Chrysler Building

 Had a friend from Minnesota over last week and got the opportunity to visit the Big Apple after quite a hiatus. Saw some places, I hadn't seen before like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The city as always was bustling and I walked so much after a very long time. Also went to the top of the Empire State for the very first time. Had seen Gotham from WTC the first time and the second time from 30 Rock or GE Building.

The Empire State observatory is located on the 86th storey.

Of late, there has been an inundation of insurance ads on American television. GEICO, State Farm, Progressive and AllState are going all out to rope in as many customers as possible. Every second advert is an insurance message. This is because accident rates have gone down (partly due to better-built cars, partly due to an aging—and thus slower-driving—population), and claims have thus decreased. Since there's suddenly more money to be made, everyone's trying to grab a bigger share. The quickest way to do that is by ramping up your television ads.

But selling insurance can be the most boring job ever, the ads try to pack in a fair amount of humor as well. I don’t have many good words to say about GEICO since I went from being a GEICO customer to Progressive because of a few reasons. However, GEICO’s ads continue to remain the best ones among all insurance companies.

The humor is deliberately ambiguous or downright stupid and oddball. The only purpose behind it seems to make us remember yes , that’s the stupid ad belongs to GEICO. Their ones with the cockney speaking lizard are funny because it is a classic sight gag. More importantly, the theme remains light-hearted whereas other ads exploit the fear of accidents where the product kicks in.

However, it is the volume of ads that's so astonishing and annoying.

Another year went and the Hindi film industry threw up more bad than good once again. A middling /mediocre movie like Dabanng still seemed to hit a nerve with the audience proving that masala cinema still rules the roost. Despite this fact, it was the small budget films that created the biggest impact as it gathered a strong niche audience especially among the burgeoning middle class. These movies were superb in my opinion because of the detailing and research that was put into them. The results were not only authentic but at the same time entertaining.

The award season has well and truly started and I had to do my 2010 round up of music and movies. Better late than never. It was another fantastic year for commercial hindi film music following on the heels of 2009. Amit Trivedi showed why he is a force to reckon with and Vishal - Shekhar were top notch in every composition they made. The sad part for them was the films they composed for ruined the overall effects since they were so bad. Pritam was sort of absent this year with his best work coming in Once Upon a time in Mumbai and Badmaash Company. It is difficult to choose 20 songs but once again they are based on stereo play. Here goes:-

Composer of the year :

Amit Trivedi , can't put a foot wrong nowadays.

Vishal-Shekhar should be rewarded for the sheer consistency they showed throughout the year.

Definitely Not the Taj you expect

The first thing that impresses you is the property and subsequently the spacious lobby. The welcome was friendly and the people nice. It was when we were shown our room, that's when the wheels started coming off.

The room is in great need of refurbishment. The furniture is antiquated, the wood is also chipped in some places. Well, one shouldn't complain about the telly, but a CRT tube where lesser hotels have started to provide flat screens, does not reflect Taj hospitality. The bathroom is just about alright. And how about that , a room with no microwave. The hotel seems to be living in another world.

The hotel grounds, location and amenities like the gym and swimming pool are in a well maintained condition and are also very picturesque.

Coming to the food, the breakfast was a mix of continental and south Indian and was infact very good with the exception of the juices which were more like water. However, the food ordered from its restaurant and Christmas night dinner left a lot to be desired. Please beware that a glass of watery juice costs 500 SL rs . From the high standards that Taj Mumbai sets for its food, this was a major major disappointment. I admit I might have missed something by being a vegetarian and not able to sample the seafood delicacies on offer.

Overall though, for the kind of money we spent, it was just not worth it. Unless, the hotel improves its in-room facilities and also goes for a major upgrade, the reviews will not cross the average mark.

One of the great many follies one makes in a lifetime is to trust travel agents and that too at peak times of the year like Christmas. And the two in case are Yatra and Makemytrip. I approached Make my trip for a journey to Mauritius thinking that I would be able to obtain better hotel deals clubbed together with air tickets. A price was given and a hotel was selected(at whopping rates might I add). However 1 week before our scheduled departure, the hotel was changed and in its place a lesser resort was suggested. I wasn’t happy, so I said give me the best you have in the Maldives. So we booked a 4 day/3 night package as advertised on their website.

