Flying in a blue dream...

Are-you-kidding-me-dept

Hahahaha!
Click on the image to read the actual strip.
This one is going to be fun.

Current Music: Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

posted by Nitish @ 12:17 AM Comments: 2

(the) English, March?

This is the kind of shit that makes me sick.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/story/238833.html

Some useless long-forgotten English excuse-for-a-cricketer presenting the rants that teams visiting India have long presented about how they were treated unfairly by the umpires when they came to India. How the conditions were too oppressive. How the food was too spicy. How the cities were too unclean and polluted. How the prawn curries in the roadside restaurants by the local sewer, which only the rickshawallas from the bus-stand inhabit, gave them food poisioning. How the crowds were too loud. How the pitches are always dustbowls which cause the innocous Indian slow bowlers to suddenly breathe fire, while there own super talented slow bowlers are as ineffectual as ever( a team which has Ashley Giles as their front line bowler is like a hunter who tries to shoot a tiger with his slingshot). How God was biased against them.
The Australians realised the folly of their actions and instead learnt to embrace the change. And look what that brought for them, a series win in India after 30 years. But the English refuse to change. For them its still this third world protectorate-dominion, a win in which holds no value. For them, the Ashes victory is the be-all and end-all of the cricketing world. They won that right? So nothing else matters right? So Duncan Fletcher starts giving us the news as to how half the team is suffering from gastric influenza( i mean dont these fuckers ever learn what to eat and what to avoid). Marcus Trescothick leaves the team midway for "personal reasons" which I am sure would have been easily sacrificed had it been the Ashes or a home series at stake.

And the Indians, well, we never crib about how the tours to England are always organised at the awkward time when their cricket season is just starting, when the winter has not completely thawed off and it freezes your bones just to be out in an open space. We never cribbed about how tough it is to play a sport in light that seems more suitable for a cinema hall during a show. Or how tough it is to bat or bowl when you have 6 layers of clothing on your body( anyone whose played cricket in delhi in the winters with sweaters on will know what i am talking about...you have a ton of clothing on you cuz you will freeze without it, but you will still be sweating underneath it all because of all the running around...its the weirdest feeling) . Naah, we Indians dont crib, we just fight amongst ourselves a little, crib about how Dada is playing/not playing( depending on which side of the fence you are), crib about how Dalmiya is making his millions( well atleast he made us a cricketing superpower in terms of sheer clout, the freaking Congress politicians siphoned off 10 times that amount and left India wallowing in penury and famine- whose taken them to court for that). Well after all for us its stilll all about Karma right?? And also about the readiness to hammer an opposition reeling under their psychological issues and to catapult to second place in the ICC Test rankings. Hallelujah, the Pakis are gone and the English are here.

Current Music: Naer Mataron - The day is breaking

posted by Nitish @ 2:18 AM Comments: 2

Are you kidding me??

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/14/DDG33H7MSO9.DTL

Batman will fight Al Qaeda in a novel by Frank Miller??

What shit!

Current Music: Holotype - Shadowbox

posted by Nitish @ 1:09 AM Comments: 0

Ohh those cliches....

What do you get when you put 5 women together in a Railway Compartment? You get Anita Nair's Ladies Coupe a book which just reeks of the sort of bohemian pseudo feminism that your mother warned you not to read when you were kids. I obviously was too busy reading my Hardy Boys when my mum was doing her job, or otherwise I would have stayed away from this book. Somehow, it gives me the impression that Eminem would have read books like this one, to turn him into the kind of misogynist that he is. Well, you get the hint about the book right?

No?? Ok. The roles that the 5 women portray are your stereotypical Indian women roles, those of the wives with the lost identities, women who have lost their innocence cuz of evil men, women who have silently born the burden of running their households, while their families have all but forgotten their needs. The men in this book have as much gumption or use as Bollywood film heroines and they do quite bit of justice to their ilk. Ohh man, and the misplaced sexuality...the women in the book end up making love with the men that you would least expect them to make love with. What a freaking ordeal!!

