Rest unassured, and the rest

I have ended up going to my office for the past 15 days in a row having been pursued by an avalanche of tasks, some of them expanding through my incompetence and some being thrust on my head. Pressure valves were few and far between but one in particular was interesting - the humour in one dissenting email that I ended up penning during this period was completely lost on certain circles (it was fun doing it though).

But enough of vague allusions to work. It ain't all over yet, so I'm taking this chance to update this space before I get sucked in again.

*** The students among the local quizzing gang seem to have had a great time at PIFF while I was submerged in debugging infested code. I have got to watch Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday before it gets banned or curtailed (with someone challenging its viewing on the strange premise that it affects the Bombay Blast cases currently in court). You can never bet against Kashyap's luck. Somehow forgot to nab the Indian Ocean soundtrack (maybe I should be out getting it instead of typing this), but saw a clip on TV.

It also looks like Page 3 is faring well with opinions. The PIFF gang said they liked it, and Sarika mentions on her blog that it is uncannily similar to her world. Since she's teetering on the fringe of Page 3 reporting herself, she should know.

*** I caught NDTV mentioning the "legacy" of Parveen Babi. Please. She was a glamorous yesteryear actress with afflictions, both mental & physical. She certainly did not deserve (no human does) to be forgotten by friends and family, but we don't know what happened there. Please report the incident and move on. *** Is no one (except BVHK) watching the Premier Hockey League? I've caught a few matches (not in their entirety, I must confess) mostly involving my team of choice The Maratha Warriors (why? because it's led by Viren Rasquinha and had the best goalie until he withdrew because of injury). I was looking forward to the Warriors clash with the Hyderabad Sultans and the match didn't disappoint. However, the Warriors did. They lost 2-1 despite dominating the match and then lost in penalty strokes to the Sher-e-Jalandhar team yesterday and dented their chances a great deal.

The matches are in the evening from about 8:00 pm, which is when the suds start to envelope TV which the renders the match visible in 5 minute packets. But then, the matches despite being easy on the eye haven't completely caught the imagination yet.

*** Another casualty of the saabuns was an interesting short film called (a little referentially) "A short film". It caught my eye for being directed by Ashutosh Gowariker ages ago on a amateurish video camera. This was on a programme called "Indie Film" on NDTV's new business channel NDTV Profit. It featured Amin Hajee (Bagha from Lagaan) and someone who looked a lot like him and they were strangling people one by one in their 2 room flat. Interesting? But I don't know what happened next with my ad time having expired. By the time I got back, they were showing another short called "Birju", which I gathered had been nominated at the Academy Awards a while ago. Later a discussion with Gowariker and the director of Birju about the pitfalls of Indian "indie" film production.

I like these business channels - they tend to have alternative programming from a less sentimental perspective and are more watchable. "Profit" had one more interesting tale, that of HPCL's endeavour to set up community kitchens where village women can cook on LPG stoves for Rs.4/- an hour instead of needing to burn wood. It was a little distressing to hear from some women that they cannot always assure even that amount, and they have to go back to gathering wood and sitting beside the smoke & grime.

Despite what Zayed Khan claims, the lowest priced pizza at P'Hut is > Rs. 50. That's about the cooking expenses of 13 homes.

*** I'm convinced that there is a secret factory somewhere in Rawalpindi or Faisalabad churning out off-spinners in the Saqlain mould. And what's worse is that despite the previous clones are being carded for suspect bowling actions, they continue to drop in from the production line. The latest, Mohammad Hafeez, has also been reported.

Harbhajan Singh lashed out against Chris Broad last week on being reported for a suspect action as well. I must say he has a point. The ICC announced that they are planning to revise the whole thresholds of the flex. But since the current levels continue to apply, any bowler that might be allowed if the new proposals were to be implemented could in the intervening period be asked to modify his action. Only to find out when he comes back that under the new rules he need not have bothered.

[The above two items may be a little factually incorrect - I haven't caught up with my news reading completely and this is based on snatches of what I managed to hear & see recently.]

*** I finally have a theory to explain the sadaa-haraa nature of Dev Anand saab. It's called the Phantom theory. No, I'm not going to claim there's something supernatural about all this, but just like Kit Walker, this isn't the original Dev saab. This is probably the 3rd or 4th generation. They all look the same, talk & shuffle-walk the same. (In fact, the sideways-shuffle - remember "chOD-do aa.nchal"? - is all too reminiscent of the crab. A crustacean walk then.)

What else can explain it?

