And with this post I have reached number 50 and that is saying something for a person who had hoped to maintain a diary since 2003. But now this not too personal blog has given me that chance although it started out strictly for memory maintenance. Along the way though, one's personality does come to light. I have had a chance to read other blogs which has given me a new perspective on many things. I mostly write about music and entertainment and one my passions - travelling. Things like these keep me going. I have become a lot more perceptive not to mention a trifle sarcastic. But the everyday grind of life with the ups and downs needs some sort of exhaust.
I hope this blog will continue to morph into something perhaps more useful or opinionated on topics that continue to disturb me or the society at large.

Oh yes this post comes from India which imo is the most unpredictable country in the world. I have come here after 2 years and enjoying every moment of it since I am catching up with old friends and pesky relatives. I could have uploaded some pics but the ghastly slow internet speeds don't allow me to do so. Will try to put together details once I get back to the US. Cheers..

Ah here is my first restaurant review which perhaps is not of much help as the only people who read my blog are a bullimic, Hitler loving German, a lazy jobless Mumbaikar who basically eats anything that moves, so reviews don't really matter and a 34 year old techie who could write the most complex of code but is completely befuddled by the jargon of his young daughter so prefers to talk to cats instead :). Perhaps the clinching point is they all live in India. I love food and anything to do with it although my tastes are restricted to all things vegetarian. Ok review for today is

Veggie Heaven

I had heard a lot about this outlet and one day finally decided to try one myself along with my Chinese neighbor. There are three branches of this restaurant - Denville, Montclair and Teaneck. Choosing the closest one in Montclair, we entered the place with a little apprehension. The decor was minimal and very Chinese in nature. Browsing through the menu, was a joke because although the restaurant was named Veggie Heaven, all dishes had pork, chicken and beef in them. Obviously that is why it is famous here in NJ, it is simulated meat. So we ordered - Shark Fin Soup, Sweet and Sour Pork chops and curried Chicken.

I have never tasted meat(with the exception of chicken) or seafood before so I had no idea what to expect. The soup arrived first and tasted pretty good with wheat gluten making up for the fins of the shark. It was priced at $7 a bowl, a real low price as compared to the real shark fin which could run close to $50 and above.

The pork chops were very tasty. Soymeat was used in place of pork and after I said that the texture of the meat was rubbery my Chinese friend said that this was the way it was supposed to be and it was pretty close to the real thing. He also said that the dish belonged to some Fuijian province in China where they cooked it with special care. I just nodded having no idea what he was saying.

The tastiest dish was definetely the curried chicken which had more than a hint of Indian spices. The meat substitute used here was Yam and the dish was extremely sumptious with the right mix of chillies and spices.

Side dishes included seaweed and dimsum which were OK.

Overall, the restaurant is very good albeit a bit pricey but would surely like to go again to try some meat oops simulated meat delicacies.

Until the next post which will be from "the Motherland", Happy Diwali to all and take very good care of yourselves.

Right from my childhood, My Dad and I always have debated about who was the better singer and right till this age we have yet to arrive at a consensus. And how can you, they were both great in their own right and could just about sing any kind of song. With his “oozing pathos in every word”: voice, Mohd Rafi was a firm favorite of my Dad’s. Rafi Sahab was indeed the most coveted singer of his time, there was no denying that. He had a softness and serene quality in his voice that few have been able to match, a voice that could soothe a broken heart.

But something was amiss. Maybe it was to do with the kind of films being made in those days that all the hero got to do was to mourn his misfortune or woo his girlfriend through a beautifully written ghazal. For those kinds of songs Mohd Rafi, Talat Mahmood and the likes began sleepwalking through such melancholic melodies inducing feelings of Devdasian proportions.

Then along came Kishoreda. Kishore Kumar for me was the not the quintessential singer. He was an icon, a giant among giants who defied and shattered prevalent norms that singers have to be classically trained artists. He was eccentric(he had names for all the trees in his garden (Janardhan,Raghunandan, Gangaram, Jhatpatjhatpat), blatantly greedy behind money, married four women and extremely idiosyncratic. His good times for the benefit of millions of music lovers coincided with the rise of new age music in India , (RD Burman and the likes) and also with a stronger and angrier hero. And he could transcend into any musical style with ease.

In this scenario, the hero needed a macho playback voice, a firm yet clear expression to vent his feelings be it love, discontentment or philosophy.

