Airlift-Uplifted

Airlift – a movie with a heroic attempts by an Indian- Kuwaiti businessman to evacuate 1.75 lakhs Indian from Kuwait via Jordan.

First of all, commendable job by Akshay Kumar and Raja Menon, for bringing into highlight, one of the best and largest evacuation effort by a country.

The story starts with a racist joke “How do you fit 20 Iraqis in a telephone booth?” showing Ranjeet(Akshay Kumar), imbibed in Kuwaiti colours.

We don’t get to see more colours of his character as soon enough, the Iraqi forces invade Kuwait and render the inhabitants homeless. In these tough times, Ranjeet finds himself on a crossroad, as he has to decide between his responsibility towards family or towards the people who are dependent on him. The moment of decision has been shown very subtly and simply.

Ranjeet realizes that he is more Indian than he gives himself credit for, as he takes on camp preparation for the dependents and tries to find ways of evacuation.

Nimrat impresses yet again in her portrayal of strong wife. Though cynical of Ranjeet’s actions initially, but she comes on board later as she realizes that Ranjeet is not going to leave anyone behind.

Purab Kohli, playing Ibrahim stands out in the crowd full of Indians in the camp. His cool and calm portrayal yet again shows his immense talent in bringing justice to any role he is trusted with.

The screenplay is balanced with apt focus on the internal struggle of Ranjeet and Amrita(Nimrat) while focusing mostly on the issue at hand.

Some scenes have been portrayed so well, they will get you emotional. A applaud-worthy effort, ending in a clichéd slow-motion waving of Indian flag, but that still works. J

We would have loved it more if it was based more on real life characters. Though we see some names like “Mathunny Matthews” and “Vedi” in credits, but they could have been portrayed in the movie itself. But, I won’t take credit away from Akshay, as this was a brave and flawless effort from his side.

In an era, where directors really shy away from making movies on historic events, due to fear of backlash from intolerant India, this is definitely a good start. We hope to see more of it.

I would definitely advise you to watch once and revive this genre of movies. 

Image credit: Google Images

Air Guitar Rocks!

The worst habit that damages us is our inability to understand that patience is the key to a lot of things including early success.

We lose so many abilities in our lives just because of our impatience.
How many times in our lives we have taken a new thing and at the start we are star-eyed about it. The new thing is fun and brings out a lot of things out of us. Say, for example, coding; at the start, at the basic level, its all fun and easy. But, as soon as the challenges start to creep up, we start to lose interest in them. Although, it may also be the result of an unprecedented start, without acquiring necessary textbook knowledge, but my point is, impatience here also plays the same role. Instead of acquiring the necessary theoretical knowledge, we jumped on the coding section, without being equipped with the necessary troubleshooting knowledge.
Had we been patient enough, things would have been different.
Another example that we commonly see, is about joining gym. We start expecting as soon as the first bulge of tightened muscle we see.

 

What we need to understand that things don't work that way. One must toil a little to achieve something. Although its known by all of us and we do keep it in mind. But somewhere down the line, right between joy and the first roadblock, this particular thought becomes blurry.

To look on the positive side, these acts of impatience sometimes define and prioritize our passions. There are some things in life, we keep coming back to. They keep crossing our path, until we accept or discard it completely.

It is only when we are too passionate about something that we give it all and achieve it. In my perspective, life is all about achieving milestones, however small it maybe. And the smaller the aim, the better. Small achievements or goal completion give us that something motivation to keep us going in our monotonous lives. Don’t we love it, when we have a small but surprising bonus, or the happiness to beat out our rival in a cricket match, or for the nerds, the completion of a level that had been a pain in the arse for so long. So, basically what I want to say is that patience is a key stakeholder and companion in our ‘Harvey Dent’ or ‘Two Face’ phase.

So, the actual and only roadblock that we face is our will to submit to the circumstances to give up or to dust ourselves up and keep up the fight. Even though it may become boring, but it won’t be fruitless.

In the words of Paolo Coelho

“You can think of yourself as a victim and suffer throughout your life or you can think of yourself as an adventurer who is always ready to move on and experience the best out of life.”

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Mumbai Diaries - Part 1(The One with the Introduction)

Its a friday evening. 4 friends(Atush, Gaurav, Nauman, Karan) were talking in their Andheri office about how they never went on a trip, where there would be only friends, booze and carelessness. One of them, say Gaurav gave the idea 'Lets go for a trip tomorrow to Alibaug by ferry. Everyone seemed excited, everyone looked onboard until Atush explained the plan, 'So, I have heard that one has to take ferry at Churchgate at 7.30 AM as its very busy there.

