Revenge of the Fallen

I might as well be one of the very last viewers of this movie watching it more than a month after release. Inspite of having almost 24 hours of everyday free, I never managed to slip into any of the numerous theatres around. Finally Raj Kiran and I decided to pull out some time and rush to watch the Transformers Sequel that was evidently reaching the end of its play time across the city. The only comfortable timing was at Inox in the new GVK One mall.

With some difficulty, I got through the first hurdle, The Parking! Damn it! The car parking when I went there last time, was much easier than the 2 wheeler parking this time! After getting on to the base level, the next hurdle was to find Raj. I stayed away from the confusing lifts, and took the escalators and eventually found him.

We then rushed up to the screens and found ours after roaming through what seemed like corridors of an apartment block. When we entered, we found that the movie already started a few minutes back. The adrenaline was already set to a mad rush after watching an Audi R8 transform, crash it's way through a building (with some mild humour included), transform back into the R8, and eventually find itself sliced into 2 halves. And soon we found ourselves overly engrossed. The CG graphics were too good to believe. In spite of having quite some experience in being able to discern the difference between CG and real stuff, I struggled to make out what was real or whether anything was real at all. The flying splinters/debris, dust, smoke, explosions, etc, seemed too real to believe. And as the movie progressed, the humour just got only whackier. Some tragic moments here and there neutralised the humour. But the action was just non-stop. Compared to the prequel, the amount of action was way too much and good too, though some scenes were so fast and disturbing that they were difficult to make out.

Lots of people told me that there was no proper storyline though I could make out a storyline coming out. And Though I was never told about the plot, I could predict that Alice would eventually turn out to be a decepticon, and the moment an SR-71 Blackbird appeared on the screen, I knew they would show it as alien. The death/resurrection of Megatron, Prime and Sam were also of no surprise. And there were some Yuck! moments too, especially when the so-called 'Doctor' tries to pull Sam's brain out through his nose or mouth or whatever, I just couldn't stand it! And watching Alice's tentacles sticking out of 'odd' places including the tongue-tentacle, just brought me to a point where I was confused if I must puke or laugh or simply retreat in shock. Oh, and when Megatron slams Starscream against what looked like a Decepticon Egg, resulting in the egg getting squashed and then a baby robot falls out, I forced myself to look away. Other Yuck! moments included Sam snapping the head of a tiny insect-like robot. Maybe its just me, I am sure the others wouldn't have found these so disturbing. On a side note, it felt a bit weird to watch Megan Fox on screen and having '21 Guns' by Green Day playing on the background. I'd better leave it at that.

Anyway, the ending was good especially the way the Constructicons are shown to be merging together to form a savage beast-like Devastator and bringing back the obsessed-transformers Sector 7 guy for some stupid dirty humour was fun to watch. Having never watched the cartoon series of Transformers, I found this overly interesting and creative. The 'charaters' successfully managed to create a 'character' out of just some CG robots. And the 'humans' acted pretty decently to successfully set the mood, and it would have been quite a job to act as if robots really existed and were interacting with humans.

And what a long movie it was! Went in at 2:30PM and came out around 5:15!! I wondered if I just came out of a Bollywood movie! I am pretty sure I never watched such a long non-Indian film. Anyway, once I stepped out I suddenly had a list of things to do.

I forgot where I parked my 2 wheeler and Raj told me he parked his one level up. It was all too confusing. Moreover, I was supposed to give my cousin (whose office was close by) her spectacles that she accidentally forgot to take, and I never managed get in contact and left it for some other day. And then the thing for which I actually stepped out of house. Buying legal stamp papers from a court complex. We shelled out money in big bunches and finally after some confusion we understood that the guy who was giving them to us wanted us to wait outside on the road so that nobody could see him giving them to us! I was bewildered to experience all that. It all seemed perfectly normal to Raj, which showed that I was blatantly unaware of so many things in life.

Time ran out so quickly that we decided to rush home with an empty stomach after spending 55 Rs on some salty popcorn which never satisfied 1% of my hunger. On the way back, every vehicle I saw seemed to be transforming into a robot, momentarily distracting me. After a few close shaves with those imaginary transformers, I decided to shut down my mind and focus on the road. A day of fun and work ended with a considerably lighter head and wallet...

Oh! The Irony!

The last few years, I suddenly found everything related to astronomy overly fascinating. The 1 hour power cuts at night were a great excuse for me to run to the roof and start observing the stars and compare their positions from the previous days, etc. I had no gear, no equipment to look at these stars, something that was already so difficult under the polluted Hyderabad sky. I just had a pair of binoculars to watch whatever I could. After laying my hands on a software that calculates the movements of stars and planets, I started to understand more about the sky. And it went on and on.. long story that's already been posted quite a few times ever since I started blogging.

