lanka: good ideas don't go all the way

Lanka opens with a young doctor (Tia Bajpai) who, after treating a wife beaten up by her husband, goes berserk and treats the husband to a mixture of rants and punches. Evidently, she has done this before and is now forced to take a leave of absence to cool off. It's a very heavy-handed sequence delivered with camera setups, staging and dialogue that make you wince. These are the awkward trappings that often mar the product of low-budget films with good ideas and a crew with barely functional chops and not enough inspiration. Back at her house, this young doctor looks out at the city and, with a very stilted waxing inner voiceover starts the familiar journey into a flashback as she pens the story that forms the core of this film. You then see the first glimpse of Manoj Bajpayee, the villain of the piece and the reason you are crossing your fingers for this film.

Bajpayee's character Jaswant Sisodiya is the big powerful baddie in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. Our heroine Anju is here because her father is the Chief Medical Officer. Unfortunately Anju is also Sisodiya's keep and the family cannot escape thanks to constant guard by Sisodiya's men. All this sets the stage for a saviour -- our hero, chhoTe (Arjan Bajwa). Sisodiya dotes on chhoTe, because he is in debt to chhoTe's father, who cared for him and even went to fatal blows for him. chhoTe also happens to be rather hot-headed and this helps us with the obligatory fight sequences.

The fight sequences are not the only familiar element from mainstream cinema that you get. There's also the item song and the song to adorn the burgeoning of love (the lovely shiit lahar). Mercifully, except for the item song nobody else indulges in on-screen lip synching.

It's a pity then that Bajpayee still does not get enough of his due from the script. We all know how this is going to end and we are just waiting for things to unfold before the flashback ends. Yet director Maqbool Khan does not take advantage of the film's running time to explore our primary characters, and Sisodiya in particular. We always tend to see Sisodiya in the context of other players. It is to Bajpayee's credit, however, that even in such scenes where his character is likely to be lost in broad strokes, we get hints that there's more to Sisodiya than the clichés would have you believe. We can see that he cares for chhoTe; we never see him behave like a violent thug exercising his power and yet his love for Anju has taken ugly proportions. It's an unhealthy possessiveness. The impassioned retort near the end of the film gives us a chance to see what makes Sisodiya tick, but unfortunately it's two hours too late. You only have to look at Ronit Roy in Udaan for an example of how to do such a "bad" character right. Someone like Vikramaditya Motwane is what Bajpayee needs and not the slumming in Inteqam, the exploitative mess of Jaago, the regressive drama of Swami or the futility of an enterprise like this.

snip-paste

Roger Ebert ends his review of The Raven with

The use of sensational effects may be a temptation for a director like James McTeigue, whose first feature, "V for Vendetta" (2005), was actually pretty good. They create a problem of proportion for a period film like this, where personality and atmosphere should create suspense; extreme violence is unnecessary, although I realize that at least some Friday-night moviegoers will be hoping for it and have only a vague notion of when 1849 might have been.

I quit the Friday Night Movie Club years ago. Morning shows and matinees are more rewarding. There's also a second-run theatre hereabouts that I can visit to get a regular fix of the experience of "going to the cinema" -- and it also helps me wash away the sterile experience of the mainstream chains.

ishaqzaadev.d

I never could warm up to Ishaqzaade's soundtrack. I always found myself listening to Housefull 2 (the eminently silly and yet catchy papa to band bajaaye.n, the pointless Hinglish of Know and Now and anaarakalii Disco chalii, the latest edition in the line of souped-up street item songs. Ayushmann's version of paaNii daa ra.ng from Vicky Donor kept me on that soundtrack. But there was nothing to keep me on Ishaqzaade. And then today morning, I made a smooth segue from Ishaqzaade's title song into another Amit Trivedi song, paradesii (JR has a nice post about it) from Dev.D. Now I can see myself just going back to Dev.D. I didn't even mind Aisha's soundtrack, which didn't have much of Trivedi's trademark rocksy texture on its songs (I love the programmed loop on the title song and the fusion on gal miTThii miTThii bol). I hope Ishaqzaade's an anomaly. I await Trivedi's next. I can survive on an IV drip of his past ouevre till then.

