The good, the bad and the outback tour...

We have been quite busy with our life recently. Did not have much time to write. That does not mean we did not follow whatever is happening around the word. Lot of news happened. Republic day came and went. Indian test tour of Australia was more helpless than a blindman playing mahjong. Rahul baba almost came face to face with a shoe. SOPA and PIPA made news and is slowly fading away. Winter in Charlotte has been more disappointing than India’s test tour. Rahul Dravid getting out cheaply was more disappointing than Charlotte’s weather. Oh and Oscar nominations are out. 

The good part, Oscar nominations are out by the way. The nominations for best actor were worthy but three major misses there. Fassbender for Shame, Gosling for Drive and Leo for J.Edgar. And why was Meryl Streep nominated for best actress? It has become a custom to nominate her we guess. We are not telling that she is not a great actress. But Iron Lady was definitely not worth Oscar nomination. But we have heard a lot about Tilda Swanton in “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. We have not seen the movie.  But we have read so much that was a surprise to us that she was not nominated.  One thing we have noticed is, we still have not seen The Artist. The movie seems to have got rave reviews. We need to make sometime and give it a watch. Another movie being A Separation.

While talking about awards, we also want to talk about something called Ghanta awards. This for the selected "bad things" from Bollywood. Its similar to Razzies. It was needed for Bollywood. Some ‘big fans’ of some stars might get very offended. Most notably, Salman Khan fans, who think he is wonderful human being just because of “Being Human’. For those who have forgotten, Black buck, Running over people. OK back to topic. Considering that all movie awards are sham, the public needs to chose the worst of the year as well. Yes. We said public. You can vote. Check the link. Although you might feel that there are lot of “worthy” winners, just like any other award shows, you will have only five nominations. Its sad. We know. And we request that they give lifetime achievement award already to few of them.  

As we mentioned earlier, Indian cricket team was down under. World’s best batting lineup was as confused as Akshay Kumar in acting classes when they faced swing bowling. We did not have much expectation from team India. But this was beyond what we thought. Bowling was so pathetic, Ricky Ponting was brought back to form. Oh, how we wish Rahul  played against Indian bowling attack. Wait. Did we say attack? We apologize. Its bowling… umm bowling.. we dunno.. we have four or five guys acting like bowling machine to people who want to bat. If you are a generous man like Shaun Marsh, you would pity and let them feel happy for a while before the show began. The famed batting lineup stood and assessed the Australian batting.

Apart from Shaun Marsh, It was England trip all over again. But this time, even the wall failed. And we were totally not cool with it. He was the highest scorer last year and we were so excited that he will perform again. Nope. We can watch Himesh’s movies rather than watch the highlights of the tour. The count currently stands at Eight straight away losses now. As Zaltzman put it,  They were beaten like a naughty egg white. Is this the same team which was number one sometime back? We hope only way to go from here is up. Now that we have lost, shouts to remove Seniors has returned with a vengeance. They forget that Laxman played quite a few significant innings’ last year. Couple of bad series’ and you suddenly feel that he is not worth it anymore? Rahul was the top scorer in test cricket last year. One bad series and you want to remove him?

We read many articles speculating Rahul or Laxman retiring at the end of this series and we were distraught. Well, we cannot imagine a Indian Test team without Rahul Dravid. The day he retires, Indian test cricket can break the bangles and wipe off its sindhoor. But for people who talk about statistics to move seniors out, we just want to show that he has averaged less than 45 in four of last five test series. 31.5, 81.5, 34.1, 43.6 and 35.8. Does that make him eligible for our shouts for retirement? How is it that fans still vouch for him? Okay, after seeing how his fans react in cricinfo or any social network, we feel its better for us to collect some emergency supplies and some ammo or hide ourselves in some remote corner of the country in case we ask this question somewhere.

Oh leader where art thou?

