Accidents Happen

Aruna smiled as she looked at her mobile screen. So many comments on her new facebook profile picture. Though she wondered why this time there weren’t that many likes.

Not that it matters really.

She looked out of the bus window, as it drove down the Mumbai-Pune expressway. She needed to reach Pune in the next two hours for the meeting. And everything was going just as per schedule. 

Until now.

Because now a silver Honda had just overtaken the bus. The man driving the Honda was a good man with a few bad habits. One among them, was driving while being quite thoroughly intoxicated.

And so when the Honda swerved uncontrollably to its left and then to its right and then flipped over in the middle of the road, the bus driver Keshav was understandably pissed. With an experience of five years of driving this route, Keshav hit the brakes real hard and the bus halted with a soft thud against the Honda.

Behind the bus another fifteen cars, three trucks and six buses came to a halt. 

In the bus, Aruna was feeling nervous. As a HR manager in Qualdo, a pharmaceutical company, you don’t get into bus accidents every day. 

Slowly the minutes turned to an hour. And Aruna’s initial shock over having survived an accident, gradually turned to impatience.

I need to reach this meeting. Six months of hard work and now this!

The bus driver announced that the bus had suffered some damage while braking and a replacement vehicle would be arranged in sometime. 

Another forty minutes dragged by and Keshav again assured the passengers that another bus would definitely be coming in ‘some time’. Aruna’s boss was not happy with ‘some time’.  There were very few things that he was ever happy about. Aruna assured him that she would definitely reach the meeting.

Aruna got out of the bus and started to look around for a taxi. There were none. And after waiting for fifteen minutes, there were still none. From the bus driver she learnt that there was a taxi stand some one kilometer ahead.

With an extreme urgency of purpose, Aruna started to walk down the road. 

During all this time she had managed to communicate her plight on facebook, twitter, whatsapp and a few other social media portals. Though she didn’t get any help, she was getting a whole lot of sympathy.

And it was at this moment, as she had covered about half a kilometer that it started raining. Slowly at first, but then suddenly pouring very heavily.

Aruna was completely drenched. And worried that the water would get into the purse, containing her mobile.

Finally she reached the taxi stand.

Looking at her, a kind soul would have seen a poor girl in dire need. But the taxi drivers saw an opportunity to earn an extra buck. 

 

Aruna stared incredibly at the taxi driver.

“Six thousand? But Uncle, Pune is only about an hour away!!”

The taxi driver felt something in his heart. Guilt, shame and the voice of his conscience. Then he realized that Aruna had just called him an uncle.

He raised the rate to seven thousand.

As Aruna argued with the driver, a black Volvo bus passed by. And Aruna realized, that she would have been in that bus, if she had not decided to walk to the  taxi stand.

Suddenly Aruna realized that water was seeping out of her purse. Apparently it was not as water proof as the salesman made her believe.With tears in her eyes, she saw that her five month old phone was completely soaked in water.

She was going to miss the meeting she had worked on for six months. The one opportunity she had to prove herself to the board of directors. And now she had also lost her phone.

Aruna stood crying in the rain, wondering why the hell was God being so cruel to her.

A tow truck passed her dragging the silver Honda behind. She looked angrily at it.In the back seat of the Honda was the man who had been driving it. With growing astonishment Aruna recognized Avinash Upadhyay, the son of the CEO of Qualdo Pharmaceuticals.

Aruna ran after the tow truck, screaming, “MR.UPADHYAY!! I’M AN EMPLOYEE OF QUALDO! PLEASE STOP!!!”

The tow truck stopped. A very hung over looking Avinash stared with a dazed expression. Was he imagining this? Aruna assured him that he wasn’t.

Over the next hour that it took to get to the Qualdo office in Pune, Aruna assured him about keeping this matter private. Avinash was quite grateful. As was his father.

Aruna didn’t make it to the meeting but she managed to secure an appointment with the CEO for the next day. Aruna’s boss couldn’t understand what was happening. But he did understand that somehow he was not in trouble with the management. So he was happy.

Aruna stood in the office lobby with a hot cup of coffee, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Suddenly she realized that she had not checked her phone for any messages. 

In her slightly wet purse she found her now non operational phone.

That night the Qualdo office cleaner Gopal, considered himself lucky to have found a smart phone in the dust bin. Gopal thought that he could probably get some cash for it. Even though the phone didn’t seem to be working.

Also that very night, Aruna got into a train heading back to Mumbai.

