The marriage took place at Saif's
Bandra home. For her D-day Kareena, 32, wore a green punjabi suit,
while 42-year-old Saif chose to dress up in a grey kurta-pyjama.
Newlyweds Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor arrive to pose for the media outside Khan's residence.
Newlyweds Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor pose for the media outside Khan's residence in Mumbai on October 16, 2012.
Kareena's mother Babita and
father Randhir Kapoor signed as witnesses from the bride's side. Also
present at the wedding was Kareena's sister Karisma.
Karisma and her son Kian spotted at Saif's Bandra home.
Saif's mother and veteran actress Sharmila Tagore signed as a witness from the groom's side.
Karisma Kapoor greets the fans gathered outside Saif ALi Khan's Bandra home during the official wedding ceremony.
Meanwhile Kareena's ex-boyfriend Shahid Kapoor has said that he is happy for Kareena Kapoor.
"Marriage is a big decision and it's a big occasion. I wish them a very
happy married life. I hope they are happy together. I hope Kareena
keeps working as she is one of the finest actresses we have," Shahid
told reporters Tuesday when asked what would he like to say on Kareena's
wedding to Saif.
Artist Jagjot Singh Rubal
finishes off a painting of Bollywood film actors Saif Ali Khan (R) and
Kareena Kapoor in Amritsar. Rubal will present the painting to the
couple as a wedding gift.
ROSWELL, N.M. — A man fell to Earth from more than 24 miles high Sunday,
becoming the first human to break the sound barrier under his own power
— with some help from gravity.
A helium balloon made of 40 acres of ultrathin
plastic took Mr. Baumgartner to an altitude of 128,100 feet. Mr.
Baumgartner broke the sound barrier during his jump, reaching a maximum
speed of 833.9 miles per hour, or Mach 1.24.
Felix Baumgartner landed safely in Roswell, N.M.,
after breaking altitude and speed records in his jump from a balloon.
The man, Felix Baumgartner,
an Austrian daredevil, made the highest and fastest jump in history
after ascending by a helium balloon to an altitude of 128,100 feet. As
millions around the world experienced the vertiginous view from his capsule’s camera,
which showed a round blue world surrounded by the black of space, he
stepped off into the void and plummeted for more than four minutes,
reaching a maximum speed measured at 833.9 miles per hour, or Mach 1.24.
He broke altitude and speed records set half a century ago by Joe
Kittinger, now 84, a retired Air Force colonel whose reassuring voice
from mission control guided Mr. Baumgartner through tense moments.
Engineers considered aborting the mission when Mr. Baumgartner’s
faceplate began fogging during the ascent, but he insisted on proceeding
and made plans for doing the jump blind.
That proved unnecessary, but a new crisis occurred early in the jump
when he began spinning out of control in the thin air of the
stratosphere — the same problem that had nearly killed Mr. Kittinger a
half-century earlier. But as the atmosphere thickened, Mr. Baumgartner
managed to stop the spin and fall smoothly until he opened his parachute
about a mile above the ground and landed smoothly in the New Mexico
desert.
“It was harder than I expected,” said Mr. Baumgartner, a 43-year-old
former Austrian paratrooper. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top
of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records any
more. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming
home.”
Mr. Kittinger praised Mr. Baumgartner’s courage for proceeding with the
mission and said that he had more than broken a record.
“He demonstrated that a man could survive in an extremely high altitude
escape situation,” Mr. Kittinger said. “Future astronauts will wear the
spacesuit that Felix test-jumped today.”
Mr. Baumgartner was backed by a NASA-style mission control operation at
an airfield in Roswell that involved 300 people, including more than 70
engineers, scientists and physicians who have been working for five
years on the project, called Red Bull Stratos, after the drink company that has financed it.
Besides aiming at records, the engineers and scientists on the Red Bull
Stratos team have been gathering and publishing reams of data intended
to help future pilots, astronauts and perhaps space tourists survive if
they have to bail out.
