Boredom

Soul-searching (or at least an effort to do that) has become the new go-to objective of our millennial directors and writers who try to weave a narrative involving some characters that are confused at most of the things that do and thus are 'ordinary' by greats' standards. They look out for an answer, of all the troubles they are having in their lives and thus look out for an endeavor which if not provides a satisfactory solution to their troubles, at least give them a respite for a short while from their unremarkable lives. Hollywood and Europeans are working on this issue from 90s and they visited the orientals as well in search of their lost inner-selves. They might think that they are closing in on a solution but what about the developing Asians? They are catching up fast with 'well-developed' (but ever-so-confusing) Americans and Europeans and thus are getting the headaches and 'made-up' problem of their owns. Well, the author of this book, Mr. Mohit G

'Ashvamedha' by Aparna Sinha is another meaningful addition to the fine tradition of contemporary Indian writing. It represents a worthy effort to give a spin off to an age-old tale of power-seeking. This is the story of Ashwin Jamwal, an honest IAS officer. His honesty and his dream to bring a change leads to him transferring to other cities. He then realizes that he would have to think of innovative measures to do good. He succeeds in his technique until he gets screwed to an extent that he has to resign. He then joins Politics and becomes quite successful. Instances of dirty politics and corruption are spilled over in the book. The story kicks off at an alarmingly fast pace and is laced with twists in regular intervals to keep the reader engaged. Somewhere midway amidst all the subplots which made sense eventually the pace of the story slackened only to pick up pace again towards the end. The biggest USP of this book is gotta be the topsy-turvy turns it provides in multitude

There was a time during my academic pursuits when I had to present an argument for the sake of my grades that Global Warming was a hoax and Al Gore, its biggest promoter, was nothing more than a crook.......Now some years later, my conviction about Al Gore is still strong (based on facts) but Global Warming, no it isn't a hoax anymore. Every year we hear that this year is gonna be the warmest and I feel shit.....It's as much true a fact that Sun rises in the east and I now know that my professor wasn't going to give a shit what global warming was, sitting in a well air-conditioned room. It was a test for checking out our debating skills and although I won that day comprehensively, I now feel like a person who is deceiving none but himself....... On 21st October, Leonardo Di Caprio, a prominent environmentalist, an UN representative and goodwill ambassador and actor par excellence, released a documentary titled 'Before the Flood' in association with National Geogr

'Roots' is a maiden effort at writing a book by Mr. Rahul Bhatt and he has made an utterly convincing debut. In the preceding 9 months of my book-reviewing career, I have come across 7 debut efforts and among them all, Mr. Bhatt's work stands tall. A book so enriching in plotting its stories and developing its characters that you will ultimately start feeling a part of it. This is a genuine effort at writing a standard novel where the author doesn't let the readers go off the hook even when they finish his work in multiple outings and every time you start picking up on this book, it makes sure it owns you. It's a voluminous book that demands the attention of readers and through it's sheer engrossing narrative and depth, weave magical spells on you. In the center of this book is the life-stories of Nakua Panditjee and Sarita/Rashmi. Panditjee has his roots in Tehri of old which is as most of us now is under Tehri Lake when the construction of a dam was announce

There is a sort of peculiar goofiness interspersed with innocence and environmental serenity that makes South Korean film 'very special'. 'The Way Home' was my first South Korean filming experience and it mesmerized me with its simplicity. Later on, I passed it on to several of my friends and they all loved it. Then there were some rom-coms and dramatic affairs from some of the most prominent Korean auteurs and they were quite different from usual Asian and Hollywood genre films in their treatment of story and characters. More so, I found out that like me, there are several aficionado of South Korean films and they were all near by.....Very surprising indeed. A day before yesterday, I stumbled across a home entertainment guide for October 2016 on rogereberts.com and it listed 'The Wailing', a South Korean metaphysical thriller cum horror flick among its most praised picks. I watched it yesterday as soon as I got the chance and the experience was 'overwhelm

