Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Blog

And Rahul Tyagi's oscars go to....

2011-02-27T15:35:00.000-06:00

Now that I have seen almost all the major contender's except Black Swan, here are my awards.. (not my predictions, as most of these hardly stand a chance...)

Best Picture: The Social Network (close runner up: Inception)
Best Director: Chris Nolan (not even nominated, I know... among the nominees, I'd give it to David Fincher)
Best Lead Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Lead Actress: Annette Bening (haven't seen Blue Valtentine either)
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (close runner up: Jacki Weaver... close runner up to the close runner up: Haillee Steinfeld)
Best Original Screenplay : Inception (not seen Another Year yet)
Best Adapted Screenplay : The Social Network
Best Animated Feature : Toy Story -3 (haven't seen The Illusionist yet)
Best Cinematography : True Grit (close runner up The King's Speech)
Best Editing : Inception (again, not nominated... among the nominees, perhaps TSN or 127 Hours)
Best Original Score: Inception

2011 Oscar Nominations

2011-01-25T08:58:00.000-06:00

The nominations were announced about half an hour ago, so here is the obligatory 'reaction post' (even though the equally obligatory 'my wishlist post' never made it beyond my facebook status message).

Delighted:

- for A R Rahman, of course. Twin nominations, once again! And this time it feels even better than 2009 because that year those nominations were almost inevitable, unlike this year. 127 Hours lost a lot of steam because a lot of people just weren't interested in watching it (the theme/story doesn't really make it an audience magnet). Also, right at the fag end of the year True Grit released and sort of pushed around some of the not-so-sure nominees out. I was afraid that 127 Hours might've missed the bus. But it didn't!!! :) Now I'm getting greedy. I actually am hopeful that he'll WIN one of these. Perhaps not for original score, but If I Rise must stand a very good chance!

- for Pixar, as usual. Best picture and Best animated feature were a given but I didn't think the screenplay would get the recognition. Moreover, I had completely forgotten about Day&Night being in the run for the best animated short.. so that was a pleasant news!

- for Jackie Weaver. Animal Kingdom was a movie well worth watching, and Jackie Weaver's performance essentially carries the movie through the extremely engaging last hour or so of the movie. Ben Mendelsohn was actually really good too, but one can't have everything!

- for Winter's Bone. 4 of the biggest nomination categories!! Picture, actress, supporting actor and screenplay! It was a pleasant surprise to see that people remembered this small movie even though it was released way back in the summer. (unlike The Ghost Writer, which released pretty early in the year and was completely forgotten)

- for The Kids Are All Right. see 'Winter's Bone'. except that this actually did release closer to the oscar season, and hence wasn't really a surprise.

- for Javier Bardem. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm always delighted whenever a performance in a foreign language movie gets such attention. He missed out on a nomination for Mar Adentro, but perhaps this will be his year again (after Anton Chigurh got him a well deserved oscar). Then again, Colin Firth (or James Franco) might have something to say about that..

- for all the obvious nominations of The Social Network and Inception. There's no way they were going to miss out on the obvious ones like best picture, screenplay, music etc... Then again.....

Sad/Dejected/Disappointed

- for Nolan. now THIS I didn't see coming. He has never been nominated for direction before (actually, before today he had only 1 nomination.. for Memento's screenplay), but this should really have been his. The guy has had an astounding decade. I think they will soon give him a lifetime achievement award (at age 45!) to atone for all these sins.

- for Inception editing! If anything could be even more disappointing and puzzling than the Nolan snub, it had to this! Inception, NOT nominated for editing! I have no idea what to think. I REALLY need to see those other movies.

Writer's Block

2011-01-18T09:07:00.002-06:00

Creative writing is hard work. I have always admired the people who have written such wonderfully engrossing books and often wondered how much time, effort, patience, perseverance and clarity of thought would it have required to come up with a good literary piece.
Scientific writing is no piece of cake either...I have come to realize that lately while working on an assignment. There are times when you simply lose the enthusiasm to write even a word. Sitting in front of the computer staring at the screen, idly browsing the internet, I came across a website which listed several quotes from writers and thinkers of every type: journalists, novelists, poets, philosophers (here). There are some which are really worth pondering over and I believe....whenever you lose the enthusiasm to write and whether or not there's a deadline to meet....read this and get back your groove :)

"I believe that the so-called “writing block” is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance… One should lower his standards until there is no felt threshold to go over in writing. It’s easy to write. You just shouldn’t have standards that inhibit you from writing… I can imagine a person beginning to feel he’s not able to write up to that standard he imagines the world has set for him. But to me that’s surrealistic. The only standard I can rationally have is the standard I’m meeting right now… You should be more willing to forgive yourself. It doesn’t make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you’ve done it."

"Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."

I think I am ready to stop pretending to work while roaming aimlessly on the web and get back to my writing.

No One Killed Jessica

2011-01-16T07:09:00.002-06:00

Braving the cold winds and the fog, last week we went to watch No One Killed Jessica. By then we had already heard a lot about it and it did turn out to be worth it. A good start for this year :)
Though I found the first half a bit slow the second half of the movie completely made up for that....good performances by most artists and a very very good music score. Amit Trivedi's music was great to listen to on its own....blending with the movie had an even better impact. My favourite till now is Aitbaar.
I would not go as far as saying that the movie is awesome...and perhaps it won't ever feature in my Top lists....but nevertheless....a good watch, one of better movies churned out by Bollywood in the recent past and definitely worth spending money on....so go ahead and watch it :)

Continental Drift

2011-01-07T04:34:00.001-06:00

Ok guys...here's what happened to earth several years ago :P :D :D

funny ad

2011-01-02T21:08:00.000-06:00

Running on TV channels in india right now.

The Road Not Taken

2011-01-02T01:10:00.004-06:00

Stumbled upon my old school book of poems today..... so here's one of my favorites :)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

By Robert Frost

24 Carrot cake :)

2010-12-30T03:17:00.005-06:00

Today I tried my hand at Carrot cake for the first time.....

Inspiration "Rahul's favorite cake"
Motivation "Bored of working" :P :D

Anyway....with lots of adventures and misadventures (like realizing midway that the flour is not enough and other stuff is already in...dashing in rain to get it......I know i know that was not very efficient of me...) and waiting with fingers crossed..here's the end result.

It turned out quite yummy (Caution: you need to like the idea of having carrots in a cake first...many don't).

For anyone interested here's the recipe that I used:

MOIST CARROT CAKE:

Carrots shredded - 4cups
Sugar - 2cups
Maida(flour) - 1.5cups
Cornflour - 1.5cups
Oil - 1cup
Eggs - 4no.s
Baking powder - 3tsp
Cinnamon powder - 2tsp
Salt - 1tsp
Vanilla Essence - 1tsp
Optional (Nuts, raisins, fruit chunks etc.)

Sift the flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt 3-4 times and keep aside.
Beat eggs till fluffy and keep aside.
Put 1 cup sugar on the carrots, mix and soak for 20 mins (u can add the raisins here too).
Mix the other cup of sugar with the oil and beat till smooth.
Blend in the eggs, cinnamon powder and vanilla essence.
Gently fold in the flour mix to this and finally add the carrots.
Grease baking dish with oil and dust with flour, pour in the cake batter.
Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 30-40 mins. (toothpick test to see if its done).

And lo.....its ready :)

Enjoy!!!

Kuch bhi....

2010-12-15T00:39:00.001-06:00

Have been idle here for a while and feeling guilty about it too.....so many posts came to mind and went away.....
Finally today I thought of writing at least something......and here it is

"Something"

Coming back with more soon.....

2010-09-22T21:37:00.003-05:00

Found this on NPR ( National Public Radio)...

It seems that a bunch of carrot farmers + ad agency came up with this idea glorifying carrots by calling it "Junk Food". They approached a local school to set up a vending machine for baby carrots to which the school readily agreed to. Guess what .. Initial results are +ve, though we should not forget that none of the other vending machines were working. Seems children don't mind buying carrots (as a last option) when thrown out of a vending machine. It more cool.

Kakaji shines..

2010-09-06T19:47:00.003-05:00

I knew this is a beautiful song.. but check out the dance moves.

insightful SMS

2010-08-13T02:15:00.004-05:00

Today morning I received a SMS. It said "Your true character is defined by how you treat the people who can't do anything for you"

I promptly replied to my friend "How do you treat politicians?"

Unbelievable! Incredible!!

2010-08-12T08:32:00.000-05:00

Every year there is one performance that just comes out of the blue and becomes an instant star. This is this year's instant star. A 10 year old with a voice that just cannot cannot CANNOT come from her tiny frame. I could bet 100 dollars that this is just a child lip-syncing to an adult opera singer's recording.

And her expressions! She reminds me of a 8-10 year old Dakota Fanning whose eyes and expressions seemed to spookily mature.

whoa!

2010-08-10T02:14:00.000-05:00

What just happened???

Econ-animation 101

2010-08-01T13:14:00.002-05:00

Complex Subject ... Simple Message ... Interesting presentation.
I wish all regular school/college lectures could be like this :). Let me know you thoughts on this.

Thoughts to ponder

2010-07-19T01:00:00.010-05:00

A post after a long long of time. And this mail compelled me to post following reply.

I received above said mail from my relative and I was like "ye kya chal raha hai? who creates such a damn mail?". Generally we all get such mails where the only action you need to take to prove yourself as true Human/Indian/Hindu/Marathi/Punjabi/Tamil etc etc etc is to FORWARD mails to your friends. (I wrote about one such mail on my blog here).

So the reply is like this:

"Very true, But the point is why should we expect someone serving us for free?

If someone is doing a hard work, that's right being a politician is a very very hard work, why should he not be paid adequately? If you are running a company or holding key position in corporate world, you will earn much more than what a politician earns. (I mean legal income for both ;) That's why talented persons don't opt for political career. I am of the view that political remuneration should be such that all the talented persons should view it much above IT/Banking/finance/consultancy jobs.

In the present scenario only ones who does not get any job enters to politics. Few others enter politics because their business is politics. All the second/third generation leaders are only carrying their family business forward. Their pa/grandpa have invested so much in politics that if they don't harvest the crop, who else will? They will make fool of themselves if they don't cash the crop.

Any type of work which needs dealing with people having lower IQ/awareness than you is painful. (Thats why I am happily designing buildings from office but not dare/willing to enter the actual construction business). Honestly ask yourself why you are not entering politics? The immediate answer comes there is a lot of "gandagi". So a person who is dealing with this gandagi day in and day out is ought to be "ganda" himself. Ralely people remain clean in politics. Because unless you have very strong will and very high vision you are bound to be trapped by the people surrounding you.

So Rather then blaming the politicians, many times I think that they are doing a great job by filling the position where none of "US" want to be. After the independence there was a shortage of higly-educated people entering in the politics. In the struggle of independence all top leaders were lawyers, journalists, teachers, philosophers, scientists or such. But I don't know why very few people opted for politics after independence. So there was vacuum. This opportunity was sensed by people who did not have great visions. Thus they entered into politics and subsequent generations tried to make politics difficult to be assessed by others so that they can have monopoly over it and run it as business.

Many time I also disturbed by the gravity of the situation of our nation. But a little deeper thinking reveals that everything is in the place where it should be. If the kind of politicians we have in our Vidhansabhas and Loksabha they deserve to be there, because better than those did not dare to fight elections.

It also happens that many times we are so obsessed with dark/dirty part of politics (and for that matter any other aspect of life) that we dont see gray or white shade of it.

So the problem is multidimensional. And the last line of the mail really makes no sense. 855 crore is not even sufficient for a flood relief of a small state. It can only make life's of very few few people livable."

I keep replying to such mails with unexpected replies, and I guess some people have removed my name from their "forward" list. At least my replies did save me if not humankind/India/Hindu/Marathi/Punjabi/Tamil etc etc etc.

Please also share your views on this.

college kids got talent...

2010-07-18T21:26:00.000-05:00

Remember the Super Mario thing from last year's 'India's Got Talent'? No? Here...

Now, take it to another level altogether... in America's Got Talent 2010...

Trailer Park 3

2010-07-17T21:16:00.000-05:00

Let's start with Frieda Pinto... Julian Schnabel... and Bombay Theme!

One for fun....

And the rest.... interesting for one reason or another...

Who would not want to buy this..

2010-07-16T12:49:00.005-05:00

.. Atleast the ads are really cute!!

Also check out the links at the RHS of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niOCmIuts90&feature=channel for more if you want to see more similar ads.

Cheers!

2010... the awards so far...

2010-07-16T05:12:00.001-05:00

I have seen Inception only about an hour ago, so clearly this post will be unduly colored because of that. But that's ok.. we'll not consider this my "movies of first half of 2010" post, but a part of my "let me salute Inception" posts.. :)

Note: the foreign Language movies are mostly of 2009, but got proper US releases only in 2010. so....

so.....

Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes (Winter's Bone), Guillermo Francella (The Secret in their Eyes), and Niels Arestrup (Un Prophete)
special mentions: Pablo Rago (The Secret in their Eyes), Nana Patekar (Raajneeti)

Best Supporting Actress: Priyamani (Raavan/Raavanan) and Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer)
special mentions: Soledad Villamil (The Secret in their Eyes), Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone), Ellen Page (Inception) (well, she looked great.. and we KNOW she is a great actress... didn't have to do all that much here though.. still, they are my awards, aren't they? :P which reminds me.. I think I'll give one to Marion Cotillard too!!)

