Slumdog Millionaire - A much hyped movie ....

Well ... This happens to be my first blog of 2009. I did not think that I will write my very first blog of the year about a movie. All my friends who know me well anyways keep telling that I am a movie buff.

But never mind... Will write anyways...

Even before I discuss the goodness/badness of the movie, let me take out my own frustration out about the movie title. "Slumdog Millionaire". Do people around the world still think we are DOGs? And things that bother me too much is: when we (probably) call someone a monkey, they take us to the court, and when they call us dogs, they themselves take it to OSCAR and ironically, here we all celebrate that !! As if we are so hungry and dying for the OSCAR that you can just call us anything, but we beg you on our knees to give us that award.

Now, coming back to the movie. I do NOT think at all that this movie is something very exceptional and extra-ordinary that deserves even an OSCAR nomination. The movie is simple it shows the poor and slum area of the Mumbai and how people live there. And most frustratingly it shows the bad, sad and negative part only. I do not think that only bad things happen in the slums. There are good things also, happy moments also in the slums, and for God sake they are people not DOGS.

Many things shown in the movie are really unnecessary and meaningless. e.g. To know the answer to the question "who was the hero of movie 'Zanjeer'", I don't think they needed to show that boy jumping into the shit-pond. That was a too much scene in the movie. But this is just a start of all those too much and good for nothing scenes. Some things I could not understand from the movie, like why Anil Kapoor wants that boy not to be successful even from the beginning of the show? Or why he keeps calling him a "Chai-wala" and that too without showing any respect? I don't think any television show, which is aired at least in India makes these kind of comments about somebody's profession unless he's a criminal.

Another scene, which was really ridiculous in the movie, was when this boy "Jamal" is beaten by some other "Goonda", when Jamal's brother steals the car accessories of the foreigners who are on the visit to UP. There after getting beaten up the boy says to the Americans, "You wanted to see the real India, so this is the real India". What message does the director want to give to the world by this statement? Is India only this? Do only cruel people live in India? Good and bad people exist everywhere in this world.

Even in the climax of the movie, I couldn't understand one thing. When the Police officer decides that the boy is not lying and he is innocent, why does the constable pours water on the boy mercilessly to tell him that you are going to the show? They could have shown at least that part in a positive way.

According to me it’s just another movie. Definitely NOT something, which deserves an OSCAR. Anyways, I will not at all be happy even if it wins OSCAR. Because I do not think that it’s an Indian movie. It's not been directed by Indian Director, or not been written by Indian writer. I bet, if the same movie would have been directed by an Indian director with a much better direction, nobody on this earth would even have paid heed to take it to OSCAR. But since its a movie on the so called "burning issues" (bull-shit!!) around the world, and that too is directed by a foreign director, it's reached to OSCAR.

"A Wednesday" - A movie about the *real* common man!!

Its been real long time, since I have written something on my blog. But now finally, I could not resist myself from writing something on this movie.

A really good movie, which describes the frustration of the common man. A common man (here common man means "we all") has always been neglected and taken for granted and most ironically has always been considered the stupidest fellow on this earth. The people (read people with authority, and therefore they are not common man) have started taking common man so granted that today you do whatever to the common man he will tolerate it. May it be violence, may it be bomb-blast may it be theft may it be anything else unethical, unsocial ....

Anyways, enough. I just got carried away by my own frustration (as I am also a common man). Now, coming back to the movie plot. The plot is very simple. Naseeruddin Shah (the common man) calls Anupam Kher (Police Commissioner of Mumbai) and tells him that he has planted bombs in Mumbai at 5 different places and he wants some 4 terrorists to be handed over to him. After all the drama it comes out that he wanted those terrorists not for releasing them but to kill them.

Needless to say that Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher have done exceptionally well. Some dialogues in the movie are really good. As a summary, a must watch movie if you want to see some meaningful movie. I would rate it 4/5.

Trip to Hogenakkal

My wandering and trekking senses were all jammed in last 4 months and my fingers were also dying to scribble something on the BlogSpot. The reason being simple, I haven't gone anywhere out of Bangalore these days.

The initial plan was to go to Jog falls. i.e. to start from here on Friday night and return back on Sunday night. But then later it got turned down because people had some other work at home and staying 2 days out was not possible. Then we ended up planning for Hogenakkal. The initial plan was to go on the bikes (as it was only 130 KM from Bangalore), but rain had some other plans. As soon as "Indradev" heard that we are planning to go on bikes, it started raining heavily. We had once thought of canceling the plan. But then someone came up with the idea of hiring a Scorpio. So we booked it for Saturday plan was final.

