Love Aaj Kal : Review

Short : Good movie. Excellent screenplay, editing and direction. Old story. Fun filled and exhilarating. Good ROI :)

Long :The movie depicts two facets of love, both portrayed by Saif. 'Kal' ka love, is typical old movie ishtyle love which surprises with its clear headed direction. It is an old story portrayed differently and still wins hearts.

'Aaj' ka love is equally breathtaking. Saif and Deepika do justice to their roles though there was scope for improvement. Direction, screenplay and editing cover up for it. In the end, you think you know what's gonna happen but then it suddenly changes track and makes you say, Wow! In short, it is a fun filled joy-ride. Amazing locations in London, San Francisco and specially Delhi, make you wonder how beautiful this world is!

Go watch it. It is definitely worth the money. :)

Notes From Chinnaswamy

My observations from the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore: (I watched third day's play of first test match between India vs Australia LIVE at the stadium)

Logistics...

0. Getting on the spot tickets for one day of a test match in Bangalore even on a weekend was not at all difficult. You only need to reach stadium two and a half hours earlier and stand in a queue. Everything else flows smoothly.

1. I loved the first sight of the ground. Such a beauty! But my idea of cricket grounds was hit big time. C'mon! Even I can hit a four (or a six for that matter) on Chinnaswamy. Ground did not at all seem too big.

2. There was a decent arrangement of chairs in the stand. Refreshments were available just outside the stand on a little highr than normal price. Whole stadium is covered for spectators so one need not carry an umbrella even if ones' Yahoo! Weather widget predicts thunderstorms.

Now coming to pre-match scenario..

3 . One hour before the start of play, Gary Kirsten arrives into the stadium with MOST of the team members. They divided themselves in two groups and played a rugby-like game (part where players fall over each other- was missing) . Senior players other than Sachin were least bothered to get the ball and score a goal for their team. Dhoni and Bhajji were the most active players. Others were just making up the numbers.

4. Next, all of them formed a circle. Gary took the center and started exercising. Players tried to follow him. But sad part is that they were never in sync even while doing the exercises.

5. A peek into pre-match batting practice time: Sachin (1-2 minutes), Dravid (2-4 minutes), Saurav (5 minutes), Laxman (3-4 minutes), Sehwag (3-4 minutes), Gambhir (5-7 minutes)........HARBHAJAN (15-20 minutes). NOT surprisingly Harbhajan ended up as the highest scorer of the day (with a half century). After all, practice makes a man perfect :D.

Cricket :) ....the game begins...

6. If you are not sitting in the stands right in front of the pitch, you won't be able to guess the line of the delievery :( , which happened with us. You also struggle to notice if somebody gets out.

7. And the worst part is that, they don't show replay for dismissals even on that large electronic screen. They do show replays for a few select delieveries (which don't raise a umpiring error concern) .

8. Harbhajan was definitely the best batsmen on that day. Everybody else struggled more than him. Dravid edged more than ten delieveries and Ganguly was very uncomfotable at crease. Sachin looked good but did not last long.

9. It also drizzled for some time and play was held up. Got bored during the break. But Harbhajan made sure we got the worth of our money. He played some exquisite strokes all around the ground.

summing it up...

10. It was a great experience for a cricket addict such as me. I loved every part of it.

I Love media :D

Just a few months back, when India and Australia were giving each other some really hard time ..media was all over it, debating what does the 'right spirit of game' mean. Most of them came out with the conclusion that they should limit themselves to exchanging prolonged stares and nothing more than that, they should not claim contentious catches etc etc.

Now when India followed the 'ICC Guidelines' ...they were taken aback. They wanted some news. Whole seven hours of play went by and no news of exchange of words ! They also need something for telecasting till next day :P. Few of them came up with stupid headlines which marked their frustration more than anything else.

"From fierce to antiseptic cricket' claimed one news channel.

My Comment to the editor of that headline: Go get a life..dude !

Friday fry !

Another friday ! I have been thinking of getting out of the office at the earliest since the moment I arrived. I have lots of work to do - even mentor pressure for the same ! Still I post it to kill time !

