Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 281
August 25, 2020
Get ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’
I got my box of author copies delivered today. Yay!
Don’t ask me why it took me so freaking long to order them in the first place (lockdown restrictions). I feel like lining them in my book-shelf and hoarding them all. But I don’t even have any shelf-space left. Story of every book hoarder ever! And why the fuck are nice book shelves so bloody expensive?????
Anyway, add a copy of “Love, Loss, Lockdown” to your shelf. It’s a collection of 10 short stories set against the Covid19 pandemic. I feel like I need to clarify that it is NOT a romantic book. So if you are looking for some mush, skip this one. However, if you are looking for some interesting contemporary stories – GO BUY IT PLEASE. And consider leaving a little review on Amazon/GoodReads after you finish reading it. Means the world to Indie authors like me.
Country specific links to the book (both e-books and paperbacks are available in all the following countries) –
August 24, 2020
Reading ‘A Suitable Boy’ in 2020
When BBC dropped the trailer for its latest mini-series ‘A Suitable Boy’, an adaptation of Vikram Seth’s popular book by the same name, my interest was piqued. A few days later, when a friend learnt I hadn’t read the book, I was upbraided and informed it’s a book worth devouring.
Well, it has taken me exactly 10 days (and nights) to read this magnum opus of sorts, which is spread over a laborious 1500 pages and is set in the 1950s India, when the country was still settling into its newly attained freedom from the clutches of the British Raj. However, most of the plot unfolds in the fictional city of Brahmapur.
The book primarily focuses on three families that are linked to each other through marriage. First we have the Mehras, led by an emotional widowed Mrs Mehra, whose sole purpose in life is to find a ‘suitable boy’ for her younger daughter Lata, after she marries off the older one to a good Kapoor boy. The Kapoor clan is headed by the practical Congressman Mahesh Kappoor, who is vexed by the antics of his free-wheeling younger son Maan. The third family comprises of the Chatterjees, who are seated in Calcutta, an intellectual-poetic lot, who break into impromptu little ditties and talk in riddles.
While the easiest way to describe this book is by calling it a ‘quest’ of an Indian mother to find an apt groom for her daughter, Vikram Seth spares no theme under the sun to fill its pages. And declaring that it is merely a book about groom-hunting would do it gross injustice.
What struck me the most about the first few pages was the way ‘fair complexion’ was given so much importance, and how the central character – Lata, was pitied at for being dusky. It irritated me as a reader, but of-course ‘fair-skin obsession’ is a reality even in the 21st century. And that is what makes ‘A Suitable Boy’ such a delightful read, it takes place almost a century ago, well 70 years ago at least, yet, the themes it explores are so relevant even now. The fixation of Indian parents about finding the ‘right match’ for their children; the rising tensions between Hindus & Muslims; the uncomfortable caste equations that divide communities; the rampant corruption plaguing the political class; lascivious uncles molesting minors; toxic bullying in boarding schools; extramarital affairs and accidental pregnancies; mental health issues that are not taken seriously and what not. Reading this book made me feel like perhaps we are still stuck in the 1950s, just under better technological conditions.
Quite frankly, I couldn’t make myself like Lata much. For an educated nineteen-year-old, she is too emotional and weak-willed; one day she proclaims she ‘never wants to marry’ and the next day she is already head-over-heels in love with the first handsome man who gives her some attention. For someone who is portrayed as shy and intelligent, kissing a man without even bothering to find out what his full name is, seemed too out of character. Perhaps Seth tried to pander to readers and make the novel exciting, even though he had plenty of opportunities to do so throughout the course of the book and yet he chose to be rather austere & discreet in his descriptions of the love affairs of the other protagonists.
It looks like Seth deliberately played it safe with his novel and didn’t venture into anything that could be branded scandalous. The book came out in the early 1990s, after all. Despite striving to be conservative in his narrative, there is a lot of subtle hinting that Maan Kapoor shares more than a platonic friendship with his male ‘best friend’ Firoz. It is implied that the two men had an intimate friendship when they were younger. So there are a few fleeting scenes of homo-eroticism, that might even be missed by most readers. For example, the first such scene in the book was not between Maan and Firoz, but with the Rajkumar of Marh; the prince makes a sly pass at Maan but the latter laughs it off and warmly warns the prince against repeating his action (he strokes Maan’s thigh). But I liked how Maan seems to be very comfortable with his sexuality and is probably pan-sexual. However it’s his heterosexual attraction towards the devastatingly charming Saeeda Bai the singer that reigns supreme in his heart. In-fact, Maan who is intended to be the liveliest character, is indeed the most likable of all the hundreds of people that make their appearances in the book, despite his fatal flaws.
