Hi,

Posting an entry after a long time but this time I have an excuse. I was not in town from 19th to 22nd. I was in North India attending a north indian wedding. It was interesting. I did not want to go at first but got blackmailed into going and now I think it was kinda cool. Thats me. Once I accept something I try to make best out of it :).

I am glad I did it.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Musings

Hi,

I am a big Shankar Mahadevan fan. In my opinion he is one of the best (if not the best) singers in India today.


Good song.. well performed.
Yours Sincerely,

Labels: music, video

Hi,

Just for the record, India played an ODI with Srilanka yesterday and lost. It was a rain interrupted game. Indians made 195 in 29 overs. Rohit Sharma played really well. And then Lankans had to chase 155 in 21 overs. They did it with ease.

That's all.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Cricket

Hi,

Do you live to blog? Or do you blog to live?


Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Musings

Hi,

Rajat Kapoor is a good actor. He is a good director and a sensible man. I liked his last movie "Mixed Doubles". It was witty, scandalous. At the end, each person will have his/her own interpretation of the movie. This is what is great about the director.

This time, he came out with Mithya. Last night I saw it and really liked it. Some people are tagging it as comic thriller. And it's definitely not one. It's funny? Yes. It's interesting? Yes! Is it a comic thriller? Noway! This is an art film in a commercial comical disguise (remember "Jaane bhi do yaaro"? ). It makes you laugh with the protagonist and makes you care for him. First half of the movie has some funny moments and you sort of think you know where this movie is going. And then it changes. It becomes something completely different. It changes with the protagonist. Some people are saying that second half is slow. Well, what's wrong with that if it works? Watch it.

Ranvir Shorey has done an amazing job. He always does. BUt this one is by far the best role he's got. There's a line in the movie where this struggling actor says that Bollywood producers will always go after stars and will never acknowledge the real actors. So true. Ranvirs will never get good roles as long as Shahrukhs are there in the industry. But this Ranvir got his chance in Mithya and done amazingly well. Neha Dhupia has shown that in right hands she can do wonders. Naseeruddin Shah. Sourabh Shukla, Vinay Pathak all have done well.

If you like different movies, watch it.
If you like good movies, watch it.
If you like Chopra/Johar movies, watch it, you might just like it. And if you dont, ask yourself why?.


Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Movies

Hi,

Watch this.



Awesome ad. Another one of my favorites. Story, message, acting, cinematography, editing, music.. everything's right about this one. I always wondered what language are they using. I was going through the YouTube comments (sometimes they are meaningful.. but that's rare!) and someone said that it's Pashto and it's supposed to be Palestine-Israel border. Looking at the kids I always suspected they are not Indians.

And the boy says "Ta lai al kura, ta lai!" meaning "Throw the ball, throw it!". This was bothering me for a long time.. tonight I will sleep peacefully. :)

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Ads, video

Hi,

Today Indians and Australians played the second ODI at Melbourne. Indians bowled really well. Ishaant, Shreeshanth, Irfan, Bhajji! All of them did a good job and restricted Aussies to 159. This should have been an easy chase but Lee and Co. bowled well and tried to make a match out of it. In the end India won with about 5 overs and 5 wickets. This is really great. We beat them at MCG after 21 years!! It was about time!


Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Cricket

Hi,

Last night I saw No country for old men. It's one of the best movies I saw in recent times. Storytelling at its best. It's hard, unrelenting and real.

It's full of "characters". But the real protagonist is the backdrop of the story. It all happens in Texas. Just like a cowboy movie but much much real. It's about a drug deal gone wrong. Everyone gets killed in the deal and a local man finds $2M. This starts a cat and mouse game between dealing parties, police and the man.

The directors just decided to tell the story without any "masalaa" as they say in bollywood. There is NO background music. I just couldn't believe it! No background music for an action/thriller movie? Last time I noticed this was with Hitchcock's The Birds.

The performances are brilliant. Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson have done their jobs really well. But Javier Bardem stands out. He plays Anton Chigurh. This is one character that will stay with me for a long time. A cold blooded psychopath who is very committed to his profession, i.e. being evil. He will kill anyone who comes in his path and some times also kill those who dont. He has strange rules and follows them religiously. It's bone chilling stuff. Anton Chigurh is right up there with Hannibal Lecter.


It's a must watch for every movie buff.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Movies

Hi,

This was my reaction when Andrew Symonds made a century with a little help from his friends Bucknor, Benson and Oxenford.





Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Cricket

Hi,

Here's one of my fav ad. This is one of those things which are SO stupid that you like them. Billu and Papppa! Amazing characters. I hope they make more Billu'n'Pappa ads. Funniest line in this is surely "Beta Billu?". Another one I what I used for title of this post. Everytime I see this, I start laughing. No idea why, though!



"Kam se kam dekha to sahiii!"