December 25. We have always held this day as pretty important. Yes, Jesus Christ was born this day. But for us, there was a different reason. There was one person who has been one of our role models. A great statesman who, as far as we are concerned, was the greatest PM India has ever had. 1924 December 25. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born. We have been a huge fan ever since we started following politics. Sure India had lot of leaders with big following. But no one had that charisma, that charm or the oration skills like Atalji. He, for us, was the ideal politician. He did not have any equals. The direction Indian politics is taking, we are not sure if he ever will.

We were not there when he started his life as a politician. We were yet to be born when he made that speech in UN. We hardly could understand what is happening when Babri happened. But we were able to understand things when he became PM and the opposition brought him down only after 13 days. We, although were only 12 at that time, were very upset. Why would opposition want to bring down such a good man we thought. (We were wrong. He was not a good man. He was a great man. ) But they did succeed and behold, we had Mr. Devegowda as PM. Yes. The same politicians who did not want someone like Atalji as PM, voted for HDD. That’s politics for you. As expected, this did not last long.

Atalji did not get outright majority during next election. But he did become PM. For 13 months. As usual, nobody wants a decent man to be at the helm. Opposition brought him down again. This was the time when madam was starting to come out as a ’politician’. An effort which is still ongoing. And will go on till she retires. She is still pretty far away from the “good politician” she thinks she is. Anyway, these were eventful 13 months. This was the period of nuclear tests and Kargil. We were thrilled when we heard that we were nuclear powered nation. We had read so much about only strongest nations having this etc etc. Sure there were scientists who worked on it. But for us, it was Atalji who made it possible.

There were economic sanctions and the country did not suffer a bit. AN able leader was there to take care of the country. But there was one glitch. Lahore bus service. We deem that as the one of the two black spots in his tenure. Vying for peace is a great gesture. But somehow it did not work out. The enemy soldiers were found to have come inside our country and occupied some border posts. Operation Vijay started and ended with heavy losses to the infiltrates. But the biggest threat to the Government was Amma. She did not get the attention she was craving for and started throwing tantrums. She eventually withdrew support and elections loomed again.  

This time Indian people understood better. People voted for Atalji rather than the local contestant. There was a clear majority for Atalji led coalition and it lasted five full years. Only non-Congress Govt to do so. This was the period when we had the Flight 814 hijack. The second black spot. The External affairs minister went till the hijacked plane to escort the terrorists. Even with RSS and VHP pressing him to follow a religion based agenda, he did his best not to cave in. We did have lot of development programs and economic reforms. When the term ended, we expected Atalji to be PM again.

But sadly, people wanted to talk about ideologies and religion more than basic needs and reforms. Nobody saw the shining India. The India shining advertisement bombed big time. Madam became the puppet-master (puppet-mistress? Doesn’t sound right…) again. The party apparently blamed Atalji for the debacle as he preferred bread and butter over religion. He resigned as the leader and Mr. Advani took over. He declared in December 2005 that he will retire from politics after the term. We will stop the history lesson here. Looks like the Indian politics has never recovered from it and continues to reach new nadir everytime we think “This is it. They cannot better it”.

Atalji led the country to best of his ability. And amidst the busy life he still found time to right amazing poems. He never let the poet inside him go away. That is something we respect a lot. Lot of people comment about his drinking or his pro-Hindutva attitude. Such people never bother to look at the reforms by him as a PM or poems by him as a poet or speeches by him as an orator. Nobody is perfect. Atalji was/is not perfect. We agree. But when someone says the country is in trouble or country is going to dogs, there is only one person we would look up to. Given the scenario and politicians we have, one person can guide us. That is him. Whatever issues you want to see in him as a person, we do not care. The country misses him and needs him. It well and truly does.

PS: We normally don’t plug videos and songs in our blogs. And we are not a huge fan of channels like India TV/Aaj Tak etc. But we just could not resist this. This is a 30 min show by Live India about Atalji.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE5S2ZiEJ9k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_jk_YQsO_c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHVT_kVsFAQ&feature=related

A dirty picture and a neat match..

