Day 5 - Goodbye Melbourne, Hello Sydney

Good day today. The fact that India faced a miserable loss meant that we had an extra day to hang in Melbourne. We started the day late after the big ABSINTH night last night - woke up only when the hotel management told us we had already overstayed two hours beyond check out time.

So checked out and checked into the Ponna residence to have lunch - lovely rice paper rolls made by A and her mum (Thank you A and mum!).

Headed to St. Kilda's beach and played a bit of beach cricket. I'm thinking some of the girls were also better than the way the Indian team fared! But I won't bitch about the cricket anymore.


Headed to the airport after a couple of beers and some food at the beach.

After and hour long (or short) flight, we landed in Sydney and checked into our luxurous serviced apartment where I negotiated my way to taking the couch and letting the rest of the boys share the one bed we have!!... Does pay to be tall sometimes!!!

More from Sydney tomorrow.

Day 4 - Absinth makes the heart grow fonder

Ok. We lost the match. In a nutshell it was a pathetic display. India played like they had hand grenades thrown at them. Ganguly continues to impress. Laxman looked good all too briefly. Sachin gave us another teaser, looking great while he was there, but then suddenly getting himself out. The future of Indian cricket (Yuvi and Dhoni looked lik they'd rather be somewhere else).

All in all, this Indian cricket team did not show any fight. Gave in to a less than hostile Australian attack. Fielded worse than Boycott's mum. The bowling was one bright spark. The contrast between the teams could not have been sharper. And then there are Bhajji's comments to put up with.... He needs to play a game as good as he talks it.

Kumble has a lot to think about. Who opens? Does he bring in Karthik with his record in England? Does he bring in Sehwag with his very poor recent domestic form but proven game changing capability? Who sits out? A class batsman like Dravid? Recent double centurion Jaffer? The future - Yuvi? And I haven't even mentioned the bowling line up! Clearly more questions than answers!!!!

India will have to show a lot of grit and character to not lose to a 4-0 whitewash here.

Cricket apart, today was great. The fact that we lost means we have an extra day to chill before we head to Sydney. After the loss, we trudged back to woop-woop (Aussie for a far away place) to our hotel for our evening nap. Headed out to Chappel Street for a quick bite followed by some serious clubbing.

Erinc, a good old friend and a Melbournian joined us in our exciting adventures. In fact, at some point in the evening, we went back to his place where he concocted some amazing cocktails for us! Thank you Erinc!!

Highlight of the evening was this very chic bar in the city we went to. Was on the 15th floor of a building. We were introduced to a sin called Absinth. 70% alcohol. Broken up with some caramelized sugar and a dash of cold water. And it was deadly. Lal has little memory of the sequence of events that followed. Including a conversation with some ladies where Erinc was proclaimed as Italian, Vikas asked one of the ladies to work on her Italian accent and Vikas being asked be her in return to work on his own. The night ended was Souvalaki's (kinda kebab wraps) in the city.

Tomorrow we'll probably check out some more of the city, say our goodbyes to Melbourne and head to Sydney - a city I really love!!

Day 3 - It's gonna be a long hot summer

We only slept at about 530 last night... So no chance of getting early to the game. Which is just as well since we were subject to a wild leather chase with Australia turning the screws, scoring at almost 4 an over through the day.

So we didn't go to the game at all today. Today was Discover Melbourne day (more like Discover drinking in Melbourne day). Woke up in time for a 4pm lunch. Got out to discover the hottest sun I'd ever experienced. Headed to the city after that and A took us to an uber chic bar called the Melbourne Order. A very skeptic Ponna and A then headed to watch Priscilla Queen of the Dessert and the rest of us headed to another bar (yep - lotsa drinking went down yesterday) called The Long Room - another very hip bar and sank ourselves into a few more Mojitos.

A couple of hours of that later, we caught up again with Ponna, A and the rest of the crew and headed for an Indian dinner - a resto which had it's first night open that night. Food was pretty good actually.

Then, after getting refused at a couple of back alley bars, A took us to docklands to a bar by the Yarra river, called Fix, that I thought was yet another very chilled out place to hang at.

Finally got home at about 4am after a very nice drive to the other end of Melbourne to drop A home (as a side note I think A has been a very lovely and warm host to us... She's taken pains to show us around and take us to the cool placed that Ponna doesn't have the slightest clue about!!! :)). On the way back from her place, Ponna was sleepy at the wheel and got me to drive part of the way home in the borrowed 5 series bimmer. Good car, very responsive engine, very balanced steering.

In the meanwhile, India is 6 for no loss, chasing a mammoth 499 to win. We'll be at the ground willing the boys on. But we're up against it.

Day 2 - The Phantom of the Indian Opera

This time I got more of my fearless forecast right... It was warmer and sunnier. India got the last wicket early. We lost 2 quick wickets.


But after that, once again, India went into meek capitulation. It's not like the wicket had any devils, but the discipline among the Australian bowlers to get into the good areas just got to the Indians. Having said that, the one thing that made the day bearable was Tendulkar's innings. It was sublime and dominating. But again - against the run of play, he was gone! Going back to the theory of winning sessions, after day 2 - Australia is up 4-2 after taking all 3 sessions today.

The day was also studded with other interesting observations...
1) Cricket watching in Australia is a pleasure. As against India, where it's a pain to get tickets to the game, get to the stadium, get into the stadium, find a seat, find food and water, deal with security... everything, here it is seamless and an ABSOLUTE PLEASURE!


2) The crowds were very boisterous.. especially in the section we were seated in during the first 2 sessions. Smack in the middle of the Swami Army. Chants ranged from the usual "Sachin Sachin", to the offensive "Show us your passports / Show us your handcuffs" (directed at the Indians by the Aussies and to the Aussies by the Indians respectively.... or should I say disrespectively), to the absurd "You are a wanker".

3) The security guys were sensible. Unlike in India, where every security person seems to be on a power trip, weilding his "lathi" where he can, these guys had the crowd under control while providing a long leash. They'd let a lot of things to pass off as fun while ejecting the odd ball out of the stadium to reinforce who was in charge.

Anyway - after the game we had a bit of an adventure with the Melbourne railways to get back to our hotel to freshen up and then headed out to the next big treat of the night...

Watched Phantom of the Opera at this quaint old theater - Princess Theater. It was absolutely outstanding. The music and elaborate sets combined to make this a very haunting and moving experience. It was stunningly beautiful. Beautiful enough to bring a tear to Vikas' eyes. :) Enough said.

This still wasn't the end of the day. We capped it off with dinner at a very average Italian place, followed by Karaoke (led by A), where Andy rocked the show, followed by Odeon - a club at the Crown Entertainment complex and lastly Bangalore and me (for some strange inexplicable reasons) hanging out at the casino, watching Lal lose money and Vikas win money at poker, inspite of our sleep deprived states.

All in all, the cricket was salvaged by Sachin's innings, the evening was fantastic, we are all very tired and are likely to sleep in.

I'm not going to hazard a fearless forecast for tomorrow. It hurts too much.

Day 1 - Boxing day is all that it's hyped to be... and more

So I got all my predictions wrong... Except for the weather forecast!!! :)



Boxing day at MCG is an experience to behold. Got there after sacrificing omlette orders that took way too long.

Settled down on the upper tier in time for the first ball. India lost the toss and were fielding. Annhiliation followed. Australia racked up 111-O at lunch inspite of a pretty hostile opening spell.

We decided to take India's fate into our own hands. Being the superstitious Indian cricket watchers that we are, we decided to change things up and made the ultimate sacrifice for the troops. We left the stadium (the real story is that we just didn't want to watch Australia chalk up 400 for too few in the day) and headed for the Great Ocean Road. The radio was on through the journey and YES we were ruing not staying back at the ground BUT maybe the wickets would not have fallen had we stayed back. This was further evidenced later.. But I'll come to that in a minute.



Great Ocean Road was a beauty. The weather was crisp. The sea was angry. And the sun was shining bright! Only hinderance was wayyyy too many flies... Never really understood that about Australia.

