Shah Rukh Don

The Badshah of Bollywood has delivered another hit with his latest Don. Inspite of the not-so-good reviews that the movie got at the time of its release, the movie has managed to do good business as per the market reports. And making money is the prime objective of commercial cinema.

It is this money making ability despite all odds is what impresses me the most about SRK. I admire him, not for his work but for his ability to overcome the shortcomings. I mean here is a guy that has average looks, atleast as compared to some of his other better looking colleagues in Bollywood. His acting skills are not something to rave about, considering the over dose of acting that is there in all his performances. He lacks the voice of an industry icon like Mr. Bachchan (who can forget the K - K - Kiran?). His dances are not his USP for sure. He plays the loverboy who gets his girl in almost all his movies - read lack of variety in performances.

Inspite of all this he manages to do well not only for himself but for his producers too! Now that's definitely impressive!! Hats off to you King Khan - for achieving all that you have through hard work and making a mark for yourself inspite of a non filmi background.

Haan Bol

One thing that's definitely changed with the onset of mobile phones, is the way people answer phone calls (atleast with the people I call). Gone are the days when people extended pleasantries to you on answering your call. Phrases like "Hello" or "Hi, how are you?" are a rarity nowadays. Most of the time the response is a rude "Hmnnn" or a "Bol".

I agree that with caller line identification, you no longer have to use the voice recognition mechanism in your brain and so you know who you talking to before you pick the phone. But yaar, how difficult is a courteous response while answering a call? No matter how busy you are a simple "hi" or the age old "hello" is always a better response to get than the ones listed above.

Is this change because of our busy routines or is it just a case of the growing impoliteness around? Whatever be the excuses, I think I deserve a better response when I spend my time and money to call up people. One of the most ridiculous responses that I've got is from this friend of mine. I called him up to wish for Diwali and the dude answered the call by saying "Haan bol, sun raha hoon." Got an apt response for that?

Brangelina in News

Ever since Brangelina landed in Pune, the local newspapers have made them their top priority. Especially the local edition of The Times. The esteemed editors of this paper think that covering the movements of a celebrity couple is more important than any other news in the city. Or is it that they can't find anything more worthwhile to adore their pages.

On one particular day, the entire first page was filled up with details of the couple's visit. I agree that it is not everyday that such famous hollywood actors come to Pune and Brangelina have a huge fan following but still, I don't want to have the local edition's entire front page dedicated to them. To make matters worse the star couple tried their best to give the media a slip and so all the stories appearing in the paper were speculations and details of the couple's stay in the city.

The newpapers even acorded celebrity status to the rickshaw driver in which Brangelina went around town on one particular day. There was a whole article based on the 20 minute ride that he gave to the couple. Another article was based on the couple's future prospects as predicted by an astrologer. They also had a story speculating about the food preferences of the couple. I am not against glamour and have my favourites too, but isn't page 3 meant for all such news? So, to all you journalists out there, stop acting like you've never had a celeb in town before and start looking around for some real news that is worth reporting.

Celebs and Issues

Besides being acclaimed actors, what is common between Amitabh Bachchan, Richard Gere, Amir Khan and Angelina Jolie? Its their support for social issues in various parts of the world. While Angelina and Richard have lent their support to more international causes (human rights and AIDS awareness respectively) AB senior and Aamir lent their voice for polio awareness drive in India and the Narmada Bachao Andolan respectively. But, are these celebs supporting social causes any better than having the average low profile social activist fight it out on the streets?

I think having a celeb involved with a social cause works. As a matter of fact, I think that it works for both the celeb and the cause. It works for the cause as the news hungry media follows the celebs wherever they go, even to places where they would not have gone otherwise. This results in a lot of visibility for the issue at hand. I think that having celebs is the best way for getting the masses involved in social activists. Most people may never spare a thought for street children. But the moment they see pics of Salman Khan at an orphanage, visiting orphanages is something that they wanna do too.

Sanjay Dutt got a whole nation to recognise principles of the Mahatma Gandhi by his latest flick. And all of a sudden every second guy in town is talking about non-violence and Gandhigiri is cool now. How many of us were aware of the details of Narmada Bachao Andolan till Amir Khan came along. Wouldn't you willingly attend a music concert of your favourite stars even if you knew that they would drum in doses of AIDS awareness in between performances? Glamour is an essential part of every celeb and it sells for sure. So why not just use it for a good cause?

Colours

Feeling blue ... Feeling blue ... goes a popular Hindi number from the movie PKSE. For some reason, unlike the song, I don't associate the colour blue with feelings of sadness or unhappiness. I kinda like that colour. This got me thinking about my interpretation of colours. So here it is ... MY take on some of the colours and what they mean to me.

Red - First thing that comes to my mind about red is the feeling of danger associated with it. Be it at a signal or the sign hanging on an electricity pole or the card shown by the referee during a match. Red spells trouble for me. Red is also something that I would associate with the Chinese. I think that's the only country that I would associate with just one colour.

Black - Black is a colour that I would associate with power - superiority. It has the ability to override all colours and its difficult (if not impossible) for any colour to hold on to itself over black. I also associate black with disrepute or shame (moo kale Kara die). Black can be sexy too -- there's little that beats a well toned female body in a well fitted black outfit - Indian or western! ;-)

Blue - My favorite colour. Blue signifies calm to me. Apart from this, I don't think about or associate this colour with much. Just like it plain and simple, especially the darker shades.
Green - Refreshing. Green is refreshing. A lush green grassland just after the first few showers of rain is always a welcome sight! Green is a colour of acceptance. Green is also something that I would associate with prosperity and growth.

White - It signifies purity to me. The colour also has an emptiness or a hollow feeling associated with it. A noteworthy point about the colour from my perspective is its ability to tone down all other colours.

Dandiya Washout

Ever been planning something for a long time with a select group of friends? And ever had such an event cancelled at the last minute after all the planning?? Well, I had something similar lined up for this weekend and it turned out to be a flop show.

A friend of mine and myself have been trying to execute a dandiya outing with our college group for the past four consecutive years. But for one reason or the other the plans never materialize. During these four years we have gone out with our other groups and had a ball at various dandiya parties, always hoping to dance to those very beats with our college friends. But it never seems to work for us as far as dandiya is concerned. Its not that we don't keep in touch or that we don't party together. We do ... and we do it quite often. Its just the dandiya that is jinxed.

The biggest challenge in the past has been of getting everyone to agree to a common date and venue for the gig. This year we even managed to do that - but planning is the farthest that we could go. Though I must say, that 2006, has been the closest we have ever been to a dandiya together. We finalized the venue, chose a date when everyone left of the group in India could make it and also fixed the logistical problems. But the rain gods chose this very weekend to vent their fury on us poor souls. It rained like there would never be a tomorrow and we had to drop all plans of a dandiya!

So here I am, back to square one, hoping to plan and execute Mission 'Dandiya 2007' successfully! Moral of the story: If it isn't supposed to happen ... It isn't gonna happen!