OK - I admit that I temporarily forgot about the existence of this blog. It has been my longest sabbatical, and if possible, I am willing to throw myself into a 6:33 Virar fast from Churchgate to demonstrate my utter mortification at my own useless self.
But oh well I am back, after an extremely enriching week of illegally procured television, and have enough pearls of wisdom to fill up a blog post fairly satisfactorily.
First - the World Cup. Yes, Germany wept. But what can I say? They played like like headless chickens during the semi-finals, and looked decidedly like they lacked a rudder ... I think Spain just deserved it. And although I do think they were late bloomers (I didn't find their early wins convincing at all), the fact is that they decided to bloom, and as a result they will hold the Cup and Paul the Octopus fondly in their hearts for the next 4 years. That is of course in the eventuality that Paul doesn't find himself in a special dinner seafood Doner Kebab prepared by some irate Germans / Dutch seeking nautical & nocturnal revenge for his ... ahem, 'predilections'.
It was a messy final though, with yellow cards being freely given out like friendship bands in a girls high school ... it would have been nicer to have a clean final with smiles and hugs all around. But it was good to draw a close to a very 'surprising' World Cup ... hopefully it'll be fun the next time around as well.
On the TV front, have become shamelessly addicted to fun oldie Jeeves and Wooster. Its especially remarkable to see Hugh Laurie as hopelessly clueless cutie Bertie - if you have seen him in his utterly dislikable 'House' avatar. And of course the impeccable Stephen Fry as the impeccable Jeeves ... I swear if I had to hear 'what ho' day in and day out, I would have stuffed his hat into his mouth. Lovely old-fashioned fun - would highly recommend this series to anyone who's a fan of the stiff British upper lip type humor.
Other than that, have started watching this extremely unusual American music-based show called 'Glee'. I have to admit - music, dance and high-school crises? Seemed like a perfect recipe for melodramatic sop. But have been pleasantly 'shocked'? Its entertaining to say the least, the song-and-dance routines are fairly well woven into the narrative and the characters are so sharply etched, that you can almost predict at places what 'types' of songs they are going to sing. And amazingly, this is one show I actually think could work in India, if one were to tweak the basic premise a bit. Haven't there been situations where you just felt like there was this Hindi song that deserved to be sung and emoted as background underlay / foreground dramatics at some point in your life? Well imagine that as an entire show! I read that this show was conceived as a replacement for the 'American Idol' slot - and the show producers were in fact encouraged to 'retain' the essence of the show, while creating a new type of show. Well, I think they did that brilliantly ... catch it if you can - totally worth its weight in candy fluff, chocolates and all that fun stuff.
Just procured the soundtracks to 'Udaan' and 'Aisha'. Both by that marvelous music man - Amit Trivedi. I have been a keen follower of his career, right from the astonishingly underplayed 'Aamir' soundtrack to 'Dev D', Ektara from 'Wake Up Sid' and now these two. I loved both the soundtracks, but thought 'Udaan' as a whole album was far more wistful and totally in the vein of what I predict the film to be like. 'Aisha' has a gorgeously peppy chart topper in Suno Aisha ... I've already heard it 6 times back-to-back and and still find myself reaching for the repeat button on my Ipod. Sigh. Good to hear this stuff after the tons of crap Bollywood doled out in the middle.
Am now reading Maugham's 'Moon and Six Pence'. Was fairly confident of my abandoning it early on, but am surprisingly enjoying it. Something about that book cover judge type rubbish, I guess.
Cheers
Sush
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