Author

Kanupriya

Inception: A dream extravaganza

July 22, 2010
If I was excited to see TBL, then I must say that I’m THRILLED to see Inception. What a movie it was – MIND BOGGLING, FLABBERGASTING & EXHILARATING! I think I can keep on adding adjectives but won’t be able to do justice to the visual experience of this movie.


It’s a sci-fi movie but not on robots or aliens; rather it is on a very unusual topic – Dream Architecture. It’s about technology invasion on human minds while they are sleeping; planting and extracting information out of their brains by getting transmitted into their dreams. Sounds weird, isn’t it? Trust me I don’t think I have ever imagined anything of this sort in my life neither I have read or watched anything like this earlier. It’s an imagination extravaganza so to say.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a dream-thief and specialist in the art of extracting information from sleeping subjects. He and his friends hook themselves up with wires to the drugged targets and creep into their subconscious mind. He does his job of digging out information skillfully and always perfectly, but lands his toughest challenge when he’s hired by a powerful businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe) to plant an idea in a rival’s head, instead of stealing one. And thus starts the tale of Cobb and his team entering into Robert Fisher’s (Cillian Murphy) dreams which gets followed by dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams…oh my god, the layering of the dreams and complexity of the plot just leaves you transfixed to the screen. You can’t afford to lose your attention for even a fraction of second in the movie. No more update on the story in the interest of those who are going to watch it but trust me even if you would have read the whole story then too the written content for a movie like this just can not act as a spoiler, for this is a movie which you really need to see (and that too maybe more than once) to understand it clearly. And the ending of the movie is such that it leaves you with a desire to watch it again in order to understand it better, that spinning but only slightly tipping top leaves you wondering if it was a dream or reality in the end.

From my side it’s a must watch, in fact me and husband are already planning to catch up with it again as soon as it comes on DVD. If you were thrilled by Memento & loved The Dark Knight, then go and watch it as Christopher Nolan won’t leave you disappointed with this engaging, gripping and a really different movie.

Tere Bin Laden: Once again, content rules

July 21, 2010
Writing about movies after a long time as feel like definitely writing about this one :-). Watched ‘Tere Bin Laden’ last weekend and man, what fun! This movie reminded me of an old program – MTV fully faltoo. Ya, it was fully faltoo types, totally bakar yet fun. Tere Bin Laden is a comedy film about Ali Hassan (Ali Zafar), a reporter with some godforsaken TV channel DANKA in Karachi, he is desperate to go to US for better career prospects and a better life and keeps on dreaming of making it big one day. But unfortunately in some comic series of incidents, his visa has been refused six times in seven years. One fine day while doing a coverage for his crazy channel, he comes across Osama Bin Laden look alike and thus starts Ali’s humorous journey of becoming rich and famous using Bin Laden. And as I always say, won’t be a spoiler by revealing more of the story in the interest of those who are yet to watch it :-).

Slapstick, satirical and silly, yet the movie clicks mainly because of its content. It has an entertaining plot and some really funny moments to make you laugh off your seat. Though may not be one of the best comedies from Bollywood, but nevertheless far better than so called comedy movies like “All the Best” or “De Dana Dan”where one has to wonder whether to laugh or cry on those nonsensical acts and absurd dialogues. This movie definitely has some originality when it comes to execution. Not even a single known actor, no songs, no clichés but still the movie manages to hold your attention from start to end. From my side it is definitely a one-time good watch, for you need to see how a movie can sail through nicely based on its content even if no big name is attached to it. Happy to note that content still rules in some cases when it comes to Bollywood.

Going to watch Inception tonight, hope I like it as much as I have heard about it.

Human trafficking in India – Now chor bazaar for kids?

