Experiments with Vietnamese Coffee

I’d been traveling the week before last- I was in Hyderabad for a conference. I’ll spare you the academic details. It wasn’t such a great conference though there were a few good presentations. The only good thing (..ok, one of the good things other than the stimulating???!! conversations) that came out of the visit was that I had access to the idiot box and I got to watch a nice, feel-good French romantic comedy called “Comme t’y es belle” ( “Hey good looking” in English).

I know I’m cribbing, but I’ve good reason- there was no pick up at the station (at 4:45 am). But that’s a minor offence. I had to carry 2 humungous posters for the scheduled exhibition there that couldn’t be folded and necessitated a coolie at all the stations. I put up the posters and later saw that the exhibition was scrapped (by default, as there were only 3 entries). The venue and my accommodation- the Taramati Baradari Cultural Complex- was picturesque enough but not somewhere you’d like to be cooped up for 3 days. It was far away from everything- no auto or taxis around, you can only call for a cab and that costs a bomb. So I was stuck there with no place to go.

Got to see the Golconda Fort Sound and Light Show, that like other such shows, starts impressively but fizzles out later- how many times can you light up the same structures for dramatic effect? It reminds me of the repeated face close-ups accompanied with thunderclaps in the saas bahu soaps. I’m pretty sure they could come up with interesting ways to showcase these monuments- laser shows perhaps. Amitabh Bachchan’s voice does sound extremely impressive and majestic in such surroundings though. (I thought he endorsed UP tourism).

While I was cooling my heels in Hyderabad, my boss was in Vietnam for a workshop with the authorities there regarding the design of rural pre-schools. The workshop was a success- at least one of us had a good time. I’d asked him to bring a Vietnamese coffee filter (I’d googled about Vietnamese specialties) which he thankfully remembered. We got down to it yesterday and though the coffee tastes good it takes forever to drip through the filter. You see, Vietnamese coffee preparation consists of pouring some condensed milk in a cup and then pouring hot water through the filter containing ground (not instant) coffee. The water is supposed to drip and not stream through- that’s a good 10 minutes per cup……. I don’t think our office boy will ever prepare Vietnamese coffee again.

I’ll leave with a recommendation- go listen to the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. It’s not the usual Rahmanesque sound but it’ll grow on you- it’s sheer genius. And the Jai Ho track is phenomenal.

Ghajini

Perish the thought- Ghajini is not a remake of Memento...... not even close. The similarity ends with the protagonists of both the films suffering from anterograde amnesia or short term memory loss. While Memento intellectually teased us, daring the audience to figure right from wrong, Ghajini is a straightforward revenge drama. Calling it a psychological thriller would be doing the term a disservice.

Without the ghost of Memento weighing down on it, Ghajini turns out to be good, enjoyable Bollywood masala fare. You don’t get too many of them now- I can’t remember the last time I saw romance, drama, comedy, action et al together in a Bollywood film. Ghajini has all of it and none of it seems forced. The pacing is just right and the performances are good.

Aamir puts a good act which in totality is credible- his grunts, screams and bloody eyes, which initially seem weird on him, gradually segue into believable character. And as the pre-amnesia business tycoon, he rocks- he’s irresistible. I’ve never gushed about Aamir’s looks but damn the guy is cute.

Asin is breezy, giggly and looks beautiful. This role is no testament to her acting abilities though and I’d love to see her in more challenging roles considering she’s an established star in the south. I wish there was more of Jiah Khan in the movie- from what I know her counterpart in the Tamil movie had more screen time than Asin. She gets a bit of a raw deal- her song is also truncated. It hardly made sense in the movie but the girl is a looker.

