A Fine Example of Clinical Reporting - ;-)

IF you still doubt what makes a tabloid different from a news paper, I got something for you. Another fine example on how TOI qualifies it self as the most widely read tabloid in india. They are still celebrating the unfortunate incident of the accidental civilian shooting in a big way. TOI have been quite busy with this for last three days. Somehow this time readers are not giving much attention to this. What ever be the case, after all its a tabloid's duty, to blow a tiny scoop out of all proportions to keep its regular readers hooked. Here you go.They got the pic of his goat too. May be another desperate attempt to stirr up a sympothetic wave towords the deceased. bad luck for TOI that the boy was not married yet, most probably he had no girl frieds too. Or else we would have already got glimpse on his probable family. Now lets wish TOI that the goat would do the trick. I am just wondering what the mighty TOI has got in its treasure to deliver us in the early new year morning? Picture of the first cigarette's butt which Mukarram smoked in his early teens?

Mukarram Incident: A Lesson to be learnt.

TOI came with colorful pictures of Mukarram's grief stricken family, who was shot dead by the sentry when he trespassed a protected army installation in the midnight. It was the house of the biggest Army Officer in the City, a Brigadier who had got tight cover of security.
You see the pictures of relatives and friends who are furious on army's mistake on shooting him. Pages of the newspaper are filled with, testimonials on him, his childhood pictures and graphical descriptions and time lines of the unfortunate accident.
On a neutral perspective, there is nothing much to fuss about here. A young drag racer who used public road (which is the first offence) to display his biking skills with dangerous stunts was confronted by the police (this is their duty). Instead of surrendering to the police and pay the fine, he tried to flee(Second Offence).Any kid in the world would know, not a single traffic offender will be hang to death if caught. Third mistake was the biggest, where he chose an army personnel's residence as his hideout. He scaled the fence, scaled even the house, and from the terrace made frantic calls from his mobile. Despite constant commands from the sentry to surrender he didn’t obey and in fact made plan to escape with the help of his relatives, by bringing in a vehicle close to the building so that he can jump into it and escape. Vehicle comes in, honks and he scales down and runs towards the fence. What do you want the sentry to do this time? An athletic young man would be extremely difficult to be handled in such an occasion and it’s highly important for the sentry to catch him as he did not know about the intentions of the boy and more importantly the intentions of his calls standing on the terrace. Naturally he was shot. Low light, Moving suspect, and you cannot blame the sentry to lose his aim and shot him above his waist. It’s not over yet. Wounded boy still managed to come out of the compound and was taken by his relatives to a hospital. At least these people had to make sure that he got proper medical attention. Instead of that, they too flee from the hospital after taking him there. We all know how much attention Indian hospitals give to a accident victim without any responsible people with him. This time, it was not a natural accident. He was shot. He succumbed to heavy bleeding some time after. Now who were more irresponsible? The sentry who shot him on the wrong place or his family who brought him up in a wrong way (who were boasting about getting him a bike when he turned fifteen which is illegal in India) and his most irresponsible relatives who rushed in to save him, with an offensive idea , after a busy midnight supper?
In this time of national security crisis, we cannot expect trespassers to critical places to be left freely without any harm. If his parents were informed about this issue, they had to inform the police about this and take their son out of the mess. That would have been a wise decision and their grievant mistake of breaking the law cost a young man's life. Instead of blaming the sentry who missed his leg when opened fire, in fact his kin have to be blamed for taking the wrong step in trying to fish him out of big mess in a messier way which he himself had created.

Media has to be little more responsible. Why this hue and cry that a trespasser who is an adult was shot dead? TOI and other newspaper and their visual versions will be really happy as they got sensational news to celebrate for couple of days.
No doubt, it was terribly an unfortunate incident. But let this be taken as a valuable lesson for the young brigade of law breakers for whom, Adrenalin speak more words than what their brain speak. And for all irresponsible parents, this is to be taken as a lesson, so that they would keep an eye on their teen offspring’s on their post night activities.

‘Shoo’ing away Mr.Prez , and the funny side of it.

Events, good or bad; Cartoonists and Animators have a unique way of responding to them. A better, stronger and creative way of reacting which would speak a cause, umpteen times more than an article or speech speaks. I did a small search and see what I have got.

Games – Flash Animators had a busy day following the attack.

