Mumbai seize

Everyone of you might have known about the siege of Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai. You might have read about this issue in many of the blogs out here. It’s sad to hear that more than 200 innocent people and policemen died in this ghastly incident. The way in which the commandos and the army tried to take over the seized hotels and the Nariman Point, without much harm to the hostages, was really worth a salute. And it’s because of the unspoken heroics of the Taj Hotel staff that most of the guests are able to escape the hotel much before the bloodshed began. I read somewhere about the way a hotel employee came in the line of fire so that the hotel guests can escape unharmed.

I don’t want to write anything about the terrorists or their strategy or the failure of the government. All I want is to appeal to the terrorists is – “Brothers, we are also normal people like your family members and friends. We too deserve the right to live just like your people. What harm did we or our government do to you or to your people? Who told you that your people can live happily ever after, if you take the lives of innocent people?”.

Whoever might be responsible for this, every second person is blaming the government and Intelligence for this fateful incident. Particularly, it’s sad to see that every opposition leader is blaming the government for this incident.
Friends, it’s not time to blame others. It’s time for us to stay united and stand by the authorities to sort out the issue. Let’s not make the issue a political one. I appreciate the way in which NDTV brought us the live updates of the issue, particularly, for not airing any political remarks. In one of the snippet of their news, when Murassoli Maran, a prominent Congress Leader, while giving out some statement to the public about the issue, started to bring some political flavour to the issue, the channel simply cut off the transmission of that interview.

We are Indians and we are proud of it. Let us stand united and do all that we can do to bring peace to our country. For the first time in my life, I was angry with myself for not taking up the dream career of my childhood – to join the Indian army.

Btw, does anyone know anything about the great leader of Mumbai - Mr Raj Thackeray. I am sure that he still believes that he would have handled the hostage situation better than anyone else with his elite MNNS commandos.

Random ramblings

There's nothing important to write in this post and also, I'm very busy in office these days, thanks to the rapidly shrinking free space on my server. So, this post will contain some random ramblings rather than some specific point.

1. Stopped eating ice creams. Frankly speaking(or writing), I can write a biggg post on this issue as ice creams are something dearer to me and they mean much more to me than an edible item.

2. Saw Dostana last week. I loved that movie(even though, I started feeling some weird sensation when my friends touch me). It was one of the best comedy movies of recent times. The chemistry between AB n JA was awesome. Btw, Priyanka Chopra was at her sexiest best.

3. Went to an ice cream shop next to my house, about a week back. Thought of eating one but later withdrew the idea because of sudden rush of calorie-consciousness. Looked around and found some hot samosas. Took half a dozen of them to my flat and as soon as I took a bite, I felt that there's something wrong. Instead of the normal curry inside the samosa, they kept cheese. This is what the people call "cheese samosa". And for this stupid thing, I gave up my fav ice cream...... :(

4. Daily, a couple of friends visit my flat(as they are paying guests at some family's house) and leave as soon as we finish dinner. The day before, they left normally and I got up at 5 AM feeling thirsty. To my horror, I saw that I didn't close the door the previous night after my frnds left. But thank God, nothing happened. My wallet, laptop, handycam, watches..... everything were in tact.

5. Is anyone following Indian Idol 4? Sonali Bendre's looking gorgeous in it.

6. There was this arabic guy in my gym, whom we consider as a decent arab. But last week, when one "big fat Indian gal"(I picked this from Kungfu Panda where our hero was called Big, Fat Panda) talked to him in the health club, he started showing his attitude. Too bad!!!!!

Well, I end my list here(so that no one blames me for the head-ache they got after reading this). Have a nice day.

Why I USED to love James Bond

Being a guy who loves fantasies, action and adventure, I love the world of movies a lot. My favorite filmi characters range from a wide variety of roles donned by some real good actors/actresses. I sing along with them, play along with them, cry along with them and laugh along with them.

Being an adventure lover, I always had this soft corner for super-heroes and action heroes. My all time fav super-heroes are Spiderman and Superman(it’s another bitter truth that I love to see them in cartoons that movies). My list of fav action heroes are James Bond and Ethan Hunt(Mission Impossible series).

Coming to James Bond, I always had this fascination about that character and many times, I dreamt of being a real life Bond(blushing). I loved his style, his girls, his ways of flirting with girls(obviously he can flirt only with girls, I don’t like my fav to be a gay), his nerves of steel, his coolness, his dress sense, his gadgets – in fact, I adore the character of James Bond. As far as I can remember, the first Bond movie I’ve seen in theater was Tomorrow Never Dies. I’ve seen almost all the others (older ones) on TV/DVD later. Post “Tomorrow Never Dies”, all the new Bond movies are strictly first-day-first-show-in-theater.

But off late, the character of Bond, in his movies, is losing its originality. We noticed this change from his penultimate movie, Casino Royale, which is more like a love story than a spy thriller. In that film, Bond cries, pledges and do all that we don’t want him to do. And this change is apparent in the latest movie, Quantum of Solace. too. Believe me; I was terribly disappointed with this movie. Somehow, I felt that the previous movie was better than this one. Here are a few reasons why I don’t like this movie (as a Bond movie):

1. I don’t like the idea of Bond carrying out his revenge instead of his duty.
2. This movie doesn’t have any of his cheesy one liners like the famous introduction dialog “Bond, James Bond” and his “vodka martini, shaken but not stirred”.
3. No Aston Martin fitted with loads of weapons n state-of-the-art gadgets.
4. The climax doesn’t fit at all.
5. Many stunt sequences look as if they are lifted from earlier Bond movies.
6. Bond looked tired(even though his character required that look in this movie).
7. The latest Bond actor, Daniel Craig, is a strictly OK guy who can don the roles of the super-spy convincingly but definitely not with ease. He doesn’t have that manly look of Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery.