On the way back, Ponna had the sudden epiphany that the BMW we were in had a fucking tele in it! Pulled over and watched a bit of the game ('cause sensibly enough, the tele won't work in a moving car), including the over when Mitchell Johnson was caught at short leg but wasn't given. As soon as we turned it off, a wicket fell (hence the theory that we should not we "watching" the game... Subsequently modified to Lal and Vikas should not be sitting adjacent to each other while watching the game).

All in all, 2 fantastic sessions for India. And if the theory about winning more sessions wins you the test is true, then we're 2-1 up! But they have the runs on the board and we don't.

Anyway, we ended the day with another lovely Sri Lankan dinner at the Ponna's.

I'll hazard another fearless forecast... Another sunny day tomorrow. India will wrap up the last wicket within the first 5 overs and then lose 2 quick wickets... Jaffer and Laxman. Dravid and Sachin will steer us to safety and we'll end the day at about 280 for 6.

Probably the most critical day of the series tomorrow. If India capsize, it could be a long hard Australian summer!

Day 0 - Chilling in the Melbourne Summer

This is not quite the southern hemisphere summer I was looking forward to. Melbourne is chilly. Jackets essential!

But before I get to Melbourne - the flight. Long and painful. Price of my last minute booking was that I flew to Perth from Singapore, hung out at the airport for 3 hours in the dead of night before my next flight to Melbourne. During the first leg of the trip I watched the new Wes Anderson movie - the Darjeeling limited - which was bitterly disappointing.

So got to a chilly Melbourne around noon, got picked up by Ponna, Andy (Ponna's bro), Lal and Vikas (who ironically left Singapore a couple of hours after me but got there a couple of hours before) and headed out for a lovely Sri Lankan christmas lunch with Ponna's extended family.

Post that, a detour for Ponna, to perform his duties as the good boyfriend we all know he is, to deliver Christmas presents before heading to the hotel, downing a couple of large scotches (very good and very expensive single malt acquired at the duty free - Highland Park 21 years - thanks Comu) on the rocks and crashing.

Woke up, headed to the Ponna's for a bit, discussed chick flicks, constellations, planets, life in Australia, politics of the sub continent, the wicket for tomorrow's game, team compositions and headed out to dinner at Chapelli's on Chappel Street... Kinda the equivalent of Orchard (without the massive malls) in Singapore or Linking Road in Mumbai (ok maybe not).

Now, for tomorrow. My fearless forecast... Hot and sunny day tomorrow. India will win the toss and bat. Put up 250 for 5. Dravid and Jaffer will open. Laxman one drop followed by Tendulkar, Ganguly, Yuvraj and Dhoni. Bowlers will be Kumble, Zaheer, RP and Irfan. We'll draw this game. Key performers will be the Mumbai brigade - Sachin and Jaffer with the bat and RP and Kumble with the ball.

However, if Australia wins the toss and bats... Now that's a whole different story... And not a very happy one for India!!!

Let's hope I'm not eating my words tomorrow with my fearless forecast!!!

Over to the MCG!!!

For an alternate view of this adventure, check out Resident Dormitus

AUSSIE KI TAISI tour diary DAY -1

Ok... In the next hour I'll head to the airport to land in Melbourne on Christmas day - in time to prepare for the big day... the BOXING DAY test - India v Australia.

Watch this space for musings from the land down under, the cricket and adventures of the troops (with characters like Y-kas, Lal and K.Bangalaore from Hydrabad and Ponna, this promises to be a CRACKER of a 10 day trip).

Next update from Melbourne!

The lost moon and the trippy subtitles

Watched a very very interesting Hindi film today... Khoya Khoya Chand (lost lost moon... or as the subtitlist - is that what they're called - would translate it - fucking lost bastard).

Directed by Sudhir Mishra (of Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi fame), one of the new generation of directors in tinsel town, it's a great film about Bollywood in the 1960s, telling a story of deceit, illicit affairs and a hunger for money, fame and success... and love in this complicated backdrop.

The biggest reason I loved the film was that this was the first time in a Hindi movie where I felt I didn't know who the good guy is and who's bad. It's not black and white. It has lot's of shades of grey... and then some! The characters are richly brought to life in a complex and intricate story. Everyone has layers upon layers to them... Very evolved, very beautiful.

My guess is that the average hindi film watcher will reject this movie on the pretext of it being too slow and boring... but it's not a film for the masses.

Soha Ali Khan (I want to marry her) and Shiney Ahuja (I think the biggest barrier to him being one of the great actors of our times is his name!) are simply fantastic with very powerful performances.

As a side note - I'm willing to bet that the guy doing the subtitles was high on something very illegal while translating the movie. I'm not sure how "Uske dil mein suraag hai, Zafar" became "She has a fucking hole in her heart, bastard".... when it should be (for those who don't understand Hindi) "she has a hole in her heart, Zafar (name of the guy)".......

But it's a good watch. Check out a ripped trailer below...

Lust, Caution... Awe!

Watched Lust, Caution last week. It's a film in Chinese and is an erotic espionage thriller (as described by Variety), directed by Taiwanese, Academy Award winning director, Ang Lee (he's made a very diverse collection of films - Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Wedding Banquet). The film is based on a short story of the same name published in 1979 by a Chinese author and has already won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Personally, I back it for an Oscar...

Which brings me to the movie itself. OUTSTANDING FILM! It's set in 1940's Shanghai in the time of Japanese occupation and is about a group of patriotic Chinese students plotting to kill one high ranking Chinese official in the collborationalist government. Their plan is to penetrate the blanket of security around this official by using a young girl (one of the students) as a lure for him.

The story portrays the struggle of this young student as she gets more and more involved with this official. In the backdrop, the leader of this student gang is also in love with this girl and is torn between love and duty. The climax is gut wrenching and leaves you with a lot to think about.

The story telling is fantastic. The mood and pace of the film is perfect.

Note - Lots of explicit sex scenes, but all very tastefully done. No Brokeback scenes (I personally thought that was a bit much - but that's just my opinion). My only grouse was the armpit hair... watch the movie and you'll know what I'm talking about.

It's a winner. Check out the trailer...

The Pillowman - Not quite pillowtalk

This weekend, I watched one of the best plays I've seen in years. Seriously.

It's described as a "Viciously funny psychological thriller" - and it doesn't disappoint.

The humor is dark. Very dark. The plot is twisted. Very very twisted. The play goes for 2 hours and 45 minutes. But those minutes pass very quickly.

It's written by an Irish playwright called Martin McDonagh and the Singapore crew is directed by Tracie Pang. It features Adrian Pang (a big name in Singapore theatre circles), Daniel Jenkins, Michael Corbidge and others with fantastically powerful performances.

I honestly don't know how to describe the plot but here goes: The entire play is about the interrogation of a short story writer... the allegations against him are not revealed early in the play (so I won't reveal them either). His mentally retarded brother is also involved in the interrogation. The play goes into gruesome murders, social experiments, torture (including chopped up fingers that fell off the stage during our show!). And yes - there's a connection to a pillowman... and what a connection it was.

It's sick and exhilarating and really really funny all at the same time. Anyone who likes movies that shake you, will love this play. So if you like Crash, Usual suspects, anything by Quentin Tarantino, Butterfly Effect and the like - you'll LOVE THIS.

I strongly recommend a watch. It's playing in the DBS Arts Center, Singapore until the 25th of Nov.

Finally - the Cork Board!

For the past 2 years or so I've been looking for a cork board. Something I can put up on a wall in my study so I can put up some of my fave photographs.

My desire for the cork board and the lack of success in finding one led to a series of unfortunate events (with no reference to the movie or the book). Here goes:

1) I feel an urge for a cork board
2) I buy a polaroid camera so I can take random pics of ppl who will eventually graduate to being pin ups (approx $90 for the camera + another approx $100 for the cartridges)
3) I buy a photo printer so I can print some of my "fantastic" work. But I don't print anything coz the cork board is not there (approx $400 for the printer)
4) Printer ink dries up because it's been a year since I haven't used it.
5) I buy new printer ink (approx $120)
6) Still no cork board
7) Printer ink dries up again while the polaroid pics are stashed away in an envelope
8) New printer ink (approx $130... with the new GST ruling) is acquired
9) Got off the lift on the wrong floor in a mall today and saw cork board right in front of me! FINALLY - THE CORK BOARD... and for the record - with the pins - it was approx $14.

