My blog turns 3

Today is the 3^rd anniversary of my blog. Happy birthday “Sandi’s Musings”. I won’t look back much but here but here are some stats: 103 blogs in 156 weeks which is like one blog every 10 days and I believe is a good frequency. Also I have evolved over the years. Earlier in my first year it was always about my past and my feelings and what I did and what I liked. Slowly, I became more conscious of my identity and there were some self discovering posts. Then I started taking interest in the current affairs around the world and mainly India. There have been some repetition of ideas and one of them being “what news I follow” and I still like it and I think I will do that more often. Bipasha has been a consistent topic of my blogs too.

Anyway, in this blog, I will do something which I have never done in ages and for which I have been asked many times. I have never reported my trips here after a one day trip to Austin in 2006 summer. I have had many long and exciting and beautiful trips since but did not have the patience to write a travelogue. But today I will describe about this place called Beavertail State park in Rhode Island USA.

I went there with my friend Sumit who is also my colleague and an amateur photographer. After a quick visit to Newport, which I have already been to before, we headed to Beavertail State Park to be on time for the sunset. The island is named so after its shape which is like a beaver’s tail. The extreme tip of the tail is supposed to have sea on all three sides. We parked the car a bit far from the tip and walked through the trail with trees around and getting glimpses of the bay here and there. It was almost sunset so there were lot of activities by the insects and I was intently listening to their sound. I had not consciously listened to this sound for quite a long time. And far from the noise of the cars on the road or ACs in home, this was a welcome sound.

Soon we arrived at the tip of the island and I was dumbstruck. This was one of the best places I have ever been too. There is sea on all three sides and rocks at the place where they meet. I ran as far as I can go to the tip. Sumit shouted: “ How do you like the place?” . I replied “ I feel like Swami Vivekanada already”

There was also this foghorn along with the lighthouse. Quoting Wikipedia : ‘Foghorns are a navigation aid for mariners. In foggy conditions, when visual navigation aids such as lighthouses are obscured by the weather, foghorns provide an audible warning of rocks, headlands, or other dangers to shipping.’ I remember foghorn from a old story I read in my English textbook about a dragon (probably last living dragon) thinking the foghorn as a call from his mate and coming from far away only to find the lighthouse with the foghorn. Can somebody please share the exact story if you remember?

Anyway, I was fully immersed into the scenery when I witnessed a clear sunset after a long time. How the sun touched the horizon and the illusion of sun actually changing shape from a circle to an inverted ‘matka’ and then making a nice ‘Sunny Side Up’ egg before finally disappearing, and then the dancing of the colors, the various shades of oranges and reds and yellows and pinks and blues and whites in the scattered clouds and sky and ther constant change of wardrobe makes you forget even the best of the dances like Bipasha’s “Beedi” :)

PS: A video with a vague and funny commentary by me is attached alongwith. Notice the foghorn sound and the great roar of the sea.

Bachna Ae Haseeno Review

Bipasha does it again. Yet another crap movie. The list is just becoming endless, but I can still not stop praising her. Her looks are killing (तीखी नज़रें , कातिल अदायें)। God knows what she means by when she says I choose my movies carefully. For that matter, which heroine can really claim that she chooses her movies carefully except may be Shabana Azmi.

Yes Advay, I also have to admit that in one song, she did look more like Serena’s sister than Venus, but that was just one wardrobe in one song. Other than that she was the best in the entire movie. But that should also not come as a big complement considering the rest of the starcast: newbies Ranbir, Deepika and Minisha. Bipasha had to be the best and she does it in style. Finally Bipasha has understood, that she has to do the oomph roles very much like Aishwarya has understood that she can only do crying and simply sitting looking beautiful.

