Dear Aamir ..Have you forgotten?
I do not know whether it was the Funs digital screen married to a loud stereo system or sitting too close to a screen thanks to a radio channel’s invite or a combination of both but the fury and sound of every smashed skull - nose- jaw bone and other assorted appendage was an unhealthy assault on the sensitive sense organs of this writer. A stupid smile and watermarks of a brushed tear on the face was what accompanied me to the show of Ghajini having just stepped out of the Taare zameen Par hangover. Should be that beautiful heroine imitating Sridevi so skillfully and in some sections Hema Malini coming out of the Sholay closet. Sure her name must be Ghajini I murmured to myself. And then the assault began and seemed to go on like forever. I almost cried to be let out.
Wait. I FORGOT .THE central theme. No No Forget is the central theme. Forget it. Let’s start all over. Ghajini is perhaps the first film in History of the Indian films to have been named after a tapori looking Villain. So then what’s so wrong about villains looking like taporis? Well nothing except for the fact that he also happens to be some generous donator to educational institutions while not making any effort to hide neither his over stated ornament line or his worst B grade sidekicks straight out of spin in the air till eternity swish swish south flicks.
I have just rolled back home looking more disheveled than the beat up police inspector in the movie.
Aamir is a sweet chocolate faced industrialist who smiles approvingly all the time as his lady love, a small time advertisement model, puts on her cho chweet act. Apparently she accidentally leads people to believe that she has befriended a top honcho of a cell phone company and he turns up pretending to be an actor sidekick both trying to pull off an absurd storyline. He is gooey eyed and wants to take her home , no not to his mom, just home but complications galore as the heroine draws the ire of the same jewellry line villain and ends up messing the carpet after the villain is done playing “plumbing the head”. Gore is an understatement and I was looking askance at the neighbors in the dark to see if any were covering their eyes. There’s lot of attention to details of the size of the murder weapon, the sound that it makes when it is tapped on the floor and swinging it like a golf club .
The swinging leaves a designer cut on the heroes head and which is being used to further Hairstyle design interests. Hello we thought it was a sad reminder of the gore that the hero suffers.
Don’t ask serious questions about rationale and you don’t get any wrong answers and smirks. Just sit back and relax and enjoy the 10000watt bone crunching as Aamir postures his recently and perfectly sculpted till now anonymous muscles of his body like never before. Yes here he leaves Shahrukh far behind.
It is a long drawn affair and you are constantly prodded to either look at your watch or slip quietly into a nap before a cracking bone of a spinning in the air forever body awakens you rudely. If you believe all that it is only because Aamir puts in so much conviction into his body building and depiction of the role. And yet one finds it difficult to believe that Aamir actually was bubbling with excitement when he heard this farfetched storyline. There are some few and far magical Movie moments. There are times during the romantic scenes between Asin and Aamir that you secretly wish the director disappeared and let the Fanaa happen. Alas the bone cruncher is back….Crack spin smash..!!!
There are a couple of hummable songs from AR Rahman with only one passing the line to be a chart buster. There is the Sooraj Hua Madham scenario revisited in the sand dunes this time. The cinematography is up to the mark but please use the sharp cuts and swishes with little more control and for that once in an hour effect . Not like 15 times per minute. It hurts man . Yeah worse than those bones going Osteoporotic. (!). Asin is confident. Jia was there but the question is why?
I got up wondering whether it was possible that the memory loss was contagious. I was in a desperate hurry to forget this . And I did not want to wait for 15 minutes. I looked for Aamir just in case he had dropped in for the prerelease preview. I desperately wanted to look him in the eye and ask him..Dear Aamir …Have you forgotten ..you made Taare Zameen Par.
M.R.Navindutt