Arbit Thoughts

Anasi Boys

2011-10-17T16:00:00.000+05:30

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" is a joyride for anyone who has been fascinated by age old folk tales, magic and wacky humor.
The book starts with Anansi, the trickster Spider-god, dying all of a sudden in his regular night club. His estranged son, Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, lives across the pond in London burbs and gets the news when he tries to locate his father to invite him, on the behest of this fiance, for his impending marriage. Fat Charlie likes a normal life with a 9-to-5 job, a few extra inches around his waist and not an ounce of magic or trickery about him. Heartbroken, somewhat to his own surprise, Fat Charlie, comes down to the US for his father's funeral.
At the funeral, he realizes that his father was a God (of sorts) and that he has a long lost brother, Spider. A brother who inherited Anansi's magical legacy and Godhood. In order to make up for lost time, Fat Charlie invites Spider to come and visit him. Spider turns up and singlehandedly almost destroys Fat Charlie's career and love life. What's more, Spider refused to get out of his un-magical brother's simple life. Desperate to get rid of his seemingly evil brother, Fat Charlie ends up making a deal to evict him with forces that are way behind his comprehension. The deal proves to be very expensive for Charlie.
The book is magical mostly because of the protagonist's journey from, er, Muggledom to that of a demi-God. It is, in its roots, a coming-of-age novel. Gaiman's clever prose and subtle yet wacky humor makes this a fun, fast read.
Highly recommended.

Turbulence

2011-09-26T17:30:00.000+05:30

Turbulence by Samit Basu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Before you start reading this book, you should learn to ignore the "first Indian superhero novel" tag, it doesn't really do justice to the book. Samit Basu's "Turbulence" is a mixed bag. It is rather fun to read but also feels like a parody of a number of books and graphic novels in the superhero genre (not by accident, if I had to wager).
The plot's quite interesting: Travelers on a certain seemingly normal London-New Delhi BA flight disembark without knowing that they all have acquired unique superhuman powers. Some can fly, some have super-human strength, some can replicate themselves, and so on... As time goes by, the unassuming superheros start understanding and using their superpowers.
The book starts in the middle of the things when there are already the quintessential "Good and evil" factions created. The latter is head by a Jai Mathur, an Army Veteran whose powers have escalated him to become to toughest warrior in the world. Jai has plans to start a new world order and for this, he starts gathering other powered people around him. Those who deny are ruthless put out of action. Meanwhile, somewhere in Mumbai, the "Good" faction is gathering together at the behest of a certain Aman Sen, who led a nondescript life before gaining the superpowers to manipulate all sorts of communication networks, particularly the internet. Things come to a head when Jai and Aman's forces clash, just to realize that they might be played by a certain third party.
"Turbulence" is a heady mix of "Watchmen", "X-Men" with a sprinkling of every piece of superhero fiction you would have ever read. Basu's tone swings from dead serious to blatant spoof way too many times to slot this novel as anything. It is unabashedly good fun, no doubt but it ends abruptly with too many loose ends and an unsatisfying climax. Somewhat like the last pages of "The Simoquin Prophecies" where Kirin abruptly leaves Maya and rides off to find himself and rule his new found dominion of the Ravians. This promises a sequel.
I was a bit let down in the end though it was a really fast read. Some interesting moments along the way but in the end it is nothing new.

Shaitan

2011-08-17T08:16:00.002+05:30

Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal, Kalki Koechlin, Gulshan Devaiya, Shiv Pandit, Neil Bhoopalam, Kirti Kulhari, Pawan Malhotra, Rajit Kapoor and Raj Kumar Yadav

Director: Bejoy Nambiar

"If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space", goes the tagline of the movie - the mantra followed by the protagonists, who happen to be rich young college going brats who like to drive fast cars, drink till they drop and snort cocaine whenever they get a chance.

The story starts with Amy (Koechlin), a young woman with a disturbed childhood, moving to Mumbai with her father (Kapoor) and step-mom. While Amy is struggling to get over the trauma of her mentally disturbed mother's death, her father and step-mom have a hard time dealing with her. In Mumbai, she meets KC (Devaiya) at a party and he introduces her to his gang (Pandit, Kulhari, Bhoopalam). The gang's idea of sticking together is to drive in the fast lane, loot drug stores in the middle of the night and generally party all the time. Amy takes to the group like a fish to water.

Things take a turn when the youngsters get involved in a freak accident where they end up killing a couple of people. Afraid of what their parents would say, they try to bury the matter but are caught by a cop Malwankar (Yadav). However, Malwankar turns to be a corrupt cop and demands a hefty sum to dismiss the matter. Scared and unsure, the gang decides the best way of handling things could be to stage Amy's kidnapping and ask her dad for a ransom. However, things go horribly wrong.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to a tough-as-nails cop, Arvind Mathur (Khandelwal), who is under suspension. As the gang's plans go awry, it becomes a high profile police case and the commissioner (Malhotra) brings Mathur back in to handle this case. Unknowingly, Mathur stumbles across nightmarish criminality as he chases the gang across the underbelly of Mumbai.

With "Shaitan", Nambiar presents a disturbing yet not unfamiliar portrait of the contemporary Indian youth. Without a care or a life-goal, the gang represents what could go terribly wrong with youth. However, this is not the high point of the movie - the high point is how the subject is treated. "Shaitan" never gets preachy or moralistic, it just tells the story as it is without taking sides. The protagonists are morally corrupt, aimless and hardly role-model material but the movie neither glorifies them nor does it condemn them.

Among the cast, Khandelwal stands out with his rather brief but effective role. Shiv Pandit is very effective as Dash, the seemingly cool-headed and calculating master planner who has a sociopath lurking underneath, is particularly good. As is Gulshan Devaiya in the role of KC, the unofficial gang leader and the jester of the lot. rest of the three (Koechlin, Bhoopalam and Kulhari) do a good job as well. Raaj Kumar Yadav (of "LSD" and "Ragini MMS" fame) is rather brilliant as the corrupt cop who sets this whole crime roller-coaster into action. Actually, I think everyone in the cast has done a fantastic job!

The film has some serious flaws though. For one, there is an overdose of the psychedelic visuals throughout the movie. Nicely done, but it distracts after a while. Second, Amy's recollections of her mother and her disturbed childhood are very distracting and completely redundant. Third, the movie changes tone very so often - it turns from a buddy film to a crime thriller to a dark comedy and then back again - this works in some parts but on a whole the movie looks somewhat disjointed.

My Rating: 7 out of 10. A brilliant first effort by Bejoy Nambiar, "Shaitan" tells a compelling tale. I hope to see more impressive stuff coming from Nambiar.

Zindagi na milegi Dobara

2011-07-30T14:08:00.005+05:30

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin

Director: Zoya Akhtar

For starters, ignore all the people who go around declaring this movie to be a cross between "Dil Chahta Hain" and "The Hangover". Every movie that has some male bonding elements is not a "DCH" wannabe and every movie that's about a bachelor party doesn't mean it is aping "The Hangover".

As it is with any movie, if you know what to expect, "Zindagi..." is a fairly entertaining movie in its own right. It is about 3 childhood friends who have made a pact to celebrate their last few days of bachelorhood by indulging into extreme sports of each other's choice. The movie begins with Kabir (Deol) getting engaged to his girlfriend Natasha (Koechlin). So their long pending pact comes into effect and the 3 friends meet up in Barcelona, Spain.

The rest of the movie is how the 3 boys rediscover themselves and re-evaluate their life and relationships. Arjun (Roshan) realizes that his current workaholic routine so that he can retire by 40 is not allowing him to stop and smell the roses. Imran (Akhtar), who just realized that his biological father is not the person that raised him, finally comes to terms with his life. Meanwhile, Kabir starts doubting whether he wants into a marriage right now.

The movie is good fun, the interactions between the friends is quite nicely scripted and often delivers some genuine laughs. Farhan Akhtar is particularly effective as an easygoing, disorganized guy who doesn't take anything seriously. Katrina Kaif, as Laila - the deep sea diving instructor, looks like a million bucks and for once has a meaty role that she delivers fairly well. Roshan and Deol are underused.

There are some problems with the movie though. One, I think they overdid the TV teaser and promos - all the fun moments are already captured in those and if you have seen every teaser, the movie gets predictably boring. The score and the songs aThe other problem is due to the locales. Exotic Spanish locations and the extreme sports angle distract more than they contribute to the story. Finally, I was a bit unsatisfied with the ending (the song in the end credits). I think the final still where all the 3 friends run in the encierro should have been a good ending for the movie, leaving the user to wonder what decisions did the friends make.

My Rating: 5.5 out 10. Fun to watch but doesn't stay with you. Full points to the styling, Farhan Akhtar and Kaif. I had expected better from Zoya Akhtar after the brilliant "Luck by chance".

The Cobra

2011-07-14T12:01:00.002+05:30

The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Classic Forsyth novel. This one is about an all-out war on cocaine machine by a mysterious ex-spook Paul Devereaux aka The Cobra, assigned to this mission directly by the POTUS.

The Cobra surveys the cocaine industry and decides that the best way to put an end to the cocaine traffic is when it is being shipped over the sea. The Cobra books the ex-bounty hunter, ex-lawyer and Forsyth's old hack, Cal Dexter as his right hand and it is Dexter who does most of the groundwork - from co-ordinating with various governments of the world to blackmailing drug lords.

Overall, a very fast read. Forsyth's writing is a little conventional, often predictable but anyone who has read him before will not be disappointed.

The twist in the last few pages is brilliant.

Delhi Belly

2011-07-12T11:33:00.003+05:30

Cast: Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Poorna Jagannathan, Shenaz Treasury, Vijay Raaz

Dir: Abhinay Deo.

From the initial promos, I was convinced that "Delhi Belly" is one of those new-gen movies trying too hard to connect to the young audience by by using colloquial languages. I was not impressed by the "Bhaag DK Bose" song at all. Seemed too stupid to me (though the rock tune itself was not bad).

Anyway, after dilly-dallying finally caught "Delhi Belly" in theaters last night before the courts act on the PILs. Turned to be a fairly funny movie.

The story is about 3 average single-and-working Delhi boys - Tashi (Khan), Nitin (Kapur) and Arup (Das) - who share a rundown flat in the by-lanes of Delhi. Shit happens when Tashi's air-hostess girlfriend Sonia (Treasury) picks up a mysterious package on behalf of a friend from an unknown Russian and promises to drop it off somewhere in Delhi. Sonia hands over the package to Tashi, who offloads it to Nitin who passes the responsibility to Arup who finally drops it off to the lair of a local goon (Raaz). Hilarity ensues as the precious package gets exchanged with a stool sample from Nitin, who has an acute case of Montezuma's Revenge aka Delhi Belly.

Writer Akshat Verma's script is reminiscent of Guy Ritchie capers - street-language, violence and completely over-the-top situations. A lot of people will be put off by the scatological references all over while others may find it interesting just for the same reason. Beyond the expletives and the toilet humor, "Delhi Belly" has a good story going and has it own touches that are funnier than the superficial packaging everyone is raving about. What cracked me up is not the stool-sample exchange but the fact that it was collected in an old Chawanprash bottle. More than the gaalis, it is life-style the bachelors lived in that rings true. Any single male sharing an apartment in an urban Indian city would relate to the protagonists' messy apartment overrun by cockroaches and with a perennial water shortage.

My Rating: 6.5/10. Don't go by what the critics say - it is doesn't really redefine Indian cinema nor is it the best movie you would have ever watched. Don't watch just to feel thrilled to see actors swearing like you and me. "Delhi Belly" is a comedy-thriller in its own right - funny in parts.

Shor in the City

2011-07-10T20:27:00.002+05:30

Cast: Tusshar Kapoor, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Nikhil Dwivedi, Sundeep Kishen, Pitobash, Radhika Apte, Preeti Desai and Zakir Hussain

Directed by: Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK

For those who came in late, Raj N. and Krishna DK were the guys behind the laugh riots - "Flavors" (2004) and "99" (2009). Funny one-liners, interesting characterizations and a fast paced script - these seem to be in the director-duo's signature style. "Shor" has all that.

Like the duo's past 2 ventures, "Shor" has multiple interlinked story lines. The setting is in Mumbai during the Ganesh festival - 10 days from Chaturthi to Visarjan. First story is about Tilak (Kapoor), who runs a pirated books racket along with his never-do-good friends - Mandook (Pitobash) and Ramesh (Dwivedi). While the trio tries plan their next big "hit" - getting a manuscript from a famous author before it is publicly released, Tilak learns to deal with his new marriage. While Tilak picks up the reading habit, his 2 friends come across a cache of fire-arms in a local train and they don't know what to do with it...

Meanwhile, Abhay (Ramamurthy), moves to Mumbai to start his life afresh, undoubtedly with some leaving behind some ghosts of his past in the US of A. Even as he starts to establish his office, he gets sucked into a protection racket run by a crafty local goon (Zakir Hussain). Things go out of hand when the goons threaten Abhay's girlfriend (Desai)...

The third story is about a struggling cricketer Sawan (Kishan) who is just out of luck on the day when he has to qualify for the Mumbai team - his path to riches. As his desperation to keep his promises to his girlfriend increases, he decides to go bribe his way through the selection committee. Only problem is he doesn't have the money...

All the 3 different stories collide into each other as expected and the jigsaw is complete. Oh, and yes, all the individual stories are inspired by true life events.

"Shor" is a dark, dark thriller with enough elements to keep the viewers' interest. It also deserves all the positive responses it has received from the critics. However, speaking for someone who liked Raj N.-Krishna DK duo's first 2 movies, I must say I am somewhat disappointed. It doesn't have the spunk of "Flavors" or the hilarity of "99". It seems to be succumb under its own weight at times.

Still "Shor" is excellent film-making and is several notches above the crap hits the screens every Friday. Watch it for some clever twists, some good acting performances (particularly Pitobash and Dwivedi) and some dark humor.

My Rating: 6.5/10.

Civilization by Niall Ferguson

2011-07-10T20:16:00.001+05:30

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Niall Ferguson, the clever British historian-author, indeed has the gift of explaining things. In "Civilization", he looks at the "West" as we know it (both as a culture as well as the socio-economic state that it is) and the "Rest" - the erstwhile colonies, 3rd world countries, South American countries, etc. and tries to see what sets the "West" apart.
The book starts with a peek at the world in the beginning of the 16th century - when Asian cities were not just the largest but also the much more prosperous than the cities of "West" like London. So what happened in a span of 500 years that turned things completed around. Then, as Ferguson walks down the paths of history, he proposes six "killer applications" that help the "West" get where it is and these are i) Competition, ii) Science, iii) Medicine, iv) Property rights and legislation v) Consumerism and vi) the Work Ethic.
Each of the six arguments are brilliant, no doubt. The problem with the book is that Ferguson tries too hard. What could have been a superlative 100-page essay is dragged to over 325 pages allowing the author to ramble away throwing in bits of interesting, but seemingly unrelated, historical notes. A bigger problem is that his justification is not consistent: To prove one point, he picks up a particular set of players (say, Ming dynasty in China vs. British colonizers) but completely drops these players for the next point. I am not saying I was expecting his arguments to be universal, but the point is that Ferguson spends thousands of describing the subtleties of the social condition of the players - which is a complete waste of ink and the readers' time. For instance, I do not see why should I read all about French colonization in Senegal when the topic is about Medicine - what happened to the Italian and British pioneers of medicine?
Also, the book tries to extrapolate, in patches, to apply history to future - using several references of how civilizations are cyclic in nature and death feeds new life and stuff. What is the point? If I need to read speculation and "connect-the-dots" kind of literature - I will pick up whatever Malcolm Gladwell or Steven D. Levitt print next.
Not really impressed beyond the base point of the book - the six "killer apps" that worked in the West.

Moving on...

2011-06-05T12:20:00.004+05:30

Six years, six months and 2 days.

That's how long I stuck around at my last job. In that course, my employers changed thrice, through employee transfers and acquisitions. Each change brought in new opportunities. I must say I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time and know the right people on several occasions. When I last changed my job, I didn't leave a blog record for some reason. And this rather disjoint entry is just to remind me years later what was I thinking at that this point. That's the second time I am changing jobs in a career spanning 11 years - so yes, it is a big deal for me :).

Tomorrow, I will finally move out this comfort zone and try out something I have never tried before - working with friends I have known for years socially. It will be an interesting experiment and I have absolutely no idea how it will play out. It will be definitely be very exciting to work in a small company again - hope that some of the energy will brush off to me and helps me to shake off this rather thick patina of lethargy that has set in over the last few years. By the looks of it, I will have to land running at full speed on Monday - there are already 4 different things to look at.

I sat down and thought about my last professional stint over the last few days. Surprisingly, it is not the "know-how" or the exposure to technology, market, process or business that's left behind. I would only remember and cherish some friendships. I think that's pretty much what's left at the end of the day, everything else seems small stuff. Probably is.

2011-05-23T11:02:00.000+05:30

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Element" is kind of a follow-up book to Sir Ken Robinson's famous 2006 TED Talk on how schools kill creativity. In particular, the book talks about how most of us never discover what our core passions are and end doing jobs that we do not really like.
For most part, Sir Robinson uses anecdotes to illustrate how famous people found their "element" and fought odds to reach where they are now. A good percentage of the interviews are original and are quite insightful. Finally they all boil down to the fact that much is this is due to our educational systems. 13 years of schooling is modeled to satisfy the industry, which in turn is modeled on the post-Industrial revolution society and the job opportunities it offered.
The last few chapters get a bit tedious, but perhaps that also because I have been following Sir Robinson for a long time now and have heard what he had to say on several forums (including TED).
In any case, it is very inspirational book for those of us who needs some encouragement and perhaps a hidden desire to get our thoughts on education ratified. Recommended.

No one killed Jessica

2011-05-16T10:51:00.002+05:30

Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Vidya Balan, Myra Karn, Neil Bhoopalam, Rajesh Sharma

Director: Raj Kumar Gupta

"No one killed Jessica" is Gupta's second movie as a director after "Aamir". Like most other viewers, "Aamir" was way better than I expected. Sure, some critics complained that it is not an "original", that it was "lifted" from the Filipino cult-hit "Cavite" and so on. I have not seen "Cavite" but I know one thing for sure: the reason why I liked "Aamir" was a rare quality that was infused in it by Gupta. It had brilliant cinematography, a very powerful soundtrack and never went over board with jingoism or emotions. The idea for it would be picked from "Cavite" but I would not take any credit from Gupta for making "Aamir" stand out on its own.

I saw this movie about a month ago on DVD, with high expectations of course. Gupta doesn't disappoint though the movie doesn't have the raw energy of "Aamir". Everyone knows the story line, so I will not go into that here. The treatment the movie gets makes it worthwhile. Apart from the few scenes in the newsroom, where journo Meera Gaitly's (Mukherjee) character is being defined and a couple of instances of court scenes, I think this movie is spot on!

It is difficult to make a movie based on true incident, so don't just watch it to understand what happened in the Jessica Lall murder case - news archives will tell you much more. Watch "No one..." for what it is: a good movie that has a lot going for it. First, most of the characters are lively middle-class people. Second, the screenplay holds your attention. There are a number of things that scenes (like the murderer's parents visiting the victim's parents to offer condolences) that work because of they are played just right. Third, the score by Amit Trivedi is fantastic. That guy is a genius!

Finally, and this for me was the most important ingredient, Gupta brings the city to life! Delhi is practically of the main characters in the movie, and rightfully so. Without bringing Delhi right in the center of proceedings, I do not "No one..." would have delivered the goods right.

My rating: 7.5/10. Full points to Vidya Balan as Sabrina Lall and Rajesh Sharma as the investigating crop.

The man who mistook his wife for a hat

2011-05-14T11:50:00.001+05:30

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This seminal 1985 book by top neurologist Oliver Sacks is a collection of his experiences treating patients with uncommon neurological ailments. Probably the first of its kind to bridge the gap between serious mental medicinal literature and popular essays. V.S. Ramachandran (of "The Phantoms in the Brain" fame) follows a pretty much similar vein of writing.
Sacks is clearly has a gift of words and a manner of articulating complex mental disorders in a language that the lay reader can comprehend. The chapters are essays focusing a particular patient or a group of patients suffering from similar ailments. Sacks divides the book into four parts, each dedicated to a "particular aspect of brain function".
The first part, "Losses", has observations on patients who have lost a particular mental ability: the inability to process visual input (though the eyes are fine), anterograde amnesia (Koraskov's syndrome) - inability create new memories beyond a certain point in time (yes, as seen in Nolan's "Memento"), the loss of the body's "mental image" (proprioception), which is essential to co-ordinate the limbs and general motor function and so on.
The second, "Excesses", Sacks dedicates to a less discussed set of disorders: the ones in which the patient seem to "gain" unsolicited and involuntary abilities such as nervous ticks (Tourette's syndrome), heightened alertness caused as a by-product of a degenerative disease like syphilis or drugs, heightened sensory powers caused by intoxication or drugs, etc. Sacks believes that a lot of these cases do not get the attention they deserve as they are expected to be "enhancements" not "losses".
The third part, "Transports", deals with rare cases where the patient feels "transported" to a different or a past world of experiences. These strange phenomena typically are some buried reminiscences surfacing and overriding or bundling themselves with the actual sensory inputs. Phenomena like these are typically associated with demonic possession in the past.
The last part, "The World of the Simple", talks about autism in general where Sacks talks about various patients with a striking ability to do a particularly complex thing, such as mental mathematics, impeccable sketching ability, instantly counting random objects, etc. Though most of these "simple" people cannot be completed treated, Sacks feels that they still understand most of the human emotions and can find peace and acceptance in the society. However, he warns us about instances where the peers tries too hard to "socialize" such patients and how it may result in loss of the unique faculty these gentle people seem to possess.

Overall, a very brilliant book. A little harder to read than "Phantoms in the Brain" but full of remarkable essays about the mysteries of the mind: puzzles beyond humans' capacity to solve. Sacks writes in a manner that is very respectful of the patient and his/her family, never drowning his narrative in pity or hopelessness. Fascinating, compelling read.

2011-05-05T15:22:00.001+05:30

King Rat by China Miéville

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

China Mieville has a very good standing among the "new-age" fantasy writers, however it is difficult to spot one of his books here in India. So I grabbed "King Rat" almost as soon as I saw it on the shelves of a second-hand bookstore.
"King Rat" is set in modern day London and is about a young man, Saul Garamond, as he comes to term to the fact that he is a rat-human hybrid. The book starts with Saul returning home to his father one night. The next morning he wakes up to a bunch of cops investigating a murder - his father's. Saul is the prime suspect.
Then, as Saul wonders sitting in the cell what should be done next, he is rescued by a mysterious personality who calls himself King Rat. King Rat breaks the news to Saul that they share the same blood line and that Saul is half-rat. The King Rat, along with his friends Anansi (the master of spiders) and Loplop (master of birds) have been holding up for many centuries against another mysterious personality called The Piper. The Piper, who is indicated to be the one featured in the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" legend, is the chief protagonist of the book. He is also the "Master of Dance" and can controls the minds of animals and humans alike through his piped music. Saul soon realizes that he is possibly the only one who can be immune to the Piper's music due to his hybridism.
I found "King Rat" to be entertaining in some parts and equally boring in others. The pace varies through out the book and it is difficult to say I truly enjoyed it. Mieville spends more time describing Jungle Music, which may be probably very well appreciated by the Jungle fans: unfortunately, I am not one of them. I feel the characters could have better defined instead.

Rio

2011-04-26T12:31:00.004+05:30

Cast (Voice): Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jemaine Clement, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Mann

Director: Carlos Saldanha

The "Ice Age" gang is back with another winner! This time director Carlos Saldanha takes the party to his own home town: Rio de Janeiro!

"Rio" is about a pampered macaw, Blu (Eisenberg), raised as a pet by geeky book shop owner, Linda (Mann). Linda and Blu live a perfectly cozy life in frigid Minnesota for many years when trouble arrives. A nerdy ornithologist-scientist Julio (Rodrigo Santoro) arrives to Linda's book shop looking for Blu. Julio reveals that Blu is perhaps the only male of his (endangered) species and that the last known female of the species was recently found.

Julio urges Linda to get Blu down to Rio de Janeiro, where the female blue macaw, Jewel (Hathaway), is being kept. Julio wants the 2 birds to mate and thereby give their species a chance. Linda reluctantly agrees and all 3 characters reach Rio just on the eve of Carnivale.

Jewel turns out to be a "too hot" for the clumsy and shy Blu and their mating plans go for a toss when Jewel only seems to be interested in getting out of the captivity. Blu is too embarrassed by the fact that he can't even fly like Jewel. Things get worse when Julio's lab is raided by a poacher gang with the help of a street urchin, Fernando, and a rogue trained cockatoo, Nigel (Clement, brilliant!). The 2 macaws are captured and Fernando hands them over to the gang's kingpin. The rest of the story is about the macaws' escapade from the clutches of the gang and the mad chase that criss crosses the whole city of Rio, with a whole bunch of colorful characters on the way: the ever-helpful but clumsy drooling bulldog, the samba loving canary, the party-bird Toucan, the bunch of mercenary thieving monkeys - you name it :).

"Rio" is right on the cue in every department which makes it fun for all ages. Every frame is a riot of color and the spirit of the city is well captured. The voices are perfect - Eisenberg proves that he can play the best nerd in town again (after "Zombieland" and "The Social Network"), Hathaway is note perfect, will.i.am and Jamie Foxx fall provide the vocals, even the "human" voices by Mann and Santoro are great! The cake, however, goes to the brilliant Jemaine Clement as Nigel, the bad-ass cockatoo: fantastic.

My rating: 8/10. Didn't have so much fun in the cinema hall for a long time. Highly recommended.

Dil toh Bachcha hain Ji

2011-04-24T14:00:00.002+05:30

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Omi Vaidya, Tisca Chopra, Shahzn Padamsee, Shruti Haasan, Shraddha Das

Director: Madhur Bhandarkar

To be honest, I had expectations from an adult-oriented romantic comedy from Bhandarkar. Like most other viewers, I was quite tired of the director's exposé brand of movies and I thought this would bring in a fresh breath of energy in his career.

Not entirely happy with the movie.

The story is about 3 different types of men and their take on true love: Naren (Devgn), a banker in his late 30s undergoing a divorce and a mid-life crisis; Abhay (Hashmi), a philandering, happy-go-lucky gym instructor; and Milind (Vaidya), an unlucky-in-love matrimonial consultant. The latter two end up as paying guests at Naren's palatial house and they soon realize that they all have the same common problems: women and love.

While Naren finds himself attracted towards a barely-out-of-her-teens intern (Padamsee) at office, Milind falls for a haughty radio jockey (Das) that he bumps into at a social event. Meanwhile, Abhay is content being a toy-boy for a rich, beautiful and middle-aged socialite (Chopra). The rest of the movie is about ups-and-downs in the trio's love lives.

DTBHJ is not a boring movie. But I feel it is 10 years too late. Bhandarkar tries hard to keep the movie "clean" and as a result, wipes out the true laughs. This idea could have worked better if Bhandarkar has made this into a single-season TV series. Devgn and Vaidya are all wasted in their roles. Hashmi and Chopra, thankfully, give some credibility to their roles. Shruthi Haasan proves that she didn't quite inherit the acting chops from her parents while Shraddha Das can't act to save her life. Both these women are utterly annoying. Padamsee manages to look cute in her unbelievably juvenile role but does do much.

I wish Bhandarkar tries some more fresh next time.

My Rating: 4/10. Not quite what I expected.

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

2011-04-24T13:19:00.003+05:30

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sikander Kher, Vishaka Singh.

