How green was my valley

"The grass is always greener on the other side"…time and again I’ve realized that truer words were hardly ever spoken…the other side in question as pertaining to me is the other side of time. I still remember the days (faintly though) when I was a just a nipper and on every school day would long to be an adult so I wouldn’t have to go to that institute for mentally imbalanced teachers. Gradually though I warmed up to the place aided primarily by fellow juvenile delinquents but there was still that niggling feeling that somehow things would be better when I passed out of school. Then came college, the proverbial "happening phase" of ones life…not much happened for me though. Bollywood movies had had a bad influence on me (so too on most of my friends) and I was opinion that college was the celebrated place for "picking up" girls…that happened but I soon realized that it was grossly over-hyped. Not a day passed in college when I wouldn’t long to be out of it and working. Frankly, I was tired of the academia and wanted out of it by any means necessary. Unlike most other brainiacs from my college I did not revel in the concepts of automata, or algorithms for resolving deadlocks or the implementation of cross compilers. When we were not having classes I thought it more refreshing to discuss the newest movies showing in the city halls and thereby stood in stark contrast to the rest who were busy discussing either their summer training projects or the newest "tech-magazine" that they were planning to launch in the process taking the engineering world by storm. Thankfully I was blessed with the company of a few like minded academia-unsavvy friends who helped keep me sane. What a bunch of unsavory characters we were to the intelligentsia…I shudder at the amount of discomfiture that they had to endure in our company…I believe it was marginally more than what we had to endure in their presence. Anyway, I somehow graduated from college and started working. Not a moment goes by when I don’t long to be back in school. The things I miss most are the vacations…God knows I need a break…I’m absolutely drained. I miss the carefree days when I just wasn’t mature enough to realize that inflation and taxes do affect us. I miss the days when I didn’t have to constantly keep thinking about what I need to do next in life. Only now have I realized how truly green the grass was on the side of the fence i crossed over from, long ago.
For a change now I do not look forward to retirement. I do not look forward to anything in particular. I have decided that it’s better to take things as they come. After all, I am comfortably dumb.

Hail Zizou

I'm appalled at how flimsy our loyalties are. Till even ten seconds before Zizou blasted his so-called "misguided head-missile" towards Materrazzi, there were at least a gazillion people who would have sworn that Zizou is GOD. Seconds later when he walked out dejected,the same people would barely give him the leeway given to a mere mortal...to err is human,they say. Personally i don't think he did anything wrong in executing that headbutt...(yeah,you guessed it right...I'm one of those people who still think,Zizou is GOD).All right,I'll give you this much that had he stayed on the field,the Azzuri might not have sneaked off with the Cup;but don't you think he realized it too...I mean that searing header that Buffon somehow saved showed that he was very much in the game. However one thing we should realize is that there is a last straw for everyone and there is only so much a person can take. It's extremely easy to preach that he should have kept his cool and guided France to a victory but then once we try putting ourselves in his shoes we'll realize that it's not as easy as merely saying "He should have kept his head".

Now Materrazzi has labelled Zizou a "terrorist" and I'm positive that most of you might,after reading this,label me thus too for supporting Zizou's cause. Nevertheless,I still maintain that there are some things worth fighting for and not even a world cup victory would have tasted as sweet as that instant retribution that the God decided to mete out.
Hail Zizou.

Humongous Hera Pheri

Today, for the better part of three hours i sat and mourned the death of hindi cinema. In other words,I saw Phir Hera Pheri. It was,without a hint of doubt,the worst movie I have ever seen,ever. It simply pained me to see that an actor of the calibre of Paresh Rawal would stoop to such abyssmal depths simply to eke out profits by deceiving movie goers into watching the worst possible sequel to a film which happens to be one of the most delightful comedies I have seen.If the last sentence seemed unbearably long to you,you should try sitting through 3 hours of this glorified piece of crap that i endured.Well,now to tell you why this movie would go down in the annals of Bollywood as the worst possible case of "Hera-Pheri" or fraud which the audience was subject to.First things first...the script was non-existent,the humour in the so-called jokes was non-existent,the coherence in the random incidents which made up the movie was non-existent,the director's grey matter was non-existent,his film making ethics were non-existent.To make matters worse,Himesh Reshammiya was singing in it. People might argue that with Mithun films around I shouldn't really be calling this one the worst piece of tripe i ever saw.I beg to differ.People know exactly what to expect from Mithun movies but what the director has done here is con the audience into watching something that was nowhere near what the movie promised. I just fail to understand why the director holds the intellect of the audience in such low esteem.The film is nothing short of an insult to the movie goer's intelligence...the director actually unleashes a man in a gorilla suit upon the audience. In an age when special effects have reached stupendous heights and such visual marvels like King Kong and Spiderman and LOTR are being churned out by Hollywood studios it amazes me as to how the director can present the audience with such travesty. Bipasha Basu was in the movie to do what Pamela Anderson and Yasmeen Bleeth did to make Baywatch famous.She must've got one hell of an exercise running for almost the entire length of the movie in clothes that could have given the tightest spandex a run for its money(it was the only high point of the movie for me...for that matter even Diya Mirza's wierd gyrations seem agreeable in retrospect). All in all it was really disappointing to see that when on one hand people like Ram Gopal Verma and Ashutosh Gowariker are trying to finally give contemporary Hindi movies a sense of direction,such bad apples like Neeraj Vohra are churning out movies which are so bad that they make even really bad movies look like Oscar winning material.

Superman Returns...

I saw Superman yesterday...the movie,I mean!
I am not going to critisize the weak script because i"m really happy that the world's greatest superhero is back on the silver screen...and trust me when i say that Brandon Routh fits the bill even better than Chris Reeve.Which is a welcome change when you consider the Batman movies...i've never found any actor satisfactorily essaying both roles of both Bruce Wayne and Batman...Clooney was a wonderful Wayne...Kilmer and Bale were Good as Batman but none of them scored on both counts.So also is the case with the Bond franchise...i still maintain "Craig NOT Bond".
Anyway,coming back to Superman Returns...the script was nothing exceptional...the special effects weren't extraordinary either...pretty regulation stuff actually. Kevin Spacey was as good a Lex Luthor as Hackman. All in all the movie would be quite forgettable fare had it not marked the emergence of Routh as this iconic hero...he's definitely worth a watch.
Statutory Warning: My opinions are biassed by the fact that i'm a sucker for comics.

On a more personal note, I found reassurance in the fact that even Superman has issues...all the more reason for me to be satisfied with my state of affairs.I am light years away from being "super" in any sense but negative and I have issues that are a lot less pressing.The movie will never take it's place among my favourites...it is far from that consideration in
fact,but it has done its part to provide some enjoyable moments on a Sunday that marked the end of a really tiring weekend and the offing of another tiring week up ahead. A line from the movie also gathered a special place in the heart when Superman tells Lois Lane,
"You wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour, but everyday I hear people crying for one"...truer words are seldom spoken...i'll sign off with a prayer that each one of us finds a saviour.Amen.