write as I say

Sudarshan points me to a superior display of mondegreens (yes, you've seen the written word hereabouts before). The writer of this post was either sincerely trying to generate a pot of laughs or completely clueless (and thus armed, uninformed and completely hilarious).

the future of coding practices: bad is good

When you run your searches using your favourite search engine, not all the results ranking high are useful, unbiased or even accurate. Sometimes you need bias to understand what most people think is a good idea. Sometimes, even with bias, it's often difficult to figure out that what most people do is a rather bad way to do things. So you find yourself going to portals like TheServerSide and StackOverflow to get answers that are reasonably sane, answers that you can trust (with a good degree of confidence). Of course, you also stay abreast of articles posted in places like DeveloperWorks, Java.net, JavaLobby and Dzone.

A post came up on dzone a few days ago and it portends a dark future for sensible software engineering.

It's laced with idioms (Though .. but still) that are now getting increasingly common in IT writing thanks to the growing number of people from Patil's Estate, who are able to churn out code like a cow with a bad stomach churns out you-know-what, but never really bothered to get competent in the department of technical writing (or perhaps -- the horror -- even writing itself).

And then we have egregious advice that, one hopes, anyone with a modicum of common sense will ignore. Consider a few samples:

Add comments for each ending block so that it is clear which code block is going to end

Clearly, this gentleman does not use an IDE.

Comment out the code which could be reused in future but could not be implemented this time

Surely this writer has either never used version control or uses it without really understanding what purpose it serves.

The comments on the post are encouraging -- here's hoping that this is not a trend and just an aberration.

abrash resurfaces: at valve

After Michael Abrash (who's he, you ask? click me) quit Id Software, I lost track of him until this post shows up on Hacker News. He covers a lot of stuff -- the past, the connection Valve had with id Software and company culture. It's good to see Abrash back online and if you're following things like Google's Project Glass, you might even consider following what Valve is up to.

trailer trash

Department: RGV returns with the Big B, ropes in Sanjay Dutt, tosses in the familiar shots and crazy Dutch angles, drums up the throbbing tropes of background music and gives you a vaguely satisfying dish of interesting elements that, unfortunately, you know too well as broad stereotypes go. It's like Tolkien writing another edition in the LOTR soap. One wonders: can RGV break out of the genre he created or is he a victim of his own sandbox?

Rowdy Rathore: annoying slow motion, cars rising vertically after an explosion has hit their underparts, people rotating in the air after being punched with a feathery touch, top shots zooming into desii Busby Berkeley setups, furiously infectious South Indian percussive music. Despite the annoying presence of Akshay Kumar (was the moustache the only creative element of this enterprise?), this smells like another remake of a South Indian hit. Is it? Check. Did they get a South Indian director to direct this? Check. What's the point? Despite the poster art and credits paying homage to the pulp of yore, there's nothing but noise here. Go watch a Michael Bay film instead.

Shanghai: I've watched Z just once and my memory is dim, except that I remember liking the film a lot and regretting not knowing enough about politics to truly appreciate it. Dibakar Banerjee transplants the source novel by Vassilis Vassilikos to India and this trailer only offers a great portend. It's nicely edited, shows off some great makeup, promises some good character work (imagine not being irritated by Emraan Hashmi!) and some welcome familiar faces of yore (Farooque Sheikh!). Then there's Vishal-Shekhar's first soundtrack for the talented Mr. Banerjee. Where's the credit for the lyrics? Why not include Khosla ka Ghosla in his credits? The red on black titles are strangely familiar. But सोने की चिड़िया / dengue malaria is enough to make me await the soundtrack. Bring it on!

blunderfly

blunder is an anagram of brundle. Who knew. Who's Brundle, you ask? Seth Brundle. Don't you remember the eccentric scientist who decided, under the influence of alcohol and fear, to use himself as a guinea pig for his Telepods and was transformed into a genetic hybrid of man and fly?

