JAB WE MET - The Review

JAB WE MET- interesting name isn’t it.

The movie is as interesting.

A piece of work written and directed by Imtiaz Ali it is juicy romantic comedy which sees Kareena steal the show from the moment she steps on screen till the end of the movie.

The concept of two strangers coming has been done to death in Bollywood and hence you approach with mild skepticism but Imtiaz with his tight humorous script gives this concept a very refreshing taste.

This film will be always known for the "Shahid-Kareena-Split" but the movie shows a chemistry between these two that was missing in their earlier movies.

Kareena is completely herself (i guess) in this movie. She does so much justice to this role that it makes you wonder who could have done this role better than her. Shahid plays a perfect foil to Kareena's character.

Beautiful Indian locales (at least it looked Indian) have been used in the movie. For once in the middle of the movie you do not end up in Europe for no apparent reason for a song sequence. The gist of the movie is how a very troubled business tycoon who decides to run away from his problems, Aditya, meets an absolutely over the top bubbly character from Bhatinda, Geet, who has a severe problem of verbal diarrhea.

The first part of the film takes us through an incredibly funny journey of these two people to Bhatinda in which the girl shows the guy how to live life to fullest. The second part deals with the guy becoming successful at his work and the Geet suffering because of her care-free attitude and the two realizing their feelings for each other. The ending is pretty predictable but it is the treatment given to the film that enamours you and keeps your eyes glued to the screen for nearly 3 hrs. The humour is well woven into the story and is well-spread throughout the movie. The scene in which Geet calls her ex after much coaxing from Aditya is just of the many that comes to mind.

Pritam's music is outstanding and will prove to be one of the best albums this year.

Out and out entertainer this movie will leave you feeling good and positive.

Micowave:Any one for boiled eggs

We have all heard that do not boil eggs in the microwave, it will explode ....well its true.
But for those hard core egg lovers who have only a microwave.. well i have some good news for you. Its not entirely impossible to have your favourite dish.... but it might not taste that well...

To cook you boiled egg... take the egg out of its shell.. separate the white from the yolk and then microwave it.. simple.. it is as good as boiling the egg... as you can see the side effect is, it looses its round shape when the white and the yolk is cooked separately... you can cut the white up an use it with the yolk in your fav anda curry...
i still have to warn you it still does not taste as good .. but then again it may be my less than mediocre cooking powress

Pakistan loses opener

What happened to their team yesterday.. Did someone leak the name of their next captain :)

Staying Next to an Opera Singer

Well, I live next room to an opera singer. Very evening at around 8 to nearly 9.30 the place nearly becomes a bhooth bangla. NO kidding, she creates makes very very similar sound bytes. She came in a week ago and since then evenings have not been the same...
Good Lord

Beautiful White Carpet

As I write this it has been 15 days since the actual event but the memories are still fresh.

The one question that I asked when I was to leave for Philly was “Will it snow there?”. I desperately wanted to experience it and after a long wait (quite long I should say), false warnings and a few non impressive snow flakes falls later we got a concrete warning that it was going to snow in Philadelphia starting Feb 13. The people around me were getting nervous and I was getting excited. The paradox of the situation did not miss them either :).

Feb 13^th . I got up in the morning expecting roads to be covered with snow. Nothing. But it was not a false warning. As I saw the flakes falling I could not help feel butterflies in my stomach as if going to an award ceremony to get a trophy. I left the hotel and walked to my office on foot to experience snow fall. It was an exhilarating experience especially the first time I guess. Once in the office I could still the beautiful white flakes falling from the sky. I kept taking snaps but none could do justice the sights I saw. In the afternoon I took a walk in the nearby park with a few colleagues, the park covered with the white carpet. Too bad it was a working day could not get crazy in the snow. The walk back in the evening was a difficult but a very very good experience. Trudging in piles of snow was such a fantastic feeling.

Feb 14^th . Valentines Day. It is just the only day which shouts out to you “YOU ARE ALONE, YOU DUMBHEAD”. On normal days that would not bother me but just this once, alone in a hotel, alone in a project with no one from my company with me, among complete strangers and away from friends and family on a wonderfully beautiful day sort of highlighted the fact. It was still snowing hard and the snow from the last day had solidified to ice making walking on the pavements difficult to walk on. In the office most of the people left early. I too left early that day. On the way back I could see couples in the snow covered parks walking together inspite of the cold winds.

