MJ-LOTD: Zakhm

This weekend i caught up with 'Zakhm'- a movie which was in my to-watch list. And what a movie it was! Amazing. It was made at a time when Mahesh Bhatt was still making movies sans Emraan Hashmi and sans the skin show. The story is amazing. The movie holds your attention from the starting till the end. Moving back and forth in time,the story reveals itself in small installments. The acting of all the actors was apt. The music (by M M Kreem) is very unconventional though it used the conventional singers like Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik. I had heard (and liked) 'Tum aaye toh aaya mujhe yaad' before. But song, 'Hum yahaa', is very good as well. The lyrics of all songs are very contextual and helps in taking the story forward.

MJ-LOTD is the mellifluous song, hum yahaan, composed by M M Kreem. M M Kreem, i guess, is one of the most under-rated music directors in the Bollywood. Probably, because he doesn't do too many 'main-stream' movie.

MJ-LOTD: Rakhi Ka Swayamvar - Hazaaron Mein Ek

A lot has been blogged about Rakhi, the host and the contenders. Has anyone even gotten a chance to look at the 'others'?

Imagine, if the potential groom's friends 'bhi hazaaron mein ek ho' [Translation: one in thousands]. To give you an idea, the two friends are 'unique' in 24038!

Refer to this video

Go to time around 1:10. And follow the sequence:

Rakhi: I want to ask you a question. But, before that, put your hand on your heart.
[The friends put their hands on the left side of their chest]
Rakhi: Don't put your hands on the microphone, put it on your heart
[and gestures them to put the hand on the other side]

Bingo. Rakhi has an eye. Now, i am not referring to her vigorous flapping of false eyelashes. What i mean is that she had some divine intervention and found that her suitor's friends were 'Dextrocardians'. So, she being what she is, caught the crime and asked 'the friends' to put their hands on their "heart" which, as hinted by her fingers, is on the right side!

If you are wondering, how are the cute friends unique in thousands (24038), refer to Wiki link on dextrocardia. As per Wiki, Dextrocardia is believed to occur in approximately 1 in 12,019 people.

If the friends of the groom are 'hazaaron mein ek' then wonder how the groom would be? And more so, how the bride would be?

Cheers!

My Pet Peeves

Everyone has his/her pet peeves - something which is not unacceptable but something which, kind of, annoys him. Here are a few of my pet peeves

Anyways. This really sounds i-also-English kinds. Have we ever read, in any of our text books, the word 'anyways'? The correct word, anyway, is 'anyway' – and surprisingly, everyone knows it – even those who use 'anyways' in every other sentence they speak. But still they use it - perhaps, to sound 'cool'. You think it's just 'no-problems' to use it?

Sarvanan: You know, radio was invented by Marconi
Swetha: No re. Radio was not invented by Marconi. It was invented by Tesla
Sarvanan: I told you na that I referred to Wiki and Wiki cannot be wrong re.
Swetha: Is it? I'll need your help in Googling, Sarvanan
Sarvanan: err...
Swetha: Will you help me na!

[Link to who-invented-radio dispute]

Sa re ga ma pa dha ni may be music to my ears but 're' and 'na' are definitely not. There is also the English-version of it. 'Na' maps to 'no'. “I told you no that the pani puri is not hyginic. Now see. You fell ill no”

No problem – This phrase may have become famous after Suzuki Samurai's ad. But this is something which people use so often when they don't intend to use it. “No problem” is not a replacement for “you are welcome”. While filing a complaint with a service provider, I got, kind of, annoyed when the customer service executive returned a 'no problem' for my 'thank you' . Does she mean it's not a problem for her to take my complaint? She should be, rather, sorry. I am sure she didn't mean the 'no-problem' in the literal sense and gave it as an obvious return for a 'thank you'.

'Only' is being used to mean 'hi' in Hindi – Like, 'maine hi use kaha jane ki liye' translates to 'i only asked her to go'. Now don't laugh after reading it twice. If you go back from 'i only asked her to go' to Hind you land up at 'maine use jane ki liye hi kaha' which is completely different from the original sentence!