Search for a cork board (and related expenses) - $854, a cork board with your favorite photographs in your study - Priceless.

The numbers game

Watched "The Number 23", Jim Carrey's latest flick that didn't do too well at the box office. Well - I liked it!

It's a dark psychological thriller featuring William Sparrow (Jim), an animal control officer, and his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen). He has a fairly ordinary life until he chances upon a book called the Number 23. He is amazed by how similar his life is to that of the character in the book, leading him into an obsession with the number 23 and the fate of the main character in the book. A sinister sequence of events follows and his obsession deepens. The only way out is to find the author of the book and ask him some questions. Therein lie the twists and turns in the story.

Wasn't necessarily one of my favorite movies, but I thought it was well made (Directed by Joel Schumacher - Batman Forever) and told a dark, albeit not necessarily original, story very well.

And so another weekend goes by!

Two of the best!!!!

HUGE thanks to Tomato Peeleepeena and Shrenik for making introducing me to these 2 fantastic videos.

Now this first video contains a very dignified gentleman of South Indian origin. He's a hit with the Idli munching, hip crunching sexy sirens from southern India. If I was a girl from Chennai, I'd wanna jump the guy now. Enough said.



And this second one... well - younger South Indian bloke. He's brash but has the moves. His gyrations make Benny Lava eat papaya (watch the video)!!

V.IMP If you ever go to the Philippines embassy!

Somebody sent me an email with a bunch of "guidelines" to keep in mind before you go to the Philippines embassy (italicized parts are my own comments):

----------------------------

Visitors are requested to come appropriately attired. The Embassy will not allow entry to skimpily attired and barefoot people (so if it's just one of these you're ok??) or those wearing the following who are deemed to be inappropriately attired:

1) Shorts with cuts of more than three (3) inches above the knee;
2) Slippers; (WHY???)
3) Mini-skirts with cut of more than three (3) inches above the knee; (makes you wonder why they netted out at three (3) inches... why not two (2) or four (4)... Plus - with the height of the average filipino woman, you're probably talking about getting very close to the general punani(!!) region three (3) inches above the knee - so there goes the no-skimpily-dressed-people rule)
4) Underwears (briefs, panties, bras, boxer shorts, kamiseta) (ok - now you're not allowed to wear underwear to the embassy????? I'm getting some mixed messages here!!!!)
5) Shirts/blouses with plunging necklines; (especially for males with man-boobs)
6) Shirts/blouses that intentionally show the belly button/navel; (so if you show your navel by mistake you're ok!!???)
7) Pants/shorts with very low waistlines that reveal portions of private parts such as the buttocks; (BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Ass crack alert)
8) Transparent shirts and pants that show undergarments.

-----------------------------

Now I know this is unbelievable... so you can check it out on the site yourself:
http://philippine-embassy.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=10

The 4th thing I hate about Harry Potter

Carrying on from a few posts ago (3 things I hate about Harry Potter) - now JK has just given me a 4th...

Her announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay. Where did that come from??? Why does it matter?
(a) It had nothing to do with the story.
(b) The series is done and dusted.
(c) The guy was dead before the last book came out.

Few possible reasons she did this:
(a) She was bored (looks a likely theory given she doesn't have much to write about after Harry had his babies)
(b) She wanted me to make Mahogany react to her announcement, put up a great post loosely related to discrimination against gay people, so that I could make a point to Shrenik in the comments of my last post (something tells me this theory is unlikely)
(c) She's branching out into her next series which, staying true with Hollywood trends will be kind of a prequel to Harry Potter - a throwback to Dumbledore's younger years - Discover Dumbledore!

Whats next..... Snape and Date Rape - scandal - Harry is really Snape's son!??

Well - I guess this blog post is testament to the fact that she's keeping people talking about it.

Monkey business

Provocative thought... Racism, in large part, is a fabrication of the paranoid.

Disclaimer... I'm not saying it doesn't exist or it's ok to have it. If it's a cause for limiting opportunity based on the color of someone's skin or where they come from then it shouldn't have any place in any sphere of life... but in large part, we make too much of a small thing.

Take the recent uproar in cricket against the monkey chants directed at Andrew Symonds (Australian player) during the Vadodra one-dayer (and again in the Mumbai one-dayer). Now here's some perspective - the average Joe (in Vadodra, he'd be the average Jayant) does not understand that calling someone a monkey is racist at all. Young Jayant feels Symonds looks like a monkey - it could be his size, his hair, his body language.. whatever - and so he called him a monkey. BIG DEAL! We all give people labels based on how they look... she looks "hot", she's got a big nose, he's built like a truck, he's fat! Just like that - he's a monkey. Jayant has nothing against where he comes from, where he's going or the color of his skin. And by no means is Jayant capable of limiting Symonds' opportunity to beat the crap out of the Indian cricket team (which he comprehensively did!).

Separately - a certain part of India prays to monkeys. Heck we have an elephant god and we worship cows as well. Having said that, if Jayant, in the course of exploring the hopping night life in Vadodra calls a woman a cow, he doesn't have too much of a shot at getting into her pants (or sari!), but it's not like he was trying to get into Symonds' pants either. So yep - it's rude, it's mean, but not racist.

Another interesting fact - in Australia, Indians are referred to as "curry munchers" very commonly. Never understood why this was racist. Pakistani's are called Pakis... I only recently discovered this was considered racist... i always thought it was short for Pakistani. SEAsians and the Chinese are called Yellow... for me it's just like calling a tomato a tomato, a car a car, an African American black.... it's just a label. And that's not such a bad thing!

Discriminating against a label is the real issue... not the label itself.

Thoughts?

James Bourned - Action packed weekend

This weekend I watched 3 movies - This post is about 2 of them - Casino Royale (the latest Bond flick and Bourne Identity - the first edition of the Bourne trilogy). Review of the third one (Lost in Translation) to follow.

Growing up, I was always a James Bond fan. Liked some of the Bonds better than the others... Sean Connery > Pierce Brosnan > Roger Moore > Timothy Dalton > George Lazenby..... and too early to talk about Daniel Criag and I've liked all the films. Really liked Casino Royale as well, although many elements of the movie surprised me.

It's been 45 years and 21 films since the first edition in this epic series and the character of Bond has never changed - he's suave, stylish, very British, drinks his martini shaken (not stirred), drives fast cars, sleeps with hot women and doesn't fall in love. Until now.

James Bond, with Casino Royale, has gotten just a little more soppy (falls in love with a woman who actually dupes him. Even worse - he's still moony eyed in love even after he discovers that). He's gets beaten up a couple of times and has had to perform rigorous action scenes to earn his bread like any other action star today.

Therein lies the problem (and the connection with the other film I watched this weekend). What makes Bond, well, Bond is the unbelievability of the whole thing with all the points I mentioned above. Now when you depart from that, Bond is like any other action star - like Jason Bourne!!

This past weekend, I also watched Bourne Identity (I guess I was catching up with a new breed of Hollywood action blockbusters which everyone in the world bar me seems to have watched... next up is the Oceans series). Really liked this film as well. Great plot - fast and fantastic - very Robert Ludlum. Jason Bourne is this super-human-esque secret agent who has lost his memory and the CIA is trying to kill him off as they think he's a rogue agent. In the meanwhile he's just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Now there's nothing wrong with being Jason Bourne (heck, he makes a lot of money and is very very popular among the girls), but when you're James Bond, you don't aspire to be Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne aspires to be you. Put differently, its kinda like Jason Bourne aspires to be you. Jason gets the girls, James gets the women.

My opinion - Let Bond be Bond. James Bond.

