Now I know. Why nobody reads my blog and nobody ever leaves a comment. On the other hand, there's elation at being on the same reading level as Greatbong.

Is Bebo trying to look like Paris? Now, we all know she's shedding everything there is between her skin and her bones (and fast) just to look right for the bikini scene she's going to shoot for Tashan. You can read about it here. If my humble opinion counts for anything, she now sports a drawn face, sunken eyes, cheekbones that can slay, lifeless skin that makes her look ten years older for her age and is in general looking like she is preparing for a remake of The Witches of Eastwick. Or Death Becomes Her, if you will. Oops, there I go again. Courting mayhem from her fans.
Please refer to these pics. Courtesey wallpapers.com and santabanta.
Like we all know once again, Paris was gifted with this anorexic bone structure. And Bebo, with the genes from the khate peete Kapoor Khandaan. There's not much fun in dragging on this lame comparison anyway. One only wonders whether going the Paris way, our dear Bebo will end up in jail, which is of course, way better than ending up on the coroner's table, judging by the way she's started to look.

I used to be an ardent follower of the Bengali literature scene during my school and college days. Of late I seem to have lost touch. Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay used to be one of the big favorites. In one of his short stories, called Prateekshar Ghar or Waiting Room if I remember correctly, he touched upon a line of thought. I bring this up because the thought has visited and revisited me and many of my friends throughout our lives. Simply put, the author was looking through the eyes of a bunch of unemployed youth who do nothing but fritter away all day sitting in the little used waiting room of a railway station in north Bengal. They play cards, smoke bidis, raise all sorts of topics to discuss, like, do house lizards ever drink water, the question that begins the story. And in the middle of this unhappening, gloomy scenario, the protagonist asks himself : Has susomoy ( the good times) passed away, or will it come sometime in the future? Or, the crux of the question, is it here right now, the time they are frittering away? Don't know if that comes across as intended, but for those of you who didn't read the story, let it be told that there is no moral high ground here. The question is profoundly introspective without being preachy. Throughout our lives whenever we went through dull phases, and God knows they were aplenty, this question came back to haunt me and some of my friends. The boundaries so often blur. Today's gloom when looked back at tomorrow, may seem like bliss.Or vice versa.Think about it. Better still, read the story if you haven't. I believe these are now available in translation too.

In the next decade, which marked the beginning of the Mtv era, we gave a new phrasing and twist to this concept. We divided our waking life into three types of timescapes: Njoy, timepass and getting bored. Needless to elaborate, the Njoy moments were few and far between. Most of us have lives of steady boredom punctuated by intermittent timepass hours.But like I said, hard to tell them apart. In absolute terms.
Important thing is to take stock and ask oneself the question, what time is it?

Sitting in a corner of the living room and feeling a bit melancholy. Early evening, late autumn, in an industrial town in the great Indian outback. Could've been anywhere in the world.

Some people, well, a handful of very special people, value my opinion for the sixpence it is worth. About the big releases of the week, that is. It is for their benefit that I put finger on keyboard. Tonight. To write this here review of OSO. But first of all, one has to take an oath. To restrict, if not altogether avoid, using certain words and phrases. Which are: sixpack, abs, era, magic,tribute, Bollywood and picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost!

Take a bow, Farah Khan. Though at the outset, I must confess I find the film OSO only mildly interesting when put in the same canvas with Main Hoon Na. Call me biased, but as a director's first baby, MHN just blew me off my feet. In this, her second outing, Farah sticks to tributing Bollywoodana, which has sooo become her signature, but oversteps the spoofing bit in parts. Having said that, every Farah Khan film will be hers and hers only forever, because it's she who wears the pants and is the man in the house, for all the monkeying SRK can supply. OSO works. How well, will be put to debate, but as a reviewer, one's not ecstatic. It works in spite of SRK who's gotten so big he often spoofs himself on screen, and gets away with it, especially in K-Jo flicks.And here too. Watch the filmfare nominations and SRK's two films which are completely alike.

Well for those of you who are all praise, I can think of numerous positives which caused your song and dance :
The walk-in star parade was handled supremely. This number was very hard to live up to hype, and Farah passed muster. Attagirl! I know some people who still get dreamy eyed remembering the chemistry of Shahrukh and Kajol in K-Jo hits, and it's a treat for them too. Here, everybody's been given due footage and respect and every star seemed to be having fun blah- blah. As songs of this genre go, this one'll go right up there. Sajjid in Hey Babyy couldn't even come close.

