I Hate Spammers

I probably would be one of the biggest victims of spams, considering that  I win multimillion dollars  euros and rupees every week, some dying nigerian prince wants to share his wealth with me for some reason (considering the amount of such mails I receive I believe life expectancy for Nigerian princes is very low and every Nigerian is a wealthy prince), everyday at least one girl promises to be the best life partner I could ever have, some mails have even started selling me child insurance (probably hoping that I would have by now fallen for one of those marry me spams), often RBI or Income Tax department expects me to share my account details with them, which they already have easy access to. Sometimes I receive mails with suspicious attachments, which I have never had the courage to open. Every week I receive multiple tips about earning quick money from home and almost daily I receive multiple e-mails about some walk-in for some opening in some call center offering me 10 times lower salary than what I already earn. All these are mails delivered to my inbox. Now imagine what I would find if I ever check my spam folder which receives at least 10 times more mails than the inbox. 

However recently I have noticed that I do not receive any such mails on a Sunday. That made me wonder that these spammers have become organized and have started taking weekly offs. Since I started the thought process, I continued and decided to trace the roots of spams. According to wikipedia "Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately." I think that spams go much beyond the invention of electronic-mails. 

I belong to a generation that probably still remembers that post offices were not exclusively intended to be used for sending government or corporate communications. I have used inland letters and postcards during my early hostel days to communicate with my parents and I remember receiving postcards with some story written in it and asking me to send 10-100 such postcards to random addresses if I do not want to be cursed or if I want to be blessed. Much similar to a picture of some god on facebook asking you to share the picture if you want the blessings. Now writing a postcard and posting takes much effort than clicking share button on facebook yet just the fact that I myself have received some such postcards means that some people then used to put that effort. The number could have been much higher it the postcards said "Alcohol god will drink all your stock for a dry day if you do not share this with 25 people" or "the hot girl in your college will fall for you if you send this to 10 people" (much like deodorant commercials) etc.

Nowadays with social media becoming so prominent we are seeing multiple people becoming spammers without even realising it. Otherwise how do you classify multiple people sharing posts with titles like "Share and see what happens" (this I think is the most stupid of them all), "if you love you mother, share this post" (now how much I love my family is decided basis the amount of spamming I do), "Share, if you love Jesus" (if I do not share an stupid post on facebook, somehow that makes me an atheist). Most prominent of them all are by these pseudo patriots who believe that clicking like on a facebook post with change the country and make it corruption free. These guys more often share posts with content, which they were too lazy to verify. The height of this stupidity reached its peak when some prominent people in our national politics thought that they can make APJ Abdul Kalam the president of the country again without him even contesting for the post. 

In short. I hate spammers. Except for the ones who are too stupid to make me laugh. 

Heroine: Not a Review

I have not seen the movie yet and I am not sure if and when I will watch it. So this post if not a review of the movie and should not be used to determine how good or bad the movie is. This post is purely basis the pre-release activities of the movie. This post is a result of my discussion about the film with my friend and the analysis the followed. 

We realised that Heroine while it appears to be is not a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie. I do not think I have to say much about what a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie is, yet for those who yet have any disconnects. Madhur claims to be a realistic filmmaker (whatever the hell that means). This claim helps him win National Awards, because National Awards jury are sucker for realistic cinema. Madhur typical picks up a setting like dance bars, jail, traffic signal, corporate world etc and puts together all the perceived evils about the particular settings and then tries to fit all these evils in the form of a story. Irrespective of the setting he chooses, the common factor about most of his movies is that the setting is the lead protagonist of the story and all the characters are designed to portray the evil impacts of the chosen setting on themselves. Pick any of his popular movies from Chandani Bar to Fashion and you would understand what I am trying to say here. He even creatively ;) chooses his titles to avoid any confusion in the minds of tha audience. Chandani Bar is about dance bars, Page 3 is about page 3 parties, Corporate is about corporate world, Traffic Signal is about traffic signal, Fashion is about fashion industry and Jail is about, well; jail. The reason he casts not so famous faces in his movies is because he does not want the actors to dilute the portrayal of the surrounding and in few cases where he hired known actors, I presume they were instructed to play their part in a way that highlights the surrounding and not themselves. Counting the number of National Awards he has won, that seems to have been working well for him so far.

Now lets talk about Heroine. The title itself is enough to give away the difference from other Bhandarkar's movies. The title is not Showbiz or Films or Entertainment or Bollywood that means the movie is not about the Film Industy, it is about the Heroine. The main protagonist here is not the setting, it is in this case the Character played by Kareena Kapoor. Since I have not seen the movie, I cannot say how this diversion from his usual style has shaped up. Last time he deviated from his usual style, he gave us Dil To Baccha Hai. So you can get an idea.

