If Wishes Were Horses....

Happy

Diwali/ Deepawali/ Tihar

(the pic is courtesy HRH Prabir)

First of all wish all of you a very happy happy festival ahead. Wish you all great happiness and contentment in your lives.

Those of you in the 'loop' must have received Shraddha's pregnancy fuelled tirade. For those of you who did not, believe me, you are better off for it. Here's just a few inferences i deduced:

a) She has been transformed into a short haired cutie pie who allegedly is on a sex crazed mission.

b) My friend meanwhile seems to have become so somnolent (for want of a better word) with the constant demand for his 'penile services' (again for want of a better phrase) that he has stopped writing to us altogether. Even his festival greetings are just some pics forwarded with not even a decent message of greeting attached (As so thankfully pointed out by cretain ex-cupid [for want of a better description])

c) In deference to Comrade Cathy's 'request' they have not yet identified the sex of the child and

d) Vishal is somehow more eloquent and intelligent and techo-savvy and.... hush now.... tsk... tsk genius does not need a mirror.

Except Shyam none of you seem to have seen any of my recommended movies so i will let you catch up before posting another recommendation.

The DVD of the Week feature will resume after the holidays.

Looking forward to 3 different movies over the holidays. Don, for the SRK and Farhan Akhtar factor, Jaan-E-Maan for the strong buzz that it has been receiving and The Departed for Scorcese and Nicholson.

Have a great Holidays ahead.

Vish

Friendship & Tolerance

My Alma Mater
(BTW this is just the concert hall... ahem... ahem)

I was wondering if any if my friends even make the effort to read my blogs but let me give them the benefit of the doubt and presume they do, even though they seem so incapable of leaving even a few lines of comments. Sometime one of the tests of friendship is Tolerance.

The reports of 'pets' being thrown out of moving cars as a sport (see previous blog) seem to be increasing and to think that this is happenning during the holy month of Ramadan. Haven't quite been able to get it out of my head and try as i might, i cannot understand what motivates someone to do something so cruel. That is apart from putting other startled motorists at risk.

Diwali is coming and so is Eid. Wishing all of you a very Happy and Prosperous Diwali. I sincerely hope this festival of Lights does indeed light up all your lives with all the happiness and prosperity that you all so richly deserve.
Having my birthday fall in the middle of all this is not bad either. :-)

By the way the DVD's Of The Week havent just been picked at random. A lot of thought has gone into them. It is not only about what i liked but i have also tried to put myself in your shoes, and knowing all of you and your temperements, i have tried to select titles which would appeal to your sensibilities too.

Wish all of you a great week ahead and a great year to follow too.

Ciao for Now

Vish

DVD of the week and Random Musings again

HI All,

Considering that your weekend is still Sat-Sun and since that is the time when you usually have time to watch a movie i have changed my schedule for "DVD of the Week". Henceforth it will be posted on Thursday instead of Sunday. (Wow it sound so grandoise)

Before that a few random musings as usual.

Have been reading news lately of the new “sport” to hit Dubai. People are driving down SZR Road (the busiest and fastest motorway connecting Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and throwing cats and dogs out of vehicles to bet on how many cars it can avoid before being crushed to death. In the torrent of emotions that I experienced immediately on reading this, I am not sure which came first, Astonishment, Horror, Shock or just plain Anger. I really wonder if too much money and no hard work ever can do this to you. Never quite thought I’d literally see the idiom, An Idle Mind is a Devil’s Workshop.

On a completely different note I was watching Sony TV’s “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa” which is based on the BBC’s Dancing With The Stars. After Ajay Jadeja was eliminated, he displayed such maturity, grace and sportsmanship that my respect for him has quadrupled. I always liked him as a cricketer (never mind his role in match fixing as anything is okay when compared to the corruption of Dalmiya, Pawar & Co.), but after yesterday he showed such dignity that it should be a case study on how to accept defeat. And it wasn’t just hollow “sportsmanship” he actually said that the remaining three were the best of the lot and if he had been voted in, he actually would have been embarrassed to stand there. Hat’s off to him. Lage Raho Jaddubhai.

Anyway this week’s movie is....

A wonderful movie which brings out the child in all of us and hopefully, a little of the good in that child within us too.
From a director whose previous credits include Trainspotting, The Beach and 29 Days Later its a 180 degree turn in genre. First of all the little kid playing Damien must be the cutest kid since Drew Barrymore in E.T.