Another character that I liked was that of Haresh Khanna, a prospective candidate for Lata’s hand. While he is almost caricature like, there’s a lot to him that’s so ordinary, that it makes him lovable. He is a hard-working self-made man, who is honest to a fault and overtly optimistic. Lata’s older pompous prick of a brother is vehemently opposed to him as a potential suitor, owing to the superficial fact that he has an Indian accent and is not from a distinguished family. This bit brings me to another facet of the novel- most of the story takes place in the upper echelons of the Indian society. The Chatterjee patriarch is an affluent high-court judge in Calcutta, while the Kapoor head of family is a minister in the cabinet of Purva Pradesh, the fictional state of which Brahmapur is the capital. So there are a lot of fancy parties and interesting nightly jaunts that serve as excellent distractions for the younger players in the book.
Owing to the gargantuan scale of the book, Seth has the luxury of drawing each protagonist in a way that the reader begins to recognize who is who, even if they forget their names. I’ve always had this trouble with Jane Austen novels, where I would have trouble recognizing people, since she always crowds her stories with many individuals. This was not a challenge with Seth’s book. I would sometimes do a double-take at a name but then understand who it was due to the dialogue.
My biggest problem with the book is that it unnecessarily delves into a lot of sub-plots and some of the descriptions are so expansive that they serve no purpose at all and do nothing to further the plot. “For example, if Y is going to the market, Seth takes two pages to describe just the market and the shops, that’s just too much!” I complained to a fellow reader. Seth also goes into too many details of political canvassing in rural areas, which was absolutely boring in my view. I think I must have skipped a total of 100 pages, if not more, throughout the course of reading this book. That’s still less than 10% of the book, but even then, it’s just frustrating to know that a writer took so much effort into writing things that just don’t matter. Seth could have chopped 300/400 pages off this book and it would have probably gained more readers. The kinds who would run the other way by just looking at the book’s size.
It’s Seth’s effortless writing style and the delightful poetry that is peppered throughout the novel that makes ‘A Suitable Boy’ a fun reading experience. A lot of philosophical insights are injected in between, either borrowed from other English masters (and fairly attributed) or from the corners of Seth’s own mind. Sample this –
The girl persisted: ‘Don’t you remember?’
Amit suddenly became voluble. ‘I am so forgetful—’ he said; ‘—and forgettable,’ he added quickly, ‘that I sometimes wonder if I ever existed. Nothing I’ve ever done seems to have happened. . . .’
As a forgetful person myself, I could quite relate to these lines, for if we don’t remember certain things, maybe they never happened at all? Our memory obliterates their existence. I wondered if Seth fashioned the character of Amit Chatterjee, the poet, after himself. But a little reading up revealed that it’s the youngest of the Chatterjees, the 13-year-old Tapan, who was inspired from Seth’s own experiences at a boarding school. In an unexpected little twist, it is revealed that Tapan is the object of obsession of a senior boy, who spares no efforts in harassing him or feeling him up. A fact that he finally confesses to his second brother Dipankar in tears. The affection, proximity and understanding between all sets of siblings in the book is quite endearing.
What is worth mentioning here is the unique relationship shared between each couple that appears in the book. Women are not just mere household fixtures, and in some relationships, it’s the lady of the house that calls the shots. I enjoyed the brief but fiery appearances of Begum Abida Khan who is a MLA in the opposition and constantly tears into her Congress rivals in the Assembly. While there are docile characters who are completely overshadowed or oppressed by their husbands, there are also carefree women on the other side of the spectrum, who refuse to be chained by the ties of matrimony or to one man.
Seth does a lot of brilliant juxtaposing in the novel, on one page you would read about the lively jazz nights in the ‘city of joy’, but after a few pages there would be a religious congregation gone wrong in Brahmapur; young men would be slitting each other’s throats and filling the streets with corpses. At one point, I felt like the writer overdid the religious rioting, even though each one is written in a chilling and gripping manner. How an innocent celebration can turn into bloody carnage is succinctly described. Amid this madness and chaos, all the Mehra matriarch can think of is the matrimonial prospects of her youngest darling Lata.
