Chicken Khurana is delicious

‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ is a welcome relief from the noise of the upcoming Diwali releases. Calm, warm and beautiful, almost like the Lalton village, it is set in. For a food movie, it doesn’t have enough food moments like ‘Tampopo’ or ‘Eat drink man woman’ but it makes up for it through the quirks and the characters.

A buaa who is a sanyaasan (Dolly Ahluwalia), smokes pot, sings “beedi jaleile” type bhajans and curses on the side, is a treat to watch. The titular Khurana or Daarji (Vinod Nagpal) farts away to glory and says it is necessary to fart around family members as it increases the love. He is outrageously funny in his scenes (possibly a hangover I carry from Khosla ka Ghosla and earlier DD moments). The other quirky characters include a doting mother who only loves, a younger brother who wants to be like his elder brother, a underwear selling shopkeeper, London gangsters, a highway Dhabawala who wants the recipe of Chicken Khurana and a mysterious Bengali widow.

Which brings us to the lead pair of Omi (Kunal Kapoor) and Harman (Huma Qureishi). Kunal is a natural and is likeable throughout the movie. I wish Kunal Kapoor gets more quality work like this and doesn’t end up a one-hit wonder. He is able to portray the internal guilt and conflict effectively. Huma Qureishi is lovely. The character of Harman seems an extension of Mohsina from Wasseypur at times but I am not complaining. She plays the character of the Punjaban to a T. Her scenes with Kunal Kapoor are crackling, especially when they cook together. I loved the joke about the name on the green board and cracked up. Also charming are the scenes when they drive on her bike.

However the reason I loved the movie so much was because of Rajesh Sharma, who as Tito Mama delivers the breakout performance of the year. Tito Mama is also the character, I identified with, the most. A food lover, Titto stays at the Khurana’s because he is lazy and loves ‘Chicken Khurana’, the dish. He doesn’t want unnecessary conversation when good food is present and is only worried about “swaadisht khaana.” He is consistently funny throughout the movie and unflinching in his attitude towards life and food.

The cooking scenes are nicely done but the details are missing. There is a lot of emotion but the food is missing. There is no chicken in Luv Shuv tey chicken Khurana. Okay, minimal. Being a foodie and someone who can cook meat (marinate and all that jazz), and especially after a recent, gastronomically explosive trip through Lawrence Road and Jalebi Chowk, Amritsar (Surjeet’s butter chicken, Beera’s tandoori chicken and the Amritsari fish at Makhan are still fresh in memory), I missed the food in Luv Shuv.

For a meat lover, it is almost blasphemy but I am not complaining. Post Bawarchi, I think this is the funniest Indian food movie I have scene. Cheeni Kum was an Amitabh Bachchan movie and don’t delude yourself into believing that it was a food movie despite the Hyderabadi Zafrani pulao angle which is only consumed in a parallel universe (In real Hyderabad they just eat Dum Biryani and saalan). I have been told that ‘Salt n’ Pepper’ is a decent candidate for the food movie cateogory. It is on my wishlist.

A good reference point for food in Indian cinema is this song from Mayabazaar, which, as a friend tells me, describes food in excruciating detail. You may also talk about Kalakalappu, A Tamil comedy about two brothers trying to save their Masala Cafe. There is also Madhavan’s Ramji Londonwale. However, these are again just appetizers and the main course is yet to be delivered. Still, ‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ is delicious. 

The music by Amit Trivedi works like a charm. On a day, I missed Rahman on MTV Unplugged, I was saved by the musical genius of Amit Trivedi. Luni and Kikli are the stars in an outstanding album. The lyrics are funny at times but the Punjabi folk inspired music is beautiful. Compare this with the other fraud Punjabi movie, which has “Po Po” positioned as its chart-buster. 

To quote Harman from the movie, “More jeera than required, a tad more heeng than necessary and maybe a few spices are burnt, but it is very well done.” It’s not perfect like Daarji’s original Chicken Khurana but it is an attempt in the right direction. The movie appeals to the senses and now has made me hungry enough to at least try and cook Chicken Khurana. Off to the kitchen.

 

 

Image Credits

http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://apnatimepass.com
http://bollywood-bytes.com

Everything is a Remix

I am assuming you have read those posts about Barfi ripping off scenes from various movies (Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Singing in the Rain, Korean films, French films) and  were not left with a high opinion of Anurag Basu or the film after reading that post.

