This location of the neigh

"Throw... quick quick... oh NO"... POP! CRACK!! CRACKLE!!! THUD!!!

"Can you walk?", they asked.

"Yes." I said, clenching my teeth.

I had scored enough to save the team from the blushes, but as I ran for that last run, I could hear my right knee snap under the pad and I landed with a thud in the crease and just missed from being run-out. I straightened my leg as I sat in the mud and the cracking-popping orchestra replayed. I limped back to the pavilion with support from 2 team mates. As I sat down on the chair, I realised that I could not straighten the knee anymore. There was a lot of pain. I took off the gloves and the pads and asked for some water. Someone passed me an ice pack, too. .. thankfully.

Later that night, the pain aggravated and the knee was swollen and tender. An injury in the foreign land is always scary business. A crocin put me back to sleep. But when I woke up the pain woke up with me. I googled the symptoms and was convinced that this is a dislocated knee.

Knee dislocation is different from fracture. But people normally tend to diagonise for a fracture to begin with. The swelling is not as severe as a fracture and the pain is bearable. One can touch the tender soreness on the knee without feeling much pain. I had a swelling on the inner side of the leg on the left side of the knee cap and a bit of pain behind the knee. A knee dislocation could cause a cartilage and a ligament pull. An internal clot can cause an immediate swelling and if there is internal bleeding it has to be taken care-of immediately because there is a risk that the clot might travel to the lungs.

I ordered a cab in the morning which dropped drop me at the 'accident and emergency' department (A&E) of the local hospital. After a quick record entry, I was asked to wait for the doctor to call me. I was first sent to get an x-ray done. The x-ray can only see the bones, which turned out to be normal (no fracture) and that meant that the dislocation had reset itself.

The doctor asked me to drop the pants (I was still wearing yesterday's underpants) and flex the knee. I showed her that I could not bend or completely straighten my knee. It was as-if the knee was locked and there was considerable pain when I tried to force the bending/ straightening. A normal knee should bend to an angle of at least 100 degrees. My knee angle was hardly 45 degrees and that too, slowly and painfully.

Tying the knee only increases the swelling, so crepe bandages are a strict no. Hot or ice massage only soothes the pain, it is not going to heal anything. Ibrufen is a recommended anti-inflammatory capsule and not really a pain killer. 400mg of capsules should work for a stretch of 12 hours. Keeping the leg in the same position for too long can worsen the swelling, I don't know why!
It has been a week and I am feeling much better. The pain only stings at night... mid-way during a deep sleep. I cannot completely straighten my leg yet. I am on a no cycling and no running order from the doctor. This means I will miss the cricket season. :(

People come and ask how it happened and I narrate the episode to them in the most gruesome way and end it by saying it is not as scary as it sounds, there is no pain. I still don't get a free lift home.

Bums on the Saddle

My email to the admin at http://blog.bumsonthesaddle.com
Damn the knee!!

Hi guys,

I dropped at your site from the article on rediff.com and I was so glad to learn that there are cycle-to-work-enthusiasts in India, too. I have been cycling to work since the last 2 years in London. If I ignore the dislocated knee last week, my overall experience has been very good. I have been off the cycle for 6 days now and I am missing it already.

The cycle I use is an old mountain bike with 18 gear combinations. It saves me time and money in addition to giving me the flexibility of not relying on the bus or train timings. Most trains in London have facilities for carrying a bike in a separate compartment. There are regular camps for cycles, where they have a health check and lots of freebies. The roads here have dedicated lanes for cycles to ensure safety and to encourage cycling. At the signals and roads, cycles are definitely treated with a lot of respect.

I have managed to get a handful of colleagues to cycle to work as well. I have managed to get bikes for them too. The public transport and fuel in UK is much more expensive than that in Mumbai, so it is only wise to invest in a bike. I would have to cycle 90 mins in the sultry, dusty and dangerous Mumbai roads and that thought gives me a shudder. I think I would prefer traveling to work in Mumbai by the company bus that takes 50 mins to reach office in the mornings and 90 mins to take me home in the evenings.

