First and foremost I would like to thank all the participants for taking part in the contest to celebrate Fenil's birthday, which I am sure the birthday boy must have enjoyed.

Since the birthday boy himself was the judge of the contest, he has selected the entries of Sajith Nair, Deepak & Virat Bond as the best entries.

Each winner will receive a gift worth 200 points each.

Since all have contributed to the contest and shared their opinion with us, I'll send each participant a gift worth 100 points each. Because it was such a pleasure to read their opinions.

I have enjoyed conducting the contest and I thank you all for the encouragement and participation.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the participants without whom this wouldn't have been possible.

It looks like a festival of contests on MS is in progress. But I can't help this time too because the movie buff & our beloved MSian Fenil Seta is going to celebrate his birthday on 22nd-Nov-2009.

If we go through his write ups on MS, 98% of his work is about films. So lets us have a contest, which is related to films.

I never knew the significance of reviews until I joined MS and the impact they create among the MSians.

To me review is nothing but the opinion of an individual, which will never ever force me to change my decision. If I have to watch a film, I'll watch & if I don't have to watch, I will never watch it, irrespective of the reviews about the film.

My question is pertaining to the reviews written on films only:
How significant are reviews to you?

Take your time. You can contribute till 9 pm on 21-11-2009.

Dear Fenil, on Sunday (whenever you are free) please select the 3 best entries, so that I can send them their prizes.

I look forward to your participation.

Dear Friends,

First and foremost I would like to thank all of you for your participation in the contest and giving your views/opinion about 'criticism'.

The following are the winners:

First: Paul - for dwelling into minute details & presenting macro & micro dimensions of criticism.

Second: Syd Barret - for being analytical & giving crisp opinion.

Third: Mazhar bhai - for having a flavour of honesty in his comment.

Special prize: Amrita - for her wonderful comment.

Congratulations to all the winners. Your gifts are on its way to you.

Thanks Sajith for selecting the winners. We all hope hope you had a wonderful time yesterday.

Best regards
Ajeet Singh

Dear All,

As we all know our friend Sajith Nair is celebrating his birthday today. Many happy returns of the day to him.

Let us have some activity on his birthday.

May I please request you all to share your opinion/views on 'Importance of criticism'

9 pm is the cut off time for the entries, so friends let us join hands together to make Sajith's birthday a successful one by contributing to maximum.

It goes without saying that Sajith Nair himself would be the judge for the best three entries. And do I have to say that all the 3 winners will get their prizes as well.

I look forward to your participation.

Bregards/Ajeet Singh

I owe a lot the the makers of film 'Blue' because had it not been for this film I wouldn't have known how popular channels like National Geography & Discover Channel have become.

The film as we all know has some stunning under water scenes ever filmed on the Indian screen hence positive point of the film.

But many found this positive point not be very impressive because they have seen it on Discovery Channel or National Geography. I am so impressed with the success of these two channels and regret that I don't watch them. But post reading reviews on Blue I am seriously considering to be a regular viewer of these channels.

Now the reason why I am writing this post is, that I am requesting the names of few documentaries from those who have seen then on TV channels and have found it better then what was shown in Blue. Since many wrote the same thing, I am sure at least few of them surely remembers the names of the documentaries that they have seen.

I would be very delighted to catch them on TV. I look forward to the names of the documentaries that you have seen on TV.

I saw the film All The Best yesterday & was going to write the review of the film when the idea of this poem hit me. I have attempted to say something through few lines, which I hope will make sense as it does explains a lot about the film.


Chhodo logic wogic,
Ye to baat purani
Naye daur mein likhi hai
Ab ye nayi kahaani
Jo tumhe hai dikhani
Jo tumhe hai dikhani

Apna maqsad hai tumhe entertain karna
Aur apni reputation ko maintain karna
Expectations phir to aur high ho jaayengi
Fail huye to mooh ke bal humko giraayengi
Koshish hamaari, faisla aapka
Humpe karein meherbaani

Comedy to humne is mein ki hai bharpoor
Double meaning dialogue to rakha hai door
Taki aap apni family to saath mein laayen
Khud bhi hasein aur unko bhi aap hasaayein
Koshish hamaari, faisla aapka
Humpe karein meherbaani

Story ki hamnein yahaan zaroort nahin samzhi
Comedy mein kahaan hai iski jagah hi banti
Dimaag ko chhodo, logic bhoolo
Weekend ki shaam suhaani
Ab ye nayi kahaani
Jo tumhe hai dikhani


Do let me know your opinion about the DP. I'll post my review by evening.

Dear Meena,

Thanks for being my love for one & half years, when you receive this letter I believe you might have selected a new boy friend & started enjoying your dating.

Every lover needs to struggle a bit to get a boy friend or a girl friend.

In order to recover your missing, I got another girl friend from next street & as you know this is my fifth love & from all my past experiences, I have learned a lot.

