The Virago of Veerpuri

The Virago of Veerpuri got me hooked from the word go - this was the first ever mystery that I had ever read - and as luck would have it, was a mystery that was left unsolved.

The story was published on Chandamama as a series, appearing first in the May issue of the year 1997. It belonged to an era where every single piece of fiction was riveting - full of kings, queens, princesses, evil tantriks, royal astrologers, predictions of doom, the entire lot. You get the picture.

I was living in a town where the only accessible reads were academic text-books; I grew up with my grandparents, and they belonged to the clan who thought kids who didn't read Chandamama growing up would grow up into unspeakable adults. In all fairness, I loved the little book. I literally pined for the 4th of every month, waiting hungrily for the mailman to deliver my copy.

To cut a long story short, The Virago of Veerpuri mysteriously stopped after a few episodes, just when the story was at its most interesting. To this day, it remains like that grain of sand in my eye, that seed stuck in my tooth, that thorn in my foot - I just can't let go. I keep remembering it from time to time, and wonder how the story might have unraveled.

Ah well, wouldn't bode well for me to get nostalgic again, so here goes - all you Chandamama fans, you can go through the archives of the book by going here. And for you old-timers who did follow the story, and know what happened to it - Yours truly is waiting to hear it.

Earth Hour 2010

The Earth Hour campaign, hosted by WWF, is on 27th March this year; and it's getting viral like nobody's business. Millions of households are expected to go dark tomorrow at 2030 hours, in an attempt to curb the menace of Global Warming.

The stats are impressive - Earth Hour 2009 had one billion participants, and this year is expected to cross that figure; 121 countries have counted themselves in, and a whopping 812 global landmarks are expected to turn off their lights for the occasion. The list includes biggies like the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, and more. Closer home, we will see the Red Fort in darkness tomorrow. (Source: WIKI)

While all this is pretty awesome, wouldn't it be a lot simpler if the governments involved just cut off the power for that one hour? I know, it's forced participation that way, but c'mon, think how many participants the event would have! I certainly wouldn't mind a one-hour power cut, especially if it was in the interests of the global community!

So there, now that you know, try to use as less power as possible during that hour - at other times too, for that matter. If this means the day-time temperature is gonna drop by even 1 degree Celsius, I'm willing to try it out.

I hate Global Warming, and I know you do, too. On board, then!

Avatar Blues

Everyone said it was the best movie they had ever seen. Everyone said, they were surely going to watch it a second, third time. Everyone said if you haven't seen Avatar yet, you haven't lived.

I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about. Or rather, I finally got a chance to see what the fuss was all about when my friend got hold of three tickets at the famed IMAX 3D Screen at Prasad's.



The movie in a nutshell - Bad guys target good guys. One bad guy turns into good guy. Finds true love.  Defeats bad guys. End of movie. Throw in tons and tons of special effects, cheesy lines, lots of bluish, creepy looking things, and you've got Avatar. I'm sorry guys, I know you loved the movie, but I just don't see what made the movie so lovable.

Frankly, I developed a migraine about 30 minutes into the movie; whether it was due to the movie itself, the sweltering Hyderabad heat, or the uncomfortable oversized 3D glasses, we'll never know. But yeah, I'm inclined to blame the movie :D We waited in vain for some awesome scene that would make us go WOW!!!, but that never happened.

Pandora was full of neon lighting, huge tails, as-ugly-as-you-can-make-em monsters and birds, and what not. I mean, how creepy were those earthworm-like wiggly things in the Na'vi braids?! And how many of you felt the Na'vis - with their bows and arrows slung on their backs - resembled the Hindu Gods?

What I do acknowledge, is the hardwork put in by hundreds of behind-the-scenes crew; Apparently, each frame (1/24 of a second) of the CGI scenes took an average of 47 man-hours to complete (Source: IMDB).

That certainly is impressive, and while I'm in awe of it, I did not really enjoy it.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

The third and final book of the Millennium Saga begins on a fairly dark note - Lisbeth Salander is battling death with a bullet lodged inside her head; not more than two rooms away is Zala (in the hospital with an axe stuck in his head by Miss Salander) screaming bloody revenge.