I would like to start this review by saying that if you are going to buy this book simply on the basis of it's cover and blurb, you would be grossly mistaken. They are ambiguous, non-appealing and meaningless at best. There is no way they both would give you an idea how good this book is content-wise. Two beautiful successful ladies in their late 20s headline the plot and they each have got a scarred past. One of them, Rihana, the more vivacious and extrovert among the two, is a successful painter and she seeks solace in 'men' and her often-went-wrong 'sexual misadventures'. Her roommate, Zara, is more intelligent among the two and has been at the wrong end of a 'false' marriage with a gay man. Zara is a businesswoman and makes all her decision in life with aplomb. They both complement each other completely but are also unaware of each other's fateful 'past'. Their maid, Nandini, her daughter Gudiya and her abusive husband 'Harish' are a

At last year's book fair, I rounded exactly 191 shops to purchase a copy of Maxim Gorky's masterpiece 'Mother'. It was the very first book of my 18 purchases that i started to read. Almost 6 months down the line and it isn't finished yet....reason a simple one....it represents a hero of working class in a feudalistic environment led by Russian Tsars and thus basically champions the idea of socialism. Socialism is what I come to believe of is nothing but a shameless form of capitalism....I would call it thus, pseudo-capitalism...example is China and I wouldn't say much to gain your approval. I am writing this piece to celebrate the literary style of Maxim Gorky though. He was the most celebrated author of 20th century which boasted of pioneers such as G.B.Shaw, Antole France, Ibsen and not to leave the Russians, all of them a domineering force themselves, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgnev, Dostoyevsky and Gogol among many but Gorky eclipsed everyone of them with his sh

Continuing from my last post about 'Birdman', I want to add that this is the film that resembled the most with Rajat Kapoor's critically acclaimed film, 'Aankhon Dekhi' from Bollywood in terms of its depiction of 'Super-Realism'. In Birdman, Micheal Keaton tries to commit suicide on-stage out of sheer frustration for not being able to fulfill a promising acting prophecy whereas in Aankhon Dekhi, Sanjay Mishra does the exact opposite and in order to know the death up-close, he jumps from a cliff. Micheal Keaton hurts his nose instead and gets rave review for his 'super-real' performance. Sanjay Mishra, I believe, dies in Aankhon Dekhi (The ending of it is anybody's guess). Now talking about cast and crew of Birdman, Micheal Keaton headlines the roll credit while Naomi Watts, Zach Galifiankis, Edward Norton, Amy Ryan and Emma Stone play supporting cast. Micheal Keaton who lastly reminded us of his supreme acting talent back in 1989 with Tim Burto

Not this Government, nor any other Indian government can have my sympathy and ideological support until and unless it stops paying LIP SERVICE to the cause of our soldiers. Forget Kashmir or POK but the ones that are getting killed in our own internal periphery, say Chhatisgarh, Odisha, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, even their lives cannot be guaranteed. Here we are jettisoning 8-10 Billion Dollars Rafael Jets deal with France and there in Uri Sector, our soldiers are getting killed by Pakistani terrorists in lack of proper combat infrastructure. I have seen many Pakistanis trolling Indians on many FB pages here that you cannot do SHIT about us and now I have really started believing them. Their Foreign Minister goes on record saying Pakistan can NUKE us on any given day and knowing how secure their NUKES are (considering they share them with their so-called 'third-state actors, terrorists bhaijaans), they would definitely NUKE us one day. There is one more reason of their contemplatin

We have all had our share of Mathematics’ stories growing up. For 90% population out there in schools and colleges, it’s the biggest source of discouragement in continuing up of studies. I’m a Mathematics graduate myself and can speak of a proud mathematics tradition running in my family. I wasn’t an able torchbearer in the least of senses but I nevertheless tried my best. I never managed to master it, very few can boast of doing that but I was very respectful when it comes to scoring marks in it….always in the vicinity of 70% and never dropping below 60% throughout but this post isn’t about my tryst with Mathematics. It was someone else’s, a man who was said to be knowing ‘infinity’, a man who today is hailed as our national hero, a man who carried the name of Srinivas Ramanujan. Ramanujan died aged only 32. He lived in Cambridge for 5 years prior to his demise. During his time there, he formed one of the most productive and influential partnerships in recent history of Mathematics

