Fantasticated!

Okay, this time there was no crazy build-up and there were no freaky-fun occurrences before we entered Cinestar Cinema 01 to watch Fantastic Four 2 – Rise Of The Silver Surfer on the fate-less 15^th night of June, apart from the race in which Tejas kicked our asses because he took a less crowded route. We had Rohit Kataky in our company, and his crazy-hippie appearance did turn a few heads towards us. We smuggled in some drinks that we had previously bought from Carrefour, and Romit was bamboozled when he found out that his 500 ml Coke was 2 dirhams compared to the 1 dirham that my 1500 ml Aquafina water cost. Also, Romit bought pop corn and almost missed the trailers – almost.

So basically, I am going to jump right into the “review”. Fantastical the Second is worth a watch! It’s much better than Spiderman 3 in the sense that it’s much shorter, more gripping, and more exciting. The action and the cinematography is as good as the Spidey flick if not better. Yes, there are a few corny dialogues, but it’s a superhero movie so that’s rather expected. The acting is okay. Jessica Alba is a Goddess dropped from the great heavens above. Truly, God bless you, and God, bless yourself too for creating Her. Also, the movie was genuinely funny at times. Silver Surfer is super-cool! Dr Von Doom is an idiot. The Human Torch kicks some real ass. Basically I really enjoyed it on the whole - a really good Superheroes flick to kick off the crazy block-buster-filled summer up ahead. Harry Potter 5, Transformers [ALI!], Shrek The Third, Ocean’s 13 and so on are all very exciting prospects.

Ooh, one to watch out for is Transformers. Apparently it won the most anticipated summer blockbuster MTV Movie Award over Fantastication, Harry Puther and the other rot. Apparently Michael Bay has cut out the corny-ness and made Transformers more real, shrewd, mature and hopefully cinematographically and brilliantly brilliant. I am looking forward to it, but I don’t think anyone is looking forward to it more than Ali Yar Khan is.

Okay, that was short and quick, so basically my ultimate message is: WATCH IT! And it’s a theatre movie so, WATCH IT IN THE THEATRES!

Till transformation!

P.S. Ali missed the Fantastic Four 2 experience. Idiot.

Constructiveness V/S Laziness

For the past few days, or rather weeks, or well months, okay, 2 ½ months – I have been busy. Not the “OMG-I-am-so-cool”-type busy, genuinely busy. Redial Entertainment is ruling my world, and so is salsa and so is the Nissan Sunny that I learn to drive every other morning. Also, obviously, I am not going to for any reason, sacrifice fun. So add that to the equation, and it becomes fun-busy.

However procrastination is a common practice, and when you have lots to do, it is not cool. Why? It adds to the tension, finally sums up to last minute hysteria and the school exam days come storming into your brain. So knowing all this, when you do procrastinate when you know you have work to do, off goes your head. You have this urge to be over-constructive, and do megatons of work. But at the same time you need your space, and you need time to just chill, because you are on a friggin’ “holiday”.

So, basically, in this battle of constructiveness and laziness, neither wins. What helps is a balance of both the extremes. Currently that’s what I am enjoying, and the feeling is brilliant. Life’s good. Besides getting my daily meals, I am also self-employed in a potentially prosperous business. The love-life is getting very interesting. University stuff is mostly sorted out, and the only headache that remains in the US Visa. Salsa is the best thing that has happened to me so far. I will soon be a licensed driver [hopefully]. Yeah, I could do with a little more exercise and a little more football, but I have July for that. Mum wants me to stop working and practice mind peace. July, Mum, JULY! Happy Father’s Day Dad!

P.S. I haven’t written for a long time and I apologize. But I had this urge to tread on philosophical grounds, so screw you if it’s too damn clichéd-ly emotionally philosophical for you!

Aerosmith Was AEROSMITH BABY!

We should have done as our tradition has always told us to do: We should have come a good 8 hours before the concert and created “the line” outside the venue, and made sure that we got ramp-standing space, right in the front. We should have over-enjoyed the freakiness and the sexual nature that Stevie Tyler brings along with his Aerosmith. We should have over-enjoyed Joe Perry smacking his guitar with his shirt, mocking the aspect that his guitar was on fire. Ali should have gotten Joe’s pick! But we didn’t follow tradition. Thanks to Modern High.

It’s almost a tradition. I NEED to blog about the concerts I attend. But this one is more about what happened before and after.

What a wonderful day it was going to be! Prize Day, and then Aero-friggin-Smith! The morning swept past by me digging myself into the most high-profile project that Redial Entertainment has ever received. I then got ready for the most prestigious, but boring day in the Modern High calendar: Prize Day. I tried my utmost best to fix my hair, and partially recover from the disastrous hair cut that I had had the day before. I was loving my hair till then - it was longish, but I couldn’t possibly have attended Prize Day with hair like that, I mean it would have been “such a sin”. I was reminded thrice to cut my hair, for this great, prestigious day. ONE day.

Anyway, this was the plan: Prize Day would finish at 7:30 PM, and the seven of us would immediately transport our battuties to the Aerosmith arena in two cars - simple and cool!

I entered school with my parents and my grandmother, and the first thing the Admin staff of our school did was blatantly disrespect and insult my parents. And something like that hurts, when you have given 9 years of faithful service to the school, and when you are also winning one of the most prestigious special awards of the school. Ahh, well, life! I was visibly disturbed by this, and exhaustion and work-stress made everything even worse - apologies to those who did see my reaction.

Anyway, the “plan” hadn’t even begun as yet, and things were not smooth. Then the “Prinicpal’s Address” kicked in and lasted an entire hour. It was 7:15 PM and Prize Day was no where close to getting over. When a gazillion little children had received their awards, and when the special awards were out of the way, the clock hit 8:30 PM. Brilliant. The after-Prize-Day celebrations/confusion when everyone greets everyone [aww, how sweet] and when the guys can officially mingle with the girls without too many eyebrows being raised. At 9:00 PM we found out that or other transportation wouldn’t be able to make it, and obviously we hadn’t left yet. So it left us with one small car, seven people and one hour to reach the concert in heavy truck-filled traffic.

Now 6 of the 7 people that were in the small car were in no way small. Tejas was the tiny one, so he got onto Ali’s comfortable lap, and Romit put me on his lap. And thus began the journey. Our joy was unprecedented, we fitted in! But then traffic hit us like a bolt from the blue. Ali hit depression, and I started panicking. We got frantic phone calls from friends already at the concert: Where the fuck are you guys? Sonu [he was spotting, as in spotlighting Stevie Tyler – WOW]!

