PAPA RAZI!

Shall remember this period... nice one and how I wish that famed Italian breed followed me too!!!


I don't know if 2007 proves to be an annus mirabilis for me, and only time will tell...

random...

Why was Michael Douglas so smug with himself?
He has left no Stone unturned in his career!!!
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I was about to board the bus, just then a big fat lady with bigger fatter multihued feathered beasts alighted the same.

Just as I got in, my eyes fell on the transport corporation's message "bus occupancy penchandi" (make efforts to increase the bus occupancy)

Didnt know the kind lady would take the plea so seriously and literally.

Two Much

I do not know how steadfast I will be, but I want to test myself.

If ever I have kids, and I take to kids like a fish does to water, they will be named

Arjun and Meera.

and they shall take their mom's surname!

As much as I love kids and forget myself when with them, I dread the thought of bringing them onto this planet and not being able to live upto their expectations... It scares me no end.


But if I did, I hope Arjun and Meera stand me...

Laughter Champions

Sashi, Lakshmi, Amulya, Sudha, Prabhakar, Naveen HIV, Neelima, Nisha Narayan, Anant Gupta, Chirag, Usha, Sandy TY, Silpi, Amma, Appa, Amma, Appa, Vasu, Ramesh, Kris, Anil, Uday, Satyaki, Rama, Sahiti, Madhu Shankar, Kranti, Fayaz, Sreedevi GSR, Ajay TSP, Gokul, Ashwin, Sandeep Botla, Aditya Saxena, Rekha and Manik and Sudhir...

Whatever little I know of these people and whatever I claim to have known in whatever quantum of time and space I have shared with these people, one thing is clear... Of all things, they laugh their hearts out and that's no mean feat I must admit. Not everyone is blessed with the best of the times always and yet these people manage to laugh their internal viscera out and boy, is it encouraging! While it is one thing to share those few laughs while things are smooth, it's altogether a different matter when they do it when the chips are down.

I reckon it comes from their sheer positive attitude and a good general outlook, a healthy outlook. It wouldn't be out of place to quote a famous Telugu scriptwriter... "Navvadam oka varam, navvaleka povadam oka rogam"... In simple words it means, it's a boon to be able to share a guffaw, and it's the opposite otherwise...

Ha ha... God bless these souls, and let their pleasant and eye pleasing acts not die down. It's remarkable on their part what with so much negativity and ill will around and they are truly blessed... None feels belittled when these guys laugh and their laughter exercise is inclusive and no party is harmed.

It's not easy.

Personally to indulge in the merry making wholeheartedly is nothing short of a catharsis for me..

Anywhere, anytime

Let the laughathon continue...

appa and aatreya

This was imminent and it had to happen. Aatreya has relocated and this has left in a void in appa's life so much so that an otherwise quite appa has come to acknowledge Aatreya's absence. Appa has always been patient with kids whether his or otherwise. He has had never differentiated babies on the basis of sex and coming from a man who hailed from the generation that he did, that's quite remarkable. He could take to kids of all forms and whose tales of crankiness came in all fonts. He has been a man with loads of patience and thats inspiring. He has been an amusing tale master, a perfect raconteur one could say.

I dont know if in years to come Aatreya would acknowledge this man who has put in everything to bring this kid up along with his kid-sister in his own inimitable way, and in a manner that is truly inspiring. May be appa would be forgotten in times to come, and will be remembered as an old man who was once kind. One thing I know for sure is appa would be there till he can for all these kids, and Aatreya moreso.

Probably he saw me in Aatreya.

I would never know...

WATER

It was by a sheer stroke of luck that I could lay my hands on Deepa Mehta's Water late this evening. I admit Water was not on my must-watch list atleast for sometime to come what with its never ending saga of postponements atleast in India. I have followed its travails to hit the silverscreen right since it was supposed to be made in and around the early 2000s; 2000 in fact.

Doff my hats to Deepa Mehta for not losing it in this period. Also credit to her long term aide David Hamilton for not letting it get confined to the cans and gather dust. From the frame one to the last Deepa slowly but surely takes us back in time, to 1938, to be precise and paints the saga of Chuiya, Kalyani, Madhumati and Narayan on such beautiful canvas with right brushes and an ethereal palette, that one is left wondering, how!! Sarala with her innocent yet masterly looks blows one away with such genuineness in her potrayal of Chuiya that other performances by child artistes in recent times look farcical. Lisa Ray surprises and I will leave it at that. She puts in a restrained performance and I shall well stop at that for I somehow cant take to actors who cant dub their voices. John Abraham again proves that he is a raw piece of clay ready to be moulded by the director the way he/she wants to. My feeling is that here is an honest man who knows his limitations as a performer and respecting that very well he pitches in a performance within the boundaries of the comfort zone he shall not come out of. Brilliant. His voice is such a soother that I will not be surprised if he is roped in for more suthradhars or voice overs. Rich.

