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Showing posts from September, 2009

Dhurandhar, and Why It Felt Personal

I had stopped going to Hindi movies in theaters. Not suddenly — just gradually. A trailer would come out, I’d watch it, feel mildly interested… and then do nothing. Maybe I’d tell myself I’ll catch it on OTT. Most of the time, I never did. Somewhere along the way, watching a movie stopped feeling like something to look forward to. It started feeling like a gamble — and more often than not, not worth taking. Even the shortcuts didn’t help. I’d skim through reviews, scroll past reactions, try to get a sense of whether it was “worth it.” But none of it really made the decision easier. If anything, it just reinforced the hesitation. The hesitation followed me even after Dhurandhar Part 1 released. I didn’t rush to watch it. In fact, I waited almost a month. But then something interesting started happening. The reactions didn’t line up. Most of what I was seeing was positive — people seemed genuinely excited about it. But there was also a noticeable pushback from some co...

Rounding off in style

My school days were fraught with difficulties when it came to Maths. I could never understand why 2+2 had to be 4 or why 1+2 had to be 3. It was like Swami (from RKN) learning to solve Math problems in front of his father. Addition and subtraction itself were leaning toward astronomical proportions of difficulty, so there was no way anybody could question my abilities when it came to the mammoth multiplication and division problems. It was at an abysmal dismal level. It took me days, rather years to figure out that multiplication and addition were related by an intricate complexity. 2x3 is nothing but 2+2+2 was a startling revelation learned over the ages, after several years of mutual painstaking experience; mutual because my teacher and my mother used to wield the stick and I used the bear the pain. I had a grudging resolve never to play with numbers because they played around me in weird ways. Division was an altogether different experience. The strict voice still echoes in ...