Should I watch Saanwariya?

I refuse to spell it the way Sanjay Leela Bhansali did, even though it is his product and he is free to spell it SSanvarriyaa, or S-A-W-R-Y-A, or maybe S-E-W-E-R-A-G-E. For a detailed reasoning, please visit one of my previous posts here, where I did an RoR on the movie.

Anyways, the question is, should I watch Saanwariya after all the criticism I got from the critics and media and blogs? As per my Review on Reviews, a few people enjoyed the movie, whereas a few others said it sucked! Someone said it is a one-time-watch.

I want to watch it because it is an SLB flick, and I have liked all his previous endeavours. The kind of effort he puts in his film-making, the grandeur, the intensity he shows, the way he makes non-actors like Aishwarya Rai act, everything is commendable. All his movies have had some wonderful music too. While some people (especially the lady bloggers I reviewed) liked the blue-black-green ambience throughout the movie, some others complained about SLB having shot the entire movie only at nighttime without lights. I think I'd love the gray (blue+green+black would anyways make gray). Sonam Kapoor's hairless back, unlike her father's, also tempts me to watch it, even though I'd like to skip Ranbeer's towel-sequence.

Now this colleague Vijay Krishna Mishra had a copy of Saanwariya, but he wouldn't share it with me. In fact, he deleted it because he did not like the movie and thinks he would be considered crazy if he tries to download it again. However, on my repeated and genuine requests, and some emotional blackmail 10 minutes ago, he is ready to download it for me, but with a condition: I write a post about it, asking people whether I should watch it or not, and if a single person answers in the affirmative, Vijay will download it for me. His addendum pops up on the IM as I write this post: I should play a fair game and not coerce anyone into saying a yes.

So all of my readers, especially she who wanted to watch it with me, please give me your honest opinion. All those whose answer is negative please consider if they watched a few memorable masterpieces of the last year like "Dhamaal", "Welcome", and "Khoya Khoya Chaand". If you have watched and liked any of these, you are not eligible to say a "No".

Please go ahead and participate in the poll by putting a comment. Please be frank and do not be afraid of Vijay. He is not Vijay Deenanath Chauhan, after all.

PS: The poll shall be open even after he is filled to his heart's content by one positive comment, and the post shall be open for other comments as well.

Whose fault is it anyway?

Two third-standard boys picked up a wire from the ground, tied it around the neck of their classmate and strangled him to death. All over a pencil.

These were the opening lines of an article on the front page of the Bangalore edition of Times of India last Saturday. Apart from the shock, the first thing that crossed my mind was how could this have been averted. Who can be held responsible for this young life coming to an untimely end? Is a human life’s worth less than that of a pencil?

The boys subsequently told the police that they didn’t realize what they were doing.

The boys would have seen this in some movie and had tried to imitate that without having any clue about the consequence of their act. This is similar to children trying out moves out of WWF and TNA shows, and imitating Spiderman and Superman, and even the desi Shaktiman. The inspiration for the act would have been some action sequence the twelve- and the nine-year olds would have seen on TV or a movie. They knew this would hurt, but did not know it could lead to death.

This would have happened at such a normal occasion that none of the school authorities would have paid attention—children do quarrel over small things, but who would have imagined someone getting killed in the process?

Children learn from every incident, every visual, and every sound they encounter, see, and hear. There is no way we can stop any of those. We cannot prevent children from watching TV; banning all forms of violence on screen is not feasible either. Parents cannot, and should not, censor absolutely everything their children watch and talk about. Keeping a check on all forms of tiffs between children is also not possible.

It is not necessary to put someone at fault but there is something that is not right somewhere. Imagine the plight of the three-years elder brother of the 9-year old victim, who went to rescue him seeing him fighting, only to see him collapse to death when they reached home.

Whose fault is it? Is there anything we (read anyone) can do to prevent such losses?