Movie - Tees Maar Khan - My Review

Here it was finally, after lots of hype and tv appearances, finally the actors of the movie Tees Maar Khan would make their first appearance on the big screen. Me and my wife were right there on this first day first show of this movie believing that if we wait for the reviews, we might probably skip watching this movie in theater. To say the least that was our expectations from this movie. Afterall its a farah khan movie. But with houseful crowd mostly filled with college students, we were pretty excited after all the hype surrounding this movie with a "Cant wait to watch" attitude. Few whistles started for the first ads which were now playing on the huge screen. Then finally the time came when the sponsors list of the movie started followed by a wonderful title track of the movie. The title track is catchy and well sung by none other than the talented Sonu nigam. In one of the promos, they had shown that Sonu had provided 8 different voices in this title track. I could not figure out more than 3.

The title track has a neat animation with a baby portrayed as the lead role of movie doing some hip-hops which was good. Then the movie starts with the theme of some anticipated train robbery of goods worth 500 crores narrated by the commissioner of police to his deputies about the 3 people who can possibly rob out of them 2 are already serving in prison. So without any rocket science involved, the one left is Tees maar khan. The scene shifts and the hero enters with a title music track. Since the movie starts with this exciting topic of train robbery, I was hoping that something amazing would be following in the movie, but nothing of that sort happens.


Then in next 15 minutes, the time comes when the lead lady of the movie enters to the ear-deafening shouts from the crowd to much awaited song of the movie "Sheila ki jawani". The whole song hums admist the wild whistles and roars in the theater. Another 10 minutes and the crowd roars again for the special appearance from Salman khan. Then its all over. What follows in the movie is just the motions of actors moving here and there for the much anticipated train robbery which you wait and wait and when it comes, you dont even feel that the scene passed by.


I would suggest that you can just walk out of the movie theater as soon as the song "sheila ki jawani" ends. The dialogues are lame and the supposedly comic scenes just turn out to be nonsense comedy to say the least. Coming to the actors, Akshay kumar is good in his acting and dialogue delivery, but he alone cannot carry the hopes of a over-hyped movie. The lead lady Katrina is just a doll in the movie and used only for the glamour quotient in the movie and for songs (Ofcourse, she does not have to do anything with her acting skills). Akshaye khanna is wasted in a ridiculous high profile actor role in the movie and he does a good job of his over-acting in the movie. Rest of the cast has nothing to do in the movie apart from running here and there with the lead actor. I personally cannot recall any scenes that are outstanding in the movie which are the "Watch-out" types. In the end, a very silly movie and a time-pass (or time-waste) movie. It could've been much better as far as I think of it. Anyway the least said the best for this movie. A total slapstick comedy movie with no story, no stand-out scenes, no good dialogues and no performances. If possible, my humble advice is to skip this movie. Afterall its a farah khan movie.

Road to Ooty - Story of 36 hair pin bends

"Hey. There are two ways to go to Ooty. One is the shortest and just 36kms from the deviation near masinagudi safari cross. But beware that shortest route is very steep and has lots of hair pin curves. Your car being santro should be able to make it easily, but lesser cars do not. Also traffic is less there since buses dont ply on that route because of steepness. Anyway happy journey". These were the words of advice given to me by my friend in office. Now those exact words were ringing in my mind when we had just started our journey towards Ooty from Mysore. Unaware of this risky road ahead, my wife beside me was pretty excited about the whole journey. I never dared to spoil her enthusiasm too (For now). Somehow I had got the feeling that I will be directed towards that short route itself instead of a nice long relaxing alternate route. My adventurous mind was wanting me to take that hair pin road but my heart was thinking otherwise. Finally it came down to that safari cross where we saw a sign-board showing Ooty direction and mentioning it as 36kms away. I felt somehow that this was leading to that risky road and soon after my fear was coming true. The road was clear with no heavy traffic, infact very rarely we could see another four wheeler passing by. I had seen lot of such mountain roads before so I thought this would just be another of such types. Being confident of making to the top of hill, I went forward.

