Culture Vulture etc! I know... I know... but I just HAD to!

This song is so much fun! The lyrics come on in the first seconds. The song follows. So sing along.

AND SING OUT LOUD! DANCE A BIT! MOVE THAT BOOTAY!

Time to name the Bacchhan baby!

Dear Bacchaan Parivaar ( I almost wrote Sahara Parivaar but that does not work anymore does it),

First I must congratulate all of you and especially the mother who did all the hard work on the birth of the baby. The baby will bring everyone much happiness. For most people the happy and trying bits of parenthood brings to the fore facets of our feelings and personalities that complete us all as human beings.


And then ofcourse... because it is me writing this and I am a cynic for the most part...

Oyee Bacchhan family... is all this asking for name suggestions to make up for not inviting a whole lot of people (who happen to be a teensy bit mad about it even now) to the wedding of the happy parents? If that was such a private happy occasion (and it is rightly so) why should'nt the process of naming the baby be equally private? You are going to name the baby exactly what you want anyway and you have that whole lexicon of Harvanshrai's literary works to use for inspiration, so why the "name our baby please" ploy? Hey, I gotta admit, it is a very cost effective PR excercise though. Everyone feels included and yet everyone gets to be dissapointed at their suggestion not being chosen! However, I have full confidence you will find the name that pleases your family with absolutely no outside help at all.

But you have asked so I shall proceed to beg you to please, please, please stay away from all currently trendy "indo-global" names especially any of the especially popular Russified or Arabicised versions of desi names. Tacky, tacky, tacky!

Thank goodness the names Karan and Priyanka are fading into the distance. About 2 decades ago, it seemed like gali gali mein yet another baby was being called Priyanka or Karan. I am sure that when a mother calls out ... Priyanka... in any gali in Gurgoan, Calicut, Bhatinda or Shillong, a whole slew of teen girls answer ... Si mammina!

Of course now all the grown up Karans and Priyanka's are naming their own kids Ishaan, Ishita, Amaan and Aryan or some Russianised or Arabised version of a moderately desi name. Same difference!

Bacchhan family, you did very good with names like Shweta, Agastya, Navya Naveli, so crack open all those books written by the patriarch and get yourself a name indicating the culture this child will live it's first years in. Something that speaks to the child. Something that speaks for the child.

It is not about how the name looks in neon lights in the future. It is about how much the child likes the name enough, to write it a few dozen times ...in cursive with decorated hearts all around ...all over the back page of an ink smeared, dog eared 5th standard math book.

sincerely,
Mrs. Ashton Kutcher :)

My vice is greasy Samosas and I am not a skinny minnie!

So I went to see My Name Is Khan .. all by my lonesome self. None of my friends seemed to want to admit liking SRK and seeing his films. I like him, I do, I do, and I so wanted to see it and more importantly to like it.

Armed with Samosas and a coke, I slunk into a packed cinema theatre to watch this film on a Sunday afternoon. And what did I think?

MNIK was a bore. Bilkul bore! I yawned, I fidgeted, I cracked my knuckles, I made noise crumpling up my greasy samosa wrappers. I just wanted it to be over!

It seemed like someone sitting in a hermetically sealed library, took a stack of newspaper articles and fashioned a story about a place they had never been and people they had never met and a condition they had never encountered.

9/11 and way it changed the American psyche is sooooooo much more complex than TeamKJo portrays. The film was extremely naive and color by numbers.

Also I really, really hope that no rural georgia community gets to see the film else bechara Kjo will have his head handed to him on a pewter sunday roast platter while a gospel choir sings hossannas in the background, color purple style!

The samosas were good though. Hindi movie theatre lobby food is getting better. That is the bottom line... and that my friends is not good for my bottom!

I went to see 3 idiots and instead saw a Pirate on the horizon

3 Idiots.....

I liked the film. It was good. Just that. Good. Made it to the Good category. By the skin of its teeth. Barely. Not a standout and not quite as smartly and tightly made as the first MunnaBhai. It was a good enough time pass and paisa wasool. Amir's enthusiasm is infectious. Kareena is pretty and has an adequate performance. Madhavan was stellar and the other fellow remained just that "the adequate other fellow". The movie was adequate in all the departments except for... DRUMROLL PLEASE... the darned script. Pesky things those scripts! If only movies did not need scripts we would all be Fellini. It was not a watertight script; which is what I was hoping for, being that there was actually a book published long enough ago, to lift the darned thing from!

And hell yeah, the book (Five Point Someone by chetan Bhagat) is definately the meat and potatoes of the script never mind what VVC and Co contend and froth at the mouth and deny. Anyone... even a pirate with a eyepatch... would be able to tell that if they have read the book and the seen the movie. Without the book, there would have been no skeleton to the story unless Abhijaat Joshi and Chetan Bhagat have some telephatic connection and think the same thoughts at the same time, and put them on paper at the same time... which they dont.

So yes, my appreciation of the movie is tainted by the blatant disregard for someone else's creative idea.

My friend Memsaab tells us about her discomfort with the way Rancho was played. (Go read her blog, she's amazing) I agree with her at the somewhat dissatisfyingly unidimentional Rancho. I think if you dear reader, have read the book you will understand his character (Ryan) better. That character was real, and there was a reason for Ryan being so disturbingly and uncomfortably real.

Was five point someone stellar writing. Hardly. But it was an interesting and original idea and very true of IIT's. 3 Idiots in its dithering between purporting to being an original story and trying to build a tale on the original scaffold built by another architect else, fails in that it is merely good. It could have been taut and brilliant. Unfortunate.