This one looks like the most popular among forwards. Each one of us contributed with atleast couple of tries to take the toll to a mammoth numeric.
http://www.kroma.no/2008/bushgame/

And this one got a difference…

Here you play Mr.Prez, in his much applauded skill of dodging. Come on save him from those nasty dusty hurls….
http://blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=370

Nice Name….the Sock and Awe!

http://www.sockandawe.com/

Cartoons –Mild, Strong, Funny, Intelligent…..

A Pinch of History for Techies?

Jameel ,an employee of MICO, Bangalore was arrested and had to undergo a grueling session of interrogation before he was released after couple of days with a clean chit from the cops. They said he had nothing to do with terrorism. That means he, just like you, me and billions of others in the universe who just happened to be happy that, the honorable President of United States of America got a less hospitable treatment in Iraq. But Jameel was little louder than us in his celebrations to create tremors inside his post-mumbai-traumatized colleagues to such an extent that they did not think twice before dialing for police assistance.
You can rule this out as an accident and comfortably ignore the amount of mental torture and social isolation he probably went through with cops browsing through all his personal email communications, call records, ripping apart the last bit of privacy from his rather serene home and family.
Times of India, most read daily in Bangalore came out with a usual stunt next morning. They had few IT techies reacting to the incident in different ways.
Question was, “How do you suspect someone as a terrorist in your office?” or of similar meaning and the reply was kind of unanimous except one answer I remember. Most of them said, “We talk about America or its president at coffee time, but casually as we have nothing against America. Then why should someone be emotional and so happy on this incident? He has to be a terrorist.”
I have seen people of similar mentality in one of the office I worked. One person just reacted saying ‘Sadham is a criminal’ overhearing our conversation in the lift. I was sounding skeptical about the cold blooded execution of Sadham by American dummies. When I intimidated him asking what he knew about Sadham, he preferred to answer me with a stupid smile and walked away.
These groups of xenophiles are widely seen in Bangalore, wearing American flags on their attire, mimicking American accent when they talk, or being passionate about the Americanism and even praising their warfare with abundant respect to their political policies, culture. Sometime I felt that they see Harrison Ford in George Bush, and America for them is what they see in Hollywood movies whose president will be just in time to protect mother earth from an alien invasion.
Let that be this way as America is the Lord for IT, but I feel it’s better for the techies to include a pinch of history in their reading along with their ‘Mastering’ and ‘Complete Reference’ series of bread winning skill set. And this would possibly help in saving Jameel’s from being victimized for the expression of freedom.
I even have a shortcut for this tri colored Bush fans.
Why don’t they sit and watch ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ for a change?

Searching For Bobby Fischer

A Self confessed Chess Addict Bill Wall writes, “you are a chess addict, if your favorite movie is 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' or 'The Luzhin Defense'" and I guess he is right. And I also feel, You don’t need to be a chess addict like me, to love the movie 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' as it’s a very entertaining movie for everybody. Movie is about Josh Waitzkin, who was an US chess prodigy. Josh is inactive in chess circles now, and his last ELO was 2400+ with an IM grade. He was also a National champion in one form of martial Arts in the US. Those who own the software, Chess Master-10 ,can get a good idea of Josh where he gives video Analysis of own games in course of teaching the children the strategies of chess. He had come to Calicut, Kerala for world Junior championship and one of his games in that tourney (Josh Vs Suresh Kumar) is closely analyzed there in the program. This movie was released in 1993 and if you do torrents, it’s available in pirate bay in divx format. Fred Waitzkin (Josh’s Father) wrote the script, and in fact it was his book with the same title which was adapted for the movie.

Movie is about few things which a common man like you and me may not be aware of. It’s about the pleasure and pain to be someone exceptionally good in something. It’s about loving your kid and forgetting that he is a kid at times. It’s about chasing one's dream through your offspring and get yourself carried away.

In one Scene Josh's school teacher complains about his behavior at school to his parents saying "I know he may be good at the "chess thing. but..." and his father over-reacts to her like, "That’s not chess thing. It’s Chess. And he is far good in it than you or I can ever reach in anything". In fact he was comparing himself to Josh, reflecting his frustration in achieving nothing big in life even after putting efforts.
Josh loves to play blitz in the park just for his passion for the game with technically imperfect though strong passionate players. He loves to break hardcore rules of chess openings and would bring his queen at the earliest against all advices. But he is forced to leave this blitz sessions on the strict advice of Pandolfini, his coach. He is forced to train a lot and, slowly chess becomes more work than fun for him. Movie is a success as it’s beautifully portrays this painful transition, killing a player in the process of making him perfect.