The concert was supposed to begin at 10, and we reached there only at 10:15 PM. Shit. But Dubai has a habit of being late in general, so the concert began only at like 10:30. We had decent tickets, so we pushed our way into a decent spot, and enjoyed the concert. Cryin’ and Miss A Thing were brilliant! Dream On was also good, but could have been better. Stevie, the sexual beast that he is, was seemingly up to his best. Humping anything and everything he could, and screaming and dancing whenever he could, he is a true entertainer, and the soul of Aerosmith. And the funkiest thing about him is that he makes even the stupidest thing look cool. Now that’s talent. His voice is brilliant, and his vocal chords are clearly the strongest chords in the world. He screams like a banshee which only inspires the audience to try and do the same, and he does this without an after-damage to his voice. Yeah, he was entertaining. Joe Perry is a handsome man, but after what Ali said, it’s like he is trying too hard. Oh, and they had these fans on stage, blowing onto their faces, and blowing their long hair in an outward direction. Basically it made them look really cool. Amidst the craziness of Stevie, the concert did have a few lows. They didn’t play “Pink” nor did they play “Rag Doll” nor did they play “Janie’s Got A Gun”, so that left a few disappointed. It was friggin’ hot, but somehow I enjoyed sweating that day - it gives you the whole “wet”, you-are-enjoying-the-concert look.

The concert finished. More shit happened, and the highly eventful shitty-good day ended.

P.S. Contradictory emotions are bad because the good seems to fade away. At least it did on this day.

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

A Small World

Yes, we all know how the internet has made the world smaller and more connected and more accessible, and yes everything is “a click away” and all that rot. But when this cliché hits you like a bullet rattling a can, you suddenly start to realize how small this 510,065,600 km² of Earth is.

Facebook is God. It keeps outdoing itself, and is one of the main reasons as to why this world has shrunk. Having gotten admission at University of Texas-Austin, I decided to “Facebook” potential university-mates. I quite easily bounced upon a few Facebook Groups - “UT Class of 2011”, “UT Internationals”, “UT Desis” and so on, which basicallty consisted of similar direction-ed people. Exciting. Very exciting. Obviously, the obvious formalities with a few obviously random people were exchanged [obviously, a little more with the opposite sex]. And obviously, everyone part of this “exchange” was trying to figure out how exactly the other is. Is he/she a player? Smart? Stupid? Attitude-filled? Boring? Fun? Interesting, but-keep-your-distance type? Gay? Loud? Over-enthusiastic? Potential-filled? Cute? Ugly? Yup, it’s bloody exciting. But then there is always a limit to how much you can get from a few typed messages and with a few looking-good pictures of people. However it does make you feel [or rather, will make me feel] a little less of a stranger when you do land into “the new world”.

All this is all “cool and all” and fine, the world is “small” and all, bla bla, but it’s when you start finding weird connections with the most random people that makes the “small world” theory a lot more interesting. I found this person, who lived most of her life in Dubai, moved to Texas a while ago and is going to the same university as me. I didn’t know her when she was here, but Udai did, and a few more of my decently close friends also did. Hell we already have something in common! Then this other dude, who is currently in Bahrain, and is going to UT-Austin, knows a long lost random friend of mine who I was once half close to. Apparently the dude and this long lost friend knew each other in Bahrain when they were babies [somehow]. Wow. See, it’s fascinating. Oh, and Facebook also helped me come across a person residing in Dubai heading for UT, and she turned out to be a friend of a friend! WOW. These things blow me away. The world is bloody small. It is weirdly interconnected, perfectly imperfect and it never fails to amuse. Yeah I know I have said this more than enough already but all this makes the future bloody exciting. It’s exciting to restart your life, re-build your reputation and meet a whole new breed of people, and clash with a whole new type of life.

Tejas then made everything a little emotional. I was Facebooking – going through fellow Longhorns, when he said, ‘Shit Anish, in a year or two, you are gonna be hanging out with those people [pointing to the screen]. They are gonna be your new Romits, Alis, Harrys and Tejases, and we are gonna be heading down our own paths, with only memories binding us together.’

Apart from being small, the world also moves bloody fast.

P.S. The last “fast” bit would be more appropriate with respect to life, but hey, I needed to connect things. Also, the late post is because I have weirdly, crazily busy doing work, and also tossing a bit of fun in the mix. And also, I used "bloody" 4 times. Sorry Didi!

AUS & Dubai & My Weird Way Of Connecting The Two

UAE and Universities don’t make sense to me. I thought UAE could not have a good university, or rather does not have a good university. American University of Dubai seems to have a decent campus, but somehow the people and the atmosphere just exude negative vibes. The Knowledge Village is not appealing at all (maybe Dubai Academic City will be, but I won’t be here). Skyline, ACD and others just seem to have a blah feel. I don’t know how and why I have reached such un-researched and arrogant conclusions, but I just don’t like the idea of studying here.

American University of Sharjah changed that a little (we [Redial Entertainment] had a show there). The University is beautiful. The humongous-ly huge campus, the 1000-seater-state-of-the-art Auditorium, the Pizza-Hut-Burger-King food court, the spacious areas where you can just sit and the artistic dome-like structures [buildings] just blew my wits away. Finally, a university in the UAE almost seemed worthwhile to study in. Almost.

No doubt I was impressed by AUS, but I still can’t ever imagine studying in this country. It’s not like I hate Dubai, or this country, I just seem to be sick of it. I hate the restrictions. I hate how our Indian school segregates boys and girls (now how does something like that not promote homosexuality?). I hate how the Dubai Police once ordered us to go to our houses and get some sleep when they saw us outside our houses with a camera at 3:00 AM in the night. I hate how spoilt we are with everything being available to us at the snap of our fingers, I hate how superficial people here can be. I hate the local taxis. I hate the Dubai Public Transport (the other emirates almost seem to be public-transport-less), Dubai Shopping Festival is the most traffic-filled pain-in-the-ass ever. Basically I need to get out of here. Yeah, some of the above generalizations can be viewed as “unfair” and “arrogant” and “debatable” to the random reader, yeah, some of the above statements can be applied to any place, and yeah, right now a lot of negative energy is flowing through my veins, but I can’t help but get annoyed with Dubai & UAE.

It’s not that I hate everything about Dubai – the tax-free life rocks. Dubai has 6 months of gorgeous weather. We do get spoilt by watching big names perform live in Dubai with ease and at a relatively low price. I love my friends here in Dubai and will miss them loads once I leave. But all that’s not good enough right now.

I am really excited about Texas-Ausin.

P.S. Wow, this was supposed to be more of a AUS-related post. Please forgive the arrogance and the over-use of “I”.

Taxis & Dubai

There are probably a million different taxi-supplying agencies in Dubai, and probably a billion taxis roaming the streets, but getting one taxi for myself, a 18 year old, brown Indian, is many a time, near impossible. Fine, yes I am exaggerating a little, but only a little.

