Bus Ride!

The return back to home from watching RDB was something of a memorable sojourn for me. For, after a gap of almost 14 years, I was travelling in a Double Decker bus . If I remember right, the last time I had boarded one was in 1992-93 when I Visited my folks at Malakpet & there was a bus from DSNR that meandered through Tank bund. That time I was sitting bang in front & yesterday too I grabbed the coveted Front seat at the top

Thanks to UsabilityMatters for the Image.
Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

Once the exhiliration subsided, I was privy to the Traffic Chaos that abound in Hyderabad almost every weekend.My journey took me through 5 of the most crowded Junctions-Punjagutta-Ameerpet-Maitrivanam-SRNagar-ESI X Roads.And the view-from-the-top showed me why exactly Traffic is in such a mess! None of the people on the road had any traffic-sense whatsoever.They lacked the basic common-sense of not cutting into lanes meant for others! everyone was feeling that he’s the King of the Road. Be it a Luna-wallah or a Maruti-wallah or an RTC Bus Driver or a Volvo-Driver. Everyone is jostling to get outta the jam, thus complicating it further. A journey that normally takes 40-50 Minutes, took an awesome 90 Mins!!!!

Rang De Basanti

 

Watched the Movie after a very long wait….more than amonth in fact! And the wait seemed well worth it,initially at least. But the Climax of the movie diluted the impact to a great extent! So much that I am tempted to rate this one as a damp squib

Agreed that the movies got rave reviews and though not a runaway success, is getting some heavy accolades. Quite rightly also. The movie is not the run-of-the-mill kinda bollywood stuff but can be classified as an ‘Offbeat’ one. I’ll not bother with re-narrating the story but would like to point out that the performances were First-Rate. Aamir khan is fantastic as the pivot of the movie and delivers a great perfromance. Unlike Aamir’s other movies, he doesn’t dominate totally though! Atul Kulkarni & Soha Ali Khan stand out and even Kunal Kapoor & Sharman Joshi are very efficient.But its Siddharth, who manages to hold his own with is brooding demeanour & silent intensity. Alice Patten as Sue- the Foreigner making the movie on Indian Revolutionaries, is ok in the first half but gets hysterical & tends to go overboard in the latter half.

For me, the movie had two big flaws-both in the second half. The songs are ill-placed in the screenplay & tend to slow down the proceedings. Though most of them are background scores, they stick out like a sore thumb . And the constant switching between the past & the present, though innovative, is very repetitive & gets on one’s nerves after sometime! The director tries to draw comparisons to the present events & the ones in the past, but at that attempt, he plays once too often with the Sepia tints & all and frankly, makes a hash of it towards the end. Om Puri is totally wasted. Any actor could have playes his role. A Brilliant actor like him certainly deserved more screen-space.So did Anupam Kher. The Father-Son tensions between Siddharth & Kher was shown for only one scene which was none-too-impressive. Ditto Kunal Kapoor-Om Puri.In comparsion, Aamir-Kirron garnered much more attention.

As i said before, the movie’s real dampener was the Climax. The very guys who went to the extent of gunning down the Defence minister to expose the sytem’s inadequacies are gunned down! But by Whom? Who was behind it all? Nothing is made clear about that! Inspite of the media screaming hoarse that they were just students, they were done to death…no justification is shown for that.Does the director want to convey that their act was wasted? All it did was ignite a spark in other youngsters…but what won’t the killing act as a deterrent for them? Ok, since in the past Bhagat Singh et al were put to the Gallows, is the current generation facing the Gallows of Death by bullets? Is that what he meant to convey? I’m at a loss to understand.

All in all, a well-made movie, but could have been better-handled,esp. the Climax. If presented with the chance, I’d watch it again but mayn’t stay till the end. Music is certainly one Plus point for it. Great tunes by Rahman,ably supported by Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics. Naresh Iyer stands out as a good singer.I’d rate the movie a Two-and-a-Half out of Five!

A Gift from Hutch

Yesterday I received a Li’l gift from Hutch -The Cellular Operator, in the form of some free talktime. Had received an SMS cofirming that my a/c has been recharged with a talktime of 180/-. I did’nt quite realise why or how i got that. I had recharged a week ago and couldn’t fathom as to how it happened.

And then it dawned upon me! Hutch has this e-topup facility by which customers can get their account recharged at any authorised agent

Recharge your Hutch Prepaid Card anywhere, anytime. All you have to do is walk into the nearest Hutch retail outlet and ask for an eTop-Up. Pay for the recharge amount of your choice. And your prepaid card will be recharged instantly. You will also get an SMS confirming the same

Some poor soul must’ave approached an agent for recharging and the guy must’ave keyed in my number by mistake and thatz how I came to get the amount on my a/c. I presume the dealer did’nt get his money since the customer never got the recharge! Poor Soul! But I’ll take it as a blessing in disguise

Humming in Moi head!

I had heard this song some years back,when my roomie was a hardcore English Song premi! As the years progressed, I slowly grew outta it…but I dunno why, the song came into my mind allovasudden…….i mean..there’s just no explanation…I was just going about with my work when I started humming it :-0 ……Wierd!!!

