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My trip to Lonavala-Pune has exhausted me. I couldn’t rest after I returned to Hyderabad. Two days of back-to-back work, missed a night’s sleep due to tooth pain, and pushed my exercise limits in the last two days.

My body is finally recovering today - slept 8.5 hours last night and 2.5 hours before I started writing this newsletter (it’s 2:16 pm now) - and I spent most of my time watching shows or sleeping.

Anyway, it made me realize I have been watching a lot of shows parallelly. I will talk about them in a bit - after we say hello to our sponsors:

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Kill

I watched Kill last night. I’ll be honest. I followed Bollywood like crazy between 2004-2013ish. Then they stopped making good movies.

It’s kinda sad Bwood hardly makes good movies now. But every now and then, films like Laapata Ladies, Shaitaan, and Sam Bahadur drop, restoring my faith in the industry.

Kill is one of those films.

PLOT ALERT: It’s a story of how an NSG Commando handles a train attack with his colleague cum friend - when his girlfriend, her family, and several passengers are under attack.

I have massive respect for the armed forces, and I absolutely hate it when films don’t represent soldiers fairly.

Especially when the hero’s friend is portrayed as a comedy character whose only role is to show the hero as a superior, strong, intelligent person. I mean, he is also a soldier with the same level of training but is hardly treated the same. Weird.

The best part about Kill is they’ve shown both the commandos as equally skilled comrades - and Abhishek Chauhan was definitely not playing second fiddle.

85% of the movie is all action - AND GOOD ACTION - if you’re into this genre, you shouldn’t miss Kill.

35

Sreekar took me to this Telugu movie, 35.

I wanted to go to another movie, but he insisted this was even better - turns out it was a beautiful film.

The plot is simple, but its execution is near perfect. It’s the story of a lower-middle-class Telugu family in Tirupati.

It is about how this kid has difficulty understanding math at school. It’s not that he is not academically intelligent, but he just can’t remember formulas blindly without understanding the fundamentals.

He gets demoted for not performing, suspended for mischief, and looked down upon for asking too many questions out of curiosity. How he figures his way around math is beautiful - and the entire movie setting is cute and close to reality.

I don’t want you to miss 35 when it’s on OTT.

Mad Men

Umm, What do I tell you about Mad Men?

I have been told it’s a crazy show on advertising around this character called Don Draper. I haven’t been more excited for show but the show didn’t reveal what I was looking for yet.

I was expecting lots of scenes around advertising, but the story so far is majorly revolving around the characters’ personal lives.

Think of Suits. The show revolves around the characters like Harvey, Mike, Donna, Louis, Jessica, etc., but it’s always centred around a legal case.

Or even take The Good Doctor. The show explores Dr. Shaun Murphy’s character around the medical cases and surgeries.

I was expecting the same with Mad Men - to explore Don Draper’s character around many advertising gigs.

I even tweeted this:

+ I got responses like:

I know Rahul; he is a smart guy. So I will be a little more patient with Mad Men. It’s not a bad show at all; it was just something I wasn’t looking for.

The Good Doctor

I have also started The Good Doctor. It’s fast, light, and fun. It’s bingeworthy, and I am doing exactly that.

A friend said her friends said it gets boring and repetitive after some time. But she is in the third season, and she’s enjoying the show so far. I will stop whenever she tells me to (I am talking about Urvashi, btw)

Until then, it’s a show everyone must watch - at least one season to explore Dr Shaun Murphy’s character.

I am also watching Hajime No Ippo and Dragon Ball. But it’s too early to speak of these Anime. I might write dedicated issues about them, we never know. But not today.

I remember I promised to share about my trip, but I wasn’t in the mood to write about it. I will do that soon. Meanwhile, I am dropping a few pictures I tweeted:

That’s all I have for this week. If you love reading Vikra’s Café, the best way to support me is by:

• Visiting and checking out the sponsors

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I will see you next Sunday. Write to me if you’ve interesting things going on in life. I am all in for gossip.

Love,
Vikra.