[Update:] A friend also added Dheeraj Kumar to this list.

*** Yippee! I finally won a quiz after about 15 months. Now, the quiz wasn't a great one and we (Niranjan and Samrat, and this year Harish) usually go to the YMCA annual quiz to have a lot of harmless fun, but when you have had an arid year, any sprinkling of water will do. Better to win Queen's Club than to just dream about Wimbledon, eh?

I'm not sure if requirements of maturity frown down upon expressions of joy at winning not-so-significant stuff like this, but then it would just confirm the lack of onset of the afore-mentioned quality in my personality.

*** For some reason there has been a sudden invasion of mosquitoes at home. Not sure why. I unequivocally consider mosquitoes as the number one enemy and will chase them around in deadly pursuit all night (they always win because of sheer numbers). So much so that I'm a bit of an expert in this dangerous sport. Let me share a couple of tips with the populace:

a. Wetting one of your hands (if not both) will dramatically improve your hit rates. The reason being that about 50% of the pests escape even though you knock them down. Make sure you crush any ones with any signs of life - insects are very sturdy even though they may look shattered.

b. If you walk into a room knowing that the buzzers are around but you can't spot them, make your way to the nearest mirror. There are extremely high chances that you will spot a couple of them perched on the glass, peering intently at themselves (not each other, at their own selves). Not being a insect-psychologist, I can't be sure but there may be latent narcissistic tendencies being expressed there. However, it gives the hunter a chance to end this pleasant soliloquy and wash traces of the elimination (not possible on walls).

Remember: eliminate with extreme prejudice. And watch Hun Hunshi Hunshilal (a.k.a Love in the Time of Malaria) starring Mohan Gokhale for inspiration.

*** Last Monday, when we ended up working about 20 hours (this has happened to me before: you think it's done, and then find there's a little bit left - this happens over and over again), everytime I would look up at the clock in the hall, it would be at the exact beginning of the hour. I was living my life by the hour that day-and-night.

And like in some graceful Chinese art film, I could see my reactions slow down. Despite consciously trying to avoid mistakes, I could see myself making them. And more and more. I have never felt this helpless with work stuff before.

You end up thinking it will never ever be solved.

It didn't help that we went home (mostly hungry) during the most coldest night Pune had experienced in the season (a record broken later in the week). Even brass monkeys were spotted taking cover.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

Update: The matter is now closed. If you read this post, please do read the required apology and Amit's clarification

This is the strangest case of "mirroring" anyone's noticed on the blogosphere. A blog-post complete with comments has been reproduced on a different blog. Later, this turned out to be serial behaviour. Could it be that Plagiarism has hit the blogosphere?

Read about it on Amit's blog. Amit happened to discover that an entire post from Shanti Mangala has been lifted to this blog. A flurry of emails among a few bloggers debated what to do about this. No innocent explanation could be deduced, so it was decided to give this Rohan Pinto a chance to set the record straight or to delete the offending posts/credit the originals.

No replies were received, so some of the bloggers decided to go public. We know that blogs aren't mainstream media yet, however, our content (good or bad) is important to us and flattered initially as we might be, the principles of fairness demand this right to recognition be preserved. Personally, I find this sort of blatant copying so bizarre (why would anyone lift innocuous personal blog posts!) - so bizarre that I'm still waiting for an alternative reasonable explanation.

Interestingly, I was planning a post last week (before work forced a complete shutdown of blogging activities) on the possibilities of bloggers being forced to confront journalistic realities. We've heard how blogging is giving rise to alternative (still amateur) journalists. Will a day come when the top bloggers are sought by product-makers to quietly promote/endorse among blogging circles? Right now, I give more weight to the opinion of a friendly blogger than any reviewer or ad gimmick. Or what do you do about bloggers fuelling rumours (even w/o malafide intentions) to maintain popularity?

All that for a different post I guess. This one is about why Mr. Pinto is making copies of content without credit. We still don't know for sure, but right now we have got to treat it as being intentional. This is not a witchhunt, but an attempt to nip this sort of thing in the bud, or to at least not take it silently. But the lines here are really blurred. Do I have to get a Creative Commons License?

A dish best served legal

When you've been vexed beyond remorse and are repeatedly shown the tarnished spots in a silver cloud, you seek a person or entity crossing your path with a legitimate reason to vent your destructive energies upon. Legitimate, so as to avoid the inevitable feelings of guilt of having dished it out where it wasn't deserved.

And when such a desired opportunity presents itself, you fill up with the anticipation of the perverse pleasure. You rub your hands and get down to it with glee.

