All those happy new years.

It is at moments like this when I truly feel nostalgic. I believe everybody who has had an enjoyable past would surely be. How were New Years in the simpler times ? ( I am not 80 years old !! )
We would huddle near the television till around eleven or twelve to watch the year end specials. My parents would sacrifice their sleep by 2 hours to live the moment of the New Year. Doordarshan would have really exciting countdowns of the best songs of the year. Although we would most surely know which song it would be, the excitement would carry us through the programme. Comedy shows bringing together the best actors from the television industry. The year end specials would have a movie which would have released like six to seven months back. The entire neighbourhood would reverberate with the sounds of these special programmes.
As far as celebrations go a cake from one of Calcuttas finest shops - Nahoums in New Market or Flurrys at Park Street would set the tone for the evening. Not to mention of course Plum Cakes, Candies and other goodies from our neighbours.
After cable television came we would tune ourselves to CNN or BBC to see visuals of fireworks from cities which have already experienced that moment.
People started becoming more private and stopped sharing their goodies unfortunately. May be that is something we start noticing after we become adults, but thats a different issue altogether.
Now the story is different. I had always wanted to cut that cake at the stroke of midnight for the sake of fashion. Although I can do that readily - in some corner of my heart I feel that I have already experienced the joy years before I have done it.
Anyway all said and done - I wish everybody (and myself secretly) a very happy year.

Ghajini

I saw the movie Ghanjini in a near seedy movie theatre in Hyderabad. For a seedy theatre the security was great, well I presume. The pan chewing ticket checker had to don the role of a bomb checker as well (recession you see). He tried hard to not spil the pan which flooded and filled his mouth so his mouth was shaped liked the hull of a ship as he checked everything. He asked me to switch of my cell phone also.
Forget about the initial stunts. Coming to the movie. I had seen the Tamizh version of the movie twice in the theatres. I have never had the opinion that it was a great movie. To be honest I went to the movie to watch Aamir Khan. Unfortunately it was what I did not want to watch (Asin, Jiah Khan and their gang) got more screen presence than the great Khan. Asin kept screeching her dialogues, Jiah Khan always has this perplexed look on her face. The villain - Ghajini Dharmatma ( I felt like laughing like the Joker does for his introduction in The Dark Knight when I heard the name ) looks like the smiley which tells us that the guy at the other end is angry. He does a good job of maintaing that till the end - of course barring the times when he is with the ladies.
Well, the story is simple - the heroine is killed and the hero seeks revenge for it. But hey theres a catch - the hero keeps forgetting what happens after every 15 minutes.
That sounds like 'Memento' which is an undoubted classic. But the directors have done a good job by just using those parts which would suit the great Indian Movie goers taste. All said and done it is fast paced but a huge yawn nonetheless.

Lots of questions.

Like any patriotic Indian I feel saddened by the mindless massacre at the gateway and other places in Bombay. Unfortunately we did not react this way when there were blasts in most major cities in India in the course of the last year. My uneasy feeling is that we tend to react only when the numbers are high.

Why did people suddenly not rise up in unison over the killings in Kashmir ?
When the Guwahati blasts happened no one expressed this much angst ? Why can't we be one in our voice and unprejudiced in our anger towards terror ?

Condemnation is not the solution. Jaipur, Bangalore, Malegaon where given the same treatment.
In a classroom if a group of students behave badly - one smack where it hurts sometimes is the solution for the class to go on.

What happens when the school itself is attacked ? The parliament our country had been attacked in 2003. How would the United States have reacted if the White House is reacted.
Scores of people were killed in 1993 Bombay Blasts. The perpetrator is sipping cold coffee in his comfy confines.

This is certainly not a battle of equals. It is a battle of the patience versus cock sure stupidity. It is like the arrogant street speedster who believes that he can breach the gates of Rahul Dravid in the first delivery.

They say that when the patient get angry the world is not the same anymore.