paan singh tomar

Irrfan Khan on his 10-year long wait for the film and how Paan Singh’s character has shades of his father

Irrfan Khan had to wait 10 years for ‘Paan Singh Tomar’. The actor was told about the idea by Tigmanshu Dhulia when they were working on ‘Haasil’. “Tigmanshu summerised the film in two lines and I was hooked,” says Irrfan who plays the dacoit in the film. Based on a true story, the film tells the tale of a steeplechase champion who turns into a dacoit due to circumstances. With no official records on the national athelete, it took Tigmanshu Dhulia and his team months of travelling and scouring through newspaper clippings to turn Irrfan into the once revered ‘daku’.  In a free-wheeling chat, the actor tells us why he waited for the film and how Paan Singh’s character has shades of his father.

Excerpts from the interview:
What made you wait for 10 years for this script?
It was a long wait because there were no records on the steeplechase champion. When we were shooting for ‘Haasil’, Tigmanshu Dhulia told me a two-liner story. It wasn’t a regular dacoit or an action story; it was the story of a national athlete who became a dacoit. For years, I kept on reasoning about Paan Singh’s transformation and what made him take up arms. I also see shades of my father in him.

Shades of your father? Please elaborate…
My father was the man of the jungle and loved open spaces. When I was shooting for the film, I used to be very overwhelmed while acting out a few scenes. That’s when I realized that Paan Singh was very similar to my father. The way Paan Singh dealt with the situations with dignity reminded me of him. 

Paan Singh had shades of negative and positive in him. How difficult is it to strike a balance so that the pendulum doesn’t swing to one side?
Frankly, there’s no set formula to approach roles. For ‘7 Khoon Maaf’, I was apprehensive as to how to approach the role of poetry sprouting Wasiullah Khan till I found Abida Parveen. For ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, I liked his non-compromising attitude, bravery, courage and simplicity and once, I started relating to the character, everything else was easy. 

There is not much is the archives about Paan Singh. How did you approach the role?
Actually, there are no records about Paan Singh Tomar. Although he was a national athlete, he wasn’t worldly wise. Today’s sportsmen know how to market themselves, Paan Singh Tomar was very naïve. It was very difficult initially to find people who knew him. We went to Milka Singh, who was his contemporary but he wasn’t interested. Slowly, we started getting clues and finally, we found a person who had fought the last battle with him. I like running but steeplechase is too technical and I had to learn it from scratch. I also had to learn Bundeli, the local dialect. The easiest part was picking up the gun as I already knew how to do it. 

desi boyz reviews

Eros International’s Desi Boyz (A) is the story of two friends, Jerry alias Jignesh Patel (Akshay Kumar) and Nick Mathur (John Abraham), who live in London and who are hit hard by recession. Jerry does odd jobs for a living as he is an undergraduate but Nick has a white-collar job. However, both find themselves jobless due to the economic downturn. Jerry has a little, school-going nephew (Master Virej Desai) to look after as the child has lost both his parents. Nick is to marry his girlfriend, Radhika Awasthi (Deepika Padukone), who dreams of a lovely wedding, a great honeymoon and a wonderful house to live in after marriage.

Out of job, Jerry finds it difficult to even pay the school fees of his nephew because of which the government is on the verge of giving the custody of his nephew to a foster family. Nick fears, he won’t be able to fulfil the dreams of his to-be wife. It is to tide over the difficult times that Jerry and Nick turn to the oldest profession in the world. They become male escorts, fulfilling the costume fantasies of girls and ladies. Ironically, Jerry can’t ultimately prevent his nephew from being sent to a foster home; and Nick loses Radhika when she learns of what he has been up to while she is away in India. Frustrated, Nick blames Jerry for forcing him into the profession and asks him to move out of his house and life.

Nick now tries hard to win Radhika back and help comes from the most unlikely source – Radhika’s father (Anupam Kher) who has come to London with her. Meanwhile, Jerry registers in college again to complete his graduation so that he can earn enough money to get his nephew back home. In college, Jerry meets Tanya Sharma (Chitrangada Singh) who used to be his over-sized classmate and is now a hot and a sexy professor in the same college. Sparks fly between Jerry and Tanya.

What happens thereafter? Is Jerry able to pass his examinations and get a degree? Does he get a job? Does Radhika forgive Nick? Or does she settle down with Ajay (Omi Vaidya), a lawyer-friend of hers? And what about Jerry’s nephew – does he unite with Jerry?