Director: Ashutosh Gowariker

Based on Manini Chatterjee's novel, "KHJJS" is based on the 1930 Chittagong uprising led by Surjya Sen (Bachchan). Sen and his friends, most of them the educated middle-class of the city of Chittagong, had planned a co-ordinated attack on the British establishments in the city on April 18th 1930. The movie spans the period a few months before and after the date and tells the story of how the revolutionaries planned and executed the attacks and the manhunt after the event.

One of the most striking thing about the Chittagong uprising is the voluntary involvement of a gang of teenagers, who played a crucial role in the execution of the attacks on the establishments and risked their lives.

To tell the truth, the plot is engaging and the fact that it tells us about an event in India's history which is not very known (at least I don't remember reading about this in my school history books) makes it a compelling watch. It is has its set of flaws though.

First of all, it is far too long to hold the viewers' attention. Second to see the actors talk in chaste Hindi and suddenly throw the occasional Bangla-accented word for a proper noun is somewhat odd. I think Gowariker would have done better justice to the story if he had chosen to make it in Bangla/Bengali. Finally, most of the sets (though the art-direction is lavish) look "fresh" somehow.

Anyway, fact is that the above critique is just superficial and the story telling is still good. KHJJS is definitely a good watch but like most other Gowariker movies, one feels that something could have been done better without being really clear what it should be. Another suggestion would be to leave the "desh bhakti" aside when you watch the movie. KHJJS doesn't really work as a patriotic movie - it seems to work on a more neutral rhythm.

My rating: 6/10. Good effort to tell a much neglected story.

Ender's Game

2011-04-24T12:33:00.001+05:30

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" is one of the few books to win both the Nebula and Hugo prizes and is an acclaimed sci-fi classic. Based on a short story written by Scott in his early days as a writer, "Ender's Game" is set in the far future where the Earth has suffered 2 invasive attacks by a race of insect-like aliens, commonly referred to as "buggers".
As Earth braces itself for the next attack, the socio-political climate changes. The Earth is now controlled by (at least) 2 powerful political entities - the Hegemon and the Polemarch (roughly US and Russian blocs) - each equally powerful. With this equilibrium, an International Fleet (IF) is formed and they are also put in charge of defending the planet against the next alien attack.
Socially, parents are forbidden to have more than 2 children. The only exception being in case of parents who give birth to extremely gifted first and second children (a strong hint of eugenics at work). Such "Third" children are taken away by the IF in their pre-teens and are trained as lethal battle commanders. Ender Wiggin is one such "Third". In his initial years when the IF monitor Ender, he comes across as an exceptionally gifted child, perhaps "the one" who can be truly lead the defense against the bugger attack in the future. Incidentally, Ender's elder siblings, the kind Valentine and the sociopathic Peter, also are "gifted" children with brains far superior than their peers. Peter is particularly annoyed by Ender as he is deemed to the gifted "third".
Ender is separated from his family and is sent to the Battle School for Thirds. Very soon, it becomes clear that Ender is more than just a match of the Battle School curriculum. But can Ender really become the savior for Earth?
Card's plot is hinged on a very strong element: Can children be trained to be killers? However, if you remove the child angle out, it plays out as a very corny sci-fi drama. The children at Battle School think, speak and act like adults - something I found a little difficult to digest initially. "Ender's Game" is still a very read - Card puts in some very interesting elements in the story (especially the climax of Battle School) that makes the book totally worth it. What I found rather distracting are the thousands of words spent in describing the Battle School "training games" between the teams of children. It hardly adds anything to the plot and is not engaging at all. Card's writing is not as incisive as one would expect and the book really drags in the middle. I think it would have been much better as short story.

Under the Dome

2011-04-07T11:55:00.002+05:30

Under the Dome by Stephen King My rating: 3 of 5 stars Stephen King's latest is also among his most voluminous novel (along with "The Stand"). "Under the Dome" is apparently 3 decades in the making. In a note at the end of the book, King confesses that he got the idea of the idea of the book in the 1970s but felt "overwhelmed" by the number of things that need to be accurately depicted in a full length novel.

"Under the Dome" is set in a small (~2,000 people strong) Maine town of Chester's Mill. An idyllic little American town where everyone knows everyone else. As the novel starts, the Mill is encapsulated in a strange invisible dome. A kind of force field that cannot be by any man-made weapon. The novel is, for most part, how the town copes with the dome and how the townspeople react when their chips are down.

Outside the dome, meanwhile, the U.S. government and armed forces keep trying their best to come up with a solution. Is the dome a covert government operataion gone wrong? Is it a supernatural phenomena, punishing the townspeople for their sins? Is it a handiwork of some alien power? King keeps us guessing. As usual the most interesting part of the book is King's characterizations. From Jim Rennie Sr., the staunch Christian power-crazy Selectman to Julia Shumway, the tough-to-crack middle-aged editor of the town's newspaper - each and every character is drawn beautifully.

I found the ending a little abrupt though. Nevertheless, a good fast read.

Cryptozoic by Brian W. Aldiss

2011-03-06T12:34:00.003+05:30

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Cryptozoic" is probably the most psychedelic sci-fi book I have ever read. It is a mixed bag actually, Aldiss's writing style swinging wildly between the very crisply intellectual to the most juvenile.

Set in the 2090s, when humankind have figured out that time is actually more of mental construct than a physical one and time travel can actually be equated to mind travel. Mind-Travel becomes a rage, especially in the western world, where the economy is already fragile.
The chief protagonist, Ted Bush, is an artist who has a lot of mind travel experience. When he gets "back to the present" after a long mind travel stint, he realizes that the country (UK) is taken over by military totalitarian government headed by a General who is less than lenient on the mind-travel craze, which he holds responsible for the sad state of economy. Then Bush is arrest for chronic addiction to mind travel but that turns to be just a front. In fact, the army hires him to go back in time and hunt for another mind-travel "criminal" Silverstone - a person Bush thinks he knows. Silverstone turns out to be an "original" thinker with a striking new theory on time. A theory the government doesn't want the public to know.
At less than 200 pages, "Cryptozoic" is short but is often a difficult read. There are parts which are lucidly written but these are few and far between. Moreover, it is the "intellectual" parts of the books that miserably fail - Aldiss tries too hard to bring in whatever scientific theories he is familiar with to justify his mind-travel theory. It just doesn't work. It would have been better if there were chunks left for user to fill in on her own. There are several contradictions in the story that completely mar the reading experience. The last chapter somewhat tries to bring things to a logical conclusion but by then simple readers like me would have already lost interest in the plot.

Overall: still recommended for its unique take on time travel.

7 Khoon Maaf

2011-02-24T14:32:00.005+05:30

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Vivaan Shah, Usha Utthup, Konkona Sen Sharma. The husbands: Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irrfan Khan, Aleksandr Dyachenko, Annu Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah
Director: Vishal Bhardhwaj
Vishal comes up with another noir thriller based on a Ruskin Bond's short story.
Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Chopra) is the main protagonist of the movie and it is about how she endures a life long series of bad relationships (read marriages) and brings each one to an end by killing off her husbands one by one.
A rather simple story where the less-than-perfect husbands all have serious character flaws (loosely based on subset of the seven cardinal sins - envy, pride, lust, greed, etc.) and these flaws compound to a point where Susanna is left with only one permanent option. Vishal is pretty much at home with the dark tones of the story and the art direction sets the necessary melancholy mood. The story is narrated by a young doctor, Arun (Vivaan Shah), who grew up as an orphan in Susanna's household and pretty much owes his whole life to her. The narrator is slightly biased at times as he has a long standing crush on the Miss "Sahib" and the story is told with a thin coat of respect and awestrucken note hiding Susanna's real psyche.
The movie is unavoidably episodic in nature and somehow feels disjoint towards the end. There are some brilliant performances: particularly from Neil Nitin Mukesh and Annu Kapoor - these really brighten things up. Vishal also tries be faithful to the time line by refering to newsreels and other chronological events. The surprise package is Vivaan Shah - as Arun and the narrator, he delivers a very strong and well-balanced performance. Definitely a very good find - chip off the old block, this young man. Finally, Priyanka Chopra delivers the goods. PC has never been my favorite actress and I am quite tired of her bubbly, smiling girl thobda all over. But she far exceeded my expectations in this one.
In spite of all the usual noir brilliance that one can expect from Vishal's movies, "7 Khoon Maaf" is still a mixed bag. Some of the "husband" episodes feel a bit laboured and bring down the overall impact of the film. Naseeruddin Shah and Irrfan Khan are mostly wasted, unable to deliver beyond the slim requirements of their role. The transition from one episode to another is sometimes too abrupt. The ending seems a little hurried too. Again the frick-frack proves to be a distraction in most cases. You can't help but think there is something missing in the whole cocktail.

My rating: 6.5/10. In spite of its flaws, a very watchable movie.

Yeh Saali Zindagi

2011-02-24T12:25:00.004+05:30

Cast: Irrfan Khan, Chitrangada Singh, Arunoday Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sushant Singh, Saurabh Shukla, Prasanth Narayan, Yashpal Sharma, Vipul Gupta
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Saw this one in Pune a couple of weeks back. Looks like Sudhir Mishra is on a roll. His "Ab tera kya hoga Johnny" seems be finally out of the cans and now this one seems to be making the waves.
YSZ is based on Mishra's story, with some contributions from Manu Rishi ("Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!"). Based almost entirely in Delhi/NCR, it revolves around a street-smart accountant, Arun (Khan), whose main line of work is to launder the black/hawala money to white. While Arun spends half of his time getting even with his crafty employer, Mehta (Shukla), the other half is spent wooing the troubled nightclub singer, Priti (Chitranganda Singh).
Meanwhile, Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh) is a ex-con who wants to go straight but decides to pull one last caper both for his retirement fund and as a favor to his mentor, Bade (Sharma). Bade has been short-changed by a rather vengeful minister who sees to it that his prison stay is made as bad as possible. The deal is to kidnap the minister's daughter and her fiancé Shyam (Gupta) and use them to bargain for Bade's freedsom. It turns out that Priti has an affair with Shyam and the night Kuldeep and his goons pick to kidnap Shyam and his fiancé, Priti is with him. Confusion ensues as the wrong girl is kidnapped and this also brings Arun into this mess...
What's good: Mishra maintains a breakneck pace throughout. The 2nd half especially is very fast. The performances are, unsurprisingly, brilliant. Arunoday Singh stands apart as the unpredictable, soft-hearted goon. The on-screen dialog is mostly good though goes a little over board with the frick-frack, which doesn't really add color or character.
What's bad: The first half is rather convoluted. There are entire scenes and characters that the movie could have done without. A lot is lost in the noise of character building. I wish Mishra would have been a little more subtle in the treatment.

My rating: 6.5/10. Good watch but could have been better.

The Strain

2011-02-19T19:24:00.000+05:30

The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If Stephen King and Robin Cook decide, over a pint of the strongest, to write a novel as a tribute to Bram Stroker, "The Strain" would be the result.

Creature design specialist, director and producer del Toro and Chuck Hogan reinvent the vampire lore undoing the damage done by the Twilight series and adding oodles of "soft" medico-scientific layers to the done-to-death Master-Vampire-attacks-civilized-town story. This book is the first part of a promised trilogy.

Here's the story: A Berlin-NY flight lands at JFK with all its passengers and crew dead. There are no signs of a terrorist attack or gas poisoning. In its hold, a gigantic coffin type container holds an unspeakable horror. While the authorities puzzle over the dead people, the bodies go missing. A couple of epidemiologists and a tough pest control expert gang with a seemingly batty old pawn-shop owner to save the city from the plague that is about to take over the city.

The writing is above average, though not without corny situations and cliched plot elements. But hey, when you are talking about vampire-zombie genre, how can you miss on the corniness?! The interesting part is partial scientific explainations given for the various vampire/zombie phenomenon. It somehow works well, though sometimes the authors try too hard :).

Overall, a good fast read. A good twist in the vampire lore delivered well. Well worth a read.

Hot, Flat and Crowded

2011-02-03T11:57:00.000+05:30

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Friedman shows us what is going wrong and how "going green" is not just a cool thing to do but a very urgent necessity. He also criticizes US laws and lawmakers for giving just lip service to the environment protection and points out how the existing policies actually work against the cause.

The book talks about nearly everything that one could associate with environmental issues and then some more. For instance, though China and US lead the list of top damagers in the show, they are following with Indonesia and Brazil. The latter are in the top not because of their consumption habits but because they are losing their forest covers at an unimaginable pace.

As usual, Friedman peppers the book with facts, anecdotes and excerpts from interviews with environmentalists, energy experts, politicians and inventors. He also warns that though the last 50 years US has been the dirty guy in the block, China and India already have a US-size population that live (and consume) the American way; and both the latter countries have another batch of "America" waiting to come out in a decade or less. Friedman points out that America has lost the moral authority to ask the developing countries to reduce consumption, instead US should lead with example and should innovate the way out of the impending ecological disaster.

The best take away from the book is that it is time we start thinking about the environmental degradation as a threat and take it as a challenge instead.

Good read.

Shōgun

2011-01-27T16:44:00.004+05:30

Author: James Clavell

This was my first Clavell novel, the first in his "Asian Saga" series. Written in the mid-1970s, "Shogun" is set in the early 18th century in the highly feudal Japanese state. Running at 1100+ pages, this probably the longest single-volume novel I have ever read.

The key character is John Blackthorne, an English pilot of a Dutch trading vessel Erasmus. Blackthorne and his crew of Protestant sea-mean and traders find themselves shipwrecked on a Japanese shore. He, his ship and his crew are captured by the local samurai, led by the crafty Omi. The overload, Lord Toranaga, knows about this ship and quickly realizes the potential of winning over his enemies by using the guns and cannons found in the Dutch ship.

The situation in Japan, which I believe is a fairly accurate description of the real world then (albeit with fictitional characters), is quite politically volatile. The of Taikō (chief lord) presiding over the various daimyos is dead, leaving behind an underaged successor. The daimyos have formed a council of regents to handle the affairs of the state till the young successor comes of age. However, everyone in the council hates everyone else. Toranaga, being the most cunning regent of them all, supports the Taikō's succession but doesn't want the rest of the regents to exercise any power on him. Blackthorne's experience of a pilot and his exposure to the "undignified" western warfare gives him the chance he needs.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese Catholic priests have already discovered Japan and have a steadily growing following. Many of the daimyos (Japanese feudal lords) have converted to Christianity. Meanwhile, the Portuguese priests and the sea-faring merchants seem to be slowing taking over the silk trade with China. The Japanese are not much of sea-faring people and this arrangement works out well for most of the Japanese. While all the converted daimyos support the Portuguese to support their religion, some like Toranaga support them because they are good for trade. Toranaga, however, plans to use Blackthorne's expertise at war and sea to push the Jesuit out of his way, so that he can control all trade as well.

The plot unfolds like a true epic - there are dozens of fully developed characters, most with their own tales and sub-plots. There is passion, honor, war, scheming, wit, valor, greed, cold revenge, family lineage, religious zeal - every darn thing that you would expect in an epic. In richness and complexity of its plots and characters, "Shōgun" is Mahabharata-esque. It is a truly brilliant piece of writing based on historical facts (Blackthorne was inspired by a real life British pilot William Adams), strong story line, interesting characters and a fascinating look at life, power and bushido in medieval Japan.

My rating: 8/10. They just don't write such novels any more.

Guzaarish

2011-01-21T11:04:00.003+05:30

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Shernaz Patel, Suhel Seth, Nafisa Ali, Aditya Roy Kapoor
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
After "Devdas" and "Sawariyaa", I didn't see have any hope from SLB. Like Ram Gopal Varma, SLB seemed to have lost it - too self-indulgent to care about what an movie-goer may need. Thankfully, "Guzaarish" seems to have SLB somewhat back to his own form.
The movie is about a quadriplegic ex-Magician, Ethan Mascarenhas (Roshan) and his struggle with life. Ethan, under the care of his nurse Sophia (Rai), has spent 14 years of fighting against his condition and has a been a role model for other quadriplegic. However, one fine day, Ethan decides that his wants to end his life and asks his lawyer friend, Devyani (Patel), to file for an euthanasia petition in the court. The rest of the movie is about Ethan deals with this petition, his relationship with Sophia and on the nuances of the issues surrounding euthanisia.
The highlight of this movie are its performances and the wonderful cinematography (by Sudeep Chatterjee). While this is quite expected that SLB would get the best out of his actors and his cinematographer, I was surprised to see that SLB has been marvellously restrained himself from his usual, over-the-top artistic grandiosity. SLB sticks to a real world place (Goa), not an imagined multi-hued town; there is very less of that art-house over-sentimental scenes; the dialogs are very contemporary and the characters seem real. Coming from SLB, this is a big surprise! Also at around 100 minutes, the movie holds your attention - another rare feat coming from SLB.
However, "Guzaarish" is not without its distractions. The magician angle is completely redundant and never really integrates with the actual storyline. Aditya Roy Kapoor, as the apprentice magician, is completely wasted. As many have speculated before, the magician track is a nod to Chris Nolan's "The Prestige". However, it is so superficially grafted that it doesn't really gel with the rest of the movie. Other minor subplots and particularly the dull songs distract. Apparently, the main storyline of "Guzaarish" is borrowed from the Spanish movie, "The Sea Inside" (2004) starring Javier Bardem. I haven't seen "The Sea Inside" but the story line seems to be nearly the same as "Guzaarish". I didn't see any credits.
Anyway, "Guzaarish", like most SLB movies is a visual poem. There are some stunning frames in the movie. The sets, the styling and the performances all contribute to it. Hrithik Roshan does a fantastic job, though I believe that SLB should have given him more silent moments where he seems to be do better. Shernaz Patel is brilliant as always. Despite the fact that I do not think very highly of Aishwarya Rai as an actress, she delivers in this movie, if you ignore the song-and-dance excesses. However, all the court room cases, supposedly the highlight of the controversial plot, just fall flat. Even with Shernaz Patel and Rajit Kapoor as the lawyers. The portyal of a quadriplegic has been handled sensitively but the euthanasia issue just go beyond the lame court room drama scenes.

My rating: 6/10. Visually brilliant, good performances and some really good moments make "Guzaarish" a great watch.

The World is Flat

2011-01-21T10:15:00.003+05:30

Author: Thomas L. Friedman

When this book was making waves a few years back, I had dismissed it as a pop business book that wannabes liked to quote to sound cool. From these quotes, I hardly picked up anything of interest. I mean, I knew how Indian IT Services giants had changed the game in the late 1990s. I didn't have to read a book for that, did I?

I finally succumbed to this book when I found a copy in the library and to my surprise, I had judged the book too quickly and too harshly.

"The World is Flat" is just about the Indian IT companies and the outsourcing of talent from the US. Friedman tries to paint a much bigger picture of the socio-economic state of affairs in the world. Friedman goes back to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism and tries to connect it to rise of developing nations that were otherwise too encumbered by their socialist leanings. India is the biggest example of a country that benefitted from the ebb in the socialistic mood. While growing up in the 1990s, I was thrilled to see Pepsi announcing its return (remember that Remo Fernandes-Juhi Chawla ad aired on Independence Day 1991?) but I never understood then that 1991 was a turning point for India. This book did take me back to those days and clearly we have come a long way.

However, Friedman uses India only as an example to illustrate certain point and never goes overboard with the connection-mania. Moreover, he doesn't take sides; doesn't summarily dismiss a certain country's policies or social setup and, most importantly, doesn't try to draw conclusions. These facts make "The World is Flat" a really, really great read. Friedman doesn't take refuge in numbers or lame-ass surveys to drive his point home. He just presents certain facts and gives his opinion. This sets him in a league apart from the "intellectual" pop-authors like Dubner and Gladwell.

The general theme of the book is, of course, that in this internet age the developing countries of the world seem to have to the same access to the resources, education and work that the developed ones have. Friedman points out that the developed countries should stop being protectionist and try to think ahead - think of jobs that cannot be outsourced, that would be a product of generations of living in a developed country, that are not cost dependent. He also looks at the plight of developing nations who seem to be doing well today - the social woes, the population growth issues, the corruption, the crumbling infrastructure. Friedman doesn't stop at painting the rosy picture of the future.

This book uses the ongoing technological advancements are a backdrop, but do not pick up this book just to read it as a technology book for business people. It is not one of those. It is a much bigger topic of how the world's socio-economic scene has changed in a short span of a decade and how this changes will only accelerate, flattening the playing field for all countries and, at the same time, giving rise to new problems - social, economic and environmental. So don't read it just to get an idea of the technological advances and predictions. Indeed, Friedman missed out the social networking, cloud and smartphone trend that followed right after the release of this book. But "The World is Flat" is not about that at all.

My Rating: 8.5/10. Brilliant read. Well written and filled with facts, anecdotes and interesting viewpoints. I am sorry I didn't read this before.

Tees Maar Khan

2011-01-04T16:02:00.003+05:30

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Akshaye Khanna, Katrina Kaif, Arya Babbar, etc.

Director: ~~Shirish Kunder~~ Farah Khan

To be honest, I quite liked Om Shanti Om. I know it doesn't say a lot about me as a serious movie watcher. But what the hell, OSO was a seriously tongue-in-cheek affair and had its funny moments. I liked in spite of Ham Khan. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of expecting more from Farah Khan and camp. What a big mistake that was. With Akshay Kumar in the titular role, I was expecting TMK to be at least mildly funny, at least to the level of the jackass-ness that he had displayed in "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi".

TMK starts off well, almost in the same vein as OSO. But the fun lasts only a few minutes and then it all goes downhill. Our hero Tabrez khan aka Tees Maar Khaan (Kumar) is introduced as a con-man known to pull off major kaands. Then the devious jeweler Siamese twins (the annoying "Roadies" twins - don't even know their names) hire TMK to loot a train that carries some national treasure. So far it is fine and reminiscent of "Roop Ki Rani Choron ka Raja" and similar 80s and early 90s capers. So ~~Shirish Kunder~~ TMK comes up with a lame plan: to put up a front of a movie maker and hire the top star Aatish Kapoor (Khanna) and shoot in a small village Dhulia where the train passes by. The movie is supposed to be a period movie about revolutionary freedom fighters wherein the entire cast (the whole village of Dhulia) is supposed to loot a train carrying British goods, preventing the British from taking India's treasures outside the country. TMK's plan, of course, is to make the cast loot the actual train.

That's it - that's supposed to be the whole story.

It is easy to see that this whole movie is Farah Khan's husband Shirish Kunder's vehicle. He has written the story, screenplay, lyrics, edited, produced and even provided the music for the title song! What I don't understand was why did Farah Khan agree?

The story, production values, screenplay - just about everything - is a total disaster. The few in-jokes on Bollywood are recycled and are very few and far between. Akshay Kumar tries to keep above the mess but doesn't quite shine. Akshaye Khanna's role demands him to be a ham actor and overact but he really blows it. I think the only director who will come calling for Khanna would be Anees Bazmee after this debacle.The "Slumdog Millionaire" jokes about Anil Kapoor are overused and just stop being funny after the first time. Actors of caliber like Murali Sharma and Vijay Maura are wasted in bit roles. Arya Babbar confirms that he cannot act to save his life. Surprisingly, the only breath of fresh air is (surprise, surprise) Katrina Kaif :). She looks like a million bucks and the "Sheela Ki Jawaani" song proves the fact.

But then again, Khan and Kunder should make a note: saying KK is the best part of the film is not really a compliment, given the big budget and the talent involved. What a shame!

My Rating: 1/10. This gets my vote for the most lame, unfunny Bollywood comedy of recent times. This is a big warning for everyone to avoid Kunder's upcoming "Joker".

The year that was

2010-12-30T14:46:00.003+05:30

2010 seemed to be the fastest ever. Yeah, yeah, I know the usual "years seem shorter as you grow old" thing but no, this was not just that. It went by fast not because I was caught with life and work really - I was not.

I try to look back and recollect the milestones and I find it really difficult to come with any. Worse, I had to refer to my social networking timelines to understand what did I do through the months. Turns out - nothing much :). Two things stand out though...

First, this was a year of social networking. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, you name it. I got totally clued in the social networking web and learnt to flex my muscles. I think 2011 will see an ebb. Just like how Twitter destroyed all my will to blog. Now blogging seems to be a solid waste of time. Short messages were order of the day. I see that this has actually shortened my attention span - I can hardly read these days :).

Second, it was a time for really settling down in Bangalore. We booked an apartment and looks like we will be spending a long time in Bangalore before we decide to rethink our lives. The settling down is also concerned with our social circle here - mostly friends from college and their spouses. Circle seems to settle down one-by-one, so looks like Bangalore will be a place I will call "home".

2010 was also, of course, was a time of some fantastic trips - Ranchi (Jan), Goa (March), Coorg (June), Chikmagalur (July) and Kerala (Dec). Didn't step out of the country this year - on work or otherwise. Should make up for that next year.

2011, you ask? Well, I never plan or make resolutions but there are 2 things on the top of mind for 2011 - focusing on a career shift and health (yes, "health"). Also the first six months will be spent in moving in and adjusting to the new apartment. So I can see 2011 will be over quickly too. I start the new year with a new role under a new boss, which will take to some adjusting as well.

Whatever else happens, there is a lot of comfort to know that I have a home and a circle of friends to go back to. I am very thankful for that. So, FTW, as the young 'uns put it.

Wish everyone a Happy New Year 2011.

Lamhaa

2010-12-27T15:18:00.004+05:30

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu, Kunal Kapoor, Mahesh Manjrekar and Anupam Kher

Director: Rahul Dholakia

Well, for the record, I didn't like Dholakia's "Parzania" very much. Actually I liked Nandita Das' "Firaaq" over it. I didn't like Dholakia's directorial style and the fact that he picks "burning issues" is not enough to grab my attention as a viewer. I knew what to expect from "Lamhaa".

"Lamhaa" claims to tell the story of Kashmir as no one has ever tried before. I could not disagree with that claim at its face value. It would have been indeed difficult to pick up sensitive issue that have kept Kashmir burning for the last 20 years and put it all together in a movie. For that, I appreciate this movie and what it wants to say.

The story goes like this: Vikram (Dutt), a top intelligence officer, is assigned on a top secret mission in Kashmir. There is some hint that terrorists plan to do something drastic in Kashmir that would rekindle the somewhat dormant strife and may put the impending elections at risk. Vikram goes under the cover of a press reporter and searches for sources of information. Meanwhile, the top Kashmiri separatist leader Haji (Kher) survives an suicide attack on his convoy. While Vikram tries to find who was responsible, he comes across Aziza(Basu), the daughter of a famous leader who was killed years back. Aziza was adopted by Haji and is known to be somewhat brash and outspoken. Vikram rescues Aziza from some cops and they form a bond. Vikram uses Aziza to get crucial information about Haji and his party.

Elsewhere, Aatif (Kapoor) is a young separatist and ex-militant who has parted ways with Haji and wants to contest in the elections. Haji wants to boycott the elections claiming that it is all fixed by the Indian politicians in Delhi. Aatif and Aziza are a pair again, something that bothers Haji.

As Vikram investigates, he finds that there is a strong nexus between ISI agents, people in the army and the separatist leaders and it is very difficult to guarantee safe elections in the valley. The militants target Aatif's rally in Jammu (a Hindu area) for a major terror attack and it is up to Vikram and Aziza to prevent this.

There is a basic storyline in there somewhere that tries to point the problems in Kashmir, however, the execution is very poor and fails to impress. First, nearly everyone (except Kher) is miscast. Sanjay Dutt cannot possibly be an active field agent in his 50s. Others try too hard to get the accent and diction right but there are very few bright moments for them to shine. Second, the jerky cinematography and editing is distracting and doesn't add any value. Third, there are several gaping holes in the plot (Why should Aziza help Vikram? Why are the terrorists planning this after 20 years? How is Vikram, an outsider, successful in gathering information no one else could? etc.).