Couple of minutes later I could see some sign-boards of caution like "drive slowly", "accident zone", "Hair pin bends ahead" and "Steep curve ahead". Then finally a big board read "36/36 hair pin bends". Looking at the board, I could make out that there would be 36 hair pin bends ahead and Ooty was around 18 kms away now. First couple of hair pin bends were just like any other normal ones which I had seen lots but then when the third one was passed, I could feel some fear within myself. I thought "the coming hour does not seem to be an easy one". Eventough I was beginning to feel nervous now, I could not show that nervousness to my wife who had probably realized by now about what lies ahead. She was sitting pretty stiff now. The small chats here and there had come to a complete standstill now. With the cool silent environment outside, there was a nervous silence inside our car now.

By this time we had crossed another couple of hair pin bends and the board now read 31/36. My car engine was roaring now toggling between first and second gears, but I could not be any nice to my car because of the situation we were in now. The left hair pin bends were really scary only because they were so steep that you could not see if any vehicle is coming from the other side. But the vehicles on the descent were really helpful. When they notice upcoming cars, they used to stop until we completely cross the hair pin bend. Guess usually thats one of the nice highway disciplines among cars when driving on such difficult roads which is seldom missing in our cities.

When the board read 18/36, there was a bit of relief since we had passed halfway now. I could see my wife still stiff beside. To release some nervousness, I casually asked her to take some photographs of the scenery outside. To this she just shouted back saying, "Just look ahead and drive, dont talk please". The situation was just worse than I had expected. The roads seemed good now and my confidence of making it to the top was back eventough my car was still roaring admist the foggy mountain. In my second attempt to cool her down, I asked her, "You have been on scarier rides in wonderla and other amusement parks on which I dont even dare to go, why are you feeling so scared now?". For this she just plainly and truly replied that "Are baaba, those rides get over in couple of minutes and we still have 15 more mins on this scary ride". I did not know whether to laugh or get worried for this reply, but I realized one thing that my wife would cool down only once we pass all the hair pin bends. So without wasting any further time, I concentrated on the road ahead and on the mission to reach the top.

Finally the boards started to look less dreadful when the reading came down to single digits Then once we saw the board which read 1/36, we both gave sign of relief and looked at each other and immediately I told her that lets not come on this way during our return journey. While telling this thing to my wife, Internally my heart and mind were both saying "Not only on return journey, never again we will come on this risky road again". Surely this was the most difficult pass for me with my aging car and nervous wife in my whole driving career until now. I have been to lot of such hills and mountains before but never had I been so scared with the doubt of making it to the top of the hill. Anyway, all well that ends well. On return journey we just came on the other alternative route and the road was not a little bit scary but took an additional hour to reach our destination than that risky road. At that time I thought we could just have gone on that risky road to save some time, but then...

Near miss HM Trip - Part-2-

Missed the first part... Read it here - PART-ONE

After a long 5 minutes, my phone started ringing.

She - "Mr.Sachin, I am so so sorry, there was a slight confusion over your travel plans"

Me(Feeling my HM trip is over) - "Oh what? How? How could you do that? Whats the issue now? What do I need to do now?"

She - "Actually it seems that your tickets were booked for the date 29th Apr and not today. Wait, let me try to arrange something for your travel. I will call you back in 5 minutes"

Yet another 5 minutes. Every minute passing by was just making things worse. Just could not understand what went wrong. I was wishing if only I could have confirmed with the Agent once in previous week. But then how could you doubt a reputed agency making such a mistake. Just when I was wondering about various things that could have avoided this confusion, a person from that agency came to me and asked "Are you travelling to Singapore? If yes, please follow me." He saw the bag we were carrying which was given by that agency and after seeing us wait from a long time, he probably thought we needed some help. Indeed we needed a lot of help now. I replied back saying "no" and also told him the situation we were in. He dived in to help us out of this situation and asked for my printouts. Just then, my agent called back. Then I told my agent that some person from same agency is trying to help me out here. She warned me to check his ID once and then let her talk to him once.


