12.70 kms

12.70 kms race in Borivli National Park, Mumbai. The official distance was 12.50 kms but somehow my watch got it 12.70 kms, i guess i must have run wide. Anyway, first race after July so feels good, plus it was inside a forest, so pretty much a beautiful route, lot of trees, undulating and some tough beast like climbs which i could walk only for about half way. Great to be back racing. Have a great day folks.

Skills

Daily Word Prompt

What skill would you like to learn?

There are many skills that i would like to learn and time is short – microsoft excel, tally accounting, public speaking, tai chi or any martial arts, any one musical instrument, languages, cooking.

The General

Buster Keaton and his rip roaring comedy in The General (1926) one of the finest silent era comedy films of all time.

Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is a train engineer and loves his engine and his lady love Annabelle (Marion Mack). When war breaks out, time comes to enlist for the Confederates, but he is rejected and his lady love also rejects him without an uniform.

In the meanwhile, the Confederates are infiltrated by some spies who steal his train and make off with the supplies. Off goes Johnny after the train and some delightful comic scenes follows.

Annabelle is meanwhile kept as captive by the Union soldiers and then Johnny has to rescue her, so some more delectable comic scenes. Buster Keaton’s comic timings were superb in the movie somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin.

Fight ensues between Union and Confederate soldiers much to the relief and joy of the Confederates. Brilliant movie to watch especially for Buster Keaton. The direction and camera work were quite superb for that era, especially shots of the moving trains and the wilderness. Who knew a silent movie would prove to be so powerfully comic. Brilliant. IMDB 8/10

Open Water 2: Adrift

A psycho horror thriller film “Open Water 2: Adrift” (2006) directed by Hans Horn and starring Eric Dane, Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight Jr., Niklaus Lange among others.

An open water adventure holiday gone horribly wrong. Open Water 2: Adrift is projected as based on true events, but with the kind of human stupidity depicted in the movie, i doubt if humans can be so stupid.

Three pairs of couples go on a yatch holiday out in the open sea or ocean, far away from shore. One couple has an infant daughter also on board, which itself was a risky thing to take such a young one on a ship or a yatch cruise.

Four of the members jump into the water to do a swim which i thought was another stupid thing to do, who swims in open ocean far away from land, maybe some do perhaps. Of the remaining, Amy (Susan May Pratt) has a phobia for water because of an incident in her childhood when her father drowned while swimming with her.

The other guy Dan (Eric Dane) is ostensibly the owner of the yatch, but later reveals that he is a fraud and that the yatch is actually belonging to his boss. What kind of a boss allows his employee to take his yatch out to a cruise, beats me.

Anyway, both of them also jump into the water, without realising that nobody has bothered to put the ladder down or keep the hatch down so that people can climb back. Dan is such an idiot that he does not realise the blunder he has committed endangering everybody’s lives. All of them are stuck down in the water with nary any hold or groove to climb back.

Soon one after another start drowning. The movie advertised shark attack, but there was nothing of that sort, even though blood oozed from a couple of the guys. IMDB 2/10

cultural heritage

Daily Word Prompt

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

Talking of my country India’s cultural heritage, well i am proud of its music. India is a vast country and has cultures ranging from the deserts to the mountains and rivers. Its musical tradition is vast and rich.

We have Hindustani classical music which as a genre originated in undivided India and therefore found in today’s Pakistan as well. Hindustani classical music is embedded in its various gharanas like Jaipur Atrauli gharana, Agra gharana, Gwalior gharana, Indore gharana etc. Each gharana has its own distinct style of music. Proud proponents of Hindustani classical music are Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Ustad Alla Rakha, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan, Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Jasraj, Kishori Amonkar, D.V. Paluskar, Gangubai Hangal, Mogubai Kurdikar, among others.

Then we have the Carnatic classical music which has its origins in south of India by composers from the 16th to the 20th century by Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar & Syama Sastri. The proud proponents of Carnatic classical music are D.K. Pattamal, M.S. Subbalakshmi, Semmangudi Srinivasa, Madurai Mani Iyer, M.L. Vasanthakumari, Balaamurali Krishna, among others.

In both styles, vocalists and instrumentalists have their own space and both are prominent. Both are beautiful, exquisite, appealing to the senses, rich in its meanings and perfection to its quality. A day does not go without not listening to either Hindustani classical music or carnatic classical music. I am proud of this soft power & cultural tradition of India.

