Have never been so charged up to write a movie review after I got out of a theatre. 'Straight' rocks!!! It is hilariously funny!!!! Vinay Pathak, Ketki Dave, Sid (The man who plays Vinay's cousin), Gul Panag - they are all so good!!
The movie has a very Indian-fiction-novel-based graph. It starts off with a part of the climax immediately with a part of the pre-interval portion and then back and forth through the past - to finally reach the climax.
The best part of it is that the movie is very sensitive towards the issue it is dealing with. It's a first and the movie has what 'Dostana' lacked COMPLETELY - sensitivity.
The movie has some HILARIOUS jokes - trust me, I laughed to my heart's content after long!!! At the same time, it is not laughing at anyone's expense. It left me with more respect towards others and towards the differences that exist between people in the world and in the things that people want... It left me with a thought 'I refuse to live without love!'
APPLAUSE to the makers!!!! A MUSSTTT-WATCH!!!
*********************
'Aaloo Chaat' is funny in parts! The story is predictable ... but the overall feeling that 'Aaloo chat' leaves you with is a pleasant soft journey. Aamna Sharif is good. Some dialogues are really offensive.
************
Disclaimer:
Every post in the blog is an original piece of work by the blogger. Do not use the pictures, posts on the blog without the consent of the blogger.
Aaditya and Me by Aditya Joshi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
Aaditya and Me by Aditya Joshi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Does AdSense Add Sense?
It was a 'to-be-or-not-to-be' question for me when I was first suggested to add AdSense on my blog. There was this sudden gush of moral awakening - I told myself I was wrong!! My blogging is my passion and not my profession!!
I nearly screamed "Nahiii" and I know I looked like a Bollywood Maa with my hands on my ears and my head shaking both ways!!
AdSense, by the way, places ads on your website - more possibly relevant to the content of a webpage (blogpost in the case of a blog.) So, basically the ads provide a 'See More' link to the possibly interested readers. And then there is some payment.
Now, I look at AdSense as a way to add sense, add value to my blog. It will encourage me improve the quality of my blogposts.
So here I am with some more Sense... with some AdSense!!
I so want to compare this to a wedding procession where an old granny, touched to see her grandson dancing pulls out a note and moves it over the grandson's head in circles...:-)
I nearly screamed "Nahiii" and I know I looked like a Bollywood Maa with my hands on my ears and my head shaking both ways!!
AdSense, by the way, places ads on your website - more possibly relevant to the content of a webpage (blogpost in the case of a blog.) So, basically the ads provide a 'See More' link to the possibly interested readers. And then there is some payment.
Now, I look at AdSense as a way to add sense, add value to my blog. It will encourage me improve the quality of my blogposts.
So here I am with some more Sense... with some AdSense!!
I so want to compare this to a wedding procession where an old granny, touched to see her grandson dancing pulls out a note and moves it over the grandson's head in circles...:-)
find-a-flat-mate.com
Disclaimer: Imaginary. I do not know if the website I mentioned in the post exists. If it does, it is purely a coincidence.
Roshan and Siddharth were room-mates for over two years. These days the two would often get into a verbal spat with one another. Roshan was frustrated with the daily arguments. He had decided to move out...
But how would Siddharth feel? Because despite the arguments, he did care for Siddharth atleast with respect to how he would feel.
Roshan came across this website www.find-a-flat-mate.com. He created a new email id looking4aflatmate@find-a-flat-mate.com and put up an ad for himself there.
His specifications were such that it would be difficult for him to find an offer, he knew. What he did not know that it would really take him so long to get a response from someone on the website.
One day he did. He was kind of happy. That night during dinner, he somehow could not look at Siddharth in the eye. Siddharth had cooked dinner for the two of them. Roshan felt like a ... back-stabber.
Meanwhile, he now had two responses on the website. One of them had newly purchased a flat, the other one was staying in an apartment on rent and was looking for someone to share the rent and the expenses. He had been exchanging emails with them daily.
Roshan nearly dropped his plan when Siddharth arranged a small birthday party for Roshan and even invited some of Roshan's friends over.
But now the responses looked too good to be true - he had seen the photographs of the flats. The location and the rent, it was a deal he could not miss. He decided to meet one of the respondents.
They were to meet at a cafe. Roshan decided to go directly from office. As he walked into the cafe, he remembered an email this person had sent him. This person said that he had kind of secretly purchased this new flat and wanted to move in as soon as possible due to some personal reasons.
At the cafe, Roshan pushed the door open. He looked around - the cafe was full of couples all over each other. He looked into the corner. He saw the person sitting there. He started walking faster.
It was Siddharth.
