Dostana

I saw Dostana. I should'nt have. Infact I want my money back. Dont get me wrong, it was a decent funny watchable film. But spending 200 bucks and a quarter of a weekend to watch karan johar's wet dream come true on the big screen isnt my idea of wholesome fun. A man to man smooch, rampant male nudity, hundreds of gay innuendos and characters; Basically, watching the gala, gay goings on of these graduates of Middlesex University became too much for me to handle.

I mean compare that to a Bachna Ae Haseeno. One man, three women, 5 smooches great songs and a title song which went, 'Watch out ladies, I have come' leaving you in no doubt of the male protagonist's potency or orientation, is my idea of a good value for money movie.

In the movie Dostana, there are three main characters. John Abraham's performance can be summed up in a neat mathematical equation:

No. of acting expressions = 2/5 times the no. of abs

AB jr junior acted well and dressed badly. He makes a rather crude joke about Gabbar Singh being gay. Considering, in the same movie, your own father rode on bikes while carrying a man on his shoulders and played the mouth organ in solitude. Really AB baby, the pot should'nt call the kettle black.

And poor poor Priyanka Chopra. Barely, had she come out of the world of 'Fashion' where every man woman and table is swinging the other way, that she lands herself in a house with two gay men. No wonder she has lost faith in mankind and found solace in the arms of her man Baweja. Though one doubts, she is likely to get much quantum of it, considering he really really admires Hrithik and wants to be just like him.

Alice in Wonderland: An Excerpt

Alice is standing on a fork in the road. She speaks to Cheshire Cat. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
`--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'
`In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'
`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Cryptic Crosswords

The thing about living your life like a checklist is that the moment its over you become listless again. Nothing like a good pun to lift your spirits.

An item which has been long due on my cheklist was 'to solve The Hindu cryptic crossword'. Crossword lovers know that it is the holy grail of all crosswords available in India. The proverbial bees knees amongst the fare available in all dailies which are either borrowed from British or American newspapers or trashy, dumbed down versions like those avilable in TOI, HT, Mid Day etc. To be fair, Hindu does carry a daily quick crossword borrowed from The Guardian which is mostly fun to solve. However, one cannot really solve (fully) a foreign crossword because they are willy nilly steeped in that country's english speaking culture/history to which we are wholly removed or oblivious to.

But the Hindu cryptic crossword always presented itself like a huge challenge to me everytime I attempted it. Try as hard as I might, I could'nt make head or tail of it for so long and I have been ashamed to admit it. I started ignoring it assuming it to be some sort of an arcane, esoteric fare which a few nerds enjoyed. On one last ditch attempt I discovered the solution to one of the clues at one blog I read. The clue was 'sensuality displayed by ducks on speed(5)'. The answer is 'oomph' (go figure!) and the explanation blew my mind. And in that moment I knew that this was something I had to do. Thus this item entered my checklist immediately and perched itself on top.

Crosswords have a rich and chequered history and like most things you can read all about it on the wikipedia page. A cryptic crossword is one wherein every clue is a puzzle in itself which needs to be worked out to fill in the spaces.

Luckily I had a long break from office during Diwali which I utilised fully in reading extensively about it. And I can tell you with some degree of pride that I solved 4 of these cryptic ones of the Hindu between November 1 to 6. [Ok, fine so I couldnt solve it fully but 18 out 28 clues is no mean achievement.] So, I punched the air and patted myself on the back. I told my parents and they looked at me as if I was some kinda loony alien boy.

Sadly, good things in life dont last long. Soon I was gently reminded that this very newspaper publishes a particularly harsh cryptic on its Sunday issue every week. This one follows a different series than the weekdays one and is considerably more difficult. Cant wait to sink my teeth into one of those. Bring it on.....

Heres a quick explanation to the clue above: The actual clue is sensuality and the remaining is the hint. A duck in cricket is a 'O' and so ducks give you "OO". The word speed is often denoted by miles per hour or 'mph'. Add them together and you get 'oomph'.

Our Old isnt Gold

Mr Dominique Straus Kahn,60, received a severe reprimand recently for having an affair with a fellow economist while in office as the President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)**.

Only a few months ago, Mr Paul Wolfowitz,65, the then Head of the World Bank lost his job for having an affair with an Arab woman, who was a subordinate, while in office.


Mr Max Mosley,68, President of the F-1 sport was recently taped with five women of decidedly easy virtue in some sort of a pleasurable Nazi, Gothic ritual.

Not to mention Clinton and Sarkozy.


What is it about old men in powerful positions that makes them do seemingly foolhardy activities like having an affair while in office and then getting caught with their pants down. More so at an age when senility and sterility should hamper their virility, they seem to be at the peak of their ability. It boggles the mind as to how at their age and position they find energy and time for such shenanigans while saving the world, bombing terrorists and bailing out economies or running conglomerates at the same time.

But is this largely a phenomenon of the West or does our old, too, glitter like gold?


Well, it is hard for the powerful in India to have clandestine affairs as Ratan Tata learned recently:
rt: well, mamta I have a proposition...
mb: NA
rt: atleast lets talk things over...
mb: NO


Our PM, too, is severely criticized by the opposition for demeaning the Prime Ministers office by having a woman on top. Our current Defence Minister has the happy habit of fainting every time he sees a marching army battalion. Here he is in the warm clutches of four army men. They dont call those bofors guns scandalous for nothing.





But as you can see, even though our top honchos are trying very hard they arent really going anywhere. In fact it is believed that the historic talks between Musharraf and Vajpayee in Agra in July 2001 broke down due to some inadvertent comments made by the former on a rather touchy issue for the latter.
Prez Mushharaf: But Mr Vajpayee, Why Agra?
PM Vajpayee: I will ask for a suggestion when I need one.

However, in the midst of all the gloom, two men stood out like a shining example for our philandering politicos. Nehru was a statesman and an astute parliamentarian whos tryst was not with destiny alone.
HD Deve Gowda was well known to have slept around in office at the first available opportunity and didn't care two hoots if it made front page news.

**- I, too, was once the President of the IMF. Since I know you wouldnt believe me, here are two links...this and this. However, I would like to go on record to say that my tenure was not marred by any unsavoury incident and that I came out with my reputation clean and closet empty.
Damn.