Movie Review

The film, end of which is predictable from the start. The thrill is about how this end is met. This thrill turns into disgust initially than into boredom due to continuous disgust due to some hopeless storyline. That is what “Rab Ne bana di jodi” brings to you. SRK representing a common man which I don’t think exists in this country right now. And on top of it this common man meets a girl(taani) who meets and marries the boy(SRK) within 10 min in the movie. Actually this quick reel marriage is a forte of Chopra’s after Kabhi Khushi kabhi gam. Very less price is put on marriages. That’s what is shown as the movie progresses. I dunno how but somehow taani is unable to recognize her husband without moustaches (Many husbands across the country must be really worried after this, I guess) when he eventually becomes her dance partner, as a rustically cool guy. I think she must be having some problems in face identifications. And in no time she falls in love and asks him to take her away, marriage has never been a problem anyways. No wait that is not it. Next day somehow god makes her realize that her moustached husband is better. Divine intervention or short term memory loss? And they lived happily ever after.

This movie I think is mockery of sensible movie making. You cannot mend the movie as you want and think that the audience can take anything for SRK. But I must say that they do take. One friend of mine has watched this movie 2 times. No wonder that it had a better start than DDLJ. Acting wise the movie is horrible except for shahrukh. Every situation is created at whim. Lyrics are really bad and it seems that they have been compiled in a hurry, by taking some lines of old songs and rhyming them. Except for 1-2 songs no song is in place.

So what I was thinking that the conditions in which heroine gets married to hero has a probability of about 1%, over that she not recognizing him in his new “avtar” is about 0.01%(I am lenient) and she becoming his dance partner is just comparable to blind date and so the total probability of getting the appropriate girl is almost nil. So we have an answer to a query regarding movie title “rab ne bana di jodi”. Nice name I must say.

I came back and watched “Swades” so that I can still keep my belief in SRK’s movies intact.

Point Of View

This article may be late on the time line. As Mumbai has recovered and running once again, or may be we feel and say so. But what I feel is that this is not a matter of recovering and moving on. I know its always logical to look ahead, but sometimes I feel that the pain of past always makes you cautious about future. And so I write this when the things have cooled down and have reached a state when they are no more front page news.

There are few points I want to make. First of all I totally disagree with the use of this phrase “spirit of Mumbai”. Here I will go back to Mumbai local bomb blasts, when this phrase was used extensively. To a viewer it always conveys that yes the city has recovered and running. But this is never felt by those who have lost dear ones. For them this is mere logical arrangement of words. I feel that we get subjective on the issue. Objectively, rather than talking about spirit we should put forward the pain which is being felt. I never understand that why do we try to focus on happiness so much that we almost ignore the pain. In the process we forget it until it is inflicted once again. This time media was talking not much about spirit but of the aggression in the approach. I felt better. Life moves on and everyone makes peace with this fact sooner or later.

After the rescue operations and also during the time they were carried, people have talked about the fact that where was Raj Thackeray. Good point to make but then again I have a simple argument which is impartial. Why do we refer to this person every now and then. Do this reference make his deeds worse, or weren’t they that bad before. I rather say that we should not even take his name at all. I think it’s a dishonour to the seriousness of what happened if we take its reference to justify how bad was his actions.

Lastly I want to say that this tragedy has hit national consciousness. And I feel that it should be remembered till the date when it really starts becoming faint in memory just because that no such event occurred after it. I admire USA for ensuring that there is no major tragedy after 9/11. You always feel safe in your own house and it’s a matter of concern when you are unsure that you may not live the next moment. Dont forget that we were hurt badly.

Season so far

 

This season has been wonderful till now. Wonderful for many reasons, the rise of hull in the top notch with some outstanding performances, the frustrations suffered by big four in some matches. The comebacks(which obviously frustrated me) by scousers and sudden rise of spirit in Tottenham due to harry redknapp. But the events in past few weeks have made me to write this blog and do some analysis.