Very often, we tend to underappreciate the efforts (or not care at all) that go into structuring and writing a wonderful story for a renowned publication. I can speak for myself in this regard. I just love the write-ups of Jarrod Kimber, Bryan Coverdale, Andrew Fidel Fernando, Late Peter Roebuck, Simon Barnes, Ed Smith, David Hopps, Ramchandra Guha, Sharda Ugra, Firdose Munda and many others while going through ESPN Cricinfo for my daily dose of Cricket round-ups and not until couple of years ago, I started to really admire them and their precocious writing skills. As for the films that are based on the write-ups of such genius minds, I, first of all, came across 'All the President's Men' that was based on 'Watergate Scandal'. The two journalists who covered it for 'The Washington Post' were Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Richard Nixon, the then President of America, had to resign after the publication of their story. The second such film for me was 'C

This is an appreciation post for Oscars Best Feature Film Nominee, the number 7th, Room (2016). Every once in a while in English-speaking world, a courageous director comes up with an audacious project that blows your mind away and you just couldn't fathom what you really experienced. These words might sound hollow if I am going to describe the authenticity of Room (2015). Whatever I shall be writing hereafter shall in no way do justice to the brilliance of this movie and I cannot possibly come up with any more adjectives to ornament it for they all would fall short. So let me narrate you the experiences of my fellow colleagues who are more popular, widely read and certainly more accomplished than me: Rotten Tomatoes: Led by incredible work from Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, Room makes for an unforgettably harrowing – and undeniably rewarding – experience. Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times) : The most impressive piece of filmmaking I've seen in 2015, and one of the best

It must be said that when I became routinely aware of the existence of Hollywood films, the one name that always crossed my path and eyes was 'Kill Bill'. It wasn't very hard to guess it's genre from its poster...Uma Thurman in a yellow spandex suit with a 'killer-looking' sword were very much indicating that it was an action film and we Indians LOVE action picchhers . But I wouldn't watch it, not until a week ago and the reason was that I never quite liked those 'action picchers'. It's very UnIndian to say but I was always more into 'Drama' and other genres of movies that unsurprisingly brought me to Hollywood and World Cinema doors. And Kill Bill I had to watch it because of two people that I respect and admire very much from movie fraternity, viz. Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert. As much as these two people were fond of each other, I was doubly in awe of them. One a master filmmaker and other, the most popular film critic of the world.

3rd time in a year or so that Mr. So-Called-The-Great-Finisher Lost us a tightly contested match. This match, the T-20 match at Harare against Tiripano (who) bowling and the ODI at Kanpur against Rabada. All these matches were India's to lose after the opposition was dead and buried going into the final overs and MS made sure India lose them. Even a novice IPL watcher knows that DJ Bravo always bowles the slower bowl to outfox his opponents and MS doesn't only know this but has even seen Bravo doing that first hand under his captaincy innumerable times. Bravo backed his skills as he had nothing to lose but Dhoni misunderstood his skills, that of a scrapper and not a six hitter, and went for everlasting glory. There is a generation of Cricket fans out there who call Sachin, Ganguly, Gavaskar and Dravid selfish but were these three incidents recalled above and many more that I cannot, aren't enough to qualify MS for the same misbegotten sin? Moreover, T-20s are a game for you

E.M. Forster's celebrated book, 'A Passage to India' and it's much revered silver screen adaptation by David Lean bears canny resemblance in their plot, yet the methods of storytelling and intentions are vastly different. Forster loved India and always stood against the oppressive British regime which denied the Indians a share of their own history and privileges. David Lean's movie, on the other hand, is pro-British and the court-trial that serves as the cornerstone of both the book and the movie, has been presented not so as farcical and actually quite in reverence of British judicial system in it as opposed to what's the book supposedly points to. E.M.Forster was always hesitant, even reluctant to share his book's storyplay with a movie director precisely for this very much possible 'deviation' and it was indeed David Lean's enviable reputation and his persuasion that led Forster to give his nod. And yet it happened. In spite of this genuine d

