Jagah Dil Mein Honi Chahiye

Another weekend came and went away without my realizing it. Was in Ahmedabad on Sunday on official duty. Left early in the morning and came back quite late at night. Thought I'll take it slightly easy yesterday, but kismat ko kuchh aur hi manzoor tha. Had to go for a shoot in the afternoon, and reached home only at 0030 hours! Anyways, I'm drifting away from the main Mudda - The Issue of this post. Beth, as we all know, loves Bollywood. But what most of us do not know is that she also loves tagging people :-) Having been assigned the 'nine quartets' tag, methinks I'll take some time off and finish it off. So, here goes...

Four jobs I have had:

1. Handled pricing for a durables MNC in my first job
2. Was a Branch Sales Manager in Nagpur, and then Bangalore in the same company
3. Was a Brand Manager in India's first glamour and lifestyle channel
4. Am now looking after the program schedule, on-air promotion strategy, and part- marketing for a new Hindi movie channel.

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. Sholay
2. Golmaal
3. Chupke Chupke
4. Andaaz Apna Apna
5. I want to name the bonus 5th: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron!

Four places I've lived in:

1. Delhi - Born there, and lived there till my graduation
2. Pune - Did my MBA from there, 2 years
3. Nagpur - 1 year posting in sales
4. Bangalore- ditto
5. Bonus - Bombay for the last couple of years!

Four TV shows I love to watch: This is dangerous territory, but anyways...

1. The Great Indian Comedy Show (not to be confused with The Great Indian Laughter Challenge)
2. MASH
3. Lost - am so missing it, waiting expectantly for Season 2
4. Coupling - No, it's not what you are thinking. Its a little-known BBC comedy on Star World, about Man-Woman relationships.

Four places I've been to on vacation: I'm choosing 4 random ones...

1. Kerala - Into our last sem in MBA, we decided to take a break from the useless timepass (had stopped studying ages ago!), and 6 of us went for a 10 day trip to Kerala. My best vacation ever!
2. Bhandardara - Trekking trip to a trippy destination! Maharashtra happens to have some brilliant locales if you just do some basic research.
3. Rampur trip for Ankur's wedding - In the heart of UP lies a town called Rampur. Last year, a group of us friends went there to attend the marriage of one of our friends. Taking advantage of the occassion, we went off for a drive to the outskirts of Corbett National Park for a day! Again, a memorable trip!
4. Murud Jazeera / Naigaon - We heralded Y2K on the beach in this unpolluted area in the Konkan region!

Four of my favorite foods: Extremely tough, there're so many of them.

1. Rajma - Chawal
2. Makki Ki Roti with Sarson Ka Saag
3. Gaajar Ka Halwa
4. Pakoras

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. On a mountain cliff, on an easy-chair, with a good book in my hands, and some rum by my side
2. On a beach, everything else remaining the same as point 1, except that the rum is replaced with chilled beer!
3. In Crosswords, with plenty of moolah in my pocket, and unlimited time on my hands
4. At a marathon DVD-viewing session in the company of friends!

Four sites I visit daily: Am including blog-sites cos I don't go to any normal sites daily, its strictly on a need-only basis...
1. Yahoo - for mail
2. The Comic Project
3. Accidental Fame Junkie
4. Beth Loves Bollywood

Four bloggers I am tagging: Aaaanhhh, too painful. Whoever feels like doing it can volunteer, no Roman Volunteers at my blog :-)

Phew!!! This post is loooong, even by my standards! Anyways, as Bhiku Mhatre tells Satya: "Jo karna hai, woh karna hai! "

1. It will make you laugh uncontrollably

2. It will make you cry unashamedly

3. It will make you feel like an ass for the kind of life you have been living

4. It will make you want to go out and change the way our country functions, regardless of any consequences to yourself

5. If you have your heart in the right place, it will totally mind-eff you!

Yup, 'tis official now. As of 1000 Hours this morning, my channel is on air. Though it won't be coming to many households right now (distribution takes its own sweet time), but I wanted to put something symbolic as the 1st movie on our channel. So, what better than Bachchan Sa'ab! Unfortunately, we don't have a good collection of Amitabh Bachchan movies in our library, but we had Dev, so its being telecast as I write this. Hope starting the channel with a movie of THE Superstar, directed by one of the best directors in the country (Govind Nihalani), will lead on to something good for us!

Pray for us guys. And yes, Jai Hind to all of you on our Republic Day!

May the Force be with you.

Its 2:50 AM??? What am I still doing in office? This really wasn't a part of my joining contract here, must have a relook at it as soon as I get the time. Ahhh, time... what time is it? 2.50 AM??? Nahiiiii Keh do yeh jhooth hai!!!