Yeah, that's Lisbeth for you! Funny how this scrawny, devil-may-care, bisexual-and-proud-of-it, outrageous delinquent rouses the gentlest, protective, shaking-your-head-with-a-grin feeling.

Lisbeth is awaiting trial for three murders - and it is obviously up to Mikael Blomkvist to prove her innocence.  With Lisbeth locked away in the hospital, and also not on talking terms with him (she refers to him as Kalle Bastard Blomkvist), this might easily be the toughest task he's ever encountered. As he delves deeper into the seemingly simple case, he comes up with startling revelations - the sinster plot goes all the way into the very heart of the Swedish Secret Service, with consequences that might topple the government.

I guess what sets these novels apart from others of their genre are their approach towards women; these books do have women targeted as the weaker sex, but they also show how they spring back with vigor; they show that today's women are independent, strong, completely capable of taking on the world, come what may. Also that it's mighty foolish to meddle with them - as Bjurman the Advocate found out, in a very painful, and life-altering way (Thanks to Lisbeth, obviously ;-)). Women in these books have strong characters, and not one single girl in the trilogy has been portrayed as a damsel-in-distress.

Men need not feel left out here - Mikael Blomkvist is quite the hero, let me assure you! Book lover or not, these three novels are a must read for everyone.

Beg, borrow, or steal - but get your hands on these beauties. They are totally, totally worth it.

KitKats and Orang-utans

Incredulous though it may seem, your eating Kitkats might ultimately lead to the extinction of one of nature's most loved primates - The Orang-utan. How?

Looks like Nestlé's palm oil providers destroy precious Indonesian rainforests to get those chocolates made. Not only will this lead to serious climate change, it's also going to result in the orang-utans getting wiped out from the face of the earth.

Going by the statement issued by the company, Nestlé has announced very graciously that they're going to keep using these killer methods till the year 2015, at the very least. After which they have a committment to start using "Certified Sustainable Palm Oil" once they're done with 5 more years of burning up the planet. You can read their complete statement here.

What with all the Global Warming and Climate Summits going on in full swing, it's time someone took note of this. And Greenpeace did.

Join Greenpeace in their campaign - "Nestlé Killer - Ask Nestlé to give rainforests a break!" The next time you feel like a break, maybe you might want to re-consider your options. I know I will.

Facebook in Hyderabad! Woohoo!

Ah well, good news for Facebook fans around here - FB is launching in Hyderabad!

The internet is agog with this news, and is also flooded with comments - apparently, this revelation hasn't gone well with folks from other cities. People, people, if you are so mighty jealous of this fact, why don't you just move to Hyderabad here, eh? ;-) I am sure the team of Facebook had good reasons for having their first office here; obviously, they must've given the matter a LOT more thought than we do, and must've thought of a lot more reasons for having it's office here, than we can even possibly think of.

FB's main competition in India, Orkut has been around since quite a few years, and been ruling the roost for some time - but off late, there has been a change in trend, maybe largely owing to the tons of applications Facebook has to provide, and, of course, Twitter. Personally speaking, around two years back I was so addicted to Orkut that rarely a day passed without me doing some activity on it; now, it's come down to maybe once a month, and that is just to be active on the Blogger forums I'm a part of. Twitter is still catching on, in the sense that it doesn't offer much in terms of what we office people call "time-pass", catering mainly to the business person.

Whatever the facts might be, and however popular Facebook might turn out to be, it's team is going to have a challenge on their hands, and I guess they'll have to venture forward with caution.

It's the Online Sales and Operations team who's going to get recruited first - inside news is that the FB team in the US have contacted Adecco India, Hyderabad branch, to start the process of hiring. So buckle up all you sales people, and update your resumes!

And to the Facebook team, here's wishing you best of luck!

Babes Day Out!

It's been a ritual for me ever since I can remember - Every Women's Day, I get up in the morning, rack my brains for something witty, and SMS it to my whole address book. A couple of people reply back; and that's it. The rest of the day is pretty uneventful.

