Johny Gaddar: Watch it

During the evening hours of my stay here and when office spares me, I managed to see a movie which I wanted to see since a long time and it is Johny Gaddar on you tube. The movie is very much worth the hype which I had heard it from word of mouth because the box office collections of the movie suggest a completely different picture.
The movie begins with 5 goons planning for a 'deal' where everyone has equal amount to share and equal share in profits also. The real story begins when one of them, the gaddar plans to ditch others and take the whole money for himself. Now, the audience is aware of who the gaddar is from the very moment the treachery comes into the mind of the of the gaddar himself. So, what keeps the viewerd engaged is what one might wonder. It is the casual and cool way of the characters, the apt characterisation, the bang on spot dialoghes and the excellent cinematography. Now one might wonder, cinematography has no role to play in such a movie where there are no songs and no foreign locales but what impresses you is the way the cinematography manges to reflect the mood of the movie. The screenplay is another stellar. As for the performances, newcomer Neil couldn't have asked for a better debut and he manages to perform well also. Dharmendra in his new second avatar has been a reveleation like the movie 'Metro'. Other members support aptly. By the end of it all, when you feel the gaddar has just pulled it off and also for some strange reason I felt happy on that, the last sting is left. Songs by Shankar Ehsaan Loy are another plus for the movie especiall, the title song for me. Must watch for people who have a taste for interesting and sensible movies.

Life in San Jose

Well, I am in San Jose for the past 2 weeks and will continue to bless this land with my presence for another 10 weeks. So how's life here, or how's life different here. These are some of the points which were markedly different from what I had seen or experienced so far.

• San Jose(esp the region I stay in) is the most artificial place I ever will see. Yes, it even beats the places you dream about. Everything here is just about perfect. Where else do you find deserted roads all through the day. The VTA train which runs for local transportation also runs all for itself.
• Where do you find trains and buses running bang on time. I mean, if the train is supposed to come at 7.23 it will come sharp at 7.23 .
  
• There's not a spec of dust on roads. The reason for this is that the roadsides from where sand can fly into the road is covered by wooden flakes which are left behind from construction of trees.
• The climate seems to be tailor made for comfort. Well that is for the time being though. Sunny and windy afternoons and chilly but comfortable nights.
• The city is amazingly clean and the people unbelievably friendly.
• The city is well planned in all aspects with perfect roads and infrastructure.
• But even though they thought of all this they missed to think of an important aspect which one might need and that has to do with toilet. Hope you got it.

Not until I visited places like San Jose downtown and San Fransisco did I realise that this place is no dreamland and it is indeed a place very much on earth with all the earthly things like traffic,rush,poverty,begging etc etc. So I am out of my dream now.

Inflation the true picture

Came across this price list board in Sri Rangam. This board tells the story of inflation.

P.S: For those who cannot read Tamil, the board shows the prices of various dishes.

BSNL land line and broadband story

If I was found searching for antonym for the word "service" on my desktop wordweb , the credit goes to BSNL. First the broadband stops working for no reason and no one picks up at the customer "service" center. When contacted to one of the agents whom we knew, he gave all stories(not solutions) possible by him. Like reconfiguring the router and changing password etc etc. Finally when we were able to raise a complain we came to know that the problem was that the phone number was itself gonna change and without any prior notice and without any change to my physical address. The reason being that some exchange is being changed. So now here I stand with a new changed phone number and I have to inform all my relatives and friends of the change. Whats more taxing is that this is the phone number which is updated in all my previous employers,passport and all other important documents. As of now when called to the older number they redirect to the newer number by a message, but I am not sure how many months that message will be played.

And by the way the antonym for service happens to be a simple "disservice".

Sporting extravaganza on the weekend

This sunday I witnessed two big sporting extravaganzas. One being the cricket final for Asia cup played between India and Sri Lanka and the other being the Wimbeldon finals and I was found switching my channels at every chance I get. Though cricket failed to garner my interest for long (as has beent he case of late with 50 over matches) , some moments truly stood out in cricket as well.

• India's decision to field 8 specialist batsman and only 3 genuine bowlers came as a surprise move to me but nevertheless, Dhoni should be appreciated for thinking out of the box.
• Though the match was a lackluster fair especially if you were supporting India, the presentation had its own drama. Rameez Raza in his typical anti-India comment quoted the statistics of India losing out 18 finals out of 22 played from 2002. Dhoni was quick to bounce back with " At least we came to finals, some teams(Pakistan) even failed to make to finals." Bravo Dhoni once again.
  

And what a tennis match it was. Inspite of rain interruptions now and then we were in for a treat. The match initially in Nada's favour found the champion in Federer when he bounced back like never before with 2 set wins. It was a contest of Champion vs The Aggressor. It was the match between two men who showed true character. How else do you explain the amount of focus and determination shown by both during this 4 hour 48 minute battle of nerves. Hats off to both of you! I could only wish for some more of the match.