Reality Show - Raaz Peechale Janam Ka

Yesterday, I happened to bump into the latest reality show on NDTV Imagine - "Raaz Peechale Janam Ka" (The secret of last life). Apparently some female is having some psychic powers with which she can help you see your last life. I didn't get to watch the entire episode, but whatever I saw kept me wondering with many questions.

The episode that I saw had Sekhar Suman as the person who was getting to know about his last life. Apparently, in his last birth, he was a scottish person with some Army background and he has lost his family in some some kind of fire, including his "then" kid. It was surprising to know that Sekhar's son (this birth) was afraid of Diwali crackers...

With the recent fad of reality shows mashrooming on every channel (including MTV and V TV, which once were dedicated to only music), I keep on wondering where this is heading. "Rakhi ka swayamwar", "Perfect Bride", "Pati, Patni aur Woh", "Big Boss" and what not. Where are good serials (with some definitive and acceptable endings)? Good humor? Good Detective Series? All the good things on the TV channels seems to have vanished under the cloud of "Reality shows"

Some questions that kept me wondering about this "Raaz Peechale Janam Ka" series:

1. Why is this show restricted to celebrities? (obviously TV channels think audience has sufficient time to know about celebrities' last life even after bombarding them with the happening's in those celebrities' lives)
2. What's the reason any celebrity would participate in such a show?
3. What is the proof that this is actually a "reality" show and the script is not cooked up?
4. Why does a celebrity like to open up such personal things in front of camera? If there would have been such a power and if I had chosen to know about my last life, I would not definitely tell about it to everyone even in my family, forget about unknown folks in the society (yes, I agree I am not a celebrity, but still ... )

Update: When I did a simple google on this show, I stumbled upon this site - http://tvserialandshow.blogspot.com - this person is blogging about almost all the serials being aired on the TV channels. If you are interested go and read about some of them...

Movie Review - New Moon

As expected, the movie turned out to be boring.

Nothing much was happening in the movie. I spent time in figuring out some of the lose ends which could get resolved only after I talked to Meghana as she had read the book.

The movie has added twist of existence of werewolves, which happened to be around Bella in the form of Human Beings. Her best friedn Jacob himself is a werewolf and the sequence in which this was revealed was the only piece I could remember after the movie. Jacob is trying to be protective of Bella and wants to keep her away from Vampires (Collins family), but ultimately loses to Edward as Bella decides to chose love against the best friend.

All in all, I didn't feel that story has advanced worth 2 hours.

Avoiding Traffic Jam

Simple rules for avoiding Traffic Jam:

• If the road ahead is blocked, do not cross the middle line of the road and try to move ahead in the queue. If you do, you'd only add to the traffic jam. Everyone in the queue is equally eager to reach the destination and not just you.
• When you reach a circle aka chowk, and if the road ahead is blocked, then wait well before the chowk/circle to clear the road. This will at least keep the cross traffic moving and will not create a circular congestion.
• And yes, if you see the traffic jam ahead, do not hesitate to take a diversion to some other road. It would only help in not adding to the traffic jam, even though you may end up taking a little longer route.
  

Setting up a wrong precedent

By announcing a separate state for Telangana, under the threat from TRS leader's hunger strike has set a very wrong precedent. Probably in order to earn some quick good book entries, Congress Govt has taken this unilateral decision and now everyone in the nation is going to pay for this in some or the other way. There would be many more demands from other states, e.g. Maharastra, Gujrat, for separate states to fulfil wishes from some highly ambitious but not so effective politicians.

Note that I am neither in favor of the split nor against it, I am just worried about the aftereffects of this hasty decision. UPA government is already under fire and seems to have gone on back foot

"Gandhi told agitated non-Telangana MPs that all views would be taken into account during talks. "

Wasn't this supposed to happen before taking the decision? And this is coming from the current superpower in the nation.

We had a similar split earlier - creation of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh etc. Has anyone gone back and checked if creation of these smaller states has resolved the original problems? Are we in a position to say authoritatively that smaller states would bring more development to each of those states? And as Chetan has mentioned in one of the tweets - what exactly will cutting up a state and spending crores making new admin setup, will do for the people there?

I was expecting a mature innings from UPA government this time around given that they have a full majority and don't need to bow to unreasonable demands.

Struggling for a routine

Finding it hard to continue the thing that you like? e.g. regularly reading newspaper? Reading your Google feeds? Watching a particular program on some channel? Visiting/calling friends regularly?

I hope I am not the only one who is struggling to get into some kind of routine to make these things happen. E.g. I used to read newspaper everyday morning when I was in my old house. Since the time I have shifted to new place, this has gone for a toss. Reason - the newspaper is not delivered even until I am ready to leave for office. I am getting a bit regular on my google reader feeds (thanks to evony-free days :)) (yet another attempt).

