End Of The ISC Memoirs

So the ISC/ICSE results came out on Saturday. And as usual they were unbelievably, mind-blowingly, earth-shatteringly and dramatically awesome. Modern High “broke barriers” and is simply “the best”. The ICSE Modern High marks kicked the biggest possible butt ever with almost 50% of the students getting over 90%. Bloody hell.

For those of you who followed my “ISC Memoirs Saga”, my predictions were semi-right. Unmukt who bet his life-savings on himself took most of the gold home. His 98.5% did blow him, me and the rest of the world away, except that young lady somewhere in India who felt that 98.5% wasn’t enough so got herself a 98.75%. Wow, and insane. 17 people committed suicide when they found out that Shrivats did not top, and placed only fourth – apparently they ran into major financial losses as a consequence of the result. Another 17 suffered a heart-attack when they found out that Kaushik Mohan successfully dethroned his brother Shrivats in the loving competition that exists between the two. In a post-result conference, my sources have told me that Kaushik seemed visibly disturbed on having beaten his brother, and refused to accept the fact that he could pull off such a feat. I applaud him for his valour and his brains, but here’s a warning for the random reader, Kaushik is overly-sensitive about his brotherly-dethronement, so handle with care. And umm, yeah life and people and their emotions [like in the example above] can be confuddling.

Govind did himself proud and Bharath placed only 8^th with his 95.75%. Also, Ali and Anjali got the same marks in Computers. Only if you had attended the pre-exam conferences would you understand how crazy that is. And because of Tejas, his odds and his corresponding result, I am a rich man today. Also, Ali apparently lost 5 marks in Maths for sure, but still ended up with a 99. Kudos to him, but a “WTF” to the ISC. Oh yeah, “standardization”. Please refer to Bharath to get a thesis on how messed up the English marks were. Apparently the stupider you are the higher marks you get. Ahh, life! The boys as usual overshadowed the girls and Mrs Balachandran won the “Great Eco Battle”. Congratulations to her. Also, the science batch officially kicked the commerce batch’s bum - as usual.

Sunday – Today Modern High broke another record: Highest ever calorie consumption in the history of schooling and education in 24 hours. The whole of the 10^th grade and a major chunk of the 12^th grade of ’07 bought and distributed the most number of chocolates and sweets…EVER. Our Principal can officially open his own sweet-factory and sir, Redial Entertainment is willing to sponsor. The dissemination of calories was fascinating. Now let the stomach’s fold!

School is almost out – it will officially be over for us after Prize Day, which just happens to be on the same day as the Aerosmith concert. Modern High always did muck up its dates. And no I have nothing philosophical to add here.

Otherwise, I and we have been painfully busy, but earning blissfully well ( I love you Romit!). We learnt a few things over the past few days: there are good people in this world, real good ones, and that hard work pays, always – both emotionally and materialistically, in someway or the other. Straying from life’s greatest lessons (yeah go ahead and roll your eyes), Salsa and driving are also happening. Both started of really well, but have now reached that stagnant phase where you can’t help but think that you suck.

Meanwhile, Facebook continues to rock our world: http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/ - [to see when boredom gets the better of you]

P.S. Yes it has been long since I have blogged. Work – lots of!
Harry’s recommended: “Paolo Nutini” is a must hear if acoustic guitar-ish, scruffy voice, “emo” lyrics, etc is your thing. Awesome voice - I like! Thanking thee Harry.

Tararumpum Can Go Up My Friggin’ Bu – Ass!

Just when the world thought Bollywood was turning a new leaf, Tararumpum had to come along and spoil the party, and that’s putting it nicely. It also quite happily screwed what seemed to be a constructive, good day for my family and me.

Shitty dialogue, poor screenplay, un-noteworthy acting, no storyline and one hell of a long stomach ache, Tararumpum is a movie I will not forget because it has set a very high standard of crap-film-making. Inspired by Disney’s “Cars”, Tararumpum has set a milestone in film making – it is successfully the first movie in the history of film to be more un-realistic than an animation flick.

