New Bollywood Legends
Looks like bollywood is running out of Legends. The ‘Nautanki’ of Life Time Achievement reached a new height in this years Zee Cine Awards. They had no better choice but ‘Feroz Khan’. Thank god he was sober when he accepted it (Fardeen Khan did the ‘Honour’). Few years ago he made a scene at Filmfare when he showed up with Smita Thakarey to present an award, totally drunk.
So where is this going?? There must be some standards while presenting such awards. Firoz Khan has been around for a long time, but he has not done anything to deserve this award. If you dont have people to give this award to..dont give it.
South Indian Food..Not Ready yet
I am not talking about same old ‘Idli’, ‘Dosa’ or ‘Uttappa’…I am talking about REAL south Indian food…Authentic! Yesterday, I went to ‘Vithal Kamat’s Soul Curry’ on Mumbai-Pune highway with my family.
My curiosity was tickled as soon as I entered the restaurant, as I could see all south Indian crowd inside ( crew and customers ) After attempting to read the menu for a few minutes…it was clear that I was at a wrong place. South Indian is not my type. This has nothing to do with the food itself…because everybody else thought, that it was awesome. I cannot consume such a large quantity of coconut in one go. Also I thought that the taste was a bit extreme….either too sweet or too spicy. Our 4 course dinner included
- Corn Wada (not a south Indian dish but was served with coconut chutney..so..)
- Uppam with Drumsticks and Banana Flower silk curry (too spicy)
- Curry leaves rice with Aviyal (was shockingly sour)
- Chikoo milkshake (for me and Payasam for the others)
Probably our selection was altogether wrong. I was more than disappointed (partly because I had to miss Jayasurya’s dazzling century). My mom hails from south India and I did not have a faintest idea about south Indian food. When you live in Sangli…outing essentially means going to a typical pure veg restaurant (like- Shiv Sagar) for Punjabi food. So I was not prepared, mentally, for such a changeover.
I should have taken things step by step. Suggestions and directions are welcome. I should work a bit more to develop my taste!
Hat-trick for Massa!!
Massa did it..3 in a row at Turkey! Mclaren created sensation for sometime by putting Lewis on a 3 stop strategy. But good old 2-stop thing worked for Ferrari. See the results
Force India, after a disastrous start for Fisi was back on track and Sutil finished the race. Good enough!
Looking forward to the big day 25th in Monaco.
A two and half hour long Thums Up ad called….Tashan
When you watch ads like Thums Up or Mountain Dew…you know that this is not possible.. this is exaggeration. But you buy it for those 30 sec….because it ends in 30 sec. You take it casually. If you want to show that type of action in a full length film, you have to create that type of background. Only then viewer will buy it. Otherwise it will be called Tashan!
Only one line was running through my mind while watching the movie…’What the hell is that supposed to mean??’ Those who REALLY want to know about the non existent story can go here
Only 1 point about the action..why was it there?? I will tell you about only a couple of action scenes. I think they will convince you not to waste your money, energy, fuel, electricity and time in watching this movie.
Scene 1: Somewhere in Rajasthan
About 23-25 policemen confront Akshay, Kareena, Anil and Saif who are hiding behind some pillars. Upon entering the camera frame…the police start shooting these people like they are infected with T-Virus. Why?? Why do you want to kill them so badly, Mr Cop?? How about “Hands up!” or “Dont move!”…follow the standard procedures! Now something get into Akshay and he comes out running towards nothing in particular. Policemen must have been mislead by their commander… he must have told them that people die if you shoot 2 ft away from their feet. None of the 25 cops seem to aim correctly at Akshay who is running in front of them, then towards them and finally kick boxing with them! On top of that Anil and Kareena do the same! 3 people kill an entire police battalion. You have seen these kind of scenes before…but you simply cannot buy it in Tashan.
Scene 2: Climax
Same disgusting stuff from scene 1…but one shot tops it all. Anil is using a water jet from a hose to push Kareena off a bridge.. That seems to have created some sort of water canal. Then he remembers ‘Damn it..I have a gun!’ Just as he points the gun at Kareena, Saif finds a motor boat and comes to rescue her through that canal. Just when I started to think ‘Could this get any sillier??’, he does a somersault with it and pushes Anil off the bridge.
Some irritating things (in the movie..other than the movie itself)-
1) Anil Kapoor trying to speak english. Horrible, pathetic, ridiculous! Not a single line that you can bear!
