After reading 2 volumes of Jeffrey Archer’s Prison diaries I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go for the third (and the last) one. How different could that one be from the other two? But I wanted to complete the trilogy and if there were one or two interesting things in the last volume why not try it? So I am reading it now.

As expected, there isn’t anything drastically different – except for the fact that since he is in a D-cat prison he is not locked up all the time – in these pages. But now and then there are a few touching stories and amusing anecdotes (like that of a fellow prisoner - who is in for driving without license - whose high-caste Indian girl friend has to choose her would-be husband from 3 guys who come to England over one weekend from India!)

Then there is this prisoner who is sent on a town visit for the first time in over 31 years and finds the changes bewildering. In this day and age when you find a city changed noticeably even if you were away just for a year, I can’t imagine the shock the guy must have felt.

There is a reference to a book “The Driving Bell and the Butterfly” by the late Jean Dominique Bauby that Mr. Archer read while in prison. He mentions that the author of the book was left paralyzed and speechless after a massive stroke. However, he mastered a letter code with the one eyelid that he could still move and dictated a book with it. I am going to find out more about this book.

Oh and BTW, all you Sachin Tendulkar fans, your idol also finds mention in this book. His presence at the crease was apparently what put the smile back on the face of one distraught prisoner who was also a cricket fan!

I heard that the tickets of the new movie Mukhbir come with a money-back guarantee. I am not joking - you can get the money back if you don’t like the movie. Without even thinking about the Moral Hazard (even if people like the movie they can ask for refund) I am wondering if it is supreme self-confidence or total desperation that is behind this.

I sighed as I thought of so many movies that I have wasted my hard-earned money on. Two of them distinctly stand out – one was “Had kar di aapne” starring Govinda and Rani Mukherjee. I managed to survive till intermission and then walked out fearing total mental collapse. And the other movie is Battlefield Earth starring John Travolta and a bunch of yellow-toothed aliens. I distinctly remember brushing my teeth twice that night. :-)

Wonder if Dev Anand will ever announce such a scheme ;-)

Mai KKrishna

So now we have KEkta Kkapoor’s Mahabharat! Frankly, when I heard that she is planning such a thing I wondered why. Most of her serials already can be adequately described as Mahabharat - what with people plotting to grab wealth, brothers up in arms against each other, women adding fuel to fire aka Draupadi’s “Andhe ka putr andha” taunt to Duryodhana, hapless moms trying to restore peace (aka Kunti) and one person always on the side of the truth (Yudhisthir).

But when I heard the star cast I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think Chetan Hansraj would have done better justice to the character of Duryodhana than Aryan Vaid. I simply cannot imagine Vaid playing any of the Pandavas or Kauravas because that would demand that he show some form of emotion! Pity this isn’t Ramayana or he would have been a perfect cast for Vaali, Sugriva or Angad. All that facial hair as a monkey would have hidden away his inability to emote :-)

I don’t think Kiran Juneja had much to do as Ganga in the old Mahabharat except for appearing from time to time to dole out advice to son Bheeshma. So I wonder what made Sakshi Tanwar accept this role in Kkapoor’s Mahabharat. Take a look at Ronit Roy’s Bheeshma and tell me you are not reminded of the kings in “Lord of the Rings”.

What baffled me most of all was the choice for Draupadi – Anita Hassanandani. For those of you who have never heard of this lady before, she was the one gyrating with Tushhar Kapoor to the beat of “Tere ishq ki diwanagi sar pe chhadh ke bole” in “Kuchh to hai”. Doesn’t ring a bell still? Well, you won’t be the only one like that so here’s another clue – she played Sohail Khan’s wife in Krishna Cottage. Still saying “huh?” with a blank look on your face? I can’t help you. Go watch KEkta’s Mahabharat.

I am also wondering about the word “Apane” in “Kahani apane Mahabharat ki”. Does that mean KEkta will take poetic licenses with the original saga. Maybe, after the “Lakshagruh” incident the Pandavas will resurface with entirely new faces. Maybe, Karna will be brought back to life after popular demand - aka Mihir Virani. The possibilities are simply endless. Only time will tell – "Mai Samay hu" :-)

So folks, let’s brace ourselves for the army of KKunti, KKarna, KKrishna and of course the battle of KKurukshetra :-)

What an idea, sirJi

I like the new Idea ad that shows teaching children located in far-flung areas through the mobile phones. But then I have always fallen for mushy ads that tug at one’s heartstrings. So I loved everything about the children – their repeating the teacher’s “Good Morning, Children” instead of saying “Good Morning, Teacher”, their marching to the PT teacher’s voice through the phone, their innocently declaring the need to go for a toilet break (to the teacher who is not in their vicinity) and above all their eager crowding around the cell phone to learn and educate themselves.

