OPM*
Presents – Salami – Ishq
A long time ago as evolution turned monkey into early man a lot of things began to change. Nudity was replaced by modesty and concepts like breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacking came into existence. Some Early People were emotionally drained as they watched animals being used as food and gave up eating meat, thus becoming the earliest vegetarians.
These Early Vegetarians were ill equipped for a vegetarian life since farming had not yet been invented and passed away really quickly.
It was only well after humanity had fine-tuned farming that some people could afford to give up omnivorous ways and go back to being vegetarian as a fashion statement. Some others are vegetarian even today for emotional reasons. They can’t digest animals enduring punishment so that humans can get their nourishment. I want to ask these people how they are sure plants don’t feel pain. Or for that matter vegetables. To illustrate, imagine the pain that potatoes and corn go through when the little ones in their families are plucked to make a stew or a starter. They are called Baby potatoes and Baby corn for a reason. Vegetarians are separating them from Momma and Poppa Potatoes and Corn every time they cook!
Like we learnt in school, man and for that matter, woman is/are Omnivorous.
This brings us to this week’s release, which is peppered with Non-vegetarian humour.
Salami-Ishq (For the love of Salami) is the story of 6 groups of people. These groups are not strictly groups; they are more like 6 couples. Though, not couples in the strict sense; the term ‘couple’ is used metaphorically as in ‘a couple of drinks (till we get drunk)’ or ‘the Indian medium pacer Couple Dev (hopefully Malcolm Marshall)’. The 6 couples are from different parts of the world; from different walks, runs, marathons, hash-runs of life (none, unfortunately from the Bangalore Walk). They are ignorant about each other's existence, but end up being brought together by destiny, fate and the one thing that connects all of them, Salami.
Salami, a commonly used breakfast meat, might sound simple enough but isn’t. Let us learn then, why Salami holds a connection to the lives of these couples. We will borrow from the reams written on the subject by Stephen who hawks a tome called ‘A Brief history of Salami’.
A Salame (plural: salami) is a cured sausage of Italian tradition, which means that traditionally if you have an ill sausage on your hands, you go looking for an Italian who can cure it. The name comes from the Italian verb salare (which is different from the Hindi word aalare, meaning ‘he’s coming’), meaning 'to salt'.
This salt connection is why we must remember to watch this movie with a pinch of salt.
Historically, salami has been popular amongst Italian peasants due to being a meat product able to be stored at room temperature, especially since refrigerators were expensive.
A traditional salame is made from a mixture that may include the following:
-Chopped pork (you have no chopped pork? What? Pigs have wings now?)
-Wine (no, no! you can’t have a couple of drinks with that wine!)
-Salt (yes, we need a pinch of salt. No, not metaphorically)
-Various Herbs and Spices (nobody is really sure which ones to use. No, not the eatery in Indiranagar)
Other types of salami include imported brands, which are ideal, especially as you don’t need to prepare them.
A sneak peak into some of the stories that make up Salami-Ishq:
Story 1:Vidya Balan wakes up in the morning to find an anniversary gift by her bedside. It is a packet of rare South Italian Paprika Salami from her loving husband, John Abra-ham. She is excited as she relishes the feel of the fine meat and understands that the gift is a metaphor for their relationship. They are completely crazy about each other and find it quite difficult to keep their hands off each other.
But where did Abra-ham acquire this Salami?
Story 2:Govinda wakes up in the morning and gets into his colorful taxi(two colors, yellow and black). He rams into a blond called Stephanie who runs a meat-manufacturing unit in Italy. The huge bag of packaged meat that she is carrying careens out of control and large packets of salami are plastered all over the ever present traffic jam, making a continental breakfast of it. They fall in love and the meat is forgotten, which makes their love a ‘pure’ kind of love (as in ‘pure veg food’). Meat being forgotten also works well for Govinda as there is a lot of meat on him that needs to be forgotten.
Characters played by Salman, Priyanka, Anil, Juhi and four other actors of various sizes inhabit the remaining four stories. To find out more about this paean to red meat (not to be confused with communist recipes) go watch the movie.
As you watch the movie, you will wonder if the ticket price you paid is a real world metaphor for a kind of computer fraud called Salami fraud. In the salami technique, criminals/directors steal money or resources a bit at a time. But well, that is your food for thought.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Jan 18 2007 - Risk
You can see, if you are a regular reader of this blog(which is very very very unlikely) that I have reused some earlier material!
