A Wedding too

After starting the day visiting a tatoo parlour, we ended it with attending one of my cousin's weddings. As usual the food was just too good and I made a pig of myself. I think I'm going to gain a few pounds this season.

Odeon: Some Girl(s)

After Coffee World and The Furniture Fair at Ice Skating Rink, we headed to G. D. Birla Sabhaghar to catch the 7.00pm show of Some Girl(s), the only English play at Odeon this year. We had over an hour and a half to kill and I decided to make the most of it. So I found a parking spot, parked the car and caught up on some much needed sleep. An hours nap later we found ourselves ushered into the theatre and got ourselves the best seats in the house and awaited the start of the play.

The play was fabulous with equally distributed and well enacted performances by the four ladies, but the male lead was just brilliant.

Play: Some Girl(s)
Language: English
Director: Nadir Khan
Cast: Mukul Chadda, Shivani Tanksale, Juhi Pande, Tarana Raja Kapoor, Radhika Mittal
Production House: Q Theatre Productions
Venue: G D Birla Sabhaghar

for more details on upcoming plays visit: VODAFONE

Coffee World Revisited

After the Dolls Museum, we headed out to Coffee World for a bite. They food has just convinced me that I'll be visiting this place more often.

Nehru Childrens Dolls Museum

The day started with us visiting a Tattoo parlour and then doing brunch at Mcdonalds, Mani Square.

After that I finally made it to the Nehru Children's Dolls Museum for the first time ever. Some of the stuff there is just way out. A must see is the Ramayana & Mahabharata models.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nehru Children's Museum
In order to pay homage to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, National Cultural Association established the Museum in 1972 on Panditji's name on his birthday. Today when a child walks into Nehru Children's Museum, he walks into a world of treasure. It touches the imaginative mind and encourages him to know more. The exhibits in the museum which are spread over 4 floors, enable a child to take off to the world of epics, the world of science and to dream world.

Dolls gallery, Toys gallery, Ramayana & Mahabharata in clay models are the most fascinating archives for the children.

The Dolls Gallery had 1.2 crore  visitors since its inception.  Dolls from 92 countries are displayed here. There is a second Dolls Gallery where dolls from 37 countries are displayed. In addition, there is a Ganesh Gallery displaying 300 Ganesh Idols.

The Ramayana and Mahabharata in miniature models create a world for a child where he or she can spend time for hours and learns about our heritage epics.

The Museum remains open for all between 11 am and 7 pm on Wednesday through Friday and Saturday to Sunday from 10 am to 07 pm. The Museum remains close for public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Entry Fee is Rs. 20/- for 16 years & above and Rs. 10/- under 16 years.

Odeon kicks off with "Ke Tumi" at ITC Sonar

Last evening the 9th edition of Odeon kicked off at Pala in the ITC Sonar. The play "Ke Tumi" a script based musical in Bengali and English, inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's relationship with his muse Kadambari Devi, featured the legendary actor Soumitro Chatterjee and the beautiful actress Chandrayee Ghosh.

This was followed by cocktails and dinner. Though the intellectual and some psuedo intellectuals were enthralled, I guess this wasn't something for my entertainment palette. So after sitting through it a bit, I decided to get out and hit the watering hole. The evening saw quite a few pegs go down and the food was just super delicious.

Now am looking forward to catching atleast a couple of plays of this year's theatre festival.

The Schedule for ODEON 2009

Date: 28/11/2009
Genre: Romantic
Language: Hindi
Play: Aapki Soniya
Director: Salim Arif
Cast: Farooque Shaikh and Sonali Bendre
Production House: Essay Communications
Venue: G D Birla Sabhaghar
Time: 6:30 PM
------------------------------
Date: 29/11/2009
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Play: Some Girl(s)
Director: Nadir Khan
Cast: Mukul Chadda, Shivani Tanksale, Juhi Pande, Tarana Raja Kapoor, Radhika Mittal
Production House: Q Theatre Productions
Venue: G D Birla Sabhaghar
Time: 4:00 PM
------------------------------
Date: 29/11/2009
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Play: Some Girl(s)
Director: Nadir Khan
Cast: Mukul Chadda, Shivani Tanksale, Juhi Pande, Tarana Raja Kapoor, Radhika Mittal
Production House: Q Theatre Productions
Venue: G D Birla Sabhaghar
Time: 7:00 PM
------------------------------
Date: 2/12/2009
Genre: Social
Language: Multi Lingual
Play: Bhor
Director: Usha Ganguli
Cast: Sagnik Mukherjee, Dilip Bharti and others
Production House: Rangakarmee
Venue: G D Birla Sabhaghar
Time: 7:00 PM
------------------------------
Date: 3/12/2009
Genre: Comedy
Language: Bengali
Play: Bhootum Bhagaban
Director: Raja Bhattacharya
Cast: Sayon Banik, Mandira Banerjee, Dipak Mitra, Aryabrata Bhattacharya
Production House: Blank Verse
Venue: Madhusudan Manch
Time: 7:00 PM
------------------------------
Date: 5/12/2009
Genre: Romantic
Language: Bengali
Play: Shastha Ritu
Director: Biplab Bandyopadhyay
Cast: Atish Chanda, Anindya Banerjee
Production House: Niva Arts
Venue: Star Theatre
Time: 6:30 PM
------------------------------
Date: 6/12/2009
Genre: Social
Language: Bengali
Play: Bhoy
Director: Kaushik Sen
Cast: Kaushik Sen, Deboleena Dutta and others
Production House: Swapna Sandhani
Venue: Star Theatre
Time: 6:30 PM

"STRINGSTRUCK", A Sneak Preview at Tollygunge Club

Purbayan Chatterjee launched his album "Stringstruck" for a privileged few who got to hear a sneak preview of it in Concert at The Tollygunge Club this evening. The entire album will be played at his "Unnati Conert" tomorrow by the banks of the River Hooghly at Princep Ghat. Todays performance of 4 tracks had the rather upper-stiff-lip sorts also enthralled who broke out into controlled clap & cheer after a bit of prodding from the man of the evening, Purbayan.