Then they both talked for around a couple of minutes and then I guess my agent was convinced of that person's identity and she suggested me to follow him. That person promptly went to that control room which we had visited before, talked to that control room person for a while and then something happened. He asked me to follow him again and he led me to that ticket counter. There he talked again to some people and finally led me back to control room. Time was already short. It was already 2-30am now. Then again in control room, he took out his credit card and gave it to the man in the control room. That man swiped it and then took some print out and handed it over to my person. Then that person gave me that printout and said, "Have a safe and happy journey. Enjoy your HM". I just could not believe my ears that I would be hearing that. Seeing my surprised expression, he explained me a bit - "I have booked you new tickets on same flight. Since the time is less, you will have to adjust for whatever seats are available. Also enclosed are your return tickets from Mauritius. You do not have to pay anything extra for this trip. Just go and enjoy your trip now. I have talked to your agent too and she will get in touch with you once you are back in India." I thanked him very much and rushed towards the ticket counter for the third time in last couple of hours and this would probably be the last time before our travel I thought. The lady at ticket counter promptly asked for my passport which I forgot to produce due to the ongoing events. Finally the boarding pass was in my hand and that meant we could now enjoy our trip without any further problems.


Thats just a thought, but then how can you be sure about your return tickets being proper now? No way right?. Well, this thought crossed my mind when we crossed our security checks and proceeded towards the flight to settle down in our seats allotted. Ofcourse we did not get the window seats which we would've wished for, but then after such events had occurred, the window seats did not matter anymore. Then the same thought and fear about the return tickets kept me worried for long time until we landed in Mauritius. One look at that wonderful island and everything about the return tickets was forgotten. For the whole of one week, we enjoyed every bit of that wonderful trip until the time when we landed at the Mauritius airport to return back to India. Now again the dreadful thought of return tickets came to my mind when I was standing in line for collecting my boarding pass. Again several thoughts came to my mind about what are our options here if the return tickets are not valid too. Finally my turn came, looking nervous I produced the print out again to that lady at the counter. She stared at my worried face and then asked for my passport. Yet again, I had to give my passport only after being asked. Finally she gave me the boarding passes and wished me a "Happy journey, Visit again".


I just could not stop smiling back at her and say "Thanks a lot" and happily hopped to my wife and proceeded towards the security check. A wonderful trip which was nearly missed came to an end finally. The guy who helped us at Mumbai Airport was named Abhishek. I would not like to take the name of that reputed agency here anyway.


The moral of the story as I think would be to make sure and keep the bag which your agency gives at the top of your baggage cart, because it was after all the bag which saved us this trip. And in case your agency does not give any bags, then make sure you double confirm the status of your travel tickets before the journey.

Near miss HM trip - Part-1-

"Hi, Happy Journey" - the caller told me in phone.

"Thanks" - I replied.

"So tomorrow morning, you will be landing in mauritius" - caller confirmed the status

"Excuse Me? Sorry, I am on my way to Mumbai, I am leaving to mauritius after 4 days"

"Oh yeah, ok Happy journey to both the trips, bye" - caller said and the call got disconnected.

Well it was simple, Me and my wife were on our way to Mumbai, 4 days before our honeymoon(referred to as HM) trip to Mauritius. The caller was the lady who had arranged for our Mauritius. Previously I had given two dates for this trip, one was 29thApr which was this day and other was 5thMay and then finally had made up my mind to travel on 5th may for 6 days. So the lady probably got confused and wished me on this day. Our plan was to stay and meet relatives in mumbai for the first 3 days and then be on our way to HM. Alas we landed in Mumbai safely and off we went to my uncle's place. Being newly wed has its own advantages, ofcourse we got a terrific reception on arrival and the same ooohs and aaahs continued for next 3 days. Then finally the day of our travel came.

The flight was scheduled for 4am from Mumbai International Airport. So naturally we had to be at airport by midnight. My uncle dropped us to the airport and he left after seeing us in at 12-30am. Being the more experienced of the two for international travels, I was feeling a bit of pride in myself to guide my wife towards the ticket counter to collect our boarding pass. Then when my turn came, I produced my ticket print out to the counter and our passports before the lady asked. That counter lady seemed to be kind of worried for a while and then she returned my print out and said "I am sorry sir, your tickets seem to be canceled. Please step aside for others to proceed." I could not understand what the matter was. I asked her "Err... Excuse me? What?". Then she told me the same thing again and asked me to verify with the person in some control room.


I could not believe what was happening. This was our HM trip and how could I have overlooked some details regarding ticket bookings. Without wasting any time, I rushed towards the control room to check the status with that guy. He welcomed me with a casual smile and showed no concern over my disturbed face. I told him the whole story and then he replied back saying he will check on his system. After 5 minutes he came up with same answer saying the tickets have been canceled. Now I did not know what to do. It was around 1am now and I had to call up that lady who had booked and confirmed our tickets. Time was running out, I had to act now. Somehow gearing up the courage to call her, I dialed her number. No answer. I dialed again and this time luckily she picked up. Being half sleepy she asked - "Hello, who is this?"


