From Russia With Love! *Long Sigh* God lives in Russia doesn’t he?? 
Posts By sudhishkamath
Losing it in Delhi!
It was my last day in Delhi and I had it to myself since my buddy Prady was busy at work and Bharani wasn’t all that well.
I went out for lunch with this amazing friend, someone I’ve just met twice before. Once on Valentine’s day along with my colleague (this girl’s my colleagues best friend). I was in love with someone else back then. And then I met her again during my colleague’s wedding. I’d been hoping to see more of her. She promised to be my date whenever I visit Delhi but that hadn’t happened for a long while cuz I never had a chance to be in Delhi ever.
She was supposed to come down for New Years eve in Madras and I was supposed to take her out then. But that didn’t happen either cuz she was stuck at work.
So finally, I got to meet her after I postponed my ticket by a day (not specifically for this, if I may add). We met at Pizza Hut near her office and spoke about life in general, spoke a lil about my Korea trip, and just general conversation! And then I walked her to her office and took a rick to PVR where Bharani was supposed to join me at four. Since he called in sick, with nothing else to do I decided to watch ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’.
I felt sorry for myself. I have never ever watched an Ektaa Kapoor serial and now here I am watching her movie?? I must be some loser to watch it alone, I thought. So that’s how bored I was when I paid a 150 bucks to watch that movie!
But guess what?? I was nearly rolling on the floor laughing. It was hilarious. It was corny. It was cheesy. It had plenty of juvenile sexual humour but I loved every bit of it! It has to be among the funniest films I’ve seen!
So after the movie, I went back to the paanwaala where I had deposited my bag, rushed to Barista since Bharani promised to meet me there by 7.30. I charged my phone and waited.
I read newspapers and found out that Qutub Minar is open for “night viewing.”
Bharani came at about nine!
So we set out to catch Qutub Minar on a rick. They frisked us before letting us in and I tried taking pictures of the Minar using my digital camera but somehow the flash would drown the image. I tried putting it on night mode but that turned out to be too sensitive to light.
At ten, they threw us out and closed the gates and turned off the lights and suddenly a tourist spot began to look like a place just right for Kaal2.
We took another rick and got back to PVR where Prady would pick us up from. Prady took us for dinner at this awesome place called Indo Spice.
We then helped Bharani get a rick and were all set to go home when Prady wanted to catch coffee. So we sat at Coffee Day, PVR for a bit. Then we came out and sipped the rest of the coffee sitting on a bench outdoor, checking out Delhi babes.
Prady had to fill fuel in his car and so we went looking for a petrol bunk. He put the window down. The breeze and the radio had an effect on Prady. He decided to take a lil detour on the way back home by a kilometre after filling fuel.
This was when I remembered I had to wish Murugan on his birthday and had forgotten to do that. It was 11.20. Prady was kind enough to go looking for a phone booth and we were near AIIMS when we asked people for directions. There was one near the emergency, casualty ward of the Safdarjung hospital, we heard.
So we got off the car there, and I picked up the phone when we saw people around wearing masks. And then it dawned on us. There was a meningitis outbreak in Delhi and people were dying everyday. Murugan didn’t pick up and I left a message on his answering machine. If you are reading this Murugan: Happy Fuckin Budday! And yeah, may God bless you! 😀
Rushed out the moment I finished the message and we got into the car soon. Soon Prady decided to show me around Delhi. He was wide awake now after a tiring day.
He drove around Chanakyapuri, showed me the best roads I’ve seen in India and I was thinking: All this eight hours before my flight… and that’s when something hit me…
I felt my pocket and I knew instantly… that I was sooo screwed!
My passport pouch was gone!
It had my passport and tickets for the next morning’s flight. It was about 2.20 a.m. And the travel agent’s office probably wont be open before 9.30 or 10. My flight was at 10.25 out of Delhi. I had to register a police case. Too many formalities.
But where did I lose it?
