Warming My Bones Beside The Fire

- where Obama is the new Rajinikanth-Sachin-Amitabh hybrid, so much so that he can contest right from the corporation elections to the presidency and win just about everything.

- where the new James Bond movie is just "James Bond 2008" since the mass populace feels that "Quantum of Solace" sounds like an Anthony Minghella movie set during WW 2.
- where Cho is still one of the best satirists around (proof: tughlaq writeup on karunanidhi meeting obama), predictably, all his targets continue to remain hopelessly shameless (proof: proof ?? proof ??)
- where we concede that the Madras Saravana Bhavans (_only_ the Madras HSBs)are one of the best exponents of Thamizh food, and at the same time, contend that they are hopelessly overpriced (not that anyone cares)
- where the only difference between all thamizh channels is that small logo that appears in a corner of the screen
- where 8-1 joins the Indian Cricket Pantheon alongside such celebrated numbers like 233, 281, 97 and the likes.
- where there are ads galore of fairness creams for men, yet there is no noise about "exploitation/stereotyping of men"
- where 4/5 year olds stand at the edge of the pool, shivering in a swimsuit on a cold november morning, while cosily dressed moms sit around and discuss world politics
- where you finally realize eating can be an experience, hobby and profession
- where your 2-wheeler responds to your old touch
- where your dog's definition of love is giving you blood wounds
- where home is

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

Viva Tamil Techno

"Are you from this century ??" was the look Danger and Kulasegar gave me. Yes, I usually get asked that question every time I ask people "How does this new T-shirt look on me". But this time it was entirely different, I had merely exhibited my expertise on TFM (Tamil Film Music) by mentioning one of my latest favorite songs. But in Kulasegar's defense, it was natural. My latest song had to be carbon dated to find it's age while Kulasegar was looking like the Whole Foods of TFM. For the next few hours, we listened to CD after CD of the latest (latest as in in 2008 latest) songs and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised.

Top Ten Takes On TFM

1. The music "sounds" so good, but does it sound good?? Of course, it has always sounded good, but this time, it "sounds" good too. Is a master's degree in sound engineering mandatory to become a music director these days ?? There were no rough edges that I could find, but yes, sometimes, the songs get eerily smooth. Live instruments are becoming absent a rate higher than Sachin Tendular's strike rate. This can't be a good thing. No more "raakamma kaiya thattu" ?? No more "andhi mazhai??". No more "en iniya pon nilave" ?? No more "iLaya nila" ?? Please don't do this guys.

2. The bane of Udito-Narayanoisis still exists. Unfortunately. When he came in with "kadhalikkum peNNin", we all liked it. Even with "sonia, sonia", it was acceptable since that song needed an anti-unnikrishnan. But then, when you give him a song like "sahana" when there is hariharan just around the corner singing "poombaavaai", you are pushing the envelope too far. Would "engeyo partha mayakkam" from "yaaradi nee mohini" sound better with another singer ?? I would like to hear though.

3. The lyrics are clean. Wow. Is this the same industry that gave such timeless family classics like "ei kutti munnale" and other language-intensive songs like "metro channel munna paaru" ?? Bheema's "mudhal mazhai", Vaazhthukkal's "kannil vandadhum", the title song from "unnale unnale" - all of them and more have lyrics in thamizh and only thamizh and nothing but thamizh. So who are these people who do such a big injustice to the thamizh language by writing lyrics in thamizh ?? Pa. Vijay ?? Na. Muthukumar ??

4. Don't push your luck with the video always. Please. Take my word and just listen to them on your player. If you really insist, then try this. Listen to "tajmahal oviya kadhal" from "kaLvanin kaadhali". You find it good? Nice. Now watch the video with SJ Soorya. Or listen to "unakuLL naane urugum iravil" from "pachaikiLi muthucharam". Then, watch the video where a senior looking sarathkumar walks up and down while a dozen ringwraiths dance around him with flames.

5. Experimenting with voices has always been something that impressed me with TFM. There sure was a time when it was all SPB and Malaysia Vasudevan. Even then, you had a Mano and an SN Surendhar and a Jeyachandran in the mix. Now, just about every song sounds different and there is a tonne of talent at the background singing department. Tipu, Karthik, Devan, Unnikrishnan, Bombay Jeyashree, Nithyashree, Anuradha Shriram, Sadhana Sargam, Manicka Vinayagam, Harish Raghavendra - the list goes on. A few Karnatic Music types are going to frown on me, but considering my knowledge in Karnatic Music, i don't even deserve to be frowned at. So, relax.

6. Upstart Music Directors is something new though. Until ARR in 1990, raise your hands if you remember Chandrabose who was Ilayaraja's contemporary in a strictly temporal sense ?? I tried real hard, but couldn't even remember anyone else from that period. SPB scored music when he was bored, you have an Adithyan sighting once in a while, Maragadhamani makes a cameo, Manoj-Gyan score every other aabavaNaN film - but it was well and truly the Ilayaraja show with the rest just making up the numbers. But now, I do believe there is a healthy competition between a dozen of them. Harris Jeyaraj is the poor man's ARR, Bharadwaj and Vidhyasagar make some amazing music when paired up with the right director, YSR becomes the surprise successor to IR and you also have Joshua Shridhar, GV Prakash Kumar, Vijay Anthony and the likes.

