Gandhi Nagar Jack Sparrow

Gandhi Nagar is this bustling place in Bangalore North (I guess so, was never strong in geography anycase) where when you keep your feet on the road, you would be lucky if it is someone else's feet that runs on top of yours. If your karma decides to catch up with you all of a sudden, you could be run over by a BMTC bus or a stray auto or even drown in the human melee. This part of bangalore, apart from serving as a thrill ride for unsuspecting pedestrians, also happens to be the the seat of pirating just about anything. ACDs, VCDs, MP3s, Video Games, DVDs, you name it, they smuggle it. It also happens to be the place which has been causing the biggest hole in my already-torn purse these days.

DVDs. Aaah. What a concept. Re-mastering old movies with a digital audio track, write it onto a (slighly bigger) pocket size gadget and give it you for a decent price. Aaah. What more, you get even upto four movies in a single DVD (although with a discernible, but pardonable difference in the audio and video department) which rocks.

Extreme Caution: Now, if you are too greedy you even have DVDs with six movies, but you would have to settle with half of the movie if you are really lucky.

The best thing about a DVD, apart from the audio and video qualities is that it lets you follow all the dialogues in the movie, so that you can look cool when everyone else is having problems understanding Jacob's Ladder and Mullholland Drive (In the local lingo, it helps you to "jalli adichify").

Couldn't keep my hands off when i saw all the leone/eastwood spaghetti westerns clubbed with unforgiven in DVD. And then i picked up lost in translation, monster, big fish and cold mountain, all in one DVD. For all those who aren't exactly thrilled, we are talking Anthony Minghella, Tim Burton, Patty Jenkins and Sofia Coppola, all in one DVD. Its like having Thayir Sadham, Vaazhakka Poriyal, Pudina Chutney, Vaththa Kozhambu and Maavadu/Elumichai Oorga on a sunday afternoon. If this wasn't appealing enough too, you are probably not a thamizh iyengar or most likely you should take a long hard look at your values and start living before its too late (No curd rice ?? Sheesh!!). Add to this list the usual suspects (matrix, lotr etc) and you have weekends flying past as if they never existed.

The only hitch with gandhinagar is that you dont get so many good movies. shawshank, memento, bladerunner, space odyssey .. nothing .. not even a hint. Fear not, Perusu is going to china soon it seems, and if he gets my movie shopping list served in shanghai, he wouldn't need a patch above his eye to show he is a pirate.

So here goes a huge thanks for all those __engineers__ who found the dvd technology, dvd player and dvd discs and another bigger bunch of thanks to all the managers who told them, after careful analysis and prophetic forethought, that the idea of a disc containing a movie would never, ever work (grrrrrr).

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

So, What Next ??

The much-awaited review got over today and it got over as expected. Utter, complete and total bs it was. Arghghgh, why did they have to call a conference to discuss this ?? To call up only people who had fixed beliefs (and __really__ fixed ones at that), and close the door shut loudly on us, they didnt need a conference. They just needed a bulletin board.

We came in, we listened to something on our vision, commercial interests, technological partners, friendly compromises, business sense and other assorted terminologies which are uttered every now and then by tie-clad, bald, ageing higher-ups in pin-striped suits making money everytime they open a laptop and make a powerpoint presentation flash on their screen explaining how 1 and 1 make 2 with no less than 10 slides flying criss cross. Duh. They knew they couldn't get us on a technicality, and they knew they could just wallop us over with business bs. And wallop us they did: nice, neat and clean with a burp.

I agree with Calvin. Life is full of precluded possibilites.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Sunny Days

Had been to chennai to pick up viks. Records say hez younger to me by 14 years. I also have a faint memory of carrying him to places when he was kid. Come to think of it, few years back, i remember giving him a ride on my back. I looked at him in chennai and decided the last time was the last time i ever gave him a ride of any sort. Anyone who looks at his birth certificate would call it a forgery. Jeez, the kid (if i may so irrespective of what his physique says) stands just couple of inches shorter than me and more than half my size in width. I sympathise with his mom who still thinks he is a kid and tries to wield her authority over him with a weak voice. Someday, he could actually give her a clothes-line which is going to settle the debate on who is stronger at home, heck, i guess he could give me a pile-drive if he maintains his growth rate. But thankfully, he is not horizontally challenged as i was when i used to be his age.

Chennai is Sunny. And Dusty. And a bit Dirty. Not to mention, Polluted. Did i forget to mention Chaotic ?? But hey, it is __Chennai__ and all the other cities can go hang :-). So took in the sun for a while, looked at the ganesh chaturthi processions with loads of people on the vans who wouldnt be called devotees even in the darkest sense of the word. Thugs would probably do. Pillayar should be really pissed with that.

Met klusener and pangs. Gorged dhabba food with them. Both of them have been given the noose at home and they are going down before sep 2005. Klusener's hunt officially begins in jan while pangs is in the process of receiving profiles already. He told me so many things about some 6-month window, minimum basic compatibility, some queueing methodology and an inside peek on "Pictures lie, and pretty badly at that". Thanks. That was encouraging.

Picked up the day train (with only seats, no berths) since i couldn't get tickets in a night train. I can now write a flaming editorial on population explosion in India. A three seater is called a three seater because, by definition, it can seat only three. All that is shred to pieces in our trains. A three seater fits as many people as it could before someone shows real signs of giving up and walks away to stand near the door. Remember the golden rule, Never, I repeat, Never get up from your seat unless you want to be an unwilling martyr.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Why, But Why ??

Now why is this blog titled arunthur dent of all forsaken names on this planet ??

- I like DNA and his works. Not that i have read much, 've read the usual suspects (the trilogy in five parts + bits and pieces of dirk gently. anyone has a copy of "last chance to see" ??). Sad that he had to die before i could finish his famed trilogy. so this blog is dedicated (??) to DNA, his memory, Towels, Dolphins and anything that has Sci-fi, Fantasy, Humor or much better, all of the above.

- I like Arthur Dent. funny, panicky, unpredictably predictable (most of the times for the better) and a whole load of other characterstics which oh-so-reminds me of someone i've known since birth.

- I like King Arthur. Excalibur, Camelot, The Holy Grail and a tonne of mystery with a topping of the medieval age. That must've been interesting. After I saw the promos of the new "King Arthur" movie, i realised that he also had someone like Keira Knightley for company. Now, __That__ must've been more than just interesting.

- "I, King Arthur Dent" is an anagram which more or less summarises the author of this blog.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...