tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-144760942024-03-08T04:47:53.537+05:30A-GyanMagical Realism. Media, Sports, Technology, Finance, World-at-Large. 80'E & 30'N, from my arm chair. ‘Starting up, again’. All personal views.Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-6014259042237334972012-07-24T11:42:00.001+05:302012-07-24T11:42:54.068+05:30Rise. Resurrect. Rejuvenate.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">If the Batman can overcome a fatal mortal threat in the most primitive fashion, who are we not to try? A sonata, to punch on the keyboard. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">If you grow up in small-town India, getting access to Phantom and Mandrake was a darn side easier than the adventures of the DC and Marvel heroes and heroines. Those days</span><span style="background-color: white;">, </span><span style="background-color: white;">the Marvel posterboy Spiderman was brought in to our lives</span><span style="background-color: white;"> courtesy the Saturday afternoon airing on Doordarshan. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Even now, when I have access, the international publications seem unaffordable. It is actually the digital medium and the smart handheld-device explosion that has been a boon. The ability to download comics for a couple of dollars (or even free) is so much more convenient than the six hundred rupee paperbacks available in book stores.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Over the course of seven years and three films, Christopher Nolan has paid a tribute to Batman which Bob Kane maybe have never dreamt of, but would surely have been very proud of. In fact, if you analyse Nolan's entire portfolio of the four films (including <i>Inception</i>) in the given timeframe, it is only the first and last that are possibly comic superhero movies. <i>The Dark Knight</i> and <i>Inception</i> (the interluding two which really created Nolan's legend) are more psycho-thrillers exploring the (destructive) capabilities of the human mind. It took the brilliance of the late Heath Ledger's Joker to relegate the protagonist to a glorified extra in his own flick, r</span><span style="background-color: white;">efer my earlier love <a href="http://agyanonline.blogspot.in/2008/07/dark-knight.html" target="_blank">paean</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivYXLwY6iXeIL2PM_0MXqB2X5c-BCsi57hOh5wMUOeFVdFVtPpdX3HbORemSjZg0Rru5PL6LG1DPCGlv2irQJob5_QFhpBIPL_3KyR6mdV2qPLUyNz2nW8K-ppvYWstn1BU6m6KA/s1600/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-10-300x240.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivYXLwY6iXeIL2PM_0MXqB2X5c-BCsi57hOh5wMUOeFVdFVtPpdX3HbORemSjZg0Rru5PL6LG1DPCGlv2irQJob5_QFhpBIPL_3KyR6mdV2qPLUyNz2nW8K-ppvYWstn1BU6m6KA/s200/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-10-300x240.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: white;">Please do read</span><span style="background-color: white;"> an excellent </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2012/07/18/review-the-dark-knight-rises-delivers-perfect-end-to-batman-legend/" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">review</a><span style="background-color: white;"> by Mark Hughes in Forbes magazine (thanks </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/14334049900582397948" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Svety</a><span style="background-color: white;">). If you discount his Oscar predictions (I am sure none of the Acting Performances will even get a nomination), I quote him. "Christopher Nolan </span><span style="background-color: white;">changed everything when his </span><i style="background-color: white;">Batman Begins</i><span style="background-color: white;"> brought to life the Batman I’d always dreamed of — no, actually, that’s not entirely correct, because the truth is that the Batman films I dreamed of were nowhere close to as good as what Nolan created. But what he created was the Batman I had been waiting for all my life, even though I didn’t know precisely what it was I was waiting for. Batman Begins made me feel, “This is Batman, this is what Batman was always meant to be, what he has for 65 years been journeying toward, and now he’s made whole at last.” So it was a shock when, in 2008, magic happened and Batman got even better on film. The superhero in cinema was redefined, the simple notion of “comic book genre” rendered obsolete, by </span><i style="background-color: white;">The Dark Knight</i><span style="background-color: white;">. It was a crime thriller, a police and gangster drama set in a world we could recognize as very close to our own, and in which the main character happened to wear a Batman costume. After seeing it, I had the feeling that “my” Batman, the one I’d been waiting for, was now fully formed, and I admit I didn’t know if it would be possible for any future Batman films to live up to what </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-auto;">The Dark Knight</i><span style="background-color: white;"> delivered."</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">The Dark Knight Rises</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">, Nolan's most compelling completion of the trilogy, is cinematic intelligence at its most subtle. Comparing this film to</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">The Dark Knight</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">is foolhardy. </span>With his trilogy, Nolan has created on celluloid a world full of intricate and exciting details, not too dissimilar to what JK Rowling did, but the task made more difficult by the nature of the medium. I have seen the earlier two flicks sufficient number of times, and marveled at some of the trivia in the last film being hinted at earlier (remember the flying Bat hinted at in <i>The Dark Knight</i>).</div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">In his finale, Nolan captures many potential influences. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">The sighting of the Batman is a straight lift from Frank Miller's seminal novel. Blake's identification of Bruce Wayne as Batman is actually the way Bane does so in the comic (do try and figure out how Bane would have done so in the film). T</span><span style="background-color: white;">he Gotham revolution is </span><i style="background-color: white;">A Tale of Two Cities</i><span style="background-color: white;"> meets </span><i style="background-color: white;">Doctor Zhivago</i><span style="background-color: white;">. And finally the </span><span style="background-color: white;">rise is <i>Rocky</i> training as he gets a challenge similar to <i>Superman II</i>. We Indians can take immense pride in the Rise literally happening at Jodhpur.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">How difficult would it have been for Christopher Nolan to make <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>.</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> </span>And honestly, while the brilliantly run marketing campaign did its job in building anticipation, it could raise the expectations sky-high only to shatter them. I had to go and watch the movie twice, because the first time round, I was too busy predicting the plot, before I got sucked in to the climatic crescendo. I can not think of a better climax for any movie in the recent past. And to mull on another symbolism, was that the first time we actually saw the Batman in daylight?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeRxds4L7-7-cQVrEFJCZ50kV9w8r2b_nFPavR6dL9GBhW2_cBkEU9zUBhp-_yLh0YUi5CyU2DHxX4qalklnF8QOROpNDSHJQmXIMfhG0BLFvByBic-5vq3px2Cda-PIOhi-Jjug/s1600/baneimax-199x300.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeRxds4L7-7-cQVrEFJCZ50kV9w8r2b_nFPavR6dL9GBhW2_cBkEU9zUBhp-_yLh0YUi5CyU2DHxX4qalklnF8QOROpNDSHJQmXIMfhG0BLFvByBic-5vq3px2Cda-PIOhi-Jjug/s200/baneimax-199x300.jpeg" width="132" /></a>With an iconic Joker to replace (who as an act of great respect is not mentioned even once in the movie), the villain would have been the most difficult choice. If Heath Ledger was alive, he would surely have got a run at the Batman again (the prison-break? remember he does not die). Initially, Johnny Depp was rumored to play the more popular Riddler, but to settle on a relatively archaic Bane buried all potential comparisons. I am still wondering how exactly did Tom Hardy bulk up for the role, to have a neck the size of most people's waists. <span style="background-color: white;">Anne Hathaway as the Cat Burglar (never referred to as the Catwoman) plays the spiciest character. And</span><span style="background-color: white;"> Bruce-Alfred conversations kept giving the series progressively better moral fibre. </span></div>
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Boy, am I glad to live in the times of Christopher Nolan. So far the best film I had watched this year was Martin Scorcese' <i>Hugo</i>, took me back to an innocent age. Nolan, narrating the story of a man with a cape and a cowl, actually helped me grow up. </div>
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com5India20.593684 78.962885.536602 58.748036 35.650766 99.177724tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-1983602436987220312009-06-16T16:11:00.024+05:302009-08-17T19:25:18.883+05:30Harry Potter and Neo Skywalker<div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQquKdagBy360hUN1uy6BVV9Gat24QGDMXvGJkxoZA_3samWXgDB6zq_OPOzQjeTyadPVk_kZ4CBgZ8uywUvEYtlPaQddmpi2gXMIRGpBVk7Nsr00yI-R20getLWAdO6YO-oAbDg/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 97px; float: right; height: 140px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360462002278051682" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQquKdagBy360hUN1uy6BVV9Gat24QGDMXvGJkxoZA_3samWXgDB6zq_OPOzQjeTyadPVk_kZ4CBgZ8uywUvEYtlPaQddmpi2gXMIRGpBVk7Nsr00yI-R20getLWAdO6YO-oAbDg/s200/images.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Once upon a time, on a planet pretty much here</span>..<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;">There lives a gentleman called George Lucas. He wrote a very good story (on paper in long-hand), could not direct them very well, sort of invented CGI, and along with good friend Steven Spielberg (a more accomplished movie-maker), changed the face of Hollywood and global cinema as we know it.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">For me (and maybe more of my ilk), </span><span style="font-size:100%;">used to the kind of cinema which the critics call kiddie stuff for grown-ups , studios call blockbusters, and we call thrilling fantasies, </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> is an engima. All the movies I have enjoyed since, <span style="font-style: italic;">ET</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Spider Man</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">X-</span><span style="font-style: italic;">Men</span>, definitely Christopher Nolan's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight</span>, can potentially be attributed to Lucas Inc. He is supposed to have sounded the death knell for Martin Scorsese and his <span style="font-style: italic;">Raging Bull</span>s. At a time when in India, Amol Palekar and Nasseruddin Shah were winning Filmfare awards at the expense of ruling deity Amitabh Bachchan, <span style="font-style: italic;">Rocky</span> trumped <span style="font-style: italic;">Taxi Driver</span> for the Oscars.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">From the movie and the path-breaking technology point of view, the closest cinematic phenomenon I have seen to <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> in our times is possibly <span style="font-style: italic;">Matrix</span>, more of <span style="font-style: italic;">Gita</span> (the self-discovery of Neo) to Lucas' <span style="font-style: italic;">Mahabharata</span> (the space fights and the clan feuds were supposedly borrowed from oriental mythology). However, the merit of Lucas' story is proven by how badly the Wachowski brothers tripped with their sequels. Lucas himself was then making relatively ordinary prequels, but the way he had twisted his original stories to marry the good against the Dark side with father versus son, also kept pace with the box-office acceptance of the characters (the sibling relationship of Luke & Leia makes their kiss in <span style="font-style: italic;">Empire Strikes Back</span> so incestuous).<br /><br />For my generation, against the power of the force of the 70s, we had the <span style="font-style: italic;">Pottermania</span>, a combination of the Chosen One in a fight against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Books are a far more evolved, and demanding form of popular art. I have hardly been a consistent reader, and my jobs have further eroded the little habits I had.<br /><br />Harry Potter as a phenomena took off when I was still studying. I first noticed when a faculty member I held in some esteem mentioned that Rowling writes quite enchantingly (how apt). My initiation happened only through the movie, directed by Chris Columbus (his <span style="font-style: italic;">Home Alone</span> with Macaulay Culkin was a huge childhood favourite), by when the best book of the series <span style="font-style: italic;">Prisoner of Azkaban</span> had been released (ensuring <span style="font-style: italic;">Goblet</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> of Fire</span> was a pre-sellout), Pottermania had taken full effect, and JK Rowling possibly had the lucrative deal with Warner Bros in mind when finishing the remaining three books. With the successful release of the film, and to cater to the wider grown-up audience, the books kept getting darker. While in <span style="font-style: italic;">Chambers..</span> conveniently no one dies, Harry progressively starts losing one major character in increasing importance in every book since <span style="font-style: italic;">Goblet...</span> (before the body-bags pile up in <span style="font-style: italic;">Deathly Hallows</span>).<br /><br />The Potter world, with its quidditch, transfiguration and magic, is made for the cinemas. The film series also takes a turn towards the eventual darker tone when the superb <span style="font-style: italic;">Azakaban</span> was filmed as competently by Alfonso Cuaron (the child Emma Watson also turned in to a teenager and caught my imagination the first time). However, I was totally hooked only when David Yates' filmed the most voluminous <span style="font-style: italic;">Order of Phoenix</span> so well. It introduced the 'prophecy' which fascinates me, of mutually assured destruction, of there being no winners in the battle between good and evil (dare say, the prophecy gets undue importance).<br /><br />The release of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Order of Phoenix</span> film coincided with the release of the final volume by Rowling, <span style="font-style: italic;">Deathly Hallows</span>. And just like three decades ago, all rumours like Luke Skywalker betraying the Jedi cause and joining Darth Warder were laid to rest when Potter did not meet his end at the hands of the Dark Lord.<br /><br />Though we had an early bird copy of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Deathly Hallows</span>, I was strictly advised by competent authorities to read all the novels in sequential order. To be fair to Rowling, one could have picked up any novel from the middle and sort of followed the story. However, the excitement of figuring out a minor detail in the larger context (and admiring her imagination) would have been missing. Again to prove a point for books, one cannot say the same about the films. The film <span style="font-style: italic;">Half-Blood Prince</span> will be impossible to follow to the rare uninitiated.<br /><br />For me personally, Harry Potter is the latest addition to my quirky list of fascinating heroes: Arjun, Sherlock Holmes, Tintin, and James Bond. Rowling did not create high literature (thankfully, it was not <span style="font-style: italic;">Da Vinci Code</span> either). What she did do was create a fascinating world, a world possibly not dissimilar to Frank Baum's in <span style="font-style: italic;">Wizard of Oz</span> (another childhood favourite). To give it a dose of realism, the canvas she paints has an uncanny resemblance to our part of the world. <span style="font-style: italic;">Order..</span>, with the lurking menace of Voldemort and the denial by the Minsitry, resembles India. <span style="font-style: italic;">Half-Blood Prince</span>, with the Ministry out of control, is like Pakistan. And by the final ..<span style="font-style: italic;">Hallows</span>,where the Ministry has fallen, the scenario is like Afghanistan.<br /><br />Left to myself, the first Potter, or even the second one, was so usual that I would have never followed it up had I just read the books. However, <span style="font-style: italic;">Prisoner..</span> had me hooked. What sets Rowling's apart are the emotional high-points of her story. The basic them<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ytuBw69ME9zn0dOEOdee69WcuTKRItKzK2s_Lekm2LV9xxaOpRA9gOC6dbKuM-OLnKmg-46NUwtJ_cTtMpDr6EliChfjgWrav6fH6NiRrKHXe7Sm7wVRoNgb4fFXXFarx6gdxw/s1600-h/normal_harry_potter_7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 154px; float: right; height: 200px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360462249296200098" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ytuBw69ME9zn0dOEOdee69WcuTKRItKzK2s_Lekm2LV9xxaOpRA9gOC6dbKuM-OLnKmg-46NUwtJ_cTtMpDr6EliChfjgWrav6fH6NiRrKHXe7Sm7wVRoNgb4fFXXFarx6gdxw/s200/normal_harry_potter_7.jpg" border="0" /></a>e is simple, 'to choose between what is easy, and what is right' (Dumbledore tells the students after Cedric's death; SRK used the same lines to his mother-in-law in <span style="font-style: italic;">DDLJ</span>). While Potter's initial misfortunes sound like a Cinderella, when he finally visits his parents grave and the plaque at his cottage, you feel the pain of his uncontrolled tears. The stories rarely drag (except for some portions of the Quidditch World Cup, or the futile on-the-run camping in <span style="font-style: italic;">Deathly</span>..). The saga does culminate in Harry's improbable triumph, with as much simplicity as Luke felt the Jedi force. But the real message is in the other famous line from the books, 'it is our choices that define us, not our abilities' (again Dumbledore in <span style="font-style: italic;">Chamber..</span>).<br /><br />The films have sort of measured up to the book, especially those directed by Cuaron and Yates. The later volumes meant lots of details needed to be skipped, or tinkered with, but overall added to the story. The romantic sagas were deftly handled (though must admit, in the latest <span style="font-style: italic;">..Prince</span>, Hermione's love comes across as a lot more one-sided, and Ginny's kiss a lot less spontaneous than in the books). If anything, the deaths of Black and Dumbledore do not really capture the loss for Harry as well. The book <span style="font-style: italic;">..Prince</span> ends on a despondent and hopeless note (as Baradwaj put it, how will Harry take on the real world experience of Voldemort). In the film, by doing away with the climatic duel, the futility and Harry's helplessness at Dumbledore's death is absent. I am sure in the final movie, some of the deaths (like Dolby's sacrifice which showcased Harry's unusual-ness as a wizard) would not even make it to the big screen.<br /><br />The single biggest difference between <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> & <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter</span> films are the acting. In the former, apart from the then new Harrison Ford & well-established Alec Guniess, no actor managed to make his mark (Mark Hamill was particularly bad as Luke). However, <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potters</span> have managed to get together an ensemble of fine British actors. Established names like Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter have taken on crucial though low screen-time roles. Alan Rickman as Snape has been the stand-out performer. In the latest, Oscar winner Jim Broadbent is superb as Slughorn.<br /><br />What has been fascinating to watch is the child actors grow, all of them including Draco & Neville. The leads were initially recruited only for the first three films, as they would supposedly have grown too big for their respective parts. However, thankfully, the filming over a decade has allowed the child actors to grow in the role suitably.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDAp19a2-M_Iq5mK6ezDIyJQbhbkjkuo-rXItmDlzL1G2kJdi72PDz4EglojCCkaKJMWgp-JcQz13PIZLhIFbItLl9OX-dtO6gXghTTZ88sOBmMZU7pc6Y5d8H7Vo0aC9qICsdQ/s1600-h/Harry_Potter_-_Ron,_Hermione.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 200px; float: right; height: 150px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360460776091914178" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDAp19a2-M_Iq5mK6ezDIyJQbhbkjkuo-rXItmDlzL1G2kJdi72PDz4EglojCCkaKJMWgp-JcQz13PIZLhIFbItLl9OX-dtO6gXghTTZ88sOBmMZU7pc6Y5d8H7Vo0aC9qICsdQ/s200/Harry_Potter_-_Ron,_Hermione.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />For me personally, a huge flaw in Rowling's romantic pairing was Ron & Hermione. They just seem too unlikely. In the latest film, the suspicions on Harry & Hermione' are cast again, only because they seem more obvious. The brilliant acting of Emma's Hermione and Rupert's bumbling Ron further adds to the disbelief in their long-term chemistry.<br /><br />The problem with starting off as child actors is that one is not sure what would one grow up in to (the cute Kevin Arnold or Winnie Cooper from <span style="font-style: italic;">Wonder Years</span> never really made it). As Burberry proves, it is difficult to believe Emma Watson (the best actor and the most reluctant star of the three) as the careless Hermione of the books. Rupert Grint, with his comic timing, is perfect as the reluctant Ron. If nothing else, while Daniel Radcliffe is the right Harry Potter, his weeping appears too wooden.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALOs63GolS4DUI8SEqm9LII8SpGDx2U-dTBbh9eFvAE6mxJnTqPfkq6Hs9a5XUzO6JyxzAC6QthvVLTPp-9Ft2iOX7_XyRU7i2A4R53w-TsRoEQRZjbJN-ZAinm-YDTxgvEdhHQ/s1600-h/harrypotter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 200px; float: right; height: 180px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360461304031087442" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALOs63GolS4DUI8SEqm9LII8SpGDx2U-dTBbh9eFvAE6mxJnTqPfkq6Hs9a5XUzO6JyxzAC6QthvVLTPp-9Ft2iOX7_XyRU7i2A4R53w-TsRoEQRZjbJN-ZAinm-YDTxgvEdhHQ/s200/harrypotter.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Rowling created a fantastic world, better than Lucas. In a couple of years, Yates will end it again. However, just to give me another memories of a Doordarshan era gone by, JJ Abrams came up with his <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span>, taking me back on an enterprise to 'where no man has gone before'. Sigh, for childhood nostalgia!<br /></div><br />P.S. For better reviews of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> & <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter</span>, please read <a href="http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/">http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/</a>.<br /><br />P.P.S. Even by my standards, this post has been unusually long. Because of a mix of personal and professional reasons, I do not think I will manage to cope up with this blog too long. I will like to thank all readers for their patience. I hope to re-surface, sometime, in some form or the other. </div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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The Golden Globes and then the Oscar nominations have easily made it our own <span style="font-style: italic;">Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon</span> (no disrespect meant to <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Awara</span></span>, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Pather</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Panchali</span></span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Gandhi</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Salaam Bombay</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Lagaan</span></span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Monsoon Wedding</span>). From my own worldview, the story of the underdog succeeding against insurmountable odds has already been told quite well by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Nagesh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Kukunoor</span> in <span style="font-style: italic;">Iqbal</span>, or even by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Ashutosh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Go</span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">wariker</span> in <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Lagaan</span></span>.