Abstract epiphany

Are today’s b(a-z)ollywood movies, a result of directors/producers taking the psychology experiment carried out in The Clockwork Orange, too seriously?

Close encounters of the bovine kind….

A few days back I had this sudden impulse to pet a cow/calf/goat/kid (goat kid..isn’t that what goat babies are called?)… Okay, that came out a little weird…

Anyway, while we were out driving in the scorching/burning heat to some shop, to look for stationery, I suddenly remembered how summers back home used to be like… And one of my fondest memories are of petting the stray cow/goat/calf/kids roaming around on the road…

While I spent a lot of time in Mandavelli, at Paati’s home, there would be these little darling goat kids running right outside our gate… Mama, would open the gate and grab a little one, and lift him/her up like a baby, and pet him… I would stand by and just stroke and pet the goat for a couple minutes, before he would start furiously bleating to be let down… Cannot forget the incredibly soft texture of the little goat’s skin….and the leaf-like ears, ever so slightly fluttering in a mild breeze…

There were other times, when outside our flats in West Mambalam, some cows belonging to the nearby milkman, would roam the streets and a couple of them would frequent our street…. Amma and I would sometimes fill up a bucket with water, and place it on the pavement right outside the gate for the big bovines to come and have their fill…and sometimes their calves would run along with them, and we would feed them bananas and such…

Sigh…. miss all these little things, all of a sudden.

Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen

Fantastic movie!  The action sequences are much better, however the battle towards the end between the “allied forces” and the Decepticons gets a little tiresome… But then, the transformations and the way the robots fight it out is just amazing! And the carpet bombing… wowwwieeeeee! 

I am surprised critics bash such movies, and give horrendous reviews. The basic idea in such movies is just the whole eye-candy entertainment value…. not about some subliminal message that it tries to convey… I am also surprised that there are people who actually went and watched this movie and dissed it as being the crappiest ever! WTF is up with that? That clearly shows these people’s ignorance about the whole Transformers cartoon series/comics/animated movie.

Some random observations from the movie…

• I was trying hard to remember the name of the Decepticon shown at the very end… I knew it was a Constructicon, but then later read it online and realized it was… Devastator… The whole sequence when the Constructicons form the DEVASTATOR, is nothing short of awesome!
• Megatron is obviously resurrected, but in a different way, from the original animated movie (1986)….and thereby is not named GALVATRON… consequently, there is no mention of UNICRON either.
• ULTRA MAGNUS has not made it into the script… yet. There is obviously a 3rd Transformer movie (as online sources say). In the animated movie, Prime gets killed by Megatron and the Matrix is passed on to UltraMagnus… Eventually he is also defeated by Megatron returning as Galvatron.
• I wish they’d shown more of STAR SCREAM, IRON HIDE, SOUNDWAVE… These were some of my favourite bots from the animated movie. For instance, Star Scream is an F-22 Raptor!!
• Jetfire has a very mixed up appearance in the film… The SR-71 Balckbird, which is his vehicle mode, is never shown in detail. sigh…
• The Original PRIMES are only briefly shown…
• At the very end, Jetfire sacrifices his spark and thereby helps resurrect Optimus Prime…I thought a decent amount of battle would ensue when Prime gets additional gear and ammo… But nothing… a simple cannon-like-fire from him and the FALLEN is killed. (I think so..)
• No mention of HOT ROD either… He is one of the main characters in the animated movie of 86.

So, the bottomline is that, if you are a Transformers fan, this movie is a MUST WATCH on the big screen.

Passport Photos have arrived…

And they are brilliant! ePassportPhoto, is a keeper!

Went last evening to pick up the pictures from Walgreens… and I have received 8 pictures printed crisply on a 4 x6 sheet….borrowed the ruler again, to see if they are 3.5 x 3.5, and yes they were!

I agree that I am a little paranoid about such things, and all this effort might not be necessary at all… But hey, I learnt something new in the process, and thought it might be worthwhile sharing it here, for others to use.

Oh, and I paid $6.95 for the photo processing, etc through paypal to the website… and 20 cents for the print at Walgreens…

So the Great Indian Passport photo challenge, has been won.

The Great Indian Passport Photo challenge…

So, I need to get my passport renewed and I started looking at different stores to get my photo taken and printed.. Straight forward, right? No. The Indian passport photo needs to be 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm and all the standard shops which shoot/print passport photographs here in the US have a standard template of 2 in. x 2 in. …. What does one do then?

So Long my dear Moonwalker….

I am still in shock at the news of MJ’s death… still cannot believe it…I am not being a teenager and saying “OMG, I just cannot believe he is gone…”  But really, the way I learnt it last evening was when I was flipping channels and landed on some channel (apparently CNN), which was showing clips from his music videos… At that particular moment when I landed on the channel, Beat It, was on, and my attention immediately turned to the TV… And all of a sudden, I noticed this flash news on the bottom of the screen saying something like  ”L. A. Times reports: Michael Jackson Dies at 50″… I could feel my brain going into a kind of time-freeze, a sense of panic crept over me… and then almost my entire childhood flashed in front of my eyes…as I was/am one of the kids/people who grew up listening to his songs, and watching his fantastic music videos….