Despite finding myself skipping pages at points, never did I think of abandoning the book altogether. The narrative kept me hooked. It’s a kind of love-hate relationship that you share with someone you love, they are not going to be interesting all the time, there will be times when you’d desperately need a break from them, they would bore you, irritate you and tire you out, but you would still go back to them and stay with them till the end. Reading Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ was like that.
The End
P.S. If contemporary fiction & short-stories interest you, following are the links to my latest book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
August 23, 2020
Class of ’83 – Best Forgotten
To be honest, I loved the trailer of the new Netflix film ‘Class of ’83’. It was intense, intriguing, with a gripping background score that blended perfectly with the narrative. But like some trailers, the makers packed in all the best bits in the teaser to draw in viewers.
The film is set in the bustling Bombay of the 1980s, when gang-wars were rampant and blood stained the city’s streets. The plot is loosely based on a novel by Hussain Zaidi, a former investigative journalist who is famous for his crime-writing. Actor Bobby Deol plays the role of an honest upright cop, who is punished by the political class for trying to fight the system. He is banished from active duty and is posted as the dean at a police academy in Nashik. In his new role as the dean, he trains five young cops to beat the system and help eliminate all the key players of the Bombay underworld.
This could have been a great crime film, but all of its potential is wasted and the actors are failed by bad writing and poor action direction. The guns go booming several times in the movie, but none of the scenes are shot well. There is not single action sequence that holds your attention or makes you go ‘woah’. The dialogues are unnecessarily heavy and drown the viewer’s interest. It appears that the script-writers were trying too hard to sound witty, so almost every line sounds like terrible attempts at making it to a ‘cool quote’ book. There is no normal banter between anybody. Most dialogues are delivered with a dead-pan face.
Luckily for Bobby Deol, his character is written to be the broody types, so he does his part well. The five actors who play the young firebrand killer cops just don’t have enough back-stories to make their partnership seem genuine. The makers waste time in freeze-frames where nothing is happening and in some useless flashbacks to Deol’s past with his wife. Instead, they could have worked on giving the younger actors more space, for the viewer to be able to connect with their characters.
The climax is just underwhelming and hackneyed. There is an intense gun-fight, well, it should have been intense, but it wasn’t. Just some boring ‘bang-bang-bang’ and the film heads to its conclusion.
Anup Soni, the actor who became a household name by hosting the popular Indian TV ‘Crime Patrol’ does a fair job with the little part he has as the corrupt politician in cahoots with the goonda class. Unfortunately for him, ‘Crime Patrol’ episodes are way more interesting than this film.
August 22, 2020
Storing Story Ideas
I saw an interesting little thread on Twitter yesterday where someone asked writers about what they did if a potential story idea struck them. There were only three responses. All of them were on the lines of “I jot them down in a notebook”.
One of them elaborated a little. “I used to think that just having them in my head was enough, but then I realized I couldn’t recall them later when I really wanted to. So now I write them down in a diary,” was the reply. Or something like that.
I have never written down the random story ideas that strike me out of the blue. Not even the story ideas for the ten short stories that I wrote for my latest book “Love, Loss, Lockdown”. The loose themes/ideas were just in my head and that was enough. Perhaps there wasn’t much chance of me forgetting anything, since the inception and execution of the ideas happened over such a short period. I decided to write a short stories collection loosely themed on the Covid19 pandemic in March 2020 and was done writing and publishing the book by June.
This is not to say that I am against the idea of jotting down potential story plots. A month ago I purchased four notebooks, exclusively for writing down all things related to writing fiction and then selling them. Just all sorts of notes and pointers that might be helpful. The pages are all empty is a different matter. The intent is there. However, just a few days after the notebooks arrived, I read something about how ‘Horror King’ Stephen King allegedly said that one doesn’t need a notebook for their ideas. King apparently believes that if you cannot even remember them, they are probably not worth writing. Makes sense right? Good stories are the ones that stay with you forever, or at least for a long time.
However, there are bound to be many writers who would disagree. Here is the thing – human memory is fickle and disloyal. Sometimes, our brain does forget even the most important things. For example, last week I was supposed to attend an international virtual zoom meet organized by Quora, but completely forgot about it, despite looking forward to it. One cannot imagine the sense of brief regret that filled me when I realized it a full day later.
