Idle Musings

Of Broken Legs and Bad Projects

2010-02-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

So I’m back and blogging after a reeaallllyyyy long time, just about 15 months to be precise (thanks Doc, for those encouraging words!!). Now I quit blogging as it was just impossible to post a blog at the precise moment when you had this really cool thought you wanted to share. But after breaking my leg and having it in a plaster cast for a while, I have realized that (un)fortunately I am now in a unique position to blog pretty much whenever I want to. Not that it means much, but still…

There are lots of things that I have managed to do after breaking my leg that I wouldn’t really have done otherwise – watching Friends, watching TV fairly regularly and writing this blog to name just a few. But the most interesting thing by far has been the opportunity to observe closely the repair/renovation work which is currently underway in our home. There is essentially a local father-son contractor duo which has been hired by us. The two come by fairly frequently, discuss what we want and give us their suggestions from time to time. They tell us what can be done and can’t be done, the time required and the costs involved. They have also shown Mom and Dad examples of their previous work in nearby flats. The father also has a nephew who assists him in his business. He stays ‘on-site’ all day and supervises all the workers in the house.

Now I know all this is really boring, but I can’t help but think that our home’s renovation is so much akin to a badly managed BCG project. We are the cranky clients, who sometimes are not clear about what we want and are obstinate about doing/not doing a lot of things which the contractor simply doesn’t understand. The father and son are like a senior and junior partner, or a partner and principal if you like. They keep trying to assure us that all is well, that the costs are reasonable, that they know what they are doing and that they can show us references!! The nephew is like the Project Leader, and all the workers are the poor hardworking case team, who probably curse everyone from the client (us) to their bosses about such a poorly planned, scoped and executed project...

Mumbai, again...

2008-11-29T05:14:00.000-08:00

There were many things I felt like blogging about since the last post, but there was always something else which popped up and frankly I was a bit lazy too.

However, the terror attack on Mumbai has left me with an absolute mix of a lot of emotions; I am angry and sad and maybe a bit scared but most of all I am disgusted with our !@%@#$^ politicians. All they can think of is votes at this point in time. And it also makes me wonder, where the bloody hell is Raj Thakerey at this time? Considering how big a loudmouth he is I am sure he would like to have said something, like refusing assistance from other ‘non-Marathi’ parts of our country…

True, our intelligence is screwed up (considering we have been battling terror for ages, one would expect some capabilities to have been built up by now) and without decent intelligence terror just can’t be tackled but our politicians have no will to do anything except make fancy statements. As I was reading in the paper somewhere, you cannot expect to counter terror, which is getting increasingly sophisticated with a third-rate police force and intelligence; and it suits our politicos to not have an effective law and order system.

Anyway, this was just to let off some steam. A rather incoherent post I guess, but writing more would mean just going on and on.

PS – The only positive thing is the common man's response to the terror. But I wonder, when will people’s patience run out??

PPS – I still don’t get why the f*** the media were reporting everything live anyway, all our commandos movements on air…

Cleaning out my Inbox and Missed Goodie Bags

2008-11-13T04:14:00.000-08:00

Was going through my e-mail inbox recently, and was basically trying to manage it as it had become quite cumbersome (apply labels, delete useless stuff etc). I wasn’t really reading mails, but mostly their titles which were usually good enough to remind me of what the mail was. There were instances when I re-read some mails, instances when I found unread mails which I wish I had read earlier and there were mails which made me a bit sad as well.

But essentially, looking at all those mails really sort of refreshed my memory, reminded me of friends I had lost touch with...and gave me an excellent opportunity to read some completely inane and stupid forwards.

PS – my latest really big gripe has been my failure to register for the Delhi Half Marathon in time. (I reached about 5 minutes too late at the bank. No, really, I swear…) Anyway, do note that I have said register and not run. This is because on registration you get a ‘goodie-bag’ from the sponsors full of (mostly useful) stuff worth at least 1500 bucks, and the registration charges are only 300. This has prompted lazybones like Mr. L who registered out of misplaced enthusiasm, and then quite predictably, did not run, to declare that in future he would be registering for all such marathons (half or full, who cares) and come up with a veritable goodie-bag collection!!

And for the record, I completely intended to run the 7km run…but now I think L’s choice is the way to go :D

PPS – That was rather a long PS, wasn't it?

Obamania??

2008-11-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

So Barack Obama has finally created history, and people in the States are (understandably) going ga-ga over him. Now I am happy as well, that democracy shone through etc etc, but I would be happy even if it was the first woman President, or if it was any other African-American. What I can’t understand at all, is why people in India are going ga-ga specifically over Obama.