The poster screams "it's all about Kareena"

Now imagine how his other movies would have been if Chandani Bar was titled Bar Dancer, Page 3 was named Celebrity, Corporate was named VP-Marketing, Traffic Signal was named Homeless, Fashion was named Super Model and Jail was named Qaidi (prisoner). What that changes is that they now become stories about the impact of the lead characters on their surroundings rather than other way round. Now I am expecting the people who have seen Heroine to tell me how accurate our analysis is.

The Dark Knight Rises...and how

When you have Chirstopher Nolan in the driving seat, you expect a roller coaster ride. The journey started with The Batman Begins and for the first time we witnessed someone taking superheroes seriously. In India we have Ramayana and Mahabharata; in Europe they have Iliad and Odyssey but comic books are closest thing to mythology for Americans and here we had someone treating them the way they should have been. You see how a directionless Bruce Wayne became Batman and decided to fight crime in his city in Batman Begins. Then you see Batman going into hiding after taking the blame of a crime he did not commit, trying to make Gotham a better place to live based on a lie in The Dark Knight, which by all means remains the best superhero movie ever made. Making a follow up to The Dark Knight is a challenging task. Since the day I had seen that in 2008, I have been waiting for the Dark Knight Rises and followed every news/gossip around that. Then Chris Nolan released Inception in between and raised the expectations even higher. 

I have been wandering how the trilogy would end. What would be the epic conclusion? Then the first look for the movie was released and it was a statue of Batman in Gotham city hall and I thought may be finally we get a filmmaker bold enough to kill a superhero. Then the question is how will Batman be killed? It will be stupid to get him killed by some villain. You cannot possibly have a villain stronger than a hero, that is beyond the age old concept of good vs evil. So I was thinking may be Batman will go evil for some reason and will be killed by either Alfred since he had promised to protect him and this could be his way of protecting from himself. Or would he be killed by Gordon? Then I saw the casting and found that Joseph Gordon Levitt is in there too and expected him to be the one to kill Batman and make Batman what became of Harvey Dent in the end of the Dark Knight, a symbol of goodness in Gotham. 

Finally putting all speculations to rest, the wait was finally over and here I was watching The Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated movie in the history of film making. The movie starts eight years after where the Dark Knight ended. Crime rate in Gotham is almost zero, thanks to the Dent Act. Batman has not been seen since the day he took the blame of killing Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne is living a solitary life in Wayne Mansion. Gorgeous Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle, a thief wearing a cat mask. You guessed it right, she is the Cat Woman. (It had to be someone as Anne Hathway to erase the memories of Halle Berry's horrible version.) From this very scene the movie starts building the premise for the epic finale, which you realise and appreciate when you see the last scene. 

Bane is the League of Shadows and intends to finish Ra's al Ghul's destiny i.e. complete destruction of Gotham. He starts with crashing a plane after kidnapping a scientist mid air. He looks menacing with his towering presence and radiator mask. Batman decides to come out of retirement to face Bane but this time he is in for a surprise. For the first time he is facing a villain physically superior than him and the fight results in Bane breaking his bones and throwing him in the pit called "the worst hell on earth" with a tv to watch what he is going to do to Batman's beloved city. But Batman is not destined to die in the pit. He has other plans. Other than his usual friends Alfred, Fox and Gordon; he has James Blake a rookie detective along with the Cat Woman to help him in his fight to save Gotham.

The movie has some references to the first movie and you are in for some surprises and twists. However it is the ending although little bit expected that bowls you over and leaves you as excited as you were in the beginning of the movie. I cannot imagine a better fitting end to the trilogy. 

I will not talk about the usual cast members because you already know. They are all in the same form as they were in the earlier two movies. This time you have Tom Hardy playing Bane, who scares you with his intimidating presence and that husky voice filtered through that radiator mask. Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle/Catwoman and she is awesome. I may be little biased here though. Marion Cotillard is Miranda Tate who joins Wayne Industries' board to save it from going into wrong hands and has little fling with Bruce in the process. Then you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt as James Blake, the rookie cop who believes in Batman. 

The story is well crafted keeping the finale in mind with interesting twists in between to keep you hooked. The action scenes are well executed like the aerial stunt in the beginning and the destruction of the football field you must have seen in the trailers. In the gadget department also you have a new introduction the Bat, "there is nothing like some aerial superiority". The dialogues are to the point, be it Bane's commanding tone or Alfred's philosophical conversations or witty one liners by Selina. Hans Zimmer's background score does well to alleviate the tension. 

