Oye Lucky Lucky Oye!

What an underrated gem this movie is! Sure it won some national awards, but never achieved the kind of box office fame it should have.

Oye Lucky Lucky Oye is the story of Lovinder Singh AKA Lucky (Abhay Deol), a fearless, charismatic and extremely confident thief who manages to effortlessly rob households and escape the clutches of the Delhi police at the same time. The movie is apparently based on a true thief called Bunty who terrorised Delhi households in the nineties.The movie begins by showing the genesis of his thieving ways in his teenage years and then cuts forward to an adult Lucky trying to seek employment under a crime boss, Gogi Bhai (Paresh Rawal). The movie begins and ends with the same scene - Lucky having been caught by the police along with his cache of stolen goods worth millions. The movie also chronicles his romantic entanglements and the betrayals that he inevitably suffers.


** SPOILER ALERT! I am assuming that you have watched this movie already and will be able to appreciate the points I try to make about certain key scenes in the movie. If not I advise you to go watch it immediately **



The first time I saw it, I knew I liked it - but didn't think too much of it. I had been touched by the scenes of young Lucky and that was it.


Especially the scene of the first date of the titular character Lucky at age 15 (played by a terrific Manjot Singh, who won the national award for his role) and the greeting card shop girl (I couldn't find the name of the girl. If anyone knows please reply). 
That scene had terrific staying power and the simple touches that the director, Dibakar Banerjee attaches to the scene appealed to me.


On later viewing I immediately forwarded to that part of the movie and found that I really really liked the scene. The line "Happy Birthday hai mera. Saal mein do hi baar aata hai bus" - followed by the sweet amused grin that the girl flashes at him. The scene in the restaurant where the waiter immediately recognizes Lucky for what he is - a penniless teenager out to impress his girl and insults the couple in such a way that our heart goes out to them - while we are laughing at the wicked humour in the dialogue.


The scenes of young Lucky are the best ones in the movie. How crafty of Dibakar to show this period in Lucky's life in such short vignettes. Makes them more special and treasure-worthy. 


But there are more scenes in the movie which have stuck in my mind. These include - Lucky's following Sippa - The Ministers son into the Disco, Lucky rejecting the advances of a horny Dolly,  Lucky robbing the News Anchor Babul Awasthis's house using the trick suggested by an unwary veterinarian, Lucky being insulted on the opening ceremony of his own restaurant, etc.



The movie satirizes not just the class consciousness and cheap materialism existent in some middle to upper class Delhiites but also the news media which sensationalizes everything (This is in fact mentioned by the character of a TV Anchor who laments that he uses the words 'Sansani Khez' too often on air). At the same time this is a movie which is clearly fond of the unique quirks of Dilli wale and presents these lovingly in exquisitely subtle detailing.


The detailing that Dibakar Banerjee has included in this movie is intricate and incredible. The ear- perfect accents and the nuances in the speech of the various Delhi characters populating the movie - the gentry, the police, the criminals, the Haryanavi Jats and the Punjabis.
As I mentioned before, the comedy in this movie can be subtle some times while laugh-out-loud hilarious at other times.

Banerjee also employs an unusual technique - of framing scenes comprising solely of still photographs shown in succession - filling in the gaps in the story. This works most of the times but can distract especially when used at the end of certain key scenes.


The movie benefits hugely from some excellent music (Sneha Khanwalkar). I am a huge fan of the earthy rustic ballad - Tu Raja ki raj dulaari as well as the title track (to which we unforgettably danced on Management Day)



A special mention needs to go to the actors who seem a near-perfect (and at times more than perfect) fit for their roles.

Paresh Rawal plays 3 different roles - Lucky's Dad, his criminal boss Gogi Bhai as well as the crafty veterinarian Mr. Handa - and is able to create three vividly different characters. The most underdeveloped is the character of the father - as he is present in only a few scenes. 
The best performed and most nuanced is the character of Mr. Handa. Look at how Rawal is able to drop his mask of pleasant geniality and display the venomous inner personality in a crucial scene. The anger that the audience feels towards him is immediately turned into pathos a few moments later when he is threatened with bodily harm and humiliation. Lucky laughs and we laugh with him.