The song in question is Lobo’s I’d Love you to want me:

I’d Love You To Want Me

When I saw you standing there I about fell off my chair When you moved your mouth to speak I felt the blood go to my feet Now it took time for me to know What you tried so not to show Something in my soul just cried I see the want in your blue eyes Chorus : Baby, I’d love you to want me The way that I want you The way that it should be Baby, you’d love me to want you The way that I want to If you’d only let it be You told yourself years ago You’d never let your feelings show The obligation that you made For the title that they gave Baby, I’d love you to want me The way that I want you The way that it should be Baby, you’d love me to want you The way that I want to If you’d only let it be Now it took time for me to know What you tried so not to show Something in my soul just cried I see the want in your blue eyes Baby, I’d love you to want me The way that I want you The way that it should be Baby, you’d love me to want you The way that I want to If you’d only let it be

Now I’ve been searching High n low to D/l this song……..Hope I find it lest I go crazy!!!

Oh So Costly Piece O’ Earth!

Many Hyderabadis would have glanced at the headlines in today’s paper: Rs. 1.19 lakhs per square yard of land!

But the interesting piece of news is that the land in question is Just infront of our office! Bang in Front! I remember, just the  other day I & moi colleague were glancing at the land from the top storey and wondering why It was being kept vacant? It was in a Prime locality- at an important junction. Commercially, it mayn’t be viable to build a Mall or a Multiplex here but for MNC’s & IT Parks, it ‘appeared’ to be a good choice.Not so in hindsight! Coz the land is a Hilly one; digging for water would be a PITA!!! And as it adjoins the vast open KBR park, it is prone to wind gusts, high weather & rain alike- from one side atleast

Anyways, will be interesting to see what comes out there over the course of say, another 5 years! I may or mayn’t be here to watch the edifice go up, though

McLaren’s New MP4-21

McLaren-Mercedes racing team have unveiled the pix of their new car-the stunningly beautiful MP4-21. Sometime ago, they had the pics on their site but they were of the ruddy-yellow-coloured prototype :|

Here are the latest snaps of the skeen n Silvery beast….drool away!!!

 

 

 

Meanwhile, there was this disturbing piece of news that McLaren were behind schedule for their new V-8 engine.

Mercedes Motorsport chief Norbert Haug insists there was no reason to panic after admitting they are up against the clock in order to resolve a series of technical issues with their new V8 engine.

McLaren, who were plagued with mechanical reliability last season, are once again struggling to come to terms with the FO108S unit fitted to McLaren’s new MP4-21 which has so far lacked both reliability and power in winter testing.Despite having one of the most striking cars on the grid for 2006, Haug confessed time was running out and that the programme was behind schedule before the start of the Formula One season in March.

“I openly admit that we are not where we want to be with the V8 programme,” he told this week’s Autosport magazine.The timescale is tight and we have some problems. Will we have it 100 percent solved before Bahrain; who knows?” However, Haug insisted that reports that it could not rev beyond 17,500rpm — as much as 2,000rpm shy of major rivals — were “exaggerated” and that “we’re not panicking”.

McLaren, who finished runners-up to Renault in 2005 suffered five mechanical retirements last season even though they were acknowledged to have the fastest car on the grid.

Naminators….a whole lot of them!

An interesting banter that I had with colleagues led me to make this post. Many of us must have ,at one time or another, come across some wierd sites that offer the visitors some unique, funny, cacaphonical names. If you haven’t , then I’ll presume that you’re a n00bie to the 3W and urge you to be l33t!!!

Some of them I tried myself are:

The Hobbit Naminator according to which, I am Borgulas Knotwise of Michel Delving!!!

The Afghan Terrorist Naminator according to which, I am Misukin Alah Offen!!!

The Middle-Earth Naminator according to which, I am Porto Brandybuck from Greenfields!!!

The Mafia Naminator according to which, I am Fancy Pants Roberto!!!

The Fairy Naminator according to which, I’ve a fairy called Bold ElfGlitter!!!

The Pentagon CodeNaminator according to which, I’m Safe NightHawk!!!

The Vampire Naminator according to which, I am Curse of Paris!!!

The JEDI Naminator according to which, my JEDI Name is CHIYE AABER of the planet DCold!!!

The Pirate Naminator according to which, my pirate name is:Morty Rackham

You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

The Sci-Fi Naminator :

The Cyborg Naminator :

Get a whole lot of them Here or Here

Real beat ManUtd!

Not in a Football game though! (thankfully!!) Real Madrid FC have overtaken Manchester United as the World’s Richest Soccer Club!

The Football Money League report published by consultants Deloitte on Thursday also shows that combined revenues from the game’s top 20 earning teams broke through the three billion euros (2 billion pounds) barrier for the first time.

Real’s income of 275.7 million euros (188 million pounds) for the 2004-05 season saw the club’s revenue grow 17 percent year-on-year, dislodging United (168 million pounds) from top spot for the first time in the report’s nine-year history.

Much of Real’s success was down to the Spanish club capitalising on the global appeal of players like David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, and Ronaldo, the report said.

Source