Got Screamed At

by a Greyhound driver. Had been to Hartford for the weekend (see pic here on Maha's blog). As usual, stuffed myself silly :). During the trip back on a Hartford-NY GreyHound, me and Archana were shooting the breeze, and our voices - well, my voice mostly - kept increasing in volume. Ultimately, the driver got frustrated and warned us to turn down the volume. When this happened a second time, we decided to shut up :). Talk to her today, probably - bless SameTime !

Currently Reading:

'The Last Days of Dogtown' by Anita Diamant. Nice reading so far, finished off close to 80 pages while getting back from NY to Long Island. Diamant's 'Red Tent' was better, I think (at this point).

Ignominy at my 'Indian-ness'

I was ashamed of myself, and all of us, and of India as a whole on reading this post by Varna. I am sure several such incidents happen all over India everyday - in all of our citites that are hyped as the next New Yorks, Shanghais etc.

For all this crappy hype, discussions on soaring GDPs, stocks and other such, I strongly feel this: with our present attitudes, we are nowhere as a nation, and nor will we be, unless we improve dramatically.

Ghajini-Review

First thing first - Ghajini is not a scene-by-scene remake of Memento, though it most definitely is 'inspired' from it.

Surya has 'short-term amnesia', which basically means here that he can remember events only for a duration of 15 minutes, before the next bout of amneisa hits him. The puts a spanner in his plans to kill everybody who conspired to kill his betrothed (Asin, who is the life and soul of the movie. More about that later). The whole movie is about how Surya, aided and abetted by a hugely overweight Nayantara, succeeds in this.

The pluses: Surya, Asin and the music. Surya has come a long way from his 'Nerukku Ner' days. He emotes well (though I thought he overdid his amnesiac portions), and shares a great chemistry with Asin. Asin is a revelation here. She handled the funny bits as well as the unique bits of her character with aplomb - an actress to watch out for. A couple of the songs, especially 'Oru Naal', are catchy and hummable. The action sequence in the climax was very well executed.

The minuses: Nayantara, the villain(s), the song picturizations and a shoddy screenplay. Nayantara looks like a dumb bimbo, and dowright vulgar in the one song that she has. I even thought that she looked like Mumtaz in a couple of scenes. The villain was pathetic, and I didn't even figure out why the twins bit was roped in. Most of the songs were picturized poorly; the director and/or choreographer seemed to have run out of ideas. Loops in the screenplay stood large, as did certain stupid parts - could have been evoided.

Verdict: worth a watch for Asin and Surya, in that order.

Update: HawkEye's review says pretty much the same, but in much stronger words :). Check it out here.

Irritating salesmen

Aishwarya's latest post hits the nail on the head; I can't bear it when irritating salesmen pester me while I am trying to decide what to buy - be it books, clothes or gifts. The only place where I find suggestions to be acceptable is while at a restaurant, and that too, only if it is unintrusive. When I was working in Chennai, I used to really haunt Shopper's Stop and the Landmark store at Spencers' - they had knowledgable salesmen (strange how they managed it - I believe many of their employees are college students working part-time), who would never pester you; you could practically remain there the whole day long :).

The IIPM Fracas

As Gaurav says, this is the best article yet on the whole IIPM fracas summarises things tidily, and offers a well-balanced view. Read it here.

Five Great Books

I had to post this on my first day :)....

• God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: This incredible book is impossible to ignore - you have to either love it, or hate it ! As you might have guessed, I belong to the former class of people. A must-read, folks !
• Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane: This was my introduction to Dennis Lehane, and have been a die-hard fan ever since...urgently waiting for his next book.
• Primal Fear by William Diehl: I have always been one for legal thrillers (dunno if the fact that my grandpa is a lawyer has anything to do with it !) - Steve Martini, Grisham et al - and this one was innovative enough to keep me hooked. The Richard Gere-Ed Norton movie by the same name was not a patch on the book.
• The General's Daughter by Nelson Demille: Have always believed this movie was destined for a remake, but certainly not the trashy one that it turned out to be. Even John Travolta couldn't salvage this one. Even if you have seen the movie, go ahead and read the book - any book enthusiast worth his or her name will like it.
• Different Seasons by Stephen King: In one word, incredible. Contrary to popular belief, Stephen King is NOT just a proponent of horror stories; he has written some non-horror books as well, and this has to be the best of them. This is a collection of four novellas, the first of which is 'The Shawshank Redemption'...that should say it all.
  

The IIPM Saga

By now, the IIPM saga needs no introduction; even the mainstream media is (finally!) beginning to sniff a story here. They have got so much bad publicity over the last two weeks that any prospective student would be sceptical, to say the least. I wonder why they don't apologize and get on with it. Darn, pride does come before a fall, I guess.

P.S: Maybe Mr. Ponytail had an inkling of things to come when he made 'Rok Sako To Rok Lo'. Unfortunately, he got caught holding the wrong end of the stick. As for the movie itself...well, I figure Sunny Deol must be plain loony..why else would he act in such a load of crap !!