The eponymous villain is a bit of let down though- one expected a bit more mystery to him. At the end it all seemed too simple- we knew who the killer was and that he would be killed. With the kind of cinema we are used to today, a little cat and mouse game would’ve been good. Therein lies the main flaw of the film. Or maybe with better editing and screenplay at least an illusion of suspense could’ve been created. Some characters are randomly inserted- what purpose was served by the police inspector? Plus other than the end of the movie, the break in the protagonist’s memory is never really shown. What happens when he’s in the middle of something and the 15 minute memory period is over- how does he reboot? The only such break is placed at a rather convenient point in the climax. But I guess that wasn’t the point of the movie anyways.

The songs are good but not really integral to the movie. “Guzaarish” and “Kaise Mujhe” manage to linger on. All in all a good, watchable movie to enjoy your Christmas and New Year weekends.

P.S.: Aamir Khan doesn’t use a mobile but endorses one. Hmmmmm...........
and read Qalandar for more insight into the movie

About Nov 26th

Much as I wanted to avoid writing about the Mumbai attacks, there was no way I could've cast it aside. It was a mind numbing experience. When I think about the incident, I go through a whole gamut of thoughts and feelings-
helpless about what we as people could've done;
scared that if young educated people can go on such a rampage, what does the future hold;
annoyed that we were making it the topic of our "lunch time" discussions but providing no solution;
sad for the sheer torture the people have endured.

Strangely, I'm not angry at the politicians. It's easy for us to stand out of the political arena and point fingers. We accuse the politicians of being corrupt and lax. But aren't we the ones who offer the bribes- don't we try to get around the law. We complain about dirty streets but we are also the ones who litter it. We complain about rising prices but we also find ways not to pay our taxes. We complain about lack of electricity and water but we also leave the tap running and the lights on. . . . . . . . . We really have some cheek accusing our representatives whom we elected, more often than not, for the 'jugaad' that he/she would provide.

No, I'm not at all angry with them. I'm angry instead at people who are looking at others to put the blame on. Scores of anti-muslim anti-pakistan mails are doing the rounds now. I received a forward yesterday about how most of the media in India is under the ownership or control of non-Hindu forces. It was such an obnoxious thing to do- at a time when we need to stand together, we are only spreading the hatred and the vicious circle to which Mumbai fell victim. The person writing the forward added that he isn't communal- well...whoever you are, you are not just communal, but an extremely idle person who had nothing better to do than dig up facts that would only lead on to more such incidents, instead of doing something pro-active about it.

Who do you think is to blame????

New Beginnings

I’d been meaning to start a blog for a long time. But never got around to really doing it. My laziness is to blame. Now that I’ve finally posted my first blog, I hope I can keep up.

There have been some major upheavals in my life of late (and some more to come). Hence the blog title. I was really ill sometime back- dengue. The first thought that crossed my head when I got to know was ‘God! dengue sounds so unsophisticated’. During my college days I wanted to get hospitalized just to know how my well wishers I’d receive (“market value” as one of my friends put it). Well, my wish was granted but a bit too late. I did get quite a few phone calls but expecting my friends to come over from Mumbai or Bangalore would be overkill. My mom did come over and for a few days I was treated to her cooking. And unlike the last time she visited in May, I got to spend quite some time with her. And now I’m the butt of mosquito jokes in office.

I’ve also finally finished my “new” portfolio for my post graduate admissions in the USA. For those in the dark, I plan to do my masters in urban planning or urban design in Fall 2009. I’m still groping as to what to do with my life and I hope this would nudge me onto the right direction. But I’m digressing- just the day before falling ill, I got back my laptop with a new hard disk. The older one had crashed and all my hardwork went down the drain (not to mention my Johnny Cash and Assamese song collection). After a lot of crying over split milk- rather lost work-, I finally got down to recreating my portfolio and now it’s done. One task off the list.

And since I’m speaking of new things, let me sign off by recommending the mint fresh soundtrack of “Yuvvraaj”. A. R. Rahman and Gulzar are in fine fettle with some gorgeous tracks. If you like elaborate orchestral arrangements and rich western music, you’ll like this. The trailers don’t do justice to the soundtrack though. I hope that the movie lives up to the music.