I wish

It’s my one year in Boston today. As a recap, this is after 17 years in Nagpur, 4 in Surathkal, 0.5 in mysore, 0.5 in bhubaneswar, and 2 years in College Station TX.

Boston is different from all the other places I have been before. This place has 4 distinct seasons. You really need 4 distinct set of clothes for the four seasons. The trees are four different colors. And now coming to think of it, I do like the fact that we do not like the winter. It’s so good to have not liking a season over the other unlike say California where people have no choice as it is sunshine year round.

Aah, enough of false praising. I really would love a warmer place, a place like Miami or Houston or Austin, or say a place like Bangalore.

Bangalore, it is my favorite place. As you might have noticed above, I have never stayed in Bangalore but I still love it and I think that is my final destination ten years down the line. Ask the people of Bangalore, and they will say “Oh, so much traffic, things are so unnecessarily priced” etc. But the simple fact that I am still interested in hearing these people out who say so shows my concern. The reason may be because I have never felt any place as my own. Though I love Nagpur a lot, there is nothing in Nagpur to hold me. Though there is enough to hold me in Kolkata, I really don’t feel any connection with that place. I do feel sad about the issues like Singur because of being a Bengali and I also secretly do not like when non Kolkata people bash Kolkata, but when it comes to me being a part of the people and the city, I feel like an outsider.

On the other hand, Bangalore has always been a pampering place for me, thanks to my brother. When I went there the first time, bro was new in his job and he spent a lot and we were always eating in good restaurants, going to the fancy malls, buying expensive clothes etc. Then, during my stay in Surathkal, this became the place where I used to come when I needed breaks from the college life. I ran there once for Holi. In first year, when I was really afraid of my seniors, Bangalore was a soothing comfort. I will come by an early bus in the morning, and then always get cheated by the Autowallas on my way to Dada’s place but all to be reimbursed by him. His roommates also ensured I have a nice time. Overall it was always a fun place. Then, the one year after college, Bangalore became the place of dreams because it had all my “college friends” and it was a place where you had all the good paying companies. I yearned for Bangalore even in my first few months in College Station when I was still making friends and I was always jealous that my college friends are having so much fun together.

Thinking on practical terms, may be staying anywhere else will be no different than what I have been imagining about Bangalore, because few years down the line, when I will eventually think about coming back to India, none of my friends will be single and may be not even me. Things might be totally different. But there still be the Forum mall with it’s characteristic smell (if not already blasted by the terrorists) and there will always be newer and better eating places, either my brothers favorites like Parivar, Nagarjuna, Amravati and Sues kitchen or the one with the get ups like “Chandni chowk” or fancy names like “Rumali with a view” (As if the rumali rotis have a hole in the middle to peep out while eating). And of course those out of the world Bangalore Times articles talking about trends which nobody follows and finding terms like Gastrosexual ( Just heard this term from Umesh, apparently it means “women of Bangalore” nowadays like men who will cook food for them). I am very sure this is also a BT finding.

But then, I may meet my brother again by surprise on the stairs of PVR cinemas, introduce our friends and move on.

Scary thoughts on the blasts

Lot is happening around the world, especially those which bother me like Ike, Georgia, Singur and to a bit even the US presidential elections. But this post, I would like to discuss the blasts happening in the Indian cities.

Yes, enough has been written about it, and various views. There are many topics to discuss on. They are:

1) What is government doing?

2) Is it justified to have an anti terrorism law like POTA

3) Is what was earlier known as the “Mumbai spirit” actually “Mumbai cowardice” or “Mumbai apathy”?

4) Should we begin to suspect all Muslims?

5) What do the terrorists really want?

Let us begin with the last question. I wish and I can just wish that they would tell me “We want azad Kashmir and nothing else.” If I had power, I would have immediately said “Yeh lo, and take this extra 1 square meter from ladakh too, and please stop this”. I wish it was as simple, and if it is, I urge the politicians please do this right away. But we all know that is not the case. I think the reason for the blasts has to be something else, and it might not be entirely based on reason, region or religion. It very well might be, they had nothing else to do. These big terrorist organizations, once found that everything is already ok in this world but they have these huge infrastructure established and they will go jobless if they do not do anything, started brainwashing people. And where else will they get such a large population to influence and to attack. Yes, Indonesia has the biggest Islamic population, but then they can’t create havoc there, because it is all Islam. India becomes a natural choice.

No I am not typecasting the religion, I am just typecasting terrorism. To sound more secular, let me bring out a Hindu example. What would VHP and Bajrang dal do if India was a Hindu nation?

