Striker Party on Google Wave and Everyone's Invited (While Invites Last)

This should be fun: Beth and other assorted Bollywood bloggers and fans are organizing a Striker watchalong this Sunday 7th January at 1 pm EST (10 pm local UAE time) on Google Wave. The film is being released worldwide on Youtube at the same time as it hits cinemas in India - for free in most places, though US viewers will have to shell out a not unreasonable $5. For more info on this event, you can follow #strikerwatchalong on twitter; if you want invites to Google Wave, leave a message with your e-mail address.

Ishqiya: Vishal Bharadwaj Can Do No Wrong

Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and his nephew Babban (Arshad Warsi) are on the run from their boss, Mushtaq Bhai. Khalujaan - real name Iftekhar, but no one calls him that  - is Mushtaq Bhai's wife's rakhi bhai , but given that he and his bhanja stole a bagful of money from him and left him tied to a chair, things aren't exactly cordial between them. With nowhere else to run, they decide to hide out with Khalujaan's old friend Verma in Gorakhpur, except Verma is dead, and his widow Krishna (Vidya Balan) agrees to put them up. Hijinks - romantic and criminal - ensue.

Ishqiya isn't a traditional Bollywood movie; there are no song-and-dance numbers and it clocks in at a neat two hours. What really intrigued me about it was the fact that the plot and characters - especially Krishna - make sense, which makes them universal. With a bit of tweaking, these characters could be playing out this same plot in Australia or Scotland or wherever. If they do an American remake, by-the-by, my fantasy cast would include Sam Rockwell, Jeff Bridges and Toni Collette (yes, I know she's Australian, but she does a flawless American accent, so shush.)

The casting of this version is note-perfect. I wasn't sure about Vidya Balan at first, simply because she looks South Indian to me, but she has a steeliness about her that fits Krishna exactly. I do not believe there is another major actress working in Hindi films today who could have played broken-hearted, sly, smart Krishna as well as Vidya did - maybe Rani Mukherjee, but steely resolve has never been her forte, and I can't really see her playing as unglamorous a character as this, oil in her hair and all. And, wow, Arshad Warsi. To watch him in any of the dime-a-dozen comedies he does, you'd never think the man could act, but I'm very pleased to be proven wrong. In lesser hands, Babban would just be the lecherous comic relief character; Arshad Warsi gave him depth and enough warmth that Babban is as strong a character as his uncle Khalujaan, which brings us nicely to Naseeruddin Shah.

When writing about great actors, I am reminded of something Laurence Olivier once wrote about Anthony Hopkins auditioning for the role of Edmund* in King Lear - that he walked away with the part as neatly as a cat would with a piece of fish. We're so used to expecting that calibre of acting from Naseeruddin that even though he embodies henna-ed Khalujaan perfectly - a career criminal who once had aspirations towards the arts and falls in love with Krishna because of her music first - it simply doesn't have the same wow factor as the other two central performances. "It's Naseeruddin Shah! Of course he's good, what else would you expect? The man was the best thing about Krrish, for crying out loud."

Being set in the Hindi belt, the language they use in this movie is a bit different from what I'm used to, and weirdly, the movie wasn't subtitled, so a few of the lines went right over my head. What exactly is a "sulphate?" (And if you tell me, well, metals react with sulphuric acid to produce metallic sulphates, I will hit you. somehow.) But to be honest, it's refreshing to watch a Hindi film that for once, is not set in Bombay or the UK or Canada or Australia or the USA. If someone's only experience of India was through mainstream Hindi films, I very much doubt he or she would even suspect that rural India - apart from maybe Punjab - exists! It does, and in the boondocks of UP (where this film is set) and Bihar, kidnappings are rampant, guns are everywhere and life is desperate for the have-nots.

