DON 2- Bloopered

Thanks to my friend Amith Gubbi, I stumbled upon this. I hope you will literally ROFL.

1. Malaysian jails have american orange jump suits and an international drug lord roams around ordering acid and other chemicals.He also gets the job as a Janitor(wow).

2. Malaysian jail authorities have a deep understanding of hindi(including prison guards).Now they are learning bhojpuri in case the movie "Malegaon ki donwa 2" releases starring Shatrughan "shotgun" Sinha. 

3.If Lara Dutta says "Mere is khoobsoorat chehre ke alawa mujhmein aur bhi khoob baatein hain" she means an item number and bringing Kunal Kapoor to Don towards the climax.

4. Only a mask separates Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan(Extra thumb,free of cost).

5. The only way you can blackmail and kidnap the Vice president of the DZB is by attending a charity fundraiser posing as a superstar(with an extra thumb of course).

6. Anyone begging outside some train station in Berlin can accurately describe the facial features of any passerby(He is being hired by the CBI).Interview is being conducted by Rajnikant. 

7. The receptionist at DZB will let anyone with an Interpol ID go up to their vice president.

8. You only need to put up a plastic paper with the required finger print on a scanner, the voice recognition can be done by Don's wristwatch.

9. Don's watch can also detonate bombs placed on walls and inside bags(TAG-HEUER is going to auction this watch at National Market).

10. Anyone can be recruited into Interpol, and that includes Roma and even DON temporarily(Kunal Kapoor is also a mastermind, instead he is never caught as he is busy romancing his german wife)

11. If Roma is nicknamed "Junglee Billi" then Don has to be some brand ka Kutta(upto u guys)

12. Billi will go with Don even if that requires asking a colleague from Interpol to stay back.

13. If Don gets injured Roma is the first one to tend. (In DON 3, an elaborate song sequence will be included)

14. If Roma doesnt shoot Don then Jabbar will shoot Roma.(WTH!!)

15. When DON tells Roma that he is a changed man, she immidiately believes him and a gooey background music follows indicating her feelings(Surprise surprise, no bullets are fired.Jabbar and Vardhan are waiting for some action I guess).

15. You always cut the red wire when diffusing a bomb(wtf!!!)

"Don Ke Screenplay aur direction main mistakes pakadna aasaan hi nahiin...bahut mumkin hain"

Bad Times Ahead!!!!

           As I write this piece, I am very deeply pained. It is as if I am writing an obituary for a shining star, one that contributed to building Brand Bengaluru. Deep in RED, it was always, is the Fly Kingfisher(formerly Kingfisher Airlines). This luxury brand of flamboyant,extravagant domestic flyer's dream-liner, KF is now mired in a financial turbulence. KF owes its lender banks and fuel companies(HP in particular) an amount of 7000cr. INR.Whoop that's a very big amount. Hence are the concerns. And they are growing and so are the voices of the critics.

           So what went wrong. Didn't Dr. Vijay Mallya see the obvious downfall earlier. Lets take five and analyze the KF model first. When it was launched, like all other UB brands, KF was touted as a premier luxury airline. But at around the same time, there was a person who was quite literally the competition demolish-er. Venture capitalist and farmer Capt. G R Gopinath, who started the Deccan charter services, started Air Deccan and was a pioneer for low cost flying in India. KF ,however, had a good opening because Air India was quite literally the white elephant that it is today and Jet was still reeling from the after-effects of the Sahara Airlines buyout and in effect,the luxury flyer was disappointed with Air Deccan. Banks, seeing the initial success, pumped in more cash into the airlines and it was a win-win situation. In subsequent years, KF purchased Air Deccan, renamed it as Kingfisher Red, the low cost sibling of KF. It also meanwhile went international, ushered in a fleet of Airbus A380s and was the the first Indian airline to be given a 5-star rating by Skytrak. All was almost like a fairytale.
            But every script has its fair share of villains. In this case it was Crude Oil. The rising prices of crude oil, at almost $150 per barrel was a burden to even the common man. This also resulted in a sharp rise in Aviation Turbine Fuel. ATF prices are the main parameter in determining the total tax paid when a person travels by air. Along with this there was the problem of no powerful regulating authority apart from the DGCA. Also there was the inherent UB problem of overindulging in everything they do.
            The beans however were spilled during the Q4 financial results for fy11; Q4 results for FY11.
When ,realistically ,the airline sector was undergoing a crisis, KF registered an unusual profit. The nail in the coffin ,however ,was driven by Hindustan Petroleum ,which refused to supply fuel at a few airports across north India for non-payment of dues. There were even unconfirmed results of Taj-Sats refusing to supply food to KF at Bengaluru also.But KF went overboard still and launched 3 new international routes(new routes) until the bubble finally burst. From 19th october onwards, KF flights started to be grounded and even BP and IOCL refused to extend credit line to Mallya's flagging airline.