7. Where is the punch? Few paragraphs above we did the usual chest-beating with quality of music and lyrics and singers etc. Its time now to yield to the "Dark Side". Where O Where are the kuthu songs? "yamma yamma" from "vallavan" is an instant classic, "saroja saman nikkalo" from "chennai-28" makes you get out of the seat - but is there any other true contender who can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with yesteryear hits like "aalthotta boopadhi" and "gemini gemini". Mind you, I am not even going into older hits like "vethala potta shokkula" from amaran or "anna nagaru aandaaLu" from "kalamellam kaadhal vaazhga". We consciously do not want to be a music industry filled only with songs for "Guy who split from girl friend due to misuderstanding", "Girl fascinating about future husband", "Son waiting to go to college and experience the world" etc. We do have drunk parties where we need to take our shirts off you see.

8. Lifesavers. They truly are. In the 80s and 90s, movies used to open up - and even run successfully - just because they had Ilayaraja. Ask ex-MP Ramarajan (if you, the reader, are from Tiruchendur, you owe us all an explanation. Yes, from Madurai we voted Subramaniya Swamy once. But thats a different story) and he would swear by it. Ramarajan movie plots are highly interchangeable with some combination of his mother, koundamani, senthil as his friends, a villain who owns a mill/farm and his daughter who is highly educated, but falls in love with RR after initial outburts over useless matters (punctured cycle, broken car pane etc). The greatest difference would be that in some movies the villain is RR's uncle while in others he is not. But the songs really kept going and Ramarajan broke box office records until even the songs became interchangeable. Similarly, these days, there are movies that are remembered/watched/discussed just because of they have good songs but are lousy otherwise.

9. No Reshammaiyahs/Talat Azizs. If you can't consider this a privilege, I don't know what else to say. Reshammaiyah and Aziz used to make me drop the remote and cower into a corner every time I run into them while channel surfing. Touchwood, TFM hasn't created any thing in that segment at this level.

10. TFM Rocks because it's TFM. Today, anyone who is a fan of TFM just visits an online mp3 site and downloads the songs. Peace. But in the 1980s me and our bretheren used to run from store to store to buy audio tapes, and sometimes spend an extra 5 bucks on "CD Recording" just to hear the masters at their work. All you lucky, computer-savvy, Y-Gens - enjoy your luck :-).

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

Going To California

For a number of years, the California DMV used to have a standard message on all it's highway/freeway billboards - "Drive slow, Save lives". Considering it is California, naturally, no one ever drove slow.



But this time around, the DMV has seem to have found a winning caption. They just added two words to the original caption. "Save fuel". If that actually puts things in perspective, humanity, as a whole, needs a swift kick in the posterior.

I tend to think of humans as a bunch of noisy women in Mid-May Madras, talking endlessly about why [Insert teary-eyed mega serial heroine here] and [Insert shabbily-dressed serial director who decided to play hero] are going through such tough times, not realizing that their pots are overflowing with water and getting wasted (In Madras, this ranks somewhere in between sneezing loudly when Federer is on championship point against Nadal at Wimbledon and pressing the "Don't Press This. Ever" button on the Doomsday Device). I also see God as this corpulent, sweaty, swarthy corporation guy in khaki who looks at all this callousness, throws in a few choice abuses, kicks the pots up in the air and closes down the tap ruthlessly.

Additional DMV note: When I park the car between two stationary vehicles, I usually look at both of them to see how "car-savvy" they are. This later-day wisdom arrived after parking next to "unsavvy" SUVs who put on a few dings on the front side. An already dinged car is "unsavvy" since the guy driving should have been careless to get dinged up, while an expensive, clean-cut car is "savvy" since, at the least, the guy knows the pain of getting dinged and would watch out. At the DMV, I do my usual check. The car on the left looks okay, slightly dinged, but okay - sort of "savvy", but "not savvy enough". The car on the right was slightly different though. It had bullet holes. Bullet Holes. Wow. Thats a clean "armed and dangerous". Quite literally.

Additional California note: The Bay Area has perhaps the highest concentration of rice eaters after the TN-Andhra belt. Understandably, the rice stock hit a new low and the prices started shooting up. As I was pondering what happened to all the bags of rice which disappeared like Vittalacharya props from the shelves, I am told that highly educated, sophisticated, americanized, intellectual NRIs are buying twice as many 20Lb bags as there are people at home. That would feed a small nation during a nuclear winter for god's sake.

Surplus-Additional California note: In debating over the title of this post, Led Zeppelin wins a three way competition over RHCP and The Mamas & The Papas. Zep rules.

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

Onne Onnu, Kanne Kannu (The Only One)

Most of the earliest questions have been answered convincingly - "Is your country filled with cows ??", "Are the streets full of snake charmers ??" and the likes. Thanks to Aishwarya Rai, the IT boom, Anthony Bourdain, National Geographic and YouTube its pretty clear nowadays that we are a country with gorgeous women, nerdy geeks, tasty food, beautiful places and beastly traffic.



Couple of the new age questions, like "Is there a caste system in your country where people have to do the same job that their father did??" or "Is Bollywood _the_ movie industry of the country??" can be handled if we sit down for a discussion. No, unless you are a politician and No, unless expensive and gaudy costumes (with a few notable exceptions) are the primary benchmark for an industry.

There are other questions that are way too easy to answer "Is it true that most politicians in your country are scummy ??" or "Do actors and sports stars stand a better chance to become administrators over someone who might be actually qualified and with a track record in doing that ??". An answer like "its the same darned story everywhere" with a sad face elicits a big empathic sigh and the topic is done.

