Tees Maar Khan - Heroine

 

Find the comic on the idea of Tees Maar Khan here

The idea of Tees Maar Khan

Find more about the Tees Maar Khan heroine here

Nagavalli Review

Going gaga about Sheila

'Sheila' and 'Sheila Ki  Jawani'  is the talk of the town now after Munni and her Zandubalm in the recent release 'Dabang'. One of my friends happened to post a link of the You tube video 3-4 days. I am in love with the whole song, the dance and of course Sheila.

I also feel that this is the best time for me to go gaga about the song before the movie  'Tees Maar Khan' releases. Once the movie is out,  I am sure I will find a good part of the story devoid of any kind of logic.

Even if I love it,  I am sure I won't admit loving it in the midst of all the peer pressure of the other critics. ( Ah..The peer pressure !!!) .  

Also once I see the whole movie, this song  will just be a minor part of the movie. There would be at most 2 sentences about the movie. Now how sad would that be?

So then,here I go.. 

The  initial sound track ( when the bed is rotating ) is amazing.  There is so much of energy in it. I am already on a high after seeing Katrina in a towel at the center of the bed.

What's my name ? What's my name?

Watch Katrina do the step there with her finger on her lips and boy.. doesn't she look a million dollars?

Sheila ... Sheila Ki Jawani!

The step where Katrina raises her hands.

 Farha Khan .. Tussi great ho.. for coming up with this step and having Katrina do it.

 My adrenalin levels have now doubled with the powerful music in the background.

I wonder how you managed it , Katrina ?

Whatever it was you did lose to the extra kilos, it was totally worth it.  She looks awesome as she sways  in those costumes baring her midriff.

Next Stanza! Yeh Dil Maange More!

'Sil Sili Silly Boy... ' says Katrina.

And I wonder how a female who looked stunning in the Indian wear a moment ago could look even better in a white shirt and a short! Female Fatale!

Katrina isn't new to Hindi cinema but it is those steps by Farha Khan that make her so special. 

Now who's this guy in the hat? Oh.. that's Tees Maar Khan.. Akshay Kumar. Go away man! Don't waste any screen space at this moment.

Katrina seems to have heard it and pushes him away saying

' I know you want to but cannot never get there.. '

Sheila.. Sheila Ki Jawani..

Katrina in a different costume now  that again makes me go fida over her for the nth time in the last 2 minutes.

I wonder who thought of the mirrors here. 

Mirrors and pretty women is such a lethal combination especially when you have the lady dancing to such steps. Super idea to use the mirrors!

Katrina is back in the Indian costume. 

The song comes to an end with lots of men shouting just one word 'Sheila'.

Now this is undoubtedly, the most sizzling Item number of the year :)

Rakta Charitra - A RGV movie that lives up to its name

So then, Ram Gopal Varma is finally back in action with ‘Rakta Charita’.  Bollywood fans are perhaps tired of him for giving one dud after another  with movies like  Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag and Agyaat, but the Telugu audience saw him way back in  1999  when the movie  ‘Prema Katha’ was released . 

Although this movie is a tri-lingual, it has been eagerly awaited by the Telugu audience since the story Paritala Ravi and Maddelacheruvu Suri is something that many Telugus are familiar with.  RGV does not disappoint his fans with the first part of the Rakta Charitra series and thankfully gives his fans something that they expect of him.

Rakta Charitra-1 is the story of Pratap (Vivek Oberoi) whose father and brother are killed by the men of his father’s political mentor, Narasimha Reddy and his aide Nagamani Reddy. Pratap who till then is indifferent to all these fights begins the battle against the killers. He along with other members of his group starts eliminating the men from the rival camp one by one.

 Bokka Reddy (Abhimanyu Singh), the son of Nagamani Reddy is hell bent on taking revenge on Pratap. He also creates problems for Shivaji Rao (Shatrughan Sinha), a film actor aspiring to rule the state. Shivaji Rao supports Pratap and gives him the political backing to fight Bokka Reddy. How Pratap grows in stature as a politician and how he uses it to eliminate his arch rival, Bokka Reddy takes us to the end of the story.