Accompanying him was the fabulous duo of Bickram Ghosh on tabla & Taufiq Qureshi on percussion. Bumpy on Bass also chipped in, but I particulary liked the contributions made by the keyboard player, Atul Raninga and Rakesh Chaurasia on the flute. Ruprekha Banerjee lent vocals on the first track to open the concert.

With each passing performance I see of Purbayan's, I am convinced he is going to leave a mark on music with a significant contribution to the entertainment business. Unfortunately I have two weddings to fit into one evening tomorrow; else I'd be on the banks of the Hooghly.

Another Doomsday movie with Monumental special effects: 2012

After the tsunami of propaganda, this epic "End of the World" movie was a bit of a cliche. The script was too predictable and the effects just larger than live and a bit hard to believe. But then even the "hand of God" cannot kill the hero, and like all such movies, the Hero and family save the day and live happily ever after.

2012
CAST
John Cusack (Jackson Curtis)
Amanda Peet (Kate Curtis)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Adrian Helmsley)
Thandie Newton (Laura Wilson)
Oliver Platt (Carl Anheuser)
Thomas McCarthy (Gordon Silberman)
Woody Harrelson (Charlie Frost)
Danny Glover (President Thomas Wilson)

Latest Coffee Place: Total Value For Money

Coffee World and The Cream & Fudge Factory at Ballygunge is real value for money. The Chicken Salad and Smoked Chicken Sandwiches are just great, not mention washing it down with a French Vanilla Frappe seals the deal. A meal for two is about Rs. 400/-.

This place makes for a great hang-out joint with seating under the open skies and large garden umbrellas or the comfort of an AC restaurant. You choose!

China Town after an All Nighter

After spending the entire night up, me engrossed in building my paper card model ships and my wife making her Quilled Christmas & New Year Greeting Cards and not realising what time it was till we saw the light of day outside our bedroom window, we decided to make the most of being awake at the crack of dawn and jumped into our car and headed out to China Town for breakfast.

We sure do love those meatballs in Soup!!!

Rajarhat has a Swanky New Mall: City Centre II

During this fortnight off from work one of the things on our agenda was to visit the new mall that had opened at Rajarhat and so we did. City Centre II is a beautifully built mall, retaining the concept of open spaces from its predecessor but architecturally even grander. The basement parking is a n added bonus.

Since we were coming this far out, we also decided to check out the new Afraa Creperie. For the money we paid for the meal there, it was pretty decent. In fact the first thing we did was grab a bite there and then went on our “Malling” spree. It’s still far from being fully occupied, but has a fair number of shops. It’s sure going to become the newest hang-out that side of town.

On our way back we stopped at the SUBWAY near our place to pick up some Sandwiches for dinner as there was an offer of one-for-one going on only for one day and we decided to make the most of it.

Kolkata's New Yellow Cabs

These days riding around on my bike has been most satisfying and to add to that the visible changes in the transport system in Kolkata has added to the visual treat. The introduction of these new yellow TATA Indigo Taxis is a pleasant change for the iconic image of a Yellow Ambassador Taxi.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani ( 2009 )

Ranbir Kapoor - Prem
Katrina Kaif - Jenny
Upen Patel - Rahul
Darshan Jariwala - Shankar
Govind Namdeo - Pitambar
Smita Jaykar - Shalini
Navneet Nishan - Mrs. Pinto
Mithilesh Chaturvedi - Mr. Pinto
Zakir Hussain - Sajid
Salman Khan - Guest Appearance

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani has been described as a 'light film with lots of humour in it'.The movie is about Prem (Ranbir Kapoor), a depressed lover boy who is madly in love with the beautiful Jennifer(Katrina Kaif). Prem is a person whose purpose of life is to spread joy and laughter all around. However each time he attempts to spreads a wave of happiness, it creates funny disorders. He will cross all limits to make her fall in love.

The film is tagged as the craziest love story. He inadvertently abducts Katrina Kaif (Jenny). Jenny’s obsessed with love. And Ranbir Kapoor is head over heels in love with Katrina Kaif He gets set to do all that he can to make her feel the same way about him including supporting her run away from her own marriage. And then situation worsens as her father, her husband and a deceitful politician come after them. At last they will marry.

Early Morning Ride to the Maidan

This has got to be the funniest thing that happened to us during our holiday. Among the things planned on our to-do list for the holiday, was a visit to the Alipore Zoo. So suddenly on a Thursday my wife co-ordinated with my in-laws as they had told us they would also love to go as it had been years since they had gone to the zoo, and the plan was scheduled for early morning on Friday.

So as always, we didn’t really get to sleep early with the stress of rising early in the morning. Of course we did and in fact earlier than expected. My wife was up before dawn and prepared some sandwiches which we packed. We got all ready and hit the road by 6.30am. A little before 7.00 we were at the Zoo and to our surprise my in-laws were waiting outside to give us the news. I parked my bike and got all set for our little picnic and as I crossed the road towards them, I noticed that they were laughing their guts out. As I approached they informed us that the Zoo only opens at 9.00 am. I was devastated, but an immediate alternative saved the morning. We decided to go to the Maidan and have our Sandwiches there. And that is exactly what we did.

Munching our Sandwiches with a view of the vast Green lung of Kolkata is quite a sight early in the morning. One must try it.

The Zoo trip, well after that, I wasn’t really in the mood to go there, so we’ve decided to go some other time during winter.