Monday, July 23, 2007

The Count

1. Avinash Kunder
2. My tailor
3. My Aunt
4. Puneeth Shetty
5. Samarth Shrivastava
6. Sneha Das
Enough people have told me that I have grown fat over the last two months. So I'm sending a warning - the next one shall receive a free punch in the nose.

But I guess it is time that I do something about it. And blogging is certainly not going to help. So if you would please excuse me, I have a few crunches to do.

And I'm not joking about the punch in the face.

Seriously.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Movie time

Yesterday turned out to be a movie day of sorts. After all its not everyday that you watch three movies in a day (actually four, but i barely saw half an hour of Rockford). So lets go through them one by one.

Movie 1:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
To sum it in one word : brilliant! This has to be the best Harry Potter movie ever. And though I totally despised the book as I found it very boring and very slow, the movie suffered from no such problems. It was totally dark, which I particularly liked as the book was very much the same. It was action packed, even though it had no Quidditch. And I really loved the whole 'revolting against the school authorities' part. That part of the book was really good and it has been brought alive on screen very effectively. Plus I happened to like Harry's new hairstyle. Makes him look much more mature.
But the best part (or maybe the second best part) of the movie was not on screen. It was in the form of a young girl who was sitting right beside me. She was about ten and had come with her mom to watch the movie. She would laugh out loud, and I mean really loud, and that too for no apparent reason. Many a times she would shout out "Mummy usne kya kaha??" after which her mother would very kindly explain it in short in Hindi as she too was very busy watching the movie. Only once did she fail to do so. That was when Ron asks Harry about his kiss with Cho and then asks "She was crying even while snogging?". That was too much for the mum and even she broke out into laughter (and the gift of laughing loud very obviously ran in the family) following which her daughter, who was totally oblivious, asked her the same question very innocently. Actually it's good the mother didn't explain that one.
Also the girl got very bored in between and since the theatre was empty she decided to move from her place and sat on the armrest of the chair in front of her. And I guess the armrest wasn't very comfortable as she started jumping while sitting there and soon came back to her own seat.
But fortunately, or unfortunately, they left with about half an hour to left. I can only think of three reasons why someone would leave a movie theatre before the movie ends :
a. They positively hate the movie, which was certainly not true in this case.
b. They receive an urgent phone call telling them about some emergency. Nothing like that happened.
or
c. I actually forgot the third reason.
But anyways, with half an hour left, the girl just looked at her watch and said that it was noon. And immediately both of them got up and quietly left the theatre. They weren't even in a hurry. They just left very casually. As if it was written in their day's schedule

1200 hrs Leave movie theatre

And they left with all the popcorn lying scattered on their seats and the floor. And a glass of soft drink too. Some people just have no sense I guess and I decided to think no further about the matter.
And that led to the best part of the movie.

MP3 : Mera Pehlaa Pehlaa Pyaar
I generally dont see such films. Honestly. But as I was just lazying around and the fact that all my friends wanted to see it made me watch the movie. And happily enough, it wasn't that bad!
The movie is very obviously a love story, between a guy Rohan and a girl Ayesha, set in high school. A few minutes into the movie you realise that there is absolutely nothing logical about the movie. For eg: Rohan is very rich. He asks his dad for 2000 bucks for his date. He actually drives his dad's car while dropping the girl home. Yet, he goes to school everyday on a bicycle. I guess he must be one of those environment friendly kinds. So basically it's best if you just kept your brain out of the entire matter.
The second thing you realise about the movie is that nobody can act. Not the guy, not the girl and definitely not the gang of boys who are Rohan's friends. I have seen better acting in Inter-house dramatics competitions held in schools for the mentally challenged.
But you know what, who cares about the acting skills (or the lack of it ) of the cast. Because one thing that you definitely notice is that the girl is cute. Really cute. In fact she actually makes the whole movie worth watching. I hope she signs more movies and, if possible , this is just a very polite request, polish her acting skills. Though it must be said that her performance was better than the guy's, though that is not saying much, if it is saying anything at all.
And yes, here comes the best scene of the movie. You have to love it.

Rohan is detained by the Indian embassy in Paris. He is about to be deported. He then starts thinking about what he can do. He reminds himself that he is the man and that he can handle the situation effectively. Then he decides to play tough guy and goes to the officer working there and says
" Aap ye nahi kar sakte. Main ek Indian citizen hoon aur meri rights jaanta hoon. I have a right to make a phone call!! "
The officer thinks for a long while and then quietly says,
" Mr. Rohan. Humne aapko detain kiya hai. Arrest nahi kiya. Aap jitne chaahe utne phone calls kar sakte ho"

Too funny!