Me - "Hello its me, Sachin. You had booked my tickets and I am here at Mumbai airport and people are saying that my ticket is not valid. Can you tell me what is going on?"

She - "Oh, just a minute Sachin, let me check and call you back in 5 mins"

I said ok and disconnected. These 5 minutes were looking like the longest 5 minutes in my life now. In these 5 minutes lots of thoughts came to my mind. "How could this be happening?", "How could my HM trip get ruined after 3 months of planning?", "What would my wife be thinking now?", "Maybe we can visit nearby places in Mumbai since our trip is now canceled." I had even gone ahead and short-listed places like Khandala, Shirdi, Nasik, Ajanta-Ellora etc in my mind. I had to be careful not to discuss these options with my wife, because I was not sure how would she react to this change of plans. I was so disturbed that my wife consoled me for sometime saying its ok, we will wait and plan for some other time. But I knew if we miss it this time, there is no some other time for an international travel. I again began to read word by word in that ticket print out to see if there is any mention of the cancellation and tried to recall all conversation with the booking agent if by any chance I had mentioned to cancel my tickets... but as far as I could recollect, there was no such incident.


Finally the longest 5 minutes came to an end and my phone rang....


To be continued.... Click Here

Skandagiri Night Trek

“Wow, looks like a lovely place” – I said looking at the Skandagiri hills, which was visible in the moonlight. It was cloudy and windy as expected but it was 2 days for a full moon day. The moon was playing hide and seek under the clouds. Also it was good that it wasn’t raining. So this was it, my first night trek with my office friends (Who forced me into this) was about to begin.

**Flashback** 2 days ago, at my office –

“Hey guys, what is the plan for weekend. How about movie? – I said. Few responded with Yes and others a plain NO. Finally 5 of us decided to go to this movie Inception evening show on Saturday. Later the plan extended to a late night trek. 2 more people who would miss the movie told they would join for the trek. I had never been on such a trek before. So physically and mentally it was a challenge for me. But being a confident guy, I always thought I would come up triumphs on this trek and it would be a cake walk for me. Two days I did attempt a couple of warm ups like walking around half a km briskly and thought I had warmed up enough for the trek. Alas, if I only knew then that this was not enough.

**Flashback ends** In front of Skandagiri hills –

I had a backpack with a heavy windcheater which I had packed after one of my trek friend told it would be required for this chilly climate. So the cakewalk was about to begin. I was very confident of scaling down this peak within no time. So we started off on a trail towards the hill. Since this was my first night trek, I was pretty excited and with full energy I was at top of group. 15 mins into that trail, we realized that this trail was heading nowhere near the hills and we were totally on wrong trail. This happens when you are over-adventurous at times. So we had to trace back the same trail to the starting point again and had to start on the correct trail all over again. At this point, my energy level had suddenly dropped by 30%. For first 15 mins, I kept talking/chatting continuously with my fellow mates but then I suddenly realized I had to save my energy for the trek. My energy level was dropping down rapidly now as the time spent on trail increased. I realized that may be if I can stop talking and save whatever energy is left, I can probably make to the top of the hill. Suddenly half an hour later, I had to take a break. So it meant everyone had to take the break.

Took few snaps of non-existent scenery of the night. After a good refreshing break, we again set our foot on the trail. As the trail went on and on, my energy level went down and down. Looking at this, my friends started giving some words of encouragement like, “Its done, just few more mins and we will be at top”. Tough it sounded very good to the ears, the truth as it stood that the peak was not few minutes away but rather few hours. Consoling myself at every step, that I can still do it, I carried on. To help my condition, the weather was cool and windy so it was not that tiring. After sometime, I had to give my backpack to one of my friend and I carried on solo on the trail. Now my energy level was almost at zero and we were probably halfway to the peak and I had to break for a while again. This time, I did not have strength to take even few snaps of the non-scenic sight. Then we set on our trail yet again.

