Few weeks back I had been to Matheran on a day-long trip when I saw a white bird with a long tail hopping in the trees. But it vanished in the dense foliage before I could take a good look at it. I decided to scout the net for it and chanced upon a veritable treasure trove of photographs of Indian birds. Here’s one page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_India

There’s another site which is more comprehensive - http://birding.in/birds_of_india.htm.I could spot so many birds in my backyard and for the first time know their names – Green Bee-Eater, Red-Vented Bulbul, White-throated Kingfisher and Golden Oriole. :-)

Even the newest feathered friend merrily chirping about on my neighborhood trees was present on the wiki page – White-throated Fantail. :-)

Silent Warnings

A couple of days back I watched a movie on one of the English movie channels. It was one of the run-of-the-mill “teenagers on a holiday in trouble” movies. Like most of the movies I watch these days, I came on board a couple of minutes after the flight took off. Not that you miss much in such movies even if you check in an hour late.

But I was curious nevertheless, so I browsed imdb.com for the movie review. At first I couldn’t find it. I wondered if I was the only person on earth to have seen it. Kind of creepy, isn’t it? Then I figured out that maybe I had got the title wrong. So I searched for actor Billy Zane who was about the only person, apart from Stephen Baldwin, that I could recognize in the movie. And I got it! The movie title was “Silent Warnings” and I had been searching earlier for just “Warnings”.

The storyline isn’t something to write home about. 4-5 teenagers join their friend on his visit to the country farm and home that he has inherited after his cousin’s accidental death. The group notices that the entire house is covered in iron and the fields have mysterious circles in them. More crop circles appear and people start disappearing but even the Sheriff is clueless. In a nutshell, this is a watered down version (country cousin!) of Shyamlan’s “Signs”. :-)

According to imdb.com, this movie was shot in and around Sofia, Bulgaria in 12 days at the puny budget of one million USD. Baldwin (Cousin Joe) has a “blink and you miss him” kind of role and I wondered if there was any sane reason for Billy Zane (Sheriff Willingham) accepting this movie.

In short, if you are looking for some no-brainer (aren’t they all?) where aliens make a guest appearance at the end, then “Silent Warnings” is the movie for you :-)

Satyam’s news about Maytas reminded me about the friendly neighborhood grocery which started selling readymade clothes in a nearby shop. What does “diversification” mean again?

Maybe Satyam should start selling Dosa and Idli mixes – which, I am sure, will sell like hot cakes ;-) Wipro with its soaps-to-software story will have some company :-)

Weapons of mass destruction were the reason George Bush cited for starting Iraq war. Guess he didn’t know about the other deadly weapons that the Iraqis possessed – like shoes for example.

It’s no wonder that he could expertly dodge the pair hurled at him - he has had loads of experience in doing the same – both at home and abroad ;-)

Appointment in Samarra

There’s this story by Somerset Maugham. A servant complains to his master one day that he met Death in the market and it threatened him. He says that he is so scared he doesn’t want to stay there anymore and that he is leaving for Samarra. The master gives his permission but then goes himself to the market to look out for Death. When he sees it he confronts it about why it threatened his servant.

Death says “I didn’t threaten your servant. I was just amused to see him in the market today because I have an appointment with him in Samarra tonight.”

I thought of this story when I read about people who died in the terrorist attacks when they were celebrating something or meeting friends. And also when I read about those who lived to tell the tale – though they managed to escape by the skin of their teeth.

None of us has access to Death’s Appointment book. The only thing that we can do is live life to the fullest till we have our own Appointment in Samarra.

An update on my reading of the Harry Potter adventures. I have finished reading “The prisoner of Azkaban” and now moved on to “The goblet of fire”. I hope I will be able to finish the whole set before 1st January rolls by. :-)

I have heard of people reaching out for comfort food in times of stress and anxiety. Try as I might, I cannot think of what my “comfort food” is – maybe Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion chips and Amul Milk Chocolate. But nothing beyond that comes to mind.

I, however, reached out for “comfort TV”, “comfort sounds” and “comfort books” during the last 4 days of November when the media kept on telecasting images from Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. As I flipped through the channels, I passed through successive phases of “This can’t be happening in Mumbai”, “Hell, this is for real” and “I hope Pakistan gets swallowed by a massive earthquake”. And then I started looking out for “comfort TV” - to take my mind off the anger for the terrorists and anxiety for the hostages. I checked out National Geographic, Discovery, Animal Planet and History Channel. I tuned in to Discovery Travel and Living channel for cooking shows and I scouted Cartoon Network as well as Pogo for Tom & Jerry and Oswald. I wanted a reassurance that life as I knew it before 26th November wasn’t lost forever – in its totality.

