As I SEE life...

Wine Shop/ Beer Store opens at Hyper City, Hyderabad

2010-07-05T02:35:00.000-07:00

This one truly did inspire me, or lets say, en-spirited me to post again.. :)

So, there it goes.. the long awaited Wine/ Liquor/ Beer section has opened at the HyperCity, InOrbit Mall, Hyderabad.

For long, HyperCity has been the premier super-store in Hyderabad, atleast most specifically for Hitech City area, and the un-used and later mis-used (by housing coke and pepsi there) section for Spirits and Wines has finally opened this Friday, to much uproar.

The reason, this makes me soo happy is, because all around this area, the small Wine Shops are simply pathetic. Not only are they not well stocked, with hardly a choice of wines to choose from, but they also sell stuff much above MRP, which is like a norm with all of them around here. Plus, the service at these shops is not much to talk about, to put it softly.

Read in the TOI recently, that new liquor licenses were auctioned in the state, and apparently, although Hypercity couldnt acquire one (due to high price ??? ), but now, they seemed to have entered into a profit-share agreement or something with an entity called 'Janapriya Liquidz', probably someone who did acquire the license, and have got them to operate out of their vacant spirits section.

Experience: Well, its still early days, and they have just got the show to start running. As of now, they still didnt have proper price stickers on the shelves etc, nor did they have the automatic/ digital billing systems up yet, but its a good start and they DID bill at MRP :). You can navigate around your trolley and pick your liking and get them billed at the counter. Am hoping, they will build upon the existing infrastructure to better the experience.

Selection: Well, wouldnt claim to know what all they house, but they had a reasonable selection of Indian wines - Sula, Grover, Four Seasons, both Red and White Wines. No foreign wines yet.
Beers- they had Kingfisher, Tuborg, Carlsberg, Royal Challenge. Spirits: Smirnoff Vodtka, Bacardi White run, Breezers, selection of Scotch, single malt etc.

So, here is a toast to HyperCity for bring this long-awaited section to life. Cheers!!!!

IPL Thoughts, Balaji's comeback and more...

2008-05-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it took an inspiring Laxmipathy Balaji comeback to break my slumber on this blog. To be honest, for all these day (or months..) I havnt had an inclination to write up anything worthwhile. Not that this is going to be an enlightning post.

So, IPL is in full flow.. and IMO losing some of its inital interest levels. The games are too closely pack to even remember who defeated who.. Actually thats a challenge for the IPL organizers..lets see how they can achieve this.

Anyway, coming back to IPL and L Balaji, it was heartening to see him back and bowling again. Even if it was more than a few yards slower than what he used to.. but he still managed to strike 5 blows to .......hmm... Punjab XI ( there, I forgot the opponents for a minute..). Bowling slow medium, but with a lot of control and variety, it was a treat of a different kind. Being a fan of the smiling assassin (or something of the kind, that he was called in his previous tenure), I was rooting for him to strike big and he did. Though, one shouldnt be carried away by his hat-trick in the last over, which doesnt mean much IMO, his overall approach to bowling was smart.

Another interesting snippet to share is, that immediately after the win, as the Chennai team was heading towards the dressing room, everyone congratulaing Balaji, I saw Joginder Sharma (the bowler Balaji presumely replaced in the lineup 2 matches back) came from behind and jumped on Balaji's back in a congratulatory manner... yeah, he jumped on his back.. the same back that has kept Balaji out of action for nearly 2.5 years... Feel free to read between the lines..

Another interesting sight in last nights match between Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils was Munaf Patel, the I-shan't-field-nor-bat Munaf who has frustrated the ****s of regular cricket followers by his lethargy and dont-care-a-damn attitude on the field. With Warne at helm, I thought Munaf was not only bowling to a certain plan, but also was trying 'his' best to field and even back up throws to the stumps. Warne seems to have found a new field position for him - Covers. Now, usually that sounds foolish to place a man of Munaf's talents on such an imminent position as covers, but with T20, where giving away 'only' a single is smart bowling (specially in the last few overs), I thought it worked well. Warne had his best fields - Watson, Kaif in the outfield saving boundaries while Munaf was actually trying his best in the covers. Damn smart of Warne in my opinion.

Another striking thing in RR camp is the way the juniors, read non-stars seem to gel with the team. They seem to have the gall to go upto Warne or Watson and pat on their backs and like. Now, I dont imagine Punjab XI's Tanmay Srivastava to do that with Yuvraj Singh, incidentally who gave the youngster a major verbal thrashing in one of the earlier games, on being refused a single. I think its the same story with Bangalore RC as well.

Anyway, for my moneys worth, there are only three teams out there playing allround quality criket - RR, DD and CSK. If I were in the business of predicting results I would imagine CSK taking on RR in the finals, with the final going either way.

Recap 2007

2007-12-31T08:49:00.000-08:00

All you folks who missed me on this blog for all this time.. (does that even amount to 1 person? :-/ ), here I am back on the job at the fag end of the year.. This is most certainly the last post of this year.. to cap as the 12th post of the year.. hmmm.. 12 posts in 2007 comparing to 32 for 2006. So there, am certainly not upto the challenge to feed this blog enough.. lets see what 2008 brings...

2007 had me watching a lot of movies... a lot.. and a lot of good ones.. I DID watch a lot of classics, popular english titles and a whole lot of Hindi mainstream ones too.. What was nice to see was that this year saw a surge in quality film making. True, the Partners and the Dhols were made, but there were more than a handful of movies made not for the only reason to watch bottom lines. There were creative reasons behind these. An effort to make movies that push the envelope.

Let me try to outline some of these:

- Manorama - Six Feet Under
The finest film to hit screens this year, in my opinion. A film that doesnt take the easy route when the going gets tough. A genuinely crafted thriller brilliant direction from a debutant, Navdeep Singh.

- Chak de India
Good story and well made, though is not as novel in its narrative as Manorama.. A little over hyped in my opinion. But nevertheless, a quite departure from the formulaic Bollywood stuff.

- Johny Gaddaar
JG is a tribute to the 70s movies. An interesting story well written and well directed. It has its moments and it does NOT try to fall in the rut, when you expect it to.

- Cheeni kum
The best written dialogue of the year. Amazing conversations happen here.. and for once Amitabh is utilized. Inspite of a tacky ending, a great watch.

- Eklavya
Another Amitabh starrer.. though more prototype than Cheeni Kum. Eklavya is rightly chosen as the indian entry for the Oscars (though i admit I havnt seen Dharm), for its narrative and its compact direction. Its the closest we have to a 120 minute thriller that hollywood makes 10 every year.

- Black friday
Well, definitely the most different movie to be present, even in this list. A complete departure to any pattern you might have seen in Bollywood. Chapter based narrative and amazing tension built in key scenes. What stops this from getting in Black Friday idolatory is its rawness.. i find too many edges and uneveness to love it the way a lot of people do.

- taare zameen pe
Yet to watch it.. :-( But from the reviews and news, Aamir brings in a fresh perspective to the area of direction too. All eager to watch it.

- parzania
Yet to watch it.. But again, its a movie based on the horrors of Gujrat genocide. Actually the thought of it makes me want to skip this one.

- Life in a ...metro
Metro is pretty much the only multi-thread narrative in Bollywood that didnt suck. A little tacky at times, but certainly engrossing once you watch it past the 30 minute mark. Some inspired acting here.

- honeymoon travel pvt ltd
Another multi-narrative.. nothing breathtaking here, but finds a mention here, for the sheer bravery of this one. The story is quite different and at times does seem to go in the right direction.

- bheja fry
Yet to see it completely. Though have seen the original french title 'The Dinner Game', which this is a faithful interpretation. A small budget movie that raked in a lot of monies. A good trend, only if this one was a complete original.

- ek chalis ki last local
A take on Tarantinoish thriller. The screenplay reeks of Tarantino all the way.. though direction lets this down quite badly.

- jhoom barabar jhoom
Contrary to the popular view, I kind of liked this one. It is pretty much the first Hindi movie I can recall to have used misleading narrative. They dance too much at the end to really ruin this one though.

- gandhi my father
A great attempt actually to take on a very interesting and difficult subject. Almost succeeds. The transitions between various sequences jarred.

- blue umbrella
Vishal Bharadwaj, one of the best film makers in India today, makes a small childrens' film. Yet to watch it, but everything about it feels too interesting.

- jab we met
Imtiaz Ali comes back to write a Hum Tum type romance. Decently written, the direction could do with some work though. Some moments are very effective, some quite over the top.

- No Smoking
Anurag Kashyap finally makes his own film -ontime. Critics dump it. Yet to watch it, but have a good vibe for it. Atleast he made something different than a rip off on Hey Baby.

So, here it was, a list of titles released this year that I thought attempted something to challenge our tried and tested Bollywood formulas. Do write back which ones worked for you and which ones didnt.

So, come back again next year and hopefully there will be something fresh out here to take away.

Happy New Year 2oo8....

Toronto these days...

2007-10-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well.. blogging has suffered immensely offlate. I havnt had time to think about it for ages now. And for a changes its due to work.
I am in Toronto these days.. and will be here for nearly another month..

And it isnt a vacation.. far from it. Have been working real hard all this while. And things dont look to change in the coming few days. So there it is..

Weekends have been well spent in the company of a friend who is based in Toronto these days and needless to say thats been great.. meeting him and his wife after nearly 2.5 years.

Have been taking a few snaps off and on, and have uploaded a selected few here. Do have a look and pass on all the kudos.

Actually am based just outside of Toronto in a place called Markham. Its a small suburb, which houses mostly techie companies like mine. Lots of offices and apartments.. a few malls.. and all of it predominantly chinese. A bulk of Markham's population is of chinese origin, contributing to Toronto's multi-ethnic mix.

Toronto downtown is where the action is. Till a week or two back when the weather was not as un-friendly as it is now, it was all summery and lively. The chill breeze of the last week or two has vastly impacted the same. More of the same to follow...

The place looks prohibitively expensive to me, more so coming from a weaker currency and in the facing of the rising Canadian Dollar. Now am getting used to buy stuff in dollar, but still the prohibitive-ness (if there is a word like that) persists.

Anyway, there is no real advantage to buy stuff from here. The cost difference, once huge, has shrinked to a bare few percent, and at times I have a feeling India is cheaper. So no shopping on the cards...

Toronto as a city is a modern one.. a big (bad) American (Canadian, to be politically correct) city. No real history on display, unless the last 100 years can be termed as history. It does have a dazzling sky-line, even more brilliant on a foggy night, but thats about it. Offcourse the malls are stunning.. and huge. The Eaton Centre is truly magnificient, only if can bear the sight of teeming crowds more than once.. I can, btw. And the overlooking square really comes alive late in the evening. With some live music and razzmatazz. The harbor is an area I havnt explored much, but its supposed to be a quite a place. And then there is the CN Towers. And the it is supposed to be impressive for its height. Blah.. cant care less, coming from the country of Mt Everest, flying on a Boeing.

So thats a brief update on things at this end for now. Havnt got a clue when the next one is gonna go up.

Indian Idol

2007-07-05T00:02:00.001-07:00

Again a sizeable gap between this post and the last one. No reason to justify this wide a gap, but a long list of personal engangements that have eaten up all my time outside of work. This situation continues and no promises can be made about regular blogging for the next month or so.

In this post, I want to talk about, surprise surprise, Indian Idol. Yeah, this is a reality show that I had almost swore not to follow since it started some 3 years back. I did not watch the first and the second season of the show, though I confess having seen an episode or two of both the seasons, mostly when the remote wasnt in my control. My impression of this show was that this is more of a reality thing than a musical program. More stress on 'drama' than really on music. The show I did follow in the past years was the Zee's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa - Challenge 2005. Now, that was quite an interesting show and it did have some real awesome singers. More than a couple of them were decent enough to sing at the top level, and I believe some of them do.

This season, somehow I have followed the show quite regularly, watching most of the episodes. For one, the judges this time are interesting. Udit Narayan, for one is my fave singer and I wanted to see how would he be as a judge. Javed Akhtar is again someone who is really good with words, even when speaking about the most inane things. To offset these two, there was the squeaky Alisha Chinoy, who I have never liked. And Anu Malek or Malik or Mallik or whatever, to round up the quartet.

My original impressions are mostly accurate, the show, specially in the first few episodes WAS really about the drama and reality. The kind of 'freaks' attempting to qualify for the show was the highlight in the initial parts. Infact most times the show would spend time with participants who were soo bad they were good, than really introducing the more talented participants.

But slowly, things have turned, and its now more about the music. Out of the 13 or so who qualified, atleast 4-5 of them can sing. Now although thats sounds an abysmal ratio, it isnt. Also, the level of drama on display has been mostly in control. Offcourse the contestants do cry, specially the ousted ones, but not so much to put us off. The best part about Indian Idol is the presentation. Its really impressive.. the way things are brought together to stitch a sense of continuity. Things dont feel tattered or badly edited to make up the running time of an episode. The emcees are top class and do a great job, which is to not hog all the limelight. Also, compared to the other two music reality shows, the judges dont hog all the attention. I mean, they do have strong opinions at times, and do have rather animated arguements, its nothing compared to what folks do on SaReGaMaPa and Star Voice Of India. Also, the arguements are often cut short to keep the show running, rather than resolving which of the judges won the round.

Now, I am not trying to promote Indian Idol or extend their claim that the winner is Bharat ki khoj or blah.. all I want to say is that the show is a compelling watch, given you have the time for television. But again, let me admit I do not ever vote for the contestants, nor ever promote that. I purely take Indian Idol as just another television program and not a place to pick the next big singer.

Among the judges, the best of the lot, for me, has been Javed Akhtar. He seems unbiased and mostly provides a fair assessment, thats amazing because he isnt even a singer, unlike the other three (Anu also claims to be one!!). Udit holds on to a netrality, though he never really criticizes a contestant even after a horrible performance. Alisha, what to say, is pathetic. She has a few favorites and will praise them, however their performance may be. And that giggle, it is soo very annoying. Anu Malek tends to dominate the others. He tends to overrule the assessments of the other three, which was quite annoying initially. Slowly, thats reduced. He tends to go overboard criticizing sometimes, but atleast he has a strong opinion. Otherwise, what use is a judge who is there to praise one and all.