Not this time!

The babes at Pramati decided we'd go down to the cafetaria and spend some time together in honor of the occasion - it was our special day, after all. Our HR came over with a yummy chocolate cake which vanished in a matter of seconds, all diets forgotten. We got to talking, and suddenly one of us decided, wouldn't it be great if we took turns in sharing the good things we find in each other. What started for fun got serious, and pretty soon, it started in earnest.

I was reminded of the chain mail we receive every few days of a teacher, asking her students to list out one good quality against everyone's name, and how, years later, it turned out everyone saved their lists. At the time, I waived that mail off as silly, one of those mass mails you usually come across. How wrong I was!

There were around 14 girls at our table, and it was fun getting to know each one from other people's perspective. I realized how my perception of them was so very different from what they really were. When eventually my turn came, I could just stare back open-mouthed. I never gave a moment's thought to how the world views me; and hearing them say all that about me left me astonished. One of them described me as vulnerable - a quality I would never have associated with, and well, so on and so forth.

I know I'll cherish those moments for as long as possible, and I want to thank all those people who made it that way - Shifa, Apoorva, Tanuja, Namisha, Swati, Nehal, Sangeetha, Sushmita, Ranjana, Chandana, Mrinalini, Deepika, and last but not the least Amrita (I know you were not there, but hey, the times you, me, and Shifa spend together are all special, don't you think? ;-))

Thank you ladies! That was the most special Women's Day ever!

Oscar Fever 2010!

The Oscars are back - and I guess with quite some surprises, for me, at least.

The Hurt Locker grabbed the spotlight this year with an incredible six wins, including the Best Picture and Best Direction; Kathryn Bigelow created history by becoming the first woman to win an Oscar in the Best Direction category.



This one is even more memorable for her considering the fact that James Cameron, her ex-husband was also in the race for the same award - with a movie that's already been over-hyped and over-praised around the world. Good for you, Kathryn! ;-)

Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress - am I happy for her! I've always admired her, from Speed to Miss Congeniality to Two Weeks Notice. Avatar hogged three Oscars - I'm darn happy it didn't go on to win the Best Picture award  - I somehow felt the movie was grossly overrated.

The win that excited me the most was for the animated movie, Up - I watched this movie a few days ago, and it really pierced my heart.  That it also won an Oscar for Best Music is not surprising, too; it's soundtrack moved me to tears.

So, fellows, these are the wins that were of interest to me - for a full list of Oscar 2010 winners, go here.

Karthik Calling Karthik

Will you hang up that phone already?!

This is one movie which tested my patience beyond recognition, making me feel like screaming. I always thought Farhan Akhtar was into offbeat, and fresh themes; what made him choose this one, I'll never know. Tried and tested and failed at least half a dozen times, the plot is so glaringly obvious that about 15 minutes into the movie we predicted how the plot would turn out to be, and also how the climax would unfold. Bingo! No surprises there!

Karthik is a mouse and a doormat who gets trampled on by everyone, and is literally invisible. One day it crosses the line, with him getting fired and everything, and he loses it completely. Lo and behold, he starts getting calls everyday at 5AM on the dot, from - no surprises here, either - Karthik  himself! Soon, his life starts taking an upward turn, he gets the girl of his dreams, blah blah. Sooner said than done, trouble starts brewing when Karthik and Karthik have  a brief altercation and life turns upside down for the real Karthik.

Lots of potholes in the movie, Deepika Padukone looks and acts like an amateur. Even the way she smokes a cigarette is so very put-on! Ugh! And Farhan, what the heck happened dude?! Why?! This is the one question I've been asking myself ever since. Apart from a couple of scenes that interested us, not a single frame could grab our attention. The songs are okay, hummable for a few days but nothing noteworthy.

Suffice to say that you can give this one a miss. Go watch some other movie. Or better still, stay at home and rent some classic from your nearby DVD store.

At the very least, you'll save yourself a headache from going out in the sun.