 Vivek Oberoi delivers an impressive performance as Pratap (real life character of Paritala Ravi). However it is Abhimanyu Singh who hogs the lime light as the evil Bokka Reddy who takes law into his own hands. Shatrughan Sinha offers a good performance as Shivaji and reminds the Telugus of NTR every time he utters the word ‘brother’ in his dialogues. 

The rest of the actors are also good but the ‘Telugu feel’ is lacking in the movie with just Kota Srinivas Rao, Tanikella Bharani, Subhalekha Sudhakar being the only Telugu faces in a story that is based on the incidents that have happened in Andhra Pradesh.

 Background music by Dharam Sandeep suits the theme of the story but at times you can’t help feeling that it is too loud. The camerawork in the movie has the RGV stamp that his fans are so used to, right from his first movie ‘Siva’.  For a change, the fights in a Telugu movie are natural devoid of the drama that we get to witness when the hero thrashes 10 goons in no time.

For a major part of the movie RGV has the audience guessing, trying to relate the characters and incidents in the movie with those that happened in reality. It is this reality aspect that makes the movie gripping and interesting.

As the director himself mentioned earlier, the movie is definitely not for those who enjoy family drama or even those who love regular commercial flicks. There is definitely too much of bloodshed and excessive violence in the movie, but then perhaps there was a reason for RGV naming this movie ‘Rakta Charita’.

So then for a change, I am writing again instead of the  comic strips that I have been so addicted to of late.  Interestingly enough, the background of this blog is something that I very much associate with RGV movies.

QSQT- Kal Se Aaj Tak

I have been logging into my  blogger account trying to write something in the last couple of days. But my mind remains blank and I am usually not able to  find anything good to write about. It was the same situation today before I clicked this link about the movie 'Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak' on the ibnlive website.

I haven't watched QSQT till date. Just watched certain parts of the movie when it was on T.V. I have however heard the songs many times and loved each of them. But I thought some of the songs were from 'Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander' before I saw the video today. Awesome songs! Each of them is so good to listen to. 

I was surprised when I saw that the movie was promoted with that ' Who is Aamir Khan?' hoarding in those days. I mean it is such a cool idea that is sure to grab people's attention.  I also remember a similar kind of promotion ( Evare Abbayi?) for Pawan Kalyan's debut movie in Telugu. Of course this Telugu movie bombed big time.

I couldn't quite believe it when Juhi Chawla said that she and Aamir Khan stuck the posters  on the autos and taxis. There seems to be so much of hype these days even before the movie begins that even debut hero and heroines become known entities. I somehow feel that the media exposure has taken away the charm and the innocence that was there in those days. We have separate teams and firms doing the promotional activity these days.

Aamir Khan was talking about the movie collections and how it picked up in the 4th week. 4th week? It is a  different ball game these days the movies raking in the moolah in the first 3 days ( Friday followed by the Weekend). There are now 10 shows  in a single multiplex on the opening day of a big budget movie. I remember the entire city flocking to one movie hall to catch a new movie those days. Remember 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun' running for Lt->Infinity ( hehe.. that's the engineer in me) days  in the Maheshwari cinema hall in Kachiguda?  Times have changed so much !

Anyway I think the basics of a good movie remain the same. An interesting plot  and a gripping narration are as important for a movie to succeed as they were 20 years ago. I can never quite understand how technology and special effects can be more important than the story or the script. What say?

You are growing old.. Dodo!

A couple of months ago as I was shaving my beard, there was something shinning. I moved to closer to the mirror to examine it. Soap? Foam? No.. it wasn't. I tried removing it and it stayed there. " Oh Nooooooooooooooooo" my soul screamed. It was grey facial hair ! Arghhhhhhh.. I am growing old. I let out a heavy breathe and touched my tummy. Damn it..! Nothing is going right and aging is so bloody one sided.  Huh.. I wish I was Benjamin Button! 

