83 - Fablous recreation of Golden chapter in India Cricket history         

Kabhir Khan directed `83’ the first movie of the inspiring journey of rank outsiders - the Indian cricket team -, surprising everyone, including themselves in lifting the world cup is unarguably the best sport based films made till date.    The most challenging aspect in attempting such movie is  risk of making it to be a boring documentary (like the movie on Sachin) or taking too many cinematic liberties and departures thereby killing the true spirit.    It is where Kabir scored full marks in keeping it close to original events cleaverly intermingling it with light hearted moments in dressing room and powerful emotions.    Another challenge is not to make it look  more like Kapil’s centric movie rather than 83 word cup triumph movie

Few minutes into the movie Kabir Khan has established how casually Indian Team, who had a dismal record of winning only one match against East Africa in previous two versions of World cup, was taken by BCCI officials, Cricket Fans, India media not to speak British officials and press.  Manager Mansingh remark that `India got indepdnence but still not respect' sums up it all.   Even most of the India players taking it as a break journey before proceeding on vacation to US.    Amongst such disheartening and negative vibes, it is Kapil who was brimming with self belief which got infected  to entire team soon.    

Kabir and his team have to be complimented in recreating the stadiums, electrifying atmosphere, audience emotions and reactions.     The workshops conducted for honing the skills of actors selected in picking up not only the body language but batting, bowling and fielding skills.   Most of the actors, both Indian and foreign, looked like real cricketers.    In this aspect Indian cinema has come a long way.     There was a time whenever few shots of badminton, tennis being played by our leading stars was to be shown, it used to look so awkward with the stars not even holding the racquets properly.

As far as acting is concerned, Ranvir Singh has absolutely nailed Kapil’s role,  in his body language, diction, dialogue delivery, batting & bowling and fielding on the field.   He is the heart and soul of the movie.   Very close to him is seasoned Tamil Actor Jiva as Srikant.    He brought the funny side of Kiri off the field and smash buckling on the field.   Surprisingly lot of footage was given to Sandhu though he did not have that cracking world cup.   May be Kabir Khan might have felt a Sardar character will be very popular in Northern circuits.   Ammy Virk did a good job as Sandhu.     It is disappointing that the stars of 83 world cup Yashpal, Mohinder and Binny were not given the deserved footage, Lala Amarnath (played by his son Mohinder Amarnath) getting more prominence role than Mohinder.   As far as other teams which Indian Team faced, too much focus was kept on West Indies.   Australia and England were reduced to a passing reference with no player among galaxy of star Australian and England players getting registered.    Among West Indian players actors who did the roles of Richards and Gomes did good job, the look alikes of West Indies fast bowlers are big letdown.  The record breaking and match saving innings by Kapil, which unfortunately was not recorded and televised due to strike by BBC staff, was very well recreated.   Though we hardly know anything about Team Manager Man Singh, Pankaj Tiwari, as usual, did a great job.   Bomman Iran as a commentator was full of emotions is interesting.  

Kids adjusting their TV antennas risking coming out during curfew, PM Indira Gandhi advising his officers to make sure every house hold watch the semi final over TV so as to control communal tensions  are few of the many non cricketing anecdotes.   

I personally could related to the movie, as i started watching world cup matches since 1979 and 1983 world cup very keenly as India went from strength to strength and its lifting world cup in a folklorist manner.    Those were the days when Indian team was treated as a push over and least preferred team to be invited for bilateral matches, though we had some of the world star players like Gavaskar, Vishwanath, the spin foursome.   It’s the 1983 World cup win which has given a self belief to Indian team that they can beat any team in ODIs .   After this win there was no looking back and Indian Cricket and BCCI has gone from strength to strength and became so powerful that at present it commands the world cricket through IPL.   

Those who are in the age group of 50 and above can relate and enjoy 83 well.    But how much fancy youngster, including ardent cricket fans, take to this glorious saga which has happened 38 years ago is to be seen and the commercial success of the movie depends a lot on that.   Whatever may the commercial success but Kabir Khan and his team of technicians and actors should be appreciated for such a sincere effort.  

Strongly recommended to all to hail the dare devilry of Kapil Devils.  

 

S. PRABHAKAR

27.12.21

 

THE UNCOMMON `COMMAN MAN’ CREATURE R K LAXMAN BIRTH CENTENARY

Today is the Centenary Birth Anniversary of one and the only peerless Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman better known as R K LAXMAN.                                 A cartoonist of par excellence blessed with unlimited knowledge and imaginary power.     His Common Man and Cartoons under the `You Said It’ series in Times of India which ran for over half a century uninterrupted in Times of India is a sort of world record.   .    He always covered contemporary issues and presented them through the eyes of his Common Man.  For over 3 decades my day always started with seeing and enjoying his cartoon and i must admit not even a single day i was disappointed by his cartoon.    I used to cut his cartoons from news paper and paste on a paper and maintain many editions of files

Early Days

RK Laxman was born in Mysore on 24^th October, 1921.   He developed interest in cartoons from an early age.  At a young age, he began drawing on his own on the floors, walls and doors of the house.  While as a college student, he illustrated his older brother R K Naraya’s stories in leading news paper The Hindu.   Later he joined in a job as a political cartoonist in The Free Press Journal alongside Bal Thackeray, who too was a cartoonist before he turned to politics, later he joined The Times of India in 1951 which association stayed for over half a century.    Besides his daily cartoons in ToI, he drew illustrations and cartoons for Tamil and Hindi movies and famous TV serials like `Malgudi Days written by his illustrious brother R K Narayanan and `Wagle ki Duniya’ 

What made RK Laxman cartoon so popular?