The Fly comes to the South Asian cinematic woods as Eega (Telugu for fly) courtesy director S. S. Rajamouli. Is this a tribute to Chitti and the mosquito in Sivaji? Who knows?

The trailer tells us more. Lover boy gets snuffed out only to return as ... a computer-generated fly with bulbous red eyes. If bullets moving in bullet time, video-game style chases, slowed-down crashes of vehicles defying physics and money wasted on rather obvious computer graphics is what tickles your spine, look for further than this ambitious venture of dipteran proportions. Don't swat it. Just watch it.

the machine! it spoke to me

and it said

<nativehr>0x80131904</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: <nativehr>0x80131904</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:

[COMException (0x80131904): <nativehr>0x80131904</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>] Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.GetFileAndMetaInfo(String bstrUrl, Byte bPageView, Byte bPageMode, Byte bGetBuildDependencySet, String bstrCurrentFolderUrl, Int32 iRequestVersion, Boolean& pbCanCustomizePages, Boolean& pbCanPersonalizeWebParts, Boolean& pbCanAddDeleteWebParts, Boolean& pbGhostedDocument, Boolean& pbDefaultToPersonal, Boolean& pbIsWebWelcomePage, String& pbstrSiteRoot, Guid& pgSiteId, UInt32& pdwVersion, String& pbstrTimeLastModified, String& pbstrContent, Byte& pVerGhostedSetupPath, UInt32& pdwPartCount, Object& pvarMetaData, Object& pvarMultipleMeetingDoclibRootFolders, String& pbstrRedirectUrl, Boolean& pbObjectIsList, Guid& pgListId, UInt32& pdwItemId, Int64& pllListFlags, Boolean& pbAccessDenied, Guid& pgDocid, Byte& piLevel, UInt64& ppermMask, Object& pvarBuildDependencySet, UInt32& pdwNumBuildDependencies, Object& pvarBuildDependencies, String& pbstrFolderUrl, String& pbstrContentTypeOrder) +0
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetFileAndMetaInfo(String bstrUrl, Byte bPageView, Byte bPageMode, Byte bGetBuildDependencySet, String bstrCurrentFolderUrl, Int32 iRequestVersion, Boolean& pbCanCustomizePages, Boolean& pbCanPersonalizeWebParts, Boolean& pbCanAddDeleteWebParts, Boolean& pbGhostedDocument, Boolean& pbDefaultToPersonal, Boolean& pbIsWebWelcomePage, String& pbstrSiteRoot, Guid& pgSiteId, UInt32& pdwVersion, String& pbstrTimeLastModified, String& pbstrContent, Byte& pVerGhostedSetupPath, UInt32& pdwPartCount, Object& pvarMetaData, Object& pvarMultipleMeetingDoclibRootFolders, String& pbstrRedirectUrl, Boolean& pbObjectIsList, Guid& pgListId, UInt32& pdwItemId, Int64& pllListFlags, Boolean& pbAccessDenied, Guid& pgDocid, Byte& piLevel, UInt64& ppermMask, Object& pvarBuildDependencySet, UInt32& pdwNumBuildDependencies, Object& pvarBuildDependencies, String& pbstrFolderUrl, String& pbstrContentTypeOrder) +589
[SPException]
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleComException(COMException comEx) +27698978
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetFileAndMetaInfo(String bstrUrl, Byte bPageView, Byte bPageMode, Byte bGetBuildDependencySet, String bstrCurrentFolderUrl, Int32 iRequestVersion, Boolean& pbCanCustomizePages, Boolean& pbCanPersonalizeWebParts, Boolean& pbCanAddDeleteWebParts, Boolean& pbGhostedDocument, Boolean& pbDefaultToPersonal, Boolean& pbIsWebWelcomePage, String& pbstrSiteRoot, Guid& pgSiteId, UInt32& pdwVersion, String& pbstrTimeLastModified, String& pbstrContent, Byte& pVerGhostedSetupPath, UInt32& pdwPartCount, Object& pvarMetaData, Object& pvarMultipleMeetingDoclibRootFolders, String& pbstrRedirectUrl, Boolean& pbObjectIsList, Guid& pgListId, UInt32& pdwItemId, Int64& pllListFlags, Boolean& pbAccessDenied, Guid& pgDocid, Byte& piLevel, UInt64& ppermMask, Object& pvarBuildDependencySet, UInt32& pdwNumBuildDependencies, Object& pvarBuildDependencies, String& pbstrFolderUrl, String& pbstrContentTypeOrder) +28077583
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.GetWebPartPageContent(Uri pageUrl, Int32 pageVersion, PageView requestedView, HttpContext context, Boolean forRender, Boolean includeHidden, Boolean mainFileRequest, Boolean fetchDependencyInformation, Boolean& ghostedPage, Byte& verGhostedPage, String& siteRoot, Guid& siteId, Int64& bytes, Guid& docId, UInt32& docVersion, String& timeLastModified, Byte& level, Object& buildDependencySetData, UInt32& dependencyCount, Object& buildDependencies, SPWebPartCollectionInitialState& initialState, Object& oMultipleMeetingDoclibRootFolders, String& redirectUrl, Boolean& ObjectIsList, Guid& listId) +1750
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModuleData.FetchWebPartPageInformationForInit(HttpContext context, SPWeb spweb, Boolean mainFileRequest, String path, Boolean impersonate, Boolean& fGhostedPage, Byte& verGhostedPage, Guid& docId, UInt32& docVersion, String& timeLastModified, SPFileLevel& spLevel, String& masterPageUrl, String& customMasterPageUrl, String& webUrl, String& siteUrl, Guid& siteId, Object& buildDependencySetData, SPWebPartCollectionInitialState& initialState, String& siteRoot, String& redirectUrl, Object& oMultipleMeetingDoclibRootFolders, Boolean& objectIsList, Guid& listId, Int64& bytes) +26593489
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModuleData.GetFileForRequest(HttpContext context, SPWeb web, Boolean exclusion, String virtualPath) +608
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModule.InitContextWeb(HttpContext context, SPWeb web) +132
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SPControl.SPWebEnsureSPControl(HttpContext context) +564
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModule.GetContextWeb(HttpContext context) +27
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModule.PostResolveRequestCacheHandler(Object oSender, EventArgs ea) +918
System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +80
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +171

