To cut diamond with a diamond

One of the various pearls of wisdom the wise old men have always flowered us with is to cut diamond with a diamond. Eradicate fear of heights by visiting the top-floor of the Burj Khalifa, fear of spiders by adopting one, fear of lunatics by interviewing Praveen Togadia, fear of women by … (ok, I hope you get my drift) – which brings me to my case:

“Dekh ke phatti hain!” is a common phrase associated with The Factory’s productions (for the less Bollywood buffs, Ram Gopal Varma’s production house is aptly called The Factory). And then there also are the friends who kindly disclose the spoilers (of any horror film for that matter). And you have equally kind ‘seniors’ here in Infy who let it casually slip that the subject of RDBMS might seem easy, but unexpectedly “usme phatti hain!” But it is not every day that there is an opportunity to kill two birds with Ein Stein, the local cable guy freeing one of the birds. So, I decided to do some diamond-cutting and indulge in a distracted study session with alternate glances of Sameera Reddy, ghouls and SQL Queries!

The reaction to the film wasn’t as expected, primarily the reason being that I was watching an average quality broadcast without the effect of the sounds that do the trick for RGV’s films and the knowledge of the spoiler. And I also managed to complete one chapter of the subject.

Next week: UNIX and The Exorcist!

Favourite Hero Entry

Karan Johar claims that he has introduced Shahrukh Khan in slow motion in all his movies (it's for you to check if he follows the trend in My Name is Khan :-P). None of his 'dramatic' entries compare to my favourite entry in a film - that of Ajay Devgan in Phool aur Kaante:

He stands mounted on two bikes, one leg on each. The bikes along with their entourage consisting of a few more bikes are zooming with high speeds and the hero showing absolutely no signs of any imbalance even in the sharpest of the turns. He's required to break his perfectly comfortable stance on approaching a road divider, where the bikes separate out a bit, and he spreads his legs out wide. He resumes his original position on arriving outside the college campus, where he's welcomed by hordes of female fans lined up on both sides of the road cheering wildly. The hero breaks into a big grin, raises his fists in the air and does a "Yay"!

The scene ends rather disappointingly though. The bike gang approaches the college building with a jerk, and the 'acrobat' is thrown out of his amazing stance and lands in the laps of - hold your breath - an overweight sidekick!

Absolutely amazing :-D

PS: It'll be immense fun in knowing your own "Favourite Hero Entry".

From Bah to Wah!

Just yesterday during one of our music sessions, I attempted to translate a beautiful Hindi verse into crude English which resulted in pure disaster. As expected, it won some insightful comments from my partners like "eeww" and other unprintable pronunciations. Surprisingly enough, one comment did suggest a poetry award at a local kavi-sammelan, if not at the National Awards, which brings me to my point: I'm NOT a poet! The best I've done so far is a Quartet on Roger Federer before his US Open 2009 final a couple of months back. It went like this:

Early to bed,
Very early to rise.
To watch Fed,
2 AM to be precise.

It's axiomatic that poets have great imagination (whether they only imagine that people will actually read their poems, is another issue). Honestly, I suck at poetry whenever I have a shot at it. To put it in a better way, I'd never been too fond of poetry. In fact I'd be one of the types who unknowingly landed up at a poetry recital (at the Poona Music Society) and wondered why each poem didn't rhyme.
Throughout school, poetry was my biggest villain - simply because I hated the idea of mugging it up and puking it out either on paper or sometimes in front of a class full of uninterested peers. The hatred continued so much that I'd switch the TV channel every time I heard a deep voice narrating "Main, aur meri tanhayee…" or politicians praising a former PM's latest book 'Meri Bayaalis Kavitayen'.

* P.T.O.*

Then I saw Gunda...

... which transformed my entire approach towards poetry and reintroduced me to the world of 2 or 4-line rhymes (A-B-A-B, A-A-B-B etc.). Now I could go on and on about this entertaining 1998 Mithunda blockbuster, but then after having received plenty of blows on the skull with blunt objects after having done the same, I'll restrict myself here. Gunda (directed by Kanti Shah, dialogues by Bashirbhai Babar) has a gigantic collection of rhymes and verses that could convert any poetry-hater into a Wordsworth!

Sample:
"Mera naam Ibu Hatela.
Maa meri chudail ki beti,
aur baap shaitaan ka chela.
Khaegaa kela?"

For reasons unknown, it unfortunately couldn't reach the box office critics, but has won enough fans and worshippers to achieve its cult status comparable to Sholay or Pulp Fiction. I know I should stop raving more about this film, but then at the end, the fact remains that I've finally started appreciating poetry (what if it's after watching Gunda)!
Soon you could catch me at the next kavi-sammelan or a poetry recital in rapt attention; but whether any poems will actually appear on my blog, only time will tell... :-D

Note: Check out Gunda's community on orkut for the details, more rhymes and verses.