“We’re testing new spacesuits, escape concepts and treatment protocols
for pressure loss at extreme altitudes,” said the Red Bull Stratos
medical director, Dr. Jonathan Clark, who formerly oversaw the health of
space shuttle crews at NASA. “There are so many things that could go wrong here that we’re pushing the technical envelope.”
While building the customized suit and capsule, the team of aerospace
veterans had to contend with one crucial uncertainty: What happens to
the human body when it breaks the sound barrier? There was also one
major unexpected problem for Mr. Baumgartner, known to his fans as
Fearless Felix.
Although he had no trouble jumping off buildings and bridges, and
soaring across the English Channel in a carbon-fiber wing, he found
himself suffering panic attacks when forced to spend hours inside the
pressurized suit and helmet. At one point in 2010, rather than take an
endurance test in it, he went to an airport and fled the United States.
With the help of a sports psychologist and other specialists, he learned
techniques for dealing with the claustrophobia.
One of the techniques Mr. Baumgartner developed was to stay busy
throughout the ascent. He conversed steadily with Mr. Kittinger, a
former fighter pilot whose deep voice exuded the right stuff as he
confidently went through a 40-item checklist rehearsing every move that
Mr. Baumgartner would make when it came time to leave the capsule.
When the actual moment came, Mr. Kittinger said to him, “All right, step
up on the exterior step. Start the cameras. And our guardian angel will
take care of you now.”
Mr. Baumgartner stepped outside, saluted and made the jump right after
delivering a message that was mostly garbled by radio static. Afterward,
he repeated it: “I know the whole world is watching, and I wish the
whole world could see what I see. Sometimes you have to go up really
high to understand how small you really are.”
Engineers forecast that Mr. Baumgartner would reach a supersonic speed
of 720 miles an hour by jumping from 120,000 feet, the altitude that
they had promised to reach. But all along they had hoped the balloon
would go even higher — and lead to an even faster fall, which did occur.
As a result, even though he fell farther than Mr. Kittinger did, his fall took less time: 4 minutes and 20 seconds, which was 16 seconds less than Mr. Kittinger’s.
Mr. Baumgartner jumped from an altitude of 128,100 feet and landed in
desert about 4,000 above sea level, so the jump from capsule to the
ground covered about 23 and a half miles.
When Mr. Baumgartner lost control of his body during the early part of
the jump, he feared going into a flat spin that would send blood away
from the center of his body.
“At a certain R.P.M.,” he said afterward, “there’s only one way for
blood to leave your body, and that’s through your eyeballs. That means
you’re dead. That was what we feared most.”
Because of the limited sensation inside his pressurized suit, he said
recovering from a spin was much more difficult than during an ordinary
dive.
“As a sky-diver, you can feel the air on your right shoulder and you
immediately know what to do,” he said. “Here you don’t feel the air, so
you have to wait until the air pushes you around. Then you think, ‘Oh,
it pushed me around clockwise — that means I have to do this.’ ”
Brian Utley of the FAI, the international federation that certifies
aerospace records, calculated the height and speed of the jump by
independently analyzing data gathered on microchips in Mr. Baumgartner’s
suit. After a thorough analysis of the data is made over the next
several weeks, Mr. Utley said, the precise official figures might be
slightly different, but he had no doubt that Mr. Baumgartner had set a
supersonic speed record.
As the balloon rose in the sky, viewers from around the world went to
YouTube to watch a live video stream from the capsule and mission
control. By the time Mr. Baumgartner made his leap into space, the
audience grew to a peak of eight million.
Felix Baumgartner broke the
sound barrier and the record for highest skydive Sunday when he leapt
into the stratosphere from a balloon near the edge of space. Felix
Baumgartner has made a career of risky jumps, including skydiving across
the English Channel and parachuting off the Petronas Towers.
An Austrian daredevil leapt into the stratosphere from a balloon near
the edge of space 24 miles (38 km) above Earth on Sunday and safely
landed, setting a record for the highest skydive and breaking the sound
barrier in the process.
