BookMarks #4: More Salt Than Pepper

Title: More Salt Than Pepper: Dropping Anchor With Karan Thapar

Author: Karan Thapar

Genre: Non-Fiction, Anthology, Memoirs

Published: 2009

“More Salt Than Pepper” is a selection of columns written by Karan Thapar for the Hindustan Times over a period of eleven years.

The book is divided into multiple sections, with each section clubbing up four to six articles.The articles are short (each comprising of 3-4 pages), with each having its own theme. But what a wide variety of themes do they cover – there are nuggets from the author’s own life, ranging from his school days to his anchoring work, his places of work and visits, the various personalities he has interviewed, a few “inside stories” of the everyday life in the high-flying circles, even about the proper usage of the English language and many more.

“More Salt Than Pepper” reads more like a blog (with lots of posts) than a book. Reading it provides quite a few insights into the author’s personality and the factors shaping them. One also learns that there is much more to a person than the image he/she have put on for the public consumption. 

The book is quite engaging although some articles have become dated as the reader has a benefit of hindsight into some of the “contemporary” events. It just shows how time shapes up our perspectives.

And to me the biggest learning in the proper use of the suffix Mrs. & Ms. In reference to ladies.

Previously on BookMarks – The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

India @ 68

15th August, Independence day – that time of the year when the President makes speech on its eve, the Prime Minister addresses the nation from the Red Fort and yours truly posts a blog about the state of affairs of the country, a tradition which has now entered its 9th edition. (Here is the 2014 edition)

The shape of the country changed slightly in the interim with a long standing border issue resolved with Bangladesh. It was a case of geography-ception with an Indian enclave within a Bangladeshi enclave within an Indian enclave within Bangladesh. 

How is the nation doing as a whole? My hypothesis is that the Brownian theory of motion applies to the nation as well. We see one incident, we outrage till another event takes its place and then we outrage about that. Aiding this chain of outrages is the knee-jerk actions of the people in-charge. 

Which brings me to the subject of bans. Some prominent bans (meaning with widespread media coverage) were the roast, the beef, Maggi and porn. Some folks have a beef with people eating beef, others have a beef with such kind of people. The beefs continue and so does the ban. Maggi was banned by Government agencies and then unbanned by the Courts. Maggi passed by the testers in Singapore, USA & UK and failed in India which implies either (a) our norms are more stringent (Wow) or (b) Maggi supplies inferior quality products in India (WHATTTT?) or (c) simply our testing labs have some issues (hmmmm….). And finally on the porn ban – government compiles a list of sites to be banned, issues the “banned” list and then decides to lift the ban. Overall resulting in a comprehensive list of sites available in official public domain.

While the Government is busy with bans and post-ban activities, the Prime Minister has been on a whirlwind world tour and giving speeches and doing yoga and creating slogans and taking selfies. All these efforts, of course being made, for bringing the promised acche din. Meanwhile the Opposition leader holidayed, then got recharged and suddenly started speaking. The Congress is hell-bent on opposing the very same bills it had proposed which the BJP had opposed during its stint in the Opposition but is now trying to get passed. These parties seem to be taking the word “Opposition” too literally. As the President said in his address to the nation, Parliament is becoming an arena of combat rather than a place of debate.

History has always been a winners' tale. Only issue now, in the age of internet, nobody knows what actually may have happened with many claims and an equal number of counter-claims for each historic/mythical leader/event/fact/action/non-action etc. And gullible social media encourages widespread circulation of such nonsense (e.g. INDIA being derived from Independent Nation Declared in August (Quora link). By this logic why wasn’t Pakistan named as such?). Unless you are deliberately hate-mongering why can’t one just do a simple google check before sharing anything on social media.

Coming to the social media. We have a very active social media. But why is it so full of hate mongers. Every issue/event/speech is lent a divisive flavor to it. Whether it’s a hanging or a terror attack or a movie or even personal lives of prominent people or bans, every event is seen through the divisive prism by the social media hate mongers. We really need independence from these now.

In the past one year, we have a new Nobel prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi. While we praise his noble work, we should make efforts that such work is not needed in the first place.

