So,

• I saw RNBDJ. And, here is the surprise, I did not hate it. As in, I think I even liked it in some bits (Quit judging me already, will ya?). Point is; I know the basic story doesn’t make much sense. Ok. Fine, it doesn’t make sense at all (yes, I am referring to the girl-cannot-recognize-husband-because-he-shaved-his-moustache-off-and-wore-weird-clothes bit).But there were some nice parts you know, and SRK can act. Especially as the Suri guy. Remember I said that is a big thing? Well, it was. And I am not even an SRK fan. That’s good enough right!
• On another note, I am very very upset with Rehman. Really. Here’s the thing. I have forever gone by the ‘If it’s Rehman, it’s good’ principle. Yeah, that is a principle, I made it. And then, he goes and does this. I mean really! Don’t believe me? Then go listen to this. And when you reach the antarah, try thinking what the chorus sounded like. You won’t be able to, I bet. And Gulzaar Saab. Isn’t he the poetic kinds? What in the world was he thinking when he wrote this song then? Rustam Chustam? Huh? I have a strong suspicion that this infact is a collaborated effort on the duo’s part, to sabotage Subhash Ghai. And actually, I am hoping it’s just that.
• I read Adiga’s book, that Booker prize winning book. I was so worried when I picked it up, because the last time I tried a Booker winning book, it was The God of Small Things, and I did not last beyond 10 pages, and if I remember right, it took me a while to recover from it. So, I was apprehensive, but this one is good, really good. Written well enough to keep you absorbed till then end, and has a social angle to it too. Two things I never thought could end up together. Recommended, give it a try.
• I am now reading The Zoya Factor. And I find it very funny, which is a very good thing. As in, there are these silly one liners which make me crack up all the time. The Dude is so happy. Because he feels that all the books I pick have to be related to oppression, and tragedy, and sadness, and the fight of women against the cruel world types. And when he is able to hear me laugh out loud (I mean really loud, he can hear me over the noise of AOE on the speakers), he thinks it’s good for me in a way.
• Oh, AOE reminds me, the house is so technically advanced now. See, the problem was, my laptop became the house computer once I moved in with The Dude. So it has a variety of soft-wares, music, videos, games etc on it, and it was kind of dying of the overload. Oh come on, it is a poor little 2006 model (which I don’t see in the shops anymore by the way, hmph!) with a 512 MB RAM and an 80 GB Hard disk (and a list of other specifications which I am sure are outdated). So we bought a new House Computer, and this one is fully loaded! And has a 22 inch monitor! Yay! For The Dude actually, because it’s being used for games only so far. But Yay! for me, because the Laptop’s free! Oh, and we wi-fied the home, so, I can be all cool and sit and browse from my balcony! Which by the way I tried but there were too many mosquitoes, so I had to leave, but atleast I have an option!
• And lastly, I actually cooked something other than the regular dal, chawal, sambar, rasam, curry yesterday. Ok, it wasn’t big, but I happened to try and make Egg Curry. Which was good, because it was a change, and it looked just right, and smelt just right, but I wish I could say that about the taste. As in, it was ok, but I, considering my regular smart self, I added 4 times (please to notice, FOUR times) the required amount of garlic ginger paste. Result; in place of egg curry, we now have what we could call – Garlic-Ginger curry, with egg pieces. My creation nevertheless.

 I really don’t.

So I watched Dostana this weekend. And I loved it. Despite the fact that I had to wait outside a local theatre, so that I would get the tickets in black, and came to know that even those were sold out. Despite that I had to go to a really old, out of the way theatre to watch it, and there too, all I got were upper stall tickets. And which of course meant that I was surrounded by weirdoes who were cheering, whistling, shouting for almost everything. Heck, I could hear cat calls when the Nima Sandal ad played, at Preeti Jhangiani that too. You get what I am saying right?

But I thought it was worth it. Not in a DDLJ sort of way, I doubt I would be seeing it again anytime soon, but accept it, it made me laugh. A Lot at that, and that’s something not all movies are able to do these days really.

But that’s not my point. I have been trying to read what others thought about the movie, and I come across too many blog posts discussing how nonsensical the concept was, how insensitive the portrayal of the gay characters was, how the research done was inadequate, how the movie was a mockery of relationships, blah blah.

