Tell Every One

"Ne le dis à personne" is fairly atypical for an independent French film in that it is a thriller of sorts.

While the promotional posters depicting François Cluzet on the run may make you think that it is an action-oriented movie, don't be misled by that. This is not a Bourne Identity sort of thriller, but more of a Seven kind of suspense drama, though nowhere rearly as gory...umm...so more of a The Client kind of suspense drama, I guess. It stays close to the plot and the characters rather than leaning on special effects and fight-sequences for support. And most importantly, it is not pretentious.

Dr. Alexandre Arnaud Beck (Cluzet) sorely misses his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) who was murdered eight years ago by a serial killer. To get through life, he has immersed himself completely in his work as a pediatrician.

But then, Alex Beck's world turns upside down when by a stroke of fate two more bodies are discovered close to the site of Margot's murder. The police reopens Margot's case and Alex is once again the prime suspect. Wait, there's more - he then gets an email suggesting that she’s actually alive. And the games begin.

The direction is brooding, the audience follows the mystery along with the protagonist, and the characters are eccentriacally real. While the plot is not quite gripping, it does keep one interested and engaged. And while the twists and turns flirt with the ridiculous, they stay on the right side of the line.

Not that it is a perfect film. Far from it.

First of all, the music, though good, is completely out of place.

Then, the acting is not universally good. While François Cluzet is delightfully understated and mature, and most other actors (especially Kristin Scott Thomas and Andre Dussollier) support him very well, his two friends from "the dark side" leave much to be desired.

The editing is somewhat uneven, and the pace could have been faster.

Overall, a movie to watch.

The War on Democracy

Passing by Curzon in Soho, I bought a ticket for the documentary on a whim, and like so many times in the past, it turned out be a great decision.

"Loo"ney Brits

London has arguably the best public transportation system in the world in terms of reach, network and schedules. "The tube" as Londoners lovingly call the London Underground, is just so convenient, especially in conjunction with the feeder buses, that one wonders why one would ever want to own a car in this city.

There is much to be desired, though, in terms of technology, infrastructure, accessability, etc., which is understandable considering that much of the underground railway system is a century or so old.

What shocks one, though, is the conspicuous absence of "rubbish bins" from the station platforms, and in fact entire train stations. Can you really blame the teens that leave empty beer cans on the stairs, tourists that stealthily throw away their empty bags of potato chips on the platforms or the commuters that leave behind scores of tabloids and evening papers in the train compartments?

Also, there are apparently no public restrooms ("loos") at the tube-stations, except at Picadilly Circus. If I were a town-planner, I would consider this unacceptable for a city that boasts of more tourists/visitors every year than Paris, Las Vegas and New York put together.

While it doesn't look like the Mayor of London can be bothered about such trifles as loos and rubbish bins, there certainly seem to be major works underway with regards to the modernization of the infrastructure.



Found among the numerous informative posters about the repairs/ maintenance/ upgrade of the London Underground, at least one station's poster reads, "We will also be installing tactile flooring on platforms and coloured handrails to help visually impaired people when using this station". Now, I am no expert on accessability, so will someone please explain how colored handrails will help people with visual impairments?


The last nugget for the day: In central London, there's a place called, I kid you not, "St. John's Wood"! That's right. Not St. John's woods (which would have meant forest), but wood. I know they perhaps mean a walking stick or something, but it is pretty funny nonetheless.

And for all the cricket enthusiasts among you, this is the area where the mecca of cricket, the Lords stadium, is located.

Ah, the joys of being in London!

"Smoke free" England?

England goes Smoke Free on 1st July. Or so claim the numerous roadside hoardings (billboards) and bus & tube posters (signs).

While I welcome the initiative, I find the whole campaign hilarious. First of all, if you strip-off the spin, England is not going smoke FREE; it is going smoking PROHIBITED. Yes, you guessed right! Factories won't be shut down, and vehicles won't be stopped from running.

Secondly, the ban applies only to enclosed public places and workplaces, meaning that one can still smoke in open public places. Not a bad idea at all, but it does mean that "England goes smoke free" is a bit of hyperbole.

What takes the cake though is the fact that, ironically enough, among the entities exempted from the ban are hospitals (though not all hospitals). I wonder what the thinking behind this policy is...were they thinking, "Well, you can smoke at the hospital, as you can be provided quick treatment in case you faint"?

