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Time of the gypsies

Yesterday, I did something that most of you consider normal. I went to see a movie at the theatre, or as some of us still cutely refer to it, the talkies. Going to the movies is something I do very rarely because my weekends are usually spent in a catatonic state or visiting friends. Cinemas don't allow for interaction, and I've also stopped going to movies by myself.

Anyway, thanks to the benevolent goodness of two friends, a lovely couple who are also my self-appointed guardians in Bombay, I shimmied along as the 3rd wheel for the evening show of 2 States. I enjoyed it; both the cinema experience and the movie.

Yes, perhaps the plot moved along rather quickly and conveniently, particularly in the first half of the movie and then lost steam later on. And maybe the worded stereotype jokes were a little stale. But overall, it was worth a watch. Alia Bhatt acted really well and dominated the movie (which she'd have done anyway considering the screen time, but even so) and Arjun Kapoor was believable, even if I felt he didn't really act as well as her. And there were plenty of genuinely hilarious moments overall, so well done them.

But the mind-blowing moment of the movie for me was seeing Revathy. When she sang a song she was originally pictured in with a very young Salman Khan, FYI, it was truly surreal. To realise that the beautiful woman from that song and the genuinely scary movie Raat was now playing a maami with such aplomb... man, I got wistfully nostalgic as hell. Kudos to the sense of humour of whoever thought of Revathy singing her own classic 90s song in this movie.

I suppose it is a bit of a cliche that I, as a Tam guy, am writing about her when there are probably plenty of you who must have got a similar shock on seeing Amrita Singh. I don't really have too many Tam moments in life, considering I've been born and brought up in and around Bombay & Pune. So I genuinely and selfishly enjoyed the Tamil conversational parts of the movie too. I guess some things strike a chord somewhere, so maybe the movie did get something right about cultural connect after all.

Song for the moment: Saathiya, tune kya kiya - SP Balasubramaniyam & Chitra - OST Love (1991)

P.S: From the comments trail in the video, I guess the movie has given a boost to views and listens of this song. Can't say I am not delighted. 

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