On a not so separate note, after watching Casino Royale, E, V, L and I were pondering the possibility of creating local Bonds for the subcontinent - (a) Joginder Bhogle from Bhatinda, India, (b) Jeetu Bandaranayake from Colombo, Sri Lanka. That's work in progress. Will post a more fleshed out email once we copyright the idea... NOT.

October 7 - This day in history!

I was born on October 7, 1978 in a small nursing home in Central Bombay. Little did I know what a great day it was!! This is what I found on Wikipedia... and if they say it, it must be true!!! :).. Some highlights...

3761 BC - The origin of the modern Hebrew calendar(!!!)

1714 - Beer Tax riots in Netherlands (Go the Dutch!!! That's why Amsterdam is such an aspiration for me!)

1849 - Edgar Alan Poe (think of the Ramsay brothers with stiff upper lips) died.

1919 - KLM was founded (and interestingly - it's the world's oldest airline still operating under its original name!

1982 - Cats opens on broadway and goes on to run for almost 18 years!

2003 - Arnold "I'll be back" Schwarzennegger becomes Cali governer.


I also share a birthday with Vladimir Putin (Russian president), Genji Hashimoto (Japanese racing driver and my name-sake, Sami Hyppia (supremely talented Finnish footbal player), Zaheer Khan (rejuvenated cricketer - even born in the same year as me).

And just like my facebook profile says - I'm thrilled to be a year older, but not a day wiser!!!

The Shining - One helluva scary flick

I'd always wanted to watch this but just never got down to it until last night.

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King and stars Jack Nicholson at his twisted best and Shelly Duvall (this was probably her best film) who fits the bill of panic-stricken mid western housewife to the tee. And it's one scary film. Not in your usual Ramsay (Indian's will know this) or even Evil Dead / House of Wax kind of way. The plot itself is scary to start with.

It's about a lovely family of 3 - Jack, Wendy and little Danny Torrance - who take up the responsibility to watch over an isolated hotel during the off season (think winter storms). Now this hotel has a bit of a history with a past caretaker who went crazy in the winter isolation and killed his family. The rest of the plot is predictable with Jack going crazy and Wendy and Danny left to protect themselves from someone who should be loving and protecting them.

Now this movie could so easily have been botched into another scare-a-minute-run-of-the-mill isolated hotel film, except Stanley Kubrick was directing it. As it turns out, he made yet another masterpiece. He handles been-done-before subjects like telepathy and dead people appearing very seamlessly and naturally. Surprisingly, that adds to the spook factor big time.

Jack Nicholson is clearly fantastic. Shelly Duvall was the perfect choice for the role. But the show stopper was the kid - Danny Lloyd. He's done an absolutely fantastic job at a very young age. Apparently the kid didn't know it was a horror film until years later when he was legally allowed to watch it (I don't buy this story, but what the heck... wiki says so!).

There are two scenes in the movie that are VERY memorable... "REDRUM! REDRUM!" and "HEEEERREEEEES JOHNNNNNYYYY"...... Click on 'em to watch the clips (you've gotta love YouTube)!!!

Check out the movie trailer here.

If you've already seen the movie, you'll love this...

Faster than light, slower than a good idea!

Nothing travels like a good idea. Not even company gossip (unless it's a good idea - and I shall not illustrate with examples).

Detour to cricket - India won the T20 World Cup in a humdinger (which, incidentally, means "a person, thing, action, or statement of remarkable excellence or effect") against arch rivals Pakistan. In the end, Misbah ul Haq, without whom the Pakistanis wouldn't have stood a chance, played a bad stroke to get out 5 runs short of the target and handed the cup to India. Now this post is not about the cricket. It's about a great idea.

Someone somewhere - ONE PERSON - came up with this joke right after the game -
KNOCK KNOCK
WHO'S THERE
MISBAH
MISBAH WHO
YOU MIS BAH 5 RUNS MAAN! (for best effect say this with a carribean accent)

Now over the course of yesterday, 4 different people who don't know each other and live in different countries emailed/SMSd me this joke! Now think about this - after the match, ONE smart ass who was probably watching the game with a bunch of friends came up with the joke. His friends laughed. They loved it so much that as soon as they left the bar they were watching it at, in their drunken stupor, SMSd 4-5 of their friends, who in turn probably shared this with their families and them with their friends. And just like that within 24 hours - hundreds of thousands of people were laughing at the same thing! All of this at ZERO COST!!!

Looking out into the future, 2 things come to mind -
1) Reaching your consumer is getting easier. You're spoilt for choice. The consumer has millions of different ways of recieving a message through the day. Mobile and internet technologies have changed our lives completely and I think we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg.
2) Ironically, it's also harder to REALLY reach her with your message. As a result of the media explosion, she is being bombarded by so many more messages vs what she's ever had before. Now she's suddenly more discerning, more savvy about what she chews and what she spits out. So ideas, are going to have to be more hardworking.

I'm nervously excited to see what happens next.

Quirks!!!

You know how you get all those emails with soppy stories with the worst chiken-soup-for-the-asshole type of moral at the end of it and a message that asks you to forward this to 2500 people or you might either suffer from instant combustion or a bad sex life!... well - this blog post is succumbing to something similar....

shiv (young bengali lad, a good friend, a bad cricketer, but the best whinger) recently resumed his blogging career (like me) and his second post upon resumption (like this one for me) was about his quirks... and he "tagged" me (among others) with that post. And I'm giving in...

Honestly didn't have to think long and hard because I was exchanging notes on this with a friend visiting from India this past week. Think I have 2:

1) My CD Collection! It has to be in alphabetical order. Yep - I'm the nerd who arranges his CD collection!!! If you must know - it's sorted based on last names for individual performers and, well, band names for bands. The compilations follow all the albums (in order of the names of the compilations). OSTs and musicals follow the compliations. Instrumentals, Classicals, World and Chill Out follow the OST's. And then my Hindi collections - in alphabetical order also. This rule does not apply for my DVD collection (which is assorted in 3 different baskets - one for the ones I've seen, 2 for the one's I haven't.

2) Picture Frames and Paintings. I think this stems from the fact that I'm a Libran - I need picture frames, paintings and the like to be in order. They can't be leaning on one side even by the smallest perceptible degree. It bothers me. Couldn't, for the life of me, resist the urge even if I was visiting someone's house. I just have to.

Apart from these two - I'm a fairly easy going guy. Unfazed and uncluttered. Just don't mess with my CD collection. I might have to kill you.

3 things I hate about Harry Potter

Ok - Don't get me wrong. I like the series and all that. But there are some things that pissed me off in the course of the adventures of this young wizard!

1) HERMIONE THE HERMAPHRODITE. I can think of 3 different girls from my own version of Hogwarts (well it was Christ Church School, Byculla, Mumbai - no wands allowed. Brooms optional - but we'll let that pass, won't we) who annoyed the poo out of me. Teachers pets. Hands always raised before the question is done. Prim, proper and haters of all things male. Didn't really get along with the cooler chicks either. They're the kind of people who should be cursed to a life devoid of sex - with men or women. We have some of them at work as well... but we won't go there. Clearly, school scarred me (wasn't a lightning shaped scar on my forehead though).

2) HARRY "PRE-PUBESCENT-WHINING-PRICK" POTTER (EXCLUSIVE TO BOOK 5). JK got it wrong in Order of the Phoenix. Strayed close too close to reality with Harry's pre-pubescent issues. She might as well have called him WHINY POTTER in that book... Boo-hoo... nobody loves me. No one will snog me.... Kinda reminds me of the WORMS song...

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms, Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.

... except WHINEY POTTER wasn't funny! On the upside, it's good JK never got to Harry and Ron discovering masturbation!

3) QUIDDITCH AND ITS SEXUAL CONNOTATIONS. Bunch of wizards flying around on brooms, chasing a snatch (yep - I know it's snitch, but you know the connection I'm trying to make!). And those who're not chasing the snatch are called beaters... like they've given up chasing snatches... resorted to beating the monkey!??!! OK JK!

Feel free to add.

Sport treats galore!

