She was waiting for him to arrive at the chapel as expected. Everyone around her was drowning the serene feeling the morning had instilled in her. It was a very different morning and she thought it was a sign. She believed in signs- her friends told her that is exactly the reason why she would give up easily. She ignored them. She wasn't someone who went by what others would say. She would only let herself be immersed in her own thoughts and live her life the way she wanted. She seldom thought before she said something. She was a free bird and did not submit herself to social obligations or do anything the way the others did it. It made her sick to walk the path on which several others had trodded.

She was not perfect though. She had her fears too. She would run out of the bathroom before she flushed. That sound and the idea made her cringe and meant something of negative significance to her. The sign that something would go down the drain. It wasn't like she feared failure. She just feared her helplessness in a situation she had anticipated. It's the worst thing to happen- when you know something would go wrong, when you see that it is actually happening in front of your eyes, and you're still unable to do anything.

It was an hour past the assigned time. She was getting that horrible feeling in her stomach and looked around to see if there was anybody who felt the same panic that had now taken her over completely. She saw only one face that had a trace of fear on it. It was her father. She preferred to look away from him though.

It was one of her impulses after another 15 minutes which changed her life forever. In a moment of lull inside her head, she gently placed the bouquet of flowers on the chair beside her and lifted her dress to the height of her knees and walked out of the chapel, with everyone staring after her. She didn't care. She wasn't unused to people staring at her with shock or surprise. She walked steadily and did not look back. She went straight to her car and opened the door, slammed it behind her and started the engine. A split second and a thought, "is this right? Can I undo what I'm doing now?". She wasn't one who'd listen though. Not even to her conscience. She released the clutch and there she was on the road. "Any moment now. We'll be home and nothing would've changed".

His car was approaching the driveway to the Chapel just then. After much deliberation, he decided to give it a chance. So what if he was late? People would understand.

Then, the cars were parallel. She didn't notice him. She was consumed by something he couldn't tell. He could read her like no one, he claimed, but there was something about her then. Her eyes, which deceived him. The determination, the absence of any sort of regret...she looked just the way she did when he first met her at a pub. Unreadable and like no one he'd met before. Indifferent and unaffected. Detached. Her eyes met his. She made no attempt to stop. He had a look of confusion,she noticed. She didn't owe him an explanation, she decided. She only stared at him for a moment and turned away.

She didn't stop. She disappeared into the horizon and never looked back.

Johnny Depp, rainy day, no one else but fries and coke for company...Alice In Wonderland was just amazing! He's one person who reinvents himself every single time and with such perfection! If only people learnt a thing or two from him...

On a different note, Saif Ali Khan as Castle? Still digestible. Kajol as Beckette? WHAT?!

Ekti Taraar Khonje

Lately I’ve been going through the phase of cutting people out of my life for a while. It’s my aversion-to-communication phase. I’m also loving being alone after a long time.
Being the sucker for new experiences that I am, I decided to go for a movie at a multiplex alone today. Doesn’t sound like such a task, does it? Well try it on your own sometime. It’s quite a task. Usually, people attach going for movies with merriment in a group. I personally think, though, that watching movies alone can be fun. So I did what I was planning for a while.
I went to watch “Ekti Taraar Khonje” at Fame today. I never thought I’d be one of those sad people ending up at a movie hall all alone but hey, I wasn’t sad. I could concentrate a lot more on the movie and I loved the fact that I was the independent woman who doesn’t care who’s sitting around her. It just means to me that I’m a lot more secure about myself than most people who insist on having somebody by their side no matter what they’re doing. Whether it’s taking a walk alone or going shopping (although I do believe that sometimes shopping is better when with a friend so that she,preferably,can see what you can’t see).
Coming to the movie now…Ekti Taraar Khonje was just another Bengali movie that made me sad. There’s immense talent in Bengal which is untapped, but there are a dozen standing like a wall against that bunch of talented people and making movies which they think are brilliant, but are crappy to people like me. It’s nice to admire Bergman and it’s different when you’re trying to bring in something abstract in a storyline that just converts it to plain bullshit,rendering it of the flow that it so badly deserves because you’re making a commercial movie, Goddamnit! If you want to make an art movie, make a separate one.
“Ekti Taraar Khonje” as a title itself, to begin with, was far too irrelevant. The once in a while ringing phone of Sayan Munshi only emphasised the title very shadily, with “Twinkle twinkle little star”. Cliched and unacceptable.The opening lines by Sayan Munshi in a narrative style were impressive. It raised my expectations. The storyline turned out to be very typical and tried out. I could feel traces of the flop Hindi movie “Mithya” (starring Ranvir Shorey) making its way into a Bengali overrated storyline. It’s disconnected at many places and makes you walk out of the hall. Not with irritation like that produced by Yuvvraaj or Housefull, but by the mere thought that the movie was a wasted attempt at copying something that goes on to add some unnecessary cream over a spoilt cake. The culmination of the movie was yet another offshoot of an inspiration from Kaminey: the bad guys die and the hero survives to romance his girlfriend.
Tollywood is not without gems. Sayan Munshi delivered a more or less consistent performance with a few moments that made him rise above the movie. He’s a talented actor who doesn’t know how to select his script. Arpita Chatterjee was awful. Why she ever left her “happily married” life to act again is beyond me. She’s only a pretty picture and would’ve added an extra bit to the movie had she been dumb. Dhritimaan Chatterjee is not bad. Sayan Munshi’s city friend is commendable though.
What made me want to pull my hair and scream out loud in the hall though was the advertisements. The silly bits added into the script merely for the promotion of Senco Gold and Kaya Skin Clinic. Silly and totally uninspiring. The music is passable. Shaan sings a couple of melodies which sound fresh but some of the songs are very badly timed, adding to the mess that the movie already is.
All in all, a successful attempt at sitting alone in a hall and feeling exhilarated, but a bad movie as a first. I was disappointed in my lookout for a star.