Cheers broke out as Felix Baumgartner, 43, jumped from a
skateboard- s ized shelf outside the 11-by-8-foot (3.3-by-2.4 metre)
fiberglass and acrylic capsule that was carried higher than 12 8,000
feet (39 ,000 metres) by an enormous balloon.
"We love you Felix!" screamed the crowd gathered in a mission control setting at his launch site in Roswell, New Mexico as more than 8 million people watched his feat online.
SEE ALSO: Beyond SpaceX: Five companies seeking to change space travel
Baumgartner's
body pierced the atmosphere at 833.9 miles per hour (1, 3 42.8 kph),
according to preliminary numbers released by Brian Utley, the
certification official for the Federation Aeronautic International, at a
press conference afterward.
Baumgartner's speed clinched one of
his goals: to become the first skydiver to break the s ound barrier,
typically measured at more than 690 m ph (1,110 kph). And he did so on
the 65th anniversary of legendary American pilot Chuck Yeager's flight shattering the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947.
Utley
said preliminary figures indicate Baumgartner broke a total of three
established world records, including the highest altitude skydive (
128,100 feet or 39,045 metres), longest freefall without a parachute
(119,846 feet or 36,529 metres) and fastest fall achieved during a
skydive (reaching 833.9 mph or 1,342 kph).
Baumgartner landed
safely on the ground and raised his arms in a victory salute just 10
minutes after he stepped into the air. Soon he was hugged by his mother
and father, who took their first trip outside Europe to see his historic plunge, and his girlfriend jumped up and wrapped her legs around him.
"It
was way harder than I expected," Baumgartner said. Recalling his final
words before he stepped into the stratosphere, he said, "Sometimes you
have to get up really high to know how small you are."
The Austrian has made a career of risky jumps including skydiving across the English Channel and parachuting off the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.
PREPARATION
Earlier Baumgartner prepared
to jump from the pressurized capsule by going through a checklist of 40
items with project adviser Joe Kittinger, holder of a 19-mile high (30
km) altitude parachute jump record that Baumgartner smashed.
Earlier in the flight, he expressed concern that his astronaut-like helmet was not heating properly.
"This
is very serious, Joe," said Baumgartner as the capsule, designed to
remain at 55 degrees Fahrenheit ascended in skies where temperatures
were expected to plunge below -91.8 F (-67.8 C), according to the
project's website. "Sometimes it's getting foggy when I exhale. ... I do
not feel heat."
Baumgartner's ascent into the stratosphere took about 2-1/2 hours.
The
30 million-cubic-foot (850,000-cubic-metre) plastic balloon, is about
one-tenth the thickness of a plastic bag, or roughly as thin as a dry
cleaner bag.
The Post critics dub Ben Affleck’s “Argo” the must-see film of this weekend.
