Aug 25, 2003
I haven't seen a single film with Abhishek Bachchan, but I cannot stop thinking that he will eventually make it big. I don't know if he has the talent, or something extra special to make this happen, but I always feel favourably for him and hope that one day he will enjoy an amount of success that some of his peers already have. There's no explaining my sympathy towards the (on second thoughts, it just struck me that I have watched him in Om Jai Jagdish: nothing special) ChhoTa B, for I'm not a huge fan of the Big B (like this fellow). But to borrow a phrase from one of Daddy's films, I think he may be a lambi race ka ghoDa. For starters, I wish they'll stop giving him dance steps that make him look gauche, especially in comparison to his co-stars.
He made his debut when his father wasn't having the greatest time of his life, but was slowly inching his way back, so Abhishek hasn't had the full force of the Bachchan heritage behind him. Also, he really hasn't been bankrolled by the Family unlike the Roshans. I saw an interesting short from an MTV interview with the Junior B who responds to a numerologist who apparently says that he should drop his last name by saying: "That's all I got now! I've been hanging on just because of my last name!" and then more seriously that his last name was given by his grandfather and his father had worked hard to add worth to this name, and no, there's no way he would lose it.
Aug 23, 2003
And for once, there is something grabbing the tennis news more than the fact that Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes almost played together: hopefully Paes will get better soon. Very few sportsmen in India are as universally loved and admired.
If they don't win, then India would've had another typical tournament, the template for which reads:
* India achieves excellent pre-tournament showing, raising hopes of the Great Hockey Resurgence that the country has been awaiting for 25 years now.
* India then contrives to lose its first match.
* It has to play catch-up, scraping through some of its matches.
* If we have to play Pakistan, we win the encounter.
* We have to await the results of other matches on the last day, huddled with calculator in hand, for a playoff for a decent place: mostly the results do go in our favour.
* We don't win the playoffs, the final blow, leading to recriminations to re-surface that were temporarily suppressed after the Pakistan victory.
* There is a lot of bad blood, usually conducted through the media, spilling over to the airport. Eventually, the coach loses his job. Some senior players may be temporarily sacked too.
Let's see if the old script is called into action this time also.
A long pending visit to the local British Library yielded:
* Freedom Song by Amit Chaudhuri, which I've always wanted to try
* An illustrated biography of John Cleese. I have heard of John Cleese's huge reputation, but haven't really seen much of his output, except for a few episodes of Fawlty Towers. Of his film roles, I haven't seen any of the famous ones like A Fish Called Wanda, only a few appearances that seemed rooted in Basil Fawlty. Of course, like many British comics of his generation, he made his reputation with Monty Python, something on my longterm TODO list. I have read a few sketches, but I'm sure they're even better on screen. Interesting tidbit: his father was actually named Cheese, then changed it to escape from being at the receiving end of many a joke. The book will hopefully shed some light on another aspect to Cleese's life: his interest in psychology (I've seen him appear on a few psychology related productions of the BBC shown on the Discovery channel).
Aug 22, 2003
Hai jab tere hii yeh saare.n
kis baatpe hotii hai phir takraare.n
Khii.nchi hai lakeere.n is zamee.n pe par na khiincho dekho
beech mei.n logo.n ke deewarein
Duniya mei.n kahi.n bhi dard se koi bhi
taDpe to humko yahaa.n pe
ehsaas uske Zakhmo.n ka hoke
apnaa bhi dil bhar bhar aayei.n roye A.nkhe.n
- Gurus of Peace featuring Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and A.R.Rahman, from the album Vandé Mataram
I personally don't think that India-Pak collaborations like the above in music, films, sports etc will help make any difference to resolving the political issues (it takes one simple emotive spark to push things back to the brink), I wouldn't discourage these either. What I wouldn't do, though, is to hype these things and take Laloo-Noor diplomacies to unrealistic conclusions.
Ireland passes stiff (no pun intended) laws against drinking, Irish President Mary McAleese calling her fellow countrymen's attitude to drink "unhealthy" and "sinister" ( which means 8 out 10 Irish are sinister :-) ).
This is very interesting: it's like cutting down half their social life. When I was a wee lad in Dublin a few months ago, the eerie silences and loneliness on the streets on normal weekdays after 7.00 pm was very unsettling at first. It struck me that if I ever was in a crowd in Dublin in the evening, I had to be in a bar (which is not a very rare commodity there). Not even attempting to drink Guinness rightfully brought a scorn to the faces of my hosts. I didn't make the pilgrimage to the local Guinness factory (so no free samples to taste), but I couldn't go all the way and back without stepping into one of the holy places. I walked near Temple Bar but I went in to the nearest pub (on the last day of my visit) accompanied by European colleagues celebrating the beginning of the St. Patrick's Day weekend. I had a red lemonade there (apparently another local curiosity) which made sharp contrast to the mugs of golden and black liquid swilling around. What is it like inside? : it is noisy, musical, smoke-filled and ok, ok, spirited.
Prem Panicker, opinionated cricket columnist for Rediff, now has a blog of his own: here, and he talks about life, movies and a lot more apart from cricket.
Aug 21, 2003
BTW, to complete this post, here's the Tamil to English transliteration table. To take an example, I would have to say aayutha eJuthu or Ayutha ezuthu. (Actually Aayutha ezhuthu itself refers to a letter in the Tamil alphabet, which ITrans shows as q.)
All very confusing, for I also don't know how to represent the half-consonant or half-vowel that appears frequently in Tamil (for e.g, the last "u" in ezhuthu is not a full-fledged "oo" as people might think, just a polite begin-as-if-saying-oo-and-halt "u".
Another set of thoughts revolving around dear old Mani Ratnam saar: those that can seem strictly worthwhile to triviamongers. It hasn't gone unnoticed that MR doesn't repeat actors very frequently. Where Balachander had his Kamal & Rajni, Raj Kapoor had his family, Prakash-Manmohan-Hrishikesh had the Big B, Mani Ratnam hardly repeated any main actor more than 3-4 times in his 17-odd films.
I took this conjecture a little further ahead by attempting to list down the total appearances of notable actors and actresses who had appeared to the accompaniments of mumbled dialogues, great soundtracks, slow-motion dance sequences and brilliantly shot scenes (to the best of my knowledge):
Four: Revathi (Pagal Nilavu, Mouna Raagam, Anjali, Iruvar), Arvind Swamy (Dalapathi, Roja,Bombay,Alaipayuthey)
Three: Nasser (Nayakan, Bombay, Iruvar), Janakaraj (Nayakan, Agni Nakshatram, Roja),, V.K.Ramaswamy (Mouna Raagam, Agni Nakshatram, Anjali)
Two: Prabhu (Agni Nakshatram, Anjali),Madhubala (Roja, Iruvar), Manisha Koirala (Bombay, Dil Se), Prakash Raj (Iruvar, Kannathil Muthamittal), Madhavan (Alaipayuthey, Kannathil Mutthamittal), Mohanlal (Unuru, Iruvar), Mohan (Idaya Kovil, Mouna Raagam), Karthik (Mouna Raagam, Agni Nakshatram), Tinnu Anand (Nayakan, Bombay), Delhi Ganesh (Nayakan, Iruvar)
Notable Singles: Anil Kapoor (Pallavi Anu Pallavi), Kamalhassan (Nayakan), Nagarjuna & Girija (Geetanjali), Raghuvaran (Geetanjali) Anjali (always meant this: thanks Harish for pointing out), Rajnikanth (Dalapathi), Mamootty (Dalapathi),
Pankaj Kapur (Roja), Prashant, Anu Agarwal (Thiruda Thiruda), Gautami, Aishwarya Rai, Tabu (Iruvar), Shah Rukh Khan,Raghuvir Yadav &
Preity Zinta(Dil Se), Shalini, Khushboo, Vivek, Sukumari (Alaipayuthey), Chakravarthi, Nandita Das & Simran (Kannathil Muthamittal),
Amrish Puri, Shobhana & Bhanupriya (Dalapathi), Satyaraj (Pagal Nilavu)
So Revathy and Arvind Swamy top the list. If one were to consider Arvind Swamy's offscreen contributions to Iruvar, he might go up the list. For that matter, Revathi might've done the same too (she has voiced a few characters on screen).