I've finished rubbing my hands.

Like having a really bad cold all the time

Simon Tatham is (or should be) well known for developing the popular telnet (and others ) client "PuTTY". Just following links from here and there, I chanced upon his personal FAQ page. Which is essentially about one question & its variants: "Why/How doesn't he have a sense of smell?"

Evidently having got a lot of this, Tatham patiently explains that this is called anosmia and there are other people who have it. The rest of the FAQ is educational even if you aren't olfactorily-challenged.

Wonder if he can smell a rat.

We're going around faster

The next time you complain to your boss that there isn't enough time in a day these days, convince him/her with this pedantic proof.

The review is dead...

Move on now. Don't crowd around, move back sir! That's right, you step back please. Yes, it's dead. Ought to be taking you into custody too really. You, and you, and you there. But we all did it. So who will fling pebbles at the tinsel?

That's right - we killed the movie review. The Radio Star sympathised. It wasn't the Year of the Blog, it was the year of pre-emptive publishing and incontinent interpretations. Wielding which, we nailed it right through the middle.

We learned to write, some in KG, some earlier and some later. Writing was a chore for most of us. But we liked to think. And we liked to watch movies. Then we liked to think about the movies we had watched. Last year, all of us discovered we also liked to write about movies that we liked to think about. Evoking "flood" metaphors wouldn't be appropriate at this time, but words swirled around in overwhelming quantities in a delusive deluge.

The hubbub became a disconcerting bourse-like rabble: what my "cool-tech-lingo" friends would describe as an alarming increase in the S/N ratio. I wanted you to know what I thought of yesterday's film (and day-after's as well). I wanted everyone else to know that as well. You wanted the same too. Together we were all happy - and the disk blocks in unnamed server farms somewhere on this Earth got really busy.

Add to this the tendency of film correspondents of commercial websites to be invited to pre-premieres who would then rush to core-dump their "thoughts" via the nearest available Word instance. Unless if they were beaten by me who saw the same film a week earlier at a film festival. But being professionals, they had to watch & digest Thanksgiving offerings of Shaadi Ka Laddoo as well.

Many reviews were motivated by youthful indignation at injustices done elsewhere. "The slowly sinking branch was not a wasted motif; instead it was an allusion to the frailty of life itself with the river being representative of the wetness of the world" and so on. I cannot believe I wrote a 2500 word Master's thesis on the film "Yuva", which all said and done, was a film! When the story of my life is force fed to juvenile delinquents in the year 2090, the ability to faithfully reproduce those golden words will be their ticket to parole.

From hype to hyperbole, it was a short distance. Our opinions fumigated through the smogosphere and created a combination of heady expectations while paralysing the mind into composing real-time reviews in the darkness of the theatre. Result: we sought yetis while we saw pandas instead. They were cute but cliched and definitely not as abominably alluring as the Snowman.

So guys, the reviews these days tell us the story and what was apallingly wrong with the execution. Proceeding thus in in their own Chinese mutational styles, they made it hard to believe that they're all about the same exposed reels. Picture-perfect pandemonium. We're all cooking from the same recipe, but the broths are all so many and tastt so different.

But wait.

Watching movies in 2004 was a scary experience. I watched 80 films (down from 117 the previous year) and was I a jinx! Every newly released film that appealed to me immediately hit the iceberg and headed for Davy Jones' locker (and I didn't even like "The Titanic" that much). This year I'm inviting producers to pay me off to not watch their offerings. Year-end analysis after "told-you-so" analysis from trade analysts told MR-VB-FA-RK-SA-SR-AG to stop being so shy and to explode into skin-coloured Technicolor like the successful rest.

Which is where I got a chance to protest. Hey! I wasn't sleeping through those films. I enjoyed them and didn't mind paying for them. My friends liked some of them too. Fine if you want to get off the fence and go pop (like the weasel) uninhibitedly, but don't stop making stuff for us. Maybe I'm not from the "masses" so I must be from the chattering class of '04. Perhaps I didn't write to convince, but to justify. I wonder if you guys showed them a boring version and showed me the cool one. For I didn't get those guys and neither did they return the condiments.

Fat chance that you'd have read my lyrical odes among all the doggerel and felt good about them. So good that you'd want to sink the equivalent of the GDP of Bhutan into another black-ball-hole just to earn our limited praise and the collective denunciations of the rest.

