Musharraf without his army uniform!

Cricket in Olympics!

There's an effort get cricket into the Olympics.
It's been on since ages, but now ICC is very keen on speeding up the process.
Frankly cricket is not a global game. Except for some Colonial countries where British invaded or built their camp, cricket is still an unknown game in many corners of the World.
Will it make an entry to the Olympics? May be an entry into the Olympics will encourage more countries to take this game seriously and try to excel.
Don't be surprised if China beats India at the Olympics!

Jaado ki jhatkas!

Can you separate the police from the individual?
Ideally you should be able to do that, but it's nearly impossible.
Even after wearing the khaki, the person still is as much
star-struck as the person without the khaki!
One of the major findings of SriKrishna Commission was that
Mumbai police was communalised during the riots.
And it again proves that the khaki fails to remove the person's prejudices.
Poor cop, got suspended for hugging the star!
May be RR Patil should think a bit about the issue.
Some of ruling coalition party members have had allegations
about dealing with the underworld and the criminal forces.
Will they be removed from the party/govt?

Can our Intelligence Bureau save us from Terrorism!

Sorry, can't stay away from this Cricket Drama!

Mayawati shuts down large chain of stores

Can ICL team replace BCCI team?

Look at this scenario. Our Indian cricket team keeps losing matches (Which is not highly impossible to imagine) And our cricket crazy nation goes on rampage and attacks cricketers and their homes. While on the other hand, ICL players are doing great on the field and some of them are in great form. What will happen? Will this Cricket Crazy nation demand for ICL team to be sent for further series? I'm sure it is anybody's guess! Amusing! And I'm waiting for that day!

Shibu Soren will be free!

Shouldn't ICL hire cricket fans too?

ICL is signing up anybody who knows cricket!

Will the barking leftists BITE?

The watchdogs are barking again. We're used to it.
Even the Congress is used to the barking of the comrades.
They never dare bite. They can't afford to, as long as the BJP is lurking around the corner!
This time the leftists are making more serious noise. The issue is much debated, but much complex Nuke deal!
This is the one deal which seems to be more complex than the rocket science.
There seems to be so many loose ends which are left at the mercy of US chief!
Nuke deal is not as simple as 123! And this deal will take ages to near the finish.
By the time it reaches the finish line, UPA may be facing yet another election and Bush may be trying his luck at another term!

Kopykatman meets Gabbar Singh's creator, Salim-Javed!

Kopykatman is still in search of Gabbar Singh's killers.

The email threat from the gabbarsingh.com is taking Kopykatman to

many places and many people including Gabbar Singh's creator Salim-Javed!

Kopykatman writer Suresh Nair, a former film journalist with Bombay Times is

now a film writer with hit films like Namastey London, Jhankar Beats and Shootout at Lokhandwala to his credit. He also writes a column for English daily DNA.

You can reach him at sureshnair2004@gmail.com

Terror war on India through the internet

The graphic done for Sunday Midday
The story talks about the terror threat to India, through the net.
It is believed that the terror groups are using the internet to wage a terror war on India

Sports cover on Indian Cricket League

The sports cover done for Sunday Midday, this week.

Teh story is on ICL, Zee's Subhash Chandra's brainchild

which is making news in the cricket world. As more players are joining,

the story talks about the momentum of the idea, that is picking up, suddenly!

Nokia Battery!

Nokia has started replacing one of their batteries which
overheats and may explode. Some of the Nokia users panicked
at the beginning forcing the company to issue press statement

Bathroom Singer Show!

An Illustration done for a column on Bath room Singer Show.

Amitabh Bachchan, the farmer!

Suddenly more and more stars want to be a FARMER,
atleast on paper.Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan
were in news recently trying to prove that they are farmers,
when UP and Maharashtra Govts sent them notice for
buying agriculture land. Big B in a recent interview insisted
that he has a right to be called FARMER!
It's beyond my sense to understand this hunger for land!

Chak De India, ofcourse in Hockey!

Chak De India, the movie may not do much to the popularity of women's hockey in India.

But it surely does a lot in changing the attitude of people towards sports.

That's the advantage of glamourising sports through icon like Shah Rukh Khan.

And ofcourse it will take a long long time for hockey to reach the popularity chart of Cricket

Lalu Prasad Yadav pads up for ICL

Cricket off the field is getting more interesting with BCCI and ICL fighting on channels and newspapers. With Sharad Pawar at the helm of BCCI, his political rivals are jumping into the war field in support of ICL. I'm sure they are not just there for the love of the game.
The recent politician to make the fight more curious is Lalu Prasad Yadav. He lashed out at BCCI's monopoly behaviour and offered railway grounds for ICL matches.

And it's a GOOOOOOAAAAAAL!

Chak de India review

I have never been a big fan of KHAN CLAN. Apart from making Bollywood a fatter purse, I believed their contribution to the art of film making is relatively less. Lately Aamir Khan tried to be an exception and succeeded in a big way. I admire Aamir for taking that initiative. Shah Rukh stayed glued to his image in all his movies. And the sad part is that image of Shah Rukh sells like hot cakes without any boundaries. Shah Rukh Khan is a hot commodity. He always sells, when he plays himself. But unless you try to experiment with your image, you won’t know the saleability.

Except Swades, SRK never experimented with his screen image. He always played SRK on screen. While it is true that Yash Chopras, Karan Johars are to be blamed partially for this stagnancy, but with the kind of influence he holds in Bollywood, SRK could have easily experimented a lot more.