Seema Biswas, Raghuvir Yadav, Cerson Da Cunha, Vinay Pathak, Manorma show it's so pejorative calling them character actors for without them the movie would look a tad incomplete. Seema Biswas in her silent and subdued role conveys what sound-barrier breaking harangue cannot do. Thanks to Shekhar Kapur for discovering her. Good such people aren't offered more stuff because their absence only makes me crave them more. Ditto for Vinay Pathak. He proves a small theory of mine that actors who are good at comedy can do great justice to all other emotions and can leave one spellbound. Manorma with her potrayal makes you hate Madhumati and you only end up hating her.

For all those cineastes who believe that cinema is primarily a visual medium and all follow, this is a spectacle. I have always been in awe of Giles Nuttgens right since his Fire days, and he shows that the Director of Photography needs to be close to, if not, the alter ego of the director. Deepa Mehta sticking to him for years now only ratifies that. Never before has a film looked so heavenly in natural light. For those who believe that monsoons heighten the visual effect, Water shows that sunlight if utilised properly, can match up too. By restricting themselves to stable trolly movements and by not resorting to any camera callisthenics, Giles Nuttgens and Deepa Mehta do us a favor. The focus is more on the lighting to aid the storytelling than kinetics that would distract us. Good cinema is also about that. Aspiring filmmakers would do well to watch the film for this is a textbook in cinematography at its best, if not the Bible. They would also do themselves a great service if they learn that visual chicanery is all crap if it doesnt elevate story.

A R Rahman doesnt hold our hand and take us his way with his background score, and if he did, that's manipulative for me. Good cinema is also about that. His soft, melancholic score is worth listening to.

Deepa Mehta shouldnot feel disheartened if the Academy does not look her way. She has produced such a marvel that awards dont count at all and it's as simple as that. Thanks to her for not going overboard with the period look for the sake of verisimilitude. The best and the most heartening part is this story can unfold in any era or any time and the pre-independence period feel and the look is only incidental. Her effort is commendable for she trusts rank newcomers to convey her story in this project. Though I hate doing this, I still can't resist wondering about the effect if the people who were originally touted to play the roles, Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das stayed aboard the project. Well thats in the hindsight and should be left at that. Rumors were rife way back in 2000 that Akshay Kumar was supposed to play Abraham's part and for some reason he backed out. Thank you Akshay.

Canada's envy, tch... India's loss

Unlike water which vanishes upon the slightest occurrence of heat, this eponymous wonder stays on and quite ironically, in the slow fire that Deepa Mehta fans all along.

You turn hydrophilic at the end of it. Cinematic Excellence at its best.

DOR DARSHAN

Nagesh Kukunoor, take a bow...

Firstly, thanks for those lines of Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the beginning

"Zindagi badi honi chahiye.... Lambi nahi"

You have yet again shown that to make good cinema one doesnt have to resort to extremes, and go radical. That at times the act of combining common sense with the established does take you places, letting you live your dream, whatever that dream be.

Your Dor, at the outset, was not real. I shall make no bones about it, the theme is not real. For all those who harp on realistic cinema and the goodness in it, your creation might be a shocker. What then sets apart your cinema is the execution and treatment. What is real is the treatment and the handling. The tale that you have woven is pure fantasy, and you have effectively shown that fantasies can be lapped up if the only the way you go about is convincing.

The effort that you have put in expanding your cinematic spectrum is laudable and the result is there for me to see. In all the glory and glam of Dor, I shall not forget your utterly delicious VHS-friendly Hyderabad Blues.

I know what it takes and how it feels to make the audience chortle by feeding them subtle naunces in an extremely appetising fare. Those moments of poignance, those shades of love, those outbursts of joy no matter how naive, those vents to the inner long suppressed feelings shall stay for long.

In Ayesha Takia and Gul Panag you have found two of the more fabulously eye pleasing and natural actors of recent times. Going by Ayesha's choice of films in the past, mea culpa, I have been a little uncharitable about the histrionics capability of this petite beauty. She proves me wrong. I havent seen an actor who has displayed such a gamut of emotions in a single film in a long long time. Kindly do not shed a tear if she doesnt get to lay her hands on the "Black Beauty," for they are reserved for our ladies who are bold with their infidel thoughts, and who are cash counter friendly. The amazon-beating smile on her face in the railway station when she gets to hand over the signed mercy petition to Zeenat is marvellous and I cant describe that effect enough.

Gul Panag was class apart; typified a bold, confident woman torn inside by her own insecurities and desires. That she was eye candy in a matte way enhanced the effect. She oozes that class wherein she doesnt have to thump her breast to declare her feminity or desire for respect.