More importantly, the first half leaves very little room for complaints. Manoj Kumar did complain, and we get his point. Like I said, the spoof overreaches in places. And sometimes chronology is sacrificed in favor of including all and sundry. Imagine Govinda commuting from Virar in the70's. But I'll accept that in the name of artistic license. And art it really has become, the way the period is recreated. Sabu Cyril, take a ceeteee.

If one looks at OSO from the strict and narrow angle of recreating, revisiting or remaking ( I'm sure that's NOT the word) the great seventies reincarnation formula movie KARZ with a generous bunch of digs, asides and jokes thrown in, one can't see much scope for betterment. But it is in Farah Khan's journey as the dream weaver, Bolly ishtyle, that one would miss a pilgrim's progress. Considering she's the chosen one, the torch- bearer who'll carry forth the legend, the inheritor of the Manmohan Desai angle, she seems to be stuck in the groove someplace, having too much fun on the way and losing sight of the objective. That's perhaps why the second half sucks a bit. Not because it is drab, but because Farah is in a wrap-up mood, and willing to let slip. So she can't rein in SRK's hamming in half two, alas! And what's so smart about yelling fish where fuck is intended? I'll bet this was Shahrukh's idea.
The Dard-e-Disco number's completely yuck, so is SRK trying to play some young stud like Hritik or John. For neither is he young nor a stud and the effort makes it all the uglier. The fun never leaves the set though, like, when he says, Qwali to main kar chuka hoon ab mere dard ko express karne ke liye ek...disco! you realize after leaving the theater that Farah and he were referring to MHN.
It must be that my eyes are going due to old age, but I couldn't see in Deepika Padukone what the world and Vijay Mallya must've seen. Judging purely by the sheer force of presence, women double her age, take Bips, take Vidya Balan, would any day steal a march over her. She showed great promise coupla years ago, when she was doing ramp and print. But her looks are a letdown here. That's my humble opinion. Now for histrionics. A born actor she's not, but I'll give her a coupla years to grow as one. I'll wait for a real performer to come along before I cast my vote for best female debut of this year.
Rest of cast. Kiron is superb. Shreyas seems to be heading towards a career of playing supporting actors. He does good. Arjun is bad. And of course Shahrukh is ugly. And the quick gun Murugan routine, done to death in early days Channel V, needn't have to be drooled over so much like most critics are doing.
I gave Om Shanti Om 6 in the beginning. Then I reckoned I was only watching it on a DVDrip and added 10% for a multiplex experience. So 6.5 it is. Final and non-negotiable.

I didn't know better. So I looked. And I found this place. Great for killing the better part of an afternoon. And some trivia.
Another place I went to maybe completely NSFW and all, but fun all the same.
And while passing, the page that Dhoomketu showed us returned two of my mugshots with slightly different tilt of the head and only a wee bit change in lighting with two completely different similarity reports. Exzibit(who?)-- 59% and the other, Beneccio Del Toro-- 63%. I'll try with other shots tonight and see which one Gets Antonio Banderas.

What was it that helped India beat the world at Twenty-20 and what is different now that the Aussies are toying with us? The point can be argued all night. Easier, a finger can be raised at Sachin Tendulkar. But a keen observer will notice a character on the field who we so often overlook. That's odd, considering his unique appearance and the absurdity of Ramesh Pawar as an international cricketer. Is he a joke of some sort his uncle, the venerable BCCI president has been playing on us all along? Talk about cruel jokes. And him, at the cost of R.P or Rohit Sharma, the two stars of last fortnight ? I better stop watching cricket again. Sorry Mahinder.
By the way, somebody sent this to me last week. Save the atrocity of language I found it funny. Especially the punchline.

Been to the Havelock Island lately. Now, you can read about the place here, here and here, but nothing you'll read can prepare you for the experience.
I wonder how many of you have watched the 2000 movie The Beach, which was expansively shot in the Koh-Phi-Phi island in Thailand. Ever since I watched that movie, I wanted to visit Koh-Phi-Phi. But then there came the 2004 Tsunami, and the island was all but destroyed. Petra Nemkova almost died at the island on that fateful boxing day.
Then again, you know, such exotic locations can be quite expensive. Me, I'm ever the broke. Some friends mentioned the Andamans and Havelock in particular as a potentially exotic but way cheaper option. I was sceptical to say the very least. Thus it happened that when I stepped out onto the Radhanagar Beach on a spectacular sunset I had to pinch myself and murmur a prayer.

