Para-normal Activity and us !

It must've been a cursed moment when my room mate(Nadu) thought of watching horror movie "Paranormal Activity -2" in theatre. Now this guy who normally watches any and all Hindi movies, suggested this English movie with such an enthusiasm that I had no other option to say yes. I was tempted to ask him the reason but this sudden transition from Bollywood to Hollywood was rather pleasing so I kept my curiosity at bay.

It was definitely a cursed moment when a thought occurred to me of calling my 2nd friend, Narsi.
Since he had been down with cold for quite some time now, it would be a good change for him as well. Of course he said yes. Not only that, he appeared quite bubbling and energetic contrary to his dormant state of affairs.
"Sure, lets go. I'm tired of sleeping all day anyways", were the actual words uttered.
Let me pause for a moment while the reader notes this point very well.

At the Theatre
===========
We established ourselves in the theatre. Movie started.
Nothing happened for 5 minutes...
I was okay. Narsi was okay. Nadu was okay.
Nothing happened for 10 minutes...
I was okay. Narsi was playing with his iPhone. Nadu was probably busy in checking out the babe in the movie.
Nothing happened for 20 minutes...
I was still okay.(I've seen worse)
Narsi was now immersed in iPhone. (die Apple, die)
Nadu was probably busy in wondering whether this was a horror movie or not.

And then it started - so called "shocking" scenes. On the first of such "shock", I was truly shocked ! but not because of the movie, it was because of Narsi ! He was sleeping peacefully amongst all those screams and shattering sounds. I nudged him and he woke up.
"What happened?" asked Mr. sleepy.
"The closet door opened just like that ! and all glasses were shattered !", I replied.
"Okay," said Narsi and went back to being sleepy!
Now here's the point - it really sounds stupid when you try to explain a "scary scene" to someone. And it definitely doesn't help if the subject is a sleepy individual who responds with "oh, OK. Never mind." kinda response.
Things kept happening and I found them more and more stupid as I kept telling Narsi -
"Hey, look - the baby's getting lifted in mid air"
"Wow, Narsi - the lady's being dragged by no one!"
"Holy @%^#, did she just kill them??"

All these exclamations died in 3 milliseconds after being born when I thought of explaining them to Narsi.

However, the true horror came towards the end of the movie, when I realized that Narsi might have been snoring for some time now. THAT moment, for me - was scary!

Technology Wars

It's been a quarter now that I'm in Seattle-Redmond. Working for one of the Giants of software has its own benefits and pitfalls. But what makes it really interesting is the times, and boy, they're changing fast!
Firstly there's this comparison in Google Vs Apple Vs Microsoft. It's like Mahabharata - but with 3 parties in it! Each company has its forte in a specific field. Google is lion of Web, Apple is the king of device skies, and Microsoft rules the deep waters of Operating systems and Office products. But is it really that?

Microsoft is fighting everyone at every front! they're fighting OS wars, Web-search wars, Phone wars, Developer product wars, Entertainment and Gaming wars - you name it! Lately it's been a war of worlds - especially in the cloud domain. I see Microsoft embracing all technologies and all aspects that software has to offer.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about Apple. They create fabulous (fantabulous!) hardware and kick-ass apps. But sorry, that's it! They're not embracing the world- with open (read:google) and not so open(read: Microsoft) standards, but rather they're shrinking deep within their cocoon. In the days of seamless interaction of web and devices, I'm not sure how they're going to survive in the long years of "Cloud based" software.

Google has it's own story. It's an exciting company that keeps the world guessing with their innovative(and slightly irritating) technologies. They're definitely embracing the brave new world, with both hands.

Whatever it is- the times are exciting and I can already hear the war cries.
Hau !

"Would you lilke it spicy, sir ?"

It looked very tempting.
Me and my friend , we were sitting at the table, our mouths watering like Mumbai streets on the night of 26th of July. If I tell you that we are "Recently graduated students who have found the dream job" type of species, the reason would not allude you for a split second.
Being a grad student, only thing which we dreamed about (other than the GPA of course) was good food. So here we were - sitting in an Indian Restaurant - inhaling the beautiful aroma of Indian food - which unfortunately lasted till we took a spoonful.

