Ooh la la!

It was a long term wish to have my caricature done. Sri thinks I lend myself beautifully to it. This was done at Sri’s office Annual Day function. Your opinions on the same are most welcome.

Smiley me :)

thought of putting up a list of stuff which makes me go 🙂 or 😀 . Then I can read it when I am feeling blue and feel bright and chirpy again. What an idea sir 😉

So here goes the list of things which make me happy, gimme that goody goody feeling, generally put a smile on my face…..

🙂 a compliment 🙂 a comment on my blog ahem ahem 🙂 when  I come up with a super / good/ fabulous idea & people go wow! 🙂 when one of my fav numbers comes up on radio 🙂 when I hear a hindi song on Chennai FM 🙂  when I watch a movie and can identify some quaint corner of Mumbai there 🙂 when there is a Mumbai news report on TV…there is no such thing as bad press 🙂 when Mom surprises me with my fav dish just for me 🙂 when I eat chocolate 🙂 when I talk to my buddies 🙂 when a friend calls out of the blue 🙂 seeing people I know where I least expect them 🙂 when I wear a new dress / accessories / shoes 🙂 when I buy a bag …thats like a 😀 whoa! 🙂

when I complete a report / project 🙂 when boss has no ‘suggestions for improvement’ in my report 🙂 when I can remember a section number of a law / accounting standard provision 🙂 when I download an e-book 🙂 when the sensex goes up and upppppppppp 🙂 when Sri messages within half hour of leaving for work 🙂 Waking up to Sri’s morning chai 🙂 any gift / treat / free stuff…yipeeee 🙂 festivals 🙂 fridays…its little wierd but I am happier on Friday anticipating the weekend rather than on the weekend itself 🙂 when I finish a good day’s work 🙂 when my bro calls…..very rare and unexpected but fantastic 🙂 when someone remembers small little stuff like first time / venue/ etc we met or associate certain stuff with just me 🙂 when I help someone with anything / act of kindness 🙂 overnite with J 🙂 Movies with J & Sd (clooooose buds) 🙂 Barista with N

 🙂 when a smart guy thinks I am smart (total high) 🙂 when I watch a movie 🙂 when I blog 🙂 when I upload pics and put quirky/smart/funny specially pun captions for them 🙂 when I am at home on weekends and it rains and I can curl up with a book 🙂 when i read and lose myself in the fictional world 🙂 when some ancient programs are rerun and I can vividly remember my first memories with it…..like ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S. & my bro 🙂 When I rarely watch intelligent / informative TV and feel so very knowledgable after tht half hour 🙂 when I know the answer to a quiz show which no one else does 🙂  when everyone laughs at my jokes 🙂 when someone thinks I have a great sense of humor

🙂 when I meet my family and friends 🙂 when I go & breath Mumbai 🙂

This post is obviously gonna be continuously updated…..keep watching this space

Rat-a-tag

Well, well….you thought tht I am over my tag-phase and back to posting about my life phase? yeah…i am but this is a movie tag so could not resist picking it up! Lights, Camera, Action !

 

1. Last film I saw in the theater:
Mumbai meri Jaan (to hell with the reviews…….It was about Mumbai, about the time I was in Mumbai. so it just had to be watched. felt like i was back home for those 3 hours. Bliss)

2. Last movie I watched on dvd/vhs:
Shawshank Redemption (I know I know…..too late…but better late than never)

3. Last movie I watched on tv:
Pursuit of Happyness (Gosh! it was emotional or what. Its ages since I bawled over a movie……but Will Smith etching our such a touching potrayal of Chris Gardner was too much to bear.)

4. Last great movie you saw (for the first time, no repeated viewings):

Dark Knight (am currently under the spell of the Joker *dreamy moony look*)

OKie…..Pursuit of Happyness ……..Gosh awesome movie !!!

5. Top three favorite movies of all time:

Damn tough….Of recent memory……..Taare Zameen Par, Dark Knight (there I go again) & Nayakan (not recent memory but thats a movie I totally absolutely loved….Mani Ratnam and Kamal Hassan…like it can get any better)

6. Three comedies I can watch over and over and they still make me laugh:
Well most of Nagesh and Kamal Hassan movies…..I think Tamil comedy is infinitely better than what passes as funny in a Bollywood flick….So lets see… Michael Madan Kama Rajan, Panchatantiram, Singara Velan, so many more 😀

7. Three dramas I can watch over and over without tiring of them:
Drama ? Hmmmmmmmmm will get back on this…Does Ocean’s Eleven qualify as drama?

