on 2010

dear 2010,

You’re old, and let’s face it, one irritating little wimp, dwindling at the fag end of your lifetime. But, let’s face it again, that you’ve been one heck of a thing for all of us. You’ve been a year full of oil leaks. A year riddled by money laundering scams. A year of strange obsessions with gadgets that begin with i’s. Most importantly, you were the year of Wikileaks. Which suffices had there been a lack anywhere. A comprehensive research from various sources on and off the internet (the ‘on’ portions overwhelmingly outnumbering the ‘off’ ones) makes for an interesting compilation.

Ten things that you shouldn’t have missed in 2010

(from an Indian perspective, in no particular order. A self composed list, in case you are skeptical.)

the FIFA world cup

the one with all the noise

the one with the tentacles

I am far from the football fanatic, and I mean very far. But this had me enthralled because it was a football world cup where an octopus stole the show and took centre stage. This was a football world cup which heralded the emergence of the vuvuzela. The average black-skinned South African blowing the vuvuzela became the new icon of a ground breaking musician. Much like Jimi Hendrix wielding a Fender Stratocaster in the 1960s.

the Gulf Oil leak

the one with an oily affair

The next big leak after Wikileaks, the BP oil leak (which it is often affectionately addressed as) added to the increasing worries of the environmentalists, and also gave Barack Obama yet another chance to get up on the pulpit and, yes, do something good.

the one with the blown minds

Inception

Referred to by many as the best movie in the history of cinema, by me as a *very good* sci fi movie, it couldn’t really be the highest-grosser, or come even close for that matter. It blew a few million minds worldwide nevertheless, including mine. If you haven’t seen it yet, then I would suggest a running leap into the nearest well.

the Common Wealth Games

the one who hit the jackpot

India tried hard. Really hard to pull off a world class event. She almost succeeded, but for the Kalmadi fund embezzling scam (which furrowed many brows) and the Asiad at Guangzhou (which made the CWG look like a rusted lock). An A for Attempt though. 

the one without the caption, oh sorry

and more scams

The year saw the shooting-to-fame of people like Suresh Kalmadi, for all the wrong reasons. It saw or rather heard, or yet rather tapped, into telephonic conversations between a lobbyist and a journalist. A lot of ministers exchanged looks. A lot of brows creased.  A lot of black money flew in all directions.

the Mobile Wars

begun truly have. If Apple was the Empire, Google became the Jedi. And if the Empire struck back, then Android was the New Hope. The launch, or should I say, the leak of the much hyped iPhone 4 and the path breaking iPad tablet, set new trends in mobile technology. Android wasn’t far behind and soon had ripped apart the sales charts sending Jobs scurrying for cover and etching that big smile upon my face. Blackberry and Nokia fought hard, but for them, luck was harder.

the one with the dishoom-dishoom

the fall of Lalu

the one with the white hair

Nitish Kumar’s definitive victory over Lalu in the Bihar polls was perhaps as significant to the country as the fall of London Bridge is in nursery rhymes. Amongst many things, which included lighting up many faces, this victory even made people contemplate upon a new recipe for the samosa.

Cricketing Glory

the one with the God

Hockey might be India’s official national sport but Cricket is the de facto one, and the most loved sport in the country. 2010 brought, but only smiles and tears of joy to the face of the Indian cricket fan, as the team became the number one in Tests and number two in ODIs. A journey fraught with an Australian whitewash in October and a Kiwi-mincing in December. Not to forget, Sachin Tendulkar breaking two of the most coveted cricketing records by becoming the first person to score a double century in an ODI and the first person to score fifty centuries in Test cricket.

Onionism

The meek onion had its share of the limelight as well. Peaking at ₹80 a kilogram, it cast a shade of gloom over the faces of the majority of the Indian junta. The impact was so huge that it sparked off a new faith which became a trending topic on Twitter : Onionsim.

the one with the teary eyes

Wikileaks

The thing that makes all the aforementioned nine points look Cretazoic. And with reason. One man and his refusal to keep mum, kept the US government stuttering in the rain, and gave cold feet to many other governments around the world. There was no dearth of revelations as document after document fell prey to the public. A lot transpired, including fake charges and a hefty amount of covering-up. But it was Julian Assagne himself who the light burned brightly upon.

the one with all the leak

So that was that. Ten things that made twenty-ten one heck of a year. 

Have I missed anything? What do you say?

PS : a very Happy New Year to all of you.

If you, (like me) suffer from this massively irritating problem of ear-phones falling off your ears, here’s wishing that they do not fall off any more. If they don’t, then I wish they do, so that you get to feel how we feel.