Amidst all the foggy expanse of the exploding world of blogs, tune into us to hear sympathetic strains. We're putting out all the signals in a noisy (and just got noisier *now*) world. Perhaps only the web-arachnids are consuming them. But I have the satisfaction of having aimed the antenna high.

(This post is about 800 words, I think. Enough for a short note for the future deli-juves.)

The movie review is dead. Long live the movie review.

Yea, rend ro und up

Brilliant Dave Barry-esque 2004 review by Vinod (who also was among the Mood-I quizzing champs this year and from what I've seen of the questions, should be trying to bury that fact from public attention).

Circ-and-us

I haven't been to one in 20 years (or so I am told) so Sunday's visit to Rambo Circus was indisputably a novel experience. I don't think this is a nostalgic hamaare zamaane me.n recollection, for how you wax on remembrances if they've been wiped clean before?

I am sitting by the ringside, mouth a little agape, expressions and frenzied applause that adults prefer not to openly subscribe to any more. For the acts are nothing short of awesome, more deserving of the description even in adjective-saturated writings.

The excitement (if you are paying attention) faces no immunity in the mind. If there was any such attempt, our defences will fail. Practitioners of stoicism will find their "dhairya" eddying away, replaced by a wish to see the performers make it through unscathed and successful. Why do we wish anonymous people with obviously "showy" names such victories (which they have earn again in 2 hours time)?

I'm struck by the relative lack of enthusiasm among the people beside me. How they keep their hands from breaking into involuntary applause at the sight of that contortion is beyond me! Perhaps it can be explained by the hands being busy digging into the tangy depths of potato chips. Mothers show great assiduousness in the incessant feeding of their young, reminding ornithologists of nestlings and their busy moms.

It takes quite a lot of daring and creativity to induce chewing audiences to smile and clap furiously. Unless, like me, everyone was pondering over the impossibility of replicating even the lightest of juggles or the mildest of back-flips. Being innocent of their ways, sweetly straight-driving elephants lifting the ball over mid-off brought a cheer to me. Russian beauties (probably from Ukraine) delicately sliced pieces of cloth using whips and stepped happily on beds of nails. Flaming torches, large rings, cutlery and balloons flouted Newtonian rules evoking Heisenbergian questions.

The sight of the chimp cycling about only to stop and rest the wheels on the cycle stand aroused the cynical question: was it a man in a monkey suit? (is it too pedantic to say "ape suit"?) Does the audience yawn because even Hindi films have men tumbling about attached to invisible wires these days? Has the distinction between reality and other forms blurred that much?

No one waited for the trapeze artists to alight after an aerial show that I hoped would end early so as to rid me of the anxiety of seeing a mid-air miss (that after silencerless motobikes tracing spherical paths that only the truly geeky would point out as a great physics experiment). People were out and off. Bursting against each other. I always feel Gandhiji didn't quite tell them that civil disobedience was over.

I couldn't climb a net in 2 minutes and jump down 10 feet, even to save my life. But even the clowns do that here. I console myself with the thought that I know the full name of P.T.Usha and how to program in C.

Fleshy soft dartboards

There's no doubt that cricketers are easy mannequins to aim potshots at. A Rediff article today by Ashish Magotra says "Our cricketers need to do more" and berates Indian cricketers for being unresponsive in contributing to the tsunami relief efforts.

As I mentioned in an earlier post on how the media likes to talk about the amount of money cricketers make, I find this sort of finger-pointing pretty atrocious. I don't see why anybody should "demand" such services from cricketers. It's not as if the cricketers aren't doing anything, but the writer wants them to do much more. How much more? The cricket community is generating funds by different means, but what can they do if the effort doesn't meet the approval of mediamen?

Cricketers are being unnecessarily dragged into every fund raising controversy in recent times. Sachin Tendulkar was criticised for auctioning a bat for the Oscar campaign of "Shwaas" instead of directly taking money from his bank. Heck, it's his money - he works hard for all that he gets. He is under no obligation to anyone to part with his money if he chooses not to. Does it make much of a difference if he gives the worth of the bat and auctions it out for more two years later? Do cricketers pay their taxes? Judging by the lack of any reports indicating the contrary, I assume they do so faithfully. Do they make their money by fair means? Yes, by all reports. Are we really sure that cricketers aren't without any social conscience? No. So why do people get on their backs so much and demand so much of them in an aggressive manner not applied to other glamorous professions?

It's upto every individual to decide the measure and quality of his/her contribution. Volunteers are urgently required in the devastated areas, so would I be right in vehemently insisting that cricketers (and sportswriters for that matter) rush to affected areas to offer their services? And berate them if they choose to send food and money instead? Is the writer contributing by means commensurate to his own living standards? For that matter, am I?