Now, I didn’t want to book a longer vacation for two reasons – one I had to be back in India to catch my return flight to the States and didn’t want to cut it so close. Second, the Maldives is not a place where one would like to spend a week despite the fact that we were newlyweds and would appreciate any extra time.

All said and done, 4 days before our departure, we do not have any confirmation with us despite being assured of the contrary. And then we get a phone call from the agent who tells us that, they want us to purchase the 7 night package and not the 4 night one. On being asked why such pushing, they said there is no return flight from Male, and so it is better to stay there for a week. And these 3 extra days weren’t going to come at a reasonable rate either.

My hands are tied and ultimately, I have to change the place once again. And this time the arrow fell on Sri Lanka where he said he would put us up for 3 days in a luxury hotel of my choosing. After telling him of my choice, he never bothered to call us back until two days were left to our original departure. We called him about the situation.

“Almost done” had remained his constant reply to our requests from the beginning.. And yes did I forget to mention that they had already encashed a INR 60,000 check without booking even a single package.

Ultimately The Nu and I had to drive down to his office and demand our vacation. Sad but true. Honeymoon after all, who wants to screw that up? No surprises, he told us that the SL package was “almost done”. If I hadn’t stopped my wife she would have got into a heated argument with him. He was atleast grateful for that.

We finally received our confirmation and stepped out of the office. Stopping us he called us from behind,
“But Sir , 35K Rs is balance , and both of us replied in unison “it is almost there in your account” and quickly made our way out.

Makemytrip is a non-professional travel agent who never books what the customer wants but tries to push the client into unknown territories with unreasonable offers. It is like not inviting a guest but forcibly kidnapping him, telling him to sit on the broken chair and shoving last night’s leftovers down his throat. Do not go to Make my trip and Yatra for that matter. Book on your own and you will be happier for it.

Make my trip RUINS YOUR TRIP

Relish restaurant situated on Dinshaw Wachha road is a vegetarian fusion restaurant by Prashant Caterers, owners of the famous Samrat restaurant of Mumbai. After reading rave reviews on Tripadvisor, the missus and I set out for south Mumbai. Enroute we made a stopover at Phoenix Mills, Parel. After taking some time to find it(it is located in a far-flung corner) we finally settled down.

The ambience is contemporary and the menu card very colorful. Space however, is at a premium, being situated right in the heart of the office district and this does also lead to amplified decibel levels. In addition, we were right at the end of lunch hours, otherwise people are usually being requested to empty their table as soon as they are done with that food. But one can live with that.

We ordered the Vegetable Sizzler first since we had not had it in a very long time. It allowed us to choose four accompaniments with the Kebab and we went for Noodles, fries, babycorn and BBQ sauce. The dish was excellent, with just the right amount of every ingredient and apt to its name , quite sizzling. Since we had soaked in a little refreshment at our mall stopover, we just had space for one more dish. (This was what the missus pointed out dramatically with her adorable shaking and tilting of her head. Talk about signals).

So we tried out something light(and farty) the Mexican caught our eye and we got ourselves a Cheese Jalapeno Quesadillas. Having tasted authentic Tex-Mex food in the States, this didn’t stand up to scrutiny and tasted a rather flat version of Indo-Mex if you will. The jalapenos were not spicy at all and the tortillas not crunchy enough.

Overall, it is very hard to find an inexpensive restaurant serving good fresh food in Mumbai, that too in South Mumbai. Relish has some great food for vegetarians, (should try the recommended Italian here) and other than the fact that it is hard to find, this one is highly recommended.

When it was alive it had lived a charmed life. For starters, it could wake up anytime it wanted to and do whatever it pleased to do.

