On Emotional Pornography, Cumshots & more….

This was suggested by Ranajay. Awesome Listen!! Classic!!

Interview with Dibakar Banerjee. Director of Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Dibakar does not mince words while talking about Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye and cinema in general.

This piece of discussion includes the following in order:-
-Answers to complaints about, “ story nahi hai yaar”.(There is no story)
-Emotional pornography, cumshots, corruption in audiences mind.
-Richa Chadda’s driver’s point of view.
-Enjoying films like OLLO, Black Friday
-Different audiences, different takes.
-Graph of films, behavior , characters
-Why our films are not able to capture true behavior. Why is the culture biased towards artificiality, non real behavior.
-Films do not change anything, they reflect, what exists,
-Most of the films do not work because they are not well skilled enough. Even regressive films, which are well made can be successful.
-Khosla ka Ghosla is a classic eg. of well made regressive film! How it is like ‘Trishul’.
-Films with/ without shag values.
-Why first 25 mins work and are the best part of the film.
-If you started the wanking, a cumshot is a must!
-Alternative endings of OLLO.
-Why 3 Paresh Ravals.
-Budget of OLLO.
-Money game in films, film budgets, film marketing…
-‘Didn’t have a baby because of Khosla’
-Story of casting Manjyot, Manu Rishi, Lucky big brother.
-Which dialogues are Dibakar’s and which are Manu Rishi’s.
-Left out dialogues of OLLO.
-‘NRIs go to watch NRI shaadi to cinema halls’, they are fed on regressive cinema.
-Dibakar’s sell out film…film maker’s quest for a bigger SUV, bigger flat, farm house, beach house.

Audio Piece (click link below) :

Dibakar unplugged

Kya Chootiyap Hai?

December 30th 2008, Tuesday

1952hrs , Home

Suchit : Kya Chootiyap Hai??

Vanga : Gaana Hai Yaar….

Shanty : Kya Gaana Hai Yaar!!

Avinash: Yeh Kahaan Hai? South America? Chile?

Ranajay : Middle East Hai Shayad…..

Deepak : I think its North Africa….kyun?

Avinash : Hmmm…shaayad…

Woke up at 7 am today and watched Aussies lose to Saffers. After that made some effort(workout) to achieve the golden-ratio. Re-Posted the psycho-analytical review of Ghajini on my blog. The first thing that came to my mind when I posted the review was the above conversation which we had while watching the movie. The talking point was this:

The stunning locations of this song are out of the world and featured in my dreams that night after the movie. Today I finally got time to research (nothing better to do) and find out more about that place, the place I would really want to go some day. Anyhow I thought maybe you would also be interested to find out more about the place..so here you go…….

Dead Vlei. This is what the place is called. As evident from the white surface of the place it is a clay pan located near the Sossusvlei Salt Pan, Namibia. It is part of the famous Namib Desert.

If you remember the song (or see picture on the left) you must remember the huge sand dunes ,where Aamir walks showing off his eight-pack. What were more stunning is a personal opinion (Vanga was drooling over the eight pack as far as I remember). Anyways those sand dunes are the highest sand dunes in the world. Some are as high as 300 metres.

Long long ago, believe it or not this place used to be flooded with water. Actually that is the reason for its current state. The clay pan was formed after rainfall, when the Tsauchab river flooded, creating temporary shallow pools where the abundance of water allowed camel thorn trees to grow. When the climate changed, drought hit the area, and sand dunes encroached on the pan, which blocked the river from the area. Soon there was no more water and the trees died. When you look at the  video or see pictures of those trees they appear like sets of tortured souls in the middle of nowhere. It must surely be an eerie feeling visitng the place.

You must be thinking that if the trees died so long ago, how come they are still there and didnt decompose like all organic matter usually does. The wood there does not decompose because it is too dry. What we see now are the skeletons of the trees, the trees which died about 900 years ago. They are now black because the intense sun has scorched them over hundreds of years.

If you might have noticed there are some species of plants remaining. These plants adapted to surviving off of the morning mist and very rare rainfall. It is rumoured that Aamir had insisted the director to find a unique beautiful place which was never used as location for filming. He said,” You find me such a place, you will get your eight pack.” Well the rest as they say is history.