Flashcuts: While depositing bag to paanwala outside PVR before movie, I remember feeling my passport pouch in the side pocket of my trouser/ Inside the movie hall, no memories/ Waiting at barista, no memories of the passport pouch/ Rick to Qutub Minar, no memories/ Qutub Minar… all I remembered was lying on the ground to get a good pic of the Minar… Gawd, it could’ve fallen off then!/ Or in the Rick back to PVR//Or while waiting at PVR for Prady/ Or at the Indo Spice Restaurant/ Or at the loo in the restaurant/ Or at Coffee Day, PVR/ Or at the bench outside Barista where we were checking out the babes…
I gave up hope. I had to accept reality. There was no point putting my already tired friend through the hassles. And then I thought: Bharani… the playful ass that he is, might have taken it just to freak me out and forgotten all about it.
So I call him. He doesnt pick up. Call him 20 times before he finally picks up. He doesnt have it!
“Don’t forget to file a police case. Very important,” he says.
Prady hasn’t given up. He drives us to PVR. And miraculously, they have a 11.30 p.m. show that just got over. That was a good sign. So we plead our way and rush in. Find out way to the Audi 4 where I watched the movie. It’s not there under the seat. “But they clean it after every show,” observed Prady.
So we told them we lost important documents and they took us to the Lost and Found section. They had a register with details of things people left behind.
“20 rupees (10×2 notes) found below seat number H8” was the last entry in the register. I was impressed. “Which show was it,” asks Vipin, the guy in charge of Lost and Found at Audi 4. “The 4 O clock show. Kya Kool Hai Hum.”
“You can check in the manager’s room.”
So we meet Jatin, the manager and tell him about the passport pouch.
He calmly opens his drawer, fishes out my passport pouch like a rabbit out of the hat!
It’s a miracle!
Prady and me decide to celebrate, try getting a drink at a coupla five star hotels. Finally, get home at about four, TO A POWERCUT!!
Under normal circumstances, one would’ve bitched about life! But that night, we continued the celebrations as I pulled out one of the souvenir bottles of Absolut for him!
Cheers Prady! Cheers PVR! Cheers Life!
Before you guys forget, I was there for the Seoul Motor Show. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another object of my affection!
The Other Woman: If Suderman was gonna be in a Bond-like movie, this has to be the pairing: Udderwoman!
I’m back! From Seoul! More pics of my Seoul and Delhi trip coming up soon!! 🙂 Watch this space! And I have a bagful of stories to tell, just hope I get the time!
I was in Seoul, thanks to Hyundai. That’s me at their plant, standing next to a Hyundai Grandeur.
And that’s the girl I fell in love with, at the Seoul Motor Show! She’s Russian and couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Russian and we were in Korea! Needless to say, she’s inspired a new movie script! Yeah, I know I look a “full-fledged fruit” in orange!
Nearly missing the flight!
As I always say, life, can be one hell of a movie. Sometimes, it’s one movie after another. Right now, I’m still recovering from an overdose of life and movies, the ‘real’ ones!
May 5: Nearly missing the flight
Had this crazy urge to colour my hair yet again, with my flight less than four hours away! I reach Bounce to find out that it is shut. Salon Nayana was full. Finally went to Studio Profile at Food Court place and found that they had shifted to college road. After all that colouring I reached home exactly one hour twenty minutes before my flight to Delhi! Mom just didn’t want to ruin my mood on the verge of a trip, so I was on my way racing to the airport on a call taxi. And the driver screeched to a halt twenty five minutes before the flight! That’s when I took the ticket out and read that gates close half an hour before the flight. I rushed in, apologised profusely and ran all the way in to the plane, after checking in the monstrous sized suitcase I borrowed from Arch.
May 6: Hyundai’s Nineteen!
Sitting at the Delhi airport waiting for the connecting flight to Seoul, I watched the team assemble. It was like Oceans Twelve or that scene in the beginning of Reservoir Dogs. Everyone had a distinctly different personality as they walked in to the waiting room, introduced each other and exchanged cards. Some of them seemed to know each other very well. I know I can be quite a snob sometimes. But I just didn’t see how I would remember 18 names of total strangers and hence refrained from introducing myself after I packed my pea-brain with three new names, which I kept repeating every five minutes lest I forget.