I learnt a few things and remembered a few forgotten cameos along the way, ultimately using the IMDB entry to fill in a few holes. If I've left out someone or some appearance, let me know.
Aayudha Ezhuthu (untitled as yet in Hindi) will add a few more first-timers (Ajay Devgan, Vivek Oberoi in addition to the others in Hindi & Tamil) to the list, while Simran makes her second Ratnam film in a row. More significantly, Madhavan will have completed a hat-trick, no other person has done this AFAIK. I haven't mentioned some of the other character artistes, or the Mani Ratnam pioneered guest song appearances.
What about the most notable absentees from this list? Sivaji Ganesan for sure (will never happen now, sadly). Amitabh? Aamir? And how about Suhasini! And one wished Kamalhassan and he could get down to making a movie again, something that almost happened last year.
Enough trivia timepass for now.
Aug 19, 2003
All around the world, there are people clamouring to be left alone, in various shapes, sizes, in various degrees of politeness, people want you to leave them alone. People like:
* the child in first standard who is asked by idiotic guest-pests who she likes better: her mother or her father
* the bigger kid in twelfth standard who has no damn clue which stream to opt for, especially because he has the yen for one and the marks for another
* the modern-day worker who doesn't have future plans to mention in a self-appraisal sheet
* the newbie politician who didn't know what he was signing that day in North Block
* the talented teenage midfielder who's pestered to take up computer classes instead because it will improve his career prospects
* the young girl who's finished college and now gets ogled a lot at... by matchmaking women
* the software engineer on when he's going to the US of Aaiye
* the star whose wife may not be everyone's idea of a pinup
* the man-who-made-a-mistake-once and would like to get over it, only if you would let him
* the men and women love reading their books, are not making a fashion statement by reading them in public and don't want to show the title of the book they're reading to every curious passerby who doesn't share the habit
I'm sure there a few more: can't think of them right now.
Aug 18, 2003
Over the last few days I have been:
* Sneezing and coughing like nobody's business
* Making decisions when to bunk work, when finally to go to the doktore and mostly what to eat next
* Steaming idlis with varied results of hydration
* Boiling potatoes like a teetotalling Russian
* Watching the world go by lying on my back
* Checking my ears when the television stopped speaking to me
* Poking and tapping the television
* Re-discovering old audio cassettes
* Led astray by my Imagination that pumps into delirious overdrive when I'm a little feverish
* Trying to catch up on my waiting correspondence
* Giving many thanks to my friends at work for covering for me
* Watching Fargo and a repeat of the well-written Notting Hill
* Wistfully watching myself shell out more money for books in Book Exhibitions: this time to buy O Jerusalem! and Is Paris Burning by Collins & Lapierre (Thanks Sammy, I thought I'll buy a copy for myself)
* Finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and feeling a little exhausted after reading chapters the size of watermelons
* Catching up again on the nuances of Predictive and Shift-Reduce parsers from my well-worn copy of the Dragon book
* Meeting variegated relatives
* Spreading cheese on bread, boiling water for a few things
* Unable to put down the story of Israel's struggle for the City of Peace
* Reasoning what I can salvage from the soundtrack of Boys
* Celebrating Independence Day Sun-TV-style watching unending programmes on film people
* Learning that Prakash Raj's Special Jury Award wasn't for a single film, but for his work in 8 films in 3 languages
* Watching India make a traditional opening to a major tournament squandering a 3 goal lead, and then gheraoing the umpire
* Watching India win at last
* Watching the pitch produce a result in England's favour, but not before inspiring two tons and two six-fers
* Joining the Yanks in learning that power cuts can hurt
* Wondering, wondering
Aug 11, 2003
While reading someone's life sketch, I came across a quote by that person. When he was asked what he was like as a kid, one of the ways he described himself was that if his house caught fire, the first thing he would have made a dive would have been the TV. I know exactly what he is talking about. My TV obsession has become a little better these days, but a long time ago, it was a major source of annoyance for people around me, for it wasn't every day one could leave me alone at home to watch He-Man or Hercule Poirot. Result: sulking kid being dragged around shopping centre. My parents being a little old-fashioned in their child-rearing wouldn't offer any bribes, so I had to bite the bullet.
All this nostalgia because I have recently found that some popular Tamil serial has moved from its daily 7.30 pm slot to 9.00 pm. My parents watch only two soaps at night (when I overlap), the other at 9.30 pm. But this change will mean loss of independence from 9.00 pm to 10.00 pm. It's not as if I have something to watch each night at 9.00 pm, but it does mean I don't even have the option of a channel surf in that period. It makes it difficult for me to watch Harsha Unplugged. Since my folks don't demand the remote otherwise, it would be very unfair for me to quarrel over this. I know of some others who spend time from 7 to 11 in front of the TV. I will consider myself lucky in light of that evidence and find one more book to cover the slot.
The most immediate problem with fast food as I see it is that it encourages messiness in all aspects of consumption. A burger drips butter down your wrist, while the cucumber is trying to escape from the trapdoor below. The toppings on pizzas know all about gravitational acceleration. Atleast bhel puri plates have the humble piece-of-cardboard to help scoop up the mixture, but the pani in the puri loves spurting out, especially if you're a novice at it.
As we know from experience, no one bothers a bit about hygiene, nor do I pay too much attention to it. But if only someone would invent a less messy way to eat these things.
I've been teaching for a few sems back in COEP with my friend Nikhil, and have been very happy to see quite a few people from the batch that just graduated (or will graduate) also pitch in their services to volunteer for some of the classes. The Computers department is very under-staffed, and this provides the students the excellent opportunity to interact and learn from the experience of their immediate seniors, while making decent use of whatever time they spent at the Dept. Now, it has always been fashionable to claim one never went to classes, in fact it was highly infra dig to go near Depts. In the past there was some justification for doing so, because the quality of teaching was never consistent, tended to be mundane and monotonous, and there was no real incentive to attend lectures. All resulting in the traditional last minute cram during the preparatory leaves prior to the exams. I wonder if by this recent move by alumni to engage lectures, we can actually make it fashionable for students to say they attend classes, especially if they actually get value for their time.
I don't want to seem boastful, but Nikhil and I definitely pioneered the two-in-one concept, where there is a pair of people teaching the same subject together. It divides the responsibilities well, improves the student-teacher ratio, and one can point out mistakes and problems easily. It makes life easier, we found. I only wish the students in all the classes of the Comp. & IT Dept who receive the benefit of their seniors' time will try and make good use of this opportunity, something we ourselves didn't have much of.
Turns out I went to air with the where-is-TWTW question too soon: saw a promo for The World This Week. Also, I forgot to express my appreciation for NDTV mentioning the cameraperson on each story as part of the report captions: that is a good touch and is a befitting appreciation for the usually anonymous photographer who often has to do the job in difficult conditions.
Aug 9, 2003
When NDTV branched off, they promised weekend fare that would not be restricted to mundane news bulletins, much in the style of the BBC's programme list. They have come up with a selection of new ideas that are worth adding to the Saturday and Sunday viewing sheet.
The most well-known one is probably Walk the Talk consisting of Shekhar Gupta (probably the most respected senior editor today) walking about with a guest (just finished watching Uddhav Thackeray). Gupta asks the questions (even the uncomfortable ones) that we want to hear. The only grouse I have is with the duration, ought to be of 60 minutes.
Eye to Eye (or is it I to I) is an interesting concept, but I didn't like it very much, because it basically consists of a well-known figure who plays both guest and host, asking questions that (s)he answers (him|her)self. It seems a little contrived to me, and not sure who comes up with the questions!