Whoever named this place though had some liking for irony. He named it Dead Vlei.

Anagram : Dead Live.

Hmmm…

2055hrs

30th December 2008.

GHAJINI – A PsychoAnalytic Review

I promised some of you that I would post this entry which was originally made by Subrat on PFC. Have fun reading this one!

This week we had Aamir Khan’s Ghajini hitting the screens across the country. As usual, our readers have a huge number of questions regarding the film. As they say in government organized functions, it is our ‘proud privilege’ to have Professor Armando Trilokesh Minimovich Yadav (Prof. ATM Yadav) among us to answer these questions. Prof ATM Yadav holds a dual PhD in sociology and economics and has a specific focus on Bollywood films. As usual, we’ll save everyone’s time and get into the Q&A directly.

PFC: Prof, people have been talking about the violence in Ghajini. They say it is gratuitous. Is this bad for the society?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: There’s a certain spring in my stride, lightness in every step, a whistle on my lips and mise-en-scene on my mind. Nothing clears your head like watching gratuitous violence on screen. Thoughts randomly skewed in space and time start falling into perspective. In short, Ghajini had so many layers that you need to watch it a few times to make sense.

PFC: There you go again!! What layers? People accuse Murugadoss and Aamir to have straightened the non-linear narrative of ‘Memento’ and then giving it some heavy-handed 80s masala treatment.

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: I could decode 12 layers but I will only give you the two big ones.
First, the makers of Ghajini have reaffirmed our faith in the old economy – the stodgy world of pipes, crowbars, corrugated sheets, taps (!!) and other assorted blunt metal objects which make, what the writers call, a sickening thud sound. The manufacturing and construction sectors don’t need a bailout package; they need a film or two like these to market their products differently. Can’t you see it? It’s our version of the bailout package for the manufacturing sector.

The second layer is, of course, the movie is our way of sending the message across to ‘non-state actors’ in a neighboring country.

PFC: Non-state actors in a neighboring country. You are beginning to sound like Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. By neighboring country, you mean, P..

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: Of course, I won’t name the neighboring country. But, can’t you see the parallels. Mohammed Ghajini (or Ghazni, as his name appeared in his Matriculation certificate) was the biggest non-state actor of all times. He attacked India 17 times between 1000 AD – 1025 AD. Similarly, we’ve been attacked many times by the modern day Ghajinis from across the border but we collectively suffer from short-term memory loss. Each attack is followed by 15 mins of anger and then all we are left with are Polaroid snaps, candlelight vigils and Simi Garewal. But this movie gives a befitting reply to the neighboring country. It reminds them that despite our short-term memory loss, we can still hit back, since we have Jiah Khan with us.

PFC: Coming back to the film, people have questioned the timelines. Firstly, if Kalpana was killed in June 2006, why did it take Sanjay two years to find out Ghajini? After all, if he just did a search on Yellow Pages, he would have found only one man named Ghajini in the whole of Bombay. So, what was he doing for two years apart from building an eight-pack and tattooing himself?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: Good question and this question clearly shows how intelligent our audiences have become. Now, I know why we would have rejected a brainless flick like Memento. Anyway, I have researched this area and I am glad to say that I have the answers. Firstly, if you look at Sanjay’s body closely, you’d find a tattoo ‘Anthony’ with a phone number below it. Sanjay looked at it and the first question he asked was ‘Anthony Kaun Hai’. This took him to a film released last year by the same name starring Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi. So, Sanjay Singhania spent the whole of 2007 watching ‘Anthony Kaun Hai’. Not surprisingly, it further aggravated his memory-loss. Secondly, he started looking for Ghajini in 2008 but his initial clues led him into history books. He studied all about Mahmud of Ghazni and the Ghaznavid Empire and wrote a few monographs about the same subject under the pseudonym Gajgamini.