We all have imaginary friends but little Damien has saints for his friends who ‘visit’ him on different occasions and help him choose the right path. The review below will tell you of the movie but I just want to share a few of my feelings about it as Shyam so helpfully pointed out. It is cast very well, shot beautifully and in Damien has a solid moral center without ever being preachy. He is also not a push over or a dumb kid. In one scene when he brings 1000 pounds to the school and his elder brother scolds him saying that it is suspicious, he replies,
“It is not suspicious. Its unusual but not suspicious.”
As Diwali & Eid comes round the corner and with Christmas in the horizon we need a little help to remind us of the little-good-things in life and this movie does it perfectly. In our quest to earn our individual “millions” we also need to stop to think of little-good-things.
Watch it, you won't be disappointed.

Roger Ebert- Chicago Sun Times

It isn't the money's fault it got stolen. That is the reasoning of Anthony Cunningham, who at 9 is more of a realist than his 7-year-old brother, Damian. Therefore it isn't their fault that a bag containing 265,000 British pounds bounced off a train and into Damian's playhouse and is currently stuffed under their bed. "Millions," a family film of limitless imagination and surprising joy, follows the two brothers as they deal with their windfall. They begin by giving some of it away, taking homeless men to Pizza Hut. Damian wants to continue their charity work, but Anthony leans toward investing in property. They have a deadline: In one week the UK will say goodbye to the pound and switch over to the Euro; maybe, thinks Anthony, currency speculation would be the way to go. Here is a film that exists in that enchanted realm where everything goes right -- not for the characters, for the filmmakers. They take an enormous risk with a film of sophistication and whimsy, about children, money, criminals and saints. Damian collects the saints -- "like baseball cards". He knows all their statistics. He can see them clear as day, and have conversations with them. His favorite is St. Francis of Assisi, but he knows them all: When a group of Africans materializes wearing halos, Damian is ecstatic: "The Ugandan martyrs of 1881!" The boys' mother has died, and Damian asks his saints if they have encountered a St. Maureen. No luck, but then heaven is limitless. Their dad, Ronnie (James Nesbitt), has recently moved them into a newly built suburb outside Liverpool, where the kids at school are hostile at first. Anthony finds it cost-efficient to bribe them with money and neat stuff. Damian, under advice from St. Francis, wants to continue giving money to the poor. Anthony warns him urgently that throwing around too much money will draw attention to them, but Damian drops 10,000 pounds into a charity collection basket. When the boys find out the money was stolen, Damian thinks maybe they should give it back, which is when Anthony comes up with the excellent reasoning I began with, It isn't the money's fault it got stolen. Perhaps by focusing on the money and the saints I have missed the real story of "Millions," which involves the lives of the boys, their father, and the woman (Daisy Donovan) who works at the charity that finds the fortune in its basket. The boys are dealing with the death of their mother, and the money is a distraction. Their father is even lonelier; maybe too lonely to ever marry again, maybe too distracted to protect his boys against the bad guy (Christopher Fulford), who dreamed up the perfect train robbery and is now skulking about the neighborhood looking for his missing bag of loot. By now you may have glanced back to the top of the review to see if I really said "Millions" was directed by Danny Boyle, who made "Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting" and the zombie movie "28 Days Later." Yes, the Danny Boyle. And the original screenplay and novel are by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote "Hilary and Jackie" and "24 Hour Party People." What are these two doing making a sunny film about kids? I don't require an answer for that, because their delight in the film is so manifest. But they are serious filmmakers who do not know how to talk down to an audience, and although "Millions" uses special effects and materializing saints, it's a film about real ideas, real issues and real kids. It's not sanitized brainless eye candy. Like all great family movies, it plays equally well for adults -- maybe better, since we know how unusual it is. One of its secrets is casting. In Alex Etel and Lewis McGibbon the film has found two of the most appealing child actors I've ever seen. Etel is like the young Macaulay Culkin ("Home Alone"), except that he has no idea he is cute, and like the young Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense") in that he finds it perfectly reasonable to speak with dead people. There is no overt cuteness, no affected lovability, not a false note in their performances, and the movie allows them to be very smart, as in Anthony's theory about turning the pounds into dollars and buying back into Euros after the new currency falls from its opening-day bounce. Of course, that involves the difficulty of two boys ages 7 and 9 trying to convert 265,000 pounds into anything. They can't just walk into a bank with a note from their dad. The movie handles this and other problems with droll ingenuity, while also portraying a new suburban community in the making. After the new homeowners move in, a helpful policeman cheerfully advises a community meeting that they should expect to be burgled, and he tells them which forms to ask for at the police station. Boyce, the screenwriter says he got the inspiration for "Millions," from an interview in which Martin Scorsese said he was reading the lives of the saints. The idea of characters getting a sudden cash windfall is not new, indeed has been a movie staple for a century. What's original about the movie is the way it uses the money as a device for the young brothers to find out more about how the world really works, and what is really important to them. The closing sequence is a bit of a stretcher, I will be the first to admit, but why not go for broke? One of the tests of sainthood is the performance of a miracle, and since Damian is clearly on the road to sainthood, that is permitted him. For that matter, Boyce and Boyle have performed a miracle with their movie. This is one of the best films of the year.