 

I was just going through some blogs and found out that in that great treble winning season united dropped off some 11 points in December. This means that till now we have fared better. We have played 2 matches till now and two more are remaining in this month. One is away against stoke and next is home against boro. Also the strain is now showing off on title contenders.

 

I think that gunners are out of this season and now should look to save there champ league spot. With a dreaded inconsistency they are moving ahead. This weekend they are hosting Liverpool. It has been a delightful inconsistency though. Beating Chelsea at Stamford bridge, then giving away the advantage with a loss to villa. They drew against boro this weekend. So with a bright hope in my heart I think there is an upset coming up for scousers.

 

Blues must be feeling blue. After recovering from loss to arse they came back against Bolton. Then were held to a draw, I would rather say they held West Ham to a draw. It was a really nice result for united. Chelsea is perfect example of the fact that “character” of the team is never defined by its star studded line-up, unlike Hull who has shown a brilliant character this season. They have exhibited some classic team-play this season.

 

Liverpool, I thought was showing great signs in the beginning of the season with that good comeback win against boro. But again I must say that it was too early to say something.

 

All in all I am emphasizing on one basic point. Lack of consistency in big four this season. Last year while talking to a friend I was discussing that the number of points dropped in Spanish league are more but this season I am witnessing the same in EPL. Though it hasn’t hurt united anyway, in fact we are at advantage with a week  in which we won manchester derby and closed on the gap. I will say that heat will start showing up after Christmas when injuries and fatigue will hit. Hope that at that time we are at our best. I think the championship is wide open and your guess may be as good as mine. Lets see.

 

 

AD NON-sense

From past few days I am watching TV a lot. Thanks to some refreshing performance from Indian cricket  team. And due to it I have watched some ad, some boring ads I would rather say, many times to my utter dismay. As the result this blog of mine comes out just to mock those fart add.

This add was taken off after it aired for some days. Ariel add in which, Indian Bowling spearhead, Zaheer Khan does some household work for his grandma during which “achaar” stains get on his tee and grandma washes off those stains, thanks to ariel. It seems as if Zaheer has been kicked out of team and instead of having mud-stains on his tee he having every other stain than that. I think this thought finally struck to guyz there and they just silently withdrew it. Coincidently zaheer was bowling and batting as well, for team and it seemed that grandma had called Shreesanth for household work. Wont be a surprise if tomorrow we have ariel add featuring S.Shreesanth in the same role.

Then comes “Hero Honda Pleasure” ad featuring Priyanka Chopra. This is how it goes. Priyanka is eating “gol-gappe “on a shop and suddenly she realizes that she has to hurry to get back home. While driving back she notices her brother sitting with his gf and then somehow both reach home simultaneously and she gives the obvious reason of being with bro. Parents who are really worried about their girls giving excuses would never opt for pleasure, I assert. There is a tag line to it “why shld boyz have all the fun” and I am still thinking that how is that related to the moped. I mean is fun related to ride the moped or is it about giving some good excuses. May be some deep thoughts.

There has been a flood of Insurance ads on tv. Kotak, HDFC, ICICI and many others are putting there hearts out to make you believe that you it is very necessary to insure your life because the frequency of bomb blasts have increased and you may be the victim some day. Almost every such add has never made any sense for getting life insured with the company and in fact some of them are so boring that I have decided completely against it.

I think only in India you can throw any bullshit at audience with some good celebrities in it. Here come this airtel where “ I miss you, it hurts” is uttered by saif and recorded by shahrukh. On the other side the voice seems as if recorded while he was in loo. OMG in her good minds any gf would outright dump any bf after such idiotic voice mail. Anyways kareena takes it with a smile. I think she could have acted otherwise if it was shahid.

The coincidence was perfect. During matches Australia was committing blunders and during break it seemed that Sprite, after nice stint with “dikhwo par na jaao, apni akal lagao” ads was up with a trash “ghumo ghumao” thing. A bunch of boys start running out of what seems a delhi metro and till you realize whats happening the add is over.

If anyone reading this is in consent with me, than plz rank these ads, bad to worst…..