PFC: So how did he eventually reach the real Ghajini Dharmatama?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: While studying the life of Mahmud of Ghazni, he found this Amar Chitra Katha story about him. During the battle of Kathiawar in 1024, Mahmud accidentally shot an arrow at an “icchadhari nagin”. It turned out that this was actually Manisha Koirala of ‘Jaani Dushman – Ek Anokhi Prem Kahani’ who was searching for some teeth whitener for her ‘ichhadhari nag’ Armaan Kohli. Angered, she cursed Mahmud to be born 17 times in different avatars in India and each time be named Ghajini. Mahmud pleaded innocence and asked for mercy. The ichhadhari nagins are known to be a soft state. She threw in a few incentives including one which meant that no one could ever ask him a question. Sanjay read this story and reached the current ‘Ghajini’. It is a backstory that was written by Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur.

PFC: The other timeline issue was Sanjay proposed to Kalpana on the New Year’s eve of 2006. So , what happened between Jan – July 2006? Why couldn’t he tell her in so many months about his real identity?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: That’s an easy one. You guys should learn to conflate real-life timelines with the film timeline. There was FIFA World Cup in Q2 2006 and Airvoice was the official sponsor. Sanjay must have been terribly busy then.

PFC: Also, there are questions about how differently two businessmen are portrayed. Sanjay is all about business meetings, contracts, licenses, power dressing et al being the Chairman of a Telecom company. But why is the Chairman of a Pharma company shown in such poor light. Isn’t pharma a glamorous enough sector? Why this bias against a sector and its chairman? Why wasn’t Ghajini Dharmatma shown negotiating an M&A opportunity with Japanese pharma firms or fighting court battles over Lipitor and its generics?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: I have thought about this deeply. Even when Ghajini was eliminating his rivals, there were no business executives among them. Pharma in India, as MNC firms have realized, is no child’s play. I think Murugadoss was subtly showing his deep sense of irony. The products of the company save lives while its Chairman takes them. The Preserver vs The Destroyer. That’s the gist of Hindu mythology! When you put it like that, it really makes the script come alive. It’s all very deep. Ghajin, the film, is full of such subtle nuances.

PFC: Hmmm. Any other layers that you discovered?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: Nothing, noteworthy barring, of course, the obvious impact of Obama on Bollywood.

PFC: Obama on Bollywood? When, How, Where?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: Of course, you would have noticed an African-born actor among Ghajini’s key men. It’s the second time in the last 3 months that I have noticed Africans in Hindi films. The first was Fashion where one of them played a central role in sending Priyanka back to Chandigarh. This wasn’t possible before Obama. You’ll have to go back all the way to Disco Dancer for similar portrayals. In Disco Dancer, they had an African couple during the World Disco Championships, who then proceeded to do break-dance and eventually lost to Mithun (Jimmy). Like in other places, Obama has changed the context in Bollywood.

PFC: Is there more to Aamir going shirtless in the film?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: I think it’s all in our names. Have you ever wondered why the name Akshay is an anagram of Hay Sak? Or Saif Ali Khan is an anagram of ‘I Fail As Khan’? Similarly, Aamir becomes Raima which meant he had to show some skin to balance the no skin policy of Raima.

PFC: Very profound. Also, there’s been audience reaction to the way the News Channel in the film behaves. The channel didn’t protect Kalpana’s identity which led to Ghajini’s men finding her. Do you think we’ll have further bashing of the media now? Will Barkha Dutt write another teary article about how she’s being targeted?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: No. I don’t think it will happen. Barkha, if you observe closely, is an anagram of ‘Khabar’. You can never put her out of news business. See, it’s all in our names.

PFC: One final question. According to the Amar Chitra Katha story, was this the last incarnation of Ghajini or are there more left?

Prof. A.T.M. Yadav: According to the legend, the last incarnation is to come next. It’s the most dangerous of them all – the film critic. Salman is planning to make a movie on that one.

New Year Resolutions && Secret of A Great (Male) Body is 1.618

28th December 2008, Sunday

0600hrs, Home.

Few days back I was discussing with Shankari about our New Year Resolutions.Yes, its that time of the year when people realize that they have wasted the year gone by and plan to change their habits in the New year! ( I guess at this same point last year too they had made resolutions, what happened to those, God only knows).

