Slumdog Millionaire...

It so happens to me that, many books in my personal collection and those that I have read have plots that form the storyline of a major blockbuster later. Be it Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Namesake' or Mariane Pearl's 'A Mighty Heart' or Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' and many more. I don't know why but the words sinks in better for me or is it because after reading a book, I form my own framework and don't like it to be altered for good or for not-so-good.

Recently while reading an article on the internet, it freshened my mind that I had read something on similar lines, about a year back. What's that?

Well, those who have read the Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel, Q&A can read my mind. It's the story of Ram Mohammad Thomas, a (don't be surprised about the name, the book has more details.) poor orphan who can't read a newspaper and has never attended school but goes on to win India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? answering all twelve questions on dot to the point. Each chapter in this book untangles how an incident or episode in the deprived individual's life provided an answer to each question.

Plot is brilliant and it's the story of struggle between good and evil, a reality check by a very young boy who has no other choice in life but to survive.

Now from what I can make out from the plot line of Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' is that it has dotted link to Q&A's plot. I may be correct or in-correct in my view because I have not seen the movie, just guessing from what I have read so far.



The chief protagonists are Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), his brother Salim and Latika played in her adult avatar by Freida Pinto. The movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' is quickly finding a widespread audience and has been acknowledged world over though its casting list is a bit obscure for now, leave apart Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan. Freida Pinto who had made a few TV appearances and hosted a travel show is making her debut with this movie.

Pinto feels that "Slumdog" captures the Mumbai she knows better than any film she's seen, despite its having been directed by a Brit (although Tandan, who receives a co-director credit for the film, was apparently instrumental in making sure dialogue and situations were culturally accurate).

As for her own work, Pinto says, "It was literally like I'd put in 22 years of research, just everything I'd seen in my life, without knowing I would ever do a film like "Slumdog".

You know, my name is Latika.



The frames marvel of color and music and life in Boyle’s Mumbai. The scenes of kids running, jumping, scaling trash heaps expresses the existential climate that thrives in one part of the metropolis. That's reality and you and I know that. The music is downright Rahmanistic. Isn't it, try it yourself.



The movie is already out there in theaters, and methinks I will go and watch this movie in the cinema hall. Are you going too?

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End of An Era for Remote Control.

I am not a television freak and follow it just for few news channels, FRIENDS and sometimes tossing between the music channels. Other than that to me it’s an idiot box and it is indeed. But today while I was going through the morning newspaper, saw one news that really saddened me.

Now imagine operating a TV set, or watching one, without a remote control? These days, television has metastasized from a few channels to a 100+ channels, (just try getting from Channel 10 to Channel 99 without the remote control). To think of a TV set without a remote control is like getting a laptop without any operating system on it. The remote control made watching TV a comfortable and a lazy experience and few even hold this freaky small gadget responsible for the new generation of couch potatoes.

In a May 2004 interview with the Associated Press, Adler recalled being among two dozen engineers at Zenith given the mission to find a new way for television viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs or tripping over a cable.

But he downplayed his role when asked if he felt his invention helped raise a new generation of couch potatoes.

"People ask me all the time, 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say, 'That's ridiculous,' " he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

Dr. Robert Adler, inventor of the wireless remote control for television in 1956 among many accomplishments and contributions to the consumer electronics industry, died of heart failure, on Feb. 15’ 07. He was 93. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler a prolific inventor, earned more than 180 U.S. patents. Adler joined Zenith’s research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

This man was a genius and I feel Adler's triumph was the gateway to wirelessness in general. I feel the TV remote control taught us to expect similar ease and practicality in almost everything in our daily lives. The remote is the direct root of automatic garage-door openers, wireless phones, remote keyless entry in cars, operation of AC’s etc. At least we got an idea for that. Even age didn’t reduce his endeavor and he published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1’ 2007, just a few days before his demise.

More here from CNN.

You see he really preferred reading to watching TV. Interesting!!!

His wife, Ingrid, said Adler wouldn't have chosen the remote control as his favorite invention. In fact, he didn't even watch much television.

"He was more of a reader," she said. "He was a man who would dream in the night and wake up and say, 'I just solved a problem.' He was always thinking science."

Infact reading is the beginning of anything and everything, me-thinks. Just a word, as a mark of respect for this man, press the mute button for a moment of silence, today while watching TV.

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