Ibcdss (indian born confused desis’s) & those chums on late-night labour in the wards of india’s teeming ’call centres’ & my admiration for them is genuine... I am abcd literate but unemployed diarist cum reviewer... I have my ’free lunches’ & i apologise... Duly!!
Now, atul agnihotri’s (aa) movie ’hello’. But then again, first things first.
’Hello’ is **pleasantly pleasant though there is quite a ’steamy’ (for a bollywood movie) love scene between the ’hero & the ’heroine’ in the movie which makes feel one uneasy due to 2 things, namely:
I went to a multiplex just outside chandigarh called fun republic (not the republic of india) which makes all indian spectators come to watch the movie stand still to the revered national anthem.
These days & this the directors of all newly made movies seem to have forgotten is, all indians go to multiplexes with their kids... & this ’love scene’ seemingly went on & on just like 2 clumsy teenagers kissing for the 1st time.
A) india though globalised & americanised (as per the movie ’hello’) still is uneasy when it comes to sex & love scenes or talk... Infront of the kids (naturally)
I guess the love scene is made up by chetan bhagat’s & aa’s typical but clever (who wants street protests in india, especially now that the wall street would perhaps go the kenyesian way) ploy of bringing in g...o...d when things go terribly wrong which they do in the movie.
The downsizing in the company... A call centre
The heroes & heroines are looking down a deep deep ravine with their car having crashed down a half-built & abandoned bridge. But back to the future.
’Hello’ is a sweet movie despite critic rajeev masand’s strongly negative marking because:-
The cast is sweet
The almost american ambience/setting is sweet
Above all, one as a viewer from the very beginning has a strong, underlying empathy with the characters because of the realization that it is no kid play to work the night shift & that too at a ’call centre’.
One realises that this how close an indian metropolitan kids can come close to being ’proletarian’.
So hi5 to the movie.
*back to critique
One had a distinct feeling that chetan bhagat & atul agnihotri are upto something within the confines of a bollywood self-censorship.
- One wonders what 60+ man by the name retd. Maj. V. P. Chauhan (sharat saxena) who is called ’military uncle’ is doing at a ’call centre’?! He does nothing apart from sending ’photo attachments’ to his grandson in america.
Employment to a 60+ man at a ’call centre’? Granted he is ex-military but i had a feeling that somewhere cp & aa are trying to underline the fact that (had they seen the wall street crash coming?!) Nehruvian socialism wasn’t after all bad. Nanny state is not bad... When it comes to employing the unemployable like the over the hill people!
Subhash bakshi (dilip tahil), the boss of the indian arm of the ’call centre’ company is too slogan shouting pro-american that one wonders if cp & aa want to create a bad blood amongst the indian viwers against the americans!
In the end
A) (isha koppikar) - esha singh in the film - the bad girl - leaves the ’call centre’ & becomes an ngo activist.
B) (amrita arora) - radhika jha - the harassed & cuckolded d-in-law & wife of a nri patches up with the ma-in-law & her hubby but not before she forces them to buy a kinetic honda
C) (gul kirat panag) - priyanka kapoor in the movie also leaves the ’call centre’, enters an mba course on her way to become a kindergarten teacher
D) and above all, the hoax (sohail khan) - varun malhotra (vroom) in the film pulls off on the americans with the ’tacit approval’ of his american boss to save his & his friends jobs. This is unbelievable bullshit!
Varun tells, like a true blue blooded union leader, to all the ’call centre’ employees to spread the rumour all over america - amid the nris & americans that a dreadful virus is about to crash all their pcs. The only way out is to call their ’call centre’. The result was, as filmy as expected: the calls from all over america increased 100 fold ( a little exaggeration by me) even before the morning sun’s rays had the time to kiss the ’granite’ (is it? Never seen bse!) Facade of bse in mumbai.
The ’call centre’ guys, most of all sohail khan aka varun was getting blessed & kissed by americans... Blonde american teen age girls included... "bless these indians... & the stuff". Quite sickening!! Like poodles being fondled by the young mistress.
Was it cb & aa pandering to, first of all nris & then americans... For reasons of selling ’hello’ to america?! On screen ad... Yeah!!
What is all this?
One should bear in mind that any american company, be it, a ’call centre’ has the power, if not exactly to nuke the dalal street, then atleast to make it come apart brick by brick, if the americans with the american govt. At the helm, have just that inkling that somebody is trying to ’con’ them. Well, almost. The fact is: this bit, ’the conning’ could have been replaced by something more believable.
My mind says it all is aas & cps ’silent’ call not to take things lying down. The destiny. Of an individual & of a country with a ’potential’ (the oft repeated word from the movie) like india is in one’s own hands & it lies not in
A) hoaxing
B) god
But joining hands & hitting the streets. The future is dark & i am positive!!
Manu kant