However, there has always been one question that I had never ever been able to get around answering. "For a country of billion people, for all the talk about being the next superpower, for all the pride about being a part of the oldest civilization, for all the general bravado shown all around, why haven't you guys won a single individual Olympic Gold ??".

Not anymore. Never again. Abhinav Bindra, thanks for breaking the jinx (or our usual mediocrity at the Olympics) by doing something that no Indian had ever done before. Is this going to change the way Pepsi & Coke pump money into Cricket as if there is no other sport in India? Is this going to stop Suresh Kalmadi from pretending as if he himself won an Olympic Gold? Is this going to be a step in building the non-existential infrastructure for the other sports? Is this going to bring about a change in the "recommendation" culture in our sports quotas? Is this going to enable colleges to form an NCAA like organization to foster sports? Who are we kidding? But still, there is at least one less question that we don't have to take anymore and that's good news.

Oh, by the way, smart aleck questions like "So, for all these years, you just have a single gold medal to show and you actually write a blog to brag about it??" would be redirected to /dev/null.

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

Good Knight, Good Luck

How many times have we been able to say there is "no let up in the action" about a movie? Die Hard comes to mind immediately. How many times have we been able to say that "its an interesting look into our own minds" about a movie? Did you just say Fight Club ? How many times have we said "a refreshing super hero movie thats better than the prequel"? Spiderman 2, maybe? How many times has one been able to say all of it about one movie? Not until "The Dark Knight". Before you click the link to read further, be warned there are a lot of spoilers below. If you haven't seen the movie, you are going to feel quite miserable if you click that link. Even if you have seen it, its quite possible that you might feel miserable after having to read through my blog, but that an entirely different point.



Its easier for Bale fans to write reams about him in this movie. Heck, I would probably defend him in "Reign of Fire". I'd probably go on about his under-playing of the batman role to an extent where it looks like a Joker film at times, or his portrayal of his wayne-vs-batman conflicts - but coming from a fanboy, you are better of skipping to the next bunch of paragraphs.

That leaves us with a lot of people - Caine, Oldman, Eckhart - all who do their roles good service. But the one that towers above all them is the late Ledger. There are already talks of Ledger being nominated for an Oscar. First up, I don't understand the hype about Oscars. The academy snubs Denzel for "Hurricane" and awards him for "Training Day". Crowe gets shafted for "Insider", but wins for "Gladiator". Scorsese is screwed a tonne of times, for Good Fellas - no less, and wins it for a remake. So, whats all the fuss about Oscars?

There are also going to be comparisons between Nicholson's Joker and Ledger's. We could do well to compare SMG and SRT's ODI strike rates. Nicholson's Joker comes from a pseudo-comic-book world, where villains and heroes and everyone around them are a bit larger than life. Ledger's comes from our own confused times. His one dialogue sums it up: "I am like a dog chasing a car, I don't have a plan". And true to all the hype, he gives one of the memorable performances by a movie villain because of the way he has chosen to interpret his role. There are several scenes that stand out. The interrogation sequence, the hospital scene where the Joker actually convinces the disturbed Dent that he isn't the bad guy or the last sequence where the Joker says how Batman "completes" him. The way the movie is set up, the Joker is an integral part of the next movie and the sad part is that we wouldn't have Ledger to take this character to yet another level. However, is this the best-ever performance by an actor in a villainous role? Nope. Not even in the last two years. Anton Chighurh would have shot the Joker with a cattle bolt rifle and not ruffled his hair-do.

As a batman fan, I like the way all the characters from the batman universe find a role in Nolan's movies. Gordon, Fox, Pennyworth - they are all there and they have strong roles. However, I am a bit disappointed with the end(??) of Two-Face. Please tell me he isn't dead, but is safely stashed in Arkham and will be back for the next movie. Two-Face is perhaps the second-best Batman villain after the Joker because he comes from the same place as Batman does, but lost his way in the middle. Having Batman fight the Joker _and_ Two Face in the next one has me lining up outside the theaters for the midnight show right away.

The best thing to happen since inventing the Zip would probably be giving the reins of the Batman franchise to Chris Nolan. While other 'brothers' have lost their steam (read: Wachowskis) and some others have very different priorities (read: Scotts), the Nolans are spot on in whatever they do. The screenplay and tempo of TDK is just flawless. They take a superhero movie, which, by definition is super-human, but add so many human elements into it than anyone has. Be it the choices that people have to make, our conflicts with our own heroes, the thin difference between a good guy and a bad guy, our trust in the next guy, the never-ending debate of civil liberties vs security - Nolan has a way of including all these elements into the story. But what strikes me most is how reflective Nolan's work is of the core elements of Batman. As many of the pre-release articles indicate, I see a lot of similarities with Alan Moore's "Killing Joke". In "KJ", the Joker goes all out to prove to Batman that all that it takes is one bad day to reduce a hero into a crazed nutcase. Compare that with how the Joker tries to break Gotham's belief by destroying it's heroes - Batman and Dent - by intentionally switching the locations and have Batman go after Dent instead of Dawes. In the novel, Gordon who gets caught in the middle, survives and holds on to his sanity. In the movie, Dent loses it while Batman doesn't. Towards the end of the novel, the Batman and Joker share a lighter moment knowing that they have to live with each other. Although not in that scale, TDK ends on a similar note where both the characters realize that they are more entwined than they ever could have thought.

