Footnotes on Page 4

Big Red

2011-11-21T22:17:00.001+08:00

Big Red, originally uploaded by gajman.

Lost

2011-07-19T21:32:00.001+08:00

Lost, originally uploaded by gajman.

Captured

2011-07-18T21:33:00.001+08:00

Captured, originally uploaded by gajman.

Woman at work

2011-07-15T16:03:00.001+08:00

Woman at work, originally uploaded by gajman.

Glassy waters

2011-07-14T13:13:00.001+08:00

Glassy waters, originally uploaded by gajman.

Road to Black Island

2011-07-13T22:07:00.001+08:00

Road to Black Island, originally uploaded by gajman.

Shangri-la

2011-07-12T21:56:00.001+08:00

Shangri-la, originally uploaded by gajman.

Ghostly skies

2011-07-11T20:41:00.001+08:00

Ghostly skies, originally uploaded by gajman.

Blue Skies over Woolmers Estate

2011-07-10T18:08:00.001+08:00

Blue Skies over Woolmers Estate, originally uploaded by gajman.

Autumn leaves

2011-07-05T22:26:00.001+08:00

Autumn leaves, originally uploaded by gajman.

Grand Central / Pearly Gates

2011-02-20T18:38:00.001+08:00

Grand Central / Pearly Gates, originally uploaded by gajman.

The Perfect Nose

2011-02-08T11:35:00.001+08:00

The Perfect Nose, originally uploaded by gajman.

Waiting in Grandeur

2011-02-07T21:39:00.001+08:00

Waiting in Grandeur, originally uploaded by gajman.

Brooklyn Bridge

2011-02-03T08:20:00.001+08:00

Brooklyn Bridge, originally uploaded by gajman.

Winter Surfing

2010-11-24T20:43:00.001+08:00

Winter Surfing, originally uploaded by gajman.

Crossword

2010-11-23T06:52:00.001+08:00

Crossword, originally uploaded by gajman.

Bella

2010-11-21T20:58:00.001+08:00

Bella, originally uploaded by gajman.

Spiral

2010-11-16T21:47:00.001+08:00

Spiral, originally uploaded by gajman.

Angels in the sky

2010-10-24T19:59:00.001+08:00

Angels in the sky, originally uploaded by gajman.

Pink Lights and a bird

2010-10-12T14:23:00.001+08:00

Pink Lights and a bird, originally uploaded by gajman.

Grand Canal Throwback

2010-10-10T21:55:00.001+08:00

Grand Canal Throwback, originally uploaded by gajman.

Masquerade

2010-09-24T04:42:00.001+08:00

Masquerade, originally uploaded by gajman.

Venice has a lot of little shops selling masks and they all have beautiful and rich displays!

Reaching up

2010-09-22T21:46:00.003+08:00

Reaching up, originally uploaded by gajman.

Looking up in the narrow streets of Venice is always surprisingly stunning!

And off I go

2010-09-22T16:00:00.003+08:00

And off I go, originally uploaded by gajman.

Taken at Milano Centrale Train Station. It's a cleaner and less crowded version of VT Station in Mumbai.

A letter to God

2010-02-13T05:37:00.001+08:00

Dear God,

You’ve had the privilege of my mother’s company for 6 days now. This is the first time in 20 years that she’s had 6 days without pain. For that I thank you.

She has lived a good life, raised a good family, been respectful to her elders and kind to those younger. She’s helped the needy and comforted the sick. She has raised more than just her own kids. And has done that well (if I may say so myself). You threw a lot of obstacles in her path – tests, as she liked to call them. She faced each of them with grace and a charming smile. She really did it her way.

She started off as a child with a mind of her own (boy did we learn that over the years!) who’d walk home in anger from school if the driver didn’t arrive in time in the Benz that was to take her home! That was the start of what we have since known as the fearless “lion” trait in her – something that stood her (and all of us around her) in good stead in years to come. And she had nerves of steel right from a very early age. She appeared on the front page of the Straits Times in Singapore as the brave 10 year old who called the ambulance that saved her mother who was shot through the chest right before her eyes. She kept her head – unfazed by anything that came her way for the rest of her life.

These nerves were then put to test at 18 when she married my father and moved to Bombay into a whole different life – a life of trains, buses, kerosene stoves, a massive joint family, and 2 teenage kids who were now hers to bring up. She came through with flying colours. She adapted with a smile. She turned this house (272, Enterprise) into a home. I remember this story about the time she went back to her parents in Singapore as a newly wed and cried in guilt because she was being driven around in a chauffeur driven car while her husband was slogging away in public transport. Such was her unconditional love for her new life. Oh – and she did a stellar job with her 2 teenage “sons” – I’ll let them add to that part of the story (Bharat Baya / Bob Baya – please feel free!).

Then you tested her by taking away her first child a few days after she gave birth. She once read out a little piece she wrote about Kiran and how You took him away. The words made me cry. You really broke her heart then but she accepted that as Your will and carried on. Then came Hiren and I (thanks for letting us be!). I don’t know how she did it, but she juggled a large family, bringing up 2 teenage “sons” and then 2 of her own little boys! But she did it with poise. She never missed a single school play, or a sports day or a prize ceremony or a report card day or a family obligation for that matter. It’s something she would later, if rather unimaginatively, call “Time Management” – and she was the head-mistress of that school!!

At school or otherwise, I always went that extra mile just to make her proud of me. I didn’t know then that her pride in us was unconditional. I remember my first Inter-school cricket game at Cross Maidan where I got out for a duck – she was there cheering me on! She didn’t really get cricket and all the fuss around it but the fact that her son was playing – however badly – was reason enough to cheer. I haven’t given up playing cricket badly ever since! It was always the sincerity of the effort that she put a premium on. Didn’t You once say “Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana”. There – she lived it.

She was a great driver!!! Probably the best woman driver I’ve known (my wife is a close 2nd)!!! As a kid I once told her she drove like a Bombay cab driver and she maintained that it was the biggest compliment I had ever given her. Clearly me thinking that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and that as a kid I wanted to marry her one day wasn’t as big a compliment!

She was the ultimate healer. She nursed me through lost school elections (contested for the post of head-boy and lost) that threatened to shatter my confidence, through break-ups in college (she gave the best relationship advice in the world – the problem was I didn’t always listen!), through my general teenage angst (tendency to not see shades of grey in this world and insist on black & white) and through the first time I moved out into the world on my own (comforted me through Stats nightmares in Calcutta that made me want to drop everything and come back to the security of home – she didn’t let me harbour that thought very long!).

She was kind. It came through in her maternal instinct – not only towards Hiren and I, but her 2 teenage sons who owe her their teenage years, her 3 younger sisters who looked up to her like a mother, younger cousin who spent her college days with mum and to some extent even my other cousins who were subject to mum’s dose of a Gram Flour (Channa Atta) Bath on Sundays, Rose Syrup infused milk for strength and general army-inspired discipline. She was respectful towards her elders and wouldn’t tolerate anything but that from us and was kind to those younger. For that, she was loved.

She loved being around young people. She was always happy with our home being the "meeting point" for all our friends. No one ever left hungry. She lived and re-lived her youth through Bob Baya and Bharat Baya first, then with Hiren and me and then with Sandhya. She was the ultimate "cool mom" with a super sense of humor to go with it.

And the illness. I thought You dealt her a really tough hand in that respect. At various points, I have been angry with You for that. But her unadulterated love for life kept her going. In her illness she saw pain, but she also saw You. I was always amazed at how her illness challenged my faith in You but only made hers stronger. Everytime she was down, we’d wait for her to start scolding someone about keeping things neat and tidy. That was the sure-fire sign that the lion was roaring again. And boy did she roar!!!

But now she’s gone. Left a big fat void. A void that we never want to get rid of as it serves as a constant reason to celebrate the life she lived and the impact she had on us.

Thanks for making sure I got here in time. As she went, she was surrounded by people who loved her and people she loved. I had my hand on her head and I hope she knew I was there and that I’ll always love her and be her little one.

In closing – we found this newspaper cut out in her drawer the day after she passed on. It’s titled “Why your mother always walks beside you”. An excerpt from it:
"Your mother is always with you… She’s the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street. She’s the smell of soap in your freshly laundered socks. She’s the cool hand on your brow when you’re not well. Your mother lives inside your laughter. She’s crystallised in every tear drop. She’s the place you come from, your first home. She’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, not space… not even death!"

God – that’s my mother for you. Our loss is your gain.

Nitin

Our beloved leader's last dancer

2010-01-15T22:44:00.005+08:00

Loving summer in Sydney!!! Especially the outdoor movies.

