For too long the voice of Pakistani people was unheard. For too long the people were objected to tyranny and oppression. For too long the situation kept on deteriorating and for too long the people had given up hope. But with the exiled leaders coming back to the country and things taking different turn, of lately a new ray hope started to appear. And then in the final week of the final month of last year, the former premier of Pakistan Mrs. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The assassination was at a time when Pakistan was finally heading towards democracy.
Author: zhagdoo.v
NEWS-Never Ending Whiner’s Society
With infinite number of news channels, hardly a day passes without getting their glimpse or two. Going by the genre, currently news channels take the lead and the trend is here to stay. Media or electronic media, to be precise enough, has gone through a rapid transformation. Just a few years back from only hourly news on Doordarshan to 24X7 news channels, the leap has been immense and praise worthy for sure. And going by the popular perception this is good news. Getting to know what is happening in and around the world and that too not just from a government mouth piece is something for which anyone can vie for. With newspapers a little time consuming and radios a little obsolete, one definitely prefers a quick bite on the television.
10,000 B.C. . .
Going for an epic movie always keeps me excited. After ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Gladiator’, ‘Lord Of the Rings’ enchanted me so much that it just need a tag of epic movie for me to watch any crap [am a Lord of the Rings fan, till the very last breath and can’t have enough of it no matter how many times I watch it]. And frankly speaking it’s an obsession about which I regret a lot, just because it takes me to a movie hall to watch crap stuff like ‘10,000 B.C.’
Vantage Point. . .
Telling a conventional story with different perspectives is not something new. But it is different and it is rare. So this very fact makes one curious to check out what the movie is all about. The Vantage Point narrative is about the attempted assassination of the president of US, and the same attempt is shown from five different perspectives.
The ‘K Line’. . .
Increasing cases of road rage is a cause of concern. In my earlier post ‘Raging Road Rage’ I tried to talk a little about the conditions on the roads, which are getting worse everyday. In that post a lot of aspects were missed out about which we may talk sometime later. But there is one thing which I can’t afford to miss out when I talk about Delhi’s roads and i.e. Delhi’s famous ‘K-Line’. Last year the final tally of those who received ‘moksha’ at the hands of blue line bus drivers was somewhere around 120 and this year also the account has already opened.
Michael Clayton
The movie is nominated for the Oscars. Do I need to say anything more? I don’t know if it will be able to bag one or not? But I do know that this time again Clooney has scored a home run. Looks like this man is swore not to do anything wrong, when it comes to choosing a role and selecting a script. Continue reading “Michael Clayton”
Raging Road Rage. . .
A road is a place where each day each of us spends a substantial amount of our time. A speeding motor vehicle, breaking a traffic signal is not the rarest of the view which we don’t get to see. And when we see a biker doing the job, the sight becomes even more common. So yesterday when I saw two men riding on a bike, trying to jump a red light, I did not found the phenomena very stimulating or unusual. After their failed attempt the pillion rider of the bike opened the visor of his helmet and I got to see his face. He was an old man, of age in late 60s [I presumed that he must have given a good lecture to the driver on the idiotic attempt which he just made]. But surprise to me came, when I got to see the face of the driver, he was again an old man, even older than the previous one [and my presumption was proved wrong]. So first of all kudos to them for riding a bike at this age [generally people are a bit reluctant to do so after a certain age] and then they should be given some bravery award for the attempt which they made, at their age and at a traffic signal on the outer ring road [which by any means, is one of the busiest road intersection of Delhi].
Who will win, Popular Belief or Nationalism?
The battle for the American presidential crown will begin soon. Every day all the prospective candidates begin with their tasks of wooing the voters in order to win the candidacy of their respective parties. Whenever there is any news about the primaries, all the lime light is generally hogged by the two democrat candidates Mr. Barack Obama or Mrs. Hilary Clinton. This is the first time that the competition for the candidature is between a woman and a black man. I don’t know if it is because of this reason that the two are getting such huge amount of media coverage, but sometimes it seems that this US Presidential election is not between democrats and republicans, but between the two democrats itself.
Continue reading “Who will win, Popular Belief or Nationalism?”
The ‘V’ Day
It just happens by shear chance, that we set out to find something and ends up finding something else. Yesterday I was at the Archie’s, looking for a birth day card for a friend. Although the hunt for the card didn’t went down very well, but I came across one guy purchasing some cards. There was something interesting about the purchase which he was making, as he was asking the salesman if he will get any discount on buying a dozen cards of the same lot [initially I thought he was on the annual card shopping spree]? He eventually bought a whole pack of cards saying ‘SORRY’.
Fully ‘Fools Gold’
The treasure hunting season is back again. After Nicholas Cage did it twice in National Treasure, this time Matthew McConaughey is doing the honours. But he ain’t Nicholas Cage even of ‘Book of Secrets’, forget about ‘National Treasure-I’.
Developing Secular India. . .
Recently the Prime Minister said that 15% of our country’s resources should be exclusively kept reserved for minorities. He talked about reserving certain per cent of our development budget and providing them with many other facilities. Every now and then our government at the centre keeps on talking about the poor living conditions of minorities and the level of their under development. It is good that the government is concerned about the poor and want to provide them with facilities for their betterment and upliftment. So now for the minorities to prosper this is the new mantra formulated by our intelligent polity in power.
Remembering Gandhi
On 30th January 1948, at around 5:15 p.m. Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi. He shot him thrice at the point blank range, his face turned pale, his clothes rinsed in red blood and with the words ‘Hey Ram’ his body fell on the ground. Immediately he was carried inside the Birla house where he was staying and about 5:40 he died. ‘The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere’. With these words the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, broke the news to the nation.
Its Rambo now. . .
It is over a year when Stallone came up with Rocky Balboa, a tribute to
his cult on-screen boxer avatar. It is good not to talk about the movie which was a moderate ending to a larger than life character, with which people related. People also related to another on screen avatar of Stallone i.e. war veteran John Rambo, who had his share of disappointments in life. So this year he tried to bid adieu to this one as well.
Agenda-2009, perhaps 08
After BJP, now the NDA has put their seal on Advani’s name. Officially he is the Prime ministerial candidate of NDA, and if put in power, we will see this old man as our next PM. During the declaration they also talked about a national agenda of which good governance, development and internal security will be the founding stones.
Mad-‘Mad Money’
What happens when you plan to steal some money from a bank? In the movie world there are not many options, either you have Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s Eleven [alright it was about 3 casinos, but loot is a loot] or you have Mad Money.