A 2-0 whitewash of the Aussies in cricket and a fantastic end to the CWG games with India coming in 2nd place with 101 medals , capped off a great week for the host nation. The icing on the cake being the spectacular closing ceremony and thereby setting a high benchmark for the games in Glasgow. Bravo! as the Australian and New Zealand media put it.

I traveled to Lancaster County Pennsylvania which is famous for a community called the Amish. The Amish are a denomination of Christianity who believe in simple living and refuse to accept modern convenience. That would mean, they don’t use cars, phones, computers and don’t watch the telly. So quite obviously, they do not use electricity. They tend their own farms, are experts at growing tobacco and quite inherently are good with woodwork.

The CWG opening ceremony heralded the arrival of a new India. All doubts about India's ability to host a major even were laid to rest in a glittering show of culture, sports and fireworks. There will always be room for improvement but as the old cliche goes "Rome wasn't built in a day". Coming to the games itself, India has hit the ground running with the shooters and grapplers snaffling up the gold in their respective events. Here is to India winning much more.

And winning that too from impossible situations seems to be the norm for the current Indian cricket team, ranked as the no. 1 test side in the world, as they showed some great determination at Mohali to beat the rampaging Aussies by a thrilling margin of 1 wkt thereby retaining the Border Gavaskar Trophy. The heroes of this chase were VVS Laxman, Ishant Sharma and useful cameo by "the master". It felt sweet revenge after the farcical events that had occured in Sydney couple of years ago. What comeuppance for the Fab Four(oh dada why did you have to retire) People talk about replacing the older generation with new and upcoming cricketers but when the old men are performing so well, why touch them. Vangipurappu Venkatasai Laxman is the master of the 2nd innings. His 2nd innings(3rd or 4th in a match situation) scores from the past 18 months read : 124*, 61, 51*, 69*, 69,103*,73*. That is a stunningly mind-boggling average of 275. Whaddaplaya!! .

This is the golden generation of Indian batting and India deserves every inch of that no. 1 spot. Hope Dravid, Sachin and Laxman never retire.

Go India Go !

India is in the centre of attention once again.

First the Ayodhya verdict, which thankfully has passed on quite peacefully and once again proved that democracy still lives on in good health in a country that is plagued by population problems. There was peace advocated in the Jummah sermons, while the victorious group has quite rightly demonstrated a controlled felicity to what has occurred. PC, the man famous for irresponsible statements has broken the habit of a lifetime by announcing something sensible on behalf of the Government. Kudos to the Judiciary and the powers that be, who have handled this with foresight and some would say proper neutrality.

Second, India and Australia are playing a test series(the Border-Gavaskar trophy) which is reason enough to be exciting if only it wasn't that short. But come to think of it, we might not even had a series in the first place and instead would have been pointlessly following seven inconsequential ODIs across the length and breadth of the country. It will be interesting to see how Dhoni and Raina adjust their game to the longer version after the heady high of winning the Champions League.

Next up are the Commonwealth Games New Delhi, a true proud moment for a nation that has made giant strides and takes one more leap of faith by hosting a global event. Despite all the controversy surrounding the event, I am really looking forward to this one. The pictures (wrongly,enviously and foolishly pointed by the naysayers as CGI) that are being released belatedly by our crappy media are spectacular. The facilities look world-class and showcases the might and influence that India now exercises in the world. Afridi, the ball muncher has made another ill-timed dig at Cricket India when he would be better off taking care of some urgent issues in his own team. Reminds me of the old Onida commercial - Owner's pride, neighbor's envy. Can't wait for the opening ceremony on Sunday.

On the personal front there is something special coming up after a week. Hopefully that will culminate in a delightful weekend and reignite the spark that has been missing for a while. Also Navratri starts next week which sends Jerseyites in a dancing frenzy - non-gujjus included. After leaving India, I have hardly felt, let alone celebrated Garba and Diwali or any other major Indian festival with enthusiasm. It just doesn't feel right here. But with autumn beginning to show its colors literally, the leaves beginning to say farewell to the trees before rustling to the ground, the heavens opening up more often, and the cooler refreshing weather, the timing is just about perfect to indulge in some heavy duty cultural activity.

Is it a good time to be an Indian , you bet it is.. and always will be.

While browsing through Cricinfo's page 2 Doppelgangers on the night of 29th August, I saw their take on Dickie Bird, the eccentric English umpire and Stephen King, the famous American author(Horror genre, Shawshank redemption, green mile etc). It was almost midnight here. I felt like doing a bit of reading on King so I opened his wikipedia article. And what do I see, Stephen king born 1947 , died August 30, 2010. I wish I had taken a screenshot. I was quite shocked especially as the clock just chimed 12 am. I made numerous searches for breaking news but there was none , even on his official website. The article was back to its original form after 10 minutes and I fell asleep peacefully. Eerie I say. Apt time for a quote from his own works :-

"That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery." - Larry Underwood, The Stand

Directed by : Maniratnam
*ing : Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya rai Bachchan, Vikram, Govinda, Ravi Kishen

A visually beautiful but emotionally flimsy and abstract tale.