But anyways the optimistic mammals we are, we list a lot of New year resolutions every year around this time. So yeah,  Shankari’s New Year Resolution was, sms quote – ” Resolution is to keep myself ultra fit and exercise regularly…Never bunk my violin and music classes..thats about it for now…. “. Not bad Shanki!! ..Anyways she asked me what my resolutions were, but for sake of replying I replied something to her…don’t remember what though.

So after that discussion I realized that I have never had any resolutions (maybe because I never actually wasted my past year…lol). But still I did’nt have any resolutions and I felt as if I was missing out on some New year ritual. So I thought and thought as to what I could do in the New Year to work towards a better me. A simple look at the mirror gave me the answer, I needed a better looking body! So I had decided on my resolution, to get a perfect body! (pssst…i told Shanki that I had decided to get a great body like John Abraham, her reply came. ” Oh!  you mean like Agastya‘s Body!” ..I had to reply, ” No the real one”.)

I had decided that I wanted a perfect body, but what is a perfect body?? Everyone has their definition of a perfect body or looking good. Like for example, Shanki said,  being beautiful for her was to lose weight (look thin) and get rid of pimples on her face! Vanga says looking good is crossing the 55 kg mark. For Suchit perfect body is anything above 165 cm height. So yeah, everyone has their own thoughts about it. But still confused I went about searching for the ” Perfect- Body Formula“ . I guess even God wants me to get a great body for the welfare of all gals in this world, so after 3 minutes of searching on the net I found some interesting info about what the perfect body can be or should be!

Building a perfect body is all about getting the right dimensions for your entire structure (some men might argue that only the dimensions of one organ down-under is important). Thankfully, the magic formula for those dimensions has been known for centuries. It’s called the golden ratio- a dividend of two measurements that’s roughly equal to 1.618. Its influence can be seen in the shape of a seashell, the spirals of a pinecone and the Partehnon in Athens. And in blueprints for the archetypal human form: Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian man and Michaelangelo’s David.

So it’s no surprise to learn that chicks dig a physique that measures up to the golden ratio. Another search revealed that women are most attracted to muscular men whose shoulders measure 1.6 times the size of their waists. Well I guess its always not practical to measure the width of your shoulders yourselves- you need someone to do it for you. But it seems instead we can use the chest circumference value. It seems a ratio of 1.4 for chest: waist is equivalent to the 1.6 for shoulder: waist. For example, practically speaking, having a 45inch chest and 32inch waist is good! The bottom-line : When women look at men’s torsos, the ” V ” shape is victorious!

So I guess I now have my basic guidelines for a perfect body and will be hitting the gym in the New Year! I guess many of you would also like to have a perfect body! But before you launch into the workout ,know that you don’t have to achieve picture-perfect results to get the girl. There’s some research to suggest that women aren’t too keen on the most attractive men- they consider them too far out of their league. But I have even thought about that- by logic, the most attractive women would then go for the most-attractive men and that conclusion isnt bad at all!

As for me, I feel, the Golden ratio is nice to shoot for, but I won’t be disappointed with a silver or bronze either.

Note:  Hey Guys, what are your new year resolutions??? Would be great to hear from you!! Do post your comments!

0702hrs

28th December 2008.

VODKA ‘n’ PANI PURI

25th December 2008,  Merry Christmas

Note: I deleted the something interesting page and put it here…I guess this is easier :p

Strange Pairing :   VODKA ‘n’ PANI PURI

Yesterday, I was sitting with a bunch of friends at McDonalds somewhere in Bugis, Singapore. We bought a couple of magazines (year-end specials) to just recap what all  happened in 2008. Going through the magazine I came across an article – Vodka ‘n’ Pani Puri . Pretty interesting article, and I thought I would share it with all you guys (in a condensed way)….Here it is…

This is the culinary equivalent of the desi babu – gori mem hit jodi. He is street born and proud of a pedestrian bearing that makes him sharp, spicy and a survivor. She traces her heritage to snowy Russian Steppes, which make her cool, fluid and spirited. He is aspirational, and she is assimilative. You could’nt have found a more unlikely combination than pani puri and vodka.

