Monthly Archives: January 2010

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss Contest 1

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[The contest is now closed]

Here is the first contest for “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss”.

The rules.

1. On your blog, provide a link to this page. (http://greatbong.net/book). Embedding the above picture in your blog would be nice but not needed.

2. Then write down your top 10 Hindi movie lines or top 10 English movie lines (You can do both if you want. Only one set is required for the contest). If you cannot think of top 10, make it top 5. Cannot think of even 5? Make it top 3. No problem. Only restriction: no two lines from same movie. This done to make it fair for other movies so that they dont get swamped by Gunda or Loha or Sholay.

3. Tag five friends to do the same.

4. Come over to the comment-space of this post and post your blog’s link so I can go and read it.

Remember: Before starting the tag, paste points 1 and 4 on your blog so that the rules are available to anyone who wishes to pick the tag up from your blog.

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About these ads

Thank you !

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The Webevent was a great success ! It went on for three hours which was about two hours more than I had expected it to. The conference got interrupted in the middle (i.e. connection dropped) because it was set for two hours and apologies for that. Many of you re-connected and we started chatting again.  Thanks to Saurav Mohapatra at Dimdim for the facilities and thanks everyone for attending. It was a most lively and interesting session.

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss Online Event

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This is a reminder that “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss”‘s online event will be held on Saturday January 30, 2010 at 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time which is 9:30 am Indian Standard Time on Sunday January 31 (Please note the difference in dates due to time difference). You only need an email id to register. Once inside the conference, we can discuss any and everything—from book, to the blog from KKR to KRK.

Here is the link to the meeting that will be active during its duration.

The link to the Kolkata event is here. Please do sign up (not mandatory) if you want to drop by. And here also is the link to the Delhi event.

Phir Hile Sur Mera Tumhara

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Mile Sur Mera Tumhara is, without doubt, one the most iconic symbols of late 80s Indian popular culture. Some love it for the music. Some for the visuals. Some for the memories associated with it—of father coming back from work as it played on the TV or everyone rushing into the living room to catch a then-rare glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan.

And some, like me, for the sight of  P K Banerjee (who gave Bengalis such enduring phrases as “Dui Milan-r Milan” while presenting Italian League soccer on DD) wiping his bald spot as he and Arun Lal get down from a metro train, with the same cool swagger that would later inspire Quentin Tarantino in “Reservoir Dogs”.

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Sixty

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When I heard Shahrukh Moon Crater Khan tell us how humiliated he felt as the owner of the KKR at the treatment meted out to Pakistani players and more tellingly how Pakistan was a great neighbor to have, I could not resist doing my version of the dimple-cheeked, smile-to-the-side thing that turns women into moonshine and admire this man’s supreme business sense and his indefatigable desire to make money, if more proof was needed for that given his propensity for dancing at weddings.

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The Thappad

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I had stayed awake for the IPL Auctions for one reason and one reason only. And that was to watch live my favorite team KKR display its razor sharp acumen in the same way that it does every year. They did not disappoint me of course—– buying, at the highest possible price, Shane Bond, who was cannon fodder last time he played in the ICL and whose propensity for break-downs reminds of the song from Kishen Kanhaiyya ‘Band ke saath o Mama, tum break dance dikhlana, breakdown ho jaaye, par tum break lagana” . I am sure SRK must have had his reasons—maybe someone told him to invest in bond markets, maybe his kids love James Bond and he bought Shane Bond by mistake, maybe he will have a “My Name is Bond/My Name is Khan” tie-in or maybe the auction theory experts that KKR hired just felt this was a game-theoretically proper decision. I was kind of hoping for those that favored Butt and Gayle to see the wisdom in getting Poleard and Pornell. But what to do?

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May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss

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Standing balanced on two bikes. Bursting through the screen. Ala re Ala.

‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’.

Here ladies and gentleman is the first look at the cover for my first book. Not just the cover but the entire spread. Some minor re-touches are being done but this is more or less the final cut. Please click on the small picture above to see a more full-sized (or what is technically called the Shakeela) version of the book spread.

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Not The End of An Era

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In the summer of 1977, at one of the biggest political rallies ever seen at the Brigade Parade ground, a diminutive bald-headed man in a spotless white kurta and dhoti, declared–’As long as the people remain with us, no one will be able to efface us.’ [Source]. The sea of humanity roared back, believing in the ability of the interlocutor to bring ‘change’—change that could be believed in

On a cold January in 2010, the same man took his last journey. The mood, as Hindustan Times reports, was markedly different. Glaringly so.

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Ek Aur Do Barah—the Anger

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While the tamasha of the Golden Globes was going on today, had a chance to watch Sidney Lumet’s ’12 Angry Men’. A tight, claustrophobic movie about twelve men in a jury room on the ‘hottest day of the year’ deliberating  whether a eighteen-year old kid from a rough neighborhood, against whom evidence is stacked, is guilty of murdering his father, ’12 Angry Men’ is a fascinating look at justice, prejudice, the wisdom (or lack of it) of the crowd and perhaps the best explanation of ‘reasonable doubt’ that one is likely to find in popular media—a concept most of us (myself included) often seem to forget as we fulminate in anger when we find courts releasing criminals whom we know ‘did it’. If you have not seen ’12 Angry Men’ , then I recommend you do so. This is as close to cinematic perfection you are going to get, more so in the season of vacuous-special-FX-being-made-to- pass- off -as-great cinema. Or in short— ‘Avatar’.

Though I have not watched it, I do know that ’12 Angry Men’ was re-made in Hindi as Ek Ruka Hua Faisla. I think it can re-remade again as ‘Ek Aur Do Barah —the Anger’ , this time with more masala and more of the Bollywood aesthetic. Since it has to make money,  we have to have song (Dilip Sen Sameer Sen), dance (Bosco-Caesar) and flesh. And we need big-name stars for every juror.

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A Real Interview With the Fake IPL Player

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Before we start, a few messages from your sponsor. Namely me.

The official launch of my book ‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’ will be at Casuarina Hall, in India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road on March 5th, 2010 (High tea at 6.30pm followed by event at 7pm).

Everyone is invited. Please do plan to attend.

There will be another event in Kolkata whose date has not been finalized yet. Watch this space and the Facebook group for this blog for details.

Meanwhile the book got two media mentions, one in DNA India and one in Deccan Chronicle to go along with the Tehelka one. Which is good.

Finally, the spectacularly talented Sidin Vadukut’s book Dork releases this month from Penguin and you are requested to hop over here and read more about it. This is one book I am looking forward to read.

Now coming to the main program.

The Fake IPL Player (henceforth to be known as FIP) needs no introduction. But I will give a brief one nonetheless.

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