By Hindi film standards, Ishqiya is quite racy, because whoa, Arshad Warsi and Vidya Balan have chemistry. On the flipside, it is well-acted; the writing by Vishal Bharadwaj, Abhishek Chaubey and Sabrina Dhawan is sharp - plus there's a Chekov's gun!; and the direction by Abhishek Chaubey is quite good, and I don't mean, "for his first film," I mean good. So. When can we look forward to Ishqiya 2?

*It may have been Edgar, I'm not sure. 

Why So Blah?

Now Playing: Editors - Papillon (Tiesto Mix)

Anyone who knows me knows I'm shallow like a kiddie pool. I don't just have one fake-imaginary-tv-movie-boyfriend, I have a whole collection. When I'm in the mood for funny banter, there's Nathan Fillion; Abhishek Bachchan has intense and debonair in his pocket; Matthew Bomer is just uncomfortably good-looking, & Shahid Kapoor does that quiet, serious charm thing very well and dances like a dream. So, when I heard Chance Pe Dance described as Shahidporn, I knew I had to watch it.

Me: Chance pe Dance is apparently TOTAL Shahidporn. We must watch it. 

A: Err...

Me: Must. Watch. It. 

A: Um, okay? 

Sadly, the movie sucked. There's no way I can dress it up - this was a total turkey. The music was completely unmemorable - which is criminal in a dance movie; the plot was completely incohesive - Shahid teaches schoolkids how to dance until that plotline is summarily and abruptly wound up; and perhaps worst of all, Shahid didn't even take off his shirt till the big finale number.

Look, if you're going to play to the cheap seats, then, well, play to the cheap seats. If your movie sucks, then don't wait till the end to distract your audience with Shirtless Shahid, because by then they've spent the entire movie cracking wise. Which, by the by, is yet another sign that the movie totally lost its audience, because at the showing we caught, we spent the whole movie making really loud comments and we didn't get one shush or glare. I don't make a habit of talking through a movie, but really, this was the only way to get through this one.

This is not to say that Chance Pe Dance didn't have its bright spots. Shahid did do a great job; Genelia is funny and adorable (especially with her Scooty) though it's difficult to buy her as a choreographer when she's  just not on the same level as Shahid when it comes to dancing. It's a shame, because they're both bringing their A-game to a movie that's definitely minor league.

Bottomline: If someone describes this movie to you as a fun timepass movie, they are lying liars who lie. Do not take a chance on Chance Pe Dance.

Kaminey

Now Playing: Vishal Bhardwaj - Pehli Baar Mohabbat

When Zac Efron decides it’s time to shed his pretty-boy image for something more macho, he would do well to find a project like Kaminey, which manages to simultaneously make a hard man out of Shahid Kapoor and establish his acting chops.

Charlie is a small-time thug with big-time dreams while Guddu is an earnest social worker who passes out prophylactics to prostitutes. They’re also identical twins who haven’t spoken to each other in years and have non-identical speech impediments – Charlie lisps and Guddu stammers. Is it a coincidence that Charlie, who admits to taking the fast and dirty road to riches over the slow and steady, turns his s’s to f’s? Probably, but the picture is full of tiny delightful details like that one.

Vishal Bharadwaj abandons the Shakespearean roots of his previous films for a Tarantino-esque sensibility and a denouement that seems like vintage Guy Ritchie. As good as Omkara and Maqbool were, it’s nice to see that the director is capable of playing in a different sandbox. The acting is generally good; apart from the above-mentioned Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra shines as Guddu’s pregnant girlfriend Sweety and Amol Gupte is riveting as her politician /goonda brother, professional marathi manoos Bhope Bhau. Chandan Roy Sanyal has less screentime as Mikhail, the youngest member of a Bengali fraternity of crime, but his relationship with Charlie is fascinatingly ambiguous, fraternal with a definite homoerotic subtext.