My colleague from Business Line R was a very senior journalist, I stayed around him and watched him talk to the others. There was K, a short, enthusiastic well-informed corporate reporter who walked up and introduced himself. There was Y, a smart-talking executive editor of an auto mag who spent half the time on the phone negotiating a sponsorship deal for a rally.
And there I was, the odd man out. I was neither a business journalist or an auto correspondent and I was on my way to cover the Seoul Motor Show for my paper. “I do lifestyle and entertainment,” I replied when they ask me what I do at The Hindu.
1.30 a.m: Our flight took off from Delhi and Hyundai flew us Business Class. The luxury of business class has to be seen to be believed! Seven and a half hours later, the plane touched down.
Noon, Incheon airport: Our tour guide Michelle has brought a blue-Hyundai bus to pick us all up. A wonderful, beautiful drizzle on a foggy day and all of 15 degrees!
Added on May 16:
The chill of Seoul is now, of course just a distant memory!
Seoul: Love at first sight. This is the first frame I saw the moment I got out of the Incheon airport!
Kaal: Talk about a good bad time!
What can you do but laugh at a bunch of visitors who go around a spooky, scary forest populated by man-eating tigers and a suspected ghost, doing ridiculously stupid things that scream: “Eat me, Eat me, pick me first!”
It’s okay to borrow the storyline from a movie but borrowing a storyline from just a movie title is a little too much. But, Kaal is a ‘whodunnit’ that has tigers (instead of lions) and a ghost in the list of prime suspects. Talk about ‘The Ghost and the Darkness,’ taken literally, for a storyline.
Here’s how to make watching ‘Kaal’ further interesting.
Prepare a list of thriller/horror flicks — Sixth Sense, The Ring, The Village, Final Destination, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Blair Witch Project, Omen or even Bhooth, Vaastu Shaastra or any from Ramsay Brothers. And after every scene, scratch out the name of the movie that reminds of the sequence/shot/scene in ‘Kaal.’
What does a heavily inspired product/ this-is-my-tribute-to-horror-movies look like?
It looks like ‘Kaal,’ which makes even ‘Scary Movie’ look sober.
Kaal is super entertaining, for the following reasons:
1. A good looking cast with bad make-up, mouthing the corniest of lines, so much that you want to get up and say what Mr. Attitude Vivek Oberoi says throughout the flick at the drop of the cap: “Cut the crap.”
Oh, there’s Esha Deol trying a host of things to distract you from her well-toned Dharmender muscles, one of them being her cleavage which gets more screentime than her and the others include attempted acting. There’s John Abraham who wears a ‘What am I doing in this movie’ look consistently throughout and Oberoi’s Nth effort in feeling up an extremely hawt Lara Dutta.
2. Awesome camerawork and sound: Santosh Thundiyil (cinematographer) and Dwarak Warrier (sound engineer) have put in their best to make sure that ‘Kaal’ at least looks and sounds like a good movie.
3. Ajay Devgan, as ‘Kaali,’ the man who takes upon the challenge to help the visitors escape the forest, breathes some life into the film, purely with his electric screen-presence and kohl-lined eyes. His intro scene is probably the only good moment in the movie. Devgan walks in with his staff with some mantra in the background score and the three tigers which have surrounded the gang walk away.
4. The Shah Rukh Khan-Malaika Arora item number in the opening credits. The best thing to happen after ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ is the only reason that will make you kick yourself for missing the beginning. I’m going again, cuz I missed it!
5. Has no Karan Johar ingredient in spite of being his production. No rona-dhona. This clearly wears the stamp of a Ram Gopal Varma’s associate, which Soham was.
So yes, this is not ghost directed, at least literarily.
P.S: I got a funny sms that said: “Esha Deol is the one who trains tigers to kill people in ‘Kaal’. Vivek, Lara and John die. Enjoy the movie”!
What do you think of those who give away spoilers? 🙂
Ha ha! Naaah, don’t worry, I didn’t give away the end. That sms I got turned out to be a hoax. Something the producers did themselves to generate word of mouth publicity, I suspect.
MADRAS INK. 