Sindhi Poem Original

अम्मा ड़ी अम्मा,

अच फुल्को डे। 

बाबा ड़े बाबा, 

अच धड़को डे। 

वे गालाए,

किथे ती वनीं।

हल घुमाये,

किथे वें हली। 

Kaalkoot review

Inspired imitation is the highest form of compliment one can pay to the creator - someone.

This is the modified quote I cooked up to say that Kaalkoot is the compliment paid by the TVF world(Arunabh Kumar, Sumit Saxena, Gopal Dutt) to Anurag Kashyap(AK) universe. To take it even backwards, AK universe originated from Ram Gopal Varma(RGV) universe with the added spices of Indian mythology.

RGV (re?)started the trend of showing realistic violence in Indian cinema - both verbal and physical - as opposed to the typically prevalent artificial violence. While RGV focused on the gangsters of Mumbai and South India, AK & associates branched out and made it more north Indian and more mythological. Gulaal, Paatal Lok, Sacred games and what not.

In parallel we have the growth of TVF - by and for engineering college kids primarily. In TVF world - protagonist and most of the characters are highly likely to be upper caste Hindus - mostly Brahmin or Baniya. And that trend continues in Kaalkoot with Vijay Varma as a Brahmin. He also dons a backpack like a college/coaching student.

That aside, it is definitely worth a watch. I enjoyed all episodes except the last. And as usual for any web series, climax is very hard to get right.

Vijay Varma for me is Irrfan Khan reincarnate. He is the closest in terms of weaving the Irrfan magic. One complaint I had with Irrfan was that he departed too early. Here are my prayers for VV's long life as I don't want to miss what he will be able to conjure up in the next decades.

Some similarities with Paatal Lok are hard to miss. There Hathoda Tyagi's sisters underwent sexual violence and were teased with "Aapne jo taang uthakar di". Here Ravi's sister underwent similar violence and teased with "ek baar bhaiya ne zabardasti li phir usne marzi se di". 

Even the name "Kaalkoot" reminds me of "Chitrakoot" where Hathoda tyhai hailed from. Then there is this song "Hum kya batayein bhaiya kaisi raat Hui" which reminds me of lyrics of "Sheher" from Gulaal - "Aye ek waqt ki baat bataye, Ek waqt ki, Jab sheher hamara so gayo tho, Wo raaj gajab ki".

And then the love interest of Ravi is a female with epilepsy issues who is willing to have sex with him to "get rid of all her fears" while the love interest of Sardar Khan in Wasseypur also had epilepsy and wanted to have sex to cure it.

So I would say Kaalkoot is a crossover between TVF and AK universe - and a good one. Reminds me of another crossover going on in Bollywood right now. For me Luv Ranjan is to Kartik Aaryan what Imtiaz Ali is to Ranbir Kapoor. Recently they switched sides. Imtiaz Ali did Love Aaj Kal with Kartik and Luv Ranjan did Tu Jhoothi main makkar with Ranbir. I didn't watch the former but later was a lot of fun.

Hindi Poem Original

#original

राम भी सो गए, 

माधव कहीं खो गए।  

राधा जो बुन रही,

गीत कहीं गुम गए।  

किन्नर संभावना,

हतप्रभ वीरांगना।  

नित् नित् नृत्यांगना, 

नाचे मोरे आंगना।  

टेढ़ा मेढ़ा आंगना,

फिर भी मोहे नाचना। 

किसको है ढूंढना,

कैसे उसे बूझना। 

कब तक खंगालना,

कैसे निभाहना। 

Ret Samadhi Hangover?

Ret Samadhi(Tomb of sand) won Booker in 2022. It's a story of an Indian woman crossing over to Pakistan for love.

Now in 2023 we see 2 women crossing border(Seema Haider/Anju) for love. Is it only women who have such courage? Or men know that they won't get the similar sympathetic treatment?