The other day I was watching MTV and it was the awesome 'Masakali Masakali' song. Ah... Sonam Kapoor is damn cute ya ! Watching my eyes  stuck to the Masakali babe, my Mom decided to dig into it.

Mom: Who is this girl?

Me: Sonam Kapoor

Mom: Oh...! Newcomer?

Me: Yeah, she is Anil Kapoor's daughter.

Mom: Oh! I see.

No she wasn't digging into it. She came, she saw, she left. I was the one who was lost in deep thought.

Circa 1988. I was in Class III and I was back home after watching Tezaab. Anil Kapoor was awesome in the movie. Kya hero tha yaar! ( No..No Arnold schwarzeneggeror or Sylvester Stallone I was not an English movies fan even  then) Tezaab was followed by Ram Lakhan and I thought Anil Kapoor truly rocked at that time. ( Till SRK  came along in 1992 with Dewaana). 

Haa.. wait! I won't digress and go into Bollywood now. The point is I adored Anil Kapoor back then. He now has a daughter .. and dude I find her adorable too.  That's ok. But then, it has been quite some time since those Tezaab days - a good 22 years  ago.  I was now reminded of the grey hair follicle again ! Old!!! Such an annoying 3 letter word!

My mind now went down south . I mean .. I am talking about the Film Industry! Who were the movie stars I liked in Tollywood and where are they now?

* The rest of this post is about the Telugu film industry-Tollywood from 1981-1990. Be warned*

As a kid perhaps the first 'hero' I knew was 'Sobhan Babu'.  Awwww! I know it isn't cool.. but since he was the only one whom I knew back then .. he was my favourite, first ever favorite Telugu hero. But yeah he spent most of his time in movies arguing with his wife .. (the heroine). His movies would usually have two heroines out of which one would die in the end. ( I really can't describe him as well as this blogger does).  I guess I saw him doing some dishum.. dishum and fighting a baldy bady to save his lady love and so liked him.

For those of you who are wondering if I ever liked ANR and NTR, let me tell you as a kid ( ahem ahem) I looked beyond the old 'black-white' generation. So when my mom and her sisters used to go gaga over NTR and ANR, I thought liking them would be so uncool. And so Shobhan Babu!

Shobhan Babu had passed away last year and so yeah the first one is already gone. It has indeed been a loooooong time!

1986- Simhasanam. I saw Super Star Krishna in that movie wielding the sword skillfully and was so impressed that for the next 1 month any long  metal/stick or kitchen utensil would turn into a sword into my hand. Those around me would be my enemies. And yeah our bed was the battlefield where I would defeat them. The bed because I could jump and perform feats on it without getting hurt :). Of course I would sing 'Akasam lo Oka Tara' to myself .. coz I would usually never find a cute little girl around.

Krishna's son Mahesh Babu has been wielding the gun since quite some time now. Time .. I say just flies!

Krishna was notorious for his dance steps and some of my friends in my neighbourhood used to make fun of me for being his fan.  There were all fans of his guy called Chiranjeevi who would dance like a charm and woo his lady love bashing up all the goons. Dad then took me to this movie -'State Rowdy' and boy.. wasn't Chiru ( that's what we fans call him) awesome? I was totally floored and as far as I can remember I never adored any other hero as much I adored Chiru. ( A few years later ,my hormones got active and then I would only watch the heroines !)

Of course , no Chiru  fan can ever forget his fights with the evil Amrish Puri  on the train or his super dances. Remember the Chiki Chiki Chellam ... Chiki Chiki Chellam Chiki Chiki Chiki aah!  G A N G.. GANG GANG bajao BANG BANG song from Gang Leader. ( I am again inspired by this awesome blogger's post). Chiru was truly phenomenonal!

Venkatesh came next with the super hit movie ' Bobbili Raja'. But then Divya Bharti came along and yeah I was old enough to notice her. Chiru was there much earlier and so he remained the Star for me!