Anyway, now the other characters starting with Minisha Lamba. She reminds me of Divya Dutta trough and through. Needless to say she can’t act which is true for any contemporary heroine other than Rani and Kareena, but this girl also does not have the heroine looks. She looks so much like heroine की बहन . Additionally, I don’t know why the cameramen did not notice this but her nose is much redder than her rest of the face in the entire movie giving her a look of joker with the red ball on the nose. And who designed her outfits for her first 30 minutes? She was wearing a green pajama and violet short kurta in Zurich. Give me a break. Even any काम वाली बाई will have better dressing sense. Overall, Minisha has scope for improvement and she looks promising but she should change her makeup man and dress designer immediately.

Let’s move on to Deepika Padukone. I did not like her in OSO, and I did not like her here either. She is too much girl next door kinds. I thought she has an eggface, but this move it was small and back to circle. So she is more of the egg yolk face now. And where did she learn her dialog delivery? She is born and brought up in Bangalore but her way of speaking is very Pune types. I have seen many pune girls talk like this. Feels very out of place and weird. The funniest part was her crying. She cried twice in the movie. Once from right eye and once from left and never from both. Why, God only knows. And the crying is like a tap of water is opened and then suddenly closed.

Now to Ranbir Kapoor. Even in this movie he tries to be Raj Kapoor. I would suggest he should try to be more like his father or Kareena, the only 2 decent looking people and decent actors in the entire kapoor खानदान . Ranbir has done his homework, he has presentable body, knows dancing and can act fairly well. He just needs to improve a bit more.

Now some movie aspects but so much has been said about it already by other reviewers: length is long, story second half is predictable, story lacks good humor etc etc. I have nothing new to add. On the brighter side, te Yashraj did what it always does well: breathtaking locations.

Now back to Bips, she has done perfectly what was expected out of her but I did not like what was expected out of her. But that should not be a problem. Also, why does she have to do that showing hands with mehendi to the camera. It doesn’t look sympathizing but scares me by reminding me of “Kile ka rahasya”. Suggestion to her, Bipasha, you look beautiful in almost any style and any look but sometime you do look like Serena. Please try to avoid that look. It’s not difficult.

Funny observation about News Channels

Off late, we many times keep bashing the internet news and TV news channels for showing nonsense stuff. We want quality news. News that matter to us and that’s where I think is the catch. What news matters to us?

Do we really care if Obama wins or Mc Cain does? Even their decision on healthcare doesn’t bother us as company pays our healthcare. None of our families are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan too that we will be worried about them. Even if they had been, their news would have been brought to us by they themselves over phone. Nor even does the news of serial blasts in Ahmedabad or Bangalore directly affect us because it is not going to prevent you from going to work. Yes, certain part of it does matter but these news you as a resident of Bangalore would hardly have got from news channel, you would rather have over heard in person.

What are the news that matter to us directly? May be what is the best school in vicinity for the kids (if you have any), what are the good restaurants nearby Where do you get cheap and good groceries. This information (news) is more important to us rather than what Omar Abdullah shouted in the Indian parliament.

Now there may be certain issues which matter like how much percentage government hiked the pension scheme or what is interest rate cut by the Fed but then that’s hardly .001% of what TV news channels cover. Another important thing might be weather. But even that, the Indian news channel in particular hardly pay any attention to.

So the bottom line is that, news channel are entertainment channels and the show us what we want to see. That is why we have Britney all over the news and even news like people do not want to see any more of Britney becomes news. Or we have these murders of beautiful or rich women in India starting form Jessica Lall to Aarushi. I am pretty sure atleast one per month is killed in the tiny villages of India for petty reasons as dowry or even caste etc but they do not cover that. They rather cover what’s happening in Delhi and Mumbai. And they are right too. They have to sell.

A good idea of our own want of news can be judged from the most read or most watched sections of news websites.

Here is a sample:

One of the 5 most read news in BBC: Soul icon Isaac Hayes dies at 65

In CNN: 'Batman' No. 1 for fourth straight weekend

In Times of India: Are you hot in bed or a hopeless wreck? Read on for tips to get your act right... What makes a person great in bed?

In NDTV: Durga Puja rights sold to US company.