In true Hindi movie style, at the end of the ad, the best student award goes to the small girl child whose grandfather was shown earlier pleading with the headmaster to admit her in his school because there is none in his village. And the last scene is the perfect crowning glory – a lone child sitting in front of the cell phone when another one running past tells him that it’s a Sunday today!

But every time this ad ends and I am smiling away at this novel idea of taking education to the grassroots level, I can’t silence the little voice inside my head that asks two pertinent questions – one, who is going to foot the bill for all these calls and two, how can you teach subjects like math and science remotely when the children can’t see what’s written on the board. Afterall, we cannot promote learning by rote.

Oh please, but this is just an ad. And for this ad I will definitely say “What an idea, sirJi”

A nightmare called "Jannat"

I had the misfortune of watching a nightmare called (ironically!) “Jannat” starring Imran Hashmi. I am yet to figure out how this movie’s story is different from that of Vaastav and Gangster. The songs however are capable of outlasting the movie in your mind (as they say in marketing parlance "share of mind"!) – right from “Jara si dil me de jagah tu”, “Tu hai ha tu hai” to “Char dino da pyar o rabba”.

So if you care for a little unsolicited advice – stay away from the movie and for the songs.

Book of the Dead (Spoiler!)

Nope, this has got nothing to do with Imhotep and Anck Su Namun! I recently finished reading this book by Patricia Cornwell and lived to tell the tale. Much as I like watching CSI – Miami and CSI- New York and CSI – everywhere else, I am not a fan of blood splattered murder scenes and mutilated bodies. But this book has plenty of both and that could be why I can totally relate to the expression “sick to my stomach” after finishing this book.

But that’s just one of my problems. My other and more fundamental problem is that all through the book I couldn’t shake this feeling that I have walked in on a movie right after the intermission. That was because I was reading this book without going through prior adventures of her weirdly-named Medical Examiner – Dr. Scarpetta.

Though I plead guilty as charged, I believe that the authoress hasn’t made it easy for a first time reader to figure out the characters and their relations with each other. It started with Maroni and Marino. Why, oh, why couldn’t Ms. Cornwell come up with different sounding last names?

As if I wasn’t having enough trouble sorting the two of them out in walked Dr. Self. I mean she literally drops out of thin air on an unsuspecting reader. For one whole page I was under the impression that Scarpetta is referred to as Dr. Self by people because maybe she is too pompous.

Then I got confused about who got murdered first – the Canadian tourist or Drew Martin. As if the body count wasn’t sufficiently high, poor Karen hanged herself. And I am still confused as to whether it was one lady who got murdered in her villa or there were 2 of them who got bumped off.

That’s in addition to wondering about who killed Little Will. It somehow doesn’t sound consistent with Will Rambo’s pattern of killing vulnerable ladies. But maybe I am thick when it comes to such psychologically complex crimes. Hell, I didn’t get “Silence of the lambs” when I watched it for the first time.

As for the other characters, I am not sure what the Italian carabinieri is doing in the plot. I am not sure what Dr. Self gets out of driving people to suicide. I don’t know what role Scarpetta's sweetheart Benton Wesley has played in her other adventures but here he doesn’t have much to do. Marino (or is it Maroni) has disappeared – possibly to surface again in some future thriller.

And I am left tearing my hair out like poor Mrs. Webster after reading this book which has vivid descriptions of mutilated decomposing bodies.

One thing however cannot be ignored. The descriptions of soldiers ending up with their guts hanging outside their bodies or survivors with deep emotional scars – no longer seem far-fetched. Mr. Bush, please read this book after November, 2008.

There are dumb questions and then there are dumb questions. I came across one such question last week when I was reading an interview with Bush administration’s Lead cyber Security Advisor – How important do you think Information Security is for a country like India.

The advisor gave a run-of-the-mill answer but I seriously wish he had said something like “Oh, I don’t think it matters even a bit. It’s just a waste of time, money and efforts to think about Information Security. Don’t believe them when they tell you that only the paranoids survive. Keep all your important and sensitive documents right where even your friendly neighborhood computer wiz-kid can lay his/her hands on easily. After all even the hackers and intruders have a Right to Information!”