Day 7 - England goes Southeeee!

England, siiiigh!

They said that England is ready for the Kiwi challenge. Eoin Morgan even got his name changed cunningly to hit some form. Scotland helped by showing the underbelly of Kiwi batting. Then Southee happened... again!

If someone gets his pitch map, it will be crowded near that small area around full length on or just 3 inches outside the off stump. England were sleepwalking with their pads - both on and off! Then Brendon McC smashed all the sixes in the game to celebrate the ESPNCricinfo test innings award!

At the innings break, there were no sixes in the game. And in seven overs, he had sent the ball seven times over the boundary including 'that' dent on the Man-of-the-Match car that went to Southee. Our G-section friends have so much to thank him. Oh, the small matter of saving electricity as the game got finished well before the Wellington dusk :-)

Thorough annihilation. Ignominy. Psychological destruction. Yeah, bring on all the sobriquets and adjectives. But the truth is England will be in the quarters in spite of this most-one-sided-game-of-the-world-cup! More questions for ICC to handle!

G-Section:

Pity that people expected a 50-50 chance for the game today. But only one side turned up.

For a change Bob could not clean up the kitty today ;-)

Welcome to Vishal to the G-section.

Thanks to Raghav and Shanky to have pointed out a small error in yesterday's details. Corrected. Did not change the winner though - just made Bob to get all his guesses right y'day. First for this world-cup!

Guesses for tomorrow's games are welcome!

Pakistan vs West Indies @ Christchurch by 0530 SGT

Australia vs Bangladesh @ Brisbane by 1100 SGT

Q-Section:

I have to share this explanation from AngelAsh before giving the correct answer...

The goat in the picture has a beard.. So, it's a billy goat. The pictures inside his stomach.. well, at first I tried to spell out the word, goat. Didn't work. This might be the connection -
Asparagus - the "Royal vegetable"
pug - a royal dog, Queen Victoria owned one. She was also gifted a royal goat.
Town crier - makes proclamations of important events in the royal family.
A was way too confusing.. then I realised that it was written in "red". So, it probably stood for "red-letter" day, which again put the town crier 's proclamations into picture.
There was a billy goat that misbehaved at the Queen's birthday (which is considered a red-letter day), and that was William Windsor or Billy the billy goat.
The pictures in his stomach point to (a) Billy goat, ergo , he could say that he ate himself.
Now, it took a lot more than five minutes and an insanely long coffee-break to come up with this. If the answer is right, don't disqualify me :) 

And when I told her that this was not the answer, she came back with the right one but with the following caveat...

Hell, I'm ROFLing at that absurdity myself. True testament to the fact that most of what researchers say is pure poppycock. :P 

After all, life is all about such interesting discoveries, ain't it??

Any way, the goat ate: A, ASPARAGUS, CRIER, CHUG. Anagraming those four words, you get the zoological name of goat which is CAPRA AEGAGRUS HIRCUS

AngelAsh, Raghav got it right. Bhuvana got half of them right...

Now for today's half-volley:

As the asteroid tore the skies 908 years earlier, in which Gemini city did the demonstrations happen?(3 points)

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 6 - ZimbabUAEd!

UAE consists of seven Emirates or kingdoms if you want to call them so. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah - we know them well and the not so famous, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras-al-Khaimah and Umm-al-Quwain. When one checks the current UAE playing-11 in Cricinfo, you have two people who are marked as born in Dubai (?) and one of them not listed as born anywhere (!). Rest are from such exotic places as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In reality, many of the associates have a similar problem. The lack of indigenous talent is glaring and sooner than later, the cupboard becomes bare and that is that. Bermuda is a classic example; after having played WC in 2007, they played such a (poor) brand of cricket last October in World Cricket League Division 3 in Malaysia, that people were left to shake their heads in despair. Living on borrowed talent is dangerous to say the least. How can we make it a bigger game and a better game?

Ok, that is the gloomy message for the day.

UAE were in it for 75% of the game. Thereafter, Zim's experience took over. As a grey-haired gentleman (me, me, me!) , if I don't support experience who would ;-) ? Actually, Zim are turning out well. West Indies are waiting to be picked - again! Pakistan is busy fighting with fielding coaches. Ireland is saying that they are not here to create upsets but to win matches. Why is it that the Indian Pool is always more hypertensive?

