Movie Review: 3 Idiots

If you ask me to describe this movie in one word, I have this to say; "WOW". It's a movie which would keep your mind engrossed long after you have left the theater. It's a movie which comes in the league of Munna Bhai MBBS, RDB, Lagaan etc. Now you can imagine how much I liked it to shower it with such eulogies. It’s a definite watch for every moviegoer. These three hours could be the most entertaining experience in your memory. Yes, it's a complete three hours movie, and yet you do not get to know even a bit how time goes by. And, let me tell you, this movie is NOT a direct pick from 'Five Point Someone'. It's very different.


Story: Rancho (Aamir Khan), Farhan (Madhvan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) are friends in an engineering college. After their graduation Rancho has gone somewhere and is no longer in touch with them. The story starts with Farhan getting a call about the whereabouts of Rancho. And the two friends start their journey to meet their old friend. The story goes back in the past and in the flashback college days start. Rancho has a completely different approach in life towards studies and engineering. He feels that gaining knowledge is more important than getting good marks in the exams. He loves machines and engineering, though hates his Director, nick named Virus, played by Bomen Irani. Right on the first day of college, when others are being ragged by the seniors, Rancho shows that how a simple fact that salt water is good conductor of electricity can be used for practical purposes and teaches the senior a lesson when he tries to pee on Rancho's door. The very next day he asks the Director a question which leaves him dumb founded and other students, including his room-mates Madhvan and Raju, impressed. Daggers are drawn between Rancho and Virus and thus starts the battle between the two. The story goes on showing how the students are being taught only the rote knowledge and how the pressure to get the maximum marks in the exams forces one of the students to commit suicide. Rancho blames the Director for his suicide and tells him that it was not a suicide but a murder. The battle intensifies. Virus tries again and again to prove that he is right in his way of teaching the students and Rancho proves him wrong every time. In the mean time he meets Kareena kapoor in a wedding ceremony and makes good fun of her fiance. In extremely hilarious ways he proves to her that the guy is nothing but a price tag, thinking and speaking only about the price, attached to each and every thing he wears or gifts. The story goes on with the ups and downs in the lives of Farhan and Raju. It also turns out that Rancho is the son of a millionaire but Raju and Farhan are from poor families, shouldering the burden of their whole family and parents. Amidst all these Virus challenges them that none of them can get a job from the college, in case it happens he would sacrifice his moustache. Once while making fun of Virus by peeing in the letter box at his door, Raju is caught red handed by virus and is threatened to be rusticated from the college unless he accepts that Rancho is behind all the incident. Not being able to decide between the two options, Raju tries to commit suicide by jumping off the window from Virus' room. He survives but goes in coma with one leg broken. Rancho and Farhan do their best to bring him back to life, including all the funny, though not much sensitive, ways.

So what happens to them? Are the idiots able to fulfill the dreams of their parents? Are they able to win the heart of Virus? Is Virus able to save his moustache? Watch the movie to know all these and to have much more fun, which I don't have words to express here. I am sure you would like it.


About the Director: (of the movie, ofcourse, not the college, Virus :)
Raj Kumar Hirani is a master story teller. He is the man who knows where to step on the gas and where to apply brakes while telling the story. When things start turning too sentimental, he throws a whiff of comedy to lighten up the situation. This movie is a manifestation of his directorial skill, which he has already shown in the movies like Munnabhai series. This movie is a perfect execution of a simple story. I tell you nothing can be more perfect. He has made sure that the movie never drags itself in its three hours span. If you have enjoyed Munnabhai, you are going to love this as well, I bet.
I was expecting it to be the story of 'Five Point Someone' but it's not. There are similarities between the characters in the movie and in the book, and also some part of the story, but he has changed it in such a way that even if you have read the book hundreds of times, you remain bound to the movie, and to the seat as well.

The Cast:
Oh, the cast. The other day I saw a banner in India Sri Lanka Cricket match. It said "When God wanted to play cricket, Sachin Tendulkar was born." The same applies to Aamir Khan. When God wanted to Act, Aamir was born. He is such a genius. Playing a 22 year old when you are 44, is not a small feat. But he has pulled it off so well, that no one can complain. The fact that he was in a completely different get up and looks in his immediate last movie, Ghajini, makes me admire him even more. Sharman Joshi and Madhvan have supported him superbly. At some places, I felt that Madhvan was not a good choice for playing the role of a college student because of his bulges and paunch, but rest was fine. Bomen Irani, the perennial choice of Raj Kumar Hirani to play the role of a Dean/Professor, is fantabulous as always. But I would say he had done a better job in Munnabhai. Kareena kapoor has acted good, how I wish she looked good at least once in the movie. I would better not talk about her. Then there is Chatur, funny name with funny accent and equally funny role. Rest all the actors have done justice to their roles.

Cons of the movie:
At some places you may feel like it becomes too dramatic and theatrical. Like the birth of Mona's child. But it's a movie, being released from Bollywood, for Indian masses, so, there is no other choice. :)

Overall the movie is a wonderful package which you would love for sure, and would love it even more if you have graduated from an engineering college.