You along with Sudeep Chatterjee are forgiven for getting overzealous in your attempt to be bombastic in your visual grammar. Yes the subject lent itself to some great frames which demanded some effective lighting to highlight those subtle moments and this delivered what a hundred words couldn't. The geographical demands in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan may have warranted some great visuals, and thanks for not going overboard.

Thank you for not giving Rajasthan a cottage industry look set in Film City Mumbai, or Ramoji Rao Hyderabad. I know Rajasthan with all its dryness, barren landscape and scorching sun doesnt have anything more to offer than has been beaten to death by your ancestors. It can be stiffling at times when it come to Rajasthan. Thanks for enduring so much pain in your realistic and commendable effort.

Thank you for not resorting to some farcical cliches when it came to depicting Jodhpur where most of the story unfolds. Thank you for employing a few classy cliches when required. Thanks for showing yet again that cinema, for all the realism required, cant do without some cliches.

Thank you for getting the basics right. Thank you for your honest approach.

The movie as I said was full of drama and by reining yourself at the right time, you didnt let it slip into melodrama, and in it Mr.Kukunoor, lies your success. It is this precisely this balance of yours that makes you one of those marvellous little magicians around. Thank you for dishing out such fantastic fare so pregnant with rich symbolisms, and for not insulting our intelligence.

Kudos to you and Elahe Hiptoola for constantly churning out good cinema, and I hope we dont get to see something from you that we end up getting SIC of.

and finally, thank you for Shreyas Talpade. Holy Christ! he in a magical way endears himself with nothing but sheer rawness and simplicity. My experience would have been nothing without his element to Dor. Yes I know the movie is about Meera and Zeenat, and their quest for their lost love, but pardon me if I have to select one clincher of a scene in the entire movie, it will be the bahroopiya masquerading as the police wallah. The expression on his face when he shoos away the eve teasers is worth watching, and all this is made great by the fact we know he is a rascal and truly I was left in splits. He brings in those light moments which has him cheating people and us, making merry all the time, sombre most of the time in this otherwise story of grace, dignity and selfrespect of woman.

You make him speak out and how!

There is something about his performance in the film, and I shouldnt try rationalising it.

It's beyond that.

B or not to B

I have my own reservations about Amitabh Bachchan running for the post of the highest and the most majestic seat of the Republic of India... The President


This is not to insult AB and his body of work which has been amazing so far, but in a race where there is room for "relative", Mr.Bachchan please back off. and by no means do I intend to disparage the field he comes from, as is the usual temptation.

I might be jumping the gun and for all you and I know he himself wouldn't have given a serious thought to this.

If diplomatic skills, vast experience at the international level mean anything and are deemed prerequisites for the post, then my candidate is Shashi Tharoor

I am sure the fact that Shashi Tharoor was a contender for the post of the UN secretary general and that he waxes eloquent about a multitude of topics should do him no bad.

Good Friday

Pavan Malhotra...Aditya Srivastava...Hussain Zaidi...Bombay... 1993... News Today... India Today... Sync sound... hidden cameras... Mid Day... dingy bylanes of Bombay... Vijay "Dawood Ibrahim" Maurya... Anurag Kashyap, the writer...



Blue filters... Stock Exchange, Air India blasts... no-holds-barred dialogue... the chapter format... real video footage... Anurag Kashyap, the Director...


Indian Ocean...


Nataraja Subramaniam...Kay Kay Menon...



and the Yeda Yakub Steadycam chase on the pipeline











all the gore, and the grit... gut churning factual orgy finally lead to a day that ultimately proved to be a Good Friday for me, personally.

VISHAL & BARDWAJ

Okay, that typo and a desperate pun notwithstanding which will have the showman squirm no end, I declare my love yet again for this wonder.
Where the hell was he all this while? Why did it have to be a 2001/2002 for him to bloom on 70mm?
What does he have for his breakfast that the bollywood kitchens seem to be out of stock of ?

He is the one I am going to watch out for for the next 10-15 years, and I am sure each of his nuggets shall slowly but surely finds its way to my DVD collection.

What a man!

Will he along with Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Anurag Kashyap, Rajkumar Hirani, Nagesh Kukunoor, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra form the cream that has honest cinematic blood flowing in its arteries? and to digress a little, why the hell cant I have more of one Mr.Vidhu Vinod Chopra? No one should have any problems if these guys are too happy counting their green bills and in the process have our movie watching sensibilities twisted and tweaked. It would be a pleasure being aboard their vehicles leading us into the worlds of disbelief and pure joy.

Has it meant the show is all over for the pretentious scums who seem to have infested the cinematic space robbing us of the pure magic that cinema was all and should be about?

