12 hours of Gajini

The plan was fool proof.
Buy the movie ticket 2-3 hours before the show
Get good seats
Hang around for an hour or so
Have dinner at one of the Indian restaurant
Walk back to the theater
Enjoy Ghajini
By the time movie ends, be ready to celebrate Christmas Eve with fireworks and foam holi.
Awesome! Isn’t it?
This was our idea of an awesome night. We, a bunch of Indian researchers (some working, some hardly working and some studying god-knows-what…but none a pub loyalist and drinker as is the trend among Indians in Singapore)

The only problem with my plans is, they never work. My friends know it, they always disapprove it, they agree to it finally, they curse me in the end, and then they forget about it to get into the trouble all over again.

So, we starter at 4:30 pm…office was half day due to Christmas Eve… The show we targeted was 8:45 pm. We reached the theatre at 5: 45 pm. Bought tickets. Planned to go Little India for food... It takes 30 minutes or so walking… walking will make us hungry suggested somebody…Met another friend there. Forced him to give us a treat for no apparent reasons…We enjoy taking treats like that. Our treats come as surprise, at least to the host. Having stuffed our self with Indian delicacies, we leveled things up with an Indian masala tea.

Walked back to the theater. Walking is good suggested somebody again. It helps to digest any Indian food.

The theater was crowed as expected. The show was houseful. There were lots of desis flaunting their Indian ness. It’s a good place to check out new desi gals in the town. Finally, we manage to squeeze in to the theater, and found out our respective seats. We do not like to miss our initial dose of trailers which they show during the start of the movie. It was Billo Barbar this time. And then came a heavily built guy with his family, to shatter our dream.

Apparently he wanted to sit on out seat. I, being the perpetuator of the plan, was left to handle the situation. I got up like Gajini’s Aamir (I realized this later) only to be beaten by the Gajini himself (not literally). How could two groups have the same seat numbers for the same movie for the same show? They cannot. We had been given the last show ticket by some mistake. By the time I decided to leave the theater, my friends already had.


I walked out of the theater to meet the lady who sold us the ticket. She denied. We persisted. She denied some more. We made a scene. Manger intervened. She accepted her fault. Manager agreed to give us the next show ticket, which was at 12:15 am. What will we do till then, and we will miss our Christmas Eve fun too if we go for this show. The manager solved our first problem. He offered us Rab ne bana di jodi for free. What more an Indian love other than a Bollywood movie? A free bollywood movie show.

We agreed.
Watched both the movies.
Came back to our respective abode by 4:30 am.

After 12 hours of Gajini
Still feeling sleepy. Waiting for the next day
To be abused by my friends in suffering.
But I am sure they will forget about this mishap and will again agree to be part of my New Year plan.

Square root of 3

Yesterday I watched the sequel to the hit comedy Harold and Kumar. I would like to share this interesting poem from the movie on irrational number-root three (√3). The poem, actually, weaves a crucial scene during the end of the movie. Internet sources claim that the poem was written by director’s high school classmate Dave Feinberg, who also happens to be an MIT alumnus. Anyway, you enjoy the poem!

I’m sure that I will always be

A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,

Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,

I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,

With just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun,

As one point seven three two one (1.7321)

Such is my reality,

A sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,

Another square root of a three
As quietly co-waltzing by,

Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,

Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds

With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued

Your love for me has been renewed