December 21, 2007 or 21/12/2007, the release date of Taare Zameen Par, Aamir Khan’s maiden movie as Director. The result, a roaring success. A film liked by critics and audiences around the country and nominated as the Indian entry for the Oscars.

December 25, 2008 or 25/12/2008, the release date of Ghajini, the first time audiences around the world got an opportunity to see a ripped Aamir with copybook 8 pack abs. The result, a roaring success. The film won and was nominated for several filmfare awards.

December 25, 2009 or 25/12/2009, the release date of 3 Idiots, the first time Aamir stars in movie adaptation of a best selling novel. The result, while it might be early days to make such a prediction it can be said for certain that 3 Idiots will certainly be a top-grosser as well as a success at the award ceremonies.

What’s the deal with Aamir and his yearly releases in December ? It appears as if he has some sort of secret pact with Santa Claus and has vowed to spread the Christmas cheer amongst Indian audiences, cause that is certainly what 3 Idiots manages to do.

Loosely based on Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, 3 Idiots is a rip roaring comedy that aims to drive home a point about the Indian education system which encourages rote-learning and high grades rather than learning for the purpose of gaining knowledge and real-life application of concepts. Aamir plays the central role of Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad or Rancho, the natural genius who believes in studying for learning rather than high grades and does it with perfection. There are very few 45 year olds in this world who can gracefully pull off the role of a 20 something character and Aamir is certainly one of them.

The movie displays shades of Munnabhai MBBS given the rivalry between the Dean of the Engineering ( Boman Irani as Viru Sahastrabudhhe aka ViruS) college and Rancho as well as Taare Zameen Par as Aamir yet agains tries to drive home the message of the flawed Indian education system and the pressures that Indian families, especially fathers lay on their sons.

Speaking from personal experience (I too completed my engineering in India and thereafter pursued higher studies abroad) there is no doubt about the fact that the Indian Education system is decades behind the International education system in its form and content, a fact that is driving a large number of bright Indian students to foreign shores. Imagine studying at a top Indian institute and having open-book exams, take home exams or no exams at all (just projects based on research and application of concepts). That’s the kind of school that Aamir or Phunsuk Wangdu (his real name in the movie) builds towards the end of the movie.

All in all, 3 Idiots is an amazing entertainer and is probably a tad too funny for an Aamir Khan movie, given his penchant for embedding impactful social messages in his movies. The message of the movie tends to get slightly lost in the middle of the all the comedy and entertainment. Performances by all the artists are stupendous and the songs are well-placed as well, an art that Aamir seems to have mastered.

So if you haven’t had a dekko of 3 Idiots yet, then you’re certainly missing out on a yet another Aamir Khan classic and some useful lessons for life.

Before you starting reading this review, let me request you to please leave aside all other reviews you may have read, which have criticized this movie. Ghajini is quite an exceptional movie. It’s not your typical romance flick which for some reason gets better reviews by some of the high profile critics. Ghajini is Grippling(Gripping + Thrilling) and keeps you riveted to your seat for the entire duration of the movie.

A live testimonial of the above fact can be gauged from the reactions of the audience. It so happened that twice during the movie (in the second half), when the power went off , the Audience was in utter distress. They could not wait for the movie to start back again, because the plot which was being built up so beautifully had gripped everyone.

The selling point of this movie is not the Eight Pack Abs which Aamir has built. The selling point of the movie is the plot. With a storyline like Ghajini, which revolves around vendetta and revenge, it’s quite easy to loose the plot mid-way, or churn out the same violence filled saga of a romantically savaged lover, seeking to kill the killers of his lover. This however doesn’t happen with Ghajini.

Aamir essays the role of Sanjay Singhania a rich telecom businessman, who suffers from anterograde amnesia. How he goes about reminding himself of his life, his belongings, his friends and his enemies is a treat to watch and experience. The plot moves between the flashback on Sanjay’s life and the present time pretty effortlessly. The high point is that even when you are watching the flashback on Sanjay’s life, his present as someone with a disability remains on your mind.The comedy routines essayed during the flashback are also quite pleasing and keep the movie light and romantic for most of the first half. However the songs were not quite needed and seem out of place at most times. The movie could have well been done without the song and dance routines.

