HAPPY VINAYAKA CHATHURTHY

Symonds told to seek psychological help

Embattled Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds has been urged to seek a psychologist's help as he deals with the uncertainty surrounding his international cricket career and a bitter fallout with teammates.

A disillusioned Symonds, whose commitment to the side was questioned after he missed a mandatory team meeting to go fishing, is certain to sit out of the upcoming tour of India in October.

The flamboyant all-rounder has also reportedly fallen out with his senior teammates, including one-time close pal Michael Clarke, who spoke out publicly against him.

"It is understood the strife-torn cricketer has been asked to go on a rehabilitation program, overseen by Cricket Australia medical staff, in which he would see counsellors about his state of mind," The 'Daily Telegraph' reported on Tuesday.

His teammates are reportedly feeling letdown by his actions after standing by him during the controversies that ranged from drunken brawls to frequent showdowns with opposition players.

"There is no time limit on these things," a source said.

"With an issue like this, it's important to ensure that duty of care and responsibility is used. Nobody wants to go any further unless they are comfortable things are where they need to be," he added.

All-rounder Cameron White said no one from the team has spoken to Symonds.

"I don't think the team really knows. Obviously no one's really spoken to Andrew over the last couple of days so only Andrew will know what his mental state is and he'll take the time and work it out for himself, I guess," White said.

SIMI core group chief held in Rajasthan

Four people, including the chief of the core group of hardline SIMI, have been arrested by a Special Operation Group (SOG) from Kota in Rajasthan, police said on Tuesday.

Munwar Hussain, the chief of the core group of banned outfit, and three others were arrested by SOG yesterday, Additional Director General of Police (DGP), Crime Branch, A K Jain said.

He said Hussain has a tailoring shop in Kota.

The other three arrested were identified as Atiq alias Ath-ur-Rehman, Nadeem Akhtar, both from Kota, and Mohammed Illiyas of Baran district, Jain said.

All the arrested were produced in court, which remanded them to eleven days police custody, he said.

He said the four were not arrested in connection with the Jaipur blast but because of their association with SIMI activist Sajjid Mansuri, accused of playing a key role in the July 26 Ahmedabad blasts.

Trisha

Review: Phoonk

The lesson to be learned from Phoonk is: be very careful about whom you hire and be even more careful about firing them because you never know which disgruntled employee might turn out to be a black magic queen.

Phoonk is about Rajeev, an affluent, educated man who doesn't believe in God or superstitions. But after he fires two employees for cheating him, his life gets ferociously creepy.

For one, his young daughter starts to talk like a man and at one point, she even levitates off the bed. Eventually, Rajeev sees the error of his non-believing ways and goes to a blind baba, who armed with three prongs and a fierce silver ring, literally sniffs out the culprits and helps Rajeev to defeat them.

Director Ram Gopal Varma has effectively tackled horror before in Bhoot. In that film, he imbued everyday things like elevators and Mumbai high rises with a sense of dread so even the normal seemed scary.

Phoonk is the exact opposite. Varma strains to create dread by placing his camera at weird angles, repeatedly trying to make stuffed toys look ominous and he even goes for the horror film cliché of an evil crow as sentinel. It's cheap, B-grade horror, basically Ramsay with a bigger budget.

Varma doesn't use his lead actress very efficiently either. Children can be superbly scary because that's precisely what we least expect them to be.

In films like The Exorcist, The Omen and more recently, The Orphanage, little kids have successfully made us scream. But poor Ehsaas Channa, who plays the possessed kid here, is saddled with an infantile script.

Of course Varma propagates black magic and blind superstition in Phoonk but in my book, his worse offense is that he doesn't either scare or entertain us.

At the end of the film, the blind baba declares: Har cheez ka jawab nahin hota.

Indeed. So with every Ram Gopal Varma film, we are doomed to keep asking, what happened to the director who gave us Rangeela, Satya and Company.

Phoonk is tedious mumbo-jumbo. If you want a good fright, rent The Exorcist instead.

Review: Rock On

Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films

The best thing about Rock On is that it's not about the music. So even if you've never ever been to a concert or harbored fantasies of being a rock star, you are immediately swept into this story of four friends and their rock band called Magic.

Rock On is about their relationships, their unfulfilled dreams and their gnawing grief that life has passed them by. The music is a metaphor.

Follow your bliss, writer-director Abhishek Kapoor tells us in a film that is sometimes derivative and often predictable but also so engaging and exhilarating that by the climactic concert you are blinking back tears and pumping your fist in the air.

What connects here are the details. Abhishek sets up his characters with a few deft strokes. So, Farhan Akhtar is Adi, former lead singer and current investment banker who mouths lines like: Your wealth is in safe hands, Jai Shri Krishna.

Arjun Rampal is Jo, former lead guitarist, now mostly unemployed and so haunted by his past that he seems hollow.

Purab Kholi is KD, once a kick-ass drummer and now sober Gujarati boy in pinstripes, selling jewelry. And Luke Kenny is Rob, the keyboard player, who now grits his teeth and creates music with Anu Mallik. Each one seethes with a quiet frustration, desperately aware that he has compromised with life.

Adi's wife, hoping to bring some cheer into her husband's mechanical existence, brings the friends together again.

Rock On suffers from a Dil Chahta Hai hangover - here too friends are driven apart and then reunited.

At times the pacing is slow. But these are minor quibbles. The film works because the performances enhance the fine writing.

Farhan Akhtar who has sung four songs, fills out his role nicely. As do Kholi and Kenny. But the real surprise is Arjun Rampal who is bent over with sadness and longing.

Shankar Ehsan and Loy's music is skillfully interwoven so it doesn't impede the narrative but advances it.

The high-octane concert sequences are especially infectious. Rock On is feel-good in the best sense of the word. I enjoyed it immensely and I strongly recommend that you see it too.

SRK at Golden Temple