Expectations are always burden and performance anxiety soon follows and you, me or everyone lose to it, and those face it easily, would make it big in life. Josh Waitzkin comes up when his people lose all hope on him, when his father reaches a level of maturity to accept it’s just a game, he comes up with winning the national title.

You see his friendly gesture, offering draw to the opponent though he knew he was clearly winning, proving it’s not win, lose or draw make a player, but passion for the game.

Searching for bobby fisher is remarkable not because of all these mentioned elements. It’s actually a search for Bobby fisher, the American genius, America’s cold and ruthless answer to the soviet domination in the game; the commies were the best with. The whole nation was searching for another Fischer and Josh was their answer, but without all ill famous ingredients of Fisher charisma, without his famous arrogance, killer spirit, hatred, josh was a soft and beautiful answer. No wonder he moved out of competitive chess and took up some other sports with the same passion.
Brilliant performances by all the actors including Ben Kingsley who played Bruce Pandolfini and Max Pomeranc who played Josh, cuter than cute with those wonderful innocent expressions. Joe Mantegna played a perfect ‘Fred Waitzkin’ with Joan Allen playing his wife to the best. 'Matrix 'fame lawrence Fishburn was also good playing Josh's friend from the park.Steven Zallion has done good job making it a very exciting directorial venture. One remarkable moment from the movie is the appearances of the 'Man who beat Tal’ in couple of times. Vasek Simek did a great effort, playing sad figure of Israel Zilber, a latvian champion Who beat World champion Tal but ended up as a blitz player who would take 5 dollars for a photograph or a game in the American park. But I guess it’s normal in US for masters to play blitz in the park, as I heard their National Champ and blitz great, Nakamura is a regular blitz man in the park.

A regular chess lover may get annoyed by the hyper melodramatic expressions of players on the board, for instance, the queening race in the King and pawn endgame where one player realize it at the last move that his opponent is going to queen with a check, as all national level players would easily resign in such positions at least couple of moves before it really happens. But this folly in the story would not be visible for those who are not so deep into the game.
Searching for bobby fisher is unavoidable for all chess freaks, with those thrilling blitz in the park, with those grueling moments for parents waiting outside the tournament halls, with that beautiful portrayal of fun and struggle in 64 squares of 'life'.

Rain Coat-if you were ever drenched....

A bit cold Saturday night,back from an evening out with family and all I needed was a personal break from my routine official and social role-playing, with my favorite pass time called Cinema.
Luckily I had this Favorite Button on my rather dull looking TV remote which rarely failed in getting me something worth watchful. Of late my Regular browsing which would start from Star-Movies to my latest addition NDTV-Lumiere, had been replaced with a comparatively time saving Program-Filter and there I got ‘Rain Coat’. It was Sharp eleven PM, and with sleepy eyes, I saw some unusually fashioned titles of the movie unveiling. ‘Player :Aiswarya, Player : Ajay Devgan; Author & Direction :Rituparno Gosh’ and naturally I was hooked.
After couple of hours, two cigarettes and a pack of chocolates, I was bit shaken. A very famous O.Henry Story('Gift of Magi') beautifully retold in an Indian style with a decent performance from both the leads and it was indeed a feast to watch.
Melodrama concealed in the last scene was spoiled for me as I knew it was coming; thanks to my mate whose gender happened to have got this nasty hobby of plot-spoiling-narrations to their buddies, of the movies they see and the books they read. Still, I did not feel that I missed it. The Journey was beautiful and there was no specific destination after all.
It left me with a chain of thoughts for a while, wondering on the mysteries of this man-woman relationship. Though it was told a million times, there is still something new in it. Is it because the relationships itself tend to be something mysterious at times? Sometimes Love grows beyond the hormones, brain, social setups, and sometimes it grows beyond love itself, mystifying it again to a more complex level. May be this has to be felt and can’t be told. May be this is where the old saying gets its true meaning; “Loved and lost is better than never loved at all”.
Ghosh has done it well. Photography was good though it was not outstanding or even looked bit unnatural at times. Sound was pretty good though I can recollect one instance in the movie where when this woman steps in to the bath room and comes out continuing a conversation and the sudden cut in the volume-change in the voice was felt much unnatural but most of the time it was really good.When it comes to the acting performance, Annu Kapoor and Mauli Ganguly have done their part very well. Especially Mauli had a tough job of expressing something which she was not supposed to express.Devgan and Aishwary were good but many times one would wish if she did not have this burden of glamour on her shoulders.
Ghosh was careful in keeping the serenity of the story from falling into the not-so-beautiful ghettos of adulterous lust in Sheela’s Interactions with Manoj, still maintaining her wild intentions clear giving a different dimension to the relationships, which was felt more intriguing. It is on the edge but never actually slips maintaining the equilibrium keeping the viewers focused to the main stream.
The best part of the story is, here we don’t have this regular set of clichéd Indian romantic Pairs. They love each other, but at least one of them was greedier to be secured in life ruling out all possibilities of those Bollywood styled sacrifices for the cause of love, failing to earn the regular viewer’s sympathy for that matter. Later when they meet after many years, they both struggle hard to do this art of ‘make believing’ of their luxurious comforts, to each other, unknowingly unleashing the fantasies of their shattered hedonic dreams. This is what really making this movie very watchful. The black humor hidden in these grief woven scenes was felt very touchy.
Rain coat is highly advisable to all those who enjoyed the monsoon of love and got drenched heavily when it rained tears in some of those unpleasant days.

