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Though I am not a big fan of Salman Khan, but have been enjoying his DUS KA DUM on Sony Entertainment Television Channe latelyl.   When my wife told me that Sridevi along with Boney Kapoor will be the guests  in Sep 19th episode of DUS KA DUM, I made sure that I am back home by 9pm to watch the show just for Sridevi.  Sri made appearance on screen after 10 years.  She was stunningly beautiful at the age of 46.  Though I felt she was a bit uncomfortable in the show, and she could not understand some of the Salman’s  Pranks in typical Hindi Estyle.  But I think Boney Kapoor managed very well for both of  them.   Other 2 guest were Prabhu Deva and cute Ayesha Takia Azmi. 

Before the start of the show, Sony showed an trailer of "WANTED" and that was the first time I watched the full trailer of the movie.  And after seeing it I was 100% sure that its POKIRI.  And during the episode, it was confirmed when Boney Kapoor said that the movie is filmed in Hyderabad.  Pokiri was a smashit and I have watched it about half-dozen time so far.  It has great one liner by Mahesh Babu, and cameo-villain role by multi-talented Prakash Raj.  I think only Prakash Raj could have done villain role in WANTED.  Boney could have tried with Mahesh instead of Salmaan, but my guess is that Mahesh would have rejected his offer.  After watching Mahesh Babu’s OKKADU, ATHADU and POKIRI, I must say that even Bollywood stars cannot compete with him in STYLE. 

During the show, Film Director Prabhu Deva made a dance move which got a roaring applause from the studio crowd.  Will have to watch the movie to see how Salman has done the same move in the film.   I think the credit should go to Sridevi for bringing Prabhu Deva and Prakash Raj to Bollywood Screen in a big way.  Prabhu Deva has done some special appearance role, but looks like this is his biggest break as a Director.  And I am 100% sure that Hindi Audience will love Prakash Raj in this film.   Salman was at his usual in the episode and played jokes on Prabhu Deva, which Prabhu (being such a humble person) took it very lightly.  Then SALMAN said to audience that in case Prabhu Calls him as guest in Tamil Version of DUS KA DUM…THO PRABHU TO MERI BAND BAJA DEGA….

After watching Sri on screen after many many years, I think she is quite ready for a comeback.   And the comeback would be more memorable if she teams up with either Amitabh or Madhuri Dixit.

I am back online after couple of weeks of vacation.  It’s festive time in India.  The festival season starts off with Vinayaka Chaturthi and probably ends with Pongal/Makar Sankranti.  TV Channels, in particular TAMIL CHANNELS TV, will telecast special programs during festival days.   But these days I am not very particular about watching these programs, may be I am no longer a fan of tamil movies or rather Tamil Cinema Standars has gone down to such a level that I wouldn’t waste my time watching new Tamil Moviles or listening to new Tamil Movie Songs.  Having said that, I still enjoy movies from 80s, 90s.  I think movies in those days had some good substance, good story writing, good actors (decent looking actors) and great songs.

In my college days in 90s, I would be eagerly waiting for Movies with  Illayaraja’s music.   I would buy them as soon as they are released.  Illayaraja has given great numbers in 80s and 90s in both Tamil and Telugu Films.  Even today these songs give you a sense of pride in the history of Tamil Music.  The duo of Illayaraja and S.P. Balasubramanian were instant hit in those days.  How can one forget songs from "Kizhakkau Vasal", "Geetanjali", "Mounga Raagam", "Dalapathi","Karagatakaran", "Chinna Thambi", "Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal" and the list goes on.   In fact during the same period Maragathamani has given great hits and songs from "Azhgan" is my favorite of all time.  The songs has great lyrics, great picturization and no use of English Words.  In addition to 6 CD’s collection of Illayaraja music, I have number of individual audio cassette which I had bought during college days and I still listen to those songs. 

Well, with the arrival of A.R. Rehman, I think Tamil Films Music Industry changed for ever and gradually it is dying.  I am not critizing A.R. Rehman, but his kind of music was and is not suitable for Tamil Films.  Now a days he doesn’t even score music for Tamil Movies, but he left his impression in such a way that other tamil music director imitate his music style and pour all sorts of English Words, in the name of modern songs for youth, and making songs unbearable to listen and watch.  These days watching or listening Tamil Movie is a traumatic experience.  I don’t understand where are all those genius have gone.  Is the Tamil Movie goer crowd likes these kinds of music?  Well if thats the case, then I must say that even their standards have gone down.  I WILL BLAME A.R. REHMAN AND I BARELY LISTEN TO HIS MUSIC. 