Fat aunties who had no business commenting, wore a worried look on their faces, the one with the two hands over their ears, their fat fingers displaying varying ranges of kinetic motion while the mouth displaying altering volumes of “haaye dayas”. They asked that when it would grow up since they had done a very good job of it somewhat more physically than figuratively. But it kept on doing its own thing. Some of the top things it didn’t have to worry about

1. It didn’t have to worry about “things” that were stored and the way they were kept.
2. It ate whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted. Forget eating, it could drink what it wanted, where it wanted, and as much as it wanted without someone nagging with cries of “that will be enough now. .yada yada yada"
   
3. It had its own huge bed to sleep in wearing underwear with heavy metal signs on it and sleep in positions which were not even listed in the Kama Sutra and all this while snoring as if there was a snoring competition in the neighborhood.
4. It did not have to deal with insecurities(other than its own) or change itself for others.
5. It did not have to ask permission to orgasm.
6. It showered or bathed if it wanted, when it wanted, as often as it wanted, for as long as it wanted and could also leave the door open if it pleased with no objections.

In short, it put its happiness first over others but then one day a terrible thing happened. It fell in love with a female version of itself and in love it finally killed itself and whichever way you look at it, it was murdered. And not any murder….

On a cold chilly day in Gwalior, it was duly sacrificed with Vedic chants and in the presence of a few hundred people who had nothing better to do but witness such bloodshed. It put up a fight however, survived for a couple of hours as the sacrificial pier had ignition problems but the end was inevitable. A losing battle as the beauty of the female version had taken full control. And finally under all that unbearable pressure it broke and disappeared forever.

Please do not get alarmed, this is not a bloody mystery but the path to the end of my BACHELORHOOD which died a depressing death last month and unlike the phoenix, never took a rebirth, although it did wholeheartedly try. And the perpetrator behind this heinous crime is none other than the “The Nu” who keeps on popping up on this blog with increasing frequency like Tendulkar's centuries.

At the end of it all, everyone clapped and showered flowers, on the dead body, not mourning but uttering cries of joy at the birth of a new form :

A Married figure in Flesh and Blood wholly committed to “The Nu”. Who is “the Nu”, she is the bubbly fumbling cherubic girl I fell in love on a hot afternoon in Bandra. Since I have described "the Nu" before lets just have a photo of hers.

Oh wait hold on that isn’t her although she does unduly exhibit disturbing facial expressions of husband related resentment from time to time. Yes, that is complex, but that is what life becomes after you marry.

As my boss said while shaking my hand congratulating me : Now starts the painful period.

The Bacherhood is dead. Long live umm. Never mind … I am coming darling. Weeeeee……..

The Social Network which I incidentally watched on the flight won major awards at the Golden Globes on Sunday and worthily so. It was a thoroughly engaging, enterprising and entertaining look into the past life of Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg. Kudos to Aaron Sorkin, the writer of the film whose script was just tremendous.

Sorkin, who has films like A Few Good Men and the political drama The West Wing, to his credit has this rare pedigree of writing his characters that joust about absolutely insignificant topics. The razor-sharp repartee is almost ambiguous until you realize its irony during the course of the movie. As for example, the whimsical discussion at the beginning of The Social Network when Eisenberg and his girlfriend discuss finals clubs at Harvard. The conversation very quickly becomes an argument with the latter breaking up with the former proposing a platonic relationship instead and thereafter Mark Zuckerberg declaring “I don’t want friends”.

Pretty ironical huh! for the creator of the biggest friend network in this world.

Flighless Bird

An entertaining love story with some engaging moments that doesn’t reach the heights it sets out to achieve.

There is a scene where two people are discussing one’s future in the car and the song playing on the radio is “Aagey bhi Jaane na tu” For that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in. Lafangey Parindey directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

In the very first scene as you see a shot of blood slowly dripping from a bare-knuckle boxer’s nose, you get the feeling that the movie is serious about showcasing the rise of the protagonists from the squalor they live in. However the movie takes a different turn and takes the plot of the Rajesh Khanna hit Dushman and comes up with a romantic tale set amidst a middle class Mumbai chawl.

One shot Nandu(Neil Nitin Mukesh) as his name suggests is a boxer and in short is a vagabond. In the course of events, he wrongs a fellow chawl dweller Pinki(Padukone) who has aspirations to become India’s dance icon. How he performs penitence forms the gist of the movie.

