Why Offer?

July 7, 2007 Leave a comment

This is my crib against an offer which was made to me without me having requested for it, and then being denied the pleasure of using it.

Yatra sent me an sms  – “Yatra.com presents ‘Lucky 7’ offer. Book any domestic flight for Rs.777 only. Offer valid between 7pm-8pm on 7-7-2007 only. Logon or call 09871800800. T&C apply. ” (Reproduced verbatim).

Well, apart from the T&C, it seemed pretty straight forward. Logon to the Yatra website between 7pm and 8pm (which was till about 20 minutes back) on 7-7-2007 (which is today)  and book any domestic flight for just Rs. 777. Nice!

Poor me logged on. Tried to book the ticket. In vain. For the first 5 minutes, there  was a “Problem Opening Page” (Firefox) /”Page cannot be displayed” (IE) . After that, there were “no flights found on the sector I requested” (Delhi – Mumbai Delhi – onwards 14th July, return -16th July). Ahh!! I kept refreshing, hoping for some airline to start operating on the requested sector.  You know.. shit happens!

Just to be sure, I kept calling the provided number. “All lines are currently busy. Please try again after some time.” I am sure there are far too many people out there looking for the cheaper tickets. So this could have happened. no grudges!

BUT BUT BUT… at 8:05PM, the site suddenly started operating in all its splendor, eastman color format. And suddenly, there were tickets available on the requested circuit. 899+taxes! or, build your own itinerary from the available flights. and there were so many of them. Miracles happen when you don’t need them anymore 😉 Thats life!

Now, I have always rated myself as one of those dumb guys who would fall for such simple T&C* offers. More so, after falling for this offer. Ahh.. one hour lost. Could have gone to the CCD at JATC and read a book with my cuppa! So much for a good weekend!

closing question – why offer, when there is no intention to fulfill?

*T&C – 1. The site may not open 2. We can tell you that there are no tickets available. 3. We can later tell you that the tickets are available without the scheme offer, in case you are interested.  and such fine prints! 

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The Salary Monster!

July 7, 2007 4 Comments

Saw this link which got me thinking-

1. The salaries in the Indian market have become obscene. So much so, that even though I think I am making good money, I feel that there is scope for improvement. Everytime I think I am doing well for myself, I meet at least 5 other people who can cause discontentment. By telling me how much they are earning! Whats the end figure? I don’t know! What’s a good salary? No idea!!

Faint memory – When my sister took hom Rs.7,500 as her first TCS salary in 1997, I was pretty excited. When I was completing my Economics undergraduate studies in 2000-2001, I believed a salary of 15-20K to be a good salary to have. Enough to start my career and achieve a few important financial milestone. and I am at a number several times my aspired salary. And I am still not happy…
2. The Indian offshoring industry is bringing its own demise – For me, two things have changed – one, the talent price has gone up and companies are finding their basic cost structure become gradually unfavorable. Two, there is an immense amount of billing rate pressure from clients. Combined with inflation, and the concentration of economic growth in a few cities/metros (NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai) which has led to unprecedented cost of living in these cities, supply of money is still not able to cope up with the increasing demand for things money can buy. Net result.. everyone’s running. Everyone’s unhappy.

Aside : A friend is looking for a 1BHK. Preferably wants it in the Bandra to Dadar region. Budget – 20k. Don’t laugh.
For those who are in Mumbai, thats a paltry amount to look for a 1BHK in this stretch.
For those who don’t understand Mumbai, 20k for A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE!!!! Is he looking for a palace? NOOOOO!!! a kholi will do!
What could the companies have done? Not gone berserk with the salaries paid. Kept a check on where they are headed. Thought through a basic requirement – how to differentiate between campus and off-campus hiring. People who join form campus get a salary of X. They spend 6 months with a firm, and are out in the market, because they know they can get 2X. In a hurry to poach trained (for 6 months) talent, IT ocmpanies are ready to offer 2X. However, the talent is in a bigger hurry. He jumps again within 6 months to get 3X, 3.5 X and so on. Sooner than they realize, an Indian IT company has trained someone for 6 months (paying him X) and converted him into hiking monster who is never going to be happy with his salary. And we have a whole lot of companies ready to fuel their desire.