It appears to me that it was a good project to start with but Dholakia got carried away in the middle. The quality of the narrative and the dialogues are uneven - there are some brilliant moments and some very corny ones. Like Dholakia was tempted to make a documentary at times and then changed his mind and introduced some masala scenes. Anupam Kher rises above this mess and delivers a strong performance, underplaying his role as the hardline separatist. That and some selected moments makes "Lamhaa" an OK movie to watch.

My Rating: 4.5/10. I wish Dholakia stays away from the "burning issues" and hones his film-making skills before he tries to attempt something like this again.

The Social Network

2010-12-14T00:54:00.002+05:30

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Max Mingella
Director: David Fincher
Well, well, well. Finally saw the movie on the new age business tycoons. Based on Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaries", "The Social Network" is about how the 500 million strong Facebook was founded and the (co-)founder Mark Zuckerman's dubious rise to the top.
Several of us would have heard or read the Facebook story - about its humble beginnings in the corridors of Harvard to its meteoric rise to the number one social site on the net, via a failed $1 billion buy-out deal from Yahoo! and the lack of security. Some of us would have even seen Zuckerberg in interviews on YouTube and wondered how whether this guy really is the youngest billionaire in the world. Well, "The Social Network" focuses only on the initial days of Facebook - the age where it was gaining popularity in US and UK university fighting against MySpace & Bebo. And winning.
It is about the Zuckerberg's dorky Harvard undergrad past and his unbridled geekiness that found direction from equally smart people, such as the Winklevoss twins, Eduardo Saverin and Sean "Napster" Parker. More importantly it is about the ambiguious nature of Zuckerberg's decisions and the fabled law suits.
It is a smart movie, perhaps the first of its kind that doesn't hold back the punches when it comes to tech-talk. So it is not very surprising that the whole tech community is going ga-ga over it. It also benefits from David Fincher's fine craft as a director (viz., the last scene where Zuckerberg constantly refreshes Erica Albright's Facebook page). However, it is not a splendid movie. It is not the sort of movie that would stay in people's minds 10 years from now (unlike say, Fincher's "Fight Club"). And the reason for that is apart from the hi-tech aspect of this story, it is a dull court room drama. The basic emotions that the movie seems to highlight at first glance have been addressed in several other movies in infinitely better ways. "The Social Network" is fascinating because of its timing. Because Facebook and Zuckerberg are right up there in the popularity charts. However, as the old age economy gives way to the new, as IP becomes the most important asset any company could have, there will be such success stories all around. A few years from now, "The Social Network" will not count on the "must-watch" lists, there will be younger billionaires with more interesting ideas. Don't believe me, watch "Pirates of the Silicon Valley" today and tell me what you think.
As far as the stroy-telling element goes, this movie is gripping but the fact that the story is only about one small part of Facebook and Zuckerberg makes the whole deal a little inconclusive. Just like "Pirates..." seems oddly incomplete today. It is a result of a book written too soon about the youngest billionaire on the planet without much thought given to the question whether the story is worth telling or not.
The cast puts in a lot, especially Garfield ass Saverin and Timberlake as Parker. Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is interesting and though the focus has been on Zuckerberg's mannerisms and body language, there is amiss.
The movie has pace, the energy and some good performances. All this makes it a good quick watch. But I am sure I will not buy the Special Edition DVD when it comes out. Not impressed enough to watch it again. It is doesn't have the everlasting ingredients a great drama should have. And it doesn't matter if the actual people referenced in the movie confirm the veracity of it or not.
My rating: 6/10. What really works is Aaron Sorkin's smart screenplay David Fincher's deft hand.

Dork - The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein' Varghese

2010-12-02T13:07:00.003+05:30

Author: Sidin Vadukut

Sidin Vadukut is a blogger of repute, though I had never followed his blog. When I first noticed this book, which is hard to miss with its bright yellow cover, I thought it should be another one of the countless Chetan Bhagat wannabes.

I was so wrong :)

"Dork" is a hilarious account of one Robin Verghese aka "Einstein", a fresh MBA and his mis-adventures in the consulting business. Written in the form of the protagonist's secret diary, the book shows glimpses of Einstein life as he struggles to successful in his professional and love life. Never short of wits, Einstein's over-the-top solutions to mundane problems typically backfire horribly.

Einstein is a cross between Dilbert and Adrian Mole and as with most other epistolary works, the key ingredient is what transpires between the recorded events. And given Einstein's predicaments, the readers can find enough and more incidents to fill in these gaps with their individual moments of insanity. I would relate to several incidents personally, especially the screw-ups.

"Dork" is the first of a promised trilogy. Let's see how the others turn out to be.

Rating: 6.5/10. Insanely funny for most part, however the plot shoots out of control in the climax. Good light read.

Corruption (in response to Tess)

2010-11-23T14:29:00.005+05:30

In response to a post by Tess. Apparently my comment ran too large for Blogger to handle :). So posting this separately here:
Yeah, I agree with the sentiment. But I think everyone, everywhere in the world has a lop-sided judgement about Corruption. When we offer chai-paani, it is to lubricate the machinery, when they accept a bribe - they are corrupt. :)
I think corruption is too ingrained in the society (not just in India) and politics. I do not see this disappearing in a generation or two. Wherever is a disparity (social, economical) between 2 groups of the same society, there will be aspirations/temptation and hence corruption of some sort, monetary or otherwise. I have done chores as a kid just to be included in a cricket team of seniors, I knew I was being exploited but that was the only way to make myself visible. At work, whenever I have pulled more than my share of weight, I have made sure that the managers know about it and extracted max milage out of it. True, I have not run a mini-scam of my own - faking bills, etc. but I have given bribes of these sorts. So that disqualifies me from making any moral judgments really. "Let He Who is Without Sin Cast the First Stone", etc.
My usual argument with Govt. officials asking for a bribe was:"why do you want me to pay to do your job? Don't you get a salary?". But I guess that came from the fact that no one, except my employer, pays me to do my job. I automatically have a moral high ground there, with absolutely no conscious effort from my side.
I hardly ever get outraged at this any more. Not because I think this is fine but because I think this is a moral ambiguity that cannot be addressed by punishing a few individuals or leading anti-corruption campaigns. Monetary bribes is looked down upon as a social evil but fact it is that it is not any worse than other sorts of bribing that we are accustomed to. We bribe when we pamper our kids, our wives and husbands, our girlfriends and boyfriends often. That's not evil, it is sweet - we are often told. Damn, it feels good to be treated specially.
The ambiguity here is that we are raised with the notion that it is good make someone feel special but then we realize that monetary bribes are evil. To be precise, taking bribes is evil. Why?

Generally...

2010-11-12T13:54:00.003+05:30

Apart from trying to sign-off on a home agreement, seismic re-orgs at work and a steady stream of relatives at home, not a lot happened over the last couple of months. Diwali Poker night at Keval's place was one highlight, with Bhatta as usual betting the house and rising the stakes. Never learnt to play card tricks or to gamble, too late to teach this old dog new tricks.

Meanwhile, the formalities for buying the apartment we had booked a couple of months are dragging on and on. First, our lawyer said there are some "irregularities" in the paperwork. Which turned to be nothing more than the fact that it was more builder-friendly than customer-friendly. Well, show me a customer-friendly legal document then. None was ever drafted. Anyway, today we are hoping to close the deal at the builders. I get terribly drained with all this paper work. Though I didn't have to run around to get anything done, it is still one open loop that keeps annoying me. Must...Close... ASAP.

I was also amazed at the ease of obtaining a loan - we didn't have to show our faces at the bank. Home Delivered. Boy, are we pampered. Not saying its for free but still was no hassle; will have to repay the loan for a long till to come. Still: Always appreciate hassle less stuff. :)

This year was the most unexciting ever, I think. A couple of good trips aside, most of it seems like a hollow daze. Waiting for the new apartment to get ready and office re-org to get over before I can plan anything exciting. Just don't have the energy to do anything else.

My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist

2010-11-08T18:49:00.005+05:30

Author: Sadanand Dhume

"My Friend..." is a travelogue about Indonesia, its people and its socio-political environment as seen from the eyes of a foreign author. To be honest, I did not quite know what to expect and think it worked well for me.

In the 270+ pages, Dhume recounts his experiences while travelling with Herry Nurdi, a journalist working with an Islamic magazine. Herry works well as a prototype of the typical Indonesian - torn between religion, nationalism and culture. Herry and Dhume travel all over the archipelago where they meet several social and political figures. From the liberal, erudite, "modernized" circles of Jakarta to the orthodox societies in Ambon to hardliners jailed for terrorist acts, Dhume lives with the people, tries to understand what drives them and tries to draw parallels with the countries in rest of the world.

The book is a true travelogue - Dhume gives an insightful, colorful, sometimes funny but always delightful account of his travels and his new acquaintences. For someone like me, who has very little idea of the history, culture and the politics of Indonesia, "My Friend..." is a great read. There are several cultural similarities between India and Indonesia. Both countries have a Hindu past; both countries are a collection of states really, each with its own sub-culture, cuisine, lifestyle and history; both countries gained independence around the same time (1947 for India, 1949 for Indonesia). Deep down, the societies of both countries share very similar ethos. As an Indian, it was not difficult for me to understand most of Dhume's parallels between the two countries.

I had always thought that economically Indonesia is at par with its neighbours, which is to say a developing nation with a better-than-average per capita income, aggresively growing literacy rate and a fast-growing manufacturing hub. The book does give a lot of insight on the economic state as well, albeit in its own rambling fashion. Indonesia, Dhume observes, shares most of the economic traits with Malayasia and Vietnam, but in the last 10-12 years has seen a sluggish economic growth due to rapid changes in the socio-religious climate. In fact, Indonesia never really recovered the SE Asia's economy collapse of late 1990s.

Throughout the book, Dhume narrates his meetings, debates and discussions with some influential members of the Islamic Order. These are often fascinating personalities who expound on several Islamic tenets. That Sharia is not just about "chopping the arms off a thief" but a complete code of living in a Muslim society. That the Jilbab is not a forced accessory on women, as it may appear initially. Then there are leaders like A.A.Gym who use unique mass-media based preaching techniques, using entrepreneurial initiatives to spread the word of God. On the other end, there are your regular high society that thrives in Jakarta where authors like Djenar Maesa Ayu whose controversial works in print and on screen have rocking the orthodox majority for years now.

Indonesia, like India, is indeed a land of contrasts and contradictions.

What's good about the book is that it is a travelogue and doesn't really pretend to dissect the situation in Indonesia or to provide answers to the country's problem. The author is not always neutral in his narration but though it may appear that this means this gives the book a jaundiced point-of-view, in my opinion, it also imparts a realism to the narration. A completely neutral narration would have been really drab.

The narration rambles as Dhume often delves back into history in context of the topic being narrated, which makes it slightly difficult to read. But at 270-odd pages, it is still a quick read. There is enough humor, sparkling debates and good descriptions in here that make this book a good read.

My Rating: 7/10. Good insight on the Indonesia, its culture, its people, its contradictions.

Lafangey Parindey

2010-11-01T20:55:00.002+05:30

Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Deepika Padukone, Piyush Mishra and Kay Kay Menon
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Another Yash Raj movie that I had given the miss when it released. Mostly because it is a Yash Raj movie and for the fact that the leading pair can't act to save their lives. Caught this on Tata Sky this weekend, particularly after a recommendation from a close friend Pushkar.
The story is about a lower middle class colony (waadi) and its various denizens. The boys idle away their time or pursue thrill-seeking way to earn quick money such as show-biking and bare-knuckles fighting. Our male protagonist Nandan Katekar aka "One-shot" Nandu (Mukesh) is a bare-knuckles boxing champion of the waadi. He has earned his epithet by his famous knock-outs in the illegal matches that he stars in. Oh, he also fights with a handicap of a blindfold. Nandu's employer Usman (Mishra) is a happy soul as money keeps pouring in through Nandu's victories.
Our female protagonist is Pinky Palkar (Padukone) - a regular Mumbai girl with a sharp tongue and good survival skills. She works at a skating rink and dreams of winning the "India's Got Talent" show through her figure skating.

Nandu gets involved in a shoot-out along with his mentor and local goon Anna (Menon) and during the getaway accidentally hits Pinky. Pinky wakes up from a brief coma to realize that she has lost her sight due to the accident. Meanwhile, Anna dies and is held responsible for Pinky's accident. Nandu feels sorry for Pinky (though he doesn't confess to her) and offers to train her to deal with her blindness by honing her other senses. Eventually Pinky learns the ropes and skate again! And during all this she falls in love with Nandu and asks him to be her partner for her item at the talent show. Meanwhile, the police is picking up the pieces left behind by Anna and reach Nandu hoping that he would lead them to Usman.

OK. Now that I typed down the story here, I feel it is an amazingly corny movie. However, the movie is better than the story sounds. Mainly because it is peppered by a lively supporting cast - Nandu's friendly and other assorted waadi fellows mainly. Some of their dialogs are colloqial and fun and keeps things at a fast pace. Some of skating scenes are done nicely as well. Unfortunately, none of these minor delights add up in the end, which is why LP is not a classic one would want to watch again and again.
Deepika Padukone has done a decent job (much to my surprise) but Neil Nitin Mukesh is mostly wooden. Piyush Mishra and Kay Kay Menon are brilliant in their brief roles. It is a good film overall, but I wish they had not focussed so much on the "India's Got Talent" part, there was a lot of scope to mature the rest of the characters.

My rating: 6.5/10. Very watchable but imperfect. I would prefer this to the horrible "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi", Yash Raj Film's earlier nod to reality shows.

Endhiran

2010-10-18T17:08:00.005+05:30

Cast: Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai Bacchan, Danny Denzongpa, Karunas, Santhanam

Director: S. Shankar

Well, well, well. The big-daddy of Indian sci-fi cinema is here :). First I must say that I am not a die-hard Rajni fan. But, this is very important, I am definitely not a Rajni hater at all. I am a Shankar fan though, ever since his "Gentleman" days.

"Endhiran" is an all-out Rajni movie, and for most that conjures up images of Rajni's famous cigarette/revolver/whatever-prop trick redone. But that's where you, dear reader, would go wrong. No really, "Endhiran" is a thorough entertainer, the quintessential masala movie on steroids (and a gigantic production budget). It is also a fair sci-fi movie, which makes it a sci-fi masala movie - a genre not really attempted before.

Did someone say, "Love Story 2050"? You should commit seppuku immediately and flush your gene pool. That's the most honorable thing to do.

Well this is where "Endhiran" succeeds: it has several strong undercurrents that make this a very interesting watch. At the surface it is the human vs. machine motif explored in endless books and movies before ("I, Robot", "Bladerunner"/"Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep", the Terminator series, "Matrix", etc.). Then, in the second half, the doppelgänger element kicks in. Somewhere in the middle is the machine-with-emotions plot ("Bicentennial Man"/"The Positronic Man"). Plus there are the usual social, religious and superhero elements that keep the movie going.

The story: Dr. Vaseegaran (Rajni) is a leading AI scientist who has been working on a humanoid robot for years. When his dream project finally completes, he decides to test his Chitti (Rajni again) before announcing it to the world. Dr. Vaseegaran has invented a "neural schema" that enables Chitti to learn as he goes and thus emulate a human being as best as he can. When Dr. Vaseegaran's almost-estranged girlfriend Sana (Rai Bacchan) asks if she can take Chitti home to help her study for her exams (actually to cheat), it turns to be a good way to beta-test Chitti "in the field".

In the meanwhile, Dr. Vaseegaran's mentor and closet rival Dr. Bohra (Denzongpa) gets jealous of his ex-student's scientific marvel, especially because he just could not get his robot prototypes to learn from experience or form human-like judgments. And that too in spite of accepting a covert assignment from menacing European terrorists (no, not Islamic - too clichéd), possibly from the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, to deliver robotic suicide bombers.

When Vaseegaran discloses his robot to a AI committee for inspection and approval, Dr. Bohra very simply proves that Chitti doesn't obey the Asimov's Laws of Robotics. And he does it by ordering Chitti to stab Vaseegaran, which it does! Chitti is rejected as a human substitute and is deemed unfit to stay with humans. Vaseegaran seethes at this failure but nevertheless tries to prove his point by employing Chitti to save human lives in various situations. However, Chitti still doesn't understand the basic human concepts of dignity, pride, love and hatred.

In a surprise twist, Chitti is struck by lightening that bestows him with a gift of...personality! Suddenly he starts to feel and realizes he is in love with Sana. This annoys his creator to no end. In addition to this, with his new-found personality and judgment, Chitti refuses to be a military tool when during a demo for the army. Vaseegaran chops Chitti to bits (which Chitti giving gyan all along) and throws the debris in the bin. Meanwhile, our bad scientist who has been waiting for this to happen, picks the remains of Chitti from the local garbage dump and reconstructs it. Only this time, he uses the "destruction" chip that turns our harmless Chitti into a dangerous killing machine: Chitti 2.0.

The second half of the movie is mostly about the bad Chitti tearing the town apart with his clones, killing countless humans and kidnapping Sana. Meanwhile, Dr. Vaseegaran has to think of some way of getting Sana back and saving the world from Chitti 2.0 and clones.

To be honest, "Endhiran" gets no awards for originality as far the special effects are concerned. There are references to every mainstream sci-fi book and movie. "The Bicentennial Man", "Star Wars", the "Terminator" series, you name it. Sadly most of the critics stop at this. They seem to totally reject the rest of the movie. For me, "Endhiran"'s appeal and originality lie in how various elements have been bundled into one incredible package. The movie doesn't ape a particular sci-fi film, nor is it derivative in its essence. The Human vs. Robot idea has been explored endlessly in books and movies and I did not, for even a minute, think that "Endhiran" and Shankar will offer anything more. What I didn't imagine was how entertaining and paisa-vasool could a sci-fi movie be. There are several elements that would not be a part of any other sci-fi movie (the Ayudh Pooja scene, the Machu Pichu(!) dance sequence, etc.)

Shankar takes a few simple sci-fi ideas and gives them an utterly fantastic spin that I would not expect from most "serious" works. Once the action begins, you don't give a hoot about the "hard" sci-fi aspects of it.
There are several insane and incredible sequences there but it is just that "Endhiran" is not about that. It is an entertainer first and a sci-fi later. So I would recommend that you keep your science analyst part locked at home when you go watch this movie. When you do that, you would enjoy whatever tech and science explanations are offered - whether it is use of ZigBee to help Sana cheat in her exam by streaming answers over the air or whether use of WiFi to stream Ultrasonography images to the nearest terminal. Most of these references are casually made, so it is actually fun to hear them :).

Surprisingly, I found the climax part, with all the "formations" of Chitti 2.0 and his clone, a bit of a bore. The special effects are good, you can see where the money was spent. But I liked the rest of the movie better, the climax was too special effects ridden. Like nearly all of Shankar's movies, "Endhiran" aims to wowing the viewer with its spectacle, its star presence and its larger-than-life take on things with enough humor and action to keep everyone happy.

I loved the movie. It was hugely entertaining. I can't remember when was the last time I laughed and clapped along throughout a movie with the rest of the people in the hall.

My rating: 8.5/10. To Shankar for his imagination and not bothering about "what would the hard sci-fi fans think?" question. Keep it rolling!

Changed the layout

2010-10-12T12:02:00.001+05:30

Looks a little bleak now and perhaps a bit more readable.

The Book of Eli

2010-10-11T20:00:00.005+05:30

Cast: Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman

Directed by: The Hughes Brothers

"The Book of Eli" is Hughes Brothers' first outing in 10 years, since "From Hell". So I had mixed expectations out of it. It was good to see Washington and Oldman in the cast, but wasn't really sure what to expect.

"The Book of Eli" works on a very simple plot: In a post-apocalyptic near future, the lone warrior Eli (Washington) walks the Earth (America, to be precise). Eli is driven by a purpose, a purpose he doesn't fully understand. After the apocalypse, which appears to scorching the sky and getting rid of the ozone layer, Eli was instructed by a "voice" to go west and deliver a book to those who would need it. The book is, of course, the last surviving copy of the Bible.

As he walks, he meet several other survivors, some of them cannibals and finally reaches a dusty town ruled by a polished but cruel ganglord Carnegie (Oldman). Carnegie is fully aware that the possession of the Good Book in a God-less world will grant him powers to control minds and lead his flock in his own manner. When he realizes that Eli has the book he tries the obvious. Aided by one of Carnegie's "girls", Eli escapes and continues his journey.

The story is not much but what really makes the difference is the minimalistic treatment that the Hughes Brothers give this movie. By underplaying pretty much all of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror staple fare and instead focus on the core story. Most of the plot elements are revealed through dialog (which was good, I thought) and the movie, though slow in parts, is overall engaging. There are enough plot holes here and there (viz., where does the fuel come from if water is hard to come by on the parched planet) but the twist in the end makes it worthwhile. The twin directors borrow the basic elements of an old-fashioned Western - the brave lone warrior hero with mission, the mule-mean villain and his henchmen, the suffering maiden, minimum talk and lots of weapons. Thankfully, nothing goes overboard. I always had a thing for the lone warrior themes, so goes without saying - I liked it.

My rating: 6.5/10. Good watch but not the greatest movie ever made.

Superfreakonomics

2010-10-09T10:59:00.003+05:30

Authors: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

I had read "Freakonomics" a few years ago. It was an interesting book but I was not really impressed. The authors seemed to be too full of themselves and the general gist of the book was to force weird conclusions (not just opinions) down readers' throats. When "Superfreakonomics" came out, I got a feeling that it is a desparate sequel that the world doesn't really need.

I was right.

"Freakonomics" started the trend of these "intellectual" book that establish common threads between seemingly unconnected everyday phenomena. Most of them proved to interesting reads - like O. Henry's short stories with a twist. The problem is that over the last few years, there have been too many books in this genre and the authors are running out of interesting things to write about. The result is evident in books like "Superfreakonomics" and "What the dog saw" - hollow, contentless books written in an "intellectual reading" vein that takes some facts and stastistics and twist them in half-arsed manner and arrive at a contrived conclusion.

Most of the book is trash, worse than the original. Some redeeming bits come towards the end, particularly with the introduction of Nathan Myhrvold and Intellectual Ventures. These parts are good because it is about a bunch of really brilliant people who offered no numbers to the authors but gave their theories. Levitt/Dubner: I would have thought you will get your cue, but I guess that is too much to ask.

Now that the authors of this genre are running out of things to write about, they seem to borrow material from each other. So we see references to Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and we see Gladwell quoting "Freakonomics" (to be fair, at least these guys do not always promote each other's work). Worse, they use the same "story-telling" devices - start a new chapter with a description of a mundane setting - a middle-aged women enjoying her tea in a laidback country, a day at work for a person who is actually famous for something else. Novel idea, it guarantees readers' attention and makes the book a fast read. But such a narrative also fools the readers to think this is a work of fiction and forgives grave mistakes that the rest of the chapter follows.

I have 2 problems with this genre:

First, I hate it when the authors try to justify stuff by throwing statistical data. I have dealt with enough statistical analysis myself in my role to realize how to twist data to generate (wrong) information. This is exactly what such authors. For instance, they conclude that (relatively) you are more likely to die if you walk home drunk after a party than if you drive home drunk. Why? Because statistics show that on a per-mile basis, the number of people that die walking drunk is higher than the number of people that die driving drunk. What the f**k! Why are non-fatal casualties left out here? Why draw such lame conclusions when we know that the past data cannot predict the future. These jokers even go ahead and recommend that you should drive when drunk instead of walking. I hope their die hard fans do heed this advice.

And it doesn't stop here: if you pick any piece of "data" that they use in the book, chances are they are from a sample survey. A few dozen, hundred or thousand people trying to give their opinion. To use such a small sample set and extrapolate it to the rest of the species is a big mistake - not just a statistical mistake but (depending on what you are trying to conclude) an irresponsible one. The authors are just fooling the people. Believe it or not, they use a lame survey from Times of India and use it a key statistic! I am sure if I dig some more, I will find more references to other epitomes of journalism such as The Globe and Sun.

My point is this: statistics can be used to understand how did things fare yesterday, not to conclude what will happen tomorrow. My work needs me to analyze the stability and performance of software and I can you tell you this: if predictions about the future of something as deterministic (though complex) as software software cannot be made with a fair degree of accuracy - how can these bozos draw conclusions with inadequate, highly manipulated data about random worldly phenonmenon.

Second thing I hate about this genre is the readers. Over the last few years I have come across truckloads of pseudo-intellectuals who try to quotes from these books. They are the sort of people who think reading non-fiction makes them cooler than others and go the Gladwells, Dubners and Levitts for their intellectual chops. This group of people has a large overlap with the group of people who swore by self-help books in the late 1990s - early 2000s. I am sick and tired of the quotes and shallow knowledge. These people will be the greatest plague the authors of this genre has left behind.

My rating: 5/10. Read it for the parts about Intellectual Ventures (Chapter 5). Don't buy the book. Rent it for a library like I did.

Dabangg

2010-09-28T10:33:00.005+05:30

Cast: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan, Sonu Sood, Dimple Kapadia, Vinod Khanna, Om Puri and Anupam Kher.

Director: Abhinav Singh Kashyap

If you, like me, totally loved the Dabangg promo, then you would know what to expect from this review. Anyway, there is no point giving the story layout here - the plot is paper thin anyway. Instead let me talk about what made it special.

For starters, a part of "Dabangg" is a take on the 1970s-80s Bollywood pot-boilers where the protagonist was a socialistic superman, willing to spill (or donate) blood and organs in order to do the right thing. He was "Shravan Kumar" reincarnate for his parents, also around to protect his little sister and epitome of virtuousness. He would take on dozens of villains, beat the crap out of them, save a whole township from certain doom and still make it home for the dry roti and daal dinner his mom prepared. No wonder the Bollwood protagonist is always referred to as "Hero".

The other part is your typical action-packed Tamil flick, pioneered by masters such as Rajnikanth, Vijaykanth and their ilk. These were, in turn, a homage to the Bollywood "hero" but with much more kick-ass elements that the magicians of ~~Mumbai~~ Bombay would think of. As is apparent, Mr. Khan is no stranger to this style of cinema, what with his "Wanted" making a splash just recently.

The most important part of "Dabangg" is what makes it worth watching: take all the above ingredients and add oodles of irreverence and light-hearted illogic. "Dabangg", for most part, takes the 70s-80s Bollywood superhero and removes the righteousness part; then it adds all the gravity-defining action without holding back. What you then get is: Chulbul Pandey - the lovable corrupt cop from the Hindi heartland.

Salman Khan has finally arrived as Chulbul Pandey - a role he was born to play. For the first time in his career, Salman seems to just fit right into the role and I don't mean it in the "method acting" style either. Khan delivers his lines and his laat-ghoonsas with a confidence and ease never seen in his brand of movies before. And while at it, he doesn't shy away from poking fun at himself.

Having said all this, it is important to point out that the movie itself is not path breaking. Take out Salman Khan and the whole movie would have collapsed. The screenplay is uselessly cluttered with random elements like the Pandey half-brothers feud, Chulbul Pandey's forceful romance with the local beauty (Sinha, who is quite good actually), the step-father angle, etc. It would have been much better if the story would have been as light-hearted as the characters.

My Rating: 6/10. Most of that goes to Salman Khan. Respect.

Udaan - Movie Review

2010-09-03T14:09:00.002+05:30

Cast: Rajat Barmecha, Ronit Roy, Ram Kapoor and Manjot Singh.

Director: Vikramaditya Motwane

Good intelligent cinema from the Anurag Kashyap camp again! "Udaan" is a coming-of-age drama rooted in the semi-urban, small-town ethos. This one takes the much neglected subject of parental oppression.

The teen protagonist is Rohan (Barmecha), who has spent almost 8 years of his life in the confines of a boarding school in Shimla. His mother is no more and his dad doesn't visit. The movie starts with Rohan and his friends breaking out of the school hostel one night to watch a naughty movie (somewhat reminiscent of "Dead Poets' Society"). They are all caught in the act and summarily dismissed from the school. Rohan is forced to return to his dad's house in Jamshedpur.

