Sunday, April 29, 2007

End of another weekend..

In a few hours from now, it's gonna be Monday morning, and the start of another monotonous week. I am starting to believe that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday have no legs, because they really seem to crawl! Saturday and Sunday must have wings, because they literally fly past you!

Another week where I have to commute to the distant suburb called Borivali, and back again. (And try to do some work in between these two trips). What a life....
Aha. Got some info on my previous blog's topic, after some research.... Here is a shamlessly lifted link from indiainfo.com :

http://movies.indiainfo.com/2007/04/27/hansika.html

So that girl is indeed Hansika motwani. Hmm.

The Return of Himesh

Himesh Reshammiya has made a comeback to Bollywood after a refreshing break(for us). Though I hate this guy from the bottom, top, inside and outside of my heart, he still keeps amazing me all the time. He's composed music(?), lent his voice(??) to his songs, now he's starring(hahahah) in a film of his own!! Boy, this dude's really got the guts to stretch his luck this far. What next? Direction? Production? Choreography?

And that new girl paired with him... why is she being called "Riyaa" ??.. To my eyes, she is the little girl Hansika Motwani from Koi Mil gaya, now grown up. There are so many people with similar sounding names... Riya, Riyaa, Rimi, Rimii, Rima, Reema, Raima.. (Oi Maa!!) I've lost count of them. By the way, she was supposed to debut with Mithun's son Mimoh right? Guess she couldn't resist Himesh's offer...

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Ta Ra Rum Pum..

Just finished listening to the songs of Ta Ra Rum Pum. Can't stop raving about one particular song - 'Saiyaan Ve'. What a beauty of a song. Easily the best song in an otherwise boring soundtrack. It starts off with a folksy guitar, then progresses on to some Western percussion beats, finally blending and playing in tandem with the dholak. And you can't miss the rock pieces from an electric guitar throughout the song, plus the occasional title piece on a piano and the folksy guitar instrument providing the accompaniment. Phew! One hell of an amazing sound arrangement!

Sung by the music director Vishal Dadlani himself, this touching yet inspirational song is a winner all the way. It's difficult to believe that this is the same guy who sang the Western-sounding title track of Dhoom 2. Here he sounds like a combination of Kailash Kher and KK. Very classical, very soulful, very indian. Javed Akhtar, as he always does, delivers top-class lyrics the way only he can. Don't miss this track! Miss the film, but not this track!

Monday, April 23, 2007

India Whining... Are we overdoing it?

Three people - a Japanese, an American and an Indian were conversing.

Japanese : In Japan, even cats can understand English!
Americans: In America, even dogs go to space!
Indian : In India, even donkeys play the cricket World Cup!

The above SMS is currently doing the rounds after India's sudden and unexpected exit from the World Cup. The advertisers have lost money and the fans have lost faith. Everyone is deriving great pleasure commenting about the bleak future of Indian cricket. Suddenly, India-bashing has become the "in" thing nowadays. The cricket team itself is facing the heat from all quarters. Since the day it lost to Sri Lanka and bowed out, I regularly read in the newspapers about the various ways in which the team is getting screwed. From pay cuts to curtailments in product endorsements , the BCCI is severely cracking the whip on the players.

In such circumstances, I can't help but feel sympathy for Dravid and his boys. This article is not to condone their below-par performance in the World Cup. But one seriously needs to examine whether the Indian team's performance is really as bad as it is being made out to be.

Let's look at things from a statistical point of view. India played just three matches in the World Cup. In one of those matches India not only won, but also notched up the highest One-day total in World Cup history, and also won by the greatest margin in World cup history. Agreed this was against a team like Bermuda, but you've got to give them credit for what they did. As far as the loss against Sri Lanka is concerned, you can't really be too harsh on the team for it, considering the fact that both Sri Lanka and India are more or less evenly matched. Either of them could have defeated the other on any particular day.

Thus we come to the main argument of the critics, the loss to Bangladesh. Almost everybody had assumed that India would win against Bermuda and Bangladesh, and go through to the next round. The match against Sri Lanka would then have been mostly irrelevant to India's chances. By that one loss to Bangladesh, India screwed up their World Cup party. One loss for a team, One huge loss for Indian cricket. No doubt India played badly in that match. But hey come on folks, it was a one-day match! Upsets frequently occur here, that's why One-day cricket is so unpredictable. A single bad day in the field for the team can lead to a loss. That's what happened during the India-Bangladesh tie. Unfortunately, this bad day proved too costly to the team's fortunes in the World Cup and before you knew it, Bangladesh had muscled their way into the Super 8 and India had found their way out of the World Cup.