Oye! BC

This one's no advertisement for Sehwag, only a exercise in wonder yet again, as to how champions perform when they have people and quite ironically their own fans breathing down their neck, and breathing fire.

What do you do? What does one do ? How different will he be this time around when the neck is upon the altar? Its tempting to say that it's all in the mind. Well it could be, but is that all? Will the paddle sweeps change, or will the intensity of that slash cut get diluted in the process of appeasement?

Again quite ironically you would be playing to the same galleries that were agog a while ago, and now they are gunning for you. Where were those wagging tongues when you gave them joy no matter how flawed the execution was, or gave them their paisa vasool and in the process shredding conventional manuals to pieces? How do you answer? How does one answer? For the junta, sadly it's the results that counts and one has to live with it.

This is not about a certain Sehwag or a certain Tendulkar at all. If one looks closer, it could conveniently and with no guilt be extended to a whole lot of people we come across whose crime is that in their success they have given people hope and raised a few expectations.

It doesnt matter what you want. It doesnt matter what you do. It doesnt matter what you go through. It doesnt matter by what margin you lose. In the end it's the result.

While this freaky chakra of expectations and realisations continues, here's an imaginary quote from Sehwag, when a scribe poses a query regarding his "approach". This one's a little tangential.

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Times Now: "Viru, what have you got up your sleeve this time around? Now that you have been bestowed another chance to cement your position in the team, what is your strategy? You must be worried."

Viru: Up my sleeve tho maine phir se slash cut maarni hai. Yeh psychology and sports management principles kuch nahi hota.. sab BC bakwaas hai... mujhe tho bas field par jaana hai, gendh dekhni hai, aur bas thokna hai... Maine nahi badalna... BC, yeh sab bakwaas hai... Worried aur main? arrey koi nahi yaar... Bas lassi peeni hai, kheer khaani hai, do chaar paraanthe aur achaar ke saath, makkan maarke aur bas... BC, is baar tho bas ch**na hai. Dally (Delhi; rhymes with tally, pally) ke liye hameshaa aise karta aaya hoon aur BC, aisa hi karna hai maine.

Run of Hutch

I wonder at times if people's best piece of work can become their biggest albatross, a yardstick so difficult to match up to that you are left in despair. True, you have upped the ante and done well at that, but if you dont "better" it no matter how conscious you are not to get typecast and repeat it, be ready to face the sword.

Rahman's "best" piece of work will always be his first pan-india film, Roja and all the work that has come after is "not upto the mark"... Live with it Allah Rakha...

I could go on and on... what I had intended to start this piece with was a comment on the Hutch pug campaign. For all its marvellous work, Hutch has always steered clear of pugs after that Goa TVC which had Prakash Varma and Danny Pope in an awesome form. The visual imagery and the haunting track would linger for long. A cult you could call. Steadycam has never looked so good on an ad. Slow and sauntering. What I have realised that it has set a benchmark for all the ads made in India. Pepsodent, Ariel, Chocoliebe(Perfetti) commercials just being some examples and I could easily quote some more if not for my poor memory that fails me at the right time.

Now every tom, dick and harish worth his namak on the tellytube wants Digital Intermediate for his ads and rarely are there any ads that aren't touched up. Blame Hutch for that! Post Production studio chaps all happily running away to the banks.

Strangely even Hutch seems to have realised that Pug comm its USP atleast when it comes to grabbing eyeballs and reverted to the theme albeit in different formats. All the slick quick edit campaigns with Delhi marathon with amazing photo mosaics and good voice overs in Raghuveer Yadav and earthy yet classy Irrfan "chota recharge" Khan seem to be pheeka now. So much for creativity and being unformulaic.

So till the next god in the ad world wakes from his slumber, we shall happily chant

"You and I in this beautiful world...
Green grass Blue skies...

You and I......."

Bangalore Saddamned

It pains me to no extent to see the ever gullible youth being misled into thinking and doing something that is projected as divine and pro religion. Yesterday's violence in some sensitive pockets of Bangalore a case in this point. While it is one thing fighting for ideologies no matter how unreal and impractical it might seem to the cynical world, it's all together a different thing to watch hooligans do something which they should be ashamed of.

I was witness to the sight of some YLTs (Young Little Things) bundled into vans and buses all holding placards "supporting" Saddam; all this made worse by the fact that these young dudes were howling at passers by and sporting dirty smiles on their faces. So much for ideology!

My heart also reaches out for those innocent souls who could have or would have fallen prey, resources included, to the nonsensical and absolutely irresponsible hooliganism of the fanatic bastards.


These bastards dont deserve to be alive...

Respect for individual and life has no meaning in India, tch, so said my BIL.

So true.

