Unsynchronicity

I had a mixed experience watching Chandramukhi - I liked the movie but I was distracted quite a bit in the first half by a slight lack of synchronisation between the sound and the visual. The sound was behind the lip movements by about 1/8th of a second I think - whenever this happened I was focussed more on estimating what the time difference between the sound and the visual was, and I forgot to focus on the action on the screen. This problem occured only during the first 45 minutes or so and even then not always, but it happened often enough to distract from the movie watching experience. I wonder if it was just that particular screening or just that particular theater (Santham) or widespread. I wouldn't think it was the last, otherwise there would be an issue made of it in the newspapers and on the net. I haven't come across anyone else having experienced the same problem. This is not a "woe is (was?) me" post, but just a way to get it out.

Superstar vs. One Rupee Coin

Sunday 5.14 PM: I last saw a Thalaivar(T) movie in a theater about 13 1/2 years back. This is the kind of admission that draws "if looks could kill" looks (justifiably, I might add) and "what is wrong with you?" comments. Yes, I have seen Dalapathy, Mannan, Annamalai and Baasha (unforgiveable and something I deeply regret) only on TV. There have been other forgettable T movies (Pandian, Uzhaippali, Baba) along the way and I don't regret having not seen any of them in a theater.

Sunday 5:15 PM: My brother got three tickets to Chandramukhi for the Wednesday evening show (6:45 PM) for my cousin, but my cousin has work and so has no use for the tickets. I was planning to see Chandramukhi anyway, but I hadn't gotten the tickets yet and combined with my apathy of late to things that need to be done, it is possible I might have missed watching another T movie in a theater. So I am grateful to my brother for the tickets.

Tuesday 6:30 PM: Looks like I might have to go alone to the movie even though I have three tickets.

Wednesday 6.10 PM: I am ready for the movie. The theater is at worst 15 minutes from
my home by bike (Y - important enough in the narrative to merit an initial). So I sit down to catch a bit of Simpsons on Star World before I leave.

Wednesday 6.20 PM: I couldn't really concentrate on TV (you need to do that?) and so I decide to head to the theater. I get the Y down (house is two feet above street level and to get the Y down to the street we have a 10 foot long, one foot wide wooden plank) and get the aforementioned plank back into the house.

Wednesday 6.22 PM: I kickstart the Y, check if the fuel switch is in the one position and press the clutch (C). It feels a tight and as if there is no pull. But I persist and then put the Y into first gear. The Y leaps a foot forward and dies. I think that I let go of the C too soon - a simple mistake that someone just learning to ride a bike makes, not something that someone who has had a bike for as long as I have should make. I kickstart the Y and press the C (still tight) and get into the first gear and Y stops dead after a leap forward. What the hell?. I persist in getting my Y to move and once even quick switched to the second gear and get to the end of the street I live in. I have to stop before I can take a turn left. I try to get into first gear, put the break and keep the C engaged till traffic clears. But my Y has other plans apparently and stops dead again. Obviously something is wrong with the C and I start panicking. The movie is scheduled to start in 23 minutes and the Y is misbehaving. Should I forget the movie and go back home (less than 50 m away) and get the Y repaired the next morning?. I didn't know how serious the problem with the Y was. The shop I usually get my Y repaired at is near (6-7 minutes pushing the Y I learn later!).

Wednesday 6:30 PM: I am at the mechanic shop, sweating profusely from having pushed the Y in the warm, humid weather. The mechanic (M - nice guy, always helpful, always courteous and, btw, a good mechanic too) is working on another bike. Come on, doesn't the world know I am going to a T movie and I have to be there in 15 minutes. Thanfully M finishes work on the other bike in a couple of minutes and gets started on my Y. I don't tell him it is urgent but he might have guessed it from my body language. He starts working at a furious pace with his screw driver. He opens up the gear box (is that the right term for a Y?) and finds the villain - a greasy one rupee coin (ORC) is inside the gear block and has been jamming the spring attached to the clutch. I know how it got there - a couple of months back I was at a petrol buck on Cathedral Road getting oil for my Y. The young man there offered to pour it into the oil tank under the seats. I rememeber now that he first used a ORC to get a screw (holding the oil tank tight) loose. He dropped it somewhere on the bike and couldn't find it. I was a little miffed and promised myself to look for the coin later in case it gets stuck somewhere and becomes a problem. Ofcourse I forgot to look for the coin and now the coin apparently felt lonely and wanted to be found. Couldn't it find a better time to be get itself found? or finded or unlost?. I hate ORC's with a vehemance I usually reserve for RJs that talk too much and play awful tappankoothu songs way too frequently.