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">With its destiny-led story, happy convenient ending (with no thoughts on the after-effects) and a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Bollywood</span> style end-credit number (rather tame by our vigorous standards), <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Slumdog</span>.. </span>is a quintessential Indian film. What Danny Boyle (and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Vikas</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Swarup</span> actually) do to give it an international halo is getting the context of the Bombay slums right (just like <span style="font-style: italic;">Crouching..</span> had Oriental mystique about it)! Poor <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Amitabh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Bachchan</span> has been unnecessarily dragged into a 'poverty-porn' controversy by the marketeers posturing as journalists at <span style="font-style: italic;">The Time of India</span> (similar to how late <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Nargis</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Dutt</span> accused <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Satyajit</span> Ray).<br /><br />I am not going in to the authenticity of what is depicted (I felt the most squeamish when Salim was shown re-sealing a mineral water bottle, it questions an entire bottling and packaging industry). Critically, none of our ilk is in a position to actually confirm or deny what is shown in the movie. Moreover, as Hindi <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">film</span> buffs, if we start seeking reality in our cinema, we might as well stop watching anything made here. As I have believed, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Tarantino</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Karan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Johar</span> are in a strange way similar, it is just that they choose to give their wings of fancy in dramatically different directions.<br /><br />Danny Boyle has been a celebrated British director for his cult-classic <span style="font-style: italic;">Trainspotting</span> (have not seen it). In fact, before <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Slumdog</span>..</span>, the only flick I have seen is possibly his only conventional Hollywood drama (in the spirit of things, lets play a quiz: the movie stars Leonardo and the answer can be checked on <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">imdb</span></span>). Because of Danny's international sensibilities, and attempt to adapt the product to the local context, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Slumdog</span>.. </span> pervades the best of all worlds, marrying the seamier side of Bombay shown by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Ramu</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Anurag</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Kahsyap</span>, to the relatively rosier aspects of life as captured by Mani <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Rathnam</span> (the obsession of Jamal with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Latika</span> is so <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Dil</span> Se</span>) & <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Karan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Johar</span>. If nothing else, Danny Boyle possibly resembles our most international director, Vishal Bharadwaj. Moreover, the cinematography used to capture the Bombay locales is superb (Anthony <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Dod</span> Mantle aptly has got an Oscar nomination).<br /><br />Performance wise, apart from Dev Patel (as the grown-up Jamal; taking nothing away from Dev, I wonder why they could not have cast an Indian actor for the same), <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">no one</span> gets sufficient screen-time to score an award nomination. Freida Pinto (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Latika</span>, the love interest) is in real life six years older to Dev, but looks good with him, and otherwise (in fact, the scar makes her even more attractive, and real). Shah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Rukh</span> Khan had refused the manipulative crooked quiz-master's role (he claims he thought the character in the book was modeled on a real <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Bollywood</span> personality; I think because it would have been too much grist for the mill to see him <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">villainizing</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Amitabh's</span> avuncular friendly quizzing in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">KBC</span>). <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Anil</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Kapoor</span> took on the role quite well. He is especially superb on the last question, where he is distraught with Jamal's winning, but has to still congratulate him in a celebratory style. Irrfan Khan has nothing much to do.<br /><br />However, the real show-stealer for me was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Ayush</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Mahesh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Khedekar</span>, as the youngest Jamal (there are 3 of him in different stages of life). All the three youngest characters are played by actual slum-kids, hence the most authentic use of the real language. The dancing of the<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiy519dY-jLBO-f6Dp1PS41Ox4rqCagK-10kMO_k1WPqHrebo1ECCp0ySaxLHATIv75163g8bOGOQLka7p-nxwZy_ltfwxOIg6X91Owfuo-NG-R2eKTXFC6wb7bBgrxsXqcwctg/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 72px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiy519dY-jLBO-f6Dp1PS41Ox4rqCagK-10kMO_k1WPqHrebo1ECCp0ySaxLHATIv75163g8bOGOQLka7p-nxwZy_ltfwxOIg6X91Owfuo-NG-R2eKTXFC6wb7bBgrxsXqcwctg/s200/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295827103962604498" border="0" /></a> kids Jamal and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Latika</span> in the end-credits easily outperforms the entire grown up crew. It just goes on to show that in any walk of life, if India needs to actualise its potential, it is necessary to drag all this hidden talent on to the mainstream (Brazil & Argentina do this very well in football).<br /><br />The single biggest contribution of <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Slumdog</span>..</span> is to bring our biggest world-class entertainer, AR <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Rahman</span>, on to the global stage. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Illaiyaraja</span> might be more classical, RD <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Burman</span> might have been more evergreen popular, but the genius of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Rahman</span> has been to fuse it all together, and more. His first album, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Roja</span></span>, was radically different from anything anyone of us had ever heard, and he has never looked back since. He has probably given better numbers. If nothing else, his first collaboration with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Gulzar</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Dil</span> Se</span>, is easily my personal best score. <span style="font-style: italic;">Delhi 6</span> also sounds very promising (the other album he was working on along with <span style="font-style: italic;">Slumdog..</span>). However, I am not sure the West would have ever been exposed to the explosion of varied musical instruments they got here. And it sure is catchy!<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48"><br />Slumdog</span>..</span> is a celebration of life, of living, against all odds! Jamal is just after his girl. Instead of using guns like in a conventional flick, he uses brain-power, to impress, to succeed. Along the way, he gives us practical life lessons, on secularism, on morality (his elder brother's character easily was the most grey), on keeping the faith. It just goes on to reaffirm my belief that no education can compensate for actual worldly experience. <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Jai</span> Ho</span>!<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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It will take a thick skin to keep faith in the India story.<br /><br />As I hardly had any time to write, I thought I will put in some words about things I thought about during the year, but never managed to deliberate upon.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Year of Terror</span><br /><br />I still do not know what was the final victim count of the Bihar floods (possible the worst tragedy of the year in terms of accounted/unaccounted casualties). However, there is no denying that 2008 belonged to the terrorists, from the amateurish (Mehrauli bomb-blasts in September) to the spine-chilling deadly (26/11). What this did was bring the 20-200 million-strong Indian middle class (dependent upon which study you want to go by) back in to the mainstream. Tehelka published a lovely article, primarily as an obituary for Rohinton Maloo, but very well articulating why the Indian middle-class cannot live in a vacuum independent of the Indian political & administrative-class.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Pakistan Conundrum</span><br /><br />What 26/11 also proved is however much we want to leave behind our Pakistan fixation, it catches up with us, directly or indirectly. The world does not know what to make out of this nuclear-armed fast-failing state. And in spite of the hullaboo, while our response has been fairly measured, Pakistan has simply been caught in a war hysteria. For those who might propogate a tougher Indian response, just check out the tragic happenings in Gaza.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cinema<br /><br /></span>There was no stand-out Hindi film in the year. As I missed <span style="font-style: italic;">Welcome to Sajjanpur</span> & <span style="font-style: italic;">Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!</span>, I thought <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span> was the best, followed by a personal quirk, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tahaan</span> (superbly shot in Kashmir and directed as a fable by Santosh Sivan). I also thought <span style="font-style: italic;">Dostana</span> was quite okay, proving that unlike his good friend Adi, KJo is at least finding new niches in the candy floss genre. <span style="font-style: italic;">Rock On</span> got a lot of hype, but apart from some super music, and Farhan Akhtar proving himself to be the most complete entertainer (not necessarily the greatest actor, at least on current evidence) since that genius Kishore Kumar, I thought the movie was just about okay (definitely not another <span style="font-style: italic;">Dil Chahta Hai</span>).<br /><br />However, in English, <span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Dark Knight</span> stood out bigtime, followed by the superb <span style="font-style: italic;">Kung Fu Panda</span> (scoring over the other much celebrated animation film, <span style="font-style: italic;">Wall-E</span>). <span style="font-style: italic;">Kung Fu Panda</span> pretty much achieves the heights of animation - a quirky feel-good tale of the triumph of an underdog, superbly told. The one lesson I learnt for life, 'there are no secrets'.<br /><br />Daniel Craig also came back with his second Bond outing, <span style="font-style: italic;">Quantum of Solace</span>. As Vir Sanghvi put it, Craig is the only Bond after Connery who looks capable of murder (not to forget he is a superb actor to boot; he does capture the drabness of the book Bond best). However, the problem with <span style="font-style: italic;">Quantum.. </span>was that it made James Bond in to an extension of Jason Bourne. The movie was a montage of superb action shots, interspersed with rare & few Bond moments (the escape from the elevator, the tribute to Goldfinger). However, Bond's continuous mourning for Vesper got grating after a while. Sadly, even the sex looked reluctant. Since he seems to have sort of exorcised his demons at the end, they might present Bond as a Tintin now.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Clash of the Titans</span><br /><br />For the first time since 2001, when <span style="font-style: italic;">Lagaan</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Asoka</span> were apparently competing with each other for the nod to be the official nomination from India for the Oscars, the two big Khans of the Bombay film industry: Shah Rukh & Aamir, clashed at the box-office in December (totally unlike the other clash SRK had with the third big Khan, Salman). Aamir had upped the ante in the year with some uncharacteristic taunts, and our Hindi news channels had a field day. SRK, after his physical brawl, refused to bite the bait. My personal take is both wanted to have a good laugh at the rest of the world's expense, although Aamir just might be giving SRK a taste of his own often-biting humour.<br /><br />The country's premier production house, Yashraj Films, had an exceptionally tough year. And Aditya Chopra took up the directorial reins after almost a decade to bail it out. While SRK did launch the <span style="font-style: italic;">Haule Haule</span> song on his birthday, <span style="font-style: italic;">RNBDJ</span> released with out any of his customary all pervasive media interactions (was it because of Bombay?). However, Aamir went on his usual PR over-drive (seen earlier in the year during the launch of his home production, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na</span>). Moreover, from the promos, RNBDJ looked stale (with pedestrian music), while Ghajini looked cutting-edge (hummable AR Rahman numbers shot in exotic locales like Namibia). However, both <span style="font-style: italic;">Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Ghajini</span> turned out to be damp squibs.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">RNBDJ</span> proved that there are not enough permutations left for telling a love story in Hindi cinema (although <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaane Tu..</span> did tell an old tale rather okay). The movie was possibly Bhansali's <span style="font-style: italic;">Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam</span> meets <span style="font-style: italic;">Shrek</span>. While the wafer-thin story was narrated in a rather convoluted manner, SRK as Surinder Sahni became the redeeming factor. He out-acted Aamir in <span style="font-style: italic;">Ghajini</span>, and his introductory romatic flirtations and end-credit honeymoon are hilarious. And while Surinder's alter-ego Raj might come across as irritating, I thought it was a quirky take on SRK the star. I could not really get the dilemma Surinder was posing to his bride (maybe just to get his feet touched, the MCP). It might have been much more fun if Raj actually was a different person, but then we have had enough of love triangles too.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ghajini</span> was Aamir having fun; at the risk of being racist, Tamil style. The movie is an old-fashioned 80s style revenge potboiler, apparently with elements borrowed from Nolan's <span style="font-style: italic;">Memento</span>. Aamir hams it up, and while his fake-identity romance with Asin was too unreal, they did have decent chemistry (their last meeting where she gives him money for his mother is possibly the best cinematic moment, with the super melody <span style="font-style: italic;">Kaise Mujhe</span>). Aamir has performed well in that particular scene, but still did not reveal the truth of his identity. In fact, if Asin would have survived, she should have broken up just for his treachery.<br /><br />Possibly to justify his subsequent transformation into a killing machine, Aamir is shown as a corporate hulk through out. However, the climax is ridiculous to say the least (Sunny Deol should sue for copyright infringement). The gruesome murder of Asin easily pales Ghajini's demise (a rather tame villain, whose goons believe in no revolvers). Moreover, the real interesting (and cutting-edge) bit would have come from Aamir's initial plotting of his revenge. He is not shown as having any accomplices, and how he remembers Ghajini (when it was just whispered in his ears before he lost his memory) is coveniently left to the imagination.<br /><br />As Uncle Ben told Peter in <span style="font-style: italic;">Spider-Man</span>, 'with great power comes great responsibility'.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cricket: The Passing Over of the Titans</span><br /><br />India had a good promising year in cricket. The momentous occassion was the retirement of Anil Kumble (who was terrible throughout). Ganguly also bid a timely farewell, when he was playing his best. Sachin Tendulkar answered a lot of the tough questions asked about his match-winning abilities by two superb centuries, one against Australia in the first VB Series final at Sydney, and another against England at the Chennai Test. He might not have the style of old, but the substance more than makes up. The redeeming factor was that Jeff Crowe still had the sense to award the Man of Match to Sehwag at Chennai.<br /><br />While India have been continously challenging Australia since Calcutta in 2001, the real blow was given by South Africa. Remember, India somehow lost 2-1 to pretty much the same bowling attack last year, and also faltered against a debutant Mendis in Sri Lanka. India deserved to win 2-0 against the Aussies at home, but would have never got it if the Aussies had not decided to go after the target on the last day of Nagpur.<br /><br />While India has become a terrific ODI team, we still need to win more (like against the Aussies in Delhi or England in Mohali) to be called the No.1 Test team. The key would be the promising Ishant Sharma to go the way of Dale Steyn rather than Irfan Pathan, and for Rahul Dravid to possily elongate his career at No.5 (swapping with VVS). If only we can replace the dead Ranji Trophy with an IPL format now!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sports: Inspiration from Beijing<br /><br /></span>China truly established itself on the global stage by successfully holding the Beijing Olympics. Thankfully, Abhinav Bindra chose the venue of our global rival to win India's maiden individual gold medal. However, the real challenge for the billion-strong Indians' Olympic paradox would be transform the 3 medals of Beijing to 30 at London.<br /><br />The other key moments were the crowning of the World Chess Champion of Vishwanathan Anand for the third time (in three different formats), and the qualification of the Indian football team for the 2011 Asia Cup.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Yes We Can<br /><br /></span>As a balm on the tough year gone by, and for the tougher times lying ahead, Barack Obama came in from nowhere as an 'agent for change'. A new-age digital leader, Obama could not put a foot wrong. He proved his magnanimity by appointing once bitter rival Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, and unprecedentedly, retaining President Bush' appointee Robert Gates as the Secretary of Defense. To further justify his credentials as a global role-model, he unveiled a flat-pack abs when on vacation in Hawaii. His economic policies are still unproven, but somehow President-elect Obama inspires hope in a fast depressing world like noone else.<br /><br />Happy New Year to All!<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-83159640711417789032008-12-01T12:01:00.006+05:302008-12-01T15:08:39.899+05:30A Mighty State<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YBa-bc-jXVNWzk10GcbD8jk-rU-GBBh3Y3ORmeMOGt-SV0xnOEJCi8vqyiFAhGt3WTVTVXINs9hr-bGJzXSN5jbTFf7g5zXl6m9ELptUKJs2xNTGLCNMk0lNVlpFd7_4eKUgwA/s1600-h/cover_empire_state.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YBa-bc-jXVNWzk10GcbD8jk-rU-GBBh3Y3ORmeMOGt-SV0xnOEJCi8vqyiFAhGt3WTVTVXINs9hr-bGJzXSN5jbTFf7g5zXl6m9ELptUKJs2xNTGLCNMk0lNVlpFd7_4eKUgwA/s200/cover_empire_state.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274705840097904962" border="0" /></a>I saw Michael Winterbottom's <span style="font-style: italic;">'A Mighty Heart'</span> on Saturday, just a few hours after the Mumbai Siege had ended. An apt movie to see after the incident, more so at it depicts the capture and killing of the Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl quite authentically, and Angeline Jolie has captured the grit and agony of Mariane Pearl superbly. Maybe, it is also good for India's morale; it just showcases Pakistan on its way to be the failed state it has become.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The war in Mumbai (yes, unfortunately with the trained Fidayeen terrorists around, it is that only; that is why our ill-trained police or private security will never stand any chance) has ended, and I tried doing all my good concerned citizens bit. I went for a candle-lighting 40 kms from my place, wore black the next working day, observed a minutes silence when asked to, etc. etc. Now what?<br /><br />The political class has responded. The Congress, fearing rout in the impending General Elections, finally sacked the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil. BJP's Advani, after a failed attempt to show solidarity, could not take time off from his campaigning for an all-party meet. And apparently a few more heads are expected to roll in Maharashtra and the Home Ministry.<br /><br />I have always maintained that most of the terrorist related problems (Kashmir, North-East, Palestine) do not have military solutions. I agree the Punjab militancy was crushed in the 80s, but the tide possibly turned when the local population withdrew logistical and emotional support to the Khalistani militants. In fact, good economics usually is the best bet, when people are too bothered to make an honourable and successful living, rather than thinking of relatively more abstract concepts like political, religious or cultural rights.<br /><br />The problem with the Al Qaeda and its war is that it has beaten my rudimentary theory hollow. The recruits are usually the well-educated (not some illiterate incapable of having their own minds), even second generation immigrants (in Britain during the 7/7 bombings) who should have had no exposure to the genuine prejudices faced by their parents. In fact, I am not even sure if I understand what Bin Laden wants, apart from proclaiming the USA, Israel and India as the public enemies number 1.<br /><br />It is obvious we need to do something. The problem is all of us are angry, but do not really know how to take it out. We have blamed politicians, but we have to live with them in our democracy. Critically, there is no leader who actually inspires confidence. Mobilising troops on the International border (like we did during Operation Parakram after the Pariament attack in 2001) a second time round in a decade would look stupid, especially as we did not fire a single bullet last time round. Critically, I do not think the Pakistan Government actually controls anything anymore. All leaders, be it Musharraf or Benazir, faced assassination attempts, to different degrees of success.<br /><br />Israel is considered the world's hardest state, which does not negotiate with terrorists at all. In fact, the very creation of Israel and subsequent military expansion is considered the ultimate in hard state tales. Obviously, the single-mindedness unity of a fractured polity (not too dissimilar to India) helps. The Munich Massacre (where the Mossad apparently hunted down all perpetrators) , the successful storming of the hijacked plane at Uganda (Operation Entebbe), and the supposed bombing and crippling of Iran's nuclear facilities further added to the aura. However, in the new century, a younger Israel is also realising that Palestine needs to have a different political solution. The withdrawals from Southern Lebanon, Gaza and West Bank, however flawed or incomplete, drove in the fact that the military, however efficient and hardline, cannot achieve results beyond a point.<br /><br />India has supported the Palestine cause since the times of Nehru. In fact, it is one of the rare causes which had the support of the Congress and the Left. India never even established diplomatic relations with Israel. However, BJP, the party with a difference, always looked up to Israel. PV Narasimha Rao, often called the first BJP PM, finally opened embassies in 1992. Since then, much to the Left's discomfiture, India and Israel, unjust victims of Islamic terror, have grown closer.<br /><br />However, for all its admiration and its 6-year rule at the Centre, the BJP (with Advani as Home Minsiter) did nothing remotely smart, or hardline. If India were Israel, we might have liberated PoK in 1948/71, or at least established a 5km. non-militarised buffer zone either side of the LoC. Critically, we would not have tested the nuclear bomb in 1998, a losing proposition. Without doubting the technology requirements of Dr. Kalam, it ensured we were faced with economic sanctions for half a decade, and lost our conventional military edge against Pakistan. Kargil was a failure, as we would have never lost so many brave soldiers, if we had just broken off the enemy supply chains. However, our mutual nuclear armaments ensured both India and Pakistan stayed put in their designated territories.