Nayee Padosan

Every time I'm not logged in or am hitting the sack, I get this sudden urge to rant something here, which vanishes the moment I login. So all my thoughts and ideas have gone, with a dreamy night's sleep. Just then, I'm looking out of the balcony - the rain pouring (and I'm not complaining) and am seeing someone: there are these kids (annoying) in my neighbourhood, who've possibly given their school a skip today because of the Paus, yelping to some latest Hindi songs from movies like Billu, Kambakkht Ishq, Kaminey, etc. with the highest intensity. They belong to a family, which has just moved in, that believes in shouting in the name of talking. So even if the woman wants to call her husband, for whatever reasons, she shrieks "Aye Mooooohannn" which is irritatingly similar-sounding to Rohan and is sometimes sufficient to get me up with a start! It's either this name or "Aye Sohammmmmmmmmm", "Aga Harshadaaaaaaaaa"!!! These two are the wonder kids of the wonder couple. The ritual of waking up Aye Sohammmmmmmmmm, Aga Harshadaaaaaaaaa is one shout match which just makes us think - did God forget to install the Volume or the Mute button on them?! Bollywood buffs they all, the favourite hero of the family is SRK, apparently. My family along with the neighbourhood gets to hear all his songs and the dialogues from his movies without any of us having to make an effort to make ourselves 'LISTEN' to what's going on in Aye Mooooohannn's house. For a family of 3 (I'm counting the kids as 1/2 and 1/2), one should listen to the amount of utensil noise that pollutes the silence of our area. The first thing in the evening, after they return home, that we end up listening to is our royal family's buffoonery and antics in kitchen with more clang of the utensils to add to the blaring music. It's actually the noise that drives me bonkers - a complete cacophony! Believe it or not the sounds start from 5 in the morning and goes on till about 11 at night (provided they don't have a 11 ka movie show at their place!) Even when I get up in the middle of my slumber for water or whatever, my ears would still end up listening to some sound emanating from the house! The interesting part is that I don't know the name of the female; but doesn't matter for I've her a name - Soprano! Here she comes again...got to run, see you later... "Aye ......." PS: I'm so sorry for disappointing all those who, after reading the title of the post, were expecting something completely different than this ;-)

Inspiring Mov(i)e

This post comes in the wake of the newspaper story of one Mr. Banerjee getting inspired by the movie Swades – giving up lucrative offers in the US and returning to India to start an English-medium school for the rural people. I really appreciate his move – risky but worth following. Just a few days before this story was in the news, I stumbled upon a poll to decide the most inspiring Bollywood movie of recent times and the result was... ...Rang De Basanti According to the poll, the standings were - 1) RDB 2) Swades and Taare Zameen Par 3) Lakshya 4) Lage Raho Munnabhai and A Wednesday About RDB, I thought it was an interesting movie, and I did see the movie twice after its release, but the movie did not inspire me to do anything different. My vote went to Lakshya. Not for Kargil, not for patriotism, not for Farhan Akhtar, not for Hrithik Roshan, not for anything fancy. But for these very simple lines that Romi's (Preity Zinta) dad says to Karan (Hrithik Roshan)...

"Tum jo bhi karo achha karo. Agar scientist bano toh achhe scientist bano. Agar ghaas kaatne wale bano toh achha ghaas kaatne wale bano. Warna kya faayda?" (Whatever you do, do it well. If you become a scientist, be a good scientist. If you become a grass-cutter, be a good grass-cutter. Otherwise what's the point?)

I love that movie for these lines. I really did wake up and feel different the next day. About my hobbies, about my… About everything actually. PS: Had overheard this while exiting the cinema hall after watching Swades: "Bass re...GRE, MS cancel" :-D

Cable TV Woes

Does anyone have a few movie CDs to spare? If yes, please lend them to our cable operator. He seems to have run out of his stock – the last one he played was 'Best of Ayub Khan', a collection of songs of movies starring Ayub Khan (for those who don't know who this guy is, he's the one who played Preity Zinta's fiancé Rohit in DCH) The songs are from his utterly rubbish films, mostly with him running around trees with actresses like Neelam in long skirts. You can see him riding a horse in a military suit in one song, playing golf and later polo in another and then dancing with the heroine and other 100 girls behind in yet another. Regarding the CDs that you will lend, please make sure they don't have 'SADAF' covering half the film, because the other half will be covered by the cable guys with scrolling advts of Birthday wishes, and upcoming schools and housing societies. The first afternoon since the vacations started, when I'd to rely on the TV for some entertainment and...the Cable operator steps up to play best of Ayub Khan :-X What the hell was the cable guy thinking??? Damn this remote control – the buttons seem to have stuck!!!