The biggest mistake I made was not taking a pencil and a notepad to the theatre to note the down the amount of bullshit that was rolling on the screen. From the put-on-didn’t-work American accent of Saif Ali Khan, to Rani Mukherjee’s fake-r “likes” in making an effort to mock the American bimbo, from the inability of Indian cinema to portray a simple lip-lock on screen [they faked a kiss in a Christian marriage that two Hindus were having – the whole back-against-the-screen method of faking], to the new boundaries reached in long-distance communication where the NASCAR driver had a successful conversation with his wife in the crowd of 100,000, 100 metres away, and from the $65,000 removal of glass-piece from a child’s stomach [an open-heart surgery package costs $30,000], to the reality television show “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, 99% of the film was pure rubbish.

The 1% of decent stuff included some decently shot NASCAR scenes and the little girl who played Saif’s daughter. But apart from that, why? Why would you make such a film? Why would you pay so much of money to make something so poor? This is why Bollywood really pisses the shit out of me.

Why did I go for this movie? My Granny is in town, and this was supposedly our family’s idea of entertainment. However, Mum almost fell asleep during the course of the film and Grand Ma was busy trying to figure out when the movie would actually start making sense. Dad was just cursing the fact that he instigated this plan, and I was organizing transport for football practice tomorrow morning.

Otherwise the day was constructive. Football in the morning was good fun [a few of us ex-students go early morning to school to play football with the current school team], and I finally got my driving classes figured out. Apparently, I am also going to start Salsa classes tomorrow. I had a haircut too – a not-happening haircut.

P.S. If you still plan to go watch this movie, please don’t forget to carry a pencil, a notepad and your iPod. Enjoy.

Spidey 3

We caught the first show of Spiderman 3 here, in Dubai. Midnight screenings are fun, unless sleepy-ness gets the better of you. Ali, Tejas and I went at about 10.45 pm to make sure we get decent seats, but we got only okay ones. Romit and the rest watched Manchester United lose. Brilliant. Tejas was as hyper as ever. This movie meant a lot to him, and he couldn’t keep shut before or after the film. I understand and enjoy the enthusiasm. Ali was also excited, but was busy texting “someone” pretty much through out the movie.

We met a couple of young Indians, who in appearance, were like us. One of them annoyed the living hell out of Tejas because he claimed to know more about Spiderman than Tejas did. Apparently he saw 11 trailers, which included some “illegal” ones, and claimed that his knowledge of ol’ Spidey was bigger than the size of the theatre. Right. Tejas wasn’t amused.

The movie began after Ali had freaked out over the Transformers trailer. It started slightly slowly, but picked up some hardcore pace towards the end. Tobey Mcguire was only okay, and Dunst wasn’t any better. I liked Topher Grace [the “Eric” dude from That Seventies Show who plays Venom in this flick], and Franco [Green Goblin 2] and Sandman were all good. The fight scenes were brilliantly brilliant. The direction of the action scenes was perfect, and the cinematography topped even the direction. Yes, it had its Bollywood moments, which annoyed me, which in turn annoyed Ali – who promised never to sit next me for a movie because I can’t handle the badly-done “senti”mental scenes. Sorry Ali, but how can you not laugh at fake-ness!

After-movie discussions were a little weird. Tejas was still mad at the young-Indian-who-apparently-claimed-to-know-more-about-spiderman-than-anyone-else-did. Apparently the fact that he wasn’t the best, haunted Tejas throughout the film, so, after, he couldn’t stop talking about how and why he knew more about the Spider than anyone else did. Ali was still pissed off with my inability to handle badly shot “senti”mental scenes. I tried keeping my trap shut for as long as I could. We argued and fought. To conclude, I liked the movie, Ali liked the movie a little more and Tejas considered it to be the best damn thing ever. I wonder what he’ll say after watching Fantastic Four.

P.S. Manchester United lost, and that just added to the fun. =D