Now apparently, death of Isaac Hayes is the biggest news in BBC, CNN etc and may be the guy was really famous. Bit do I care? Not really.

On the other hand, rightly so, the news in Times of India is of most direct consequence. But do we really need that as part of news?

For me, the most important news form the above 4 is the last one, but probably it interests only the smallest portion of the readers of my blog.

Strange world.

I guess what the news channels and sites try to do is to put up news that most of the people would cherish and hence we get all the masala news we want to read/see but also love to comment on that what is news media becoming today.

Make sense yourself

I just saw a movie called ‘Via Darjeeling’. I recommend seeing it but do not compromise any schedule for it, but when you have nothing better to do, typically Sunday 5-7 pm, just go for it. For this blog, I will be inspired by the same movie and write so many things without really making any sense. I will touch my favorite topics: Review, News I am following, musing, women and filmy gossip all at once.

Ok, so I went for this movie the Dark Knight, people said it’s the biggest grosser till date, well I slept for the first half, but I truly give credit to the movie that I atleast woke up for the second half. Next day, I went for the long awaited ‘जाने तू ’ movie alone.Before the movie, I was eating at a local sandwich shop and suddenly a procession went outside. This is very unlikely in US I guess but a group of people, old, young and even some kids were demonstrating for ‘No war on Iran’.

Anyway, afterwards I went for the movie and though the first fifteen minutes were boring and over acting, I don’t know why and at which point I liked the movie. Even when I think now, there is no single or even multiple points which are good about the movie, but it just sailed along. Initially I thought Genelia was boring but slowly she was just unstoppable. She was too good. And her voice is exactly like Urmila. To be precise, the Urmila of ‘ एक हसीना थी ’ questioning Saif always.

After coming back from movie I was chatting with a friend and we started rating which girl u liked in the movie. And here was my order: The girl with the guitar (Sugandha Garg), Genelia and Kitu Gidwani. Yes, the old timer, the Junoon woman and the Swetlana of स्वाभिमान. She was really cool. At least I found her so.

By the way, both these movies had one thing in common. They made me feel old. In Batman, the crowd around me was all high school kids and the freshmen and sophomores. If it were kids, they would have found Batman good, but these people, like typical people of the same age group were actually cheering for joker. I was pretty impassionate and was glad that the movie was over. Similar experience with जाने तू . The movie involved an अदीति and जय

of 20-21. And they were already talking about marriage and they were surrounded by friends and friends were the most important part in their life. Well, at 25, my friends are getting married around me, and I really love my friends, but things are not they way when I was 21. I think I became more mature in these 4 years than any consecutive 4 years except transition from age 1 to age 5. may be.

Talking of old times, Bachi caught my attention (yet again), with this wonderful article on Nagpur. She mentions Nagpur as a city with permanent prefix via. Mumbai to Kolkata, via Nagpur. The Nagpur people may take offense, but if you really read deep, you will appreciate each and every word of her and you are not sure whether she is telling good or bad about Nagpur, but the fact is that she has portrayed Nagpur as clearly as I have ever seen. These are the exact things what a non-Nagpurian thinks of Nagpur and these are also the things which make Nagpur so special to my heart.

By the way, I will be going to Nagpur (most probably) after a long gap of 6 years. Hope I still find the same warmth there.

P.S: The idea of this blog, as mentioned in first paragraph, is as convoluted as ‘Via Darjeeling’ and is also inspiration from the famous Big B blog, and his mixing of daily activities with viewpoints.

Too old!

Is it growing up or is it already seen it all? Or is it that I am turning dumb over time? My yesterdays visit to Museum of Science in Boston left me with all these questions.

Why did I go there at first place? I don’t know. May be it is because this is one of the “to do” things in Boston and secondly it is free for MathWorkers. Ok, so now I land up there and see these “cool stuff”. A straight rod if rotated at an angle and at a radius form a centre doesn’t really form a straight line surface but a hyperboloid. Randomly falling balls in a series of vertical columns will form a Gaussian distribution. Definitely, these are not Kiddo stuff, but still I was not at all excited. Oh and then there was a spark generator and there were birds and the usual conversation of energy demos. Probably all I liked in the theater was the Rattle snake and I attempted speaking in Parseltongue with no real effect whatsoever. This definitely proves that it is not the “growing up” that has bored me.

