Musings over M.S. Dhoni - The Untold Story

M. S. Dhoni – The Untold Story is a kind of movie that will make you a Dhoni fan after watching it if, in a rare chance, you are not one already. It will make you feel to look at the Man from a different perspective. This post is not a review as such rather just my thoughts on what worked for me and what didn’t. If you haven’t watched this movie yet, then there may be spoilers ahead.

Now it’s widely known that he has an ice factory running within his body, perhaps what is less known is that he has such a soft heart. There are few instances in the narrative that reveal the Man’s unknown side.

• He doesn’t want to take up a job of TC despite the ‘security’ in this job. He eventually becomes  TC just to make his father feel happy. 
• In his love life, he’s shown to make the first move in both the relationships.
• After making it big, one of his ex-colleagues comes to meet him in the hotel. While leaving, he’s bit hesitant to hug Dhoni so offers to do a handshake. Dhoni then surprises him (and us too) by giving him a goodbye hug.    

Dhoni is so indifferent to worldly emotions of joy and sadness. He’s too good to let the emotions surface. There are scenes that show this Man has ice in his veins.

• He doesn’t break down upon knowing that he’s not selected in the national Cricket team, though his friends are very disappointed.
• Seconds after India’s exit in the 1999 World Cup during which he was still a spectator, he’s shown going to the kitchen to make tea, which to me was a sign that he’s well over the loss and has moved ahead, while his friends are mourning over the loss.
• When he’s finally selected in the national side for Kenya tour, his friends rush to the badminton court to give him the news where he’s playing a practice match. He doesn’t pause even for a moment after hearing the news and continues with the game. Interestingly he’s shown to play this practice match against a girl.  I thought it was glimpse of inner workings of his mind that he doesn’t let affect the outside circumstances and/or events with what’s going on in the moment even though it’s trivial

Dhoni’s stint with IPL and controversies around his firm Rhiti Sports Management aren’t explored which is understandable given that, Arun Pandey, the managing director of the firm, happens to be co-producer of the film.

In other plots, had they cut down a love song out of 3, I wouldn’t have complained. The subplot with Priyanka - his first love interest – probably got more time than required. The scenes with Sakshi are endearing.

Though 3 hours and 10 minutes is a bit longer for a non-Ashutosh-Govarikar-film, it was very gripping.

Sushant Singh Rajpoot shines in the role of Dhoni and is a perfect-cast. He even manages to swing the bat in the correct arc in the helicopter shots! By the way, Dhoni was not the one who invented the shot; he learns it from his friend in the exchange of Samosa.

Though it’s hard to emotionally engage the audience with a subject that’s so cliched and where literally everyone is an ‘expert’, it manages to entertain the audience. It’s very rare to get eyes moist in a movie that’s not melodrama however it made my eyes moist quite a few times.

Being Mahendra Singh Dhoni is difficult. If it were easy for anyone, wouldn’t Asia become new Antarctica?

Pizza, hide-and-seek and the logic that ties them

Location: My car

Day: Sunday

Time: 7.30 pm

Since it was Sunday evening, my facial lines were already aligning to make a frowned face, as it was the end of the weekend.

I was driving back home along with my son after performing sacred duties of buying the weekly groceries.

Now he isn’t particularly keen to wandering in the giant aisles of superstores (that he is too young to understand he needs to learn to these duties eventually is another thing).

We were having some general chat - our chats can range from cutting his nails to galaxies, UFOs and dinosaurs.

He wanted me to play hide-and-seek with him once we reached home.

I was trying to fudge citing a reason that I was a bit tired to do that. He was trying to convince me nonchalantly though.

After some time the chats stumbled upon the menu for Sunday night’s dinner. We had taken a ready-to-bake pizza and he wanted it in the dinner.

I suggested we can have something else tonight and pizza on weekdays as it allows us to skip cooking the dinner when we are tired.

He listened to what I had to say. Then he paused for a bit.

And then questioned back - if you can cook something else tonight – deducing that we are not tired if we can cook – why can’t you play hide-and-seek. And if I, being tired, am not playing hide-and-seek, why can’t we have pizza in the dinner.

Wow. I was totally stumped.

Needless to say we ended up having pizza in the dinner.