Asin Thottumkal plays Kalpana, a bubbly and vivacious model who has a heart of gold. She is ever so keen to help people in distress, the disabled, the blind. She keeps the movie light and chirpy with her screen presence. Jiah Khan plays Sunita and a curious medical student who gets behind Sanjay’s life as part of her study project. There isn’t too much to write about her character per se.

Seldom does one find a movie whose title is on the name of the villain in the movie. To my mind I can’t remember seeing any such movie in all my life. However there is a reason to this, which centers around the fact that the hero of the movie has to continuously remember the villain, and remind himself that he needs to seek revenge by killing Ghajini, even when he cannot remember the face of the villian.

The perfectionist in Aamir comes to the fore again, the way he goes about playing a disabled amnesia patient is a treat to watch. Ghajini is a must watch and one of the perfect ways to celebrate Christmas and the end of the year. After all it’s hard to resist an Aamir Khan movie, as he’s probably the most Intelligent person in Indian Cinema.

“10 Ka Dum” or “The Power Of 10” when translated into English. Now wait a minute, is that just a simple translation or is 10 Ka Dum actually a copy of an already existing show which has been successful in other countries. Hmm, it would be great if it were just a translation but unfortunately it’s not.

The famous Bad Boy of Bollywood, Salman Khan lovingly called Sallu Bhai kicks of his debut into Television with the Indianized version of the Drew Carey hosted US show “The Power Of 10“. Ever since the introduction of Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bachchan in the year 2000 a number of bollywood stars have stepped into television. The prominent ones being Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan with KBC, Shah Rukh again with Paanchvi Paas, Govinda with Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke, Anupam Kher/Manisha Koirala with Sawaal Dus Crore Ka and Madhuri Dixit with Shubh Vivah. With the exception of the Big B and SRK most of the other shows failed miserably and were not able to complete even one season. While the shows hosted by Govinda and Anupam Kher were spin-offs of KBC, Shubh Vivah was a unique show designed for the Indian Masses but it was not able to sustain viewer interest.

Unlike KBC and Paanchvi Pass, 10 Ka Dum is not a quiz-based show although Siddhartha Basu owned Synergy Communications is the content producer and organizer for both these shows. 10 Ka Dum is a poll based show, where the contestants have to guess percentage values of questions that have been posed to common people from all over the country. The novelty factor of this show is that the prize money is a whopping Rs.10 crore and one needs to answer just 5 questions to reach there. The first question starts with Rs 10,000 and with each subsequent question the prize money becomes 10 times the previous amount. For Ex, this question was posed to a contestant in the second episode of the show for a prize money of Rs.1 Crore (Rs 10,000,000).

What % of Indian men would let their wives participate in Beauty Pageants ?

The contestant had to give the 10% range in which the answer would be. She had already won Rs 10 Lakh and the right range would win her 1 Crore while the wrong answer would elminate her from the show and she would leave with a prize money of Rs. 1 Lakh. While it may seem that the game-show is all about guessing, it takes a lot of thinking to decide the correct percentage ranges as their are many aspects that one needs to consider. Since India is a diverse, multi-cultural country with people from all backgrounds one needs to be able to decide a value that takes all such factors into consideration to able to give the correct response. Nevertheless the format of the show is quite mounth-watering for the contestants and we might just see a few people win the magical Rs.1 Crore figure, something which has happened only on KBC, 2 times before. Btw the answer to the above question is 51%, which the lady got wrong as her range was 17 – 27 %.

Coming back to the host of the show, Salman is definetly not as good as the Big B or SRK who seems to have learnt the art of hosting shows. Salman doesn’t make the participants feel too comfortable and gets on with things right from the beginning, his fan-base is certainly smaller than that of SRK and the first 2 episodes of his show have opened with him just dance-walking in. The feel of the show is also not that great and is no way close to how SRK’s KBC-3 or Paanchvi Paas.