June 25, 2010
Not that reading bizarre news in newspapers surprises me anymore, in fact I can safely say that when I pick up newspaper in the morning, I do expect to read at least 3-4 such weird news which just leaves you thinking – aisa bhi ho sakta hai kya! But when you read some news piece like this, not only it leaves you amazed at the plight of things around us but it also makes you think about the state of human behavior in current times.
Frankly speaking I had no intention to write any gyaan post today but this news did effect me a lot. Earlier I had read it in newspapers, and last night when I saw some coverages being aired on news channels about kidnapped babies rescued in TN, the visuals impacted me all the more! As per the report – “two more babies were recovered yesterday in TN on the basis of the lead given by the two gangsters who were on police custody. In this connection Jayaprakash, Chennai based middle man and Ramalingam, an accomplice of Dhanalakshmi were arrested by the Krishnagiri police. Police sources said that the accused in the baby kidnapping case, Dhanalakshmi confessed that she had kidnapped a four day old male baby belonging to N. Mumtaj hailing from Tiruppathur at the Tiruppathur GH and a two and half year old boy of S. Sangeetha of Pernambattu Colony on July 23, 2008 and handed over to Girija another accused in the case under the police custody. In turn Girija sold the four day old baby to Puzhuthiraj-Mekala couple in Jainagar in Bangalore for Rs.99, 000 and another baby was sold to Periyasamy-Kamalam couple living near Salem in Krishnagiri for Rs.50, 000”.

Parents interested in selling their own babies out of need is a different topic, maybe their financial penury is so overpowering that they decide to sell their own kids for any money ranging between Rs. 10,000 to 1.5 lacs. Yeah, 10k – that’s the cost of a human life in India! But imagine people STEALING babies and then selling it in the market to the willing ones? Can a human really do this? Human trafficking anyways is growing at a phenomenal rate in India and right from women being used in sex market, to kids being used for child labor or kid-sex market, we have seen and are seeing it all. Human trafficking is actually an organized industry which has been observing growth rate of no less than 20-30 per cent year on year basis. But kidnapping new born babies or so called baby-trafficking has to be really the worst form of trafficking I guess! More than my anger on rackets kidnapping new born babies, I feel disgusted on these affluent people who out of their parental hunger are actually paying money for those stolen innocent babies. There are so many orphanages in India, why not adopt one from there and why resorting to this ugly act of inhumaneness? Is it because they definitely want a new born baby only or they are ashamed of adopting one from orphanage? Frankly speaking I am quite curious to know more about their reasons of buying babies this illegal way but whatever might be the reason, I think nothing can be worse or more shameful than participating in trafficking of innocent new-born infants!

Wordless Wednesday

June 16, 2010

Oh how I try to walk along with the flow, how I try to hold on to the pace, but life seems to be just slipping underneath my feet…
Pic: Taken during one of my recent trips to Pondicherry

Bus Day – Is it really feasible?

June 4, 2010
Got this image as a forward yesterday, and the first section of the picture immediately reminded me of the driving stretch between Sarjapur Junction- Agara; a stretch which unfortunately I need to drive by daily :(. How painful that stretch is can only be described by people who commute on it daily.

Most of the days I end up cribbing about traffic woes and the miseries of flyover construction all over Bangalore, though at the same time I also keep on thinking as to what I as an individual can do to avoid adding up to the already existing mess on roads. Trust me all the traffic problem in Bangalore is not only because of municipal issues, I seriously think that and firmly believe that a good part of the chaos is also due to highly undisciplined commuters here. Even if the percentage of such irresponsible drivers will be low as compared to the sincere ones but the problem is when there is not even an extra inch available to divert then even slight digression and other smart acts by few fellow drivers can really lead to larger chaos on the roads. Tired of driving (read crawling) on that route daily, I always think of opting for some public transportation service for my daily commuting needs. One it would save me all the hassle of meandering my ways on that horribly packed road, second at least from my side I’ll be reducing one car which occupies the road space with only one passenger in it! But unfortunately there is no good bus service available directly from my home to office. And taking auto daily is simply out of question – one needs a special training all together to deal with auto walas in Bangalore.