I just want to say– Give me a break. Seriously dude. Go to IMDB; check the genre under which the movie is categorized. It says Romance/Comedy. COMEDY. And pray would you tell me, when was any movie sensitive when it was supposed to be a comedy? When did we not have stereotypical characters? I can actually say this out of personal experience, being a tam, and having lived my initial 17 years in UP. Every time, the word South Indian was used, my classmates would go, ‘Aiyyo Rama’, or switch to what they thought was a south Indian accent! Why? Because countless Bollywood movies have the tams, in veshtis, wearing huge vibhuthi naamams on their foreheads, and of course talking in that funny/comic accent. And no, I was not supposed to take offense, because, it was supposed to be funny!

And so was this. I might be repeating what a lot of people said. It is a K Jo movie, for heaven’s sake. When you go for a K Jo movie, you go for the locales, the music, the pretty clothes, the sets, and the exaggeration of sentiments. He made KANK, the most rotten concept ever! And he tried to sell it as a love story! Please keep in mind this fact, and all will seem better. I know this was a much exaggerated comedy, but people, it was supposed to be one. Atleast be thankful, that the movie shifted from its stereotypical image of gay character, who is always dressed in flowery clothes, has the typical gait, and talks in that weird feminine way. Hello! It had John and AB as the gay couple; could it get any better than that? Also, Kiron Kher added to the funnies in a beautiful way! And please, don’t say the extremely hilarious scene where she welcomes John into the house was a mockery of relationships and all! I think the ‘Jaane Kyun’ song summarizes the relationship bit quite well in itself!

About the research part, I couldn’t care less. Ok, so they showed erroneous laws and procedures in Miami. Fine. Is that what is hurting you, the General Knowledge bit? Do you think gay couples will be misled, and start moving to Miami thinking it is much simpler to survive there? No nuh? Then why are you so bothered? You might as well assume they were in this far away, illusionary where all this was actually true, just because it made the story get ahead. Would is make a difference? About child manipulation, the idea was to make us all go ‘Oh man, are they mean or what!’ Instead, we brought in the moral police once more. Leave them at home when you’re coming for some mindless entertainment, will ya?

In short, I think a big deal is being made about nothing. Why take everything as a moral issue? Or as a personal one? Does it really matter? I don’t think so. The purpose is entertainment, take it that way for once. As they would say in Hyderabad ‘Thoda Light lo bhai’.

And yeah, do go watch the movie.

Oh my God, could someone please let this girl know about the existence of Capital letters which are expected to be used at the beginning of all sentences, and while using Proper nouns, and especially while saying ‘I’? And punctuation marks too, also that ‘…’does not mean a full stop, or a comma, and using endless ‘…’s does not justify never-ending sentences? And of course, also let her know, that today, 4 years and 7 months later, she hates the usage of short forms like Fwd and Ur even in SMSes, so their rampant existence on what she calls her blog, is not appreciated?

Ok, the idea was not to criticize, but to celebrate. This, my dear readers, is the 200^th post on the blog!

*Brief pause for Applause*

Yep, so while I was reminiscing the good old days of yore, when this page had just been created, I obviously had this brainwave of revisiting those pages. And this is what I found. I know, I know, I couldn’t stop laughing either. And so many of those posts are from work, during my internship days. I guess some things never change!

What else? Yep, let's make this a movie centric post. Especially since Bollywood seems to have a lot to offer in the second half of Q4'08 (Sheesh! This sounds so much like one of my forecasting reports!). I am really looking forward to three of them specifically.

Dostana; in spite of the 2 star rating Raja Sen has bestowed upon the movie which he calls injuriously entertaining, and the tickets for which are universally unavailable. Ok, they are available in Bangalore apparently, so we’ll make it Hyderabadally unavailable. Any which way, this movie has my ringtone song! So it better be good.

