Scribbles

Crime-Thriller movies have the ability to pull your attention in a way that no other genre can manage. Hollywood has mastered the making of these movies. The Ocean series, the bank job, the Italian job, Now you see me, Usual Suspects, Ordinary Decent Criminal, Entrapped, Die hard or Lethal weapon series - these and many more successful movies are testament to that fact. Hindi cinema, however, has fallen woefully short in providing adequate competition in this area. Barring a few refreshing features like Johny Gaddar, No one killed Jessica and Kahani; the crime-thriller movies are reduced to nothing but a poor remake of a foreign films. Ghanchakkar has surprised me unexpectedly. Firstly, because I can't place it as a remake of any Hollywood film. So, it appears as an original work. Secondly, all actors have underplayed their roles and the highlight of the film is it's storyline. Even with flamboyant star cast of Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan, every character in the film is pr...

Reading is a passion and a cultivated art. And, like any other craft, it demands lots of practice and persistence. I picked up this hobby probably from my “ Baba ” (paternal grandfather) while growing up. I remember he used to devour newspapers and novels. He was well versed with Hindi and Gujarati and possessed decent grasp of English. So, he read in all three. I remember reading a few of his novels back in my summer vacation as well. Thus began my affair with the written word. Coming from a Gujarati medium school of Ahmedabad, we were never encouraged to indulge extra-curricular reading and besides there was such an enormous pressure to read and re-read and again re-read the syllabus that only thing I read other than my school books were a few articles daily from the 'Gujarat Samachar'. During the college years, though, I was at liberty to explore books beyond prescribed course and exam syllabus. Not surprisingly, my favorite subject in college of English even thoug...