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STATUTORY WARNING

Fans of Karan Johar, Yash Chopra and their Khans (except A.Khan) are requested to stay away from this post :)

I am a complete movie buff. Time line, language, genre, directors, actors and actresses have never been a criteria for me to watch movies. Even though i do have my own favorites, I can watch any type of movie from the lousiest johars-chopras to legendary Balachandar-Hrishikesh, from KHANS to Bachchans & KANTHs. These days we occasionally go to theatres due to the scarcity of known language movies released in Grenoble and when we do go, we do our homework, confused, i.e. we watch the online original version of the movie and then to get the feel we watch the french version of it in the movie hall (Mr Nimoy and James Cameron are the ones who made us do that). Thanks to the high speed internet we watch all the latest hollywood, bollywood and kollywood flicks even before our friends/family watch it in india, sometimes we have the privilege of watching first day first show if the unofficial online distributors do their job properly [at much cheaper rates :) and at much cozy conditions :p]. Hope i am not sued by the film makers for mentioning about internet movie piracy.

Off late i have been watching/re-watching old hindi and tamil movies and constantly i was trying to think about the best 21st century movies (hindi-tamil) . I could only name a few. The 21st century movies (atleast hindi and tamil) has it all - advanced movie making technology, enormous budgets, foreign shootouts, hollywood crew-studios, six pack to size zero stars, ravishing shirtless ones to glamarous bikini clad ones. The one thing that most of the movies dont have or forget to have is a storyline. On the contrary the great yesteryear movies did not have most of the above mentioned things and the one thing they had was a storyline/plot. They were so simple yet so nice to watch. The simplicity is no more seen in most of today's movies. Everything is overdone be it romance, emotions, drama or comedy. Its sad that in spite of having immense talents in acting and direction, not a lot of great movies are churned out these days. I guess one has to just accept the fact that movie making has also evolved the way our food, dress and life style has evolved over the years.

As movies are according to ones own taste, some/all of them may or may not agree with what i have said. No offense intended to any particular movie/star/director :)

In the Pursuit of Magginess

It was one of those boring evenings when i had no mood to cook the dinner. I looked in the cupboard and there was nothing which i could make in 2 minutes. The key words "food and 2 minutes" were getting googled inside my brain Bang !!!!!! something hit my brain...... MAGGI.....
yes i had a 4 pack maggi aata noodles which we brought from India. The next thing i knew was we were eating maggi hmmmm wow, just the word itself is mouth watering.....i relished every moment of it...i did not even waste a tiny bit of it....but had a mixed feeling while eating it, i was sad that it was getting over and we were just left with 2 more packs. So i decided to hide it from my sight (i am yet to do that :))
Any one whose has stayed away from home can feel what MAGGI means to them. It is just next to mother's cooking (in my case next to hubby's cooking as well). My friends from college (if not the entire college, but atleast ex-residents of kasturba gandhi hostel THE famous H7)would definitely second me on this view. We have lived on maggi for four years. Those times the most commonly borrowed thing in the hostel was.....hehe dont be so fast in deciding......it was not lecture notes or books or novels....it was maggi.....
Great great grand daughters of Harishchandra were forced to lie for the sake of giving maggi to someone else. We were more than happy to give away our SBI savings rather that giving away a pack of maggi. Maggi is the only weapon to combat the mid night hunger stokes that is developed after eating leela ben's so food (sorry leela ben and co !!!!!) Mid night maggi sessions were so much fun those days. One good cook, i.e. the bakra is makes maggi for the rest of the buggers.
Living away from india for the past two years has made me think why Nestlé sells everything except maggi noodles in super markets. In Grenoble, even the indian shops does not sell maggi. Well, I am feeling hungry now.....let me stop writing here..... i just hope i am able to do some maggi jugaad before the last 2 packs get over.

Moi et coupe de monde de football

Indians and cricket wow made for each other, Indians and tennis it makes you think our very own Sania.... oops not ours any more, our padosi's bahu Begum Sania Mirza Mallik. Indians and badminton did ring a bell, the most confused sportswomen's name Saina (aka Sania for award committee people). Indians and football......we do have Mr Bhutia, but what about Indians and football world cup........yeh sunke kuch kuch hota hai isnt it??????????