Let me start again. There are 5 major taxi suppliers: Dubai Transport, Cars Taxis (“Cars” – yeah I know taxis are cars painted up, but that’s one non-sensical shitty name), National Taxis, Golden (really?) Taxis & Gulf Radio Taxis (hai?). They supply a good number of taxis for the small city that is Dubai. Hell, these stupid taxis make up a big chunk of the dreaded traffic that is partially drowning Dubai.

Okay, there are a good number of taxis, then why does getting one taxi at 11:00 AM on a Thursday in Deira for an 18 year old, brown Indian seem as impossible as men conquering Mars? Empty cabs go by, without as much as glancing at you, so the finger that is upright also becomes redundant. Some half-decent ones that at least stop, say that they have to go pray, or that they are being awaited by someone else. Fine, but if I was this stunning blonde, with enough exposed skin to light up any man-eyes, the “praying” and the “awaited persons” would disappear, right? And getting a taxi won’t be that big a problem. Here I talk with experience. A few months back, a fellow Indian cab driver with an empty cab drove right past my wavering hand. I was like fine, he must be going home. But then he suddenly stopped 50 yards ahead of me, for this considerably fair woman. Wow, a fellow countryman betraying his own people - very confuddling.

Going to Sharjah by cab is not a possibility. However white you are, Sharjah is a big no-no for taxi-drivers. It’s not like they aren’t allowed to go there, but they just won’t – “too much traffic”. Yes I sympathize with them, when it comes to traffic and shit, but it’s their friggin’ job! They are meant to take people from one place to the other, irrespective of whether the bill is 5 dirhams or 500 dirhams, or whether there is heavy traffic or not. Fine, these poor bastards are not paid that well, and are exploited, but taking it out on their passengers is not nice.

Every cab driver I have been with is always on the brink of bursting out. The way these drivers abuse their fellow road-buddies is more than hilarious. Fine, these guys are visibly stressed, but when they act racist with their own people, it’s not cool. Every taxi-driver wants a pretty passenger who wants to be taken from Deira to Abu Dhabi on Friday at 9:00 AM. But that’s so not happening.

I can’t wait to drive. It will be quite a relief not relying on these turned on, racist tax-drivers. But then a whole new problem will unfold – parking. Bloody hell!

P.S. The metro will help! I can’t wait for that to kick in, but I won’t be here to experience it. The Public Buses and their routes suck. Shit, everything seems useless when it comes to transport and Dubai.

A Tribute To An Economist

Mrs. Usha Balachandran taught me the brilliant subject that is Economics in Grades 11 and 12. Ma’am was always on top of her game, from explaining convoluted concepts of DMRS to lecturing us on morality and on the principles of life. But what separates her from the rest is that she is a true entertainer of her own sorts. Her one-liners would crack up the entire classroom even at its deadliest hour, and a subsequent little chuckle from ma’am would convert the heated class-discussion into a light-hearted rapport. We enjoyed Economics, and besides all the fun, Mrs Balachandran worked hard for us and drove us to do well. The amount of reference material we received was overwhelming, but what mattered to us was that she would have us fried if we didn’t perform. Believe me, a threat like that works. Thank you Ma’am for everything. =)

The Modern High Economics Boys Batch of 2006-07 will never forget:

“You will deal with me, not Amartya Sen.” – Mrs Balachandran

“Comb your hair properly and everything will be in place.” – Mrs Balachandran to Aaron Gomes for his incomplete work.

“One swallow does not make a summer.” – Mrs Balachandran

“You like to be seen even in the dark, as light bulbs.” – Mrs Balachandran to Zafar Bava, Akshay Mehta and Amir who returned late to class as they were busy handling the lights and sound in the school auditorium.

“It’s good to be Malabari sometimes.” – Mrs Balachandran

“Your respect does not add feathers to my hat, I don’t wear one.” – Mrs Balachandran to us, after punishing us, despite our efforts to reconcile.

“When I said 2 minutes work, I did not mean 1 minute, 30 seconds!” – Mrs Balachandran to Zafar Bava, holding up his inadequate homework.

“Don’t clean your eraser on my school wall.” – Mrs Balachandran to Mansoor Ali Khan on 7^th of September, 2006.

“I have such a vast ocean in front of me, I don’t know how I am going to cover it.” – Mrs Balachandran commenting on our 2^nd term portion.

“You are a new player to the game, unlike all the seasoned professionals.” – Mrs Balachandran to Abhinav Sinha for not completing his homework for the first time.

“Economics is maths.” – Mrs Balachandran, when we were about to begin the chapter on Statistics.

“You are drowning and pulling me down with you.” – Mrs Balachandran to Sunny Rajput when he received low marks in his Economics exam.

“Guesstimates” – Mrs Balachandran’s word to describe something even more inaccurate than estimates.

“I thought peeping was a bad habit.” – Mrs Balachandran when Dr. Khan interrupted the class to point out that Harendra Kapur was sleeping.

"If the marks are there, I can weave, I can spin…” Mrs Balachandran on recommendation letters.

“If you have thrown it out, I will throw you out.” – Mrs Balachandran to Ameya Chatim when he told Ma’am that he had thrown out his Holiday Homework.

“Don’t stab him from the back, stab him face on!” Mrs Balachandran to Arnav Jhunjhunwala for pinching Nawaz Kazi from behind.

“Take IT for instance, hardware is no where.” Mrs Balachandran talking about international trade.

“If we don’t do this, then the Government of India won’t earn any money.” – Mrs Balachandran to us, when she was explaining ‘Sources of Revenue’ to us.

“No one’s going to become an actor on Broadway. If you become, I will cut my right ear off.” – Mrs Balachandran (obviously, when she was furious) to Harendra Kapur when he was not paying attention in class.

Harry you need to get back to Ma’am on that last one. By the way, please note that the quotes quoted above are very accurate. Tejas, Unmukt and I made a note of them in class, behind my notebook, since the day they started amusing us. Ahh, I’ll miss our Eco classes. Not now, not yet, but soon.

P.S. The “India” post can wait, and umm, Superman is the coolest superhero ever.

A Live Crash-Course on the NBA

I am admittedly a little blogstipated. It’s just that I don’t want to rant about how everyone is leaving, and how I am supposedly “lonely” and all that rot. So I choose to blog about NBA Live 07.

Firstly, it is highly weird to see any computer game besides the Fifa franchise or the PES franchise installed on my computer, but the reason why this NBA game has successfully fought its way into my Godly-awesome computer is that I know two shits about the NBA, i.e. nothing about the NBA.