Best Actor: Tahar Rahim (Un Prophete)
special mentions: Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island/Inception), Filippo Timi (Vincere), Naseeruddin Shah (Ishqiya), Vikram (Raavanan)

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) and Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Vincere)
special mentions: Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Vidya Balan (Ishqiya), Hye-Ja Kim (Mother)

Best Screenplay: Christopher Nolan (Inception)
special mentions: Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3), Park/Bong (Mother), Sacheri/Campanella (The Secret in their Eyes)

Best Director: Christopher Nolan (Inception)
special mentions: Roman Polanski (The Ghost Writer), Debra Granik (Winter's Bone), Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon), Juan José Campanella (The Secret in their Eyes)

Best Picture: Inception
special mention: Toy Story 3
slightly less special mentions: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Secret in their Eyes, Vincere, The Secret of Kells
ohh.. and some more: Mother, Winter's Bone, Ishqiya, The Ghost Writer, Shutter Island

ohh.. wait.. Best Picture isn't the last award here.. I have another...

Master of Rahul's Movie Universe: Christopher Nolan :) :)

Update:

After seeing Inception second time....

I'm replacing Ellen Page with Marion Cotillard in best supporting actress... :)

Also... needless to say, Inception takes all the technical awards... Best Editing, Best Sound Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Music Score (a very special mention to Toy Story 3 but, really, Inception's score is something else entirely), and maybe even Best Cinematography (with Shutter Island and The White Ribbon giving it tough competition... perhaps even sharing the award).

They knew you loved them already....

2010-07-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

Was reading a post on Slashdot about extreme caving, and found this one comment...

I second the statement, "I'm not claustrophobic, but this is insane". It's the sheer un-rescue-ability of it all, if you simply get wedged, that gets to me.

A young man died cave diving in the Rockies not far from Calgary a few years back. The awful bit was that he got delayed coming back, wasn't sure how far it was, went to the limit of his air, turned the little knob that gives you the last five minutes, and used that time scratching out a goodbye to his family on the air tank.

Right around one more corner from where he would have seen the flashlights of his friends waiting for him.

Lessons I took from it:

1) Cave diving is insane.

2) If you're ever certain you're at that last moment of your life, nevertheless spend it trying to survive. Your family actually knew you loved them already.

United Colors of Music..

2010-07-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

Udaan.. Aisha.. and now Puli is out too (and I hear good things about Pritam's Once Upon a Time in Mumbai too). Have to hear them for some days before saying much, but overall I'm sure between all these albums there will be definitely a few songs that will be part of my playlist for quite some time (unless Endhiran comes and kicks everything else out :P ).

Puli, specially, seems pretty good even after just one hearing. One of those "very catchy in the first hearing itself, which means it will probably never reach the status of one of ARR's great albums but a very fun listen nevertheless" albums. The one song that doesn't fit this desription, because it might rise to being one of those "greats" finally and is decidedly not a "fun listen" as the rest of the album is, is "Namakame". ARR brings together Chithra, Madhushree and Harini and the song definitely lives up to the high expectations I'd have had after hearing this "starcast" :)

Here.... listen and be happy...

Amit Trivedi Strike 2

2010-07-10T09:48:00.004-05:00

Aisha's music is out!
This is the second album after DevD by Amit Trivedi whose every single track is likeable (at least for me ;)). Some of its tracks (esp the Punjabi ones) may not be to everyone's tastes....but I quite like the foot-tapping number...perfect for that DJ-night :D

Check out one of the best songs from the album "Lehrein" here :

and one of the "fun" songs "Behke Behke" here:

I like how his music captures the mood of the movie but gives individuality to each song. Same was the case with Aamir, DevD and now also Udaan alongwith Aisha.

Speaking of Udaan.....the movie that I am really looking forward to :) here are two must-hear songs from its album.

and this Theme song is simply awesome!! (the video is 5:39 but the theme ends at 2:40 I think).

Christian the Lion

2010-07-10T01:11:00.004-05:00

Found this lovely video on youtube. there are many videos on youtube with the same name.

"You can see now?"

2010-07-09T12:05:00.003-05:00

One of the most moving scenes of a great movie ....... A MUST watch movie :)

Wish I had words to do justice to this movie ...... maybe someday when I am relatively free(er) ... till then this should do.

Wonderful piece of work.

Cynical!!

2010-07-05T01:28:00.005-05:00

Udaan Trailer

2010-07-04T20:28:00.000-05:00

Coming soon in India, after having opened in Cannes this year.. Looks pretty good. (Pesc. somehow didn't think this trailer is worthy of this blog. :D she posted it on her blog, but not here!)

So true.. So true...

2010-07-04T19:57:00.001-05:00

Looney Luna Loves Laddoos

2010-07-04T14:30:00.004-05:00

Looney Luna had heard about them.. but never had anyone conclusively proved anything.

As the myth went.. when Merleshwar Appoliosus planted his wand on Mount Everest, there sprung a fountain of youth which showered Magical Besan ke Laddoo. Anyone who ate those laddoos could gain eternal youth and attain immortality.

Magical Besan Laddoo

When the Patil sisters had their first nephew, their family sent over a large package to the twins at Hogwarts. A huge parcel arrived with the morning's owl post and a large tawny dropped off the package painted with cauldrons of gulab jamun and mithai-laden flying saucers. Padma opened the parcel with gleeful anticipation knowing it was going to be filled with goodies from home to celebrate the arrival of the young one.

And that's when Luna spotted them. Nestled cozily in a large pile, golden brown spheres jeweled with greenish nuts. Besan ke Laddoo!! Were these the legendary Magical Laddoos? They seemed innocent enough. Parvati reached in and grabbed a few. One by one came everyone's turn.. the whole school got to try the celebratory Laddoos.

Finally Looney Luna got her prize.. it lay in her hand like an ordinary candy-ball. But when she lifted it up to eat, the laddoo leaped right out of her grasp! Darting and twitching, left and right it whirred.. she tried to grab it.. but it wasn't easy to catch the little devil! Everyone around her was doing the same... jumping and leaping, trying to catch their laddoos!! Luna turned to Parvati, "How do we eat these?" Parvati smiled annoyingly, "Of all the people here, you should be the first one to get your laddoo!!" she said enigmatically.

Looney Luna was mildly miffed. She couldn't imagine what would be the use of giving out candy if one couldn't eat it! Oh well, life's intricacies did not bother Luna for long. She simply left her flying laddoo alone and started to pack-up for class. As she made her way through the Great Hall her laddoo followed her, zipping around her, taunting and tempting her with every move. But Luna politely ignored it.

On her way out she remembered that she had forgotten to wear her radish earrings!! As she fished them out of her bag, gazing idly at the Wrackspurts hovering over Ginny's head, it struck Luna that her laddoo was slowing down and getting closer to her. She noticed tiny little golden fluttering wings on the laddoo. Could they actually be the endangered Golden Snidgets enchanted illegally to look like laddoos.. ? The more Luna analyzed this possibility, the more the laddoo slowed down and the closer it came. That was weird.. was the laddoo suffering from Loser's Lurgy?

That was it! The laddoo plonked right into Luna's hand and just sat there waiting for her to eat.

Why this abrupt beneficence from the prank-laddoo! Hmm.. reminded Luna of the recently published work on Duality in Quantum Phygic! Incidentally, Luna was a staunch supporter of the latest theories in Quantum Phygic and Mathemagic. She particularly adored Booleo Maradona, the young Mathemagician who had boldly challenged established Seers, claiming that his “equations” could be used to predict the outcome of Quiditch World Cup better than their tea leaves. Ron and Harry's laddoos, whizzing in the air near Luna, were now also starting to slow down and approach her..

That was just about when Padma Patil announced in the Hall, "Everyone who has never eaten Magical Laddoos before... we celebrate birthdays with fun and laughter. So you need to think something silly and funny if you want to eat these laddoos."

Interesting, thought Luna, this silly thoughts strategy could be the laddoo’s way of forcing people to remember their childhood, in effect imparting eternal youth!!
The myth of the Magical Laddoos was true after all. Just as Luna had always known! Perhaps she could get the Patils to send a few laddoos as evidence to the Quibbler.. and some more to Booleo Maradona..

Plonk! Plonk! Plonk!
----------------------------

PS: This is our 100th post!!

Trailer Park -2 (The animation edition)

2010-07-04T14:15:00.000-05:00

Some pretty good trailers of upcoming animated features. All of the movies might not turn out to be great, but definitely all of them do look promising to some extent.

Apna Mithunda

2010-07-03T03:27:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, along with the hyped I Hate Luv Storys, another movie released which surprisingly got more coverage than expected. I say "surprisingly" because it is a Bengali movie, and usually non-hindi movies that release do not get much coverage.
This one's called "Shukno Lanka" or "Dry red chillies". Till now, I have only heard/read good things about it, including good performances.....

Take a look here:

http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/7913910-shukno-lanka-2010-bengali-movie-review-aditya-chakrabarty

or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ObCvqK-Kc

TOI says "For those who still remember Mithun Chakraborty's sterling act in Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Tahader Katha, here's another chance to discover the true colours of the thespian actor who has the ability to grab eyeballs with something more than his disco dancing abilities."

The trailer does not say much...but with the praise as above...I would like to go watch it (let's see if I can make it).

Oh Boy!

2010-07-02T23:06:00.002-05:00

The timing is perfect, no? As we more oh-so-close to our 100th post, Warner Bros have decided to help us out with our HP posts. I *love* this poster. Gave me shivers. I don't know why, but it did.

Moria

2010-06-30T01:04:00.002-05:00

"Someone should really bring them a ladder and remind them to build the Endless Stair *first* next time."

Trailer Park -1

2010-06-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is a new series by me. I'll post, for the busy world's benefit, any trailers of upcoming movies that I find interesting. Some of these would be great trailers of movies that will eventually turn out to be crap. Some others will probably be crappy trailers of the movies that I have high hopes for. Hopefully there will be none that even I won't have an idea about why I posted them. Hopefully. We'll see.

So, here goes, sans any comment (and in no particular order of interest)...

Computational Origami

2010-06-29T10:17:00.003-05:00

Harvard and MIT do it again :)

They have transformed a art of origami into a programmed self-driven process!! OK.... staunch origamists may protest....but at least these guys have done it for simple shapes....which in itself is awesome work!!!

Quoting from the article in Nature news "The engineered sheet is effectively a shape-shifting robot — or, looked at another way, a kind of protean 'programmable matter'."

The original article can be found here if anyone's interested.

The motion picture event of a generation....

2010-06-28T23:16:00.000-05:00

Pardon the lame villain though...

3X9

2010-06-28T04:36:00.002-05:00

:D :D :D
Don't forget to view it on xkcd

Hail the Rain Lord!!!

2010-06-28T03:15:00.006-05:00

Dear Rain Lord,

I know whenever I was in Bangalore and you made your presence felt galore, there were times when I cursed! What was I to do, when all my favourite chappals broke, had almost nothing to wear as most my clothes were wet, and suffered from allergies because the room went damp harboring fungal spores??!!!
But, then again, you must also remember, that it was the same me who also enjoyed dancing in the showers, jumped with glee in puddles and marveled at your lightning bolts. And I do admit that I had more fun with your presence felt than not.
Well, too much of anything is bad, as were the showers at times!!
Don't you miss me??? You know I love listening to rain patter on walls, windows, roofs and everywhere else; and I can spend hours just listening to it while staring into oblivion, letting my mind flow freely; or cuddle up in a corner with my favourite book, or if I am in an altruistic mood, maybe make some hot chai and goodies to eat for everyone around me :) then everyone will gather and amidst all the hullabaloo, keep repeating "Oh how wonderful is this weather!! How wonderful!!"
People have claimed that I am crazy to walk in the rain....but you and I know better.....don't you??
So, come visit me in Delhi soon....I am waiting!!! I promise not to complain and have lots of fun ;)
As a reminder, I am putting up this picture I had taken capturing your essence on a wonderful day...... do hurry :)

Waiting eagerly,
Pescy :)

Ratnam Remixes Ramayana

2010-06-25T05:48:00.002-05:00

By the time I went to catch a show of Raavan, it had already been mauled by almost everyone online. The good reviews, and I have seen many of them now, came much after I myself had seen the movie, one of them, from my favorite indian movie critic, Baradwaj Rangan. It is still easily one of Mani's worst reviewed movies yet. Dil Se had about as bad reviews as this, as I'm sure Thiruda Thiruda would've had. I don't remember how much I liked Thiruda Thiruda, but I really do like Dil Se even though the last half an hour or so is quite cringe-worthy. I have met some people who like Dil Se and don't know/remember that it got some pretty bad reviews; I've also met people who didn't see Dil Se when it released because of the universal jeers it seemed to be getting in the media at the time, but caught it on TV later and wondered why anyone would consider it to be so bad. That was the hope I was holding on to when I went to see Raavan. The hope that while some of the bad reviews might be from critics who really don't share my taste anyway, at least some of the others might be overcritical for the simple reason that this is a Mani Ratnam movie and you *do* expect him to do better than this. The rating at allbollywood was about 50% which doesn't make it the worst movie ever (it makes it about the 10th best movie of 2010 so far with reasonable number of reviews considered), it certainly is much lower than what I normally consider to be my threshold for being "worthy of a watch". Also, MNIK is 74% and Raajneeti 62%, and I considered the former to be just about watchable, the latter entirely forgettable, making Raavan sound like a horrible movie that would be unbearable to me.