PHOONK - A True horror!

The Ram Gopal Varma flick, 'PHOONK' comes from a banner called, ‘ OneMorethought Productions’ and I guess something seriously went wrong with the spellings; as it had to be ‘NoMoreThought Productions’.'Phoonk' is doing very well in the theaters, and the Telugu Version of it doing well too. RGV has all reasons to smile, and he has already made his plans for the sequels of this latest master piece.

RGV's 'Company' was pretty good and highly watchable though the plot was stolen from the movie 'Wannabe' and the score from the movie 'Payback', but 'Phoonk' turned out to be a real horror and the safe release and the successful running of it in our theaters raise serious questions.

Few of them are,

• What's our sensor board doing?
  
• Why do we find a movie like 'Phoonk' interesting?
  
• Where are we heading to?
  

RGV and his crew are happy in introducing the black magic to the world of Cinema. His Celebrations sound more like the bram stoker's rejoice of the 1890's when Dracula was released to the readers of the dreaded dark Victorian Era terrorising them to their spines. Hundreds of years passed and technology has grown cent fold and we are still ready to accept a movie like 'Phoonk'? (Question: if you can take 'Exorcist' and 'Omen' , cant you take 'Phoonk'? Answer : We Indian Cine goers, unlike our western counterparts, has got a nasty habit of getting confused with the reel and real life. One can easily see instances where our reel-heroes becoming the ministers of the state milking their reel image. )

It’s a horrible experience watching , a dreadfully dangerous piece of dirt like ''Phoonk' gets released easily in India and even getting re-made in to another languages. That too first into Telugu? is it because the Telugu intellectuality questionable in the south?

What's this movie all about?

Story line is very funny. Must be written by a school boy with the help of his great grand mother in her death bed.

A happy and successful Construction engineer is the Main Male character in the movie who happened to be a hard core Atheist. Plot unveils showing, how this character who denies even the very existence of God, fails miserably to the unexplainable power of black magic and evil forces and realizes that there is something in the world to which, rationality cannot be applied and ends up in accepting the divine power of Almighty and his religion. His metamorphosis is because of the evil worship and black magic of his enemies targeting his loving cute daughter. He tries his level best with modern science and psychiatry and fails in curing her as she was not infected by a virus but what she had was a 'Boot Sanchar' . Life of his daughter was important, so he goes for the counter magic against the black magic and finally saves his daughter killing the devil worshippers. Beautiful, indeed. And can he go free ,after killing two people for doing devil worship? He can , as this is India and we still live in the mindset of 17th century.

'Phoonk' has got a clean set of good men, good women and another set of evil brigade using black magic against the good. And a Divine intervention of an insane looking tantric saves the good men from the unholy setup. And the real villain is ,the central male character of the movie who dismisses the false belief, forcing everyone to think radically. When this guy ends up in counter magic against the black magic to save his daughter and eventually admit the power of god and his miraculous actions, the curtain falls.

So who lose? The radical thinking, Atheism, Science and Technology. All these loose to a half cut lemon and a bunch of green chillies and some weird sounding chantings.

'phoonk' has got all the ingredients of a typical 'desi bakthi' movie. An atheist protagonist, group of white sari clad theist women, evil men, evil women, holy men, holy women and as an Addition here, 'black magic' joins the party.There's one point in the movie where the kid who plays the younger sibling of the Kid who plays the lead role, asking his sister,

"why did the people scare when they saw lemon in the house ? whats in a lemon?"

and the innocent girl replies,

"what else 'Lime Juice! '"

and movie eventually proves that, there is something more than lime juice in a lemon.

