Well, of course it’s easy to choose one (hopefully) after you seen the movies, but are you willing to stick your neck out for either, today? Well, I, for once am willing to go with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, for the sole reason of his past track record. He has made 4 movies – Black, Devdas, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Khamoshi. I have enjoyed all of them, with Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, and Devdas being my favorites. Infact Devdas, is one of the handful Shahrukh Khan(SRK) movies that I actually like. Earlier Sanjay was involved in the screen-writing for 1942: A Love Story too. Another beautiful movie. So basically, an almost 100% track record.

The things about his movies that I love are the vivid imagery of his settings, locales, the music, the color, lively vibe that it permeates on the silver screen. Even though Devdas is a tragedy, the colorful sets made it so breathtakingly spectacular, a visual delight…

Not many people I know liked Devdas, they said it was overdone, SRK over acted, so did Jackie and Aishwarya was there only for her dances… but I loved it. I had never seen any of the earlier takes one the novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The songs and dances, the big houses, the rich, colorful costumes, drapes all around, the traditions, the characters, this was Bollywood at its mesmerising best. And the famous quote, “Gaonwalon ne kaha gaon chhod do, Bauji ne kaha Paro chhod do, Paro ne kaha sharab chhod do, Ma ne kaha ghar chhod do. Ek din woh kahega (pointing heavenwards) duniya chhod do” summarized the despair of the lead character… Of course, the original story has to be given its due credit, but one also has to give it to Sanjay too.

I like Sanjay’s movie making style. He tells stories using the full spectrum of human emotions… from the outrageous, Salman to the serious and introvert Ajay in HDDCS, the quirky, Jackie, the hopeful and charming Madhuri, and the tragic SRK in Devdas, the unconventional in Amitabh and Rani in Black and the real Nana Patekar in Khamoshi… His sets are huge, elaborate and brilliant. He goes all the way! So I expect another delightful work from him in Saawariyan. And from the promos that I have seen, it seems to be another visual treat…

Om Shanti Om, though with SRK, and teaming up once again with Farah Khan, seems to be a big budget, stylish, expensive, loud, bollywood’s ‘it’s very different‘ masala movie which boast of having everybody who is anybody doing some cameo appearance to create a buzz around the film. This movie seems to be more of a reason to have a prolonged get-together of the elite personalities in Bollywood today, than bringing a script to life on a screen. Most likely, it too will do very well at the box office.

I wish I could ask you to quantify your expectation and then your experience after watching the movie, but wouldn’t that be too easy a question 😉 Well these are my view on the two of the biggest movies coming out this Diwali… Happy viewing … and have a blast, and lots of sweets during this Diwali!!!