Bollywood – soniasmusings

Y for Sla(YY) Point

Two youngsters in their early twenties, Abhyudaya Mohan and Gautami Kawale are the brains behind one of India’s freshest, finest and funniest channels on YouTube, Slayy Point. These millennials cover topics relevant to the younger generation layered with ample doses of humor. They have a unique style of using social commentary while roasting cringeworthy content. At times, they also put up videos like ‘Getting Trolled By Subscribers’ using self-deprecating humor. The light-hearted comedy balanced with their priceless expressions makes their videos a delight to watch. Most of their content is found in the trending section of YouTube after release.

Abhyuday and Gautami from Slayy Point- Source socialsamosa — Abhyudaya and Gautami from Slayy Point- Source: socialsamosa

They have hosted YouTube fanfest Red Carpet 2019. They have also collaborated with Bollywood celebrities like Rajkummar Rao and cricketers like DJ Bravo as part of their interview series and YouTubers like Captain Nick and Flying Beast for their videos. These talented creators were recently invited for interaction by the YouTube global office in the US. The duo took a step further and uploaded a few ridiculously funny travel vlogs covering their journey and experiences in the states.

This is the twenty-fifth post in the Blogchatter A2Z challenge based on the theme ‘Laugh in the time of Corona’. Stay tuned to know the details of the stand-up comedian getting featured in my last post for Z tomorrow.

You can read all the posts in this series here. It was quite difficult to pick up a single video for today’s post because most of them are pure gold. I hope that this one makes you laugh out loud.

W for Karunesh Tal(W)ar

The primary similarity between the content of stand-up comedian Karunesh Talwar and the Bollywood movie ‘Thappad’ is about making the audience uncomfortable about issues that have been normalized for too long. This cynical writer and comedian believe in choosing humor as a medium to communicate his angst against such happenings while also initiating a conversation around such topics. I discovered Talwar through one of his hard-hitting YouTube videos on women’s safety long back. Back then, he would mostly perform while sitting in one place. It was way different from the usual way of acting out jokes by most of his contemporaries. Over time, the chair has disappeared from the stage but the style of the act in the form of a conversation stays the same. The man with an expressive set of eyes only uses content and voice modulation to get his point across.

Karunesh Talwar - Source: Facebook — Karunesh Talwar – Source: Facebook

During his performance, there are no histrionics on stage, no over-the-top performances and no intention of sugar-coating jokes. He is one of the most sensible, straight-forward and intelligent comedians. He also belongs to the rare group of feminist artists who highlight issues from a woman’s perspective. I identify him as a stand-up humorist who tries to show the mirror to a patriarchal society.

He also cracks jokes about the current political scenario and a few unique topics like the Masterchef show and Bollywood. He made a stellar debut on Amazon Prime with his brilliant stand-up special Pata Nahi Par Bolna Hai’. Talwar’s performance is a classic example of using words as a medium to stir the conscience of its audience while tickling them with humor. Recently, his homemade joke videos on life during quarantine turned out to be a laugh riot.

This is the twenty-third post in the Blogchatter A2Z challenge based on the theme ‘Laugh in the time of Corona’. Stay tuned to know the details of the content creator(s) getting featured in my post for X tomorrow.

You can read all the posts in this series here. Hope this video brings a smile on your face.

Favorite Indian Detectives – Byomkesh Bakshi by Saradindu Bandopadhyay

Who –

Byomkesh Bakshi

Creator –

Saradindu Bandopadhyay

Novels in the series –

Originally written in Bengali, the stories/novels of Byomkesh were published in the form of a collection titled ‘Byomkesh Samagra’ in 1995. Most of these stories have been translated into English recently. The author’s sudden demise left the last story ‘Bishupal Badh’ in the Byomkesh series incomplete.

About the detective –

Byomkesh was introduced to the literary world as a private investigator on a mission to bust a drug racquet in colonial India. He appeared in disguise under the pseudo-name of Atul Chandra Sen in the novel ‘Satyaneshwi’. The plot was set in 1924-25. This is where he is shown to meet his future housemate, friend, and novelist, Ajit who eventually decides to pen down Byomkesh’s cases in the form of stories. This dhoti-kurta clad resident of Harrison road in Kolkata has his man Friday named Putiram and abhors the term private investigator or detective. Instead, he prefers to call himself as Satyanweshi (the one in search of the truth). Byomkesh belongs to that rare breed of detectives in literature who gets married and starts a family. He meets his future wife Satyaboti during one of the investigations where her brother is considered a suspect. Eventually, they get married and have a kid who’s known to the world as Khokha.

The author and his creation — Saradindu Bandopadhyay and his Byomkesh Bakshi

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Movie review – Raid

“Main kisise darta nahi hu. Kisike bhi darwaja khatkhatane ki himmat rakhta hu.” – says IT officer Amay Patnaik in this weeks Bollywood release Raid capturing courage as the underlying essence of his character.