When the love blossoms everyone starts writing love letters, you know very well. I have written many love letters to you & writing a love letter in a poetic way is not so easy nowadays. And moreover it is a time consuming work. In order to avoid all this I need all my love letters back so that I can put corrector and send to Raveena (my new girl friend). Please send them back to me as I don't have any poetic references or photocopies of those letters.

Another thing that I gave you was a cute photograph of mine, can you send it to me please? You know better that this is the only photo where I look very cute & handsome. Actually this photo was taken when I was in my very first love.

And also during my 1-1/2 years of love days I have spent lot of money for impressing you. I am attaching a list of expenses, which I request you to clear it at the earliest.

The grand total of the expenses is Rs. 30,708 (in words - Rupees Thirty Thousand Seven Hundred & Eight only).

Please try to clear the above amount at the earliest so that I can spend it on Raveena. And moreover if you have any of my gift lying with you, I am ready to take these packs at half prices. Please calculate the value of packs left over & deduct it from the above outstanding amount.

I am enclosing herewith your love letters (weight around 3.8 kg) so that you no need to write again to your boy friend & your photo so that you can give it to your new boy friend.

Also please advise your expenses, which incurred during our dates. I don't think you had any expenditures during our dates as I have seen many times that you always forget your purse when it comes to pay.

Anyways I hope you will clear the above outstanding at the earliest & wishing you a very wonderful 6th love affair with Ramesh.

Your ex-lover

When I visited Hyderabad last time, I came across a book named Guru Nanak, which I immediately bought to know more about the holy soul. Today on the auspicious day of his 540th jayanti, I would like to share something about him that I have read.

Guru Nanak was born during a period when India was reeling under the Muslim rulers attacks & oppressive behaviour of the plunderers. Indian society was victimised by the ills of caste system and untouchability.

He raised a powerful voice against the social injustice prevalent at that time. He was out and out advocate of the removal of the social & economical disparities.

He was born in a so called high caste, but he associated himself completely with the oppressed, depressed & condemned people. He rejected the baseless traditions & dogmatic beliefs of the society of all the castes.

He had a formal education in fragments, as every now & then he would he would spend his time of Hermits & Fakirs. He was well versed in Hindi, Sanskrit & Arabic and had complete knowledge of the sacred texts of Hindus as well as Muslims.

His teachings are simple & lucid, he never decried family life, he advocated the people to perform good deeds, which was in itself a best form of worship to God. He undertook four major journeys in his life to spread his teachings. He traveled far & wide, met a number of people & tried to give spiritual help to whoever he could.

He was a great seer who condemned the hypocrisy of religions & showed the real path to mankind to reach God.

Madras? Yes, you read it right, Madras. The city was then called Madras, which was later renamed as Chennai.

I & two of my friends went to Madras to write our exams & a day after the exam we decided to watch a film. After discussion we decided to watch Thalapati just because it had Rajnikant. None of us knew Tamil but stuck to decision of watching Thalapati.

It was first day first show & you can imagine the crowd for Rajnikant's film. Somehow we managed to buy the tickets in black & entered the theater.

The crowd went berserk when Rajnikant made an entry, whistles, screams & what not. They did everything to show their love for the man on the screen.

We three were watching only the video part as the audio part was beyond our understanding. Then there was a scene when Mamoothy says something to Rajnikant & with that all hell broke loose. Noise, screams, banging of chairs, etc could be heard & we three had no clue why it was happening. The film was stopped. We realised that the crowd was angry. But didn't know the reason.

I asked a person who was almost fuming the reason behind the scenario. He asked me, "do you know who is that person who shouted at Rajnikant". I said "No".

"He is Mamoothy, actor from Kerala. How can he talk to Rajni like that?", was his reply in form of a question. I didn't had guts to ask him any further question.

We three looked at each other & soon the crowd became quiet after someone came & spoke something in Tamil. The film started again & this time Rajnikant replied to what Mamoothy had said to him. The crowd once again went berserk. Claps, whistles, screams, everything the fans could do to express their happiness they did & also some words in Tamil were shouted. They forgot what happened few minutes ago & all floated with the present happenings on the screen.

We prayed while we watched the film that no such scene should be there, which can propel the crowd to loose control. Thankfully nothing happened till the end. We walked out of the theater with no understanding of the film but the episode that took place almost 18 years ago is still so fresh.

We promised that we will NEVER watch a Tamil film in Tamilnadu. Because the fans worship their favourite stars & can go to any length to promote & support their favourite stars.

May be that is the reason why they don't make multi starrer films in Southern part of India.

Though I have seen few Tamil films after that namely Khushi, Anjali, Mauna Raagam, Pokiri, Ghajini, etc but all on DVD. Safe bet I would say.

Written Without Prejudice

When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, reading, the car, watching TV. Always something more important to me.

Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors.

I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, 'When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway.'

The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Source - INBOX