And when celebrities jump into the fray in high-profile efforts, we can't help but cynically wonder whether ulterior motives of easy publicity are responsible (Nikhil K raised the inevitable question - and I must confess to sharing some of the skepticism myself at times).

Let cricketers go on with their jobs and let them help out in the way they want and if they wish. Or let's start making more demands of ourselves and our representatives for a start.

Retro-titling

(Lunch table conversation isn't always this productive but is usually this funny.)

Several of us have been at various times, greatly amused and slightly annoyed at the trend of Hindi title : English subtitle/clarification/pointless phrase) - one of the most memorable being Daag the Fire (which I attempted to explore earlier)

The question that arose between chappathis & curry a few days earlier was: what if films of the past had the foresight and the warped semantic language skills to apply such suffixes to their titles? We played Time Traveller and cast our minds back to ancient times (imagine wisps of smoke from dry ice here...)

* Sholay: The Flames of Vengeance
* Deewar: The Wall (of ACC Cement)
* Ganga Jumna: Two rivers
* Ganga Jamuna Saraswati: One more river
* Kala Patthar: The B(i)lack Diamond
* Trishul: One 3-pointed instrument, one raging drama
* Dulhan Wohi Jo Piya Man Bhaye: The Daughter-in-Law of Purity
* Chupke Chupke: The Game of "Ssshhh..."
* Golmaal: The circle of moustachioed trust
* Jallad: The hanger
* Mrityudaata: The death-bringer
* Kalyug: The age of tomorrow
* Dhool Ka Phool: The dirty dunce
* Kismet: The dice of fate
* Angoor: The grapes of froth

... and so on.

The fun part is anyone can play this game. Even you.

Blockbuster

This emerged during a post-lunch walk. I offer this without any trace of mockery.

There has been so much talk of "crossover" films in the last couple of years. In essence, it's a euphemism for taking Bollywood bigtime into the US and other Western minds. I have an even better solution. The best possible "international" film would be the following:

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mithun Chakaborty, Rajnikanth. Plus one Asian heroine: Michelle Yeoh perhaps. Or even Angelina Jolie.
Produced by: Ashok Amritraj
Directed by: John Woo

The reason for choosing this group is that they have been able to offer unpretentious "ACTION" action successes in the past. Where most of the "global" filmmakers have gone astray has been in applying too much mind-power, shaving off universality because of thought given to locales and dialogues and messy relationships. Whereas action-adventure is more universally liked. You won't quite get family audiences in large numbers but a movie of this kind would pave the way for more meaningful collaborations.

The casting of the male stars is to capture a large geographical chunk: Rajni brings in South India, South East Asia and the Far East. Mithun draws in Heartland India and Africa. Van Damme & Woo bring in the international action audience.

The only hitch will be the film title. How can anyone come up with an explosive, high-octane name that will do justice to all of these guys?

Disclaimer: I'm not a Van Damme fan, have watched only a fraction of Mithun & Rajni stuff than most others, so I'm not an expert on their films. However, this is the kind of billing that would attract even people like me.

GMail at the end/beginning of the (next) year

The folks at GMail have put up an interesting end of the year summary on the GMail homepage. Don't forget to notice the small change made to the logo showing the quiet emergence of "2005" from the envelope.

:-(

UPDATE:

* With my organisation (like many others) collecting money with a view to making the right donations, the main question is whom to give it to? I'm following the thread opened on Ravikiran's blog for an answer. Also, people like Amit Varma will hopefully be posting on their first-hand impressions on the same theme.

I also want to know if rubbishing the PM Relief Fund and government deliveries completely is valid, for most organisations will prefer to contribute to such funds rather than NGOS whose antecedents aren't always well-known.

* Got this link from Ajay's blog. A blog to help collate information on the earthquake/tsunami: SEA-EAT

* Amit Varma recounts some rather depressing memories from an earlier natural disaster affecting India. Let's hope things are a little better this time.

* Lazygeek who's even closer to the disaster areas than many of us has been updating his blog on what he sees and hears.

The dilemma of a contribution

Undoubtedly, this is the season of nostalgia and "what can I do to make a difference". By some strange coincidence, this December has seen more pravaasi bharatiyas (to give them their PC name) of my acquaintance come home for a visit, and plus the well-timed release of a much-discussed film (read "Swades") has made it a bit of a talking point.

