Chakravyuh: the red war.

You might've heard that India is at war with itself; hundreds, if not thousands, of people die in this war every year. You might've heard the term Maoist in conjunction to this war, or you might be more familiar with the term Naxalite, or the more academic name - left-wing extremist terrorists. The other side of the war is the central government, trying desperately to clamp down on the violent incidents by brutal force, with varied success.

Prakash Jha's Chakravyuh paints a portrait of this war that is harshly realistic, impeccably researched and sympathetic to both sides of the war, but does tend to give more of a hearing to the Maoists - indeed, Jha said in interviews prior to release that he's met Naxalites, and listened to their side of the story. As an issue-based film, Chakravyuh is excellent and an amusing disclaimer at the beginning of the film says up front that "nothing is coincidental" - everything is modelled after real events, real people and being true to the "war within". At the crux of the issue is that economic development and mining demands evacuation of mineral-rich areas, many of them home to adivasis (often translates 'tribals'), who resent the government for the way they've been treated in these instances. Naxalism is an old strand of India's left-wing history, that gained new momentum as the counter force to these evacuations and general poverty and misery of the adivasis.

These are all things I personally knew already, having read about them, but the fantastic way that the film presents these real-life facts and issues is commendable. It asks the age old political question: will capitalism really lead to better lives for the poor, or will it merely line to pockets of foreign company owners?

Perhaps due to my own fascination with the problems the film deals with, the actual story took a backseat in my viewing experience. Kabir (Abhay Deol, wonderful as ever), who manages to go undercover among Naxalites to help his friend Adil (Arjun Rampal), the SP trying to rid the area of Nandighat of the left-wing extremists, who act as the unofficial police force in the area. Anjali Patil plays Juhi, the Naxalite commander who Kabir ends up getting close to, while Om Puri and Manoj Bajpai play the other central Naxalite figures. 

Through Kabir's story, the Naxalite side of things becomes extremely well-rounded, and you understand their side of the dispute. These are not simple issues, however, and perhaps the one flaw of the movie is that it gives the Naxalites almost too sympathetic a hearing. We hear from the other side how many Naxalites merely use the movement as a way to gain power in society, rather than to make the lives of adivasis better, but we don't really get to see this greed for power in any of the Naxalite characters. There is cruelty among them, certainly, but I don't think there's a single flat-out evil left-wing extremist in the film, whereas to balance the morality of Adil's character, we get a few bad apples among the police. The film doesn't seem to really ponder whether violence is the answer to all the concerns of the poor people the Naxalites claim to represent. On the other hand, an alternative reading would be that they turn to violence because nothing else seems to be working - they have no other alternatives to it. But is that really so?

As far as performances go, both Arjun and Abhay deliver, as can only be expected, but the real joys of the film are the secondary characters. Om Puri as the steadfast ideologue was great, and Anjali Patil as the passionate, strong and driven Juhi is simply a joy to witness. Something about the relationship between the two main characters never truly becomes the centre of the film for me, but rather Juhi's character, and I really wonder why that is. Perhaps in the process of writing this well-researched script, Jha too became too fascinated with the issue at hand to focus all his attention on the drama that presented the issue.

The film ends up straight-forwardly asking a lot of pertinent questions. The war is horrific, and seemingly endless and inescapable, but what are the solutions to it? Can both sides give up on something to gain peace? It's an important issue, perhaps the one issue India has to face before it can move forward, and the questions the film asks also resonate to a lesser extent to the problems faced in other countries, such as growing inequality. As an issue film, Chakravyuh scores nine out of ten in my books, but as a film that tells a story, it doesn't quite reach that high. Still, it's worth watching if you want to learn more about the political realities of India today, or merely if you like Jha's style of film.

Shanghai: politics of progress.

There's quite a bit to unpack with Shanghai. It's arguably a new height for Dibakar Banerjee (LSD and Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye) as well as a fascinating portrayal of the violence embedded in the political establishment. It's also quite easily Emraan Hashmi's career-best performance.

The city of Bharatnagar is going through rapid change; the political leaders seek to resettle poor people from their homes and construct International Business Park to make for further economic progress. An anti-IBP intellectual, Dr Ahmadi (Prasenjit Chatterjee), gets run over by a truck, which leads the political establishment to launch an enquiry into the incident, lead by political climber Krishnan (Abhay Deol). Shalini, Ahmadi's former student and close ally, believes the case to be a murder by political opponents. Photographer Joginder Parma (Emraan Hashmi) seeks initially just to impress her, but gets more involved in the case as things progress.

