Agony, thy name is Movie Showtimes

There's this movie called Hero, which was China's entry to the Oscar's last year. The movie is 2 years old and only just made it over to the US. And the only way for it to remain intact was for Tarantino to put his name on it, like some bloody seal of approval. USDA Prime Approved 100% Blockbsuter.

So is it available for general viewing? Noooooooooooooo! There's only 1 place showing it this weekend, the American Museum of the Moving Image all the way over in Astoria!

And, not only is it playing in 1 museum theater 30 minutes away ... there's only 1 show! Tonight at 7:30. This weekend is a desi party with Mira Nair fest.

Agony!!

Agony!!

First Spider-man ... now Sesame Street

While I'm waiting for my brother to get off his butt and go down to the local comic book store in Bangalore for the desi Spidey comics, I came across this story on the BBC that Sesame Street might be the next Indian-ized American product.

Something that did strike me: there's no mention of what language the show's going to be in. And given that India has dozens of major languages, it'd be interesting to see what puppets they come up with. Or would there be different versions - one English, one Hindi, one Bengali, one Gujju & one Tam? What alphabet would they teach?

India Day 2004

India Day 2004: A R Rehman (center) was the Grand Marshall (sounds like some Army bloke with walrus mustaches, doesn't it?)

An American Techie in Bangalore

Who says the brain drain is leading talent out of India? This blog got a lot of attention when it was featured in the Times of India ... at least, the online edition.

She's even got a map of Bangalore! I don't think I even knew of a map of Bangalore!

India Day in NYC

Anand & I went over to the India Day (ID15) parade and mela. There was a good turnout to both. And the food from Dimple was awesome!

Suprisingly, the weather held out too. After all those dire warnings of flash floods, torrential rains, and fringe effects of the two hurricanes, one would have thought that New York would be living out "The Day After Tomorrow". It was cloudy and dreary for sure, but it stayed mostly dry. I think there were some light drizzles for a couple of minutes now and again.

I was kind of disappointed by A R Rehman's appearance. I thought he'd have given the fans something to enjoy ... a mix of songs from "Vande Mataram" and some other Hindi film hits. But he sang for 5 minutes. 5 minutes! After we stood around waiting for 2+ hours. What a gip.

I didn't see a Karnataka float ... but I think it stands to reason that if Orissa gets a float, you can be sure Karnataka would. And since Bangalore is probably the single largest source of for-ex income, it's also safe to assume that Karnataka led the parade.

I'll post pictures soon.