Ah, the Fashion Show :)

The Motorola-sponsored Fashion Show (read The Official Motorola V3 launching ceremony) had the lights, colours and the food to keep the otherwise dawdling night rather interesting.

Attractive ladies donning elegant wear, and that is just the audience. The hosts tried tad bit hard. The technical glitches omnipresent. The food queues massive. The presentations and speeches boring.

And then walked on the catwalk the models. Displaying Maheen’s and Imran Qureshi’s collections, they grabbed the spotlight. Literally.

So much was the audience overwhelmed that they were reluctant to visit even the beckoning buffet tables.

Followed the stunningly attractive models on the catwalk and the not-so-attractive buffet was the one-and-only diamond studded pink Motorola V3 which was auctioned off for Rs. 300,000 and presented

The night was finally signed off with a grand live performance by Strings who’s late arrival helped people digest their feastings in the meantime.

All in all, a fascinating night equipped mightily with dazzle and attractiveness and a great performance.

© Faras Ghani 2006

Family, a waste.

Raj Kumar Santoshi shows us glimpses of his imitable talent to assemble a cast of top stars, cobbling up an effete script, shooting on foreign soil and then dishing out generous dollops of tripe.

Shekhar Bhatia is a cook who loves his family dearly, particularly his wayward younger brother Aryan (Aryeman). When Shekhar is not managing his catering business or fending off marriage proposals, he is forever extricating Aryan out of one or the other scrapes. Still, he has the time to fall in love with a charming doctor Kavitha (Bhumika Chawla) and gets married to her.

Tragedy comes calling even before the henna on the bride's hands disappears when Shekhar is killed by crime lord Viren Sahi (Amitabh Bachchan) while out looking for his brother Aryan.

An enraged Aryan wants revenge on Viren Sahi. So, he hatches a plot to kidnap Viren Sahi's entire family so as to draw the thug into the open.

The storytelling is often imbalanced. Santoshi keeps jumping into a beehive of activities. This time he doesn't always emerge with a coherently designed pastiche of anger and catharsis. And though Abbas Ali Moghal's stunts are riveting they lack the electric immediacy of what we have seen before.
Bad music makes this bad movie terrible

© Faras Ghani 2006

Zinda, the review

Neither a rather different story-line nor the charming and skimpily-dressed duo of Celina Jetly and Larra Dutta can save this movie from being branded a waste.

Zinda features Bala (Sanjay Dutt), a software engineer, who is taken without warning and locked up for fourteen years in a cell. He begs and pleads for answers but all he gets is a regular grooming and change-of-clothes session.

Finally set free on the streets of Bangkok, Sanjay, together with a desi cab driver Jennie (Larra Dutta), drives around for clues after realizing his wife Nisha (Celina Jetly) has been murdered while he was locked up.

In his search for the truth and his captives, Bala runs and chases through the claustrophobic streets of Bangkok. When he finally arrives, he uncovers more than what he had bargained for.

Zinda has no group-dances, only background vocals including the Bollywood debut of our very own Strings.

Even though the premise of Zinda is refreshingly different, it's not the type that would appeal to Indian moviegoers.

© Faras Ghani 2006

Hajj. At it again.

Jan 2006: Stampede at Jamarat kills over 360 people and injures over 289. Collapse of Makkah hostel housing pilgrims kills 76.

Feb. 1, 2004: 244 pilgrims killed and a similar number injured, some critically, in a stampede during the devil-stoning ritual.

March 5, 2001: 35 killed in stampede during stoning of the devil ritual in Mina.

April 9, 1998: About 180 pilgrims were trampled to death when panic erupted after several fell off an overpass during the stoning of the devil ritual in Mina.

April 15, 1997: Fires driven by high winds tear through a sprawling, overcrowded tent city at Mina, trapping and killing more than 340 pilgrims and injuring 1,500. Aid workers and diplomats said the death toll was at least 500.

May 23, 1994: 270 pilgrims, most of them Indonesian, killed in stampede in Mecca as worshippers surge toward cavern for symbolic ritual of “stoning the devil.”

July 2, 1990: 1,426 pilgrims, many of them Malaysians, Indonesian and Pakistanis, killed in Mecca stampede in overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites.

July 9, 1989: Two bombs explode in Mecca , killing one pilgrim, wounding 16. Saudi authorities blame Iranian-inspired terrorists and later behead 16 Kuwaiti Shiite Muslims for bombings. Iran denied involvement.

July 31, 1987: 402 people, mostly Iranian pilgrims, killed and 649 wounded in Mecca when security forces clash with Iranian staging illegal anti-U.S. demonstration.

Nov. 20, 1979: About 1,200 Sunni Muslim extremists storm the Grand Mosque in Mecca in what Saudi officials later said was an attempt to kidnap King Khalid and force him to abdicate. Some 75 extremists, including their leader, killed in battle around 38-acre complex. Another 170 captured and many beheaded. Scores of Saudi military personnel were also slain.


Another year. Another disaster. Even with the quota system in place to prevent overcrowding, an increase in the number of pilgrims is witnessed each year. An increase with tragic results; stampedes accounting for over two-and-a-half thousand deaths in the last fifteen years including 650 in the last five.

Stampedes, as it turns out, can be held accountable for majority of the fatalities. It is for that reason that scholars have recommended restricting the number of Hajjs performed by an individual to one, not only to limit the crowd but also give others a chance to perform the pilgrimage. Muslims who have already performed Hajj should donate the cost to those who are dying from starvation, or to help build a school for those who are unable to educate their children.

Suggestions are coming in to expand the time-frame in which the Pebble-Throwing ritual can be performed; from sunrise to very late at night. And instead of performing it themselves, the weak and elderly can delegate someone to perform this ritual on their behalf thus making the process quicker and more efficient. This should limit the tumult that is often witnessed and has resulted in stampede-related casualties.

Saudi officials have already increased security presence this year to prevent accidents and provide assistance, supplied more fire-proof tents to prevent a repeat of the ’97 fires and have food and water stalls readily available.

Given that the majority of pilgrims are from outside Saudi Arabia, it should be the duty of all Muslim nations to fund the organizing of Hajj as well as chalking out a definite plan to combat stampedes and accidents.

Scholars in every country should talk to the pilgrims and join them in their pilgrimage, if possible, so as to teach them the importance of gentleness and serenity throughout these blessed days which would avoid a repeat of the stampede scenes been witnessed.

Hajj goers each year should go through an orientation process outlining the realities that are present at Hajj – heat exhaustion, trampling, lack of room and space etc. They should be told to look out for one another and various worse-case scenarios should be in constant practice by the authorities.

Better planning, share of ownership from the entire Muslim world, an increase in the available funds, limiting the number of pilgrims and Hajj can be a disaster-free event on the Muslim calendar.

God willing, of course.

© Faras Ghani 2006