The marriage, solemnised some years ago in five-star climes, was the creation of an F&B team seeking to tickle taste buds. I guess even they didnt imagine at that point of time that it would become a super-hit!

There are different versions of vodka pani puri.

A continental approach is to use cherry tomatoes and mozzarella cheese as filling, then dipped into the pani, and munched along with a shot vodka.

But the bestseller is the one in which the tangy pani is spiked with a liberal dash of vodka and spicy chaat fillings are used.  Sharpness of alcohol blends easily with tamarind water, causing a surprising impplosiion of tastes and flavors.

You might ask, what does vodka have that other spirits don’t? Why Vodka of all the spirits????

Perhaps because Vodka is a smooth operator. Its light and doesn’t have a strong odour. Rum is too robust. Whiskey is too male. Beer is all froth. Wine has too much attitude about its own taste, and doesnt lend itself to cocktail style mix and matches.

Whereas Vodka doesnt take away the essence of pani puri, but rather augments it. Vodka is an invader and a conquerer. Vodka always expands its horizon. No wonder if James Bond endorsed it.

Only when two flavours combine to create a kick that’s better than what you get from the individual foods does the pairing reach epicurien heights. Vodka Pani-Puri is one such combo.

I dont know if they serve it in any restaurant here in Singapore, but if they do please let me know for sure! I might buy you a few complimentary Vodka Pani- Puri mouthfuls!!

Just another day & truth about the KP “switch-hit”

22nd December 2008, Monday

2359hrs, Home.

I woke up at 3:49pm to Avi’s phone call. He told me he would come by my place later in the evening to get some software from me as he was doing his sister’s Final Year Project! Geek! I suddenly realised that the house didnt look like civilisation, it was really messy. So I decided to clean up the house as I have no hope from either of my two flatmates of any cleaning help. ( Sreejith too busy and mostly locked up in his own room, and Vishnu is supposedly busy, I dont know busy with what though!).

Took me some time to clean up the house after which I took a nice shower and sat down to watch some cricket. Yuvraj played well in the end on a rather boring day of play. It was as if he was replying to the sledging he got from the English players with his bat rather than his mouth. Kevin Pietersen had called him a pie-chucker balling left arm filth!!…HAHAAHA..!!

And yeah there is something I have to share here..before i forget it. Yesterday Vishnu told me that he had invented the ” Switch-Hit” while he used to play cricket as a child to tackle negative bowling!!… Its sad that its Kevin Pietersen who is taking away the credit when Vishnu Prasad should be getting it! (Hope that through my blog people will realise who really invented the shot.) And I wonder what he is doing here in Singapore, he deserves to be in the Indian Team with such hidden cricket talent in him.

Anyhow after the match got over I made myself some coffee and went online to research on places near Singapore where we could go for Chinese New Year holidays for a mini-getaway. After some discussion on Agastya’s Blog we shortlisted 2 places in malaysia- Langkawi Islands and Mulu Caves!! Still havent decided where but I guess it will be between these two, whichever is cheaper! I personally would love to go to Mulu Caves! Did you know there lies the world’s largest underground chamber, the Sarawak Chamber, capable of accommodating Forty Fucking Boeing 747 airplanes!!!! Here is a pic of the chamber, small part of it!!!

Anyways after that I was getting bored so I made some experimental fried rice dish for dinner. It turned out to be awesome.A few minutes later, Vishnu also supposedly got ” an idea” to cook something after seeing my dish. He fumbled around in the kitchen cooking his dish after that, but I didnt really care what he was doing, as I was eatching (eating food+watching show simultaneously, now a habit) Blackadder and Dexter! Blackadder is an awesome show! Highly Recommended! Go eatch it today!

Today I plan to go early to bed since I have to wake up early tomorrow to help Avinash with Saree-shopping at Mustafa!! He promised that if I accompany him to buy sarees he would buy me dinner! I am jobless anyways nowadays, so what the heck, for a free meal I am ok to go with him to buy sarees also!

