King of Spades

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...

Whenever you think of some of the best action and thrilling sequences that Hollywood has produced, the Mission Impossible (MI) series ranks right on top of your mind. Yes we do have the Bond, Bourne and Arnie movies, but the sheer consistency of MI when it comes to showcasing death defying concepts/stunts is something admirable. The 5th part of the installment just takes this to the next level. Within the first few minutes of the movie, when you see Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) hanging on to dear life outside an airplane- a massive A 400, you know you are in take-off mode for a pure adrenaline rush. The plot is more or less what MI fans would usually expect. As it is, most logic goes for a toss because the fans of this franchisee are more pleased by death defying stunts than logic. IMF (Impossible Mission Force) is virtually disbanded as a unit and their main agent Ethan Hunt is on the run. His ex- colleagues are now a part of the CIA.  Ethan’s objective is to disband a syndicate tha...

“Dost, chaar small dena”! In any other situation this would have sounded like an order at a bar counter but here we were finally, after braving the horrible traffic of a typical Mumbai evening, at the booking window of Prithvi Theater,Juhu. Chaar Small by T-Pot productions was playing that evening. A collection of 4 short stories centered around a bar is what one could guess, from the poster displayed outside the venue. The humour was served right on toast by the cast, with an introductory aarti asking the viewers to put their phones on silent!  Pretty innovative I thought. The lighting, set, innovative posters (one to back the above aarti), a superb live band etc just created the perfect ambience for the spirits to soar further! Once the stories/acts start spanning out one after the other, you realize that the common link in all of these is not the bar but it is the city of Mumbai. The city of aspirations and thus migrations, underlying issues and yes humanity or what is famous...