On the movie front, the 100 crore club is now history. 300 crores & 500 crores is the in thing now. Blame it on inflation. 

On the sporting front, the Saina-Sania conundrum continues with both having become numero uno in their respective fields of play. Indian sports have been in news more for the power games being played off field than the ones on the field of play. True for cricket, football, hockey, boxing. Only Kabaddi has come into prominence in a positive light with the advent of the ProKabaddi League. With a year to go for the Rio Olympics certainly need to sort out the mess or all progress from London may get lost.

But enough of all the negativity. These are times of opportunity. With depressed crude prices and global slowdown, if the government acts (and it can certainly act when it wants to), we can certainly hope for good times (sorry achhe din) ahead.

Happy Birthday India!!!

MovieNotes: Bajrangi Bhaijaan

Title: Bajrangi Bhaijaan (IMDB)

*ing: Salman Khan, Nawazuddin Siddique, Kareena Kapoor, Harshali Malhotra

Language: Hindi & Urdu

Director: Kabir Khan

Genre: Society & Politics

Basic Premise

An Indian man trying to help a little mute girl from Pakistan who was accidentally left behind in India, without any documents, and taking her back to her parents.

MovieNotes 

What Works

• The simplistic storyline without any over the top action works well for the film.
• Nawaazuddin is brilliant as a struggling journalist trying his best for the big scoop.
• Young Harshaali Malhotra is the real star of the film with her activities taking the story forward.
• The many actors in the small but critical roles making the film memorable
• Bajrangi’s simplistic beliefs e.g. treating every monkey as a representation of Lord Hanuman.

What Doesn’t

• Hard core Salman fans (not me) would be disappointed that Bhai doesn’t get to show off his usual stuff (e.g. Chulbul Pandey)
• Music – not much to remember the movie by.

MovieNotes

• An excellent PR exercise for the lead actor, which shows him getting sympathy of people from all walks of life cutting across religious, political, class divide.
• RSS being depicted in a positive light alongwith “balanced” religious fundamentalism – this is something new for the Indian film industry. Either religious people can be good-hearted or fundamentalist but this is something new.
• Movie tries to depict people are basically same across the border but divided by politics.
• Religious barriers are not too hard to overcome, everyone just needs to take that first step.
• Social media can work wonders at time, but you have to make it viral first.
• Afridi's last over blast off Ashwin in Asia Cup 2014 are now immortalized on screen. (Scorecard)

Rating – 7/10. It’s a surprisingly well made movie with lots of funny interludes.

Bonus Shot – video of the real life “Chand Nawab”, inspiration for Nawazuddin’s character

Previously on MovieNotes - Inside Out

MovieNotes: Inside Out

Title: Inside Out (IMDB)

*ing: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling (All Voiceovers)

Language: English

Director: Pete Docter

Genre: Animation

Basic Premise

The story is of the five basic emotions – joy, sadness, anger, fear & disgust – inside the mind of a young girl who has just shifted from Minnesota to San Francisco and how this change is impacting her behavior.

MovieNotes 

The movie is a great lesson in the field of human behaviour and psychology capturing the five basic emotions and illustrating how they control our actions. The story depicts how the human brain is constantly evolving and learning with each new experience. And sometimes big changes in our environment (like changing a location) may produce tectonic shifts to our behaviour structure. Also memories fade with time and may be wiped out but sometimes they suddenly jump up back into the subconscious. 

Without sadness, there can’t be joy. And even our saddest events may produce the happiest memories.

I liked the depiction of minion (yes them again) like creatures constantly working in our brain, removing fading memories, popping out random memories, making dreams etc.

And yes, clowns are scary.

Rating – 8/10. For capturing the basic human emotions so perfectly.

Previously on MovieNotes - Bahubali: The Beginning

BookMarks #3 - The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

Titles: The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

Author: JRR Tolkien

Genre: Fantasy

This BookMark covers four books comprising of two distinct storylines. After all these are essentially part of a single Tolkien universe (and came in one box set).