<br /><br />Most of my ilk also aspire India to be an Israel. However, as the Big Fight on yesterday's NDTV 24x7, we actually do not know how to go about it. Some want to destroy Pakistan, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Mj6xfRoF1pwYr2fEC2fb3glh7F11nCK1uTVU-vQIMKTHzGSS81FDyVJJcQnro8vOUO_sWBAg9ddHcPONvMwW-ZkuHMupg17rcH-sSpSfzbX-U-_vk9knwy5IVkj3uIbyS0iRlA/s1600-h/131772792_62b46cf275.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Mj6xfRoF1pwYr2fEC2fb3glh7F11nCK1uTVU-vQIMKTHzGSS81FDyVJJcQnro8vOUO_sWBAg9ddHcPONvMwW-ZkuHMupg17rcH-sSpSfzbX-U-_vk9knwy5IVkj3uIbyS0iRlA/s200/131772792_62b46cf275.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274750226655338322" border="0" /></a>some want to ban politicians, some democracy.<br /><br />I have just one take. I know we are a nation of billion plus, and hence possibly can afford to lose a lot more. You become a hard state only after you get soft with the inhabitansts inside. Our administrators - leaders or policemen - have a mentality to rule rather than serve. So a bit of collateral damage, or indifference to those who do not count, does not really make a difference.<br /><br />We lost 150 lives during a religious stampede in Jodhpur a few months back. We lost 50 people during last year's Gujjar caste-led agitation. We also lost 180 people in the Mumbai terrorist attack. The key question to ask, as someone had put it so well to me, do we want a mighty India, or mighty Indians?<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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And I am sure I am not the only one amongst the billion dollar plus in this part of the planet.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Terrorism, as the Joker depicted so brilliantly a few months ago, is highly symbolic in nature. With no disrespect meant to the victims of the multiple terrorist attacks in India, we possibly lose more people to road accidents in Delhi. Yet it does not stop me from getting my car out to drive, or walk my way to the nearest mall in crazy traffic. Somehow, bomb blasts give us much greater jitters than drunken driving.<br /><br />Terrorism, quite literally, is supposed to spread terror. 9/11 was such a watershed in global history because it showed a shadowy movement, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Al Qaeda</span>, hitting at the very symbol of the global economic system, the World Trade Center at New York. More importantly, it gave a buffoon like George Bush Jr. his highest ratings, and maybe even a totally undeserving second term as the US President.<br /><br />I first heard of the siege at Bombay in Guwahati (where apparently such search-and-siege operations are a regular phenomena). The tragedy is exactly 48 hours old as I write. At the risk of further insensitivity, I think humanity, or India, has seen worse. A few months back, a river changed it course by 120 kms, wrecking a populace so poor and backward that it is difficult to decide if it was better for them to get relieved of their miserable existence. The area happens to be in the neighbourhood of my geographical origin, and I was moved to donate. But alas, my day-to-day work-related travails caught up with me quickly to forget all about it.<br /><br />We also have something called the Red Corridor, which apparently affects almost 40% of the Indian population, and where the writ of the Indian state has given way to the followers of Mao. Lest we forget, three years back in the same month of November, another neighbouring town of mine, Jehenabad, faced a breathtaking attack by almost 1000 Maoists who rescued more than 375 prison inmates.<br /><br />Human beings, for all their ability to reason (intelligently), are possibly the only species on this planet who harm each other for something that cannot be strictly classified as essential survival. Some species of snakes are supposed to devour their eggs as soon as they hatch. I personally despise snakes, considering them to the lowliest and vilest creature. Yet, snakes exhibit this trait out of natural survival instincts.<br /><br />The worst manifestation of this human trait, whatever the motive, are easily in the terrorist attacks against uninvolved bystanders. The Munich Massacre was poignant and dramatic enough for Spielberg to make a movie (giving Daniel Craig an action role before the more popular James Bond). Only recently, Vladimir Putin turned hardline after the terrible Beslan tragedy, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis</a>.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrw4PZ4SigX2DUnrdeK2JYTo506OK6huCbQPY8aTxk8XVeatzy4TblJXBRM2usvcL-rlRrLk7AvssR37wpXSI4T9DGQ4Sdn6uRW3UgIY8P4RvCI4FiPQ_1Ts6pZEP834q-7zkZg/s1600-h/attacker-cp-5903834.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273753519946430722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 127px; cursor: pointer; height: 130px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrw4PZ4SigX2DUnrdeK2JYTo506OK6huCbQPY8aTxk8XVeatzy4TblJXBRM2usvcL-rlRrLk7AvssR37wpXSI4T9DGQ4Sdn6uRW3UgIY8P4RvCI4FiPQ_1Ts6pZEP834q-7zkZg/s200/attacker-cp-5903834.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />What is so different as to what has happened in Bombay, to make it a watershed in both my and my country's history? On a goddam honest note, the tragedy is right at my doorsteps. Kosi, Jehanabad, Beslan can be skipped, but I have been lucky enough to stay at both the Taj and the Trident. It could have been destiny, and I could have run into some madcap(s) inspired by Mr. Bin Laden and Prof. Saeed (the <span style="font-style: italic;">Amir</span> of <span style="font-style: italic;">Lashkar-e-Toiba</span>).<br /><br />On a more philosophical note, the tragedy is straight out of a fantastic action movie, say a <span style="font-style: italic;">Die Hard</span>. Alas, there was no John McClane this time round. The boys decided to target the India that is the flavour of Davos. Each gunshot was fatal, a slap across the face of every Indian. From a pure Corporate Communication point of view, the systematic targeting of American & British passport holders, and Israeli families, makes India appear like a farce.<br /><br />It seems we will soon realise the complete ramifications of the ordeal. The two hotels (repeating the cliche, symbols of modern India and Bombay), the railway station, the hospital, the city is littered with dead bodies, belonging to NSG commandoes, finest police officers, brave hotel staff, foreigners, innocent bystanders, somebodies, nobodies, ALL. There have been bravehearts who did their bit admirably, helping people escape. There have been lucky ones, whom some mysterious force protected.<br /><br />Critically, it once again showed that how our Armed forces are possibly our proudest institution. Lt. Col. Purohit not withstanding, India's success since Independence has been to have such a fine and apolitical Army. From a personal point of view, I cannot think of an institution that straddles the spectrum of the globalised contemporary world (Armymen are the ultimate in etiquette) with the real Bharat (the Army remains the only disaster management mechanism for many parts of India, whether it be a kid falling in a well, or a <span style="font-style: italic;">tsunami</span>).<br /><br />Where do we go from here? India aspires to be a hard state, but in reality is a bully. We are superb at holding on to territory (like Kashmir), or in controlling the poor. Yet, the real challenges elude us. It is one thing to look up to Israel, it is another thing to behave like them. After all, we are talking of a Jew race that resurrected an entire language Hebrew (something similar if we decide to suddenly start speaking in Sanskrit), has compulsorily military training for all its citizens, lives with daily terrorist attacks, and hunts down all its enemies (<span style="font-style: italic;">Munich</span> again).<br /><br />Pakistan (and originally the US in the 80s) have created a Frankenstein, which is out of control now. India needs to live with this reality, and re-strucuture its entire National security. accordingly. In fact, the Army cannot be expected to do the Police's job, like it has been doing in J&K and the North-East for so many years. If nothing else, senior Army commanders start stagnating at the top levels (Kargil after all was a tactical field victory but a strategic blunder). Maybe they can be better used if we have integrated security forces, allowing for senior level transfers.<br /><br />I am not sure if individual leaders have the answer. LK Advani was the Home Minister when a plane was hijacked. Manmohan Singh gave the most insipid speech possible to the Bombay siege. Narendra Modi plays too much of politics, and happens to be a mass-murderer.<br /><br />What we really need is an India 'not divided by narrow domestic walls'. Maybe, there is an Omen. The tragedy coincided with the passing away of VP Singh, under whose leadership the tone for today's divisive politics was set a couple of decades back. Amen! </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-1537829432631479292008-09-14T19:17:00.005+05:302008-09-14T19:29:13.359+05:30When Insults Had ClassSince I have not had the time, or the mind-space to put up anything up for more than fifty days, I am taking the easier way out. I am posting a humorous piece I got as a forward on the mail.
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<br /><title>When Insults Had Class</title> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued....unlike now, where the art of the put-down and the come-back has been reduced to primarily questioning parentage and responding with descriptors of common bodily functions!</span><span lang="en-us">
<br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband I'd give you poison,' and he said, 'If you were my wife, I'd gladly drink it.'</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.' 'That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.'</span><span lang="en-us"></span><span lang="en-us">
<br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He had delusions of adequacy.' - Walter Kerr</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.' - Winston Churchill</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'A modest little person, with much to be modest about.' - Winston Churchill</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.' Clarence Darrow</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.' - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway); 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?' - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us"> 'Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.' - Moses Hadas</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.' - Abraham Lincoln</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.' - Mark Twain</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.' - Oscar Wilde</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one.' - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill; 'Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.' - Winston Churchill, in response.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.' - Stephen Bishop</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He is a self-made man and worships his creator.' - John Bright</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.' - Irvin S. Cobb</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.' - Samuel Johnson</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.' - Paul Keating</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.' Jack E. Leonard</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.' - Robert Redford</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' - Thomas Brackett Reed</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.' - Charles, Count Talleyrand</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.' - Forrest Tucker</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?' - Mark Twain</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' - Mae West</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.' - Oscar Wilde</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts..for support rather than illumination.'- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.' - Billy Wilder</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-us">'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.' - Groucho Marx</span><span lang="en-us"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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The two</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> criminals were brought back to the police station in Omaha for further interrogation. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> Bonnie and Clyde were questioned in separate rooms, and each was offered the same deal by the police. The deal went as follows (since both are the same, we need only describe the version presented to Bonnie):</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6JKx1tTvenDQYwjTPE0XlMTMxnVhj6H2NufBmhZdOrJ5Gr2p9_fFb65R9qHxh-INNvrHRHWejo-x4NaJoCCSlE1fQmjk74I5H4ZIhM6p5ixmRX_SpsLUi39nPs3nBicbDQHIVA/s1600-h/image.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6JKx1tTvenDQYwjTPE0XlMTMxnVhj6H2NufBmhZdOrJ5Gr2p9_fFb65R9qHxh-INNvrHRHWejo-x4NaJoCCSlE1fQmjk74I5H4ZIhM6p5ixmRX_SpsLUi39nPs3nBicbDQHIVA/s320/image.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226087428992960578" border="0" /></a></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> ``Bonnie, here's the offer that we are making to both you and Clyde. If you b</span><span style="font-size:100%;">oth hold out on us, and don't confess to bank robbery, then we admit that we don't have enough proof to convict you. However, we <em>will</em> be be able to jail you both for one year, for reckless driving and endangerment of corn. If you turn state's witness and help us convict Clyde (assuming he doesn't confess), then you will go free, and Clyde will get twenty years in prison. On the other hand, if you don't confess and Clyde does, then <em>he</em> will go free and <em>you</em> will get twenty years.'' </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> ``What happens if both Clyde and I confess?'' asked Bonnie. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> ``Then you both get five years,'' said the interrogator. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> Bonnie, who had been a math major at Cal Tech before turning to crime, reasoned this way: ``Suppose Clyde intends to confess. Then if I don't confess, I'll get twenty years, but if I do confess, I'll only get five years. On the other hand, suppose Clyde intends to hold out on the cops. Then if I don't confess, I'll go to jail for a year, but if I do confess, I</span><span style="font-size:100%;">'ll go free. So no matter what Clyde intends to do, I am better off confessing than holding out. So I'd better confess.'' </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> Naturally, Clyde employed the very same reasoning. Both criminals confessed, and both went to jail for five years.<a name="tex2html1" href="http://www.classes.cs.uchicago.edu/archive/1998/fall/CS105/Project/footnode.html#foot27"></a> The police, of course, were triumphant, since the criminals </span><span style="font-size:100%;">would have been free in a year had both remained silent.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3bKsfZPezNM4wpk1t5Sh4syOLoLinXafh3-g54b4T1aIQ5XWCel7f4iyrbsZQqdKcwTVDTxyXq6kyJMJ8IYGla-sTwISUqrb16P8cQPqqGbMLdnfiB6qUMV0skrwdd7fsXe4-A/s1600-h/News+-+Heath_Ledger+Joker+makeup_test+Dark_Knight.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3bKsfZPezNM4wpk1t5Sh4syOLoLinXafh3-g54b4T1aIQ5XWCel7f4iyrbsZQqdKcwTVDTxyXq6kyJMJ8IYGla-sTwISUqrb16P8cQPqqGbMLdnfiB6qUMV0skrwdd7fsXe4-A/s320/News+-+Heath_Ledger+Joker+makeup_test+Dark_Knight.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226088400431354450" border="0" /></a><br />The Prisoner's Dilemma has been a major part of Game Theory since the Second World War. Albert Tucker formalised the game in 1992, and it has been used as the key predictive theory for morality, ethics and consumer behaviour by modern economists. You can read a lot more elaborately at the attached link, <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/</a>.<br /></div><div><br /><br />For all in awe of Ledger's Joker, does it sound familiar?<br /></div></div><div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Does it have any functional importance? The simple answer - either to figure out what the world Is like, or what it Could be like. However, when the two streams merge to tell me that maybe this is what the world Should be like, it becomes magical. Isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">Mahabharata</span> a believable human story of relationships and ambition, put together in a divine context?<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Our ancient mythological heroes were easily the first superheroes invented by mankind. Much later, with the advent of the publishing industry and show business in the US, DC and Marvel invented a few more of the ilk. In the mid-70s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg went a step further to create the new cinematic kiddie stuff for grown-ups. Inspired, Richard Donner and Mario Puzo brought <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span> from the comic books to tinsel town in 1978. Tim Burton took the genre forward with his brooding<span style="font-style: italic;"> Batman</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Returns</span>. Joel Schumacher killed it with his horrendous <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman & Robin</span>. Rakesh Roshan tried both the tricks in India, with his acceptable <span style="font-style: italic;">Koi Mil Gaya</span> and clumsy <span style="font-style: italic;">Krrish</span>.<br /><br />At the turn of the century, Bryan Singer (of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Usual Suspects</span> fame) is credited with reinventing the genre with <span style="font-style: italic;">X-Men</span>. I personally got hooked only with Sam Raimi's take on the nerdy <span style="font-style: italic;">Spider-Man</span>, especially the <span style="font-style: italic;">2</span>. A couple of years later, Martin Campbell dragged James Bond out of the grasp of technology in his <span style="font-style: italic;">Casino Royale</span>. It was not very dissimilar to the comic books industry, when the funny and campy 60s and 70s had given way to graphic novels, like the ones written by Frank Miller.<br /><br />Miller is known for his film-noir comic books, a balancing act of appealing to die-hard comic book fans, but in an adult story-telling format which attracts new mature audience. To much critical acclaim, his <span style="font-style: italic;">Sin City</span> was adopted to the silver screen by Robert Rodriguez. In 1986, Miller also wrote and possibly reinvented <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman: The Dark Knight Returns</span>.<br /><br />Miller's Batman inspired Christoper Nolan more than Burton. In the new century, Nolan decided to undo Schumacher's damage, and made <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span>. The entire premise - Bruce Wayne fighting his childhood demons, his creation of an indestructible motif, the usage of his resources and technology, and the dual identity, was not radically different from <span style="font-style: italic;">Gladiators</span>. Batman and his foes fight in the realms of sci-fi; Spiderman's enemies are genetic aberrations like him.<br /><br />Christian Bale makes a very good and believable Batman. Most importantly, his differentiation between the his two identities is possibly the only one in super-hero history where it is impossible to tell the difference. (Just remember the morons in <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span> who could not decipher Clark Kent because of those big-framed spectacles).<br /><br />The best casting in <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span> is Michael Caine as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's trusted butler and Batman's conscience-keeper. Caine makes a brilliant Alfred, combining just the right dose of humility, servility and fatherliness. Gary Oldman as then Lt. and later to be Commissioner Gordon is also an apt choice. Bruce's love Rachel Dawes was actually the most uni-dimensional character, and played even more so by Katie Holmes. Alfred is possibly a far more interesting conscience keeper than the lecturing Rachel.<br /><br />If <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span> is my favourite 'super-hero' film, I can say <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight</span> does away with the classification. As Daniel Craig had said, however much realism you can inject into Bond, he does live in a fantasy world of his own. The only thing comic-book about <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight</span> is the masked & caped vigilante, and an equally theatrical adversary. You remove the fantasy, and the film is a real-world crime drama.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight</span> is My kind of cinema. A visual spectacle - the scene where Lau is kidnapped in Hong Kong and the Joker captured in Gotham - are mind-blowing. Batman and Joker go for each other like Arjun and Karna, with no <span style="font-style: italic;">reason d'etre</span> apart from possibly immense mutual respect, leading to a burning ambition to out-do each other. As the Joker tells Batman (in a stunning prison encounter where immense rage meets indomitable spirit), 'you complete me'.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight</span> is better than <span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed</span>, where the demarcation between good and evil disappeared. 'Can you avenge evil, and not become it?'. The Joker is not after money or power. He just wants to prove a point, obvious only to himself. First he wants to unmask Batman. When he realises that someone else can easily beat him to it, the challenge is gone. He successfully decides to bring down the other hero (a quirky take on Two-Face, who in the comics got his face disfigured when a mobster threw acid on him). Finally, the only challenge is to get Batman to break the only rule he has, of not Killing (neither does Spider Man, which makes <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Spider-Man 3</span> interesting). 'Welcome to a world without rules'.<br /><br />Batman's morals are questionable, when he continues to risk the lunatics' terrorists activities without giving in. When he tries to prop up Harvey Dent, he is contradicting his entire flesh-and-blood symbol premise in <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span>. The tale from the forest narrated by Alfred brings out the true Darkness. Both the adversaries adopt all the Al Qaeda tactics. While the Joker threatens human lives, Batman causes immense willful collateral damage (check out the scene where his motor-bike is first unveiled).<br /><br />However, for all the supreme competence of Christian Bale, the film truly be<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGrTXx1zLIEk_xkpyAzuMXWa9pEUd_JEc3T5mHbjAcCE70QItJQB4_-4ZfsybkMtNSuzFeIDZpSE_2ksHCSwVbaenuySPYvxngk9_RzoaAvLlYeVPS-QbTgB4Y-Jhyphenhyphenvfrs1J5KPg/s1600-h/41092697.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225059275780814434" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 131px; cursor: pointer; height: 151px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGrTXx1zLIEk_xkpyAzuMXWa9pEUd_JEc3T5mHbjAcCE70QItJQB4_-4ZfsybkMtNSuzFeIDZpSE_2ksHCSwVbaenuySPYvxngk9_RzoaAvLlYeVPS-QbTgB4Y-Jhyphenhyphenvfrs1J5KPg/s320/41092697.jpg" border="0" /></a>longs to the late Heath Ledger, the Joker. I could not really decipher his drawl in <span style="font-style: italic;">Brokeback Mountain</span>. However, if one believes in destiny, he was born to play the Joker, a fact further accentuated by his untimely death (some say that playing the Joker led him to suicide).<br /><br />Substantially weaker than Batman, and with less technology and resources at his disposal, he stands up to him every time. The makeup is just an apt prop. The hiss in the voice, the serpentine use of the tongue, the unkempt mane, the gaze at his victims, the fluctuating tales, are devil incarnate. If Amitabh Bachchan has to figure out why Aamir found him loud in <span style="font-style: italic;">Black</span>, he simply needs to go and see Ledger.<br /><br />Jack Nicholson's comic portrayal of Joker was ranked 45th in the American Film Institute's list of greatest villains. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter was the best. I cannot say if Ledger overcomes Lecter. For me, there are portrayals, where the demarcation between the artist and the character merges. Al Pacino was Michael Corleone, Om Puri was blind in <span style="font-style: italic;">Sparsh</span>, and Ledger was the Joker.<br /><br />All of us take pride in our work, even if happens to be mindless blogging. I figured out another reason why I watch cinema. It tells me things. Ledger says that even a short life is worth while, if your professional performance matches the Joker.