Tamasha Movie Review:

(Disclaimer: Minor Spoilers ahead)

With a combination that boasts of AR rahman, Imtiaz Ali, Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor, four of my most favourite artists in Bollywood from music, direction and acting respectively, I was expecting to get blown away. But well, not so much.

The warning signs were there. The trailers and promo were mediocre, which promised a been-there-seen-that story line and in fact they were even guilty of revealing too much.

There are two surprising things about this film, one is that Imtiaz chooses to reveal his entire story line of the film in the trailer and second, the entire story is done, chewed up, by the interval scene.

As I came out of the theater at the intermission, I was wondering. So if that was basically the entire trailer, a.k.a the entire story, that panned out in an hour and 15 minutes then what was left? Other than the very obvious ending?

It was just an hour and a quarter into the film. So, what was Imtiaz going to do with the film for second half? For another hour and a quarter?

Well, Imtiaz must have wondered so too. Because, it’s ridiculous! This movie has a climax that stretches the entire second half. Even if this was a very melodramatic Hollywood, it would have hardly survived for another 20 minutes. But no, Imtiaz drags it for 75 minutes! 75! Are you kidding me, Imtiaz? Gosh! An entire Sherlock episode is done in that time!

The drag coefficient of this movie was so high that the thrust provided by Ranbir, Deepika, AR Rahman is rendered irrelevant as the movie nose dives into the ground after the intermission.

The film is about a regular guy, an average bloke finding true love, finding himself, finding his calling. It’s a simple enough concept. Except that Imtiaz digs so much into the past of his protagonist that he shades his darkest character yet, beating his own lead character from Rockstar. In fact, if you thought Ranbir screamed a lot in Rockstar, then fasten your seat belts for more of it.

The character of Ved (Ranbir) almost turns sadistic and sociopathic at few moments in the film and in spite of the director’s best efforts to justify through the flashbacks, I just could not buy it. I believe the movie, without Ved going bat-crap-crazy, would still have panned out exactly the same way as it does (and even better perhaps with the shorter run time). Sometimes, there is a concept, there is a story attached to it. Yes we get it. But the execution of which might be very difficult and this here was such a concept. Sure, we understand, the reason for Ved acting the way he does, but do we buy it on screen on reel time? Nope. This is the lowest point in the film for me. There might be film fanatics elsewhere who might like this movie for these moments, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

The first half of the movie though is an altogether different story. It has some good music, great direction and acting that will keep you smiling and enjoying. It has all the Imtiaz Ali flavor that is synonymous with movie-goers. It keeps fans of his, like myself, content. The dialogues were witty and chemistry between the lead couple is electric.

And Ravi Varman (cinematographer of Barfi) weaves his magic throughout the film. The cinematography is top notch. Corsica is captured beautifully and so are the nights of Delhi. It’s just art and I couldn’t help but appreciate it every frame. He has seriously got to be one of the best doing the rounds in India.

AR Rahman does what he always does. There might be folks complaining, ‘this music doesn’t feel like ARR’ but once one watches it in the theater, one would get that ARR scores for the film, the plot. The kind of music that eases itself into the written screenplay giving a particular scene that much more of an impact. Simply put, its music made for the film. Perfect.

Now speaking about my favorite aspect of the film, the acting! Wow! Deepika and Ranbir rock it all the way. Ranbir especially shows us why he is arguably the best in Bollywood right now. And Deepika, my love :p what can I say about her? She is absolutely stunning! Breath Taking! My god! (Wait, I am a huge Deepika Padukone fan, so I wouldn’t even understand even if she performed otherwise, so your call, here) She would rivet anyone’s eyes while she’s on screen. There is no way I was going to watch this film again, but just for Deepika, I might watch it on Blu-Ray sometime later.

Coming to the direction, well, I have to concede I was expecting a bit more from Imtiaz. Sure where do you go with such a concept? About finding oneself? But Imtiaz over does a lot of elements- the melodrama, the dwelling on the past, the obsession on the idea that all the stories are the same, the poetic analogies within the film, the dark side of Ved, the obsession of Tara (Deepika) on Ved- to name a few.

But saying all this, I think there would be some people who might connect to the second half and like the entire film, but for me, nope! Sorry. The second half was a bit too philosophical and sadistic for my liking that downs the entire film.

So I would not suggest you to skip this film as there is Deepika in it, but sure, watch it if you must!

