You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2009.
Siddharth G makes an effective pitch for the independent Lok Sabha candidate from Pune, Arun Bhatia (an ex-IAS officer who had made quite some news when he pulled down illegal constructions in Pune during his tenure) :
Punekar: my vote wont make a difference. actual elections are won/lost in the slums.
Stupid Reality: more than 60% of pune’s registered voters are from the educated middle class. they are actually (and i still dont believe it) in the majority.P: fine! but who do we vote for? all are corrupt.
SR: theres this dude, arun bhatia (u might find the name familiar, same dude who broke down all illegal constructions, when commissioner of PMC, was later transferred…obviously). read the excerpt from his website below. proves he was not liked by the system. there is no way you can put him in the “all are corrupt” basket.
Read the entire article here.
This is pretty much the news of last year, which formally made it to the news just yesterday.
PM couldn’t email for three months.
The prime minister’s office email system was under the grip of a computer virus for three months last year, forcing officials to replace the software. The technical glitch plagued the email system, based on Microsoft Outlook Express, from February to April in 2008.
Although the extent of damage is uncertain, the PMO said most emails addressed to it were not received. The problem was detected only late April, after which the software was replaced.
So the PMO doesn’t receive any emails for 3 long months, and they don’t notice anything different. None of the world leaders send a “Wazzzzup dude ?” and no one cares. They don’t even receive spam that claims will help them increase the size of their .. err .. cabinet and still don’t think it is weird. No complaints received from the common man either and they probably prefer saying “Wow .. we must like .. totally rock man !”.
It is not that I associate some political parties with the phrase “makes sense”, but this was even beyond that :
Later, in a press conference here, [Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut] said “BJP should clear it’s stand about Marathi manoos for the top job.”
The crux of the matter being that NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s name is being thrown around for the topmost post. Strangely, the NCP is a key member of the UPA while Shiv Sena, according to their chief, has a husband & wife relationship with ally BJP. I am fine with the Shiv Sena saying that in case of a hung parliament, they wouldn’t mind supporting Mr. Pawar. But if they want the BJP to say that they don’t mind a Maharashtrian (which I somehow prefer to Marathi manoos), I don’t understand what the elections are about !
On that note, check out this interview of Mr. Pawar.
After watching Gulaal, among the unfortunate things that happen are that you can no longer claim Black Friday or Dev D. were masterpieces. They were good .. maybe really good movies.
Gulaal is Anurag Kashyap’s first movie that comes close to being called a masterpiece. I cannot say for sure if it is one, only speculate that it might be one.
The movie rests on the shoulders of two absolute geniuses.
The first of whom is the Anurag Kashyap of 2001. I say 2001 because after watching this and Dev D., I cannot say that we have finally found a genius, because we might just have lost one. Gulaal took shape when Anurag Kashyap was battling it out with the censor board over his first movie Paanch and was inspired by the song Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye from Pyaasa (check out its video and the lyrics/translation here).
The second is Piyush Mishra. He has written the songs for this movie. I wouldn’t call them lyrics, it is poetry at its best. He has composed the songs. They are not just songs, they are an *inseparable* asset to the movie. At each listen, they will remind you of the movie. He also plays a central character (Prithvi Bana) of almost a sutradhar, but not quite one.
Now about the movie.
Everyone starts their life with innocence and assumes the world is all innocent. But everyone has that one trigger when the rosy picture of the world is shattered forever. Gulaal is about that trigger.
Everyone is after that one thing in their life that they think will make them happiest when attained. Gulaal is about that chase.
Of course, Gulaal is this and more. Depending on how much you think later.
Set in Rajasthan, Dukki Bana (Kay Kay Menon) heads a secret society of the Rajputs who want the Rajputana back for themselves from India. Bhati (Deepak Dobriyal) is his right hand man. Dileep (Raj Singh Chaudhary) is a sincere fresher in Rajpur who has for a roommate the maverick Rajput prince Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh) who wants nothing of his heritage. Then there is the brother sister duo of Karan and Kiran (Aditya Srivastava and Ayesha Mohan), the illegitimate siblings of Ransa craving for legitimacy from their father and society.
This is the setting. It then kicks off a high voltage drama moving from scene to scene packed with action and aggression aided by powerhouse performances from each character without giving you any respite to introspect or judge any character till the end when the stage comes crashing down. That is Gulaal for you.
Each character is grey; and there is atleast one moment in the movie where you sympathize with each one of the characters, irrespective of which side of the protagonist they are on, even the ones that are outright negative. Watch out for the character of Ransa as well as the actor enacting the part. Both are one of the best in recent times.
Acting. I would be making a complete fool of myself if I sat down and judged the performances.
Music. Ditto.
Screenplay/cinematography/art/colors/dialogues. Ditto.
To end, it is a rare movie which you must not miss. Be warned, it will get you thinking. It has been over 24 hours since I saw it and I still cannot get it out of my head.
Yeh Duniya lyrics/translation courtesy theBollywoodFan.
I am going to keep this one very short. If I would have written this post yesterday, I would have highly praised the movie. Unfortunately, I saw Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal between watching Dev D. and this post. I am afraid that is going to *greatly* affect this review.
Dev D. is an above average movie for sure. It is not a masterpiece as people make it out to be. But thankfully, it is not as indulgent as Anurag’s earlier release No Smoking.
The acting was alright, the music was a definite high (review here), the scenes got repetitive at times and the movie even dragged a couple of times. There were some scenes masterfully done like the one when Paro meets Dev in his hotel room. I am not sure if it was the brilliance of the execution or just the idea of having that scene.
