iREVIEW: Talaash (Hindi, 2012)

Starring Aamir Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Kareena Kapoor.  Written by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti. Directed by Reema Kagti.

After Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par, 3 Idiots and Satyameva Jayate, Aamir Khan has been associated with ventures nothing short of path breaking, both from artistic and commercial point of views.  Inevitably, expectations from Talaash are anything but low.  I saw the film after reading a plethora of praising reviews and they took their toll. I was sincerely biased in favor of the film.

And even though the film is much better than some of the recent debacles, I was sorely disappointed.  The film is basically a bi-layered deal, on the top it is a nail-biting investigation following an inexplicable car crash but somewhere the film coaxes us to believe that there's something more, much intense and mysterious than the accident, buried in the life of Aamir and Rani's shattered coupling.

The first half of the film succeeds in holding our attention because we really didn't have any clue what it was all about! It was, in its truest sense, a mystery.  But before we could even get bored and hope that the demystification shall begin soon, we are given some clues as to where the film might progress and we pray that it isn't what we think it is!  I mean, after all, Aamir is in it, right? How could it go wrong?

It does.  And it hurt my feelings.  The film goes horribly trite turning into a monstrosity of boredom.  Barring the few emotionally ripe sequences, the film has little to offer.  The only, one and only, salvaging aspect is the lead performances - of Aamir's, Rani's and Kareena's.

With a sharp first half, hiking our expectations, second half betrayed us like an ex-girlfriend does for dimes.

Essay: Abortion and Women Rights

Few good people have tried to take the problem of female feticide head on but even they don’t seem to be bothered by intentional killing of female fetuses and female-biased abortions so abound in developing nations like India and the subcontinent.  The question and the answer are simple, but they probably have recognized the solution to be very difficult.

People who condemn abortion and contraceptive means on the grounds that such acts help proliferate dangerously low female to male ratio are either ignorant or charlatans.   The fact is that the social stratosphere in such countries is immensely warped against women.  The classic and the traditional norm support women suppression in all walks of life including teen years, schooling, working and housekeeping.  They are the one who render women useless and they are the one who view women as stones of burden.  Life is full of paradoxes, this one happens to hit half of humanity. 

There is something direly wrong with a society in which a parent may find drowning their newborn girl easier than raising her up.  It is not only a psychological theory but a biological conclusion that death of a child is the most unnatural occurrence and hence deepest tragedy for a parent.  Raising a female child has to be worse than this atrocity for a parent to commit such heinous act. 

Naturally if we keep the anti-women sentimentality as a constant and relieve all anti-abortion laws, this will surely result in hike in female-biased abortions.  And once again the society will live with a warped view of reality.  Social revolution cannot take place one step at a time.  It is one of the very few phenomena that don’t work this way.  Simply legalizing abortions will not contribute to the problem of female-biased abortion.  In fact, it will aggravate it.

But if a girl has freedom to go to any school, attend any college, get any job, earn for her family, she is then not a burden but a dignified member of a family.  Revocation of all the traditions that inhibit a female’s freedom and plunge her under dependencies is the first step towards an equal and female-biased abortion-free society. 

Infringement of freedom has many faces, some even the strictest of moderates may not agree with.  For example, females in developed countries tend to marry at a much later age as compared to those in developing nations solely because they can afford a living.  They are not dependents.  A developed and civilized society encourages every human being to be independent in life and thought process.  A human being can only be independent in entirety when there are no legal commitments.  If we think about it, a commitment is a romanticized term for slavery.  It is then reasonable to say that marriages are a logical conclusion of dependencies when seen from a woman’s viewpoint. 

For earning, independent women, marriage is an onset of her lineage of family.  For uneducated, dependent women, marriage is a transfer of burden.  And for a society that discourages every norm which supports women liberation and independence, their women tend to pose burden for their parents, who in turn encourage early marriages.  Moreover, as a compensation for relieving burden off of their shoulder, parents indulge in dowry which usually takes place via abusive and humiliating chain of events.

