Valentine Is Like Halloween. Don’t jump into conclusions, I don’t have any horrific experience with Valentines day, ever. This correlation of Valentine with Halloween is concluded by someone else, and she has a pretty good reason of coming to this statement.
When your four-year old daughter comes to you and asks an innocent question like, “Mamma, Do you know Valentines Day?”, what will be your first reaction?
Valentine Is Like Halloween
My first thought was, how did she know about Valentine Day? Then, I thought, oh, who am I kidding, she goes to school, and kids today, they know almost everything, well almost, thank God. 😐
So, instead of just saying yes, and explaining to her what Valentines day is, like any good parent must have done, but not me; I promptly said – “No”.
“No, I don’t know about Valentines Day.”
Don’t blame me, I just wanted to know, what she knows about it. Try this method, you will hear some very cute answers to life’s difficult problems.
So, I asked, “What is Valentine Day”?
Tisha, my daughter, – “You don’t know? Oh…. 😦 ”
“Valentine is like Halloween”.
Tisha Singh
Now, this was a shocker.
Well, wait for it, she explained it to me too, once my curiosity asked her, “How”.
Tisha : “Valentine is like Halloween, Mamma. On Valentine, kids go to party, and they get candies, and they play with their friends, and everyone loves them, give them treats. Teacher will give us a party and we will play. Lots of candies, mamma!!” 😎 “Mamma, I want to go to Valentines party… plzz….plz… plz…take me to valentines party.”
Valentine’s Heart Basket
I did get a pretty good laugh out of it. She is super excited about her party. Me and kids have made some pretty cool gifts, small hearts, for their class friends and teachers. All set for party.
Here is to an interesting Valentines day, which is just like a Halloween. 😛
But, are you just expecting it to be a hit? Or, you were expecting fireworks from it?
Don’t know about you, but I was expecting Fireworks and I was let down a bit. Why? I will soon delve into that, but lets first go through the basics of this movie – PK.
PK is Indian Film Directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra along with Siddharth Roy Kapur and Hirani himself. This movie stars Aamir Khan in the lead role of PK; while Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh Rajput, Boman Irani and Saurabh Shuklaplays important part in this movie. Sanjay Dutt has also done a crucial cameo in this movie, but is completely wasted in this movie.
PK – Is it a Waste of Time?
PK, played by Aamir Khan, is an alien who got stranded on Earth when someone stole his remote control device; his only way to call back his spaceship. PK then embarks on a hilarious journey of finding his remote. He goes to Police and every common man he can encounter, to get clues for finding remote, but only answer that he got was, “Only God can help you find it”.
Thus he decides to first find God and then he will take God’s help to find remote. Now,the big question is, Where is God? He went from Temples to Churches, from Mosques to Gurudwara, but to no avail. Until one day he accidentally bumps into a Baba’s aashram where he saw his remote projected as Shiva’s Manka/bead from Himalayas. Comes Anushka, who then plan a plot to help PK get his remote back from Baba, and in doing so they expose Baba and his claim of talking with God.
What works for the movie?
This movie is a full on entertainer. It will make you laugh, cry, question and will evoke so many emotions inside you. Hirani has chosen an apt way to use an alien to see our world from the perspective of an outsider. It gives an objectifying view of the whole spiritual corruption that is happening around us.
Aamir Khan is always flawless. He can be a student, or a magician or he could be an alien. whatever role you will give him; he will be that character to the hilt. Anushka and Sushant are the also in their best form. Anushka has looked confident in front of Aamir. Movie on a whole is good and watchable.
What does not work for the Movie?
One of the drawbacks of this movie is that it is following in the footsteps of ‘3 Idiots‘, and Munnabhai genre. It’s just not upto that standard. Reasons are many –
To start with, first half of the movie is tight and edited well. It is right on point in showing an objective picture of our religious differences and dogma attached to them. Comes second half and film loses its objectivity to an illogical emotional drama.
This movie sets a pace where at the end you are waiting for that big climax; where our protagonist PK will silent the Godman and his followers, once and for all, by his quick wit and logic. But alas, that climax was never there. Instead there was all this ‘Rona-Dhona’, India-Pakistan, Love Story, Baap Beti emotional drama and all.
That last scene could have made a lot of difference. It could have taken this film to a height where Hirani’s other films are, atleast. They could have written down an extraordinary debate where Godman could have shown to acknowledge his defeat.