Our channel goes on air in approximately 19 hours from now. The ops guy is preparing the transmission logs for Jan 26th, I am supposed to verify that they're correct so that no wrong programming/promo/packaging element goes on-air. So, I can't leave office till he finishes his work and I go through it! Stopped doing any productive work a couple of hours ago. The fact that there are a total of 3 people in the office, and I'm the only one from our team, is not helping either.

But let's look at the brighter side- we're finally going on-air! Yipeeee!!! Had our launch press conference today (its technically yesterday now). The media was looking pretty excited about our channel, let's see what the viewers and advertisers have to say. We are the 4th Hindi movie channel in the country, so it is critical that we not only do not make mistakes, but also do a lot of innovative stuff on all fronts. So I guess I should not be cribbing about the late nights. But still, dil hai ki maanta nahi!!! Don't worry guys, won't plug the channel through my blog! Just wanted to write something so that I get some stress out of my system.

The last one month has been crazy, with violent shouting matches all around, in all possible permutation/combinations amongst our team members! Some have gone over the boundary and have become total zombies, and others like me are tottering on the edge - I sang the 1st line of 'jhalak dikhla ja...' continuously in a loop for almost 5 minutes yesterday, though it was just to get back at a colleague I was extremely irritated with!!!

But come tomorrow, and I'm sure everything will be forgotten, and we'll all be together in celebrating the birth of our baby, and praying for its success.

The future is FILMY.

It's raining tags. Have been tagged twice in as many days, and that too by the same malefactor - AFJ. The rules:
(1) write a 100-to-200-word entry using the following words: I, me, blow job, grapes, random, power, loneliness, water, robot and blue;
(2) use these words once and only once; and of course
(3) the entry should make sense.

I'm sure I'm going to be kicked out, but then, I can always forward Kunal Kapoor's article to my boss! So, here goes...

I stood at the edge of the cliff, victorious, yet sad in all my glorious loneliness. Random thoughts crossed my mind while gazing at the deep blue water of the ocean. Was my victory real? Was true power a function of the position you achieve in an organisation, or the hearts you win in your life? Does man’s hunger for success turn him into a robot, sucking joy and happiness out of him, almost like the devil giving his soul a blow-job? He gets pleasure for an instance, but his life doesn’t seem worthwhile after that!

My friends thought that such thinking was a case of sour grapes for losers. But it affected me deeply. Suddenly, life lost its meaning. The ocean beckoned. My feet suddenly seemed to have found a life of their own and were no longer under my control. And then, there was nothing!

147 words.

May the Force be with you!

This is a first for this baby blogger! Have been tagged by AFJ. The rules of the tag (as per my copy-paste from AFJ's blog):
1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of his/her perfect lover.
2. Needs to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their blogs saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

Since I have a channel to launch, I will not waste too much time in formalities and get straight to the point (I can already hear the mocking laughter of everyone who knows me!)

8 essential qualities in THE woman are:

1. Must be at least as mad as I am, if not more.
2. Should have a totally wacked-out sense of humour.
3. Should have a healthy respect for grammar- English as well as any other language/s she speaks! Maybe not an OCD like me... but still...!
4. Has to love and respect books.
5. Should ideally enjoy movies and music, and have a good taste in them.
6. Should not hesitate in showing her feelings- laugh as loud as she wants to, and cry whenever she feels like- being emotional is not uncool at all!
7. Should be passionate- about life, and about whatever interests and excites her.
8. Should have a conscience that is alive and kicking, and a healthy moral framework.
9. Bonus point- Has to believe in (or at least understand) my credo- 'It's the telling of the tale, and not the tale!', otherwise we'll never be able to have a proper conversation :-)

Ok, that's it! Entries invited! :-)

Don't know if this is allowed, but I really don't know 8 bloggers who haven't been tagged already, so I guess I'll leave it here and get back to my channel :-)

May the Force be with you.

Stumbled upon this amazing article by actor Kunal Kapoor in Sunday's Mid-Day. A must read for our mad generation!
article

Only twice in my entire life have I walked out of a cinema hall in the middle of a movie. The first time was in Nagpur, during my posting there 3 years ago. The movie was 'Yeh hai Jalwa', a Salman Khan starrer by David Dhawan. Its claim to fame was that it had a song called "Na main fax, na Xerox, na main computer ki floppy... Main hoon apne papa ki carbon copy!" The theatre was Sudama. Looking back, I think one of the reasons that I left during the interval was that it was peak summer, and the hall didn't have any air-conditioning (None of the halls in Nagpur do, btw)! Still, if the movie had been any good... The 2nd movie I left 30-min into it was Shabd. I'd gone for the red carpet premiere of Shabd which our channel had organized, and was watching the movie sitting on the stairs in the hall. Couldn't force myself to go through the torture for very long, and left the theatre! Last night, there was almost a 3rd occassion....