Watched "Mao's Last Dancer" this evening at the Centennial Park with about 500 other people and a well equipped picnic basket (chilled beers / cheese / crackers / nuts / pizzas) in 24 degree pleasantness!

Brilliant film!!! It's directed by an Australian - Bruce Beresford (only other film of his that I know is Driving Miss Daisy - won 4 Oscars). The movie is based on the real story of Cunxin Li - now a renowned ballet dancer and stock broker who lives in Australia.

It's an inspirational story - Cunxin was born in a far flung Chinese province to peasant parents. He was selected (fairly randomly according to the movie) to learn ballet at Chairman Mao's wife's dance institute (would she be called chairwoman Mao then?). He grows up at this school and impresses a visiting US delegation who subsequently invite him to come over.

While he blows everyone away with his dancing, he also meets a white American girl, and marries her (was a marriage of convenience - else he would have to leave for China - and by then he didn't want to!). So he went to the Chinese embassy to tell them he wasn't going back and was held against his will. With some political pressure he was released and continued dancing. In the meanwhile, his marriage broke up.

Eventually he meets another dancer, marries her. China forgives him and he returns. Finally settles down in Australia! Happy ending.

The story is an inspirational one and makes the movie worth watching. The dancing is intense - I'm not into ballet and even I was impressed. The camera-work and casting (especially his mother) left a bit to be desired, but all in all - it's a must watch! Trailer below:

Well... at least Lord Ganesha prefers Air India!

2009-10-06T10:32:00.002+08:00

The logic is sound. Lord Ganesha - the elephant headed remover of obstacles (the irony will be self-evident by the end of this note!) prefers rats as his vehicle of choice. Rats prefer to Air India as their vehicle of choice (proven - I'll get to that in a second). Hence Lord Ganesha prefers Air India.

As if the punch up detailed in the last entry in this space wasn't enough, some good souls pointed out a couple of other recently reported incidents. And this is where the rats come in!

Incident 1 -
147 passengers were deplaned in Amritsar when a Toronto bound aircraft was found to have a rat (unfortunately for the rat he wasn't one disguised as a human - but there were plenty of those on this flight as well!).

Incident 2 -
A week after that 412 passengers were deplaned in Calicut from a Riyadh bound flight (maybe thats a good thing!) when a rodent was spotted on that one! Again - this was a rodent-shaped rodent. The human-shaped ones didn't create any panic (though they're the real trouble-makers). And then they flew an empty plane down from Mumbai so that the stranded passengers could take their trip to Riyadh. Quite rich for a bankrupt airline!

What surprises me is that we haven't had some religeous group going up in arms defending the rights of the average rodent to fly in view of them having close connections with Lord Ganesha. Sound logic that too!

Bring it on Shiv Sena / MNS! If there's anyone who can top AI on the outrageously-and-infuriatingly-stupid index - it's you guys!

There's drama in the air!

2009-10-04T23:27:00.005+08:00

In the midst of all the tragedies during the last week (floods in the Philippines, Vietnam and India, the earthquake(s) in Indonesia, the tsunami in Samoa and the landslides in Sicily), Air India took some time out to provide the world with some comic relief (and yet another reason to stop flying that ridiculous airline).

There was a mid-air scuffle. Now this would've been an "oh-ok-that-sucks" moment if it was between 2 passengers. It would've been a "really?-that's-terrible!" moment if it was between a passenger and one of the crew members. But it was between the crew and the pilots!!! Thats what makes it such a "What-the-fuck!!????" moment worth blogging about!!! (BCT - borrowing your term for this one if you dont mind!)

So this flight was going from Sharjah to Delhi via Lucknow - which in itself sounds like trouble - and somewhere en route to Lucknow, over Pakistan (unnamed sources blamed the ISI for the scuffle but even they couldn't have come up with something so stupid... and thats saying something!!!), the incident ensued. Facts are unclear (surprise surprise!!) but there are misconduct claims and sexual harassment allegations flying around with a couple of people walking away with bruises. All of them ended up without jobs by the end of that!

Now there are a few very disturbing things about this whole thing:
1) that the pilot(s) would actually beckon a stewardess into the cockpit (oh - the double meanings I have to resist right now!!) and molest her!!! WHAT THE.... was he thinking? That he'd get away with it?!!!???!!!!!????
2) even if he did (molest her).... which, in my opinion, should make him eligible for capital punishment (yeah - I'm extreme that way!), if I was a part of the crew, I'd wait till we were on the ground before punching him up (and punch him up I would). I don't want to piss off the only person in the air who is likely to get me to ground in one piece, still in a state to be able to knock his teeth out.
3) apparently - when the plane landed in Lucknow, most of the passengers were so freaked out - they deplaned and took a train or something! But no one reported the matter! IDIOTS!

Net - Air India explores new depths. The Maharajah needs to be retired. And for heaven's sake... DON'T FLY AIR INDIA. India has a couple of other world class airlines, but Air India isn't one of them. Pity they carry the country's name!

Sayonara!!

2009-08-29T03:01:00.004+08:00

My grandfather, Hiranand Tikamdas Gajria passed away this morning in Nasik. He was 89.

Since our religious practices don't leave any room for eulogies, I decided to put mine here.

One more bright light from the generation that sacrificed so much through their youth to ensure their children and grandchildren had it good has just been put out. Ba, as we fondly call him, comes from that generation of our family that still grew up in Thatta - a village near Karachi in Pakistan. The generation that saw the tough partition days when he moved his family to Mumbai but himself headed to the middle east in pursuit of work. He moved up the ranks in a trading company in Bahrain, but that wasn't good enough for him. He helped his younger brother (who passed on earlier this year as well) set up his own stationary business which thrives even today. He was a pioneer.

He was also an explorer. He smelled another opportunity all the way in the far east. He headed to Japan. Just like that. This, at a time, when Japan was not so foreigner friendly. English was even more uncommon then than it is now! He picked up Japanese, fell in love with Sushi and everything Japanese.

During those years he and my grandmother would make annual trips to Mumbai which we looked forward to eagerly. Because that meant Meiji Almond Chocolates, the latest Video Games (even though they were mostly in Japanese!) and Japanese Apples! Oh and also watching him smoke his pipe every morning was another novelty that came with it.

When he retired and moved back to India for good (early 90s), he made it a point to stay fit and mobile. He and I'd head out to the Race Course for a walk / jog every evening and get back in time to watch Friends on TV. He never understood why I liked driving to my jog! But we did!

He read the newspaper like no one else does! Every word on every page! The Times of India AND the Economic times! He loved a lively debate on what the issue with the Japanese Banking System was, whether inflation is really a good thing - he was a great student of Economics! He always knew more than me.

In his last years, he turned to religion. He turned vegetarian. Danced at his grandsons' weddings. Cradled his great grand daughters. And ate a lot of ice cream I am told! :)

I am sorry I couldn't spend more time with you towards the end. I will miss you.

You lived a life that was full. And you did it your way!

Sayonara Ba! I know you'll be watching over us!

The "Pedestrian" Pilgrimage

2009-08-26T02:46:00.005+08:00

Finished another book today. The Pilgrimage. Paolo Coelho.

Note - this is the first Paolo Coelho book I read (no I haven't read the Alchemist - and after this - don't intend to!). And I was disappointed.

When I read the description, I was excited. It's about Paolo's journey through Spain on the legendary road of San Tiago towards Santiago de Compustela. I was expecting a rich account of what he saw through his journey and his spiritual upliftment through real life experiences.

Instead, it's a book where the author can't get enough of himself and how spiritually superior he turned out to be! It's a book about Paolo trying to attain his "sword" (maybe I'm not smart enough - but I think this was a spiritual reference to his attainment of kind of a "nirvana") by completing this 700km journey on foot. He has a guide - Petrus - who leads him into a number of other-worldly challenges (like repeatedly fighting a rabid dog - a reference to his personal demons I think) and how he overcomes.... well.... everything.

It's just a self-help money-spinner in my opinion.

To be fair - it's tough writing a book about one's own spirituality without sounding like you're calling yourself God. But then one's own spirituality is such a personal thing - if you really believe in it, don't write a book about it and end up sounding like a pompous ass.

Net - I didn't enjoy it!

Need to stop by at the book store for another one tomorrow!

Over the edge!

2009-08-25T03:04:00.004+08:00

Phew! I've been reading Over the Egde of the World for a long long time!! First - thanks to my lovely sister-in-law who doesn't even know that her sister passed her book on to me! So thanks D!

Now - I haven't taken long with this book because it's boring - I've just been lazy with my reading!!! But hospitals provide a particularly reading conducive environment strangely enough!!