Chiranjeevi has quit movies now and is trying his luck in Politics . His son Ram Charan Teja and nephew Allu Arjun are big stars in  Tollywood today. 

Hmmmmm.. Looooooooooong pause!

So then the fact that I am old is as cliched as the demand for Telangana. 

I have come a long way from the Grow up..Kiddo! days . Really???

Hmmm.. Mom & Dad seem to be thinking on the same lines and they want to DISCUSS something SERIOUS with me tonight.

NAHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

Dil to Baccha Hain Ji!

Having loved the movie 'Kaminey' , I always knew that I would like 'Ishqiya' too. And boy... I enjoyed watching the movie. As one of my friends mentioned on facebook, the movie has its weird moments, but it is  a good movie overall.

Things have really changed in the last few years in Bollywood. There are more directors  these days who are constantly making an attempt to offer something new. Abhishek Chaubey in his first movie does just that. I was never bored at any point of time in the movie.

I was pleasantly surprised at how Vidya Balan's character was handled. I thought it would  be an out and out negative role but it turned out to be very realistic. Arshad Warsi  perfectly fitted the bill as Babban.

And Naseeruddin Shah? He is good as ever. He is amazing in the song 'Dil to Baccha Hain Ji' . His expressions are awesome and I think he deserves an award just for the song.

When I saw the trailer of the song, I liked it. But after watching the movie, I just adore the song and the idea behind it.

I searched for the song on You tube and found the above video. Hats off to Gulzar and Vishal Bharadwaj. Yes, the song is very cute and innocent.

I thought  Vidya Balan appeared a bit too urbane in the role unlike Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad warsi. Or may be women always have something appealing about them. We men will never disagree. 

 After all, Dil to Baccha hain ji!

O Captain, My Captain!

I just saw 'Dead Poets Society' and I thought it was a lovely movie. I would  have loved it even more had I watched it a few years ago before I even dared to think of something else beyond my engineering graduate degree. Aamir khan is talking of chasing excellence in 2009, but this movie that deals with being a non conformist was released way back in 1989.

I found the last scene of the movie when all the members of the Dead Poets Society stand on their desks to bid adieu to their beloved professor John Keating  ( the O Captain, My Captain scene) very touching. Being a Bollywood fan, I found it a bit abrupt and  I would have liked if the movie ended with the prep school changing its teaching methods for the better. 

But probably these things ( happy -endings as SRK calls them ) don't happen  in reality and in Hollywood.  Well, as always I guess I have been late watching a  Hollywood master piece. But yeah, I am happy I have seen it.

I saw 3 Idiots last week and liked it. I thought it's a very good movie compared to the regular Bollywood fare that we get these days. But it was slightly disappointing considering that it was an Aamir Khan movie. I thought it was too much about him rather than about the 3 Idiots as a whole. Probably reading  '5 point someone' novel made me think that way. Aamir is the dude in the movie, tops the class and also has the gal- Kareena. 

The novel was better where Ryan plays the brilliant non-conformist who believes that exams are not everything ( and hence does an average job there and doesn't end being the topper unlike in the movie. Are you listening Mr. Aamir Khan? ). Ryan's friend Hari romances the girl in the novel which I thought was very natural compared to Aamir doing  everything in the movie.

Let me not even get into the tiff between Chetan Bhagat and the film makers of the movie at this point of time. It's quite sad!

      
Planning to watch 'Avatar' later today. Let's see if it inspires me to write something.  

Cinema Paradiso

Just watched Cinema Paradiso. Lovely movie! I think it is an Italian movie. I was able to understand some words like 'Merci' and 'Tres Bien' thanks to my french madame. I was just wondering if an Indian movie can be made on those lines. Of course, the movie should be devoid of any kind of masala or tamasha.

 I guess many Indian kids  are passionate about movies like the little kid in the movie is. Think! Think! I guess it would be one damn interesting project to try and make an Indian version of  'Cinema Paradiso' . Perhaps someone like Vishal Bharadwaj should try it out.

