Sign Of The Times !!

Funda"Mental"ly Similar

How are the two biggest movies of 2008 Ghajini and Rab Ne Ban Di Jodi fundamentally similar to each other?

1. Both are huge hits (Bah !! ...That's obvious. And after Satyam, who believes figures anyway?)

2. Both were hyper-hyped (Both Aamir & SRK have excellent publicity machines. End of question)

3. Both had new actresses (or is female actors the more politically correct term?) (Again, You can't depict a super-hero without a fresh face opposite him. It's about the im-balance, you see)



All of the above are true. But there is something even more fundamentally similar between the two.

In both the movies the protagonist suffers from some kind of mental disorder.

Yeah, I mean everyone in the world and their uncle knows that in Ghajini, Aamir Khan's character suffers from Anterograde Amnesia (Short Term Memory Loss).

But isn't it obvious that Shah Rukh Khan's character in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi also suffers from some form of dissociative identity disorder with some symptoms of schizophrenia also manifesting. Consider the symptoms -

1. Characteristic symptoms: Two or more of the following, each present for much of the time during a one-month period (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).
   • Delusions
   • Hallucinations
   • Disorganized speech, which is a manifestation of formal thought disorder
   • Grossly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior
   • Negative symptoms—affective flattening (lack or decline in emotional response), alogia (lack or decline in speech), or avolition (lack or decline in motivation)

   If the delusions are judged to be bizarre, or hallucinations consist of hearing one voice participating in a running commentary of the patient's actions or of hearing two or more voices conversing with each other, only that symptom is required above. The speech disorganization criterion is only met if it is severe enough to substantially impair communication.

2. Social/occupational dysfunction: For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, one or more major areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, are markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset.
3. Duration: Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least six months (link)
   

Didn't Suri/Raj exhibit some or all of the above characteristics.

Well if you ask me it is a pretty solid case.

So where does that lead us to?

Is Hindi Cinema finally growing up and embracing mental illness into the mainstream?

Or is it that they just don't give a damn as long as there are enough fools (like myself) who are willing to shell out money to watch the crap they dish out?

I think we all know what the answer is ......

The"Raja-Praja" Ethos of India

Satyam Infosystems Owner, CEO and majority shareholder B Ramalinga Raju resigns as expected. Also as expected much controversy and comments follow - 

Rediff reports -

"Years after the foreign media wondered if Americans should be afraid of Ramalinga Raju more than Osama Bin Laden beacuse of jobs they lost to India, experts said on Wednesday the fear seems to have come true, although for a different reason.

Raju has certainly inflicted a huge blow to the India story on the global business arena and the companies across the world would be much more vigilant before engaging any Indian company for their business purposes," said an analyst.

Way back in 2004, American media had reported that it was not only dreaded terrorist Osama whom the Americans were afraid of, but Raju was a feared man too as millions of jobs were being outsourced to Indian companies like Satyam" [link]

The irony here is like Osama, Raju too may be able to escape the law.

The issue here is Corporate Governance. 

As pointed out here "the problem in the Indian corporate sector, is that of disciplining the dominant shareholder and protecting the minority shareholders, as it is vindicated in the recent Satyam case."

And in this case Mr. Raju is the end all and be all. Because he as majority shareholder misled the minority shareholders. Although he might brush off all allegations to his person, his attitude is endemic to people in power in India.

Be it politicians, industrialists, businessmen or for that matter anyone in any postion of power considers everything under them to be their kingdom. 

They "rule". 

They are the "Raja". The rest are the "Praja".

And their decree is the law. And if not then there is enough incentive provided to mould the law according to their needs. 

And the saddest part is that the Indian public wants it to stay that way.

And they say India is "free".

Ghajini - Bollywood Flashback

Ghajini is vintage 70-80's Bollywood, albeit 10-15 years too late. 

It's copybook revenge-masala fick with bits of "Memento" shoehorned in for the sake of modernizing it.

After watching the movie, I set out thinking - Would the movie have been any different if you just played around the cast with vintage 70-80's  actors a bit.

So here goes my take -

Ghajini - 1976

Sanjay Singhania - Vinod Khanna

Kalpana - Hema Malini

Ghajini - Shetty

Sunita - Neetu Singh

Ghajini - 1983

Sanjay Singhania - Mithun Chakraborty

Kalpana - Rati Agnihotri

Ghajini - Ranjeet

Sunita - Sarika

Ghajini - 1988

Sanjay Singhania - Anil Kapoor

Kalpana - Sridevi

Ghajini - Amrish Puri

Sunita - Sonam

Ghajini - 1993

Sanjay Singhania - Sunny Deol

Kalpana - Juhi Chawla

Ghajini - Puneet Issar

Sunita - Sonali Bendre

Well you could make the movie with exactly the same story and exactly the same everything else with any of the casts mentioned above ........ and the result would still have been the same.....GHAJINI...

Soort terrm maimoree looss