Obama hasn’t clearly said what his policy on India is going to be, except the usual bit about India being very important and a strategic ally; he hasn’t called on our PM so far either and he is a Democrat. Democrats have traditionally been less favourable to India than the Republicans, and the last time a Democrat occupied office was Bill Clinton. To be fair he did visit India, but apart from that all he really did was impose sanctions on us post-Pokhran, and provide all sorts of weapons to our neighbours.

Btw, it just may be that everybody is going ga-ga over him for running possibly the best Presidential campaign in history; and for becoming President despite admitting to drug use and smoking!!

Space and Time

2008-11-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

This last month has been full of travel, which has afforded me many chances to just look out of airplane windows and think (I am capable of that sometimes, despite what this blog might suggest!!).

I was recently returning back to Delhi from Calcutta and was looking out of the window as usual. It was night and there was this city below, all lit up (not sure, but I think it was Lucknow); and I thought that it looked so nice and orderly. And then I thought all cities looked nice and orderly when I saw them from the air, even though up close and personal they are probably shitty and stinky and dirty and disgustingly full of hatred and crime. It was like the magnitude of the distance seemed to make all those things irrelevant, just like a long time helps heal all wounds. And in that respect at least, the two are similar.

I don’t really know what Einstein’s space-time theory was, but for me, I guess this is about as close as it gets to understanding it.

The Forgettable Show

2008-10-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Some people just don’t know when their time is up. Yesterday Dad and I were embroiled in a little tug-of-war over the TV remote. Dad wanted to watch the Unforgettable Show, while I was more keen on watching the England-Kazakhstan World Cup qualifier. Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, the ‘some people’ I am referring to does not include Dad, but most definitely includes Amitabh Bachchan. As a result of the above tussle over the remote we came to an agreeable compromise which involved switching between channels (what else!!), which meant that I was forced to watch that boring (and flop, if the media reports are to be believed) show which is nothing but an excuse for the Bachchan family to try and mint some money. As it is AB baby’s acting career is going nowhere (and whoever thought he could play a superhero, but more on that later).

Having explained why I was wasting my time watching that show, I will come back to the point i.e some people just don’t know when to stop. So as I was watching the Unforgettable Show (absolutely and completely forgettable from the 15-20 odd minutes that I saw) all that was going on was –

Jaya Bachchan being introduced in extremely flattering terms, which convinced Dad to promptly change channels, without any instigation from my side
Amitabh Bachchan being introduced with an almost 5 minute video showing clips/pics from various stages of his career, and describing him in extremely flattering terms as well, which convinced me to change channels (and Dad didn’t complain)
But what I found most irritating was that once Amitji came on stage, all he did was sing his old hits and sort of moved his feet a little here, a little there while staying rooted more or less to the same spot. I mean since when did people want to hear him sing? Everyone knows he is past 60 now, and so can’t really jump and dance around, but that doesn’t mean he starts singing randomly on stage. We kept thinking that there will be more, surely people are not paying money just for this; but we were wrong. Dad finally agreed that watching England play boring football is a much better option (although 6 goals in the last 40 minutes of the match did make him happy). And I was left wondering, whatever happened to aging gracefully, goddamn it?

This btw, is not just specific to Amitji. The some people I have been referring to can easily include so many more people in the limelight, who simply do not understand that there comes a time in everyone’s career (however glittering it might have been) when you need to factor age into the equation.

Apart from that, I finally saw A Wednesday yesterday. A tad late, but well worth it. Good script, great acting, and some fantastic editing which makes it extremely crisp. For those who haven’t watched…I would really recommend this and Aamir as the pick of the lot from Bollywood this year. And at the other end of the quality spectrum, I have heard Drona is topping the not-to-be-watched-at-any-cost list (though Hello seems to be giving it competition).

Thankfully I haven’t seen any of them myself, and as I wrote above Goldie Behl must have been deluded when he thought Abhishek Bachchan could pull off a superhero character – he simply doesn’t have the screen presence for one, has a perennial frown on his face and doesn’t have the physique to carry it off. But what I find really perplexing is Priyanka Chopra’s role in the film. Apparently she plays Drona’s bodyguard!! Huh?? Since when did superheroes need bodyguards?? Goldie must have thought he’d take the age old concept of princess-entrusted-with-secret-protected-by-superhero-bodyguard and turn it on its head to come up with an ‘original’ story!! :D

But whatever you say, both PC and AB baby’s careers seem to be going nowhere at the moment, and maybe Big B is just trying to do his fatherly duty by providing for his son!! Who knows…

A Bit of This, A bit of That..

2008-10-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

This is probably going to be more of a ramble (not a rant though) than anything else. I feel sad that I wanted to post a couple of times in the last 10 days or so, and I had some good ideas as well but unfortunately work and sleep (what little I can manage nowadays) are a priority.