I have a minor quibble though. Why was there a voiceover by Abhay Deol in the final scene (where he is almost run down by a car and consequently attains enlightenment) !!! It is pardonable but totally spoiled the mood for me. It was almost like the part in Khwaja Mere Khwaja where Ashutosh Gowariker thought it would be cool to show a light in the sky ! Why don’t you just trust your actors and music directors.
While the characters are obviously taken from Sarat Chandra’s novel Devdas, it might be incorrect to call it an adapdation of Devdas for the simple reason that the theme is completely different. Devdas is about a coward who seeks solace in alcohol. Dev D is about a flawed person who firstly, realizes his flaws and secondly, learns to accept those in others. An adaptation would be a Maqbool or an Omkara, where the theme is the same in a different setting.
Like I said earlier, I am finding it really difficult to praise Dev D. courtesy Gulaal. Gulaal review here.
Close on the heels of my earlier post “Cash for Holi“, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Prada (who by the way, has nothing to do with Italy and fashion) was caught giving away cash to voters.
And of course, the great tradition continues.
No, not that of politicians giving away money. Of IBNLive taking the pains to highlight the cash for our ease.
On that note, say if Aishwarya gets pregnant and Abhishek is happily sharing the news with reporters. The reporters are desperate to highlight something in the snap .. something .. absolutely anything related to the news. Any guesses what they’ll do ?
For some reason this article is troubling me :
He’s smarter than Einstein and he loves alphabets. Six-year-old Pranav Veera from Chicago has an IQ of 176 – Einstein’s was believed to be around 160.
According to the little boy’s parents, he can recite the names of the US Presidents in the order they served in office. He can also recite alphabets backward.
It’s not about the kid. Happy for him. It’s about the one who wrote this stuff. Either way I don’t want to sound like a snob so I am not telling what’s troubling me.
Hint : The word is common to both sentences .. apart from the a’s and the’s.
I just finished a couple of projects and pulled off a couple of all nighters including an almost 24-hour marathon coding session, so it was time to go on a long drive at an unearthly hour and check if my camera still remembered how to take snaps.
This is the view from the Golden Gate Bridge of the Bay Bridge that is across the bay from the Vista point (click on the images to enlarge)
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| From Golden Gate 14th Mar 2009 |
Next up is the Golden Gate bridge.
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| From Golden Gate 14th Mar 2009 |
Another snap of the bridge before fog took over and I had to flee from the chilly winds. You can see the fog sweeping in from the right end.
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| From Golden Gate 14th Mar 2009 |
I know there exists a damn punny headline for this post somewhere, I just haven’t found it yet. Drop in a line if you get one.
Some unknown Mahatma Gandhi foundation caused this recent news item :
The national flag used in the website www.lkadvani.in was withdrawn after it was pointed out by the Mahatma Gandhi foundation that the flag should not be used for campaign purposes. The foundation had also said it was improper to use it for advertisement.
That by itself warrants a place for this news here at News You Can’t Use (yes, I am branding it now). But the most ironic part is :
The flag code was introduced by Advani when he was Union Home Minister.
I had to carry out some investigative journalism on this, before the tradition died out. So here is some more information about the Indian flag.
On 5 July 2005, the Government of India amended the code, allowing use of the flag as clothing and uniform. It however cannot be used as clothing below the waist or as undergarments. It is also prohibited to embroider the national flag and other symbols onto pillowcases or neckerchiefs.
Okay say it was used as an undergarment. Going by the defition of an undergarment, how the heck would you even find that out ! Plus that might have been one of the foreseen ventures of the aforementioned brand.
Tradition also states that when draped vertically, the flag should not merely be rotated through 90 degrees, but also reversed. One “reads” a flag like the pages of a book, from top to bottom and from left to right, and after rotation the results should be the same.
So mind you, I could complain about you to the teacher if it was even a tad bit lower or higher.
It is also insulting to display the flag in a frayed or dirty state.
Umm .. insulting to whom exactly ? The flag or the inflated ego in the big head of a nonsensical non-patriot.
So when it is hoisted with the flags of other countries, it should be the first flag or first and last flag or in alphabetical order. Fair enough. But sample this :
In case flags are to be flown in a closed circle, the national flag shall mark the beginning of the circle and the flags of other countries should proceed in a clockwise manner.
Ahem .. elementary geometry anyone ?
When the President goes on tour within India, the flag should be displayed on the side by which the President will embark the aircraft or disembark from it. When the President travels by special train within the country, the flag should be flown from the driver’s cab on the side facing the platform of the station from where the train departs. The flag should be flown only when the special train is stationary or when coming into the station where it is going to halt.
Who exactly has the time to come up with such stuff ?
There are plenty more here if you want a good laugh, but I end with this :
When the Tiranga is in a damaged or soiled condition, it may not be cast aside or disrespectfully disposed of, but shall be destroyed as a whole in private, preferably by burning or by any other method consistent with the dignity of the flag. The other proper way to destroy the Tiranga could be immersion into the Ganga or buried with due respect.
Yeah whatever, if I were in its place, I would just be glad to break free finally.
I also propose that Oxford immediately change the definition of flagging from his book, apparently it means declining, weakening, languid and drooping, which should be insulting to the flag as we have just learnt.
To summarize, please be careful the next time you handle the flag, lest you might hurt its sentiments (and if that happens, optimistically speaking, I would get another blog post).
Forewarning : I am not a great fan of China ever since I learnt how silly the communist parties of India were.
AFP reports this great headline :
China says talks rest on Dalai Lama giving up separatism.
This is how the books on “How to improve your debating skills” would look like :
Chapter One : Do not debate unless your opponent gives up his view.
Ok bye now.
On that note, please carry plenty of water while driving at night in China.