If you have not liked the movie because it didn’t entertain you, fair enough. No arguments over that. It’s a movie and may work for you, may not work for you. You have the right to hate it. Please go ahead and burn every poster but don’t tell me that I am dumb because you didn’t like it or question the fact that I may or may not like it.

Watching a movie is a very personal thing. As a self-proclaimed movie snob, I can claim that none of you are capable enough to understand a movie and you may give up on a
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang movie or even a David Dhawan movie and hence you hate their movies. That doesn’t mean, they are talentless filmmakers or haven’t entertained enough people to get the acclaim they have got. That also doesn’t mean that your understanding of cinema is lesser than mine.

Let’s get some context. The director of Barfi is Anurag Basu and music is by Pritam. First thing you notice about Barfi is the music. One of the best music albums of the year (not talking about the background score). The problem here is that of an image bias and because you know the music is by Pritam, you can’t believe it is original. There is a dissonance and you can’t accept the music for what it is, beautiful. Now you remember the body of work of Anurag Basu (Life in a… Metro, Gangster, Murder etc.). You obviously don’t think of Anurag Basu as a great director. Hey, even I don’t! Now when you watch Barfi, or realise that people across India are loving it, there is a conflict.

Gus Van Sant made a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. It was boring and
failed miserably. The Psycho remake didn’t work but you can’t say Gus is not talented and hence Psycho remake was bad. The Psycho remake was bad and even Gus admits to it. Point I am making is as a piece of art no one knows how people will react after it is created. The fact that people have reacted positively to Barfi means, at some level it has worked despite the source material and the numerous “inspirations”.

Most of the movies are genre dependent and do well to be sincere to the genre. Transcending a genre is a tough ask and depends on the skills of the filmmaker. Every genre has its standard elements or template. As Kirby Ferguson (we will come back to him) calls it, these genre movies have “standard elements that are appropriated, transformed and subverted”.

Now, what is the take on people who take this template and replicate it in a different context? Does the changing of context change everything? Yes, it does, otherwise watching Omkara (Othello) or Thalapathi (Mahabharata) wouldn’t have been such a great experience.

Another thing that I have observed, is a strange phenomenon. I call this the “Kolaveri effect” for riling you more and making my point. This is true for any meme that becomes massively popular, at least in India.

Life cycle of a meme in India:

or

You see some people whom you don’t think highly of, talking about it on Facebook / Twitter and going all out in declaring the big love. You want to see what the noise is about and maybe you have already decided that you are going to hate the movie and you do.

Bringing back the discussion to Anurag Basu, why is it that he is being asked to defend himself on whether he has copied from other films. Just because he didn’t make a great movie earlier, he has copied, while auteurs pay homage?

Why is that an Anurag Kashyap has the capability to pay homage and an Anurag Basu can only copy? Just because the surname is different, you have an opinion on talent? You can hate any of the above, at least be consistent.

If you are not sure of what Anurag Kashyap could have copied, we have an answer: The entire template for his later films. Now, you may say he didn’t copy scenes from any movie. Wrong. He did.

Exhibit A:

Please watch ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ again and watch the scene where there is a cross connection between people speaking over the phone when they are planning to kill someone. That scene is a straight rip from “Urf Professor” (You may find the enitire movie on YouTube). A hilarious, at times, but overall very random movie by Pankaj Advani which never got a release. This is just a quick example.

Let’s go for the other holy cows.

In light of the revelations of copy-pasting scenes from different movies, does copying scenes from another movie make Barfi a lesser movie or cinematic experience? I disagree. And how many scenes did Anurag Basu copy? Three, five or eight?

Exhibit B:

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

You decide.

The problem is Tarantino makes meta movies and his source material is way too varied to understand the influences. Barfi, admittedly was a Chaplin inspired character and hence had a limited source material to go to. Okay, some Korean and French movies he liked, as well.

Now, let’s take ‘Sholay’. Great characters, great action, great dialogues, screenplay and a classic for generations. Copy?

‘Sholay’ was an early Kill Bill in terms of its influences and has copied / borrowed from Sergio Leone films. The massacre of Thakur’s family, Gabbar killing a fly on his wrist are straight rips (among many other scenes). STRAIGHT RIPS. Still, we love Sholay and claim Ramesh Sippy and Salim-Javed paid homage to the great western movies.

Now, let’s watch this brilliant documentary ‘Everything is a Remix’ by Kirby Ferguson. Kirby brilliantly explains how originality is an overrated concept and copying doesn’t make you a lesser artist. He takes the example of Led Zeppelin and dissects some of their legendary work, including “Stairway to heaven”. Zeppelin copied but that doesn’t make them a mediocre band.