Just for that reason, I loved CHAK DE INDIA!
There’s no Shah Rukh Khan in the movie! There’s a character named Kabir Khan, who goes through all kinds of emotions during his journey from a disgraced Indian national hockey player(a muslim by religion), who’s blamed for throwing the match to Pakistan, to inspiring a women’s national hockey team to World Cup victory. Amazing journey!

Shah Rukh Khan plays Kabir Khan like Kabir Khan, the disgraced coach with GADDAR label on his head. There’s no trace of SRK in the whole movie.

I’m slightly biased about CHAK DE because I always loved good sports movies. It’s not an easy task to make good sports movie fitting in all the saleable emotions. Especially in India where we hardly follow sports like women’s hockey and more so, media hardly covers what happens off the field. Yes, cricket is an exception!

The climax of any sports movie is always predictable. The underdogs always win through some hic ups. We don’t make sports movies to show tragedy! But it’s the journey of the underdogs which makes any sports movie a gripping tale. The hic ups in the journey are more interesting. Chak De scores in that aspect.
The sixteen girls do look like they belong to Indian hockey team (I would have hated to see Ranis, Kareenas or Aishwaryas in any of their places) And some of them act like they are like that only. The pint sized Komal (Rawat) is the surprise element in the whole package. She’s so natural and swift.

The screen play scores without any jerk. The plot doesn’t stay with an emotion for long. Every scene establishes an impact and moves fast. It’s very easy to make such movies boring, by a stretched scene. The dialogues are sharp relying largely on acting.

The on field shots take you along the ball as if you’re moving with the players. 100% professional! I’m not too impressed with the predictable climax. May be it could have been more gripping.Especially people who watch lots of sports on tv find the climax boring. But the scene I loved most is the one, where women’s team play men’s team and trailing behind by 3 goals they make a comeback in the second half but still manage to score only two goals losing the match. While it was everyone’s guess that the women will comeback and beat the men’s team, the director displays his ace by making the women lose the match but still win the hearts of men’s hockey players and the Hockey board! It’s always a pleasure to be surprised in a movie.
Finally three cheers to the King Khan for accepting such a role and making it a memorable one (May be his best so far). More kudos for taking up such a movie, because SRK always pulls crowds. And the audience go out of the theatre with a positive attitude towards sports. It’s like campaigning for a social cause. Hope SRK takes a cue and does more meaningful films. Power multiplies when you use it for a CHANGE.

PS: There’s a character of Indian cricketer called Abhimanyu Singh, who’s dating one of the hockey players. It reminded me of Yuvraj Singh! Though I never heard of him dating any hockey player, the character looked more like him. May be it reminded you of him too!

Kopykatman meets Lalu Prasad Yadav!

Kopykatman is still in search of Gabbar Singh's killers. In the pursuit, he lands in jail for wearing underwear outside and meets Lalu Prasad Yadav! The madness continues...

Shame on us!

Indians are great host.
We have been believing in the saying 'Athithi Devobhava'
Guests are Gods! Tasleem Nasreen is more than a guest for us.
She completely trusted India's democratic values and took refuge.
Probably she thought India is the safest and free country.
The attack on her by coalition party members of Andhra Pradesh govt is a shame. No religion can justify such a cowardly attack.
More shameful was the justification coming from so called Intellectuals in Islam.And the silence of politicians reveal yet another truth.
When it comes to religion, democracy takes backseat

Freedom, sweet freedom!

Freedom is such a sweet word!
Everyone loves it and everyone deserves it!
We are on the threshold of celebrating 60 years of freedom.
We take our freedom for granted.
We hardly know the value of freedom.
But whenever I look at our neighbouring Pakistan,
I feel so fortunate to be on this part of the border!

Sonia Gandhi wakes up to Srikrishna truth!

While 1993 Bombay Blast verdict is out, another angle to the same story has not reached it's logical conclusion. 1992 Bombay riots!
The Srikrishna commission setup to investigate into the Babri Masjid riots has submitted it's findings long back. But no action has been taken to bring the guilty to the task. Everything was swept under the carpet,as if not to disturb the communal scene in Mumbai.Nobody talked about the Srikrishna report for long. But Sanjay Dutt sentence has suddenly woken up Congress chief Sonia Gandhi!

Where is the DON, Dawood Ibrahim?

DON is in Karachi? Quetta? Dubai or in Afghanistan?
Everyone wants to talk about where he is now. But nobody seems to get it right.
News channels, papers are all speculating on his whereabouts.
But one thing seems to be true...
DON KO PAKADNA MUSHKIL HI NAHI, NAMUMKIN HAI!

Completely 'sold out' Indo-US nuclear deal

Finally Rocket science, I mean Nuclear science...hmmm
Forget it! Whatever it is! We have been hearing about Indo-US Nuclear deal for the last many months. Some excited about it; some critical of it and some are just ignorant. The last lot includes most of us! While Indian and US govts are quite excited about the Nuke deal, people from both the countries are mostly clue-less! Only the opposition in both the countries are making the noise, all the time.

Torture shaala!

While on one hand, our education system is flooded with new thoughts of teaching, in some parts of India, teachers use the crudest way of teaching and managing students. Students are being beaten to death, students are being electrocuted at schools for silly mistakes... Even prisons can learn a few lessons in torturing, from these cruel teachers. The basic thing is these teachers are not trained well.(I'm sure most of them are not trained at all) The noblest service of teaching has been turned into just a job!
We should thank God for having studied under a good teacher, which we normally take for granted.

Kopykatman and Gabbar Singh's killers