T2 on traffic woes

category: Fantasy
target: Traffic problems

26th April, 2008
8.40 PM

One fine day, T2 accidentally lands on earth (So he must be an alien) while on an inter-planet trip. Fortunately (or unfortunately), place where he ended up was a busy Bangalore traffic signal. He was frightened to see some things - having two shiny eyes, different sizes (some small...others larger), different shapes and making different noises. But he was quite intelligent. Very soon he realized that these were sort of vehicles used by inhabitants of earth to go to places. Then, why did they have to stop in between ? Nobody gets down but the vehicle is stationary ! He was pretty surprised when realized(through his own understanding) that because there are too many vehicles in each direction, few have to stop to let others go.

''How could they be so dumb? (Traffic system of his own planet flashed into his mind) Why do they run vehicles only at the surface? Why can't they utilize the whole space God has given them, as we do it ! They could build parallel paths one over another at suitable heights and design new type of vehicles to commute easily, effectively and quickly. Why don't they think in that direction ? They must be technically backward'', he thought. I will look odd if i stay here any longer. He did something with his wristband and flew away in a flash.

26th April, 2008
8.41PM

Krazzy 4 : Review

Category: Movie Review
Movie: Krazzy 4
Director: Rakesh Roshan
Cast: Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Irfan Khan, Diya Mirza, Juhi Chawla, Rajat Kapoor and Sazid Khan
Run-Length: 2 hours (Approx.)

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Verdict: You need not watch the movie even once. You can safely assume that it's bad.

I watched it yesterday. Abhinay theater reminded me of the auditorium of my college. For a few moments I thought I was back to BITS, Pilani..but reality struck soon !

Krazzy 4 has some of the finest modern day actors and each of them has his individual style of acting. But even some individual brilliances can not hide the loose script and out-of-the-place dialogues. None of the actors were allowed their characteristic style by the script. It seemed like they (the actors) were the kings behind bars.

Movie does not take off even till interval. Even before you are set in your seats, it's interval. First half fails to generate interest to sit through the next. Second half is slightly better (that's why movie gains 0.5 ratings :D ). When it ends, you can't decide whether it was a comedy movie or a melodrama. It is a terrible mix of things. Story is okay but converting such a story into a two hour movie is rather tricky that is exactly where the movie fails to impress.

Only thing worth watching in the movie is the item number by Rakhi (for male audience),SRK and Hritik (for all :D). Surely you would not like to pay a hefty amount for just that.
You don't expect such products from the same director who gave us 'Koi Mil Gaya', ' Kaho Naa Pyar Hai' and 'Krrish'. Well ! Just avoid going to theater for 'Krazzy 4' !!

A trip to Hogenakkal Falls

Quick Details

Category - Travel
Place - Hogenakkal Falls
Distance from Bangalore - 190 kms
Time required one way - 3 Hrs
Things to carry - Drinking water, cap, fast food is available at the place still i'll prefer to carry it along
What to see - Hogenakkal fallls
I liked - Lovely ride on NH-7 with amazing surroundings, taking a shower under falls while sitting in coracle, playing in calm running shallow water close to small beach nearby.
Total Expense- 600-1000 Rs per head (It was 650 Rs/head for us.)

Bangalore has got good hang out places around. We have visited Nandi Hills, Meekadatu etc earlier. This week the gang planned a trip to Hogenakkal Falls. Most of us, for belonging to north India, could not even pronounce the name of the place and so didn't even have much information about the place just except a little details available from internet.

We booked a qualis and nine of us started quite early in the morning. We left at 6 AM from Bangalore for no particular reason. We weren't even sure of the distance but assumed it to be around 150 kms. Journey to the place was really good. Most part of it was set on beautiful National Highway No 7. Colorful flowers on the dividers and amazing natural scenarios around the highway made the journey outstanding. We reached there by 9 AM. We looked for a place to eat found a small shop offering Dosas nearby. It was the best Dosa (Plain dosa) I ever had in south India. Most of us were really satisfied with that breakfast. Then we went for sightseeing. There were so many boat-riders who encircled us and requested to take a ride to waterfall in their boat. The fare they quoted was very high as per the expectations - 110 rs a head for a round trip to fall and nearby places and double the amount if we stayed there for a while. After some bargaining we settled for 400 Rs a boat (which could carry maximum 6 people). We made an offer to pay extra amount if we wished to stay there.

