Rockstar - Review

We happened to watch Rockstar last weekend in a theatre nearby our place. A few comments about this movie (spoilers galore!)

1. The movie belongs to Ranbir from the start till the end. He truly rocked. His transformation from a meek and endearing college going kid to an angst-filled rockstar was truly commendable.

2. Nargis Fakhri is so pale that it is impossible to believe her as an Indian girl. Though Imtiaz Ali tried to justify her looks by giving her the character of a Kashmiri girl still she doesn't look the part.

3. Nargis Fakhri just can't act. Her acting totally sucks! So much so that in some senti scenes she actually looks comical.

4. The dialogues in the 1st half are straight forward and witty without any extra sophistication, Sample this: In one scene where Ranbir's mentor asks him if he has ever fallen in love and Ranbir starts thinking. The mentor says "Agar pyaar hota toh ghanta sochna padhta"

5. The 2nd half gets boring and repetitive. Ranbir only keeps some interest alive. Unfortunately his brilliant acting also doesn't make the audience feel his pain and anguish. After the movie, hubby jokingly commented "I could soooo feel his pain!"

6. Being a movie about a music celebrity, I thought the music of Rockstar was just about ok. There was no single number which really caught my fancy.

All in all, Rockstar is an average movie. I had more expectations from it considering it was Imtiaz Ali's movie. But well, it is indeed better than his previous flick "Love Aaj Kal"

Go Gokarna!

I and hubby had been planning to go to Gokarna since October. We had even booked our tickets and accommodation. But as luck would have it, we couldn't materialize our plans as something urgent came up and we had to ditch the trip at the last minute. However, we finally got a chance to make our much eluded Gokarna trip in January this year.

Getting there

Distance between Bangalore and Gokarna is about 480-500 kilometers. The buses ply regularly on this route and we decided to take one such overnight bus. It was a sleeper bus which meant that we had a nice and comfortable ride to Gokarna and we were quite fresh on reaching there next morning.


Staying in Gokarna

Once the bus dropped us to Gokarna stop, it was pretty easy to find an auto rickshaw to drop us at Om Beach. We were planning to stay at “Namaste Café” situated right on the Om Beach as we had heard a lot about this place. It had a reputation of being inexpensive and comfortable. Oh boy! it did live up to its reputation. Another plus point of staying in Namaste Café was its proximity to the Om beach.


Prancing around

Gokarna is a place you would instantly fall in love with. It is so laid back, nice and cozy that many foreigners come and stay there for months at a stretch. And the best part about the beaches in Gokarna is the huge line up of cafes. If you ask me what exactly to do in Gokarna, I would simply suggest this: Eat, Sleep, Drink and be merry! And that’s exactly what we did in our short stay of 2 days over there. Oh yes, we did find time for beach hopping as well.

Om Beach

So the first day, we explored Om Beach and then took a boat to Paradise Beach. It was a short, nice ride which lasted about 15 minutes. Paradise beach was much cleaner as compared to Om Beach and we had nice time frolicking in the water.


Enroute to Kudle beach

The next day we were debating whether or not to go to Kudle beach. In the end, our curiosity took the better of us and we trekked to Kudle beach. We were so glad we did that. Kudle beach turned out to be one of the best beaches of Gokarna. It took an immense amount of self-control not to jump in the inviting waters as we had already checked out from our hotel room and were planning to go to the bus stop directly from there. So we did the next best thing. We went to a beach café and sat there for a few hours, watching the waves wash the shore, ordering something to eat and drink every now and then, and even laze a little on the nice comfy mattresses laid there.



When there was still some time left for our bus to depart, we returned to Gokarna town and visited a couple of temples before boarding the bus. Also, in true tourist style, I picked up a couple of things from the shops that displayed a variety of stuff specifically meant for the tourist brigade (No locals usually buy those things which the tourist does)

Every good thing has to come to an end. Sigh! Our Gokarna trip was no exception. We returned back with heaps of laundry and loads of memories!

"Lucky" numbers

I dont really associate myself to the evergrowing population celebrating Valentine's Day worldwide (in the typical and cliched manner), but it does feel good to go out of the way and do something un-routinely for a change. So I got a reason and a chance to give N a surprise last Sunday in the name of Valentine's day gift. Apparently, Lucky Ali was performing live in Bangalore and I did not want to miss out this opportunity as we both are ardent Lucky Ali fans.

There was just one problem!

The same day, Indian team was playing Australian cricket team for a practice match in Bangalore (and I had a doubt that N might be planning to go for this match). So I double checked with him a couple of times if he has any plans for Sunday and he definitely got suspicious.

"Are you planning something?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Oh no!" I muttered to myself.

"No, not at all. I was just asking coz a few of your friends are planning to go" I finally managed to say.

"Nopes! Its totally impossible to get the tickets and then, I am not really much enthu about it coz its just a practice match" he said, still looking suspiciously at me.

He kept pestering me till Sunday and when I finally handed him the print-outs for the concert tickets, he was really excited. When we reached the concert venue, we were pleasantly surprised to realise that it is happening in an open air amphi-theater in UB City, one of the most beautiful malls in Bangalore. When the concert started, it was just like any other concert. Some random chap came and started crooning self-composed english songs. We waited and waited till finally Lucky Ali decided to show up.

And then, it was as if we were transported to a different world altogether. Lucky Ali kept belting out one beautiful number after another. There was no hooting and no chaos usually associated with live concerts. Just beautiful, touching and heartfelt songs. Since a sizeable number of Bangalore crowd was busy with the cricket match and Bryam Adams concert (again happening on the same day in some other venue), it was not very crowded. The weather was also just perfect. It felt more like a private performance for a small group of people simply there for the love of Lucky Ali. There were a few song requests and Lucky Ali entertained them all.

When he wasn't singing, he was busy making everyone laugh at his witty jokes and clever one liners. Sample this:

Talking about love:
"Love doesn't necessarily mean.... Well, love doesn't mean...it just is..."

Taking a jibe at the hype of Valentine's Day:
"Ahh...the pressures of Valentine's day..."

When talking about his character in "Sur"
"In Sur, the main protagonist is an egoistical person. May be this character resonated with the director's personality"

When someone shouted "Tu kaun hai" (requesting to sing one of his songs "tu kaun hai"):
"Main Lucky Ali hoon..."

We just wanted him to go on and on but he finally ended the concert with one of his father's songs "Aao twist karen". Even after he left we kept waiting for around 5 minutes expecting him to come back and sing may be just one more song. But no, he was gone for good.

"This was one of the best concerts I have ever attended. I am so glad we came for this" N said.

I couldn't agree more :)

one of the shots of Lucky Ali that I took with my phone cam