Deja Vu - Issued In Public Interest

It felt like the opening scene from Hangover II. It had happened again. The questions were why me? And again?

Losing a mobile is not a nice experience. Losing repeatedly is even worse. Feels like I have been "marked" as a serial victim.

Now to the event itself. Got onto a BEST bus as per my daily schedule. After some time, say 15 minutes, decided to check the phone. And the phone had disappeared. As simple as that. Heart sank with the feeling of deja vu.

Asked the neighbouring passenger to dial my number. As expected, phone was switched off. The thieves are quick, both at nicking the phone, and manually removing the battery.  Tried to recollect the incidence of the theft.  This is probably how it had happened.

A large sized fellow was the first to get onto the bus. Near the top step, lots of coins "slipped" out of his hand which he stopped to collect blocking the way. Meanwhile I was directly behind him on the next step, with both hands on the bus handles for balance. Felt a sudden surge behind me due to others trying to get on. Probably this was the moment when the phone was nicked. Also noticed that the big fellow who had dropped the coins got down after a couple of stops. Pretty sure this was an organised operation. One person creates a distraction while blocking up the path and someone else uses this precise moment to pick the pocket.

Another bitter lesson learnt. Do Not get distracted in crowded, public places even when the distraction is right in front of your eye. "Constant vigilance" is the only way to keep your belongings safe.

Losing a phone is major nuisance. The worst bit is that the cost of the phone itself is the least concern. The value of the personalization and memories attached with the phone is much greater than just the phone cost. Contacts, messages, pictures, your personal high scores in various games are intangibles which have no use to the thieves but cant be replaced.

And a suggestion - Always keep the phone locked with a pin/password. You might never see your lost phone again. But at least your "personal" data will not be accessible to anyone else.

Sharing this, so that others maybe alert in such scenario.

P.S. Hoping & Praying that this tragically epic trilogy of losing phones has reached its conclusion.

Rains - Likes & Dislikes

Has there been any weather phenomenon more romanticized than the rains? More paeans have been written about, more songs composed in the praise of and in the wait of rains than for any other natural occurrence. And as with every other feature of life, it comes with both positives & negatives. 

After about two and a half days of the monsoons, I have already begun liking & disliking the rains in about equal measure. 

• Like - The first pit-pat-patter of the rain drops, the smell of the wet earth, escape from the summer heat. WOW
• Dislike - Getting stuck in the office commute
• Like - On an early morning drive with just a slight drizzle.
• Dislike - The dish signals disappearing during live sports programming. Already affected - Champions Trophy cricket, French Open finals & ironically a rain-hit F1 Grand prix.
• Like - Sipping tea while watching the falling rain outside.
• Dislike - The almost non-stop drizzle forcing a stay-at-home Sunday.

As the season progresses, the list can go on and on. Already beginning to dread the to and fro office commute from tomorrow.

P.S. A little rainy day song compilation from some three years back.

Truth - The Versioned Tale

Was reading Pritish Nandy's latest article on media's obsessive coverage of the IPL sopt-fixing/betting saga. Mr. Nandy comments on how the media is obsessed with the murky dealings in the IPL while ignoring other more serious issues. Well I agree that our media does tend to go over-the-top in its coverage. But that is only till the moment the next issue arrives. And then the focus moves on to the new show in town. Never does it take any issue to its closure. And the "truth" rarely come out

Our over-the-top breaking news media follows up "stories" trying to uncover the "truth".  The "Nation demands to know" - thunders the news anchor. But what exactly is the truth we are talking about.

To me, any event which has happened has four different versions (at least)

• A's version
• B's version
• What I want to believe.
• And finally, what actually happened

And because of the first three, the fourth one generally goes missing.

So, to the so-called seekers of the "truth", this is what I would have to say

"You want the truth. You can't handle the truth" - Jack Nicholson,as Col. Nathan R Jessup, A Few Good Men.

MovieNotes: Zalzala (1988)

Movie - Zalzala (1988)

*ing - Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Rajiv Kapoor, Danny Dengzongpa, Anita Raj, Kimi Katkar, Vijeta Pandit, Gulshan Grover & Others

Language - Hindi

Preamble

(a) I am hibernating on Sundays.

(b) I am boycotting watching IPL since the spot-fixing scandal emerged.