As a fan, what more can you ask from Nolan? He assembled a classic cast for both his movies, he saved the franchise, he gave us two great movies, each of which satisfies the entire spectrum of fans - both the casual movie fan and the comic/graphic novel fan, he gave a human element to both his movies much like how Raimi did with his Spiderman movies, but quite darker, he sets everything up neatly for a great third movie. What else can a fan ask from a director? Probably a promise to come back for the third movie. Probably a quick thriller like the "Prestige" in between this and the next movie. Probably picking up another 'considered-dead' franchise and bring it back to life.

The next few years are going to be fun. A new actor has to be signed for the Joker. Bale needs to find time between filming the Terminator movies. But we can all rest in peace as long as the franchise is in the able hands of Nolan. To paraphrase the Joker, "Here....We....Go".

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

Inky Pinky Ponky

From the Hindu



So let me get this straight:

We have an honorable Member of Parliament, who represents all the people from his constituency, holding the entire future of the nation in his hands, gracing the almighty parliament and enjoying maximum security alongside other perks as housing, air-travel. Said honorable MP has two buttons in front of him/her colored Red and Green, out of which s/he has to press only one based on what the party has already chosen weeks before. Is Hindu telling me that there still exists a chance that they could actually press the wrong button? Factoid: The nephew, who is all of 2.5 years old, can choose one button from perhaps 20 including such difficult colors as Cyan, Magenta and Teal, making him 10 times qualified to be a Member of Parliament.

Also, am I led to believe that this honorable member of parliament, who isn't even sure about choosing one button out of a grand total of two, has made a decision on if the nuclear treaty is good for the nation or not?

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

Gen-Y

The Nephew is screaming "Aaaaaooooeeeee", which translates to "I want something and you don't even seem to make an attempt at getting me that, despite the fact that it means that you need to drop whatever you are doing and vanish in a puff of smoke to get it done. You are in no way like that genie from that story". Usually, the "something" is either a broomstick, or a bulb or a water bottle - things easily accessible or even remote controlled. But then, his parents went out of their way to buy a new train toy and since then "something" has become "train". No, not tiny little toy trains which run around in circles while you pretend to be interested. We are talking big, noisy Caltrains at the station thats too close for a drive and too far for a walk.

The scream started at a less-than-ideal hour. Dad is busy designing packet-switches and isn't home yet. Mom is very busy reading this big huge book on Java. Aunt is busy splitting prawns wide open for dinner. By the process of elimination, that leaves Uncle who is extremely busy reclining and watching the Celtics-Lakers game.

Nephew realizes the futility of being left with lazy bum uncle. Nephew knows uncle won't move an inch if the game is good. Nephew notches up the volume a bit to pass on the message.

Uncle is watching Kobe and Gasol and KG and Pierce make a game out of it. Uncle is also wickedly thinking of ways to handle the situation at hand without Mom and Aunt realizing that. Of course, Aunt cannot know that Uncle is trying to work around baby sitting duty, lest he will know what it means to be a dead prawn. Rock, Uncle, A Hard Place - in that order.

And then, a bulb glows brightly overhead. Take this, nephew. And that. And even some more. The crying disappears like it was the box-office for Indy IV after the first weekend and is replaced by "ishishish" which translates to "you are definitely not the best uncle around, but for now, you will do". Uncle can live with that. Uncle reclines back to watch the game and just around that time, very symbolically, truth runs over Uncle like one of them trains.

Generation Y(ou Tube) is no myth. Not anymore. It has arrived well and truly, and it lives 10 feet away. It is now currently giggling away to glory looking at all those sleek looking trains. Uncle slowly retreats into uncle-hood with violin background music and contemplates on taking a pension policy.

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

Kingdom Come

"He has to be here somewhere. Look again"
"I found him"
"Where ?"
"There !!"

What follows next leaves you with a feeling you cannot explain in words - like a sunset in sandy island or a layup in the dying seconds of a game - Indy on top of a german U-boat with the theme playing in the background, stopping just a second for a salute and then disappearing. That scene captures the entire spirit of the Indiana Jones series. "How did he get to the submarine without being spotted ??" "Its a submarine, how can he hide _outside_ ??" "It's the whole German army against 1 man ??" - these questions apply to mere mortals, not to Dr Henry Jones Jr.

I am admittedly an Indy fanboy. The one who looks at the replica hat at the disney store who later sighs at at the price tag, the one who sings the theme in full gusto while going on the Indy ride while other adults look on amusedly, the one who will argue endlessly about how Temple of Doom is far superior and highly underrated. Naturally, the expectations rocketed beyond the outer-most-osphere. Usually when they do that, they come down with a resounding thud. So read this review at your own risk.

After multiple viewings of the trilogy on DVD over the years, and two marathon viewings of all the films (in pieces) over the last weekend, I knew exactly how fans of Star Wars would've felt waiting for the midnight showing of "Phantom Menace". At about 3am this morning, I still knew how Star Wars fans felt _after_ watching "Phantom Menace".

Here is a sneak peek from Spielberg's production notes. There are spoilers abound, so watch out.

On a lazy saturday afternoon after having two eggs for breakfast and scratching the lower chin

Yawn, I've made one too many serious films and I just want to relax. Look at that Soderbergh guy who goes on a vacation with an ever-growing entourage of stars every two years only to shoot a home video and release it as an Ocean movie. Can I make Jaws 5 ? or Jurassic Park 4 ? Or are they off their shelf life already ?

