Saturday, August 22, 2009

Kaminey :D

WOW!!!


just admire the power of the word WOW....tells everything isn't it?
That one was for Kaminey (new hindi movie) ...Everything about the movie is awesome.I know that , in my previous posts, I've made some similiar comments about some other movies. But, believe me. This one's totally different. It's not a regular, run off the mill, mushy/romantic/dishum-dishum kinda movie. You've got to appreciate the way the movie's made. Every single scene in the movie has something connected to the previous scene and will lead to something in the next scene. It's that engrossing. This one will leave you totally breathless.

I'm not telling anything about the story or anything about the plot . This post is entirely dedicated to the genius of Vishal Bharadwaj.

Take any normal hindi (or any Indian movie) : You are shown the way to the core of the plot for a movie. You are lead to believe that , something has happened or will happen. You will expect some kind of leads and hints and clues that makes you say: "Oh, ok..that makes sense, that's the reason, he's doing that". But,here, don't expect any such thing. The director wants you to get involved in every inch of the movie. He want's you to see as if you are standing on the road and watching two people (or a bunch of people) fight it out. It's that natural. The camera work is amazing. Normally, the camera remains fixed at a point, and you watch the scene from that fixed point. Here, the camera moves along with the characters. I believe there's a reason for doing that. The guys who made the movie, want you to get to know the people, the story and everything else, by just watching what the characters are doing, what they speak and how they do it.

I want to stop right there.. I want to leave on an unfinished note, so that anyone reading this, will get curious and watch "Kaminey".


Monday, June 8, 2009

A few words

Jokes apart, Pardon me for the long hiatus .

I have been thinking for years now, trying to come to terms with myself, like , I always wanted to understand what I am and have always failed to come to a conclusion on that. That's why you can see on my orkut profile in the About me column.. It says: ask my friends. It's quite suggestive, isn't it? Why do you have to ask someone else about me? Am I not the right person to tell about myself? And If I don't have a clue about my own self, then how come others will have an Idea about me? Well, these are exactly the same questions that have been running through my mind for quite a few years now and it's only now, that I seem to know or at least realized what to write on that .
Well... Here it goes then:

I presume ( should say assume !) that most of my friends who have been quite close to me or have atleast spoken to me agree that I do not make a very good first impression. I kind of come across as a shy ( reserved, unapproachable, unfriendly..can't exactly pin down the word though) guy who's not that open and doesn't easily gel with others. But as the days move along, people tend to like me and get along well with me. That's the way I am, I don't know why and don't ask me why, but I seem to have this habit of holding myself back before approaching anyone for a friendship . I have tried to overcome this habit of mine, but unfortunately haven't been able to do so. But believe me, I am not the same person as you see me first. I am quite the opposite. I tend to do things for the other person more than me, like for example: If my friend needs something from me, I do it for him even if I don't like to do it. Again, I don't know why, but it's been my tendency to do things like that.

Ah!!! Finally...I have something that I can put up in the about me section :) Nice!!!
I know..some (or most of you ) might feel this to be kind of self accolades...I have put down what exactly I had on my mind..no letter missing in that.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Pieces of Me... U2

Was "Youtubing" the other day and came across one of my most favorite songs ...Which I had heard a long time ago and then forgot completely about it. The beauty of such songs is that, no matter how many times you listen to it, It keeps growing on you and you like it even more than the last time you had heard it.

Now, Coming to the specific reasons of why I like this song so much:
1. Ashley Simpson. ( I am awestruck by her beauty)
2. The Lyrics of the song.




Now, If that was something ... The next video is equally mind blowing , if not better. This is U2 at its best. For a change, forget the lyrics and the song. Just listen to the strings and drums. I bet you would never have heard anything like that. No surprises that U2 is one of THE best bands. If you listen to the first 2 minutes of the song, you'll get an idea of what I am speaking about.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Best Days of my Life

Which was best period of my life?
I do ask this question sometimes to myself. Then, I sit down thinking on it for half an hour or so. The thought process (almost always) goes something like this..
Primary school days: Man..those were the days..we had no burden on our shoulders, get up in the morning,go to school...have fun...come back home, again have fun, do some homework..sleep..that was just about it. Nothing else. We used to make friends with all of our classmates with no bad intentions. You could go ahead and speak with any girl in your school. No one would notice. After all, she was just a friend . To sum it up, It was an age of innocence. So wonderful.
So, was it the best period? Read on.

