Mysorean

Watched this movie ‘Santhosh Subramaniam’ yesterday. Its a tamil remake of the telugu blockbuster “Bommarillu“. Here is a feel-good review about the movie. I am not sure it is so pleasant to sit through, but it is okay. The point of bringing it up here is that I wanted to discuss the concept of the movie. I liked the fundamental idea of how an over-caring parent can actually affect the childrens’ lives. Though I have certain differences in the way I think reality pans out and the way the movie does. The discussion here is not about the movie. I just want to pick the concept and start a thread here on it.

Parents, some of them, do not realise that they are overstepping their roles under the garb of ‘caring for their children’. In fact overstepping would be the wrong term to use. They would cease to be parents when they don’t understand what’s the best interests of their children. There are some parents I know who always are with their children, physically present I mean. As absurd and practically impossible as it might sound, I know some of them who do this. A manifestation of this is seen in the mentality of the parents while deciding on sending their children out of station for studies. That child has to make a living on his/ her own and you need to give him/ her the best possible education. If the best means outside the city you are staying in, then so be it. What is the big deal? The kid will stay outside your shelter during his/ her formative years and will learn to deal with the world on his/ her own terms. This will help the kid become a much better person. Why can’t parents understand this?

I know a father of two who had to send his younger daughter for her MBA to a city that’s around 300+ kilometers away from his home city. He reacted as if the daughter was being pushed into the dungeons knowingly. It took me quite some time to convince him and then his wife started off with her usual “She is a kid, will she be able to manage?” kind of stuff. Well, I told them, its precisely why she should be sent there so that she will learn to manage. Manage herself, her friends, her stuff, and pretty much everything that relates to her. Hostel life is something that teaches you what you need to do yourself to become successful in life. And such overprotective parents really affect the development of the child. Today the child can walk into a railway station all alone, spot her train, get into it and reach the destination without any pangs of pressure. Just ask her mother to do it – she cant travel alone even to save her life! Even her dad (the mother’s dad) is not sure if she will reach the destination for which she is seated in the train! And she wants to bring her daughter up to become like her.

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Why does anyone build something new? Usually because the old one had developed certain problems that could not be solved by incremental fixes. So we now move from HAL airport to Bengaluru International Airport (BIAL). Let us capture the problems that were faced at the HAL airport before examining the BIAL airport. This is purely from the domestic airport point of view.

Congestion while getting into the airport:

This was a two fold problem – one, getting to the airport through the traffic jam on the airport road, etc and two, once near the entrance to the airport there used to be so many vehicles there that getting out of your vehicle and making it to the security entrance would be a pain.

Waiting space post-security check:

I have once waited for a flight standing for 40 minutes. The average must hover around 20 minutes standing.

Lounge:

I must have missed this one in the old airport because I have always spent time standing! :D Anyway if there was one at the HAL airport then were the duds at the check-in counter sleeping?!

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This part of the interview leaves me with goosebumps and teary eyes. And also speaks volumes about the spirituality behind his music. No wonder people want to call him God, which he is for so many singers and instrumentalists for whom he has selflessly transferred fame. Anyway thats a post for another day. For now, its over to this video.

There are times when the right spoken word can really make you feel happy for days. That’s exactly what happened to me.

I had invested all my effort, days and time into making a report for one of our investee companies (I am an investor now. Check out my about page). I spent two nights sitting awake completely, purely working on this document. I had, for some strange reason, taken this assignment as a do-or-die for me. There had been many fingers raised and pointed at me for my lacklustre communication in official documents, maybe that was the reason. My boss guided me a lot on putting it all together. She is a good friend and a well-wisher who I knew before joining this organization.

Finally, the d-hour came when my super boss saw the document. He is known to be a stickler for detail and presentation. To get a document through him is equivalent to getting a piece of paper through a shredder unshred! As he opened it, I could feel my heart in my mouth and could have donated it to him since he anyway did not have one, atleast while looking at written documents. The first word he said just blew me away. “Good!”. Thankfully nobody was looking me because I had broken into an involuntary grin! And somehow could never bring my lips together to shroud my teeth! Yeah that’s how much I was grinning. I mean imagine SB (super boss) saying it was good. Good! Good?!! As he browsed through the document he said thrice “Good”, “very good” and “good”. And capped it off with another “Good, looks like lot of work has gone into this document”. That was it! That pretty much sealed it for me for all the work I had done.

Post Script: SB is not always looking at criticizing. He is actually a very stable and balanced person. He rarely has any biases against anyone or anything. It’s just that his standard of quality expectation from a common man like me is very high. But it’s good because now I know that if I stretch myself I can reach the standards he expects out of me. That’s what actually is making me feel good. The belief that I can do it. Had lost it somewhere along the way. The regaining process has just recieved its first boost!

Nagesh Kukunoor is back. There is an automatic association with sensibility when you think of NK’s movies. None of his movies could be labelled as ‘typical Bollywood stuff’. NK compelled us into thinking that he was always going to maintain his track record of making good movies. And the best part was that he made us think out of the genre mindset. We, his fans, always thought any movie by NK will be worth every penny we pay for the ticket. Unlike some famous directors who sometimes don’t deliver but faithfully attempt several genres. NK’s track record has been impeccable. Has he managed to keep it up? Or has he let us down? Is it possible that the Shreyas-NK combination fails? Let us find out.