Normally cartoonists tend to be silly and type casted and their success rate in generating humour or sarcasms and making people think is 1 out of 10.   But in case of RK Laxman almost every cartoon coming from his stable was of high quality, witty, humourous, sarcastic and used to make us think.  

                                                                                                                                                      

His `common man’ is one of the most enduring cartoon characters symbolising the daily predicament of every Indian.  Another feature of his cartoons was that most of them were timeless – the proof of it is for last 2 months or so ToI is re-running his cartoons and what he drew some 30-40 years back still have relevance even today.   His cartoon were so enjoyable by one and all that in his long and illustrious career of over half a century he never ran into any controversy and no politician or political party has every objected to any of his cartoons which used to take on their government and its policies

Though RK Laxman was predominantly political cartoonist, he was equally good in other subjects.   He did cartoon for Indian Management Association and ICSI magazines for some times and drew such lovely cartoons on Management principles and corporate world.    There was a series of books of RK Laxman Cartoons on different subjects. 

Laxman published numerous short stories, essays, and travel articles, some of which were collected in The Distorted Mirror. He also wrote the novels `The Hotel Riviera’, `The Messenger’  and an autobiography, `The Tunnel of Time’.    Other collections of his cartoons were published in The Best of Laxman and Laugh with Laxman by Penguin Books India. His comic strip `You Said It’ served as the basis for a television comedy series titled `RK Laxman Ki Duniya’ In 2011, the Symbiosis International University named a chair at its Pune campus in Laxman’s honour.

Recognition and Reward

Though RK Laxman was reserved and used to keep to himself and his work, he was extremely popular amongst cartoonist fraternity,  politician spectrum and general public.    He was conferred with Padma Bhushan  in 1973 and Padma Vibhushan in 2005 and also received Magsaysay award for  Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in 1984

R K Laxman Legacy

R K Laxman was almost peerless during his life time though Sudhir Dhar, Sudhir Tailant Ajit Ninan were his contemporaries.   But the art of cartoons has almost died with his death.    We do not see cartoons any more in English Daily news papers like ToI and Hindustan Times.    Good that ToI started a re-run of his cartoons and we can continue enjoy his matchless genius

R K Laxman died in  in Pune on India's Republic Day in 2015 at the age of 93.

Long live RK Laxman genius

S. PRABHAKAR

24^th October, 2021

 

 

 

`No Time to Die’ the swan song of Craig – is it curtains to Bond movies too       

                                                                                                                                      By S Prabhakar

Today i watched the latest and 25th edition of Bond movie `No Time to Die'.   Like any other Bond   movies, i was so excited and went with lot of expectation which i was sure the movie will surpass.   But i was so disappointed or should i say i was so shocked that in the long 2:45 hours movie i never felt as if i was watching a Bond movie.   Bond movies are known for their high production values, lavishly mounted sets, multiple foreign locations, edge of the seat action scenes, larger than life Villain character with an ambition to conquer and/or destroy the world.   Right from Dr. No, the Bond Villains were ahead of their time in technology, operating from gigantic dens and operating many sophisticated things by click of button, they are ably supported by their special right hand man, with specially fitted teeth, hand, etc.,   Coming to the Bond they were always charming, sweeping gorgeous girls off the feat, crisp dialogue delivery.   The Stunt directors and the doubles are the back bone and they never disappointed in raising the bar of action scenes.    The car/bike/boat chases, the mid air fights and records breaking jumps from icy mountains leave audience asking for more. 

 In `No Time to Die’ none of them were present.  It is a sequel to Spectra  which was also equally boring.   Every bond movie starts with a fantastic action scene followed by a super hit title song with innovative titles.    In this edition the opening sequence itself dragged and the car chase and action scene is so lousy that any ordinary Indian action movie will have a better care chase scene.,  (watch any VV Vinayak, Raja Mouli, Trivikram Telugu movie or Rohit Shetty Hindi Movie).   The story line is wafer thin, villain is week, Craig,  as Bond is looking so old and worn out and throughout the movie he was emoting and somber like Dilip Kumar.   Instead of threatening the world with a nuclear war, virus or pitting a super power against another super power, shockingly the villain is busy with personal Vedanta, like a Dara Singh movie of 70s.   No bond girls, no spectacular locales as you find Bond brooding all the time indoors.    Right from the opening scene to the climax Bond gets beaten, shot at and struggle to stand on his legs what to talk about doing over the top action scenes.    It is hard to shallow the tame end given to Board.  

In the last decade or so ever since CAG has taken over and Hollywood became busy in making movies like Avataar and Avengers they lost touch with making the real action movies.   Unlike Indian (specially Telugu and Tamil movies), and Chinese movies they did not take advantage of cable technology to create lavishly mounted action movies with lot of hand combat and chases.      Craig has already announced that it is going to be his last Bond movie, but i strongly feel that the franchisee should also think of stop making Bond movie if they cannot make any better movie than this.   Die hard Bond fans like me have so many fantastic memories about all bond movies that we do not want Bond movie to slip any further than this movie.   I am so disappointed that my appetitive for action movies will become normal only after I  organise a Action movie Week of my own and  watch again fascinating action movies like True Lies, Eraser, Rocky series, Rambo Series, MI Series, Armour of the God 1 & II, XXX, Face Off, Broken Arrow, The Man with Golden Gun, Live and Let Die, Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies.   

S. Prabhakar

9.10.2021