Hunting game at Skywalker Ranch

Splendid. Ford is bored after his critically acclaimed, smash hit films like "Firewall" and "Hollywood Homicide". Lucas just realized that he can't go on milking Luke Skywalker forever. As they say, it takes three to tango. Background music start.

After watching a sweaty Lucas trying to blather something on the lines of "phantom, clones, revenge"

Lucas acted a bit strange today. When I said I am planning a sequel to an iconic series after 19 years, he hid all copies of "The Phantom Menace" before offering to help. Should enquire further.

After encountering a serious director's block

Hmm, we had the truck chase in RotLA, the rail car chase in ToD and the tank chase in LC. Today, Ford is approaching the age when he plays roles like Presidents (absolutely no need to overwork oneself) and Software Experts (-ditto-). George wants an intensely-CGI filled car chase where no one knows whats going on. Incidentally, he also owns ILM. Enquire this further too.

Desperate to get an idea and accidentally sitting on an ant hill

We did snakes, we did bugs, we did rats. What shall we do now ?? Think Steven, think. Ah, let us do Ants. A lot of fake-looking CGI ants. There.

Weighing up the paying public

Snake gag, check.
Whip gag, check.
Hat gag, double check.
Now the audience will forget everything else and agree its an Indy movie. Thank goodness.

After watching "Queen Elizabeth" and "Beowulf" in makeup

Its funny how many people said okay to be in this film without even reading the script. Take Cate Blanchett, the Meryl Streep of this generation, who just gave her nod for a terribly one-dimensional character. Wait till she meets Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone and William Hurt who have no-dimensional roles. Chuckle, chuckle.

Planning for the future

We are planning to shoot the last sequence tomorrow. Now that Ford cannot do another movie, George and I have planned to have a symbolic scene where he hands over his whip and hat to LeBeouf. Then, we can continue to make a truckload of money with direct-to-video movies, young Mutt Williams/Jones III tv shows, an animated series on MW/J3, MW dolls with funny limbs and a string of blockbusters for memorial day weekends.

After getting horrible nightmares of being tossed around by fans

Yes, I re-shot the transition scene. Now all you fans, allow me to make another Indy movie. Tan ta dattan, tan ta dan, Tan ta dattan, tan ta dan tan tan.

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

The Name Game

Rajasthan Royals

Jaipur, Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Udaipur - yep, we get it, they have all the moral right in the world to name their team Royals. Secondly, they also stayed true to Team Naming Conventions 101 with their "double initials" (RR). Try saying San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers. Now try saying Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Minnesota Timberwolves. See what I mean ?

Delhi Daredevils

Totally cliched alright, but then what else would you call a team that is represented by an actor who jumps buildings to flick a thumbs-up and led by a player who aspires to reach his double/triple-hundreds with a sixer ? Delhi doesn't score high on originality, but definitely gets it right with appropriateness.

Deccan Chargers

Well yes, they picked Laxman as their icon despite knowing clearly well that their matches are _not_ played in Sydney against Australia, but hey their name is catchy and slots in the name of their sponsors without being ugly-conspicuous. Mission accomplished.

Chennai Superkings

First, it is still Madras for many. It was and will always be. And when one hears the name "Chennai" being murdered in foreign tongues, it makes it all the more true. Second, the thamizh guy's English vocabulary is slightly larger than "Super", "Rascal" and "Mind It". Try harder next time.

Bangalore Royal Challengers

So tell me this. Isn't Mallya the liquor baron who owns the brand Kingfisher ? Isn't Shaw Wallace one of his fiercest competitors ? Incidentally, isn't Royal Challenge (RC for the initiated) one of their brands ? So, are you telling me that Mallya invested heavily in this team to give it the name of his competitor ? Yep, being in the midst of Kingfishers and Royal Challengers can do this to you. Proof: The Bangalore team which shows signs of serious inebriation.

Punjab Kings XI

This is exactly what happens when you stay awake all night for lavish launch parties buring hard earned money earned starring in such timeless classics like KANK, CCCC, JBJ and then select a team name with the hangover intact. It was like someone stood up groggily, picked out the LCM of all the names (2 Royals, 1 Knight, 1 King), suffixed a number to it and then continued with getting wasted. Heck, I would have been happy if a spinning mill from Tirupur had bought the team and called it Punjab Sudarmanis.


Mumbai Indians

This would have been a brilliant PR movie if all the other teams had imported players from Lesotho, the audience brought in from Suriname and the venues spread across Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately for Ambani, this looks more boneheaded than it should. At least he has something to show to his brother during the court visit.

Kolkatta Knight Riders

And the winner is, Kolkatta. For being bold and breaking the mold by dedicating their team name to the ethos of Brokeback Mountain. They also have the only other thing that makes the team name look better. Those team helmets. Ramarajan/ Govinda/ Jaggesh/ Junior NTR looks like Calvin Klein.

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

NSHOTB

There is a saying : What starts well, ends well. Ironman, the New Super Hero On The Block, gets that just right. A fast-talking Robert Downey Jr, showing some "Tony Stark" attitude and downing some alcohol while "Back In Black" plays in the background. Ironman, you have arrived and arrived in style.

I am not a big fan of the Iron Man novels, so much so that I started digging up comics only after I saw the trailer. Even that was primarily due to the namesake soundtrack. And am glad I did. Marvel has had great success with it's super hero franchises, but almost all of them have their best days behind them. After two splendid movies in the series, the Spiderman and X-Men movies have hit a trough with their third. Ang Lee had great visions for the Hulk, but after a major overhaul, the series hopes for Norton to give it a boost. The Fantastic Four movies were terrible anyways (Jessica Alba included). To top that, Marvel just started their own studio and a success was needed more so than ever. Enter Robert Downey Jr.

