Monthly Archives: April 2020

Review: The Family Man

Stories about secret agents have become a favourite topic over the years in Hindi content. This has been seen in films like Ek Tha Tiger, Agent Vinod, Madras Cafe, Baby, Phantom, RAW, etc. The idea has been explored in the web-series space as well in the recent works like Bard Of Blood, Special OPS, etc.

But director duo Raj and DK’s The Family Man, which is on Prime Video, is not just another secret agent saga because it throws equal light on a secret agent’s private life which gets heavily influenced by his professional life.

So, we have Srikant Tiwari (Manoj Bajpayee) who is a secret intelligence agent working for a team called T.A.S.C in Mumbai. He has solved plenty of terror cases with his colleague and best friend JK Talpade (Sharib Hashmi). Zoya (Shreya Dhanwantary) enters their team as an intern. Their team receives flak from their seniors when they are unable to stop a scooter bomb blast at Kala Ghoda.

After some investigation, they get to know of three gaming engineers who are linked with the deadly terror group ISIS. At the same time, Moosa (Neeraj Madhav), a Keralite who had gone to ISIS after being brainwashed, gets caught when he was about to enter his home state. He tries to flee along with his two team members but is caught and badly injured. He is admitted in a hospital where he says he hasn’t killed anyone. Moosa regrets joining the ISIS and is eager to reunite with his mother.

Inside his house, Srikant is like a normal middle-class man. His family, which consists of his wife Suchitra (Priyamani) and two kids, are completely unaware about Srikant’s actual profession. They feel he is into desk work which only involves working with files. Suchitra is not happy with Sri since he is rarely at home and she is forced to look after the kids alone. The kids are also not happy with their father for not being able to give them a better life.

The aforementioned two tracks appear as different as chalk and cheese. But the intelligent screenplay merges the two diverse tracks as naturally as possible. This area wasn’t handled as naturally in Neeraj Pandey’s series Special OPS. Barring the moment when Srikant’s daughter secretly goes to a party, nowhere do the two track appear different. Raj and DK’s deft handling while displaying their quirky humour is also always on display.

Despite the home track, The Family Man is more about Srikant’s professional life. The terror angle isn’t run-of-the-mill stuff and there are quite a few surprises in store. They have deeply gone into the working of terror groups. There are creative liberties taken in the cat-and-mouse game between the bad guys and the good guys but the fast pace and entertaining presentation doesn’t let you think much about it.

A major example of this is a long single take chase and action sequence between the T.A.S.C team and a group of three college students.

Moosa The Family Man — Neeraj Madhav as Moosa

The show takes us to places like Kashmir, Syria, PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir), Pakistan, Balochistan, etc. The choice of locations, rich production design and the VFX bring every location alive and gives the series an international feel.

Manoj Bajpayee is one of the finest actors in the country. He is flawless here too. The artiste adapts to different moods and emotions of his character with utmost ease. Sharib Hashmi shows his goodness here as well. These two actors have shown that even people working for the intelligence can be just like any other working employees.

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Neeraj Madhav, as Moosa, comes out as a surprise. He is a phenomenal actor with wide range of skills. The series has a number of other impressive acts from Priyamani, the two kids, Shreya Dhanwantary, Darshan Kumar, Shadab Ali, Gul Panaag, Kishore Kumar, Dalip Tahil, Sharad Kelkar and a list of negative characters.

The Family Man mostly succeeds in keeping a fine balance between being light-hearted and serious. But this can’t be said about the last episode where things go dark and gory. The idea of not ending the story to facilitate the second season also appears questionable. There could have been at least some closure.

But these points certainly don’t stop you from waiting for the second season.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Director: Raj and DK

Producers: Amazon Studios and D2R Films

Writers: Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK, Sumar Kumar and Sumit Arora

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Sharib Hashmi, Neeraj Madhav, Shreya Dhanwantary, Priyamani, Darshan Kumar

Number of episodes: 10

Platform: Prime Video

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Post-lockdown things will be very difficult in the education sector, says Atreya Roy

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The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has hit had every business in the entire world, right from large scale to small scale. But the one casualty that is not much talked about is the education sector which is also going through similar crisis. I got in touch regarding this with Atreya Roy, a 24-year-old COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Learn4Exam institute in Delhi.

Education sector post Coronavirus lockdown:

He believes that the education sector has severely been affected and online learning is a not a solution as of now. “Students are very much equipped nowadays. They have internet and devices. Government of India advises various institutes to conduct classes online but it’s not possible for all courses. Like I can’t conduct science practical classes online where I have to test in a laboratory,” he said.

Adding further, Atreya Roy said, “Do I have the required instruments where I can teach maths? If I am teaching maths I need to draw a lot of things. This unprepared-ness was something quite exposed during this crisis. Things have been pretty unprecedented. Nobody knew this was coming. From a very normal life we have gone to complete lockdown where you can’t see your friends for a month and a half.”

Book sellers form an important part in the education sector and their market is also come to a halt abruptly. “People who were into reading only books, they can’t purchase it right now. They are forced to take courses online but a lot of people are not ready to take that. Along with students it also makes the educator’s life difficult. According to me, things are going to be very, very difficult,” he said.

Affects on studies during Covid-19 lockdown:

Atreya Roy also believes that it is important that students use this lockdown phase in doing something productive. “There are two kinds of people. One, which are extending their time to Netflix. There would be another scale of people that would be upsclaing themselves. They will research more. They will network more. One category of people would come very hard at other category of people. People need to understand that if they don’t plan for the next few months, their life will be difficult,” he said.