The second reason can be overexposeure. The excellent “Science City” and “Birla Science Museum” in Kolkata or “Raman Science Center” in Nagpur or Vishveshwaraiyah Science Museum in Bangalore. I think I have overdone it. But if it is just loss of curiosity, then there were many things in here that were not there in the 3 above mentioned places and vice versa.

That really leaves me with the third option. Am I getting dumb or rather detached from these technology and science? Wow, so encouraging for my company whose motto is “Accelerating the pace of Science and Technology”!!

To my defense, this is what I have to say: At the exhibit hall named “Evolution of Computer”, all of us literally ran in the other direction.

What is worse is after coming back home, I logged into bhejafry.net and started watching IIFA 08. Needless to say I was enjoying it. Whether it was over enthusiasm of the Bachchan family in the event because Big B is the ambassador or be it the Gorgeous Urmila taking stage after so long. Loved it lots.

And this scares me even more. Such indifference to technology and such attention to the old timers like Urmila, makes me feel ashamed when I scold Maa and Baba for not learning how to e-mail or sms. Where will I be? I will still be driving my 2008 accord when my kids willl be traveling at light speed in their solar powered mini copters and communicate with people through the chips embedded in shape of earrings and pierced in lips and ears. They will read the video books. For example, now JKR would be able to not only pen or voice record her thoughts on Harry Potter but actually store what she visualized in her mind. She can also do revisions on the “video thoughts” just like one would do to the manuscript. Oh and she could transmit emotions too through these video books.

Well, this is the whackiest I can think of happening in the next 15 years and this is not all that whacky either. On second thoughts, am I being too realistic here? Haha, this is what a true engineer should be. Curtail your imagination and do what is needed. Well, now I am happy. :)

Book review: 3 Mistakes of My Life

You can also read Advay's review here.

When writing about Chetan Bhagat, we should always remember that we are not expecting a 'Da Vinci Code' from him. We expect him to connect with the middle and upper class educated youth (thankfully, there is negligible difference amongst them nowadays). What's the %? Someone told me it's around 20% who are middle or up. Youth will be 50% of that, so let's say 10%. Well, he does write for them. For the people aged 17-30. And yes, he does it well.

Five Point Someone was much more hilarious, but there was nothing new in the story, just over dramatized version of our own life. Midnight at call center had a very poor ending though the buildup was nice. However, The 3 mistakes of my life is a better attempt. The language usage was improved and the story though was nothing out of the box, had a certain sweetness in it.

What I found most commendable is the delicate balance he maintained in the book about cricket, religion and politics. Certainly, these 3 are the most discussed thing in India and he maintained a good balance without tending to go towards cricket much more which would have been an easier path.

What I really liked was the way he portrayed the cause of Gujarat Riots, the father of a dead boy brainwashed by drinks carries on the riots while the biggies watch silently. This was by far the most neutral account of Gujarat Riots i have heard. Reminds me of 2 different versions of the riots I have heard before:
1) The hindus inside the carriages lit themselves, just for an opportunity to create riots. Give me a break.

2) The other and only true ( first person report) I had heard about this entire riots is by one of my gujju friends. His mom had a difficult time going out after the riots as she had to make sure that she wore all possible golden jewels and a big red bindi on her head showing that she is a Hindu. Well, not bad proposition for a woman to be saved from riots. What say?

Anyway, another thing that impresses me about Chetan is his ability to discuss on god. In the last book as well as this, god came very naturally and in a nice way without any particular religious belief. This impresses me so much because I can see a slight dilema even in JKR. generally in magical books where good and bad come up so easily, god and devils come in the same breath, but JKR has avoided it. Is it her mastery or her cowardice? Well, Chetan did manage it well and that I think is most commendable.