I was busy watching SLs fighting Australians at home and it wasn't really a fight per say.... It was more of an entrance test for Australians to check on their progress as for the preparation of upcoming marquee series with India and they spectacularly failed it. Herath, Sandakan and Dilruwan Parera looted their wickets in broad daylight. Most importantly, they compelled the Ozzie's to think of their approach to play spin bowling of appreciable quantity. This series has also provided us cricket fans with must watch SRi Lankan talent in years to come. The likes of Kusal Mendis, Dhananjay De Silva and Lakshan Sanadakan stepped up at crucial junctures and saved SL blushes when Australians have the opportunity to run away with the game. They are young guns of SL Cricket and their latest exciting finds. World Cricket will be a richer place if they continue to do justice with their exceptional gifts. Amen to that!!!!

Book Title: The Color of Love Publisher: Notion Press Author: Jagdish Joghee 'The Color of Love' is Mr. Joghee's second offering and a worthy addition to his repertoire after making an impressive debut with 'In Love and Free'. Love and more importantly, 'selfless love' is again given a central theme here and author builds up his story from two key geographical locations in Sharjah, Dubai and Coimbatore, India. Geography plays a key role in Mr. Joghee's work for I had noticed him using Sri Lanka's picturesque places like Kandy and Bentota for giving his story another twist in his first novel. Our protagonist, Sarfaraz, works as a senior sales manager for Michelin Tyre in Dubai and is a successful corporate personnel but he has got a rough past where he is not only labelled as a goon and thug but also loses (presumably) the love of his life, Meghna who he had come to recognize his true love after much deliberation and several confrontations with

Indian Hockey has improved by leaps and bounds in last couple of years but when it comes to facing the stronger European teams, they are still faltering. If our loss to Germany in last 3 seconds was not enough, we again came to standstill after scoring an equalizer against the Dutch and one could sense they were almost praying to Gods that Holland didn't score, having lost S V Sunil and Raghunath to tackles and reduced to 9 playing men in the field. But Holland obviously scored playing aggressive hockey and like all good teams, they were in need of one defensive loophole in our D. But it wasn't that Gods were only with the Dutch....Indians came alive in last 4 minutes and in the very last minute with 6 seconds remaining, gained not one, not two but 6 penalty corners after rebounds and rebounds but unfortunately, couldn't score the equalizer and thus again, after playing such a competitive and hard-fought match, we lost the game 2-1........We haven't still qualified for

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in England lost by six wickets (meaning ‘ the English cricket team’). Continuing from the definition, 'Synecdoche, New York' would mean recreating a part of 'New York' that would represent this mega city in totality and this is what 'Caden Cotard', our protagonist, aims to do while staging his dream play. He is a theater director of repute and has won a 'MacArthur Fellowship' for achievements. MacArthur Fellowship contains handsome prize money and allows a theater director to pursue his dream project. Caden Cotard has led an unsuccessful life so far with his wife, a painter by profession, leaving him with their daughter to Germany. He is also suffering from various physical ailments and doesn't really know what's happening with him. Hazel, a woman who works at his production's box office, is attracted to him but even after knowing that, Caden do

J.C.Ballard has written two novels of note: Crash and Empire of the Sun.....the latter one is a semi autobiographical work of literature that's based on author's own experience with calamities of second world war. Sun here represents Japan and the book and subsequent film by Steven Spielberg tells the story of Japanese possession of China before their attack on Pearl Harbour. We shall talk about the films later. The books need to be discussed first. Crash is as bizarre a book of fiction as one can ever dream of. It's so freaky a work of literature that I cannot even begin to explain what story it tries to narrate to us. And that's why I decided to watch the movie that was directed by David Cronenberg. Now David Cronenberg is an accomplished director of horror and psychological thriller genres and Crash's material wasn't really related to both of them. The movie was certainly much more explanatory than the book but it's climax again left me clueless. I then

