For as long as I can remember, I have loved what can be called ‘over-the-top’ spicy food. I mean if it doesn’t make me sweat and have a runny nose and or watery eyes, I don’t feel like I’ve eaten anything. Many people have not only found it odd but have also commented in various ways so as to dissuade me from eating, ordering or cooking food which is very, very spicy! But I just cannot get myself to eat anything till I know that it won’t (quite literally) burn my tongue!

To explain my obsession further, here are a few examples - When the ‘hot and spicy’ corn was launched I was the only person in my social circle who would ask for extra chillies to be put in mine; at McDonald’s I was the only person asking for chilly sauce while the others were content with ketchup; at Yo! China I would be the one asking for a refill of the chilly paste/ sauce that was a part of the condiment tray on each table.

At work most people are fond of my food, but they are slightly apprehensive in eating more because they know they will be running to the kitchen to down a litre of water if they attempted to eat a few bites extra! This of course means more food for me! But they do turn around saying that I will have to watch my spice intake because its harmful in the long run. But to explain my food, I would only like to say that the amount of chillies used in my food is not more than what is used in my household because my entire family is very fond of spicy food. My dad and I are fanatics, but everyone loves that zing of chilly!

No, I’m not rambling on about my dietary patterns or that of my family, I’m simply painting a picture so that when I explain what I’m about to, you all wont’ feel clueless (even though that is exactly what is going through most of your minds at this point, I can see!)!

The truth about chillies and spice is that they are (don’t scoff) an addiction. How? What? Where? Huh? Seriously, they are and all of us in our own way are addicted to them. I mean why else would we scoff at a lot of western cuisines by calling it bland and or tasteless and other things like that? And this is because our taste-buds and olfactory ends have gotten acclimatized to chillies and spice that anything less than what we can handle feels either tasteless or like hospital food!

The chemical reaction taking place in our mind and bodies when we eat spicy food is unlike any other. And if we enjoy the sensation of the spice, the tingle, zing and heat of the chilly, it manifests itself in an obsessive way. When we eat extra spicy food, often our nose tingles, eyes water and we gasp for air as though someone has obstructed out breathing. If per chance that feeling is pleasurable (not in any sexual sense) we often try to duplicate it further and further with most meals.

Chillies are said to induce a feeling of well-being in our bodies. It’s odd to explain how but they do add to a feeling of being happy. I’m sure most of us enjoy eating ‘gol gappas’ and if the water is tangy we like it, if the spice is less we feel as though that was a waste of money, this is because the level of spice isn’t satisfying our need for zing!

To know more about chillies, I would recommend that you check out -  The Hot Book Of Chillies by DAVID FLOYD.

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Starring the voices of John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Waltoh (and many others of course!). Bolt is the story of a dog who is the star of a TV show called “Bolt” (John Travolta) where he is this SUPER DOG whose mission is to save the life of ‘His Person’ – Penny (Miley Cyrus). He has powers like super strength, laser eyes which can melt anything, super speed, super bark that can cause a massive wave on land and is absolutely AWESOME!

When Penny adopted Bolt, her father modified him so that Penny would be safe from the evil Dr. Calico. And all this while Bolt is unaware of the fact that he is on a TV show and none of the stuff he does is real. So during a mission Penny gets abducted by the evil Dr. Calico and Bolt tries to save her. By mistake, he falls into a cardboard box and gets shipped to New York. He meets Mittens an alley cat who he thinks works for the evil man with a green eye – Dr. Calico. Bolt ties up Mittens and forces her to take him to ‘the evil man with a green eye’. So Mittens and Bolt set off to cross the country in search of Penny; with Bolt equipped with a fervent delusion of him being a Super-Dog! On the way they meet Rhino, a hamster in a plastic ball, who’s a huge fan of Bolt’s and is extremely eager to help his hero return to ‘His Person’. They run into all kinds of adventures like jumping on to moving trains, getting caught by animal control authorities etc. It is during this time that Bolt finds out that he is actually a TV star and not a SUPER DOG! Though that doesn’t deter him from trying to use his awesomeness by either staring at the lock of a moving-van or trying to burn open his cage or Super-Barking Mittens out of a tree!

Finally when Bolt reaches Hollywood, he sees Penny with another Bolt and feels heartbroken because that was exactly what Mittens had told him that humans do – they forget about their pets and move on. Then suddenly, there is a fire at the studio and Penny gets trapped inside the studio and Bolt comes to her rescue!

