Chuck-ed Hockey???

Chak De! India has been declared a runaway hit of this year. The movie is based on the true story of former hockey player, Mir Ranjan Negi. Negi was branded a traitor for losing to Pakistan in the 1982 Asian games and had to fight to reclaim his lost honor by coaching and leading the Indian woman’s hockey team to victory.

Truth be told, I did not expect this movie to be a hit as it involved hockey and not cricket—India’s beloved sport! Of all the vestiges of the British Raj, cricket is perhaps the most loved and nurtured of them all. A sport that transformed into a religion to produce hysterical and fanatical fans—that even has the atheist fervently praying for a sixer in the last ball of the last over to emerge victor in the one-day Indo-Pak match. A country that deifies actors and cricketers has all but pulled the plug on hockey to die a death as an unloved orphan.

No other country but India can boast of producing the wonder-boy called Dhyan Chand, who brought unprecedented glory and fame to hockey. A man who spun magic with his hockey stick was even accused of black magic and had his stick broken just before a match for the ball left his stick only when it arrived its destination—GOAL! Chand scored 59 out of India's 175 goals in the pre-Olympic matches and 11 out of 38 in the Olympics. Not only was he the world’s greatest sportsmen but was also a true patriot for he turned down Hitler’s irresistible offer to make him a Field Marshal in the German army, but the latter refused.

Dhyan Chand, who devoted his life to hockey, died as an unsung hero and a pauper receiving a meager pension. When he was on his deathbed at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, he reportedly told a doctor that Indian hockey was dying. He then went into a coma and died in 1979.

Today, is hockey dying a slow death like Dhyan Chand? Will the Indian government take suitable measures to resuscitate the sport? Will the media turn its focus from cricket to hockey? Will we as “Chak De!” fans demand not only that we get to see more of such films but also live to see the day when our national game is revived and restored to its former glory? Will hockey see its halcyon days?

I can only pray that the answer to all of the above questions is a YES!

Holy Cow!

First of all I am surprised how a book with such a title ever got released in India, knowing how the mere mention of "cow" in India creates an uncalled for and an inexplicable furore! When I came across this book at Crossword, it grabbed my attention with the big colorful picture of Shiv and of course the name. But the cover photo and the name are very misleading when you turn to the back of the book that says it is an account of India by an Australian journalist who shows her middle finger to a guy, who reads her palm and predicts that she'll be back in India to fall in love with this country, while waiting to board her flight saying good riddance to the land she loathes--India!

And guess what! the guy's prediction does come true when she finds herself on a flight to India to join her boyfriend who works for ABC. She finds that eerie but nothing as to what awaits her in India. And thus begins her love story in and with India that takes her from Kashmir to Kerala on a roller-coaster ride of her emotions!

Answer this simple question: What does a pale white-skinned non-native Indian do when he/she arrives in India? and you know what this book is predictably about! She packs her rucksack and trots all over India from Vaishnodevi to visiting ashrams from Osho to Sai Baba to
Amma. I was wondering how she missed Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (after having visited Bangalore) but methinks back in 2003 when she was busy penning down her furious thoughts on paper, The Art of Living had not become the cult it is today!

For most part of the book, she only bitches about India and its multi-ethnicity and the zillions of faiths and traditions practiced. She is also unforgiving when it comes to our accents and the drawl and the real stuuuuuuuuuuupid way we speak English (Ms Sarah I am sure you have been meeting a lot of the wrong people). What's worse is she spells most of the Hindi words and expressions, used copiously in the book, horrendously herself. So much of hubris for not bothering to consult Hindi pundits after taking lessons from one for so long!

For 300+ pages, the book really becomes tiring and dull and so very predictable. Her own love story and her book become the cliched Bollywood material, which she detests sooooooooooo much!

The Simpsons Movie

I have always loved The Simpsons, maybe cos I can relate to a dysfunctional family belonging to one! So when I heard that the movie was going to get released, I waited with bated breath. Too bad that I could not watch it in the theater, so grabbed a DVD instead!

All my waiting was for nothing cos the movie was so terrible and catastrophic that it beggars description. In the first half hour of the movie, I was sleeping; the next half hour, I was snoring, and if my dear sis hadn't woken me up, perhaps I would have slipped into a coma. No exaggeration but this is how I would sum up the movie for you!

I am just appalled that this movie found producers to begin with! The screenplay would have been better written by a bunch of monkeys for the movie lacked the basic ingredients of a movie such as a storyline, dialogues, action, and most important that sells The Simpsons--The DARK COMEDY! Instead the movie was a big joke and not at all funny!

Fans like me are irate and insulted for being handed over a C-grade movie on a 70 mm. I am just wondering how it still features in the Top-5 in the US charts, but then again with yankees nothing can be explained!