But let me tell you from the beginning. To cut Dravid's innings into Sehwag's, we were hungry and realised that within spitting distance from our apartment, there exists an Indian Restaurant.
So we marched on and ordered a vegetable Biryani.
"How spicy sir?", was the next question from our western friend who had trouble pronouncing Biryani.
"Make it real spicy", was our brisk reply. We spent considerable time in making fun of so called spicy food in US of A. According to my friend, calling Western food spicy was equivalent to calling Nirupa Roy an Item girl. (Refer: Nirupa Roy, Wiki)

Ah! Birayani came rather quickly. I took a spoonful and started eating it. But my joy lasted for a mere millisecond. the thing was HOT. H-O-T.
In fact, I was almost going to call out for fire brigade!
What the devil they had put into the preparation I dare not imagine, but it certainly brought my intestine to a pit stop. tears flew towards my eyes as my brain started analyzing the damage. What on earth was that? I somehow continued to eat the chilly'd rice, but one department of my brain was already working on possible cause behind this hopeless recipe.

I could come up with few guesses -
A) the waiter had heard our "funny" comments about western spicy food and had decided to settle the question once and for all.

B) We must've looked like real Spartans to the chef, who decided to test latest weapon in his armory on us.

C) Possibly ISI was involved in this incident.

D) !!!!%#$^%#^^&*%^&

I "Love" new Indian Cinema!!

"Main.... tumhare bachhe ki maa banane wali hoon"

"revolver phek do .. maine kahan revolver phek do "

"Khandaan ki izzat"

These are a thing of past. They are prehistoric. These days hindi films have transferred from Formula number "Dance-song-love-fight" to Formula number "there is no formula".
I notice few very significant changes.

1. Songs- they are not merely melodies meant to be put for lover's assistance. Songs actually carry films forward. Songs have always been a strength of Indian cinema but very few directors used them effectively. (Gurudatt, Gulzaar and sometimes Hrishikesh Mukharjee)
But those days have passed. Finest example of movie carried entirely by songs? - Dev D

2. Regional languages and characters - Historically all characters in Bollywood used to speak "Hindi" - as if India didn't have other regions and people living in it!
Now we have a marathi speaking "babubhai", and panjabi speaking "DJ" in Rang de Basanti, Cosmopolitan Bombay's Parsi and so on. Even the characters speak "real time lingo" and not some urdu dictionary. Amazing. This is what India is about - Diversity. And it is reflecting.

3. Acting and direction - People are acting. Days of stardom seem to be over. Some of the finest performers are setting the screen on fire and directors are willing to experiment.

Bravo !

PS - this post is a result of sudden overwhelming sense of pride.

Gods of our choice

Ell and Sill were late for the work. There were no two ways about it - either you made it on time or you were late. No negotiations existed in the corporate. Company's rules were simple - do the work properly and get fed, else join the queue wait for higher management's decision.

Ell locked his quarters and hurriedly moved out of the apartment. Sill was struggling to keep up the pace. Finally they were out of the quarters and large queue of corporate was moving like a silver chord shining in bright sunlight.

"I didn't know today would be working day, after all that happened yesterday.", Sill remarked angrily, adjusting her position in the queue.

"Oh, come on. What do you expect? Her Majesty would declare a day off for such a trivial accident? Remember the disaster in mines a few years back? They didn't even declare it as accident." Ell snapped at her. He was looking rather bored.

"Trivial accident? It was Gods wrath. people who died had made a terrible mistake of leaving our lands and Gods punished them. That's why I say you should always visit the temple ...", Sill muttered in Ell's ears. She had a worrisome look on her face.
"Now don't you start again lady. We're fine. Just let the week unroll and there'll be plenty of food in quarters. We are going to have a rocking time ahead."

The queue was moving rather slowly today. Perhaps there was another accident somewhere ahead in the territory of corporate. Ell and Sill never knew what was outside the boundary of corporate. It was place of Gods and only Gods could stay there. Sometimes Gods did visit the corporate, but the visits were unpredictable and Mostly hostile. Corporate had devised a defensive mechanisms against the Gods, but it was futile to fight against the Gods.
Gods were omnipotent. They could destroy entire corporate if they wanted to. Ell had heard stories of such corporates being destroyed on regular basis. He had once seen an entire corporate being destroyed by a powerful earthquake - definitely an act of Gods. Ell and his companions were lucky to survive in their current settlement for months now. The food was plentiful and temperature was not a problem. Her majesty had declared this as a safe place and corporate was working all time to complete the requirements. Everyone worked 24x7 to complete the assigned tasks. Soon the works would be completed and the corporate would relax for a while, but no one had a respite till then.