2) Songs and their great lyrics. ‘Dil Dance mare’?? What is that??? (Why god, why? Why are you doing this??)
I cant believe I am saying this..but Race was much better! If you dont like Kareena..there is nothing in this movie for you.
If you still want to waste your time…see the climax
Also see this post by Avnish on Tashan MTV Tickr
Niranjan’s new Ishtyle!
Niranjan introduced a new way of presentation at his only visuals quiz ‘Dekho Magar Pyaar Se’. It was a part of BCQC May open quiz. The presentation was superb. Take a look-
Whats the logic Yuvi??
60 sec with Yuvraj Singh before IPL match between King’s XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders…
Interviewer- Your favourite player?
Yuvi- Tendulkar.
Int- Favourite bowler?
Yuvi- Brett Lee.
Int- Favourite bowler in your team? (What a stupid question, I thought…. )
Yuvi- Piyush Chawla.
(What???? Dude, umm….isn’t Brett Lee in your team???)
Another Ferrari 1-2
Barcelona GP had a perfect finish.
A Ferrari 1-2 with Kimi scoring perfect 10 and whats more…Alonso retiring due to blown engine!!
Hamilton on podium again but only 1 Mclaren finishing the race. Its good though that Kovalainen is fine after that near fatal accident. Even with 5 rows of tire stacks, the head on collision delayed his recovery from damaged car.
BMW maintaining stunning performance but seperated by a distance from Ferrari.
Force India car pushing it to the top 10 is like a cherry on top.
I feel a little sorry about Super Aguri though…their absence will be felt at the back of the grid. Thanks to Honda, they were able to race in Barcelona. I hope something promising will come up for them. I really want to see Sato racing …the guy is a real entertainer.
Thats the way it is
Traffic in Pune…that says it all
Take a look at these snaps-
The electricity was there, but this signal was out of order near very busy Mehendale garage at 6pm on a weekday. The traffic police was nowhere to be seen. The chaos is evident.
Here is another one-
This truck was traveling on JM road carrying concrete road dividers, totally unprotected. Not a single string holding them back.
Sad thing is nobody cares about these things. If someone breaks a rule, he is hardly ever punished (only in March when the ‘Collection’ has to be shown on paper). Jumping the signals is as common as signal itself. Helmet rule came…emptied your pockets and is now resting in peace! There are many bridges in city which are closed for heavy vehicles (eg-Mhatre Bridge), but everybody including ST buses and Volvos use them.
According to basic principles of traffic management, pedestrians should get the highest priority because they (supposedly) pay the taxes and need least infrastructure. Next should be bicycles, public trasport vehicles and then private vehicles. But we see the exact opposite. No signal allows smooth passage for pedestrians. Some signals like the ones near Sancheti hospital and Bal Gandharva do have some 15sec gap for this. But traffic police are ignorant about this and they allow vehicles to pass in that time, while pedestrians have to run in between vehicles listening to the cursing. Subways in Pune is altogether different topic for research. Their locations and maintenance is worldclass. Same thing is about overhead bridges.
The BRTS and in general PMPML buses are the victims of inert bureaucracy. I have already spoken earlier about the rickshawalas.
One thing the police do perfectly well is tow the vehicles from no parking. You cant challenge their decision. And the way they pick up and carry the bikes is just horrifying.And why just the bikes? Who cause more trouble..2-wheelers or 4-wheelers? Parking policies are…as expected..all wrong. You have enough no parking zones. But how about some parking zones?? Even pay n park..like in camp!
You bring in BRTS or Metro, unless you follow the basics this mess will never be cleared.
Timepass in Vashi
After we collected tickets from Dr D Y Patil stadium, we had 2 hours before actually entering the stadium. It was extremely hot so we decided to go to any place with A/C. Fate led us to one Raghuleela mall near Vashi station. I had a bad feeling about it, because it had no door on entire side facing a main road. Good way to annoy already tested people. Actually it was better outside the mall because it had no A/C. We wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes. Then we entered Big Bazar for some entertainment (had gone to see match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers…and we had nothing better to do than visiting Big Bazar!) Then Gadre spotted a great book. The book was useless but the cover was hilarious! Take a look-
See what that price sticker cost them!
In the toys section (yeah, I know…but we were there!), I saw this F1 car model-
They sure know how to sell things to people and people actually buy these things because they look like Ferrari.
Outside the mall, there was a chinese hotel. And what an innovative name for one!-
Moving on.. 