Another interesting fact is that while the leaflet for individuals is available in many different languages, the "Everything you need" guidance manual for businesses is available only in Arabic, Bengali, Classiscal Chinese (I assume they mean traditional Mandarin), Gujarati, Polish, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu apart from English. Is that a sign that the Arabs, Chinese, Indians (four of those eight languages are Indian), Poles and Turks own and/ or run most of the pubs/ bars and other establishments that contribute to smoking in enclosed public places?

Apologies to Heathrow

A few months earlier, I had suggested that London Heathrow might be the only airport in the world that make connecting flight takers go through security again. Well, I was wrong. Evidently, Newark does that too. It was built so that people could drive almost right upto the gate, so there is really no large common area for single security screening between the gates and the exits. Thus, every terminal has its own security screening area.

Another interesting bit: apparently Virgin Atlantic doesn' care for the connecting boarding passes issued by other airlines. So if you are connecting to Virgin, you need to get in the check-in line, show them the connecting boarding pass, and get the red boarding pass. That's precious!

The Gods must be crazy

They start boarding the plane to Newark about 15 mts. late, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Once we get on the plane, the pilot informs us that Newark is busy and he's been instructed to wait for 30 mts. That doesn't happen with every single flight, but it is not out of the realm of the ordinary, albeit a little bit of a rare occurance. After the 30-minute wait, we are taxied as promised, and we get onto the runway, and the engines start humming. And then, they die. Apparently, Newark is facing very high traffic and has asked us to wait another hour. So then we wait for an hour ON THE RUNWAY! That, my friends, is pretty unusual.

The Missing Notebook

The saga of my stupidity continues.

Firstly, I slept off the whole day yesterday, instead of taking the opportunity to go around and take some goodbye shots of the city. In my defence, it was pretty gray and rained quite a bit, and the hotel bed was warm and cozy.

But there's more! As I stand in the luggage check-in line, I'm hoping that no one will notice that my wheeled duffle-bag is larger than the allowance for carry-ons. While the books inside would probably fit into a regulation carry-on, the base of the bag has a metal frame due to the wheels, and that frame is longer and wider than what's permitted. In short, if they ask me to put the bag in the carry-on bag measurement checking box, I'll need to go shopping for bags in a hurry. So I try to keep it out of the line of sight of the agent as I approach the counter.

As the lady at the "Kiosk Assistance" checks me in, she automatically asks if I am checking in any baggage. I tell her that I am, but that I'd like to get them wrapped in cellophane at Wrap-a-Bag before I do so. She goes, "Why don't you use TSA locks? If you wrap them, if the TSA wants to have a look, they'll tear all the wrapping off."

"I'm not worried about pilferage, I'm worried about the bags tearing off and opening", I tell her. "But tell me, what's a TSA lock?"

"Oh, these are locks that you can get here at the airport or Wal*Mart or practically anywhere for which the TSA has the master-keys. So they can open them up and have a look inside if they want to."

This is great! After 3 years, and 35,000 airline miles, I discover the concept of TSA locks on the day I'm leaving the country for good.

Anyway, since the attachés are already bordering on 71, I decide to not get them wrapped and ask the nice lady to check them in as they are. $70 takes care of the excess weight for both of them, and I'm off to the security gates without having my carry-ons commented on.

One down, one more to go. You see, the duffle-bag is not just large, it's pretty heavy because of all the books inside. In fact, I weighed it yesterday before the airline staff came in; it came to 27 kg, while the allowance is 10 kg.

The suspence reaches its climax when to put it into the x-ray machine, a TSA agent actually has to pick up my duffle-bag. She is surprised by the weight, but lets it slide. Whew! Elated, I collect my my bags, shoes, belt, cellphone, wallet, and $17.87 worth of coins.

As I am going down the escalator, I get that sinking feeling - I don't remember having put my laptop back in the knapsack. For one second I convince myself that maybe I did and just don't remember it. But that doesn't seem right. Can't check on the escalator, with all the hordes of people flanking me on all sides.

Upon reaching the bottom, I get out of the way of the crowd and open the knapsack. The laptop is not there. I need to get back up to the security screening area to get back my laptop. But I don't see any escalator's going up!

I ask the next guy with a badge that passes me by. He points me to the elevator. Right! I stow both the bags in a corner and press the button to call the elevator. I hope this elevator takes me to the space AFTER the security screen. The geography seems right, but if it takes me beyond that area, I don't want to take the bags through security again.

The elevator car finally comes after what seemed to be an eternity, but in reality was closer to 5-6 minutes (pretty long time for a lift running only 3-floors, I'd say). I go up to the security gate I had passed through and ask an agent, who points me to a desk. Apparently, that's TSA's lost and found counter. The officer there asks me a few questions, makes me boot-up and log-in, and makes me sign a form before giving me back my laptop.

