DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

My parents are avid watchers of saas-bahu serials. Every night they settle in front of the desi dabba and watch several back to back. I’ve been in the same room as them on a number of occasions and I can vouch that their absorption is comprehensive. A lot of people love watching them, discussing them – and every fan has his or her preferences.

But of late my parents’ faith has been flagging. “It’s getting tiresome to watch” my Dad told me. My Mom echoed his sentiments. Since I don’t have the patience to sit through any of these to figure out why, I turned around and asked my parents. Here is what they told me.

Continue reading ‘Kyunki Saas-Bahu Bhi Kabhi Interesting Thi’

This movie was a stunner when it first arrived on the scene (1980). The effects were nice, and the story was not too familiar, so seemed fairly novel, or rather let me clarify, the storyline of the characters (mini-plots) were familiar, but not the main story.

The Burning Train was a mega multi-starrer with an large cast of characters, starring such people as Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Vinod Mehra, Jeetendra, Danny, Hema Malini, Parveen Babi, Neetu Singh, and others. Produced by B. R. Chopra, it was one of those films that are eminently watchable now, but for some reasons, was a flop at the time of release. I typically will watch most of the movie anytime it comes on one of the TV channels.

Continue reading ‘A Great Movie That Flopped: The Burning Train‘

Thursday night I had the opportunity to watch one of my favorite old Bollywood clicks on Zee Premier.

My all time favorite actress the South Indian siren Sridevi, who is undoubtedly one of the finest actresses to hit the big screen. I can watch any of her movies time and again and as a kid had most of her movie dialogues on the tip of my tongue. This once again tempted me to go through Chaalbaaz all over again.

Chaalbaaz was a 1989 hit film directed by Pankaj Parashar, starring Sunny Deol, Rajnikanth, Anupam Kher, Rohini Hattangadi, Shakti Kapoor and Sridevi doing the double role of Anju and Manju. The original plot was adopted from the old Hema Malini flick Seeta Aur Geeta but the revamp was way better than the original version. A fine example of how a re-make should be done – if only Farhan Aktar had taken some tips from Mr. Parashar, maybe his Don could have been a bit-more bearable.

Continue reading ‘Revisiting Bollywood Flick Chaalbaaz‘

Doordarshan is a public broadcast television network run by Prasar Bharti. It began in Delhi in 1959. National programes were introduced in 1982. In the same year live telecast of Independence Day parade followed by Asian Games was shown.

With the cable and so many channels coming up, I just wonder whether people still watch Doordarshan because to be very true I don’t. But I truly believe that some of the quality serials that are remembered till now were shown on DD National. I still remember those days (eightees era) when I was a kid and like every child I used to wait for the Sunday to come because all the good serials used to come starting with Rangoli (around 7:30 am if I am not wrong). I still remember my mother used to make ‘pakodis’ for breakfast on Sunday and everything was settled before 9 am because it was the time for mythological dramas like Ramayan (1987-1988) and Mahabharat (1988-1989). Every character fitted so well in these serials, the image that comes to me if I talk about Lord Krishana is Nitish Bhardwaj and Mukesh Khanna as Bhism Pitamah.

Continue reading ‘Doordarshan: No Longer What It Used To Be !’

House M.D is a medical drama, produced by Bryan Singer (of Usual Suspects, X-Men and Superman Returns fame) originally aired on Fox. It has also been in syndication around the world in various networks. In India, AXN airs the show, although given the situation that surrounds AXN in India, it will be a while before one can actually catch it on the telly. Before getting banned, AXN-India was airing the second season. So, for those who haven’t watched it yet, they might want to catch up with the DVD of the first season and of course, read this post to get an idea of the show!

Continue reading ‘Review: House M.D.‘