A Post About 'this n that'!

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I had planned to write about Kashmir after I read this article in 'The Hindu'
titled, 'Twenty-four years after he left Kashmir in the wake of violence, Sandeep Raina returns to find a home he had all but forgotten'.  I became very emotional and remembered the days we had been to Kashmir in 2004 i.e. 10 years back.  I remembered writing about our Kashmir visit and it was my 2nd post.  First post was about our 'Amarnath Yatra'.   I had written our experiences in a diary then.  Son insisted to start writing blogs.  And he opened a page for me.  My blog-writing started!

I didn't have a single comment for the first post and the second one got 1 comment in 2010 from my friend 'Swaram'! Well, I had started getting good number of comments later but Swaram came back and read my old posts and this second post got a first comment from her! I didn't know how to go further and so just left it with the 2nd post. Then my son pushed and insisted to read others' posts and write comment in them. He said that 'if your comment kindled some interest in the writers, they might visit your blog too and drop a line'.  I knew I was not a very good or interesting writer then,  but did what he asked me to do...read others' posts and dropped comments. I restarted writing again in 2008 after a '4 year' gap! It was about 'Vividh Bharati's Sangeet Sarita' my favourite radio programme. So, it is 6 years of official blogging now! Kashmir post was in September 2004 and I started blogging again in July 2008! We can take July or September for marking the 'starting of the blog' time! I can't say 10 years of blogging but 6 years!  People seem to like my posts and so, read and comment now!

Let me go back to Kashmir post now.  I had concluded the post in 2004 like this:

'We left the place with a lump in our throat. Kashmir should have been so beautiful before the terrorist activities started. Now we see poverty, though the people have brave happy faces even now. Hope the politicians help them and their children to see happiness in the future at least, instead of troubling them with their selfishness.' 

Now, apart from the politicians, nature has devastated Kashmir.  It might take a long time for this State to recover.  Will the CM take proper action at least now?  I hope the writer of the article, Raina, goes back to Kashmir soon. 

Here, in our Tamilnadu our CM has become ex-CM and is in jail now on corruption case.  On one side, I feel that this is a good precedence in our political history.  Nobody can escape judiciary even after winning the last election with a thumping majority.  The Finance Minister in her cabinet, Mr. O. Pnneer Selvam will be the 'new' CM! Jayalalitha cannot contest elections for another 10 years.  So, her political career is over.  Well...she might bounce back if she gets a 'stay'! She hasn't got any proper opposition party here to fear! DMK is nearly gone.  Congress and BJP hadn't got any hold in Tamilnadu, ever! They had to piggiback on these Dravidian parties always!

Hope some miracle happens to Tamilnadu and some good leader pops up from somewhere to pull up the economy of the State soon. 

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Disney's 'Million Dollar Arm', English Movie Review!

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When I started watching this movie, I didn't know anything about the subject of the movie! I watched blindly.  Slowly, it caught my serious attention! The story is about 2 village boys being trained as baseball players, that too in America!

I liked the hero of the movie, Jon Hamm, who resembled young Robert De Nero! This also made me to continue watching in the beginning.  Then, after some 45 mts., the story caught up my interest! Now, to the story:

J.B. aka J.B.Berstein is an American sports agent who is on the brink of losing all his money and looking for new baseball players.  Once he was watching in TV, some reality shows and came across Indian cricket which is India's famous sport.  He notices players bowling with good speed, though there is no connection to Baseball's throwing of the ball.  Still, in a desperate move, he conducts a reality show in India called 'Million Dollar Arm' and comes across 2 Javelin throw players who won the first and second place in the competition. Though we, Indians are not baseball players, he takes them, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel to America for training as baseball players.  

The story moves further to show how J.B. trained them, first mechanically and finding no positive result, started treating them like family and his friend Bella, who is a Medical student helps him in touching Rahul and Dinesh emotionally.  He sits with them during their pooja and yoga time, to make them feel comfortable and at home.  The training had to start from scrap, i.e. even the language, English.   The whole atmosphere was different for the players and with the help of Amit (Pitobash), who acted very well, J.B. gets the required results.




Both the boys, Suraj Sharma as Rinku Singh (the 'Life of Pi' hero') and Madhur Mittal ('Slum Dog Millionaire' actor, Older Salim) as Dinesh Patel have acted very well. 

The actors Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel:

The original Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel: 

The movie is like a typical Indian movie with romance (J.B. and Bella!) Comedy (a character called Amit who did quite well) etc. along with a few songs in the background! I would have liked to watch some more training programmes which would have made everybody interested in the movie. 

AR Rahman's music is OK and I liked a couple of songs, though not extra ordinarily good like many of his songs.  The background music is good. The fag end of the movie's background song is one of Rahman's Tamil song, which is a lovely song. The link to the other songs I liked in this movie is here: (click on this link pl.)

Well...you can watch this movie once at least, I assure you, you will enjoy!



P.S.: Who knows? One day Abhishek Bachchan might sponsor a Baseball team! I liked the theme of the story! It can happen again!

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