Look! Even The American President Realizes What..

What Diwali Is All About

Happy Diwali! 

Spread Peace

Spread Light

Spread Hope

Spread Love

God bless!

Get Ready For The Movies This Festive Season

So this festive season it promises to be a fantastic affair for Bollywood movie buffs. The season has already started off with a bang with Barfi that has already won itself enough accolades to be selected as India's official entry for the 2013 Oscars. Dont miss that one!

If you haven't already warmed up the touching story in Barfi then you will be when you look at what lies ahead....

First (for all those Lamhe fans) Sri Devi is back in the much awaited English Vinglish that tells the story of a housewife who learns English to adjust and live in New York.


Returning to entertain us again is the king of family drama, Karan Johar; thankfully this time as a director with Student of The Year releasing on October 19.

The film has newcomers in the lead roles. Interestingly Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are not doing the music for this one. Instead its Vishal-Shekhar.
Probably because of SRK's influence (since Red Chilles is co-producing the film along with KJo's Dharma Productions).
The music (Ishq wala Love) is already topping the charts as easily the romantic number of the year.

We spoke about SRK?

Well SRK is back too..and this time as an army man in Yash Chopra's "Jab Tak Hai Jaan" romancing Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. With a unparalleled repertoire in Bollywood and a penchant for romantic classics, Yash Chopra is back as a director after 8 years. And  has teamed up for the first time with A R Rahman. If the promos are anything to go by, and with the music release yet to come, this one could well be one of the all-time romantic dramas in Bollywood. The film is all set for a Diwali blockbuster release on November 13.

Guess what. There is also the other Khan.

Aamir Khan is back with this "Talaash" releasing on November 30, quite surely adding more fireworks to Diwali. Now we all know Aamir is a perfectionist. He had the movie moved to the November release in view of his busy schedule with Satyamev Jayate earlier in the year. The movie is produced by Farhan Akhtar, and is co-written by Akhtar's sister Zoya. Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee play the leading ladies. The music is by Ram Sampath who is fast becoming the go-to music-maker for all of Aamir's endeavours.

And hold your breath.....u guessed it?
Yeah..we also have Salman Khan in the mix.

After tasting unimaginable success in Dabanng, Chulbul Pandey is back in Dabanng 2. So is the beautiful Sonakshi Sinha. There are high expectations on this one, but knowing Salman's movies, this one will surely laugh all the way to the box-office. Wary of the other 2 Khans releasing during Diwali, the producers have ofcourse pushed the movie to a Christmas release on Dec 21.

So you have KJo and all the 3 Khans!
The last time we had all the 3 Khans was in 2010 when SRK's "My Name is Khan", Aamir's "3 Idiots" and Salman's forgettable 'Veer".

As if this was not enough, we also have Rajnikanth's Kochadaiyaan releasing on Dec 12. More of AR Rahman! Kamal Hassan's Vishwaroopam also releases on the same date, so fans in Chennai are going to be treated to a bonanza! Oh and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are back as well, this as music directors in Vishwaroopam.

Other notable movies to look forward to this year: are Rani Mukherjee's Aiyya and the Mani-Ratnam/AR Rahman combo giving us Kadal (releasing in early 2013), which by the way has a beautiful pretty girl on the poster.

Here is hoping this festive season is going to be one fantastic experience at the movies!

Cheers!

Eternal Fanclub Wars

For every generation there are heroes. Be it sport, music, cinema, business or even politics. If there is one aspect in which heroes really endear themselves to human emotions is that they are fodder for coffee-table discussions. Of the battleground kinds.

Obviously not everyone can become a hero - what fun is it if everyone was a hero?! Whom would we gossip about?
And so people become fans of heroes.
And it is here that the topic becomes interesting - passionate fans will swear by their heroes.

And these make for fascinating discussions.

Take the case of the Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal rivalry.
The Federer fans are a combination of the uninitiated, the moms, and ofcourse the experts. The Nadal ones are the folks who like to be called underdogs, who crave for an anti-hero. And so the debates go on: Who is better? Who has the fastest serve? Who deserves the right to be called the real no#1? Who has a prettier girlfriend? Who has more money? The debate ends when both of them lose and some unheralded Novak wins.