Ever seen a fat lady wearing a tank top and still considered sexy in a movie? Welcome to the world of south Indian cinema. We just saw a movie called “The Dirty Picture” and we were disappointed with it. No not because of plump Vidya Balan wearing such clothes. It was a disappointing movie. Our lady wanted to watch the movie. We were not much interested in watching this. Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi in a same movie? That’s like having Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty in a same movie.. Eesh.. Oh Wait.. That has happened twice already…

The movie is about rise of a village girl to stardom, her struggles in the industry and then personal relationships and how her arrogance leads her to her downfall and finally death. But sadly this does not cover anything in details. It covers all but the film still lacks something that can hold you on to it. To quote Silk ‘ Touch karta hai magar choo tha nahi.” This movie should have been a great biography because Silk’s life was pretty interesting. But instead it just ends up as a skin show by Vidya Balan. 

We do not want to take anything away from Vidya Balan. She has done a pretty significant job. We were really impressed by her acting. But somebody should have told her that being bold and taking risk does not mean skin show. There is something missing which separates this being remembered as a class apart role. We feel so much of skin show was unnecessary. We are not saying we did not like it (Oh yes we did J). Coming to another heroine of the movie, Tusshar Kapoor. We feel Ekat Kapoor gave that role only because family ties. We actually thought Tusshar would be playing Silk. Vidya Balan has pulled it off pretty well we guess.

Naseeruddin Shah is excellent as usual. As typical south Indian hero, he is wonderful. Emraan Hashmi is surprisingly adequate for the role. In fact, those moments in the movie where Abraham (Haashmi) and Silk, are the best moments of the movie. The romantic undertones are heartening to watch. We liked the chemistry between the two. And one thing not to miss is the song Ooh La La. This is like OST of the movie and Bappi da is a delight. It gives you the 80’s feel. We actually think that is the catchy song of this year. Not Kolaveri.

In other news, as we have told you earlier we are a huge FC Barcelona fan, we watched El Clasico live after a long time. And as expected we won. 3-1. It would have been a close one if Christiano Ronaldo had not missed two of the easiest chances. For someone who earns so many millions, he should have scored. We were very happy that he missed. (P.S : We hate him. A lot.) When Barca conceded a goal inside a minute, we were so shocked. That stupid pass was not expected from a keeper like Valdes. But anyway. We won and that’s what matters.

Crazy man, crazy idea and a crazily popular song

OK.. we are reaching uncharted territory here.. This is the first time ever that our blog will deal with the topic crazy and will not have anything referred to Diggy Raja. We cannot fathom this. What is this blog coming to?

First thing, being a avid social network person, we will cover/talk about Kapil Sibal. The man comes up with some crazy ideas. He came with one couple of days back. He wants to screen the user contents posted in social network sites. Yes, democracy and free speech.. You can go f*** yourselves.  We want to post this before Kapil Sibal reads this and attacks our house. During his display of blatant sycophancy to madam, showed the real reason why he was upset. Somebody had mad fun of madam. How can someone stand it? Someone like Madam being made fun of. Come on now. Such people should be shot.. So he wants to ban everything and everyone that makes fun of the Government. Sure, the performance has been poor. Sure, there have been more scandals than money in Reddys' account. But that does not mean you make fun.  

We thought we already had a law where people will be tried if they post/spread anything that hurts religious sentiments and/or is obscene. Wasn’t that enough? Why would you want to stop people from expressing their feelings? There will be some people who behave like black sheep of the family. But they can be tried with the existing laws we have. Why would you act like an idiot and do what Kapil Sibal just did? To gain madam’s favour? Isn’t that pathetic? But looks like that’s how Madamji and baba want. Lick the boots and climb the ladder. Sheesh. They have a topic trending in twitter. #idiotkapilsibal. We request you to trend it even more. Thanks.