Its a very strange relationship....... world cup mein Indian team toh hota nahi hai (Sorry baichung ji) when the world cup is about to begin, atleast people like me (who do not know much about football) are confused about which team to support??? There are weird reasons for people like me to support a team......Ok i will support UK coz Beckham is cool...........ohh no no wait Christiano Ronaldo is sexy............ so should i support Portugal.......wait a minute there are a lot of R players in Brazil............ so should i support Brazil............the list is on and on.........

Well this time i thought i have a valid reason to support one team and that is "Les Bleus" the great french football team (you all know the valid reason........now)

So i was gearing up for world cup 2010.......... really excited about the first game France and Uruguay.........some how could not see the match .........just read about the boring draw on news site. There were some other boring matches.............. as well but since i did not support ne of them did not watch them............ well i did watch and support portugal for once (just for Christiano.......)

The second match les blues were beatan black and blue by the Mexicana......... ok that meant last hope for france is to trash South Africa........ but in between............ the french showed their true colors .......... they went on a strike in world cup............can you believe that!!!!!!!!!!!

they abandoned practice session........ Humari Bruni ji gave a jaadoo ki jhappi to our Sarkozy to console him......

Well, the strike had its effect............. Bafna Bafna and his team kicked them back to France......

So now i was in a dilemma ........whom to support after france......................

My husband is a staunch supporter of Argentina and Germany........... his teams were in a strong position......but for me what do i do.......... even the last 16 were over and quarter finals was about to begin i was still contemplating on my teams.............

well after that i followed one simple rule....... support the non european teams.............so my first pick was Brazil........... i love them for ..............donno......may be for their football playing abilities as i was thinking they will be there till the finals and i do not have to keep jumping from one team to another

First match Q Finals - I was back to my cheering mode and was supporting and singing Brazil..... la la la la la .............. i was seeing the updates every 2 minutes on BBC website (i was in office during that match) after 90 minutes........... the oranginas had sent the Brizalian mamoths back to their rain forest.

Now again i was confused ........ ok the second match i was not supporting any team........... Uruguauy won and i was happy

The 3rd match came..........my hubby was really looking forward to that match i was pretty confident.........Argentinians would make it.........any ways.............so i was cheering Maradona's men and vijay was supporting the alcoholics.............

here i go once again................ the argentinians were crushed by Germans............ vijay was just elated and over joyed.................

I was hoping the fourth match would atleast turn out to my expectations......... but my luck had its day, Espagnoles pounced on Praguay.........and that was it......... every one knows what happened after that.

Ok out of the 4 non european teams just Uruguay lived upto my expectations (kaise din aa agye hai unke)

first semi finals kicked off and i was praying for Uruguay........... well ek bhi player ka naam nahi pata still i was cheering Uruguay uruguay.................... history repeated itself and the team i supported lost the oranges were through to the finals

My say on the game is, Uruguay lost as they could really play well due to the bright orange color, am planning to write to the FIFA committe to change the orange to something nice and pleasant.......................

now no more non europeans teams left...........

2nd semis had the mighty Germans against, now over night i thought which team to support Germans or Spanish ................. well now this time wierd reasons were back............i supported spain coz every one else was supporting germany.............. but wait a minute, all the teams i have supported have lost till now............so if i want spain to win then i will have to support Germany so that they lose.............. first half was over and it was still zero-zero, but my trick was working

Spain was going good................ i continued to support Aller germany aller (go germany go)............

that worked again........... spain had its first goal........................i was jumping and yelling

and yes yes yes i did it........well not me..................spain did it............they won...........they were through to the finals.......... my luck did help spain to swim to the finals................ my darling hubby was very upset.........poor vijay....his team lost coz of me............... but i was happy.......... very very happy..................

Well............i just hope Spain could wear some kind of light filter glasses in their finals.............

Dont get me wrong.............i am supporting the dutch.....................

Go holland Go...................................