So my dear friend Moti has reached and settled well in Stanford (I would really love to define the settling well part, but sometime else I guess :P) but he sent me a really cool link which is like the clearest and most jargon free AND funny explanation of the subprime crisis ever. I know this might seem hopelessly outdated but with the way banks continue to crash left, right and centre I just thought it would be an interesting thing. Here it is, definitely worth a dekho –
The subprime primer!!

It’s almost as if every weekend all the bankers get behind the scenes and decide which rotten apple (read bank) is going to go off next. But even funnier is how the US has approved a $700 billion bailout package. I admit it was rejected first, but my first thought when I came to know about it was that it’s a positively brilliant idea – an ex-Wall Street ibanker creating a solution to solve problems created by a bunch of current Wall Street ibankers (at least partially) using up the poor public’s money. Now I might be wrong, but still it’s a really (darkly) funny situation.

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All these blasts which are happening around us really made me think a bit (unfortunately I am not capable of deep thought). For the last God knows how many years pretty much all terrorism in our country has been attributed to ‘external’ agencies like the ISI. But in this case, the bottom line is that it is home-grown, and even if the ISI were involved it is only because people here want their help. There are as many different ways to bomb places as there are people (and sometimes even the threat of a bomb is enough to cause mass panic and stampedes) and you can’t really stop these attacks unless you nip them in the bud, and that needs some really good intelligence.

Right now I get the feeling that the attitude is that most of this is being controlled from across the border, so there is only so much that we can do; and people are probably not trying as hard as they should. Or maybe our intelligence has been so busy looking at ways to counter the ‘external’ threat that we have ignored the issues in our own backyard.

I am not really clear myself, but there is probably this feeling of fatality in our society which has learnt to accept these things too easily after all these years; and I don’t think that is very healthy.

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I had also gone to IIT recently, although as pointed out by someone it was more as an employee than as a friend. But as always it felt good to be back there, although the few hours I spent for that just had to be cut from my sleep.

Its been a while since I have seen any good movies, although the last one I watched was Righteous Kill. Even though I could predict the story in about 15-20 minutes, there were a couple of nice twists. But basically it was worth the money for just watching De Niro and Pacino together.

But to me, books are more important than movies, and I still do manage to read a little every once in while. I finished A Case of Exploding Mangoes (thanks Doc) a while back, and would strongly recommend it to everyone. Has some brilliant satire and dark humour. Currently I am slowly going through Shantaram. It’s my third really good book on Mumbai, apart from Maximum City and the Sacred Games and I am just wondering if I could find something similar on New York.

Apart from that ManU are back to winning ways, and Berba has broken his duck. But there is a midfield injury crisis looming, and I don’t really like it at all. And I am also going to be off to Goa soon!!

!#@!$%!

2008-10-02T05:33:00.000-07:00

One persistently irritating thing about my blog is how it simply refuses to stick to a common font size. No matter how hard I try (and I am smart enough to always select the same font and size, at least when I publish a post the first time) and that has driven me absolutely nuts.

Not much by way of a post…but this is really irritating.

Anyone need a house, people??

2008-09-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Its been a long while since my last post, and this time it hasn’t been work which has kept me away from posting but sheer old laziness. Somehow I always seem to be stuck up with my own issues and never really find the time or the motivation to post.

But enough whining about my stupid life. Yesterday I went to the bank for some work with my Dad and I saw this mad rush of people waiting to get bank drafts made at these special counters spread all over the place. The rush of course was for financing for the DDA housing scheme where you will get subsidized Government flats if you are lucky and can then use the flat as a long term investment or to make a quick killing.

Now the scheme goes something like this – the banks are going to fully finance your application fee of Rs. 150000 via a draft in return for a ‘nominal’ charge (of around Rs. 6500 or something). The allotment of flats will happen via a lottery. The agreement with the loanees is something like this – in case you do not get a flat the money comes back directly to the bank and they make a quick killing; in case you do get a flat then well, since you couldn’t even rustle up a piffling 150000 to begin with its fair to assume that you would need a loan. Right?

There are almost 5000 flats on the block, and at least 200 times that number are expected to apply. Most of them will do that through loans. My guess is that the banks are laughing all the way…to themselves.

The Job and The Cuts

2008-08-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

So I am posting again after almost 2 weeks, and I know I said I would be more regular (and to those really few nice people who urged me to write more frequently, a very grateful thank you) but the fact is that my job has just started and it really started to sort of kick in the last two weeks, and has kept me real busy for the most bit.