Now here's the sporting action I'm looking forward to for the next few months...

1) Cricket... India is up one test with one to go. England is going to come hard at us. Praying for another test ton from Tendulkar at the Oval. All of this followed by the one dayers and of course the 20-20 world cup.

2) Cricket (again)... P&G is in the semi-finals of the Singapore Cricket Association Knock Out tournament (field of 20 teams and we're in the last 4). We play Indi CC or Polaris (both very formidable teams) on Aug 19. Plus the Super League games in Sep/Oct to determine whether we're really getting promoted to Div 3 next year.

3) Soccer... It's EPL time again. Watched a cracking lung opener last night between ManU and Chelsea. The reds prevailed of course in a bizarre penalty shoot out.

4) F1... this one's tricky. I don't like Hamilton (he's English) or Alonso (he's a shit). Ferrari has a lot of work to do to catch up. But this is shaping up to be a cracking season with more things going wrong than right for the leading teams.

PS: It's good to be back on blogosphere.

Guess who just hit blogosphere!

Check out http://thisbiglittleworld.blogspot.com/
KD is in da house!

Death by Nursery Rhymes

They say that your childhood years really form the person you are when you grow up. If that's true, there's a potential killer in all of us.

Ever wondered why nursery rhymes are so morbid? Why did Jack, after his romantic walk up the hill to fecth a pail of water, break his head? Why does the bough break so that the cradle, baby and all fall? Why did Humpty Dumpty not just have an ordinary fall, but a "great" one? Why did Little Miss Muppet suffer from arachnophobia? Why were the 3 blind mice blind??

Most nursery rhymes (about half of them) are more than 200 years old and come from Britain with a very interesting history - mainly linked to dark times like the wars in Victorian England and the all consuming plagues.

Humpty Dumpty, commonly drawn up as an egg, was actually a cannon during the English Civil War (1642-49). It was mounted on top of a church wall to defend against the seige that the city of Colchester was under. The church tower was hit by the enemy and the cannon had a "great fall. And all the King's horses and all the King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again".

Ring a Ring O'Roses is believed to be a reference to the Great Plague of London. The Ring of Roses was a symptom of the plagues (a round red rash) and the smell from "a pocket full of posies (another flower)" would conceal the smell from the scores of dying victims. The sneezing sound ("atishoo, atishoo") is the sneezing just before the grim reaper strikes. And then "we all fall down".

There are multiple theories on Jack and Jill. One (and the most popular one) is that this originated in France and refers to Louis XVI who was beheaded (lost his crown) followed by his Queen Marie Antoinette (who came tumbling after).

And my favorite one. The 3 blind mice! The "farmer's wife" refers to Queen Mary I, otherwise known as "Bloody Mary" (yep - that's where the drink gets its name). She was the "farmer's wife" because of the massive farming estates that her husband (Philip of Spain) owned. The 3 blind mice were three noblemen who were plotting against the Queen, although she didn't have them dismembered with a "carving knife", but she did have them burnt at the stake. Guess that just didn't fit the rhyme!

The list goes on, but here's a case to bring your kids up to Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. They might do less damage!

Un film Je t'aime

Another movie review... Paris, Je t'aime. I'd give it 4.3879 stars out of 5.

Brilliant concept. Its a collection of 18 short stories (they had planned 21 but 2 of the stories didn't quite "fit in" and one guy just didn't show up to shoot his story!) told in French by internationally acclaimed directors (including Gurinder Chada of Bride and Predudice and Bend it like Beckham fame, Gus Van Sant - Goodwill Hunting, the Coen brothers - Fargo, Tom Tykwer - Run Lola Run and other big names). The cast is about 50 strong with big names like Steve Buscemi (Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs), Juliette Binoche (Bleu of the Trois Coleurs trilogy reviewed in an earlier post), Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood and a whole bunch of others.

The stories are based in different districts of Paris which combine to form a brilliant ode to the city of lights. The stories are very wide ranging - right from inter-racial love (white man / muslim girl angle as told by Gurinder Chada) to vampires and from gay relationships to lonliness! Each of them is about 10 mins long - some bizarre stories told with a dose of the grandoise, others - simple and told intimately. My favorite ones were the ones directed by Gus Van Sant - high on irony and simplicity and also because it has Steve Buscemi and another one by Vincenzo Natali about Vampires starring Elijah Wood because it's just... really weird!

All in all - a brilliant composition of short films directed by some of the best contemporary directors around with some of the best contemporary actors around. It's a DVD you want to own.

As a parting note - I wonder what would happen if they tried a similar concept with the top directors of India and made a film on Bombay... Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bharadwaj, Kaizad Gustad, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Dev Benegal and Nagesh Kukunoor along with Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrown in for good measure!!? Would love to see that some day!!!

The Maneki Neko Conspiracy

Firstly - what the hell is a Maneki Neko?

Have you ever seen those extremely annoying toy cats in a lot of Chinese stores and food joints in Singapore. They just keep mindlessly waving at you with the monotony to drive a completely sane person to wrist slashing. Those same annoying cats are called Maneki Neko.

Now no one really knows the real origin of Maneki Neko, but allow me to share with you the results of some of my research which concludes that MANEKI NEKO is a MARKETING CONSPIRACY

1. They're not a Chinese concept to begin with. They're Japanese. Although I'm guessing most of those ugly plastic figures have a "Made in China" sticker plastered to their anterior portions. Japanese innovation - so it must work. Low cost because they're made in Chinese sweatshops. This is the stuff that large corporations dream of.
2. Maneki Neko come in left hand wave or right hand wave. Kinda like cars. Trouble is that there are different beliefs on what each hand wave brings the possessor of this feline figurine. One belief is that the right hand cats bring in wealth and good luck while the lefties bring in customers. Another belief is exactly the opposite (how convenient!). Yet another belief is that the lefties are best for drinking establishments and the righties for other joints. This has to be a marketing ploy to build consumption.
3. They come in different colors, each of which, apparently, have different meanings. The most popular one is the Tricolored one - white with random black and orange patches (modelled after Japanese bobtail cats and believed to be especially lucky). Next up is the white one - virgin pure! Guess if this works for you, you get laid and then buy the Tricolored one!? Then the Black ones - this is the best - they're especially popular among women because - and I quote - "they keep away stalkers"!!! My personal theory why women love the black ones is coz - Once you go black, you can't go back! I'm sure they also have longer waving arms. There's a couple of other uninteresting ones as well. Customized offerings for your unique luck need.
4. Over the years they added additional features like a coin, a bib and a bell around the poor cat's neck and added some random significance these. I call this Product Upgrades or Premium Line Extensions.

I came across at least 14 different thoeries on their origin, but my favorite one is as follows -
One theory ties Maneki Neko's origin, or at least its growth in popularity, to the rise of the new Meiji government. In its attempts to westernize Japanese society the Meiji government banned overtly sexual talismans then popular, often displayed prominently in brothels. With these popular items gone, Maneki Neko soon appeared in their place as a substitute charm, their beckoning gesture perhaps in imitation of a beckoning woman.
Since when did westernization mean elimination of overt sexual talismans? Clearly the Meiji government was never exposed to a 50 cent video or a Rihanna gyrating with Jay-Z.

If I was working with the Maneki Neko making and selling corporation, I'd take the innovation on them to town:
1. Talking / Singing cats. Seems like there's a correlation between how annoying they are and the luck they rake in.
2. Vibrators / Other sex toys for women. Only a cat understands a...p.... well.. cat.

Have a host of other ideas. If someone from this corporation is interested in more ideas, contact me at wavingcats@annoyme.com

A tale of 3 films

Watched 2 very interesting films and one utterly disappointing one over the weekend.