P.S- I haven't yet googled 'Cinema Paradiso'. I just typed what I thought about the movie as soon as the movie was over, It would interesting to note how the writings on the net about the movie affect my thoughts on the movie.

New releases!

I don't mind going alone to watch a movie these days. I went to Cinemax today to try and get tickets for Aarya-2 releasing this 27th November. Unfortunately the tickets were already sold out.

Me: So do you have tickets for Saturday?

Ticket counter guy: Front row seats.

Me: Thanks but no thanks.

I am a big fan of the whole'Aarya' idea. I thought one-sided love was never depicted better in any other movie. Of course, it is a movie at the end of the day and all that happens on the screen can't/won't happen in real life.

Five years is quite sometime and as per what my one of my good friend was saying the other day,  I have toned down quite a bit since the good old Aarya days. The raw energy and the unbridled enthusiasm is usually amiss and whatever left is accompanied by some thought and doubt these days.

So then it remains to be seen if Aarya-2 lives up to my expectations. I heard the songs today and found them good. I hope Allu Arjun's look in the movie has some logic to it and is not just a random attempt to look different. Let us wait and see.

I put my ear-phone and clicked on the song  'He loves you so much' . There was some problem with the volume. 'Why is it so low?', I wondered. I tried adjusting my ear-phone volume but that did not seem to help. Mom suddenly entered my room as if I had done something wrong.

Ooops! I realized that I have not connected the ear-phone  to my laptop. !!!!  I have done it yet again. I am so funny.

Talking of new releases, I am dying for '3 Idiots' to hit screens. Aamir Khan looks so young in the trailers of the movie. I think the effort that he puts in to get into the skin of the character is really amazing. 

New releases! I want to be a part of new releases too. I am really missing the deadlines and delivery dates that were so much a part of my life when I was working and later while I was studying. I am waiting for that meeting with the client where I get to talk about work.

Oh.. yeah .. I am missing work!

P.S- This blog started off as a freehand writing attempt. I put some thought as I went along. Freehand writing  is the kind of writing that you just write something without thinking of your quality or errors . I just opened blogger and started typing whatever came to my mind. 

Umm... I feel I should be doing it more often.

Wither Bollywood!

I have grown up on regional and Hindi movies. I can't do without watching them however cliched the themes might be. I also need to put some kind of an effort to watch an English movie . Most of my friends were like me around 10 years ago.  Most of them start watching English movies during the engineering phase of 4 years ( even those who hardly watched Hindi movies ).  I was somehow different and Hollywood movies never excited me.  So much so that I did not even watch 5 Hollywood movies in those 4 years.

Over the years however ( especially during the last 2 years), I have started seeing English movies and I find them superior to the Bollywood and regional ones in terms of the stories and ideas. This also might be due to the fact that  I watch an English movie when someone suggests that I should see it as opposed to watching any random regional or Bollywood that hits the screens.

I saw many Bollywood movies in the last 4 months. Just in the last 1 week, I saw 3 of them. I didn't  find anything new or interesting  in 'Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani'. The only highlight of the movie was perhaps Ranbir kapoor who also did a good job in 'Wake Up Sid'.

The less I talk about 'London Dreams' the better. Salman and Ajay are no longer in the 20s or even 30s to do such roles. It is sad that our story tellers don't find stories beyond the routine 'boy meets girl' kinds. If there are 2 male-leads, then it cannot be anything other than jealousy for the lady. Both of these movies, APKGK and LD  should have come 10 years ago. I am not too sure if they would have made an impact even then.

The third movie that I saw last week 'Tum Mile' where the director had at least tried out something different.  The hero meets his ex-girl friend in the face of a calamity where the audiece are taken back to the Mumbai 2005 floods. The theme was contemporary but I thought the story wasn't  too  gripping.