At some point of time, when you get very tired and you still have to carry on, the body reacts in a very mechanical way. This makes you look like a zombie. This was the time, I was walking like a zombie with no energy left. My body had become mechanical with only one goal “WALK to the TOP”. I was still confident of making to the top and when you know you are not the weakest in your group, it adds to your confidence even more. Yes, I was not the only one to feel like a zombie, one more of my friend was already considering not to continue on the trail and wait for us at this spot until all of us return back from peak. Anyway, the whole point now was to reach the peak and I was just counting on minutes when I will hear those magical words “Yes, here we are finally”. Alas the magic did not happen for next couple of hours. Few more breaks on the way when I could not feel my legs anymore or the pain in them. My energy level had already reached the negative level and was few more minutes away from hitting rock bottom. And then suddenly I could not believe my ears when I heard those magical words. Indeed we were at top of that hill, but then it was not the way I expected it to be. The time was 4AM and it was still dark out there and it was so windy that we could not open our eyes and see whats in front of us. The morning mist or thick fog was not making things easier too. This was the time, my backpack was most needed. I immediately took out the windcheater and put it on. Some relief finally and the dropped energy level suddenly went up after feeling the top of hill.

Then there was nothing much to do there, so we took a short nap until the sunrise (which we were expectant of watching). Finally the time came when we got up and expected to see the morning sun, but alas the cloudy sky had other ideas. We could not see the sun anywhere in the cloudy sky. Since we had taken some rest and refilled our energies to some extent, we broke into a talking session which went on for an hour or so. Then we decided to head back towards our cars and started our descent. Climbing down the hill was not so exhaustive and this time around we could take few good snaps of the existent scenery. The climbing up of hill took us around 4 hours while getting down took us just over an hour and a half. So that was it. I had scaled down the Skandagiri hill on my first ever night trek.

Altough this trek exposed lot of my physical weaknesses; it was a wonderful experience and a night worth remembering. I would love to go on more of such treks but only after doing a very good warm-up. Fitness sessions begin now and lot more of such sessions needed to scale down other peaks which are more adventurous than this one.

Life from a near-death

“Ding dong, ding dong”, the alarm went on in my mobile. Slowly opening my sleepy eyes, I laid my hand on my mobile and saw the time. It was 5-35am on 4^th of Nov 2010. Me, my cousins and one of my uncles were sleeping in a hotel room and had planned for a bath in the morning sea. So we had to get up early in order to enjoy the morning sea and return back just after sunrise. I called everyone to get up and then we were all set to move in next 3 mins. It was still dark outside when we started to walk towards beach. The beach was around 15mins walking distance from our place. So after 15mins, we reached the beach. For a moment, we stared at each other for a second. The vast Arabian Sea was beckoning us. The next second we were stripping our clothes and running towards the cold water. Recently I had learnt this new technique called floating on water with heads looking up towards sky. The beach looked very calm without much waves at the moment. I started my float immediately as I hit the water. “Aaaah… Awesome… it was a pleasure…” I thought. Indeed it was a pleasure watching the brightening sky upwards and then closing my eyes for sometime to listen to the wonderful calmness of the sea. Then got up couple of times and again went into my float. After what looked like a long time around half n hour had passed by.

“Hey come, its time to go home” – I heard someone shouting. Cursing the moment, thinking, the wonderful time is up let’s come tomorrow and start afresh, I slowly got up from my float position. Suddenly I realized that my feet were still floating under the water. I tried to reach the ground beneath, but then I could not. I saw the land quite far away from where I had started floating. It took me a moment to realize that the waves had calmly drifted me away from the land and here I was trying to think hard how to get to the shores of safety. Realizing I would drown at any moment, I immediately called my uncle for help. My uncle realized that and started swimming towards me. Suddenly one more of my cousin who was sitting on the shores also started coming towards me when he heard me call for help. Finally my uncle reached me, but then he also was not able to touch the ground beneath. He pushed me from behind and then he had to regain himself and push me again. After few pushes, we were still long way from the shores.