___________________________________________________________________________

Shades of human nature in the wake of calamity

I wanted to update the 'status' on Facebook regarding recent floods in Uttarakhand however somehow managed to strung together some lines based on the incidents I read and watched in media over past few days, some accounts from the people who were 'saved' from the disaster. The floods were as worst as they could get and destructed everything in its way. Literally everything.  Except God. Miraculously, the lone survivor in Kedarnath was the statue from the temple.

Natural calamities. Just two words. Nonetheless depict, despite giant technological advancements, human being needs to take a bow when confronted with the Nature. Calamities impact at different levels - mainly physical and mental. At physical level, it directly affects the unfortunate people trapped in Nature's fury. While the physical scars can heal over time, the mental scars often cut quite deeply. The pain of irreversibly losing the beloved ones, pain of washing out all the assets that were earned after years of struggle,  seeing the extreme shades of human nature.

Which leads  to the question: how the same mishap brings out the best as well as the worst of virtues of a human being? How the calamity invokes extreme and polar reactions out of human? Probability, this was the single thought which made me write this post.

On one side, there are various government agencies like Indian Air Force, Army have been involved in rescue operations – no amount of words are worthy enough to appreciate the work they have done, and in fact it would be insulting to try to capture the essence of efforts in words.  In particular photo, the army people were standing at a point, (where, even a drunkard wouldn’t dare to stand after gulping down 100 beers) holding a rope so that people can walk safely from one side. There are medical teams. There are people volunteering in creating and updating the list of missing people and circulating it online from time to time.

On the other side, there are ministers doing rounds of aerial surveys, trying to take political mileage out of the tragedy. There was one particular journalist reporting from water while sitting on the shoulder of flood victim. So much for the call of the duty, Sir! Based on the first accounts, some people were selling a packet of biscuit for 1000 bucks, water bottle 200 bucks. Also people were taking out ornaments, clothes from dead bodies. 

Journalist on the shoulders of flood victim

How much mentally retarded should be someone to think of anything more valuable than human life, in the times of calamity? Selling a biscuit packet to the needy for 1000 rupees? Really?  Fighting for taking credit for saving lives.  This is really the nadir of humanity.

Of course, who didn't experience the tragedy can’t feel the same intensity of pain. However, can we  at least attempt to respect the graveness of  the situation? 

As the legend goes, when Lord Shiva gets angry, he opens his third-eye, leading to catastrophe. These are kinds of days, we should be thankful that Lord Shiva doesn't have the fourth eye.

Saare jahan se achha..

Okay, though I read blogs regularly, I don't have written many of them. If you have any suggestions, you're most welcome - to keep it to yourself and try to apply them in your post. (Oh poor you, now don't get offended that easily, as Chunky Pande in Housefull 2 says " I’m a-joking". Do let me know what your feedback.)

I moved to Melbourne last year with family. Not that I haven't been here earlier, I've couple of stampings on passport, the first being back in 2007, as a bachelor (aah, that italicized word invoked so many memories!).

After coming here, I got awestruck by fact that, mere change in physical boundaries makes us realise how much value the governments from developed countries put on human life, in contrast to India, where our government doesn't give a shit to human life, similar to how Shakti Kapoor doesn't give a shit to Heroin's plea of "Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chhod do" while marching towards her.

Thousands of people lose life in road traffic accidents; the government pays compensation (from tax payers' money) to the families of dead people and moves on. Thousands of farmers commit suicide, government gazes helplessly - perhaps with the same helplessness, the dying farmer once gazed at the sky expecting rains! Thousands lose life in bomb-blasts, the ministers who are supposed to act stern, indulge in 'labelling' the colour of terror. Probably they'll get to see the dark shades of terrorism, god forbid, after losing their families in blasts. Rapists, unlike government, don't discriminate women; colour, caste, age, - no barrier. Defunct government fails hard time in prosecuting & punishing the culprits again.

I could go on listing more types of deaths, but the purpose is not to make that list exhaustive. I'm not even saying that such things don't happen in developed countries. However as I said earlier, they 'value' the human life over 'Aman Ki Asha' and do anything and everything in their capacity to minimise the chances of its recurrence. Post 9/11, in USA, there hasn't been a single instance of massacre engineered by external enemy. Israel, since its existence, regardless of which party is in power, responds to every enemy action unmistakably. They fought a war against Lebanon, after 2 Israeli soldiers were CAPTURED - yes, you read it right, CAPTURED, not beheaded.