There were three things about Kaminey that I really liked. First, there were actual, literal Chekov’s guns – I actually squealed, “CHEKOV!” when the guns made their second appearance. Secondly, there’s a scene where Guddu is being held by a pair of corrupt policement for questioning. At this point, the audience expects violence, pliers, electrodes, or any manner of torture from the policemen, who are desperate anything to elicit the information they believe Guddu has – which he doesn’t, as they really want Charlie. To complicate things further, there’s Guddu’s stutter, which worsens with stress. However - instead of increasing the physical inducement to get Guddu to talk, the senior policemen tells Guddu to sing, which reduces his stammer drastically and is not, surprise, surprise, a segue to a song sequence. Finally, while the hilarious irony of a guy who preaches safe sex knocking up his girlfriend never ceases to amuse, the Guddu- Sweety relationship is, though stormy, tender and loving. She manages him, and he’s happy to let her, and you really feel that these two crazy kids might make it after all, despite all the kaminey around them.

No Love for Love Aaj Kal

Now Playing: Ladyhawke - Magic

As the first half of Love Aaj Kal ended and the lights came up in the theatre for the intermission, I felt distinctly underwhelmed. This was an Imtiaz Ali film, and yet it didn't pop – unlike his previous picture, Jab We Met, whose heroine's middle names were probably Snap, Crackle and Pop. It was halfway through the movie – and yet the most noteworthy thing I'd seen was the use of the word 'gist' in a hindi song (they needed something to rhyme with 'twist.') Por que, Imtiaz, por que?

The plot unfolds, with lots of flash-backs and a few flash-forwards (damn you, Lost!) thusly - In present-day London, Jai and Meera meet (the second time) in a club, sparks fly and soon they're in a relationship. After more than a year, Meera decides to move to Delhi, where she's been offered the chance to do mural restoration work and they decide to break up – long-distance relationships never work and they're both mature individuals, not star-struck lovers. So mature, in fact, that they have a combination send-off and break-up party, at which they slow-dance, with long, lingering gazes. The camera does not linger on the faces of their guests, but I'm sure they must have been thinking, "This is soooo awkward. Are they together or not?" Anyway, after the party, the owner of the restaurant, Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor) tells Jai he's an idiot to have let that girl go, and tells Jai the story of his passionate and all-consuming love for Harleen (Giselle Monteiro) back when he was played by a polyester-clad Saif Ali Khan.

One of the main problems, I felt, is that the present-day romance is supposed to be 'realistic' – Jai does not fall madly in love with Meera the first time he sees her, which is the very first scene of the movie - only they don't really meet and they're simply sharing an elevator. They enter the elevator, they don't look at each other, they exit the elevator. Realistic, right? Who knows, you might have met your future spouse already and not yet know it. But hold on, back up a second. I find it difficult to believe that there are men – purportedly heterosexual men – who are capable of getting into a lift with someone who looks like Deepika Padukone without giving her so much as a glance, let alone a double-take. The very first scene of the movie, and it rings false.

The present-day part of the film isn't helped by the fact that neither Jai nor Meera come across as very sympathetic. Jai comes across as selfish and clueless – he won't see Meera off at the airport because he's lent his car for the day and the flight leaves from Stansted, as if there's no public transport in the greater London area. 'Oh, Meera's fine with that," he says, and I think, "You idiot. You've been dating her for the better part of two years, you've met her family, the least you can do is show up at the airport and wave goodbye!" Alack, the idiocy of men. Later, when he sees Meera after her wedding to Vikram (darling, darling Rahul Khanna) he blathers on and on about his feelings – and which the blathering may have been meant to be a part of the character's charm, it really didn't work for me all the time. Afterwards, he moves to San Francisco as part of his life's dream to work on the Golden Gate bridge and finds the dream isn't all that great without the girl by his side, and I swear, the song picturization at this point was like a Raymond Suitings commercial – see Saif pose around San Fran in nice suits and varying degrees of stubble to match his character's inner angst! I laughed.