Signing off on this ominous note. See you all next year 😉

on Ayrton Senna

My thoughts entirely with this name today. After a certain documentary I watched last night.

I had heard a lot about him. How he would have gone on to become the greatest ever in the blitzkrieg world of formula 1 had destiny been but a bit more rewarding. Little did I know that well before the disaster at Imola which claimed his life, Ayrton Senna had established his name as the greatest already.

He didn’t have the statistics on paper. He had raced for 10 years and had won 3 championships. Juan Maunel Fangio (with 5) and later on, Michael Schumacher (with 7) would go on to become the greatest F-1 racer of all time, but the ones who know the sport, tell a different story.

Ayrton Senna’s greatness laid, not on paper, but on the sheer way he drove. Formula One experts including Schumacher himself have openly admitted that a driver like Senna, has not, does not and will not exist in motor-sport history.

The documentary I saw yesterday was all about what exactly made him all that great. Martin Brundle, an F-1 great, who had raced alongside this genius went into details about his driving style which he considered would give enough reasons to consider him the “ultimate driver’s driver”.

Speed
Senna was not just a fast driver. He was just the fastest driver one could race against. While others would set lap-records and fastest times with a margin of a few tenths of a second from the existing record, Senna would settle for no less than a whole second or at least three-quarters of second. “He had this God gifted talent,” as Brundle put it, “a sixth sense, which gave him full knowledge of where in the track the grip would be before he went into a corner. The moment you see him do a lap, you’re bound to say, “I can’t do that.” As simple as that.” He was known to drive completely on the limit and set some of the most blistering lap times in his ten year career. “He used to emerge out of corners and overtake a whole lot of other drivers with the most consummate ease. Other drivers wouldn’t even have him in their mirrors a few seconds back, but suddenly .. poof! He’s gone past them.” The fact that he won 65 pole positions in 162 races when pitched against Schumacher’s 68 pole-positions in 269 races more than cements him as the speed overlord. His qualifying greatness reached it’s epitome in Monaco 1988, when he out-qualified his arch-rival and team mate Alain Prost by a staggering 1.5 seconds. Brundle recollects that “Nobody in the end wanted to spoil Senna’s pole lap. When the day-glow McLaren and the very bright helmet of Ayrton Senna would come through, we’d literally jump out of the way. You didn’t one to be the one who’d blown the lap of the one everybody was talking about, the lap that entire Grand Prix venue was looking forward to.”

Senna in his epic McLaren in Canada 1988

Attention to detail
It wasn’t just speed that made Senna what he was. As David Coulthard, yet another F-1 legend who started off as Senna’s test-driver recollects his dedication.”A certain test session when he (Senna) had tweaked his neck, and that was it. Test was over that day but as far as he was concerned, “I recommend the following day” and he was there the following day! In the morning I thought that … OK .. he must have made a miraculous recovery … but no, he was just there to listen to what I was telling the engineers. So that he could trust my feedback.” I mean other people whom I’ve been test driver for would just listen to the lap-times and bugger off to the golf course!”

Ruthlessness

one of the numerous corners Senna (in the red and white McLaren) aced

Yet another and one of his best wielded weapons, was his utter ruthlessness. As Brundle explains, Senna would often put them (his rivals) in a position where you’d have an accident and he would leave it up to you to decide whether you wanted it or not. If you let him through, you wouldn’t have the accident, if you did not, you would. During a certain Formula 3 race, Brundle says, “he suddenly came up from behind me and before I knew it, his car was upon mine.” He would always put his rivals in a compromising position at every corner, and wage this psychological warfare every single time. You would either run into him, which would mean, your race is over, or you would lose this mind game. And   if you did run into him, he would ensure that the next time such a scenario repeated you would jump out of his way. He was easily the toughest driver, and the most ferocious driver to protect his area of space. His ruthlessness and will to win reached the peak in the Japanese Grand Prix of 1990, when he would emerge world champion of the season provided his arch-rival Alain Prost (now racing for Ferrari) failed to finish the race. This makes for a throughly gripping tale.

Senna and Prost were 1-2 on the starting grid respectively. Senna’s McLaren however was on the dirtier side of the track and despite his asking the officials to change the side they hadn’t. No sooner had the race been flagged off than Prost’s scarlet Ferrari took lead ahead of Senna’s McLaren. And for Senna to win the world-title, Prost would have to not finish the race.

Barely had ten seconds gone when the first corner came up. And Prost went into the corner ahead of Senna. But Senna accelerated through the corner reaching a speed of 270 kilometres an hour, without even bothering to brake, as the gap between his and Prost’s car disappeared. Suddenly Senna’s front left tire had hit Prost’s rear end. And Prost’s rear wing fell off as both cars skidded off into the turf.