The book, by Laurence Bergreen details the (mis)adventures of Magellan in leading the first ever circumnavigation of the globe! Bergreen, apparently, has also written biographies of diverse set of figures like Al Capone, Louis Armstrong and so on (haven't read any of the others, but after this one - I think I will!).

The scene - early 1500s - a time when the Portugese and the Spanish were both looking for world domination, an important component of which would be the domination of Spice Trade. Now Magellan, an ambitious Portugese explorer, was looking for backing for an expedition to look for the Spice Islands via a route never before explored - Across the Atlantic, around the southern tip of South America and across the Pacific to the Spice Islands (present day Brunei and surrounding islands). He was rebuffed by the Portugese king and so defected to Spain, where he found the backing to set out on such an expedition.

The journey started with 5 ships and more than 250 men but ended with 1 ship and 18 people on board. Even Magellan was killed in a rather unnessecary war in Mactan in southern Philippines.

Bergreen's book is based on records from the journey, mainly the account maintained by Pigafetta - the Italian who was on the expedition as the official chronicler. He details the ups and downs of the journey, including what happened to the 240 odd people who didn't make it, Magellan's death and the other 4 vessels. His account of the lands and people they encountered along the way is stunning!

It's an amazing account to read at a time when circumnavigating the globe is just a couple of flights away - even I've done that a couple of times flying from Singapore to New York to Frankfurt to Singapore!!

The circus that is GMA!

2009-08-19T23:26:00.007+08:00

(Photo taken from Manuel Quezon iii's blog)

GMA(Gloria Macapagal Arroyo), president of the Republic of the Philippines has got to be one of the most stupid, insensitive and un-savvy political leaders of our times. She makes Laloo Prasad Yadav and Sarah Palin look Mensa-esque!

So here's what happened - She goes to the US, apparently, to meet Obama. Ends up eating a US$20,000 dinner with her cronies at an expensive NY restaurant. Gets caught out doing that by someone who Tweets. What ensues is a load of crap explanations by a bunch of people who are either really stupid or think the rest of the world is.

As she heads out, she's carrying a lot of dead baggage with her. Including Senator (and ex-film star) Lito Lapid who, as reported in the Inquirer said that he "had personally asked Ms Arroyo to take him along for the meeting with Obama at the Oval Office". He admitted he would do anything to have a photograph with the most powerful man in the world. He said, "I hope I’d be lucky enough to be chosen among the five that would be allowed to accompany the President when she meets Obama. This will be my first time ever to meet a US president in person because I might not have the chance anymore. So I asked the President herself to sign me up on this trip". (So Lito was really on a celeb spotting trip! On the upside - at least he's honest! And dumb!!)

Then there was the tragic passing of ex-President Cory Aquino. Apparently, right after GMA was informed about the death, she had a meeting with Hillary Clinton. She was so star-struck that she missed mentioning Cory's passing to Hillary. Hillary only found out a couple of hours later from a Filipina reporter! So after her rendez-vous with Hillary, GMA quickly recorded a rushed condolence message before heading out to NY for dinner!!

And what a dinner it was. She fed 15-20 people at a cost of US$20,000 (I know!!! HOLY COW and all that!!!). And this wasn't even an official dinner. So either the tax-payer is paying for this dinner or she gets paid a shit load of money! Neither should be happening! Heck - the dinner shouldn't be happening. For Pete's sake, a national icon has just passed and you're the president of the country!!! Dinner was at Le Cirque (very ironically - the Circus!) and was first reported on Twitter!!!

And then the cover ups! This is the best part!!! On one side you have her press secretary Cerge Remonde insisting that $20,000 is not expensive because "after all you're dining with the President of the Philippines". On the other you have senator Lapid saying he didn't understand what the big deal was. Apparently he doesn't like French food because he can't cope with all the cutlery changes between courses! One other official also made matters worse by saying that wasn't even the best expensive meal they had (which means there were others!).

While all of this is happening, the average Filipino is struggling to buy a 10 Peso sachet of detergent to wash her clothes. In other words - GMA - you're screwing with me!!

The final - and biggest - irony of this all is something that happened at the very start of the trip. GMA signed an executive order creating a "Local Hunger Task Force"!!!

*SIGH*

PS: Some people say that Obama took his wife to a play in NY and spent thousands of dollars flying from DC to NY on a private jet and all that - so whats the big deal!!! Well - that still doesn't make it right!!!

The Influenza Conspiracy Theory!

2009-07-31T00:34:00.004+08:00

Yet another attempt at reviving this space.

All of these flu strains the world seems to be uncovering over the last few years... bollocks I say. It's just a bloody sinister marketing ploy by the vegetable growers of the world. They're converting you to vegetarianism - one animal at a time!

First there was the mad-cow disease. Ok - so this isn't exactly a flu. But let's park minor technicalities. This was first discovered in England (who I believe will beat Australia in the Ashes and are generally the source of trouble). People stopped eating cows (well... some people did. and yet more stopped temporarily). In connected news, the women of England were also less satisfied by their partners' prowess in bed at the time. I wonder if there's a connection!? Hmmm. Anyway - So that's a hunk of beef out!

Then there was Bird Flu. When this broke out, it was like this childhood dream a lot of us have had (I know at least 2 people who've had this dream as kids) - there's a bird thats chasing (does flying after a running person count as chasing???!!) you and you're running and running and running and the big black bird (think XXXXL crow with a shiny black beak) is flying and flying and flying. And then you tire and stumble. And the bird is upon you. Then you wake up (Damn suspense films!). Anyway, point is - people stopped eating chicken. KFC was getting screwed (as they ought to). And more and more people adopted what someone wise once said (still says in fact)... Fowl is foul.

So Cows - check, Chicken - check.

Now there's Swine Flu. Love how they don't call it Pig Flu. It's like someone decided - hey let's add some emotion into this disease (see - this is all a marketing ploy) - pig is not punchy enough. what's another word.... hog.. naah.... piglet... naaah..... AHA..... SWINE!!! And then the pigs were rescued.

So Cows - check. Chicken - check. Pigs - check.

Coming in 2010.... FISH FLU. Affectionately known as FF - Fully F****d!

It's all a bloody conspiracy!

Please fasten your seat belts... OR ELSE

2008-08-22T02:44:00.004+08:00

Back! Won't go into where I've been coz thats not what this is about. Almost.

I've been in India over the past week and a half, of which, the last 5 days have been spent traversing the south... well Chennai (oh so hot), Mysore (oh so beautiful), Bangalore (oh such a beautiful airport - it's a pity it's not in Bangalore and it's terribly planned).

Given all of this I've been flying a fair bit. I want to share some of my pet flying peeves with anyone who'll listen...

1) WHY OH WHY do the fat men always sit next to me?
2) WHY OH WHY do they smell?
3) WHY OH WHY must they switch their phones on the very split second the wheels have touch the tarmac?
4) WHY OH WHY must they push and shove while the doors are still closed and there's nowhere to go?
5) WHY OH WHY must they push and shove even after the fucking door is open?
6) WHY OH WHY must they leer at the poor little hostie who's smiling on the outside and seething on the inside. If you leer, be subtle fatty!

WHY OH WHY!

Piss Off

2008-04-10T23:35:00.005+08:00

Most men will be able to relate to this in one way or another. For women, this might be insightful (and at the same time totally pointless).

At the outset, let me establish that this post is about men's urinals and the various types of behaviours one is exposed to in this sanctum. I say that urinals ought to be the most uninteresting places in the world, but much to my chagrin, they aren't. So if you don't want to read about men peeing, then stop here. Else, let me take you into my view (don't get me wrong about the view) of what should be a hallowed space.

There are many different types of pee'ers among men. And a lot of them piss me off (said with tongue firmly in cheek).

1) Those who use the urinals as an extension of their workspace:
This person will have his phone precariously poised between his head (cocked - no pun intended - to one side) and his left shoulder while taking aim. The conversation will generally be about how "we can launch on time and hit our targets". Touche I say.

2) Why waste a perfectly useful bladder break:
God bless bladder breaks. Sometimes meetings can be a battle between the bladder the speaker. Fortunately, most days the speaker gives in and calls for a bladder break. However, there's always the odd eager beaver who will want to carry on the discussion just as you get poised to aim and shoot. He feels the compulsive need to ask you questions like "How do you think this issue will go down?". Steely silence is what he gets from me.

3) I love spending quality time with my family
Then there are the kinds who will use pee time like tea time. Make a quick call to the wife and the kids. See how they're doing. Ask about whether the maid came in and ironed all the clothes. And if the dog is still constipated. Stop already!