End.

0032hrs

23rd December 2008.

Brief review of the last few days

22nd December 2008, Monday

Home, 0146hrs

Well its been some time since my last post, so let me just review briefly what all has been happening in the last few days.

If my memory is right, on thursday I went with Avi,Suchit,Shanty and Agas to watch a movie…urmm..yeah it was Yes Man. Decent comedy movie and had a good laugh about it. After the movie was over we all set on a tour of the newly opened sections of Jurong Point going to each level and scanning what all new food outlets had opened. :p …Agas bought some cookies for us as a part of  ”market research” for his ‘cookie-icecream‘ venture!! (Agas I am marketing your venture here….i deserve marketing fees!!)

Just as we had surveyed all the food outlets and were deciding where to eat (Burger king and KFC among the final contenders), we got a call from Agastya’s shrink a.k.a Vanga (the coach). He supposedly was at Marina entertaining the ‘Gals’ and after his session with them wanted us to come down to Marina. He somehow felt that that 5 people would just come all the way to Marina for him. Anyhow we decided to go bowling near my house. Suchit was initially reluctant to come but we managed to convince him. Agastya was a bit low, and I guess it was good that he spent most of the day with us to divert his mind. (In hindsight maybe that was the reason y Vanga called us to Marina). The matches were close ones and we had a great time. Continuing on the topic of bowling I forgot to mention about the game of bowling that we had on 16th December (historical match for vanga).

The post-bowling-match-analysis of that Match :   A brilliant day of play at HomeTeam NS. The lane turned out to be a belter with out of form bowlers like Vanga,myself and Shanty finding great form,Avinash efficient as ever with his ‘ green balls’, Alex (Alex has changed his name to  Hunter since this match !) being consistent. There were interesting developments in the second session when Avi was heard saying, “  That gal stole my green balls “.   With such great performances the only thing that could come out of my mouth was , ” This is for Mumbai.”  The greatness of the match were confirmed by the fact that Vanga’s hands were sweating with patriotism at the post-match interview,explaining his 161 point feat earlier in the night. The scorecards looked as follows:

D = Deepak

V= Vanga

A= Alex

A= Avinash

S = Shanty

By the way Vanga maintained the form he had found that day to the match we played on Thursday, with 6 strikes in his 10 throws if I am not wrong.

Friday Night was awesome as we headed to Crazy Elephant(pub) for my ‘Birthday Sabo’. Agas was multi-partying with us and his EEE-club mates! He tried to get me to dance on the stage at Crazy Elephant but the bloke (pretty old one) in-charge of the stage felt otherwise. Instead he performed some song for me, which none of us had any clue about (some song from when he was 22, some 40 yrs ago i guess!).

After a lot of confusion about where to cut the cake we decided to do it at Hooters with the Hooter gals!! It was fun..they sang a bday song for me, clicked some pics with the Birthday Boy (me), while Ankur made desperate attempts to feature in the snapshot.  I havent scanned the picture yet to upload here, but once i do I will surely put it up. ( yes!!…they didnt give us a soft copy of the pic!).Thanks everyone for an awesome bday!

After cake cutting, Agas and his EEE club gang went to Zirca for clubbing, while the remaining of us took our respective Night Rider buses home.

At the end of the day:

Avinash was drunk. Vanga jobless. Shanty dunno! Mithali confident to go home alone. Ankur happy. Prachi tired. Suchit still racist! As for me , admiring the birthday card pic with the Hooter Gals!

End

0245hrs

December 22, 2008.

The Hero

December 16th 2008

0149hrs, straight from the couch.

To give a definition for ‘hero’ is not easy. The definition of heroism changes with the context and time. Heroes of the past are not necessarily heroes of present time and vice versa. But one thing i can tell for sure is the ‘opposite’ or ‘antonym’ of hero – -> George Bush. I don’t want to discuss this in length as this post is not about him, but i could’nt resist raising this point on the day when a common man hurled a shoe at the American President. Watch it for yourself and enjoy.

