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Bangalore Royally Challenged

Published May 9th, 2008 in Cricket. 61 Comments


[Photo credits: the Mangalorean]

Welcome to India’s latest reality show—-”Will You Go Tomorrow, Tick Tick Tick Tick” (inspired by the iconic “If you come tomorrow”) presented by the same guys who brought you “Kamzor Kuri Kaun”, “Kaun Banega Laxmipati” and “Jeeto Thappad Marke”. For those of you who haven’t tuned in before, in every show, we kick out, based on popular opinion, one member of the Bangalore Royal Challengers team.

A quick recap. Yesterday the team member who lost his job was Charu Sharma, the CEO of the franchise. Yes the same Charu Sharma who sat to the left of Mandira Bedi in Extraa Innings, the host with a penchant for talking a lot about “nothing at all”, a man whose bald pate sometimes out-glistened in its smoothy roundness the things that Mandira Bedi brought to the table.

Well to be exact Charu Sharma was not really “fired”. According to the official version, Charu Sharma left for personal reasons—-reasons that were so personal even the person himself didn’t know what they were.

And today with yet another embarassing loss to a team also scraping the bottom of the IPL barrel, it is time for the Bengaluru Boys to lose one more item of clothing.

So which one will it be?

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Tashan—the Review

Published May 4th, 2008 in Reviews. 67 Comments

“Yeh hain aasli Bhaiyyaji” shouts Anil Kapoor playing the role of don Bhaiyyaji as he rips open his shirt, in the process revealing a plot twist I can honestly say I never saw coming.

The twist in question being that, perhaps in keeping with today’s “chikna” aesthetics, someone had shaven Anil Kapoor’s legendary mane of chest hair (which was, as far as I know, one of the world’s last natural rain forests) exposing in the process Mr. Jhakaas’s mannaries (man-mammaries) and his “One Two Ka Four, Four Two Ka One” packs.  [Explicative picture to left]

Which leads me to once again acknowledge the wisdom of that immortal line spoken by Khulbushan Kharbandha in Gupt :

“Kuch baatein gupt raheni chahiye” (Some things are best kept hidden).

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Cholche Cholbe

Published May 2nd, 2008 in Cricket. 54 Comments

[Cholche Cholbe–a famous CPM slogan that basically says “Whatever we are doing will go on”, a great ode to mediocrity]

We all heard the IPL Knight Riders theme song—that rousing anthem which was supposed to inspire Shahrukh Khan’s team.

It has since changed—to the right in bold face is the new theme song.

Jeetne aaye hai, Jeet ke jayenge,
Unme se Hum nahi
Maat jo khayenge
Jeetne aaye hai,Jeet ke jayenge
Lakh roke koi,Hum fateh payenge

We are too hot,we are too cool
All are King’s men , We Rule
We are too hot,we are too cool
Ami Kolkatar , We RULE.

Korbo Lorbo Jitbo re,
Korbo Lorbo re, jitbo re, jitbo re
Karenge Larenge Jeetenge
Jeet Jaayenge, Jeetenge, Jeetenge

Saara Jahaan Piche ,
Hum to Chale aage
Dushman Jo Dekhe Humko,
Dum Dabake bhage re bhage
Saara Jahaan Piche,
Hum to Chale aage
Dushman Jo Dekhe Humko,
Dum Dabake bhage re bhage

We are too hot ,We are too cool
All are King’s men,We Rule
We are too hot, We are too cool
Ami Kolkatar,We RULE.

Hagne aaye hai ,Hag ke jayenge,
Is mein sharam nahi
Sabse maar khayenge,
Shahrukh ko lootne aaye hai, Lootke jayenge
Lakh roke koi, Humare phat jayenge

Our Hussey is hot,Our Butt is cool
All are King’s men,We are jhool [1]
Our team in a rot,but We cool
Ami Kolkatar , CPM RULE

Harchi, haarchi, Haarbo re ,
Haarchi Haarbo re,Haarbo re , Haarbo re
Haarenge Haarenge Haarenge
Sab harenge, Haarenge, Haarenge

Saara jahaan aage ,
Hum to chale peeche
Dushman Jo dekhe humko
Khub Hanse re hanse
John Buchanan peeche ,
Uska beta aage [2]
Aur Dada ko leke
SRK phaanse re phaanse

Agarkar’s hot ,Ponting’s a fool
All are King’s men , worse than Trinamool
The night is hot, buke chool [3]
Ami Knight Rider ,BIG BHOOL

[1] Jhool: Bangla for dirt that hangs from ceiling.

[2] John Buchanan’s son Michael Buchanan is also on the payroll of the Knight Riders. It’s a family deal.

[3] “Buke chool” means “hair on chest” in Bangla.

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Indian Premier League—Team Reviews

Published April 29th, 2008 in Cricket. 84 Comments

With nearly one third of the IPL games over, it was time that I thought I wrote little reviews/assessments of the individual franchises. Though Twenty20 appears at first sight to be a game of brainless slam-bam, a second and a third look reveals that there is strategy, team-building, intense professional pride and more than a bit of character and man-management at play. Not to speak of booty shakes, pompoms, hugs and slaps.