Deepika… oh dear, the fact of the matter is that the girl may be ridonkulously pretty and a fabulous clothes horse, but she can't act her way out of a paper bag. The Jai-Meera story is first of all, mostly Jai's story, and Deepika has comparatively little to do besides looking pretty. She does get one really meaty scene – when Meera realizes that perhaps, you can't use logic to deal with relationships; that maybe, the person who seems to not fit with where you are in life makes you happier than the person who is your perfect match. Unfortunately, this realization happens after her marriage to Vikram which inevitably leads to a meltdown. It's Deepika's big moment in the film – and it doesn't work. In stronger hands (Kareena Kapoor or maybe Konkona Sen Sharma) this would have been oscar reel material, but Deepika comes across as more high school drama club. The whole Jai-Meera relationship comes across as rather weak, even platonic sometimes, because Jai, while a bit of a prat, is played by Saif at 100W while Deepika flickers pleasantly at 40W.

Now, the other storyline, where Veer sees Harleen once and falls madly in love is cute, charming and unfortunately, can't account for more than a third of the film's running time. Saif may not be the best choice to play a Sardarji, but the character is easily more lovable than Jai – for example, contrast Veer running to the train station to see Harleen one more time and Jai whining about Stansted being too far out of town. Harleen has maybe two lines in the whole movie (seeing as how the actress is brazilian and doesn't speak hindi) but she comes across more vividly with all that silence than Deepika does with her surfeit of lines. The music, with the exception of 'Dooriyan' is hardly memorable - though can someone tell me why the costumes in the big dance numbers are so fluorescent and gaudy? They were like the costumes in Jab We Met's 'Mauja' number only with more glitter.

I did like the fact that Jai doesn't run to Meera's wedding yelling, "yeh shaadi nahin ho saktaaaaaa!!!" and the fact that Vikram and Saif's girlfriend Jo aren't portrayed negatively simply because they're the other guy and girl, respectively – but that's not enough to make me like the movie. Rent it if you must, but save the cost of a movie ticket to watch Kaminey.

Everything I need to know I learnt from... Bollywood?!?

Now Playing: The Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane

'Twas a dark and stormy night afternoon when I heard fingernails tapping on my window. One Lockwoodesque freakout later, I realized that what I had heard was probably not the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw (for reasons geographical as well as sensible); but instead, as in the novel, simply the tapping of a tree branch against the glass pane.

Nevertheless, I was jumpy for the rest of the evening, and complained vociferously to my mother as we had our evening chai, "Argh! I'm still on edge!" To which Mum, disdainer of all things Bollywood replied, "Jo darr gaya, samjho marr gaya." (He who is afraid is as good as dead)

Three days later, I'm still laughing.

Don (2006)

Now Playing: Don – Aaj ki Raat

When international criminal Don (Shah Rukh Khan) is captured by DCP DeSilva (Boman Irani), the latter decides to use a Don look-a-like, Vijay, to further his investigation into Don’s gang. Throw in a femme fatale or three (Priyanka Chopra, Isha Koppikar & Kareena Kapoor), a revenge-seeking father (Arjun Rampal) and more international criminals and you have a wonderfully convoluted update of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan starrer.

At the outset, I have to admit I haven’t seen the first movie, so I wasn’t really saddled with expectations. I am however, an unabashed fan of Farhan Akhtar, because it was his Dil Chahta Hai, that raised the bar for Hindi movies in terms of production values and believable plots. Dil Chahta Hai was one of the first movies to eschew the traditional trappings of Bollywood cinema – no more palatial mansions with spiral staircases, garish clothing, backup dancers in coordinated clothing (except for a song that memorably spoofed movie-style through the decades)– and adopt a more simple style that was still unmistakably filmi. The plotline – the adventures and misadventures of three friends – was believable, the songs actually fit into the plot, and the production values were generally higher than most movies of the 80’s and 90’s. I mean, this was still a Bollywood movie – see Hero confront Heroine’s menacing and abusive Fiance! – but it was one that you didn’t feel slightly embarrassed about watching, unlike, say, Hum Aapke Hai Kaun (NB – I was only 10 when I saw that, and clearly not responsibly for my own opinions.) I even liked Lakshya, apart from Preity Zinta’s execrable hairstyle in the 2^nd half. To this day, I think that was one of Hrithik Roshan’s better acting turns, and I think it’s quite sad that two of his better acted movies (the other is Mission Kashmir) were commercial flops.