Coming onto the singers, finally, I think the better singers among the ladies are-
Charu, who not only has a charming personality but can also sing decently.
Deepali, not really top-class, but has a nice voice and given the right song, does well.
Ankita, again has limited range (which holds true for almost all of the folks) but has a stage presence that elevates her performace.

Among the boys-
Meiyang, the most likeable among the lot, has a smooth voice and render the new brand of music pretty well.
Emon, IMO, the best singer here. His range is the best. If Indian Idol was only a singing contest, he would win hands down.
Prashant, the dark horse. He has an amazing voice with a nice 'something' that is very soothing. He does not have much presence though. Unlikely to win.
Amit Paul, another North-East import. Great voice once again, and he easily renders the songs from the genre of Zubeen Garg and James.

So there it is. I suspect Meiyang, Emon and Abhishek will end up in the top three. Abhishek is another contestant, who is very average as far as singing goes. He does dance well and bring drama to the show. I suspect thats enought to garner votes from the junta.

Whoever wins, I doubt any of them can really make it to the top level as professional singers. They will have their 15 minutes, earn some tidy cash doing live shows and go back into oblivion. Who cares?

Technorati Tags: Indian Idol, Meiyang Chang, Emon Chatterjee, Anu Malek, Javed Akhtar, Udit Narayan, Alisha Chinoy

Hiatus from blogging

2007-06-04T01:52:00.001-07:00

I took an extended break from blogging, yet again. For me, I have these phases, when a lot of my focus is on a particular thing. A month or so back it was blogging, and since then it had shifted onto movies.

I have been watching movies like a zombie. Have had this uncontrolled urge to watch a lot of movies. I have been trying to watch mostly old time classics and the good ones from the last 4-5 years as well. The contemporary ones have taken a back seat for now.

The only one of the new releases I caught was the Spiderman-3, which wasnt as exciting as the last two. The fact I saw it on the giant I-max screen could not completely salvage the hash this movie was.

Onto better things now.

Casablanca: Yup, I saw it only now. It does manage to still be quite a treat after all these years. Though in my personal opinion, does it deserve ALL that hype?

Citizen Kane: Well. Again one of the most loved movies of all times. It has a layered story. The first viewing is not sufficient to extract too much from it. I need to watch it again to really understand it well. The kinda jaded visual and not so amazing audio does hamper the experience.

Psycho: Pyscho is just amazing. Its nearly 60 years old but boy, it still holds up really well today. The plot, although has been rehashed so many times since this one,  but it still chills you bigtime. Amazing acting. Hitchcock rocks.

Rear Window: Hitchcock again. I wrote about Rear Window sometime back here. Truly thrilling.

Rashomon: Akira Kurosawa's classic. Well, again a very layered and complex movie. But it is rewarding in it first viewing itself. It invented the technique of unreliable narrative that was borrowed in modern movies like: The Usual Suspects.

Mulholland Dr.: David Lynch, the Tarantino of the 80s, made this visual treat. It spins and meanders like a 'dream'. :) I want to watch it again a couple of times to truly savor it.

Jackie Brown: This was the missing Tarantino for me. Finally got the chance to watch it. Unfortunately it doesnt measure up against the other Tarantino's like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill. A much more straightforward narrative and not as gripping as its brethren.

21 Grams: Amazing. It has a very different narrative with 3-5 minute clips all arranged non-cronologically. So the narrative goes back and forth in the story. Sounds wierd, but it actually enhances the viewing experience for this one. Very Stylish!!

V for Vendetta: This one is not so old. Quite a gripping and visual movie. An interesting plot and a great narrative.

The Illusionist: This one is a amazing. Again quite new. Starring my fave Ed Norton. This one is truly about an illusion. Another of the movie with a twist in the end. One of those kinds, that are interesting to rediscover all the apparent clues leading up to the end.

Das Experiment: Well, a little unknown German movie, not soo old. But its truly amazing and chilling. The fact that it is based on a real life experiment adds to the chill. A must watch if you like grity and edgy cinema.

The Downfall: Another German movie based on the last few days of Hitler. Great acting in this one and it does portray of how sheer madness in a dingy bunker really changed to face of the entire of Europe.

Technorati Tags: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Psycho, Rashomon, Kurosawa, Mulholland Dr, Lynch, Tarantino, 21 Grams, Illusionist

Fuzon - great listening

2007-04-06T01:49:00.001-07:00

I first sampled Fuzon, the band, when one of my friends recommended them. Listening to some of their tracks, I found familiar a couple of them. The more I heard them, the more I like them.

They are a Pakistan based band, whose niche is fusion of classical hindustani music with Rock. And boy they are good.

Some of the best tracks by them are:

Tere Bina... jiya nahi jaaye..

Mora Piya..

Aankhon ke Saagar..

And you would definitely heard their lead vocalist 'Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan' in the hit Bollywood songs:

Mitwa (KANK)

Yeh Honsla (Dor)

So do sample their other songs as well. Their music is the kinds you want to sleep to. Melodious and soothing...

Technorati Tags: Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan, FUZON, Mitwa, KANK,

Bangladesh thrashed India..

2007-03-17T22:57:00.001-07:00

Well, this is the big news this Sunday morning. All news channels and blogs are beaming up their opinions on the same.

reproducing my comments on Amit's blog on the same...

IMO, its all about incentives. This Indian team has but few incentives to push their game up. Most of them are millionaires.. raking in more moolah promoting biscuits and colas than winning matches. What is in it for them to put their heart in the game (and in turn risk injuries..) when they are doing quite good as it is.

Bangla team on the other hand was enthusiastic as a team can be. All of their 11 members were gunning for their spot in the limelight. You could feel it on the TV screen.

I dont think replacing a few players here and there would make that much of a difference.

I mean cmon, this IS World Cup. and you know Sehwag is woefully out of form. And still you want to tag him along. That itself speaks for the way they planned. If it was another warm up tourney I wouldnt blame Dravid for giving him another go, but here on the biggest arena, it was sheer madness... playing your luck too far.

I personally would like to see India out of the Cup in Round 1 itself, and that should catalyze into retirement for the 'stars', although I doubt if the stars would share the blame even now.

Anyway at the loss of India's chances we have a better team gunning for the cup.. almost.

end of comment...

BTW, if you wanted to find respite on this hot Sunday morning, find solace in the fact that India has company. Pakistan got knocked out of the World cup losing to debutants Ireland.

A mug of beer, anyone?

Technorati Tags: World Cup, India, Bangladesh, Sehwag, Dravid

Rear Window

2007-03-15T04:51:00.001-07:00

Recently saw Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".

A fantastic thriller and a great watch. What really amazed me about this movie is that not a single frame, and not a single line of dialogue is redundant. Everything adds onto the story and the plot. Its that tight..

I mean it might sound straight forward but you should see the movie to understand what I mean..

This is my first Hitchcock movie in years so I cant generalize.. but I hear that was his style.. to keep strictly to the plot in his narrative..

I know of some equally wonderful movies that meander around the plot quite a bit.. they focus on stuff not directly linked with the plot.. but in the big picture it adds to the mood of the movie..

So can't say its absolutely necessary to do as what Rear Window does.. but it was remarkably evident here.. hence the post.

By todays standard, the plot is not convoluted enough. There is no major twist at the end or anything as gimmicky. Things move towards one direction and the first suspect IS the actual murderer.

But what really contributes to the thrill and suspense is the fact that the viewer is an equal party to piecing together the hints on display. We all, like the protagonist look outside the 'rear window' at the happenings. And like Jefferies, we are as incapable of playing an active role in the proceedings.

Anyway this is not meant to be a review. For the same visit here or the IMDB page.

Technorati Tags: movie review "alfred hitchcock" "rear window"

My VisualDNA..

2007-03-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Game 1: West Indies vs Pakistan

2007-03-13T04:23:00.001-07:00

So, finally the Cup has begun..

The first match starts off tonight.. and it has WI, the hosts facing off against Pakistan.

Hard to pick one from the two..

But if I have to, which I did in a friendly game of Cricket Satta with friends, I would pick West Indies.

WI are on their home turf.. which has increasingly been unpredictable.. what with slow and low bounced pitches with a tendency to crack..

They had the slight edge, mainly due to their batting.

Lara, who is playing his last tournament in his long career would like to go out on a high.

Gayle, debatably, the most destructive batsman in the world. A man to reckon with for the Paki bowlers, none of whom are world class.

Chanderpaul, really reliable specially when the team needs him.

Samuels, in my opinion, the next big thing. A solid bat.

While on the other hand, Paki batting is not much to talk about. Haq and Yousuf are good but not ably supported by others. Then they dont have a stable opening partnership. Also, with no Akhtar and Asif, they lack the sting in their bowling.

I know they were humbled rather badly in a warm-up game against India, but these warm-up games dont speak much about a team like WI which is more instinctive than even India.

I think WI should make it.

Technorati Tags: Cricket, World Cup, West Indies, Pakistan, Samuels, Lara, Akhtar, Asif, Haq

Should we ban it?

2007-03-13T03:31:00.001-07:00

I am not talking about something specific here..

But have you noticed how often people providing their feedback on a topic will simply exclaim that such-and-such thing or phenomenon should be strictly banned in India.

Also, if they feel strongly about something, it should be made compulsory..

Just the other day reading up TOI's Hyderabad Times, I remember

a reader commenting that Yoga should be made compulsory in Indian schools, for its benefits..

Isn't this a worrisome pattern?

People in general seem to be getting more and more stubborn with 'their' views..

If I feel this way about an issue, then it should be made compulsory and the other way should be banned.. and so on...

So make Yoga and Vande-matram compulsory and ban smoking, violence in movies, Valentine's Day..

Sometimes it makes me wonder where are we heading towards as a country !!

Technorati Tags: ban, yoga, vande matram, hyderabad times, valentines day

A prolonged break from blogging..

2007-03-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

Its been a real long break since I posted anything here..

The reason has been both my being busy as well as not enough motivation to put down my thoughts...

I did start on a few posts.. but then never went past the midway mark on any of them.. so now I have quite a few unfinished posts lying around...

I HAVE been watching quite a few movie all this while.. almost every weekend, its been almost 2-3 movies.. mostly English, but have managed to fit in most of the latest Bollywood releases..

Well, that shall be another post another day.. time permitting..

One reason I quite never really find motivation to post all this while was, that I am not really sure what this blog is about..

I can really put place it in any category I know.. its quite a mix-up to put it decently..

That is something I would want to do sooner than later..

find a genre that I want to stick around to...

Well, any of the readers (who are a rare phenomenon on this blog as of now!!) reading this blog for sometime, do propose what I do good enough to really carry it on...

BTW , the World Cup is almost on its way..

And it should be interesting this time.. with no team the clear leader at this point..

Its real hard to put your money on any one of them.. though I wouldnt put it definitely on INDIA.. (lets not get started on that here....)

Cheers and happy watching...

Technorati Tags: cricket, world cup, india, genre, bollywood

Chutneys - South Indian at its best !!

2007-01-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

This Saturday night, yet again, we ended up at Chutneys for a nice dinner. Its been like a ritual for us to hit Chutneys anytime we dont feel like cooking at home (and not ordering a Biryani at home from Hyderabad House, which btw has been happening quite often as well !!).

So here is the story in pictures...

The Chutneys is located right next to the Nagarjuna Circle, near Punjagutta. You can spot it from a distance with its quite different colours and the long queues that wait for table in late evenings..

Thats the first floor seating area.. As you see, it isnt execeptionally plush or luxurious. Quite basic and simple. Well, it isnt really the experience that pulls you here.. Its the food, period !!

The USP.. Chutneys.. With most (or even all) dishes they serve, this is the standard fare. This 4-in-1 serving of chutneys. The all white one is pure/ fresh cocunut chutney. Its amazing.. beyond words, with minimal masalas etc to ruin the natural coconut flavor. Moving clockwise, the off-white/ creme colored chutney is a daal-based chutney.. Next is the Red chutney.. thats also real cool, with a spicy tange and goes real well with most dosas. The last one is the green-adkrak (ginger) chutney...

Steamed Dosa - My fave item in the menu.
At the risk of sounding boring and truly predictable, I have to admit that on most occassions I have been here, I shamelessly end up ordering the Steamed Dosa.. Its really the best of the lot for me.. I have tried a Steamed Dosa elsewhere as well, but nowhere did I find anything close to Chutneys thing.

So, you get the drift. They also serve some real nice conventional Masala Dosas, Uthhapas, Idli-Vadas. Also, high on the popularity charts is their South Indian Thali. And we never fail to miss their Buttermilk, which has been consistently good.

Actually that is one aspect that makes it easier for us to pick Chutneys again and again.. their consistency. Rarely, do you find their preparation gone bad.. The chutneys are always fresh and the Sambhar always nice and spicy.

Another interesting thing I have noticed about them is that their pricing for South Indian dishes is reasonable. So you get a Masala Dosa for Rs 35, and the Steamed Dosa for Rs 42..

They also serve North Indian and even Chinese stuff.. which I would never advice you to order at Chutneys.. Also, they price these 'other' cusines a little on the higher side. Dont really remember exact costs, but a Chinese Soup will cost you about Rs 60 and a North Indian dish about Rs 75-80. Not, this isnt out of the roof, but compared to their South Indian dishes its definitely expensive.

My theory is that they basically cater to the South Indian cusine lovers.. But if these folks bring in people (and kids) who are admant on eating North Indian/ Chinese, they can still be the choice of this group. And, they also manage a bigger margin on these 'other' cuisines, for which their Cooks/ chefs would need more time to put aside a conventional order or two and get on with the a Chinese noodle dish (say).

Anyway, I do recommend you visit Chutneys on your next visit to Hyderabad and do do try out the Steamed Dosa. You wont regret reading my post for a change.

Vizag snaps !!

2006-12-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

Check out the latest pics from my recent Vizag trip.

Vizag 06

Doorie - Atif Aslam's new album

2006-12-19T04:41:00.000-08:00

Just released... Doorie
Atif Aslam's second music album..

Much awaited.. I hope to hear all its songs soon..
heard on the radio the title song :
"Doori sahi nahi jaaye.."

Sounds fun !!!
Watch out for updates..