So all of you. Get your seats booked and don't forget to fasten your seat belts because you are in for the ride of a life time. A fitting finale to an epic tale. On the sad note we will never again see Chris Nolan direct another Batman movie and neither we will see Christian Bale in that Cape. Whenever DC Comics decides to reboot the franchise they have really high standards to meet. 

My Favourite Acting Performances so far in 2012

Almost half the year is over and we have seen some very fine movies being released. Directors like Tigmanshu Dhulia, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap, making sure that we are not forced to watch mindless movies. There have been some very fine performances by some very fine actors and here I am listing three of my favourites. There are my best actor nominees for the first half of 2012.

Irrfan in and as Paan Singh Tomar

Irrfan is undoubtedly one of the finest actors Hindi film industry has got and in Paan Singh Tomar he plays the title role of the national record holder athlete who turns rebel to protect his family when authorities fail to take any action. He becomes an athletes because there was no limitations on amount of food he could eat. He chooses steeplechase over 5000 meters race because his coach wanted someone else to with 5000 meters race. He becomes a rebel because his cousin beats his son and his mother. He chose to be interviewed because he did not want to be considered as a brutal murderer rather he considered himself to be known as a rebel with a cause. He does not surrender because he believes in always finishing the race, no matter what. His only regret in life is that when he was an international athlete nobody cared for him and when he became a rebel everyone was talking about him.

Irrfan is so convincing that at no point you stop rooting for him whether he is running for the country in a race or chasing his evil cousin or running from the police. You always want him to win and that is the power of Irrfan's talent as an actor. He brings Paan Singh Tomar back alive and tells his story as if he himself is telling his own story. He looks the part, he speaks the language and he expresses the pain perfectly.

Emraan Hashmi in Shanghai as Jogi Parmar

It was such a surprise to see chumma man with such a dirty mouth and stained teeth that nobody would dare kiss him and what a pleasant surprise that is. Jogi Parmar's character in Shanghai is a complex one. He shoots illegal porn videos for living but risks his life to unearth the truth behind the killing of an activist for the sake of a girl he barely knows.

He works in a photo studio and earns his living by making illegal porn videos however his disinterest is evident. He knows it is dirty and stops the girl whom he considers his dreamgirl from sitting on the same bed where he shoots his dirty pictures. He has lived a life of anonymity and loves the attention whenever he thinks he has done something worth showing off like when he gets the foreigner girl to sit on the backseat of his scooter. He abandoned his family to save his life and in an attempt of correct that he endangers his life to recover the proof that could help identify the real conspirators behind the killing of the social activist. Emraan Hashmi as Jogi Parmar has clearly proved that kissing is not his only talent.

Manoj Bajpayee in Gangs of Wasseypur as Sardar Khan

Sardar Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur is personification of pure evil. There is not a single quality in him. He enjoys killing people and justifies it in the name of revenge. He cheats on his wife and justifies it by citing a convenient interpretation of religion. He is scared of his wife because he knows he is bad.

Manoj Bajpayee brings back the memories of Bhikhu Mhatre, who bowled us over. He is in top form in GoW and is having fun playing the evil protagonist. Be it casually killing someone without showing any emotion or flirting with his women or panicking when his son it hit by a bullet or showing his contempt while publicly challenging his powerful enemy or trying to spot his attackers after being hit by multiple bullets, he does everything to perfection.

I have only seen the trailers of Gang of Wasseypur 2 but I am expecting that I will have to add one more name to this list after watching that and that would be of Nawazuddin Siddique. He is one fine actor.

ACP Pradyuman's Law of Solving Crime

ACP Pradyuman needs no introduction. Everyone who has ever seen any episode of CID in last 15 years knows him very well. Who have not seen CID would know him from a lot of CID jokes doing rounds over the internet and mobile world. Whomsoever still does not recognise him can stop reading further because this post is not for them.

ACP has been solving crime for last 15 years without fail with no promotions or transfers. He has not been promoted or transferred because he is indispensable. He has derived a method of solving crime, which is foolproof and has not failed him ever in last so many years. We will call this method "ACP's Law of Solving Crime".

Everyone familiar with ACP is familiar with this image of him.

Over the years people have noticed him making this gesture with his right hand and likened it to Fleming's Right Hand Rule. Very few people have actually understood the real meaning of this gesture. For the benefit of all here is the explanation. This is ACP Law of Solving Crime. His three fingers are pointing towards three different directions and they mean that you need three points to solve any crime conclusively i.e. it requires a combination of total three evidences or witness to nail the correct culprit. With two points you can reach a suspect but it always requires a third point to find the real criminal.

This three point rule is the reason any typical CID investigation is run in three parallel streams. One is normally headed by Abhijeet, second is headed by Daya and last but not the least third is headed by highly talented Dr Salunkhe. When all these three mutually exclusive lines of investigations point to same direction you finally nail the criminal.

