Aaja Nachle - The Diva Returns

The diva returns - an actress who made a million hearts throb with "Dhak Dhak" , who made us all believe that "Someone.. Somewhere.. is made for you" and who danced her way out of the Indian Film Industry 5 years back with "Maar Daala" !

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Friends and Foes, Earthlings and Aliens.. I present before you, the invincible, gorgeous and evergreen Madhuri Dixit !!

Madhuri returns to Indian films with Yashraj Film's Aaja Nachle ! It's 4 days past the release of the movie and having seen it at the first opportunity, it'd be sheer sacrilege if I deny you all (my regular blog readers), the pleasure of a peek into Madhuri's comeback tale. Disclaimer : All views and opinions expressed herein belong solely to the author of this blog who has a natural bias towards Madhuri and will hence neither express nor accept any derogatory comments / remarks about her :D

The movie begins with.. Madhuri (Dia) dancing and ends with Madhuri dancing ! Sheer treat for all her fans, if you ask me. Chuck the movie, chuck the story, chuck the direction, screenplay and the dialogs ! Go there just to see one of the most versatile dancers of Indian cinema performing the most exotic jhatka-matkas, flashing the regular 1000 watt smile of hers and delivering a performance that leaves you gasping for more. She can still emote as she did, she can still make you laugh and cry with her, and most importantly - she can still make you dance with her !

The movie is centered around Dia who comes back to her town, Shamli to save the local theater, Ajanta, with which she and her Guruji shared an emotional bond. With some other typical movie masala put in and a beautifully choreographed climax (a musical rendition of laila majnu starring Kunal Kapoor and Konkana Sen Sharma) the story reaches a happy ending - Ajanta is saved from demolition and revived by the people of Shamli.

Believe me - that's all there is to the story :) Those who expect anything more from the story are hereby warned that the movie is solely meant for pure-blood Madhuri Dixit fans who do NOT mind spending a few hundreds on the ticket to see her on screen !

The Inimitable Wodehouse... An Introduction..

Before I start : This update comes soon after the previous one ! Do NOT miss the one below :)

Okk.. now that we are done with the preliminaries, let me introduce you, for the very first time on my blog... Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse..

The simplest and the most succinct description of Sir P.G. Wodehouse has been given by Douglas Adam : “P.G. Wodehouse is the greatest comic writer ever.”

No words that I can conjure, will be able to describe his genius any better. So I'll not attempt to do so either. Below are a few quotes from some of Wodehouse's best works which will leave you laughing in fits :

1. It was one of those jolly, happy, bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and then decide not to say it after all
   
   
2. I suppose I'm one of those fellows my father always warned me against.
   
   
3. I can detach myself from the world. If there is a better world to detach oneself from than the one functioning at the moment I have yet to hear of it.
   
   
4. ``What ho!'' I said.
   ``What ho!'' said Monty.
   ``What ho! What ho!''
   ``What ho! What ho! What ho!''
   After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
   
   
5. The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun
   
   
6. She wrinkles her nose at me as if I were a drain that had got out of order
   
   
7. Her face was shining like the seat of a bus-driver's trousers
   
   
8. I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled !
   
   
9. I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.
   
   
10. She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season !

Watch out for more bits of work from this literary genius on my blog !

Till next time.. Cheers !

And thus began the much awaited MBA course..

Hello people !

After many delays, lost couriers, redirected speed posts, angry phone calls to the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR - for future reference) and several trips to the courier office, I finally got my PGDM PFC material (Post Graduate Diploma in Management - Pre Foundation Course) which flags off two years of books, studies, assignments, drudgery and (hopefully) fun ! :D

Contents of the PFC :

1. Fat book on Business Statistics
2. Fat ugly book on Management Science with spreadshets
3. Fatter, uglier book on Financial Accounting by Stice & Stice ! (HMPH ! Looks like a Stice family conspiracy to make my life miserable ! May a bird with an upset stomach relieve it's droppings on the Stice residence.. wherever it is !)
4. Miscellaneous hand written notes by professors on each of those topics. Looks like a must-read (as a rule - always be scared of professors who prefix "Dr" to their names :D)

The whole ordeal has been scheduled to last for 30+12+(not known) number of hours for each of the above respectively.

So that leaves me with umm.. 6 days (leaving for Mumbai on 16th evening) to prepare for the test that awaits me on campus. Further analysis reveals thus :

42 hours

6 days

No. of study hours per day = 42/6 = 7 hours/day (That shud almost cover the time of the day when I'm awake :D)

On the brighter side. the material doesn't look too monotonous. Lots of interesting stuff which (thankfully) doesn't need to be gulped down the throat for examination purposes. Let's see how I fare... will keep you all updated on this !

Till next time.. Cheers !

FMCG companies go nutritious !

Whoever said that Indians are malnourished ?

With every shampoo, toothpaste and soap these days, having extracts of egg, curd, pumpkin, papaya, strawberries, banana, spinach , rose, gulmohar, orchid etc etc .. I'm sure we all get a lot of their nutrients whether we want it or not ! Pretty convenient, one could say. I mean, naturally none of us would've thought of munching on a red rose, thereby missing out on the much hyped nutritions that it is supposed to be teeming with ! Thank FMCGs for their kind attention to this and thereby including prized roses in their products.

The questions stands at how genuine these claims are ? Even if they ARE genuine, do I really need watermelon in my hairs ? Wouldn't I rather eat it and give the nutrients a better path into my body rather than rubbing it on my hairs ?

However, the trick here seems to be to cash in on the recent "go green" trend. Any product with veggie extracts in it , appeals to the customers. This brings us to the question of how matured the Indian customer really is ! Pretty matured, I'd say.. these gimmicks can attract customers for the first time but it's quite difficult to hold on to them if you don't deliver what you promised. That is more so important in a country like India, where the concept of "brand loyalty" is virtually absent. If I'm using soap X today, the next time I'm buying soap.. there's little certainty that I'd go looking for the same brand. Instead I'll probably be more concerned about other criteria such as "other new products","prices" and "availability"(here... "I" is the typical Indian customer.. the regular "I".. that's ME.. uses the same brand of soap always :P)

But it's nonetheless interesting and amusing to see what they can come up with next ! Almost all known species of fruits, vegetables, milk (and other dairy products) and flowers have been extracted for use in FMCG products. Wonder what's next ??

Migrated from Yahoo! 360

Hi Friends,

Migrating my blog from Yahoo! 360 to blogger.

Reason being that some of my blog visitors (I'll refrain from taking names :P) were too lazy to login to Yahoo and post comments. I figured that maybe the convenience of posting anonymously / easy sign-in through GMail account on Blogger would be a smaller deterrent !

Link to Yahoo! 360 blog page (rendered inactive henceforth) - http://blog.360.yahoo.com/abhinav.kishore

Keep watching this space for more !

Cheers..