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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In my impressionable college days, when I did the bulk of my reading (sort of am still passing on that dated habit for being well-read now), that was easily the most unputdownable read for me. Difficult one to decipher, the only novel to equal it in terms of thrills (though not necessarily quality) came almost a decade later, <span style="font-style: italic;">The DaVinci Code</span>.<br /><br />There was something about Ghosh. I had discovered my other favourites, Lapierre & Collins, whose dramatized accounts of history in <span style="font-style: italic;">Freedom at Midnight</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Is Paris Burning</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">O Jerusalem </span>had me totally enthralled.<br /><br />I would like to thank my blogmate, <span style="font-style: italic;">Itinerant</span>, who actually sold me on to Ghosh when he got me to read one of my favourite, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Shadow Lines</span>. It was Ghosh' second novel, and won him the <span style="font-style: italic;">Sahitya Academy Award</span> (no celebrated Booker nomination). The novel is an unnamed narrators' account of relationships that are doomed to remain in the shadows. Apparently, it is semi-autobiographical, and its depiction of ties of idol-worship, romance and sacrifice, gives it a melodramatically haunting though absolutely realistic touch. I re-read the novel again a couple of years earlier to discover if the liking was a sort of growing up fixation, and the bond only grew deeper. As it is put so well, 'need is not transitive, that one may need without oneself being needed'. The net takeout was an early Kundan Shah,<br /><br />Ghosh does not really write eloquent prose, like say Rushdie. However, being an anthropologist (his <span style="font-style: italic;">In an Antique Land</span> is almost a thesis, a boring one for me), he gives his novels a uniquely surreal historical-geographical perspective. As I heard him an interview, every novel has a background noise. He just gets it so much more Indic (around the Indian Ocean as he defines his sphere of operation) than the other Indian novelists. His novels are so much the rooted <span style="font-style: italic;">Lagaan</span> than the vacuumed <span style="font-style: italic;">Kuch Kuch Hota Hai</span>.<br /><br />I have read all his books, except his collection of essays <span style="font-style: italic;">The Imam and the Indian</span>. However, I was terribly disappointed when in one his earlier non-fiction book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Countdown</span>, in the zeal to establish his anti-nuclear posture, he got some political numbers wrong.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">His new century novels are getting more exciting. He specialises in fictitious history, where he spins yarns around actual happenings in Indic geographies. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Glass Palace</span> is an unprecedented sweeping (albeit at times over-ambitious) India-Burma saga. And just on the eve of the release of the first of his ambitious trilogy <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sea of Poppies</span>, I finished his last <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry Tide </span>(his first with Harper Collins, after being with Ravi Dayal, Khushwant Singh's son-in-law, forever).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FpPvrYGQr3pYyZ_9eEnFhHWdo22gfbf7jTvJ_KTzySylZ1WyiwlXBMl-sOUL3ghlm2GsU1wg7T5CrwMq_0gmGvFr5fvV-uOpSgXz83Or-vxCNtol6EbQIQP7_gCfeS7erbfEQg/s1600-h/hungry+tide.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FpPvrYGQr3pYyZ_9eEnFhHWdo22gfbf7jTvJ_KTzySylZ1WyiwlXBMl-sOUL3ghlm2GsU1wg7T5CrwMq_0gmGvFr5fvV-uOpSgXz83Or-vxCNtol6EbQIQP7_gCfeS7erbfEQg/s320/hungry+tide.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214656248859763282" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry Tide</span> passes my primary rule of success - it makes me want to visit the <span style="font-style: italic;">Sunde</span><span style="font-style: italic;">rbans</span> (or the Tide Country as he calls it). The depiction of the terrain, the cyclone and the dolphins do a superior job to Al Gore (on climate) and all the different reports on the <span style="font-style: italic;">2004 Tsunami</span>. More importantly, for a tale with only seven main characters, the empathy established with each is stunning. The novel also establishes for me why RK Narayan's <span style="font-style: italic;">Guide</span> worked so well in its <span style="font-style: italic;">filmi</span> format. As the back cover reads, <span style="font-style: italic;">"</span><span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Tide explore another and far more unknowable jungle: the human spirit. It is a novel that asks at every turn: what man can take the true measure of another?"</span><br /></div><br />It is a pity that unlike their Hollywood counterparts, Indian film-makers do not really turn novels into films. Apparently, Suman Mukopadhyay has been working on <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry Tide</span> movie for the last couple of years. Hopefully, that should allow us to produce more of our own <span style="font-style: italic;">Cold Mountain</span> or even <span style="font-style: italic;">Gone with the Wind</span>.<br /><br />A full-time traveling corporate job makes blogging difficult. However, it makes reading fiction even more difficult (because of the gaps in reading, I lose track of the characters quite quickly). My immediate endeavour will be to review <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sea of Poppies</span> in 2008 only. Till then, let me wait for Abhishek Bachchan and Rahul Bose to sign on the dotted lines for <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry Tide</span>.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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In the world which I follow, Mukul Kesavan has hated the cricket, and Ramachandra Guha has shrilled against the cheer-leading. Ian Chappell does not really know what to make out of it. Harsha Bhogle accepts it as a change in tastes. And Peter Roebuck, continuing with his recent unintentional stance of siding with Indian public sensibilities, gives it a thumbs up.<br /><br />I caught the first match, between Kolkata Knight Riders and Bangalore Royal challengers, slightly late. By then, Brendon McCullum, egged on by superstar Shahrukh Khan, had inflicted sufficient damage to kill the game. Yet, as I realised, the IPL could not have asked for a more rollicking start - an innings of unparalleled cricketing brilliance in any form of the game, with the visual spectacle provided by India's leading entertainer. The scantily clad (and rather old) cheerleaders from Washington Redskins paled in comparison. Doubting naysayers (like me) had eggs on their face when the tournament achieved television ratings better than almost any programming in the last couple of years.<br /><br />Needless to specify, I am a connoisseur. The Border-Gavaskar trophy still remains the ultimate cricketing contest for me. Yet, I am all for the IPL. It is supposedly driven by money (what is the harm?), but the quality of cricket has been acceptably high. More importantly, the contest has been intense, and one cannot necessarily say the same about International cricket these days. Just remember a series which happened just before the IPL (and which no one actually wanted) - the Future Cup between India and South Africa. The results not withstanding, none of the matches had an element of needle in the contest.<br /><br />Another reason I accept the IPL is that it shows the way forward for professionalising the game in India. The franchises have corporatised the cricketing world, and while Charu Sharma's sudden sacking showed this might not be the best thing to happen, it still is far more acceptable than retaining Sehwag in ODIs and dropping him in Tests.<br /><br />In the amateur world of India's largest entertainment industry, it is high time a degree of professionalism was introduced. IPL has created jobs across strata - for players, coaches, administrators, and marketing & media professionals. After all, if an investment-driven Hollywood could continue supporting a Martin Scorcese, why cannot an IPL throw up a Gony or a Swapnil. Maybe Badrinath and Rohit Sharma should jump ahead of Yuvraj and Kaif for a Test berth.<br /><br />IPL is easily one of the biggest corporate risk taken in India (and hats off to Subhash Chandra, who might be bleeding with ICL, but was the driving force behind the IPL). While TATA's acquisition of Corus was rooted in some real numbers, IPL set out to create a multi-billion dollar economy out of nowhere. To make it simpler, Bengal is possible the only market in India which had an exposure to this sort of club fervour (in football), yet the immense passion there could never be really exploited commercially.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwtT3Dz01CkC85q-ZsMD9Toyu7QhZccz0QXL2GEmXHTALdCqfwiATAKQdkXL2KFS5q-drcRmzy9BKs' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />The local support for the clubs still remains suspect. In fact, I do not like the fact that each club has such anglicised branding; the PHL with a Chennai Veeran and Sher-e-Jalandhar is far more rooted in Indian ethos. Besides, apart from say a KKR (where blind loyalty to Ganguly and SRK's stardom also help) or to an extent CSK, there is no real genuine city support in India. The other teams are either too abstract (Mumbai Indians anyone?), or the masses could not care a hoot as long as they see the batting action. Yet, the classical cricketing beliefs have been reaffirmed by this most bastardised version of the game.<br /><br />Shane Warne, by making Rajasthan Royals the team to root for, proved that mobile telephony (SMS in particular) killed our generation's Ian Chappell and Imran Khan. Ganguly's travails with KKR establishes how he was so often bailed out by great individual performances. Sreesanth and Harbhajan proved themselves to be idiots beyond any nationalistic feelings. McGrath and Pollock establish how bowlers win you matches in all forms of the game. And Bangalore just shows how Rahul Dravid has totally lost it.<br /><br />After last year's extremely successful ICC T20 World Cup, IPL again has jeopardised the future of ODIs. If the obvious motive is to keep Test cricket alive, I see the 8-hour and often meaningless ODI doing nothing for it. In fact, I do not mind watching 3 months of IPL, APL, SAPL, PPL, SLPL,WIPL and EPL, culminating in the Champions's League, as long as for the remaining 6 months, India plays competitive 5 Test matches series against Australia, England, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and hopefully a resurrected West Indies.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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On this pious occasssion, CNN-IBN had a special talk show hosted by Anubha Bhonsle, where apart from having an increasingly unbearably irritating Preity Zinta as a panelist (good job by the PR agency of Godfrey Phlips), they discussed some genuine women stories, like Bhanwar Devi. <br /><br />Now apart from the professional necessity of being aware, I watch and read news mainly to push myself out of my comfort zone. For instance, when I saw Bhanwar Devi fighting a village's ostracisation for the last fifteen years (because she seeks justice against her upper-caste rapists) and raising her kids on 500 bucks ($12.5) a month, I got some perspective on my latest fad about how to afford the Skoda Fabia. Somehow, it gave a sense of my position on the wish-list queue. <br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But I am writing this not for the Women's Day, but <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-w1qvB2puV8F6ZLDW_gHt1Ms5lvTA41bg3nGb4qGD1GIQM0QpyJcoVdtWzxX0qThnONp97Rs-1-Rh_8ln6ryWNBIQX4SvtZnaxYX9ew89F1kBhKvy-mfQyJrs2ACEajFYEVOyw/s1600-h/D0908US1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175650689331342562" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-w1qvB2puV8F6ZLDW_gHt1Ms5lvTA41bg3nGb4qGD1GIQM0QpyJcoVdtWzxX0qThnONp97Rs-1-Rh_8ln6ryWNBIQX4SvtZnaxYX9ew89F1kBhKvy-mfQyJrs2ACEajFYEVOyw/s320/D0908US1.jpg" border="0" /></a>because Senator Obama has managed to arrest the slide somewhat, and won Wyoming today. I usually am an inverted snob. And when I do not follow politics in India or South Asia, I definitely should not show any interest in the primaries of the Democrats, forget the US presidential elections. But it is difficult not to get swayed by the American commercial might, as to how their genuinely open democracy has taken to the genuinely democratic digital medium. After all, politics is ladened with dirty money and deeds everywhere, the Yankees somehow are that much so frank and casual about it.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">youtube</span> elections have been captivating. And Obama is genuinely charismatic, may be as much as Hillary's husband. While both the Democratic candidates are actually not saying much (refer this brilliant piece, <a href="http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766009">http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766009</a>), I prefer Obama.<br /><br />My reason is simple. I think Hillary Clinton is a fake, a hypocrite. While her husband was going down on more women than there were on the Titanic (<span style="font-style: italic;">source: The Times of India</span>), she was about to walk out on her marriage (similar to what Shanie's wife Simone did). But then she had her own political aspirations. She wanted to become a Senator, and then get back into the White House.<br /><br />Hillary and Obama have ran a rather nasty personal campaign, and it is difficult to justify either. But what really got to me was when after agreeing to do so, Hillary refused to pose for the Vogue magazine. In an election fought on the new medium, it would have been an absolute first, for a presidential candidate to appear in a fashion magazine. But at the very last moment, Hillary Clinton thought doing this will be too elitist/glamorous/feminine. I anyway have strong thoughts about people reneging on commitments. Moreover, if these primaries are going pretty much as per vote-bank politics, Hillary Clinton basically rebuffed her core audience - the women (or the feminists).<br /><br />The need to beautify oneself is universal, across genders. The choice of the individual is possibly how to go about it, and at what expense. So when an Aishwarya Rai takes two hours to adorn her makeup, her chubby hubby Abhishek also does need to groom a beard to disguise his double-chin. Moreover, her ex Salman has possibly given metro-sexuality a really bad name by taking his gait more seriously than her catwalk.<br /><br />The American media does get into their leader's personal lives. For instance, in India, have we ever had our press trying to dig into who all did Vajpayee date, or MGR married? However, the good side of the American politics is then the President (or the leader) pretty much does the usual American things, like going for a jog in the morning and watching baseball games. Possibly, Hillary Clinton proved 'The Economist' right, that she actually does not have much of an agenda, even a feminist one.<br /><br />P.S. And in all this hullabaloo, the Republicans have nominated John McCain who actually does have a serious agenda.<br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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After debuting with the rather bizarre <span style="font-style: italic;">Pehla Nasha</span> and then <span style="font-style: italic;">Baazi</span>, all his three new century flicks - <span style="font-style: italic;">Lagaan</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Swades</span>, and now <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span> - box-office results notwithstanding, have been classics in their own rights. I will really struggle to pick my choice of the lot.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />At the risk of being immodest and unrealistically ambitious, Gowariker possibly makes his films with the same motives as I write - self-indulgent, excessive, and (maybe) commerce-unfriendly. When you sit through the three-and-a-half hour length of all his recent movies, it is not difficult to lose patience. Hence the lyrical <span style="font-style: italic;">Swades</span> becomes a documentary for many. Similarly, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span>, in the garb of being a love story, is actually a almost authentic bio-pic of Akbar (the non-authentic bit come from Akbar's cinematic stunts with a raging elephant). In the movie, the Jodhaa romantic track has the same role which Santosh Sivan intended in <span style="font-style: italic;">Asoka</span>, rather unsuccessfully.<br /><br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">Asoka</span>, the idea was to track the protagonist's transition from a ruthless ambitious king to the first Great Indian ruler through a romantic track. Kaurvaki lies in the realms of tribal myth, his depicted wife Devi was a historical figure. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span>, Govariker's uses roughly the same premise - the growth of a boy to the second Great, depicted via a political marital alliance with a Rajput princess, who then becomes his conscience. (To establish the historical coincidence further, Ashoka's grand-father Chandragupta Maurya married a Greek for similar political-military benefits). If Kaurvaki was a myth, then Jodhaa is historically controversial. But I will rather go with the existence of Jodhaa in Akbar's life than Anarkali in Salim's (which is fiction).<br /><br />In tracking Akbar's growth, Gowariker delves into the vital s<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamxAcjQvPY0YVsrNOsbcyaki-84KbU5TUwZIHq-KYlXheqJFXWKK3J0_1NMGBkXmRso57VIFxa_HO0kv_GKjGSTvtvUDXvrMYFxyOXuyWoT2W_-mKvgx2Vj2TOUl2OV38fW6Hgw/s1600-h/images1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamxAcjQvPY0YVsrNOsbcyaki-84KbU5TUwZIHq-KYlXheqJFXWKK3J0_1NMGBkXmRso57VIFxa_HO0kv_GKjGSTvtvUDXvrMYFxyOXuyWoT2W_-mKvgx2Vj2TOUl2OV38fW6Hgw/s320/images1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167539368566785282" border="0" /></a>ub-plots in the making of the Emperor - his illiteracy, his religious counsel, the punishment of a rogue half-brother, the Diwan-i-Khas, his secularism, his military conquests, even the Fatehpur Sikri architecture (where Hindu devotional songs spread across a Muslim fort). In fact, his turning against his mentor Bairam Khan is a fascinating human saga in its own rights, and is (thankfully) skimmed through. The only major phenomenon conspicuous by its absence is his establishment of a new religious order <span style="font-style: italic;">Din-i-Illahi </span>(Divine Faith), of which the legendary Birbal was the only follower.<br /><br />I obviously like Govariker's style of movie-making. His sets are big, because they need to be, not to be irritatingly loud like <span style="font-style: italic;">Devdas</span>. He claims that he has used no Urdu word which he does not understand. My difficulties in grasping even that shows my total ignorance of Urdu. He can do with a more ruthless editor. The climax fight, inspired by Achilles and Hector, simply goes on. Yet, the same slow pace totally works in the brilliant old-fashioned number when J & A finally consummate their relationship (God knows after how many reels).<br /><br />In terms of casting, I have somehow grown-up on a more portly J&A as depicted in <span style="font-style: italic;">Amar Chitra Katha</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Mughal-e-Azam</span>. In fact, A's parents-in-law in the movie (Kulbushan Kharbanda and Suhasini Mulay) fill the bill perfectly. To see a more svelte, gym-toned Hritik and Aishwarya in their place calls for a radical shift in the mindset. Performance wise, I think they have done a wonderful job. While I always trusted Hritik, Aishwarya Rai in the movie is an absolute revelation. She actually looks pretty (not plastic) as an Indian beauty, not the real-life giggling caricature (which we will surely get to witness in her promotional media-meets). Her famous chemistry with Hritik is brilliantly on display in their tantalizingly suggestive sword-fight.<br /><br />I guess it is my frame of mind these days, but somehow the only aspect which does not really fully match up to Gowariker's last two movies is AR Rahman's music. I have always loved his Sufi tracks (here Khwaja), be it the passionate <span style="font-style: italic;">Satrangi Re</span> from <span style="font-style: italic;">Dil Se</span>, or the devotional <span style="font-style: italic;">Piya Haji Ali</span> from <span style="font-style: italic;">Fiza</span>. The Krishna <span style="font-style: italic;">bhajan</span> is quite melodious, still not up to <span style="font-style: italic;">O Paalanhaare</span> in <span style="font-style: italic;">Lagaan</span>. The best track is <span style="font-style: italic;">Azeem-o-Shaan Shahenshah</span>, picturised as a cross of influences between Mani Rathnam and Subhash Ghai.<br /><br />Of the support cast, Ila Arun (crooked as the surrogate mother) and Poonam Sinha (graceful as the real mother) deserve a special mention. Kiiran Deohans' cinematography is world-class. In fact, the Panipat battle scene reminded me of Gladiator (another comparison which SRK wanted to achieve with <span style="font-style: italic;">Asoka</span>).<br /><br />In a nutshell, all the old-timers who grew up on the fascinating fictitious romance of <span style="font-style: italic;">Mughal-e-Azam</span> need to go and check out <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span>, a more realistic if not better celluloid portrayal. The movie has not really been marketed that well, and I am not sure if the pace will appeal to all and sundry. Yet, if we have to nominate <span style="font-style: italic;">Indian</span> films for the Oscars, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jodhaa Akbar</span> is a more deserving bet than the ridiculously wishy-washy <span style="font-style: italic;">Eklavya</span>.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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To the ICC's dismay, we crashed out of the 2007 World Cup in the group-stage itself. To the Indians' rejoice and the ICC's worry (after penning a historic 8-year deal with ESPN), we won the T20 World Cup (the better organised tournament). We had a historic Test series victory in England, and a more artificially-created one against Pakistan (whoever trumped up the first home victory after 28 years statistic). But we started and ended the year on the same note, by losing out on subcontinental pitches at Cape Town and Melbourne to traditionally very tough-to-beat foes.<br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br />India went in to challenge Australia based on their awesome series four years back, backed up by a Fab Four line-up. (To put it in perspective, gauge Jaffer, Yuvi and Dhoni in the two Tests, and just figure out what will happen when these Four go). We again had a walking-injured/recuperating bowling line-up, who performed admirably in Melbourne. The biggest worry was the despicable batting collapse, especially in the second innings at Australia.<br /></div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The New Year at Sydney started on the most promising note possible. However, soon India realised they are actually up against 11+2+1 (the 3rd umpire). As Ian Chappell put it, "Batsmen usually say to each other 'you take care of this bowler etc'. this match the Indians might have to say 'you take care of Bucknor, I will take care of Benson'." To say that the umpires had a horror is an under-statement. To say we were really really unlucky to be on the wrong end of eight of them, with two from Bucknor standing out, would be apt. To get a better picture, read</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify"><a href="http://www.prempanicker.com/index.php?/site/sorry_ricky_you_dont_deserve_to_be_trusted/">http://www.prempanicker.com/index.php?/site/sorry_ricky_you_dont_deserve_to_be_trusted/</a><br /><br />Dickie Bird was a favourite with players as he won their confidence. Steve Bucknor rubs the (Indian) players the wrong way because of his arrogance, or maybe over-confidence in his own eyes. More than a decade back, a young Bucknor did not refer Jonty Rhodes' run-out in Johannesburg to the 3rd umpire, turning around a match in balance. Here, his failure to spot Symond's thick edge in the first innings (which according to Peter Roebuck, was heard <span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3"><span class="maintext3">by pals sitting in the hullabulloo on the boundary's edge</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>), and then imagine one from Rahul Dravid in the second innings, has simply closed a wide open series. During India's last trip Down Under last series, Parthiv Patel's failure to stump Ponting apparently cost India the series. The result - Patel is displaying his wares for Gujarat. Wonder if Bucknor will also be now packed off to Jamaica!