Gangs of Wasseypur

After so many disappointing movies this year, this was a movie I was looking forward to. You expect a lot from a movie with likes of Anurag Kashyap, Manoj Bajpai, Tigmanshu Dhulia (director of some of my favourite movies, acting for the first time), Piyush Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddique (Peepli Live and Kahaani) associated with it.

The movie starts with a bunch of people attacking a house with guns and grenades. Then the movie goes into flashback and we are told about the history of coal mafia in Dhanbad and the rivalry between Qureshi's and Khan's. Rashid Khan is forced out of his village Wasseypur by Sultana daku and he is forced to work for Ramadhir Singh. When Ramadhir discovers about Rashid's plans to kill him, he gets him killed instead. Rashid's son Sardar Khan makes revenge from Ramadhir only motive of his life. He does not just want to kill Ramadhir, he wants to destroy him and wants him to know who is causing this destruction and why. He tells his wife Nagma, "Saale ki kah ke lunga." While Sardar is planning his revenge in Dhanbad, the story shifts to Wasseypur and Sardar gets into fights against Sultan, nephew of the same Sultana daku who forced his father out of his village.

In Dhanbad, Sardar Khan is making babies with his wife Nagma and in Wasseypur he get involved with Durga. The story moves on and Sardar's sons grow to work for him, while Sultan now working for Ramadhir plans to get rid of Sardar and attacks him. Now we must wait for the next part to see where the story goes.

It's difficult to make audience relate to a protagonist who is made of all evil. It requires talents like Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino to achieve that. Anurag Kashyap and Manoj Bhajpai have achieved something of that sort here. Sardar Khan has not a single good quality about him, yet you can relate to the character. Thanks to brilliant direction and superb acting. Tigmanshu Dhulia is the surprise packet as Ramadhir Singh. Who knew the talented director can be so good in front of the camera as well. Richa Chaddha is spot on as Nagma. It was Nawazuddin Siddique's act as Faizal Khan that ensured even higher expectations from 2nd part. Everyone of the actors were spot on and played their part perfectly, which is so rare when you have a such a big line up of characters. The setting and the language was consistent through out the length of the film. This is one Indian gangster movie in true sense showing the real gangs from the part of India that is rarely explored by our film industry. There is so much happening to so many characters that most of the characters are not developed completely and many times you rely on the background narration to know about them, which sometimes can be confusing if you are not paying attention. You have to be at the edge of your seats to completely appreciate the movie.

In the end special mention to the music. Did anyone ever think that "teri kah ke lunga.." can be a song?

The Amazing Spiderman: A Love Story

If you could erase Spiderman 3 from your memory, first two Spiderman movies were almost perfect. After third movie studio decided a reboot of the franchise and came up with The Amazing Spiderman. They changed everything, but kept all that was wrong with Spiderman 3. The result is less of a superhero movie and more of a love story. If I wanted to watch a love story I would not have chosen Spiderman. When I go for a superhero movie I expect some super action and I believe it was stupid of the makers to sacrifice action for the sake of parallel love track.

The Amazing Spiderman starts with a young Peter Parker being left to his uncle Ben's custody by his parents, who never come back. Search for his father's past leads him to Oscorp where he gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider and gains his superpowers. He then uses his new found powers to confront high school bully and impress his crush Gwen Stacy. When he decides to not stop a burglar, who ends up killing his uncle, he turn a vigilante searching for his uncle's killer. In a stupid move he hands over his father's formula, to Dr Curt Conners, probably the same person his father was trying to hide it from. The formula helps Dr Conners become a giant lizard, giving girls across the world more reason to be afraid of lizards. Now spidey takes it as his responsibility to save the world from the giant lizard. The climax fight is not very impressive and much less spidey-like.

While Andrew Garfield does a fine job as Peter Parker, I believe Tobey Maguire was a better Spiderman. Green Goblin and Doc Oc were more menacing than Dr Conners' giant lizard. On the positive side Gwen Stacy is much better than monotonous Mary Jane. Director Mark Webb leaves his mark on the scenes between Peter and Gwen but I would rather watch (500) Days of Summer again for that rather than look for those elements in a superhero movie. Also 3D experience in Big Cinemas sucks.

I am now waiting for The Dark Knight Rises, hoping Nolan will not disappoint.

Inspired by Saas-Bahu style fights with-in team Anna, Balaji announces a daily soap around the same

So many fights among various members of team Anna has inspired leading TV producer Balaji telefilms to launch a daily soap around the same. A senior executive in Balaji confirmed to Faking News, "These fights are so much similar to saas-bahu fights, which is the premise for all our daily soaps and we want to jump to the opportunity and exploit the situation. This will also save us whatever we spend on screenwriter ans will be a unique combination of daily soap and reality TV thus capturing both the audience groups."