While it’s true that if a great story idea strikes us out of nowhere, we would remember it if it’s a good one; there is also the very real possibility of us suffering from premature dementia or having such a shitty memory that it just cannot recall things that matter. So, if you are not an undisciplined, lazy idiot like me, you are better off writing those potential plots for your next new novel down.
P.S. If contemporary fiction & short-stories interest you, following are the links to my latest book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
August 20, 2020
Rebecca’s Choice – Review
‘Rebecca’s Choice’, a historical fiction novel set in the late 19th century is written effortlessly and that’s one of the strongest points of the book. The words flow fluidly, so they keep the reader hooked to the pages, even if some of the events unfolding might not be very exciting.
Rebecca is married to Geoffrey, a wealthy businessman who is more passionate about his weather station than his young beautiful wife. The first half of the novel is spent in the domestic life of the leading lady that is disrupted by a few tragedies involving her friends. I really enjoyed reading the brief sub-plot of a doctor suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to his handling of the Cholera epidemic. I wish that sub-plot would have been explored a little more by the author.
The heroine is confronted with the ‘choice’ referred to in the title only in the second half of the book. I had hoped for more conflict in the earlier parts, but there wasn’t much going on, at least not in the protagonist’s own personal life. The second-half is more fun and things pick up steam. Debut author Heidi Gallacher does a great job with bringing the scenes to life with her words, be it a charity ball on the grounds of Tredelerch, the fascinating rail rides or the little picnics by the countryside.
I wouldn’t want to give any spoilers, but towards the climax, Rebecca has to make some tough decisions to secure her future. My only grouse with the climax is that it was too rushed. While my usual complain with novels is that they could have been better off without a few dozen pages, with ‘Rebecca’s Choice’, I feel Gallacher could have added at-least a few more pages to smoothen the ending.
Since historical fiction is a genre I really love, this book was a breezy fun read for me. You can get the book on Amazon.
My rating – 
on 5 stars.
P.S – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories set against the Covid19 pandemic in India, get a copy if it piques your interest. It’s also available for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
August 18, 2020
House At The End of The Street
Netflix needs to hire somebody that can do a better job at classifying genres for their films. When I looked up for ‘horror’ on the site, one of the first few suggestions that came up was ‘House At The End of the Street’ starring Jennifer Lawrence. Assuming it was a horror film, I started to watch it.
In the very first few minutes, the direction seems sketchy and annoying. A seemingly possessed/deranged girl murders her parents and escapes. Months after the brutal double murder, a teen girl and her mom move in to the same neighborhood. What follows is a weird tale of how the teenager befriends her asocial neighbor, a college-going boy called Ryan, who was not at the crime scene when his sister killed their parents. However, Ryan has his own dark secrets. The ‘horror’ bit is about how locals believe that his psycho sister still lives in the woods.
Jennifer Lawrence was 22-years-old when this film came out, but looks the part of the teen she is supposed to play, almost baby-like. However, there’s not much to her character. She is a reclusive teen who according to her doctor mother – “likes to play savior & picks the most damaged kid, so that she can fix them”. The damaged kid here is Ryan, the boy everybody has ostracized due to the murders.
I cannot recall one good scene from the film, everything is just so forgettable. Even the acting by most of the cast is pretty flat, nothing impressive. The movie is slow and has several unnecessary scenes. While there is a pretty good twist at the end, the rest of the film is so irritating, that it doesn’t even mater.
I think I was majorly disappointed because I was expecting a horror film and instead got a mediocre thriller on my hands. If the makers deliberately bracketed this film in the ‘horror’ genre, it makes it even worse, because it’s absolutely misleading for horror fans. Very early on the movie, the viewer can establish that this is just a thriller, a bad one at that.
August 16, 2020
Mamma Mia! – Streep Saves It
I just wanted to watch a fun little chick flick to chase away some of those weekday blues earlier this week and the pick for the day was – Mamma Mia! Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, this musical is an out & out chick flick. The kinds you want to watch with your girlfriends and a laugh.
If I hadn’t been a big admirer of Meryl Streep, I highly doubt if I would have enjoyed this film as much as I did. The story is about how 20-year-old Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried) sends out her wedding invitations to three men because one of them could be her father. She feels she would just ‘know’ who her dad is when she meets him in person. So she mails the invites without breathing a word about it to her mother Donna (Streep), who runs a resort on a pretty Greek island.