All I'm saying is that I was hardly expecting that I'll be going to see this one twice.

Now, lest you assume that my watching the movie twice means that I really liked it, let me explain my "watching twice" philosophy to you. There was a time I watched almost every movie more than once before forming any stable opinion on it. But that time was long, long ago. Still, I found that there are some kind of movies that are likely to improve on second viewing - movies that are obviously "have to see it again to really get everything in it" type like The Usual Suspects, and the movies that seem annoying/awkward because of unexpected/unfamiliar/difficult stylistic choices. The latter includes films that are partially or fully slower than one expected (2001 A Space Oddysey, Dekalog etc), unfamiliar style (early kurosawa, Farewell My Concubine etc), off-putting yet intentional pace inconsistencies (Kill Bill, Rang De Basanti etc). What happens is that the first time these things happen, I'm not really prepared for them and they affect my overall enjoyment of other things that actually might've been better than I thought. Once you have already seen the movie, you know what is coming and it doesn't bother you that much. So, unlike Raajneeti where the bad parts were just bad content and not style and the good parts weren't good enough to merit a second watch, Raavan seemed a perfect candidate for being such a movie. Not that it improved to the level of being a really good movie, but certainly some of the worst things seemed much less bothersome. What were these things? Read on...

I am still to make up my mind as to what really killed this movie. There are many candidates.

A screeching Aishwarya in about 30% of her scenes that happen to be mostly in the first half. I can understand that it might've seemed a good thing to make Aish scream in a hoarse voice indicating her tortured and agitated state, but it certainly didn't translate on the screen as well as it might've been on paper. It just seemed annoying.
Abhishek's way over-the-top "mad Raavan" act in about a similar fraction of his act that was just plain annoying and unintentionally funny. Again, it probably seemed a good idea to justify the title "Raavan" by making it "ten heads.. as in ten different ideas running in the mind simultaneously" thing, but things like that are very hard to show on screen, unless you have a really charismatic performer to carry them through. Expecting Abhishek to do a Gabbar, a Joker or a Jack Torrence is hardly fair on the guy.. that sort of thing is just not his strength. I can see a Manoj Bajpai do wonders with this role.. even Madhavan would've probably made this work.... Anyway, I hear Vikram is able to bring much more physicality to the role much more convincingly in Raavanan. That itself should make the movie better by some margin for me.
Almost complete lack of "action" in the first half, and by action I mean worthwhile forward motion of the story... it is completely replaced by what we normally consider "action" sequences.. they just don't go anywhere. The way these action scenes are shot, it makes one think (and expect) that things are moving very fast but when you think about it, all that we are being shown are glimpses of a random "search in the jungle" with all the important parts of the story happening off the screen where Ragini must've done some seriously impressive stuff to muddle Beera's mind so much. I know that everyone can imagine their own effective stories about how exactly did things change in the minds of Beera and Ragini, but surely you can't blame the audience to not feel for your characters if they don't really see them doing much. This is even more frustrating because this is exactly the sort of thing that I love about Mani - two characters interacting.. playing with each other with just dialogue. As wonderful as all those jungle scenes with Dev running around look, all that time could easily have been used to use 10 pages of interesting lines for Ragini and Beera to speak.
Speaking of which, the lines that WERE spoken had hardly anything engaging about them. And this, I think, might be the single biggest factor in making the movie such a bland experience. Look at any Quentin Tarantino movie and you know that a scene doesn't necessarily HAVE to move the overall story forward for it to be interesting. All you need is some wonderful writing, and I don't mind one bit what it might be adding to the overall picture. The dialogue is one of the best things about Mani's movies. Even if some of the charm probably gets lost in subtitles, they are still pretty good. Dil Se and Yuva had some interesting writing by Tigmanshu Dhulia and Anurag Kashyap respectively and even Guru (with Hindi dialogue by the same Vijay Krishna Acharya who worked on Raavan) was actually pretty engaging througout (other than the silly climax, of course). Raavan, on the other hand, is full of simplistic, banal dialogue. It is perhaps difficult to separate banal acting from banal dialogue, and perhaps the same words would've worked had the performances worked, but I do think that they really needed some better lines here.

Phew!! Ok, so much for things that didn't work. Why did I go to see it again, then? Well... mainly because the second half seemed so much better than the first half. The first half just seemed so uneven, that I thought maybe the unevenness will be less bothersome the second time and it will make for an overall better feeling. More importantly, there were some truly good things going on. Like I said, the good things in Raajneeti were not good enough for me to want to see them again.. unlike that, the good things here were actually really good and I really wanted to see them again. So, the good stuff....

The beginning!! The 4-5 min long sequence that comes before the opening credits is a really, REALLY great piece of cinema. It reminded me of Godfather at times, and that can never be a bad thing. Perhaps it helped that VKAcharya didn't have anything to do in that sequence as it is almost entirely devoid of spoken words. This is as good an opening to the movie as one could've expected.
The photography! This one is a seriously good looking movie, even from Ratnam/Sivan standards. Ratnam has set almost the entire movie in and around jungles and waterfalls and that makes for some truly wonderful frames right from the first scene to the last. So much so that I think I would've enjoyed this movie more if it had been on mute! :D
The songs. This isn't even close to being one of Rahman/Ratnam's best collaboration, and for once Mani seems quite uninterested in spending too much time on songs. But, in this case, even a less-than-interested Mani is good enough to give some good songs/picturizations. The album itself is good enough, specially if you add the "Jaa, ud jaa re" to it, but most of the songs actually seem that much better on screen. Kata Kata, Behne De and Khili Re all worked pretty well for me... Khili Re, specially, is really well choreographed. Surprisingly, I didn't even mind "Thhok De Killi" in the movie. The song hadn't really worked for me before.. the trailer actually made it worse, but, for some reason, it doesn't seem bad at all during the movie. Perhaps it is positioned well. Or perhaps it just seemed better in comparison with some things in the first half. :D "Jaa, ud jaa re" is a pretty haunting song and it is used pretty well in the movie too.
Some memorable scenes which are vintage Mani. One scene, in particular, reminded me of something from Dil Se.. Abhi and Ash talking while he is on a boat, rotating all the while.. There are scenes in Dil Se where a similar thing happens. The actors are talking, and something goes on in the background that doesn't really have to. You could have Amar and Meghna saying the same lines without that woman continuing to pound whatever it is she was trying to pound in the background... or when they are talking in the AIR office when people are walking past and the door in the background keeps opening and closing... these things dont have to be there at all.. and are perhaps pretty distracting for some people... but the effect is memorable.. I might not remember anything about what they were talking about in those scenes, but I will never forget the visuals that were quite beautiful and distinctive...
The whole flashback with Priyamani works really well. The credit should probably go to her charming and convincing performance. That part of the movie is probably the only part where I actually cared for the characters on screen.
Govinda in some of his scenes, and Ravi Kishan throughout are quite good. Even the guy who plays the other brother of Raavan (Vibhishan?) was good, even though he only had 2 notable scenes. I think Ravi Kishan's convincing portrayal actually makes you realize even more how much better Raavan's role could've been done. While Abhishek seems adequate in most of the scenes where he doesn't have to do the 'mad Raavan' bit, you still find it hard to believe that he and Ravi Kishan's character are brothers. Ravi Kishan brings a certain earthy/rustic quality to his role that is just not there in Abhishek's performance. As for Govinda, they really could've done without the referencing Hanuman bit in his intro scene but I don't quite mind that as much as many people seem to have.

Which brings me to another point. I think some people were turned off by what they think were "literal adaptations" of Ramayana scenes, just like the Hanuman scene, but it didn't seem all that bad to me. I felt most of those things were actually tongue-in-cheek references to the epic rather than trying to force some direct references to remind people that it is Ramayana after all. Surely, it seemed to bother me during the first watch, but something changed the second time round. And it wasn't just that I already knew that they were there. (Now what follows in this paragraph is full of big SPOILERS, so please don't read it if you havent seen the movie... ) I think that by the time this movie ended, it seemed pretty clear to me that Raavan is not a typical anti-hero here. There is nothing that they show Raavan doing which would make you think that he is the bad guy (well, almost nothing) and there is nothing that Dev does that might make him a hero. You sort of go in with those expectations because you know your Ramayana, and because Ratnam seems to confirm those assumptions by making Dev a cop and Raavan an outlaw. But, really, this is a movie where Dev really is the villain and Raavan is the hero. Seeing the movie again from this perspective actually made things much better, including the fact that I now wasn't thinking that I am watching an "adaptation of Ramayan", but more like a normal hero-villain story with some tongue-in-cheek story and character references to Ramayan thrown in. While Hanuman jumping around in the trees and the 14 days/14hours/14 min thing are direct references, almost every other reference is actually twisted around to make them interesting, rather than boring. The polygraph test reference that just seems horribly forced the first time around actually seems rather clever way of using audience expectations to hide what the real meaning of the scene is. Every other time when one sees the Ramayan parallel, Ratnam twists your expectations to make things unpredictable. Hanuman goes to meet Sita and gets caught? Next must be him giving them a slip by something like "burning the Lanka"? Nope... Ram finds an injured Jatayu on the way? He'll tend to him.. be nice to him? Nope... Vibhishan goes to meet Ram? He'll probably join them or help them in any way? Nope... Ram, the villain of this story, is never more villainous as in that scene.. Even the Surpanakha's nose thing was put in quite convincingly with her mocking the cops by saying "police ke kutte" and sniffing pointedly...

So... so many good things and bad things.. where does the balance lie? I think probably towards negatives. Raja Sen, at the end of his review, says something that I agree with.. "Raavan's deadliest sin, however, isn't in the clumsy dialogue, hammy acting or lame, oversimplified adaptation. All of that can be forgiven if the tale engages us". And that is very true. For all of the good things going on, I really was just sitting there and watching things quite passively. If only the Raavan-Ragini-Dev trio could generate in me any sort of emotion at all, this would've been a pretty good movie. But they didn't, so it isn't. I've heard good things about Raavanan, so I'm looking forward to it. But this one will be added to the list of disappointments. What else can a movie like this be, coming from the people who made Iruvar?? Does that make it a bad movie? Nope. Not even close. There are quite a few redeeming features that are way better than most other one-tone banal movies around.

I haven't seen "Robin Hood", so that part excepted, my feelings about Raavan are exactly what Richard Corliss says at the end of his review in Time: As a showcase for some of Indian cinema's most renowned talents, Raavan has to be considered a disappointment. But as a big summer epic about a forest bandit, hey — it's better than the Russell Crowe Robin Hood. And, thanks to A.R. Rahman's infectious songs, this one you can dance to.

Back on the block :)

2010-06-22T07:30:00.002-05:00

Ok....so I am back after a short break :) and of the few posts that'll be coming up soon this ought to be the first. The verdict is out.

Raavan or Raavanan?

After watching both movies within 12 hrs :P I would say ..... definitely Raavanan.
I'm sure sooner or later Rahul will definitely (hopefully) delve into the details of the beauty and flaws of Raavan ;)
All that I will tell you is Vikram is DEFINITELY the better performer here and somehow Aishwarya is less screechy and more under control in Raavanan. Plus, I believe that they could have done better by simply translating the Tamil screenplay rather than write a slightly different and fresh Hindi one, especially for the first half of the movie (second-half is pretty much ok upon comparison). Then again, Vikram also does a better job of being cold-blooded Ram in Raavan rather than Prithviraj in Raavanan.

So...was it as bad as the critics' verdicts floating around? NO
Was it worth a watch? YES
Was it worth a double watch within the same day? Definitely
Would I recommend it to you? It does not live up to the Mani Ratnam standards, but is way ahead of several flicks that release all-year round. So, its your call. :)

Two down, one to go...

2010-06-19T18:16:00.002-05:00

Summer, to me, meant three movies. Two of them released on the same day and, in a flash, 2/3rd of the summer is over. Verdict? Mixed, so far... Read on...

Toy Story 3 (and Day & Night) :

Out of the three movies, this one I was least excited about. I know I shouldn't have been. It is Pixar, after all. Still, a part of me was never quite convinced that Pixar could do what Godfather and Star Wars couldn't - come back after decade(s) to make a worthy sequel. Specially, because this TS3 seemed to be a consequence of Disney taking over Pixar. One could never be sure of what direction things will be going. Is is just Disney forcing Pixar into their usual 'make box-office-hay while the sequel-sun shines' model or did the Pixar wizards REALLY have something Pixar-worthy to offer? After all, the other sequel in the pipeline is Cars 2!!! What other reason can they have to go back and make a sequel to the only Pixar movie that seems to be less than adored by everyone other than model-car loving toddlers and the merchandizing-loving Disney execs. If that is not a Disney finance-driven decision, I don't know what is. And yet, isn't this exactly what I had thought when Miramax had announced that "Quentin Tarantino's Fourth Film Kill Bill" was actually going to be "Quentin Tarantino's New Films Kill Bill Vol 1 & Vol 2". We were all cynical about it and chuckled when Quentin said "it really makes complete sense. This is a creative decision." Turned out, they were right all along. How can anyone even imagine combining KB1 and KB2 now? We learned that there are some things we should take on faith. When QT says something, listen. And if there is one thing you can have full faith in, it is that Pixar never fails. It just does not. Nope. Not possible. Having said that I am still apprehensive about Cars 2, but if TS3 is anything to go by, I need not be.