If you see part two of this documentary, he cites the example of George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino and how they have freely borrowed (copied) from earlier classics. This again brings forth the question of what is originality, inspiration and copying.

Our take? Does it matter? It is all pointless. It is your money and your brains. You blow what you want to blow. You can tell me and disagree with me but don’t try to convince me. If a movie works for you, you enjoy it, great. If it doesn’t, hard luck but please understand you are not the only audience for a movie.

Next time you watch a movie, just remember, everything is a remix. Everything!

 

Acknowledgement:

ibnlive.in.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/arts/14iht-gus.html?_r=0
http://www.everythingisaremix.info/Share

Ten things I learnt from ‘Ek Tha Tiger’

Preposterous, is what Roger Ebert may say, if he ever watches the movie. However, that will be wrong on his part because he doesn’t know what we know and that’s how we roll, baby!   

This movie has so much to learn from that I will go ahead and share my notes with all you needy people. Thank me later.

SPOILER ALERT!

Like the movie, we straightaway cut to the chase.

1. Slowmo scenes – You may be thinking, in the first action scene, right at the beginning, when Salman kicks the bad guy in the jaw [Begin Slowmo], and the bad guy falls on the bed, the cigarette butts go up along with the ash tray and time ceases to exist, you are stunned into an Inception like limbo, Salman bhai shows his face to the audience, more time goes by and people in the theatre go wild [End Slowmo], Jason Bourne would have finished half of Morocco by then. That would be silly because then you are expecting a Bourne rehash with a Bourne sensibility. Kabir Khan is far more skillful. He gives us a Bourne scene with John Woo sensibilities where time can be manipulated, and there are at times, hour long limbos. The problem is, YOU WERE THINKING!

2. The fact that Kabir Khan may be a Chuck fan – While RGV is still stuck at the 47th scene of ‘The Godfather’ for the 4477th time, Kabir Khan has moved on and is on to American TV shows. Since, we promised a spoiler free write-up, we just keep it short and introduce you to Chuck, one of the greatest TV shows ever made. “Don’t freak out!”

3. MacGuffin – MacGuffin is a plot device popularized by, the one and only, Alfred Hitchcock. As per Wikipedia, it is “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot”. Yes. That is what Roshan Seth (Scientist Kidwai) is in the movie. A walking, talking, secret defence technology making, MacGuffin. In fact, he is so unimportant to the plot that post interval, nobody bothers about him.

4. Establishing Shot – “An establishing shot in filmmaking sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects” – Wikipedia. This explains the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the Blue Mosque), dummy. When both the agents decide to react, the action is already in Istanbul, remember. Almaty international airport is almost empty but distinctly visible when we are in Kazakhstan and when we are in Cuba, we see a lot of open top classic cars being driven across because that’s what every movie shot in Cuba shows. Oh and there will be random Cuban musicians and drummers on the road. Established and executed.

5. A RAW agent can be allowed to runaway with a Chinese, American or even a Venezuelan beauty but not a Pakistani girl. Now, here I am offended because clearly Girish Karnad has not seen any India vs Pakistan matches in Lahore or Rawalpindi. The most beautiful women cheering their lungs out for Shahid Afridi’s umpteenth comeback match. Sigh! Anyone will run away with them. Also, I learnt that RAW agents can’t retire. They never retire. They are just hunted down and shot, once they decide to retire.

6. Toot-ta Taara reference always works – This is an essential plot device in Karan Johar school of film making. You are supposed to cry and feel sad about something whenever there is a meteor shower. Whatever is said during this scene is very important and things usually happen. Pay a lot of attention during these scenes. I was so sucked into this scene that when Tiger asks Zoya, when was the last time it happened, I couldn’t stop myself from shouting “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai“, aloud.

7. Snake Eyes – It’s always the eyes, dammit. In a spy movie, one spy should never make eye contact with another. Agent Vinod had to say this about Kareena Kapoor, “Tumahri aankhen kisi ka katl kar sakti hain, par tum kisi ka katl nahi kar sakti.” and in Ek Tha Tiger, the RAW agent says, “Jo maine tumhaari aankhon mein dekha tha who kya tha?” Never, ever, make eye contact with the other spy. Those eyes suck you into the vortex of damnation and the resulting world tour, sponsored by the Government of India. Both our leading agents have suffered much because they dared to. Please don’t. The only other person who knows this fact, is Crime Master Gogo. Hence the famous, “आँखें  निकाल  के  गोटियाँ  खेलूँगा ” (I will rip your eyes out and play marbles with them). 