Imagine how many growing brains will be polluted by this movie and contribute towards creating a idiotic new generation who believe in black magic, unusual powers of lemon and green chili?

Now; behind any crime, there have to be a motive and conspiracy.Here the motive is clear, RGV wanted some easy money with his pathetically gifted crew (Other than Sudip and couple of people who did the side roles, there were hardly any actor in the movie who could emote or behave easily. Expressions of the Female Villain played by Ashwini Kalsekar were not terrifying, as they were more like the behavior of a person in emergency, with no toilets in sight) and a school kid who scripts for him. I strongly doubt a conspiracy behind this too. who wants to promote black magic here in India other than the Saffron brigade and its holy warriors of Hindutva? Remember their hue and Cry about elevating Astrology to a post graduate Syllabus. Who ever it is, this is the curse of being an Indian. lets live this pain, and walk back as fast as possible until the true ‘Rama Rajya’ Comes.

Beatrix Potter- a Fairy Tale Lived

It was today's Google logo which guided me to Beatrix Potter. Potter was a pioneer among children’s story tellers and illustrators. A bit isolated but beautiful childhood of her was nothing shorter than a fascinating fairy tale. Animals, big farms, the mysteries of nature, even a pet bat (can u imagine?); no wonder she became a writer for children. It was sad to know that she was one of the early martyrs of gender discrimination which must have really affected her scientific career. She was blindly denied the membership of British Royal Society, though she was considered to be one of the best fungi experts among biologists.She had sketched hundreds of Fungi patterns by herself looking into the microscope and still had to end up as an amateur biologist only because she was born a woman. A natural environmentalist, who used a big part of her fortune to protect the country side where she spent most of her childhood in. After the tragic dismay of her fiancée, she focused on buying farms and lived in the astonishing beauty of nature, something most of us can only dream about.

This beautiful picture of a young 15 year old Potter caught my attention. One could feel the beauty of innocence in it.

The sketches of a nine year old Parker.

IOWA digital library has preserved most of her famous works in a beautiful digital flip-page form which worth a visit. Have a look at the screenshot and pay a visit to the site by clicking on the imaage.

The Metamorphosis

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug”. This is how the divine Kafka magic starts and I am finally home to my reading days. After discovering the new passion of self induced, nicotine powered solitude, it was a pleasure and quite an easy task to find myself back again to the beautiful world of books. Thanks to those self invited, long lasting spells of non momentary depression which I had acquired and learned to live with recently, ‘The Metamorphosis’ turned out to be a mesmerizing reading experience where I was literally lost in the carefully crafted magical realistic setup. I had to pinch myself to ensure that I still live in the blunted but still a safe, human form. It was my late teens where I first heard about Kafka but the first attempt to read ‘Metamorphosis’ was a miserable failure undoubtedly because of my poor understanding of Real life situations and transformations which an average middle class adult goes through. Magical realism was also something which was not digestible for me in those days where a growing brain of my atheistic teen was always keen on dismissing the supernatural things in an impatient and merciless way to become a perfect rationalist. After years of wasteful existence with out books, I have now finally read this in a kind of sprinting pace. But the regret for not reading this in its original language prevails as I have come to know that it has been lost in translation to a much distinguishable extent when it came to English from German.

“Kafka often made extensive use of a trait special to the German language allowing for long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop - that being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is achieved due to the construction of certain sentences in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence. Such constructions cannot be duplicated in English, so it is up to the translator to provide the reader with the same effect found in the original text.One such instance of a Kafka translator's quandary is demonstrated in the first sentence of The Metamorphosis.(Wikipedia)”. Metamorphosis is considered to be the best talked about philosophical novella ever written especially on existentialism [Existentialism is a philosophical movement which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to it being created for them by deities or authorities or defined for them by philosophical or theological doctrines]. As per wiki, “The apparent hopelessness and absurdity that seem to permeate his works are considered emblematic of existentialism”.