Watched '15, Park Avenue' last night. Had decent expectations from the movie, with Aparna Sen as the director, and the 'Mr. and Mrs. Iyer' pair of Rahul Bose and Konkona Sen-Sharma in the lead. But was hugely disappointed (actually, disappointed is too mild a word)! Thought I'll write a couple of lines about it today, but my resolve was concretized when Mayank Shekhar, the Mumbai Mirror film reviewer, gave it 4 stars today! The movie is a farce. Nothing wrong with the story idea- it's about a schizophrenic(Konkona), who lives with her elder sister Shabana Azmi. Interesting subject, but Ms. Sen managed to make a total mess of it. The acting was horrendous- you've got to see Shabana in this movie to see how a brilliant actress in Hindi can be a terrible one in English! Kanwaljit as one of her suitors was speaking with such an artificial accent that I felt like pulling my hair out! Konkona was good in parts, Rahul Bose slept through the movie!The situations were contrived, the treatment over-the-top! In parts, it was like watching a horror movie! Ms. Sen tries her best to manipulate viewers by squeezing in stuff like a gang-rape, even though it wasn't adding too much to the movie. And the ending.... Ohhh the ending!!! You have to see it to believe it. Have not seen such a wannabe intellectual attempt in a long time(not since Shabd actually)!

I am not a movie critic, I don't know how to write a review. All I know is that a good movie is one which has a tale well-told, with good performances by everyone. I do not have Mayank Shekhar's talent and skill for evaluating good cinema... and I thank God for it! Otherwise, I would never have been able to enjoy 'Main Hoon Na' so much, and, like him, would have rated it as one of the worst films ever made!

With 2005 safely out of the way, methinks 'tis time now to do a small review of the year's best, and the worst- in a few selected categories. Am obviously starting with Bollywood. So, here goes...

Best Movies(in no particular order):

• Hazaaron Khwaaishein Aisi: For a powerful script on the emrgency era, and the rise of the Naxalite movement, strong performances by Shiney Ahuja, Chitrangada Singh, and Kay Kay, and for bringing back classical music to Hindi films.
• Saher: The surprise package of the year. A realistic portrayal of the rise of the land-mafia in eastern UP, with no-frills treatment, a subdued performance by Arshad Warsi, and for introducing the word 'varchaswa' to the lexicon of those lucky people who've seen this movie.
• My Brother Nikhil: An emotional journey more than anything else, Onir's movie on AIDS left the audience in tears. Again, a movie straight from the heart, and to the heart.
• Iqbal: A classic tale of the triumph of the under-dog, against all odds. The combination of cricket, Naseer, Shreyas Talpade, and 'aashaayein' was too powerful to not succed in winning people over!
• Parineeta: Read the book recently, the movie deviates from the original in a lot of areas. But then, who cares? When Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes a movie, he ensures that it is a tale well-told(even though he was just producing this one). The movie worked because of Saratchandra's story, Shantanu Moitra's beautiful music, Saif's performance, and above all, Vidya Balan!
• Black: Beautiful, touching, heart-rending, and for some critice - over-the-top. Whatever it was, I came out of the theatre dazed: by Amitabh's phenomenal performance, the girl Ayesha's superb acting, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's painting of this beautiful picture.
• Sarkar: Again, a movie panned by many, it worked for me because of Amitabh and Abhishek's deadly combo, Kay Kay's intensity, the background score, slick editing, and Ram Gopal Varma.
• Page 3: For daring to peep into the real world beneath the glitz and glamour of our Page 3 animal kingdom.

Discovery of the year- Male: Three contenders

• Randeep Hooda in 'D'
• Mohit Ahlawat in James
• Shiney Ahuja in 'Hazaaron...'

Randeep and Mohit's roles involved uni-dimensional acting- just portray intensity on screen, so I think it's too early to judge their true worth. Shiney Ahuja, for me, was the true find of the year. He is a natural, and was rocking in his debut movie. He might not become a big star due to his slightly unconventional looks, but he sure deserves to get much better work. Amongst others, even though he is not a newcomer, Kay Kay cleaned up the year with Hazaaron..., Sarkar, and Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh!

Discovery of the year- Female:

No contest- Vidya Balan all the way. Notable mention: Chitrangada Singh in 'Hazaaron...'.

Duds of the year:

• Kisna
• Kaal

Both were equally bad and boring. Mangal Panday -The Rising is missing because I haven't seen it and so won't comment on it!

Paisa Vasool Scene of the year:

Shilpa Shetty's flying round-toss kick in 'Dus', and Salman Khan playing the 'been' to the snake while hanging from a cliff, in 'No Entry'.

This wraps up my take on Bollywood in 2005. Will be back soon with Hollywood!

Cheers!