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Ever watched a movie and felt like you’ve figured out the whole story from the very first scene? That’s ‘Student of the Year 2’. A repetitive formula of the ‘rich vs poor’, ‘good vs evil’ drama that has been frequently used in Bollywood for almost a century now. So SOTY2 is a teenage drama with an attempted coming of age story, puppyish love angles, little comic relief, and a few so-so action sequences. A typical Bollywood masala, but without the main ingredients of a moving story: captivating screenplay and convincing acting.

Tiger does all the things a Bollywood director would want him to: flex 8-pack abs, dance, fight, play kabaddi and even parkour

The movie revolves around the ‘prestigious’ Dignity Cup and the Student of the Year title which is hosted by St Teresa’s College, one of the biggest and poshest colleges in Dehradun. Now our lower-middle class hero Rohan (Tiger Shroff) dreams of leaving his lower-middle class Pishorilal Chamandas College, Mussoorie to… not win the cup actually, but be together with his sweetheart Mridula aka Mia (Tara Sutaria). He does manage to get into the college on a sports scholarship for his kabaddi prowess, but all is not well for our poor hero. He has to face two formidable foes in the form of spoilt, rich brats Shreya (Ananya Pandey) and Manav (Aditya Seal) who’re basically the most powerful siblings in the college because their dad is a trustee there. Sigh!

The original Student of the Year (2012) launched the careers of Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Siddartha Malhotra. All the starlets from the highly successful movie managed to impress both the audience and the critics, and get more work as a result. Alas, the same cannot be said for this time’s debutants Tara and starlet Ananya (Chunky Pandey’s daughter). They falter in dialogue delivery and expressing emotions. Their dancing is just heavily choreographed mechanical movements. Not their fault. They’re made to dance next to the hunky Tiger, who shines, for the sheer lack of competition. The girls have a very forgettable debut in SOTY2 and they should definitely work on honing their skills while they’re young if they do not want to end up playing second (or third or fourth) fiddle in B-grade rom-com ensembles.

Tiger, on the other hand, does all the things a Bollywood director, Punit Malhotra in this case, would want him to do. He flexes his 8-pack abs, dances, fights, plays kabaddi like a kung fu master and even parkours. But the one thing he, despite of his talents, fails in is romance. Not entirely his fault again. Looks like Bollywood has forgotten to make young people romantic since Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Low-key actor Aditya Seal, playing the stereotypical college jock Manav, almost outshines Tiger at some points. He does justice to his character of a wealthy and arrogant but skilled college idol with his stony countenance and resolute acting.

Rohan’s friends from Pishorilal also manage to add humor and the best thing about the movie is that it maintains a healthy pace throughout, not slowing down to boring sequences.

Who should watch it?

It may lack originality but the movie is not altogether boring for a Bollywood masala fan. You can at least watch it for the overgenerous production. Even poor people cut three-layer cakes in Dharma movies, so you can definitely watch SOTY2 for the larger-than-life characterizations and enjoy it as one big fashion show.

Movie: Student of the Year 2

Genre:  Drama

Cast: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Pandey, Aditya Seal

Direction: Punit Malhotra

Rating: 2/5

 Former Prime Minister and Coordinator of Naya Shakti Nepal Baburam Bhattarai was recently canvassing the country’s length and breadth. What he saw and heard during this extended tour must have depressed him. Basically, he espied no prospect of a revival of his beleaguered party, which has just a single seat in the federal lower house. Many see Bhattarai as an opportunist who waged a bloody insurgency that took the lives of around 17,000 Nepalis. But as soon as it served his purpose, he ditched the ideology. Others think of him as cold and calculated, and someone missing the common touch.

In the former Maoist party, Bhattarai’s reputation was as an intellectual capable of coming up with the best of ideas and yet someone incapable of building an organization. His tendency to project an intellectual air does not sit well with common folks; many like his ideas but they struggle to trust him. This sad realization must have hit home on his recent cross-country trek. Hence his decision to merge his party with the Upen­dra Yadav-led Federal Socialist Forum Nepal.

Bhattarai realizes Yadav is the front and center of the new party and he will be playing second fiddle. The new socialist outfit, by fusing the energies of eth­nic hill leaders and identity-conscious Madhesi ones, hopes to start a new trend in Madhes-Pahad unity. A wonderful idea, but also an unrealistic one. Big parties like the (former) CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress have always had strong organizations in both Pahad and Madhes. If these forces could not unite the coun­try, there is little hope that the new socialist party with some extremely polarizing politicians in its ranks will fare any better. But Yadav has nothing to lose.

