Ouch.

My head hurts. The last thing i remember is that dastardly orc and his monstrous mongrel charging down on me. These orcs, they aren't as tough as they look, I tell you, but they are crafty bastards. I mean rascals. I fought off the orc, but my long flowing dress got stuck in the saddle and the bloody mutt took me along with it when it went over the cliff.

Note: Wear loose clothes with caution. A Levis and a Lacoste should do.

I dreamt Arwen was kissing me. We had this talk about her leaving Middle Earth. Maybe it was because I am hanging out too much with Legolas these days. Nah, I am a hunk with a two day stubble. Elven or human, no woman can resist my charms. But it wasn't Arwen, really. It was my tawny steed, trying to give me CPR. Thooack! Sputter...There is a deep gash on my right shoulder. Hmm..these elvish women can be really feisty. No, wait, that was just a dream. This must have been that mutated mongrel. Atleast I am alive. Take me to where Legolas is, horsey. I mean, I don't specifically want to meet him. Don't look at me like that, dumb animal, I am straighter than Legolas can shoot an arrow! Damn!

Note: Go pub crawling and arm wrestling with Gimli this weekend.

Ah, Helm's deep. I shall finally see Legolas and Eowyn again. I mean, Eowyn and Legolas. No, just Eowyn. There she is. What did I tell you. All I have to do is give that Don Juan look and they will be eating out of my hands. Can't these orcs live in peace? Gandalf told me of another realm called Iraq where a great war is being fought. But I have travelled all over Middle Earth, and have seen no such thing. But Gandlaf the White is truly wise, and I trust his word. Why can't these orcs go there? There's Legolas. Don't look at him. Focus on Gimli but don't make it too obvious. Theoden's making a big ruckus, he seems to have lost his favourite back-scratcher. An itchy back can be fatal in war, I have learnt, many greater men have fallen to prickly heat.

Note: Run down to nearest Fairprice and get a Shower to Shower.

Eowyn's a nice girl. Just that she is a bit aggressive. No, not where it matters. She is the kind that slams you in the back when you are pondering over the meaning of life. But those freckles make her look cute, so I guess I'll forgive this transgression. Does Gimli wear the same dress day in day out? I have never seen him take a bath. Scruffy looking, if you ask me. On the other hand, Legolas seems to have an infinite supply of dresses that look alike and appear unisexual. Thats it! That's why I am obsessed with Legolas! He reminds me so much of Arwen! Phew! For a moment....

Note: Buy Legolas a pair of Levis and a Lacoste as soon as we get back to Rohan.

It will be a matter of hours before the Urukhai get here. Maybe I'll ask Eowyn to wake me up when they do. Maybe if I pretend to be unconscious, she might use CPR...hee..

Athaato pj-aananda

A cat and a dog meet each other.

Dog- Fine morning, madame. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Swaraj Pawl, industrialist and entrepreneur. I must say, charmed, charmed I am by your beauty and grace.
Cat- Your fame precedes you, good Sir. I am but a model for photographers and such. They call me Cindy Clawford, but you must call me Cindy, i insist.

It evoked laughter, there is no punchline, no logic, yet.

My friend, Atif, a.k.a. Mullah, bought the tickets with his credit card, online.Arun, a.k.a. Jhumri, went to Mustafa to wrap up his �going-back-to-India� shopping. Atif picked a taxi with a driver who spoke no English. How wonderful. End result: We entered the movie hall 10 minutes late. There was a recap, so we didn�t miss anything.

 My friend, Rohan Ranadive, was with us. So whenever there was a reference to Rohan in the movie, we snickered. The best was when Aragorn calls out to the riders of Rohan, Jhumri said, �Bhai ke aadmi hai, sambhal ke�

 Gollum�s schizophrenia evoked some giggles from the girls in the audience, but I saw the daily conflict we all face, just exacerbated into an outspoken duel. More about the girls in the audience, they seemed to totally love Frodo. Looks like the age of the �man� has passed, it looks like curly haired boys with pale faces devoid of hair are the rage now. But it won�t last, Gangs of New York will usher in another fad. What struck me was the way Frodo stood up for Gollum and believed in him when Sam doubted and abused him.

 Theoden�s silliness in not listening to Gandalf and making a stand at Rohan leads to the disappearance of Aragorn, much to the despair of Eowyn. There was this dreamy sequence where one almost at first thinks that Aragorn is hallucinating, but has actually formed some emotional bond with Aravan, who is emotionally distressed as well, as Elrond tries to convince her to forget Aragorn. I really liked this scene. Someone quipped, �The name is Gorn, Aragorn� and a Chinese girl from the front row turned around and gave us a dirty look.

