Life. Freedom. Choices

Human beings are creatures of choice. In life, you always make choices - based on what you "know" at that point in time.

The path you take, will then be constrained by the choice you've made. When you make the choice, you've committed to following that path until you come to yet another fork on the road - another choice. Not taking a particular road is ALSO a choice you make - consciously or unconsciously.

The only possible "freedom" that you could possibly really ask for - is the freedom of choice. After that, you are just a "slave" to your choices. The only real freedom is the freedom to choose what to do next.

And when everyone has that freedom, choices can be conflicting and there may be constraints that you may CHOOSE (again) to live with.

The word "live" here is literal and figurative. Society as a whole - to preserve itself - may make a choice, to limit some choices. Those who hold the key to these special choices, the those who have the power to limit your freedom as a consequence.

So, in a social situation, where you are a part of a bigger whole, the only possible definition of freedom is, in my opinion, the freedom to choose what bounds to be bound by.

And every single "self-help", "improvement" or "philosophy" is eventually just making you aware of your power to choose, or "influencing" your choices.

The only possible way to "be completely free" is to dissociate yourself from the society, do nothing, stop thinking and just vegetate...

All iz wail...

When faced with the opportunity to watch a movie made by someone who has made movies which are fun but sensitive about our society at the same time, and in which one of my favourite actors has the lead role, I would be an Idiot to say no...

However, I did feel like a bit of an Idiot AFTER watching the movie. I went in expecting something much better than what was dished out.

3 Idiots is the story of three would be engineers with different backgrounds and different reasons to get into the premier college of the country. The premise of the movie, while borrowed from five-point-someone, is still wonderful enough to incorporate the director's take on a lot of problems plaguing our education system. And the setting is flexible enough to do this in a manner which is funny but respectably so.

However, the script and the screenplay leaves a lot to be desired. The movie starts off reasonably well, but very early in the movie the "pencil" joke sets the tone for things to come... That's got to be one of the oldest jokes in the world and not something you'd expect from someone who has given us Munnabhai. As the movie goes on, it has its moments. However, the difference between those other Hirani movies and this one lies in simplicity.

3 Idiots tries to tackle TOO many issues all at once - societal pressure of success, the education system, student anxiety and peer pressure, poverty, and in the process loses the one thing that had been evident in all Hirani's other movies - namely a taut, single-track story line. In the process of trying to do this in an entertaining way, Hirani loses the plot and the movie moves along in jerks. Stereotypes are the mainstay of most movies - they make a character easily identifiable. However, there's a thin line between them working and being insensitive. In more than a few sequences, they border on insensitive. Sequences while individually funny, seem forced, cliched. And in the end, the movie attempts to be simultaneously funny and serious, simultaneously sensitive and frivolous, simultaneously ideal and practical and in the process ends up being neither here, nor there.

When a sidekick (Chatur) ends up being the best character in a movie - you have a problem. He steals the show over the three idiots even though he is supposed to lose in the end, he wins in the acting department. The acting - while competent, is nothing extraordinary. Boman Irani is wonderful but loud in some cases. Rancho was supposed to be the soul of the movie - this ideal student who thinks differently, has fun, has a soul and is a top student as well. He hardly is - in fact this is one of Aamir's weakest performances. Sharman Joshi has had a better outing than Aamir. Everyone else chips in fine.

The movie has its moments. Its genuinely funny in parts and make no mistake, I laughed. However, given a choice I'd rather watch Munnabhai MBBS again, than watch this movie. If I want to watch a medley of funny scenes without taxing my brain, I'd watch a David Dhawan movie.

I'd give it a 3/5 if I am generous and all the credit it gets is for the star-cast and production values, with some for trying hard and for being a little funny. But to be honest, aal iz naat well!

Yanni Voices (Review...)

I first got introduced to Yanni when he performed at the Taj... It was a time when music meant Annu Malik, Nadeem-Shravan and the like, AR Rahman was a novelty... and EVERY song which was not Hindi, was English. There was a lot of hoopla around him performing and I HAD to see what all the fuss was about.

That one hour was, well, interesting. The music was different - there were no lyrics, the music was in layers, and it evoked feelings like no other. Without knowing the technicalities of what I was listening to, I was hooked! I bought the Sony BMG audio tapes of the man's music - the ones that cost ~100 rupees, with those big plastic covers. I bought a walkman because no one else seemed to appreciate the music as much as I did. I devoured as much of Yanni as I could.

Over the years, Yanni's music has evolved. From being piano-centric, it became more orchestrated, as he experimented with sounds, vocals and energy. However, what I loved was that it was instrumental largely. The vocals, if any, were supplementary and didn't take center-stage.

That, has changed with his new Album - Voices. Yanni has collaborated with 4 upcoming artists (Nathan Pacheco, Chloe, Ender Thomas and Leslie Mills), who were told to come up with their own vocal compositions by using Yanni's music as a canvas. The result is a vocal interpretation of the music that I so dearly love. The album starts with Nathan Pacheco's interpretation of "The Tribute", a very opera-like song {understandably - Nathan studied Opera}. The album continues through the moods and ends with Pacheco's rendition based in "Adiago in C Minor", ending with an operatic feel like it started.

On the whole, it comes together very well - especially Chloe's songs (The Keeper being my favourite). It did take some time getting used to hearing voices where they were never expected though. And especially in case of Nathan Pacheco - the voices seem forced (in fact, the songs of "Tribute" don't lend themselves too well to vocal interpretation and Pacheco's voice seems to overpower the myraid layers of music that is in the score").

Overall though, the album is powerful and most of the songs picked have been the ones that you feel were crying out for an interpretation like this. Yanni says that the human voice is the most powerful and emotional means of communuication and on the evidence of this album, I'd largely agree. If you LIKE Yanni's music, you'll like Voices for the most part - do give it a listen.

PS: I hear that the Spanish version of the CD is better and there are a couple of songs in the Voices Tour that Yanni went on... Hopefully I'll get hold of those too.