One of the reasons I was apprehensive about TS3 was that I have never really been as much a fan of the Toy Story movies as almost every other Pixar movie (other than Cars, and perhaps A Bug's Life). And I have never really understood why that is so. Every time I see TS or TS2, I end up thinking "hmm.. this was really entertaining.. why do I not seem to love this as much as the others"? I think the reason is that as good as they are, they are still probably the closest Pixar comes to making a Dreamworks' like movie. You know, an action/adventure/comedy movie targeted mainly to kids that seems to be full of pop culture references a la Shrek. The problem with that is that as great as you might make it, you can perhaps give me full paisa-vasool entertainment for my money, but you are never really going to touch the greatness reached by things like the "Carl and Ellie's life together" sequence in Up or the entire cute, touching, astounding first hour of WALL-E.. or the scarcely believable decision to make "critique of critics" sequence the climax of Ratatouille. Now, THAT is what Pixar can do. To me, the least impressive parts of Pixar movies are those fast paced action/adventure parts that they do as well as anyone else, but doesn't make them stand out in any manner. The "run from the pack of dogs" sequence in Up, the "malfunctioning robots spreading chaos in Axiom" in WALL-E.. the "chase among the thousand doors" in Monsters Inc.. the climactic battle in The Incredibles, etc. And Toy Story movies, as well as they are made, seem to always leave the impression in my mind that they are almost entirely full of just these sequences. And I find that I am wrong every time I see them again. Perhaps the other things aren't as memorable in them as in other movies. Anyway, the bottomline is, Pixar has made another Toy Story movie and it has done it as well as the first two.. maybe even better. This one is, again, just a REALLY well made and entertaining action/adventure/fun movie for about 70% of its length but it ends on a note that makes it entirely worthy of those other great Pixar movies. For about 70% of its length it seems another great Toy Story movie (and that itself isn't something easy to do... how many movies do we know where the essential charm doesn't completely vanish after the first sequel?), but what they do with the last 15-20 minutes took my breath away. And I came out of the theater entirely satisfied, and appropriately ashamed of my lack of faith in Pixar.

This isn't a review. It wasn't meant to be. It doesn't have to be. After all, all of you are going to see it anyway, aren't you? :) Rest assured that if you liked the first two, there is absolutely no way that you aren't going to love this one too.

Oh... and there is also the small matter of catching one of their cutest short films. Day & Night is as good as most other Pixar shorts (which makes it a masterpiece :P). Go, watch NOW!

Coming up next... How Mani made a disconcerting movie that seemed bad enough for me not to recommend it to others and yet intriguing enough for me to want to go and see it again....

Is this true for you?

2010-06-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

Roger Ebert writes about the possible impact of websurfing on our brains. I think I relate to what he is saying. Do You?

Read here.

Sand Art

2010-06-14T08:46:00.004-05:00

Hello peoples...... :)
Have been off-blog for a while....have loads of pending posts...but when I saw this...I could not stop myself from posting it here.

Watch this:

and read about it over here

Awesome talent.....she would have practiced a lot for art such as this...but even then....it is simply WOW!! :)

You really don't stand a chance...

2010-06-07T00:03:00.002-05:00

Woohoo!!!

I know I know. I was never one to get very excited about a HP movie, but it has been so long since the last book's release. :( The only thing left to celebrate is the movies' release now.

Update: Thanks Ashish for pointing out that the video on that link isn't available. I'm posting another link (with really good resolution this time!). Let's hope this also doesn't vanish soon.

The Homeopathy Delusion

2010-06-04T18:48:00.000-05:00

I have had discussions about homeopathy with a lot of people in the past. Perhaps some of you here too. So perhaps there is nothing new here. Still, two articles on the amazing Yahoo India columns this week are worth reading. The first one by Girish Shahane says everything that needs to be said, and then changes everything in the final paragraph, like a good (even bad) Shyamalan movie. Read it here.

Amit Varma then posted his own views yesterday - and I'm sure it is that last paragraph of Shahane's article that made him do it. He has done this before on his blog, but this one has a nice collection of links that make it a worthwhile read. Here.

Where do I stand? Almost firmly behind Amit. I actually even somewhat agree with the last paragraph of Amit's article, except that I perhaps often lack his restraint. That is probably an effect of reading too much Dawkins (the title of this post says as much). Or perhaps it is the effect of not meeting many people who don't go out of their way to try and explain their faith and prove that it IS the truth, not just that it has its advantages. Then again, perhaps the advantages work only when you treat it as a truth. well... perhaps the thing to blame is not the faith itself, but the instinctual need to spread it around too. After all, that is why I am posting this in the first place....

Back to paper art

2010-06-04T03:24:00.000-05:00

I remember a post about paper art. Here is another link. Found it through a Yahoo india blog. Some truly stunning stuff.

Presenting.....Shreya Ghoshal

2010-06-02T01:43:00.003-05:00

Undoubtedly, Shreya is one of the best singers in Bollywood today. What a sweet voice and amazing control over it!!

The music of I-Hate-Luv-Storys is out, and this song has grown on me in the past few days :) Check it out:

I like three more tracks from the album which you can check out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KabTaycHFq4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6aM000RuRM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2rNG8UY3-0

The title track is one which i call a "good-bad song" :P i.e. it has some funny rhyming lyrics but foot-tapping music......not everyone's cup-of-tea ... but i like it :)

Also the promos look decent enough....looking forward to it :)

Now in Mumbai

2010-06-01T07:50:00.004-05:00

few months back I was trying my hand at long exposure photography using my Nikon D60. One of my such favorites shots have been street photos at night. So I set up my instrument in balcony and tried lot of combination in manual mode. Here is one of the best shot from that evening after almost 20-25 trials.

For those who are interested in technical details, this image is captured at ISO-100, F/32 aperture size and 25 sec exposure. I had read that smaller aperture helps creating ray effect from a light source. I could get that from the halogen light above hoarding. Though I am not very happy with the overall frame but a balcony on the fifth floor does not allow much freedom to decide your frame. Specially the black hoarding on my side of road taking away the effect of traffic flow.

All in all I am happy with the result considering my first attempt. But your opinion may differ. How do you feel about it?

If you were thinking of hitting the gym..

2010-05-28T07:56:00.003-05:00

.. do it this way!

My favorite optical illusions.

2010-05-25T18:57:00.006-05:00

Pesc's post inspired me to post some of my favorite optical illusions. Here...

1) Same Color Illusion.

Look at the image above. Which of the squares A and B do you think is the darker shade of gray? A? Well, as it turns out in every such optical illusion, the answer is - None. They are the same shade. Exactly the same shade. :) The brain interprets the intensity based on the context. Ever wondered why sunspots are dark? As in, it's not as if those regions aren't bright and hot themselves, so why do they appear dark? It's because they are embedded in much hotter and brighter regions of the Sun. This is exactly what is happening here. A seems darker because it has light squares around it. B seems light because it is surrounded by dark squares. I feel that the strength of this particular image is in the fuzzy boundary of the cylinder's shadow. This means that B's shade merges into the light square's shade seamlessly fooling the brain into expecting that B must actually be the same shade as the light squares, only that they are slightly darker due to the shadow. But same as A? No way! well, it is. :) Perhaps the image below will help in visualizing it.

2) Blue or Green?

You know what's coming. But you can't believe it, can you? The spirals that are clearly blue and green are actually neither blue nor green, but a combination (RGB=0,255,150). i.e. they are EXACTLY the same color. unbelievable? I know. This one actually makes one forget the first illusion entirely. I mean, it was difficult to believe that one, but surely this is simply impossible? Well, copy it to paint/photoshop and see the RGB values. Or, just crop some pixels from the blue and green spirals without their pink/orange context and juxtapose them. Or, if you don't really have to do it yourself to believe it, just head on to this article at the badastronomy blog and see for yourself. This really is stunning.

3) Ok, this one is fun. Look at this one. Which direction is the (apparently nude, but I digress... ) spinning? Clockwise? Counter-clockwise?

No idea about copyright, but I found it here. Anyway, once you know your initial answer, look again. Perhaps looking at the shadow of the feet will do it the first time. The spinning direction flips instantly! It is actually much easier to flip the interpretation in your mind after you succeed in seeing it once. I can do it within 5-10 seconds now, and yet it is such a rush everytime it happens! :) Specially when I focus on her face. Suddenly the hair jumps from front to the back. :) I think this is essentially the same thing as flipping the 3-D interpretation of the Necker Cube in your mind. But, somehow this spinning girl makes it much more fun! :)

4) And now, the killer. Hollow mask illusion. I don't need to say anything as they say it all in the video.

Incredible, no? I have always wanted to have one of these masks at home. Specially this next one, with einstein. But it is definitely not worth 60 dollars....

Do you have any favorite illusions? Do share in comments.

Kata kata

2010-05-25T17:08:00.001-05:00

raising my head from the posting-less abyss all of us seem to have been roaming in (except Pesc, of course.. who is keeping the every flavor flag flying high)...

New trailer for Raavan. This is actually surprisingly good. Surprisingly, because I was apprehensive about this song picturization.I was thinking something on the lines of "Ek lo ek muft", but this is actually pretty well done.

Cheeky program in controversial soup

2010-05-25T11:24:00.007-05:00

Freshmen of the College of Letters and Science at University of California, Berkeley have a unique thing in their welcome kit this year....a cotton swab!

The Same Page program of this college gives new students something to talk about and discuss, say something like a book or a movie or an idea. This year, they’ll be exploring the theme of Personalized Medicine—the set of emerging technologies that promises to transform our ability to predict, diagnose, and treat human disease. Therefore, the cotton swab. Students can choose to return a sample of their cheek cells to be analyzed for three genes that are identified as "useful" for daily lives......the genes that help regulate the ability to absorb folic acid, tolerate lactose, and metabolize alcohol. Results of this nutritional genomic study will be confidential, however the sample donors through secret codes can access results of their samples.

Professor Jasper Rine, in-charge of this project, says “We want to get people to appreciate that there are things you can do that enhance your health based on the genes you have. There are concrete, actionable, specific steps that do enhance quality of life. This is the message of the post-genomic era.” Students will also get the chance to enter contests of creativity and talent and winners will be offered a more complete genetic analysis of their ancestry and health, with compliments from the personal genomics company 23andMe.

Medical science and biotechnology post the "Human Genome Project" is aiming towards better health care and effective clinical solutions. Though today, personalized medicine seems like a Utopian dream, hopefully someday it will be cost-effective and bring therapeutics suited to individual needs and responses.

This project, however, is not without it's share of controversies. Following a ban by FDA on retail selling of personal-genome-testing kit by Walgreens ( a US based drugstore chain), a Berkeley-based public interest organization is calling for the suspension of the UC project. They say "If selling genetic tests directly to consumers is a problem in the eyes of federal regulators, how can the University justify pushing them on thousands of eighteen-year-olds?"

The kit with the swab includes a consent form and details of the study to be undertaken, the advantages of the program and a confidentiality statement assuring prevention of misuse of genetic information. Where is the abuse??? If the donors consent to give samples for research, understanding what they are signing-up for....then why not?? Surveys and sample collections anyway take place for various research programs across the world...then why not this?? People can, for a minimal fee, send their DNA samples to laboratories for testing and genetic analysis, so why not allow the sale of these kits? Is it not up to the customer to think what they want, need, require and find useful??

Gravity defying ramp

2010-05-19T06:48:00.004-05:00

Found this in a news article in Nature where they talk about the Best Optical Illusion of the Year. The winning illusion makes downward-sloping ramps appear to run uphill :)

Watch it here:

The competition, hosted by the Neural Correlate Society, is the "Oscars of perception," says society president Susana Martinez-Conde. The trophies are themselves visual illusions — wooden sculptures that look vastly different depending on the observer's point of view.

Now, isn't that cool!!!

I like what one finalist says..... "Illusions are cool and fun, but they're important because they are mistakes of the visual system that give us clues about how the underlying processes work when they're functioning properly."

Funny workings of the brain!

ISS-Atlantis transit over Sun

2010-05-19T01:21:00.006-05:00

Image of the solar transit of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Atlantis 50 minutes before docking, taken from the area of Madrid (Spain) on May 16th 2010 at 13h 28min 55s UT.

Photolink via : Discover blogs and Thierry Legault

Click on image to view enlarged version.

Hrithik on Fire

2010-05-18T10:15:00.001-05:00

Just watched this song promo on TV from the movie Kites.
Love the feel of the music and Hrithik's dance moves are awesome. He has always been a good dancer; this video re-affirms it!!

Take a look:

Looking forward to the complete dance sequence :)

and here's the full song if anyone's interested:

You got to be joking....!

2010-05-18T05:14:00.005-05:00

Seriously, would someone please assess the science reporters of Times of India before hiring them! or maybe just hire editors who make sure that the news reaching out to masses is not a distorted truth!!??
Here's an article from today's paper:

"Eat breakfast to have a baby boy"

The article boldly claims "Want a baby boy? Well, then eat full breakfast and fatty diet during early pregnancy, suggests a new study ", but very conveniently forgets to mention that what the scientist is actually saying is that their hypothesis is that diet, either directly or indirectly (e.g. through hormonal changes in the mother), influences the nutrient conditions within the reproductive tract of an early pregnant female. These changes in turn could alter the relative abilities of either X- or Y-sperm to effect fertilization. Alternatively, an altered uterine environment might lead to preferential survival of embryos of one sex over the other. Also, that these preliminary studies have been carried out only in mice! and several experiments need to be done to decipher the actual mechanism!