Which bring us to the point, whether our lame government values human life at all (excluding privileged political leaders, whose lives must be insulated with Z level security so that 'work' towards the aim of bringing 'value' to our lives). Rather than trying to gain sympathy with compensation distribution spree to affected people, why doesn't it stress on passing stronger bills? Or to put it more aptly, why doesn't it implement the existing laws more stringently (so that the psycho who knows precisely how to rape a woman in a moving bus but expects leniency from the rule of the land, under the pretext of being 'juvenile' gets castrated chemically, physically, biologically - hell whichever way).

Unfortunately, we can't get answers to these questions in a country where, its prime minister, instead of being ruthless against crimes turns poet and comes with classic verse - "Hazaaron jawabon se acchi hai meri khamoshi"!

And yes, Happy Republic Day.

Ek tha A. Raja

Although Rahul Gandhi and A. Raja don’t look gay icons, I can’t fathom UPA government’s obsession with A. Raja.

While the whole world may be boggling with the kind of figure (before you open your mouth, it’s about money figure, and not Katarina Kaif’s curves) involved in allocating 2G spectrum to service providers, the congress for the fear of Government collapse is protecting A. Raja in the same vigor Mithun would show while protecting his sister getting molested in some [insert-name-here] movie.

Mr. Rahul Gandhi (who has been diagnosed with the disease called ‘selective memory’ where a person forgets/remembers the things conveniently) who always goes gaga with the congress principles and ethics seems to be hidden under momma’s saree ka pallu when anything unpleasant thing happens with congress men.

Coming back to Hero (I will address A. Raja as ‘hero’ during the remainder of the post - without any particular reason) again....
In the classic defense of himself, the Hero quotes that "We followed the 1999 telecom policy while giving 2G licences". It just doesn’t make any sense at all to sell the licenses in 2008 based on prices in 2001, does it Mr. Hero? If you think so - then for the fuck’s sake you should settle on the salary in 2001 and deny the recent proposed salary hike in 2010.

We are fortunate enough as the Hero didn’t follow policies in 1899 in his previous birth before his re-incarnation in this century; else the money figure involved in scam would have been difficult to handle even for 64-bit CPUs.

This is the most appropriate example of how a government servant with full authority but no accountability can screw the government itself. In bollywood language it’s like jis thali mein khana khata hai usi mein chhed karta hai

The hero goes on saying that ‘She (Jayalalithaa) has no moral right to speak on this.’
Okay, by which logic, just because Lady Khali (Jayalalithaa) did some wrong (okay, many wrong) things during her tenure, makes you any less culprit in the 2G scam? You are still 1000% responsible for causing a loss of Rs.170,000 crore to the national exchequer.

As per one more news 'Allegedly the telecom department had followed the policy of first-come-first-serve basis in the allocation of 2G spectrum licenses.'  Is this a mundane PMC bus-stand or goddamnit railway station where you followed the first-come-first-serve rule, Mr. Hero? I’m not sure if you have any daughters and if you have – by god I just hope you would not follow the same rule for their marriage.

Abhi bhi waqt hai sudhar jao, hero. If you still have got some shame, then please resign yourself for the sake of congress’s fucking image at least.

The country no doubt will be on losing end despite the arrival of 3G, 4G, 5G and….[n]G technologies in future unless we get rid of moronic RajaG.

Golden Queues

Disclaimer

I’m not trying to hurt any woman intentionally in the post below. It’s just that I couldn’t resist the urge to write a post on whatever I experienced that evening.

Here you go!

Recently I happened to purchase some gold with my money (of-course not voluntarily - my wife dragged me out of home). I feel that it’s sort of dead investment (not that I’m quiet good at ‘live’ investments either, but that could be the subject for another post).

