Om Shanti Om a.k.a Bollywood circus

Verdict: Must Watch!!

When i woke up in the morning yesterday, I never knew that I would be one of the few firsts to see Om Shanti Om in India. But when the movie ended the special feeling 'almost' slipped away.
At this point I can say that i still feel like going and watching the movie again because never ever in the history of hindi cinema have I ever enjoyed the first half so much. It is just too too too too funny. Right from the beginning, the movie starts spoofing the 70's style and statements in a way that no one has every successfully done. Shah rukh khan is simply amazing in the first half with his comic timing. Farah khan's humor quotient is simply at heights with this movie. The quick gun murugan and the 'rascala..' parts are simply too original and tickles your funny bone for 100% of the time. The best part of the movie and the reason I have not spoken about shah rukh (who the hell will see him when u can see her in the same frame) till now is Miss Deepika Padukone. She is classic. She is Serene. She is beautiful. She is all cleavage with no vulgar feeling!!!! She has arrived. (oh wont i love that!!!!) Forget her acting, forget her dialogues, forget everything else in the frame when she is scorching up the screen. She is officially the hottest.





But I had my reservations with the movie which made me feel that farah had diverted too far with her comic doings for her to return to serious drama. In her previous movie she had the control and thus it was a senless logicless brialliant movie (main hoo na) but this was like a small child who played too much to have any concentration left for his studies. The end is terrible. Actually its not that bad but when u have such a dhamakedaar first half you need to be only a scorsese to follow it up with great drama, sadly farha ain't that good.

But lets come to the reason why I call it the circus. If u ever loved any bollywood actor, u will find them in this movie. whether it is mithun da's dance or akshays's action or rani's thumkes or amitabh's sense of humor or abhishek's bacchpana.. its all there for grabs. So at the end of the day all paisa vasool when u see akshay kumar do his stunt. Man this was like way funnier than satish shah spitting at shah rukh khan.

So first 75% of the movie is just too good that it covers up the really bad last 30%. An overall celebration of bollywood movies, watch it for all the CIRCUS!!!

Durga Pujo

Just today as i was passing by a kabab shop near oakhalipuram (Bangalore), ahhh.. the smell of chicken fried in crimson red chutney. But then i suddenly realised I never liked that smell or even gave it any kind of thought. Then I realised that its the same smell i get every time i pass by the food stalls set up during Durga Pujo (the pujo).

This is what pujo does to you. By itself it lasts for just 4-5 days but what it does to a bengali for the rest of the year is phenomenal. Its like an ecstasy, the experience time is incomparable to the effect time. As i listen to Anjan Dutta's Bela bose, the 2441139 song.. i run into the amazing night of that novomi this year. The night of Maddox square, I was pleasantly drunk on Rum Limon (thanks to Dia Didi for that) and the 'back benchers' (the band that just plays guitars and all of us sit around them in that onion layer form) were belting out the songs i had never heard but wanted to always hear. Prithibi ta (the bengali version of bheegi bheegi), 2441139, coffee house made all of us hopeless nostalgic bengalis go in a trans that will keep the effect for the whole year.

The mixture of anxiety, faith, love, freedom, freaking out helps out await the pujo. I can never forget the amazing aarti's, morning events, the night musicals, the chicken egg rolls, the begging for permissions to go out from parents, the cool drinks, the night dances with the whole family and friends ofcourse. The 'Maangsho Bhaath' (meat and rice) on the novomi night.

The best part of the pujo is that the feelings is the same for all age groups. My mom, my dad, my jethu, my sis every one awaits it with the same kind of intensity, but all have their own reason for awaiting the pujo.

The feeling is always great during pujo, though the gossips are shared the people are also ready for some patching ups. There seems to be a positive energy over the place. Teasing, sharing gossips, flirting, faith have their new heights during the pujo.

But the funny part is that it always rains hard during pujo. Maybe the amount of unusual things (read above) that happen during the pujo could help us reason out the rain!! :)

Oh how i miss the Pujo....

Chauvinists and fads...

I feel like an ultra frigging male 'chauvinist'. Especially when your best friend tells his sister that he is going out with me but is actually going out with his girlfriend. :). Fine thats all right no problem dude, have a great evening.
But wait there is a problem, for the rest of the day i am a chauvinist. Yayi!! so how can i piss some girls around. Here comes to my help the greatest kid ever drawn, yup calvin. read this..





Buahahahaa.. ROTFAFAL.. yesss.. for all the girls who think calvin is cute and i am too(!!!).. take that. Its the greatest irony, just do this, search for all the profiles that have Calvin or Hobbes as their profile pic, count how many of them are girls and viola 90% turn out to be females.

Fine ok ok.. i get it you guys like the comic and dont care what the charecter says or feels. Then it says it all and I made my point. I rest the case.

hehe

Frigging ICICI..

I hate ICICI.

reason: 9 months back i jumped at an oppurtunity given by ICICI and sangeetha mobiles to buy a phone at zero percent emi. Brilliant i thought and there I had my spunky new phone. It was natural for me to have been impressed at the ease by which all the procedure was completed.

