In Pursuit of Wisdom

I am in the middle of my Christmas vacation with my wife Shusmita, son Ahyan and daughter Suhaila trekking through the landscapes of South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini. While the views are breathtaking, the soundtrack to my trip is undeniably intense. I found myself listening to two songs on repeat— Fa9la and Ishq Jalakar —from the colossal hit, Dhurandhar . The movie has already crossed 1051 crore rupees worldwide , becoming the 7th highest-grossing Indian film of all time in just 24 days. But beyond the box office numbers, Dhurandhar offers a cultural mirror that I haven't seen in years. The Titans: Ranveer vs. Akshaye I admit, I have tried not to like Ranveer Singh for many years. But in Dhurandhar , he won me over completely. Gone is the manic energy; instead, we get a calm, composed, ferocious look that is terrifyingly quiet. If we are comparing recent alpha-male cinema, Ranveer in Dhurandhar is miles ahead of Ranbir Kapoor in Animal . And yet... he is completely outshin...

I watched the movie RRR with my friend Abul Nuruzzaman in Cinemark of Milpitas, the first Indian movie to cross 1000 crore rupees revenue in box office world wide. We watched the hindi version of this although the Telegu original production is running in Telegu, Tamil and Hindi versions simultaneously in the theatres. The 2 heroes of the movie Raama and Bheema are loosely inspired from Ramayana's Rama and Mahabharata's 2nd brother of the Pancha Pandavas, Bheema.  If you have watched the movie RRR, my question to you is - who is more favorite to you? Sitarama Raju or Komaram Bheem? You can easily imagine it's the later for me. I am particularly fascinated by Bheema's roar against the Royal Bengal Tiger! The raw emotion of fearlessness is mind blowing. I can compare 2 other scenes from the past that can resonate with this. One is the roar back of Kong in 2021 film Godzilla vs Kong. The other is the 2012 film The Avenger's where Dr Bruce Banner turned into Incredible H...

I had a very high expectation from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when I first saw the movie poster where Ceaser's face was portrayed with a look of a wise man (I mean ape)! So when I watched it the very first night it got released, I was stunned and speechless! It simply went on top of my imagination although I have seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes! Ceaser, the alpha Ape, is now my most favorite movie character (surpassing Hulk and if you include cartoon then will be only behind Lion-O of Thunder Cats). I have to exclude the book characters and nothing can make the same impression as the best books can! Its impossible. But even if I include book characters, I believe Ceaser will be in my top 10 list! Well, its difficult to say which part I liked most, because I feel like I liked every second of the movie! Look at Ceaser's remarkable stand in front of his crowd. I see a leader who is shouldering the responsibility of the whole group to make a call. I see a mighty fig...

Last weekend I saw Raavan in Big Cinema of Fremont just to see the songs of AR Rahman. I am highly impressed again by him with his musical magic touched by the devinely lyrics of Gulzar. After Jai Ho, this is another class from AR Rahman and Gulzar combination. This time it's Behne de mujhe behnde song. And what a lyricist Gulzar is! Due to this song I have become a fan of Gulzar now. And to mention anything about AR Rahman would be simply repeating myself again and again. Day and night I am listening to this song now in my iPad or in office PC. Here are starting parts the lyrics from that song if you know hindi a bit. Aare aag se bhund gira koi Chingari ka tukra jala joi, Ummid ki aag laga jera Sehra ki pias bujha jera. Ummid ki aag laga jera Sehra ki pias bujha jera, Ghan itna baras ke galne lagu Mei pani ke upar tarne lagu. Behne de mujhe behne de Mujhe behne de mujhe behne deee. Ooooo Behne de mujhe behne de Mujhe behne de mujhe behne deee. Behne de ghangho...

I was quite relaxed for this President's day long weekend as we have finished a major project development work recently in office. So last Friday night I, Shusmita, Ahyan and Amin went to watch the late night to show of Karan Johar's My Name Is Khan in Big Cinema of Fremont (formerly Naz8). Once we came back to the car parking after the show at 2 AM and saw my front passenger's window are broken into pieces. Ah well, our car luck is not going good! Although I have insurance and I took care of the police report, ultimately the out of pocket $500 is an unnecessary cost on top of the recent parking tickets we got. We were planning for a long drive to Napa or highway one this Sunday but we had to skip it as we can't drive the car with the broken glasses. Hence I made the glass replacement done and also did a comprehensive interior wash of the car to get rid of all the small glass pieces out of it. I still have to follow up with insruance for the rest of the damange of the ...