4) Song-birdies
Yep - some people feel the need to sing a song - ideally the birdie song - to urge things along. Use an I-pod I say.

5) The conspiracy theory enthusiasts
These one's are scary. They'll take the corner urinal. Get really close to it and in fact stand more like facing the corner than straight ahead. Kinda like the world is out to get their jewels. Never checked, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a trickle or two down the corner wall!

I think the following simple rules should be posted and enforced by the PeePolice -
1) Please switch off your cell phones, pagers and any other device designed to keep you in touch with the outside world.
2) Do not talk unless General is stuck in the zipper. And even if that's the case, don't talk - just scream! (Just don't expect anyone to help)
3) Wash your hands. If you're not concerned about personal hygene, at least do it when there are other people in the loo. Because they might be working with you and you know how word gets around!!

All in the general interest of the decent pee'ers in general.

Pee-ce out! Biatch!

Vantage Pointless

2008-04-07T00:19:00.003+08:00

Watching Vantage Point was a painful experience.

It's like this - some guy got his hands on a story. Wasn't sure what was the best way to shoot it, so he shot it from 8 different perspectives. Put all of those together and created a full length feature out of it in the hope that one of them will go down well with the audience. Unfortunately not.

Directed by Pete Travis (who has made nothing noteworthy and probably never will), it has a pretty solid looking star cast which flatters to deceive - Dennis Quaid (a washed up bodyguard of the American President in a very washed up performance), Forest Whitaker (random American tourist in Spain who looks like a Japanese tourist with his HD Movie Camera and bandies about Spanish in a completely over-acted role), Sigourney Weaver (basically doing nothing but being a bitch for the few micro seconds she's on screen). The movie is about the American President in Spain and facing an assassination attempt followed by many attempted twists and turns via showing the whole story over and over and over again from 8 different people's perspectives.

Basically, it all falls flat and they lived happily ever after. Give it a miss.

Trailer looks slick... don't be fooled by it!

House Haunting

2008-03-25T00:53:00.003+08:00

House-hunting, especially in current market conditions, is a bitch. And then some.

First - the inept agent. My first agent (we'll call him/her E) is absolutely useless. E has "serviced" so many folks from my workplace (this just sounds wrong, but I'll keep it there for the fun of it), that she/he completely ignored my simple brief (2 bedder, modern, furnished, west side) and showed me places that other folks from work were moving out of! They were 3 bedders, old, unfurnished and in the north. If she/he was my agency, I'd fire her/him. Oh wait, she/he is my agent. And yes - I fired her/him.

Enter - the ept agent (I know ept is not a word, but it should be - opposite of inept.... come to think of it, it could be outept... but I like ept better and this is my blog... so ept it is). We'll call her/him D. Now D has never "serviced" (I'm enjoying this) anyone from my workplace. She/he took all of 2 viewings and 5 minutes of briefing to understand what I was looking for. About 10-12 apartment viewings later, I saw it. A place that spoke to me. A place that said, come live in me. And above all, a place I could afford in this crazy real estate market. I move in May 1.

There are a few disturbing things about D though. She (ok - i'm over the gender neutrality thing) wants to party with my bald male businessman friend and me at St James Power Station (popular teeny bopper club in Singapore). This is not alarming in itself given how dashing and irresistable the two of us are, but apparently she has a 26 year old daughter (alarm 1) who plays in a band and D thinks I should meet her (alarm 2). Oh and the daughter is also getting married next year (alarm 3). It's all very confusing and disturbing. I need to lie down.

Requiem for a Dream

2008-03-17T02:05:00.003+08:00

When a dream comes decisively crashing down, it's one of the hardest things to deal with. This movie is about 4 dreams that 4 different people chase and in the process self destruct.

Requiem for a Dream is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Batman Project, The Fountain), it's an Academy Award nominated film (2000) starring Ellen Burstyn (Exorcist, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) - playing the widowed mother, Jared Leto (The Thin Red Line, Fight Club) - playing the junkie son, Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Blood Diamond) - his also junkie and artist girlfriend, Marlon Wayans (Above the Rim, Scary Movie series) - their also junkie friend.

The film opens with Sara (the mother) who lives alone, is a TV junkie, loves her food and dreams of one day appearing on TV. She gets her opportunity in the mail and she starts preparing by going on a diet so she can fit into "that red dress". She ends up taking diet pills which are actually an upper (and therefore a diet suppressant). The starts doubling her dosage, hallucinating, taking valium, hallucinating some more, only to end up with psychosis.

The son and his girlfriend, in the meanwhile, are in love and dream of a life together where they open a shop for her to sell her sketches. One small problem. They love their heroin and need a fix every now and again. They go to great lengths to finance this bad habit. They start dealing (with their friend), and when that dries up, she even sleeps with her shrink to score some. When that doesn't work anymore, she even sleeps with another dealer to score some.

The movie climaxes hauntingly with all 4 of their dreams meeting a tragic and decisive end.

The photography is outstanding. The music score is hair-raising. The acting is stellar. But most of all, the directors treatment - especially the devices he uses for drug addiction - is absolutely stunning.

Check out a tralier below:

Thrilla in Manila

2008-03-15T09:01:00.002+08:00

For those of you who've been to Manila, you'll know that this place is crazy... way crazier than Singapore but not as crazy as say Bangkok. Leaving your hotel late for a flight is not a good idea. In fact it's very far from a good idea. I think it's what you might call a bad idea. A really bad idea!

It all started last night. Went to the Podium (or Pojioom as the cab driver would have me call it) for dinner. Pojioom is a mall about 5km from my office. But in the evening it should take about 45 mins. Not so bad. Caught up with a long lost old friend who I saw after a gazillion years! Had a couple of coffees, the first of which was weaker than Munaf Patel's throwing arm (if you don't know cricket - just ignore the reference to it.. but read on). For the second one, well, I asked for a strong coffee. And she went around the entire mall and the 3.5 barangays and 2 villages surrounding the mall, found all the caffeine she could find, and pumped it into my coffee. I suspect she also added a dash of red bull in it... just in case.

Headed back to the hotel soon after and was bouncing off the walls while watching FoxCrime (Really cool crime channel!) for about 4 hours!!! Watched Law and Order, CSI NY, PI something and Masterminds! Slept at 4. Now the bad news here was that I had a flight at 8.20am. Needed to wake up at 5.45am. Decided I couldn't go wrong with 3 alarms. It turns out I could.

Yes - I have the ability to turn off 3 different alarms, placed, by careful design, in 3 different parts of the room. And I went back to sleep. Next time I woke up, it was 7.19am! I had 1 hour and 1 minute to my flight. Fortunately I had packed before I slept (not usual for me). So crashed out of the room. Paid my bill. Got into a hotel cab and gave him the promise of a hefty tip if he pulled off a miracle for me.

Got to the airport at 7.50am (thanks to an in-car preview of the formula 1 season that kicks off in Melbourne today - GO FERRARI!). Gave Filippe Massa the tip I'd promised. Crashed through the customary baggage check line before check in. But alas. The counter was closed. I had officially missed my flight.

Now unfortunately, the Manila airport is shit when it comes to spending time there. So I headed back to the hotel and had my breakfast buffet - apple juice, yet another coffee, scrambled eggs, baked beans (watch out SQ afternoon flight!) and toast. Now I'm at the lobby reflecting on my Thrilla in Manila. I wonder what else the day has in store for me!

Juno Reviewed

2008-03-08T01:39:00.004+08:00

Rarely do you walk out of a film feeling light, refreshed, optimistic, touched and poignant at the same time. And Juno did that to me.

Oscar nominated and beautifully written, Juno is a dramatic yet comedic portrayal of a 16 year old high school girl who gets pregnant and then deals with it. She has a geeky boyfriend who "tries very hard" to be cool and gets her pregnant in the bargain, a loving father, a rock steady step mother who are all very well written characters. She tries suicide and fails. She tries abortion and fails. She finally settles on finding parents to adopt the baby and she does. Well almost.

The parents she finds are another story altogether. A rich couple - a controlling wife and a really cool, easy-going husband who is in the process of realizing he doesn't want to be in this marriage.

One of the beauties of the way the film is written is that as you go through it, at various points, you expect the plot to end up being just another film.. and then it surprises you.

It's excruciatingly funny as well. The writing is crisp, witty and laugh-out-loud funny without a single slapstick moment through the entire movie.

Oh and I LOVED the soundtrack.

Check out the trailer below:

A Short History of Singapore

2008-03-05T00:37:00.002+08:00

Of late I've discovered some really good gems about Singapore on the net. One of them is a blog called www.mrbrown.com. Think of him as a Singaporean Michael Moore. Only funnier.

