Movie Magic

Finally managed to get tickets to Veer Zaara yesterday. Verdict: ***. The film is a throwback to good old days of boy-meet-girl Hindi cinema. It would have helped if it had been shorter by an hour. If you thought that Preity Zinta couldn't look earthy and demure, think again! Shah Rukh has stopped being anything but himself for a long time now. Nothing new there. (Doesn't mean that I don't like the guy, he's still King Khan, remember?).Madan Mohan's music is wonderful, and I hope that Udit Narayan wins a lot of awards for this one. Takeaway moment - Kirron Kher tells her daughter, who talks about love so deep that one would die for it - " Such a thing could happen only in movies"- Bingo! Probably why movies like Veer Zaara are made,... and probably why they shouldn't be.

The competition is getting hot

Microsoft has released the beta version of its MSN search service. Google has recently doubled the number of pages it indexes. Interesting race. Lets see who wins.

An update: Yasser Arafat finally passed away in France. And he will not be buried in Al-Quds, but in the Muqataa, his headquarters. RIP.

Fight for the chair

Arafat's lieutenants have been busy squabbling over who will take over from him. With speculation rife about how his death could cause talks to fall apart, his condition continues to be critical. We've already had reports of him being brain dead. Now his aides are planning his funeral. For God's sake, let the man die first!

Au revoir, mon cher

"If I could add one thing, it would be this - don't ever turn down pleasure because you were afraid of what other people might say." - An apt end to what is probably the most interesting personal journal I've ever read. Visted Belle de Jour's blog after a long time and found that she's decided to end it. Well, she'll be missed. Maybe I'll buy the book when it hits the stands.

Preparing for an alternate profession

A couple of friends and I attended the Smirnoff Amateur Bartending session this Sunday at Sidewok, NCPA. And boy, did we have fun! We spent an entire day making (and tasting!)martinis, cosmopolitans, B-52s, Caipirojkas, Bloody Marys and a lot other cocktails. Now I am a Smirnoff certified Tastemaker, and can whip up a really wicked martini. Stirred, not shaken.

Bobby Jindal makes it to the Senate

Now we have a Republican Indian American in the House of Representatives. And he's trying hard to stay American - "It is not about being White, or Black, or Brown, it is about being Red, White and Blue, it’s all about being American". Point taken. This guy is an American at heart. He's not going to deny his roots; he's a politician after all. But when his constituents lose jobs to Indians, he's going to have to take offence. It's all very well to be proud of our boys out there, but we seem to forget that they are playing for the other team.

It's Evolution, baby!

Nature's latest issue carries a report on the discovery of a new species of humans on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Homo floresiensis, nicknamed 'hobbit', is barely 4 feet fall, with a brain one-third the size of that of modern humans. The skeleton is just 18,000 years old, which could mean that our entire ancestral tree needs to be re-drawn. Interesting.

U2 drops marketing bomb

U2 has tied up with Apple to include tracks from its latest album " How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" on the new i-Pods, along with some older tracks. The music industry is calling this "A historic shift in music marketing". Speaks volumes about the state of music these days. With major bands like U2, Metallica and the like churning out numbers to please the studio bosses, music has become just another saleable product. Gone are the days when real musicians played from their hearts, and people thronged to watch them play. Today, bands are put together by record companies by placing ads in the paper. Can Ms. Spears strum a guitar? Can Westlife write their own music? And now, a big rock band like U2 is worrying about how to push sales. Whatever happened to real music? The Gods of Rock have gone to sleep, and left their followers to despair.

The Google Desktop Search

The Google Desktop Search is quite a cool thing. I have a rather slow PC at work, and searching for files takes forever. The Google Desktop Search seems noticeably faster and it works pretty well with Windows (It is compatible with only Windows 2000 and XP, I think). It does take a long time for building the index on its first run, though. As the guys at Google suggest, put it on before you leave for a long lunch! In true blue Google fashion, the software is completely free, and wont intrude on your privacy (If you don’t want it to, in this case). Google has been up to quite a lot lately. It would be worth it to wait and watch what the company does with all the goodwill it seems to be generating.

