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Sunday, August 30, 2009

A Movie based on True Events: Breach

CAST
Chris Cooper ... Robert Hanssen
Ryan Phillippe ... Eric O'Neill
Laura Linney ... Kate Burroughs
Caroline Dhavernas ... Juliana O'Neill
Gary Cole ... Rich Garces
Dennis Haysbert ... Dean Plesac
Kathleen Quinlan ... Bonnie Hanssen

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Iron Man, finally!

CAST
Robert Downey Jr. ... Tony Stark
Terrence Howard ... Rhodey
Jeff Bridges ... Obadiah Stane
Gwyneth Paltrow ... Pepper Potts
Leslie Bibb ... Christine Everhart
Shaun Toub ... Yinsen
Faran Tahir ... Raza
Clark Gregg ... Agent Coulson
Bill Smitrovich ... General Gabriel
Sayed Badreya ... Abu Bakaar
Paul Bettany ... Jarvis (voice)
Jon Favreau ... Hogan
Peter Billingsley ... William Ginter Riva
Tim Guinee ... Major Allen

Watch This Movie, I Say!

CAST
Quick Gun Murugun – Dr. Rajendra Prasad
Rice Plate Reddy – Naseer
Mr. C. Gupta – Vinay Pathak
Mango Dolly – Rambha
Locket Lover – Anu Menon
Rowdy MBA – Raju Sundaram
Gun Powder – Shanmugaraja
Dr Django – Ashwin Mushran

Special Appearances:
San Sani Reporter – Ranvir Shorey
Masala News Reporter - Sandhya Mridul
Gaurav Kapoor

Friday, August 28, 2009

Bowling at SPARKZ

We went bowling to Sparkz on Friday. It was loads of fun. I can't remember the last time I went bowling. Leisure Bowl at Vasant Kunj in Delhi most probably.

SPARKZ
35, Diamond Harbour Road
Kolkata - 700027
Tel: +91 33 24481744

Open
Mon-Sat: 12pm - 10:30pm
Sun: 11am-10:30pm

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Confessions of a Shopaholic

CAST
Isla Fisher ... Rebecca Bloomwood
Hugh Dancy ... Luke Brandon
Krysten Ritter ... Suze
Joan Cusack ... Jane Bloomwood
John Goodman ... Graham Bloomwood
John Lithgow ... Edgar West
Kristin Scott Thomas ... Alette Naylor
Fred Armisen ... Ryan Koenig
Leslie Bibb ... Alicia Billington

Saturday, August 22, 2009

The Dhan Te Nan movie, finally!

KAMINEY
CAST
Shahid Kapoor...... Charlie / Guddu
Priyanka Chopra...... Sweety
Amol Gupte...... Sunil Shekhar Bhope (Bhope Bhau)
Deb Mukherjee...... Mujeeb
Rajatabha Dutta...... Shumon
Harish Khanna
Carlos Paca...... Cajetan
Chandan Roy Sanyal...... Mikhail
Tenzing Nima...... Tashi
Shiv Subrahmanyam...... Lobo
Hrishikesh Joshi...... Lele

Sizzlers at South City Mall Food Court


You have got to try the Sizzlers at Food Talk Sizzlers Counter at South City Mall. At Rs. 170 each, these are just awesome.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Me! The Umbrella Man

Yesterday morning, while I was in the lift coming up to our office on the 9th floor, one of my colleagues, amused that I was carrying an umbrella, inquired why I carried such a big one. I replied stating how it actually did shelter me from the heavy rain and how since I was in office most of the day, it was mostly used by one or the other sales guys who needed to go out in the field on sales calls. She still didn’t seem too convinced and said I could carry a smaller one.

Anyway later in the evening after a day of heavy rain, I left office and as I came to the landing of our office building, I came along side a large gathering of other people from our building standing indoors waiting for the rain to stop. As I walked past them, all their eyes went to the umbrella in my hand, which I put forward and opened, got under and walked into the shower out into the street to where my car was parked.