In the very first corner of the very first lap Senna thus made sure that Prost indeed failed to finish and secured the world title for himself.

Senna’s McLaren hits Prost’s Ferrari

and the state a few seconds after … Senna, secured with his Championship title

Prost was so disgusted with the turn of events that he publicly slammed Senna’s tactics and even considered retiring from F-1. After the crash Senna however showed absolutely no remorse for what he done. “When there is a gap,” Senna said later, “you either permit yourself as a professional racing driver who is designed to win races, or you come second or you come third or you come fifth. And I am not designed to come third, fourth or fifth. I race to win.”

Senna’s aggressiveness; his ruthlessness can be well summed up in his own words. “If you no longer go for a gap which doesn’t exist … well, you are no longer a racing driver.”

Strangely however, Senna had a heart of gold. A devout Christian he was capable of incredible compassion. When in Spa 1992 his rival Érik Comas had a fatal crash, Senna stopped his car, leapt out, stopped Comas’ engine and held his head in a comfortable position before doctors arrived. An incident which made Comas retire from F-1 after his inability to help Senna after his life claiming crash.

Senna parks his car and runs to help Erik Comas

This paradox in Senna’s behavior shows that he was an incredible human being. He would donate for his  poor children in his country Brazil. he would help his rivals out of difficult situations. He was morally broken when Ratenberger died the night before he died. But then it was the same Ayrton Senna who would crash Prost’s car out of a race, putting both their lives at risk.

The Wet Weather Master
What really set apart Senna, all the more from other F-1 drivers was his driving wizardry when it rained. Referred to as “the Wet Weather Master” by commentators, his driving prowess would really come in the limelight in such circumstances.

Senna mastered the art of wet-weather driving

Donnington Park, 1993. The track was wet and it was drizzling. Senna was having trouble keeping up in his inferior McLaren from the beginning. He had dropped to fifth position when a new lap had begun, behind the likes of Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Alain Prost. A couple of corners later, he had muscled his way to third. And yet another couple of corners later Alain Prost was eating his tire marks and Senna was leading the race, which he went on to win. This historic lap, which saw Senna taking the lead within a half of a lap of running fifth, established him as an all time great wet weather driver. After the race he said that the driving pressure in such conditions is tremendous and it’s like gambling; taking chances where it might pay off. And that his team gambled well that day.

The cars back then
Senna gambled. Senna gambled in cars which were like untamed wild beasts. Racing regulations weren’t as stringent then as they are today, and Senna belonged to the era of F-1 when cars had turbochargers (needless to say, they are illegal in F-1 now); he belonged to the age of Formula -1 when cars produced 1200 horsepower, which was a mind-boggling 450 more than an F-1 car of today. Inferior aerodynamics back then, as compared to today, ensured that cars had a lot less down-force and was at higher risks of flying off. Also safety levels were far worse which made Senna’s job all the more difficult.

Senna’s epic McLaren Honda MP-4/4 : the machine in which he won eight races in one season and his first world championship title

Yet Senna aced. He drove on the edge without a care in the world. He drove to win. Which he did. And would have won more had he been luckier.

Imola, San Marino 1994.

An event already riddled by disasters. Ratenberger’s death the night before the final race had shaken the entire F-1 community. The night before that, a serious accident involving Senna’s protégé, Rubens Barichello had broken Senna down, all the more. The final race as well, was plagued by misfortune. It was interrupted in the very beginning when J J Lehtto’s Benetton-Ford had stalled, and Pedro Lammy’s Lotus-Mugen Honda had rammed into his rear at nearly full speed. A wheel tore off and flew into the grandstands, injuring eight spectators and a police officer. The race went into yellow flag, and the safety car, which was on Opel Vectra for that year, was deployed. The slow pace maintained by the Vectra was later questioned and suspected for the lower-than-normal tire pressure in the race cars.

When the race restarted, Senna immediately shot off and set the third-fastest lap of the race, followed closely by Schumacher. In the next lap, as Senna approached the super-fast Tamburello corner, his car left the track …

That would go down in his history as the last corner he ever took, and the first one, he never came out of. Alive.

… his Williams ploughed into the concrete wall in excess of 215 kilometres an hour.

His right front wheel had broken off and shot through into his cockpit, hitting his helmet and pushing his head against his head rest. A piece of upright, attached to the wheel had penetrated his helmet made a big indent in his forehead, and a jagged piece of the upright had penetrated his visor just above his right eye.

He died almost immediately owing to fatal skull fracture. Track officials, upon investigation found a furled Austrian flag in his cockpit, which he had planned on unfurling and waving in honour of Ratenberger in the event of his winning the race.