The dad (Roy) is egoist, hard-nosed tyrant who wants to have everything his way. Once home, Rohan realizes that he has a step-brother from his dad's second marriage that he was not even aware of. It soon becomes clear to Rohan that his dad doesn't give a hoot about his ambition to become a poet/writer and wants him to take his share of responsibility in the steel plant that belongs to the family. Rohan is forced to join an engineering college and work part-time at the plant. In all this, he finds an unlikely friend in his step-brother. The rest of the movie about Rohan dealing with his violent, unreasonable father while still dreaming his dreams.

It is good tight script and very well executed. It elevates itself from the usual father-son soppy stories by never diluting the essential character traits. There is a gritty edge to it that pushes it into a zone most other coming-of-age movies don't reach. There are very few characters, and everyone delivers a brilliant performance. Amit Trivedi scores again with a very fresh, vibrant track. The music CD would be worth it.

However, the film does gets too grim at times. I wish there were a few more lighter scenes with the teenager doing his own teenage fun things - just to break the monotony. I was also a little annoyed at the uneven audio quality (I saw it on Tata Sky), which I think was synch-sound taken too far. Couldn't hear some of the dialogs.

My Rating: 6.5/10.

Mars by Ben Bova - Book Review

2010-08-24T07:54:00.002+05:30

Author: Ben Bova

"Mars" is a good ol' sci-fi yarn that has all the elements of the 1980s and 1990s fiction novels. Reviewers have quite correctly pointed out similarities with James A. Michener's sweeping sagas, only this one's space-bound.

This is my second Bova novel, the first being "Jupiter", which I had read in the passing without really knowing much about Bova. For others Bova newbies like me - he is a very prolific "hard" science fiction author and specializes in writing series. "Mars" is perhaps one of the most famous of his books, a part of the "Grand Tour" series ("Jupiter" is another).

"Mars" has a simple enough plot: In the near future, scientists and politicians from around the world finally agree to train and send a group of explorers to Mars. This effort, more political than scientific in nature, is lead by a well-respected scientist, Dr. Brumado. The book starts with the first exploring vehicle landing on Mars with a handful of technicians, couple of astronauts (and cosmonauts) and a mixed bag of scientists that include geologists, biologists, meteorologists, chemists and physicians.

The chief protagonist is Dr. Jamie Waterman, a geologist who is a last minute addition to the Mars expedition. The chief antagonist is the red planet itself! The story is about how these explorers try to solve the many mysteries Mars poses collectively while each one has some hidden agenda or a character flaw. While they are battling the deadly planet's harsh environment, a mysterious disease inflicts them all...

Bova's starts his story with some clichéd plot ideas, relying heavily on stereotypes of the various nationalities represented. It does, however, add enough characterization and stops this from becoming a dull book. It threatens to be a space-drama at times too. But when Bova shifts gears from drama to science, he demands attention. There are some good scientific twists in this tale that make it highly readable. Bova also uses flashbacks to weave what happened on Earth before the mission started into the day-to-day mission log.

At nearly 530 pages, "Mars" is a lot of novel to read. However, short chapters make it easy to read. And it is indeed a fast read.

My Rating: 6.5/10. Good sci-fi novel but didn't blow my mind away. Read it.

Raajneeti

2010-06-13T11:27:00.005+05:30

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal and Nana Patekar.

Director: Prakash Jha, Sarah Thompson.

*CAVEAT LECTOR: May contain spoilers. But what the heck, never mind*

Prakash Jha is back after a 5 year hiatus with his bigger movie till date. Of course, the expectations are very high. However, these expectations are based on the very basic premise that Mr. Jha is an extraordinary filmmaker.

Apologies to all the fans, but I beg to differ.

Best known for "Damul" (mid 1980s) and the recent "Gangaajal" and "Apaharan" (both in first half of 2000s), Prakash Jha is now placed right up there with the other "serious" directors like Shyam Benegal. The problem is that the "serious" directors have an area of comfort which is not exactly for all tastes and when they step out of that area to make movies for the masses, the end result is generally insipid. Such movies have their heart in the right place but the story telling is totally confused. They neither serve as gripping dramas not do they entertain.

"Gangaajal" and "Apaharan" were lauded as great movies, which they are. However, as a movie-goer, I was not very impressed. Both these movies focussed on some ugly facets of the society and exposed some bitter socio-political truths - that is very well appreciated. But the problem is that Jha doesn't know how to engross his audience for 2+ hours. Period. Both the movies in question are unique in their core content but that doesn't mean they are excellent examples in movie-making. There are some good parts and Jha generally gets fantastic performances from his cast, but that's not exactly entertaining. My biggest problem with Jha's style is that he injects unnecessary dialogs where silence would have been much more effective. A bigger problem is most of the time, these dialogs are flat. Perhaps Jha intends to give it a slice-of-life treatment, but where's the entertainment? His "gritty" movies often end up as pale re-enactments, Fox History style. Anyway, I am not dissing "Gangaajal" and "Apaharan" here because they were both good movies by any standards - just saying they are not spell-bounding. Their merit is that they are both the first films made on their sensitive subjects, not that they are the best movies. It is important to make that distinction.

"Raajneeti", of course, has that problem. It also has another problem, for which we will have travel back a decade or so. I think it is a case of history repeating itself. In the 1990s, when I was practically researching Bollywood movies and ignoring Organic Chemistry and Calculus, I had always heard Jha's "Damul" being highly regarded as a great movie. I had seen "Hip Hip Hurray" on TV, which I really liked and has was wondering why did Mr. Jha retire so early. Then I read in the glossies that Jha is returning with a big-budget, "mainstream" film. That film turned out to be the utterly forgettable "Bandish" (with Jackie Shroff and Juhi Chawla) which was a poor adaptation of Dickens' "A Tale of two cities". That was in 1995 or 1996.

Cut to 2010. Prakash makes 2 acclaimed movies ("Gangaajal" and "Apaharan") and vanishes again. He comes back with "Raajneeti" after 5 years, a J.P.Dutta style big-budget multi-starrer. Like he did in "Bandish", he adapts the story from an acclaimed epic, "Mahabharat" this time, and sprinkles a little bit of "Godfather" elements. Like in "Bandish", he stays away from a socio subject and instead chooses to go all out. Finally, like "Bandish" he moves away from his heartland, Bihar, and places this story in some unnamed political hinterland (modeled on and shot in Madhya Pradesh). This is why "Raajneeti" fails in spite of some brilliant work by the cast.

Ajay Devgn (due respect to the dropped "u"), in one recent interview with (the rather annoying) Omar on Zoom TV, said "the characters are inspired by 'Mahabharat', not the story". Erm, how does that work exactly, Mr. Devgn (see, no "u" again)? Are you trying to say that this is not the B.R.Chopra's "Mahabharat", complete with the "Main Samay Hoon" bits? That I agree. But how can one have borrowed characters and not borrowed story? "Raajneeti" is an adaptation of the "Mahabharat", doesn't matter what Mr. Jha or the cast/crew say. I didn't really see any credits to the epic though.

Anyway, here's are the main dramatis personae: Patekar = Krishna + a wee bit of Tom Hagen, Rampal = Yudhistir + Bheem, Kapoor = Arjun + Michael Corleone, Kaif = Draupadi, Thompson = Subhadra + Apollinia Vitelli, Devgn = Karna and Bajpai = Duryodhan.

Yes, the Corleone bits are not so subtle inspirations from Puzo's characters. "Mahabharat" and "Godfather" would have been a heady mix if only Jha would have got it right. What we get instead is the most interesting facets of the characters removed and a movie that is hinged totally on the "mainstream" stars - Kapoor, Rampal and Kaif. Manoj Bajpai, Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgn - all actors with caliber are forced to stand in the sideline. Karna was one of the best tragic heroes I have every come across but Jha's equivalent is a brooding schemer who has an appetite for murders. Bajpai, whom could have delivered a knock-out performance, is reduced to a heavy-drinking, abusive goon - completely dark with no shades of gray. Pity. Patekar as "Krishna" is seen in most frames but like a piece of furniture. Nana's brilliant performance goes wasted. Arjun Rampal is no actor, he would admit to it openly I guess, but he is good for roles that do not require him to emote. He tries his best and has got a meaty role too but that's hardly enough. He falls flat in his speeches and just doesn't fit into the frame of a politician. Rampal does score in parts when he goes ballistic or when he just has to endure.

Let's not talk about Katrina Kaif please.

In all this mêlée, the one actor who really comes through is Ranbir Kapoor. His is the one character that Jha gets perfectly right. Kapoor's Samar Pratap is a multi-layered character that switches between the completely-lovable to very amoral in seconds. Kapoor does a good job at it too, though in some cases he overdid his underplaying.

But here are some questions for Jha and his team, something that would help people understand what was in your minds when you were writing the script:

1) Do you really think that a wimpy scion with no stomach for politics could turn into a maha-scheming politician and a cold blooded murderer overnight? Someone who is writing a PhD thesis on the "violence in Victorian poetry" (or something to that effect) would come up with political ideas that have eluded the grand master Krishna (Patekar)? Do you think you can have a Michael Corleone dominate the political landscape of the Hindi heartland overnight?

2) When the stage is set for Kapoor's party to win and the vote counting is going on, why would the top crust of the party decide to kill the rivals? How does that make sense? How did you climax make sense at all?

3) Did you really need the forced Geeta gyan in the climax?

4) Do you think a kabaddi champion, however popular he may be in the basti, can become the champion of the Dalit voters overnight? Are you saying there was no queue for that? How is this is not exploitive film-making?

5) What was the Sarah Thompson angel all about? What did it add to the story? Why?

6) You couldn't resist the item song, could you?

Lame, lame movie and in spite of the brilliant performances, "Raajneeti" collapses under its own weight. I just hope that film goers and critics stop lionizing film-makers because "they choose sensitive subjects for their films" and judge the films for what they really are. With all due respect, Prakash Jha's "mainstream" movies (so far) are overrated. I hope he gets back to what does best.

My Rating: 5/10. Mostly for the performances.

Love, Sex aur Dhoka - review

2010-05-09T12:52:00.006+05:30

Cast: Anshuman Jha, Shruti, Amit Sial, Raj Kumar, Neha Chauhan, Herry Tangdi
Director: Dibakar Banerjee

OK. First, let me clear some air about LSD. There seem to be a lot of reviews, blogs and tweets that seem to praise Dibakar Banerjee and Ekta Kapoor (the producer) for making such a "bold" movie, using "Sex" in a Hindi film title for the first time ever, etc. I feel all such opinions are lame and it is unfortunate that there are so many such reviews everywhere which tend to judge the film by this dubious merit alone.

Another school of reviewers only seem to have picked up the amateur hand/security camera footage and have immediately linked it with "The Blair Witch Project", "Paranormal Activity", etc. In fact, LSD's Wikipedia page claims it is similar to "Look"!

The truth is: LSD is a good film by all accounts. It has a coherent theme and a story to tell (in fact 3 stories). The footage and the quirky title are all but forgotten once you finish watching the movie.

The 3 stories all focus on how surveillance is now ubiquitous and a part of our lives. How voyeurism and sting operations have been "democratized". As with the rest of Banerjee's movies, this is based in Delhi and thereabouts, so the characterizations are a special treat to those who love (or hate) Delhi.

The first story is about a die-hard Yashraj films fan, Rahul (Jha), who is directing his diploma movie titled "Mehndi Laga ke Rakhna" (with a nod to his idols, Yash & Aditya Chopra). Smitten by the Yashraj brand of mushy film-making, the movie is replete with the tackiness of 1990s Bollywood love-stories. Through Rahul's camera, which he likes to keep on all the time, we see that he falls for the heroine, Shruti (Shruti), a girl from an affluent, presumably "upper class" family of businessmen. Though it is not overtly explained, Rahul is expected to be from a lower caste. In spite of several social and financial disparaties Rahul and Shruti live their Yashraj romance...almost.

The second story is about voyeurism, security cameras and the underground desi-porn industry. Adarsh (Raj Kumar) is a smart-talking smooth operator working at an all-time departmental store as a general troubleshooter. Plagued with financial problems, he thinks of a quick way to make money - to ensnare young innocent store salesgirls and make out in front of a security camera. Unwittingly, he falls in love with his "victim", Rashmi, a plain-looking girl who looks up to him. Will he still go ahead and use her to get rich?

The last story is about the casting couch and media's sting operations. Prabhat (Sial) is a failed cameraman with a troubled personal life. He is pretty much on his way out of the news channel he works for. While he attempts suicide, he accidentally ends up saving the life of a woman who is also committing suicide. It turns that this fiery woman was short-changed by a popular pop-artist Loki Local (Tangdi), who promised her a key role in his next music video in exchange of sexual favors but then ditched her. Prabhat sees this as an opportunity to architect a sting operation to expose Loki and revive his sagging career. This would involve asking the troubled girl to repeat her traumatic experience with Loki. Would Prabhat use the hapless girl for his benefit?

To be honest, when I watched the film, I didn't quite know what to expect. I was expecting a shocking documentary-style artsy-fartsy film that deals with artsy-fartsy causes. However, I was pleasantly surprised. "LSD" is not only truly entertaining, it also justifies it's cinematic style. The movie is funny, shocking and thoughtful all at the same time. With a completely unknown cast, "LSD" keeps you guessing what's going to happen next. And Banerjee doesn't stretch the story and doesn't cut corners.

Like Banerjee's earlier movies, "LSD" steers clear away from moralistic or "socially relevant" messages and therein lies the best ingredient of the story. I found the 2nd story most evocative of all three but none of the stories bore you really.

Watch "LSD" for a lesson in good story telling, do not let anything else cloud your judgment.

My rating: 7.5/10

Quick Movie Reviews

2010-05-03T19:54:00.007+05:30

Happened to watch plenty of movies of late.

Some quick reviews (and an excuse to blog):

Karthik Calling Karthik

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Deepika Padukone, Ram Kapoor

Director: Vijay Lalwani

Fact#1: Multiple personality disorders cannot get better than "Fight Club". Period.

Fact#2: It was very clear that KCK was a MPD flick.

So that begs the question: "What would so interesting about KCK?". That plus the fact that Ms. LongLegs Padukone is one of the key actors just didn't lead to the multiplex ticket queue.

I saw this movie at home yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. Partly because I had low expectations but mostly because the movie moves forward solely on a strong screenplay.

The protagonist Karthik (Akhtar) is your typical 8AM-to-9PM stressed office-goer who has no life, no girlfriends, no hobbies and a lousy boss (Kapoor). He has a scarred childhood to boot. Then he receives a call from, er, himself one early morning and this telephonic alter ego changes things for him. Before we know it, Mr. Karthik turns in a suave hunk who pataos the office hot-chick (Padukone) that he had been eying for ages. However, things go wrong when he tries to explain his girlfriend what caused the sea-change in him. Things go really nasty after that as his alter ego turns on him and undoes everything that was so beautifully setup.

Again, the story is somewhat predictable but the execution is quite good.

What works: Screenplay. Akhtar is good as the nerdy accountant turned uber-cool hunk. Minimalistic supporting cast means less distraction.

What doesn't: Too much time spent on the budding romance - adds nothing to the story. Why did we need the songs?

My rating: 6/10. Could have been at least 7 if the movie was 20 minutes shorter. Not bad at all though.

Appaloosa

Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons

Director: Ed Harris

Yes you read it right. This is Ed Harris's second directorial venture and a lesser known movie (release 2008). I have a thing for westerns and this is a fantastic piece of work by Harris, who has nearly always delivered a tremendous performance on screen.

2 wandering lawmen (Harris and Mortensen) reach the sleepy little western town of Appaloosa, which is unofficially taken over by a gentlemanly but ruthless rancher Randall Bragg (Irons, brilliant as usual). The elder of the 2 lawmen Virgil Cole (Harris) fills the recently-emptied town Sheriff post and his quite sharp-shooting partner Everett Hitch (Mortensen) becomes the deputy.

While the 2 lawmen try to think of ways to bring Bragg to justice, a stranger (Zellweger) gets off the train in this dusty town with only a dollar to spare but possessing plenty of survival skills (as the DVD jacket puts it).

What works: The fantastic acting and the richly etched characters. This is more of a drama movie than a trigger happy western. Clint Eastwood would be proud of "Appaloosa". The best part of the movie is the understated friendship between the 2 lawmen. The quiet bond they share as a result of being with each other for over a decade. All the actors have done a fantastic job. But then with such a star-cast, what would you expect? The widescreen cinematography does complete justice.

What doesn't: Renee Zellweger's character has some interesting moments but overall is a distraction.

My rating: 7/10. "Appaloosa" delivers the quintessential western action plus oodles of drama and subtle humor. This is truly an overlooked gem.

Revolutionary Road

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates.

Director: Sam Mendes

Again, one of the big 2008-09 movies that I had not watched (The Reader, Milk, etc. are on the same list). Don't assume from the cast that it is "Titanic" rehashed. This drama movie is a completely different animal.

A story of the rise of the sub-urbs and middle-class in America, "Revolutionary Road" is about a young couple, Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) Wheeler, who move into a beautiful house on the eponymous street in a sub-urb. While April is a wannabe actresses who is yet to get her break, Frank has quite decided what to do with his life. Before they know it, the Wheelers settle in their respective societal stereotypes and while Frank gets a regular 9-to-5 desk job at a big company, April finds herself the mother of 2 kids.

The "Hopeless Emptiness" of dull family life sets in eventually and they decide to stop living like socially-authorized zombies and really start living their lives. They decide to move to Paris where April could work as a secretary and Frank would find time to really explore various other options. However, they soon find out how unrealistic it is as their friends (half out of jealousy and half out of shock) think it is silly idea and their own family life gets ruined in this race of shaking away from their roots. "Revolutionary Road" is a story about shattered dreams, societal norms and family problems narrated in a very clear tone from the guy who gave us "American Beauty".

What works: The characters, the screenplay and the brilliant execution. I loved how naturally the fights escalate between the lead couple.

What doesn't: The film has a very depressing aura about it. Although it is essential to develop this drama, it leaves you really sad.

My rating: 6.5/10. Watch it if you are into drama and in the mood for a serious movie.

"One of us"

2010-04-20T09:04:00.003+05:30

Let's start with the introductions.
Well, I don't give a shit about IPL or cricket in particular. Plus I find the Lalit Modi fellow absolutely obnoxious and repulsive. From what I hear, see and read Modi is not a favorite with anyone. Half of them see him as a scoundrel and the other half are jealous of the giant financial empire he has found on top of this IPL nonsense.
I follow Shashi Tharoor on Twitter. He is a well-educated, well-traveled guy and a seasoned writer. His tweets are informative.
Then there is the great India media circus. They read Tharoor's tweets, they misinterpret them and pass the misinterpretations to the rest of the old-fashioned netas, who have no idea what Twitter is or what was the context of the said tweet. The netas offer a knee-jerk reaction, which is front page news next day. The media also likes to cover IPL to death and flood us with information we don't need. Modi is the star of the circus and often gets the best possible coverage deals.

As a result, Mr. Tharoor comes across as the victim, which in some cases, he has been. But look at the current mess with the Kochi IPL franchise. 70 crore rupees, sweat money - all that jazz. There have been but some feeble denial and lame justifications from Tharoor and Ms. Pushkar. Now tell me why are the Twiteratti favoring ST?

Striker - Movie Review

2010-04-04T11:27:00.004+05:30

Cast: Siddharth, Aditya Pancholi, Ankur Vikal, Anupam Kher, Seema Biswas, Anup Soni, Nicolette Bird, Padmapriya and Vidya Malvade.

Director: Chandan Arora.

Striker is different film indeed and surprisingly different. Before the turn of this century, the film would have been labelled as "art" or "parallel". Now I am sure it would leave those who like to slot a little confused. In addition, Stiker also happens to be the first movie that had a simultaneous YouTube release - something that I didn't know before I saw the movie.

Anyway, the most, well, striking thing about Striker is a story honestly told. There are hidden messages, no propaganda, no social commentaries - just a simple story told in a very simple way. Based in the late 1970s to early 1990s period, the movie is about the life in lower-middle class and lower class families living in the cramped, somewhat hostile Malvani camp in Mumbai.

The key story element is the game of Carom, which strikes a chord with every middle-class guy who grew up in India during that period. Carom was a game of the masses. Neighborhood Carom clubs, tournaments and heroes are something most of us would have been brought up with. So the Carom element really, really hits the point. What's even better is that Arora keeps the game where it is and doesn't make the movie a "sports" movie.

The story is about a regular lower-middle class Malvani youngster, Suryakant (Siddharth) and how he deals with the city, his basti and finds ways to win. Surya is under-educated but has fire in his belly and wants to make it big. However, every plan he plots ends up in a failure as he is duped by smarter sharks every time. His path often crosses with his arch-nemesis, Jaleel (Pancholi), the local gangster. Jaleel knows that Surya is a Carom champ and wants Surya to play for him. Scarred by a childhood incident when Jaleel had beaten up his brother Chandra (Soni), Surya keeps resisting Jaleel's invitations. The movie is about the battle of wits between these two characters.

It is not much of a story really. But what makes this movie really different is the treatment that Arora gives it. The small town slum life is not glamorized and it is miles ahead of the Slumdog-ish treatment of reducing people to caricatures. All the main characters are richly defined and all the actors do justice to their roles. The relationships, the struggle to survive, the "stars-in-the-eyes" outlook and the role of the city in everybody's lives are etched beautifully in the movie.

While everyone puts up a really superb act, Ankur Vikal as Surya's wayward but very close friend Zaid and Pancholi's fantastic comeback as the menacing Jaleel really take the cake. Surya and Zaid friendship is beautifully textured and Zaid's character as the drug-dealing cop-magnet low-life is one of the best characters as far as Bollywood stereotypes go. Jaleel's calculating evil act is at par with the best negative roles on screen. Surya's life and his association with his family members (especially with sister Devi, played by Malvade) is depicted with a realism that is seldom seen in "slum inspired" movies. This is Siddharth's best role ever and he has been absolutely fantastic as Surya.

In spite of the seemingly dull storyline, the movie is surprisingly gripping and holds your attention throughout its 130 min running time. There are points in the movie where it slows down a bit and at times the flashbacks seem tedious. For me, the abrupt ending was the lowest point. I didn't quite understand why was it so rushed.

Watch the movie for some honest story telling and some very good performances.

My Rating: 7/10. Good work, Mr. Arora.

Sway - Book Review

2010-02-14T20:09:00.003+05:30

Authors: Ori and Rom Brafman.

I can't remember who was the first one to start this trend of collecting irrelevant but interesting trivia from around the world and trying to shoehorn all of them in a ridiculous "frame" to portray that there is a common thread that binds all the seemingly unconnected phenomenon together. All this served in a lucidly written form that resembles Crichton-isque thriller-fiction.

Was it Steven Levitt? Or Malcolm Gladwell?

I can't remember really. It doesn't matter who anymore. The point is that it has now spawned into a whole damn industry and everybody is lined up to sell there own theories on how everything is interconnected.

The problem is most of the time, it doesn't work! That is the key problem with "Sway".

I had read Ori Brafman's "The Starfish and the Spider" a while back and had quite liked it. It had a central theme and had some fantastic anecdotes. I was hoping "Sway" will have some of those elements but was rudely disappointed :(.

There is no central theme though there is a desperate attempt to make everything fit into the general "irrationality" box. Plus most of the stories, anecdotes, studies, research, etc. are all second- or even third-hand. Never mind the conclusions, which are childish when they are not completely illogical.

I have just finished the book and I can't even remember a quotable part of it!

My rating: 3/10. Avoid it. Nothing of the "TS&TS" in here.

Paa

2009-12-26T08:46:00.003+05:30

Director: R. Balki

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Arundhati Naag and Paresh Rawal.

I think there are 2 types of people who would go watch "Paa" - fans of Amitabh Bachchan and fans of R. Balki. I went with the latter's frame of mind. AB Sr. nearly always does a decent job and I am not a fan of make-up based characterization (remember the terribly vain "Dasavatharam"?). And I think it is a right frame of mind for "Paa".

The story is quite simple: a wannabe MP (Abhishek) and a wannabe doctor (Balan) meet in Cambridge. Before long, the girl realizes that she is pregnant and the boy says it's too early and it may severely damage his political ambitions. The girl says she will not let his dreams shatter and walks away from him.

The movie starts 13 years later when the boy has become a successful new-gen MP and visits a school to adjudicate a crafts competition. The winner happens to be a precocious kid Auro (Amitabh), who is your typical pre-teen but has progeria. The two develop a strange friendship without either of them knowing that the MP is Auro's father. The rest of the movie is about how they come in terms with that.

The point I would like to make here is the focus of the movie is not progeria as such. Balki doesn't exploit the rare disorder but rather tries to create some aware about it. Under his aged body, Auro is like any other 13-year old.

What really works (at for me) is the script and the dialogs, especially the kids' parts. After TZP, Paa treats kids like they are, not some juvenile props just used for comic relief. Auro and his friends talk a language I and you would have used. They have the same fears, uncertainties, interests, joys and sorrows that we had at their age. In fact, I think the movie would lost none of its zest if the progeria angle and (hence) AB Sr. were dropped out. Most of the people whom I have talked to seem to watch it just for these two elements.

Everyone delivered a splendid performance. Amitabh gets his act right. The small touches like shaking his legs, his bubbling-under animosity towards girls, his annoyance at when not being treated like a kid - nothing goes over the board. It is all handled well without overdoing it. Abhishek fits the bill of the smart young politician (reminded me of Sachin Pilot). Arundhati Naag as Auro's grandmother shares a wonderful chemistry with lead character. Paresh Rawal as Abhishek's dad doesn't have a lot to do. Finally, Vidya Balan brings back her "Parineeta" charm - after a long, long time. It was good to see that.

One of the few jarring flaws of the film: Abhishek's candid TV exposés. They distract and are bit showy. In fact, Abhishek's role of as politician just serves the purpose of showing the Rastrapati Bhavan to Auro - otherwise it doesn't fit at all.

Overall, I think it was a fantastic movie. Don't just go for the actors, it is the sparkling dialog that fuels this movie.

My Rating: 8/10.

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra

2009-12-20T07:54:00.003+05:30

Director: Stephen Sommers

Cast: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ray Park, Rachel Nichols and Dennis Quaid.

Sommers delivers another over-the-top action movie. This one may impress fans as it at least has some story line. However, a lot is lot as Sommers tries to super-size this.

The story is about how Cobra comes to power led by the evil Doctor (Gordon-Levitt) who raises his own force of "programmed" Vipers. The Doctor also invents a lethal nano-mite technology that can eat into metal and destroy entire cities in minutes.

The movie starts with Duke (Tatum) and Ripcord (Wayans) delivering nano-mite warheads to NATO command when they are attacked by mysterious but well-equipped mercenaries led by Duke's ex-girlfriend Ana/The Baroness (Miller). Duke and his team are rescued by a group of trained international commandos called the G.I. Joes. Soon Duke and Ripcord are inducted to this elite force and try to get the lost warheads back.

While most of Sommers' previous movies succeed through excessive action and larger than life characters, this one falls flat due to the very same reasons. The casting is all wrong, Tatum can't act or emote, not even to match plastic action toys. Miller looks good but that's about it. Only Ray Park as Snake-Eyes makes an impression and rises above the movie. The climatic underwater action scene is too confusing and dark to be enjoyed. Even the special effects are shoddy (except a few scenes with the accelerator suits).

My rating: 4.5/10.