There are too many flashbacks during the 'flood' incident which should have been the most engrossing part of the story.  Ideally, the effect of the flood should have had the audience  thanking God for the clear weather once they stepped out of the cinema hall. Instead, it turns out to be a pretty ordinary movie with a few flood scenes and the 'boy finally meets girl' happy ending.

For me, the last good movie of the season was 'Kaminey'. and I loved watching it. I am a fan of the movie's director -Vishal Bharadwaj and I thought the two characters of Shahid Kapoor were etched superbly. It was good to see a Bollywood heroine look like an ordinary girl without any make-up. Thankfully, there were no dream sequences where the she turns into an angel. I thought it was  Shahid Kapoor's best performance to date and I think he deserves an award for his performance in the movie.

It was interesting to note that the audience had extreme opinions about it. One category of those like me who loved the movie and the other category who detested the movie so much that they felt like leaving the movie half way.  I am planning to buy a DVD tomorrow to make my Dad watch the movie and find out to which category he belongs to.

I have realized that I have been stuck on this post for too long. More bouquets and brickbats later. For now.. I just want to see more 'Kamineys'!

(pic courtesy:http://rakeshzone.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/kaminey12.jpg)

The Static and The fleeting

Ha ha Hasini! I finally managed to watch the telugu movie "Dhee" today. I wanted to watch this movie since a long time, ever since I saw the pics of the lead lady "Genelia" on one of the idle filmy sites. I have gazed at her photos a hazaar times since then. How couldn't I when she was on every wall of my life- in my room, on my computer and on my cell-phone. And then she would appear on the TV screeen every now and then. I couldn't just wait to watch her on the 70mm screen. So when one of friends called me at 5:45 pm asking me if i could join him for a 6 pm show, life seemed to ooze of out the dead Mainframe screen. 2 mins later - Log off, Shut down. 4 mins later- I started my bike.15 minutes later , I was at the theatre and in front of me on the big screen stood the beauty.

Two and half hours later, I wasn't exactly mesmerized. Naah... the quality of the film had nothing to do with it neither was the fact my dream girl lacked the brains and fell for that dumbo hero. I remembered that I had seen her films earlier. But it wasn't then that my Dil went mmmmmm... it was only when I saw the pics. After some amount of R & D ( office mein zyada kaam kar ne ka effect) , I have come to the conclusion that Genelia is a static beauty. Hee hee.. Let me explain. These static beauties are very photogenic and make maximum impact in the pictures and when one keeps on gazing at them in a single pose. Although they are beautiful and look cute even otherwise, they wouldn't quite make the same impact when set in motion. ( yeah, I studied some Physics at the +2 stage). So a fan like me would end up wondering why the female who looked like an angel on his wallpaper, teasing and mesmerizing him appeared just like another heroine in the movie. Well, remember the "Static beauty theory".

The exact opposite of this is Piper Perabo, the girl who plays "Violet Sanford" in the hollywood movie "Coyote Ugly". I happened to catch the movie around 2 weeks back on Star movies and when I stopped swapping the channels once I saw Piper Perabo on screen. She seemed to have the perfect smile, the most natural smile that I had ever seen. Post-movie, I found some images of Piper Perabo on the net ( I didnt even know the name till then), and much to my disapppointment the spark was missing in her pics. The reason was simple. Any picture in the world would be able to capture only a particular instant of that lovely smile while the smile would continue for the next few seconds. And one can appreciate that only if one sees the complete smile from the moment when her lips start widening to the moment she flashes her teeth. The effect is not about a single moment. It lasts a few seconds and hence no photo can capture that. A fleeting beauty you see :)

Special thanks to:

Google Picassa for the collage

Genelia pics: www.idlebrain.com, www.raagalahari.com

Piper Perabo: http://www.wallpaperbase.com

The Hero rises from the dust

Working full time in the nights has it own disadvantages. Yesterday was a day off where I slept for 4-5 hrs in the morning and then had my full quota of night sleep( 8-9 hours). Life in the morning failed to motivate me beyond the mediocre routine of mail check and nature calls and hence I slept again( although there were some tasks to be done, they couldn't really get me going). Sometimes I tell myself that since I got to work the entire night, a nap ( a looong one though) in the morning would do me no harm. Today was one such days and I slept about 3 hours in the morning when I didn't need any. Now at 1:30 am in the mid night, my already puffy face is bloated like a balloon and my eyes remind me every moment that they don't need too much rest at one stretch.