                     Views and expressions started to come in thick and fast in online as well as business circles. On  a lighter note, some tweeple suggested Mallya to relieve Deepika Padukone as the airline's brand ambassador.Everyone had a say, including our Prime Minister ,who even suggested a bail-out package for the enterprise ,when Mallya finally approached the government on 11th November for a bail-out. Clearly its wings were clipped and the opulence and the aura of airlines being a safe business venture was shattered. On 11th November 2011, KF had suffered an estimate loss of Rs. 1027cr and a mounting debt of Rs. 7507.08cr. KF stocks plummeted by 19% to an all time low.
                      The way ahead for KF is a difficult one. But the only viable solution around the horizon ,if KF were to survive, is the influx of Foreign Direct Investment. Stakeholders in the airlines, especially the lending banks will have to bear the brunt of their mistake for the time being and since a premier GOI bank is involved in this, the direct impact will be on the exchequer. As talks are still on and as days pass by ,I sincerely fear and pray that this does not go the way of Pan-Am, TWA or Alitalia. Hope Mr.Mallya finds a way to get out of this muddle. Till then, definitely, Bad Times Ahead!!!

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A Typical Mumbaikar

This one's ,with due credit to Aritra Saha, an ode to the place where I grew up , माझह मुंबई. Here it is;

1. You say "town" and expect everyone to know that this means south of Churchgate.

2 You speak in a dialect of Hindi called 'Bambaiya Hindi', which only Mumbaikars can understand.

3. Your door has more than three locks.

4. Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.

5. Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life.

6. You spend more time each month traveling than you spend at home.

7. You call an 8' x 10' clustered room a Hall.

8. You're paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of walk-in closet and you think it's a "steal".

9. You have the following sets of friend: school friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, train friends, a species unique only in Bombay.

10. Cabbies and bus conductors think you are from Mars if you call the roads by their Indian name, they are more familiar with Warden Road, Peddar Road, Altamount Road.

11. Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

12. The first thing that you read in the Times of India is the "Bombay Times" supplement.

13. You take fashion seriously. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

14. Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible.

15. You compare Bombay to New York's Manhattan instead of any other cities of India.

16. The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.

17. You insist on calling CST as VT, and Sahar and Santacruz airports instead of Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

18. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

19. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.

20. Being truly alone makes you nervous.

21. You love wading through knee deep mucky water in the monsoons, and actually call it ''romantic".

22. Only in Bombay, you would get Chinese Dosa and Jain Chicken.

23. You always argue with Delhites that Mumbai is way better than Delhi

24. You still refer to the city as Bombay not Mumbai.

25. When you love bragging about the filmstars and cricketers you've seen

26. When most of your freinds have underworld connections

27. Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?"

28. "Change" is "Chillar", "Ditching" is a "Kalti" and "Trouble" is "Jhol".

29. "Gheun Tak" is your life ideology.

30. You have been shoo'd away from Marine Drive at 3am by the cops because of an "Unlawful gathering of persons"

31. You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter.

32. You actually think 30Rs for a Sada Dosa is pretty reasonable.

33. when you spent 6 hours of your day in school and another 3 hours in tuitions.

34. if you ever went to fashion street, got a pair of cheap jeans and had them tagged as a name brand.

35. if you played cricket matches against another building for 5 rupee bets.

36. if you lost tons of MRF rubber balls.

37. When u call cops; 'kaka' and they let u go if u show of your marathi speaking skills .

38. Amitabh Bachchan's house is a landmark.

39. You have been to Matheran or Mahabaleshwar during the summer vacations.

40. You see men (not gay apparently) holding hands and walking in the street.

41. The note to coin changing machine at Churchgate station is idolized.

42. During cricket season all the roads are blocked because people in the streets are looking at television screens in display windows.

43. Automatic vending machines have a sales person sitting next to it just to help you.

44. There are more movie tickets being sold in black than at the ticket office.

45. It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train.

46. Every cab and rickshaw driver makes small talk with you,

47. You see a herd of people walking at four in the morning to Siddhi Vinayak temple.

48. 'Bun Maska' and 'Vada pav' is the staple diet of most collegians.

49. HORN OK PLEASE is written on every truck, tempo and heavy motor vehicle.

50. You cant drive for more than 10 mins without abusing someone.

How Proficient Are Indians In English?

Hello everyone. I hope all of you are looking forward to a great weekend. It will be interesting to see who all will catch Dhobi Ghat over the weekend or settle for the confines and luxuries of their home. Honestly, I had no plans of updating here till R-Day(26 Jan). But late last evening, something my dad saw on the road made it mandatory to hit the keys and spark of this debate; "How proficient are Indians in English?"

The announcement on a digital signboard on Victoria Road ( which I assume will spark this debate) said "AOVID ANIL KUMBLE CIRCLE TO MISSION ROAD DUE TO BWSSB WORK". In Bengaluru. Goodness Gracious!!!