Shiv Seniks no matter how fundamentalist they appear, should be allowed to take over, so has always said my appa. I opposed him for long.

I was silly.

BIG BROTHEL

grapevine has it that Miss Shetty pockets anything close to GBP 150000 for all the ordeal that she endures in the UK now...


holy christ! for that amount I would take racism or anything of any kind anywhere...



Psst: Miss Shetty denies the racism charge when the reports came in last.

Well Urned

I realise it's a tad late but I might as well do it... Chronicle it for I want to look back at it years from now, and feel good about the fact I was there as it unfurled in front of me... Also the fact that there have very been very few moments in the history that I can claim to have been a witness of...so this one's special

Yes!!! I was there when this bunch of stars which includes my all time favourite spin doctor boxed the English men out of the kangaroo land by hitting where it mattered the most... Down Under


Even the staunchest of Barmy Army dudes would agree...

epicurus

I know I havent lived in Bangalore long enough to comment on its food scene, but the past twelve months' experience qualifies me to hazard one...

long ago and not so long ago, Bangalore and it's counterpart Hyderabad used to abound in what were called the Kamats and Shanbhags... those remnants of a beautiful era gone by, and sad, they have to be addressed as remnants... where men in white who waited the tables were more than anything else, smartly and neatly dressed and by the virtue of which were qualified to wait the tables... ask those Murthys, Sharmas, Mantripragadas, Rangaswamys, Raos and those dozens of Kannada, Telugu Brahmins who swore by it and by those tumblers of filter coffee... these places were the perfect addresses for the old world charm which is an oasis now... the chutneys and sambars would be gorged and gulped by gallons and these good men were only too happy to refill those perfect round vessels every time they went dry... the tables were clean and simple... no frills no jazz, and sometimes the better off ones in slightly upmarket areas were well cushioned... but all in all simplicity was the theme... this extended to the lighting as well... these were also the addresses for a few maddos like us of K-Circle, whose BBbath guzzling activities were meant to be witnessed... Quite sadly these are disappearing from the scene... they are far and few between in Hyderabad and it isnt much different in Bangalore... while a few Kamats can be spotted, Shanbhags, I fear are dinosaurs now... Masala Dosas would never appear that perfect brown, and roasted to perfection... or wait!

Circa '96 and '97....Bangalore was witnessing a mini revolution which later took Hyderabad by storm... these guys from northern Karnataka simply rewrote the rules what with their Darshinis and Sagars... get in Shiv, Sukh, Krishna, Sudha, Mayura to add to the names and more often than not you had names of the hotels that were literally a combination of any of these with darshinis and sagars as the tail... kind of incestuous, I must add... others stood up to their success stories, and quite literally... out went the chairs and the tables... people had to make do with round tables and some of which were attached to the walls, albeit in different shapes!!! you were the king if you could elbow your way out into the middle and find a place for yourself... the focus was on fast food(no, not the food we have come to associate that phrase with), okay quick food... where there was no time to reminisce the good days of The Indian Express or the Sudha Raghunathan concert at RangaShankara... eat and leave!... the prices were competitive and one didnt mind loosening the wallets for one got one's money's worth... quite a fatal blow to relatively high brow Kamat brethren, who came at a premium... the other aspect that interested a lot of folks was the fact that most of the fare was made could be witnessed, barring a few exceptions... again more often than not the focus was on cleanliness and promptness...
they were big enough to accommodate the Aryan food as well and may be, just may be the success of these places could be attributed to this...


somewhere in between were squeezed the small time players, who faded slowly into oblivion... these were the Gururajs and Raghavendras and the like... these were characterised by huge sign boards with huge embossed name plates adorning the entrances... these led to the cash counters that stocked apart from the obvious, a pack of Bournvita, a small charity box, a small case loaded with vadas and Mysore Paks... not to forget, the huge Raghavendra Swamy laminations that decorated the walls with their multicolored serial lights... they could be regarded as the poor man's Kamats and catered to the basic instincts of their clientele, culinary of course... they can still be spotted in small towns, mostly temple towns... wooden tables with flat perfectly rectangular uncushioned sofas, typified these joints...

no elaborate menus, the options were limited and could be rattled off by the waiter faster than the TGV...


the general feel that I get about Bangalore is that here people love to eat out... and I repeat, Bangaloreans love to eat out... there is absolutely no reason required for them... a general feel good factor prevails about this eating out phenomenon... men and women in all sizes and shapes and all counts of teeth come out and simply enjoy themselves... and it doesnt bother them if they have ordered Upittu or a Rava Dosa or a Kara Bath or a Chow Chow Bath for the evening, something which they would have eaten the same morning at their own places... and which by no means is a speciality for them... the feel good factor also percolates right down to the food and the decor... the biggest draw is the way food is served on a banana leaf that just takes the gastronomic experience to altogether a different level... right time for this? quite obviously the breakfast time... the food is almost always served in the most perfect manner and the visual satisfaction cannot be discounted... the decorations and the embellishments are all trademark Bangalore, to the extent of serving a bhelpuri with coconut gratings and groundnuts... the Grant Road, Matunga, Mahalakshmi, Dadar citizens would die of a heart attack...