Day before yesterday was different. In fact it was at the other extreme. I came to the office, worked till 2 and then had a couple of hours of sleep at home (traveling 20 odd kms in the hooooot Sun). In the night I was back again for the shift. On days like this , there is a 2-hour period in the midnight ( between 2:00 am to 4:00 am) which gets extremely testing. This is the time when the beauty called Sleep throws all her guiles and tries to seduce me. I usually succumb and give myself the luxury of a half an hour fling with the beauty.( better known as the "nap"). This luxury exists because of the fact there are at least two members doing the work. But this night was different as I was all alone. It was about 2:00 in the night. Mainframes just like my life was dull and slow, and as such my work did not require my constant attention. And she was there again , this time at her seducing best. ( The goddess of sleep is perhaps the only female in our project who works in the night :D). I tried to resist her advances , but then I was too tired and so I put my head on the table and fell for her.( asleep)

A usually subdued and dormant part of my body, the mind was warning me to get up and have a look at the Mainframes screen. What if some job had failed? What if the Mainframes suddenly started sprinting? What if the guy at onsite pinged me? But my eyes were in no mood to listen to all this. I defied them and had a look at the Mainframes screen. Everything was going fine. But I couldn't carry on like this all through the night. I had to get up. My eyes were still battling hard. My right hand slowly moved towards the mouse and I found the mouse-pointer on the screen opening the Music India Online browser. Everything appeared blurred but I could see the image of a guy riding a horse. The mouse pointer moved towards that image and clicked something by its side. And then it started...

ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding..

My eyes were still closed. However I could feel something, something exciting, something that was telling me to wake up and get going. There was something abuzz in me.

thodisi dhuul meri dharti ki mere watan ki
thodisi Khushbuu baurai se mast pavan ki

My eyes now stopped the struggle against the instructions of the mind. It was as if they told the mind "Yeah... now don't bother us. We will be up and open in a couple of minutes". I wasn't dancing but I could feel the Aamir Khan in me shaking his leg. There was a kind of energizing feeling that was stronger and stronger as the song went on.

thodisi dhondhane waali dhak-dhak dhak-dhak dhak-dhak saansein
..........................................
...........................................

oh mohe rang de basanti basanti rang de basanti
(ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding)

My eyes were up and in business as usual ( staring at the Mainframe screen). My fingers were relentlessly doing the "ENTER ENTER " job. My feet were also in action, tapping the floor. So what about the Beauty of sleep and her charms ? I don't really know .May be it was her turn to fall asleep :D

I often crib about many aspects of Indian movies. The Protagonist is always portrayed as a Superman who can never loose. The Lead lady doesn't seem to have any work expect colliding with the Hero and ending up in a "dream song". The Police invariably appear before the "THE END" screen. But there is a kind of a energyzing Josh and excitement that only "Indian songs" (and the image of the Hero ) can generate. And for the moment.. I am not complaining.

P.S: If you haven't felt the josh that I am talking about, try reading the blog with the "Rang De Basanti" title song in the background.

Reel n Real

Sand!!! That is supposed to be on the beach. What the hell was it doing on the roads of Hyderabad? I am cribbing now because very recently my bike skid on the road courtesy the sand. Nothing serious except for a bruise on the elbow and the knee. But my left shoulder still finds the fall painful. When I told my cousin about this skid incident, she asked me if I was trying to perform any kind of "feats" on my bike like a filmi hero. Feats?? My foot!!! My bike, now automatically starts walking ( slows down like hell) when encountered with anything that remotely resembles sand or gravel on the road. And yeah I would never imitate a filmi hero while driving atleast.

