Showing posts with label bsnl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bsnl. Show all posts

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Review



Well, it was a testing week with the work, team outing and a few other things. A sleepless Thursday night helped by some singing that made no sense to me, put me of into sleep mode in the morning itself (though I usually sleep post lunch, there was always an option of sleeping in the tunnel or bunker). As far as the rest of the day, I don’t know about team building, but it certainly brought out the killer instinct within the guys (the women were laid back at the game as expected). At least I could relate myself to the good old college days, where I used to play Age of Mythology and Age of Empires. Probably call it the tiredness; I had the best sleep in days on Friday night. The following day was even more terrible with me having to search for BSNL commercial officer's office to get my over charged phone bill sorted out (I am totally pissed of with BSNL by the way, cause their site still shows my bill has unpaid, though the money from my account has disappeared in an online transaction).The need to relax and enjoy was strong during the next day, so all was set for a Sunday night movie. I cannot reveal the circumstances under which I watched the movie (the plans that I had in mind for this film was a bit different, than what actually happened), but nevertheless no harms in writing a review.

For starter’s, I was expecting a lot out of this movie. Since the last SRK film i.e., OSO was such a fulfilling experience. Here you have SRK playing dual roles of Surrinder and his alter ego Raj. Surri goes to his headmaster’s daughter’s marriage and ends up being the bride groom himself, thanks to the accident of the guy who is supposed to get married. What are the odds of that happening? To continue, the newly wed couple of Surri and Taani make their way to home in Amritsar. Surri is madly in love with his new found wife, but only to find out his wife doesn’t love him back. She just about fits the bill for doing his wife duties. Surri decides that he needs impress his wife and make her love him. Thus he goes about creating his alter ego i.e Raj. If Surri is a common man tentative, reserved in his approach to life, you have Raj, the direct opposite outgoing, flirtatious Punjabi dude wearing tight jeans. Raj meets Taani at the dance class she joins, in fact as it always happens in bollywood films they both end up being partners in dance competition. One problem with Aditya chopra’s direction is the difference between Raj and Surri is just a slender moustache. You have dumb wife who doesn’t recognize her hubby with moustache removed (Kind of on the lines of Rajni’s classic comedy Thillu Mullu ). As always dispel your logical part of the brain on watching bollywood films. Moving on, Raj relentlessly flirts with Taani during their dance classes (familiar terrain, I guess). You have heroine rebuffing him initially, but as they work together they get along with each other, Taani admiring his flirts (That sounds too familiar for comfort). Finally Raj wins a day out with Taani over a bet on Panni Poori eating competition. Blah Blah another wooing song, at its end, Raj proposes to Taani confessing his love for her. He shuts down the power of half the city and then lights up the city so as to make I LOVE U appear from a hill. May be Tamil Nadu Electricity Board should consider this as a marketing product for wannabe youngsters who want to propose. See they are shutting down power 6 hours a day; they might as well use power cuts for helping people propose their love.

Coming back to the story, Taani explains she is already committed in marriage, so she could not do anything for Raj’s confession of love. Surri decides to kill Raj’s persona since he had won his wife heart, but is worried she loves Raj, something who he is not in his life, compared to Surri who he is. Now he decides to woo his wife as himself instead of somebody else, but Taani is having serious troubles forgetting Raj. She secretly visits him, confesses she too loves him. They decide to elope away after the dance competition finals. (I make it sound real dirty, Don’t I?? Well, that’s the way it’s in the film). Surri decides if Raj is what her wife wants instead of him, he will give her that. Now throw in some sentiment in the temple, where god puts sense into Taani’s head, who is on the verge of infidelity. She backs out with Raj in the last minute before dance competition for eloping with him. It’s the dance finals, she has made her entry, but Raj doesn’t show up. Not surprised Taani decides to withdraw from finals, but to her surprise Surri shows up and dances amazingly. Now she realizes Raj and Surri are one and the same. God, heroine doesn’t realize the hero with moustache and without one, reminiscent of old MGR films where the difference between characters was a mole on the cheek. I guess a moustache is a better candidate than a mole for disguise. Of course, as expected they hero wins they dance finals too and both live happily ever after.

SRK as Surrinder is impressive. Its one of the roles he hasn’t played yet and he does it pretty well and Raj, of course is the standard SRK role in films. The funny thing as SRK keeps getting older; his heroines seem to be getting younger. Deepika in OSO was 21 with SRK being 40 year old. Now you have Anushka Sharma, 19 year old teenager playing his object of interest. Anushka just about makes the cut for a wife; she is decent in her acting. And the most important thing of all for heroines, they must look good, irrespective of the fact whether she knows to act or dance. Here other than that she also gets to do wheeling with the bike, so its better I guess.Then there is one nostalgic bollywood song with five heroines from bollywood, again repetitive as OSO had one song of the same type already. With Yash Raj films, you at last have a film that is firmly rooted in India, instead of some NRI location such as New York or London and people living in houses where lavish bathrooms are size of a hall. Songs are good for the most part. There couple of sequences in the post interval where the films lags behind, you can’t wait for the film to reach its climax. As a whole its worth while watching it once.

