In search of the truth - I

I was suddenly reminded of the existence of my statcounter account when someone asked me how many hits the bar got in a day. So I paid a customary visit to see what's going on, and I rediscovered how very like an amusement park the 'keywords' section is. So here are some of the keywords that people were googling and landed on my blog. I think I should make this a regular feature!

• Bhaigiri style jokes
• Meaning of shamme faroza
• achha ji main haare chalo maan jao na
• Sayesha bhai B.Engg
• ramu bhediya
• meaning of behan di taki
• dialogues in jab we met in hotel decent
• laupat gamini
• kiske mama ki gun hai
• galyan sakli sonyachi meaning
• sapne dekho bus unke poore hone ki umeed mat rakho
• urmila madonkar aunty
• men are like elastic bands and women like waves
• haircut price in vlcc
• kabir ke dohe in hindi with meaning in english
• dragon fruit hindi name
• simple chilli baby corn recipe
• who is the girl in hero honda ads during hockey world cup
• lyrics only of juba pe laga, laga re namak ishq ka song
• www chuck ke rakh
• when your soulmate dumps you
• kunti with surya dev
• badshah masala yeah
• dragon fruit in India
• phone numbers fo Chennai aunties
• socha na tha Goa resort
• koi ek thappad maar dialogue of lage raho munna bhai
• girls sexy yahoo messenger id who talk english
• utt panichkul gay
• tere dar par sanam translation
• what is the english name of the tree called aapto in konkani
• Cin Forshay Lunsford
• burpy lahiri
• jiggar means
• vis bhujang chandan
• saas bahu serials and cinderella

All right bewdas, own up now -- how did you get here?? I have the rolled-up weekend edition of the newspaper (feared in many circles as the weapon of ass destruction) ready for you. :/

Window of opportunity

Before I even get started on the plot of this post, I find myself compelled to explain why (oh why) I even bought the Julie DVD. No no, this is not the classic Julie from 1975 with the totally awesome songs. This was Julie from 2004, and the very fact that the movie stole the name from an older, nicer movie should have sufficed to stop me in my tracks before I proceeded to the payment counter.

But I was blinded. Blinded by the presence of Priyanshu Chatterjee in the movie. Now those who have seen 'Tum Bin' and loved it the way I loved it, would know why Priyanshu is such a big deal. The moment he uttered the words, "Main sahara nahin, saath dene aaya hoon." ("I'm here to give you company, not support.") to the defiant Pia, women all over swooned, and men all over went, "Ughhh... not another SNAG we have to match up to!"

Anyway, so while I queued up with all these women waiting for his next movie, he was busy signing really bad ones.

And then I heard about Julie. And true to the spirit of humanity, someone had passionately recommended it to me as a must-watch, so we could be united in our lamentation later. Such a burning desire to see fellow humans suffer just like you did is becoming more and more common. Recently, I saw someone's Facebook status: "Raavan is a must-see! I want you to waste your time and money like I did."

So the fact that I was naive enough to believe that Julie was a good movie, and the fact that it had Priyanshu in it, made me buy the DVD.

And then I watched it.

*deep breath*

Neha Dhupia is a terrible terrible actress. The movie had a terrible terrible story. Sanjay Kapoor was simply terrible. And Priyanshu... how thee let thy fans down... sigh.

And so I was stuck with this DVD. The other DVDs in my DVD rack had started to inch away from this one, pinching their noses and giving me dirty looks as they did so. Each movie in my collection had earned its place. And this DVD was bringing the sanctity of that space down. I could see the other movies were not happy and were this --> <-- close to a mutiny. So I decided to throw it. Evil though I am, I could not bring myself to give it to a fellow human being with feelings and all. And that's when I remembered a tip Shub had given me on how to keep birds from offering their... err... "offerings" on your window sill. She'd told me that if you keep a CD at the window sill, the glare keeps the birds away. And the window near our drying yard does have the bird problem. So now I have the Julie DVD, which, once upon a time had scarred me, successfully scarring scaring birds away. Though I must say I don't know if it's the glare that's keeping them away.

