Koffee in Kolumbus and movies

Columbus finally has a full fledged Starbucks of its own...yippeee!! For 4 days before the opening, they were offering free coffee....went there twice ;-). Now we have a decent place to hang out with friends and have good coffee too :-). I know you must be thinking, 'whats the big deal?' But had you been staying in Columbus for the last 2 yrs, then you would know. I remember we used to drive 45mins to go to the nearest Starbucks so that we can have a good cup of coffee!!

Saw the following movies...in increasing order of my liking. After Kaal and Main Aisa Hi Hoon, I guess these movies are atleast okay!

Lucky.. well, cant say I actually liked it. This one too I watched on the net and was fast forwarding most of the parts. Cant stand Salman Khan much. Liked the songs though. Some are pretty good.

Naina.. saw this on the net too. Found it to be pretty okay, but I guess watching it in the theatre would have helped in the effects.

Dude, where's the party?.. saw this in video. And this one's fun. Its a crossover movie, American Desi starring the fav boy Kal Penn. The movie is funny and I enjoyed it through and through.

Bunti and Babli.. saw this in the theatre and loved it! This certainly tops the charts. It is entertaining, funny and fresh. Loved Abhishek and Rani in this. And the surprise in the Kajra re song was good. Would like to see it again. But would like to cut off the rap no. picturised on Amitabh in the end. What were they thinking??

Meri yaar ki shadi hai

This long weekend was one of the most exciting and important weekend ever, since I got to attend the most important day of my dear friend Rashmi. Yes, Saturday was her wedding with her long time beau :-). Me and V flew to Washington DC on Friday eve and went over to her appt for dinner. It was wonderful meeting and old friend after such a long time. After dinner we went to the hotel not wanting to keep them awake for long before the long day ahead of them.

The next day me and V got up real late. We quickly got ready for the marriage and got the directions to go to the parlor where Rash was getting ready. Being the 'Ladki wale' we were supposed to accompany the bride to the temple. But, as luck would have it, we got lost and it was getting late so finally decided to go to the temple directly. Again after a few wrong turns we safely arrived at the temple. I realized that was the first time I visited any temple since coming to the US. Thanks Rash, atleast coz of you we both got to get blessings together! Soon, the bride arrived followed a few moments later by the groom. Both were looking great and the couple looked a perfect match. The marriage started and the fun began.

Now, I have hardly attended marriages in my lifetime. This was infact the 4th marriage that I have ever attended (that which I remember since childhood). I however realized that this was indeed an American desi marriage. Everything was short and simple. I can commend my friend to have managed and arranged everything so well. The most interesting part of the entire ceremony was the punditji. He was explaining each ritual and also pulling the groom's leg in that process. While explaining, he was giving reference to Ramayana and Mahabharata saying 'aap logo ne TV mein dekha hoga':-). And the fun part was how while saying the mantras, the punditji was saying "America deshe, Virginia kshetre, so and o grame...". That had me almost in splits.

The ceremony completed peacefully with no objections from anyone whatsoever and the newlyweds were showered with blessings and wishes from everyone present. By then the rats in my stomach had started warming up and I was looking forward to the dinner. Most of the guests moved on to the reception hall, while the bride and the groom and few others took a stop to change into more comfortable outfits. The reception hall was located in the midst of a quaint little 'mall' which lay by and beautiful lake. While waiting for the newlyweds to arrive, few of us took a stroll by the lake and enjoyed the serene beauty. By the time we returned back to the hall, the rats in my stomach were running all over making weird noises.

After some more wait, the couple-of-the-day finally arrived and everyone heaved a sigh of relief not being able to contain their hunger any longer :-). After waiting for a polite amount of time, all the guests attacked at the snacks immediately followed by the food. The food was yummy...desi food after all :-).

After the food, the dhoom dhamaka started with dancing and fun. The 'wilder' crowd started dancing and gradually started pulling in the more 'shy-er' ones like me in. After seeing everyone was on the dance floor, I too had to join in. The next hour or so, we had a fun time, dancing and even playing games. Finally, it was time to call it a night.

Rashmi, I know you have been waiting for me to put up this post. I don't think I have given a full justice to it, but I hope you like my point of view :-). Wanna thank you for involving me & V in your day. We both had a lovely time. Wish you and Anupam a very happy, loving, colorful, successful and exciting married life :-)

More to the list

Movies I saw recently:

Kaal: The less I say about this, the better. If you still wanna know, read Nupur's view. If you still wanna watch it, may God help you :-). I still wonder what was the hype all about?

Main Aisa Hi Hoon: For a change, Ajay Devgan is not his normal serious eyes-half-closed guy. Doesnt mean you should rush to see the movie. The story is hotch-potch and draggy and the movie ends up being basically boring.

Waqt: Another one of those Bollywood flick with an overly dramatic story. Found it better than the above two movie though.

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: This is a funny entertaining movie. Liked it... though in between it tends to become a bit of a drag. Sometimes its fun to watch a movie with an entirely nonsensical plot. However I admit, I was a bit dissappointed, was expecting much more after hearing so much about the book and all. I probably liked this movie coz that day we had gone for the movie at the end of an extremely boring and dead saturday.