KANK - Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

2006-12-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

This might sound blasphemous.. I saw KANK last weekend, and contrary to my expectations, I thought it wasnt as bad as it was made out to be.

KANK is a solidly made movie with very strong direction. I cant say the same about its story and to an extent screenplay. The story is.. well.. a story, you might like it or hate it, I personally didnt like it that much. The screenplay on the other hand is very patchy.. very inconsistent. It starts off at such a jarring note, I wanted to stop the movie at the 20 mins stage. Then it started becoming interesting, only to again go down via the predictable and cliche alley.. So thats the way it goes.

The acting is again quite patchy. SRK really sucks.. To an extent he gets unbearable at places. Well, he isnt alone to be blamed. The screenplay alleviates the problem. The best of the cast is definitely Abhishek. He alone brings a lot of energy and realism to the otherwise over mythical characterization. Rani and Preity are quite ok.

Another mention I must make is for Amitabh. I know he looks a little weird and unexpected as SAM in the movie, but for me, his is the best written and most exciting role in the entire movie. He is the most complex of all the characters and after the intial unease in watching AB doing all the unusual stuff, found his story the most interesting. I wish the movie was more about him than SRK. :)

Another thing you should see the movie for is Karan Johar. See, you might agree with his vision or not, you might buy into his story's credibility and POV or not, but you have to agree that he projects his own vision so well. His is a unique style of story telling, however similar it may look to the over-stylized look of a the new breed of directors.

I only hope KJ brings out a somewhat more interesting subject the next time round.

Sony Ericsson W810i - My latest crush !!

2006-12-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I bought myself a spanking new Sony Ericsson W810i, a high end mobile phone from the Sony Walkman stable. And boy, am I pleased with it...

If you know me a little, you would know that I have never been a fan of these high end mobile phones that give you a wide array of features. I have resisted buying one of these for all these years and even might have recommended friends against buying themselves..

But I guess I got smitten by this one. All this time, I always felt that these so called high end models were really over hyped with really no substance. They boasted of cameras but what resolution - 1 megapixel or VGA.. They would claim to play MP3, but the quality of playback and earphones was crappy at best. And then the LCD screens these models boasted were soo tiny and dull, it wasnt worth all the money.

When I set my eyes on W810i, I was blown away. Here was a phone optimised as a musicplayer, it has special dedicated keys for music playback, its loudspeaker plays out as good music as is practically possible on a mobile device and they were giving out a high end earphone in the kit, which could even connect to a conventional earphone as well (using the in the kit adaptor). And they give you a 512 MB memory stick in the kit as well, leaving you fully equipped to start using
the device as an MP3 player without a need to buy accessories.

And then there is a 2-megapixel camera as well, the results of which, not paralleling digicams
though, but are still classy enough, specially in the daylight.

And the designing with its satin black finish is alluring.

I am kinda busy to write an indepth review on the phone, but take my word for it, its the best damn thing that you can buy below 15K. The only drawback I saw when buying this one is that this is not a Symbian device. So all the Symbian apps on the net wont work on it. In short, if you want a business phone, wherein you would like to read/ create word or Acrobat docs, this isnt the model for you. But I didnt feel I would use it too much as a business tool, and went with it.

So, W810i rocks !!! :-)

First A530 Pic !!

2006-12-01T03:30:00.000-08:00

This is the first upload of a pic taken with my new Canon Powershot A530 !!

I had been trying to upload the first set of pics for a while now.. but have been having trouble with blogger..

Lets hope the problem is resolved and you guys get to see more of the pics !!

Ciao !!

Zune incompatible with Windows Vista !!!

2006-11-15T22:14:00.000-08:00

I couldnt resist posting this !!
This is almost comical !!

As per reports, Zune, the brand new MP3/ Music player from Microsoft is Incompatible with Windows Vista, the brand new Microsoft Operating system furthering the legacy of Windows XP.

Hard to believe, but if its true, God help MS !! :)

2 Major Microsoft Updates : Vista/ Zune

2006-11-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

Windows Vista.. is shipped !! Finally...
That is big news.. After 5 years, MS has shipped the latest release of Windows Operating System last week. And it will hit retail markets on January 30th. Do check it out !! Its quite glitzy with its graphics.. though in terms of overall value for money, I would say its not a major revelation in top of Windows XP.

Microsoft yesterday also released its much awaited personal Music (mp3) player called ZUNE. Its supposed to be pitted against the die-hard Apple IPod. Its going to be interesting to see how well is Zune received in the already IPod dominated market. I am not too hopeful for a mass level conversion of Ipod lovers to switch to Zune. Infact, because of Microsoft's strong focus on DRM (Digital Rights Management), which restricts the use of media not licensed to the user, (Pah!!!) I think the geek community would steer clear of it. And Zune is much too high profile to appeal to the average Joe.

Whatever it is, I shall be following this story closely.

Canon- Delighting you Always..

2006-11-11T04:10:00.000-08:00

Well, that tag line seems to have come true in its full form. This week, Canon India replaced my 3 year old well-worn Powershot A70, that was having trouble with its CCD Module, with a brand new Powershot A530.

Well, You could argue that Canon sold me a defective product in the first place itself. Well, thats kind of true. My A70, along with those of a lot of folks out there somewhere on the internet, has a defective CCD Module that seems to give a "purple display" issue, as it is widely known in some forums. Still, I had been using my A70 for a good part of 3+ years. It was just a few months back that this problem started.

To be true, I had given all hopes on it. In todays times, it is overwhelmingly expensive to get a gadget repaired, specially getting a key component replaced. It was a just routine search on the net, that gave me some hope, that of free repair of the CCD sensor by Canon folks. This was verified with the local Canon Authorised Service Centre here.

I left my camera with them nearly 3 months back, expecting to receive the repaired camera (with a replaced CCD mod.) in about 2 weeks. 2 weeks stretched to 2 months, with the Service Centre folks updating me that the CCD Sensor array of 3 Megapixel is in shortage, no new cameras using those kinds being the reason. I thought that was the last I would be hearing about it. And it was kinda true...

Anyway, A530 looks quite similar to A70, with minor look and feel changes. The major plusses are : 5 megapixel Sensor array, 4x Optical zoom (compared to 3x of A70) and its need of only 2 AA sized batteries rather than 4 for A70.
There are a few minusses as well. Its got an inferior movie mode with VGA (640x480) resolution movies with only 10 fps (frames per second) instead of the regulation 30 for A70. Moreover, I would need to buy the newer format SD Memory card for it, since A70 used Compact Flash.

All in all, I am happy. First of all to see my pint sized camera back in action, only a notch better this time. And then its brand new, and hopefully, if I am lucky, it should last me a while.

Its adequately fast and has reasonable picture quality. Some pictures will come in this post, that I shot with the A530. Only, Blogger is bugging right now.

Don - Movie Review

2006-11-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

I saw Don, finally.

Let me start with Farhan Akhtar, rather than writing in a straightforward movie review. Farhan Akhtar for me is among the two most exciting filmakers in Hindi Movies today, the other being Vishal Bhardwaj(dir: Omkara). On a tangential note, this list also used to have the likes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Karan Johar, who lost favors with me at some point or the other. But that matter enough for a separate post, which I have no intentions as of now to write.

Coming back to Farhan Akhtar, I, like most folks my age thought his debut with 'Dil Chahta Hai' was magical. I simply loved every single frame the way he shot it in DCH. It wasnt really about telling a novel story, but really about the novel approach to story telling. It had a very patient approach to tell its story and I loved the way not every frame was shouting to add something significant to the story. I dont know if the last line makes sense, but I do love it when the screen play isnt just a copy of the story. Guess what, the last one line is equally abstract.

With Lakshya, Farhan had the unenviable task of matching upto DCH, which commercially he couldnt. I thought Lakshya was well made but it lacked the spirit that inhabited DCH. But you could see the strong style of story telling he still used. Another point, he miscasted Amitabh Bachchan very very badly. On the whole, I enjoyed watching Lakshya, though at the end of it, I did feel something missing.

With Don, you could see he wanted to re-tell the 1978 classic his own way. So far so good. Don, was probably the most exciting Amitabh Bachchan movie I saw growing up. (OK, along with Amar Akbar Anothony) I simply loved DON and could watch it as many times as I could. It was every boys dream, what with, AB in a double bonanza, lotsa action and Don kinda style and all. Moreover, it was a tremendous thriller, with several threads running parallel. If not a masterpiece I would still call it a Masala-classic, whatever that means.

I was pretty eager to watch Don, as I wrote here, maybe just a shade less than Jaan-e-mann, for obvious reasons. And I did manage to see Farhan's version this Saturday. It started of with lot of style and a suave (but really old looking) Shah Rukh Khan playing the don pretty much his own way. Thats both good and bad. The good is he didnt try copy Amitabh, the original. The bad part is he was more Shah Rukh than don, as usual. What with his smooth neck twirls and the works. But lets just put it this way that it wasnt distracting enough to ruin the experience. The only times I thought about the SRK-Amitabh comparisons were when SRK plays Vijay. So you get the point?

The first half of the movie rolls pretty much predictably, along the same lines as the older one. Casting is pretty strong. I thought Pawan Malhotra (old time Nukkad guy) was pretty good as Narang. Boman Irani (playing DCP DeSilva) is good in any role we all know. Isha Kopikkar as Anita was perfect too. Though, I thought, SRK playing Vijay wasnt just as convincing. He lacks the rustic touch to play Vijay well enough. BTW, did anyone notice an expensive looking watch (Rolex, anyone??) on Vijay's wrist just after he has danced his butt-off at the Ganpati festival. Priyanka Chopra is quite ok as Roma.

Actually, thats one point I want to make here. I thought, Priyanka was pretty adequate and decent in Don, with Farhan at the helm of affairs. So was Arjun Rampal (as Jasjeet). Now both of these are pretty (below) average actors, who can turn into a nightmare with a bad director calling the shots. Both of them manage a decent performance here, restrained and controlled. Interestingly, I thought, Boman Irani, though strong in his portrayal of DCP DeSilva (with the twist, wink!!) was just about strong and adequate here. If you have seen Being Cyrus, Khosla ka ghosla and Munnabhai I/ II, you know what I mean. He literally elevated his simpler and more straightforward characters and even the movies as a whole with his acting. Not so here. Maybe its the leeway and flexibility he could manage with lesser directors (not really discounting Raj Kumar Hirani here..). With Farhan, I think Boman was bound with the processes and his director's vision to be able to really throw himself wild into his portrayal. To be honest, I thought his character became quite cliched and tended towards boring. So, thats the pluses and minuses of working with a top director.

Farhan remains very loyal to the original script throughout the first half. Only, the setting changes appropriately to modern times. I wish to make one more remark here. I thought, the scenes with the Don making Cocaine deliveries first in Paris and later in India seemed quite unrealistic. These deliveries seemed routine enough, and didnt warrant for the top man to do it. Lets just put these in the cinematic liberties bucket, though I expected better from Farhan.

Just at the interval, Farhan really decides to play with the script. Without giving anything away of the movie and the twists, I can imagine Farhan sitting with the script in the drafting stage and deciding he needed to give his own twist to the otherwise straightforward original. Doing so was not only difficult in itself, but he wanted to retain the exact same screenplay until the half-time, thus aggravating his effort. And that is my friends, where he went wrong.

He didnt adulterate anything with the story till the half-way mark, though theoritically, the story changes somewhere much earlier than that point. So he lets the story un-roll as if its a faithful adaptation, and than starts to unleash the twists. Actually the first one is quite intelligent, though a bit predictable, with atleast two scenes providing solid hints in that direction. The second 'twister' that Farhan saves for the very end, according to me is the film's undoing. It just doesnt add up. Atleast not if you slip in the character's shoes and imagine the proceedings in retrospect.

Also, with the added twists, some other stuff which was better in the older version takes a beating. The Vijay-Roma romance track is half-cooked and quite forced upon. Certain scenes of Anita are manipulative, specially viewed in retrospect ( w.r.t. the twists). The Don's goons story isnt tied up properly, but then maybe thats left for a sequel (which I desperately hope never comes!!).

So much for the story and the twists. I thought the music wasnt fun at all. I loved DCH tremendously for its music. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy really invented a new genre for Hindi music with it. They were all new sounds and we hear soo much music that is unconsciously borrowed from it. Even Laksya had a very solid musical score. It had the most breath-taking instrumental piece that I can remember in the last few years, for its Lakshya war theme, or whatever it was called. With Don, Farhan and S-E-L restrict themselves to the older DON's music. Adapting a couple of songs might be a greast idea to pay homage, but its nothing to talk about. It actually reminded me of the endless remixes you watch (more than listen) on MTV and Co. I really misses a genuinely new album from Farhan and SEL collaborating again.

The Cinematography is great, but thats old news. Every other movie nowadays boasts of nice visuals, and Don is really not in the stunning category either. Editing is top grade. I dint really complaint of a slow narrative. I thought the screenplay/ story is where Farhan missed the bus. This time I would call it just that, unlike Lakshya. I missed the Farhan touch in the proceedings. DCH and Lakshya both had it, and I thought I could tell a Farhan frame from a set, until I saw Don.

Concluding, go and watch the movie if you loved the original Don. And if you have been a Farhan fan, I would still say, go ahead and watch it. Guess what, Farhan isnt in top form.. but then he does deserve another chance, unless offcourse its a sequal to this one.

My Trsyt with BugZilla

2006-11-03T02:57:00.000-08:00

I have never really got my hands dirty in the Licensed -vs- Open source Software debates, that ravage all over the internet. But somewhere in my heart I always rooted for Open Source. Its the perennial underdog, with public unity and diversity propelling it.

But, my perceptions took a bit of a beating yesterday when I got my hands dirty trying to get Bugzilla, the open source free licensed Bug Tracking Software from the Mozilla stable. Its a free download from the web and is supposed to be THE big buzz.

I located the step by step install instructions on bugzilla.org site and rubbed my hands in glee to get a top class Bug tracking software running for my project.. FREE. A day later I realize its not a cake-walk.

The issues with Open source, more specifically Bugzilla and its installation, as I perceived are immense.

