LUDO

#LUDO
#NETFLIX
#OBETAJI

Name : LUDO

Director& Writer : Anurag Basu

Music Director  : Pritam
Lyricist : Sayeed Quadri,Swanand Kirkire,Sandeep Srivastava,Shloke Lal
Available on : NETFLIX

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"Aapki CTC kitni hai"
"Itni ki savings bhi nahi ho paati aur loan bhi nahi lena padta"

After long time,got to watch something that is thrilling,comedy,romantic,at the same time giving simple fundamentals of life without being preachy!!

Opening scene shows director himself ,Anurag Basu with his assistant kind person played by Rahul Bagga playingg Ludo.Both seem to be narrators but later on their actual roles are revealed and Anurag Basu's dialogue starts making sense,"Are yaar,hamesha samay se pehle leke aate ho mujhe!"

Movie plot is horribly twisted,taking unusual turns at every other scene!There are nearly 4  stories running at the same time,which seem to be undoubtedly parallels but incidentally interconnected somewhere.Beauty lies in when these characters,stories cross each other,it happens so naturally,no forced connections at all!!And every story depicts the different side of Ludo game,blue,red,yellow,green!

Bittu (Abhishek Bacchan) a chota mota bhai comes out of jail after 6 years to find his wife has moved on with other man with his daughter and he wants his daughter back, badly!!A little girl runs away from home creating her own fake kidnap story just to grab attention of her busy,rich parents!!Akash Chavan (Aditya Roy Kapur) and Shruti (Sanya Malhotra) are on a search spree of a hotel where they had once spent time and unfortunately got captured in hotel room's hidden camera!!And Shruti is getting married (with a filthy rich person) in next 5 days.Pinky's (Fatima Sana Shaikh) husband is a murder suspect and she goes to her school time lover Alu(Rajkumar Rao) for help to get her husband out of jail. Two daydreamers Sheeja Thomas (Pearle Maaney) and Rahul (Rohit Saraf) find a bag full of money and decide to live life at their own terms but future holds something else for them! Sattu  bhai (Pankaj Tripathy) is a goon,bhai who joins all the lines of these stories.From here starts journey of these characters and the confusions they create which are hilarious,sometimes making us sit on the edge of the seat!!And ultimately everyone realises what they truly want in life and ultimately like it happens in game of Ludo, everyone reaches their 'Home'!

Each and every actor has played outstandingly well and given 100% justice to their roles.No one has extensive screen presence but for whatever time they are there,magic is created!No character is unforgettable or just a filler.Story is written so well that every role is given equal weightage then it may be that inspector Sukumar Sinha played by Ishtiyak khan who has hardly 3 4 scenes to his share or nurse Lata Kutty played by Shalini Vatsa whose actual role starts after almost half of the film is over.And dialogues are criso and straightforward.

To make the entire story beautiful best impact is created by situational music and songs!!

Abhishek Bacchan is best,Rajkumar Rao as a (majboor) Mithun fan is simply lovable,Aditya Roy Kapur ,Sanya Malhotra's chemistry is superb.Last but not the least The Pankaj Tripathy!! Literally,he does not have much screen time,in fact,no much dialogues but whenever he appears,we are in awe of his presence!!

Best part is the Bhagwan Dada's song O Betaji...used in background with Pankaj Tripathy on screen!!Glad that original song is used as it is and no remix was tried!!

Overall,a pleasant,fun watch with Ooooo Betaji on our lips forever!!

Four More Shots Please..!!

Name :Four More Shots Please..!!
Network : Amazon Prime Video
Seasons : 2
Episodes : 20
Cast : Sayani Gupta,Kirti Kulhari,Maanvi Gagroo,Bani J,Milind Soman❤️❤️❤️,Lisa Ray, Prateik Babbar
Director : Anu Menon,Nupur Asthana
Writers : Devika Bhagat,Ishita Moitra

PC:IMDb.com

Four extremely independent women Anjana (Kirti Kulhari) a successful lawyer at a reputed firm,Umang (Bani J) a fitness trainer,Siddhi(Manvi Gagroo) belonging to a super super rich family whose mother is overly concerned to get her married,Damini (Sayani Gupta) a fearless journalist and founder of a startup.

Anjana is a single mother,divorcee and her life is set with a perfect career,sweet daughter.She is not thinking of moving on until she finds out her ex husband is seeing a girl and Anjana kind of thinks,why not me!!??What the hell I was doing all these years and now I must move on and look out for a guy!!Fair enough.And she lands up in affair with a boy much younger than her and ultimately breaks up as she thinks he is getting way too serious and planning a future with her which she is scared of because of first failed marriage.Then she falls for a married guy Shashank Bose(Sameer Kochar) with some T&C.