(Claire Folger)
In this week’s new movies, Ben Affleck directs and
stars in “Argo,” a political thriller about the Iranian Hostage Crisis
that Post critic Ann Hornaday calls “an ingeniously written and executed
drama.” Here’s what the Post critics thought about the rest of this
week’s new releases: “Argo”
(R) “This captivating, expertly machined political thriller jumps
through every hoop the naysayer can set up: It’s serious and
substantive, an ingeniously written and executed drama fashioned from a
fascinating, little-known chapter of recent history.” — Ann Hornaday “Wuthering Heights”
(Unrated) “[Director Andrea Arnold’s] approach to the material is
fresh, considering her focus on the messy, muddy landscape as a metaphor
for the story’s unbridled relationships. But with so much attention
paid to mood and imagery, emotions seem to get lost in the wind.” —
Stephanie Merry “Seven Psychopaths”
(R) “Sam Rockwell delivers a soaring, scene-stealing performance as a
verbose criminal low-life in ‘Seven Psychopaths,’ a toxic little bauble
of Hollywood gestures, cliches and tropes.” — Ann Hornaday “Sinister” (R) “. . . The hero of ‘Sinister’ is almost unaccountably dumb. So, unfortunately, is the movie.” — Michael O’Sullivan “Atlas Shrugged: Part II”
(PG-13) “Rather than refresh the cast with new actors, the producers
would have done better to just digitally reanimate Patricia Neal and
Gary Cooper, the stars of the 1949 adaptation of Rand’s ‘The
Fountainhead.’” — Mark Jenkins “How to Survive a Plague”
(Unrated) “But the film’s limitations turn out to be appropriate to its
gritty, often confrontational subject matter: Rather than a record of
unexpected beauty, ‘How to Survive a Plague’ is as direct as the men and
women who used rage and militancy to fight for a treatment for a
disease that was decimating their community.” — Ann Hornaday “Middle of Nowhere”
(R) “The setup is predictable, if fraught with a couple of narrative
speed bumps, but [Emayatzy] Corinealdi and [David] Oyelowo are appealing
enough to make the journey to the inevitable conclusion an enjoyable
one.” — Michael O’Sullivan “Here Comes the Boom” (PG) “If only more people had seen Gavin O’Connor’s ‘Warrior,’ then maybe we could’ve been spared ‘Here Comes the Boom.’”— Sean O’Connell “The House I Live In” (Unrated) “Technically, ‘The House I Live In’ isn’t season six of ‘The Wire.’
But Eugene Jarecki’s investigative documentary probing our nation’s
futile war on drugs is so similar in tone and intent to HBO’s acclaimed
series that fans of the defunct television program will want to take a
look.” — Sean O’Connell “Somewhere Between”
(Unrated) “Linda Goldstein Knowlton’s documentary ‘Somewhere Between’
demonstrates the additional stress for teenage girls who were adopted
from China and brought to the United States.” — Stephanie Merry “Special Forces”
(R) “There’s nothing terribly surprising about ‘Special Forces,’ a
moderately gripping action flick about a group of commandos on a mission
to rescue a pretty blonde who has been abducted by the Taliban.
Nothing, that is, except that it’s French.” — Michael O’Sullivan “Least Among Saints” (R) “The film just keeps ladling on the sauce when the dish is savory enough.” — Michael O’Sullivan
Congratulations, Felix, for successfully completing your jump from the edge of space!
Felix Baumgartner stood alone at the edge of space, poised in the open
doorway of a capsule suspended above Earth and wondering if he would
make it back alive. Twenty four miles below him, millions of people were
right there with him, watching on the Internet and marveling at the
wonder of the moment.
A second later, he stepped off the capsule
and barreled toward the New Mexico desert as a tiny white speck against a
darkly-tinted sky. Millions watched him breathlessly as he shattered
the sound barrier and then landed safely about nine minutes later,
becoming the world's first supersonic skydiver.
"When I was
standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not
think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining
scientific data," Baumgartner said after the jump. "The only thing you
want is to come back alive."
The tightly-orchestrated jump meant
primarily to entertain became much more than that in the dizzying,
breathtaking moment - a collectively shared cross between Neil
Armstrong's moon landing and Evel Knievel's famed motorcycle jumps on
ABC's "Wide World of Sports."
It was part scientific wonder, part
daredevil reality show, with the live-streamed event instantly
capturing the world's attention on a sleepy Sunday at the same time
seven NFL football games were being played. It proved, once again, the
power of the Internet in a world where news travels as fast as Twitter.
The
event happened without a network broadcast in the United States, though
organizers said more than 40 television stations in 50 countries -
including cable's Discovery Channel in the US - carried the live feed.
Instead, millions flocked online, drawing more than 8 million
simultaneous views to a YouTube live stream at its peak, YouTube
officials said.
More than 130 digital outlets carried the live feed, organizers said.
It
was a last hurrah for what some have billed as a dying Space Age, as
NASA's shuttle program ends and the ways humans explore space is
dramatically changing. As the jump unfolded, the space shuttle Endeavor
crept toward a Los Angeles museum, where it will become nothing more
than an exhibit.