We were 6 people Sathya, Ravi, Rajiv, Avinash, Naveen and me. The plan was to start on Saturday (15-Sep-2007) from here (Bangalore) at 6:30 A.M. sharp, but as always I got late and we started at around 6:55 A.M. Ravi knew the route to the place, so we did not find it too difficult to head towards it. We took the Hosur road and went upto Hosur. There we had our breakfast. Then from there, we took a right towards "Thali" as we wanted to take the route to "Rayakottai" after a few kilometers we took a left to go towards "Rayakottai". This is SH-85. At Rayakottai we turned right towards "Palacode" on SH-17. Condition of these two roads is bad (really bad in some patches). The main reason is that they are widening the road, so Ravi and Rajiv had to bear lot of bouncers (as they were on the back seat and the driver had decided that worse the road, faster he is going to drive).

Then we turned right on SH-60 towards Hogenakkal. At this point we realized that we should have come via the same SH-60 from "Dharmapuri". This road is very decent.

We reached to Hogenakkal at around 11:00. As soon as we parked the vehicle, all the boatmen started banging our heads to hire a coracle. The rates of coracle depends upon your bargaining power. Fortunately, we had Sathya and Ravi with us to do that job. And they did it very efficiently. So, we decided not to straight away take the coracle and spend some time exploring the place at our own instead. So, we had seen a couple of small falls there and took some photographs. Then when the boatman agreed to our amount, we got into the coracle and headed towards the main fall. The main fall is exactly in the middle of the river and you have to hire a coracle to get there. In another half an hour we we at the main fall. The view there is splendid. It's just unexplainable in words. It is a horse-shoe shaped fall, where the flow of Cauvery is so powerful that you get wet because of the water sprinkles coming from down.

After spending sometime there we started back to our vehicle. There we ate Idli-wada (that we had packed on the way) and started again back to the small falls, we earlier looked. Until we reached to the small falls, we (me, Naveen and Sathya) did not have any plans to enter into the water. But when we reached there, we could not help, but got into the water. There we took sun-bath, sand-bath, water-bath etc. etc. ;-) We enjoyed a lot there cracking jokes and throwing stones in the river to compete on whose stone takes maximum bounces. Then we once again hired a coracle to reach to our vehicle.

We stared back at around 5:00. This time we decided that we are going to follow the SH-60 till Dharampuri. The road is really good. At Dharampuri, we took a left on NH-7 and reached Bangalore at around 9:15.

The entire journey was around 400 KM, which includes travel within the Bangalore also.

If you are a fish lover(read eater), then this is a good place as you will get lots of fishes fried in all kind of local "masala" ;-) But for a person like me (vegetarian) the smell is just too much. Fortunately, I had cold, so my nostrils we all choked. So I managed to survive there ;-) There you can get body massage also, which we did not want to :-).

Overall, we enjoyed a lot and we all were happy that finally we got out of Bangalore for sometime and were with mother nature.

Trek to MUTHYALA MADAVU (PEARL VALLEY)