Q-Section:

I am thinking of disqualifying AngelAsh. She has this bad habit of giving answers - that too correct ones, in less than five minutes from the time of posting! Raghav, MurthyLN, Bhuvana & Guru score full 4 points. Yuva got Campbell Scott but forgot the link and tiger's name (sacrilege!) - 2 points.

And the answer is:

Campbell Scott (The Amazing Spider-man) and the tiger (Life of Pi)  have acted in movies with the same character name: Richard Parker. By the way, Pete Parker (Spider-Man) is Richard Parker's son ;-)


Current quiz position below. Neck to neck at the top.

Now for today's toughie:

When I asked the goat what it has eaten, it said, "I have eaten myself!" How so? (6 points)

G-Section:

Bob is on a hot streak. He got the margin down to the T and is leading the pack.

Tomorrow is a very good game! Wear your guessing dress on!

England vs New Zealand @ Wellington by 0930 SGT

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 5 - Bang! Bang!

The romantics wanted Afghans to win today. From ICC World Cricket League Division 5 to ODI status to World Cup is a real far cry. That Asia Cup win against Bangladesh in Fatullah was always in the background. But some inexperience in referrals and while batting showed them up. How much was that Shenwari's bowling suspension a cause for their deterioration, you never know.

Their discipline was there for about 30 overs. Then they slept for an hour. That was enough for the tigers to come back strongly. It is a different matter that Bangladesh cricket team is the most under-achieving sporting team that I have ever watched. Even Liverpool FC shows some quicksilver form off and on! They live another day to fight another battle.

G-Section:

The usual suspects booked in. Guru was brave enough to support Afg.
Chugging along.

Tomorrow's game is going to be another cracker! Happens to be played at the town where the Irish killed the Windies... Another upset anyone?

Pool B - Zimbabwe vs UAE @ Nelson by 5:30 am SGT

Q-Section:

If the tree falls to the right, it gives the 'join-the-dot' representation of the World Cup match venues. Of course the brown line is for Australia and the green line represents New Zealand.

AngelAsh and Raghav got the five points. Their speed was scary.

And for today's question:

An easy one to welcome the Chinese New Year! Let us see how many of you crack it.

What is the connection? [4 points]

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 4 - Scotch-drunk Kiwi batting!

Trent Boult and Tim Southee are proving to be too much for established batsmen - what could poor Scots do in front of such accurate bowling? With the abundant county experience in the team, the Scots did manage to stretch it a bit. But 140+ was going to stretch nobody except if the batsmen were batting wrong-handed, which most of the Kiwis tried to do anyways!!

Pool A is a set pool - I don't see any upsets for the big-4, in spite of the presence of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Scotland. There, I have said it!

Can't say the same about Pool B though!

G-Section:

Everybody said New Zealand. They all thought that they will bat first and they thought that the swing in the air will make them lose around half the side. Alas! NZL had different plans.

As a result, nobody won anything!

Situation remains the same.

Tomorrow's game is the best of associates (horror! I am rating Bangladesh as an associate still!)

Afghanistan vs Bangladesh ~ Canberra ~ by 11:00 am SGT

Q-Section:

The hint worked only for Guru. (5 points) who joins AngelAsh (8 points) to have cracked the question.

And the answer is: 

The eight items on the collage are: silk, bamboo,  wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd and hide. These represent Chinese musical instruments which are traditionally classified into 8 categories known as bayin.

And today's question is:

Another picture:

If the above tree falls to the right, what CWC 2015 connection do you see?

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 3 - Leprechauns' Calypso Trick!

Four years ago, when the Irish vanquished the English, I wrote this.

This time around, I don't think such exhortations are necessary. It is only par for the course that the men from Shamrock nation would have a couple of important scalps in their kit bag before they leave the coasts of ANZ.

@Clive_Lloyd, on what basis are you going to select the next 15? Performance? Pchaa!#*

Anyone betting for Ireland to reach quarters?

Talking of beting, I am making a very important change to the G-section.

You are NOT restricted to 1000 points per 50 bucks. You can guess for all the  group-stage games for 50 bucks. So go ahead, let your guesses flow for every game hereafter!

That is what feedback is for!! 

G-Section:

(Corrected to include RMahesK's SA vs Zim and Ind vs Pak entries. Apologies my mistake)

Naturally, people did not expect the greenies to win over the maroons!

Tomorrow's game is:

New Zealand vs Scotland @ Dunedin by 5:30 am SGT

Q-Section:

AngelAsh, a new lady entrant to our GQ cracked it. 8 full points to her. However, I am leaving the question open for one more day, as it seems to be stumping some seasoned pros. 

