 75Kms from Shirdi. The first 25 Kms was horrible due to very bad roads and heavy traffic but after one has survived it , the next 50 Kms is smooth affair with well paved roads. The road to the temple is to the left of the highway which comes after having traveled 60 Kms from Shirdi.

 We took the intended turn for the temple and lo…there were bullock s tied to long horizontal poles. It was intriguing at first to see so many of them in such hapless conditions. On my request my driver halted near such a bullock. It was pure ecstasy  to witness the indegenus mechanism of crushing sugarcane trees to produce the Lassi. Hats off to Indian Jugaad technology and to you Sir!,my beloved Ox.

Finally we saw a huge arched gate and a boundary that encircled the village of Shinghnapur. There is a lore that the houses in this village have no doors and no-body ever steals anything from anybody. Well certainly it might be true had it not been for a high boundary wall that encircles this little hamlet from all sides.

After parking the vehicle, there are separate places for tourists arriving from different places, we were then asked to wash our feet which were kept parked in front of shops that populated the entire parking enclosure. There are different Puja Thalis , each priced differently and in addition to that one has to( almost obligatory) purchase a pouch of Mustad oil to be poured on the Omnipotent Lord Shani. We bought a complete Thali costing a good 400 bucks and two pouched of oil. A lad from the shop from where we made the purchase agreed to become our guide at no extra cost and began recounting the pros and cons of conducting the self-performed puja with various tips of depositing the various paraphernalia at the right places once inside the temple and what to bring back with oneself after performing the puja.

My ears were hot of having to remember and digest so much info in such a short span of time. My mind was in a flux and was tired beyond comprehension and finally let it all go and let my automatic instinct took over.

The entrance was guarded and devotees proceeded in a Un-barricaded Queue (a rare sight in India) into the temple premises.

Inside, there were hung signs asking the devotee to deposit the puja items that one might be carrying in one Thali. We proceeded,after depositing the last of items, inside the temple wherein  stood Lord Shani enshrined into a huge block of stone, barricaded from all sides, with a hanging bowl suspended over it from which dripped mustard oil onto Lord Shani.

There is a law that all devotees need to observe of not turing back to look behind once you are inside the temple. People ascribe it of bring bad luck to those who don’t observe it. Photography is prohibited but who cares?. Even I got a shot of my mother with Lord Shani in the background.Everybody were busy clicking away to take away a piece of the God with them as memories.

On our return back, we were treated to a lovely sunset with darker hues with traces of gold still left in it.

  The sojourn could be summed up as an experience worth the pain. Anyone from a metro would find the whole trip relaxing and a bit soothing to one's frayed nerves. If time permits do chalk out a plan to visit this place , an old rural charm of India can still be experienced.

Au Revoir!

Impressions : Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

REVOLUTION 2020

 

Chetan Bhagat is a modernist writer , in simple terms , his writings reflect the social upheaval post 1991.
It may be presumed that pre 1991, India was a liberal communistic social economy and with the collapse of USSR , a new world order emerged which changed the status quo of the patriarchal society long enmeshed in the cultural fabric of India. Revolution 2020 mirrors this change , which in a very brief time of 20 years, has went through a very rapid  and successive cultural and ethical mini revolutions.

The opening of the Indian Economy and end of licensing Raj meant that people for the first time in their life were more freer to pursue dreams since independence. The skewed ratio for a common man to have a shot at the riches were now more favourable than it had been earlier in the past. The story mirrors those aspirations in a comical narrative and records change of vicissitudes of fortune that the protagonists find themselves in and stands tribute to the infinite possibilities that the common people of India is now faced with in their lives.

ANALYSIS
 The story centers around five primary characters, Aarti, Gopal, Raghav, Shukla and Baba(Gopal's ailing Father).

The main setting is the holy city of Varanasi and the story is told as a flashback through the eyes of Gopal to the author in a hospital after regaining consciousness from a drunken stupor at his home.

GOPAL

The character of Gopal is well sketched out, and Mr. Chetan has clothed him in flesh and blood adding more teeth to his character than any other in the book. It is primarily around him that the story evolves and stirringly revolves. Aarti is the soul of this story and the prime motivating reasons for Gopal to embark on a lifelong quest for her love that had started in his childhood.
The character mirrors the majority of people in India and can therefore be readily identified by anybody as to be his own.