1. No Consolidate Package. There is just no 1 single package that can be downloaded and installed (on XP or even Linux) Bugzilla. So you download Bugzilla, Active PERL, MySQL Database, Apache web server and after that you are only just begun on your way.

2. Version Issues. All of these 'components' are open source too. So you need to figure out which version is what you really need. You realize, thanks to lots of documentation on Support site, that certain versions of ActivePerl or MySQL have bugs that block Bugzilla functionality. So you need to be really careful in picking the versions you download.

3. The Step by Step guides are good, but not great. A lot of the steps are for prev versions, and the UI/ Interfaces have changed since then. Plus, so much is assumed that you need to 'know' stuff like MySQL and PERL to proceed. I messed up my installation because I checked a setting in MySQL called 'Strict SQL', which ironically was a recommended setting. That dint allow Bugzilla CGI to execute on my webserver.

4. Lacking Customizability. Eventually when I have Bugzilla up and running, I realize, that Bugzilla is not really great in Customizability. Its open source, so you can hack what you want. But thats different. You cant customize a lot of stuff on a running instance. Now, thats just a bad quality for a software. No amount of 'openess' can shield it.

The biggest issue for me was the complicated installation. Had it all been 1 package, it makes the life a lot simpler. You just run through 1 installer and not worry about picking relevant versions etc.

I think whatever might the Open Source champions claim, the day when masses shall use Open source software are still far away. Open Source SW might be free and easy to configure, but for now, its still geek friendly. It still lacks User oriented features. Open source advocates always talk about bugs ravaging licensed software, but the fact is as long as the Software has lots of useful and revelant features and they mostly run fine, we are happy. If you write a very compact application that doesnt do much but doesnt have a lot of bugs, its still not what we want.

To end this post, well, I have got my Bugzilla up and running and discovered some does and dont along the way too. The Application, while might not allow me all the customizability, should still serve our purpose.

What really ails Indian Cricket?

2006-10-30T22:17:00.000-08:00

If you saw the Ind-Aus encounter on Sunday, thats a question your mind is bound to question !!

What we saw happen was not the best team coming out cropper. It was a one sided encounter, where India did not even compete to finish first. Infact, for all practical purposes it finished third..

India is used to losing a lot of matches and often I do not complaint about losses.. This was really different and pitiable. There are about 6 reasons I can count on my fingers why the Indian team needs a jolt in its behind.

1. The fielding. No no no.. I am not complainting that our players aren't athletic enough or dont know how to dive. That was the past. Indian fielders didnt even run hard to get to the ball. Munaf Patel, 23 years of age, hailing from a farming family and once known to the fastest bowler in India, can not bend AT ALL when fielding on fine leg. I cant beleive he has fitness issues or is too old to risk his back. McGrath, 37 doesn't think twice before sliding 6 feet to disallow the opposition 1 extra run. But Munaf cant.

2. Team Communication/ Strategy. Its over no 40 (or nearabout) and Mohd Kaif is leaving deliveries outside the Off stump.. not just once but a couple of times atleast. WTF is that? Is he trying to play out the 50 overs or what? Someone needs to find out. Same is the case with Raina. He is trying his best to score a single. He manages after 3 dot balls. And its over no 43, with India still having 5 wickets to go. What is he trying.. if he cant slog, shouldnt he make way for Irfan Pathan or Bhajji?

3. Dinesh Mongia. Whats he doing inside the 11? I know Yuvi is injured. But thats no excuse. Specially at no 3. He is not a International class batsman. And he proved it earlier. This guy isnt sure what to do with the bat. He might be decent with the ball now, but definitely doesnt quality as a batsman and definitely not as an allrounder either.

4. Mohd Kaif. I had over the years supported Kaif. But I think his time is up. He doesnt fit in the team anymore. And the lower order more so. He isnt a slasher or even a stroke maker. He is struggler who will nudge here and there and never cross the strike rate of 75. Natwest was an abberation. Indian management is fooling itself by keeping him at No.5 or 6. I personally think its time for him to go. Try someone new.

5. Captaincy. The more I see of Dravid, the more I miss Ganguly. Atleast Ganguly, the captain. He understood his cricket better and was more passionate about winning and his team. If that amounted to screaming on the field, so be it. Dravid sometimes comes across as too placid and within himself to motivate his team. He did not introduce spin and specifically Bhajji until Aussie were already 120 odd. We had already lost by the time Harbhajan had a bowl. He kept persisting with Pathan (who was bowling better, though was still being clobbered), Munaf (who was an idiot all this match) and Sreesanth (erratic at best). You need to keep trying something if Plan A isnt working. You cant just keep going downhill and expect them to make a mistake. I dont know what we can do there.. but its a major area of concern.

6. Attitude. The Indian Teams attitude sucks... And the worst is that the Team management including Chappel hasn't managed to work on it. You have to see them to beleive that they had lost the match by the time they arrived on the Mohali ground to play. They completed the formality in 95 odd overs. Losing isnt always a disgraceful thing, but not trying is.

If not sacking the key culprits, I think a severe reprimand of the entire team is the least, the coach and management can do. Or we should resign ourselves to our fate, which is all black and blue.

Satta/ SMS Contests.. Whats the difference

2006-10-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

I am (un)happily engrossed in the Ind-Aus 'Quarterfinal' cricket match of the Champions Trophy, when the forever screen hogging Mandira Bedi or one of the commentator mumbles away the details of the Predict2Win Contest of the channel(SET MAX). It asks the viewer to predict the 1st inning score between 4 choices (range of runs scored). The winner 'shall' receive exotic and exciting gifts and what not.. (I didnt follow that part). Thats usual.. Just an interruption to the cricketing action..

My wife quizzes me there.. why and how is this different from 'Satta'.. You predict.. you invest.. and if you come out correct, you win... EXACTLY the same in both these scenarios..

God, she sounds right.. There is soo much of a similarity that I dont seem to find the differentiating factor between these contests and 'satta'... You might argue, that in these contests you dont invest or chip in with your bet money to the punter.. you are wrong.. you are investing, you pay the SMS money to the contest organizer, small thought it maybe to the tune of Rs 3 - Rs 5, it goes straight to the organizer.

So there we are sitting in our living rooms participating in 'satta'.. (not that I ever SMS those kind of stuff personally!!) without a hint of guilt !!

BTW, I returned to Hyderabad on Sunday, after a week long of masti and festivity well enjoyed with family and friends in Delhi.. And am back to work and this time it promises to be Big and Bad..

Taking off for a Diwali vacation..

2006-10-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

Folks, its vacation time here...

Diwali is just round the corner and with it, comes a much needed vacation.. So I am off for a week to Delhi, back where I belong..

As always, the last few days before the vacation are soo hard to get on with.. I am already in the holiday mood.. waiting for its onset !! Personally, I love this phase.. where I anticipate all the fun, the masti and gettogethers that I hope to have in the break.. Sometimes its even more fun anticipating the holiday than the actual holiday itself....

So I have been deriving my fun planning about the get-together me and my friends are having right on Day 1.. So, its gonna be lotsa masti meeting up with everyone and having a drink or two.. (or three......) :).

Day 2 offcourse is Diwali.. the D-Day.. time to be family.. gorge on all the sweets I can.. and generally have fun at home.. Anyway let me not reveal all my cards at this stage...

Well, on the other hand, Champions Trophy is underway with most 1 st round matches all through. The tournament hasnt been as dazzling as we all would have liked it to be.. It started of on an ominous note with Shoaib Akhtar and Mohd Asif testing positive for drug use. Then the pitches havnt really been at par.. playing slow. Not enough runs scored in the tourney as yet.. and no real exciting matches to take note of. Well, lets hope the second league matches change that.. Atleast a little more close matches to cheer about.

Personally, I dont really have hope for an Indian victory in this tourney. They have been out of sorts specially in the Batting department with no signs of improvement on display in Match 1. After a reasonable bowling effort, they made all the efforts they could to nullify it and spoiled what should have been a easy cake. The only positive from that match, IMO, was the return of Irfan Pathan. If he can keep his form on track, we are good...

The the next big thing doing the rounds on Diwali eve is the arrival of 2 Bollywood movies: DON and JAANEMANN Having said that here are my predictions for what I expect from the two movies:. Well, without taking sides, I declare wanting to watch both (for a change).

DON

Directed by Farhan Akhtar (one of the best guys directing in Bollywood), I expect DON to be tight, thrilling and different to the previous one.
SRK looks kinda cool as DON, though I dont expect him to turn out in a major performance. He can not and does not want to come out of his style thing. That sucks !!
Other major attraction should be... Boman Irani. (Were you expecting Priyanka Chopra, the girl who can't act). Boman is THE best supporting actor today in Bollywood, IMO. He just adds his own reference to even the most staid and overdone roles.
Overall DON should be a decent watch. Unless you start comparing with DIL CHAHTA HAI, the classic which I am sure Farhan wouldnt be able to repeat again.

JAANEMANN

Directed by Sirish Kunder, H/O Farah Khan, It looks quite run of the mill stuff with Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar fighting over the same girl, Preity Zinta.
The promos, contrary to popular opinion are pretty corny. Too much glitz and not enough character.
The music sucks bigtime.. Anu Malik claims to having reinvented himself with his music here. God help Anu Malik !!!
Inspite of 1,2,3, I am still hoping for a miracle. Part of the reason... make it most of the reason, for that is Salman, my fave guy in movies. I believe, Salman is someone who can raise even an average movie to a worth-watch level. He isnt the best actor around, but has that magnetism that makes you root for him. Lets see, if that can happen here.

So, though DON looks more promising, I am still rooting for Jaanemann.

On a completely different note, I hope Farhan takes up a new and exciting subject for his next, and not a remake of an old classic. And I hope he doesnt pick an actor on star value.. like SRK, Hrithik etc.. I am waiting for a "proper movie" from him with a real cast. I am bored watching Amitabh and SRK playing the same damn roles over and over. And Farhan is someone who can actually churn out something truly novel.

Anyway, winding up this post, let me wish you all and your families a Very Happy Diwali.

King Kong and LG DS9481

2006-10-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

Well, that isn’t the latest kickoff in the King Kong series. And LG DS9481 isnt an adversary to King Kong but is a DVD player from the LG stable.

I have been watching DVDs on my PC for all this while. It was kind of ok, but there were a few issues with that arrangement. First of all, PC DVD player isn’t really all that great.. The PC DVD drive is meant to read data.. and read it nice and proper. With the kind of DVDs we get here, which are scratched big time, the PC DVD drive has a hard time trying to read it all up. It doesn’t have error correction as good as most ‘proper’ DVD players, which would simply skip the next few frames resulting in just a few fuzzy frames and not really a hang.

Then, my PC doesn’t have all that great viewing position. I needed to drag my sofa all the way from the drawing room to another room to get good viewing comfort. It was getting to me a little bit off late.

So, one fine Saturday, I just made up my mind, that we did need a proper DVD player. The choice fell between Philips and LG. It was tough call in the end, with a longish phone call with Kunal finally sealing the fate in favor of LG, though somewhere in my heart I was still pining for Philips, with its much better designed remote control and experience of owning a Philips DVD player back home.

Anyhow I paid for a LG DS 9481. It supposedly plays all the usual formats: DVD, VCD, MP3, JPEG… and also the newer stuff like DivX and MP4. God knows if I will ever really use DivX and MP4 content. That was really the differentiating factor over Philips in terms of features. Time shall tell…

I also bought a 5 meter long Audio cord, so that I could connect the DVD Audio output to my Sony Music Player. Back home, I realize that even ‘5 damn long meters’ is too short to reach anywhere near my Sony System. Paaah.. I tried some other combinations, moving the DVD player closer to the Sony system etc etc.. and it all resembled a Dhobi Ghaat, with wires flying all over the place. Really blew my nerves.. These damn Electronics Manufactures will give you pathetically small lengths of cords.. and then you are all on your own figuring out a configuration to connect it all somehow…

I tried to move my Computer Speakers “Creative 2.1 channel” to connect it with the DVD player, only to realize that these damn things take only a TRS (Headphone) Jack while the DVD player has only RCA jack outputs.. So I realize I need a RCA to TRS converter. I could only manage to find one on Sunday. The final thing, with my 2.1 channel speakers connected to the DVD player is setup, though predictably I cant turn the volume up and down, cause Comp Speakers don’t come with a remote.. J

The first DVD I watch is “King Kong”, to unleash a pure visual movie on my spanking new DVD player system. The overall impact turned out to be pretty average. Not really blaming my system, the DVD was pretty dark and dingy most of the running length. And to be honest the story wasn’t as engaging as I would have liked.

It is very visual movie that must be enjoyable in a movie theatre, but on a 21” TV, it was less impactfull then expected. Naomi Watts hardly looks appealing enough to woo the audience though she certainly does the giant ape in the movie.

Akhtar/ Asif caught in drug web

2006-10-16T01:07:00.000-07:00

Well its a sad day for Cricket and Champions Trophy as well. Shoaib Akhtar, the most exciting and dashing bowler in the world (IMO) and the upcoming Mohd Asif have both tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in the random drug tests during Champions Trophy. They stand to get suspended upto an year or even more from competitive cricket. And thats really sad...

Well, we all know what Shoaib Akhtar is.. he is the most fearsome contemporary fast bowler.. who brings zing and a dash of glamor to the otherwise staid gentleman's game. Its always been a delight to see him run up to unleash his pacey stuff. He is someone who actually glamorized the 'run-up'. He was sometime erratic and would get slogged all over the park, but there never was a dull moment with Akhtar on the field.. there couldnt be...

If Imran Khan was the hearthrob, the gentleman.. Shoaib was his antithesis.. the sly, the wicked bad boy of cricket..

Asif was the find of the year for the Pakistani Cricket team.. the steady bowler they had always fantasized about.. He wasnt express fast but really steady.. someone who could bowl wicket to wicket all day ala Glenn McGrath.

It certainly is a bad day for cricket.. And its specially stupid of these two blokes to commit such irresponsible behavior when random drug screen is so much a part of international sport.

P.S.: Looking forward to what Mandira Bedi, the cricket 'expert' has to say about it..

