Monday, May 28, 2007

Mungaaru Malhe - my thoughts about the movie

Generally I'm not the one who goes to a theatre to watch a movie.But,so much was said and written about this movie that it generated a lot of interest in me to go and watch the movie.

It took a hundred plus days at the box office, a record breaking revenue and a lot of free advertising from my close friends to get me to decide that its time to go watch it.

I got some tickets booked for mom, dad, sister and me at PVR.Believe me or not, this was the first time I went to PVR.The kind of lazy person that I am, I never find enough motivation to drive out on the weekends to spend time in any of the malls and multiplexes of the city.It was a nice experience I must say.

Now about the movie itself.At first glance, I thought its the same old love story with a predictable ending.Boy sees girl.Girl sees boy.Both of them fall in love with each other.But like most other Indian movies it didn't end with a "...and they happily lived ever after".

A similar Shahrukh Khan blocbuster would have ended up with either Shahrukh giving up his love a la Kal Ho Na Ho style.Or even would have succesful in his love, in typical DDLJ style.

This movie had none of that.It showed the tragic way in which most true life love stories end.Now that was the main reason why the movie was such a hit with me.There was love,there was intense emotion.And then there was the pain that came with love.Then there was that painful bitter separation that comes at the end of most true life love stories.Only the lucky few make the distance.In this case, the lovers didn't make it.For me, this is what made the story so heart rending.

It had to be a newcomer like Ganesh to do the hero's role.For, the 'veterans' of Kannada cinema would have brought in some knives, swords and 'longs' into a love story and successfully murdered the movie in broad daylight, in full public view.His acting was good, to say the least.Sanjana Gandhi's acting was just about average.But that's OK.Anant Nag, as usual was at his predicable best.

The best 2 aspects of the movie, in my opinion were Cinematography and Music.
The cinematography was simply unbelievable.The locations were just mindblowing.Most movie makers make a trip to exotic locations half way across the world to get some nice places to shoot.But this one was mostly shot in namma Karnataka itself.
Some of them were around Jog falls,some around the backwaters in North Kanara and some, around coffee country Coorg.I don't know how heaven feels like.But I'm pretty sure its very close, when I saw all these places.

If the cinematography was good, then the music is simply out of this world.Mano Murthy's compositions are just awesome with most of the songs were sung by Hindi playback singers.'Kunidhu Kunidhu Baare' by Udit Narayan and Kunal Gaanjawaala's 'Ondhe Ondhu Saari' were simply too good.The songs sung by Shreya Ghoshal are truly amazing.Such a fresh voice evoke emotions in an unimaginable way. Sonu Nigam's 'Anisuthide Yaako Indhu' and 'Mungaaru Male' , the title track are magnificient love songs.I must be hearing them many times each day, everyday for more than a month now.I still show now signs of getting bored of listening to them.

I, absolutely enjoyed every bit of this movie.Worth watching.Paisa Wasool I must admit.
As I drove back home, one statement from the movie kept coming again and again into my mind.

"Love is sweet.But sacrifice is eternal".

Its a Bird,Its a Plane...No, its a Veyron!

This is a video I happened to see on YouTube.

Its simply awesome.This car's unreal.Period.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Bangalore is a land of Bengalis!!!

And we didn't know that!!!And all the while I was mistaken thinking that Bangalore was just the anglicised version of Bendha Kaala uru.

I happened to read this article in the Times of India today morning.

TOI Link


A true gaffe from the Oxford University Press.An excerpt below from the article says that the Oxford University press published something as hideous as this

"Bangalore is a land of Bengalis where people spoke Bengali!"

Thoroughly perplexed,for a moment I thought an ideal day should start like this, with one getting something to laugh about, and set a cheerful tone for the day.

This is not all.It goes further, to state

"The people living here were descendants of a person by name Banga."

Fortunately, the publishers were informed about their mistake.And now they're calling back all the published books to convert it back into pulp and republish along with the corrections.Much before it could result in public uproar, and of course,cause a storm in a teacup.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Mic Testing 1..2..3

Finally!!!
I made up my mind to write a blog.To get out of a way of life, that might soon be consumed by slow decay.
Everytime I listened to Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd singing,
"Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way!
Kicking around, on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way!"
I just wonder if my life's been going on like this for the last few years.Is it a life less than ordinary?Am I being successful to be in a state of mere existence?Ten years down the line, I just hope I wont end up humming like Dave Gilmour,
"...and then one day you find that ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run....You missed the starting gun!!"

After much procrastination I decided that now its time to swim against the tide of mundane daily life.So now its time to move on.Time to think.To take small steps to make a big difference eventually.
Here I go, with a clear mandate to keep my posts free of endless paragraphs of pedestrian prose.I guess it shall be punctuated with a few lines from my favourite rockstars' timeless compilations...And needless to say,some real good one liners that people who know me, who get to hear from me so often.

Sometimes you might just think that
"I'm a Dreamer!But I'm not the only one!"