But recently the biggest spectacle unfolded over India and China the two most populated countries in the world. The Solar Eclipse. And a total one at that. And what was I doing when people were gasping at the sight? Dozing! True that the eclipse was only partial over Hyderabad, and that there was a frustratingly thick cloud cover, but I never bothered to make an attempt. From what I heard, an eclipse this long wouldn't come back for probably a hundred-plus years by which time, I will have conveniently left this earth. With the amount of interest in my head, I should have actually travelled to some place where the total eclipse would have taken place, though that was a bit far-fetched taking into account my laziness to travel. I should have still made a desperate attempt to catch sight of something at least.



Aftermath of the eclipse, I realised how foolish I had been, and cursed myself for not showing any amount of interest. Instead I was arguing with my house people why someone would mix religious superstitions and an Astronomical Event. Sad part is, they have always been forcibly related. A debate that would never end with both sides happy. After hearing a big list of things not to be done during an eclipse, I wondered why they excluded 'Breathing' from it... These superstitions started by someone years ago, travel down generations, get modified completely (almost ending up opposite to what was started), and finally bug lives of normal humans who dwell on Science for every answer.

Throwing superstitions aside, I end this post with 'Hope and Irony' written all over my face...

Hyderabad International Auto Show 2009

The much awaited show was on and I managed to travel right across the entire city and get there, just out of the sheer enthusiasm. Already having checked the details, I noticed there wasn’t anything very interesting to look forward to. But still, after reading all the hype about it being the ‘biggest auto show in South India’, I fell for it. The original plan was to go there on the first day which was a Friday. But since half of the day was not open for public, we decided to go there the next day. I had a bad feeling about it as a Saturday would bring too much crowd in and create havoc. But it was a better choice than the final day which was a Sunday. And I was right about the crowd.

 

When I entered the gates of Hitex, I could see a long line of cars going deep inside towards Novotel. I just followed the cars and landed at the parking. I found another huge parking lot that was empty. I wondered if anyone came for the show. But after taking the short shuttle service that was almost unnecessary, I was proved wrong. There were hundreds of cars and bikes parked near the hotel itself which gave clear signs of crowd. Somehow I managed to enter and right in front were sitting happily, a Porsche Cayman S, a Yamaha MT 01, a Suzuki GSX 1300R and a superb Wolseley. I wondered what the organisers were playing at, leaving all the eye candy outside for free. Half the friends I met there advised me not to go inside wasting 100 bucks. But having travelled more than 25 KM for this, I refused to back out. Raj Kiran and I paid the 100 bucks and got in. What we found in there was nothing unexpected.

 

The usual brands that we see on roads were all in there. Nothing fancy, but paradise for a person who came there for some serious buying. The BMW X6 I saw for the first time in flesh, blood and bone and was stunned by its size. Along side it were the usual 5 series, 7 series etc and they too looked surprisingly huge. Maybe it was something to do with the surroundings that made these cars look bigger. The 6 series convertible caught some eyes and cameras. As we moved on, we came across the stall with the best line of the lot, the Mercedes Benz. Just 3 cars displayed but easily pulled most of the crowd. They had the sense to display cars weren’t too popular on the Hyderabad roads but had the potential in them to get that popularity. The high performance AMG (SL63?) was the most stunning followed by the SLK. I had a feeling the AMG’s engine was on, as there was a low rumbling sound coming from it. I am sure the engine would growl when raised. A little further ahead we found the usual WV cars and the Skodas. A particularly large section of the crowd seemed to be stuck at the Audi stall. Something that was no surprise to me. They had the longest line as far as I could see though they were the usual ones. People were thronging all over the place, jumping into frames of strangers’ cameras and falling onto the cars, leaving dirty finger-prints everywhere. It was quite a messy sight. The attraction was the TT, maybe because one doesn’t find it much on the Hyd roads, and the headlamps of the A4, and the Q5 were probably the most photographed headlamps in the hall. I was quite let down when I didn’t find the R8 there. I was also expecting the Z4 to appear in the BMW stall, which didn’t happen too.

 

After this, it was the journey back to the classics. Quite a few stunning models of cars and bikes were on display. The vehicle owners’ names were written and unsurprisingly, most of them were Colonels and Generals. The bikes had a clear World War II look about them, and were beautifully maintained for their age. There was a particular BSA that had an uncanny resemblance to a moped but had a 350 CC engine, a fact that none of the gazers could digest! The vintage cars on display were too good to be real. The sheer size of these cars and the intricate detailing on them definitely makes them priceless in the literal sense. It’s great that these owners agreed for their cars to be displayed to public.

 

The other stuff like SudhaCars the car audio, the mods, etc. also pulled in some decent crowd. I particularly went there for the cars and was mildly surprised to find racing kits installed on the Yamaha R15 and FZ models. And the R15 model promptly stood there with a flat tyre. Probably the number of people that sat on it might have been too much to handle.