High School days:Now this period of our life is a jumble. Should we start preparing for our 10th std exams right from the word go? I happened to go to a boys high school. So all we did in school, was to fight(I hardly fought),play cricket, a bit extra hours of study, play @ home...even though the stress levels had increased a wee bit, all in all, it was an enjoyable period. It was an age where we would know a lot of real world stuff .
Now, It's getting harder. Which one? Which one was better?

PUC/Intermediate/11th and 12 std
: Call it whatever you like, but the pressure was intense. Almost any grown up you meet would say: "Son, This is the most important stage of your life. It's the make or break period. So study!!!" . Man, I was tired of this. I tried to study though. Put in more effort than before. But, couldn't control the temptation of the new found freedom of roaming around places, going to theaters to watch movies. In the end, had to study more than play/relax. This was a nice stage of my life. But not as good as the earlier 2, coz, I ended up getting an abysmal score in my entrance exam. But this was the age where boys would grow up to men.

Graduation: Now, Almost all of my friends would agree that this should be the best stage of our lifes. I know, Even, I felt the same thing as I came out of my College into the so-called real world. We enjoyed to the MAX. Having your own group of friends, eating out, movies, college fests,trips...internals, exams,GIRLS...you name it. Each part of it was fun. Something that is difficult to forget for a long long long time. But for me, all of them were best in their own sweet way. I guess most of us would say that our graduate days were better because, it's the most recent one we have crossed in our lives and is still fresh in our memory. It would take some time to forget it.

Job: I know, this should not feature in here. But, trust me, It's also one of those memorable parts. You have all the money you want and freedom to do anything with it. I realised it's value only when I started doing my Masters.

All in all, every moment of our life is cherishable. Something that we should remember it forever and ever. My point is, We only seem to realise it's value once we've done it. Instead of going back down the memory lane, I guess we should enjoy every part of our current life. That's the way we can build up even better life.
Alright, enough of this preachy stuff. But everything that I wrote in here was straight from my heart and a snapshot of my life.

Cheers & Enjoy

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Greatness

Greatness, as per my knowledge doesn't come from the success you achieve when you have to. It comes when you achieve when no one thinks you can do it, Not even you!!!
That's the philosophical part of it. Coming to the real world, This very term Greatness can be attributed to Australia in every aspect of their game of Cricket. All the talk about the end of the dominance, end of an era, a new leader, slipping down were a few titles attributed to the fading Australian team. India beating them 2-0 at home, South Africa trouncing them 2-0 at their own backyard. Most of them thought, it was all over. But, here comes the exact place where you attach greatness . Aussies have come back and in a grand style. So awesome man...so very awesome. From being written out as losers even before the series began, to being the winners. Read the article: http://content.cricinfo.com/rsavaus2009/content/current/story/394689.html
It gives you a fair idea of what I am talking (or writing about) . Contrary to the belief that the era of Ponting is over, It has just started. Just when you think it all done and dusted for Aussies and either South Africa or India will take over the mantle of No:1, they bounce back and bounce back like never. Well, Greatness in all it's glory for you.
I hope, the Aussies continue to pick up from here on, 'coz, it's going to be an interesting battle with India and South Africa getting stronger by the day, we will get to see a three pronged war.

