(no spoilers)

As a sequel to the 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has given us The Lost Symbol, which is a thriller about the secret brotherhood called The Freemasons, interspersed with a family drama.

Set in Washington DC (again!), the book explores the one-night-wild-goose-chase of Robert Langdon (again!) against a dreadful lunatic (again!) and a highly powerful government agency (again!), protecting a secret that has the potency to change the world (again!), making profound discoveries by carefully observing well known pieces of art, literature and bible (again!), while trying to save all those murders that happen along the way (again!). You get the drift.

The novel is repetitive, to say the least. If you have read his earlier books, say Deception Point, Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code, you will find the latest one utterly boring and monotonous. I mean, Dan Brown should move over to some new theme, rather than reusing this art-science-religion crap over and over again. We know that there are secrets in the world out there waiting to be discovered, but we would like to read something refreshing, thank you very much.

If you’ve read The Da Vinci Code carefully, you will find so many parallels with it in The Lost Symbol that the plot will become almost believable. Trust me, if you are paying attention while reading, you will be able to predict the final outcome some halfway through the book. Yes, it is that predictable -  more predictable than a B-grade bollywood flick! 

And please, don’t talk about the finale. It is as excruciating as anything to read! A literal pain in the a**!! Even after everything is over, after the supposed National Security Crisis is averted, and the lunatic’s identity revealed, the author brags on and on about the symbol that was lost. Peter Solomon manages to extract another meaning from the Pyramid, which is bland. At this point, all the reader wishes is that the book should end, which doesn’t happen. 

However, if I keep the monotonous plot aside, I must confess that Brown has really evolved as a writer. The grammatical errors in the book have greatly reduced [ ], the number of shorter sentences has considerably decreased [ ], and some of the chapters aren’t too bad. Especially Chapter #77, in which the antagonist relives his past. Pure genius!

Dan Brown also seems to have grown technologically [ ], for you find references to iPhone, Google, Wikipedia and Twitter (yes!) strewn all over the book.

What’s the verdict then? The Lost Symbol is sapless, run-of-the-mill, unimaginative, and wearisome. You can add more adjectives if you want, in the comments.

P.S.: If you want some adventure, you can try the SymbolQuest at the book’s website. Quite an interesting game. Here’s a screenshot:

After watching Kaminey, I have become sure of one thing – you can trust Vishal Bhardwaj.

After sitting through New York and enduring Love Aaj Kal, I had become wary of the kind of movies Bollywod was offering these days. However, with Kaminey, the trust has returned. The movie is the sixth directorial venture of Vishal Bhardwaj, and I daresay that it lives up to his reputation of being one of the leading filmmakers of India. 

The movie tells the story about twins Charlie and Guddu (Shahid Kapur, each ) on the run. While Guddu seems the quintessential good boy who stutters, Charlie is someone who believes in taking fotcuts to earn money. And then there is Sweety (Priyanka Chorpa) too, who is Guddu’s girlfriend, who gets pregnant while flaunting her knowledge of Home Science, and tries to marry him in a hurry. 

Guddu is a social worker, Charlie is a horse-race fixer and Sweety is the sister of a corrupt and powerful politician. Once, Charlie gets embroiled in an incident involving cocaine and lots of money, and manages to make a reasonable amount of enemies for himself. As luck would have it, Guddu gets caught in the controversy too – owing to his resemblance to his bad-boy twin. What happens next is a mixture of fate, politics and quick thinking. It so happens that the two brothers are at loggerheads with each other, and haven’t come face-to-face ever since their father died. However, as the circumstances bring them together, they must help each other to be able to survive.

Perhaps the best thing about the plot is that there are no extras. No parallel storylines, no endless roundabouts, and no wavering from the central theme. Everything happens in a spate of a day, and to be able to make a full length movie out of it is indeed remarkable. The director receives full points on that front. 

Plus, the movie comments on various issues that are occupying the centrestage in India these days in a very unobtrusive way. While the character of Guddu makes an entrance in the film singing about AIDS awareness, Sweety’s on-screen brother Bhope Bhau (Amole Gupte) is a Raj Thakery-ish politician who detests everything non-Maharashtrian. The director has also dared to comment on the murky business of politics. The way these current issues are made an integral part of the plot is again, remarkable. Also, the movie is quite secular. We have Bengali characters and we have Punjabi characters. We have Marathi characters and we have African characters. These characters have no qualms about speaking in their mother tongue either. 

Notice the way humour is injected in the story and you will want to applaud the man who did that. It happens spontaneously, without effort. You laugh at Sweety’s comic dialogues, but you don’t do that when Guddu stutters or Charlie lisps. You laugh at the situation, but never laugh at the characters, or even actors, for that matter. There are no forced jokes, and the humour is dark.

