T’was a champion who left Kotla grounds the eugolic smile, the enigmatic eyes will remain in everyone’s minds. Team mates were most definitely touched and moved at his departure and the suddenness with which it came from the gentle Jumbo.

Through his career Kumble has been the toiler and most of his efforts have been those of a lesser child, always the silent worker, it was sad to see him go thus unplanned. Personally I believe Kumble could have still done lot more service to Indian cricket thanks to the media and critics he possibly believed he was done with cricket, saddening to see the champion walking out like a humbled elephant

Remeniscent is the 10 wickets he took at the same stadium where he brought to foot a resurgent pakistan and his prodigious bounce and skid turned the best turtle.  A broken jawed kumble surreptiously getting Lara out in a crucial test when the result could have gone either way.

The media has been most ridiculously cruel to this gentle giant eliciting an angry response from him after the first test, it seems so prudent for the man to leave cricket which has barely been fair to Kumble. I believe his retirement is an expression of disgust at how India treats its heroes nay a toiling hard hero, a far cry from the sehwags and the Harbhajans who are the natural talents. This man is the toiler.

To me Kumble has been the model human being a mixture of grit and aggression with a genial smile off the field, this endearing man has been a heart stealer. Its sad that he should leave in so abrupt a fashion that too when he was hitting a bad patch.

Good bye jumbo we will miss you

Laloo is defienitely a good joker, he even has his accomplices in Nitish Kumar and Ram vilas Paswan. It was nicely hilarious to see the trio putting up a tough stand for Rahul raj, if you are still wondering what I am talking about, you need to catch up on the latest news of how the evil Maharashtra police put to death a poor little Bihari carrying a gun in a crowded bus.

Ah the poor little darling actually never shot a mosquito, he was just playing a little joke, obviously the police did not find it all that funny after the poor dear had had a nip at the conductor. What really amazes me is the fact that the three of them saw the plethora of political coverage that the North Indian crisis was generating and did not even bother to think of their ethics in doing what they did

May the great Laloo circus continue

An effective way of spoiling one’s weekend is to take a bucket of popcorn and sit through kamal’s magnum opus,a disastrous megalomaniac creation of pure self indulgence. Starts off predictably in a big time warp to Chidambaram and Rengaraja nambi, the bulstering young priest who takes on the might of the chola empire in order to safeguard his Narayanan, Lord Vishnu. The start is self indulgent and devoid of content so as to set the tone for the movie, as kamal had it he assumes all the audience is as knowledgable as himself and sets off to the incident where the vishnu idol is ripped from its place and Renga is assaulted and ostracized from society and life. Well I am not sure about the historic authenticity of the character, but in almost certianity the depiction was falling short of being called tardy, the obvious contradictions of another vedic kicking the statue make no sense by any means. The shaiviite-vaishnaviite duels were in lieu of all the ossible indications a simple case of clashing philosophies and not a fight between two personal gods, please; was kamal thinking that this was as petty as a clash between rajni fans and kamal fans, he definitely needs to understand that it was a much more cerebral struggle and not a blind bash up as he has most certainly try to portray.

The rest of the movie pans to 2004 and a Bio weapon being created in a controlled environment where kamal is the erstwhile genius who designs the weapon, a lab accident causes him to rethink his morals and detract from handing the weapon over to the officials, again Kamal plays the goody man in a bad bad world, and hes chased by a contract killer, kamal again. Flight chases and car chases later he lands up in chidambaram where the weapon is slipped into the idol of the govindaraja peruman by a senile old woman(kamal again.

Kamal now takes posession of the idol and intends to tagging along is the girl who has an obsessive craving for the peruman. So it goes through more skulduggery as kamal and Aandal(asin) are chased across the length and breadth of the southern half by the Caucasian kamal. In the process we bang into a comic relief telugu speaking CBI officer(avatar number 4, there is a glimpse of Bush, aka kamal with a white leather skin) The jokes fall flat and Crazy seems strangely tainted possibly because of the pace of the movie.

The movie carries on with two more dreary characters introduced a social worker and an overgrown pathan, then comes the melodrama with the Sardarji singer Avtar Singh who is afflicted with throat cancer and is even cured by a bullet crashing into his heart(burp! burp!). Again no character having either weight or role. The movie meanders on, the rest is too tardy and tiring to recount besides it has a kamal overdose. His acting abilities are neither done justice nor is the story or the music or the scenario either. Basically a hotchpotch where kamal does 10 different roles and the viewer is left blinking as to whom he should hate more.