Go Aussies!!!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Fresh Garden Salad

I don't know why my fingers start to get itchy as soon as I watch a really good movie(tv show) or a really bad one. Now, this itch started as soon as I saw the Filmfare awards 2009 on Sony E TV. The scale with which the show was done, all the grandeur, the lighting and of course, the stars , You had only one word: WOW!! This time around the compering was done by IK and RK ( you guys know it and if not, figure it out) who had nothing else on mind than to make a mockery of Dostana and all the Gay theme. Amidst all these, awards were being dished out one after another, most of them were deserving ones. But I was a bit disappointed to see
"A Wednesday" making it to only the nominations part and not even winning a single award. That's too sad, given that it was one of the most brilliant movie of the year and had 2 pillars (out of the 3) of Bollywood cinema , Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah. But Om Puri deservedly won a lifetime achievement award(He is the 3rd pillar of bollywood). All in all a mixture of happiness and disappointment.
I had more to write, but feeling sleepy, So I guess that's it for this post. ( I seem to be getting into the habit of having bad endings to my post) and I seriously don't know why I came up with such a wierd title.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A sad day for sports :(

I say sports (and not cricket) because, sports was considered to be a healer between two warring nations, people and democracies. You could see people enjoying, sitting together whenever India and Pakistan played and everyone had only one motive. To enjoy the game in its truest of spirits. And now, with the game itself being attacked by some mindless idiots, Where does this lead to ?? What does this mean? Taking the classic case of Pakistan. It had been 14 months since they had played a test on home soil. And Sri Lanka had agreed to play. Expectations were high, people finally had chance to watch their most favorite game. With these terrorist attacks, Nations will stop sending their sports team to Pak . This leads to Pak being isolated and eventually most of us might even forget that a Pak cricket team existed. Pretty sad for a nation which has so many cricketing heroes.
There must be some solution to this. These horrific killings need to be stopped.
How? When? Who? We can't keep waiting for things to recover, We have to move forward and stop this. I don't know how this can be done, but will certainly think in that direction.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

12 Angry Men

Well, This is not a review of any sort. I personally don't want to call it a review in the first place. So, It's up to the guys who are reading this to call it a review or not.
I started writing this exactly 2 seconds after the movie ended. The movie called "12 Angry Men".
Well, for starters, It's easily by any stretch of my imagination THE BEST MOVIE I've EVER SEEN.
Probably this post might be too long for you guys to read it out. But I don't think you can't write anything less for this. The running time for this movie is about 94 minutes and for 93 minutes, you get to see and hear only 12 people who are in a room. (The movie is very very old : Released in 1957 to be precise). This movie was suggested by my friend and he too had the same feelings as I have now which I am going to share with you all.
Premise of the movie: An 18 year old Hispanic, downtrodden ,poor boy is being charged with the murder of his father . The trail of the case has been going on for 3 months and everyone is convinced including the judge that the boy is guilty and requests the members of the jury to come to a final verdict on the case. Well, for those of you who don't know how the American judicial system works, you can have a look at it @ : http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/gov/overview1197.pdf . Well It's 3 page pdf which gives you a pretty much decent know how of the system is. I can't go on telling about the system here. But , all I can tell is that , the 12 member jury selected by the judge and the prosecuters + defendant lawyers are normal people from across different sections of the society with no celebrity status attached to them.
Well, here goes the story (Or rather a part of it, because I want you guys to watch it). The boy as told earlier is charged with murder of his father and the reason for this act is defined to be that the father hit the boy several times and in a fit of rage he stabbed his father and ran away.
Now, there are clinching evidences against him with a woman across the street seeing him kill his father and an old man living exactly below the apartment , hearing all the screaming from the boy that he is going to kill, then hearing the thud of a body falling down on the floor and then actually seeing the boy running away.Another evidence was that of a shop owner 2 blocks from the house of the scene that he had sold a very unique kind of knife with an unusual bottom handle which according to him is the only one available with him and the boy had actually purchased it from him, the previous night.All that the boy had to say to defend himself was that he was not in the house at that time and the knife which he used had fallen off the hole of his Trouser pocket while he was going.
That said, it's now the time when the jury members come in to decide and give a verdict which if the boy found guilty will be sentenced to death, otherwise of course acquitted.
All the jury members gather around in a room and start with a simple process of voting for the decision. Now, one would assume that all of them would vote for the boy being guilty. Well, actually that's the thing that happens...almost. 11 of them vote for the boy being guilty and only one guy abstains from voting the boy as guilty. Now, before you jump to any conclusions, he doesn't tell that the boy is not guilty. All he tells is, that he doesn't know for sure. He can see clearly that the evidences are sufficient enough, but what if there's a doubt in any corner of the case? what if the defendants did not gather sufficient information. He is ready to vote as the boy being guilty, but he just wants to have a discussion before coming to a conclusion.
Phew!!! That's long isn't it. Well, that's all I can disclose about the story line of the movie. You see the rest.
Now, coming to the point of why actually I am writing this blog, I was so impressed by the characters being portrayed, the way the each guy's individual character comes out and how they reason about the case is impressive to say the least. The variety of jury members you have is amazing, one is a watch maker, one works at an ad-agency,other is an architect, another one a retired old man, another one is a painter who earns 3$ per day painting houses, another is a guy who comes from a poor background, another one guy is an ill-tempered man whose son had run away from the house after having a fight with him , another one is a man who firmly believes in facts and talks about the case by presenting nothing but facts, another one has baseball tickets and wants to go and watch the game, so he is always with the majority, since he wants this thing to be over asap , another is a grumpy old guy who is terribly rich and always believes that people from slums always lie, steal and kill . Given this wide charecteristics, they go on presenting their reasons and arguements as to why should this boy be punished.
It's hard to miss out even a minor scene in the movie, like, when the guys take a break and head to the loo, you feel that there's going to be nothing worth watching in there, but as you begin to think , one of the guys makes an important statement. It's that gripping.