And here is the hint: The eight things in the collage collectively represent something musically in a particular culture. 

For five points, go figure.

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 2 - 300 psi does it!

(c) Roger Federer timeline

Phew. 

Pakistan handled the pressure much better... in the warm-up game against England. 

However the pressure of 300 on the board in the #matchthatmatters #matchofcwc15 #nothingelsematters got to them finally. (fyi: standard atmospheric pressure is about 15 psi) 

Oh, don't start me on the Umar Akmal dismissal; the ball's seam position changed as it crossed the bat. Ergo definite nick.

Now we have even converted Federer to love cricket ;-) And please stop quoting that tennis score line and of course, I will get mad if you say anything about crackers ;-)

On the other side of the pond, Zimbabwe held the cards for 50% of both the innings; but imploded so badly that it was a bit too much to catch up in the end.

Ervine's catch to dismiss ABdV is so far the catch of the tournament. Just beat Steven Smith's flyer to dismiss Buttler yesterday.

G-Section:

Bob got in today and harvested a good amount of credits in both the games. Beginner's luck? Perhaps!

(The above does not include RMaheshK's entries from below. Pls check Day3 blog for correct values)

(The above table has the corrected values for RMaheshK's entries)

Tomorrow's game is:

                                             Ireland vs West Indies @ Nelson 05:30 SGT

West Indies is ripe for the picking in my opinion as shown by Scotland in the warm-up. Let us see.

Q-Section:

I thought that the question was a tough one. Then life throws Gurus at you. In ten minutes, I get the correct answer. Followed by Raghav. Then Shanky and Bob took some help (so one point less for them) to come up with the right answer, which is....Net Ball.

You had CSK; you had DADA; you had 2W and you had 4G. Jumbling them up, you get the playing positions of Net Ball. Google them up!

For today's question: 

Another pictorial.

These eight seemingly disparate things will join together to take you on a musical journey. Explain.

8 points.

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 1 - #MissingBalls

(c) Prantik Mazumdar

A rousing start to the world cup, if you are from ANZAC, that is!

Sri Lanka did not flatter; they just continued from where they left in their Kiwi tour.
England did flatter with those quick braces and Finn's hat-trick.

But both of them were taken to cleaners by two exciting talents - Corey Anderson and Aaron Finch; but in the end were left to search for the articles mentioned in the hashtag above!

If this is what is in store for the rest of the tournament, then dear bowlers, take cover! (No, the Mitches don't count!)

There was a nice comment on Cricinfo: "...New Zealand will score 400 against India!" And the good old wag was saying, 'Why New Zealand? Ireland can do it!' Such is the plight of the bowlers.

The Kiwis beat SL for the first time in a WC. (They did beat them in 1992 - thanks Yadavalli) Will the other bogey also fall tomorrow?

G-Section:

A quiet start to the guess exercise:
Here is the current consolidated position:

Q-Section:

Raghav came back pretty fast - probably because he is in the States; said that he went around heavy-metal music bands etc. But finally arrived at the answer. Guru as usual, was business-like and the answer was spot on. Muthiah and Shanky were quite close I think. Next one folks.

The thread that connects those five pictures is: Today's date - February 14th.
[Arizona, Lawrencium, YouTube, Oregon, Bhopal/Union Carbide Tragedy]. Go figure the connection.

Now for today's question.

Another pictorial puzzle. Shuffled amongst these four pictures are acronyms of seven playing positions of a ball sport. Which sport?

What do you need to do now?

Entries for tomorrow's matches:

South Africa vs Zimbabwe @ Hamilton 09:00 SGT

India vs Pakistan @ Adelaide 11:30 SGT

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

Then start praying all the gods for a humdinger tomorrow. Yes, I am talking about the SA vs Zim game ;-)


(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 0 - And the Quiz Starts :-)

Thanks for the enthusiastic replies. Let us see how many last the distance :-)

G-Section:

Please send in your guesses for the following matches:

Game 1: New Zealand vs Sri Lanka  (by 5:30 am SGT 14th Feb 2015)

Game 2: Australia vs England (by 10:30 am SGT 14th Feb 2015)

On a bit of retrospection, I have decided to extend the deadline for the QF line-up submission till Feb 28th 23:59 hours. Those of you who have already sent in your entries, fret not! You can change it until the new deadline.