Emraan overall was quite a find for me in this film. He embodies the character perfectly. Joginder is quite a useless, aimless layabout (though with a fledgling career in producing pornography, the film seems to imply), sucked into events he doesn't even begin to piece together until it becomes crucial. There's a physicality to his performance that really drew me in, and made me wonder if there really has been a terrific actor hidden in all those shitty films that I've avoided for so long. It just goes to show; you should always give actors a second, third or fourth chance to impress you. You never know what they might turn up with.

A good example of how much Banerjee manages to pack into some of the scenes is the Scarlett Wilson (yes, another white girl in Bollywood! yes, I cringed) item number. The song and dance takes place at a political gathering, where members of the ruling parties clap while the white girl dances in full Indian garb, singing about how far India has come (lyrics, romanized & translated). The subtext is thick; "progress" means Westernization, the girl is dressed "Indian" but imported (which also relates to the white beauty ideals pushed by the media), and the political leaders cheer all this without giving the common man much thought. You have to give Banerjee some serious kudos for not just shoehorning in a white girl in an item number, but actually making a comment on not just politics of progress, but Hindi cinema itself.

And for once, I don't think I'm reading too much into it, and that's a good thing, too.

Every film has its flaws, though, and the central one in Shanghai is that as much as the themes and the overall story fascinated me, the characters did not. I was about to criticise the actors, because as solid as Kalki Koechlin and Abhay Deol were, I wasn't invested in their characters. However, on second thought, I think that might be unfair on the two actors - Kalki does do a good job with her portrayal of the driven half-outsider Shalini, and Abhay's character is supposed to be as stiff a political figure he portrays Krishnan as. They both do their excellent usual, but nothing extra. Does the script not give either enough to work with? I'm not sure, to be honest.

For a portrait of political violence, Shanghai is not the most nuanced, but it does reach some interesting conclusions. It's not a character piece like so many Indian films about politics (Raajneeti, Iruvar) , and it touches on corruption as it penetrates levels of the establishment, but doesn't focus on it. It's a good film, but perhaps what it does best is show us more of what Dibakar Banerjee is capable of.

Revisiting the unbelievable charm of Oye Lucky Lucky Oye.

I didn't love Oye Lucky Lucky Oye as much on the second watch as the first, but it's still a terribly fun, all-around well-executed film. The satirical comedy didn't contain as many laughs as I remembered it having, but one thing was certain, at least: the film completely rides on the effortless charm of Abhay Deol as Lucky.

There's a certain easy-going confidence to him in this role, and it's just a joy to watch. Even though to be hustled in real life would just be terrible, it's joyous to watch on-screen. I guess it's the ingenuity of the swindler that makes it so fun, and Lucky is definitely among the smartest of Hindi film's recent slew of con artists.

If you, for whatever reason, have missed out on this film so far, give it a spin.

Let's talk about .. Abhay Deol!

Dear friends,

I write to you at a very difficult time in my life. The fact is, for months now, there's been a deficit in my life I've not been able to face for what it was. Little by little, this need has consumed me.

You see, for months there has been a film with Abhay Deol in it that I've not yet seen. 

I hear you ask, "But what about those twenty-odd years in your life when you hadn't seen a single Abhay Deol film? Did you live those in spiritual poverty?", and I must reply, "No, not in the least, but then I knew not of what I was missing; so blissful was my ignorance."

But you've read my story before. You know how it all began, and how it continued. It's not an uncommon one, as there have been others before me, and there will be new ones after I'm gone, so long as pictures like this one keep circulating the internet:

It's perhaps not that I've not yet seen Shanghai, that I find so tragic, but the fact that it feels so long since I've seen anything new from the man. Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara I watched around a year from right now, but it feels like the longest year. And it's times like these that I really start to long for rewatches of his films, to re-ignite those memories, because it suddenly hits me just how much I truly love Abhay Deol.

I could take a step back and try to phrase some praise for his acting abilities, dimples or choice in roles; the man seems to know his strengths and plays to them, and while you could perhaps criticize the upper middle class, smug but adorable Delhi boy role he seems to be mostly occupying in his films so far, you can't really fault him for such a stunning filmography. There's not really a single bad film in the mix, and even the ones that didn't impress me much have numerous fans.