A Movie a Week will keep Boredom away.

Hi,

I think that as a friend i should share the good things with all.
I strongly believe that one's mind needs to be constantly stimulated to keep it from stagnating.
It is like a muscle and the more you work it the stronger it becomes. One source of widening our minds are movies and i think we should catch atleast 1 good movie a week. Once a week i get ready by about 7pm and after a nice warm bath and armed with a nice indulgent snack and a glass of whatever, i dim the lights and settle down with a nice dvd (even though it is pirated) and spend 2-3 hours lost in another world.
So beginning today i am starting a new feature called "Vishal's DVD of the Week" (notice how i manage to insert my name randomly within the blog) with excerpts of reviews by major critics.

The first title is "Y Tu Mama Tambien"

It is a mexican film directed by Alfonso Cuaron, whose earlier english credits include Great Expectations (Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke) which was a visually stunning but vastly underrated movie and the little seen or heard A Little Princess which is the most charming (without being cloyingly sweet) children's movie ever. Sample a bit of dialogue.
(Sara is tracing her father's face with her finger]
Capt. Crewe: What are you doing? Memorizing me by heart?
Sara Crewe: No... I already know you by heart.
(much later after her father is presumed dead and she is put in a "home")
Miss Minchin: Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.
Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?

And he also directed "H.P The Prisoner of Askaban"

Coming back to Y Tu... The title translates as "And your mother too.." but dont get swayed by the profanity laden title or some sexually explicit scenes. It is a coming of age story like no other. All the American Pie movies seem like farcial goof-ups (which they actually were).
At the end of the movie, as Roger Ebert says; "Y Tu Mama" is one of those movies where 'after that summer, nothing would ever be the same again.' Yes, but it redefines 'nothing'".

Some excerpts of some major reviews.

1) Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun Times and arguably the world's best movie critic
"Y Tu Mama Tambien" is about two teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman that involves sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two Mexicos. And it is about the fragility of life and the finality of death. Beneath the carefree road movie that the movie is happy to advertise is a more serious level--and below that, a dead serious level. Like "Amores Perros," which also stars Gael Garcia Bernal, it is an exuberant exercise in interlocking stories. But these interlock not in space and time, but in what is revealed, what is concealed, and in the parallel world of poverty through which the rich characters move.The surface is described in a flash: Two Mexican teenagers named Tenoch and Julio, one from a rich family, one middle class, are free for the summer when their girlfriends go to Europe. At a wedding they meet Luisa, 10 years older, the wife of a distant cousin; she's sexy and playful. They suggest a weekend trip to the legendary beach named Heaven's Mouth. When her husband cheats on her, she unexpectedly agrees, and they set out together on a lark.This level could have been conventional but is anything but, as directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Carlos. Luisa kids them about their sex lives in a lighthearted but tenacious way, until they have few secrets left, and at the same time she teases them with erotic possibilities. The movie is realistic about sex, which is to say, franker and healthier than the smutty evasions forced on American movies by the R rating. We feel a shock of recognition: This is what real people do and how they do it, sexually, and the MPAA has perverted a generation of American movies into puerile masturbatory snickering.Whether Luisa will have sex with one or both of her new friends is not for me to reveal. More to the point is what she wants to teach them, which is that men and women learn to share sex as a treasure they must carry together without something spilling--that women are not prizes, conquests or targets, but the other half of a precarious unity. This is news to the boys, who are obsessed with orgasms (needless to say, their own).The progress of that story provides the surface arc of the movie. Next to it, in a kind of parallel world, is the Mexico they are driving through. They pass police checkpoints, see drug busts and traffic accidents, drive past shanty towns, and are stopped at a roadblock of flowers by villagers demanding a donation for their queen--a girl in bridal white, representing the Virgin. "You have a beautiful queen," Luisa tells them. Yes, but the roadblock is genteel extortion. The queen has a sizable court that quietly hints a donation is in order.At times during this journey the soundtrack goes silent and we hear a narrator who comments from outside the action, pointing out the village where Tenoch's nanny was born and left at 13 to seek work. Or a stretch of road where, two years earlier, there was a deadly accident. The narration and the roadside images are a reminder that in Mexico and many other countries a prosperous economy has left an uneducated and penniless peasantry behind.They arrive at the beach. They are greeted by a fisherman and his family, who have lived here for four generations, sell them fried fish, rent them a place to stay. This is an unspoiled paradise. (The narrator informs us the beach will be purchased for a tourist hotel, and the fisherman will abandon his way of life, go to the city in search of a job and finally come back here to work as a janitor.) Here the sexual intrigues which have been developing all along will find their conclusion.Beneath these two levels (the coming-of-age journey, the two Mexicos) is hidden a third. I will say nothing about it, except to observe there are only two shots in the entire movie that reflect the inner reality of one of the characters. At the end, finally knowing everything, you think back through the film--or, as I was able to do, see it again.Alfonso Cuaron is Mexican but his second and third features were big-budget American films. I thought "Great Expectations" (1998), with Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft, brought a freshness and visual excitement to the updated story. I liked "A Little Princess" (1995) even more. It is clear Cuaron is a gifted director, and here he does his best work to date. Why did he return to Mexico to make it? Because he has something to say about Mexico, obviously, and also because Jack Valenti and the MPAA have made it impossible for a movie like this to be produced in America. It is a perfect illustration of the need for a workable adult rating: too mature, thoughtful and frank for the R, but not in any sense pornographic. Why do serious film people not rise up in rage and tear down the rating system that infantilizes their work? The key performance is by Maribel Verdu as Luisa. She is the engine that drives every scene she's in, as she teases, quizzes, analyzes and lectures the boys, as if impatient with the task of turning them into beings fit to associate with an adult woman. In a sense she fills the standard role of the sexy older woman, so familiar from countless Hollywood comedies, but her character is so much more than that--wiser, sexier, more complex, happier, sadder. It is true, as some critics have observed, that "Y Tu Mama" is one of those movies where "after that summer, nothing would ever be the same again." Yes, but it redefines "nothing."

2) Laura Bushell - BBC
Smashing all records at the box office in Mexico, "Y Tu Mamá También" (And Your Mother Too) is Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón's triumphant return to his roots after ten years in Hollywood. Witty, vibrant, and intelligent, it's not hard to see why audiences have loved the film.
Combining elements of a road movie, love triangle, and coming of age tale, the film follows Tenoch (Luna) and Julio (García Bernal), two teenage best friends from Mexico City whose girlfriends have just gone travelling. Left at the peril of their hormones, the boys lure beautiful Luisa (Verdú), the discontented wife of Tenoch's cousin, away on a trip to an imaginary beach. In the process they discover things about themselves and each other that they least expected. With a voiceover that enriches the story with socio-political observations, Cuarón has fashioned a movie that is specific in its personal and national character, but which negotiates issues relevant to everyone. Entertaining and enlightening.