Rab ne bana di Jodi; don’t hate me please, but I can’t not watch a Yash Raj movie, directed by Aditya Chopra, can I? Agreed, from the excerpts I have heard, it promises to be a lame story, but I am going to take this chance for SRK, who seems to have shed his cool-dude image for such a down-to-earth, regular-guy-with-clerk-type-moustache, reminds-me-of-A.P.Sharma look*. Seriously, I have a new found respect for him now. And I’ve never even liked him, so this actually means a lot.

And of course Ghajini. People, let’s accept it, no one misses an Aamir Khan starrer. That guy has class, seriously (Mangal Pandey/ Mela/Mann to be ignored. Man it’s about the letter M or what?!). So, like I was saying, that has to be watched. However, I am hoping that I don’t end up comparing it too often with the original flick, because that would definitely spoil the fun. Also, I am sure it would have been heavily Bollywoodised, so expecting it to have the finesse of Memento would be unfair.

As for the weekend, we have the Bond movie. And of course (this is actually the awesome bit, the of course was just to sound cool) Our first Mystery Shopping Assignment!!! Yessir, we are now an official mystery shopper! Ah, what and where and all shall not be revealed, hello, it’s supposed to be a mystery after all, right?

With that, we are done. With the post, and also, for the day. So, while I start my weekend, here’s wishing you all a Happy Weekend too! Tada!

I finally watched Chak De India this weekend. And I loved the movie. I went with quite high expectations, and thankfully, they were very much met. An overall good movie, here are the few things which made me like it as much as I did.

• The concept. I have always liked movies based on Sports, team Spirit and the like. Add some Indian-ness, and you have a movie which makes you feel all patriotic, and all set to start watching India’s cricket matches again (which I stopped post World Cup)

• Shahrukh Khan. Oh, I am not a fan, at all. But I like the fact that he was put in so much effort for a flick which had him play a role which was in no way even close to his regular K-movie characters. When it comes to being Un-SRK, not in the league as Swades probably, but nevertheless good.

• The music. The timing was perfect, and I loved almost all the tracks. The title track is awesome with its perfect lyrics (koi toh chal zid padiye, doobe dariye ya mariye, chak de chak de India) and Sukhwindar’s apt voice. I really like ‘Ek hockey doongi Rakhke’ and Baadal pe paon hai as well.

• Komal Chautala. Such a cute character! Loved her dialogues, and the way she delivered them. Easily my favorite character. I had read in a lot of places about Bindya Naik’s character being the best but somehow didn’t find anything great about her. The second favorite character was Balbir Kaur.

• The scene at Mc Donald’s. The girls’ apology to get back into the game in the initial practices. Bindya’s goal in the semi final. Komal’s pass to Preeti in the final. Shahrukh returning to his old home in the end.

Finally, a very touching, makes you feel all ‘I-am-proud-to-be-an-Indian’ movie, which doesn’t drag much. Pretty realistic, except when it came to media bit (please, nobody calls a national player desh drohi on screen, because he failed in one match, however strong their reasoning is), and very entertaining. 
So, if you are amongst the lot which hasn’t seen the movie yet (I really doubt there would be anyone in the category but anyways) Go watch it!

Everybody has a perception or a definition of what being cool is all about. Or what kind of talk makes one sound intellectual. What kind of taste in music, food and books, makes one sound so very in, and happening. But at the same time, it isn’t necessary that you match your own definition, or opinion. In fact, in my case, I more often than not, am a complete mismatch to what my perception of ‘being in’ is all about.

Ok. Gult movies are officially hilarious. Actually not the movies per say, I haven’t really seen any, but the names of the movies, more importantly, their so called tag lines, are so astoundingly funny! I mean take this for an example: ‘Rakhi – Highly inflammable’.  What does one make out of it? I could think of a few interpretations. 1. It’s a brand of petroleum probably, and the tagline basically is a statutory warning, ‘Rakhi petroleum – Highly inflammable’. Or 2. It’s this lady named Rakhi, who is extremely short tempered, or well, inflammable. That too highly. But no! The poster has the picture of a typical gult hero, with a dozen Rakhi’s tied on his wrist. So ok, we get it, it’s the story of this universal brother, who is by the way highly inflammable. But please, please, could we do something about the title of the film here?