The one aspect of the 1978 movie I was familiar with was the music: ‘Yeh mera dil pyaar ka deewana’ is one of those quintessentially 70’s bollyfunk anthems, and ‘Khaike paan banaraswala’ is one of my favourite Kishore Kumar songs. Ever listened to the Black-Eyed Peas’ Don’t Phunk With My Heart? That funktastic opening riff is lifted directly off ‘Yeh mera dil.’ The new movie offers updated (read ‘remixed’) versions of these two songs, as well as a new version of ‘Main Hoon Don’ and two new songs, Aaj ki Raat & Mourya Re. Yeh mera dil doesn’t work so well with the new, fast beats, but Khaike paan is transformed into an incredibly danceable number. Of the remaining three songs, Aaj ki Raat is noteable both for being immensely catchy (it’s on loop on my mp3 player as I type this) and for evoking the 70s without being cheesy or kitschy.

As an update of a 1970’s masala action picture, Don succeeds admirably – it’s stylish, fast-paced and very, very fun. The first hour serves as the setup, and is thus necessarily slower than the rest of the movie, which is pretty fast-paced, with twist after twist, with a final twist that had me squealing with delight. It seems to me that Don was a good candidate for a remake – it was a well-liked film, but not a classic (unlike Sholay, the remaking of which is absolute sacrilege) and from reading reviews, its clear the older movie could have done with better production values. Technically, the film passes muster, though I have one quibble with the costume designer: I don’t mind the much-maligned tie-inside-shirt approach, but did you have to put SRK in paisley? It made him look more Bombay Tapori and less International Crime Lord. Also, whoever gets to dress SRK in the rest of his filmi career? Can you ensure he’s always dressed the way he is in Aaj ki Raat? Even if it’s a period picture set in ancient India? *sigh*

Is SRK as good as the Big B? He's brilliant as Don, golf-ball-to-the-head good – and why has it been so long since he played a baddie? His performance as Vijay, however – specifically, the initial bits before the impersonation starts – unmistakeably brings Bachchan Sr to mind, so much so that watching SRK you can almost imagine that were Amitabh saying those lines. SRK may be able to play a bhaiyya, but AB is the real deal, a chora ganga kinarewala, and those lines just don’t sound right from SRK. The rest of the cast acquits themselves well – with Priyanka Chopra actually having something to do, and doing it well, and Arjun Rampal smouldering (need I say it? Hotly.) as a husband and father who’s lost his family. The standout, though, was Boman Irani – I remember turning to my brother at some point in the movie and whispering, “Man, Boman Irani is badass!” He’s usually been one of the high points of any movie he’s been in (see Munnabhai, MBBS, or Lage Raho Munnabhai, or Bluff Master, or Being Cyrus) but here, he’s pretty damn awesome. Watch the scene where DeSilva confronts Singhania in a men’s washroom. Not a word is spoken, but Boman Irani manages to convey first, “Recognize me?” then gloating, and then a cold satisfaction and assurance that his enemy has been taken care of. Like I said – Pretty Damn Awesome. The rest of the movie is not quite upto his level – but it’s still Pretty Damn Cool, and well worth a watch.

What to do when you have a craving for Chinese food at 3 am

The other day I was talking to a friend on msn, and weirdly enough, we were discussing friendship, and I said: “...that's the whole point of a friend: they stand by your side, they support/defend you...”