Umang is a small town punjabi girl,a fitness trainer who is bisexual and wants to get out from her place as , obviously,no one will digest her sexuality and it will be good for her career as well.She has random relationships where she is not serious with anyone ,but ,finally finds her true love in  Samara Kapoor (Lisa Ray)who is a famous actress and gradually they decide to take this relationship further and plan to get married.

Siddhi ,as mentioned,is a girl raised in complete SoBo environment.She does not have any particular goal in life as her mother(Simone Singh) is always behind her with new plans to lose weight, different matches,searching groom,she is not allowed to think for her own,freely.She has a childhood friend who likes her but she is not able to come to any decision about him.

Damini is a passionate journalist ,a start up founder.She too has random relationships like friends with benefits kind!She always fantasises her gynaecologist Amir Warsi ( Milind Soman❤️❤️❤️)and has a really good friend,little bit more than a friend,Jeh(Prateik Babbar) and she is super confused between these two men all the time!!

Focusing on the best part,All the actors are superb,in fact,their effortless acting carries us till the last episode!All have done fabulous job!Title song is wonderful with jabardast music.Lyrics are very relative and highlights the plot in brief (Koi kuch kahe parwa na mujhe,karne ko kuch bhi karu.).Also the songs which run in the background throughout the different episodes are beautifully written,sung and perfectly match to the respective situations.

All those issues which are considered a taboo in society are covered well.Anjana carrying her crying baby to the bar where she breastfeeds her and how people react to it strangely!Siddhi coming out of the bodyshaming thing.Umang being accepted as a bisexual and deciding to get married to her girlfriend.Though,her family is shown not accepting her sexuality, hints us towards that part of society which is not yet open to accept you as you are!Anjana facing misogynistic behaviour of her boss who doesn't promote her,though she is deserving for the post, citing lame reasons like how she behaves weirdly in those days of months,how she's not able to handle her job as she is single mother!!Damini is pregnant and she wants to keep the baby and parents support her completely!These four friends are always beside each other through thick n thin.They openly discuss sex,periods, boyfriends,orgasm, everything!!

Now the weak part and some unrealistic issues!When siddhi's parents come to know about her stint with semi porn site,she is sent to 2 months Europe trip to get out of all the mess!! From there she calls Umang and cries a lot ,seems to be disturbed ,broken!Out of worry and concern,Umang and other girls fly to Istanbul the very next day with absolutely zero knowledge of Siddhis whereabouts ,on the basis of an Instagram post from where they find her location, apparently!Amir Warsi impregnates Damini,but she loves Jeh and wants to co parent the child with Amir!!It gets bit hard to digest this like how she will manage it!!These girls' problems are similar to the state of a privileged child who when given all the best toys of this world , still will not be happy,as he/she will get confused which is the best toy,what kind of toy exactly  I would like to play with or if I want all of them and ultimately ends up choosing no toy and crying badly complaining I don't have anything to play!!

The entire story revolves around the high profile characters who have already crossed level 1 of life game where roti,kapda,makan issues are solved.Their problems are of level 2 and 3 where common (wo)man is yet to reach because we are occupied in aaj bai nahi aayi,dudh fat gaya kya karu,bache ko tiffin me kya du etc etc!!This is where I got fascinated with this series.Thought,this is the perfect life,yeh sahi hai,aisI life mangta hai !!! somewhere we fantasise such kind of life wherein we are independent, answerable to nobody,taking my own decisions,living freely on whole and sole my terms which I never got to experience ever!! I spoke with friends of my age who had the same thought!Life ho to aisi!!And some of my friends who are almost 10 15 yrs younger to me didn't like it!They were like bakwas hai,illogical hai,its way too far from reality!!May be,Because,they have seen such kind of life closely and they are aware of it's goods and bads,were firm on their views!

But end of the day all the four girls are confused and do not reach to any conclusion!!I am not saying,getting to conclusion means getting married and committed to one person for your entire life!But whatever you are doing,be clear and stick to it! I am glad,they are shown admitting it in the last scene.We have almost everything but We don't know what we want!!?

What was the connection between Ramayan serial and Raj Kapoor?

Strange connection between Ramayan serial and Legendary Raj Kapoor.

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 One of my favourite radio shows is Suhana Safar with Annu Kapoor which airs daily at 11 am on Red FM. Annu Kapoor tells interesting,unusual,lesser known stories related to Bollywood and its people.Once,he told this story of how Raj Kapoor signed Music Director Ravindra Jain (another music legend)for movie Henna.At that time Ravindra Jain was working on music of Ramayan serial for Doordarshan.One day he received message from Raj Kapoor informing him that they were leaving for Kashmir!This was a surprise for him.He thought it must be something related to work.They stayed in Kashmir for almost 20 to 25 days.But not a single day,work was discussed!This was strange.They just roamed and visited different places.After returning,Ravindra Jain learned that just to wipe off the memory of Ramayan,Raj Kapoor took him to Kashmir ,so that he can work on Henna's music with fresh and clear mind!I was in awe after listening this!And, gradually,I forgot about this story.