Normally I would have brushed away articles such as these labeling them as "preposterous" or search articles giving scientific evidence for their claims (if there is any tiny curiosity as to what the original claimant really wants to say). But, a conversation with a non-science/biology background person involving discussion on the various "health" articles led me to wonder how much such "half-truths" influence people's thinking.

Eat breakfast and high fat diet for a baby boy!! Maybe we should leak this news to television mom-in-laws, their bahus will have a good time eating! :P

Cannes via Ebert

2010-05-17T03:36:00.003-05:00

Roger Ebert has been tweeting (and blogging) from Cannes, and I'm reading every word that he types, trying to fool myself into thinking that I am at Cannes myself. :) This (and hopefully some other upcoming posts on my own blog, if not here) post is to suggest everyone else who might be interested and lukkha enough that following Ebert might be a pretty good way of keeping an eye on Cannes.

For those, who are interested but not lukkha, this post and others in the series will point to whatever I find interesting. If I am able to pique your curiosity about any particular movie etc, you can always head on to Ebert's blog later.

So far he has talked about a possible animated movie nomination for next year's oscar, a french movie by the maker of "The Triplets of Belleville" called The Illusionist; an english movie with a rather intriguing concept directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of "The Ring", called Chatroom; the "Wall Street" sequel by Oliver Stone, called Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and a korean movie called The Housemaid.

Out of these The Housemaid seemed pretty interesting to me. Ebert mentions that some people are already speculating that it might be a frontrunner for Palme d'Or, though it is still quite early in the festival. Ebert's synopsis -

It takes place almost entirely within the huge modern house of a very rich man, and centers on the young woman he has hired as a nanny. It involves the man, his wife, his daughter, the older woman who runs his household, and the mothers of the wife and the nanny.
This is a house where living is an expensive form of art. The couple are smooth, calm, sophisticated. They value themselves very highly. The nanny forms a bind with their 7-year-old daughter, and assists the wife during a pregnancy with twins. More than that I choose not to specify.
But look at the mastery of the film's construction. The nuanced performances. The implacable deliberation of the plot. The way the house acts as a hothouse to force the growth of anger. And the film's unforgiving portrait of people damaged by great wealth. This is a thriller about the ideas people have of themselves.

The trailer is pretty exciting too. Thrilling, as the movie promises to be, with some pretty good music and interesting look.

This is another South Korean movie that seems exciting, after Mother that released earlier in the year and is one of the best movies that I have seen in 2010 so far. Hmmm... I should write about Mother one of these days.. perhaps for my individual blog.

Appropriate Technology

2010-05-11T22:32:00.002-05:00

I guess a few of you might have already seen this. But for the benefit of the few ignorant others. Personally, I found this very inspiring. I hope you too.

Excitement++

2010-05-08T12:49:00.003-05:00

whoa!!! Nolan!!!

I started the summer with Inception and Raavan being my top 2 most anticipated movies. But with Raavan trailers decreasing my excitement a little, and with this trailer being so exciting, Inception is now officially the most anticipated movie of the summer for me.

Chatting with Chopras

2010-05-07T16:47:00.001-05:00

Found a pretty good interview of Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Anupama Chopra. I quite enjoyed reading it. Awesome couple. :)

Here. Read it.

For those who don't recognize the names: VVC is the director of Parinda, 1942-A Love Story and Eklavya, among others.. and produced Munnabhai movies, 3 idiots, Parineeta etc. Anupama Chopra, his wife, is a movie critic/writer who has written some well-reviewed books about hindi movies.

De Palma Woos Abrams' Bird?

2010-05-07T13:03:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite directors, Brad Bird (based on just 2 great movies and another decent one, but what amazing movies they were!!), is now going to direct Mission: Impossible IV. I don't know what to think. Perhaps that it can only be good for M:I franchise and give them their best movie? After all, this is exactly the situation we were in when it was announced that Christopher Nolan will take on Batman reboot project; and see what HE did there!

There's still a little disappointment because his dream project 1906 seems to be on hold forever. But perhaps directing an M:I movie will help him get the enormous funding he needs for 1906. We'll see how things turn out next year.

news via empireonline.

Google Chrome

2010-05-07T04:14:00.004-05:00

Following changed appearance of Google search, the next thing I read today was the release of the new beta version of Google Chrome which boasts of highly improved browsing speed besides other new features.
Here's the link for the original blogpost and here's the video for the crazy experiments they did to showcase the (literally) lightning fast Chrome:

Enjoy!!!

Your mind is the Scene of the Crime.

2010-05-07T02:53:00.001-05:00

New poster for Inception is here, along with a pretty intriguing synopsis.

"In the film, Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming."

Courtesy: Comingsoon.net

"The Empire on which the sun never sets"

2010-05-06T11:01:00.013-05:00

As you know, the title phrase of this post refers to the global empires set up by Europeans between the 15th and the 19th centuries.
Imperialism or European colonisation was heralded by the Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the early 15th century, a period known as the "Age of Discovery". We have all heard of Columbus and Magellan; there were many many more of them who spread out to discover "new lands"...the Americas, African coast, Middle east, India, eastern Asia and even Australia. Soon after, they were joined by the British, the French and the Dutch in direct competition in exploration (they actually started as pirate attacks on Spanish fleets loaded with riches obtained from the new lands...but soon they developed their own expeditions and settlements).
The Spanish colonialization was primarily for bolstering their economic status by trade and religious conversions; on the other hand, the British colonization was mainly aimed at "making new societies" as per the whims of the colonists and then began the enslavement of "native savages". British Imperialism, as it turned out, flourished over all others especially after Napolean's downfall and its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.....!!
Decolonization began in earnest only in the 20th century. This interesting animated link here shows the rise and fall of British Empire. Over the hundreds of years of colonization, millions of people moved to and from the British colonies. There have been pros and cons of this Imperialization; on one hand spread of technology early on was one of the advantages, on the other, tension and discontent between the native and non-native settlers continues till date.

So now you may ask...why this discussion on the history of colonization, especially British Imperialism :)
Well, yesterday I watched this movie called Pocahontas (animated Disney movie) where the story backdrop is an English governor who is seeking gold and riches in the "new land" and is ready to sacrifice the savages inhabiting the land which is now "His".
What the discussion between me and my friend led to was......... human settlements evolved and developed at several places simultaneously across the globe... why was it then that the European settlements progressed and developed much faster than the others?? The civilizations may have arose across several parts of the world and grew too, but technological development was much faster here which empowered them to dominate the world....why was it so? I have not yet been able to find an answer to that yet. So....help!!!! :) and if you think that I have got some points wrong...feel free to point them out.

Why SSMTWTF

2010-05-05T00:06:00.004-05:00

Repetition of a post after four year (OMG!!! dint know that I am blogging since then) from my blog

There are a lot of things in life we take for granted and hardly think about its origin or reason. We rarely think that at some stage of history obvious looking things were a point of research or debate. Sequence of days in a week is one such thing about which I never thought. Why it should be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on? Why not any other sequence? Few days back I was reading a book about Indian astronomy and found the answer.

There are five visible planets in the sky - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, and in older days Sun and Moon were also categorised as planets. So there were total 7 visible planets. (Navgrah concept in Indian astrology includes Rahu and Ketu, which are not physical objects but imaginary points, intersection points of Moon's orbit with the plane of Earth's revolution around Sun.)

Now arrange all the 7 planets in decreasing order of period (time taken to make a complete circle with reference to stars as seen from the earth)- Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon.

Each day has 24 hours. Assume that each hour has one ruler planet. Suppose that today's first hour ruler planet is Saturn, second hour ruler will be Jupiter, Third will be Mars, fourth will be Sun and so on. First hour ruler decides the day. Hence today is Saturday.

Repeating the above mentioned sequence we see that 22nd hour ruler is again Saturn, 23rd is Jupiter, 24th is Mars and 25th will be Sun. Now 25th hour is 1st hour of tomorrow, so it is Sunday tomorrow. Similarly tomorrow's 22nd hour is ruled by Sun, 23rd by Mercury, 24th by Venus and 25th by Moon. So day after tomorrow is Monday.

Wow.... its simply amazing to learn the way sequence of weekday has been setup.

Zimbabwe!!!

2010-05-04T01:08:00.006-05:00

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Smiling lips and singing hearts

2010-05-03T15:16:00.001-05:00

I recently finished reading "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks, and I thought that a condition mentioned in one of the chapters is worth posting about here. It is called "Williams Syndrome".

In WS, certain anatomical features are underdeveloped or faulty. This includes certain facial features (you'll see them having unusually wide-eyed expressions), certain heart and artery muscles etc. More importantly, perhaps, specific parts of the brain are highly underdeveloped, while others are either overdeveloped or at least unusually dominate because the others parts aren't developed properly. The parts that are underdeveloped are the ones that have an important role in numerical/logical thinking and spatial sense. The parts that are often overdeveloped or seem to dominate are the ones that have roles in linguistic skills, social skills and apparently emotional impact of music (thats where "musicophilia" comes in).

So, people with WS are highly gregarious... extremely friendly and social with everyone.. they almost completely lack any social inhibitions, so that they seem to be completely comfortable in the presence of almost anyone, regardless of whether they are familiar with them. Moreover, they actually seem to enjoy such interactions and seem to be unusually clued-in to the emotional cues in other peoples behavior/facial expressions etc.

Their linguistic skills are almost always highly developed, making them highly articulate. This, along with their friendly/social nature means that you'll always find them having long, extended conversations with almost anyone. On the other hand, they find it extremely difficult to do even the most simple math problems. You could be talking on phone with someone who has WS and probably won't realize that anything is unusual (other than the person being unusually charming and friendly) until you ask him/her to tell you what 3+5 is. Chances are, they'll fumble through the problem and will probably only guess an answer, which will probably be wrong anyway. Lack of a normally developed spatial sense means that they find it hard to work with even simple geometric shapes (like the toys that toddlers play with) and can hardly draw even simple things like a triangle or a circle. In short, as Sacks says, they are almost anti-autistic in their characteristics.

Sacks talks about some people having WS that he has met. There are really interesting stories here. e.g. when one little girl's mom told her not to talk to strangers, she replied with "but there are no strangers, there are only friends"

Another girl he met (she was about 7-8 years of age) was so clued in to other people's facial features and was so completely uninhibited in front of strangers that she surprised him by sensing his slight diffidence and said promptly something like "don't be shy! I'll make some muffins for you". This, from a girl, who had never met Sacks before. Sacks had gone to her home to see her and was probably only about as inhibited as any of us would be when we go to someone's house for the first time (Well, some of us are probably more inhibited than others... my diffidence would probably be easy to sense for almost anyone. :P )

Anyway, so she went ahead and got some muffins for him. In some time, Sacks asked her (perhaps after covering the plate, though I am not sure) to guess how many muffins there were in the plate. She guessed, with some effort, "3". Then he asked her to go ahead and count them. She tried and counted them one by one and came up with 8. There were actually 13.

Another girl, a 15 year old, had an IQ of 49 - quite typical of people with WS. So, her average mental level was of around a 7-8 year old kid i.e. about a student of 2nd standard. But that doesn't mean, as I said before, that you'd be able to tell that by just talking to her. It's not as if they seem "retarted" in any sense. math/logic/spatial sense don't work properly, but they are exceptional in linguistics. They are highly articulate, which makes things difficult when they are in new company (difficult for them, sure, but also difficult for these new people). After all, none of us expect someone to be that articulate, YET having mental problems

Take this 15 year old girl with IQ 49. They asked her to tell them about what an elephant is. And her response, quoted below, is amazing in its detail. It is almost as if she is telling a story rather than answering a simple question :

"And what an elephant is, it is one of the animals. And what the elephant does, it lives in the jungle. It can also live in the zoo. And what it has, it has long gray ears, fan ears, ears that can blow in the wind. It has a long trunk that can pick up grass, or pick up hay… If they are in a bad mood it can be terrible…If the elephant gets mad it could stomp; it could charge. Sometimes elephants can charge. They have big long tusks. They can damage a car… It could be dangerous. When they're in a pinch, when they're in a bad mood it can be terrible. You don't want an elephant as a pet. You want a cat or a dog or a bird…"

So, to put it mildly, she knows something about what an elephant is. The amazing part is, after this, when they asked her to draw an elephant, this is what she drew -

(The labels were put by someone else to help others see what she might've been trying to make. She only made the figure.) Clearly, she knows about the fan like ears and tusks etc, but she can't draw any of those details at all.

The connection with music is pretty interesting actually.. all of them are strongly sensitive and emotionally attached to music. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that all of them are very good at playing music or singing (though a lot of them are). This is, as Sacks points out, quite unlike musical savants. Musical savants are almost finished articles. They will dazzle the whole world by their exceptional musical talents, yet, they might not necessarily derive as much pleasure out of music as a normal person around them. WS patients, however, invariably feel very strongly towards music.

This strong emotional connection to music, in combination with their completely uninhibited nature means that you'll find them merrily singing or whistling or playing music or swaying to music a lot of times. if you are walking on the road and they suddenly hear you even humming something they'll just smile broadly and will likely start singing along with joy. Some parents/guardians of a lot of WS patients decided to get a lot of together for a camp. Sacks describes what he saw at one of these camps and it sounds amazing. 15-20 people with WS - most, but not all, very young - sit together and talk to each other as if everyone is part of a close family. Talk about everything under the sun. And then, suddenly, someone starts humming and everyone joins in.. Some play their instruments, while others jump in and harmonize. Some just let their bodies follow the rhythm. I'd say that it is pretty sad to know about this, but it's really difficult to feel that way after reading about their joy in these camps or, indeed, their connection to music.