A few days ago, someone I know told me that he/she wouldn't want to go watch "Swades" because it might make him/her want to come back. I didn't say anything then, but I found that a little odd. According to me, if you really, really want to come back, you will. When you weigh the different variables, if you find that is the most reasonable decision you can take, you should take that decision - be it staying abroad or returning to India. Surely a film shouldn't push you into that decision. It can at best evoke a sentiment but not one overpowering enough to beat hard-nosed practicality or to support any social discomfort.

This view could be completely wrong though, for I'm not likely to live elsewhere but here, so I have no first-hand view. The attendant thought with this kind of "homecoming" sentiment is one of contributing to one's country. Saket is facing this dilemma and mentions this in a recent post "Do the right thing!".

The problem is in essence the same, be it contributing to your city, your school, your college, your country, this earth. If the urge to contribute comes from within, find some way of achieving that wherever you are. It's not that everyone living in India actually contributes to alleviating problems. The same guys who find a "Swades/Prahaar/Unnaal MuDiyum Tha.mbi" kind of movie emotionally uplifting might spit on the roads and break every signal from here to eternity. If you don't feel like contributing, I don't think it's fair for anyone to emotionally blackmail you into doing so. Stop feeling guilty about this! It's not necessary to be a Mohan Bhargava and head directly for the smallest nearby village as well. It's probably just a question of self-realisation after all.

[Thanks to Daemon, Sujay and Nikhil for some interesting discussions on related topics]

More local notes

First, what does it matter if I liked the film or not? :-). Ok, for the record, I found the film likeable though flawed. There are several points of interest. I sympathise with the style of filmmaking and identify with the "message". Still, the film is seemingly doing not so well, the same as several other films I liked this year. So I will stop my homilies here...

Jottings

* What's with the awful typos in the credits? "A.R.Rehman" and "Bosco-Ceaser" !!!
* Director's touch: Note the presence of Bapu Kuti (the book that inspired "Swades") on the table in the "Pathfinder" shop when Shahrukh is minding the place.
* So Ashutosh G makes another film in which both Aamir & Shahrukh appear ;-). The 1st Asst Director (Kiran Rao) of this film would have enjoyed that!
* Noteworthy bgms, though somewhat erratically scattered. The title piece played in the harmonica (if I'm not mistaken) should've been part of the released soundtrack.

Indigenous commentary

Local maal is never good. Another example is this absolutely pathetic film called Swades. Here's a list of grouses as to why the movie is so awful:

1. "Emoshun, I want more emoshun in the frame!". How do I know what the actors really mean unless the emotion drips off their face into the bucket kept by their feet?
2. "Dermatological reasons". The only skin on offer was during a wrestling match between pahalwaans and when SRK is having a bath. Women are all wearing saris. Unbelievable!
3. "Where is the intense drama at airport?". There is no chase down the highway, with the hero deciding to not board the plane 3 seconds after lift-off. The only nail-biting moment is during the NASA shuttle launch. Honestly, I thought SRK would dive to abort mission by pressing a button when there was just 1 sec remaining.
4. "'I' se hota hai Item!" The only item song in the film is the heroine playing Sita in a Ram liila song. Aisa kaise chalega? According to the a.nguur-wine, there was to be a sizzling number by a former Miss Antartica.
5. "K-K-K Kaun?" What happened to SRK? Was his back hurting too much? They did not let him act at all. The guy can run, cry, sing and leap - all without lifting a finger. Heck, they didn't even let him recite a poem or two. Instead he's selling books, funda-maaroing on electricity generation and typing into Apple laptops. And not once did they let him say "K-K-Kaveriamma!!!"
6. "Yeh Kahaa.n aa gaye ghum?". Who were all these actors no one had seen earlier? This film must have had such a low-budget for what else explains the absence of Anupam Kher, Amitabh in a special appearance, Celina Jaitley, Vinod Kambli, Alok Nath, Amrish Puri and Joginder? There was not even a college-quad-60sprom-pompom dance by Farah Khan on Sharmistha Roy sets. And I paid Rs. 100/- for this!
7. "Itna sannaaTa kyu.n hai bhai?". My ears proudly ring with tinnitus whenever I see a Sunny paaji - Anil Sharma blackbuster (sic) (with Sunil Shetty in a special inspirational appearance). But here, hardly anyone raises their voice. Why should I pay for such low decibel dialogue delivery?
8. "Cut to cut". Were the censors sleeping? Don't they know that their main function is to ensure a minimum level of nudity and strong language in our films? How can they let this film pass without insisting on a few inserts? Sharmila Tagore should be sacked.
9. "Naach na jaane". Where were the trees? How will the hero-heroin (sic) express their undying love for each other. I was very confused when SRK flashes headlights into Gayatri Joshi's eyes. Was it because he likes her or because he wants to blind her into not complaining about his smoking? There was only one corn field in the entire film. And please, I don't want to see a Raasta-haired Mendicant Deshpande getting jiggy with it. Shabbo ko try kiya hai kya?
10. "Samajhdhar ko ishaara kaafi hai". Dude, tell me: who will go to a village with no broadband, no multiplex with pool table, no Indian Idol, no Coke, no Pizza Hut. Flawed, mate, totally flawed.

