Indian Hockey at Olympics

I was reading about Indian hockey the other day. I knew we were a good team once upon a time. I was really amazed at our olympics record. It is unfortunate that we did not qualify for Beijing. Here is a list of past olympic results -

1928 Gold Amsterdam
1932 Gold Los Angeles
1936 Gold Berlin
1940 Games not held
1944 Games not held
1948 Gold London
1952 Gold Helsinki
1956 Gold Melbourne
1960 Silver Rome
1964 Gold Tokyo
1968 Bronze Mexico City
1972 Bronze Munich
1976 Seventh Montreal
1980 Gold Moscow
1984 Fifth Los Angeles
1988 Sixth Seoul
1992 Seventh Barcelona
1996 Eighth Atlanta
2000 Seventh Sydney
2004 Seventh Athens
2008 Failed to qualify Beijing

courtesy:
yahoo! sports
worldhockey.org/olympics

India at olympics

Congratulations to Abhinav Bindra, India finally gets an olympic gold medal. It is a great achievement by Bindra. While the celebrations are understandable all over India, one gold medal does not justify the 1 billion population. While we blame cricket for everything since it overshadows all the other games and sports, the main culprit is the politics involved at every level. The olympics offer a perfect stage for all sports. A victory here can capture the public’s attention and bring more young talent and more funds into the sport. It brings identity to the sport. I hope we have more leagues and competitions in all sports just like we have IPL/ICL for cricket. But with the media and the networks in india crazy with cricket, it might take a long time before the public can get to watch the other sports.

In another news, India is thrashed by Sri Lanka in the ongoing one day series.

Hyderabad : Does it belong to India

Past few days, I'm really bothered by bomb blasts. I really feel powerless and defeated. Called up my friend in India to talk about these.

Then he mentioned about this incident in Hydereabad city.
http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-27-7-2008/panelhtml.asp?qrystr=htm/panel3.htm
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200807261965.htm

My friend/owner of this blog's intention is to keep this blog as PG-13. But It's really tough for me to hold my words today.



So now we've a muslim mothertrucker MLA who opened fire, since corporation officials tried to demolish a encroachment. And his entourage started beating corporation workers. People, ambulances got stuck up in traffic for 6 hours. Other legislators, CM has to mediate to reduce the tensions. And yes, case has been filed on the officer who orderd the demolotion of these buildings

This all happened on the day after 45 people're killed in Ahmedabad, beacuse of bomb blasts perpetrated by muslim SOBs. I've to ask, where is India heading. Every day I read how many high end retailers are opening shops in India and how many luxurys cars are being bought. And now this is the reality, on how much we progressed.

And, what would it take to ban this MIM party, put these muslim legislators behind bars, kill all the SIMI members. My choice of words today is very bad, coz of the anger I've today. Why these muslims are getting free ride every day, every year and every century. And why Hindus has to remain like this. I'm not a War supporter, but Justice has to be served. Sometimes, Modi might be right. Let the people take law into their hands!

And I wonder what's the CBI, RAW, IB's take on old city in hyderabad. What's their plan to clean up this mess. This is like a pakistan inside India.

Rang de Basanti really caught younger generation's imagination and did some good. And now I pray for a film maker with balls to show the reality.

And my request to all my friends, readers. Please stop patronizing Paki/bangladesh/muslim restaurants. You're contributing money to these bomb blasts.

Jai Hind.

Hare Ram - an exhibitor's view

There were two things on my mind that almost prevented me from watching Hare Ram. The first one is Kalyan Ram himself. Unlike many of his generation heroes, I always thought KR lacked the ease in front of camera. His boy next door look is his asset as well as a drawback. The second one is Harshavardhan, the guy that directed Vijayendravarma, who changed his name from Swarna Subbaro. But it is in fact, these two guys that make Hare Ram worth watching.

It is hard to go into the details of the movie without spoiling your experience. Unfortunately, many of the reviews have already done that. About the movie, all I can say is look out for Kalyan Ram, both as an actor and a producer. The movie might have many interesting twists and turns, but the biggest of them all is KR's performance. The scenes with Sudha and Chalapathi Rao at the start of the movie show the ease in his performance. His body language and dialogue delivery have improved a lot. It is always risky to play a double role. Since he is also the producer he must have known this and we can see the difference in both the roles. He put his heart and soul in this movie to come up with an extraordinary performance. This definitely is a turning point film for Kalyan Ram.

The next biggest asset for the movie is the director, Harshavardhan. I still cannot believe it is the same guy that directed Vijayendravarma. The direction is completely different. He seems to have worked hard on each and every scene. The picturization of some of the scenes is awesome. His screenplay is very good especially the flashback episode. The camera angles and close up shots used in some scenes are awesome. He maintained good tempo throughout the film and just when we things are a little slow there is a twist. He handled the climax very well. The last 20 minutes especially is very impressive.

Mickey J Meyer's music is big plus. My personal favorites are Pyar karma seeko na, Laalijo Laalijo and Sariga Padani. On the screen Jairam Jairam song is awesome. Look out for Priyamani in that song ;). The background music is good. Mickey J Meyer's music is different from all the others. His style resembles AR.Rehman, though the orchestration is different and with Hare Ram, he seems like he is here to stay. Mickey J Meyer and Harshavardan, both complemented each other well. Great music and lovely visuals. I cannot stress enough about the rap song Jairam Jairam.

As for the others, Priyamani was a good choice for the role. She was perfect. Just imagine what would have happened to Asadhyudu if she was the heroine in that movie. Some of the episodes involving Brahmanandam and Raghu babu are good and Ali's rain episode clicked well too. Kota as always gives a very good performance. It is sad that he is often ignored.

Overall, this is a very good film to watch and hats off to Kalyan Ram for daring to be different. He did say during the audio function that he will let the audience and fans speak after they watch the movie, and I am pretty sure the talk is unanimous. This movie should also be a good film to watch for all the wannabe directors and producers. But if there are any wannabe producers reading this and looking for a director, feel free to email me (just kidding…but seriously?!).

US airstrike kills 47 civilians in Afghanistan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7501538.stm

Imagine if this happened in the US. A missile from Afghan or any other country accidentally landed in a mall or any other public place and killed 47 people. What would be the public reaction? How would the US react? This is not the first time this has happened and the way things are it will not be the last time either. I can’t wait for Bush to complete his term. The US does not participate in the International Criminal Court, but I wish Bush and Cheney are tried for war crimes. From torture to killing civilian casualties, they have done everything they shouldn’t have. I can’t wait for Bush to finish his term, but I am not sure if the next President will do any better.