Panchatantra on the Wall Street

2010-05-01T20:04:00.000-05:00

The Weaver, the Princess and Goldman Sachs, for your reading pleasure. :) Funny.

Trailer 3

2010-04-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

hmmm.... great visuals, great background music, but perhaps too much hysterics? I'm getting a sinking feeling about this. I think I'll go for the Tamil version first, if it releases in Austin the same day.

And what are they doing? They have released so many trailer so early! It is as if the movie were releasing in 3 weeks. We still have almost 2 months!! tab tak log excited hoke bhool bhi jaayenge!

While we are posting videos....

2010-04-30T00:33:00.002-05:00

Ok, it's the video posting day I guess. So I decided to post the one old classic song I always think of when I think of old classic songs.. :) Ladies and Ashish (considering that Raja doesn't seem to show up much, and Palash at all :P ), presenting... Gene Kelly.. Singing in the Rain.

Gene Kelly - I'm Singing in the Rain
Uploaded by goldrausch. - See the latest featured music videos.

And while looking for that I ran into another amazing video from this movie. What physical talent, this O'Connor!! see this if you haven't seen the movie (starting from about 2 min, I think, if you don't have those extra 2 min to spare).

Singin In The Rain Donald O'connor Lyrics, Make Em Laugh
Uploaded by musical-films. - Click for more funny videos.

Feed the birds

2010-04-30T00:09:00.003-05:00

After Pescado's post about Sound of Music I heard a bunch of Julie Andrews' songs on youtube. Here's a nice, soft and sweet song I had not heard before... Not sure if I would read too much into the meaning and get all cynical about Mary dearest.. Let her do her thing I guess.

Listen, listen.. how sweet is her voice!!

Do Re Me...... Surprise!!!

2010-04-29T09:52:00.005-05:00

I was surfing through Youtube videos to listen to songs from one of my favourite musicals...."The Sound of Music".... and I found a video of a live performance that some one had uploaded.

More than 200 dancers were performing their version of "Do Re Mi", in the Central Station of Antwerp (Belgium). It was a promotional stunt for a Belgian television program, where they were looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of "The Sound of Music".

I just wondered how lovely it must be to witness something like this. Maybe someday while moving around in a mall somewhere, out of the blue, the people around you would break into a song-dance sequence like this....not just any song...but something funny and nostalgic. Maybe something like "Sar jo tera chakraye"..... a promotional sequence for Shehnaz's latest hair product perhaps!! :D

Here's the video....

Grandfather paradox....

2010-04-29T05:20:00.003-05:00

Found this story in the current issue of Nature.
Started out to be an interesting read...but got lost towards the end :P
Somebody help!!

Grandfather paradox

Paapi Politicians

2010-04-29T01:42:00.004-05:00

Recently I remembered about an interesting photographs. I was capturing something else and did not notice this particular banner till my brother brought into my notice.
This image was captured on 24th June last year on Marine Drive near Pizzaria. Last year monsoon was late, which later converted to drought like situation in most parts of India.
Mumbaikars, who are used to heavy showers after first week of June were sweating in hot Sun even during June end. So someone put this banner. After all someone has to be blamed for monsoon failure ;)

Film Lovers in Mumbai, alert!

2010-04-28T18:52:00.000-05:00

http://passionforcinema.com/satyajit-ray-film-festival/

Satyajit Ray film festival. The society itself isn't bad at all.

Rahul

Posters!!

2010-04-28T16:03:00.000-05:00

Look at these. Some REALLY good posters. Perhaps not for the purpose of publicizing the movie, since they don't make any sense to anyone who hasn't already seen the movie. But if you have seen the movie, these are pretty good. :) I love the Kill Bill posters, specially. :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2010/apr/03/film-posters-ibraheem-youssef

Somebody help him!

2010-04-28T05:08:00.001-05:00

Bal Thackeray is having trouble finding the marathi word for Terminus... :D

http://www.ndtv.com/news/cities/cant-stand-the-station-being-called-cst-says-bal-thackeray-21158.php

so, no, CST won't do anymore. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminusinmarathhi it shall be.

Trailer 2!

2010-04-25T08:58:00.003-05:00

This is pretty good! Definitely seems to live up to Mani Ratnam's reputation for great picturized songs.

50th post... Potter post..

2010-04-25T08:54:00.001-05:00

Pesc suggested that since the blog name is inspired from HP books and none of us seem to write anything about that, perhaps the 50th (and maybe the 100th, the 150th etc.. ) post should be about HP. Well, it is difficult to come up with a good post about a given topic on such short notice (at least I now know how difficult it is for journalists.. always finding new angles to the same old stories and doing that on hard deadlines). So, here is a quick list (my favorite pastime! making lists!) of some quotes/excerpts from HP books that I find really funny. They aren't necessarily the funniest bits; one would have to make a list while rereading the whole books for that. But they are some pretty funny ones that I found on Mugglenet.

Non HP fans, if you decide on reading some of these, understand that they are much more funny when you know the context/characters etc. :)

HP fans, enjoy! (I am looking at you Pesc and SS :) )

--
Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small watery blue eyes, and thick blonde hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel. Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

--

"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.
"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

--

"Now, you two - Behave yourselves. If I get one word that you've blown up a toilet or - " [Mrs. Weasley]
"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."
"Great idea though, thanks, Mum."

--

Speaking quietly so that no one else would hear, Harry told the other two about Snape's sudden, sinister desire to be a Quidditch referee.
"Don't play," said Hermione at once.
"Say you're ill," said Ron.
"Pretend to break your leg," Hermione suggested.
"Really break your leg," said Ron.

--

"Well...when we were in our first year, Harry-young, carefree, and innocent-"
Harry snorted. He doubted whether Fred and George had ever been innocent.

--

(Harry, just being greeted by Percy) "Harry!" said Fred, elbowing Percy out of the way and bowing deeply. "Simply splendid to see you, old boy-"
"Marvelous," said George, pushing Fred aside and seizing Harry's hand in turn. "Absolutely spiffing." Percy scowled.
"That's enough, now," said Mrs. Weasley.
"Mum!" said Fred as though he'd only just spotted her and seized her hand too. "How really corking to see you-"

--

Hermione sat down, laid the things she was carrying in an empty armchair and pulled Ron's predictions towards her.
'Not going to have a very good month, are you?' she said sardonically, as Crookshanks curled up in her lap.
'Ah well, at least I'm forewarned,' Ron yawned.
'You seem to be drowning twice,' said Hermione.

--

'Her acne's loads better lately - and she's really nice!'
'Her nose is off-centre,' said Ron.
'Oh, I see,' Hermione said, bristling. 'So basically, you're going to take the best-looking girl who'll have you, even if she's completely horrible?'
'Er - yeah, that sounds about right,' said Ron.

--

'All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?' said Hermione loftily. 'Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you.'
But Ron was staring at Hermione as though suddenly seeing her in a whole new light. 'Hermione, Neville's right - you are a girl...'

--

"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. "We sent it."

--

Dudley had done the thing he was threatening to do since age three: He had become wider than he was tall.

--

Ron: "Who're you going with then?"
Fred: "Angelina."
Ron: "What? You've already asked her?"
Fred: "Good point. Oi, Angelina!"
Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him.
Angelina: "What?"
Fred: "Want to come to the ball with me?"
Angelina gave Fred an appraising sort of look.
"All right, then," she said.

--

"What are you working on?" said Harry.
"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year--"
"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron.

--

"Mr. Crouch!" said Percy breathlessly, sunk into a kind of half-bow that made him look like a hunchback. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Oh," said Mr. Crouch, looking over at Percy in mild surprise. "Yes — thank you, Weatherby."

--

"You’re not by any chance writing out a new order form, are you?" said Mrs. Weasley shrewdly. "You wouldn’t be thinking of restarting Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, by any chance?"
"Now, Mum," said Fred, looking up at her, a pained look on his face. "If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and George and I died, how would you feel to know that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?"

--

Harry’s got a long way to go before he finishes this tournament," she [Hermione] said seriously. "If that was the first task, I hate to think what’s coming next."
"Right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?" said Ron. "You and Professor Trelawney should get together sometime."

--

A week after Fred and George's departure, Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, "It unscrews the other way."

--

"Well, we were always going to fail that one," said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. He had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he told the examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in the crystal ball, only to look up an realize he had been describing the examiner's reflection.

--

"Er - thanks very much, Ernie," said Harry, taken aback. Ernie might be pompous on occasions like these, but Harry was in a mood to deeply appreciate a vote of confidence from somebody who was not wearing radishes in their ears.

--

A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode."
"Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have," said Hermione.

--

The fireworks continued to burn and spread all over the school that afternoon. Though they caused plenty of disruption, the other teachers did not seem to mind them very much.
"Dear, dear," said Professor McGonagall sardonically, as one of the dragons soared around her classroom, emitting loud bangs and exhaling flame. "Miss Brown, would you mind running along to the headmistress and informing her that we have an escaped firework in our classroom?"
"Thank you so much, Professor!" said Professor Flitwick in his squeaky little voice. "I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn't sure whether I had the authority..."

--

Hermione drew herself to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her hair seemed to crackle with electricity. "No," she said, her voice quivering with anger, "but I will write to your mother."
"You wouldn't," said George, horrified, taking a step back from her.
"Oh, yes, I would," said Hermione grimly. "I can't stop you from eating the stupid things yourself, but you're not giving them to first years."
Fred and George looked thunderstruck. It was clear that as far as they were concerned, Hermione's threat was way below the belt.

--

Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione's.
"I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!"

"What are Fred and I, next-door neighbours?" said George indignantly, as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son.

--

"We shouldn't have taken up that stupid subject in the first place," said Harry.
"Still, at least we can give it up now."
"Yeah," said Harry. "No more pretending we care what happens when Jupiter and Uranus get too friendly..."
"And from now on, I don't care if my tea leaves spell 'die, Ron, die' -- I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong."

--

"...Little Ronnie, a prefect...Oh, I'm all of a dither!" She [Mrs. Weasley] gave Ron yet another kiss on the cheek, sniffed loudly, and bustled from the room Fred and George exchanged looks.
"You don't mind if we don't kiss you, do you, Ron?" said Fred in a falsely anxious voice.
"We could curtsy, if you like," said George.

--

"And that's Smith of Hufflepuff with the Quaffle," said a dreamy voice, echoing over the grounds. "He did the commentary last time, of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think probably on purpose, it looked like it. Smith was being quite rude about Gryffindor, I expect he regrets that now he's playing them - oh, look, he's lost the Quaffle. Ginny took it from him. I do like her, she's very nice..."

--

"I know I messed up Ancient Runes," muttered Hermione feverishly. "I definitely made at least one serious mistranslation. And the Defense Against the Dark Arts practical was no good at all. I thought Transfiguration went all right at the time, but looking back..."
"Hermione, will you shut up? You're not the only one who's nervous!" barked
Ron. "And when you've got your eleven 'Outstanding OWLs...'"
"Don't, don't, don't!" said Hermione, flapping her hands hysterically. "I know I've failed everything!"

--

Harry gaped at him. He had not expected this and was not sure he wanted to hear it. Friends they might be, but if Ron started calling Lavender "Lav-Lav," he would have to put his foot down.

--

How d'you spell 'belligerent'?" said Ron, shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B - U - M -"
"No, it isn't," said Hermione, pulling Ron's essay toward her.
"And 'augury' doesn't begin O - R - G either. What kind of quill are you using?" "It's one of Fred and George's Spell-Check ones..but I think the charm must be wearing off.."
"Yes, it must," said Hermione, pointing at the title of his essay, "because we were asked how we'd deal with Dementors, not 'Dugbogs,' and I don't remember you changing your name to 'Roonil Wazlib' either."

--

"There was a clatter as the baskilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.

"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and the when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here!"

--

When he straightened up again, there were six Harry Potters gasping and panting in front of him. Fred and George turned to each other and said together, "Wow -- We're identical!"

--

"Mind you, if all the alleged sightings of him are genuine, we must have a good nineteen You-Know-Whos running around the place." [Fred]
"Which suits him, of course," said Kingsley. "The air of mystery is creating more terror than actually showing himself."

"Agreed," said Fred. "So, people, let's try and calm down a bit. Things are bad enough without inventing stuff as well. For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. That's a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing that's glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it's safe to look into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that's still likely to be the last thing you ever do."

--

"You two," she went on, gazing down at Fred and George, "are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school."

"You know what?" said Fred. "I don't think we are."

He turned to his twin.

"George," said Fred, "I think we've outgrown a full-time education."

"Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself," said George lightly.

"Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?" asked Fred.

"Definitely," said George.

And before Umbridge could say a word, they raised their wants and said together, "Accio Brooms!"

Harry heard a loud crash somewhere in the distance. Looking to his left he ducked just in time -- Fred and George's broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron peg with which Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the corridor toward their owners. They turned left, streaked down the stairs, and stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain clattering loudly on the flagged stone floor.

"We won't be seeing you," Fred told Professor Umbridge, swinging his leg over his broomstick.

"Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch," said George, mounting his own.

Fred looked around at the assembled students, and at the silent, watchful crowd.

"If anybody fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three Diagon Alley - Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," he said in a loud voice. "Our new premises!"

"Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat," said George, pointing at Professor Umbridge.

"STOP THEM!" shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed in, Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the air, the iron peg swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.

"Give her hell from us, Peeves."

And Peeves, whom Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.

(This last one is easily the funniest sequence in the whole series for me :) )

Jaa.. Ud Jaa Re...

2010-04-25T06:24:00.000-05:00

Wow! This might be the best song in the album, and they left it out! It is difficult to judge with such bad sound quality, but I think this will easily be the most haunting song of the movie.

Could not think of an idea for blog..so posting my research work :P

2010-04-24T19:02:00.008-05:00

Just wanted to show a very nice picture of my proton wire.
The pentagons are imidazoles (They are present in important
amino acids in our body too) and they are all hydrogen
bonded here and that is why it is a proton wire.
This is a preliminary stage for condensed phase proton
exchange membrane in fuel cells :)

Gist is my system in the Angstroms scale works very well
(in transporting protons) and ppl collaborating with us
are going to make large scale version of these!! (which
will not be this simple but tangled 3D versions)

The Magic of Enid Blyton

2010-04-24T12:05:00.006-05:00

"Parp, Parp" :D Anyone who has read stories about the wooden little boy who stayed in Toyland would know this sound. Yup, I'm talking about Noddy and his bright red and yellow taxi.

Now where did this suddenly come from? Well, the other day my friend and I were talking about all the different types of books that we have read over the past many years, the variety of genres, and the importance of reading books other than those of course which are a part of school curriculum. She suddenly asked me which was the first book that I remembered having read as a non "school book". I promptly (well, perhaps a moment's hesitation was there) answered Noddy!! in Class I :D I have no memory of "book-reading" before that, but I definitely remembered this because starting from Class I to X we have always had a "library period" once a week. There was this large stack of Noddys in our class cupboard to be rotated amongst us and I remember eagerly waiting for that period. That was the time when I entered the wonderful world of BOOKS and discovered the Magic of Enid Blyton :)

It is not that I didn't read books by any other author or enjoy them as much; considering, however, that Enid Blyton has written over 600 books for young children, it is no surprise to me now that every other book that I could get my hands on (via school library or collections from friends' homes) was an Enid Blyton. Be it the Adventures of the Wishing Chair, The Naughty Children series, The Magic Faraway Tree series, Famous Fives, Secret Sevens, The Five Find Outers and the Dog :D or Malory Towers and St. Clare's....I was always in the possession of two or more ( no less, mind you ;) ) of these books. I did have my share of hindi books too...Panchatantra, Heeray-Moti, Nanihaal mein Guzre Din.....but being in an English medium school the ease of access to these books was more.
The world that was woven by her pen was so very enchanting! Anyone who has grown up on these books would know exactly what I mean. Vivid descriptions of the colourful scenery, characters, the delicateness of fairies, wit of the pixies, cunning of goblins and gnomes, power of magicians and wizards and not to forget the portraiture of the scrumptious food :D Toadstool houses and Blue cup cakes!!! I was soooooo fascinated by the thought of it! Funny animals, creatures and plants that could walk and talk!! There were of course lessons to be learnt too from these stories, the rewards of being good, brave, courageous and consequences of being otherwise. Then there were stories of these young children (at least one of whom you could completely identify with) and their adventures, escapades and secret clubs. I remember spending a lot of my holidays with friends pretending we were camping (a bed-sheet tent on the terrace/garden) or having a secret meeting (under the bed) complete with passwords and all :D It was a lot of fun. I sometimes used to wonder why I don't have access to a forest or a river or a haunted castle or caves! Whenever mom couldn't find me/see me/hear me in the house, it would be obvious that I am in "my reading corner" absorbed in one of these books oblivious to whats happening around me :P And what would be a perfect birthday gift for me would be no secret either!! As much as I used to enjoy getting lost in her books, I do owe a lot of my knowledge and development of vocabulary to her too.

If I went into details of the details of what was so great in each of her book series or description of the characters that I find so interesting etc. I would probably be writing a reallllllllly long article :P But I do believe (as would any other person who has grown up reading Enid Blyton books) that those who did not read her books in their childhood have indeed missed something, which unfortunately cannot be caught up with now. I am convinced that reading and immensely enjoying her work developed the "reader's bug" in me and I gradually moved on to other types of books. The kid in me still admits that I would love to flip through pages of her books anytime even today! No prizes for guessing what 5yr olds around me will be reading ;) Thanks Enid for all the magic and joy.

Raavan Day 1 - disappointing

2010-04-24T04:07:00.001-05:00

Ok, let me be clear. Disappointing only because this is Mani/Rahman/Gulzar. Disappointing in the same sense as Guru's music was a disappointment. After all, a Mani/Rahman album has no business having "Ek lo ek muft" and "Baazi laga" in it. Then again, every other song except those two were thoroughly deserving of being there. It is somewhat similar with Raavan too. I must say, though, that this is just the first day impressions. Chances are that a week from now I'll be posting "what was I thinking? Raavan! disappointing?"

Anyway, here is a mini-review.. just some thoughts on the songs...

1) Beera Beera : Fabulous song! The shortest song in the album, but carries the maximum punch. They thought of putting an "african" song for a maoist's introduction! well, maybe the "jungle" connection is there. The reason I call it "african" is because if I filter the lyrics and pretend that I am not listening to something in Hindi I can clearly hear something from one of the south african countries. :) The vocals by Mustafa Kutoane add so much to the song. Can't wait to hear this in ARR's voice in Tamil.
9.5/10

2) Behne De : Starts with a background of music that feels just heavenly. And then Karthik starts singing. wow! pretty good soft, slowish romantic song. The only drawback, if you can call it that, is that it seems to follow pretty much standard ARR soft song script. Makes me think of Bhoola Tujhe .But then that's not a bad thing. Also, I have absolutely no doubt that when I listen to it with more attention, I'll find little instrumental/melodic gems throughout that will be completely uniquely of this song. This IS the sort of song that ARR seems to "polish" a lot to satiate his thirst for innovation.
9.2/10

3) Thok De Killi : This is the "Ek lo ek muft" of this album. perhaps better than that, but still doesn't work for me at all. At least not till now. I noticed some instrumental turns etc that were engaging but overall this is what the cliche "situational song, will work in the movie" is used for. The song talks about this group (maoists) talking about "Dilli" thinking them as "pichhda huaa" etc. I don't see how something like this will work in the form of a song. Then again, perhaps a better song would've made it work. After all, "Chale Chalo" is such an anachronism for the time in which it is set in, yet it works beautifully because it is such a great song. This is just disappointing. I don't see it improving even in Tamil, but I hope it surprises me.
5.5/10

4) Ranjha Ranjha : Do I like this so much because it comes right after Thok De Killi? :) I don't know why, but I find it really seductive. Not that it is terribly original, just like Behne De. Reminds me of Taal's songs. Something in between "Ramta jogi" and "Kahin aag lage". And from recent songs, very reminiscent of Blue's "Yaar mila tha". It has something to do with the structure (female and male voices alternating... conversing in the song), but it's not just that. There is something to do with the way rhythm seems just that bit off-expected lines and the way words seem to follow the contours of the rhythm. Needless to say, Rekha Bhardwaj gives the song her own unique flavor. And it is always a pleasure to hear Javed Ali's silk-smooth vocals. As for my 'not terribly original' comment, that doesn't apply to the instrumentals going on here. ARR seems to be having a lot of fun playing around with things in this song. Then again, even THAT isn't unexpected. He can't help it. :D Good for us, I say! :)
8.8/10

5) Khili Re : Remember what ARR did to Ghazals in Tehzeeb? The singer is singing a perfectly "Ghazalish" Ghazal and ARR just adds modern instruments in the background that seemed so awkward in the first hearing. It definitely grew on me later and I actually liked what he had tried to do there. I think this is exactly the case here. Try to filter the instruments, and this seems another of his devotional melodious numbers that I have a weakness for. "Man mohana" didn't engage a lot of people but I thought it was really amazing. I could never resist its charm even though it is really such a simple bhajan. That is also true for "O paalanhaare". Trouble is, the instruments are doing something completely different here. This is ARR's Tehzeeb moment in this album, though much more subtle than that album. What that does is it makes the song seem ok, but there seems something awkward about it, something amiss. That's why what I think as of now is that it is 'sweet, but not nice enough'. However, I think there is a very good chance that this one is going to grow on me later. As of right now, the rating is..
7.9/10

6) Kata Kata : The start is absolutely wow! It is almost as catchy as Beera Beera! I have caught myself singing the first line of this song almost as much as Beera Beera since I heard the samples for the first time 3-4 days ago. But then, it sort of derails. And I suspect it has a lot to do with the lyrics here. Not the meaning of the words, per se, but the flow. Something tells me that this one was composed with Tamil lyrics first and they just couldn't do a good enough job of writing lyrics in Hindi that'd have gelled well with the flow of the song. If that's the case, this will gain a lot from a hearing in Tamil. in any case, i have noticed that I don't particularly care for hindi songs with "aunty ji chorus" :D Basically all the wedding type songs where some women are teasing the bride/groom. There is something about it that I don't like. But this only happens in hindi. I can think of a lot of tamil songs that haven't been dubbed in hindi which have similar chorus but I don't mind that at all. I am really hopeful that this song will gain a lot in its Tamil version. Like I said, overall, the rhythm is really, really good/catchy. It might catch on with junta. then again, it seems that this will be picturized like Ek lo ek muft, with the whole village dancing around (Mani seems to like this a lot). I don't see that being particularly junta-entrancing. Hopefully I'm wrong.
7.7/10

So, that's the first-day impressions. The reason i said it is disappointing is because one of the songs is just a complete let-down and two others are, as of now, not Mani/Rahman level. While the other three are really good, I think the sum of Barso re megha, Tere Bina, Ae Hairate, Jaage Hain and Mayya Mayya has to be higher than these. AND Guru wasn't even close to being one of ARR/Mani's best albums. So....

Sun rise

2010-04-23T02:09:00.005-05:00

It was about 4-5 days ago. This was an unusual day. just because I woke up at 6:30AM ;) . I looked out of my balcony and found this wonderful sunrise.
Though I was quick to react and gather my Nikon D60 to shoot but Sun had already crossed the crane. So here is the pic which I captured finally. Generally we don't notice it, but sun (and for that matter moon and other stars as well) travel very fast across sky.
Since then I am thinking to get up early and catch the Sun below crane. But if unusual things happen regularly, why would they be called unusual.

Ye muh aur masoor ki daal!

2010-04-21T22:51:00.000-05:00

At the risk of seeming to have completely taken over the supposedly "team" blog, here is the result of my latest experiment in cooking. Masoor ki Daal (and daal chaaval).

not much to write home (or on blog) about, I know. But junta ki demand hai ki khaana banaana seekho to photo shoto bhi lo aur doosron ko dikhaao. :)

Tamil ARR songs for a non-Tamil.

2010-04-21T19:11:00.000-05:00

A friend of Pesc asked her to get me to send her some Tamil songs that she might like. She hasn't heard many Tamil songs before and Pesc tells me that she tends to like Slow/Soothing/melodious kind of songs in general (not that she doesn't like any fast paced ones.. just that if I have to make a small list, I'd do well to choose slowish songs).

So, I spent half an hour browsing through my ARR tamil albums and making a list of about 25 songs. That sounded too many, specially for someone who might not have heard many songs in a language she doesn't understand. So, Pesc suggested pruning it down to about 10, and sending the list in a mail with some comments about them. I had to take some gems out because of various reasons. I didn't wish to include any song that has already been dubbed in Hindi as there'd be a high chance she'd already have heard them. (Still, one of them is in the list... ). Also, there are some songs that I find it difficult to decide whether the movie/picturization etc add a lot to my love for them. If I suspected that, I struck them out too.

So, here are the 10.... well, 11 actually, since I added one right at the end probably because my media player decided to play that one right when i was about to send the mail and I just could not get myself to ignore it!! :) The resulting mail follows..

Nice... Soft.. Soothing... Melodious...

well.. almost all.. some of these are fast/non-soothing. But ab list mein daal diya to daal diya.. :P

So, here is the list, roughly in the decreasing order of priority.. i.e. listen to the top one first.

1) Vellai Pookal from Kannathil Mutthamittal: very soothing. Awesome song from a great movie. one of the best songs sung by ARR himself, and that's saying a LOT.
2) New York from Jillonu Oru Kaadhal: very melodious. "All time favorite Rahman song" of my roommate. Again, ARR keeps an awesome song with his own voice. :)
3) Elay from Sakkarakatti: not slow/soft/soothing. reasonably fast, but great fun.
4) Ithuthan Kadhal Inbada (female) from Pudhiya Mugham: you might have heard this already in hindi. But even if you have, well worth a revisit in its original form. A beeyouuuutiful song.
5) Ennuyir Thozhiye from Kangalal Kaithu Sei: absolutely heavenly piano in the interludes. That part itself makes this a great song.
6) Sonnalum from Kaadhal Virus: I think I especially like songs with slight Carnatic classical touch. and ARR obliges with a lot of melodious songs that have just that tiny classical touch to them yet seem so far away from classical finally. And the chorus here is to die for.
7) Enna Solla Pogirai from Kandukondain Kandukondain: Not slow/soothing but one of the most popular songs from one of his greatest albums. Shankar Mahadevan got a national award for singing this song. I could've blindly chosen almost any song from this album actually. went for the most catchy/popular.
8) Udhaya Udhaya from Udhaya: In many aspects it is like Sonnalum. a soft soothing duet.
9) En Veetu Thotatil from Gentleman: They lifted 3 songs from Gentleman without crediting Rahman, and left this gem. Perhaps because they thought it has too much of a "southie touch". They didn't know, of course, that soon that "southie touch" will take the nation by storm in Bombay/Hum Se Hai Muqabla etc... :)
10) Evano Oruvan from Alaipayuthey: Alaipayuthey was remade into Saathiya and they kept all the songs except two. One of them is this. I was aghast when I heard that they have composed a new song for this situation because, again, this is too "southie". Didn't mind in the end, because that new song was "Mera Yaar Mila De... Banjar hai sab banjar hai... ". Doesn't hurt to get another good new song, does it? :) But this one is definitely as good, if not slightly better. the female voice just melts me.. and the flute!! wow!!
11) Theekuruvil from Kangalal Kaithu Sei: Bonus song. not slow. not soothing at all. very fast actually. and perhaps a little difficult to like initially. But just keep an ear for the female singer's vocal acrobatics. What singing!!! very fun song, but really, it's the singer that makes this a must-listen.