It's been a while since I came across a quality work of literature that could provide me with enough brownie points. A quality work of literature need not be complex in nature or its constituting elements. It could be a emblematic of simple story narrated with subtlety, nuances, intrigue and just enough emotional charge. One such work I found in Mr. Jagdish Joghee's debut novel viz. 'In Love and Free'. Central Idea of this book is 'infidelity' and that's one topic Indian authors of Metropolitan cities are exploiting relentlessly. And this is not to suggest it's only a tier-1 or tier-2 cities' phenomenon, it's rather an age old infatuation and false thrill that put its practitioners almost always in danger. Our book's heroine Ms. Shruthi is a very strong character who has been fantastic with her studies, family, husband and kids. She has got money, she has got career and she lives without a care in the world but she unintentionally (first) fal

The 'Hot Rod' Rowdy Roddy Piper has passed away. To all of those who don't know him, he was a pro-wrestling legend, a WWE veteran and in exactly the same league as other icons such as Hulk Hogan and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. To a generation of fans, wrestling or non-wrestling regardless, he was the first 'Original Rebel' of an institution. He could very well be the first man to wear the title of ANTI-HERO for, for the entire course of his wrestling career, he defied the company orders and that too by portraying a 'heel' character on national television and even then went on to become the one of the most loved and admired wrestling characters. And I haven't yet mentioned his wrestling skills and work ethics. He once worked 91 days straight without taking a break for a wrestling promotion. 'Working' for a pro-wrestling promotion as an active wrestler is not a 9am-5pm job, ladies and gentleman. It means you have to grapple with fellow wrest

It's absolutely fabulous time to be a test cricket fan right now. Four top teams competing in four different corners of the world with four pretty competitive ones. Ind and WI; Aus and SL; Pak and Eng; and NZ v Zim......test cricket is well and truly on a glorious course. Bulawayo gets a test match to host after 5 years and that's a welcome change for Zimbabwe Cricket. Zimbabwe being one of the 10 full members of ICC does need the supreme form of Cricket to survive and function and I'm glad New Zealand were willing to play them in their home conditions. But the most heartening cricket stories of this week come from the 'Pearl of Indian Ocean, i.e. Sri Lanka'. They always unearth truly extraordinary and super special cricketers when the chips are down and this time, they have managed to find two such gems: Lakshan Sandakan, a wiry, young left arm wrist spinner and Kushal Mendis, said to be a hybrid of Mahela and Arvinda De Silva. Sandakan represents the tiniest subs

I was about to do a full feature on UFC's most famous and hyped 200th PPV but the news that Brock Lesner, the co-headliner of Mega, Landmark Event had failed a drug test made me changed my mind. Brock as we all know is an athlete of few equals in world, has been my key reason to cover this event. He made a triumphant return in Octagon against Mark Hunt, the number 8th ranked heavyweight MMA fighter in world and collected a winner's purse of USD 2.5 millions but this latest development of a failed drug test will not only jeopardize his earnings but as well his future engagements with both WWE (which he currently signed with) and UFC (no one can deny his future with them). He is currently scheduled to fight Randy Orton at WWE flagship event of Summerslam, a fight that was 14 years in the making but everything will be in dark now. WWE too has revised its drug-test policy to tilt in recent years and regularly suspends its performers when they fail it. They have, just couple of week

European feature films are quite different in nature when compared to Asian and American productions. They usually represent simple tales of emotions or human beings and seldom dwell in their complexities. They are slicker in nature and unilateral in their pacing. They don't force the viewers to make too many conclusions, instead they make them soak all that happened on screen. I came across these realizations while watching two of their examples and I must say I didn't like them too much although I picked them for the same elements that I generally like to see in Asian and Hollywood productions: Stellar Starcast, Intriguing Plot and their Critical Acclaim. Both these films: A Bigger Splash and Rust and Bone had all these elements aplenty and despite the fact I didn't like them still, they have remained 'etched' in my memory ever since I watched them.....it's more than 10 days now!!! 'A Bigger Splash' stars Ralph Fienns, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnso

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' has been panned universally for its supposedly 'muddled' writing, long duration and wrongfully messing with two of America's greatest superheroes. I watched it yesterday. It wasn't awfully bad. It was, in fact, nearly good. Yes, it was dragging. Character development wasn't there. Plot was slowly deconstructing......blah, blah, blah but I believe accommodating two of the greatest superheroes of USA in a 3-hour feature film (Ultimate Edition was 3-hour long and received more favorable acclaim from critics) was a risky proposition from the very start and summer blockbusters rarely receive critical acclaim barring helmed from Tim Burton, Steven Speilberg and Christopher Nolan. Considering these notions, 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' was an appreciable effort with extraordinary visuals and jaw-dropping action sequences. Batman and Superman fight sequence was fantastic and then there was 'Aquaman' creati

'In the Name of The Father' is a 1993 biographical courtroom drama directed by Jim Sheridan and stars Daniel Day Lewis, Emma Thompson and Pete Postlethwaite. I came across this film while doing a feature on Daniel after his victory of Best Actor Award for 'Lincoln'. I first watched it in year 2013 I guess and wanted to write immediately about it but as it happens with me, some other emotions of work took over me and I didn't do what was required. However, the movie and its portrayal of 'Guildford Four' or IRA's conspired 'Guildford Pub bombing' has ever since been etched in my memory. Jim Sheridan had previously directed Daniel in 'My Left Foot' and it got both of them Oscars. Daniel Day Lewis since then has established himself as one of those 'untouchable' acting deities of World. Three Oscar Wins as Best Leading Actor.....no one has ever done that in Oscars history and this film gives us the glimpses of his earliest acting pot

Things I did in last two weeks while being bedridden: a) Watched Two of Johnny Depp's most recent movies (not that wonderland one) : Black Mass (A Must Watch) and Donald J. Trump's Art of Dealing (If you wanna watch how Depp could possibly look like Donald Trump......if you go with my words, he has absolutely killed it) b) Watched 'Zootopia'.........it's surprisingly good!!!! c) Watched 'Salt n Pepper' (Malyalam) and Sairat (Marathi): Both are certificates to the fact that how good our regional cinema is doing!!! d) Watched FAN.....why because Pakistanis loved it......I didn't get the logic but Shah Rukh as Gaurav Chandna was fantastic and unmissable!!!! e) Watched Game of Thrones last two episodes....immensely satisfying television.....couldn't complain......couldn't be more overjoyed!!!! (Hope to follow on this one later) f) Read tonnes of articles on Brexit and yes, it did happen!!!! g) Watched Copa America Final (my first major

Yeah, it's been a while. Let's start with GoT S06 E08. This whole season has been so disappointing and frustrating that given a suitable option, I would really like to hang on but let's go on for a while. Daenaris Targaryan gets kidnapped by her baby dragon and drops her off in Khal Dothrak. She comes back to Meeren after burning everything and with whole lot of Dothraki soldiers. Anything surprising???? Arya Stark decides to be a STARK again and makes her wishes known to Jaqen H'Ghar (It's really an exotic name). He decides to drop her off the hook instead via Waif. Waif is a lusty killer but she really can't kill Baby Arya. This is Bollywood stuff, really and It's Waif's face that gets hung on one of the pillars of 'House of Black and White'. But what's really is this 'House of Black and White' anyway? Surprises, not really!!!! OK.....Who is this Breyndan 'The Blackfish' Tully? During Episode 5, Ser Davos Seaworth, former