Woh Lamhe - a Review

2006-10-13T03:39:00.000-07:00

Woh Lamhe is the latest offering from the Bhatt Camp. Now, Bhatt Movies have some very specific traits.. all of them are quite medium to low budgeted, feature upcoming actors, boasts of impressive/ popular music and is always promoted innovatively. The last aspect is soo interesting, it can be a separate blog post altogether.
In this post, I shall only talk about Woh Lamhe, the movie and more specifically its music.

The movie, which I saw a couple of weeks back at PVR Punjagutta, Hyderabad is all in all average. It isnt as bad as a lot of other recent releases. And it isnt really that good. Mahesh Bhatt claimed this a true story based on his and Parveen Babi's love story that ... in the mid-80s. I wasnt in touch with the latest in those days, being a toddler, so cant comment how much of it seems true. It doesnt seem to be too much an accurate account, nonetheless that is least of a moviegoers concern. The story is pretty interesting as presented in the movie. But the direction, I would say is lacking. It starts off pretty well but then the second half fails to keep up. Contrary to what you would expect from the subject, the story fails to bring the viewer really up and close to the two central protagonists. So, even as the movie rounds up, you dont really relate as well to either of the characters as you should.

Acting on the other hand is quite decent. Shiny Ahuja is pretty strong here. He is definitely one of the big finds in the last year or so. Not only is he bashfully handsome, he is a genuine actor, who can underplay his part and yet sparkle on the screen. And he has been consistent on that front in all his releases so far : Hawaaron Khwaishen Aisi, (Kal, I havnt seen much, so cant comment), Gangster and here. He has range and it shows.

Kangna Ranaut is breathtakingly beautiful... She stands no competition as far as good looks go. She is just sooo conventionally beautiful, that you dont need to adjust your paradigms to accept her as a leading lady. If you have been watching the likes of Antara Mali, Nisha Kothari and ilk, you would know what I am talking about. ;-)
I dont think she is a great actor. But who cares? Well, on a serious note, she is quite adequate here, playing a Schizophrenia infected actor. The role demands loud drama and she can manage that. In Gangster, which was a little more sombre role for here, you could see her shortcomings in the acting department. But then she more than makes up for that on the looks front... Lemme stop ravishing on Kangna, else I'll be in trouble at home...

I hadnt been exposed to the music of Woh Lamhe before I saw the film, thanks to lack of hype and lack of TV viewing on my part. I thought the music was kinda nice when watching the movie. Offcourse, more attention was on the visuals than the audio then.. (please re-read the previous para to get the context...:) ) Later on, when I heard its soundtrack, I thought it was even better. I have to give it to the old man (read Mahesh Bhatt) to deliver decent quality of music with ever film. He has got the knack!!

The music is done (mostly) by Pritam, who is known to be good with innovative arrangements. He composes 3 original tracks and arranges 2 here. The best of the lot is with no doubts "So Jaon Maine..". Actually it is composed by Roop Kumar Rathod, while Pritam probably only doing the arrangement. It comes as two versions, Kunal Ganjawala and Shreya Ghoshal singing the two solos. And I can claim unabashedly, that is is Kunal's best effort with the microphone. The song is absolutely a dream. Its an amazing piece of composition, that when infused with the velvety voice of Kunal Ganjawala, creates a dreamy and melancholic effect on the listener. This song is actually what epitomises "Woh Lamhe" the movie, with its apt lyrics (by Shakeel Aazmi):

"So Jaon maine.. tum agar.. mere khwabon mein aao...mere khwabon mein aao..
Kho jaon maine.. tum agar.. meri yaadon mein aao...meri yaadon mein aao..
jaagi nazar mein..
soyi nazar mein...
har pal sanam tum... jhilmilao..."

Without going overboard, let me repeat, this song is a dream, the kinds you want to sleep listening to..

The other really nice number is "Chal Chale.." sung by the fresh-voiced James, the Bangladeshi Pop sensation. He sung the immensely likeable "Bheegi Bheegi" in the movie Gangster, incidentally for Pritam. This song is a nice cheerful number with a lot of turns and variations, well rendered by James. The song has been written by Sayeed Quadri.

The next memorable number is "Bin tere kya hai jeena", allegedly another *adapatation*. This is in the voice of Jawad Ahmad, a Pakistani singer. Nice composition and is mostly in the low range. Jawad doesnt seem to have a vast range, but manages this song well enough to keep it likeable. The overall impact is soft and soothing.

Another Pakistani singer, Glenn sings the ghazal "Tu jo nahin". This isnt really a great piece of music. Comes out too flat to really appeal, but in keeping with the mood of the album which is Slow, Soft and Soothing, this one blends in well enough.

The last song in the album, discounting the remixes, is "Kya mujhe pyar hai", sung by the immensely talented KK. This one belongs to the formulaic league, the ones you watch on music channels and find on the lists. Peppy, energetic and fast, its got a zing about it, thanks mainly to KK's kinetics. Its an average number, you wouldnt mind listening in a nice compilation of an album. Also, allegedly this one is a rip-off of an Indonesian hit "Tak Bisakah".

Overall, the music of Woh Lamhe is no masterpiece, but is a good contemporary album to listen. Its a nice album that mostly keep 1 mood, without trying out too many things, a rarity these days.

Hyderabadi 'Traffic' Blues

2006-10-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

This is the land of the finest Biryani, the Haleem and extraordinarily bad traffic. I come from Delhi, the place I though boasted of the worst traffic anywhere, until I landed here in Hyderabad, which took the cake and the icing. The normally mild mannered and soft spoken Hyderabadis turn into Road Warriors and Night Riders when on the wheel. You are not safe when facing them all by yourself on the slim curvy roads of Hyderabad. They inspire all the latest PSP and XBOX City racing games. They really define the term manoeuvre.
Some of the very specific pecularities of Hyderabadi driving are :

1. When on the road, gaps between vehicles are measured in 'mm' not meters or even inches. You can never really get too close.. it kinda helps in bonding.. :)

2. Small is big. The smaller you are, the more dangerous. Its really a city of nano-technology. The Autos rule the roost. They fear no one.. not even the killer buses that people and even cars dread of in Delhi. Autos will overtake buses from left on the thinnest of roads and ride on.. The scooters and bikes will criss cross through the traffic splitting the few inch gaps between cars.

3. Honk, the Hyderabadis will, need be or not. So you honk, if there is someone ahead of you or behind you. Or if you want to stop (which is rare) or if you want to take a turn. And you will also honk if you like the weather today or if its just too hot. Honk is soo very multi-purpose.

4. Red lights. You speed off if you see a red light. Just speed off with no regrets. But if you see a Green light, then slow down.. take a good look if what riders/ drivers on the other 3 segments of the crossing are doing before you honk away and then ride off. But red lights are safe to make a quick getaway.

5. Parking is an art. And Hyderabadis are eclectic when it comes to this art. They will innovate when it comes to parking. Its soo frigging boring to park under a parking sign, or in a public parking. So you become creative, and park in the second lane of a busy road.. or you park right on a crossing. And its not just SUVs or cars I talk about, the bike riders are as innovative. They will park right across the entrance of a Cafe to ensure all visitors rub through your bikes to make an entry.

6. Roundabouts. What roundabouts.. Roundabouts and its protocol (to drive clockwise until you get to your segment) is for losers. Its what the Brits infected us with. But not the oozing with pride Hyderabadis. So they will drive where they want to drive. If its a lane they want to take on the ride, they shall drive anti-clockwise to it.. Hell, its even fun to stop on the curve..

7. Mobile, the Hyderabadis are in a true sense of the word. Infact, doubly so. Not only are they riding/ driving, they are constantly talking on their mobiles. Be it the cars/ trucks/ Autos/ Bikes, one hand is always occupied to chat away. Actually, I suspect they are constantly in touch with the *base-station*/ ATC transmitting their coordinates and getting the next set of instructions. That probably explains the reason they manage to evade not only accidents/ collisions but also the polite roadside 'mamu' read Cop. High-tech, aint it?

So the next time you are visiting Hyderabad, and intend to drive/ ride, get an acclimatisation mastering the Monster Truck Madness. It isnt half as good to help you, but then you have a reference point!!

P.S.: Wish I had some pics to give you a first hand insight.. but then saving my life on the roads was a higher priority... :)

Cricket season again..

2006-10-08T03:31:00.000-07:00

Well, you may like it or not.. but the Cricket season is back.. and its BIG as ever..
Champions Trophy' 06 began the day before, though for now the Minnows (SHOCK: WI and SL are in the contenders as well!!!) are battling it out for 2 seats in the main league.

But Set MAX, who are airing it in India promise to make it more than just cricket. They are the ones who fused cricket with babes.. when they got the aweful Ruby Bhatia and then less aweful Mandira Bedi to eat away airtime. They now want to expand the scope of the 'extras' until you wont notice it was cricket in the first place that you switched onto. Well, guess it serves well, when the cricket, atleast the Indian effort is not going to bring in any joy. Atleast you have noodle straps and pouting babes to make up for it... or can they?

Indian team, unsurprisingly is back to where they belong. Erratic and Unpredictable. Just before they play the Second biggest tourney (as per ICC folks) in cricket, they arent sure of a lot of things. I think I could have collated a nice compiled list of 11 points of Indian team's concerns, but then who really cares and maybe I might have struggled to fit them all in 11.

So, not going that route.. and continuing with the present form of brain-dump.. let me write about the biggest of our concerns. .. and its not Greg Chappell.

Over the last couple of seasons, a lot of youngsters have got a chance to play in the 11. And interestingly and luckily for India a lot of them converted their chances to be among contenders for a 'permanent' seat (yup, we have permanent seats in Indian CT.. ask Sachin). So we have Sehwag (ok, he has been there for more than a couple of seasons), Dhoni, Raina all fulltime on the payrolls. But unluckily, all these players are in essence slashers or some species close to that. All, love the flat turfs of subcontinent, smashing the opposition until they bleed, and as soon as the ball smells of swing, they are only wielding an array of edges. They are all exciting prospects and good finds for India, no doubts about that. But when successive seasons throw players of the same variety.. then as you might expect, we will see-saw through amazing and aweful performaces, which has exactly been the case.

So, now apart from DeWall Dravid and Manager Sachin, we have a team of slashers : Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Raina.. with ironically Irfan Pathan sent as a pinch-hitter above our slashers for some strange reasons. So when we have played on placid and true wickets, all these boys fire and rip up the bowling.. They spare no one.. And, when playing on wickets that dont let you slog in peace.. they again spare no one.. Sehwag will be out playing his natural game, bowled of a swinging yorker, Yuvi would be spun-off, Dhoni caught of a mistimed pull and Raina, still new would explore a new way.

After a record breaking run against Lanka and South Africa, where they unbelievably won batting second, they have found ways to lose matches in WI in astonishing manners.
So, though they are back to staid and placid wickets at home, their confidence is in doldrums. Worst of all, Pathan is lacking in confidence, who in my opinion is the best Indian Cricketer. Unless, he gets back to his swinging ways, we are going to remain in trouble.

Interestingly, Dinesh Mongia is back. He who made us cry in the last world cup. Though, I feel its the right thing to have happened. He had an amazing record in the Counties last 2 years. Nt only did he score with the bat, he was outstanding with his bowling. If that didnt warrant a recall, nothing will. But, his first knock after being back put him back where he was. He 'seemed' to have top scored with a 50 odd, eventually running out of partners. But the truth is he still doesnt understand that Cricket isnt just about throwing a ball and hitting it around. There is this match situtation to contend with too. He just stood there as an idiot, giving tailenders the strike when all India needed was 20 odd of like 50 balls. As ever, the match score sheet lied at the end of the match. Not that the selectors will ever know.

So, now lets wait and watch, what Chappell and Sons have in store for us in the coming days. Will Pathan get back to his lethal ways? Will Sehwag slaughter away like a madhouse? Will Dhoni make bowlers repent on their career choice? Or will India invent newer ways to lose matches from unlosable situations?

Play on..

2006-09-27T02:24:00.000-07:00

For a change today, I want to talk about the Hindi music scene.. Music has increasingly taking a back seat for me, in the last couple of years. Earlier I was always hands on with the latest releases and had an opinion on all the latest music.. But with limited time spent at home and not much FM connectivity in these parts of the world, its hard to keep track of things. But then the best of the lot still trickles through.

Last year or so hasnt really been big for music. The trends keep changing all the time, but the current one is really baffling.

For one, rarely an album has music from just one composer.. So you have Anu Malik, Pritam and company sharing space on the same album cover. Now, thats not what an album is about. It isnt supposed to be a hash of Punjabi Pop, Sufiana and Rock. Take one or max two genre and give us ranges within it.. But then with the way our movies are structured it isnt that mis-aligned. :)

Then 4 of 6 'original' (pun intended) tracks HAVE to have a remixed or DJ or Dance version of them. The topping is when the most tragic songs are rehashed as trance tracks.. ;-) DJ Akbar Sami and his ilk are having a field day.

And then comes in Himesh Reshammiya. Well, first things first. I think he is a talented composer. He has a genuine sense of melody. I appreciate some of his work. I actually liked his "Aashiq Banaya aapne" and the first set of his sufiana pepped stuff. For one it provided variety to the innumerable Punjabi pop tracks, that I inately dislike. Then Sufi music has an appeal that is hard to capture in text. His efforts were commendable and his voice was a diversion from the 'perfect' sterile voices of the likes of Sonu Nigam and Co. So far so good.. but then he overdid it to an extent that he was doing 3 albums a month, composing 6 tracks an album (+ 6 remixes from Akbar Sami) and singing all of them. Now he was never a singer to pull it off. His initial success pulled him through the last six months and 20 hits.. watever. But thats now a trend we would want to go on. Himesh himself needs to get over it and compose something new.

But then there has been the emergence of some good too.
We have seen a lot of different voices breaking in.. point in case Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan (Mitwa/fuzon), James (Bheegi Bheegi/Gangster), Zubeen Garg (Ya Ali/Gangster), Kailash Kher and Atif Aslam. Now, all these guys dont have those crystal clear voices of Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, KK and Shaan. Thats what sets them apart. Its great to hear to a lot of niche songs in these different voice, where their natural elements add to the feel of the songs. Take for example "Allah ke bande" by Kailash Kher. You can not have a Udit Narayan rendering it with the same feel. Or "Ya Ali" by Zubeen Garg. Zubeen isnt in the same league as Sonu Nigam, but Ya Ali sounds better with Zubeen than what it would with Sonu rendering it(IMO).