This could have been a pretty expensive mistake. But as they say, "no harm, no foul".

Pesky Canadians!

This is embarrassing! When the check-in staff arrive finally, I am told that I can't board the plane as Canada requires a transit visa, and my Canadian visit visa expired in April. Aarghh!

The truth is that so far in my travels I haven't had to have a transit visa for hops/ stopovers when there is not need to step out of the airport. So, while I had written to the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. inquiring about it, I did not follow up when I didn't receive a response from them.

Hmm...so was it merely a coincidence that my travel agency for this trip is called Adventure Travel Service?

Anyways, after several hours of trying to figure out the best way out, I've booked a Virgin Atlantic flight from Newark for tomorrow (thank you cheaptickets.com). Adventure Travel's rep says I wasn't marked as "no show", so I might be able to get something back for that unused ticket. I certainly hope so.

So, what's the plan for today? I could take a last look at the city, maybe click a few pictures. But first, let me get some sleep - haven't had much of that in the past couple of days. Holiday Inn, here I come.

Oye oye in the airport

So, my Air Canada flight was scheduled for departure at 6.20 a.m., and deciding to follow the "for international flights reach the airport at least 3 hours before flight time" rule for a change, I arrived at the airport at 3 a.m. only to find it almost completely deserted. Airline staff arrive only at 5.30, whispered another early-bird.

"Lovely", I thought as I sank into the apparently only chair in the whole ticketing/ check-in area.

Imagine my joyous surprise then, when as I was waiting for the airline staff to arrive, the music being piped into the airport changed to "Oye oye", probably the most insanely popular song in 1989's India.

In fact, I remember that singing this song in public was banned in several districts of the nation for quite a while as it had become the weapon of choice for eveteasers.

Within a few seconds, however, it became clear that it wasn't Tridev's Tirchhee topee waley (Guy with the tilted hat) that they were piping.

Turns out that like numerous Bollywood favorites, "Oye oye"/ "Tirchhee topee waley" also borrows heavily from a foreign song, specifically "Rhythm is gonna get you" from the 1987 album "Let it Loose" by Cuban-American Latin-pop rage Gloria Estefan of the Miami Sound Machine band.

Now, I have appreciated Estefan's songs like "Don't wanna loose you now", but I must admit that I was not familiar with her earlier work. It took some effort to figure out that it was her song that was being played. That Pitbull and Beyoncé have "Oye", Santana and Tito Puente have "Oye como va", and Estefan herself has "Oye" and "Oye mi canto" didn't help.

All plagiarism aside, the overture of "Rhythm's gonna get you" flows better as the signature and essence of "Tirchhee topee waley", in my biased opinion.

Anyways, I do feel a bit disappointed about the rip-off even though I know fully well what Bollywood music is: mostly a mishmash of popular music from around the world.

Are we as hateful as those we hate because of their hatred?

I keep getting this great stuff from Hannity and Colmes on Fox News; Sean Hannity, it seems to me, represents the emotional, high-on-rhetoric, firebreathing, people-with-other-opinions-are-idiots-and-don't-deserve-airtime, Fox-brand of journalism.

The latest example is today's little segment on prominent evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell who passed away earlier in the day. H&C had invited over Christopher Hitchens, author of "God is not Great" and a long-time vehement critic of Falwell's cocktail of politics and religion, to comment on the deceased reverend's life.

Hitchens, who appears to be full of hatred for Falwell and his message of hate, predictably reiterated his views and essentially said "good riddance" of his death. He said that Falwell was divisive and dangerous, and a conman in the way he had created a family business peddling religion. He recalled Falwell's statement that 9/11 was God's wrath that Americans had brought upon themselves through their immoral day-to-day living. When it was pointed to him that Falwell had apologized for the statement several times, Hitchens said he did not believe those apologies were sincere.

Hannity took grave exception to Hitchens's comments and was indignant. He attacked the author viciously and wouldn't let him complete his sentences, leave alone thoughts. He criticized Hitchens for his negative opinions on Falwell and came down heavily on him for "attacking the grieving family". That Hitchens had never even mentioned Falwell's family, let alone criticized or "attacked" it, obviously was inconsequential to his vociferous charging.

It seems perplexing and illogical to me that Fox would invite a zealous critic of Falwell to talk about Falwell and then beat him down for criticizing Falwell. But on second thoughts, it all does make sense too; Hannity's "impetuous" indignation is perhaps a premeditated show designed to boost the rankings by micmicing the spontaneous reactions of many viewers of the channel.