Then I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai (Keep at it, Munnabhai) and I realized that I was just so wrong. Friendship is about more than just caring and support; true friendship means kidnapping a Chinese cook from a hotel when your friend has a hankering for Chinese food.

See, Munna (Sanjay Dutt), a local goon, is apologizing to his best friend/ lieutenant, Circuit (Arshad Warsi), for hitting him: “I have to apologize to you. I haven’t slept half the night; all these old memories were whirling in my head. Remember when I was shot in the belly? I couldn’t sleep, and I told you I missed mother? You put my head on your lap and sang me lullabies. And then I raised my hand to you? ... Remember that time I told you I wanted to eat Chinese food at 3 am? You went and kidnapped the Chinese cook from that 5 star hotel. (pause) What delicious Hakka noodles those were, no?”

None of my friends have ever offered to kidnap a chinese cook when I want Chinese. Nooo, they insist on going to a restaurant and paying for the food.

*sulk*

Jokes aside, Lage Raho Munnabhai is one of the funniest and most heartfelt movies to come out of Bollywood in the past few years. Rang de Basanti had the message, but not the humour, and Sanjay Dutt’s befuddled Munna is eminently more relatable than Aamir Khan’s angry DJ. It has the same basic message as Anupam Kher’s Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara – ie, that it is more important to keep Gandhian values in our hearts than to erect statues and memorials – but unlike the latter movie, LRM is neither a lecture nor a guilt-trip. MGKNM, while wonderfully acted, had an undeniably moral-science-lesson feel to it. LRM, on the other hand, has characters whose very fallibility endears them to us. When Munna is slapped once, he turns the other cheek, because Bapu said so. But when the other cheek is slapped, he dishooms the slapper, because, after all, Gandhiji never said what to do when both cheeks were slapped, right? As Munna might have put it: apun tere ko bolta hai ki ye ekdum mast picture hai.

Plus LRM has this guy in a cameo role. There was much screaming chez Sharon when he showed up. (Screencaps by Maja, who will henceforth be referred to as the BEST. SCREENCAPPER. EVER.)

PS - If you do watch it, or have already watched it, and Hindi is not a language with which you’re that familiar, I’m wondering whether the subtitles do a good job of differentiating between Munna and Circuit’s tapori-speak and every one else’s standard Bombay Hindi. I’m just curious if they caught that distinction, because a lot of the funny came from that.

More Pointless Blabbering for the Masses

Now Playing: Erik Satie - 1st Gnossienne

After the quizfest that was my last post, I think I've got the quiz bug out of my system. On to more pointless blabbering for the masses!

In the aftermath of the beef-in-black-bean-sauce debacle, I decided I had to get back in the culinary game, so I enlisted the help of Thangam Philip's Modern Cookery, Volume 2. Now, this is probably the oldest cookbook we have - it's tattered and falling apart, the instructions are no-nonsense & text-only, but the recipes work! My first attempt was a pork curry - took forever to prepare, but turned out alright. It got me to thinking - Indian Cooking is really dependent on women having nothing better to do. I mean, the pork curry took me around three hours from start to finish - what with frying, blending and simmering - and this is today, when we have electric blenders and ready-ground spices, as opposed to when you had to grind the spices yourself using a heavy grindstone. Anyway, my latest effort, Chicken Rogini is my masterpiece - it's chicken in a creamy yogurt and cashew sauce. Deeelicious!

New TV show with potential: Prison Break. The first hour was a bit annoying - "watch Wentworth Miller and his steely glare!" - but as the second hour progressed, and it turned out that jail is a bit much for even Michael "anticipate-every-contigency" Scofield to handle - well, I'll be watching from now on. It doesn't hurt that Wentworth Miller is really easy on the eyes.

Finally saw Paheli & I loved it (except for the gratuitous CGI). It's photographed beautifully, and Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee are awesome together (plus SRK in a moustache? teehee!). Also saw Dus. The less said about that one, the better. I mean, it has Abhishek Bachchan and Zayed Khan (who can't act, but he's easy on the eyes) but the sheer implausibility of the plot and the emphasis of style over substance ruin a movie that could have been pretty darn awesome.