Senna’s Williams at the moment of impact

The cause of his accident, as later revealed was steering column failure which had resulted in this fatal under-steer (what happens when you turn your steering wheel, but the wheels don’t turn). Patrick Head, of team Williams, who had been responsible for the “bad-design and badly executed modifications” of Senna’s steering column, was proven guilty of omitted control by the Italian Court of Appeal on 13th April 2007.

His death at Imola, San Marino was probably the greatest tragedy in the history of motor-sports. Brazil declared a national holiday in honour of their greatest sportsman and set aside three days for mourning. Three million people lined up to see his funeral march and offer salute to their hero.

Senna’s funeral saw many F-1 greats participating. Including his arch rivals Alain Prost and Damon Hill

His grave bears the epitaph “Nada pode me separar do amor de Deus” which means “Nothing can separate me from the love of God”.

To you, Ayrton Senna. Never was. Never will be.

to and on Vegetarians

I have absolutely nothing against vegetarians. Many of my GoodFriends are vegetarian, and how dare I have anything against them?

sample vegetarian. Notice the look of extreme sadness on her face.

Nevertheless. Nevertheless, they manage to bewilder me. They make me scratch my head and make  me ponder upon the futility of such a life; the inherent sadness of such an existence. And all this they perform by the sheer power of the fact that they are vegetarian.

At a personal level, (I hope I don’t get into issues with the PETA) I believe that it is an animal’s moral duty to present itself on my plate when I sit down to eat, at least once in its life time. The fact that it can do that only once makes the previous statement sound a tad redundant but let that not taint the vitality of my faith.

I’ve been involved in countless food-brawls with my GoodFriends. By food-brawls I refer to brawls over food, not brawls with the food (the thing that the WWE superstars are so competent at). And most of this have ended with a tongue-lock when I am left to counter the very very ancient and incorrigibly clichéd argument regarding the “compassion and love for all things living”. Which I admit, I cannot. The best reply I can give when someone stumps with a “How would YOU feel like if you were to be eaten someday?” is that “I cannot foresee a future when I would be within 50 miles of cannibalism at any point in my life.” Lame, I admit. But works.

Which brings me to the question of plant perception. Can plants feel?

Hell, yes they do. I base my conviction on the numerous results that appear when you type the same question in the Google search-bar. This, being the most glaring. Discarding non-vegetarian food on grounds of “compassion and love for all living things” can now go to the dogs. But yes, them vegetarians, are hard nuts to crack. My GoodOldSidey (I don’t know whether whether he’s reading this) (yet another vegetarian, needless to say) comes up with this extremely contrived extension of the same reason. Which is, “I don’t like eating something which has yelpt in pain and cried so that I may eat it”.

If he had as much of a white soul as he appears to, after this revelation, God bless this sin-stained world, but that is besides the point.

To him, and to others who would like to emulate him, let them be made aware that when Sir George Bernard Shaw visited Sir Jagdish Bose’s laboratory, he was stunned to see that cabbages suffered from violent convulsions when boiled to death. (A piece of information shamelessly wiki-lifted from the above link). To them I ask,  “Will you stop boiling cabbages now?” I think I know the answer to that.

Plants (continuing upon the same spree of shameless wiki-lifting) actually have a very well developed nervous system and they respond to shock by spasm in exactly the same way as an animal muscle does. Just because one cannot visibly see or hear the pain a broccoli plant goes through when you chop its limbs off without a bother doesn’t prove anything. You can as well wait for goats to sleep (or use tranquilisers for that matter) before you behead them and proceed to cut them into nice chops and blah-blah.

Another thing.

Vegetarian food has this weird way of staring up at you and shouting, “Hah! Your ancestors fought their way up the food chain and you’re somewhere down there again.” Quite right! Being vegetarian is like openly disregarding the revered concept of the food chain and showing scant respect to the laws of evolution, which over millions of years have carved a path for you, so that you, as a Homo sapien are given the birth-right to be a secondary consumer. If not higher.

Therefore, by being vegetarian, you actually go against nature and it’s predetermined laws.

Hah. So much for your compassion and love for nature now.

Quad-erat-demonstrandum.

would you have all these?

or well, just this?

PS : Andy Rooney ( I have absolutely no idea who he is) says that “Vegetarian is an old Indian word for ‘lousy hunter’ “. I say, “Bullseye.”

WWE : second thoughts

The World Wrestling Entertainment (erstwhile World Wrestling Federation) had given me my share of corny, make-believe, and yes, comical entertainment during my primary and middle school years. During high school I assumed that I had grown out of it, and hence gave up on the habit of following this ridiculous spectacle.

or

And then came college. Along with all of its associated idiosyncrasies. Revival of WWE enthusiasm being one of them. Thanks to DC++ I have (buries head in shame) a few GBs of WWE in my hard drive. And though I view it from a completely different perspective now, it sure is a lot cornier than what I had assumed it to be.