"Anna is like baa, who is respected being the eldest in the family but everyone thinks he is too old and senile to take a correct decision hence nobody follows his instructions. Baba Ramdev is like the illegitimate child trying his best to be adopted by the family name but this decision is not liked by the legitimate children of the family. That is why the eldest son Arvind stages a walk-out from the ceremony of including Ramdev as a family member." He draws a comparison from the latest event.

"This is not only about the plot and story line. It is also a wise business decision. We have found out that the TRP of Arnab's news hour debate on Times Now goes higher than our prime time shows on the days of these fights in team Anna. It is a clear indication that common Indian enjoys the drama in Anna's family more than the drama in Kapoor family." He justifies the decision further. "We have even modeled a character inspired by Arnab, who is like the Narad muni from those mythological serials" he adds further.

*Originally written for Faking News.

I want to be the President

So much discussion around coming presidential election has got my attention again after five years about the existence of the post. Since now I am again made aware of it, I somehow am feeling the urge to go for it. Not because I want to serve the nation by becoming the President. That is clearly not what last president did, as per the information available to us, which is almost non-existent. So I am assuming that if nobody was aware of your existence, you clearly did not do anything that made any difference.

Why I want to be the President is because of the benefits associated with it. Such as, you get to live in one of the biggest houses in the world for five years. You get to holiday in all corners of the world along with your family and friends without worrying about the cost, since Indian public is paying so much tax to sponsor those holidays anyway. Even when you are out of office all your expenses are sponsored by the government. Above all you do not have any accountability of any of your actions or inaction. This clearly sounds like the best job in the world.

What more, I think I am also qualified for the job. I do not have any political affiliations. Nobody knows me. I can even enjoy my holidays better than the current President. I will not make for an awkward sight on a beach. Besides our country will feel so good on finally having a president who can walk on his own without any assistance. It can also help fool other world leaders for India finally becoming a progressive country by having a young head of state.

The only thing that probably disqualifies me for the job is that I am not completely useless.

Agent Vinod: An Incompetent Secret Agent Surviving on Coincidences

Who are not able to gather how the film would be from the title of this post, just imagine Pink Panther without the comedy part. Like Inspector Clouseau, Agent Vinod is incompetent. What else you can say about a secret agent who is never aware of his surroundings. He get so engaged secretly listening to a conversation that he doesn't even realise that someone can come from behind and hit him on the head. Almost every time he manages to escape alive is because of shear coincidences. For the first time I have seen a serious secret agent believing on everyone he meets despite being betrayed on many occasions. I think it would be unfair to Vinod to corner him like this when the head of his agency is stupid enough to make a call to ISI head and asks him point blank, if he is involved in the ongoing crisis and even lets Pakistani High Commissioner inside the control room of RAW. Wish international espionage was so simple. Rather than trying to figure out what is going on, just call the people you suspect and ask them direct questions. 

Movie starts with Agent Vinod being caught because of his incompetence in the middle of an operation inside some factory in Pakistan. He shows his smoothness by exposing his fellow agent to his captors and then saves himself and his partner by sheer coincidence because his captors are equally or even more incompetent. Then the same thing repeats in different cities on different parts of the world. This somewhere involves some shady stereotype characters and a nuclear bomb. In this process he meets his Pakistani counterpart Iram and they fall in love, because that's what secret agents of two warring nations do. 

Saif Ali Khan is smooth and is able to pull off the desi bond tag, at this moment I cannot think of anyone else who could suit this tag better than him. Unfortunately he does not have the script to back him up. Since the movie was not about exploring acting talent of the cast, lets avoid discussing that. The movie takes you on a world tour making you wander if RAW agent Vinod doubled as a travel agent. There is not all bad about the movie though. There is one action scene shot is a restaurant in continuous shot with single camera, which is truly remarkable. 

First Day in Pune (Summer of 2004)

During the summers of 2004, I was in Pune for my summer internship in Forbes Marshall, Kasarwadi. I was new in Pune and was staying at Kothrud with some of my seniors from IIT. I checked with one of my seniors, whom we used to call uncle, the way to reach Kasarwadi. Uncle told me that I would get a bus from the nearest bus stop to Corporation and from Corporation I can get bus to any place. 

