My Rashi is "Simha"!!

Really! Ok .. hang me if you will, but thou shalt not stoppeth me from ranting about yet another movie that I saw tonight. Yeah, you guessed it right - "Whats your Rashi". I am totally overdosed on Ms. Chopra right now. I can't stand the sight, voice or even a thought of her anymore. She was like all over the movie (I guess that WAS the point of the movie). And the songs! There are probably more songs in the movie than Chopra's and Baweja's total lines put together. In Mumbai theaters, where I had never before witnessed any form of express/ animate reaction of the crowds during a movie (read whistling, booing, clapping, getting up from the seat to do an impromptu jig...you get the drift, right?), this movie was the first time that one could hear the whole theater (including oneself) let out a collective groan everytime PC/HB would break into a song. Whatever said and done though, Priyanka Chopra is a brilliant actress and even Harman Baweja is quite good. And if you could (if only you possibly could) find it in your heart to forgive the director for inflicting the torture of the umpteen songs on you and then forget about them too, you may actually end up liking the movie.

Anyhoo, what I am puzzled otherwise about is why do they spell my rashi as SIMHA instead of SINH, when obviously it is pronounced as the latter. What is it with people avoiding the use of the obvious (phonetically matching at that!) spelling of Indian words when spelt in English. Another case in point - spelling of "ALIBAUG", when it is pronounced as "ALIBAG". I just cant figure that one out.

Carrying on from the movie, lets see if I actually match the characteristics of a Leo. The standard traits of a Leo (female) are thus as follows , as per Ms. Goodman:

1. Social leader of her group (ahem and then double ahem!)
2. Vivacious, clever, gracious, beautiful, and sexy (the number of "ahems" that I want to graciously cough off my beautiful throat have the potential to fill the next ten entries, so I would leave them out)
3. Short tempered (now THAT is true)
4. Loves exquisite gifts (well who doesn't?)
5. Loves flattery (well well well!)
6. Arrogant and vain (I would like to believe I am neither of these)
7. Spendthrift (C'mon..you cant blame a girl for being a girl and liking her shoes, bags, clothes, earrings, perfumes, lip glosses, watches, bling etc. etc.)

And if you guys have not read Linda Goodman's Sun Signs, grab a second hand copy from that magazine stall in front of Shopper's Stop in Bandra and get going. Its the best way to spend some quality time on yourself. Call it self indulgence if you want, but its great fun.

Adios.

random musings

Thanks to Eid, I am enjoying a long, leisurely weekend. There is that zing in the air which festivals bring about. Today's Eid and Navratri has also begun. Back in my hometown, Navratri was the best thing that could have happened to us. ''Abhivyakti" the garba-dandiya programme was what kept us bursting with enthusiasm. None of us actually gave too much thought what was the significance of Navratri and all we cared about was how to get free passes for abhivyakti, what dresses to wear for the 3/4 nights on which we were to go play dandiya, who all were coming, how to evade our parent's (who came along to keep an eye on us) for a couple of minutes to have a hasty tete-a-tete with our objects of teenage affections.

I still wouldn't have known the reasons for the celebrations but for SA who religiously fasts for both the navratris and 4 months back when she was fasting (during the first set of navratris) I decided to google (I know, shame on me!) why was navratri celebrated. And now that I know, I can disdainfully look down upon everyone who doesn't..hah.

Anyhoo, saw Dil Bole Hadippa. After "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi", we were (again!!) expected to take a reluctant leap of faith to believe that shahid kapoor (anushka sharma) could not figure out that it was the same person that rani mukherjee (shahrukh khan) was playing in her two different avatars. But what I really could not get over is Sherlyn Chopra. That woman is looks so unclean! ughh..we wanted to take her to Turkey, put her in a Hamam and leave her there till every morsel of that pancacky make up and gross sun block is removed from her being. The only redeeming factor in the movie was rani in her chotta sardar attire. She was spunky and hilarious and kept us in splits.

Also saw "Ugly Truth". It was ok-ok. Both Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are great actors but a little ugly.

And just so that you know I am in love with Reshammiya's "Man ka Radio" from the movie Radio.

Today is the last day of the long weekend (sigh!) so now I should take your leave and go back to my sulking.

We had joy We had fun We had seasons in the sun..

