Hulchul

Saw the movie yesterday with D and GT. The three of us had decided to go watch Naach which was at 9.15 PM as per PuneDiary. When we reached the theater, we found out that the show timings had been revised and Naach wasn't there at all. Hulchul was playing at the same timing though, and we got first-row seats!

The movie is directed by Priyadarshan of Hera Pheri and Hungama fame, and features a slew of actors - Akshaye Khanna, Kareina Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Jackie Shroff, Arbaaz Khan, Amrish Puri, Asrani, and the quintessential Shakti Kapoor! The story is too complicated and contrived to describe here. It's not an out-and-out comedy film like Priyadarshan's previous movies, but has plenty of melodrama and emotional crap mixed with some very funny scenes.

Arshad Warsi and Paresh Rawal get the best deal out of this movie. Arshad has a role similar to the one he played in Munnabhai MBBS. The guy has got amazing timing and dialogue delivery, very in-your-face technique. And the dialogues and scenes he has bring the house down. Paresh Rawal too is his usual amazing self. When Shakti Kapoor is part of any scene, it gets unintenionally hilarious. The guy is just too good at being vulgar and libidinous, even if the scene doesn't demand it!

Kareina looks good in patches. Most of the "outdoor shoot" songs feature a very rolly-polly Kareina with thunder-thighs and puffed-up cheeks and lips. Other times she looks very good, but whatever the case, she can't act for nuts! Jackie and Arbaaz have nothing to do except flare their nostrils, vent their anger and frustration at anyone who abuses their father (Amrish), and summarily bash up miscellaneous goons and thugs.

Akshaye Khanna's character is very inconsistent. At times, he's shown to be very naive, at others he too flares his nostrils and threatens to bash up anyone who says anything bad about his family. In fact, Jackie, Arbaaz, Paresh and Akshaye - all sons of Amrish - are vigilantes whose primary purpose seems to be to bash up anyone who their father dislikes! Yes, we do see Paresh Rawal kicking ass - literally!

In summary, it's a one-time watch at the theaters. It'll be more successful on TV & DVD where people can just skip over the melodrama and concentrate on the comedy. Speaking of comedy, this movie too features a ridiculous slapstick ending which has become the trademark of Priyadarshan.

DAMN!

After spending 4 days not being able to make head or tail of the bug, I decided to look up in TD the description of a similar bug filed long back. This bug turned out to be EXACTLY what PuLa was describing in the escalation! Furthermore, the bug report said that it is an issue peculiar ONLY to the OM, not the UM. I had been trying to reproduce the issue in UM like Dukhi and I had discussed. The bug had been fixed in 65 days, and the current solution is just to back-port the fix to 611. I feel so cheated, I have been robbed! SHIT!

Mentoring

Now this is going to be a new experience. I've been assigned a mentee!

Firefox humor

Nice story featured on Slashdot.

Morpheus: Microsoft is our enemy, Firefox, but when you're on the internet, you look around. What do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still IE users. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to switch to a browser that doesn't come included on their desktop when they bring their computers home from Best Buy and pop in the "2000 Free Hours!" AOL CD. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on Microsoft that they will fight to protect it. Were you listening to me Firefox, or were you looking at the woman surfing the hot lesbo porn?
Firefox: I was...
Morpheus: Look again.
Woman has turned into Bill Gates, introducing new "standard" to break non-IE browsers.
Morpheus: Freeze it!
Firefox: What is it?
Morpheus: IE-only standards. That means that anyone we haven't converted over is potential audience for crappy sites who only QA against IE. On the internet, you see this everywhere. We have survived by being standards-based, by working to be compatible. But these false "standards" are the gatekeepers.
Firefox: Whoa.
Morpheus: I won't lie to you, Firefox. Every single company or product that has stood their ground, everyone who was fought Microsoft has been crushed or aquired. But where they have failed, you will succeed.
Firefox: Why?
Morpheus: I saw Microsoft crush Netscape's market share. Men have come up with fantastic innovations only to find them incompatible or MS copies already included in the next version of Windows. Yet their programs are still based on factory-style programming and decisions made by pointy-hairs. Because of that, they will never be as secure or as functional as you can be.
Firefox: What are you trying to tell me, that I can block pop-ups?
Morpheus: I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

More PSSP crap!