Avatar

2009-12-20T06:41:00.002+05:30

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez

James Cameron likes to redefine cinema and he has done it again with Avatar. It is the 3rd time that Cameron has made the costliest movie of its time and it is a great cinematic achievement. But as a Cameron fan, I couldn't see his story-telling touch, that is why it doesn't quite become the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Here's the story: some 150 years from now, mankind has almost destroyed Earth through its excesses. In its quest to search for new planets to colonize, they come across Pandora - a green Earth-like planet inhabited with the tall, graceful humanoid Na'vi. Na'vis are peaceful creatures who live in complete harmony with nature. Unfortunately, their main colony is situated over a large deposit of a strange metal which is somehow very important for humans. A rich and powerful company wants to get its hands on this deposit and tries different ways to extract this metal and to convince the natives to move camp but the Na'vi refuse.

To build some inroads into the natives' minds, the humans create their Na'vi Avatars. Avatars are 10-foot tall Na'vi versions of humans and are created by genetically combining the DNA of the Na'vi and humans. A mental link is formed between a human and his/her Avatar and the Avatar shares all its behavioral traits with its human counterpart. The company sends these Avatars are sent to the Na'vi colonies in order to teach them about humans and try a peaceful way to negotiate. Dr. Grace Augustine (Weaver) heads this research lab and already has become good friends with some of natives. The company also has a large army of mercenaries that it has hired should they resort to some aggressive negotiation.

A disabled ex-marine Jake Sully (Worthington) comes to Pandora to join the researchers to replace his twin brother who died. The idea is that Jake would possibly be able to "control" his twin's Avatar since the twins share the DNA. Avatars being expensive propositions, the company doesn't want to discard the Avatar. This interests the head of the army, Colonel Quaritch (Lang), and he asks Sully to work from him off the record. Sully agrees to share his first hand knowledge with Quaritch and his team and Quaritch promises to get Sully "a new pair of legs" after the mission. The company plans to attack the Na'vi colony soon if Dr. Grace's diplomatic efforts fail to convince the Na'vi to move.

On a field trip to jungles of Pandora, Sully (his Avatar, rather) gets separated from the rest of the science team. While he tries to survive the hostile jungle, he is picked up by Neytiri (Saldana), the daughter of the Na'vi clan's chief. Neytiri notices certain "signs" which indicates their mother goddess Eywa favors Sully's Avatar. The clan then decides that they should adopt Sully and give him a chance to become one of them. Sully then slowly learns how to live like a Na'vi. On the sly, Sully keeps reporting to Quaritch and the latter prepares for mounting an attack as the diplomatic negotiations do not seem to work.

Sully's Avatar then succeeds through his Na'vi initiation rites and realizes that he and Neytiri love each other. Before they know it, Quaritch and his army attack the colony and destroy it. Sully has to now decide which side is he on.

The Avatar has some strong themes, like most of Cameron's movies. However, somehow the story-telling part is missing. It appears that Cameron's exhausted himself perfecting the effects and defining the Na'vi tribes, but the story is lame and seems to be out of a sappy action love story. I just saw Cameron's "The Abyss" a few days back and I was impressed by the story. I do not know why did he choose to dumb the story down here.

Nevertheless it is a fantastic achievement and sets standards for immersive viewing in 3-D. Defining a whole new world with the camera and making it look realistic is where Avatar scores heavily and unlike any other movie before it.

Watch it in 3-D. It is worth it. Do not expect the story to blow you away though.

My rating: 7.5/10. Could have been much, much higher if only it had a better story to tell.

Hearts in Atlantis - Book Review

2009-11-29T18:53:00.003+05:30

I got back to Stephen King again, partly because I wanted a page turner which is "safe" enough to last a trip but mostly because King is King :).
I had always thought "Hearts in Altantis" was one of King's short story collections and I am partly correct there. The book does have 5 stories - 2 long ones and 3 fairly short ones. All stories are linked to each other, all of them have firmly linked to the Vietnam war. I was expecting the usual macabre tales but was pleasantly surprised.
The first story "Low Men in Yellow Coats", based in the early 1960s, is about a young teenager, Bobby Garfield, raised by his widowed mother in the small, laid back Connecticut town of Harwich. A mysterious old stranger, Ted Brautigan, moves next door and befriends Bobby and slowly Bobby and his buddies Carol and "Sully"-John realize that Ted is hiding from someone...or something. Turns out that Ted is hiding from "Low men in Yellow Coats", who are not really human. Bobby keeps thinking that the otherwise lovable Ted has this one eccentricity but it becomes clear to him that Ted is actually from a different world altogether. There are several beautiful motifs in the story - mostly with regards to coming-of-age pangs and the literature people associate with it. It also beautifully describes how the mind of a child can actually fathom so much about the adults' intentions and can judge reactions. William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is the central inspiration for the story and is used as such by the lead character Bobby. It is also about role-models, rival schools, bullies, standing-up-for-the-right-thing, corny sci-fi movies, first crush, baseball, friendships and many other little things that little boys' worlds are built on. However, I felt it was overlong and the "Dark Tower" angle didn't really work for me. The "Hearts in Atlantis" movie is based on this story alone, which incidentally is also the only story with a supernatural tinge in the whole book.

The titular story occurs in 1966-1970 and is narrated in first person by Pete Riley, a freshman in the University of Maine. This, my friends, is the best story in the book according to me. The story is basically about how the craze of the Hearts card game spreads like a dreaded epidemic in the all-male dorm, causing nearly the whole batch of freshman to throw away their studies and future careers. This is around the time when the Hippie movement was heating up and Vietnam drafting was in full swing. Loosing a college seat would mean a trip to the "green" next summer. So the boys are actually gambling there lives away. What I could really, really connect to was King's description of the dorm and the lives led by the male inmates. It was actually very similar our gents' hostel days back in college, right down to the characters in the story! I relived those days for a while :). And this may sound uncanny, but back in those days, card games with minor stakes DID become an epidemic. There was a variant of rummy that was called "barbaadi" (the destruction) which had become such a craze in 9th block of the men's hostel that people gained, lost and owed fortunes - putting their montly cheques, tuition fees, mess fees on the line. Stuff like this really happens. The connecting link here is Bobby's childhood friend, Carol, whom Pete falls in love with. This was the most satisfying dorm story I have read in ages. Fantastic stuff! :)

The next story is "Blind Willie", which is very O. Henry-ish in a way. It is based in the early 1980s and is about William Shearman, a reluctant bully from Harwich - the same town where Bobby and Carol grew up in. After almost loosing his eye-sight in 'Nam war, veteran Willie has to settle down for a, well, non-standard livelihood to support him and his wife Sharon. Willie's childhood misdeeds, especially when he helped fellow bullies to beat Carol up and break her arm, still haunt him and he wants to repent but can't find means to do that. This is a simple and touching story about life and all how it transforms humans.

Next comes "Why we are in Vietnam" is about Bobby's other friend, John "Sully" Sullivan and this one is based in late 1990s. Sully-John, the sports champ in school, grows up the wholly American way and volunteers himself to the "green". The horrors of 'Nam leave him with one testicle, a pronounced limp and a life-long supply of horrors. Sully-John now just about manages to live by as a car salesman and in his world, socializing means meeting old veterans at other veterans' funerals; where everone discusses if Agent Orange was indeed the cause why so many veterans die of cancer. Sully-John's psychological problems resurface after a such a "social" gathering.

The last story is basically a post script of sorts where Bobby and Carol meet again in Harwich, forty years after they parted.

On the whole, a good read. Terribly partial to the second story - "Hearts in Atlantis". Stephen King at his non-macabre best.

Kaminey - Movie review

2009-10-08T05:45:00.002+05:30

Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte, Tenzing Nima
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
After "Maqbool" and "Omkara", expectations from Vishal were obviously very high. At first, I thought this would be another Shakespearean adaptation, perhaps of "Tale of two cities" but then it turned out that this is an original script. The point is that Vishal scores and through "Kaminey" a new breed of Bollywood cinema is born...
Let's look at the plot first: the story is about identical twins - Guddu and Charlie (Kapoor). While Guddu sticks to an honest living, Charlie can take up anything - legal or illegal - to earn a quick buck. The brothers are estranged for years when one fateful night their lives intertwine again.
Guddu's girlfriend Sweety (Chopra) is pregnant and suddenly reveals her mysterious past. She is the sister of the dreaded gangster-turn-politician Sunil Bhope (Gupte) and is a runaway. She convinces Guddu to marry her before her brother finds out and suggests that they run off to Katmandu ASAP. Guddu reluctantly agrees. Bhope's men arrive at their impromptu wedding and try to stop it but Guddu and Sweety manage to escape.
At the same time, Charlie loses his life's savings on a supposedly fixed race when the jockey betrays. While trying to settle his account with the people who screwed up the deal, Charlie accidentally bumps into 2 corrupt cops who are trying to secure a guitar case full of cocaine for drug lord Tashi (Nema). Without realising that he is dealing with cops, Charlie steals their van and later picks up the guitarcase as he sees a chance of earning a quick buck.
Bhope, meanwhile, comes to know of Sweety's plans and tries to track down Guddu. Given his connections, people point him to Charlie and tell him that Guddu is Charlie's twin. At the same time, Guddu gets caught in a dragnet the cops lay for Charlie and is questioned by the cocaine-peddling cops. The story takes more complex turns as the twins try to trade each other in for their own interests; finally ending in a finale where all the characters inadvertently face-off...
There were several comparisions with "Pulp Fiction" and Guy Ritchie movies, but I think "Kaminey" stands on its own. Just using parallel strorylines doesn't make it a copy of something else. Vishal took a simple story and added a number of twists and layers of noir. The result is an atomospheric dark thriller that has enough pace to keep one interested. Bombay was never depicted so bleakly ever! I didn't like the trigger happy climax - too distracting and doesn't fit into the rest of the mood of the movie. But everything else is nearly perfect. It's the small touches - the twins' speech impediments, the multilingual druglord, Bhope's Maharastra-for-Maharastrians agenda, his diabetis problem - which make the movie work.
Shahid Kapur does a brilliant job, as does Chopra (for a change). Amole Gupte, the brain behind "Taare Zameen Par", makes his debut as Bhope and is quite impressive. Tassaduq Hussain's cinematography captures the dark, gloomy look the movie needs. In all, it is a good movie.
My rating: 7/10. Hope the rest of Bollywood takes the cue from Vishal now.

The Tipping Point

2009-09-19T19:37:00.006+05:30

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
This is supposedly THE book that answered a lot of questions. And Gladwell is, of course, is THE pop sociologist of our times. But I didn't quite understand the need for this book.
Don't get wrong here: Gladwell does introduce some powerful sociological concepts - how epidemics spread and what controls them. But a whole book dedicated to it is rather useless.
Gladwell basically highlights the epidemic phenomenon due to which certain things sudden grow in popularity (or fall from grace) and no one understands why! Return of Hush Puppies in their hi-fashion avatar, crime wave in NY, smoking among teens in America, suicide fad in Micronesia - there are several instances of such epidemics are very much a part of our lives. Things do not have to ramp up steadily - they sometimes blow out of proportion. Fair enough.
"The Law of the Few" - how a handful of people are enough to trigger an epidemic. Connectors, who are socially active and well connected; Mavens, who are the subject matter experts (the whiz-kind); Salesmen - who convince others to take something up!
"The Context" - how minor things in our upbringing, peer social circle and surroundings prove to be surprising conducive to further spread an epidemic.
"Stickness" and "Contagiousness"- how easy is a particular fad appeal to people and how easily can it be spread.
There are some very interesting concepts discussed in there but all these could have been discussed in a 1500 word blog post. The problem with the book is that Gladwell rambles completely off track and starts discussing things that seem to have nothing to do with the core message. Most examples and anecdotes are overdescribed. What do I care about the behind the screen details of Sesame Street when I can understand the point about stickiness? Plus the author annoyingly spends entire paragraphs pointing to previous content in the book. This seems to be as a page-filling exercise.
I believe the book project originally sprang out of a newspaper article. I am sure that article will be concise enough to enjoy. The book, thankfully, is an easy read and the last "Conclusion" chapter is good. But I do not think I am in a hurry to read more from Gladwell right now. :(
My rate: 5/10.

Magnetic Stylus for Capacitive touch Screen mobiles

2009-08-20T09:21:00.004+05:30

A Tech Post after a long, long time.

News is that HTC may have the answer to what has annoyed mobile users who are fed up with using their fingers their capacitive touch screens. If you are wondering what is a capacitive touch screen, it is the screen an iPhone uses and, say, N97 doesn't. The other type of touch screen would be a resistive touch screen. Read more.

Since the capacitive screen need something that can conduct electricity, normal plastic styli won't work. This may work for most technology enthusiasts but for some this may be quite a pain. For example, non-English people find it really difficult to trust the handwriting recognisition for their scripts on such capacitive screen devices - it is really difficult to jot down non-Roman characters with one's thick digits. For some others, using the digits is just plain annoying.
So, HTC's solution is to use a magnetic stylus that can conduct the capacitive current and can be as accurate as a stylus on a resistive touch screen.

Read more:
Engadget
WmPower

2009-08-02T16:09:00.003+05:30

A very interesting piece of research that looks deep down into the inner workings of some of the world's foremost companies and tries to find what makes them click.
The authors compare companies that have been in existence for at least 50 years with "comparison companies" that have share nearly the same evolutionary factors and the market space as the visionary companies.
Wal-Mart, Sony, Boeing, CitiCorp, American Express, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Motorola, Disney, etc. are the top "visionary companies" studied by the authors. There is a strong bias towards the American business (which the authors openly admit, read the Appendix before the book) but most of the insights and anecdotes in the book are brilliant. The authors try to find the common thread between what makes these companies "visionary" and instead propose that it is the belief of these companies in their core ideology that makes them special. They argue that it doesn't matter what the company's core values are (profit, service, market share, innovation), what is important is that these values come from within the organisation and have universal buy-in from all levels. Several companies cannot make the distinction between the core values and their business aspirations, which invariably causes them to loose their identity.
The authors encourage companies to adopt the "Genius of AND" while giving up the "Tyranny of OR". That is, make critical decisions to pursue short term goals and keep the core values intact at the same time. Most companies seem to think that they have to choose between their core values and the demands of their current business. The authors say that such dilemmas would always been that either the company got their core ideals wrong or are just not visionary enough the embrace the and.
A refreshing book to read if you tired of seeing success being defined purely in terms of sales figures. Read the 10th anniversary edition with a bonus chapter.
My review: 7/10.

Love Aaj Kal

2009-08-01T20:56:00.004+05:30

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rishi Kapoor, , Rahul Khanna.
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Hmm. I quite liked Imtiaz Ali's last movie, "Jab We Met" and it was fair to have expectations with this one. Ali doesn't disappoint really. Like JWM, LAK is a rom-com with no strong storyline. But Ali delivers the goods through the script and peppy dialogue.
The movie is about 2 story lines - one set in the present day with globe-trotting career-minded people and the other set in the 1960s. The modern-day couple, Jai (Khan) and Meera (Padukone), are based in London and have the usual "practical" relationship that gives enough room for each to pursue their own dreams. Jai wants to go to San Fransisco and Meera wants to fulfill her life-long ambition to go back to India and undertake monument restoration projects. They both agree that long distance relationships won't really work and parts way in a very mature and amicable manner; even celebrate the break-up with friends. Life goes on and they both find their niches (and new partners, of course). A friendly restuarant owner, Veer Panesar (Kapoor) watches their relationship closely and declares to Jai that he can't really understand how couples handle their romances today (the Aaj).
The Kal story line is narrated by Veer who fell for the coy little damsel Harleen () from his Old Delhi mohalla. Veer feels that there are several similarities between his own love story and what Jai and Meera are going through, just that the younger couple handle things differently (use their minds, instead of their hearts).
So that's the essence of the movie - relationships then and now. What really works is the story narrative. Ali took his risk and the results are brilliant - the narrative is not always linear but doesn't leave the masala audience confused either. Khan playing Jai and a young Veer is bang on target. Rishi Kapoor yet again makes a solid impact, he is a pleasure to watch (though this role in Luck By Chance was better). There is enough entertainment in the movie to keep you hooked. However, I feel that it could have been at least 30 minutes shorter; especially the 2nd half drags a little.
Never been a fan of Deepika Padukone (the actress, not the model). I would have expected a more spunkier act here whereas she seems to have problems dialogue delivery. The should not act either, she is pretty as long as she doesn't open her mouth. Rahul Khanna is completely wasted in a bit role (poor guy).
Overall, this movie has its moments. It is about relationships and how they come back to haunt you. How people's perspective change over a period of time. For most part, it is smart, refreshing, mature cinema. Which is saying a lot. I have a lot of respect for Imtiaz Ali and his gang of new breed directors in Bollywood. Due credit to him: Job well done.
My rating: 7/10.

Zodiac

2009-07-19T17:05:00.003+05:30

Zodiac
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, etc.
This one came out sometime in 2007 but never saw it to the moviehalls here in Bangalore. Being a Fincher movie, I wanted to watch it for a long time now.
The movie is based on a book of the same, published by Robert Graysmith, played by Gyllenhaal in the movie. The plot of the movie is the Zodiac serial killer who haunted the San Fransisco Bay Area for more than a decade. The movie narrates the events from the first reported murder way back in 1968 to the final stages of the investigation in the early 1990s.
Hungry for fame in a weird, morbid way, the Zodiac killer himself used to call up police stations and report in his own crimes. In addition, he used to send puzzles and random clues to newspaper offices asking them to publish it so that the readers can crack his code.
Why this movie turns out to be different from most other slasher flicks is that a lot of research has gone into maintaining the authenticity. The characters are all real, not based on real people. A lot of SFX has gone into recreating the 60s and 70s SFO. Also, the lead character, Robert Graysmith is a cartoonist at the SFO Chronicle; an unlikely hero who stumbles into this case just because he happens to work at a newspaper in some capacity. Eventually, Graysmith dedicated years of his life trying to nail the Zodiac killer. It is not your serial killer mystery. Hell, it is even significantly different from Fincher's own "Se7en" and far less engaging. In all, "Zodiac" plays out as serious drama more than anything else and should be viewed from that angle.
Full points to film-makers on going to great lengths to depict what's true. But the flip side of this is that the movie is over long (runs for nearly 2h30m) and has a very slow pace. It is almost like a documentary. The actors all have done a great job, especially Downey. Gyllenhaal, somehow, has never been my favourite.
My rating: 6.5/10.

X-Men Orgins: Wolverine

2009-06-21T21:09:00.004+05:30

Dir: Gavin Hood
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schrieber, Danny Huston, will.i.am, Ryan Reynolds, etc.
Personally I am partial to DC superheros. Most of the Marvel universe never appealed to me. However, Wolverine (and the Green Lantern perhaps) have been very interesting from that lot. Plus Hugh Jackman played Wolverine brilliantly in the first 2 Brian Singer movies (the third one was a bore, even Jackman couldn't save it). Another interesting bit is that the studios are making a conscious effort to retell the Marvel Superheroes stories - "Ironman" and "The Incredicle Hulk" are classic examples. So there was ample reason to watch this one. After more than a month's delay, they finally started screening it in India.
The movie is loosely based on the X-Men Origins series that came out a few years ago. I think there Wolverine is the X-Man with the most enigmatic past and I found the comicbook to be brilliant. The movie picks up some elements from it plus adds more.
The movie doesn't have Rose, the young Wolverine's (James) childhood friend, and instead of "Dog" Logan, we have Victor Creed - the hero's half brother (and on his way to become Sabretooth). In the book, "Dog" Logan was the half-brother and it remains unclear whether he is indeed Sabretooth or not.
Anyway, the movie starts like the book with both the half-brothers running away from their remote mansion somewhere in Canada after the young James kills their biological father, Thomas Logan. The 2 brothers grow up together and slowly realise they have special powers (healing factor, raw power, slow aging, etc.). They both spend more than a century together, protecting each other, fighting wars. All this is captured brilliantly as the beginning captions roll, brilliantly done. During all this time, while James develops into a reticent individual, Victor (Schrieber, excellent) becomes a violent lawless murderer. When their special powers come to the knowledge of the U.S. Defence, Major Stryker (Huston) invites them to join a "special" defence team, hinting that it is probably an elite assembly of mutants.
Time moves on and James soon realises that this Team X is a just being used by the government to execute covert missions, usually involving killing innocents. While Victor revels in this, James decides to quit. James becomes a lumberjack and retires to some remote log hut of Canada with his girlfriend, Kyla Silverfox.
6 years later, Stryker and Zero find him out and inform him that someone is killing his buddies from the erst-while Team X. They ask him to help. James refuses. It turns out that this someone is Victor who he comes looking for James and kills Kyla instead. James find Victor but Victor beats the hell out of him and walks away. James finally agrees to join hands with Stryker to find Victor. Stryker suggests a plan that will make James invulnerable. This is nothing but the horrifying Weapon X experiment to which James is subjected. Stryker's team reinforces James' skeleton with adamantium, a virtually industrible metal, thus creating the monster, Wolverine.
The rest of the movie is a sequence of fast paced action and not much of a story.
Jackman does justice to his role again, but unfortunately it limited to grunting and growling largely. Liev Schreiber as Victor leaves an impression, he was really good! Brian Cox was more menancing as Stryker in X2, but Danny Huston passes for a younger and more wily version of the character. It is surprising to see Ryan Reynolds in a one-bit role of Wade Wilson, but he makes a comeback as the ultra-mutant, Deadpool. Reynolds will soon appear in a spin-off movie as the Deadpool again, if rumours are to be believed. Not a bad choice.
As the end credits scroll, however, I was left with a feeling that something is terribly amiss. The movie has full paisa-vasool action and most of the actors are well casted but there is hardly any storyline. In fact, this outing fares more poorly than Brett Ratner's X3 in the story department. There are lesser wisecracks and mutant drama plus the original storyline has been severely tampered, not always for the better.
My Rating: 6/10. Watch it for Jackman, Schreiber and the action.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2009-06-17T20:14:00.003+05:30

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Brian Steele, etc.
My first Guillermo del Toro movie was "The Mimic", which I saw some 10 years back as a student. Now, the late 90s were full of monster movies, "The Relic", "Godzilla" and a dozen more than I don't even remember watching now. So, actually there was no reason why "The Mimic" should offer any novelty. However, I was really surprised to see "The Mimic" never had a boring moment! The movie had a comic-book-ish style that kept me entertained. Plus it was spot in dark, dank locations but in a manner that brought out the best of these location is a noir kind of way. It was a case of old wine in a very new bottle and I knew del Toro was the guy responsible for this.
Cut to 2004 and comes Hellboy, based on a little known obscure comic book dealing with some very odd themes. Nothing great about it but it had its promising moments - a half-demon superhero protecting the world from the dark forces. Nazis and Rasputin featuring as bad guys. It was fantastic. However, it didn't leave a deep impact. Del Toro, however, followed up with "Pan's Labyrinth" and "El Orphanato" and left a mark. So when I heard that he is making "Hellboy II", I knew it would be worth a watch. And it indeed was.
In this second outing, Hellboy (Perlman) has to stop a disgruntled Elf Prince (Goss) from destroying the human race by raising the dormant Golden Army. The story by itself is ho-hum but it is the treatment that makes this a terrific watch!
This time around, del Toro breaks free from the comicbook mould and adds more characters, more emotions, more texture, more colour and lot of more fantastic ingredients that made his "Pan's Labyrinth" so special. There several themes that form the undercurrent of the main story line that keep things interesting. I am not talking of sub-plots, more like motifs that are brilliantly interleaved in the story. For instance, Hellboy wondering whether he belongs in this world of human or the Elf Prince fighting for making the Earth a beautiful place again.
Selma Blair have been given a makeover and looks absolutely hot as Hellboy's pyrokinetic partner. Abe Sapien (Jones) has been given more screen space and does a fantastic job. Plus there are a myriad of monsters that del Toro borrows from several sources, including his own work. What's more he has designed most of these creatures himself, a proper auteur when it comes to these things.
I know Hellboy is not the most popular superhero around but I think Guillermo del Toro has given the comic book superhero several interesting dimesions, which is why I liked the movie. On the surface, it seems to be a poor hatchet job of Star Wars, LOTR and vampire movies, but underneath there is a lot that makes this a wonderful comicbook adaptation.
My rating: 7.5/10

Duma Key - Book Review

2009-06-08T20:54:00.002+05:30

Author: Stephen King
As I may have confessed in several posts, I am a Stephen King reader and have read several of his books (at least those published before 2000). I often revisit King or find an interesting new book by him in the library and bring it home.
Duma Key was one such instance.
"Duma Key" is one of King's few novels that are set outside Maine. In fact, I think this was his first novel set in Florida. As far as King's literature goes, "Duma Key" has a fair fright-factor, plus it is an easy read as well.
The story is about a very well-to-do middle-aged Minnesota construction tycoon, Ed Freemantle, who has a serious accident on site that costs him his right arm and leaves him with severe head injuries. It takes Freemantle several months to recover and he has to deal not only with his pain and his phantom limb but also with bouts of violent anger. His wife wants to leave him and suddenly Freemantle seems to be at the end of his rope. His pyschologist suggests that he spends a few months in a different location, take a long holiday basically, and recover. Freemantle narrows down on a remote, barely inhabited island in Florida called Duma Key.
Very soon, Freemantle seems to feel at home on the Key. Plus he seems to revive his dormant artistic skills and starts to sketch and paint. Before he knows it, he is drawing world-class paintings, most of which have an eerie resemblence with his past and...future. Soon he understands that there is some force on the island that seems to guide his hand as he paints. He realises that he can make things happen just by the stroke of a brush.
However, there are very few he can share this secret with. Wireman, a retired lawyer who nows takes care of an old lady next door on the island, becomes his closest friend and ally. Together they try to unravel the frightening history of the island and the hints lead them to Wireman's octogenarian lady boss, Miss Eastlake. A spinster now down with Alzheimer's, Miss Elizabeth Eastlake was born and brought up on Duma Key and knows about some unspeakable evil that she fought as a young girl. The evil seems to have woken up again...
As far as King's novel goes, this is probably not his best. But this is definitely more modern and has several spine-chilling episodes that keeps the reader entertained. The spookiest bits, according to me, are the ones where Freemantle is trying recover from his accident and often fails to associate words with things. A tad overlong (more than 600 pages!), the book is nevertheless a page turner.
My rating: 6.5/10

Purple Hibiscus

2009-05-17T07:36:00.002+05:30

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Purple Hibiscus is Adichie's debut novel, published back in 2004. It is a beautiful read, offering a first hand view of modern Nigerian life and the stark differences between the have and have-nots in the nation. The plot is simpler than "Half of a Yellow Sun" but is as impressive.
The novel main theme is religious oppression and the story is narrated through the main protagonist, the 15-year old Kambili. Kambili and her brother, Jaja, are brought up in the most strict religious environment of their Enugu home. Headed by their deeply religious father Eugene, their family is rich and have all the material pleasures. Eugene, a god-fearing Catholic who takes active interest in the socio-political activities around their city, is a different person at home. He is repressive and unpredictably violent at home. Kambili, Jaja and their mother love and fear Eugene in equal measure and as the story progresses, their individual opinions sway between extreme emotions towards the patriach.
The turning point of the story is when the kids ride down to the university town of Nsukka, where they stay with their aunt Ifeoma and their 3 cousins. This turns out to be a completely shocking experience for Kambili and Jaja, this being their first visit out of home without their father's supervision. Aunt Ifeoma, a lecturer at the university, is a fun-loving liberal who shares none of the religious fanaticism of her brother. Though relatively poor and surrounded by the tense atomosphere of the volatile university campus, aunt Ifeoma's home is full of laughter. Everyone gets to express what they feel and there is no oppression of any sort. Amidst all this, the adolescent Kambili discovers forbidden love. Back at Enugu, the political situation warms up, threatening Eugene and his antiestablishmentarian underground newspaper...
It is a brilliantly weaved story, powerful themes tackled with really simple narration. The political backdrop adds a certain ominous hum to the novel. The multi-layered characterisation of Eugene and the too-scared-to-explore nature of Kambili holds one attention.

