Let me begin by admitting that I hate new age movies and absolutely detest movie reviews. Since the time I joined MS to about a year ago, I never took movie reviews seriously. I never understood why every movie was rated a 4 star/5 star and how every movie was worth watching. To me new movies were always the most inscrutable way of losing hard earned money and even harder earned time.
That was until a year ago when I started noticing reviews by a certain gentleman called Jitendra Mathur (aka @jmathur aka jituji aka MathurSaab). He would review movies, mostly old classics regularly with a sincerity that left me amazed. And such was the sheer prolificity of his review writing that after a few initial attempts to catch up on his reviews, I gave up. MathurSaab used to send me personalised M2Ms announcing all his new reviews but somehow I could never read most of them. All I could do was silently watch his ascent to stardom. Recognition was slow in coming but come it surely did. After a lot of painstakingly written Reviews and thousands of comments/rejoinders MathurSaab developed the kinda fan following that only he could have had.
My own interaction with him hasn't been entirely smooth. We have had our differences. We have often agreed to disagree with each others opinions, comments and expectations, thank you Sir. But in the end I have always got around to acknowledging the huge contribution he has made to MS and its readership lately. If I haven't interacted with him as much as I'd have liked, it's only because he has the knack of stealing all your time with his fantastic Reviews so that you are late for everything else !
So in line with Deepak's wonderful Blog dedicated to Paul's 500, let me take this opportunity Ladies and Gentleman, to raise a toast to Jitendra Mathur for his outstanding achievement in the annals of MS, not as much for completing 200 reviews but more importantly for single-handedly reviving interest in classic Indian cinema(/music) and giving it the recognition due.
His achievement is special to me (and hopefully for MS too) cause he has helped change my opinion about Review reading/writing on movies. And if this doesn't sound like a proper dedication, its because I don't know how to write one.
Thank you MathurSaab and Wish you Luck. Always !
