What I’m reading this morning:

• India’s national game is Hockey. Yet it is sinking and sinking deeper and deeper into a seemingly bottomless pit of failure and incompetence.

• Vultures may soon be extinct in India because of a banned drug used to treat sick cattle.

• Rest In Peace Gautam Rajadhyaksha, legendary photographer who pioneered the art of celebrity photographer.

• The screening of much anticipated film Mausam at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been cancelled because the Indian Airforce is objecting to a 30 second sequence in the film. Dear incompetent Indian Censor Board – your delays in approval have effectively denied a filmmaker the chance to preview his film to the entire world at one of world’s most acclaimed film festivals.

In America, 4/20 (April 20th) is a day celebrated by pot smokers all over. A National Marijuana day if you will started back in the 70s by a group of high school kids and took on a whole new life and meaning since then.

420 in India has a whole different meaning though. It was what we called people who were either low grade scamsters or slightly off their rockers. The term came from section 420 of the Indian Penal code that calls for imprisonment of upto 7 years for anyone caught cheating someone off their property – epitomized in Raj Kapoor’s 1955 classic film Shree 420.

Just heard this on the radio. Was tripping so hard to the beat I almost rearended the car in front of me.

It is tabla and sitar Bollywood disco kitschiness all the way courtesy the composer duo Salim-Sulaiman. That’s exactly what makes it so awesome.

Someone hates M. Night Shyamalan and/or his movies so much that they invested good money to design a website dedicated to it. The idea is to raise $150K, then present Shyamalan with the check while filming it. If he doesn’t accept it then they will pool the money and send a ‘budding Tarantino to NYU.’

Let’s get this much out of the way: no one sets out to make a bad film OK? No filmmaker wants to spend years writing a script, raising money, chasing agents and actors, hiring equipment and crew, spend months on post production…..all just so they can make a bad movie. All filmmakers set out to make a good film. Along the way a million factors affect the process and things may not turn out so well.

People have a choice not to watch a film. Or if they do and hate it so much, they’re certainly welcome to trash it. But no self respecting filmmaker should want a film school education from money raised by trashing and publicly humiliating a fellow filmmaker. It’s really as simple as that.

Via TOI comes this important memo: ‘Bobby refuses to spank buttocks.’ It’s a film about extramarital affairs involving the obligatory song objectifying women (mostly bikini clad Caucasian ones of course), performing raunchy dance steps in a nightclub. But, the happily married star and his PR team will have you know that he draws the line at dance moves involving spanking butts. (see video below)

Science and technology has made it possible for humans to beat natural selection. It is making us fatter though.

By next year humans will be touring space. And, they’re going to need a zero gravity beer that tastes good even if gases and liquids can’t separate. History will note the Aussies were the first to develop such a beer. The beer is modeled on the India Pale Ale recipe – beer specifically formulated to withstand the journey from Britain to India back in the late 1700s.

Hattip: Satyamshot for pointing us to the video of the song from the film ‘Thank You.’