Friday, April 29, 2005

Fine so I'm a Wine

I always knew this but guess you guys must know too


Wine
Wine


?? Which Alcoholic Drink Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

A Mega Mix

Rajdeep Sardesai (one of Prannoy Roy's 'crown jewels') has quit NDTV. Now that's old news. Also he's out to start another channel, tentatively called Broadcast News. That's old news again. The prominent stakeholders in this new channel are Subhash Chandra, Zee's head honcho, and TV18, the production house that is synonymous with CNBC in India. Now the news in warming up. So you have Subhash Chandra, India's first true media baron, Rajdeep Sardesai, the most recognisable faces on television news in India, and Raghav Bahl, the smart and politically savvy MD of TV18, all in one big group. That's interesting.
The print section of the media is also having its share of megers or rather tie-ups. Zee and Dainik Bhaskar (India's largest selling Hindi daily) teaming up in Mumbai to launch a newspaper, DNA. This is obviously to take on Times of India on their home turf. Times too is planning to launch a News channel. They have tied up with Reuters for this venture. Dainik Bhaskar is launching their own independent channel, Channel 7. This, as you might have guessed by now, is a news channel. The no frills, serious channel.
This obviously leads to a big muddle with Zee and Dainik competing with Times in the print arena and in turn slugging it out amongst themselves in the broadcast sector. Yes, Times too is in the fray. Seems like both Subhash Chandra and the Dainik Group have hedged their bets on the dramatic collapse of the Times Group and the slow decimation of NDTV.

Aggregate

Some said that they are an aggregate of their existence to date. Are we all the same? Just plain aggregates. I'll tell you something that I like. I decide what I want. So as per the above theory all the instances in my life decides what I want. Which means that I don't, in effect, decide but a whole bunch of influences and people in my life decide what I'd want in my life. And then who decides what happens in their life. Some other people. This becomes the ridiculous Chicken-Egg question. So mathematically those who say that they are an aggregate etc are wrong.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Sex Kills...

There is an interesting theory put forth by Bill Nye. According to Nye we need to evolve very quick to stay on the evolutionary chain. It's like a jogger where you have to keep moving to stay put. Now really small organisms like the bacteria and viruses evolve and mutate much quicker than we. To make our gene pool strong we must reproduce,
1) At a very fast rate and,
2) Mix up the gene pool
This means that we need to have sex as often as possible and with as many different people as possible. By doing this we will ensure that we are in step with the germs that give us tummy aches and other such ailments. All of this obviously has to be unprotected intercourse as reproduction is the main objective. What would the fidelity preachers, safe sex and AIDS campaigners have to say about this? Of course there's a lot to Nye's credit rather than just plain top of the head theories.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Hitch Key

How much would you pay to get hooked to that one person you've been crazy about? By looks of the movie Hitch quite a bit. C'mon didn't you see the expensive gadgets that Mr Smith had in his pad. But how does one make a lucrative carrer as a love consultant. Not an agony aunt or a match maker but a proper scientific consultant who understands the psychology of your object of desire and gives you the proper roadmap. It's a very personalised service so that's one place where big consultancies won't spring up. Think about it, what if Ernst&Young had a 'personel' consultancy wing. They would have 'partners' going around town snooping around and digging up information about your 'love interest'. Then they'd draw up a feasibility report, depending on your ability to impress that one person and a lot of other personal traits. thy'd charge a bomb to hand over the report to you and then another big packet to tell you methods to overcome the obstacles in your path, if any (Both path and obstacles).
Who'd want all that jazz when one person can do the digging, not give you your flaws in writing and still get you your 'chick'. And God forbid if the government were to come and slap a tax once this becomes an organised sector. Something like a Mergers & Acquisitions tax. It's good this way.
By the way the movie "Hitch" was a pretty good one too. I caught a really late night show, got done by 1:30 am, but didn't feel sleepy even for a minute. Another thing, had this real spunky looking girl sitting next to me.
Will Smith is a love consultant who hitches up couples. He doesn't help patch break ups or help guys bed girls, the good (our culture police will love him) man only facilitates long-term alliances. His forte is making the wimpy, sorry looking guys get the cute/hot girls. In the course of things he flips for a 'society' journalist (gossip columnist) who also flips for him. While busy wooing and flipping he's also fixing up a client (fat accountant, quite goofy) with a rich heiress who is a Page 3 darling. All the usual gaffes and misunderstandings, followed by the senti love lines towards the end make up this latest American blockbuster.
Will Smith- Alex Hitchens (pun?)- Date Doctor
Eva Mendes- Sara Melas- Gossip Columnist
Kevin James (The King of Queens fellow)- Alex Breneman- Accountant, I'm so goofy.
Amber Valleta- Allegra Cole- Rich heiress and gossip column meat.
The movie is populated with the other sundry characters such as the Editor of the paper, the photographer. We also have the leading lady's best pal who gets screwed over and so is partly responsible for the misunderstanding.
A feel good movie with decent laughs. Hitch might just get you hooked.