The story got even better, because as I drove a little ahead around the corner in rows of heavy rain and traffic, I noticed my colleague from the morning holding a bag over her head getting drenched in the rain trying to hail a cab.

I guess she must have been thinking about the morning’s incident and got her answer for it from the Rain Gods.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Swift Kissed by Benz

This morning on my way to work, my swift had the honour of being kissed from behind by a Mercedes Benz. The silver C 200 Kompressor had been following behind my swift for a while. Traffic was crawling and in such traffic, it is imperative that you pay attention to the car in front of you because it is nearly bumper to bumper traffic at that hour.

Anyway a hoarding caught my eye and in that split second that I noticed the car in front had stopped, so I immediately braked; 10kmph to 0 in a split second. Every time I brake thus, I tend to look in the rear view mirror expecting the worst from the car behind. Sure enough as I looked in the side mirror, I noticed the Merc swerving back and his left side fender bumped into the right side tail of my bumper. In that traffic he was trying to make an attempt to overtake me and the instant I braked and he noticed the oncoming traffic from the opposite side, he tried to turn back, but then realised that his space had got cramped as I suddenly stopped.

Bump! And a little crunching sound and I looked in the mirror and there was contact. I lowered the mirror from inside to assess the damage. The bumper had been slightly dislodged from its clamps. It had already been bumped on several occasions in the same spot, so it didn’t look like I had much to worry about. The Merc on the other hand stayed put for a while as I looked in the mirror even after traffic had started to move. His front bumper didn’t even have a scratch. I guess the driver was more in shock than anything.

I on the other hand was quite kicked that my Swift had the honour of finally being kissed in the backside by the Royal Mercedes.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Results of Drinking & Driving

Maruti 800 after accidentA colleage of mine totalled his car early on Saturday morning returning from a night out partying. Fortunately he escaped with just a few scratches thanks to his seat belt.

This is the picture of the results of Drinking & Driving.

I guess this will give him Independence from his old faithful Maruti!

Kolkata is also a Luxury Car Market

BMW 3 Series and Mitsubishi Pajero 2800 Intercooler TurboOf late, I have noticed a sudden spike in the number of big luxury cars on the streets of Kolkata. My all time favourite being the Mitsubishi Pajero 2800 Intercooler Turbo is among the most common. In addition to this, the number of BMW’s and Mercedes has also gone up. It’s not uncommon to be riding beside one any given day of the week.

Yesterday I as I walked out of my office (Yes I’m working on Sundays too) I saw these two beauties parked on the opposite side of the road. A Mitsubishi Pajero & a BMW 3 Series and most shocking of all, they belonged to the same person. Anyway I thought to myself, “and people say Kolkata doesn’t have money!!!”

Thereafter, my wife and I headed out to have lunch at Fire & Ice, one of our favourite Italian Restaurants. Beer, Garlic Bread and Pasta! What more would one want on a gloomy, rainy Sunday afternoon?

Little Russel Street - Chowringee CrossingAs we were leaving Fire & Ice, and came to the T-Point to get onto the Main Chowringee Road, I couldn’t help but notice how lovely the Vidyasagar Setu looked in the background, way past the Maidan and Race-Course.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Tamarind never ceases to surprise

My in-laws had a reason to celebrate and invited us to Tamarind for dinner. While were entering the restaurant, we bumped into the owner at the entrance and a big exchange of his and hellos were exchanged by my in-laws and him. I also said hi and so did my wife. To my surprise my wife also seemed to know him and they kept calling him “neighbour”. I knew Goutam from a work angle and was quite taken aback when my in-laws also seemed to know him. Then I thought to myself that they were friendly people and probably got to know him on their last visit.

So when we settled down to our table, we got chatting and I asked them if they knew him from their last visit to the restaurant and they informed me that he was the doctor who lived across the road from them; the building which housed the family of doctors. I was quite amused, thinking to myself, how small the world was?

