I am not what you call an emotional type by any stretch of the definition but there are some songs which do bring a lump to the throat and the eyes go all misty. Here are a few lines from one such song:

रिश्ता दिलसे दिलके ऐतबारका

जिंदा है हमीसे नाम प्यारका

के मरके भी किसीको याद आयेंगे

किसीकी आसुओमे मुस्कुराएंगे

कहेगा फुल हर कलीसे बार बार

जीना इसीका नाम है

Wish Bin Laden would listen to this one :-(

I am not sure if I had read Agatha Christie's "The Hollow" before. But it was a treat to read this Hercule Poirot mystery. And here are the lines quoted in it which will remain with me forever:

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.

They brought back memories of a cemetery seen somewhere in France a long time back. I had been to France for a project presentation and my then boss was very amused at my reluctance to step into the cemetery. "You should be afraid of the human beings that are alive. What are the dead going to do to you?". I knew he was right but years of watching horror movies with the zombies coming out of the graveyards didn't allow me to enter the cemetery.

And then there was one somewhere in Pune where rows upon rows of graves seemed to stretch as far as eyes could see - soldiers who died in a war were resting there waiting for the Judgement Day. I stopped the rickshaw for a minute, offered a short prayer and drove off. Sometimes it really feels like there are more people under the ground than above it! :-(

Each time the camera pans out on Shilpa Shetty (and not much on Raj Kundra!) and Preity Zinta (and not much on Ness Wadia!) I am amused. Looks like there are owners and then there are pseudo-owners. :-)

And I am mightily pleased that Mumbai Indians thrashed KKR last night. My only regret was that the camera didn’t show SRK much and so I couldn’t relish the look of disappointment and hurt, which I am sure, must have clouded his face during the match :-)

BTW, who was that Chinese chap who sang “ऐ दिल है मुश्किल जीना यहाँ” at the end? His accents were so clear. Someone told me he was one of the contestants of Indian Idol. Is it true?

I am not too sure that India was right in pressuring the Lankan government to tone down their offensive against the LTTE. I am not being heartless. I am aware of the magnitude of the humanitarian problem. No one who watches TV or reads newspapers can help but feel saddened by it. But then there are certain things which got to be done so as to eradicate the problem once and for all. Who is to know if Prabhakaran won’t escape as one of the civilians who are being rescued from the LTTE zone? Whose responsibility is it if he manages to get away and regroup his people later? We will be making the same mistake that the Americans did in Afganistan when they thought that they solved the Taliban issue but they hadn’t. The result is for all to see in the Swat valley. The ghosts have come back to haunt all of us. None of us wants that to happen with LTTE.

What is needed is a clean surgical operation to root out the last of the LTTE with minimum possible civilian casualties and a huge efficient resettlement program for the affected civilians which will avoid the possibility that any resentment felt by them now will grow into future terrorists. The sooner we all realize this, the better it is for all of us.

I guess there is no stopping me when I start writing about the advertisements that make one wonder if one is watching the program during a break from ads. :-) Though most of these ads fall in the annoying category, here are some which I absolutely adore:

The first ad that comes to mind is that of Brooke Bond Red Label. There’s this snooty daughter-in-law who while drinking a cuppa asks her ma-in-law if theirs was an arranged marriage or a love marriage. Evidently, she knows that the chances of a love marriage at their time are close to nil. The spunky ma-in-law, however, without batting an eyelid, replies that it was, of course, a love marriage. People pause halfway through their sips and the father-in-law too looks amused.

The ma-in-law further explains - with tongue firmly in the cheek - that she was looking out the window when her husband came to her home on the wedding day, their eyes locked and there was love so of course it was a love marriage. :-) There is laughter all around. What has this got to do with tea, you ask? Nothing, I agree. But I like the mother-in-law’s attitude and I am willing to try out a cuppa of Red Label just for that :-)

Then there is the Bajaj Pulsar ad where a couple of bikes parked in what looks like a showroom at night turn into huge robos and play with the ball made from tyres. When the commotion compels the night watchman to come and check thing out, the robos transform back into the bikes. Don’t ask me why I like this ad. I just do :-)

I have no idea what the company Havells does. But I adore their ad. It shows a family of 3 – mother and 2 kids – in probably a warehouse full of wires and things like that. The mother is cooking rotis but since the pan is hot she burns her hand every time she tries to lift the roti off it. The elder kid gets up, picks up a piece of pliable metal and fashions a tong out of it which he then hands it over to his mother. I just love the adoring look the mother gives as she serves roti to the child – there’s love, wonder and pride in it. Too good! It doesn’t give me any idea about what the company does but this ad fills me up with something warm and hence I like it.

But the Castrol ad that is aired during the IPL match breaks drives me up the wall every time I see it. The jingle is very fast and the garish clothes worn by the cast jar so horribly. I am sure it drives home the point for truck owners and operators but I roll my eyes heavenwards every time it plays. :-)

The Cadbury people, on the other hand, have got the "Shots" ad just right! I love the "बेटा, मन मे दुसरा लड्डू फुटा" thing. :-) "दो रुपयेमे दो लड्डू" will work nicely for calorie conscious people. It's like having your cake and eating it too :-)

I absolutely hate that Hamam ad. A mother asks her daughter of school-going age to get a bathing soap. When she steps out, it occurs to the mom that she didn't tell her which soap to buy. She has horrible images of her daughter's skin getting damaged because of pimples brought about by an ordinary soap and she getting ridiculed in school for that. She worries that this will cause the daughter to lose her confidence.

She rushes out of the home but doesn't find her anywhere. She comes home and finds that the daughter is taking a bath. Without even pausing to knock she barges in and heaves a sigh of relief when she sees that the daughter is using Hamam.

What a stupid, hackneyed and idiotic plot. I wouldn't go for this soap even if someone paid me to use it!

I don't have anything against the players of KKR but I hate Shahrukh so much that I wanted KKR to lose against RR. Needless to say, I hung on till the last moment and was amply rewarded when last over sealed KKR's fate :-) I know, it's not logical but rationality was never my claim to fame.

Oh, and I am crushed at the lousy 12 run defeat of the Mumbai Indians. Why couldn't they lose by a wider margin? At least the defeat wouldn't have stung so much then. :-(