I have come across various students who haven’t been able to concentrate on their studies in the lockdown despite having all the time in the world. They say that the gloomy and uncertain atmosphere around is not helping them concentrate and making them feel fatigued.

Atreya Roy has a piece of advice for them. “I would just say to take this as a challenge. We all gave our 10th and 12th board exams. During this period the last few months have been very tough for us and we didn’t go out that much. Everyone was busy with preparations. A proper planning and methodology will help you come out with flying colours once the period is over,” he said.

Lay-offs and paycuts due to lockdown:

A major serious crisis that has emerged at the lockdown is that a lot of people have lost their jobs while many others are facing paycuts. Speaking about it, Roy said, “I read somewhere that the way the companies treat their employees right now will help them maintain their brand image for the next 10 years.”

But he also believes that one should consider things from the point of view of business. “The companies in the manufacturing sector are almost stagnant right now because they don’t have sales people going out and selling things. Then it becomes very difficult. Like I don’t have funds incoming, I can’t let funds go outside. In countries like US, almost 15 percent of the workforce has been laid off. India is very lucky in that perspective,” he said.

Further rise in demand for government jobs:

Interestingly, Atreya Roy points out that there will be a much bigger demand of government jobs. “There will be constant pressure from your peers and family to look for jobs which are permanent. And in India permanent job means government jobs. So, their entrance exams are going to be difficult,” he said.

Personal journey:

Roy achieved the feat of being appointed as the COO of Learn4Exam by the director of the company Gurpreet Singh last year when he was just 23 years old. After doing his Engineering in Information and Technology, he became a subject matter expert with e-GMAT and has also taught a wide range of students.

Speaking about Learn4Exam, Roy said, “We provide courses that help you crack the different MBA entrance exams that are been conducted in India presently. We provide everything to our students regarding that. Our company was started three years ago. It has a high success rate. We have 100 students out of which we sure 80 of them get placed in the top four colleges of India.”

Roy further tells us that he was pretty much into mathematics since he was kid. “I used to take free classes. I used to teach students from class six to tenth. I once got exposed on Facebook to CAT preparations group, which had 50 to 60 thousand members. People used to post questions and a set of people used to solve,” he said.

This became the starting point of a journey ahead. “I started solving various doubts that people had in their preparations. This was during my second year of graduation. Then I started teaching in various institutes in Kolkata,” said Roy.

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Forgotten Cricket Moments: The real Lagaan match at Brabourne Stadium

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Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001) remains of the most iconic and exciting films to have come out of not just Hindi but Indian cinema. Even after more than 15 years, the Aamir Khan and Gracy Singh-starrer still gets you in extreme tension when Bhuvan is required to hit a six off the last ball, despite you knowing the climax.

Needless to say, the atmosphere inside the theatre was similar to the one we see in cricket stadiums. So one can only imagine what would have happened when the entire Lagaan team played a real cricket match at the iconic Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.

There is a major chance that you might not be aware of this match because, somehow, it never got publicized. More so for those who have recently turned adults or are in their early 20s.

So, Britannia had organized a match between the Lagaan team versus the team of winners of a contest they had run. Hence, the other team was called simply Britannia. I had also taken part but didn’t win. But that didn’t stop me from watching the match in the stadium.

Surprisingly, you didn’t need to spend a rupee for the tickets. All you needed was to submit four packets of their biscuits in exchange for a ticket. I and a friend went to watch after submitting eight. Well, frankly speaking, we wouldn’t have mind to even pay to see the Lagaan team in action.

Interestingly, the match was played on Christmas, a festival which few years down the line was acquired by Aamir to release his films.

Like the on-screen match, the Lagaan team fielded first. I don’t remember who won the toss but it wouldn’t have been exciting if they had batted first. It was a 25-over match where the boundaries were brought in considerably and understandingly so since none of them were professional players. By the way, the entire Lagaan team played in the same costume they had worn in the film.

But instead of 11, both teams had 13 players. The Lagaan team included Gowariker himself and actor Amin Gazi, who played Tipu in the film, to complete a 13-member side.

Team Britannia was bowled out for 96 inside their stipulated 25 overs. We all thought that this would be a cakewalk for team Lagaan but Britannia bowlers had other plans. Team Lagaan kept losing wickets and at one point were seven down with the team still being some way away from the target.

In the end, it was Gowariker and Aamir who saw the team through by scoring 18 and 19 runs respectively. The entire crowd, including me and my friend, was overjoyed and dancing to the song ‘Mitwa.’

Other interesting bit about this match was the star Indian players like Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Virendra Sehwag switched roles as commentators and umpires. Navjot Singh Sidhu and Maninder Singh were permanent commentators. The commentary played a big role in keeping us entertained.

Aamir Khan Lagaan match — Photo: Tribuneindia.com

But there was another unprecedented excitement after the match. After some great encouragement by my friend, I agreed to climb and jump a wall and land right where the Lagaan team was standing after the match [I still don’t know how he knew the way]. It was a sheer delight to shake hands with few team members, including Aamir. It was also nice to know that he was shorter than me.

But today when I look back at the match after 19 years I wonder if it was staged [read: fixed]. Even if it was, I don’t blame the organizers. Just imagine what a waste it would have been if Lagaan team had lost the match.

Unfortunately, there is no way we can revisit the match to determine that as there is not a single video available. In fact, there are very few news articles as well.

Amitabh Bachchan’s voiceover in the film describes the story as – Yeh kahani itihaas ke panno mein kahin kho gayi [This story has got lost in history].

The same can be said about the real Lagaan match.