Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

Last night I managed to see the Hindi film Raincoat at Innovative Multiplex. There weren't many people around and even lesser people to see this movie. Consequently the theatre management shifted this movie to one of the smaller screens in the multiplex. And the movie started late at 10.20 pm instead of the normal 10 pm. Since it is a short movie (approximately two hours running time) nobody minded the delay.

The movie was nice and interesting. Completely normal and non-filmi acting. For the first time I feel that Aishwarya Rai as potential as an actress. Ajay Devgan was fine as usual. Nice cameos by Surekha Sikri as Ajay's mom and Annu Kapoor as ... (watch the movie to find out). There was nice detailing in the scenes and sets and all the characters were extremely believable. Rituparno Ghosh has done a good job.

These Bengali directors seem to specialize in making realistic movies and personally I enjoy these kind of movies. But out and out commercial masala movies are enjoyable too, especially when escape from dreary reality is needed!

Recently I gave three rolls for processing to Prabhu (situated off Brigade Road). I was disappointed with the quality of processing. I had asked for a one stop push which processing to compensate for exposing my film at EI 200. They did that but the results are very uneven. Plus there are scratches on the roll, but I will verify if these are because of dust on the pressure plate of my camera. But that seems unlikely as not all the frames are scratched.

I wanted an explanation from the owner - A. Prabhu. He was talking on his cell phone and after waiting for about ten minutes I paid the money and left in disgust without getting a chance to talk to him! I had indicated that I wanted to speak to him and he indicated that I should wait. If a customer is not important to him, then I don't want to go there anymore.

The problem as I see it is that he has grown so big that managing his operation is getting difficult. The people at the front desk all seem to be new, so they take more time to attend to you. They aren't even sure of the procedure to handle special requests like push processing!

Will search for another good processor who won't screw up my precious rolls of slide film. G. K. Vale is useless as they don't process slides themselves.

With hindsight I wonder if we could have beaten that killer tsunami. On detecting a large magnitude earthquake in the ocean, it would have been relatively trivial to find out if it was likely to hit India. If it was, then an evacuation warning could have been given to people on the east coast. I believe they have a fairly reliable evacuation warning system because the east coast is cyclone prone. This could have saved lives.

The article by M D Nalapat - Narasimha Rao's final humiliation illustrates the depths to which the so called first family of India will sink to, to humiliate a person no longer alive and one who cannot possibly defend himself. I have nothing but contempt for the present members of this family who aren't even a patch of some former members let alone close to the level of competence that Narasimha Rao displayed.

Former Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao died yesterday after a long illness. He was my favourite prime minister and in my eyes made the greatest contribution to India by steering the nation in difficult times. In my ranking of prime ministers he ranks number one for the simple fact that his contributions will have a lasting impact on my country.

May his soul rest in peace.

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for Balance in your life."

I saw a hoarding today, just outside the cemetery on Hosur Road (near Richmond Town). What caught my attention (I was stuck in traffic at 8.30 in the morning!) was a sign stuck to one of the supports. It essentially said that the hoarding couldn't be demolished because of a High Court stay dated somewhere in 2001. I found that hillarious. This simple issue couldn't be resolved in more than two years? The courts are clogged with tens of millions of cases and one of the major factors in this seems to be that the courts keep granting extensions to the cases as a result of which the cases drag on for years. There was recent news in the papers regarding the courts considering something to shorten this but nothing further on that. The courts better get their act together otherwise they will end up being a laughing stock like other institutions like the government and the fourth estate.

Was travelling in an auto yesterday and thinking about all the fuel price increases in the last six months. With a start I realized that the auto drivers hadn't campaigned for a rate increase in all this time. Very unlike them I thought. Then I realized why. Most of the autos these days, if not all of them, run on LPG. It costs just under 25 bucks per litre for LPG. Petrol costs around 44 bucks. No wonder they are happy with the minimum flag down of 10 bucks and are not demanding more!