Though it could have been more fun... this was my first snow. I loved it and one of my aims of visitng the US of A was complete. Work .. shmirk.. that’s not what I came here for ;)

Flight to Philly

Ahh.. Finally in the cosy comfort of my room and drinking the lousiest cup of coffee ever made in a coffee maker i can now take time and write about my trip to Philadelphia, the city in which the Declaration of Independence was signed..

How did i reach here? I had an interesting Air France Flight to Philly with a stop over at Paris... Let’s start from the beginning...


Flight to Paris....
This one was quite boring actually (to start with i had a middle seat)... The flight was on time and my journey started at 2.40 am on 10th. I just remember getting in and putting on my seat belt and i was out like a light. An hour later i was awakened from my deep slumber by a pleasant air hostess asking which meal i wanted. Meal.... at 4.00 am.. i mean i am all for the global experience but these guys really need to get meal times correct.. i guess they were going by the french time...
A veg sandwich and an orange juice later i was all awake when my eyes fell on the LCD monitor in front of me. Now where was that when i took my seat...hmm.. we will come to that later... It had a few selections for Movies, Songs, Games etc... I opted for a movie. I tuned to the nearly last part of Little Miss Sunshine and then watched a re-run later, nice movie by the way. After that i dozed off for nearly 4 hours. It was now 7 hours since we took off and another snack (another sandwich) was on its way... An hour later we had an uneventful landing in the most romantic city in the world-Paris... Local time nearly 8 something but it was still pitch dark...

5 hours Stop Over...
Ohh not at all that bad.. Charles de Gaulle airport is a fantastic and huge airport and very efficient too. Well mannered people and really helpful people. They had us, the people taking the transit flight to Philly,to our terminal which in a completely different section of the airport in under half an hour and we managed it just by reading the signboards and asking a few friendly officials. The facilities that the airport has with its buses and other services left me wondering if we will ever achieve these standards in India. Will Mumbai airport ever be a Charles de Gaulle at least in sheer size.. time will only tell... At the terminal I had nearly 4 hours to kill.. People who know me don’t even need to be told where I would have headed off too.. that’s right.. the Snack Bar where i had a choices galore of one Veg Sandwich (a plain sandwich with cheese) and a regular coffee. After that I spent some time with the local newspapers. My sincere advice to future travelers: Please carry a novel along if u have a stop over anywhere. These papers were filled with so much news about the problem that was going to faced by Germany and Poland once Russia stops it oil supply through Belarus that one more newspaper and i would have personally taken up the matter with the Russian Gov. Of course after that came the duty free shops. No marks for guessing what this Desi must have done in a duty free shop. Yup.. headed straight for the perfumes section and in 15 minutes had nearly half a dozen of them in different parts of my body and shirt. Of course there were testing strips lying for the purpose but hey with a 12 hrs old unbathed shirt who needs testing strips...
Verdict: One perfume that caught my attention was Jetlag from the AZZARO brand. Seemed a very refreshing one and a bit different from the usual "Mall Fragrance" that we have got used too...
In the liquor section I saw one brand with bottles of the shape of the Eiffel Tower and realized that without a visa this was as close as i was going to get to the Eiffel Tower.

Air Borne Again (this time window seat... yay)...
Nearly 1 pm local time we started boarding for our flight to Philly. We had to walk down to the aircraft and for the first time I felt the cold damp air of Paris on my face... felt good. Believe me it was 1 pm and we had not seen the sun clearly yet, it was that cloudy. As the flight took off i started hunting around for the Eiffel Tower. I mean i was not about to leave Paris without even setting my eyes on the Eiffel Tower, this really can’t be happening. I strained my eyes and as the flight ascended I could see this beautiful city, neat roads, nice walkways, a carting race circuit, and beautiful parks. People started becoming dots, cars becoming smaller, the landscape becoming vague, sky scrapers becoming sticks and i left my hope of ever seeing the Eiffel Tower. The flight had been turning right all this while and then i saw a familiar shape between the concrete jungle of the city... the shape that i seen in the liquor bottle in the duty free shop. Could this really be the Tower, i actually thought it would be taller? My feelings were put to rest by excitement in the rows ahead of me. 15-20 secs is all that we got of the magnificent structure as we entered the clouds and when the window cleared the sun was glaring through and we could not see anything below the clouds, our captain came online and joked "Welcome to sunniest part of Paris". 10 hours, a couple of movies, meals and some sleep later I got down in the land of Uncle Sam.

This, my friends was the story of my flight.
ohh....P.S.: Off the record Air France air hostesses are just at the ok level.. Long Live Kingfisher and Vijay Mallya.