Started with A Scanner Darkly. Now what got me interested in the film were a couple of things - (a) its an indy film which is sorta semi reality, semi graphic novel. Its animated, but not really. Was shot in digital with real actors and then animated using a special technique called cel-shading with an interpolated rotoscope (thanks Wikipedia for making me sound smart). (b) It has a great cast - Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr and Rory Cochrane. To add to that, George Clooney is one of the executive producers. The movie is based on a novel by the same name by Philip K. Dick and is set at a time in the near future - "7 years from now" in a society that has gone downhill from where we are (surprise surprise!!). The scourge of life then is substance D - a drug that has taken over the city. Bob Arctor (Keanu) is an undercover narcotics agent who, in the line of duty, gets hooked onto the substance himself. He is then put into rehab. As the plot unravels, it gets more interesting (I'd kill the movie for anyone if I said more than this about the plot). All in all, a very interesting watch if only for how the movie has been shot.

Next up was the utter disappointment - Stranger than fiction. The movie was even stranger than that. It has Will Ferrel and Dustin Hoffman - a great cast doing a shit film. Harold Crick (Will Ferrel) is an IRS agent who is kinda obsessive compulsive (interesting angle, but the movie does nothing with it... unlike "As good as it gets"). He suddenly starts hearing a voice in his head narrating his life (interesting angle again - could have gone down the psychological path a la "Being John Malkovich" but doesn't). 2 things happen - (a) he meets a chick and falls in love with her, (b) he discovers he is about to die, (c) he meets a literature expert (Dustin Hoffman) who does.. well... nothing. This movie peters out to a lame ending and is eminently forgettable. It's kinda caught between a chick flick and a hard place.

Last was a breath of fresh air. A Singaporean film - Mee Pok Man. This film was made in 1994-5, directed by Eric Khoo - a nascent Singapore film industry's leading light. Its about a.. well.. a Mee Pok Man (Fishball Noodle Seller) who falls in love with one of his frequent customers - a prostitute and goes on to paint a beautiful collage of their touching, sometimes-funny-sometimes-bizzare love affair. The film deals with the little known seedy underbelly of Singapore and is full of surprises. Its been shot in 35mm, so don't look for a full on gloassy film. It has a very short film look to it. Definitely worth a watch if you live/have ever lived in Singapore.

Intersting... Visual DNA

Got this from Vee's blog

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Mystery of the male lesbians

Picture this.

2 gay men meet meet at a bar (could be a regular bar or... well, an irregular one... you pick!). They catch each others eyes and instantly fall in love. They find they have a lot in common. Critically, one of their shared joys (or frustrations - depending on your world view) is that they both believe they're women trapped in a man's body (not very uncommon among gay men). They hook up and have a passionate night of love making (sorry about the graphic description, but this is integral to the mystery).... NOW...

Are they lesbians??

Whaddya think? Leave your comments. And fwd this link along to all the gay people you know (male or female). Want to get some gay perspective on this. This is bothering me.

HELP!

PS: No offense meant to anyone - this is just a random ponderance.

High on pants!

Pet Peeve - People who wear their pants around their necks. What's the deal with that? I'm not saying we all have to be at the cutting edge of fashion (I certainly am not), but there are 3 practical reasons for getting out of the high tide!

1. High pants = self induced wedgie. Wedgies are a bad thing. Even Freud (yep - same guy who thought shitting was erotic) would find it hard to draw pleasure from a well executed wedgie. With high pants, you're basically in a permanent wedgie you've given yourself. To read more about wedgies (coz I think most people who put themselves through it, don't know what one is) check this out... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedgie

2. Even worse... High pants = front wedgie. As if having at least 2 layers of garment (we hope) riding high up your ass wasn't enough, high pants, if executed perfectly, would also lead to the alienation of one testicle from the other. They wouldn't know each other very well and my guess is this might hinder team work sooner or later. Plus the general would have to be partial all the time.

3. The hairy ankles show. Since most self respecting clothing manufacturers and tailors fit their pants around the waist rather than the chest, when riding high, these pants fall short of covering the hairy ankles beneath. And no one. I repeat - NO ONE had sexy hairy ankles.

Well... somebody (can't say who) thought it might be a good idea to share this artcile as well... it's titled Men's Fashion and Grooming Crimes. Scathingly funny.

Bombay Duck / Bombay Blues

I couldn't decide between the 2 titles for this post... so I went with the power of AND!

Don't know if this is true or just my imagination, but there seems to be a deluge of books about Mumbai recently. I, for one, have read three and am going through my fourth one in the past year or so - Black Friday, Maximum City, Shantaram and now Sacred Games. The scary part is the one common element among all of these - the notorious Mumbai underworld.

Black Friday, also turned into an interesting-without-being-very-gripping movie, deals with the meticulous planning of the Mumbai blasts in '93. The fact that it's so fact based is scary.

Maximum City is probably the one I related to the most. It's Suketu Mehta's narration of this experiences and attitudes to being a born-again Mumbaikar. It's a very colorful and rich description of the pot boiler Mumbai is. It's sets Mumbai up to be a masala flick with all the ingredients - right from mudane issues like lack of sanitized water coming through the tap (yep - for us Mumbaikars this is a mundane issue), to the role of the underworld in Bollywood (I love this word - I don't give a fuck if half of filmdom thinks this is a derogatory word - I think it's cool).

Shantaram, on the other hand, is a page turner. It's a brilliantly told real story with what I think is significant (and well used) creative freedom. I'll say it - it's one of the best books I've read. I love the juxtaposition (another word I love) of a great story (escaped Aussie convict living in Mumbai slums getting involved in the thick of the Mumbai underworld and fighting a war in Afghanistan), rich characters (religeous mafia don, indian cowboy who is also our hero's man friday, slum folk with aspiration of the world and the standing babas) and philosophical detours (especially love the conversation about right, wrong and the ultimate complexity - God).

I'm now reading Sacred Games. 150 pages into this 900 page epic, it's a movie screenplay with gore, personal struggle and love as key ingredients. More about this when I finish.

Net - While I'm happy Mumbai, being the manic wonder it is, is getting it's due in pop culture, I wish we'd see more of a balanced perspective about the city. It's not all about the underworld you know! It's also about hope, millions of personal struggles everyday and basically the joie de vivre.

Let me know if you've read any other good books about a different side of the city.

3 weekends, 3 wins

This past weekend P&G Cricket Club notched up it's 3rd straight win! This is a record of sorts in the history of P&G Singapore Cricket. For starters, we've never won 3 in a row in the league. A couple of years ago, 3 games is all we won in the entire season. This time around we've won 3 of 4.

Anyway, we had a team of 10 and batted first against Fusion CC (a side we had previously beaten in a friendly inspite of having only 8 players). Esh (16 off 30) and I (29 off 36) provided the team with a solid foundation (54 for 0 in 10). Two quick wickets later Bakir (34 off 28) and Tapish (27 off 45) consolidated, taking the score to 122 in 22 overs. We had a bit of a slide towards the end, ending all out for 161 with 1.1 overs to go.

Fusion got off to a flyer with 11 off the first 9 balls of the innings before Nitin Goel (2 for 32 in 6) took 2 off 2 balls to peg them back. Bakir (1 for 11 in 5) and Tapish (1 for 12 in 4) were typically miserly. Paddu came in and demolished the tail to be the most successful bowler with 5 for 19 off 4.5.

Another highlight was the fielding. 9 of the 10 wickets we took were catches (Raf had two blinders, Esh had a couple of nice ones behind the wicket and Lal made his look very easy) and the only other one was a run out (took 4 people to make that happen - comedy of errors).

Next weekend we're up against Tanker Pacific - We have a 6-0 record against them but they're still a pretty decent team.

Watch this space for more and feel free to leave your comments here.

Best Blog I've seen... so far

Check out http://indexed.blogspot.com

One word to describe it - IDEA!

There's an absolutely BRILLIANT mind at work there!

The Montek Mystery

Recently a couple of guys and I have committed ourselves to the cause of uncovering the ultimate mystery of life... who really is Montek Singh Ahluwalia?

You can read about him here.... but REALLY... who is he?

Over the years I have come across many people of the Sikh faith and they're by and large very nice people. At the outset, let me state that I have nothing against the Sikh religion or beliefs. This is just a random ponderance. If you're sensitive about this kinda thing, please do not read any further (but then you'll miss the mystery of Montek).