Now I have decided to head to States, Austin-Texas to be precise, to take up Sport Management as my undergrad degree. Yeah I love sport, and sport fascinates me bla bla, but two sports that I genuinely hate are American Football and Baseball. I can’t pinpoint any reason, and yeah you can screw me on my stubborn-ness, but keeping all that aside, this hatred of mine needs to change. My brain needs to sprout a new leaf that will embrace these “sports”, one being a wrestling-wannabe of Rugby, and the other just a mockery of throw-your-bat-Cricket. Basketball, on the other hand, - I play it. I don’t love it, but I am somewhat starting to like it, thanks to NBA Live 07.

NBA, in general, is energy personified. Players running up and down the court, flying towards the hoop and dunking their buttuties off, is quite a sight. The fakes, the moves, and the crowd’s grooves, makes the sport seem so fun. The commentators make it even better - bloody good, they are. Ask Tejas. The spirit is glaringly overflowing, and there is this distant equality among the teams. Yes, there are the usual favorites and the supreme teams, but it’s almost like every team seems to have half a chance of upsetting the giants. Good shit, quite contrary to Cricket. Upsetting India doesn’t count, they suck. Oh wow, that’s something to blog about. Later.

NBA Live 07 succeeds in bringing out all the above facts. It transcends NBA 2003 that Aaron Gomes possesses, and brings you freakishly close to the NBA atmosphere. Wow, that was friggin’ formal. Anyway I enjoy playing it, because firstly, I get to know more about the NBA so I can enter the States as an informed chappie, and secondly, because Tracy McGrady kicks ass.

Oh, now since I have somewhat taken a liking for the NBA, I need to have a favorite team, right? Now you can’t just start supporting a team, there is always something that draws you to a particular team, and unfortunately you need to wait for that. I haven’t watched much of NBA, but I know I am going to Texas. Houston Rockets are from Texas, so yeah, it kinda adds up to: “Anish, support them”. Also, Yao Ming is tall, and Asian, like me. For all American readers, I am Indian, and India is a part of Asia, so that makes me an Asian, even though I don’t have chinky eyes. Sheesh.

Anyway to conclude this random post, if you want to learn more about a particular sport, play its computer game. It suddenly becomes a lot easier and can be a bucketful of fun. Next on my list are Madden 07 and the latest release of Triple Play. Maybe I’ll review those too, actually no, I am not that blogstipated.

P.S. I know my next post. Sneak peak: The Cricket World Cup is boring… =P. Sorry Bharath.

Niche - WK002

This is an advert made by us [Redial Entertainment] for a store called "Niche". This shop will sell art-related goods such as canvases and sketches, body art ("henna"), accessories, etc at the Young Entrepreneur Competition that is going to be held in Reef Mall, Dubai from the 3rd to the 5th of April. Special paintings done by the students of the Dubai Center For Special Needs will also be up on sale, and all proceeds from the sale of these paintings will go to Dubai Center For Special Needs.
Visit their website @: www.niche-intheworldofcreativity.piczo.com

This is Redial Entertainment's newest project, and we really enjoyed doing it. It was completely shot by us, and Romit's back is living proof. [see below]

To shoot at a height parallel to ground, with the camera perpendicular to its usual position, we came up with what I would call the "Redial-Ninety-Degree" setup. We piled 2 tables on top of each other, and our famed camera man, Romit, then took the honour of holding the tripod parallel to the ground at a particular height (as shown in the picture) for the whole of 7 minutes. Romit died. Almost, but that hero did hold on well.


Yes the girls took only 7 minutes to paint, or well "doodle", the final picture, with ferocious instructions being shouted from us directors. Anyway, we really enjoyed making this video, and are proud of what we have achieved. Yes, there is scope for improvement, but there always is. Anyway, let's hope it's the first of many.

P.S. Good luck to Niche!

Weird Times

School finally feels done with, and somehow I am glad it’s over. I don’t feel like studying or like giving any shitty exam, and the best part about it is that I don’t have too. The most I would want to do at school is sit there, laugh, talk and do nothing else. No more politics, no more excessive competitiveness and no more classroom chemistry. Yeah I will miss the football stuff, and the nostalgic stuff, and the class madness, and Mr Mudassir, but not now, not yet. Later, maybe.

I’ll miss my friends. Everyone’s leaving, but everyone’s also getting overly close, and it almost seems as if it's all happening at the wrong time. As in, why now? This could have happened a little earlier. It’s almost like the thought of separation is bringing us closer. Damn? Oh and “love is” literally “in the air”, everywhere except around my air, that is. And that’s good and all, but then it’s time for friggin’ separation and that sucks. Tejas said three somewhat final goodbyes yesterday, and I would have to do the same, soon. And it’s just that I feel really weird. I am so close to my friends, all of them in some way or the other, but how close? What’s gonna happen a few years down the line? Yeah we will be in touch thanks to Facebook and shit, but will I see them again? How close am I really to them?

Loads of friggin’ questions, and yeah this post does border lame, and people would probably go, “it’s life, deal with it, idiot!” But I don’t know, it’s just a weird time. When life gets comfortable, starting a new one almost seems wrong. But I am looking forward to University too, so well, that adds to the list of confusing thoughts. And then, random people have kinda started entering into my life, which is again, weird, but cool. Redial Entertainment and driving and football and other fun stuff makes for exciting times, but separation and departures makes everything a little emotional, and when you add the two feelings, it just gets plain weird.

P.S. Yesternight, Shak Rukh Uncle and Dhiru Dada blew the lights outta me.

Memoirs of ISC 2007 – Economics!

There are times when the subject you think you like, you just can't hate enough. Studying it is initially impossible, and the “14 days” that you have for its preparation almost go to waste. Well 12 of the 14 were economic-less for me. The other 2 days were just long. Eco, rather “ISC Economics”, in general, is long, and it can be repetitive, and long, and more repetitive. And when the rest of the world is done with their exams, there is this automatic 'make-yourself-more-miserable' process that initiates itself. I cursed Economics, I cursed Sethi & Andrews, I cursed ISC - argh. But then I spoke to my fellow Eco buddies, and none of them were studying either. That’s when things changed a little. I started to feel good. =) And so did they. It’s an exchange - suffer together, and the suffering turns to self-mockery and painless laughter, and then you suddenly don’t give a shit. So you abuse and bemuse, you laugh at yourself when you should actually cry, but you revel in how you are not the only idiot not studying for a crucial, ISC board exam.

That’s how I felt before I gave my Economics exam. But things change…

I slept for seven hours during the night before Eco and that’s a little record in its own way. Now extra sleep means extra hyper-ness, so I apologize to everyone around me that morning for anything inappropriate. Not good, but it was my (our) last exam and I just couldn’t wait to be done with it.