So what do I like about him so much? It's hard to say.

Something about the combination of talent, looks and of carving out his own niché that doesn't really rely on his family relations (though the fact no doubt eased things for him - I'm no nepotism apologist). He's captivating and convincing, even in fairly forgettable films like Road, Movie (and let's face it, most of us did forget that one). He's just good.

So, so good.

In the end, that's all I've really got to say.

How about you?

Random summery picspam.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - audio review.

I decided that instead of writing an incredibly rambling review, I'd record one.

Whether this was a smart move on my part is anybody's guess, but here's the review link:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD/LISTEN. You can listen by pressing "play", or you can download. It's 11MB, around 12.5 minutes long, and in MP3-format.

I say "um" a lot, but I also edited a ton of "ums" and "ers" out..

Suno Aisha.. (About Aisha and other Emmaites.)

Aisha came out around a year ago, and I finally managed to watch it. Seeing as how I cannot talk about the film in detail without going into previous modernized Emma adaptations such as Clueless, this review will have two parts: one short spoiler-free part, and one more detailed, spoiler-filled part which compares and contrasts it to the other adaptations of the story.

Part ek:

I pretty much loved Aisha, even though it was far from being flawless. In fact, while the film is overall well-made and executed the Austen story well for the most part, there are a couple of problems, especially with Aisha's characterization that I can understand may take some viewers from the Loving Camp and place them in the Meh Camp. I'm still with the Loving Camp, but I do wonder whether that'll change. Sometimes phrasing the problems in form of a movie review can make them more apparent to me as a viewer, which takes some enjoyment out of the film. Regardless, Aisha serves its purpose as a fluffy romcom with good-looking, charming leads, a well-paced storyline and I still dig the soundtrack an awful lot.

Plus it has Abhay Deol. That, in and of itself. Well. You know.

Part do (SPOILERS):

I'll state at this point that Clueless, Amy Heckerling's 90's Valley girl spin on the classic Austen novel Emma, is one of my favourite films of all time. Not that it's a master piece, but it is one of those few perfect, charming teen comedies as well as a pretty nice romcom. I watched it as a kid, loved it and have rewatched it numerous times since. On the other hand, I have a weird relationship with some of the other Emma adaptations. I can watch the miniseries that have been made and enjoy them, and while I don't love the Gwyneth Paltrow film, I suppose that's okay as well. However, to me, Clueless' Cher is the most lovable of the Emma characters. I suppose the other versions are closer to the original version in the books (which I've read but have very vague memories of).

So you could say I love the general story structure of Emma; the fact that it's a female centric story where the main character has to learn some pretty crucial lessons that she isn't always in the right, and that sometimes her class prejudice can cloud her from seeing things that are truly there. I think we all enjoy watching characters that learn things and when they do bad things, get their comeuppance. Simple enough, that.

Now, at first appearance I thought Aisha was a little less charming than Clueless, and just a tad more commercial/consumeristic. What was with that L'Oreal advertisement in the middle of my movie? Learn to be subtle, product placers of Bollywood, for goodness' sake. But the film grew on me, mostly on the backs of the side characters. Shefali (Amrita Puri) was just delightful and Abhay Deol did not disappoint in the least. There is a lot to be said for Sonam Kapoor's Aisha, too. It's easy to believe that somebody as gorgeous as Sonam, growing in wealth, could be this sort of clueless, spoiled character who always gets her way and always thinks her way is the right way for things to go. She's believable, and while the role doesn't exactly feel like a stretch (not that Sonam is like this in real life, but I'm sure she's run into the type, being the daughter of Anil Kapoor, and hanging out in the glitzy upper-class filmi circles), she does a good job.

I guess where the problems come in is the "comeuppance" part of the storyline, the point that everything has been building up to. The thought I couldn't shake after the film was over was this: does Aisha truly learn anything? We see her moping around a lot, eating ice cream (in that most terrible of female clichés), and finally seeing her friendships fall apart. We see her realize how much she loves Arjun, which is all very well, and we see that she's probably quit meddling in the affairs of others. I walked away from the movie, liking it a lot, but wondering if these lessons she's got to learn were portrayed believably in the film.

