Asking for too much? A sensible BJP??

Gujarat, MP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka, Rajasthan.... What's common to these states? All of them are suled by the BJP. With tdp likely to see some gains along with other old allies such as amma, bjp has an excellent chance of wresting power from the upa.

But being the leaderless boat bereft of ideology all the hindu nationalist party can do is riot over a piece of land in god forsaken kashmir. Understandably there is the issue of the amarnath shrine involved- but not right now, not right now. The country is anyway reeling under mind numbingly stupid policy decisions to support mindless violence. The argument against the likes of Mufti Saeed and Omar Abdullah is firm, they are just supporting violence in order to protect their vote base, to stoke a feeling of religious fanaticism (why harmony would be there in the first place is a good question, in life dont really say two guys are equal do you? A is greater than B, A is better, A's religion is better, A is a superior human being. The trick is to achieve as much harmony to keep a larger peace) that will serve their purpose in the long run. But, BJP is precisely doing the same thing by supporting the violence by its own violence. But the BJP cant really take the stand of banning religion from public life can they? They can probably try it, nowhere does Hinduism need to be a public religion.

What the party has missed out on is catching a sympathy wave by supporting the congress on the nuclear deal. Advani would have gone on in the pages of history as a strategist. The party is going to have a no bigger advantage, it might even turn out to be better actually if there are poor monsoons, now or a year from now.

The bjp had its moment in the sun, as with indian politics it has got a shot at fame once again, will the party realize this and take the opportunity or just wallow in its pettiness? Time will tell.

Why you gotta love Rafa

Imagine yourself playing a game and everything you throw at an opponent comes back to you with interest?
And each time you play him, you actually think that the guy has improved a bit more on his basic game? Ladies and gentlemen, please salute the most improved player of the last 2 yrs. Its Rafael Nadal. Its not just his clay court game or how he blew away Federer at the final or his new found confidence on the grass courts. Its just about the way he plays, he knows his strengths, which is his fierce athleticism and his never give in attitude. Now with that you have the heavy topspin, the aces that he can hit to any part of the ground the net play and an overwhelming desire to keep on improving.

The most exquisite player ? Hardly. The best player on court regards talent, hardly, but you can sure bet on him pushing himself. And that s the difference between him and that other fighter Hewitt, Hewitt got consumed by just playing on and on without really competing against himself. Nadal is humble enough (atleast now) that the game he has brought alive is in his own mind and that he has to take care of each little aspect to keep the party going.

And man does the party rock, go Nadal go, SW19 I hope it will be.

Yes you can forget the undie adjusting, the man is true spirit.

Why the Spanish victory was pathbreaking?

No its not because of that great beauty Metzelder or the genius Mertesacker. Germany were always the team that intimidated opponents, the team that played to its strengths, yeah even though it meant just putting close as a pillar and hammering him with crosses so that something goes in (if you remember, Jan Koller is the master of that particular art). Germany also had a coach who was not afraid to be the the players faces, again no offense to the beard of Metzelder and make sharp changes. Even though removing Lahm nullified an attacking option, Kuranyi cant score a goal in 472 yrs, Leow put a message to the rest of the players. You are free to play your brand of football, but keep your head in control. Aragones got a good leap on him first by playing Xavi a bit forward (this change came from just before the goal that Xavi scored against Russia) and along what that push the entire midfield up a notch. You play in the other team's half simple.

All this is fine, but this Spanish side represents youth. Youth that really dont have any baggage with them only the glory and the old man really allowed them to play eh? You would have mistaken Sergio Ramos for a frigging striker. In a tournament where pure attack was the norm, Spain showed why they are always considered dark horses (funny why you would consider them to be dark for any reason). And the Saint was in a league of his own. He is one of my favorite players of Real Madrid and he showed remarkable leadership. Calm, composed.

This is was an attacking Euro 2008, if I was a sociologist, I would have said one that shows the growing hunger of the young in trying to achieve new benchmarks for themselves, the rise of the new confident Europe, one that is comfortable in itself.

Far from it, its frigging sport, Torres showed why he is God, spain won. Period.

Sarkar Movie Review: Hellllllllllp RGV

Sarkar Raj:

Cast: Amitabh Bachan + 2, Typical RGV sidekicks

The end of an era.

I have been a fan of RGV from the time of Shiva, Kshana Kshanam (gult), Ananaga Oka Roju (golt), Satya days. I have steadily held on through the hazaar RGV factory films including James remake and the Shiva remake, hoping to see the magic rekindled somewhere. Thankfully I did give RGV ki Aag a miss, and the man himself claims to to have learnt that Aag was a disaster. If he did, Sarkar Raj is not the end product of those ruminations.

Sarkar was an Indian adaptation of Godfather. While the film largely failed at the box office, it had its moments. Sarkar as the ‘saviour’ of Maharashtra, the man beyond right/wrong itself, the justice system where the system fails. Now, Sarkar steps away and you have Shanker (AB Jr) who has the mantle of taking Maharashtra progress. Shanker adopts a power project as his pet project (based on project report!!! ROFL) and takes on all and sundry. And the end he has fallen for the power game, as just another pawn in the machinations that Sarkar himself is so good at. So much for the infallibility. ( And please “Sab kuch Niji hai”, are you kidding me? Michael Corleone?? Jesus Christ).

