Gets me everytime!

Oh blobit of dribble
Oozing from the upturned corner of my mouth
You look to me,
Like you should be,
The thing that dropeth from the cloud
A tiny bit of thee is stuck upon my lip
A little more is stuck up my nose
Some has adhered to my hip
My eyes are open and glassy
My snot is thick and green
And from my ears,
Something obscene appears,
And I think it might be me.
                     ------  Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz

Just felt like treating my regular visitor(s) to some exquisite poetry.

Living It Up

Am posting this from a cosy room at ITC Sonar. Had to mention that. Love the food, the service and the general ambience of the hotel here.

Saw Om Shanti Om, with my parents again, last night. I really enjoyed the movie. The multi-starrer song itself is paisa-vasool, and the rest of the movie is good fun too. There are several issues with the movie that I could enumerate, not the least is the cheap humor at some occasions, but hell, I went in expecting a full-blown commercial caper. And I got that yessiree. This might actually end up being only the third movie, after HAHK and DDLJ, that I go to watch on a big screen the second time. The very expensive multiplex tickets and the distance I need to travel from my campus everytime I come to the city are two reasons that could keep me from it though.

The night before that I saw the 2004 Best Foreign Language Oscar winner Les Invasions Barbares (The Barbarian Invasions), which is a huge contrast, and equally enjoyable. It's a very simple and intelligent movie, a little similar to Bergman's Wild Strawberries. I won't say it's very difficult to make me cry, but I normally don't do that watching a movie. The last time I think that happened was when I had seen It's A Wonderful Life almost two years back. Almost 500 or so movies after that, this is one where I did.

And before that I saw Jaan-E-Mann, OSO's director's husband's directorial debut. I had missed it when it came out last year because a good print wasn't available, and I can't risk paying multiplex ticket money for a movie that has Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. I had heard good things about it though. Finally found a DVD rip last week on the LAN and stayed up late to see it, along with playing this. The game sucked badly, the movie was good. Both Shirish Kunder and his wife have a very similar style of film-making, but I found Kunder's more refined, and to an extent more intelligent as well. Very rarely do you see Hindi movies today that make you laugh and not cringe at their jokes. This one had lots of the former kind.

Quite a few quizzes lined up. Please wish that I make some moolah in all of these. OK Bye (yikes, that reminds me of Saawariya), I have to get back to deciding what to order for dinner.

Happy Diwali

I saw Saawariya this Saturday. Spent my first Diwali at home in several years, and it was also the first time in several months when all four of us were at home at the same time. But it was spoiled, as much as an occasion like this can be by a dumb movie, by a family trip to the nearest multiplex (which is about 2 hours away) to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali's latest extravagance.

I really don't want to waste words on this excuse for a film. It definitely is beautiful and the songs sound and look amazing, but that's just about it. I really did not like either of the lead actors. I actually felt like slapping Ranbir Kapoor, and he seemed to be on drugs, especially in the much-spoken-about towel song. It's too painfully boring. This is one of the few occasions where I have seen the director ham. I have never believed Bhansali to be a great film-maker. Black would have been a master-piece in the hands of many directors, but he reduced it to melodramatic garbage with Bachchan hamming thousand times more than he normally does these days. He (Bhansali) has this very very bad habit of not knowing when to stop. Great screenplays are about stretching an emotional scene just to the right extent to extract the perfect response from the audience. Bhansali, obviously, does not know that. One has to watch one of the last scenes, where Sakina is leaving Ranbir Raj for Imaan, to understand what I am saying. The scene goes on way longer than it should. The whole point of manipulating the audience is lost when it knows all too well that it is being manipulated. I am surprised that the film is doing well commercially because the hall that I went to was less than half-filled and almost everyone I heard while coming out was cursing the director. If he had been in Durgapur that afternoon, he would surely have been lynched.

I also watched Hairspray. Which is also a musical. And such a welcome contrast. It's a perfect feel-good film and the viewing time of about 2 hours just flies away, thanks to the delightful cast, the delightful songs and the delightful dances. Travolta has to get Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this one.