The ground beneath was uneven, the place where I started to float was at a much higher altitude than where we were now. That was the reason we were not able to find the ground beneath. The higher ground was towards our right. My uncle started pushing me towards that higher ground level. Whatever we tried, it looked as if the silent waves of the sea were pulling us towards itself and away from the shores. One more cousin of mine was standing on that higher ground level and shouting at me to try and reach there. My uncle was now tired, he started swimming back towards that higher ground. Maybe he would regain some breath and return again for another push. But since I saw him move out, I thought I must be too far away and was difficult to be saved. Thoughts came to my mind that this could be the end of my life and started looking at various moments which I had spent in my lifetime. Then one final time I started praying to the god and thought that this is it. Then suddenly I realized I was still floating, not drowning. This was weird. I was not drowning, at the same time I knew vaguely on concepts of swimming. So putting all my effort, I thought, one last chance let me give it to myself and started kicking my hands and legs to move towards the higher ground. Suddenly I felt some sand below with my foot finger, but I was still not feeling safe. I could not stand on the ground below and the waves were still pulling me away from the land. Then after few seconds of struggle, I could finally land my foot on the ground beneath the water and struggled to walk until the water level came down to my knee level. At this point, I felt completely safe and turned back to see my cousin who had dived into sea was double the distance from land from where I was at some point of time. It was merely impossible for any of us to swim back to him and save him. We could only watch in horror for couple of minutes when few village people gathered around. None of these people came for our rescue and instead they were scolding at us for going so far in the sea.

From nowhere in crowd, one man with 6.5ft height started undressing himself and started towards the sea to save my cousin. We watched him easily swim across the dangerously calm sea and catch hold of my cousin and then with the help of a long rope, we all pulled him back to the shores. My senses were not working at this point of time and at that moment realized that everyone of us were safe now. Somewhat regaining the strength to face the shouting and scolding villagers, we put on the remaining strength and courage to start walking towards our home. We thanked the hunk whose name was Martin and he was from England. He wished us back a “Happy Diwali” and for the next 15 mins, nobody talked and we were in state of shock. We were also wondering how to face the people back in home. Then our nerves slowly started settling down. We told all the people about this incident back home and then there were usual “I told you not to go…” speeches from our elders. Not that, we did not know about this before, but then some lessons are learnt in a harder way.

There is a saying “Calm seas are more dangerous than the roaring seas”. Even today when I see the calm sea and think of this very day, it sends down shiver to the spines of my body and makes me think how true the saying is. Also this incident told us not to underestimate the strength of a calm sea. Nevertheless, I am thankful to all people who came to my and my cousin’s rescue without which I would not have seen another sunrise in my life.

Test Cricket at its best

The only thing which prompted me to write this blog today is the high emotions which turned out during the recently concluded test match between India and Australia (1-5 Oct 2010). India won the match by a single wicket in hand and VVS Laxman became the hero of the nation yet again. The best part was, Laxman was even doubtful of batting in second innings and the media was all over the place saying, "Laxman will bat only if required". True, he was really really required and what a way to show all the other fit players, the WILL power to do well for your country.

After the first 2 and half days of test match, it seemed to be heading for a tame draw and most likely the only team which had chance to win the match was India by taking a huge lead and handing over an innings defeat to Australia. But then, a mini-collapse in Indian batting order put the match wide open. India not only failed to take a lead in first innings, but
condeded a lead of 23 runs to the Aussies. Then again on fourth day the fortunes swung wildly. First half ,it looked like Aussies all the way, but in second half, by tea time, it was India again on path of likely victory. Thanks to an inspired bowling by Ishant Sharma and Zaheer khan brought down high flying aussies to the ground. Finally by end of Aussies second innings, the target was set for India. Fairly easy target in modern day test cricket and with a batting line up of Indian calibre, you would not hesitate to think otherwise. The target of 216 would have on any other day be a easy one with Sehwag and Gambhir starting off well. Sehwag with quickfire half century and Gambhir with more accomplished half century. Then the next two players Tendulkar and Dravid sharing the rest of runs and India winning by a 7 or 8 wickets in hand.

Bet on India to make any normal match a thriller and you will not be disappointed. By end of day four, India had lost 4 wickets with just 55 runs on board and the target of 216 looked like a mountain. On the fifth day again, there was a collapse by high boasted Indian top order then it all depended on two injured people. VVS and Ishant. Nobody would've given India a chance at this stage when there were 92 runs to get and only 2 wickets in hand. One batsman playing with runner, other not known for his batting skills and the one to follow was still new to pressure situations. Yet, they were able to get India home by one wicket which triggered wild celebrations in Indian camp. Truly one of the best matches of all times.