8. Suryavanshi strikes back – No, that is not Anton Chigurh, at the airport, posing as RAW agent Tiger. That, my friends, is a lovely hat tip to the wonderful Suryavanshi, an earlier Salman classic directed by Rakesh Kumar. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncanny resemblance. Isn’t it? I was almost gobsmacked when I saw that avatar of Salman. Priceless.

 

9. Kosovo is an independent republic – This, you would have known if you were in Chennai at the Music Kala Academy on 15th August, 2012 for the Landmark Open Quiz instead of celebrating Independence day with Katrina Kaif. You may say, even without going to the Landmark open, you have come to know this fact through Ek Tha Tiger. But did you know Kosovo has its map on its flag and the only other country to have its map on its flag is Cyprus. Only at the Landmark Open at Chennai.

10. Salman Khan has throat punching skills – Tiger throat punches a bad guy in Cuba. Although they are not as good as Liam Neeson but he does have skills, you know. Almost surreal and deadly. Obviously, these are such rare skills that no RAW supervisor can let go off. Add to that, his daal making skills and you know Tiger had it coming. 

That is all I had to share and I thank Kabir Khan for making a movie which has so much to teach and enlighten. Jai Ho!

Image credits: http://im.rediff.com/movies/2009/may/11slde7.jpg

 

Philosophy, Economics and the Hindi film song

When Paul Gauguin was a student, he had Catholic religion as a subject. His teacher was a Bishop, who had his own methods to inspire children, and to lead them to understand life and its deeper meaning. He had three fundamental questions in his course: “Where does humanity come from?” “Where is it going to?”, “How does humanity proceed?”. These three questions may not be that important in the classroom but inspired Gaugin much later to create a great painting.

The point, I am trying to make is, never ignore anything as trivial. What you consider as trivial may well be a deep philosophical tenet. All you have to do is notice. Carefully.

Here, we present to you some of the finest trivial pieces from Hindi film songs which you have ignored as trivial without realizing the deep hidden meaning within. I also believe that philosophy is greatest when presented in the most trivial form. Then, there is a higher meaning. As an old saying goes “चड्डी  पहन  के  फूल  खिला  है ” (lotus blooms in the swamp). Oh, actually, that will be “कीचड  में  ही  कमल  खिलता  है ”.

 

Chai mein dooba biscuit ho gayaa – This harmless line is part of the more famous “Chai Mein Dooba Biscuit Ho Gaya, Main To Ainvayi Ainvayi Ainvayi Ainvayi Lut Gaya” and most of us ignore the first part and have fun with the new found joy of discovering Ainvayi. Have you ever wondered what is the real meaning there? Imagine you are that biscuit and just have been dipped in a hot, steaming cup of tea. What are the possibilities? You may fall in the cup and be part of the vast ocean of tea. Or you may survive, only to face two inevitable possibilities. Either you are destroyed during the journey and fall down to the mighty earth or you meet your destiny and fulfill your raison d’etre, which is to be devoured and attain the highest state of Fanaa. This is it.

 

All in one, one in all – There are many reasons, why, you are not aware of this gem. One of them is, you consider yourself Amitabh Bachchan’s greatest fanboy or fangirl. Please, don’t insult my intelligence. I have done a Toofan-Jaadugar-Ganga-Jamuna-Saraswati marathon. Okay, I digress.

Before making some of us Crorepatis, Mr. Bachchan used to indulge in a bit of vigilante justice on-screen and this song is from one such epic B-Gold, Indrajeet. During one such mission in the movie, he saunters into a club where we find our four musketeers wanting to become ‘all in one, one in all’ with the pretty lady.

If you are thinking that when you see the video, you are wrong my friend. You are underestimating Gulshan Bawra, the great man who also gave us “Mere Desh ki dharti” and yes, this song is actually about national integration. Released during turbulent times when people were vastly intolerant, it pre-empted the Babri masjid demolition by a year and was preaching the message of national integration and how we should be “all in one and one in all”. Nobody noticed it then otherwise the “6^th December-1992” scar on the fabric of Indian secularism would have never appeared.