Q-Section:

Here is the first question of the series:

The following collage of 5 pictures is related by one fact. What is it?

5 points.

Answers and guesses to the usual place. 

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

GQ '15 - Won't Give It Up!

(c) Guardian

Welcome to GQ '15!

First things first: GQ is the acronym for Guess & Quiz.

Rules are pretty much same as our past events. Still worth a while for you to go through.

Guess Portion:

For each guess, be it the outcome of a game or a quarter-final line up, you will spend a certain number of credits.

You can buy points from the banker (me, me, me!)

Cost of the first 1000 credits: SGD 50. If you run out of credits, then you can buy more from the banker (me, me, me!) in multiples of 500 credits at the cost of further SGD 25.

Cost of the credits for the entire pool-stage games is SGD 50.
This includes one QF Line-up guess per pool.
To be submitted by 3rd March 2015 1100 SGT.

Now the guesses would cost as follows:

- Possible Group A Quarter-Final Line up (in the exact order that they will end up) 100 credits

- Possible Group B Quarter-Final Line up (in the exact order that they will end up) 100 credits

- Guesses for the group stage games 50 credits

*** For the following, watch out for the comms on deadline dates & the cost ***

- Possible Semi-Final Line up 100 credits 
- Guesses for the quarter-final games 75 credits

- Guesses for the semi-final games 100 credits

- Guesses for the final games 150 credits

Would appreciate if at least 10 get involved in the G-part; That kinda gives me the joy-quotient!!

One important change this year is that all the money collected will go towards charity! Readers may remember that the winners donated their earnings to SINDA, Red Cross etc. in the past.

Framework:

0. Send in:

• Quarter-finals line-up for each group. [in the exact order that you think that they will end up]
• Guesses for the first game New Zealand vs Sri Lanka

To be sent in by 5:30 AM SGT, Saturday 14th Feb 2015.

1. There are five things that you need to respond for each game: 
Winning team (2 points), Winning Run Margin (4 points), Winning Wicket Margin (4 points), Max number of wickets by which team (2 points), Number of Sixers in the match (2 points)

** If you are reading this, then you are reading the fine-print. The winning margin points will accrue only if your winning team is correct; getting the margin right is just not enough. You have got to get the winning team AND the winning margin to get 6 points

2. Please send in all your entries at least 30 minutes before the game starts everyday to lnspatta@gmail.com

3. Please ensure that you give both the winning ranges: run-margin & wicket-margin

4. Please do not invent your own margins; stick to the published ranges shown below

5. If you are using Excel to track your guesses, when you cut-and-paste, please use Rich Text for pasting; the PCX format is painful from gmail.

Run Margin Ranges:

• Between 1 to 30 runs (both inclusive)
• Between 31 to 60 runs (both inclusive)
• Between 61 to 90 runs (both inclusive)
• Above 91 runs (91 and Infinity inclusive)

Wicket Margin Ranges:

• By 1 to 3 wickets (both inclusive)
• By 4 to 5 wickets (both inclusive)
• By 6 to 8 wickets (both inclusive)
• By 9 to 10 wickets (both inclusive)

Which team will take the most number of wickets in the match?

• Either of the team names OR Same

Number of Sixers in the MATCH:

• 0-3 (both inclusive) 
• 4-7 (both inclusive)
• 8-11 (both inclusive)
• 12++

So what do you get?

• Three book prizes for cracking the Q(uiz) portion
• Three book prizes for cracking the G(uess) portion
• Joy of following the game that we all love with something riding on each game!
• The pain of having to answer my daily quiz question during the tournament
• And of course, the satisfaction of contributing to a charity while having fun! 

Oh, don't worry, the Semis line up can be sent by February 28th 23:59 SGT.

***Next update on Friday 13th Feb 2015 with the first Q of GQ '15 

Vishwaroopam - An A-Grade Wannabe!

தமிழில் படிக்கணுமா?

According to Hindu mythology/scripture - Bhagavatham, there were at least three theophanies of Lord Vishnu.


1. During the Vamana avatar, to get Mr Mahabali understand his folly of granting three paces of land to the Lord
2. In Mahabharata, when Krishna terrifies the Kurus, as the 'evil' cousins refuse to yield even a square-micron of space to Pandavas
3. Just before the start of 'the' war, to act as the morale-booster to Arjun as he develops cold feet

In his new offering, Kamal Haasan has tried to provide three such thespio-phanies (Is there such a word, Jeeves?) at a whopping cost of 20 million US buckeroos!