OPM*
Presents – Risky Business
Wikipedia informs me that Risk is a concept that denotes a potential negative impact to an asset that may arise from some present or future event. In everyday usage, "risk" is often used synonymously with the probability of a loss. For example, the risk of rain versus how badly your suede shoes will stain.
Further risk could include, rain not affecting your suede shoes versus realization that your shoes are made of fake suede.
i.e. Risk = (probability of an event) x (losses per event)
Now these terribly technical terms will need some explanation.
An event is something that happens. This usually requires movement of some kind, which explains why many people opine that this lazy author is ‘not happening’.
Probability is much more confusing and is directly linked to Heisenberg's uncertainity principle, which postulates that Uncertainity cannot be accurately forecast.
Heisenberg was himself quite uncertain of the whole thing but he couldn't blame himself, as he had already proved that uncertainity was not predictable, unless it was. But one could never tell, for sure.
The ideas behind Probability and uncertainty, struck Heisenberg as he finished cooking an elegant meal for himself. This thought, though, enabled him to create prize winning science papers, while most of us tend to add salt when struck by the very same thought, " Something's missing “.
To put it simply, Probability and Risk are like Bollywood scripts. There is no telling where they could head. To understand the true poignance of this statement please watch Hindi movies where joyously happy families/mothers/elder siblings/fathers/benevolent maids etc realize that they have lost one or more little children at the Kumbh Mela (which, incidentally, was invented by Rajshree Productions as a film setting for losing kids/parents/lovers etc. The Kumbh Mela as such has no historical relevance and was initially created as a film set in the 1930's before it grew into popular legend and culture as a place where pious people performed rituals in the water and young voyeurous lechers checked out the women. It’s a good thing though and everyone goes home satisfied)
Our story starts as the lens moves through a dolly shot (based on the book; Ending Cloning, the day Dolly the sheep was Shot) of a garden in disrepair.
There are trees slouching to protect their space and plants doing badly in a corner as the camera pans to a close-up of our hero who is trembling, clutching a gun.
Run-deep is a Risk Analyst with a leading portfolio management firm.
But herein lies the twist. The Portfolio Management firm exclusively does business for terrorists, warlords, mafia, lawyers and the BCCI. Their market analysts have roam around with guns, to protect themselves from irate clients.
As the story progresses we begin to realize that the story arc is an uncompromising and honest look at an improbable world and shows the same commitment to realism and starkness as a Justice League or Swat Cat cartoon.
It turns out that Run-deep has run himself into deep trouble with a set of clients headed by Osama Bush (President of the international court of lenience for troublemakers) by investing in bad business ideas like the ten rupee diamond, Team India and the Bachchan-Rai engagement. To make things worse Run-deep is a paranoid literalist who mistakes Bull and Bear markets to be gladiatorial battlefields where market analysts fight fierce animals. This makes him very touchy and trigger-happy, especially around animals. PETA is hounding him for shooting at several squirrels, poisonous snakes, vicious dogs and Salman Kahn.
His bugbear, Osama Bush (played by Vinod Khanna) wears a beard to hide the pallor that affects people who have lived their lives manipulating and deceiving people over monstrously flawed ideas like God, Political honesty and nationalism.
As Run-deep has invested his dishonestly earned money in such risky assets, he is baying for his blood.
He kidnaps Run-deep’s girlfriend, Tanushree who is a dancer at a bar called Risque.
Will Run-deep take grave risks to save his girlfriend? Does Osama Bush risk the grave in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will you risk reading next weeks OPM?
Anyway, do remember what this movie preaches – Life mein Risk lena padta hai, which means - don't worry about the risk of rain in Pondicherry or wherever else you are going, but do pack an umbrella.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
OPM*
Presents – Risky Business
Wikipedia informs me that Risk is a concept that denotes a potential negative impact to an asset that may arise from some present or future event. In everyday usage, "risk" is often used synonymously with the probability of a loss. For example, the risk of rain versus how badly your suede shoes will stain.
Further risk could include, rain not affecting your suede shoes versus realization that your shoes are made of fake suede.
i.e. Risk = (probability of an event) x (losses per event)
Now these terribly technical terms will need some explanation.
An event is something that happens. This usually requires movement of some kind, which explains why many people opine that this lazy author is ‘not happening’.
Probability is much more confusing and is directly linked to Heisenberg's uncertainity principle, which postulates that Uncertainity cannot be accurately forecast.