Bandit King killed in encounter

With the killing of Veerappan, the Special Task Force finally managed to put an end to a menace that had been plaguing the governments of TamilNadu and Karnataka for nearly three decades. TN Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha has been quick to pat herself on the back, calling the STF "a precious jewel of her government". Hats off to the STF and Additional DGP Vijay Kumar for putting an end to a 20 year man hunt.

Bride & Prejudice - a taste of India

Maharashtra went to the polls yesterday, giving me time off to watch Gurinder Chaddha's "Bride & Prejudice" in the evening. Bad adaptation, to say the least. Too many songs, and interest wanes after the first two. The leads seem frigid and lack chemistry. Henderson is all right with those baby blues, but he is no Colin Firth. Bride offers a taste of India to a non-Indian audience. Mildly entertaining.

More than a bird, more than a plane...

Christopher Reeve passed away today. He was 52. I am not going to wax eloquent on how great a man he was. There are plenty of places where you'll find that. I am reminded of this documentary I saw on Discovery a few years back. This was shot just before Reeve's accident, and he was tracking whales across their migratory routes. In a touching moment, Reeve runs his fingers over the back of a spouting whale, and laughs with the joy of a 10-year old. It is a moment that will stay with me forever. May his soul rest in peace.

"All art is quite useless."

"It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that has artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthrals us."
- Lord Henry in the "Picture of Dorian Gray".

I have lost count of the number of times I've read this book. It is mind blowing, to say the least, and absolutely wild(e). The story is that of Dorian Gray, a fresh young man, who descends into a life of sin and stays untouched, while his portrait grows old with the marks of his crimes. But the really fascinating character is Lord Henry, who makes Dorian aware of his youth and beauty, thereby changing him forever. He also gifts Dorian the book that acts as the latter's source of inspiration - and ultimate ruin. Whenever Henry is around, the dialogue sparkles with a wicked wit - "I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable". He takes an almost perverse pleasure in corrupting Dorian, as one might call it, and does a pretty good job of it.

I am not saying that this book is perfect. In fact, it is far from it. There are sections where the reader is quite lost, like the one that describes Dorian's passion for collecting the best in the world. Dorian's "immoral acts" seem quite tame - collecting the best things in life can be described in other words. There is mention of the lives that he has ruined, but one never gets the true sense of moral debasement that Dorian is supposed to represent, except perhaps the senseless murder of Basil Hallward. It is hideous, the way Dorian thinks of the dead man - "But the thing that had been sitting at the table was gone".

This book was Wilde's outcry against the hypocrisy of the times he lived in, the society that frowned upon his lifestyle and choices. Ultimately, the very same society turned it against him, and incriminated him for "gross indecency". Not very different from the times we live in, is it?

Hey, look! Annan's found his voice

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is certainly making a hue and cry about how the war in Iraq is illegal. Why he is so eager to denounce the war all of a sudden? How come we didn't hear him so loud when the war began? By now, the world has realised that the UN would be as effective at stopping WW III as the League of Nations. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the UN has been largely one-sided, and powerless to stop an act of aggression such as Iraq. One could argue that there wont be a WW III because we are wiser, blah-blah, but the fact remains that if the US decides that it is going to war with a country, there is simply nobody to stop it.

I am not accusing the US of war mongering. A sizeable part of the politico-social machine in the US opposes war, there is great concern over homeland security, and not everybody likes Bush. But the US economy is precariously perched, the defence manufacturers need business, and the parties need contributions. And a President has to do what a President's got to do. Right, Dubya?

Sexy Beast

The new iMac G5 is a thing of beauty! Jonathan Ive clearly wants to make it look like iPod on your desktop. Its super cool features include a CPU which vanishes into a 2-inch thick screen, Mac OS X, faster processor, invisible stereo speakers, and almost noiseless operation. Memory is an issue - the new iMac comes with only 256MB of memory. Available at a price range of $1300-1900. Looks like Apple is trying to increase the market share of its PCs by capitalising on the popularity of the iPod.