Exclamation mark. This has become a subsitute for other punctuation marks like full stop and question mark. Unnecessary use of '!' doesn't make the writing more exclamatory. Neither does it shows that the writer is 'exclaiming'. Personally, it annoys me. I wish the word processors removed those unnecessary exclamation marks. Or the email solutions mark those emails with a dollop of exclamation marks as spam. BTW, even the smileys don't mean you are smiling. It's very annoying when you get something like - “You are fired! :)”

Another pet peeve of mine in my childhood days was the use of 'Teacher's Day' instead of 'Teachers' Day'. It was a different feeling altogether to see beautifully designed and decorated charts wishing 'Happy Teacher's Day'.

It's not that i am some language expert or that i don't make errors. I am sure i do. And you can find a host of them in this blog. But i guess everyone has a right to 'have' pet peeves :)

Do share your pet peeves with us and also if i happen to be using any of yours in my posts.

Cheers.

MJ-LOTD: Best Actor 2009

Fashion seems to be a milestone in Priyanka Chopra's career. Why not? After all the awards she won!

In this clip from the movie Fashion - go to time around 9:00 minutes.

Observe that even before Janet completes her flattery, flowery "You were fabulous" - our best actor jumps up - "really!"

This is called knowing what other person wants to say. I wouldn't call it bad timing. I'd call it prediction. Meghna Mathur (played by Priyanka) seemed to be just waiting for Janet to complete 'Fabulous' so that she can say "Really!"

Check out my review of 'Fashion' in case you haven't

Enjoy!

MJ-LOTD: The Rajanikanths

It's not that only Rajanikanth can do it. The Papaji is no less. Check papaji in action here.

MJ-LOTD: Can you 'Beat It'?

Those frequenting blogs would have known him. But for those who don't - let me take the honor of introducing Dr. K. Chaudhry as 'The Unbeatable'. Check out the Hindi version of Michael Jackson's Beat-It in Dr. K. Chaudhry's voice at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrVEa356SQM

MJ-LOTD

Why did people so religiously watched Super Hit Mukabala? Why did people feel nostalgic when a reference to Chitrahar is made? Why is Archana Puran Singh still known as the lady who hosted Lux Kya Scene Hai? Why is Philips Top 10 still remembered? Despite having tens of Gbs of music in your music player, why do you still tune in to FM while driving back home?

The answer to the above question is “unexpectedness”. In all the above programmes, the songs or the scenes which were to come next were unexpected. Not only that, they were ,supposedly, hand picked. I am starting a similar thing on Mundane Journey: MJ-LOTD

Mundane Journey Link of the Day (MJ-LOTD) – would be one link which i would recommend to my readers. It could be a song, a scene, a gag, a news article or anything on the Internet. It would be the most interesting or 'touchy' thing i stumble upon on the Net that day. However, it may not be everyday as there are days i don't get a chance to browse the web or on the weekends when i just don't want to see the computer screen.

I must acknowledge Sagar for this. Everyday, he shares a link to a different song on his Gtalk status. He call it 'Aaj Ka Gana'. I really liked the 'long-lost' songs he shared. So, i thought it would be useful to my other readers as well. I just extended it to scenes, new articles, etc.

I would also be tweeting a lot more often from now on. I'll share the MJ-LOTD on twitter as well. However, I'd be sharing a lot of other unorganized thoughts (and of course, links). To join me on twitter click here.

As always, do let me know your views on MJ-LOTD.

Cheers!

Loss Booking

People who have tried their hands at the share market would know what booking loss is. It's basically part and parcel of optimal use of resources – money in this case. When the price of the share you purchased is going down and you sense that it may go further down and not going to go up in the timeframe you selected, it's best to sell it and book losses because there may be another stock which could be going up. It's best to release your resources from that 'losing' stock and put it on the 'gaining' stock. So, though you have encountered losses, you have saved yourself from bigger losses and given yourself a chance to make profits by investing the resources in a gaining scrip.