Soon, we have Donna’s ex-flames Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) arriving by a fancy boat on the eve of Sophie’s wedding and chaos ensues. Since this is a musical, everyone keeps breaking into fun songs by ABBA. All the three possible dads are sweet and I loved the fact that there was no tension or rivalry going on between then. Instead, the men share an easy camaraderie. Meryl Streep is adorable as the overworked single mom who is running a resort by herself and suddenly faced with not one, but three ex-boyfriends at one go. But who is the dad? That’s the mystery.
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The cinematography is gorgeous, everything is picture-perfect and pleasing to the eyes, especially the pristine blue Greek waters. The plot is cute and larger than life. Everybody is sweet, happy and singy-songy. It makes you want to tear up, because you feel like “I want that life!!! I want to own a resort in a beautiful island and do nothing but sing songs on the beach with the love of my life!”.
Despite being a mother-daughter tale at its heart, Seyfried and Streep don’t share too many scenes. The few times the two leading ladies do come together in a frame, they look lovely. The casting guys did a damn good job with their picks. And gosh, Pierce Brosnan still looks so hot, he can still make both men & women weak in their knees. “Pierce Brosnan makes Daniel Craig look like a joke in James Bond,” husband said from the sides while I was watching the film. Agreed.
As far as the pace is concerned, it’s fine, but the story sort of drags towards the second half. While 3/4th of the film is enjoyable, the fun fizzles out as the seconds tick by. “Mamma Mia” is two songs too long. Also, the climax takes ‘happy endings’ too seriously, so we have a very farcical conclusion, which was sort of a bummer. I guess, if it wasn’t for Streep singing and hopping around like a queen, making even ridiculous scenes look genuine & warm, this movie would have been unbearable.
Okay, I am going to go listen to some ABBA songs. You have a fun week ahead!
August 15, 2020
Weekend Book Giveaway
To any book blogger looking at this post – I am giving away my debut fiction book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ for FREE this August 15-16th weekend as a promotional drive. It’s free for all and not just kindle unlimited subscribers. So grab your copy now.
A little about the book – It falls under contemporary fiction and is a collection of 10 short stories, each dealing with a different theme. The only thread binding the tales are that they are loosely set against the Covid19 pandemic.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to new independent authors like me; especially since I do not pay for reviews and rely on organic reader feedback.
Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
FYI – It’s also an Amazon Bestseller.
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August 14, 2020
If I Was Your Girl – Review
A seemingly innocent question on Twitter – “Can anybody recommend me a good fiction book with a trans protagonist” – made me realize that I have never read a novel with a trans person as a central figure.
After I saw the tweet, I decided to google for books with a trans lead and the most popular recommendation seemed to be the young-adult novel called “If I Was Your Girl” by Meredith Russo, a transgender author. Three days later, the paperback arrived at my door.
The story is told in first person by Amanda, who used to be Andrew and has left her mother’s hometown to move in with her estranged father to start a new life in a new school, with her new identity. What struck me in the very first few pages was how the author details the names of the hormonal pills Amanda is taking to help with the male-female transition post her gender surgery. It added a certain authenticity to the book.
Amanda’s story flits between the present and past. We first meet her as an 18-year-old getting ready to change schools and then we keep meeting Andrew in between, a teen trying to grapple with gender identity disorder. Some of these flashbacks are very poignant and deal with bullying, depression & self-harm. The most touching bit was where a six-year-old Andrew writes an essay in school about how he meets his future self, who is a successful woman. The little one is excited to show his story to his parents, to tell them he has been a girl all along and that they have mistaken him for a boy. The flashback is heartbreaking.
Most of the book is about Amanda trying to put her past behind and embracing a normal life. She finds herself attracted to boy called Grant but is scared of getting too close to somebody who isn’t aware of her past. Amanda’s only agenda in the new school is this – survive without being beaten & killed. Luckily for her, a bunch of girls befriend her and in a departure from regular high-school novels, none of them are evil scheming bitches. So we have some interesting side-characters apart from Amanda’s love interest.
What I didn’t like about the book was that Russo uses some done to death tropes to add twists in the tale. This could be any teen’s story struggling with identity issues. And Russo herself admits in a note to readers that Amanda had it too easy versus most transgenders. I am not saying that I wanted terrible things to happen to Amanda, but just that, since a lot in the present was going in her favor, the conflict introduced in the end was too contrived & ‘Hollywood-ish’. But that’s perhaps also the strength of this book. Because of its softer approach to male-female journey of a young teen, it would appeal to a lot more readers. It’s got all the ingredients for a hit coming-of-age Hollywood film.