The song is hummable and melodious, given the fact that Pancham da is the composer. The fact that you are watching the glorious Mahesh Anand jiving to the groovy soundtrack makes the video highly watchable. Also, what makes this song great is, it easily gets an entry into the Hall of Fame for all ‘Reshmi Zulfein’ songs. Yes, I have a ‘Reshmi Zulfein’ Hall of Fame and a fetish for everything ‘Reshmi’. ‘Yeh hai Reshmi Zulfon ka Andhera’, ‘Yeh reshmi zulfein, yeh sharbati aankhen” and such like. The closest thing to this may be a succulent reshmi kebab.

 

Mat socho ki sastaa hai saudaa, fal paaye, lagaaye ga jo paudha – You have heard ‘Eena Meena Deeka’, danced to it, won an Antakshari challenge with ‘ई ’ using this and laughed at the whole madness. The greatest trick Kishore da had up his sleeve was he never let you realize the important hidden message, almost satanic, in those lines.

In Bhagwat Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjun, who is struggling with his aim, in general and in life,

“कर्मणयेवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि”|

In short, “Do your job and don’t expect any result.” or be detached. In a very anti-Gita stance, Rajendra Krishnan, talks about results, economics and Return on Investment (ROI) which you will much later realize, after you get a degree in management education. Nobody remembers Rajendra Krishnan who took on religion, philosophy and the Bhagwat Gita, in his own style. What a great man!

 

Aaj baazar hi bik gaya re – Another gem about economics and free markets and you thought only textbooks can teach you economics. Stop drooling over the free samples on display and understand the real meaning. Why do you think they are giving their hearts for free? No, this is not ‘Dire Straits’ country. The reason is, when the market itself is sold, how or what can they sell? It’s a free for all after that. Try selling stuff in such a market and then you will understand the importance of Mr Amitabh Bhattachrya.  How effectively he embeds his wisdom in a jazzy song which also teaches you Mathematics 101. Yes, 75 is peechatarr and 77 is sattatar. There.

 

Take it easy policy – There is a reason we think P K Mishra is the greatest pop-philosopher ever. This song is not that reason as we have to give the credit to Mr. Vairamuthu for the original Tamil lyrics. However, for his copy-pasting skills and for his understanding of what works in Hindi and what doesn’t, we can’t say enough. We won’t say anything about the song and will want you to just watch this video, hear the song and understand it. Each and every line is a gem and always remember, “Jeet ka mantra hai, take it easy policy”.   

Image Credit: http://www.astrovidya.com/images/geeta.jpg

Mera password Maan Hai – The greatest passwords in Hindi Cinema!

Have you ever been flabbergasted while watching a password being hacked / cracked or just plain guessed by our Bollywood superstars? We have been stunned as well but instead of being critical or trying to understand the mechanism of the process, we just celebrate them. Here is a list of a few which in our opinion are truly the greatest ever feats of passwords or hacks in Bollywood.

Angoor: The detective novel maniac, Ashok, and his trusted opium-addict aide, Bahadur, come to the city with a lot of money on them. Ashok, fuelled by stories of the evil city, is paranoid — he suspects every person on the street, especially when they all talk to him like he’s a familiar face. Little does he know that the town holds another Ashok and another Bahadur; long-separated identical twins. Driven to a near breakdown, the detective-novel fanatic Ashok decrees that to enter his room, his Bahadur must use the song “Preetam aan milo” as the password. Bahadur, as it happens in these movies, follows the other Ashok to his house, gets high on opium, and croons “Preetam Aan Milo” to the mystified household. Even Shakespeare could not have dreamt up the comedy of errors that the password in Angoor created.

Sapoot: Every director who thinks he has a gritty side to him has wanted to remake The Godfather, but no one could have doused the movie in as much garam masala as Jagdish A. Sharma in the path breaking Sapoot. First, he cast Kader Khan as the Godfather who doesn’t deal in drugs. Then, he decided to populate the movie with the past masters of B-Gold 90s action, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar. (The former’s face is capable of the emotional range of a Canara Bank employee on a stultifying Monday morning, and the latter was, at that point, still better at cooking Thai food.)

In the iconic scene, Suniel Shetty and Mahavir Shah are having a random conversation near a swimming pool, if memory serves us well. Suniel Shetty wants to light up one and asks Mahavir Shah for a maachis (matchstick) and our man Shah, snaps back saying, “Maachis hoti do duniya ko aag lagaa deta”. A flabbergasted Suniel Shetty is about to take care of business when Mahavir Shah explains that this is the password for a deal to happen soon. While we couldn’t find that iconic scene, we give you the deal-making scene. Maachis?- Pure bliss.