Regards,
Bricks

Date Ali

"Who is Ali? Why do they want to date him?", Alex kept wondering throughout the film.

De Taali
Starring: Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Ayesha Takia, Rimi Sen, Anupam Kher

Genre: Comedy, Drama

This is a light story of 3 childhood friends who are now 26 years old. Aftab (Abhishek) is a rich kid who is always falling in love with the wrong girls (cameos by Hrishita Bhatt, Neha Dhupia and a couple more). Ayesha (Amruta) is a sundar-sushil girl. Ritesh (Paresh Gurudev) is an unemployed guy and is the brain of the club who comes up with plans that fail. Aftab falls in love with a con-girl Rimi. The other 2 try to save him. As expected, Aftab and Ayesha end up together.

Scenes I remember:

• Aftab ineffectively doing a Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality when he teases Ayesha by saying 'Amu lurrvhs me. Amu crieess for me...'
• Aftab saying that for the first 6 months of their friendship, they did not know that Ayesha was a girl! (He does not mention how they finally realised it :P )
• At the hair-dressers, Ayesha and Ritesh watch their hair fly using the blow dryer and when Aftab tries the same on his short crop, there are a few giggles
• The eccentric behaviour of Rimi's family members... 'chai chahiye? toh jaake banaao. mere liye bhi banaao.' Who is that lady? She has acted quite well in most films that I have seen her in.
• I was told that the film is like 'Saving Silverman' and the tree club house scene definitely suggests that there was an inspiration
• Ritesh mimics jadoo from Koi Mil Gaya

Pros:

• Ritesh provides the comic relief with support from Ayesha
• A very light movie with a not-so-bollywoody story
• There are some giggles through out... like the Rimi torture sequence

Cons:

• The music is nothing to remember about
• Aftab seems out of place and lost

Watch it for some time pass.

Wood stocked pilla

Woodstock Villa

Starring: Sikandar Kher, Arbaaz Khan, Neha (?) Oberoi, Sachin Khedekar, Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover

Director: Hansal Mehta

Genre: Thriller, Mystery

Similar movie: Aggar, The Train

The film starts with Arbaaz Khan being phoned to pay ransom for his wife, kidnapped by Sikandar Kher. Arbaaz reports this to the cops. The wife is found dead. Sikandar then tries to flee away from the city, but realises that he might be innocent and ends up solving the mystery.

Scenes I remember:

• The intentional graphic novel feel of the titles
• The initial sequences that show the landmarks of Mumbai in a new light and eventually end with a heavy rain shot from above
• Sanjay Dutt crooning and scratching the guitar with the Aryans!
• Sachin Khedekar trying to be a comic relief - Itni acchi gaadi ka satyaanaash hua!

Pros:

• Makes a good video cassette promoting Kiron Kher's son's acting, dancing, filmy fighting abilities
• Sikandar Kher does well for his debut, accepting that the wooden glances were part of the script
  
• Music might do well at the city's pubs
• Shortened length of the movie

Cons:

• Gulshan Grover has better screen presence than the hero :P
• The twists in the story are expected

Recommended if:

• Sikandar becomes a star and a fan wants to watch his debut movie
• You liked 'The Train' and 'Aggar'
  

Random sketch

This was a random sketch based on a guy I noticed changing clothes on the train. The clean shaved head and the creamish-orange tikka on the forehead possibly meant that he was part of the ISKON - 'Hare Rama, Hare Krsna' organisation.

He just dropped his pants and held the lower end of the short kurta between his teeth. He unfolded a length of white cotton cloth and wrapped it around like a lungi. The entire changeover was completed in a couple of minutes. He then turned around with a wide smile and packed his things back into his shoulder bag.

By the way, that writing in pen is that of a manager who could not find anything else to scribble his instructions on. How could he! Hare Ram, Hare Ram.

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!