But theosophy will have to wait. To put in perspective what that sunset really looked like, here,s a photo :

Get niceties out of the way
Every year, about 2,19,000 people come to The Andamans on vacation. 95% of them are Indian PSU employees ( the largest contributor, perhaps, is the steel authority). AVOID these tourists at all costs for they are the absolute dregs who will visit the islands only because it's about the only place they can fly to on leave travel, expenses paid. Thankfully they rarely go to Havelock and even if they do, it's on a day trip. AVOID Radhanagar beach between 11 AM to 2 PM because that's the day tripper slot.
I wouldn't mind leaving Port Blair early, as early as the second afternoon. The first evening was spent at cellular jail. It's okay, everybody does it. Another morning for Ross Island, a nice little place with dollops of history on the side. We took the afternoon boat to havelock curiously named MV Chouldhari. The kids seemed to find a lot of amusement in that name.(Actually the name's after a tribe of aborigines). One must always take the afternoon boat. Wiki calls it tourist special. Normally full of European tourists. These fellows prefer not to linger around Port Blair an extra hour. Smart blokes!

The Havelock certainly deserves a lavish film to be shot here. In beauty of landscape alone, it will rank right at the top of the heap of island gateways around the world. Like many other Indian destinations, what it lacks in is infrastructure. Thank GOD for that. Imagine planeloads of spoilt American tourists flying in from Phuket and junking this heaven. Phew! Not my words. This, from the poetic, almost effeminate Canadian gentleman who teaches English in Taichung, Taiwan and travels Asia on sabbaticals. We met him here.

The tent
Where will one put up at Havelock is one's own choosing. For choices, refer wiki. But as a shoestring affair, this place, the tents at Radhanagar, right smack at the middle of the action, takes the pudding. That of course, is my opinion. In the midst of a tropical rainforest, directly in front of the breakers rising a mere 100 meters away, and the beautiful beach in between. But words keep failing me. Here are more photos.
The red topped tent is your basic dwellings. The powder blue shack in the back is the attached(?) toilet. Surprisingly clean and usable, save the nuisance of sand, which is, well, everywhere. But we'll live.
The Bar To enliven the place and lure customers from nearby Barefoot jungle resort, ANIDCO had opened a magnificent bar in the neighborhood. Due to prohibitive prices or whatever reason, the bar didn't run and had to be closed down. The structure still stands. It's a thing of beauty made of log. The freezers well stocked even now, the parquet floor shining, the throw cushions strewn all over the place. Two full time employees sleep on the plush sofas in the afternoon. Their job it is to stop you to climb the stairs, to prevent you sitting atop, taking in the view and enjoying your own drink.
Yes , we tried. We took our Bacardi to havelock. From Port Blair. @ Rs.300 a bot. It might get dearer on the island. Below is the view one can take in from atop. Those sinful caretaker fellows! I'll never never forgive them.









The motorcycle diaries
We needed wheels. We took them on rent. @Rs.100 a day. Spurious petrol @Rs.50 a liter.And this is supposed to be subsidy territory.The traders profiteer.Petrol is always in short supply here. So far so good. But the fuel is frequently stolen. Beware. As a result, we ended up on the middle of a lonely road when darkness was falling and the engine died coughing. No sweat. Buses ply. Motorcycle stranded by the road. No cry. Nobody can take them away. Board the bus, listen to Dhoom2 on the onboard speakers and arrive at Radhanagar. Enjoy the fish grilled at Mashimaa's shack in the evening. Wash it down with bacardi in coconut water. See pic.

Boatspotting
Boatspotting is big at Havelock. The best time is early morning.
See pics.The first one reminds you of Harry Belafonte ( Come mister tally man and tally me banana).You could also spot many a bird dripping in suntan oil and carrying a suntan mat and scuba gear in tow if you got lucky, but then, I'm getting carried away. The accompanying photos were taken in the morning sun near a decrepit nullah near the the beach.

Travel some
You want to get around. Can do so hiking, biking and stuff. We stuck to our rented machines. It's but a small isle, 8 miles across. One can go Vijaynagar, near the Dolphin resort or Wild Orchid and several other shanties of all descriptions.Or to Govindnagar, to the jetty and the market. And look for lobsters. Hard to find. Find one can a glass bottomed boat custom made for coral viewing and fitted with a sturdy outboard engine. The corals can be viewed thus.
One thing must be said about network, though. Exactly at the moment we were viewing these corals, nearly a mile from shore, close to a small uninhabited isle, madly clicking away and secretly wondering if the glass at the bottom of the boat might not give at any moment, my wife's phone rang. Who else but mommy dearest? What followed was 15 minutes of running commentary. And we were roaming!