Now this drives me to the next point. See how in he above explanation, I had to do Hindu bashing for the sake of sounding secular. This is what I am so concerned about and this is what Rajdeep has also discussed in his blog. Why do we have to do our own religion bashing just to sound secular? Even in common life, we consider a Muslim good if he is clean shaven, he takes part in festivals like diwali and holi alongwith Eid and he even goes to temple. We the Hindus say “See, that is how a Muslim should be, and see, how we accept such good Muslims to our society and we think we are tolerant hindus”. But that is not right. We should also respect a Muslim who does not want to participate in Holi or Diwali. Frankly speaking, Holi diwali are not even Hindu festivals, they are Indian festivals. How many Muslims do take part in the “Sathyanarayan katha”?

So now that we see that it is all about a change in mindset for all the people is needed, we look at what is the government doing for this? And the answer is obvious, not only nothing, but just the opposite. Ideally the government should have made conducive atmosphere for the peaceful co-existence of the two communities (which I think occurs more by naturally than by the government) and change the mindset of the young people through education. Considering that it is the government who designed the CBSE syllabus, I would say it was a job well done. So you see the government would have been actually helping the problem if it just stopped what it was doing but no, they just did the opposite. They started appeasing one community and thus actually creating differences between those who would have become an ally over time.

And now the most difficult question, so what can be done now? And I am afraid the answer is : I have no idea..

Ganesh Chaturthi

Yes, after a long long time, I am back to my old blogging style. Musings. This times that year kinds. And this one is about Ganesh Chaturthi.

Lord Ganesha has been in my life since I had senses, but in a very peculiar way. The Lord has never been my primary point of inspiration. But he has always brought joy. All hindus tend to have one primary god, though Hinduism believes in polytheism. It can be a good study in itself to see how this is across India as well as classes and subclasses amongst people. But that is not the point of discussion. Anyway, so that way, if I have to choose my primary god, it has to be goddess Saraswati and I would like to believe that it came naturally to me. As a student, it is goddess Saraswati who gives you knowledge and you should pray to her to score good marks in exams. Being a student till last year, you can imagine that she has to be THE goddess for me. And now that I started work, logically speaking I should change to Goddess Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, but I do not like to change. And here comes lord Ganesha. People say, he is the god of knowledge and god of wealth. I think he is also the god of sane thoughts. In short, he is highly capable of being THE god. But, for some reason, he never features that prominently in Bengali culture.

For me, Lord Ganesha has other significance. I was born and brought up in Maharashtra. The land of “Ganapati Bappa Morya”. So every year, Ganpati puja was a big festival in my colony. This also coincided with the “Durga Puja Shopping” commencement. This process involved going to Nagpur city 14 km away and buying new clothes, going to the various ganesh pandals across the city and finally a good dinner at some restaurant. So you see, Ganesha commences the happy season.

Later, when I moved to Karnataka, I realized, it is equally big here and in my college it was a regular event. Infact, this was my first day at Surathkal. I was sitting in the auditorium where the idol was established. It is here, I sat with the people of my state “mattha party” and were introduced and thus made friends who not only made the following four years enjoyable, but even became the most trustworthy friends for life.

Then I came to Texas A&M. Who would have believed that out of the zillions of Hindu festivals celebrated across India, this will be the one that is celebrated in A&M? Yes, diwali, holi rakhi all are celebrated, and I believe even Durga puja and Saraswati puja, but none at the same level as Ganesha utsav. I know the reason too and that is the timing. This coincides with start of fall semester and what better way to start a semester than prayers. I could have ignored this celebration as I do with nearly 95% of the traditions followed in the Aggieland, but as luck would have it, I stayed with Marathi roommates here and hence never missed this occasion. And as luck would have it, this was not only the place where I met many of the friends for first time in college station, but also the place where I met my advisor, the person who shaped my career.

This is the first year; I will have nothing special to do, but now comes the best part: The reason which made me write this blog. It is not me who realized this connection, this subtle realization that knowingly or unknowingly, I have been following this tradition since I was born. And no prize for guessing who made me realize this. Of course, it has to be Maa. And yes Maa, I will definitely do something this time too.

Any good writer, Jane, Jhumpa or JKR, would have stopped here, but no, I want to write more. This may not even be a strong point, but I cannot not mention about it.

The prep of durga puja is described by a poem as follows:

Shiuli phool-er gondhe momo,

Pujar thane dhaker baari

Bhorer aalo fotar aagei

Pounche Gechi taratari.

Somehow I always associate durgapuja with this poem. The poem is pretty meaningless so I won’t dare to do a mundane translation, but it is the first line: Shiuli phool which is a tiny white flower with orange stalk, the frangrance of that flower is the mark of start of the puja season, and the first time we use this flower, is ofcourse for ganesh chaturthi.

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’”