It can’t get any auspicious than this. After 4 days of no internet, I got it back, right on our Independence Day. The problem apparently lay in some cables which might have got snapped due to the ‘Big Splash’. The cable guys at Hathway worked today to repair the cables and set my internet working again :-) Thanks a ton to them.
I had the opportunity to watch Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades on STAR Gold. Coming soon after the tremendous success of ‘Lagaan’, it must have been difficult process in making a film which would live upto the expectations of the people and Ashutosh has not disappointed. Swades is about Mohan Bhargava (Shahrukh Khan) a Project Manager on Global Precipitation Measurement at NASA. He comes to India to see his nanny in a small village in Uttar Pradesh called Charanpur where he meets his love life Gita (Gayatri Joshi making her debut on the silver screen). The story unfolds when on a trip to a neighbouring village, he sees how people are living under abject poverty and decides to do something about it. He helps in breaking the shackles of age old traditions of caste and creed which are so prevalent in rural India even today. By contructing a small hydel electric project in the village, the protaganist gives the villagers a reason to cheer. Finally his motherland beckons him to come back and the rest is history.
The highlights of the movie are just too many. The narrative itself is very simple and well tackled. The cinematography is excellent and gives one the feeling of being in a rural setting. AR Rahman & Javed Akhtar do it again after Lagaan. The Ramlila song is the highlight for me since it’s written by a non-Hindu and I am too proud about this fact.
Lastly I hope we have a Mohan Bhargava hidden somewhere inside us who can create a revolution and bring happiness to everyone’s hearts. I know that we have become too cynical about the way things have been happening about us but cynicism will only pull us back into that quicksand called hopelessness.
Let me be honest and confess that I lost the URL of this fabulous website and lost all the hopes of finding it on the superhighway. I only knew a few things about it on my first visit which were “portuguese”, “designer” and the fact that it was made entirely in “WordPress”. I managed to “Google” the keywords and I ‘excavated’ this website once again :-) The website is called 
I don’t think Mumbai will ever be the same again. I mean no one will ever dare to underestimate the power of her monsoons (I somehow like to think that cities & countries are females. They sound so cool). They say this is the heaviest rainfall in 100 years in Mumbai and I have sort of shrugged that claim altogether. Flooding in Mumbai is not uncommon and we all know that the amount of sewage waste this city produces in a day. I have said earlier that the lax administration has to be blamed for this present fate of Mumbai. For a start, mumbai needs to be ‘moisturized’ even further to make it look beautiful. Clearing the unauthorised slums is not the only solution but planting more greens all across the city is what is required. The administration needs to be given a lesson or two in lateral thinking (read De Bono’s 6 hats theory) to come out with innovative ideas about how to stop the flow of migrants into the city. Politicians and political parties need to look beyond their populist agendas and work together for a better Mumbai. Phew! I know this is easier said than done :(