I am done with buses!! Well...at least for a while I guess…

Lying comfortably in the AC train compartment, Aruna didn’t think of how many likes her facebook profile picture would have got by now. She didn’t think of how many messages had been sent to her on whatsapp. Or what would now be trending on twitter.

She just slept. Peacefully.

New Dawn

So many things unsaid, at the back of my mind,

Some people that went away, and some that were left behind,

Come back once a while, bringing some pain,

Because it sometimes hurts, when you walk down memory lane,

But you grow, you learn, you change, and find a reason to go on,

With a smile on your face and a hope, that there will be a new dawn. 

Angel of Death

Sarvesh could walk no further in the desert. His feet gave in and he slumped on the ground.

Before him appeared an old man with red eyes, covered in dark robes. An angel of death. In a very business like tone he spoke ‘ Name: Sarvesh Jadhav. Age: Twenty four years, five months, two weeks, three days and twenty nine seconds. Cause of death: Dehydration. Time of..’

‘Wait! Please wait!’ Sarvesh uttered. ‘I don’t want to die yet. I CANNOT die so soon.’

Very calmly the death angel said ‘Yes. You can.’

Desperately Sarvesh said ‘But look I have done so many good things in my life! Why can’t you consider that and give me a second chance?’

As the angel looked into Sarvesh’s  dark brown eyes, he could see that this boy had not done anyone any good deed in his life. Everything was done with a selfish motive. This boy needs to be taught a lesson.

 ‘Very well Sarvesh. I give you three days to live. If you survive at the end of the third day, you shall live for another fifty years.’

As the angel said that, Sarvesh felt his surroundings blur and his eyes get heavy.

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Sarvesh snapped awake and looked around to realize that he was in his bed. Was it all a dream?

As he looked out of the window he saw the clouds move to form four words, Three days to go.

Shit, shit, shit. Not a dream.

Sarvesh had thought that the photo shoot in the Sahara desert would really help his career. It would have, if he hadn’t been stupid enough, to go around scouting on his own for a location. Now he wondered, how will he explain to his boss that he had suddenly returned to Mumbai. Freshening up quickly, he left for office. 

The boss was not very pleased. With a lot of pleading Sarvesh managed to secure his next assignment.

 If there was one thing that Sarvesh was good at, it was how to manipulate people , to get things to work his way.

Great, he would be covering a photo shoot of Madhuri Dixit. She’s getting old, but people seem to like her. He thought.

Sarvesh sat down at his desk to have some break fast. As he began eating the large paper masala dosa, his mind turned back to his near death escape. Why did that guy be so kind to me?

He happened to glance at his dosa, and to his horror saw that out of the masala, there was a hoard of small tarantula’s creeping out. He quickly threw the dosa out of the window.

What the f*ck?

Sarvesh wanted to go home and lock himself in his bedroom. But how would he explain this to his boss? Damn, I have to go to the photo shoot.

Nervously looking around, scared out of his wits he walked down the pavement leading to the studio.

He reached the studio and with a shivering hand he started to set up his equipment. Suddenly he felt an instinct tell him that he should not stand where he is standing.  And as he quickly leaped away, a replica of a yellow IAF Mig-29 crashed on the exact spot where he had stood.

A crane operator came running towards him. ‘Arre Sirji, aap thik ho? Sorry woh crane shayad thoda kharab ho gaya.’

Sarvesh ran away. He ran like is life depended on it. Then realizing that running perhaps won’t help, he stopped. Looked around and locked himself in a toilet cubicle.

There must be a way to beat that b*stard. There must be..There must be..

He started crying and suddenly started laughing hysterically.

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The angel of death sat somewhere in the Himalayas away from humanity and its stink, when he heard someone call to him. 

Listen, I give up. I give up. Just come and kill me..I..I can’t take this..kill me..KILL ME.

He smiled. The boy has learned.

As Sarvesh was washing his face in the basin of the public toilet, the angel appeared. 

The angel solemnly said ‘So I understand that we are ready to go.’

A worn out looking Sarvesh turned around. He gazed at the angel and said ‘I guess, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.’

‘Indeed.’ agreed the angel.

‘Except,’ said Sarvesh now smiling coolly, ‘Its not me who is going.’

For the first time the angel felt confused. And as he looked on, he saw Sarvesh’s eyes change from dark brown to red. The color of the eyes of a death angel. 

Sarvesh now adorned in dark robes, looked on at the angel. He said ‘Satan requires a young, energetic motivated employee. And apparently according to him, I fit the bill better than you.’

