Khwaja Chowk... long awaited Sunday lunch

The last time I spent more than ninety minutes at the lunch table was when I got into an argument with a friend over something, long back in a mess at BITS. It's been a long five years hurrying my way through lunch after that. Obviously, there have been those treats at Barbeque Nation when eating was the sole purpose of the visit, the spread was too huge and the starters never stopped coming. It's been long since those days.

The venue for lunch today was more of an instantaneous decision. The only criterion being, a place while will not be too full of people at one in the afternoon. Khwaja Chowk kind of fit into the bill and off we went.

The initial disappointment of the restaurant being a bit narrow in it's selection of beer (Kingfisher premium and Fosters were the only two brands of beer available while the drink menu did mention Carlsberg as well) was quickly dispelled by the really well cooked platter of Tandoori Chicken and Mutton Seekh Kebabs. Both in the same league as any I have had at other places. It would have been great if the Seekh Kebabs were a little less chewy though. The Tandoori Chicken was absolutely top class. If I were to crib about the platter, I would only crib about the serving size.

We managed to time our main course orders pretty much in sync with polishing off the starters. Lachcha Parathas and Chicken Peshwari was brought in. There was nothing very different about Chicken Peshwari than any other Chicken dish cooked in tomatoes, Onions and garam masala and I have come to accept that. The Lachcha Parathas were different though. Vrey light, soft and very well cooked. The general apprehension while eating Lachcha Paratha is the fact that the inner layers might be on the rawer side that the layers on top. In this case however, every layer was uniformly cooked and they didn't come apart and you tore through the different layers.

We wrapped it up with the ostentatious Rocket Kulfi. No rocket science, just a normal Kulfi, tapered at the top and comes on a stick thicker than usual.

Overall, a nice quite place. We managed to get a table on Sunday for lunch without a reservation. Not too pricey. I won't call it a regular haunt though. But it's good nonetheless. Decent Northwest frontier food, a little understocked on beer, decent ambience and normal service by Gurgaon standards makes it a place worthy enough for a second visit.

Honeymoon Travails

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed, questions raised and comments made in the following article are completely my own and should not be interpreted to represent the view of anyone related to me.

1. Why would you, (anyone for that matter) want to go on a Honeymoon with a bus full of other couples who are perfect strangers?

2. What kind of people bark and purr on the first night on honeymoon?

3. How often do honeymooning couples from all over the country, across communities travel in the same bus for honeymoon?

4. How does a Gay Indian man differ from a Gay NRI?

5. How does a Bengali woman drape her saree so that it comes off at every half chance?

6.When do superheroes find superheroes to marry?

7. How do you follow a bus on an imported sports bike without being noticed?

And last question....

8. How do you define a totally mindless comedy?

Your answer lies in the heading... go watch the movie and before you set out for the theatre, please extract your brains and leave it well preserved in the house. Exposing it to so much anomaly can take its toll!

Disappointing silence

The woman is brilliant. That is, she's brilliant considering three things, one, She's from the U.S.A, two, She's a newcomer and this is her first silverscreen appearance and three, she's just a kid!

The storyline is non existent. There is no story, as expected though. The whole film rides on the theme. There's nothing much supporting it. The story of a man falling in love with a girl less than a third of his age is too big a first statement for the director to attach something to it in the form of a well thoughtout story line, proper characterization of the supporting actors or even a thoughtful end to the story. Someone has to tell our man that silence is not a great medicine for all circumstances. The same silence that awed the audience in Sarkar seems overused throughout the movie and even thrust on the actors at certain places. Just like you shouldn't typecast an actor, you shouldn't typecast an art, in this case, the art of using silence to higlight emotions... at times it just doesn't fit.

Jiah Khan impresses alright. But the character is essentially flawed. She plays an estraged kid traumatised by the loss of a father and an extramarital relationship her mother is involved in. The fact that her attraction to Vijay could even be a daughterly inclination has been grossly overlooked to give the movie a 'Lolita' angle. It would hae been a more complete portrayal of the situation had that angle been explored in a couple of scenes.

The character of the wife and her brother looked really stiff. Except for the one places where she loses her cool, Vijay's wife is just another suspecting Indian woman who gives up everything for the family and expects the family to give up everything for her, in turn.

And finally, the trauma of a girl when she finds out about her father having an affair with her friend is also underplayed. There could be two reasons for it, either the person playing the role wasn't upto it or the role itself was weakened to highlight 'the other woman'. Eitherways, these are some points which could have been explored more at the expense of the long Nishabdh scenes which were meant for the audience to track the path of Amitabh Bachchan's tears as they roll down his cheek.

There's no point talking about the man himself for he's made a habit of surpassing all his previous performances in every new film he does and whether its weeping for a seperated wife in Baghban or shedding tears for an 18 year older lover in Nishabdh he does it with equal wizardry.

All said and done, Nishabh would have been a great watch had there been a little more shabdh in it.

GURU : A review

GURU is the story of one man who dared to dream, and dream big. Through and through its a celebration of the human ego, the perception of being intensely alive and intensely aware of the fact that we just cannot stop at one point of time and tell ourselves, "this is enough, this is what I had bargained for, nothing more and nothing less", for there is no limit for more.

This is probably the first time that an Indian movie has dared to move away from the beaten track of "love and truth and the ultimate victory of both". The fact that neither love nor truth form an indispensible part of our everyday existence is underlined time and again in GURU. For a change we have been able to bridge the gap between idealism and realism through GURU, and the film is commendable for that bare fact, if nothing else. Another aspect of the film is the sublte yet positive treatment of capitalism. In the present scenario where we can see a steady decline in the communist sentiments all across the world and more so in India, perhaps this emphasis on the ultimate importance of profit could not have been timed better. Munafa is all that matters and thats exactly what has been pointed out. Even though the moral issues have been slightly undermined, I can only recall what Mario Puzo quoted in the beginning of his magnum opus, The Godfather, "Behind every Great fortune, there a Great Crime"- Balzac.

Coming to the film itself, this is definitely the comeback vehicle for Abhishek Bachchan, even though some people claim Sarkar to be the the movie that turned him around, we have to understand that after Yuva this is the first movie where he hasn't shared screen space with his dad and still delivered a powerhouse performance. Definitely the big B's pride is not un called for. In Abhishek's portrayal of Gurubhai, one could see the emergence of one of the most prolific and resourceful actors of the present day. We can only hope that this is just the beginning of a long and entertaining career. Aishwarya Rai is brilliant in her role as the wife of a business tycoon, rising above the normal cravings of a lower middle class woman to fulfill the needs of her dreaming husband. Mithun Chakraborty, Vidhya Balan and Madhavan did their bits convincingly, but every bit of brilliant acting complemented each other and made the experience really enriching. No mention needs be made of Rahman's music. Its brilliant, but then thats routine. His consistency is enviable, though there is a scarcity of humable tunes in this particular album. The cinematography is also crisp and a treat for the eyes.

Though there are traces of movies like The Godfather (Gurubhai keeps making "offers they can't refuse" and keeps talking to "reasonable men"), The Fountainhead (During the final discourse in the courtroom, I couldn't help seeing glimpses of Howard Roark) and A walk to remember (The poignant story of Maddy and Vidya Balan) in GURU, at the end of the day... its a winner in all the departments, bold theme, powerful acting and the Hallmark of Mani Ratnam's Direction.

A must watch.