Tag: paan.

Laapataa Ladies!

May 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Although most people these days crave for ‘zara hatke‘ movies, the important criteria which clinches the deal is the title of the movie. Once I heard the title Laapaata Ladies, I wanted to watch it.  Kiran Rao has always been the director who interested me, but I never got to watching her other movie.  Interestingly, now is the time for the woman directors to shine.

So, lets see how Laapataa Ladies fares! (Laapataa loosely translates to Missing)

Released on : March 2024

Watched on : May 2024

Directed by : Kiran Rao

Starring : Mostly new faces…. except for Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan. (He also acted in Telugu movie Race Gurram)

Review:

The movie starts with Deepak Kumar (Sparsh Srivastav) and Phool Kumari (Nitanshi Goel)’s bidaai. They board a train to the grooms village in the fictional Nirmal Pradesh. Incidentally, the train is filled with other newly married couples, where all the brides are in bridal finery, wearing the customary blood red saree with ghoonghat, covering up their faces from any prying eyes.

There is also a small scene here, where the grooms compare how much dowry they have been given and how rich the bride’s family is. They also judge that something must be wrong with Deepak because he got the least out of all the grooms in the compartment!

When the train reaches the main leads’ destination, Deepak Kumar inadvertently picks up another bride, one Mrs. Pushpa Rani, w/o Pankaj. They only find out the error, on reaching the far away village! Deepak is devastated. (The drawbacks of ghoonghat is apparent. The husband can’t recognise his wife, if there are many ladies in similar dress. Even the wife can’t see the husband clearly, to confirm that she really is following her husband around!)

Meanwhile Pushpa Kumari has a cell phone; sim card included,  in her possession. But why is she not reaching out to either her parents or her rich husband?  Is Pushpa her real name and is she really married to Pankaj as she claims?

Deepak Kumar visits the Police Station to file a complaint about the missing Phool Kumari and the arrival of Pushpa Rani in her place. But turns out the paan chewing, money minded SI Shyam Manohar (Ravi Kishan) is cleverer than he looks. He begins to doubt Pushpa Rani, may in-fact be Jaya w/o Pradeep Singh. (Pradeep Singh has already filed a complaint that his wife Jaya is missing at another Police Station.)

On the other end of the story is our soft spoken, baby faced, innocent, uneducated young bride Phool Kumari. She doesn’t remember the name of the village her new home is in! (Though she knows her own village, she doesn’t want to reach out to her parents. She fears that, her reaching out to her parents will shame them in the society! Society may taunt them for marrying their daughter to a fraud!) Luckily for her, she makes new friends at the train station. She begins working at a tea stall and ends up earning a little money too! The tea stall owner is a kind  old lady Manju Mai, who has harsh words for everyone, but is soft at heart.

As days pass by, SI is sure Pushpa Rani is Jaya and spies on her and finds her selling gold bangles and sending someone money through Money Orders. Is she a thief?

All the while, she has made herself many friends in Deepak’s house. It is apparent that Jaya a.k.a Pushpa is well educated and not a total bumpkin like Phool!

Even though Deepak wants to search around for his bride, all he has is a picture of her with him, with a ghoonghat covering her face. The incident when khan saab tells him that ghoonghat is not only covering Phool’s face but also her identity! All the while, Khan saab’s wife herself is in a burqa, which shows the sad state of women across the society. (The movie takes place in 2001)

All ends well, when Phool Kumari reaches Deepak after the missing person posters are printed.  Phool Kumari’s friends at the train station celebrate upon knowing that she reached her in laws home safely. Such a heart rending moment.

But what is the story of Jaya?  Why not watch the movie to find out?

I loved, loved and loved the main leads, Phool , Deepak, Jaya and the supporting role of Manju Mai and their acting. The best character, though, went to Ravi Kishan as the SI who rose to the occasion. He sets things straight between the chauvinistic egoistic dowry hungry Pradeep Singh and Jaya. I could totally guess what was going to happen, but the way Shyam Manohar handled Pradeep brought me immense satisfaction.

Laapataa ladies is an honest and beautiful movie and is worth watching for the director Kiran Rao’s ability to tell a story and for the actors who did their job perfectly.  This movie is of the  ‘not-to-be-missed’ kind!

Why not watch it over the weekend?

P.S:

  1. Of all the movies I love, Zoya Akhtar takes my top billing thanks to her Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Then comes Talvar by Meghna Gulzar tying with The Namesake by Mira Nair, followed by English Vinglish by Gauri Shinde, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer by Aparna Sen and commercial super hit Om Shanti Om by Farah Khan, lastly, Bareilly Ki Barfi by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari.
    There may be better movies, I am yet to watch them.  Once I do that, I may change the list.
  2. I love the incident when Deepak meets a local politician to help find Phool. It brought some laughs.
  3. I also loved the subtle romance between Phool and Deepak. I am thankful that Kiran Rao selected the cast based on her story and not because they are big named stars!
  4. Actress Chhaya Kadam who played Manju Mai reminded me so much of aai, whom I was fortunate to meet in USA. She was sooooo relatable!
  5. I am on a movie spree. I have few more movies to watch and I will surely update as fast as I can.

To Ooty, at last!

June 24, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Day 2:

Originally we had planned on starting our drive from Bengaluru to Ooty at 6 in the morning but ended up starting little after 9:30 a.m. Inspite of that, there was little traffic. Thank Ram, Sita, Lakshman and their gang! (Just saw trailer of Adipurush and no wonder I keep remembering the said Gods!)