For anyone outside of Singapore reading this, you might not relate to this easily - so I'm sorry, but for those of you in Singapore..... enjoy this.

Also found this really cool video that captures Singapore history in a short Singlish song!

The Union Square Jazz Quintet

2008-02-22T00:30:00.002+08:00

Saw these guys randomly at Union Square subway station in NY and decided to grab a clip. Outstanding musicians.

I hope they get discovered!! :)

Flights of Fancy

2008-02-17T01:19:00.002+08:00

Flying east long distance is always an unusually awe inspiring experience. The sun always seems keen to meet you. From the darkness of the night with the twinkling of a few lights 11,000m below you on some obscure island or forgotten city and a yellow jagged moon yawning horizontally at you, to an orange hue appearing on the horizon lighting up one solitary face of the sometimes-rocky-sometimes-covered-in-a-soft-bed-of-fresh-snow Alaskan Range, representing the eagerness of a brand new day, to the bright sunshine - the pomp and glare of high noon - it all happens quickly.

It's a new day. A new start. A new world. A new hope.

No - I haven't gone nuts. Just very inspired by my Executive Economy window seat on SQ22 from Singapore to NY!

The landscape is mind-bogglingly (sic!) beautiful. At sunrise, we're over Alaska, revealing the contrast of jagged, mean-looking rocks and the purity of untouched snow. As the sun gains in strength and permeates everything, we have flat white expanses of what would be beautiful cold blue steel river. The kind you'd expect to see on a postcard from Vermont.

At this point I'm being chided by the stewardess for keeping my window shade open. They want to keep the cabin pitch dark so passengers won't wake up and ask for things!

I still sneak a peek every so often.

The battle between the long beards and short skirts

2008-02-09T20:30:00.000+08:00

Sania Mirza (the only Indian female tennis player to have broken into the Top 30 on the ATP tour!) has taken a stand. She is not going to play anymore tournaments in India.

Attagirl! For what it's worth, I'm behind her all the way! She's had enough of the self acclaimed moral police telling her that she's baring too much skin and that she should play with a hijab or a burkha on, failing which, she should be duly punished, which in this case would be pelting her to death with stones (since we're still living in the 12th century.... BC). On top of that she's been embroiled in a controversy about the flag. Only because she had her feet a few feet from it!!!! No one's saying she was stamping all over it like a child that's been denied her candy. She was sitting. Her feet were placed a few feet away from the flag. And effigies were burnt!

For fuck's sake!

She's representing our country! She's the best we've ever had. Her booming forehand has left many more prominent opponents stunned. She could inspire a generation of Indian female tennis players. Leave her be. Nurture talent, don't use it as a platform for your jingoism and cheap publicity.

But this right wing funda-fucking-mentalists are not the only one's to blame. Next up is the media. Switch to any news channel in India (even the "respectable" NDTV), this is their sensational news for the day. They'll run polls, vox-pops, panels and the like asking everyone and a stray dog whether they think Sania's skirt is too short. The fat Gujarati businessman, who probably gets his rocks off watching women's tennis, takes what he thinks is a moral highground and condemns Sania. Another fat aunty gets interviewed on the street while trying to get the poor vegetable vendor to shave 2 Rs off the tomatos she just bought. And she thinks it's not in line with Indian conservatism. Then they have the gall to cut to an interview with some FUCKING religeous expert who claims this is against the will of Allah!!!! WHAT???!!!!!! Allah, I'm sure, has more pressing matters to deal with - like a bunch of lunatics killing in his name! Something tells me he's a tad upset about that.

Who gives a fuck about what a fat Gujarati businessman, the haggling aunty or the dated bearded dude think? None of them have ever played tennis or done anything that would make their parents proud (leave alone an entire nation).

Therein lies the 3rd set of people who're pissing me off. The common man - and thats a big bug-bear to carry. The NDTVs of the world carry this sensation through the day only because people want to hear about this. People revel in other people's misery (Mahogany had a very interesting post about this wrt Britney Spears). Get over it. Get on with your life. Cheer her on and be happy there's someone doing our country proud in sport. And be prouder that it's a woman. Salute her spirit and egg her on. Reject this nonsense from the media.

While all of this goes on - I hope Sania keeps her spunk intact (that sounds so wrong), works on her serve, and more importantly, continues to inspire the next generation of Indian tennis players.

On a separate note - where do effigy burners come from? Who makes the effigies? How do they have the time in the middle of the day to get together and burn an effigy? Don't they need to be at work or something? It could be a great business idea! Effigy makers. 3 hours delivery at a prominent junction anywhere in the country - guaranteed!

Kite Runner - Reviewed

2008-02-06T00:18:00.001+08:00

If you've read the book, watch the movie only if you're able to watch it as yet another film (not a book adaptation). If you haven't read the book, watch the movie and THEN read the book.

I'd read the book. But I watched the movie for what it was worth as a film. And I was not disappointed.

Kite Runner is a poignant story about a young Afghan boy who is raised by his rich anti-communist, mustang-driving father in the pre-Russian invasion days (think late 70s, early 80s). They have helpers at home who've worked with them for 2 generations. The child of the helper and this young boy are the deepest of friends until one day, while exercising his loyalty to his friend the poor helper boy gets raped. The rich boy is a silent witness but is afraid to intervene. Plagued with guilt, he cooks up a story to get the helpers driven out of their home so he doesn't have to face up to his guilt of being a silent spectator to an inhuman act on a friend who was standing up for him.

Years go by. The Russians invade Afghanistan, the rich boy grows up and his father grows old in the US. Circumstances bring the rich young boy back to Afghanistan - back home where he is forced to deal with the past he so avoided.

It's a must-read and should-watch.

The cinematography is outstanding. The acting, brilliant. The locales - heart breakingly beautiful (note that the film was shot in China given the security hazards in Afghanistan) and the kite flying scenes - stunning.

Check out the trailer below...

Thank you for the Music!!

2008-02-03T21:51:00.000+08:00

There are many universal truths. One of them is that everyone has songs that remind them of a certain someone, a certain occasion, a certain time of life... you can tell the story of your life in songs. With my iPod on and my uber cool sound eliminating Sennheiser headphones cutting me off from my otherwise silent and super cold (thanks to the air con servicemen) study, I was thinking about mine - in songs... this is an excerpt of what I came up with... (warning - embarassing confessions ahead) -

The Early Years...
Two very memorable tunes come to mind - "Rage in the Cage" by the J.Geils Band (1981). My aunt (mum's younger sis) would play this and I'd do one of those crazy uncontrolled and uninhibited jigs that only kids can pull off (when you're a kid is about the only time you can heed the advice - dance like no one's watching). And "D.I.S.C.O"... not the remixed one. The original one - I don't even remember who did it - and it's kinda hard to google it. You can imagine how one might get side-tracked with a search for "DISCO". My uncle (Bob - he prefers being called cousin and does frequent this site) would play this on vinyl back in the day (Sad fact is that I'd be lucky if a lot of people I work with have ever seen a fucking audio cassette!) and I'd get the spelling wrong (I wasn't a very bright kid).

My First "own" music
My brother and I would get a bunch of Sony CF90 blank tapes and record a whole lot of crap on them - over and over again. Including our voices (it's weird how your voice always sounds so bad when played back!... or maybe it's just mine!!). Some of the more memorable tapes had tracks like "The Final Countdown" by Swedish band Eurpoe (1986) and "Axel F", the instrumental piece from Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Briefly, there was also an African Music phase with stuff like "Mori Kante" and "Yeke Yeke" thrown in. But that was more my brother than me!

Puberty Blues Stage
And then the tough years... fur for facial hair, pimples, a cracking voice and other things that generally tend to conincide with puberty! This is when I bought my first 3 pre-recorded tapes, all in 1987 - the La Bamba soundtrack, the Bad album (Michael Jackson) and the Faith album (George Michael). Yes I'm cringing now. At that time, I thought Father Figure was a very raunchy song (won't elaborate on why). Also got into Madonna (Papa don't preach, Back into the Groove etc) and there was a very hot video there that I can't remember (It wasn't the banned Justify My Love - that came later).

The First CDs
We got our first CD player around 1991-92 (I remember we went to Lamington Road in Mumbai paid Rs 15,000 for a Sony 500W PMPO system with a double tape deck and CD player in it). Our first CDs were Snap - World Power, Enigma, Paula Abdul (CRINGE!!!!!!)