W
T
F
!!

linguistikilling

Suresh Gopi and Mammootty team up together screams the headline of yet another slideshow from Rediff.com. Team up together? As opposed to teaming up separately?

genre ghosh

Sujoy Ghosh's pulpy compact thriller Kahaani makes up for all the leaps of faith in narrative and character with a confident engaging pace, great performances and a wonderful milieu. It is heartening to see more films that respect the importance of characters and locations. Not as ambitious as Home Delivery (really, I am not kidding; go watch that film again), this film pays what might be the first diegetic tribute to the late R. D. Burman: while Jhankaar Beats was all about fans of the Sultan of Song, this film takes advantage of being set in the city of Calcutta and drenches the background with one Pancham tune after another (tere binaa jiyaa jaaye naa from Ghar, tuu meraa kyaa laage from Oonche Log, lekar ham diiwaanaa dil from Hum Kisise Kum Nahin, jethe jethe pothe and the Bengali versions of aaj kii raat (Jagir), jiivan ke har mo.D pe, apane pyaar ke, jaan-e-jaa.N (Jawani Diwani)). Although this is a Vidya Balan vehicle (and deservedly so), Sujoy Ghosh gives us supporting characters, who as in Kaminey, are just as memorable (or perhaps more): Parambrata Chatterjee's Rana, Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Khan, the manager of the Mona Lisa Guest House, Ridhi Sen as Polut the little kid at the Mona Lisa Guest House (move over Shekhar Kapur; Sujoy Ghosh is here to join Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar as a director who works well with children) and, of course, Saswata Chatterjee as Bob Biswas, who, unsurprisingly, has developed a following of his own. This is the most realistic hired gun you will ever see in a long time. Aside from a few moments that felt false (the sequence about a person having two names seemed like an uncomfortable take instead of a scene that fit well) and some damage to character development by the ending, I must confess I had a good time right from Usha Uthup's voice for the misleading song on the opening credits to the role of the city in the narrative to the Chekhovian guns on display (if you pay very close attention). Way to Ghosh!