When I saw this picture yesterday and read a tweet about monthly bus day today in Bangalore, I thought let me try to travel by bus today. Last month also we had discussed in office about taking the bus on bus day as our contribution for lesser traffic from our side even if it meant for one day only. I knew this would mean at least extra 30 mins (6 mins to walk till nearest bus stop from my home, 14 mins to reach my office from nearest bus stop again & another 10 minutes to wait for bus to come assuming there will be at least some bus every 10 minutes). And taking out extra 30 mins in morning rush to reach office is a task in itself. But still determined to travel by bus today, I reached the stop dot on time as per the timing suggested by BMTC website. Two auto guys came and very proudly I said NO to them. Waiting, waiting and lo no bus at all for 15 mins. Hmmm, some more waiting and after approx 22 minutes saw a bus coming. Happily tried to enter the same and well the bus was jam packed so much so that not even a single passenger boarded the bus. A minute or two and the bus was just gone! Waiting commuters looked at each other with a wry smile. Waited for another few minutes and then along with others decided to succumb to auto wallas once again. And when we approached those auto guys whom earlier all of us had said no, you should have seen their ironical smile! Yes, once again we were at the mercy of them and knowing well that we have already wasted our time for 25-30 minutes, all of them asked whatever money they wanted to. Depending upon our negotiating powers, kannada speaking skills and urgency to reach office we took the autos at all random and highly inflated rates. Finally reached office quite late than planned and at a quite higher cost than estimated! Despite the intention to contribute my bit towards lesser traffic, the bus day was sort of dampener for me!

Though I am in total favor of initiatives like Bus Day or Carpooling drives in Bangalore, but I wonder do we have enough infrastructures to support such initiatives here? What’s the point in tom-tomming so much about initiatives like bus day when not even enough buses are there to support the needs of the commuters? If facilities are there but still public is not opting for it out of luxury or bit of convenience then I can still understand it, but here not even the basic facilities are in place for people to opt for? Can I as an individual really do anything towards easing out the traffic problems in Bangalore or am I just supposed to have more patience to cope up with it each & every day?

From couch to marathon

May 26, 2010
Duh the problem with coming to your blog after long is that you don’t know which one topic to stick to. I wanted to write about so many things – those new books which I read recently, the movies which I watched, time spent with mom last month, those weird new soaps being aired on TV etc etc etc. But for this post, let me just stick to one of the most interesting experiences I had in last few weeks and that is Sunfeast World 10k 2010.


Yes, quite happy that I went for it as it was surely an amazing event. Frankly speaking the decision of participating in it this year just happened in a flash. And after filling the form we both realized that we needed some practice to go for such a long run. Though I have been sort of regular with my walking plus swimming regime and I can walk for any normal length very comfortably but running is something which does not come easily to me; at times I get breathless and at times my legs start aching. N definitely has far more stamina than me but then it’s been only recent few months that he has got back to his exercise regime after a long hiatus. Post his initial few running sessions on his own, he decided to join a runner’s club in Bangalore while I decided to stick to my own regular walking routine but with a target to cover longer distance each day. Joining that club and running with lots of similar athletes definitely worked for N and motivated him further to improve his timing and performance every week. And as N says – from couch to Sunfeast 10k marathon– we were there in 3 months. 🙂 It was a fantastic experience to reach the finishing line and we both managed to do it in our respective targeted time. But what was more interesting about the event was the positive and enthusiastic environment of Bangalore that day. From international athletes, to sports stars, to film celebs, to senior citizens, to corporate biggies, to handicapped people, almost everybody was running. More than 30,000 people on road and those not running were there to cheer others up. Oh man, what positivity and what liveliness, got to see a very different shade of Bangalore that day. Had my jaws open to see that the international athlete Titus Mbeishei (winner of men category) from Kenya actually completed 10 kms in 27:54 mins whereas Yimer Wude (winner of women category) from Ethopia did it in 31:58 mins only!!! At times I was happy to see the sporting spirit of celebs like Rahul Bose or Gul Panag who actually ran for 10k and at others I was in total awe of those handicapped people who really were running through their wheel chairs. I have no words to describe my feelings after seeing them, all I can say is that I had goosebumps when I saw their energy and enthusiasm. Hats off to them and kudos to all Bangloreans for their spirit that day. And I think the event management agency did a commendable job this year. Yes, there were some participants who mentioned timing issues in case of timed runs but considering the size and scale of this international event, I think overall Procam International did a great job in conducting it. Otherwise in India, you never know what mess can happen in such large scale events. With my fun experience this year and better confidence on my physical stamina I think I am surely looking forward to participating in this event next year as well.