For India, which has played cricket from a very long time, this was surprise that this was the first time, India had won a test with only one wicket to spare. Reason could be either that Indian top order has always taken up the responsibility to see the game through or the Indian tail has not been so good to take up pressure and bow out before a victory. No matter, what the reason is, the final result of Mohali would be a confidence booster for all the Indian players as well as Indian fans. Wish India plays out such thrillers more and more and come out on top everytime.

New Year - A day to remember - 2

If you have not read the first part - CLICK HERE

"...OH NO NOOO NOOOO!!!"

Life is never so simple right?. So there was a small twist in this tale now. The tickets as expected were in the dashboard of the car, but then the main question now was, where was the CAR?. The car was on its way to Mangalore at this moment since my cousin had taken it the previous evening from me. Immediately the mobile phone was in action and he picked up the call. I asked him where he was now, he said he had just crossed NICE road and was near first tollgate of Tumkur. That was both good and bad news. Good news - He had just crossed the city and was not very far from city limits. Bad news - it was improbable to drive whole way back to our theatre to return bunch of tickets. Then again it stuck me, that one of my wife's relative was closest in distance towards city. I got my wife into action on another phone to call that relative and ask if they can collect the tickets from my cousin. This meant my cousin had to drive back 8kms towards the city. The whole purpose of riding on NICE road for my cousin was to avoid city traffic and that was undone now. They had to drive back all the way in traffic to the city to give that purse containing 20 tickets to our relative and delay their journey by an hour. Another small twist is that, both of them had never seen each other before....!!! But then there was always ways to identify people and the same happened. Thanks to mobile technology, this was not a big problem. So finally the tickets were back in city. Now the plan was to watch movie, and then go home, take my bike n ride all the way to other end of the city and come back to get my refund.

As planned, we came out after watching movie, took an auto to reach home. Had lunch and straightaway took my bike and left for the long journey. The bike was not in action for around an year now and the question was whether it will last the whole journey of 28kms and back to home. It took a complete 6mins to start my bike and then our journey started. During this journey, bike stopped at 3 places and had to spend 5 mins on each occassion to start the bike again.Finally we were at our uncle's place, grabbed the tickets and were on our way back to the theatre. couple more stops on the way to theatre and then finally at ticket counter. I produced that 20 tickets at the counter, the ticketfellow stared me as if I was robbing him of his money. Then he said, this is huge sum and somebody at higher level will come and give me my money back. 20 mins of wait and that higher level guy finally arrived. Then he asked few questions to know the reason for getting 20 tickets. Probably he thought, I had bought these tickets to sell out in black outside theatre. finally his interrogation ended and he looked convinced that I had no plans to sell tickets in black and then returned my money. With a huge sigh of relief, we headed to our home. It was 6PM. Our neighbour saw us coming and he came to give us a DVD which he told was a nice movie. I saw the DVD and a smile came out on my face. It was a movie DVD of "3Idiots". We had decided we will watch this movie in theatre only, but then since its an Aamir Khan movie, could not resist to watch it. OH, by the way there was another journey awaiting us. We had to leave to Kukke Subramanya that very same night. The bus was scheduled to depart at 10-30 meaning we had to leave home by 8-30. So we had exactly 2 and half hours. I immediately put the DVD in the player and again we were watching the movie. The movie was so awesome that none of us moved an inch. Finally when it ended, we hurried ourselves and got to our local bus stop at 9 and subsequently a the main bus stand at 10. The bus arrived at 11 and finally we were on that bus. During the journey, we wished each other a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR just before the midnight. Never had we travelled 3 times in a day and watched 2 movies during the same day. For the very first time the complete 15 hours in a day was utilized. Probably the best and very pacy NEW YEAR with full of action, tension and travel for us until now, surely a day to remember for a long long time...