Ad Astra

Ad Astra, a 2019 science fiction drama movie directed by James Grey and starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tylor, Donald Sutherland among others.

It is more of a psychological drama movie rather than pure technology although there is a lot of science frontiers being broken down as shown in the movie, for eg. colonies in moon, Mars and space travel to Saturn, Jupiter & Neptune.

Brad Pitt (Roy McBride) is the son of Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) who has gone away to space for 30 years in search of intelligent life on the universe, in the process he has travelled to Saturn, Jupiter and now stationed near Neptune. His space station has created some cosmic ray disturbances which has affected Earth also, so the son sets out to locate his dad in the vast universe, which takes 79 days from Mars itself.

Lot of emotional tug of war between father and the son later, earth is safe from the cosmic disturbances and the power surges. The movie drags a bit in the middle especially when Brad is about to reach Neptune to find his dad after 3 decades.

There is no emotional re-union sort of, the Dad has more or less lost his contact and interest in Earth. The movie was nominated to the Oscars in the sound mixing category. The special effects in the movie is quite extraordinary, it is in the human connect that the movie finds its weak spot. IMDB 4/10

Marlowe

American neo-noir crime thriller mystery “Marlowe” (2022), directed by Neil Jordan and starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, and Jessica Lange among others.

It is based on the fictional detective Phillip Marlowe created by Raymond Chandler, the mystery cum suspense writer of the yesteryears. Raymond Chandler is my favorite author and also with Liam Neeson in the lead, picked up this movie to watch on Amazon Prime Video.

Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by glamorous Claire Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her lover Nico Peterson (Francois Arnaud) who has gone missing. Marlowe finds that Peterson has been killed in a road accident, but Claire reveals that she has seen him post his supposed death.

Marlowe goes to the secretive Corbata Club and meets the owner Floyd Hansen (Danny Huston) but their meeting ends fruitless for him. He then meets Lynn Peterson (Daniela Melchior), the sister of Nico, but she is abducted by two Mexicans who want information about one Serena from her.

Lynn is later found raped & brutalised and killed in a ditch. Claire’s mother Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange) also wants to find out about Peterson from Marlowe and she offers to hire him, but he declines. She had an affair with the US Ambassador and supposedly suspects that even her daughter has an affair with the same man.

The plot has twists and turns typical of Raymond Chandler’s genre and it all ends up in a tumultuous climax. Liam Neeson is getting old, his moves are slow and ponderous. Of the remaining cast, everybody is okay. Being a period movie based in the 1940s it’s not a fast-based thriller, but the script retains its tension throughout the movie. IMDB 4/10

Stillwater Creek

A coming of age cum heartwarming family story “Stillwater Creek” by Allison Booth.

Ilona Talivaldis, a Latvian who emigrated to Australia comes to a small village of Jingera with her little daughter Zidra. She has recently lost her husband and seeks the solace of a small place to forget the past and teach piano.

Peter Vincent is a wartime pilot who was captured during the war and kept as a captive for a few years. Zidra starts going to the local school where she has a few friends Lorna Hunter & Jim Cadwallader among the most trusted ones. Lorna is an aboriginal living on the streets and her entire family is plucked and sent somewhere. Lorna is sent to a boarding school because she is half-caste, according to government regulations.

Cherry Bates is working in the pub and hotel owned by her husband Bill who is a paedophile and Cherry is friendly with the school teacher Neville. The teacher has arranged for Jim to take a scholarship test in Sydney and move on to higher studies in Sydney if he passes the test. Jim’s mom opposes him going to Sydney while his father George is all for it.

Allison has created a lovely story with so much tension in a small village and how events unfold and bring them all together in a tumultuous climax. Allison’s narrative is quite good and I have never read a book based out of Australia and this one makes for a refreshing change. Goodreads 5/5

corporate bond market

Decisions taken in SEBI board meeting dated 21st September, 2023

Flexibility in the framework for Large Corporates (LCs) for meeting incremental financing needs through issuance of debt securities
The Board approved the proposal to provide flexibility in the framework for LCs for meeting their financing needs from debt market through the following measures to the existing LC framework:
A higher monetary threshold has been specified for defining LCs, thereby reducing the number of entities qualifying as LCs.
Removal of penalty on LCs which are not able to raise a certain percentage of incremental borrowing from the debt market; and
Introduction of incentives and moderated disincentives
With the view to facilitate ease of compliance and ease of doing business, the Board also decided to retain the requirement that compliance with the framework will be met over a contiguous block of three years. Further, it has been decided to dispense with the requirement on LCs for filing a statement identifying itself as an LC and statement regarding compliance with the framework.

