Whats in a name!

I have a habit of asking the meaning of someone's name if I find it interesting/obscure/amusing. While I keep wondering what is the best response I can give if somebody asks me the meaning of my name. If you google for Siddharth one of the hits shows some interesting statistics. "The name Siddharth, is the 37945th most popular baby name at mybabyname.com placing it in the top 53% of names by popularity.". I think that's some achievement. In school we had at a maximum 3 Siddharths in my class or my grade. In my college, there was only I AFAIK. Thats not a lot of Siddharths compared to Amits or Rahuls but nevertheless it has become one of the most common-place name.

The earliest known usage of the name is by the great Gautama Buddha. Many fail to realize that he was Siddharth"a" before he became the great buddha. Ironically Siddharth means he who has achieved his wishes or he who knows the meaning of life. If that was true Buddha would have stayed put within his palace walls knowing that he has achieved all but he didn't. Instead he went out in the search of the very answers his name claimed he already knew and boy, did he achieve greatness.

A million things to write about but.....

The question that almost kills is what does a newbie blogger blog about. He wants the blog to start on the right subject and the right note to attract the right kind of readers. I would rather write something that I hope to attract any readers at all to begin with. This is turning out to be more of a meta-blog. I really thought I would write about movies but nothing came out recently that deserves a truly special mention.

Too many people have ranted about how Danny Boyle's Slumdog millionaire took the growing, gleaming, superpowered , financially stabilizing, technologically advancing face of India and splattered all over it the dehumanizing, impoverished and fetid details from the mumbai slums and worse, packaged it into a typical commercial hindi cinema well one third hindi and brought in international accolades.

Another movie in recent times that made me raise an eyebrow of interest was Zack Snyder's Watchmen. The trailers were very slick, Although I was more curious to understand what prompted Zack Snyder to take on probably THE most difficult comic book adaptation ever. He probably failed to realize that he was digging a bigger hole for himself than the one into which Leonidas kicks the Persian messenger. In all fairness, Snyder faithfully captured the three dimensional painted panels of the comic book but completely failed to capture all the other dimensions that Moore had so deftly interwoven in the comic series. For me as a true Watchmen fan it was a bit of a disappointment but that was expected and I wasn't surprised.

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

Last week I had the opportunity to see KANK. I usually look forward to Karan Johar movies because of two things. One, I see all my favorite movie stars in one sitting and the other, I get to listen to some really good music. Looking at KANK from this angle I wasn't disappointed. When I was past the initial euphoria and decided to concentrate on the storyline I actually started to see the movie. And by the end of it I was shocked and angry with Johar. The only thought I carried back home was how dare he misled us with such an unmoralistic ending? Couple of days later I was watching Johar in an interview explain why the movie was what it was. Thats when it hit me. I had actually programmed myself in such a fashion that I had refused to accept a mainline director using contemporary superstars to tell an offbeat story. I am sure I wouldn't have been surprised if I had seen this story in one of Woody Allen's introspective flicks.

Thats when I decided to think about the movie again from a different angle. Upto one level Johar's portrayal of compromise in marriage and the ideology of love and soulmates does seem to work. We do feel geuninely for SRK where he feels Preity doesn't give him the attention that he thinks he deserves. Here I want to argue that when a spouse is very busy because of the hectic work what will you choose to do : sulk and make the spouse's life more miserable by arguing he/she doesn't have time and go over the top by sleeping with someone else or support her and be more sensitive, attentive and pro-active to other things that make up a successful marriage like children, house etc. SRK chooses the former and Johar makes you feel that was the most obvious thing to do.

SRK's situation can still be rationalized but Rani's case is absurd. If she had doubts about AB Jr on her marriage day why did she marry and make Abhishekh's life hell as well. And she is supposed to be in the US of A. So is Rani's meek acquiescence Johar's idea of Indian tradition of some sort or just plain stupidity on her part. Johar's usual take of black and white New York as the backstage adds to the gloom in the already gloomy second half. I would love to see him direct one film on the familiar and vibrant desi grounds.

Shankar, Eshaan and Loy come up with a winner yet again. The soundtrack and sexy Sam save the day. Overall an outrageously bloated budget which could have been put to better use.

Hello Blogging world

My name is Siddharth (a.k.a 51Dz). If you don't know what that means you can just remember that 51Dz is Sids in some god-forsaken hacking language. Thats essentially how I sign myself. Other times I sign as bytewiser. Thats a classical corny name. Some say its witty. The same people also think the US fights wars for world peace.

I know it took an outrageously long time to get the words out on my own blog. But here they are finally. I had always wondered whether my blog was going to be technical or non-technical, political or non-political, witty or dumb, funny or humorless. I think the best blogs are ones which have a little of all. Mainly I plan to write about movies, actors, music, food, books, reviews, comments,...... Enough of this meta-talk already.....But I guess it will be some other time when I write something worthwhile.