Baumgartner, a 43-year-old Austrian, hit Mach
1.24, or 833.9 mph, according to preliminary data, and became the first
person to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or a
spacecraft. The capsule he jumped from had reached an altitude of
128,100 feet above Earth, carried by a 55-story ultra-thin helium
balloon.
Landing on his feet in the desert, the man known as
"Fearless Felix" lifted his arms in victory to the cheers of jubilant
friends and spectators who closely followed at a command center. Among
them was his mother, Eva Baumgartner, who was overcome with emotion,
crying.
"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we
are," an exuberant Baumgartner told reporters outside mission control
after the jump.
About half of Baumgartner's nine-minute descent
was a free fall of 119,846 feet, according to Brian Utley, a jump
observer from the FAI, an international group that works to determine
and maintain the integrity of aviation records.
During the first
part of Baumgartner's free fall, anxious onlookers at the command center
held their breath as he appeared to spin uncontrollably.
"When I
was spinning first 10, 20 seconds, I never thought I was going to lose
my life but I was disappointed because I'm going to lose my record. I
put seven years of my life into this," he said.
He added: "In
that situation, when you spin around, it's like hell and you don't know
if you can get out of that spin or not. Of course, it was terrifying. I
was fighting all the way down because I knew that there must be a moment
where I can handle it."
Baumgartner said traveling faster than
sound is "hard to describe because you don't feel it." The pressurized
suit prevented him from feeling the rushing air or even the loud noise
he made when breaking the sound barrier.
With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel," he said.
Coincidentally,
Baumgartner's accomplishment came on the 65th anniversary of the day
that U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to officially
break the sound barrier in a jet. Yeager, in fact, commemorated that
feat on Sunday, flying in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the
sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave
Desert.
At Baumgartner's insistence, some 30 cameras recorded his
stunt. Shortly after launch early Sunday, screens at mission control
showed the capsule, dangling from the massive balloon, as it rose
gracefully above the New Mexico desert. Baumgartner could be seen on
video, calmly checking instruments inside the capsule.
The dive was more than just a stunt. NASA is eager to improve its blueprints for future spacesuits.
Baumgartner's
team included Joe Kittinger, who first tried to break the sound barrier
from 19.5 miles up in 1960, reaching speeds of 614 mph. With Kittinger
inside mission control, the two men could be heard going over technical
details during the ascension.
"Our guardian angel will take care of you," Kittinger radioed to Baumgartner around the 100,000-foot mark.
After
Baumgartner landed, his sponsor, Red Bull, posted a picture to Facebook
of him kneeling on the ground. It generated nearly 216,000 likes,
10,000 comments and more than 29,000 shares in less than 40 minutes.
On
Twitter, half the worldwide trending topics had something to do with
the jump, pushing past seven NFL football games. Among them was this
tweet from NASA: "Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and RedBull
Stratos on record-breaking leap from the edge of space!"
This
attempt marked the end of a long road for Baumgartner, a record-setting
high-altitude jumper. He already made two preparation jumps in the area,
one from 15 miles high and another from 18 miles high. He has said that
this was his final jump.
Red Bull has never said how much the long-running, complex project cost.
Although
he broke the sound barrier, the highest manned-balloon flight record
and became the man to jump from the highest altitude, he failed to break
Kittinger's 5 minute and 35 second longest free fall record.
Baumgartner's was timed at 4 minutes and 20 seconds in free fall.
He said he opened his parachute at 5,000 feet because that was the plan.
"I
was putting everything out there, and hope for the best and if we left
one record for Joe - hey it's fine," he said when asked if he
intentionally left the record for Kittinger to hold. "We needed Joe
Kittinger to help us break his own record, and that tells the story of
how difficult it was and how smart they were in the 60's. He is 84 years
old, and he is still so bright and intelligent and enthusiastic".