But despite that, thus far, I like my job. There’s a lot to learn, and despite persistent goof-ups from my side people have been patient and very very helpful; I have actually walked in on people just like that without knowing them and not one person has said no so far (obviously I haven’t tried that with the really senior people yet...but so far the results are promising!!). One major change I notice from college days is the responsibility you have. Slacking off at IIT means you are the only one who is affected, whether you pass or fail or do well or not do well, at the end of the day its just you who is really getting affected. Here, you are constantly reminded how there are other people with serious work of their own who are affected.

The other major change, of course, is that nobody pays you at IIT!!

So apart from the job, there hasn’t been much happening in life to be worth blogging about. Yesterday we (me and a bunch of friends) planned to see Rock On, but the plan collapsed (quite understandably, considering the tickets were for the 10:10 show) at the last minute and I felt quite bad as I was quite keen on watching it. So then I talked to Mr. L who claimed to be completely vella and we decided that we would watch any damn movie the next day and then splurge on eating out. Unfortunately for me (and even more so for Mr. L) he was told to do some work over the weekend. Not to be put off by things as silly as work (whatever happened to the responsibility bit, you might ask. Well, on weekends one should forget it :D) I managed to convince Mr. L to come along conditional to the availability of tickets. 5 minutes later he called saying there was more work. This time I didn’t bother trying to convince him…there’s only so much you can do before you realize that at the end of the day, it is Murphy’s Law which well and truly rules. As UC said so nicely and adequately, Cuts!!

The Olympics So Far

2008-08-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Abhinav Bindra won a gold medal in shooting, despite having a -4 power and wearing spectacles. What an achievement!!

Ronaldinho is nearing his better days with the Brazil Olympic squad, and I am happy again for he is undoubtedly a class act.

Italy’s kids were knocked out of the tournament, and I am sad. They had some bad luck with refereeing by all accounts (didn’t see the match, DD sucks) and considering the talent in Italy’s current generation of youngsters – Giovinco, Chiellini, Rossi, Cigarini, Acquafresca, De Ceglie and Balotelli to name a few; it’s a downright shame.

Akhil Kumar knocked off the current world champ to reach the boxing quarters, and wants nothing less than gold. Sterling stuff, that and all the best to him.

Our pugilists seem to be doing well, with Virender Kumar and Jitender Kumar also making it to the quarters. Here’s looking forward to another medal.

Usain Bolt, who is originally a 200m runner and apparently competed in only one 100m race before the Olympics, has today broken the 100m dash record by finishing the race in just 9.69 secs. When I read the news on the Net I thought it was a typo, but apparently he dominated so thoroughly that he was celebrating at the 85m mark or thereabouts. The second placed guy finished in 9.89 seconds, and to anyone who knows even a little about the margins in a 100m race, 0.2 seconds is a phenomenal one. Clearly, there’s a lot of scope here for improvement since he didn’t run at full steam for the last bit of the race. I still don’t know if this was wind assisted, but I hope not. Btw, I read a few user comments on rediff.com, and apparently Bolt has tremendous acceleration – so much so that someone predicted that the 200m record of Michael Johnson would fall tomorrow too. Interesting…first guy to do the sprint double after Carl Lewis in ‘84??

Roger Federer’s miserable run of form continued (it’s only miserable by his stratospheric standards, but still miserable) as he lost in the singles category. However, he did get a consolation doubles gold. I need to point out that one of the things I really wanted to blog about was Federer’s form, and the ascendance of Nadal (following this year’s French Open and Wimbledon), but I left that topic for UC instead. However, being the lazy bum that he is, UC hasn’t yet fulfilled his promise and yet cribs that he is out of topics interesting enough to write about. Anyway, I’m still waiting. I know I digressed, but I think it was with good reason this time…

Suddenly my mind went all blank, trying to think what was that other thing I wanted to write…I can’t remember, and all my mind is saying is THAT thing, THAT thing… and then I suddenly remembered that ‘THAT thing’ is Phelps haul of 7 individual gold medals. Phelps apparently has the ideal swimmer’s physique – long torso and long arms which help propel you faster; not to mention that his body metabolism is such that he develops laughably low levels of tiring chemicals like lactic acid. But 7 gold medals (with an 8^th a very real possibility) is 7 gold medals. – and it needs and exceptional amount of determination and focus to achieve that. Serbia have appealed against one of them, I know, but I have a feeling nothing will come of it.

Me - Graduate... At The Right Time Too

2008-08-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

I don’t really know quite how to begin this post. Usually I like to ramble a lot before actually coming to the point and writing whatever it is that I actually intend to write. I guess that’s probably due to the fact that I rarely have enough substantial stuff to write, but I digress. As a matter of fact I have a really bad habit of digressing, and I commented on this in one of the posts on my old blog as well, but anyway it seems like I am digressing again so I’ll come to the point.