Talk about performances, and Vishal Bhardwaj still gets full marks. Seriously speaking, I haven’t seen Shahid Kapur act so well before; and I didn’t have a clue that Priyanka Chopra has got a terrific comic timing; and that the person who wrote the emotional story of Taare Zameen Par (Amole Gupte) would fit into a role of corrupt Marathi politician so effortlessly. These performances have spoken for themselves and made Kaminey a fine-tuned product.

And this film has memorable dialogues! Here are the few samples:

Life badi kutti cheef hai. Aur iff duniya mein kutton ka baff, ek hi jawaab hai…

Politics bhi pesha; power aur parivaar. Purn Viraam.

Par mere paas toe kapde bhi nahi hain dhang ke.

I toe like you without clothes only…

I have seriously forgotten when was the last hindi movie I was compelled to remember dialogues of. This is some real good news. Trust Vishal Bhardwaj to write them!

The cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain is snazzy. And though the narrative of the film is a hybrid of linear and non-linear, it is something an average viewer can easily follow without losing a beat. Vishal Bhardwaj has experimented with the background score with excellent results. (Take for example, the fight scene in a hotel room is shown over the sound of a 70’s hindi track!) The music is excellent too, with Dhan Te Nan already being the chart topper for a while, and Pehli Baar Mohabbat Ki Hai being a number you can’t stop listening. You can easily guess who the music director is. Vishal Bhardwaj again! And hence, Full Marks again!

The climax, however, did not appeal to me as much as the rest of the movie. There is too much blood and gore – way greater than required. Too many people kill and get killed in the free-for-all scenario. Still, after so many killings, it remains a happy ending movie.

With Kaminey, Vishal Bhardwaj has made sure that most of the major film awards of 2009 will come his and his film’s way. You just have to watch this film, there’s no other option!

Go for it, you will enjoy the dark humour.

With Love Aaj Kal, director Imtiyaz Ali of Jab We Met fame returns with another romantic comedy; or so it seems. Starring Saif Ali Khan (who also doubles up as the producer) and Deepika Padukone in lead roles, the movie revolves around the life and times of Jaywardhan Singh and Meera Pandit. The duo is in love with each other but cannot continue the relationship for supposedly practical concerns. Long Distance Relationships don’t appeal to them, apparently.

The premise of the movie is understandable, if not apparent. It is about the trials and tribulations of a new age couple and the seemingly innocuous way they treat the feeling of ‘love’. It is about the stark comparison between love stories of the past and the present. It is about the notion that love needs to be taken care of beautifully, and not be treated like waste paper — throw away when you’re done with it. The title is apt, for one.

With Love Aaj Kal, the director aims to communicate that the olden (and perhaps, golden?) brand of love still exists. That people actually want to fall in love and share the whole of their lives with their loved ones, even in this fast paced world. That the virtues of affection and longing are still present, only that they are buried deep down.

The only glitch is that Imtiyaz Ali fails to tell the audience anything like that.

The screenplay is abrupt and disconnected. The director wants to follow a non-linear storyline, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, I would have liked it better if he took it slower. In the opening credits itself we are presented with incoherent scenes from the film, leaving us bewildered to say the least. As the movie progresses, we are presented with the worst-est (yes, doubly superlative!) dialogues we have ever heard in any recent movie (I haven’t seen Kambakkht Ishq though!). As the story builds up and things finally start making nonsense (some kind of sense, at least), we are presented with an overly obese Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor in his sardar avtar), who becomes a kind of Love Guru to Saif.

Veer Singh narrates his love story to Jay (and that’s where the blast from the past comes), who listenes with rapt attention — not exactly mesmerized, but intrigued nevertheless. Having just broken up with Meera (and throwing a party to celebrate the occasion), he gives an impression that nothing has changed. He is happy and she is happy, problem over!

However, for we can never trust a Bollywood movie to come up with something ever so simple, complications arise. Jay and Meera get into separate relationships while still remaining in contact — never apparently realizing that they actually love each other, even after the break up!
Throughout the movie, Veer Singh keeps Jay in good humor by reminiscing parts of his love story in frequent intervals, completing it just before the climax — which is as unconvincing as the rest of the film.

As far as the actors are concerned, Rishi Kapoor is in fantastic form and Sail Ali Khan acts well. Deepika Padukone would want to brush up her dialogue-delivery skills before signing up for another film. The supporting cast has performed their roles with apparent ease.

Music is perhaps the best thing to happen to Love Aaj Kal. I certainly liked the sound of Chor Baazari and the lyrics of Ye Dooriyan. However, since it is given by Pritam, it will turn out to be plagiarized from some foreign album sooner or later. 

By the looks of it, Love Aaj Kal could be one of the best Indian movies ever made with its unconventional story and equally unorthodox way of storytelling. However, it fails to leave a mark. The screenplay has too many faults to overlook and Deepika certainly disappoints. I would not recommend any of you to go and watch the movie if I had my way. Even Bachna Ae Hasino was better than this, and that’s saying something!