 While Pippin and Merry make friends with the Ents, trying to convince them that Saruman is evil, Legolas and co. try to help Theoden prepare for the Uruk-hai attack. Saruman raises an army of ten thousand Uruk-hai to take Helm�s deep. With only three hundred men in the garrison, Theoden seems in despair, but Aragorn�s arrival and the reinforcements from Rivendell sent after Elrond has a vision of Galadriel seem to raise some spirits.

 There, in Gondor, Frodo is forced to betray Gollum to save his life, which makes Gollum�s schizophrenia relapse. The weight of the ring starts showing on Frodo. Sam gives him a Gandalfesque pep talk and they convince Faramir to let them go. There, as the Ents attack Saruman for destroying their forests with great effect, our heroes at Helm�s deep are outnumbered. I thought the battle was unrealistically shoddy. given the rest of the movie was brilliant.

Just as the Uruk-hai seem to be overthrowing the keep, who comes to the rescue but Gandalf who goads Hallifax onto a horde of Uruk-hai pikemen. The final battle scene was too Bollywoody for my taste. Have you seen Braveheart? In the battle of Stirling, the Scots used wooden pikes to great effect against English skirmishers, mounted chargers, that is. The Uruk-hai pikes were longer and made of metal, yet they meekly parted as Gandalf and his company charged down the hill. Apart from this mess up, the movie was beautiful. It was worth the money I spent on the cab and the movie ticket. Recommended.

 

	�	Are kaay caalale aahe? What is going on here? I mean, agreed that one would want more people to be vegetarian and all, but sinking this low to attract people of the feminine persuasion [pardon this usage] to vegetarianism is a new high. Outrageous, I say, simply outrageous. I also wish to clarify that my switch [or rather, return] to vegetarianism since January this year was not triggered by any such advertising. I also wish to reiterate what I have said previously on someone's blog, Indian marketing, indeed, is superlative.
		Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction: "Well, if you like hamburgers give 'em a try sometime. Me, I can't usually eat 'em 'cause my girlfriend's a vegetarian. Which more or less makes me a vegetarian, but I sure love the taste of a good burger"

Save me!

I mean, the profile starts off quite well, with information that can be cross referenced and all, but it ends abruptly, quite abruptly. Reminds me of the Southpark episode where Eric Cartman decides that the local Catholic church was sinful and decides to start his own, with an ulterior motive of making one million dollars, of course.

The Pakistanis believed that Islam would bring unity and stability to Pakistan. Then in 1971, Bangladesh broke away. Soon after, there was a secessionist revolt in Baluchistan which was 'crushed' by the army. Today, religion has made the country anything but stable.

Hindu fundies took the house by storm, nay, they blew the roof off and sent commandoes in, crushing all resistance. Immediately riots broke out all over the state. Casualties suffered by the Hindu fundie camp? The 60 Godhra dead, including women and children. I could evaluate a conspiracy theory that accused Modi of engineering the Godhra train massacre, but I dismissed the theory of the American bombing of the WTC, so I will this one too.

Something tells me that proponents of a nuclear war with Pakistan and a Muslim holocaust are not going to give up that easily. Not after carnage has been rewarded with electoral success.

here is an interesting statistic:
40-50% of the comments on sukanya's blog are by sukanya herself.

husssshhhhhh......
damlo buvaa......

-reproduced from my current read-
Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth century Muslim traveler who wanted to viist all the Muslim territories in the world, spent about seven years in Muslim India from about 1335. As a traveler he depended on the bounty of the various despots whose lands he visited. He knew the form; he knew how to give gifts to het bigger ones in return. He gave the local governor of Sindh a white slave, a horse, some raisins and almonds.
-break-
In India he constantly talks about slaves and slave girls; he says at one place that he can't travel without them. Slaves are part of the view. In Aden, he had seen slaves used as draught animals, he records it as a novelty, not as an impropriety. For a few months, and as a courtesy to him as a visitor, he was granted the revenues of a village in this Bahawalpur area by a local official. He made five thousand dinars. The dinars didn't fall out of the sky; they would have come from the fields and the serfs who worked them. They are the people never mentioned by Ibn Battuta, but always present.
-end-
the passage does not talk about Ibn Battuta, it talks about how such exploitation of serfs still goes on in rural Pakistan.