All in all, I was disappointed. By the very fact that I had to think about all this in the theatre shows you how entertaining the film was.

Why I am not waving/smiling at you

I often get irritated remarks from people who feel I don't "flicker" in recognition when I see them from a distance. Fair point usually, for I am liable to walk past without a hearty Woosteresque "what ho!". The usual explanations consist of sometimes laying the blame at the doorstep of an introverted personality type (which is easier to mention and difficult to justify) and partly to the development of a pair of slightly myopic eyes (easier to justify but difficult to mention if you don't want to bring up the contents of all your latest personal defects).

There is a third angle of course. For I was quite a forthcoming and enthusiastic "recogniser" in the past. Until a few public setbacks. Of which the most embarassing can be recounted to elicit a few cheap laughs on a boring weblog.

I was expecting a friend of mine to drop by home in the evening. An urgent mission to the grocery store caused my stepping out of the house. Walking down the lane, I spied a figure approaching in the distance - essentially satisfying all major criteria of the expected visitor, namely gender, type of apparel, approximate age and make of vehicle. Eager to intercept her before she got the bad (or good - I never found out) news of my absence at home, I took a step towards the middle of the lane and waved cheerily. As you will have already guessed, it wasn't my friend. And judging from the more than slightly freaked out response of the rider nor was she likely to become one in the future. She swerved with an unpleasant look. Embarassment stemmed from the presence of certain highbrow neighbours in the vicinity who observed every bit of this scene with the interest of a film critic looking for a turkey to went his frustrations upon.

Now perhaps, you believe that my subsequent lowering of excited cheering in reaction to this minor incident was too much, perhaps you are right. In which case I offer my senstive (ahem) and shy nature as the culprit again.

Bottomline: wave to me even if I'm not reciprocating. I'm just not sure if it's you or that girl again, that's all.

Spectacular

I've still not got used to my new pair of spectacles. The problem is that without an intervening piece of lens of a carefully specified radius, the world has more clarity but isn't very sharp,. Whereas it is duller but with a sharper detail than before with the intervention.

Lazy-islators?

If the hard work involved in soliciting votes and soaping up the party leadership are among the reasons why politics isn't a favourable choice for procrastinators like me, in contrast the much easier task of attending Parliament or Assembly is very appealing. If only I could walk into work at 11:00 a.m., then pretend to be miffed by an email or disagree vehemently with a colleague (mutually) and walk out of the place. To the canteen for a nice bite of lunch (with the same colleague) and back to the office-owned house or guesthouse with all amenities. And full pay. If only.

If anyone doubted their intellect, please reconsider. The mere fact that Parliament gets called off more and more early each day proves that politicians are evolving and getting it better each year. I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that throwing just one stick of furniture might cause more melee that could result in more days off than they can do currently.

Pesky-centenary

On the last Thursday & Friday, my college celebrated its "sesquicentenary", arthaat its 150th anniversary. COEP (or as the reluctant postscript goes, "Now known as PIET") was the third oldest engineering college in India (after Roorkee & Guindy - though the head of the COEP alumni association claims it is the 2nd oldest). This post isn't an ode to its greatness. In contrast, it is about why hardly anyone I knew, from my class or in adjacent graduating years, was interested in attending this "celebration".

The main reason is that the function is essentially a back-patting exercise for the college biggies to indulge in. Undoubtedly, COEP has been a leader in technical education over many years. But talk to alumni and you will realise that most of the good things they derived from the place was from essentially student-driven activities and there is a sense that things could easily have been much better.

