King of Spades

The past It must have been some time post 4pm in the evening, when she woke up in her hall on the sofa. Looked like she had somehow managed to crawl into her home safely. The headache was splitting her head apart. She washed her face and popped a pill to get rid of the headache. Post freshening up ,she went upstairs to her fathers’s room. Shit yaar, he must be upset with me for getting sloshed and  sleeping all day long , was the constant thought plying on her mind, as she opened his door. He was not in his room . She looked in the kitchen and the balcony. He was nowhere to be seen. Must have gone out for his walk. Well let me call him. As she reached out for her phone, she saw a lot of missed calls. There were a couple of unknown numbers,  her neighbor and her paternal uncle(chachu) were also there in the list. There was also one missed call from Karan. Looks like the entire world was trying to reach her when she was sloshed.  Out of the list, she called her chachu. H...

Fourth day and still no signs of movement. The flicker on the screen was proof that the heart was alive but then the body just didn’t seem to realise it. The present  It was 2:30 am. Sakshi had just got her last cup of coffee for the night. Usually she used to get late. But today work was at its peak. It was a night of celebration.  Mumbai Indians, the local cricket team had won the cricket IPL (Indian premiere league)  T20 trophy for the first time.  Party was in the air and thus being the founder of a successful start up, that dealt with driver service for party animals , their phone had not stopped ringing since late evening .  While business was  on the rise , she was still maintaining a  tight back office workforce to curtail expenses. This eventually led Sakshi herself routing/answering calls for assistance during hi-traffic days. Water drops had slightly begun to trickle down the glass façade of her cabin as a ping popped on their assistanc...

There are movies and then there are stories. The first one impresses you. The later impacts! Mr.Rajkumar Hirani, always does the later. And he does it with so much of simplicity and earnestness that only few can. Have been a fan of his craft, ever since the Munnabhai series ,which was followed by the evergreen movie 3 idiots. But what he does with Pk is something, which probably no other director would have dared to explore or even delivered. Imagine the plot- An alien lands into a country and then teaches his inhabitants a thing or two about god and religion, just as he discovers their culture.  About how one is real and the other probably man-made. Sounds crazy.Well go ahead, watch the movie to see how efficiently the master executes his craft. Right from scene one, Aamir Khan (Pk) gets into the character of the lovable alien. Absolutely harmless, he has no clue what to do, when the only one thing (a locket) that can get him back to his planet, is flicked by a human. How he...

A simple heart-warming emotion is often the toughest to portray on-screen. Whether it was the carrom board shot in Munnabhai to revive the old man or the lie that Rancho narrates to make his friend speak in 3 Idiots, the scenes ended on a happier note with a feel good factor. The difference in Ferrari ki Sawaari is that the emotion stays on… case in point the scene in which Rustom, played by Sharman Joshi, goes to a bank to ask for a loan for his son. The simplicity of the character and his endearing emotion as a doting father lingers on even after the scene ends. It does not translate into a happier moment and that’s what makes Ferrari ki Sawari a common man’s story. Wouldn’t agree much or comment on the Parsi angle since am yet to meet a single parsi who is in need of a loan in the first place! The plot: Rustom (Sharman Joshi) plays a common man aka Raja Harishchandra and a doting father to his son Kayo. As the head clerk of the RTO, his income is less but that does not stop ...