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Ads

Hi,

A couple of days ago, Lt. Gov. of Delhi confirmed that North Indians take pride in breaking the law. You can read about it (and watch the video) here. With this he has successfully started a controversy (wasn't that easy?). I remember once when I had heard "You north indians!" in Bangalore. And I know for sure that traffic sense in Hyderabad is horrible. I know people who will not break traffic laws in other parts of the world and refuse to follow them in Hyderabad. "That's the Hyderabad way!" (just like Chicago!) they say. They do this just to avoid some very minor inconveniences. I have not seen this in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. So why single out north indians.

I think it's basically people want to get ahead of everyone in life at any cost. It's called ambition. When ambition supersedes fear of law, that's when we think it's ok to break the law to go ahead. Another case is when you think you are smart, smarter than everyone else and laws don't apply to you and you break laws for kicks. Maybe, it's just that north indians and Hyderabadis are more ambitious than people in other states. That's a good quality, isn't it? :)

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Humor, News

Hi,


Last evening I was playing iSolitaire on my iPhone (great app!). Usually when I do "draw one" I can solve one in every three and three consecutive ones at the most. But yesterday was different. I solved eleven consecutive "draw ones". Yes, that's right, eleven!! This must be some kind of record! I was thrilled.

I am not mathematically inclined. So those of you who are, what are the chances? :)

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Random

Hi,

Recently I saw Tare Zamin Par. An excellent movie, good script, good direction, good performances. I loved it.

This post is about a scene in this movie. A dyslexic kid is asked to to "9-3" in an exam and he uses his imagination to come up with a (wrong) answer. This reminded me of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip. Today I dug through my C&H archive and found out that strip. Here it is :



I wonder if this was one of the inspirations for the movie. Actually, I am pretty sure it was.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: CnH, Movies

Hi,

I read one more Murakami story last night, The second bakery attack. Very strange and weird but it has something that made me like it. I just cannot pinpoint it. I am big on analysis and this is driving me crazy. I must know what made me like all these Murakami stuff. I think it's the imagery. When you read the stories, you start "see"ing it. They always have some mystery element that pushes you to read on. And when you finish it, there are not many answers provided. But you think that the answers ARE there but in some cryptic form and all you need is to decode them. That makes them interesting, atleast to me.

"The second bakery attack" is the story of a newly married couple and they must attack a bakery. This has so many weird elements like classical music, hunger, McDonald's, dreams, volcanos, boats. Read it and let me know what you think.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Books, Murakami

Hi,

Couple of days ago I read a short story By Haruki Murakami called "Super-Frog saves Tokyo". I am not a Murakami fan but I have read "Kafka on the shore" and one more short story called "The Airplane". And all these should be called, for lack of a good vocabulary, interesting. I like Franz Kafka and Murakami is very similar. He takes a seemingly impossible, foolish, fantastic, surreal incident and puts it in realist surroundings.

In the short story, a bank officer meets a giant six-foot frog, called "Frog". Now Frog wants his help to fight a worm called Worm and stop an impending earthquake which would destroy Tokyo. Sounds interesting? Foolish?

The story works on many levels and I dont know if its meant to be. It's confusing. You think you have not got it but somehow you have. If you think I am crazy to talk like that, well, go read it and then we'll talk.

Whatever it is.. I think I liked it :)

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Books, Murakami

Hi,

If you are a film buff like me, you must be aware of the controversies surrounding Ashutosh Gowarikar's to-be-released
epic Jodhaa-Akbar. In the film, a rajput princess Jodha marries a Muhgal emperor Akbar. Some historians somehow figured out that this is not what happened. They claim that this Jodha never existed and some said that if she existed then she was Akbar's daughter-in-law and not wife.

After reading this, I did some history research of my own (google+wikipedia = research). And found out the truth. And yes, it IS stranger than the fiction. So it has to be the truth. And truth prevails. The truth shall WIN.. so on and so forth.

What I found out was very strange. According to my research, these historians who made all these claims, never existed! Yes! I went through lot of historic documents, talked to Rajput Royalties, read Akbarnama thrice and nowhere I found names of these historians. Just to be sure, I searched for "historians are *" in google and these are some of the results I got:

* Historians are divided.
* Historians are pessimists.
* Historians are gossips who tease the dead.
* Historians are storytellers.
* Historians are notorious.
* Historians are biased.
* Historians are Humorless

Clearly, with all this evidence, it is proved that historians dont exist, and if they do they are a constipated lot.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Humor, Movies

Hi,

Today India played a T20 match against Australia. And lost. And lost badly. T20 is a circus-gone-wrong and nothing can be predicted. So it does not make any sense to have world cups for T20. There are no champions. Its just a 4 hours show. Sooner or later people are going to realize this and sooner the better.

By the way, I am saying this because I did not watch any T20 world cup match because it was not telecasted where I was when it happened. Apparently people went crazy and it was a huge success.

Yours Sincerely,

Labels: Cricket