Meeting at 10 with SA for an explanation on the PDCA and PDS documents. That lasted an hour! Then from 2:30 to 4:30, Doctor and I updated the PDS. We've finished quite a bit of it, but a lot of work still remains. PSSP sucks!

Now PSSP crap!

Doctor and I have been appointed the PSSP coordinators for our group. We have the PSSP review coming up on 14 Dec, and so we have our work cut out. We have to identify what documents have to be updated, and then assign people to do those updates. There is a lot of confusion with the new PSSP process that has been put up, and the two of us are totally lost as far as this activity is concerned. Phawdya was the previous coordinator, but both he and Rishi are trying to delegate as much work as possible to Doctor and I. I have to find time off the bug assigned to me and work on this shit!

The chronicles of Alok Parlok Nath

One of my all-time favorite articles, written by Premjit on Mouthshut:

Before going to his movies (heavens smile on us, there are so many) let us begin with an Alok Nath music video. Popstar (?) Anaamika had once employed the services of Alok Nath and Rima Lagu in her Punju music video for:-
Kaala Sha Kaala (Black Utterly Black)
At a ladies’ sangeet session during a garish wedding, boys and girls seated afore each other, segregated by gender and a carpet. Amidst the ruckus, dancing and singing, a red-hot affair is brewing secretly, to which the whole world is alas oblivious. Alok gives nuanced smiles to a blushing Rima. When the kids attack each other throwing Marigold Flowers, Alok not to be left behind, wants to throw one at the seemingly-nonchalant-but-knowing-it-all Rima, but can’t get himself to. He just takes aim repeatedly and blushes. Finally, when he does it he hides, much to Rima’s pleasure.

Alok Nath brings out this character’s inner turmoil beautifully. This is a man attending a punju wedding, witnessing youthful kids getting flirty with each other, has his eyes set on a well-rounded lady giving him her best possible ‘come-hither-and-take-me-royally-you-tiger’ looks, he so badly wants to throw caution to the winds by aiming a Marigold Flower at her but just can’t. Aakhir lok-laaj, sabhyata, izzat-aabru naam ki bhi koi cheez hoti hai. (After all, there are such things namely - shame, culture, virginity et al).

This one song epitomizes all that Alok stands for in 95% of his movie appearances. Alok Nath has become the man of choice whenever Bollywood needs a middle aged father, or a selflessly unmarried uncle, or a samdhi experiencing the stirring of a love that dare not speak up, or the father of wronged daughters, or anyone dejected, disappointed and taken aback in life yet braving all odds with twinkling eyes and of course that endearing smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Way back in 1989, when Maine Pyaar Kiya had just released, I was fascinated to note how here was an actor, Alok Nath, who neither laughs nor cries. (Shocked??) He does them both together!! He laughcries! Alternately, he crylaughs!

Alok laughcries when darling daughter Bhagyashree becomes jawaan (of an age to rid herself off the gruesome burden of virginity). In a scene worth repetitive viewings, rustic Alok crylaughs while barging into a board meeting which his city-bred, corporate type pal is conducting. Registering a divinely prasanna mudra on his face, with weltering tears in his eyes, Alok bashfully questions, “Mujhse gale nahi milega, yaar?” (Won’t you embrace me, you duckface?). I forgot to mention The Voice. Its mellow. Its hushed. Its a wavering dulcet. A tone that usually men above forty-five employ to sound like young college boys.

Without awaiting an affirmation, Alok rushes across the table to hug his, too stunned to resist, old male friend. Alok’s hug is accompanied with such an achingly gratuitous expression on his laughcrying face that it almost conveys, “this is not just another everyday hug, but a kind of a long-awaited, kinked-out sexual release.”

On the other hand, if you haven’t seen an Alok Nath quivering with rage, you have seen nothing. Its priceless. He trembles, his jowls shake, whines like a nagging wife, and looks like a total lost cause in life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then came THE movie that ruined Hindi cinema irreversibly, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, showcasing Alok Nath as never before.

I so wish I could quote in toto a three sheet monologue by Ajit Vacchani introducing Alok’s character. Ajit V. goes, “Aap hain Ramkishenji/ Durgaprashadji or whatever his dumb name was…

As an aside, Alok always has these archaic, long winding names in his movies. RamSharanji / Vidya Charanji/ Radheshyam Shuklaji/ Shyam Prasad Bharadwaj ji or something equally annoying. Or he has to have ‘babu’ suffixed to it, its never alone. Pick from - Sharad babu, Shekhar babu, Dayashankar babu.

