The Sane Lunatic

I've done it. I've finally made it to Goa. And it's simply...boring. After the endless conversations about plans to go to Goa all through high school and college, I've finally made it. The travel cost is much cheaper if I fly here from Bengaluru so I thought I'd better make the most of it. But, for some reason, there are very few flights from there to Goa, and the cheap ones at really odd hours. I took the 6:30 AM flight, which meant I had to wake up at 3 to get ready to leave by 4. Not fun, that. Surprisingly, there were a LOT of people travelling at that hour on a Wednesday. The flight was one of the shortest ever, just 55 minutes of flying time, but still a painful one with a crying baby 2 seats behind me. Luckily the noise-cancelling on my JBL headphones works just well enough to drown out the wailing and murmurs. Once on the ground and outta the airport, the ride to the hotel was quite scenic and pleasant. I have to say, the roads here, as of now, a...

A quick reminder, I live in the IT capital of India, the city of Bengaluru. For now. Those of you updated with national news may be familiar with a recurring topic of social discord in the area, ie, the Cauvery river's water distribution between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. On 12th September, in the middle of the day, violence broke out in certain parts of the city. While it started with the usual stone pelters, it soon grew exponentially violent with arson being the disruption of choice. The attacks were targeted at properties owned by Tamilians, and any vehicles with a Tamil Nadu license plate. By the end of the day, the 'protesters' had set hundreds of vehicles ablaze,  mostly buses and trucks, in the conflict hot spots of the city. To share a more personal experience of this event, I was out for lunch with my colleagues when the first of the incidents happened. We were enjoying our amazing burgers when they stopped playing the music. It wasn't till ...

7 out of 10 times, you will not see me dancing at any event or party. Why? I don't like to. But then what about those 3 other times when I do? I love dancing then. So, do I hate to dance or not? Long ago, I took dance lessons to overcome the excuse that I simply didn't know how to dance. I got pretty good at it too. But I realized something extremely important, soon enough. It wasn't that knowing how to dance made me enjoy it, but rather the confidence it gave me, that allowed me to enjoy the art of dance. I would dance at friend's parties, college fests, even at the rare wedding I'd agree to attend. I was still quite picky of what kind of songs I was willing to dance to, which would also go away after a drink or two. Through all those times, I loved dancing, even if I was doing something quite silly or minimal. Of course, the group I was with while dancing too played a major role in my decision to join in or not. But since I quit dance lessons and stopped ...

Soo, today  ( 10th September, 2016) was the event that I have been involved with at my place of employment and after suppressing my dislike for large scale events, I attended it. Partly from a sense of personal involvement with the project, and partly the curiosity, as this was an International event that was making its Indian debut. The Music Run™ basically is, as the tagline explains, "The Ultimate 5K Running & Music Festival". So, to elaborate, its a 5K run, followed by a music festival. Seems simple enough right? But there is one extra feature of this particular event. They pump music along the 5K course of the run, with about 100+ speakers, quite loudly I might add. To give it a bit of variation, the 5K is broken into 5 zones, each zone playing a certain genre of music. For added interaction and participation from fans and attendees and the internet, the playlist for each of the 5 zones of the 5K run, is voted for through an online voting platform. So, the peo...

On my way to watch War Dogs last week, I saw a giant hoarding with a cycle on it, and the only bit of text I could read in that brief moment was the name of the event (I guess an inappropriately large logo size in a layout does work in this case), Pedal for the Planet. I looked it up and went to their website to find that there will be a cycle race on 28th August, and there were plenty of categories to choose from. I hadn't gone cycling for over a month, nor had I been going for long walks to keep my leg muscles in a fit condition. So, I went for the one I knew I could finish in a relatively decent time, ie, the Men's Amateur 25 K event. There was a registration fee, which added to the proceeds which are all together supposed to go to a charity called 'Colours of Life' (aimed at helping the impoverished children in government schools) and they probably do. There was another extremely lucrative factor, which was a pick and drop service for participants, which was fo...

"That's how it is, can't help it" is a phrase applicable to way too many things in life. While there are motivators out there talking about not being that guy, we all know there are some things that really can't be helped. If you go out in the cold without a sweater, you WILL feel cold. If you eat something that is heaped with hot chili sauce, you will be crying for some way to soothe the burning sensation in your digestive system. That's how it is. But there are a lot of things when if you don't like how it is, there is the appropriateness of the phrase "Fuck this, I'm out!". Now, I admit, many situations where we feel like we would want to say that, we don't, we can't. That's because the repercussions of 'getting out' would not be worth it, which is also completely justifiable. But if that is not the case, why stay in a situation that can't be helped and is something you're not comfortable with? Why bend? Why ...

The trailer here pretty much shows all the decent bits of what is otherwise a 100 minute reel that will make you grimace and hold your head in your hands. The only thing you might enjoy is Jason's jawline and jaw dropping physique, and the plentiful you get of Jessica Alba's cleavage and bikini bod. Jason Statham's return as Arthur Bishop has been a major let down. There is no plot, no story, just a series of close ups, lazily-written rip-off cliches and some mindless explosions. Even the special effects for this film seemed to be on a budget, probably because they spent whatever money they had on Bishop's poorly choreographed stunt scenes. To the followers of Statham's work, you can almost tell which move was from which of his previous hit films. They have ruined Arthur's character from the first installment of the remake (which wasn't that good either but still much better than this one), with Jason doing his best to try and bring some depth to it....