Dot & Dash

.Listen to the sounds of silence
-You'd have to shut up for that
.You must have had a troubled childhood
-Are you gonna give me more of your Freudian psychology jazz
.I haven't spoken to you about any psychology ever
-Good then don't start because I don't believe Freud, Pavlov or any other western psychologist ever understood what the human mind was all about
.And by that you're hinting that our guys here "in the east" got it right
-Well some fair bit, yes. You see not everything was linked, you weren't treated as an aggregate of your experiences. Something that you did was credited to your intelligence
.But something had to influence that intelligence
-Yeah but not my gonads, definitely not them. I don't look to screw every person I meet. And I don't believe that every relation is doomed
.It probably has affected you at a subliminal level. You probably haven't realised it as yet but your world view might be influenced by that
-If something has to affect me at a subliminal level then why does it have to be a carnal desire, propabably because the person who purported the theory was an egotist who wanted to deny the existence of any sort of more powerful influence
.You hinting at God
-Yeah I am, and I'm not hinting. You want to run those theories through your head then go right ahead, but get one thing clear you'll never know all the answers especially the ones you seek the most. Definitely not if you have apreconceived notion about them. Let your mind float think free and accept any thought that's not a theory. The reason I say no to the new found concepts just so as to weigh in the earlier ones. I won't rush into something just because it has been put forth. Nor will I diss it for the same reason.
.But you did diss them
-We needed this talk
.You bloody hypocrite
-To each man his own
.Will you twist an idea just to fit you stand
-Everytime I take one. God Bless

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

All The LittleThings

Sometimes you just sit and have nothing to do. For me it's one of the most common scenarios. I'm as a rule a bit vacant in life. Staring into nothingness and listening to what people around you are saying is one of the best tricks I pull off. Everyone thinks I hear them but then they "know" that I'm not listening. I'm in one of those moods. But there are no people around and I feel a bit nostalgic.
I'm not too old, but was around early enough to see a fair bit of DD's television programming, listen to programmes on the radio, read a fair amount good articles written by some really good Indian writers and had my bunch of childhood heroes (Phantom, He-Man et al). Oh yeah, I've also played on the 4-bit Atari gaming console. So for all those who came in late (or came out late) here's a refresher/crash course.

A] The first thing that I remember are the daily Phantom and Mandrake comic strips in the Times of India. You never had a better series. Calvin and Asterix are all fine but when you're kid it's gotta be The Ghost Who Walks. Saturdays and Sundays were really bad as you got none of these serialised strips.

B] Misha- The Russian magazine. We subscribed to this because my that's my sister's name. But that was a fortnightly I waited for. Gimme more. Wasn't much of a Tinkle guy.

C] The Saturday Review by the Times. It had really good stuff sometimes. Then something happened and they stopped.

D] Chitrahaar on Wednesdays and Chaayageet on Thursdays. I preferred Chitrahaar, they played newer songs and a couple more than Chaayageet.

E] Fun Time in the afternoon during the summers. Two hours of pure bliss. The afternoon band also a fair amount of interesting serials Karamchand, Aaa Bail Mujhe Maar.

F] Giant Robot and Fireball XL5 was my introduction to international Television programming

G] Saturday evening movies which I was never allowed to watch. Everyone else was busy watching Jeetendra beat up Shakti Kapoor, so I got bored on Sat evenings.

H] Cibaca Geetmala by Ameen Sayani on the radio. By the end of it I was sick of hearing "Gori Hai Kalyiyaan", the movie was Aaj Ka Arjun (Amitabh and Jaya Prada). That song was Numero Uno for almost a year.

I] The original sexy song by Right Said Fred, this wasn't to old but then it set a trend.

J] Street Hawk, this was Knight Rider ka baap.

K] Games like Frogger and Tank Boxing on my Atari console we so low on the graphics front but sooooo much fun.

There are more a lot more such as the Lucille Ball show, the morning radio shows and then Laurel & Hardy on DD. Hawa mahal was a drama show at 20:30 every evening on AIR. Things have moved ahead so quick that sometimes i feel older than I am, just because the transition from so many contraints to free tech has been so quick. I guess this will have a sequel soon.

When The Trough and The Crest....