Why then parents raise a girl child? Why shouldn't they hope for a boy who can earn for them?  When met with such questions, a parent does what it thinks is best for them and the other children, and also, logically, is best for the child they are about to kill.  A child who has a future of repressions has a better chance with no chance at all.

Freedom has to come from all directions.  Most difficult area to liberate is the area of sexuality.  Sexuality must not be repressed.  Many have called marriages as a mean to live with dignity and have sex at the same time.  For odd reasons, developing nations are strictly anti-sex.  But they are the most populous nations in the world with objectionable number of STD cases and deepest of prostitution nexus. Again, the point is repression creates perversion.  Sexual repression creates sexual perversions.  Clearly something is wrong with a society when a lifelong commitment is the only answer to sex.  

Such dark imagery needs to be banished.  It is incumbent on the government to pass radical laws encouraging complete freedom for women from all dependencies including sexuality.  This will shock many parts of the society but this is the time to electrocute them out of their miseries. 

Government must not provide any special subsidies for married couple.  Every couple, unmarried or married, with children must have equal benefits.  Married couples with no children deserve no special tax exemptions.  A parent’s responsibility should be towards their children and not towards one another.  Instead of giving special privileges to married couple, government should encourage live-in relationships.  It can do so by helping couples find accommodation in “broad-minded” localities, protecting threatened couples by providing police security or even relocating them to an undisclosed foreign location.   Media should actively take part in harassing bodies of people who advocate anti-women customs and traditions. 

Women rights issue has often been viewed as much smaller segment of social revolution than it actually is.  Fight against women repression is fight against majority of the social backwardness and oppression.  If fought with rigor, I firmly believe we will peel away social evils such as caste system and religion bias, one layer at a time.  But we can’t peel a middle layer and then ponder why the whole system collapsed on top of each other.  That’s why we can’t simply legalize abortion and hope that the newly warped freedom assigned to women will help solve the whole tree of problems. We have to start peeling out each and every layer of oppression in the society.  It will end with the end of religion and marriage.  

iREVIEW: Sinister

Starring Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Clare Foley and Michael Hall D'Addario. Written by C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson. Directed by Scott Derrickson. 

Haunted house genre is so trite in its horror parent, I wonder if there is room for something fresh in this lane. A happy family is lured into a house with unreasonably low closing price and then finds themselves chased around by folks from beyond.  Think of all the haunted house movies and I am sure you'll be able to place them all in the aforementioned typecast.

In that sense, Sinister is no different.  Yes, the whole beginning and the reason to move into a new house is atypical and very specific to the lead character's motif but still it boils down to nothing unique.

However, before it is too late, I must add Sinister is a decent film.  It wins in the field of spookiness and for most of us, that's what counts in a horror film. If it can scare you, it's good. For these people, Sinister is a must watch!

Ellison Oswalt, a crime writer who gained unprecedented fame after his first book "Kentucky Blood", moves into a house with "dark" history in an effort to write the next big thing.  Of course, the wife and the kids have had their share of undesired locations but little do they know this time they are on top of a homicidal scene.  From this point on, Sinister trudges down a rather known path but thanks to its creative back story, the film weaves in some really spooky moments.   And that's where it wins.

There is a constant feeling of horrifying claustrophobia as we don't see much of the outside world other than in the grainy 8 mm film reels which Oswalt mysteriously found in the attic   If it was intentional, it is a cunning attempt at horror genre. On one hand, we have a haunted house revealing its macabre and on the other hand, we have these reels with sinister endings as our only gateway to the outside world.  As film progresses and Oswalt tries to cope with the supernatural, the world seems to be closing in on us, choking us with horror.

I believe because Sinister is so sinister at its core that we, the audience, can't absorb it at one point as we are left horrified, scared and sick. And to hide that, we shrug away the film as implausible.

iREVIEW: Up

Starring Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai and Bob Peterson. Written by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter. Directed by Pete Docter. 

Some films defy norms. It's almost impossible to believe that an animated film with its trademarked "unreal" colors and shenanigans could evoke vivider emotions than a "real" film. Up is no less than a work of genius. 