Anyway as we spoke some more, I informed them that he actually owned the restaurant, and they kept insisting that he was a doctor, till I finally convinced them as I recalled his entire background. He had told me about being from a family of doctors and their family interests in a well known nursing home, but how he felt the desire to be different and do something in the gourmet business and thus TAMARIND.

After I put all the pieces of the puzzle together, my in-laws were quite in shock. They couldn’t believe that he owned the restaurant. And kept looking at each other and saying, “My God, he owns this restaurant?”

It definitely helps to know the owner and after a splendid meal with excellent service we got complimentary sweet dish, just like the last time my wife and I had visited.

Need I say that the food was a gourmet’s delight and if anybody has anything different to say about Tamarind, “Yenna Rascala, Mind It!”

Below is what we ate:

NELLORE CHAPPALA PULUSU (Andhra)
Spicy fish preparation in a gravy of tamarind and chillies

ERACHI CURRY (Kerala)
Mutton cubes in an authentic Kerala style coconut based gravy.

KORI GASSI (Karnataka)
Boneless chicken pieces in garlic, pepper corns, coriander gravy.

APPAM - Egg / Plain
Traditional Kerala rice pan cake.

HYDERBADI BIRIYANI – Chicken.

DOUBLE KA MEETHA

Butter Milk

Tamarind
177 Sarat Bose Road ,
Kolkata - 700026.
Tel: +91-33-24638799, 64548011
24 hours helpline: +91 9830051705
You can see the menu at: www.tamarindkolkata.com

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Shaky Feeling

Last night, after a long hard day, we finally decided to watch TV. We hadn’t done that in a couple of days and decided since we had just renewed our annual subscription of TATA SKY (Mega Pack) we might as well start getting our money’s worth.

The TV watching, coupled with being online on Facebook and my Blog, led us to being awake till the wee hours. At half past one, I guess, while I was working on our laptop and my wife was watching TV, the entire bed we were sitting on started to shake. I had my back to my wife and thought she was responsible for the same, trying to get my attention as I had been on the computer a while. Only after a bit, when she asked me why the bed was shaking did I look back and see that she wasn’t the one shaking the bed, but Mother Nature. We looked at each other kind of frozen and then kind of figured it was tremors from an earthquake. We jumped up and went to the balcony. By that time the initial tremors had stopped. Then again there was a quick 2 second tremors that occurred as we watched a couple of lights coming on in some of the apartments.

I guess a few other people felt it too.

This morning found out that it indeed was an earthquake that had its epicentre somewhere near the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Monday, August 10, 2009

My First Photoshoot Experience

The highlight of my Sunday drudgery at work was getting to step out and visit the location of a photo-shoot commissioned by me for a new Ad campaign we were going to start soon. The best part was that I was also going to be a part of it in the sense that I was going to be in the shoot.

When I got to the studio, I got to know that the film-star, who was supposed to be the lead in the shoot, was still awaited, so all the models including myself had to sit in on a make-up session which happened rather quickly. Gosh my first make-up session. My first proper photo-shoot with me in it! This was going to be fun.

So the clock kept ticking as we waited. The photographer kept checking the lights and preparing the set or whatever they call it. Huge flash lights kept going off from all directions as he clicked the camera mounted on the tripod and illuminated the entire room. Finally our main model arrived and as she got busy with her make-up, I must say, I was thoroughly impressed at how professional she was. It seemed like clock-work. She knew exactly what was needed and as she was getting her make-up done, she discussed the sequence of shoots and the ensemble and mood required for each of the shots.

I was the second one to go and as I watched the first set of shots happening, I thought to myself, this is no child’s play. Modelling is not as easy as it looks. With each passing shot, I realised how tough it was to capture that perfect shot and the mood, expressions and lighting that was required. The first round took a long time, but finally once it was done, I had to take the stage with the protagonist. Though I was just an accessory in the shot, I realised how difficult it was to get that perfect pose and expression that was required for the shot. Finally after what seemed forever, my takes were done.

