RDB

Daiypayan Mukherjee one of my project mates asked me at 5:00'o clock on Tuesday eve "Kapil, are u interested in coming along with us for Rang De Basanti"?
I instantly said yes without giving a second thought because the movie been praised a lot by people around me had already made inroads to my heart and mind, and didn't ask even who all are coming along Later I came to know Shereena, Santosh and Mrigank, all from my project are also accompanying.

I told Dai "Shuks man! Why didn't you tell me earlier? I can't go with Shereena for God's sake!" and I said this in front of her and mocked at her for going to same movie second time. I even went to extent of asking her whether she had difficulty in understanding the hindi movie first time ,being a South Indian for which she is seeing it again. Both these remarks intended to be light and not meant to hurt her. It was just the never ending "war of words "with her which has continued since I joined the same team in the project, and definitely it has not been a sign of any sort of animosity between us and we have always taken it in right spirit.

Finally it was decided Dai will bring his car and tht group will reach E- Square, the well known multiplex in Pune and will take tickets of 7:10 show of the movie.
Moreover I will take my bike after reaching my house from 5:30 PM Bus which reaches my place at 6:30 PM sharp and reach there for 7:10 show.
Bus took a bit more time because of a congress rally organized at Dange Chowk by Mr Narayan Rane, a Shiv Sena stalwart earlier who has now defected to Congress deserting Shiv Sena. I reached my place at 6 :40 PM, hurriedly put my bag and took my bike keys and headed directly towards E-square without loosing any more minutes. 6 to 9 PM are the busiest hours in the day on University road, and traffic moves at snail's pace. I looked at my watch constantly in that mounting traffic.
Some how I made it in nick of time, putting my all driving skills to use , cutting and overtaking in the narrow spaces between vehicles.
When I reached there I saw them loitering in crossword, the book store in the same building, the watch was showing 7:10 PM. I just asked them why??.

The 7:10 PM show was houseful at 6:35 PM itself when they all reached, then they decided and went on to book the tickets for 8:15 show, without calling me once to tell about the new developments. I was furious, I said that why didn't they tell me, I could have come at my own ease and would not have driven rashly, and this time Shereena came up and answered tht they wanted me too to wait with them and not take rest in the comforts of my house. Her revenge for the day was over. J She might have told them "Let him come, don't call him now". ...Whatever! I didn't ask.

We managed a seat in the 4th row from top. The movie was good watch, extremely well directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.
He is same guy who directed AKS which bombed at the Box office. He impressed all with his work even then.

Mr. Mckinley met these extremely intrepid guys (Bhagat Singh, Azad, Bismil and Rajguru) during his service with the British police force and witnessed their hanging. He was so impressed with their valor and character that he wrote a diary on these extremists. His writing mentioned all the events related to these heroes in detail. McKinley's grand daughter (Sue), a film maker, was obsessed with making a film on these heroes. She lands in India in search of the cast for her movie. She meets DJ, Karan, Laxman, Sukhi, Ajay and Aslam (Amir, Sidhartha, Atul kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor) thru her friend Sonia (Soha Ali) and sees the characters of her movie coming alive in them.
Ajay is a fighter pilot and Sonia's Boyfriend (God! he mentions that at the start of the movie, I was a bit confused bcoz Sonia used to hug and get close to everyone in the group). The other four are college going brats except DJ who had passed out 5 years back but couldn't leave the college for his love for friends and college and an inner fear of losing his identity outside the college. They are hardcore party animals totally disappointed with everything this country provides. They are also of belief that nothing can be changed in India and it would be the same for years to come. Ajay had a different opinion. He believed that every Indian was responsible for anything right or wrong happening in a country. 'No Nation is prefect, it had to made perfect' was his thought which others couldn't buy. As opposed to Ajay, they had no passion for a free country which offered them nothing better than a dog's life.

Amidst all this, the movie goes back to the lives and events of India's freedom fighters and freedom movement at regular intervals connecting contemporary analogical events. This has been done beautifully in the movie. The background scores at these junctions in the movie pronounce the effects and generate that passionate feeling in the audience. The movie carries itself pretty well with the soundtrack that creates a good impact with the movie. After a few casual rehearsal sessions, the characters delve into the freedom fighters psyche and start producing impressive acting for Sue.

As the events unfold, Ajay dies in a plane crash. The plane crashes due to some mechanical fault in the MIG. Defence Minister alleges Ajay to be an irresponsible youth and denies any bad or old parts being responsible for the crash. The fearsome foursome kill the Defence minister and admit it on AIR. Eventually they all get shot by the Black cat commandos in the AIR building, and with this the mystery behind Mr. McKinley's opening statement -- "I knew two kind of people in this world, one who go to their death screaming and other who go in silence until i met the third kind" is unfolded. An end to such movie couldn't have been better than this and it's impact, as expected is tremendous. It proves to be the final seal to vicariously spillling emotions of the viewer.

The entire crew has done an impressive job. Amir is good as usual; Atul Kulkarni produces fire and passion better than all the other people.
Sidhartha is cute and thoroughly stylish. He even kills his dad as he was involved in the MIG deal.

The movie is thought provoking and mocks at people like us who want to go to the US and lead a better life rather than improving things here.
Audience watches the movie spellbound, laughing out loud in the first half rolling, clapping at their places and is just speechless in the second half. Movie generates lot of passionate feelings for nation and viewers comes out of hall feeling and arousing the hero present somewhere inside them the one they have just seen.

A must see movie!!
No wonder Shereena saw it twice.