The message seems to be "the man just died, let him rest in peace". However, one must not forget that Hitchens didn't go to town shouting "Hallelujah! Falwell is dead"; it was Fox that invited him over and asked him for his opinion. I'm going out on a limb here, but in my opinion the only reason for inviting Hitchins to the segment was to pick that fight and paint a picture of the "Godless, hateful and inhumane" liberals.

Come to think of it, another interesting aspect of this exchange was how Hannity condemned the "criticism of the recently deceased" as un-American and inhuman on a matter of principle. I wonder if Hannity would not celebrate if Osama bin Laden was killed tomorrow, and whether he didn't say "good riddance" when Saddam Hussain went down.

Make no mistake, I'm not equating Falwell to bin Laden or Hussain; rather I am testing how true Hannity is to his principle of being respectful to the dead. If one truly believes a person to be evil, is one still obligated by norms of civil society to praise that person on his/her demise? That certainly seemed Hannity's message during the show though I'm not sure he'd live by it.

Lastly, Hannity mentioned having personally met Falwell and how impressed he was with the reverend. He found Falwell to be a genuine, humble, caring human being. Of course, Hannity has a right to his opinions, but what soured the message was the fact that he was using this "personal experience" to counter Hitchens's fact-based criticism. Here's the problem with that rationale: many of the most destructive and dangerous villains in history are known to have been personally very affable, sociable, humble and principled. In fact, Osama bin Laden is said to be simple, humble and principled; that doesn't take away the blood of thousands of people off his head.

Again, I'm not saying that Falwell was indeed a messiah of hate; I don't know enough of his life and work to be able to take a stand one way or the other. What I am saying, though, is that people should think long and hard before taking stands on matters of principle; by definition, matters of principle do not leave them the choice to pick and choose to suit their likes and dislikes, and whims and fancies.

Quotation of the Day

"Life's a bitch, but I can't live without it. "
- yours truly The Maverick

मेरे जैसे - Like Me

भले बुरे सबसे यारी, सबकी व्यथा समझते हो
मदिरालय, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

न छीना सत्य ने भोलापन, चन्द खिलौना छूते हो
बालक, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

जाग कर रात भर तुम, जलते बुझते रहते हो
आकाशदीप, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

नए पुराने धागों से, एक ताना बुनते रहते हो
तन्तुवी, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

कुछ कुछ ह्रदय समाये, कुछ कुछ रिसते रहते हो
घट, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

कहते तो हो सत्य सदा पर, सब कुछ सुनते रहते हो
दर्पन, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

कुछ कुछ पहचाने से, और कुछ अनजाने लगते हो
अजनबी, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

फूलों की सुगंध हो तो, कांटो की चुभन भी देते हो
उपवन, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

रुकते बसते नहीं कहीँ पर, निरंतर चलते रहते हो
समय, तुम भी कुछ कुछ मेरे जैसे लगते हो

---- Transliteration ----

Bhale bure sabase yaarii, sabakii vyathaa samajhate ho
Madiraalay, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Na chhiinaa saty ne bholaapan, chand khilounaa chhoote ho
Baalak, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Jaag kar raat bhar tum, jalate bujhate rahate ho
Aakaashadiip, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Naye puraane dhaagon se, yek taanaa bunate rahate ho
Tantuvii, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Kuchh kuchh hraday samaaye, kuchh kuchh risate rahate ho
Ghat, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Kahate to ho saty sadaa par, sab kuchh sunate rahate ho
Darpan, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Kuchh kuchh pahachaane se, aur kuchh anajaane lagate ho
Ajanabii, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Phoolon kii sugandh ho to, kaanto kii chubhan bhii dete ho
Upavan, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

Rukate basate nahiin kahiin par, nirantar chalate rahate ho
Samay, tum bhii kuchh kuchh mere jaise lagate ho

---- Translation -----

Good, bad, you befreind all
Understanding everyone's agony
Jolly taphouse, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

Your spirit survives harsh truth
You reach for the stars twinkly
Dear child, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You stay awake all through night
Burn, extinguish, flickeringly
Sky lamp, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You take threads old and new
And keep weaving tirelessly
O weaver, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You keep it all in your heart
And yet a little oozes free
Earthen pot, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

Although you always tell the truth
You silently listen to all repartee
Mirror, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You seem to have a familiar face
But are as unknown as can be
Stranger, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You're the fragrance of a flower fresh
And also the sting of its thorny tree
Garden, you really seem to be
Just a little like me

You don't ever stop or settle down
For anything or anybody
Time, you really seem to be
Just a little like me