déjà bro

A promo (courtesy: PFC) is out for Onir's next directorial venture Sorry Bhai. The film's already got enough press as the return vehicle (or one of the release vehicles) of Chitrangda Singh. Although lyricist Amitabh Varma returns, the music director this time around is Gaurav Dayal. The song on the promo is a KK song naa jaane khoye kahaa.N. It's a dulcet melody with gentle orchestration that begins as an echo of Vivek Philip's work for My Brother Nikhil, but the tune develops into a set of melodic fragments that sound so much like Ballo on Rabbi Shergill's new album Avengi Ja Nahin. Coincidence, something more, anyone?

it makes me wonder

If I call you because I'm unable to connect to the Internet, why do you have automated messages telling me to go to your support website for troubleshooting tips? Is there a secret avenue to the Internet when those merry lights on the modem aren't blinking (a mainstream way of telling me that there's no way I'm getting online)?

Did Asha Bhosle sing any more kar le pyaar kar le songs besides one for Kalyanji-Anandji in Sachaa Jhutha (worried about that spelling? go sue the namers of the film) and the unofficially-tuned-by-RDB S D Burman song in Talaash? And that Talaash song seems to contain the seeds of mai.nne dil abhii diyaa nahii.n from The Train, the soundtrack that marked the entry into Bollywood of the music company formerly known as Polydor (it since became PolyGram which became MIL which became Universal).

How can you sleep at night by using a euphemism like rightsizing to describe a layoff? Even euphemisms should have their limits.

the records of ultra-violet rule

A ghastly spelling like Yuvvraaj at least ensures that you can get your own domain (unless some challenged speller got there first for entirely different reasons). Ghai's next plunge features a lot of firsts. This is his first film with Gulzar as the lyricist. This is also his first film featuring Salman Khan and his first film featuring Mithun Chakraborty. Unless you count their cameos in the SRK vehicle Om Shanti Om (right; that song in Naseeb upset the delicate balance of connections back then too). It's also his first film featuring Zayed Khan. Now that's something. You've really got something stinking in your stable to get the likes of that form of life on the roster. First film to feature Katrina Kaif too. Does that even count as a record? The waif's a hit thanks to being great stuff to look at, figuring in a ton of brain-dead box office busters (Race, Singh is Kiing) and being in the news for being the muse of the beefiest cake in town. Choosing the cello as her instrument of choice is but an obvious move to attempt to steal the thunder of Celina Jaitley's bikini-clad violin stunt in Janasheen. For the sheer low coefficient of clothing, Ms. Jaitley might still emerge (no pun intended) the winner.

The still above offers some hints at what lies in store in Ghai's bloated opus. Salman Khan looks like he's blind; Anil Kapoor can't read; that old dame can't play and lassie can't figure out what she's doing in the frame. Meanwhile, the production design looks on. As a parting note, I believe the pronunciation of the film's strangely spelled name should be "U V Raaj" which adds a nice South Indian touch to the proceedings in addition to a certain unintentional nod to physics. Then again, UV rays are not visible to the human eye and this is clearly analogous to the film's merits. Over-exposure to UV rays causes sunburn; another analogy is plain to see. This spelling also fortifies a belief that Ghai is working on a light trilogy. After Black and White and UV Rays (it's not hard to go from Raaj to Rays), one wonders what the "showman" will come up with next. Yellow Mein Hari Piya?

local boo

Creative Loafing, the generous rag of witty riches, has filed for Chapter 11. This isn't as newsworthy as the mess in Wall Street (in which taxpayers lose their money while the executives of the bailed-out AIG partied at St. Regis Resort). Meanwhile, one of those space-filling op-eds on the state of MARTA shows up in the AJC. Insufficient funding and unfair restrictions. Blah blah. The piece doesn't talk about the complete lack of monetary input from the County of Cobb to MARTA, despite the progressive presence of MARTA buses at Cumberland Mall (especially on Sundays when the good ol' boys governing Cobb deemed it fit to shut CCT down). The presidential candidates, meanwhile, continue to "debate" offering more text that should be fed through text retrieval engines -- heck! build a tag cloud -- instead of really promising anything useful. It's the two Joes (Sixpack and Plumber) at one end and "despite being articulate he seems to have that cocky air that cost Al Gore the election to the friendly neighbourhood apocalypse." All they say is like some of those papers you study in graduate school or like abstract poetry -- you make your own meanings; they are essentially saying what you want them to say. They ain't talkin' nothin' that'd help me. Streamline the management of work permits and work visas. Fix your data management systems so that the DHS, USCIS, IRS and SSA resemble a homogeneous governing ecosystem instead of a tragically fractured version of Babel. Project Mayhem makes more sense than any of the drivel about "fixing" health care. Stop running it as a business. Same thing for this gasoline "crisis." It's all hopeless. Everything's a business. That rickshaw driver back home asking for "half return" ain't got a thing on governing bodies that just don't understand the importance of transit in resolving a problem of consumption. Oh well.

the oven of promise

The Nose has returned to pay tribute to one of the finest paeans to the feathered kind ever written in Bollywood, you are my chicken fry with a track off the forthcoming Karzzzz. The song's called Tandoori Nights; it must not be confused with that TV show featuring Saeed Jaffrey and it also holds no water to that Nagesh Kukunoor project called Tandoor that's seemingly stuck in development hell. This is not your average Chicken Tikkarzzzz ladies and gentlemen; this is not a patch in the slightest on the genius of the bejewelled Bappi. This is a predictably nasal earworm boasting nothing special. Sameer's lyrics, however, are quite promising (notice how he uses the title to fill in the creative gaps) right from the intoxicating mukha.Daa riffing in tribute to Anand Bakshi's antics in his collaborations with Viju Shah, even boasting a quote from a soul hit; Does anyone know where that short riff came from? I know I've heard it somewhere but the brain's a-baking right now:

the nose
(tak ta na na na (tandoori nights) * 3) * 2
samaa sharaabii dono jahaa.N sharaabii rut rawaa sharaabii diladaar ve
hawaaa sharaabii terii adaa sharaabii ye fizaa sharaabii diladaar ve

sunidhi
tanhaa tanhaa hai dil, tanha ##tandoori nights##
if loving you is wrong, I dont wanna be right

the nose
rabbaa rabbaa merii jaan jale (jale (jale (jale)))

sunidhi
ta ta na na na (tandoori nights) * 3

the nose
tere bin, tere bin merii jaan jale (jale (jale (jale)))


sunidhi
ta ta na na na (tandoori nights) * 3

both
(ta ta na na na (tandoori nights) * 3) * 2