Now we will come to another sycophant. Another crazy person. Well Crazy is an understatement. We will just give you two words. No not Diggy Raja. This time it is, Janardhana Poojary.  If you know all the hoopla around Kukke Subramanya and made snana, you will love to hear what he said about it. Look, personally we are not a big fan of rolling on plantain leaves which have remains of somebody else’s meal. But if people feel good by thinking that it might help them with their luck, fortune, go ahead. Roll all you want. Its your choice. Nobody is forcing it on you. Why make a big fuss if its one’s own choice? We do not get it. To top it, in a move to make people stop, Mr Poojary went ahead and showed a gallant middle finger to Science and medicine. He declared “you can get AIDS because of made snana ”. We end the topic here. We are afraid we might wet ourselves by laughing hard.

Now coming to the third crazy. The song. Why this Kolaveri di? We liked this song when it started making the rounds. Then it became tad irritating with the repeats and retweets  around. Then different versions started making the rounds. Now even some kid has sung it. We don’t like the way people try to cash in. Sure the original version was catchy. But that is enough. We cannot stand it anymore. It is like that annoying song by James Blunt again. Good song ruined by too much publicity.

And here is the sad story of the week. Saddest story from the day we started this blog. The evergreen hero of Bollywood, someone who we thought will forever be there and be young, passed away. Dev Anand is no more. The word evergreen can now be retired with Shammi Kapoor and Dev sahib gone. He was a huge part of our hostel life. We always heard so many songs and hummed so many of them along witwe felt he was a part of us. But look how lucky Rafi is. When Shammi ji passed away, people were listening to Rafi. Now when Dev Sahib are no more, people are listening to Rafi again.

This year seem to be horrible for good celebrities. Shammi Kapoor, Bhimsen Joshi, Jagjit Singh, Bhupen Hazarika and now Dev Anand. Its like God has forgotten that we have many politicians around. Come on big guy… Takes some for the nation. It will do us a world of good.

Functions, Idli Manchurians and a great writer…

We know. We know. We have been quite irregular for past few months. We are currently on vacation in India. We traveled to US two years ago and this is our first trip back to India since. We were obviously pretty excited to come home. After a long flight, we finally reached Bangalore via Paris. Our lady had already traveled to India sometime back to be with her mother. We thought many changes would have happened here in two years. We were right. Except Bangalore traffic that is. Still, home sweet home. Two years away would mean catching up about what has happened in two years and delightful homemade food as well. As you would agree, It’s a wonderful time.

The reason we came to India was that our brother, of whom we had written sometime back, finally jumped into the well. Yes. He got married. How can we miss it? The function and all the poojas that came with it went fine. There was the Naandi at tenth and marriage on 14^th. It was fun. Its always fun to see another guy jump to the same well. Since we were family, we had the front row seat as well. We took three weeks of to be here. Now that marriage is over and the newlyweds have traveled to Kashmir for their first trip together, we are spending some quality time with family. Our home town has not changed much in past two years. It’s pretty much the same buildings and same environment.

Since we had quite a bit of free time we went around the little city and watched lot of TV as well. The stupid TV shows have become even more stupid. And lot of reality shows to add. One delight we want to mention is Chintu TV. It shows various animated shows dubbed in Kannada. Sure we can laugh at the voice overs and the accents they use. But we strongly feel that it is a great development to entertain the kids in regional language. We hope it stays and grows and rivals the best in business.

Also, on TV we saw a live interview of SL Bhyrappa. We have been endorsing him for quite some time. We feel he is greatest writer in India currently and one of the greatest ever in India. Sure there are some people criticizing him due to their limited thought process. Some people who have not achieved much in literary world as they actually think they have, tend to make a hoopla to get some publicity. Add some famous names to support these voices, and you see why SLB has been missing on Jnanapeetha till now. He has been the best selling author for decades and yet, he keeps missing it. If URA, Karnad and Kambara can get it,  why not SLB? We hope it changes soon. Saraswati Samman is a good start.