I used to run out of my room half way through my homework and switch on the telly when it was time for the evening MTV shows…which would show MJ videos… and I probably had two video tapes’ worth of MJ videos recorded and, boy! did I watch them everyday! 

…..Reminded me of the time when we had special dresses made for the dance show in school, when I was in the 2nd standard. Black pedal pushers, Golden Yellow shirt and a golden/yellow headband with ‘chamkis’ sewn to it. We danced to ‘Beat It’ and it was actually a hit!

 Thus ends the glorious and recently infamous life of the great Pop Legend…and I just read on CNN that there were internet website glitches after he died… The headline reads “Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him”.

Rest In Peace, my man.

Delhi 6 (music)

From the moment that I started listening to the songs from this movie, I have only been able to form a strong opinion and liking towards four out of I-don’t-know-how-many songs.

The theme song, Dilli 6, is fascinating right from the start. Almost instantly, I thought Madras should have a song like this..   The almost lackadaisical start to a sudden burst of techno-rich sounds took me by surprise completely! What a treat! And of course the female hindi lyric solo is a good touch too…. But I wonder what the french rap has to do with the entire motif of the song… hmm…

Arziyaan Saari… beautiful Sufi number… in my opinion, one of the best Sufi tracks of Rahman yet… I liked it as much as I liked Al-Muddath-Maulah, from Mangal Pandey…which is VERY much… although the mood is quite different. Overall, a very poignant, divine song, to which Javed Ali and Kailash Kher have done absolute justice.

Masakkali… I listened with utter disbelief as I heard Mohit Chauhan sing this song with so much passion and gusto… He sounds completely unlike his Dooba Dooba days and even not very much like Khoon Chala (Rang De Basanti)…. A wonderful song in itself. I still remember the first time I listened to this – it was right before my wedding reception… I was trying to get into my Sherwani and suddenly noticed that there was no drawstring to tie the pyjama.. As my cousin fixed that for me, she made me listen to this on her mobile phone.

Dil Gira Dafatan…. I think this has got to be the best track in this album. I don’t remember if this song was an instant hit with me, but it has come to captivate me completely over the past few days. It has become like a compulsory Meth shot…I need it crave for it, every once in a while.   The first 40 seconds are absolute bliss… Ash King is apparently an R&B singer from England… Upon reading this, the very first thought that came to me was – How in the world did Rahman find this guy?

Maybe MDs have a secret underground talent search agency or something…or maybe he does some sleuthing ‘undercover’… you know, wearing dark clothes, a hat, a trench coat, the works…and of course the weapon of choice would then have to be a digital voice recorder with noice cancellation.

Snap back to reality…. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if Ash King proclaimed that his vocal chord comprises of highly malleable material and his pharynx was constructed for maximum pliability or something like that.

The most fascinating part about this song, in my mind, has to be the absence of any sort of mathematical rhythm… almost… to me it does not exist… It’s as if Rahman walked up to Ash in the studio or club where he was performing and did an on-the-spot recording for this song, came back to his studio and added the other layers to it. Ash’s hindi/urdu pronunciation is also quite perfect. Overall he has completely OWNED the song! Briliant number!

Sprite Zero (z)

Stumbled upon this idea for a ’spiked soda’, recently…

Here goes – The Mrs. and I wanted to eat hot dogs, so we got the links, bread, etc… For this combination to work successfully, especially to wash it down after a few bites, one most certainly needs some kind of aerated beverage… Even though I get one of those disapproving looks from her these days when I crave for soda at times, this time she felt like having a few swigs from the fountain of self destruction too… Over the past few occassions our choice for soda has been Coke Zero, for obvious reasons, and yes we are one of those feeling-bad-about-our-body-jelly-forever people.

But this time, however, we chose to drink Sprite Zero…

Once we got home, I got this sudden urge to try something with the flavour of the sprite… and did the following:

• Added a dash of salt (Too much salt, will cause too much effervescence and expulsion of the carbonation from the bottle, thereby rendering a partially full bottle of clear looking piss..So beware…)
• Added a little black powdered pepper.
• Squeezed a few drops of lemon
• Stirred it a little…
• Oh! and don’t forget a few ice cubes…

and voila!  The taste reminded me of the time I got to taste the mind blowing nimbu paani, on the streets of New Delhi a long time ago…and I surmised, the only thing missing from this, is the Rock Salt (kaalaa namak ?)…should’ve thought of that earlier. Anyway, that experiment will be carried out soon…

Thoughts on the d(t)readmill…

I secretly thanked the Time God for having established that a minute has only 60 seconds and not 100…

Holiday Homework..

is like working weekends without any incentive… Before you know it the holiday/weekend is over, and the fun things that one thinks of doing during this holiday period just remain a to-do list for later…sometimes forever.