Seeing all this, makes it so hard to choose my five favorite Kishoreda songs from the vast array of gems he has rendered. Surprisingly for a man who was the only male playback voice throughout the 70s and most of the 80s, some of the treasures lie in the times when he wasn’t even famous for his singing!! So I have had to set conditions to bring my choices forth. No fun songs included and also which I can recall on the spot. Kishore could effortlessly transform from one genre to another so here are the compositions (in no particular order) that showcase his versatility :

Aa chal ke tujhe
Door Gagan ki Chhaon Mein (1964)


A song written, composed and sung by the great man in a movie directed by him. What more can you say about the genius of the man. The song is low on musical accompaniment which does more to amplify the vocals and it works wonders.

Khwab ho tum ya koi haqeeqat
Teen Deviyaan (1965)

In his earliest days Kishore da only sang for Dev Anand and music directors of those days also lowered his confidence maintaining that he could only sing for himself and Dev Anand. Coming back to the song, the best part about it is the contrast between the soft voice of the Mukhda and the exuberant yet slightly disgruntled tone of the Antra makes this an all time Kishore favorite.

Ami Chinigochini Tomarey Ogo Bideshini
Charulata (1964)

Written by stalwart Rabrindranath tagore and set to music by the great Satyajit Ray, language makes absolutely no difference to this beautiful melody. I have no idea what the lyrics say but Kishoreda’s silky vocals are just mesmeric.

On a side note, it is worth noticing the maestro Satyajit Ray at work , when he chooses to use a handheld and deliberately shakes the camera as the male actor walks towards the woman. Typical of Mr. Ray’s work - less dialogue and more symbolism.

Koi hota jisko apna
Mere Apne (1971)

Salil Chowdhury, the magician behind this song never regarded Kishore as anything more than a singer of fun-filled songs. But then by the time this movie got made, Kishore was at the peak of his popularity and Salil didn’t want to stay out of this. The song is notable for the baritone based voice of the genius and difficult chord progressions.


Kuch to log kahenge
Amar Prem(1971)

A friend of mine and fellow Kishore fan , once commented that this song could have not been sung by anyone other than Kishore. And how right he is. Semi-classical in nature, Kishore da’s voice is in perfect harmony with the mood created by the lyrics and immediately brings to mind Rajesh Khanna with his cringe-worthy “Pushpa, I hate tears”. Although I like listening to Chingari Koi Bhadke from the same film more often, this song in my opinion deserves more plaudits just for the difficult nature of the song.


Honorable mentions include Rim Jhim Gire Sawan from Manzil(the melody here is so superior) and Phoolon Ke Rang se from Prem Pujari(1970).

There will be only one Kishore Kumar. What a legend, we sorely miss you.

There is a saying that it is better to keep your mouth shut so that people assume you are dumb, than to open it and remove all doubt.

Frankly this could apply to me in many walks of life but an even more special case demands a few words or bandwidth on this blog. From my college acquaintances I know a guy called Mystery whom I happened to visit a few days ago. Now, now people, despite what you might imagine from his name, Mystery is no suave secret agent or someone who woos girls with just a look or dismantling criminals with high tech gadgets. Au contraire he is “something” which hardly fits a description. He is a wimp , a certified whiner. If one were to draw a portrait of him you would start with : a pakoda for a nose, rubbery ears that look like they might have been attached by a substandard glue and cheeks so swollen that sometimes I feel like checking if he has cotton stuffed up his mouth.

He listens to only English songs because he thinks India doesn’t make good music anymore as though he went to music school with Rahman. I doubt he has been to any kind of school. And now that cricket season is here, the game randomly and inevitably creeps into one of our discussions. His bullshitting antennae pop out of his head adding one more to the already loosely hanging parts on his face. India has never been good at the game, he claims having absolutely no idea about our cricket team's recent performances. He is the kind of guy who thinks it is great to support foreign teams like England and Australia just because one of his “30 cousins in between” uncle is residing there so he got to visit England once(admittedly that is good. I don’t get invited to my real aunty’s house also, but let us not go there).

Now smartass thinks I was born yesterday and prefers to shoot out random statistics. Throw everything at the wall and something might stick he thinks. So I decide to see how much of Australia he loves.

‘So you must have really followed every match of the Ashes’ I said
‘Ashes?’ he makes another funny face, which is a different facial expression from the one which is congenital. ‘No,’ he shakes his head
‘Ashes dude, the urn, the legend , the clash, the bodyline....'
‘Ah, bodyline, no dude I don’t like watching contact sport like Rugby or Football.’
Thanks a lot toadface , you just proved what a moron you are because the Ashes is the most prestigious "cricket series" between “England” and “Australia” from the last 127 years.

Moving on to relationships, he asks me about my ex-flame. I deny the flame ever existed and say that whatever it was it had been extinguished by female ego. And so says he is feeling sad all of a sudden because he remembers his first girlfriend and that's when you know whinathon is just around the corner. So what am I supposed to do, take him in my arms and caress him. First girlfriend eh, what about that , a bit strange considering his sexual orientation veers between men and dogs. So one girl in the past just praised him by saying "Good idea Mystery"(rumored to be, he offering to disappear from the face of this earth) and this turdpile thinks she is his girlfriend. What a loser!

