Swedish. 2024.
An electronic salesman gets wrongfully arrested for murder and is imprisoned where he finds a tunnel to escape and a bunch of guys who have dug the tunnel who mistake him to be a pilot and take him along. Somehow he has to escape the murder rap by finding a video made by the man who was murdered.
Complicated to tell in few lines so I will leave it at that. Just enough to say that it is entertaining and funny.
Must be something to learn from these pictures!
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| Jeff Thomson |
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| Michael Holding |
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| Dennis Lillee |
(No idea who clicked them but pic courtesy whoever did)
I was studying the effects of one bad apple on the team and stumbled upon the 'bad apple experiment' conducted by Professor Will Felps of Rotterdam University who concluded that a single bad apple (Depressive Pessimists - those who complain and doubt group's ability to succeed, Jerks - those who say other people's ideas are inadequate but does not offer alternatives and Slackers - those who are laid back and not interested in working or communicating) can disrupt a team and lower group performance by as much as 30-40 percent!
One bad apple can cause team members to argue and fight, not share relevant information and communicate less. It promotes anxiety and defensiveness in the team and over time, people disengage.
The verdict - get rid of bad apples asap before they spoil the whole bunch!
1990. Robin Williams, Robert De Niro
Dr Sawyer treats catatonic patients at a hospital in New York and realises that they have a similar history with encephalitis. He learns of a new drug ; Dopa and is convinced that it might have a positive effect on his patients. The most catatonic one, Leonard Lowe, fully awakens miraculously thanks to his experiment and all other patients also show significant progress. Just when things are looking good the drug's effectiveness fades off, Leonard develops tics and twitches and slowly goes back into his catatonic state.
It's depressing on one hand but also has hope, courage, love as its themes. Dr Sawyer's love for his patents comes through. De Niro is excpetional.
2008. Hindi.
Directed by Nandita Das the movie is set one month after the Gujarat riots of 2002 and explores the consequences of riots on the lives of ordinary people, a young Muslim couple (husband has an auto) whose house was burnt and looted, an elderly musician who teaches music and remains oblivious to the hate around him, a well-t-do couple whose shop got looted, a Hindu wife who is trying to make up for the guilt of not helping a Muslim woman who had banged on their door seeking protection from a mob and so on.
Nicely made. Nasseruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Raghuvir Yadav. Can't go wrong.
I looked for his book to gift Malay on his 40th and could not find it. Vinod, my go-to fairy in all things concerning books fished it out of his magical collection but by then the birthday had come and gone. Since the humour in my life was generally going down, I decided to read it and Dave did not disappoint. It took a while to pick up steam but as it did I was struck down by loud eruptions of laughter that made me want to slow it down - I was making funny guttural sounds and thought that I could have heath issues if I continued that way.
He starts with an academic quiz to find out whether you are grown up yet which most won't pass, then moves on to explain how your body is disintegrating, has beauty tips for mature gals, wonders at the midlife marriage, parenthood at 40, planning midlife crises, sex, time management (read this chapter very quickly he advises - but mostly says one should not waste time on meetings and such stuff), financial planning, politic, sports (I loved this chapter - he covers golf,fishing, walking like a dork, shrieking at little leaguers, skiing), dementia and stuff like that. It really had me rolling over.
Dave never fails. If you haven't read it, do. And thanks Vinod bhai, you have in so many ways added much laughter to my life, Dave Barry's introduction to my reading list being one of them.
Inspired by an article she read about how India's domestic airlines now reach 80 cities Monisha Rajesh, a Telugu who has connections in Chennai and Hyderabad but only barely since she and her family lived and grew up in the UK, decided to gingerly test the Indian experience with - around India in 80 days.Also semi inspired by the Jules Verne classic of Around the World in 80 days she found her own Passepartout and they set out on their three or four month adventure of travelling in Indian trains to the farthest tip on four corners of the country and traversing the 64000 kms network that carries around 20 million people a day!
To start with Monisha dropped in at the UK representative of Indian Rail who gave her a nice break up of trains to travel by - scenic routes, toy trains, luxury trains, Rajdhanis, Shatabdis and some Indrail passes which are available only for phirangs I think. The duo land in Chennai which is home, get their tickets organised by some jugaad, and take the Chennai Kanyakumari express. For some reason Monisha is also obsessed with Chetan Bhagath and ends up reading all his books on these journeys.
Anyway here's how she went about - Chennai-Kanyakumari-Kerala-Goa. Anyway on to Goa and a stay in Candolim where she mentions the River Princess, a ship that ran aground and stayed there till recently, then the Konkan Railway to Mumbai through 92 tunnels. Then they caught a train called the Indian Maharaja which is a luxury train and went to Delhi.
From Mumbai another luxury train 'The Deccan Odyssey' which took them to Ellora, Udaipur, Ranthambore and to Delhi. Another IndRail pass and they head right back to - Kottayam in Kerala and enjoy a stay in the backwaters of Kumarakom, hopped across to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu for their temple trip - Madurai, Thanjavur, Srirangam, Nagpattanam and so on. While in Madurai she stayed at Hotel Chetnoor which was right behind the hotel we stayed in (Royal Court) and we actually had stopped at Chetnoor's bar for a drink - she mentions the hotel and the bar in not so complimentary terms. It was surreal - me in Madurai reading about the same place written by an author ten years ago. Oh, while in the bar they have an argument over Sathya Sai Baba which freezes their relationship a bit. Then to Chennai.
From Chennai to Hyderabad and to Mumbai where they experienced the local trains first hand, then to Pune where they enrolled into the Osho experience which she did not seem to subscribe to much, to Jhansi, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Dwarka, Diu. And then to Jaisalmer, Kalka on way to Shimla at some point when Passepartout and she have a fall out. She decides to flip between calling it off when she meets known faces and heads on to Amritsar, drops into Kapil Dev's home at Delhi over the wall, back to Chennai, hops on to the Golden Chariot from Mysore which takes her to Hasan, Hampi, Gadag, Goa and back to Bangalore.
From there to the Lifeline Express which offers medical help to remote areas hrough trains, Allahabad,Jammu, Udhanpur, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Tinsukhia, Ledo the farthest station in the East, toy train from Darjeeling, Kolkata, Puri (where she is sent out of the temple for lack of proof of being a Hindu). Cleanses it all up with a 10 day Vippasana course in Hyderabad and then to Chennai and back home.
Monisha wrote very well - witty, packed with the right amount of research, crisp, empathetic, honest - you cannot ask for more. Through all this she keeps her view very honest, meets people easily and except for one time when she runs away from a hotel in some godforsaken place late at night, generally has good experiences with strangers offering help, food, connections, a shoulder, information. From her writing it appears she was open and soaked in the Indian train experience, the many different cultures and people and food that India offers and revelled in it. Makes you want to take train journeys too! Excellent work Monisha somehow I identified with her in so many ways - her Telugu and Hyderabad connection, the Vipassana in Hyderabad, many of the places she visited, her sense of humour. And to think I bought this book in Madurai where she stayed in a hotel right behind mine and then wrote a book that made it to the bookstore there!
I'd read her to Naipaul any day.
