Exams, Dabangg and home sweet home..!

This whole curriculum of Term 1 was amazing. There were seven courses in all with three full and four half courses. After so many varied courses in so less time, I now wonder what have I really learned. Apart from a few accounting concepts and Micro economics, I am not very sure that I am going to remember the other things so well. Economics was the most interesting to me, especially Game theory. It was so amazing that I am now seriously considering Strategy management along with Marketing.

The last week in term 1 was less hectic than expected. Luckily, the deadlines of the projects were spread along the week from Sunday to Wednesday. Now that we all know each other well, the projects were less hectic this time. Luckily, I was done with all the projects early and exams were fast approaching.

Somehow, these exams again reminded me of my B Tech exams as I was opening the book for the first time for most of the subjects. I tried very hard this time to change my habit of sleeping early, but with a lot of difficulty I learned to study till 1. Time moved at snail’s pace during exams with most of us having started counting down a couple of weeks back! The day before the last exam was the longest and the exam being an open book exam made it even more difficult to study. I wanted to remember at least the chapter names so that it would become easier to search. A fiend of me gave me an even more brilliant idea to look at which part of the book others are going through if you get lost. The final exam was less painful as all I wanted was the exam to finish. The joy on everyone’s face after the exam was an amazing scene. After three months of nonstop activity, it was time to enjoy! It looked like the last annual exam and the start of summer vacation.

After a lot of planning, we visited the Imambara in the evening. The climate had added its part to the beauty of the day. Then was the time for Dabangg! The movie was an absolute cracker from scene one. It was a complete high drama telugu movie, with scenes, fights, songs and even the romance seemed to be a spoof. But it didn’t matter as all we wanted was enjoyment and dabangg had lots of it. Sukanya Venkatgarhavan of Filmfare rated it 3/5 stating, "Dabangg rides totally on Salman Khan's magic. Had director Abhinav Kashyap cast a less popular actor, it’s doubtful the film would have the chutzpah that Khan has lent to it". Salman was a treat to watch, his dance and fights attracted many whistles in the hall, after long time in a Bollywood movie. Sonakshi was beautiful in some different way but portrayed the role superbly. There wasn’t a moment to relax as the movie never seemed to be boring. There was sentiment, music, action, romance and an excellent screenplay of all of these together. My thumbs up to the director, Abhinav Kashyap, and all the best for his future projects.

The next day started with a lazy morning. I went for a photo shoot of the campus along with a friend. The freedom was amazingly enjoyable. Our flight to Hyderabad was at 2.45PM. The journey was pleasant as there were around 12 of us travelling together. After 4 hours, we were in RGIA Hyderabad. Hyderabad, as always, was so lively and vibrant and truly enjoyable. I had a nice truly hyderabadi dinner with my friends as my bus to Guntur was at 11PM. The stay in Guntur was what everyone dreams of. I had a nice time sleeping and eating, as my mother prepared a special for me almost every day. One week was too short and I never felt so bad to leave home. The time table, with a few additional subjects for this term, was sent in the holidays, adding to it were the summer placements, and they all made my feelings of not going back even stronger. But as everyone did, my journey back has started. I reached Hyderabad a day before to meet all my friends. I went to JNTU H, fifth time after I left college. Our flight back was on the next day, which was a pleasant journey too with around 35 of us travelling together.

Life is normal again. Classes, Projects, Assignments… 13 weeks to go, for 2^nd term vacation!!

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Aisha

People made fun of me after I announced on FB that "Kites" was not as bad as it was being publicized. After watching all sorts of nonsensical movies over the past few years, I feel that I am one of those patient watchers of movies. After Aisha, I give full credit to the Aisha team for making me rethink about my stand on my movie watching ability.

We had our last mid-term exam in the afternoon and everybody were really excited to go to the city and have some fun. The plan was to watch "Once upon a time Mumbai" till we reached the box office of PVR Cinemas. After a little argument about the movie, we finally settled for "Aisha" and I was one of the few who were advocating for Aisha. We had a little shopping session in between as the movie was supposed to start an hour later.

The movie started with a high class wedding, of Sonam's aunt. There was luxury every where from cars like Beetle, Mercedes in every scene to costumes which were of a different level altogether. Scene after scene started rolling but the story never seemed to have started. I remember telling my friends to be a little patient when they were losing hope on the movie. I tried to watch the movie as positively as I can, forcing myself to laugh for all the Jokes which seemed a thousand years old. The few scenes in a movie where the audience would relate to themselves would be the ones which would glue them to their seats and wait for the rest of the movie. As this movie, which was supposed to attract the youth junta, had none of the elements to relate to, we were almost feeling drained by intermission.

There were a few friends who were questioning "How could Abhay Deol do this?", "Are we allowed move into the other movie for the second half" and few were busy compensating for the movie by eating. During the second half we decided to have some comedy on our own by clapping, shouting, etc. Though there were scenes, where Sonam mistakenly expresses her feelings at a wrong place, only to add the comic element, I don't think few of us even cared to follow what was going on after 90 minutes of a never intriguing story.

Anybody who had watched a few Bollywood movies would easily guess the climax of this movie in the first half, so the climax was even more tiring. Finally there was a moral told that "Love cannot be planned", and I leave the depth of this moral to your imagination. The movie ended with a song and luckily for us the doors were opened even before the song was completed. The only discussion then was about why did we choose Aisha over Once upon a time in Mumbai.

I remember that TOI rated this movie 4/5 and the first thing I did after coming back was to confirm what I remember is correct. To my surprise it is given FOUR stars. I understood that the rating was given for the costumes as the following line summarizes the same, "First and foremost, the movie dazzles you with the style quotient". I googled the purpose of a film review and found that "A film review is going to tell you who might like a movie and who should definitely stay away" and wondered how TOI missed it.

I found lines like "Join the fun", "Join the Confusion", "Join the madness" on a few posters of the movie, and now I wonder whether that there is hardly any of those in the movie except the last one, which we unfortunately did. There was another poster which said "Loreal Paris proudly presents the Aisha collection". That could be one of the best objectives of the movie, as it did not seem to have any other.

After coming back to the campus, I found out that people who watched "Once upon a time in Mumbai" were also in a situation not so different from ours. There were a few people who watched both the movies, one after another. I was surprised and asked them why did they plan for a second movie immediately, they said that after the disappointment in the first movie, they desperately wanted to watch a good movie and they chose Aisha. Luckily we had the Insti party the same night, a much needed one for all those poor souls, who in search of enjoyment ended up having a horrible evening.

{Sources: http://www.videojug.com/interview/becoming-a-film-critic;

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archi

ve&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIL/2010/08/07&PageLabel=5&

ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar00500&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T}

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