A walk to remember...and some more..

Sachin Tendulkar walked...finally....and as expected people hailed the great man for the gentleman gesture of his...But did they forget that he never "walked" earlier, even when he knew he was out and always waited for umpire's decision. The only reason I believe is the presence of UDRS. He probably knew that West Indies will challenge the decision and instead of embarrassing himself the way Ricky Ponting did the other day, decided not to waste time on the field. But we Indians have to eulogize anything and everything associated with the "GOD". Can we please let him be human and, for a change, give other players their due credit...

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Saw "The Bridge on the River Kwai". I am on a "IMDB Top 250 movies" watching spree, you see...:)..It's an excellent movie, though it appears absurd at times. I got confused by the actions of the protagonist a number of times but understood the concept by the time movie ended (have to admit that the reviews helped a great deal as well :)). The highlight of the movie is the cinematography and the acting of Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) who deservedly won an oscar for his performance. The pace of the movie is excellent, even though it was made around 50 years back (I can definitely vouch for that, especially after watching "Seven Samurai"). Though based on World War II, it is not a usual war film. The movie revolves around the conflict between Colonel Saito and Colonel Nicholson. The greatness of the movie lies in the fact that the director makes the viewer understand the predicament of Colonel Saito who, though on the wrong side is not the devil as portrayed by Ralph Fiennes(playing the character of Amon Goeth) in Schindler's List.
I wonder why such movies are not made in Bollywood. I don't even need fingers to count good Hindi movies released in the past two years.

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I was recently reading a blog, a post on which criticized men for everything that is wrong with women in the world. It smelled both of hatred and a "female" chauvinism...And I wondered, isn't this the way of life?? That the powerful will always dominate and the weak will always suffer. We see this everywhere...don't we ?? Politicians make the common man suffer, big bully always has his way in school and BCCI twists the arm of every cricket playing nation to have its way...Instead of generalizing and hating them, can we try to make ourselves stronger, to face the difficulties in a better manner??? Too idealistic and too theoretical, I agree, but won't the world be a better place if such were to happen...

A book, a world cup and some movies

Kungfu Panda is one of the best movies that I have seen and I keep watching it over and over again. The beauty of the movie lies in the eternal and yet so easily forgotten message that it conveys. That of believing in oneself....



Probably that is the reason we find children so happy. They are not bothered about what happened a few days back and are not concerned about what future has in store for them. They look forward to the evenings when they can go out and play....everyday....two month summer vacations or the festivals like Holi, Sankranti etc is the maximum they look forward to. And don't we get the same message from self help books and religious teachers. To live in the present and enjoy moments that we so often consider insignificant.


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Saw some highly acclaimed movies in the past few days...Seven Samurai, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest, The Graduate, Amelie, The Girl in the Cafe, Wall-E and a few more. Of these I enjoyed only Amelie and The Girl in the Cafe. You can laugh at me for my terrible lack of understanding of "good Cinema" , of being a simpleton and not appreciating the rest..but I can't help it....and I can assure you that most of the people don't understand/like them either. But since one would be a fool not to praise them, and it will look odd they will pretend that they thoroughly enjoyed these movies. (yes...I am expecting reactions like "Kya bakwas kar raha hai!!!", "you are an idiot", "you don't have a proper taste","how can you say like that (which basically translates to Kya bakwas kar raha hai!!!)").

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World cup is going on and strangely I am not missing watching matches at all (we don't have tv and we mostly watch matches in which India is playing by live streaming). Sometimes, I miss the old me which used to go crazy over everything and anything related to cricket. All my heroes (except Sachin) have retired and are either sitting in commentary boxes or in news rooms analysing the present world cup. It was so much fun to watch them in action in older days. And then I realise, it was them whom I loved watching and not the game of cricket itself. Don't things of past always look glorious?????

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Completed reading "India After Gandhi" by Ramchandra Guha and thoroughly enjoyed it. For all those who consider Nehru a villain;Indira Gandhi an Iron Lady and Rajiv Gandhi, the maker of modern India should read it. For it will clear most misconceptions by citing the events in a fluent and lucid manner. Though this book won't improve your life in any manner, it will definitely make you more knowledgeable about our very own existence, as to how we managed to survive as a Democracy, how we are still a secular society even when the odds were heavily against us. And probably you will admire the far sightedness and patriotism of the founding fathers of this country as well...