Wednesday 6:45 PM: M refuses to accept any monetary compensation for his heroic effort in finding the ORC. I get the Y started and am off to the races. About hundred yards later I meet a huge pile of earth piled high at an intersection and am forced to go real slow in my more immediate quest to get to the other side of the huge pile of earth.

Wednesday 6:49 PM: I barely beat the signal at an intersection only to run into a red signal. The timer on the signal indicates I have red for another seventy seconds. I hate this signal - I take the above combination of signals quite often and almost always end uo with a red on the second signal. Doesn't the world know I am going to a T movie and I sould have been there 5 minutes ago?.

Wednesday 6:55 PM: I have not encountered any more red signals and am in the last stretch to the theater, a straight road to the theater with out any more signals. It is a narrow road though and nearly half of it has been rendered unusable because of road work/electricity work/ metrowater work. I have to go slow and wait for cars from the opposite direction to go past me. Can't they have taken a wider road?.

Wednesday 6:59 PM: I am in the parking lot of the theater and get a nice spot to park. How much of the movie have I missed?. Have I missed the very important T introduction song?.

Wednesday 7:02 PM: I am inside the theater and thank god the movie hasn't started yet. Infact, the screen is black and even the trailer/ads haven't started yet. I take my position (second to fourth seats in a row - easy to get out but painful to pull your legs back for others desirous of going out).

Wednesday 7:10 PM: The movie han't started yet. There have been ten ads so far. Excuse me Mr.Operator, can you start the movie soon?.

Wednesday 7:15 PM: S U P E R S T A R

The movie starts atlast and, while the last hour has been stressful, I forget it all as soon as I hear the traditional T intro music behind the word SUPERSTAR.

Musharraf visit

Many Indian bloggers have decided to protest Musharraf's visit to India to watch an ODI by putting up a "Not welcome banner". I am joining the protest too.

Musharraf stabbed India in the back while Vajpayee was in Lahore trying to further the peace process with Nawaz Sharif. For this reason and many more, it is rather painful to see the US government treat Musharraf as a great ally in its War on Terrorism. How the Americans can trust Pakistan when A.Q. Khan has been caught passing on nuclear technology to Iran (and possibly other countries) is hard to understand. In this context, the Ackerman Bill is to welcomed by all "right" thinking Indians and Americans. The ISI, atleast by Indian and American media accounts, is a very powerful force in Pakistan and it is not believable that A.Q.Khan engaged in his nefarious work without their (and hence Musharraf) knowing. The quick pardon(Seymour Hersh, CNN, Rediff) that A.Q.Khan got from Musharraf also supports this conclusion, becuase it serves both their purpose - A.Q.Khan get spared and Musharraf escapes blame by pinning the entire episode on a rogue nuclear scientist who cannot be punished severely on account of his being a national hero. Nice charade.

While searching for articles about A.Q.Khan's pardon, I came across this - US supports A.Q.Khan pardon. So the issue (Nuclear proliferation) that both US presidential candidates considered the most important security threat to the USA is swept under the carpet by the pardon and the US supports, but Modi is a mass murderer (proved so in a court I guess) and must be denied a visa.

Since the communists gave the clean chit to Musharraf a few weeks back and rile about Modi, their position on A.Q.Khan is pretty clear too, I suppose.

For details about image, go to The Acorn.

End of days

If life on earth comes to a sudden end in the next few days, you could do worse than blaming it on me ("how can we blame you after life came to an end?" - well, aren't you the dickens!). I was at Landmark yesterday and as I was leaving, having paid the right amount (more on this in the next post), I saw cassettes and CD's of Bose: the forgotten hero placed strategically to make people indulge in impulse buys and I obliged. Bose is a Hindi movie directed by Shyam Benegal and scored by A.R. Rahman. Now why would that cause an end to life on earth.

Well, it was the first Hindi movie cassette I had ever bought. So what's the big deal you ask?. As a student in a CBSE school I studied (in a "to pass the exam" kind of way) Hindi for eight years. My lack of Hindi "skills" is legendary among friends. I passed Hindi exams for 8 years without ever learning to read (understanding what I read) or speak Hindi. I could write a little bit in Hindi (that is if I did not forget what little I had memorized the day before the exam). So I almost never watch Hindi movies and, while I have passed the phase of physically attacking friends who conversed in Hindi in my presence even though they could have conversed in English or Tamil, try not to subject myself to anything Hindi.

I bought the cassette because it was an A.R.Rahman score and because i read somewhere that the theme music was good. My first impressions about the score are positive. It is haunting and melodious (sometimes together) and makes me look forward to watching a Hindi film for the first time in my life. Also, Netaji was and still is a very interesting personality and Shyam Benegal is a well respected film maker. It would be interesting to see if he takes any creative liberties with regard to Netaji's disappearance and also how he deals with Netaji's contacts with the Nazis.