25 Random Things About Me

1. I find things distasteful very easily - perverted jokes, slapstick comedy, metal, too much ginger but I almost never find something physically disgusting;  blood and gore, ugly pornographic scenes, bad hygiene, people taking a dump, poultry getting butchered - none of these would bother me, say, while I am eating.

2. I truly believe that as I get older I will grow handsomer, i.e. unless I go bald.

3. I have a thing for people's ears. I notice them, I compare them, I remember people by them and I like ear jewelery on women.

4. As a child, I was tricked into believing that Nana Patekar is a dwarf and that he stood on a stool to give his takes, which was later touched up by special effects. I believed it for longer than I am proud of.

5. For someone generally mild mannered and non-confrontational, I got into more than my share of fist-fights through high school. I don't know why.

6. For as long as I can remember, my most innate desire has been to be a cricket analyst. Someday, I want to have a blog on Cricinfo.

7. I am remarkably untouched by anything spiritual in nature. Nothing religious or spiritual ever moves me and I am completely untouched by the question of the existence of god. I sometimes find that strange.

8. From 1998 to 2006 i.e., roughly from the age of 11 to 19,  I went through a no tears streak. I did not cry even once in that period.

9. Significant influences in my adolescent years included The Godfather(novel),  Ayn Rand, Atticus Finch, Rahul Dravid, the Angry Young Man movies of Amitabh Bachchan, Letters from a father to a daughter by Nehru, Galahad Threepwood and Norman Lewis.

10. Despite having a deep baritone, I shriek girlishly in a high pitched voice when taken by surprise or in pain. Why this happens remains a mystery to me.

11. I like to collect trivia on any subject of interest to me. I spend hours on Google and Wikipedia.

12. I think VVS Laxman is the most gifted batsman I have ever seen bat.

13. I am not a big fan of the movies Bollywood churns out but if someone says that a certain movie 'insulted their intelligence', I find it extremely annoying.

14. I am obsessed with The Beatles, Hugh Laurie, Rahul Dravid, Kate Hepburn, A Suitable Boy and the song Autumn Leaves.

15. I went to what was primarily a girls' school for quite a few years, as a kid.

16. I do not think that there is another book as full of wisdom as The Godfather. I believe it truly contains the answer to all the questions in life. In the words of Nora Ephron, it is the I-Ching, the sum of all intelligence.

17. James Stewart is my favorite hero of all time.

18. I have a sharp memory and am generally good  at remembering all sorts of dates, entire conversations, people's faces, movie dialogues, short stories and songs. I want people around me to create history so that I can chronicle it.

19. I have not read or seen any of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

20. My favorite things would include the following - Billy Wilder's films, Salim-Javed's screenwriting, Nat King Cole's singing, Shane Warne's bowling, John Donne's The Expostulation, John Lennon's voice, the TV series BlackAdder, Bade Bhai Sahab by Premchand, the Beatles songs composed by George Harrison, Love Letters by A R Gurney, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, the movie Dil Se, Ruskin Bond's essays, Rahul Dravid's late cuts, Amma's curd chicken dish and the Christopher Walken sequence from Pulp Fiction.

21. How Irfan Pathan could lose his prodigious swing bothers me a lot. Is it really possible? How can you know how to move a ball like that and forget it!?!

22. I enjoyed Biology a lot in high school. The cardio-vascular system was my favorite organ system.

23. English Breakfast is my favorite cuisine.

24. Wuthering Heights is my favorite classic.

25. My eyes are not particularly small. But they are deep-set and beady.

Top 5 Amitabh Bachchan Roles

Top 5 Amitabh Bachchan roles

No. 5. Bemisaal

This would not usually make it to the list of the legendary Amitabh performances. It is not even that well known a movie. Directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, it portrays AB as a soulful pediatrician. In a tale of loyalty, sacrifice and revenge, AB has enough scope to portray his powerful suppressed rage, yet the parts that stand out for me are the flirtatious bits where he competes with his buddy Vinod Mehra to woo Rakhee and coldy seduces Sheetal to avenge his elder brother. (also played by AB)

No. 4. Deewar

Vijay in Deewar is perhaps the most analysed and dissected Indian movie character. I doubt I can add anything of importance to what has already been said. In the most taut and tense screenplay by Salim-Javed, AB is scorching, explosive and understated. Be it the famous “Uff tumhare adarsh, tumhare usool” scene or the explosive anger with which he grabs Sudhir all of a sudden, AB pulls off everything with aplomb.

No. 3. Don

In my perfect fantasy world, AB is Don, with a price on his head in eleven countries, jetsetting around in his Mercedes, sleeping with women and then using them as a bait to escape from the police and addressing the gentlemanly cop Iftekhar with the amused drawl “DSP” before flinging a suitcase in his face and blowing up everything. Don gives Amitabh his most stylish and cavalier role ever. The dialogues by Salim-Javed are an absolute gem, next only to Sholay. Midway, though the real Don dies, and his double Vijay steps in. Though I prefer the first half, the second half is more pacy and probably better cinema as a thriller, wherein the often at a loss, yet quick-witted double manfully tries to step into Don’s shoes. It is a very convincing performance and very soon, you set aside the disappointment of Don’s death and start rooting for his double.