I first came across Jonathan Pryce while watching 'Glengarry Glen Ross'. He was there in a scene with Pacino where Pacino, playing a real estate salesman's character, tries to convince Pryce, his prospective client about buying a USD 500,000 property. Pryce was there in the film for only about 20 minutes and still in a film clouded by the presence of heavyweights such as Ed Harries, Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Jack Lemmon, he leaves an indelible mark on viewers' psyche. I have written this past sentence on basis of my memory which at that time dictated Pryce was a lightweight. I'm comparably enlightened now. Jonathan Pryce was never a lightweight. Like Pacino, stage had always been his preference and cinema, only a means for playing bills. His protruding eyes and angular figure were never fit to make him a bona fide movie star in Hollywood but he has become a very respectable stage giant in USA and UK. TV was also never his media but in a move

The one thing people have come to identify me with in last three years is my love for picking up the fights and exaggerations. Friends, enemies, frenemies; no one has been spared. I have fought these battles for my own and others who mattered though I cannot really say whether I mattered for them. It was all extreme, no quarters given, none expected and I never LOST, NEVER. But I have lost many things. People of all three kinds mentioned above. Health, yes, quite a bit. Reputation, cannot really say. Some still admire me and at a given point of time, only these 'some' matter. Regrets, oh Come on, NONE. I watch House of Cards ( and Kevin Spacey in it) for God's sake. Then what's that troubling me that I'm saying all these things again in a hyperbolic fashion? Look, a person has got only too many fights left in him and with my interiors, no one was expecting me to come this far. I mean, some people really hate me and I'm taking all this heat and giving them mani

Let's move on.......there is something infectious about Bollywood that gets to you. For me, it's the portrayal of human emotions and I believe they do it best in entire world. I never saw a critic writing in his report that he cried and wept his eyes out while watching a movie but it happened to Ms. Anupama Chopra of NDTV, one of the bravest and most emotionally restrained personalities while watching NEERJA. Well, I cried too for it was a genuine weeper. And it's not that Bollywood is only trying to make us cry, it made us think too with its 2015 offerings in Haider, Piku and Badlapur. Bollywood is turning 'ambiguous' and it's a real, gigantic leap forward for we praise HOLLYWOOD for the same reason as they always lets and most importantly makes us decide who was right and who was wrong. I first got to taste this novelty in Onir's I AM where characters of Juhi Chawla and Manisha Koirala were miles apart in their fundamental thinking but they were both right

When I started reading Sandeep Sharma's second book, Let The Game Begin, it instantaneously reminded me of Surendra Mohan Pathak's work. Commercial fiction at its 'boorish' best. Mr. Pathak has been penning novels at a breathtaking speed for last 30-odd years and so far, the count is somewhere in the vicinity of 300. He is credited as the undisputed pocket book-king of India and I wouldn't go as far to say Sandeep is matching his aura here but he is certainly trying to match his style, unknowingly. He has added one more dimension to his second book which Pathak's works always lacked; yes, a tinge of mythology, a favorite writing-genre of writers of today but not yesteryears. But I shouldn't really be comparing his works with Mr. Pathak's, I must rather do it with Sandeep's first book: Hey Dad! Meet My Mom. It was a terrific debut work but can I say the same for this one, I seriously doubt. Whereas HDM3 was a flawless piece of work from every literary

WWE once again botched up the handling of one of its most naturally gifted superstar in Cody Rhodes. In case you don't know him, he is the son of Legendary Wrestler Dusty Rhodes and baby brother of another legend, 'Goldust'. WWE released him from his contract with them couple of days ago. His tag team days with Ted Debiase which were his early days too in WWE were pure gold. They made a formidable team and matched each other's talent, physique and persona with impressive maturity. It's pretty sad that now both of them are not with WWE. After their Golden days, WWE couldn't put them (call it their stupidity or lack of good storylines) in right places and after scratching their ways through sorry, witless and pointless gimmicks, matches and storylines, they quit. Frankly speaking, they did it for good. Ted isn't with WWE since quite long and now his partner in crime has said goodbye too. They won't be facing the visibility issue thanks in no small parts t