1. People beating each other up was never this funny. Consider this. Two “superstars” Edge and Eddie Guerrero fighting in the ring. Amazing moves, amazing athletics. Amazing what nots. But two seconds after the near lifeless body of Edge lies in the centre of the ring, beaten to pulp … presto! He’s up again! *pow* *biff* *biff* *pow* and very soon it’s Eddie’s turn to play possum. Sigh. They call it Entertainment Wrestling. Not without reason.
2. Triple H entrance. Cracking song courtesy Motorhead. No issues. Hot chic by his side. No issues. A bottle of mineral water in his hand. Serious issues! A bottle of mineral water which he’ll squirt out in the most disgusting manner. Why? Moan.
3. The patience shown by a to-be-chokeslammed victim is interesting. Or for that matter, any to-be-finished victim. No matter how badly beaten up a person is, when someone has taken hold of you by your neck, and is showing off this feat to all and sundry before he lifts you up and slams you down, you do not do nothing! How difficult is that to get? Same applies to the stoopid chap supported against the ropes before Rey Mysterio deals a 6 1 9, or to the oh-so-helpless soul lying in the ring while the Rock savours a People’s elbow.
4. Some moves don’t hurt. No matter how realistic they try and make it. Kurt Angle’s leg lock is one such move. A creased forehead and furious swearing do not hide the fact that you are just holding his legs in your hand … and that’s it. You could as well be holding a purring kitty without a hiccup in the same manner!
5. Tag Team matches. Roll-over-the-ring-laughing stuff. Specially when one chap from each team is as badly hurt as the other. In fact, they are “so equally hurt” that they take the exact same time to crawl across the ring and tag their partner at the exact same instant. Whoa. Radium clocks seem jurassic after this.
6. Food brawls. I guess these are intentionally made funny. Because they don’t turn out to be so. It pains me to see the amount of food getting wasted, assuming of course, that the food is at least, real.
7. Off-the-ring issues. This is when one actually starts questioning the “Wrestling” in “World Wrestling Entertainment”. Because it might just have been “World Soap Entertainment” executed nicely.

and that is all that they do.

give me MY AQUAFINA!!!

take your time Kane. I’m waiting.

my jaws hurt more now

He is as hurt as I am, and these two are equally hurt as well.

not cool.

now we’re speaking.

But all said, it’s fun watching these big men and criticizing them as well. Rey Mysterio’s aerial feats. The Undertaker executing a Chokeslam. A Brock Lesnar superplex. The divas (oh yes!) and of course, the off-the-ring dramatics as well.

Howver if you are the WWE fanatic, who has idols of John Cena kept in his cupboard which you bring out every night and kiss yourself to sleep … I really don’t know what to say.

Wrapping up with some light humour.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 1 : because a review is better late than never!

When I  was a kid I read a lot of Enid Blyton, like most other kids,. She was essentially the one person who made me read, save for my father who brought me her books. It began with Noddy, then went into more mature stuff (for want of a better word) like … the Wishing Chair and the Faraway Tree … where there were TopsyTurvy Worlds and gnomes and pixies and thought bubbles and children and … well, you get it don’t you?

This was when I actually realised that books invoked feelings in me. They made me happy, they made me sad, they made me laugh, and yes, they made me cry as well.

Something which continues till this day.

When I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time, I … well confess, I had cried when Dobby had died. And, yes, after a long long time in a cinema hall, yesterday, I cried. I don’t know why. Books invoke stronger emotions in me, than movies in general, but, I don’t know how or why, the scene of Dobby dying, made all those welled up tears in my eyes, flow down my cheeks and … well, the usual mushy stuff.

The characters in Harry Potter have a way of connecting with us. Maybe it’s because of the sheer length of the saga, and the fact that we’ve stuck on with it for quite a while now. Maybe it’s the fact that Harry and his friends have matured with us, progressed along with us. Or maybe it’s just that J K Rowling’s plain good at her job. Or maybe it’s all of these reasons. Whatever it is, it’s the fact that they somehow connect, that makes them so very close to us. And Dobby was one of that sort, oh yes.

Reverting to what I had in mind when I started this post, a review.

 HP 7 sure does a good job and there’s no denying it. Finally a Harry Potter movie which doesn’t make the non-Harry Potter follower (NHPF) feel like he’s on a roller coaster wearing a blind-fold. Which I daresay, the past few ones did. They grabbed the NHPF by the scruff of his neck, popped him atop a steed in some Mexican bronc-busting arena and set the steed loose. Unlike those ones, where the non-HP-fan would die a cruel and generally painful death while watching the movie, gaping in utter incomprehension, at the sheer amount of tomfoolery that happened in front of his eyes, this one’s milder. More composed. The NHPF, while watching this one, would just die a slow and painless death. Something akin to an overdose of sleeping pills.