16 December: Hindi movie celebrated the coming of the digital age with this gadget-filled spy movie that has classic sequences involving people explaining what e-mail is. The “agents” are not coolly RAW or Intelligence Bureau or any such thing. They are from the vastly underrated and underrepresented Revenue Intelligence. (If you’re sniggering away, let me remind you that it was the very same Revenue Intelligence that exposed the Nira Radia scam.) But then, I’m not sure the Revenue Intelligence is even one-hundredth as cool as this movie makes them out to be. I don’t think they have posh snipers, state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, an army of hackers, Milind Soman and an informer as hot as Aditi Govitrikar. This movie featured the greatest password to defuse a nuclear bomb in all cinematic history — “Dulhan ki bidayi ka waqt badalna hai”.

Not only did the bomb in that movie require a password, it required the password to be spoken in Gulshan Grover’s voice. The bomb, by this point, has been smuggled into a college fest (yes, a college fest – who would expect a terrorist attack when ‘culturals’ are happening!) as “musical equipment”, and Gulshan Grover immediately does what every terrorist does before launching a nuclear attack. He plays the drums. In a very fake manner, with an expression conveying heightened calm and fulfillment. Like he’s just slept with three supermodels at the same time. And how do they get him to say the password? They have a phone conversation with him where they “trick” him into saying the relevant words out of context. So ingenious. So yummy.

Ajnabee: You would think that the most ridiculous scene from this classic from the Abbas-Mustan universe (Just like masters such as Wes Anderson and Tim Burton, Abbas-Mustan’s movies are clearly not set on this planet, and definitely do not feature regular, intelligent, human beings) would be the one where Akshay Kumar and Bipasha Basu escape from landlocked Switzerland on a ship. But it is not. The scene where Bobby Deol cracks Akshay Kumar’s ingenious password makes me want to stand up and applaud.

First, he shocks Akshay by entering his account number correctly. Strike One. The deliciously tacky Bank of Singapore website (I’m surprised the Bank didn’t sue Abbas-Mustan for defamation!) asks for a password. Now it is Akshay’s turn to look smug. But Bobby is not one to bow down under pressure. He makes general comment on how people set passwords — ease of remembrance, he says, like a date of birth. But he laughs, and adds, “Lekin tu to aisa nahi kar sakta – tu to lawaaris hai.” Strike Two. Then he thinks, (this thinking expression rivals Suniel Shetty, really.) very briefly, if you took time off to pick your nose, you’ve missed his thinking expression, and declares, “Tu ek baat hamesha bolta rahta hai…” and types furiously into the computer, dramatically rotates the computer around and declares victoriously, “Yehi hai na?” The computer, at this point, in large, bold lettering, proudly declares, “EVERYTHING IS PLANNED”. Bobby Deol calmly presses the return key for punch effect. The computer says, “PASSWORD ACCEPTED”. Strike Three and You’re Out.

Some security pointers from us for Bank of Singapore — please make sure your passwords don’t appear on the screen as one types; please allow both small and capital letters, it helps people set stronger passwords.

Agent Vinod: One of the scenes I really liked in this movie was the perfectly pitched, planned and executed scene where Kazaan administers the lethal injection to his ailing pet camel. From the plaster on the camel’s body to the detailing of the room in which it was housed, from the sensitive background music to the solemnity of everyone’s expression, from the sheer absurdity of the situation to the fact that it does strike a chord, everything in this scene was brilliant. It was the best set-piece in a movie that was a collection of set-pieces anyway.

Sadly, Sriram Raghavan felt the need to make this scene relevant to the larger themes of the movie. In the climax, since he cannot crack the password to defuse the nuclear bomb, Agent Vinod has only one way to save the country from nuclear disaster, and the world from retaliatory holocaust — he must fly the helicopter with the bomb into a pit far away from civilisation. Obviously, at this point, instead of concentrating on his helicopter-flying, his team decides to give him one last wish. A lesser man would have wished for Tandoori Chicken, but Vinod wants to speak to the love of his life, Iram. In this country, you get fined for talking on the phone while driving a car on the road, but a RAW Agent, with a nuclear bomb in his helicopter, is still allowed to say bye to his lady love. The lady love, after telling him that she has a bullet in her liver, proceeds to inform him that the password for the bomb is “Jilleh”, the name of that camel! Talking to him in that state kills her, but the password she gives saves the world. Jai mata di!