Yogi's Corner

Tiger Zinda Hai Movie review I approached this movie with a lot of scepticism as last couple of Sallu movies were not to the standards of what one can expect from a heart core Salman fan. While, Tubelight was hopeless, Bhajranji bhai did tug a few heart strings but did not have the mass appeal of Dabaang ! So Tiger is back .. and that's what is fantastic for the core Sallu fans !! Here is what we get from what we expect .. Be it Ready or Wanted or Bodyguard ..... Salman bhai is back in action and how. Can't call the above 2 movies (Bajrangi and Tubelight ) as flops as they too did cross the 300 crore mark eventually and so will this movie too over this weekend. The movie is based in Middle East ... North East of Syria in particular. Rogue groups are called as ICS but clear references can be made to ISIS. Initial locations are of the snow clad mountains of some alps in Austria and with the wolves and a sledge ride make an awesome viewing. This is the introduction of Tiger...

Earlier today morning, at around 8.30 am I was at the NESCO to attend the biggest South Asia's pharmaceutical event. To the best part, I was just an observer but looking at the things around me, it could not have been more mismanaged. When you are looking at 50k+ people to attend the event, I surely feel that the preparations could have been a lot better. Let's start with the entrance. There is no sign board from which you have to enter from. There are 3 gates... 1 2 and 3 and as a foreigner, I had absolutely no clue which gate will take me there. My Indian colleagues kept on telling me to take gate 2 and drop of somewhere near the food court but the traffic was a nightmare. Just getting off and paying the Uber guy was a painful experience as the cars behind, enjoyed a musical experience honking their cars. With so much of human wilderness, I somehow managed to meet my Indian buddies. Next up was to have some breakfast in a jiffy before I rolled my sleeves for the long day...

 Inspired by a 1969 movie by the same name, this murder thriller promises a lot and delivers too on a lot of fronts. It however leaves the audiences wanting a bit more and a lot better ending.  Ittefaq would be one of the best performances from Akshay Khanna, who plays the role of a lead police officer. The story moves on 2 lines in parallel. It is intricately weaved in between the the main protagonist Siddharth Malhotra and Sonakshi Sinha. It's a double murder mystery and the film smoothly moves along with both lead actors telling their part of the story. The back and forth version of the two sides of the same story is very well depicted. Siddharth looks comfortable in his role but I wish they had taken someone else than Sonakshi who looks completely out of place and lacks the substance for this role.  The film starts abruptly and it takes you quite a while to figure out the sequence of events. I will not call it 'at the edge of your seat' excitement but it does ...

The stampede tragedy in Mumbai – Elphistone Road station incident   What a sad day indeed for Mumbai ! 30 or so lifes lost and lots many injured and not to mention a 1000 others who would have gone through a near death experience (somehow no one is talking about them). But how many of us can put a hand on our heart and say that we did not know that this was waiting to happen ? How many of us …. forget the local trains but even local subzee markets where we shop daily, don’t we feel that we may be shoved under a moving bus in that crowded market ? According to me, Elphistone is just a small station in our daily commute on the local railway. Yes, Elphistone & Lower Parel are getting busier with the new office buildings coming up in that area but we can’t compare them to railway stations like Dadar, Andheri, Ghatkoper and even Kurla. My friends travelling on local trains on a daily basis will accept the fact that it’s impossible to get down at Andheri or even Borival...

Jagga Jasoos Movie review This movie has some sort of enigmatic approach. It could be totally boring or wonderfully riveting depending on how you view it. The treatment for this movie is unique and could be called as a blend between  The Sound of Music and Hardy Boys. Long ago there was this silent movie in the era of dishoom dishoom called as Pushpak (Kamal Hasan). JJ somehow made me recall those moments. This movie has probably no dialogues at all. The main protagonist Ranbir is a stuttering but smart .. always wanting to solve a quiz ... whacky character ably aided by my so so cheesy favourite Katrina ... who is so prone to small accidents. These 2 characters I could actually identify from real life truly!! So since Ranbir stammers .... he sings his way thru and strangely so does the rest of the cast and the story. Infact the 1st case of Hardy Boys is solved in 1 song itself. So if you are not paying enough attention, you may even miss some action without even realising...

Cricket in Singapore I dedicate this blog to my dearest friend Bhanu, with whom I have had several orgasmic discussions on various facets of cricket. "How do you differentiate between the 2 teams when all of you are wearing whites? " This was the common question posed by my Singaporean friends. It never ceased to amuse me. To me it was so easy, one team was batting and another fielding... what is so difficult to differentiate in that? However, these were an entirely different breed of people who grew up watching football and basketball where the players of both the teams would be playing throughout the entire match. And yes, team jerseys and even their numbers were important. Beckham without his #7 and Maradona without his #10 would not be as good, they would reckon ! The Initiation  : My tryst with cricket in Singapore started in April 1996 when tri-nation tournament (Singer Cup)   between India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka was organised in the islan...

