Teen Deewarein- Movie review

Yet another random visit to the Landmark Book store to buy a Landmark Quiz coupon and yet another futile attempt to search for some real random and arbit movies...well this time not really futile..get my hands on 3 Deewarein and immediately grab it...
A tiring day in office translates into watching a good movie in the evening..all alone....

Now on to the review of the movie-
Inspired in part by the cult classic Shawshank Redemption, this movie is definitely worth a watch..It was made at a time when one Nagesh Kukunoor was considered a thinking director one who would make movies he believed in (Hyd Blues(1 and 2) Rockfort to name a few) before Bollywood really spoilt him(Bombay to Bangkok, Tasveer 8*10, Aashayein with John Abraham puke!) Dor being the only exception....Its a honest portrayal of the conditions in any typical Indian jail, the conditions of those incarcerated ...Most importantly he gets it right with the atmosphere and the art direction....The story is slow and begins to pick pace in the latter part of the second half...As the tag line says- 3 stories One ending..and if you have the patience to gloss over the first half and sit back and ewatch the movie till the end you will love it..
The only sore point is that though Kukoonoor tries his best to script a thriller, the story somehow has many loopholes which is difficult to digest..
However the acting by Naseeruddin is simply awesome....for once Jackie Shroff acts (and doesn't ham) Kukoonor the actor is passable..his character is that of a typical Hyderbadi hence he gets the accent correct..else we would have puked on him just as we did on Rajni and Kamal when they acted in Hindi movies (fellow Tam friends my sincerest apologies!..)..

Watch this story for the climax...and yes i was expecting a Shawshank Redemption type ending..but this one beat me..its different...

Tech Update

Tried a new mock up software Balsamiq- Immediate review- Awesome software !!! Only sore point- 7 day free trial beyond which you need to buy the thingie...:-(..Check this out-
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Italain soccer and me

Circa 1994....I remember my father and brother getting excited because the football WC was about to begin...Football WC meant sleeping relatively late at night because all the matches took place according to a time zone which was easily having a time difference of greater than 10 hours....Football WC also meant rooting for your side passionately which was either Germany or Brazil depending on which side you were in (Brother's side or father's side respectively).....Taking either sides didn't really make sense to me .....I wanted to support a third team just to add to the already existing tight competition in the house and to establish a separate identity of my own ..Establishing a separate identity was important because I always felt that all my opinions were overlooked simply because it was felt that I was too small to have an opinion of my own........Now the million dollar question was which side to pick?? Sometimes sheer instinct dictates your choices....It so happened that our good old DD was showing a WC preview series and in each episode they would analyze the title contenders discussing threir apparent strengths and weaknesses....That day it was the turn of Italy.....And almost the entire episode concentrated on just one man -Roberto Baggio....A pony tailed guy who was a poet with the ball...Decision was made then and there ....Italy would be the team I would support and I had found my childhood hero- Roberto Baggio...a footballer I still hold in the highest regard..If there is one reason why I follow football today its because of the Azurris and Mr Baggio......I must say I couldn't follow the tournament as closely as I do it nowadays but still the passion the team ignited within me hasn't diminished....A 10 year old kid cannot put in long hours at night watching football so I don't remember watching any of the games live...and the early morning newspaper too did not have the lastes results because the matches used to begin well past midnight and by the time they ended it was early early morning..So the first thing we did was toi switch on the TV and watch snippets of the matches and hence get to know of the result...Must say my passion for Italy received an early jolt whjen they lost their first match to Bolivia(faintly remember some Sanchez scoring a goal (and yes all this is being written down from whatever I "remember" so some data might be apocryphal)....Italy scrapped through to the 2nd round where they were to meet Nigeria.....Uptil then Baggio had been almost ineffective...while Mr Dino Baggio was garnering more attention for his header against Norway....I remeber the night when the match took place I wasn't able to sleep properly excited about the match and the final result ....Got up at earlky to switch on the TV ...To my relief the Italians had won the match after trailing 1-0 till the fag end...And it was Baggio who had singlehandedly turned the match in our favor with a goal in the dying moments to equalise and then converting a penalty in extra time to clinch victory....(That a penalty would come back to haunt Baggio is another matter altogether) The happiness one gets when the team you root for blindly wins a cliff hanger just can't be put in words....Inspite of all the criticism that had been heaped on me simply because I was supporting a weak side which didn't promise much was all offsetted with this one victory..we were in the quarters!!!....Spaniards were defeated 2-1 if am not wrong with Baggio again being instrumental in the victory...and yes now my team was ready to face off with my brother's team in all probability....My heart swelled with pride ...and was anxiously waiting for that mouth watering encounter......Sports rivalries run very strong in my house. Cricket( Mark vs Steve Waugh), Tennis (Edberg vs Becker) and now football was added to the list...(And this rivalry has outclassed all other sporting rivalries we brothers have had...and it still runs between us...)...Me and my brother have had innumerable fistfights and almost all of them were sporting rivalries which turned ugly after either one started teasing the other guy's team....we've hit each other and have been injured badly in the whole process...My "weary" body still carries a few scars from those epic "encounters".....:-)...Germany' ouster in the quarters to Bulgaria and Italy's entry into the semis meant I could hold my head high in any argument with my brother related to football for the next 4 years ( till the next WC)..:-).....
Anyways, now my passion was at an all time high.....True to my expectation, Italy outclassed Bulgaria and again Baggio was there....This was it .Italy was the best team without an iota of doubt and Baggio was God... Period.....
Meanewhile dad's Brazil had quietly progressed to thje finals and the final showdown was between dad and his younger son ..:-)....
As expected I was not allowed to watch th finals inspite of all the pleadings.....As far as I remember dad did stay up all night to watch the match....and I knew it...so the first thing I did after I woke up bleary eyed was to wake dad up to ask the result.....When he said that Italy had lost the match and hence the cup..I was shattered... I for once hoped dad would be lying ...but that has never been a part of my father's temperament....Baggio's penalty miss at Pasadena is a sight I can never forget...it remains etched in my mind till date.....the crucification that followed too is unforgettable ......
But Baggio had Italy had won one faithful fan for life......Since 1994 I have been supporting Italy and Italian teams, many a times unreasonably but that is something I just cannot give up.....it has become a part of my personality .......