Outta School, Into College - the Love Song Phase!
After a brief hiatus where no major musical highlights come to mind, next came college. Just a quick clarification here - in Mumbai, we go to college at 16! I wronged my first real crush (now married, a very dear friend and has the lovliest daughter) in a big way. I kept playing "Please Forgive Me" by Brian Adams... to myself! Then my first girlfriend (think she's getting married soon or just got married). Our song was "Annie's song" by John Denver. Whenever we had a fight (which was wayyyyyyy too often), I'd play this over the phone and we'd be fine... for the next 10 minutes. When I broke up with her, I thought I was going to die. I played "All Outta Love" by Air Supply over and over and over. In hindsight, death might have been easier on me.

Coming into my own....
All this while, in the background I had been exposed to "better" music. My mum is a Beatles fan, my uncles played Abba, BeeGees and other 80s classics (there's no proof better than this that "better" is a relative term indeed!!). Got into the Beatles in a big way. Then into some classic rock - Floyd, Led Zep etc during my years in Calcutta. Comfortably Numb and Creep and Smoke on the Water are 2 songs that will always remind me of the Calcutta daze! Might give you a clue about what went on there!

If you're STILL reading this, take a minute and leave a comment with a song and a memory. The more incriminating, the better! :)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Reviewed

2008-01-28T00:27:00.000+08:00

Recently I was having a discussion in a large group where we agreed that a good work of art (including film) is one that moves you. That evokes some emotion. It could be anger, happiness, love, sadness, awe or anything else... but the important thing is that it evokes an emotion.

Tonight I went through one such piece of art. In the form of a movie titled "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". It's a French film, an adaptation of the memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby - former editor of Elle magazine in France who suffered a massive stroke at the age of 43, was paralysed from head to toe, but still managed to write a book with only one functioning eye lid, a vivid imagination and lots of guts.

The film is directed by Julian Schnabel who, reportedly, had to resist the producers who insisted that the film be made in English because he thought it would lose a lot of it's authenticity. Also, Johnny Depp was to star in the lead role. That fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the most recent edition of the "Pirates of the Caribean".

Instead of Hollywood glitz, in the main role he casted prominent French actor-director Mathieu Amalric (who, incidentally, will also be the villain in the next Bond film - "Quantum of Solace". He was fantastic. He played the former editor of Elle magazine, whose life nosedives when he suffers a stroke and turns into a "vegetable". He uses his only eye (the other was sewn up to avoid infection) to communicate via blinking. And that's how he wrote this book. An entire book by blinking his eyelids.

The director is an absolute genius. His visual treatment is amazing - a large chunk of the movie is shown as if from inside Jean-Dominique's head. A lot of movement (like a hand-held camera), in and out of focus, blinks. And then the voice in his head. This guy can't talk, but you're hearing his thoughts (kinda like the baby Look Who's Talking). And he's amazingly funny. While going through all of that, he sees the funny side of things. He's cursing people, mocking their sorrow at his condition and even poking fun at himself.

The director has also done a great job with snippets from his past life as a happy man, his relationship with his ex-wife and kids then and now when they visit him. His relationship with people around him who're helping him in the hospital. All of this has meant truckloads of awards for this film (including best foreign film at the Golden Globes and a nomination for best director at the Oscars).

And the fact that this is a true story will tempt even the most cynical of us to, just for a moment, a fleeting moment, be inspired. Be uplifted. Be put to shame about our everyday squabbles about this, that and everything.

Jean-Dominique Bauby died about a week after his book was published.

The film is currently showing in Singapore. Don't miss it. Please.

The Not-So-Good German

2008-01-21T09:52:00.000+08:00

I was asked yesterday by a very intelligent person why all the movie reviews I post are glowing. They're all "FABULOUS" or "A MUST-WATCH!". Well... that's 'cause I don't waste time writing about movies I don't like!..... UNTIL NOW!

The Good German, starring George Clooney (Ocean's 11/12/13, Michael Clayton), Cate Blanchett (LOTR, Babel, The Aviator) and Tobey Maguire (Spiderman series) is directed by the ultimate George Clooney fan - Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's series, Michael Clayton). Soderbergh has experimented with this film by shooting in "Film Noir"... which is a cool way of saying Black & White in 40's crime movie style.

The Good German is set in post war Berlin where George Clooney, a journalist arrives looking for a story. Instead, he meets his ex-secretary-with-benefits (Cate Blanchett), her new boyfriend (Tobey Maguire) who gets killed, her husband who was supposed to be dead and it's all a hash of political conspiracy from there.

Now - the plot outline is engaging enough. Visually, he's been successful in reproducing Film Noir from the 40s. He's paid attention to other details like the poster (the visual here) is a homage to Casablanca and so is the last scene at an airport. So it's pretty and everything.... But he forgot to make the film!

The characters are undercooked... he gets too busy making sure the film looks great and the plot comes together. George Clooney is same old - suave, unflustered, composed - think Oceans 11/12/13, Michael Clayton and any other movie he's ever done. And Tobey is wooden without his spidey costume that covers his facial expressions.... or lack thereof!

Moral of the story - Mere art direction dost not a movie make.

Cate Blanchett is brilliant though.

PS: The intelligent person also told me my spellings suck! So I ran Spell-Check for the first time with this post.

Sweeney Todd - The Johnny Depp show

2008-01-20T01:16:00.000+08:00

Watched Sweeney Todd tonight. The movie that just won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and is widely tipped to win the Oscar as well.

It is a FANTASTIC film. Tim Burton, who has to his credit other fantastically weird Johnny Depp films like Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow among others, has forayed into musicals for the first time... and he's a genius.

The movie is set in victorian London where men considered long hats, tail coats and carriage rides as run of the mill. Johnny Depp plays the role of Benjamin Barker, a barber who was imprisoned on a false charge by an evil judge (Alan Rickman - Snape in Harry Potter) so that he could get his hands on the barber's wife (which he does). Years later, Benjamin, now known as Sweeney Todd, comes back for revenge. There are a couple of other very interesting twists to the story but won't spoil it for you.

The movie is grand without being Moulin Rouge. It has a haunting score (I think Moulin Rouge and Chicago would be better scores though). But the aspect of the film that took the cake for me was the use of color, light and shadows. It's a dark movie without trying very hard to be (unlike so many other movies - where dark means I need to shoot in low light!).

Johnny Depp it amazing. The man is Jack Sparrow and so so much more! Alan Rickman is amazing as well (at times very Snape-ish in the film).

I doff my hat to whoever wrote the Broadway musical in the first place. Who would've thought of putting a story about a serial killer in a musical format!!!

THIS IS A MUST WATCH!!!!!

Raju plugs the GAP!

2008-01-17T18:49:00.000+08:00

Was engaged in a very interesting debate last night... by an englishwoman no less!

The context:
In recent times, there has been outrage in the UK, sparked off by discovery that some Gap (international fashion chain) products had children (in India) at least partly involved in the manufacturing process. The press is up in arms. Righteous and "socially aware" consumers are enraged. There are Anti-Gap (and Anti-other-big-brand) protests calling for both - greater controls by label owners as well as boycotts from responsible consumers. Couple of articles through the links below:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2200573,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7066019.stm

Now I say this approach is flawed.

As we would say in marketing - let's start with our consumer... in this case our subject...

A young boy called Raju. He's about 10 and lives in rural UP. His father is a drunk, doesn't have a job and beats up his wife every night. Raju's mother works in the fields nearby and after what her husband steals for alcohol, she has just enough to sustain the family with 2 square meals a day. What chance does Raju have? His mother, deep within, wants him to avail of a very fragile free primary schooling program that the government has in place. But weighed down by the frustration and bitterness of her everyday life, puts him to work instead. There's a textile manufacturing unit located 20km from their village. And they're looking for labour. Very cheap labour. Free market economics apply. Raju's mother needs him to have that job. There are enough Rajus around whose mothers need them to have that job. So these Rajus are cheap. In fact they're so cheap that even after the expense of paying the fat lazy law enforcers to turn a convenient blind eye towards this heinous crime, it's still a great financial proposition for the manufacturer.

Now what would happen to Raju if consumers in London stopped buying stuff that Raju has a hand in making. The brand would either go bust or stop buying from this manufacturer. In either case Raju would lose his job. His family would be more miserable. If he was lucky, he'd get a job somewhere else. If not, he'd be another potential asset lost to his country.

So what's the REAL PROBLEM. There are too many. (1) Lack of a viable social security or welfare system in India so that Raju's family has a viable way or getting out of their dark spiral, (2) Corruption... where the fat policeman condemns this child to abject working conditions when he should be learning math... all for a few rupees (then again - this fat policeman has his own problems and reasons for doing what he's doing.... but that's a story for another day).