3. If the Rupee run continues, what will happen to the Indian IT industry – Now, this is a fundamental question that a lot of economists are debating. I don’t think I need to waste my breath gasping over it. However, the long and short of it is that the fundamental driver of growth of Indian IT industry, the cost arbitrage, will get eroded far more rapidly if the dollar becomes weaker. Even if the salaries were not to go up obscenely, the strengthening of rupee can damage the margins enough to make businesses unfavorable.

But I hear the government is noticing all this! 🙂

What do I think will happen? A lot of acquisitions. Smaller fries will get wiped out. Salaries will stagnate. And there will be more unhappiness all around! 🙂 But all that.. in good time! Make hay while the sun shines. And if you can, save cash! it may become more valuable than any other thing!

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Book Review: The Golem’s Eye

July 5, 2007 2 Comments

I had posted the review of The Amulet of Samarkand quite some time back with a promise to finish the remaining two books of the The Bartimaeus Trilogy and come back with their reviews.

So, I did finish of the other two books – The Golem’s Eye and Ptolemy’s Gates over the last couple of weeks. Would I recommend? Yes. But read the complete trilogy. If you have to read just one, stop at AoS, even though PG is the best. But a lot of things in PG won’t make perfect sense unless you have read the previous two books!

Let me review the second book, The Golem’s Eye first. And then, I will start reviewing PG.

Review : TGE

Golem’s Eye is probably the worst book of the trilogy, despite being far from getting classified as a bad book. The problem with TGE is that it gives you the feeling of being a filler. Something like the several filler episodes of Naruto while Sasuke is growing in strength at Orochimaru’s castle, and Naruto is growing in Konoha. To show the growth, you need to show something happening at Konoha which is helping all the Ninjas grow.

 

 

Plot (Skip this if you are planning to read the book – Doesn’t contain spoilers, but what the heck!)

Back to TGE, the book starts off a few years after book 1, Nathaniel/John Mandrake is a prominent person in the Government’s scheme of things. However, his status and safety is under threat, as a Golem is unleashed on the city of London, by God knows who! Nathaniel, under uberpressure from all angles, turn backs to the Djinn he had thought of not summoning again, and who continues to be his best bet, Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is full of his wise quips and antics as the two set out to solve the dual problems of Resistance & Golem that the city of London is grappling with.

Kitty, the cursory encounter with whom had left a deep imprint on both Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, makes a strong comeback as a Resistance member with an ideological/honest side. The resistance rises, gets crushed, and Kitty along with a couple of other people survives to set the stage for book 3 – PG.

The conspiratorial angle of magicians, power leading to corruption, and an innate honesty saving the day are still the main themes of the book. The allegories to modern day and historical politics/world are fairly visible. I am surprise how books like these find their way in the children’s section of bookstores. The hidden layers after layers of satire and metaphors is not something that I expect children to understand. Having said that, I think the story in itself is quite a generous dose of fantasy for children to enjoy!

 

My views

Where the book suffers is the shallowness of the conspiracy which does not get matched with the thickness of the book. The book could have been finished off in half the number of pages. It becomes a drag at times with all the details around things that sound better when narrated at a frantic pace. For instance, the scene at Gladstone’s tomb should definitely have been shortened, given the surge of emotions that every character would have been going through.

Good things about the book –

  1. Bridges the gap between AoS and PG nicely.
  2. The story has elements of fantasy which are nice (Golem, as a concept is quite intriguing)
  3. Nathaniel finally moves on from being the hero to the dark guy (for a big part of the novel).

Bad Things about the book –

  1. The pace
  2. There aren’t as many sub-plots in the story to wrote a 300 page book
  3. Could’ve explored Kitty’s character a little better
  4. The book has chapters narrated from the eyes of Kitty, Bartimaeus and Nathaniel. There can be chapters narrated from the evil guys’ eyes as well!
  5. While the book is titled the Golem’s Eye, Golem (I found Golem to be a very exciting concept) isn’t given a good amount of importance in a book which is more about the war between Magicians and Resistance

Back to my rating mechanism (mentioned in this post), the book holds true to 2 of the 4 parameters – attention to detail, loyalty to genre, and fails to deliver the ultimate punch on two of them – pace and content. I won’t go to the extent of saying it failed on the content. It’s the right content, but not sufficient!