it all comes down to money

Pay $100 and you can now skip all the security theatre that has made flying so painful. With this new development, the TSA has finally reached the next stage in its evolution to the eventual state of all things that thrive in the US of A: when everything crumbles, cookiewise, the dead presidents are all that matter. The rule of thumb was: Introduce impediment and then offer people the option to pay an additional amount to make it go away. See also: the word extortion.

the basis for inevitable linguish

I have ranted (as, I am sure, have countless others) about the rise of crapspeak and the decline of simple lucid conversation and writing. A fresh exhibit today not only underscores my concern but also makes me shudder at the inevitable consequences -- soon people will not understand why they are using an idiom that should never have been allowed to thrive.

Ask your favourite browser to open up this page and then scroll down to comment #34. I quote:

At least you're only riled up on a daily basis. It could be worse: it could be every day!

Let us assume that this sentence appears exactly as it was meant to be (no typos, no missing words). We must also assume that the person responsible for this comment was not mocking the example of crapspeak. What we have then is the failure to comprehend that on a daily basis was an unfortunately more verbose egregious alternative to the much simpler and shorter every day.

This is tragic. Very tragic.

connelly tosses in another cinematic reference

But without challenging the temporal dimension. In the latest Mickey Haller novel The Fifth Witness, Connelly tosses another nod of appreciation to Matthew McConaughey's fine performance as Mickey Haller in the very watchable adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Mickey Haller book. Connelly had been very pleased with the adaptation and McConaughey's performance so this reference is no surprise. It also happens to be very current -- the film was released in March 2011 and the book was released the following month. Connelly's note of appreciation was dated November 12, 2010.

(page 115 of the hardbound edition) "One more thing," the producer said. "I was thinking of going to Matthew McConaughey with this. He'd be excellent. But who do youthink could play you?"
I [Mickey Haller] smiled at him and reached for the door handle.
"You're looking at him, Clegg."
I pulled the door closed and through the smoked glass watched the confusion spread on his face.

manneys memories

Reading an eloquent blog post from JR is how I find out that one of the defining bookstores of my life in Pune is closing down. After all these years of standing strong while chains sprung up around it. While Adidas stomped over Naaz. While Planet M came, conquered and collapsed. While Landmark appeared and crossed the street. While Crosswords sprouted and withered across the city. I am sure more happened, but all this is what I remember from my visits back to the city. The distance made a regular yet infrequent relationship with Manneys even more thin-strung.

The last time I was there (a few months ago), I still enjoyed browsing the sections generous in their selection; I am sure I would have found some gems in stacks of the discounted books. I had, however, found succour in the marvellous library sales here in the US and there was no way any bookstore back home was going to beat a box of hardbacks for $10. I still enjoyed digging through the large section devoted to Indian fiction in the English language, only because this was one of the few bookstores that did not think Shobha Dé defined the section. I still enjoyed browsing through the offerings in the entertainment section. I didn't have to reach up or squat anymore. I had grown taller over the years. The shelves also did not have as much dust as memory told me they did years ago. This was the store that I had bought my cherished copy of Hitchcock, the collection of interviews of the master by Francois Truffaut. A gift coupon (won either in a competition of some kind or in one of the games of general proficiency in school) helped, because it was an imported edition (no Eastern Economy Edition for such things).

Jaunts to various raddii stores also yielded gems of different kinds, but Manneys was one the places that I liked going if I wanted a fresh edition and not a used book.