Heisenberg was himself quite uncertain of the whole thing but he couldn't blame himself, as he had already proved that uncertainity was not predictable, unless it was. But one could never tell, for sure.
The ideas behind Probability and uncertainty, struck Heisenberg as he finished cooking an elegant meal for himself. This thought, though, enabled him to create prize winning science papers, while most of us tend to add salt when struck by the very same thought, " Something's missing “.
To put it simply, Probability and Risk are like Bollywood scripts. There is no telling where they could head. To understand the true poignance of this statement please watch Hindi movies where joyously happy families/mothers/elder siblings/fathers/benevolent maids etc realize that they have lost one or more little children at the Kumbh Mela (which, incidentally, was invented by Rajshree Productions as a film setting for losing kids/parents/lovers etc. The Kumbh Mela as such has no historical relevance and was initially created as a film set in the 1930's before it grew into popular legend and culture as a place where pious people performed rituals in the water and young voyeurous lechers checked out the women. It’s a good thing though and everyone goes home satisfied)
Our story starts as the lens moves through a dolly shot (based on the book; Ending Cloning, the day Dolly the sheep was Shot) of a garden in disrepair.
There are trees slouching to protect their space and plants doing badly in a corner as the camera pans to a close-up of our hero who is trembling, clutching a gun.
Run-deep is a Risk Analyst with a leading portfolio management firm.
But herein lies the twist. The Portfolio Management firm exclusively does business for terrorists, warlords, mafia, lawyers and the BCCI. Their market analysts have roam around with guns, to protect themselves from irate clients.
As the story progresses we begin to realize that the story arc is an uncompromising and honest look at an improbable world and shows the same commitment to realism and starkness as a Justice League or Swat Cat cartoon.
It turns out that Run-deep has run himself into deep trouble with a set of clients headed by Osama Bush (President of the international court of lenience for troublemakers) by investing in bad business ideas like the ten rupee diamond, Team India and the Bachchan-Rai engagement. To make things worse Run-deep is a paranoid literalist who mistakes Bull and Bear markets to be gladiatorial battlefields where market analysts fight fierce animals. This makes him very touchy and trigger-happy, especially around animals. PETA is hounding him for shooting at several squirrels, poisonous snakes, vicious dogs and Salman Kahn.
His bugbear, Osama Bush (played by Vinod Khanna) wears a beard to hide the pallor that affects people who have lived their lives manipulating and deceiving people over monstrously flawed ideas like God, Political honesty and nationalism.
As Run-deep has invested his dishonestly earned money in such risky assets, he is baying for his blood.
He kidnaps Run-deep’s girlfriend, Tanushree who is a dancer at a bar called Risque.
Will Run-deep take grave risks to save his girlfriend? Does Osama Bush risk the grave in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will you risk reading next weeks OPM?
Anyway, do remember what this movie preaches – Life mein Risk lena padta hai, which means - don't worry about the risk of rain in Pondicherry or wherever else you are going, but do pack an umbrella.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Jan 11 2007 - Guru
OPM*
Presents – Guru and crew
Our story starts in the little village of Idhar, where Gurukant (played by Abhishek) has been raised by very middle class parents.
Middle class in a village where one is rich if they have a radio. The village of Idhar (Hindi=>meaning ‘Over Here’) has been neglected by mainstream civilization. This is because, when travellers ask for directions to ‘Over Here’ people look at them strangely and say ‘over here is obviously right here’.
But young Gurukant has many dreams. His parents wake him up early and disturb his dreams just when he is getting to the best parts, though. (Parents everywhere are known to do this. This is usually achieved by switching off the ceiling fan or making loud noises over the announcement of something as ordinary as morning coffee)
Su-jata (played by Su-nehri from Dhoom 2) enters Gurukant’s life, while he is lying idly in his father’s fields dreaming vivid daydreams. Su-jata is singing songs in the rain, as that is the only entertainment available in little Idhar, especially as her parents don’t own a radio. She wakes Gurukant when she steps on him and this turns out to be a big step-up for both of them. Gurukant thinks he is still dreaming and proceeds to pinch himself and Su-jata silly to ensure he isn’t dreaming.
A World Famous-in-Idhar romance begins. Tabs are kept on Gurukant and Su-jata by armies of little children who are bunking school to get a taste of reality-television kind of time-pass. Once everyone else has discussed them as an item, the parents are informed and a marriage is in the offing. The astrologer is called in. This is the turning point of the tale and we will require a brief detour to put things into perspective.