Meshes of the Afternoon

Meshes of the Afternoon, (1943) a short film created by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.

Its again a surrealist film just like Luis Bunuel’s “Un Chien Andalou”. A woman is seen as walking down a path, she goes to a door, finds it locked, finds the hidden key, the key falls down onto the stairs, then she goes inside the room, which is in disarray, the phone is off the hook, she finds a knife on a bread, a record player playing and then somebody is chasing her, she in turn is chasing a lady without a face but not able to catch her.

The images and visuals keep repeating like in a dream. There is no meaning to the movie, its a dream sequence, and one can interpret it the way one wants. Later a man comes into the house, the same sequence keeps repeating, with the key and the knife and the lady.

One can sum it as the character’s thought patterns in a time of crisis.

8.52 kms

8.52 kms in sultry, humid weather in Mumbai. No rains is making difficult for us. Have a great day folks.

mandatory testing of transport vehicles

Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has issued a notification GSR 663(E) dated 12th September 2023, which provides for extension of date for mandatory testing of Transport Vehicles through Automated Testing Stations, registered in accordance with rule 175 of the CMVR 1989.

The date for mandatory testing is now notified as 1st October 2024. It is also mandated that fitness testing of the vehicle shall be done only through automated testing station (with effect from the publication of this notification) where the automated testing station registered under rule 175 is operational in the jurisdiction of a registering authority.

The dates which were earlier notified vide GSR notification 272(E) dated 5th April 2022 as under: (i) For Heavy Goods Vehicles/Heavy Passenger Motor Vehicles with effect from 01st April 2023 onwards, and (ii) For Medium Goods Vehicles/Medium Passenger Motor Vehicles and Light Motor Vehicles (Transport) with effect from 01st June 2024 onwards.

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion being adapted into a film in 1938 directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller among others.

The film stays true to the play, well almost. Professor Higgins (Leslie Howard) is a professor of phonetics & linguistics, and while wandering about in lowly Convent Garden, gets into a scrap with a flower girl Eliza Dolittle (Wendy Hiller).

Just then Colonel Pickering comes by, he is an expert of linguistics and dialects himself and wants to meet Higgins, having returned from India. Pickering challenges Higgins to improve the flower girl in a few weeks.

Eliza lands up on his doorstep the next morning to learn from him. Then follows the most exacting phase of her life while she tries to throw away her Welsh cockney accent and to adapt a proper British accent with pronunciation, grammar, manners, etiquette etc.

Higgins accepts an invitation to an embassy reception with trepidation as to how Eliza would perform. It became his obsession and luckily Eliza goes through with flying colours. Higgins thinks he has won the battle but what has to become of Eliza, where will she go back now that she has become a proper lady, she won’t be able to go back to selling flowers.

Higgins is unfortunately not able to make that connection. Higgins comes across as a self centred egomaniac and for him every girl is like a subject to him, like his triumph.

Wendy Hiller got nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Superb acting by both Wendy Miller and Leslie Howard, both stayed true to script. IMDB 7/10

Rebecca

Brilliant psychological drama movie from Alfred Hitchcock “Rebecca” (1940) starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.

Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) accidentally meets the beautiful Joan Fontaine when he is rather contemplating jumping down a cliff in Monte Carlo. One thing leads to another and soon both are romantically involved.

She then becomes his second wife after his first wife Rebecca accidently drowns herself off the sea coast. Rebecca is never shown in the movie, but her imprint is throughout the movie. Her faithful housekeeper Mrs. Denvers is rather too faithful to her memories and seems to be of the devilish and plotting kind.

She was too close to Rebecca and adored her too much to bear her loss too badly. Hitchcock twists the plot towards the end to first implicate Maxim with her murder and then it goes around to another tale of her sickness, or probably that she was pregnant or maybe she committed suicide or murder, the plot keeps swinging about till the end. Joan Fontaine as the girl who does not have a name in the movie looked beautiful throughout the movie and acted brilliantly as well. Laurence Olivier is passable,

The film won a clutch of awards for Alfred Hitchcock. IMDB 7/10

8.12 kms

8.12 kms in sultry humid weather. No rains at all, been a tough year so far. Have a great day folks.