Another awesome title I noticed today was Yogi – A feel that never ends. Huh? A feel that never ends? I mean seriously, what the hell is a feel that never ends? And why the hell is it called Yogi? No idea, and so I have given up on it as well. And yeah, this one has the picture of this angry looking guy, with a sword kinda thing with blood smeared on it. So there, that is Yogi I guess. And he definitely gives you a feel(ing?) of amusement, which actually does not end.

Anyways, all these hoardings do provide me with quite some entertainment. And in fact I think I pay more attention to the new posters put up these days. So, come to think, they are in fact very successful in their basic purpose of grabbing attention. So thereJ!

P.S. I just realized that Rakhi could have been the guy’s name after all. I probably assume too much. Anyways, if it is, well, then I take back all the nasty comments about it, and we will target Yogi alone. Ok?  Anyways, time to sign off now, so till then, Ciao!

I watched You’ve got mail like the nth time last week. And I realized that it still has the ability to get me into the nothing-can-ever-go-wrong-in-this-beautiful-world mood. And left me dreamy and grinny by the time it ended.

I just love such movies. Initially I thought it was probably only the highly romantic, mush flicks, which I could enjoy as much, but now I am pretty sure that it’s got to do more with the movie being a happy one. Yes of course it would, and should have its sad, upsetting twists and scenes I guess, but if the movie, by the time it ends is able to make me feel nice about things, or people, and everything in general, it is a happy movie.

For instance, The Terminal is one movie I simply adore. And yes, have watched it like a million times. The romantic part in the movie does not end on a happy note, but the movie as a whole is awesome. And the scene around the end, when Tom Hanks is about to step out of the terminal, and is handed a coat by the otherwise very strict looking security officer, is something I rewind and watch every time. Then there is Shawshank Redemption. The fact that the guy escapes in the end, so perfectly, somehow makes me forget every single unfortunate incident in the movie otherwise. Like I said, happy, feel good movie.

Yet another movie I recently re-watched after about 3 years, was As good as it gets. My opinion about the movie hadn’t been very positive. Especially since it wasn’t exactly a mush flick, with a Hugh Jackman - Leopold, or a Tom Cruise - Jerry Mc Guire who you are forced to fall in love with instantly. Instead it had this grumpy old Jack Nicholson who couldn’t have been a more irritating character. And yet this time I really liked the movie, and every bit and character of it, including (and especially) the gay artist, his black friend, and the adorable dog.

Yes, I still enjoy my typical mush flicks just as much. Love actually, Notting Hill, Sleepless in Seattle still top my all time favorites list. I still roll every time I watch Bruce Almighty or Dumb and dumber, and have written CDs of the likes of Shrek, Ice Age and Monsters Inc. I cry every time I watch the end of Life is beautiful and concentrate like hell while watching Memento, Butterfly effect and Pulp Fiction, so that I don’t miss out on any important detail And I still watch The Mummy, Men in Black and X – men every time they are aired. For all this, being a movie freak really helps. But somehow, now I know better as to what DVDs I can actually buy when I visit Planet M, without wondering if I am wasting money J.

Quite some time till I posted my oh-so-personal comments about the movies I watched on Weekends. And somehow, I haven’t visited the video library again. And all my weekends (actually just 3 if them) have been extra busy.

Weekend 1 was spent at Habib’s. Finally, finally, I mustered enough guts to get my hair straightened. And well, the results haven’t been very bad. I have actually managed to get rid of the curls, and frizz, which at K, reminded people of ‘Monica at Barbados’, or a nest, or most creatively, ‘water gushing out of a broken pipe’. And they are supposed to stay that way for 6-8 months, post which I need to decide if I am actually interested in burning a hole in my pocket again L. And I wasn’t allowed to tie up my hair for the next two days, and that is something, which is impossible, so stayed at home, watching loads of TV. (And yeah BTW, *Phbbbt* to people who met me after this and didn’t notice it)

Weekend 2 was probably the most pre-planned weekend ever. The trip to K finally happened. And it was very much worth it. The campus, the view from the campus, the SSG fete, and the party, all brought back amazing memories. Everything actually went on as planned, right from the train journey to Bangalore, the sleeper ride to K, the stay at the hostel, and even the Sumo ride back from K, which actually turned out to be ‘more-than-expected’ comfortable!