Or the case of Mohd Rafi and Kishore Kumar.
Left largely to the elders in the family, these debates take great shape when two of them get down together for a Sunday breakfast and need a topic to converse. The women largely care less. The men are passionate. The Rafi fans swear by his renditions whereas the Kishore Kumar ones find it hard to trump the evergreen classics with Kishore Kumar himself in front of the cameras and serenading his women. The younger generation has tried to pit AR Rahman with folks like Pritam or Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy- but it hasnt worked. Fanboy wars work when there are 2 of a kind!

Then there are politicians. Akhilesh Yadav versus Rahul Gandhi.
One is a winner. One is always trying to win. Again it is the grand old men of the house that seem to have an opinion on what kind of policies are required in UP that can change the way their creaking chairs can be fixed.

For the women there are other kinds of debates.
Like Anandi vs Parvati vs Tulsi. Each one portrays a different kind of woman-following, and triggers in the lady an expression of approval or discontent based on what show she likes more and what her fellow kitty-party women follow. I love to see the expression on my mom's face when one of these lead women characters on the show is manipulated by other women. She almost sheds a tear!!

There is something for the kindergarten kids too. Batman vs Superman. Barbie vs (well!) Kent (now thats a bit funny!).

And some for the techie geeks: iPhone vs Android, Mac vs Windows, Apple vs Samsung...

Then there are the cricket fans.
The 'Is Sachin the greatest cricketer?' versus 'Is it Dravid?' debates. Oh give me a break! I mean really? Smart tip: you know who is the nerd in the group if he/she starts talking about Dravid in the face of Sachin. However the more interesting debates are the ones between father-son or uncle-nephew. The older generation paints this beautiful picture of Gavaskar and his sublime grace in the face of the youngster's craze for Sachin (or now a Kohli), and it takes some mindblowing hot dosas from the lady of the house to get them to forget talking cricket for a while. Of late there is discussion if Laxman was better than Dravid, and believe me I heard one of my relatives giving Laxman a better score because his wife looked more beautiful than Dravid's. LoL!!

But its fun. Apart from the rise of a few ounces of adrenalin, these characters touch our lives in more ways than we think. There is something to discuss, to chat, to feel for, and sometimes even to win some brownie points for breaking the ice. So the next time you hear a debate between Aamir Khan vs Sharukh Khan vs Salman Khan be sure to talk passionately about atleast 2 of them and negate the other - that is when your coffee will get warmer!

Cheers!
(PS: picture sourced from the internet)

Homework

Image obtained from the internet

Homework- the albatross that hung around our necks while in school.

We all hated it. But we all had to do it.
It took away our weekends. And cut short our play-time.

As kids all we wanted to do was play.

I remember those arguments with mom when I had to beg her to let me go and play in the evening while she insisted that I finish the homework first. She would bribe me by saying that I can play for 30 minutes longer. And I would bribe her in turn that I would help her clean the fans. Usually one of us would get the better of the other based on who was in it to gain - whether it was a guest visting the house that needed cleaning, or whether it was the season of a favourite sport during playtime.

Teachers were part of the mix too.
I think they gave homework only because they felt they needed to.

Think about it - did any of your teachers ever say to you "ok kids! u ve all worked hard. no homework today".
Never.

It would either be that your teacher forgot, or, more often than not, you just interpreted it to mean that there was no homework for the day.

And then there was holiday homework.
LoL!
This was the homework that you had to do while you were on your Diwali/Christmas or NewYear vacation.
It typically ranged from tasks such as reading all the 100 chapters in your history textbook, to drawing the maps of all the countries in the world (each with a different color). There was also the extremely complex idea of understanding those Hindi poems and translating them to simpler hindi- oh my!!

Seriously!I always found it difficult to understand the Hindi poetry.
Some of those poems by Harivansh Rai Bacchan are today posted by Big B on his blog.
He calls them the great tenets of wisdom.
And i still cant understand them.
And to think that poor 5th standard kids had to read, understand and prepare answers to questions based on those poems...that too during holidays....oh during Diwali holidays!

Goodness me!

Think about it - they gave you homework when you were supposed to be on vacation? Poor kids!
Adults never had to do homework when they were on a vacation from work - so why kids?

The best students neatly finished all their homework items by the time school reopened.
Down to getting their red Nataraj HB pencils sharpened and ready to go.