We will end this on a lighter note. We, with our lady, had gone out for dinner with the newlyweds. We knew Indians are good at adapting. But we saw what we can call a new level of adaptation. We all know Gobi Manchurian is a very popular food item. We also know Idli is considered world’s best breakfast item by South Indians. What if you want to eat Manchurian but don’t want to miss the goodness of Idli. Fear not. Hotel Hariprasad in Puttur has an anwer. Idli Manchurian. We had our mind blown when we read it. What ingenious mind came up with this? To top it, next item was Chinese bhel. Talk about Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai. We also want to mention the items were not as bad as we thought it would be. We were left to wonder what will be the next big thing. Dimsum vada pavs? Pooris with Kung Pao veggies? Masala Dosa with duck sauce? We eagerly await…

We are back....

Aah yes.. We are back.. After a month long hiatus. We were little busy with our family and work. We will try to be more regular. Gosh.. how long has it been since we wrote? India were number one team,  Yeddi was still the CM, Reddys were ruling, Anna was on hunger strike, Amar Singh was a free man, Diggy Raja was the craziest politician.. Whew boy. World has changed hasn’t it? India were made to drop their pants and given sound thrashing by Pommies. Except Rahul that is. Yeddi and Reddy are both are going down fast. Reddy’s are already inside. Amar Singh supposedly has mental issues, Anna is hero for few not so much for some others.. Everything has changed. Except Diggy. He rules doesn’t he? With a crazy heart pumping crazy blood and crazy brain with crazy thoughts and a crazier iron fist. He rules.

What did we do last month? So many walks, won the Charlotte cricket cup (we were MOM in finals. Ahem.) Went for a long drive to Miami and Key West, got the house cleared of bedbugs, cooked some delicacies, watched some movies, and worked our ass off, watched loads of TV etc. We did think of writing but then decided not to. Don’t think we are apologizing.

We read about this Tomatina festival being arranged in Bangalore. We were so astounded and pissed off at the same time. How much can you try to emulate other cultures? Did some people lose their commonsense somewhere in MG road while marching and shouting slogans for Anna? A huge waste of money we feel. Is this organized by some morons who were “inspired” by what they saw in ZNMD? Why waste so much money on an event like this? Why can’t they ask people to donate the whole amount?  Why throw tomatoes at each other? What do they mean when they say “we make sure tomatoes are not edible but not rotten”? What kind of tomatoes are they? One of my friends made a wonderful statement. “I want to see coconutina. No wastage only cleanup”. True. We would pay to see that.

There was also this news about Kannada movie star Darshan. We read and thought WTF. Challenging star has become mentally challenged star. And his fans have truly behaved like how a mentally challenged fans should. I’m sorry but in what world is he innocent? Why would throw stones are vehicles and protest against arresting a guy who abused his wife and kid?  And Kannada movie Industry heads were even more thoughtful. He had an alleged affair with another actress and tortured his wife and kid. What’s the most reasonable thing to do? If you answered ban the “other” girl from movie industry. Way to go. You can be next president of kannada movie industry’s association. They had to take it back because of the doyenne of Sandalwood, Mrs Parvathamma Rajkumar (Not to be confused with Hindi Daayan).

The last news we have for today is about our all time favourite cricketer. Rahul Dravid is playing his last international limited over match. We are sad that he is retiring. We wanted him to go on and on. But we are going to console ourself with the fact that he can now concentrate on the best cricketing arena, tests. He has not been the greatest ODI player. Agreed. But is truly one of the game’s greatest because how much he has contributed to the success of Indian team. We are going to forgive him on 2007 world cup . One request to Dhoni. You people won a world cup for Sachin. Just win one friggin’ match. It’s his last game and Indian cricket owes it to him.

Alas, the lucky bastard is still alive..