My rating: 7.5/10. A good read. A brilliant debut novel.

13 B - Movie review

2009-05-11T10:23:00.003+05:30

Cast: R. Madhavan, Neetu Chandra, Poonam Dhillon, Sachin Khedekar and Deepak Dobriyal
Director: Vikram K. Kumar
This movie showed a lot of promise. First it had really captivating promos. Plus Madhavan is usually the dependable sort of actor. 13B doesn't disappoint but leaves a strange feeling in your mind that it could have been much better.
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THERE MAY BE
SPOILERS!
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The story is about an urban joint family - 2 brothers and their wives, the kids, a kid sister and their mother. They all invest and buy a huge duplex apartment with the said door number on the 13th floor (but of course). As soon as they move in, they find minor oddities. Viz., milk doesn't boil over, one cannot drill nails in the wall to hang Gods' pics, etc. The younger brother Manu/Manohar (Madhavan), a civil engineer by profession, finds that he is particularly impacted by this bizarre phenomenon - he cannot use the lift.
Then, slowly it turns out that there is a daily soap on TV that is based on a family very similar to this one. Slowly, Manu realises that what happens on the soap seems to actually happen to his family as well. Manu knows something is wrong but strives to find an explanation. His family doesn't seem to see the connection (which, I thought was rather lame) and he doesn't want to scare them out of their wits. So he silently continues to find an explanation being very careful to keep track of what's happening in the serial.
Then there are several twists and turns in the story and finally it turns out that there are indeed ghosts of the past here. And they want to avenge their untimely deaths.

The good: I liked the bit when the scares come from the commonplace TV soap. PC Sreeram's cinematography is brilliant. There are enough chills on the ride. Acting is, for most part, fine. The 1970s part is handled beautifully (the arrival of the first TV in the neighbourhood, etc.). Most of the dialogues (by the director himself) are smart and crisp, very contemporary.
The Bad: As with most of the horror movies, the ending leaves one dissatisfied. There are several twists and turns and at one point there is an indication that this may not be a case of spirits at all. I think that would have been a good point to wrap up the movie. But that doesn't happen unfortunately.
Madhavan fits perfectly in the role of the urban engineer. Neetu Chandra is not bad either, though she has very little to do. Deepak Dobriyal amazes again with his very brief role as a mentally challenged murder suspect. Unfortunately, he is wasted again with a limited screen time.

My rating: 6.5/10. A very good effort by the crew. The screenplay should have been a little stronger. Worth a watch.

Mother's day

2009-05-10T10:29:00.002+05:30

Here's wishing all the mums out there a very Happy Mother's Day. I am not much for these fancy "days" which are, for most part, attempts to capitalise on basic bonding. But hey, this is for mums. :).
And...Oh yes, if you are planning to "treat" your mum by giving her vouchers for that Mothers Day special weight loss program at your local gym (as many ads in the print have been prompting us to do) - think again. Make sure you put it across in a nice, subtle way. "Give father a new mother" (yes, it is actually a tagline for the special MD scheme at one of the biggest gyms here!!! WTF) may not really flatter your mum. Be smart. ;)

The Pledge - Movie Review

2009-05-10T07:15:00.003+05:30

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Robit Wright Penn, Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, etc.
Director: Sean Penn
This is a relatively obscure 2001 movie that did not get a lot of attention when it was realised. I guess this must been quickly forgotten. Though I had noticed the movie on the shelves what I didn't realise was that it was directed by Sean Penn. Penn directing "mad" Jack - that sounded really interesting and I went ahead and rented the DVD. (Apparently, it is their 2nd movie).
The story is a psychological cop thriller based in Reno, Nevada where a body of a young girl, Ginny Larsen, is found in the woods - mutilated and abused. Incidentally, it is the last working day of Detective Jerry Black (Nicholson), however he still gets involved in the case. Black visits the little girl's family to break the news and ends up promising the mother that he will find out who was the killer and bring him to justice.
Within a day, the Reno police, now led by the young Stan Krolak (Eckhart), find a suspect (del Toro) that fits the eyewitness' description - an Indian with a mental condition and a criminal record of raping a minor. As Krolak interrogates, the Indian confesses that he raped and killed the little girl too. Then he commits suicide. It is an open and shut case.
But Black, now retired, has his misgivings about this. Plus his pledge to the girl's mother seems to have a very profound impact on him. He continues his investigations and finds that Ginny kept talking about a "wizard", whom she describes as a giant who drives a black station wagon gives her porcupines. Black also finds that at least 2 other little girl were killed in a similar fashion over the last few years around the area. All of them had blond hair and were wearing red frocks. But his theory finds no takers in the police department.
Convinced that he is right and that the killer may strike someone soon, he decides to settle down in the vicinity and buys an old gas station - primarily to look out for the "giant" wizard. Months go by and he gets very attached to the lady at the diner Lori (Robin Wright Penn) and her little daughter, Chrissy. As time passes by, the 3 settle down in their domestic setup. However, the ghost of Ginny's murder still haunts Black. He thinks he knows a number of suspects but no way to confirm it.
Then, one night when he is tucking Chrissy in, she mentions that she met a very nice man who is a wizard...
The story (based on a Swiss novel of the same name) is a very powerful. There are several strong themes explored here and the Penn-Nicholson duo handle it in style. As Detective Black, Nicholson paints a powerful portrait of a troubled man torn between his misplaced sense of duty and a strange revival of the religious part of his conscience. With each scene, Black slides some more in the murky swamp that divides unshakable conviction and obsessive madness. It is unlike any other serial killer movie because till the very end, the viewer stays confused whether the killer exists or it is a figment of Black's imagination.
What stops this movie from being a classic is its uneven pace. Penn tries to add arthouse elements all through the movie, but instead of adding to its atmosphere, this just add 20-30 minutes of utter boredom. Shave off these bits and "The Pledge" could have been an excellent character study and a pyschological thriller par excellence. Also, the movie has too many cameos: Helen Mirren, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard, even Benicio del Toro appear in blink-and-you-miss-them roles. They prove to be mere distractions and lets the viewer down who would have had high expectations of seeing an ensemble cast at work.
Watch it for the performances and the strong themes though.
My rating: 6.5/10. Could have been a lot better.

[Photo: Amazon.com]

The 3 mistakes of my life - Book Review

2009-05-05T17:37:00.002+05:30

Author: Chetan Bhagat
I am not a big fan of Mr. Bhagat's writing. I thought "Five Point Someone" was a little too juvenile. But then Chetan Bhagat is not a full time author. And I think that book did manage to capture the imaginations of the masses.
Never bothered to read "One Night @ the Call Center".
"The 3 Mistakes of my Life" has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for months now. I believe Kavita bought it at some point and finished reading it long back. I wanted a serious change in my reading and I picked it up.
It was not bad at all. A fast read too. I finished the book in 3 days. It is not exceptional though.
This is supposed to be based on a true story of 3 cricket-crazy young lads in Ahmedabad who pool in to start a small neighbourhood sports shop. It is early 2000 and as the novel progresses, it chronicles the various significant events that occurred and how they impacted the boys' lives.
Govind Patel, the narrator and the smartest of the trio, is a business minded lower middle class boy. He is good at maths and calculations, something that gives him an edge over the others. Ishaan is the local cricketing hero. He is passionate about nearly everything he likes but has achieved too little in life. Omi is the most simple-minded, all-brawn and no-brains. He sees their cricket shop as the only way out from becoming a temple priest like his father. The trio fight through the various tragedies that haunted India (and Gujrat in particular) - the Bhuj Earthquake, the Godhra incident and the communal riots - while keeping their passion for cricket, their business and their friendship intact.
Bhagat spins an interesting story around the 3 commonplace characters. The book has its moments. Plus the story has several ingredients that keep the reader interested - Govind's amorous fling with Ishaan's sister, the trio's adoption of a muslim kid who seems to be a cricket prodigy, the underlying current of communalism in the state of Gujrat - it has it all.
But as I said, it is not the most brilliant Indian novel I have read. I think connected to it instantly because the three protagonists are exactly my age :) It is a fast read though and you will have no regrets.
My rating: 6/10

Re-Org! Re-Org!

2009-04-29T19:37:00.016+05:30

Well, re-orgs are a part of life. Markets are volatile, business models have very limited shelf life. In this game, leaders and followers keep changing. The only thing that is constant is change itself!

Working in Wonderland
Don't get me wrong. I am not contesting that all the above clichés are fundamentally flawed. In fact, I do subscribe to most of these. I have worked in small businesses and been a part of a mammoth leading global organisation. I am almost tempted to say "been there, done that" but the fact is that I am just getting to warm up in my career. Change, indeed, is inevitable. In this age, one has to keep running just be in the same damn place, like the Red Queen said. Damn right, we are in fucking Wonderland, folks. We are just like the White Rabbit, always living in fear of losing our heads. Such is corporate life. The ruthless, calculating, cold, impersonal corporate life that somehow justifies its means when it achieves its end - profit.
This is a bad phase for world economy and corporates worldwide are doing what they can to become profitable again. Some heads will roll. There will be some blood on the streets. There will be a fair bit of re-organisation. All this is expected. No complaints at all here. It may be my head on the block or my colleague's or my manager's. I still have great hope that when it happens, it happens in a very humane manner. No regrets with that. All's fair in war and right-sizing. Everyone's a resource and a cost center.

Idiots at the top of the pyramid
What I am whining about here is the communication bit of it. I get pissed everytime I see a mail from someone perched high up on the totem pole trying to rationalise why is it happening. That kills me. Have you ever come across any such mails? Or heard such a bloke talking how it will all work and this is a step in the right direction? They sound so fucking lame that makes your blood boil. Isn't this the same guy who said the same fucking thing with the same fucking confidence about the last re-org? Who's going to own up to that debacle, chum?
No, this isn't about a person in particular, I think it is typical of any "top management" layer in any sizable company. This is a gross generalisation, of course. Fact is that after a certain threshold, it becomes rather impossible to govern a company as a monolithic organism. This is an established fact and you will find many top leaders acknowledging it. However, in most gigantic companies, there is always a nominal head and a pyramid of leaders reporting into him. It works fine as long as there is sunshine. There is enough profit for everyone. Come rain and there is chaos and uncertainity.
Think about this guy at the top of the totem pole. He calls all the shots. In a time of crisis when the axe needs to fall, this person would obviously be the most confused soul in the world. The axe needs to fall on people who are several layers below this guy and it hasn't got the foggiest about who's deserving it. So he turns to his inner coterie of immediate sub-ordinates. This is the usual bunch of idiots who, like their boss, are too used to their cushy jobs and read Financial Times and enjoy being control freaks. They, in turn, get advice from their immediate sub-ordinates and so on. Though one would imagine that the degree of idiocy gradually decreases down the pyramid, this process typically stops at the first sign of any intelligence. Or so it seems.
Another brilliant technique management topcats use is to employ the services of consultants.Why? Because they are professionals and "neutral" externals. OK, I admit I have but a layman's view of how this corporate world works, but hey! wait a minute. Doesn't "neutral" externals mean that they don't give a shit about what happens after they give you their lame report? I mean how do you check the credentials of these professionals then? 2 re-orgs gone bad in a set of 20 is 10% off so they are still professional enough to be employed? Who are these guys anyway, what can they do overnight to change the fortunes of the company?
Speaking for the people who get impacted by these random changes during a re-org, it is not just a matter of who moved the cheese, it is more about why was it fucking moved? One doesn't usually find a credible answer to that.

"The Last One To Know"
Andy Grove, in his brilliant book "Only the Paranoid Survive", describes the corporate top brass thus. He doesn't say it with malice (he is actually uses examples from his own experiences), he puts that across as a fact. In that section of the book, Grove just describes how it is quite easy for the folks at the top to get completely alienated by what's going on. They are so used to second-hand advice and (often) euphemised reports that soon loose track of what's going on in reality. There is a high chance that the top brass gets so lulled by all the good news floating in that they don't see the bad shit coming. They tend to ignore early alarms. The company pays for this eventually
That book came out in 1996.
This is 2009. Unfortunately I do not think many people have learnt the lesson from Grove over the last 13 years.
I mean, just picture your Vice-President or Director or whoever: A well bred, globe-trotting individual with an impressive amount of years in the "industry" and an equally impressive list of management diplomas. Too cool. But the first thing he (or she) would do is re-organise within the first 90 days of arrival in your company/unit. Just exercising the power? Or do you think (s)he saw something wrong in 90 days and set out to correct it? I would bet for the former. A year goes by, and (say) things don't work, what happens next?
I have seen some of them getting quietly kicked up by the board, but I have never seen any of these guys owning up their goof-ups. The always rational corporate sense suggests that this may demoralise the troops, the big shot will not get any more respect. That's correct, the big shot will not get any respect anyway. As for the morale of the employees - it was shot during the last re-org. If this trouble-maker gets fired, (s)he will go join some other company and restart the cycle of chaos. If (s)he is not, it means either no one noticed that (s)he fucked up or things are just being pushed under the carpet. For this person, re-organisations are just interesting experiments, not necessarily controlled ones at that. (S)he is that little brat with magnifying glasses standing over the anthill.

Own up!
I look at it this way: plebs like you and me - we are accountable for what we are doing. Things go wrong, we have to explain why. And establish that there was some learning here that we can share with the team. This a part of the job, isn't it? Success is rewarded, failure is closely scrutinised. Root Cause Analysis and that sort of thing - you know it all. Now my question: these big shots screw up and we get to see nothing of that coming for them. Where is the bloody RCA? An heartfelt apology at least? No, all we get to see is that these culprits, who typically earn enough to put a small sized country's GDP to shame are either getting fat bonuses for minor successes or vanish overnight with a meek mail wishing everyone luck (if that!). Is there justice in this world? I want to see this person punished and questioned the way everyone else is. I want to see them sweat.
Steve Jobs, who once had the pleasure of getting kicked out of his own company, is credited to have said: "Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations". He made his mistake with NeXT, but retracted quickly and amended things. I don't idolise Mr. Jobs but I like this comment but I think that quote holds some weight.

In the end...
I have nothing against the people in the top position. I just want them to own up their mistakes and reach out to the people in the organisation. Flooding everyone's inboxes with impersonal mails (claiming to describe "progress of the re-org") that confuse more than they inform is not leadership. Be a person who is admired by the people. Stand up and explain why are you doing what you are doing. It will make your life easier. If you have a conscience, it will find this a soothing experience. You will probably have a fan following. Your employees will be on your side. Don't be just a post in the hierarchy - be a human being. Remember you were probably born as one...

Phantoms in the Brain

2009-04-28T19:37:00.003+05:30

Author: V.S.Ramachandran
Now here's a brilliant book that takes us through the inner workings of the brain. Ramachandran is a renowned neurologist who has spent a good part of his professional life researching psychophysics and neurological disorders. This book, one can say, seems to be his life-work.
As many of the reviews say about "Phantoms in the brain", it is truly one of the most accessible book on the subject. Through the book, Dr. Ramachandran walks us through some of his really stunning body of work and strives to theorise on some unsolved mysteries of the past. What's most appealing is that one finds the author seems to be inspired by the most common literary sources and often uses excerpts from popular and classical literature to drive a point home. The works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Lewis Caroll are all referred in several interesting ways. Moreover, his experiments are not over-the-top neurological experiments - they rather tend to be a set of simple steps using commonplace objects (viz., a mirror). This makes the book a spectacularly easy read, given the depth of the subject and an average reader's lack of familiarity with it.
The book has 12 chapters, around 10 of them dealing with a mind-blogging disorder or case-study. Dr. Ramachandran is an authority on the "Phantom Limb" and has devised some ingenious methods that tend to "treat" this. The Phantom Limb gets a special mention in the first few chapters of the book. Then the author talks some equally baffling (and somewhat eerie) neural disorders like:

Short-term memory loss - remember Memento? Or the more recent Ghajini? Or, erm, 50 First Dates? The author explains how a damage to the hippocampus can result in this disorder.
Hemi-neglect - when a patient tends to ignore a whole half of her body. For such patients, their left (typically) doesn't exist at all! This is more dangerous than it sounds!
the Charles Bonnet syndrome - in which the patient experiences vivid visual fantasies, sometimes more clearer than reality. The interesting bit is that most patients are "aware" that these are fantasies when they experience them unlike say, schizopherinia patients
Blind spots and auto "filling in" of visual images by the brain - this is truly more than what meets the eye
Anosognosia or denial - the classic Freudian defense mechanism can be stretched beyond belief by the brain. Some patients deny that their paralysed limbs belong to them!
Galvanic Skin Response - how emotions are generally tied with some tangible reaction in our bodies.
Capgras' syndrome - in which the patient thinks their loved ones are imposters!

Among other things, Dr. Ramachandran discusses various parts of the brain and what their roles are in a very, very non-text-book fashion. There are several other memorable notes he makes that keep the reader glued to the book. He wanders in the metaphysical arena, something is usually taboo in such "hi-science" books. He discusses about the Self and God (borrowing from Hindu scriptures). He describes why he believes that Freud was right in many way about human behaviour and how even now we cannot really prove much of it empirically.
Plus there are numerous case-studies that he shares with us, each one bizzare, fascinating and eerie all at the same time. My favourite was the Hemi-Neglect part where he tried to treat a lady patient with mirror just to see whether she recognises and accepts her left side of the body. The results were astonishing!
I highly recommend this book. But be aware it is actually more spooky that you would think a book about neurology might be. Kept me awake long nights thinking what a wonderful thing our brain truly is.
My Rating: 9/10. Must read. Must buy!

The Long Tail : Book Review

2009-04-19T11:05:00.002+05:30

Author: Chris Anderson

Now here's a must-read for everyone who has anything to do with Web 2.0 and the online markets - however small or big. A popular volume in the business-marketing section, "The Long Tail" is a brilliant big that describes the dynamics of the market post the internet boom.
I first heard about the Long Tail phenomenon a couple of years back when the first foundations of Mobile 2.0 were being laid and Web 2.0 and UGC were the buzzwords in the mobile industry.
The book uses several examples and case-studies to describes how the market place has changed in the last decade, after the arrival of the world wide web particularly. How, "Pro-Am" (Professional-Amateur) collaborations are making things work over Web 2.0. How the wisdom of the masses is actually making the world a smarter place.
Written by Chris Anderson, the Editor-in-Chief of Wired, this has all the ingredients of a very readable business book. The Long Tail phenomenon basically describes how the advent of the internet has suddenly given the power in the hands of the end-users to create, select, personalise, buy and sell stuff that would have never ever been seen on a retailer's shelf or thought about by giant manufacturing houses. This has not only given rise to an endless list of creators of UGC, it has also has paved the way for estoteric niches of taste of such UGC to sustain. "How endless choice is creating endless demand" - as the tagline for the book goes.
The basic premise is that as technology improves, tools of production are getting democratised. For example, a teenager can probably use the movie editing tools and come up with a movie of her own shot along with her friends. The internet, Anderson says, has also democratisedthe distribution channels. An author can self-publish her book at the click of a button. You can sell anything on e-bay.
The author says that as we move away from the Information Age into the "Recommendation Age", the real challenge is to process the massive amounts of easily accessible information on the web and filter out the noise. He descibes how the web has been instrumental in this too, making it easier for people to search (Google), sort, label thereby not just create new niches but also make it easier for others to find these niches too.
This is a good, fast read, though it gets a little repetitive.
Also visit the very active website, the RSS feed looks worth a read.
My rating: 7.5/10. Highly recommended.

The Essential Dykes to watch out for - review

2009-04-15T19:35:00.005+05:30

I picked up this very odd-looking collection, "The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For", of an offbeat comic strip that have featured in alternative mags and newspapers for over 2 decades. I was in for a surprise...
DTWOF is a brilliant series! It is difficult to describe the genre, but is an odd cross between Doonesbury, Between Friends and TV sitcoms. I think author Alison Bechdel describes it best: "half graphic novel, half soap-opera". It is a very intelligent and contemporary series that puts things in the context of the homosexual community. However, it is not just about fight against homophobia. The context is quite rich with a diverse bunch of characters, each with a complex personality.
The comicstrip walks through the years of change when the world (chiefly America) is waking up to homosexual rights. The characters (Mo, Lois, Sydney, etc.) are chiefly lesbians living in a smallish American town "that may or may not be Minneapolis". The best part about this is that the humour is not forced; it is dry and sarcastic. And not every strip ends with a joke. The tragicomic situations that the characters find themselves in are often hilarious and very thought-provoking at the same time. Bechdel is a bold artist and spares no punches in her script or artwork. The script is terse, with a lot of political and social innuendo thrown in.

Photo Courtesy: DTWOF Website

Blood bath mats and shower curtains...

2009-04-15T16:11:00.004+05:30

Read about it on BoingBoing, Spinning Hat has come up with Psycho-style Bathroom Mats and Shower curtains. They are disgusting, funny and innovative at the same time. :)
Check out more cool mechardise on Spinning Hat's website

Skype to be on its own next year...

2009-04-15T14:39:00.002+05:30

After the multi-billion dollar acquisition of Skype in 2004, looks like eBay has finally realised that it is not exactly in their "core" e-commerece. Skype will launch its own IPO in 2010. This comes after some speculation that Skype will be sold back to founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis - that's not happening but Skype will become a separate entity again...

Some coverage:-
Wired
Ars Technica
ZDNet

Barah Aana - Movie Review

2009-04-02T20:38:00.002+05:30

Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Raaz, Arjun Mathur, Violante Placido, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Benjamin Gilani
Director: Raja Menon
I went along with Kavita, Bhatti, Gautham and Prachi to Lido last week to catch this movie with near zero expectations. The cast was promising, but one can never say...
Thanks to the Namma Metro digging frenzy, the theatre was virtually empty. Unfortunately, I missed the first 5 min or so of the movie, though I do not think it has a very strong link.
So...the movie is about 3 Mumbai immigrants with lousy, menial jobs and dreams to make it big. The eldest is the frighteningly quiet and mysterious Shuklaji (Shah), a driver employed by a stinking rich bloke (Gilani) to shuttle his wife around. The wife is a loud-mouthed pseud who gives the poor driver a really hard time. The second is your run-of-the-mill security guard Yadav (Raaz, excellent work!), serving at a co-op society and bearing the wrong end of nearly everything that goes wrong in the colony. The third is a young coffee-shop waiter (Aman) who thinks he deserves better. The story is basically about how these 3 very simple, आम people stumble into crime accidentally...and start liking it!
It is a short movie (< 2 hours) and Menon spends whole of the first hour nearly to etch out its characters. However, the movie falters towards the climax which I feel was too confusing and abrupt. It is leaves you quite annoyed.
The rest of the movie, however, is brilliant! Vijay Raaz delivers a bravura performance as the poor security guard at the end of his wits. He is outstanding throughout the movie and betters his "Monsoon Wedding" work. Naseer is wasted in his silent role. Arjun Mathur (Abhimanyu in "Luck by chance") is quite tolerance and is capable of good performances. Overall, it is a good movie and worth a watch.
My rating: 6.5. Most of it to Vijay Raaz. Well done. Minus points for the last 15 minutes.

Hurrah! My blog has a tag cloud now!

2009-03-23T22:00:00.001+05:30

Many, many thanks to this old post by phydeaux3 . I should have googled a couple of years back :).

Minority Report and Philip K. Dick

2009-03-23T20:11:00.004+05:30

Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow
Director: Steven Spielberg
Original story: Philip K. Dick
I am not a big Spielberg fan. Granted he has given us moviegoers several precious moments. Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, etc. are still very watchable movies. And there is absolutely no debate about his war masterpieces, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. He has mastered the art of film-making. But he has never been my favourite director. He makes popular movies and knows exactly what works with his audience. He's all that, but he has his share of bad movies (bad, perhaps only in my mind).
When I first heard (way back in 2000 or 2001) that he and Tom Cruise are collaborating on a PKD story, my greatest fear was that he will cuteify things with his SFX wizardy and crowd pleasing, clever screenplay. I just couldn't imagine any PKD story to be handled that way. This was also the first Cruise-Spielberg collaboration, with Cruise co-producing the movie. There was no saying how will it work out.
Thankfully, Minority Report came out to be a throughly enjoyable movie that keeps the basic elements of PKD's bleak futuristic plot and all the paradoxes PKD so often mixes in his stories. I was as excited in this DVD viewing as I was when I first saw it 8-9 years back.

The movie and the DVD
I guess it will be of little use to review the whole movie, so I will give a brief synopsis. The movie (and the story) is set in the near future where the state (and the police) stumble upon a truly wonderful way of arresting crime - by preventing it completely. As a result of (undescribed) experiments with new-age drugs, a group of mutant children develop the ability to visualise crime, particularly murder, before it is committed. These mutants (called Pre-Cogs) together collate all the information they "see" and provide the information to the police.
The Pre-Crime unit headed by cop Anderton (Cruise) effectively bring Washington D.C.'s murder rate to zero. Everyone's happy and Pre-Crime is on the verge of "going national". A Fed agent (Farell) visits the Pre-Crime facility to see how things work down here and to confirm that all is kosher.
One fine day, the Pre-Cogs predict another murder of a certain Leo Crow and the to-be-murderer happens to be none other than Anderton. The only issue is that Anderton doesn't even know who this man, whom he will kill in next 36 hours, is. 36 hours is all Anderton has to prove his innocence and to figure out who Crow is.
The DVD I saw it on is a two-disc special edition one with ample behind-the-scenes documentaries about the movie. It includes interviews with the cast, the crew - well just about everyone.

The Story and the author
[Disclaimer: I haven't read the short story yet] This is a rather old short story by PDK, first published in the 1950s. Obviously the story has new embellishments to make fit in the modern sci-fi movie mold. PKD's work is not the staple sci-fi you and I like reading. Usually dealing with heavy psychological themes, alternate realities and drug use, his work is not as easy to read as Asimov's or Clarke's (I am a big of these two as well, mind). But his themes are so powerful that most of his work uses science fiction just as a backdrop. PKD usually leaves a lot to imagination and this, I suppose, draws film-makers' interest as they get enough blanks to fill with their creative license.

PKD rarely spends a lot of time explaining the sci-fi wonders of the future. Instead he concentrates on how do advancements of science affect (usually adversely) the human being. His work usually shirks the question: "How would things look like in the future?" but instead concentrate on "How far would humans go if science allows them? Would scientific advancements make this world any better?". His answer to the latter is usually no. His future is usually bleak, mankind still trying to figure out their basic problems instead of enjoying the joys of science. His protagonists are fraught with internal tensions, never really true heroes, always hiding dark secrets. In my mind, Ridley Scott's path-breaking Blade Runner (based on the author's Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?) creates the definite atomosphere that suits PKD's bleak world. My fear with MR was that Spielberg will end up with an E.T. like treatment for the story.
Thankfully, MR sticks to the true PKD spirit. I think it is bleakest thriller Spielberg has ever made. What Spielberg does contribute is through his Hollywood polish - spectacular SFX and a pacy narration. Though many elements have changed in the movie version, it still keeps all the basic elements.

The most interesting plot theme of MR is the paradox of Pre-Crime and Anderton's predicament. When the protagonist learns that he is going to murder an unknown man in 36 hours, he has the option of choosing not to. But if he spares his to-be-victim, he proves that the whole system of Pre-Crime is imperfect, subject to personal choice. If it is imperfect, how many of the people he put in "containment" in the last few years before they could commit the crime would exercised the choice that they have? Paradoxes like these abound PKD's works and that's exactly what makes his stories so brilliant.

It is a shame that it took so long for his work to get recognised. Dick died in near-poverty and never got his due during his lifetime. It took a Ridley Scott to recognise his genius and introduce him to the mainstream. The coveted Philip K. Dick award was constituted a couple of years after his death. Today, in the world of the WWW, more and more new fans are popping up all over the globe. Writers of repute are drawing inspiration from his body of work and new sub-genres of sci-fi finding their way to these new fans.