 Weekend 3, which was the last weekend, was spent checking out the new house, we might be shifting into (Long story: Pure-veg flat-mate thinks, non-veg flat-mate not sticking to her promise of not bringing non-veg stuff home, and especially, not using any of the common plates and spoons. Non-veg flat-mate feels, that Pure-veg flat-mate is being too unfair, as she does that only when boy-friend is in town, which is like every alternate weekend, so finally, I am moving out with Pure veg flat-mate, as the latter has another friend who will move in to give her company, and I don’t have any more strength to convince either of them. Long story over.) Then, the rest of the time was spent checking out the awesome clearance sales at all the major malls in the city J and watching ‘Rang De Basanti’ buying tickets in black, at 4 times their original cost. No complaints. It was worth it. (Justification being, if I could watch Bunty Babli with tickets in black, RDB is completely acceptable!)

 So, those were the updates from life in general. Client is on a visit to Mexico, so no meetings, no presentations, and no calls. Life simply rocks J!

We finally found a video library near our place. Not exactly near near, but around a 15 minute walk one way, and right next to my old college. But seriously, it’s been so worth it, especially since we had been pretty disillusioned by the fact that we were so unable find one before. Which is damn weird considering we stay right in the centre if the city.

Getting back to the basic fact, we wasted no time in taking a membership, and obviously, wasted not one day of the past two weekends. And ended up watching a bulk of movies.

 Started with Apaharan, because A wanted to watch it. Seriously, whatever the critics say, I simply cannot get myself to watch a 3 hour long movie full of gore, extremely serious dialogues, absolutely no comedy, and no songs. So, after going deeper and deeper into depression after every passing minute, when the bad guy died in the end, life seemed better.

Thankfully, some good sense made me borrow Madagascar the same day, and things became much better after watching that. Though not in the same league as Shrek, Ice Age, or Monsters Inc (totally my opinion), it was a refreshing movie, and intensified my love for animated flicks.

The next in line was Ek Ajnabee, and the only thing I could be thankful about when it ended was that I hadn’t got tickets for it in Imax. Cos here I could at least forward stuff. The Indian version of ‘Man on Fire’ seemed to have tried to hard to be Hollywoodish, and some ended up being this utterly senseless mess. And no, even Arjun Rampal couldn’t get it my points.

Borrowed Bluff master along with Shall we Dance, a Richard Gere flick next. No reviews (or rather opinions) about Bluff master, as we did not go beyond the first 15 minutes. And this was when all three people watching the movie, are the typical ‘Abhishek is sooooo cute!’ women. But surprisingly, none of us actually had an inclination to watch this movie, and so we shifted to the other one. And that was cute!! Richard Gere, loads of mush, and quite a bit of ballroom dancing thrown in, what else could one ask for.

So, the next time we went to borrow movies, special emphasis was laid on the fact that atleats one of the movies had to be a mushy flick, so that it would offset any bad experience we might have with the other movies. The combination this time was Never been kissed (which would be are-watch for everyone), and Charlie and the chocolate factory (my choice, as I loved the book as a kid, and wanted to see the movie now). The good part was while the former was as cute as always, the latter did full justice to the book. And for those who have read the book, it actually added an additional aspect in the form of Willy Wonka’s childhood.

The last batch of movies watched were, the critically acclaimed and nominated for all possible awards, ‘Hazaaron Khwaahishen Aisi’ and another never heard of ‘Thirteen going on Thirty’.

And the verdict is ‘I did not like HKA one bit’. I do not know why in the name of ‘realistic’ cinema, they have to make such highly disturbing movies in the first place. And all this after I got a feedback that this was an awesome portrayal of the 70s, was a very well made love story etc etc. If I wanted to watch so much ‘reality’, I would rather go watch some news channel I guess.

Thirteen, going on thirty was fairy tale cute. And very much my kinda movie. So, again I had a movie to put my mood right after something I would have rather not watched.

So that was the movie summarization for the last two weeks. The list for the next week includes Iqbal, and Ice Princess. And if there are any worth watching movies (with happy endings please) or really timepass romantic flicks, well known or not, do suggest!!

Till then, Ciao!