ignore the carts that sprout as the dusk sets in and that rule late into the night at your own risk... take them for no dingy places... they serve the most sumptuous and quite surprisingly neat fare that you could lay your hands on... and may be these dudes want themselves to be taken seriously for their prices are quite high... end result? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... the civics, the wagon-Rs, the altos in the bylanes of Jayanagars and Malleswarams would vouch for that... car seva anyone?


then there are the Little Italys, the Mast Kalandars, the Grameens, the Olive Orchards, the Civets of JP Nagars, Indiranagars, Koramangalas, and the ITPLs... these are essentially heavy on your purse and that goes without saying... each one tries to carve a space for itself in the junta's minds with food that is meant to be different, esoteric at times...

tucked away in those little pockets of Bangalore are also the ghee stores that double up as idli vada stalls and like I said they are meant to be ghee stores that also sell coffee powder... quite mindboggling... items of breakfast double up as the savories for snack time with a few changes here and there... so dont be surprised if you find Janaki Hegdes or Prashant Gowdas ordering idlis at 6.00 in the evening something which would be met with a chee chee in Hyderabad ( "aur kuch nahi mila be khaane ku... item yeh kya khaara re... item hai kya"), a phenomenon Bangalore can afford to call its won... Madras comes close, I reckon...


Bangalore is not short of any Andhra style chains that probably would have made more moolah here than what they would have in their native... the non-veg delicacies served at Mayuras, Bheemas and Nandinis are touted to be part of folklore out here...

speciality ice cream shops that whip up the best of cold stuff money could buy here and with zany names attached to them, could be found at places deemed important...

messes both North Indian style and the southern could be easily spotted and my theory on how to spot and differentiate a North Indian customer from his southern counterpart all by just the eating habits with a special note on the Bengal species will form another post... coming soon

cuisines from all corners of the globe find themselves represented at some do or the other in Bangalore and speciality restaurants aren't any less...


all in all Bangalore is a paradise for gourmets and gourmands alike, quite a far cry from my Hyderabad (sad to say that as we do not want to budge from the plates that serve biryani and khubani ka meetha) dishing out stuff for all ages, colors, purses and ultimately doing best in what it can... keep up the feel good factor...


Red Herring: the diameter of the Masala Dosa is shrinking by the day out here and at a rate faster than my girth size... while I see my girth shrink stop at a point, the Masala Dosa refuses to stop, quite disproportionately to the cost... be warned, my dear budd from Ypsilanti, these round small wonders threaten to disappear before I count all odd numbers from 1 to 10 starting with 3, and remember, you read it here first... trust me, next time you come down here you shall be treated to such fantastic fare, you will refuse to leave these shores again, maa kasam...

Unreal Estate

what's with these tv channels and the print magazines that seem to have run out of their creative juices of late ? Not that the juices had been overflowing in the first place... but the scene looks parched quite clearly... and it's quite disturbing no hyperbole that...

dont we deserve much better? one look around and it could be noticed that the media abounds in stories and features on either or almost all of the following, and the latter is more likely...

an annual states and CM's survey to begin with on a "serious" note and if the press wallah had the balls not to suck up to some political bigwig's derriere, a report card on the PM and extend it further, the Italian of the East too...

ten best towns to live in, ten big stocks to go in for, ten best shopping malls, ten best lingerie brands, and for me the ultimate annual farce--- the best MBA schools... as if the b-schools produce some ground breaking results in those twelve months that warrants a groundbreaking survey which have these schools fall down a few notches or rise up and raise the bar!!! what have we here? a column or two from the experts, get in an aspiring i-banker who is in the 0.001 of the cream after having been culled and chaffed from the lesser mortals, page or two on the occidental biggies and how we differ from them, and the yes that proposition that all this holy farce revolves around... placements and more placements... of day zeroes to PPOs... it's definitely not a case of sour grapes and good for the people who go through it... but the way our fourth estate goes on about it, with either TRPs on more circulation in its minds, drives me up the wall

the most powerful people, the most powerful people in the industry, the most powerful people in Bollywood... the usual suspects? an ambani here, a mittal there, a chopra here, a king khan there... throw in a Mazumdar, a Reddy, a Jain, a Nooyi for the balance... yes read on, in short well framed boxes adjoining the well framed photos, about their work ethics, their favorite cigar brand, their penchant for big wheels, if they like set curd or a loose one...