<br /><br />Umpires make mistakes, and my perpective on technology is somewhat on the lines of <a href="http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/extracover/content/current/story/329204.html">http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/extracover/content/current/story/329204.html</a>. Moreover, in the Symonds' innings, the third umpire, with all the access to technology, also goofed up. Charles Colvile on Sky TV was rightly perplexed, 'How can the third umpire not see that? He's not got anything to do other than watch TV'.<br /><br />It might be a cliche, but bad decisions should even out in the end. Lest one forgets, Bucknor also saved India at Lords' by refusing to acknowledge a tight one against Sreesanth by Panesar. What hurts is the way it was almost conceived, by the Lord up there (Sachin was unlucky in his dismissal), and his two representatives on the cricket field. </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify">After the infamous Sarwan-McGrath spat, Cricket Australia woke up to its representatives boorish on-field behaviour. More importantly, the Aussies lost that match. Here, when Bhajji openly claimed Ponting as his bunny, and to everyone's shock, went on to prove it (Dhoni missed a stumping), the Aussies turned on the heat by alleging racism. For a change, the umpires were caught unawares. Yet, as of now, Bhajji stands to miss the remainder of the series and beyond, all on the basis of his opponents' claim.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify">Kumble was extremely graceful in defeat, and effective in pointing out Clarke's refusal to walk after an edge to the slip (and then becoming the decision-maker for Mark Benson in the Ganguly catch). He himself got the raw deal, by getting stranded after a very courageous knock (made up for his first innings waft). India should have negotiated the 70 overs, and Jaffer deserves to be socked for giving the start he did.<br /><br />Whatever Peter Roebuck might think (<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/dodgy-deeds-leave-sour-taste/2008/01/06/1199554486052.html">http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/dodgy</a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVPZeizpn1dPN_KjQVX6ymGUVwRoFKadO_vFhkuHm5iCF17QAucupbWz6aXf8M2SCUvBtqXiARygOsyftbALH6mSVO-KzFDw3gnsj1zUjKP8_VrnY1j4eAhPIDBHk9GM223AOtxw/s1600-h/84808.icon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152637426618651266" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVPZeizpn1dPN_KjQVX6ymGUVwRoFKadO_vFhkuHm5iCF17QAucupbWz6aXf8M2SCUvBtqXiARygOsyftbALH6mSVO-KzFDw3gnsj1zUjKP8_VrnY1j4eAhPIDBHk9GM223AOtxw/s320/84808.icon.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/dodgy-deeds-leave-sour-taste/2008/01/06/1199554486052.html">-deeds-leave-sour-taste/2008/01/06/1199554486052.html</a>), the cricket was of high quality. Ponting, the 'infant terrible' who was made to grow up by CA for his captaincy, showed that he is yet to achieve the softer skills necessary for a leader. The Man of Match Symonds played a knock for the ages, which lost meaning because of his granted escapes. Moreover, he refused to applaud Sachin's hundred. </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify">Last year, Roger Federer played a classical final with Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon last year. Then, he cribbed about technology, which is never fool-proof primarily because of two reasons: i) television companies are driven by commerce, ii) if it goes wrong, what do you judge it against. Yet, simply because of his grace, Federer remains a very popular champion.<br /><br />Harsha Bhogle has a valid point. Aussies (with the exception of Gilchrist) do not walk. Aussies (including Gilchrist) appeal for non-existent dismissals (Gilchrish actually got into a spat with McCullum I think over his refusal to walk). But when they take catches, they want to trust fielders. </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" align="justify">I am sure that pre-series pact is off. And if there is a God, Kumble will come back with a 2-2 draw, with victories at Perth and Adelaide. But who said life is fair!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Basically, each student had to point out a gap in the market, which could be turned into a marketing opportunity.<br /></div><div align="justify"><br />My X-factor was a more mundane point of booking railways tickets online (I guess I can take heart that I preceded IRCTC). However, a more enterprising classmate had a much more interesting insight on Indian advertising, an industry most of the batch was set to join in less than a year. His take was that the biggest brands in the country - Sai Baba, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth - were built without any assistance from advertising.</div><br />The cue set me thinking. Some of the most memorable brands - Harley Davidson, Starbucks - have been built without any major advertising. Some of the most succcessful Indian businesses - Hero Honda, LG - continue to support stinking advertising. And then we had the brand Aamir Khan, continously gaining strength.<br /><br /><div align="justify">What is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Aamir Khan? I think of <em>karmayoga</em>, of taking one's job super seriously. He avoids industry interactions and the filmi press. But his razor-sharp mind shows up when he used the digital medium to build his credibility, <a href="http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php">http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php</a>, and <a href="http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm">http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm</a>.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">After a usual filmi-family start with a blockbuster, Aamir the star changed tack to Aamir the brand in the mid-90s, when he miffed Ramu during <em>Rangeela</em>, and himself got miffed by good friend and on-screen co-star Juhi Chawla. He lost out the Filmfare award to Shahrukh Khan for <em>DDLJ</em>, and denounced Bollywood awards forever. Moreover, he tried to professionalise Bollywood by concentrating on just one film at a time, and Ashutosh Govariker almost finished off his career with a dud called <em>Baazi</em>. As SRK put it so well, 'while he was working hard, Aamir was thinking hard'. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Back then, Aamir Khan used to bug me, especially with his pursuit of perfection<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NRitEwvyV31XObDzuZsWUK_aK03pSWpgqf1GwUMQZLIGU6gQuy-2DoHINk_PI-LuMb_wVdKEgM0pkfRtJ2axCVlhZMrZxYzngiWEVMdDFCtHPo5ZjTE1VAKCvuRWsgQzS7B1LA/s1600-h/dil.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149026905310941762" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NRitEwvyV31XObDzuZsWUK_aK03pSWpgqf1GwUMQZLIGU6gQuy-2DoHINk_PI-LuMb_wVdKEgM0pkfRtJ2axCVlhZMrZxYzngiWEVMdDFCtHPo5ZjTE1VAKCvuRWsgQzS7B1LA/s320/dil.jpg" border="0" /></a> and the end-results. He apparently took nine days to select his sailor's cap in <em>Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin</em>, a remake of <em>It Happened One Night. </em>Wonder what dimension that added to the Clark Gable character. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Moreover, all the baloney of doing one film a year evaporated when those movies turned out to be <em>Ishq</em> and <em>Mela</em>. (I must admit though, I was super-impressed by <em>Sarfarosh</em>, for which John Mathew Matthan waited six years for Aamir's go-ahead). Aamir questioned the fact that Amitabh did not use his immense stardom for better social good against him. But his own doing-good receded when his name was embroiled in romantic escapades of varying degree, and he never clarified them. Again, as SRK told Aamir's fans, 'get a role-model to look upto'.</div><div align="justify"><br />However, Aamir Khan still had the respect of his peers. Shah Rukh called him the country's best actor before anyone else did. Om Puri held him in high esteem (while he considered SRK an entertainer). After all, he actually was what Naseeruddin Shah wanted to be, an actor with box-office clout.</div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcF4JfBn-RcYfJNoSs8RQUjTBqFFiwdZyre3ETYQlUo1uPWfKjOtDHIdXoOBL4w1aeUGfSFSp8VzF5ByogbqD2R0bjMS1Z4WY4ZzhNWRnHgt9-fMQArFgOcjFPd-abHEVR7XqCQ/s1600-h/spirit+of+lagaan.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148898283925328418" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcF4JfBn-RcYfJNoSs8RQUjTBqFFiwdZyre3ETYQlUo1uPWfKjOtDHIdXoOBL4w1aeUGfSFSp8VzF5ByogbqD2R0bjMS1Z4WY4ZzhNWRnHgt9-fMQArFgOcjFPd-abHEVR7XqCQ/s320/spirit+of+lagaan.jpg" border="0" /></a>When I started implementing all my branding lessons in my first job, Aamir came out with two brilliant movies, <em>Lagaan</em> and <em>Dil Chahta Hai</em>. While Farhan Akhtar made a very impressive debut with <em>DCH</em>, it was <em>Lagaan</em> which was more of a Aamir swan-song. He produced a movie more than three hours long, backed a risky rejected screen-play about cricket, and supported a flop director. <em>Lagaan</em> turned out to be a milestone of Indian cinema, sending Aamir and Ashutosh to the Academy Awards ceremony, and for ever making an annual phenomenon of nominating films for the Oscars into a discussed news item.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Post <em>Lagaan</em>, Aamir took a four year long hiatus, to return with the disppointing <em>Mangal Pandey</em>. To further establish his method actor credentials, he started sporting radically different looks. I finally bought into the brand Aamir with <em>Rang de Basanti</em>, a brilliant movie, where all he had professed - intelligent cinema for mass-viewing - fitted in like a glove. He had refused to participate in the film's promotion without his co-stars, and more famously (or infamously if you agree to some criticis, whom I disagree with) supported Medha Patkar's activism (the controversy erupted as he endorsed Coke, who themselves were doing some hanky-panky with ground-water in Kerala). If the support lent was actually because of his convictions in the cause (again, I do not really comprehend the issue to share his conviction), then no one should be pointing fingers at him. To rebuff, he even did a CSR sort of commercial with Coke.</div><br /><div align="justify"><em>Taare Zameen Par</em> is a perfect extension of Aamir the brand. A screenplay written by Amol Gupte over fourteen years, he was supposed to direct it also, while Aamir produced it. They shortlisted Darsheel Safary (who gets a mention before Aamir Khan in the opening credits) to play the protagonist. And then, not for the first time, Aamir had some creative differences with his director. As they thought Darsheel was brilliantly casted, and any delay would have lost the growing-up boy, Aamir, with Amol's approval, took up the directorial reins. After a career accused of ghost-directing his films, he finally was in the mantle.</div><br /><div align="justify"><em>TZP</em> is again a predictable movie, about a boy suffering from dyslexia, how his environment does not really understand, how it takes a fellow-dyslexic to recognise, and bring the boy back to the mainstream. As Aamir himself pointed out, rather controversially, I think this movie is more real and sensitive in handling a handicap than <em>Black</em> (whose first half was a blatant ripoff of Helen Keller's story from <em>The Miracle Worker</em>). The jist - something I believe very strongly in, especially in the Indian middle-class context which breeds on insecurity - of giving each and every kid his space to grow and learn, was possibly last shown in Kundan Shah's classic <em>Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa</em>. <em>TZP</em> also shows up Aditya Chopra's <em>Mohabattein </em>as a cliched romantic drama, masquerading as a take-off on <em>Dead Poets' Society</em>.</div><br /><div align="justify"><em>TZP</em> is a very serious film, a story told sensitively. In fact, I struggled to smile even once during the film. It takes a long time to narrate the tale, but it drags only during the beginning of the second half, when Aamir discovers Darsheel's dyslexia, and informs his parents of the same (that bus-ride was only to build atmospehere and tug emotions). Most importantly, unlike some flicks by Mani Rathnam, Khalid Mohammad, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and Farhan Akhtar, Aamir is backed by solid research, showed off in his Solomon Islands example and the end-credit documentary. Very novel, I must say! </div><br /><div align="justify">For a person with a total filmi background, the way Aamir (or was it Amol) gets the everyday middle-class thing right - the strict performance-oriented father, the confused doting mother, the fratenal bonding, the forged leave application, the child's demand for a gift from the returning-from-out-of-station father, the panging-for-mother kid withdrawing in his shell, the Hindi teacher who appreciated learning by rote rather than imagination, the art teacher attracting attention by throwing chalk at the errant student, the ability to laugh at all but oneself - is pure genius. On a discordant note, children do need discipline, otherwise all our famous boarding schools would not have <em>produced </em>all<em> </em>their alumni.</div><br /><div align="justify">Aamir Khan, who makes a late entry just before intermission, has himself admitted that he would rather not act in his directorial efforts. Unlike <em>RDB</em>, here he looks his age, but still it a bit too good-looking to fit in seamlessly as a teacher. His performace also is marginally on the louder side, not like Amitabh's histrionics in <em>Black</em>, but more in terms of emotions. But maybe then, if Aamir was absent, just like <em>My Brother Nikhil</em>, I would have missed this movie also. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Darsheel deserves all the accolades and credit he gets. His dreaminess is best captured in the animation sequence, possibly a tribute by Aamir to <em>Calvin and Hobbes</em>. Tisca Chopra is apt as his mother, the scene where she discovers his brilliantly conceived flip-book leaves a lasting impression. Even better is Vipin Sharma as his cast-in-stone father. His embarrased failure to go and hug Darsheel, after getting a spiel from Aamir, is the most authentic scene of the movie for me. The music score complements the mood of the film, with the title track standing out.</div><br /><div align="justify"><em>TZP</em> might not earn more money than <em>OSO</em> (apologies, but I somehow cannot help comparing the two stars). But again as was pointed out at my introductory lecture at my alma mater, the vision for all of us branding professionals was to 'change the world'. Somehow, I feel Aamir does a better job of doing that. Post <em>TZP</em>, I decided against scoring films, as 'every film is special' (or crap).</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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And as I heard on my grandfather's rather booming early morning news broadcast that the start was on expected lines - the Australian openers were racing away, I dozed off again. </div><div align="justify"><br />I finally managed to leave the bed at 7 am, coinciding with the lunch break at the Test. The Aussies were 111/0, India had surprisingly picked two spinners and promptly lost the toss, the wicket had something for the seamers, and Zaheer and RP had bowled well without luck. The omens were auspicious, the Kookaburra ball is hated by seamers (the like of which India possesses) the world over, and it does not really swing in Australia, to keep our seamers fresh and interested as in England.</div><div align="justify"><br />And then the magic commenced. I have always had mixed feelings about the Indian captain, Anil Kumble. He and Sachin have been the doyens of Indian cricket. In fact, with the 2007 retirement of Lara, Warne, McGrath and Inzy, they have become the sole senior citizens of world cricket. The 90s was the frustrating decade for us Indian fans. We creamed all at home, and got butchered abroad. Why Sachin became so popular was that he was an exception to the rule; the rule epitomised by Anil Kumble, whose bowling averages home and away were ridiculously wide.</div><br /><div align="justify">At the turn of the century, with Ganguly and Wright building the New India, an injured Kumble was trumped by a young Harbhajan. It was a tricky situation, an injured Kumble with his injured shoulders in sling tutoring a rookie Bhajji, who went on to lead an Indian triumph over the rampant Aussies in a memorable series. Harbhajan became India's lead spinner of choice, as he was supposed to spin the ball even on the non-helpful tracks abroad. </div><br /><div align="justify">This usurping of Kumble coincided with a loss of his famed accuracy, creating some average statistic in the ODI arena (an average of more than 40, although the economy stayed below 5). After a good game game against Holland, he sat out of the playing XI in India's march towards the 2003 World Cup final. In fact, when he was picked for the now legendary tour Down Under the following season, there were sufficient reasons to question his presence in the team, at Murali Kartik's expense. Kumble got into the playing XI only because Harbhajan irresponsbily injured himself.</div><br /><div align="justify">Australia 2003-04 turned out to be the turning point for Anil Kumble, the spin bowler (as compared to the incoming medium-pacer he had been treated abroad for most of the 90s). His famed accuracy was replaced by a variety, of speed, of trajectory, and a well-disguised googly. For the first time in his illustrious career, Kumble was given the cushion of runs, by a fab five of batting. And he toiled over-after-over, to contribute to some major Indian performances in Australia, Pakistan, West Indies, and South Africa. As his stock went up, he was even recalled in ODIs, mainly for India's disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign. </div><br /><div align="justify">Kumble recently beame the Test captain, mainly because the default candidate Rahul Dravid called it quits (rather surprisingly), and there were simply no alternatives. While I had suggested his name as soon as Dravid resigned (I did not want Sachin, or Sourav, to don the mantle again, as I feel a young brigade, led by Yuvraj should keep the entire ageing middle-order, prone to lapsing in to serious under-performance, on its toes; captaincy ensures guaranteed selection), I guess Dilip & Co do not really listen to me. In fact, cricinfo contributed with a timely interview of Kumble, in which he threw his hat in the ring. Duly so, the critics' choice, a young, relatively unproven-in-Test-arena but T20-&-ODI-captain Dhoni was made the Test deputy to Kumble, the only Indian player exclusively available for the longer form of the game (VVS is technically still an option in ODIs).</div><br /><div align="justify">Anil Kumble's fan following has been the intellectual brigade, led by Ramachandra Guha and Harsha Bhogle, or mavericks like Bishan Singh Bedi (who took a liking to him only when Harbhajan took the primary slot). Kumble, being an engineer in a team of under-educated (Dravid's studious nature, very much like the Bollywood star Aamir Khan, is more cultivated), also led all the player negotiations with the BCCI. In fact, another big reason was that Kumble belonged to no camp. As he was not heavily endorsed, there were little chances of his being dictated by personal commercial interests.</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvycHpb3nTVZKH7XZZSH1U8b-JK33qeQeLNYCWILPVxpw4kVlUX821VeIn8F6sep3ZMKjnp8R79PpMUr4yMhUIJ2dLV1rXhVTKuUUwaRYSkclVxWVMxRstMfYLaqW3q6W82dUl4w/s1600-h/kumble+wired.jpg"></a><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Without an iota of doubt in my mind, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble have been the most selfless cricketers for India. Dravid has been India's Most Valuable Player, and in that process, he has donned the wicket-keeping gloves, and reluctantly opened in Tests (why cannot Sachin, or even Saurav, who sulk when not opening in ODIs, take the plunge in Tests). As pointed out so well by a colleague, Kumble's magnanimity can be seen by his training of Bhajji in 2001, a move which could have, and did cost him his own place in the team. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The saga of Kumble (and Dravid) is about determination. God makes Sachin and Warne; Dravid and Kumble have to compete on equal terms using their own wares. No one can forget Kumble's physical courage in bowling with <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvycHpb3nTVZKH7XZZSH1U8b-JK33qeQeLNYCWILPVxpw4kVlUX821VeIn8F6sep3ZMKjnp8R79PpMUr4yMhUIJ2dLV1rXhVTKuUUwaRYSkclVxWVMxRstMfYLaqW3q6W82dUl4w/s1600-h/kumble+wired.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148177824636260866" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvycHpb3nTVZKH7XZZSH1U8b-JK33qeQeLNYCWILPVxpw4kVlUX821VeIn8F6sep3ZMKjnp8R79PpMUr4yMhUIJ2dLV1rXhVTKuUUwaRYSkclVxWVMxRstMfYLaqW3q6W82dUl4w/s320/kumble+wired.jpg" border="0" /></a>a wired jaw, even scalping Lara. When his place in the Test team was questioned, he came back so strong that we now ask 'After Kumble, Who?' (definitely not Bhajji, Kartik has possibly missed out, and Piyush Chawla is still a long bet). When he was found unwanted in the ODI team (very much like VVS, because of his declining athleticism; their primary skills did not really compensate), he is the only player with the grace and the mind to retire from the game. When he was demoted in the batting order to the jack's position (coming after Pathan, Zaheer, and Bhajji), his ego was hurt. He worked hard to climb up the order, even becoming the sole Indian centurion in the victorious England tour. And I do not even know if one should mention his marriage to a divorcee, with a son. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">In spite of all his heroics, I still had my reservations regarding Kumble, the spinner. He could not really get wickets during our England victory, especially at Oval when he needed to. Again, against Pakistan at home, we should have won at both Calcutta and Bangalore. Its not that Kumble is not good, or great, it is just that Warne and Murali are more all-rounded. Even amongst the historical Indian tweakers, from hearsay, I would rate Subhash Gupte and Erapalli Prasanna higher (immediately disputing him being the greatest Indian bowler, forget spinner).</div><div align="justify"><br />And then today happened. As most of us were dreading, our weakened backup-less bowling looked like to be in for a mauling. Immediately as I started seeing the game after lunch, captain wonderful struck with a brilliant dummy sold to Phil Jacques, stranding him just outside the crease (the classical spinner's stumping is becoming so rare to watch these days). Zaheer did his own magic to castle Ponting, a weakness of playing across the line early in his innings, that requires supreme skill or a brilliant leg-cutter to exploit. And there was holding the Indian skipper. Hussey was fooled by a flighted slow googly, Symonds by a flipper, Gilchrist by the intelligent use of the crease, and Lee by the classical Kumble fast top-spinner. Abolsute top-drawer stuff!</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Australia is easily the most well-rounded country to play cricket in, with different centres providing bounce, seam, swing and spin to varying measures. In 1999-00, when Steve Waugh's men blanked the two sub-continental giants India and Pakistan, Kumble got greater respect out of the Aussies than the then-champion Saqlain Mushtaq (though that respect was extremely relative). More importanly, today, Kumble was going 16 wickets short of 600 Test victims. Our tour followed Sri Lanka, who went in with a more balanced attack and statistically the greatest spinner in the history of the game, and were mauled. Ponting's men did not allow Murali to claim the nine wickets in Australia, that would have have taken him ahead of ex-teammate Warne.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">As I post, at the end of the first day, on a perfect batting strip, Australia, chasing a 15th consecutive Test victory, have been reduced to 337/9. The match is still in balance, can go anyway. But I am amazed and awed that all this happened mainly because of a man who supposedly takes wickets only on doctored pitches. If he wanted to erase both his and India's rather poor overseas record, he could not have set a better platform. Now it is up to the celebrated batters to repay the debt. Let there be more resounding rejoinders to doubting citizens!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Zapping through television, I happen to chance upon <span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span>, a box-office dud delivered by the evergreen superstar Amitabh Bachchan, in his only role with the Indian Marlon Brando, Dilip Kumar. While most of my generation (including me) preferred Amitabh's performance, the critics handed out the Filmfare Award for the Best Actor to Dilip Kumar (back then, Filmfare actually awarded acting rather than box-office performance).