In comparsion to Clueless, I just thought that Cher had a very visible "oh, I get it now" moment and her efforts to make amends to her previous actions were portrayed in a way that really redeemed the character. And even before that, as spoiled and silly and annoying as Cher was, she also had a big heart and you could really get a sense of it as you watched her go through her consumerist, vapid existence. With Aisha, the helping of others truly feels mostly self-serving, and so she comes off as a less sympathetic character. She isn't clueless - you can see she's smart, but using her smarts in a very foolish way. Cher was smart, too, but (I think) very unaware of it, or thinking that her smarts only applied to the social world of high school. Aisha's character is not a teen, she's an adult, and though young, it sometimes feels like she should know better by now, and heed the advice of Arjun instead of stubbornly picking up her pet projects with very self-centered goals.

This all makes it sound like I hate Aisha - I most certainly don't. It's just that I can see the flaws in the characterization, perhaps where they just wanted to glam her up as much as possible, they forgot there are ways of making her more sympathetic to the viewer as well.

And as seems to be the Abhay Deol character cliché at this point, his Arjun does come off like a bit too smug at times. This didn't rid a whole lot of enjoyment of the movie for me, but it was something I picked up on, and something that could rub others the wrong way.

But despite all these points, I did genuinely enjoy the film a whole lot. I liked the fact that while Pinky comes off as quite the bitch with regards to Aisha picking up Shefali as a new project, you can later see at least partly why she's upset about this. It's not the first time Aisha's done it, and it's also that Aisha tends to not notice Pinky when something like this comes around - like her friends are simply accessories, and sometimes the newest one is her favourite. Shefali was great, and all the moments between her and Saurabh were too adorable for their own good. And the song picturizations were quite a delight (L'Oreal commercial aside). Big ups, Amit Trivedi.

So.. what did you think?

Abhay party update: I admit it, drunk already.

I am crossing the border between sane, clinical interest and into the wild realms of crazy-enough-to-get-all-completist when it comes to Abhay Deol filmography. But you can't possibly blame me, because just like Siddharth, my only other object of filmography completism, this man does not make bad films.

He really doesn't.

So of course I'll keep watching. Insert narcotics addiction reference of choice.

Oh well. At least his films don't come with a 30 dollar shipping charge from BhavaniDVD (yes I am looking at you, Siddharth). Plus it's always great to know that I'm not alone. If I was truly crazy I'd get completist about somebody who boasts a 200+ credit filmography and has been known to appear in some stinkers, right? These guys with their barely 10-film long filmographies are peanuts.

But really delicious peanuts.

Ek Chalis Ki Last Local (2007), directed by Sanjay Khanduri, is a bit of a weird one. It's a black comedy about two people who miss the last train (that leaves at 1:40 AM) and try to kill a few hours to catch the morning one. In the beginning of the movie, Nilesh (Abhay Deol), our narrator, has walked away with 2 crore in a suitcase, but how? A movie-long flashback scene begins. First he crosses paths with Madhu (Neha Dhupia), who is also heading towards the same part of Mumbai as he. It's a bit of a Kaminey Lite - we see various characters in different situations and towards the end, most of them part of the underworld, things get messier, and we see the individuals coming together. It's all just a little Tarantino, for better or for worse.

I had some small irks, like how boring the characters besides Nilesh and Madhu are, and how I didn't really care about what happened to them, or the romantic arc, which is definitely one of the strangest I've seen in a while. It starts out as frank sexual desire on Nilesh's part, as well as a bit of a saving-the-girl complex, then dissolves into something undescribable, then Madhu does something one could only do to somebody they truly cared for, and by the end.. Well, see it for yourself. Throughout the film there was a bit of an uneven feel to it. I liked it but at the same time I felt like I shouldn't like it.

But overall, I definitely liked it. Like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, it had me constantly chuckling to myself, even if the humor here is broader in some ways. Abhay is great and Neha Dhupia totally reminded me of why I like her; the role is not the most typical but she gives it great edge. And she's of course amazingly gorgeous. The kiss between them (yes! there is one!) happens under bizarre circumstances storywise, but visually it's great, not awkward in the least.

Ahista Ahista (2006) is quite honestly the Abhay Deol film I've liked least so far. The plot tells of the aimless, ambitionless Ankush (Abhay Deol) meeting Megha (Soha Ali Khan) who has eloped to Delhi but her boyfriend never shows up. Ankush takes care of her, makes sure she has a roof over her head and as she gets settled back into a regular life, he slowly falls in love with her and also manages to make progress with his own life as well. The story is fairly unbalanced towards Ankush's side of things; we see very little of what Megha thinks or feels. Soha does a great job portraying some of it with her eyes rather than dialogue, but it still feels like we're missing one half of the story.