... Returning to Ajit V’s three sheet monologue introducing Alok Nath, “Aap hain LongWindingName ji”, blah blah about how he started off young with two rupees in his pocket, went ahead to build up a business empire, and how with hard work he selflessly conducted the upbringing of his two moronic nephews, Monish and Sallu, ignoring any of his own necessities, yak yak. This eulogy ends with a traffic stopping, heart wrenching phrase, “aur aapke ke bare mein kya batayein, aapne toh abhi tak shaadi bhi nahi ki.”

Note how during this verbal character-sketch by Ajit V, the camera pans lovingly on Alok’s laughcrying face soaking the words of praise with characteristic timidity, diffidently shrugging away the compliments. As a fitting finale to this brilliant bit of emoting, Alok removes his glasses, cross-stitches eyebrows together, wipes 4 tears, with 32 teeth in full frontal display, saying something that goes, “heheheh Aap kyun sharminda karte hain Govind Babu?” or something equally banal. Also note, Alok is the only guy who can smile with lips upside down yet show maximum teeth.

All I can say about the Samdhi Samdhan song is that this is stuff that legends are made of. Its the original of the aforesaid music video, but instead of ending with Marigolds throwing match, it ends with Rima singing some heavy-duty lines on how her daughter is now the shobha of Alok’s aangan, (the USP of his backyard). So, Alok silently portrays that henceforth he will ward off and quash all overtly sexual feelings for Rima keeping the laaj of this naazuk rishta intact, needless to add, accompanied with a crylaughing face.

(Topics closest to my heart run into the comments section. Heheheheheh! Aap bhi na, sharminda hi karte hain!!:-)

Hum Saath Saath Hain begins with the frenzied preparations for the 25th or 50th or whateverth (like I care, and neither should you) wedding anniversary of Alok and Rima. Monish Behl sings a solo number that goes, “Dharti pe roop bhagwaan ka hain mere maa baap” yeah something like that, during which Alok goes through his usual rigmarole of emotions.

As an added bonus in this movie we get to see Alok do a Dashrath, getting reduced to a stricken pyretic father undergoing the fevered pangs of judaai from his laadla beta, when Rima decides to get bitchier than Kaikaiyi and chases Monish away from ghar-jaydaad.

Alok also had some stellar appearances in other movies that I’d like to cursorily mention, yet everything mentioned before applies to these roles too.

Taal
“Aapke bete ne pyaar ka vaada toh kiya par nibhaya nahi” (your son thinks my daughter is an easy lay) Alok Nath as the father to a wronged majboor beti is hilarious enough. As an icing, lets even make him a folk singer from Chamba who gets appalled at his tunes being remixed in Mumbai. Wronged Daughter, Wronged Music, i.e. Alok in a double assault, as he has two things to whine about.

Bol Radha Bol
Alok Nath and villainy. Help! See it to believe it. He even tries to snarl like Raza Murad.

Hatim Tai
The Raja of Paristaan, clad in velvet tights , a crown and sporting a magic wand. Mentioned in vivid details by other reviewers on this topic. Absolutely recommended reading.

Zamaane Se Kya Darna
No one in his/her right minds would have even heard of this one. Typically it was one of those movies we saw as fresher hostel students in a hamlet near Mangalore, when we were all too bored to attend lab/workshops and too broke to drink beer in some cheap bar.

We heard from our seniors how Alok yet again had given a sterling performance, deserving standing ovations and fervent cries for encore.
Seniors: Yaar, there are 4-5 villians, each come at random points in the movie and bash up poor Alok Nath for no apparent reason. Which is actually good, coz he is a lutti hui izzat wali beti ka baap and whines continuously. He cries aloud, suffers repeated assaults, trembles and says long dialogues in utter frustration that go somewhat like, “Aaj jiss beti ke liye maine hazaar sapne bunne thay, khud hi humein tabaah kar gayi” and ..
Which was enough for us to rush to the local theatres.