For those who do not know, COEP is essentially sarkaari in its running. But with a name and background that it possesses, it became the college of first choice in the area among engineering students. Unlike its "academics-only" perception among many people, COEPians usually have indulged in academics as an extra-curricular activity, having their days filled with lots of other activities. The college has done well at activities that have nothing to do with mundane engineering, such as Firodiya, orchestra, street play, debating, quizzing, sports (our football, cricket, hockey and several other teams were among the top ones in the city), magazine and so on. Of course, we had our regular share of University toppers & rankers. The point is not to strew laurels about, just to indicate that all of the above hardly included the contributions of the staff.

Ok, to more immediate irritants. The sesquicentenary celebrations seemed more like a fund-raising event among NRIs among the COEPians in the US. I did not attend any of the events, so I may be unjustified in speculating in this manner. However the appeals on the website for funds (and did the President of India come?) seemed clearly that way. The problem with COEP is that the college staff does nothing to inspire loyalty and confidence among its students and alumni and then expects to be cared for like a loved parent.

Most COEPians I know are quite proud about their alma mater; however this pride does not extend to most of the teachers. COEP has now become autonomous and become PIET. They have been cut from the past. Instead of basking in your greatness, please take this opportunity to recognise the gaping problems:

Hire better teachers: The biggest flaw in COEP: poor teachers. Autonomy seems to nowhere indicate that the college will spend money in hiring better teachers. Heads of Dept. have no confidence in most of their staff. Frankly, several profs. don't have the basic qualification to teach - they are here because they would not be good at anything else. Autonomy should not mean just the convenience of setting and correcting exams in-house. I had to re-learn all my basics after leaving college. I may be a bad student, but I know several others who did similarly, and they all were not poor students. The majority of teachers in COEP are either slow-witted or vindictive or unhelpful and so on. This is not a tirade, but an observation.

Bow to common sense in setting syllabi: Autonomy should mean more meaningful & dynamic contents in syllabi, right? Not if you are in COEP. Two years ago, I attended a meeting to guage views of alumni on drafting a new syllabus for CS & IT. None of our (as in all alumni present at the meeting) practical suggestions could be taken on board, for some strange rules demanded that the First Year be exactly common for all depts without variation and that one dept had to "export" a subject to another dept. in the Second Year and so on and so forth. Ideas on revamping practicals, project work and vivas could not be entertained. Bottomline: the status quo could hardly be breached. It was a waste of three hours.

Infrastructure: Funds are being solicited in the name of improving infrastructure. Instead of just spending on infrastructure like laptops for all and more bandwidth (all this seems just IT related infrastructure, btw), spend on getting better instructors. We had no infrastructure to speak of 4 years ago in our dept., unless if you were shooting an attack on a ravaged war camp. But all CS students could afford a PC at home to work with. We need better teachers, or atleast teachers who can operate the so called new infrastructure. I'm willing to wager that hardly anyone in COEP knows network or system administration, and I'm sure the college won't bother hiring anyone with that experience. Result: the new comps that have been purchased will be used as usual by peons to play Solitaire. The rooms are dusty and health hazards. What talk of infrastructure when the CS dept has no classrooms and is housed in what would best described as the outhouse of a bhoot bangla where even ghosts would have asthma in the dust.

Students going elsewhere: Very rarely does any COEP student do an innovative project of any kind during their undergrads. In contrast, there are always stories of such things from colleges like PIET & VIT. It points to probably more motivation for such things there and also a tradition. At COEP, we have been content to just do our "maaz" for being 12th toppers and go to the BC deriding acads. Not that we did any worse, but we didn't do much good as well. I think the best students no longer think of COEP as their top choice - in some courses, other colleges have stolen the show and with far greater justification.

The name: I wonder if the college management thought that Shakespeare is always right. Changing the name to PIET singlehandedly wiped out all the accumulated brand equity that COEP had earned in the past. All recognition among other colleges and universities and corporates has been made tenuous. People think it to be suspiciously the same as PICT or just a typo. Almost every alumnus who has spoken at a PIET/COEP function in the last year has blasted this decision. The decision is devoid of any common sense as far as I can see - just the whims of a few people who want to be seen as taking a forward step. What has changed beneath this superficial nomenclatural adjustment?

I'm more than a little peeved because I've known the place for 7.5 years now. To try making a difference, my friends and I gave much of our time in the last 3 years to teach in our dept. The realisation at the end of it was the place is a mammmoth that does not want to lift its tail to flick the irritant flies. It revels and wallows in its status quo. Autonomy is just new paint on a crumbling edifice. I won't be nostalgic because I go there every week. That's only for people who can be touched for funds without making too many demands. Last week at COEP was probably like a Karan Johar film tailor-made for his audience abroad where you shell out money unquestioningly and feel great about it.