Having someone say a movie's success is attributed to, of all things, Downey is similar to attributing success to a Silambarasan or Van Damme - entirely laughable. I would've too, only he gave sufficient notice with his brilliant performance in Zodiac. Downey plays the irreverent-rich-whizkid turned womanizing-hard-drinking-billionaire turned high-flying-innovator turned impulsive-crime-fighter like second nature. Be it his "Merchant of Death" speech at the beginning of the movie, or his impulsive blurt at the end of it, Downey fires a salvo at everyone who thought he was yet another hollywood-made alcoholic wreck.

Favreau has got many things right in this movie - a tight script (IMHO, could've been a bit longer), staying true to the origins of the character, enjoyable humor, visible nods to future directions in this series (loved Rhodes' "next time, baby"), a well-performing cast with Paltrow and Howard and the subliminal choice of Downey as Iron Man, probably because what lies ahead for Iron Man is what lies behind for Downey.

There are interesting times ahead for Marvel. They are trying to establish what they did in comics/novels into movies - which is to weave a broader arc with all their major superheroes. Tony Stark has a cameo in the upcoming Hulk movie, Rhodes gives a hint of where he is headed, S.H.I.E.L.D is in, there is a mention of the Avenger initiative (and you know who else is in by that). Add the 25c/copy sale of comic books that we found yesterday. There is no better time to be a comic book fan.

Iron Man treads oft-treaded territory where a Superhero is intentionally made to look more human than hero. Iron Monger is no Magneto nor Green Goblin. But still, its a great start to a promising series as long as Downey stays on-board. Its not my top Super Hero movie, that would still be Batman Begins followed by a bottomless chasm, but Iron Man has a refreshing feel after enduring the pain of X-men-3 and Spiderman-3. If nothing seems to interest you enough, go and watch it just for the stan lee cameo, the end-scene after the credits with someone you know from before or Gwyneth Paltrow. Heck, just go watch it for Gwyneth.

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

Dasavatharam

It has become the moral responsibility of any thamizh guy to write about this upcoming movie. Of course, we all know what incalculable hype does to a movie (Baba, Matrix Revolutions). Here is hoping it doesn't do the same to this one. Most blogs have a link to the trailer, then interpret what each frame means. This blog aspires to join in the mindless mayhem and aims to throw a punch or two. Heck, we remember how everyone concluded that "Old Kamal" is a hitlerian plotter after watching the trailer of "Indian". We also know how prophetic that turned out. Remember that after you watch the movie.

1. Its a movie set in different time-lines linking people to a common thread. So is it Darren Aronofsky's "The fountain" where Kamal is after the exact same thing in each of his "incarnations" ?

2. There is a crazy scientist and a president, both played by Kamal. Could it be Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" where one Kamal tries to destroy the world, the other is easily influenced by people around him, yet another tries to save the world, while the fourth probably drops the proverbial Nuke ?

3. There are admittedly a bunch of people sharing similar traits, and Kamal is running around in a room full of vats. I hope its not Michael Bay's "The Island" where Kamal realizes he is a clone and tries to figure out his other selves ?

4. There is a big,fat, presidential body-guard look-alike. Is it going to be some sort of a Bizzaro recreation "In the line of fire" by Wolfgang Petersen ?

5. We see kamal carrying an idol and running away from all and sundry with Asin on his side. Is this Kamal playing Robert Langdon from Dan Brown/Ron Howard's "Da Vinci Code" and saving a religious artifact that could potentially 'shake the roots of an entire religion' - something that Kamal would be glad to do for free ?

6. Cars flying everywhere, regular song sequences, explosions. No, not just another KS Ravikumar pseudo-entertainer. After 2+ years in development hell, numerous posts on when and if this movie will ever see the light of the day, an interminable court case, Kamal, Ravichandran and all Thamizh movie fans deserve infinitely more than one of KSR's Cookie Cutters.

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

Neighbor's Envy Owner's Pride

On the way to the carwash

"Sir, your keys ??"
"Here"



"But Sir, I need your keys"
"These are my keys"
"But sir, there is no key"
"Ah, you have noticed, yes"
"So I need the key, sir"
"But this is the key"
The serviceman is bewildered, and then I explain everything, followed by a smirk and a closing tagline for the blog, "Neighbors Envy, Owner's Pride", everyone who visits the blog laughs hard.

At the carwash,

"See, you know .. "
"Yes sir, I push the button it starts the car".
This without even turning around to look at me.

Now I know how it feels to have a dozen eggs on the face.

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

No Planet For Normal Men

After watching bits and pieces of a few matches from March Madness (or The NCAA 2008 Men's Basketball Championship), I see this : Any time a close match gets over, after a cursory shot of the winning team celebrating, the camera quickly pans to a guy from the losing team who either has his covered in a towel, is looking at the basket in disbelief or openly crying on his coach's shoulder.

The single biggest problem that many Indians in the Bay Area have is that there are "Indians everywhere". This sentiment is usually expressed while gorging on Roti-Dal in an Indian restaurant.

That guy, who just changed lanes without a turn light and squeezed his car inches before the one behind, has a "Caution: Baby on Board" sticker.

Talking the talk : Criticizing all and sundry on Global Warming.
Walking the walk : Buying a cloth bag for $0.50 instead of sheepishly picking a gazillion free plastic bags.
Current score : Talk leads Walk by a few billions.

