Natwarlal Jones

Mr Natwarlal and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom seem so very similar to me. Besides being great entertainers, the basic premise of the story is the same. I have seen both of them more than 5 times and never got bored. They have both had lots of action, funny scenes and great music... plus, they were both block busters. I remember that both had a re-run at the theaters in Mumbai a good 5 years after their respective releases. Mr Natwarlal could have been made into a comic and his adventures could have continued if it had been a Hollywood product, I believe.

• Both Natwar and Indiana land up in a village in North India
• Both of them wear khakhi coloured clothes for most part of the movie
• Both of them are heralded by the village folk as saviors according to a prophecy
• Both of them eventually end up defeating a villain involved in diamonds
• Both of them escape from the captivity of the villain
• Both the movies have popular soundtracks
• Both the movies involved children and many animals
• Both of them have a strong reference to Indian Gods (Krishn and Shankar/ Sankara)
  

Amitabh's rendition of 'Mere paas aao' was probably one of his first songs as a playback singer. The outdoor locales of Indiana Jones are actually Sri Lanka because the Indian government had demanded some changes in the scripts.

I wonder what I would watch if the 2 of them were telecasted at the same time on different channels. I think, I would go for Mr Natwarlal. :)

Shantaram

If books are a man's best friend, Guptaji is responsible for arranging my meetings with most of them. He has a large wooden plank balancing over a square wooden crate. One cannot miss this twenty-something round guy while he screams throughout the day outside the Andheri station, standing over his stack of pirated copies of books. A rather soiled handkerchief hangs from his neck, which he occasionally uses to dust his ware. The frequent cutting-chai breaks give him the energy that he requires to shout the usual 'LaaT (lot) hai! Sale hai!', 'Jeffrey hai, Archer hai, Sidney hai, Sale-done hai!'

I used to visit him on Saturday evenings and he would welcome me with a smile. Of late, I just had to go up to him and he would state his recommendations. Surprisingly, he even knew the contents of the books.

'Yeh loh saab, iss mein ek Afghani dost ka ishtory hai, jo uska hi... nahi nahi apun suspence nahi kholega. Iska picture banega dekhna' ... and he told me that even before imdb.com had an entry for 'The Kite Runner'.
'Iska start Indian call centre se hi hota hai. U.S. ki toh phatli hai abhi apne se' ... that was his conclusive analysis of 'The World is Flat'.
'Mama ke paas naya Tintin aaya hai' ... by naya he meant a second copy at a vendor across the street, because he knew that I was collecting Tintin and I could not afford the first hand collection from the Shopper's Stop next door.

Guptaji recommended 'Shantaram' to me more than 2 years back. My first reaction to the width of the book was - 'Abbe kitna badaa hai, sote sote chhaati par reh gaya toh uth nahi paaunga'. His tobacco stained toothy laughter lasted for 5 minutes under his sparse moustache.

He used tell that Sunday evening were the busiest because the Sunday papers carry reviews of the latest books and that boosts the public ka demand. So he would have the book review pages from 'Times of India' and 'Indian Express' under his cash deposit tin box.

I have finally picked up Shantaram and the first few pages remind me of the dusty and humid streets to Andheri station. In fact, that is what makes me want to read the next pages. Hmmm nostalgia!

Phunny language

The railway minister - Laloo Prasad Yadav, the villain in Tashan - Lakhan Singh and the don in One Two Three - Papa... what do they all have in common? They are all the leaders who have struggled with english. (And yes, I have watched Tashan as well as One Two Three. Start to end.)

Microsoft has been successfully selling the Chinese version of the Operating System many years before someone started creating a Hindi version. A couple of years back, a school topper was denied admission into a school because her English was not up to the mark. I have watched her speak on NDTV and she definitely spoke a better version of the 'phunny language' than some of the professors. In India, the fascination for the English language prevails.

Acre. Care. e-Car. Race.

... or like a gujju would pronounce 'rash'.

Starring: Akshaye Khanna, Saif Ali Khan, Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif, Anil Kapoor, Sameera Reddy, Johny Lever

Director: Abbas Mastan

Story:
This is a story of the relationship between two brothers and their 200 million dollars worth of insurance policies. Like Detective Robert D'costa (Anil Kapoor) says - where there is a huge money involved, accidents are bound to occur. One of the brothers is thrown off the roof just before the intermission and the detective investigates and unveils the truth behind the mystery.