Most absurd is the love story shown between Anushka and Sushant. Who in his right mind break up like that? You are left at the altar and you will not even ask why?? Infact, they were kind of shown living in together and the very next day they just left the country without even seeing each other. If I would have to leave a country, it would take me a week just to pack my stuff.
Some Hindu religious organizations/groups are protesting against this movie as it show Hinduism in bad light. To be fair, it does show each religion that way; but their main villain/protagonist being a Hindu Godman (only), does raises eyebrow. Hirani and Aamir for once could have taken a bold step and shown representative of every religious leader in the final debate. But again, the end is not at all what I would expect from this combo.
PK – Is it a Waste of Time?
One more fact that is not highlighted about the movie is, that the character of PK was loosely based on ‘Abraham Kovoor‘, who was responsible for running a campaign against so called Frauds and Godman. His most popular target was ‘Sathya Sai Baba‘. Thus if you translate it into a film, you can relate to the Saurabh Shukla character more.
PK – Is it a Waste of Time?
My suggestion to those who are protesting against this movie – Do not protest on social platform. You are only promoting this movie by doing so. Remember when it comes to films, every publicity is a good publicity.
Suggestion to viewers – Go watch the movie but do not expect sparks flying the way they it happened in ‘ 3 Idiots‘.
PS. I still couldn’t understand why Anushka Sharma have gone through duck lips for this movie. It just doesn’t make any sense.
I was waiting for the release of this film since it was screened at cans in 2008, but Indian censorship took its toll on this movie, and finally it is released. Main motivation for me to watch this movie was the film protagonist – Raja Ravi Verma. I wanted to see the story of that man who revolutionized the way we see our mythological characters. The man who was responsible for first creating the poster of Goddess Laxmi standing on a lotus flower, the way we saw her today in every Diwali poster. The man who made sari clad Indian women looked sexier and elegant at the same time. The man who made come alive ‘Shakuntala’, Damyanti, Urvashi, Menka, Saraswati and many more. The man whose imagination defined the pathway for Indian arts and paintings.
You can write a book on Raja Ravi Verma and still you won’t be able to do justice to capture his large persona, so when it came to capturing his life in an almost 2 hour long movie, I was skeptical. But, I was not disappointed.
Rang Rasiya – Story of Raja Ravi Verma
‘Rang Rasiya’ is an Indian film based on the life of famous Indian Painter ‘Raja Ravi Verma’. This film is directed by Ketan Mehta of ‘Mangal pandey’ fame. It stars Randeep Hooda as the famous painter himself, and Nandana Sen as his muse. Feryna Wazheir and Paresh Rawal also plays a pivotal role in the movie.
Rang Rasiya – Story of Raja Ravi Verma
This movie portrays character of Raja Ravi Verma from childhood moment of painting elephant on a temple’s wall to his old age when he get motivation to change his course of painting and focus on common people rather than Gods and deities. The way this character rebels against the norms of society is commendable. His selfishness when it comes to painting is shown honestly. His guilt, his progression, his imagination, everything is filmed beautifully.
The very first moment you will see the title song of the film, you will be hooked to it. It is like watching a beautiful painting taking shape in every scene of the film. But to advise you, this film is not for everyone. My husband almost dozed off twice while watching it and ultimately he left.
Randeep Hooda has proven himself again. He has aged gracefully in this film, with every scene maturing his acting skills. His progression from a clueless but passionate painter to the one who is just eager to defy everything that comes in the way of portraying true art, is commendable. He has looked every bit of Raja Ravi Verma. Most laudable were the scenes of court, or his reaction when he saw his muse for the last time.
Nandana Sen is one brave actress. She has done justice to Raja Ravi Verma’s life and paintings. She has looked beautiful and acted superbly. She was vulnerable yet strong, jealous but still madly in love, she was the goddess and yet she was the earthly woman, who could only live in imaginative world of his lover. Most worthy of the praise is the scene when she discovers that her existence to Ravi Verma’s life is only in his imagination. Nandana Sen has etched a lifetime role.
‘Rang Rasiya‘, as a film is not perfect, it’s not even close to that, but if you watch it for Raja Ravi Verma, than it is far more that perfect. It is a masterpiece, just like all the paintings of Raja Ravi Verma.
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