The obvious error which our so called HI-TECH workers at the BBMP are oblivious to is that they do not know how to spell AVOID (AOVID here). A certain R K Narayan would have definitely had a heart attack (pun intended).The good folk of the town, who are in favor of making Kannada language compulsory from the primary schooling level ( well a novel concept and which might be essential) and those against it well, lets just say were ears and eyes shut to this brazen and unacceptable misuse of a language. Well it should serve as a wake up call.

Bengaluru (henceforth I urge everybody to shun the use of Bangalore) has been a harbinger of the new technological revolution of the last decade and is comparable to Silicon City,CA ; Shanghai and many more of the likes. Hence it also has been a place where medium of communication has primarily been English. But really has anyone stopped for a while and thought as to how proficient one is in this language? We just head to the drawing board when we want to write TOEFL to achieve our (U)States dreams or when we have to achieve bragging rights in front of someone else. A deeper research unearths that students in their undergraduate courses, use messaging

language in the exams.

Also, interesting to note is the number of bureaucrats, ministers and members of the democratic machinery use English. We have had many a misinterpretations and misconceptions due to some silly mistakes. It is always good to brush up our language skills. It is interesting to note the advocacy of certain people that, in inculcating the very nuances of this language, we are following the Westerners. Frankly, its no harm to have the best of both worlds, isn't it.  

I would, however, like to continue more about this topic only after hearing from all you people, as I feel the common opinion must be honored. I will also write about this in the future. This would be my cue for an update on R-Day.

English is a funny language; that explains why we park our car on the driveway and drive our car on the parkway.

Well lets see whether its funny or serious?

New Look Royal Challengers Bangalore

Hey everyone. Hope you have had a great new year. Well the second weekend was surely an eventful one in my life as this time around, I explored a place where it snows even during afternoon. And no its not the Himalayas but closer home, about 10 km from Bandipur. I will write about it on a later date. But back at one of Bengaluru's retreat I envy most, the ITC Royal Gardenia, the Player's Auction for the fourth season of the Indian Premier League took place. This was where two days of action, drama and pure team building tactics were brought to the fore by certain svelte beauties and a host of corporate brains. Being a native of Bengaluru there are no prizes for guessing that I fully support Royal Challengers Bangalore (Honestly I feel they should change the name to Royal Challengers Bengaluru). Here's their new look team. They have sure pulled some rabbits out of the hat;

Virat Kohli(Retention, Ind)
Daniel Vettori(Likely Captain, NZ)
Zaheer Khan(Ind)
Mohammed Kaif(Ind)
Saurabh Tiwary(Ind)
AB De Villiers(SA)
Abhimanyu Mithun(Ind)
Tillakaratne Dilshan(SL)
Dirk Nannes(Aus)
Cheteshwar Pujara(Ind)
Charl Langeveldt(SA)
Johan Van der Wath(SA)
Luke Pommersbach(Aus)
Nuwan Pradeep(SL)
Rilee Rossouw(SA)
Jonathan Vandiar(SA)

The uncapped Indian players are yet to be finalized at this point of time yet there are a few players whom I wish to see in RCB colours ; C M Gautam, Deepak Chahar, Murtuza Vahoora, Manish Pandey, S Arvind, Gaurav Dhiman, Amit Verma, C Ganapathy, Shadab Jakati, Aditya Sagar to name a few. Yet the core of the team will be the 16 players mentioned before.

One look at the team and we can identify that the RCB think tank are going in for a younger looking side which can give them sprint starts and provide death bowling supremacy. The fact that mentor Anil Kumble fiercely bid for and eventually claimed Daniel Vettori indicates to the fact that Jumbo sees in him a potential captain. The loss of Dale Steyn and Ross Taylor for sure will hurt their prospects even for that matter that of Jacques Kallis and Kevin Pietersen. Jonathan Vandiar could be a stable opener who can hold up one end while Dilshan and Co. can deliver the fireworks. Zak can be the bowling spearhead with the spin attack and the second seamers being called only as a rearguard measure. Fielding will definitely bolstered by Mohammed Kaif, Saurabh Tiwary and the likes.

On a grim note though, I certainly have a hunch that this could be another test team in the making. Firstly, we should keep in mind that only four foreign players can be inducted into the playing 11. This means that the crux of the playing 11 will be the Indians and honestly, we cannot expect the Indians to put their best efforts at the big stage. Also certain buys in the auction aren't quite justified. Cheteshwar Pujara, who is in the lineage of Rahul Dravid (We will miss the wall), is not a proven T20 performer (His KKR record speaks for itself). So are Aussie discard Pommrsbach and unheralded Pradeep. Also it will be interesting to see if Dilshan's indifferent form continues as he is expected to give a fiery start at the top of the innings.   

With a prayer on our lips and hope in our hearts let us hope that this time around, a repeat of the first season doesn't occur and look forward to an explosive IPL 4. But before, let us pray that there are no controversies, slapgates and scandals this time around for any of the 10 teams. Wishing each of the new reds godspeed and good luck.

Game for More, anyone?