These are only some of the flaws found by me(others may like them, but I don’t). Bond is made human in this movie and its predecessor. But do we really want to see a Bond who cries? After all, we want to be a Bond but we definitely don’t want Bond to be one among us!!!

Alvida season

Hello folks, it seems to be retirement time for everyone. Be it in the Bloggerville or the real world. First of all, it was my dear blogger brother, Samby, who chose to be silent without any prior notice. And then it was one of my favorite blogger, Sneha, who decided to call it a day here. Believe me, I'll miss her posts terribly. But, I strongly believe that they chose to say alvida after giving it a lot of thought. All the best Sneha n Samby. And Keshi frightened me with those bubye hints, but thank God, nothing happened like that.

Well, coming to the other retirements in the real world, the news of Jumbo's retirement came as a blow to us(we were in office at that time). We never expected that out-of-the-blue from him. He was a great player, who helped India win many matches single-handedly. OK, I won't write much about him as you might have read about him recently in many blogs.

Coming to the central theme of this post, it's about the man who changed the whole Indian scenario of Modern Cricket. Ya, you guessed it right. It's Savrav Ganguly, the most successful Indian Test captain of all time. It was him, who made cricket look like war(I hope all you heard those cries of victory at the famous NatWest trophy finale), it was him who brought the team under one shade after the infamous match fixing allegations, it was him who showed the world how a captain must think(I strongly believe that he brought Yuvraj, Bhajji, Dhoni n co into limelight).

Ok, now you think that am a die-hard fan of Dada(as fondly called fans). No, you are mistaken. There were days when we used to fight in college about who's great: Sachin or Saurav. I always took Sachin's side. In fact, at some point of my life, I used to hate Dada. But slowly, I started enjoying his batting. I understood his emotions, liked this tactics, savored those moments when he used to take room on the leg side n slashed the ball to the off side - I enjoyed everything. I remember those days when I used wait for spinners to take the ball and Dada take on the spinners.

Now you may ask, why am I bothered about his retirement if I'm not a great fan of his? The truth is, I come from times when children used to grow watching Sachin, Saurav, Dravid and Jumbo win matches for India. The Indian Cricket team doesn't make any sense to me if none of them are present in the team. Now, already, two of the above four people announced their retirement. And Dravid is running through a very bad phase and we may hear his retirement news soon. And Sachin, the run machine fights on.

ALL THE BEST, DADA. YOU MADE WATCHING CRICKET A PLEASURE.

You can check this link for the career highs n lows of Dada and this link for the overall statistics of Ganguly's career.

Btw, did I mention that I cried when I read about Pete Sampras' retirement?

Ramblings

My blogger account had been screwing me from yesterday. I was not able to access my blog but I was able to read and comment on all other blogs. It was saying something like "403 forbidden - your query resembles a virus threat.... blah blah". At last, it allowed me in now and I don't want to leave this opportunity to blabber something here. Put on your seat belts n get ready for a bumpy ride.

1. Last Thursday, I went for a indoor football tournament with a severe headache - just because my roomie's playing in it. It was so boring that I stated playing games on my mobile and everyone was looking at me in a weird way.

2. After a long long time, we went for a real longggg shopping to the newly opened City Centre. It was on last Friday. We were walking that day for a little more than 7 hours without having a seat!!!! I bought a couple of three fourths n a track pant in Lee Cooper(they were offering a flat 50% discount).


3. The climate began to change in this desert country. It's getting cold these days. The same Friday night, I had a couple of pegs of Glenlevit(it was an awesome single malt whiskey); went out for a little walk around midnight; had an ice cream; sat at the entrance of my apartment thinking about my past, present n future; helped a kid retrieve her balloon(that family's just returning back from shopping, I guess) and the way she said "Thank You, uncle" was sooo chweet. Overall, that night was pretty eventful.

4. Saw "Heroes" and loved the movie. It's a commercial patriotic movie with a novel theme but the movie seemed to drag a little bit. Had they shortened the movie by about 30 minutes, it would have been accepted by all classes of audience. For the first time, I loved Sohail Khan's performance. But the real bad thing is, I had to watch this movie outside India.


5. Ferrari's Felipe Massa lost the Formula1 championship by a whisker. The prerequisites for him to win the coveted crown are he should come first and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton should not come in a place better than 6th. Massa did his best and he came first and for a few seconds, everyone thought that he won the championship and there were celebrations in the Ferrari dugout. After almost 38 seconds(after Massa crossed the finish line), Hamilton dramatically overtook Toyota's Timo Glock for the fifth place and won the crown by a mere one point. Bad luck, Ferrari. Let's give it our best shot in the next season.


So friends, these are my random ramblings from the past few days. Will b back with something meaningful in the next couple of days(Blogger.com allows me to login).