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When I wrote this, I did expect a lot of flak. And one particular comment particularly caught my attention. And that was from my good friend Biju. He said and I quote “and would suggest a small correction.Best actor(male) should go to Darsheel” And trust me I was seriously thinking about it till it so happened that Darsheel refused to accept the Star Screen Award given to him for Best Child Artiste. He has apparently said that he should be nominated in the Best Actor category.

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Most of the times when you have to eat your words you are embarrassed. But not in this case. I was apprehensive of India being able to handle the bounce of the Perth pitch here. And also suggested that Ishaant Sharma be dropped! Obviously I would make the worst cricket analyst! And if that helps India win then I am ready to take on any such tag.

I also have to admit that at every point during the test match when India dominated thoroughly I was waiting for that familiar session of play where we would gift the game to the opposition on a silver platter. Though I was showing optimisim throughout the match that India would win (despite my predictions to the opposite) I had this thought somewhere at the corner of my mind that we would give it away when it mattered. But the best part of this match was that, the session that ‘mattered’ never came. India dominated the Australians completely.

Winning at Perth is special. It is the Australians’ Eden Gardens. To beat them in their own den while battling the demons of Sydney and playing the pace quartet, India came out tops on all fronts. And it was a complete team performance. Sehwag’s positive approach opened up the match. Dravid and Tendulkar showed the way with their invaluable knocks. Then came RP Singh’s four for that is worth watching a million times and am sure Star Cricket won’t let any opportunity of showing this spell or the test match to us repeatedly. Pathan got both the openers in both the innings. I don’t know how many times that has occured in Test cricket before. VVS Laxman showed us again why he has not got his due yet. Second innings seem to bring out the best in him. Pathan, Sehwag and Dhoni made contributions that were worth noting. But it was RP Singh who again impressed with his big-hitting skills at the end of the order.

Then came the ultimate exhibition of fast bowling in the form of a 19-year old – Ishaant Sharma. His spell against Ricky Ponting is stuff that should be distributed on DVDs to youngsters to learn about fast bowling. The way Ricky Ponting, considered to be a demolisher of pace attacks, struggled against Ishaant Sharma tells us that Indian pace attack is in safe hands. Sehwag’s artwork with offspin made for stuff that is often seen in the greatest of test matches.

Overall, I am convinced that this Indian team is capable of squaring the series now. Again with that faint feeling somewhere that they might again capitulate in the Adelaide test though History suggests otherwise! I am sorry that I feel that way, but years of watching Indian cricket has made that feeling a permanent one. I am ready to eat my words again though! ;)

Nagesh Kukunoor was a name nobody had heard a decade ago. ‘Hyderabad Blues’ came along and changed something in Bollywood that people always thought was ‘parallel cinema’. Singlehandedly Nagesh Kukunoor made this ‘parallel cinema’ merge with the mainstream with his subsequent offerings like ‘Bollywood Calling’, ‘Teen Deewarein’, ‘Rockford’. ‘Iqbal’ and ‘Dor’.

Comedy has always been a part of Nagesh’s cinema. He has not consciously used a seperate track for comedy except for Shreyas’ role in ‘Dor’. Even in ‘Hyderabad Blues’ the comedy was sewn within the situations of his usually strong storylines. ‘Bollywood Calling’ was entirely tongue-in-cheek. This time round he has gone ahead and entered the genre of the season – comedy with ‘Bombay to Bangkok’. Will it work? Let’s wait and watch.

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Read this:

“The Sunday Telegraph” painstakingly collected and collated official ICC data, which shows India having faced more sanctions than any other Test playing nation in the past 10 years.

The daily also took a jibe at former India captain Sourav Ganguly, dubbing him “the game’s undisputed problem child, being hauled over the coals by cricket’s governing body a record 12 times in his international career.”

“Overall, Indian players have been charged for 43 infringements since 1997, for offences including intimidating umpires, abusing rival players, ball tampering, time wasting and widespread dissent,” it said.

The report pointed out that of the current touring party, five Indians players — Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh — have either been fined or suspended in the past.

And now, this is what the famous umpire of yesteryears, Dickie Bird, had to say about Indian teams: [Link]

“I have always found Indian team going back to Gavaskar, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Wadekar, when I umpired them, as gentlemen and I mean in all sense of the term. They all have been credit to the profession and credit to the game of cricket”

Like Navjot Singh Siddhu likes to say, ‘Statistics are like mini skirts. They show a lot but conceal the significant part”. The Australian media is dealing with numbers. Australians seem to be obsessed with statistics and rules. Because of which Ponting and the erstwhile umpire Darrell Hair did what they did. Human touch is absent in their dealings and that could sometimes work against them as it has now. Indian cricket team might not be tame anymore, but they are not certainly ‘worst-behaved’ as they would like us believe. This tour is getting murkier by the day.

The year 2007 ended on a brilliant note with the release of “Taare Zameen Par”. It started off with a highly successful film in the name of “Guru”. We had the hutke movies like “Chak De India” rake in a lot of moolah as well. At the same time we had typical masala movies like “Om Shanthi Om” and the comedy flicks like “Welcome”, “Heyy Baby”, “Partner”, “Bheja Fry” and dare I say “Cheeni Kum”. We also had duds like “Nishabd” and “RGV ki Aag” from the usually reliable Ram Gopal Varma. Even Yash Raj films came up with a dud like “Jhoom barabar jhoom”. There were the critically acclaimed commercial failures like “Ek chaalis ki last local”, “Dharm” and “Manorama six feet down under”. There were those that were neither critically acclaimed nor were they ever poised for commerical success “Eklavya” is one I can clearly remember.

Let us look at who takes away the honours for the 2007 Hindi film awards as decided by me!

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