Back!

After a month long hiatus. No accident this time though - just work that has played a spoil sport! I haven't wished you all for Christmas, didn't ask about your New Year partaay, nor raved about my new mobile that I absolutely looooorve or talked about how I had a week of fun when sistah dear was in town or even our very boring office party. I guess this post is going to be random bits of blogabble things that happened over a month ago.

Blog Thing #1 - King Kong. I saw that movie with H and M and our only motive for choosing that movie was 'coz we wanted to watch a night show and this was the only non Telugu movie in the multiplex. And I was actually entertained by the movie! I am not a sucker for these Jurrasic Park n Anaconda kinda movies, but this movie was better than most in it's genre. Carl Denham was undoubtably the best played character in the movie. His wit and passion carries the movie forward. The huge gorilla is lovable and does everything to make the audience scream, smile and go "awwww" at all the right places. Naomi Watts is charming as usual. And I have just one word for Naomi's love interest in the movie - constipated! The director is determined to give us value for our ticket money and in the 3 hours of the movie we get to see a little bit Jurassic Park, wild savages who appear and disappear suddenly, wild beasts of yore that attack in unimaginable ways and even a little bit of Titanic. Many parts of the movie reminded me so much of our own thamizh/hindi hit movies and in the scene where Kong battles 3 dinosaurs he almost puts Rajinikanth to shame. Thamizh directors - this movie is a must watch for you guys. How can I forget the "punch" dialogue at the end of the movie "It was beauty that killed the beast" - I was laughing all the way home from the theatre. All said, this movie is worth a watch certainly.

I also wanted to blog about these Lawrence and Mayo guys. I had bought my contact lenses from them about 2 months ago and one fine day I discover that my left lens had become frayed in one corner and it started hurting my eye. I paid quite a bit of money for them, being toric lenses and all and I had been assured that they would last for a minimum of eight months. I decided to do something about this and stepped into their showroom gearing myself up for an unpleasant argument. As soon as I reported my problem, I was given the stock response about how I could have torn them by mistake and how this doesn't seem like a manufacturing defect and so on. When I explained and persisted that this couldn't have been my fault, the salesman surprisingly didn't argue and instead asked me to give my lens along with a letter stating my problem. He then asked me for 2 weeks time and without making any promises he just said he would try his best. And bang on 16th day I get a call from them saying I could pick up my replacement lens. This is by far the most pleasant experience I have ever had while reporting any problem and getting it fixed. I was expecting them to refuse to do anything about the lens since 2 months has elapsed and I was mentally prepared to get myself another pair. Not only was I replaced with a good pair, but the manner of the staff was very courteous and very polite. This is one satisfied customer who is going come back in the future. I wish Airtel Customer Care could take a leaf out of their book. And here is a lesson to be learnt for all of us - when something doesn't work right, it never hurts to try and return it.

Lots more things to blog about, but this post is getting too long. So another day another post (hopefully sooner than a month :-) )

No Frills TV

Have been catching a lot of TV these days (thanks to staying at home and at my aunt's place in Hyd) and it makes me wonder if the TV people are putting themselves out a bit too much to win the channel wars. If I had the time and money and lots more inclination, I would create a no frills television channel.

Take these emcees for instance. They go and on and on before playing a song or a clip. And the best part is what they speak has nothing to do with the song to be played. So I plan to get a bunch of those guys and gals, ask them to speak impromptu for a few hours and tape it all on the same day. Then I can play permutations and combinations of these before songs and not pay for regular comperes.

And no channel worth its salt can desist from playing movies. Apna channel cannot afford to screen "India tholakatchigalil mudal muraiyaga, thiraiku vandu sila vaarangale aana"(For the first time on Indian screens, just released a few weeks ago) movies. A better ploy is to screen age old hits when the rival channel is screening a 3 week old flop. C'mon what would you rather watch Michael Madana Kama Rajan(one of the best movies ever made) or Bambara kanaaley(a recent flop)?

The USP of my channel would however be the commercials. You know how a half an hour programme is usually only 22 mins long? I am going to make it 26 instead. When I am shooting for a 22 minute sitcom episode, I am sure that adding 4 extra minutes won't increase the expenditure much. And no in-house ads i.e you won't see ads for Will and Grace between the FRIENDS episode. There will textual ads (like Google ads) that run while programmes are on, to inform viewers about other shows. And ad time is considerably cut down, one ad minute in my channel will sell more and so I can make a profit too.

And there will be none of those contests which give expensive prizes for answering questions like "Who is the hero of Salaam Namaste?". And there will absolutely be no special programmes during Diwali and other festivals. To the contrary, even regular progamming won't happen on those days since we can't compete with other channels. We will just play movie songs all day or simply just echo some FM station.

Any other ideas?

