I am India

Gopi Aunty: She is our colony society treasurer and also money lender to small time traders in and around our locality. A very big movie buff and thanks to her habit as she manages to fetch tickets for us for almost all new releases :-). Being not very good at English, she watched Telugu version (Yugantham) of 2012. Though she mistook Chiwetel Ejiofor for Will Smith and John Cusack as Tom cruise, she was awestruck with the making of the movie. She liked the idea of building an ark and remaining as survivor. So completely believed in the concept and said, “I will collect all the money back from lenders as soon as possible and will use my influence to get boarding pass for the ark. It’s better to be safe than suffer.” She rated movie 51/2 out of 5.

Preethi: She is pretty and in her college pursuing B.E. We nick named her as Jalsa Rani as she enjoys her life queen size. Her main goal of life is to settle in USA. She usually tries to keep up cool attitude and preaches not to take life seriously blah blah. She liked the movie very much and she claims that this movie is her favorite movie after Titanic. No other movie impressed her so much it seems. Phew!!! So she concluded, “Oh no, I can’t wait till I complete my B.E. I love California and I want to see before it is submerged.” When asked if she also wants a boarding pass, she says, “No no, I will directly go to Cape of Good Hope and settle on Drakensberg Mountains. Why waste so much money to buy a ticket? He he he.” She rated movie 5 out of 5.

Critic Rao: He is one famous character here who can’t see perfection in anything. For him, this movie was nothing different from any other Hollywood movies released till date. He found many logical disconnects in the movie. He thought how come only hero’s car will be racing like a super man’s car while the earth is cracking up so badly, how a speeding car can dodge with gigantic volcano bursts. He thought, might be the director got inspired from Tollywood hero Balakrishna. He liked the idea that an Indian (Satnam) connects all the dots and gives clue to geologist of the coming disaster. He found it louder, crazy movie and ruled out the concept of world coming to an end saying that Mayan’s were just too tired of making such a long calendar. He rated it 3 out of 5 (Importance to Indian saved the ratings).

Tech Mahendra: No, he is not an employee of Tech Mahindra or a hi-tech software engineer. His name is Mahendra and he is our local electrician. He thinks that he is the techie guy who just lacked opportunities. He was furious with the movie makers/theater owners because he went to watch Yugantham (Telugu version) seeing Telugu posters and when he went in, they screened English version. Because he did not want to waste his hard earned money, he tolerated with it. He did not understand the story at all but the special effects made him understand the summary of the movie. He said, “If world was coming to an end and an ark is being built to save few humans, then I will no way get a pass to enter it. Btw, I heard sometime during 1979 that Skylab will happen and all of us are going to die, but we are here discussing about another end. I don’t think it will happen?” He kind of liked the movie but the wow effect was not felt. He rated it 2.5 out of 5 (language prob slashed the ratings).

For me, it is a well made movie and the special effects really had a good impact on the audience. Indeed a good visualization of our destruction. I rate is 3.5 out of 5.

With every country holding nuclear weapons, heavy industrialization leading to global warming, this world will surely come to an end one day if not 2012. This world will end not because any calendar ends/as somebody predicted, but because of our mistakes and exploitation of the beautiful environment gifted to us. If at all we survive that day, we should learn from our past and not repeat the same mistakes.

Earth is the only common thing we have and the only place where we get chocolates.

Don't blow it up :)

Cheers,
Padma