Sanjay Dutt and Abhishek Bachchan in Dus (Indian anti-terrorism agents never take off their holsters, not even at the office,and yet, the lines of their suits aren't ruined.)

Zayed Khan in Dus (he doesn't take off the shades even when he's defusing a bomb and he emotes like he's stoned, but hey, he's cute!)

That's it for me - ciao, people!

Ennui - or the lack thereof -

Now Playing: The Dandy Warhols - The Last High

So, Hem & Vince both redesigned their blogs recently, which prompted me to try and redesign my own slice of the information superhighway. Attempting to redo a website sans any real HTML knowledge? fun, fun, fun. The fact that you are looking at the same old, scratch that, classic, look, should clue you in to the fact that the redesign was unsucessful. I was going for a stark, b&w look, featuring Uryuu Ishida from Bleach. It kinda worked, but not quite - so until I get with the program and learn HTML, the tried and tested look will have to do.

Uryuu who, you ask? That would be this guy -

- just so you know. (All images from the bleach_icons lj community)

And now to present a scene from chez abacus -

Me: You know, I think there's something wrong with my memory! My ability to recall details is totally deteriorating. *shudder*
Brother: Hm. That is funny. I mean, normally, you can remember the most useless details. Something must be wrong with you. Really, really wrong.
Me: Why are you smiling like that?
Brother: No reason. (starts humming "How do you solve a problem like Maria")
Me: That'll teach me to look to you for reassurance! Kung Fu Kidney Jab Of Doom!
Brother: owww.
Me: Ahhh, now I feel better.

Anyway, summer is almost over, and this time, it went by too fast for my liking; none of the usual summer's end ennui, possibly because I actually kept busy this time. I actually worked, for the first time in my life, and it was a job I really enjoyed - being the Verbal Reasoning instructor for students taking the Princeton Review MCAT prep course. Teaching was, for me, a totally new experience - fun, but also entirely nervewracking. I managed to convince myself that every murmur and whisper in class was caused by there being something on my face (in a spectacular display of my customary self-absorption) - which meant I spent much of the class time in an agony of wondering what was wrong with my dress/disposition/face/whatever. Other than that, it was an entirely edifying experience - I now have oodles of respect for anyone who's in any kind of teaching position, and I'll never be able to talk in class ever again.

I finally bought the creative zen - blue, 5 GB - and have named it Fluffy.

Also, no takers for the Interpol concert. Why, oh why, did they have to play on a Wednesday?

Movies seen recently -

• Main Pyar Kyun Kiya: It's good for a David Dhawan movie - Salman Khan and Sushmita Sen are both funny, as is Arshad Warsi in a small role, but Katrina Kaif can't act. Gah.
• Kya Kool Hai Hum: Chock-full of what us Indians refer to as "non-veg" jokes, but still, the funniest movie I've seen in a long while. However, if you can't take really juvenile humour, this isn't the movie for you. Ritesh Deshmukh, Isha Koppikar & Anupam Kher are the standouts in an awesome comedic ensemble.
• Kisna: A good movie, but marred by the 3-hour rule that hindi movies seem to consider sancrosanct. If it had clocked in at two hours or so, it would have been a good movie, but it just kept going and going - like the energizer bunny, except in a bad way. The end result of too much of a good thing (ie - Vivek Oberoi) in this case, is mediocrity.
  

Now off. Ta!

Hearts of Foam and Other Trivial Things...