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span> is possibly the most under-rated film of Indian cinema history, directed by its most under-rated director Ramesh Sippy. Sippy 's <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span>, released in 1975, was his third directorial venture (after <span style="font-style: italic;">Andaz</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Seeta aur Geeta</span>). While the first two were also good movies in their own right, <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span> turned out to be a cult-classic, the Indian cinematic milestone possibly comparable to <span style="font-style: italic;">Gone with the Wind</span> for Hollywood (which came a lot earlier in the life-cycle of the American film industry).<br /><br />However, for Sippy, <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span> became a burden forever. His next, <span style="font-style: italic;">Shaan</span> in 1980 was quite entertaining<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Saagar</span> (1986) was a superb movie with all the necessary Bollywood formula. Both me and Sippy (as admitted by him in a <span style="font-style: italic;">Filmfare</span> interview) have still not managed to fathom its box-office failure. In fact, post <span style="font-style: italic;">Saagar</span>, Sippy completely degenerated in cinema, only succeeding on television through <span style="font-style: italic;">Buniyaad</span>.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In between <span style="font-style: italic;">Shaan</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Saagar</span> came <span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span> (1982). <span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span> is a relatively simple plot by Salim-Javed, revolving around three primary characters. The story about the tussle between a father (Dilip Kumar), a principled police officer, whose obstinate sticking to his morals and professional ethics first pushes away, and then destroys his only son (Amitabh). Caught in between her hubby's uprightness and the love for her son is the mother (Rakhi Gulzar, who for most of her career played Amitabh's love interest). These three are supported by a brilliant support cast, led by Smita Patil and Amrish Puri (of the distinct baritone that plays a crucial role in the movie's climax).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span> does not cater to the masses. In fact, as Sippy himself admitted, he realised that he was making a rather heavy movie, and thought of injecting an item-number (Amitabh could have easily lost his way further, from a singing to a dancing girl). Thankfully, he refrained. Unlike <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Deewar</span> (the two defining Amitabh movies), there were not even enough memorable dialogues.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The magic lies in the no-fuss acting, and the novel-like interplay of human personalities. I felt a strong empathy for each character. Dilip Kumar looks impractical when he gets stuck on the rightness of the law (after all, if the legal system is so right, then Gandhi was a scoundrel). Yet, his character is modeled on the Heroes of our epics. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Ramayana</span>, Vibheeshana, in spite of his constant ridicule in colloquial Hindi, was awarded with a kingdom, because he made the right decision. On the other hand, Karna has been glorified (I have a theory that Amitabh's anti-hero is modeled on him), yet is an out-and-out villain in Vyasa's <span style="font-style: italic;">Mahabharata</span>.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tZHqlzjsq4SrDPFPOSkv1w7S8P4iDcZMl45_YQZzbB0H6aJ4fTow-kmSarpW9KuW6xDf9i2-Hf2F61-JACeGauAZTrNgkd1Zt1cIWTppw0oY4mWdsSt4Cs13JyPxnVfHgu2nmQ/s1600-h/rakhi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tZHqlzjsq4SrDPFPOSkv1w7S8P4iDcZMl45_YQZzbB0H6aJ4fTow-kmSarpW9KuW6xDf9i2-Hf2F61-JACeGauAZTrNgkd1Zt1cIWTppw0oY4mWdsSt4Cs13JyPxnVfHgu2nmQ/s320/rakhi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5144884885474656322" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti</span>, Amitabh (again as Vijay) is even more justified in choosing his career than <span style="font-style: italic;">Deewar</span>. His father was offensive, and insufficiently communicative, at critical times. And Rakhi looks rightfully confused - she knows her husband is right, but cannot see Amitabh going to seeds.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYejLnIMN8DU_6mdUa4Z2j6xgXtKRD6mwseNUHHBHfH6WI0KLtLPU7CqX88yFgfSLayxybn8Q78nvkDdm2RKQcZ6vnZZg7yqQHTcKsfYiwk6OzYTjuCOUiiEWiymqEiPKVGP_IiA/s1600-h/death.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYejLnIMN8DU_6mdUa4Z2j6xgXtKRD6mwseNUHHBHfH6WI0KLtLPU7CqX88yFgfSLayxybn8Q78nvkDdm2RKQcZ6vnZZg7yqQHTcKsfYiwk6OzYTjuCOUiiEWiymqEiPKVGP_IiA/s320/death.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5144884812460212274" border="0" /></a><br />Performancewise, there are some of the most awesome goosebumps raising moments. The scene where Amitabh consoles Dilip after his mother's death is possibly his best quite moment on screen. And the legendary climax has apparently inspired Michael Mann, with a strong resemblance to the showdown between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in <span style="font-style: italic;">Heat</span>.<br /><br />The strongest indication of <span style="font-style: italic;">Shakti's </span>brilliance is that since, for me at least, no movie has managed to better the two key aspects of the flick: the honest cop who loses it all for his principles (<span style="font-style: italic;">Shool</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Gangajal</span>; have not seen <span style="font-style: italic;">Ardh Satya</span> so will refrain), and the father-son clash (<span style="font-style: italic;">Apharan</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Gandhi My Father</span>). In fact, the nation-defining story of Mohandas vs Harilal is a shadow of the clash between Ashwini and Vijay.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Specifically talking about myself, I can link most of my life stories around him <a href="http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-am-ageing-someone-turn-clock-back.html">http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-am-ageing-someone-turn-clock-back.html</a>.<br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">For sometime now, I have been doubting his intent, especially in Test cricket. Ian Chappell had made a pertinent point as to why he should retire, <a href="http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/287961.html">http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/287961.html</a>. </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">However, why we still believe, is best expressed by Rohit Brijnath below, a piece which has affected everyone I know (while most admire the prose, some actually shed tears, imagining the vaccuum when he actually retires).<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-size:100%;" >Tendulkar still teaching lessons: An exceptional performer can recalculate his skills and alter himself</span> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><em>- by Rohit Brijnath<br /></em><br />There is no weaseling out of this: I was wrong about Sachin Tendulkar. Earlier this year, his struggle painful to watch, I wondered: if he couldn't mirror the exalted standard of his past, then why play? It was a miscalculation of the rage that courses through the uncommon athlete's veins.<br /><br />Even now, across continents, you can hear the hum of Tendulkar's desire. For just playing. For runs. For winning. He knows that the great athlete has to prove himself, constantly, that we're not interested in his yesterdays but only his todays.<br /><br />I first met Tendulkar 20 years ago when he was 14 and have admired him since. Not because he scored runs with a ferocious beauty but because he possessed a powerful sense of duty and met acclaim with serenity. No sportsperson in 20 years has moved me like him except the elastic Michael Jordan, who was like a Michelangelo statue come to athletic life. But the batsman was ours, he was hope tugging at his box and our hearts. Jordan taught us that human flight was possible. Tendulkar is still teaching us.<br /><br />Like some bonzai schoolmaster holding class, he taught us that don't judge a kid by his voice. He taught us to sit down and back in our drawing rooms because he was going to hang around the crease for a while. He taught us that champions find the necessary calm amidst the delirium. He taught us that playing for India was fun but also a responsibility. And he taught us he could make grown men cry, sometimes watches, sometimes bowlers.<br /><br />He taught us that only the exceptional performer can recalculate his skills and alter himself. Haile Gebreselassie, unable to maintain the speed of the 10,000 metres, has morphed into a marathon champion. Tendulkar rearranged his repertoire, and while he was not the greatest<br />anymore, he taught us he could still find a way to be good.<br /><br />But this year, I began to believe he was declining, and quickly, because he was unconvincing for long periods, wearing an unsurety that looked so foreign on him. The vincible hero. At 34, how do you stop time, and deterioration? But 20 years after first learning from Tendulkar, there<br />was one last lesson he had to teach. About concentration.<br /><br />If first his getting beaten made me flinch, what made me keep watching was his refusal to flinch. The ball went by and he started again, like a student trying again to solve a problem. Every ball was a new ball to Tendulkar, a new life, a new start, it was like he had cleansed his memory of the previous delivery that hissed past his bat. It was like Jimmy Connors swearing the last point was unimportant, only the next one mattered.<br /><br />What control of mind does it take to erase the immediate past, to not let doubt fester, to stay alert even as the bowler is exposing your hesitancy? The easy option would be to react, to swish harder. The hard choice was to just stay, to start afresh every ball with hope, to view temptation with priestly detachment. Tendulkar chose well. He taught us in this time that the first rule of sport is not to look good, it is to survive.<br /><br />Tendulkar's body may have healed and allowed him a fuller expression of strokes, but it is his confidence in himself, confidence that was shaken and rattled surely but never extinguished, that carried him on. He still gets beaten some days, but he is also more fluent, too, astonishing no less in his ability to rack up scores of 99, 93, 8, 17, 99, 8, 55, 71, 94, 30, 0, 16, 43, 79, 47, 72, 21, 4, 99, 29, 97 in his last 21 one-day innings.<br /><br />What does Tendulkar play for? Team, himself, pride, records? Maybe he plays because part of him is just a boy who finds himself when bat meets ball. Maybe he plays because of a boy agog in the stands. Maybe he has summoned this last reservoir of energy to show a kid, now old enough to understand, why, for 18 years, the world has made such a fuss about his father. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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After a decade-long intensive struggle, Manoj had won his guru Barry's plaudits when he hit bigtime with <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Satya</span></em>. On the other hand, the much more famous pupil SRK who had given Barry the entire credit for his acting prowess, had been dismissed as a gymnast with very good management skills (how brutally apt). However, for Manoj, SRK remained the benchmark, as he happened to be a part of the <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">junta's</span></em> dreams and fantasies.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Farah Khan, in her second directorial venture, literally builds on these very celluloid</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> dreams which Manoj envies. By virtue of her cinematic liaison with SRK, this gen-now <i>jodi</i> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">has been proclaimed the designated successor to Amitabh Bachchan & Manmohan Desai (thought Desai was slightly overrated, Farah has shown more promise, but maybe I am gen-now). <i><br /><br /></i>As masala cinema, <i>OSO</i> pales in comparison to <i>Main Hoon Na</i>. For pure new-age Bollywood style, it is inferior to Farhan Akhtar's <i>Don </i>(which was updated from the 70s to the new century, while <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">OSO</span></em> goes the other way round). In fact, what it actually does well is to show RGV how to pay tributes. What it does not do (by a distance) is surpass his <i>Rangeela</i>, as a movie about the movies.<br /><i><br /></i>OSO is <i>Karz</i> meets <i>Mehbooba</i> (or is it <i>Kudrat</i>?). It kicks off brilliantly, set thirty years a</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">go, with the actual <i>Karz</i> with the actual <i>Om Shanti Om</i> song being shot very enthusiasticall</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">y by the actual Ghai (to get a reference, Karz was released in 1980, so the 'now' in the film can only imply 2009 at the best; I nitpick because SRK claimed that he wanted to make the reincarnation settings authentic, by depicting change of generations). However, the 70s spirit of the movie actually expands to include all cinema Farah has witnessed and got impressed by, even <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Maine Pyaar Kiya</span></em> (cutely done).<br /><i><br />OSO</i> is a SRK stardom venture through-and-through. A self-confessed hammer, he starts off playing a junior artiste Om, with starry dreams and a serious crush on the country's big</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">gest female star. His takeoffs incorporate <i>Mother India</i> (Sunil Dutt saving Nargis on the sets), Rajnikanth (the South Indian spoof is funny, but does it border on racism, I cannot say), any roman</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">tic actor driving his lady love in a static car against a moving frame (as shown in the B&W oldies), and even the classical struggling youth with a doting mother who makes him his favourite <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">kheer</span></em>. Kiron Kher (who plays his in-the-same-profession mom) and his interaction are the best spoofs. The chemistry between the two is as electric as SRK shared with her hubby Anupam in <i style="">DDLJ</i>. The scene where Deepika talks to a speaking-in-mind but totally tongue-tied SRK (a joke repeated from <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Main Hoon Na</span></em><em><span style="font-style: normal;font-family:Georgia;" >,</span></em> but still looks fresh), his expressions are absolutely brilliant (as Baradwaj puts it, he finds perfect use for his famous stammer and quivering lips). His drunken victory speech rehearsal - borrowed from Paulo Coelho's <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">The Alchemist</span></em> - is quite exhilarating (playing a huge role during the second half of the movie, when he is reborn as the superstar OK).<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">A real-life very young Deepika Padukone (a case of child molestation as put by<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbinIL_UZSLUc4EpNokwjBcpR5Y04poN6kna0BA2aw0Bt2wFtkUwVvuYczmfcicJFRf4NAI__n0ddQMVvVuu_zCflw8waDZQkF8ZCbDDsUHObSFZA5Yc2-_3LHJhU-At4d3AlqVQ/s1600-h/oso+deep.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:formulas> <v:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"> <o:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132654347135685426" spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style="'width:96.75pt;height:74.25pt'" button="t"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\toshiba\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\03\clip_image001.jpg" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbinIL_UZSLUc4EpNokwjBcpR5Y04poN6kna0BA2aw0Bt2wFtkUwVvuYczmfcicJFRf4NAI__n0ddQMVvVuu_zCflw8waDZQkF8ZCbDDsUHObSFZA5Yc2-_3LHJhU-At4d3AlqVQ/s400/oso+deep.jpg"> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span></a> SR</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7Qo9vVBj6w-xdGh-rhiGzpOUttqIlT0HnTRFbrRk0_L46vX6pWjyA49PC1K0PSSzf8KdCbGzBoMFG70K0syeLDzTGBDFN0jRAAJ8ADEPb4bhy6MU503tpQbWXQAMAQjYzsTAJg/s1600-h/oso+deep.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7Qo9vVBj6w-xdGh-rhiGzpOUttqIlT0HnTRFbrRk0_L46vX6pWjyA49PC1K0PSSzf8KdCbGzBoMFG70K0syeLDzTGBDFN0jRAAJ8ADEPb4bhy6MU503tpQbWXQAMAQjYzsTAJg/s400/oso+deep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5133286102180360130" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Georgia;">K on Times Now) looks suitably matched on screen opposite him. Hers is possibly the best packaged debut since Hritik Roshan. It remains to be seen whether she can emote as well as him (because of his looks and dancing skills, Hritik the actor is quite under-rated; Aamir Khan considers him the best mainstream Bollywood actor). Deepika pays her own tribute to the then diva and still ravishing Hema Malini, although she shows off a lot more cleavage than Hema ji ever did. In one of the song items, she also does a Helen/Aroona Irani types gypsy number, a miscalculation to my mind as possibly till Zeenat Aman broke the barrier in <i>Qurbani</i> in 1980, the actress-vamp dance numbers were seriously demarcated in Hindi cinema.<br /><br />Shreyas Talpade as SRK's buddy has already displayed his tremendous mimicking skills in <i>Dor</i>. His joke on SRK's surname (Makhija vis-a-vis Kapoor) sets just the right tone. Also, unli</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">ke Kiron Kher who ages very shabbily, Shreyas manages the thirty year transtion smoothly. The villain Rampal is possibly modelled on the cool, suave KN Singh.<br /><br />After a brilliant and tib-tickling first hour, <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">OSO</span></em> slows down considerably. At the end</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNcoIUP5TkTSi8z7e58uoYEyCUigbmJ3eZQ8r7IUcpvWlMpPWQ_vq26Zu9qNt2xBZnYMe5b8zcMcl3fMrl_EpgU9gl0fx-Usj1hHSihHPNI_i43ZZqwQIMrtRmC8u7Ur8jECkeQ/s1600-h/tag+heur.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNcoIUP5TkTSi8z7e58uoYEyCUigbmJ3eZQ8r7IUcpvWlMpPWQ_vq26Zu9qNt2xBZnYMe5b8zcMcl3fMrl_EpgU9gl0fx-Usj1hHSihHPNI_i43ZZqwQIMrtRmC8u7Ur8jECkeQ/s320/tag+heur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5133287729972965330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> of the first half, the lovers die, never really united. The entire approach towards their death, SRK's dreamy reincarnation, his bimbettish stardom, his reacquisition of lost memories and relations, his coincidental discovery of Deepika's lookalike, and his consequent revenge plan on the villain Rampal range</span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> from expected to boring. Even for a movie based on rebirth and the supernatural, you expect slightly greater authenticity. The best bit is when to denote the reversal of stardoms, a giant poster of Deepika is replaced by the real SRK Tag Heur ad.<br /><br />The weakest aspect of the film is the rather ordinary music (relative to <i>Main Hoon Na's </i>frothiness). Javed Akhtar's romanticism comes to the fore in his poetry likening SRK's heart to a kite, to float in Deepika's air-like-breath. The multi-starrer <i>Om Shanti Om</i> song is inspired from the more hummable <i>John Johnny Janardan</i> of Desai's <i>Naseeb</i>, and simply drags on (especially when characters like Amrita Arora and Dino Morea make an entry like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt). <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Dard-e-Disco</span></em>, the popular 6-pack item number (a total waste as it all looks digital), is more memorable for the reel-movie for which it was shot (<i>Apahij Pyaar, </i>just check out the shot SRK gives for it). And the absolute shocker is the update of the legendary <i>Ek Hasina Thi</i> number. Possibly, the best musical composition is the theme tune which runs across all songs, but I am not sure who deserves credit for that - music directors Vishal Shekhar or background music composer Sandeep Chowta. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">The good thing about SRK, Farah and their yuppie gang is that they have the rare ability to laugh on themselves. With no disrespect to their massive cinematic wisdom, all the intellectuals who write on <a href="http://www.passionforcinema.com/">www.passionforcinema.com</a> can possibly learn to lighten up from them. Farah's <i>OSO</i> is as self-indulgent as Kashyap's <i>No Smoking</i> was, and I am okay with both (maybe will try and put a post on that). Both flicks ask you to suspend your belief. The difference lies in the content and the high-mindedness backing it - one is made for pure fun, one is made to try to think and understand.<br /><br />In <i>OSO</i>, Farah Khan mocks everyone - Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Shabana Azmi (herself making fun of her activism), Akshay Kumar (his <i>Khiladi</i> cameo is copied from a viral), Abhishek Bachchan, and even SRK (check out his movies nominations). To denote the dimwittedness of current times, OK proves his versatility by doing a disco item number (as he had already done a <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">qawalli</span></em>, in Main Hoon Na?), only to look good (hence the 6-packs) in a movie he had to 'act' in. To denote the insularity of the industry, Om succeeds only when he gets the right lineage (which rather goes against SRK's non-filmi originated stardom).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">The most redeeming feature of the movie is that for all its Bollywood-style happy-ending formula, in the traditions of all our epics, it is primarily a tale of unrequited love. If only the middle had kept up with the beginning, and the very end, it would have definitely surpassed <em><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Karz</span></em><em></em>.</span></p></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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I do my bit of stereotyping - chinks, Biharis - what not, but I can honestly claim that I do not have a single casteist bone within (casteism is possibly the worst form of institutionally-sanctioned racism in the world, usurping the place of South African apartheid in the new century). Moreover, the stereotyping is often used in the context of humour, as is obvious from the Scottish and Sardar jokes which abound.<br /><br />The problem is, because of socio-cultural factors, this stereotyping and the humour is ingrained into us. Mind you, we are not the best people to enjoy a joke, especially when it is on us. If you put in the context of religion or region, the situation becomes explosive. For instance, in the blockbuster <span style="font-style: italic;">DDLJ</span>, SRK (playing a casual-about-life-loverboy) tells his lady-love that he was taking a leak in the church (when he was actually praying for her). The joke was in him taking a leak, not as to where he was answering his call of nature. Yet, Yashraj had to remove the offence caused to Christians. I use the example because it typifies the unique Indian problem, where Catholics in India wanted <span style="font-style: italic;">The Da Vinci Code</span> banned, not withstanding its undeserved mega-success in the Christian world.<br /><br />Nitin (alias Jonathan Brady) was (I sadly use the past tense as he is currently still unemployed) my favourite RJ. He came up with absolutely stunningly apt and funny ins<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Mv0Jm8HJUFaLaC3znHxxibWJIGNVuCUAWFrhyphenhyphen3sLHCvJjzsCuSq9ZPcXTCEpVrAh7HpUL33lZpVbg_2GnkLCCKhdCSs3E6XUVegKcL3Wu1Xv61gll5Pt62T9SB7g0OQnLQB4Jg/s1600-h/nitin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Mv0Jm8HJUFaLaC3znHxxibWJIGNVuCUAWFrhyphenhyphen3sLHCvJjzsCuSq9ZPcXTCEpVrAh7HpUL33lZpVbg_2GnkLCCKhdCSs3E6XUVegKcL3Wu1Xv61gll5Pt62T9SB7g0OQnLQB4Jg/s320/nitin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125525710109470466" border="0" /></a>ights on our daily lives, something which radio as a mass-medium is tailored for. He also ran a great imitation of MTV Bakra on Red FM, called <span style="font-style: italic;">Band Bajaana</span>. While Cyrus possibly has a more inane sense of humour, both he and Nitin were perfectly capable of causing offence to the victims of their jokes. Even our leading superstar, Shahrukh Khan was not spared by Amar Singh, when in jest, SRK saw <span style="font-style: italic;">darindgi</span> (sadism) in Amar Singh ji's eyes.<br /><br />I considered Nepal the most out-of-job country, when an entire bunch of folks rioted on the streets, just because Hritik Roshan was quoted in a definitely fictitious interview that he did not like them. I cannot fathom a good enough reason why Hritik would say that. However, what is even more bewildering is for a entire nation to believe him, and stop all work to protest the thoughts of a young star from a neighbouring country (would it make any difference to us if Orlando Bloom, or even Tom Cruise, does not like Indians).