Indianama is hosted by Tavleen Singh, who took a peek behind the purdah of Rajasthani royal society at Jodhpur, revealing that not much has changed even today, the opening of palaces to tourists for money notwithstanding. For the rani of Jodhpur openly professed admiration for sati, saying she would not prevent any sati if the widow in question consented without being under duress. Her daughter was resigned to the fact that major decisions of her life such her marriage would still have to be within the maryada of tradition. Indianama is something I'll watch out for. It comes on NDTV India.
24 Hours, featuring Radhika Bordia, this week followed a documentary crew for a day as they filmed their intended six-part series Vision of Faith on the Kumbh Mela at Nasik, uncovering the massive confluence of water, pilgrims, tantras-and-mantras, tantriks-and-mantris, a thick veneer of politics in the akhaaDas, organizational successes and a latrine supplier who built 20 of them in one day following the request of his guru.
They still haven't re-introduced The World This Week, which would be a good move, given the enormous brand it became in the early 90s. They now have a Hindi version of We The People with Pankaj Pachauri (I don't like his style very much, it is too accomodating and blasé). Their old shows, like Limelight and the ever-inconclusive The Big Fight continue to roll on. And IMO, they should get a variant of Good Morning India back.
And in passing
NDTV has a lot of new correspondents manning the various cities, many of them seem to be fresh-faced graduates with little experience in presentation, some of them unable to provide a précis of the situation. Wonder if this will affect the channel in the future. But NDTV is trying to do an Outlook, in attempting to get news scoops, inside stories, leaks, exclusives and purdah-faash type articles, in addition to their usual set of human-interest tales. They had most of the National Film Awards leaked out, and now they're talking about the results of the Arjuna Awards.
But the guys at NDTV have usually had very innovative sets and production values, especially with the graphics. The designs on the accompanying visuals, summaries etc. look very classy, especially on NDTV India.
We all have friends, but there are a few that are in the top echelons, the people one likes to be around with and doesn't find their presence too suffocating, atleast on most occasions. These days, with friends in my age group working or studying or doing something that keeps them occupied throughout the day, one has to make a special effort to *meet* up. There are different ways of friendly contact these days: email, instant messaging, a brisk walk after lunch, the afternoon coffee and so on. Each has its own relevance and order of importance. Having never lived away from home, I don't know how that experience of making companions is, but my friends have usually been from school and college. Curiously, I can hardly remember any close friend who ever lived within walking distance of my house, all through my life. So it was never easy to drop in casually while passing through, unless one made a concerted plan beforehand. (This changed a little when I was in my 11th-12th.)
And in the school days before the internet making contact through keyboards the most preferred form of communication, my best friends were the ones I could take a long walk with. In my personal hierarchy of relationships, the ones that rank highly are usually the ones that I've taken long, interesting, sometimes-silent-sometimes-talkative walks with. Around the streets, parks, school compounds, walking in tandem, mentally in-step. Some of my best memories of that period were courtesy such fine walking companions. And if one had an option of freezing the frame, perhaps those would be some of the top contenders for a permanent pause.
It's a question of matching frequencies, I guess, which is not the same as agreeing on all things. In my COEP years, strolls were replaced by a more sedentary occupation of lounging at the BC with the many people who would have made good walking companions too, I should think. Atleast the mental state that developed was similar to the leisurely walks I took in an earlier phase. To paraphrase Elaine's famous yardstick of choosing her men as "spongeworthy", I think I seem to have a yardstick of my own to rank my acquaintances: "walkworthy". Would I want to take a walk with them and not find it an effort at the end of it?
Aug 7, 2003
Also, I usually avoid anonymous references to people, especially if I know they read these posts. I know this kind of self-censorship isn't wholly necessary, but I don't feel like hurting anyone's feelings. But I can make one favourably anonymous reference to celebrate getting a mail from a long-lost friend who I know almost for sure doesn't read this, despite my many exhortations. So if you happened to contact me recently and are reading this post, well, then I'm not referring to you!
I make this anonymous reference because it gladdened my heart in a week that had these train of thoughts:
* Anymore of this, and I'll end up with a face that either is as sad as John Wright's or as morose as Graham Gooch
* What a horrid song, but why do I want to hear it again?
* I must be firm and put my foot down. What's the worst that can happen?
* Damn, damn it... Who do they think they are? Feel like telling them to go to hell.
* I f I make the mistake, it is only fair I pay for it, right?
* Life sucks, get used to it...
* Another case of things biting one in the...
* Ok, now things have to get better...
Jul 28, 2003
Unfortunately, I haven't seen Kannathil Mutthamittal, but everyone who has seen this Mani Ratnam film tells me it is a classic Mani-saar creation. I have seen a few clippings, and can't wait for someone to get me a copy of the film to watch (hopefully, this will happen soon). I was also told that it is has probably the most realistic depiction of war in an Indian film (evoking analogies again with Spielberg and Saving Private Ryan in an Indian context), and Keerthana (who is the central character and is the daughter of Parthipan and Seetha, a couple who've worked in Tamil films too) has put in a standout performance as the child in search of her past. I was wondering who would win Best Child Actor this time: thankfully they gave it to both the top contenders Swetha Prasad (Makdee) and Keerthana.
KM also picked up Best Sound, Best Tamil Film, Best Lyricist and Best Music Director. I saw some conflicting reports as to whether it won Best Editing and if the Special Jury Award that Prakash Raj won was indeed for this film. If the latter is true, Prakash Raj's second National Award would again be from a Mani Ratnam film (Iruvar last time). The clutch of awards should hopefully perk up the recovering Mani Ratnam (he was admitted with chest pains after the Vivek Oberoi accident in Kolkata and his brother G.V recently committed suicide). The media didn't really follow his condition, in the blaze of the Vivek Oberoi story, which is a little bit of a shame, for he is one of India's best directors.
The combination of Vairamuthu and A.R.Rahman has been a very successful one in the past, and I don't know if this is the first time they've won the awards for Lyrics and Music in the same year. It comes at a time when there are rumours that they're no longer working with each other, the reasons not entirely known. KM was not really a commercial runaway success, but it did go down well with the critics. The songs were not meant to be crowd-pleasers, so it is a little pleasing to know that the film won these awards. I just missed the announcement in the live telecast, but did hear Prakash Jha (Chairman of the Jury) read out the citation that the songs rose "above the conventions of film songs to reach the realms of poetry". Vairamuthu's lyrics, especially those for Vidai Kodu Engal Naade (evoking the pain of the refugee, and voiced by Tamil Film Music legend M.S.Vishwanathan), were quite impressive.
Having missed the actual announcement as to which film Rahman had won, I was a little surprised to hear most channels (Hindi ones at least) claim it was for Saathiya. Of the three possibilities (KM, The Legend of Bhagat Singh) and Saathiya), that seemed the least likely. Thankfully, it was widely misreported and KM was the film. The KM songs ranging from the playful Signore, the more conversational and offbeat Sundari, the simple ode to peace to the accompaniment of a guitar Vellai Pookal, the two versions of the title song and the lament of the exile Vidai Kodu make up for a deserving collection. For those who might not entirely agree with the choice, I will agree that this album was not a choice that stood head-and-shoulders over the others, but it definitely was not undeserving of such an honour. Rahman's fourth award (previously Roja, Minsaara Kanavu, Lagaan) can be considered just reward for being overlooked for Dil Se, Alaipayuthey or Kandukondain Kandukondain.
A surprise was Udit Narayan winning for a not so well-known song from Zindagi Khuubsurat Hai, but Shreya Ghoshal (Devdas) and Saroj Khan (Devdas) were no surprises at all. I was not expecting Ajay Devgan for The Legend of Bhagat Singh, but as I have had noted before in these columns, his performance was very strong, consistent and competent. But I was a little surprised to find no other efforts surpassed his. Yet, there can be no doubting Devgan's claim to the award, and is another indication of the great leaps he has made in the last few years. I would normally disregard any Devgan films in the past, but I pay good attention to all his upcoming releases (however bad they may seem!). I haven't seen Devdas, and I'm not sure I will, or that I will complete the film if I start watching it. But going by the reports of some of my friends (Nikhil, Akshay) who did, it did provide "wholesome entertainment", but not all of it was intentional. Also, the wrongs of Oscar nomination have been righted to some extent, with the aggrieved Kannathil Mutthamittal nabbing a few while Devdas picked up the awards for opulence.
