Manu Kurup

I’m on a strict schedule these days. Hit the bed as early as 10 in the night and wake up at 5 in the morning. I start working at 5 and by 8 I am either done with most of my work or a little is left for the rest of the day… I make coffee and breakfast and consume it while reading the newspaper. Then, I do some browsing for a while (not more than one hour) and force myself back to reading/writing. At 12, I stop all that and concentrate on making lunch; salad and juice… yes, that’s what I eat these days for lunch or some nice Chicken and Rice. Then I sleep for a while (2 hrs.) and wake up to make a strong tea. From there I work for 3 Hrs. and at 7 starts making dinner. Now, the deal with dinner is that I can either cook it or go out to a fine restaurant to have it. Sometimes I call for company. Sometimes I don’t. Most of the time there’s nothing more exquisite than the company of my own self and I plug-in the earphone, start my bat-bike and ride out to have something. And, dinner has to be something tough. Something great and satisfying to provide me a good sleep for 7 Hrs…

Yesterday, I made a slight change in the schedule. The day began as a cloudy one and I thought I should go out to buy some books. I was running out of books and I wanted to go out after spending so many days indoors. I was beginning to feel like Charlton Heston in The Ωmega Man, where he plays the last man on earth alive who is destined to fight a group of nocturnal mutant humans. Actually, the world outside is no better than what the film shows! The building I live is filled with Zombies.
“……they roam the roads at night. During the day-time, they run up and down stairs and howl and bite at each other. I know, it is foolish to expect civilized behaviour from Zombies but this what they do. Sadly, I’m running out of bullets and I have to pay a visit to the military armory in the city for a refill….that itself is an adventure. There are soldier zombies there; zombies that are well versed in Combat!” (Excerpts from the Zombie Diaries I am writing…)

So, I went out for a long ride and bought some books. Two of them were Coffee Table Books; one on Ancient Trade Routes and the other was titled ‘Modern Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of the late Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr.’ I have started reading the first one yesterday night itself. It has a lot of amazing photographs and maps… Maps! Did I tell you I love maps? I love looking at them… finding out routes and mountain passes and borders and strategic points. There was a time I had a huge collection of maps and my favorite time-pass was to spread them on my worktable and closely analyze them. They were all maps of Europe and Asia in the Middle Ages. My father used to think I was going crazy. My mother asked me if I want to become a Cartographer. Well, we live in an age were Maps are made by satellites.

Modern Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of the late Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr.

Some of the other books that I bought.

A Chinese beauty engaged in a Tea Ceremony at the China Tea Museaum in Hangzhou

The Map of the Tea Route

These books are what I read now when I’m not killing Zombies at night. They interrupted my sleep yesterday, when a group of them ran up and down the stairs, howling at each other. I didn’t get a clear shot. These days, they use some sort of a clear communication method. I don’t understand that. They also started planting Milk Bombs outside my door. It is some sort of a Zombie tactics where they use old Milk packets (the milk will have gone bad and the packet will be like a balloon, whirring all by itself, as if a slight wind could make it explode) to ambush me. I escaped from one yesterday.

- Manu

Introducing: The World’s First Zombie Sensor (simplisafe.com)
Warm Bodies – the funniest zombie book I have ever read! (gcbooks.wordpress.com)
Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse in Pittsburgh (local.answers.com)
REVIEW: Zombie Outback (thexblig.com)
Unique summer camp prepares visitors for Zombie apocalypse (globalnews.ca)
Why Do Zombies Want Brains? (miriamjoywrites.com)
Zombie Apocalypse (renowood.wordpress.com)
Zombie Apocalypse Slingshot, By Montie Gear (zombiezine.org)

Bollywood aka Hindi film industry is generally viewed as India’s mainstream film production industry yet surprisingly it churns out the ugliest endeavors in that format. I have been a critique of Bollywood all my life as a film-goer because of their trademark beating-around-the-bush and singing-around-the-tree formula. It happens in the other regional language films too but with its money flow and pulling the right strings politics, Bollywood has always managed to subdue better films from other regional languages in India. Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Tamil and Malayalam industries house such brilliant actors, technicians and story tellers, one could feel totally flabbergasted if venture out enough into their world of storytelling. But, at times, Bollywood too deliver good films… not from the Khans, Kumars or the Khannas and neither from the Bachchans or Kapoors! Yesterday, I happened to watch a small film called Jolly LLB! Let me talk about it.

It is a courtroom comedy film that revolves around two lawyers involved in a case of hit and run. Arshad Warsi plays Jagdish Tyagi aka Jolly, a struggling lawyer who moves from a local court in U.P to Delhi in search of better prospects. On the opposite, we have Boman Irani as Tejinder Rajpal, a suave, rich, English-speaking and sophisticated lawyer who has never tasted failure in his life.

Boman Irani as Tejinder Rajpal

In order to become noticed easily, Jolly files a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) against the hit and run case, which was successfully won by Rajpal. The court opens the case again, taking in to account fresh witnesses and evidences. The film depicts the battle that both lawyers have to fight against each other as well as themselves.

It is the presentation that makes the film different. Two completely opposite characters coming into conflict with each other. One fights for justice and the other trying to seal the face of truth. Arshad Warsi, is as usual, easy with his character; depicting it casually as well as with envying comfort. We are used to Boman Irani’s portrayal of such characters and this is another shade of what we have seen before in Three Idiots and Munnabhai MBBS. One who steals the show with his complex enactment is Saurabh Shukla.

Saurubh Shukla as Justice Tripathi

His performance as Judge Tripathi is amazingly convincing, capable enough to eclipse the performance given by the lead actors themselves. In fact, in the whole movie, this is one performance that one should watch out for, in my opinion.

Amrita Rao’s role is a two-song-after-that-what’s- there one which could have been given to anyone in the industry and nothing remarkable would have happened anyway!

Jolly LLB is a fine comedy with elements of social satire prominent. In its seemingly easy weaving of the story and remarkable screenplay, however, one thing stand out for the viewer to understand; that Justice is something that is to be fought for… if not given! It stands as a critique of the system, like a fine political cartoon that would get us to thinking and pricks the right people at the right places!

Hats off to the director Subhash Kapoor…

Watch it for a fine weekend experience.

My verdict: 3.5/5

- Manu