Normally I'm not one to chuckle at lame "hey this word means another thing in some other language" but whenever I type "ahista" I am reminded of the Finnish colloqualism, "ahistaa", roughly meaning "I'm feeling distressed/anguished." The verb ("ahdistaa") used can also mean "pressure" so I guess the idea is that you're feeling pressured from all sides, feeling trapped somehow.

It certainly in some ways describes my feelings towards this movie, even though I know the Hindi meaning is quite different. I never get a sense of whether the film is trying to be a love story or a coming-of-age story or both or neither, and the ending really kills most of the fondness I had for the movie. I hate to say this because I know Imtiaz Ali normally writes good stuff (he scripted this): the ending is just bad writing. I disliked the second half so much I began skipping and what I did see of it was not good. I suppose the ending in some ways may seem logical. But I just wasn't into it.


And now I have to recommend everybody out there watch CNBC TV18's Beautiful People interview with Abhay Deol. Part 1 of 3 is here. Seriously, seriously good stuff, including what makes an independent film in the Hindi film industry (vs non-Indian ones), art vs craft etc. Some people may disagree with me on the interviewer but I rather like her. She puts actors on the spot, and doesn't necessarily make them feel comfortable by patting them on the head and showering them with compliments all the damn time. Her interview about Salman Khan is also worth a look; Salman looks positively pissed off at her, but he reveals a lot of stuff and in the end I think he's just frustrated at certain things fame has brought into his life, which he'd rather keep quite simple. Beautiful People, based on what I've seen, is ALWAYS a good watch.

PS. I want to coin the term Hindie for Hindi 'independent' films. Of course, it makes no difference when spoken out loud but I just kind of dig it.

Saat din, Abhay ke saath - my week with Abhay.

I'm typically late to the party. Not too late, I always catch the tail-end of it. But I always find myself starting the "getting ready" routine only when I know most people are on their way to the location or already there. So that's when it comes to real life parties, but in other things, too. The cool things are typically in my periphery for a long time before I'm all, "wait, that thing everybody's talking about? I just caught on and they're right, it's awesome!". Of course, there are the exceptions, but let's ignore those, for the sake of a neat metaphor, shall we?

So Abhay Deol was one of those hip things I saw other people get into and sort of gush about and I was just like, "Oh, some guy Shweta is really into? I could investigate this but I have dishes to do."

I know, I suck.

But then I caught on enough to watch Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd (discussed here) and thought, yeah, okay, I kind of see it now. But you know, that movie had so many people, I didn't feel like I'd fully looked into this whole thing (I could call it a phenomenon but it's not like Abhay fangirlism is sweeping the nation? or is it? it should!).

That is, until, this week I watched four Abhay Deol movies. Studies? Life? Who cares! If my teachers ask, I'll tell them, I am a Dharmendra nepotist. If his nephew is doing movies, then dammit I am going to watch those movies. If my teachers ask, "Who is Dharmendra?", I'll tell them, "Tera baap!" ["Your dad!", only it sounds cooler in Hindi, naturally].

Dev.D (2009) I must preface with the following disclaimer; I haven't seen the previous Hindi film adaptations of the story but I know the story of Devdas itself. Anurag Kashyap's take has been praised for taking the old story to a brand new level, and indeed the film is awesome to watch. It flows smoothly, the visuals are great, the music is integrated seamlessly and all acting is top-notch; Abhay plays the lead role with just the right panache in the beginning and later, wrecklessness that spirals more and more out of control. Mahi Gill as Paro is a total find, and even though I didn't love Kalki Koechlin as Chanda, I thought she did a good job. The women are not helpless, and totally unapologetic about their sexuality; this was a great, rare feat in Hindi films.

I guess the only real flaw, if you can call it that, is the fact that the ending didn't make me a fan of the film. I never had a problem with the story of Devdas, my disinterest towards the other filmed adaptations came mainly from the fact I didn't like the director (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) or wasn't too interested in the main star (with the case of Dilip Kumar's Devdas). So I wasn't dying to see the story spun into something radically different. Some were, and those people loved this movie, and I can see why they would. But personally? It was like, not love, between me and the film.