Chandrashekhar (who has put in a few good performances in the past in Tamil cinema) won his maiden award (Best Supporting Actor), Rakhi got the female equivalent, not too many Marathi names (despite one news channel's announcement of Atul Kulkarni having won Best Supporting Actor, something he did a few years ago - stale database?), the other heavyweight Malayalam cinema sadly didn't feature much in the big awards.
The media coverage was a little weird, news channels covered the announcement live, but most annoyingly, broke off in the middle for various things, and did not have the sense to fill in what happened when they weren't beaming live. News channels here have a long way to go in live telecasts. Also, most news bulletins had only the prominent winners and there was no coverage of the other winners. Newspapers weren't too great either, devoting very few column inches again to note the main winners. The website of the National Film Festivals of India had no list of winners too. I still haven't found the complete list of winners.
Jul 26, 2003
Led by N.S.Ramnath's blog (btw, one of my frequent reads, features nicely written posts on life in Madras, journalism among other things) to the INSULTINGLY STUPID MOVIE PHYSICS page that in its own words : ... Strikes a Blow for Decency in Movie Physics!
It discusses common physical phenomena as observed through a camera lens and rates movies using grades that range from GP = Good physics in general to PGP-13 = Children under 13 might be tricked into thinking the physics were pretty good; parental guidance is suggested and even XP = Obviously physics from an unknown universe .
The Matrix scored a RP i.e. Retch! rating (it was a simulation, dear reviewers :-) !), Road to Perdition got itself a GP and Armageddon, not surprisingly, enjoyed more pillorying with its XP (extreme prejudice ?) grade.
These physicists are probably playing killjoys, though. Someone ought to show them a few Rajni and Mithun blockbusters. That'll sweep them off their feet, even though that may not be possible physically.
Jul 25, 2003
We are seeing the tip of the iceberg right now, because robotic replacement of human workers in every employment sector is about to accelerate rapidly. Combine that with a powerful trend pushing high-paying IT jobs to India. Combine it with the rapid loss of call-center jobs to India. When the first wave of robots and offshore production cut in to the factory workforce in the 20th century, the slack was picked up by service sector jobs. Now we are about to see the combined loss of massive numbers of service-sector jobs, most of the remaining jobs in factories, and many white collar jobs, all at the same time.
Jul 23, 2003
Is God listening? Is He reading my prayers? Is He so busy that He has no time to fulfil our aspirations? I implore Him to update his blog or give me some sign that He is not in a North Korean prisoner-of-war camp :-) !
Jul 22, 2003
I didn't think it would quite happen to me, but like they say in the books, there she was, walking on the cobbled stones, down the street and into my heart. (If you think this is one of those cheap ha'penny stories that end with the object of my intense passion turning out to be some inanimate object, be assured, this is no ephemeral tale, but my own personal masterpiece that I chose to paint for eternity's wonderment.)
But hark! As I stood there lost in the mists of the searing passion that rose from the deepest recesses of my being, she stepped lightly past me. I could not thank the streets for being narrow enough; she brushed close past me, the fluttering of her skirt of red mimicking the flurry of intertwined emotions in my throbbing mind. Ah! the cruel hand of fate: after she was past me, she slipped and clutched wildly at a passer-by who helped her regain her balance. That could have so easily been me, I could not help bemoaning the loss of a divine chance to feel the touch of that flower who had set me wild on the path of intoxication.
For she was glorious in her womanhood, her red cheeks glowing in the wintry air, a petal seeking my hungry sight, lips luscious and redoubtable, daring and beckoning. She flitted about, seemingly no care in mind, but I knew what her destination would be. Or must be. It must lead to me, and to me alone.
Rarely does one know. I knew, I knew. From the depths of my heart I knew she was the one who would complete my life's mission. There had been a few before her, but I could never feel the same way about them as I felt now. It was glorious, my friends, and I wish I could share my joy with more people! But I wish they would understand, no, they couldn't and wouldn't. I had to press my heart to myself, this affliction was deeply personal.
Dream I might, but as I stood there amidst the gentle patter of the rain that had begun, I suddenly realised she would soon be out of sight. I could not bear to confront the fact that memories were all that would be left of her, and I began to run towards her. There she stood, laughing along with some girlfriend of hers, the tinkle of her pretty voice tugging playfully at my earlobes. Stop it! I wanted to tell her playfully, without really meaning it. Stop being so perfect! You make it very difficult for me to resist!
You see, I didn't know her. But it was not such an insurmountable task though, that of approaching her. I could boast of some experience in these matters. I waited patiently for her plain friend (plain it seemed to me, though some might have disagreed, but oh! such was the manner in which every other work of beauty paled before her) to retreat. It was a question of time, I knew, I was more convinced of my destiny now.
Soon, my girl (how wonderful that sounds to me!) waved her goodbyes to her friend, and walked on, turning into a sidestreet that was solitary, and if I had to talk to her alone, this was my chance, my godsend. I sped up towards her, the nightfall unable to diminish one miniscule portion of her rouge cheeks, her swirling skirts kissing the paved stones. She stopped by the lights to check one of her heels and must've seen me coming, but she didn't straighten up immediately as would any other woman in a lonely street at night. Not this lass. My girl was feisty, that I could see. Her heels fixed, she looked coquettishly at me. I had wrapped my coat tighter around me, the chill in the October air was getting more pronounced by the minute.
"So sir", her voice betraying her Scottish ancestors,"you're out pretty late for a gen'l'man, ain't yer?". All I could was smile sheepishly, like some teenager unable to comprehend the first flushes of infatuation. But it was the blood coursing, roaring, thundering through me that left me speechless. This was not the first time I had been in this situation, I knew what to do , but my lads, it is like a debut each time. "Hurry up now!" she said. "Don't want to keep me waiting, do yer?". And she looked around for a place to keep her hat.
At which point, I decided I had enough and slit her throat with my trusted scalpel, a friend that never let me down. The redness of her blood seemed to go perfectly with the scarlet that is such a mark of her profession. My friends, the joys of the next few minutes I can still feel, though I can't recollect in stark detail their occurence, that of steel meeting unresisting flesh and bones. This one was special, my best ever, my pinnacle.
So it came to pass on that dull and drizzling October day in Her Majesty's reign, I walked contented, an artist and teacher in the classrooms of those East End streets, the gaslights bouncing off my grey coat as I receded once more into that all-embracing fog that endeared my city to me. As I dodged the newly-formed puddles, I couldn't help reflecting on her. She had been special, this one, she had something the others before her did not. Some might have even considered her heavenly. But there was no doubt that most of my fellowmen, now and in what we called the future, would consider that I had come from nowhere but From Hell.
Jul 18, 2003
Google Viewer is the name.
I loved the icons for increasing/decreasing the delays: A tortoise and hare respectively.
Jul 17, 2003
Probably my first post in bad taste:
The Romans even had a special name for the middle finger -- they called it digitus infamis (infamous finger) or digitus impudicus (indecent finger).
Want to see some notorious examples: You might want to check this one. (The best one is the close scrutiny of O.J.Simpson's)
There's even a book: "The Finger: A Comprehensive Guide to Flipping Off". The above page even has a reason why you should buy it: If you buy only one book this year, you'd be an idiot to pass this one up. .
Impressive.
{
if ( ! doYouKnowWhatFooIs )
{
ask();
}
else
{
printf("\nYes, the answer is %s !", bar()");
}
return LOL;
}
Thanks to an illuminating discussion on acronyms in the weekly newsletter sent to subscribers of A Word A Day including one on the various degrees of having f***ed up, I know the answer to something I always wanted to ask, but was afraid to. The question is why do a lot of examples in c/c++ textbooks use the strings foo and bar in examples. The answer lies in the geeky sense of humour and the expansion of FUBAR.