General Profile page on ICICI Direct

I have a Dmat account with ICICIDirect. everytime I used to place an order, after it's successfult execution, ICICI Direct sends an e-mail about the details of the order placed, and other service charges along with an attached pdf file. This pdf file is passwrod protected and the pass word is the e-trading account number. The mail also says where to find this number. It states that the number can be found on the General Profiles page. But when you log in to your account in ICICIDirect.com, this General Profile page is nowhere seen. There are so many links and so much of information but no where General Profile link is available. After much wandering I could find this link under the submenu Customer Services. Click on the menu link Customer Services and there you find the link to General Profile. The trading account number given on this page is the password to open the pdf docs sent by ICICIDirect.

Hope this information is useful for someone and helps save his/her precious time while trying to get the password to open icicidirect files.

Movie Review: NewYork

Movie Review: NewYork

This Friday I went to watch the movie ‘NewYork’. It’s a movie directed by Kabeer khan based on the events which followed the WTC twin tower attack in US. Though it’s been long since the incident took place and the culprits of the heinous crime have been brought to book long back, when you watch the movie you get to realise that the subject touched in the movie is actually something which is much more contemporary than the incident of twin tower collapse. The movie actually deals with the lives of three friends in the aftermath of the 9/11 incident and hence shows how people can be forced to change their ideology because of something they had nothing to do in the first place.

There have been many movies made on the 9/11 attack in US. Most of them dealt with the people who were directly involved with the incident. But there were some movies, like ‘Khuda ke liye’ ( a Pakistani movie, highly acclaimed by people and critics as well), ‘yu hota to kya hota’, etc which dealt with the lives of the people who were not linked to the attack but were the victims of the tragedy directly, as most of the movies showed how a close relative of the main characters died in the incident and so on. But NewYork is a bit different. It shows the indirect effect on some of the people, who are Americans, who live in America, but still get swooped into the cyclone which starts after the incident, just because they are Muslims. It forces them to turn into something they never wanted and imagined to be, just to take revenge of the injustice meted out to them.

Overall the movie is a good package. You enjoy the first half because of the bubbly character of Katrina Kaif and the fresh looks of Neil Nitin Mukesh. Second half is dominated by John Abraham. All the actors are good and have done justice to their roles. Irfan Khan is, as usual, superb in his role of an FBI officer. His effortless, still impeccable, dialogue delivery is worth watching. Katrina has matured in her acting skills. Neil is like a fresh breeze in the movie and looks no less than a Hollywood actor with his brown stubbles. Overall everyone has good amount of screen presence and they have done their job well.

But the part in the movie which I did not like was its end. The end was the saddest way an anti-climax can be written by a script writer. Looks like director felt that now it’s two and half hour, lets wrap it up. And in an abrupt manner, the movie ends, leaving many questions unanswered.

But I never expect every Hindi movie to be as good as ‘A Wednesday’. You have to give them some leeway. Overall I would say it’s a “Paisa-Wasool” movie. You can definitely spend three hours and 150 bucks without regretting it later.

The Blonde Bet ..... Funny !!!

A blonde and a redhead met for dinner after work and were watching the 6 o'clock news.(repeat channel) A man was shown threatening to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. The blonde bet the redhead $50 that he wouldn't jump, and the redhead replied, "I'll take that bet!"

Anyway, sure enough, he jumped, so the blonde gave the redhead the $50 she owned. The redhead said, "I can't take this, you're my friend." The blonde said, "No. A bet's a bet."

So the redhead said, "Listen, I have to admit, I saw this one on the 5 o'clock news, so I can't take your money."

The blonde replied, "Well, so did I, but I never thought he'd jump again!".........................................

:O)

Bra Sizes........ Very Funny !!!

Ever wonder why A-B-C-D-E-F are used to define bra sizes?

A - Almost

B - Better

C - Cute

D - Damn good

E - Enormous

F - Fake



PS. . . they should add a new size for the over 50 group.
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G - Gone South

:0)

What an Idea SirJi

So my dear brothers and sisters, here comes another incident of shoe throwing today. This time it's on LK Advani. I said, WAH!! KYA BAAT HAI !!! .. it seems that the Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoe for the first time on George Bush, must be rewarded with something like Nobel prize or something of the same sort. KYA INVENTION KIYA HAI USNE !!! Bhai Wah.. He has kind of opened a completely new vista of knowledge for the mankind. Insaan ko to pata hi nahi tha ki he had such a potent weapon with him all the time.. No bomb detector can suspect it, no security instrument can detect it, no security personal can ask you to remove it.. arey bhai .. joota pahan-na is our basic right.. how can any one ask us to remove it before entering into a function hall ? I mean, really superb invention.
Very soon we will find that in any public meetings, leaders are looking less into the eyes of the people and more at their feet, apprehending which shoe may hurt him more if it finds its lucky target. This is something which one does only to the person he reveres or dreads of. Oh! our leaders would do that to us.. I can't believe it. Tussi great ho Mr. Zaidi!
But agar aisa na hua toh ? What If a rule is passed banning all the shoes. What if shoes are labeled as a security threat ? Alas!! in that case we may have to take a licence for wearing shoes. pahle Gun ka license hota tha.. ab shoe ka license hoga.. Kids in school will ask each other, tere paas action ka license hai? mere paas to Nike ka international license hai.. At the signals traffic police will ask for shoe license more than driving license. No one would threaten some one by saying 'joota phek ke maroonga'... Joota would be such a precious comodity then. But let's hope that no such rule is passed and we get a chance to see our leaders staring at our feet (out of respect or scare, anything will do).

