Its Freeday today

It is a Friday and I am home because we got the day off. It is hard to describe the gleeful sadistic feeling one gets when one sits on the balcony and watches office-goers heading to work aiming to survive the day and see it through the wekeend. In Bombay, the monsoons would always guarantee a day or two off in the early two months of school. As a kid, I would look forward to that. I would with a surge of excitement follow the rains through the evening when the heavens would pour down. When time came to go to bed, I would secretly wish that the rains would continue steadily, and when I opened my eyes in the morning, I would ask my father if it had been raining all night. Ah, those times.
The pleasures of an Extra holiday, that which was not promised, not indicated, simply afforded by a quirk in the normal sequence of events makes for added happiness. As I sit here and enjoy the classic 'Snatch' having caught glimpses of a Gujarati movie for a while earlier on and enjoyed an extra cup of coffee with good breakfast to boot, I see the day progressing nicely. Of course, I couldn't resist checking my office e-mail through this morning, but that's something I do even on weekends. To cap it off, I'll be watching Kaal in the theatres tonight.

Currently watching : Snatch, Tango Charlie, Born on the 4th of July, Twisted
Currently reading : Nothing, and I want to change that
Currently listening: Kaal, Bunty and Bubli, The Best of Shakti

Dekha ek khwaab to

Select images from the annual tulip festival in Seattle



Amsterdam in Seattle? 


Pretty and Pinkie (this is for Bollywood buffs, remember the Piya Piya singers?) 


Say cheese 


I don't need to caption every photo, do I? 


Sunshine in petals 


Door tak nigaah mein tulip khile hue 


Up close and personal 


Wonder where I can find 'Airfood'? 

Byline - The Post!

Back to Bollywood, and a comment on the 'Byline' craze that has hit Hindi film-makers for quite sometime. As if we would not understand the meaning of the film's title if it is in Hindi, they attach a byline: the English translation of the title. Hold your guns though, it may not even be an exact translation, just a phrase that might mean something similar but gives a 'so-called' punch to the title. If any of you can add to the list, I'd love to hear it.

Literal Translations
Kagaar - The Edge
Hatya - The Murder
Mudda - The Issue
Jaal - The Trap
Aaghaaz - The Beginning
Bawandar - The storm
Shart - The challenge
Tezaab - The acid of love
Lakeer - Forbidden lines
Talaash - The hunt begins
Daag - The Fire (this one intrigued me the most, but Raj Kanwar's interview saved it for me. This was supposed to be Daagan the Punjabi word for fire but got reduced to Daag)

Punchlines
Baaz - A Bird in Danger
Shikaar - The musical thriller
Chupa Rustam - A musical thriller
Hatyaar - Face to face with reality
Dhaal - The battle of love against law
Taarzan - The wonder car
Jumbish - A movement - the movie
Fun - Can be dangerous sometimes
Rakht - What If You Can See the Future
Lucky - No time for love
Classic - Dance of love
Ek Rishta - The bond of love
Tezaab - A violent love story
Parinda - A violent love story
Darr - A violent love story

Word play

Look Ma, I split an
At
Om

I free my mind de-liberate-ly

I make the light bow before the rain ........ seven times over

My achievements are CAPITAL

I can bend a sentence
------------------------- at
edges its

I CcOrNeSaUtMeE what I

The circle is my full world, I preside at the center, while the world comes a full circle

Is it me playing with the words or are the words playing me?

The August English

People who have been reading this blog regularly know by now that my blog titles are far more interesting than my posts themselves :-) This time, its no different. I thought of the title, did a little jig in my mind that went something like 'Smart title Parth, keep it up' followed by a few grins.

Now that I have indeed given a title, why not write something related to it? About what you say? Of course, our August English, the royals, our past mai-baaps, and the world's current fascination. Prince Charles is getting married to Camilla Parker Bowles. Now that's a love story. Prince has fairy-tale wedding, prince sires two sons, prince loses interest in princess, prince has an affair, princess has multiple affairs, princess dies in car crash, prince is widowered, prince wins public sympathy, prince defies mom's wishes, prince fixes a date to get married, prince postpones wedding because the Pope dies, prince should be collecting the souvenirs from the cancelled wedding because people are rushing to do so, prince will eventually wed tomorrow.

That's a Bollywood potboiler right there (in fact the upcoming movie 'Ada - Will Kill U' is loosely based on this theory). My problem however is with the relevance of the completely irrelevant monarchy in the current world. What have they done to deserve this importance? What purpose do they serve other than sit on prime real estate property and confer obselete titles like KBE and OBE? (I'd take Obi-Wan over Obe-Wan anyday). The media hype always surrounds them. Wonder what craze are the media feeding? Is it true that ordinary people need royalty to look up to?

What I find worse is the attitude of Indians towards them. They want to thank them for having ruled us, for having taught us English(Let me know what you think, I have seen people my age say the above on more than one occassion). Thank them? Why not thank them for looting trillions of dollars worth of riches systematically over the years? With that logic, shouldn't we be cursing those who drove them away?

The new monarchy are the people among us who make it big by virtue of their work and intelligence. The Bill Gates and Ambanis of the world. The Tendulkars and the Woods. The house of Saxons or Windsors or whatever they are called should be relegated to the back pages once and for all.

Enough venting for the day. Saw the disastrous 'Ring 2' over the weekend. Do not spend your money on it. On the bright side, I saw 'My Brother Nikhil'. A well made movie with tons of holes in the script. Still, the handling of the topic of an AIDS patient in Goa in the 80s is very good. Here's my music recommendation for the day : Lekin The brilliance of the Mangeshkars and Gulzar on full display. The national awards were well-deserved.