Mrs. Balachandran was there, with a new hair-do, handling the boys, and Dr Murthy was also there (somewhere) handling the girls. There is this brilliant competitiveness between the two, and the way they bolster their herd is admirable – pushes us only harder. So basically they were up to their answering-doubts best. Unmukt had to make sure that he asked ma’am the weirdest of things to freak everyone around him, and Aaron was as supremely confident as ever. Romit had lost hope in everything Eco-related and had reached “eco-saturation” point. Harry’s hair was still annoying the hell outta me, but he was revising his lines for his play that was going to be held that evening for “Great Ghai”, and Eco seemed ‘low-priority’ for him. Tejas was lost in love, somewhat.

Our Economics exam was held in the gym, thanks to Ghai. But it didn’t make that big a difference. Anyway, after loads of last minute chaos-that-should-have-been-constructive-revision and a Tony-Joe-at-his-funny-best prayer, we finally got our papers. A quick glance at the paper, and we all knew that it was going to be a good paper, but a friggin’ long one. It was most definitely both. I hate writing Eco papers, because there is a constant race against time and there is not much time to think. 3 hours of writing leaves you with painful fingers and a not-very-tidy paper. Anyway it was a little different this time, I enjoyed writing the paper. Maybe the 7 hours of sleep allowed my pen to coordinate with my head. Brilliant.

6 months of freedom, loads of fun, loads of Redial Entertainment and loads of Football – that’s what the end of the paper meant, and it signaled joy unconfined! =) What adds to the ecstasy is a good paper and Eco was awesome. Except, well, actually, the compensation of employees answer is 140 – I don’t care what anyone else says – the text book says so. Anyway it’s all good. Unmukt is getting 100 and so are a lot of girls, I think. Though Ankita didn't attempt 6 marks or something [ask Unmukt for the details and his girl-theories]. Aaron is gonna struggle with a 95 – it’s okay Aaron, shit happens. Romit and Tejas and Harry all had a good paper. Harry is looking at the nineties - respect. Dusty has become a little fat, and I’m loving Neil’s longish hair.

There, that sums up my ISC Board Examination experience. Oh, just for the “Who-Will-Top-odds” bit, I heard that Bio was awesome, and Computer Applications was not happening, though Ali is still somehow getting 100. So that adds to my final odds tally [check P.S.]

I really don’t know how to end this post and this whole "ISC Memoirs". Maybe I need to write a closure-type thing. Let’s see.

P.S. And the final odds are in. The investment window will stay open till the results come out, so invest away!
Shayaan: 3:1
Shrivats: 2:1
Bharath: 3:1
Unmukt: 2.5:1
Govind: 3:1
Ali: 1:1
Tejas: 7080090 x 10^903 x infinity:1

300

Okay, I have not been as excited as I was to see this movie for a long time. The trailers of 300 were just mind-blowingly awesome. Also, the TIME article and the hype around its “beauty” made me very inclined to watching it. So I did. It is pretty darn good.

Romit accompanied me for this one, and he was habitually three minutes late. Just before the movie began, we saw a very inspiring Coca Cola advert, and wondered whether we could ever create anything like it. We also found the trailer for “The Number 23” highly intriguing and noted that Ali just to watch that movie for all it's devil-ness.

Finally the movie began, with our hopes as high as Mount Everest. The introduction of the movie was brilliant, but then it swept into this half-dull phase, where it became semi-Bollywood-ish. There was an over-use of “stirring music”, and too much drama for my liking. But that phase passed very quickly. The movie beautifully switched into brilliant gear. With hair-tearing action scenes and the gut-wrenching voice of King Leonidas, time flew by, and we were stuck onto every inch of muscle-movement. Beyond the action, the mental build of a Spartan fascinated me. Their ability to laugh at death and embrace it as the highest token of honour is a little extreme, but the sheer devotion, unity and courage that the Spartans depict is inspiring in its own little way. Their faith in their King and the principled nature of their leader earn the audiences love almost instantaneously.

It has a decent story line - the fearless 300 warriors of Sparta against thousands of soldiers of the Persian empire in the great battle of Thermopylae. The 300 warriors are on the brink of pulling off a historic victory, until they get betrayed and meet heir downfall. But their sacrifice inspires the rest of Greece to stow away the Persians. Yeah I did put it all together in 4 lines, but you would be going to see the movie is for it's visual effects, its effective story-telling, and it's brilliant directing, and not for some complex story line.

The movie, however, lacks realism, but then it is not meant to be a “Saving Private Ryan” either. As TIME rightly put it, 300 is beautiful and is meant to be so. It has beautiful virtual sets, with excellent costumes and hair-raising sound effects. The amount of post-production work put into this film is laudable and the whole concept of it being shot completely in front of a green screen makes it a technological milestone in film-making. In addition to that, the photography and the direction of some of the shots is beyond brilliant. The script is also decent, and the acting is above average. Gerard Butler, who acts as “King Leonidas”, gives a powerful performance, but nobody else is noteworthy.

If you have seen the movie, you will call me an old fart for framing the movie “beautiful”, because its one of the most gruesome movies ever to hit the screens. It’s 18+ and rightly so, because well it’s like a “pornaction” film due to the explicit blood-spilling. There are more than enough head-cutting-offs and enough blood to fill a river. In one scene, an ‘Immortal’ (one of the enemy soldiers) cuts of the Spartan army’s Captain’s son’s head, the head spins into the air, and its oesophagus and trachea are visible from underneath, as it lands onto the ground. The head-less body stays put, and then suddenly falls. With blood oozing out, the body and its head are seen together, lying motionless on the ground. Fine, this movie may not compete with Hannibal and the other gruesome movies on the "disgusting" scale, but it has its fair share of eye-poking, disgusting creatures, blood and death. There are times where you will just want to look away or clutch your seat with sheer disgust. Romit is currently being haunted by all the head-cutting action. He can’t seem to get those images out of his head. So yeah it’s not a beautiful film in totality, but is the epitome of beautiful film-making.

Overall, this movie is a must-watch-in-theatre types, though the extra-sensitive and the blood-phobic people will not enjoy it. And please, don’t take your girlfriend for this one.

P.S. I would give it a 7 on 10 because I don’t think it comes close to Gladiator. Why Gladiator? Because it’s one of my all-time favourites and is partially comparable to 300.

Russell In Dubai!

Yes, we lucky people of Dubai always seem to get luckier. Russell Peters, arguably the best comedian in the world today, did four friggin’ shows the melting pot of the Middle East, each having been sold out more quickly than the other. He came, he conquered and he made us laugh our asses off!

Okay, enough of the formal crap.