Mr.Bee rode us through the Nice Road, from Bengaluru to Mysore.  It was a good road and a drive on it felt like flying on the clouds! (I am scared of high speeds and Mr.Bee is a fan of speed racing.)

We made a brief stop near Mysore City Bus Nildana. I wanted to reminiscence the good old days of my life at Infosys, Mysore campus. My friends and I would come out of the campus every weekend to Devaraja Wodeyar Market and enjoy hours of retail therapy, called shopping by mere mortals! We would buy fresh fruits to last the week and I also remember buying a number of books by Agatha Cristie, along with clothes and accessories.

I showed one of our regular haunts to Mr.Bee, the Cauvery Emporium. He loved all the Rosewood furniture on display there. GBee refused to leave the Rose wood sofa set on display, whereas KBee was mighty impressed with the Rosewood inlay frames of Lord Ganesha on display!

Karthikeya(KBee) admiring the Ganesha Inlay!

The above pic is sourced from search engine, but KBee kept pulling at my kurti, to make me move towards this one frame of the elephant headed Lord Ganesha, all the while uttering the words, ‘It’s an elephant, it’s an elephant, mommy!’ (KBee couldn’t differentiate between my favourite God and an elephant. He is only 2 years old, so, Saat Khoon Maaf!)

I really really wanted to have my lunch at Das Prakash, since it was already late, we rushed to the Kamat  Madhuvan, Ittige Gudu, which was nearby. The Kamat Hotel at Lakdikapul, Hyderabad is a personal favourite, so we gave this Mysore Kamat restaurant a chance! (Next time Das Prakash!)

Although we had to wait a little while to get seated, I loved the food that was served there. We had the North Karnataka Thali. The menu had Jowar roti, methi leaves and cucumber salad, sprouts curry to name a few. It is a win win for health conscious people. We bought a paan at the end, to round up our meal. (I worried myself silly, that Mr.Bee may feel sleepy behind the wheel, what with such a hearty meal!)

The brief lunch halt turned out to be more than a two hour break, but never mind, who is rushing us? No one!

The Mysore to Ooty road is a pleasant drive.  We hardly met any traffic and the beauty was scenic. Just before entering the forest area, Mr.Bee and I bought Kala Jamun and Choco Bar ice creams respectively. (The kids were fast asleep in the car-bed and we enjoyed our ice creams!) We drove to Ooty via Bandipur Forest as well as Mudumalai Forest, saw deers, stags, elephants, monkeys in huge numbers. We also saw a couple of peacocks too. That’s when we woke up the kiddos, who were excited to watch the animals up close. In the middle of the forest, among-st the flora and fauna, I felt at peace! (in-spite of two hyper kids shouting at the top of their lungs!)

Since, all the deer are ignoring the camera, enjoy the scenery!

The Baby Elephant with its two legged friend.

The drive in the forest was the best. We took the longest possible route to Ooty, hoping to spot more and more animals and to entertain the kiddos. The ghat roads are a fun drive and after every 3 turns, there would be a tiny stall, selling boiled sweet corns, wild baby carrots, pickled Indian gooseberries (Amla in Hindi, usirikaya in Telugu) , jack fruits (panasa in Telugu) in varied sizes. The mountainous region looked over-populated, if the traffic is any indication!

By the time we reached our hotel in Ooty, La Montana it was already 8 p.m. and the temperature was 14 C. Since the dinner would be served only till 9, we rushed to our room for a breather and rushed to the in-house restaurant to have our buffet dinner.

La Montana – Heaven on Earth

The buffet was memorable because, there was a musician playing live music on his tiny piano. He was playing a recent hit song from the Tamil movie starring Dhanush and Samyukta Menon, Sir, to be exact. I even recorded it in a video, but it is not presentable, thanks to my kids running here and there, in front of my cell, trying to distract me!

Anyway, we reached the room, tried to watch a little t.v., but soon dozed off into a deep slumber, thanks to the cold climate, cozy bed and comforters.

Ooty, we will check you out tomorrow! That’s my last thought before sleeping away.

P.S:

  1. My precious little gems, my chocolate filled muffins, GBee and KBee talk mostly in English, even if I talk in Telugu to them. Looks like the pink Peppa Pig is a bigger influence than the stay-at-home-mom! They even have Peppa Pig night wear, those little tv addicts!
  2. La Montana – The heaven on Earth, because, the view is to die for! From the balcony, we could see the beautiful estates, the rose gardens, people going about their business, the nearby mountains, the huge trees and far away valleys, look at the Sun Rise, feel the mild breeze and what not! If you don’t have your cuppa tea here, in the balcony, every morning during your stay, I don’t know why you even planned your stay there!
  3. I forgot the shop, but in the Devaraja Market, Mysore, we get the best asafoetida or hing. My uncle showed the store to me, but I have forgotten it with the passing of more than a decade of time! (Any Mysore locals reading this post can direct message me. Any help is appreciated.)
  4. While we were passing the Mudumalai forest, I remembered Oscar winning documetary The Elephant Whisperers which was shot here and wondered if I would meet the now famous duo! We didn’t, obviously!
  5. I wonder who named the jack fruit, it feels like cursing the poor fruit!
  6. This is not a sposored post. I am just naming the eateries and places, which I really enjoyed.

Wait for the next post. Till then, adios!

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