**
The two moved out of the flat they were staying in in the next two weeks itself. They did not even say good bye to each other...
Roshan and Siddharth were room-mates for over two years. These days the two would often get into a verbal spat with one another. Roshan was frustrated with the daily arguments. He had decided to move out...
But how would Siddharth feel? Because despite the arguments, he did care for Siddharth atleast with respect to how he would feel.
Roshan came across this website www.find-a-flat-mate.com. He created a new email id looking4aflatmate@find-a-flat-mate.com and put up an ad for himself there.
His specifications were such that it would be difficult for him to find an offer, he knew. What he did not know that it would really take him so long to get a response from someone on the website.
One day he did. He was kind of happy. That night during dinner, he somehow could not look at Siddharth in the eye. Siddharth had cooked dinner for the two of them. Roshan felt like a ... back-stabber.
Meanwhile, he now had two responses on the website. One of them had newly purchased a flat, the other one was staying in an apartment on rent and was looking for someone to share the rent and the expenses. He had been exchanging emails with them daily.
Roshan nearly dropped his plan when Siddharth arranged a small birthday party for Roshan and even invited some of Roshan's friends over.
But now the responses looked too good to be true - he had seen the photographs of the flats. The location and the rent, it was a deal he could not miss. He decided to meet one of the respondents.
They were to meet at a cafe. Roshan decided to go directly from office. As he walked into the cafe, he remembered an email this person had sent him. This person said that he had kind of secretly purchased this new flat and wanted to move in as soon as possible due to some personal reasons.
At the cafe, Roshan pushed the door open. He looked around - the cafe was full of couples all over each other. He looked into the corner. He saw the person sitting there. He started walking faster.
It was Siddharth.
**
The two moved out of the flat they were staying in in the next two weeks itself. They did not even say good bye to each other...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Equal and opposite reactions
Imagine a hot afternoon. You are travelling by a train. This smartly dressed executive with a rather rude expression on his face occupies the seat opposite you. He looks at you as if you were a lowly creature. His eyebrows aren't straight, his neck is not parallel to the ground. Just like his attitude, his neck is slightly off the ground level.
Quite naturally, you start 'throwing the attitude back' to the person. And then the two of you enter a competition of sorts - where you are trying to outdo each other with your facial expressions.
A 'khunnas' gets a 'khunnas' most of the times.
**
Try smiling serenely at that person instead. I guarantee that the person will get confused. He will not know what to do. The 'rude' expression will vanish.
We know that we need to give 'equal' reactions. But we forget often that we need to give an 'opposite' reaction too.
How will blood for blood, eye for eye work? Let's combat hate with love. Failure with success. Disinterest with enthusiasm... Let the reactions be equal AND opposite.
Quite naturally, you start 'throwing the attitude back' to the person. And then the two of you enter a competition of sorts - where you are trying to outdo each other with your facial expressions.
A 'khunnas' gets a 'khunnas' most of the times.
**
Try smiling serenely at that person instead. I guarantee that the person will get confused. He will not know what to do. The 'rude' expression will vanish.
We know that we need to give 'equal' reactions. But we forget often that we need to give an 'opposite' reaction too.
How will blood for blood, eye for eye work? Let's combat hate with love. Failure with success. Disinterest with enthusiasm... Let the reactions be equal AND opposite.
Monday, March 16, 2009
A New Angle to the Slumdog discussion
This is an extension to the Slumdog post I had put up earlier on the blog.
My argument was the biased representation of India in a film like 'Slumdog' and the resultant acclaim that the film gets. This acclaim, in my opinion, directly comes from an attitude to look down upon the third world countries.
One of the interesting comments that I read for my blogpost was from Abhijeet. He said, "Would you still dislike the film if the film were set in Colombo, Sri Lanka or any other country apart from India?" While my first reactions were "Err... maybe.. uhmm...", I did gather myself to say, "Yes, I would still dislike the movie."
There's another angle to the whole discussion that I can think of. I bash 'Slumdog' up for negatively portraying Indians. What about the portrayal of foreigners in Indian films?
The foreigners in Hindi films of the 70s were the villians or their smuggler friends from abroad. Or they were the drug peddlers/the hippies.
There is one thing that has just never changed - all our Hindi movies like to force it on us that all western women are promiscuous and hence, there's always an easy way 'to get them'.
Isn't this a generalization/ a negative portrayal enough? If the poverty shown in 'Slumdog' encourages a tourist to tell a guide, "I want to see the slums of Dharavi", on the other hand, atleast 70% of men who go abroad the first time are utterly scared/utterly excited thinking of situations when they will be proposed by a drug peddler or a lovely white girl.
