Players (Haha) - Review

If you are fond of absurdity, especially of the kind that is endemic to Bollywood, you must watch Players to have what probably is going to be the laugh of the month for you. This is a comic-thriller. That is to say, an intended thriller turned out to be an accidental comedy. 

The Players are an assembly of retards who roam around the world as if their fathers have the authority to issue visas to any country. The places they go to are random and have no geographical or historical or logical connection with each other. Most scenes in the movie have got nothing to do with the others and enjoy a kind of freedom that is beyond what a coherent story could ever offer them. For instance, in a scene Aftab Shivdasani is murdered in the snow of St.Petersberg and in the next one Sonam Kapoor shows the middle finger to a drunken desperado in Sydney, and in the next one, Vinod Khanna, a prisoner, shares his apparent wisdom on the art of theft with the police commissioner in Goa. This is when one realises that Abbas-Mustan have finally given up on even attempting to sound intelligent.

The plot has so many twists, none of which are exciting, that I shall be wasting my time if I write the summary of the movie. The point is that Romania is supposed to get back some gold that they had entrusted Russia with during the second world war, and our players, try to steal it. It is Aftab Shivdasani, who is dead for an unintelligible reason, who suggests Abhishek Bacchan to make this plan. It is Vinod Khanna who designs it. And it is our players, who, forget being the best thieves in the world, don't even look like people who have a clue of acting, execute this plan. 

Then there is the betrayal that comes from Spider, Neil Nitin Mukesh, which is directly copied from the Edward Norton starrer - Italian Job. Basically, this movie is a combination of three things. The Italian Job, Ocean's 12 and relentless absurdity that people like Abbas-Mustan, who, after watching this movie one would believe, have a collective IQ of 100, have topped it up with.

The robbery takes place in the first half.  Second half is when the revenge happens. Bipasha Basu seduces a Russian military general at a place that looks like the Russian counterpart of a dance bar. Neil Nitin Mukesh has hacked into Russian satellites in the past, Sonam Kapoor changes the colour of the signal by wirelessly connecting to it from her laptop while driving a fancy car and trying to look good, and after these and many other things we know what we are up for.

Omi Vaidya is annoying in the movie with his dirge-like voice and non-existent sense of humour. Sonam Kapoor makes many attempts to look good and those attempts are not as big a failure as her attempts at acting. She is dull. Bipasha Basu is hot in the movie and acts; not very well but, at least, acts. Abhishek Bacchan is intolerable for who he is. Neil Nitin Mukesh is the best of the players on screen but standing out in such a crowd is not an achievement at all. Johnny Lever is so annoying and so trite that after looking at him I felt as if the world hasn't changed one bit in the last twenty years.

While watching players, each time when a cacophonous sound sings "Players...Players...aye aye aye...Players" in the background, you know you are up for the next level of retardation in the plot. Players will play a huge role in making the absurdity of the commercial Indian cinema known across both the hemispheres. From Bucharest to Wellington, St. Petersberg to Sydney, and Amsterdam to Auckland must be laughing their balls off at this epitome of retardation made in India.

Yes, as I said, if sensible is not your way of living life or absurdity is one of your fetishes, you must watch this bunch of clueless retards who think of themselves as some of the best players in the world. And they must be, I am sure, only if the game is idiocy. 

Identity

You are the light.
You are the boundless.
You are the madness of a cyclone.
You are the piquance of creation.
You are the horizon of beauty.
You are the fragrance of an arcane flower.
You are the flavour of the creator's taste-bud.
You are the fight in the phoenix.
You are the hope of the deprived.
You are the wildness in every street.
You are the animate.
You are human.


You - do not walk -
Fly!

Puke That Out

It's a shame.

It's a savage insult.
It's an egregious mistake.


So far, so bad.
So what?


Fuck off!

The Beggar

I saw a little boy on the road.

His eyes, sullen and blood-red.

He begged by a signal uttering God's name

pocketing some change and stale bread.

He ran through the vehicles, like

a dexterous snake on prey.

He incurred insults, drenched

in the road-side dust and spit.

Below the flyover lay a ragged man, who

was the boy's father, smoking weed.

He lay in the dirt, dismantled

like a demolished building.

His shawl aged with penury -

a skeleton of his decrepit self.

The signal flashed three lights,

one by one, into his frail eyes, periodically.

He sputtered. And spat at the signal -

an inebriated indifference that bred inside him.

And recited some infernal chants that

rang harmlessly through the stale air in the vehicles.

The boy did a snake still -

that infamous artistic sprint.

Placid, he battled the heartless sun

that watched his childhood being undone.

The world moved ahead

as the signal turned green.

I moved, too, like an impotent spectator

interrogating a transitory superiority, ashamed.

The Crazy Bird

And I followed him -

that odd little flying object

traversing oblique paths in the sky,

in search of something unintelligible

against the winds that blew him away,

against the birds that went the other way.

The crazy bird.

Higher and lower, and

straight and circular,

and almost random - he went

like an animate cyclone in the sky.

Impeded by monstrous branches

of envious trees

Quarantined by the flocks

of the birds he flew with

was the crazy bird.

And as fell the rain -

harsh and fast,

the homeless creature -

stood all aghast.

Marred by foes, and

betrayed by friends,

he flew alone -

battling tough winds

and demonic clouds.

Alone. The crazy bird.

Thirsty, he flew.

Hungry, he grew.

In search for self, and

answers that the sky had

enveloped in many a million voids

that nobody knew of but him.

And he flew -

attacked but survived

murdered but alive.

Alone he flew -

that crazy bird.

He dotted the sun

over a crowded mosque;

attended bhajans

from a temple's edge;

and wept on a church's tall tower

to enshrine himself in god's own den.

Flew he once again,

high and higher,

bustling with desire,

soaring the sky.

Into the frayed ends of day,

and arcane realms of night,

into the voids enclosed by the sky

lingering upon the suspense that grows in them.

High, went he

staging a worldly escape

with his sparkling flight.

And higher he went -

the crazy little thing -

fading into a place, where

the day meets the night

beyond the fringes of the world's shadow,

to a surreal layer of the universe, where

there is no pain and no tomorrow.

Just Another Day

Today is just another day

when she wakes me up

from my disgruntled sleep,

to a series of unanswered whys.

Today is just another day

when with the foam of the toothpaste

I try to spit her out of myself

only to be belittled by the mirror.

Today is just another day

when she seduces me

like a distant memory

into a world wholly undone.

Today is just another day

when I see her sway

to our private tunes

that are trapped within me.

Today is just another day

when through the window

of the car I travel in

I see her on a secluded cloud.

Today is just another day

when I lose myself

in an inescapable void

that looks like her.

Today is just another day

when she crowds my mind

with three and a half years

that make me puke tears on my desk.

Today is just another day

when I find absolutely no escape from her

as she dissolves in me

like a saddening drug.

Today is just another day;

her twenty-third birthday.

Just another day, when

all my rationalism fades

and I long to be with her.