Kaam-Agni (Sex-Fire)
Long ago, Alok was the hero opposite Tina Munim. The premise was that Tina is the sexually unsatisfied wife of an impotent Alok Nath. She undergoes a sexual awakening while watching the Khajuraho Temples. Now the moot query that arises is how would Alok Nath essay impotency? He cries, hits his head on the wall, and wails each time he fails in performance.

Mere Yaar ki Shaadi
The handsome heroine is about to get married and none of the 40 odd relatives who have assembled in a palace have seen the groom. Enter the beautiful Uday Chopra with the pic of the groom and all are agog with anxiety to see the pic, while someone is blushing like a pink kashmir ki kali in the backdrop. No no, not the heroine, it’s the heroine’s father. Alok Nath.

I sign off with some Typical Alok Nath dialogues that never fail to enthrall me
“Arre bete, yeh tum kya baat kar rahe ho. Apne dadaji ko aise nahi kehte beta, shayaad tumhe yaad nahi ke pandrah saal pehle….”
“Eh heheh heheh. Bache toh bhagwaan ki den hote hain Shardaprasadji. Inke aane se aangann khill uthtaa hai.”
“Aaj tumhare maa baap zinda hote toh unhe tumpe naaz hota, unka seena chhattees se chaalees ho gaya hota, tumne vilaayat se joh taaleem haasil ki hai.”

P.J.s

A set of astounding PJs on knees...

Jyaala guDghay naahit, tyacha naav kay? Binny.
Jyala 3 guDghay aahet tyacha naav kay? Nitin.
Jyala 6 guDghay aahet tyacha naav kay? Sahney.
Jyala 9 guDghay aahet tyacha naav kay? Nitin Sahney.
Jila 109 guDghaa aahet ticha naav kay? Sou Nitin Sahney.
Jyacha guDghaa aaDvaa aahe tyacha naav kay? Advani.
Jyacha guDghaa mawaalee aahe tyacha naav kay? Nilofer.

Net down

The network has been down for the past hour and a half now. Not just the Internet, but the entire intranet seems to be inaccessible. I haven't been able to make any progress with the debugging, so I'm heading home now.

Debugging is such a pain

While debugging the product, it's debatable whether which is faster: starting a fresh installation of everything, or only updating existing debug builds of the SIO server and WP while using previous instances of the DS and WS. A fresh installation involves making instances of the DS and WS, uploading schema, building the SIO and WP, and finally installing SIO and WP. This method is, generally speaking, slower compared to the other one. Of course, for the second one, one has to delete the tree from the DS. So if you have any valuable data in the DS, you have to export that node, then re-import it after deleting the tree. And it can be the source of endless frustration if you forget it! Which can have you falling back to the first method, and cursing yourself when you realize you should have done that in the first place!

But that was only one of the issues I faced today. Even after following method #2, the SIO just wouldn't start. So I had to debug the startup process and found out that it was failing while loading the parameter catalog. Looking into the XML source of the catalog revealed the culprit: an extra ending tag! I have no idea how it got in there! The WS instance too wasn't starting because of the same reason! I finally had the system up and running at 6:15 PM, too late to get any useful work done.

Weekend update

I lost some postings made to the Thoughtlog from home. This posting is just a recap of events over the weekend. On Saturday, we played the semifinal match against Infy. We lost 7-6 in the penalty shootout after the game finished goalless in normal time. The shootout went into sudden death, after the first 5 rounds ended 4-4. On our seventh shot, SS toed it over the crossbar and it was all over. Infy had broken their jinx of losing in 5 consecutive semi finals. The other semifinal was a 5-0 rout, as Kanbay easily overcame Geometric.

On Sunday we played against Geometric for the third place in the tournament. In the end, after another scrappy match for us, we won 2-0. SC got both goals to take his tally to 9. The final was a thrilling encounter between Kanbay and Geometric. After a 1-1 score in normal time, this match too went into a penalty shootout. No sudden death here, as Infosys missed one shot and Kanbay scored from all theirs. Kanbay retained their championship status.

The prize distribution ceremony had some of the most dubious awards handed out. GA got the prize of best center-half, and our captain GM the best defender. If GA was center-half, then I guess AS and I were playing in the defence. Another amazing thing was the distinction made between a forward and a center-forward. The best forward was Geometric's SS, which may not much of a surprise. The best center-forward though was someone by the name of Clement from Zensar, who I'm sure got just a couple of goals and played as a midfielder!