Three actors, each a heartthrob in his/her own right. A love triangle. Treading the grounds of terrorism. Giving out a social message. No extraneous song-and-dance routines. Yash Raj Banner. No big ticket cricket season to distract the moviegoers…

By the looks of it, director Kabir Khan’s New York was the kind of blockbuster Bollywood needed to relinquish itself from the economic recession and the two month long standoff between the producers and the multiplex owners. Except that it has failed to bust any blocks, yet.

Samir Sheikh a.k.a Sam (John Abraham), Maya (Katrina Kaif) and Omar Aijaz (Neil Nitin Mukesh) are the three, seemingly protagonists of the movie. They are the undergraduates studying at the New York State University, and classmates of each other. Sam is the sporty, attention seeking and intelligent guy who believes in enjoying life to the fullest. Maya is equally vivacious, and proudly proclaims that her mother will readily elope with Shahrukh Khan given the slightest chance. Omar, on the other hand, is a shy, “good boy” kind of a person who is new to the American brand of life, having moved in recently – all thanks to a scholarship. Both Sam and Omar secretly like Maya. And Maya secretly likes Sam. The two meet, get married, have a son, and they are off. Omar, on the other hand, is reduced to the sidelines – never to return in the lives of two of his best friends. Or is it?

Years afterwards, Omar – who still lives in the city, gets some unexpected visitors. The FBI, out there to arrest him. Agent Roshan, played by now stereotyped Irrfan Khan, wants him to act as an undercover agent for them, because they suspect that Sam is running a terror camp in New York.

Omar, having reluctantly agreed, enters into the lives of Sam, Maya and Daaniyal (their son) yet again. And a curious turn of events follow up.

The story, written by Aditya Chopra, is intriguing – but the buck stops there. The first half of the movie, dealing with college, love, friendship et al, is almost weird to watch. There are too many awkward moments and the screenplay falters frequently, as if being paid to do that. You get sick of Hai Junoon, for it plays continuously for the first half an hour! John Kat and Neil are just too old to play collegiates. Further, the story keeps jumping up and down nine years apart, and this hasn’t been done tastefully, to the likes of, say Rang De Basanti.

The music is as good as Pritam can give you. As I’ve said, there are no song-and-dance routines in the film. The track tune jo na kaha is good, but I think that its a matter of time before someone unearths its original – if you know what I mean There are no tracks worth remembering, and certainly no tracks which strike a chord.

As far as the performance goes, John and Kat have done their usual, mediocre stuff, but Neil has done loads better. He brings out the inner conflict raging inside him superbly. However, he looks very childish in his avtar as a college student. Irrfan Khan has portrayed his role as an FBI officer well, owing to the fact that he has played a lot of similar roles (Slumdog Millionaire, A Mighty Heart to speak of a few). Like the music, there are no performances worth remembering, and certainly no performances which strike a chord.

On the whole, the movie has its strong points, but the weak and the mediocre ones clearly outstrip them. Watch it only if you are sick of waiting for movies to release, or if you are a really big fan of Irrfan Khan 

Writing about facts is easy. Jot down notes, organize them, and write coherent sentences. I am not talking about how you go about collecting those facts. All I am concerned with is how you go about writing them. Much less brainwork is required in this case, isn’t it? 

Writing fiction is difficult still. You have to think about people – the characters and the story behind each of them. You have to think about the settings and the events – and how they progress towards the final goal. Sometimes fact and fiction are intertwined, when somebody weaves a fictional story about familiar, factual events. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh is one such example, where the author has kept the setting honest – that of the British invading India and the neighboring countries. The characters of King Thebaw and his Queen are real too, but the rest of it is solely fictional. 

How do you go about writing fantasy then, where everything needs to be invented?

As many of my Facebook friends know, I recently completed completed reading books from the Harry Potter series. Yes, I took my time alright – I read them back to back, you see – but that is not what I want to talk about. All I want to say is that JK Rowling has got a brilliant mind. 

Harry Potter is not like a regular good versus evil stories where you just have to kill the bad man to end all the sin in the world, because killing Lord Voldemort in person will not help. He will still live, for he has ripped apart his soul in different pieces. 

The high point of the series is that seemingly simple incidents that happen in the beginning have a big roles to play towards the end. It comes as a surprise to the reader, and increases the interestingness of the story manifold. 

Speaking of the concepts JK Rowling has invented – they are splendid. Quidditch and the Flying Broomsticks, the Time Turner, the Invisibility Cloak, humans talking to snakes, horcruxes – the list goes on. She has spun an entire world – a parallel world alongside the normal. Everything is invented, and everything is entirely new. Heck, she has even written the Tales of Beedle the Bard – fairy tales for the wizard kids! Yet, it is not science fiction. Concepts described in the books will never bear out (although I heard about some scientists trying to make the cloak of invisibility). The genre is Fantasy, yet Fantasy has never seemed so real!

Harry Potter is one hell of a story. Though I expect most of you to have read it, those who haven’t – go for it!

Note: Don’t put me off for writing less and less. I know that I am updating after a long time. I was reading Harry Potter in the meantime, you see!