Force India Reveal 2010 F1 Challenger – The VJM03

Force India F1 Team today unveiled their car for the 2010 F1 season – the VJM03 Challenger. The launch was a low-key affair that took place on the internet, as many of the teams decided to shun glitzy launches in keeping with the cost cutting measures adopted by the sport.

The livery is not that much different from last year’s car and sports the predominant saffron, green and white hues from the tricolor. There’re no less than four UB Group’s beverage brands on the car – Whyte & Mackay, Royal Challenge, Signature and Kingfisher. Medion Mobile, Bridgestone, Geetanjali Gems and Reebok are the other brands adorning the car.

The car will be taken out on its first laps at this week’s test at Jerez, with drivers Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi sharing the duties in the 4-day test.

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Movie Review: Ishqiya

Its not often that I watch two new releases back-to-back. I usually pick one, and ignore the other till it either receives an obscene amount of recommendations or it comes on cable. But with Rann yesterday and Ishqiya today, I had to break that habit…coz both looked extremely promising and paisa-vasool. And let me say it: Ishqiya more so.

A shishya’s work may not better the guru’s but this effort from debutante director Abhishek Chaubey can be a potent example that it can come pretty close. Vishal Bharadwaj being the guru here and his Omkara, the comparative benchmark. But in all fairness, whilst Omkara was a re-telling of a Shakespearean saga, Ishqiya is penned by Vishal Bharadwaj, Sabrina Dhawan and Abhishek Chaubey and the latter in the role of the director, brings it on-screen in a delectable manner.

Ishqiya

Set in the bhayya belt of Uttar Pradesh, Ishqiya is the tale of two petty thieves – Khaalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi) who’re on the run from a goon who’ve they robbed and end up in sleepy Gorakhpur, taking refuge in the house of their old friend. The friend is dead now but his widow Krishna (Vidya Balan) gives them shelter nevertheless and decides to help them out when the goons threaten them with a pay-up-or-perish deadline. The three put their heads together and plan a sinister coup & as the plot unfolds layer-by-layer, several hidden truths and stealth motives come to light.

The seemingly odd love triangle between Khalujaan – Krishna – Babban is the highpoint of the movie and is quite well handled. Khalujaan’s romance is old-school, clean, pure, delicately developed around tender talks, mundane kitchen-tasks and nuanced by some old hindi film music from S D Burman and Hemant Kumar. Babban’s is raw, bashful, physical and lustful in nature. And fitted to the latest & raunchiest filmy tunes – something that highlights the generational gap between the protagonists. Krishna plays up to both advances with aplomb and suavely manages to manipulate both to her advantage.

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Movie Review: Rann

Rann has been a long-standing dream project of Ram Gopal Varma. He has been itching to make a movie that attempts to unmask the truths & facts that go behind the capturing, creating, packaging and presenting of what we commonly know as News. Having just seen the movie, I’m slightly disappointed in RGV, for Rann showcases what effectively is a mere drop in the ocean, it exposes but a single shameful escapade, a sinister plot that has a greater significance in the balance shift but a triviality nevertheless!

Whether Ramu has in mind a sequel (or two) I’m not sure but this one is just an episode. He might have as well said “Stay tuned…we’ll be back” at the end of it all!

Rann

Vijay Dinanth Chauhan…er…beg your pardon, Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) is the face of India 24×7 News Channel and the most trusted media journalist out there. But popularity and trust doesn’t beget the TRP’s and the channel is losing out on this front to newer, more effervescent and more ‘masaledaar’ channels – of which Amrish Kakkar’s (Mohnish Bahl) Headlines24 is topmost. Jay Malik (Sudeep), VHM’s son and the channel’s CEO wants money & success and when new shows’ plots and titles are blatantly leaked off to rival channels, he’s at his wit’s end. The situation is ably taken advantage of by industrialist Naveen Shankalya (Rajat Kapoor) and opposition leader Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal).

Thus begins a deadly and sinister game of comeuppance, within which Vijay becomes the cat’s paw and aspiring journalist Purab Shastri (Riteish Deshmukh), the unwilling spectator. To paraphrase one of the movie’s dialog: “In the quest for power, the media is bought out by the industrialists and politicians and the news is not told, but made” Read more

Paper of Fortune

So it happened that I was at Ming’s Court earlier today…you know, the speciality Chinese cuisine restaurant from the Ohri’s group, and once we finished our meal, they passed around few fortune cookies. Now I don’t believe in these fortune cookies/astrologers/palmists/parrot/tarot stuff but at my friend’s insistence, took up two of them (different coloured ones) and just out of curiosity, read them aloud:

“Your ingenuity and imagination will get results”

Ahem…I’m not one to blow my own trumpet but that actually sounded true :mrgreen: and was feeling quite smug about it…until the 2nd one was read aloud:

“An unexpected relationship will become permanent”

Whoosh! Bang! Crash! There came down the hope that these cookies were kinda good natured, if not really prophetic! Why otherwise would they contain such scary stuff? Any of you readers believe in this stuff and if yes, have they really been truthful? Do lemme know…

P.S: We were back to believing they were partly truthful when my friend read aloud his: “You are more likely to give in!” :twisted:

Bhogi, Pongal & Sankranthi Wishes

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Bhogi, a Colourful Pongal and a Delightful Makar Sankranthi…

Bhogi Pongal Sankranthi Wishes

Enjoy the long weekend ahead…

Idea Cellular Ad – Use Mobile, Save Paper

Seen the newest Idea Cellular advertisement featuring Abhishek Bachchan as a tree, exhorting people to Use Mobiles and Save Paper?

Its part of the “Save Paper” campaign by the Aditya Birla Group – http://usemobilesavepaper.in/index.php. Exactly how they we’re to go about doing it is still a bit unclear to me :oops: maybe a part II of the campaign will be unveiled soon.

For starters, Idea themselves can stop selling their chota recharge vouchers on paper and do away with the booklets and manuals that accompany a new connection :P

What an Idea, sirjee! :cool:

New Year Wishes…

As the old rolls out and comes the new
Hope it brings cheers and joy anew
Let the sorrows and hardships of the year last
Be long gone and something that’s left in the past

Usher in the new year with friends and family
Spread the happiness and celebrate ordinarily
A close gathering is best of the lot
Coz opulence and gaiety are soon forgot

Newer challenges and goals are that lie ahead
Chuck the failures and put them to bed
Cast your net afar and wide
The new decade will turn the tide

Be true to what you believe and cast away your fear
Rue not the sorrow that brought you a tear
Keep your friends close and so too your near and dear
Remember that I’ve penned this to wish you a Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year 2010 

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Christmas Cheer…

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Cheerful New Year to come…

Merry Christmas [Pic Courtesy Santabanta.com]