Every Dog has his day & NTULC INtl. Pvt. Ltd.

Tuesday, 24th February 2009

0215hrs, Home.

Firstly. Sorry for the long break I took off my blog. Mid term break at uni now, so I am back!

Secondly. Sorry for not having done the shuffle quiz which I was tagged by Ranajay to do. I will do it soon, promise.

Thirdly. Lets move on from the apologies.

Lastly. Today’ s headlines. Crorepati JhopadPatti ka Kutta ( A.k.A SlumDog Millionaire) wins 8 Oscars. I woke up to Rahman winning the Oscar. I was happy for him like many other Indians around the world.  I thought about it. Slumdog is not even among his best 5 albums in my opinion. If a mediocre album by Rahman’s standards (btw Jaye Ho was rejected by Subash Ghai for his film Yuvraaj) can win 2 Academy Awards, imagine how many he would have won say hypothetically if he was either born in England or the US! Also a not so great ‘ Indian’ album  winnimg an Oscar, says something about the standard of Indian Music. 🙂 In my personal opinion it didnt deserve to win 8 Oscars, but thats my personal opinion. I guess it was a favorite among critics and masses equally and so it won. So yeah, every dog has its day, happens to be a slumdog this time.

Enough of dog talk, some updates on what happened over the last month or so, during which i took a break from blogging.

In one of my posts- The week gone by -an update , I had listed out the books I had been reading. Now a progress report on those books. The locations of all those books has changed from my books shelf to my cupboard where they have been untouched since that day. More updates in future posts. 🙂

Was away at Outward Bound Singapore on 7th-8th February.( All PHOTOS here)

Notable activities there :

1. Failed attempt at being messenger boy .(relevant parties know about this,limited disclosure here)

2. Looked like a fool wearing long kurtas and shorts. (you can see in the photos and have a laugh)

3. Led the GSS team in building a raft and paddling it into the ocean!

4.  And this…..

5. Singing on the bus back from OBS like mad ‘dogs’. Agastya was dignified as usual, chose not to sing. Hisham barked as loud as me. Naveed doesnt do singing. Others all contributed in a way or other. Notable song performed by Michael urf Michelle : I am a Barbie Girl ( on someone’s demand :p)

Apart from OBS, at GSS we have been pretty occupied. Launched New Website. Have few new events coming up over next few weeks- Free Weekend Movie Screening Marathons,  SALSA classes, Trip to Malaysia and a Sports Week.

Talking of Salsa, another update. A russian girl asked me to be her partner for Salsa 🙂 . She said she would attend our classes if and only if I dance with her. Exciting??  Dont get excited, turns out she is already married ! Par kuch tho progress hai! I guess that event makes me lose a couple of NTULC credits! Damn! Oh and yeah- NTULC is back – bigger and better– we have gone International – NTULC Intl. Pvt. Ltld (NTULC IPL). And I have been asked to be International Liason.

International just reminded me something else, I am going to tour Australia (northern Territory) this summer (winter there). I have been selected on a cricket tour as part of the NUS cricket team! Best part is almost 60-70% of the cost is sponsored by NUS :))) . Once back from Australia I will be off for the GSS Summer Trip ( place still undecided – Volcano Diving trip to Krakatoa, Diving in Phillipines?, Angkor Wat / diving?) You might notice that diving is there in all the options, thanks to Agastya. He really wants to dive I guess,but then he is try to overcome his fear (deep water), so its justified! He and Naveed are taking swimming classes also in NUS btw!

Talking of Agastya and Naveed, just reminded me to do an update on my friends. Most of them are pretty busy and are rarely in touch. But of whatever I know they have been upto, here is a brief update.

Agastya has been comfortably drunk/high/numb/asleep and learning chinese (kyun?)/swimming/MTbing/bodybuilding etc.

Suchit has been  racist, giving excuses for his rapidly increasing weight, learning German (kiske liye?) /Guitar/ GRE words (3 G’s)

Vanga has been Vanga. Only difference, now  in India.

Avinash has got room in NTU finally, applied for tuition fee loan in his last semester (spent money drinking to celebrate approval of his loan, smart boy 🙂 ) , planning to work as Insurance Agent soon.

Ranajay has been BLOGGINGabout cockblocking/DevD/Super CNY/ Legen-motherfucking-dary drinking escapades. and yeah going to Work.

Shantanu has been stuck in a viscious cycle :  Broke ->Hibernating -> Designing -> Money-> Beer + Smoke + Carls Jr ->Broke -> Hibernati……..

Ankur has become NTULC IPL Emperor.

Deepak has been making a fool of himself, 2 of his ex-gfs got married, has been attempting to build muscles (1.618), recovering from gym fatigue and has now been blogging for more than an hour!!!!!!

The End.

0329hrs, 24th Feb 2009

Home.

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.