I am not the guy who enjoys taking digs at other people but really guys like Mystery piss me off. I hate them. They are compulsive liars who have an opinion on everything but solution to none. Such bastards should be impaled through their backsides and arranged on shelves for display. Corporal punishment should be meted out to these no-gooders.

Finally, all this discussion took place over a bit of alcohol during which Mystery intermittently claimed that beer is the only drink which can satisfy him while gulping down close to ten cans of beer. This was once again in response to my just taking a small glass of wine.

After the disappointment of the dress rehearsal, where we lost our no. 1 ranking, India won the final of the Compaq cup against Sri Lanka by 46 runs at the Premadasa stadium in Colombo. And once again "that" man was at the fore. Sachin Tendulkar who opened with Rahul Dravid, provided a masterclass in batting making a chanceless 138 in 133 balls to set up a huge target. Our bowling and fielding despite being tardy, came through the difficult onslaught by the Lankans. Bhajji's 3rd five wicket haul prevailed in making India win just their4th final in 21 finals appearances this decade. But a jinx was broken nevertheless.

Once again coming back to the Little Master, age does not dull this man and his hunger for runs and victories. In the post match presentation, Arun Lal questioned him that his demeanour was more relaxed nowadays but the man himself refused and said that it is only people who are beginning to perceive him differently.

But how much ever he might deny, there is definitely a consummate and stress-free approach to his batting for the last two years. With the emergence and maturity of players like Yuvraj, Gambhir, Sehwag and captain Dhoni, the Bombay bomber has just not had to think about conserving his wicket at any cost when there are proven match-winners waiting in the wings, a far cry from as recent as 6-7 years ago when he used to carry a million hopes on his shoulders.

Here's to Team India to continue with their excellent performances. They have been very consistent this year. We were the top team for less than 24 hours but the The Champions Trophy which is up next could rectify that.

So I was having a Quentin Tarantino overload. I watched Inglourious Basterds in the afternoon and came back home and watched Reservoir Dogs which was released in 1992. So on to the Basterds first.

All the plot lines cross each other at some point. As with all Tarantino movies there is a lot of violence and a huge amount of bloodshed juxtaposed with some comical situation. People get killed at the drop of a hat while the context of disposal might be inherently funny. Now while we know that the Nazi brutality was relentless, and whatever the savage treatment the Jews dish out to the Germans is justified, but after a while the movie's attempts at black comedy fall flat. There is really nothing funny about a man getting rammed in the head by a baseball bat for example.

This is the quintessential Tarantino though, which is seen from the scene in the cellar when the Basterds have a rendezvous with their contact. The dialogues, the drama and the tension is absolutely gripping. Unfortunately such scenes are few and far between. This is because the rest of the scenes have been unnecessarily stretched that make this supposed war movie extremely boring. The movie is atleast forty minutes too long.

If it is slightly watchable, it is because of Christoph Waltz and his mind-blowing performance as the opportunistic Colonel Landa. Also noteworthy is Melanie Laurent who brings real iciness to her character. But they cannot carry this movie alone. Brad Pitt, who is an above average actor anyway, gives perhaps the most pathetic performance of his career and most of the time you can't even understand what he is saying. The rest of the basterds are forgettable since all they have to do is to look mean and kill other people.

Tarantino delivers a real turkey this time which is neither an entertaining spoof, nor a solid war drama. His fictional take on WWII is a senseless collection of violent scenes serving no purpose and no justification. It is a let down from the man who gave us Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and .........

Now this is a movie ladies and gentlemen. Seven strangers get together for the perfect robbery - sounds vaguely familiar. Ofcourse our own desi version Kaante was inspired from this one.

The movie runs in a non-linear narration about the botched robbery when it is discovered that one of the men is a police informant. So the movie which takes place entirely in a warehouse delves into the past of the men and takes us step by step in discovering the culprit among them

While I cannot rate the performances brilliant but all the actors , Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi are just cool and do justice to their roles. Perhaps the only complaint one could make is that not all characters were explored fully. But that is a minor quibble as compared to the extremely sharp script and dialogue. Violence is cool and this movie is an instant classic.

There are two Tarantinos here. One, a creative genius who with his taste for delirium dazzles us with his uncharacteristoc cinema while the other is stuck in a moment , flogging a dead horse under the impression that the more blood you draw(aesthetically ofcourse QT style), the more glorious the message. Inglourious basterds is made on a larger scale and budget but Reservoir Dogs is substance with a hell of a lot style. Will the real Tarantino please stand up?