The shop that my wife had chosen is supposed to be one the renowned one in Pune. I, in vain tried asking her why this shop only when there are dozens of others which are quiet nearby.

but ------------ $&*$&*$$(*$)(*$)(*$)(*$)(*()$*()*$()*$()*()*) #$#(*$#)#($)()@~~----
however $&*$&*$$(* *$)(*$)(*$)(*()$*()*$()*$()*()*)(*()#$#(*$#)#($)()@~~---- --
arre -----------&*$$(*$)(*$)(*$)(*$)(*( …..)*$()*()*)(*()#$#(*$#)#($)()@~~-………
OKAY!!

After several failed attempts of convincing her, as you guys figured out correctly, I was dribbling my vehicle through the mad rush in evening on Laxmi road, towards the shop she had chosen. I somehow found some (sacred) space to park my vehicle.

Neil Armstrong might not have felt so luckier than me after parking his rocket (or whatever machine NASA used to propel their asses against gravity) over the moon.

We steadily walked towards shop. I had passed by this shop over a zillion times. Okay if not zillion – at least million times. But never noticed that it’s actually there (well, I’m a person who walks by his own nose – at least my wife thinks so). As we were entering the shop, I got my first shock as I saw a long queue starting from inside of the shop and growing exponentially outside. OMG, how on earth, can there be so maddening rush to buy gold? I checked again if it was a gold shop or we had accidentally hit at an egg seller’s shop. I also checked the possibility if ‘free’ gold was being distributed today.

It was a gold shop indeed. So there was I standing in queue to buy gold. As we were creeping through the queue, one question flashed in my mind. If we have seen one of worst economic crunches of all times recently, how the heck, so many people are out to buy gold just because it’s some good occasion (muhurat, called Gurupushyamrut).

After intense thinking and then giving up as I didn’t find the answer to this question.
Eureka, Eureka!! 
I got my answer as i looked at my wife then.
(fortunately I wasn’t in a bath-tub in disrobed condition to run out yelling like Archimedes).

There seemed many helpless creatures like me who obliged to accompany their wives in the ‘golden’ queue.
I think most of them were not there to buy gold for their wives - rather they were 'forced' to buy gold for their wives!!

After this incident, I always knew that the gold shop owners in India (I doubt whether firings are so obsessed with gold) can sustain the endless world wars and toughest of the economic recessions.

Long live Indian women and their obsession for gold!!

PS: As I’ve completed my post, my wife has warned me to exclude all the ‘offensive’ references. So I’m publishing this post for the sake my readers only so that they don't get deprived of  another master piece. :-) (I’m quite good at self-praise..ain’t I?)

Desi Firangis!!

I'm seeing the nightmares these days of going back to those old BritishRaj days where Firangis at their will screwed our lives (No, I didn't see it in Raj Pichhale Janam ka!).

Circa 2010 and the Firangis are back. Never mind they don't have white skins, but certainly their deeds would embarrass actual Firangis as well. They wear the bandanas of patronage as if they have all the responsibility of the state on their broad (?) shoulders.

Yes, it doesn’t take a genius of Archimedes to guess what am I talking about. You must have seen in the 24*7 news relays of Sena honchos taking on anyone (Tendulkar, Amitabh, SRK are the latest who suffered). They are clever enough to target the hottest celebrities out there as they get a free (undeserved) footage on national channels.

The dynasty is a disease that Indian Politics is blessed (??) with. The predecessors of these powerful leaders from earlier generations inherited just the POWER from their ancestors, let the ethics be damned. As they say, if you wanna taste the real character of a person, assign him Power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!

They don’t need to migrate to some other places for survival so they probably won’t understand the woes of migrants, be it a desi Patel going to US or a Bihari babu coming to Mumbai. Ever imagined what those labor class dudes are doing now after being expelled by brave heart (huh) MNS lads.

It might be just another move in the politics for leaders but it’s question of life for migrants. Come on dude, you still believe that people are chu*#$yas not to understand these games?

Does the question “My Name Is Khan to be released peacefully” is really of greater significance than the millions of problems common man is pissed off with?? If Uddhav T. asks his question to his soul before going to bed, his conscience will give him the correct answer.

So why does he take a stand on an issue which he even understands is such a paltry issue?

Still confused?? Don’t be.

BMC elections are just round the corner and this guy is just doing the ground work through such gimmicks. After all he also needs a survival and has got a family to feed… bravo!!