No. 2. Mili

Mili stars AB as Shekhar Dayal, as the despondent, lonely, rich neighbor who screams at kids for making noise and cuts himself at random in bouts of depression. Hrishikesh Mukherjee was the first director to identify most of Amitabh’s talents; his long monologues and voice overs which became a regular feature in many of his later films, his gait, his repressed anger (Anand, and not Zanjeer was actually his first Angry Young Man role for me) and his flair for comedy. (Chupke Chupke) In Mili, he is at his handsome best and gives a restrained and gloomy performance as a man struggling against his background and seeking redemption in an ultimately ill-fated relationship.

No.1. Trishul

Trishul is the classic oedipal tale of love, resentment and revenge. AB, the illegitimate son comes to Delhi to avenge the treatment meted out to his poor, dead mother by his rich father who chose success over love. The entire film is bubbling with AB’s resentment, his dialogues with Sanjeev Kumar are laced with double meanings hinting at their past. He is willing to do anything to trouble his father; notable moments include trying to snitch away his half brother’s girl (Hema Malini at easily her prettiest), bribing and poaching his father’s employees and humiliating him publicly.

Time it was

and what a time it was

it was

A time of innocence

a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be,

I have

a photograph

Preserve your memories,

they're all that's left you..

Leg spinners pose problems much like love,
Requiring commitment, the taking of a chance.
Halfway deludes; the bold advance.

Right back, there's time to watch
Developments, though perhaps too late.
It's not spectacular, but can conciliate.

Instinctively romantics move towards,
Preventing complexities by their embrace,
Batsman and lover embarked as overlords.

- Alan Ross

Top 5 Romantic Scenes

No. 5: Where Mr. Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth and she turns him down.
Despite my dislike for the much hyped novel, this is one scene which I love. He confesses his love and proposes marriage, a proposal seeking to present the depth of his feelings through the conflict of mind her circumstances put him in and his complete helplessness when it comes to her marked by the unwillingness with which he bestows his affection. She, to his complete surprise does not take kindly to it and turns him down flat.


No. 4: Where the number makes its iconic appearance
"You know something?"
"What?"
"I love you."
"How much?"
"Huh?"
"How much do you love me?"
"A lot. A lot lot lot."
"How much is that?"
"Umm...(lightbulb glows)..27.5"
"What?"
"Yeah. I love you 27.5. Thats how much I love you"
"Only 27.5?!"


No. 3: Where Mike(James Stewart)Connors kisses Tracy Lord (twice)
This is the night before Tracy Lord is supposed to get married to George Kittredge, a complete ass. But in the scene preceding the party, Tracy and Stewart seem to be getting drawn to each other.
"What's the matter with Tracy?" He asks.
"You tell me, will you?"
"Darned if I know. I'd like to."

After the party, they're both completely drunk on champagne. She's mocking him, calling him 'Professor', when his fascination with her comes to the fore.
"There's a magnificence in you, Tracy. A magnificence that comes out of your eyes and your voice...in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you...hearth fires and holocausts!"
"I don't seem to you made of bronze?"
"No. You're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy...full of life and warmth and delight."

The he kisses her. "Golly!", she says. He kisses her again. "Golly Moses!"


No. 2: Where they almost kiss in Dil Se and the song Dil Se
They discuss the things they like and dislike the most in Ladakh. Shahrukh is still trying to court her, she gradually getting drawn to him; this scene and the one preceding it where they walk and discuss what sort of kids they would have is charged with chemistry. She actually never lets on how much she is beginning to like him, but you can see it in her glances. He, on the other hand is completely awed by the mystery surrounding her. ("Mujhe sabse pasand hai tumhari ye aankhein, kyonki main kitna inme dekhta hun mujhe kuch dihkai hi nahi deta")
The title track is shot most beautifully. He, imagining a whole whirlwind romance through the song, imagining himself as her knight in shining armour in a terror-ridden Assam.


No. 1: Where they steal glances in the listening room in Before Sunrise
This scene is absolutely brilliant and anyone who has ever been, nervously in love will relate to it, immediately. The keep glancing at each other and try not to let the other catch them doing it. Julie Delpy is cutness incarnate, and Ethan Hawke's expressions are priceless in various places, most notably where he takes a long look at her, smiling to himself all through that you can almost feel how much he is enjoying looking at her.

Two syllables,
One follows the other tamely.
One pitch, both even, not higher.
Nor sinking down like fire.
What drama is it that lies in its utterance?

I lie back in my bed all day
Repeating it over and over,
Savouring the feel of it on my tongue.

"Between desire and reality…a bit…between fact and breakfast…madness, lies, lies, lies…a bit…I hate you, I hate you and yet I hate you…a bit…as love, rage and aches of the ear.."