‘It is time for you, my old friend  to die.’

The old man now stood with no shred of cloth on his body and stripped of his eyesight. 

‘But wait! NO! YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME!! I’m a loyal servant!!! I HAVE served well!! YOU CANNOT DO THIS!’

The old man ranted and raved. Then suddenly, he stopped ranting and raving. Forever.

As Sarvesh carried the old man’s soul to hell, he thought to himself, Now this is what I call job satisfaction.

Teesri Manzil: Movie Review(Spoilers)

I wrote a review of Teesri Manzil, you can read it here. But there were certain other things that I wanted to elaborate on, which would not be possible without giving out a lot of the story.

So here goes..Warning spoilers ahead.

As I said in my review, this is a movie which at its essence is about how dangerous love can be. I felt that the major motive driving the actions of all the characters in the movie was love or a perversion of it.

We have Rupa, the sister of Sunita(Asha Parekh) who is engaged to marry Ramesh (Prem Chopra). But on going to Park Hotel gets infatuated with the hotel band drummer Rocky (Shammi Kapoor). When Ramesh finds out about this he is infuriated with her, and is involved in some capacity in her death. 

After the death of Rupa, Ramesh very quickly shifts his affection to her sister Sunita.

There is Ruby(Helen) the hotel dancer who is in love with Rocky. She tries to create conflict between Rocky and Sunita, and is portrayed to be a vamp of sorts. But she also sacrifices her life to save Rocky.

Rocky our protagonist is in love with Sunita. As the story progresses he is seen to be working towards winning her affection. There are a few other interesting elements to Rocky’s character. While being the hero of the movie, he is also a naïve fool at times. 

He trusts the suspicious looking hotel staff Daka with delivering his confession to Sunita. Daka gives it to Ruby, who uses this to try and end Rocky’s relationship with Sunita. 

At the point when Inspector Das reveals to Rocky that Rupa was murdered, Rocky stumbles around in a haze of confusion and does a few not so intelligent things.

In one scene, a lady comes to his room instructing him to get in a car and go to a hotel where he will find the killer. Rocky trusts her and does not suspect that the car is rigged. (Break failure. Yes I know, extremely unique right?)

But after nearly dying in a car accident, the Rocky that emerges is a slightly changed one. And I liked how Rocky learns to think better on his feet towards the end of the movie. 

Kunwar Saab on discovering that Rocky has survived the car crash insists that he sleep in his bungalow. And to insure that Rocky takes rest instead of dashing of doing something stupid, he locks him in the room. This does not strike Rocky is odd.

Now in the locked room, Rocky discovers  a coat with a button missing. And all the other buttons are of the same kind as that of a button found on Rupa’s dead body. Rocky realizes that Kunwar Saab is the murderer.

Next comes the smart part. Rocky is stuck in the bungalow on a hill. He has no mode of transport to take him to the police station. He can try walking. But there is a possibility that sometime in the night, Kunwar Saab will be coming to his room (For murderous intents, not romantic ones). And on not finding him there, he will chase Rocky. Bruised man walking vs murderer in car. Not great odds.

So what does Rocky do? He makes it look like he has run away from the bungalow and actually stays back. Rocky also manages to get Sabina, Kunwar Saab’s mistress to admit on phone to the police, about their hand in the murder of Rupa. 

Another smart thing that Rocky does is when Kunwar Saab barges in, as Sabina is confessing. Kunwar  Saab shoots Sabina. It is a very late hour of night and there is only the electric lamp illuminating the room. The only way to improve the survival odds for Rocky, would be by reducing room visibility(Or becoming bullet proof). In the few seconds of Kunwar Saab firing the shot at Sabina, Rocky smashes the electric lamp. Smart.

Kunwar Saab is a quite complex character. In front of the world he plays the part of a rich, kind industrialist while really he is a cruel, manipulative and cunning man. 

A domino effect of sorts leads to the murder of Rupa. Kunwar Saab’s wife finds out about his affair with Sabina. One night she walks in on them in a hotel and tries to shoot Sabina. While trying to stop his wife, Kunwar Saab ends up accidentally killing her. Rupa happens to stumble onto Kunwar Saab disposing the dead body. (Rupa was on route to meet Rocky in his room. She had threatened to kill herself if he does not meet her.) Kunwar Saab chases Rupa to Park Hotel and pushes her from the third floor.

Rupa had knocked on Rocky’s door that night when Kunwar Saab was chasing her, but Rocky did not open the door because he did not like her and wanted to distance himself from her. Rocky probably also felt that letting strange girls into your room at a late hour of night was wrong.

