Extracts from a Diary

So I met up with a few old friends recently (multiple instances; different sets; essentially, disclaimer for avoiding being identified by said friends). I realised: Hugging is awkward! Now, don't mistake me - I am not this random emotionless cold person or someone with major issues of physical contact with another human. It's more about the social complications that it entails. Consider the scenario of shaking hands. Apart from the complications requiring the understanding of the cultural  background  of the person, there's also additional complications of occasions. I am unexpectedly meeting this colleague at a common party after work and I will meet the person in another 12 hours. But, I shook hands with the others guys, who I was meeting after some time. Or, the timing of it - you offer the hand just as other person looked elsewhere. Or, there's a mismatch on the firmness of the handshake. That encapsulates the complexity of a hug but there are a few other reasons t...

I committed myself to putting one post a month. That did not work out so well. So, I am putting an earlier article that was published at my b-school's blog here On a recent trip to Delhi, I stumbled on a car with a slogan saying: ‘Singh is better than king,’ and as it would happen, a friend wrote an article on a related topic here  (NOT a shameless plug for the said friend). It got me thinking on certain things. A movie like Singh is King or even 3 Idiots (yes! The one hailed as the next best thing since Rang De Basanti – another falling into this category that I am talking of) has a certain kind of an impact on the audience. Now, because we are so jobless – me in writing this article and you in reading it – you might just as well do well to imagine a normal curve. Now imagine one (and only one specific) quality of a film or a film maker which defines the quality of the movie made and assume this quality to be distributed along the normal curve . Now,  this qualit...

(Courtesy: Zeitgeist Films; distributors of the movie) I normally don't do reviews. I can't pin down my reasons for the same. It's probably a mixture of the fact that it takes an 'inspired' (no, not in the sense Hindi film industry/reviewers use it) movie to inspire me to think about a movie enough. And, it takes more than that to inspire enough to write something about it. It might be something to do with my need for pushing a certain movie (which, in turn, can be broken down but I would rather care not to, at this point), or something to do with sparking off a thought. Or, something that effects me emotionally. I felt Chaitanya Tamhane's debut movie, Court (trailer here , synopsis here ), achieved those and more. It had its issues. The biggest of them all being, essentially, this tendency of characters to just generally stare at blankness while driving/walking/existing. And, 'slowness' (or my need, as a viewer, for the movie to just 'get o...

As far back as I can remember, I always supported South African Cricket Team. I remember being conflicted about supporting Indian cricket team at various points through my childhood (and beyond?) but always remember being a Proteas' supporter. Maybe not such a strong one during the '96 world cup, which is also among the earliest memories of cricket I remember.  Now, for some reasons quite a few of my friends and acquaintances associate me with being rational, lacking emotion, or just lacking in empathy. I don't think that is completely true but that's for another day. What is not, is the next paragraph. (Yes, this paragraph was put in here randomly, without caring much about the flow and as an afterthought.) By the '99 version of it, I'd read about their readmission in '92, come to know about and admire their players like Fannie de Villiers (oh the action!), Brian McMillan (strictly an okay old-rounder says my cynical-of-nostalgia brain but as a kid...