So I had my convocation today, and getting a degree was rather nice. The entire thing was really ritualistic, with orange robes and traditions etc, but I guess that’s maybe the point of the exercise. But giving details about the convocation is rather meaningless; however, the convocation did make me realize that I was graduating at a really good time.

And I don’t say this because of the so-called boom in the job market, or similar reasons. Basically I feel lucky because our batch is one of the last batches to graduate, before the implications of the reservation politics really start kicking in, and they will not be good if things stay the way they are.

Brand IIT (and I know I will probably seem biased saying this) was one of the few truly global success stories of India and I guess it was rather inevitable that despite their ‘autonomy’, the IITs would get enmeshed in a political battle. As if the increased reservation in general for higher education seats wasn’t bad enough, the Government is now also adopting IIT-specific rules and policies which stink of an absolute disregard for merit.

Even without accounting for the intake of a higher no of students, there was a shortage of about 15% in the IIT faculty, simply because the qualifications needed to teach were stringent (and the pay isn’t anything to brag about either) and not many people fulfill those requirements. Now there is going to be reservation for even the faculty positions, which is insane to be honest. Why is there a bloody need to have reservations for people who are already professionally qualified??

Then there is also the issue of the new IITs which are coming up. It’s absolutely amazing how the IITs are now being used as a political bargaining tool, with State Governments lobbying to get IITs set up in their respective states. What I find even more amazing is that these IITs have been set up without the campus actually existing. IIT Punjab is being ‘mentored’ by IIT Delhi and its students are being ‘hosted’ at our campus, which has led to some interesting situations on campus. Hostel double rooms which had partitions earlier have now been converted to triple rooms with the partitions being broken down, classes on Saturday and what not!!

But the most frustrating thing has been the fact that for the first time in their history, the IITs had a second round of admissions. About 430 SC/ST seats were left vacant after the JEE, since there weren’t enough candidates even after the relaxed cut-offs. So for the first time in their history, the Government actually had a say in the admission process for candidates, with some amazingly low cut-offs in the second list.

And the worst part is that people are happily accepting the situation of having to forever get by in life on the crutches of backwardness. Reservation was meant as a short-term fix to decades of oppression, and could be understood in those times. But vote-bank politics, the dominance of a creamy layer and an attitude which mocks at merit have made it something else altogether. It is now the political weapon of choice for all political parties, and it is the sole issue which unites them. Nobody opposed it, and the BJP Government in Rajasthan used it to appease the Gujjars recently. But the best part about reservation is that it has shown how willing we are to denigrate ourselves. People went on hunger strikes and protests, and screwed up railway tracks to get classified as well and truly backward…I say, well and truly amazing!!

Btw, our chief guest at the convocation was Dr R K Pachauri, and his speech was so boring. I don’t quite know what convocation speeches should be like, but I certainly didn’t want to hear his resume and the IPCC’s achievements, however impressive they might be.

The Indian Idiot Box

2008-08-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

So first things first – I am not really a great couch potato, and till this summer we didn’t even have a TV connection at home since the only things on TV that I am interested in are sports (particularly football) and movies, all of which I watched happily in the hostel and Mom and Dad aren’t great couch potatoes either. Why I am writing this inane bullshit is because, as a result of the above circumstances I was absolutely and blissfully unaware of the changes which had come about on Indian television.

Flipping through channels on Tata Sky has suddenly made me aware of the great changes that have happened on the telly since I have been, in a matter of speaking, away – the sudden surge in the number of reality shows and stupid game shows and even more stupid news channels and so many more channels which I would even find difficult to classify. So anyway, a few things are really worth writing about –

Firstly, this new MTV reality show called Splitsvilla. Pal has had his own say on this here, and I’ll add mine. So I haven’t actually religiously followed the show, but in between the EURO matches I could figure out that it’s a contest between girls – the basic premise being that there are 20 girls and 2 boys, and the girls for a change have to compete to get the boys. There are catfights galore I’m told, and a fair bit of scheming too (Roadies must have gone to MTV’s head I think); and if they are not all fixed beforehand (which I doubt) I must say it’s a quite brilliant bit of brainwashing. Honestly though, I don’t know how this show is doing with the masses, but I would put it right at the top of the Stupidest Shows Ever List.

But I have really enjoyed watching the Kya Aap Panchvi Fail Champu Hain show. It is absolutely hilarious, and doesn’t spare anyone. The anchor (don’t know his name) copies SRK’s gestures to perfection, and so far I have seen quite a few other Indian celebs being taken for a ride. What’s even funnier is the way they arrive at the answers on this show, using some absolutely whacky logic. Definitely worth a watch!!