My Rating: 50/150

The Walk Movie Review

The last time I came out of a theatre and said, “Wow, the 3-D for that film was something!” was probably after I had watched Avatar on the world’s biggest screen (Prasads IMAX) in IMAX 3D in 2009. And now after watching The Walk, I revisit the good olden days where 3-D films were exciting and rare! (And mind you, I loved the 3-D experience in spite of it not being an IMAX experience, as we Hyderabadis do not have an IMAX theater anymore)

The Walk comes out as a film that you would least expect to score highly in 3-D experience category, as it is not basically an action or adventure or a fantasy film but rather a simple true story of an incredible man’s unbelievable act of walking on a high wire between the World Trade Centers back in 1974.

The director, Robert Zemeckis, who directed some of my all time favorites like Back to the Future Trilogy, Polar Express, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, brings not only this act to the big screen in the most glorious way but also the heist like planning that went behind in pulling off this stunt back in the 70s in New York. The movie adopts a different narrative style where Philippe Petit (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) addresses the audience directly here and there. That might not be something that everybody would enjoy but I most certainly did. In fact whenever the narrative was on, I felt that the movie almost had a poetic aura to it.

The movie beautifully transcends from the ‘poetic phase’ to the old fashioned heist phase of a movie and then again back to the poetic phase of the final act. The movie had layers to it in terms of story telling and the movie portrayed the layers of emotions running high behind the man, Philippe, brilliantly. 

Don’t expect a fast paced, out and out entertainer, as the first half takes it time to establish the character. But the build-up, the back story, the simple but witty dialogues, the cinematography that captures 70s of Paris and New York, everything, carries the feel good factor throughout the film and culminates in an epic thirty minute final act that was visually breathtaking. Trust me when I say this, that entire sequence on the high wire couldn’t have been any better. It is immersive cinematic experience at its best with direction, acting, visual effects, and editing peaking in tandem.  

Joseph Gordon Levitt as the French guy trying to bend into a New Yorker with an American accent is convincing and that is also a source of intentional comedy. Ben Kingsley in his small but prominent role is a delight to watch as usual. And all the actors chipped in with pretty decent performances themselves.

In short, the movie might be on the slower side in the first half (even though I didn’t feel so) but the last thirty minutes of the movie more than makes up for it as it is truly stunning and the entire film carries the feel good factor. It is inspiring and it most certainly needs to be experienced in 3-D.

My Rating: 150/150 (Worth every buck!)  

The Martian Movie Review

“Yay! Space science fiction again FTW!”

I was excited for Gravity. I was ready to jump off a cliff for Interstellar. Strangely for The Martian, even though I looked forward to it, I wasn’t as excited as I should have been, considering my love for science fiction and space adventure. Was it because of the simple Premise?

Will he or won’t he? (Make it back to the Earth) That was it. That was it about the movie. That much was definitely made clear from the trailer. So, a Cast Away on Mars? Meh.

But let me tell you this much with certainty, when I walked out of the theatre I knew that this was arguably the best space adventure movie. This movie is a testament to what great writing in terms of the screenplay could do to any film (You! Young aspiring film-makers out there- don’t miss this one for this specific reason folks. Screenplay is everything!). You can be on mars, you can be on earth, you can be in a different galaxy, you can be on Everest, you can be on a sinking ship in the Atlantic, you can be racing around in cars, or you can be in a haunted house, but all that matters at the end of the day is the writing and execution. And The Martian truly, truly shows how it’s done in spite of a paper thin premise.

The movie is about a guy who is all alone on a planet fighting for his survival. Has to be depressing right? No! It isn’t depressing at all. It is absolutely a fun ride! There’s a lot of humor. There’s a lot of tension. I was literally on the edge of my seat for quite a few moments, because they were so gripping. Even at 144 minutes, the movie just kept up its brisk pace all through. The screen time shifted wonderfully well, from Mark on Mars, to NASA back here, to his crew members aboard Hermes making their journey back to earth. I will say this again, I have rarely been this impressed with a Screenplay of a film. Delightfully tight!

Ridley Scott the director, man behind films like Alien, Gladiator and Black hawk down, executed this movie phenomenally well. There is so much ‘science’ in this movie (not the Interstellarish science, not to worry!) and it is made sure they are all explained extremely well and the movie definitely does not make the audience feel dumb (Trust me that’s a lot of effort :P ). The movie has amazing cinematography. Earth felt like Earth. Mars felt like Mars, I mean, based on all the pics that I ever saw of Mars, that’s always how I imagined it would be and that’s how it is. Red, desolated, dusty with rocky terrain.