In him, Mr Chetan has tried to convey that what an aspiring student goes through if he/she somehow doesn't end up qualifying to premier educational institutions in India, the myth that these Institutes have created for themselves in the minds of students and parents alike and how it is being perceived as being a shortcut way to riches. The desire to land the coveted seat runs too high and Gopal is swept off his feet in this mad rush all the time pinning for the love of Aarti and jealous of his once best friend's success. He perceives that getting into the hallowed halls of any IIT , would make his beloved fall in love with him again, therefore the decisions of Gopal , goes down many level which is quite effectively brought out by the author and gets you hooked  and immersed into the story. What follows next effectively mirrors the hapless drowning of multitude of students who are forced to pursue a dream not of their own liking and eventually throw in the towel after a brief struggle.

Further down the narrative, we behold the epic failure of Gopal and when the magnitude of his failure sinks in,he decides to somehow fulfill the dream of his father. The prose of Chetan Bhagat delicately captures
the burden that most parents thrust onto the shoulders of their children of their own unfulfilled dreams and achievements and we see a young Gopal rushing off to fulfill it without having the maturity to understand the complexity of this decision or its consequences. A chanced encounter with a suave marketing executive, suddenly see the luck changes in his favour for the first time and we are treated to the complex business of setting up a college in India. The labyrinthine laws which are malleable enough with the right amount of cash and persuasion never ceases to amaze the reader and one finds Gopal again swept off into the maelstrom of hyperactivity of setting up a college , slowly making inroads into the life of his beloved and making cat footed efforts of tearing her away from the object of her affections.

Somehow Gopal's college gets inaugurated and he settles down to run it all the same time trying ways to get closer to Aarti. After many encounters he manages to quite a major degree to change the perception of Aarti about Raghav. Love can make people do silly things and try harder when the odds are stacked against you. We see Gopal incessantly making the effort and are treated to some very good conversations which shows the deep insecurities that women in India live in with all the time.

The jealously so strongly felt for Raghav for stealing away the love of his life has slowly,with time, metamorphosed into revenge and with Aarti safely secured, Gopal is impulsed in getting even with Raghav. Basically , deep down , Gopal is fighting a duel with himself, he cannot let go of his past failure of not able to break into the ranks of IIT  and holding a lifelong grudge against his friend. Now that he has won back some respect for himself , he tries to face his own guilt , rather the guilt which he owns to his father. But the encounter with Raghav changes psychologically and emotionally and the sense of grudge and feelings of revenge gives way to respect.
This change of outlook in life and the sense that he should do something to change the tide of corruption , as his bitter experience while setting up the college, Gopal decides that the right course that needs to be followed is to take a step back from the life of his beloved , whom he chased for his entire life, and let the affections of his once estranged friend grow back into her. Here I wish Mr Chetan Bhagat should have contrived a better alibi rather than sticking and glorifying a cliche.

The premise to make his plan work is ordinary which we still so often see in Bollywood masala films , of sacrificing the most cherished of one's values for the greater good thereby making a show of one's altruistic side of one's pathetic selves. I feel the shoddy plan of Gopal to drive away Aarti into the life of Raghav could have been more innovative and original and therefore consider it to be the low point of the entire book. In the end Gopal is back to square one emotionally trying to find solace in alcohol for his self inflicted wound which is seconded as good by the author. Perhaps Mr Chetan Bhagat has a moral obligation of letting the generation of Youngsters who believe in his words that it isn't a crime to hold onto values and one is perfectly moral of not sacrificing it for the greater good. It is the weakness of Gopal as a person which made him step back and passed up the gauntlet to his  friend whom he found far more capable than him to be the agent of change that he years but lacks the courage to do it himself.

AARTI

She reminds me of  'lara' of  Dr. Zhivago but heavily toned down in beauty and appeal. Not for even once , Mr Chetan refers to her physical beauty and so one is left to imagine as one pleases. There is not a single direct premise of her goodness or chastity that will get Gopal hooked onto her. So in a sense Mr Chetan has perhaps deliberately avoids the physical description of each of his creations and in doing so he has made it a tale of generic characters that one can easily identify with ,without being typecast to be someone else.
Aarti is fashioned generically without special attributes , coasting , like many of her generations , through choices . Had Mr Chetan was solely interested to expose or show the scourge of corruption that seeped into one's life as a de-facto truth , Aarti could have been done away with without her being so intense and enchanting. Aarti steps in to fill this would have been a void in narration does so beautifully without coming across a bitch. She surrenders to powerful men , men who lust ,long and cherish her. You are treated to her insecurities , her aspirations , her loneliness and her expectations which mirror the average girl next door but she is educated , ambitious and intelligent and like the modern generation of her times still subservient to her family wishes and to generic Indian sensibilities and traditional values. So in a sense SHE is much more that what meets the eye. Aarti is the epitome of Indian cultural and traditional values regarding women. The patriarchal values have slowly given way to accommodate an educated girl, freedom to pursue her dreams and tolerance of her sexual needs. So Aarti is an embodiment of partially free women of India obedient enough to uphold the traditional values of a patriarchal society and intelligent enough to pursue one' desires and dreams.