All I can say after being in a photo-shoot, is, that if you’re thinking of a career as a model or actor, be ready to slog your butt off.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Great End to a Working Saturday

Since my weekends seemed to be drowned in work, the best thing to do I felt was spend the evenings judiciously. So we decided to head out to City Centre, do some lukhagiri and then went to Machaan at Mani Sqaure Mall. We had wanted to check out this place for a while now and finally when we got there and entered, we were quite awestruck by the ambience created in this restaurant.

The interiors had been created like a forest and in the middle up a wooden flight of stairs was the Machaan. We were hoping to get seated up there to get the real feel of being up on a machaan, and as our luck would have it, we were taken to a table for two up there over looking the rest of the lower floor. As we seated ourselves, we soaked in the view; the attention to detail in recreating a forest was impeccable. There were animals, birds, nests et al.

We soaked in some more of the view over a couple of pints of Kingfisher Beer and Junglee Masale Ka Murg Tikka. They served Papad and onions in red chilli powder complimentary which kept getting replenished to go with our drinks.

For our main course we decided to try some of the exotic sounding dishes and ended up relishing some of the best North-west Frontier cuisine in a long while. Our main course started with Ajwaini Roti, Chaamp Ka Saalan and Pasand Aapni Aapni. This was followed by Zaffrani Chilman Biryani Ghosht.

The portions were huge and we ended up packing a lot of the food and taking it home. Though the dishes may seem a bit expensive; the quality and quantities more than make up for the prices.

I would give this place a thumb up for anyone looking at some fine dining with an ambience.

Machaan - Mani Square
4th Floor,Mani Squre,
164/1, Maniktala Main Road,
EM Bypass, Kolkata - 700054
Email: machaanmskol@speciality.co.in
Tel: (033) 23202182/83/84
Fax: (033) 23202186

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Painful Banking Experience

After two days of the Banks being closed due to a nation wide strike called by the Bank Employees Union, today’s visit to the bank and the ensuing harrowing experience was inevitable.
Anyway while I was walking down to the bank, I finally decided to click a picture of this epic venture. Formerly “Hotel Raat Din”, this building has been under renovation ever since we moved into our office in Feb 2007. I have been watching this building from our office window, nearly everyday, for the past two and a half years and it seems to be a never-ending project. Considering the time and energy being spent on the build, I am quite certain this is going to turn out to be a fabulous Hotel when it is completed.
Anyway back to the bank. I wasn’t surprised to find a serpentine line outside the ATM outside the bank and what lay in store inside was even worse. All the teller counters had queues longer than I had ever seen. So I also got in one of the queues. I had a cheque and some cash to deposit. After standing in line for what seemed to be forever, one of guards announced that teller no. 11 was collecting only cheques, so I reserved my place in the queue I was in and popped over to teller no. 11 and deposited the cheque. One down, one to go I thought to myself once I rejoined the original queue. After about an hour there, I realised this could take forever and still not get done. The amazing thing was that our teller counter had a novice sitting in; probably just a week old at the job. I was quite amazed how the bank could have someone like him sitting in the booth on a day such as today when all hell was breaking loose.
Anyway, after over an hour in the queue and seeing negligible movement, I realised I would have to spend the rest of the afternoon in the bank if I wanted to deposit that money. I decided to find out from the help desk if there were any branches open on Sunday and decided to do it on Sunday at leisure.

A Cutish Movie

LOVE AAJ KAL
CAST
Saif Ali Khan...... Jai Vardhan Singh
Deepika Padukone...... Meera
Giselle Monteiro...... Harleen Kaur (introducing)
Rishi Kapoor...... Veer
Rahul Khanna...... Meera's boss
Neetu Singh...... Veer's wife
Vir Das...... Shonty
Raj Zutshi...... Harleen's father

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