A Few Good Men: One of the few good films

I am urged to review a movie after a really long time. Some movies linger in your memories for a long time after the movie is over merely by the performances and the strong characterization done in it. One such movie I saw recently is "A few good men". I know it is a very old movie and reviewing it now seems absurd to many but I was trying to grab a copy of it since a long time and somehow i managed to miss all its screenings on HBO till yesterday when I got hold of its DVD. At a running length of 2 hour and 15 minutes it is a bit longer than the normal English movies but it carries the intensity and the sincerity of the story throughout the movie mainly due to the amazing background score. The story is set in US Naval Base in Guatenamo Bay,Cuba and deals with the sensitive and controversial topic of "code red". The movie unfolds itself in layers and as each layer gets unfolded to you, you tend to believe there is more in this story. And tell you what, the expectations come true. For example, when you think its all over and hence forward it is going to be honky dory, comes the latest sting in the tail where the true honour of being in US Marine services is realised. Some scenes have great power held in them. For example, the all famous "You cannot handle the truth scene" and the scene where the accused are finally acquitted but stripped off their Marine post and the reactions thereforth. Also, worth mentioning is the last scene in the movie when after the whole proceedings is over and Tom Cruise is all alone in the court room and he looks at the court room. It is then that you realize that he has got a whole new meaning to the court room at that moment. The only disappointment for me was the character fo Demi Moore which went on a downhill after raising huge expectations of being a brilliant lawyer. Watch it, for the performances of Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise.

Voice of the common man

With the investigations revealing newer truths daily into the Mumbai war, as the media has chosen to call it, the common man has many grievances to report. Some of them in my list:

• No resignations please. No, you cannot run from your responsibilities. If you have screwed up something, you need to stand back till it gets fixed. Running away from responsibilities cannot be called "Taking moral responsibility". Work under pressure till you close the case and then offer to resign. I am sure this resignation is a holiday in disguise and this whole drama would be forgotten when it comes to election time again.
• No movies on this war please. I remember the movie "Shootout at Lokhandwala" about one such real life incident where the terrorists were given real life caricatures and it was one of the roles of a terrorist who walked away with all the laurels. Hence, NO movies on this.
• Keep media away from the actual sit of the operation. With unrestricted access to the place of operation, in addition to projecting the forces as heroes (which is commendable), it also provides accurate and classified information on TV of the hideouts and operation details which are accessible to everyone including the terrorists bosses who can communicate with them very easily and hence, aiding the terrorists in turn. This was depicted very clearly in the movie " A Wednesday" where the protagonist shows clearly how the media can be used to gain accurate information of the operation.
• Stop ALL ties with Pakistan. With more and more evidences showing a Pakistani hand, we need to stop all sort of ties with Pakistan. Stop all Samjhauta Express trains and buses, imports,exports (including movies,songs and artists), cut off all cricketing and any other sporting releations with them. To go a step further, with the power BCCI has over the ICC it can threaten to boycott any series where Pakistan participates hence, meting out a South Africa like treatment to Pakistan to make it loud and clear to the world "Enough is Enough". Some of this was done after the attack on the Parliament. This is bigger attack than that , then why not this time.
  
• Stricter laws dealing with terrorists is needed. Mercy petition from terrorists should simply be thrown like the files which are stacked up in the Govt. Offices. Terrorists must go through a spine chilling experience before they even think of attacking India. Terrorists should not be turned into heroes. No. Not even their names should be reveled to public. They are anti-social and should be dealt in the same way.
• Take the warnings seriously. The warnings from ATS and other investigating agencies are not mere "instincts". Also, I fail to understand how did they enter so easily through the sea with the presence of so many coast guards and navy fleets in and around Mumbai. Imagine if it is this easy in a place like Mumbai how easy would it be along the long coastlines of Gujarat where there is nothing apart from the marshes of Kutch.
  

These are the voices echoing inside this common man. Lets hope at lease some of them are heard!

