Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

Not knowing much about American personalities, the only one entry from The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005 that I can truly, truly agree with is the fourth one. Reproduced here - You

Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don't. Assuming that it's normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.

Exhibit A: You don't even know who your congressman is.

Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.

Ouch!!!

After a long time I watched a Hindi movie that wasn't lifted (I believe the Bollywood term for this is inspired) from a Hollywood movie or that didn't feature the same old, boring Bollywood themes. I enjoyed the movie but as usual I was underwhelmed. I should seriously stop reading all the hype.

The movie did feature a good cast however and one that acted very well too. Alice Patten did a good job and so did Kunal Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni and Siddharth. Aamir Khan did a fine job too but then he can perform these roles in his sleep now. Soha Ali Khan cannot be mistaken for anyone but Sharmila Tagore's daughter, so striking is the resemblance. A meatier role is required for displaying talent however.

I liked how they depicted the friendship between all the members of the gang. Very warm camaraderie and most college going kids will be able to relate to them very easily. The change from an easy going lifestyle to one that takes a good hard look at situation around them is truly what the movie is all about. And its depicted nicely too. I have a vague feeling that the ending of the movie could have been improved but don't know exactly how!

The only criticism I have is that the first half could have been shortened a bit. Also there isn't much "background" information on Soha Ali Khan's character and also Sukhi, no mention of their families unlike the others, but this is a minor point, a niggle actually.

The music was nice, the pathshala song was fun and captured the essence of a carefree lifestyle very well. Rubaru was nice as well.

The ending really makes you feel sad at the wasted talent (although its not entirely their own doing). Although the movie makes you think about what sacrifice means and what doing something for your country is all about, the point will be lost on Indian audiences who only want escapist movies. Swades is a typical example.

After the Supreme Court slammed Buta Singh's controversial recommendation to dissolve the Bihar assembly and initiate fresh elections, calling it "malafide" and accusing him of wanting to favour one particular party with his recommendation, it seemed natural that he would resign from Bihar's governership. But trust the utterly shameless Buta, he said he wouldn't resign. So be it. Let Manmohan Singh kick him out for subverting the constitution. Oh, wait! Manmohan Singh is equally culpable, because he didn't scrutinize the recommendation and sent it to the President (who was in Moscow at that time) for assent, literally in the dead of night! Since the Home Ministry has also been slammed, Shivraj Patil should also be shown the door (actually he should have been shown the door a long time back for incompetence).

Trust the Congress to act in a shameless manner (all in the name of trying to stop the BJP from coming to power at any cost, constitution be damned).

Sunil Gavaskar has made idiotic comments publicly in his newspaper column - that Ajit Agarkar and Saurav Ganguly have been dropped from the second test against Pakistan because they are not part of the inner circle. Cleverly he doesn't say who's inner circle, but it seems obvious that its Chappell's inner circle he's talking about.

Ajit Agarkar has got the maximum number of chances in Indian cricket, more than every other player and if he still hasn't managed to cement his place in the Indian test side it means that no amount of being in anyone's inner circle is going to do him any good. Gavaskar's comments seem to be coloured by sympathies towards a fellow Mumbai player who's he's related to. There cannot be any cricketing reasons for his asinine statements. Gavaskar also shows his antipathy towards Chapell and Chapell's "non-performers need to go" stand. Gavaskar would make an awful coach and his jealousy looks apparent.

Ganguly was also axed probably because he refused to open in the Lahore test forcing Rahul Dravid to come out and open instead. Not wanting to shoulder responsibility for opening the innings probably counted against him as also the fact that India needed a fifth bowler in order to get all the Pakistanis out.

Gavaskar seems to be prone to making idiotic comments from time to time and this tendency seems to be getting more and more common.

Dravid proved that he was a good captain and lead from the front, choosing to open when faced with a huge Pakistani score and their potent pace attack. He didn't shy away from this challenge unlike his predecessor who would have happily thrown his openers to the wolves. Since Ganguly was brought in in place of Gambhir he should have opened instead, but didn't and according to some newspapers argued against opening. Will Ganguly be able to take on messers Akhtar and company? We will know from the second test.

Meanwhile Sehwag batted as only he can, disdainful of any records or the reputation of the bowlers he faced. We he is in this form and mood, its impossible for any attack to stop him until he makes a mistake. His 254 is a huge score. His past ten scores in test cricket are all huge. This man sure takes some stopping.

Something I read elsewhere that I fully agree with:

The advantage for China is that it has a dedicated bunch of Communist leaders completely devoted to the economic and strategic interests of China. Our problem is that we have them too!

The year 2005 brought out/clarified/revealed many things

1. Global warming is real. This was clear from the changing weather patterns all around the world - severe hurricanes affecting the Americas, cyclones affecting South India (Bangalore must have had a record cloudy year with very few sunny days in 2005), extreme heat wave conditions elsewhere. Mostly anecdotal evidence but they tell one more than all the cold scientific analysis (because lots of "scientists" still dispute global warming).
2. Indian wildlife is in clear and present danger of being wiped out completely. And the shocking fact is that no one seems to be doing anything about it. Tigers will be wiped out in ten years time (no every last tiger, but viable populations will *most definitely* be wiped out). And in my opinion leopards are in an even more dire situation but escape notice because they are not as glamourous as tigers. *Every* other animal is facing some form of danger or the other, whether it is ill-thought of dams, corridor loss due to people not knowing any better, widespread cattle grazing in areas designated as wildlife sanctuaries/national parks, widespread illicit felling of trees, road projects, mining, you name it.
3. There is a clear move towards digital cameras. Hopefully this will lead to more quality images making their way into blogs, as blogs are the only "honest" source of information we are left with in India. The mainstream media is a bunch of lying, incompetent, corrupt and lazy bastards who don't have a clue.
4. The decent of the BJP into an anarchical, squabbling bunch of idiots bereft of any ideology whatsoever is complete. Advani showed a total lack of judgement when he made the statement that Jinnah was secular. He showed a total lack of grace, resisting resigning with dignity. Vajpayee's decent into senility was complete in 2005. No one could make any sense out of what he said about India's foreign policy and his statement about Advani-Mahajan duo being Ram-Lakshman shows just how detached he is from reality. Venkaiah Naidu claiming that he is Hanuman would be totally correct were one to equate Hanuman with a monkey.
5. The communists continued to prove that they will put the interests of every other nation above India's. Trying to sidetrack India's foreign policy by insisting that India side with Iran in their clear violation of commitments made to IAEA put Iranian interests above Indian which made perfect sense to the comarades. Shamelessly opposing India's nuclear policy made perfect sense as it would help their Chinese masters.
6. The Congress continued to prove that merely having someone from "The Family" at the helm will not help them consolidate their position as a party that can provide some semblance of governance. Having competent regional politicians is the first requirement. We get the government we deserve was proved so well in Karnataka.