If non-Indian film critics have bashed up Indian movies for being immature and we say, "Yes, it s true to an extent.", why can't we say that Euro-American movies are highly generalized?
My argument was the biased representation of India in a film like 'Slumdog' and the resultant acclaim that the film gets. This acclaim, in my opinion, directly comes from an attitude to look down upon the third world countries.
One of the interesting comments that I read for my blogpost was from Abhijeet. He said, "Would you still dislike the film if the film were set in Colombo, Sri Lanka or any other country apart from India?" While my first reactions were "Err... maybe.. uhmm...", I did gather myself to say, "Yes, I would still dislike the movie."
There's another angle to the whole discussion that I can think of. I bash 'Slumdog' up for negatively portraying Indians. What about the portrayal of foreigners in Indian films?
The foreigners in Hindi films of the 70s were the villians or their smuggler friends from abroad. Or they were the drug peddlers/the hippies.
There is one thing that has just never changed - all our Hindi movies like to force it on us that all western women are promiscuous and hence, there's always an easy way 'to get them'.
Isn't this a generalization/ a negative portrayal enough? If the poverty shown in 'Slumdog' encourages a tourist to tell a guide, "I want to see the slums of Dharavi", on the other hand, atleast 70% of men who go abroad the first time are utterly scared/utterly excited thinking of situations when they will be proposed by a drug peddler or a lovely white girl.
If non-Indian film critics have bashed up Indian movies for being immature and we say, "Yes, it s true to an extent.", why can't we say that Euro-American movies are highly generalized?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Your eyes - Poem
(Completely Imaginary. And original, like all the posts on this blog.)
(And I just realized, I am not too good with poems)
(And I just realized, I am not too good with poems)
Your eyes.. they sing a song for me...
On the beats of the eyelashes..
Your eyes.. they make me shiver...
As they hover over my face...
Your eyes... they open and close...
Like the sun that sets only to rise again..
Your eyes... they make me realize..
Things that 'close' are the ones that are 'close'...
Your eyes.. they ask questions..
Your eyes.. they bring me answers..
Your eyes... the open-roofed house to heaven..
Your eyes.. the holders of my dark secrets....
Your eyes are no longer a window to your soul..
..they are a window to mine..
On the beats of the eyelashes..
Your eyes.. they make me shiver...
As they hover over my face...
Your eyes... they open and close...
Like the sun that sets only to rise again..
Your eyes... they make me realize..
Things that 'close' are the ones that are 'close'...
Your eyes.. they ask questions..
Your eyes.. they bring me answers..
Your eyes... the open-roofed house to heaven..
Your eyes.. the holders of my dark secrets....
Your eyes are no longer a window to your soul..
..they are a window to mine..
Literally Littering
(The title is quite a tongue-twister though it doesn't mean much.)
(I participated in an activity by Kritagnyata, a group formed by students of CSE Dept, IITB. It was a cleanliness drive with the intention of making people aware of their social commitment. Here are some after-thoughts.)
(I participated in an activity by Kritagnyata, a group formed by students of CSE Dept, IITB. It was a cleanliness drive with the intention of making people aware of their social commitment. Here are some after-thoughts.)
A poet long back said that death was the leveller - during and after death, everyone came to the same level. When one died, there was no difference left between the person and the ones who died in the past.
There is another leveller much before death on the time scale of a person's life. Let me talk about it...
We are done drinking our coffee. We hurl the empty glass somewhere on the road.
We read 'Crush after use' on the mineral water bottle and crush the bottle with all our force but we do not see the more easy-to-understand 'Keep your city clean' image on the bottle.
Littering is the great leveller. You may be a king, an officer, a teacher, a student or a door-to-door salesman - you may be just anyone. The moment the chocolate wrapper, the flowers in the plastic bag tightly tied up or the polythene bag containing absolutely anything leaves your hand and does not reach a dust bin.... you all, irrespective of region, religion, occupation, gender have come to the same level. FYI, this level is certainly lower than all the levels known.
****
A dumping ground is God. A Dumping ground is All-Powerful.
I can see the dumping ground smiling at me proudly. For it has brought (in better words, 'brought down') many men and women to the same level. All thanks to littering...
Friday, March 06, 2009
Kaala Kaala Kaala Bandar - Funny
Disclaimer: The incident described here is as real as the mountains and the clouds. Slightly exaggerated in terms of the description.
Location: An IIT-B Hostel Room
"Hey Kaala Kaala Kaala Bandar.. Kya hai yeh Sikandar...", I swayed to and fro on this bright sunny morning as this song played on my laptop.