The moment everybody realized that India is out, the swords have been drawn out, the blame game has begun and the mud-slinging has started. The attitude of senior players has been criticized, the efficiency of the coach has been questioned and the captain's skills have been doubted. All this, just because of ONE upset. This was the same team led by the same captain under the same coach, which has been performing for the past one year. Where were these doubts about sincerity, attitude and skills then? The point is, there is no reason for such drastic censuring of the team after one defeat. People take one defeat too much to heart and act on impulse. How many of these critics have themselves played in a World Cup? How do they know what a player feels when he is playing the World cup for his country? Every budding cricketer aspires of donning a World Cup cap, at least once in his lifetime. Nothing can give a player more pride than the satisfaction of having represented India in a World Cup. Any player would give his hundred percent to a tournament that decides the best cricket team in the world. A tournament that comes just once in every four years, a tournament that very few players actually get to play.

So let us stop cursing the cricket team and let the poor blokes try and improve themselves. Excessive criticism by us will only add to their frustration levels. Let us motivate them to do better and once again become the dangerous team that nearly won the world cup in 2003. Indian cricket has plunged to great depths in the past, only to recover and strike back again. History bears testimony to the fact that in times of despair and scepticism, the Indian cricket team has always recovered and shone back to its brilliance. Remember India's tour of Australia a couple of years back? All Indian supporters were expecting a 3-0 whitewash. But contrary to expectations, the team almost managed a series victory. Even during the 2003 World Cup, India were in danger of getting eliminated in the opening round itself, but managed to rise from the dead to almost winning the World Cup. Let us hope that the Indian cricket team stages such a comeback very soon and wins the World Cup next time.

Till then, sit and watch the other teams slog it out in the current World Cup. Our time will come soon. Better luck next time folks!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Abhi-Ash and the wedding bash

I am still reeling under the onslaught of the media coverage of a certain Bollywood actor-actress's wedding. Seriously, the hype regarding this event has reached such monstrous proportions that it has totally overshadowed even the World Cup. Of course, with India being thrown out of the tournament, the World Cup doesn't seem very interesting anymore, unless you are one of those who watch the game "for the pleasure of watching the sport". Who cares a damn about the sport? All I wanted to see is India winning. Pity it wasn't meant to be.

Coming to the point, if India had managed to stay on till the super 8's, it would have been interesting to see which event received greater TRPs - the live telecast of India's cricket matches or the live telecast of this over-hyped star wedding. The frenzy that has been whipped up by the various news channels has touched sickening levels. Media persons are camping outside the houses of the stars just to provide all the "juicy details" of the event. Over-enthusiastic correspondents are excitedly providing a running commentary of the even right down to the minutest detail, right from a starlet slashing her wrists to Aishwarya getting emotional about her "bidaai".

A Smart Alec once quipped: "Marriage is nothing but a public announcement of private intentions." In this case the announcement has evidently become too public, albeit unintentionally. Even the Pope's visit doesn't get this kind of media coverage. It was a good thing that Mandira Bedi and Charu Sharma were busy with the World Cup presentation, or else we would have had them presenting a show before the live telecast of Ash's wedding, titled "Extraaa Innings" (pun unintended!).

Which brings us to the question, "Are we really interested in watching this wedding?" Agreed, the two are probably the most desired stars in the film industry, adored by millions. And it is also true that with this marriage, millions of hearts have been broken. But very few people in India actually have the time and patience to sit and watch it on TV for three days. The media is trying to hype this event by literally forcing it down our throats. Each and every news channel is showing the same footage, looping it over and over again. Even the families involved in the wedding would be irritated by this unprecedented hysteria.

Under such circumstances, the question remains to be asked whether it was a wise idea to have such a wedding in the city at all. What a striking contrast this wedding is with Aamir Khan's private wedding to Kiran Rao at Panchgani, with minimal media coverage. Aamir saved himself (and many of us) a lot of headache with this smart move. Any star planning a wedding in the near future would do well to learn a lesson from this.

Hopefully by tomorrow, all the din will have died down, and everything will be back to normal. It will be business as usual for everybody, the world will be as it was before. Just one small difference.. Ms. Rai will now be Mrs. Bachchan.

And before I sign off, here's wishing you both a happy married life, Abhi-Ash!