Pankaj Udhas

I always wondered why he had a sad-sounding last name. He seems to have faded from public memory now, but I used to listen to him a lot at one time. He has a silky voice, and sang ghazals very well. We also called him India's answer to Punk Rock. Some of his ghazals that I liked were-

Ae ghame zindagi, kuch to de mashwara, Ek taraf uska ghar ek taraf maikada. (we used to joke about maikada by turning it into mai gadha among friends)

Choom kar madbhari aankhon se gulabi kaaghaz, usne bheja hai mere naam sharaabi kaaghaz

Sabko maloom hai main sharaabi nahin..

Raat ghatayen khushboo, un zulfon ke naam..

Chandi jaisa rang hai tera ..

Yeh alag baat hai saqi ke mujhe hosh nahin..

 Mohe aayi na jag se laaj main itna zor se naachi aaj, ke ghungroo toot gaye..

An incident I remember from his live concert we had gone to in Atlanta, USA. The sound was too loud. And when we went to the sound guy and asked him to tone it down, he asked us "Kabhi Michael Jackson ka gaana suna hai? (Have you ever heard a Michael Jackson concert?)" and continued with the setting he had on.

Sharabi Arthur- The Reincarnation

While aimlessly flipping channels, Arthur caught my attention, and I watched most of it. What I found most engaging was the dialogue. I would rate it as superb, in these days of mediocre use of the language. As Wodehouse has demonstrated countless times, language itself can be great fun, when you know what to do with it.

Of course, it is a remake of the 80s phenomenon (in India at least, among college students of my ilk) starring Dudley Moore as the rich brat and John Gielgud as his butler, friend and philosopher (Jeeves?). It was a very good film, and Prakash Mehra promptly remade it, adding songs et al, as Sharaabi, which was not bad too.

This one stars Russell Brand (I saw him for the first time, but I am told he is a comic), and he was Ok. The nanny's role is the most powerful, and is played well by Helen Mirren. Though it's a predictable plot (which one isn't?), it's a fun watch, if only to recall your college years as a side-effect. The other hot movie of those times with Dudley Moore in it was '10'. That also starred Bo Derek (!).