Initially, we [especially Romit] were heart broken to hear that the great Russell would be performing just before our Physics exam. Bloody hell, I couldn't have hated ISC more. But then relief came and relief is always good. 18^th of March was the perfect day to add 2 more shows Mr Peters, thank you! Tickets for his earlier shows had been sold out in 40 minutes, and the shows on the 18^th got sold out in about 8 minutes. Romit and I bought 8 tickets. Brilliant.

The 18th day of March came faster than I thought it would. We were surprisingly occupied with tons of Redial Entertainment work, and umm some other “fun”. It was a long time since the five of us had been together and boy it felt good. But all that aside, Romit and I geared up for the gig. We had bought Bharath a ticket as a birthday gift, which he initially greeted with scorn to my surprise, but came around later. Bharath, sometimes you are just too nice, but I still love you.

We [Romit, Bharath & I] made our way to Crowne Plaza hotel at about 6:30, three and a half hours earlier than the beginning of the act, hoping to get the first row, and having our asses picked on. All of that did happen, and boy we enjoyed it.

In all popular concerts, programs and shows held in Dubai, there is one common thread - the annoying pre-entrance debacle. Today was pretty much the same. There was no line system initially and everyone seemed to be everywhere outside the entrance gates. So well we thought we might as well start a line. There we stood, all proud and tall, first in line to hit the seats. But then, suddenly, a couple of Arab people came in front of us and started chatting up their fellow over-weight Arab bodyguard. When you suck up, the result is always good, so there was no budging those suckers from the front of the line. Fine. Dealt with. Then this innocent Indian boy emerged, asking our fat fellow Arab bodyguard, which of the two lines was the VIP line. The fat racist Arab fellow put on this shit-ass fake Indian accent and told him that “this was the Vee-Aai-Pee Liyun, and this was the Narmal liyun”, pointing at the two different lines as if he was addressing someone slow. His fellow Arab suckers enjoyed a snigger, and the fat racist Arab basked in the glory. Now what the hell is that? Friggin’ racists. I gave that fat bodyguard a mean look, but then, that was most I had the balls to do.

We then entered the hall to form another non-organised line. The first few people [which obviously included us] were in line, but the remaining people were like a kindergarten class gone wild. Some weeping aunty-ji came like a little toddler to complain to the second big ball-less teacher-like bodyguard saying that 'no one was standing in line' and that 'everyone was “butting” in'. Some “chicks” joined aunty-ji and it was a beautiful ensemble of chicks, aunty-hens and big ball-less bodyguards. The second body guard gave into their plea and said that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He therefore allowed them to butt into the line too - another bastard that one. The hypocritical chicks suddenly had tears of joys in their eyes. Brests always win with us men, don’t they?

Yup, I have sidetracked a little, but the humanity of Dubai is always worth a mention. Anyway, as soon as the doors opened, we rushed in like hounds, elbowing any obstruction in the way to get to the best possible seats. And by doing all that, we obviously did get the best seats. My parents were going to come in later, as they were evidently busy at work, so we saved them seats hoping that no Arab would pick a fight with us to get them. We were saved from this, but the Indian Sindhi sitting next to us fought her ass off against this aggressive Arab kid to protect seats for her loved ones. Congratufuckinlations to her.

We waited for an hour, at ease, sitting in the first row, enjoying the superior seats to those behind us. At 10:10 PM, the super-huge Greek "Angelo", Russel’s opening act, came onto the stage. He ridiculed his own obesity to make us laugh and was quite successful in that too. He was the perfect appetizer for Russell, and activated our stomachs for the main course.

Enter Russell Peters. He was obviously met with loud cheers from the over-enthusiastic crowd. Yes, I must admit, being a big fan, it was great to see him. Romit thought Russell had "teleportated" some of his weight. Russel began and penetrated our stomachs brilliantly, and was on song through out. Well I would say he was more than on song, he was on friggin’ fire. He didn’t repeat any of his earlier jokes, and cleverly inculcated the Dubai aspect in this new plethora of jokes. From the Lebanese “Habibis” to “Mr North Carolina”, from the “Egyptianpino” to his other impromptu crowd interaction, and from his usual spin on hairy Indians to his brilliantly witty jokes, Russell entertained our asses off. His impersonation of George Bush was spot on and his take on the Football World Cup 2006 was awesomely hilarious too. What makes him brilliant is that he has this wonderful ability of striking the right note and making a universal connection with his Asian dominated crowd. And besides just being plain funny, Russell's jokes have bitter honesty in them. As he said on his CBC interview, it's easier for a coloured comedian to spurt the honesty in an act than some bimbo President in some Congressional speech.

I had a fair share of his crowd-interaction. Being an Indian, Russell screwed me over my apparent hair-yness. He spotted my monobrow and told me to shave it off because it would give me two eyebrows, and for us Indians, the more of anything the merrier, right? He didn’t leave me there. Later on, when he spoke about Indian men and their hairy dicks, he picked me out yet again and told me to shave that jungle off too. Cool. Yes I was a working definition of the Indian man for Russell. As Romit later said, I got what I want. Russel then went off and came on for an encore. He then threw upon us my favourite joke of the evening on “Bollywood Pornography”. Romit and I almost fell out of our chairs, and I have never heard my Dad laugh so loudly. It was a perfect end to brilliant show of a brilliantly talented comedian.

The fairy-tale-like experience didn’t end there. We then got to meet Russell & Angelo in a conference room where we took photos with him and got his autographs. He remembered my mono-brow and I did have one-tenth of a conversation with him, but he gave most of his attention to the hot girls that were there. I don’t blame Russel for this. He was being a true man. I like this honest entertainer.

P.S. Besides all the fun, Arsenal lost today, and I lost my house keys.

Redial Entertainment Kickstarted

Redial Entertainment has formally begun...www.redial-entertainment.blogspot.com

[click the picture to enlarge]

P.S. Call again.

Dubai Desert Rock 2007!

After eternally terminating Chemistry from your life, there is nothing more positive you can hope for. But then Desert Rock comes along, and redefines everything. Morally, what Ali and I did was wrong. In the middle of your board examinations, ideally, you shouldn’t be allowed to attend an 80DB+ concert. It’s not right. But our blessed parents don’t exactly resonate with that notion. Thank God.