Abhay Deol (whose talent I'm still sceptical of) is also perfect for the role - his the-boy-next-door looks and relaxed dialogue delivery prove to be essential for the success of the character of the lovable thief. 

The actress who performs the role of Dolly(Richa Chaddha) is good too. Watch how she lashes out at Lucky (in her horribly mixed wannabe Hinglish) when he rejects her advances. The character who impressed me the most was Lucky's sidekick Bangali (Manu Rishi). Most of the laughs in the movie come from his dialogues. This is a pretty good actor and I have yet to see him in any other movie. I liked the character of the Jat Inspector(Anurag Arora) as well.
Even the normally irritating Archana Puran Singh plays her role well and is funny in her role as Mrs. Handa.


Some of the robbery scenes may seem a little contrived and far-fetched as Lucky is able to walk out of houses with their valuables without facing any security so easily that we feel sceptical. This is the weakest aspect of the movie and I am able to forgive Banerjee for this.


This is his second movie after the delightful Khosla ka Ghosla - which had the great character actor Boman Irani in supreme form. He followed this with the dark and disturbing Love Sex aur Dhokha
(LSD).


I await his next movie eagerly.

The Rise of Twitter

Twitter has seen truly a phenomenal rise in India over the past one to one and a half years.

Even Orkut, the now out-of-fashion social networking website never dominated mainstream media attention as much as Twitter has. Orkut used to only be in the news for either fake profiles or for creating communities which ended up hurting the sentiments of one group or the other.

But ever since the Shashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi controversies first broke out in the mainstream media based on their Twitter "tweets", Twitter has courted a new found fame (as well as notoriety) among regular Indians who so far associated the word with the sounds birds make. From Bollywood Stars to Sports Personalities to two-bit celebrities - every one has joined the Twitter bandwagon.

So what is Twitter and why is it so popular? (Even I have a Twitter account - but truth be said hardly anyone follows me - mostly because I have hardly anything worth tweeting about). 

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers.

For celebrities it provides a wonderful way of communicating with their fans without having to resort to the traditional channels of communication which involve a middleman - such as television, newspapers or magazines. For people like Lalit Modi - it provides an easy way to deliver news-worthy quotes (whether his quotes actually are news-worthy is debatable) without going through all the trouble of calling a press-conference.

For everyone else it provides a wonderfully direct access to the thoughts of their favourite celebrities - It is as if Shahrukh Khan directly speaks to his followers through his Tweets. In a celebrity-obsessed age and a celebrity-obsessed society this provides the ultimate visceral high.

But in India anything new or innovative always takes time to be accepted and initially can be rejected quite venomously. This is especially true in the case of the Old Fogeys who are part of the political administration. Poor Shashi Tharoor paid the price for excessive (and perhaps a little thoughtless) use of Twitter.  140 characters can sometimes be woefully inadequate to concretely express the thoughts of a person and thus can be open to misinterpretation. Also his penchant for Retweeting the opinions of others (A common tool used in Twitter which allows news to spread on it like wildfire) was easily manipulated in the media to be his own opinions.

In any case, his Twitter controversies made him a hot-button topic for the Media which enabled them to completely destroy him when the IPL controversy broke out. The IPL Controversy, itself started by a famous (and fatuous) Twit - Lalit Modi - eventually led to his downfall as well.

The few famous people I follow on Twitter are quite unlike the celebrities that most of the Indian Twits follow. I was a follower of Tharoor on Twitter much before his first cattle-class controversy broke out. I also follow the renowned fantasy-writer Neil Gaiman (author of Coraline, Graveyard Book, Sandman - The Graphic Novel Series, among others) as well as the facially impaired uber-critic Roger Ebert. I follow these people because they are interesting, extremely intelligent and I enjoy reading what they Tweet about. 

I also follow this guy - VeryShortStory - who writes wonderful and thought-proving micro-short stories ensconced within a single Tweet. I also do Tweet occasionally and almost never get Retweeted. Also, My friend Shantesh keeps on tweeting about Tech Stuff which always make for a good read.

I end with a shameless plug for my Twitter account - www.twitter.com/Santoshsez