Barsaat, Barish, Varsaad or Rain… happiness, happiness and happiness. I know it reminds us about 26/7, I know it reminds us about the roads which are still dug up, I know it reminds us of water dripping in from corner of our windows but it brings happiness on everyone’s face.

I don’t know how to express my happiness, it is raining currently, infact raining very heavily, raining for the first time in whole Mumbai. My TATA Sky dabba is not working, they have deactivated the service temporarily because of heavy rains and lightning. The lights have gone. I am really worried about my office, last year there was major water leakage problem. We had got the stuff fixed but the real test of the work can be only done at the times of rain. And now I have 2 new machines installed with new computer table, chairs.. damn I am just counting the expenses… I hope the water does not spoil the stuff.

But still I am happy. It still does not reduce my joy. Jo hoga wo dekha jayega (Will tackle the situation, however it comes) But now right, I will keep my mind busy making plans for some hill station.. haha (Megha, are you listening?)

Awesome, Awesome and Awesome!!! Got the movie review from the first line itself? Hell, yeah… it was an awesome movie indeed.

As seen in the promos, the movie is about love / relationship between 64 year old man, Buddhadev (Amitabh Bachchan) and 34 year old woman, Nina (Tabu). No, this movie does not have “what people will think?” and stuff. It is just too different. The storyline can be found here.

What I liked most in the movie was, smart dialogue delivery, specially in the first half. Be it conversation between Buddhadev and his mother, or be it with Buddhadev and his 9 year old neighbor Sexy or be it with Buddhadev and Nina. Dialogues were just too different, you generally such kind of replies in any bollywood flick. (Nothing bad just different) Couple of example would be conversation between Buddhadev and Sexy about watching adult DVD movies. Or may be conversation between Buddhadev and his mother about the food she had made for him. or may be conversation between Buddhadev and Nina at the cafe.

Okay, time for the good and bads.

Good: Acting, dialogue delivery, cinematography, direction, music.. damn everything. The romance between Buddhadev and Nina is simply superb. I think Amitabh Bachchan is the only actor who can romance with anyone on the screen. Be it Rani Mukherjee (Black) or Hema Malini (Baghban) or Tabu in this one. Damn, he still looks young and charming. Great performance, simply superb!! Then comes Tabu, she proved herself as great actress in the movie “The Namesake” and now she is back with this one. Bang on target, prefect!! And I don’t know why, she looked really beautiful in this movie. And then, this little angel, Sexy (Swini Khara), 9 year old little girl suffering from blood cancer, she knows when she is going to die and before that she wants to enjoy everything. She is big boss of 64 year old Buddhadev, she knows Buddhadev more than anyone and even advices him on many things. Excellent child actor. How can I forget Zoha Sehgal, 95 year old and still going strong. Just unbelievable.

The music by Ilaiyaraaja has some kind of freshness in it. Very melodious songs. Specially the title song and Jaane Bhi Do Na.

Bad: Well, this will have hardly 2 lines haha. The 2nd half required some chopping work. This is where the movie slowed down a bit and was kind of stuck for sometime. The satyagrah thing by Paresh Rawal (Nina’s dad) could have cut short to make things faster. But apart from that, I could not find anything bad.

Overall I would rate this movie 3.5 / 5. I would have loved to give it 4 stars only if later part of the 2nd half was bit chopped. A very fine movie and yea, IT IS NOT ANOTHER NISHABD!! haha

On the business front, I do not think so it will do much business here in India but it can attract many outside India.

I love reality based movies. This one is about shootout happened in 1991 at Lokhandwala area in Andheri. (Shootout related info here)

5 dreaded gangsters:

Maya Dolas - Vivek Oberoi
Dilip Buwa - Tusshar Kapoor
Fattu - Rohit Roy
RC - Shabbir Ahluwalia
Doubling - Aditya Lakhia

one building - Swati Building, Lokhandwala, Andheri

more than 200 policemen lead by 3 officers:

ACP A Khan - Sanjay Dutt
Kaviraj Patil - Sunil Shetty
Javed Shaikh - Arbaaz Khan

and more than 1500 rounds of fire.

The movie showed how ATS (Anti Terriroist Squad) succeeded in killing 5 gangsters hidden in one of the buildings in Lokhandwala. More info on the storyline can be found here.

Let’s discuss more about the movie. Time to discuss good(s) and bad(s) about the movie.

Good: Vivek Oberoi, he is mostly good at gangster kind of roles, we can say, it is his speciality. This time too, he was excellent. The surprise package in this movie was Tusshar Kapoor. I never expected him to do anything other than lover boy or college going teenager. But this one was brave, short tempered killer and he was very good at it. But the real star was Sanjay Dutt, just superb. Direction - specially in the 2nd half. Everything was taken care of so well that, it won’t leave you for a second in the 2nd half. Lastly the song, Ganpat.. excellent song. This is the only song I liked in the movie.

Ok Ok: Suniel Shetty was in his usual performance, stylish inspector, nothing great. Arbaaz Khan, he was good but nothing which can make me clap my hands. Amrita Singh, to be frank, she looked very young for the performance of Maya Dolas’s mother but still she was ok ok, not bad or wasted. Rohit Roy and Shabbir Ahluwalia, they did not get much chance to act but again, not wasted.

Bad / Wasted: The Bachchans, Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan. Both were wasted and did have much to do. Abhishek was some police inspector and dies in the start of the movie only. Amitabh is featured as the lawyer but his role was very limited. Aditya Lakhia, I don’t know why he was in the movie at the first place. I am not sure if he had any dialogues or not. (He was one of the gang members.) Music, the first 2 songs were pathetic. Editor should have cut these songs.

