On the kitchen table, along with the cups and saucers is a long steel glass, the type that is usually used in hostels for serving and drinking milk. S’s father had bought it when he was with us for a few weeks. He doesn’t like to drink water from Mineral Water bottles like us, or from any other type of cups or glasses.

He is not much different from my father or any old person I know. Call it idiosyncrasies or eccentricities, we tend to acquire it more as we grow older. I sometimes see it as plain old stubbornness judging from the way old people want to have everything their way. Their inability to see, hear or feel others’ point of view, and their refusal to accept anything or anyone that don’t agree with them.

Perfectly understandable when they are senile, very old people; but what about those able bodied senior people who are still working or who have just retired? Age and experience teaches us patience and empathy. So where does it all go when the sunset approaches? S’s visits to old age homes always bring me tales of old people sulking, crying, screaming, and stomping their feet until the other people around give in to their demands. They also do the same thing when they don’t get the attention they want.

Not much different from babies if you consider the fact that a lot of old people come to that stage where they can’t clothe, eat, piss or shit by themselves. There’s nothing cool or romantic about dying young but the shame and indignity one goes through in old age makes me wish for an early death.


There are some songs that send a thrill down your body whenever you hear it, no matter how many times you have heard them.

Audioslaves's "Like A Stone", Alter Bridge's "Open Your Eyes", Steel Dragon's "We All Die Young", Skid Row's "I Remember You"..... - not the songs in their entireties but there's a part in all these songs where the guitar wails or the vocal shoots up to new unscaled heights. And that's exactly where I stop everything to listen and savor that exact moment.

And folk songs, I just love them. I remember that time just after I saw King Arthur. Spent hours on the net to find and download that song "We Will Go Home", and when I finally heard it in full, it was pure bliss. Hotel Rwanda has a lot of African folk songs/music which are just unforgettable.

There's this very popular Irish folk song called "The Fields Of Athenry", and it has been sung by countless number of bands/artistes. But as far as I’m concerned, the best rendition has to be the one sung by a street singer called Brian O’Donnell for the OST of "Veronica Guerin." He was 11 years old when he sang that song. Listen. And don't miss the movie either.


Eastern Promises is one hell of a movie. The fight scene in the bath house is one of the best, bloodiest, most realistic and brutal fights I’ve ever seen in a movie. No stuntmen were used, and according to IMDB, it took 2 days to film that scene alone. Guess Hollywood actors and our own Bollywood actors will always remain poles apart. Hollywood actors took rigorous training, visit and stay in foreign countries to develop accents, spent time in prison and other institutions, learn new hobbies and skills to prepare themselves for their roles. And here we have someone as big and rich as SRK or Sushmita Sen killing me every time they play rock stars in some of their movies without even bothering to spend 5 minutes to learn how to hold the guitar properly, forget about playing. Monkeys with coconuts, that’s what they remind me of.

Rendition, American Gangster, Charlie Wilson’s War, Atonement, and Juno were other great movies I saw recently.

No Country For Old Men was not that great but Javier Bardem was awesome, brilliant, evil and very very scarry!!!