Overall – Read the trilogy. It is very very gripping!

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Who Am I?

July 4, 2007 1 Comment

If I were part of X-Men

If I were a Naruto character –

naruto
Which Naruto Character Are You?
Test by naruto – kun.com

Avatar Character?

You scored as Aang, the Savior, Your result: Aang. Like Aang, you feel pressure to save the world, yet you want to be a normal kid at the same time. You’d do anything to save someone, no matter who they are. And most importantly, you have the freespirit nature of an airbender!
—
“I said I’d rather kiss you than die, it’s a compliment!”

Toph, the Eyes
70%
Aang, the Savior
70%
Sokka, the Mind
60%
Katara, the Voice
60%
Zuko, the Soul
45%

What Avatar Character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

JLA?

My top result for the SelectSmart.com selector,
Which Justice League Character Are You? ,
is FLASH

And finally, Aladdin –

I’m Aladdin!Fun loving, adventuresome, but a little insecure.
Which character from Disney’s Aladdin are you? Find out at Springhole.net

Seems like I’m the central character in most of the cases.. A true HERO.. (BIG GRIN)

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Or-Cut-ting

July 4, 2007 2 Comments

I caught on to the Orkut phenomenon more than an year back. Initially, it was just another thing, but lately, the fascination of finding people that I haven’t talked to or seen in years was too much to resist. So, I became a regular. Being a part of communities that could possibly link me to my classmate from 80s and 90s seemed like an interesting thing to do!
However, three things that have managed to piss me off completely–

  1. Communities ‘ Culture – 99 out of 100 communities are full of Hitlers (Hitters—letchers). They all have the same kinda discussion threads – rate the profile pic, would you go out on a date with the person above you, blah blah. Guys tend to hit communities/threads with a seemingly higher number of girls. Girls tend to stick to communities where someone catches their imagination. After all, Bheja Fry reminded me that even girls can be Thurkeys! J

Now now, there are communities where something sensible is done/discussed, files/books etc are shared. But I am sure, even in those communities, there are n number of threads with n*100+ posts on such idiotic threads. While an orkut-present reader of this post may feel like kicking me for being generalized, remember that this outburst is about the masses.. If you belong to the classes, well, you don’t need to take it to your heart! And anyway, you’d know if you are the one I am talking that.

  1. Scrap Snooping – This is by far the most irritating phenomenon. Here is a snapshot of the questions I have received on mail/chat in the last few weeks –
    1. Who is Person X? bahut chat kar rahe ho aajkal?
    2. Who is Person Y? kaafi interested lag rahi hai tum mein?
    3. You got engaged? Saw that scrap in your scrapbook! And you didn’t even tell me?
    4. You’ve got 64 fans? That’s awesome!!
    5. Waise to busy rehte ho.. orkut pe scrap karne ka time kahan se milta hai?

Here is my retort –

A,B -Person X and Y are (of course) two women (why would you maaro that wise quip otherwise).. I studied with in 1994-1995. How is that your business? Person Y is an old time friend and we just lost touch somehow. Yes, there is lots to discuss! Is she interested? I don’t mind!

C -No! I haven’t got engaged! But if you don’t have a sense of humor yourself, you can ask dumb questions, rather than cracking wise quips.

D- well. As a matter of fact, on my screen also, it says 64 fans! Wow! Technology has really come a long way! I don’t know why they are my fans. And is there something awesome about having fans? Don’t think so! I know of people trading fan following as well on orkut. “You be my fan, I will be yours” kinds.

E- I reply to orkut messages in bulk at 2-3 in the night. If you are up for it, I can give you a callback at 3 as well. Game? Plus, I don’t have to shout at the top of my voice to send you a scrap. It doesn’t disturb others working along with me!

And in any case, what were you doing reading the scraps of others? Don’t you have anything better to do in life than to pry into someone else’s?

At one time, I was surprised to see a friend deleting all the scraps he was getting. His reaction – people tend to misuse this information. There are addresses, phone numbers, email ids that people leave on scraps, without realizing that this is information in the public domain. Let me not be the reason someone gets in a mess, more so if that someone is me!

Well, Point well taken!

