aaj ki rot

so many movies, not enough keyboards..don followed dhoom2 down the drain that my head is. don pretends to be modern with a traditional outlook..something we know cannot exist. despite being non-existent, it managed to irritate me to no end. farhan akhtar seems to have tried reversing the roles of the protagonists and managed to confuse my memories of the first movie. while srk makes don feel loopy and eccentric, everyone else in the movie tries to carry off the cool,silent,brooding type and fails. to say that the second half has twists would be misleading. the first half actually had more twists and many of these were by kareena. the "twists" in the second half are more like stop signs on a really bumpy road. at least one of them is utterly unnecessary and you are given so much time while navigating the bumps that you see the others coming from a few scenes away.
considering that i remembered more of dhoom2, don now slips to first place, in the "worst movies i saw during my vacation" ranking

spoiler alert: the movie will spoil your memories of the old don

special a 250 peaberry 250

fresh out of the grinder, here is a mix of moments from when i was in madras over the past 2 weeks

crazy kiya re

dhoom 2 is an assault on your senses. it is packed with sequences that are visually incredible, emphasis on the incredibility. thanks to mayajaal deciding that ppl paying 200 per ticket should get their full worth, the volume had been cranked up all the way up to "are you mad?". except for that and the lack of a story the movie was quite watchable..and i just lied. it was barely so.

hrithik is an international indian thief, baby b as before is a brooding cop. uday chopra is again a tapori cop and bipasha, who joins the gang, is a model cop, nope not an exemplary cop, she is a cop who also happens to look like a model. the kind of model with a really healthy bmi that is approved by madrid's regional govt. ash is supposed to be the second best thief. she still looks good at 34 but seems to think she is 16, uttering "like" , like, a gazillion times. after hrithik and ash team up, hrithik forgetting his life's ambition - to write really huge A's on the face of the earth with his heists - plays basketball in the rain with ash and on the pretext of training, bungee jumps off cliffs with her. he feeds her burgers+coke, plays russian roulette and finally bites her hard on her lips. to seek revenge she decides to love him and punish him by not turning him over to the bumblng b. how they all get out of it alive and manage to maintain their tanned skintone is explained by songs and action sequences that must've had a subtext that i could not read. because my head was hurting from the visual and aural assault.

uday's sequences were somewhat funny but before a cbse hindi educated tamil boy could fully understand his mumbaiyya ishtyle utterances, abhisheks sporting water scooters between their legs and roller skating hrithiks would burst out of the screen. i'm still puzzled by hrithik's extra thumb and the date based mathematical puzzle that abhishek solves with his left brain, included to confuse the geeks into thinking that there is a hidden puzzle a la da vinci code. here is a real puzzle for you though - who'll be there in dhoom 3? i predict dev anand will return as a jewel thief. any takers?

capital times - 2

the next day of course was the all important day. except for taking up 4 hours of my vacation there was nothing remarkable about it. i got out of the embassy and back into vacation gear visiting a few of my kin. in all this visiting i found that the delhi traffic is run on a system of mutual consent that if existed the world over would promptly make it utopia. of course it will also be a little loud.the horns warn, inform, plead and cajole ceaslessly. collisions like in madras are for the most part avoided (rather narrowly)and when they do happen the drivers and the owners get out, do a quick assessment, ensure limbs are in place and drive away. all cars are dented leading one to think that these dents are probably birthmarks or are part of the car's design.

day 3 found us relaxing at home. except for collecting the stamped passport we barely went outside the house. we lunched at home and then went out for dinner at a somewhat overpriced haldiram's restaurant. day 4 was spent in central market shopping for my sister's clothes, at my mom's friend's place and then some sightseeing. we visited the qutub minar, took a ton of pics and then headed to humayun's tomb which'd closed by the time we got there. from there we took an awesome drive on the DND flyway where my uncle's maruti 800 hit 100 easily. it was quite easily the best road i've been in india, ever. four lanes each way with exits and ramps meant that driving was a pleasure (no i didnt drive..it was a stick shift)

btw this is my 100th post or so blogger informs me. so to celebrate, i give u a flickr gallery. ok ok, i'd have forced this thing on you nevertheless.

capital times - 1

in an effort to retain both my 2 readers, i've decided to appeal to their short attention spans and release my travelogue in bits tiny enough to be assimilated in one sitting (or by ADHD patients). part 2 will be up shortly

on monday we left for the capital to get the blessings of the gatekeepers of the west for my flight back. the chennai domestic airport was very well maintained though the road till there has been dug up in an effort to provide adventure enthusiasts with thrills in the league of bungee jumping or sky diving. the pre-flight rituals were rather easy and the flight itself right on time.

if chennai behaved like home, welcoming me warmly(it was a balmy 33 when i landed), delhi was mysterious and cool. mysterious because half the city was obscured by what i assumed was fog and later found was smog. on day one we went to the akshardam temple - a recent addition to delhi's southside. it is a fantastic architectural achievement though the organization's policy not to allow cameras inside is sure to irritate amateur photgraphers. i managed a few shots from outside and would soundly recommend it to anyone who has a few days to spend in delhi. that evening we went to a mall that was in most respects similar to its western counterpart. it even had a barista coffee shop that was selling different forms of the bean at prices similar to the west. i resisted the rs.60 cappuccino opting instead to have a sooper chai in a nearby gali for rs.4.

a method to the mad(ras)ness

the first two days in chennai were bliss albeit quite dusty and filled with sounds and sights i'd not experienced in some time. went around town looking for some good footwear and happily got out of the smelly running shoes after locating a pair at kobblerr. the sunday was spent going around to meet friends' parents..my friends werent home. those morons were away working their asses off in far away countries.

driving to those places on my trusted kinetic honda proved to be a little harrowing. the traffic was obviously even worse than last time. if the traffic out west is an opera, the roads in chennai play host to a 24 hour circus. with a band made up of angry horns, furious revving engines and a bevy of screeching breaks, the hapless traffic constables play powerless ringmasters, looking on as the beasts perform amazing feats of collision avoidance within the confined pot-holed arena. i did my part, honked without rhythm or reason and whizzed around narrowly escaping the menagerie.

no change in chennai though - at least the parts that i've seen so far, which is mostly south madras. no espn at home. so no cricket yet or MNF.