Football football everywhere, its all that anyone says,
Football football everywhere, we don’t even have a team that plays!

Hehe, and on that, admittedly harassed note, I begin today’s crib session J

Football season is upon us, and everyone, absolutely everyone I know cant talk about anything else….its worse than it was with IPL! I mean, sure it’s a cricket loving country etc etc, but even during peak mania time, one can avoid getting drawn into discussions on how X player is an utter ass, Y player deserves to be shot, and Z player is the kalki avatar of Vishnu. But not so when footie is on, no sirree…..whether I want to hear it or not, an analysis of the players, their hair styles, their shots, their wives/girlfriends is everywhere.

When the first thing my dad talks to me about every morning is last night’s match, I know it’s a bad time for sports challenged moi….

So the football crib apart, have finally found something to like about my new adopted city (joy is me!)….the use of plastic bags is banned, and actually seriously enforced….so most shops offer these wonderful cloth/paper bags….actually far more aesthetic and attractive, not to mention environment friendly J….even stores like nature’s basket and foodworld, which don’t have such concerns in any other part of the country, develop their environmentalist streak with a vengeance in the capital….a lil hypocritical, but at least it’s a small start….

And yes, after a couple of inconvenient experiences, have learned to carry a cloth bag with me whenever I need to go shopping…loving it!

Spent most of my day mediating between two quarrelling factions of my media teams….instead of picking up the phone and sorting the issue directly, the two babies insisted on squealing to mommy (aye, the roles I play and depths I sink to for paapi pet and duty) to sort the other….hilarious….drafting a mail right now to suitably put both sides in their place, now tht the issue has been sorted and tempers have cooled…..seriously, no wonder the world made no serious economic progress till women started participating in the workplace….left to guys, there would be one war after the other ;))))….

Exhausted….with a capital E :)
Setting up home and hearth in a new city….always a fun, if slightly back breaking job :)…..been up since 6, opened up some 15 cartons of assorted household stuff ( I was living in a 1BHK prior to this, and it astonishes me no end how much stuff I managed to accumulate there!)…..sort of assigned stuff to its proper place….set up my clothes almirah….got the kitchen almost up and running….cleaned the bathrooms top to bottom….and, wonder of wonders, actually cleaned the fridge in every possible nook and corner….!!!!....after 3 years of having used it I think :))….

Feeling very pleased with myself, and very much an accomplished woman ;))….now I think I can take a break for the next 3 years ;))…

And battled a few battles with the bureaucracy of maids, kachrawalis, cable wallahs, electricians and sundry….here specially, it seems they have their own unique language which no one from outside can even presume to understand….”ho jayega” means “nahin hoga, at least jab tak aap haath jod ke 50 follow ups na karo”, “bas 5 minute men aate hain madam” stands for “2 ghante ke pehle bhool jao”, and if someone says “aap bilkul chinta mat karo madam”, my BP shoots up by a few tens :)….

Grinning and bearing it I guess….its a fascinating insight into a mindset I’ve never been exposed to before….and whatever doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger ;)….

Alright…..movie backlog starts to end a bit…..saw raajneeti…..wish I had seen shrek or even satc2 instead!....buri nahi hai, but bahut achchi bhi nahin hai….prakash jha is unfortunately a filmmaker used to a smaller story telling scale….he works best when working with short, concise and gripping stories, without much emphasis on characters, or their emotional development.

Give him an upright guy, a moral dilemma, and set it in a corrupt, violent and volatile atmosphere, and he can and does work a very efficient story.

Raajneeti is, unfortunately, too ambitious a tale for a 3 hr movie, helmed by this particular director. Quite aside from the shortcomings from a couple of actors, who are grossly miscast (kuch to acting talent hona chahiye tha na), almost every character ends up getting shortchanged in this retelling of the mahabharat…..and therein lies my gripe.

On paper, it’s a perfect idea. Politics is any day an intriguing and larger than life canvas…..almost any tale of ambition and power can be told well against this…..
Then you take perhaps the greatest story ever told, the mahabharat, and marry the two….potentially explosive stuff….

But to do justice to mahabharat is not an easy job…..at the heart of it, it’s a story of real, frail people….none too good, none too bad….and a timeless struggle to stand for what they believe in….its impossible to judge them by their actions, since the motivations teeter very close to home….
Any adaptation of the story has to, first and foremost, recognize the need to make the characters strong, well fleshed out, and relatable….a tall order (its not for nothing tht its called an epic, and most versions on the market are “condensed” J)
Raajneeti falls flat on its face here….draupadi, yudhishthir, karna, duryodhan, all come across as cardboard cut outs….singularly unidimensional….inspite of my best intentions, I couldn’t feel the slightest empathy for any of them….felt much like they would have done, caught in a whirlwind of a story with so much happening that there is no time to focus on what’s important….

Lukewarm….and a waste of phenomenal potential…..

Would recommend sarkar for a better telling of a family tale set in politics, and kalyug for a modern day retelling of the mahabharat….true paisa vasools both….:)

On an aside, hate windows’ self editing….karna became karma, simply because the latter is a word they recognize…..dont need crutches to express ourselves ALL the time, do we?? J