Jyotish, a system of astrology, has been part of the Indian way of life for ages. Jyotish is the instructional element of the Rig Veda (the rigging was done at large scale and millions of rupees were lost by the public), and is referred to as the Eye of the Veda (inspiring the later day song, Eye of the Tiger which caused several Save the Tiger environmentalists to froth at the mouth), for its alleged ability to view both phenomenal reality and wisdom, but do nothing about either.
Many Indians believe, without good reason, that humans have fortune and misfortune in life because of karma (a fashionable word in spiritual western company). Jyotish attributes the downs in life to the influence of planets, and religious ceremonies are performed to mitigate bad karma. This was reason enough to inspire people to believe in other unbelievable things like the Aum Shrinkyo sect, Communism, Religion, the Pink Unicorn, the revolving teacup and George W. Bush.
Astrologers prescribe special stones (yes, expensive ones) or meditation techniques using mantras (hit item numbers from ancient times) to those facing difficult or unclear futures as predicted by Jyotish. This is always a good thing, especially for astrologers.
Some astrological terms:
Jaatak Shaastra (horoscopy)- Oh the horrors in your horoscope! Pay me quickly. (Started by the authors of fiction who wrote the Jataka tales)
Swar Shaastra- Your name sucks. Let me change it. Pay me quickly.
Ravi Shastri – The Indian team sucks. Cut their pay.
Back to our story then! The astrologer announces that Su-jata has a kujadosham and that the man she marries will suffer. (Kujadosham is brought on by the effect of Mars, which shows an aggressive nature. Astrology doesn’t like aggressive women, it seems and for a woman to be aggressive is a dosha or a fault!!)
After performing several yagnas Gurukant realizes that he will have to study astrology himself to figure out a way to get married.
He studies hard for a couple of weeks at the University in Benares, but gives up when he realizes that astrology can be made up as one goes along. He gets married and begins to use astrology to earn a living. After considering Gurucan, Gurukant drops the ‘kant’ and becomes Guru.
His fame spreads far and wide (but never near and narrow). His very words are taken literally causing a lot of confusion. Examples:
Guru: If you don’t dream you will be stuck to your village. (Many villagers migrate to cities and vice versa, while still others spend a lot of time ensuring there is no glue on their footwear)
Guru: I don’t want to walk. I want to run (many children run away from school, some men run away from work)
Guru: When you run fast, you raise a lot of dust (P.T. Usha loses the gold at the Olympics, as she is looking back to see the dust)
Guru: I wish I met Mallika Sherawat (So do the rest of us)
But a young reporter (played by Madhavan) realizes that astrology and Guru are ruining the country. He publishes an impassioned plea to see the light (no one is willing to look at the light as there is a solar eclipse on)
The reporter writes:
Do you believe that information in the far past can influence what we are doing now or in the recent past or in the immediate future?
Why do i ask? Consider these facts.
The Sun is eight light minutes away from the Earth, a distance of about 160 million kilometres, which rules out a taxi ride.
So if I were to look at you or Gisele Bundchen from the sun, I would see a picture of what you, or more interestingly, she was doing eight minutes earlier. Conversely, when you look up into the sky and see the sun, you are a getting a picture that is eight minutes old. Over galactic distances the speed of light becomes noticeable. The nearest star Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away. So when we see Alpha Centauri in the sky it is a 4-year-old picture. The universe has about a hundred billion galaxies the nearest of which is Andromeda. Andromeda is 4 million light years away. If someone in the galaxy of Andromeda were to cast his telescope on Earth he would look 4 million years into our past and maybe catch a few glimpses of the earliest flat-faced Neanderthals, with some luck, one of the attractive ones - A 4 million year old picture.
As we peer farther and farther in to space we are peering farther and farther into the past.
All those constellations are pictures from the past too. The actual configurations just now are totally different, because all the stars have moved and it is a completely changed night sky.
Thus, no astrologer can predict anything but the past, based on the stars they see in the sky. Guru especially.
Will Madhavan’s article kick up dust even though he is not running? To find out, watch this melancholy tale with a Dahlian twist. (Not Dahlia the flower, Dahl the author)
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Coming soon..
Have been busy experiencing fatherhood. Will put up all OPM articles Jan through April one of these day!
Hope the 2 or 3 people who visit this desolation are doing well.
Cheers!
Hope the 2 or 3 people who visit this desolation are doing well.
Cheers!
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