Heath Ledger - Hollywood's White Knight

Its been almost two months since I last wrote on this blog. Given a frequency of writing an article every fortnight, I am currently lagging behind by almost four crisp articles. That is considering, anyone is keeping track besides me :) Anyways, a lot of stuff happened in the interim period, for instance, just in sport itself, we have had - the first IPL (infact given the pace at which cricket is played, we also had the Kitply Cup and the Asia Cup), followed by Euro Cup (an unbelievably fascinating tournament - which Spain deservingly won), then the incredible Federer-Nadal Wimbeldon final ...and more recently (infact, just yesterday) Greg Norman's spirited effort to be the oldest one to win the British Open. And all that just sport wise. On the local front, we have popcorn drama over the Nuclear Deal. Then some movies exceeding expectations, such as Jaane Tu.. ya Jaane Na - and some big banner movies crashing such as LoveStory 2050 and Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic. Since, i cannot address all of them, i will pick and choose based on free will (a concept i learned while watching Jim Carrey starrer "Bruce Almighty").

For starters, lets all stand up and applaud for the movie of the year - The Dark Knight (If u think I am exaggerating, check the Imdb ratings. Infact it has topped all reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 92% which is the most i have seen, it broke Spiderman 3's record of revenues generated both in opening day as well as first week's earnings.. and there are many more records.. if u care to know). Not only do I concur with all the rave reviews (inspite of entering the movie hall with high expectations), i am as a matter of fact totally sold. The acting - superb. Effects - Top Notch. The thrill factor - Undescribable. And a word about the Joker (played by Heath Ledger). Without him, the movie wudnt have been half as good. There is already so much info on the net about how he prepared himself for the role (staying alone in a hotel, reading DC comics, practicing voice modulation to match earlier Joker Jack Nicholson's tone... ). No wonder the acting has been truly memorable. He recently died of accidental drug-overdose at the age of 28, and the world has lost an amazing talent. There has been a lot of talk of a posthumous oscar.. and i for one think he thoroughly deserves it. Definitely Hollywood's White Knight.

There is this other thing about Hollywood actors that really amazes me - the amount of dedication they have for the role. For instance, if u have seen Christian Bale in the movie Machinist, all skin and bones (apparently he slept only for a few hours and ate only fruits to get that body shape) and then u see him in The Dark Knight with all the Hulk-like body, and u know some serious work has gone behind the scenes. Daniel Day lewis's preparation for his roles are legendary and so is Gladiator Russel Crowe's preparation for his. Compare that to Bollywood, where Aamir Khan not trimming his hair in Mangal Pandey (or cutting his over-grown hair for Gajjini) is seen as actor's dedication for work. And he sets the benchmark. Others dont even do that much :)

The second important theme is the Nuclear Deal and the joke-house called the Parliament. I cannot believe that these people chosen to carry the country on their shoulders cannot agree on a deal that is of national importance. And if you are following stuff written in the newspapers, u would know that large amounts of money has changed hands. Some MPs dragged from jails and one even from his hospital bed to vote, so that their respective parties win. Some are in fact paid to abstain from voting. How can a government allow a member of parliament to abstain from voting, you tell me? Imagine, you choose a leader and the leader sits home while an important decision is being made of national importance. What a leader. So much a victory for governance.

In all this infighting, I think, we missed an opportunity to dictate terms to China. I admire China. No two ways about it. Some of their policies, such as regulating child-birth, are inhuman, i agree, but the country is definitely doing more things right than wrong. China, is currently totally focussed on its preparation of the Olympic Games and cannot afford any negative publicity. Methinks, we missed a trick here and should have pressurized the Chinese on issues like the Indo-China border and also a host of contentious issues. China might not agree, but this was our best chance. If only the Left parties had a little more sense.

Speaking of China, the country won 32 golds at the last Olympics, second only to the US who won 34. There was a time, when US and the Soviet Union won everything under the Sun. The US topped the medals tally four straight times till 1932 Los Angeles games, while Soviet Union held sway eight times from 1956 to 1992. US returned to dominance back at Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004. But what has been surprising has been the rise of China, even in this sphere. Liu Xuan's 110 mts hurdles victory was last Olympics's greatest shock to the Americans who pride them on their Athletic hegemony. This year, i think China will race ahead. Though, they have downplayed every news stating this fact, i am sure they must have practiced their heart out to emerge triumphant on their homeland.

If India cannot decide on its Nuclear Energy policy, planning to win medals for Olympics (for even pressurizing China in its moment of weaknesss) is a long shot. Infact, we cannot even keep our manhole covers (circular lids on roads for accesing waste pipelines). What has manhole covers to do with all this? Well, you will be surprised. One day, i read a newspaper headline in a local daily claiming - Mumbai Municipal Government blaming China for over 5000 stolen mahole covers. The story goes that the Chinese Dragon kept consuming steel at such a rate for building infrastructure for the Games, that they ran out of steel. So they started purchasing steel from other markets. Apparently, thieves in Mumbai sold each steel-made manhole covers for Rs. 1200 each to China, and the mumbai roads were suddenly deprived of 5000 manhole covers. Go Figure.