More info at this link (look up the link for foo and bar as well)
My contrib. to this time's newsletter (inspired from a question from an old Mensa quiz ) provided a happy punching bag for many :-)
Saket Jamkar and Vinay Kakade.
One more BC-Quizzer and one more of my classmates (makes five now, I think: Sandy, Pooja, Deepali, me and now Vin).
Whenever I edit my blog from IE (from home), the interface is different from the one I'm used to i.e the two frames with the top for posting and the bottom show old posts. Instead, in IE, I see only one textarea for posting, after which I can't directly post-and-publish, but need to preview, then publish. I thought the new blogger interface was not so good.
But while using blogger with Netscape, it reverts back to the older interface (the better one). Why does Blogger do this annoying thing? The same url in Netscape that leads to one interface is redirected to another url (with the "lofi" uri in it) which shows the single-framed window.
Kya pain hai! One more reason not to use I.E.
Jul 14, 2003
"... and so I stood at the end of it all, taking a breather, letting my swirling thoughts settle down. But the knowledge that soon it would (sooner this time, later next time) begin all over again cannot be banished from the foreground.
I stood at the starting line, waiting for the gun to go off. Again. It is an endless cycle, it seems, but I can do something about it if I wanted. I could probably change the venue of the run, or may be if I created enough of a fuss, I might even change the starting point. But it is very difficult to see how I cannot run such a circuit given normal circumstances. I am not alone in the trot though, there are many doing it all the time, some with me.
I think I would be one of those who'd prefer each lap to be exactly identical, or as similar as possible: I usually learn with each iteration, and more importantly, improve as I run back to the beginning. Some others would argue for the opposite: they wouldn't mind the journey occasionally straying off into uncharted territory (which it often does), but unless I make it out safely, I wouldn't consider the adventure a success, the path not outscoring the result. For you see, in this race, I never have enough faith in my abilities: my stamina, my reflexes, my instincts, my technique all remain under suspicion. Therein, my friend, lies the difficulty in coming back to the starting line, and pushing off on another run. But there are some others that think my self-flagellating criticisms are baseless, because (and this is rather hilarious) I can jump higher and longer than most others. They naturally assume I'm a gifted athlete in every other athletic event, but why should I pay the price for someone else's assumptions?
I prefer it when I can run with someone I trust, trust to pick me up when self-doubt cramps the legs, trust to have a good shot at finding the way out when we're lost. I can be vice-captain of this track team, never cap'n. I can remember what I did on a near-previous visit to this tricky swamp area, and hence I can help new runners to avoid being sucked down when they choose to rest their weight on some unsupported tuft of grass, but I cannot believe I have the fortitude and imagination to hack the exit out myself. I have fallen a few times and been a little lucky not to drown yet, but do not doubt the fact that I have had to wipe the slush off my clothes, scars of the slips that were.
So why did I choose to run this race (Is it a race? Not for me, I should think. Do the planets race each other around the sun, like excitable kids? Guess not. It is their need to live their existence, to avoid being caught out by the invisible and powerful force that would otherwise suck them to their end, like moths and their fiery nemeses.) I could have run at other places, so I thought, but a lot of runners seemed to find this a good surface to try their legs on. Having also lost the ability to ponder on the destinations these cross-country exercise take their runners, I have no choice, at least for the moment, to make the cyclic journey.
Let me get specific! This time's run as a sample; not representative, but still a sample. This time's journey would be different because I had lost my pace-maker for ever, and had temporarily lost my radar and rosary. Which meant that beset by the devils of the track, I would have to make the play happen myself, with some rookies looking over my shoulder for a little direction. I ran with apprehension, but if someone had seen the start we got, they would've laughed my anxiety away. The run took us into a new area, yes, but this was verdant and peaceful, with the sparkle in the air that seems a little too artifical to be true. Instead of allaying the pins-and-needles in my feet, these happy surroundings seemed to heighten my fears.
It is the turns, the sharp corners, the ends of the bridges, the sudden drops in elevation that seem to be the best settings for surprise. But there was no question of being taken aback by that for imminence can be a feeling that makes "there-didn't-I-tell-you!"s the winner each time. The road got rough, there were hurdles of heights that I had never attempted before, and even a water jump! I don't like to get wet when I run outdoors, and especially if I haven't even crossed half the distance. The coach made an unexpected stopover at one of the rest-points to *instruct* us, when all I wanted was a gulp of glucose and vitamins instead of lectures on my technique and strategies that should've been someone else's work to theorize over. Take your pointing-stick somewhere else, I want to tell him. But the trouble with coaches is they run your races merely in their heads or in distant memories, whereas I have to do it in the now. By now I know I've dropped even the pretence of making a brave run. They all know the only thing I care about now is to drag my sorry self back to base. But have I given up too early? And is it not important not only to try and succeed, but to also *try*? J'accuse! I gave up too early!
If you keep running long enough (however slowly you do) in a track (however meandering it may seem) that's supposed to lead you back to the starting point, the sheer force of that inevitability can take you home (there are many ways of going home, All roads lead to Home!, but in different states of wear-and-tear). I did so too.
But even after the race, I was on my face. Tripped over the bloody finishing tape. When I thought I had put all my grief behind me and was looking forward to some rest, light training and a new start. But having been denied that luxury, it seems that I haven't really finished the circuit to look forward to the next attempt. Instead, it feels like the two races have coalesced into two laps of the same race. Drat.
I just caught an energy drink, not bothering to look at my times for the last attempt. I stood at the end (?) of it all, taking a breather, letting my thoughts settle down. But the knowledge that soon it would (later this time, sooner next time) begin all over again cannot be banished from the foreground..."
Jul 12, 2003
These trailers caught the eye, for wide ranging reasons:
* Darna Mana Hai : continued its innovative plug for the ghost stories medley that becomes more and more awaited as the ads appear. The creativity content did dip with an unwanted song featuring Sameera Reddy, but the latest (and last, I should think) set of spots pushed it up again. The basic idea is to show a clip from a film, and say aana mana hai ! if you're the kind who likes the film clip shown from a family drama or romantic film or so on. The delicious bit is that all the clips are from previous Ram Gopal Varma films. Who else would have the confidence to run himself down to promote another of his own!
* MPKDH (I can't bear to sully these pages by the complete expansion): Each year trots along a film that hits you in the solar plexus with its incredible silliness. The mushiness permeates every aspect of thes movies, leading also to some of the hammiest (they can make words ham too!) subtitles. Giving the immortal It's all about loving your parents - Karan Johar (It was the byline that tipped the scales above the tolerance-meter of every sane-minded man. Did it in turn inspire the coccyx-like Times of India "Our Comment" ?) a run for its mushy money is this year's topper with I will love him till the end of time. Any more thought on it and I'll probably evaporate with infuriation.
Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost: If this inspires dollops of deja vu, then it
probably is because:
* The film is shot in a desert location
* The umpteen "how-we-made-the-movie" clips tell you how the locals were
roped in to act in the film
* The Director is Aditya Lakhia who is definitely a relation (but what kind) of
Apoorva Lakhia who is in the film too, sans the spinning hand though.
* Yashpal Sharma (dunno if he is a carpenter this time also) has more than just eyes for the local gaao.n ki chhori
* There is a temple on a hillock nearby
* There is a pujari who seems to enjoy a long hairstyle
* The hero is touted as a "Leader"
* The choreography is by Vaibhavi Merchant
Of course, these could be mere coincidences with Lagaan, and there seem to be nothing common with the story except for young man versus unnamed bad people.
Tere Naam: A wide gamut of hairstyles for Salman Khan, starting of with upturned-bowl-of-noodles cut to prickly-cacti styling. Accompanied by what is now becoming his trademark dancing style (he does with his hands what Sunny Deol does with this feet) in which right hand pushes an imaginary piston to the left while the rest of his body twists in exactly the opposite direction. Repeat one-two-three with left hand and there's no need to go to Laughter Clubs anymore.
