Posts

Showing posts from December, 2008

the continent of incontinence

Image
A suggestion no doubt specifically made for those of my friends (M and S you know who you are) who stop frequently to pee by the road You will have to click on the picture to see what it says on the truck's ass.

therein lies the rab

I am very concerned - and I say this without facetiousness - about Aditya Chopra's mental health. I know that a lot of people will think Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a crap movie. But frankly, I thought it was quite lovely to start with - uptil the scene where she tells him she'll never be able to love him. And it had a pretty good ending sequence or two. But of course in between it was like - as hapless as Suri's character. In the part where the female protagonist has her completely ridiculous epiphany I started yelling Bachao Bachao quite loudly much to my friend's horror. This sort of tapori-pan is much tolerated in Bombay but in Bangalore there was only a horrified silence. People acted as if they hadn't heard. Or perhaps they had been stupefied by the sheer gone-to-lunch-ness of the script. But to return to AC's mental health. Now, I genuinely feel this could have been a beautiful film. The ideas at the heart of it are eternal questions about love and romance: as...

Bishakha's 10-pointer on 24 hour news reporting

While I (and others) have been flailing with incoherent rage at TV news coverage, my friend Bishakha has put together this excellent, coherent point-form critique below. Fan mail can be sent to bishakhadatta@gmail.com 10 problems with the 24-hour TV news reporting of the recent attacks on Mumbai:by Bishakha Datta 1)Speculative, not fact-based. The numbers of gunmen entering Bombay dropped from 20-25 to 10 across three days and from 5-7 at Taj to 4; 7-10 at Oberoi/Trident to 2. This causes needless panic; many of us still think there are gunmen out there. Ditto vis-a-vis boat routes to enter Bombay (one day Badhwar Park, next day Gateway of India). Don't report what is just said can't be verified - or atleast question statements from politicians! Otherwise, it's like reporting rumour: which is what happened Fri aft when channels reported non-existent gunfire at several places. 2)Unquestioning. How many gunmen were there actually? How many people actually died? How many boats...