Now for the uninitiated, the Sikh belief is that their men should have 5 K's - Kesh (hair - which means the hairdressers in Punjab are not particularly well off bar some uncompliant few), Kanga (comb - well most of them do have the hair), Kachcha (underwear - no smart ass comments on this one), Kada (bracelet - for identification in case of drastic hairfall) and Kirpan (sword - one of which might be put to use on my neck soon)... Personally I think there should be a 6th one - Kulcha (flattened bread with stuffing in it - very nice)... but my bat sense tells me this won't be well received.

Anyway - this is not about Sikh beliefs. This is about Montek. Apart from the 5 Ks and a proposed 6th one, there's another trend that has gone beyond just emerging. It has arrived. Contemporary (personally that's debatable) names which have a natural phonetic link to their traditional name. My favorite example is Harvinder. AKA Harry. Has a global ring to it. Separately a lot of these men (yes... men) are called Pinky... not sure what the traditional name for that is though.

But this is not about Pinky. It's about Montek.

So the mystery. What is Montek Singh Ahluwalia's real name?

One cracking streak of brilliance is our lead (and only) theory. His original name was Mondegar. But in his circle of esteemed economists, he was laughed at and rebuked. Often he was asked - "Oye Mondegar - Ek beer lana" (Hey Mondegar, get me a beer). For those of you who haven't made the connection - the beer comes from Cafe Mondegar in Colaba, Bombay - a very very popular watering hole frequented by backpackers, engineers, MBAs, advertising folks and gangsters. The waiters are roughly the same profile, give or take 10%.

Coming back to Montek - Now this name - Mondegar - and all it's associations - largely beer - was a hitch in our young stars fledgling career in economics and policy making. He was frustrated at not being taken seriously.

And hence the drastic step.

Now something (let's call it my bat sense again) tells me we might be a bit off the mark here. Which is why this blog entry serves as an appeal to the people of the world at large to find the answer. Leave your theories / results of your research as comments to this blog entry. Contrubute to world peace...

REALLY... WHO IS MONTEK SINGH AHLUWALIA?

21 Grams is a heavyweight

And the movie spree continues. Got home early from work today and watched 21 Grams. It's the kind of movie you want never to end.

Written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - the same team that made Amores Perros (Spanish - 2001 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film) - another film I really want to watch.

21 Grams stars Sean Penn (one of the best actors - watch I am Sam), Naomi Watts (2003 Oscar nominee for Best Actress), Benicio Del Toro (2003 Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor). The film centers around a car accident, has a lot of parallel stories, cuts from past to present to future and back seamlessly and finally brings it all together, making you want to watch more of the film. It deals with a grieving wife and mother (Naomi Watts), a reformed and religeous ex-convict (Benicio Del Toro) and a dying man waiting for a heart transplant (Sean Penn).

Apparently, the film was shot in chronological order, but they mixed it up on the editing table. The film is called 21 Grams after some experiments that have proven that we lose exactly 21 Grams in weight when we die - this is assumed to be the weight of the soul.

Another must watch. Head to Amazon!

Black Friday.... follow up...

Following my thoughts about the ticking time bomb of the racial divide in India, check out this speech by Robert Kennedy after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPYNb4ex6Ko

Bob baya - thanks for sending this through.

Also - In connection with this, try and watch Bobby. It's a story about the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the events leading upto that. It's unique in that it takes us through the life events of a bunch of disconnected ordinary people around the time of the assassination. Very nice film. Apparently it got a 7 minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last year!

Another weekend, another win!

P&G CC made a killing this past weekend again. We beat Singapore Management University by 8 wickets with 11 overs to spare (that's massive in a 30 over game)!! This sets us up nicely for the rest of the season with 20 points from 3 games. Caveat - we're still not at the top of the leader board yet! In fact we're 16 points behind Polaris (current leaders and unbeaten in 4 games), albeit with a game in hand. There are 3 other teams with more points than us, but they've played 1 or 2 games more than us as well. It's going to be a hot season.

They batted first on what was the hottest and most humid weather I have ever experienced (and I come from Bombay!) and restricted them to 141 for 7 in 30 overs, largely due to miserly middle over bowling, especially from Tapish (2 for 16 in 6) and Bakir (0 for 19 in 6), good catching from Matt and a stunner from Paddu. The weather did a turn-around when we started batting and it looked like it would rain any minute. With none of us having any idea about Duckworth or Lewis, we decided to go for the kill. We got there in 19 overs and with only 2 wickets lost. Sriram came back with a bang to score 38 not out in 40 balls and Paddu with a quickfire 29 in 20. Mr Extras top scored with 53 (more than a third of the target!!! (Thank you SMU).

Another highlight was some heated exchanges - one of the fielders got himself into trouble with the umpires for having a go at me and then Sriram got into a bit of an exchange with the keeper.

Check out the scorecard here.
2 parting thoughts...
- Next opposition in 2 weeks is Tanker Pacific. A team we've beaten a 100 times. Having said that, they beat the team that beat our 8 man team in the first game!
- I'd love to play a friendly against a Division 2 team. I think we're good enough to get there on current form. Let's see if we can pull that off this coming weekend.

Trois Couleurs - Review

Continuing with my movie spree this weekend, watched the French trilogy - Trois Couleurs (Three Colors). All three films (Bleu, Blanc and Rouge - Blue, White and Red) are true masterpieces.

The trilogy is the work of Polish-born director Krzysztof Kieslowski (any relation with Rafael Scislowski has yet to be established!).

Bleu deals with liberty. It's a story about a famous composer who dies in a car crash but left a major musical piece commissioned by the European Council incomplete. The wife (Juliette Binoche - English Patient, Unbearable Lightness of Being) sets about completing the piece. In the course she has to deal with a discovery about her dead husband's long standing mistress and his assistant's love for her. Brilliant film. Beautiful art direction.

Blanc deals with equality. It's a dark comedy about a hairdresser (Zbigniew Zamachowski - Proof of Life) whose life falls apart when his wife (Julie Delpy - Before Sunset, Before Sunrise, An American Warewolf in Paris) leaves him. He sets about putting things back together while plotting an outrageous revenge. Super narrative and brilliant casting on this one.

Rouge is about fraternity. It's about a young woman (Irène Jacob - Incognito) who runs over a dog, returns it to it's indifferent owner (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a retired, lonely, voyeuristic judge and how their unique relationship develops.

All in all a must watch. In Singapore it's available at HMV. Otherwise you can get it from Amazon.

An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind

That's how Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday opens. Finally saw it after all the hype, hoopla and the overtime wages paid to the censors' scissors.

I was fairly young during the 92-93 riots and blasts (all of 14), but I remember looking out our window on the 27th floor, at bombay burning, and even at that young age thinking - it's never going to be the same again. I was right. Sadly so.

Coming back to the movie... I've read the book and was significantly more moved by the book than by the movie. But I'm guessing that's partly a function of what the censor's did with the movie.

Critically speaking, I saw 2 improvement areas in the film....
THE USE OF LIGHT, COLOR AND SHOT LENGTH - this kind of a dark story can really be helped with the right treatment. The director's used a blue (like tungten but not quite) screen as a device for a lot of scences, but it's flat. I'd have a lot more one sided light to drive contrast and a lot more close ups. There weren't nearly enough tight shots of actors - again critical in this kinda film.
BETTER FILLER ACTORS - it pisses me off how some of the hawaldars (police constables) act in some of these movies. They have one or two lines and they deliver them so badly it just shits on your fim watching experience.