<br /><br />Nitin's offence is serious. I do not know the exact joke he cracked (apparently something about if Gurkhas becomes Indian Idols, who will be the security guards; the same stereotype has been used in movies like Hrishikesh Mukherjee's cult classic <span style="font-style: italic;">Chupke Chupke</span> to commercials like<span style="font-style: italic;"> Naturefresh</span> using Sharmila Tagore and Soha Ali Khan). However, the issue was damning enough for a star RJ to lose his job. And I am not sure if he can make a comeback as easily as Dean Jones did.<br /><br />However, the second recent incident of identity-abuse involved Andrew S<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eZCVHiI0OAOzZKSuTMaN4CSEARhzXGPTNJLyPXicWJTqUNw-BncUXhCfMcQ1rrYFvtReiVydCHI9syurL_5iJa8GvDm22xZfTEQ2jp8xpkr3xAoasDo42vweHppbIiA2U6IbBQ/s1600-h/symonds.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eZCVHiI0OAOzZKSuTMaN4CSEARhzXGPTNJLyPXicWJTqUNw-BncUXhCfMcQ1rrYFvtReiVydCHI9syurL_5iJa8GvDm22xZfTEQ2jp8xpkr3xAoasDo42vweHppbIiA2U6IbBQ/s320/symonds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125524700792155890" border="0" /></a>ymonds, who was booed when he became the 'Man of the Series' in the Future Cup. As misinterpreted by the Aussies, it is not actually a case of classical racism, as I am unsure how many Indians are actually aware of his aboriginal roots (and here I include myself). The incident was simply the unique Indian syndrome of mocking anything that is unconventionally different. Symonds carries himself like a tribal warrior, and he suffered the same fate which white women (easy lays) or South-East Asian tourists (see <span style="font-style: italic;">Munnabhai MBBS</span>) can possibly vouch for.<br /><br />I struggle to maintain my ambiguity in such instances, at what point does a good joke turn into offensive slander. The gentlemen in Mumbai above definitely behaved stupidly. Nitin was simply cracking a drawing-room joke. But I guess Mukul Kesavan asks us to correct our prejudices best.<br /><br /><span class="maintext3"><em>Here’s a hypothetical circumstance. Tiger Woods is playing golf at the US Open. He sinks a putt, there’s a pause and the commentator, thinking he’s in a commercial break, says to his colleague, with the microphones on, “The nigger’s holed another one.” How long do you think that commentator would last on prime time? How many golf correspondents and commentators would characterise his comment as a ‘bit stupid’? </em></span><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Twenty20, a bastardized version of cricket invented in England to stem a terminal decline in the game (worsened by their national team's travails), and shunned by the powerhouse BCCI as the more established forms are virtually an entertainment monopoly in India, has really caught on. We won our first World Championship of Cricket in more than two decades, a feat which will possibly elude the fab five of Sachin, Anil, Sourav, Rahul, and VVS.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The inaugural ICC World Twenty20 was a raging success, accentuated by the complete flop-show, which the Aussies won under darkness five months back. The fact that the Aussies lost comprehensively to both the first-round failures from the ODI version, India and Pakistan, who went on to play the thrilling final, was divine justice. Ricky Ponting and Imran Khan, representing two different generations of leadership, still feel Twenty20 is a game of luck. But as the two fantastically close matches which India and Pakistan played showed, any form of the game, where the balance between bat and ball is maintained, is the most enchanting. In recent Test cricket, played mostly on dead tracks, teams that make first use of a batting wicket, can completely out-bat the opponent (a favourite Indian trick). If the wicket has something for the bowlers, not only will be out-batting difficult, but the opposition can come back anytime. And as Harsha Bhogle puts it, ultimately it is all about getting runs and taking wickets. Umar Gul showed that the best dot ball gets a batsman out<br /><br />I consider myself a connoisseur, and still rate the Test victory against England as the pinnacle, over this World Cup triumph. The reason why Dhoni's rather than Dravid's victory got a gala motorcade (to compare, Ajit Wadekar had a similar victory parade in 1971 after India's maiden cricketing conquest of England, by an identical margin to Dravid's) is the change of generation - the frantic energy of a vibrant version of the game, played over only three hours, and capturing the imagination of the general public much more than Mandira ever managed.<br /><br />Like Michael Atherton, I expect the biggest worry from T20 to be for ODIs. I strongly feel there are too many meaningless ODIs being played (not to say that if Australia visits India for 15 T20s, played over 10 days in 2011, I will be elated). Yet, T20 can play the role - of expanding the game, becoming an Olympic sport, competing with more entertainment-friendly sport like football (any surprise a Champion's League is planned around T20 now) - that ODIs were supposed to do, but over an 8-hour duration, never really could.<br /><br />In a fast-paced contemporary life, more traditional and relaxed sports like Golf, Chess and Test cricket will always be an oddity. The trick is to balance art with commerce, with a form of entertainment that supports the real stuff. High-quality Test cricket is a must, all other forms - T20, first-class - should support it. To elaborate, Misbah got a six when he played straight. When he slog-swept a delivery he could have tackled in the same fashion, he lost the World Cup<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OD1eOnnKBaQYBNgoghESgkZP9TgchRgUvHVNlOsrjb0nG4IGRvKGvqlQzw9yaq7IdMzOjwbX3ZPH4dKu9VqQb4g9pFe7spxQ8gMb_opXgLaJupjqAqgzaVb4ZF4KpAgk1GJ4KQ/s1600-h/india.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OD1eOnnKBaQYBNgoghESgkZP9TgchRgUvHVNlOsrjb0nG4IGRvKGvqlQzw9yaq7IdMzOjwbX3ZPH4dKu9VqQb4g9pFe7spxQ8gMb_opXgLaJupjqAqgzaVb4ZF4KpAgk1GJ4KQ/s320/india.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114464981417275218" border="0" /></a><br />The strongest counter-argument for T20 came when Daniel Vettori, a spin bowler whose supreme skill in the tournament showed how bowlers can dominate the game, hoped that the version does not establish itself. The strongest argument for came when my disappointed mother called me up to discuss India's below-par batting performance in the final. Within an hour-and-a-half, she sent me a congratulatory message.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-80846447296284585392007-09-05T12:00:00.000+05:302007-09-12T13:57:53.206+05:30Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (hohohoho)<div style="text-align: justify;"><em>RGV Ki Aag</em> is a tribute left, right and center. After a fairly <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxA1S8eVLle_N0PtVhXAbA9lJghEFBPqoCf-yT2wlvNKJq_xlDOVSOrbu3AI_vTl0vk-b4CnHaNGwh4UzGeqJNyuBS6DnoH6vevl-Qdo6S1dTaoL_v_vByF0QfTco2Jsh-6mQYlQ/s1600-h/rgvaag.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106603921604416930" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxA1S8eVLle_N0PtVhXAbA9lJghEFBPqoCf-yT2wlvNKJq_xlDOVSOrbu3AI_vTl0vk-b4CnHaNGwh4UzGeqJNyuBS6DnoH6vevl-Qdo6S1dTaoL_v_vByF0QfTco2Jsh-6mQYlQ/s200/rgvaag.jpg" border="0" /></a>intelligent adaptation of Francis Ford Copolla's <em>Godfather</em> a couple of years back in <em>Sarkar</em>, Ramu has really decided to get into this adaptation and tributing bit seriously. He is making <em>Sarkar 2</em>, which is possibly a homage to Karan Johar (It is all about loving the Bachchan family). In fact, as a tribute to Sooraj Barjatya, the real-life wedding of Abhi-Aish has even impeded the shooting of the movie (poor Tanisha from the original has been shipped across to the Chopra clan for her own wedding).<br /></div><br />Ramu underwent a lot of legal and copyright tribulations in make this unauthorised version of <em>Sholay</em>. To maintain the legalities, the names of all the characters have been modified. However, to retain the spirit, the key elements of the musical score have been copied/remixed.<br /><br /><div align="justify">The movie opens in Mumbai as a narration by Mohanlal (who plays a Malayalam-accented Inspector Narsimha, residing among regular Mumbai folks). Kaliganj <em>basti</em> replaces Ramgarh (which is just like playing Golf in your 100 sq.ft. drawing-room as the DLF course was shut). A dreaded gangster Babban (Amitabh Bachchan playing Gabbar as a tribute to his own hyper-active National Award winning performance in <em>Black</em>) wants to grab some land at Kaliganj (anyone who can throw light on what the issue was will be awarded a comment on the post). In the ensuing battle between Narsimha and Babban, Babban's younger brother, and his only soft spot in life, is killed (the angle is possibly a tribute to <em>Satte pe Satta</em>). </div><br /><div align="justify">What follows is a blood-fest, where Narsimha's entire family - a patriarchial father, a brother (Chakravarthy of <em>Satya</em> fame), and his wife (Suchitra Krishnamoorthy, who in a decade-&-a-half blink-&-miss career, moves from playing the lead opposite the Bollywood superstar SRK, or rather Deepak Tijori in <em>Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na</em>, to the Malayalam thespian) - is wiped out on a Holi day. The only chilling reminder of the real <em>Sholay</em> in the movie is Narsimha discovering his family's slaughter.</div><br /><div align="justify">In a tribute to Shimit Amin's <em>Ab Tak Chappan</em> (which debuted at the Factory, before Amin wisely moved on to the safer pastures of Yashraj for <em>Chak De</em>), Narsimha bumps off all the suspects. However, he is ultimately captured by Babban, who instead of chopping off the <em>phaansi ka phanda haath</em> (of the original Thakur), slices away his fingers (with the result that Narsimha cannot shave any more).</div><br /><div align="justify">To avenge and protect, Narsimha hires the two goons Heeroo (Ajay Devgan playing Viru) and Raj (newcomer Prashant Raj playing Jai). It is actually difficult to demarcate between the two, compared to the contrast of the sparkling chemistry between Viru's boisterousness and Jai's sarcasm. Both are equally irritating. While Devgan proves why he is an over-rated actor, newcomer Prashant is relatively tolerable (not to say that he is much good, but I am happy as he could have been worse). The two warring parties first face off during Diwali, when just to prove their morbidness, the Narsimhas (whatever is left of them) and Kaliganj are actually celebrating the festival.<br /></div><br /><div align="justify">Nisha Kothari is Ghoongroo (Basanti), a character immortalised by a lady who still looks hotter than her two daughters combined (the <em>chaddi-banian</em> of Esha in <em>Dhoom</em> not withstanding). Nisha recently admitted she is dumb, and cannot act in serious films. While I have a personal fetish for dumb girls, Nisha cannot act, in any sort of platform which calls for any sort of acting. When she plays Didi to Ahmed (for some, the most legendary piece from <em>Sholay</em> was the forever-aged AK Hangal calling for Ahmed), when she shouts at Heeroo, when she does some military drills (Ramu's form of dancing inroduced by ex-muse Antara Mali in <em>Road </em>and <em>Naach</em>) in hot pants, you feel like telling Ramu - personal fantasies/fetishes are for personal consumption only.</div><br /><div align="justify">Radha, the 'Lady with the Lamp' from the original (you squirm whenever the classic Bachchan mouth-organ track plays in <em>Aag</em>), actually turns into Florence Nightingale here. Devi (Sushmita Sen) runs her own clinic/dispensary. To refresh her Miss Universe victory, Sush speaks a lot more (with some heavy breathing), and behaves like a Diva.</div><br /><div align="justify">In the Mehbooba remix, Urmila Matondkar pays a tribute to her own panting and sighing in <em>Rangeela</em> and <em>Daud. </em>The Bachchan father-&-son do their bit for the original daddy-son duo of Aghas, as Jalal featured in the original.</div><br /><div align="justify">Thanks to Ramu, I have got my first 'ho' movie to review in quite a while now. (<a href="http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/04/cinema-humko-deewana-kar-gaye-hoho.html">http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/04/cinema-humko-deewana-kar-gaye-hoho.html</a>) I do not know if Ramu caricatured the entire movie and the classic moments intention<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzFiMRj5bMZOa4uBA2-cuT-oeaYWfrE2AINHLDfAsCMDP4Ol9zwuh5m1ia1Yqk67o2fIUfDr4-1dh5Pu-ZNOeHOOMWzDzRQZR4GWXEs7mR2MA-jtCgiSXtTzZDKMkXIdedOikgw/s1600-h/vill.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzFiMRj5bMZOa4uBA2-cuT-oeaYWfrE2AINHLDfAsCMDP4Ol9zwuh5m1ia1Yqk67o2fIUfDr4-1dh5Pu-ZNOeHOOMWzDzRQZR4GWXEs7mR2MA-jtCgiSXtTzZDKMkXIdedOikgw/s200/vill.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106659704639657394" border="0" /></a>ally. The original Gabbar dripped menace, Babban is more on the lines of Mogambo (and I think Amitabh has done another <em>Boom</em> here). The death scene of Jai was poignant, here you feel like laughing when Raj is shot dead (after Heeroo literally ditches him to get killed). And during the post-death get-together scene (when Veeru had discovered the lifelong mystery of losing the coin-toss), Heeru actually takes out time to go and happily hug his Ghungroo (who thankfully did not dance on broken glasses in her figure hugging tights).</div><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">Ramu had once said (during his <em>Rangeela</em> and <em>Satya</em> days when one could take him seriously) that he has learnt his entire film-making from <em>Mackenna's Gold</em> and <em>Sholay</em>. The former was made in to Hindi by Harish Shah as <em>Zalzala</em><em>.</em> I<em> </em>somehow think <em>Aag</em> was misleading, it actually was <em>Ram Gopal Varma Ka Zalzala</em>, a rocking tribute to this 1988 classic.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">P.S. My post is actually a tribute to Amit Bajaj who had asked for this review. I want to meet Ramu's friends who has asked for his <em>Aag/Sholay</em>, and just tell them, <em>'Hum Gandhi Nahin Hain'</em>, we are not Gandhi (sorry you will have to see the movie to get the context).</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-85557182667396872252007-09-02T19:16:00.000+05:302007-09-04T10:37:59.549+05:30Chak De India****<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqUOIiNgKZlg6r0IosvNEbTARN81RQrO2DnJXtDRJftmYEHZxOD_mz-VX-RZaa28C60sCEVlshyphenhyphenOVDa5xRIFQ_i-yctql9q7y_slCaZjHeHbwMmAlPCPdUNZFySXuXbFll6E0QA/s1600-h/cdi.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105603460512421266" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqUOIiNgKZlg6r0IosvNEbTARN81RQrO2DnJXtDRJftmYEHZxOD_mz-VX-RZaa28C60sCEVlshyphenhyphenOVDa5xRIFQ_i-yctql9q7y_slCaZjHeHbwMmAlPCPdUNZFySXuXbFll6E0QA/s320/cdi.jpg" border="0" /></a>After a few false starts in <span style="font-style: italic;">Asoka</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Swades</span></span> and <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Paheli</span></span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Shahrukh</span> Khan, the designated new-age box-office successor to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Amitabh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Bachchan</span>, possibly found his own response to his nearest competitor, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Aamir</span> Khan's <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Lagaan</span></span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Rang <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Basanti</span></span>. In the new century, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Aamir</span> has really struck a golden balance between critical and commercial acclaim, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">SRK</span> has not really coped up (an absolute shame that his <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Swades</span> </span>failed the commercial test). He had a wonderful chance with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Hirani's</span> <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Munnabhai</span></em> series (where he was originally supposed to play the title character), before his back gave away.<br /><br />Apart from for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">SRK</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Chak</span> De</span> was a movie under immense pressure to deliver for the producers, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Yashraj</span>. India's premier movie banner had just delivered a couple of box-office duds in <span style="font-style: italic;">Ta Ra Rum <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Pum</span></span> and <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Jhoom</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Bharabar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Jhoom</span></span> (quite shocking that <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">JBJ</span></span> failed to even garner an initial). <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Aditya</span> Chopra was terribly nervous, and he pulled of the first set of promos (my favourite song from the soundtrack, <span style="font-style: italic;">Hockey <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Doongi</span></span>, where Coach <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">SRK</span> introduces the entire team, does not even feature in the movie), to replace it with a more conventional peppy number (the title song used in the key moments of the movie; must admit, impressive lines, <em>nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, is it the time to do or die</em>).<br /><br />At its very core, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Chak</span> De</span> follows the path set by the other two successful sporting movies of recent times, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Lagaan</span></span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Iqbal</span>. An underdog (or a team of them) set about battling great odds to achieve an almost impossible task. While in the first two, the task was almost a matter of life (or-doom), in <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Chak</span> De</em>, the quest is more in the realms of sporting glory (however impossible it might be). The variation comes with the sport under question, where the national game, hockey, replaces the national passion, cricket. More importantly, the version chosen is the more unglamorous one played by women. (To get the context, the Indian Men's hockey team has never failed to participate in an Olympic Game, while the Women's team is aspiring for their maiden appearance at Beijing in 2008).<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">SRK</span> plays <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Kabir</span> Khan, a character loosely inspired from former India goalie, Mir <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Ranjan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Negi</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Negi</span> was a part of the team that lost the Asian Games final in 1982 at New Delhi to Pakistan 7-1. Like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Mohd</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Azharuddin</span> fourteen years later (when just after a heady victory against Pakistan in the quarter-finals, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Azhar's</span> team lost to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Sri</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Lanka</span> at Calcutta in the Wills World Cup), the blame for the loss was laid at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Negi's</span> doorstep.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Negi</span> was accused of fixing the match (a charge which turned out to be actually true in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Azhar's</span> case, though more for his individual performances), and was branded a traitor (because he was a Muslim goalkeeper, though the Indian Captain <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Zafar</span> Iqbal could have been similarly accused). (Read <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Negi's</span> interview at <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1115018">http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1115018</a>, to figure out how close to reality the movie was). <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Negi</span> found his redemption when he helped the Men's team win Asian Games gold in 1998 (the match was won on penalty strokes, when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Negi</span> was the Goal-keeping coach) and the unheralded Women's team to the Commonwealth Games Gold in 2002. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In the movie, Coach <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Kabir</span> Khan becomes the only volunteer for the Women's Hockey team (I could not fathom as to why does he choose this method of redemption over the Men's Hockey team). He gets on his job using a mix of Greg <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Chappell</span> (challenging established stars) and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Kapil</span> Dev (play with heart). His entire approach is also coated in nationalistic colours, tackling the problem of provincial loyalties (which is an issue which possibly extends across sports in India). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The great part of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Kabir</span> Khan is that he does not really establish a personal <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">rapport</span> with his players (like say <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Naseer</span> in <em>Iqbal</em>). He has a soft moment with the goalie <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Vidya</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Malvade</span>), even appointing her the Captain, but that is also more due to her level-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">headedness</span>. He puts the established star <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Bindia</span> in her place by benching her from practice, as she wanted to stick to her preferred forward slot. When <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">she</span> is destructive for the team in the opening match of the tournament, he benches her from the entire World Cup. However, when he needs her creativity and experience in the crucial semi-final against Korea, he goes back to her. There is no <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">melodramatic</span> explanation, and most importantly, it is never really shown that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Bindia</span> makes up with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">Kabir</span> even after the Team's victory. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I always have a problem when sports movies show inspiration overtaking systems. It can be slightly misleading, but I guess there is no other way of depicting it in cinema. In their quest for the World Cup, apart from a marathon 10-km run in early mornings (in which the coach also participates), <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Kabir</span> Khan is not shown doing much on the fitness front (a must in today's professional sports). He does give a stirring speech just before the final (possibly very similar to what Steve Gerrard would have said during the now legendary Champions' League half-time of 2005). However, his entire success is built primarily on sporting technicalities (and like in <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Lagaan</span></em>, they are maintained quite well for hockey here), and lots of hard work (the team practices when the rivals party, shades of the Reliance Cup winning Aussie team of 1987).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Performancewise</span>, I preferred <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">SRK</span> in <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">Swades</span></em> to <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Chak</span> De</em> (since that <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">seems</span> to be the most obvious comparison). Of the 16-member team, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">Haryanvi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Komal</span> (who actually looks quite cute) and the hot-headed Punjabi <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_70">Balbir</span> get the most humorous lines. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_71">Shilpa</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72">Shukla</span> as the egoistical <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73">Bindia</span> is the most authentic portrayal. I also like the lasses who play the Telugu <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74">Reddy</span> and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_75">Jharkhandi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_76">Soi</span> Moi. Most importantly, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_77">Negi</span> (who coached all the models/actresses in hockey) has done a fantastic job, and like in <em>Iqbal</em>, the sport looks superbly authentic. The climax is suitably <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_78">dramatic</span>, but my favourite moment came just before that, when hockey technicality (of the goal keeper charging a sole striker) met female bonding, for the equalising goal (and a dramatic cinematic moment).