Now Playing: Parineeta - Piyu Bole

So, I went to the Hot & Spicy Food Festival at the Harbourfront centre yesterday with Julia, Linda, Mimmie & Stephanie. The food was great - I had a nice and spicy jerk chicken roti - and the International Marketplace they have there is always a great place to browse. Anyway, we got seats in front of the CIBC stage, and waited for the live entertainment to begin, & the first artist to perform was this beat poet whose name escapes me utterly. At any rate, she was pretty good, although very angry - "You think I'm Pavlov's Dog/ Well just ring that bell, motherf***er!" Anyway, one of her (other) songs had the lyric, "If my heart was made of foam, it would shatter..." - and so I remark to Steph and Julia, "Argh, that metaphor doesn't hold up! Foam can't shatter!!!" to which they replied, "What foam? She said 'bone'!" - and suddenly the song made a lot more sense. :D

OMG INTERPOL IS IN TORONTO FOR A CONCERT SEPTEMBER 28TH WHO WANTS TO GO WITH ME??? Okay, I love this band, and I really want to go see them - but I really think I'm the only person who listens to their music (that I know), and I don't want to go by myself! :'( So leave me a comment if you're up for a night of awesome indie rock. :D

If anyone has a copy of the song "Ek Pal ki Zindagi" (literally, life lasts only for a moment) from the movie D, please, please let me know. D is an awesome movie describing the rise to uber-don status of the eponymous Deshu ("D for Deshu" - as the opening monologue puts it) . D is meant to be the prologue to Ram Gopal Varma's 2002 film Company, in which Ajay Devgan played mob boss Mallik. I guess Ajay Devgan wasn't available to do the prequel, so they got a new actor, and renamed the character. In any case, it's not a perfect movie by any means - the very fact that it is a prequel removes most of the dramatic tension surrounding Deshu's fate - but it is very well done.

A scene that really impressed me came near the beginning, when Deshu (played by Randeep Hooda) has just returned to Bombay from Dubai because of the death of his mother. At this point, I need to explain that the trains in India generally don't have doors that open and close at each station, and also that trains that run within the city of Bombay itself and the immediate suburbs, stopping at every stop, are called local trains. So, Deshu's riding a local train at night; the compartment is mostly empty - and then, of a sudden, he hears a sudden scream behind him, startling him as much as it does the audience. He goes to investigate, and sees some rough looking guys, but no direct signs of a struggle, nor of the screamer. The camera pans over everyone in the compartment, all looking as though nothing at all had happened, and back to Deshu, who slowly realizes he's not going to get any answers... and he walks back to his old spot.

Also watched recently:

• Parineeta - well made, well acted, but the ridiculous wall-breaking scene at the end was a jarringly sour note in an otherwise note-perfect film.
• Bunty aur Babli - entertaining, but not very rewatchable, I'd think. I did crack up when Rani Mukherjee's Babli said of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan's characters, "tum shakal se rishtedar lagte ho!" ("From your faces, you seem to be related") Also of note - the Taj Mahal Sale bit was a total riot - the actor playing the "American" was absolutely hilarious!
  
• Morning Raga - the only redeeming factor was Shabana Azmi's performance as a Carnatic singer traumatized by the deaths of her son and her best friend in an accident - and even that was diminished by the all too obvious fact that Shabana Azmi does not look remotely south Indian, which is what her character is supposed to be. Nevertheless, the performance was note perfect, down to the way she had her hair done, and the way she wore her sari.
• Elaan - if a movie has John Abraham, Arjun Rampal and Rahul Khanna, and I still don't like it? it's a really, really stupid movie.
  

And now off. Have a great long weekend!

PS - got a haircut. now i look like the cookie monster. :S Atleast Megha will be happy. :D

Edited to add -

Your brain: 40% interpersonal, 80% visual, 180% verbal, and 100% mathematical!

Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers. Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious: Don't date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%. Don't be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%. Don't have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 28% on interpersonal You scored higher than 39% on visual You scored higher than 92% on verbal You scored higher than 69% on mathematical

Link: The 4-Variable IQ Test written by chriscoyne on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Okay, so my interpersonal & visual skills suck - dude, I knew that much already! :D