The Rs in my life.

 

My real name is Rakesh Kumar. My other name is only known to the secret organisation known as SPECTRE (where I am addressed as number 13). Plus the Rs in this post's title mean names that begin with the letter R, and has no relations to the word "arse". Well, maybe...hey let me get on with this post.

When I was young, as tall as a regular flower vase, my mom addressed me as "Geethu:". God knows what the word meant and where she got it from.

Aside: Probably from the name, Geetha, which, sort of, means music in many Indian languages, and I am as musically annoying as a cricket. The insect, not the game. End of aside.

As I grew up and discovered shit lot of things, Including stuff that told me that "geethu" is a girlie name. I scratched that. Being a movie fan (semi-retired now), let's look some Rs that I like in the movie business.


R for Robert de Niro

One of my favourite actors. When you think of him, you better not think of all those violent scenes, especially the one in Casino, directed by Martin Scorcese....If you have seen the film, remember the scene where Bob patted some dude's hand. With hammer.

If you are only remembering that, you are taking a short cut. Remember New York New York, a film also by Scorcese, where Bob and Marty were going through the glory of their victorious lives only to find that they are to be slipped by a banana peel named Liza Minnelli.

But that was a tiny slip....okay, she was not that tiny.

They went on to make many godawesome flicks that involved, to quote (paraphrasing) Schwarzenegger from the fine flick Raw Deal, "murder and mutilations". One fine R here.


R for Robert Downey Jr

Sherlock Holmes. Iron Man. 'nuff said.

R for Robert Duval

To heck with RDJ, Duval can be filmed just eating fried chicken for two hours and I will watch it. Maybe just me. And so, pardon my terrible English, but this Bob is awesomer.


R for Rajinikanth

Speaking of awesomeness, even the Japs accepted this South Indian hero as, well, an awesomestest hero (my superlatives can only go that far). But this guy has been around since my parents got married and still going strong albeit the longish gaps in between his assignments.

Doubt his popularity and you are doubting the existence of solar system which was founded by George Lucas. Ambudutheyn,


R is Hrithik Roshan's dad

Hrithik Roshan, as everyone (who is googling now) knows, is a Bollywood star. Bollywood is....oh crap, you guys have done googling?

Apparently, when I was born in 1973 (same year when P. Ramlee and Bruce Lee went to the other side,,,go ahead and google again, jeez you kids). Raakesh Roshan was one of the hottest bloke in Bollywood, a stardom that probably lasted about 17 minutes and that caught my parent's attention and hence they named me Sivaji Ganesan.

Okay, they named me after him (no not Sivaji) and I think my dad was in charitable mood when naming me that he removed one "a" from the name so that folks, when pronouncing my name, have easier time with their collective jaws .

So, there you go. The R's in the history of my life. The names, I mean. Unless you include others, verbs or nouns like "rejected" or "retard", but hey, I am happy the greatest R of them all, me. Did I mention "retard"?

Dude, Where's My Spage Age part !!

This is a followup to my post back then four years ago, when I was so unbusy that I didn't even bothered to do spell check on the title....and therefore, I retained the "Spage" word, which actually, being probably drunk back then, typed as fast as I can to combine two words "space" and "age" and then, followed by moment of sobrierty when I ran out of beer,  typed the word "age" again. 

Writers, most of them, like me, are the stuff squirels are always looking for. It rhymes with "guts". And I purposely made another mistake on the title just for continuity sake. 

Plus, there is no such word as "unbusy".

Anyway, I write this as as sequel because I am thrilled that they (you know who) are going to 

MARS....yes, that lovely place named after the goddam chocolate bar?

You can read more here and to hell with my rant: 

Recalling my original post, after its own hiatus (it spent time in my parents' home) I got back that scaled down version of Concorde aircraft, albeit the landing gear. The tragic history aside, there is so much behind the supersonic innovation that the world is yet to see, though it can never beat the speed of bitching, gossiping and amateur movie reviews.

Much have happened since then, like losing my job, home, you know usual stuff that hits you when you are in your middle age, or approaching one, like a wet underwear thrown from an apartment few floor upwards when you intent to smell fresh air from your own. Or a suicidal cat. Whichever first.

But, the whole space age thing has always been in the back of my mind, if my mind has an ass. It has been expelling gaseous notion about how awesome it would be if space age is as incredible as they promised. Unfortunately, no thanks to my bad long paragraphical incursion into butt related pathetic jokes, most of Universe is indeed just that, lots of fart....I mean, gas.

As of now, there are no signs of life as we know it. Life as we arrogant mofo human beings would term them, you know, the one that look like the creature from the movie ET, or a mutant potato, or both . 

Seriously...one moment they would say, "hey, there's sign of of water, therefore there must be life!" only to have some pix of goddam canals that could have been, indeed, where some sort of water like stuff flowed or where Han Solo and Chewbacca landed when attempting to wrestle the control of Millenium Falcon.

Speaking of airy excursion, remember how George Lucas started his space sagas, (no, not Howard the Duck), which started like this...."Long long ago in a galaxy far far away...."

And John Williams gets away by composing the same theme music for almost three, or more, decades. It was exhilarating for us kids growing up in the 70s/80/s and maybe 90s. 

Aside: Note to my son, "No, Nevin, Pingu the Penguin was not in it....but considering what happened in the 90s, you do have an idea". End of aside.

The love for space, thanks to, maybe, John F. Kennedy who promised that Men (not gals, one of his favourite subjects, apparently) will land on moon in few years after his administration, sparked lots of love letters from Hollywood, including the best of them all, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey, a gloriously beautiful film which is awesome to look at and is as comprehensible prime minister's budget speech.

Not many of you know there was a sequel to that movie....no, don't google....I told you....okay, go and get a drink or do that 7% solution.

As usual, my rant is this, where is the space age that we were promised? The Jetsons be damned, we were supposed to be up there, getting up in space home, brushing with space toothbrush, doing business in space toilet (the order of these activities can be  changed, like getting up in space toilet, brushing the business off with space toothbrush...etc....)

How long before we can experience this. As I write this, space tourism initiated by that Branson bloke does not look good. Hell, Branson does not look good. Nothing looks good. NASA is about as cheerful as a Bhuddist Simba in his bro's' restaurant hangout.

As I always say in my most useless and most importantly,  pointless blog post endings, it remains to be seen. Or just go along with the goddam conspiracy theorists and agree that they are faking the whole goddam thing. Don't sue me, I am with Simba in that restaurant getting mauled........

Confession of A Colour Blind Film Fan.

This morning I had a dream.

I was in this woodenish restaurant (later turned out to be a motel one, as you will find out if you read on....err....you are reading on, aren't ya?). And in walks Clint Eastwood. I was as giddy as a school boy who found a treasure trove of ice cream and chocolates, and perhaps a stash of porn DVDs.