happy days works

I happened to watch the most hyped movie in the recent past last weekend. The first thing that surprised, shocked and irritated me was the ticket prices. The movie released at many other centers in the US a week before and the web world has been flooded with positive reviews ever since and that in turn let this exhibitor raise the ticket prices to $12 for everyone over 5 yrs old. Let me get back to the movie and save this rant on the ticket prices for another post.

There has been a lot of hype on Happy Days in the web world, most of it, I think, is because Sekhar Kammula knows how to use the major telugu portals to his advantage. He is a graduate student and like many of us knows the lifestyle of an NRI. The good thing though is, he backed up the hype with a feel good movie. Movies with a college background/theme should be dealt with delicately. The first turn off in these movies is the way the classroom episodes involving teachers and students is dealt with. Often our makers try to generate comedy using some vulgarity. 99% of the times the students make fun of the teachers to generate laughs. The other scenes where formula movie makers try to win the youth and mass audience is by choosing violent episodes between the college students in a very unnatural way. There is a thin line between the good and the bad in these movies and this is where Sekhar Kammula emerges as a winner.

Nostalgia is a funny word. It is a bittersweet memory of the past, but most of us tend to remember the good and ignore the bad. When I was in Intermediate, I always felt my school days were awesome. I felt I should have done somethings differently in intermediate while I was doing my engineering. After a semester in Masters, I always thought of the good times that I had while doing my B.Tech. Most of the times, I forgot those "night-outs" before exams and other tough times and I always remember and thought about those days when we won a cricket game or when we had fun at freshers party or when we went out on a fun trip or about those days when we friends just sat and talked crap all night. This is exactly what made Happy days a winner.

SK has chosen to ignore the real life politics of caste, religion and other minor preferences which all slowly become the cause of violence in college and also the cause of love and hate moving forward in life and that is what takes Happy Days away from the real world and makes it a feel-good film. The performances are wonderful, except for the tenglish accent of chandu. The scenes between Tyson and Shravanti are awesome and deserve a special mention. Both appu and rajesh are at ease and natural. On the whole each and every character has been cast perfectly by SK and the characterization is perfect. Mickey J Meyer's music is the soul of the film. He is the next A.R Rehman. The songs are brilliant and the background score fantastic.

Who gave Shoaib the right..?

What exactly was Shoaib Malik thinking when he apologized to the muslims of all the countries after losing to India in the final of ICC world Twenty20?? His exact words when Ravi Shastri asked him in the presentation ceremony regarding the match were "First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world." What exactly does religion have to do with cricket..for that matter any sport? Religion is one reason why India and Pakistan have split into two different countries and on a great occasion, after a great match it is totally unnecessary to bring in religion. How in the world did Shoaib think, he (or his team) was playing for all the muslims in the world?!

"It is a world where Muslims, Hindus and a Sikh currently play for England, where Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and a Hindu play for Sri Lanka, where Hashim Amla turns out for South Africa, where a Patel plays for New Zealand, where Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus play (and have always played) for India. Why would Shoaib think, then, that the Muslims of the world were collectively rooting for the Pakistan team or that they felt let down by its defeat? Did he stop to think of how Danish Kaneria, his Hindu team-mate, might feel hearing his Test skipper all but declare that the Pakistan team is a Muslim team that plays for the Muslims of the world? It is one thing to be publicly religious—Shahid Afridi thanked Allah and Matt Hayden and Shaun Pollock are proud, believing Christians—quite another to declare that your country's cricket eleven bats for international Islam.." writes Mukul Kesavan in his blog and I agree 100%

scenes from a final

T20 champions..now what?

After a long wait, India has finally won a major tournament, the World Twenty20 Championship. The ICC refuses to call it the Twenty20 World cup, but for us indian cricket fans, it is a world cup. The indian team has played some beautiful cricket. The young players responded well and everyone contributed to the success and all the matches were of the highest quality. Beating England, South Africa and Australia is not an ordinary acheivement. Both the matches against Pakistan were thrilling and the final especially would make a good Bollywood climax. While enjoying the success, especially since we won against Pakistan, it is also important that the indian team and the fans are not get carried away too much. We won both the matches against Pakistan not just because our players played some great cricket, but also because we had some luck. What should have been comfortable wins for India were almost thrown away with some bad overs, but that is Twenty20!

A win in this tournament is a big achievement for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, since it was his first series as a captain. He has also been made the captain of the Indian ODI team which is a big step forward for him in his short career. His captaincy has been great in the T20's, but things tend to change after you taste failure. For now, he has had good success rate and people across the webworld and the media have been projecting him as the best person for that job. Many think MSD would end up as the best india skipper, but isn't it too early. Indian cricket fans and the media are so immature that they take the success and failure very seriously. Often it is more important to them than their personal lives. Eight months ago, after losing to Bangladesh in the world cup game, MSD's house was under attack from fans who were furious at his and the team's performance and now he is lauded as a cool captain. The memory of indian cricket fan is so short lived, that things can change dramatically.