[Warning: Long post]

Chennai Super Kings: Having gone for team balance with an eclectic mix of superstar foreign players in both the batting as well as in the bowling department, Chennai Super Kings are deservedly at the top of the table and are clearly the title favoritea.

With an uber-attacker in Hayden, a solidly spectacular presence in Michael Hussey, a reliable batting backup in Stephen Fleming (retired and hence guaranteed to play for the entire season) to exciting all rounders like Jacob Oram and Albie Morkel (dubbed the new Klusener), a tearaway (Ntini) and the greatest off-spinner of all time (Murali), Chennai Super Kings are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing foreign imports for their team.

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Fool Aur Chanta —Snippets from IPL

Published April 26th, 2008 in Cricket. 85 Comments

Snippet 1: Thanks to the IPL, the concept of nation-state is perilously close to collapse. If people were stunned a few days ago seeing the Jaipur crowd booing Sreesanth for giving verbals to “local boy” Pakistani Kamran Akmal, today things took an even more dramatic turn.

Civil war became a real possibility as Punjabputra Harbhajan Singh gave Sreesanth, representing Punjab Kings XI a resounding slap, the likes of which have not been seen outside the sets of Kkusum or Kasauti Zindagi Ki. While reports that Bhajji slapped Sreesanth ten times, (nine times in slow motion with ominous music in the background) upon which Sreesanth said “Yeh thappad ki goonj mujhe yaad rahega, Obnoxious Weed” could not be confirmed ,what however is beyond doubt that “uber tough man” Sreesanth, upon being hit by the doosra, started bawling Nirupa Roy style.

[Video Link]

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The Gold Plated League Begins

Published April 19th, 2008 in Cricket. 119 Comments

“I have never seen 18 girls on stilts” says a visibly excited Robin Jackman (he may have seen seventeen it seems) ,a part of the commentary team on “Extraa Innings”.

Ajay Jadeja speculates on the whereabouts of Laxman Sivaramakrishnan who has mysteriously vanished into the night during a cheerleader routine.

Rameez Raja, his hair dyed as black as the ashbuds in front of March, can barely conceal his glee at the overall proceedings.

The Washington Redskins cheerleaders, clad in yellow sports bras and hot pants, strut their stuff as the camera goes wide angle taking in a shot of Sharad Pawar framed by the ample derrières of two fetching women. With so much flesh around (both the Red Skin’s as well as The Power’s) one barely notices the absence of Extraa Innings’s iconic Mandira Bedi.

However the biggest boob is on stage— IPL supremo, our very own Lalita bhabi, the official Indian cricket-bhagya-bidhataa, rambling on and on, wallowing in his self-importance.

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U Me Aur Hum—the Review

Published April 16th, 2008 in Reviews. 46 Comments

It was 2002. Stonybrook. I was watching the Ajay Devgun-Sonali Bendre starrer “Tera Mera Saath Rahen” in a company of raucous graduate students as part of “Baatcheet”, a mix and greet that the Indian Graduate Students Association there used to hold. The movie had a serious theme– that of Ajay Devgun trying to cope with the responsibilities of raising a physically and mentally challenged brother. However, with myriad side-plots, issues and songs that arrived with the regularity of pop-ups at a porn site, “Tera Mera Saath Rahen” induced more derision than empathy from the audience. When Ajay Devgun, at one point, shouts at his brother, who has a bed-wetting problem, something on the lines of: “Tang a gaya hoon main tumhare susu saaf kaarte kaarte” (I am sick and tired of cleaning up your pee), there was more than a few snickers. Now lest people think us heartless, let me say in our defense that it was not the situation but the way that Devgun delivered the line that made the audience, which I should say was bored out of their wits, react so.

For me however the moment of the movie came towards the end of the movie when Ajay Devgun, under pressure from his girlfriend, sends his brother to an institution and starts regretting the decision.

In a supposedly heart-wrenching scene with a sad song blaring in the background he wakes up at night, looks at the bed, realizes his brother isn’t there and starts crying.

At this moment of pathos, my calm was shattered, not unpleasantly, by one of the insensate grad students commenting: “Abh usko pata chala ki un dono main bistaar pe kaun susu karta tha” (Now he understands which among those two actually wets the bed).

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Race—the Review

Published April 9th, 2008 in Reviews. 44 Comments

What if “Mohabbatein” had a twist in the end with the twist being that the Shahrukh Khan character had actually fallen in love with Amitabh Bachchan and that Aishwarya Rai committed suicide after she stumbled on them making love? What if it was revealed at the end of “Kuch Kuch Hota Hota” that Rani Mukherjee had actually faked her own death just to see if Shahrukh Khan actually meant it when he said that people fall in love once? What if “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” had ended with Kajol extending her hand and Shahrukh Khan twisting it in such a fashion that she fell on the railways lines and got run over by the train with the camera moving to a last shot of Mandira Bedi, sitting in the train, smiling?

Twists are inherently a good thing—-at least it would have made some movies, like the ones above, more interesting. Multiple twists aren’t bad either. But for twists to work, they have to come at a moment you least expect them to. This is what “Race” seems to forget—in trying to make a movie with multiple twists, the director duo Abbas-Mastan cram in so many twists that the arrival of a plot kink elicits as much surprise as the start of a song in your average Hindi movie.

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