The title to this post is inspired by a friend's gtalk status and the song ofcourse. I also happen to be chatting with the same friend while typing this. She mentions a school friend who recently got married and didn't invite anyone of us for the same. For some reason this news terribly pissed me off. Please don't mistake me for a compulsive obsessive freak who tracks the ongoings in the lives of school mates and feels left out if not involved in any of the relevant celebrations, it just so happens that this particular school mate was at one point of time a very close friend of mine.You see, we had this group of seven friends in school and we all were REALLY thick and went by a particular name (which I am not at liberty to disclose lest I be stoned to death by the other ex-group members) so lets just call it SS. We were constantly together and had a whale of a time. Unfortunately for the non-SS members and fortunately for us (obviously!) most of us SS members were prefects of our school as well and we went around terrorising all non-SS members (especially the ones who had dared to cross swords with any of us). We watched our first "adult"(if you put "eyes wide shut" in that category) flick together, we had our first crushes together, first nightouts together and everything that's a first when you are 16-17. Each of us was in-on the rest six's best kept secrets. And what days were those!

Then we passed out from school and everyone went their owns ways. But somehow or the other atleast 3 of us have managed to keep in touch with each other. The rest have just simply disappered. Honestly, I did try to keep in touch, even if only initially, with my disappearing friends, but they never responded with the same enthusiasm and then I too got busy with my heady college life and the school friends were very conveniently replaced with college friends.

To think of it now, its just amazing how little involved or rather how completely disconnected you become from a person's life over a period of time even though you had intimately shared a portion of your life with that person. When GN (the friend that I was chatting to) told me that this particular friend got married, my first reaction was "Oh..well..whatever". Imagine. Imagine!! So close we were at some point of time...and so much we had shared and all of that is now poof in the air..because...I really don't know the "because" as every reason that I can come up with sounds extremely trite to my ownself.

I guess the seasons we had shared in the sun, as West Life rightly put it, like the wine and the song, have all gone.

Ah...so many pedestrians, so little time...

Yesterday, I came out i.e., I am no longer a closet-blogger. It was an impulsive decision, more so because it was just too hard to keep this blog a secret from my closest friends and I was getting severe stomach aches (which diasappeared miraculously once I told everyone that I write this blog!!). I could hardly contain myself after I published the blog's url on my facebook account status and I immediately called up all my close friends and forced them into reading the blog. Then I kept checking my comments section every 5 minutes hoping, rather expecting a stupendous overwhelming response to my very upbeat, cool and sensational blog. But alas! it was not to be. Hardly anyone commented (my narcissist head hung in shame), though I am sure everyone (everyone that I forced to read) read the blog and called me to say nice things to me. So all-in-all, I am feeling happy type things and am thankful to everyone who read this space belonging to an over enthusiastic greenhorn.

Enough of my first-day-in-school-kinda description above. Lets move on to other things that occupied me today (other than obssesively checking the comment section of the blog...ok ok I will stop now..promise).

Went to the office without the charger for my laptop. Now this laptop is a very precious one, because if I was to sell it now, it won't fetch me a "second-hand item" price like any other used laptop, but rather an "antique item" booty. So you get the drift...and our office is full of this particular kind of laptop variety. I din't think too much of forgetting the charger though, as I decided to share GR's charger with me. But God had his own designs..the moment I would take the charger out to return to GR, my laptop would go on stand-by. I searched and I searched in vain...everyone who attempted to share their chargers with me had their computers showing them "Preparing to standby" messages the moment the charger was removed from their laptops. Finally CC suggested that I go back home and get the charger and even offered us his car (I suspect that the generosity was a bait to get me off his back, since every 5 minutes I would go upto his desk and wail about the incompetency/unavailability of chargers). So GR and I, braving the merciless afternoon sun went out to the parking lot to get CC's car. To our utter dismay there already was one car in front and one at the back of CC's car (please note I am just about learning to drive in Mumbai) and there was noway I could I have wriggled the car out of that space. We called the parking-guy, who very ingeniously took out a metal scale/ruler, very deftly inserted it near the window glass of the car in front of me (all the while GR and I went - tch tch tch) and voila! the car's gate opened- and wait this is not over- the parking-guy and his accomplices manually lifetd the car and turned it, so that we could get our car by. Finally we got out of the parking lot with the car and drove to my place and realised that I was not carrying the house keys. We drove back avoiding/cursing all the pedestrians who seemed to wait for me to appear and then would dive directly in front of the car. Everytime this happened my heart would also jump to my mouth! GR kept soothing me with words like "koi nahi" (when I would put the 1st gear from 2nd in full speed thinking it was the 3rd gear) and "perfect" (when I managed to take a u-turn on like-a-1-km wide road). But I have realised one thing- When I am driving I hate pedestrians and when I am walking I hate the drivers.

When we reached back, I remembered the fate of the car which was parked in front of us which had to undergo such unnecessary manhandling, just because the owner refused to leave the keys with the parking-guy. I shuddered,left the keys (more than willingly) with the parking-guy and ran with the precious charger to my laptop and connected it. Few would be able to imagine the relief that swept over me when I saw that little light on my laptop indicating that the charger was duly connected and would keep my laptop well fed during the next howsoevermany hours! The joy that trivial things bring you sometimes is incomprehensible

I bet you have fallen asleep before you read this line.

