Y.M.I. Yeh Mera India

The experience of watching "Yeh Mera India" is pretty much akin to reading the morning newspaper over a cup of tea. The format is divided like the sections of the newspaper dealing with issues that affect our lives in some way or another. It also depicts the various sections/ strata of the society we are living in. Yes, it should be aptly titled as "N. Chandra Times". The narrative format is similar to "Life in a Metro", with every character linked.

Without giving away too much about the storyline, simply said Day-1 is an insight into the life in metro, Mumbai and Day-2 is redemption, retrospection and hope. There is everything for everyone and perhaps even more.

In terms of performance, everybody is absolutely spot on. There are some heavy-weights and stalwarts in there managing a great ensemble.

N. Chandra the director - he is the same who made Ankush, Tezaab and Narasimha and for reason unknown had middle-age crisis resulting in the "lesser-talked-the-better" movies in between. With "Yeh Mera India" he roars and conquers what he had lost. A word of advice, RGV's the forte is underworld, Madhur Bhandarkar - its documentary-style narrative. You should do what you are good at and make this type of movies as your genre.

Released with the least possible promotional campaign,"Yeh Mera India" showed the glimpses of its powerful content in the promos itself. And as promised it thankfully delivers a quality product with many thoughtful sequences, questioning the social double standards of our society. In other words, it is the most important movie of 2009 since it talks about some burning issues and forces the viewer to think about his life and the actions he might have taken in the similar situations.

It belongs to the same genre of movies which talk about different inter-connected stories in a collective manner, as seen earlier in "Firaaq", "Mumbai Meri Jaan", "Metro", "Crash" (Eng) and more. The style may seem to be a bit repetitive, but it's the quality of the content which makes the movie appreciable and worth watching. It intelligently starts with a T.V. News highlighting the major incidents occurred during a particular day and then takes you back into a series of flashbacks giving the detailed accounts of each incident individually.

In the initial moments, it may seem to be a deliberate attempt by the director but as the stories develop, you start relating to them easily. The first half builds a clean ground for all the characters interlinked with each other. And as you are well familiar with the plots, it takes you into an explosive second half where every story is fast moving towards its own boiling point. In few words, the post interval proceedings turn the movie into a solid commendable effort by both its writer and the director.

The well written script, surrounding a complex web of relationships, touches almost every important social issue of the current times. It talks about communal hatred among the people, class differences in the society, rich exploiting industrialists, gangster's extortion mafia, Jihaadi Movement in the country, misguided younger generation, mean political leaders, TRP driven channels, Migration problems in the Metros, Muslims Denied Flats in Mumbai, Profit motives of the Hospitals, Medical Negligence by the Doctors and also the Spiritual Heritage of our country.

It may seem impossible to incorporate all the above mentioned plots in one movie alone, but director N. Chandra remarkably performs this tough task and that too with a great conviction and class. He is back in form again roaring like a lion with his own specialized genre of movies based on intense social problems. Chandra brilliantly handles each individual story with an equal importance and makes you feel the pain felt by all his character simultaneously. The hard hitting and impactful execution by the director leaves a solid impact on the viewer as he walks out of the theater.

Not going into details of each storyline, I would like to mention the most beautiful and important sub-plot of the movie involving a doctor, a judge and a victim harmed by the Medical Negligence of his doctor. The story teaches us the art of forgiving in a very pleasing manner. It explains the real meaning of the word empathy and its importance in our gifted short lives. I don't remember any other movie talking about this subject in a more expressive way than "Yeh Mera India". So, among all the other sub-plots, I rate this particular part of the movie as the most impressive and well directed one having the power to stay in your minds for long.

Talking about the performances, you can feel the heart and soul put in by all the actors performing in the movie. Thinking about each story individually you remember every single actor giving one of the best acts of his career including the veterans Anupam Kher, Rajat Kapoor and Seema Biswas. N. Chandra has splendidly extracted worth praising performances from his entire star-cast including the ones playing their minuscule roles. Though there are certain characters that tend to go over the top at times, but still it creates a good overall impact collectivley. The song less movie also gets well supported by its soothing Background Score, fine Cinematography and crisp to the point editing.

Another worth mentioning ace is the use of "Urdu Shayri Couplets" incorporated with a background voice over, after every important incident in the movie. The deep meaning of the few lines spoken at an appropriate time, increase the overall impact of a sequence to many folds. (However the selection of the couplets could be a lot more inspiring.) So, if you love the thought of living together as brothers, if you can feel the importance of the remaining years of your life and if you believe in sharing what you have in your possession, then "Yeh Mera India" will surely make you feel much better. The movie is not only about India alone, but it is about every country existing on the globe facing problems. It talks more about the concept of Universal Brotherhood and the urgency to understand its need in the current times. On merit basis, as it was "Mumbai Meri Jaan" in 2008, there is "Yeh Mera India" in 2009. Just go for it now!

This film explores the life of typical Indians. It shows how one bad day comes and how problems are tackled another day. It shows how we create problems by not taking over the responsibility of our character. N. Chandra has done a great job with character development and handling different characters so beautifully. I was never bored for a moment. Dialogues were great and sensitive issues were handled with great care. Although melodramatic factor seems obvious, but I think truth is stranger than fiction, and in real life, things could seem more melodramatic if we shoot these on cam.

Another story like this was taxi 9211, but this was far better. It touched various issues of human beings and were better handled with logical comments and justification in the end.

I gave it a 9, because I think the movie could have been a little shorter. There was some extra time spent on scene elaboration. However, it was a great movie. Maybe, it won't do much good on box office. But, for me it will be a cult classic.

To put it nicely, I have really disliked most of N.Chandra's films and the only thing that attracted me to 'Y.M.I. Yeh Mera India' is the cast. Even the title gave the impression that this was going to be another sensationalist overtly patriotic flick. Yet, with names like Seema Biswas, Parizaad Zorabian, Rajpal Yadav, Rajit Kapur, Sarika, Parvin Dabas etc. how bad could it be? So, 'Y.M.I. Yeh Mera India' is actually so bad that it's funny. The narrative structure attempts to follow that of Paul Haggis's 'Crash'. Even though this film is not a rip-off, it did remind me of Haggis's movie. Thus, there are multiple stories that are all interlinked. It attempts to tackle the theme of prejudice and does a miserable job at it. The forced happy ending is hilarious and not for the 'happy' reason. Every one of these stories are so excessively exaggerated that they feel like a parody. Most of the 'characters' are caricatures. The horrendous voice-over obliged me to press the mute button. Given the poor level of writing, I can imagine how the actors might have struggled with acting or whatever. The tagline states 'Behind Every Bad News... There Is Good News...'. Well, this is just bad news.

the movie give a very good lesson to everyone and you can see this movie once in a week and i surely say you will hate any person in your life.After seeing this movie your way of living life change.when i see this movie i change and feel that why all the human being are not like this. i want to say here one thing that this type of movie should be tax free and shown in cinema with no profit so that we can change the thinking of human being those are just living their life in this world with a wrong thinking in mind that all lower society people are not good and one another message about women is very nicely shown .this show situation with a nice and best solution.