Next day morning I was at the nearest bus stop waiting for the bus that would take me to the corporation. There were some people waiting at bus stop so I decided to ask them if there were any direct bus to my destination Kasarwadi. I asked one bystander, which bus would take me to Kasarwadi. He responded, "Nigadi jayegi". I did not understand what he meant. I thought Nigadi must be some word in marathi. I checked with some other people and they all gave me same response. So I decided to walk to next bus stop. People at the next bus stop also told me the same. I thus walked to the 5th bus stop from Kothrud and checked with people standing there. This person again told me, "Nigadi jayegi." I couldn't stop but ask him, "yahan bus ke number nahi hote kya?" This guy somehow understood my problem and told me that he is going to the same direction and I can accompany him. So I decided to follow him.

The person from the bus stop climed the next bus and I followed. He asked for the ticket to Manapa and I did the same. The bus finally stopped at Manapa and the person got off the bus and I climbed down with him. The guy asked me to get a ticket for Kasarwadi from the ticket counter. After getting the ticket I got in the bus and I noticed that Nigadi is a place and not a Marathi word and all those people were at those bus stops were trying to tell me that the buses going to Nigadi will pass through Kasarwadi. On my way to Kasarwadi I was looking out of the bus and I noticed at one particular place on a wall just above a window Khadaki was written and I told myself, "kitne pagal log hain, khidaki ko khadaki likh rakha hai." 

Finally I noticed Forbes Marshall office and got off the bus. In the evening I had to come back to Kothrud and the helping stranger from morning was obviously not there. So I decided to follow the same path back. I waited for a bus and got on the first bus I got. In the bus I asked the conductor to give me a ticket to Manapa. I gave him the money and he gave me the ticket. Then another person who climbed the bus with me asked for a ticket to Corporation. That reminded me what uncle said previous morning. So I asked the conductor to give me a ticket to Corporation instead of Manapa. The conductor looked at me and told me, "same hi hai." I thought may be the cost of ticket to Manapa and Corporation is same. In the bus I noticed some people buying tickets for Khadaki also. Finally the bus stopped at Manapa and everyone got out. I realised that this is the last stop and this will probably not go to Corporation, so I got down. The moment I got off the bus I looked up and noticed a big bright red sign board Pune Municipal CORPORATION, MAha NAgar PAlika.

That day I learned three things Nigadi is name of a place, Corporation and Manapa are same and Khadaki is not a spelling mistake.

Roadies Audition

Ranvijay: Naam kya hai tumhara?

XYZ: xyz.

Ranvijay: Matlab.

XYZ: Sir, main variable hun. 

Rajiv: Matlab kya hai tumhara. Ye tumhara real name hai?

XYZ: Nahi sir. Pahle mera naam kuchh aur tha. Fir maine maths mein padha ki xyz ko jis bhi equation mein daal do unki value equation ke hisab se badal jaati hai. Mujhe laga main bhi waisa hi hun. Situation ke hisab se badal jata hun. Isliye maine apna naam change kar diya xyz.

Raghu: Tu Roadie kyon banna chahta hai?

XYZ: Kyonki main ban sakta hun.

Rajiv: Tujhe aisa kyon lagta hai ki tu Roadie ban sakta hun?

XYZ: Kyonki main variable hun. Main kuchh bhi ban sakta hun. Roadie bhi.

Raghu: Tujhe pata hai Roadies mein kaisi situations hoti hain?

XYZ: Sir, variable ko kabhi faraq nahi padta use kisi bhi equation mein daal do.

Ranvijay: Ok. Prove us, you are what you say you are. A variable.

XYZ: Aapko kya lagta hai, main abhi tak kya kar raha tha?

Players: Twist in Oliver Twist

When you hear of 'The Italian Job' the very first thing that comes to your mind is a daylight robbery in the middle of traffic. Then you hear that it is being remade in India, the first thing in your mind would be what better place to set this up in other than Mumbai. Disappointingly the Indian filmmakers who made this remake set it up in Russia and New Zealand and even more disappointingly traffic has very little to do with it. I would have rather admired an Italian Job style robbery in Mumbai using Tata Nanos. Tata probably would have sponsored this few hours long ad-film. In that case the dialog "sau crore ki abaadi waale desh mein..." also would have made sense. But then, you do not expect sense from director duo Abbas-Mastan, whom I have fondly started calling Ab bas Mastan after watching their version of The Italian Job hoping they will get the message and stop making such senseless movies.

Lets go for gold guys.

