Om Shanti Om...It sure works!

Ever heard of the term 'Optimization'? Bollywood has had a reputation of prowling forever on the slopes of "Quality Film Making', without ever reaching the pinnacle. Om Shanti Om is an exception.

OSO is not a GREAT movie. Its not going to win an Oscar. Its not an IMDB top 250 contender. But come to think of it: it does what its makers want it to do, and does it damn well.

Starting things off, I was terribly disappointed when "Main Hoon Na" came out a few years ago. Red Chillies Entertainment had got it wrong. They had tried to make the movie something it wasn't. People could choose to see Spiderman hop, or see SRK fly. But India is a big country and people who did not wish to see the Spider ended up making Main Hoon Naa a hit.

OSO is a different package. It is a potpourri of several styles of filmmaking:

(a) The Rajnikanth/Chiru/Mithun flick: One (super)man. A zillion bad guys. Pure star power. Every mannerism of the Hero to go down into history and be worshiped for ages. Interchangeable actresses half the age of our star, who usually dance with him when he is not busy bashing villains/corrupt officials/assorted debris.

(b) The Epic Musical: Sprawling sets. A plot written with (only)the musical score in mind. Elaborate song and dance sequences. Blatant lip synching. Trapezes. Costumes. Back-up dancers. Spotlights. No villains allowed.

(c) The tale of Love...and betrayal : Good guy, Dame, bad guy---->romantic songs----->Jhinchak songs------> murder---->pathetic(hehe) songs----> revenge....THE END

(d)Judwaa Bhai/ Punarjanam/Yaddasht: Maa mujhe sabkuchh yaad aa gayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(e) Gabbar mein tera Khoon pee( drink...what were you thinking?) jaaoonga!!: A pitiful hypocrite who gets his due, when everyone gangs up against the poor freak.


As far as OSO goes, you name it and they have it. Its something more profound than a block-buster movie: it is a new genre which has practically nothing new in what it presents, yet holds the potential to make Bollywood one of the most productive industries in India.

The attempt is deliberate this time. There is a shipload of overacting, coincidences which are enormous in their enormity, songs fitted in somehow during most of the first half. Yet somewhere, everything falls into place. Here is a movie which you would actually 'like' to like. No threat from spoilers too. You ALWAYS know what's going to happen, only that you just can't wait to see HOW it happens. Its hard to believe how predictable this movie is.

That, unfortunately for some, is what makes OSO work. SRK's larger than life star power has been utilized to the limit. I admire SRK, but I do not worship him. And that is when OSO hits me in the face and explains why that man rules the hearts of Indians worldwide.

There you have it. That,precisely is optimization. Here we have a film that is so stupid yet so perfect, so revolting yet so enticing. I watched and watched , when my mind said, "This is a load of bullcrap you fool!", but I could not hit the pause button.


To sum up,OSO is a movie that rejuvenates the age old cliches and brings them into fashion. Its the new wine in the old bottle. And you have to taste it.

I listen carefully.....the guy on the first floor is playing a song from: you know what.

The smell of victory.

30 minutes.
27 iterations.
2.5 million atoms.
A linux CRASH course.

Three months is a long wait, even for "highly motivated" [Yeah! right..] undergraduate whiz kids. In my case, it's a computer program that has kept me waiting all this time. As a result, I have nearly killed the budding engineering in me, and unleashed the t shirt clad, laptop wielding , bespectacled geek.

It all started back in May, when everything was beautiful in the sunny subtropical piedmont of the southeastern united states . It was a hard-earned (???) internship at Georgia Tech, Atlanta.
Things went smoothly, and I had a great time stretching nanocrystalline sheets of copper. Everything I hated back in kgp seemed to dissolve in the sheer ease of the work.

It makes sense to remember all the good times, but the ensuing nightmare is pretty forgettable.Faced with the gruesome task of setting up a 6-node computational network in IIT, to carry out the same procedure here, I set out on a journey with a cannonball tied to my leg. The opening lines are an obituary to the many hours wasted in doing something engineers don't generally do: installing packages, debugging third party software, getting drained of creativity in the process.

I am ecstatic: because the frigging thing is working now. But I am not really sure if I have the temperament to continue the same work which I did with such alacrity last summer.


WARNING: I have come to realize that its a highly despicable quality in a popular blogger to describe personal geeky exploits which might infuriate casual netizens. Go back to the post 'Why do you blog' to know the rest of the story. Apparently, the bloggers earning fame and recognition are the thinkers and visionaries of today, who are only too eager to key down elaborate critiques of the changing face of society at best, or write B-movie reviews at their worst. Go back to the first 4 lines of this article and realize that I am NOT one of them.