"Watch out Ell-----", Sill cried with horror as she saw the one of the Gods approaching the corporate. This had never happened earlier. Gods never left the heavens. But something was wrong- people was committing horrible sins these days. Even the priest in the temple had warned of such an apocalypse in future. This was the day.

The queue suddenly disappeared. Everyone was running for defensive shelter in the main Corporate house. Sill made it to the nearest block, but before Ell could come into the shelter ---
She saw Ell getting lifted high into air. One of the Gods had picked up Ell as a sacrifice. Sill could not control herself, she watched helplessly as Ell soon went high in the air and went out of her sight.
*******
"Henry, put it down.", said an affectionate voice of a mother as she ran to catch her 3 year old son. While running around the front lawn he had moved near the garage. In his tiny little fingers was a black ant struggling to escape.

Dream catcher !

I'm planning to undertake a new experiment - dream catching.
It's a simple thing and yet very unnatural. Let's not go into the scientific realm of dreams and keep it simple. Dreams are very interesting, but short lived. We never make a conscious effort to remember them.
Hence I thought it would be a good experiment to catch some of them live, and note them down. May be reading them later could be fun!
So far I've recorded half a dozen and I'm improvising it already. I've back-traced a few dream segments. Here are few of my goals -

1. I should be able to track down my dreams in detail - as much as possible. Minute details like colors, texture and faces of people whom I meet.
2. Try to remember more dreams, quantitatively. See how far I can go back in time.
3. Try to remain conscious while I'm dreaming. This sounds crazy, but it's possible. This would present a totally new point of view.
4. Finally, try to see if I can change the dreams.

While noting down the dreams, I plan to remain honest about it !

I have a long way to go, especially considering my wake up procedure. I tend to stay in bed for quite some time, and the dreams decay rapidly.
Never the less this sounds fun. I'm expecting some good results in a month or so.

Source of inspiration - "Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman", autobiography of Richard Feynman

Ram Gopal Verma (se) Darna Zaroori hai !

Ramu, take it easy.
You started it with "Ram gopal Verma ki aag". I kept silence, thinking its an unforced error from a top seed player. Though I saw the movie on a pirated copy in a Volvo - It made me feel cry. I couldn't bear the resemblance of "Sambha and Tambe","dhanno and ghungaroo." Mohanlal just couldn't fit in. With such a flawed dialogue delivery, I kept thinking that Babban must have cut Narsimha's toungue. Any ways, I admired your guts Ramu and pardoned this sin of yours.

But then you came up with a so called horror film - "Darling". this time I just had 1 question.
"Why Ramu, Why?". "तुमने ऐसा क्यों किया हमारे साथ, क्यों~??" . the film was not horror film, instead it was a filmy horror! Esha Deol as an actress is scary enough, then why go and extra mile and make her a ghost? Fardeen Khan - Amen. Even a broomstick can show some facial expressions but not Fardeen. His face remains as plain as his father Feroz's bald head. And the over all film - it wasted my 30 Rs. movie ticket. It was then I had a doubt that Ramu, you're loosing it.

The camera Angles in Sarkar raj confirmed my doubts. The camera was placed at most unusual places - in a corner, near fan, overhead and probably everywhere. "Agyat" was the second last nail in camera's coffin. The camera movements felt like a worm struggling for its last breath. I shall not insult the blogger community by discussing "Agyaat" here.

"Rann" completed the weird camera movement trilogy. What a sheer waste of camera! Ramu,
there is one scene in which I literally struggled to see an actor - It was supposed to be Rajat kapoor. Only things I spotted in the scene were - an object similar to a leg, a sofa and fan roaring at full speed. Artistic? Experimental?

I am eagerly waiting for the next film Ramu, at least it would save me my Ophthalmologist's diagnosis fees.