Movies I like

One can categorize movie watchers into the following groups:

The one who like the Action/ Sci Fi, in short, fast paced movies with no brainer or something so technically advanced that they can get totally immersed and actually love the so called scientific concepts in the movie.

There is another class which likes the Oscar movies with intense drama and deep thought provoking theme.

There is the widest class which like any movie with a great star cast, lots of style, lots of romance angle even if it is action (Spidey 2) and which are generally hit even before they release.

I fall in class 3. But somehow there is sometimes a thin line between category 1 and category 3. An example will be the recent Iron Man or the National Treasure 2. For the same reasons mentioned above, I chose to go for both of these. But I was disappointed.

Or was I? Actually not. I was motivated. Motivated to watch more of “Tanananananaaa… Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham” kind of movies where Shahrukh stammers, Amitabh gives well punctuated but long dialog deliveries and the heroines do a virtual fashion show with Manish Malhotra clothes. Off late, Kabhi khushi kabhi gham has become a benchmark for me. It lies in the critical region below which any movie can become unwatchable. Example: Veer Zaara, KANK, Tara Rum Pum, Aaja Nachle. Movies which barely cross it on the other side will be No Entry, Laaga Chunari mein daag, Om shanti om and even bhootnaath.

Amongst the English ones, I guess such a movie will be “The Departed”. It lies in the better side of the movies but for English movie, the criteria are totally different. There has to be a good story, because if there is no good story, I will again rather watch des ki movie…tanaanaaanaana….with loads of songs and dances.

You might be wondering why “The Departed”, its because it has all the factors I consider important : An A1 star cast, a wonderful story and not so sci fi-ish. However where it fails is the use of swear words. I can understand, to give the true picture, you do need to be realistic, use the language of the people. But then you also have to keep in mind that movie is a mass medium, and however common in lingo, swear words can never be good and should be consciously avoided. A classic example of such a movie will be “Omkara” which had to have some bad words, but they were kept to the minimum required.

Now the interesting comparison. Movies above and below “The Departed”. The ones that are bad : Iron Man, National Treasure 2, Oceans 12, Pirates 3, Beowulf etc etc. Movies better: All HPs ( the best story in the world), Atonement, Oceans 11 and 13, Spidey 2, Lions for lambs, Charlie Wilson’s war etc.

Hehhe, again a post so full of me comes to an end. I know this will end up with no comments. But I can’t stop myself from copying Bachi Karkaria at this stage. Bachi always quotes a certain Alec Smart ( Interestingly, when wikied, Smart Alc refers to a person who is regarded as obnoxiously self-assertive and an impudent person. Anyway, so here we go:

Alec Smart says “ I started enjoying Rajnikanth movies from the day I saw ‘The Transporter’”

The Scared Blogger

Well I am scared and not just as blogger. The whole freedom of expression definition needs to be changed. This freedom of expression issue started with the M.F. Hussain pictures. Then came Taslima's books. Well, well, we can argue for both sides for hours. Not long before it cooled down, there came the Message by some Gurgaon guy about Sonia Gandhi. Well can you say anything about any person? May be yes, may be not.

For me, it will be this: If the person is not talking directly to me, he/she can say whatever he wants. If saying about me to a person who cares about me, that person should be smart enough to not get angry by some stupid saying something about a person you like. And finally, if the person is saying bad things to me with me, good enough, let's sort it out. No way, you can complain to a court. That too, here the case was scenario 2. I guess, this was just another of those futile attempts to get into the good books of N-G family.
As for me, whenever I tell someone that I am a big fan of Bipasha, they immediately say: " But dude, she is a B****. She had 4 boyfriends in the past". Expecting a angry reply or a defensive statement form me, what they get really shuts them up: " Hey, can you find me a more gorgeous B****?" This really shuts everybody up and then they come up wit meek replies like "Whatever, I don't like her", and I reply "ur wish, I never asked you to. The lesser the better"
I wish the fans of Sonia were as smart as me (eh!!)