Reality vs Real Competition

May 5, 2010
Scene 1: Judge: Beta, aap bade hoke kya banna chahte ho?
Li’ll gal replied cutely – “Item Girl”
Judges: Shabash beta, bahot achcha naache aap.
Background score on which the kid just finished dancing:
Ring Ring Ringa, Ring Ring Ringa, Ring Ring Ringa Ringa Ringa
Khatiye Pe Mein Padi Thi, Aur Gehri Neend Badi Thi
Aage Kya Main Kahu Sakhi Re…
Ek Khatmal Tha Sayana, Mujhpe Tha Uska Nishana
Chunrai Mein Gus Gaya Dheere Dheere, Oooooo Ohhh

Scene 2: A kid hardly of 6-7 years crying badly, when asked the reason he in all tears replied – “main apne mummy papa ka sapna pura nahi kar paya, main select nahi hua. Camera rolled on to the lady standing beside him and well mummy ji was in tears too!

Scene 3: Another young gal in red hot pants gyrating her hips in a way which can give even the sawants, chopras & seths run for their money! And no her expression on the song “zara zara kiss me kiss me, zara zara touch me touch me” was no where cute, least that it could be called would be “raunchy”. When asked, who taught her these steps, the gal smilingly replied “mummy”.

These are some of the scenes from those numerous kids’ dance reality shows which were airing on almost all channels last Sunday. Not that I hated all of it, some of the performances were damn cute and some kids were extra ordinarily talented. Such amazing performances at such young age! I also appreciate the maturity of some of the judges who know how to deal with kids.

But then what makes me wonder is the content of these programs along with the presentation and personality of most of the kids. I mean do gals really aspire to be item gals in life now? In 30 minutes, I listened to more than 60 boys saying that they want to be choreographer in life, has choreography really become such a hot profession? And what’s with these mommies and daddies crying along with their kids when they are not shortlisted in just a dance reality show? How are they going to prepare their kids for larger level competitions and real life challenges in life? Haven’t parents become over ambitious and want their kids to achieve everything at that age only? At such tender age if kids feel pressurized by one goddamn dance competition and can’t accept their loss, I have no idea how are they going to deal with actual hundreds and thousands of tests in life ahead! Frankly speaking, an hour in front of the television viewing those programs was to a large extent upsetting!

My wishlist for some more DAYs

March 28, 2010

Ok, so few days back it was “save water day” & few days later it will be “lake restoration day”. Today it is actually “hot tub day” (time to soak yourself in a steaming hot tub and bust the stress!!!) & on 30th March it is gonna be “doctor’s day” (time to thank the doctors in your lives!!!). Well, earlier also I had wondered and expressed my bewilderment on these millions & zillions of days in a calendar year of just 365 days! Thanks to some authorities, marketers & creators that we have even days for “temporary insanity” (this year it was on 19th Feb) & “teddy-bears” (this year it’s on 9th Sept’10). Well, being a marketer I can’t crib about these weird and incomprehensible number of days as I’ve myself being into situations where I was supposed to come out with some such days just to promote the product / service in a different way! So, as far the concept of these days are concerned, I think whether I like it or hate it, I have sort of done truce with it now. Only wondering why don’t people come out with some more meaningful days which can make our lives bit easier, you know even it is just for a day. And on a vella Sunday evening, here I come with a wish list of my preferable days which I would love to be added in this never ending list of special days. So, here goes my proposed memo from the top 5 in my wishlist, of course if I will have more such free Sundays, I don’t mind adding more to this:

  • Well-behaved auto driver day: Now this is self-explanatory, isn’t it? Imagine you walk out of your home / office and an auto guy is just standing in front of you with a big grin on his face, he bows down and asks you absolutely politely – “madam, aap kaha jana chahengi”? When I say X road, he obeys with another big smile and says – “sure madam, please baithiye”. He starts the auto and starts his meter too, drops you to your destination and charges you exactly as per the meter. If the meter reads Rs. 99, he actually returns Rs. 1 from the 100 rupee note given to him. Ah bliss!!! The imagination itself of even one such day in our life is just so comforting. I’m sure people from metro at least from Bangalore, Delhi & Chennai will vouch for starting one such day.
  • Maid behaving as a maid day: OK, this might be more desired by women but so what, after all a maid is the most important person (ummm, maybe second most important person after the husband) in a woman’s life! Imagine one such day when a maid behaves like a maid and we can ask them to do any number of work without the terror of them leaving our job! Kaash ek, sirf ek din bhi aisa ho paata humare life mein 🙁
  • Negative calorie day: Yes, yes by this I very much mean one such day where whatever we eat (of course, chocolates, ice creams and all desserts included) gets converted into negative calries by some miracle of God. Science has advanced so much, but why on earth some such invention has not happened till now! On this negative calorie day, eat all your favorite calorie laden food absolutely guilt free 😛
  • Cello tape day: One day where you have the power to just shut-up or mute the LOUD persons in your life by officially pasting a cello tape on his / her mouth. And this has to be applicable to anybody whom you hate – be it your Boss, your MIL, that really LOUD colleague of yours, your very irritating neighbor or this person who is so self obsessed that all he/she knows is to speak about “me & myself”. (Well, be careful about this day though, maybe even you would be on hitlist of someone for putting a cello tape on your mouth, but if this happens my advice will be to take it sportingly as even you are getting a chance to zip so many mouths this day

And last but not the least,

  • Sleep in Office Day: One day (some week day of course) where we are allowed to officially sleep in office for as long as we want. Reach office, switch on your laptop and go to zzzzzzzzzzzz…., Boss comes, wakes you up, asks you to do something and you look at him with sleepy eyes and without listening to him completely go to zzzzzzzzzz again…wow!

So, anything on your wishlist? Feel free to add more it in comment section…

Karthik Calling Karthik

March 3, 2010
Get-togethers, Karthik Calling Karthik, Holi and lo the weekend disappeared just like that :(. It was surely an action packed weekend with main highlight being the festival of colors. In fact I got to celebrate holi after a looong time. It must have been years now that I had such great fun on any festival like this. Thank god, for a nice day in my life. But coming down to the main topic of the post, I think again it’s quite some time that I’ve posted review of any movie on this blog. Not that I’ve not seen any movies of late, as usual my minimum one movie a weekend quota is still going on 😛 but the lazy as well as busy me has just not managed to get time to write a post on recently watched movies. But you know I’ve to do a post on Karthik Calling Karthik and this amazing talent known as Farhan Akhtar.

To start with I think Farhan Akhtar is simple the best in Bollywood these days. I was so mesmerized by his multi-faceted performance in Rock-On; then came Luck By Chance where Farhan was again in a lead role. Despite the movie not being a huge commercial hit, personally I had loved it. And now with KCK (Karthik Calling Karthik), I’m in total awe of this actor. I know the movie has its own flaws and so is the storyline which gets bit too filmy at end, but overall if I have to rate this movie then my pointer will surely tilt towards “I like it” side. This movie is about a diffident guy Karthik who is being bullied by everybody around him, be it his landowner, his boss (Ram Kapoor), colleagues or his love of life Shonali (Deepika Padukone) who has not even noticed him despite spending four years in the same office. Then one day Karthik gets a call on his landline number which changes his life forever… No more details about the movie in the interest of those who have not watched it till now. It’s a thriller different from other Bollywood movies though I agree that the ending could have been a better one. After an entertaining first half and the gripping second half, the way in which the movie finally unfolded its main suspense was just too literal and dramatic. But nevertheless it was one of those intriguing movies which manages to keep your attention till end. Deepika Padukone was good, rather I should say better than some of her earlier dumb performances (me didn’t like her in Love Aaj Kal :I ). Writer-director Vijay Lalwani definitely deserves some accolades for trying out something different and Farhan as I said earlier was awesome! I especially liked the way this movie has been shot, the scene where the sun rises while the screen shows back of Karthik & Shonali sitting together on bench emphasizing their start of relation in a beautiful way – neither too loud like a typical movie nor too subtle to be missed out; or the last scene where Karthik falls down and the camera captures his expressions underneath the bed. Even the use of Rubik Cube at different stages to demonstrate the different states of Karthik’s life was interesting. Overall a nice and experimentive movie which gets a thumbs-up from a viewer like me.