  1. Stat-surfing – Again.. you can see a lot of people competing on numbers. Person X has 600 friends, while I have only 400. “Hey.. I am posting the 1000th scrap!” “25 testimonials? Neat!”

Let the kids do that. Grown ups- please act like grown ups!

And I still love Orkut. Its good to get back in touch with so many friends from yesteryears!

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Quite a bit of stuff..

July 2, 2007 Leave a comment

The last three days had a lot of interesting stuff happening all around –

1. Movies like Apne, Aap ka Suroor released. And I consciously stayed away from theatres. lsat heard, people had totally given up on a capped Himesh facing stiff competition from an animated Himesh [ Caricature of a caricature.. that’s intriguing] … and the Deol family’s emotional action movie. One helluva tearjerker, I hear! And going by Dharam paji’s performance at the IIFA awards, nothing short of an oscar nomination!!

2. Indian team finally won a series against South Africa. Last night, the way they started their batting, I wasn’t too hopeful. But it was a good chase in the end. A very very scratchy Yuvraj managed to hold on till the end, thanks to several dropped catches! A cat with whiskers using all his nine lives…

3. The prancing horses finally managed a 1-2. It was good to see Raikkonen at 1. And after a while, it was not because someone else goofed up. They were right up there from the start! 🙂 Good pitstop strategies this time, reminiscent of their glorious days.

4. Was watching A B Vardhan’s (CPI) defense of Pratibha Patil’s various glorious acts. It was great to see a leading politician defend the case with the wisdom of a 5-year old. “Everyone does it.. So what’s wrong if we are also doing it” citing the numerous cases of inappropriate candidatures here and there! Interestingly enough, Pratibha Patil has finally claimed that the allegations are false and baseless. How? Well, that’s not really important, is it?

5. I was writing a post on Air Deccan. Will post it later during the day.. but even before I say something, I saw this post on Y-Lal’s blog. That’s one senior from IIMB days that a lot of people used to admire. In short, everytime I think of an Air Deccan experience, its an equivalent of caught in a peak-hour 2nd class compartment of mumbai local. Whatever you go through is your problem, because we offer cheap services!

Welll…. so much to write.. I think I will pass!

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Insignificantly Significant: Gooney Recovery

June 26, 2007 4 Comments

This image is a distressful reminder of the way business is done in our country.

Like a lot of us, I missed this incident reported in the newspapers. On the surface of it, its just another death. When I think about it, it reminds me that my life is not that significant. I might be too insignificant in a bank’s larger scheme of things, and 15000 bucks might be required to break or shake the fortunes of the company. So what if there are other defaulters dealing with several crores contesting for the apex position in this country.

And on my death, while my family would talk about the scared voice –

Around 12.30 pm, Sunanda says, Yadaiah called her up and told her to arrange Rs 15,000 at any cost. According to her, Yadaiah sounded scared. “He said that he would not be allowed to leave unless he returned the money, and then he hung up,” Sunanda has told the police.

I will have a bank manager fabricating stories– 

In a statement, Rahul Virkar of ICICI Bank, said, “We are informed that Yadaiah had come to the office of our agency for making payments for the overdue instalments. We are informed that during the interaction with the representatives of the agency he felt unwell and requested to be accompanied to a doctor. We are further informed that the agency representatives had provided all possible support for his medical treatment.”

And our friend, the Police  will say –

Narasaiah said Elite`s agents had admitted to having taken Yadaiah to their office in Ameerpet and asking him to clear his debts. [Zee News Article]

 And in the same vein of contradictory statements –

A case was registered today under Sections 342 (Wrongful Confinement) and 304 (Culpable Homicide Not Amounting To Murder) of IPC. Inspector G Narasaiah said, “We are awaiting the post- mortem report. If it turns out to be a case of murder, the sections will be altered accordingly.”

 
Talk about playful cajoling by a factoring agency. Gentle reminder – Supreme court had come down heavily on commercial banks (again, driven by ICICI’s behavior) for using goons for recovering bad debts.

 Its appalling.

In another development, the AP State Human Rights Commission taking suo moto cognizance of the case has asked the city police to furnish a report on the circumstances leading to the death of Yadaiah. Justice B Subhasan Reddy, chairnman of the State Human Rights commssion has asked the ACP Panjagutta to  furnish a report by June 29. The commission will initiate action after receiving the report.