And I read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. It's slightly boring in the initial parts. It seems to stop moving forward and keeps talking in detail about idiotic people, whom I didn't care about. But gradually, and especially in the last 25-30 pages, it really finds its soul. It's about a lot of things, but mainly about how our past shapes what we are now. It doesn't get preachy anywhere though, even when it covers some of the darkest moments in recent human history. Highly recommended.

Up to here with pseuds

I visited this site recently, referred to me by a friend of mine, where Anurag Kashyap (I am assuming it was really him and not someone posing as him) had written about this reverse snobbishness that many 'educated' Hindi film viewers are wont to, when they claim that they watch Hindi movies only for the 'entertainment'. These guys go ga-ga over a Tarkovsky or, if you are less pseud, over Tarantino, but find a remotely cerebral Hindi film too 'arty-farty'.

I am not sure I had completely understood what Kashyap was saying, but now, after having read what many people have to say about No Smoking, I think I have begun to get an idea. Though I understand that there is a chance of people honestly not liking the film, in most cases, the person seems to come up with the most laughable reasons for it.

A friend, for instance, was cribbing about missing good ol' fluffy Hindi flicks while talking about the disenchanting seriousness of No Smoking. Some people revel in the idea that Hindi flicks are supposed to be these no-brainer song-and-dance melodramatic features, where one can take some refuge after having watched a little too much of Nouvelle Vague or some other such chic sounding cinema.

I can't even begin to laugh at these people. What is unfortunate is that many of these people claim to be authorities on cinema. Having watched more movies than your peers, or managing to think of bigger words when writing a stupid blog-post does not make you one, unfortunately.

Aaargghhh......

It has to be a crime to be as beautiful as this!

Thank You for No Smoking, Mr Kashyap

I saw Jab We Met and No Smoking back to back before leaving for Bhubaneshwar. Liked both of them.

Jab We Met has Kareena Kapoor in a role that I cannot imagine anyone among the present crop of actresses doing justice to. Sridevi or Juhi Chawla would have done well though. Preity Zinta would come the closest, but she would just pout and mispronounce her way through the role. Right from her first scene, in which she climbs on to the train to the interval, Kareena Kapoor is just so delightful in her whackiness! Post interval the movie seems like a drag and pointless to most extent. One of the best things about Imtiaz Ali's movies (Socha Na Tha and now this) is that the dialogues and situations are very un-filmy. Characters don't spout Urdu poetry at the drop of a hat, but speak in normal Hinglish as most ordinary people are wont to.

And then there was No Smoking. Most critics have panned the movie badly, but I still had high expectations from it going in. Which were met mostly. This is so unlike anything made before in Hindi (and maybe to be made in the near future, considering the bad reception it's got) that I can only compare it with a Lynchian drama or some other Western film-maker's creation. It is flawed definitely, but the originality and the absolute disregard for conventions of Hindi cinema made me overlook them. David Lynch is among my favorite film makers and I try not to describe his movies because they sound trite on paper. His movies are meant to be experienced visually and aurally. I could say pretty much the same thing about Anurag Kashyap's latest offering. The 'story' is really not that important. The whole package is.

While watching both these movies, I was feeling really happy for the fact that there are filmmakers like these in Hindi cinema today, whose films I eagerly await. Irrespective of whether they experiment completely or remain within the regular plot-lines, they do end up leaving an imprint on whatever they touch. And the ilk is growing. The future's not all that dark for Hindi movies then.

Festember

Just returned from a college fest at Bhubaneshwar and am about to crash (it's 6:30 am here), but decided to mention it here lest laziness takes over me again (the reason why I haven't been writing about a whole lot of other stuff I keep thinking about).

Even though 11 men lost to the sole lady in the fray for Rs 60K prize money and a week's stay in Singapore, this was definitely one of the most enjoyable weekends of my life. And hectic. Met some nice people along with that. And did extremely well, belying my faith in my abilities, in a few of the sub-events. Which bodes well for the upcoming competitions.