Koi Mil Gaya: I'm beginning to believe his teeth are clamped in some sort of hideous death grimace, like the deceased Sholto brother in The Sign of Four. Or else, why doesn't Hrithik Roshan stop baring his canines and incisors? I don't really wish to "vibe with" him, but if it will make him stop grinning, I might. If only I could understand the rest of the lyrics that go xxx-cha hai, yyy-cha hai, zzz-tta hai, sab khel hai. His pose (can't call it a dance step) at the zzz-tta hai makes me feel he is saying "kutta hai", but I'm inclined to discount that as a little too extreme even for the Roshan clan. Add to that his choice of colours for his costume, a bright blue, red and yellow ensemble, after which can anyone blame me for getting visions of the flags of the collective Central African nations when the trailer is on?
Hawa: Ghastly, not ghostly. Pass please.
I didn't think I heard it properly each time it came on, but a news item in today's paper seems to make it plausible that the words in a song from the cross-over (from the border of course) film Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya is indeed Ek Pakistani Chehra... (followed by lehra and sehra in quick succession.
And quietly lingering in the background with establishing shots of the Metro and crowds is Calcutta Mail.
Jul 9, 2003
And speaking of the great Martina, imagine coming to the same tournament for 30 years! And if you throw in the fact that a kid was named after her by a mother who happened to be a big fan of her as well as a tennis coach, the kid then grows up to win a few Grand Slams of her own including Wimbledon, and the kid even retires early due to career-stopping injuries, puts the longevity of the ex-Czech American in sharper perspective.
Jul 8, 2003
Not to say that I've had a completely spotless traffic record, but atleast I don't consciously try to break the rules. When I make a mistake, I feel guilty and if I were to be caught, I'd have to accept the consequences, I would have to take the blame. But it is completely shocking when some people, without a trace of shame, profess to turn a blind eye to the rules, or claim they don't know most of the rules, and even state that they don't agree with certain rules, hence they break them.
Even if they did, they lack basic etiquette in their traffic behaviour. We've got down-counters at red lights telling how much time is left, a good facility by any standards. But when there are about 8 secs left and there is no longer any traffic which can use the green-signal, a few morons will start honking or speed away. How much difference does 5 seconds make in a person's life under normal circumstances? Isn't one's life the most important than getting to point B 5 seconds early? It is just extra-ordinary, this level of indifference.
I sometimes feel like going over to some idiot who's doing something silly and give them a nice clunk on their heads: they better have a helmet! I had an idea for a small story on this subject: The protagonist of the story is a ghost, having died in a traffic accident for no fault of his own. He takes it upon himself to drum some sense into other offenders, using the fact that people can still see his ghost vehicle and him not knowing that he's a phantom. Essentially, this guy goes about giving these idiots a good scare on traffic whenever they've broken a rule, to get them to understand what could happen. A little contrived yes, but soothing in theory!
At the end of the day, rage at these people won't solve anything because we can't educate these idiots by telling them anything. The only way is if they pay the price for their own ignorance. The only thing I'd like to say is that I value my life, so don't run me over. You may not value your own very much, so swerve and hit the electricity pole instead. The pole won't mind much, and seeing how you drive, neither will anyone else.
In this season of formulae, I believe I might have one of my own, which ought to be more acceptable to the vast and silent majority of this country. It probably requires a lesser amount of suspension of reality, and it may have certain fallouts that would appeal to quite a few people.
The scheme essentially involves collecting together in one place, all these self-styled representatives of both the communities, more the rabid the better. (One thing seems to stand out: here the most common factor is that most of these reps. have beards). The formula espouses a collective and democratic spirit, so the more of these people the better. We then proceed to bundle all these bearded barricaders into a room. Conventional politics has it that there are usually two ways to settle an argument: violent and non-violent. We've made several (mundane and half-hearted) non-violent attempts to settle the dispute, but let's face it, these guys have often specialised and distinguished themselves with two eyes for every hai! hai!. So why curb their natural animal instincts?
Having pushed our representatives together into a room, we announce that this is a fight to the end. Instead of every Indian going at each other's throats, we let their well-meaning representatives to do that. The ones left standing at the end are declared the winners, and the land in Ayodhya is now theirs for keeps.
And when you tap my shoulder trying to get me to inhale smelling salts, I'll confess there's no way this solution will solve anything. When one community makes it out of the room with a few casualties of their own (martyred!) but having wiped out the other non-believers, do you think the vanquished community will accept the verdict? (Court judgements are doomed to have the same fate). No, they won't, and so the game will continue. But, and this is the nub of it all, we shall atleast have become rid of a few bearded rabble-rousers, and the noise will be a little less for a few days.
These days, that's the best one can hope for.
Part two was installing Movable Type and setting up a small blog of my own. Amit first pointed me towards Movable Type as a clean way of blogging with a great deal of control. I decided to set up a little internal-to-Persistent blog as I can set it all up on my machine.Since I don't have space to host it on the Web, it can't be seen by outsiders, but if anyone from Persistent is reading this and wouldn't mind a dekko, let me know and I'll send you the url. This blog is called Perspiring Pistons (a hark back to this), a tribute to my constant exhortations to my colleagues to turn the AC settings away from Cold and well, to the up-and-down cycles of work!
There's still a long way to go in terms of it settling down, but so far MT has made it very easy to use. The blog is meant to be rather lightweight in content, with emphasis on recent on-goings in my immediate workplace.
Jul 3, 2003
This has happened quite consistently for the last few years: Tim Henman moves up to the quarters or even further, he gets some of the best crowd support in tennis, he plays up-and-down tennis, sometimes scraping through, sometimes falling by, but always giving his British fans a lot of nervous excitement en route. I've been trying to think of another sporting parallel, especially Indian, but fail to come up with such an occurence that happens so consistently. Perhaps India's annual cup-of-woes at Sharjah about a decade ago would qualify in the amount of expectation and disappointment that Henman provides at Wimbledon each year.
I hope there will be a silver lining for Henman at Wimbledon some day soon.
Jun 30, 2003
Routine Disclaimer: Any coincidence is completely intended but wholly denied.
Welcome to Perspiring Cisterns - The Movie. A classic tale, it is widely considered as the worst movie ever made, even surpassing such blockbusters as Sauce Bhi Kabhi Tamatar Thi & Hamara Pill Aapke Aas-Paas Hain. It was also the first Indian film to make it to the Mongolian top 10. The makers of this movie are so proud of it that they have decided to go into hiding. The rumour is that great dons such as PlyWood Ibrahim & Mota Vakil were so affected by this movie that they have made threatening calls to the makers - pleading with them to stop screening this movie. Like most hit Hindi films, it has absolutely no plot. So we would like to remind you that the makers are not responsible for any loss of mental equilibrium that may result. We pick up the action, surprisingly, in the 1st scene itself where our hero is ready to go out in to the big, bad world - to face an interview in a software company.
I don't think it quite got the reception it deserved.
I didn't like Agassi. Very simple. He was too flashy, too flamboyant, he thumbed his nose at a place like Wimbledon which for a kid like me who absolutely adored tennis then, was a temple. And why wouldn't he play? Because it meant that he would have to swap his flourescent dresses for a very sober white. I didn't like Agassi because he was the garish neon light from a Vegas casino in the sparkling starry sky of tennis in the early nineties.
I watched with approval his losses to Andres Gomez and Jim Courier in two consecutive French Open finals. I didn't like it one bit when he beat my personal top-ranker, Boris Becker in Slams, especially at Wimbledon. I thought Goran would pull it off, also because it was his best chance ever. (I thought he deserved to win Wimbledon, but didn't think he would ever win a Slam since. Goran's pummelling by Sampras in a later final seemed to further underline the writing on the wall, but that amazing win over Rafter later in the decade was unexpected but poetic justice (Harish would disagree :-) ). It meant Rafter himself would miss out, but tennis has rarely had a more romantic figure than Goran Ivanisevic. So by a strange coincidence, my best two players are the only two unseeded players to lift Wimbledon.). While a guy who didn't want to play in Wimbledon because of flimsy clothes and even flimsier reasons won it! The injustice of it all, it seemed to me.