Things have changed so much since then. Flipkart has started changing the way things work and I had found myself using Flipkart more during my last visit and refraining from buying things on impulse from Manneys (or from Crossword or Landmark, for that matter, except for a few items languishing unfairly in on a discount table). All the other chains got my attention only for the music and the movies. With the kind of product that companies like Moser Baer and the like are churning out, however, it seems more prudent and unfortunate to go seek uploaded rips and spend the money at special film festivals or second-run theatres.

But I digress.

With Manneys shutting down, we are left with just a few bastions of yore. The International Book Service near Sambhaji Bridge is one of them. Once again, it's all about the memories. For a generation that is more used to the chains and the air-conditioned inclusion of toys, music, movies and a host of other things that really have nothing to do with books, neither Manneys nor TIBS will have much to offer. The bibliophile, on the other hand, will once again find out what it means to be in a minority. You might just find yourself joining the crowd.

Thank you Mr. Mani for something that was an important part of growing up in Pune.

RMIM Puraskaar 2011: the results are out

The results for RMIM Puraskaar 2011 are out. A big round of applause to Vinay for continuing to nurture this wonderful idea. (Disclaimer: YT was on the jury this year). Take a look, vent, rave, applaud, curse and do whatever it is you'd like to do. It's all in good fun and nothing faux serious like the Filmfare Awards.

agent vinod: chor machaaye shor

A new teaser is out for Agent Vinod and this one is handled by the Bollywood machine. T-Series stamps its logo in the most innocuous top right corner on every single frame so that when you blink after the teaser, you will see the logo in the darkness. Good job, morons. We get a rehash of items we have already seen and relished in the first trailer and then a wave of déjà vu rises as the club song hits us. A set that looks nice and is lit well cannot elevate the spirits already dampened by the customary scantily-clad lass covering her knockers with a low-cut pair of disco ball shoulder-boulder holsters, sashaying away and tossing lusty looks at the camera (or our hero, or both). The annoying voice of Neeraj Shridhar (as trademarked by Pritam, who, unfortunately, is the music director for the film) stomps the rusty skewer even deeper. And then your jaw drops. You recognise the melody that all the male posturing, the female wailing, the loud electronic beats have been trying to hide. It's Boney M's Rasputin. Pritam's back to his old tricks. No wonder the song's called Steal the Night. A little Googling tells you that this time Pritam's got the official stamp of approval. It's called "buying the rights":

"We have taken the rights of Boney M's Rasputin. However, our song is based more on the Serbian folk song Ruse Kose Curo Imas. Even Rasputin draws inspiration from this song. A Turkish folk song Uskudar'a Gider Iken also has the same melody. Famous Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam's song Shukno Paatar Noopur Paaye is also based on this folk tune."

The short version: hey, look I've been inspired by so many things and have created a wholesome earful by blending my influences so well. The other short version: Remember how Anu Malik played five songs based on Raag Shivaranjani to counter the accusation that he was a copycat? This is my version.

If this is a sign of times to come, I am worried. I just hope that video was just a piece of promotional fluff and won't feature in the final film in whole. I don't mind a diegetic appearance (because Agent Vinod seems to be busy with other things during the song).

it's vinod now, not johnny

(notes on the first trailer for Sriram Raghavan's next film Agent Vinod)

Trust Sriram Raghavan to modestly refer to his own work in another trailer loaded with references to old Bollywood. The trailer starts off with the same question that kicked off the teaser for his last film, Johnny Gaddaar. A series of quick cuts introduce you to some promising action sequences and Raghavan keeps returning to the central joke of the trailer: the name of Saif Ali Khan's character.

The first name he throws is Freddie Khambatta (spelling?). Does anyone know if this is just an ingenious invention, a tribute to some character in some obscure cult film of yore, a portmanteau to Freddie Mercury and Persis Khambatta (Bambai Raat ki Baahon Mein, Star Trek: The Motion Picture), a reference to Farrokh Khambata the chef or a nod to a real person?

The second name he reveals with another smirk is Mahendar Sandhu. Of course we fans know that he's referring to the actor who played the original Agent Vinod.

Then it's time for a tribute to Manmohan Desai (and obviously not to that shamefully bad rip-off from 2006).

