Jodhaa Akbar

I wanted to watch Jodhaa Akbar for a long time and then I got my wish, literally – I watched the movie for a loooong time! After surprising myself with efforts on my part to book tickets in advance for almost the entire lot for a weekday night show(fiscal benefits), little did I imagine it would be a night-early morning show. But ya with the reviews highly polarized, I wouldn’t say I was too disappointed or happy about it.

First, when I say I know Hindi, I mean I can understand and converse if the southie accent is tolerated (and know enough so as to not to express my awe at the enormity of shopping malls with a “Kya mall hai!!”) But I’d be damned for thinking I was going to a hindi movie! (someone told me few of the dialogues were Urdu, Phew) . It was Antennas class all over again and when faced with such a situation we (ya I include a few of the puritan Hindi speaking people in the hall too) did the most natural thing one can do – grin stupidly. Anytime there was a long stretch of dialogue, we ended up lolin in the hall ignoring the nasty looks of one or two people who were actually trying to understand every word. (Yes I got the gist and meaning of it all, Thank you)

And by God, I couldn’t control laughing at the Khwaja song! The song in my opinion has been the song of the year so far, absolute brilliance of the maestro evident in the instruments and the mixing. The rendition is so superb that I have no words to describe the genius! But the video, well, its quite another thing. The expression of the co-singers when one of them is singing or how 4 different people can sing in the same voice or how they suddenly start advertising for mortein or tortoise by swatting from side to side or how every time the guy goes into high pitch they show the women crying! And making Hritik dance was the last straw. Comeon, we know he’s a good dancer but he doesn’t need to dance in every movie!!

On the plusses in the movie, the chemistry between the lead pair was good.(the physics wasn’t bad either) They have quite loyally stuck to showing it as a romantic movie without trying to focus too much into the conquests of Akbar. The battle scenes were decent and the background score amazing. The camera work was good and managed to capture the picturesque landscapes and palaces.

As if making up for the Khwaja song the title track was choreographed beautifully. The costumes and jewellery befit a period film and has been paid great attention to. And though I’m not a great fan of Aishwarya or Hritik, they’ve done a good job.

When I walked out of the theatre at 2.30 in the night with just the thought of when I’ll go home to my bed , I wasn’t by any chance judging the movie (Happy ending. Everyone was happy when it ended) But on hind sight, it’s a commendable effort amidst the mediocre masala films and might even be worthy of the hype given. So I would recommend, you watch it once cos such movies are not made on everyday basis.

And with that recommendation here’s a nice thought that I thoroughly enjoyed.
“Never go to bed angry.
Stay up and plot your revenge.”

Adios

PS:When i reread, I realised i use long sentences. Well, What do i say? Just thank God i'm not a judge :)

Terms of Endearment

It hates me.

I know, not the kind of post one would expect on a day of false cheerfulness, unsaid expectations, uncomfortable silences and of course a very thinning wallet. Since none of them concern me and I’m of the opinion only murders are to be committed, not a 22 year old (of course those grapes are sour), let me come back to the issue at hand. The ‘it’ in context is my office comp.

Like kids from most middle class families in the 90s down south, I grew up watching serials on Doordarshan during the most impressionable stages of growing up. One of the characters that used to amuse me was the shape embedded in cosmos from Mahabharath which goes like “Main (long pause) Samay (long pause) Hoon” till the next break. I used to wonder can anything be more slower than this, till I saw the dialogue delivery in junoon.

Now you must see my computer here and you’ll see why I got reminded of these. Of course my comp in accordance with the new technologies exhibits ultra slow motion, bullet-time, freeze frame and many such amazing technologies that it has no business incorporating and not when I am using it!

Of course the relation I share with my compiler is something so special, especially just before major releases of my tool.(by that I mean product, don’t skew it) It reminds me of those old bollywood movie scenes between the ‘gaon ki gori’ and ‘shehari babu’. Just when the ‘shehari babu’ puts in all his efforts and thinks he’s gonna get somewhere with ‘gaon ki gori’, she gets up abruptly and delivers dialogue on sanskar and parampara in a shrill voice looking at the ground and exits leaving the guy baffled. Well almost similar here, only all I expect is some output and all I get is highlighted exceptions! (Most time it works the 2nd time without me having to change anything)

And though I know, I demand a lot with 14 windows open at any given point of time (12 of which are blogs/cartoons), I feel sometimes it does things just to piss me off. Just the other day it shut down all the open windows and demanded to be restarted or will go and complain to Microsoft. And worse still, it hides my folders when I want it (I’m serious) and doesn’t allow me to connect to other systems and asks me to go to hell (contact network administrator). There are times when it makes the electronics engineer in me wants to rip its circuitry apart, capacitor for capacitor, till the silicon in its diodes hurts. Of course the fact that the IS team will render me penniless (paisa less in the Indian context) if I do that, keeps me in check.

