The advantage of having crying babies

A full two weeks of cavorting on beautiful beaches and active volcanoes (with the characteristic smell of rotten eggs) (because of the sulphur fumes) (view photos here, read the blog here), drinking wine, and assimilating large amounts of stochastic differential equations and other arcane material into my brain came to an end on 26th September at around 2 pm Eastern Time, as I finally stepped off the (frankly ordinary) Alitalia plane and into JFK.

As I breathe in the familiar smell of rain and traffic, I hear a distant whine, not entirely unlike speeding ambulance-sirens. In general, if you hear a siren anywhere inside New York, you simply dismiss it as white noise (there's always sirens in New York, its the American equivalent of the traffic horn back in apna Hindustan). However, yours truly was still dreaming about the crystal clear blue sea water in the beaches of Salina, and so the white noise instantly became a pile-driver in my skull.

Turns out the whine was a baby crying.

I have no love for crying babies. I got slapped a lot when I was a kid, which initially made me cry a lot as well, until I started getting slapped for crying. I realized soon enough that to not cry was the safest way to not get slapped, and consequently there would be no reason to cry ever.

I know. Very zen.

Anyhoo, this little guy was doing just about everything in his power to make a mockery of his parents' pathetic attempts to appear unaffected by his moaning. And we hadn't even crossed the little transfer-bridge from the plane to the airport yet. It was then that I realized, in a moment of surprising awareness, that there would soon be a very very long and very very slow immigration queue to conquer. And there was a good chance that I would get suicidal if I was too close to the damn baby while I was trying to conquer it.

In a flash, I increase my speed. Crying-Baby and Co. soon sense the fear in me, realize I'm trying to be far ahead of them in the immigration line, and realize they should be going quicker, too. They try to increase speed, but alas, they are hindered by the dual curse of family-hood: their progeny and their luggage (and they had a lot of luggage). A little light bulb shines in my brain and Supreme Commander Hypothalamus Dash congratulates General Left-Brain Dash on his presence of mind and infinite wisdom.

Cut to Immigration queue, which is, as expected very long, very slow and very crowded. Crying Baby and Co. are of course, very very far behind me, which is great since I can now start dreaming of beaches again. Which I do.

Until, to my utter shock and humiliation, I see Crying Baby and Co., go smiling across me, ushered by a true-blue US immigration officer, to the front of the queue! They even gave me a little smug smirk and a wave.

  And the little infant, who I assumed was the direct cause of the officer's outpouring of pity, has one of the widest Lord-Voldemort grins I have ever seen on his face.

Moral of the story: Never try to outsmart babies. Slapping them is much easier.

PS: I don't really slap babies. Too much work.

This Week: Inglourious Basterds

(This review was posted originally on www.elitwit.com. Link here.)

We realize this review is a weee bit late. OK, very very late. But there were some fairly unforeseen developments in the lives of the (comically underpaid) writing staff here at the Utter-Crap-o-Meter. These included, among other things, bouts of depression, alcohol dependence, independence (followed by more dependence) and then a 2-week trip to Italy (which involved massive alcohol dependence). We hope our readers will understand.

For our readers in India, though, we think the timing is perfect.

The archetype of the evil movie villain has had some pretty well defined characteristics. Barring some necessary (and mostly endearing) variations, nearly all memorable movie bad guys have had commonalities. There's the sneer, the devil-may-care attitude, the deep-seated insecurities, the maniacal screeching (and/or throaty Vader-esque growl) and so on. Hindi movie buffs will often recall with fondness, the madness and humor in Ajit's dire threats, or the cold swagger and demonic laughter of "Gabbarrrrr..." or the insane ramblings of Tinnu Anand or Danny (There, there, Gunda fans, wipe those tears of nostalgia now). Hollywood has its share of evil stereotypes as well (Darth Vader, any one of the Bond villains, and more recently, the Joker).

Which is why its so exciting when a movie like Basterds comes along and utterly shakes up the standard construction of evil. Tarantino has moulded several (wildly) popular characters during his illustrious career, but, at least in this writer's opinion, none quite like Col. Hans Landa. Played by Christopher Waltz, who was a complete unknown to me before the movie, Landa is a German SD intelligence officer who has been charged with finding and eliminating as many Jews as possible from France. He is fluent in many languages, extremely charming, an incurable romantic.

And yet, he is also one of the most sinister screen characters I have ever seen. Ever. Even when he says something as innocuous as "Please", I found myself clutching to the armrests, waiting for something morbidly climactic to happen, and then breathing a slight sigh of relief when the moment passed, only to repeat the whole thing all over again. Indeed, it is interesting that in a movie supposedly about World War II, Hitler is not the most dangerous man on screen.

This is of course, one of the central premises of the movie itself. Without giving too much away, the movie is about a group of Jewish Allied soldiers (the Inglourious Basterds, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)) whose mission is to cause untold havoc on Nazi forces. Tarantino plays with the history, first a little, then a bit more and by the end of it all, one is so caught up in the fun of it all that all thought of historical accuracy is thrown out with the stale popcorn.

The story is (maybe a bit unusually for Tarantino) linear, which is probably the only real depar-ture from his style. All the other Tarantino markers are in place: the chapter-wise arrangement, the maverick humor, exaggerated (yet believable) characters and so on. The performances are good from all of them, although one could say that not a single one the characters was more memorable than Col. Landa. And this includes the pretty boy Pitt.

If you already love Tarantino, you will probably like the movie and the subtle differences between this and his earlier ones. If you don't, and/or haven't watched any of his other ones, well, you will fall in love with his irreverent style of filmmaking and the great storyline. We here at the Utter-Crap-o-Meter thouroughly enjoyed it, and are now ready to award the first ever 1 turd out of 10 on the Crap Scale.

Poop Quality: Fresh, nutty and solid.

Crap Rating: 1/10.

Back to Stony Brook

The new header image must be somewhat of a hint (its a panoramic view taken from the crater-top of an amazing volcano we trekked up) (the island was called Vulcano). I am back from Lipari, from two weeks of solid work, solid fun and a multitude of new pictures.

I mentioned some stuff about the trip in my last post (which was posted about midway between the trip). I have finally finished sorting, editing, uploading, tagging, sharing and commenting on all the pictures I had (and many many more from the 60 other students). The links to the 2 Picasa albums are here and here. The second one is quite short and contains a few panoramas I managed to shoot (and stitch up) using basic Windows Live software.

I guess many of you may have already seen these pics (if you are a friend on FB or on Gtalk), but I kind of owe it to my blog, so I just had to post these.

Right now, I am back in Stony Brook and am feeling really very energized, despite the pathetic weather (isolated thunderstorms and wind) and the slight jet lag. I think I had underestimated the value of a good break from normal research and coursework, not to mention the opportunity to learn several new and exciting things in the research area as well.

As usual, I am skeptical about how long this pumped-up-ness is going to last, but hopefully its enough to get me up and running on the exams and projects (and of course lab-work).

Anyway, I will be updating more stories soon. Have fun with the pictures.