If Aamir Khan Did Not Make Taare Zameen Par: A Movie Un-Review

If you want to know how good Taare is, just go to your nearest theater and watch the people coming out after the show. The cacophony that surrounds a crowd exiting a theater will be missing. Some would be walking in slow motion. Some would look petrified. At least thats what happened in the theater I went to. Not a single soul was talking after the movie, probably because what everyone saw on screen was not fiction, but a semi-biography of his/her own life. In fact, the normally rowdiest gang in a theatre (ie my friends and I) that is uber vocal at the end of a film left the theater in pin drop silence. The first thing we said to each other -Aamir Bhai has done it again.
Indeed, Aamir Khan had done it again. I have a gut feeling that Taare would change people like no other movie has previously done.
I know only Aamir can make a film like Taare. But let us assume he did not make it (dream on!). What would the film have been like?

If Karan Johar made Taare
Obvious starcast:
Shah Rukh Khan as the arts teacher (duh duh duh!!).
Aryan Khan as the dyslexic child (even if he could not act for nuts).
Rani Mukerjee as the kids mom (assuming Kajol is unavailable).
Abhishek Bachchan as the kids dad.
Amitabh Bachchan as the school principal (who cares if the role is ultra minute, he can afford it).
It would be shot in New York to appeal to the NRI audience.
The story line would obviously be different. SRK would fall for the dyslexic kids mom. The last scene would have the mom running to the teacher rather than the kid. And again, like in so many other movies, SRK would get someone elses girl.
It would have one dance number.
The film would be titled Kuch Taare Zameen Par.

If Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Taare
Obvious starcast:
Salman as the teacher.
Rani as the mother.
Of course the whole film would be shot on elaborate sets. The school would be nothing short of Harvard university.
An orchestra would play every time anyone cried.
Slow motion, different camera angles for every scene..
The school uniforms would match the classroom walls even though that does not make a difference.
The film would cost 60 crores.

If Farah Khan made Taare
Obvious starcast:
SRK as the teacher (yawn).
In the original Taare, Aamir makes an entry at the interval point. In Farahs version, SRK would be on screen on for 2.30 hrs out of the 2.45 hrs and would be introduced in the first scene itself.
The story would be changed to make sure the above happened. The focus of the film would be a teacher who helps a kid fight dyslexia.
To make it a complete entertainer, there would be a romantic angle, comedy, and action thrown in. Oh idea!! Nikumbhs character likes another teacher and the kiddo helps him.. throw in some comedy moments there and you have romance and comedy settled. For action.. hmm.. lemme see.. oh yah, the kid gets kidnapped and the teacher fights the baddies to save him. Wow!! Im quite an imaginative writer. I can see how Farah can write a film from scratch in two weeks straight.
The film posters would have a big SRK with the tiny image of the kid in the background..

If Rakesh Roshan made Taare
Obvious starcast:
Hrithik Roshan as the teacher.
Since Rakesh Roshan cannot think beyond science fiction these days, this film would have that too. Instead of dyslexia, the kid would have alienositis or something, a condition induced due to him witnessing an alien abduction.
Instead of Nikumbh being an arts teacher, he would be a physics teacher, and instead of asking kids to be creative, he would ask them to challenge the science we know.
In the scene where Nikumbh asks the kids to open their minds and make whatever they want outdoors, the kid Ishaan, instead of making a boat, would end up making a working spaceship prototype.
Nikumbh would cure the kids problem by making a full fledged version of the kids prototype, traveling to the alien planet, and asking them to give the kid his powers back.
The film would have music by Rajesh Roshan ripped off from some world music.
The films name would again start with a K.. probably Kuch Aliens Taaron se Zameen par.
The director would make sure Hrithik gets to show all his abilities. This would mean a scene with Roshan jr flexing his muscles, and a dance competition in the end, instead of an arts competition.

If Priyadarshan made Taare:
Obvious starcast:
Akshay Kumar as the teacher.
Paresh Rawal as the kids dad.
It would be a brainless comedy. The kids dyslexia would be made fun of. Half the times the parents will be running after the kid from one room to the other and that, in the directors opinion, would be funny.
The film will be full of sex jokes. So for example, when Akshay would come to the parents telling them that their son has dyslexia, the ignorant father would say something inappropriate like is umar mein? par kaise, woh to hamesha boys school mein padha hai!. And yes, the director would think it is funny.
In the climax of the film all the characters in the film would run around in the amphitheater for no reason, spilling colors on each other. Thats where the film will end, without any logical conclusion.
And of course, Paresh Rawal would emote like an epileptic himself making us question the boys mental abilities anyway.

I know there are a lot of other directors, but I choose these guys because I feel they are the most gutless or overrated directors we have today. They keep doing the same shit again and again and more often than not depend on the stars to carry a shitty film forward. They have no courage to try something non-nonsense, something that can use the medium of cinema for a little more than just entertainment, in spite of being the most sought after Taare Zameen Pars in the country.
The reason I am making this comparison at all is to show how Aamir (and Amol Gupte) has made a pure film, without giving into the temptation of masala or what would the audience like to see philosophy; for giving chance to fantastic yet unknown actors like Vipin Sharma and Tisca Chopra for riding against the tide; for not trying to hog the limelight in the film by happily playing second fiddle to the boy (even Aamir Khans name comes after Darsheel Sarfi, the boy, in the credits); for giving the audience something different once again as an entertainer; and for truly caring about the society and using the medium to bring a change.
I remember earlier this year SRK made a statement: films are for entertainment; messages are for post offices. Well Aamir Khan has proved that cinema is probably the best medium for giving a message and I can say that looking at the face of every person in the cinema hall. Not only that, he has proved (yet again!) that a message can be entertaining.