So yes, from the point of view of the HP fanatic, this movie might just seem dull at times. Specially when Harry, Ron and Hermoine are wandering in the middle of nowhere; when Harry is in one of his many contemplative phases (weren’t there just too many of them?). But the dull part is, needless to say, triumphantly overshadowed by the exceedingly well portrayed … erm … not so dull parts.

The story is not new. We all know what happens. We all know what will happen. Voldemort’s forces are pretty much everywhere. Death eaters pop up now and then throughout the movie with alarming regularity. The Ministry of Magic has been taken over by the Dark Forces. The fiasco involving the seven Harrys in the beginning, laced with Mundungus Fletcher’s double-crossing and the Weasley twins humour make for a cracking start. Hagrid’s motorcycle escape and the subsequent regathering at the Burrow bring in the first couple of LumpsInThroats, more of which occur later. The first two are the deaths of Hedwig and Mad-eye Moody respectively. Then there’s Bill and Fleur’s wedding which fall prey to another Death Eater attack.  Harry, Ron and Hermione (HRH for speed’s sake)  flee upon hearing Shacklebolt’s warning and Disapparate to some place faraway. Voldemort’s growing impatience and frustration as Harry gives him and his Death Eaters the slip many a time are evident. Then there’s the finely rendered depiction of HRH breaking into the Ministry with the help of the Polyjuice potion and Umbridge’s subsequent confrontation with Harry. Harry now has a price on his head and he’s wanted “Undesirable no. 1” by the Wizarding community. The Ministry’s malpractices are on the rise and every possible bit of action is taken to ensure the destruction of Muggle borns and Muggle lovers.With great trepidation, HRH escape and run away, having procured one of the Horcruxes (the locket) from Umbridge. The chap who plays Rufus Scrimgeour does it well. (He appears earlier on when he comes to the Burrow to give HRH stuff they inherited from Dumbledore as left in his will).

Now the rift between Ron and Harry builds up. Ron’s impatience in finding the remaining Horcruxes, his frustration at being the Chosen One’s sidekick, and his suspicions regarding Harry’s feelings for Hermoine take a toll on him and he leaves. Shaken, Harry and Hermione then decide to visit Godric’s Hollow to try and find the sword of Godric Gryffindor which might prove to be helpful in the destruction of the Horcruxes. The trip, however backfires as Death Eaters in the guise of Bathilda Bagshot along with the serpent Nagini ambush them. The third LumpInTheThroat occurs here, when Harry sees for the first time in his life, his parents’ graves. Harry and Hermione barely Dissaparate and escape and return to the jungles.

One night Harry is guided by a mysterious silver doe to a frozen pond in the middle of the jungle and there he sees the sword of Godric Gryffindor lying deep under water. He breaks through the ice and dives in, but the locket-Horcrux around his neck tries to strangle him. This is where Ron comes in again, and saves him and recovers the sword. It is him who destroys the Horcrux then and there. In the meanwhile Hermione gets some leads from the Tales of Beedle the Bard and identifies the recurrence of an enigmatic symbol. Harry remembers that Xenophilius Lovegood had worn a similar symbol at the wedding. So the three decide to go and visit the Lovegoods’. There, the eccentric old man then tells them the story of the Deathly Hallows … the Elder Wand, the Ressurection Stone and the Cloak of Invisiblity and how three brothers of a certain folk tale went after each of them. This is followed by Xenophilius’ attempt to sell off Harry to the Death Eaters in return for Luna who has been taken captive. HRH escape yet again.

The final battle happens in the underground vault in Malfoy Manor where the prisoners have been kept. The prisoners viz Luna, Ovillander and the Goblins (who were in charge of the Gringotts bank). HRH is joined by Dobby the House-elf who eventually saves them all from the Death Eaters in general and Bellatrix in particular, and sacrifices his own life instead (final and climactic LumpInTheThroat).

Parallel to this story, Voldemort goes on his quest to procure all the Deathly Hallows for himself. We are made aware of his movements and activities through his connection with Harry, in the form of visions and dreams. His first mission, to find the Elder Wand or the Death Stick takes him to the wand maker Gregorovitch whom he threatens for the information as to the wand’s hereabouts. Gregorovitch tells him that Dumbledore had possessed it when he had died. The movie ends with Voldemort locating Dumbledore’s grave, cracking open the coffin, procuring the Elder Wand and rejoicing.