Me Me?: Haha, no I was not about me in the movie but this section is about the stars which were in the movie but we did not feel the presence of them. Our local bombshell, Rakhi Sawant was in the movie as an actress haha.. she had role of, say… 2 minutes? Yea, not more than that. Again, editor’s bad job here, it was not needed. Diya Mirza, what was waste!!! She should lookout for lead actress roles or even side roles are ok but this role? This was nothing but it will simply go un-noticed. Aarti Chhabria, ah, she was looking gorgeous but the beauty did not help me to notice her perfomance. Seen mostly in dance perfomance but not wasted. Aftab Ahmed Khan, the real ACP A Khan (Played by Sanjay Dutt) he was in the movie as police commissioner S Ramamurthy.

Cut the crap please!!!: Well, I would rate this movie 3.5 / 5. Very good movie and it is definitely a must watch. It should do fair business at the box office.

Ask anyone from Mulund about Globcast (Yea, this is how they spell it) and you will get introduced to abuse galore. I was lucky that I was away from these bastards for last 3-4 years but recently for my office, I needed unlimited usage plan so I made a mistake to call these guys.

To my surprise the lady on the phone was kind of ok. (Earlier they used to be worse than the government department). After some discussions, I asked the lady to get net connection for my office. Within a day the guys installed the net at my office. But the bad phase starts now.

I connected their cable to my router so that I can distribute the net to all the machines. Woha!! It did not work. Cross checked the settings twice, thrice.. nothing worked. I called their (so called) customer support. The lady over the phone said, “hum router mein set karne mein help nahi karte” (We don’t help in setting up the net on router), I asked them to give the phone to their technical guy so that I can explain the issue and we can set the things up. But instead of helping me, she simply said, call your computer engineer. I was like computer engineer? the hardware guy? what for? she replied, to set the net on router, he must be knowing it coz we don’t know it.

I kept the phone and gave one more try but nothing worked. This made me sure that they must have done thing which does not allow the net to connect directly through the router. I called them up again and spoke to some gujju bhai named Ashok Somaiya.

The guy rudely replied saying we do not allow connection direct to the router. I asked him, so how do I run the net in my office? He said, I don’t know that we don’t entertain people who wish to run it on the router. I was like “*$*#$ you dude” take my connection off. (Obviously I did not use the F word on the phone)

The connection was taken off within few hours.

So now, I tried to look for other options. TATA Indicom Broadband, great schemes, great prices. Let’s apply!! So that’s what I did. The guy came to collect the cheque within a week and promised me about the installation within 2 days.

After 3-4 days, their installation guys land up at my office saying, the Globcast guy is demanding Rs. 300 to allow the installation work. I was like, what the hell I have to do with the Globcast now? I have paid installation charges and security deposit to you guys not to Globcast.

I talked to Ashok Somaiya of Globcast again, he started his bullshit in his typical bhai log accent saying, whatever ISP you take, you will have to come to us first. I asked him, ok what is Rs.300 for, he said, not Rs. 300, it is Rs. 499. I was like eh? He said, you took connection from us, so we created ID for you so it was our expense of Rs. 499 to create the ID for you. I said, I hardly used it for 2 hours, he was like - so what, we created it so we already money spent on it.

I was like, WTF this guy is saying.. I did not say much and called up Tata’s customer support directly and lodged the complaint. Within 2 days (after reminding them couple of times) the guy from Tata called me up and said at any cost your connection will be done in a day.

I was relived at that time and was like, finally the bad guy lost. But this was not all. No one came for my installation, I lodged the complaint again, I got the call today again saying they won’t be able to install the net unless I pay them Rs. 500.

So in short, they have decided to refund the money to me. I really wish we had proper laws to screw these kind of guys. And 2ndly I never expected companies like Tata to rely on cheats like this one.

It seems that these days media guys have plenty of free time. Be it news channels like Aaj Tak, Zee News or any others. (Keeping NDTV and CNN IBN aside)  or be it tabloids like Mid Day. Everyone is running behind showing personal matter of the celebrities or known people.

Zee News is busy showing how much Aishwarya Rai gave to her parents and how much she spent for her marriage expenses. Mid Day is also carrying the same story. I am yet to understand how does it affect the lives of local public. What do I do if Aishwarya Rai spends 8 crores for her marriage or buys from some xx store. It is her personal matter, why should media bother about it? She is paying her tax and it is her money, she can spend however she wants and I do not think any news channel has right to show anyone’s personal matter. (unless they have permission from the person)

2nd example is again from Mid Day. Few days back Mid Day carried a story about how orkut helped to nab the navy man (who killed his girlfriend) since after that it seems Mid Day correspondents changed their work profile from news correspondents to Orkut Diggers. They started checking the scrapbook of the same navy guy and carried out one more story on him.

But this was not enough so they decided to test their orkut skills and digged out profile of Shivsena executive president Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aditya. They managed to write a silly article on profile of Aditya. They gave it their bad try to interpret each and every line of his profile. (They have few more articles by Orkut Diggers)

Earlier rediff had also done the same mistake by posting an article based on scraps of Virginia Tech shootout victim Minal Panchal but It was taken off on the same day.

The point here is, Why these media guys have to dig personal lives of people. Do they think it makes everyone say “WOW, this is cool!!” if they do, then they are totally wrong. I simply call it ”Sick!!”.