William Gladstone had mentioned in one of his popular speeches– Justice delayed is justice denied! But then, I think we have already moved from the judicial theory of arbitration to the political theory of arbitration. Its about collective coercion, and analyzing the power of the parties requiring arbitration. Justice usually sides with the powerful.

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The Boss… Ulle Po*

June 25, 2007 8 Comments

Well.. its pretty late in the night (3:00AM) for me to be writing a blog. Those who know me, know that I love my sleep. And sleepless nights are usually a by-product of “falling” in love. Yes. I fell in love today. With the B-to-the-A-to-the-B-to-A (Known is a drop, unknown is an ocean) – BABA… Thalaivar… Dalpati… Sivaji… The Boss.. Rajni… yet again.. today!

Every time I have watched or discussed Gunda in the recent times, I have felt a certain emptiness in modern Indian cinema. Can any other movie really touch the standards set by movies such as Gunda? Or, can any other star beat the imagination with such consummate ease as Mithunda [ These links are proof that I don’t find too many people apart from GreatBong doing justice to Mithunda’s histrionics] . Lo and behold… The Boss is here!

Now, the experience of watching the movie was a great one! Just like the movie. We landed at G-7 in bandra (galaxy, gaiety, gem etc etc) only to realize that the movie did not do too well and was taken off the screen. Shootout at Lokhandwala got the better of Sivaji at Bandra. Pity! What a loser crowd!! But Juhu, the suburb of the rich and the famous, stars, starlets and wanna be stars, was still running the movie. We had about 90 minutes to go. Religiously, we decided to celebrate our team outing at PVR Juhu’s late night show with the Boss. The night started off well. Not much traffic. No sign of the forecasted heavy rains either (having heard the prediction from Met deptt., we were anyway quite sure of their being not much of rain problem). No problems in getting the tickets of the biggest blockbuster of recent times. A nice bit of Pasta and Sandwiches at Brio (they are quite delectable). And oh yes! The star attraction – Sonali Bendre! at Brio, first.. and in the theater later. Ever since I started at Diamond/Mumbai, I have been hoping to catch a glimpse of beautiful people like Madhuri Dixit, Sonali Bendre, Aishwarya Rai, etc etc. Aishwarya from up close was quite disappointing. And so is Sonali. She looked quite old and frail! Though I still maintain that she is gorgeous! Its just that I had higher expectations!

With Sonali in tow (how I wish!), we landed at PVR and watched 2 interesting trailers – first was of Gandhi, My Father! And second was of Sultan – Hooaa Haaa haaaa… The potential Rajni blockbuster of 2008. Though I read that its an animation movie directed by Rajni’s daughter Soundarya. That said, I have already marked these two movies on my planner!

Back to the movie – The movie was exactly what I/we had expected. No subtitles meant that we could enjoy the movie to the fullest. No distractions of having to understand the (non-existent) storyline, dialogues with higher morals, and romance of unimaginable proportions. For me, the movie was about 3 things – Rajni, fight sequences, and songs. And it was totally worth the time and money. Fulltoo mindless entertainment.

Rajni – rocks! Thalaivar is God. Right from the chewing gum trick (even though I don’t agree with the hygienic aspect of bouncing the gum off any damn surface (including the villain’s face) for popping it in) to the coin flip (in comparison, the coin trick of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale looked petty) to the climax sunglass flip from front to back and back to front. The movie has style written all over it.

Fight sequences – mind-blowing! Fight at the music store (the first sequence) was exciting, but as the movie unfolded the Rajni brand of action sequences, I realized that first sequence was just the first layer of the onion being peeled. Well, onions are quite troublesome with their smell and sting. No such problems with the sequences. Nothing to think about. Sit back.. and relax. Let The Boss take over- the control of your senses, gravity, aerodynamics, and what have you! The fight sequence in the middle of the movie (at a farmhouse kinda place) and towards the end are just too good. True passion. You can be anything! There are some things human beings cannot do. For everything else, there is Thalaivar. Epitome – In an imaginary song sequence, the gun is used as a boomerang. Just that it kinda holds its own once it spots the villain, shoots him down, and goes back to the Boss! And people hate me for watching too much of Naruto!