The deal was that the amount will be debited in my father's account and they would clear it from there. Fine till here.
6 months hence everything was fine, when suddenly a call centre from chennai calls up on my land line even though the primary contact number was my dad's mobile to inform us that payments have not been coming in. Completely shocked at this my father checks up the statements of his ICICI account. According to that the money came in and went as was the deal. so if the money has gone from the account how could he accuse us of not paying. Fine, a complain was lodged and everything was fine after a few days, but not after my father had to go to the bank and complete the proceedings (aka waste of his time).

Last month: same problem, same procedure. But this time call was from delhi and the worse part is u cant call them back and shout at them cause its just a one sided call. this time we were fustrated but ICICI "promptly" cleared the problem.

This month: Guess what.... again!!! This is the limit, and thank god this is the last month of the emi, so after the "PROBLEM" is solved "AGAIN", we have decided to go and cut the card in front of the manager.

ICICI is a major Fu@#ing loser of a bank. Never get your self a Credit card from there. period

I am Thinking

Its been 2 months since i have written something on this blog. Today there was a article in Times of India informing the "illiterate" about the blog (which apparently came about in that fashion, web log-> we blog-> blog ) and reminding the already registered blog user like me to get back to filling in something.

Apparently bipasha basu blogs, therefore blogging has re-arrived. Duh, how can a all bosom define coolness of a blog. Anyway passing thought. But actually Times in its first page says "From mega- stars to moms they are all busy blogging" an in a perfectly Times way a hot picture of Ms. Bipasha Basu. I had to see the page now, as usual there was a lot of trivia, example blogs, "how blogging has affected the universe (duh)" etc etc. and exactly five lines about bipasha. lol. poor "MEGA-STAR".
So what am i getting at. Of course the topic i always enjoy, the topic i wanted to blog about since i started but never gave it a fair chance. ADVERTISEMENT.

First according to me the best ads in the year 2006-2007 have been.
1. Bajaj (pulsar)
2. Maggi (mania)
3. Fast Track

special mention
1. Happydent (rajastan palace one)
2. Orbit (bathaudekar one)
3. Airtel (grand father one)

Worshhhhhht ones
1. BSNL
2. TATA sky (life jingalala)
3. Logan.

Finally,
1. Macho Underwear
2. Wild stone.

The final category i shall leave nameless.

First the best ads,

Bajaj - Remember the late 80's and early nineties Bajaj Ads, with that melodious jingle (will be completely unfair in saying so) "Buland bharath ki buland tasveer... hamara bajaj.. ". Yup bring those sunny, foggy delhi streets with a punjabi man taking his children to school on his bajaj chetak or a bajaj super comes to my mind. Jumping nearly a decade and you'll find pulsar the new USP of Bajaj taking the front seat. Lyrics of " Naye bharath ki nayi tasveer .... hamara bajaj.. " with those amazing vocals and animations. What takes it ahead of all the present ads is the vocals.From folk melodious voice to the metal sounding new one. Where the previous one focussed on the proud developing Indian (middle class) this one clearly matches the "wannabe" status of Indian youth. Rock, Rough vocals but striking the right notes. I have seen this happen, in my office cafeteria, while everyone is busy eating, as soon as the add comes they have to look at the TV once ( for me its the lyrics for some its the cool animation). Whatever be the reason the ad takes Bajaj and pulsar to the heights that the previous add had taken super and chetaks. Though some people might not agree with me, but i feel that the new ad has hit the target (get the pun??!!)
2. Maggi Mania- wouldn't go into the details but. technically brilliant ad. (Bhojpuri lyrics, hep family and good old peppy feel)
3. Fast track-All the ads, with special mention to the tag line "how many you have man". The best part was the way it was delivered, which made it a super hit. So what puts these ads to the top three. Plain and simply - The Success. It took them 7 years to build a strong brand name, Fast Track, but the brand saved TITAN from loosing its status!!

Special mention
1. Happydent- Creativity Galore!!!
2. Orbit - Humor Galore!!
3. Airtel - sentiments Galore!! (this is perfect example of target marketting, once they knew they captured the young ones, it was time for them to attack the "parents")

Worshhhht ones

1. BSNL - what else can u expect from the god of all B- grade ads, The Indian government (may be i am being unfair by undermining the independence related ads or others, remember they were all bharath shah productions). Remember Nirodh ad or say the polio drop ads perfect successor is our priety zinta one minute long ultra boring, plagiarism galore non creative and plain simple ewwwww ad.

2. Tata Sky- god alone knows what TATA was thinking when they made those jingala ads, especially the two orchestra members in a pool one. Man tasteless, stupid, target less add. also might be the most irritating ad in the recent time, oops i for got BSNL ads.