Peter Jackson’s magnum opus Lord of the Rings movie trilogy brought to life Tolkien’s characters at the beginning of the millennium. For people like me who hadn’t read the books it was the sheer spectacle which caught the attention. Once the movies had been seen, the books simply had to be read, because it’s my belief that a movie can never do complete justice to a book. A movie can create a spectacular visual landscape but the finer details only emerge from the written words.

Short Summary

The Hobbit, Or There And Back Again

The Hobbit is a tale of a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who led a quiet and peaceful life in the Shire. However the wizard, Gandalf manages to trick him (in a way) into joining a group of dwarves in an expedition to retrieve their lost treasures which is under the guard of Smaug the dragon. Along the way, they have many adventures, frequently landing into trouble, yet managing to get out of it through a mixture of bravery, luck and some timely help. The party finally achieves its objectives and Bilbo returns to the Shire with a share of the reward. In the course of the journey, unknown to others, Bilbo acquires Gollum’s ring, which has the power of making the wearer invisible. Thus setting up the events in the Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings [comprising of 3 books - (a) The Fellowship of the Ring, (b) The Two Towers & (c) The Return of the King]

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

The story is set a few years after the adventures narrated in “The Hobbit”. The ring acquired by Bilbo is more trouble than it seems. Gandalf deduces that it is the "One Ring" and needs to be destroyed before it ends up into the hands of the Dark Lord Sauron, its true master which would spell complete doom for all.

Bilbo is getting older and the ring is now beginning to show its true evil powers on him. Finally persuaded by Gandalf, he leaves the Shire leaving his possessions including the Ring to his nephew Frodo. Frodo, convinced by Gandalf, decides to take the Ring out of the Shire and is accompanied in his mission by his friends Sam, Merry and Pippin. On the road, the quartet meet up with Aragorn. They are constantly under attack but manage to escape with the aid of Elrond. Elrond forms a great council which advises the destruction of the Ring by carrying it to Mount Doom. Frodo volunteers to be the ring-bearer. A Fellowship comprising of his fellow hobbits, Gandalf, Aragorn and representatives of dwarfs, elves and men is formed to accompany and assist in Frodo’s mission. During the journey, they face one peril after another till the Fellowship gets broken up. Frodo and Sam, separated from the others, manage to capture Gollum and use him as a guide for the journey to Mount Doom. The others are involved in multiple battles against the forces of Saruman and Sauron. Many a great battle is fought leading to losses on both sides. They notch up many victories, assisted mainly by the timely arrival of aid in multiple forms (including armies of trees, ghosts etc.) finally culminating in the coronation of Aragorn as the rightful king. Meanwhile, Frodo, Sam and Gollum, reach Mount Doom. Frodo is overcome by the Ring’s powers but Gollum snatches up his “precious” ring and accidentally falls into the fire in Mount Doom, destroying the ring and alongwith it Sauron as well.

BookMarks

Both stories are set in the same Tolkien universe and one follows the other, with the major events flowing in the same pattern, yet they have one essential difference. LOTR is much darker in theme than the Hobbit. While The Hobbit is directed more towards children, the LOTR targets a mature audience. Compared to Hobbit, LOTR is a tad difficult to read and also is more complex in its scale. And of course the biggest difference - the titular character in Hobbit is the hero whereas the one in LOTR is chief villain of the tale.

At the end of the tale is a collection of Annexures. And reading through them I was awestruck by the richness of Tolkien’s craft. The richness of the detail are mind boggling – there are maps, there are the detailed family tress spanning generations, and there is a chronology of each of the kingdoms from many hundreds of years prior to the main events. Then there are the different calendars, the languages, the scripts and even the pronunciations of each of the various clans and species of men, dwarves, hobbits and elves. And then there is the sheer variety of characters – Hobbits, Men, Wizards, Dwarfs, Orcs, Ents and even Gollum. It almost seems like Tolkien had access to a parallel universe and the tale of the rings is his narration of events of that realm. 