In all Aarti stands out as the glue which holds together the framework of the narrative and it wouldn't have been far fetched if the Novella would have been renamed as "Aarti".

RAGHAV

Well you now have guessed it , the entire revolution is resting on the shoulders of Raghav and the author intends to start a revolution and subjectively and objectively uses the character to further his arguments. Raghav is a engineer turned journalist with a peculiar kind of firebrand journalism that we one saw in the initial publications of Al Jazeera.
Like any idealist , the system isn't very kind of his particular taste in exposing corruption and thus begins his quest for understanding of his self. The author could have infused much more passion into the character but perhaps it was beyond the scope of the novella. Therefore it  becomes an exercise of self indulgence and I'm sorry Mr. Chetan Bhagat it doesn't work. The character fall flat with a bloodied nose to show for itself.
The narrative is lopsided because it is being recounted by Gopal, so all the characters that grace this novel are recounted as what they mean to Gopal. So the characters are the projections of Gopal only and how he perceives them to be is the essence of the novella. Sadly the Author could have taken the liberty to make his characters to be more authentic and hard hitting. Perhaps Mr. Bhagat is in need to exercise his grey cells more often and his future efforts should be rich in imagination not some run of the mill work that is dismissed to obscurity as soon as it published.

SHUKLA

The premise of the character of Shukla shows promise but is fizzled away to just being a angry reactionary voice over telephone. It could have been more dark which would had made his fall from grace that more gratifying. When Shukla falls to shame one wonders that he wasn't perhaps the epicenter of corruption but just a pawn in larger scheme of things. Raghav in his zealous mission of getting rid India of corruption brings down Shukla but the satisfaction & the significance of his achievement isn't monumental and in the end it doesn't stir much emotion in you & one feels a sense of vacuum and often wonders why?

In all I would have preferred Mr Bhagat to have waited enough for the story to have matured in his head before dishing it out to his fans. Like any good work of literature or fiction , it pays, if the premise and facts are researched thoroughly , an area in which we observe Mr Chetan to falter on quite a few occasions.
Nonetheless , it is good passive read and the dull witted jokes will keep you hooked on a dull rainy Sunday afternoon.

BABA

Perhaps He is the most important character which influeneces the storyline significantly that sets the pace and the unfolding events. He towers in the sense that he sends his hungry son to the same school also attended by the Daughter of a top bereaucrat. Gopal was conceived much later in his life for by the time Gopal passes out of school , he stands retired and ill.
The force fullness of the character becomes evident when on his insistence Gopal unwillingly  travels to Kota for the coaching class to take another shot at IITJEE even sacrificing his health to fund the studies of his son. This is the best character created by MR Chetan Bhagat in this novella and effectively shows the sad state of affairs in sub-urban,rural and urban India where the performance counts and the success in one life is determined by its results. It aslo brings out that to what great lengths parents can go to fund the causes that they believe in.
BABA is believable , bewildering,melancholic ,hateful and compassionate all at the same time to his only son.
So BABA is a quintessal Indian post liberalization, and the only means to alleviate their engulfing poverty lies in the belief of his son cracking the IITJEE. What a skewed logic!, but a bitter truth nonetheless.

FINAL WORD

Rent the book , if you haven't yet bought it or spend it on something else. It is a light read and would not appeal to cerebral or intellectual bent of mind. Otherwise, if haven't yet planned to read it, might as well skip the trouble and I gurantee you wouldn't miss much.

For the Chetan Bhagat Fans , finally the magic is weening off. Commercially, Revolution-2020 might have braved the tide of failure by sheer marketing gimmicks, but if such futile exercises continue, his wildly raving female fans might feel let down along with a multitude of readers who have taken a liking for his easy prose and simple compelling story lines of his earlier accomplishments.

Au Revoir.