Ek Challis ki Last Local

Non-stop entertainment is what I label this movie as. It's the kind of movie where you have to just shut your brains and enjoy the ride. In a nutshell, it is about a series of lucky and unlucky events that happen to Abhay Deol when he misses the last local train of 1:40 am. Now this is a movie which reflects Mumbai in its true sense after the rest of the city sleeps. He finds himself in the strangest of situations from Dance bars to the house of a eunuch 'Habiba Bai’ (who is supposedly the caretaker of Neha Dhupia!). From winning 35 lakhs at gambling to being blamed for the death of a deadly gangster's brother, he finds himself at the mercy of his own life's destiny from 1:40 am to the first local starting at 4:10 am. Definitely not worth a miss! Go watch it.

Indulgence is sweet!

My Sweet tooth has given up on me long time back since my dieting days, but I learnt better than to let the rest of my teeth to give up on me. That would be scary. So I do indulge once in a while and am sharing with you some of the desserts whose flavour still tingles on my taste buds and have certainly entered my Hall of Fame of Desserts!

- Lemon Cheese cake at Overfresh (Dadar) - the softest, creamiest cheesecake with a tantalizing, tingling lemon flavour over a rich caramelized base topped with fresh cream and lime. Yumm…was totally worth the 65 bucks!

- A rich bitter chocolate filled with ripe tangy strawberry filling, my uncle had brought from Germany. So soft that it melted in the mouth instantly! I have never tasted better chocolate after that.

- The combination of warm Gulab Jamun with vanilla ice-cream at some wedding. A unique combination which can be easily made.

- A Russian dessert that I had once in Taj Lands end was a gooey mixture of all possible things that I wanted in a dessert – Chocolate, Cake, Ice-cream, chocolate sauce, jelly, whipped cream and some exotic other sauces and nuts. Phew!

- Bavarian Chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Clearly one of the flavours which has a unique chocolate taste different than your regular chocolate flavours in an ice-cream. Chocolate freaks must try this out.

If anyone wants to add to this humble list, feel free. Btw it’s a myth that chocolate is too calorific. And it has anti-oxidants. Please pray that it’s true!!

Review: Life in a METRO

What seems to be a scintillating plot about mystery, suspense and romance actually turns out to be a rather mundane one revolving around relationships. What saves the movie is the extremely interesting relationship between Konkona and Irrfan, with some hilarious dialogues thrown in by Irrfan and some natural acting by Konkona.

The flick is about 3 relationships –
1] First one is a rather clichéd marital brawl between Shilpa and KayKay. The famous ‘Compatibility’ issue looms large on the screen when these two are out tearing each others’ hair out after what seems like a rather hurried marriage. Depressed and helpless in this hopelessly failing marriage, Shilpa finds peace and love from a struggling actor – Shiney Ahuja.

2] The 2nd relationship is a sort of a love triangle between KayKay who is cheating on Shilpa by having a clandestine affair with Kangana Ranaut (who works in his office) and another employee Sharman Joshi who seems to be truly in love with Kangana.

3] Third one, the most entertaining one, is about a 30 year old virgin Konkona (Shilpa’s sister) who doesn’t seem to find a suitable groom for herself albeit all the matrimonial ads and shaadi.coms. As usual, she happens to dislike Irrfan on their first ‘arranged marriage’ date, though it was a yes from his side and a rather unique one too ;). Now as time goes by they become friends as she gets a job in his office! (They say marriages are made in heaven). In his own weird, unique way and an out of the world accent, he teaches Konkona to atleast get her gaddi out of the garage (if u know what I mean) which was all it took for her to fall in love with this weirdo, whom she never even dreamt of getting married. Talk about destiny, huh?

All in all, a seemingly OK movie, could have been better. Pretty much sums up how things work here in this city when it comes to relationships. A one-time watch especially for Irrfan’s dialogues!

10 secrets that no one knows about me…in an exclusive with this blog only!

1)The saying ‘Curiosity kills the cat’ must have probably been invented after I was born. I mean the first words that uttered from my mouth after I was born were ‘He kaay ahe?’ ('What is this?' In Marathi) And I am dead serious, ask my mom. Sometimes I feel I should have been in the CBI.

2)I have really practical tips for losing weight (which you will not find in any Readers Digest or Femina!). and am obssessed with keeping fit and healthy Yeah, I am waiting for the call from Oprah.

3)I have an alter-ego. I become a feminist when I need to be (please read only when some men act like MCPs)

4)I really feel like sending flowers to Ekta Kapoor, you know that Munna Bhai – Gandhiri way. If I were in US, I would sue them for 1800 seconds of potential mental degradation everyday!

5)I am really patient (when it comes to shopping). Last time I spent 4 hours to buy a pair of shoes.

6)I do NOT like Chinese food. Don’t look shocked, what’s the big deal? Half cooked frog legs dipped in Soya sauce at least don’t sound appetizing to me!

7)I dislike water. I drink it as medicine. To add to that now I have a phobia of Mumbai rains.

8)The biggest invention till date is chocolate! Really, chocolate is the answer to all my questions.

9)I have tremendous respect for people. Trust me; even if a day-worker is better as a ‘person’, he deserves much more respect than any hot shot MD or CEO. Hats off to people who can think about others before they talk or show tremendous patience in the bad situations.

10)I have an accident scar from a road accident. And I don’t really mind it being there coz every time I look at it; I am reminded that I got a second life…a second opportunity….

….A Work-in-Progress forever?

OK, so graduation’s over, now what? It’s like you have suddenly become the Page 3 of sorts….except that this happens to most of us. We are trained to think that there is a particular end that we want to reach. It’s only natural.

Well so the planning begins… some of us start searching for a job, some opt for post- graduation…basically an attempt to reach that particular dream that we have pictured for ourselves. We all thus become ‘A Work-in-Progress’… from a raw material, dutifully working and being in the process of moulding & sculpting ourselves to finally become that final form.

I know it will be foolish to even have second thoughts about this, right? But if you do actually think about it, What if we choose to remain Work-In-Progress forever? I came across this concept from the book ‘Second Skin’ by Wendy Perriam.

An excerpt from the book …
“All at once, she knew with utter conviction that she would not – must not- achieve a final shape. She must stay fluid, not setting into a wife-shape, a parent-shape, a grandma-shape, but remain forever a Work-In-Progress. She could go in any direction, respond to intuition and gain inspiration from mistakes. There would be uncertainties, false turnings, but they were a valuable part of the process.”

C’mon think about it. Do we ever have the guts to say that I do not know what we want to do in life? To just LIVE, explore this gift of life. Respond to intuition as and when we feel like, explore different career options as per our whims and fancies, take huge breaks in the middle of our careers just to go backpacking in SriLanka, not doing what we ought to do but doing what we FEEL like doing? Sounds pretty exciting to me! Why don’t we decide to stay in W-I-P mode? Are we afraid that someone will reach that final form before we do? So what, big deal! At least we can boast of doing things that they have clearly missed out on doing while they were busy from morning 8 to ….well evening 10? And who knows, we might even surprise ourselves by the new learnings that we have gained in the process, new options to live life, newer perspectives, new careers to choose from….it will be like having flooded with different opportunities all the times AND having an exit option to look at another if it doesn’t work out. Now who doesn’t like that... after all, the only person stopping you is you, right?

“Already she felt lighter, released from the inflexible duties and the cage of convention”

Inspired by the book “Second Skin” – Wendy Perriam