The Metro Files

I am a fan of reality. So most Bollywood movies are not my thing. Unless they are startlingly real. If i make a movie, the unknown and the ordinary person, born in a rugged home, slogged all his life to earn a living, loved by his family, and died a death in oblivion will be the star. There will be no dancers in colourful skimpy clothes, no happy endings, no death defying action scenes, no multiple extra marital affairs, no palatial mansions, no huge families, no million dollar business deals and the sort.

Movies for me happen only when friends get together. I have a few things to say on the movie called "Life in a Metro". Yeah, that is the name.



Its a movie about seven Mumbai dwellers who seek love and acceptance as they wholeheartedly devote themselves to their dreams. It tells everyone that people in the metros sleep around. Silly actually. Because in India, we have no such thing as sex. Its immoral. Judging by how things are going, someday sex will be banned for good. But then in movies, they have sex. So if you are in a village or remote town, and have been sleeping with the buffaloes and the cows till now, you have to progress to the next stage. Move to the metro.

The Shiney Ahuja - Shilpa Shetty angle is good. Shiney is this divorcee who finds a great friend in a married Shilpa plagued by a cheating husband in Kay Kay Menon. Shiney and Shilpa do not end up together. Thank God for that. I mean happy endings are good, but happy endings are not always real. In real life, shit happens. Life is unpredictable. Shiney is one of those guys whose acting skills are as good as his looks. But he cant beat Kay Kay and Irrfan Khan in the acting department.

Irrfan is this 38 year old who has been shunned by the female community and left untouched in all his virgin glory only to picked up by Konkona Sen Sharma, who habitually gets attracted to closet gay men in movies. Irrfan is a brave dude. He races on a horse in Mumbai traffic but that bit is trivial compared to what follows. He enters the ladies compartment of a Mumbai train to hug Konkona. I think he could have waited outside. Oh and by the way, can 60 women packed in a ladies compartment, all smile and clap with both hands? For one thing, its hard to get 2 women to agree to something. But in the movie, they will do anything to make some happy endings happier.

Kangana Ranaut - > girl you are distracting. Its hard to focus on the movie when Kangana looks this good. That run through the streets in the end was fun :-) She dumps Kay Kay, her boss, for Sharman Joshi who is the proud keeper of the only empty flat in Mumbai.

Why do Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali take so long to get out of bed? I know Dharmendra is 71 and Nafisa will be 60 in August and senility may be setting in, but still, i think they took way too long. Most kitchens in Panjim restaurants close at 3.00 pm, and no amount of explaining the perils of senility can get the restaurants to delay their kitchen closing time. Anyways we did get lunch in the end. If Nafisa had died a little later, maybe we might not have.

What is it about some people who watch movies by getting so absorbed by them? It feels like they are inside the movie. They watch it with open mouths. The mouth gets opened wider and wider as the movie progresses. So wide, it feels like they are out to swallow the screen. Any screen where you can spot the nose hair in the actors is not small. Its like watching a tennis match and turning your head side to side as you catch up with the words emanating from the character on the left and the one on the right. A nudge is not enough to bring the lost souls back to reality. You can eat their popcorn and they wont notice. Sometimes its good to shake them for half a minute till they come back to reality and tell them its just acting. Its not real. Remember playing house as a kid and playacting. A bit like that. I had to remind Kunal in the middle of Rang de Basanti that the gun shots and the deaths was all acting. That guy gets inside the movie. I thought he would run to the screen and start shooting at the police officers with an umbrella or a pen for a gun. Thankfully, no gunshots in this movie.

Topi - Thats the Hindi word for cap. Thats also what they call a condom in the movie - A Topi. Is there a Hindi word for condom? I am not sure, but i have a feeling i have figured out the reason for our burgeoning population. Imagine this conversation between A and B

A - Mere 7 bacche hai. (I have seven kids)
B - Accha? Topi nahin pahente kya? (Dont you wear a Topi?)
A - Paheni to thi. Phir bhi. Pata nahi kaise. (I do, but still happens. Dont know how.)
B - Mein toh Adidas topi pahenta hoon. Abhi tak kuch nahin hua. (I wear a Adidas Topi. Nothing happened as yet)

Some serious Reviews - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The official site of the movie - here

Serious verdict - Watchable. Pretty realistic portrayals i would think.