The other scary thing happening is Aamir and Amitabh writing. Amitabh is just defending himself from the many many things that have been written about him. His latest style (as of day 34) is scan the newspaper and critique everyline. Do read his defense to Shobhaa Dey for Aishwarya's creased dress in first day at Cannes 08. It goes like this:

" Oh ! About the creases on Aishwarya’s dress, I never noticed any and it is hardly expected of a team of 15 stylists, dress makers and make up professionals from Armani to L’Oreal working on her for hours since the morning of the event, to have overlooked such obvious detail. The protocol at the venue is strict and disciplined. Celebrities are seated in respective special Festival cars to ride in a motorcade almost 50 meters long to a destination just 100 meters away; the crowds, and traffic and paparazzi making this innocuous little journey an hour long ! Sitting on any dress this long would crease.

I am disappointed though that your customary wit failed to notice the creases that needed repair on the faces of many of the other celebrated stars from Hollywood. Whither patriotism ??"

Well well, Amitabhji, you are surely a role model. every bahu will be proud of you. You have redefined Sasur Bahu relationship. Is Ekta listening?

The other thing was Amitabh defending rather denying Aish/Abhi's premarriage temple tours being anything to do with Aish being Mangalik. Well Sir ( as most people call him), you need not defend, infact, it shows rays of hopes to the hundreds of lovers whose stories are not going further because of this issue. Now they really dont care of they have to marry trees et al to get to their loved ones.

Aamir aamir. poor guy, innocent humor turned so costly. I know your fan base is mostly concentrated on a web based so called educated young generation making yours the highest membered community on Orkut and making your movies like RDB and TZP rise to levels it should not. But you know and I know, even a KKKirrran or a "taaanannanana, kabhi khhushie..kabhie gham" kind of hamming can shake u off the chair.

Extending what one of my colleagues commented today on Bush (apparently Bush has a cat called India), what if aamir's dog pees on him? It will be " Shahrukh peed of Aamir."

Lolz...

Justifying being Bips fan

Haha. Since this seems to be an argumentative topic, the first question that you might ask will be why justify if you truly like her? Well, I don't have the answer except that there will be somme sense of self praise tat will go on in the following paragraphs.

Nobody can deny that you ought to have a favorite movie actress though orkut has not introduced it yet(preferably one in hollywood and one in bollywood). You can definitely like all the heroines but like favorites in anything (sports, politics, travel) you do have favorites in movies too.

My choosing favorite heroines had started long back when I used to say 'fyavrit' for favorite. The first one was hema and then it was Juhi for a long long time and she is still my favorite only that she is doing roles of sisters and middle aged women nowadays. That was followed by Urmila after her famous dances in Rangeela and chamma chamma. I liked her in all the movies but somehow she turned into a similar role witha bhoot types looks with specialization in scenes in which she has to act scared.

After Urmila age which ended in around early 2000's, there was a time when the favorites kept changing and then it settled on Bipasha.

Well, I have to say I am alone in this new choice. My friends not only have other favorites but they really hate her. Many of them tend to go towards the homely looking "Amrita Rao" who simply reminds me of Mallika Sherawat's comment "If you want to see a girl next door, go next door". My friends are predominantly marathis and they like Sonali Bendre a lot, I guess because she has a typical marathi face. The majority though still crave for Aishwarya. Well my point is: It is a fact that she is the most beautiful woman on earth. I think ash can't be somebody's favorite the same way sachin can be nobody's favorite. These two people are beyond comparison.

Well, and that is the starting point of liking Bipasha. You tend to like someone who is hatke. Bipasha is sexy but she is not the usual league of Neha Dhupiya, Amrita Arora and Mallika Sherawats. Bipasha can never be the typical Yash Raj/Karan Johar women like Rani or Preity. She is also not as rare as Chitrangada and nor is she as artistic as Konkona who tends to act more when more money is paid. Well that leaves me with 2 choices: Kareena and Bipasha, and naturally I choose Bipasha.