Even more unfortunate, is that VVC comes for a family rife with writers. His nonchalant disregard for what is obviously someone else's creative baby is disturbing and deplorable.

I wonder what Raju Hirani was thinking when he read the script. If in his defence he had not read the book... strange... since EVERYONE in India had, and the book has been around for along enough time, he probably needs to be more of a complete director. He needs to read more. As does Aamir! When you are the captain of the ship, the rigging is really your responsibility.

The rigging was stolen, so is the plunder now stolen riches?

So 3 idiots.. good... I gueeesssssssss.

I need something with a high alcohol content and something else crunchy with a high calorie content to feel better again! I need comfort food and drink!

And how were your New Year celebrations?

Why I am interested in Tiger Woods's musical beds.

A friend asked in her blog if the media interest in Infidelities was justified. I had a comment to make on her blog. Go check her blog out. She is an insightful writer and the blog is very good.

Below is what I wrote as a comment on her blog.
.....................................................................................

I do not see why the media should NOT write stories about Tiger Woods and his shenanigans. Tiger Woods sells and how! As bad boy and good (endorsements). He is a whole economy by himself. PGA will suffer, golf and all its support industries will suffer, why even shaving cream companies will suffer millions and billions if the Tiger Woods brand is devalued by his actions.

As such his story is deserving of media coverage and as the ultimate consumers we have the right to be both amused and entertained by stories of his peccadilios; just as much as we have the right to be informed of how the devaluing of his brandname will affect our own purchasing power. Any phenonmenon that affects my saving/purchasing capabilities must be investigated, giggled at, raged at or ultimately shelved for future reconsideration.

In the US context, it follows that the brandname devaluing of politicians or other powerful people who behave badly, will affect my life in many ways.

Indian or European sexual mores or definition of badboy behavior and brand devaluing is different. The corruptability of the press and also the profitability of the press in other countries is also a factor in what stories are newsworthy in economic terms. I am not going to compare what is acceptable and where. It is apples or oranges to guavas.

Money decides everything ultimately in any country, in any era, even how many beds a man or woman can warm.

Money also decides if it is acceptable for the aggrieved spouse to rage at the unfaithful one, golf club in hand or to accept the "transgression" in sati savitri fashion.

Ultimately money defines a culture and its mores.

Men and women have behaved badly everywhere, and in every era. Today, it affects me monetarily. Damn right, I am interested in the gory details.

Google schmoogle

Did you know that THE top google search keyword that brings folks to my blog is....

drumroll please....

CHUTIYA!

I guess I am owning it since I talked about Chutiyas and Chutiyagiri a very long time ago. Folks from Argentina to Norway and Patna have been searching for Chutiya and stumbling across my blog. I hope they enjoyed the rest of my humdrum posts too.

Okay here is another one : Haraami Kutta!

That should bring a lot more people to my blog.

Excuse me while I go wash my mouth out with carbolic soap.

In which she gives you a household hint and an excuse to get yourself a drink to start the weekend right!

So I can flip from fertility issues to household hints to political rants and then gossip! Yeah, I know sometimes you dont know what to make of me. Sometimes I dont know either.

So get yourself a glass of something good, a plate of something fatty and crunchy to eat and start your weekend off right... and read on.

I just saved myself a pile of money! Saving money is cause for celebration right? Go on, celebrate with me... go have have another drink! See, I just gave you another excuse to start your weekend already.. did'nt I?

Why am I so thrilled? Because I stopped myself... in the nick of time... from throwing away a couple of All Clad pots, that were the stars of my culinary world. I used them for everything. They were very expensive but just the best things that I had ever bought for my kitchen. I think I probably saved up for a few months for each pot, so you know how much I loved them.

Recently I have become a less than careful cook and they had become horribly charred. So bad that even steel wool and earnest scrubbing could not rescue them. Everything stuck to the bottom and everything cooked in them tasted burnt. I wrote to the manufacturer and used every possible thing to fix the problem... including this which can basically clean anything off anything. Sigh... I was ready to weep.

I had tossed them in the garbage, when an Aunt of mine came to visit from India. She pottered around my kitchen, switched all my spices and pots around until I could not find anything anymore, declared that we did'nt eat enough good ghee and she also lectured me endlessly on how wasteful we were. Worse, she threw away Husband's preserved pickled Herring! You can tell that she was generally begining to annoy me.

I was not really surprised when she started frothing at the mouth when she saw the pots in the trash. What she did next though surprised me.

She had me dive headfirst into the slimy garbage and pull them out and rinse them off. Then she told me put an inch of water in the pots and soak a cupfull of Sago .. Sabudana... which is different from Tapioca ... in the water overnight. The next day I was instructed to boil up the whole slimy mess and stir with a wooden spoon/non stick spatula while the mess boiled. Imagine my surprise when the charred bottom bits came unstuck... in huge flakes! No scratches, no elbow grease, no hard labor. It was like a miracle! It was wonderous! My pots were back to thier new pristine glory. It truly is a miracle I tell you. It was like pulling a few hundred dollars out of the garbage!

Since then I have used Sabudana to clean pretty much every mess in the kitchen. Counters with stuck on, dried on food like egg or aataa? Those burnt on patches on the oven shelves? Non stick pans which actually do stick if you forget to turn off the stove and are on the phone with a fun friend? Cleaning the outdoor grill? Scuff marks on highly polished dining table? Yeah, you guessed it. Sabudana in its various forms! Boiled up/powdered/gloppy paste. All of them work.

Now if I can only get the family to eat Sabudana Khichadi... sigh!