Manchester United Vs Arsenal

The first big match of the EPL. With Manchester United trying to find its groove without Cristiano Ronaldo and having lost against Burnley it was a crucial match for them. Arsenal as usual started their season well with huge wins against Everton, Celtic and Portsmouth.

Expecting a cracker of match we went to Extreme Sports Bar Bannerghatta Road. Surprisinglythe bar was full. We didn't anticipate this. To our dismay some rock band 'Bridge' was playing there because of which the giant screen was put off for sometime with assurances from the staff that it will up before the match begins. With Liverpool slotting the winning goal in the dying minutes against Fulham, the rush increased.

Match started around 10 PM. Initial 10 minutes were dull with no team keeping possession of the ball. Ball was in air most of the time. Sad part of watching EPL. Fletcher had a super chance to get Man U on top, but he missed the post by a huge margin. I am a Manchester United Fan, but I love Arshavin. Something in him tells he is gonna make it big in EPL. So there I was rooting for Man U and Arshavin :-). Arshavin came close to scoring in the end of first half missing the post by a whisker. Super effort from the Russian.

On a side note, many people were seen wearing Arsenal and Man U jerseys. There was lot of shouting, cheering, jeering and booing going on. Something marketers should ponder about the increasing popularity of the sport in India. Good number of women folks were also present. As always they were active when there was no match going on and we saw few of them dozing off too! Time to market the sport for them like they do in UK, Singapore etc.

Second half began on a promising note and within minutes Arshavin scored. I was all ecstatic. Enjoyed every bit of it wearing Man U jersey. Kind of odd na! Then onwards it was ugly football. Rooney was fouled by Alumnia inside the box and he did no mistake converting the penalty. Looked like a genuine foul. And that was not the worst yet for Arsenal. Diaby scored an own goal! How lame can it get for Arsenal. There onwards it was Man U on top. But they missed two easy opportunities thanks to Berbatov and Nani. There was still some fire in Arsenal who almost score in the injury time but to be ruled off side to the disappointment of Wenger.

All in all not a match to remember. But a win is win and am happy we got 3 points from a good team :P

Benzema - the new number 7

With the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid, Manchester United's firepower upfront definitely needs a rejig. With various names floating for the replacement, only two caught my attention. Franc Ribery and Karim Benzema. Interestingly both are from France and are high profile players for their respective clubs, Bayern Munich and Olympique Lyonnai.

Benzema, the 21-year-old Lyon frontman is a great talent. With experience under his belt, along with great pace and agility, Benzema is a huge threat to defences. He is also a prolific scorer and is blessed with great physique, effective dribbling, and great vision.

Blessed with pace, energy, skill, and precise passing, 26-year-old Bayern Munich and French midfielder Franck Ribery would be truly stunning at Man U, but his age is a deterring factor.

We need a superstar to replace CR7. He should be the face of the media. And in that respect I would want to see Benzema to don the number 7 shirt and bring back the glory and also fans we lost because of CR7. And with the way discussions are going I think Man U are just days away from signing him. And talent doesn't come cheap. 45M pounds.

Glory, glory, Man United

A glimmer of hope for Education Sector

After close to 18 years one party has got a clear majority and thank god it happened to be Congress. I am not a vehement supporter of them, but feel they are better of the lot (at least from candidates per se). Now looking back at their report card of 60 odd days in office, I think many of the ministers have worked harder than anybody holding the respective posts for all the last 25+ years. I know its too premature to call them successful or anything but somebody is willing to change the system (in words atleast). If these ministers fulfill their promises then I don't think there is no stopping for UPA in 2014.

One person who caught my attention during the election campaign is Kapil Sibal. His interviews and debates on NDTV were very interesting. He is clearly an intellectual, a cool person, doesn't jump the wagon to make his point. He has a fact based approach and his answers are always supported by facts. The moment he was made HRD minister I was happy. Arjun Singh, the previous HRD minister, has made a mockery of education system in his last tenure. May be some of his reforms were populist, but as an young graduate like me it doesn't appeal.

Background check - Kapil Sibal obtained his M.A. in History from St. Stephen's and LL.M from Harvard Law School, USA (source -wikipedia).

He gave the first sixer to the UPA's regime. Abolition of class X board exams. Though there was a mixed response, I felt it was necessary, atleast to slow down the rat race among students. I feel the rat race is because of the mismatch of demand vs. supply. Almost every student aspires to become Engineer or a Doctor, so what about other professions?

Though its good to have such a diverse country as India, but there was a need and necessity to have one board across the country so that every student is comparable (and I don't believe in percentile system). And students studying in certain board's shouldn't have distinctive advantage over others in competitive exams.

This is a step in the right direction atleast for Education sector and we can look forward to many such reforms because of the man in charge (unless and until babu's and moshai's interfere).

Cheap publicity

My customized google news has been throwing up this stupid article for the last 5-10 hours. Akshay and Kareena kiss 10 times for Kambhakt Ishq. So what?

Why does tabloids give so much importance to such insane articles. This is nothing but cheap publicity and marketing gimmick. Many lower budget movies (better in content and also intent) release every friday and are going down the drain due to lack of publicity by producers and coverage by media. Had these people given some amount of their energy then movies like Barah Aana, Firaaq, Gulaal would have been major blockbusters.

There are far too many news channels and newspapers (local and national) around these days fighting for the TRP's and because of this increased competition many of the incompetent journalists are resorting to the last trick in the trade - cheap publicity stunts and sensationalizing trivial issues (latest example being the attacks on Indian students in Australia). One thing is for sure, the audience, atleast in India, are not swaying to the tunes of this stupid media and thats a big welcome relief.

To sum up - no amount of publicity can save a bad movie, but a good movie without publicity also goes down the same path.

I hope and sincerely wish big budget mindless masala movies go down the drain like Chandni chowk so that we are freed of this escapist nature; good movies (small and big) get their due recognition and pave a bright way for the future ahead. And I also wish Sankat City to have a good opening and a declared trade hit. Viva cinema

Colours and its impact

There is no escaping colour - it surrounds us every second of every day. It should come as no surprise then, that individual colours are thought to have a different impact on human behaviour and emotions. Colour theorists argue that this is why a bright blue sky make us feel happy, while grey clouds can make us feel down.

Though the concept is universal in appeal, it is less exploited by film makers especially Indian ones. We see breath taking locales but hardly they form part of the story. We use the beaten path to express our emotions on screen like if you're sad you make the actor say 'I am sad' rather than using props to express emotions.

Recently I saw Chungking Express directed by Wong Kar Wai. One can easily identify the change of shades at different points in time of the film. The mood of each character is wonderfully captured by each frame. Though nothing is obvious, we as audience are transported into their world of emotions. This reiterates how camera can do wonders but when used effectively and intelligently.

I would highly recommend Chungking Express to everybody. It will not dissappoint.
On a side note it is not the regular pop corn masala movie.

My tryst with blogging!

I have unsuccessfully created 2 blogs hardly writing anything. I wish I write more this time. Wishing myself good luck!!!

Cherish