Baumgartner
has said he plans to settle down with his girlfriend and fly
helicopters on mountain rescue and firefighting missions in the U.S. and
Austria.
Before that, though, he said, "I'll go back to LA to chill out for a few days."
Varsha shot herself with my old, lost gun: Asha Bhosle Mid-Day.Com | Wednesday, October 10, 2012
(Mumbai )
Legendary
singer Asha Bhosle confirmed that her daughter Varsha, who shot herself
in the head in the wee hours on Monday, was a patient of depression and
had made herself virtually invisible from public life for a year.
Asha Bhosle also put an end to the mystery surrounding the ownership of
the pistol used by the 56-year-old columnist to shoot herself. The
singer revealed that she was the owner of the weapon, and had earlier
misplaced it.
A team of police officials from Gamdevi police station visited Asha's
Prabhu Kunj building at Pedder Road on Tuesday, and as a part of the
investigation, had a brief conversation with her.
"Varsha was depressed owing to her loneliness and she had also distanced
herself from everyone in the past one year. Varsha was being treated
for depression, acute pain in her leg and diabetes. Lately, she seemed
disconnected from the outside world. She had even stopped using her cell
phone," Asha Bhosle told the police team.
The police revealed that Asha had returned from Singapore on Monday
around 10 pm, and soon after that her family performed the last rites at
the Chandanwadi crematorium in Marine Lines.
"Asha Bhosle was inconsolable. Hence her lawyer, who was present at the
residence, asked us to wait for her son's arrival before starting the
process of recording statements," said an inspector from Gamdevi police
station.
Though cops only managed to have a brief conversation with Asha, she
told them that the weapon used by her daughter to commit suicide
actually belongs to her.
"The pistol that Varsha used to shoot herself is registered in my name.
It is very old and it had been lost. We don't know how Varsha got her
hands on it," she said.
Bereaved: Asha Bhosle arrived at her residence from Singapore on Monday around 10 pm. Soon after that her family performed the last rites.
Sources revealed that there are two other guns in the family: Asha
Bhosle's brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar owns a .32 pistol, while her son
Anand owns a .45 pistol.
Varsha Bhosle had used a Belgian make Baby Browning, which she placed
against her left temple and pulled the trigger early on Monday.
Police said that they would be recording a formal statement from Asha
Bhosle very soon. They are also awaiting the return of Asha Bhosle's son
from Singapore.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who turned 70 today, says he never cared about his popularity but believed that one's outlook towards life matters the most.
"Every human being will go through a phase when there are highs and
lows. Everything that goes up also comes down. I don't think I am
particularly different from anyone. We all have our highs and lows. It
is just about what kind of attitude you have during the time," Bachchan
said.
"If you have success, you should know that it is going to be short
lived and if you have lows and the courage to fight or an attempt to
make a comeback, then all the best," he added.
The Bollywood
legend, who has appeared in over 180 films in his career spanning more
than four decades, says his contemporary actors too are doing well in
their capacity.
"I never judge myself. I cannot say my
contemporaries have been left behind me. That would be wrong. I have
never paid attention to my popularity. People can write what they want
to but it doesn't matter to me," he said.
Bachchan said actors like Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra and Rishi Kapoor are "very much active" and working in films.
"Unfortunately, Shashi Kapoor is unwell or else I am sure he too would be active.
"In fact, Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha have entered politics and are doing well... I feel I have been left behind by my contemporaries," he said.
Bachchan, who acted only once with Dilip Kumar on screen- in 1982 hit 'Shakti', says the acting great is his idol.
"Dilip saab and Waheedaji ( Waheeda Rehman)
are my favourite artists of all time and my idols even today. When it
comes to the history of Indian cinema, I believe it can be easily
divided into an era before Dilip Kumar, and after he joined films. There
cannot be anyone like him," he said.
"When you get to work with
someone who has been your favourite actor or the one you idolise, there
are a lot of emotions that run through your mind. He is someone whom I
have looked up to him since my childhood," he said.