8. Favorite romantic comedy:
When Harry met Sally, One Fine Day, Pretty Woman, My Best Friend’s Wedding

9. Favorite suspense/horror movie:

 NONE…….Mostly I end up laughing at horror movies *insert evil laugh*

10. Favorite movie musical:

Due to sheer memory loss…..Hum Aapke Hain Kaun…stop stone pelting 😦

11. My three favorite movies when I was a kid:
Jungle Book, Towering Inferno and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander

12. Three movies I loved when I was a kid that I still love now:
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander

13. Favorite movie based on a book:
Bridget Jones’ Diary…cos thats probably the only story I have visited on paper & the screen. Planning to catch up on the written ‘Pursuit of Happyness’. Will keep this page updated 🙂

14. Favorite sequel (think hard):
Spiderman III

15. Favorite movie that you know is kind of crappy, but you love it anyway:

Gadar……dont ask me why I just enjoyed Sunny Deol’s dialogues and criticising Amisha Patel a lot!

16. Favorite foreign film:
Right now….Dark Knight, Pursuit of Happyness, Forrest Gump,

17. Best documentary I’ve seen so far:
Nopes…..dont remember any

18. Movie I put on when I’m really depressed:
Romantic Comedies…refer Q8

19. Movie that can make me cry even if I am in the happiest mood:
Nayakan

20. A movie someone recommended to me that I ended up loving and the person who recommended it:

Forrest Gump & Shawshank Redemption, Sri

21. A movie someone recommended to me that I ended up hating and the person who recommended it (but it’s not their fault):

I am usually the recommender and not the recomendeee

22. Movie I recommend for everyone to see and why:

Nayakan……to know how it is to make a great movie and act when its so tempting to overact and be stereotypical

23. Movie I recommended for someone to see and still regret doing so:

Actually I recommended not to see DDLJ to my parents. I kinda hated it the first time round……..they still dont let me forget

24. Biggest movie let down:
Dasavataram

25. Biggest movie surprise (you liked it and thought you wouldn’t):

Ocean’s Eleven

26. Top three actors you would watch in anything:
Aamir Khan & Kamal Hassan

27. Top three actresses you would watch in anything:
Julia Roberts & Sridevi

28. Top three directors whose films you would watch no matter what:

Mani Ratnam, Ashutosh Gowariker & Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight hangover again)

29. Most overrated movie (please stick with stuff you’ve seen):
Black (Oops i’ve said it! I’ll be shunned and have no friends)

30. Most overrated actor/actress:
Aishwarya Rai & Abhishek Bachchan

31. Do you have a favorite screenwriter? Who and what is your favorite movie they have written?:
Nah……..

32. Three favorite movie quotes:
“You complete me!”

“Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi…namumkin hai” (AB version not SRK)

“Mogambo Khush Hua” (HA HA HA…..insert evil laughter to complete)

33. If you can remember it, worst dialougue in a movie ever:
*Trying hard to jog memory* Actually any Salman Khan emotional scene shoudl do….whadya think?

34. I can repeat every line from this movie verbatim while watching it:
Roja, HAHK, JJWS, Nayakan, Bobby, Maine Pyar Kiya, quite a few more

35. Book you would like to see made into a movie and who you would like to see in it/directing it/etc.:
The Dilbert series with Rahul Bose (How did I come up with this???)

36. Favorite song from a movie:
Mera Jeevan Kora Kagaz……..*weep weep*

37. Favorite use of a song in a movie:
All those times when the hero is planning to surprise attack the villian and the herione / villian’s moll in love with hero is doing an item number. I used to get so excited as a kid to see if the hero came before the song ended but alas, he never did.

