With much critical acclaim to boast off, director Kaushik Ganguly is on a roll. His last few movies have placed him on a very prestigious chair in Bengali film fraternity. I had not watched much of his work... I do want to watch Shabdo and Apur Panchali. Got a chance to watch Khaad which impressed a number of critics and viewers. Naturally I had a bias in mind - a positive one for a change. After watching the film, I felt nervous to express my feeling. Who wants to be boycotted... except someone like me who have very little to lose? It's an average attempt to do something good. Or should I say a shrewd attempt? No point in writing much about hyped acts like this. Like Srijit Mukherjee, Mr. Ganguly seemed to believe that intelligent filmmakers eat more than half of the footage on exhibiting cuss-words, smoking-n-drinking and twists and shocks, flavored with pseudo-intellectual dialogues, up-to-dateness and casting extravaganza. There is very little care for coherence, tidiness or consistency. It's like selling a mediocre product with superb marketing. The only positive here is they did help their producers do good business. I'm happy for them but not happy to see such films which neither entertain nor enthrall me.
Indian circus starts at Delhi this year. AAP wins 67/70 seats in Delhi assembly polls, leaving the Modi-fied BJP happy with just 3 seats. Congress makes a comeback of sorts – with just 3 seats short of BJP! It’s an extraordinary result.
It means, according to media analysis:
· People of Delhi have overridden the Modi wave which swept across the country just a few months back.
· People of Delhi (including local BJP leaders) were not too impressed with the nomination of Kiran Bedi as a CM candidate. Her switch from AAP to BJP at the last minute to be projected as the next CM created disgust and grievance.
· AAP said “sorry” for their hasty quitting after 49D of earlier term. Their application got approved.
It's been a month or so. Guess what? AAP is on the verge of blowing up with senior leaders fighting a civil war. Kejriwal is leading one camp and Yogendra Yadav/Prashant Bhushan run the other and they are openly at loggerheads with public spats and leaked video/phone tapes. It's a serious crisis within the party before their government in Delhi learned walking. Public life is stressful and righteousness is costly!