Recalling shooting of 'Shakti',
Bachchan said, "When we came together to shoot I felt bizarre. It was
difficult for me to digest the fact that I was sharing screen space with
Dilip Kumar. I am fortunate enough to have got the opportunity to work
with a legendary actor like him. I am still in constant touch with
Dilipsaab."
Bachchan said he was fortunate to have got the
opportunity to work with a range of directors but considers Hrishikesh
Mukherjee as his "godfather".
"I am thankful to Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who gave me my first film (Saat Hindustani).
I consider Hrishikesh Mukherjee as my godfather. We shared a close
bond. Everyone feels I have done more films with Prakash Mehra and
Manmohan Desai but that is not true, I have done more films with
Hrishida," Bachchan said.
"Manmohan Desai had madness in him. He knew the pulse of the audience very well. Yash Chopra gave some of the biggest hits of my career. At the same time, I worked with Mukul Anand and Tinnu Anand," he said.
Bachchan praised filmamkers Karan Johar, Prakash Jha, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Shoojit Sircar among others.
"The new millennium saw the rise of filmmakers like Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar
and I was fortunate to work with them. At this time in my career, I am
working once again with some bright filmmakers like R Balki, Shoojit
Sircar and Prakash Jha, who have brilliant ideas," the veteran actor
said.
Bachhan also has a word of praise for current crop of films.
"There have been some brilliant films like 'Paan Singh Tomar', 'Gangs Of Wasseypur', 'Vicky Donor', and 'Kahaani'.
These films are so different and liked by almost everyone. They did
good business too. This shows the audience has matured and wants a good
story with good presentation," he said.
Director: Sachin Kundalkar
It's love at first smell for college librarian Meenaxi Deshpande
(Rani Mukherjee), who falls hook line and sinker for brooding artist
Surya (South Indian star Prithviraj) the moment she first catches a
whiff of him. Meenaxi, the protagonist of writer-director Sachin
Kundalkar’s bizarrely fascinating Aiyyaa, is a middle-class
Maharashtrian girl with a heightened sense of smell, and a tendency to
slip into a dream-like fantasy world of Bollywood numbers to escape the
claustrophobia of her eccentric family.
To be fair, no one’s entirely sane in Kundalkar’s world – not
Meenaxi’s kooky parents, not her blind grandmother who zips around in a
mechanical wheelchair, and especially not her colleague at the library, a
buck-toothed Lady Gaga lookalike who dresses in S&M gear and pines
for John Abraham. Meenaxi herself is prone to melodramatic outbursts and
filmi nakhras, particularly when she’s being paraded about in front of
prospective grooms.
Aiyyaa, with its bright visual palette, its strong female
perspective, and its intentionally peculiar humor, is evocative of
Almodovar’s quirky cinema, but the plot here is wafer thin, and while
some elements work, it never all comes together as a satisfying whole.
It certainly doesn’t help that the film unfolds over two hours and
thirty minutes…an excruciatingly long running time for what’s
essentially a slim story of a one-sided crush.
Yet, in a rare twist for a Bollywood film, it’s the heroine who
does all the lusting here, cooking up saucy imaginary scenarios that
invariably involve the hero flaunting his well-toned physique.
Sportingly offering himself up to be objectified, Prithviraj bumps and
grinds and heaves to the beats of at least two deliciously over-the-top
song sequences.
Meenaxi, of course, is the film’s juiciest character…a woman
conflicted between pursuing the man of her dreams, who barely notices
her, and settling for a simple guy with simple tastes who has picked her
to be his bride. Rani Mukherjee owns the part with a tremendous,
uninhibited performance, switching superbly between the film's
exaggerated and understated moments.
In the end, despite the impressive camerawork and Amit Trivedi’s
winning tunes, Aiyyaa is at best an original and promising experiment
let down by its many indulgences. I'm going with two-and-a-half out of
five for director Sachin Kundalkar's Aiyyaa; an unusual film that
could’ve been so much more.
Rating: 2.5 / 5