Players starts exactly in the same fashion as the old Italian Job with Aftab Shivadasani getting killed by Russian (it was Italian in the original) mafia. His wife goes to Abhishek Bacchan, whose character has been creatively named Charlie (just as in the original), to give him a book, which is supposedly have coded message about a dvd hidden in the book with a plan to carry out the robbery of the century. We will later learn that the code was so stupid that anyone could crack it and get to know about the dvd and the plan. Anyway, moving on with the story, we are now introduced to Sonam Kapoor, who hacks into Abhishek's computer from her iPad while driving. How? Because she has studied computer science and apple is magic. Next we are introduced to Vinod Khanna, who is running the con-world through his jail cell just like Mr Bridger in original, without whose help we are told the great robbery cannot be executed. Vinod Khanna decides to help Abhishek Bacchan in his plan for a greater cause i.e. to build the world's best orphanage. Yes. That is his reason. You can imagine what he would have dreamt of about this great orphange since his share of the great robbery would be 4000 Crore. Vinod Khanna helps Abhishek set up a team of world's bests, which includes Sikandar Kher, world's best expert in explosives, who is deaf from his one ear; Omi Vaidya, world's best make up artist, who is still stuck with his 3 idiots character; Bipasha Basu, world's best seductress and Bobby Deol playing his real self as world's best illusionist, who is so bad that at the two occassions he tried to create illusion on one instant he ended up paralyzing his daughter for life and on second he ends up alerting one of the soldiers about the ongoing gold robbery. However at this point I was curious to know what kind of robbery Vinod Khanna had planned, that includes an illusionist as part of the plan. But there is only one problem they also need worlds best hacker Spider. Who is hiding and cannot be contacted. Computer engineer Sonam Kapoor comes to the rescue and locates Spider at his exact hiding place in Goa probably by logging into hacker.com and searching for Spider and getting his exact location on google maps. Or may be because she is a computer engineer and apple is magic. 

The Illusionist

With the team of world's best players set for the great gold robbery they leave for Russia and plan for the robbery in the most casual fashion, because casual is cool. Robbery does happen and again 2nd time after Ra.One we are made to believe that clocks run slower on a moving train. 

With the help of exit plan e-mailed by Vinod Khanna, they manage to escape and you check your watch thinking the movie is over but wonder why there was no interval. That is when Abbas-Mastan realise there is one more Italian Job movie and one from the group turns traiter to play the part played by Edward Norton and some characters are conveniently killed since there only 4 players needed for 2nd part of the movie. At this very moment you also realise that this is all set to be a very long movie. 

Sonam Kapoor trying to be sexy.

Second half of the movie is 2003 Italian Job with some mnior modifications that includes fucking up the whole traffic robber sequence and making it even more lame. In second half Neil Nitin Mukesh (spider) is Edward Norton, Abhishek Bacchan is Mark Wahlberg, Sonam Kapoor is Charlize Theron+the real napster (because she is computer engineer and apple is magic), Sikandar Kher is Jason Statham, Omi Vaidya is idiot and Johnny Lever the car mechanic. 

There is not much to look forward to Players. The entire cast seems to be competing with each other to win the worst actor trophy. The story is nothing but both the italian job movies back to back with some twists, which have made the story worse rather than improving it. Like any other recent movie of Abbas Mastan, dialog writer was told to use the key word Player in every three sentences and it gets irritating with every repetition. I would recommend you all to watch The Italian Job, either of them, rather than going for this irritating, laughable and senseless movie. 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Producer Tom Cruise: I don't rememeber when was the last time I was in a decent film. Lets make another of those mission impossible movies and since people in USA have already stopped watching my movies I will make it for the third world countries. 

Producer J J Abrams: Cool. A MI movie would involve a lot of computer stuff so lets hire the director of The Incredibles to direct this one.

Director Brad Bird: Wow. My first live action movie and I am working with Tom Cruise and J J Abrams. Dear Sirs! please tell me how do you want to go about it.

Producer Tom Cruise: Since we have already decided the movie will be for the third world countries who still believe I am a super star, we will base it out of Asia. 

Director Brad Bird: Cool. What's most famous in Asia? I have heard about this tallest building, Burj something they have in Dubai.

Actor Tom Cruise: Great. We can have a stunt scene in that building. I will get a chance to show that I am still the action hero I used to be. 

Producer J J Abrams: Nice idea. Since the building is already famous, it will help in our promotions. By the way, you are not thinking about shooting the entire movie in Dubai, right? What's a MI movie which does not involve some International conspiracy.

Director Brad Bird: We can hire that guy from Slumdog movie and give it an India connection.

Producer J J Abrams: Now you are talking like a businessman Brad. We sure hired a smart guy as director for this movie Tom.

Director Brad Bird: I also have some leftover gadgets from my Incredibles movie, we can use them too.

Actor Tom Cruise: Like?

Director Brad Bird: Like a pair of gloves which sticks to walls.

Actor Tom Cruise: Hey. Why don't I climb that burj building using these gloves? Would be super exciting. Are we using masks in this movie? I don't want to wear a mask again.