He already has a rock-solid base in Madhes; the new party’s ability to make inroads into the hills would be a bonus. In contrast, Naya Shakti’s hold on both Madhes and Pahad is tenuous. It was a spent force. Bhattarai has never been short of ambition and yet he finds him­self in a political wilderness. The new socialist outfit is an unlikely vehicle with which to revive his political career. In a sign of things to come, his erstwhile Naya Shakti colleagues are furious at the new merger that happened without their knowledge, and one which has made them ‘junior members’ in the new party. The road ahead is long and arduous for BRB.  

Dal bhat tarkari is the staple food for Nepalis. A Nepali home, wherever it is, can and will serve you a meal of dal bhat tarkari and whoever prepares it, will seldom get it wrong. Naming their movie “Dal Bhat Tarkari”, the filmmakers of this supposed comedy do appeal to the ‘Nepalipan’ of the audience. But like a lone highway eatery in the middle of nowhere, their dal bhat tarkari is stale. Imagine being invited to a dinner with the promise of the best tasting meal ever and then being served hastily prepared, under­cooked, unhygienic and tasteless food. That’s what the makers of this movie do: invite you to the cinema halls for a hilarious Nepali comedy movie and then fail to make you laugh, at all.

The plot (if we can call it that) revolves around the family of Ram Hari (Hari Bamsha Acharya), Urmila (Niruta Singh), Rahul (Pushpa Khad­ka), and Rahul’s love interest, Pinky (Aanchal Sharma)—all of whom des­perately want to go to the US, like many other Nepalis who think set­tling abroad is an end to all of their problems. They are then duped by the stereotypical anti-hero in Swami Gaayak (Shishir Bangdel), a singer turned saint who now is in the busi­ness of sending people abroad as ‘performing artists’. Clichéd right? Just expect to see a hundred more in the 125 minutes of this ‘dark com­edy’ disaster.

The relation between Ram Hari and Urmila is too tricky to compre­hend. One moment they’re fighting like cats and dogs (they mention that in the movie too), and the next they’re a perfect happy couple, as soon as they see a slight possibility of getting a US visa. Their “love-hate” relation and banters are repetitive and tacky and soon wears you out. Singh’s over-the-top dramatization of every scene and overpitched dia­logue delivery is especially pathetic. At times, it feels like she is literally trying to scream to the audience that she is making a comeback to the Nepali film industry. (But she’s not the lone culprit. The whole cast is extremely loud—like really, real­ly, painfully loud.) Shocking how the graceful beauty that impressed everyone as Smriti in the blockbust­er Darpan Chaya (2001) is not even 10 percent of her former self.

Director Sudan KC (son of veteran actor Kiran KC who also stars in the film and is a producer too) fails to mold the storyline into a believable plot and miserably fails to estab­lish any kind of credible relation between any of the characters. A star cast of some of the most sig­nificant names in Kollywood, along with rising newcomers, are all run­ning around the loose screenplay in a chaotic frenzy. What adds to the woes is the under-average cinema­tography, severe jerks in editing and a nonchalant approach to moving the film forward.

Who should watch it?

If you’re a big MaHa fan and can bear loud slapstick comedy sequences, you can definitely risk your eardrums. Also go if you’re inspired by the preachy Nepali filmmakers who urge you to watch and support Nepali films, even though what they produce is absolute crap.

Movie: Dal Bhaat Tarkari 

Genre: Comedy

Cast: Hari Bamsha Acharya, Niruta Singh, Aanchal Sharma

Direction: Sudan KC

Rating: 1/5

 Adèle is a wonderful book. But calling it wonderful feels a little worrisome because the prem­ise is as disturbing as it gets. Adèle Robinson, the titular character, is addicted to sex—loveless sex with just about any man who isn’t her husband. Her husband, on the other hand, is a devoted family man who doesn’t care much about sex. When Adèle conceives on their first try, “he was relieved that he didn’t have to wear out the body of the woman he loved by ‘trying’ over and over again.” So she picks up men in bars and bistros and hospital elevators and uses her best friend as alibi for the escapades.

On surface, 35-year-old Adèle seems to have it all. She is married to a handsome surgeon, is a suc­cessful journalist, and has a son she adores. And it’s not that Adèle enjoys cheating on her husband. She just can’t help it. Violent sexual release is what Adèle seeks for reasons even she doesn’t fully understand—perhaps to escape the monotony that comes from comfort because of her family’s money that “smells of work, of sweat and long nights spent at the hospital”.