Desi Boyz Review: Script Analysis

The story, penned by Rohit Dhawan, is quite fresh as topics such as recession and friendship have not been used the way they have been in this film. Also, the two main male protagonists of the drama turning to the profession of male escorting is a new twist in the tale. Rohit Dhawan’s screenplay is also fresh and moves at a fast pace most of the times. The best part of the screenplay is that it treats the subject of recession, break-up of friendship, heartbreak, and family drama in a light-hearted manner and keeps the audience entertained throughout. Perhaps, the only two places where the screenplay is found wanting are the portions when Nick is trying to woo Radhika back and in the emotional drama of Jerry and his nephew. The track of Nick trying to make up with Radhika gets a bit repetitive till Ajay arrives on the scene (which portion is really interesting).The emotional impact of Jerry and his nephew’s separation and the scenes of the nephew in the foster home should’ve been far more emotional and dramatic. The climax looks a bit incomplete.  However, in spite of these shortcomings, the fact remains that the drama is engaging and entertaining. Comedy evokes laughter at many places. In particular, the track of the owner of the Desi Boyz Club (Sanjay Dutt), the sequences of Ajay and Radhika and then in the court, the sequence of Jignesh’s mother (Bharti Achrekar) and the sequence of the job interview of Jerry after his graduation and how he embarrasses the boss (Satish Kaushik) in the interview are highlights. Dialogues, written Renuka Kunzru, are excellent.

Desi Boyz Review: Star Performances

Akshay Kumar, known for his fantastic sense of comic timing, does remarkably well in the comic role. He is also suitably restrained in the emotional scenes. This film will help him resurrect himself after his recent spate of flops and average grossers. His dances are delightful. John Abraham spring a pleasant surprise with a free-spirited performance. He has improved tremendously in comedy. He is also quite free in dances. Deepika Padukone looks glamorous, exudes sex appeal and acts with effortless ease. Chitrangada Singh is another surprise, having made a confident and smooth transition from art to commercial cinema. She looks sexy and acts well. Sanjay Dutt is a highlight and leaves a mark whenever he comes. The background music which accompanies his arrival is a masterstroke. Omi Vaidya is just too cute and delivers a wonderful performance. Master Virej Desai is lovable. Anupam Kher entertains with a natural performance. His dialogue about getting ambitious is interesting and enjoyable. Mohnish Bahl leaves a mark for his dignified acting. Bharti Achrekar is extraordinary and makes her presence wonderfully felt. Satish Kaushik is very good. Suparna Marwah is nice as the judge.

Desi Boyz Review: Direction & Music

Rohit Dhawan makes a confident debut as director. He knows the art and craft of filmmaking and credit to him for extracting good performances from his cast and also not letting the drama dip in entertainment value. He, however, needs to treat emotional scenes with a little more dexterity. Pritam’s music is a major plus point. All the songs are delightful. The title track is the best number. Subah hone na de, Allah maaf kare andJhak maar ke are also entertaining songs. Let it be appeals in its own way. Lyrics (Kumaar, Irshad Kamil and Amitabh Bhattacharya) go well with the mood of the film. Song picturisations are very eye-filling, thanks to Bosco-Caesar’s choreography. Natarajan Subramanian’s camerawork is splendid. The foreign locations and the actors have all looked beautiful. Sets, erected by Sukant Panigrahi and Helen Jones, are lovely. Production values are rich. Technical aspects are of a high standard.

BLUE WHALES

Blue whales are the largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth. These magnificent marine mammals rule the oceans at up to 100 feet (30 meters) long and upwards of 200 tons (181 metric tons). Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant. Their hearts, as much as an automobile.

Blue whales are baleen whales, which means they have fringed plates of fingernail-like material, called baleen, attached to their upper jaws. The giant animals feed by first gulping an enormous mouthful of water, expanding the pleated skin on their throat and belly to take it in. Then the whale's massive tongue forces the water out through the thin, overlapping baleen plates. Thousands of krill are left behind—and then swallowed.

Blue whales appear blue underwater, but on the surface their coloring is more of blue-gray. Their underbellies take on a yellowish hue from the millions of microorganisms that take up residence in their skin. The blue whale has a broad, flat head and a long, tapered body that ends in wide, triangular flukes.

Blue whales live in all the world's oceans occasionally swimming in small groups but usually alone or in pairs. They often spend summers feeding in polar waters and undertake lengthy migrations towards the Equator as winter arrives.

These graceful swimmers cruise the ocean at more than five miles an hour , but accelerate to more than 20 miles an hour (32 kilometers an hour) when they are agitated. Blue whales are among the loudest animals on the planet. They emit a series of pulses, groans, and moans, and it’s thought that, in good conditions, blue whales can hear each other up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away. Scientists think they use these vocalizations not only to communicate, but, along with their excellent hearing, to sonar-navigate the lightless ocean depths.