Along the line, he has invited the wrath of many a people - theatre owners for the DTH saga (AHEAD of its time; but soon it will happen), Muslim organizations (I have never seen a movie with so many exhortations of Allah & perhaps somewhere the last straw broke the proverbial camel's back; beware Kamal - there will be others who will follow suit!), the TN government (actually, he did that much before when the Chidambaram speech happened!). So, if he escapes with seven cuts, he should count himself lucky. Such are the times!

Story: Please don't insult your (and mine too...) intellect by asking about that. Al-Qaeda-trainer/trained-RAW-major-officer-Wisam masquerades as effiminate-Kathak-teacher-Viswhanath to find & diffuse the dirty bomb in NYC + kill the baddies. He pretty much manages all, except for the last bit - just so that you and I will be hooked on for Part Dua.

Technicals: And to go gaga about the technical excellence of the movie is kind of unnecessary. These days, the Indian audience are exposed to almost all the 'good' Hollywood action movies with great production values through the dubbing route. As a result, even the Indian movies are forced to show a step-change in making movies. You should feel the accidents; the blood spurting out should look real; guns should sound real. Even the tandoori chicken from the oven should look yummy! It is the new normal. So, it gets a 3: Fully Meeting Expectations. Yet, the rippling of blood according to the phone vibrations in the last scene was, wow!



His first roop as the Kathak teacher is excellent. Even though we have seen him as Shanmugi 16 years ago, the current effeminate portrayal by this man is simply amazing. Right from the fantastic Kathak steps to the transmogrification in the warehouse is a scream! For long Rajini fans used to swear by a similar scene from Baadsha; Kamal has successfully added his version to the lore. [Oh, by the way, for those - some respected reviewers too, who quote Kamal's character's names as Tawfeeq, Nazar etc., plissszzz learn to appreciate the subtleties of why Kamal uttered those names while getting hit!]



The second roop is incomplete. Here is where Kamal as a writer and director gets a number of half-volleys to dispatch to the boundary. But for whatever reason, he shows restraint and only hits a few out. Be it getting into Al Qaeda or getting queasy about the barbaric acts of the jihadis or working with the youngsters, Kamal has shown a good 'documentary' side of the life in an Afghan village - and a very good US-backed documentary at that :-}

Some deft directorial touches are worthy of mention:

- the swing scene - as it unfolds, something bodes ill inside you... good catch!
- the old woman of the village shouting at the jihadis - 'first it was the Russians, then the Americans, then you guys! Men are all the same, monkeys with the tails in the front!' [Shows that only old people and young children can say something without much of a fear of retribution in this sensitive world!]
- the one that I loved most: the bee on the gun nozzle [Where do you get honey in a land where the flower-beds are watered by blood? Even bees change their taste!]

A number of questions are left open - so wait until V2 next year (unless Kamal decides to do a Marudhanayakam  on it!)

Finally the Gitopadesha part. Let us face it. The Gita is boring. Who likes advices, anyway? So how do you handle such a case? By being patient and grinding it out. The act of finding and cleaning up the dirty bomb was written in a bumpy way. The situations go kind of haphazardly and one has to be extremely careful in understanding how the movie is flowing - leave alone what the director is saying.



Some nice stuff in this section as well:

- the meticulous execution by the terrorists creating two layers of misconception
- the fact that jihadi-ism is not just about instant martyrdom, but also about giving their life for a cause, even though the loss-of-life is not instantaneous but through the long and painful cancerous route.

All these can't be because of religion. As a friend recently wrote on her FB post, "No religion is so fragile to be lost because of a movie or a book or a cartoon." True. But repeated portrayals of a singular dimension can begin to cause that fragility. There is a deeper malady that has to be understood and removed. Thanks for this roopam to sow the thought in people's mind. [Was watching Hey Ram today; again the message from Kamal was the same in that movie as well. AHEAD!]

The Gita Viswharoopam also was done to empower and embolden Arjuna to get the Lord's work done. Similarly, Lord Kamal gets Nirupama to do the job in the end through the simple and unassuming microwave oven! [It was the common salt in Dasavataram; is life that simple, ultimately?]

