Potpourri

My association with Chennai has been for quiet some time. Not as deep as I have now. But, my father works in a bank whose main office is in Chennai and my mother has been a great fan of silk sarries from Chennai (if that sort of thing can be called an association?). But yeah, now I have been in Chennai for two whole years and that's surely long time. What is the sort of feel this city gives me? Its hot, humid ( I mean really humid, more humid than Bombay!). Water is a constant problem. Its traditional and just suffering from a drastic cultural crisis due to increasing IT companies coming in. I must say Bombay and Bangalore really handled this well, may be because they were not hell bent on being "cultural". And there are actual dress codes for students in college. (Imagine college forcing a dress code in Bombay or Calcutta, students would surely retaliate). The auto rickshaw drivers here put any sane person off. And names of places around are each a tongue twisters. Traff...

Today I finally saw Mangal Pandey. A good, well-made movie. Let me be more detailed. Things which were "really" good: 1. Aamir himself. His hairdo. His acting. Of course he had the maximum footage and so a lot of scope to show his skills. But you may pick any random 5 minute scene from the movie and you would still appreciate Aamir's performance. The amount of plasticity Aamir is able to get on his face is tremendous. The transition he made from a burning fire to a twinckled smile in his eyes in one particular scene was just too much! 2. Rani. She played a prostitute. I still feel she has too soft features for the role, but she acted well. In her first scene she created a huge impact, without uttering a word with just expressions. The carefree attitude that the role demanded was carefully put in by Rani. 3. Sets and film technique. I personally felt that the era was captured well, and huge amount of effort (and of course money) was put in for this. And I guess, it paid of...

Mangal Pandey and Aamir have been in news now for very long. After long waiting, finally, the movie will releases in India on 12th August. Ofcourse the good time for sales (3 days away from the independence day). In Chennai it will come in Melody. Aamir has not done a single movie after Dil Chahta Hai which was 3 years back (though Titan and Coca Cola Ads were plenty). Now the trailors for Mangal Pandey are all over the place and seems like all the hurdles (political and otherwise) have subsided. Only consideration now is, is movie going to be worth all that waiting? Just read about the pre-releases for the movie in U.K. And news paper reviews there are rating the movie very highly. I only hope they are trustworthy and the THE movie is really good. Do hit the theatres. (I am not a distributor).

Don't be scared reading the title. I am not subjecting anybody to thoughts and debates about death and life and philosophical issues related. But however, there is a cause of worry. Because today I have resolved that this blog will no more be dead. Every once in a while there will be random non-sense for completely jobless people like me to read here. (Mainly I being the only reader of this particular blog). I am not sure as of now what that random nonsense will be, but nothing that you will miss anyway, for sure! Well, why only today did I make such a resolution? Murphy's laws are at work for you (= me). Only when you(=I) thought that your (=my) day was going "not too bad" here you read this resolution.