Privy

Today, while making a call, this is what I received from my cell phone operator, atleast 25 times, before my call went through. The operator in question is Vodafone, Karnataka, (yes the one which leaves a dog behind you) Looks like in the present economic conditions, the dog is working overtime. And is going after more than one owners.

Now, even Hutch network in Karnataka was bad, and the impression is only that it has become worse after it changed to Vodafone. Airtel is only slightly better, here in Bangalore. For eg., it works well even in the interior elevators and lifts. Don’t know the reason, why I cannot see the level of QoS, that they keep claiming with their marketing and advertising campaigns.

I guess, if they spent half the money on building their network, of what they spent on marketing, we would have a better time. Some times its sheer frustation, when you want to make a quick call to inform some one. Since I have been using this number for over four years, I have learnt to adjust to its network’s shortcomings.

This makes me wonder where the number retention policy went. It was supposed to have been implemented by now in the metros and major cities, at least. I think the Mittals, the Sarins and the Birlas had some closed room dialogues and improved the economy of some minister.

Yet again, Dial C for Cricket (confusion as I like to call it) lived upto its reputation of making misguided discussions and trying to fit in reasons to conclude, as per convenience. This time they were in search of a hero and seperate him out from the rest of the team, honor him and undermine the efforts of the rest of the team.

Some how, architect of any win are always batsman, though in this match, it was also some great bowling by the Indian’s in the second innings. For England, out of 311 that they scored in the second innings, around 240 were contributed by a single partnership. When England had an opportunity to blow it away, they blew it up, and the credit has to go to our bowlers.

Now, Sachin’s innings was great by far, but I don’t know how would we have looked at it, say if he had not got a century and had Yuvraj (with the same effort that he put) bypassed his score. May be Yuvraj could have been declared the hero, rather than a sidekick that he was portrayed. Anyways, Sachin’s centuries are celebrated more than even double hundreds by other players. The problem is that we go too much into numbers and Sachin himself realises that very well. For Indians, Sachin is the heir apparent to Bradman and any further proofs (if there are still not enough of them), makes us go ga-ga. A little unfair to other players, though.

I hardly found an article even coming close to attributing the win to Sehwag for his out of the world innings. Sachin for me was the architect for India not loosing. With Sehwag’s innings, Sachin could make us win. Without it, Sachin would have still ensured that we didn’t loose.

I do feel for England, who didn’t deserve this, after playing good cricket. But if you look at it in a different light that should a team win because in two innings that it batted, there were only three partnerships? After having a great opening stand, you are all out for 35o?

On the other hand, India also won it fair and square and deserved it anyway. England would have definitely not deserved a draw, but either team winning was the ideal result.

With the release of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi just round the corner, I find striking similarities between Jassi and SRK’s character. Like Jassi, SRK has a bad hair style. Ditto for the bad spectacles. Like Jassi, SRK also has a makeover, for let me guess, LOVE. Only thing missing is perhaps the braces on Jassi’s teeth.

Now, people are really praising SRK for trying something “different”, with this role and also for coming out and saying openly to forget “Raj”, that brought him to this level in the first place.

The music is quite below par, for the standards of Adi Chopra, except for Haule Haule perhaps, which looks strikingly similar to Mawla kabhi mujhe chodna kabhi nahi, by Adnan Sami and Amitabh Bacchan. I like the song paraody though.

Now, the story seems to be set around a dance show. Reality shows are all about drama, and this movie is a drama about drama. Yashraj will still make money out of this movie, as for audience, they had quite a few options for the year end. By the way did you watch “Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye!” or “Sorry Bhai”?

Comedy circus on Sony is really among the great shows on TV worth watching today. The level of creativity is just too good and matches the first season of the Great Indian Comedy Show, and perhaps even exceeds it in some ways.

Shakeel is very irritating, but I like his spontaneity. But all his dialogues are lifted from various Pakistani plays in which he used to act some minorly major roles (don’t ask what this means). The most famous is the role of “tili” in Bakra Qiston Pay – Parts 2 & 3. Umar Sharif use to abuse him the same way he abuses others.

Ali and Kashif are out of this world and utterly amazing. But my favorites are sure to be Krishna and Sudesh. The singer-actor act is by far the best, something which was unimaginable for me. Swapnil and VIP are the other great pair and come up with extraordinary performances from time to time.

However, they got eliminated last week. And a new pair from the second season is going to enter Kaante ki takkar. Now, this is the thing that I don’t like about shows these days – wild card entries! Really unjust to the people who are there since the beginning. The second season was won by Juhi and VIP through a wild card when the entered mid-way. And, guess who is the new pair this time around! Juhi-VIP, any takers?

Everyone needs hope to survive and most see hope in any kind of change. No wonder Barack Obama could hit the right chords in the hearts and minds of the American citizens. The Mumbai attacks not only claimed the lives of various Indian and foreign citizens, but also the posts of Home minister of India and the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharastra (The CMs post is hanging in balance).

While P. Chidambaram has been given the Home ministry, prime minister Manmohan Singh has taken up the finance portfolio. These were solely the reactions to the need of the people to see some action, see some change. It seldom matters whether the change is for good.

The India England test series is likely to go ahead on schedule, barring the change in venues. There was a scheduled pratice match in Baroda (Vadodara) which is likely to be shifted to a place near Kolkata – the place where the first test match also is likely to be shifted to. The Mumbai test venue has already been changed to Chennai.

The Live Earth concert also stands cancelled in the wake of Mumbai attacks. Ideally, they could have still gone ahead with it, without any entertainment performances (by Bon Jovi and AB) – as a token of respect for the victims. Also, that would have highlighted the spirit (don’t talk about this word in front of Barkha Dutt) of humanity.