do a cover on a one film wonder only to be ripped apart later when the junta doesnt want to go ga ga anymore for they have found another wonder... what a blunder!!!

steam up the scene a bit... do the annual sex survey... tell us how we like to kiss our spouses... which side of the bed should we be waking up on to find our mates more appealing... bring in statistics from the surveys you have carried out in bhatinda, kanpur, jhansi, lucknow, asansole, bhilai, tirupur, alleppey, vijayawada, surat and shimla...tell us there has been a revolution of sorts in the years gone by, when we have become more open and have warmed ourselves to the idea of erotica in open and the age of coming out of the closets... tell us atleat 34% of the respondents wants its share of extramarital flings... tell us people are no more "shy" to ask for their strawberry flavored latex.. or is it vanilla? gothilla... then as a tail piece get an NGO to pen something on AIDS awareness and the need for sex education right from primary school level and carry out an opposing piece, all worthy of a debate, to balance it out... balance it out??? when all the titillation and sales factor is taken care of???? make no mistake, i am no prude, and for all my openness in the real sense of the word, I find it quite disgusting to take this pre-chewed-ill-packaged fare ... sorry I cant digest that


ok ok i forgot... the annual car survey... how we have moved on from our and the best source of nirvana in 1993, the Zen and are ready to lap up the maseratis, the endeavours, the camrys and the hummys... how Chunkey Pandey still likes his 95' Landcruiser and watch Upen Patel and Queeny Dhodie debate over whether automatic transmission or not? what to expect in the Fall '07 and '08 with all the letters in the English alphabet turning out to be insufficient to describe the mushrooming segements in cars... and ha yes ! how on earth could I forget Rajinder Puri with his piece on his first and beloved '800 and how he has had to be on the waiting list for aeons and among the first few to be handed over the keys by a certain Kapil Paaji...

give us all "the milestones of the decade", "the milestones of the millenium", " the red letter days".... get in all here again...through a lensman's eyes.... the freedom struggle , the hoisting of the flag on the ramparts of the red fort, the first annual budget, Appu'82, Lord's 83 and punch in the line "when david downed goliath", Maruti Udyog, Indira behinds the shades, Milkha Singh, P T Usha, a saffron clad NTR atop his Ratham and fighting for our aatmagauravam, the ushering of new age soft gloss ads of the 80s, , Ravi Shastri in the best of lankiness with his audi and irritatingly audible now, show the boost boy in his first roots and branches of moustache, still wet behind his ears gearing up to W & W....have P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in a single frame and laud them for their liberal thoughts, the Sriperumbudur'91 massacre, the gargantuan barjatya monster HAHK with an olive green clad Dixit showing a well etched posterior to the devar deewana, walk us up through the streets of Bombay of '93 and remind us of the ghastly blasts... oh it's '98 now... tell us how a chubby lad with johar for a surname has "revolutionised the economics of Indian Cinema and changed its face forever", with his in-your-face Polos, DKNYs, cool bracelet offerings all the while have us chant Om Jai Jagadeesh Hare and Vandemataram, stoking our patriotic flame... oh it's also '98 now... time to get a little serious, balance it, right? show us a Kalam and Vajpayee in their red caps and battery of officials and scientists going nuclear,,, Buddha is definitely smiling... the dotcoming of age of the net in '00 and ever so cool hotmail Bhatia, ... it's '00 and '01 -- dish out a little on the booming sunrise sectors IT and ITES nah BPO for us... tell us the spending patterns and ever so burgeoning disposable incomes Pharma, you can wait... '02 ,yes we stand up to the shirt whirling dada in the balcony again... the years pass by... tell us about the real estate of Bangalore and Gurgaon and Noida and show us the best abodes money can buy in Amby Valleys and Puravankaras... or sorry reserve that for "the ten best homes you should see"


carry out a special on good things in life, we are so starved for them... the best perfumes, villas, sarongs, the hot haute, the pret-a-porter lines, the best of art(it's such an investment thing now) get in anjali ela menons and gujrals to talk art... the islands we shouldnt miss, the best of casinos...


it's time to get serious again... carry a special on money matters and how serious life insurance business is now... talk of investment options and the need for your child's secure future... tell us what the experts have to say... give us cosy pictures of couples and families from Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Cochin, Jamshedpur and tell us how they have sailed through their tough times... get in Mahesh Bhupathi, Suniel Shetty, Annu Mallieek, Gufi Paintal and have the experts in them tell us what to do and how they manage their finances or dont...


yes, those urban phenomena that come with a regularity of a Hailley's comet and change the face of the world as we know it... use juicy acronyms, DINK (Double Income No Kids) ABCD (American Born Confused Desis), KANK.. tell us the world is not the same after what they have told us... atleast not after KANK...