3. Logan - Nothing bad to ones naked eyes, But wear the lens of advertising techniques and u see the problem. Firstly "wide body car".. so what, secondly if you are introducing a international brand ( even though its Renault, aka low level) in India you got to hype it. Man the only hype that mahindra has ever given was for Scorpio, even though it didn't deserve it, but its India man, it was a hit. Sadly it failed there too. No wonder Mahindra is hitting itself on the head for having gone for this massacre. No wonder its a flop.

Finally,
1. Macho Underwear - what was the female model thinking. But i am sure otherwise i would not even have remembered the name of the band, they did their job!!
2. Wild stone- WOW!!

So, whatever said and done I just love Indian ads, they are the best. But i am waiting for the day the ads go beyond sensor, and that day there will be no stopping the creative Indian mind. But i guess its better the way it is now. what say??

End of an era and into the next...

2nd may, A day that i will always remember.
11:30 am - As i finished copying my last answer from yak's book a feeling of relief and release ran through my mind. It was the end of my Engineering. The end of four years in an amazing place called NITK. The End of an ERA.
As a group of my friend were leaving, leaving the place forever to go into the next phase of their life it hit me. It hit me hard. As i saw bajpai, sailesh, mishra, sonal leave my I sunk into this pit in my own heart which made me speechless.
I am sure i wil meet some of them in future but the four years i spent with these guys, the momments of sorrow, the momments of joy that i shared with them is never going to come back the way it was during these amazing years.
I have never been the kind who is so attached with a person that his parting away would hurt me so much that tears roll down my cheeks, but it did, it did yesterday. These are the moments that make u feel that you should have spent more time with these people.
My bus ticket has been bought. Tuesday 8th may, 1:15 pm
I will bid adieu to this place with a heavy heart and the scare that some of the close friends might forget me. I really will miss this heavenly place.
I dedicate my Engineering to Anup, Jammy, Yak, Gendi, Gooba, Subbu, cheti, Kamu. Thanks guys, u rock!!

Chris Rocks!!

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in NBA is Chinese, The Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon'."

Love of a loveless

love is in the air!!
very strange, very very strange.. Its valentines day and coincidentally i am feeling love sick. I assure you its not anything to do with the day. i am just feeling love sick. may be i need one now.

But who. they say she will come, and u will talk, and u will connect, and u will fall in love. I have waited. I have have taken many trains on the one way route. But nothing happened, there was no connection, She is not there anywhere in the horizon. But, I want to fall in love with her.

I cry for company of a woman. Not the same way i cried the first time, no not infatuations, nothing sexual. I cry for a company, but for some reason I want that to be a girl. I want to talk to her about intuitions, aliens, constellations, food, love, music, movies, job, science, conspiracy theories, parents, friends.I want to listen to her talk, talk her heart out. I want to feel her aura, feel her voice, feel the dew on hair, feel her perfume.I want to fall in love.

I want to connect. I always picture it like a tube connecting her with me. It glows, glows bright. Bright with love. But cant see her face. Its hazy up there, but it didn't matter then. But now i want it to be real. I want to see the face and hear her. I want to fall in love with her.

But Who??

Prejudice and Underestimation

Dreams, interesting things they are. I feel there are two types of dreams. One, those that are really arbit and seem to you like a motion picture, complete with sub plots and main plots, a hero (usually you), a heroine (usually her) and the extras. The other is ofcourse the one that all the great people talk about. “I have a dream” said ML king. Yes that DREAM-the one that can get you the car, the girl, the comfort, the trip to Egypt, the chick in the movie. Yes that dream, the dream that most of us live our lives for.

There was this self help book that I was reading once that said it’s the worst crime to die with the dreams remaining dreams. When I was in my 3^rd standard, my father used to tell tales of my dadu who was the only doctor in the whole Burdwan district in west Bengal. And about how famous he was and how he rode his white horse, chetak. What else do you expect from a small child listening to such wonderful tales. Yes that’s when I thought that my “future” is in curing people. I had to become the doctor!! (the exclamation is for

me)

And then it was software engineer, and sadly the only reason I thought I wanted to become one was because everyone one around me was one and belting money out of it. Not only that one person went all the way to New Zealand with that job. Now New Zealand was one of the foreign locations I always imagined myself with her in my other type of dreams. So obviously I had to become a software engineer!!

Engineering happened. I moved out of home, hostel happened. There I was suddenly hit by my real future. I had not become the doctor. I had taken mechanical engineering, software not happening too. So what now, automobile engineer or aeronautical (what else did u expect from me). That’s what I thought I was going to become a good mechanical engineer and serve the industrial world!!

I am placed in a software company. And I am now planning to become a restaurateur. I want to protect this dream of mine. Really do. I am really scared that this will turn out the way my other dreams have. I am scared. But this one is a dream of a older person. A dream that has grown a lot. A dream that has had similarities to the first type ( the hero is a restauranter ). Please god help me protect it.

As Will smith says “u have a dream, protect it, nurture it, till it becomes true”.. pursuit of happyness.

And yeah about the heading, I dont like it(them) it either!!!

dadu- grandfather