Cast –

Ajay Devgn (Amay Patnaik)
Ileana D’Cruz– (Mailini Patnaik)
Saurabh Shukla – (Rameshwar Singh/Tauji)
Pushpa Singh – (Amma of Rameshwar)

Director – Rajkumar Gupta

Genre – Thriller

Duration – 2hr 08 mins

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Movie Review – PadMan : The journey of normalizing menstrual woes

‘You think I’m mad.

Only mad become famous’

-Says the reel life PadMan during his speech at the United Nations in the movie. This weekend Mrs. Funnybones brought alive the roller coaster life journey of India’s menstrual man Arunachalam Muruganantham on-screen through a courageous and sincere venture called PadMan.

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Movie review – ‘A death in the Gunj’ that highlights the plight of soft and sensitive men

Once in a while we come across movies that leave such a profound effect on the audience that one cannot help but keep thinking about the story and its characters even days after finishing watching it. A death in the Gunj is one such movie that took me a whole week to come out of its magical spell to focus on writing the review instead.

Cast –

Vikrant Massey (Shutu)
Gulshan Devaiah (Nandu)
Tillotama Shome (Bonnie)
Tanuja (Anu/Nandu’s mother)
Om Puri (Nandu’s father)
Kalki Koechlin (Mimi)
Ranvir Shorey (Vikram)
Jim Sarbh (Brian)
Aparna Sen (the voice of Shutu’s mother)

Director – Konkona Sen Sharma

Duration – 2 hrs 46 mins

Genre – Drama

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Movie review – Tiger Zinda Hai – does the tiger growl or couch?

Second last week of the year – the makers of Tiger Zinda Hai (TZH) have decided to give a grand and larger than life farewell to 2017 with a movie that begins with a bang and ends with a boom. First day second show of TZH saw me apprehensive about my decision but what an experience did it turn out to be!

Cast –

Salman Khan (Tiger/Avinash Singh Rathod)
Katrina Kaif (Zoya)
Sajjad Delafrooz (Abu Usman)
Angad Bedi (Namit)
Girish Karnad (Shenoy)
Paresh Rawal (Firdaus)
Kumud Mishra (Rakesh)
Paresh Pahuja (Azan)
Poorna (Anupriya Goenka)

Director – Ali Abbas Zafar

Duration – 2 hrs 40 mins

Genre – Action Thriller

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Movie review – What makes Lipstick Under My Burkha a compelling watch!

“Naam bataiyye”

“Buaji”

“Kiski Buaji? Meri to nahi. Naam kya hai?”

“Usha. Usha Parmar.”

A mid aged Ratna Pathak Shah, who’s referred to as Buaji by almost everyone including people elder than her mumbles as she realizes that in quite a long time this was the first that someone had asked for her name instead of addressing her as just Buaji.

Cast –

Ratna Pathak Shah – Buaji /Usha Parmar
Konkona Sen Sharma – Shireen Aslam
Aahana Kumra – Leela
Plabita Borthakur – Rehana Abidi
Vikrant Massey – Arshad
Sushant Singh – Rahim Aslam
Shashank Arora – Dhruv Bose
Vaibhav Tatwawaadi – Manoj
Jagat Singh Solanki – Jaspal

Direction – Alankrita Shrivastava

Duration – 1hr 59 mins

Genre – Drama /Black comedy

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Movie review Chef – does the dish turn out fine!

During one of the scenes in the movie,a shocked Roshan Kalra on hearing his son Arman feign ignorance about the existence of a dish called chole batura mildly rebukes him saying that being the only son of Kalra from Chandni Chowk, he just can’t afford to ask such questions. That’s the underlying essence of this movie Chef. Based on a Hollywood movie by the same name by Jon Favreau, the hindi movie sticks to the original script with mild tweaks in between to suit the sensibility of Indian audience.

Cast –

Saif Ali Khan (Roshan Kalra)
Padmapriya Janakiraman (Radha Menon)
Svar Kamble (Arman)
Biju (Milind Soman)
Nuzroon (Chandan Roy Sanyal)
Vinnie (Sobhita Dhulipala)

Director – Raja Menon

Duration – 2hrs 11minutes

Genre – Family drama

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Movie review – What makes ‘Newton’ exceptional

There’s a conversation in the beginning of the movie between a senior election instructor (Sanjay Misra) and a government officer kept in reserve for conducting elections (Rao) where in the later asks the former about the way in which he can bring a difference to the world. The former, though amused, tells him that he is too arrogant about his honestly and should instead just do his job right. You take care of your work and the rest of the things will fall in place. Yes that’s how simple it is. In the last quarter of this year, here comes a movie that makes one sit up and be aware of our surroundings in a way that most of the urban population don’t even know about.

Cast –