Every time an American/European fails to spot, say Bangladesh, in a map, people snicker. When given an opportunity to spot Burkina Faso in the same map, aforesaid people scratch their head.

QED.

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

The Five Lights

is a crowded place in Kodamabakkam. But what is more relevant now is that they are about to go out in Melbourne this weekend.

Can you empathize with the feeling of

- being run over by a container truck that was coming downhill while you were cycling uphill on hearing Mika's sudden retirement after a disastrous 2001 season (in spain, where he was leading by ~30 seconds, his car just died on him in the last lap - a singulary good enough reason to retire, imho)



- having to watch "Snakes on a plane" over the "Godfather" because that was the only movie available in the DVD store when DC was announced as the lead driver for Mclaren?

- watching Laxman walk in to bat against Australia with the balance hopelessly tilted against India knowing in your heart of hearts that something spectacular is going to happen when Kimi joined Mclaren ?

- being hit with a Maai-geri, Yoko-ke-agi, Yoko-ke-komi, Mawashi-geri and rounded off with a Ushiro-geri, all in quick succession, when watching MS rack up victory after victory with his super-performing-car and team orders in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively ?

- seeing Scorsese sit out yet another year in the audience when some random guy walked up to collect the Best Director's oscar when Kimi get tantalizingly close to the 2003 C'ship only to miss out in the last race ?

- elation watching MGR belt the crap out of Nambiar singing "Naan aaNai ittal" when watching MS getting his butt kicked in 2005 ?

- jubiliation when Aamir Khan hit a last-ball-six against the british in "Lagaan" while watching MS getting his butt kicked two years in a row ?

- relief watching Tom Hanks overcome that monster wave in "Castaway" for not having to hear MS give a patronising "I retire on my own terms and as a winner"

- being a recently-defected KGB agent in a meeting at Langley, when shifting loyalties to Ferrari in 2007 after a tumultous 8-years with McLaren

- having switched queues, only to find the older queue moving super-fast and the new one standing still when Hamilton was becoming what Kimi should have become

- Knowing what comes next when any team took the field against the Australians in a world cup final as Kimi entered the last race having only a mathematical possibility of winning the championship

- Knowing clearly well that Gandalf was dead, but still hoping against hope for him to make some sort of a comeback in TTT or ROTK when checking f1.com's live timing in the middle of a fun trip only to see Kimi second, Alonso third and Hamilton outside the points ?

- absolute disbelief at realizing Verbal Kint was Keyser Soze when the computer was shut-down forecefully by your friends because it was check-out time at the hotel and you were being a insensitive idiot for spoiling a pleasant weekend with this ?

- being super-imaginative like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost running through their escape plan to beat armies of zombies in 'Shaun of the dead' while creating outrageous scenarios where Kimi would just flip out of the race due to some whacko reliability issue as always ?

- solace like Truman Burbank as he walks out of the set, never to go through the same hell-hole ever again, when receiving that call which said Kimi was the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion ?

- genuine satisfaction a mastercard ad with the "Priceless" tagline gives while being happy for 7 years of sticking to your guns defending Kimi against friends and anonymous strangers and not having to jump on the MS bandwagon

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

RIP Sujatha

Writer/ Technologist/ Critic Sujatha (Rangarajan) has passed on to the Other Side. The thamizh writing landscape will never be the same without Sujatha. Sci-fi (Juno, the AI dog and a dystopian future), hero-and-wisecracking-sidekick (Ganesh & Vasanth), his innumerable twist-in-tale short stories (thoondil kadhaigal), technology articles (yen edharku eppadi), his movie adaptations - which didn't turn out as good as the books (Priya, Vikram), his critiques (katradhum petradhum), his innovations (being part of the team that worked on Electronic Voting Machines), his screenwriting abilities (almost all kamal and shankar movies have his strong influence) - Sujatha's work is a myriad collection of many genres.



Despite the legions of his fans, I will always think of him as an unsung hero who never got his due. He was well ahead of his peers in his writing . Just like many other wonderful books, the directors who adapted his works to movies or tv shows never got close to where Sujatha would have set them to be. His sci-fi novels did not set the thamizh sci-fi scene on fire. If only Sujatha was born either in Europe or in the United States, he would have been hailed as one of the greatest writers of his time, with most of us reading his paperbacks on airplanes. But in one of the cliched cruelties of time, for his country, Sujatha probably came a generation too early (rather, we, as fans, came a generation late).

Looking at my reading habits now, I can see it bears Sujatha's influence. I always hoped to send him some of my short stories (rather, what _I_ call short stories) and hoped to receive a "they suck totally, but hey, thats a start" comment from him, only to get back and write at least one story that would be readable so that I can tell him that he was indeed an inspiration.

Find infinite peace wherever you are, Sujatha. You will always be remembered by a billion Ekalyvas.

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

Run Forrest Run

Motivation to run is very much like ear-popping when driving down a mountain. No one is born with ears popping, it just happens. Same with running. Bully at school counting on your assignment writing skills, glass windows broken to pieces with the bat in your hand, girl friend's mega-rich dad with mega-sized goons- there are so many reasons. As an aside, I love running too, but for slightly different reasons. Ah, Imagine the setting sun, a lonely hill side, bursting biceps, taut triceps, hard-as-nail hamstrings, carved-up calves and a silhouette. Wait, Thats Sylvester Stallone from Rocky IV. Now, imagine a big, fat slob huffing and puffing his way on the treadmill towards the promised land of fitness. There, that is more like it.