Absurd camera angles, too many “Govinda” s (we are not in tirupati), weird lighting and pathetic dialogues (Aishwarya mouthing “bomb kisne rakha” and what has the world come to? She is the heir apparent).

But but but, its RGV and I am allowed to criticize as much as I want, but the movie was still passable. Surely, we wont be disappointed in the next movie. Salvation shall be delivered.

Rating: 2.5/5

Dasavatharam - Movie Review

Cast: Kamalhasan, need I say more?

Whats the reason to make a magnum opus? You want to showcase the movie, the actor or the director? Would you put K S Ravikumar as a director? Kamal Hassan takes himself too seriously most of the time, K S somehow makes it work partially. At 3+ hours, the movie tends to be a bore. And dear Kamal, why not English subtitles to match the hype? You can make money mate. The premise is simple, is our life designed or do we have choice? Our story mixes the butterfly effect with having no effect, that the effect itself was engineered. Now for tam movie execution.

In 10 th century Tamland a Shaivite King throws a Vaishnavaite Deity (yes that I forgot the name of the deity is pathetic) into the sea along with the faithfully Vaishnavite priest. Cut to the present and the priest is reborn as a bio-technologist who unwittingly has created a biological weapon which goes on to get stolen and the rest of the movie is spent recovering this weapon, from US to TN (the transition is natural isn’t it?) Finally the world is saves by the Tsunami which only kills a few people instead of millions. Lo! And behold, the deity gets revealed.

Now I shall try to get the 10 avatars:

The priest (hefty one at that), the bio-technologist (oh cmon dude you just cant romance Asin get over it), GWB (this ones good, “Gentlemen, we have a problem”), assassin (ok this one is a yo-yo, old woman, Japanese samurai, old lady (witch!!!), tall pathan (or tall dressed pathan), surd singer (Avatar singh, he is cured of throat cancer due to a bullet through his throat – beat that Rajni) and of course the fave Balram Naidu. The gult trapped in TN, RAW officer. Naidu is hilarious and epitomizes why Kamal still has the cult.

How I wish Kamal had left the silicon to itself and tried all the characters with basic make up, it would have rocked. Here you have a tiring Kamal whose magical expressions are lost in layers of make up. Such a pity. Sigh.

Songs are pointless ( and as sushi says, bikini clad sherawat isn’t an assault in tam sensibilities? ) and are pathetic. Lots of the movie is not required and shut the pathan up please. K S Ravikumar it is and hence the movie does not bother you too much.

Rating 3.5/5

Aamir Movie Review: Muddled Choices

Cast: Khandelwal

Direction: Anurag Kashyap s Jr, sorry mate don’t recall the name.

Weird that I thought about it, but No Smoking and Aamir actually attack the same core principle but in totally different ways (looking/hearing the reactions I would hardly think so?), what exactly is choice? Is the decision maker important or is the decision important. Of course my friend Nirmal insists that I am just reading too much into the story. Anyway both films end in the same way, the choice itself is made redundant, what is happening while you are asleep? J

Our man Aamir is a Brit educated doc who returns to find his family kidnapped and under the instructions of a mysterious caller. He does not have any option than follow the instructions and he hurtles towards the realization that his notions of choice of leading a life actually do not exist.

The movie intersects our normal senses with Mumbai’s underbelly, that part of the city that we are agnostic towards. But then, the premise could really happen to any of us. Amazing sound track, both the background and the audio tracks, spectacular camera work and a gripping narration hold fort in this brilliant piece of execution. Why the praise? Small budget movies need to become a big circle if we are to start seeing good movies in the mainstream section.

Aamir boy could do with fewer imitations of Colin Farell and please please do spare us the clichés in such movies. If the idea of the movie is to be intelligent keep it that way throughout. Lets not delve too deep into that.

Rating: 4/5

Collective Intelligence going where?

I reiterate, individuals shall store lesser and lesser information in their own systems over a period of time. All information shall come into the 'social' sphere, intelligence being only the ability and the speed at which this information can be processed.

The construction of this social sphere is a completely differently perspective: Electronic or physical, the source of its energy, the form of information transfer from humanity to this medium, everything would be questions for which there are no answers. The only question as of now, is that is such a shift going to happen? What are the reasons

My brother contends that it is primarily consciousness, evolution being driven to an "omega point",at which the interests of all beings are aligned in a singularity. Think of it, the amount of information that we have stored in our lifetime is much lesser than what the generation before us did. The next generation seems to be storing (as in remembering the exact details) even lesser and seem to be focussed on specialized information. (Textbooks are the crude form of this example and Wikipedia possibly the most enlightened form). But, slowly but surely even without the apparent lack of decrease in mental storage capabilities we are choosing to store lesser and lesser information, almost as if there is a concerted effort to strip us of the information we hold.

(At a macro level, control of information, everything being reduced to information finally, represents 'civilization', this control is being slowly freed up, with tremendous repercussions for society. Control of information has always been a problem, history is always from the winner 's side)

What is the true nature of information itself?