3) SEAN AXMAKER - THE SEATTLE POST
"Y Tu Mamá Tambièn" (which translates to the adolescent insult "And your mama too!") is a vivid, thoughtful, unapologetically raw coming-of-age tale full of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Two sex-obsessed, dope-smoking teenage boys, Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) head for a hidden Mexican beach with a sexy, worldly young Spanish woman -- reads like a transplanted American teen sex comedy on the surface.
Luisa (Maribel Verdu), the restless, unhappy wife of Tenoch's insufferably pompous cousin, is an erotic fantasy to these boys and who, true to the genre, will take them both in hand for brief encounters.
Neither comic nor romanticized, the couplings are physical and sweaty, more like a sporting event than love making. Bernal's working-class Julio and Luna's rich kid Tenoch are utterly unself-conscious in their portrayal of boys on their last blast of irresponsible fun, bringing just a touch of tension to their screen friendship.
Verdu's Luisa emerges as the heart and soul of the picture. Under her smiling front of confidence and fun-loving impulsiveness, Luisa is sad and lost, and she thrives on the unbridled energy and naive innocence of the immature, cocky, sex-mad boys. Her sexual favors are not favors at all, but a desperate attempt to lose herself, if only for a few moments, in simple physical pleasure (and brief it is, much to her unfulfilled frustration).
Alfonso Cuaron, the director of such elegant, visually sensuous American films as "A Little Princess" and "Great Expectations," finds a different kind of sensuality in the sun-blasted rural landscapes and the paradise lost of the third act. Framing the giddy teenage explosion of energy are the comments of an omniscient narrator, whose ironic insights offer background color and flash-forward reality checks, and the political and social tensions of modern-day Mexico in the periphery of their road trip.
That's a lot to cram into a coming-of-age film, and Cuaron does it deftly, thoughtfully and with sharp, aggressive style that makes it feel honest. Like all road movies, this is a journey to self, and Cuaron both celebrates and mourns the passing of youth.

I hope you will all make some effort to watch this movie and with piracy being so open and available i hope you will ask your local DVD 'dealer' to get you a copy. Worth adding to your collection.

Happy Viewing.

Vish

random musings

Am back after a weekend of rest. The dusshera on 2nd and a friend's b'day on the 4th really took a toll. Still getting used to the Fri-Sat weekend here as Sunday does not feel like the beginning of the week.

Have a lot of mails to send out as i have been so busy lately that i havent replied to any of my friends and family.

Just read the daily newspaper and have been noticing lately that a lot of random crimes are beginning to get reported here. Some man was beaten up by a gang of local youths and had his mobile etc stolen. Wonder if the education system here is working well. The youth seem to be not educated enough to get high paying jobs and consider it beneath their dignity to do other low paying jobs. Wonder what a few more years will bring. Such a peaceful country. Would hate to see it deteriorate esp having seen Nepal go from peaceful heaven top what it seems to have become now.

Last week an evening tabloid had a frontpage article asking if anyone would offer a job to a Filipino girl. Her visit visa was going to expire in 4 days and she had met an indian boy here and they could not think of life without each other. AS touching as the story was i wonder what his parents had to say of this kind of publicity. His name was something Junagarhwala, so am presuming he is a gujrati and i know i am generalising here but i cant see his family happily accepting a filipino bahu with open arms. The tabloid never got back and reported whether she got a job or had to go back.


Another friend of mine is getting married next month and seems like most of the gang are going to be missing the nuptials in Lucknow. I am still trying to see how i can schedule my own leave here.
Even among a group of friends, can you have favourites? Is a F.R.I.E.N.D.S like scenario just fiction? Wait a min.... even there Rachael & Monica were closer as were Chandler and Joey and Ross was related so Phoebe was the outsider. I wonder in my own group of friends who is the outsider? I frankly think only 6 of us actually constitute "our group" per se (and i am not taking any names here).

Have missed out on a lot of movies lately (very unlike me) and now am waiting eagerly for The Departed and Umrao Jaan. Don, somehow isn't catching my fancy, SRK notwithstanding.

And by the way guys, at the end of each posting there is a place for comments. Please do write something there. Helps to know that you have a thinking mind and ticking too.

As i like to say, Do comma in a comment something.

Till Later

Muah

HI Guys,

I am back after a long and well deserved break. With Diwali, Eid and My Birthday falling together it was very hectic to say the least.

Now some of you must be very surprised to read “Birthday” in the above sentence and well… YOU SHOULD BE!

Some wonderful people (you know who you are) did call and wish me but for the others who forgot, well, there’s a special place in Purgatory for you guys. And incase a wise smile is beginning to creep around the corners of some of your mouths, the second category also includes those people who called/wrote very cheerfully after the 23rd chiming “Happy Belated Birthday”. Belated my Ass!

Since I am still in the 1 year mourning period for my paternal uncle, Diwali was subdued and sombre but I did manage to light some lamps. Reminded me of home and family and nice, kind people…... you know, the ones who remember to call you on birthdays and wish…etc..

