At the Hamara Haiku Festival, Pune

Vidur Jyoti captures another moment at Bhamburda Forest, on the second day of the festival

This is to say that the Hamara Haiku Festival held at Kala Chhaya, Pune on November 27th and 28th, 2010 was a continuous monsoon drizzle in learning the various alternate ways of writing poetry. It was the first stage, like learning the alphabets, of the conciseness of haiku writing, the similarity of the former to senryu, the five-line lyrical tanka, and the prose-cum-haiku flexibility of the haibun, and finally the creatively boggling renku session, where each poet contributes the new delicate leaves to the bare branches of the poem.

As so much was to be imbibed, rebellion, and queries as to why poems had to be written in that particular way were kept aside. Meanwhile, let me thank all who made up for the extreme, deep, experience that the festival was, in no particular order, from the experienced, to the young, co-participants, organisers...

Kala Ramesh – Pune, Johannes Manjrekar - Baroda, Rohini Gupta - Mumbai, Dilip Daswani - Pune, Vidur Jyoti - Delhi, Rajendra Samal - Delhi, K. Ramesh – Chennai, Shernaz Wadia - Pune, Raamesh Gowri Raghavan - Mumbai, Sarat Rao - Mumbai, Mahrukh Bulsara - Mumbai, Gautam Nadkarni - Mumbai, Zalina Gamat – Pune and Nirali Shah – Pune

Movie Review: The Social Network: Fun, stingy take on Facebook founders

Filled with characters just going blah-blah-blah, The Social Network could have so easily been a bore of a movie. After all, this is about the real and alleged founders of Facebook, the worldwide social networking phenomenon, of people who mostly sat at their desks and typed code. The great outdoors - sunshine, rain and a rowing race make fleeting appearances on reel. In fact, the film has most characters seated, most of the time.
Instead, thanks to the genius of a screenplay adaptation by Aaron Sorkin of the Ben Mezrich book - The Accidental Billionaires, and David Fincher's (Seven, Fight Club) serene, matter-of-fact vision (direction) of the proceedings, gives us a gem of a picture - contemporary, one of the wittiest and funniest films ever, giving a tongue-in-cheek insight into the world of the so-called nerds.

No other movie has yet conveyed the confined borders of the computer and Internet world with such delicious bite. Go for it!

Movie Review: Golmaal 3: Overcooked, raw, nonsense - some great laughs though...



Not thrice as fun, not bad either...

The Golmaal Series has always worked for its skit-like sequences, the storyline is a mere prop for the proceedings. Director Rohit Shetty has the undeniable thing for pulling out genuine moments of laughter and Hindi film spoof pieces.

The third film of the series doesn't disappoint.

It starts with a bang with a war of words between the eight (more than ample) main characters, but paling in terms of coherent story-telling, needless plot threads, tepid, unconnected fight and action sequences (finger-bending crap), length, and the tired, repeated, mercilessly extended Johnny Lever act.

Nonsensical, asinine, cluttered, bumpy are some of the words that describe the movie, would recommend it for the genuine moments of laughter it raises in the first half, and some in the second half. The cast and the dialogue delivery adds punch to the scenario.

Arshad Warsi is a live cracker, he seems to have enjoyed this the most; Ajay Devgan is good - a gem of a actor wasted with limited scope; Tushar Kapoor dumb act is still endearing; Kunal Khemu makes for freshness, making most of the opportunity; Shreyas Talpade, the amazing talent that he is, is again not given his due.

Mithun Chakraborty is the show-stealer, effortlessly gliding into his badly sketched role with charm and understated lines. Ratna Pathak Shah is wasted, while Kareena Kapoor's tomboy act is a gap-filler than a solid cameo it could have been. There, that is just the main cast.

Considering the sheer talent and promise Rohit Shetty continues to display, and despite the original, not-so-run-of-the-mill stuff, the film is a disappointment for the classic movie experience it could have been. So good, yet so, so, so many 'bads'. Still, worth a watch, cut the stunt mania and add more flesh to story, we say.

Real Fun

Mithunda reprising one of the over-the-top roles of his 80's potboilers and getting to deliver one the film's best spoof lines...translated - "Thee, whose houses are made of glass, change your clothes in the basement."