Harry Potter and the Half hearted attempt….

Those who have not seen the movie, may please avoid reading this :)

I was very eagerly waiting for the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, so much so, that I booked tickets for first day last show. But boy was I in for a rude shock. Infact for people who have not read the books and depend on the movie, there is lot left to be explained.

I found the movie too loveydovey. Ron’s character was very good, but then there was no need to go overboard with Von Von.

The book centers around Dumbledore showing Harry the life of Voldermort, to prepare him for the battle ahead. There are numerous memories of Dumbledore in the book. There is Voldy’s mom, father, uncle. None have been shown in the movie. The Horcruxes have hardly been discussed. Guess its the battle of Hallows over Horcruxes which has won in the movie.

I feel J R Tolkien was right in his lifetime by putting up a ban over converting his Triology – The Lord of the Rings, into a movie, because he felt that it will be injustice to the book. Had the book be made into a movie then, it would have been a disaster without its special effects. Though now with the modern day graphic wizardry the movie was upto the mark. Harry Potter series is a fresh, hardly a decade old, and has got the advantages of being made into a good movies series, but somewhere there is too much of deviation from the original books. And for me it is killing my interest.

The graphics are good, the beginning is good and so is the ending with Dumbledore in the cave. But then thats it. It was really stupid the way Harry is not immobilised. It is stupid that the very person he has been terming as an enemy….Snape…..asks him to keep quite, while Snape goes up the Astronomy Tower. What is the director thinking of? And what is J K Rowling thinking of?

A few stray thoughts…..

With the recent rains in Mumbai city, we are yet again facing hardships by way of flooding , traffic jams, slow or no trains etc. Year after year, we are facing the same problem with no solution. So much of water everywhere and still we are facing water shortage in Mumbai. Why cant this very water be diverted,purified and recycled!!!! Why crores of rupees are being spend on taking this water to the very sea….which we are afraid of at high tide!!!!!!

Coming to sea…..once I had the chance of listening to a lady ….she said….we throw so many things into the sea……garlands, coconuts,waste….we immerse idols every year. But has anybody noticed that the next day, the sea just rejects accepting this material and throws it right back onto the shores. It never accepts what is not rightfully its own. Mumbai was initially an island city of 7 islands. Constant reclamation of the sea led to unification of one major city called Mumbai. The way the sea does not accept what is its own…it has given away part of it. What if one day it claims its rightful place!!!! Currently we get to listen to, read that in the future sea levels will certainly be rising in and around Mumbai. Is this what the lady meant to say? With flooding in 26/7 we certainly saw a version of 7 islands. Will we wake up now and stop further reclamation?

The best example of reclamation is the current wonder of Mumbai the Worli Bandra Sea Link. Recently a political party created a hue and cry for allowing Motor cyclist sto use the link. Currently Motor cyclists are banned on the link. In Mumbai we have one more wonder, the JJ flyover. After it was constructed, it has cut travelling time from Byculla to VT, from 1 hour to just under 10 mins. But the length and the curve of the flyover has led to many accidents on this stretch and the maximum involving Motor bikes. There have been instances where the riders has even fallen off the bridge. At least there there is an assurance of getting the body of the rider in case the fall is fatal, but what about the sea link? We are all well aware of how efficient our naval police is!!!!! Who is going to ensure that speed limits will be maintained by such riders?? The politicians who led the rally? I dont think so…..

Experience counts….Respect it….

 

  A giant ship engine failed. The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.
Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!"
So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer...... ........ ......... $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap......... ........ ........ $ 9,998.00

Moral Of The Story

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference!

Who is responsible?

Finally Mumbai has got its much need additional road for travelling from suburbs to the city. With the new road have come up new signboards. And with the new signboard has come one more renaming, that of Mt. Mary Church at Bandra. The spelling mistake seems to be overlooked by the department incharge of putting up the board. Howelse can such a goof up come up on public display.

Isnt it the responsibility of the person who gives the order for such boards to verify if all the spellings are correct or not? Or that person just sits on his chair and passes off the payments? Will any action over even this “trivial” thing be taken? Who knows…till then…let Mother Mary be “MERRY”:)

Lookalikes

My brother recently went on a trip to Mahabaleshwar. Today he showed us one of the snaps of his wife, and behind her, in the snap, is a person who looks like me!!!! I am finding it very funny actually. While discussing the same with my brother in law, he asserted that we all have lookalikes, in different parts of the world, not one or two , but many. He further explained to me that just because we are not famous we don't come to know about it.

We in India, clap our hands, and enjoy shows where lookalikes of Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachan, Shatrugan Sinha etc. We enjoy their mime. But we have never given it a thought, that there might be a few more, who have preferred to keep quite rather than benefit from the alikeness. Similarly, there might be people who might be looking like us. We sometimes, say hi to a person, and then realize, its not the same person, but looks like him or her.

So what is it that we have lookalikes? What factors come into picture? Our ancestors? Laying the seeds all over the world? Whatever it is I would surely like to meet atleast one of my lookalike in my lifetime.