I also happened to catch "Mixed Doubles" over the weekend. Will somebody in this country please make a Multiplex movie which will be the anti-thesis of the expected multiplex movie...which means, for one, it wont have Koel Purie playing her standard vulnerable-tormented-hence-turned-into-a-bitch kinda roles. She is getting absolutely unbearable. And will somebody please please puhleeze let Anurag Kashyap write more movie scripts and hopefully direct a movie that wont be banned! His script for this movie is just awesome. The double entendres are superbly subtle and Ranvir Sheorey has the perfect dead pan expression to carry them off. Konkona Sen is nuanced and apt though her penchant for sarongs does get a little irritating. The build up to the climax is a little slow but bearable since there are couple of good laughs on the way, but why the hell does the movie end where it ended? Either the movie should have ended 10 mins before or after it ended cuz it left me scratching my head a little. Sigh, why did i expect so much more Rajat Kapoor? Superb actors do not superb directors make.

Current Music: Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name

posted by Nitish @ 6:05 AM Comments: 5

Give dance a chance....

Its been a long time but I am back. Well kinda. My left shoulder aint what it used to be but i guess i will have to live with that. The last weekend was spent in a quick trip to Delhi to get an MRI done and to meet some doctors who told me that i have chipped some bones and partially torn my left shoulder ligament. Ah well. Shit happens. Atleast we came third in the Corporate Basketball tournament. But the downside is that the docs told me to stay of sports for 6 months...as if i am gonna listen to all that they say :)

Well, it seems travelling is well and truly in my stars for the time being. The 26th January weekend saw me spending 4 days in Pune. And that city absolutely blew me away. It reminded me so much of what Bangalore used to be around 5-6 years back, when it was still pristine and not as over burdened as today. I was hosted by my good friend Konga who finally managed to be of some use. Well most people who know Konga will be wondering how the hell that is possible with him being the guy that he is. Let me explain. He, being an alumnus of XLRI, managed to wriggle his way through the interview of ITC. And ITC being the behemoth that it is, weilds quite a bit of influence when it comes to pubs and nightclubs and somehow this "genius" has managed to learn the fine art of using his clout. Konga having his clout. Pisses me off :)
Well, we went to a couple of places in Pune, the first being this wonderful pub called 1000 Oaks which played exactly the kind of music that you can sing along too. The crowd and atmosphere was quite nice and it seemed that the regulars at that place knew their music. The other place which is also really recommended is Sheesha cafe at ABC Farms. ABC Farms is like this gallery of restaurants/pubs and has this nice hookah bar called Sheesha. We were fortunate enough to be there when a live band consisting of some Swedes and Italians was playing some amazing reggae. The place was the perfect lounge without being the too brightly lit. More importantly, the people who run the place had paid more attention to being comfortable than being wacky and chic, so that was a relief. Most of the seating consisted of good old diwans and ottomans, a perfect place to lounge and listen to good music. The place was situated on a terrace with an amazingly green view, and with the night temperatures in Pune being really really pleasant it provided the perfect setting for some nice music. The musicians were quite adept and more importantly, were not too obtrusive and blended nicely into the place. The crowd was quite knowledgeable and very international. Thats one thing that hits you when you are Pune, the number of foreigners that you see around, the reason obviously being the fame that good ol' Osho had brought to this city. And his ashram was also definitely on my list for places to see for obvious reasons. The overbearingly high walls proved to be let down considering all the hopes that i had of catching some "action" at the ashram. But I did catch sight of some really really HOT women who were part of the ashram and seemed to be living there. Couldn't help wondering what had driven such HOT women to live in an Ashram though....hmm.....could it be...hmmm....ah well.
Konga also took me to a some nightclubs namely Nirvana and Xion but their wasnt much i could do with my arm and all. But these places were just like any other night club in India playing exactly the same tracks that you could find in any club in India. Kinda weird how at any point of time the whole country or the world might be dancing to the same set of tracks in most of the night clubs....
We were too lazy to go to Lonavala and too hungover to go to a quiz there but in all in all it turned out to be quite a fun trip. Also managed to catch Rang De Basanti there. Hmmm what can i say about RDB that hasnt been said already. Watch the movie once atleast for its freshness if nothing else.Most of the actors are quite adept though i really cudnt swallow Aamir Khan as a 25 year old guy. And how i wish AR Rahman would leave the singing to someone else. His music is getting a little to repetetive for my taste. "Lose Control" and "Khalbali" are way to cliched, but the clincher for me is "Roobaroo" -the guitar being the saving grace for that song.

Ok time for me to go and trip on the latest album that i bought. "Faithless -Forever: Greatest Hits". For all those who care, this IS the seminal house act for me. An absolutely wonderful album.

Current Music: Why Go? - Faithless

posted by Nitish @ 2:30 AM Comments: 3