I was always choosy about homework.
Once in middle school one of the things I had in my list of holiday homeworks was to prepare a chart about some hindi poem that would be stuck on the class display board. I didnt want to do it...and kept postponing it until it was too late to do it.

When school reopened, the teacher asked me about it.
And guess what i said "which homework? who? me???????"
And she said "wasnt it you?"
I replied "No maam!"
"Ok forget it. Lets not waste time"

LoL!

But homework also had some good memories.
Like the school project that we had to do during the holidays.
I remember crying when dad tried to help me with it coz i wanted to do it all by myself.
But in the end he helped me do a fantastic job.

Or the time when I finished all my homework even before mom could ask and she was so thrilled that she let me play all weekend.

My sister was usually always perfect with her homework.
I think girls are always prompt and perfect about these things.

My sister and I would compete hard to be the first to finish homework.
And I would always lose!

I would always sit by the window-side when doing homework.
The sight of some of my friends entering the football ground below would alert me to go and bribe mom to let me go.
She wasnt always strict.
Most times I would get to go.
The problem was when there was an exam round the corner and I wanted to play.
I would feel guilty if I played before an exam.
Just the mentality of indian students.

And the feeling of getting to play after the last exam was over - OH MY GOD!!!!! i cant explain that! :)))))))

Rangoli, Doordarshan and Those Days

I was recently reminded by a friend of the good old Rangoli - a weekly Sunday television program that showed you the top 10 Bollywood film songs of the week. (surprise surprise! - my friend told me that the show is still playing every Sunday!)

Trip down memory lane..

We would obviously wake up late, but it wouldnt be very late. Sunday usually brought with it a tremendous dose of energy. It was a different kind of energy- not one that drove you to work like on a weekday. But one that would excite you for what lay ahead of a much needed holiday.

As mom would start her weekly special cleaning chores, the maid servant would try to wrap up her work as quickly as she could (ofcourse! it was a Sunday for her too). Dad would be busy with the Sunday morning newspaper - a big pile of fat supplements that no-one really had patience to read and would end up as cleaning material for next weekend. He would also be suggesting breakfast options for Mom, unaware that she had already decided on Upma!

My sister and I would wake up with different inspirations in our minds. I would be thinking of going out and playing cricket with friends. My sister would be in her dreamy world imagining the color of the plants and the sight of ships in the ocean outside our house. We would meet at the dining table where mom would ve laid a glass of Bournvita for both of us.

Everyone except Mom was invariably lazy on Sunday morning.

Until it was time for Rangoli on Doordarshan.

The best part of this TV show was that it brought an old world charm to everyone's busy lives. Back then the songs were more melodies and less electro-beats. The television would hum the songs while we all revolved around our routines.

Dad would use the opportunity to fix some electrical work as the songs hummed one after another. My sister was too small to understand the songs and so was quite entertained with the advertizements that came in between - the Nirma girl one her favourite. She still had her glass of milk in her hands, and there was now a white milk-moustache on her lips. I liked some of the songs. And disliked the others. I would part play football in the house, and part watch the songs. I would specifically like it when DD showed the torch-bearer national anthem or the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara ad. Seriously, DD was such a positive influence in those days. Mom would catch the songs in between work and in between making Upma. The maid servant would unfailingly stop near the TV room to catch the songs. She did not have a her own TV, so this was a great incentive for her to come to work on a Sunday.

Midway through the show, Mom would bring Upma for everyone. Dad would first ask "why Upma again?", and then enjoy it. Coz it was so good. I would ask for some curd and chatni-pudi along with it. Mom would serve everyone and then for herself. We would also give some upma to the maid servant (in her own plate that she brought along), so that she also enjoyed the show.

Oh and my sister- she was still stuck with her Bournvita! LoL!

As the show would end it would be deja-vu for everyone.
The maid would leave for the day.
My dad would plan the next item on his agenda for the day. My sister and I would begin our homeworks. Mom would plan for lunch.

Those were really memorable days.

The Turtle Picnic

(sourced from the internet):

The Turtle Picnic

A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. Turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last!

For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.

Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years... six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, "See! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."

Go Zlatan!

So who's gonna win Euro 2012?
My pick is a Germany vs Spain final, with a victory for...Germany.....no Spain.....err...Germany....no Spain.........don't know!

Pity that Zlatan scored the above beauty in a game of no consequences!