Adèle is a difficult character to like. She is lazy and shallow, and seems to have little to no passion for anything in life except, of course, sex

Translated into English following the success of Lullaby, a story about a nanny who kills her young charges, Adèle was actually French-Moroccan author Leila Slimani’s first published novel. In various interviews, Slimani has said she writes about topics that fascinate her and by doing so she also wants to explore characters she doesn’t understand. Adèle is a story about women, what’s expected of them, and how their desires are often suppressed by it.

But Adèle is a difficult character to like. She is lazy and shallow, and seems to have little to no passion for anything in life except, of course, sex. It’s the crisp narration that keeps you hooked to this slim novel. The writing is sparse and Slimani only tells you what you absolutely need to know. She gives you a bit of a backstory, about teenage Adèle see­ing prostitutes that made her curious about sex, but there are no elaborate descriptions and details. Also, there is no moralizing from the author either. She doesn’t tell you how to feel or what to think about her nym­phomaniac character. Some readers will applaud Adèle while some will be appalled by her. But, either way, we will all think about her for a long time to come.

Book: ADÈLE

Genre: Fiction

Author: Leila Slimani

Translated into Englishby Sam Taylor

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: January 15, 2019

Pages: 240, Paperback

 Your work commitments might leave you with very little time to read a good book but don’t let that deter you from picking up ‘No Fixed Address’ by Susin Nielsen, which you can finish in a day, or a weekend at the most. The novel might have been writ­ten for 10- to 12-year-olds, but adult readers will find it as engag­ing. It will kind of remind you of Nick Hornby’s ‘About a Boy’ but with its own unique aspects, No Fixed Address is as fresh and delight­ful as it can get.

The basic premise of the YA nov­el is this: 12-year-old Felix’s mom, Astrid, is a caring mother but she is also depressed and thus can’t seem to hold a job. Unable to pay rent for their shabby apartment, Astrid decides to live in a van. She instructs Felix not to tell anyone about this living arrangement as that might mean he will be taken away from her and put into foster care. What was to be a temporary arrangement soon becomes a way of life for the mother son duo and Felix struggles to cope with it.

Felix is too young to understand what’s going on with his mother but he wants to help her

Felix might be too young to under­stand what’s going on with his moth­er but he wants to help her and that opportunity arises when he gets a chance to audition for a junior edi­tion of ‘Who What Where When’, a quiz contest. Winning the cash prize would solve all their problems and, most importantly, put an actual roof over their heads. With a knack for trivia, Felix is determined to earn a spot on the show. But things don’t turn out the way he expects them to.

The novel is charming because Nielsen tells a simple story with a lot of grace and empathy, and she seems to know exactly how her characters, even secondary ones like Felix’s best friends, Dylan and Winnie, are supposed to be. Astrid, even with her knack of acquiring useless boyfriends, losing useful jobs, and “borrowing” from super­markets, manages to worm her way into your heart, and you desperately want to help Felix in his quest to save her.

But, struggling against circum­stances well beyond his control and juggling responsibilities that are no child’s play, it is Felix who has you in the palm of his hands. You will read No Fixed Address without a moment’s break because the antici­pation of how Felix manages to pull his mother and himself out of the cracks of poverty won’t let you think of anything else.

No Fixed Address

Genre: Fiction

Author: Susin Nielsen

Published: September 2018

Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books

Pages: 288, Hardback

 In a case of egregious negligence bordering on criminal behavior on the part of a Nepali insurer, 49-year-old Malaysian tourist Wui Kin Chin was left for dead when he became stranded at an altitude of 7,500 meters during a descent from Annapurna-I. The senior anesthesiologist and climbing enthusiast had gone miss­ing on his way down after his suc­cessful ascent of the 8,091-meter peak on April 23.

When the news of her missing husband reached Chin’s wife, she contacted the insurance company and asked it to mount an imme­diate search and rescue. Global Rescue, with whom Chin had tak­en out an insurance before his expedition, refused to help, say­ing that her husband may have died—and that they were not liable for anything.

Distraught, Mrs Chin then con­tacted Simrik Air, a company that specializes in mountain rescues with a fleet of high-altitude helicop­ters. On the morning of April 25, Captain Siddhartha Jung Gurung flew out in search of Chin in the Annapurna Region.

 At around 8 am on April 25, the Malaysian was spotted above Camp IV, waving his arms at the helicopter

At around 8 am, the Malaysian was spotted above Camp IV, waving his arms at the helicopter. A team of longline rescuers under Captain Bibek Khadka was immediately dis­patched to the site.

“We started a search and rescue mission as soon as we were con­tacted,” Yogesh Sapkota, marketing head at Simrik Air, told APEX. “Our first priority was to drop oxygen and food supplies to Chin.”

Because of the high altitude, direct longline rescue for Chin was not possible. By the time we went to press, a team of rescuers had embarked on foot to get him back to Camp III from where he will be flown to Kathmandu in a Simrik helicopter.