On the issue of game shows, our habit of taking inspiration from the West is not restricted to the big screen alone. With Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as KBC, Are You Faster Than a Fifth Grader as Panchvi Paas whatever, The Weakest Link as Kamjor Kadi Kaun there are rip-offs galore on the small screen as well.

Apart from this all, I have found BBC Entertainment and Sony Pix to be surprisingly good, and AXN and Star World do manage to show pretty much most sitcoms worth seeing. But after all is done with, I find that I keep coming back to Cartoon Network to watch Tom and Jerry – I might seem kiddish but it’s still the best in the funnies department.

The Great Euro 500,000,000 Chain Reaction(s), And More...

2008-07-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

Ok this is one post that I have been simply dying to write (and it is going to be even longer than the previous longest). As mentioned somewhere, I am a really BIG movie buff, and I also happen to be a BIGGER football freak. So for people like me, summer is the time when all the action in European football happens behind the scenes, in the transfer market. This is when everytime I go online, the first thing I do is open all the football websites hoping for some big news – who got transferred, or who is about to be and what not!!

So anyway, for the uninformed, basically a lot of wheeling and dealing happens in the summer with clubs buying players, selling players, releasing players on free transfers, hiring coaches, firing coaches (though coaches also tend to get fired in the midst of disastrous seasons) and it’s great fun speculating about who is going to go where. Despite having a strong urge to show-off my absolutely encyclopedic knowledge on this topic, I will not bore you here with speculation; that’s something easily available on the Net. However, there are certain very interesting possibilities which exist this summer, and could lead to transfer merry-go-rounds and a LOT of money changing hands.

For example, consider this – Manchester United (the team I support) have not bought anyone this summer, this despite the fact that they do need a genuine world class out and out striker and that SAF (Sir Alex Ferguson, their manager) has no doubt plenty of cash to throw around after the absolutely awesome season last year. This is basically due to the uncertainty surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo’s future at the club, with Real Madrid quite publicly stating their desire to sign him over the last few months and Ronaldo on his part doing nothing to stop the speculation. Now Ronaldo is a very important player for United (with 42 goals in a season, you would be too) and so they are desperate to hang onto him. But if he goes he would command a fee in the region of Euros 90 – 100 million. Flush with this cash, and needing not just a new striker now but also a new winger, United would probably buy Berbatov from Tottenham (35 million), and Aguero from Atletico (50 – 60 million). Tottenham then would be flush with cash, and would probably spend the entire amount on Arshavin/Pavlyuchenko/Milito (2 players). Moreover, if Real Madrid are successful in landing Ronaldo, they would almost certainly sell Robinho to Chelsea for about 50 million. In total, about 250 million would be spent by all the clubs.

Chelsea have also reportedly made a 150 million (yes, that’s not a typo) bid for AC Milan’s Kaka. Milan have some financial troubles, and if they were to cash in it would almost certainly lead to the arrival of either Drogba/Adebayor/Shevchenko to the club for anywhere from 20 – 30 million. To replace the above strikers, Arsenal/Chelsea would probably try to land Samuel Eto’o from Barcelona, who could cost about 20 – 25 million. This means, quite possibly, another 200 million changing hands.

And apart from the above fairly reliable reports, there are so many other speculations doing the rounds. But the point is that all it takes is just one key player to move, to trigger off so many transfers from A to B and B to C and so on. And that football is becoming so increasingly about money nowadays.

I also happen to have some very specific views of my own about the entire Ronaldo transfer saga (circus, more like it). Firstly, after very happily signing an absolutely bumper deal worth about Euros 150,000 a week plus bonuses he has done nothing to dispel the rumours surrounding his future at Manchester United. Considering that he pretty much owes his entire career and success to United (and more specifically to SAF who spent big on a 17-year old and persevered with him despite his selfishness, and after he got Rooney sent off in the 2006 WC), and it’s not as if he has had 7 or 8 great seasons at United and feels it’s time to move on; you would expect a little bit of loyalty perhaps. But forget loyalty, what really irks me is a recent comment by Sepp Blatter (FIFA’s head, and a self-confessed personal friend of Ramon Calderon, Real’s president) that United are treating Ronaldo like a ‘slave’. Now Ronaldo has 4 years left on a contract he himself said he was delighted to sign, not to mention the astronomical wages he gets. Slavery, as Pele rightly pointed out is when you don’t have a contract, and don’t know what you are going to be paid (that is, if you are paid in the first place). Why this particular comment, coming from someone who never really had a reputation of being the sharpest in the brains department irks me is because Ronaldo agreed with it. Whatever happened to the sanctity of contracts, huh??