And then there is Atif Aslam. Atif is the best of the lot.. atleast the new ones. He is naturally gifted with a very high pitched voice, that doesnt really shiver even at the highest notes. Just listen to his 'Aadat' or 'Bheegi Raatein'. Even his latest 'Tere Bin' from 'Bas ek Pal', not his best, sounds soo peaceful.

Another great 'find' IMO has been Shantanu Moitra, of Parineeta fame. He isnt as visible as an Anu Malik or not even as much selling as Himesh, but he is really talented. His music has an inate sense of softness and 'thehraav' which is rare to find. Rahman's is the only other music that has the same feel. apart from his more appreciated Parineeta, do listen to his score in "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", an amazing score of ghazals to the tune of Mirza Ghalib and Swanand Kirkire (Contemporary!!). And then Parineeta, which I personally thought was a hopeless movie, had a gem for each and every of its songs. The lesser known "Soonga mann ka aangan" is the crown jewel.

Well, we can only hope that we have more of the positives and a lot less of these so called trends coming up later this year. But do give Shantanu Moitra and Atif Aslam a go.. well, that actually gives me the thought of a Shantanu Moitra composed song sung by Atif. That would certainly qualify for a treat. You never know...

Self Tagging..

2006-09-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

So, I certainly aint a regular blogger.. not the kinds to be tagged around by the more prominent and regular ones who 'tag' each other and who in turn tag others in chain...

But then I came across this questionaire tagged onto one of the bloggers, and I am tempted to fill it in myself.. Been ages having really 'written' anything here... Yeah thats like my upper limit of writing stuff nowadays...

So here goes my Self Tag...
No cross-questioning plz..

I am thinking about...
my forthcoming job.

I said...
Sweet stuff to Tani..

I want to...
..go on a week long trek to some real remote place..

I wish...
.....

I hear…
a lot of Atif Aslam songs off late.. I am kinda glued onto his style and his amazing voice..

... I wonder...
about nothing these days.. nothing is beyond amazement anymore..things can get as bewildering as you can imagine..

I regret...
not getting onto real estate a LOT earlier..

I am...
wicked..

I dance...
so you dont need to feel embarassed of your own moves.. ;-)

I sing...
not as bad as people think.. and not as good as I think..

I cry...
at the thought of driving in this maniac traffic of Hyderabad..

I am not always...
in a good mood..

I make with my hands...
tea at the most.. God, answering Qs like these makes you realize that how godammed useless your hands are getting offlate..

I write...
stupid tag entries and nothing more than that...

I confuse...
myself in a LOT of things..

I need...
motivation.. concentration... focus...

So there I am..
Hope to write in more often.. a lot more coherent stuff than this...

Independence Day pics !!!

2006-08-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Vande Matram..
Smilies...

an India Today Cover style pic..

Giggling Girl

Group Snap

Square Format

Whipping up a storm

Rest time.. on the bean-bag

Dressed as Krishanji

Clinging to Momma Dear

Smiley time again

Smiley on the Mami now..

Giggly again.... :)

Taani With Dad

Kaanha..

Bored of the Kaanha act..

Daddy dear providing some humour

Huh.. tired..

Tani is a big Girl...

2006-08-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

Tani is a big girl now. She is 5 months+. She came visiting us today and did everything she possibly can.. She slept, smiled, played, ate, drank, CRIIIIEEED, bbrrrrrrrr-ed...
(Click each pic for larger image)

Happy Family..

In Mommy's lap

Looking over Daddy's shoulder..

Admiring nature..

Bbbrrrrrrrrrr.....

Reaching out..

Thats her fave pose in her bed/ pram..

Getting Wild 'On... :)

Twinkle Twinkle..

At her playful best..

Making a point..

Mommy energised.. ,-)

Striking a pose...

Her ponies are sooo cute..

and here is her goofy smile...

Doesnt Tani look big with her two ponies? She looks like ready to be sent-off to school with a huge bag of books and copies... :D

Review time again..

2006-08-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

Long time no 'write' post.. Been quite busy with work Anyway taking a little time out to write about some movies I saw (over the last few months or so..)

Rang De Basanti

A much hyped Aamir starrer. Saw it at Ramakrishna theatre. Not the best place to watch a movie which is more than a dumbass comedy. The audience didnt appreciate anything about and it does add to your movie watching experience. Anyway moving onto the movie now.

Well, its an interesting story well-told (mostly). Unravels the tale of 4 youngsters (if you can call 41 yr old Aamir that..) who have nothing more to their lives than guzzling beer and laughing out loud (well, that sounds fun.. no?).. actually hysterically for no reason. They encounter this Brit girl who is in India to shoot a docu-movie on the great Indian freedom fighters. They are 'coerced' into acting for the movie and playing freedom rebels like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their ilk. They guys (and the girl, Soha) get touched by their experience of re-living the lives of the freedom fighters. Soon, they encounter a modern day calamity where they are forced to take a stand against a wrong by the new 'rulers'. How they again relive the freedom fighters deeds is what the movie unfolds.

Well, for one, its a good strong story.. and mostly well directed by Rakeysh Mehra. It isnt easy to connect the freedom struggle with the modern day exploitation the protagonists face. But the screenplay is neat and connects the same well. The casting is mostly appropriate, leave aside Aamir, who clearly doesnt fit in. They needed a younger chap.. Having said that, Aamir does enact his part real nice. The other young guns are spot on too.. Sidharth (a Tollywood actor) does a good brooding young guy act, he actually stands out. Kunal Kapoor plays a cool soft hearted muslim young-man. Atul Kulkarni is expectedly strong. Sharman Joshi over-acts mostly.

My complaints (quite few actually) are with the first half. The portion when these fellas are shown to be carefree and having fun gets out of hand soon. It becomes irritating and unnatural. They plain over-do it. Music is mostly faantaastic with AR Rahman handling it deftly.

The climax is the subject of debate whether the guys did the right thing emulating their predecessors or did they get carried away. My take:

No doubt did they get carried away. But there are times when you feel soo strongly for a cause that doing it seems the most natural thing. The movie seems believable to me. Specially the second half.

RDB on the whole does send a strong signal, to the youth of the country. "We are the system.. so lets not blame it and sleep.. Lets move things..."
A must watch.

(Rating : 7.5/10)

Taxi No. 9 2 11

A fast paced thriller (??) of a dashing John Abraham out to lay claim to his billion dollar inheritance that his father didnt want him to have (coz of his flashy lifestyle..), and his proverbial thorn in the flesh Nana Patekar, a hot headed cab driver who gets pissed off by the bragging, spoilt brat. How they try to outdo each other is all that happens. At the end, both sober down to realize its the fire within them they need to sort out to reach their goals.The bad news is, again no real substance.. no real story. Just a thin string of story repeated episode after episode. The good news is, its mostly soo fast that you can dont stop to realize its weaknesses. Nana acts well and plays to the galleries. His over the top act is .. well just Nana. Its so funny, Nana always does the same thing. When he comes on the screen after a break of couple of years, people love his act. Within a couple of months he gets boring and unbearable. John, looks dashing and does what he does best.. look dashing :). A popcorn masala, better that a lot of rubbish you can watch these days. Watch, if its too hot in your house and the cinema not too far away ;-).

(Rating : 5/10)

..incomplete post yet..

forthcoming reviews..

Being Cyrus

Zinda

DEV

Golden Moments..

2006-07-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

Now, thats a nicely captured moment..
I aint one of them here... My dad is.. :-)
He hasnt changed one bit in the last 34 years..

The Gang..

BTW, if you are still wondering which one of them is my dad, here is a clue..
He is the most handsome of them all !

Wish List' 06

2006-06-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am a self-confessed Movie buff.

And to put things into perspective, I was a bigger Movie buff when in college.
I could manage to watch all the crap that released every friday. Things I have watched, sent creep down my spine when I look back at them. From Govinda style comedies to even a couple of Mithun-starrers, I saw them all.

Well things change. Am now more selective. I dont force my senses to most of the crap nowadays. I prefer a couple of hours of sleep than to torture my sensibilies, whatever little I have.

It may sound contrived, but the way I see it, I feel the general standard of American movies are a few shades better than the regular Hindi stuff.

I agree they produce their own share of crap and real smelly ones at that.. but if you are to watch an average Hollywood movie, it wouldnt torture you as much.

And then there are the must watch ones.
I have this habit of maintaining a list of To-Watch movies. These are the movies that I heard enough to crave to watch them. I keep this list mostly in my mind,

But from time to time I write it down, since sometimes I gets soo long.

So here is a new edition of my Wish list:

1. Godfather III
Saw the first 2 parts of the acclaimed trilogy. The first one was amazing. Pure magic. I didnt appreciate the 2nd one as much. Lets see how does the third concludes the story.

2. Braveheart
It is still on my wishlist. Been there for the last 4-5 years. Have somehow manages to avoid watching it all this time, even though its so easy to rent its DVD.

3. Reservoir Dogs
4. Kill Bill I/II
For someone who loved Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, its natural to want to watch his other movies.

5. Roshomon

Never been exposed to Kurosawa's movie making. Want to be initiated with this one. And the topping here is the interesting concept of unreliable narration.

6. Blue/White/Red : The Three Colours Trilogy
Kieslowski. Another of the all time greats. Yet to see any of his works.

7. Goodfellas
Martin Scorese's 1990 Mafia film is known as a classic. Incidentally all of Martin Scorese's greatest works have featured Robert DeNiro.. The only one of the collab I have seen is Taxi Driver which was a masterpiece.

8. Schindlers List
Steven Spieldberg at his prime. When it released, I was too young to watch this kind of cinema. I think its time to catch it now.

9. Raging Bull
Robert DeNiro fetched his Oscar for this one. Supposed to be biographical and talks of the life and times of a temperamental Boxer. Martin Scorese directs.

10. Amadeus
This one is relatively lesser-known in the list. It is a portrayal of Mozart and his life. Sounds boring.. but is supposedly not, with this one exploring the darker shades of the man. On the fate and irony of why a sinned man was blessed with the greatest gift in music.

11. Dances With Wolves
Kevin Costner directed his debut and got an Oscar. Rare indeed. Need to see for myself, how me managed that. :)

12. Munich
Well.. no masterpiece this one. Lets say, its a contemporary Spieldberg.. but thats a must watch too.

13. Lost in Translation
Yeah, havnt watched this one too. Just missed out on this one. Somehow, the title sounded too boring to me. :)

14. Eternal Sunshine of the spotless Mind
Cant say the same about this title. But then a Jim Carey movie is no more a must watch on its own. Though this one is that and much more. Is supposeded to be one of those rare movies when Jim Carey doesnt play an out and out dumber.

15. Adaptation
Nic Cage in dual role and a script that recurses... you read that right. I bet, the movie wouldnt be amazing fun to watch, but would be really different that anything I might have ever seen.

16. Clockwork Orange
Classic stuff.. read so much about this and ilk that it feels its time I did watch it.

17. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
I recently got exposes to the concept of Monty Python. Was pleasantly surprised to see that there ARE things left unexplored that are capable of immense fun.

18. Mulholand Drive / Lost Highway
David Lynch stuff. Genius of the 70s/80s. Never seen a frame he did. Time to catch up. :(

19. Seven
David Fincher did this one with Brad Pitt before he did FIGHT CLUB. Reason enough for a watch.

20. American History X
Ed Norton in supposedly his best work. :)

Dhola-Re-Dhani..

2006-06-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

This sunday was an interesting one. Actually this weekend was in all nice..
After 1 long week, I had a respite this weekend.

Saturday, was all by myself at home and relaxed. Caught up a long over due movie as well 'Shawshank Redemption'. It features in a lot of people's top 5 fave movies. Not mine though.. but a great watch nonetheless..

Sunday, Ruhail calls up and we fix up a unplanned outing to Dhola-re-Dhani.. a rajasthani themed resort just outside of Hyd. It is based on similar lines as 'Choki Dhani', the one near Jaipur.

After ages, we left the city limits and truly had a nice time. See for yourselves:

We took a camel-ride..

So did Ruhail/Ekta

Posing over a bridge that overlooks a lake..

Us too...

hey.. am not the cart-puller.. even though thats what you imagined..

All four of us.. We did enjoy the place and each others' company

The girls somehow loved the carts, they got onto all of 'em..

Its a cart again here....

..and then their natural instincts took over...

Hope they get a chance to fill up in real life.. ~evil grin~

There were folk dance performances there.. not really my cuppa-tea..

Throughout we had amazing weather.. nice cool breeze sweeping through.. and palms swinging with it...

(BTW, my fave shot of the evening)

As it grew darker, the place looked a lot more interesting and colorful..

Whats on with these carts.... ???

... and yet again...they couldnt have enough of em..

In the twilight, the place looked magnificient...

Some experimental shots.. the color of these carts was fascinating..
ahem.. any comments on these ones?

Here again..

Folk singers holding court beneath a banyan tree...
(Correction, Neem tree.. ,-) )

We also had dinner on the building showing on the left.. There was chowki-system,
with all of us sitting on the floor and traditionally attired folks serving us with stuff like
Daal-baati-choorma, gatte ki zubji, kadhi, bajray ki khichdi (with a liberal helping of Ghee),malpua... rest I dont remember coz I had a hard time fending off the ghee spilling all over my thali..

We departed at 9:00 with lamps lighting up the place bright

So, thanks again to Ruhal and Ekta for making it such a nice and enjoyeable outing...
All I missed out there was a Beer.. :D

Some pics I took over the weekend !!

2006-03-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

Mangoes in my backyard..

Is quite a pleasing sight to stand in the balcony and see these delightful fruits..

Soft, wavvy, breezy..
Keep guessing what this sight is..

My new Sandisk 'm240' MP3 Player

Is my latest prized possession.. just a notch below my 'Digital Rebel' though..

Thats just a shot I really loved..
Write to me if you want a full size resolution of this to use as a Wallpaper..

Comments, feedback are welcome as always...

Tani comes home..

2006-03-26T06:21:00.000-08:00

Last afternoon, Tani visited us with her parents and Granny for the first time. And she slept off for most of the visit... how rude? no.... ,-)

See for yourself..