It shouldn't be very difficult to get the following funda. When the crest of a wave meets a trough of another they cancel out each other if they are of the same magnitude. This is one of the concepts that one learns in class XII or XI or thereabouts. The word for it is destructive interference. Should be ironic that wave motion concepts form the basis of a Bollywod film. The above concept was spoken about repeatedly in White Noise, an pseudo-arty flick by soap queen Vinta Nanda. Nanda was responsible for the assault on our senses way back during the cable boom. The weapon, Tara. Remember the title track going Ta-ta-tara ta-ta-ta-tara or something like that. Now with the wave of Indie cinema in India (Indie as in Independent) she gives us White Noise.
The image “http://im.rediff.com/movies/2004/oct/20white2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. A film with a name like that is meant for the niche uber cool audience. A village yokel like me may never be able to comprehend it. What is white noise? The grains you get when the cable from your television is yanked off. The sound that emanates has all the frequencies of sound in it.
The protagonist of the movie is in a cracked up relation with a TV producer. That's what I figured Arayn Vaid's character was. Now just incidentally the chap's married too (hmm extra marital) and has a couple of brats. Wifey comes and tells the mistress to back off.
OK Basic Info:
Mistress/TV Script Writer = Protagonist = Gauri Khanna = Koel Purie
Producer = Wimpy Husband/ Skirt Chaser?= Let's call him Raj= Arayan Vaid
TV Editor = Disgruntled Son/Confused Attraction= Karan, I think..=Rahul Bose
Other sundry characters.
Ok now back to the scene. After Script Writer is asked to back-off she becomes an alcoholic. She was about to wreck a marriage but we are supposed to sympathise with her. Feel her hurt. Did anyone think about Skirt Chaser's wife and kids. In one dialogue the TV Editor did. Anyway women's lib means sleeping with married men and they needn't be the ones married to you. At least that's what our entertainment industry believes.
The story wasn't much, just a confused girl-woman coming to terms with reality. The dialogues were thanks to Jim Morrison. Liberally quoted to rub in the uber cool feel.
So what was good?.... the physics fundae.
What was bad?....the premise, Koel Purie's acting. Please do not rave about her just because her father is this powerful media baron. Bloody, talk of kissing ass. The dialogues.
What was Destructive Interference?.... Arayan Vaid, anytime, anyplace. Someone send him back to the ramp.
What to do?....Don't Watch

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Dot & Dash

.Have you tried punning on your identity?
-Like, "I'm a dashing fellow, ain't I?"
.Ya, you know those are forced ones. The obvious, not so spontaneous ones. They lack the 'pun'ch.
-Ya right. The one you just blurted out was so perfect nah.
.Of course it was. I realised I had said that only after I did.
-Oh so it was so spontaneous and so not obvious that even you didn't know it was coming. Does it always happen to you?
.What, not realise when it's gonna come? Yeah, many a time.
-Hah, you don't realise when you're gonnna come.
.You know according to Euclid a dash is made up of a large number of dots
-According to Einstein it takes so many dots to make up a dash
.Einstein was bad at geometry, that's why he was a clerk.
-You mean to say that a clerk cant be superman...that was sooo good.
.Bullshit no one of got what you were tring to say
-But all of me did. Hahaha

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Was There Heard That

The new policy measures put out by the I&B Ministry yesterday, augurs well for all enterprising individuals. By enterprising individuals I do not mean people who will rush in there to make a fast buck, but rather people who'd see radio as the most viable form of dispensing information and connecting with people. The ministry aims to have as many as 300 radio stations up and running in the country. That's three times the number of television channels we have. The rationalisation of the licence fees will definitely bring in new players, but it will also take the pressure off the existing broadcasters. What I am interested in knowing is whether this will result in the return of a vibrant radio culture?
Most of us weren't around during the big radio boom; atleast the world wide phenomenon. India too had its share of radio stars, cult characters like Inspector Eagle, show hosts like Ameen Sayani and the baap of all quiz shows BQC. Think about it, radio was so big that AIR rejected a particular someone who had auditioned for the positon of a show host, RJ in today's parlance. The guy went onto act in films and became India's biggest superstar. In hindsight Amitabh Bacchan would have made a good radio quiz master.
The return of a radio culture will also augument the impact of P2P journalism. We always react and relate more to a voice as compared to a whole host of images overlayed with a commentary. Similarly our decisions will always be influenced more by our peers than say a newspaper or trade journal. An independent, unopinionated information disbursal system will ensure the survival of unhindred debate, where the opinion of an individual will be heard as is, without the intervention of a channel or publisher with its own agenda.