Don't stop buying what Raju is making. At least not until India finds a better way of getting him out of his misery.

Sexy Lucia

2008-01-16T00:28:00.000+08:00

Over the last few days I have been watching a film called Sex and Lucia in installments. Installments because I've been watching it on my laptop on flights, at airport lounges, in my hotel room and so on.

At the outset, I wouldn't blame you for wondering what I'm doing reviewing porn here. Sex and Lucia is NOT PORN! It is a very intense Spanish film by Julio Medem (a very significant Spanish director) and features Paz Vega (very very hot - also starred in a serial that was billed as the Spanish "Friends") in the lead role as Lucia.

Now... the film is about Lucia (a waitress), her boyfriend (Lorenzo), a girl he had a one night stand with (Elena), their daughter from that one night stand (Luna) and her baby sitter (Belen). The film opens on the one night stand that Lorenzo and Elena had (at this point I'm thinking.... porn). And then the plot thickens. Elena has Lorenzo's baby. Lorenzo is a writer and is in Madrid and has no clue. Lucia and he are totally in love with each other (he met Lucia after that one night stand with Elena). Eventually, an interesting turn of events leads Lorenzo to discover that he has a daughter called Luna. He finds her and gets to spend time with her by getting on with her baby-sitter, Belen. Somehow, he ends up responsible for his own 4 year old daughter's death. From there the movie spins to a fantastic climax with Lorenzo being depressed and attempting suicide. Elena and Lucia meeting by some strange coincidence and believing that Lorenzo is dead. And then finally the return of Lorenzo to their lives.

It's an intensely intricate plot. It's beautifully shot. Poetically told.

Paz won a Goya (Spanish version of the Oscar) for Best Actress apart from the film also winning for Best Original Score and having 10 other nominations in 2001. Also won 3 awards at the Seattle International Film Festival, including Best Director.

I have the DVD if you want to borrow.

T3... ho hum!!!

2008-01-14T18:23:00.001+08:00

The much touted Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3 has opened up amidst much fanfare. I was one of the "privilaged" Day 1 passengers at the terminal (my flight back from KL landed in the new T3).

Firstly - what's the big deal about T3? I'm not sure really. It's just a big big happening in Singapore!! For background, the last terminal opened in Changi was the Budget Terminal a couple of years ago. It's for those cheapskates who don't want to pay their whole airfare. They want cheap cheap. Anyway - there was so much fanfare around this that they ran a national contest to name the terminal. The question that appeared on the front page of Straits Times was "What should the new Budget Terminal be named?". 4 weeks later a winning entry was announced. The winner was Alec Smart (real name will not be disclosed to protect the identitiy of the perpetrator). His entry - BUDGET TERMINAL! "Budget terminal" was the winning entry in a contest to name the FUCKING budget terminal!!! How fucking stupid is that!!!

Thankfully they stayed away from this kinda stunt for T3. They had T1. Then a cooler, more expensive T2. Then they pulled up this 3rd terminal, they thought long and hard, even considered a contest - an international one this time - but then, very wisely might I add, they settled on T3.

So I landed in T3 on the 9th of Jan. And I thought it was very very ordinary.

Firstly - Our plane happily taxied around for a good 20 minutes. And it was stop start. It was like driving through Orchard in a sea of crazy Chinese lady drivers juggling shopping bags and cell phones on a not so idle Sunday afternoon. Not that I was driving in this case, but you get the drift! This in turn had a very interesting impact on the general diaspora on the flight. Everytime we had a stop (in the context of the stop-start taxi-ing), about 14 people in my immediate vicinity felt the need to stand and open the overhead compartments. Only to be jerked back into their seats the next minute. It got tiresome after it happened 3 times. Got kinda old.

Then - they replicated some of the disasters of Manila and Mumbai. When you get out of your flight you walk right across the paths of some other flight boarding. Mass confusion ensues. Some people boarding a flight get swayed by the crowd and end up at baggage collection wondering what a quick trip they had. Others who've just gotten off their flight find themselves accosted onto another flight headed to Malta or Mogadishu or Mozambique for crying out loud!

Then, when you finally battle your way to baggage reclaim, there's no baggage there. I'd put this down to teething trouble, but Singapore teaches you to expect perfection the first time and everytime thereafter. Our baggage came in only after half an hour. During this time, I made friends with the nose-digging aunty who was sitting next to me through the flight. She spoke excellent Singlish (a language I love) and was complaining about the government while looking for nasal treasures. Very pleasing.

After that, I had to head back to the T2 carpark (coz I'd kinda parked my car there - I know that was obvious, but just wanted to be safe!). This was a trek and then some! Trudged to the other end of T3 for the skytrain. This in itself was an unusually bumpy ride. These monorail thingies are meant to be quite smooth and quiet. This one wasn't. Got to T2 - but the wrong end of it. Trekked all the way to the other end to finally get into my car and get out of there.

All in all, painful. Didn't quite get how this was better than T2 or any other airport terminal I've ever been in etc etc! But then again, I headed to Manila yesterday and it made me like T3 just a touch more.

Day 12 - It's a wrap!

2008-01-07T08:43:00.000+08:00

It has been a brilliant trip.

Except for how the Sydney test ended. I was on my way out of Sydney when I heard the commentary in the cab on the way to the airport and on TV in the lounge before boarding. Just before I boarded, we still had about 45 overs to bat with 5 wickets in hand. Was always going to be touch and go.

But it shouldn't have been. Once again, the umpires bailed out the Aussies. This time Rahul Dravid was given caught behind by Bucknor when replays clearly showed it was off the pads. Ganguly was given out to a catch which was not clean. And both of them were well on their way to save the day for India.

We went on to lose the test match in the most dramatic fashion - 3 wickets in 5 balls of the penultimate over bowled by Michael Clarke wrapped things up. No - I won't criticize the last 3 Indian batsmen. You can't expect 9-10-11 to save a game your top 8 couldn't.

Even the forecasted rain didn't rescue India.

On top of all of this, Bhajji has been banned for 3 Tests. He is denying these quite vehemently.

THE UMPIRES screwed with India. They cost us about 250 runs (Symonds and Ponting in the first innings and Hussey in the second innings) and heaven knows how much more (Dravid and Ganguly). This time, bad decisions have well and truly changed the result of the game. India would have won this in 4 days had the decisions been correct.

Oh well - they're gonna argue about the umpires and about the alleged racist comments from Bhajji and everything else. I'm off to KL as soon as I land in Singapore and then Manila the following week.

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

Day 11 - Party Poopers

2008-01-06T01:09:00.000+08:00

3 things are ruining a very promising test match -
1) The rain. Intermittent showers played havoc with the game. The ground staff did a fantastic job of getting in as much play as possible, but we probably lost about 15 - 20 overs to rain through the day.

2) The Umpires - Both, Mark Benson as well as Steve Bucknor have had very bad games. Two clear caught behind appeals were turned down. One of Symonds in the first innings. Hussey in this one. Both, game changing decisions. It's possible India would have won in 4 days had these been given out.

3) The Aussies - In a surprising turn of events, just when everyone was expecting our hosts to step on the accelerator and put up a challenging target for India while giving themselves enough time to bowl us out, they clam up and play very defensive cricket. Almost like they were playing for a draw. Very un-Aussie.

Hopefully it won't rain tomorrow, the umps stay in line and the Aussie's start to make more of a game out of this!

Day 10 - A gem to behold

2008-01-05T09:42:00.000+08:00

The trip has been worth it. Everyone's hero - Sachin - scored a ton. And what a brilliant one it was. It was a privilage to watch this innings at the ground. Thank you Sachin. In fact, it was so good, we watched the 2 hour highlight package on TV later in the evening.

Strokeful yet controlled. Aggressive yet staunch in defense.Cheeky yet straight out of the copybook. He also played an instrumental role in goading Bhajji to a bashful 60 and thus overhauling Australia's massive total. His celebration when he got to his 100 was a sight to behold. A befittingly resounding standing ovation from the 30,000 people at the SCG providing the soundtrack to what was a spectacular visual feast. It was like a film where the comedian (in this case Bhajji), cuts into that emotionally packed moment like a pesky fly and gives Sachin the biggest hug since Munnabhai's "jaadu ki jhappi" (magic hug).

Bhajji played his own brand of cricket. Starting off as if we was ploughing his fields in Punjab, but then settling in to blast crucial runs.

With 2 days to go, this is anyone's test. Australia could come out and score some quick runs and put India in by the end of the day. Bhajji and Kumble could have them in a web and have them all out for 200. Or it could rain (which is in the weather forecast for the next 2 days).

This promises to be a cracker and a great climax to a great trip.