It is said that the English Reading world is divided into two broad categories, those who have read the Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read the Lord of the Rings. Finally I belong in the right category (although reading the books itself nearly took as long as the journeys made by Bilbo & Frodo)

Previously on BookMarks – Ten Days That Shook the World

P.S. Having written a post about the movies a few years back, I had got a comment asking me to read the books. Finally after eight years have gotten around to doing that.

MovieNotes: Bahubali: The Beginning

Title: Bahubali: The Beginning (IMDB)

*ing: Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Ramya Krishnan, Tamannah, Anushka Shetty, Satyaraj

Director: SS Rajamouli

Language: Telugu (I watched the Hindi dubbed version)

Genre: Mythology, Action

Basic Premise

First part of a fictionalized tale set in ancient times in fictional Mahismati, depicting a family dispute for the throne running across two generations. The competition between the two cousins for the throne is depicted mostly in flashback. The rightful ruler is slain and his wife kept captive while the cousin takes the crown. Their son, who is the image of his father, is raised away from the family. Growing up, he is unaware of his true parentage but unknowingly takes up the cause to free his mother. 

A cliffhanger ending sets up the tale for revenge (to be taken up in the sequel).

MovieNotes

What Works

The highlight of the film is its grand scale. The waterfall scene is visually stunning as are the blue butterflies. The background music adds its own touch in bringing the stunning imagery to life. The biggest highlight has to be the climax battle scene. The visual effects of the fight scenes are probably as good as any that the big Hollywood studios have offered. Then there is the Tolkienish touch given by the script-writers who invented a whole new language for the Kalakeya tribes.

The lead protagonists Bhallaldeva and Bahubali (senior and junior) are all about rippling muscles with one of them literally taking a mighty bull by its horns and breaking it down.

The leads are ably backed up by strong support characters like Katappa and Shivagami. I really liked the depiction of Shivagami’s character as a strong authoritative administrator and fair decision maker, who treats her son and nephew as equal unlike the usual clichéd depictions offered in most movies.

The second half moves at a fast pace. And just when the tempo reaches its crescendo, comes the cliff-hanger ending. Enough questions are left unanswered ensuring that audiences will flock once again to the theaters to watch the epic (hopefully) conclusion.

What Doesn’t

The treatment of Avantika by Shivudu was wrong and its depiction was in bad taste. What exactly was the director thinking? 

Some of the VFX effects seemed to have slipped up while showing the jumping sequences

A query - How were the rulers able see the details from across the battlefield. They were reacting to every single event as if they were watching on tv screens and not from the edge of the battle-field

A couple of songs could easily have been edited out without affecting the story at all.

Dubbing created its own problems as some meanings get lost in translation (although not the makers fault)

Rating – 8/10 for visualization and depiction although the story does slacken a bit in the first half.

Previously on MovieNotes: Minions

MovieNotes: Minions

Title: Minions (IMDB)

*ing: Pierre Coffin [as Kevin, Stuart & Bob], Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Geoffrey Rush

Director: Pierre Coffin & Kyle Balda

Language: English & Minionese

Genre: Animation 

Basic Premise

The Minions are living in depression in Antarctica after failing in their attempts to retain a master. Three of their kind – Kevin, Stuart and Bob, go out in search of a master, the most powerful super-villain of the world, to serve. They find one and are taken in to service but their accident-prone ways lead to trouble for themselves as they find their new mistress turned against them.

Prequel to Despicable Me.

MovieNotes

Minions marks the first full-fledged movie featuring the cute, little, yellow, capsule shaped, dungaree clad creatures with big, round spectacled eyes who speak in their own funny sounding minion-speak, eat bananas and have only desire – to serve the biggest, baddest villain on this planet. 

The story begins with the minions being in constant search for a new master, as their accident-prone ways leading to terrible ends for their masters. Terrible for the masters but outrageously hilarious for the audience.

The minions decide to isolate themselves but lack of a master leads to them to a depression. One bright young fellow decides to go out in search of a master and is accompanied by two of his comrades (or buddies as they refer each other). What follows is a series of adventures where the trio land up in New York, manage to reach Orlando to a convention of villains, somehow managing to get recruited by Scarlet Overkill (the biggest super-villain of them all) who assigns them a task of stealing the Queen’s crown. They are adept to the task but have the crown handed over to them after managing to pull out the Sword in the Stone. Scarlet feels betrayed although they hand over the crown via a royal decree. She turns on them and in a final face-off is beaten by the minions. The movie ends with the minions meeting up with Gru, their ultimate master.