The casting of the film! Phew! Great actors all of them. So obviously, they delivered liked they always do and Matt Damon does what Matt Damon does. Knocks you out with his performance. I am a sucker for performance driven movies. This movie has plenty of that. In fact I am a sucker for thrillers and comedy too and this movie ticks those boxes too.

The Martian is one of the best that I watched this year. This film was not just about the exquisite art in terms of the acting, direction or writing, it was about what a film offers to the audience, and this film has that to its credit. It has got everything to offer. The movie was thoroughly enjoyable. And I would probably end up watching this movie, at least, two more times with my friends. And hence, the rating:

Rating: 450/150. Simply Spectacular!

Do check out the trailer for this film, if you haven’t:

My first theatre experience: Between the lines

And I fell in love with theatre. Truly!

I have, for a very long time, wanted to go to a play but thanks to my procrastination I never actually did. Until of course this unsuspecting lovely Friday evening of August that I drove through the haze of polluted chemicals, beating my long time friend, procrastination, to go to a play, partly because I wanted to try something new and partly because I was bored of movies and partly because of the artistic brand associated with the name ‘Nandita Das’, the director and actress of the play ‘Between the lines’.

And as much as I hate living in cities for the pollution, I love everything else that they have got to offer, especially the many art forms that converge here that one could indulge, explore and get lost in. And this visit to a theatre to witness a play for the very first was a very conscious effort on my part to explore in that regard. I walked in to Ravindra Bharati with my friends with very high expectations of something that has always been told very highly of. A play. As I took my seat and looked down onto the stage from the gallery, everything felt perfect: The lighting, the set, the stage and the buzz of a capacity audience. I knew it was going to be something special.

It’s a shame that it took me 20 years of my human existence to witness an art that existed through the ages, far older than what our history could take us back into. And to make up for the delay, I now realize I am going to watch many more of these, because this was an experience that will be cherished by me. I write about movies, I review them, because the stories told are more than stories. They are an expression of a being told through the eyes of an actor, the string of a musician, the vision of a director and the passion of the crew. And the play that I watched today was an embodiment of all that, but it felt much better than watching a movie because I got to witness live acting of absolute class.

The play wasn’t just about the ambiance inside or my juvenile excitement of it but it was rather the plot itself that was engaging. The play was about a husband and wife, Maya (played by Nandita Das) and Shekar (played by Subodh Maskara), who are lawyers who accidentally take a case which pitches them against each other. Shekar, a reputed criminal prosecutor who doesn’t lose cases usually, is up against his wife, Maya, who takes up her first ever criminal case, as a defense lawyer, after a long gap, which eventually blurs the line between their professional and personal lives. The play reflects upon finer intricacies of the feminine struggle that is existent even in a modern day couple. The little things, the little actions that cannot hide the male chauvinism is up on the fore and the dialogues aren’t written in a way that is a propaganda for feminism but they were rather a repartee that was witty. Frankly, there wasn’t a dull moment for me.

The ingenious single set which was convincing for the two locations of the play, the simple yet perfect props that served for both home and court acts, the great cast that comprised of only two but who played four characters, the endearing background score, the phenomenal acting, the realistic nature of conversations, the deep thought provoking plot that makes you want to read between the lines, together makes up one enjoyable 80 minute ride. Frankly I wished I could watch this play immediately again. I enjoyed it so much. And I want to watch many more of such plays. Hopefully they come along.

As I have not seen any other play, I do not have a comparative scale as such to know for sure if it was in fact a gem of an act. But the fact remains that for me it simply was. And if this play is the pinnacle of plays, I would want to watch plays, and if this play isn’t the pinnacle and there are better ones around, then I would obviously want to watch them even more. Anyway I have found a new love in theater art. For now, that would do. Better late than never. 

PS: I heard there is a really good play tomorrow too called "2 to Tango, 3 to jive" (i.e on August 23^rd, 2015 at Ravindra Bharati) as part of The Hindu Theatre fest. See if you can catch it :)

The point of contention: Number 3

Miracles do happen in cricket. But as fans it is so tough to be on the right side of a miracle. Sadly, Indian cricket fans have found themselves on the other side time and again in the last one year- once in South Africa, once in New Zealand and once in Australia, and now in Sri Lanka where the match had slipped right from the hands of Indian team. Bad luck boys. Bad luck

Forget the results, while they do matter, they are not everything, because in the last one year, Indian team has played some really good cricket with some great batting displays and bowling spells by GenX. We just lacked the killer punch more often than not but it is not something to worry about just yet. It will develop. Give the same bunch of players some time and it will.