Running on the treadmill sounds really straightforward. Climb on treadmill. Run. Climb down from treadmill. But one should know things are usually different in real-time than they were when you heard them - our resident 'darn-they-told-me-it-would-be-easy' motivational speaker Abhimanyu knows a thing or two about that. I know, this blog is suddenly veering towards health, weight-control, longevity et al from other interesting aspects of life like Maria Sharapova and Rachel Bilson. If you were born before 1978, you already know why. If you weren't, you will know eventually. So you want to stay healthy, do you (read: you want to fit into that old jeans of yours which just went from super-comfort to extra-tight and all that you did was to eat a few burgers, some assorted muffins and a gallon of soda) ?

1. 1431 Payorea Tooth Powder - Known as a very effective dental stain remover is for very effectively removing dental stains.

Sounds like a no brainer, I know. It is okay to wear a hiking/ trekking/ office-going/ cheap-with-no-padding shoe for running and say "hey, they are all shoes" only if it is okay to use harpic and lysol to remove dentals stains since "hey, they are all stain removers".

2. Pump up the volume

We all worship at the altar of 80s film music, no doubt. But trust me, when you are running at 7-8mph speed on a treadmill and wanting to go that extra few hundred yards before you tire out and drop dead, Mike Mogan (sic) singing "Udaya Geedham Paaduven" is not what you want to hear.

3. Never envy thy neighbor

Are your competitive juices overflowing that you want to run harder/longer/faster than the guy in the next treadmill ? Are you itching to set your speed a notch above his and prove a non-existent point ? Usually, this is when one of many things happen
a) Age/ human physiology/ lack of stamina/ a genuine belief in Newton's laws of motion catch up with you seconds before the treadmill throws you on the ground spread eagled.
b) the guy next door is actually a kenyan marathon runner who thinks a 100-mile dash is akin to running to the nearest milkbooth in the mornings.

4. Kiss

If you think you can actually kiss someone on the next treadmill and claim that a blog asked you to do so, bravo. I mean, BRAVO. To your left, we have Exhibit A - Superfast Subbarayan, who runs at breakneck speed for exactly 3 minutes, and then spends the remaining half hour panting and leaning on to one of the side walls, a nervous breakdown ready to happen. To your right, is Exhibit B - Passenger Parameswaran who starts off walking, starts to jog, then starts to run, then begins cooling down and manages to get out of the treadmill in one piece by Keeping It Simple & Synchronized (there, KISS). So, which one is it ? Super Subbu or Passenger Paramu ?


5. Cleanliness is somewhere between Godliness and being that guy with the obnoxious ring tone in the theater.

Buy a towel. Remember to carry it. Don't forget to use it on yourself and the exercise equipment you just used. It's okay, the towel knows that is it's purpose. Being all sweaty and drenched looks extremely manly and attractive only on Peyton Manning and Dwyane Wade in that Gatorade commercial. Unless you haven't won the Super Bowl when I wasn't looking, take it from me, its pretty mundane.

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

Now & Then - Start Camera

A few weeks ago, an extremely dangerous activity bordering on the impossible was undertaken. The Missus was trying to take a picture of a certain object (activity) and was trying to make it look good in that picture (extremely dangerous and bordering on the impossible).

Here is a short summary of how the whole exercise went. Snap 1: Eyes closed. Snap 2: Hair all wrong. Snap 3: Red-eye Snap 4: Can't differentiate between the Elephant standing next to it. Snap 5: "Woah, come what may, please don't pose like that again".

Somewhere between these snaps, The Object couldn't help but rewind to about a decade or two back in time. Do you remember the time when :



- your way-too-cautious friend said that some local studios might sell you exposed film and you had to check if the roll was good by pulling it out once completely and rewinding it back again ?
- each photo used to be a work of art because every photographer has the magic number "36" in his mind ?
- you had to shelve your school photo because you were caught staring at a girl and no amount of begging would melt the heart of that stingy photographer ??
- you had to squint through a small screen which had a much smaller square to view objects ??
- you had to whirr a small wheel like madness after taking a picture to move the film roll ahead ??
- you paused a second to wonder if you have whirred so much that you moved far ahead ?
- you wait for a little over two days to find out how exactly your pictures had come ?
- and when you search for that self-declared 'artful photo' you found it so shaken up like it was shot from inside the blender ?
- after careful analysis of the negatives, you chose a picture to blow-up as a portrait and it turned out to be the 'other' picture where your eyes were half closed ?
- gotten kicked after someone found that their dare-devil, one-handed stunt was missed just by a fraction of a second only to show them stupidly grinning ?
- after days and days of striking poses in biting cold only to realize your friend didn't load the film properly ?
- you really surged in front of the crowd to be in the frame because photographs were actually rare ?
- a great murder mystery will be painstakingly revealed as the hero washes the photo in slow motion ?
- photo albums for an entire trip of two weeks used to be a total of 50+ photos, as against the few hundreds taken over an evening walk these days ?
- you take a look at your old albums and remember people, the photographs and the exact backstory behind each one of them because there were so few pictures to begin with as against the innumerable ones sitting in your online album which you don't even bother to clear?

The Object heaves a sigh. As much as he wonders about the past, he is silently glad that technology has improved so much that with a few hours on Photoshop, even The Object can look presentable. That should be refreshing.

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