38. A musical artist you now love that you discovered by watching a movie and said movie:
None tht I can think of

39. Best dialogue in a movie ever:
Then what was Q32 all about dude??

40. Movie that you feel compelled to watch when you pass it flipping through channels:

With the current channel boom & viewer bore happenin….none

41. A movie that you really related with in high school (like the maker was your kindred spirit/ these characters were your long-lost best friend): 

Did not watch too many movies in high school…….all Enid Blyton characters were so my kindred spirits

42. Movie you loved when you were a teenager and thought you would always love, but does not hold the same place in your heart:
Refer previous answer

43. I was completely into __(name of movie)__ when it came out, I even thought about a t-shirt or action figures, but now I don’t know what I was thinking.
No movie did that to me

44. I want to be _(this movie character)_ when I grow up:
Any action heroine

45. Best movie character:

Forrest Gump…….Tom Hanks was cho chweeeeeeet. Pursuit of Happyness…..Will Smith (Why did you guys not give him that Oscar??)

46. Movie I could live in happily:
Any heroine centric movie where she is career oreinted but still manages to make family love her, friends confide in her and dream man love her cos she has the time for them alllllllllll

47. Movie character soulmate (if only he or she was real and then you could live happily ever after):
Rishi Kapoor’s character in Chandni……..I wanted to marry someone like that who was just totally absolutely crazy about me…….roses from helicopters, my posters in his bedroom, the works

48. Deserted island movie (I know, why would you have a dvd player on a deserted island? just go with it):

Comedies …..bring them on

49. Famous movie everyone’s seen that I haven’t:
Oh lots! Pick any Oscar winner………I have’nt seen almost 80% of Oscar winning movies

50. Movie I never want to see remade:

Sholay was on that list……..But where does Mr.RGV listen to me. Now its Amar, Akbar, Anthony…….Please Mr.Khans spare our souls as also Karz….That was one of Mr.Rishi Kapoor’s bestest movies, how can you do this to us Himessh bhai???

51. Movie that inspires me:
When I was much younger and watched whatever movie I got to watch since theatres were out of bounds I used to love those woman police officer movies…….heroine fighting against all odds, hero and villian and emerging victorious……Tejaswini types (tht one with Vijayashanti and Amrish Puri?!)

52. Three pieces of movie memorabilia I own:

No way! Not my style at all

53. A movie I saw and asked for my money back:
Lots……Jo Bole So Nihaal, Neal n Nikki, Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai (Oh wait…tht one I got free tickets, so forgiven Mr. Bachchan)

54. Best movie watching experience in a theater (crowd rocked):
Liar Liar……that was because it was our last of exams and coincidently the entire college landed up at the same theatre to watch the same show……so everyone knew everyone and it felt like we were in college during the fest or something…..rocking!

55. Worst movie watching experience in a theater (crowd sucked):
Once we were early for our train back to Mumbai from Goa and had like 5 hours to kill. A movie was the most obvious choice to my movie maniac family. So we went to this really seedy theatre and watched a B-grade flick……one with Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Raveen Tandon & Shilpa Shetty, that one with ‘aila re ladki mast mast’ song…….the crowd was predictably EW

56. First movie I remember seeing in the theater:

Naam, i think. Sanjay Dutt’s tears over the Pankaj Udas song moooooved me then. (Ok the actual answer is Ram Teri Ganga Maili…but am I supossed to watch / remember such chilhood movies??????) 

57. People I love to watch movies with:

J – my movie partner cos she and me and go on talking and talking and still watch the movie and understand it all…..Though I remember we started to watch Raincoat (yeah, Mr.Devgan’s) and did’nt understand it anyways, so abandoned!

58. Fondest movie memory (home):

there was this time when I was in Chennai for summer hols and accidently settled for a wierdo movie with mum, mama & mami…….the movie was crap but we had a rolicking time at the unintended hilarity of it !

59. Fondest movie memory (theater):

Hmmm 9 months (Hugh Grant) & Border (Sunny Deol, Akshaye Khanna)…..wont believe this but P, (a very close friend then who I lost touch with now) and me were laughing through the movie…..dont ask why…even we dont know 🙂

60. If there was a movie that I can say might have changed my life, it was this one:

Nothing so dramatic……..but for the past 3 days, since I watched Pursuit of happyness, I have started thinking a weeee bit more positively…….Anything is possible people! Just do it

La di di

heya world..am happy happy today…why? Cos I had a wonderful yesterday…. I met up with this friend after ages…….what fun 🙂

Ok, first lemme introduce u to S, my friend through and since college…..S and me were in the same class during junior college after which we went on to become buddies…..He is my Kishore Kumar, Mohamad Rafi and whoever else u can think of..all rolled into one. There was a point in time when the only angrezi songs I knew were the ones by S and we all thought he was much better than the original. Most of my college memories revolve around S singing and playing the guitar and all having an awesome time. Those days……….