Now I'll get off my high horse and stop acting like I know everything about making films... the film did bring 3 other things to mind...
THE ROLE OF CENSORSHIP IN OUR LIVES - It's the toss up between free expression and ensuring mass media is responsible for their actions and opinions. The more I think about it, the more I believe artists (in this case film makers) should be allowed to express themselves. If they receieve a public backlash (not via violence though) for their work/opinion, then that's their liability. Simplistic view - I know. But it's what I think.
THE SHIT THAT GOES ON IN THE SYSTEM - Breaks my heart to see some of the realities of the Indian judicial system that were depicted in the film. The blasts happened in 1993 and has resulted in the BIGGEST CRIMINAL CASE EVER in India. Of the 122 odd accused, 100 were convicted... only in 2003!!! The mastermind - Tiger Memon, is still a free man, probably laughing at the Indian police. Police atrocities. But what choice do they have - what with all the political pressures and human rights watchdogs.
WE'RE BUT ONE FLASHPOINT AWAY FROM ANOTHER COMMUNAL RIOT - We've seen this time and again. What're we doing to prevent it (apart from hoping)?

Look Ma... we won!

And how!

P&G Cricket Club (P&GCC) beat the living daylights (and crap) out of ANZA4 in our 2nd game of the season in the Singapore Cricket Association (SCA) League. This is the 3rd straight year some of us are playing in the league and I've never seen anything like it!

Batted first and scored 182 all our in just under our allocated 30 overs. By no means a massive total. Bunch of us got into our 20s and got out. Was relieved to get some runs on the board finally... topscored with 27 off 28 balls (of course I'll mention that!). Raf, displayed his penchant for some rearguard action and got 23 off 17 to give us a semblance of decency. The massacre came after that.

We got them all out for 38 in just over 12 overs!!! The other Nitin of the team (and the more talented one) got 3, as did Tapish. Bakir and Paddu got 2 each.

Check out some random photos from the game. Watch this space for more news on the progress of P&G CC in the league.

Also - check out the scorecard.

Smoking Pod

Bought a new i-Pod last week. 80GB. The works.

Over the past few days I have discovered podcasts and a few thoughts come to mind...

1) Oh... How the world has changed... Probably an understatement of a very high order, but I can never say it enough. Let's take news for example. First (and I'm talking really long ago) there was no published news about the world at large. Then came the printing press and eventually the daily newspaper. Still only local. Then came the telegraph and more global news. Then there was a revolution. Television and the 9 O'Clock bulletin changed the world (on a side note - it's scary to think I grew up in a world where we had only 1 TV channel - oh... how the world has changed). That eventually led to a multitude of TV channels dedicated to giving you news that you might want to hear, customizing for scope (global or local), subject (business or sport) etc. Then the big mama - the internet. News about just about anything is available instantly. Highly customized. Highly immediate. Podcasts are just another delivery mechanism of this highly customized gratification of my quest for information. And what an idea it is.

2) An Apple a day... and you'll be a millionaire. Let's give it to Steve and his troops. They have taken the pants off a lot of bigger, richer corporations that probably had the right to win with portable MP3 players. Sony should win this game because of the Walkman heritage. Microsoft should win this game because I'm using microsoft software to type this, Creative should win this game because they have a better product technically. But no - the guys making the computers that only the real geeks and designers use are actually making a killing. How? Geek designers of course. It's simple. It's minimalistic. It's just fucking beautiful. And with apologies to Henry Ford... you can have any color as long as it's white (well... to be fair - it's also available in black now!)

3) One inning ahead. And while the world catches up on MP3 players, my new 80GB i-Pod is a lot more than just that. I can watch videos, use it as a back up for my hard disk, listen to the radio, play games and generally be anti-social. What an idea!

All it takes is an idea. And of course, a mad belief that it will work. And of course some crazed resilience to make it happen.

V.V. Funny

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

Check out the post titled "Oh Deer"... it's currently the last post on the homepage.

Lessons on life. Especially if you do happen to spot a dead deer on the road.

Entourage... Season 1

So we did it. Successfully accomplished Entourage Season 1. The drive to KL was good. The only time we got lost was while we were still in Singapore. Found Drama's place easy. And what a place! In a really nice looking neighborhood called Mont Kiara. Drama has outdone himself with his beautiful place and his "expat" connections!

Some highlights...

Drama - over a lazy brunch on Saturday morning talking about Kashmir's freedom struggle - "The choppers came and chased away the Kabalis"... and this was way back before choppers were invented in 1948!
E - "Shotgun shotgun shotgun".... sorry... you've got to see the car first.
Vinny - "Matlab?"
Ari - "I'm south asian... I have a danda. Not a nunu!"... I'm not about to check!!
Random Indonesian girl - "I'm bloody awesome Aussie mate".... ask Vinny!

Here's looking forward to Season2!

The ENTOURAGE Road Trip

The entourage is headed to KL!

It's set. This coming weekend "E" Lal, "Vinny" Scislowski, "Ari" Ponna and "Turtle" Ganji are headed up to spend some time with our separated friend "Drama" Rathi.

There will be plenty of alco. There will be cricket. There will be lots of poker. All in. On a deuce pair.

3.5 hour drive starts on Friday at 4pm.

Watch this space for more.

The Lives of Others

Watched an absolutely brilliant German movie over the weekend... winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film... Click here to check out the trailer.

Set in the early 80s in GDR (or East Germany), it's about how the government (otherwise known as a facist regime) prided itself on knowing everything. It hones down on this one surveillance specialist identified as HGW XX/7 who is employed by the Stasi (or state police) to expose an artist who is conisdered potentially subversive. The plot revolves around the life of the artist and how that influences this striaght-jacketed-oh-so-loyal-to-the-establishment man.

Yet another example of how socialism as a political system DOES NOT WORK. Loved the film though!

Steely Buns - La Bamba/Twist & Shout Medley Video

Yep - Full phone video of the La Bamba / Twist & Shout medley is up on YouTube. Still waiting for the official video...

For the non-believers... let this be proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdmOU83KK3g

So long Bundy - you bloody beauty

Last Friday, Bundy left me. Bundy was a loyal friend who kept me company for 2 years almost to the day. I know Bundy had a lot of fans among you... so this is my final homage to her. Check out this album of B-Art! http://picasaweb.google.com/thegajman/Bundy

Enter my new mate. Haven't named him yet, but a couple of lead thoughts are Kaizer (given his German heritage) or Caesar (coz he's a C180K Coupe). My first 3 days with him have been exhilerating. He's also very photogenic... http://picasaweb.google.com/thegajman/IsThisCaesar

Can't believe we lost that game

We batted well in large part. Ganguly played well. Tendulkar played well. Dhoni played well. Karthick played well. We bowled well also. Sreesanth did not get plastered. Munaf looked the part. Tendulkar was useful. BUT WE LOST!

Esh had a blast tho. Check out the video link below. Note that on the penultimate ball, Dhoni hit one in the air. The Indians started screaming coz we all thot it was a six. Then we saw one of the Lankans catch a blinder. That's when Eshan was... well... expressive of his boundless joy. The prick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFdz90tt8lw

The Steely Buns ROCKED da house!

Thursday was show night! And yes, we changed over from "Buns of Navarone" to "Steely Buns". We liked the whole Steely Dan reference but didn't want to lose the behind.

So - we rehearsed hard in an air-con-less ball room at the Shang all afternoon. It was hot and bloody stuffy! And I stuffed up my Twist and Shout lines again. Jim Lafferty very sportingly agreed to get on stage with us and do back up vocals. Except, I had got the lyrics/timing wrong EVERYTIME we tried this song since the first time we did it.

SHOWTIME and I got it right.... some highlights apart from me finally getting my song right...
- Vidya R kicked off the show in style with Zombie. Couple of levelling glitches from the sound guys but after the first 30seconds, she rocked the house!
- I followed with my high-pitched La-Bamba and gruff T&S (which I finally got right)
- BJ closed the first set with Hotel Cal and Nissim's solo was out of this world. BJ also got real slim shady with his lyrics. He handed over the mic to the audience whenever he forgot the lyrics! Quite the rockstar!
- Came back for the second set post the Filipino band. And we really rocked the house

Overall ABBA night rocked! The non-sit down dinner format sat down really well with everyone without exception! The fact that there was no big after-party just proved that ABBA's itself was the massive party!

And the Steely Buns were the rockstars at the party.

I have one short snippet of me doing T&S taken from Sriram's phone... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9lbDsA4XE

More videos / photos to follow.