Rating: 2.5 / 5



Sunday, October 26, 2008

Perseverance Pays Off



Well, ever since I moved to Bangalore one of my top priorities has been to get a broadband connection. While rest of the world defines a minimum speed requirement 2 Mbps as broadband, in India we have conveniently lowered that standard to 256 Kbps to suit our poor quality standards. Anyway, among the handful of ISPs which provide service to home’s here, I decided to go for BSNL. The reason of choosing BSNL was obviously speed. Back in college days, my friends used to boast of download speeds of 200 – 300 Kbps. With me working during week days and Sunday being a holiday. It just gives me Saturday for this stuff, where I had to take care of washing my clothes plus the visit to the nearest BSNL office. The ordeal of getting BSNL went like this:


  • Week 1: On this Saturday, I got a photo for my application ready, with my passport has address proof for applying broadband and went to the office to apply. But only to be rebuffed, that I needed a local address proof in Bangalore, not from the city which I am from. As I recently moved to Bangalore, I had no local address proof leaving me to scratch my head.



  • Week 2: I think, I had a holiday coupled with the weekend, so had gone home. So no visit to BSNL office this weekend.


  • Week 3: I talked to my seniors, in this week about the problem. They suggested that a letter from my Company HR stating that I live in so and so place in Bangalore would do the trick for address proof. I had gotten the address proof and application form ready this time and went to the office. But this time, it turned out to be second Saturday i.e., a holiday. A wasted trip to office.


  • Week 4: Well, it turned out to be my lucky weekend. The office was open and also there was special offer for two days where if I applied, I did not have to pay any installation charges or the cost of WiFi enabled modem. But the only worry was that there will be two different guys coming for first LandLine phone connection and then the Broadband connection .If both this guys show up during the weekdays, I will be at office with the house locked, they would just move onto their next work. Leaving me to scramble to office on the following weekend to ask them come back to my house, to give the connection.


  • Week 5: For every problem, there is a solution. It’s just that everyone can’t see the solution. While bouncing of ideas with my roommate, I thought a poster on my house door in kannada, asking the BSNL guy to call me at this phone number would do the trick. Since my house was few blocks from my office, I could show up in 10 mins of the call at my house. With help of my well favored friend, who gave a lot more attention to my request, then what I had expected, I got that done pretty fast ( I wish she was the Manager for BSNL in my area, at least I would have got my Broadband in no time in my home with attention like that). The following day that too within 1 week I got a call from Landline guy, thanks to poster saying that he will come tomorrow, which luckily turned out to be holiday. So I was at my home when he showed up. But I had to pay him a compliment amount for showing up on a holiday. (Why do people in government expect compliments, for doing their jobs, for which government also pays them as salary???)


  • Week 6 & 7: It was elusive waiting game with BSNL. For every call that I get in mobile, I used attend to it that it could be BSNL guy. I never looked forward so much to get a call, even from a girl. The only calls that I kept getting were from annoying bank people asking me to take loans and investment plans. One of the calls was like my asking me for retirement plans. I barely completed 3 months in my first work; they’re talking about retirement, stupid banks.


  • Week 8: I had completely lost my patience, a frustrated man. To add fuel to the fire, I was simply bounced of from one table to another table when I needed to enquire about the broadband connection. Finally, as if that wasn’t enough, the guy in charge of connections for my area was on leave on that Saturday. But I didn’t budge, I met divisional manager, got the installation guys number. I called him in the morning, but as my luck would turn out there was power shutdown in Bangalore that day. So that guy couldn’t finish installation, he had already had gone to. He nevertheless said he will come, once the power comes back. The power came back; the next one hour seemed like an eternity, with me standing on the balcony looking out for that guy. Dogs, Cats, Pigeons, bikes, Auto’s , Good looking girls everything came in the road expect for the BSNL guy who never showed up. I was so frustrated the next day, that I started getting dreams about BSNL modem and browsing (I hardly get any dreams about any girls, so getting dream about BSNL modem was weird).


  • D-Day: Finally, after a number of calls, after that disappointing weekend. I did manage to get that guy to agree to come on Wednesday. To make matters worse, it was raining the whole day. But I didn’t want to give up, call after call and loads of bugging him. BSNL guy at last agreed to come at 5 30 pm. I had to skip a meeting in the office and run from my office to be at my home in rain. Then to add another twist, he backed off saying he will come tomorrow since it was raining. I had to entice him that I will even pay for his auto charge, if he comes. But he was like if you don’t mind pick me at office. Then I decided I am going get this broadband today, no matter what. I wanted this so badly. So I borrowed a bike, went to BSNL office, had a close call with skidding in the rain. But I did manage to bring him to my house and install the modem. I even attended the meeting that day via online. Seriously, if I had put half the effort that I had put in wooing that BSNL guy on a girl, I think she would have said yes to me. I guess perseverance pays off whether it is your boss, work, girl friend or in this case BSNL guy. To add final twist, I found out I was in Business Unlimited 15000 plan to my horror. I was not prepared to pay a bill of 15000 per month. But it later turned out that since I had taken the broadband in offer, for the first 15 days I will be getting free BUL 15000 service and then later will revert back to Home 750 plus. Finally, the modem I ended up was a type 4 modem (which is better one i.e. three more Ethernet ports than type 2 modem), though it was type 2 which I ordered. May be, I needed this final bit of luck for all that I had gone through.



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