Isn’t optimism overrated?

February 16, 2010
Have finally let go of it…had to do it. Evaluated the priorities of my life and finally took this call. At times I’m repenting my decision whereas at times I’m thinking, it was just another opportunity…when we can bear the loss of the most loved ones, what is there in a missed opportunity? Yes, it was a very lucrative one, something which was really-really nice but still I decided to let it go in a hope to fulfill some larger objectives of my life. Those objectives after which I’m running for months now but with no result! Those objectives which have made me miss some equally attractive opportunities in past few months but still I want to run after this one as somewhere I think in the long run this one is more important for life. I’ve no idea if I’m doing right or wrong, no idea if I will get similar kinda opportunities in future but still I’m missing these with a hope that my decisions will prove to be right someday & things will turn out better. “Hope for better” is all I can think of in such a state of mind. Yes I’m apprehensive, anxious, worried, confused, depressed, feeling low & negative too…you heard it right; I’m feeling negative and not positive towards things right now! I’m not sure how am I supposed to feel optimistic about life when despite all my efforts, things are just not turning the right way for years now. And for a change I don’t wanna follow the bandwagon of “pseudo-optimism”. I want to accept my real feelings and the realities they way they are right now.

The last two weeks of my decision making phase has made me more & more contemplative towards so many things. Be positive! Optimistic raho toh sab theek ho jayega! Don’t regret! Always look on the brighter side of life! Never repent your decisions in life! Whatever happens is for good, so always think positive in life! Indecisiveness and confusions are the traits of feeble minds, strong ones take a decision & move on! Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah….Every other person whom I meet these days speaks no less than any motivational guru and out of all, the crowns for the most used (or shall I say abused) buzzwords definitely go to…OPTIMISIM & DECISION MAKING. I’m also aware that there are some colleagues, relatives, formal friends and professional acquaintances who read my this blog now (thanks to Google, finding this link is quite a simple task) and somehow this realization had actually let me become conscious of topics to be posted on my blogs for past few months. Honestly speaking there are times when I’ve written a post but have not posted thinking, “oh, this post might make me sound like a negative person” or “am I the only one who is so indecisive in life, rest all seem to be so confident & positive.” But somehow today I don’t feel like restricting myself from posting this one even if I’m aware that this will project me as a confused personality who gets depressed at times in life. I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. In fact the recent mantra of “forever optimistic” or “assume a crap to be candy & it will turn into a candy” is something which I don’t buy in. I have had arguments with people on realism vs. optimism and the other side has always won saying, “positive sochne se achcha hota hai” or “go with the flow & life will be fine”…well, does it really? If you’re aware that the flow which you are going along with is going to end in pits, then why not change your course before hand, why optimistically wait for the pit to get converted in a straight road? If you’re on a crossroad where both directions seem to be equally appealing & both are sort of life changing directions for you, then how are you not supposed to be indecisive & confused about it? Positive thinking is fine but it DOES NOT & CAN NOT help you in all situations. I have so many case-in-points where I have seen my thinking getting true but somehow have not been able to voice it loudly as my concerns are generally being taken as unnecessary apprehensions. Call me cynical but I do think (& strongly so) that this term “optimism” & the theory of “prove the world that you’re confident” are just too overrated. I have enough case studies and examples to elaborate the same & I will definitely do so in one of my subsequent posts when I will have more time to write a long one for I do feel that terms like “optimism (prefix: pseudo)”, “confidence (prefix: forced)”, “decision making (prefix: irrational)” are doing more bad than good to many of us.