Frustration

From past one month I was busy with a task given to me. First task assigned to me after coming to TATA. I was pretty excited not because it was my first task but because it was first time I ws doing something related to core metallurgy with energetic involvement. The topic was rolling in which I had earned, rather I was mercifully given C+ grade. But this time I had some different kind of enthusiasm in me. I was going to library in search of the topic, scanning research papers and what not.

This was how I was preparing. Then came the day of competition. And I tell you I fared really bad, a at least on the day on which competition ended. There was a clause of cost optimisation in it, and my cost was almost 3 times the others. I was upset not because others were ahead of me, I have learned to bear this pretty well during my college life. I was upset because I knew everything but again at d-day I didn’t deliver, again I insist that these were my thoughts on the day competition ended. After 2 days the results were declared and to my utter surprise I was third closest from tata steel with the world rank 30^th on the list, though my product was as such far more in cost. Actually others had committed a basic mistake, for which the instructions were already mentioned. So there samples were rejected. Now at least I was contented on one thing that I stuck to what I thought was right and it was right. But I was very frustrated indeed about not delivering the result which I believe was in my reach. I mulled over it for next one day that I could have done this and that. But I tell you this is the worst situation you are into because inside it bites that you could do it and outside you just cant explain anyone because everyone else just look at result.

I think since it was my first task in some core work so success must have eluded me. Also as usual there was some learning  too. Nice experience overall . But yes the untold frustration is probably the best and the worst thing you have.  

Comp Katha

And finally the day had arrived. Yes the day on which all the apprehensions were to be answered. The day of “truth”.  Finally atul’s computer was on its way to gt-hostel  from courier office. Only he knew the pain of waiting. I was given opportunity to carry the unassembled babe to room 139. They were 4 brown boxes of varying size having so many things from HD movies, to infinite songs and all the fond memories. With all the excitement he, like a king proud with some new honour announces some benefits to his subjects, “temporarily” announced the donation of his altec lansing speakers to me. Wow I said. They were immediately put to use with full bass and treble.

My winamp had completed its 5^th song, when first news came. The moniter had a crack in it and later we realized that the crack went through the an IC due to which it was irreparable. That came as a shock but anyways you got to stay optimistic . Basant’s comp wasn’t working, so moniter was arranged. Also it was realized that the speaker cord was missing (to my agony), so it was my first and last playlist on altec lansing. Then came one more news, more like  “breaking news” of news channels and atul, much like confident Police team of aarushi murder case was very sure of the cause of CPU failure. The “confidence” which I posses daily had somehow taken hold of atul today.  We immediately went to computer peripherals shop and there the CPU was declared “brought dead” with some motherboard failure.

So atul, being very fond of movies followed a line from Shawshank redemption, “remember Red, Hope is a good thing, probably the best thing and no good thing ever dies”. He came back and brought his external hard disk to transfer data to my comp, I dunno why but may be he had some idea. To his utmost dismay the xternal HD wasn’t functioning. Now there were some signs of disappointment which were like Joey saying “Oh god, why ur doing this to us”. The frustration which he was resisting whole day took charge. I sympathized as much as possible but it looked much funnier to me. He took of his comp’s HD and took both the HD for casing and came back victorious.

This all started at about 2 in afternoon and by 6 in evening the computer about  which atul was boastful for the lowest courier charges of just 200 bucks was now a piece of rumble which couldn’t even fetch that courier amount. We observed 2 min silence in the memory of the dead comp so that its soul may rest in peace.  Later that evening thr was a party in which atul(and me) boozed, may be to forget the pain, of altec lansing in my case. May god bestow vanity upon him!!

 

When Sattu caught the thief !!

This would have been quite a prominent incident if we were in 3rd or 2nd year. But since we were in 4th yr that time it didn’t get much of its deserved limelight. So now, I take the opportunity to atleast imagine(I was not present in person), what would have happened that day when sattu got hold of a thief.
First things first, any thief who has some common sense and some knowledge of life in IIT, would never come to steal during night i.e to say between midnight 12 and morning 6. Since this is the time when most of us are wide awake and in our rooms with 70-80% probability. This thief of ours committed the same mistake. May be he was new to this field.