This IPL season might be dubbed as 'Kohli's IPL' in years to come. He is unarguably the best exponent of white-ball batsmanship going around. However, for someone like me who places a great emphasis on longest form of Cricket i.e. Test Cricket, until and unless he proves himself in seeming and swinging conditions of England and New Zealand (I believe in him and thus shall wish him luck), I shall still rank him behind Kane Williamson and Joe Root. Just to make sure I'm impartial to this debate, I put my favorite cricketer of all time i.e. Sourav Ganguly behind Sachin, Sehwag, Laxman and Dravid when it comes to rank him in FAB FIVE of Indian Batsmanship because he simply wasn't as good as them in test cricket. Many call him a very good test cricketer and maintaining an average of 40 in test cricket from the very beginning till the very end signifies their reasoning but still, he fell short of 45/50 that makes a batsman statistical behemoth in purest form of Cricket.

I bet not many of you could claim to watch Gulshan Devaiah's Hunterrr starring also the ever-so-magnificent Radhika Apte. Like many of those great, misleading movies, it also gets categorized wrongly, an adult comedy (Thank your Gods and Indian Censor Board for at least calling it THAT) precisely whereas if you would ask me, I shall simply like to call it an 'adult drama'. It's undoubtedly hilarious in many parts but if a comedy makes you cringe in your guts, what would you call it? It also made me sad at various moments and then let me empathize with its lead characters in Radhika Apte, Gulshan and his friend Kshitij. Let me go one better: It's a very serious film that discusses the concept of perverseness and sexual mischievousness explicitly through its protagonist, Mandhar. Mandhar is a VASU, apparently a some type of sect that tries to hit on girls and women repeatedly without really committing to a long term relationship or letting itself fall in LOVE. Success

I was watching Highway upon its release in one of the last remaining single screen theatres of Karolbagh and it was a surreal moment. Location had something to do with it definitely but it had to do something Randeep Hooda and Alia Bhatt as well. Probably, that was the moment when I started imagining Alia peeping Parineeti out on the finish line in next decade. But hasn't Alia already done that? Parineeti, still my favorite, is nowhere to be seen. But what about the Burly Hooda? Through his sheer hard work and all the qualities that make a man of iron, he has crafted a niche of his own. Highway was a high point in his career but nobody really talked about him. Just one month ago this year, Laal Rang followed. He does Indie films like Junkie and very often, he helps them to uplift their portfolio. Now Sarabjit is coming out and once again, Indian media is talking not about him but Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. He shall not only surpass her but that powerful actor in Richa Chaddha too, I&#

Hi, Following are the titles that I found totally mind-twisting-and-bursting: a) Requiem for a Dream (Darren Arofnosky), b) Trainspotting (Danny Boyle), c) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (you all must have watched it), d) Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese), e) Irreversible (French production, Monica Belucci), f) The Tree of Life (Terry Gilliam), g) Cloud Atlas (Tom Hanks et al.), h) Brazil (Terry Gilliam, again), i) District 9 (Mind-blowing too), j) Martyr (French production), k) Oldboy (South Korean Production), l) The Ring 1 & 2 (You must have watched it), m) The Prestige (Nolan), n) Inception (probably the mother of all mindf*ck of a movies) o) Se7en (David Fincher, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt) I hope you would contribute massively in expanding this list. Thank you.

It's been a long while since I wrote anything of note about the game I love the most. Yes Cricket is what I am talking about and going to talk about in the following write-up. I had couple of topics to start with: the resurgence of English Limited Overs Cricket and the status of Ahmadi Muslims in first class and international cricket of Pakistan; but I had to abandon them for times to come because something very tragic took place today in the morning and being a passionate follower of the game, the incident swept the floor beneath me feet. Tony Cozier, the voice of West Indian Cricket and international cricket at large for last 58 years, left us for a better place in the morning. Many legends instantly started paying their condolences to this iconic, colossus figure of World Cricket but hardly any of them were finding the right words to compensate for the loss left by his passing. Michael Holding came probably the nearest in assessing his contribution to West Indian Cricket as he e