In a layman’s angle I could see that, Kafka was literally demonstrating how a person who was the most instrumental being for his entire family and for the individual lives of its members, becomes a burden to them due to a completely unimaginable and miserable accident in his life for none of his faults. The tragic side of this reading experience is the realization of the very fact that each one of us is a ‘Gregor Samsa’ at least in one point of our life time and we will never know when we may transform our self into an ugly derogatory being which the closest people of our life would love to get rid off. The point is as clear as water. A ‘Gregor’ is a ‘Gregor’ as long as he wakes up at the dawn, catches the earliest train, works all the day like a machine, and hits back home with nickels in hand. In short, a Gregor is a Gregor only when he is a Gregor. When he (or for the same reason each one of us) ceases to be being ‘Gregor’, he has to be ready to get thrown off. Idea is quite simple. Every living thing in the world, (human being is not exceptional) struggle for an individual survival with in or out of the robust crust of their relational bonds which he or she is attached with. Gretta has a life to live and the same with Mr and Mrs Samsa. The importance of the lives of these three individuals cannot be belittled or ignored only because of some miserable thing which happens in the life of Gregor though he had been scarifying his own happiness for giving happiness to them.

Metamorphosis is an amazingly matured piece of literature works which one can go through once and live with the thought provoking reminiscences of it's reading experience there after.

The Alchemist – How boring a book can be?

Many months, possibly even years passed after I decided to read the book ‘The Alchemist’ and its today that I finally finished reading it. It was beyond all my imagination that a little cute looking book with such an intriguingly interesting title can be this boring. A much hyped out ‘fable about following one’s dream’. I was so excited about Paulo Coelho’s way of writing after having read one of his beautiful works, ‘by the river Piedra, I sat down and wept’. That one had everything; Love, relationship, confusion, destiny, Sacrifice, Words those poke into the softest side of your heart and it’s not odd that a reader expects a similar magic from the Author.So sad it turned to be that Alchemist has got nothing, hardly any beautiful lines, which you would like to underline with your pencil to read again and again. On Contrary, all the book has got are Omens, Weird sounding dreams, Worst interpretations from the nature, the great Lord and his blunt messages, the stupid alchemy, a tasteless desert and a boring caravan. ‘Ok fine!’ you might ask, But what when all of these rotten ingredients mixed up in an Alchemist’s pan?. Good question dude, Coelho got them all, he mixed ‘Elixir of life’ into the composition and blessed it with the sorcerer’s stone, bud did the lead turn to pure Gold? . No, my buddy, it did not. It’s the same old lead which was bit blackened due to the hyper dose of childish mysticism. I bought this book a painful thrice; one for my sister, one for a dear friend of mine and the third, for myself and I am happy that I read, ‘River Piedra’ before I actually read ‘Alchemist’, Otherwise I would have preferred never to read a Coelho again in my life.

‘Under Suspicion’ ,a great movie experience

A Gene hackman, Morgan Freeman classic drama, ‘Under Suspicion’ was literally a great movie experience. Hackman could effortlessly portray the changing expressions of a noble man who is falsely accused of committing a nasty crime and has to undergo a painfully grueling interrogation session, lead by an old buddy of him played by Freeman. He is stripped off all his colorful decent attires of nobility to a mere pedophilic, straying, cheap old juvenile rapist though he had no connection with the actual crime. He is set free at the end at the cost of his lost privacy, ripped off secrets and the respect he saved by leading a gentle life through out. Freeman was amazingly good in playing a honest officer detective with a responsible father of young girl children dwelled into the uniform.

A beautiful technique was used for story telling where instead of showing silly flash backs time to time during interrogation, here one could actually see the events where the detective stands or walks in the crime scene observing every minute details. Freeman’s character says to Hackaman’s often, “Ok Henry, Lets go to the park once again”, and you see both walk around the park with out actually moving out of the room. I made a miserable miss to the Great Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer while watching this movie, but to be honest, I don’t regret.

Bike Trip Bangalore-Chittor:: Phone Camera Pics

It was an interesting short Bike trip from bangalore to chittoor and back .A small total of 400 Kms. The sudden climate change in and around Bangalore made it difficult and interesting with its beautiful January fog and chill.SE-K810-i was handy in times but the frustration of not owning a DSLR just got multiplied as i was perplexed on the the astonishing beauty of nature and my inability to capture even half of those pretty scenes was highly devastating.

Bangalore-Chittoor - 12th Jan -8Am onwards








(Somewhere near K.R.Puram on 12th Morning)



(near Kolar on 12th Jan.08)




(Chittoor Sugar Factory on Sunrise and Sunset ,15th,13th Jan,08)















(Chittoor, On starting off to bangalore on 15th,Jan,08 7Am)







(somewhere on way back to Bangalore)