 

Songs- they definitely deserve a mention. I have never been proud of the perfectly illogical way songs are inserted in Indian movies. But this movie lets you explore the avenues you can only dream of. Come to think of it, how many people do you know who can sing and dance around a tree to patao a girl? Not even one I guess! Songs are nothing but an imaginary and artistic way of expressing your deepest emotions (including lust). This movie lets this spirit soar. None of the songs have anything to do with reality. Its all about imagination and creative expression. The girl switches between multiple avatars (long-choti thoroughbred, deeply immersed in Tamil culture, traditional girl, the straight out of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana princess with lots of jewellery and princessly clothes, tomboy cuts, mini skirts, etc etc.) and dances all that she wants. Rajni dresses up as a warrior, king, with a blond wig, with tonnes of lipstick (wonder what kinda fantasy is that), in multicolored suits, five packs of facial powder to look fair (with due credits to fair and lovely). They move between modern India, western world, historical places, palaces, with such ease that you wonder whether their desire to showcase their wardrobe is higher, or the director’s access to these locations too inexpensive. Every song is unpredictable, expensively and expansively shot, giving Rajni a good shot at a girl (probably his daughter’s age)

I tell you people. You must watch the movie. Don’t take a tamil knowing friend along. They will spoil the fun in their enthusiasm by explaining everything. There is no need to understand anything.

Final verdict – Even though Gunda had a much better poetic appeal (Humara naam hai Potey, jo apne baap ke bhee nahi hotey kinds), Sivaji has style! I leave it to your sensibilities.

 

* Ulle Po is the famous dialogue from Baasha!

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Talent & Excellence

June 22, 2007 2 Comments

In two related-unrelated articles of Economic Times –

1. The first if from Corporate Dossier, written by Sharmila Ganguly from Spenta Consultants. I remember having a short conversation  with her more than a couple of years back, when they were looking for someone for the National Bank of Dubai & HSBC CIBM later on.

However, thats not important. The article is. Its something that I’ve always believed in. Excellence does not manifest itself in parts. Talent may! People who excel in life never take anything casually. Passion drives everything they do. After 18 hours of energy oozing all around, they have a smile on their face and determination in their head even as they hit the sack. And yes, I have had the pleasure of meeting a few of them!

Am I one of them? I don’t think so!  Might have wanted to be one! But as Shikamaru always says – mendokusē (“what a drag”) 😉

“Unko gauhar mile jo doob ke teh tak pahunche,
Main tha saahil pe mujhe ret ke zarRat mile.”

Gauhar – Pearl     teh – bottom    Saahil – Kinara/Beach     ret-Sand

Are you one of them?

2. This one, here, is just a pointer. The top headhunters of this country..  They identify talent, and the organizations hope that they are excellent. My guess is that these top Headhunters are able to identify people who are not just talented. They are able to identify excellent! Ahem Ahem! Do you know them?

Me.. I have interacted with a couple of them in the past!

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You’ve got time?

June 21, 2007 2 Comments

Its funny how the evening changes if you reach home early (?). Well.. I did leave office by 8 PM today!  THAT was like a BIG news for me. And a pleasant change. Even after taking care of a couple of things, I realized that I was home by 9:30.

Anyways.. so what did I do? I made some soup and pasta for myself…  put VH1 onTV. picked The Golem’s Eye for continuing from where I had left – yeah.. the point where the concept of Golem is introduced. But kept it aside. Started writing this. Plan to scrap at least 10 people on Orkut. Finish off all my pending blogreading. And then.. get back to my friend.. Golem!

So.. what do people do when they have time? Apart from spending a big part of it on cellphone?

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Turnaround

June 20, 2007 7 Comments

He turned around and left….

It seemed like the perfect setting. They had been talking to each other for an unusually high amount of time every day for the last 3 months. He was was everything for her. Everything except that one thing she yearned for him to be. They both knew it. They both knew that it could not come to be. Yet they prolonged their agony. The perfect sunset had a dark spot.

He used to wait for her outside her office. Drop her home. Talk to her for hours standing next to the ice cream trolley. Every day, the cellphone would ring. Every day, he said bye. Every day, he turned around and left.