Of course, in case you are wondering, the story’s not over yet.

A few points :

• HRH did pack a good selection of clothes! They keep changing from one set to another everyday. Not the pitiful state of nomadic existence that JKR had talked about.
• Humour is scattered here and there. Mainly owing to Ron’s facial expressions.
• the mood is sombre throughout and strong undercurrents of dark forces play a big role.
• the animated shadow-play depiction of the Tale of Three Brothers stole the show. I wish I had more thumbs to up.
• unnecessary romance has been cut out. Good sign. The last two films had me retching and had given me nightmares about Edward Cullens with lightning scars on their foreheads.
• the HRH camaraderie thrives, flourishes and inspite of the Ron-Harry rift, reaches its zenith. 

All in all, finally a movie that does justice to the novel. Maybe splitting it into two parts was the key. Who knows, HP 4, 5 and 6 might just have been better in two parts. The ending is incomplete as it is expected to be. And sad, (Dobby, sniff). The beginning of the end has drawn to a close. A cliff-hanger of an ending is expected. And only a cliff-hanger will whet the appetite of the millions of fans all across the world. Hope David Yates finishes it off in the same vein in which he’s begun.

accio Summer 2011.

voila! volvo

I am not the frequent bus commuter. Never was either. The few tiffs that I had had with these annoyingly large multi-wheeled vehicles are best left untold, for times’ sake, and for the sake of not beating-about-the-bush.

But then things happen which make you go “Voila! How wrong I was” and make you change your stance towards things. Which is what happened as a side-effect after my Goa trip, which you might just remember from my previous post.

I am, if you’ve been following the story of my life closely, currently anchored at Pune, and shall be leaving for Cal in a few hours. So the trip to Goa which I was party to, happened from Pune, and hell, it happened in one heck of a delightful manner.

Courtesy Volvo.

Yes, you guessed it right. It was a Volvo multi-axle semi-sleeper coach that did the monumental task of transporting myself and several others from Pune to Goa. That too, in the lap of luxury.

The ten-and-a-half-hour long journey, whose mere first mention had sent an involuntary shudder down my spine, eventually left the generally verbose me lost for words. And with good reason too. My fascination for all wheeled-contraptions compelled me to do some homework after I returned, and the results I arrived at were pretty interesting. Or at least, they are to the auto-enthusiast.

The coach that had taken me from Pune to Goa, was a certain Volvo B9R.

For those who are trying to stifle their yawns now, can freely choose not to, and navigate away to this page. For the rare ones who are falling off their seats in excitement can join me for the rest of this fascinating journey.

A Volvo B9R is, as I have mentioned earlier, a multi-axle semi-sleeper coach. Using the British policy of Divide and School, let us fragment the hieroglyphics in the above line to facilitate better understanding for those who are groping about in the dark.

Multi-axle == more than two axles. Which simply translates to, it has more wheels than the ordinary bus.
Semi-sleeper == er … half sleeper. Meaning where you sleep, but then again, where you don’t.

multi-axle clear now?

The technical specifications however are far less literary, and more … technical (sorry for the redundancy). The power-train is a massive 9 litre 6 cylinder diesel engine that generates a staggering 380 horsepower and an equally gargantuan 1740 N-m of torque. (If this sounded gibberish to you, then you should have left this page long back. Don’t look at me like that! I warned you!) And this does a more than exemplary job at making this blue whale scrunch down miles and miles of expressway with the most consummate ease. The coach is 13.7 metres long, and no, don’t ask me what the width is. No one cares. It seats 53 homo-sapiens effortlessly and has cutting edge safety features including EBS (Electronic Braking System ), all wheel disc-brakes, and air-suspension, all of which are firsts in this country. What’s more, it even comes with an on-board computer which feeds in brakes and suspension related data to the rare computer-savvy driver.

I am assuming that the orange LCD screen is the on-board computer.

But what really stole the show in this mighty machine was the galactic levels of comfort it pampers you with. The moment you sink into one of these outworldly seats, you feel a sense of bliss like no other. Recline the seat backward. Raise the lumbar supports, and you could well mistake the experience with that of being in a private jet, complete with all creature comforts.

the heavenly seats. And guess what, I can now semi-sleep.

I got a tad too lucky with the front row seat that day, as a result of which I had the additional advantage of having the seemingly endless windscreen r-i-g-h-t in front of me. When the journey began, it was an unexpectedly quaint affair. The virtually air-tight cabin had completely muffled the otherwise deafening roar of the engine, and the bus, with all it’s air-suspension wizardry and thick tubeless radials seemed to gobble up the potholes and irregularities of theGreatIndianRoads without a hiccup.