Things that I remember:

• The 'taweez' on the arm of Anil Kapoor
• The clock intentionally showing 6:28 in the digital clock when Akshaye Khanna is waiting in the office
• 'Zaraa Zaraa' and Atif's rendition of 'Pehli Nazar' both of which are shameless rip-offs of a chinese and a korean song... even 'dum da dum da dum' in the vocals has been lifted
• Kapoor, w.r.t. a stick of sugarcane, "Gannaa khaoge? Waise toh isay chuste hai, magar 'chusoge?' aise pooch toh nahi sakta"
• Johny Lever playing his small but entertaining part where he narrates why mobile phone is better than a wife... i remember that more because my chuckle was followed by a phattack on the lap
• During the car race, I was wishing that both the cars would explode and everyone should die and it should finally end it all

Pros:

• All the actors are big stars during the release of the movie
• Everything is shot beautifully and stylishly
• The going on is highly unpredictable and the tempo is mostly kept up
• Abbas Mastan are doing what they do best - thriller mystery
• Great stunts and fresh action scenes

Cons:

• Too many twists to the tale; makes the audience feel exhausted; a bit too much effort is applied to make everything unpredictable
• 'Zaraa zaraa' and the title song are out of place, just like Anil Kapoor
• I find the the title of the blog more interesting

Recommended if:

• You liked Naqaab
• You have an appetite for chakris and jalebis

Moral of the story

"Fuck!! There are fucking millions of pounds involved. Don't you go around fucking with it. What the fuck do you think you guys are here for! Do you even fucking know how it should work?" This was the yelling that Ram would hear from Steve almost every morning.

The deadline was a day away and Steve, the paymaster, was yelling expletives at the placent technical leader, Ram. While the entire team stood in silence, it seemed unreal that Ram was holding his nerve in the face of a wealthy boss who throws 'fucks' into practically every thing that comes out of his mouth.

Nonchalantly Ram said - "You will get it by the agreed date." The silence prevailed even after Steve had left. Ram had been away from his country for the duration of the project. He had been the brain behind this technically complex and highly priced project. For the business, it was as big as a rocket launch is for NASA. As usual, Ram's team spent the evening and the next half of the day toiling at their desks, which was followed by the usual round of the User Acceptance Tests. By the end of the week, there were cheers all around and the work was proclaimed to be a success.

Ram sat at his desk and sent a mail to Steve.

Mr. Steve,
This is to inform you that with the success of the project, my role as the technical leader at your company is now complete. I am glad that this would mean the end of the 5 year period of your needless expletives. It gives me immense pleasure to note that the efforts of the team have borne fruit. I hope that you have noticed how it is important to fuck to create something beautiful.
You must have also noted that we skipped some of your suggestions and instructions over the period of time in order to finish what we had initially aimed for. The technicalities have always been our domain and were implemented with the usual finesse. The results are out there in the form of the happy users. Since it is the users that fuel your business, we have undoubtedly saved your day. So, do not teach your father to fuck.
Regards,
Ram

The war

Over the last couple of decades, companies involved in all forms of digital content are investing exponentially increasing amounts of money and efforts for the Digital Rights Management (DRM). Each of these efforts have resulted in solutions that followed months of engineering and the work arounds have ironically been quick, simple and downright free.

Reminds me the anecdote about NASA splurging millions of dollars to manufacture a pen for their astronauts that could write in conditions like underwater, zero-gravity, vacuum etc; while the Russians simply gave their astronauts a pencil!

To curb piracy, Sony launched a multi-million research-backed technology to protect a CD/ DVD from being copied. In the very next hour, a group published that the workaround is to simply mark the inner most ring on the CD with a black permanent marker because that is the part where the validation logic is stored.

A few years back the public (and their lawsuits) forced the DRM on audio CDs to be taken down. The audio companies realised that they were wasting too much money and time on something that is merely a puzzle game for the crackers/ hackers out there. There is a constant race between the various hacking groups for releasing the hack.

Undeterred by all this, Microsoft regularly tries to push out OS updates to identify pirated Windows. They have every right to protect their income! Their previous attempt at locking out a Windows XP had a disastrous effect on some of the customised/ OEM copies of the OS. There were reports of computers left unusable after the update was applied. Recently, MS released another 'Windows Genuine Advantage' (WGA) update for Vista that when installed checks for the installed OS being legitimate. By definition, this could very well be a spyware, no! Those with legitimate product keys are unlikely to have any issues and those using a pirated copy, will simply choose to ignore the update. So the only point in the update is, perhaps, catching those unwitting users who inadvertently install it without thinking!

And so the war continues...

Lunch as usual

As the clock strikes one (must have been quite some time since someone said that in the current digital age), everybody digs into their bags and takes out their lunch boxes. Everyone (all desis) queues up for the 4 microwave ovens. My gang efficiently blocks the biggest table in the canteen in order to accommodate as many of us as it can.

B had got a boxful of chopped raw vegetable munchies... cabbage, cucumber, carrots and all that healthy stuff.

R: What is all this healthy food about?
B: Balanced diet. Health. Vitamins.
R: Vitamins? Drink beer if you want vitamins.
B: This box here is full of vitamin A and C.
R: A bottle of beer is full of the same. Research proves.
B: Carrots have Vitamin A; good for the eyes. Beer is good for a beer belly.
R: How do you know?
B: Have you seen rabbits wearing specs? You have a beer belly, though.
R: But you have specs, don't you?
B: I am not a rabbit.
R: I am a human, I drink beer and I do NOT have specs. Hence, proved that carrots are good for the rabbit's eyes and beer is good for human eyes.