Breaking News

That was a 'Breaking News' from Aaj Tak news channel of India Today group. The news is 'Amitabh Bachchan ko thand lagi' ('Amitabh Bachchan caught cold').

Now I'm totally against the people who are just ridiculing Aaj Tak for this. I think it was indeed a breaking news. Breaking news as per Wiki is "often loosely assigned to the most significant story of the moment or a story that is being covered live".

So if on that day "Amitabh caught cold" is the most significant story what would Aaj Tak do? They are a private enterprise to make money; they need to show 'breaking news' every 3rd hour otherwise the rival channel would 'break' some other news and subsequently Aaj Tak would loose the money.

We know that killing 15 policemen by Naxalites or killing innocent protesters by police or spreading of Bird flu virus and subsequently extra money given to voters for Panchayet election or giving financial support to the families of terrorist or China claiming Arunachal with Indian Leftists supporting them are never so important issues in any given day to be called breaking news.

A breaking news on a national channel has to be for the people to know instantly and react as to 'whoa' or 'oh my god' like 9/11 - America under attack or Eklavya selected as India's official Oscar entry or Shah Rukh Khan buys Kokatta team out of sheer love and passion for cricket or future prime minister Rahul Gandhi speaks a word in parliament after 457 days or why the Mughal king Akbar always marries his daughter-in-law in Bollywood movies.

These grave issues need to be brought forward in to the minds of people and what better way to do than to put them in 'breaking news' packets. Aaj Tak along with host of national news channels are doing a perfectly fine job in getting them.

As for the current news, Amitabh is from the first family of India (ok, second family after 10 Janpath government bungalow) and his actions wield a great power and impact on India's future. So it made perfect sense that channels are working their best to keep us updated. Bravo!

Bollywood Awards

What a nice and beautiful February season!

I couldn't be happier after seeing tons of tons snow being mixed with equal amount of salt creating a wonderfully over the tangent driving conditions inside a neat and healthy sub-zero temperature. Zillingly enjoyable!

And of course the conferring of most-coveted awards to the highly deserving Bollywood personalities who work their a** of outside the country and inside the film media sections. It was like a dream come true.

So after the conclusion of 14th Star Screen awards ceremony in January giving all important hints to the people waiting with baited breaths (a la Golden Globe gives for Academy Awards), the reverend Time of India group announced 53rd Filmfare Award nominations (Yes, The Oscars of India).

But there's a catch. TOI group doesn't give awards to everybody like Screen does but only to the most deserving candidates (for this reason some Bollywood brash young chap never attends any award show we heard)

Anyway, Screen gave 11 awards to the actors only including Best Child Artiste, Promising newcomers, people worked as a comedians (not jokers) and the villainous people like Hannibal Lector (oh I'm sorry. this is a Bollywood discussion). - and the villainous people like Arjun Rampal.

So Screen gave promising newcomer awards to Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor for their unforgettable performances in their respective films with other star kids in Neil Nitin Mukesh and Sonam Kapoor got sidelined triggering the 'intelligent' Rishi Kapoor to utter that 'this award is for my other beta Neil also'. How so beautiful!!! I love Bollywood.

But the toughest job for Screen people, I think, was searching few children who somewhat acted in a 2007 film in order to fill the nomination list and subsequently give the 'child actor' award to Darheel Safary for Taare Zameen Par; justified that Dassheel can't be nominated or given best actor award because SRK IS UNBEATABLE as Kabir Khan in Chak De India that changed Indian Hockey forever (I mean Knight Riders forever).

Other awards were easy as weasel or potatoes considering the nomination list, after discarding craps like Black Friday, had the earth-shattering performances from ground breaking movies such as 'Chak de Girls' (one entity) performing on the cricket field or Amir Khan shaking his bum in front of school kids. Absolutely brilliant!!!

Similarly brilliant was Pankaj Kapoor as the Best Villain. His Nandakishore in Blue Umbrella was so vile, so heartless, so menacing, so devilish that Anton Chigurh of No Country for Old Men would soil his pant after seeing the movie.

All in all a good heartwarming and satisfying award ceremony.

Now its time for TOI group to uncover the mystery and I'm quite upbeat that a great director like Farah Khan coupled with the greatest actor of our time - the SRK - would take most of the awards for their absolute mesmerizing stunner of a movie - Om Shanti Om.


P.S. I hear that Johny Depp and Gore Verbinski are so disheartened to see their Pirate movie fail to take any meaningful nominations even after collecting a mind-boggling $958 million that they are surreptitiously pushing for some Filmfare and Screen jury members into Academy.

Sarkars

Amitabh to Bal Thackeray: "Don't worry about Raj. Woh to bachha hai!! Woh kuch nehi kar sakta!!" (He's a kid. He can't do anything). [courtesy Selva Mani's dialog from 'Sarkar']

Incidentally I think Amitabh might be interested in another dialog of the same movie where Mani uttered in respect to Sarkar "Right or wrong kuch nehi hota hai. Jiske paas power hai uska wrong bhi right ho jata hai" (There are no Rights and Wrongs. Only Power).

Or is it Raj who is more interested in that? Or Bal Thackeray? Or Amar Singh? Or Sonia Gandhi? Or Buddhadev?
Whoever it is the looser is Me. Us. Indians. India.

Return

Oh, its been long since I posted one! Three months I think, crossing myself to the another calendar year ending one of the most memorable year I had.

The hiatus is not because I had become double (not in pounds) late last year but due to my current aggressive exploring of movies that made the names Hollywood and Bollywood thus resulting in watching at least one movie a day for last 60 days. Maybe this might be my first step in choosing another career taken that the US economy is entering into recession.

Anyway a magnificent year of 2007 ended in grand style with Tatas acquiring companies in 'white' parts of the world, Ambani bros fighting as to who would be the first to displace Bill Gates, Leftist in India trying hard that they are still loyal to China, Mamata continuing to prove that it needs a brain to become a politician and as an icing on the cake one Mr Modi winning against the English Indian Media spearheaded by CNN-IBN and NDTV with bunch of sidekicks in Tehelka, Outlook, Hindustan Times and Indian Express. It was a matter of time that their efforts were acknowledged by the Federal Government with throwing the 'highly prestigious' Padmashri award to some of them. I would advice Mr Yogendra Yadav, Mr Vinod Mehta, Mr Shekhar Gupta and Mrs Sagarika Ghose not to be disheartened and continue the good work so as to improving the chance of getting the award next year.

But one thing I can't forget in 2007 that I couldn't go out on 31st night to enjoy due to illness whereas 80 people went out and enjoyed in and out of the club. They even got to see the sexiest Indian dancing with them.



No, not the famous babe I'm talking about. That dude in the back has more curves, longer hairs and bigger boobs than Tanushree Dutta. And I thought she was the sexiest thing in India. Damn!