One of my colleagues recently remarked that my passport pages resembled that of those where a child is given a rubber stamp and a free reign to stamp as and where he wants. It made me think, if I could share a few of those stamps with you all. One of my oldest incidences is that at Perth airport. Between my maiden international flight to Singapore and the next one to Perth, Australia; I was grounded for almost 2 years. Just recently, I had made a 12 day whirlwind trip to Europe and that also meant that I had to travel to Perth to close some loose ends of a business deal. For the people who don't me that well, it's always my quest to live the life of locals and find the underbelly of that city. It does not mean that I would need to experience it first hand but it's has been my endeavour and remains till date ... to understand the undercurrents so that it becomes a part of my growing up lesson. Qantas Airlines dropped me at Perth at around 7.30 pm. It's about a 4 h...

Coke can cannot, Pepsi can ... can .. can ? The shrill heavily accented female voice brought me back to reality. I quickly tried to regroup myself. I was in a what I came to know later, in a food court in Singapore. I had ordered a fried rice (the closest to some Indian food I could find) and then went on to splurge on having a coke in a can ! My teenage years had gone by adoring and yearning for The Coca-Cola and here I was... about to buy one ! 75 Singapore cents.. less than Rs.20 ( the first thing you do when you go to a foreign country is to start converting it in your currency ). ... did I not tell you to remind me to get even with my uncle? Ghanshyam dutifully picked me up from the Singapore airport at 4.30 pm, 24 hours later than my scheduled arrival. He was a 3rd generation Indian Singaporean. He got me to the company accommodation .. a nice sprawling 3 bedroom house. However, the room furnishing and the neighboring locality was none better than that of my hous...

I just desperately wanted to leave home. I was so tired of the constant bickering of my parents  (which continue to this day .. ) that I would have willingly gone to Shirngnapur if Singapore would not have happened. Infact one of my mom friends called her and congratulated her that she would be doing the Ashtavinayak often from now on. It was a chance coincidence. I was at one of the numerous interviews that used to happen those days. Dr. Manmohan Singh (the then FM) had opened the Indian economy a few years ago in 1991 and all the Sonys & the Panasonics of the world were making an entry into India. In the process of doing so, they were also looking for ready-made people like me (I was working for Onida  - Consumer Electronics - for about 2 years in sales & knew a lot of distributors and retailers). As expected, the call from Sony came and I dutifully attended as I attended quite a few earlier. Those days there were only 3 frontline consumer electron...

This post is written by one of my dear friends - Sandeep Ashtekar. It is a complete 180 degree view from what I had shared earlier. It also helps that he is studying psychology. He continues to educate us on the little nuances of life and how each one of us can deal with the same. Thanks my friend. Hello Zindagi.....Movie is not about a girl getting into relationship with multiple guys and not wanting long term relationship.  It tries to beautifully  address the WHY part of such a problem, why are people afraid of commitment, why people jump from one short to another short term relationship, how does early childhood environment impact the children. This impact remains in their subconscious and impacts future life as adults. It's about how important it is to cleanse up the garage collected in mind so that new finds space in life. It's about forgiveness towards parents, accepting that all humans make mistakes including parents, they too are human. Finally as we take help fo...

Dear Zindagi movie review If the theatre accepts the old notes of 500 or 1000 go for it.. even then ask yourself if you can wisely spend it at the petrol station. I mean I would rather watch the blue screen in my TV than go and decipher what this movie is all about. I would recommend you to go for this movie only if your AC at home is not working. All along you are left wondering what this woman's problem in life is. She casually dumps a guy who adores her on a dinner table but few scenes later gets extremely hassled when another of her bf is honest and asking for her commitment but has to leave town. So what does she do ? Goes and starts dancing with another cute guy in a disco. What a sham of a story. All along we are plagued wondering where the story is heading and why I have spent my 300 Rs, not including the popcorn mind you. A chance encounter with therapist SRK and you still won't know why she picked him. SRK tries his best to ham as he usually does but he is simply n...

31st Dec & 1st Jan I could never understand the relevance of this cusp. I mean given the fact that it would get me to rewrite or re sign a few cheques, how does it really matter ? Is it an excuse to get oneself drunk silly or finding a reason to celebrate for no reason at all ? Long ago on 31st Dec 1999, I found myself stranded in Dubai all alone by myself. Visa issues meant that though I could leave the country, I wouldn't be able to come back any time soon. Obviously, this was not acceptable to my employers. Having moved here only in November meant that I did not have any friends to party with. By GMT timeline, I was 4 hours behind the best of my friends that I had left behind in Singapore and 1.5 hours behind my lovely parents back home in India. For once, I was happy that I was behind times as I was sure that the world would explode at 11:59:59 1999 at the turn of the century. So many of my useless and hardly educated friends had found employment in the almighty US ...