My comp at home also used to conspire against me and keep disconnecting me from the net whenever I’m chatting with a girl after ten in the night or shutting down on its own when I’m playing games before my exams. I strongly suspected my mom’s hand in this and wondered how she could have done that for a long time till I met my office comp. Now I kind of resigned to the fact that Its just my luck. And I’m gonna put up with its every mood swing in the hope this experience will help me someday in the near future. And yes for all those who sympathized with the computer (yes, I mean you two), ya I will try to understand its perspective and will love it not despite its flaws but along with its flaws. (from a forward that made as much sense as Raj Thackrey’s ideology)

These are afterall the terms and conditions of the long association of endearment. So while I learn to try to be more understanding and keep my psycho-cyber tendencies under check, for all those people who believe in winged fat kids shooting arrows here’s a quote to mull over.

“The difference between ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast. The hen was involved and the pig was committed” – Anonymous

Happy Valentines Day!

Just another post

I’ve been hearing a lot of “You know sometimes I feel I can happily murder you?” lately. I can right now imagine the reactions of 5 different people who when they read would give a jump and go like “Don’t tell me, he’s written about THAT here!!”

No I’m not taking any credit for bringing the psycho social tendencies cos what followed that statement was either smileys or grins that usually conveyed the fact that they were actually happy about “THAT”.[:D] In other words they were just kidding. Now I know at least 5 other people who would go like “Damn!” and give out a shake of their head and later reiterate the fact that I’m jobless.

The conclusion one might draw from the above passage other than the obvious that some wish I were imaginary is that I have confidence in the fact that I know the people around me. One of my orkut testimonials read “He thinks he’s figured the human race” (followed by heavy sarcasm that I choose to omit). Well I don’t think that high but I’m of the opinion everyone’s an open book if you know to read between the lines. That would kind of explain my let-me-tell-you-about-you sessions after 4-5 meetings (if you haven’t got one that means I have an opinion on how you will react). Of course the “You are right” or the “Mostly right” I receive at the end of such sessions doesn’t do much to discourage me from this bad habit.

I choose to call it a bad habit cos it doesn’t do me much of good. I end up assuming most stuff, that I’m sure is right, but never take the necessary steps to be surprised. Very similar to people who play the entire game of chess verbally before making a simple move and end up frustrating the entire lot. Thankfully in my case I don’t put it verbally too often. Of course I have been wrong and am sure will be in most cases, but there’s nothing to learn here cause as Michael Crichton says “Even an educated guess is just a guess”

But still I was surprised last weekend when I got in contact with one of my friends. She was telling me how wretched her life has become by stating as reasons incidents and characters that you meet in almost everyday life! So I thought I should tell her she is not facing any problem and its common place so she might feel better. I did so and got it back nicely on how rude I was and she wasn’t looking to be comforted. What stunned me most was when she said “You are not like what you were before”.

Which made me wonder, what was I before! Being a “party focal” for my team, which includes arranging birthday parties and making others pay for treats for some arbit reason, talking is something I have to do to avoid a party where everyone is all aloof and eat and go. Most of the times I find I’m the only one talking , cracking the most pathetic PJs/wit as one sees it and make the birthday baby state what was mentioned in the first para of this blog. So when I said, “In my college days, some people thought I was a really silent person” they said the only two positive words that can be a negative – “Ya right!”.

Incidentally, it is true. You can ask one of my juniors who said the same about me in public (and regretted it the next 2 years cursing and swearing the day she said I was silent and ‘paavam’ type). So looking back I guess somewhere down the line I had become silent or given people the impression. Where I had limited my retorts to a select set of people who kind of knew who I was. Where I was there to understand problems even without expressing and put people at ease.

But like the Canara bank makeover tag says ‘We change for the ones we love' and in my case the next line that comes to my mind is from HHGTG “If there’s anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now!” :)

I kind of realized so far down that the starting and ending of this blog doesn’t have much relevance. But what the hell. To conclude the first topic, it doesn’t matter if I’m wrong, I still will go about being the same. And for the second topic, as I always believe everything happens for a reason.

Will post something that makes more sense soon.