ZZZunday

Finally saw the most acclaimed/criticized/appluaded movie of the year - Slumdog Millionairre.
Thanks to the back to back to back airing by Sony Pix.

Really amazing work by the team in recreating the slums and the life of the slumdwellers. Especially, the yooung Salim and Jamal, the depiction of the riots and the crimeland through their eyes was very well shot.

Coming to the criticism the movie received... true, it is not a masterpiece of cinema. But, to all those people who felt ashamed of the way the world looked at Mumbai and its slums, please accept reality.

Otherwise, it was another lazy Sunday spent munching Lays Stax, badams, and home delivery from Jai Hind Dhaba. I have decided that next weekend will be much more eventful.
Things to do include:
1) A visit to Victoria Memorial
2) A ride in the vintage trams
3) A long drive to Diamond Harbour...(in the cab though)

Political Commentary

Brijesh motivated me to write a post titled political commentary.

Elections 2009 are over and India is moving into a phase of stable governance sans Hindutva, sans Left front idealogies and sans the UP musclepower (read Mayawati, Mulayam angle). However, what excites me the most is Rahul Gandhi.

The man, did wonders in UP where Congress was routed in the last elections. To win nearly 20 odd seats and finish second in the 4 party race is an amazing achievement. Moreover, he is earnest, and is an inspiration to youngsters thinking about polilitcs as a career.

Though, as a criticism to this statement, yes, all of Congress' youth power are people from the political families. Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasad and that Assamese girl are all neta-sons. But, its a nice image makeover from the days where politicans wore the 60 year old, khadi kurta look. The future is indeed bright.

BJP on the other hand is facing an uphill task in reading the voters' mind. Hindutva doesnt exist in todays world, they do not have young faces to project, and Narendra Modi is an enigma. He can never be a national leader for the atrocities in Gujarat will always come back to haunt him. BJP desperately needs a new Atal Behari.

An interesting thing to note however, was the trend seen in Mumbai. Congress won 7/7 seats in Mumbai. However, in 6 of the seats, BJP-ShivSena combine were undone by the miscreant Raj Thakre's MNS. Their votes put together, they would have won 6 seats. However, MNS split the votes such that only Congress gained.

Though, unlike Brijesh, I did manage to travel to Mumbai and vote. That indeed made me happy.

Agarkar

I arranged the ODI bowling statistics of Indian bowlers and this is what came out!

Top Wicket Takers: Kumble (334), Srinath (315), Agarkar (288)

Top Averages: Kapil Dev (27.45), Agarkar (27.85), Srinath (28.08)

Top Strike Rate: Agarkar (32.9), Pathan (34.1) , Zaheer (36.8)

No. of 4+ wickets in an ODI: Agarkar(12), Kumble (10), Srinath (10)

Moreover, he also stands 4th on the best bowling figures.

The only place where he does not figure is obviously the economy rate column.