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February 14, 2004

Head Over Heels ?

Head Over Heels ? What happens in your head, then ?

Just like the entire gamut of Print media, Online media, TV, FM, Greeting Card sites, Greeting Card shops, Icecream Parlours and every molecule in Besant Nagar Beach, I join the stream to praise about love on the love day(!!). Personally, I don’t believe in the capitalistic way of celebrating emotions on a fixed day. But for Sujatha’s essay in Vikatan, this post wouldn’t have been here.

His essay on Aathalinaal Kathal Seithen in Ananda Vikatan talks about the physics, chemistry and biology of love. He writes about the latest findings of The Chemistry of Desire as published by Time. The interesting feature is the Functional Magnetic Resunance Imaging (FMRI). Certainly a different article to read.

Nothing About Valentine’s Day, below here :

a) Kamal‘s next film is to be directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao. Named as Krishna Leela, it is expected to be like Kadhala Kadhala types. Singeetham and Kamal have a long standing history of comical hits like MMKR (Michael Madhana Kamaraajan) and also some really good movies like Raaja Paarvai. Lets enjoy some Kamal’s Leela.

b) Saw Hyderabad Blues on Star Movies. Couldn’t appreciate the acting as much as I did 5 years back. Though, a clear forerunner for Crossover Desi films, it comprises of some bad performances and very bad dialogue deliveries. You could argue that it was shot naturally. Thats also my point. It was looking very natural then, it ceases to exist anymore. But it was a brave effort by Nagesh Kukunoor with his shoestring budget.

c) HBO sucks big time. Especially because of its bad broadcast. It looks like I am watching a pirated version of movie released two days back. As you saw in Boys trailor, the movie gets stuck, like a scratched VCD. It happens every ten seconds and by the few seconds it takes to get proper, Sharon Stone killed someone in bed.

d) Four out of five TV mega serials today(friday) had inauspicious death happening in their stories. Women’s associations can conduct a one day strike against the TV producers not to have death scenes on friday. They can postpone the kilings to mondays 😉
February 10, 2004

Hints for a political commentary

Hints for a political commentary

Someone in my shoutbox asked if would write political commentaries. I would love to write politics but during the last few years, too many politicians whom I personally believed to be ‘nice guys’ ditched us too badly. When politics by itself is a very dishonest science(!), I think writing a political commentary is also a very dishonest art. You can never be right / honest / unbiased.

If I were to write a bashing political commentary, here are a few hints. We will build the Ram Temple in Ayodhya reads a recent headline – The elections are fast approaching – India shining is a myth.

What do you say?
February 5, 2004

The End of Live Broadcasts

The End of Live Broadcasts – The Nipplegate

First things first. You and me cannot sensationalise the event anymore. Already it is the most argued and commented incident in the media.

It is estimated that eight nine million people saw, the super bowl and before many could have a clue of what they witnessed, the incident ended. It is the biggest search in the internet replacing the 9/11 incident. The worse thing that it has created is that the introduction of five second delay in the broadcast of the grammy awards this sunday in CBS.

Justin Timberlake accidentaly ripped Janet Jackson’s top resulting in a controversial incident. You know what. As a result, CBS network has introduced a 5 second delay in the live broadcast of the grammy awards. In no time llive shows might be long gone history. This 5 second delay might be legitimised in the coming days and the 5 seconds would give enough time for the TV producers to censor if anything unexpected happens, like this.

I am not sure what would be the case of Cricket telecasts. If the 5 second delay is implemented then only when Sachin returns back to the pavilion, we would see Sachin facing the outside off-stump ball from Brett Lee. Poor us.
February 1, 2004

How India became the capital

How India became the capital of the computing revolution :

This is a story about the global economy. It’s about two countries and one profession – and how weirdly upside down the future has begun to look from opposite sides of the globe. It’s about code and the people who write it. But it’s also about free markets, new politics, and ancient wisdom – which means it’s ultimately about faith.

Daniel H. Pink writes in this wired article, The New face of Silicon Age, about the changing phenomenon of outsourcing. Wait. You don’t have to think that this is yet another outsourcing information overload. The issue of outsourcing has been handled in a very unbiased way. Some might feel the bias being dealt with subtelty. But at this juncture of sheer biased articles from the international media, this is a very rational summary about both sides of the coin.

Though it is very descriptive in content and not totally analytical like economist types, this article is sure to open up a whole new world of truths. Atleast it attempts to do it.

A must read if you are in anyway involved with this outsourcing issue or not. Also read The Indian Machine by Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired.

Link Via : Living in India.
January 30, 2004

Strings, Euphoria and lil bit

Strings, Euphoria and lil bit of Patriotism
(Title inspired by Chennai Blogger Meet 2004) :

On the republic day, the Open Air Theatre of IIT Madras took a hop for 3 hours. Strings, a guitar specialist band from Pakistan performed as a part of the Saarang 2004. Like Saiyoni fame Junoon ( not the DD megaserial), Strings have a distinct aura around them. Dhoor, their hit number was amazing. It takes a lot of attitude to perform in India on the republic day and these guys are definitely not short of that.

Then came running with the indian flag around him was ‘Euphoria’ Palash. Popularly known as Polly, this doctor-turned-pop artist, was with a white sleeveless banian and an unbuttoned shirt which seemed to fall off any time. From then for the next 2 hours he and his euphoric band kept the 8,000+ audience at their feet. So as he came running with the flag and started Jana Gana as the first song of the day, IIT rose up and stood unmoved. Polly continued to sing A.R Rahman‘s Vande Matharam. So did the crowd. We’ll keep the argument surrounding A.R.R’s Vande Matharam and patriotism to the next post. As you can imagine the decibel levels of thousands of collegers shouting at their alto voices, Vande Matharam. A spirit of patriotism swirled across us and it was a definite goose bumper.

While other bands keep singing their own compositions, Euphoria just bothers about keeping the audience happy. Their mantra is just hit numbers. Some interesting numbers they played includes Scorpion’s With or Without You, Queen’s We will Rock you, Bon Jovi’s It’s my life, Shankar Elson Loy’s Dil Chahta Hai and ofcourse ARR’s Dil Se Re.

With just a handful of albums and numerous hit within those albums, the future awaits Euphoria to create wonders. And they can really do it.

Observing Saarang :

a) Guys seemed totally geeky and girls, very freaky.

b) The Alpha and the Omega was found roaming around and I bumped over him on the second day.

c) I missed JAM finals in which I think Suds was also a jammer.

d) The Crossword show called Crossie seemed pretty much easier than I expected. Not that I crack crosswords with my left hand but I aint’ bad also.

e) Hutch introduced the public mobile phone booth. So the hutch guy outside would be sitting with a mobile phone in his hand. If you want to make a call to your honey or to your nanny, you got to pick up the mobile and get into that mobilephone sized booth, talk and give it back to that hutch guy. Good Idea, wrong execution.

f) Radio Mirchi was trying to do something very different with a couple of RJs(Radio Jockey). It was fun to see the expression of RJs from a transparent booth where he/she was talking with that same FM supersonic speed.

g) A chap who was standing beside me during the Euphoria show was replying to SMSes with full swing. While Phalash started to sing It’s my life, he was jumping heaven high and still typing sms in his mobile. I had no clue what was he trying to do. But thats the spirit of Saarang.

h) Finally, the sillier one. They sold pure mineral water with some added color and code named it as Pepsi for 15 bucks.

Head Over Heels ?

Hints for a political commentary

The End of Live Broadcasts

How India became the capital

Strings, Euphoria and lil bit