Doomoo's Blog

… No shit.

Based on this photo, I’d say the Raju brothers have already identified blood sucking as a corecompetence.

So darling! That’s what millions of Federer fans must be calling Robin ‘Mad Scientist’ Soderling as he knocked out Federer’s arch-nemesis and 4-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal in four sets. Just to put it in context, this is Nadal’s first defeat ever on the courts of Rolland Garros! FIRST DEFEAT EVER!

Not that it’s definite, but Roger Federer’s dream of winning at Paris and completing a career slam may finally come true because of a man called Robin Soderling.

On another note, I had just assumed that Nadal would dominate the scene once Federer was dethroned, but it seems that no one will dominate the scene again as Federer did in his time, not even Nadal.

The French Open title will be won by someone other than Nadal this year – who’d have believed that line at the beginning of this year?

And for Fedex fans like me, we hope that he does a repeat of the 2008 US Open, the only slam he won last year. Go Roger!

There was a warning that the news of Prabhakaran’s killing may cause riots in the city, so the company that I work for let me go one hour early today. No doubt they’ll keep me back one hour late somewhere in the near future.

So, given the risk of venturing out into the city on a dangerous day, half my blog’s readership (my friend PJ) and I decided to do what most rational souls would have done – travel for about 10-15 km to the Landmark store where India’s most powerful blogger (or something like that), Amit Varma was making an appearance to promote his book.

The book reading was good, although for those of you interested in celebrity trivia, Amit pronounces that as ‘dat’. The passage that Amit started out with contained swear words and orgasmic sounds; these were greeted by silence and a muffled gasp by the Chennai audience who are not used to such potty mouths. And after the discussion with Sharanya and another reading, came the funniest part of the session – audience Q&A. Some gems from the evening below:

1. I am a journalist, and as a journalist I know what journalists go through. Since I’m a journalist who’s written a couple of books called ‘?????’ and ‘The ???? of ????’, my journalistic question to you is about journalistic writing. What is it?

2. Why don’t you start a website?

3. WHO IS THIS YOUR FRIEND SANCHI?

The last question came from a really grumpy but cute old gentleman. The end of the session was followed by the book signing and the most anticipated part of the evening – snacks. Unfortunately, my Ayurvedic diet mandates that bread cannot be eaten, so I had to keep away from the sandwiches.

Oddly, Amit seemed to remember me and insisted on getting his photograph taken with me. Here’s the picture we took after a nice, short conversation about writing, Mumbai, blogging, wives (all good), work and books.

Amit signed my book with, “It’s nice to finally meet you.” The feeling was mutual Amit.

Also, check out Sunil’s more detailed coverage of the event here.

Another day of awful commentary, awful fielding, and great cricket.

Deccan Chargers started out with a bit of a setback. Gilly got Bucknored early in the match, or should I say bloody Baxtered? Still the Dwayne Smith-Andrew Symonds show pushed DC to a very good total of 166. Dwayne Smith’s superb hitting gave one a little taste of what the great Sir Richards would have beeen doing to bowler’s morales more than a couple of decades ago. There’s no better sight than a West Indian batsman in full flow, is there?

Everyone’s favourite team Royals started much like their opposition. Their Smith (Graeme) got slightly Bucknored again, this time by Kumara Dharmasena who has been fairly good in the tournament. From there though, things went downhill. A collapse was triggered after Asnodkar’s run out and there was really nothing left to do but meekly surrender, making a scrappy 113. For a team that is supposed to be vying to retain their title this year, they certainly do seem to be a little light on batting.

On a lighter note, some ‘expert’ commentary exchange from today – Ranjit Fernando for an appeal, “Was it pitching outside leg stump?” The ball had actually pitched outside the off stump. Ramiz Raja replies, “You’re absolutely right Ranjit. It was plumb, ball pitched in line and was hitting the stumps.”
Are they even listening to each other?

Another one from Ranjit, “Yusuf Pathan goes right down the throat of Dwayne Smith, down in the deep.”

And is it just me or are the cheerleaders getting err… more s(k)inful looking? Esp, the Deccan Chargers and the Rajasthan Royals ladies. Well, something good had to come of moving the tournament out of India. Va-va-voom, I say!

pic courtesy: rainbowskill.com

This is me – ecstatic on winning the second prize of the second caption contest at Fly, you fools. I did it on purpose, you know. Who wants to come first in a second contest anyway? Hmph.

As an aside, I must start charging Saad for the free publicity. Ahh what the hell, one bar of chocolate is enough to buy my soul. Thanks Saad.

Don’t look at me, I didn’t report it.

Now that we’ve resiliently moved on from the terrorist attacks, it’s time to do a little movie review. Today we feature ‘Sorry, bhai!’.

Bollywood has been getting bolder about challenging the value systems portrayed on screen so far, from extra-marital affairs, the Lolita style ‘Nishabdh’, the wildly controversial ‘Fire’, and even the boring ‘Dostana’. Not that it’s always a good thing, as some of these movies prove. ‘Sorry, bhai!’ is another movie that, at it’s heart, challenges some fundamental ‘values’ that were the staple of Bollywood films for years.

The film is largely a flashback of a family comprising Sharman Joshi, Sanjay Suri, Chitrangada Singh (Va-va-voom!), Boman Irani, a couple of kids and a deceased mother. It starts out on a humorous note with Joshi, the mad scientist trying to prove the existence of tele-kinetic energy with the help of a plastic dog called ‘Einstein’. His absent-minded-scientist forgetfulness and boyish acting is the source of much of the film’s humor.

As the trailers show, this movie is obviously one of a younger brother doing something he’s not proud of with his brother’s fiancee. (Hence, the title ‘Sorry, bhai!’). That is the only spoiler you’ll read here. The heart of the movie is the nicely woven chemistry between the members of the dysfunctional family and the daughter-in-law to be, owing in no small part to the veterans Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi. Boman Irani is the typical happy dad, and Shabana does a great job of portraying a tough-as-nails mother with a softer side, but the movie brings out their weak and strong moments well, making them more human. The very hot Chitrangada Singh also does a good job of playing the ‘Draupadi’ of the film as someone in the audience pointed out. I take this opportunity to make a special mention for the loser who kept screaming his opinions throughout the movie. Fuck you. May your mouth be riddled with worms.

Speaking of negatives, the only problem I had with the film was the rather slow and lack lustre last forty-five minutes or so. It took away from the interaction between the characters and the songs seemed wrongly timed. There was a little too much boo-hoo-life’s-so-tough for my liking and it certainly took the sheen off the enormous expectations that the first half built.

All, in all, I had a feeling that this would be a damp squib and the only reason I watched it was that I had a few hours to kill; it definitely exceeded my expectations which were rock bottom to start with. Worth a watch, for sure.

My rating: 6.5 on 10

While Mumbai is reeling under fire from terrorists, Chennai is underwater due to rain from cyclone Nisha and poor drainage.

Making the most of it: A child plays in the water outside her colony at Adyar while her grandfather (not in frame) takes her picture.