GuruBhai - A Documentary

I saw Gurubhai yesterday. Luckily my habit of not reading reviews or stories earlier about the movie helped me not to makeup any mindset. I was surprised to see it was a documentary movie based entirely on Dhirubhai, the great. Looking at the trailer where Aish dances made me feel she represented some place in South India. I guess the dance was pictured somewhere in Pondichery and fall might be Jog falls in Karnataka. Google also says that this waterfall might be 'Athirapally, near Kochi'. I haven't seen any of these beautiful places :-( so cannot confirm the true location . But really
I never imagined Aish to portray a Gujju girl.

Talking about the movie; Mani Ratnam has pictured the movie nicely. Aish again looked good in first half when she had somewhat bubbly role. She didn't justify the character when character grows in age and needs to showcase more mature emotions and support. Abhishek has done roles in past where he portrays his rise in corporate world and suits them. Madhavan and Vidya balan though, not given strong characters, made their presence felt in the movie. Overall, all artist did justice but the movie is not full entertainer. Someone who is not interested in corporate world or cannot relate to story, will feel lost.

Luckily, I had read Business Maharajas by Gita Piramal back in India. So I was kind of aware of Ambani's story, running a business in license raj, wading import and export duties. Its doesn't need great intelligence to know that this movie is on Dhirubhai Ambani even if the director denies it. On searching more I realised that there is a biography on Ambani titled The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani by Hamish McDonald. This book is banned in India - thanks to Ambani families influence.


Now let me make an attempt to find similarities in Movie and life of Dhirubhai. Dhirubhai was from small Gujrati community and started his career by going to Aden and working for Shell. In our movie Gurubhai goes to Turkey and starts as some oil can distributor. Both characters, real one and reel one, learned basics of business by quoting prices on rice, spices. Dhirubhai and Gurubhai set their dreams on Polyester. In eighties when India had license raj both had to find their ways to do business. Goenka of Indian express was mainstream paper trying to publish all wrong doings of Reliance. Goenka and Dhirubhai had known each personally as Mithun and Gurubhai knew each other. But as Mithun has portrayed the character of truthful editor, Goenka was same at that time.


To end the blogging, I never felt in the movie a desire to leave the theatre. It was nicely paced and I enjoyed 2.5hrs in the theatre.

Lovely dialogue sequence which made me smile at unexpected second half.
Gurubhai ( Talking to sharat on his reporting against Guru) - What do you think you are doing
Reporter - I think I am cooking, you can eat too. I cook good :-) hahahhehihiehuu..totally unexpected reply.

Diwali in 2006 in US

Jab Hind ki galiyon mein taarey chamakte hain,
Jab kabhie shehron mein jugnu nazar aate hain,
Jab raahon mein kushiyon ke diye jhalte hain,
Jab kuch pal ke liye ghum bhi muskuraate hain,
Jo har manzar se niraalli hai, wohi bhai apni Diwali hai.



Dekh kar duniya ko,
chaand aasmaan se yeh kehta hai,
Aaj Hindustan chamakta hai bhai aasmaan jaisa lagta hai,
Suraaj bhi aaj kal bharat ke noor se jalta hai,
Apna watan aisa chaman hai doston, jisme har dil ki kali khilti hai.

Oct 2006 ki diwali mujhe aur mere doston ko bhi yaad rahegi. Bahut rules padne ke baad, badi mushkil se shop search karke humne fireworks buy kiye. Most firecrackers had visual effects. I had bought different kinds of sparkles(anar des mein).
The weekend started with two bollywood movies back to back. We saw Jaan-e-Mann and Don back to back. The best part on Jaan-e-Mann was that only 3 of us were there. Prashant, vaibhav and myself were the royal kings watching Jaan-e-Mann in the theatre. Akshays smile was good to throw all of us into his laughter gimmick. After 30 min break we watched Don. In the break we had to run and grab quick dinner from Wendy's. So much time management skills are needed to see two movies.
After working on saturday morning, it was feast time at lunch. Our very own Nikhil arora(Aka Vaibhav goel, chief chef, B206) made kachori's, kheer, poori, sabzi and all. After wonderful lunch we had few games of carrom. In evening we all got ready to make a visit to Temple. All 6 of us were dressed in some sort of Kurta. There was huge rush at temple. Now comes the execiting part when we reached home. It was time to busrt some....crackers; people. Everyone was bit scared by thinking what will happen if cops come and many other questions. Although PK had seen on website that lighting these fireworks was legal in US, we were still bit scared. We finally found a place away from homes and car and started to light crackers. On seeing the lights of first cracker, everyone forgot about cops and was toally into festive mood. It was with same zest we were firing crackers as in Des. Jaldi se next fuljhadi jalao, next anaar le kar aayo, arre smabhal ke wahan pe anaar rakha hai...was the voices heard frequently. Woww, it was great fun to see lights on the dark night.
At dinner time, my friends were invited to Kaushik's place. I accompnaied them and that was great move. I ate chakli, ghujia, sev, dahi wada, kadi and all good food items at his place, Bhabhiji had prepared great food. At 11pm we were back to our own house. What next!!. How can a diwali night go without a game of flash(teen patti). So it was again 4 of us playing teen patti with cents. I made no gain no loss at the end of the game.
Even the next days dinner was good. I was invited at Roopesh home. Even there I had a sumptuos dinner with all diwali special items.
It was a wonderful diwali in US. It becomes mor special thinking of my last diwali in US when I had celebrated it by just making phone calls. May every diwali be such wonderful with all lights and crackers.

You can see phot album at http://new.photos.yahoo.com/contactshobhit/album/576460762329860427#page1

A nice video can be seen on http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2516098946991876953&hl=en

Beautiful colors of Nature

Among many wonders of nature is fall(season before winter) color in north east America. It seems all trees would have sung song "Muhje rang de Mujhe rang de" to God and he would have given leaves such beautiful colors.

Leave color changes from green to yellow to orange to red and finally they fall off. See the video of colors at this link NH colors

Its such beautiful that every photo taken with this fabulous back drop looks amazing (look at my photo - Hero lagta hoon na :-))

We had been to New Hampshire state. Loon mountain was the first halt. This place has a small river flowing, a gondola (rope way). Loon mountan is around 6000+ ft. At the top of mountain we have some caves. It was fun to go through caves, try rock climbing. Rajneesh and myself actually were stuck at one of the rocks. It was lovely experience (now i can say as we were able to get down safely :0)

A surprise element was that I met Nahush, mohit, mulik over there. I had no idea they were planning to go to NH for fall. So here is the big gang we formed

Below is the link for masti we did on our trip to NH.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-740679842311816520

We did conway railroad trip. This train ride was bad one. Matheran rail (mini rail that we have in Matheran) is much better and fun.

We were planning to go driving for Mt Washington but somehow the energy level droped and we made return journey to home sweet home.

More photos can be at on my yahoo photos