I often do this. I create a playlist in the media player software and then go all about the place completely unattentive to the songs playing. But today for a change, I was listening to the song and ... dancing ( though I completely redefine the word) to it.
As I went round and round in circles, I realized that the window had opened.
I don't remember if my jaws dropped first or my hair stood on their ends first. All I remember seeing is a monkey on the table near the open window!
I screamed - harder than what Sunny Deol does in Gadar. But that thing with the tail just wouldn't move. It had pulled out an apple from the bowl kept on the table.
When I screamed, a second monkey jumped in from the window. I freaked out!!!
For nearly thirty to fourty seconds, all I remembering doing was screaming and trying to shoo them off with my bedsheet.
They just wouldn't move. Later, I started going closer to them and moving the bedsheet the way Shilpa Shetty moves her ghaaghra.
That seemed to have put them off - and they fled. I closed the window. Tightly.
Whew!
I came back to my laptop.
A cold fear gripped me again as I saw the media player window.
The next song in my playlist was "Main teri dushman, dushman tu meraa... Main naagin tu saperaa....".
Needless to say, for the next ten minutes, I was peeping in every nook and corner of the room and trying to find if I could hear a hissing sound from somewhere.
"Hey Kaala Kaala Kaala Bandar.. Kya hai yeh Sikandar...", I swayed to and fro on this bright sunny morning as this song played on my laptop.
I often do this. I create a playlist in the media player software and then go all about the place completely unattentive to the songs playing. But today for a change, I was listening to the song and ... dancing ( though I completely redefine the word) to it.
As I went round and round in circles, I realized that the window had opened.
I don't remember if my jaws dropped first or my hair stood on their ends first. All I remember seeing is a monkey on the table near the open window!
I screamed - harder than what Sunny Deol does in Gadar. But that thing with the tail just wouldn't move. It had pulled out an apple from the bowl kept on the table.
When I screamed, a second monkey jumped in from the window. I freaked out!!!
For nearly thirty to fourty seconds, all I remembering doing was screaming and trying to shoo them off with my bedsheet.
They just wouldn't move. Later, I started going closer to them and moving the bedsheet the way Shilpa Shetty moves her ghaaghra.
That seemed to have put them off - and they fled. I closed the window. Tightly.
Whew!
I came back to my laptop.
A cold fear gripped me again as I saw the media player window.
The next song in my playlist was "Main teri dushman, dushman tu meraa... Main naagin tu saperaa....".
Needless to say, for the next ten minutes, I was peeping in every nook and corner of the room and trying to find if I could hear a hissing sound from somewhere.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
B.Onus
Everything in the world comes for a price. From t-shirts in the display window of a mall to success at examinations. From a friend who knows you in and out to a reputation. All of these are fruits of something else. All of these are in fact, 'bonuses' bestowed upon us for good work.
But to get the 'bonus', one needs to 'Bear the Onus' - the onus, the responsibility of the work. Until we accept the work as a responsibility, we do not have a chance and the right to enjoy the bonus.
Every time you want a bonus, please know what 'Bonus' is telling you - it is in fact 'B Onus' - 'Bear the Onus'...
But to get the 'bonus', one needs to 'Bear the Onus' - the onus, the responsibility of the work. Until we accept the work as a responsibility, we do not have a chance and the right to enjoy the bonus.
Every time you want a bonus, please know what 'Bonus' is telling you - it is in fact 'B Onus' - 'Bear the Onus'...
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The End of a Hibernation
A fang appears from the perfectly-made round bore in the soil. A bore that was made in a way that not a ray of light could enter. With the support of the fang, the crab pulls itself out.
Its pace is a bit sluggish. It moves rather oddly and extremely slowly. But within no time, the crab begins to run - very weirdly, diagonally.
The crab had been in hibernation for long. Now, it has woken up. It wants to get back to the routine life as soon as possible...
----
To all the crabs who went into hibernation - due to a broken heart or a professional failure; as per a self-dawned idea or a 'friendly' advice by someone,
Let's get out of the hibernation. Let's wake up and bounce back in life. There are joys waiting for us out there...
Let's pull ourselves out of the bore that we dug for ourselves...
Its pace is a bit sluggish. It moves rather oddly and extremely slowly. But within no time, the crab begins to run - very weirdly, diagonally.
The crab had been in hibernation for long. Now, it has woken up. It wants to get back to the routine life as soon as possible...
----
To all the crabs who went into hibernation - due to a broken heart or a professional failure; as per a self-dawned idea or a 'friendly' advice by someone,
Let's get out of the hibernation. Let's wake up and bounce back in life. There are joys waiting for us out there...
Let's pull ourselves out of the bore that we dug for ourselves...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)