Shrek 3:
This happened to be the third movie of the day for me. Before watching the movie I had got a lot of negative feedback about the movie. And though the first two movies were better, I must say that the third wasn't all that bad either. And I'm not gonna repeat the plot as all of you must have obviously seen it but it must be said that the movie was very good, had a good story, had good moments and was very funny. Come on, what else do you want from a movie? And yeah, I just loved the baby ogres that Shrek and Fiona have in the end. They look really cute.

Though not as cute as the girl from MP3. Not even close.

And I'd better leave now. Have to watch MP3 again.

Man, she is too cute!

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

So long.... and thanks for all the fish!

Over the last few days I have been charting Arthur Dents's journey through the galaxy through the book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A totally remarkable book indeed. And possibly one of the best ones that I've ever read.

This post is not about the book.

Well, at least not entirely.

And honestly, those who think that this is a book review which will end in me awarding a rating in terms of coloured shapes with 5 edges ( or "stars") will do much better if they stop reading at this point.

This post is about My journey while reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Read on..

I first heard about the existence of such a book about a year and a half ago. It was in some quiz I guess. I would love to give you the exact date, time, what the question was et al but fact is that I have totally forgotten. But as far as I can remember, which is not very far actually, it was in some quiz. And I was confronted with questions based on H2G2 (as I shall now call it) in many a college quizzes since then. And my reaction to every one of these questions was to make a face which would be very similar to the one an earthman would make when asked for directions to the Restaurant at the end of the Galaxy.

But that was not what sparked my interest in the book.

It was the laughter filled discussions that my friends would have about how funny the book is etc etc. And it was during these conversations that I heard that the book consisted of a lot of crazy people with really interesting names like Zaphod Beeblebrox, Slartibartfast, Gargavarr, Zarniwoop and - here's my personal favourite - Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged. That really made me want to read the book. After all, any book with such exotic names is bound to be funny. So I finally bought the book and started reading it.

I really loved the first part and managed to finish it off in three days. The second part I found a bit dull and hence it took me more time. And after some more time, while I was reading the third part, a huge brown coloured humanoid monster who was more depressing than Marvin the Paranoid Android ( I'm talking about Gaurav Singh) converged upon my humble residence and snatched the book away from me. Hence my journey came to an abrupt halt.

And then, for a while , all thoughts of the book vanished from my head as if they had been lost in the eddies in the space time continuum.

But then one fine day the book reappeared in my thoughts when another monster - this time a thin humanoid with spectacles and long hair whose entry in that totally remarkable book Aniket's Guide to the People in the Galaxy reads 'Mostly Harmless' - mentioned to me that he was reading the book and was having a blast. This reminded me of the fun I had had while reading the book until it was snatched by the previously mentioned monster. So I finally decided to confront the monster and after a long and successful war I managed to get back my treasured copy of H2G2. And then I promptly forgot all about the book again.

But the book resurfaced once again in my mind sometime in these vacations. And hence I decided to take a shot at reading the book once again. I spent the first day in trying to find out where I had left reading the book but after a day of false starts I realised the futility of te whole exercise and decided to start off from scratch again. That was about twenty days ago. As I started reading the book for a second time, I somehow liked it more than I did the first time, despite knowing about most of the jokes which form the crux of the content. And slowly, day by day, I once again charted Arthur Dent's totally remarkable journey though space and time in quest for the Ultimate Question about Life, the Universe and Everything! And coincidentally during the same time I was involved in one of those totally useless activities which people indulge in when they have a lot of free time - retrospection. So while Arthur Dent went around the Universe searching for the Ultimate Question, I spent time searching my soul for something like an Ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything! And all of a sudden I began to relate to Dent, as we were both searching for something that somehow remained elusive. And then I decided to finish the book as soon as possible as I thought the knowledge of the outcome of Arthur Dent's quest might just help me in my own search. And so with great hope in my heart I set about finishing the book as possible.

Which I did today.

And on doing so I realised that what I had expected from the book about the quest and the search and the Ultimate answer all was just a lot of shit. And that relating to Arthur Dent was also a lot of bull shit.

So much for the hope.

But then I realised that I did gain something from the book - a lot of fun. And maybe that's what life is all about - having a lot of fun.

I shall accept that as the Ultimate Answer in want of a better one.

And for those who had to tolerate another dose of my philosophy, all I have to say is:

WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE