Slumdog … now what does that mean??

Well, i don’t think this film has its heart at the right place.

Mixed reactions, to be precise. A film well put together, i must say, … story, actor choices, direction, music, editing, … all above average, outside the 3-sigma level ( can’t resist ), especially the fourth one outside the 6-sigma lim (here i’m at it again !), as is typical of dear A.R.R.

But … um, there always remains a but. I don’t want to watch this film again, unlike my gut feelings after i saw TZP or Dasvidaniya, or, to talk of Hollywood, say Memento or Dark Knight. This one’ll go down as many other films isaw and forgot, maybe with an added Oscar zing … “Slumdog what ? oh, the film which got A.R. two Oscars ?” (  Surely, he’ll get at least one.) Bas, that’s the only reason my brain’d distinguish it from the umpteen other movies seen. Sorry Mr. Danny Boyle. You did show us a part of ‘the real america’, but you didn’t fully show them a part of the real India.

You may argue, it got FOUR golden globes, after all. Well, one’s due to A.R., and , hm, … i don’t know how much credibility a f**kin’ award like this holds, which gives this movie a ‘best drama film’ award, handing a trash like Vicky Cristina Barcelona the one for best comedy (maybe just coz Woody Allen directed it) ! I mean, c’mon, at least you should swap their categories !!

P.S. Maybe by now you’re concluding i don’t know a hang ’bout films. Well, i can’t help it.

Rotten egg #2

My second rotten egg jointly goes to -

1. P. Chidambaram, the Indian Finance Minister, for initially putting a brave face and saying large things when faced questions on what the gov is doing to combat the ongoing economic crisis, but at last throwing the towel in and looking all dejected a day before diwali when the Sensex plunged below 9000.

2. The Indian petroleum ministry. When oil prices at international level were skyrocketing they were quick to respond by raising prices of petroleum products in the country. But now, when the international prices are dipping to an all-time low, their voices can barely be heard.

The Square Root of Three

I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three.
A three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath a vicious square-root sign?
I wish instead I were a nine,
For nine could thwart this evil trick
With just some quick arithmetic.
I know I’ll never see the sun.

Such is my reality,
A sad irrationality.
When, hark, just what is this I see?
Another square root of a three
Has quietly come waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
And with a wave of magic wands
Our square-root signs become unglued,
And love for me has been renewed.

(This beautiful poem appeared in the film ‘Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay’.)

Rotten Egg #1

Ahoy, the journey begins !

My first rotten egg goes to bollywood choreographer (sorry, i can’t call her a film-director) Farah Khan, for her comment about the nomination of Taare Zameen Par in the Oscars as the Indian entry. According to her, her (or rather Shahrukh Khan’s) Om Shanti Om was a better entry and she also guarantees it’d have been placed in the top 5 nominations at least. Yet, (for reasons best known to her and the memetic superstar SRK) they didn’t even send it for the initial selection!

Analyze this !

Pictures that say a thousand words.

Pritam – the (copied) music sensation of India !

Sample this – a music director, renowned for his variety, and a string of hit songs -
1. Ya Ali ( Film Gangster ),
2. Bheegi Bheegi ( Film Gangster ),
3. Shikdum ( Film Dhoom ),
4. Kya mujhe pyaar hai ( Film Woh Lamhe ),
5. Pehli Nazar ( Film Race ) … to name a few.

Dream career, eh ? Highly talented ? Well, now sample THIS –
all of them were total liftoffs of other songs, generally of oriental origin. The original songs are, respectively, …
1. Ya Ghali ( By the arabic band Guitara.),
2. Bhebe dekhechho ki ( by the Bengali band Mohiner Ghoraguli ),
3. Sikidim ( a persian song ),
4. Tak Bisakah ( by the indonesian band Peter Pan ),
5. Sarang hae yo ( a korean song ).
some others of his hit songs ( like Tu hi meri shab hai ) have also been found to be ‘inspired’, to put it politely.

Why, man ? There is no easy way to fame, my friend. Do you have an ambition to be the next copying prodigy of Indian music after Anu Malik ? Please, for God’s sake, don’t do it. You are cresting a bad name for Indian music. It’s a shame to concede that you are a Bengali like me.

Horse of the Water, or WHITE ELEPHANT ?

Yes, I am talking about the warship INS Jalashva, the second largest ‘warship’ to the Indian Navy’s arsenal. How on Earth we still think of ourselves inferior than the powers-that-be, when we claim to be an emerging superpower in the world, with ‘astounding growth rates’? Was it really necessary to buy ship that has long been decommissioned by the US navy, that also on literally unacceptable terms, ‘can’t use the ship in warfare’, and the permission to the US to use it as and when they wish ? If we can make the INS Viraat, the largest warship in the navy indigenously, then why should we buy a literally ‘abandoned’ ship with backward technologies ? Surely India is not that technologically backward. Logic defies this move, and it seems some vested personal interests are involved, when you know it was bought after only a hasty visual investigation.

An alternative ending to the Long Bad Australian Summer, eh?

It’s long been sort of a ‘tradition’ of the Australian team, — every summer, bring foreign team, get them minimal acclimatization, with practice matches against lowly domestic teams, and before they get the hang of things even minimally, they are 1-0 down in the 4-test series against the ‘Gods-of-Cricket’ home team, losing cheaply in the Boxing Day test. By the time the test series ends, the confidence meter of the visitors runs in negative. And after routing in the prelim matches of the long ODI tri-series, the tired and shattered lot would have no desire to win left in the multiple ‘finals’, they would only want to return home. A well-planned arrangement to provide quality amusement to the summer-holiday home crowd, and to bolster averages of home players. And also, everyone knows that the Australian cricket board can NOT make such an itinerary, tailormade to their own requirements, without any bias from the ICC.

And behold, the tradition is broken. The indication was clear from the Indian team’s  last tour, especially in the test series, though they were outplayed in the ODIs. But this time, it’s win-win. Any rational person would call it a moral victory for the Indian team in the tests, after the Sydney test fiasco. And now, in the ODIs. Ours was the least experienced team of all the three teams, having only one of our famed batting quartet in it, and leading from the front a young gun with limited captaining experience at the international level. Still, the hosts were beaten on straight matches in the feared ‘finals’. All the ‘arrogance-personified’ players of the Australian team were hung their heads in shame after the last defeat. And the leader of the lot, Ponting, had to concede that they were simply outplayed in both the matches.
Now everyone down under is singing a different tune. The local media has at last understood that we people ARE tough nuts to crack. Now we do not just give the home team a chase for their money, we play to win, unlike the meek days of Azharuddin. Now India are the ‘Dada’. And hats off to the original Dada, of course, for he started all this ‘evolution’, … the controlled aggression bit, the passion, the exemplary team spirit in crisis, … everything.

P.S. Cricket Australia now accuses Bhajji called Haydos  a ‘liar’ and Gilly ‘no saint’, well, ‘an obnoxious little weed’ ( hayden said this of Bhajji ) is by no stretch of imagination more sober in calling names than ‘liar’.

Dig ‘em up !

The umpires could’ve awarded the match to Australia for Harbhajan’s ‘racist remarks’ on Symonds, … that would be better. Even better, why play matches, we give walkaways, and you win 4-0, you so-called world-beaters, you unsporting gits. Even if Brett Lee declares, “It all ( the controversial umpiring decisions ) evens up at the end”, anyone with little rationale, even the aussie players themselves, that it is NOT so at the end of the SCG test. Australia have virtually been awarded this match that they were going to lose within FOUR DAYS. True, even barring the umpiring ‘dadagiri’-s, Indian batting was spineless in the last innings, but then, they showed more spine than Australia on first 2 sessions of day 1. And how much unfair pressure can you tolerate? This aussie side is one of the weakest ever, yes, and would easily buckle in such a condition. This may sound outrageous and more of an outburst, but the fact is that barring India, the handful of teams in test cricket grossly overestimate them and get overawed, and …… sigh, get chewed. India also does surrender sometimes, but still, we are the only team they fear.

For us, playing is primary, winning is secondary, and for them it’s just the reverse. That’s why they get frustrated by a 50-something 8^th wkt stand of us, and start chirping away. As Harsha Bhogle rightly pointed out, they were no longer sure that they were gonna get a wicket. And, most importantly, their theme of this series is a severe panic, which started in the first test, when our ‘inexperienced’, ‘incapable-of-taking-20-wickets’, grossly underestimated bowling line-up shook them. They forgot that of late on away tours, the contribution of bowlers was more than the ‘best’ batting line-up. And, …… ah yes, umpires, … why they have surely been tapped, because even in MCG, Billy Bowden looked ‘dubious’ (to put it politely), and this Sydney test, well, it has been rigged, just like the CPM does in the polls of Bengal (btw, notice the nice and befitting analogy of ‘have-to-win-at-any-cost’ pack of potheads ) ! None of them except than Gilly is a gentleman, and ‘MoM’ (don’t know if he’s really been declared, but he certainly is the all-round ‘hero’ of this match ! ) Symonds gets a special mention among them.

Now, digs at the England team. England, just like their soccer counterparts, is a team that is much hyped, overrated and least delivering. Gavaskar’s right, their county cricket is of the standard of our plate group ranji matches.

And now, …… the ICC. The epitome of bias, especially against the sub-continental teams. Clearly a desperate offshoot of the dying, cliched colonial superiority complex.

Homeopathy, …… we’re still not there

Surely I am not taking sides.

Just as ‘once upon a time Biology was termed ‘voodoo science’, now this branch of the so called larger group ‘alternative medicine’ is branded pseudoscience, thanks to some stubborn docs and equally, perhaps more, stubborn medicine-giants.

Of course the underlying basics of homeopathy are somewhat ‘holistic’. To the current level of intellect that we humans have acquired, we can’t find out how on world can perpetual dilution and more and more shakes make the medicine more stronger, especially when the basic ingredient is often a harmful thing. And more importantly, at such dilutions in a given amount of the medicine the probability of finding even one molecule of the base is practically zero. The famous Lancet study has even bravely by experiment dismissed the whole great saga of homeopathy as a mere ‘placebo effect’ gimmick. But then, that disapproval is also not universal.

You can’t disprove it yet. We all know homeopathy cures, sometimes, if not often, even better than the conventional ‘Allopathy’. You won’t say the good old ‘Arnica’ doesn’t reduce pain. The concept has since Hahnemann gained a large amount of trust-base, surely it is not totally standing upon fluke and eyewash, that isn’t a stable ESS ( Evolutionary Stable Strategy, ala Selfish Gene, thanks to Richard Dawkins and John Maynard Smith). It doesn’t even violate our scientific notion, it challenges. We are still in our toddler stages when we talk about the minuscule world, the world of atoms. The domain of electromagnetic (broadly) ‘interactions’ remain vast and unconquered before us. Our science doesn’t have a concrete, that is, provable base. Lots of peer-reviewed studies have proved efficacy of this branch of medicine, and though debated, sometimes of infinitely diluted solutions.

Docs are supposed to be nice to patients, and most homeopaths know it very well that the psychological factors of an ‘I care’ attitude can do a whole lot of good to the patient as well. Although overstretching of this is never supported. And then, the ideas of ‘paper remedy’ (“Write the remedy and potency on a piece of paper and place the paper on the left hand side of the body with the writing towards the body.”) ^[is nothing but a placebo, and thunderstorm or Berlin wall supposed to be related to homeopathic medicine, are damn ridiculous. This is of course unacceptable.