Raajneeti

It's a watchable movie, though not a memorable one. I had expected much more considering the director is Prakash Jha, and the heavy star cast.

The only actor worth his while is Manoj Bajpai. Ranbir Kapoor probably watched Sarkar to train for the role, and similar to AB Jr, maintains a single scowl of an expression through the movie. Arjun Rampal and Katrina Kaif do fairly (keeping in mind their limited acting skills), Nana Patekar sleepwalks, and Ajay Devgan is wasted.

The plot itself is just OK, inspired by Godfather (or Sarkar if you prefer), and yes some elements from Mahabharat, but that seemed to be thrust into the plot rather than built into/around.

1 and 1/2 th day without smoking.

It was my first full day without a single puff since ... a long time. My last cigarette was yesterday at 11 am. There was a great physical and mental urge to smoke , but somehow I managed to beat it down. I ended up drinking something like 7-8 cups of green tea and chewing several gums (ordinary peppermint ones). For some reason, the urge to smoke was at its highest between 12:00 and 15:30 (approximately). I also noticed that listening to heavy rock music alleviates the urge to smoke.

TBC...

3 Idiots

Controversies apart, the real stars of the movie are Amir Khan and Omi Vaidya; Amir Khan for pulling off a 20 year old kid at 45(or something thereabouts) and Omi Vaidya for bringing to life the obnoxious nerd.

When should you take a break from watching South Park?

When you understand an entire phrase said by Kenny.

New on TV

FlashForward and Stargate Universe look promising, while The Vampire Diaries seems to be missing the X factor.

The Lost Symbol

The novel is meant to be a mystery thriller so I won't be going into any plot details. Having said that, if you have already read Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, and also happen to be short on time, you can give the book a skip.

Dan Brown seems to have discovered his formula and decided, quite understandably, to re-use it for as long as it sells copies. We again see a mashup of facts, pseudo facts and pure fiction all woven together by Brown's wordsmithery, along with the quite expected "unexpected twist" near the climax (the "unexpected twist" being pretty obvious since I was halfway through the story). The book when taken by itself is very written and has all the ingredients, and the pace, to be "unputdownable".

I would rate the book as 5.5/10 since I expected more and was pretty disappointed.

Saugata - A common name among Bengalis, meaning a devotee of Gautama Buddha.
As for me: BTech CSE 2005 from ITBHU, voracious reader.