Is Rajanikant India's biggest Superstar ?

Milk was being poured all over Rajanikant's poster not only in Chennai but also in Delhi ?!

Yet another movie, yet again the familiar frenzied scenes all over. If Sivaji was a super hit, Kuselan promises to be better. Fans waited since 4am outside the theatres in Chennai for the opening day opening show. Its mass hysteria all over and the nation is gripped with Rajni mania once again. All news channels have snap shots of the movie. Interviews with celebrities and fans who were 'lucky' enough to get to see the premier show the night before the opening are being aired all over.

One must ask the question - Is this all for real ?

Can Rajni turn any movie into a super hit ? Do people not care about anything while watching the movie if their God makes a few trademark gestures ? While there is certainly a huge percentage of the superstar's loyal fans who throng the theatres only to get a glimpse of Rajni, there are also others who might be lured in to see the movie due to the hype generated by the media.

The fact is NO other star in India can generate this sort of a media frenzy. It really doesn't matter if you're a Big B or a King Khan, Rajni has showed time ang again that he is certainly the 'BOSS'.

Proud to be an Indian !!

You dont know what you have till its gone !

I dont know which great guy phrased this line but it is an amazingly true fact of life. Although I have always been a person who loved my country and like most, felt it to be the best in the world, I have never felt more proud to be an Indian when I travel abroad.

It is a stale fact that India is fast becoming an economic super power. In all other fields as well India is rising and shining.

In sports, for example, the Indian Premier League (IPL) turned out to be entertainement par excellence. It attracted the very best talent from all over the world. In fact some players were ditching their National team to be a part of this event. There were spectators in the stadiums from all over the world as well. Ofcourse most matches were greeted with packed houses. A prominant cricketer also commented that Cricket was an Indian game accidently discovered by the British. In contrast to the Indian Premier League, the American baseball league has a tournament which has only domestic players and yet they call it 'World Series' ! We have world class sportsmen and women in cricket, hockey, Tennis, Chess, etc.

The Indian film industry is the biggest in the world and is attracting big production houses from the US to not only distribute but also produce Indian films. Shah Rukh Khan was honoured with the 'Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters' (Officer dans l'Ordre des Aris et des Lettres) title by the French Government for his contribution to Hindi cinema. The Big B and SRK are known the world over. Superstar Rajanikant is a huge hit in east Asia upto Japan. Recently Akshay Kumar was in Toronto to unveil a huge hoarding of his new flick - 'Singh is King'. This was a proud moment for the Indian film industry as for the first time there was such a thing being done for an Indian movie.

Indian doctors, engineers, scientists are making their presence felt in all spheres all over the world. Our fellow citizens have won the nobel prize in various fields. The illiterate 'Dabba wallahs' of Mumbai teach professors and students from leading management institutes in America and the UK about management skills. Our airlines treat us like kings in comparison with any foreign airline. We are treated to a welcome drink, news paper and a royal meal even in an hours flight. Compare this to a packet of pretzel / peanut (less than the size of your palm) and a small glass of coke that we get on even a 5 hour flight in the US. Our airlines still deliver much better corporate results than the ones in America. We wait at a baggage claim a little more some day and crib about it, I have personally lost my bag on almost every trip of mine to the US for a day or more.

We stand out as a shining example in a divided world. World leaders understand and appreciate the wonderful and peaceful co-existance of people of all communities, languages and regions. But we do lack where it is most important, within India. We are obviously not a perfect nation. As people we fail. We literally hate each other. We dont respect life here. We dont have respect for a person doing a supposedly low kind of a job. We dont loose a second to hurl abuses at one another especially in trafic. We all love to thrust our beliefs on others. We dont respect other's way of life. If we need to improve as a nation, we first need to change ourselves. We need to love each other. We need to respect everybody, whether the person is a chairman of a big company or a waiter at a restaurant. We need to treat everyone as an equal.

We love our country but forget to love our fellow citizens who make up the country. Lets change that, lets help one another to make our country the envy of the world. Jai Hind !

Jaane tu....

Aamir Khan must be upset with me. I did not watch his movie in the first week !

