movies, love stories and a magic called 'communication'

Many of you might not have committed the bravado as yet, but I did, and watched the movie 'Jodhaa Akbar' - a really long movie in terms of running hours, but not that long in terms of boring content. I liked it in parts - some of the songs, Hrithik, Ash, war scenes and the love story weaved underneath.

To tell you the truth, I realized that those days communication was a challenging problem, to the extent of ruining people's lives with the lack of it. Add to that, it seemed like people either did not know how to clearly express or did not care to express and relied heavily on unsaid impressions/emotions. Hmm... a pretty dangerous situation I must say! And one thing I could not understand was that, why did Jodhaa not send a messenger to clarify her stand with her brother? She was a princess, a queen, and could have definitely arranged for one who would search for and deliver the message to her brother. Anyway, the writer had other things in mind ...

In today's world, for example, Jodhaa would have SMS'ed her brother about her uneasiness over the marriage and would have got an instant reply from his brother Sujamal on where he is, how he is doing and what he can do to stop the marriage. It is just amazing to imagine the different modes of communication we have got in today's era, to clarify, to speak out, to reach out and to stay connected all the time! Just like the way I am doing right now, attending my mom-in-law in the hospital, and still able to write few things here and there expressing my thoughts ... imagine the world without reliable letters, radio/cell messages, telephones and above all, the internet. We have made good progress from the sixteenth century, definitely :)

But anyway, coming back to the movie, it was good, my husband and in-laws liked it, so as the e-square screen-5 audience on friday evening who cheered every hindu-muslim saas-bahu confrontations and results, the war scenes were particularly captivating, and being a girl, I liked the way Jodhaa and Akbar's marriage is shown slowly developing into a loving relationship. Good show, and worth the patience for once at least. If you want to read a review and qualified opinion on the movie, you can do so here, it is written by a friend, who incidentally happened to be in the same show as mine.

Enjoy the show, the weekend and the fantastic onset of "Vasant" (spring) season...

The cricket match and Aapki Asha

Wonderful... that is what I would call the show 'Aapki Asha' programme, and surprisingly not for Ashaji, but for KishoreDa' !

Now don't think I have gone mad or something, Amit Kumar (KishoreDa's eldest son, I don't need to say this, I am sure everybody has heard his immortal song - Yaad Aaa Rahee Hai from Love Story) sang few songs of his father. He might have sung it for an hour, or for an eternity... like 'Roop Tera Mastana', 'Yeh jo mohhabbat hai, yeh unka hai kaam' etc.

Oh boy, he looked like KishoreDa', moved like KishoreDa', and sang a notch better than KishoreDa' :) He narrated some nostalgic stories about SD Burmanji, KishoreDa', PanchamDa' and all ... He is a singer to reckon and his voice is not as if in the 'Bade achhhe lagte hein...' but it is very close to his father these days. I loved it, and everybody around me loved it too as I could figure out from the dances and shouts going on.

He rocks, and how ! To end his 1-hour continuous show, he sang 'Dekhaa jo tujhe yaar, dilmein baji Sitar', and he rocked again in such a different era song! And so far I have not even mentioned his entertaining abilities!

Ashaji sang beautifully, as usual, in few initial songs she started with, and later, I am afraid, she sounded quite tired to make the melody heartfelt, though it was pleasant enough, but a little less than my expectations. Sorry to say this, but you can hardly complain, about a person who has remained beyond comparison all her life.


Wonderful, wonderful show Ashaji, and thank you so much for bringing on Amit Kumar!

If you have noticed the difference between Ashaji, Burmanji, Panchamda, KishoreDa' and Amit kumar, that is because his voice is still very close to heart to insert a barrier 'ji', music directors, please, make him sing more songs, and the type that suits his divine voice.


Cricket match with Australia

Do I need to remind anybody in the country about this? It was thrilling, depressing, entertaining, unbearable, confusing .. all at the same time! I went through all kinds of emotions during those few hours, and when Yuvraj fell because of a shoddy looking shot, I could hardly latch onto my sit. Heartbeats made noise and the fish fry went for a toss as I nervously kept on hopping between the kitchen and the living room... and finally, after long looking hours of soundless batting, Dhoni and Rohit pulled it through, and saved my sunday from being miserable :)

Good show, at the end, and let me mention, I liked every uppish shot of Tendulkar!

So much for today folks, let me get back to Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix showing behind my back, rest of the family is glued to it.

Not a bad sunday evening at all, after those uplifting 3 hours of melody yesterday night, and the exciting win against the arrogant Australian cricket team!

Good bye for now ... wish you all a happy valentine's day!

Politics, Business: It is all about money honey !

Two widely different things kept me awake till late last night.

Microsoft has bid to buy the internet giant Yahoo ...

...Yes, if you have not read about it yet, check out these links.

* A detailed analysis form zdnet perspective.
* A news on yahoo biz.
* Another news piece from news.com .

Now come to think of it, Google has been trying very hard to be the numero uno company in everything it touches (wait for the gPhone with Linux OS to come out, to understand fully the impact of what I am trying to say). And rightly so, it is one of the companies I admire and adore as well...just like numerous techies all around the world.

But why does it find it hard to digest the Microsoft fight back ? I mean, Microsoft wants to retain its number one position, and it has every right to do so. I don't think how google can stop this deal by throwing in the 'here comes microsoft to monopolize', ages old trick used many times against Microsoft.

IMO (In my opinion - of course everything in this blog is my opinion and has nothing to do with any companies or people), it should be a very good deal for yahoo, and will work out best against google to stop it from taking over the internet single handedly (now who is trying to monopolize the online advertising market).

Google, from an admirer's point of view, looks all set to tackle the competition and might as well emerge as the toughest competitor to microsoft yet, ever! And Google, of all, should not worried about it at all...

Let the show begin ! :)

Raj Thackeray tries to re-ignite the same boring (yawn yawn ...) topic

Now coming to the second topic of this morning, it concerns me as somebody staying in Pune. I have no grudge against or anything to do with Maharashtra NavaNirman Sena, and I understand little of the politics going on in this state.

But it is simply disheartening to imagine that he seems to be using some shoddy gimmicks to gain popularity. Come on Raj, you are a dashing young politician, you have better things to do in life like think about the next generation of India, think about our growing importance in the international arena and how you could take it forward ... why do you have to resort to these , or even these kind of things ?

If you don't dare to take the new approach to politics, who will ?
Why can't you focus on progress, work, economy or national security ?
Why do you have to resort to the type of the methods adopted when you were a kid?

Move ahead, look ahead should be the mantra of today's young politicians... we want to take the country forward, and not backwards.

What should youths like us expect from a supposedly-capable-of-great-things-leader like you?