Here's saluting this brilliant author's imagination!

[PKD's photo courtesy Philip K. Dick Official Site]

Delhi-6 - Movie Review

2009-02-23T20:23:00.005+05:30

Cast: Abhishek Bacchan, Sonam Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Om Puri, Pawan Malhotra, Vijay Raaz, Supriya Pathak, Deepak Dobriyal, Divya Dutta and Rishi Kapoor.
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
An ensemble cast. A director who last movie I absolutely loved. This movie had to work. Well, it does...almost. From the very beginning, I have been wondering what this movie be about. The initial posters and promos looked wonderful. I was expecting it be showcase the rich, complex mosaic of cultures that Old Delhi is.

And it does paint that mosaic; the only problem is that it cannot be captured in a couple of hours. It is far too complex.

Coming back to the story: Roshan (Bacchan) is the NY bred son of a well-to-do NRI Hindu and his Muslim wife. His parents fleed Delhi when they understood that their wedding will be considered taboo. Roshan's grandmother (दादी) (Rehman) wants to spend her last days in their मोहोल्ला in Old Delhi and Roshan decides to accompany her.
At the outset, it looked like the standard NRI-returns-back saga but thankfully the plot quickly moves to other things। Within a few days of his stay in the old ancestral haveli, a keen and open-minded Roshan learns about his locality's daily squabbles, its quaint inhabitants, the strange superstitious backdrop in people's thinking that decides their daily acts of kindness and cruelty. The first half is good fun as stock मोहल्ला characters are paraded across the screen. Right from the shopkeeper brothers (Pavan Malhotra and Om Puri) who never agree on anything to the local jalebi maker who, though a devout Muslim, is an अखाडा regular and a Hanuman bhakt. We are also introduced to Bittu (Kapoor), the bubbly and sharp young woman who wants to make it big but has to follow what Dad (Om Puri) says.
The first goes by in a jiffy, not really telling a story but introducing fairly interesting characters. It leaves you with a promise that the second half will bring everything together. This is why the second half completely disappoints. Though it tries to bring in a plot situations that link the various characters, it looses direction somewhere in the middle and you end up seeing something that quite nearly insults your cinegoer-senses. Frankly I don't even recall what exactly happens or what was meant to be portrayed. All I could take away was that a minor squabble leads to big communal divide and riots break out. Mr. NRI finally decides to do something with his new-found-desi-sensibilities and succeeds...or nearly succeeds.
What went wrong with the second part was that the movie becomes too metaphorical to be enjoyed. The plot-devices that were subtly referred to in the first half suddenly become the plot of the second half. The काला बन्दर bit is done to death! And what was the mad-philosopher-with-a-mirror thing all about? I guess Mr. Mehra decided to go preachy and lost control. The stark differences in the screenplay between the 2 halves that made RDB such a special movie just collapses under the weight of the overused metaphorical style Mehra decides to use in this movie. You come out completely disappointed.
As I said the film has some good moments and a stellar supporting cast. But unfortunately nearly everyone: Om Puri, Rishi Kapoor, Pavan Malhotra, Waheeda Rehman, Vijay Raaz, Deepak Dobriyal, Supriya Pathak-Shah, even Sonam Kapoor are wasted in their very limited roles. Sonam Kapoor manages to impress though, in spite of the limited screen time she is given.
The cinematography and art direction was superb. A large part of the Delhi-6 area was a set (somewhere near Sambhar, Rajasthan). It blends well with the original Delhi-6 area. The music is excellent and Rehman impresses with an excellent overall album. Much better than Slumdog, any given day.
Not really impressed with this one. Took me a long time to decide what to make out of this movie. It has some very promising moments, but it ultimately disappoints. Too bad, too bad.
My Rating: 6/10. Most of it to the technicians and to Sonam Kapoor.

Slumdog Millionaire: Movie Review

2009-02-23T19:13:00.003+05:30

Cast: Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar, etc.
Director: Danny Boyle.
No, I am not cashing in on the Oscar madness. I just happened to see the movie on Friday when they aired it on Tata Sky for 25 bucks a viewing. And this is an honest, neutral review. No extra points for the awards or Anil Kapoor's inspired dance performances at various award functions.
I generally avoid the absolutely pop thing. At least till such a time that the hysteria dies down. With this movie, one happened to see extreme reactions. I can understand that the very first reviews that came out were very positive. It is not a bad movie, at all. And quite stunning if you don't know what to expect. Soon after that another pop impression that people quickly formed was that this movie portrays India in very poor light.
Well, I do not completely subscribe to either reaction in this review. Let's review the movie for its own merits.
Everyone would know the story by now. It is based on a little known Indian author, Vikas Swarup's debut novel "Q&A" (Swarup is some kind of diplomat by profession, I believe) and deals with the trials and tribulations of a bunch of Mumbai streetkids as they grow up in the underbelly of India - the slums. The movie starts with one of these kids, Jamal (Patel, pathetic actor), ending up in a police station where the cops question him. Turns out that Jamal managed to participate in the Kaun Banega Crorepati show and actually came pretty close to win the grand 2 crore prize! Everyone, including the highly biased quizmaster (Kapoor), suspects that it's just not cricket for an under-educated slum-dweller to know so much.
Jamal narrates his story to the cops (Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla) interrogating him how did he manage to get all the answers right. As it turns out Jamal had encountered the subject of all questions asked so far in some form or the other in some point of his life. Be the amazing superstardom of Amitabh Bacchan or obscure Hindu bhajans.
As Jamal narrates his life story through these questions, we are introduced to the other kids - his brother Salim and an orphan girl Latika. The three of them end up in a camp where a cruel gang trains children to be beggars. Salim and Jamal manage to escape the camp but Latika loses out. After doing bit-jobs in various parts of the country, Jamal convinces Salim to come back to Mumbai to find and rescue Latika. They do manage to free Latika but Salim (Madhur Mittal) joins another gang, headed by Javed (Manjrekar), and offers a young Latika "in exchange". Jamal and Salim part ways at this point.
Years later, the two reunite as young men, but still have their differences. Jamal realises that Latika now stays in Javed's den and he is very possessive of her. They plan to escape but things don't work out and Latika is transferred to an unknown place. In an attempt to get in touch with her, Jamal gets into the popular quiz show.

No prizes for guessing how it ends.

It is a fast-paced masala movie made with Hollywood (British moviedom, technically) sensibilities. The first half is really great I think the little kids have done a marvellous job. When you watch them perform, you consider the complete ethos and frankly I do not think only poverty is glorified. As the kids grow up, the movie becomes a little cliched and very predictable.
Pluses: good crew-work - sound, cinematography. It is not easy to shoot in gallis and slums. So I give it to them. The narration is good. The movie starts very well. The kids, as I mentioned, have done a fantastic job. Irrfan Khan as well. Music is good (though not A.R.Rehman best ever score).
Minuses: Dev Patel is a complete disappointment and almost spoils the show single-handedly. Frieda Pinto's acting needs work. Second half is a damp squib.

My Rating: 6.5/10. It will not change your life forever. Never mind the extreme reactions to this movie and you will find it entertaining.

Pic. Courtesy: Wikipedia

Luck by Chance - Movie Review

2009-02-08T13:05:00.006+05:30

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Konkona Sen Sharma, Isha Shravani, Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Sanjay Kapoor, Juhi Chawla and Hritik Roshan
Director: Zoya Akhtar
This one was a pleasant surprise :). There was something promising about this movie and I wanted to see it as soon as it was released, which is precisely what I did (tagging Gautham and Prachi along). To start with I loved the poster (see image) - they were beautifully designed. Plus the cast seemed to absolutely a weird mix of people. I mean, Sanjay Kapoor??? Where did they find him? Same with Isha Shravani.
Anyway, "Luck by Chance" is an ode to Bollywood as well as an in-your-face look at this Mumbai Film industry from its own fringes. It narrates several parallel storylines that cross each other, but the focus is on two struggling actors - Vikram Jaisingh (Akhtar) and Sona (Sen-Sharma) - who want to make it big in Bollywood and are prepared to make some sacrifices. The theme is how talent is not enough to make it big, luck has a big factor.
Romy Rolly (Rishi Kapoor, splendid) is an aging Bollywood moghul who still believes in making big-budget song-and-dance extravaganzas. His launches another movie of this genre starring superstar Zafar Khan (Roshan, very balanced act) in the lead and with a new lead actress Nikki Walia (Shravani), daughter of the yesteryears' star Neena Walia (Kapadia, brilliant). The movie is also an attempt to launch Rolly's brother, failed actor Ranjit's (Sanjay Kapoor) career as a director. Meanwhile, our lead pair is still trying get a foot inside the mainstream industry. Sona is being conned by producer Chaudhari (Aly Khan) into working in low-budget movies with the promise that he will give her a big break someday. Vikram, on the other hand, is not even that lucky - he just keeps attending screen tests with any success. The two come very close to each other through their common struggle.
Then, Zafar Khan realises that he has matured as an actor and should not be trapped in the quagmire of run-of-the-mill masala movies like Rolly's "Dil ki Aag". So he drops out to join a Karan Johar movie instead and confusion ensues in Rolly camp. Much to his frustration, Rolly realises that though most of the actors do "respect" him, no one wants to step in for Zafar in the brain-dead movie. Rolly gives up and decides to go for a new face. And well, well, guess who gets the chance? But the good part is that there is a complex sequence of events that lead Vikram into the role (it was beautifully handled by the script and the director).
As Vikram's luck changes, he changes himself too. He is quick to heed to the attention demanded by his silly and spoilt co-star Nikki. He is willing to be manipulated by the director and Neena Walia. His relationships with Sona and his old friends quickly go from bad to worse and he realises he cannot deal with all this.
Apparently, Zoya Akhtar took 8 years to work on the script and craft the movie. I think that is evident! The script just flows from one character to another, one vignette to another and somehow everything fits in together beautifully. This is a strange take on Bollywood - it is very realistic but doesn't have the gloom-and-doom feel of Madhur Bhandarkar's exposés. It criticises and celebrates the film industry at the same time and that is what makes this film work.
It also uses cameos well, in fact, one feels there are too many of them. I particularly liked Anurag Kashyap's hilarious turn as the frustrated script-writer who claims to have "stayed true to the DVD the director had given him". Then there is Juhi Chawla, Aly Khan, Saurabh Shukla, Shah Rukh Khan (as himself) - characters who appear on the screen for a very short period of time but help to move the story forward in several interesting ways. Plus there are a bunch of appearances by a whole list of Bollywood biggies (as themselves) that keep the viewers busy in a "who may pop up next?" kind of speculation.
What works for the movie is its honesty and its non-stereotyping. There are several scenes when the characters break down and confess their deepest fears (Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia, particularly) who kind of strikes a chord because it hits you from nowhere. Plus, the script does enough justice to every character. Additionally, I think the casting is near perfect. Everyone has done an excellent job, even Sanjay Kapoor deserves a special mention for his nearly autobiographical "हम भी तो actor रह चुके हैं" act. Hritik Roshan proves that a good actor can leave a deep mark without hogging the limelight as the lead actor. Don't miss it.

My Rating: 7.5/10. Good work, Zoya!

The Incredible Hulk (2008) - Movie Review

2009-02-08T11:53:00.004+05:30

Cast: Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Blake Nelson
Director: Louis Leterrier
OK. This review is coming quite late, I admit. But I have never been a Hulk fan. In fact, the only Marvel superhero I like is Wolverine. I find most of the rest big bores. Having said that, Stan Lee - the creator of nearly all the popular Marvel superhero characters - deserves a lot of respect for his imagination and energy.
Coming back to the movie, I had never heard of the movie till I first saw the posters announcing its release in a few weeks. 2 questions popped in mind: "Why another Hulk movie?" and "What the hell is Edward Norton doing there?". Turned out that Norton is a big fan of the Hulk and has even contributed to the screenplay of this film (along with Zack Penn). Anyway, the 2003 Hulk movie was so disappointing (in spite of Ang Lee's direction and the stars) that I was convinced that there is nothing in the Hulk storyline that can hold a movie together. I mean who wants to see a nerdy scientist turning into a near-braindead green monster, growling senseless and destroying everything in his path? Where's the fun? This movie however, was great to watch! I think Marvel Studios is finally getting it right with "Iron Man" and this movie. The new theme seems to be the same: cast an unlikely lead actor as the superhero, develop a strong screenplay, use a mildly successful but relatively new director and a stellar supporting cast. And this mix seemed to have worked for these 2 movies!
I skipped the theatre release of the movie as I am not a big fan of Leterrier (of "Transporter" fame) either. I just caught this one on DVD yesterday and was quite impressed. It is miles ahead of the 2003 Ang Lee film and scores on nearly all fronts, not just the effects.
The movie is a bit of an oddity, it is not a sequel to the 2003 movie, but it isn't a true reboot either. I doesn't go through the "origin of Hulk" plot again, it follows that timeline when Bruce Banner (Norton) has become a fugitive with the USAF on his trail. Dr. Banner stays in a congested flavella in Brazil where he works at a nondescript bottling plant looking for a cure for his condition. He also practises martial arts and yoga to control his rage and counts the number of days since the last Hulk "incident".
However, the US Army tracks Banner down by employing an over-the-top Russian-born British army expert Emil Blonsky (Roth). General Ross (Hurt) takes Blonsky and his crack team to Brazil but Banner gives them the slip and runs away (transforming into Hulk). Blonsky is so impressed by the Hulk transformation that he demands for the story behind it from Ross and when he knows the story, he volunteers to be injected with the gamma-ray power "Super soldier" serum, which was the army project Banner was working on.
Banner, in the meanwhile, reunites with his estranged sweetheart, Dr. Betty Ross (General Ross's daughter) and both of them try to reach out to a mysterious scientist called Dr. Blue who Banner met on the internet and who seems to be doing some kind of research to find an antidote that would treat Banner of his "Hulk condition". This scientist turns out to be a certain Dr. Samuel Sterns (Nelson), a professor in New York city. It turns out that Dr. Sterns does have a potential antidote but it is not confirmed whether it would cure Banner permanently or not. Just as they speculate on that, Blonsky and Ross attack and capture Banner.
Blonsky forces Sterns to exposure him to the same gamma ray treatment Banner was treated and Sterns reluctantly does so. Blonsky turns in the monster Abomination who has all the powers the Hulk has and probably a little more as well. As Abomination goes on a rampage killing civilians and armymen alike, there is only one force that can stop him...
The story is very comicbook and quite simple, but the screenplay is brilliantly done. There is enough excitement between scenes that would prevent you from dozing off. In addition, it is beautifully shot (and I mean the non-CG shots) in several outdoor locations. The CG effects are truly impressive (mostly done by Rhythm & Hues). But the best part is that all the lead artistes do justice to their roles. Edward Norton is the most unlikely person to be casted as the Hulk, but as the movie progresses, you realise that he sinks into the Banner-Hulk role very comfortably. Ditto with Roth and his Blonsky-Abomination role. Plus there are several "easter eggs" with references to Marvel comics universe (like Stark Industries, Rick Fury). Even Stan Lee does a cameo as an old man in Milwaukee who is poisoned by a drop of Banner blood in a cold drink bottled in the Brazillian plant. In addition, the movie introduces a lot of characters who have their own stand in the Marvel universe, viz., Dr. Stern develops into Leader - a major Hulk villian, Dr. Samson - whom Betty Ross is seeing while Banner was away - becomes Doc Samson.
In all, this movie was much better than I expected it to be and definitely recommended for comic book fans.
My rating: 7/10

Symbian - the end of an era...

2009-01-30T23:10:00.005+05:30

No, this is not a tech post. And I definitely didn't mean that Symbian (as a technology) is dead. This is with regards to my employment with Symbian...
Today was Symbian's last day as a corporate entity. Nokia bought it over some time back and come Monday, we will all convert to Nokians automatically. Needless to say, a lot of time was spent today discussing the good old days and how Symbian (and the Bangalore site specifically has grown). I have spent 4 years, 2 months and 1 day Symbian. I was around when they established Symbian India in 2005 (13th in their employee roster).
At the end of this hectic day, I am sitting down with a good measure of Ardbeg 10 year old, reflecting upon the years that went by. The usual mix of good days and bad days. Nothing unusual about my stint I think. Still, there is a strong, almost undescribable feeling that suggests it was great while it lasted. I am not much of a jumper, Symbian was just my second job. So yeah, it gets a bit sentimental. In fact, it was more painful when I quit my first job with BbyB.
I look back and I recall a number of people who helped me and from whom I learnt the tricks (not just techie tricks, mind). Santosh - who worked with me in BbyB and who recommended me into Symbian (was MphasiS ODC then), Mahesh, C-man, Chillar, Shobhit - my usual lunch group for 4+ years. Then there was the wonderful DevProv team - split across London and Bangalore but performing as one. Viv, Philo, Matt, Srikanth, Graeme, "Neo" Tewari, Nagaraj-sir, Vadan, Sajan, Raghu, Laurie, Sachin, Roopali, Doug, Dani, Mangal - had a blast, guys. That was unforgettable. We did things in style and we went out in style :). I will never forget that. Plus made a whole lot of close friends - Tej, Pravin, Rupam, Satya-ji, Mangesh-bhai, Shazia, Ravi-sir, Kalyan, Prasoon, Maddy, Neil, Prakash, Naveen, Vreddy, Subbaraju, the whole Sports and Social gang in the last 3 years, heck - even Subbu...too many of them. Not all of these people are around in the company till this end, but most remain in touch. Here's looking at you, folks...
Monday will be a new day as we start off in Nokia. Luckily, my splendid current team is still pretty around. Miles to go with them...and no sleeping.

Adieu, Symbian...

The lost stories of H.G.Wells

2008-12-25T15:44:00.002+05:30

Wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a New Year that's coming. My parents, sister and 7-year nephew are visiting us and so things are a bit hectic at the moment.
I am reading a collection of (most short) stories by H. G. Wells. The one I am reading right now is "Men Like Gods" (written in 1924). Wells' writing is just brilliant. The language has the same crispiness that characterises works of other English authors of the time like Arthur Conan Doyle. The sci-fi story is about how a bunch of people accidentally get transported to a strange dimesion that has an Utopian society which is what the Earth would have looked like if certain rather contraversial changes were brought about in the society.
I have just read 1/4th of the novella and I am amazed at the author's imagination. Wells, an outspoken social commentator uses this story (like most of his other works) to express his strong views on the socio-political system. I am praising this short story not because I am a great fan of didacticism that Wells employed in most of his stories (I hardly knew what "didacticism" means), I am praising it because it amazing to see just Wells was about to imagine such a plot 80 years back and make it into a very interesting story.
Parallel universes, a government-less society where emphasis on personal responsibility renders the need for policy enforcement null and void, a society from where the working classes have vanished long back, an Utopian society which early socialists promised to deliver but failed. It is good reading H. G. Wells again - reminded me what a powerful literary figure he was in his time. Perhaps a strong impetus to go back to "The Invisible Man" and "The War of the Worlds" - classics that I read and loved during my school years perhaps without appreciating the strong social commentary and the powerful thinking that went into their plots.

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! - Movie Review

2008-12-23T19:46:00.004+05:30

Cast: Abhay Deol, Paresh Rawal, Neetu Chandra, Manu Rishi, Archana Pooran Singh
Director: Dibakar Banerjee.

40 TVs, 93 DVD players, 560 shirts(!), 240 music systems, 78 boxes of jewellery, 31 cars, 2 dogs (!!) and a greeting card... Connect them all....

I had no idea what was this movie about when I first saw its trailor, but I knew it will be worth a watch. Later I came to know that it was "from the people who brought you" "Khosla ka Ghosla" and that kind of cemented my desire to watch it.
So, what's it about? It is about this ultra-hep super chor Lucky (Deol) born and brought up in the congested bylanes of Old Delhi in a dysfunctional lower middle class Sikh family with a crabby father (Paresh Rawal's role # 1) as the head. A young adolescent Lucky (played by Manjot Singh, brilliant!) is a dreamer and wants to make a quick buck whenever possible. Slowly, he realises what he can't buy, he can steal and turns into a full time jugadoo.
After his family spurns him for being a thief, Lucky finds that it is easier to stay without any strings attached and joins hands with Gogi Bhai (Paresh Rawal's role # 2) - a colourful black marketeer who happens to think of himself as an artiste. Lucky's childhood friend Bangali (Rishi) is a part of every misadventure Lucky has been involved since school.
From hereon, it is about Lucky's rise and fall. How he grows out of Gogi's support and starts on his own. How he wins his lady love Sonal (Chandra) by just being honest. How he plans to go "legal" in restuarant business with the reputable Dr. Handa (Paresh Rawal's role # 3). How he makes life difficult for Delhi police.
It is the sparklingly fresh screenplay that grabs your attention. Lucky, an under-educated charmer and an incorrigible thief, is the most unlikeliest of Bollywood heroes. There is no redemption in the end, no morality plays. Just plain old story about a super-chor. And it is not exactly "Catch me if you can", mind. The movie makes strong, though understated in its own light vein, comments about human desires and the psyche of the great Indian middle class. The language is your hard-core latt-maar Delhindi and it adds a lot of realism to the movie. The music by Sneha Khanwalkar is refreshingly nice in a strange way. It steers clear of the Bhangra pop and takes a step back to go for low-tech authentic fare which leaves a strong impression. Apparently the music director spent a lot of time in rural Punjab and Haryana looking for inspirations. "Jugni" and the title track are particularly impressive.
The performances are excellent. Paresh Rawal excels in all 3 different roles, each one a father figure to Lucky at some point in his life. Neetu Chandra is hard to recognise in her plain girl-next-door avatar. As the timid and conscientious reluctant girlfriend of Lucky, she does a fine job of a girl balancing his conscience and still falling for the charming thief. Manu Rishi as Bangali gets a fair share of screen time and does a fairly good job.
What will take your breath away is Abhay Deol as Lucky. This guy is absolutely marvelous as Lucky and has done a fantastic job! From his choice of movies and roles (which people have started taking notice of now) it is sometimes hard to imagine that he is from the Deol clan. Anurag Kashyap (who is making Dev D with Abhay Deol) compares him to a young Johnny Depp and I think he is absolutely right. This boy will go far. Apparently he also launched his own production house and wants to focus on "his" kind of non-mainstream cinema. Way to go, Abhay. Keep up the good work!
Director Dibakar Banerjee has proved that his "Khosla ka Ghosla" was not a fluke. It is good to see people like him coming up with movies like OLLO, defying the Bollywood formula rulebook. He takes inspirations from real life incidents, real people, quirks of your average Delhite and mashes them together in this quirky little comedy drama and it works very well! Excellent screenplay. Thanks to UTV too who is promoting such off-beat movies.

My rating: 7.5/10. Excellent stuff.
Photo courtesy: The official website

Jaane tu...ya jaane na: Movie Review

2008-12-23T00:32:00.007+05:30

Cast: Imran Khan, Genelia, Ajaz Khan, Manjari Phadnis, Ratna Pathak Shah, Karan Makhija, Sunanda Garg, Alishka Varde, Nirav Mehta, etc.
Director: Abbas Tyrewala
For those who came in late, Abbas Tyrewala is no newbie in Bollywood. He has a pretty commendable body of work behind him as a scriptwriter and dialogue writer ("Munnabhai MBBS", "Maqbool", "Darna Mana Hain", etc.). One could even spot him (just a silohouette) in his cameo as Sadiq Chikna in the opening scene in "Maqbool". The bloke has talent. So, obviously those who have heard about his work would have had high expectations about his debut movie as a director.
Tyrewala doesn't disappoint completely.
"Jaane Tu..." is a pot-pourri of "Friends", "Dil Chahta Hain" and numerous other (more) mushy love stories of the late 80s and 90s. Coming from Aamir Khan productions as a debut vehicle for nephew Imran, the movie's got good production values, an enjoyable script, good characterisations, some good music, etc. As a package it works, and has worked to establish Imran Khan as the new kid on Bollywood's block.
The story is about a bunch of friends: "Rats" Rathore (Khan), Aditi "Meow" Mahant (Genelia), Ravindran "Rotlu" (Makhija), Shaleen (Garg) and Jignesh "Jiggy" Patel (Mehta). All from college-going youngsters with different backgrounds and with different personalities. At their age, obviously, they are all looking for soulmates. There is some internal chemistry between couples but the only concrete relationship seems to be between Rats and Meow (corny, eh?). While everyone, including the parents of these two, think that they are truly, madly, deeply in love, the couple shocks them all by admitting they are not! To answer others' question as to "if not the him/her, then who?", the two try hard to find a partner who will fit their individual fantasies.
It is an enjoyable movie but one would not help thinking that this should have been a sitcom on TV. The characters are well-etched but after a point the two leads hog all the limelight and one feels that the time taken for building the other characters was basically wasted. It gets mushy in parts, but hey, it is a rom-com, innit? I personally feel that airport climax (which, I think, was a tribute to the "Dil" and/or "Ashiqui" climax) was a little too stupid, but that's just me talking.
What "Jaane tu..." does get right are the well-placed cameos. Naseeruddin Shah is great. Paresh Rawal is fun, but a tad underutilised. The movie also brings together Rajat Kapoor, Kittu Gidwani, Jayant Kriplani and Anuradha Patel in small but useful supporting roles. Ratna Pathak Shah is great as Jai's doting, if a little over-protective mum. Even the over-the-top cameos by Arbaaz and Sohail Khan utlimately work. My personal favourite is Pratiek Babbar as Amit, Aditi's moody wise-cracking slacker brother.
Among the main cast, Imran Khan gets his casual mamma's-boy-next-door act right. I think he will stay around for a while. Genelia is not that impressive though: needs to work on her diction for one. Alishka Varde is sweet as the slightly slow-witted girl in the gang. Manjari Phadnis, who went unnoticed after her debut "Rok sako to Rok lo", grabs some attention here as the Meghana the day-dreamer. Ayaz Khan, a familiar face on TV ads, does a decent job with his portrayal of the multi-layered Sushant Modi, Aditi potential soul-mate.

My Rating: 6.5/10. It could have been more, even though I am not very fond of rom-coms. But I think somewhere along the way, Tyrewala realised that he would not be able to do justuce the rich characterisations and lost grip. Good debut for Imran Khan, though. And good use of cameos - a rarity in Bollywood.

Photo courtesy: Official Website

Some more arbitary thoughts - Life in general

2008-12-22T23:50:00.002+05:30

Hmm...back to back posts. I generally avoid this sort. But hey, it's been a while.
The last few weeks were pretty eventful personally. There was another grand MIT reunion on Prao's wedding. Incidentally, that is when we got delivery of our car - a silver gray Getz GLX.
The next 2 weeks were spent driving - we went down to Bheemeshwari fishing camp (it was my 2nd visit in a month) and then again to Pondicherry.
Work, on the other hand, keeps me busy and away from trouble. With some weirdly imagined deadlines looming around the corner, things were getting a little Dilbert-ish at office. Such is life and such are hazards of work. The good news is that I am officially off work from today till the end of the year. I say "officially" because I guess I will still be dropping into office once in a while and follow up on some loose ends.
And there was this change in the work environment as well. We are now a wholly subsidary of you-know-who and will soon join the mother ship in the months to come. M&As are usually ugly but looks like the parties involved in this are putting some thought and some heart into it. Good work, so far. Of course, the employees are still cribbing about this and that. But you know about employees - they will never be content. That is never a part of the job description now, is it?
I also bought a Nokia 6210 Navigator yesterday. Pretty neat gadget I think. Comes with 6 months free subscription of Nokia (NavTech) maps. And they work! Big screen, a dedicated navigation button, some cutesy sensor-based stuff, 3.2 Mpix camera (has the usual Nokia dodginess though), usual bundle of apps and stuff. My old Sony Ericsson P990i died a natural death. Now I cannot unlock the keys anymore, the centre button doesn't respond. It is over 2 years now, so farewell big guy.
So, just to overwhelm the casual reader, here's a list of things I am doing right now:-
a) Driving the car (I am a new driver mind and I have shown some knack for driving, so far)
b) Playing with the new 6210 Navigator
c) Doing appraisals and ad-hoc counselling for the team members
d) Working on and off during my holiday (For those of you who were wondering why does Dogbert think that being an "Engineer" is a sort of personality disorder - now you know why!)
e) Reading H.G. Wells' long lost short sci-fi stories (and they are pretty good)
f) Blogging (but of course)
g) Reading John R. Levine's "Linkers and Loaders" (that's a tech book, if you are still guessing)
h) Re-reading Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight" falls
i) Following GTD religiously for all the things I have thought for this break.
j) Reading Nandan Nilekani's "Imagining India", which was my company's gift for conducting trainings etc.
k) Thinking of things to do with my 7 year old Nephew when he comes down to visit us in a couple of days
l) Kicking my wife's cutesy stuffed bunny when she is not looking
m) Catching up with friends (I actually have a roster of long lost friends to get in touch with)
k) Getting some of my culinary skills back
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and more.
Life's not dull, you see.