Apart from that you are very ill-fated if you thieving in vicinity of an promising body-builder, who is big fan of SRK and who daily has a look at OSO, atleast a scene of it. Also you should never come to steal on weekends. Even if the thief had succeeded in completing his mission of sweeping rupal’s room, I am sure all he could have gathered was one cap (which Mario puts on in samurai video games), one or two bottles of Dr.Batra’s hair growing oil and old issues of Watch out since rupal was after all senior journalist in one of the most famed news agency of our times. So it was a wrong choice in this way too. Coincidently on that day everything fell at place.

Now I should come to the plot of the story. Well it was early in the morning, may be around 6 or so. Satya after completing his weekend movie shows of “bheja fry” and OSO came out of his room to pee(as he told us). How many of get “Red and White” bravery award just coz we came out to pee at right time? Anyways sattu came out. His room no. was S-29. He came back and went for a shortest stroll till S-32 and whoa, it was unlocked. Sattu being alone on floor for some days was quite a happy lot to have found that someone had arrived. How does it matter if it was Rupal. It was mid-sem break I think. Also rupal awake at 6 was something of a story in itself. So sattu knocked the door. And there was no reply. Also satya is just one step down on podium along with Sherlock holmes. His detective mind started racing.
Now sattu was sure that it wasn’t rupal inside. Dude, what a moment it was. His adrenaline pumped up. Yesterday he was doing bicep curls at gym and here it was chance to flex them. I now skip on the part that how thief came out. But he came out and bond caught hold of him from his neck and kept him pressed against the railings. The thief pulled out a rod as the last ditch effort but brave sattu foiled it with peace. Also in all this rumble, professor (our own DR 3 satyesh yadav) also had his chance of showing “gandhigiri”. He was asking sattu to leave the thief with authorities which had arrived emulating Indian police in timings.

Anyways sattu dared to catch the thief. He was also offered a bribe of some 50 bucks by the thief which he righteously denied. Though he went through some of the rupal’s stuff himself, after all Sherlock holmes was not a one-day detective, but didn’t find anything interesting as much as I know. Everyone praised satya which he shrugged off with utmost modesty. This was a great day in life of sattu bond whose brave deed was lost in annals of 4th year. I have just tried to bring it to the fore.