Well, now he is a hot-shot globe trotting i-banker who always goes out of his way to convince the rest of us that he is on a hand to mouth existence… Gahhhhhh We still believe u S. Thankfully one of his innumerable clients operate from Chennai and he makes this occassional trip down here. Its so much fun to meet friends, especially in a new place. I always thought this whole i-am-so-happy-seeing-an-Indian-in USA act which lot of my relatives and acquaintances regularly put up was just that. An act! But now I realise they probably meant it……I am so Mumbai sick, to be read home sick, that anyone with a connection to Mumbai falls in the descended-from-heaven-just-for-me category. And if it is a good friend of over a decade (Gosh! is it that long? Am I so old?), then what more can I ask for 😀

S called me on Tues pretending to be some guy from a placement agency with this American twang. I answered all his questions with this half suspicious half serious tone…….I was so right. It was S, damn him. We fixed up dinner plans on Wed. Yipeee!!  Went to the Taj Coramandel. You know this crazy thing which always happens to me. My office is just behind this Taj but by some crazy twist of fate I always land up at vague meetings and client locations exactly on those days when my post-work meet happens in the Nungambakkam area. Just like this other time when Sri and me were scheduled to check out this play on Harrington Road. The whole week i was twiddling thumbs at my N office and teasing Sri about the enormous distance he would have to travel and how I would be there in exactly a hop-skip-jump routine. But come Friday, that very sultry Friday, i just had to go to this client place at godforsaken Guindy. Picked up smirking Sri on my way to the play. Wierd!

Anyway, I bargained my auto-way to Taj, as usual. Seems like I have become an expert bargainer of sorts. Heard some guy giving 30% more than me for the same location. Was so heartened that I was being screwed far lesser by the divine beings (read auto guys) as compared to my fellow city-mates. Reaching there I found S had yet to arrive. Thats something never changed about him, always late. But all of us are so used to it that I am sure we would fall off our chairs in case he chose to turn up on time. But this time, it was barely 10 mins, so forgave him heartily….the fact that he was taking me out to dinner also helped 😉

During my brief waiting period, I checked out this really cool autograph collection of a Mr.Lakshman (I think ?!) who was the grandson of Raja Annamalai Chettiar (You would know if u hv any kind of Chennai connection. else Google-it or keep watching this space, I’ll let you know the minute I do. Oh wait! I can call the ever-reliable encyclopediac Sri…gimme a minute. Grrrr he is busy!) Anyway, he was this big shot of the yester-years. The autograph collection had the who’s who of that time like Gandhiji, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel (imagine!!!!), Lord Mountbatten and all the crickets of that time you can think of, like, Vijay Hazare, Duleepsingji, everyone…..awesome collection. Each had given their signatures accompanied by a personal motto or a one-liner. Damn good ones.

S arrived when I was in this signature-sea and we decided to have dinner after dumping his new DVD collection in his room. (Yup! For S, Mr.Bachchan rulz. Even today!) Being a 6 ft something himself, S did have his moments thinking of himself as Big B…..in those Kabhi Kabhi / Silsila kinda moods….not your Amar Akbar Anthony thingy. I still remember S going through the entire Mai aur meri tanhai stuff on our way back from a Jagjit Singh concert when he was incidently wearing typical AB type clothes with pockets high up on your coat / jacket (or whatever its called). And even that one time when, at this Natural ice-cream parlour, we could only hear the dialogues of AB movies and S and me were guessing which line belonged to which movie without seeing the visuals. He was bang-on everytime! That day was crazier since we had our dinner upside down starting with 3 scoops of ice-cream, ginger-lemon, then curd rice and finally a soup/starter. What were we thinking???