Finally the last movie of Harry Potter franchise released after much hoopla. Everyone raved about it and wherever we read we found good reviews about the movie. We, being a fan of the HP universe, had to watch this movie. We just had to. We were not expecting much from the movie after reading the book. We were disappointed about how the story ended. How is it that a boy who can get beaten up in every Chloromint commercial beat the greatest wizard of all time? How much luck does a nerdy pasty looking teenager need to beat the person who was supposed to be the lord of the entire universe? Yes. We are Dark Lord’s followers. We hate the potter kid. We were a huge follower of Severus Snape when he was mean to Potter.  He was number one in our favorite list. Once we realized that he tried to save the boy, we had to move him out to second position. We still like Snape for the six and a half books were he was mean to him. 

Everyone starts their review or blog talking about Harry or Voldemort. We will not. We will start with one person who made it possible for us to watch all the movies. One person who we admire. It’s Alan Rickman. We hereby acknowledge Alan Rickman’s contribution to make Snape look so evil as the best part of Harry Potter series. Ever since we heard the line “Clearly Fame isn’t everything” we had sworn our allegiance to Snape. No one else could have portrayed the role better. It has to be one of the most marvelous roles we have seen. Role of a life time even. He made us like Snape more than the Dark lord himself.  Also, don’t forget that Snape gave Potter the ultimate bitch slap even when he was dying. His last words to potter were about “mother’s eyes”. If you know Hindi, you know what he actually meant.

OK now we will get back to the movie. What can you notice from Harry Potter movies? Apart from the fact that the Harry Potter is more nerdy looking than JK Rowling wanted him to be. Everyone can agree that there is only one point to note. Emma Watson is hot. She is. And she does not disappoint in this movie either. It was sad that she got that ginger haired whiny one as a boyfriend. You will also notice that the story/movie becomes increasingly adult oriented as the story progresses. It still has the fun fantasy parts for the kids but it’s very hard to ignore the backdrops of mature/adult themes. No We are not talking about shakeela type adults. You know, normal adult types. Love and feelings etc whatever ruins a normal teenager’s life.

The movie as any normal part two would, starts where the first one ends. Voldemort gets the elder wand. The movie shows you how three horcruxes are destroyed (The cup, the diadem(What the hell is a diadem), the snake) and how Harry being one horcrux sacrifices himself. But sadly he comes back and in what is one of the most shittiest endings in movie history, defeats the Dark Lord. We were so pissed with the ending. We will not tell you how it happens. Don’t beam that you have read the book. You would be upset too. The director tried to save few minutes and some million dollars worth of effects we guess. But it’s sad. Even sadder than the fact that the Potter boy survives.

We don’t like Potter. But that is not why we would say Daniel Radcliffe is not that good an actor. He just doesn’t cut it for us. The fact that he has to share screen with likes of Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes  definitely does not help him. Rupert Grint even though twice as annoying, turns out to be the best of the trio. Emma Watson is hot. We will not say anything more. Neville is heroic which is refreshing to see after being the comic relief for most part of the series. But show stealer as we mentioned earlier is Alan Rickman. That guy looks like he was born to portray this role. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort is wonderful as usual. It’s hardly surprising actually. He played Amon Goth in Schindler’s list after all. The scenes where he faces Harry, he outshines the boy pretty easily.  

The movie for most part was pretty impressive. We are not telling this because we are a fan. Except for third and fourth movie, we liked all others a lot. Now we have another reason to hate the fourth movie. It has that vampire Edward in it. Although he dies, we still don’t like it very much. OK what we were talking about was the graphics and the adventurous mode of all the movies. Aided by excellent supporting cast, the movie is a visual delight to watch. Even this movie doesn’t disappoint. The dialogues make you chuckle at times and  there’s Emma Watson. The movie cannot disappoint. Till the end comes that is. Voldemort’s last moments are pretty poorly covered. No thrill. Nothing. He just disappears like how originality does in Pritham’s presence.

We would rate it 4 stars out of 5. Somehow the ending ruined it from becoming one of our favourites. We seriously wish that there is one more horcrux which Rowling has not revealed yet. We are fine if there are more.