THE REAL ENTERTAINMENT…..

            “Hurray… Semester holidays”, I shouted, when my last exam eventually got over on May 5^th. Reason(s)… I had 56 ‘worth nothing’ days (which I always love to the core). And, I am going to be a ‘SENIOR’ after that. But, FATE got to have heard me. “Hey dude…. What makes you laugh? Let me show you the other side of holidays”. Too cruel!!! Not manly at all!!!

            So, it all began with this fact that only we CEGians were granted holidays and the other guys from affiliated colleges were going through ‘the terrible’ study holidays. Shock!!! “OK, calm down, buddy. Still, you can roam around the town, wandering with no meaningful aim”. My mind always assumes things wrong. Yeah, it was shell – shocking to find that my bicycle had been sold to someone. More shock!!! This cycle, I bet, had been my best companion since my 7^th standard. Oh, I never even called it a cycle.. That was my ZIPTHRU!!! I could write a novel with what all I did and achieved with my Zipthru. It bore equal patented values of all my teenage ‘accomplishments’.

            “Never mind. You always have the Splendor+, dear”. How lightning-y my brain is!! But, that was not to be. Dad needed Splendor+ almost every day. SNAP!! Shocks lined up!! Though he offered me temporary ownership, I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. So, I had nothing now. My friends would be free only after June 13^th, and I had to spend the whole of a month in solitude.

            So, there I was, always glued to the PC. As I had to kill time somehow, I surfed through the whole of this beast to find out that some movies, which I had already seen umpteen times, were stored. Let me watch it one more time. Who cares? So, I started with ‘3 Idiots’. Hold on!! Why didn’t fate do something to spoil my day? By then, there it was.

The noble Logitec speakers became dumb and numb all of a sudden. WTF?? Shit!! Filthy B****RD. And, I started doing all kinds of futile mechanisms to bring it back to life. (Mechanisms?? Oh, nothing.. Don’t look at me like that. It was the usual ‘increase and decrease of the volume trigger’ followed by ‘repeated unplugging and re-plugging of speakers into the port’). They didn’t budge at all, flibbertigibbets.

            God, what am I to do now? Flash!!! Wow, EUREKA!!! I continued watching 3 Idiots without the aid of sound (4^th idiot, eh??) The movie was progressing. Flight hijack by Maddy, water tank meet, flashback, intro of Rancho (THE RAGGING SCENE).. Bingo!! I was enjoying the movie. Frankly. It was nice, actually awesome. Those 162 minutes also gave me the usual experience and feel of watching a movie (May be, that was because I had almost memorized the sequences and even most of the dialogues).

            But then, I realized that I was getting even more absorbed and poignant with the flow of the movie. I felt that I noticed more about the locations, costumes, various characters et al. Even the least bothered character enchanted and thrilled me. Oh, there’s something with this, buddy. So, I decided to watch it one more time in the same fashion.

Yipppeee!!! During the time of play, I watched it like always. But, after watching, you always have these afterthoughts and self-comments about any movie. At that moment, I kind of felt that I have never really observed a movie like this. I had opinions about each and every scene, the way in which lightings were used too much in some scenes, the various camera angles and more. This was not the end. I tried out an intensified stranger version of this immersive experience.

            I converted the movie into MP3 format and stored it in my mobile. There are always power-cuts, dear!! Xperia C came in handy. I literally ‘heard’ the movie for the entire 162 minutes, and it was memorable. Though I am not aware of even the basics of Hindi, I realized how valuable dialogues are for a movie, in general. I noticed the voice modulations, and particularly, this guy Omi Vaidhya (Silencer) had done a rock and roll performance here. His sarcasm, superiority complex, being nerdy and everything were awesome. I was just thoroughly enjoying his part. And, Boman Irani (Virus)… Damn, how does he actually ‘incorporate’ those snake – hissing expressions in his somewhat nasal twang?

            The BGM, which seemed alien during the audio-visual type of watching, seemed to perfectly sync with the course and plot now. Songs were all good. The pleasant voice of Sonu Nigam had a soothing effect all through the movie.

            After 3 Idiots, I did the same with some other movies, too. Thuppakki, Endhiran and OKOK are some of them. There was no difference between the gigantism of a Shankar movie or the boom of a Vijay starrer now. They were all movies. Jagdish was not Vijay now, because I was never seeing the movie. Sanaa was not Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Vaseegaran was Vaseegaran and Chitti was just Chitti.

            So, here I am, drawing conclusions. This would seem futile and foolish for people, but to me, it was really great, fantafabulous, I would rather say. I was slowly getting involved with each and every character. There was no superstar to make us focus only on him. Everyone was a character, after all. There was more of sensibility rather than sensitivity (judging a movie based on a particular artist).

            I came out of my prejudice. Just because a movie features Rajni doesn’t make it a blockbuster. Now, there was no anti-Vijay, or anti-Ajith thing. This problem arises only when we view movies as a ‘visual medium’. Seriously, I got to say that Vijay as Jagdish, has done a great deal in Thuppakki.

            These so-called intellectual reviewers always criticize Indian movies by comparing them with Hollywood stuff. This has to be etched everywhere, at least for them to comprehend. A MOVIE IS A CONGLOMERATE OF MANY ARTISTS. Let us not speak about a ‘complete movie’ without completely enjoying it in all respects. Let us not be monotonous in writing comments and abusing a movie.