Before hyping MSD and the young players and the success in this T20 world championship, the young players should be given enough time to settle and perform well. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, the three pillars of Indian cricket for over a decade, are being written off all of a sudden. They have been consistently performing for over a decade and a couple of failures here and there, people want them to retire, the same thing will happen to the current bunch of players. The media has taken them to such a height that one poor performance will be a free fall down to the earth. Give them time, let them work hard and earn their place in the team and let the transition of power from the seniors to the juniors be smooth!!

Plight of Hindus in India

Alright, I just want to see the politicians reaction if a Central Government Body gives a report like Allah/Jesus never existed.

Mark my words, heavens will fall down, every thing in India would come to a screeching halt. Now was there a same reaction? Hell no! Why, who gives a shit when you're a Hindu. Oh wait, if you belong to SC, ST yeah politicians care about you. but if you belong to Upper Middle Class OC, no way. Coz no one cares for your vote.

I heard reaction Strong reaction from BJP only. OK it's obvious. But I'm not sure about the reaction from other political parties. TDP, Communists, SJP..list goes on.

And just for the record, I want to see that Central Govt Official who also added this line "We don't have any proof that Rama ever existed". and hit the SOB in the nuts.

Whatever happened to Religious Tolerance in India. I'm not sure, whether we've Uniform civil Code. (Correct me if I'm wrong but Muslims still go by their Muslim Courts and they can be married to multiple ppl at the same time.) Read in BBC last week that an "young IAS officer", made a rule that employees shouldn't put kumkum(red dot) on their forehead. and actually a officer was suspended. Just imagine the same rule, for burkhas. Yeah I know, not in this life time..

And then we've Karunanidhi, CM of TN who asks questions like "Did Rama go to any Engg College, to build that long bridge". See we've these people who worship Ravana and hate Rama.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._V._Ramasami_Naicker#Dravidar_Kazhagam_and_propaganda

"....including theatrical productions of a "reinterpreted" Ramayana-a version transposing hero and villain, in which the Sri Lankan demon king Ravana becomes a heroic "Dravidian of 'excellent character,' " and the Aryan prince Rama a conniving, "despicable character" .

Would India ever be a secure/nice place for Hindus again. I doubt it, with a Italian Christian ruling the country and government declaring that Rama is a Hoax.

Since the independence or even before that, our aim is to please Muslims. We just have 13% muslims in this country. Of course they're citizens and they'll get their rights. But what about Hindus? Gandhi started fasting in his last days, coz Indian government withhold the transfer of Rs 55 Crores to Pakistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathuram_Godse#Motive

We need more leaders like Bhagat Singh, Subhash chandra Bose, Chandra Sekhar Azad who fought for country and not for fame/legacy. Truth be told, if these insults keep occurring to Hindus, incidents like Gujarat Riots would happen often.

Readers might ask me, what're you doing to prevent these things or Defend Hindus. Answer is nothing, but give me suggestions. I'm willing to Donate Money or spend some time at Organizations if they're in North East corridor.

Jai Hind.

P.S. But here's a request to all my friends in USA, Please stop eating at Pak restaurants. wherever you're. I was forced to do that once, I'm repenting.

What's gonna happen in Iraq

Now that the General Petraeus, gave his testimony before the senate committees, what's next? Is there an end to this thoughtless war?

The Petraeus report says that surge worked and it's working. I'm not sure how it's working. Ok the Bagdhad area got safer now with the additional soldiers. But now we've shites killing shites, sunnis killing sunnis and again clashes between ethnic groups. How long an army would stop ethnic groups from killing each other.

Anyway, why're we calling this the Patraeus report?? Isn't it the white house that actually wrote this report, and the General just reading that. The sad part is that General Patraeus is doing the same thing that Collin Powell did. Powell gave that infamous presentation to the UN even though he didn't believe that.

I'm waiting to see what would be the dubya's reaction to banning of blackwater security in Iraq. For the neo cons out there who still support the dubya, shut the fuck up!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA#Personnel
Even Alan Greenspan said that the Iraq war is about oil. This is the Guy, who fiercely supported Bush's Tax cuts in his testimony to Senate in 2001.

Enough said and written about the war costs and causalities. I mean there are hundreds of bloggers posting about this topic right now. Having said that do I've a solution for Iraq? No. So why am I bitching about it so much, cause whatever this BS spread out by the neocons(we're fighting enemy at their land, otherwise we've to fight them here), it makes me fucking sick.

And it's the tax payer's money they're spending in Iraq. I mean that's making W's friends richer.
God knows how much blood money halliburton, blackwater made in this war. And don't forget about 3,700 American soldiers and 1000s of Iraqi civilians, who lost their lives. I wish one day all the neocons would know the pain of losing a loved one in a war.

Peace.