Some more arbitary thoughts - Mumbai

2008-12-22T23:19:00.002+05:30

Very eventful, the last few weeks. Too many things to blog about, just don't know where to start from... But let me follow up on Mumbai.
While the country is still reeling under the Mumbai shock, there are some thoughtful and some inane reactions; the latter particularly from politicians. Heads rolled after the incident, most of them reluctantly. But as Prabhu Chawla put it, we cannot reduce the enormity of the incident to the size of a Shivraj Patil. Looks like the people at the centre are shit-scared now. The state elections for 4 states went through and the verdict was mixed. Media tried to give it different shades but as I see it, it is difficult to read the junta's pulse and figure out how did Mumbai impact. Oh yes, many of the politicos made complete fools of themselves in public. Nothing new about it except that this time most of them were completely unapologetic about their goofs. We are currently being entertained by Mr. Antulay who has a conspiracy theory that he wants everyone to believe in. I think he has been exposed to Pakistan's media a lot. Of late, Digvijay Singh, who must be twiddling his thumbs after losing in MP, has joined Antulay and it is getting better.
I think the reaction from the average Indian has not been to eradicate the neighbours or attack the Muslims. I think the average Indian has reacted most maturely to this incident that has shocked the world. I think this was commendable. However, if the videos snippets of Pakistani news programmes and online editions of Pakistani newspapers are anything to go by, I think things look very different in Pakistan. Everybody is feeding nonsense into the viewers' mind. They have been made to think that the attacks were planned by the BJP and the Army so that they can reap the benefit of the scare wave that follows. Some of the recording that I saw were so fantastic, they were actually funny!
If it is indeed true that the media in Pakistan is not exactly free, then it means that the common man in Pakistan only has this trash to listen to or read and very little of the world view. Just imagine what would be the average Pakistani be thinking of now. They believe that Indian army just wanted a reason to attack Pakistan and now they have to be prepared. Folks: we never tried attacking you in the last 61 years, why would do it now? Think. And you have worse things to worry about: you government is a mess, your trade is failing completely, your economy is on the verge of collapse, unemployment is at an all-time high. How about drawing some priorities? I really do pity the aam Pakistani who is being taken for a ride by the false propaganda media machines.
Nothing more to say about Zardari and his gang of clowns. They have made complete fools of themselves already. To be honest, I had hopes with Zardari. Hopes were dashed, of course, and now I keep wondering if Zardari keeps his phone off the hook.
Just recently, Dr. Manmohan Singh, in a change-of-heart gesture ordered a revision of the payscales of the armed forces. Perhaps it is the least he can do, but I could imagine him announcing this with a sheepish grin.
I do not think I know enough or have enough ideas in my head to talk about solutions. I just hope people like you and me do not fall in these political traps to try to cash on such tragic incidents. The only good that came out of the Mumbai incident was that our faith in the armed forces was restored and politicians are now universally hated. Not that it would make any difference to them.

Just passing by...

2008-12-15T21:55:00.002+05:30

Not much mood or time to blog though the last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful.
I should bounce back in a few days.

Mumbai

2008-11-29T18:23:00.002+05:30

Around 200 dead. Around 300 wounded. God knows how many scarred for life. Nearly 50 hours of pure trauma. All this by a group of 30-odd madmen who attacked the city knowing that nothing could come in their way.
I have watched nothing else on television in the last 3 days except the developments in the hostage situation. Yet, I cannot say I know all the answers to our security woes. Emotions are running strong. There is a rage within that can only bred out of complete helplessness.
The heart bleeds for the brave cops, NSG and Marine commandos who walked in near certain death inspite of little intelligence and possible lack of latest arms. For all those who laid down their life for others - we salute you.
Yes, there was a complete intelligence failure. Yes, we can now start finding the real culprits - the politicos and the bureaucrats who have not seemed to have learnt a thing since 1993. Yes, the mind keeps asking where was our esteemed Home Minister, who has a record of coming out in the open after the dust settles down on any terrorist incident and issue lame warnings? In the last 3 days, we have heard more from Obama, Brown, even Zardari, than from our very own Mr. Home Minister. I am sure he is meeting his top advisors to discuss how can he save his chair by making excuses for his complete failure. And yes, mind also asks where the hell was Mumbai's self-proclaimed citizens' army, the Navnirman Sena? And where was their brilliant tactician of a chief who had woed to make Mumbai a better place on Earth...by attacking the helpless immigrants? He is still hiding under his bed probably, waiting for his bodyguards to give the green signal when things blow over. What if things refuse to blow over, Mr. get-out-my-state?
So there are all those things that are currently demanding attention. But which one of these issues are new? Hardly any. The porous port of Maharastra was used to smuggle RDX for the 1993 blasts, commission have deliberated over it for years, books have been written, movies have been made, but to what effect? Now we have militants using it at their pleasure.
I cannot possibly pretend to feel the same that way Mumbaikars are feeling at the moment. They have all my condolences. All I can say is that the last 3 days have done more than shatter the people in Mumbai, the rest of the country, if not the world, has been impacted. Sitting here, hundreds of miles away from Mumbai, I do not feel secure anymore. While waiting today for my wife to finish some bankwork, it just struck me that if a terrorist walks in here and starts shooting, there will be no survivors left in a matter of minutes. And what could stop that from happening? My 7 year old nephew now asks his parents what is the guarantee that terrorists will not attack his maths tuition class. How can we get rid of such scars?
I hope that this doesn't die down after the politicos distract us with other things, it would be a real shame for all the victims and the brave soldiers who died in Mumbai. Let's hope each one of us contributes with what we have to get some real answers and work towards having a sound crisis management system in place. It is easier said than done, but this needs a lot of focus right now. Let's channel our focus strengthening the society to repel terrorism. Let's stand united in this war.

List of books

2008-11-23T20:53:00.001+05:30

I and Kavita starting cataloguing our books and I was surprised to see that there were fewer books than I expected. Which means that I have to start hunting for the books that I think have gone missing. Take a look at the current list (see the Links section on the right hand side of the page).
We will add the comics section in it pretty soon.

Bangalore Book Fair - a Visit

2008-11-23T17:43:00.002+05:30

OK. I finally did land up at the fair on its last day (today!). I haven't been to the fair since 2005. There was no particular reason to be there this time except that I wanted Kavita to witness it once.
The usual fare really. I think over the last 3 years I have travelled every corner of Bangalore where they sell books. In 2005, there was still the novelty of finding second hand bookshops' stalls etc. but now there is nothing exciting. So I didn't spend any time at Bookworm's or Blossom's stalls at all.
Now to list out the "damage": you will surprised, chums, that I ended up shelling out less than 900 rupees; which is quite an achievement, considering that this amount used to be in excess of 2 grand in the past. I found a hard bound collection of 28 sci-fi stories by H.G. Wells (really well maintained 1952 edition), a hard bound 1976 edition of Lapierre's Freedom at Midnight (100 bucks - a steal), 2 Asterix comics to add to my collection (The Chieftain's Shield and The Roman Agent, I saved 75 rupees on each - both are brand new) and Kavita picked up H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man.
I happened to visit East West Books stall (from where I picked up the Wells' sci-fi collection) and noticed that these guys have an entire series of literature written by and written on Winston Churchill! You have got both the wars covered plus his wisecracks and whatnot. They would have packed up by now, but go visit their shop on Ratnavilas Road in Basavanagudi if you are interested.

Bangalore Book Fair 2008

2008-11-22T08:16:00.001+05:30

Anyone's been there already? Planning to go on Sunday afternoon, if all goes well...

The Calcutta Chormosome by Amitav Ghosh - Book Review

2008-11-22T06:33:00.002+05:30

The Calcutta Chormosome: A novel of fevers, delirium and discovery - thus goes the full title of this book first published in 1996. It was my first Amitav Ghosh novel, so I approached it with no preconceived ideas whatsoever. Was I disappointed? Well, not exactly.
Through this novel, Ghosh plots out a rather complex story that runs on several layers - w.r.t. timelines, w.r.t. themes, w.r.t. genre. It is, at the outset, a sci-fi novel but this impression soon shatters as the novel progresses.
The story starts with Antar, an Egyptian computer analyst (of sorts) working for a multi-national water resources body in New York in the near (unspecified) future. He works from home where he stays glued to his supercomp - AVA (which can give HAL a run for its money) and has a boring, monotonous job. His life gets a little bit of excitement when he stumbles across an ID card of his ex-colleague, called L. Murugan aka Morgan.
Antar remembers Murugan (from the mid-1990s) as a rather unpredictable individual with malarial research who claimed he is the world authority on Ronald Ross. At that point in time, Murugan was convinced that he had a few more stories to tell about "Ronnie" and his great discovery about malaria. To prove his, he wanted to come to India (Calcutta specifically, where "Ronnie" concluded his malarial research) and join some remaining dots in his theory. Antar recalls that Murugan did manage to move to Calcutta but mysteriously vanished. Antar had dismissed Murugan as a nutcase then, but now he gets interested in finding out more about this guy.
The story then cuts to the mid-1990s when Murugan is in Calcutta. More characters enter into the story, all interrelated in some way. Through Murugan's monologues, the story often jumps back to turn of the century India - days of the British Raj - when Ronald Ross was busy trying to find more about the malarial bug.
Murugan is convinced that Ross' discovery was not a marvellous piece of luck and hard-work, but he was led to it by certain people who were hunting for something more than a cure for malaria...
This, Murugan believes, is an anti-science cult that believes (among other things) that if you know a certain thing, it will change it: so you never really know anything completely at all! He has proof that there are certain elements in the cult that are eternally recurring symbols, mainly the Mother Goddess and the legend of Laakhan. Murugan believes that this cult pushed Ross to his discovery and made sure that he knows only what they want him to know.
So, you ask, what the heck is the Calcutta Chromosome.? Well, it is Murugan's theory that the cult, though not formally trained in medicine, has stumbled across a rather strange strain of the malarial parasite plasmodium through a chain of esoteric experiments using pigeon as the carrier vectors. This mutated strain seems to improve chances of treating syphillis. This new strain is unlike any other in that the mutation cannot be transmitted through generation via the normal chromosomal gene transfer. This is the secret that the cult keeps.
According to Murugan's theory, the great cult seems to have discovered what Ross discovered years back and now they are trying to use new antibiotic strain. Murugan believes that even after a century of Ross' discovery and the cures for both malaria and syphillis being available, the cult is still remains secretive and is working on something built on top of the Calcutta Chromosome. As the story progresses, all the storylines (Ross' time, mid-1990s and the future) move along and the chief characters in each stumble across the cult in mysterious ways.

Overall, I think this is quite a stunning, multi-layered piece of work that defies categorisation. However, there are several points when the reader feels let down. Ghosh switches context (between past, present and future) frequently at first and then just lingers on in a timeline towards the end of the novel. This put me off track often and forced me to go back check where did I leave this timeline. The narrative falters after a point.
My favourite bits were the ones set in colonial India. Ghosh weaves a beautiful web of fiction around facts taking advantage of the limited amount of recorded history of the period. This part also looks very well researched. The most interesting part was Phulboni's experiences at haunted Renupur station. This is a quintessential ghost story that everyone loves to hear from their grandparents.
The bits about Antar seem inconsequential and hence the whole sci-fi angle looks wasted. The novel could have been simpler without it. The mid-1990s part with Murugan at large in Calcutta show a lot of promise nearly throughout but the reader gets hugely disappointed at the end.
The ending is very abrupt and annoying. Perhaps Ghosh wanted to leave all the unanswered questions as an exercise to the reader, but this completely put me off.

My rating: 6/10. Nearly all 6 for the colonial parts. Negetive marks for the ending.

Photo: Wikipedia

Sofa...

2008-11-16T17:44:00.003+05:30

By the way, the sofa I spoke about briefly has arrived, assembled and has been put to good use:-

A slightly crazy weekend

2008-11-16T16:37:00.007+05:30

..for a change.
Keval Prabhu, good friend and ol' MIT colleague, was in town after a year or so. It called for a grand party of course. So Friday evening, I packed up at office on time and headed towards Geoffrey's (@ The Royal Orchid, next to KGA). It's been a while since I had been to the place. Still not the most affordable joint in the town. And the music has really gone bloody loud and insane. One would think why would they want to play remixed MJ songs from His-story tour in an "English Bar".
Anyway, back to Keval. He had asked a bunch of people to come over from the erst-while ?-gang in college - Suhas, Dev, Arjun, Kooki. It was good meeting the lot after a long time. Arjun got his wife Seema along too. So the booze flowed till bar-closing time. I had pretty much decided to camp at Rat's place for the time being too late to go home and all. The rest of the folks wanted to go to The Park for the midnight buffet. Keval and I excused ourselves and came over to Vishram (Rat and Bhatti's flat) instead. Little did we know that the night had just begin!
Almost on a whim, we asked a sleepy-eyed Rat if he would like to join us on a night road trip to Mysore. Just for kicks. Rat (apparently) thought we were joking and agreed assuming that we will get off his back. On his note, however, we went and (rather noisily) woke Bhatti up. Bhatti too gave in after a few meek protests.
Next was my wife Kavita. I rang her and asked her to get ready. She was rather shocked and thought it was probably a practical joke and she should go back to sleep again. Anyway, at around 12:30 AM we reached my place, put some coffee inside us and started off to Mysore Road.
There was no real plan to Mysore - we just rode around and got to the NICE road via Kanakpura Road and kept on driving, stopping once in a while for tea or cigarettes. Bhatti, Rat and I took turns at driving (I must mention that this was my first attempt behind the wheel - I am still learning how to drive). After nearly hitting Srirangapattnam, we turned back to return. Aim was to get into Bangalore and savour some Davangere Benne Dose in Banashankari. And we did that!
We were near Bidadi when we stopped to visit a splendid sunrise!
We also called up Pushkar (using Keval's sophisticated Delphi-Grundig car-stereo phone intgration kit) up in Singapore and chit-chatted about this and that.
Finally made it to Bangalore and belted a few open dosas at the Benne Dosa joint in Banashankari.
Came back home and crashed through the day only to wake up at 4 in the evening and trying to orient ourselves.
Awesome trip. Impulsive travel decisions - they always seem to work better than well planned travel. Perhaps because the expectations are low.

The highlight of the trip, of course, was my driving stint on the highway. Keval's Ford Fiesta is a fairly powerful diesel beast and I didn't realise I was doing a 100 kmph till Keval warned me. It was at round 3 AM - pitch dark highway running through some fields and stuff. There was nothing in sight to judge my speed relatively. I got behind the wheel on our way back to Bangalore just before Mandya and drove around 50 km till the Coffee Day after Maddur. Awesome fun.

Most of the Saturday was spent catching up with sleep. We woke up in the evening to witness a twin rainbow right outside! Beat that. Evening again was a busy affair as the junta met up for dinner at Gufa (@The President, Jayanagar). Better ho-hum really not worth the drive, I thought.
So 'twas a fairly interesting weekend by my standards. Today was busy too with us going down to the Hyundai showroom to settle on the final details for the car that we have been trying to buy for ages now. And oh, yes the sofa that we finally bought was just assembled today. One would admit that it looks splendid :).
Looking forward to relax for the rest of the evening now. All this excitement may prove a bit too much for my 30-year old heart.
Laters...

Finally...

2008-11-05T09:32:00.002+05:30

Got my bike back home. After I had loaned it a friend I never got around to go back and collect it. It's been months...
In fact, the friend left the country to settle in Finland and the bike has passed several hands since. I finally managed to track it down and get it home yesterday.
Exhilarated!

An usual weekend and 2 completely different movies...

2008-11-02T20:05:00.001+05:30

Well, the weekend was surprisingly prosaic and the fact that I had to get up very early on Sat and Sun to attend my driving classes caused my whole weekend agenda (of doing nothing) to collapse. We have been trying to book a car (we have settled on Getz) for a few weeks now. This week too was a let down as the showroom decide to remain closed for various reasons. Dull weekend really. The sort of weekend that tells you that you will have a lousy Monday tomorrow.
Anyway, not all was lost, I finally bought DVDs for "Signs" and "The Ghost and the Darkness". The catch of the week was "Mungaaru Male" - Kavita finally spotted a DVD hidden somewhere in a store's corner. She is watching it as I type in. Looks much better than the standard Gandhi Nagar fare. Another prize catch was Frank Capra's "Meet John Doe" (1941). I have heard so much about this movie, good to see these movies in the local movie store. Very reasonably priced, this DVD has been brought to market by a (relatively unknown) Vale Entertainment Ltd. Their Hollywood classic catalogue doesn't seem to be very exciting at the moment, but may be worthwhile to watch out.
I also managed to finish Ramu's "Darling" and saw Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". Will try to put up the reviews here soon. I have been reading good ol' paperback fiction in the last couple of weeks and it seems to be a really pleasant change :). After finishing off a Perry Mason, I am on the verge of completing Robin Cook's "Toxin" (1998-9). Usual Cook style with a little more shocking elements than usual.
On the bi-weekly visit to the library, I had to flip a coin to decide between "Batman Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat" and Amitav Ghosh's "The Calcutta Chromosome". Luck favour the Dark Knight. I also happened to spot Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" (of the DiscWorld series) which Matt had highly recommended. However at in the mood for Pratchett at the moment somehow. Good to see it around though.
That's all really. Will put up the reviews whenever time permits.
Keep Walking.

Quirkology - Book Review

2008-10-20T18:57:00.002+05:30

Author: Richard Wiseman
Well, in very few words, this can be described as the Freakonomics of psychology. It covers a professional's work in the least travelled areas of the subject and lists interesting facts, quirky experiments and tries to answers some curious phenomenon through interpretation within the realms of the subject. It also uses a neologism as its title. Like Freakonomics, this is a fast read with loads and loads of trivia.
Professor Wiseman has been researching in the field of psychology and his work has apparently appeared in various TV program (I say "apparently" because I do not have access to the shows or channels in questions). Quirkology is an extract of his extraordinary work and is supplemented by a series of internet videos and an interesting website.
As I mentioned earlier the book is full of trivia about interesting facets of day-to-day life and some interesting "conclusions" on how minor things could impact our lifestyle. It also challenges some of the curious phenomenon (like financial astrology, seances, lucky people, etc.) and tries to come up explanation for why some of these things may actually work!
Pick up the book and read it - you will probably not hate it.
My rating: 6.5/10

Randomly...

2008-10-04T19:45:00.004+05:30

Well, well, well. Another week of balancing various elements at work went past. Bloody quickly too. And now, I have spent another Saturday doing absolutely nothing :).

I have become old and lazy. Not surprisingly as my 30th birthday is just around the corner. So I cannot even pretend I am young, GenNext, etc. Meanwhile, my RTM list is growing day by day with things that I can easily finish during the weekend, but have not got around to. Hmmm, makes me wonder what happened to the brilliant Getting Things Done stuff I followed. Should review my pending actions list this week. No shit.

Among other things, I finally finished Leon Uris "Exodus" after more than a month of struggle. At 599 pages in small print, I think it was a major achievement.

I also finished Scott McCloud's "Zot" collection. Brilliant stuff, I think. It actually took me back to my school and college days when I used to sketch a bit! It has been ages since I sat down and drew something. Earlier I used to draw cartoons on my notebooks during meetings, etc. But that too stopped years back.

The interesting thing about McCloud's work is that it is both imaginative and yet so common place. His stories are simple everyday things, in spite of some outlandish elements (like Zot himself - the quintessential superhero from another dimension). His art is not spectacular, yet he spends a lot of effort on angles and perspectives. He likes to capture everyday things like a teenager's bedroom, a classroom, busy streets - stuff that usually people do not give too much attention to.

During my hey-days as a wanna-be cartoonist, I was also fascinated by perspectives. Strangely, I did quite poor in my Engineering Drawing subject - I was a total loser with the drafter and other engineering drawing tools. Freehand sketching has always been my interest. Something I can just scribble down on a piece of paper in a short period of time.

I never had any formal training in drawing and now I feel the need for it really. However, what does me in is not the lack of training but my patience. Though I have done sketches for some in-house publications as a student, I never ever tried my hand at even a 3-frame cartoon strip. In my college notebooks one would find weirdly futuristic drawings of how the college would look like in the next century and such. Of course, looking back, they look childishly complicated.

Today, inspired by "Zot!", I sat down with a pencil and tried to capture my TV stand. I spent some 4-5 minutes and then lost interest. :). I think being in a day job that requires me to look at several different things at the same time, that forces me to master the art of being the jack-of-all-trades, has brought my attention span to an infa-CNN viewer level. One of these days, I should get my act together and see what can I do to develop that nearly lost skill I have. I MUST do something as it is one of very few skills I have. And that "something" will be more than just a note in my RTM list or diary of desires.

Laters...

Zot! by Scott McCloud

2008-09-27T22:46:00.005+05:30

Just picked up this really interesting collection of Scott McCloud's Zot! comics of the late 1980s from the library. At 570-odd pages, it really demands some attention :).

The series is heavily inspired by manga and introduces several dark sub-plots and defies most of the Superhero cliches of the 1980s era. As the author mentions, it was also the time when great comic book and graphic novel artists like Frank Miller and Alan Moore were constantly giving a facelift to the Superhero comic genre.

In black and white (as it was originally published) with extensive notes and commentary by the author, this is a really jackpot for comic book lovers.

Pic courtesy: http://www.scottmccloud.com . Click on the image to go to the Zot! section

Rock on!! - Movie review

2008-09-27T21:13:00.002+05:30

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Luke Kenny, Purab Kohli, Prachi Desai, Koel Purie, Shahana Goswami, etc.

Director: Abhishek Kapoor.

Finally caught this one while it was still in the theatres. Got good reviews about this from nearly everyone, so was naturally curious to watch it. I guess I should have seen it earlier.

This one's about male bonding again and revolves around the lives of a rock band "Magik" (corny?) which is now defunct and everyone has drifted into other, more fetching vocations and the band memories dwindle away.

The movie switches between the present and the past as we are introduced to the rock band and the people in their lives. In the past, the four struggle a lot and finally get a hard earned break as a music channel invites them to cut their first album and shoot their first video. However, things do not go as planned and the band looses the focus on its music to give to the commerical demands of the music industry. Their dream album and video never see the light of the day and the band splits with the lead singer Aditya Shroff (Akhtar) leaving town for good.

Cut to the present, it turns out that none of the four really got over the disappointment of not quite making it with Magik. Aditya the lead singer is now a hot-shot 70-office-hours-per-week investment banker but has become a morose reclusive person, Joe Mascarenhas (Rampal) the lead guitarist is a nobody trying to make ends meet, Kiran "KD" Zaveri (Kohli) the "Killer Drummer" has joined his dad's jewellery business and knows he has no knack for it and Rob (Kenny) the keyboard guy is an assistant to Anu Mallik. So, basically life sucks.

Accidentally, Aditya's wife Sakshi (Desai) stumbles upon some relics from Aditya's Magik days (for some reason, he never tells her about the band) and decides to get some colour back in Aditya's life by reuniting the band. It is, of course, not that easy and she realises that many bridges have since burnt. However, towards the ends the four reunite and get together for a last hurrah stage performance.

It was not a bad movie though it was quite predictable and one cannot deny the Dil Chahta Hain essence at the heart of the movie. Farhan Akhtar pulls it off with great style and evens sings around 5 of the rock tracks himself. Acting wise, he is just about alright. So is Luke Kenny. Purab Kohli is his characterstic light-hearted element. Arjun Rampal delivers a good, restrained performance. He is usually wooden but I think the role demanded him to talk very little and he has done a really good job. Prachi Desai fits the bill of the sweet lil' urban wife. Finally, Shahana Goswami walks away with all the accolades as Joe's loving and supportive girfriend who morphs into a demanding wife as time passes by. There are some holes here and there and some good moments. However, I think there are some bonding scenes which could have been better off with the dialogues.

The highlight of the movie is the music. The Shaker-Ehsaan-Loy trio comes up with another winner, this time inspired by the 80s rock scene. Nearly all the songs are very well composed and sung and stay with you after you have listened to them a couple of times. Very good effort there.

My rating: 7. On another day, it would have been a lower but hey, let's celebrate Bollywood's first true dedication to rock. Also, the music's good.

What's happening in Mangalore?

2008-09-22T22:30:00.003+05:30

For those who came in late, Mangalore is a peaceful little port town in the west coast of India on the Kerala border. Among the ethnics, we have a good share of Konkani-speaking folks (like self), Tulu-speaking folks (the Shettys and Raos and Hegdes and Bhandarys), Catholics and Muslims. Mangaloreans are generally an industrious lot, good with their business. Good education, strong community values, heaps of local gossip, some spoilt brats, swanky cars, add to this signature sea-food and veg cuisine to the equation and you can picture an idyllic coastal town.
Then what's going on there now? Some jerks attacked the generally low-profile Christian community accusing them of conversion. Huh? And that too some poor nuns, who were lived most of their lives in virtual isolation, were targetted. Double Huh? What were they thinking? Last week the local leader of the group claimed the attack on the nuns was "an accident". Oops? My ass.
But what was more shocking was the state government's reaction. Mr. CM did his usual: "The culprits will not be spared, beware" routine and tried to brush the whole thing under the carpet. His chamchas tried to blame it on the Central Govt. A certain retard also blamed it on the opposition's latest homa that was deliberately done to sink the current Govt's boat. The opposition, members of which were all but invisible in the last 100-odd days since this new Govt. was established, jumped back in limelight and blamed everything on the Govt. and played the "Minorities are at risk" card.
But my personal vote for most lame reaction goes to the Home Minister. All he did was claim that this was all a conspiracy and after things quietened down in Mangalore he claims that he "handled all the issues well" and "in 2 days, things are back to normal". He also pointed out that no one died in the attacks and seemed to wonder what is all the fuss about? He blamed the media for cornering him just because he is the Home Minister and said he "has passed in first class".
For heaven's sake, why can't we have politicians with an IQ of more than 10? Corrupt and morally shallow, I can understand but at least be smart enough. Can't you see the whole world is laughing at you? I mean do you idiots get embarrassed by anything at all? Stupid and thick-skinned - is that the only way you want to be remembered? What a bunch of morons.
And while all this was going on between the media and the politicians, the dude who thought he has shot to rockstar status, a certain Mahendra Kumar from Bajrang Dal who publicly claimed the responsibility, was still at large. Some say that the outfit wanted to make their presence felt after being in the shadow of the mother-hen party after it formed the Govt.
I mean, the attacks were despicable, but hey at least handle the issue more responsibly. What a shame!