There is something about her that is so enchanting and inspite of me being a "fairness ka pujari", I just can't take my eyes of her. I also like the way she portrays herself. She takes acting as a profession and does things similar to what we do to improve our resumes. She acts in different kinds of movies to have a hold on all of them. Her voice is the other thing that charms me. It's so different from the rest of the people.

Ok enuf, I just realized that this is the crappiest post am ever writing and the justifications above won't even change the views of a single person. Signing off on a lazy sunday....

Current Reality Shows on Indian Television

Well, to my defense (or should I), I do follow a few American reality shows like American Idol, So you think you can dance and Hell’s Kitchen, but it is the Indian shows that I like the most. In the past, I have compared the reality based Indian Idol 3 and the most unrealistic show Koffee with Karan.

Today I followed 3 reality shows almost back to back.

Let’s start with “Kya aap paanchvi paas se tez hai”. Copied from “Are you smarter than a fifth grader”, though some liked it YET, I can’t guarantee that I won’t like it later. First thing was the concept was not new to me. Secondly, I expected that Shahrukh will give a totally new dimension to the show, but he was almost enacting his KBC only not sitting in a chair this time. Te children gave it away. Though all of them were selected to be nice smart and cute, it was very apparent that they were trained to act so. I bet even their dialogs were scripted. But the funniest part of the entire show was the first contestant. The lady from Jharsuguda. She looked like she is just out of the “Saas Bahu” serial sets. Her all actions reminded me of Tulsi of KSBKBT (the only show I saw some 10 episodes of). She wore bangles till elbows in both hands and the saari also looked like one from the sets. The way she put hands in the ears and kissed the kids, all looked like copied from the ‘Saas Bahu’ serial. But I guess we cannot blame her. I have seen a few samples before my eyes and this one from TV who have made me believe that the new Indian Housewife, or new indan wife who watces this saas bahu serials try to enact them consciously r subconsciously. So its not the Bipashas, Kareenas and Aishwaryas who are defining styles of modern women but the Kkusums, Gangas and Tulsis.

Moving on to reality show II: MTV roadies 5.0. Well, this is the reason for the YET in capitals in the previous paragraph. Just a few blogs back I had thrashed this show simply because I had seen an unedited version of behind the scenes in the MTV website where they did not censor the swearing. Apparently, they are censored in the main show. The game is all about politics and the ladies bitch a lot. That does add lot of spice to the show. The tasks are not very easy and cover all sorts. It’s the true DARE tasks one may think of in Truth and Dare. They ask them to strip, dance with shaved legs, eat snakes and roaches, sleep with moving saw below, jump form high spots etc. What makes t more exciting that though people do all these tasks, it doesn’t ensure them a chance in next round. That is entirely dependent on the contestants. And I guess the Saas bahu effect has reached me. I can’t leave the show midway.

The third one is the most passionate one. People won’t call it reality show, but I do. The Indian Premiere League or IPL. Since day 1 it has been dramas and they never seem to end. The day the bidding started with Shahrukh, Juhi and Preity falling into cricket business, it got the required entertainment factor. Just when things were beginning to get sporty, Shahrukh came up with Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo re and soon Preity, Akshay, Katrina, Hrithik started singing and dancing for their own teams. Next came the cheer leaders’ episode. I don’t have any views on whether it’s good for the Indian society or not but I have one comment. Either let them as they are, or eliminate them with Bhangra, Koknaki and Lawni dances but please don’t make them wear long clothes and continue the same.

But this is not the end of the drama. To add the sent plot to it, bhajji slaps sreesanth and worse: he starts crying in front of TV. If this was not setup beforehand like all reality shows do, surely the 10 match ban was a setup. Even if that is not, the Ganguly- Warne one has to be one. And the usual spice is there too. Rediff didn’t delay a bit in coming up with stories with the Katrina and Akshay pictures. If that is not enough there is all the hoopla with Priety hugging only the star players. Surely, it is the baap of all reality shows.