Godses contd....

Resuming from where I left, found another link- Gopal Godse's interview to the TIME magazine in circa 2000 I guess. He expresses no remorse in what he and his elder brother did years ago. But one statement of his begs attention. His take on how Gandhi was able to fool the whole country into believing blindly in his principles. His mannerisms , his supposedly "populist" actions...well not many would have thought deeply through all this as the Godse's had done then. And if I look at it from a very neutral perspective well sheer reasoning says I just can't condone the arguments they have provided. It seems the immediate cause for that heinous act was the Hindu Muslim riots that took place during partition which lead to mass killings of thousands of hindus. (Though Muslims too suffered in commensurate measure is something we cannot deny.) So who was right?? Well I guess life doesn't play out that way. There are grey shades and hence I refrain from taking a strong stand here. after all none of us can deny that Gandhi did bring about a "revolution" in India, something which transformed India in more ways than one.
Here's the link to the interview......

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0214/india.godse.html

Nathuram Godse

Nathuram Godse's personality has always intrigued me. I have never been an ardent follower of Gandhi's principles;but am not a Gandhi hater. either. My feelings towards Gandhi have been quite ambivalent.I have been reading about Godse for quite some time now. Got to know certain trivia (I can't help it ;it runs in my blood;the tendency to remember such useless information!!) about him which adds a new dimension to his personality.
Not many people know that he was brought up in a devout god fearing Maharashtrian family; and was a follower of Gandhism since his childhood. He is said to have saved the life of a Harijan boy by diving into a well when everyone else stood around without offering help as they feared geting ostracized from their community.He was a school dropout but still a very well read man who is said to have had deep knowledge about Indian scriptures. He worked tirelessly to abolish untouchability; freely mingling with people of the lower castes much to the chagrin of his brethren. He had his own local vernacular newspaper called "Hindu Rashtra" the front page of which was left blank as a mark of protest against partition on 15th August 1947. what made such a person take the extreme step of assasinating the "Father of the nation"?I guess this link will provide us useful insights towards answering that question. It makes interesting reading . And sharpens the debate between the right wing "fanatics" and the pacifists even further.

http://ngodse.tripod.com/defense.htm.

CAT-An afterthought

Phew!!Its finally over.......I am not going to comment on how I fared in CAT and blah blah......I am going to write about my experience while preparing for the exam........To start - as one of my close friends recently put it-CAT is the MOAE...(Mother of all exams)....Now this is something I can't completely agree with.But yes there is no doubting the fact that CAT is a fundoo exam nonetheless. But I somehow feel that it is slightly skewed towards a certain section of population. After all CAT is an exam for entry to the IIM's.....and as is widely believed IIM's are but the best refuge for people from the middle and upper middle class background; those who have had privileged education especially in good English schools ....It does not test your raw intelligence in any way.....IIT-JEE does that......I know comparing two exams of completely different " genres" might be termed a crime still I just can't hold myself back...I have had this bad habit of comparing things and thereby evaluating their worth and it somehow shows here...:-)....Anyways I still feel that the exam is a fundoo one...why?? Well for that section of the society which belongs to the class I have just mentioned above CAT holds promise. Its their ticket to a better life at least am sure lakhs of students who appear for the exam every year feel so. The exam is always well devised...though its never free from errors!!....The questions asked are generally not the typical "run of the mill" kind questions....though this year I was disappointed with the questions...but for the last 2 years the questions that appeared in the Quant and DI sections were novel and required just about adequate amount of thinking discretion and prudence to crack within the stipulated period of time...This time the questions were pretty straight forward, questions which you could easily find in any preparatory material provided you have practiced extensively....only reason why I feel I did decently well in Maths this time was because of this...(not that it helped greatly...am not getting calls this time anyways!!!)......To be contd...back to work now!!!!

Tensed!!!

I am in a state of tension sinxce morning. A feeling which has gripped me aftera real long time. Why??
Many reasons. To put it in a short and precise way...lots of milestones to achieve and have to put in my best effort for each... Time Management is the mantra...need to hone that skill for success