Wah Mr. Zaidi, what an idea sir ji !!!

My new Technical Blog

I started my new technical blog a few days back. It is going to be centered around Oracle technologies, mostly database concepts, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Applications , Human Resource Management in Oracle Apps etc. The URL is as follows:
http://memyselfandoracle.wordpress.com/

Feel free to visit the same and post your comments, doubts, suggestions etc.

Happy reading !!

New trick in Yahoo mail.. nice one..

In yahoo mail, while composing a new message, click on the button 'Subject' (right next to the text window where you type in subject of the mail) and see what happens.. :-)
It's a pleasant surprise.. you may get many catchy lines to impress your friends with your mail... try it... you would like it..

Fight to save Indian culture !!! What culture ?

Today is 15th Feb and it's been one day since Valentine Day is over. News channels are full of news showing the moral police (moral or immoral, I sincerely wonder) trying to tame the boys and girls bent on spoiling our Bhartiya Sanskriti (Indian Culture). Well, like millions of other people watching the news even I watched it, surfed channels after channels, grumbled over their acts and moved on to the next channels to see something different. Call it my fortune or something else, I got to see my own culture on some other channels at the same time. On NDTV Imagine, these days they are broadcasting Ramayana. It's almost in the last stage of Ramayana. Ravana has been killed and Lord Ram has saved Sitaji from Lanka. Today's episode had the story showing SitaJi going through the Agni-Pariksha to prove her chastity. I watched it for some time, with, let me be frank, a great surprise, as to what our culture teaches us about women. On another channel (it was some Star channel, I guess), there was Mahabharata being aired. It was the Mahabharata story shown in the form of an animated movie. As it was a movie, it went on very fast. Again there were many parts of the story, e.g. Madri (mother of Nakul and Sahdev) getting Sati (practice of being burnt alive with the dead body of her husband) after the death of Pandu, Gandhari choosing to be blind all over her life after getting married to a blind person, Draupadi marrying to five pandavas without any protest, Pandavas betting their own wife in the game of chausar etc etc, made me wonder, if this is what our Bhartiya Sanskriti teaches us about women!!!

It made me really think and ponder over the position our culture has given to the women in society. When we were kids these stories were taught to us and we learned them most reverently. At that time Sitaji going for Agni Pariksha looked like the most noble thing a woman can do. I must agree that I could not understand much of what was going on and why it was being done. I was a kid and unaware as well as ignorent of many things in life. Now that I have my own conscience and logical power, I can and would ask, why was it necessary for SitaJi to go for the chastity test ? She was in captive by a demon king. She had no power whatsoever to fight with him, otherwise she would not have been in captivity for fourteen long years. If God Ram had the right to ask her to prove her chastity, so had Sitaji from her husband! But that did not happen. It was the woman who had to prover herself, without any protest and only then she was accepted by her husband. we all watched it, and clapped too!!! Moral of the story, Ramayana teaches that between husband and wife, its the wife who should always do the sacrifice, large or small, irrespective of the enormity.

Talking about Mahabharata, I simply shudder describing the way women have been portrayed in this story. Some of the examples I have already given above in the first paragraph. There are plenty of them in Mahabharata which clearly shows that women had no self identity, no individual character without their husband. A woman's husband could make her a Dasi in one moment, just because he had nothing else to bet, and in the next moment someone could take all of her dignity in front of the eyes of hundreds of people. There were many such stories. we all watched it, and clapped too!!! Moral of the story, Mahabharata teaches us even worse, about the status and position a woman in a man's life, than Ramayana.

Now I want to ask Mr Mutalik and to all those countless abc dal and xyz sena people, what kind of culture do they want the girls of today's India to learn ? There was a time when a completely servile wife was looked upon as an epitome of culture and civilization. But at what cost ? She had no freedom in life and was molded into thinking that she should have no wish to have any freedom in life. Do you guys want that kind of culture brought back to today's society ? If today's girl wants to break those shackles and want to have little more freedom and independence for a better life, what's wrong with it ?
There can be pages after pages written on this issue. But I would like to stop it here, hoping that I have been able to make my point clear to the reader of this blog. Having said that, I must add that there are many good examples to emulate in these epics and we must follow them. But as far as the status of women is concerned, we are far better-off now than then.

Jai Hind !