And as far as I’m concerned, if Ronaldo really is stupid enough to want to leave, United should squeeze Madrid dry and spend the cash to build a better squad. One player alone doesn’t make a team, and there are some very capable players in the United squad. And this rather shameless panting after Ronaldo from Madrid’s side is really disrespectful to their existing squad, which has won two league titles in a row and is really quite complete and very capable on its own as well.

Anyway, with their closest rivals strengthening their squads substantially, here’s hoping United pull a few rabbits out of the hat, like last season.

PS - After endless speculation about his future, Ronaldinho has finally moved to Milan from Barca. I don't care what his detractors say about him, he is only 28 and definitely not finished yet. And he has been working on his fitness all summer, he rejected a pay packet at least twice the size of what Milan were offering, and rejected the 15% of his transfer fee that he was due from Barca in order to make his move happen. All these are indications of a man who is all fired up to prove a point. And according to me form is temporary, class permanent - and Ronnie has truckloads of class. Serie A, watch out!!

A More Perfect Union

2008-07-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

With Obamania now sweeping across Europe (polls predict that if Europe could vote, then the ratio of votes Obama would get as compared to McCain’s would be about 5:1 in UK, 6:1 in France and so on…basically a landslide victory) I thought of reading his speech on race relations, which received some fantastic acclaim from people who hailed his understanding of the complexities of the racial divide in America.

Usually I treat politician-speak with a lot of salt, but I found the speech really nice, so I thought I would post the link here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html

The New No. 1

2008-07-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

This is basically as an addendum to the last post about The Dark Knight, which is now currently the new #1 on the Internet Movie Database (imdb, what else!!) list of the top movies of all time.

I have found imdb to usually be a very good source for getting trustworthy reviews on movies (since they are written by normal folks, and not critics), and I am generally in the habit of periodically checking its Top 250 list; so it has come as somewhat of a surprise to me that TDK is currently the #1 movie on that ‘hallowed’ list.

It’s surprising because of two reasons.

Firstly, The Godfather had been sitting pretty on that perch for pretty much forever (at least ever since I have been imdbing, anyway) and it looked like nothing would ever dislodge it.

Secondly, because with an average user rating of 9.4 (on a scale of 10) after 135,443 votes it means this is not really just a flash in the pan, as I expected it to be when TDK first reached #1.

Why I am writing this is very simple – dislodging The Godfather is one helluva achievement and actually managing to stay there for a while (with every indication that it’s going to be a rather prolonged while) is still more; and its all the more reason for you to watch the movie. And as a movie buff it makes me happy, that there is still competition there at the top!!

PS – the rating was 9.5 after about 110,000 votes I think so there’s bound to be a correction soon (just like the Indian stock market, lol) and I daresay after a while TDK might actually lose its place at the top. But still, like I said, its one hell of an achievement from a popular acclaim perspective… and its one hell of a movie.

Also, I am not going to waste time comparing the two movies, they are both GREAT…so I have deliberately not treaded that path. I just thought this was something worth blogging about, that’s all!!

The Dark Knight - Go Watch It!!

2008-07-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

First things first, I am a BIG movie buff and Batman is my favourite superhero. Moreover, in my opinion Christopher Nolan is the only director to have done justice to this fantastically complicated character, his own inner demons and his quest for justice. This is also, I think, my first proper movie review. And so, to get to the point, this promises to be a rather long, winding blog (with I am sure what many would find very irrelevant stuff), but its my blog, so what the hell!!

So I saw The Dark Knight (TDK from now on) recently, with friends on the day it was released, and I absolutely loved it from start to finish.

But before I actually start writing about TDK I think some perspective is needed. Batman is a completely different superhero – he doesn’t really have any superpowers, and his idea of justice is basically to instill fear and terror in the hearts of criminals. To put it succinctly, Superman is a boy scout; and compared to him, politely speaking, Batman is..well he is a rather mean character.

Now my primary grouse with most Batman movies is this – they just don’t capture this difference.

The original Batman movies, starring Michael Keaton did try, to a certain extent to do justice to this character. But frankly, the acting wasn’t really upto the mark (and whoever imagined Keaton as Batman, he didn’t even have the physique to play a normal healthy policeman damn it) and the movies just didn’t try going all the way into Batman’s mind. Moreover, they weren’t all that well made technically (or maybe I feel that way because they are too old). Anyway, the bottom line is I didn’t really like them much. Worth a watch, but that’s about it.

I haven’t seen the Val Kilmer starrer Batman Forever, but Batman and Robin (George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger) was, in hindsight, pathetic beyond belief. I mean, since when did Batman start to smile and greet villains, saying cheerfully – “Hi Freeze!! I’m back.” ??