Atush started to calculate loudly, '7.30 means, we will have to reach the place by 6.30, which means I will have to start from 4.30 in the morning, for which I will have to wake up at 2.30 to prepare myself, for which I have to leave office by 12.30 today.
Then they all looked at the clock, it was 11.30. 
'If I start now, I will make it to the ferry at 6.30', Atush said.
Everyone's face saddened. 'Dude, leave it please' Gaurav said dropping his shoulders.
'Lets plan for a Sports Bar then', Nauman advised.
'Yeah' everyone cheered. 

That was life in Mumbai, where the most plausible hangout place, ironically was the office itself. But these guys were going to learn it the hard way.

So the next morning, Atush started by his car very early, infact earlier than everybody as he wanted to surprise his friends that he is not a late comer everytime. Gaurav and Nauman lived in the same area, so they were coming together via the very famous and reliable local trains. Karan had to come by bus as he lived in central line and the destination was in western line, so it didn't make a lot of sense to take local and change it again. Gaurav & Nauman reached local train station at dadar and the intricate and intertwined queue was nearly the length of train itself. Gaurav & Nauman went for different lines, for obvious reasons. After fighting off the counter-guy for 'change', Gaurav comes off victorious and now they move to the platforms.

Karan starts from his home to the nearest bus-stop. Just as he is about to reach the stop, he sees his bus leaving. Karan runs a little, but in vain. He comes back to the stop cursing his luck about the bus timings. He looks at his watch, there is still a lot of time. Little does he know that Mumbai traffic makes you pay for every missed bus. 

Atush starts his engine along with the music playing. He still is superexcited about the virtual get-together of the 4 Mumbai friends. 
Well that is Mumbai, where meeting of a complete group is so rare that once a group accomplishes a full-show, it is quickly dubbed as a reunion.
Atush still is smelling like his deo and revs up his engine to full speed from his home. His excitement takes a full U-turn as he joins the auto and car lines crawling up at 20 kmhr. His mind quickly goes into calculation of 20km at 20kmph mode.

Gaurav & Nauman are very close by their station. The train nearly stops at their station and just when they are happily stepping down on the platform, they are greeted by a rush of Virar heading commute, which is nothing less than the Kumbh visitors, ready to kill just for the sake of touching their destination. Nauman somehow makes it to the platform feeling violated, when he realizes Gaurav hasn't yet made it yet. He shouts for Gaurav, hearing his faint voice amongst the shouts of 'Pude station! Malad(Please don't forget to add the irritating tone as well)!'.

He tries to make out what Gaurav is shouting, he hears 'BC..... is that my station?'. He thinks hard but it doesn't make a lot of sense to him, so he decides to wait at the station for Gaurav. 
As he turns around disappointed and kicking dust, he sees a girl who is nervously eyeing him. He smiles as the train leaves the station. He had no intentions of reaching to the Sports Bar now.

To Be Continued...

Deciding Passions!

HOW TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO IN LIFE?

Someone recently asked me this question and it got me in a tizzy. Isn’t life supposed to be easy? Why decide on life’s rhetoric questions?

But as it turns out, the world is not too kind to accept a person who doesn’t know where he will be after 5 years. The world seeks visionaries who can command and take us forward.

I believed I accepted this too. But after a lot of thinking, I now have a different take on this.

In my opinion, asking this question isn't the way to go. Finding what you want for real, is not an obligation, rather it’s a baggage. I would rather concentrate on seeking what I like. There are hobbies and there is passion. The difference between them and the importance they hold should be known by all.

Ideally, the thing that you are most passionate about should be the way to go (and an answer to this question too). But life is more complicated than that. So, a major prerequisite is to decide priorities.

If your priority is money and fame in future, then you may need a plan to move ahead. Strategy would be required as it’s hard to satiate since there is no end to the accumulated wealth.

However, if one’s aim is happiness, then there is no need for all the hoopla. Just rely on your passion, it will get you home.

Difference between aim and hobby in this context is that aim is one or set of hobbies for which one is passionate upto that extent as Johny Bravo was passionate about his looks.

Aims in our life keep us focused sharply while our hobbies keep us stable. A synergy of both is a necessary prerequisite to a happy life. Well, not exactly life, but they keep us satisfied while still wanting for more in a sweet way.

Seek what you like rather than answering a much vaguer question, finding answer to which is typically hard to find even for the mature ones, let alone a confused teenager.

Life is really full of possibilities, if you have the strength to believe so.