PM & POLY

DISCLAIMER:
The author hereby state’s that no personal offence is meant to any person in the article. I have given this disclaimer in the view of the recent attacks on the journalists. Mistakes in grammar and spellings should be reported. Thank you.
Recently I was chatting to one of PM guyz. He was very excited about one thing, that this time 5 of the PM members are contesting elections for CBC, CMC and consti. This is the first time in whole 7 yrs I witnessed (3 b4 me and 3 after me) that there were so many enthusiast of poly in PM. Nice thing coz these days almost everything in insti is driven by poly. I hope there will come a time when you will be allotted room and given mess food according to ur alignment towards winner. Me and sattu sometimes used to curse cg criterion on the same lines. But that changed soon when cg criterion was being adjusted coz of poly to bring people in and throw people out of committees as small as the management of a miniscule event of organizing a quiz in department . IITians find a shrewd way to do anything.
Ya so I must adhere to the title of the article. I remember when we were in first yr most of our 4th yearites were nowhere around poly. Amitesh was busy managing us and SK was busy managing cogni and Deepak sachan was busy teaching us CPP and watching Ramayana and Mahabharata. The only poly guy in Pm that time was sid and he was a real politician. Allegedly sometime later this faction claimed to fame by putting one amongst them(Brijesh) as treasurer of cogni. But unfortunately all these guyz left PM in second yr only and so PM claim to some work was in abeyance for yrs to come. Lohiya was treasurer in thomso that year so again he was out of poly or lets say more into it indirectly. Nishith was busy downloading movies from IMG server and also maintaining his health. Sidhu was really concerned with his CGPA and so he kept out of all this. Though he had a short stint as poly guy when he stood for constituency. Reena got complacent after being declared as GM of PM so she no more tried to be the GM of SB.
I now should come to my year and explicitly discuss the poly dynamics of it. I start with none other than our own Anuj bhansaali who, I dunno how many times stood up for election and always ended pulling out due to some compromise or as he says “actually I didn’t want a conflict”. I have lost count of it. It started right from first year when bhanssali was out coz he filed his nomination late by about some 20 min. He was really hoping to win that time, though the opinion polls said some other story. By second yr we were very well prepared for this stunt of bhansaali during the month of august.
This guy is famous across the generations of PM and so he comes next. Yella. If you want to get an idea of how “aam aadmi” is being cheated by bloody politicians, then you should do a case study on yella and his 4 years in IITR. This teddy bear of PM bore the brunt of poly since second year. The good thing about it is that every time he had some new politician digging trenches for him. I should not give the explicit data since most of us know it.
Preeti followed legacy of reena, staying out poly and teaching manners to most of us. We learnt quite a lot of etiquettes during our stay in IIT than in our whole lifetime.
Saarangi had a tatste of politics during cogni interview of second year when sai baba, who was no where near saarangi in credentials, got the post. He did a sensible thing of staying as far as possible for coming years. About me, I was busy in sports activities, trying my hard luck in cricket for some time. Also I was at flirting distance from poly as sattu being in it during first year and chirayu helping ojha to become CBC of cautley. And as I would never write any of my loop holes so that is it about me.
Now I should also tell that in later half of our first year, we had some new addition to existing strength of our year. Same followed with second year too. And we fortunately got two politicians. In fact two heavy weights of their times(pun intended). One was anish who first had quite a nice stint as insti politician then he got call from some high level politics and became president of nasa. Other was Krishan. Well as he eventually became the secy of pm, hopes were high that PM would get something to do in coming cogni as he was the convener. But alas, we ended up gathering dust. Actually Pm secy ship I think was one way of securing some post if nothing turned up, but by god’s and poly god’s grace he ended up with 3 different responsibilities or responsibilities , I must say and then it was obvious that secy ship had to go down the drain.
So this is the story till now. Not a good record but still needs a mention that how our forefathers have performed in this arena. This time we have our secy, joint secy and three others are in fray. Also one of our previous members is also in fight. I hope that this time we would have some of “our” people in and would better the previous records. Good luck for 17th of Aug.

New Season

We began last season on a stumpy note, can be said otherwise since Paul Scholes scored against Portsmouth but then came a second half equaliser from pompey and it paved way for United’s worst start in 16 odd years. Anyways now I say that it was just to add flavour to EPL championship. The way we came back, went down and came back again to reclaim the championship was not only memorable but symptomatic of the fact that of what stuff champions are made off.
I should start with Tevez , as the hopes were high from this stout argentinian. After a bit of shaky start he bounced back with some spectacular goals and with some outstanding dribbling ability. Tenacity was integral part of his play which also led sometimes to one man play and that was quite irritating at times when we were struggling for a winner or equaliser. Anyways he proved his worth and once again reminded that how SAF selects his players.
Nani, made quite an impact with that spectacular goal in the start of the season. But that was it for sometime to come. After that he played some thoughtless football at times, trying to shoot from range when players like rooney and ronny were waiting for passes against 2-3 defenders. At the end of this season nani came back with a new found sense and now united were scoring through wings and the last assists was of nani. I will always remember that 4-0 whipping of gunners in FA cup. Nani was hero of the day.
Anderson had his highs and lows too. He is a player to reckon with for his nice dribbling ability and maturity he shows sometimes in passing. Not only he provided enormous options in midfield he was impressive in some solo runs he made.
Hargo. I will call him a Dutch player in united for his total football. Starting from defensive MF role he went to wings defence. He would run all the way to opposition box-edge and then again come back, reminded me of Roberto carlos and Neville. I would always relish his winner against arsenal. What a sweet goal that was. He really justified his transfer amount of 18m.
Rooney had one best change in him, he was cool headed this time. He was not a protesting for faulty decisions a lot and mind you he played with equal responsibility when put in flanks sometimes. This season the plans are to put him again in lead striker position. He did some great assists and gelled up very well with tevez which was a delight to watch.
Scholsy and giggsy proved again this season they were the flag bearers of Roy Keane era and both played some great football in midfield. I remember an assist giggs made in a third round of FA cup against Villa. He foiled a counter attack by sliding tackle, dribbled ball covering almost box to box length and made an flawless pass. I would never forget the favour scholes did to us by that scorcher against barca in first leg of CL semis.
Van der saar was Wonder wall in front of the goal. Ben foster and thomas kusczak had their moments too. Thankful too Edwin for that save on anelka’s spot kick. We were chmpions of Europe.
Vidic , rio combo was quite formidable and evra played some hell of a football in CL final. The loop hole in defence was Wes brown whose blunder against Birmingham cost us the match. I hope he gets himself on spot this time.
So this was the story of last season. This season we are a team which has gelled up strongly and the players know each other well on field. No doubt that we pose a threat to everyone around. With gunners limping and blues aging, the challenge will be from scousers with new addition of keane and as usual great gerrard with torres in front with all guns blazing. Spurs will be one another team to watch with addition of Bent, Modric and Bentley to the side.
Hoping for treble this time seeing the buoyant mood in dressing room and practice ground at Carrington. The way ronny transfer matter has ended has sent some very positive signals and the team is packed with enthusiasm. One United.

