Straight drive

As I caught up with a few movies over the new year weekend, it got me thinking over a tool many filmmakers seem to have been using recently - that of retelling a standard classic. Since there is no longer anything of value to be added, they tweak a little something: either set it to a different time, or provide additional layers to the characters or the plot. While most of the time it is an interesting exercise in that it tries to provide an answer to some of the 'what if..' situations we think of, other times the filmmakers take the idea so far out we have a tough time convincing ourselves we are watching the same movie the title seems to suggest! I must admit I had my apprehensions when Guy Ritchie's 'Sherlock Holmes' came out a couple of years back, but the movie was a pleasant surprise. Ritchies' achievement lay in getting away from the stereotypes that Holmes, and especially Dr. Watson, had becomes in the earlier versions and not retelling any of Conan Doyl...

Ah, we are in that cycle again. Every once in a while, during the festive/wedding season or when the migratory birds (read: Desis settled abroad) come visiting or when technology or social networking enables us to connect to people settled all over the world, there is always the inevitable talk of a getting together of old mates. Having lived in the same locality all the bloody time, and owing to my good habit of walking to most places, I do keep bumping into old friends and acquaintances many a time. Rather depressingly, I am starting to feel these meetings end up on a rather disappointing note. Perhaps some explanation is needed. You see, we tend to have these wonderful memories of everyone we knew as a kid, and every time we refer to the person, the memories and stories we evoke conform to that image. Of course, no one is going to stay the same all the time. Hell, I can hardly recognize myself sometimes. If I were to hear myself blabbering on 'official' calls I would probab...

I am happy. I am happy for the school kid who cannot resist a peek at the TV to check the score as he prepares for his exams, cursing the ICC for the inconvenient scheduling. I am happy for the proud Bengali who first instilled confidence and taught the team what it was to stand tall in the face of calamity, and who must be proudly looking at the team today as it carries his legacy forward. I am happy for the street kid who spends his hard earned money to buy a ticket costing way more than his income every time there is a match in the town, with the sole intention of seeing his heroes in action, and forgoes a few meals along the way. I am happy for the lion hearted fast bowler who came back into the team the long hard way and for half a decade since has carried the Indian attack on his shoulders despite having a different new ball partner almost every second match; who must have been haunted by the memories of how he, then a young tearaway fast bowler, had gifted the momentum to Austra...

Watching Federer go down against Nadal at the final of the Australian Open was an overbearing experience. An year ago, Nadal had demolished the master at the French garrison and then stole the Wimbledon from right under Federer's nose in one of the greatest matches of the open era. Even so, Nadal had to fight every inch of the way as the fifth set went all the way to 9-7 before laying his hands on the crystal trophy. The Australian open final was different. It was, as Federer later admitted, a match he should have won. He was the on who hit far more winners, albeit compensated with his higher number of unforced errors, had almost doulble break points to his opponent, and also won two of his sets rather easily - 6-3. So what went wrong? It was a battle which, more than anything, Federer lost in the mind. He made one bad error in the third game of the fifth set which allowed Nadal to break him, and you could almost recognise that Federer had lost the plot. Though Nadal's immensel...

Whatever it means in the English language, for boys growing up in India, it only means one thing - a monthly trip to the nearest barber after a scolding at school! India's hair cut saloons are a lovely reflection of the culture of the place. The water and the after shave being sprayed around the place leaves a lingering smell which is at once damp and refreshing. The cut locks lying about the floor add their own to the ambience. If the shop is relatively old, the furniture would have got all creaky with lime scales lining up the mirrors. The platform in front of the mirror is littered with water sprays, blades, creams of all makes, dyes, and the like. All in all, a great place to get in touch with the real India (forgive me for sounding like a firang tourist.) If, like 80% of the general populace, you find it too hard to get up on a weekday for the harvest and only visit the place 'subah subah' on a Sunday (anytime before 1PM), chances are, there would be atleast 7-8 people...

London, New York and Paris are three cities which have withstood the test of time and have redefined the way the modern world has shaped up, for better or for worse. Having been fortunate enough to spend time in all three of them within a space of an year, and having been bewitched by each of them in their own unique ways, here are my views on them. London was home to me for two years. London was everything I expected it to be, and a bit more. As a character says in Snatch, "London, you know... - fish, chips, cup 'O tea, bad weather, worse food, Mary @#$%ing Poppins, London!". My own views are not that cynical but yes, the worst thing about London is surely the weather. Well, for eight months of the year at least. It is not just the fact that it is cold but it so amazingly depressing in the short and cloudy days of the winter, that I often wonder how the British have resisted suicidal tendencies! In the summer, however, England is the best place to be. With the extended d...

For an Indian growing up in the 'communally sensitive' city of Hyderabad and having watched the menace of cross border terrorism grow from murders in Kashmir to bomb blasts 5 minutes from my home, I have nothing but the deepest hatred for all things Pakistan. I remember Wasim Akram once said in an interview that when he first came to India he half expected to find devils with horns walking on the street. My notion of Pakistan, and as an extension Pakistanis was not very different. Though that particular notion has since been put to rest, I have found new reasons to continue my contempt for the nation. The first time I met a Paki (I use the term purely as short form for 'Pakistani' and not in the derogatory sense), in fact two of them, was in Dubai on stopover to London, which, incidentally, my first overseas travel. As much as I dislike it I do look like someone across the border, and thus they misunderstood me to be a Pakistani. They surely did not look Indian to me an...