Ramble, Ramble..

I am in hyderabad. I spent sunday just lazing around at my grandmom's getting spoilt rotten and eating far too much for my own good. I watched a mediocre movie (King Arthur) and slept more than I have had the luxury of doing since my just-concluded-semester began.

A little aside on the movie.. In my opinion, it is nothing special. It bears no resemblance to my childhood favourite "King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table". It has no references to camelot (or none that I could gather) , they screw up Merlin's character and the legend of Excalibur. Even though the focus is entirely on arthur it seems almost superficial, like the writers haven't manage to etch out much in terms of depth. Besides, the movie has a lot of weird looking people with bad hair and body paint, a barely-decent-looking King Arthur in Clive Owen ( which goes against my policies on film casting and last of all) . I have no clue what the fuss is about Keira Knightly. I took a long, hard , unbiased look at her and all I could manage is ,"She's Pretty!" but why she continues to enchant my brother and cousin and a whole legion of other men, I simply cannot comprehend. There are thousands of women much more beautiful than her. Well in my opinion that is.

Yesterday, I woke up later than I have since my last semester began - 9:30 AM . I've almost never woken up later.. All my friends think I'm a freak for not being able to sleep past 7:30 most days. Anyway, it was bliss. It's easy to sleep late here in hyderabad because it's not so hot. Yes , It is not so hot. Especially,since my body has dragged itself from hot, sweaty madras - A land where you sweat while you stand under the shower. Well maybe it IS actually just as hot. But it's much more comfortable. At home, perspiration accompanies even my dreams, it leaves me not in peace. And here, with the fan on, i'm perfectly at ease. The trick, I suppose is not to get out of the house until the evening.

I lazed some more, began reading A Beautiful Mind . I ventured out in the late afternoon to catch a movie at the locally famous IMAX theatre. Shite, you step in there and our sathyam cinemas seems like a joke!! (But hey, the downside of a amphitheatre like auditorium.. Everyone can see you if you get bored and decide half way through that you wanna just make out... Or maybe people in hyderabad don't care if you can see them!)

SO, I watched the much raved about Rang De Basanti. I must begin by telling you that I don't usually watch hindi movies. And for a very good reason too. I find most of them too ridiculous for words. I don't think it's any kind of bias. I just really think most of it is crap.

Now as for this one in particular, let see.. The movie certainly wasn't predictable. ( Thank heavens!! ) Infact , it nearly touched the other extreme - completely ridiculous. I mean, a friend of yours dies in an accident (even if it is because the state has endorsed a bad deal and made cheap planes) so you go kill the defence minister. What the fuck kinda sense does that make?? I mean, I can see how it may appeal to people who have no meaning or purpose in life.. But really,this is being absurd...From what I could garner, the theme behind the movie was "There are some causes worth fighting for, some causes worth losing your life for, some principles you uphold no matter how intense the oppression." So, they start out saying that the freedom struggle was one such cause where people were united in the struggle to be their own masters. And I agree with that. Then they switch to Ajay Rathore's death and how that inspires them to the same sort of fervour... Jeez!! That's where the storytellers lose me...

Frankly, I fail to understand how one can equate or even compare a struggle for basic human freedom with fighting corruption. I'm not saying fighting corruption is not a worthy pursuit.But at the risk of sounding extremely cynical. One is a fight for life, whereas the other is a fight for what most will consider a moral highground.

Anyway, my impressions on the movie aside, I had an interesting evening subsequently.. I walked from IMAX to this eatery called eat street.. The place is huge, along the lake and packed with people on a monday night.. Very strange.. Anyway, gayatri and I meet up,as planned after she's done with work... by the time we find a place to eat, the noodles are stone cold, we get through half of it and start our walk back towards imax , ice cream in hand. As we walk, there is a drunken dude who runs after us , screaming obscenities, he chases us a good hundred metres, during which time i'm completely spooked.. This is the second time something of this sort is happening to me in hyd. (The last time, I was 16 and was followed/stalked/sung-cheesy-love-songs-to all the way from banjara hills barista to anand nagar where i live, by a guy in a car as I was walking back those 2 Kms) I relax after making sure he still isn't after us.. Apparently the expression on my face hasn't changed though cos gayatri tells me to relax a couple of more times..

Anyway, it's late in the evening and i've done nothing all day except acquire some very interesting jazz music (9 cds worth) from an uncle with good taste.. And visit some relatives. Waiting to get up late, taste my music, read some more and yearn for the weekend...

Hopefully, there is gonna be a Paarttyyy!!! Staying over at gayatri's... Maybe i'll even have occasion to say 'Salut!!'