Apna yeh Tashan………..

Before I start let me clarify that I’m a better judge of movie than the title suggests. So when the idea to watch the movie in a theatre cropped up in my roomie’s head I was scared. He tried to convince everyone around to gather the support for his initiative and surprisingly found many takers. The weight of the expectation to watch the movie alongside him just because I am his roomie was suddenly relieved and I was a happy man. 'Well if he has so many people to go along with him then a polite denial will not hurt his spirits', I thought. It is not that I have anything against the crass which the Yashraj served us with this time, I just could not bear the thought of wasting my hard earned money (Well I don’t have any of them left now. I had to ask my friend to lend some.) on this movie in the time of financial crunch. The week rolled on at its own pace and I was happy that no one was bothering me with the questions of being the part of their adventurous flirtations with the word “entertainment”. But they say every good thing is short lived so as the week knocked on Friday I had to confront a group hell bent on taking me along with them to the screening of the movie. I was not alone and there were other friends caught in this dilemma too. I agreed but with a condition that I will not spend more than 60 bucks on this crap of the film. Other two agreed on the same lines. We had a deal.

The D-day arrived. It was a hot Saturday. I had made up my mind that I will watch the movie any how. The expectations were so low any how that I felt the movie will not disappoint me. I was asleep when my roomie got a call from his office and he had to leave urgently. Surprisingly the same happened with almost all the enthusiasts. The three of us who were the last frontiers conquered by the ‘Tashan-Gang’ had our lunch and were debating whether to quit the plan of watching the movie or stick to it. You know the problem is that when one has prepared oneself for something and that thing does not take place then there is a sense of disappointment somewhere even if it has happened for the good. So we debated and chose the middle path. Since it was hot we decided that we will go there for the comforts of AC and if the tickets are priced more than 60 we’ll return at once. The model once structured had to be implemented and we went to the nearest cinema to the place of our stay to watch the movie. The tickets were priced higher. They were priced at Rs. 100 and Rs. 130 and according to the model evolved we should have returned. Here comes another insight. When you have invested so much into a project it is not easy to let it go. One more thought before I proceed: when you leave anything just because of the price, it hits your ego. So we could have escaped but after much deliberation we stayed to flirt with our sense of ‘cinema’.

To be true I never laughed so much in any movie apart from the classics Mithun da had dished out in the 90s. My personal favourite is Gunda. Coming back to the movie. We were convinced by the gang that even if the movie was not worth a watch we could always use it as an opportunity to laugh at it. We did. We laughed at the screenplay, at the horrendous dialogues and more on the tacky background score. We laughed at Anil Kapoor’s awkward dresses and at his gibberish Hinglish, which according to me and my friend from UP has no bearings with the city of Kanpur and for that matter to the entire state of Uttar Pradesh. We laughed at Saif and his failed attempt to hide that Kareena tattoo. We laughed at almost anything. We were so elated that we willingly spent our treasured money on the interval drinks and rushed back to join the movie. There were few good things though. Kareena in that ‘hot-avatar’ was perfect at the job given to her i.e. to bring the glamour quotient. Akshay Kumar also tried to infuse some life to this rotten fare but the film had all the quality to provide another 75 minutes of ‘laughaton’ (I am sure this word has been used billion times but with more polished English. But if you have never come across any thing like this then feel free to give the credit to me. It is a mix of laugh and marathon as you would have figured out by now). But when the reels unfold to reveal a childhood love story we actually cried. This was just because of the realization that even though in our Hindi movies every ‘Aira-Gaira Natthu Khaira’ is entitled to have girlfriend, here are three brightest young men you can ever find in the country without being blessed by that gift (of girlfriend of course). But there was more stored for us. We were gasping for breath once the climax started. We had a bomb that destroyed the entire warehouse except the car inside it. We had Akshay Kumar fighting Ninja warriors (I hope the clan do not see the movie. They will easily take offence on their portrayal) in the indigenous Hanuman style. There was Saif Ali Khan running a water scooter in a ‘nala’ (God from where did they get this idea?) and finally there was Anil Kapoor trying to kill our “Super-Nayaks” by swords while riding a rickshaw (Why have they even created guns for godsake?). Anyhow I liked the way Kareena killed him. Nothing could have been more rewarding than to watch that particular scene. As they say every good thing comes to an end and so did this cinematic fare. As the projector finally died and we left the hall we could not help but to ask for more.

P.S: One of my friends found a perfect match to him in the cinema hall. Beautiful, homely and above all caring. However being gentleman he did not dare to do anything except for saying “I wish I could have talked to her”.