tell us about the feel good factor prevalent all over.... rehash the same stuff... old wine, older bottle... get Dr.Balasubramanian, Mahesh Bhatt, Shobhaa De in... also give us an insight of what Diya Mirza and Chunkey Pandey think of "the decline of communism in China and Russia and it's global implications"...


it's that time of the year again... get serious again... annual best colleges survey... quite earth shattering!!!


ok ok the best hits of the year so far... why? it's June, Joneses... the blockbuster time... tell us the hits so far and the misses so far.. tell what to expect in the coming months and how crores ride on such films... tell us what taran adarsh, amod mehra think of them... do a special on the "new breed of bollywood" and do wonderful boxes on choreographers, cinematographers, hotshot editors, and publicity designers... it's perfectly okay by us if it's not a serious article as long as the spice factor is taken care of, we can gulp it down...


matter for the mind?... what's that??? below the belt ... hmmm that's like it!


my intention is definitely not to sound cynical here but going by the trend and that which is unlikely to change, there's no choice... and I haven't dared getting into that dirty zone called TV channels and P3P and I better stop here...

"for those yearning for some good stuff there's always Reader's Digest na!!"


yes, my ultimate source of credibility and magical realism, of hope, of joy, of inspiration, of mega tonnes of laughter, of the connect, of the belief, of craziness, of LIFE and of again loads of laughter...Reader's Digest... I am afraid the rate at which it also is changing, it might cease to be...

and that's no good Final Condensation, Mr.Wallace

of teental and strums-2

nah! i am not bitten by the sequel bug prevalent now, it's just a recall of my earlier piece on how magical the strings-on-the-percussion combo is and something which could turn mundane, dry tracks into music for ears (pun intended)


for the two marvellous tracks "tere bina" and "ay hairathe" and that out-of-this world operatic piece "jaage hain" many thanks...

for the almost orgasmic, close to mesmerising and intoxicating backing vocals on ay hairathe, many thanks...

for pushing the envelope yet again effectively, and smartly, many thanks...

so what if it might not be heard on the disc spinning trance techno club spurting pubs, and mofussil orchestras, many thanks...

for a work that truly grows on you and lives with you as years pass by, many thanks...




truly you are an Allah Rakha...

Hyderabad Hues

no sooner had I stepped out of the picturesque station, than I was besieged by an army of autowallahs...

"Lodge" asked one...

"Kahan ko jaana saab" questioned the other...

"aaoo baitho"!...

Armed with a confidence that I would get a fair deal further ahead, I marched... in despair.

Within that short walk of mine, I began to notice something... the autos were looking fat, obese and yellow!!! that was quite a departure from the prim prom counterparts of Bangalore...

was the color of an auto coloring my tastes and opinions?? had Bangalore taken over?

and within that short span of time, I wondered if I had changed... if I had started already unbelonging... One of my buddies had also the same complaint... I had no answer then...

cut to the present... I was losing my patience and an autowallah managed to convince me... the auto had moved a small distance and the conversation started..

"kahan chodna saab DSNR mein?"...

"Chaitanyapuri"

"One and half dedo saab"

"Kaiku"?

"Return khaali aana padtha saab"?

"Return khaali kaiku aathe?? bada centre hai naa... dekho! naye aaye so logon ku bolo yeh sab... chaubees saalon se jeere yahaan... yahi bade hue"


The auto dude went silent... and all I could hear was the revving Bajaj engine

WOW... I was jubilant... for a guy who becomes tongue tied at the right moment and just gives in to the demands of others to keep it going and to retain the good will, this was a surprise...


I wanted to shout out loud...


Maaki kirkiri

pick '06

here's my pick of the year, that has been cinematically really good so far, and he descends only in December.


Omkara
Rang De Basanti
Lage Raho Munnabhai


Rang De Basanti just swept me off my feet and went on to become a cult, a well deserved status. Take a bow Rakesh Mehra for the sheer gumption... Aks wasn't a flash in the pan...


Lage Raho Munnabhai had Raju Hirani in an amazing form, continuing from where he had left in the first installment... It just showed how a feel good fare, in the Hrishikesh Mukherjee mould, could be made without being overtly maudlin and confining syrups to medical stores... Thanks


I could talk nineteen to the dozen about Omkara and yes, I know that... and I also know I will run out of adjectives... my hero of the movie? Sorry Saif! for all your fireworks that would put the Sivakasi factories to shame, you get a consolation! It's a tie between Vishal Bhardwaj and Tassaduq Hussain... If Omkara was anything to go by, all its filial and sibling expletives notwithstanding, Vishal Bhardwaj should be one auteur to watch out for...

The magician should be smiling...