Otherwise:

1. One of the slowest thrillers (?) I have watched; though the family/theatre seemed too engrossed into the movie in spite of its slowness. (They were busy trying to figure out where the plot was going to perhaps?)
2. Everybody and his uncle were there - though not to the extent of Hey Ram! Blink, you would have missed Zarina Wahab [And Kamal did not hog the frames!]
3. The simple Kamal-brand humour throughout the movie [The police interrogation scene with Nirupama is hilarious!]
4. The entire Afghanistan portion looked like a strong US-backed documentary, including the US marine swearing after killing a non-combatant :-()
5. If you don't have subtitles, you need a translator for this movie. English, French, Pashto, Arabic, Tamil, Hindi, Urdu... (thank God, the Nigerian did not get any dialogues!)
6. No kisses from Kamal to any of the lady-leads. Fret not, V2 promises to have more than its share of such non-platonic acts!

In the end:

Kamal has pitched this movie to propel him to the wider reach of Hollywood. (yeah, bollywood is not for the silly madrasis!)

In reality, there have been 50 other similar movies made pandering to the US sentiments.

My sincere hope is that, even if Viswharoopam is to be his business card to Hollywood, let it enable Kamal to reach out to the true heights that he is capable of.

To help him do that, watch V1 in the theatres!

Life of Ratios

(You may also want to read the Tamil review)

There are certain books that you want to read because the whole world is going gaga over them. Reams and reams of newsprint (and cyberprint) are spent on extolling the virtues of the said-books. You buy some in one of those i-have-to moments; you miss some due to those urgent deadlines at office.

No madam, these are not those pulp fiction types. They are more the chicken-soup-for-the-soul variety. To read them, you need the right mindset (typically a tiff with the other-half will take care of that!), a free day (or night for that matter, if the tiff does happen ;-) and no cricket match on the telly (better still if India plays a match!).

Alchemist was one such book; Life of Pi is another. Have to admit, that I have not read either of the books, as the pre-requisites outlined in the previous paragraph have not happened yet ;-)

But got to watch Life of Pi today.

Much has been written and spoken about the visual splendour/extravaganza of the movie, the kaleidoscope of colours, scenery, India, the ocean - rough and tranquil, the unobtrusive and brilliant CGI, the list goes on.

What struck me was the effortless ease with which philosophy was dosed in, very much akin to the way the bananas to the sea-sick animals, were embedded with tranquilizers!

Pi, by definition, is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

The hero, Pi Patel is also a ratio of:

• his father's rationality and mother's irrationality,
• his own fear and courage towards the big cat (which by the way is his own soul’s reflection!),
• his sure-footed nature and imagination of handling his love,
• his sentimentality and pragmatism on dealing with the real world after being a castaway for more than 90 days
• his inner search and the outer search (remember the live-die island) …

The exact component of the ratio that overpowers the other is dependent on the situation that Pi faces.  Scrumptuous, isn’t it?

Thanks to Marcus

There are numerous juicy (almost corny?) directorial touches sprinkled throughout the movie:

• Pi thanking Vishnu for introducing him to Jesus
• the names of the tiger and the hunter getting mixed up
• the island looking like a sleeping man (or Vishnu?)
• the tiger that does not look back before going onto the wilderness
• the metaphor of the zebra, hyena, orang-utan and the tiger to the human characters in the movie (my most favourite!)

... I guess the book is a veritable store of such situations for a director to exploit!

On the downside, almost everyone I have spoken to felt that the book is 'un-filmable' and it shows.

The narration does tend to sag a bit once we have the cat and the boy in the sea for more than three months. To bring it up, Ang Lee has tried to infuse some light, colour and action through those spectacular sea shots complete with a diving whale in the night & the live-die island.

And yes, you can memorize all the dialogues; they will be of great use to show-off in any party (make sure you are at least two pegs down by the time you sprout them, else you will not be taken seriously :-)

Live-Die Algae Island
(Artist: Nina Khashchina)

Moral of the story:

Life is endless – similar to Pi.

Life dishes out different people and situations for your consumption.

Some kill; some get killed; some prevent killing; some kill to prevent.

Your mind can be any one of those four animals: Zebra, Orangutan, Hyena or a tiger.

Which animal you would turn out to be is dictated upon how you are brought up.

There will be sadness, happiness – but remember everything is temporal.

The final bliss is when you have let all animals to walk out of your life – without a good-bye.

And never lose God and hope.

Ameen. Amen.  Aum.

PS: If you think that Yann Martel had his inspiration from this discussion on Pi, then you are probably not mistaken!