I end with this , so that you feel something incomplete about this post and go and watch it. Well, this is my opinion. You may or may not like it. But all I can say is: I liked it a lot. Watch it, let me know if all the things I said were worth it .


Chao!!
Auf Wiedersehen!!

P.S : Pardon me for any grammatical errors. With the post being as long as it is, it was difficult for me to check it thoroughly. If you find any, lemme know :)

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Delhi-6, The hoopla - The Hype - The bad review

Strange as it may seem, but that is exactly what I am feeling about the movie right now. Oh my Gosh! The publicity was simply amazing. The cast and crew of the movie were all over the place, globe-trotting to be precise, for the premier of the movie. The hype had to be of that extent, given that the music & songs were already a big ... NO...HUGE hit ( Yes, I am a fan of AR Rehman), but come on, you would have heard the songs, they are awesome rite? Abhishek was planning on a Guinness record by visiting most number of places in one single day for the premier of a movie, all the talk about Masakali (the white dove), which ,I believe it received more hype than Jr.AB himself :) but, when it came to the actual day of the movie release, with people eagerly waiting to see how it fares at the Box office, it all came down to a grinding halt. No one was seen around on the evening of the release. No news about Jr.AB's record, no dove...all that were heard of the movie were the reviews from the critics, some said it was pathetic, some called it below par, some average, a few called it good. But not even one review was praising the movie. Why does it happen?? Why on earth do these guys go overboard for the publicity? what do they earn from it? ( I think they would in fact loose more money by travelling) ,It has been the case of so many movies in the past, Chandini Chowk to china, Billu Barber, Tashan, Ram Gopal Verma ki aag to name a few of an ever growing list. Meanwhile, movies which have hardly given out pre-release publicity have done well, in fact done really well. Movies like A wednesday, Aamir, Jannat, Jodhaa Akbar,Rab ne bana di jodi, Rock on, Race, et al. Now I think you guys might come out saying that Rab ne, Rock on and Race are all big banner and had good pre-release publicity. Yes, they had come out for the publicity, but not to that extent of the movies like Delhi-6. However, there are a few exceptions like Ghajini, Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na ....
I guess, as the saying goes, Too much is too bad applies to the movies as well, It's only time before the movie guys realize this and don't kill it even before it's born.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Another one of those classics :)