But quietly, unnoticed by many, there is something else that is slipping away from Indian cricket fans. It is Pujara of course. Life doesn’t give you two Rahul Dravids in succession, but when it does, just don’t do what Indian cricket team management is doing right now. Pujara is The Wall of a new era. Be it the temperament, the solid technique or the saint-like calmness itself, he is what every Indian could only have ever dreamed of after Rahul Dravid announced his retirement.

Before the start of Sri Lanka tour, Virat Kholi justified his preference of Rohit Sharma over Pujara by stating that he needs someone who would counter attack and score freely at the top (as if we did not have Dhawan or Kholi himself for that matter and also as if every great test team had a counter attacking number 3 batsmen. Funny) and also that Rohit deserves a chance at number 3. Sure, we backed Dhoni for his choices, preference for his players, but Dhoni always came up with rationale reasoning over his decisions. Kholi’s argument though has no buyers.

While Kholi can back his instincts and give chances to players but the larger question remains is at what cost? Pujara for that matter did not perform so poorly that it would have warranted that he be dropped from the team. In the three test series against SA, Eng and Aus, Pujara averaged 70, 22 and 33.33 respectively, stacking up numbers that weren’t too bad. And in the same period Rohit has 11.25, 17.00 and 28.33 against SA, Eng and Aus. And while Pujara had 1 test hundred and 3 fifties, Rohit has 1 fifty in that period.

Number 3 position is about more than just scoring big hundreds here and there, it is about seeing off fiery spells from Steyn, swinging bullets from Starc or table top turners of a day 5 pitch. But if the number 3 fails in that phase, it exposes off the middle order a bit too soon to the wrath of oncoming fire from bowlers who are on top spells.

Rohit Sharma, the eternal talented star of Indian cricket, has some scintillating ODI knocks but he never displayed the solid technique that would have instilled a belief in the fans that he could see through spells from Steyn or Starc on tough days. On the other hand, Pujara had already proven himself in series against SA and also in Australia briefly where even though he didn’t score heavily he did all the hard work and saw off the tough opening phases but unfortunately got out to soft dismissals. There was no way he could have been dropped after a not-so-bad first three tests against Australia. But dropped he was on the first day Kholi took up full time captaincy.  

It is still very early into Kholi’s Test captaincy era, but we are already getting what the looks have promised: Arrogance and brashness. It is one thing to be aggressive but it is something else to expect every batsman of the team to be a replica of the captain, the aggression. What if Pujara isn’t aggressive? Does he have to be? To play in the Indian team? Was Dravid aggressive? Did Sourav Ganguly drop Rahul Dravid for a Yuvraj Singh? Nope. It’s still early to comment, but these are disturbing signs as far as captaincy is concerned.

It’s good that we lost the first test in such a shocking turnaround. It gave me the opportunity to pout and cry about Pujara, because if we had won, Kholi would probably have been right and me and legions of other cricket enthusiasts wrong if we brought up the Pujara topic. Kholi had already said that he would give an extended run to Rohit Sharma to prove himself at number 3, because he believes if Rohit gets going there is hardly anything that could stop him. But test cricket isn’t about that one knock on a flat track, it is about much more. 

Forget Rohit, it is not about Rohit. It is about Pujara. Does he deserve to sit out on the bench match after match? Was he that bad before he got dropped?
Look up the stats: He was not. 

  

  

Bahubali: The Beginning Movie Review

Bahubali: The Beginning is like a wave that does not rise high enough in its course but hits the shore with a powerful might, calling curtains on its short lived life with that deafening splash. The first half of Bahubali Part 1 is like that, it does not rise, forget curling and rising up, but yet in the second half strikes us with a force that makes us take notice of a path breaking Indian film from one of the modern masters of Indian film Industry, Mr. Rajamoulli. The movie, not only has some of the best ever CGI shots of an Indian film but also narrates a tale that is worth escaping into. Bahubali takes us quite convincingly into the world of kings, queens, ministers and traitors, and of course wars.

