DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

I’m not usually inclined to writing movie reviews, given I tried it on one of my other blogs and failed miserably to write anything interesting. But I just had to put my thoughts down on this just to remember the funny idea if not the movie.

Seen The Forbidden Kingdom as yet? Or have Iron Man, Khuda ke Liye and Race overwhelmed the once raging appetite for Kung-fu flicks. Speaking of which, where have all the Kung-fu lovers gone? Times were when Star Movies ran a series called Friday Fury telecasting the grand works of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Now that’s been reduced to a once-in-a-couple-of-years Chan release or (horror of horrors) dubbed versions on Filmy.

Cadet Larvell Jones of Police Academy was an expert at imitating all sorts of noises and one of the series had him do a routine of the typical Hollywood-dubbed Chopsuey flick, delivering chop-chops and complete with un-lip-synced psuedo-Eastern wisdom like,

The snake does not bend its neck. The mongoose will still catch it!

(….or something like that)

Continue reading ‘Chopstick Slapstick’

Sausages have always been a mystery to me - I have never ceased to wonder how a pig can becomea perfectly shaped tube . I used to think that sausages were part of a pig like pork (guess it has to do much with my being a veggi and hence the ignorance !). This mystery was finally solved when (as usual )I sat down to watch BBC Food channel.

The programme on at that time ,once again (see reference to Crocodile steaks ) was Off the Menu . The chef mixed together minced pork, cream , beaten eggs , salt, pepper and chopped parsely -the result being a thick stuffing. What came next was the key to the mystery !. He took out what looked like a thin string from a bowl of water and voila ! The string turned out to be  a micro shaped tube which he opened out by attaching it to the pipe and filling it with water. He then emptied the water so that the tube was fully blown out. He then attached it to the snout of a a machine . His assistant then fed the pork stuffing into the machine so that the it came out of the snout and went straight into the tube. After filling the tube (now it definitely resembled a sausage ) , he twisted it at different points and sliced the big tube into small sausages . The sausages were then shallow fried and served with mashed potatoes and caramelized sauce !

Continue reading ‘Sausages - Mystery Unravelled’

Time was when as kids we would listen to jingles on the radio and sing along whenever we heard them - I still remember the famous Glycodin syrup ad , which went something like this - ” mummy had a coughing fit, dear dear me ,All day all night ,dear dear me, Glycodin will make it go ,just you wait & see, la, la , la la, la la” (oops forgotten this line) “glycodin for me ! “. The there was the famous Lifebuoy ad - Tanduristhi ke raksha karta hai Lifebuoy… ” which one still remembers when one sees Lifebuoy soap ! All these ads belonged to an era much before the advent of the television.

A major development in the area of entertainment was brought about with advent of the idiot-box - today’s kids would be hard put to believe that there was a time when television did’nt exist in Indian homes! TV medium being part of All India Radio , programmes were decided by it and even telecast would begin only in the evening and wind up in the night -24 x 7 just did not exist ! I still remember eagerly looking forward to Chitrahaar every Wednesday evening and a movie every Sunday evening. Television sets being expensive ( by those days’ standards ) , owning a TV set was a big thing ! Parents also did’nt suffer from anxiety about children neglecting their studies to watch TV, simply because the number of programmes were not many (most of them were in fact quite boring e.g krishi darshan ) and neither was the duration of telecast very long . It was no different when Indian television went for a makeover ,changing from black and white to colour- By now Doordarshan ( as it came to be called ) increased the duration by having some programmes in the morning as well on Sundays and a few hours in the afternoon on weekdays. The nation got hooked on to watching “Hum Log” (India’s first ever daily serial ) , followed by Ramayan and Mahabharata- simutaneously Doordarshan encompassed the entire nation and not only the big metros. By now companies vied with each other to sponsor programmes and thus came into existence, ads on tv too ! Some of them like “Washing powder Nirma, doodhi se safedi ” , Lalithaji ’s Bhai Saab “( Surf ), “such much kaafi bada hai ” (Okay Bathing soap), “Utterly Butterly delicious”(Amul Butter), “Char Boondon wala ” (Ujala whitener) cannot be forgotten .

Continue reading ‘March Of Time - Radio and Television’

“Watch & Learn” programmes have become rather popular with viewers today , what with even food habits having gone global ! This has created a rush among all the channels to include a cookery show as part of their programmes. BBC has even come out a channel solely devoted to the art of cooking , known as BBC Food .

While most Indian channels show a variety of veg as well as non-veg dishes prepared by master chefs like Sanjeev Kapoor, Tarla Dalal , Mallika Badrinath , to name a few , BBC Food channel has shows devoted to mostly non veg cuisine with a sprinkling of veg cuisine-( not that anything is wrong with that of course ). Being interested in anything that concerns food ( even though personally I am a die-hard vegetarian ! ) , when time permits (yes,  surprising as it may seem to some folks, even we housewives are hard pressed for time ! ) I watch programmes based on cuisine delights- veg or non-veg - Indian cookery shows , to learn new veg recipes & BBC Food channel out of sheer curiosity (its unbelievable -what all creations are dished out in the name of food ! ) . My offspring thinks I am weird ! She is simply at a loss to understand how a pucca shakahari ( veggie- to those unfamiliar with this term ! ) like me can sit in front of the TV and watch with rapt attention and fascination all those unfamiliar non-veg dishes being prepared , without feeling queasy most of the time !

Continue reading ‘Tears for the Crocodile !’

First it was this and then it was the 2^nd match between Kolkotta Knight Riders vs. (what’s that) Hyderabad team, where Bollywood’s so called Badshah was seen pimping for his (feed an entire African nation worth) team. And joining him in this charade, who’s who of the Hindi Film Industry were also seen shaking a leg.

By the way - what’s with the Gandhi Son-in-law aka. Mr. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra? The pace at which he was hopping, I am guessing an item number in SRK’s next home production is definitely on the cards.

Even though I think of Shah Rukh as nothing more than an average actor turned premium marketing whore – I do agree, the man is gifted with Midas’s touch. Kolkotta Knight Riders have won two matches in a row.

However looking at SRK’s history of buying film awards, I wouldn’t be surprised if dal mein kuch kala was here too.

Anyhoo, the man continues to produce crap and we, the desi junta, keep lapping it up.

A daft television actor along with his equally (or even more) daft girl friend bumping into another daft couple (friends) in the cinema hall’s lift.

Daft Couple: “So how did you find the movie?”

Daft Television Actor: “Hmmmmm……..”

(Intrusion)

Daft Girlfriend: “It was so slow yaaar. I nearly slept thru most of it. How boring!”

(Yours truly standing next to the daft couples. Utilizing all the energy required to keep her trap shut and hands from smacking the shits out of the daft girlfriend – just because of mama dearest’s presence)

Continue reading ‘Khuda Ke Liye, Watch it.’