Just too much...

My Yahoo status message reads: "apun ka weekend...15 hours of movies, 3 hours of guitar concert, 6 hours of French classes, 8 hours of guitar practice, 1/2 hour of work". It does give me a pretty good idea of what I will have to write if I were to cover the events of the past two days. And that is precisely what I am going to do because presenting life as it goes past me gives me the biggest licence to express myself and my thoughts in the way I want to. So here goes...

Kya kool hain hum is an absolute timepass but in the league of movies I like, you will never find a place for this Tushaar (I don't know the latest spelling) and Ritesh starrer. Above everything else, it makes an absolute mockery of the feminine gender and societal issues. In fact, I am pretty surprised why no feminist group has taken up arms against the movie yet. It is so insensitive that it glorifies rape by trying to base the entire story on how a female police officer (the paan-chewing and naturally-sensuous-but-still-trying-to-shed-clothes Isha Koppikar) tries to entice a serial rapist killer suspect into raping her so that she can catch him red-handed. On the other side, the other female lead (who else but Neha Dhupia would be fit for this) tries the same with a guy who she thinks is in love with her brother...man, how uncool can you be!

Main aisa hi hoon, though a non-starter, will certainly find a place of pride in my movie list. Apart from Devgan's acting (which, once again, turns out to be two notches above the rest), the entire plot and the supporting cast (including the for-a-change-looking-good Esha Deol) make for an interesting movie. To add to the flesh, there is the extremely graceful Sushmita Sen (I have been thinking lately...I know it is hard to digest for me but probably she did deserve to win over Aish) and one gifted performer in the girl who plays Devgan's daughter in the movie. The sentiments and emotions are all there in the movie but in as much restrain as ideal...no overdose of loud guffaws or sobs...a balanced directorial outlook and some decent music, too.

It was the third time or so that I feasted myself on these two of Tarantino's amazing works. Personally, I prefer the original Kill Bill to the much hyped sequel. The way Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu fight it out on the snow in the climax of the movie and the scenes in the middle where Thurman demolishes her enemies are pretty much in a different league. Kill Bill 2 is darker and perhaps because of this, did not appeal so much to me. Luckily, I got some amazing prints of the two movies and enjoyed them a great deal.

Swordfish was the umpteenth time, too and so was Face-off. Nevertheless, the movies were on as soon as I heard the familiar Travolta attitude-filled tone coming from the speakers of Anurag's (my PG mate) laptop. Swordfish is certainly meant to be enjoyed all the more by the geeky types...or at least those who know the difference between a 64 bit encrypted string and say...a rope string :-). Halle Berry is great, BTW. Face-off, of course, is full of spice and dares you to let your eyes go off the screen for even an instant. Full of chills and thrills, the chemistry between Nicholas Cage and Travolta is electrifying (BTW, the Amitabh-Bajpai effort in Aks was not bad, either).

The God of guitar was in town. The first ever western music conert by an international artist (I have had quite some experiences of desi bands trying to play foren music) that I attended, I found it worth all the money and hype. Rushing past the barricade into the higher-priced stall was fun as long as it lasted but once we settled down (which is to be read as "once we started to shout our heads off while head banging to the music), the magic began. He really deserves the praise that is heaped upon him and man, does that guy have some stamina! He plays music like triple octave on his guitar (or maybe, I should say guitars, given the frequency with which he was changing them) and keeps moving to the lower end of the fret board, feels as hot as some one in a furnace and yet keeps stringing away for two and a half straight hours without any sort of a break.

The basic difference between an Indian music exponent and Joe Satriani (as also others I have seen performing in video) is, in my humble opinion, one related to the intended audience and its importance in the concert. While the typical Indian musician plays for a higher power (or spirit) and interacts more with his/her music than the audience, a western music performer relies on adrenaline to take the concert through. To get the required dosage, these performers have to be on a platform where they can hear people root for them, shout out, and bang their heads. This is what drives them and this is what gets the best out of them.

The French classes have slowed down a bit or perhaps, all of us in the batch have become a lot more comfortable. Personally, I felt that a lot more could have been covered in the class and we could have gone to at least one level higher in the two days. But there must be purpose in the way things went and the people who designed the course, of course know much more than I do about what they should be doing. And anyways, if we are able to understand this much this quickly, all the better for us.

Unfortunately, I had to miss three straight days of guitar lessons on account of night outs and presentation preparation and what not but I did manage to get in some quality practice time. I am worried about the final shape that this thing is going to take, however. The time that I am spending on this activity, though quite a lot in absolute magnitude, appears quite small when I try to relate it to what I have really learnt. It will suffice to say that in two odd weeks, I haven't progressed much and given the little time remaining, I am forced to think...

After arranging a string of cartoons for my presentation, I did not want to change it and spoil the effect by adding any text :D. All the topics had been covered through some typically satirical Dilbert, CnH and Peanuts cartoons and the real content was as good (or as bad) as a disturbance in the scheme of things. Sivaram (the IIMC guy interning with me) suggested that I let the presentation remain as it is and give printouts of the actual presentation to the audience. Good idea but I did not take the risk and instead put in the real stuff in my presentation itself in a way that the cartoons came first and gradually gave way to the more serious (and relevant ;-)) text.

I have been tweaking the presentation since morning today and have just come back after what, I would say, was a pretty successful and comfortable presentation. This post has ran into quite some length now so I will post more about my presentation and those of my fellow trainees in the next post. Till then...