Really Big Babies

Blue whale calves enter the world already ranking among the planet's largest creatures. After about a year inside its mother's womb, a baby blue whale emerges weighing up to 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) and stretching to 25 feet (8 meters). It gorges on nothing but mother's milk and gains about 200 pounds (91 kilograms) every day for its first year.

Blue whales are  Earth's longest-lived animals. Scientists have discovered that by counting the layers of a deceased whale's waxlike earplugs, they can get a close estimate of the animal's age. The oldest blue whale found using this method was determined to be around 110 years old. Average lifespan is estimated at around 80 to 90 years.

Between 10,000 and 25,000 blue whales are believed to still swim the world's oceans. Aggressive hunting in the 1900s by whalers seeking whale oil drove them to the brink of extinction.  They finally came under protection with the 1966 International Whaling Commission, but they've managed only a minor recovery since then.

 Blue whales are currently classified as endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List.

New Seven Wonders of the World

New Seven Wonders of the World was a project that attempted to update the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World concept. A popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New7Wonders Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on July 7, 2007 in Lisbon. The New7Wonders Foundation is regulated by the Swiss Federal Foundation Authority as all nationwide-active foundations in Switzerland are.
They claimed that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. Nothing prevented multiple votes, so the poll was considered "decidedly unscientific". According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Utica, New York-based polling organization Zogby International, New7Wonders Foundation drove "the largest poll on record".

The program drew a wide range of official reaction. Some countries touted their finalist and tried to get more votes cast for it (ex india), while others downplayed or criticized the contest. After supporting the New7Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign, by providing advice on nominee selection, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) distanced itself from the undertaking in 2007.
The New7Wonders Foundation, established in 2001, relied on private donations and the sale of broadcast rights and received no public funding or taxpayers' money. After the final announcement, New7Wonders said it didn't earn anything from the exercise and barely recovered its investment.

In 2007 the foundation launched a similar contest, called New7Wonders of Nature, which will be the subject of voting until Nov. 11, 2011.

Demonoid

Demonoid is a website and BitTorrent tracker created by an anonymous Serb known only by the pseudonyms "Deimos" and "Zajson".its basic aim to find illegal sites related to torrent. The website indexes torrents uploaded by its members. Demonoid.com was ranked the 538th most popular website overall in December 2010, according to Alexa. Demonoid's torrent tracker had an estimated three million peers in September 2007. The site had over 252,427 torrents indexed as of May 3, 2009 .

Mumbai Indians beat RCB, win Champions League T20 2011 Cup

Lasith Malinga was the Man of the Series. Most wickets in the tournament and won games with the bat as well.
Malinga: "I am very happy. I am playing with MI as a bowler but a few times I had to get some runs, I am happy with the batting but I want to concentrate on bowling. Good feeling [to get Dilshan]. Have always enjoyed playing with MI."
Harbhajan Singh was declared as the man of the match. which obviously called for a big celebration.
Mumbai Indians. Perennial underperformers in the IPL became the Champions League winners. Couldn't have been more improbable. New captain, half-fit side, part-time misfiring keeper, strike bowler lead with the bat.

Suzuki Hazabusa 1300cc

The Hayabusa is designed with a view to be the fastest accelerating bike on the planet with fantastic wind-cheating ability. Its standout, bulbous, lengthy style is instantly recognisable.
An oversized but shapely mudguard goes upwards into the headlight cluster. The indicators sit flush in the fairing, while the pair of smoothly rounded rearview mirrors work well  at all speeds.

The bike comes with silver-outlined four-pod analogue instruments for the speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge and temperature gauge. A centered LCD displays the bike’s odometre and twin trip readings as well as Suzuki’s Drive Mode Selector, which allows easy switching between three engine maps as can be operated on the fly. On offer are A mode for maximum performance, B for a relatively tame power curve, and C that subdues the Busa to make it as sedate as a Busa can possibly be. The Busa comes with beautifully sculpted, reach-adjustable, buffed alloy clutch and brake levers, comfortable grips and adequate switchgear bolted onto its clip-on bars. The tank area offers firm grip to the rider’s thighs, and the saddle is comfortably padded for both, rider and pillion.

The new Busa’s fuel tank is slightly lower than on the earlier model, while its visor sits 15mm higher, both combining to allow improved wind protection when a rider tucks in. An angular tail fairing section leads into its wide, easily distinguishable-at- night LED double lens taillight and oval turn indicators. Paint quality, fit and finish and overall quality are acceptable.