The movie is full of hilarious scenes and the minion-speak adds to the hilarity of every single scene. Whether it is the speech delivered by the newly crowned King Bob, a rousing speech but beyond the comprehension of the ordinary human audience, or Bob making a rat friend (his pucchis), Kevin referring to Queen Elizabeth as Lacucuracha (at least that’s what it sounded like), or trying to escape polar bears, every scene is a laugh-riot.

The movie ties up neatly into the Despicable Me series (but does this mean no more Minions standalone movie?)

Mandatory India Connect – The other Minions somehow land up in India via Australia while trying to reach England and are seen dancing in front of the Taj Mahal.

Wonder what the Queen’s reaction to the depiction in this movie is :D

Rating – 9/10. Critics might find flaws about a lack of story or emotions or other such critical aspects of the art of film-making but this is a complete one and a half hour laugh riot.

Previously on MovieNotes – Jurassic World

BookMarks #2 - Ten Days That Shook The World

Title – Ten Days That Shook the World

Author – John Reed

Genre – Non-fiction, History

“Ten Days That Shook the World” is a first person account of the events of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in November 1917 leading upto the formation of the government of the Soviets. As the author says in the preface – “This book is a slice of intensified history as I saw it. It does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands of the Soviets.”

The book begins by giving a background of the various parties involved in the revolution and its lead-up. It then proceeds to narrate the events of the revolution in Petrograd as witnessed by the author. The initial pages make for some heavy reading, especially for readers not familiar with the Russian revolution. There is quite a good chance of getting lost amongst the various factions of the Bolsheviki, Mensheviki, Cossacks, Cadets, Yunkers, and the multiple workers’, soldiers’, sailors’ and peasants’ organisations and their different leaders. Liberal usage of Russian terms adds to heaviness in the reading. Sometimes it does become a bit difficult to keep track of who is on which side. However the opening chapter does a good job in trying to explain the stands of the different parties during the lead-up to the events of November, 1917. 

The book is an account from the author’s perspective. The author details the various committee meetings he attends, and re-tells the speeches he hears there. The speakers are mostly unnamed but they give their perspective to the cause. Then there are the multiple speeches quoted from the sessions of the Duma in Petrograd alongwith the reactions of the audience. Overall the book gives a feeling of reading from the notes of a diary as the author tries to take in the multiple events happening at various places at the same time all connected to each other, and part of one big revolution.

The events described in the book show how challenging it is to execute a revolution. The leadership maybe willing and ready but are the masses ready to act? And what happens to the various government agencies which are in place? The revolutionaries might replace the leadership of the various government bodies but the workers in those organisations might not be sympathetic to their cause leading to more suffering for the public at large which might set the stage for a counter-revolution to throw out the revolutionaries. Also it stresses the need for a revolution to be “quick”, otherwise anarchy prevails leading to further revolutions, the Bolshevik revolution being a good example as it was the second one within the year.

Overall, "Ten Days That Shook the World" is a good read about the events in the Bolshevik revolution. It details out the events but leaves the interpretation to the readers although the author's bias towards the Bolsheviks does clearly come out.

Previously on BookMarks – The Call of the Wild

Battle of the Bulge

In the last days of May, found an "event" on Facebook, which some of my friends were "going to". Turned out it was a 30 day abs challenge which people had decided to take up. Well, it seemed interesting enough, so me too decided to join this "movement". After all, the most visible effect of the sedentary lifestyle enjoyed by most office-goers including yours truly is a nicely developed paunch giving a well rounded appearance to your personality (Pun intended).

Getting rid of this paunch has been a ongoing battle for long, albeit a losing one. Exercise regimens have been initiated and let go. Multiple fitness apps have made their way in and out of the mobile phone. But somehow every single routine has collapsed for some reason or the other. With all these experiences behind me, I looked up the following chart, which was the cover picture of the event.