The two biggest surprises to me from the movie were MM Keeravani’s back ground score and Ramya Krishna’s screen presence. While MM keeravani’s score packed a punch and gave depth to most of the scenes in the movie, Ramya Krishna’s commanding role was gripping. Prabhas and Rana Daggubati have both done quite well, and in fact the acting in the film was top notch from all quarters, except of course from Tamannah who has established herself as someone who just cannot act. Period.

The sheer imagination and magnitude of Rajamoulli’s brilliance is at the fore by the end of this film. Notice the use of my words “by the end of this film”, because that is where the problem lies with this film because though it is a path breaking film, it misses meeting its true potential of being one of the finest ever Indian movies. And this primarily is because it suffers heavily from the over ambition of Rajamoulli. There is a fine line between ambition and over ambition that is drawn by pragmatism, and the director caught up in a world of his own creation is guilty of breaching that line.

The movie’s first half wasn’t that great and I am infuriated because had it not been for these three simple, totally avoidable “mistakes” in the first half, we could have had a near flawless masterpiece: Terrible CGI, weak screenplay, and unconvincing sequences.

1.       The unconvincing sequences: One of the foolish arguments that you hear here down south is that “if one can accept some Hollywood star hitting the crap out of 20 bad assess at once, why can’t one accept our heroes doing the same? If one can accept cars flying in all directions in fast and furious, then why can’t we accept our Sumos flying up in the air too?” And the answer is in the word “believable”. As an audience, we like watching unrealistic stuff (Like cars flying off and heroes kicking the hell out of others or even magic), and we like watching unrealistic stuff which are perceived, executed, shot and presented in the most believable of ways. And Bahubali part 1 in its first half doesn’t do that, the sequences stretch from being hilarious to outrageous because it was just not believably shot. For example, if you want a guy to jump from one hill to the another, why to make him look like he is just popping up like superman, instead of showing that guy approaching that jump at least with a run? Just one example to elaborate on my point. There were other sequences like that.

2.       Terrible CGI of first half: The limited resources who could handle CGI: In most of the Hollywood films, there are hundreds and hundreds of CGI artists who work on the innumerable scenes of a single film, who because of their strength of work force manage to maintain quality for every single scene. And an Indian film doesn’t have that strength. And when Rajamoulli showed some of the CGI of the movie in trailers, we were overwhelmed, but the truth is that those brilliant CGI were far and few and were sandwiched between the usual underwhelming Indian graphics. When I first watched Eega, I immediately became a huge fan of Rajamoulli, because in Eega, Rajamoulli was aware of his resources at hand and worked brilliantly to set frames of most scenes in such a way as to minimize the use of CGI, resulting in lesser work to do in terms of generating computer graphics which resulted in quality graphics. Compare that to Bahubali and you would be shocked to see that the same guy had a brain freeze here. For example, there was a shot in which a lady was speaking at the foothill of a waterfall and frame was set from way beneath her so as to show her and also the entire waterfalls behind her when she was delivering a dialogue. I mean why? Just why? That CGI behind her was terrible. Couldn’t the frame have been set higher and minimized the appearance of waterfall to just water cascading behind her? That would not have required any CG? So, basically there were a lot of scenes as such, which looked like they unnecessarily had to go through a very busy computer graphics department, with the end output being compromised CG quality, except for a few scenes of course (On an average it felt like there were 6 terrible CGI scenes out of every 10-with the other 4 being phenomenal).

3.       Clearly, the decision to make this into a two part film was taken citing financial reasons and it wasn’t in Rajamoulli’s initial plans, and one could forgive the loose screenplay as such, but it is no excuse to stretch a film for 160 minutes when it could well have been cut down to anything less than 130 minutes. Those 30 minutes, is the reason why it is generating the negative flak among the masses, because the first half almost felt “tiring” to watch after a certain point. The movie simply was not flowing there.

Saying all this, the movie moved onto a second half which was unlike anything I have ever seen in an Indian film before. The CGI in the second half was near perfect. The entire war sequence was of the highest standards. The story moved at a brisk pace, with some great acting, good background score and some breathtaking moments. And a special mention to art direction team which has imagined and executed the Mahishmati Kingdom aplomb. From the costumes to the sets to the CGI buildings of the empire, kudos!