Sony TV India has a lot of hopes from this show as they expect to retain the audeinces that they managed to grab during the IPL. Star TV on the other hand has not been too successful with Paanchvi Paas, which explains why SRK played with his friends Karan Johar and Rani Mukherjee on the show recently.

So that’s 2 out of the 3 Big Khans on TV for us to watch 3 days a week. It’ll be interesting to see if any channel decides on grabbing up Aamir, who’s one of the most intelligent actors around and could surely come up with an original game-show that would do well.

Before we start with this review we would like to give a super standing ovation to Aamir Khan for making movies which make a difference. In a previous article too (check here) we had highlighted the fact that aamir is one of the very few people in Indian Cinema who shows great responsibility and maturity in the movies that he makes, something which the so called “superstars” shah rukh, salman etc don’t.

Coming back to this movie, it is undoubtedly “the best” movie of the year and even if it doesn’t make as much money as any of the other hits in this year the truth is that money isn’t the only measure of success. A film that can touch your heart, make you cry, play with your emotions and most importantly teach you a life long lesson is far more successful than a top grossing masala movie. In his debut as director aamir once again manages to send out a strong message just like he did with Rang De Basanti and this time it is directed towards the parents who hold in their hands the power to mould the future of the nation.

Taare Zameen Par(TZP) is the story of a 9 year old dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi(brillantly potrayed by Darsheel Safary ). Ishaan studies in class 3 and has a problem with recognizing characters and numbers, as a result of which he never does well in his studies. This disability of his is never understood by his teachers or parents who accuse him of showing lack of interest in his studies. Ishaan is constantly ridiculed by his parents, classmates and teachers as a result of which he becomes highly rebellious. In an attempt to reform him, his parents send him off to boarding school where his state further deteriorates till aamir khan steps in. Well, we won’t tell you the whole story but the movie gets really interesting after this point.

The film starts off in a wacky style with animated credits and the central character is brought to the fore right from the beginning itself. The first half is dedicated completely towards the central character Ishaan and his family and tells the story of how he lands up in boarding school. Tisca chopra as Maya Awasthi and Vipin Sharma as Nand Kishore Awasthi put in good performances as Ishaan’s parents. Aamir uses the first half to highlight the disability of the central character and his state of mind. Being constantly ridiculed by your peers is tough for a person at any age but is crushing for a 9 year old child. Perhaps, aamir over does the first half a little bit as it tends to get a little boring towards the end. A word of caution here for those people who tend to make early judgements, if you walk out after the interval you’ll make the biggest mistake of your life and would do a disservice to the people by giving them your wrong opinion of the movie.

Aamir as an actor comes in only in the second half of the movie and carries it forward from there with great elegance and charisma. Sorry, shahrukh but six pack abs are not essential to make a movie a hit, good acting in a movie with a strong script is what makes a movie experience memorable. The 2^nd half of the movie is the one that actually carries the message of the film. The film depicts how India has for decades had, an imperfect education system where creative freedom and the ability to think differently was punished and rote learning was encouraged. These flaws are slowly being removed with many good schools adopting alternative curriculum for children till the age of 10.

In TMZ Ishaan is a dyslexic child who has problems in reading and writing but has free spirit and a highly creative and innovative mind. Creativity is the seed of innovation and the some of the most successful inventors of all time like edison, einstein, da vinci and many more were dyslexic. So the most important message that the film gives out is that let children be children. Don’t take away their childhood because you want to prepare them for the rat race of life, don’t kill your childs creativity and don’t assume that he is a failure if he doesn’t score a high percentage in exams. Perfection is not the goal, living your life in your way is. Thus, although the movie is all about children it actually carries a strong message for the parents.

Wow, isn’t that a lot of knowledge to get after watching a 3 hour movie. If you’ve reached here then it’s certain that you are gonna catch this flick and if you just jumped here to get our last word, then rest assure that TZP is a must watch. It’s the first movie to get a 5 star rating on DelhiPlanet and will probably be the only one in a long time to come. So head out and catch this flick, it’ll surely touch your heart and transport you back to your childhood days.