PREDICTIONS FOR MARCH 2017

BYNANCYJADEALTHEA

LIBRA Sept 23 - Oct 22

This month you will be lookingat yourfinances, andhowto invest and where. There will be many decisions to take and you will be doinga lot ofthinkingand panningthis month. Family will offer advice and help. Seems to be a lot ofactivity this month and as you pan your property matters and personalaffairs. The cards are indicating a time when you will also be looking at a trip and time away to relax.

SCORPIO Oct 23 - Nov 21

This month you may not be feeling your usual energet c self. There will be some niggling health issuesthat are bothering you and making you feelverytiredand low. Business matters and finances will need your attention too and you will be looking at how to grow your existing business. The cards are indicatinga time when you may be lookingat purchasinganother property. You willbe planning a surprise party for someone. Buck up and get going!

SAGITTARIUS Nov 22 - Dec 21

There will be a lot happening around you this month. Work will be busy and hectic, but you will also be planning on lookingfor other opportunities and perhaps working in another state. There will be matters relatingto your partner's workthat will be stressful and they may need your support and advce. There may be another addition dueto the family which will be a source ofjoy. The cards are indicatinga happy month, overall. En oy.

CAPRICORN Dec 22 - Jan 19

The focus this month is finances and making sure you are saving enough forthose rainy days. There will be an emphasis on careerthis month andthere is an indication ofimprovement and abundance. You may decideto connect with an old flame or a pastlove. The cards are indicating atime when you may also be looking at a new venture or decide to work with someone else. Take time outtotake in more fresh air.

AQUARIUS Jan 20 - Feb 18

This month you will be busy. You willneed to find afine balance as you do not have enoughtime foryourself. Home life will be happy and cordial. You are planningto meet a relative you have not seen for a while and this will be quite nerve racking for you. There may be some matters relating to propertythat you will be helping your parents with. A sibling isalsogoingto be needingyourhelp.

PISCES Feb 19 - March 20

This month will be an interestingandpowerful month when you will be puttingtogether plans and ideas tofocus on yourself and your future. You have been wantingto make changes fora while and you are now feeling ready to forge ahead. The cards are indicating a time when you will be feeling positive and brght. Financially you will be careful with your spending. Emotonally you mightfeel like you needto take a break.

Rangoon

STARRING: Shahid Kapoor, Kangana

Ranaut, SaifAli Khan

DIRECTOR:Vishal Bhardwaj

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In art, as in life, consistency is not a quality that is easily obtainable. In the life that is created in VishalBhardwaj's art, the characters are so flawed and fractured, and so driven down to destruction by their own demoniacal desires, that you fear they will collapse under the weight of their own ambitions and longings.

This is true as much of the characters as the director himself. Bhardwaj's latest arguably his most ambitiousfilm to date could have ended up being the Bombay Velvet/Mohenjo Daro of 2017. It is rescued, no, redeemed by an excruciatingly exquisite perception of the wounds and lashes that love peltsdown on those who are its victims.

Rangoon is a simple tale, unnecessarily complicated by its characters' prevarications. It is a story pinned down to a bobbing blueprint of passion and betrayaI by a fey feisty whimsical woman, a popular action actress of the 1940s, who is not, repeat not, Fearless Nadia she is Fearless Julia not afraidto wear her heart on her sleeves. And when you have Kangana Ranaut to play 'Fearless Julia' it is easy to show the woman complete stripped of vanity in her lunge towards love.

Set in the 1940s for a large part of its narrative, Rangoon reads like an overintellectualised literary excursion replete with educated, well-informed arrogant and pompous references to the role of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army in bringing down the British Raj.

The references to the politics of India's Freedom Movement are drawn out of the commodious plot with a groaning wheezing gravity, as though Bhardwaj, of allthe learned elements in Indian cinema, knows that the Indian audience needs to be educated. He has visited the library, you see.

Tragically, the characters from both the British army and the INA come across as caricatures cloaked in a gravitas that the screenplay is unable to pull out of the circle of intrigue and deceit that the screenwriters create to cheat on destiny. The British Major General Harding (Richard McCabe) sprouts Urdu poetry with an endearing lisp (Ghalib never sounded so glib) but soon begins to behave like the Gora villains in Manoj Kumar's f<.ranti and Manmohan Desai's Mard.

McCabe is Tom Altered.

The erudition that Bhardwaj and his writing team slap on to the long-winded screenplay go a long way in slackening the story's pace almost to a near-inert place from where it is hardto pull ourselves out even when Shahid Kapoor and Kangana Ranaut's compelling chemistry is an inviting incentive.

By the time the plot reaches its third and final act, Bhardwajgets totally carried away by his librarian's lyricism. He injects massive suffocating doses of academia into his narrative with scholarly arrogance, sacrificing narrative evenness for interludes where time comes to a standstill as we see characters enacting scenes from the Freedom Movement on stage.

The skits-o-phrenia is distracting. Many of the characters appear to be wasted in the long-legged libretto on nationalism that Bhardwaj insists on playing out while we are meant to watch his paean to patriotic pride in submissive silence. Bhardwaj plays and sings variations of the national anthem so many times during the film that the audience in the theatre (all 25 of them) was confused as to whether they should just continue standing in reverent attention.

After all this is notjust theJana Gana