Though she did shake hands with Mami..

But she snored through most of Mama's jokes

And she looked sweeeet in her new frock..

Dadi and Mami tried their best to wake her up..

Cajoling her, shaking her.. but to no avail..

Until they enlisted her Mom to help out...

and the first thing she asks,
'Hey Mama done with his jokes na?'

Well, holding on to my whole bag of PJs until she comes visiting us next. :D

Tani is naughty like her mama...

2006-03-05T04:09:00.001-08:00

..the proof! Starting real young...

All smiles..

Proud dad cant keep his eyes off her..

Finding bliss in Mami's lap

Playing with mami..

Mami obliging the camera atlast..

thats my intense look...

Hey Mama, for heavens sake, cant you leave me alone for a min now..

Tani and Vandita are doing good. Getting to know each other better now.
Anand is finally getting some sleep...

Keep watching this space for updates..

Signing off,
-Sandeep

Tani...

2006-03-03T00:24:00.000-08:00

Incredibly sweet...
thats what my sweet little niece is...

Tani... as we are calling her right now..
She was born yesterday... 2nd March at 11.33 AM at Apollo Hospital, HYD...
to the proud parents- Anand and my lil sister, Vandita.
She weighs 2.8 Kgs and is 51 cm tall. :~D

Gosh, she resembles them both somewhat.. and looks as naughty as her mama.. ^* (evil grin..)
It feels sooo nice to be a mama ;-)

Check the pics of the lil angel urself..
(click on the images to enlarge them)

Proud Mom

Baby and Mum

Doesnt Tani resemble Vandita in this one?

Looking around

Feelin' Sleepy..

With Dadi and Mami

and here she looks like Anand..

the apple of all eyes..

So wishing Tani bounties of health.. and strength..
And Anand and Vandita a lifetime of joy !!

Cheers,

Photography..

2006-01-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

I appreciate good photography. It is fascinating to see how people can capture scintillating moments out of mundane everyday life. Go through works of some of the best photographers and you will realise that beyond a point good photography is less about aesthetics and more about the inherent feel and life they convey.
And it is soo much easier said than done. It is extreme difficult to depict undercurrents of what espices at the location.

I am putting in here a list of links which are good references to learn the art of appreciating photography :). Take time to go through these and you wont regret it.
And yeah another objective is to have a persistent list to lookup from wherever. ,-)

Magnum PHotos

Steve McCurry

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT | PMA Report 2005

VU PHOTOGRAPHE PHOTOGRAPHES AGENCE VU PHOTOGRAPHIE PORTFOLIOS IMAGES PICTURES BIOGRAPHIE

farrokh chothia photography

PHoto INK Professional photographers, assignment photography, creative writing, galleries, writers, web design, Photo-Ink Ltd.

Don McCullin at Hamitons

BLACK WHITE - JAGDISH AGARWAL

PhotoInk

Getty Images - Gettyimages.com AGENCY

Stock Photo Agency: Travel Stock Photography - Indigenous tribal cultures - India

Corbis: stock photography and digital pictures

SAJAPhotoForum

PHOTOGRAPHE PHOTOGRAPHES AGENCE VU PHOTOGRAPHIE PORTFOLIOS IMAGES PICTURES BIOGRAPHIE

Lois Greenfield Photography

VII Photo Agency

Webistan - Home

Article: Recommended Reading

HyperPhysics Concepts

fredmiranda.com: Specialized in digital cameras, photoshop actions, and digital darkroom

Michael "Nick" Nichols - National Geographic Wildlife Photographer

National Geographic Photographer Biographies

World Press Photo - awards site

Steve Sprengel's Photo Galleries at pbase.com

I didnt have time to properly write what these links stand for. :)

Have Fun,
Ciao,

Krishna

Happy New Year... 2006

2006-01-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year.

Hope you all have a nice time celebrating the beginning of 2006. Its becomes soo very usual now to have to celebrate the NY Eve.

I had a kinda quiet start of the year.. relaxed through most of the weekend and did my fave past time these days.. catch on some movies..

So there are some movies that I have seen off late.. and that brings up that time again when I would like to vent my comments about em..

So here goes the list:

1. Vaah Life ho to aisi...

Watched it at Prasadz cineplex. Well, where do I begin. It was plain crap. I went in expecting a typical masala flick a proper no-brainer which would be a nice refreshing change.
It was a no-brainer allright, but beyond it was it dint have one decent joke. The story was as old as the hills and I knew exactly what will happen and how. Sanjay Dutt was annoying with his over the top portrayal of Yamaraj, hamming away like no tomorrow. Shahid Kapur was tolerable in the horrifying script. Give it a miss unless you can manage to get paid to sit through it. (Rating :? 2 / 10)

2. Bluffmaster

After Vaah life ho to aisi.. life can only look up. And it did.. Bluffmaster, though no masterpiece is a solid and well written script foremost. Good strong and robust story (mostly). It is a story when you come to the finale, you can rerun it back in your mind and actually see what all was going on and how. And it mostly adds up without any major 'Chocolate' size holes. Acting, well, AB Jr is kinda ok in it. He doesnt have to do too much.. Carry his suave and style and look intense. He can do that without a sweat. Priyanka Chopra is again ok. Ritesh Deshmukh is good.. at looking like a moron, what his role demanded of him. Nana is solid as always and adds a dimension to the movie. Direction, well, its not as solid as it should have been. That is what could have elevated the good story to giddying heights. But its plain average. No blunders and no great moments. (Rating : 6 / 10)

3. Life is beautiful

Life is beautiful, the Academy Award winning film by Roberto Benigni is the perfect watch for a day gone awry. Or on a rainy and gloomy day when you can find out one nicety in life. Its a fast and engrossing movie set in the Holocaust era. But it is more a story of a quick witted and cheerful Italian waiter who doesnt give in to the doom right in front of his eyes. How he protects his 8 year old son from the horrors of a Nazi Concentration Camp and making it up all as an elaborate game for the young lad. Anyway, most of you might be aware of the story of this often discussed movie. Its screenplay is very taut and there isnt a dull moment. At places it is kiddish and slapstick but likeably nonetheless. One of the most poignant moments of the film comes in when Guido (Roberto Benigni) comes across his old German friend Dr Lessing in the camp, and he sees his ray of hope to exit this place. But on realisation that the friendship was all soo peripheral takes away his hope all for a moment, but he doesnt give up still. A feel good movie, do watch it to uplift your sullen mood sometime. And the title is just perfect, inspite of all the horrors, "Life is Beautiful". (Rating : 8.5 / 10)

4. Mangal Pandey - The Rising

Well, I had to see it with my own eyes after all. Having read up all the criticism and brickbats to this long in waiting Aamir Khan flick, I risked my money and time on it one eventless weekday evening. With my expectations rock bottom, let me confess I didnt regret my decision to rent this movie. It aint a classic but it is engrossing. Lets get our facts together first. Its a movie from a director who has his own vision of a particular event in history. No one really knows what transpired in 1857.. so the director (with his own artistic liberties) lends his own vision and imagination. Nothing wrong with that. So lets not debate on whether what is featured in the movie actually ever happened or not. Thats not the point actually.
So all I care for is, that I was not repulsed by the story that unfolded before. I actually thought it was an interesting story to an extent well told. It is soo much better than all the rubbish we get to see in the name of entertainment from directors like David Dhawan and Co. What really appeals to me here is that in 1857, before the first signs of the rebellion (as shown in the movie) people were really undecided whether they hated being under British supremacy or not. It was like any other government. It promised junta justice (it did) and a good life. What it did actually was otherwise is everyones knowledge. But isnt that the same today? We have politicians promising justice and welfare for all, and then get caught accepting bribes for petty reasons. The fact that one segment within the system (the sepoys) actually got together for the first time and realised that this was NOT freedom was for sure a Big moment for our country. The small faction of sepoys never really had a chance on their own to win the freedom of the country.. but it did light up the first match to make it a forest fire. Aamir Khan was as usual good. He melts into a character and you usually forget that its Aamir on the screen. Even here, he does an encore. Rest of the caste is ok too. The British officer as portrayed by Tobey Stephens looks quite unusual. I think this was artistic liberty taken a step too far. Anyway, watch it for yourself before branding it a Big Dissapointment.
(Rating: 7 / 10)

So until next time,
Ciao !

~Krishna~

Back in HYD, Indian Cricket's Jigsaw Puzzle and other stories

2005-11-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

So I had a nice festival time in Delhi. Celebrated the festivals of Diwali and Bhai dooj with lots of fervor and gaiety... ,-) sounding soo essayish aint I ?

The trip was very nice, much needed and on the whole faantaastic. Was nice to be in my own city.. among my gang of friends.. in the numerous family gatherings...

Was hard coming back to HYD.. the first few days were really painfully getting back into the daily grind..

Though I took quite a few pics around this time and also some short videos... unfortunately they all reside on my PC in delhi.. so cant really upload em here...

Coming back, the last 2 weeks just flew by like a blitz.. Loads of work to take care of..
N number of household things to take care of.. :(
For beginners, I had my telephone line dead when I got back.. then it went dead once again within a week.. Right now my car batteries are all cold and stoned..

Moreover we are starting to look around for a decent apartment which we can purchase... squeezing every penny we have made or intend to make or even dream to make... thats exactly like it.. but seems looking at the projects around here, thats not really enough...

Ohk.. coming to some positives now.. well the Indian cricket, the enigma its always been is yet again in the eye of the storm.. This time its not blowing up the Indian team, but it tormented apart Lankans like there was no tomorrow..

My notes from the concluded series:

1. Chappell is a man of action. He doesnt give you wonderful quotes but does what he has been hired to do.

2. The start of it all was the camp he organised at Bangalore. That was what really started the ball rolling.. And over there he had a thorough routine set up for all of the boys in blue. They hit the ground running against the Lankans for a change. From match #1, you could see the sting in the bowling and the zest in the fielding.

3. Strategy. Well, Alls well that ends well.. but then I would credit Team India for atleast trying to try out some strategies. The best of it was the variable no. 3 batsman. I think the idea rocks. Allow lower order folks to come up the order, by rotation or as per demand. That way all of the line up is match fit and have been in the middle when the actual need arises. In the past, Kaif would go without taking guard for matches in a row, when the top order fired. And when it didnt he hadnt touched a ball for ages and you couldnt blame him then.

4. Youngsters. Well, that really uncovered some real young blooded boys who took the opportunity with both thier hands. We tried out RP Singh (ok it was his second series, so what), S Sreesanth, S Raina, MS Dhoni (again he has played before for a while).
* RP Singh: A tall left hand seamer. Bowls real straight and has a knack of picking wickets. Good action.
* Sreesanth: Well, is a nice rythmic bowler, but dont like his action. Has a flingy kinda action. Dont see him in the team for too long.
* S Raina: Looked uneasy in Zim, but here he is finding his feet. Is lightening fast on the field and between the wickets and very very fluent with the bat. The kind of batsman to have at 6/7.
* MS Dhoni: Enough has been said/ written about him. I spotted him when he hadnt hit it this big, and what had struck me about him was not his blazing bat, but his attitude on the field. He is one fella who looks like having fun in there. Lot of the big folks seem like going through a treatment in there. He seems like having he is partying in there. Someone compared his swagger with that of Viv Richards. His batting seems quite unorthodox, and I have yet to make my mind if I like it or not. But he is effective. What I think right now about him is that he has his own style alltogether and though he looks shaky and really all over the place, he has his basics right. And he somewhat knows how to play as per the situation. I think he is getting too much media adulation all too soon. Lets just wait and watch.

5. Good bowling. I think that really served us well this time round. Pathan was bowling real well. But seeing him bowl, I realise he needs to get some work done for his bowling when there is no assistance from the deck. He looks plain average then. Needs a good yorker and some reverse swing soon. Agarkar, for a change was bowling well within himself.. read less erratic as what he can be. I have always liked him and his bowling. There is no doubt he is the most talented bowler of his generation, only if he was focused enough.

6. Sachin. The master is back. And the icing is we dont rely on his for every match. And the topping, he is trying to play his natural game, not just navigate through the day. Good luck to him.

7. Captaincy. Well, Dravid took over fulltime captaincy for the first time. He is doing a fair job as of now. Didnt really need to do too much with the guys doing their best generally. But will be interesting to see how he fares on two counts: Blooding youngsters and managing under performing seniors. That will decide if Dravid-Chappell practise what they preach or it was just a ploy to push off Ganguly Da.

Well, somehow I dont feel sorry for dada. I used to like him and they way he led India in the last 5 years. He seemed to really back his younger fellas and was aggresive. But I kind of think Chappell didnt write horse-crap about dada in his confidential mail to the board. Dada hadnt been in form for the good part of 1.5 yrs (dont thrust statistics plz.. scratching a 50 doesnt show up any different from a fighting 50 on the scorecard!!!). And in the last 5-6 months you could feel that he wasnt just the same captain anymore. And he would once accept that he was off form. I think the board actually preserved his ego by not firing him right after the Dada-Chappell stand off. They allowed him his breathing space and then did what they needed to.

So, I think dada is all but gone. We might just see him back for the test matches, but I dont think he is gonna really return into the fold. That wouldnt help.

So is the case with VVS Laxman, Kumble and Nehra. For one, I never counted Nehra as a cricketer. He was just a bowler. Someone who would frown continuously and scrape through bowling 6-7-8 overs if he was lucky. He couldnt bat at all and forget his fielding. Now you cant afford that kind of 1 dimensional players in world cricket. Unless you want to start your own league or something.

I think Zaheer might just come back in. He always had the guts and the heart of a fast bowler. And if Dra-pell (:-)) truly intend to have the best 11/12, they would have him back sooner than later.

So its been a looong post. Lemme stop now..
Hope to write back soon and maybe some snaps...

Ciao,

~Krishna~

Oscars.. le entree' de Inde..

2005-10-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

Ohk ok.. my french sucks.. pardonne moi..

So the FFI or whatever the film body is called.. who cares, decided that the Official Indian entry to 2006 Oscars would be PAHELI.

Well, most of the time people roll off their opinion about such matters without having seen all of the other movies also in the fray.. me too, but for once I have actually watched ALL of the movies that were in the top bracket and were in contention. So thereby I derive my right to opinionate on the said matter.