There is very little to talk about the rest of the characters except Mallika showing her bod and cleavage, Asin comes up with a fair performance and Kamal most certainly disappoints!

Gosh I am sometimes amazed as to how irrational and non scientific people can get, this is the limit. Come on in this 21st century and with all the focus of the scientific community on issues such as global warming and alternative fuels we still have Indian scientists who follow age old practises

http://www.livemint.com/2008/06/05233638/For-Indian-scientists-no-conf.html

What continues to amaze me more is the fact that all these indian scientists seem to be vedantists also popularly known as hindus which strangely caters to a lot of scientific thought. In a lil nutshell the above link talks about how scientists pray to ganesha before they start their day. What rubbish don’t the scriptures clearly talk about a elephant headed kid vanquishing a demon, surely unscientific compared to a gentleman turning wine to water, no offence intended, my point is no single religion or cult is free of contradictions or misnomers, but what really incenses is the fact that all beliefs which are inherently from the indo-aryan civilization are distinctly taken as primitive and backward.

Moreover , id rather have a satisfied superstitious scientist, than an unsatisfied scientist whos forced to divorce his deep set childhood beliefs as superstitions. Isnt it also a breach of privacy to question every step that the scientist takes and to dog him with questions of morality and hypocrisy at each stage. As long his beliefs or feelings dont affect his work i believe he is at liberty to do as he wishes. None of us are immune to the disease of hypocrisy and scientists are as human as any of the rest of mankind.

What further incarcerates me is the fact that by default all such practises are considered primitive and non scientific when science cannot explain gravity with conviction. I am not saying science is wrong or should not be followed, i am merely trying to point out that science still has miles to go and practises such as the ones practised by the indians did have a fair amount of scientific backing. Its merely unfortunate that its been overlooked and given the tag of superstition.

Its sadder to recall that these are the very people who will then be frogmarching our technolgies as junk and behind the back selling patents to the western companies. Its a sad state that we as a populous dont recognise scientific works of the early indians and other countries are patenting whats possibly meant to be open source.

Trying to think I am not quite certain why i attempted it, but then it possibly passes off as one of the crazy adventures of life which you do to savour the end and hate the act. I most certainly did not enjoy the night i lost myself on Gauribidanur main road with Deepak on a bike. It must be a folly to have ventured but it was fun nevertheless.

It all started on a bright sunny evening when the BAS gang decided to go star hopping to hosahalli, let me first tell ya what hosahalli is, in kannada it means new village, to BAS it transaltes alternately to heaven, comets, night outs and even sleep in the tent evenings . So we normally leave typically in the afternoon reach before the sun sets like dracula was chasing us and set up our equipment to star gaze. Usually we all go by some rickety bus where amar fascinates about the village belles and we about how to dupe amar away from the scope. Unlike our usual antics this time we  decided to make a romp on our own vehicles, deepak offered to hitch me on his bike.

So we set out on an empty stomach and most importantly I did not have single warm cloth on me and it was a good 17 degrees and we were ripping at over 120 on a Pulsar. I dont know whether it was the wind or the chill or the ramblings we had i missed the usual detour to hosahalli and went zipping past right to the gauribidanur main road. Considering the fact that it was about 9 in the night we were utterly clueless, it was only after  we did a couple of ups and downs that we realised we had grossly missed the route.

Just the 2 of us alone at about 1030 we reached amirpur, which is almost close to the route to anantpur. We were still ripping then we decidedn enough was enough, phones were not reachable and the other guys had reached hosahalli and started dinner, we were still hungry and lost. We bravely took into amirpur and most defienitely the dogs did not take too kindly to us. I almost thought that the dog must be a forest spirit as it bared its fangs and flounced at our feet. We drifted through the village and reached a thin jungle, out came the GPS and coordinates were keyed in. LO and behold we were less than 3 km from Hosahalli!!!! We managed to execute the bumps and reach the village from where we took the help of the instri to reach the school. All thanks to the GPS.

Next time on im determined to carry a GPS wherever i go!!

