Valar morghulis

Last saturday was the longest day of the year, it seems, on account of it being the summer equinox. It certainky felt like the longest day. I was at work from 10 to 8 (and yes, I have to go to work on satutrdays as well, thank you for your sympathies). And i didn't get anything done. Not that I normally manage to get much work done (on account of the work being very boring and beneath my intelligence level..obvoiusly..definitely not because I totally suck at concentrating on one task for more than 1 hour. I can do it if I want to. Its just that I dont. Want to, that is). But this time, I really didn't do anything all day. Except doze in front of the computer.
So it was that in the afternoon, my boss came and found out what I had been upto (or rather, what I hadn't been upto) and told me that I better finish something before I leave or else. I wont bother you with the details but at the end of a very painful two hours I ended up getting debug messages in scripts that haven't been seen by human eyes since the last pharoah got bitten by a scorpion when he stepped on it. Seriously. It was heiroglyphics for sure or I am bk. However my boss wasn't impressed by the novelty of the results and made me sit till I had got the code to print stuff in boring old queen's english. And it was 8 by then.
Yesterday, over lunch, I was having a discussion with him about fantasy books. I told him I liked lotr (who doesn't) and he laughed at me(apparently, he doesn't). He said lotr is a fat boring (sounds like someone we all know..cough..bk) book filled with characters that work like clockwork and dont seem real. I grew red in the face(from anger and started to retaliate). He interrupted me saying that he preffered c.s.lewis. I got redder in the face. He prefers a girl opening a cupboard and walking into a half man half goat thingy(you know, that tumnus guy always used to remind me of gulati..though he looks more like rushi..perplexing) to lotr..which he doesn't like for its lack of realism. I was about to remind him that his pal, c s lewis was a room mate of tolkien at oxford and managed to steal some of his notes for a bedtime story that he was writing..and the result is more popolarly known as the chronicles of narnia. But then I remembered that my work progress that day wasn't much better than it had been on saturday and decided I didn't need to provoke him anymore and held my peace. And then, he said that last month he had come across a fantasy series that he liked better than lotr..I hope rushi now blows up in righteous wrath..it was called eragon. It took me two full minutes to recover sufficiently to gather my wits. Unlike people like rushi I dont have a vehement hatred for paolini and actually was quite amused while reading the eldest when he thought he was going to surprise everyone at the end with the murtagh=the other rider 'bombshell'. But to even mention him in the same breath as tolkien is blasphemy. I tried to patiently explain that paolini had, ever since he had learned how to read (which I am guessing wasn't very long ago) had merely lifted the plots of all bestselling fantsay writers he could find and the result now adorns his bookshelf as the Inheritance Trilogy (If I were going to plagiarise, I'd atleast do it from the best books..apparently star wars was the best he could do..which says much about his judgement). Which he casually dismissed.."After all, all fantasy books have more or less the same plots. Its not a big deal if there was nothing novel in his plotline". There are three kinds of people when it comes to explaining things to: the ones to whom you cant explain anything because you cant even get a word in as they shout you down (like bk), the ones who are rational and listen to reason (like me..yes, I've always been this modest) and the third kind who listen to you (much like a wall does) and dont hear a word (like..several people come to mind..but most prominently, ponky). I am sure you've realised what I was dealing with this time. There are very few animate beings that are endowed with lesser judgement than gulati, but my list just grew longer by one.

I saw dasavatharam last thursday. I had bunked internhsip for just that and I was sorely disappointed by the movie. It was so disappointing that I cant find the inspiration to criticise it now. I'll save it up for a later post. It'll suffice to say now that kamal hassan, the artist, who made movies like nayagan, devar magan and anbe sivam, who proved that it is possible to make quality entertainment movies, which actually have more than a semblance of a plot (unlike other entertainers like sivaji and the latest vijay movie..I have forgotten which one, but that doesn't make a big difference; if you have seen one, you have see them all), who played some of the most versatile roles to flawless perfection, is no more. First, the comedy called vetaiyadu velaiyadu (could have been an abhishek bachchan movie for all the acting effort involved in it) and then..this. Valar morghulis. All men must die.