However, after reading my review he surely would be at ease. I've got to be honest with my readers. The movie lacked stars, the music was bad, the performances were not award winning, there was no great comedy, action, etc. Inspite of this Jaanu tu...ya jaane na connected with me. The innocence in the performances of all actors was refreshing. All characters were someone you could relate to. While there was no great comedy, the entire movie was fun filled, simple and light hearted. I certainly liked Imran Khan and expect him to take over the reigns from his mamu over the years. Genelia was good but seemed uneasy with her Hindi. The supporting cast was very good as well. Paresh Rawal was wasted, which was a let down for me. The other let down was Mr.A.R Rehman - I actually doubt this was his music.

All in all a nice film certainly worth a watch. No wonder that the AMC 30 theatre at Barrington, Illinois, USA which screened this flick was crowded. Just to mention the screens with Will Smith's Hancock (supposedly a block buster) were greeted with empty chairs as against an almost full upper house for Jaane tu....Way to go Indian film industry (Mr.Amitabh Bachchan and I do not like to use the term 'Bollywood') !

I would give the film 7.5/10 !

Screw the bandh !

Diesel prices is increased by the Govt.and the good old left parties call for a nationwide strike.
Shrine board in J & K gives up some forest land allotted to it and BJP calls for a Bharat bandh.

What is the meaning of 'Bharat Bandh'? Why does India have to shut down ? Who has the right to shut India down ?

Doesn't the ordinary man want to work every day to make a living. How then can a bandh call be forcefully implemented. Why doesn't the Govt.or courts issue an order against this or better still arrest the goons who indulge in such forceful implementation of such bandhs. In fact they are the guys who get paid to work on such days. So, technically they are not following the bandh call that they are actually implementing !

Man.....the fuel prices are already hurting everyone of us, don't make things worse for the companies and individual businessmen by not allowing them to work and earn their livelyhood. While it may sound like a nice holiday for a few employees what they do not realise is that if such stupid breaks are not there their company would probably have better profits which would in some measure be passed on to them as well.

Why should I not work if some guy decides to give up land in J & K ? I mean I'll probably work even if my land is taken away. Although, sadly I have none due to rising land/home prices. Now I guess I should give a Bharat bandh call ! Is the left or right or anybody in between listening.

Stop fleecing the common man and do something about the genuine problems being faced. If you can't do anything please don't screw things further.

Politics Vs Nuclear energy

The last couple of days has proved yet again how the country is held ransom to the whims of a few politicians. It is a well known fact that India needs alternate energy sources, nuclear surely being one of them, to keep growing in the years ahead. The coal resources are depleting and might not cater to the growing needs of a resurgent India. What on earth do the left parties mean by saying NO for every bloody thing that the government tries to move ahead with. How on earth does India become the United States' slave if the Nuclear deal goes thru ?
Why then would the left want to block a deal that is essential in meeting the energy demands in our country ? Dr.Singh has finally learnt that the LEFT should never be at the CENTRE and should really be just LEFT alone.
Now, one can expect the left to say no for everything but how about the other political parties -
RJD - believed to support the congress now as they do not want an early election in which they might not perform very well.
DMK - cut off ties with one of their allies (PMK) recently and therefore need the congress to support them to retain their position in Tamil Nadu. Now they too support the deal.
BJP - wanted the cooperation when they were in power. Now they oppose it coz they are the opposition and feel that their job is to oppose anything the government does.
SP - they dont have a clear stand and want to see how thing move - if congress helps them to come back to power in UP they support the deal, otherwise they remain good friends with the left parties and reject the deal.

All this really shows the sorry state of our country. The people whom we bring to power thinking they are the best for the country's developement, clearly put their personal goals, greeds before the nation. Why dont we every hear a left leader criticise the Chinese for their incrusions into sikkim ? In fact what bugs them if India gets to have better relations with America. The communist countries like China are creating records with the amount of business they do with the US. Then whats wrong with our communists ? Mr.Karat, Mr.Yechuri, Mr.Raja and the likes would have to answer the public sooner than later.

Who said Rajni can't ??