For Himesh

My bus journey was too boring and irritating. Boring because I was travelling alone and iriitating coz unfortunately the bus conductor was a big fan of Himesh reshmia. Topped over it was the bad speakers of the bus and they were made to sound utterly awful by the potholes on the road. Negative multiplied by negative is positive and that happened to be the case here. Himesh was sounding better under the influence of bad speakers. This led me to another thought which I think will validate enormous popularity of this singer who these days is asking for over 3 million as one show fee in spite of the fact that he was confirmed the most unloved celebrity of 07 in India.
I remember 2004 general elections quite well. Ram naik was BJP candidate from South Mumbai and against him was Govinda, who was given ticket by congress. Odds in favour of govinda were very low and Naik was quite confident of his victory since he was nominated to lok sabha 4 times before that from the same constituency. The result said some other story. Govinda won. That’s an altogether different story that after a year he was in the list of members with most number of absents. The agenda put forward by Naik was development and some “shining India “ story which obviously didn’t appeal much in comparison to govinda ,who did his campaigning with all those activities which majority of the middle class and lower class(major vote share) found very, entertaining I would say. Travelling alongside normal “junta” in local train was one such stunt.
We boyz and gals of “DCH” and “Rock On” era always ignore one thing that there are people in India who are still living in the age of “tere naam”, “bewafa sanam” and to them himesh is god and his compositions verses of holy scripture. So then we have sonu nigam and fellas who sing songs like “tanhayee” for us and on the other side is Himesh who has “Naam tera tera” in his kitty. And it is quite clear that we are in minority. This is also due to the fact that some of the members of our “ we love sonu nigam” community have either defected to “ we love himesh” or “we love both “ community.
Now even I would like to give some argument in “His” favour. The best thing is that he accepts that he is a nasal crooner and then subsequently boasts of giving some 21 hits in a year(may be more). Its like “virendra sehwag has no technique but bingo, he is the only one to have 3 triple hundreds alongside sir don bradman and Brian lara”. So this sets his fan base. Apart from that he fearlessly acted in a movie, watching which was considered offence in PVR gold and platinum class community and once again the govind analogy proved its correctness. Alas, the movie was hit with one auto-rickshaw stunt and ample amount of crap. So “the himesh” has a hit movie too, to his credit. Also I would appreciate one thing that since there was a brand new competitor in the field so that gave other singers a run for their money too. And very few people survive in industry after souring relation with salman, exception being ash and srk which was quite obvious in latter case. And third is our own himesh.
So, next time when you hear himesh,calm yourself down and remember sehwag and smile on the fact that how entertaining is test cricket due to him.