The Yellow Rubber Band

"Pooja, get those yellow rubber bands, the ones that Maya Aunty got from US." Six year old Pooja looked askance at her mom. The band in question was bright yellow and shaped like a big sun flower. "But amma...” she hesitated. “That band is perfectly good and will go with your frock" Pooja looked at her dress, it was white with the tiniest of yellow dots on it. "But amma ..." she wheedled again. "Oh kids these days! You can dress the way you want to and throw your tantrums when you are older, listen to me now. Maya will feel so bad if she knows you hardly use the band. And what's wrong with it? It nice, bright and colorful", her mom started her tirade. She looked at her father for support, but he gave her a you-know-i-like-to-help-you-but-in-such-matters-your-mom-rules shrug and hid behind the paper. She considered crying, but there was the question of the empty cookie jar and missing pieces in the new Lego set which were yet to be discovered and she figured she would need the tears then.

Pooja got ready for school with a thoughtful attitude. “Pooja wear your raincoat, it is drizzling outside.” She smiled, the rain coat’s hood would save her from trouble at least in the school bus. But there was still the question of a full day at school to be endured and Sanjay too. Sanjay was the class bully and he gave everyone a hard time for no reason at all. And here she was, wearing a yellow rubber band – it was like waving a red flag at an angry bull.

“Hey Pooja wanna play Color Color?” Pooja froze at Sanjay’s sneer. Her hand instinctively went to her hair. “Hey Pooja has two different colored socks on.” Pooja looked down; she was wearing blue with green stripes on leg and green with blue stripes on the other. With one hand on her hair, she tried to roll down her socks so that legs were an uneven mass of green and blue.

“Class, please submit your leaves assignment”. Pooja remembered collecting the leaves, categorizing them, pasting them in the scrap book, showing them off to Amma and Appa, putting it on the table for the glue to dry and then her memory came to a halt. “I must be growing old”, she told herself while walking to her teacher to explain her predicament.

The rest of day dragged on, especially since she sat alone in the last bench to avoid eyes and unnecessary talk. There weren't any incidents, except when her dance teacher pulled her up for talking in between and her math teacher called her to the board to work out 9+7.

“So sweetie how was school today?”, Amma met her at the door. She burst into instant tears and amidst sobs piteously said “I told you I wouldn’t wear the yellow rubber band to school.”

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So people, this time will you please believe that Pooja isn't me? Thank you! :-)

Totally Uncool Things

that I see people around me doing and which you shouldn't be doing if you wanna be in my good books. ;-)

* Fill bottles of water from work to take home. For God's sake you all are software engineers, drawing the highest salaries in the land!

* Owning a cool cool bike like Pulsar and actually fixing a kind of hook on the side to hang your lunch dabba! Carrying a dabba to work is bad enough and you actually defile a great bike for that?

* Giggle during a team meeting. Oh my God, please don't do that - a meeting is hard enough to endure without having someone giggle when you are thrashing out an idea. And while at it, please stop asking irrelevant see-how-smart-i-am questions. And don't ever ever speak for me . Thank you

* Wear plastic footwear to work! "Plastic" - no more explanation for this one.

This list shall be updated ...

A One Night Read

And the verdict is disappointing. Chetan Bhagat's second book hardly lives upto the expectations of the first. The story deals with six people who work in a call centre. All their lives magically leap to definitive misery on the same night. That's when a phone call changes their lives.

Bhagat's USP which made FPS a runaway success, was his free flowing narrative. Sadly in ONCC, the flow stretches like well chewed gum in the first part of the book. And the characters seem to be too cliched for my taste. And I don't understand why he has almost panned working in a call centre. Whatever happened to dignity of labor and so forth! The "God" factor that was attempted was cheesy to say the least. The ending seemed to be almost a rip off of Yann Martel's Life of Pi(which wasn't very good too btw!) And since his first book is being made into a movie, I guess he has decided to write a screenplay directly as his second book - complete with the Bollywoodish action climax, lots of mushy flashbacks and so on.

Despite the short comings, the book is good for a read. The story does pick at a point and if you don't invest any thought, it entertains well. It costs just Rs 95 - comparing well to the cost of a ticket in any multiplex. Where FPS was a DCH, ONCC can best be compared to a no brainer like Salaam Namaste.

Things I Wanna Do Right Now

* Get rid of my bandages and swing n bend my arm and fingers

* Get all my friends online on IM and chat away to glory

* Drive my bike

* Watch Seinfeld

* Wear my lens n fix my hair all by myself

* Blog something decent instead of whining

* Go back home!!! (I came back to Hyd todoay evening)

The Fall

On a dark and rainy night, a sweet n nice gal was driving home from her aunt's place on her sister's Scooty Pep. And then there was a wham, and she fell off her bike breaking her left arm in the process.

:-( Poor ol me is still in Chennai 'coz of that. My left hand is temperarily out of service for another month. :-( I never knew my left limb plays such a vital role in life. I almost feel like an invalid now! So much that I am able to sympathise and to an extent empathise with people without an arm or a leg.

I also realised that roads are filled with lots of good samaritans who take that extra effort to help people in distress. Many thanks to the guy who forced his mobile on me to call home and to the couple who drove me to the hospital and to the many others who helped me off the road and made me sit and so on. Sorry Mr Shankar, but now I find it harder to believe that scene from Anniyan, where no-one helps an accident victim.

Well the upside is that broadband internet is finally configured on our rickety ol system at home and since I am able to type reasonably well with just my right hand, I guess my blogging frequency should increase substantially! :-)

So long folks, will be back soon. And hope everyone had a good Diwali! :-)