Leaning In and Sheryl Sandberg

Having chanced upon Sheryl Sandberg's book, 'Lean In- Women, Work,  and the Will to Lead 'in New York in June this year, I had found it to be an interesting read. Written in an engaging manner, the book is autobiographical and anecdotal in content. It is a well told saga of a particularly determined young woman who goes after her dreams. It is easy to identify with as it invokes dilemmas  many of us working women have faced in our lives with the perennial conflict between one's roles as a home maker and a professional. Sandberg holds a mirror for all of us who in retrospect realise that we did not 'lean in' enough when the going got tough.  For example my personal example of resigning from the Civil Services to go back to teaching in a university so that I could raise my kids is a case in point. Such choices made at  critical points in our professional trajectories have been subjects of reflection and maybe regret for many of us.

Not that Sandberg did not have to agonise over personal and professional decisions along the way.  She is disarmingly honest when she talks of her doubts and fears, of the many challenges she had to face on her way up. Like finding out that her young daughter travelling with her on a corporate jet is lice-infested or shutting her office door so that she could use a breast pump to send a feed for her infant back home.

But what is striking about her story is that she seems to have had an easy ride in terms of being offered coveted jobs without the required experience. For example her  getting hired by Google and finally Facebook where she has been the COO for the last few years seem strange, considering as she reveals, that Mark Zuckerberg thought she was 'perfect' for the job based on a social meeting and subsequent discussions. Of course a Harvard MBA and a suma cum laud  award would have helped, I am sure but what else went into making her a winner is not terribly clear!

Given this background,  July 2nd saw me with a host of FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO)  members  at the The Oberoi Hotel, to hear  Sandberg in person talking about her  book and life in general.  As I walked into the Ballroom, I saw her surrounded by a gaggle of eager attendees milling around, posing with her and getting their copies of her book signed. The publishers had thoughtfully set up a stall to sell the book at the venue and it was literally flying off the shelves!

She seemed quite comfortable with all the fuss, charming and friendly with everyone.  Clad in an expensive looking  magenta dress with a short plum coloured  shrug, she looked pretty as a picture. Lovely high heeled shoes  and a beautiful matching  watch  completed the ensemble. No wonder the cameras loved her!  I was reminded of a line in her book,  'Manly suits were no longer in fashion, and I neither hid nor emphasised femininity'. It appeared that she was to the manner born!

And then it was time for her to talk to the packed hall. The audience comprised of  women largely, like accomplished ambassadors and diplomats, business women,  corporate executives, the media and a few men. Since it was a FLO event, the office bearers were also on stage with her. The FLO President, Neeta Boochra  in her opening speech, mentioned that her niece Priti Choksi of Facebook who is one of the many examples mentioned by Sandberg in her book as having 'leaned in'  at the right time and made good in life! After which the FLO members got off the stage, the furniture on it was removed and Sandberg was given the stage to walk and talk about her book as the audience waited expectantly.

Maybe, she had been on the move with back to back meetings and commitments, maybe this was not such a priority event for her and maybe she was looking to just go through the motions of  having talked for what followed was a bit of a let down. She began talking and I realised that she was using a teleprompter. She had the remote in her hand and was pretty glib with her anecdotes but she did have a bit of a moment when the teleprompter did not keep pace and she looked pointedly towards the technical side of the hall in mid sentence! What is more, most of what she said that day was straight out of her book. So for many of us who had read it earlier, there was nothing much that was new. Maybe the people who had bought their copies of the book at the event may have had a better take away.

S

Many of us left, feeling slightly short changed. We had expected an extempore straight from the heart  speech from one of the world's so called most powerful women! Maybe it was not her day after all and maybe she had just leaned out  that afternoon!