It was fun

Typically am not much of a city travelophile, I d rather settle down to an afternoon of reading or catch a movie in a theatre than roam an MG road or a Brigade road, of course its a different thing if I have to look for a book or catch up with friends, its at these times taht the woe of bangalore traffic hits one like a wave of grief

I am not going to crib about traffic, every growing city needs to contend with it, come on whats the big deal if it takes you 45 minutes to get about 10km after all the roads are just muddled with potholes and buses really think footpaths are alternate traffic lanes. What I am really going to crib about are the two opposite sides of the same coin, pedestrians and the car-toting-bike-hopping yuppies.

Ok to be honest I am mostly a pedestrian and should be technically on the side of the two legged sorry trudglers, its only when i go to the other end of the spectrum that the horror of facing them gets real. Mostly its the indecision that freaks me out, you would be like doing 40 on a normal highway and suddenly little miss muffin would pop up in the middle of the road and you’d think she’s planning to cross, slow down, down ur gear only to realise the miss is actually trying to read the board across the street. Lady!! thats a bike/car trying his best to face the rising fuel prices, have a little consideration. Else you’d see the guy bringing his family along, all members trailing with a speed inversely proportional to the height.I wonder if the population explosion was due to the apathy of the motorists, or is the man slyly hinting me to help his family planning !!!!

Ok you say, the pedestrians are fools lets see you justify the motorists, the horror story is even worse. I remember in Shivaji nagar, back from a tiring day in college full of torrid labs and scowling lecturers, i’m trying to cross the road,atta boy our friendly neighbourhood autoanna walks right into you, er sorry drives right into you. Ok! so you need sawari, no issues do you wanna force me to go to the hospital!! So auto anna gives u a dirty scowl, and u promptly return it, come on how can you not return what you receive.One crosses a two lane road with traffic at bumper to bumper, you look only one side when you cross? WRONG! Blore-traffic-frustration rule number one states you need to have 360 degree vision and the agility of a mountain cheetah. Chances are that that you will be run over by a speeding hamara Bajaj.

All said and done tripping bangalore is like a roller coaster ride with no seat belts and is definitely not an adventure for the faint hearted like myself, who would rather prefer a quite afternoon trekking the sahyadris or swishing in waterfalls, sorry sirre its too much of a work out on ones heart

Carl Sagan is quite a genius, it quite intrigued me as i read the Cosmos on the way to office, it seemed to me that Carl knew a lot more of human history than God himself. To start with he believes that the world does not exist beyond Greece, oh for the uninitiated Carl Sagan is an astronomer with a magnum opus of Cosmos to his credit and the book has the first few chapters where he rambles on about history of astronomy. I cant claim i have too much of knowledge of the Greeks or their culture, however what Carl taught me in cosmos is almost unforgettable.

Revelation 1: Greeks discovered astronomy, strange when there is a document called the Surya Siddanta which talks about the motions of planets around the Sun, it obviously talks about the zodiac. Simple logic follows up that astronomy moved to greece from India

Revelation 2: Sweet Beet was invented in Greece in the 17th Century, South India had the sweet beet dish right from the Cholas, which is way before the 17th Century.

Revelation 3: All cultures braced the geocentric cult, To my knowledge the jyotisha vedanga talks about the sun being the center of the attraction and all planets are given secondary position, besides even everyday shlokas emphasise the central identity of the Sun God

I am amazed that a world renowned astronomer like Sagan could make glaring errors such as these, pretty obviously like most of the west he chooses to ignore many of the excellent works of astronomy in the far East. As if to redeem himself, he does include a line or two about the superstitious Chinese astrologers who sold astronomy to the kings, well he must quite have forgotten that the first  documented supernova setting up the crab nebula was discovered by a chinese astronomer !!

From what I see I cannot fathom how Sagan could have been so myopic and miss out pretty clear evidences, worse still the series is also an hit and the book is claimed to be one of the masterpieces is astronomy.

This was a term I came across on a documentary in Discovery Channel about comets. It seems interesting, even a little romantic, to think that intelligent life on earth began with a bang. A bang caused by a comet crashing into the planet dominated by reptiles and generally not so intelligent creatures. Understandably the crater had been located (somewhere in Arizona I think) and reams of research and material about how the oxygen molecules were formed yak yak etc were written, stored, archived even documented as a story. Now suddenly a group of astronomers/ archeologists pop up to say that guys this has been known for years and what’s more we are on course to get struck again. So now all the science fraternity has really been hit, the theory even gets a name, The Shiva Hypothesis.