I think most of you will agree with me that ILLAYARAJA’S music style was better suited for Tamil Movies than AR. REHMAN style.  Will we ever see the rise of Tamil Music and Cinema?  Only Time Will Tell.

All of you would agree with me that books are better companion and worth spending time on than watching mindless programs on the Television. But still many of us don’t go to book store exclusively to get books. Even if we go, we end up buying music CDs or movies on DVD. When I say books, it could be novel (fiction, non-fiction), magazines, comics or any technical books. I still remember when I was young my father would buy me all the good comics available in 80s and 90s. I have read almost every Phantom, Mandrake and Lothar, Bahadur, Chacha Chowdhary and numbers of "Amar Chitra Katha". I dont think kids these days even look at "Amar Chitra Katha". These days kids are hooked to TV, or Computer playing video games.

I used to love reading mythological stories. Every summer holidays, I would spend (if we are not vacationing) my entire day reading Amar Chitra Katha Collection and I have read all of them many-many times. I must say that you learn a lot by reading Amar Chitra Katha. I thank god that in those days only rich could get TV and there were not many broadcaster, or rather only one "Doordarshan". After the invasion of Internet, I think whatever percentage of population were buying books, that also stopped. Browsing internet is good if you know what you want to browse. But many of us would just surf the net without exactly knowing what we are looking for and then jump from page to page wasting time.

Not many would have know Vikas Swarup till "Slumdog Millionaire" became a hit. His book "Q & A" inspired the movie makers of "Slumdog Millionaire". I bet none of the Indian Producers and Directors thought that they could make a movie out of "Q & A". To tell you the truth, none of the Indian Producers and Directors know how to make a movie out of a book. They were and still are producing the same crap movie about love story, hero running after heroine, singing song in rain. And there are some producer who are producing so called "hat ke" movie, are copying the adult story line from Hollywood. Bollywood where is your originality. I bet that even after the success of "Q & A", none of the Indian Directors coould make a movie of Vikas Swarup second book "Six Suspects". We have some of the best writers who have given us great books and novels. Each of them has their own style of writing. Here is the list of some of the best writers India has produced:

• Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
• Premchand
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Anita Desai
• Arundhati Roy
• Jhumpa Lahiri
• Mulk Raj Anand
• R.K. Narayan
• Salman Rushdie
• Vikram Seth
• V.S. Naipaul
• Kiran Desai
• Mahadevi Varma
• Shashi Deshpande
• Shobha De
• Khushwant Singh
• Nirad C. Chaudhuri
• Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
• Subramanya Bharathi
• Mahasweta Devi

I am going to a book store this evening and will definitely pickup a book of one of these witers.

Cricket is a Religion in India. Thats what everyone thinks. After the famous and only World Cup win in 1983, cricket had become craze in India. Whenever India plays any international tournament, in particular one day matches, the stadiums are zam packed if the matches are played in India. In addition to crowd in stadium, people are glued to TV to watch their favourite batsmen hitting 4s , 6s or bowler taking wicket. After famous win in1983, indian won some lost many matches but still the cricket craze hasn’t gone down. But during all these years, Indian Crowd never gave importance to local matches, matches played between states as in Ranji and Duleep Trophy, matches player between cities as in Deodhar Trophy. The reason was Indian like to watch only the star play cricket. So even if in those local matches, there were some good performance, those performance got unnoticed by Indian Crowd. Indian craze towards cricket made such an impact on the revenues on Cricket Boards that the boards realized that the only way they could make money is to keep Indian Crowd happy. Slowly the cricket craze has reached a point where a major tournament is deemed failure if Indian Cricket Team did not participate or they lost in the prelimary round. Everybody remembers that 2007 World Cup in West Indies was a major flop. TV Ads revenue and stadium revenues were down from previous world cup. What was the reason? Well I could attribute to India’s elimination from early rounds. Once India was out, the TV viewership back home almost dropped to 0. The advertiser lost huge amount of money in TV ads. This is when other cricket boards realized the importance and impact of Indian public interst in cricket matches. They made sure that in any next major international cricket tournament, India has to win the tournament to keep cricket a profit making business. At the same time BCCI was contemplating a plan for Indian Professional League. May be this is when other boards realized that with IPL how much money they and their players can make by letting India win the major tournament. Remember the shot Misbah-ul-Haq played in the 20th Over of the 2007 T20 World Cup final. Pakistan needed 6 runs to win in 4 balls and considering the way Misbah was playing, the target was piece of cake. But Misbah played a very poor shot and gave india a victory from jaws of death. Was this final fixed? Well nobody knows. But the result surely made all cricket boards and players rich. How? Everybody knows that 2008 and 2009 IPL was a huge success. Players, Boards, Cricket Ground, TV Ads and who else…everybody made money at the expense of poor public. Indian Crowd were willing to pay Rs. 500 ticket to watch matches in Stadiums. Indians were glued in front of TV for 4 hours. TV ads revenue shot up by more than 200%-300%. Franchise were willing to pay millions of dollars to players. Every other country player made money by playing for just 15-20 minutes in 4 hour game. They made more than what they could have made by playing test or one day matches with minimal effort. One South African IPL player correctly said after IPL 2008 that he has just returned from vacation. Wow..a million dollar vacation. Thanks to Misbah-ul-Haq. Imagine what could have happend if India was eliminated in the first round of T-20 World Cup 2007. T-20 matches doesn’t require players to show any skill, no stress unlike Test Cricket and One Day International. I guess anybody can play T-20 matches at the expense of Indian cricket lovers. Indian Cricket Lovers must realise that players, board, franchise are making money with minimal effort. Kya Yeh Sochne Waali Baath Nahin Hein?

