Rants of a nerd
Arts and Culture
Happy Holi
02 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
The festival of colours, Holi, is being celebrated tonight and tomorrow. In preparation there was this bonfire being set up at Lower Parel in Bombay.
Bonfire being set up for Holi, Bombay, India
The story of the bonfire is that Prahalad was going to be killed by his father Hiranyakashipu with the help of his aunt Holika. As Holika would not be harmed by fire, she sat on a bonfire and invited her nephew to sit on her lap. Prahalad was saved by Vishnu and Holika was burned to death.
Photograph taken with my Galaxy Note. This phone rocks!
Mona Lisa has a twin
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
How do you not notice something like this? The Prado museum in Madrid announced that it had a twin of the Mona Lisa (La Joconde / La Gioconda), which had been hanging on display for years without anyone noticing. It is believed to have been painted by one of da Vinci’s disciples. The article says that this copy appears better preserved and Mona Lisa looks younger.
Once again, how do you not notice that you have the Mona Lisa hanging on your walls?
On a personal note, I am rather sad that this news breaks now rather than a couple of years ago. Two Januaries ago I was in Madrid and had an opportunity to spend a few minutes (only a few minutes sadly) at the Prado. I would definitely have tried to see this picture if I knew it was there. And the Prado is a very nice museum by the way. They have some wonderful works by Goya and Velasquez including the latter’s Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour). This alone is worth the trip to the museum. The collection is very large and it is worth the best part of a day. As I recall it, photography was not allowed inside.
The street with the Prado also contains two other major Madrid museums Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofia. From the latter comes this photograph of Picasso’s Guernica Composition Study. This was the only museum that allowed photography (must be because most of the stuff was ugly modern art). The only major work was not allowed to be photographed.
J Edgar
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
Not a bad movie. Leonardo DiCaprio plays J Edgar Hoover with conviction. As a biopic it is fine. What it excels at is showing the deterioration of the USA from a liberal place towards a police state led by a paranoid man. The manipulations of several Presidents and Attorneys General along the way; the riding over civil liberties; the illegal wiretaps; one could go on…
What is really interesting is how much forward this has gone today. Hoover may have balked at tapping of journalists’ phones, but today that seems like a small thing.
Of course thanks to the fact that Hoover’s secret files were never recovered, one assumes that a lot of the story is “filled in” for the sake of a story. But it is a movie, not a documentary. So the license is there for the taking. Watch the movie for DiCaprio’s portrayal of J Edgar.
Top Gear and road safety in India
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
In the Top Gear India special Richard Hammond made an interesting observation that while India has just about twice the number of cars as the UK, it has much a much higher fatality rate on the roads. While around 3000 people die in the UK due to road accidents, the number in India is over 130,000. I don’t remember the exact Hammond quote. The 130,000 number is from this Times of India article that places the total deaths from Railways and Roads in India at over 161,000 in the year 2010, which is an all time high number. It is also a world beating number – we have the highest number of road casualties in the world!
So instead of bickering over whether Top Gear was sufficiently respectful of India in its show, I think it is much more relevant if we tried to do something about road safety in this country. As the presenters on the show pointed out, our roads are extremely dangerous with people choosing to drive on the wrong side of the road, repair work on roads without adequate marking & lighting, people parking on highways because they want to…
And all this without taking into account the worst offenders on the roads: state transport drivers. The recent incident in Pune may have brought this to note, but this is one of the worst aspects of highway driving in India. I myself have had a close call when a bus coming in the opposite direction drove into my car’s way when the driver decided to overtake another bus that itself was passing another vehicle. There were THREE abreast coming down a two lane highway. Thankfully I managed to drive off the road and escaped with only a smashed right hand side mirror.
Indeed, it is very easy to observe dangerous driving by these state transport bus drivers in Mumbai. Just take a trip down to the Dadar-Sion belt. I am only surprised that the streets are not littered with cars and bikes side-swiped by these monsters.
Oscar nominations
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
So the Oscar nominations are out. Gary Oldman got a nomination for the role of Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hope he wins. Colin Firth won last year as the lead in The King’s Speech. He was in this movie with a creditable performance too. But it was Benedict Cumberbatch who perhaps should have gotten a nomination for supporting role.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
This has John le Carre all over it. And why not with le Carre as an executive producer. Fantastic, just the right mood being set. And brilliant casting. Gary Oldman as Smiley is just as one imagines from the books. It has been a long time since I’ve read the books, but this is the time to break them out for a re-read.
Underworld Awakening
03 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
Saw the movie. Liked it. The movie continues to be stylistically well made. The first half in particular was very good.
The ending could have been a bit better perhaps. Spoiler alert ahead!
You could see the Michael Corvin reappearance from miles ahead. But it was too small a cameo. Perhaps having him rescue Selene from a tight spot again (part 2′s fight with Marcus) would have been a bit much. Also wasn’t the movie reminiscent of Resident Evil with the whole humans are trying to eliminate us and three lab testing and everything?
The only good thing from the cruise ship disaster
04 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
Those not living under rocks would have come across the sad story of the Costa Concordia. The ship hit a rock off the coast of Italy and has resulted in a loss of several lives as she foundered. It is all very sad. The only good thing coming out may be that we will probably forever be done with the song My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. Apparently they were playing this song on board when the ship hit the rock.
Who plays a song from Titanic on board a cruise liner?
Apparently the comparisons to the Titanic are apposite as passengers complained of fights for lifejackets and delays in the deployment of lifeboats. Incidentally one of the survivors of this shipwreck is the grand child of a Titanic survivor.
Swiss Alps From Above
04 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
Photos taken from an airplane window on a flight out of Zurich, Switzerland. These were taken last year. Though some of the colours may appear false, they did appear so when viewed from above just as the sun was about to set. In some of the photos you can see the sky reddened by the setting sun.