I personally think they're all looking at the DVD and going, "That's enough crap for one window sill, c'mon let's find another place."

Dose of his own medicine

So today I donated a large amount of blood (15 ml to be exact) at a clinic as part of a pre-insurance-policy check-up. As I waited for the next round of tests, my attention was drawn to the guy sitting at the dispensary, and in particular his bellowing voice. Seated in front of him was a construction worker, and the dispensary guy was explaining the dosage of the medicines to him. Perhaps apprehensive whether the worker could understand him, the dispensary guy was speaking very slowly, as if to a small child, and very VERY loudly. So much so that everyone in the waiting area could clearly hear the dosage instructions.

"THIS ONE... AFTER MAKAN (food)... TWO IN THE MORNING... TWO OKAY? TWO IN THE AFTERNOON... AND TWO IN THE NIGHT... OKAY? YOU UNDERSTAND? AFTER MAKAN, OKAY??"

And then he picked up the lozenges. And that's where the fun started.

"AND THIS ONE... YOU DON'T... YOU DON'T..." He struggled for words. "YOU TAKE THIS... AND... AND... YOU SUCK, OKAY?? YOU SUCK!"

The worker nodded vaguely.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND??? YOU SUCK!" The dispensary guy bellowed again as the rest of us tried to stifle our laughter.

"Yes..." said the worker timidly, picked up his medicines and walked away.

Oh how I would have loved to see him turn back and say, "Oh, by the way, YOU SUCK TOO!!"

Flipping out

I have something to say to the woman who audaciously jaywalked across Ophir Road just before it meets the highway, at approximately 6:05 pm today:

"You! What were you thinking?? Are you aware that it is a crime to wear flip-flops with formals????"

Political view

So I watched Raajneeti today. I'd been looking forward to it since I saw the trailer, and was particularly intrigued by the scene where Ranbir Kapoor was brooding and blowing smoke rings. I also wanted to see how Katrina would do in the Sonia Gandhi avatar. And I'd read that it was based on the Mahabharat, a story that has always fascinated me. (I own the full DVD set of B.R. Chopra's Mahabharata.)

Well... overall, it was okay. Not great but not too bad either. And if you like Ranbir and Rampal, it's an absolute visual treat.

Random thoughts from the movie (warning: spoilers galore):

• I spent the first ten minutes of the movie just trying to get the family right. Wait, he's the chacha or the taya or the papa? Oh, so these two are brothers? Hey, why is this guy calling that guy nana? So she's his brother's wife? Wait, who is Katrina then?
  
  
• The Mahabharata references were quite interesting and I had a fun time drawing parallels. (Even though it was a little disturbing to see the circumstances under which Kunti and Surya Devta created Karna, and dharmaraj Yudhisthir getting promptly seduced for an election ticket.)
  
  
• Nana Patekar made an awesome Vidur (with shades of Krishna).
  
  
• With all the shuttling of Katrina between Ranbir and Arjun, I half expected three more brothers to surface and share the Draupadi.
  
  
• Viv said there were many references to the Godfather movies as well, but I couldn't tell because I've never been able to finish any of the Godfather movies. (*ducks to avoid chappalon-ki-baarish*)
  
  
• If you've always dismissed Katrina as a bad actress, watch out for the scene where she appeals to the crowds not to vote for the guys who took her suhaag. In that particular scene, she's not bad. She's abysmal.
  
  
• The movie is so full of grey characters, you do not know whom to root for. After a while, I gave up and decided to take the very objective approach of rooting for Arjun Rampal, my very objective reason being that he is so very hot.
  
  
• And then they killed him, so I had to switch to Ranbir because not only is he very good-looking, he can act. And... and... and... just when you thought he couldn't get any hotter, they gave him glasses! *swoon*
  
  
• I'm not sure if I'd have accepted the character of a guy doing his PhD in the US on 19th century poetic literature, coming back to India and taking to guns and politics like a fish to water, if it hadn't been played by Ranbir. I think I have reached the stage where I like Ranbir so much that he can play a dead body and I'd go "WOW, he sure pulled that off".
  