Ciao.

i can't think straight..

So, I saw the movie yesterday. I vaguely remembered reading a review of the movie some time back which described it as a "romantic comedy involving a gay couple" potrayed by Lisa Ray and some chick called Sheetal Seth. Now I hadn't pre planned on watching the movie, but it so happened that CC and I reached PVR phoenix with the intention of watching Ugly Truth (the "intention" was solely mine, CC was just taciltly reluctant company). Nyhoo there were no immediate shows for Ugly Truth so CC became very excitable bout the propect of watching District 9. I tried (dint have to try a lot though!) n convinced CC to watch I Cant Think Straight (who wants to watch an alien/ETs type documentary which flashes "Humans not allowed" or something like that!!-Not me for sure). The movie, I thought, was a very contrived effort by the director (Shamim Sarif) with a very predictable storyline. The chemistry between the two protagonists was non-existent. Their love making scenes made me cringe and did nothing for the storyline. They were amateurish and were nowhere near the believable gay chemistry one could watch without squriming in their seats between Angelina Jolie and Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia) or even Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci (Monster). Atleast I thought so. And what was Dalip Tahil doing in the movie anyway? All in all, you may watch this movie if the next best option that you have for a Sunday evening is to watch a re-repeat of Filmfare Awards/Star Awards/IIFA Awards etc.etc.
Other than that....well today is the b'day of two very close friends of mine...but unfortunately they are both out of town!! And please do get "Ride It" by Jay Sean...I am all for Brit (Indi- if I may say so) Pop!
Until then...

I do....maybe I don't

So a couple of my colleagues (read 25 somethings...males) are getting married sometime this year. This gave two of my cosest friends in office (GR and SM, both married) the opportunity (again!!) to pounce on me with their "so whats ur plan?" "its time already" "what on earth are you waiting for??". Ok ok, so lets be fair to my friends.. I will be 26 next month, I am in a serious relationship for the past 2 years.., I am not looking out for any other options. So what is it that is stopping me from taking the final ('final' sounds rather scary..like a point of no return) plunge ('plunge' is no better!!). Well I began my attempt to explain my point of view (point of view being - I am happy as is, I do not see any fayda of getting married, I am not THAT old etc. etc) to SM and GR, and I strated hyperventilating..an all too familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, which is how I react when people start discussing marriage with me.
Dont get me wrong, I am not opposed to the institution of marriage..come to think of it I am rather indifferent to it... but that does not really mean that I wish to be one of those rebellious sorts who do not feel the need to get married. I am sure one day I will feel the ned to get married, but I am afraid that day will be somewhere in my late 30s and since I know the feeling of 'need' will arise so late in life and that I cannot really wait to feel the 'need' I will have to tie the knot way earlier than that and that too for no good reason. And imagine the kind of responsibilities that will accompany that step.. I will have to make sure that my house is spick and span, the food cooked at my place is delicious, I may need to install a landline, I will have to have a proper pujaghar , I will no more be able to entertain people by organising a byob with plastic cups and plates. The list is endless. But I guess you lose some you gain some (I am still wondering though...what is it that one gains by marriage??)!!
cheerios!!

Of Hangovers, Rains and the Underworld

Last weekend I saw Hangover and I am totally hungover on it!! brilliant movie..will keep you in splits from beginning to the end. And Alan, as the the to-be-groom's brother in law, is hilarious with his "one man wolf pack" speech and mindblowing poker-face dialogue delivery
It was such a pleasant change after watching duds after duds that were being released in the past couple of months. In fact Hangover is the only really good movie that I have seen after Dev D.
I loved the soundtrack of the movie too, especially Danzig's "Thirteen" which is played around the beginning of the movie and Flo Rida's version of "Right Around" that is played at the end, so much so that I ensured that I have the OST of the movie amongst the many thousand songs on my palylist.
I went to watch the movie on Saturday and boy was it raining on Saturday!!! It seemed like a huge hole came open in the sky and water kept tumling out of it. I must have been in the out for a split second (making a dash from the taxi door to the pavement) and I got completely drenched and CC who was accompanying me to the movie was so soaked that we had to immediately shop for a new replacement wardrobe for him (right from footwear to shirt and shorts)!! But it was good fun.
We also bought Tombraider Underworld and that game is sooooooooooo tough, that I am still stuck in first level and exhausted with the constant exploration not resulting in anything. These days though I go through the walkthroughs available on the internet before getting on with the game, else I would keep getting lost and stuck. I would not think of it as "cheating" as I am simply taking assistance from someone (many many thankyous to the thoughtful walkthrough providers) who is more capable/better equipped of handling the demons/secrets of the Underworld than I (poor me...I am just your average girl-next-door) am.
right?? right!!