It was a set of 4 exercises (Sit-ups, Crunches, Leg Raises & Plank) to be done with increased repetitions over a period of 30 days with a rest day every 4th day.  The first few days looked light enough. So I decided to have a go at it. Printed out the picture and started striking out the routines as they got completed. The exercises were followed on a daily basis as per the calendar. So daily after returning from work, I would look up this chart and follow the instructions. 

Day 1 - 15 sit-ups, 5 crunches, 5 leg raises and 10 second plank. This was done easily without breaking any sweat. Although I did wonder if I would be able to manage the Day 30 routine with 125 sit-ups and 200 crunches. Decided to cross that bridge when it came and take it a day at a time. So day after day, the routine was followed with increased repetitions. The duration also increased from barely 10 minutes on the first day to almost 45 minutes by the end of the month. And somehow, I did manage to complete all the days without a single failure [started cheating a little on the plank in the last week though].

Some tips on how to keep it going

• Do not look at the activities for the last day. Its a huge number but you can get to it by the end of the month.
• Do the exercises in sets of 5 repetitions and have some background music to keep you distracted.
• Take a little break between different exercises, but finish in the same sitting.
• Keep having small sips of water in between
• Keep a print of the schedule. Use a pen/pencil to cross out the exercise set as you complete. Nothing motivates better to do the next step than crossing out the previous completed step.
• Try to maintain the same time daily.
• Follow as per the calendar dates. Makes it easier to keep track and complete.
• Find the next challenge to keep the spirit going

Overall Result - The weight has reduced slightly and the belt is definitely getting tighter. And it does feel good to have been able to complete 200 crunches at one go. The first battle has been won. But the war is still on. 

Here is the link with videos of how to do the exercises (Link) 

P.S. Taking up a new challenge for July. After all success breeds more success.

MovieNotes: Jurassic World

Title: Jurassic World (IMDB)

*ing: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Irrfan Khan & Dinosaurs

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Language: English

Genre: Science Fiction cum Action

Basic Premise

Jurassic World is a dinosaur theme park. But corporate diktats need a newer, bigger attraction to ensure a better looking balance sheet. This results in the unleashing of a monster which needs to be put in control.

MovieNotes

Jurassic Park was probably the first contemporary English movie most Indians my age would have seen. It sparked a dinosaur craze, with dinosaurs starting to appear everywhere whether as merchandise, in fun fairs, almost every school science project or even appearing in puja pandals (news link). Even planetariums began having shows about dinosaurs in addition to their usual space related stuff.

Jurassic World is the 3rd sequel to Jurassic Park though it mostly ignores the actions from the 2nd and 3rd film of the franchise. The movie is set over two decades after the events of the first movie and it is full of tributes and references to the first one. The references sometimes act as a self-parody as well.

The key feature of the whole story is the subject of "control". Humans believe that they are in control and can play with the genetic make-up to create bigger, more menacing animals for their entertainment, while increasing their cash-flow. There is another group which believes that they can train and control the dinosaurs for use in military, as a kind of modern day cavalry unit. But as Irrfan Khan's character points out we feel that we are in control, though that's not always the case.

Acting wise, the humans do not really have much to do. Once the Indominus Rex is let loose, most of the human actors just keep running trying to escape the big dinosaur's jaws while the rest make a semblance of fight (mostly in vain). It needed the combined effort of multiple other dinosaurs to take out the new monster in their midst.

The dinosaurs maybe bigger, the visuals more spectacular but they are unable to generate that "wow" effect which made the original such a cult hit.

Mandatory India Connect - Irrfan Khan. He gets one of the lead human roles playing a character of a quirky billionaire who wants more "teeth" to boost up his park's revenues while at the same time making philosophical statements about humans never being in control although they might feel it to be the case.

Rating - 7/10. Not much story-wise, but a good one time watch. The makers may have succeeded in adding more teeth, but the story did not have the bite of the original.

Previously on MovieNotes - Tanu Weds Manu Returns