Tongue Firmly in Cheek!

Om Shanti Om rocks!

I realize that I need to finish gushing before I can write up about the movie - here goes. Hats off to Farah Khan for lighting up my Diwali with a pataka of a film, the explosion of which will resonate for a long time to come. Hats off to the King Khan for backing up Farah and fulfilling her every demand as a producer, the movie is as lavish as it can get. And I'm in love all over again...Deepika Padukone looked ethereal in the movie and I cant wait to see more of her. The music is fabulous, the songs are spectacularly mounted, the camera work is flawless, the sets are fantabulous, the dialogues are apt and the acting topnotch.

Alright, gushing apart and out of the way, Farah Khan, who showed us how all the cliches in Bollywood can be used to create an endearing effect, how the old movies can be revamped to brilliant effect, how the over the top scenes of yore can be used to evoke humor...quite a master of the spoof, she proved herself to be. With Om Shanti Om, she takes the spoof genre to an altogether different level, much higher than anyone can hope to take it in a long time to come and much better than anyone has done in the recent past. All the references to the movies and movie stars of the time when they grew up are so ingeniously thought of and so well executed, you find yourself laughing your guts out and wishing we could get to see some more of those old melodramas from the Manmohan Desai era. The entire film industry makes an appearance in the movie...half of them appear in the special number and the other half during the superbly conceptualized Filmfare Awards function. The awards nite is a riot and Akshay Kumar will walk away with all the plaudits for that one (and he should really ask Farah to make Return of the Khiladi with him). Abhishek Bachchan is there too and so are a lot of other people who show that Bollywood is beyond petty issues, evident in the way all of the stars sportingly spoof their own movies.

Standout sequences include all of Shahrukh's scenes as a junior artist (dacoit, Quick Gun Murugan etc), all of his scenes as a superstar (Apahich pyaar, Mohabbat Man), all of his dream scenes...King Khan had loads of fun while doing the movie and it shows. Deepika does not have much to do except look pretty and that she does to stunning effect, my jaw kept dropping so often, anymore and I would have moved around with an open mouth for the rest of my life. Kiron Kher is tailor made for the role she plays in the movie, the over the top, has been junior artiste who thinks she should have played Anarkali must have been written with her in mind. Shahrukh's line in the movie describes her the best when he calls her 'meri filmy maa'. Shreyas Talpade is good and Arjun Rampal rocks as Mukesh and later Mike!

All in all, King Khan will rule yet another Diwali. If it was Don last year, it is Om Shanti Om this year. With the kind of feedback Saawariya is getting, it is obvious that Shahrukh will not eat his words - "Diwali is all his".

PS: As KK says, don't be in any sort of hurry to see the movie, it is going to be around for ages, so catch it at leisure. And have to include one of his gems, according to him Deepika Padukone played a sensuous ghost (deyyanni chooste bhayam veyyadam maanesi mood ostondi raaaaaa - exact words).