“If I Was Your Girl” works really well as a ‘young adult’ novel and is an absolute page turner. It may not be the sorts that compels you to be awake throughout the night, but it’s definitely worth your attention. And perhaps a great start for someone wanting to read books with trans protagonists.
August 13, 2020
What Makes 6 Million+ ‘Hate’ A Trailer?
Do you remember Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’? The song that got famous for having more dislikes on its YouTube video than likes. It’s a song that a friend of mine uses to terrorist people. There is no doubt that it’s a really bad number, can’t think of any English song that’s worse, at least not right now.
But guess what? Now there is a Bollywood movie trailer that has almost double the number of thumbs down on it than Friday. As of 13th August 2020, Friday has 3.7 million dislikes.
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But an upcoming movie called “Sadak 2” has raked up 6 million + dislikes and I am guessing the number is only going to keep increasing by the day. Some news reports suggest that its trailer video is now the most ‘disliked’ video in YouTube India. So why all the hate surrounding the trailer? Especially when it’s not as spectacularly bad as a lot of other trailers.
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Here’s the thing – right now, there is a lot of hate going around against star kids who made their way into Bollywood due to their sheer connections with people in the industry. This is because of the recent death of a Bollywood star called Sushant Singh Rajput. Most people blame ‘insiders’ in the industry for trying to sideline the actor who was self-made and didn’t come from a Bollywood family. So there is a massive wave of hate against those who are considered products of nepotism. Fans of Sushant Singh Rajput are spearheading smear campaigns against upcoming films that have actors who belong to famous film families.
Unfortunately for ‘Sadak 2’, the entire lead cast is a product of nepotism. All the three lead actors have strong industry connections –
1. Sanjay Dutt is the son of famous veteran actors Sunil Dutt & Nargis.
2. Alia Bhatt is the daughter of famous director Mahesh Bhatt, who is also the director of ‘Sadak 2’.
3. Aditya Roy Kapur is the brother of famous producer Siddharth Roy Kapur.
While the nepotism is strong in this one, it doesn’t help that the trailer was pretty shitty too. If one scrolls down the comments of the video on YouTube, you will see a lot of people urging others to hit the ‘dislike button’ too. So there are folks who might have not even seen it at all and just went on YouTube with the sole purpose of giving it a BIG thumbs-down.
Honestly, I don’t give a damn about who is starring in the film, as long as I like the trailer, I’ll go watch it. So I am going to write about what I thought of the trailer and that doesn’t include any sentiments attached to the choice of cast.
The trailer starts with off with a scene from the 1991 film ‘Sadak’, so there is a flashback to a young Sanjay Dutt driving a taxi and mouthing some dialogue about how love can turn even trash into gold. (How about ‘love can mistake trash for gold’? makes more sense right?)
I haven’t seen ‘Sadak’ which was one of the biggest hits of its time, so I have no idea what the hell is going on. And the trailer doesn’t help explain much either.
Suddenly, there’s Alia Bhatt, who randomly mentions fake babas (spiritual gurus) and drops at Dutt’s shop because she has booked a cab to go meet her boyfriend. If this film is supposed be in the current times, it makes no sense for a young girl to book a cab from an obscure shop over an app based service. Guess the writers are still stuck in the 90s.
Anyway, for a brief 20 seconds, the trailer wasn’t all that bad, Alia & Aditya actually make a good-looking onscreen couple. The little romantic moments between them are cute & cosy.
But the unexplained craziness begins in the second-half. You have a Cleopatra type God-man living in an opulent mansion & making ominous predictions about deaths. He looks more like a millionaire rapper high on drugs, than a ‘godman’ or whatever it is that he is supposed to be –
A bunch of baddies are introduced. Basically there is some danger to Alia and her boyfriend and Dutt the driver decides to help them, for no reason, except that his dead girlfriend/wife will judge him in heaven for not helping a young couple in need. L-O-L.
We are stuck in the 90s? Yes.
Also the acting of both Alia Bhatt and Sanjay Dutt in the second half of the trailer didn’t seem very convincing. Everything is just too random and makes no bloody sense in the second half. I had a frown on my face throughout, wondering ‘what the hell is going on?”.
And that is why I disliked the trailer – it’s random as fuck. But I have seen worse.
(P.S – I originally wrote a version of this post on the Q&A site Quora)