</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The real stars of the movie lie behind the screen, writer <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_79">Jaideep</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_80">Sahni</span> (for a simple well-etched story) and director <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_81">Shimit</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_82">Amin</span> (a superb followup to his impressive debut in <em>Ab <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_83">Tak</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_84">Chappan</span></em>). They both have done a great job of coupling realistic sports with impressive cinema. The Women's team shows the <em>joi de vivre</em> of a team of amateurs (and hence the girls who are initially benched for indiscipline are so keen to get back into practice). When they take on their Men counterpart in a hockey match (just to prove that they should be participating in the World Cup), you feel it is far-fetched. However, the sporty salutations of the Men after defeating them in a very close match, makes the entire scene superbly surreal.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">At an overall level, the greatest success of the movie lies in the fact that it does for Sports in India what thousands of duffer-posts on Worldview can never hope to do. Our English news channel have been celebrating all big sporting successes with the soundtrack of the movie. And there have been quite a few since the movie came out - the Indian football team winning an international tournament after donkey's years (in an unbelievably charged atmosphere at New Delhi); the Men's hockey team <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_85">pummeling</span> a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_86">Sri</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_87">Lankan</span> team with 20 goals. </div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last year, <em>Rang De <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_88">Basanti</span></em> inspired a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_89">candlelight</span> vigil at India Gate for Jessica <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_90">Lal</span>. Following <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_91">Chak</span> De</em>, I keenly look forward to more reel-life imitating sporting successes for India.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-60675074918761401152007-08-23T13:34:00.000+05:302007-09-12T13:56:34.175+05:30Is it all about money, honey?<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvmm-J-bBgTYZXNixglUEGqDfQMS77Sajc5BNDBFFA_msJDjTK1G1Lgphwun1pGi5rh32DYAXxeG63dPDU6JJA5IhGwsd4NnVlQmEoelLBVOsizKBpY9vbksFjwbZy9DCfKskvYQ/s1600-h/icl+chandra.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101805554076554610" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvmm-J-bBgTYZXNixglUEGqDfQMS77Sajc5BNDBFFA_msJDjTK1G1Lgphwun1pGi5rh32DYAXxeG63dPDU6JJA5IhGwsd4NnVlQmEoelLBVOsizKBpY9vbksFjwbZy9DCfKskvYQ/s320/icl+chandra.jpg" border="0" /></a><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Subhash</span> Chandra is a man scorned. At the turn of the century, our own <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">desi</span> </em>Rupert Murdoch, the new owner of the now-bankrupt British East India Company had lost out to the real Murdoch's Star network.<br /><br />Ever since losing his media hegemony, Chandra has not really had a calling card. His entertainment empire encompasses the entire gamut (regional channels, publications, entertainment parks, music, sports, films), but did not really dominate any field. Most importantly, he faced a massive setback when in 2004, he lost a tender-bid to telecast BCCI cricket, apparently because the then-President <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Jagmohan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Dalmiya</span> had promised the rights to another partially Murdoch-owned entity, ESPN-Star. The cricketing telecast battles were fought in the courts, and when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Dalmiya</span> lost the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">BCCI</span> elections the next year, there was bound to be hope for Chandra. However, to his disappointment, Nimbus pipped everyone with a ridiculously high bid. (To put Nimbus's 4-year bid at $600-odd-mn in perspective, the size of the Indian broadcast advertising industry is about $1.1-b<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">n</span>, and the distribution revenues for broadcasters about $220-mn).</div><br /><div align="justify"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Zee</span> Sports quickly became a losing cause. And while <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">tieing</span> up with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">AIFF</span> (football) and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">PGTI</span> (golf) were really noble causes, from a commercial point of view, they were more of long-term investments rather than immediate break-even <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">propositions</span>. To undo the damage, Chandra borrowed from the books of another Aussie media <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><em>mogul</em></span>, the late Kerry Packer. He decided to launch a 6-city league, an idea first proposed by the current <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">BCCI</span> regime's marketing whizkid <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Lalit</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Modi</span>. (In another ridiculous business plan, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Modi</span> had claimed that a 8-city league's telecast can be monetised to the tunes of more than $3b<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">n</span>).</div><br /><div align="justify"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Technically</span>, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">ICL</span> should have excited me, as I have been arguing the case of a strong domestic competition for a long time (<a href="http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/05/two-interesting-links-for-cricket.html">http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/05/two-interesting-links-for-cricket.html</a>). Yet, I smelt a rat when Chandra's stated objective was to provide a talent-pool to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">BCCI</span>, by getting some players to play Twenty20 cricket (a format <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">designed</span> to get crowds so that the real thing, Test cricket, can be kept alive). It is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">anybody's</span> guess as to what it was all about.</div><br /><div align="justify">The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">BCCI</span>, a non-profit society which happens to be the world's richest cricketing board, is supposedly India's best-administered sporting body (you can simply imagine the fate of others). In light of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">ICL</span>, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">BCCI</span> had two options in front of it. The first one was the path shown by an equally-chaotic but much-poorer West Indies Cricket Board, who went ahead and supported the American billionaire Allen Stanford's uncannily-similar venture. The second one was to treat the venture as a rebellion, a challenge to its hegemony over India's largest entertainment industry. (During Packer, the then incumbent powers, England and Australia, had reacted like this and dropped all their Packer-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">affiliated</span> players from the national teams. However, the other main parties, West Indies and Pakistan went ahead and picked the Packer players for the 1979 World Cup). Needless to say, the new-age ruler <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">BCCI</span> took a leaf out of their predecessor's actions.</div><br /><div align="justify">Life-ban threats were issued to any Indian player who dared to sign on (one administrator from Bengal was even barred from using the gym at Eden Gardens). As the obvious targets were old superstars (like Lara or Inzy), the joke became that it will be a pensioners' league. And to further display that in spite of projected antagonism, sub-continental fraternity goes deeper, the life-ban threats were extended to Pakistan and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Sri</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Lanka</span> through their respective cricketing boards. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">BCCI</span> also ensured that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">ICL</span> would struggle to get any grounds to host their matches (before <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Lalu</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Prasad</span>, the Railways Minister and a part of the same ruling coalition as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Sharad</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Pawar</span>, threw a possible spanner in the wheel by making available Railway grounds).</div><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">In the meantime, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">ICL</span> moved fast, by signing a host of big cricketing names in executive<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA1nQkHx3nEcHjaeg_hDOAbZLH3qL7fxeilZEs6Wd3r8qPziJhi-MBhsBv_PQqsAFjJ9unpczi18lqJqYXrts2xfrx0pgx_EZUhmtgiUibIEVRXgSY8pd1b8xsmu1B_ShTkgE7g/s1600-h/icl+kapil.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101813697334547842" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA1nQkHx3nEcHjaeg_hDOAbZLH3qL7fxeilZEs6Wd3r8qPziJhi-MBhsBv_PQqsAFjJ9unpczi18lqJqYXrts2xfrx0pgx_EZUhmtgiUibIEVRXgSY8pd1b8xsmu1B_ShTkgE7g/s320/icl+kapil.jpg" border="0" /></a> and coaching capacities. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Kapil</span> Dev was the lead <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">challenger</span>, while Tony <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Greig</span> already had experience in doing a similar job for Packer. The big coup came early this week, when close to 50 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">recruits</span> were paraded in front of the media. (However, the league still needs almost an equal number more to fully equip all the six teams with 15 players each).</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">From a domestic perspective, Bengal, Hyderabad and UP are possibly the worst sufferers (is it any coincidence that a UP cricketer recently committed suicide, arguably because of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">selectorial</span> whims <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d3cec439-be46-4539-a4bd-0a1e13414670&&IsCricket=true&Headline=Broken+dream%3a+Promising+cricketer+kills+himself">http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d3cec439-be46-4539-a4bd-0a1e13414670&&<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">IsCricket</span>=true&Headline=Broken+dream%3a+Promising+cricketer+kills+himself</a>). While Punjab's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Dinesh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Mongia</span>, who played for India less than six months back (mainly by virtue of his bowling performance in the County circuit), was the most <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">visible</span> recruit, the real career-risk was taken by youngsters like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Yashpal</span> Singh, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Abhishek</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Jhunjhunwala</span> and Alfred <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Absolem</span>, who may have lost all their national-cap dreams (assuming that it is a dream for all professional cricketers). </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><br />Internationally, the biggest loser has to be Pakistan, who have lost Mohammad <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Yousuf</span> (who broke Sir Viv Richards' <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">thirty</span> year old Test record in 2006) and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Abdur</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Razzaq. </span>And if Stephen Fleming (as it is rumoured) joins in, it will be interesting to see New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Zealand's</span> reaction. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><br />The case does resemble Packer. However, more importantly, Packer's commercial venture left cricket in better shape. While colourful one-day cricket caught on to make Test cricket also more dynamic, the most important development was better pay for the cricketers (possibly attracting more kids to the game). (The rot in cricket set in when the Asian regimes caught on, and went for an over-kill of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">ODI</span> variety).</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><br />To indicate the change in times, Chandra's tool is an even more bastardised Twenty20 form. However, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Kapil</span> says it will subsequently move on to one-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">dayers</span>, and more importantly, three-day (hopefully first-class matches). If it really goes that way, it just might lead to some tough and exciting domestic cricketing action (though to act as a dampener, a corking <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Mumbai</span>-Bengal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Ranji</span> Trophy Final did not really attract crowds), producing more complete international products (like say Michael Hussey rather than Joginder Sharma). Moreover, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">ICL</span> (which is actually run by the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Zee</span> Sports team) claims that from next year, they will invite bids for telecast rights from external broadcasters too (so even Neo can bet). </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><br />If the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">BCCI</span> genuinely wants the development of the game (as they should), they could have chosen to support <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">ICL</span>. For instance, if someone starts scalping Lara and Inzy regularly, I will rather take him to England next time round, than Ranadeb Bose (wonder what will happen if someone bright actually appears, will the Board relent?).</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><br />But for all their constitutional changes and the fee and prize-money hikes, the BCCI decided that the best way to fight the enemy is at its own game. Today's Economic Times says that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72">BCCI</span> is planning to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73">launch</span> a Professional Cricket League, headed by none other than Sunny <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74">Gavaskar</span>. May the one with the deepest pocket and most political clout win!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Agyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503056769448425400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14476094.post-67611269810581847112007-08-22T11:40:00.000+05:302007-08-22T13:34:04.420+05:30Left Right Left<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101404318231762210" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglx8osw7vV9heuhHCIfnTnobgKeveMacAEtrdB8Ra7k5C6-BYY3K5qi3e8yYbapWdb4vQdeEd34gEDh67QnFUvZb40V5nOG-J6VI0lxS457LQtkWOw5SupMQw4diA83aZ1Ga5xSA/s200/left.jpg" border="0" />I do not really understand the by now mostly-famous, partially-notorious 123 Agreement between India and the US. And as far as I gather, even the most hard-nosed journalists reporting in the Indian media do not have a full grasp over it ( at least most begin their stories with disclaimers). So it makes me definitely sure that a layman (and here I talk about an average middle-class bloke with some interest in world and national affairs) cannot make much sense out of it. What is more interesting is that in a small survey in today's Hindustan Times, still one out of five of these blokes were against the deal (see below).<br /><br /><div align="justify"><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8eg4nm6fXXh5QQItPISFkemrZ0AlYm-TRriyDCRoSS84T42COyx9kTRjuZApSok94DBeTjhzWvoYEhqE8DfZCwvTKgpXcMwkq8FxvbmUNNMdrWfsxmXu28KHxVs7T-rt3cIWqQ/s1600-h/ht.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8eg4nm6fXXh5QQItPISFkemrZ0AlYm-TRriyDCRoSS84T42COyx9kTRjuZApSok94DBeTjhzWvoYEhqE8DfZCwvTKgpXcMwkq8FxvbmUNNMdrWfsxmXu28KHxVs7T-rt3cIWqQ/s200/ht.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101428623451690338" border="0" /></a></div>What I can make out is that the USA, led by a tyrannical president who for some reaso<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr8_6Lt-venSg9e-MzMJQDXZFtOkVoEENM9lLaVAw8oNwWne21VjxCGLR1eVfe7fThxFsLJ5iyHKPYTwjoscm0H1UvghMXAs12JI37I4jp6-1KKPdkSK9nSr5uf_opXiBXXagClg/s1600-h/flags.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101419698509649218" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr8_6Lt-venSg9e-MzMJQDXZFtOkVoEENM9lLaVAw8oNwWne21VjxCGLR1eVfe7fThxFsLJ5iyHKPYTwjoscm0H1UvghMXAs12JI37I4jp6-1KKPdkSK9nSr5uf_opXiBXXagClg/s200/flags.jpg" border="0" /></a>ns ( a mix of personal and strategic) loves India, and has reversed decades of policy and nuclear <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">antagonism</span> against India, to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">accommodate</span> her strategic interests in the field of nuclear energy. The most-respected <em>Economist</em> magazine has some serious <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">reservations</span> against this exemption, mainly because while we and the Yankees can pride ourselves on our responsible international behaviour, the case is an exception to beat all global <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">proliferation</span> efforts.<br /><br />The problem at home is different. We have a relatively artificial ruling coalition (the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">UPA</span>), whose sole reason for existence is supposedly to keep Hindu fundamentalist forces (the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">NDA</span>, led by the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">BJP</span>) out of the power. (It is a different fact that these fundamentalist forces strengthened in response to minority appeasement, a trend that possibly continues with the recent <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Tasleema</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Nasreen</span> attack episode, <a href="http://satyabrat.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-gods-sake-she-is-writer-not.html">http://satyabrat.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-gods-sake-she-is-writer-not.html</a>). </div><br /><div align="justify">The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">NDA</span>, after taking India out of nuclear disguise (not such a smart move to my mind, because as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Swaminathan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Aiyer</span> had put it then, it was uncertain whether the strategic benefits would sufficiently compensate for the sanction-economic losses). It is to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">NDA's</span> credit that they not only managed to put the economy back on track (mainly because of favourable macro-economic conditions), but also put the relationship with the USA on an upward keel never seen before (doing away with years of antagonism that possibly kicked off under our founding leader, Nehru). The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">NDA</span> also managed to get our missile scientist (and a middle-class hero) <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">APJ</span> Abdul <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Kalam</span> elected as the President of India.</div><br /><div align="justify">The Left parties opposed President Kalam only because he was supposedly the architect of India's nuclear bomb (and mind you, it is these very parties which had celebrated the Chinese nuclear explosion way back in the 60s). They put up their own dummy Presidential candidate who easily. And now it is these very parties, the great Nationalists guarding India's interests aginst the imperialist Americans,, who have thrown a spanner so bad in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Manmohan</span> Singh-signed 123 Agreement that mid-term polls look like a matter of time. It is to Indian <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">politics'</span> shameful discredit that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">BJP</span>, led by their statesmen ex-PM <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Vajpayee</span>, cannot compliment the Congress on finishing off their initiated project so efficiently. But this literal interpretation of the 'Opposition' is something we have come to live with in India.</div><br /><div align="justify">My problem starts when all our bickering falls over into the international arena (what I call the country's corporate communication). I had posted similar thoughts on the same, <a href="http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/great-indian-democracy.html">http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/great-indian-democracy.html</a>. India's Ambassador to the US, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Ronen</span> Sen has rejected all the current dissidents rather disgracefully. But the moot point is clear, I might disagree with India's nuclear explosion in 1998, but if given the chance, it does not mean I start <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">embarrassing</span> the State of India. Similarly, Mani <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Shanker</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Aiyer</span> might disagree with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Kalmadi</span>-led <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">IOA's</span> bid for the Asian Games (and he had some valid points against the bid), but it does not mean that the Commonwealth Games, scheduled for 2010 in New Delhi, g<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">et</span> sabotaged.</div><br /><div align="justify">There is a clear-cut difference between disagreement (in formulating policy), and loss of face (in fulfilling commitments). More often than not, decision-making and action-taking in everyday India is a function of myriad supplementary reasons (for instance, we might marry within the same caste simply to stay integrated into the society, not really for individual happiness). And this problem seriously gets accentuated when it comes to politics (remember the introduction-from-nowhere of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Mandal</span> Commission report by VP Singh, just to counter the political threat posed by Tau Devi <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Lal</span>). I get more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">perturbed</span> when this extends in to the international (Corp Comm) arena.</div><br /><div align="justify">India is considered a rising superpower (a claim which the latest report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector has seriously punctured). What makes it worse is this constant <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">dilly</span>-dallying on a signed agreement by the elected executive government. How would we have felt if Churchill had questioned Atlee's Indian Independence Act once he returned to power in 1950.<br /><br /></div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">We might have been <em>argumentative</em> through out our history (source, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Amartya</span> Sen). The problems begin when the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">beneficiaries</span> of all these 123 argument can only be Pakistan (whom the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">RSS</span> loathes) and China (whom the Left loved).</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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