The exchanges between Nandu, Pinki and friends are amusing. Music which is rarely used in a good way in Hindi films helps this movie in a big way and well done to the director and composer R.Anandh for providing the right sort of harmony that bumbles with nervous energy. The song Nain Parindey is superbly rendered by Shilpa Rao and nicely picturized. Those are the good elements.

The bad elements are a predictable storyline and a so-so art design. For people living in a relatively bad economic health, Nandu’s and Pinki’s wardrobe is immaculate. They just look too trendy to be involved with anything middle-class. But they do a fair job. The supporting cast is a lot more convincing than the leads. Everyone sports the Mumbaiyya lingo very well notwithstanding that their language looks way too polished.

As I said, for the way the movie starts, it is a tad disappointing that the film turns into a gentle flowing love story. Lafangey Parindey like Wake up Sid is a highly watchable film in the generic sense, however it is lightweight and how you wish, our filmmakers would abandon the gaiety and dig into the filth for a harder hitting film. This parindey doesn’t take flight.

Rating : 3/5

C-ON the money, not..

A comeuppance story that refreshingly stays away from the sermon but still gets tiresome.

There is strictly something very 90s about Badmaash Company and its ethos penned by first time director Parmeet Sethi. And the movie too, does start in the 90s when India was just out from the clutches of License Raj. And the man who wants to ride this new wave of freedom is Karan(Shahid Kapoor) who harangues his father (a superb Anupam Kher) for being a slave to his company for twenty five years. He represents the new India, an individualistic young man.

The first half has bouncy moments between the friends Chandu(Vir Das) Tenzing(Meiyang Chang) and Bulbul(Anushka Sharma) as they involve themselves in a number of con games in a get rich quick scheme in the name of a fraud company. Sethi however invests less in the characters and is more interested to show us the panache behind the hustle.

And then you always knew that the law was around the corner. The graph of the film goes downhill thereafter as the hero is punished for his greed and like the 90s movies and before that the company breaks apart, due to predictable reasons of coveting more money than needed. The movie moves on at such a pace that the director leaves no time to flesh out the other characters. Also, the transformation arc of Karan from simple youth to arrogant uncouth prick is not very convincing.

Songs are stylishly shot and show good verve. A Yashraj film is never short of that, it helps them disguise the shortcomings of the script. Shahid who rarely looks like a grown up, makes a good effort as the brain behind the con games. Anushka gives a good account of herself and both Vir Das and Meiyang Chang are lively.

But Badmaash Company is strictly average fare and times so silly that a bunch of kids in the local neighbourhood would be more deserving of the titular adjective.

Rating : 2/5

Had learned about it in marketing, watched the whole documentary on it on Discovery, had made an entire presentation on it, seen photographs, come up with a handy but ultimately useless marketing strategy to sell it and when I finally stepped into one …..

It was anti-climactic. I am talking about the colossus, the behemoth, the daddy of all air vehicles, yes the largest aircraft in the world, the A380, the monster on which I flew when I boarded an Emirates flight from New York to Dubai.

The plane doesn’t seem any bigger than any normal Airbus but then what was I thinking. It wasn’t like, it was going to be some titanic or something. Hehe., but a nice experience nonetheless. It has a maximum certified carrying capacity of a jaw-dropping 853 passengers. However, regular commercial flights carry upto 525.

Yet, while I didn’t realize a potential drawback while flying to India since it was on quick transfer to Ahmedabad, on my way back, I had to wait an eternity to get my baggage at JFK New York. With so many passengers, your luggage could be buried under a ton of bags for all you know. You just have to get lucky which I wasn't and almost missed my connecting bus.

If you are interested in the A380 design etc. , check the wikipedia link to the A380

India managed to hold on for a gritty draw at Cape Town yesterday thereby ending the series on even grounds with the Proteas. After years of losing every test series on all South African tours, this was a great achievement. Also in both this one and the previous tour, the team has come close to inflicting defeat and take the series only to be thwarted at the last attempt by a common factor - Jacques Kallis, the greatest cricketer of this generation. Take a bow !

However, at the beginning of this tour I would have settled for the share of the spoils. India maintains its number one ranking and this makes the England(who have just thrashed the Aussies crazy)-India series in June a mouth watering prospect. Kudos Team India !!