Alliterative Imtiaz!

"... ghatni hi thi yeh bhi ghatna, ghat'the ghat'the lo yeh ghat gayi..."

Alluding to destiny in these lines, this groovy, funky, lively, catchy Imtiaz Ali/Pritam Chakraborty number with a slight touch of South Indian rhythm ("taane tandane") is a breeze, moreso with Sunidhi Chauhan's amazing vocals on her introductory lines, very lively strings pervading throughout.

...................................Chor Bazaari Love Aaj Kal (2009)

Star Bucking trend

No, I am not declaring my love for the bean beverage here. When we grew up watching English movies in Sangeet theatre, Hyderabad, as an impressionable kid I placed the stars in some distant la la land, if not a better land (in hindsight). English movies in Sangeet theatre, Hyderabad almost always translated into Hollywood fare. Minimal exposure, minimal knowledge almost fought with each other for the top spots among many barriers that separated us from the stars. The stars that delightfully adorned the silver screen when the lights were dimmed. These barriers worked only fine as the stars remained where they should and the cinematic orgies where they should, and it only made the concept of looking-forward-to more enjoyable.

So when movie channels started airing "making-of" videos in the mid to late 90s, cinema, in a small way,was slowly but surely ripped of its sheen. Everything was laid bare and naked, to its minimum and darn, nothing was left to imagination. It made a good fodder for the cynics who smugly declared "ah, we said so." A Batman of the early 90s was so different from its recent sibling, The Dark Knight of '08 which many reckon has been the best to have happened to man since sliced bread. Why? Apart from every other aspect, the recent installment has been one people have had most access to, and everything that has to be known has already been damning the very notion of mystery, and damning the idea that stars should remain where they are.

Cut to present and on a slightly different note, this place looks so Indianized, at least to levels that are perceptible, that nothing is a fantasy land anymore. You name a place here, and even before you spell its name, an Indian restaurant would have opened somewhere, or someone would have clicked a snap in front of New York Stock Exchange, or Golden Gate Bridge. May be the overfamiliarity with this place; the system, the pattern, the roads, the exits is the spoilsport. So I shudder at the thought of bumping into a Hanks or a Depp the next time I drive out of that swanky eat-out in downtown L.A., find a Carrey when I turn my head sideways in anticipation of a green light at a traffic island or worse, a Jolie on that famililar trip to Memphis! No exaggeration, I wouldn't want to be caught dead discussing pappu, pulusu, licking my fingers to glory all the while having Spielberg in the vicinity, if not the next table on my next visit to California.


Somewhere you start wondering if this is the same place that lodged the stars that adorned the silver screen when the lights were dimmed in Sangeet theatre, Hyderabad.

an apple of one's eye,

is sore to another!


(Readers' discretion advised; Unsuitable for minors, and couth, may contain North Indian familial expletives)

What do you call an Apple's version of an Apple fanboy?

Mac-ka-lal


What do you call a Microsoft's version of an Apple fanboy?

Mac-ka-lowda

david littered, man!

Always knew, realized, and acknowledged that a joke is always at someone else's expense, and the line that demarcates a good joke from its ugly sibling is very nebulous. Unsuspecting, young ones should never be made a butt of your inanities when they are not ripe enough to fathom the mischief, no matter how supposedly innocuous it is. But it's a shame when a celebrity who has been on air for good three decades forgets his elementary geometry about circles and lines.

social circus

If orkut seemed like a big, showy, never-ending, maddening, stifling jamboree open to all with everything on display, facebook resembles an after-event, after-madness, "by-invitation-only" private party; holding its own mystique, its own little secrets a far cry from the far-from-truth deception of the main event.

As yet, at least.

Saraswati Putra, Bhala!

It is foolish to expect an industry that feeds on stereotype for breakfast, that chokes when it runs out of cliche cylinders, to treat playback singing, its critical entity, any different.

So when you want

zesty, feisty quality in your life, you have Sunidhi Chauhan.

faux sexy wailing, haazir hai Kunal Ganjawalla

the male, higher-higher-pitched version of Sunidhi Chauhan with added diamond-like quality that just cuts through... Krishna Kumar Menon (KK)

a star like quality that will put galaxies to shame, take Sonu Nigam

sincerity, energy, honesty, so what if RAW, please meet A R Rahman

to communicate pathos, sincerity, again so what if RAW, make way for Ilayaraja

saccharine sweet to the point of inducing diabetes, there is always Chitra

someone to traverse the spectrum from an infant to a girl all the way to a woman, welcome S. Janaki

someone to traverse the spectrum from an infant to a girl all the way to a woman, north of Vindhyas, welcome Asha Bhonsle

invoke Gods, mountains, call only Anuradha Paudwal

devotional, call Anuradha Paudwal and Gulshan Kumar

divine, Lata Mangeshkar

saucy, sassy, cheeky, chicken-tikka masala, croaky & froggy, irreverent, arrogant (so what if it makes you want donate truck loads of lozenges), don't do anything; just close your eyes, and pronto! Anu Malik

to revisit the all the good things of your childhood, say "Sadhna Sargam"

fun, frolic added to romantic numbers, go to Mahalaxmi Iyer

somebody, when you find none, think of Alka Yagnik

to touch a chord of the masses faster than the speed of light, send an SMS to Himesh Reshammiya

to insult your enemies, love guilt pleasures, R. P. Patnaik door nahin

to "hear" a smile, please call Udit Narayan

to test the speaker quality of your avante-garde music set up, particularly Bass, head straight to Amitabh Bachchan

to drink without getting drunk, pesh hai Hariharan

to be literally jolted of blues, slumber, so what if transient, go to Sukhwinder Singh

seriousness, sincerity, character go to Kavita Krishnamurthy nee Subramaniam

to learn Malayalam through Hindi, go down south to Yesudas.

to feel good about yourself, about everything around, C/O Rekha Bhardwaj & Vishal Bhardwaj

most of the qualities mentioned above, dial 9823156147/ 9842351706 to reach Shankar Mahadevan






because for all the above and everything else there is an

S P Balasubrahmanyam


(May he live longer than is destined to)

in camera

Do me a favor, promise me you will. Okay? If no, you may skip this. Yes?! OK, now read on. Remember I shall hold you to your word.


1) Next time when you click a good looking snap, please don't touch it, retouch it, touch it up, Photoshop it. Don't let the moment get eclipsed by tech tools. I know to each his own but still try! Remember you promised!

2) It gets a little serious here. Promise me if you come across a very beautiful picture clicked by someone, you will not, repeat after me, you will not ask the photographer, "what camera is it?" "which model?", "no wonder, it is good!". Okay? Mummy promise. This is applicable even when the picture is not up to your standards. Either way you are insulting the photographer.