Interestingly if Rocky had opened the door that night, not knowing that Rupa was being chased by a murderer, then she would have lived. His sense of moral principles partly contributed to her death.

Also if Rupa had not let herself get infatuated with Rocky, she would have lived. Her engagement with Ramesh(Prem Chopra), a boring, arrogant and rich guy could have possible allured her to Rocky. Who in comparison was a kick ass drummer.

I feel that Rocky was more well matched to the vivacious and rebellious Ruby. But maybe it was not acceptable to have that sort of girl as the heroine in those days of cinema.

Kunwar Saab as a person sinks lower and lower to protect himself as the movie progresses. And I think the process starts when he first gets into an affair with Sabina. In the end as he is hanging from the ledge of his bungalow, he looks down at the people standing below and realizes that the truth is no longer hidden. And he chooses to die instead of living in shame.

Sabina herself is not exactly innocent. Her reasons for standing by Kunwar Saab seem mixed. Partly fear and perhaps partly greed.

And oh yes, inspector Das smokes a lot throughout the movie. 

You might think that you would not want to see this movie, after reading all this. But even after knowing the climax, you can still enjoy this movie!

At its essence Teesri Manzil  is a movie about mystery, crime and suspense with a flavor of Shammi Kapoor’s style and certain elements of Indian cinema. So if you get the time, then do have a look. Watch it!!

Teesri Manzil: Movie Review

Firstly I would like to state that I loved this movie. I would not have been able to put as much effort into writing this, if I did not completely and utterly LOVE this movie.

As I write this review I ask myself, is Teesri Manzil the greatest movie of Indian cinema? Well, no. Perhaps not.

Is it a movie that changed the world of film making? Hmm, not really.

But it is a great movie, a memorable one. It has the kind of content for which it will be remembered or at least should be remembered for a really long time.And as I said, I loved it.

What I would like to also state is that after watching this film, I love Shammi Kapoor. 

You see, in this world there are actors. There are method actors, there are serious actors, there are versatile actors. And then there is this man. A rebel, a clown(a sexy one), a wild burst of fierce energy and passion that is the unique signature of the one and the only Shammi Kapoor.

Okay now to proceed with the movie review.

Teesri Manzil is a movie about a girls hatred towards the man she thinks is responsible for her sister’s death, this man’s need to prove his innocence and love to her, while the real killer lurks after him.

Rupa the sister of Sunita (Asha Parekh) dies, seeming to have committed suicide by jumping from the third floor of Park Hotel Mussoorie. But Sunita thinks that Rupa killed herself because of Rocky (Shammi Kappor), the hotel band drummer fooling around with Rupa.

When Sunita arrives at Park Hotel, Rocky comes to know of her hatred for him and hides his identity from her. Rocky takes the guise of Anil Kumar Sona, a rich industrialist’s son. Slowly Sunita and Rocky fall in love and Rocky wants to tell her the truth about her sister.

The question is who was responsible for the death of Rupa? The police inspector Das, who has been trailing Rocky thinks that it was most certainly a murder.

Is Rocky a murderer? Is Ruby(Helen) the hotel dancer, the culprit? Is it Ramesh(Prem Chopra), the fiancé of Rupa? Or is it someone else entirely?

Rocky was also on the third floor of Park Hotel, the night Rupa jumped from there. There is a lingering doubt in the mind of the murderer that he/she left some proof behind and Rocky might be the person who has knowingly or unknowingly found it. 

Rocky has to find the real killer with the help of Inspector Das, before the killer gets to him. And the murderer is the kind of cruel, shrewd person who will not stop at anything to protect himself/herself.

At its essence Teesri Manzil is sprung around the theme of how dangerous love can be. It is also about a young man discovering his capabilities when his survival is at stake.

Besides the story this movie has some great songs. To pick a favorite is difficult, but I think I liked O Hassena Zulfowali and O Mere Sona the most.(Though watching Shammi Kapoor perform on any of the songs is a treat.)

At the very start of the movie there is an amazing scene where we see Rocky(Shammi Kapoor), Sunita(Asha Parekh) walking towards the train ticket counter but the camera focuses only on their legs.

So if you want to find out who the murderer is, watch this movie. If you love Hindi movies, then watch this movie. If you saw this movie many years back and vaguely recall what it’s all about then, watch. This. Movie.

PS: There is another part to this review containing spoilers. Click here to read.