But as times changed, so did Agassi. A much-needed boost for the game came with the rivalry with Sampras. With Sampras having mentally retired from the game, Agassi is the one true superstar around. Whatever my personal dislikes of the man's habits, I couldn't help admiring the brilliant groundstrokes, the weapons of a stinging return-of-serve, tactics, and accurate placements that were his hallmark. The man himself has sobered down and is almost unrecognisable from the hirsute, ear-ringed, girl-friend flashing pop icon of an earlier decade. I don't follow tennis so much nowadays, and definitely am not so emotional about the whole thing today. I can understand the value Agassi brought to the game, bringing in starry-eyed followers earlier and helping to keep the interest of the fans today. His interviews today are strictly about the game, a far cry from those tabloid press meets (which one can still sample in the DD Sports reruns of those Wimbledon wrap-ups hosted by Cliff Richards) where the subject of tennis was left outside in the cold. He is getting to the other end of the hairy scale, but his control and clear thought are still the same.
Of a man who has the rare distinction of winning a Career Grand Slam, I can only say that I wronged him by speaking ill of his tennis. It was and continues to be, even 11 years after his first Grand Slam, quite classy.
I'm so glad I didn't watch it on a very small 16 inch screen. According to me, the whole success (and hence the governing principle) of the Matrix movies is that they've been able to throw in all these abstruse concepts that don't quite make a lot of sense while one is watching the film unfold, but the danger to the commercial returns that this apparent profundity may cause is offset by the stunning effects that continues to hack a path in unknown territory. Which means I can walk into a screen, not expect to understand every piece of the story, but be immersed in the visual outrageousness, go home, read the script and various explanatory texts and arrive at an acceptable interpretation for myself. Good enough, I say. Hence the whole point of not watching the film with a free copy but on a monitor. The whole impact of the visuals is deprecated corresponding to a loss of every square inch than was originally intended.
I was happy to see Neo still a little baffled and not completely cocky and confident as it seemed he would be at the end of the first Movie. The usual collection (of old favourites as it now seems) were there: More glimmer in Trinity's costume, more black-Smiths, ripple of a shock wave - this time in a container truck than a building in a collision with a chopper, the spoon, the wine-coloured sofa with bits of stuffing visible and more bringing back from the dead. We had our eyes peeled for a glimpse of Trinity typing "ssh" and "nmap". Yep, I caught it. What colossal fun it all is!
I was just thinking that there are a few things that we'll be able to tell our children and even with the usual expectations of the future at that time being more strange than we can imagine today, we've seen a few things that will make their eyes pop out. The audacity of the September 11 attacks in a political sense perhaps, but undoubtedly, whovever sees the Matrix movies will be inundated by stories from their grandmas and grandpas about how it blew our collective imaginations then. And I think they'll understand.
Birla have always been my pick to win the quiz, because unlike the other teams, both members are capable of pulling out the big answer. They also have a great gameplan and aren't afraid to take chances. Their choice of 9-pointers when they have the opportunity early in Citius is a great ploy, especially against weaker teams who don't want to incur -9. It can help them retain the strike, to use a metaphor, and attempt a guess at the picture behind. Very smart kids, these.
The major grouse I have with Joy Bhattacharya's questions is that the questions aren't always graded properly in the last round, Fortius, and these questions could also be a little more workable, considering time is at the discretion of the quizmaster and is for one team only.
Anyway, it is one of the best quizzes on Indian TV, and easily the most exciting. And the first prize is worth all the year-long effort these kids must put in.
Jun 21, 2003
Though I found that I remember some phone numbers better than others especially when I'm staring intently at the dial-pad. Turns out I've memorised a visual pattern made by the sequence of numbers that I recall. For example, pressing 6542580 on my phone recalls the symbol for '4' with an elongated leg. Or even an arrow if put this way:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 0 #
So now it's a question of remembering the right visual clue for each phone number. Hmm... Perhaps it's easier to remember the fact that it was English footballer Gary Linekar who played an exhibition cricket match for the MCC versus Germany, was out for one, and remarked "I always score 1 against the Germans".
Jun 20, 2003
So they're really good at the sentimental hype too, I guess! Pretty soon, her mood will change... to laughing all the way to the bank.
Jun 19, 2003
Much of Minsaara Kanavu's songs were like that.
Jun 17, 2003
And in another vivid example of the stellar vacuousness at which the Pune Times of India excels, today's front page has the Indian hockey captain, the pride-of-Khadki, Dhanraj Pillay posing along with two (surprise, surprise) models. What it all means is completely beyond me. What is the significance, even to the editorial team of the PTOI? If this is how Indian hockey is to be glamourised, then ahem... I still don't get the broad (no pun intended) picture. Leave the looking-silly to the cricketers.
Captain Biggar, even when seen through a mist, presented a spectacle which
might well have intimidated the stoutest. His eyes seemed to Bill to be shooting
long, curling flames, and why they called a man with a face as red as that a
White Hunter was more than he was able to understand. Strong emotion, as always,
had intensified the vermillion of the captain's complexion, giving him something
of the appearance of a survivor from an explosion in a tomato cannery
::Ring For Jeeves
Constable Dobbs's was not a face that lent itself readily to any great
display of emotion. It looked as if it had been carved out of some hard kind of
wood by a sculptor who had studied at a Correspondence School and had got to
about Lesson Three.
::The Mating Season
Some writer, eh?
Jun 11, 2003
BC buddy Harish is part of the MDI team that made it. The other teams have some known faces, with AFMC being the lone Pune team (though MDI took their elims in Pune).
Quite an interesting format. This also means that Mastermind takes a vacation this year.
Jun 9, 2003
* Nice way to spend the weekend: surrounded by books, movies and a small quiz at the BC with the vacationing and (for the first two) recently demobbed Gaurav, Harish and Saket.
* In a hugely surprising decision, Adrian Le Roux has quit the Indian team to take up an offer with the South African team. Homesickness or better pay? Big blow to the Indians.
* We were just wondering: When Rahul Dravid plays for Scotland against Pakistan in the latter's tour game, would it be considered as an international (two countries participating) and hence make him one of those rare players to play for two countries. Though we did know this wasn't quite true, it was an interesting scenario to chew on. But I would still like to know how the ICC classifies Scotland when it plays in the county matches (are there different grades of teams?). Is Scotland representing the country or the county? Anyway, the part-honeymooning Dravid made a first-ball duck.
* And India smack some Aussie butts in the tri-nation series Down Under. They won 5-3. That's wonderful to hear.
* They keep calling it a mix of E.T & Forrest Gump. Unfortunately, the trailers of Koi Mil Gaya suggest that Hrithik Roshan is going to play the not-so-bright boy as the wide-grinning stereotype. But all pretence to gawkiness is abandoned when it comes to the wide-armed dance steps. A far cry from the much-loved Forrest Gump. Papa Roshan will make a re-entry (pun intended) into the film space and Preity Zinta is thankfully back to her old hairstyles, after a brief lapse in Armaan where I thought she looked almost like one of those human hair-mops that can be seen in the Addams Family movies. Music by Chacha Roshan is pleasant so far.
We love horror films. Most of us anyway. And we don't get enough good ones, for it is so easy to goof it up, slipping into comedy is sometimes just a make-up muck-up away. But we still like to give it a chance, there's nothing like a good scare now and then, especially if it is happening to someone on a screen and doesn't spill over to intersect our life. So as to our varying masochistic tendencies go, this is one of the safest ventures, the cinematic equivalent of nudging the loose tooth. To feel the tingle. Sending involuntary shivers emanating from the nape and following a dizzy descent down the spine. Hmm. Feels good. The tingle.
