Friday, January 22, 2010

The Shawshank Redemption!!

I happened to see The Shawshank Redemption last night and it made me awake all the night. Okay... that’s a bit exaggeration. Not for all night but it certainly evoked some emotions from some part of my cerebrum for some time.

It’s a story of two jail inmates turned friends, their perceptions of hope. A story of qualities such persistence, strength of mind. Every character from the film teaches us something.

The hero Andy (Tim Robbins) gets convicted for murdering his wife whom he catches with her lover in bed. He then is sent to Shawshank jail where he meets the character Red. Andy decides to open-up a library in a jail. However since the funds are not sufficient he sends letter to authorities for sanctioning the funds for the books. His friends suggest him that it’s all in vain as the letters would not be getting any response.

Since Andy is a die-hard optimist, he decides to send the letter to the authorities every week. Surprise-surprise, one day he receives response to his letters which he has been sending since 6 years. The jail grants funds of $200 and some old books, not respecting Andy’s requests but to bar him from sending the letters again.

What any other inmate would have done after receiving the funds and response?

Quite predictably they would stop sending letters. However Andy sends 2 letters a week from now on till the jail decides to grant $500.

Through such many situations the director has shown Andy’s perception about hope although his friend Red believes that “Hope is a dangerous thing”.

Andy always hopes that he would be freed from the jail some day and would go to some place near Pacific Ocean opening up a small hotel by the sea-shore on some wooden boat where his close friends would come to meet him.

However small but his ardent hope makes him sail through all the darkness and makes him meet his dreams. I won’t be ending-up here describing what Andy does in the climax which certainly is a thing to watch on the screen.

Cheers to Andy and his never-say-die spirit!!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

No bidders for Pak players at IPL3 auction: Is pure business the only reason?


The recent IPL auction turned many eyebrows at least from Pakistani soil.

The news of the day was: The franchisee didn't buy a single Pak player. Coincidentally Pak is the defending T20 world champion side. So in a way this was quite unexpected as Pak side has the likes of Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik who can turn the nerve wrenching games in their side anytime.

Is pure business the only reason?

The answer is 'no' and 'yes'.
The answer is 'no' because if this has got to do with only business reasons, the franchisees are not so insane to let the players go of Afridi's caliber.

Consider the following chain of actions:
1) IPL franchisee buys a Pak player
2) At one of the venues, lets say, Mumbai, on the day of given match where-in the "sold-out" Pak player comes to play the game.
(The IPL will be hosted in India this time. Lat year SA hosted the IPL as our Government could not give necessary protection to the tournament. The IndianPremierLeague held in some country other than India...What a paradox!!) Anyways coming back to the point.
3) The big bosses of our politics Thakares, Ranes decide, (let democracy be damned) to let any Pak player not play on the Indian soil and demolish the pitch.

If the events occur in a way described as above, the franchisee would get screwed if it had bought the Pak players at a whopping prices.

The answer is 'yes' because in foresight franchisees have made a decision out of the business sense only (considering the fact that the money invested in Pak players may go for a toss).



Friday, January 15, 2010

DSP (Devil_Skinned_Police) Rathore and his Obnoxious actions!!

The last month of the year 2009, the world saw yet another classic example how bureaucracy and judiciary works in Shining India.

Having seen all the footage from media on how Rathore molested the girl, harassed his brother/family, dumped the evidences, got the girl evacuated out of school..gosh, i can just go on listing ways the law was bent at every juncture in Ruchika case.

I sometimes wonder whether this "brave" Punjabi lad was a actual protector of the law or the pimp of the law.

Had not media blown this issue again (media does behave in a sensible way sometime, for a change) Rathore would have completed his 6 months of custody in peace and freed again to molest more & more Ruchikas barely of his grand-grand-daughter's age.

At 50+, what aphrodisiac this guy must be taking to get going!
We just can't imagine the turmoil, pain that Ruchika's family suffered through all these years. b'coz of the various heinous crimes that Rathore has committed.

Mr. Rathore if you got to display your power, there are more places to showcase it other than over a innocent girl and her family. Please go to the China border, where they are screwing our border not by inches but by kms.

Clearly we can’t apply “better-late-than-never” approach everywhere as the one innocent soul has ended it's life 15 years back because no one on earth could give her justice, not even God!!