And, of course, the cash flows remained positive. We did well enough in the quizzes to make the defeat in the bigger event palatable. Quizzing hasn't been this much fun (and this profitable) for me ever before.

Above Average

I am reading Amitabha Bagchi's Above Average these days, in between parts of Tezuka's Buddha. I didn't like Above Average the first time I tried to read it. The narration moved in time way too much for a book in this genre. But I am liking it now and have moved well beyond the first few pages.

After my previous failed attempt I had dismissed it by saying that it is a novel that only Comp Science students (or Compguys as one of the characters in the book says) at IITD who did their schooling in Delhi would understand. I missed that chance by about a 1000 ranks a few years back. But, now I feel that most IITD guys, irrespective of their departments, would identify with a good part of it. Maybe in time I would start believing that any reader could probably appreciate the 'story'.

One reason why I didn't appreciate it all that much was because I was treating it like another Five Point Someone. I didn't have time and was just speed-reading through it. Now, I do have time. And it's no FPS. There are some lines in the book that I find particularly interesting and insightful.

It's even more interesting because it's written by someone who teaches at IITD now. It took me a long time to realise that Professors are human beings too, who have a life beyond the classrooms, labs and their offices. I still tend to forget that at times. We don't have labs at my present college though.

Here are a couple of extracts that I underlined in the book (I never do that).

Unshakeable self-confidence was key to winning the battles we fought. The battle for grades and academic achievement was just one small part of the larger war, the others being the battles to appear unconcerned, in control, well rounded, cultured, self-confident. Accustomed all our lives to being lauded as exceptional, we were all scared that the true measure of ourselves, our unremarkable selves, would emerge one day.

And,

It was Neeraj who taught me that friendship between two men can have all the ferocity of a love affair. Of the many things I was forced to realize in reflecting on the time I spent with him, perhaps the most sobering and terrifying was the understanding that the strongest and deepest bonds we form in our lives are with people who know how to hurt us in the most devastating ways.

Johnny Gaddaar Redux

I am not a great fan of Raja Sen (of Rediff film-reviewer fame), but I am not joining his hate community on Orkut anytime soon either. Especially after his fantastic review for Johnny Gaddaar. It's come a little late in the day, but every bit helps. This is the closest that any of the better known reviewers has come to what I felt about the movie. Go watch it, if you haven't yet. Hell, watch it again even if you have.

Random thoughts

Right now I sort of have an inkling of what multiple orgasms must feel like. I got private access to the movie collection of this batchmate of mine, who I didn't even know had such an amazing collection. He has tons of movies that I have been trying to get my hands on for the longest time. I will have to somehow balance watching all these movies (have stopped writing DVDs, which creates a problem with the limited hard disk space) and attending the few classes I have to attend.

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The coming days are going to be good fun for the quizzer in me.

A few moments after we (my two teammates and I) won an annual Jadavpur University quiz this weekend, I was saddended by the thought that this is the last year I'll get to participate in inter-college quizzes. Once I start working (and I am fairly sure I'll be working a year from now), I'll have to wait for the rare open quizzes to participate. Anyway, my sort-of-regular-partner and I are making good use of the last year we have.

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Was going through the last couple of posts from my previous blog. I had written about my initial experiences in IIM Calcutta there. Things haven't lived up to the initial expectations. I have sort-of got disillusioned by the kind of 'business leaders' that B-schools seem to create. But there have been great moments too. And all said and done, even though this is a little early, I am glad I came to IIM Calcutta.

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I am watching Raakh, one of Aamir Khan's first movies, even as I write this. It's fascinating how raw movies like these used to be in the late 80s - early 90s. It's a very nice movie - another one of those I had been looking for for some time now. It's difficult to imagine that we have come out of those out-of-the-world times called the 1980s.

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I realized a few days back that I have gotten this habit of saying 'sort-of' too often.