Facts n Fiction

Waiting for the signal to turn green, I was all set to zoom off the signal and reach movie theater at the earliest. No, I was not getting late for the movie, I was well in time, 90 minutes in advance for the movie. The “rush” and “hurry” was to secure a parking space. Yes, lately things have been worse with so many cars flooding the streets all of a sudden. Go anywhere and to parking your car is no less than an art of jugglery. Front-reverse-look left, right-take turn-squeeze in-no luck-take reverse-search again, is the kind of stunt I required to do every time I needed to park my car. I had just contemplated a situation, thinking about the launch of Tata’s new Rs. 1 Lac car. Popularly deemed as the “Peoples Car”, this affordable family car would supposedly transform many middle class dreamers into car owners. However, the car’s entry seems to be a little misfit; imagine the number of cars that you will see around when every single household will own one. The Indian economy already bo

Right from Rakesh Roshan in "Khatta Meetha" singing “Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai” to Mr. SRK saying “Thoda aur wish karo” , and we all included in between, nobody seems to be satisfied with what we have. This sentiment candidly reflected itself when I looked (and heard) people around me lately. I had experienced a similar thing long back when I was with a BPO. And now I am into IT sector, a growth story just preceding retail and realty boom. When in BPO, I saw people hoping jobs for a meager Rs. 5,000 raise and still continue with the similar work at the new place. From Intelenet to Daksh to WNS to Spectramind, it felt like a touch-and-go game. Many of them just juggled their careers in Mindspace, Mumbai, supposedly a heaven of call centers and BPOs. And things haven’t changed much, now I see people leaping (at the same level) from one IT firm to the other and to some other. Reason – 10% rise in salary and may be more. Truly, the quest for money does not end. I am not

Last Saturday, while in Mumbai, I witnessed a power failure and ‘no-electricity’ condition in some places that I visited that evening (strange coincidence, I thought). I was kind of irritated and while sharing this distress with my friend, I came to know about an initiative “Mumbai Unplug: Batti Bandh” . However, my friend wasn’t sure about what it was either. I later found out that Mumbaikars can voluntarily switch off their electricity on Saturday for an hour from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. This was something that had derived its inspiration from Sydney’s “Earth Hour” concept, an initiative to fight against global warming. Some articles in newspapers next day carried detailed information on the “Batti Bandh” initiative. However, all reported that the response to this initiative was poor with people participating only in few pockets of the city. Many corporate houses, restaurants, offices, residential complexes took part. However, hoardings, malls, and multiplexes remained brightly lit. The

You will make a fool out of yourself if you go to watch “Dus Kahaniyaan” with intentions of finding something common in the 10 short stories shown in the movie. There is no common plot, no common origin or end between the stories. This anthology of short films is nothing but an attempt to showoff, polish, and learn directorial skills. All fail however. I did not understand what Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Dutt were trying to do with all the money that they have, as “Dus Kahaniyaan” turns out to be a real messy viewable experience. One would quite surely get impressed with the style, camera effects, shots taken etc, but that’s if you don’t understand movies. The content and the story telling are pathetic. I think Ram Gopal Varma is good at this – taking some stories and weaving them into a thriller. The short stories, “Matrimony”, “Zahir”, “High on the Highway”, “Sex on the beach” are a real pain and unbearable in terms of content quality. All these just bring out negative elements like d

Ever since my childhood, I have seen people recommending something to someone; it could be their friends, relatives, colleagues, and so on. For e.g. my mom used to tell some aunt the new mixer we just bought is very nice and even she should buy it. Then there was my uncle who used to tell my dad to buy some policy or invest money somewhere or buy a house at a particular location. As I grew up, I saw many people doing it to me as well. When it was buying school uniform, some recommended me to ABC tailor and some others to XYZ tailor, for books it was either stationery shop or some other. A little older, then it was the turn of college friends, “udhar ka wada khate hai, mast hota hai”, “buy a jeans from that shop, its good quality and reasonable” , and many such recommendations floating around me and each one of us ofcourse all the time. And I grew older, out of college, ready to start a career. Again a lot of recommendations, which company to join, what and where to eat, and what to buy

Sanjay Dutt was released from Yerwada jail and every bit of detail regarding this was flowing on almost all news channels. I was casually going through few channels and got tired of the repeated coverage on all of them. However, one channel’s analysis on Dutt’s arrests and releases made me wait on that channel for sometime. And I was really surprised with the content quality, topic for analysis, and details covered in that news piece. I really pitied that channel, which probably struggled to get any fruitful news or anything that is actually news. I wonder what a correct definition of news is. The news and analysis was something like, Sanjay Dutt’s arrests and releases, and the differences in his appearances at respective times. In 1993, when Dutt was released he was thin, with long hair, and he was greeting people with a ‘namaskaar’ pose. However, now in 2007 he was strong, well-built, with short hair, and a beard. Amazing news, and what an awesome comparative analysis. In 1993 he ha

“Om Shanti Om” (OSO), supposedly the pompous movie of the year is full of spoof, colors, drama, action, romance, personalities from Indian film industry, and all the ingredients required for a masala movie. I was not expecting anything big or special from the movie, and Farah Khan has delivered just what is expected from her, considering her earlier directorial attempt – " Mein Hoon Na" . And there are mixed reviews on the movie (OSO). However, I found it to be entertaining and tickled your funny bones at times. I won’t go into comments on acting or songs or direction or any other aspects of the movie, as there are too many already floating. I enjoyed it and what I enjoyed the most was the lively song, “Deewangi Deewangi” , which had too many stars of the industry, and ofcourse has good composition, music, and presentation. I can still visualize that song and think about so many people in that single song. Having had enough effect of that song on me, I started wondering how