I woke up at around 2:25pm today and when i realized what the time was my first thought was the final day of first test played between India and England at Chennai. Due to heroics from Sehwag yesterday the final day was set up perfectly for a great test match and possibly a historic Indian win.

I had put 6 alarms to wake up on time to watch every ball played but as it turned out I heard none of them and missed around a session of play ( start time was 12 noon). The next thing I saw was a message from Pooja saying that we might after all NOT witness history in the making! The message made me nervous and I haphazardly turned on my computer to check score on cricbuzz.com. I could have gone to the living room and checked out the score on TV, but that would be a waste of effort to walk all the way from my bed to just watch India losing. I saw on the scorecard that Dravid and Gambhir had departed ,and Sachin and Laxman were playing in the middle. I thought it was a pretty decent situation with India needing around 180 more runs to win with 7 wickets in hand and I thought the game was pretty evenly balanced.

What happened in the next few hours is history. I don’t have words to express the emotions that were running through every Indian on and off the field, in or outside the country…. I think pictures speak better, so have a look…

Over 30,000 people witnessed India’s historic win over England on a minefield of a pitch on the final day at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram stadium. There were a lot of factors that made it a great test match and I guess Indians deserved this win. When I say Indians I dont only mean the players but also the one billion plus people of India.

“Cricket is a lesser thing compared to what happened in Mumbai and we are with those who lost their dear ones”, was what Sachin said after his match winning 103*. Its a statement which is true and false. It is true that cricket cannot solve the problems of terrorism, it cannot bring back the dead, it cannot undo what the terrorists have done to Mumbai. But cricket in India is a terrific healer, more so when India wins.  As Sachin said in the post match conference, 26/11 was not an attack on Mumbai, it was an attack on India. The attacks have left the entire country in mourning and tragedy.  The people of India needed something to put a smile back on to their face, they needed something to unite them. And we all had a feeling before the start of the 5th day of the match that an Indian victory was what the country needed. But as they say the Gods had a much better script in mind.

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, the Mumbai boy was the hero the Gods had chosen for this script. Dileep Premachandran of Cricinfo summed Sachin’s role appropriately, “ Those that aren’t Indian struggle to fathom exactly what Tendulkar means to so many millions, and it’s doubtful whether even those that live here really comprehend just how much a part of the national consciousness he has become. He is such a unifying force, a personality capable of stirring the emotions in every nook and corner of a vast land. And in these times of distress and anger, it was so very appropriate that it would be Tendulkar who put the smiles back on at least a few faces.“  His emotions have become the nation’s emotions, his achievements the nation’s pride and his happiness meant India’s happiness.

My dear friend Naweed fails to understand how people can watch Test Cricket for five days when alternatively their is a sport like Football available to be watched. I would have to write an entire new post on why people love and watch test cricket but for now I can only say that if a sport can bring smiles to a billion people it must be a bloody good sport. It also makes Cricket a Hero.

As I mentioned before there were a lot of reasons that made this an epic test match. Firstly the circumstances in which this match started ( mumbai incident etc) , secondly how the match has brought joy to an entire nation and how poetic it was for Sachin – India’s Son to do it for them.  But Sachin was not the only hero here. The match is great because it had multiple heroes. The entire English team for being strong and brave to come to India to play a match, even after the terrible proceedings in Mumbai. Not only did they play, they played extremely well, special mention to Andrew Strauss, Paul Collingwood, Graeme Swann and Andrew Flintoff.  All was well for England till the 4th day of the test match with victory in sight, but alas their was a twist in the tale.

4th day of a Test match, in walks Virender Sehwag. 68 balls and 102 minutes later Sehwag walked off the field having score 83 runs with India sitting prettily at 122-1 in 22 overs. He had set up  the match for India. He had turned the game around, he had ignited the torch of hope of a victory, a torch which his idol Sachin Tendulkar made sure reached its destination. Sehwag started it, Sachin ended it. Sehwag is a Hero, a deserved one.  When asked about this victory he said very matter of factly, ” I always knew we were going to win. We had almost  chased around 250 against Australia, this is England, so we can chase anything. I don’t care if it is a good ball or bad ball, if I see it- I HIT IT! ” He is my hero just for saying that in the face of the English!