Socha Na Tha (2004) was the first film by the now well-known Imtiaz Ali, and also Abhay's debut as I understand it. It's a fresh little love story, about Viren (Abhay) and Aditi (Ayesha Takia being adorable), who get matched for matrimony by their parents but decline the offer. As they meet, however, they discover they find it very easy to talk to one another and as the relationship between their families grows sour, they themselves become friends and naturally, then some more. The film is a little dated in terms of the overblown family affairs messiness, but the love story itself is very cute and well-written, with sharp dialogue. Ayesha Takia is just fantastic in this, and perfect counterpoint to Abhay's slightly clueless Viren.

The subtitles began lagging on the last third, which diminished a lot of my enjoyment of the film, but there's one particular scene where the couple has some incredible bickering that left me feeling great about the movie. Imtiaz Ali sure has a handle on dialogue; just like in JWM, the conversations between the two leads seemed natural, yet witty, funny and perfectly adorable.

Manorama Six Feet Under (2007) is a thriller directed by Navdeep Singh, telling the story of Satyaveer (Abhay) who abandoned his dreams of being a novelist after his first novel, Manorama, sold very few copies. He lives a dull existence in a desert town called Lakhot with his wife Nimi (Gul Panag), until a woman named Manorama comes to his door, and hires him as a private detective like the main character in his novel. This involves Satyaveer with a web of lies, cover-ups and murder.

I wouldn't call this film badly scripted in general, but sadly something just made the whole thing drag and feel dull like tumbleweeds somewhere in the middle. It starts off nicely, and picks up pace considerably once the pieces of the puzzle begin to form, but the middle part almost made me turn the movie off. Thankfully I stuck with it, and once again loved Raima Sen, who plays Manorama's flatmate Sheetal and Vinay Pathak, the policewallah who is also Satyaveer's brother-in-law. Gul Panag who shone in Dor is very effective here, and there's a brilliant chemistry between her and Abhay in this; it feels very ordinary but at the same time has those signs that despite the mundaness of the relationship, these two people do love each other deeply. Abhay is great, too. You can tell the character is filling a hole in his existence, by getting involved with something he knows he probably shouldn't, and even when he encounters setbacks, he's not likely to give up.

I liked it, especially for the acting, and the film noir likeliness, but the story really could've been tighter.

My favourite out of the Abhay Deol films I've seen thus far, though? Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008) without a doubt. A black comedy about Lucky, a thief extraordinaire, whose greatest talent is his wit and his acting, the way he smoothly talks people out of their possessions, and gets away with it with the greatest of ease. It's just an incredibly well written, fun ride, that constantly had me chuckling. The cast of characters also includes Paresh Rawal in three roles (and Paresh Rawal, being the comic genius that he is, fantastically gives each character their own flair, so much so I almost forget he is playing all of them), Manu Rishi as Lucky's hapless sidekick (and apparently also the film's dialogue writer!) and Neetu Chandra as Sonal, Lucky's girlfriend. The acting was all around great, but naturally the film belongs to Abhay's comfortable demeanor, though I can't not mention Manjot Singh, who plays young Lucky with the vibrant humor that the older version of the character definitely downplays.

This film was really so ace that I am using the word 'ace' and finding it difficult to actually name something I didn't totally love. It's not too lengthy so the pace felt comfortable and it's jam-packed with moments I feel I need to rewatch to appreciate properly, some big ones (like when a cop wants to know who is Sunny) and some smaller ones (like the little conversation between Sonal and Lucky's older brother's wife, probably the only one between two women, but so thick with things unsaid it caught my attention). And like a cherry on top, there's a reference to Vinod Khanna. Film, you had my heart, right there and then.

It's a definite favourite for me. I love it when Hindi cinema does black comedy, especially when it's this damn good.

And now? Now I just eagerly await Aisha (however they choose to spell that title), with Abhay and Sonam Kapoor who look adorable in this first look. Apparently the film is a loose adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, which is not my favourite Austen because I find Emma quite an annoying character throughout most of the story, but I really like Sonam and she's no eyesore, and Austen adaptations are always fun so .. yay!

And to those who are still late to the Abhay party? Consider this post your e-vite. A lot of us are already here and having a blast. The bar is serving Dimple cocktails but they are running out of Malibu so come on, hurry, hurry, hurry!

I'll be waiting for you. Come say hi when you get here!