If you're an Indian filmgoer, then you have even lesser opportunities to indulge in a slick horror story, having seen/heard umpteen chudail movies set in ruined hotels with poor lighting (budgetary constraints leading to it) and make-up with clay (also seen recently in Sunny Deol's The Hero, where the concept of a disguise was merely to look different from the rest of humankind and not to be confused with the art of camouflage). But when a director of the panache of Ram Gopal Varma tells the world that he's made a movie called Bhoot, many chose not to believe him literally. Despite the fact that Rangeela was a colourful movie, Satya had a character called exactly that and Daud had people (including the audiences) running for cover, no one believed him. Instead they chose to believe baseless rumours.
Pause to ask rhetoric question. What does one call an attempt to spoil a spoiler? Well, if you don't know and hadn't heard of the spoiler in the first place and don't want anything spoilt, thank you, should probablly close their eyes now. Or now. Now would do too. That was the last chance. Ok, once more. Now)
The rumour went that There is no ghost in Bhoot and Tanuja is the murderer. Having not known that Tanuja was even in the (already brimming) cast, that statement had a lot of what-we-call data, wanted and un-. But I'm a patient person, and have heard a lot of spoilers in my time, so it didn't affect me. (The way I look at it, think of it as a film in which the ending is revealed in the beginning. It then becomes a question of how did they get there. Think Lester Burnham telling you in the open sequence of American Beauty that he'll be dead in a year, and you get the idea.) But now that I think of it, the rumour must've been spread by the makers themselves. Because, and this is the spoiler-spoiler, Tanuja isn't the murderer, and even more plot-revealing, there is a ghost. Relief now that I've got beans lying all around and an empty can. All the interviews RGV did before Bhoot, he made sure to mention there was a ghost, all 9 meter white sari of it. As I said, RGV usually gives what he promises. So ya wanted one, ya got it.
That now settled, one can go on to the actual business of being rattled and doing the old stomach-churn. I've rarely seen movie reviews in which everyone seems to agree on the main points but this film has spawned them. The movie begins off well, the spine-tingles are woven in well, the second half fizzles in front of you like the trail of a disappearing genie and the performances are mixed. RGV uses the usual cinematic devices of eerie background music, sinister camera movements, semi-dark settings and oddball characters. These contribute to a scary first half, with the entry of the ghost itself being as good as the good ol' scenes of Amitabh crashing through a fake wall. There are quite a few chilling sequences, but you see less and less of them as we reach post 60 minutes. And therein appears the knowing filmgoer's shrug of the shoulder.
The more-than-knowing filmgoer will then shrug the other shoulder too, what with there being too much familiarity about the story, a lot of deja vu in the direction of RGV's own Raat and the classic The Exorcist. And I can quote a few instances, but will not. RGV definitely has a sense of cinematic history, so he couldn't have been blind to this. So either he chose to be "inspired", or simply made a tribute to the genre. But whatever the shortcomings, I would think Bhoot is easily the slickest horror film made in India. There's still long way to go, though.
Coming to the much-vaunted performances, RGV (and many others) think this has been Urmila Matondkar's best ever performance. I thought hard about it, but still couldn't convince myself of that. I think this would be No.3, after Satya and Kaun. Kaun is a little closer to Bhoot, but Satya was and remains a radically different role for her. The de-glamourised, naive singer's range of expressions from struggling to keep a household alive to the heart-break in the climax where a sense of hopelessness and betrayal permeate her horror at what the truth really was marked her acting abilities. Ajay Devgan is wasted, seriously, but it was a little inevitable after the scope in Company. And why-o-why do Seema Biswas and Nana Patekar look like ordinary actors? When Nana Patekar says in an attempt-at-ironic-humour that he didn't understand what he himself said, he couldn't have said it better about his own role. A similar ironic fate befalls Victor Banerjee. Roused up from Calcutta (or wherever he lives) to come to Mumbai and then be unused is encapsulated in his brief role when his psychologist-character is abruptly asked to leave by Ajay Devgan. Picture RGV saying to Banerjee, "well, it's like this, we wanted to make a really cool horror movie, and we don't think it's a good idea to have a scientific explanation to it all, you see. So we've got this really wierd counter-character that is in opposition to all that you represent, so goodbye, it was good to have your comeback in our film. Cheers." Or something to that effect.
And the replacement is of course, Rekha. Every horror film has its bizarrely made-up character. In The Exorcist, it was the Devil. In Bhoot, it is Rekha. And as for Tanuja, if she had to be the murderer, well, she sure doesn't have much footage to do it in. And for Fardeen Khan, his could be best described as a competent cameo!
But still, go watch the movie. This is commendable for the length of movie, lack of songs, good audio and video techniques and a ghost. Or two. Hmm. That was good.
Jun 7, 2003
Jun 6, 2003
I caught a couple of sightings of Footballer's Wives while doing time in Dublin, and it was a routine TV show albeit with a new setting. The same seems true of Dream Team. Wonder it anyone watches it.
And while on the subject of British TV series, Coronation Street, which I've always heard a lot about and was able to catch a curious glimpse of, continues to be a role model for long drawn out, weepy-waily TV soaps the world round.
Very interesting that the French Open usually seems to have these kinds of incidents, especially in the women's draw. The Martina Hingis & Steffi Graf encounter of a few years back comes to mind.
Jun 4, 2003
I don't agree with all of these quotes. I am definitely not an atheist. At times, I am an agnostic.
I find I need to believe that there is a god, someone like a big brother, to whom I can take my problems and he will help me. Who, in all my deepest bouts of loneliness never deserts me. Who sometimes provides the moral basis for an irrational desire to go out of my way to be nice to someone else. Who reserves the right to divine retribution when I cannot bring down a force on someone bad.
And on somedays, I cannot but question my very faith, whether I have invented the need for a God, omni-all and if it is a tenable argument.
Still, the above quotes are also, in the best traditions of debate, worth thinking about.
Jun 3, 2003
Jun 2, 2003
...though it wasn't the dream result that we'd hoped for.
All apropos the ESPN School quiz, which is probably the top national school quiz currently, but restricts itself to sports.
I will do away with my usual encomiums to Harsha Bhogle (the man with the best job in India), take it for granted.
Last year, Abhinav Vidyalaya put on one smashing performance after another and it seemed to be a cinch that they would win. They inexplicably did not.
This year, I kept an eye out for this team, thinking they would steam roll their way through the opposition. But this time they didn't.
(Read an Abhinav-alumnus' account of the same)
It did seem a little off-the-script when AV didn't get a century in their prelims. Neither did they get anywhere near it. Blame me for being unfair
to this champion team, but blame them for setting up such high expectations.
AV started off shooting down the anagrams in Citius, but when they struggled to identify a golden-haired figure looking like Brett Lee
in no-camoflauge as Brett Lee, the warning bells had started to ring. It got a little embarassing when they even guessed Monica Seles. Hmm.
As signs go, that was one in scarlet.
They still led rather aaram-se after 2 rounds, but started to turn on the hara-kiri instinct in round 3. According to me, the quiz turned when
AV identified Phil Tufnell as Dion Nash. Even Harsha Bhogle was a little disappointed with the quality of that guess. AV could now feel
the hot breath of their rivals Rangubai Junnare from Nasik on their neck as RJS got this answer to move into 1 point behind AV.
And here's where I disagree with Gaurav: he opined that had AV shown a little more courage, they might've emerged winners. Having watched the
show as much as he must have, I have to beg to differ because of the following: though the questions and participants are great, I have to criticise
the following aspects of the format.
First, I don't always agree with the level of questions chosen for the 5-, 10- & 20-pointers. Subjective of course. Also, the team in front
at the beginning of the final round has to take first shot. Which means in a tight contest, the team in 2nd spot know exactly how much they
need to win: the risks have to be taken by the leading team, thus penalizing them for doing better in the earlier rounds. AV could not gamble
with a ten: if they missed it, RJS would have won even without attempting the last qn. Getting a 5 was more realistic for AV to force RJS
to go for the final qn and see if they missed. They didn't and AV lost.
In this heavy spotlight on AV, I'm being unfair to the other two Pune teams Symbiosis & Bishops that made it to the West Zone final. Good luck to them and may they make a splash in the National Finals.