Desi Spiderman and Other Links

So. After a hiatus of almost 5 years, I am back to writing. Starting with this blog, a couple of short stories, maybe a poem or two, and leading upto the elusive novel that I have been planning on writing since I first realised that words are simply wonderful things and can be used to create and share universes, emotions, people, lives...

So now that I have finally quit my job, (well alright that happened a YEAR back), have travelled as much as an unemployed person can afford to (more actually), and redefined laziness, I am finally working myself towards that novel. The problem is that this is not 2010, when I had a great idea that was dying to put itself onto paper, but no time. A little bit (too little) of that idea did make it out of me alive though, and can be found here. But I got busy being an overworked slave, and stopped seeing the funny side of life for a while. And that's how a missing sense of humour killed an unborn book (its very premise was looking at how utterly absurd the things most people take seriously are. Irony, anyone?)

In the meantime, the Indian publishing industry seems to be on steroids and everyone around me who happens to own a laptop seems to be popping out a book. There was a time when I could have told you the names of each of the 25 odd books in the Indian section of every bookstore in town. Today, that sad tiny little section dwarfs the international one, something that makes me immensely happy and scared in equal measure. As does being compared to Chetan Bhagat, but then the person who said that evidently meant as a compliment so...

Not that I don't have any ideas, I have about a billion. Just that none of them seem to be THE right one. Hell, I cannot even decide on the genre. I could do romance, sci-fi, chick lit and satire with equal enthusiasm. As a result, I have scoured the internet reading as many "how I came up with the idea for my first book"s as I can. Hasn't helped so far.

Maybe I should just go to bed and sleep on it.

More about how I became the undisputed champion of the "We Were So Lazy We Didn't Even Bother Naming This League" in my next post! If I get around to getting out of bed I suppose...

By the way, I love linking things while blogging. So I am gonna do some more of that HERE and Here and also There. Sorry, could NOT resist. But go ahead. The Indian Spiderman rocks!

Vicky Donor: A Review

No exotic locales. No stars. Not even an item number (unless you consider John Abraham's chest thumping over the end credits, which I didn't). And yet, Vicky Donor is a thorough paisa-vasool entertainer.

Is it a sweet love story within a wacky offbeat story about a sperm donor? Or visaversa? Either way, Vicky Donor works because it is a film with a wildly original idea treated just right, a bunch of excellent actors playing well written characters, and tons of heart. It is an engaging film about its primary audience: today's generation, their reality, greed, morals and convictions.

While it could easily have been a lewd slapstick, Vicky Donor goes the witty way. Somehow even the sperm-shaped accessories hanging in Dr Chaddha's car and office are not in-your-face cheap, just funny. The music is good, and the songs take the film forward.

Ayushman impresses by his sheer simplicity. He breezes through the film, evidently enjoying every minute, portraying each emotion with equal ease. Yami Gautam is equally wonderful, looks great and sounds even better, and I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of these two in the coming years. Annu Kapoor playing Dr Chaddha is spot on, at times annoyingly so.

But the real star of the show is the whisky drinking, perpetually hungover, LCD and Iphone lusting Punjabi Biji played by Kamlesh Gill. As Vicky says, there are only two things modern in Delhi: the Metro and Biji. She is a force to reckon with, and I would have loved this film for her alone.

As the Bengali girl and Punjabi boy meet, fall in love and get married, the film veers into much inter-caste hilarity (drunk Punjabi baraatis trying to get ululating Bengali aunties to do the "change the bulb" dance step!). It is only towards the last 40 minutes that the film seems to loose its grip on where it is going, and collapses in a haphazard tying-up-the-loose-ends mess. Perhaps a spot of better editing towards the end would have worked better. However this is entirely forgivable.

Vicky Donor is what I would literally call a surprise package! Go watch it!