I've been fortunate enough to watch most matches of the recent Indo-Pak cricket series and the quality of the commentary has been apalling. Commentators today not only resort to pathetic cliches to describe the proceedings but quite a few of them can't even construct an English sentence. People like Waqar Younis (no questioning his skill as a cricketer) need truckloads of help with simple English pronounciation. "Thats an excellent shot" becomes "Thats an aiixcellent shot" with excellent being repeated several times over. Rameez Raja and Arun Lal are better but still leave a lot to be desired. They specialise in stating the obvious and their commentary is spattered with oodles of cricketing cliches. "When Afridi hits it, it stays hit", "That went like a tracer buller to the boundary".

Whatever happened to the days of Harsha Bhogle and Geoff Boycott? Even Navjot Sidhu is better compared to these buffoons. You don't need keen cricketing acumen (it helps, though) to commentate. An ability to speak English well is good enough.

Posted by sushil at 7:10 pm | Permalink | Comments

The slogan of the movie sets high targets. It doesn't live up to it in any sense of the word.Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty interesting movie. And not a bad one to watch. It definitely isn't the awakening of a generation.

Why?

The message of the movie is that if you are disillusioned with the "system" in India then killing a politician is the solution. Please do not even try to change it by running for elections or trying any other measures (Ayitha Ezhuthu/Yuva is about winning a seat in parliament to combat politicians gone bad). Do get a gun and shoot the guy responsible. And ensure you get caught so that you can make a political statement of the kind that Bhagat Singh and the revolutionaries did (British rule is analogous, stupid!)

I hate the movie for this message. How is it supposed to be inspiring young people if murdering people is the only solution to end corruption? It doesn't ask the youth to emulate role models like Kiran Bedi or the scores of people using legitimate methods.
It legitimizes people taking the law into their own hands (Yeah, people do this sometimes eg: vigilante justice in America).

Are the stupid people going to take this movie's message and start murdering politicians?
Maybe...maybe not. (The kid jumping off a roof thinking he can fly like Shaktimaan is can't be a good sign though).

But the "colour of patriotism (Rang de Basanti)" is certainly not about murder.

Posted by sushil at 1:02 am | Permalink | Comments