Both of them wanted to end this. The suffering, the pain, the longing. They both knew it was not right. Yet, they continued fooling themselves. The temptation to give in was strong. The pragmatism to hold back, was equally compelling. Who would blink first? While cracking jokes, sharing anecdotes, till the wee hours of the night, thinking about all this, he would turn around and leave.

That day was the same. Yet, it wasn’t. That day, they both decided to end it. They agreed that it was not what they ever wanted. That day also, he waited for her outside her office. She finished work, came down, and sat next to him in the car. He drove back silently. After stopping at her home, he did not say anything. She kept looking at him. With hope, a silent prayer going up in the air, she clinged on to the belief that this was also not something that they ever wanted. He still did not say anything. She wanted to cry. It was over. He turned around and left.

The next evening, he said I Love You. It was a Saturday, one of the best weekends of his life…

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Movie Review: Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

June 20, 2007 Leave a comment


I managed to watch Jhoom Barabar Jhoom over the weekend.. Saturday morning first show it was! And I am glad it was so… why? Morning show tickets are cheaper than the evening shows. Much to my agony, in this age of scantily clad actresses and sparkling colors on the Yashraj screen, I was still not able to recover my 90 bbucks. Not even Gulzar’s lyrics, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music, london locales… Nothing worked! Pathetic movie!

Its a movie which revels in mindlessness, below average acting, and poor casting.

The basic plot of the movie seems inspired by the movie Chocolate featuring Anil Kapoor, Emran Hashmi, Irfan Khan and Tanushree Dutta. Not the bank robbery thing, but people cooking up stories on the fly looking at the billboards and magazines lying around. Guy meets girl. Girl wants to avoid guy. Cooks up a story about being engaged. Guy cooks up a similar story about being engaged. (How usual!) Both cookup extremely flimsy idiotic stories. Start liking each other. But can’t say! Since the other likes someone else. Mess? No! They go back to their homes. Call up each other. Forcefully and with the right set of incentives, persuade their story characters to participate in a 15 minute long dance and music competition, at the beginning of which know the only surprise element left is – “who will win the dance competition?”. Everything else is already fixed. Match fixing, eh? Worse still – even the choreo of this 15 minute marathon is not great.
The constant reference to the guys being from india and the gals being from Pakistan is just not needed. There are better ways of advocating unification of India and Pakistan into one nation!
Absolutely no chemistry being Abhishek and Preity. 2 smooch scenes featuring Lara Dutta (once with Abhishek, and the next time with Bobby Deol). What is the bachchan family thinking now? I heard there were some strong reactions to Hrithin-Ash smooch scene in Dhoom2, including some from Abhishek too! Preity refuses to oblige in a similar way. With her, its back to the flowers in gardens, birds in sky and other such metaphors. Bobby Deol is pathetic, no surprises there. Lara Dutt looks hot, but 1. is there for a very short duration and 2. even that doesn’t help.

And those who are wondering where Amitji is in the middle of all this – This really is a new role for him! Special Guest appearance as a singing dancing sensation, who sings and dances everywhere in London, without any invitation. And the same song, over and over again!

Best character – Hafeez Bhai! He has his comic moments!

Music- some of the songs are good. You can see some of Gulzar and SEL in action there! Title Song, Bol Na Halke Halke, and Ticket to Hollywood are the ok.

Overall – Dont watch!

Filed under Bollywood, Movie Review Tagged with , ,

Itsy Bits.. Life in the pits!

June 7, 2007 Leave a comment

Opening song of the day – Sham-e-gam ki kasam…. (Talat Mehmood, Movie: Footpath)

Chain kaisaa jo pahaluu mein tuu hii nahiin
Maar daale na dard-e-judaai kahiin
Rut hansiin hain to kyaa chaandanii hai to kyaa
Chaandanii zulm hai aur judaai sitam
Shaam-e-gam kii qasam

Dil pareshaan hain raat viiraan hain
Dekh jaa kis tarah aaj tanahaa hain ham
Shaam-e-gam kii qasam aaj gamagiin hain ham
Aa bhii jaa aa bhii jaa aaj mere sanam

Full lyrics here
Audio Link [ here ]

Itsy bits from the newspaper that caught my attention –

The new olympic logo has come under quite a bit of fire. For once, I think I can just stop at saying – I AGREE. This logo SUCKS!