Bang Bang – an exercise in willing suspension of disbelief

Bang Bang – an exercise in willing suspension of disbelief

Just saw 'Bang Bang' and am stunned at the mindless  and exasperating balderdash dished out by the makers. If I were  the director Sidharth Anand, I would have gone into hiding by now!  How can anyone produce such drivel? And what about the lead pair? Surely personal credibility is something one never throws away.  I for one,  will be chary of any movie starring them in future. There is no saying what they will happily star in for money. There is no other explanation for such A list stars agreeing to be part of such tripe.

The convoluted story of some kingpin criminal played by Danny Dengzongpa  chasing the Kohinoor no less seems far fetched right from the start. Yet it is the once there, once not there plot of the story. It is not clear why the Indian army officer played by Jimmy Shergill visits him in the high security jail in London and why he has been kept in solitary confinement eating pizza, awaiting the death penalty. After a near impossible break in by fellow crooks led by Javed Jaffrey,  the kingpin escapes after killing the self righteous army officer. While escaping from the bombed out prison, Kingpin crook and his second in command chat about stealing the Kohinoor diamond next as though it were a trip to the dry cleaners they were talking about!

But it seems, wishes do turn into horses in Bang Bang as Rajveer aka Jai aka Vicki played by Hrithik arrives with the Kohinoor in his pocket  soon after.  He then runs into a empty headed bank receptionist Harleen played by Katrina. How and when did the Kohinoor heist happen are questions you are not supposed to ask as there are no answers.  The Kohinoor, large in size but hardly glittering, is bandied about as though it were a trinket. Once in a fancy box, next in the hero’s pocket, on the table top or the parapet of the bridge over the river, it keeps making appearances to supposedly tantalise everyone. But no one, including the crooks seem terribly enamoured of it!  Finally,  of course it transpires that it was a fake all along and the real thing is safe and sound in London. No stress.

So with the love interest angle ignited between the lead pair fairly early on, the director alternates his narrative with  the many, many chases between the crooks and the hero. We go bang, bang intermittently with a fair regularity over hill and dale, water and land, sky and under water with the hero bashing up dozens of goons, escaping volleys of bullets as he runs and runs over roof tops, through alleys and streets and even restaurants and islands. In between, he also switches vehicles with utmost ease. Cars, boats, sea planes, race cars, bikes, you name it and he is on it in some sequence or the other.

Locales change effortlessly too, from Shimla in one scene to Greece and Prague in the next. Harleen’s  zipping off to a heavily snowed out Dehradun from Shimla in a jiffy, whenever she feels like it, pretty much sums up the inane trash the movie puts out. Oh, I mustn’t forget the island sequence! There is this island  with a kitted out barbeque station, exotic vegetables being done into shashliks no less by the hero. But  sadly this is a short lived escapade as the crooks arrive to do bang bang and this time we go under water and over water in some outlandish gizmo which is fired like a torpedo as our hero shoots with guns in both hands. At one point, I did think I had strayed into some computer gaming sequence as I watched the fireworks. Or today being Dusshera I thought, a modern Ramlila of sorts with guns instead of arrows. Priceless stuff, I say!

Pretty places, a pretty lead pair, and pretty much nothing else sums up the movie. The story is best ignored as it challenges your good sense.  The stunts are laughable, the lack in continuity between scenes and lame attempts at humour are so annoying that I am sure some people did not take the movie seriously.  So much so that the end of the movie comes as  relief.

So what can I recommend about Bang Bang? Well, Hrithik’s dancing is a treat to watch. But you do not have to suffer a two and half hour long movie for that. His Greek God looks and eight-pack build would probably be geting in the crowds but I am sure they too would have been dismayed at the way the story pans out. The music too does not really measure up to anything much. Katrina’s sexy persona is showcased as  another bait for the viewers but in this case her dancing skills do not quite atone for anything. As for histrionics, they are conspicuous by their absence even though you have the likes of Danny Dengzogpa, Javed Jaffrey, Deepti Naval and Kanwaljeet in miniscule cameos.

All in all, a disappointing film as such under estimation of the audience smacks of  either presumptuousness  or  a complete lack of ability on the part of the makers. I would go with a one and half star out of five.