Given above conditions, landed on Shara One (yes I shocked myself) while channel-surfing. And found a movie just starting which I ended up watching from beginning to end.

Basic Premise

A secret and ancient Shiv temple made entirely of gold and whose path is known to only one person. And there are many villains after the treasures. And there are good guys after the bad guys. All these combining to form a recipe for a typical 80s Bollywood masala pot-boiler.

Movie Notes

• The story has surprising twists and turns - mainly on account of all characters having some inter-connect with each other.
• The Shiv temple element had the promise of an Indiana Jones but the premise wasn't even explored
• Police directly hand over large sums of reward money to bounty hunters.
• Mediums of transport are three - Police jeep, Police Van and horseback
• Dialogue of the movie: Question - "नाम क्या है तुम्हारा?"; Reply - "गाँव का मुखिया"
• Character of the movie: A horse who likes to drink hard liquor.
• Lots of shooting and killings
• A song can apppear any time. e.g. The good guys performing puja while the bad side loots the temple.
• A 34 year old Tiku Talsania plays the role of 50-year old Jagdeep's father. Guess the casting agents mixed up the roles.

Rating - 5/10, Avoid watching unless you have nothing better to do.

Previously on MovieNotes - Jolly LLB

Journeying all year-long

Everyone is on a journey, and its going on and on since birth. Every birthday marks the completion of one and start of the next one. The journey around the Sun.  

And its not a short trip by any standards. The approximate distance travelled during one complete revolution around the Sun is 940 Million km. A number which is entirely unfathomable by human travel standards. Add to this the daily rotation of the Earth. For someone living in Mumbai (latitude ~19 degN) that would be around 37,850 km/day which makes it nearly 14 Million kms per year. So in all, roughly something like 950 million km/year.  Not a small number by any measure. And in comparison to these numbers the "actual" travel is totally insignificant.

We do not even realise how much we have travelled. And yet we constantly complain about the daily commute to work (some 25 km round trip for me), the ever growing distances, living further apart from the near & dear ones. Guess everything is just relative and has to be seen in its own perspective.

Just some things to ponder upon.

P.S. For some other fun and nerdy details refer this wiki page on Earth's Orbit.
P.P.S The numbers are not exact and have been put for a sense of perspective.

MovieNotes: Jolly LLB

Movie - Jolly LLB

*ing - Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla, Amrita Rao

Language - Hindi

Basic Premise

How a small time lawyer tries to become big through a PIL and then gets sucked into a fight with the big and powerful.

Highlights

The all-round acting. And its not just the leads, its the support cast which makes the film work. You get lots of memorable characters, the judge, the canteen owner, the bodyguard constable, the "auctioneering" hawaldar.

Jolly LLB tries to avoid going into the typical filmy court-room battle and presents a more realistic description of the court proceedings

A practical ending where further proceedings are to take place but are not shown. Could be an opening for a sequel.

What could have been dropped from the film? The heroine and the needless romantic songs.

MovieNotes

You wonder just how much corruption is there in our system. Even the main characters have to resort to bribery to get the evidence out.

The legal system seems to have an in-built delay mechanism leading to the justice getting lost in the red tape and paperwork.

Well I can outrage on and on about all this but thats the perview of another blog post.

All films related to the law tend to be benchmarked against "A Few Good Men". Does it go to the level of A Few Good Men? No, but it does attempt and does a good job of trying.

Rating - 7/10, Good overall watch

Previously on MovieNotes - Kai Po Che

Indian Zombies

An animated corpse resurrected by mystical means such as witchcraft

This is how wikipedia describes a zombie. Like vampires and werewolves, they are a fairly common subject in the movie and gaming world. And unlike other such creatures they are never ever shown in positive light. 

Zombies have generally not been depicted in the Indian context. But all of a sudden there is a spate of zombie related Hindi movies coming up. In fact, in the trailer of "Go Goa Gone", when one character asks  how did zombies come into India, globalization is the answer he gets.

Now the question on why aren't there such "undead" creatures in Indian folklore? Ghosts, spirits, djinns, apparitions, witches, magicians are fairly common in Indian folklore but there is hardly any mention of things which are undead. Maybe because of Indian tradition of cremation of dead bodies rather than burials.As the dead bodies tended to be completely destroyed, hence the likelihood of a corpse being resurrected becomes  very rare. Hence no such things as zombies as part of Indian folklore.