JJ and 8 party co are forming a 3rd Front

When would we start covering our backs? Everyonez interested in opening up a front! Thats obscenely blasphemous! Imagine! Another front?

8 parties – JJ heads! Wow! Now, the front will have a lot of Saree to cover their.. err.. back and front!

AC Local Trains in Mumbai gradually seem like a possibility

I wonder- what will happen to those hundreds and thousands of people who just love hanging by the open gates of mumbai local, ready to inhale the fishy odor and sulphurous fumes of a stinky bandra track? There is an old saying – Kutte ko ghee nahi pachta! A dog cannot digest ghee (clarified butter?)

Its a veryyyy long day ahead with the final presentation expected to go on till about 2 or 3 in the night!

Closing song of the day (based on model predictions!)- Dhanyabhaag sevaa ka avasar paaya (Pt. Rajan Mishra, Pt. Sajan Mishra, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Movie: Sur Sangam)

Dhanyabhaag sevaa ka avasar paaya
Charan kamal ki dhool bana main
moksh dwaar tak aaya

Ghat mein goonja naad nirantar
jyot jali antar mein….
Sau sooraj ke ujiyaare mein..
maine mujhko paaya!
Dhanyabhaag sevaa ka avasar paaya

[ Damn it! No audio links or lyrics links for this song!]

Filed under Musings Tagged with

Well.. I haven’t stopped watching movies, or plays…

June 4, 2007 Leave a comment

Well.. I haven’t stopped watching movies, or plays, or listening to music that I want to talk about, or books that I have read that I want to let you know about. and its not that I have been totally deprived of time either! Yes, life has been a bit of this and that, but I think its more of outright laziness lately that has stopped me from writing!

So… Wassup? Me? Watched Shrek3, Cheeni Kum, Shootout at Lokhandwala and n number of Naruto episodes lately. [ Remind me to start writing about animation series like Naruto and Avatar-The Last Airbender as well]

Shrek 3 was neat, not as neat as 1 or 2, but neat nevertheless! Time well spent. Watched it at Eros, Nariman Point. It was a pleasant change to watch a movie from balcony for 60 bucks, in a really downtown location (people tell me that it doesnt get more posh than that in mumbai – South mumbai is “the” place!). I guess one of these days I would stop watching movies so frequently because I don’t think a movie like Shootout deserves even 25 bucks, leave aside 250 bucks! The movie was pathetic, to say the list. Rediff was right in commenting about the idiots who fund such movies. Cheeni Kum would have been a perfect movie if the length was shortened and Paresh Raval muted a bit! Tabu and Amitabh are cool, and its surprising to notice that they had a pretty cool chemistry! Its a good movie to watch!

At one time I really wanted to blast movies like Tara Rum Pum having watched the early shows. But thats some less blood on my hands! 😉

Watched a play – “Flowers” at NCPA. Its a monologue enacted by Rajit Kapur (Of Byomkesh Bakshi fame). (Here is a review that I largely agree with) . Same problem as Cheeni Kum. The length, though short by the standards of usual plays (90 mins), could have been shortened further. More so, because there was no change in scene, no pause, no other character but the protagonist, and no movements. Its about a priest who’s torn between his duties as a priest, his love for his wife and his lust for a courtesan. Its a 90 minute narration where the priest walks through the course of events, his emotions, his agony and conflict, paints images using his words, and makes us all visualize the drama! Rajit Kapoor managed to be ok. But the play was just not my kind. I don’t want to take the credit away from Rajit, but c’mon – I have a low attention span. I can’t concentrate on something for 90 minutes on the trot! Not a lecture from the greatest of professors, not the same song even if I am in love with it, nothing!

My analytics blog is still waiting for the remaining articles and a response to Amit’s comment.

There is a blogger meet on 9th June in Mumbai. I am still debating within myself if I want to attend! Should be fun. Lets see!

Filed under Bollywood, Hollywood, Movie Review, Theatre Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Just to break the silence Every time I look at Su…

May 29, 2007 Leave a comment

Just to break the silence

Every time I look at Sunshine
There’s something that tells me
What the last night must have been like
How the evenin is going to be

Hold me sunshine for a moment too long
Let me live in what matters to me

Filed under Musings Tagged with

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