Have you tried cooking? here is one...

Ingredients
3/4 cup toor dal.
Two medium tomatoes
A bunch of coriander leaves.
2 tsp coriander powder.
Some red chillies(around 10) or 2-3 teaspoons of chilli powder.
2-3 flakes garlic.
A small piece of ginger.
1/4 stick butter.
Three small onions.
1 teaspoon cumin seeds or powder.
1 each cardamom, cinammon, cloves.
salt to taste.

Method
Boil the toor dhal in the cooker for only two whistles.
It should be just boiled and not too soft.
In the blender, grind together two onions, garlic,
ginger, coriander leaves, tomatoes,cumin seeds,coriander
powder and the red chillies(or powder).
Slice the other onion finely.
Melt the butter in a pan and fry the sliced onion with
the cardomom,cinammon and cloves.When the onions are turning
a little brown, add the ground masala and fry for around
15-20 minutes(all the water should have evaporated, and the
paste should be dry).
Now add the boiled dhal to it and add a little water to
make a gravy.
Add salt to taste.
Boil for a while till you get the required consistency.
Eat it hot with rice and papad.

Atitude make it all

I was reading an article on ATITUDE word and it says ' hey sum it up and it is 100 %'. How? See everyone of us have a way to see things. Every one of us has an understanding of what needs to be done in order to do things fast and all of us are mostly or merely urgent. But how many of us really look to finish the tasks the right way that we are supposed to complete? We tent to procastinate many times. We tend to be timid in execution of tasks. We are rather skeptical about the task execution itself. We sometimes say "I shall try' or 'ASAP' to make ourselves fools. ASAP in short - 'making ass out of you and me'. It is better to say I shall do it or I will do it than saying I will try to do it. A sense of positive thinking and optimism makes it all!

Most of us tend to become tenatious in execution of work becoming caring and worrying about simple things too much. The basic underlying metaphor for the day is 'being positive takes over everything in life'. Positive atitude has the vibration of creating waves across the people. It not only becomes a morale booster for you but also increases confidence in you.

Trying and giving a shot instead of fearing whether it can be done or not will give us more confidence. Unless you try it you donot know whether you will be able to complete it or not. It does not take much time to start off a thing in a positive fashion constantly reminding yourself that you will first start with it than thinking about it as how to start it. Negative atitude always is dangerous. It creates fear amongst you and others around you. It will give all a disp;leasure of your pessimistic approach. I have seen when people give a shot and start doing it optimistically than procastinating it, they have succeeded. It may take a bit time first but it is not difficult. It may be difficult but it is not impossible.

Positive atitude
1. I shall give you on xyz date.
2. I shall do it
3 I shall sart it and see though it is difficult
4. It may be difficult to achieve but not impossible
5. I shall plan accordingly as what is to be done
6. Everything is right. If it has gone wrong let me figure it out and fix it.

Negative atitude
1. I can try doing it in few weeks of time
2. I shall try doing it but not sure
3. I have difficulty in understanding it.
4. Seems to be difficult to achieve. May be impossible to finish
5. Let me think as how to plan and when to plan for it to do. Planning schecule depends on when I am free
6. It does not seem to be a right one. I donot know how to fix the problem when it comes

See here the negative atitude guy gives up a task before he himself does not know what the problem might be if it comes. He is too afraid to face the problem itself so how can he solve it? Positive thinker will only worry about the problem and deal with it when it comes. He may be smartly working till he finds a problem. Positive atitude person knows when to do a context switch where as negative atitude guy keeps switching between tasks since he is always confused as which one he needs to work with or pay attention. He is a hurry-burry man.

So it is good to start being optimist than being a pessimist. Pessimism may work when you catch a fish in a pond or when you hunt for someone. But whenever you start a new work be optimistic about the work itself that it will be fixed somehow and will be addressed by someone or you ( in case you can do it for yourself.)

more bla bla in coming blogs.........

Life is filled with signals

It sucks ! We never knew that our whole life is filled with a word 'signal' and our life is dependent on the energy of the signal. What we see, what we hear, what we speak and everything in da to day life is a signal. Of course it is hard to correlate our life routines with DSP ('Daily Signal Perception') and somehow our body as a system has been example to many to make a lot of signal based systems. We never realized that there will be someone who will understand our body model itself as a system to simulate the concept of a subject which is called as Digital Signal Processing? True to the fact that most of our DSP systems are inspired by the system that our body is adept to!

Take the very case of HVS which has the ability to distingwish brightness and color. HVS refers to human visual system which has given the idea for entire image processing algorithms. The very basic luminance-chrominance model of image representation and video representation is inspired by our eyes??? And infact it is interesting to know our eye can act as a low pass filter (for who cannot understand this filter bla bla and gyan to put simple - low pass filter is very much same as a coffee filter except that it allows to pass signals of low frequency instead of coffee. Designers often use it to seperate signals which are intermixed like water and milk). Our ear can act as a model for audio perception. Infact all the audio decoders today are based on the human perception system of the ear where the cohlear filters model the cohlea of our ear. Famous standards like MP3 (hmm! you know it as you hear it!) are based on the principle of perceptual model for audio. Our vocal tract is an inspiration for those who wanted to understand the nature of pitch. Observing people of high pitch and low pitch people came up with an interesting representation of human vocal system as a speech model. All practical Digital Signal models for image, video, audio and speech are inspired from what we see, watch, listen and talk.
This is only an interesting point to start with. There is a lot of other gyan that relates the human body with signals and having a real observation of daily life can bring some more interesting facts....