First all the movies that were in contention.. Ok the hindi ones only:

Paheli, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Page 3, Black and Iqbal.

Black

Lets start with the what was the favorite to reach LA. Sanjay Bhansali walked away with all the critical acclaim and public hysteria over this hard hitting, gritty tale of a blind-deaf girl and her teacher.
The pros:
- A different movie. Good to see people like SLB moving away from mush and back to the what appeals his own heart.
- Amazing cinematography. Real amazing camera work. The blacks, the grays.. the shadows.. the works..
- The little girl who plays the young Michelle. She rocks..
Cons:
SLB went truly overboard here. He is a very talented director and very intricate in his homework. That shows here, but his script which demands people to be shocked at the young child's plight is manipulative. Close camera shots, violent shrills and loud scenes marr the otherwise amazing screenplay. AB, the most versatile indian actor, overacts more than what would have sufficed. On the whole, the film wants to manipulate you to be shocked.. to be sucked up into a wave of sympathy .. towards the movie.. more than what you feel for the girl and her teacher.

It wouldnt have made the cut at the Oscars.. Too loud for their taste. And they can see through the manipulations. Simplicity is the key. Also the added issue of being called a copy of The Miracle Worker didnt help its cause.

Iqbal

Nagesh Kukunoor at helm. Expect a story well told. This one is..
Simplicity is the key here.. A touching tale of a deaf/ dumb boy who dreams to play for the Indian cricket team (unless Saurav has a problem with him). A nice lilting story, without too many sub plots and really well told. The peripheral characters are all well chosen. Girish Karnad, Naseer, Iqbal's younger sister.. everyone. Quality product.
But its just not the right choice for the Oscars. Its centred around cricket a wee too much. The story is quite predictable.. I mean everyone knows the kid is gonna make it. A terrific watch.. but I would pack it for the Oscars. BTW, if you havnt watched Nagesh Kukunoor's Teen Deewarien.

Hawaaron Khwaishien Aisi

HKA, made by Sudhir Mishra, the one of the art house realm, is a very complex movie. The kinds you need to watch multiple times to uncover its many layers and nuances. Its something to dissect over many a screenings.. pref watching alone. A portral of 3 friends coming and going apart during the Emergency. Its more about relationships than is evident. Again well directed, gritty and morose. Its highly unpredictable the way it moves swifting around the 3 major characters. My personal opinion is that I didnt connect with either of the three characters to really feel for them. All of them are very complex beings and although very real, they dont really bond too well with the viewer. I know its meant to be that way. But just that donest make it love this movie. It must have been a strong contender for the jury and I dont know their reasons why they could not select it. I too wouldnt have..

Paheli

Well so this one won. Ok let me start with the vibes it generated before its release. Amol Palekar, core art house guy directing a film with SRK-Rani and co. on a Rajasthani folk tale. Sounded too good to be true. A mix of both the worlds. Perfect. Thats the reason I still watched it after hearing its horrible reviews. Maybe I wanted to find out by myself, what went wrong if it did. Well, SRK won. It isnt best of both the worlds. He just swung the scales on his side. Amol doesnt infuse any life into this one. There are no layers to uncover here. A straight forward tale of a ghost falling in love with a village girl. The folk tale was supposed to be about how this girl gets to choose about her life for the very first time. But, we dont see Rani like a helpless poor woman. She looks soo lavish, so independent, soo much in command throughout that this tag line flops. Maybe this one told 30 years ago would have connected better with people. The cinematography is very slick.. too slick to my liking for a folk take. The screen play is just too cooked up and altered to what could have been really worthwhile. I know Amol realises that himlself and he is probably as surprised about the jury decision as all of us.
The Jury chose this as it is a folk take, something the Amreeks relate to us Indians. And with a masala camel race thrown in the middle the jury dreamt maybe they could pull it off. Sorry, but this one is gonna miss the cut there in round 1.

Page 3

You must have guessed by now. I kept it away for last, because its my choice for the Oscars. Its one compelling movie well told. Madhur Bhandarkar of Preetii Jaiin fame, directed this take on the the glamour world. This is a satire on the cosmetic lives of the 100 famous people who live to show off in the next big bash. Perfectly timed with what is happening all over the world today, what with wannabes like Mallika Sherwat and Co willing to go all the way to become celibrities. Moreover its a global phenomenon, with US right at the top. Being a celibrity is like an ambition quite a few people nurture. This is a hard hitting take on the concept, and there is never a dull moment. Bhandarkar is not the one with cinematographic visions. His strength is compelling stories about Human weaknesses... He captures it perfectly. Good strong acting from everyone. No major starring roles in this one. Its a commentary on the sordid state with a pinch of salt. Dark humour for us indians alien to the concept. I would liked to see this off to the Academy awards. They like a compelling story well told. Its both.. and to top it all, it connects with people across national boundaries.

So until next time, lets hope the Academy goofs up and we see the Stuttering Khan waving the Golden statuette.

Adios,

~krishna~

Mom-Dad here... = nice weekend !

2005-10-10T04:10:00.000-07:00

Mom came in here last monday nite. And Dad came in friday nite and its been a rocking time since. Truly marvellous to have them here.. Just incredible.. or like the Yankees roll out all the time "AWESOME.." ,-)

So I had a nice weekend. Showed (off) dad and mom around the new MS Campus.. and both of them were mightly impressed.. well, the campus is for sure an eye opener :D

It is nice of MS to let you get your parents to work. You can show them around the place peacefully.. and no one minds..

Sunday, we also went to the Birla Mandir and Charminar.
Now Birla Mandir is one nice place here in HYD. Atop a small hillock overlooking the entire city, its a peaceful and nice temple devoted to Lord Vinayak. The wite marble all over the place remains soo cool even if its a little on the sunnier side. I love to sit on the white marble after the visit to the main temple and just rest around there.

Charminar was like it always is.. crowded... brimming with people. But its a different place and you have to have that kind of sensibilities to enjoy its environment. In short, not the kind of palce everyone would enjoy. For a change I didnt... Just too congested that day for me.

We also went to the HussainSagar Lake in the evening. Now thats something to wonder about. For a big time change, a placid nice lake has been developed by the government to something much more than its potential.. and it feels good to think that an Indian state government dint screw it as most of you expect them to..
They have a nice well done roads all round the lake, which lights up in the evennigs and is apty called the Necklace road.. maybe a picture of it here someday. And on one side of the lake they have developed an elongated Promenade.. entwined between lawns and foilage. Beyond it, there is a food court, which overlooks the lake. Truly faaantaaastic...
.. if only the people around can resist from getting rid of their waste right there on the walkways...

So, in all a nice loong weekend.. the kinds that stretches into the Monday and just refuses to let go.. :(

Cheers,

~Krishna~

Bz WeeKs

2005-09-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

Have been having some bz weeks...
Quite a lot of things to do or fix.. and not entirely fun things..
Anyway thats how starts are.. so be it..

Meanwhile, weekends have been mostly fine lately.. mostly relaxing.
Caught up on a few movies past weeks..
A quick round-up :

IQBAL
Really nice and touching movie. Makes you realise how awfully good Nagesh Kukunoor is. Simple straight forward story told really really well. Top class acting.. and the young kid (who plays Iqbal) rocks.. Naseer is solid as ever.. and So is Girish Karnad. Old timers at their best. The best part is the uplifting spirit is enduces. And specially in these times of Ganguly-Chappel feuds, makes you realise cricket was meant to be about passion not politics..

Zaher
Good story.. Average screenplay... Bad direction.
Ok I dont like this chap.. Emraan Hashmi.. but heard this one had a nice story. The dir ruined the movie with patchy editing and really awful ending. Features two girls : Udita Goswami, Shamita Shetty. Neither can act. PERIOD.
Demonstrates how a catchy storyline can engage you inspite bad acting.
PS: A couple of really nice soulful songs..

Salaam|Namaste
Overhyped.. Cmon, this is was just a masala flick which dint even pretend to scratch the surface of live-in relationships. Just a fun-frolic-masala flick. Amazing locations and sights captured on film. That was the best part. But plzzzzz dont go to watch it for its storyline.

Anyway moving away from movies, Mom is coming over on Monday. so am all kicked up about it. Dying to see her.. been a looooong time.

So watch out for my next post. Hopefully should have lotsa travel news.. lotsa pics and stuff.

Cheers,
~Krishna~

Settled in HYD.. finally....

2005-08-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Hi to all my fans and friends...
,-)
.
.

Ohk Hi all my friends...

So finally am quite a bit settled and comfortable in HYD.. My home is all setup.. and so is things at office..
So you all can now start pouring in at HYD.. ohk.. one at a time plz... :-)

My home is in a place called YELL-a-Reddy-Guda... no its not a Dial-Reddy kinda service... just plain Telugu typa name...

Ohk.. well the place is quite a decent and green.. Green as in greenery and foilage..
So its quite a nice and peaceful sight to look from the balcony..
Its a 3 BHK place but I managed to convert it a 2 BHK + Sitout...
well, actually its a proper bedroom but since it is attached with the balcony and that too only with some huge windows and all, it looks more a part of the balcony.. and thats how we treat it as..

Maybe some pics of the place might clear things a bit.. dont expect em tomorrow... am supposed to be BZ..

Well, life in Hyd has been so far so good.. nice smallish city.. with too many people ...
Really, on weekends its hard to think of a place we can visit to generally hang-out or so.. We end up mostly in a mall called Hyderabad Central, which is just 10 mins away.. Its a typical mall where I mostly come out with my wallet a lot lighter... and my hands heavier...

One more interesting thing... which is absolutely non-interesting is the traffic...
It seems absolutely chaotic and is really inspirational to someone actually interested in Comp Sc to study Random functions..
Seriosuly, I am scared to drive around the place and the 2 scratches and 1 dent on my ZEN can vouch for that... and remember how much I prided myself on my smooth driving back in Delhi...

On the office front things are quite better... We had the MS IDC 7th Year anniversary celebrations on Saturday.. and it was actually fun.. The beer helped the matter IMO.... But the rock band was nice and so were a few presentations by IDC folks....

Hey, its been ages since I clicked anything.. with a camera offcourse...
My last outing was to the Charminar.. and trust me its truly elegant...
So to end this looong post, here are some pics of the place...

CHARMINAR PICS

#1 : A Diagonal view of Cminar..

#2: BLACK
the most dominant color in that area is black… black of burqas the women put on there… in the BG you see amazing clouds.. almost make it look unreal..

#3: Jyothi.

#4: Prototype view...
Must have seen this view in so many magazines and journals...

#5: Cminar, and the roadside ‘thelas’ …. Quite a colorful view…

#6: Minars
Magnificient.. all of em..

#7 : the mosque..

#8 : Charminar in chains..

So its been a long time since I have been out with my camera..
Looking forward to chance to give my camera a workout..

anyway, feel free to write back ur comments.. fan mail... and watever else you might want... :D

Ciao,

~Krishna

Am a Microsoftie now..

2005-07-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

Yeah.. joined MS on 11th July, Monday..
Am one of those in the Evil Dark empire... ,-)

Is a great campus btw..
Actually a campus.. not to mention a spanking new building.. Yankee style..

and no restrictions on timings/ security/ ......
do what you want is the mantra...

still exploring the place really.. so dont really have a final opinion about the place.. will keep writing as and when i discover this new place..

HYD is actually a nice place.. contrary to my believe that people must have been wrong when they claimed it to be one...
Not big enough.. not small ..
nice simple people you can actually talk to..

Again, still discovering the place..

So sigining off for now,
~krishna~

My last days here..

2005-07-04T01:06:00.000-07:00

I end my period with ST tomorrow i.e. 5th July, Tuesday. After 2 year 7 months...
Somehow I aint all that nostalgic or emotional.. i knew it was around the corner for a while..
So I was kind of mentally prepared..

The only thing I will miss for sure is my group.. had some real nice people in my group and will miss them.. Hope to keep contact with them.. and considering I belong here in Delhi, I hope to see them sometimes too..

For now, am busy taking the necessary clearances from various departments.. before they can relieve me.. A big time boring activity.. specially on your last few working hours...

Signing off,

~krishna~

skyline..

2005-07-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

Skyline of metropolitan Delhi..

One of those rare evenings in Delhi where the moon and the colors of the sky actually shows..
Took this one from the terrace of my apartment.. not the best possible shot.. but still liked it..
Some touch-up on the comp as well..

aaaaarghhh... there is alooooong way to go for me to really get some eye-catching stuff...
till then will have to do with mediocre stuff like this ...

Signin' off,

Krishna

Lemme check the date again... O ho.. Its 21st Century here... REALLY ????

2005-07-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

Imrana..

been a name quite in news here for a while.. The mother of 5 who was raped by her father-in-law..
The religious clerics of 'Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband' allegedly issued a fatwa on her instructing her to separate from her Husband..
Yeah you read that Right...
And now today there is a news piece claiming that the organisation never really issued such a fatwa..

read on here 'No fatwa in Imrana rape case: Deoband' !!!
Also read what Amit Varma writes at India Uncut about this..

Sometimes I wonder if the entire of India lives in the same Time Zone..
No one has cared to speak about the father-in-law in question.. while the poor woman has been dubbed 'haraaam' (forbidden)... aaargh..

It still is 11th Century in some parts of India... so much for India Shining !!

Signing off for now,
Krishna

A new beginning...

2005-07-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hi..

So here it is.. a new beginning. A new blog..
Not my first.. but then almost my first.. Starting afresh after a break of nearly an year...

KRISHNA
26 Married

Am still in Delhi.. my last few days here.. as I wind up my work and other activites from here..
Quite hectic.. but am loving it..
a nice change from the dredgery of my job.. never really pushed me enough..

Anyway you ll read more about it as I write on.. which hopefully I shall...

Ahaa.. forget to write .. I am gonna post pictures here often..
Am quite hooked on photography.. still learning.. and enjoying it..

So here is a start...

GANESHA !!

As per traditional Indian customs, Ganesha is known to bring good luck for starting a new activity.
Not that I am a hard core traditionalist.. but then I still chose this one... to start with..

Till we meet again !!
Signing off,

Krishna