**Warning: Spoilers ahead**

Maniratnam always paints his movies prettily in visual terms and in the footsteps of some great Hollywood storytellers, uses his environment and weather to great effect. He does nothing differently here. Take for example scenes where Ragini(Aishwarya Bachchan) kidnapped by Beera(Abhishek Bachchan) is calling out to her husband stranded on massive lake with just shards of rock randomly strewn all over the place. The empty echoing voice and miles of nothingness speak about her helplessness and impossibility of a rescue. However, the beautiful scenery(Santosh Sivan) goes on for too much time without any character evolution other than that of Beera.

Raavan inspired from the great Indian epic is intriguing from the very outset (despite the choppy and might i say poor editing) that underlines that SP Dev (Vikram) like Ram, the upholder of Law or Dharma is out to nab the infamous Beera and Sita-ragini only serves to be a collateral here. This immediately transports us back to the 1982 underrated Amitabh-Dilip Kumar classic Shakti where the young Bachchan, agonized at this father’s indifference to his own kin while performng police work pushes him on to the same path that his father has been eradicating over the years. The conflict was phenomenal, the dilemmas awe inspiring and the performances applause worthy.

The conflict in this movie is of a different breed and that is not to preach about communist issues as the Laal in lalmaati might suggest or as Mani's movies, usually harp about nor it is about proving the epic in a wrong light(a major reason for its non-performance at the BO is people are making a direct comparison). The more pertinent issue at hand is how the uncivilized, so savage and violent in their methods they might be, they are no more different than the people who make the rules. The men in khaki torture and kill behind the legislative curtain as Dev is shown murdering an unarmed man. The movie's bottom line is the victory of the vile over the virtuous captured amazingly well by Gulzar's as always mind blowing lyrics in Thok Di Khilli

The dilemmas and the situations however do not appeal at first glance and that is because the director has opted for the non-linear style of narration here. Beera is the demon and we are supposed to hate him. But how, they never show his brutality. And you wonder if this was all left to the intelligence of the audience as everyone is well-read about the epic and there is no need to explain Beera's exploits to us. And right at the interval our sympathies change hands like Ragini's as we are informed of the wrongful deeds of the police against Beera's sister in her marriage. It is a clever twist in the narrative and despite being predictable, it is not lame.

But this is where the problem lies with the film. After the revelation, Ragini's uni-dimensional character is so dull(partly due to her own performance, see below) and perfunctory that it is hard to fathom what she sees in Beera regardless of the plot points that attempt to paint him, in white literally. She at one point justifies her husband's ruthlessness as part of his job. So her transition from antagonistic to sympathizer despite lasting the length of the movie never hits us hard. And from a very minuscule scene and song we also know she has a great married life so it is quite surprising that after the daftly executed polygraph scene she just chooses to leave her husband abruptly. The scene is devoid of any emotion or reason when an entire marital scene could have been dramatically played out. Compare that to Amitabh in Shakti and he was a mere child whose mind was all the more impressionable and you know the mature Ragini's turnaround is very unconvincing.

The performances are a bit of a mixed bag. Aishwarya is very screechy in the beginning. A little more restraint as the movie progresses saves her performance from being a complete disaster. Vikram has a raw deal and he only needs to scowl, bark orders and ruthlessly eliminate criminals. The character is not well etched. Govinda as Sanjeevani(the Hanuman equivalent) is adequate.

When one plays a negative character who is the main attraction of the film, there is a fine line between crowd pleasing and off-putting. Heath Ledger played the Joker with aplomb while Saif Ali Khan was so good in his Langda Tyagi makeover that you felt from the bottom of your heart that this man is so despicable. Unfortunately for Abhishek he stays more on the unappealing side. In the role of a canonized criminal, Abhishek has his moments in the sun. His titular character is the best written and Bachhan jr. tries hard to live up to all the hype. He succeeds in a few scenes, but is not able to crack it in most. He is not able to bring out the menace or evil that one needs in the role of someone who is a terrorist. He is almost ike the good guy here. For inspiration, he just had to look at Ravi Kishen as Beera’s younger loyal brother who creates the effect of barbarism to maximum effect without once going overboard.

Musically, the movie is good. Rahman provides a vintage score but background music leaves much to be desired. Also the placement of songs is poor as if they had to be there only for commercial reasons.

In the end despite, all my cynicism, Raavan is an imaginative retelling of the Ramayana and worth a watch once or at most twice because of the breathtaking photography, but falls short of that memorable threshold.

Rating : 3/5