Katrina's Fury

Katrina became TSunami for city of New Orleans. Last year I was in Florida and was witness of three hurricanes within 3-4 weeks period of time. It was horrible and aftermath was worse but we survived.

Now this year I saw what Hurricane Katrina did to Gulf coast and after watching this I can only say we were lucky and that was not even close to horrible, we were in far better position than people of gulf coast.

This is the worse natural disaster in US history. More Detail. Want to help

Sehar - the awaited dawn!

Sehar is a film inspired by real-life incidents. Sehar is a urdu word that means Morning or Dawn. I think, this is the first film ever to be made on the Mafia of UP, based on factual incidents and characters. Sehar is about the origin of organised crime in North India and the steps taken to bring it under control. The film is in flashback with an interesting narrative style.

Sehar moves in and around Gorakhpur-Lucknow-Benaras and terrorises every living soul in the vicinity and ends at Delhi.

Now, You will say every third crime movies have a plot like this. But believe me this is different with a good story, very good acting by Arshad Warsi, no useless un-neccessary songs...a simple film without filmi glamour, which makes this "Real" rather than watching "Reel".

Arshad plays a police officer (Ajay Kumar) who pays the price for his honesty by getting transferred often. And this film shows in Real Life Police officers are not hero as it depicts in other movies but there determination is. Story looks like written after doing a quite research. The film is set in 1997; cell phones were still a new phenomenon then. It makes sense when Pankaj Kapur, who plays an expert in cell phone technology, joins the STF.

Editing of Sehar is brilliant, A lot of thoughts and hard work display into the cinematography and costumes as well. Seher definitely brings out the seriousness of the issues it talks about, though this does give the film a slightly arty feel, and that's why this will appeal to a very thin segment of moviegoers. Kabeer Kaushik's direction is good too, it's daring to make such movie in early in his career. Last but not least, the Climax is different and at one point you get the hint about this too.

It's unforunate, Sehar happened to be a flop film in Box-Office. All in all, Sehar is a good film, worth to watch.

it's shame! being a human

The death of a Muslim woman, who was caught in a blaze as the locals refused to allow entry to male fire-fighters to rescue her. ‘‘We have a problem with women of Muslim community who do not want to be rescued by male fire-fighters even when they are on the verge of death. This has prompted me to think of raising a women force,’’ said Pratim Chatterjee, Minister for Fire Services.

Government need to be strong in certain matters. Until these kinds of issues are not solved in the country no matter where we are listed in powerfull countries, I and probably other countries too believe we still a weak and un-educated country who can not defend her people from people itself.

This is really shame for being a human.

Read Detail News

Encephalitis claims 90 lives in Gorakhpur

90 children have died in the last 15 days in eastern Uttar Pradesh around Gorakhpur. Encephalitis is endemic to eastern UP and cases have been reported practically every year since 1978 when 720 children had died. Still no Vaccination campaign by government, what does that mean. It means poor people in India just born to die and help country to control the population. Every year or alternative year 100's of children die since 1978 because of same disease still "India shining" not able to control this. Hello! people who live in villages and in small towns in rural area are also Indians. But who cares for them.

I am not surprize I got to know about this news first from local radio station news (EBC) here in NJ (yesterday, Aug 18, 2005 at 9 am). After reaching at work I checked almost all Indian newspaper and news channel website but didn't get a single word of news about this, And today I see this in NDTV's site. I thought USA is almost 11 hours behind India timewise but it looks otherway round newswise or is this India media got news from International media, or they are more interested what's happening in metros rather than what or how villages of India doing. just wondering!!!

Civilization: Conquest of the Month - India

India has always been an invader's paradise, No matter how many Persians, Greeks, Chinese nomads, Arabs, Portuguese, British and other raiders had their way with the land, local Hindu kingdoms invariably survived their depradations, living out their own sagas of conquest and collapse. All the while, these local dynasties built upon the roots of a culture well established since the time of the first invaders, the Aryans.

Game starts with 7 preset, bloodthirsty rivals as in reality, in this game too Gandhi and his India not only survived but got the victory too. Game start with this tiny portion of visible land, and Gandhi's settler first found Delhi and India started exloring the world.



(1786 AD center part of the India - Purple portion in the small window at the bottom is map of India)


Confused? What's going on? What Gandhi is doing here? ok! let me start from the beginning. I am here talking about a turn based strategic game named Civilization, I am a big fan of this game or should I say addicted to this game. This game is basically very very broader version of chess with the twist and turns of world history. Game starts from 4000 BC and you as a one civilization have to explorer the world and meet with new civilization. As the game continue you have to dominate the world either diplomatically or becoming a leader in tech race (space race victory) or conquest (as British did in the past) one small mistake or wrong move can give AI (computer) a good chance to invade or distroy your civilization.

So this month's Conquest of the month civilization was India. Month of august and COTM India, I couldn't stop myself and started playing the Game. And by the end of 1786 AD, Gandhi's India won the diplomatic victory


Here is the results


And that win was possible because of India built United Nations in Delhi


At the end of the game, this was the score card:


check this for more detail about civilization, Also you can check more pictures by clicking on Flicker window in the right, if interested.

The Rising: Ballad of Managl Pandey

This rising is not only about a man named Mangal Pandey but also about the rising of India. It's a very good team effort, a very well work done in all areas whether it is acting or Himman Dhamija's cinematography or Rehman's Music or Javed Akhtar's lyrics or Ketan Mehta's direction. And the song "Mangal Mangal..." is astonishing, amazing simply superb sung by Kailash Kher. If you are down in life or feel no energy then watch or listen this song.

This is a movie about friendship, social issues (like sati, casticism, corruption), East India Company's opium trade and ofcourse about the beginning of independence of country and of people. clips or plots of social issues were fit into screenplay very nicely. Film also rich in color and music too. Inspite of little avaiablity of the writings in the subject Ketan and team managed to come with a very good end product. Some time may be you feel movie is little slow or little stretch but by the time you realize it you will see picking pace again. There are couple of movies made on India's independence but very few also depict social issues of that time. Rising is one of them.

Only disadvantage what I see for this movie is the label of period film. So everyone knows the end but isn't it true for 99% of bollywood movies. Climax is really great and voice of Om puri in narration reminds me of 'Bharat ek Khoj'.

Overall a movie worth to watch but still not that par for a good actor to dedicate himself on this movie for 4 years. And beware if you are hard core fan of chopra's or johar's style of movie then it's better to sit at home and wait for DVD to release otherwise if you feel a movie should be good to watch in theater then stop readig this, Go and "Halla Bol!".

You can listen Rising's songs right here

A Secular ReThink

I came to know about this from Debashis, There is a nice essay competition being organised by the Indian Express group. So if you think you can write then here is a chance for a secular re-think. The winning entry can win prize of Rs. 50,000 as well as publication in Indian Express (English) and Jansatta (Hindi). One last thing submit before Aug. 15 this year.

Details are Here

Note: Because of time crunch not able to visit other blogs but thanks to those still stoping by.

An interview with Medha Patekar

Last month I posted and asked if anyone have any questions regarding an interview with Medha Patekar, unfortunately because of short notice I didn't get questions from readers.

Now interview is done and has been published, if anyone is interested, here is the link.