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After these many days,as all the old serials are being rerun on various channels in current lockdown,watching Ramayan I realised why Raj Kapoor might have felt the need to take off Ramayan from Ravindra Jain's mind!!What it means to "put soul" in something is Ramayan's music alongwith immortal lyrics of Late Jaidev.Each and every situation has relevant lyrics and unique music for every song.  'Kab darshan denge Ram param hitkari,Rasta dekhat shabri ki umar gayi saari' is one of the bestest songs from this serial with soft music of some unusual instruments !! Research and direction of this serial was,no doubt,mind blowing!It was a master piece by Great Ramanand Sagar and his team. But it's lyrics and music have added beauty to the story!This does not come from a shallow artist!To bring out such master piece, one has to blend himself with the storyline which these two legends have done!! Ultimately,Ravindra Jain might have involved so much in Ramayan that he was not able to think about Henna!!Raj Kapoor sensed this and went out of the way to bring out the best from him for his movie!!

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Raj Kapoor could have asked any other Music Director to work on his movie.But he took that extra efforts for Ravindra Jain.Such dedication, conviction towards work is rarely seen today!Hats off to these maestros who were ready to go to any extent for the love,passion for their work!!

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

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Director : Hitesh Kewalya
Writer : Hitesh Kewalya
Cast : Ayushmann Khurrana,Jitendra Kumar,Gajraj Rao,Neena Gupta,Manu Rishi,Sunita Rajwar,Manvi Gagroo

" बेटा , तुमने कब decide किया की तुम्हे गे बनना है?,
"Uncle, आप ने कब decide किया की आपको गे नही बनना है?"
"उस्मे decide क्या करना है भाई, पैदा हूये तबसे ऐसे ही हैं!!"

And then there is an exchange of "stares" and uncle's expressions changes!And our protagonist's message is loud and clear,"Boss!!we both are normal!"

Homosexuality is ,of course, not an altogether new subject for Bollywood!But it has been portrayed as a joke,Gays/Lesbians are always shown as someone to laugh on as seen in most of the Karan Johar's movies! Madhur Bhandarkar has consistently tried to show homosexuals as any other normal thing.Not entirely but many of his movies has given this hint and his sincere efforts are always seen and must be appreciated.Other directors have tried to take the subject out of closet but it did hit hard at audience and has not reached beyond a certain set of people,for that matter,not beyond multiplex audiences,we can say.

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan has gone two steps up by keeping homosexuality as a centre point and entire story revolves around the protagonists Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar.And that too not at all in a preachy way.But by a perfect blend of humor and at the same time maintaining the seriousness of subject.

Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar are in love and Jitendra Kumar's father accidentally comes to know about their affair.And from here onwards entire tale is a roller coaster ride with several twists and turns.How the family reacts by telling him that he is "Not Well" and should take doctor's treatment and everything will be all right!How the western culture has influenced their son and all!First half has a tight hold on the script and story moves smoothly and in correct speed.But second half becomes bit predictable,some scenes are felt like unnecessarily forced into story just for the sake of it!!Jitendra Kumar is not that convincing.And thats why their chemistry seems to be missing somewhere.The conviction that was expected out of their bonding is not visible,sadly. Ayushmann Khurrana ,as usual,is completely under the skin of his character,and thankfully he saves the movie from being weak!And the entire supporting cast is mind blowing which never lets the energy drop down!!Be it Protagonist"s parents Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao or Chacha Chachi played by Manu Rishi and Sunita Rajwar or his cousin played by Manvi Gagroo,everyone has done a fabulous job by their effortless dialogue delivery and natural acting!One liners are the crux of the humor part.

Our society still thinks of homosexuality as a stigma,as some disease which can be cured by treatment.It is always thought of as something which is adapted from Western culture and how youth is badly influenced by it!!Movie,even though, not preachy , sincerely tries to make us think of same sex relationships as any other normal relations!!Best part is it doesn't look typical at all. Usually in such movies gay is always shown as having some feminine traits,talks in a different style ,as in,bobby darling types which is really pathetic!But I am happy this movie has successfully broken that stereotype.

No one can raise question on anyone's sexuality.It is a personal choice and every individual has right to chose!Society should accept LGBT community with fair dignity and respect.They should not be looked down as someone being abnormal,being weird or dirty!!This can only happen through more and more awareness,more open dialogue. Different effective mediums like movies, articles, magazines,documentaries can be used to aware people. This fact also should not be ignored that,this is not a small change which can happen overnight,it is a long process which is definitely going to take some time.But consistent efforts are surely needed.

In the last scene,Gajraj Rao's dialogue,"बेटा ये क्या है हमे समझ नही आता पर हम तुम्हे रॊकेंगे  भी नहीं",assures that mindset is definitely going to change,sooner or later.

KD(Tamil)

  KD (Karuppu Durai)