Director Brad Bird: Don't worry. We will make someone else wear the mask this time. What is a MI movie without a mask otherwise?

Producer J J Abrams: Now since we have decided everything lets call our script team Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec.

Director Brad Bird: Guys! We are making a MI movie. The movie needs to have an action scene where Tom clims the burj building in Dubai using sticky gloves, it has an insignificant Indian character, it involves an International conspiracy something that could end the world. Something like a third world war. 

Writer Josh Appelbaum: A third world war. Then that must be between USA and Russia. Since it has always been that way in Hollywood.

Director Brad Bird: And also, it has to be Tom Cruise all the way. 

Writer Andre Nemec: Should we show that he doesn't have any help from IMF and does everything on his own? 

Writer Josh Appelbaum: Cool dude. You got some ideas.

Writer Andre Nemec: I got that from Burn Notice.

Director Brad Bird: We cannot call it Burn Notice. Oh dear! burning reminds me of that stupid Nicolas Cage movie Ghost Rider.

Writer Josh Appelbaum: We can call it Ghost Protocol. 

Biometric Authentication

It's a new year so I decided to start with something new. So far whatever I have written in this blog had very little to do with what I do professionally. This is the first post in the series of multiple posts I intend to write hoping that they reach out to relevant people.

With UID coming into picture and being discussed everywhere for reasons good or bad; there is another related topic gaining popularity, which is Biometric Authentication. I have had multiple discussions in the past, some dating even before UID became a hot topic in payment industry, related to authenticating the customers using their biometrics with people from varied backgrounds. I have even worked on and implemented one such solution for my organization couple of years ago. Some of the points put up by various people during those discussions surprised me. Here is what others suggested and what I believe.

Biometric Authentications is required more in rural India. 
One common point that most of the people seem to agree is that the need for biometric authentication is more in rural India. I beg to differ. First lets talk about why it is not as much a requirement in rural parts than in urban parts.

The primary reason given to support the above argument is the level of literacy and exposure to technology among rural population. They say that an illiterate person cannot handle the PIN. I say being illiterate and being stupid are two different things and they are not co-related. I have seen semi-literate people running successful business and I have also seen very educated people writing their PIN on the face of their cards (which is very risky and should not be done under any circumstances). I am assuming the assumption is that the group of population we are talking here are semi-literate because we are expecting them to perform banking transactions. So they understand numbers and also basic mathematics. Even if they don't PIN is not a 4 digit number, what I mean is if your PIN is 2645, it is not two thousand six hundred forty five; it's two six four five. As long as each of these images look different and can be matched with the images on the keypad of an ATM or a handheld device, anyone can punch the PIN with or without any education on mathematics.

They also fear that a rural person might not be able to keep the PIN secure. There could be two meanings to it. One, he may share his PIN with others. Well, tell a person that this is the key to access all your hard earned saving and sharing it with someone with mean you risk all of it and then see what they will do. They will keep it as their best kept secret. Two, someone could fraudulently get hold of the PIN. For this I am relying on the assumption that a fraudster is supposedly a smart person and no smart person would go through so much trouble to steal few hundreds/thousands while he can by using the same methods steal lacs from urban population.

So, as per my logic a rural semi-literate person can handle PIN very well and in many cases even better than  his urban literate counterpart.

Why biometric authentication is a bigger need for urban India?
This should be easy to explain, since most of the people reading this belong to this section and will be able to relate to it. Here we are talking about a population who needs to remember so many passwords that these days many mobile phone manufacturers have launched smartphones with in-built password keeper application. A common urban person who regularly uses his debit/credit card for transactions also is the person who needs to remember a bunch of passwords. For example: Debit Card PIN, Credit Card PIN (which I presume very few bother to remember and are lost when they need it for some specific transaction), telephone banking TIN, Internet Banking IPIN, e-mail password, workstation password, passwords to many social networks he might be a part of and so on. The list is endless. Now if to such people I tell that they need not remember a few of these passwords and they can be authenticated using their finger prints when they are using their card at ATM/POS and they can be recognized using their voice while using telephone banking, I personally believe they will be delighted. It will also save them the trouble of changing their password every few month for fear of compromising it.

Another point in support of my argument is the level of identity theft and skimming frauds, which are on the rise. As long as there is a PIN it can be compromised, if the fraudster is smart enough. Urban population is more likely target to such fraudster simply because they offer better return on investment to the fraudster. Now if there is no PIN and only my finger print can allow withdrawal of cash from an ATM, what any fraudster can do. If we manage to build a strong biometric authentication mechanism we may even be able to do away with cards. No cards, no card frauds.

Hoping for a brighter future and a happening year ahead for payment Industry.