Anyways, back to the present now………I declared I could not stand another South Indian dinner. yeah, yeah, I am a southie and love my roots, pulses, rice everything. But there is only so much idli and dosa a Mumbaite can have without diving for an occassional chaat or pav bhaji or some such high calorie stuff. And I was already full to my neck with the S Bhavan, AA Bhavan, V Bhavan routine of Chennai. Since, unfortunately Taj did not serve either chaat or pav bhaji we settled for an Italian dinner. Pizza, Hurrah! ‘Sorry Sir, we do not serve pizza. Its a fine dining Italian restuarant’, said the manager guy. Oh well, unpronouncable food, here we come. We successfully figured our way through the menu and maybe learned some Italian in the bargian. I would’nt really know. Do you know someone Italian? Maybe I can try it then. So S and me ordered a starter and the main course both of which, we were 80% sure, were vegetarian. They, thankfully, were.

Alongwith the dishes came another mother-of-god inventions -the salt and pepper shaker. Whats the big deal you would ask. Hey, just drop by that place today and let me know if you figure, in less than half hour without a manual that is, how to get the salt out. Eventually we discovered it was a hold-your-breath, battery operated shaker. Of all things!!!!!!!! It had some kind of button, which when pressed, would give some light at the end of the tunnel (it was torch shaped) and a whrrrrrr grinding sound as the salt/ pepper flowed freely. It was so much fun that S and I almost ended up oversalting our dishes for the pure purpose of using the salt shaker. hehe! what fun 😀

Thus dinner was 3 types of mozarella cheese (yum yum), incomprehensible dish 1, incomprehensible dish 2 then my favorite part -incomprehensible dessert…..also some Irish coffee to boot (S recomends! Like that ‘Sriram recommends’ stuff at Crossword) The sugar was not in its usually cube cube avtar but had chosen to mount a toothpickand ready to be stirred. The 2 of us were just marvelling at the people who actually rack their brains and come up with such stuff.

Anyways, silly me to be going on and on about the food when I had a such a wonderful time with S. We caught up on each other’s lives….not that we r not in touch or anything but it was ages since we just sat and talked. Felt so light at the end of that heavy dinner cos I rattled on and on about anything and everything and nothing in particular. We updated ourselves on other close friends’ lives, marriages, visas, kids, the like…….Awesome fun. Just like old times. Never told you this yesterday but S, thank you for an extraordinary evening. Do come home next time for a full fledged south indian fare with Sri and me. (Now I have to get him to read this blog. Hmph!!!)

Is anyone else from Mumbai listening??? Visit me visit me

This blog……….

I hv been trying to come up with an appropriate theme for my blog. ‘Appropriate is to be read as -someting unique, something i know about, something i love to do….getting the drift? Ok, things I love include-

Surfing the internet, Watching movies, reading books, travelling & now bloggin

Surfing the internet -I can put posts after posts on interesting websites, useful info, etc. but frankly I would not read this myself….so cross it out

Movies – everyone reviews the latest releases which would put my blog as a run-of-the-mill kind……..so cross again

Books -well…again there r scores of reviewers…and I realise I am not a review person. I do read them once in a way but when it comes to givin my opinion I am too stingy/embarassed…..so cross

Travel -though i love to travel there is extremely limited travellin i am into rite now..what will i write?? So there goes another one

Ab kya karen??? No recipie blog this can be…..tht Sri is still hale & hearty is on account of our combined ‘pichle janam ka punya’. Neither a politics centric one. though I am extremely interested in the country’s progress and fully aware that politics is the reason it has not progressed, I dont want to write a blog on vote-for-cash and secularism and aam admi. I’d leave those to jurno bloggers.

OK, so now I hv told you guys what this blog is not…….gimme ideas as to what this shud be?

How about an agony aunt column? I can pick problems from random sites/ magazines and give creative solutions for them. or you guys can post any relationship issues and i can solve them too. not the usual crappy ‘talk to him/her, communicate ur feelings’ stuff but feel good ones like ‘kick him if he does not listen’ or ‘throw a glass of water on his head’…On the days I dont find interesting enuf problems I’ll make up few of my own….now thts an interesting thought 🙂

or maybe i could write about my dreams -I was always told they are extraordinary, entertaining and in vivid detail……wud u be interested?

I had this thought for sometime now…a history blog…what say? maybe there are others but this is something I love…..I could pick out events tht happened this day for the past 100 years, or write about some important but not so hyped historical characters….what say?

Or may be I can continue this way….rambling on and on about nothin…or picking tags from various blogs……ideas hurry!!!!!!!