So anyway, when I first saw Batman Begins, I was absolutely delighted and till TDK came, it was by far the best Batman movie ever. However, TDK is in a different league altogether, and I would say quite possibly the greatest superhero movie altogether.

So what makes this movie so good that I’m practically singing paeans in its praise??

First of all, the acting is absolutely first rate. Christian Bale excels again as not only Batman, but also Bruce Wayne, with his lisp and his hoarse voice adding even more menace to his character. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine deliver finely nuanced performances as Lucius Fox and Alfred Pennyworth. Their roles may be small, but as always it’s the quality and not the quantity that counts. Moreover, they are usually the people Batman turns to when he needs help, and are really pivotal characters in this franchise. A new addition from Batman Begins is Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, and he more than manages to hold his own in this star studded cast. Then there is Jim Gordon and Rachel Dawes and other characters, who basically need to ensure that they don’t screw up, and they don’t.
And lastly, of course there is Heath Ledger, who as the Joker gives an absolutely outstanding performance. From the very first scene itself, it’s clear to us that the Joker is EVIL, and he absolutely revels in it. There is no background created to explain why he is the way he is – he just is. And from the start to the finish, he pretty much steals the show. With those manic hand gestures, fantastic dialogues and that absolutely creepy licking of the lips…here is without a doubt one of the all-time greatest villains.

And after the acting, it’s the cinematography – the movie is shot GRANDLY in, I believe mostly Chicago (and some scenes in HK). Everything is done on a larger-than-life scale, and the action is, as before, first rate. A lot of scenes come to mind which are worth writing about, but would obviously give the plot away. However, I found one particular scene of this giant truck overturning to be just brilliant.

But no movie can really hold its own unless there is a good story, and TDK has a first class one. Gotham City has a new criminal in town (the Joker of course) who is giving the original bosses, quite literally, a run for their money. The Joker intends to kill Batman and become the boss. However, Joker is a different kind of criminal, who is not motivated by ‘rational’ desires such as money; and is therefore different from all the other criminals Batman has faced, who scared easily. What makes the movie great is how effectively it shows the moral dilemmas facing Batman, as the Joker keeps forcing him between impossible choices.

And the movie does pop up some interesting questions about Batman as a vigilante too. As Alfred remarks to Bruce Wayne, Batman took crime-fighting to a new level altogether, so did you expect the criminals to just sit back and do nothing?? The point being, is Batman actually inspiring criminals to become deadlier and more imaginative??

All in all, it is pretty much a perfect movie. Not one minute can really be termed superfluous, and if you haven’t watched it yet you really have missed something.

PS – The issue of Batman as a vigilante is something which Nolan also admitted to in a recent interview to Newsweek, which I must say is a pretty good magazine (completely unrelated, but like I said its my blog, and I mostly like the magazine).
Also, in the same issue of Newsweek, there was a review of TDK where the reviewer called the movie too grim, and lacking in the fun department. After all, he said, this is a Batman movie we are watching. My point exactly!!

PPS – Nolan also said that he has put all that he wanted to about Batman on film, and as yet has no plans for a trilogy. I say, as long as you can maintain this standard, keep ‘em coming and I’ll keep watching. As for more plots – there is always Talia and Raas-al-Ghul.

Whats In A Name

2008-07-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

Whats in a name, reads (hopefully) the title on my blog. Well, rather a lot if you are trying to fix a URL for your blog on blogspot. Try as you might, getting the URL you really want is no easy task. This is just a sample of the names I tried entering in the space between http:// and .blogspot.com –

whatsinaname
watsinaname
idlemusings
arpitmaheshwari
and a whole lot of other names, which id rather not mention else there would be serious doubts about my sanity

Anyway, when even arpitmaheshwari turned up zilch (and lets face it, my name isn’t exactly common) I well and truly despaired; and was really thankful when arpitm was available as it meant I wouldn’t have to waste time thinking up whacky names.

So before I really start blogging and blabbering about things, there is one thing I need to clear up – why blog again??

I used to blog earlier (dont even know if its still there) and while it was a short-lived effort I daresay I wrote some pretty good stuff :). However, I soon realized that my best thoughts always came to me when I was not in front of a comp..and so I decided to give up blogging.

But being a person with a lot of opinions on a lot of things, and moreover someone who likes to share them too, I guess it was rather inevitable that I would start off again sometime.

So now that I am done with the mandatory self-justification on why blog again, I guess its now time to actually blog about something, and there are sooooooo many things that come to mind – the note-bomb in the Parliament, football (and by extension Manchester United), tennis (basically Nadal’s ascendancy) and what not…

I will keep you posted!!