I can see that I have written more about the songs that are actually lower in the list. :) Doesn't mean that the top ones weren't worth talking about. Just that I got into the flow of discussing in depth later in the list. :) sorry.

By the way, standard conditions apply. You are not allowed to hear any of these songs unless you are able (i.e. have the time) and willing (i.e. have the enthu) to give it 3 hearings. continuously. i.e. hear 1, then again hear 1, then AGAIN hear 1, before moving on to 2. Take as much time as you need before this condition can be met, but don't break it. Please.

And, no laptop speakers, of course. not even external speakers. good earphones/headphones are a must. :D

The youtube links are posted below, if anyone is interested but too lazy to find them him/herself. :)

Close your eyes for this next one. that is probably a good idea for all of these if you just want to enjoy the song without being distracted (positively, or negatively) by the video, but this one is actually not even the real video of the song. Someone took a song video of Anniyan and added the ARR song with it!

And now, presenting Vikram

2010-04-21T02:34:00.000-05:00

If anything, an even better poster! Wow! It might seem that I am getting a bit over-excited, but these posters are great! Posters of Yuva/Ayidha Ezhuthu and Guru were absolutely amateurish in comparison to these. Whoever is handling the movies' publicity is doing an awesome job!

A forgotten tune.....

2010-04-19T08:46:00.002-05:00

Was listening to some albums from Rahul's ARR-Tamil collection today when for no reason at all I felt like listening to "Indian". I think because a few days back we were discussing the funny lyrics of the songs "telephone dhun" and "latka" in the hindi version that I felt like listening to them again. The tunes lingering uppermost in my mind were obviously the most famous ones...the above two and "maya machindra" :P :D
And then this song started playing in the list.....

I was totally caught by surprise!!!!! :)
and a nice one too...........

I had completely forgotten that this song belonged to this movie and such a wonderful one too.....!! I can't remember the last time I heard songs from this album and as is with most things they had buried themselves deep down somewhere in my brain. But maybe not quite..... for the first few seconds of the song "tandaa na re taaa naa re aananda-maye" (and ONLY that part) used to sometimes out of the blue re-surface in my mind subconsciously. I used to hum this and then try to remember where I had heard this music piece and not quite place it ..... perhaps in some music class? friend's recital? movie? couldn't place it.... and as stealthily as it used to re-surface, with equal discretion it used to go back in :)
As soon as this part played today I was like....oh WOW...this is THAT music!! and the moment the beats of the song started I was even more astounded.....it is THIS SONG!! how did I forget!! :D :D Loved listening to it again sooooo much today that rest songs were all forgotten.....play-repeat-play-repeat..... :D and here's the post :)
I don't catch properly the lyrics of any song that I hear the first time (also true for several other times too) and it is the music that catches my ear and what really plays in my mind when a song plays. It is perhaps for this reason that I sometimes like several songs which have completely useless/absurd lyrics but wonderful music (at least I find it nice :) ). Precisely for that reason I loved hearing this song today in its original form (don't know what it means :P) and not the hindi version (who's lyrics I have forgotten). The "feel" of the song is good....its great :)
Listening to it for the umpteenth time while writing this :)

Wow!!!

2010-04-19T01:15:00.000-05:00

Awesome pic of the icelandic volcano, courtesy APOD.

Oceans

2010-04-18T04:35:00.002-05:00

Just came across this trailer of Disney Nature's Osceans on Apple trailers (watch it on apple here).
And I was simply awed by it. Its magnificent, its beautiful, its superb!!!!!!
It may have been the combined effect of a) being a water baby myself, b) watching it on HD, c)watching it 6-inches away from the screen creating an "eye-max" effect and d) high volume on cool headphones :P
Watch the Youtube version here....
I wish I could catch it in theatres... :(

Watching awesome stuff like this sometimes makes me wish I were an explorer or had a job in a field or place which involved such amazing exploration, adventure, travel and fun. Of course I understand that it would have its own share of hardships and problems.....but that doesn't stop wishful thinking... :)

This poster rocks!!

2010-04-17T16:41:00.001-05:00

pic courtesy: Satyamshot

Woohooo!!!!!!!

2010-04-16T13:06:00.003-05:00

iPad (@xkcd)

2010-04-16T08:36:00.004-05:00

:D :D :D

Quote of the day

2010-04-16T04:57:00.002-05:00

Seen on Slashdot:

The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly ogled culinary vessel will not achieve 100 degrees on the Celsius scale.

Heh! :D

Men don't seem to like lipstick :D

2010-04-15T23:48:00.018-05:00

(Click on the picture to enlarge the article)

I wonder who funds studies such as these...... !! :D :D
Maybe the cosmetic companies themselves.....

Link via Discover blogs

The Killer Voice (aka - The Dummy's Take on Chandralekha)

2010-04-15T17:57:00.010-05:00

Have you heard this song from Thiruda thiruda? I'm sure you have.. hear it again. Never has Anu Agarwal sounded as good as she does in this song. Do I love Anupama - the singer who lends her deadly voice here? Decidedly, yes! Her voice has incredible strength and determination that shines through every note in the song.

I have no clue what this song means... but from that death-defiant voice I guess it must mean "Someone strong! Someone awesome! Someone soo-per-dooper dashing!" etc etc.. and who is it.. "Chandralekha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And voila.. there we have Big Anu! Moves so lofty that the choreographer knows the camera cannot take that much dazzle in one shot and discreetly casts dhoop-chaaon effects on the original inventor of the Martial Arts! And true to my interpretation of the lyrics.. Big Anu marches with an army of men, going all the way to the top of her fort.. proclaiming to the world.. "I am the kick-a** Queen of this fort and don't anyone dare challenge me!! Aaaahhhh!!"

If you know Tamil.. then I apologize for my absurd imagination.. but there is no point in telling me the real meaning of this song! I have laboured under this impression for too many years now and I cannot bring myself to believe anything other than my Jhaansi Ki Raani-sque story!

Update (by Rahul) : I remember seeing Rahman in an episode of Chitrahaar. This was before Thiruda Thiruda's songs were dubbed in hindi. Around the time when ARR had just exploded on the hindi scene with Bombay and Hum Se Hai Muqabla. Doordarshan had started having small snippets of interviews with some people in Chitrahaar for some time (or, less likely, it was some other DD program that wasnt chitrahaar). So, they talked to ARR for some time. He was speaking english, of course, as he didn't understand much Hindi at the time (not that he speaks Hindi in his interviews now.. :P ). Anyway, the interviewer asked him "which is your favorite song composed by yourself?" So ARR hesitated for some time and then said something on the lines of "I don't know about favorite. But I can certainly talk about the most difficult to compose, and hence the one that I was really happy about that it came out so well. It is a song called "Konjum Nilavu... Chandralekha" from a tamil movie Thiruda Thiruda. It was very difficult because it was supposed to be a very sensuous song, yet we had to make it not go overboard and not sound vulgar. Just put enough energy into it for it to be exciting and do things with sounds, singing, lyrics and instruments to make it sensuous."

Update (by SS): Sorry ARR, it came across as admirably aggressive!

Filter coffee with a change

2010-04-14T22:29:00.005-05:00

Hello all, My first post ever.

Location: Little Saigon @ Atlantic City

For the sake of this post, I would call myself a die hard coffee fan ( partly due to my Tam-Brahm roots). This was a very interesting variant for filter coffee. The pleasant surprise was that it was filtered in front of you, so it was strong and fresh. But that was part of the surprise. The rest was that it is served with condensed milk. Try it, may be you might enjoy the experience.

The other thing I tasted that was interesting was Nuoe Dua Tuoi (aka Fresh Young Coconut Syrup). It was served with a little bit of sugar was added. It was not like the coconut water I have had in India, I was an interesting blend of Coconut water and Palm nectar (Neera).

Raavan Tracklist is here... Yay!!!!

2010-04-14T19:03:00.001-05:00

Yay!!!! :) Though I wish this is incomplete. I want more songs!!!! :( Though, perhaps it is expected, I think most recent Mani movies have only 5-6 tracks, except Alaipayuthey/Saathiya. Still, hoping for some more tracks, if only instrumental themes.

Here is the list as given on bollywoodhungama.com

Behene De - Karthik
Beera Beera - Vijay Prakash
Kata Kata - Ila Arun, Sapna Awasthi & Kunal Ganjawala
Khilli Re - Reena Bhardwaj
Ranjha Ranjha - Rekha Bhardwaj & Javed Ali
Thok De Killi - Sukhwinder Singh

Hmmm... Reena AND Rekha Bhardwaj. Rekha is Palash and Vasudha's "Rekha bhabhi" of course (they consider Vishal Bhardwaj their spiritual brother). Reena must be the "Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlaata Hai" (Meenaxi) and "Main Vaari Vaari" (1857 - The Rising) woman.

Sapna "Chhaiyya Chhaiyya" Awasthi AND Ila Arun together!! Has THAT ever happened before? :D

Can never hurt to have Javed Ali sing one. And solos for Karthik and Sukhwinder sound promising too.

So, people, ARR season is here again. Yay!!!!

PS: just to be clear, the list is out, not the music!! Patience junta, patience!

The meaning of I, Me, Myself....

2010-04-14T06:20:00.004-05:00

"If there is anything about your “self” of which you can be sure, it is that it is anchored in your own body and yours alone. The person you experience as “you” is here and now and nowhere else."

Under certain circumstances, however, the statement mentioned above can be questioned.

Check out this interesting article by V.S.Ramachandran "Hey, Is that Me over There?"

Changes in the front parietal lobe of your brain can actually cause the sensation of disembodiment creating an "out-of-body" experience. It is amazing to note that in such cases you can actually see yourself doing things and not feel physically anything at all as would be the case when you watch another person in front of you. There are also these interesting conditions of several patients described in the article where it is observed that damage to this part of the brain, depending upon the extent and region of damage, creates different illusions.

One of the more fascinating illusions is the description of a patient who actually believed to have a twin attached to his body on his left-hand side who mimicked his actions with a very slight time delay!! I can't really imagine how these conditions would actually psychologically effect the patients.....it must be difficult to live thinking and believing that you have a conjoined twin who is with you all the time, watching you, mimicking you......I also wonder in such cases if it is also reported that the "twin" talks to you??? But they do not mention any such thing in this article of course.
They mention that the sense of ownership of material things by humans is an extension of the sense of "self" ownership. Ironically, I can imagine "hating" my beloved car when it doesn't start or gasping when my favourite coffee mug breaks...but I cannot imagine myself, or anyone else for that matter, hating one's arm for being a communist!! (The condition described for a patient in the article).

Always a treat to read about and ponder over the mysteries of the working of "our" brain. :)

(3) movies of summer

2010-04-12T20:04:00.001-05:00

Last week, in one of those free moments when I think about movies that I am waiting to watch, I began thinking of, well, the movies that I am waiting to watch. Specifically the movies that come out this summer. More specifically, the BIG movies that come out this summer (i.e., excluding all those smaller, independent/foreign language movies that I am more likely to see and like than most summer blockbusters). There are some like Iron Man-2, Robin Hood, Shrek- Forever After, Despicable Me etc that might turn out to be good, but I'm not really anticipating them nearly as much as the three listed below.

Toy Story - 3: Pixar. Probably no need to say more. :) Still, for some reason I'm not nearly as excited about this as I have been for every Pixar movie over last decade. Perhaps some part of me thinks that Pixar might compromise with their high standards in order to just continue the franchise. Then again, it's Pixar.. how bad can it be? :)

Raavan: Mani Ratnam. He hasn't really touched his erstwhile heights after Kannathil Mutthamittal, but Yuva/Ayitha Ezhuthu and Guru definitely had enough Mani moments to make them very good movies nevertheless. And, if nothing else, the music can't be anything less than phenomenal, can it? :)

No trailers yet. I heard that the first look promo will release this week (and the music within 2 weeks from now). If so, you'll find it here as soon as possible. :D

Inception: "What's the most resilient parasite? An idea". Christopher Nolan. two of his movies were part of my top 10 of the last decade. and Memento made it to the "just missed the top 10" list. His last movie is perhaps one of my all time favorites. The fact that it stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page and Michael Caine is merely delicious icing on what is without doubt a Christopher Nolan cake. Can't Wait!

PS: the title of this post refers to this, in case someone was wondering.