Once, Newton came to India and watched a few Tamil movies that had his head spinning. He was convinced that all his logic and laws in physics were just a huge pile of junk and apologized for everything he had done.
In the movie of Rajanikanth, Newton was confused to such an extent that he went paranoid. Here are a few scenes -
1) Rajanikanth has a Brain Tumor, which, according to the doctors can't be cured and his death is imminent. In one of the fights, Rajanikanth is shot in the head. To everybody's surprise, the bullet passes through his ears taking away the tumor along with it and he is cured !
2) In another movie Rajanikanth is confronted with 3 gangsters. Rajanikanth has a gun but unfortunately only one bullet and a knife. Guess, what he does? He throws the knife at the middle gangster & shoots the bullet towards the knife. The knife cuts the bullet into 2 pieces which kills both the gangsters on each side of the middle gangster & the knife kills the middle one.
3) Rajanikanth is chased by a gangster. Rajanikanth has a revolver but no bullets in it. Guess, what he does. Nah? not even in your remotest imaginations. He waits for the gangster to shoot. As soon as the gangster shoots, Rajanikanth opens the bullet compartment of his revolver and catches the bullet. Then, he closes the bullet compartment and fires his gun. Bang... the gangster dies...
This was too much for our Newton to take! He was completely shaken and decided to go back. But he happened to see another movie for one last time, and thought that at least one movie would follow his theory of physics. The whole movie goes fine and Newton is happy that all in the world hasn't changed. Oops, not so fast! The 'climax' finally arrives. Rajanikanth gets to know that the villain is on the other side of a very high wall. So high that Rajanikanth can't jump even if he tries - like one of those superman techniques that our heroes normally use. Rajanikanth has to desperately kill the villain because it's the climax. (Newton is smiling since it is virtually impossible?) Rajanikanth suddenly pulls two guns from his pockets. He throws one gun in the air and when the gun has reached above the height of the wall, he uses the second gun and shoots at the trigger of the first gun in air. The first gun fires off and the villain is dead. Newton commits suicide...

Sarkar ka nahin hai Raj !

Well...what I never understand is WHY would anybody have the BigB in a film and not use his genius to the max. Especially after the wonderful Sarkar, my expectations from the sequel were obviously sky high. To my dissappointment the movie gave Mr.and Mrs. SmallB a lot more footage than the trump card.
The movie does not engross the viewer like Sarkar. Although I would not say it is a bad movie and is surely watchable. Performances by all are good. The length of 2 hours is a pleasant surprise and the correct length for a film of this nature. However the audiences could have sat thru without budging had Ramu given Amitabh more time on screen.
Story was OK; no songs - actually let me say there was 1/2 a song; background score was nice; etc etc...
To sum it all I would give 6/10 for this one.

Stock Market and the Casino !?

Its very facinating to see the movements in the stock market (Indian). I feel I am well informed and in tune with everything. But.....can anyone claim that ?


There was an expert who had done some analysis and stated that historically in any given 5 year period the stock market has always been the best performing asset class. For those who want simpler lingo....asset class means any form of investment that gives returns. I will wait for another three years before writing to that gentleman that his theory is a piece of shit ;) Although I do feel he is right.

Where the heck if the other part of the title linked to the topic ? Well my dad used to say that stock investment is just 'satta' or gambling. He used to be a day trader and never really invested or researched a company before trading. He used to go to our broker, look at the screen and buy anything that was going up and sell it immediately after the price went up a little more after he bought. Well, obviously this method could work on a few days but then days like those would always be just that - FEW. Over the last year however, I have been successful in changing his opinion. He has begun investing in certain companies that have good potential over the long term.

There are somethings all of us (aam aadmi) should learn from the few intelligent and sane investors out there. One gentleman a while back stated - Be greedy when everybody is scared and be scared when everybody is greedy ! In other words, when you see every single person you know or don't buying stocks of a company its time you stay away or better still, sell. A classic example would be the Reliance Power IPO - whole world knows what happened there. It became Power OFF toh India OFF !! Just to inform you the name of the gentleman whose great words I have mentioned above is Warren Buffett.

Until next time....happy investing !!

Whats up ?

Cant help but accept that I was influenced to create my blog after all the recent news from the big stars related to their blogs.
I thought the blogs from Aamir were very humourous and should have been taken in the right spirit. SRK has on several occassions poked fun at Aamir, which were very enjoyable as well.
I happen to be a big fan of both these stars and have enjoyed these tit bits from them and wish we get a bigger dose from both in future as well !!