Ride in the peculiar boat called coracle or puttu was special. It was a round boat which could carry maximum of six passengers. It needed some extra skill to push that boat through the waters in a particular direction. The boat-owner took us close to a smaller fall and made us feel the water. We all were wet and there was quite a lot water in the boat too. But it was a great experience. Then he took us to a small beach close by. After seeing the place we decided to stay for a while in exchange of extra money and enjoy in running water. We played in the running water for almost an hour. It was really fun being in that clean cold water with the group.

We set to depart at 2.30 pm. As we had not taken our lunch, we decided to stop roadside on NH-7. We prepared sandwiches and had cold drinks. Then we went atop a small hill close by. View from the top of it was breathtaking. We enjoyed ourselves throughout the trip and reached to the outskirts of Bangalore around 7 pm. And then it started to rain !! Traffic became really slow and crippled badly. We could barely move our car for an hour. After wasting 2 hours to traffic we could finally reach home at 10 pm. In all, it proved to be an exciting trip- full of fun.

BMTC Buses without Conductors

I am a daily traveler. This post is with regards to bus number 171. I have seen many of these running without conductors daily between Koramangala signal and Adugodi. But I do believe that there exist many other such buses and they complete their route in similar fashion everyday. Anyone more enlightened is welcome to put forth the reasons behind such practice.

Nowhere on the earth (its part which I have visited :D) I have seen buses running without conductors and with driver taking care of their jobs ! BMTC runs several such buses in Bangalore. I am not aware of the reason. Don't they have enough number of conductors ? or are they trying to train bus drivers in multitasking ? Whatever be the reason but the situation is definitely alarming.

I have seen a few drivers in such buses tend to drive while distributing tickets among passengers. They lose their focus on driving while doing that. This is a very very dangerous practice which must be stopped right away as it can lead to serious accidents. Among other problems, these buses stop too much at each bus stop because drivers take enough time to distribute tickets. BMTC also loses lot of revenue because many passengers deceive them easily by quickly going past the driver seat when they get on board. I hope BMTC is thinking to resolve this problem either by recruiting more people to do the job or by taking such buses off roads.

Traveling by Air: A First timer's experience

I have fantasized it for long enough - traveling by air back to my home. Finally the day came on 20th february when i boarded DN-606 from Bangalore HAL airport to fly to Jaipur. I had booked my tickets some fifteen days back, thanks to a very attractive facility provided by Air Deccan to get the tickets booked through post offices. Indira Nagar post office system was out of order so I had to book it through the Koramangala Post Office and what a mess that person created !! He clicked 'print' before the page had loaded. And as was expected nothing came out of the printer.
Oh did i mention- the post office had been using a 1942 model ( the man himself told me) dot matrix printer for printing the flight tickets ! Well ! somehow I got the tickets when a wiser man refreshed and clicked print after the page had loaded. It had to pay more than i had anticipated. Coming back to the main day, flight DN-606 was scheduled to depart at 10.15 hrs. i arrived at the airport by 7.30 and checked with the Deccan counter about the status of the flight. flight was on schedule but check-in was going to start only by 8.15. Right at the starting time I checked in and got a window seat (5A). I also wanted to experience the baggage handling so i gave my only baggage as a check-in luggage. Everything went smooth, from check-in to security check to boarding. It was a good new A320 aircraft and cabin crew was nice and helping. Flight got delayed by half an hour in mumbai so we landed in Jaipur little later than expected. Jaipur airport seemed to be much smaller and baggages were on conveyor instantly ! My cousin had come to receive me.
Well ! The main thing i wanted to post is about the return journey via DN-605 from Jaipur to Bangalore. Even this flight was good enough. Flight landed almost on time and Deccan exceeded my expectation. But after arriving at Bangalore airport, i moved to an empty conveyor to receive my baggage. But Deccan announced that baggages were available at another conveyor which had already been supplying baggages for a Kingfisher flight ! There was a lot of rush and confusion. i received my bag after waiting for almost half an hour. No Body cross checked my baggage with my boarding pass !! It effectively meant that anybody could have got away with any baggage of their liking.
But apart from that one issue my travel was quite comfortable and I enjoyed it.