Pamela Googled

A colleague sent this picture. May not be true but ingenious definitely. Whaddya say?

Two Movies

Saw Apharan yesterday at home. The film paints a rather bleak picture of (The Republic of) Bihar, a law unto itself. If it was not tragic or grim, it would be almost comical to see the absence of any law and order, a state of affairs where the police, politicians and ministers connive with each other to maraud the wretched citizen, where criminals park themselves in plush cells in jails and control mafia from inside and walk out at will, where police protects the criminals and prosecutes the innocent, where kidnapping is a well-organised business and the human being is an expendable commodity, where there is almost no hope….Is this for real? I hope not but I suspect it may be. A very bleak and powerful film by the master craftsman, Prakash Jha. It’s not perfect, however. Read this review by Raja Sen at Rediff. It sums up much that I want to say about Apharan: “A flawed good film!”
Saw Antarmahal at home this afternoon. What can one say about Rituparno Ghosh!He is truly one of the most gifted directors in India. This period piece, set in late 19th c Bengal, is to be seen to be believed. Tells a tragic tale of female exploitation, marital rape, priestly debauchery and an unbridled lust for power in an overarching feudal background. Do read this brilliant review by Subhash K. Jha at nowrunning.com.
And now from the entrails of feudal India to the gutters of street harassment in NYC. This is how the women in NYC fight back. Something like this may work in India too, whaddya say? Holla back, my friends, and take care…

Hyperlink Movie

Saw Syriana the other day. Liked the brooding intensity of George Clooney (he deservedly won an Oscar for this) but somehow the film failed to deliver on its promise. Interesting plot based on global oil politics but “lost it” in too much intellectualising. Ebert however differs. This is what he says: "Syriana" is an endlessly fascinating movie about oil and money, America and China, traders and spies, the Gulf States and Texas, reform and revenge, bribery and betrayal. Its interlocking stories come down to one thing: There is less oil than the world requires, and that will make some people rich and others dead. The movie seems to take sides, but take a step back and look again. It finds all of the players in the oil game corrupt and compromised…” Ebert also talks about this being a Hyperlink Movie: “A recent blog item coined a term like "hyperlink movie" to describe plots like this. (I would quote the exact term, but irony of ironies, I've lost the link.) The term describes movies in which the characters inhabit separate stories, but we gradually discover how those in one story are connected to those in another.” Lemme have your views on Syriana if you have seen the film.
Check out this. A strange but fascinating case of a guy leveraging the Internet to manage a “menage a trios.” Would you wish him luck and help him win his bet? :)
Soven has learned to do HTML and has done her first page on her own. It even has a video. I am a proud dad, considering I have no clue how to do even the basic stuff. Take care…

Two Poems

Do take a look at 2 of my recent experimental poems (Ms. Dalal from Ahmedabad, and Rita from Goa). I have mixed the tenses by design, to show a continuum. Does it work? Feedback appreciated.
And, hey, what happens when Mallika rubs the lamp? Do tell me. Cheers…

Devgan in Cyberspace

Google Calendar looks like a new useful tool, though I am not too sure how much I would use it.
My favourite Bollywood hero, Ajay Devgan, has launched his official website recently. It’s kinda basic (in terms of content and interactivity) for the time being but am sure will evolve over time. The site is powered by MovieTalkies.com. Am glad Bollywood is discovering new media. This relationship is fraught with potential. Cheers.

Bettie Page Revisited

{Portrait of Bettie Page 1993, Cibachrome Print of Digital Artwork}

The Notorious Bettie Page opens today in Manhattan. The film is about the life of the glam pin-up girl of the 1950s in America. I read this interesting film review at NYT.com. Do take a look at the official film website. It’s pretty hip and has a selection of erotic e-cards. Also read this engaging piece on the NYT site on the Fibonacci poems, essentially six-line poems based on the famous Fibonacci sequence. Says the site: “The Fibonacci progression is a mathematical formula that starts with 0 and 1 and then continues to add numbers that are equal to the sum of the previous two numbers. Thus, the first seven numbers in the sequence are: 0-1-1-2-3-5-8. To write a Fib, a more complicated version of the classic, highly constrained haiku, the poet composes a six-line poem that has the correct number of syllables in each line corresponding to each digit in the sequence. (The real first line of each Fib is silence.)”

Currently reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, truly a fascinating journey to the origin of universe and other things. The style of writing is not didactic and academic, and makes for an easy reading. Makes science fun and not so demanding. Take care…

NYT Redesign

My favourite NYT.com has had a makeover and what a radical one it is. Do take a look. It further strengthens my belief that multimedia is the way to go. Audio-video, pictorial, graphics and narrowband content must be seamlessly integrated and the consumer needs to be presented with an enriching experience.
USA Today is also in the throes of a redesign. Read here for a dope on the changes it has done to its story pages.
Must check out CollegeLive (a CNET production) and YourHub.com (from Denver Newspaper Agency)—great examples of niche-based social networking. Somebody needs to do a CollegeLive for India. There’s a business model sitting right out there.
Saw The Forgotten on the idiot box yesterday. Julianne Moore was good but the movie was kinda built on implausible grounds. This is what my movie guru Ebert has to say:
“I will content myself with the very final scenes. You know, the ones in the playground. How are they possible? What repairs were necessary to the fabric of the physical world and remembered events? Who keeps track of this stuff? How come such stupid experiments are carried out by beings so superbly intelligent as to be able to conduct them? The movie begins with a premise: A mother remembers her lost son, and everyone she trusts tells her she only imagines she had a son. That's a great story idea. But it's all downhill from there. "The Forgotten" is best left.”
And, oh, by the way, S has recovered from a severe bout of Influenza which had her down for about a fortnight. Am so relieved. Thank you, God!
Do take good care of yourselves…:)

Home Sweet Home

Today we started the construction of our home at SC-I and handed over the premises to the contractor. The next one year would be pretty exciting. Wrote a poem, on the brink, for my sister. Pray that she will find strength to bounce back. May God bless her!
Oh, before I go, do take a look at Seekport. Quite a cool language search engine. And effective. It seems this is the season for the launch of myriad search engines. Take care…