And since the D-Day, or should I say B-Day, fell bang in the middle of Diwali/Eid, I had my party on the 27 and even though I say so myself it was rockin. At the end of it I was tempted to shout Zindagi Rocks but thought better of it. Would have been too corny and too hindi. Ha Ha.

……..‘CAUSE I AM A MATERIAL GUY….

Anyway I got a lot of gifts (hint..hint) ranging from the bling-bling (gold) to quasi-religio-bling (Ganesh-Om pendant) to sublimely useful (a portable DVD player) to cool (a Jazz sculpture) to artistic (a charcoal sketch) to mundane (a shirt) and finally to kitschy (Happy B’Day inside a golden Heart which turns musically when wound up).

I hope the adjectives gave you a clearer picture of what I appreciate and what I don’t. It should come in handy for future reference.

Ooh, and I got a hug too, but the apt adjective for it had to be censored.

Some people (who fortunately shall remain unnamed) were so afraid that the recently concluded month of Ramadan would affect the flow of my bar, that they decided to combine generosity with practicality and gifted me 2 bottles of Red Label. Suffice it to say that they then proceeded to drink it themselves.

A big thank you to all of them and to all the others whose gifts, I hear, are in the mail (wink..wink).

I had decided to NOT cut a cake this year cause I feel very embarrassed being the centre of attraction (honestly I do) but a couple friend of mine decided that it just would not do and ordered a cake. Actually the grammar in the last sentence is wrong. It should be plural as in CAKES cause they, lets call them the Cake-Couple, decided (for reasons that would become alarmingly clear later) that I should cut not 1 but 2 cakes. The accompanying picture, I think, makes it quite clear where most of cake # 1 went.

WHAT TO WATCH AND WHAT NOT TO…

I also managed to catch some movies during this period and one was great and one bizarre.

Don was great. I hadn’t watched the old version and so was looking at it with un-prejudiced eyes and found the movie very slick and well made with some very interesting twists in the story which, I have to say, were not predictable at all. That’s quite a big achievement for a Hindi movie. SRK initially started off clumsily but then fitted-in so well that for once you forgot it was King Khan on screen. Khaike Paan.. was quite rocking, esp when seen on screen as compared with the trailers on TV. SRK seems to do the bad guy act pretty well and why not, since his breakout roles in Baazigar and Darr were both negative. When Kareena (looking hot but with thunder thighs) offers to answer his ringing mobile, watch him snarl at her and say “Leave it. Its Mine”. The ending I hear is a departure from the old Don and what a kick ass one it is. You can’t help but smile at the absurdity of it and yet the panache that it is carried off with.

Jaan-E-Maan in one word was bizarre. Again what originality can you expect from a man whose sole claim to fame is that his hair is longer than his wife’s (loudmouth choreographer Farah Khan for the uninitiated). He seems to be greatly influenced by Broadway and that is not necessarily a bad thing unless he begins to shove it in the audiences face in every single scene. He seems so stuck-up with the ‘big picture’ that he misses all the subtle emotions. Every frame is so loud, overlapping and jarring that it’s a wonder they are not giving out paracetamols along with the popcorn. Salman (sadly beginning to look his age) is just about bearable in the beginning but once he lands in Manhatten, his accent, which even otherwise was always doubtful, goes for a real toss. Almost all his various conversations in English (and there are quite a few) with different American characters (and there are quite of few of those too) has a different accent. They range from normal American to Country to Hey-Dude kinda twang. If that wasn’t bad enough, I also caught a hint of Caribbean/Jamaican when he said “I can do it Maaan”. Preity, however, is looking so stunning that the entrance cost is almost covered by that alone. And you cant help but go back home and not practice Akshess.. hehe..; (2) no playing cake games in my room; (3) the cake is small, therefore it is only sufficient for 8 person only! Hahaha...

~*~Not to forget, I wanna thank all my housemates, friends & family who wished me my 22nd Bday~*~

P/S: Gosh, I feel so old now...

Vijaya Dashami 2063

(pic was taken at home in darj)

Dear All,

Wishing you all a very Happy Vijaya Dashami 2063 (Dusshera to the people in India).

I am still woking but have tomorrow and day-after off, so most of you will probably get this message after you get back from your vacations.

Hope Durga Maa blesses all your families with abundant joy and happiness.

(wonder what's the difference between Joy & Happiness)

Regards,

Vish