According to World Bank, India’s economy will grow 5.2% this year. Whereas according to our own Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, the growth will be around 7%. Let’s see how close these numbers are in reality. With recent compromise between the Multiplexes and the India Movie Producers, we will soon be seeing the so called block buster hitting on big screens again. Its a good news for the metro janta who throng to multiplexes to watch crap movies. Most of these movies in a months time end up on DVDs unlike blockbuster like Ghazani or Taare Zameen Par, which I think took almost more than 6 months to come onto to DVDs. DVD business is booming in India and it will continue to grow considering the growth factor. People like to watch movies at their own pace and own time. With big screen TVs (LCD/Plasmas) filling the Indian Market, more and more people will watch movies at home. In many big cities and II tier cities, real estate builders are building gated community. I would recommend these builders to come up with (5-10) mini-theatre with projection or LCD TVs big enough to entertain small group, say 20, of resident. The number of mini-theatres could be determined based on number of resident / flats / houses. There mini-theatres need to not be hi-fi. Just a basic room with good cushy chairs to sit and enjoy movie comfortably. I guess the cost of constructing this would be around 15-20 lakhs which they can include while fixing the home price. With this approach, I guess more people will watch movies on DVD. Many would say that these blockbuster movies come to TV channels like UTV, SETMAX, Zee Cinema within 6 months time or watch on pirated DVDs/VCDs. So why to pay extra? Well if you are someone who enjoys movie in true sense, either you would go to theatre or watch in a theatre kind of atmosphere. Have you seen the picture quality of movie telecasted by channels on LCD TVs? Or the picture quality of pirated DVDs/VCDs? The picture quality is so bad that you would end up getting headaches and if you continue to watch bad picture quality movies, you would definitely end up getting vision problem. I think to avoid piracy, the entertainment industry need to bring down the prices of quality DVDs. I think currently good movie quality DVD sell around Rs. 400 / -, which is quite expensive considering that Bollywood is not an industry like Hollywood. Most of the workers in Bollywood are temporary and they don’t get any benefit and they dont have fixed income. This is something which I think entertainment industry in India need to think about.

How many of you like shopping? I am pretty sure that many would say yes and I am 100% sure that everyone will say that they like window shopping. Many of us like to go to malls, big or small. Bangloreans like to go to Forum, Delhites to Ansal Plaza, Chennaites to Chennai City Center, Hyderabadis to Hyderabad Central, Mumbaites to Infinity Mall. Most of us return home from window shopping. Some of us do buy stuff by paying more. I never like shopping in malls. To me they are pricey. I would go to the pre-mall era shops and still find good quality items at cheaper price. Irrespective of where we buy, have you dared to return items you did not like after couple of weeks. Most of the stores don’t accept returns even if their tags are intact. You would argue with shop owners and even fight with them and some shoppers even win at the cost of high blood pressure. Is it worth enough? I would say no, not at the cost of your health. Those who are unable to return items, keep it with them for ever not knowing what to be done. They would think why they cannot exchange this for something else and save some money. Hey everyone likes to save money. Have you every thought of trading items without money? Now you can do that in our site. Len-Den.com provides an easy way of swapping items. It gives you freedom in shopping for new items and without worrying that in case you don’t like item, you can always swap it with other items. This way you are not junking items and helping "earth go green."