I should say..Very Typical (Source: XKCD)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Oh No..Not Again:)

What in the world is wrong with me? Why am I doing things which I hardly used to do earlier?? For those of you reading this, Not to worry... coz the thing which I'm speakin about is my blogs. For the past few weeks there have been many posts . Something which was not the thing with me earlier. Anyway, keeping things aside, I suggest all of you out there : Go and watch "Arundathi" . It's a telugu movie, based on a supernatural theme with loads of spooky stuff.You will be amazed to see such technical brilliance in an Indian movie!!! For a moment I had to convince myself that I was watching a Telugu movie. Go and enjoy it!!
I think as I type these words about what to write for the next few lines..and the brain seems to be in a stand by mode with the current time being: 12:41 A.M CST . Gosh!! How do people come up with soo many blogs?? You should see Amitabh Bachchan's blogs. He writes every single day and writes awesome. Wish I had such talent. Speaking of talent,I don't seem to have any:( Well, In that case, I can call that a talent in itself. A talent of having no talent!! Howzzat???
Adios Amigos...Time to sleep!!!
(Oh Man...what's with these exclamation and question marks..I seem to be using them a lot!!! There you go again)
Alright..That's the end of a totally worthless blog (Started out writing something and ended up something. Sigh!!!)

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Uncertain Time ...Uncertain Feeling

The world is coming to a grinding halt. Millions and Millions of people losing jobs, getting homeless having to take care of family ,salaries being cut down (Except cricketers in IPL) .Where are we headed to?? Yesterday, even Yash Raj Productions announced job cuts. I mean, is the market that bad , even for the movie tycoons? During all these chaos, Here I sit in One corner of a Room ,filled with nothing but Hope. Hope that I get a job, Hope that I will be able to get through these tough times, Hope all the problems end and the economy of the world gets better, Hope people get back their jobs, Hope that we go back to the good old days of cases where companies had hard time finding people to hire. As they say, HOPE IS WHAT KEEPS A MAN ALIVE.

Don't lose hope!!!

Monday, January 26, 2009

One more...


One more from the XKCD and this is what we always think of!!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Some Unbelievable Videos!!!!

This is something which everyone needs to see and something that I had to share!!! A collection of some Jaw Dropping Discoveries, Inventions. You will not believe what you see...
Just visit this website and scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can see something called:

Top 10 TEDTalks of all time and you can see a list of Names and the videos links in red. Just click on each one of them and watch 'em.

Here's the link to the website:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Friday, January 16, 2009

This one sums up the day:)
The idea of having a picture in my blog was borrowed from my friend who had recently posted a blog like this...
And you can find a lot of these funny things in XKCD
P.S: This is my second post of the day...with the first one below this..Just in case if you fail to notice

War...Love Stories...and ICC!!!

A lot of things have been happening around us, it was high time I started writing something..First , to get a lot of things out of my mind and second, I desperately want to increase my posts. Some ghastly things have been happening like the Israel's all out attack on Gaza. I still don't get the purpose of their attacks. In order to kill the Hamas guys, they are killing innocent people so much so that they even attacked a graveyard the other day, Crazy !!! Then we have Slumdog Millionaire all the way. Agree, AR Rehman's music is totally awesome. (Any Rehman music is awesome for me) but I didn't think the movie deserved so much hype for the story it is shown. It is like any other love story but with the KBC theme added in and showing that the host of KBC can be bad. If you ask me, I dont think it will win an oscar except for the music that is and then comes the ICC with it's ridiculous ratings , the so called "Best-ever" ratings where Sachin, Lara,Steve waugh et all are rated way below people like Hussey, Come on, give me a break!! If that's hilarious, you should see this..Bowlers rating!! Stuart clark of Australia is rated above Brett Lee, Wasim Akram and Michael Holding. I think the ICC should be re-christened as the International Comedy Council given the things they come up with. All in all, A lot has been happening and I have been catching up with as much news as possible .
Signing off...Gotta go, have to hunt for a Job...
Abhi