Essentially, we went there to fulfill half of Ali’s dream - IRON MAIDEN. We made no compromises. We were the first few people to line up, and planned to maintain our 100% record of standing in the first row for every single Desert Rock since its inception in 2004. However, around us, in the lines, were clearly the most annoying aspects of Dubai - the people. You can’t get faker and more loser-ish then them. Their definition of fun is weird, and the only constant pain-in-the-asses for the entire of this Desert Rock are the people. Having reached there 4 hours before the gates opened, we were trying our best to entertain ourselves. So, well, just for fun, we started singing some Backstreet Boys stuff, you know, to see the response of the faggots around us. And it was exactly what we thought it would be. They ridiculed, abused and laughed at us. Their sense of humour really seemed to be up their bums. One of these cool-wannabe rockers, this 15 year old kid who thought he was the son of the Metal Gods, started pulling our leg bordering on pure harshness. So to get the plot - “What the hell is your problem?” asked Ali.
“My problem is that you are a fat-ass Indian,” was the reply. Haih? What was hilarious to see was the enormous joy that he experienced having cracked what he thought was a purely brilliant joke. Ali and I were unaffected, but bemused. Wow, some people are so shallow. The British girls next to him seemed to be having a ball of a time too, ridiculing us with their haughty and gay ascents. One Arab female started mocking our Indian ascent, and everyone was having a blast, with us being the sources of fun. That freak 15-year-old told the non-stop-singing Ali to sing some Punjabi-MC stuff, trying to drown us in embarrassment using his sarcastically sadist Indian accent. We don’t even talk like that. Anyway we were amused and had our own ball at how ridiculously fascinating people can be.

Finally we did enter the arena, and there was no controlling our exuberant energy. We needed to be in that first darn row. We needed to run our asses off to secure our positions, and we did. Joy, unconfined! But we forgot to get our fluorescent green arm bands, and therefore, essentially, we were “illegal” for the entire of the concert. Anyway, what was fascinating to see was that half of Modern High was there - loads of 11^th graders and 9^th graders and a chunk of 9^th grade girls. The latter bit was confusingly amusing. Fine Tandon knew her stuff, but the other girls seemed a bit lost. Anyway it was interesting none the less.

At 2:00 PM, Junkyard Groove took control of the stage, and surprisingly, they were really good. Yes technical difficulties did muck it up a little, but their front-man, Ameeth, covered up really well. I found their music really soulful, and the band-members very genuinely passionate. I just loved their music, and am really looking forward to getting their album, which is out soon. From their Myspace profile: “What do you get when you put a drummer with heavy metal roots, a guitarist with classic rock roots, a bassist crazy about Jazz and a very drunken vocalist, in 1 band? Junkyard Groove!” It’s worth giving them a listen. Amidst all this, some “Metal” fans, or well “Wannabe Rockers” were “moshing” to their music. Now Junkyard Groove are essentially an Alternative band, so there was no real reason to mosh, but hey man, “it’s cool.”

The Groove were followed by the most untalented celebrity singers of all time – Lauren Harris. Fine she is sexy, hot and all the rot, but that woman is in no way a great singer. She sings all her songs on a low register and tries to make a very desperate effort to come off as a rocker with her fake grimace, singing some “Take Me Home” shyte or something. She is the epitome of ‘riding on your father’s back’, and I was in no way entertained by her, though her accompanying band (i.e. a guitarist, a bassist and a drummer) were not bad at all.

Mastadon follwed Harris and weren’t that great either. They seemed to be lost in their own world. They literally came out, performed and left. There was no crowd-interaction, no uniqueness and basically no performance as of such. Ali did defend them later on saying that they are all about the music and beyond the crowd interaction, and when it came to music they were quite brilliant. But hey, I am at a concert, and I am paying to watch you. The least you can do is half-entertain me. Anyway, SK, who was in the first row till now, got squeezed out after almost having been squashed to death. The crowd is insane for these Metal concerts. They are aggressive, arrogant, self-righteous and so fake, most of them anyway.

In Flames, who were up next, were much better and seemed to have a decent fan-following. This really attractive chick next to me knew all their stuff. Personally, I found them to be quite decent. As a group, they were good performers with some good songs and enough amounts of energy. I liked their lead singer, though he somehow reminded me of Vivek Malhotra.

Stone Sour didn't disappoint either. It was obviously all about Corey Taylor. As Ali said, Corey was one solid sob - energy personified, and one of the best bald head-bangers ever. Just looking at his vigour was entertaining...wow! He was so spell bounding that I don't even remember the other band members' faces. Anyway, I really enjoyed "Through The Glass" and loved the way Corey gave music some substance, though I was a little disappointed that they didn't play "Bother" [the only other song I knew :P].

Prodigy, for me, were just bad. I hated every moment of their performance, which is quite contradictory to what most of the other people felt. Initially, they seemed promising, with their fancy light set up, and this new-generation DJ-Console-like thing. But all they played was non-stop dhin-chak-dhin-chak heavy metal bet that really got to you after some time. They were so loud, and so monotonous, Ali and I just couldn’t get a grip of them, and subsequently ourselves, as our heads burst into dhin-chak-dhin-chak pain . The lead-singers didn’t do much. They were just screaming the entire time, and their crazy guitarist seemed weirdly insane.

Iron Maiden were a complete contrast to Prodigy. After a long wait, and total stage revamp, they finally erupted on to stage and sent the crowd into orgasmic ecstasy. Their unlimited energy, legendary status and supremely-entertaining music capped off a brilliant night. They seemed to make everything worth it. With a war-like stage-dress-code, the infamous tank and Eddie, they gave Dubai the full on 'Maiden Experience'. They literally blew the living daylights out of us. Usually they perform their entire new album when they tour, but they made sure they played their classics too. ‘Number of the Beast’, ‘Run to the Hills’, ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘The Trooper’ really got the crowd going. Ali, with his supreme Maiden knowledge, knew exactly what was going to happen next. He flipped when Bruce Dickenson cried, “Scrrreaam for me, Dubai!” Wow! They were mesmerizing, especially when the infamous Tank kicked into action, and when Eddie walked on to the stage, in his trademark lanky death-walk. WOW! In addition to that, Bruce’s limitless amount of energy and Mcbrain’s guitar-throwing exploits made it even more awesome. Their stamina for high-energy level performances at their old-ish ages is awe-inspiring. They were simply brilliantly brilliant.

Wow, it was one memorable night, the 9^th of March. We did become partially deaf immediately afterwards, and did have a temporary 2-day period of Tinnitus later, but hell, it was worth it! =)

That was day 1 of the 2 day festival that was Dubai Desert Rock 2007. We didn’t make it to the second day because we were half deaf, pretty worn out and filled with guilt at the aspect of not studying enough. Ahh, life!

P.S. A friggin’ long post, but a memory successfully created. As a matter of fact, this post is essentially only for two people.

Memoirs of ISC 2007 – Physics

This exam felt painstakingly important to me until I actually started writing it. I had studied enough, slept enough, fantasized-about-what-would-happen-after-it enough and stressed enough, now I just needed to get it out of my system.