Since the priorities have changed (Mrunmay taking most of my time at home), there is no time for watching TV these days. Listening to songs has become a rare case. Visiting relatives - oh, I don't even remember when I visited some of my not-so-distant relatives. And friends - talking to them has become rarer than a blue moon.

I wonder how many of you struggle for such things?

Movie Review - Twilight

After all the hype that was created around "Twilight", it was obvious to watch it sooner or later and we managed to watch it last weekend.

The story revolves around the basic theme of a young girl falling in love with a boy, who happens to be a vampire, yes, vampire. Most of the initial part has come out very cutely, the way Bella (the cute, beautiful girl) attracts to Edward (the vampire), how Edward gets involved with Bella, the pain that Edward goes through everytime he suppresses his urge to suck blood out of Bella, the realization that Bella has when she joins the dots, her visit to Edward's family - all these things have come out very beautifully.

Disappointedly, then comes a villain (what would that love story be, if there's no villain) and from this point onwards, it became just another hindi movie - Villain kidnapping the dearones, Hero making all attempts to save his sweetheart and all. This was the point when I lost my interest in the movie. If it would have brought out some really vampirish acts from the villain, it might have succeeded in keeping my interest.

The only hint that might make me watch the sequel of Twilight is the wish that Bella has to become just like Edward - join the vampire family. Would Bella force Edward to let her in? Would Edward succumb to that pressure? are some of the questions I might want to get answered in the sequel. Overall, I would say it was just about an average movie, although Bella, Kristen Stewart, is awesomely beautiful :)

Free days

Last few weeks I was hooked on to the online game "evony" - a war/strategy game. Since the game is "online" it was always on and I continuously need to take care of the army that I had built in 2 of my cities there. Plus, you are always under pressure of being attacked when you are not online. Not that it affected my daily work, it definitely had started eating up valuable time. I was spending almost 2 hours everyday on this game and suddenly I realized that I have got addicted to this game.

With this realization, it was obvious to decide to quit playing this game. And so I did. Since last Saturday, I haven't logged on to this game. This in turn have led to many more realizations :)

I wasn't able to read any books (finished of "2 States" just after quitting evony), I wasn't reading much from my google reader subscription nor was I reading newspaper. Now that I don't have any binding towards the game (really? :P) I have taken up few serious readings (current read - "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" by Rashmi Bansal - and I am liking it.

Another revealation came because of my 2 yrs old son. Usuaully we, me and Meghana, used to spend time with Mrunmay after coming back from home and also in parallel used to watch some soap operas. This somehow led to a constant demand from Mrunmay to watch his own set of VCDs (baalgeete, Ganesh Stories etc). In the beginning we were okay as it gave us 15-20 mins free to finish off our dinner, but later the timing got increased and Mrunmay wanted to watch it for more than an hour, that too continuously staring at the screen. Now, it was time to take some action and the only possible solution was to hide the remotes. Since he doesn't know yet, how to operate TV and CD player w/o remote, we have been successful for last 3-4 days and haven't watched the TV ourselves since then!!

Hurray!!, this has given me some additional, undistracted time with Mrunmay and now I now many Nursary Rhymes by heart :) and the joy that Mrunmay derives when me n Meghana are sitting with him - together - is just unforgettable...

Sometimes, it takes time to realize what is it that would make you happy :) and at least for now I know what it is for me :)

Book Review: 2 States by Chetan Bhagat

A story that many from young generation would connect to is the story of "2 States", a recent book from Chetan Bhagat.

Krish, a Punjabi boy and Ms Ananya Swaminathan, Tamilian Brahman, get involved with each other during their stay at IIMA. Since both of them love their respective families, they wanted an approval from them for their marriage. After initial failure to get both the families know each other on the convocation day, both of them realize how bad and challenging it is going to be.

Krish and Ananya decide to take up the challenge and then unfolds a hilarious but mostly true to life drama that happens in Chennai (Ananya's home town) then in Delhi (Krish's home town) and some trips between D and C.

I was hooked to this book throughout and didn't want to keep it down until it was finished. The lead characters, Krish and Ananya have been portrayed very well and same is the case with supporting characters, Ananya's family and Krish's mother. The only character, which Ifelt was not portrayed deep enough, was Krish's father.

The story got a bit filmy from the point when Ananya arrives in Delhi to win over Krish's family, which could have thought out is some different manner. Same is the case with the role that Krish's father play in last two chapters was completely unthinkable and to me it was kind of filmy.

The entire story is in the form of narration from Krish and hence obviously depicts a very hilarious picture of the south Indians. I keep on wondering how would this novel have come out if it was narrated by Ananya :)

On the whole - a must read :)