  
• Okay, how good-looking is the Arjun-Katrina pair? It's blinding, all that beauty. I could imagine Prakash Jha screaming "My eyes! My eyes!" when they first stood together in front of the camera. No wonder they had to kill one of 'em.
  
  
• What was with the phenomenal pregnancy strike rate in the movie? Strike one. Strike two. Strike three.
  
  
• What the heck was that item song for?!
  
  
• Did your audience burst into peals of laughter when Kunti went to bring Karna home? Mine did. We were literally falling off our chairs laughing, every time she uttered a sentence. Good comedy, that scene.
  
  
• The movie may be full of diggaj actors, but it's the bacha of the lot Ranbir who walks away with all the acting accolades.
  
  
• I LOVE the 'Mora piya mose bolat naahi' song. But I kept waiting for the original to play and it didn't. They played like four remixes (Trance mix, Twilight mix, New Moon mix and Harry Potter mix) in various parts of the movie but there was no sign of the original.
  
  
• Naseeruddin Shah! Shame on you! Aapke yeh din aa gaye hain? How much did they pay you for that? Two-way auto-rickshaw fare?
  
  
• Ever since he lost that vowel, Ajay Devgn seems to have put on weight on his face, no? Kjol, do something!
  
  
• What was with the extreme hindi? Adaraniya karyakari mahasachiv? What the...?! I'm wondering if Katrina had any clue what was going on around her at all.
  
  
• I read an interview somewhere where Katrina denied that her character was modelled after Sonia Gandhi. "It's modelled after Priyanka Gandhi actually," she said. Chup, Katrina. You played Sonia Gandhi, okay? Fine, maybe your hindi accent was marginally better.
  
  
• I loved the ending. My nightmare ending scene would have been Ranbir shooting at Ajay, Nana Patekar flinging himself in the line of fire, uttering the words, "Nahinnnn, usko mat maaro, woh tumhara bhai hai!", as he lay dying in a shared lap belonging to Ranbir and Ajay, both brothers hugging each other, and eventually winning the election together.
  
  Yep, I'd have thrown my shoe at the screen.

A sound decision

So I am on the phone with Aish.

Me - Hi, Aishuuu!!

Aish - Mausiiiiiii!!

Me - Aishu, when will you come to Singapore??

Aish - Singapore... But I can't go to Singapore...

Me - WHAT?! WHY NOT???

Aish - Because I can't take a plane to Singapore...

Me - WHAT?! WHY NOT???

Aish - You know the toilets in the plane...

Me - Yes?

Aish - The flush...

Me - Uh huh...

Aish - The flush makes a very loud sound. I get very scared.

Me - Err...

Aish (with an air of finality) - And that's why I can't go to Singapore.

See you tomorrow!

Why I am looking forward to tomorrow:

• I will have reason to make masala chai every day and great company to enjoy it with.
  
  
• I will check out some of the touristy places in Singapore that I haven't been to yet, such as the Singapore Discovery Centre and the Asian Civilisations Museum.
  
  
• I will play proper Scrabble. Viv is hopeless because he makes hopeless words like 'Flexthiz' and 'Bi'.
  
  
• Group Sudoku yeaaaahhhhhh! :D
  
  
• I won't come back to an empty house after work.
  
  
• I will finally have a reason to call my home telephone number.
  
  
• Viv will be home a little earlier than his usual "I was debugging, you see, and I found this BEEG BUGG!" homecoming hours. (Dude, you put the bug in the program yourself, and then you debug it and then you expect me to be impressed? Sheesh.)
  
  
• I will be able to make full use of the Great Singapore Sale.
  
  
• I will have a bucketload of Kurkure. And I will take some to work. (My colleagues love it too! They call it 'Indian Twisties'. LOL!)
  
  
• I will have the DVDs of my favourite new Hindi movies, which are not yet in my collection.
  
  
• I will have yummy rasam.
  
  
• I won't have to sit through Viv's cricket matches by myself. I will have company to shake my head at and say, "How do these guys play under the blazing sun all day long??"
  
  
• I will have one guy who wholeheartedly agrees with me that Viv is a dhakkan.

Yup, the in-laws land tomorrow morning! :)