Now then, there are so many things that you find in films ( especially the Bollywood and the regional lot) that are in no way realistic. How I wish college was something like what it was in "Kuch Kuch Hota Hain"? I wish I could do a Munnabhai and do a Journalism course in a good institute. ( It would be Kiddobhai, the journo instead Munnabhai MBBS :D). How I wish I had gals fighting for me just beacause it is me, the Hero. That reminds me of something. This happened just a few days ago when my latest blush( my equivalent of Sigmund Frued's Crush) told me that she is enagaged and will soon get married. This is what I had to say in a La Shahrukh Khan manner

Romeo( me me me):Did you ever love me? Atleast for a day? Atleast for an hour? Atleast for a minute? Atleast for a second? Atleast for a fleeting moment? ( Try to read this in hindi, "Kya tune kabhi mujhse pyar kiya hain, ek din ke liye, ek pal ke liye " and I guess you will have the sense of Dejavu)

Juliet: Yeah, I loved you for a moment, but I thought it was a "passing phase".

And that brought me dowwn crashing to the real world. Haa.haa!!! But then this is life and no cinema. Of course, there is always chance of her going for me just as her fiancee is about to tie the knot.( aaah.. many movies running in front of my eyes). But then it would be my turn to use the "passing phase" phrase. Biddu.. Life mein Aisa each hota hain!!!

Kabhi Kabhi

There are situations in life where nothing works for you. It is as if the world has conspired to make sure that you are doomed for that moment. I have just faced one such instance where I thought Life was laughing at me. Left with no other option I joined the laughter.

I was responsible for monitoring the batch tonight. For the non-mainframers, a batch is a set of programs( around 1000-1500 in my case) that need to be executed in a sequence. Mainframes has this tendency or more appropriately the capability to make an ass out of you and mock at you. Space problems, CPU allocation and the Mainframe getting slow.. all these are problems that make you pay for no fault of yours. Today has been a eventful day and all the three problems decided to strike me together. First the mainframe was pretty slow. I thought it couldn't get any slower than that. The space-problem is an evergreen problem and today ( err tonight) was no different. The space problem can be tackled by migrating the datasets( read files). The mainframe getting slow will frustrate you to no end but finally you can do the work ( it's only that the pace or rather the lack of it irritates you). The CPU problem is different. There is not much you can do when the CPU is not allocating time for your jobs other than just stare into the screen and expect that the job gets a share of the time soon.

That's what happened to me. I was staring into the screen with 3 jobs running for well over an hour and the CPU% besides them showing 0. Why did this happen to me? What am I doing here in font of this screen? Is this work really worth it? All these thoughts flashed across my mind as the song in the background played( you need songs to work in the the late hours)

"Kabhi, Kabhi .. mera dil mein .. khayal aata hain".

Aaah.. How true I thought..

Suddenly the male voice stopped and the female voice started...

"Kabhi, Kabhi .. mera dil mein .. khayal aata hain".

Bloody hell now I felt as if the 3 jobs on the screen staring into my face and singing the song.. "Kabhi Kabhi..." ( there were no females in the office around :D)

The song continued..

"Ki Jaise tujh ko bulaaya gaya hain mere liye.."

How true I thought. The jobs needed me to run them. They needed me to be there in the late night when no else was there to do the job.

"Tu ab se pehle Sitaaron mein bas rahi thi pehele kabhi..."

I dont know what this exactly meant. But to me it translated to the jobs telling me that I was enjoying office before this without any kind of work pressure leading a life devoid of any hassles.Life seemed to be such a bliss.

"Tujhe Zameen pe bulaaya gaya hain meere liye"

"Now you have been brought crashing down to earth to do this job" the mainframe beings seemed to mock at me.

Hmmmmm... Life has come a full cycle I thought. It's not my boss but a non-living mainframe being that is mocking at me. Huh!! I gave a wry smile with one hand on my head lamenting it's fate and other moving the mouse to play the song again. It happens sometimes.. Kabhi Kabhi!!!