We have heard time and again about macho men who held onto their conviction till the last breath but  seldom come across a man on mission who changes vision and goals as much as we do.  Up is as humane as a film could get. 

Up is about a young child Carl Fredricksen, enamored with explorations and global trekking but his timidness keeps the passion hidden.  But then he finds a girl who is as raw and adventurous as he always wanted to be.  They become best of friends and before we know it, they tie the knot and live happily forever... until Carl's wife dies and he realizes,  entangled in trials and tribulations of worldly life, they forgot to fulfill their mutual dream of living at the Paradise falls. 

And that's where the magic of Up comes in. Till this point animation seems quite pointless.  If this was a "real" film, Carl would be rubbing sole of his shoes at banks and real estate agencies trying to make the dream reality but in this case he simply flies away towards Paradise Island in his house, tied to hundreds of helium balloons. 

He can do this because the point of the story is taking us at a heartbeat distance of Carl's dream before revealing the human out of him.  To the paradise fall, Carl tags along the adventurous, tubby little kid, Ellie, who some would say is what Carl was on the inside when he was that young.

But just when we start to believe that the characters would lessen in layers and succumb to the cracking plot, we are taken aback by the story of it all. Without spoiling much, I can say the film makes us realize that big dreams and lifelong obsessions sugarcoated as ambitions and sacred goals all lose meaning when we fail to act with compassion towards everything, even as little as a bird. 

Up has exceptional animation, great plot, witty dialogues and vivid characters, but it has something more, something which takes us beyond entertainment and forces us to do that we have long given up on doing... introspect! 

Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): From Submission to Approval

The following are the stages an applicant to receive a result for case type I-821D (consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals) with I-765 (work authorization) for approved cases with no request for evidence (RFE).

[In chronological order]

1. Applicant receives Form I797C - Notice of Action as a receipt for Form I821D - Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and for Form I765 - Application for Employment Authorization with INFO 1, INFO 2 and PAY 2, respectively. 
2. Applicant receives Form I797C - Notice of Action as an ASC* Appointment Notice for I821D and I765 with INFO 3.
3. Applicant appears at ASC and provides fingerprints. Applicant's Form I797C - Notice of Action as an ASC Appointment Notice is stamped with Biometrics Processing Stamp with INFO 4. 
4. Applicant receives Form I797C - Notice of Action as an approval notice for both case I-821D and I-765. 
5. Applicant receives Employment Authorization Document (EAD), a card. 

Glossary: 

INFO 1,2 - Information in addition to that provided by the applicant - Notice date, case type, USCIS Alien Number, receipt number, received date.

PAY 2 - Information about payment received including application/petition fee, biometrics fee, total amount received and total balance due.

INFO 3 - Information about ASC, date and time of appointment.

INFO 4 - Biometrics processing stamp consists of ASC site code, Biometrics QA review by and on:, tenprints QA review by and on:.

*ASC - Application Service Center

Important:

• Many people "walk-in" for fingerprints prior to their actual appointment date in hopes of expediting the process.  ASC is not obligated to accept any walk-ins but more often than not applicants have been successful. Whether walk-ins facilitate processing time is open for debate. 
• Online case status is not prompt and in perfect sync with actual events. Applicants are advised to check updates only for a general idea and not a specific stage of their file. 
• Once, USPS has received EAD card, applicants can call USCIS for a tracking number.  Generally, EAD cards are sent via USPS Priority Mail with most deliveries in 2-3 business days (including Saturdays). 

Next step:

For most applicants, deferral is not the end of the story.  Once you have EAD, you can apply for Social Security Card and then for a Driver's license in most states (in that order).  To travel abroad, an applicant MUST apply for Advanced Parole document only after their case has been deferred and pay separate fee expecting 40-70 days processing time in most cases. 

For any question, please feel free to comment. 

Other important links:
DACA: Find your approval date! 
DACA: Frequently Asked Questions

Dussehra: Let's kill the true evil

On the eve of Dussehra, I remember staring up at huge effigies of Ravana (the antagonist in Ramayana) with dewy-eyed awe.  In the black sky, the gaudy drape drenched in yellow paint of jewelry and the big round eyes with fiery intentions would spread an eerie glow in the darkness as if Ravana, lurking over us, had singled me out.  Ah! The adrenaline of the horror.  Ah! The excitement of imminent victory over it!