You must be wondering why am i talking about share market as what i mentioned is pure common sense and that i am no trade guru. This share market anecdote applies well to various activities we do in our lives. One example from the medical field which comes to mind is that of amputation. To prevent 'poison' from spreading to other parts of the body, we cut the affected part. It doesn't mean that we don't like/love the part we are cutting and that we don't feel the pain in cutting the leg that we pampered so delicately. It means that we are ready to trade it off for a larger benefit of our body.

Problems. This is one word every human being can associate with. A lot of people say that we should address problems heads on and that we should take them as challenges and resolve them. According to me this is partially true. Sometimes, the resources required to solve a problem may be huge and the gain by solving the problem may not be enough – in that case, an easier workaround and using the resources to serve better purposes may be better than trying to solve the problem completely. It's like you exit form the problem by booking losses and invest that money into some other scrip.

A lot of 'intelligent' people have this ego problem - “how is it that i can't solve this problem”? This is really grave. Haven't you seen it screw up that very important board/competitive exam? The time (resource) ran out while you were busy solving a 5 marks problem and in turn left 50 marks unanswered. Don't you 'pass' (or guess the answer to) the question in the rapid fire round in a quiz competition?

The trick is to estimate the effort required to solve a problem and whether it is worth putting in that effort. For this principle to work, the goal you are working toward should be clear – else the “worth” of the effort may not be correctly estimated. It's best not to honor our ego, book losses and come out and do something worth the time.


Think...

Kambakkht Ishq: After-thoughts

I am not going to talk about how bad Kambakkht Ishq is. I am not going to talk about how loose the plot is. I am not going to talk about the senseless songs which pops in without any reason or season like eunuchs in sleeper class bogies of Indian Railways. I am also not going to talk about the just-for-the-heck-of-it 'item fight' (analogous to item song) sequence done by the great Sylvester Stallone. I am not going to talk about any such things. These are characteristics of most so-called main stream commercial cinema. And also, these are highlighted by most reviewers (and I am not going to play Anu Malik, Pritam or a software engineer here) . I would bring to forth things that make this film truly different.

This film gives us a new way to get people to shut up. You must have wished to shut your ever-complaining spouse when you forget to get that special ingredient while coming from office. Or you forget to make sure that his suit is pressed before that very important meeting. You also would have wished to shut your boss up when s/he gives some illogical reasons for not giving you that hike/promotion/leave/onsite-offer which you think you deserve. Kambakkht Ishq shows you a way. When Kareena (Bebo) was shouting at Akshay on the 'characteristics' of men, Akshay shut her mouth, literally, with his. So, now you know what to do when you want to shut Rakhi Sawant up!
Well, if you think this is cheap and rickshaw-wala standard, I'd leave that to you.

Kambakkht Ishq, also, shows us a new way to make an otherwise short dress look hotter. If you want to look hot, bend down by 37 degress. Make sure the camera is focused at those parts of the body which wouldn't have been otherwise visible had you not bent down and give a shake your garment the way you would do an almost-full-container so that it (the container) can have room for more flour. And do it just before you want to look hot. The effect may be lost after some time. Reminds you of some B grade movie? Well, if you think this is cheap and rickshaw-wala standard, I'd leave that to you.

This movie also helps us in cost cutting. A metal watch with alarm is 'left' into Akhshay's belly when Bebo operates him. Even then, Akshay doesn't have any 'side effects'. The next time you get a cut through some metallic object, don't rush for an antiseptic or tetanus injection. Chill. Nothing will happen. Just as nothing happened to Akshay. If you find this illogical, I'd leave it to you.

There are movies which are good and there are movies which are bad. There are good movies which you may not like and there are bad movies which you may like. Kambakkht Ishq falls into none of these category. If you feel the treatment of the illogical subject illustrated with very ordinary acting and intermixed with uncalled-for songs was cheap and rickshaw-wala standard, I'd leave that to you. It's your prerogative.

Cheers!