As the days gave way to nights, sleep wouldn’t be easy. Laugh as I might to any blatant reference to “Bharatmata” or “Mera Bharat Mahan”, this is my most favorite country in the world. I cannot imagine a future torn up by terrorism for it. I don’t care whether we become a superpower or not – for what goes up eventually comes down. But I want the maximum of what the King of Bhutan calls as the “Gross National Happiness” for my country. You might not be able to measure happiness but it can be clearly seen in people’s smiling faces even if they are packed like sardines in the local trains. You can hear it in the booming firecrackers burst when our cricket team scores a victory. You can feel it in the chests full of pride on successful launch of Chandrayaan. Will this all be replaced by a populace living in abject fear of death just because a couple of fanatics are hell-bent on waging war with every other major religion in the world?

This was when I got my walkman out and popped in cassette after casette of my “comfort music” – old Hindi movie songs. I listened to Kishor Kumar sing “Aa chal ke tuze mai leke chalu ek aise gagan ke tale, Jaha gam bhi na ho aasoo bhi na ho, Bas pyaar hi pyaar pale” wondering if there is any such utopia on earth. I listened to Mukesh lamenting “Us des me, tere pardes me, sone chandi ke badle me bikate hai dil”. Kishor Kumar, Mukesh, Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar – I took refuge in an era most which was gone long before I came to this earth. I listened for familiar sounds like the pressure cooker whistles, doors opening and closing in the nearby apartments, people talking in front of the elevators, children shouting about – sounds of a common everyday life……threatening to be lost forever……

And I took refuge in books – devouring story after story of Sherlock Holmes and reading adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. The words “Bedtime Reading” never made more sense.

The last terrorists were flushed out eventually. Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house were cleared. Details emerged of those who died in the line of the duty and of those who gave their lives so others could go about theirs. Life changed for many of the survivors who had a near-death experience. As far as I am concerned, life has changed from what I knew it as before 26th November. As I took an evening walk around the neighboorhood, my heart leapt at the sight of people walking on the street, I smiled at the sound of children playing merrily about and I took a deep breath when I smelled the “Pakodas” being fried at the roadside stall. I noticed things which I had always taken for granted.

I am not being frivolous here. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I would say that many times when I laugh and smile these days, I am painfully aware about the families of those who perished in the attacks. “Muskurau kabhi to lagataa hai, jaise hotho pe karz rakkha hai” – these lines from a song in Masoom sum it up perfectly. Maybe I will forget about this in a month or so, but maybe these lines will always remain at the back of my mind……

Maybe that’s why I am glad that life has changed for me – there’s a lot more heart in it now!

Transporter 3

I usually avoid watching sequels of any movies. I have been severly disappointed (and my patience sorely tested!) by sequels of movies such as Men in Black, Jurassic Park and The Mummy. The only exception was Ocean’s Eleven – just loved both its sequels. :-)

But the other day it occurred to me that the last movie I watched - “Journey to the center of the earth” - was many moons ago. I browsed through the newspapers and chose “Transporter 3”. I figured even if I didn’t get the story there would at least be some edge-of-the-seat action sequences. Oh, BTW I don’t even remember whether I watched Transporter 1 or 2 – let alone recall their storylines.

I missed first few moments of the movie but the story that I pieced together lateron is like this. Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is “forced” to accept an assignment of delivering “a package” from Marseilles to Odessa on the Black Sea. As a rule, Frank usually works alone on a mission but this time, though he is allowed to use his beloved Audi, he has to put up with a female co-passenger Valentina (Natalya Rudakova). Somewhere connected to this trip is a shipful of toxic waste that a company wants to dump in Ukraine.

First for the pluses! They begin and end with the fantastic action sequences. Be it the car chases or Frank’s fighting a bunch of thugs trying to intercept his delivery – I was never disappointed.

What disappointed me most was that the movie at times reminded me too painfully of a Hindi movie। During his fight with about 8-10 people in his friend’s garage Frank keeps shedding his clothes faster than that of a model with a “wardrobe malfunction”. The name “Salman Khan” popped into my mind. :-) Statham has a good body but couldn’t they think of any other ways of showing it off without making it look as if he is doing a striptease as he goes about bashing up the baddies?

Then his co-passenger (freckles, freckles everywhere!) tries every trick in the book to seduce him। I gasped when she dangles the car key in front of him teasing him that she won’t return it unless he kisses her first. This was so similar (barring the kissing part, of course) to scenes in lot of Hindi movies that I was worried that they might break into a song any minute now. What, oh what was the need of throwing in this romantic twist in what should have been an out-and-out action movie? :-(

Granted, the lady is from Ukraine but the accent was so jarring and heavy that at times I stopped trying to figure out what she is saying. And the bad guy with his malnourished looks seemed as if he could do with a plate of sausages and other assorted gourmet dishes that Valentina rattles off in surprisingly precise English :-) But the Audi looks so sleek that I was worried about its safety more than that of Frank’s or Valentina’s.

I hope and pray that if they ever decide to come out with Transporter 4, they will stick to the good ol’ action movie formula!