The car-ride was pretty uneventful except for Ali’s big fat intimidating ABC Physics book. Shayaan hadn’t studied that well for this exam, so that was encouraging. I enjoyed showing off in the car, and that did annoy the hell out of Ali. Oh, and I had decided to make use of a camera on our last ever exam together as a science batch, so the picture =). Damn I’m going to miss these exams. From the twins walking into school like robots, to us over-discussing things, to Sodium Orgasmate, to us hounding our teachers, to the twins making up good sensible shit for things they have no idea about, to Unmukt’s “not their in the portion” reactions, to Romit’s inability to correctly define things and to the highest amount of stress-releasing laughter we will ever have together as a group, I am really going to miss it. Not now, but later definitely.

Anyway, so I took enough pictures (which I will put up on Facebook soon) to satisfy my memory-cravings years down the line. Oh, and if you ever want to see Ali’s version of “getting-cow-screwed”, let me know. It’s a very udder-ful video to say the least. That and few pictures of Reshmi Ma’am “solving our doubts” – pure gold footageI say!

On a more serious note, before entering the hall, I did get some of my doubts sorted out, but came no where close to the actual morning-revision target I had set. That never happens anyway. We talk, laugh and try to cry, and have a whole lot of fun doing all that, before making a surprisingly sober and sane entry into the hall. After lining up in the AC Foyer, Mr Bloud told us very proudly that he would be saying our prayer. Wow, joy.

We finally did enter the hall, and for a moment, were a little insecure when our question papers didn’t seem to be around. We waited. Oliyolah came. Thank God. We got the paper and it looked weird. It seemed short, but had a lot of unheard of stuff in it. “Digital signals”? “Production pair”? There were some wrong sums too - so unlike the board. Anyway the paper was decent. I don’t think I did enough to get a 90, but Shrivats is getting 99 for sure. Unmukt is getting 100, “maybe”. Shayaan wanted to have a bad paper and had a bad paper. Ali has given up on everything. He just doesn’t care. “Coolness”, I say. He is very, uhm well, happy nowadays and it’s cool, if you know what I mean. Tejas thinks I am getting 100. I really can’t figure that one out. Rubin and Aaron were our Gauss-saviors, and Tejas’ XOR-saviors. Oh and Bharath’s getting a 100/100 too. Govind will also probably max. I am telling you the competition is heating up! I feel that Computers might be the difference. Hmm let’s see. Common Bharath!

The usual dispersal mela followed after the end of the exam with everyone screaming and hounding Ms. Menon yet again. I had my camera out, and was taking random shots. I then almost got bitten by Karan’s dog . Anything to do with that family can’t stand me. Ahh I guess its mutual, and there is definitely an anti-connection. And it makes sense unlike the other “connections” that I have been having lately.

Anyway, the physical experience ended with Ali and me trying to make the fastest and crap-iest video ever. Hopefully I will have time to decorate it someday. For now, 14 days till Eco. What's lined up? Lots of Redial Entertainment work, lots of football and some more of Redial Entertainment work, basically lots of fun.

In our car-ride home, Ali and I did dirty things with Ali’s plasticine.

P.S. The race is heating up, and the investments are as expectedly not coming. Brilliant you guys! However, the odds as they stand now:
Shayaan: 3.5:1
Shrivats: 2.7:1
Bharath: 3:1
Unmukt: 3:1
Govind: 3:1
Tejas: 7080090 x 10^903: 1

Memoirs of ISC 2007 – Environmental Education

I hated studying for this exam. Our ‘Enviro’ textbook was pure crap. Reeta David seriously needs to find a new career path. I plan to write a letter to the publishers telling them how unorganized, vague and superfluous their ‘great’ book of theirs is. Maybe someday it will happen, but whatever. The past few days were pathetic, study-wise that is. Desert Rock, “Titinus” and other things made it difficult for me to study anything - more on that when I get time to write about Desert Rock.

Everyone came into school wanting a 90+ in what is supposedly an easy-to-score-by-bluffing subject. Harry wanted 100. Romit and Bharath entered with Bharath’s face beaming with excitement like it so often is. He couldn’t wait to tell us Romit’s newest legendary sayings. Apparently, Romit thinks that “environment and development are same sides of two coin.” Thanks Bengali Babu for adding another "great-un" to your pool of ridiculousness. Mr. Sharma asked whether we wanted to go to India to play football matches against some of top schools there this summer, and we whole heartedly agreed. Hopefully it will happen Aaron, let’s see. [I am hating my English right now. Plus this headache and the desire to sleep is really annoying me.]

After asking Mrs Ghosh a gazillion times what 'Ecological Indicators' are, and whole bunch of other rubbish, we finally entered the auditorium. We got our paper, and immediately I hated everything about it. I hated the questions, I hated what I wrote, I hated writing it, I just hated the entire experience, and boy, I am glad it’s over. The Indian School Certificate examinations has so got its Environmental Education wrong. I really feel like venting about how pathetic our 'Enviro' syllabus, but it doesn’t even deserve that, not now at least. Anyway, it seriously has its priorities messed up. Alas, only ISC knows how to make perfectly useful and important subject, absolute crap. Anyway how much ever I hated writing the paper, I am still hoping to scrape a 90. Seriously, an 89.5 will do! However, after the paper ended, the after-exam discussions were “marred” with the Headboy’s aggressive, loud and un-needed speech. Just pay your 10 dirhams guys, it’s not worth the drama. And Ritesh relax, I wonder where all this enthusiasm of yours went when Bharath was Dhs 300+ in debt.

Anyway, this paper was totally Bio-students friendly which is kinda annoying. But it gives people like Shayaan, Shri, Kau and the rest of the Bio freaks an edge. They will probably be doing really well in it. Unmukt, despite being an Eco-student, got “micro-nutrients” right, and pre-exam time he had said that he was “screwed”. Yeah he is distracted for certain reasons, but he is also Unmukt none the less – 100/100. Ashiq, Tejas and almost everyone else seemed happy. Romit did an extra question, however I really hope it wasn’t coin related. Aaron is getting full, and Ali is guarenteed full in physics. Rubin was starring at me, and I was starring at Karan. Again that Vesuvius finished his paper super-fast, but says to have written two pages per answer. How? Ameya broke all records by sleeping for one complete hour during his exam, and Jeetu just couldn’t contain his shock at this. Also, apparently Ameya left one question because he didn’t have enough time to think. Anyhoo, I seriously don’t care. I just hope, like everyone else, that I scrape a 90 and be done with it. Phyiscs, on the other hand, I consider semi-important. I need to do well, and I really hope I study today. But before that, sleep is essential.

P.S. Odds for “Who Will Top?” as they stand:
Shayaan: 3.3:1
Shrivats: 2.5:1
Bharath: 3.2:1
Unmukt: 3:1
Govind: 3:1
Tejas: 70800 x 10^3: 1
Romit: 2 coin to 1 coins