 

And in no time, it was all over. Not knowing what to do next, we simply left the place. And the crowd at the time of leaving was extreme. The proof for this point was given by the fact that the other parking lots were filled to the brim including the one in which I parked my 2 wheeler. And clearly there were more exotics in the parking lots than in the show itself. Why would people come in Audi Q7s to find nothing more greater than an Audi Q7 itself? I couldn’t get the point. Maybe they were planning to expand their garage, coz clearly there was nothing new there for the eyes. It was all about doing some shopping.

 

And what was I doing there? Just hopping around and hoping that one day, one of them would fit into my tiny parking space (where a Zen struggles to get in)…

 

Shopping or hopping, it was a day well spent, though that wasn’t the case with the money.

Drive is the Way! Or is it?

Ouch! I am just recovering from a sore back. The reason? Driving all day, all the days. Over the last week, I lost count of the number of visits to JNTU and the college each clocking 50 KM a visit. A daily trip to my cousin’s office, dropping her off at the peak traffic time adds salt to the wounds. Finally, constant visits to a consultancy wraps up the day long damage and leaves me all battered. To cap it all, the great roads of Hyderabad deceive at just the right moment. The moment I assume it’s safe to accelerate after a frustrating 20 Kmph average, a huge crater pops up in front, forcing me to either brake hard or perform a dangerous stunt in the middle of the road. I notice every other biker behind me doing the same stunt. For an outsider, this would seem like a circus where a line of bikes perform a stunt with precise timing. And it’s a shameful thing to proudly be able to say that I have all the ‘co-ordinates’ of the craters stored in my memory. I dodge around them so often that their locations kinda got etched into my brain and I can now evade them with my eyes closed. Some craters are not just craters. They are wells, wells that could practically store water. They are the kind of pot-holes that have the potential of breaking car wheel axles and bending the handle bars of bikes. My personal experience: I drove through an extremely rough patch on a road and by the time I got out of my steering wheel started making some funny noises from the bearings. Their message: Evade me if you want but I’m here to stay for at least a year and my friends are waiting to greet you every few metres as you go down the road.

 

Oh, and it’s not just the pot-holes that create all the trouble. We have some very unique things that pop up on the roads. Buffaloes! On the middle of the road! They happily and lazily walk along the road or across it or however else they would like, having the time of their lives. They don’t even find the polluted air a problem. Maybe their thick skin has some anti-carbon-monoxide coating. We should start developing something like that in the near future.

 

And we never fail to notice these ‘Caution: Work Under Progress’ boards here and there. Now what exactly goes on behind the boards, we never manage to learn. One thing’s for sure, this board lies in the middle of the road for a few months upright. The next few months, it is visibly damaged and bent at odd angles, lying on the floor, most probably hit by a speeding vehicle. And finally when it comes under the radar, it’s removed, leaving behind a huge pot hole or a big portion of the road over-turned. And the repair of the damaged road, another year is a good time to estimate. Could be more.

 

And hey, don’t forget humans ourselves on the roads. Our great road builders never bother to use a little bit of extra paint to make the Zebra-crossings. They spend days drawing the dashed lines on the roads, and go all wrong because of the constantly changing width of the road. One place the road is 100 feet wide and a little distance ahead, it’s a little more than 10 feet. The reason? Some religious structure comes up overnight and in case someone lays a finger on it, it would be nothing less than a bloody riot and clashes of communities. Exactly what our fast-paced world needs to slow down a bit. Anyway, lets back to the humans on the roads problem. So basically people don’t know when to cross the road and where. And that is why, we find them leaping across at the most unexpected places and times, risking their own lives and ours just to do God-knows-what. And are they to be blamed? No way. If they have to cross the road, they have to. But nobody is bothered to provide them to means to do it safely. At a few places I did find Zebra crossings. But they are mostly hidden underneath a sea of vehicles. While waiting at the signal, people (especially bikers) have this mad impatience in them. They not only encroach the striped lines but also end up blocking the vehicles coming from the other side of the road trying to take a turn. Call it civic sense, and they are well-educated people dressed in formals or over-smart/over-intelligent guys with their girl-friends behind them.

 

These 2 wheelers do this to you. They give you the ultimate pleasure of driving, but they have a grim side to them. They develop a sense of impatience. You start finding ways through all the odd gaps you can never dream of while in a car. You wanna get off the road, you wanna drive on the opposite side of the road, you want to drive at 70 on a crowded road. You accelerate hard, you brake hard. You learn to drive zig-zag meandering between larger vehicles and treating them like insects. But you occasionally do end up becoming the insect with your head under the wheels of a truck. And that could be the first and last time you ever did.

 

The best thing that ever happened on roads: 2 Wheelers

The worst thing that ever happened on roads: 2 Wheelers

 

And as I spend most of my week shifting between the 2 and 4 wheelers, I don’t know what to complain of, and what to praise. Whether it’s a Unicycle or an 18-Wheeler, you have to struggle on the city roads. So unless some kind of efficient public transport (brushing aside the killer RTC buses and hole-in-your-pocket autos) is provided, we sure are going to have one hell of a ride.