One last noteworthy point. We're in this test match because of the old guard - Sachin, Saurav, Rahul and Laxman. Yuvi and Dhoni have scored all of 30 runs between them on the tour so far. But they've gotta come good. And soon.

Day 9 - In with a shot

2008-01-04T06:45:00.000+08:00

Ok... This one will be short and sweet.

The cricket - we did well. Dravid played for a typically gritty 50 (but he does need to get a move on sometimes), Laxman played one of his beauties that he always saves for Australia. Unfortunately, we lost both of them to bad shots towards the end of the day. We need Sachin and Ganguly to stick in there if we're going to overhaul the Aussie total. At least there's a fight happening.

In other highlights... Vikas stole my memory chip for the camera and left it at home (the prick), we went shopping where Lal and I bought pointy shoes and Vikas bought all of Bondi Junction and lastly, dinner at a pub called the Australian - great Pizzas!

Hopefully more good news from the cricket tomorrow.

Day 8 - So near yet so far

2008-01-03T11:53:00.001+08:00

The first day of the test. This was going to be the test of India's mettle.

And start off well we did. Half way through the day we had the best test team on the ropes at 130 odd for 6. And then Symonds and Hogg took charge and took them close to 400 for 7.

Now it's not that they got stuck in that bothers me. It's some of the other issues that seem to be surrounding the Indian team that are bothering me. They don't behave like a team... Leave alone a tight, well-oiled unit that a top professional side should be. A few instances...

1) Yuvraj clearly has a problem with the rest of the guys. He didn't join in most wicket celebrations. He looked disinterested and aloof through the day. Was rolling the ball in from the boundary only half way to the bowler.

2) Practise before play was a mess. People milling about. Missing catches. Laughing and joking in small groups. The Australians were at the other end of the field in all their intensity.

3) Fitness is a major issue. I'll say no more on that.

4) Younger players like Ishant need to learn to deal with disappointment. When his appeal was turned down (wrongfully so), he was like a petulant child kicking the ground and complaining (everything short of refusing to bowl). Just get back to your mark and get him out again you mutt!

All in all, it's a combination of super divas in the team, lack of fitness or even an attitude to get there and just basic pride in playing as a team for your country missing.

I don't know if we'll win this test, but we're certainly nowhere close to being a great team. A lot of this may be more apparent when you see the team at the ground rather than on the tele.

One bright spark is Sachin. Even after all these years at this level, the man revers the game and hasn't gotten too big for it. He focuses on the fundamentals and gets them right. If we had 11 players with his attitude (not necessarily his talent), this team would be achieving great things.

Oh well.

We also did head out for drinks at Double Bay with AC and a bunch of others... That was fun. More alco! Which brings me to the t'shirt Lal is wearing right now... "The liver is evil. It must be punished"!!!

Day 8 - So near yet so far

2008-01-03T11:53:00.000+08:00

Day 7 - Lazing in Sydney

2008-01-01T23:54:00.001+08:00

NOTE THAT I'VE UPDATED SOME PHOTOS IN PAST ENTRIES

Today was "recovery day".

We woke up late after a big NYE night! Walked to Darling Harbour for a great lunch mainly consisting of seafood fare. Took the monorail to Pitt Street from there to check if the shops would be open. In true Aussie fashion, they weren't. So we just walked to the Opera House, around to Maquarie's Chair (which happens to be the only spot (on land) from where you can photograph the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Sunset in the one frame). Took some pictures from there (for the millionth time). Walked back to the Opera House and sipped on some Mojito's at the Opera Bar (probably my favorite bar in the world!!).

Had had enough of walking by then, so cabbed back to Chinatown for a fab Korean dinner. I stuck to a fairly basic meal while the rest of the boys experimented with some spicy hot-pot soup style stuff. The consensus was that there might be a holocaust of sorts in their room tonight... (did I mention I was glad to be on the couch!!!).

Ended the night with a light round of Poker.

Over to cricket tomorrow. SCG - a ground we've done fairly well at. However, if our performance is anything like in Melbourne, we have another think coming. Before the match itself there are a couple of things pissing me off...

1) On the news here tonight, they mentioned that word from the Indian camp is that we're going to stick to the same line up.... GOD HELP US!!! Also Zaheer has an injury scare... GOD REALLY HELP US!!!!

2) They showed some video shots of both teams going through their drills. The Aussie team looked focused and intense in their practices. Everyone was running about, looking involved and serious. On the other hand, the shots of the Indians showed the following - (a) Ganguly dropping a skier, (b) Karthik missing the stumps from 10m away, (c) I-don't-know-who misfielding, (d) Other players milling around, catching up on the latest gossip and so on.

3) Harbhajan has made another foot in the mouth statement. He claims he has Ponting's number. The last thing we want is to get Ponting any more determined than he already is to do well in the Sydney test!

4) Lalchand Rajput has made a statement that there's a problem with Yuvraj's attitude... GIVE ME A BREAK.... You're the fucking team manager. Handle team issues within the fucking team!!!!

These are things that make me feel like even in the unlikely event that we go on to win the test, we're not poised to be a great team in the foreseeable future. What's particularly sad about that is the fact that in the past 10 odd years, we've had 4 of the world's top 10 test batsmen in our team, but we haven't achieved anything bar a marginally improved away record (which, by the way, is driven by our bowling and what's more, our home record has slipped a bit - so go figure!).

But then it's the new year... we should be expecting new things I suppose???? Spoken more in hope than in conviction.

Day 6 - New year... on the rocks!

2008-01-01T01:38:00.000+08:00

Wishing everyone a very very happy new year! Hopefully some of your biggest wishes will come true in the coming year (let's face it... Not everything will come through for you)...

Personally I'm really looking forward to 2008. I smell change. And that's always a good thing.

But with regards to more pressing matters, after getting to Sydney last night (30th), we slept in and got out only at 3pm for a very late brunch followed by shopping. I love shopping in this country because it's one of the few places in the world I feel normal in terms of sizes. I actually have the luxury of choice with clothes and shoes. The downside is that things are bloody expensive!!!

After spending the afternoon at Pitt Street (where we met Venkatesh Prasad who said "the boys are raring to go!!!"), we headed back to our apartment before heading out again for NYE celebrations.

And what a celebration it was!!! The city was pretty much closed to traffic and hundreds of thousands of revellers (us among them) congregated at vantage points around the harbour to watch the annual Sydney NYE fireworks. We watched it from the Rocks (art district of Sydney) where the pubs were open and everyone was out on the streets. It was beautiful and vibrant... Also sometimes rowdy. But always under control.

Something like this would've been impossible in India or the Philippines or even in Singapore... all elitist societies where the social gap between the rich and poor is ridiculously drastic. The well off don't want to be seen shoulder to shoulder with the not so well off. It was entirely different here. Refreshing!

After the midnight fireworks, we headed to a bar in the city itself and spent a couple of hours there.

All in all, a fantastic night. And the fact that I'm posting this before sleeping is testament to my sobriety!

Happy new year from Sydney folks!!

Day 5 - Goodbye Melbourne, Hello Sydney

2007-12-31T09:37:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-30T20:13:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-29T09:07:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-28T12:13:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-26T08:55:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-26T00:26:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-21T16:32:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-16T13:36:00.001+08:00

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!

2007-11-25T23:50:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-12T02:37:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-11-04T18:54:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-04T18:33:00.000+08:00

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!!!!

2007-10-31T01:26:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-10-24T23:51:00.000+08:00

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

2007-10-23T03:13:00.000+08:00

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

2007-10-20T20:10:00.000+08:00

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

2007-10-16T01:20:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-10-08T00:17:00.000+08:00

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

2007-10-02T01:37:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-09-26T02:23:00.000+08:00

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!!!

2007-09-24T02:41:00.000+08:00

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

2007-08-17T01:28:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-08-06T23:23:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-06-27T13:24:00.000+08:00

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

Death by Nursery Rhymes

2007-06-18T18:52:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-13T22:17:00.001+08:00

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

2007-06-11T01:38:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-11T00:53:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-31T19:17:00.000+08:00

Got this from Vee's blog

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Mystery of the male lesbians

2007-05-31T18:28:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-05-25T13:12:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-23T19:10:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-23T09:33:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-22T13:27:00.000+08:00

Check out http://indexed.blogspot.com

One word to describe it - IDEA!

There's an absolutely BRILLIANT mind at work there!

The Montek Mystery

2007-05-18T11:02:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-15T22:50:00.000+08:00

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...

2007-05-15T11:55:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-05-14T13:39:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-13T22:21:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-13T05:54:00.000+08:00

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)?