New Year - A day to remember - 1

"Happy journey, Have fun, bye." - I was in call with one of my cousin and his family was going on a trip to Mangalore, Udupi and nearby places for 3 days. After the call, I had to shout again -"Hey Common guys, get ready soon, we will be late". This was for my wife and other cousin. We had booked the movie tickets for morning show in a single screen theatre for AVATAR-3D. We were excited since this was first big screen 3D movie which we were going to watch in theatre. The show was supposed to start at 10 AM, it was 8-30 AM already and we needed atleast half hour to 45 mins to reach theatre by auto. Finally everyone was ready and we left home and reached theatre by 9-15. Now we had lot of time for movie to start, got the normal stares from my wife for getting here so early. I had to return her stare back with a wide smile. Then I realized something and went into the ticket booking counter and asked ticket fellow -

Me: "I have 20 tickets for the show which was cancelled, Can I get them on Monday for refund?"
Ticket fellow: "No sir, today is the last day for giving all refunds, We need to close our calculations by this weekend.
"Me: "Ok, then I will get it by evening"
Ticket fellow: "Sure sir, anytime before 6PM, you can get it."
"Thank you sir", I said and left the ticket counter.

***FLASHBACK***
Rewind a week back, we from our office had decided to go for a outing to watch this movie on a weekday in same theatre. 20 people had confirmed their participation and I had volunteered to book the tickets online. So as planned, I booked all 20 tickets for a wednesday evening show. One day before the show, I collected all the tickets from the ticket counter. The plan was to give individuals their own tickets so that nobody had to wait outside theatre before the show. So I thought I would give their own tickets on the day of show and everyone can make their own arrangements to arrive at theatre on time. Everyone was excited, and looking forward for this show. When everything is going according to the plan, there is always something waiting in store to disrupt the plans. So it hit as a lightning the next morning when all newspapers and television channels had only one news. "Breaking News - Kannada movie superstar passed away....". Because of this incident, city was expecting lot of violence and hence there would be bundh kind of atmosphere in whole city. Naturally, the theatres wont be screening any movies too. I called up the theatre and they said there will be refunds for the tickets booked. I told them I will collect the refund some other day and kept the phone. On same day, I booked 3 more tickets for the same movie to watch on new year day.

***Back to new year day-2010***
I came out of ticket counter and explained my wife about this -Me: "The ticket fellow says we need to get those tickets today itself for a refund. Else we wont get any refunds."Wife: "20 tickets is huge, lets go and get them after the movie"Me: "Yes... sure. After the show, we will go to home and get the tickets. I have kept the tickets in dashboard of our car...." The moment I said this, I realized something else...and had to shout again "....OH NO NOOO NOOOOOO!!!"....

To be continued... CLICK HERE

Movie - INCEPTION - My view

It all started on a friday night, when I was in a conference call with a US client and my phone rang. I had to wait till my conference call ended. It was 11pm when I called my cousin back.
Cousin: "Hello, how r u placed for tomorrow evening?"
Me: "No plans as of now, anything in your mind?"
Cousin: "How abt movie, night show? There is a new movie called Inception which got released yday."
So there it was, I had not heard of this movie, only thing I knew was Leonardo di caprio was the male lead in this movie. So was worth a shot, but was bit hesitant after his disastrous "Shutter Island". Then I checked for tickets online, but to my surprise the multiplexes were booked out. So I had to settle for a single screen theatre and booked 4 tickets( me, my wife and 2 cousins). First step done. Next day morning, I checked the reviews in the newspaper, and it gave a positive sign. Then finally the time came when we were in front of the movie theatre, and again the theatre was packed completely. There were few trailers which were good (including Harry Potter-7) and what followed them was awesome to say the least.
From the first frame the movie was gripping and the packed crowd roared in anticipation.The theme of the movie is well projected in the first 15-20 mins so that the audience is very clear on what is about to follow. This leaves the audience to think of various twists and turns that might come in the movie, but the director has bigger thoughts in the movie. Afterall his previous movie "Dark Knight" was biggest hit of the year as well.
"If you cant convince... confuse them" seems to the theme of director altough the movie posters say "Dream in a dream..". The concept of movie reminded me of MATRIX which was on similar lines, but the cinematography, editing and the direction are way too good. The challenging part in such movies are to keep your audiences interested in the movie all through 2hrs 45 mins, and the director does not miss a trick to keep up with this. Its so well architected that probably for the first time I felt bored during the interval. The movie is so pacy and fast moving, it gives you very little time to think and analyse on whats gonna happen next. Finally a fitting climax ends the movie leaving the audience in a superb state of mind where they cant decide if there is gonna be a sequel to this movie or not. The movie is all about living your world in dreams and when you come out of theatre, you feel as if you are already in a dream.... Finally a MUST WATCH movie for all creative and innovative movie lovers.