Last Saturday (19-May-2007), we 6 friends (on 3 bikes) went to “Muthyala Madavu” (aka Pearl Valley). The plan on Friday night was to go to “Bandipur” Forest, where we can spend Saturday night and come back by Sunday evening. But, that program got cancelled due to couple of reasons. One reason being it was a very long drive around (230 KM from Bangalore). Then there were 2-3 other options left like some fishing camp, or Mysore etc.. I was insisting on some forest like place. Then a friend came up with an idea of going to this place, which was just 40 KM from Bangalore. So, after having our morning Breakfast and all, we left for the place at around 12:30 P.M. We had an idea that this place is somewhere near “Anekal”. So, we took the “Hosur road”. After driving for 20 KM, we took a right turn to go towards Anekal (the SH-35). After driving for 11 KM. we were at Anekal. Once you reach Anekal just take a right from the "Gaon ki Chowpal". People from North India will understand what “Chowpal” means. For others, "Chowpal" is a just like common platform/stage, where the village elders sit and have discussions on various things. After taking a right from there, go straight for another 4 KM or so. Then from there, again take a right turn and go for around 5 KM. and you are at your destination. This 5 KM. patch is very bad to drive, because there is no road. Though some road work is going on (keeping the coming rainy season in mind), but still for now, there is no road. Let me also tell you that the earlier 35 KM drive is really an excellent one. There we found Karnataka Tourism Development Corporation’s restaurant. It’s a nice and decent hotel. Without wasting much time there, we straight away started getting down in the Valley. Within minutes we were at the bottom of the valley (there are proper stairs to reach to the bottom). There is one very old temple down there. There we spent some time resting and shooting monkeys, of course with camera. Then we started heading inside the forest. After walking for around 1 hour or so we were quite deep inside the Jungle. Since it’s a summer season, there are less bushes and trees there, but I could imagine how heavenly it would look during Monsoon and winter. Some localites there had told us that if we're lucky enough, we might get to see some elephants also inside the forest. But, we couldn't see one. May be they were further inside the forest, and we were still not there. However, we saw elephant dung at a couple of places. We also saw many snake holes on our way. We started back from there at around 4:00 P.M. and reached the restaurant in half an hour. There we had lunch, yes lunch at 4:30 :) !! and then started back towards Bangalore with some fantastic views of valley and with a feeling that we will visit this heaven once again in Monsoon and/or in winter. Overall it’s a really nice one day picnic spot if you want to spend some time with Mother Nature to rejuvenate yourself.

My first blog (trip to Savandurga)

Well well well... Finally I could prepare my mind and fingers to get down and write my first blog. I had been planning it from quite some time to pull up my socks to add some cents from my side also to this astonishing blogging world.


Saturday (the 12th-May-2007), we went for Savandurga trek. Like almost all my past experiences, this trek/picnic (whatever one may please to call it) also was an outcome of the instant decision. It's my experience so far, the more you plan things, more failure prone they become. It happened here also. We 5 friends had gone to play morning cricket on Saturday. We finished it at around 9:00 A.M. and just had this thought of going out of Bangalore while enjoying our morning tea. So, the plan was decided there itself and we prepared 3 more friends to go along with us.

Though this trek wasn't as fantastic as the Rajmachi trek, but still, this trek is special in its own way [2-ways :) ] to me as one, this was my first trek in Bangalore and second I could find some material to write my first blog. :)

We were 8 bikers on 4 bikes. We stared from Bangalore at around 10:00 A.M. We got some sandwiches packed for us and headed towards Mysore road. Though, it was a bright sunny day, so we were dicey that it would become hotter later in the day. But once you get out of the city, the clouds came to rescue us from sun-heat through out the day. :)

We had searched a so-called road-map of Savandurga on internet and had a slight idea of where to move and all. Its almost 85 KM. from the city and around 70 Km. when you actually get onto the Mysore road. Some one said, we need to reach to "Magadi" (before Ramanagaram) on Mysore road and from there we need to take a left turn to reach to Savandurga. But when we actually started, we could not find Magadi even when we had reached Ramanagaram. Then we asked some localites in broken Kannada and Hinglish, and got to know that we need to take a left turn from Ramanagaram for Savandurga.

People living in Bangalore would agree to me that Mysore road (SH-17) is one of the best roads to ride. But we refrained ourselves not to go beyond 90 KMPH mark. :) Similarly, the road from Ramanagaram to Savandurga is also fantastic and its also a newly created state highway (I don't know what's it's number, as all the milestones were in Kannada, so my bad, I couldn't read them). So, overall the drive was all enjoyable and fantastic. After driving for 30 Kms, we took a right turn to go to Savandurga. This 4 Km. patch is not good, yet manageable.

We reached at the foot of Savandurga rock at around 2:00 P.M. or something. Then we ate our sandwiches and all. It was great to see that water facility was available there. After resting for a while, we started to climb the rock. After the tiring morning cricket, and this long drive only 3 of us were enthusiastic enough to go to the half of the rock, and other 5 chose to stay back and rest in the nature's arms on a rock.

Though, we all 3 were thinking to go to the top of the rock, but later we dropped the idea at the half way, as it was already 4:15 P.M. and we were worried to reach the main highway before the sun sets, so we returned.

We started back from there at around 5:00 P.M. On our way back, we enjoyed fresh mangoes (straight from the tree) also. There are lots of mango trees on the highway. Around 7:30 P.M. we were at our home.

It was really a tiring yet a very energetic day for all of us, and we enjoyed each and every moment of it.