Yet another impressive thing I noticed was the incredibly small turning radius. I have driven a Toyota Qualis and for a car of that size, it is surprisingly agile around corners. But for the 13.7 metre long mammoth that it is, this beast executed U-turns and other letter-like turns in the manner that could have left many large luxury saloons burying their heads in shame.

Well, that’s that. I wish I had driven it too, then I would have been able to give more details regarding its performance, engine and transmission (:P) but well … I can rest assured now, that I have started loving buses.

Or so I hope.

incomplete thoughts during my Goa tour

Trips are enlightening. Always. You revel, you enjoy, you do all other things that make everyone else J, but with a certain degree of consciousness you can actually learn quite a lot as well.

Three things worthy of mention which intrigued me during my 3-night long Goa trip follows.

One. The difference in the beach.

The only “other” beaches I had seen till before my Goa trip were those of Puri and Shankarpur. For the reader who is not aware, Puri is a bustling coastal town in Orissa, made famous by the historic temple of Jagannath (amongst other things) and Shankarpur is one of those lesser known (and hence, blissfully desolate) coastal towns in West Bengal which boasts of remarkably good prawns (erm … amongst other things).

The beaches in Goa are radically different. They aren’t desolate. They aren’t bustling. In fact, they are like pleasant surprises. Like when you expect an ice cream and get vanilla with hot chocolate syrup instead. The Goan beaches are as picture perfect as beaches in India can get. And they speak volumes of how better off the western states are at doing the right stuff as compared to the Eastern ones.

Yes, I am referring to West Bengal in particular and the sorry state of affairs, decades of bad governance has plummeted it into. That when you visit places like Goa, you actually feel sad about your own home state.

West Bengal has a unique geographical location. It is the only state in India that can boast of snowy hill stations like Darjeeling on one hand, and picturesque beaches like the ones in Shankarpur on the other. Oh, wait a second. It could have. Thanks to (sorry if it sounds repetitive) decades of bad governance, Darjeeling today, is but a terror stricken district, with several clamorous minority factions threatening to break the state apart. And Shankarpur. As dead and dull as a dodo in ditch water. 

Even Digha for that matter. The other better-known Bengal beach. Which is today, no different from a fish market.

One glance at the western states and you’ll notice the difference. While hill stations in Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, thrive par excellence as numero uno tourist spots, and beaches like the ones in Goa outshine as world class tourist attractions, good old Bengal remains stuck in the cesspool of abject decadence. And the ‘could be’s become ‘could have been’s. Or rather ‘should have been’s.

The harmless commercialisation of the Goan beaches awed me. There are water sports and boat rides. Food stalls and shacks. But interestingly enough, they co-exist in perfect harmony with the natural beauty. Quite unlike Digha or Puri which have zero signs of innovative commercialisation or anything remotely constructive. And with all human activity laced with utter disregard for nature.

Sigh.

Moving on to my second thought.

On a site-seeing trip around north Goa, we stopped at quite a few marvelous locations. One of which was the Basilica of bom Jesus. This historic church, which dates back to the early 17th century, houses the 450 year old and still preserved body of St Francis Xavier. Needless to see, he is the patron of the school I spent 12 years in, in Calcutta.

Another historic location we stopped at was the 400 year old temple of Mangeshi. It’s a shiv temple which fell prey to two religious insurgencies and was moved to Goa from Aurangabad and to Aurangabad, from Nepal. Which was what made me put my thinking cap on. 

Terrorists, who today wreak havoc on our planet, in the name of religion aren’t new. Such religiously intolerant groups have existed for centuries before the rise of the Taliban. That the Portuguese missionaries, in their pursuit of religious conversion had done similar acts of arson in the medieval ages, there’s no hiding it.

The third, and a lot more trivial thought that had the competence to engage my brain was that of the foreigners and their fascination for the sun. Seriously. They puzzled me. Bewildered me. And made my head spin.

Why would anyone in their right minds, even consider basking in the mid day sun for hours at a stretch, and watch their own colourless skin burn into brilliant shades of crimson? Yet they did. And did. For hours and hours. Till their skins looked like the burnt buttocks of I R baboon. If not redder.

If you ask me, the only good part of the beach during the day is the sea. The water. And the water-sports. NOT the sun! Not at all. The beach, the non watery, non-sporty component is good when there is NO sun, which is nighttime. The beach at night is heavenly. You hear the splashing of the waves against the sand. The cool salty wind from the sea hits you in the face. That is understandably good. But what with lying in the sand at mid day and watching yourself transform into a red herring, I say!

Till then. I hope I have furnished enough contemplative material for the interested reader to ponder upon. By your leave.

PS : Best wishes and season’s greetings 🙂