The next day, the Dussehra, just when my father slumped in relaxation on one of his rare holidays, I, with my sister, would begin pestering him for an annual round of Dussehra viewing.  It simply meant hopping into our new Maruti Zen and going on a morning trip to view all the effigies in the neighborhood, the big ones built in all glory and the amateur ones, a product of local donations, all ready to be obliterated at dusk.  I simply loved it. It was more entertaining than the best film of my favorite star.

The world, the neighborhood and the house, bustled with festive yelps. Even the air was saturated with subtle moisture of sweets and the inevitable celebrations of upcoming Diwali season  (when Rama returns after defeating Ravana).

More than a decade later, on October 24, Indians across the globe once again celebrated the defeat of evil (Ravana) by the paragon of good, Lord Rama.  But things have changed.  No longer do I get excited about Dussehra.   No longer do I feel connected with the celebrations of upcoming Diwali.  Yes, the color is there and so is the sweetness of festive warmth.  But somehow, we have ceased to grow up from our fairytales.

Have we ever pondered that Tulsidas meant to write the greatest epic of good and evil that resides within us and those qualities he bestowed in characters of Rama and Ravana? Maybe Ravana is within us. And so is Rama. But it seems as though our moral weakness has manifested itself in burning pieces of cardboard and gifting the planet with an annual dump of toxic gases. We celebrate as if Ravana is an alien, almost an underworld don being publicly executed.

But I say, let's at least try to kill a Ravana within us. Only then we attempt to rise above the childish acts, float with the good, let the children enjoy the hoopla when we celebrate the true Dussehra! 

iREVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans and Denis Leary. Written by James Vanderbilt et al. Directed by Marc Webb. 

I watched it for Emma Stone.  Here I said it. I saw the superhero flick for the chick in it. After Sam Raimi Spider Man trilogy's eventual slide to mediocrity, the world of spider man had convinced me that it's not for reasonably aged.  Rebooting any film requires at least a decade of fermentation from its last serving, but The Amazing Spider-Man caught all of us unaware by returning in half of that period.

Toby Maguire's cuddly looks and cry-baby melodrama was still fresh and salty when Andrew Garfield stepped into his shoes.  I thought the film wouldn't work, not at the conception level, not at the casting level and not at the release level. I was wrong... to some extent.

This film takes the zest factor a notch higher than before.  The love angle is definitely a sigh of relief.  Peter Parker, in this installment, really stepped up to his guts, understood his responsibilities as much as a high school chap would be expected to and of course had fun with the whole thing.  He realized that Gwen isn't going anywhere and it's not end of the world to focus on bigger things. After watching this film, I am confused with what makes a love angle interesting - it's constant bickering into every scene or a soothing scent in the backdrop.  You probably know what.

My beef with Raimi's series was that Parker really didn't party with his doppelganger.  I mean if we had all those powers at Parker's peppy age, crying in Mary Ann's longing and regurgitating the big time responsibilities that come with being "so cool" would be the last thing on our mind.  Webb's Parker is just like that and that's what made the first half so hip, funny and kinda cool.

But the second half was a letdown.  It was watchable of course but only in the capacity of special effects high dosage dripping all over the screen. I wish the film had given some more time to Peter Parker, his pet peeves and flaws.  We had so much fun exploring and abusing the powers to some extent without caring about hardcore moral philosophy.  That's what people do when they are entitled to such a privilege.  They take some time to evaluate but first they party!

Despite the two plus hour length, I didn't get enough of Parker's metamorphosis into his sassy alter ego - the egoistic, the arrogant and the more confident Peter Parker with powers. Having said that, I am not disappointed in any capacity. This film has definitely brought some much needed spice after the lackluster finale of Raimi's series.  Yes, the film didn't change much as far as the story goes but the characters have been brought to their senses!