Technically speaking, Shiva is the God of destruction in Hindu mythology. Philosophy calls him by various names Kala,Mahadeva, Omakaranatha etc. So what’s the connection between this multifaceted God of Aryan origin to a comet crashing into earth 30 million years ago. As it happens Shiva Mahapurana one of the 18 Puranas or great epics of Indian literature quite surreptiously predicts the change over from life to Death in the pralaya or great Dissolution and a restart of life Scientists now predict that there will be a comet hit on Earth every 30 million years, and it will result in the large scale destruction of life reminiscent of the one that blew up Dino and gang. Paradoxically it would also result in the birth of a new generation of species whose genes will immutably modified by the explosion

Why this would happen, is not very clearly explained. One explanation is as the galaxy spirals and revolves around itself, the Solar system itself wobbles and darts in and out of the spiral arms thereby constantly changing its position in the milky way (don’t ask me how they arrived at this brilliant theory, I have no clue). So it constantly puts itself in the path of some stellar traveler, who happens to find earth a very likely crash site and happily collides with the planet.

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Here’s the take, a movie about a larger than life spot boy, his larger than life love for the heroine femme fatale, the evil villain, burning sets a rebirth and the inevitable, obviously I would not tell you that the rest is inspired from Karzthe blockbuster starring Rishi Kapoor.

So welcome to the world of Om Shanti and Om , well quite literally actually, though a character called Sandhya does flit in and out of the picture.Farah Khan is known for her candy floss entertainers to have a better word to describe the mindless mayhem that he movies are, but this one positively assumes that the audience is made of utter dudder head waiting to lap her up. Quite unsurprisingly it has a lot of everything, action, drama, some unfathomable pun and some good technical cliches.

The movie starts off in RC studios in the hinterland of Mumbai, the usual 70’s set up, quite impressive in its overall look, though a touch of realism could have been attempted, nevertheless quite livable. We have Om (shah rukh) and his effervescent friend Pappu (shreyas) the spot boys who dream big. There is also an overtly filmy ma in Kirron Kher and of course the gorgeous Shantipriya (deepika). So Om is desperately in love with Shanti and even speaks to her poster!! Then in a twist of fate (as predictable as the taste of maggi noodles made by a cooking newbie)he dramatically saves her from a fire on the sets. He wins himself a friend and a self confessed fan. There are some bizzare attempts at comedy when he tries to pose as a famous south Indian hero to impress the gal. So then the story movies(ok crawls) to the villan, Mukesh, a famous producer and the un proclaimed husband of Shanti and also the uintended father of her child. After a showdown between husband and wife in the make up room( quite predictably seen by Om) he agrees to bestow the rights she deserves, after the movie he is making is completed, Om Shanti Om!!!

Ok, so here is pur hero hear broken and weeping(yes buckets of tears!!) . When he again manages to fall into the sets of Om shanti Om, quite coincidentally of course. He watches his love being burnt to death by the evil producer(Did Farah have a nexus with the petroleum industry!!!). So our hero tries to save her, notwithstanding the pummeling he gets from a couple of goons deputed by the bad man , who for some weird reason leave him unconscious near the burning sets. Of course we have by now learnt not to question the bizarre logic.
She is burnt alive on the sets and Om is cast away half dead(blasted away by the raging fire) and knocked over by a car and eventually dies in hospital!! Then, well, quite unpredictably he is reborn (pun intended), in the house of the man who knocked him over and who also happens to be a bankable star of the day!!

what happens next is a typical pot broiler as interesting as the fly floating in soup. So Om is reborn as Om (?) with a mark of Om on his hand(recollect the other Om had a tattoo of Om on his hand) a la harry Potter goes through paroxysms of hindsight and even manages to remember his past as vividly as you can see his face!!

Now the movie does a backflip , an interesting turn as Mukesh returns from the US all grey and stinking rich. He wants to make a movie with Om who is a great star in todays world. So om now wants to remake Om shanti Om. At this point I stop the narrative, it gets too boring to recount, so go ahead and watch the movie if not for the excellent historonics of shah rukh then at least for the excellent camera work, a couple of foot tapping songs, the gorgeous deepika Padukone in the second half and a very endearing Kirron Kher