The incident exemplifies how some insurance companies oper­ating in Nepal swindle tourists by making them pay hefty premiums but later refuse to help and com­pensate. Tourists suffer, which also makes potential adventure tourists wary of coming to Nepal.

UPDATE

Late on April 25, the rescuers were able to get to Wui Kin Chin and bought him to Camp III.

At the time of his rescue, Chin had been without an oxygen bottle, food and water for over 40 hours, said Mingma Sherpa, the head of Seven Summit Treks, which arranged his expedition, the Associated Press reported.

Chin was flown to the capital, Kathmandu, on Friday and taken to a hospital, where his wife joined him.

Sherpa credited Chin’s medical knowledge and familiarity with mountains for keeping him alive.

"It's a big thing to stay alive in that altitude without food, water, and oxygen," the AP quoted Sherpa as saying. He described Chin on Thursday as fine but not in condition to walk.

 This elaborate period drama set in 1946 India, a year before the country’s partition, is a treat to the eyes. If you like elaborate histor­ical dramas, à la Sanjay Leela Bhan­sali (‘Bajirao Mastani’, ‘Ram-leela’ and ‘Padmaavat’), then you will like ‘Kalank’ too. And yet it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The film revolves around long-bur­ied secrets of a family in pre-par­tition Husnabad, Lahore, where the majority of the population is Muslim. A tragic tale of six people whose lives are intertwined under the larger Hindu-Muslim conflict and the trauma of India-Pakistan partition, Kalank offers a magnifi­cent visual spectacle that transports us back in time.

In lead roles are all mega-stars and their talent is not wasted. After debuting together in ‘Student of the Year’ (2012), Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have each grown a lot as actors, more so Bhatt. Lately, she has been able to nail even the most difficult roles.

 Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours

We have already seen Bhatt work her magic in films like ‘High­way’ (2014), ‘Udta Punjab’ (2016) and ‘Raazi’ (2018). She does not disappoint in Kalank as well. Here she plays Roop, who is married off against her will to an already married man and finds her­self badly torn between her heart and her mind.

Aditya Roy Kapur brings his trade­mark laid-back attitude to the table as Dev Chowdhury, a silent and loving man who as a newspaper editor is on a crusade against the imminent partition of his country. Varun Dhawan as Zafar, a philander­ing ironsmith born out of wedlock, gives a hot-and-cold performance this time. The audience never quiet connect with him. Completing the Kalank ensemble are Madhuri Dixit (the dance queen is, of course, a courtesan), Sanjay Dutt (a dour busi­nessman and father) and Sonakshi Sinha (a desperate wife).

Despite a complex plot and back­stories with multiple India-Pakistan conflict subplots, you can easily fol­low the storyline. If you can ignore some bad VFX work, the spectac­ular costumes, jewelry and set designs will have you oohing. The Alia-Madhuri dances are reminis­cent of that unforgettable Aish­warya-Madhuri combo in the clas­sic ‘Dola re Dola’ from the movie ‘Devdas’ (2002). Even though there are plenty of songs in this film you don’t feel like it because you will enjoy most of them.

At just under three hours, it does feel a little stretched though. Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours, no matter how good a film is. And Kalank is not perfect for that matter. The back­ground scores are mistimed. Essen­tial stuff like how a lowly courtesan owns the most lavish kothi, or why a newspaper is targeted by mobs for its simple reporting, are left to the audience’s imagination. Moreover, the sequence of events is hurried, with the viewers seldom getting a change to digest a crucial event.

There is no shortage of good music, great dancing and unexpected plot twists though. Director Abhishek Verman seems determined to pull off a Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and he has largely succeeded. This one is a cinematic treat!

Movie: Kalank

Genre: Drama/Romance

Cast: Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Madhuri Dixit, Sanjay Dutt

Direction: Abhishek Verman

Rating: 3.5/5

Q. What is important to you that you rare­ly talk about?

A. Privacy.

Q. A quote you live by?

A. ‘If you don’t spend time to work on creating the life you want, you are eventu­ally going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with the life you don’t want.’

Q. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

A. Night owl.

Q. Something your fans wouldn’t believe about you?

A. I am short-tempered.

Q. If one of your wishes were to be granted, what would it be?

A. Every child gets educa­tion for free.

Q. What’s the best part of your day?

A. At night when I get into bed with the music on.

Q. Your alternate career choice?

A. I already have one: Engineering.

Q. What is one question you wish more peo­ple asked you?

A. So, what did you learn from that?

Q. Who would you like to work with next?

A. Prashant Rasaily.