No Welcome at the cinemas

Welcome to another of the 'leave your brains at home' comedies, again starring Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal (God! can we ever have enough of them?)! On second thoughts, stay at home or rest assured that at the end of three hours, something will certainly be wrong with your brains, that is, if you have any! I'm pretty sure that people in the movie didn't have any or they wouldn't have agreed to one of the stupidest movies in recent times. And on top of that, they have their audacity to call their gem a 'masala entertainer'. To just give you a glimpse of what's in store, the movie has characters with names like "Majnu' and 'Ghunghroo' and I thought we are talking of a movie made in 2007!

But no doubt that this film will be welcomed to a good response at the box office like other duds like Heyy Baby (complete with the dirty diaper on Akki's face. God save him!) For, even our audiences aren't mature enough!

Winters

I just love winters.

The early morning walks with the really cold air brush past my face.

The late night walks with the really cold air brush past my face. This time I have hot peanuts to pop into my mouth. (unfortunate that the moongfali wala is not there in the morning)

The windowpanes covered with fog in the morning (when i was younger, i used to draw all sorts of figures on the foggy glass of my car window)

Madam President, please set a precedent!

Pratibha Patil needs to visit her hometown at least five times a year. And so the till-now sleepy town will get a whopping Rs 400 crore airport soon. The place I’m talking about is Amravati in Maharashtra, some three hours from Nagpur which already has an airport.

There is nothing new in this. We all knew that Patil would never be able to come anywhere near the high ideals set by the previous occupant of the country’s glamourized but powerless office.

This again brings back us to the question if the President is required at all. Well, certainly the president is required. She, as Head of State, represents the country. She is the figurehead. The Prime Minister belongs to a party whereas the President is supposed to be ‘above party lines’. So, a President is very much required. But, is this sort of ostentatious expenditure required to support her office?

Amravati is in Maharashtra, a state infamous for its farmer suicides. There have been 30,000 suicides in one decade. The Vidarbha region, in which Amravati lies, is the worst affected, even leading to demands for a separate state of Vidarbha. Both the state and central governments have done precious little to tackle the problem of farmer suicides. However, they see nothing wrong in pledging Rs 400 crore for a new airport. The place does have an airstrip. It, by all means, is enough for a small private jet to land. In such a situation, is a new airport really required? Or does the President want to arrive in grand splendor with an entourage of jets?

In India, ostentatious spending by politicians is nothing new. We have numerous examples from across the political spectrum. So, one may ask, why single out the president? But, I firmly feel that it’s time the president set the precedent.