I can go on and on about this match but i guess i dont have enough words to do so right now. I think David Lloyd sums it up perfectly in the following audio piece.

http://content-eap.cricinfo.com/db/MULTIMEDIA/1100/1121.1.mp3

It has truly been a privilege to watch the match and I would leave you today with a quote by the Little Master himself:

” “What happened in Mumbai was extremely unfortunate and I don’t think by India winning or my scoring hundreds, people who have lost their dear and loved ones would feel better. It’s a terrible loss and our hearts are with them. All I can say is that in whatever way we can contribute to make them feel better, we’ll make that effort.”

End

0336hrs, still on the couch.

Debut post, Rab Ne aftermath

Saturday, 13th December 2008

0454hrs, Home.

Yes, finally I have decided to put up my first post on my blog. Not that I have been too busy to blog till now, but sheer laziness to sit and type was probably the factor stopping me till now. As you can see its around 5 am now and I am still awake. And no its not because its a weekend. This has become a regular thing for me now, sleeping at dawn and waking up at dusk. I dont know y but I feel better living in the night, living like an owl, like a bat…..

But I am not alone in this. I know many of my friends who follow this routine, though they dont sleep till 4 in the evening like me they do sleep in the early hours of the morning like me. I was chatting to Shanki yesterday, it seems even she has been have lack of sleep nowadays. Others being Avinash and Shanty, who i guess have been living the same way for past few years already.

Anyyyhow, moving on to what else i did today (12th december,friday).

Woke up at around 3pm. Slowly made my way to the living room to watch some cricket on TV. India put up quite a dismal performance today and once Sachin was out I lost interest in watching and decided I had to go out. I was waiting for review of Rab Ne to come out from the time i was awake till around 6, but none did! Anyhow Avi, Suchit and I decided to meet at IMM and see what we could do to spend the evening. We had dinner at Burger King and discussed how stupid ‘chaptes’ were. Especially Suchit, who himselves claims how raceest he has become over the last few days. We discussed how expats were the ones running all high-end business, MNCs etc in Spore and how we expats were exploiting the fact that locals are not ‘smart’ enough. I feel embarassed saying this, but i really enjoyed this conversation and also contributed with my stories which exemplified how Sporeans are darpok etc..

After that we decided to go for Rab Ne at Jurong point. We called BhaiSahab (Srikar) and he told us he would join us there after his annual office party or some shit. Anyways we loitered around here and there trying to kill time, since our show was at 1140pm. We then discussed how Srikar was very sad nowadays that he was the only virgin in our circle of friends (thats what he thinks), these feelings more heightened after his discovery that Agastya had also moved on finally from the V-gang and that possibly only Bhaisahab and Suchit were virgins now.

Note: I am not making conclusions on anyones virginity here, just disclsoing what Srikar feels on this issue about others. But from what I heard he is sure that alex has lost it.

After lot of nonsense talk we finally went for the movie. Movie was good. There were some flaws in the movie but was pretty entertaining and SRK acted pretty well.  Suchit as usual was happy with the comedy moments in the movie but couldnt digest the emotional, love, sentimental scenes in the movie and he made his feelings heard ‘aloud’ during the movie , much to bhaisahab’s disgust. But we knew this would happen since romantic movies and Suchit dont go hand in hand.

After the movie we mutually agreed that movie was entertaining but not without its flaws. But at the end of the day it was a warm, simple movie with likeable characters. I agree that some parts of the story are not easy to digest.

I took a cab bak home after the movie. Avinash called me while I was in the cab to inform we that bhaisahab was not pleased by the fact that we made him sit next to suchit in the movie.

I always look at reviews of movies i watch to see what other people think of the movie. Most of the reviews for Rab Ne were pretty severe on the movie ,criticizing it for its flaws and not appreciating the good aspects of the movie much.

I have to sleep now I guess. I have to wake up and go for cricket practice in the evening. Anyways this aint that bad… I think i will blog regularly from now. It aint that time consuming.

End.

0527hrs , 13th December 2008.