This is just my theory. Any other takes?

Two Thumbs Up, Sir

Its not often that you write a blog about a person whose existence you came to know only through the news of his death. 

Yesterday came in the sad news of the death of Roger Ebert, the greatest film critic. And there I was mostly oblivious about his existence. But then I started reading about him. And slowly got more and more hooked. Here was a man whose work I was aware of, had actually read his reviews, but never bothered reading the name on top of the article.

Certainly I do not claim any qualifications to review his work or life. But there was a lot I can take up as inspiration. And the more I read I about him the more inspiring his story was.

• Writing film reviews for 46 years, that takes dedication. Sitting through film after film, however bad the narration may have been and then telling your take to the world. That is some dedication. 
• Making film-criticism as a journalistic niche means Ebert took his own craft to such a level that others had to make a separate category for it. A Pulitzer for film criticism and a Star on the Hollywood walk of fame are just rewards for the sheer brilliance of his writing.
• And lastly for not giving up even in face of bad health. Ebert simply took on to the online medium when his voice was gone. Thats the true fighting spirit which is rarely seen. He took a "Leave of Presence" from his fans just a couple of days before his death. And that was to be his last blog post . Certainly the best article I have read in recent times. 

"I was born in the movie of my life" - the opening sentence of Life Itself (his autobiography) is now into my favorite quotes collection. 

Two Thumbs Up, Sir for a life well lived and being a inspiration to many.

P.S. Now you have added a new item to my bucket-list. Watch every single movie from your "Best of the Year" Collection.

Elephanta

Elephanta Island - Caves & Rock Carvings. How to narrate the experience. So here goes a little account of the trip.

First - A 35 km taxi ride ending in verbal fight with the taxi driver. Reached Gateway of India

Second - An hour long steamer ride in the middle of the day. View of the  Mumbai coastline and oil tankers. Reached the island.

Third - A 5 minute ride on the toy train. Reached the steps of the cave.

Fourth - A 15 minute climb up the hill. The path shaded by various curio-shops and monkeys all around. Temperatures in the late 30's (degree C).

And finally reaching the cave and geting to see...

All the journey hardships forgotten. It had been worth everything. Some more pictures of the place.

The Shivlinga

The Natraja Form carved into the wall

Entrance to one of the caves carved out of rock

And as a bonus on the way back as the sun went down, managing to click the Mumbai picture

Gateway of India & The Taj Hotel

Elephanta - a little removed from the world but certainly worth spending a day.

MovieNotes: Kai Po Che

Movie: Kai Po Che

*ing: Sushant Rajput, Amit Sadh, Rajkumar Yadav, Amrita Puri (An all-new star-cast)

Language: Hindi, interspersed with Gujrati

Director: Abhishek Kapoor

Background

I had my apprehensions before watching the film. After all, having already read "3 Mistakes of My Life" - the Chetan Bhagat novel on which this movie was based on, the doubts about watching the film were quite high. I generally enjoy Chetan Bhagat's works, but 3 Mistakes... was not a great effort by him. But good social media reviews provided the necessary motivation.

Basic Premise
Following the lives of three friends and how their friendship is affected by the goings-on in the world around them.

MovieNotes
The movie is better than the novel, much better. The deviations from the novel have helped the story quite a bit.

Highlights
An all-new star cast is used. And it does the job commendably. Even established "stars" wouldn't have made the film any better. All credit to the actors and the director for making a good film.

Great music and hummable songs. And I really like it when songs stay in the background and not the characters lip-syncing to them. Liked the use of the Sunita Rao number "Pari hoon main".

Negatives
Trying to pull in all details of a 200 odd page novel in 2 hours makes one forego some of the background story and character developments.

Random Notes

Cricket binds India like no other factor. And watching the VVS-Dravid partnership even in a cinema still gives the goosebumps. Probably the most important day in Indian cricketing history. The day which made one believe in miracles.

Coverage of the Gujarat riots has been a sensitive issue. This one just skimmed on the news aspect without going through any of the gory details and the aftermath.

Rating - 8/10

P.S.  Watched the film in the historic Regal cinema hall. Winding staircases, Balcony, Dress Circle, the bell ringing to announce the start - single-screen theatre certainly have their own charm.

Previously on MovieNotes - Special 26