In the end, it looked like there were a lot of people who gave some of their best work into this film and credit must be given to the director for bringing them together and getting the best out of his team, but sadly, I couldn’t help but wonder if Rajamoulli was both the Hero and Villain of Bahubali: The Beginning, who has both unnecessarily flawed it with over ambition and resurrected it with his natural brilliance. The movie, on the whole though, was pretty good. It was flawed but it was not bad on any scale. It was better than most Tollywood and Bollywood films, but it was only that we, as fans, expected so much of Rajamoulli.

Not to be cruel, in parts, Rajamoulli did deliver what he promised: An Epic.

Rating: 150/150 (Paisa Wasool entertainment)

A touchdown

Last week has seen the release of three reports in India- MDG (Millennium Development Goals) report, SECC 2011 (Socio Economic and Caste Census), and RSOC (Rapid Survey of Children).  The data contained in these reports are to an extent reassuring but to a greater extent disappointing. And it is disappointing only because numbers don’t lie.

MDG report 2015 shows that India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty from 49.4% in 1994 to 24.7% in 2011 (Limit of extreme poverty has been set for those living for less than 1.25$ a day). And as halving the extreme poverty by 2015 was one of the targets of Millennium development goal in 2000, we should be fairly satisfied with these numbers, as we have reached a goal.

However, in the same period, poverty reduction achieved by our poorer neighbors Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh is higher. I am not implying anything, but only stating what I have read in The Hindu. Not to compare apples and oranges, let us move on.

The MDG report also says that,

1.       India is on track to achieve its hunger targets as well

2.       But it is still home to

·         One quarter of world’s undernourished population

·         Over a third of world’s underweight children

·         Nearly a third of world’s food insecure people

When we go through the highlights of these reports, we realize how much of the real India is behind the veil of curtain drawn across by our ignorance and pride of a number that only shows our GDP growth because, recently, I came across facebook posts which were pitting our GDP growth against China’s GDP growth, that took pride in the prediction that ours would out do theirs in lesser than a decade. I am not being a spoilsport to the dance of Incredible India  (again, sorry for generalizing the general public) but am only asking a touchdown of our flight of pride, if we are aboard one, because some of these numbers should in fact make us crash that flight.

Coming back, there are positives in terms of the drop in infant mortality rate (No.of deaths per 1000 live births-88.2 deaths to 43.8 deaths) and maternal mortality rate (No.of deaths of mothers per lakh live births- 560 to 190) from 1990 to 2012. But the report says that the annual progress has been slow.

RSOC (Rapid survey on Children) by UNICEF, on the other hand, had data that was a touch more cheerful. The report shows that both child stunting levels and underweight children in India had fallen to a historic low but then almost all states have performed poorly in reducing the number of underweight adolescent girls. Gujarat, a perceived developed state, is the only state to perform worse than the national average in reducing the number of child stunting case and underweight children (An awkward sheepish moment for all the “Gujarat model” propagators may be?)

And coming to the last one, SECC 2011 (Socio Economic and Caste Census) released only this week, data for rural households revealed that

1.       In over 90% of households, the main earning member makes less than Rs. 10,000/- a month

2.       Over half the households are landless

3.       Over half the households rely on casual manual labour for the larger part of their income.

4.       Out of a total of 17.4 crore households, 1.8 lakhs households are engaged in degrading work for a livelihood (i.e manual scavenging). Saying that, it is a significant improvement from the 35 lakh such households back in 1961.  

These numbers are not something that are seriously looked upon as the foundation from where “real development in India” has to begin. Because these numbers are not too grim that they could set the alarm bells ringing or could start an up roar in the parliament (in fact, who would up roar? Each of those parties had formed governments in the past two decades and the data today is only a reflection of the policies of the different governments in different periods spread over the last two decades). But yet considering our population, the percentage would wind up to staggering numbers and that all of them live in a country that I too live in is disturbing. I cannot be proud of the high building rises of my cyber city or the investment rains of my state, or the growth of my country, until the rural society too sees some proportional development in tune with urban society.

There is no point in pointing fingers at any parties, or any individuals for the inadequate policies or policy implementation, because all that matters now is how all these data are taken by the present government. What matter is how do we go forward from here? How much of those numbers would reflect in the policies and reforms? It’s not just the politicians but also the bureaucrats, who are at the other end of implementation chain, who have to buckle up and be pro active in cutting down such numbers in data. A true leader does not only talk loudly, or act popularly, but someone who recognizes the ‘less fancier’ true base of a country and propels it forward. And can NaMo be that leader? Only time will tell.

Source: Data is from The Hindu
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