Tale of 2 cities

We Indians had our own share of "Tale of 2 cities" during the turmoil which happened over the last few days( 4 days to be precise). It all began on the fateful date of 26th Nov when some terrorists waged a war against the financial capital of the country. About a 1000 kms away, another metro, considered one of the lifelines was preparing itself for the nature's fury. If the terrorists were from Pakistan, the cyclone "Nisha" came from the Bay of Bengal, the credit for the christening goes to East Pakistan(Bangladesh). The battle was between the terrorists and the army,ATS,NSG,Police in Mumbai while in Chennai after 2 days of continous rain in Chennai, it was a battle between the Sun and the clouds with each playing hide and seek with Chennaite's life for another couple of days. It can only be called irony that both these battles began and ended on the same day. The precision with which the terrorists had planned the events and the fury of the nature during the rains over Chennai are unparallel and lets sincerely pray that it is not repeated in future. In both of the cases, the common man could be felt wanting for more in terms of the relief measures and the counter-offensive against the terrorists. One thing is for sure, both the cities were not at all prepared for this kind of day. Perhaps we need to do some more introspection before claming about 7.5% growth in GDP and Chandrayaan success. We need to get the basics right.

Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikalam

Some random thoughts on a not so random day. I say not so random because in my Chennai life so far , I haven't seen Anna University exams getting postponed due to rain in addition to schools and colleges being shut for the day. Alas! there are some souls like me who still have to work [sigh].

The continous torrential rains caused due to the low pressure bring in my mind the title" Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikalam". This happened to be the title of the next Gautam Menon's movie after the phenomenal success of Kaaka Kaaka . Now the buzz is that this is the next movie from his camp again after the mixed resonse to Vaarnam Aayiram. Also, this will be the first time A. R. Rahman will work with Gautam Menon whose movies have been known for their beautiful songs, coutesy Harris Jayaraj. This reminds me that I am yet to see Vaarnam Aayiram.

Also running through my mind is that amidst this rainy weather is the thought that we have to go to offices. How I wonder our offices were also shut or at least we were allowed to work from home. I mean, companies should think seriously about this option. Imagine the amount of cost cutting it can achieve from transportation,electricity,AC costs and the goodwill it will gain from the employers. To take it a step further, I would suggest that each team should come to office only once in a week and hence dividing the total number of teams into 5 groups working from office on any one of the working days. This will lead to cost saving of 80%. And if this is made a permanent option then they can curtail the building costs also providing seating space for only 1/5th of the employees. Agreed that additional expenses will include giving laptops to everyone and broadband connection but I guess most of the companies already have internet allowance as a part of their monthly salary and computer buying option as a part of the total CTC. Hope, someone who can take such decisions reads this.

Another thing to be felt happy about is the very fact that my company has transportation. Otherwise, coming in public transport or own vehicle in this rain would have been a mountain to climb.

Good that there are no matches scheduled in Chennai these days , otherwise the list of matches being washed out in Chennai would have got another entry appended to it.

The rains also remind me of my childhood days in Bhubaneswar where it used to rain cats and dogs and once we could not see sunshine for 7 long days.

Hoping to see sun again soon.

Border Gavaskar trophy

The Border Gavaskar trophy of 2008 will be remembered for reasons many for each one of us. My own diary of the series

• The most unaustralian side I have seen. When do you see an Australian team with not a single bowler who has average less than 30. How often you hear of figures like 0/199 in 30 overs for an Australian bowler even if it was in a practice match.
  
• The most sporting (read uncompetitive) Australian team I have seen in recent times. The only episode of unruly behaviour came from the Indian camp in the form of Gautam Gambhir. Perhaps, rightly they have learnt to lose now.
• It was Indian festival all through. The series ran parallel to the most famous indian festival Diwali came as a blessing in disguise to Indians. Begining from Sachin's record breaking run, we had Anil Kumble's grand farewell and Dada's winning farewell.
  
• War of words was started and also won by India for a change. This is primarily because Australians chose to remain silent this time and Indians ... well we had all of them speaking volumes. Once again the focus was not on war on field but off the field. Indians should have surely avoided it especially the Gambhir incident.
• Post series win Indians have been on a rampage giving one statement over the other and claiming that we are the no.1 side in the world now. Australians attained the no.1 status after tasks like beating Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and beating NZ in NZ. India is far from doing these. India won a series at home which is nothing but expected because home pitches are tailor made. If Indian attains the same win in Australia then may be we can claim to have moved a notch towards the no.1 spot.One more important factor what I felt was the matches were mostly decided by the spin of the coin and not the spin of the ball. Whoever won the toss dominated the match. Had Australia been luckier than probably we would not have been celebrating this.
• The last day of the series was something to watch out for. The aggression with which Aussies came out to bat especially Hayden and the way Indians matched their aggression, it was test cricket at its best.
  
• No doubt Ponting will have more than a few questions to answer over his game plan of preferring to think about the ban in the next series and letting a winning chance slip away in the final test.
• Australians have learnt to lose in spirit. Indians have just started their winning ways. Hope they handle their win maturely by not giving any horrendous statements.