The last name is the closest we get to the truth (or is it the truth?). Vinod Khanna. Priceless.

They could have done without the sound of the fireball from Doom when we see the logo and title, but that's a minor quibble for the first of (hopefully) many enticing breadcrumbs to a film that had its genesis in 2007!

I wonder if the next trailer is going to have that R. D. Burman classic from Kati Patang playing the background? Unfortunately, it might just grind the joke about names a bit too deep for comfort.

The worrying bits? It has Prem Chopra (yeah!), but it also has Kareena Kapoor (ugh!). The official website is not as much fun as it was for Johnny Gaddaar. It also credits Pritam as the music director -- I wish he had picked Daniel B. George (who did a fabulous job with the score of Johnny Gaddaar), Amit Trivedi or Ram Sampath. But who knows? If Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy could manage a winner with the title track of Johnny Gaddaar, Pritam might get a lucky stroke of the creative kind too.

SOPA: the first salvo

By now, many more people know about SOPA. Thanks in no small part to how Wikipedia and Google pushed the day-long blackout planned for today into the faces of their visitors. They joined online fora like Slashdot, Hacker News, Reddit, Mozilla and the EFF. This crescendo had its consequences (read this and this), two more measures of success for the wave of protest that had started rising over the last several weeks from all quarters great and small in forms both raw and polished. Thanks to Wikipedia and Google, however, more people are now wondering what the big deal is about something they really had not heard about all this time. Several people have, as recommended, contacted their representatives in government to request that they not support SOPA and PIPA. Unfortunately, not all people can be expected to do this -- being vigilant, well-informed and politically active is a combination of qualities that no government, in its present form, expects its citizens to possess. The rise in the number of people who agree that SOPA and PIPA represent something bad is encouraging and this is why the grey/black page Wikipedia redirected you to and Google's innovative logo have been very useful today.

Unfortunately, it won't end here. The people pushing SOPA and PIPA are very rich, very powerful and will push them back in with different monikers or as addenda to innocuous resolutions. They can afford to wait for a short while until all this noise dies down, before they bring the twins back. One can only hope that all the vigilant forces that were active over the past few weeks will remain vigilant, active and interested should the twins return. The average person will soon forget this.

This reminds me of the case of Arun "Demolition Man" Bhatia in Pune in 1999. With a history of having fought and exposed corruption, Bhatia began his tenure as the Municipal Commissioner by ordering the demolition of illegal construction in the city. Anyone who was around in Pune then will hardly forget the sights of extensions of familiar restaurants and the like reduced to rubble near the sidewalks. A bulldozer became more commonly seen on roads than otherwise. It took less than a week for the political machinery to kick in and he was transferred. The twist in the familiar story appeared in the form of a public interest litigation (PIL) to get him back. The middle-class denizens of Pune rose as one and achieved a democratic victory when the Bombay High Court responded to the PIL by reinstating Bhatia. I remember noting a slight rise in my faith in the power of the public, should it choose to "wake up and act." Unfortunately, things were too good to last. The machinery kicked in again and he was impeached. No denizens, no victory. What the people had done once, they could not do again. Persistence in such matters is a virtue that cannot survive without strength and encouragement. The battered could only do so much. I fear that SOPA and PIPA might triumph like that machinery. I pray that I am wrong.

PS: There is enough information online for you to understand what evils lurk behind things like SOPA and PIPA (here's a Khan Academy video, if that's what will work best for you).

Your elected representatives have done shocking things like this before. Remember when most of the libraries of Cobb County faced extinction?

any which monday but this

Tadka is an Indian restaurant in Alpharetta that shares space with Bamboo Garden (an interesting development in itself) and offers high-priced low-spiced Indian cuisine with ambience (if you go there in winter, choose the couches by the fireplace). What it lacks is just that extra dose of seasoning to elevate the dishes from bland and classy to lip-smacking delicious.

If you wanted to find out what time their location was open, however, you would see something that was either the product of creative genius or just the result of bad editing. You just have to ask yourself one question: which Monday will Tadka be open?