While I know I just gave you the summary of the movie, I just need to add that this is one of the cutest and the funniest animated movies I have seen in a loooooooong looooooooong time!! Bolt and Rhino are absolutely awesome and the dialogues are incredible! I feel bad that I didn’t watch it sooner. Throughout the movie, my friends and I were laughing uncontrollably and the audience was thoroughly entertained! Not a single moment of boredom or pointlessness.

I would recommend everyone watch this movie. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high and 1 being low) I would give this movie a million or so points! It is by far the most entertaining movie I have seen in a long time!

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Hugh Jackman (sigh)…the last few years, or at least since I watched him as Wolverine for the first time, I have been in love with Hugh Jackman! With two of my close friends, we have a fan club where we keep each other updated on him, his movies, the fact that he was hosting the Oscars! And we had decided to watch X-Men Origins – WOLVERINE together. But unfortunately due to too many unforeseen circumstances, we all didn’t get the opportunity to watch it together. But nonetheless, I loved the movie and love Hugh Jackman 

Since most people don’t need an introduction to X-Men, and or the concept of the mutants, X-Men Origin – Wolverine (stating the obvious) explains the life of Logan or Wolverine and how he became who he is. It shows his journey from childhood to adulthood and of him becoming the indestructible and almost immortal mutant; How he got the metal claws and how he lost his memory etc. etc.

I felt a little confused when watching the movie because the first 30 minutes or so, the movie seems slightly in fast-forward (for the lack of a better word)! I mean they almost zoomed into the present with very little explanation. And when they did reach the present, they rushed through to the point where they would like to stretch the end! Umm…I know this isn’t making sense, but it felt as though they rushed through to reach the point where they could start explaining the end! So if you miss a few minutes here you’re going to be asking the person sitting next to you to fill you in! But the last 30 minutes are absolutely fantastic. The fight scene between the super-mutant and wolverine was probably the coolest part of the movie!

A spoiler which I cannot resist is how the technology of the 20th century was slightly out of place. The lasers, the computers were hardly developed let alone being sophisticated!

The movie also features Will-i-am and Ryan Reynolds. And Ryan Reynolds is absolutely incredible in the movie, I was completely taken aback when I saw him. At the risk of sounding like some old-school grandma, I am impressed with Reynolds; From ‘Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place’, the man has suddenly climbed the popularity ladder into big-time movies! He is now one of the most eligible bachelors according to a lot of magazines and entertainment shows! Some luck huh?

It’s difficult to give a review of a movie without giving away the story or the plot, but still I would say that Hugh Jackman is AWESOME in the movie. And a close second would be Ryan Reynolds (yes, I think I have a soft spot for him)! The acting bit is average but Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed eventually Sabertooth) has done a good job.

If you have enjoyed the X-Men movies, this one is a definite must-watch. If nothing else, it fills you in about the character and is a prequel to the X-Men movies. The only thing that would be better than the movie would honestly be reading the comics! If for nothing else but to enjoy the end of the movies strike at the PVRs, this movie is definitely worth a watch! I mean it’s better than most of the crap coming out of Bollywood!

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Yes, I know it’s a little monotonous for you all to read the same thing over and over again, Malvika goes out and eats Chinese food, what’s new about that? Honestly? Nothing really! But what is ‘new’, are the places, and I hereby add another joint to that unending list of places to go to for Chinese cuisine!

So, moving on, I recently visited this new Chinese food Restaurant (?), pigeon hole really at Select City Walk (my Mecca as some people seem to call it!); namely – JOY LUCK MOON. The name in itself is so Chinese, that one cannot mistake it for serving you anything else! It’s located on the top most floor and has the seating capacity of not more than 30 people (hence it’s a pigeon hole!).

The ambience is very unassuming, there isn’t anything that seems too pretentious or intimidating of course, there isn’t anything there at all! I mean seven tables each being able to seat about 4 people each…what do you expect? The seating is fairly comfortable and the waiters (thankfully, till now!) don’t size you up or down when you walk in! There is no over-powering smell of Chinese ingredients (which can work both ways; they can either kill your appetite, or increase it three-fold!).

The service is pleasant and very courteous, at least the service we got was excellent. The man waiting on our table was extremely helpful and polite. It was my mom’s friend’s birthday and she had taken us out to lunch and coincidentally it was the day of her fast, which meant a lot of restrictions on her diet. She told the waiter that if they could make her vegetables without certain ingredients like soy sauce, vinegar and or anything else that is constrained when fasting and with extra care regarding the cooking, and it was amazing how they obliged without rolling their eyes or being impolite. Usually many restaurants get very ruffled up with a customer who might be a little finicky with their food preference.

We ordered as starters – Corn Cakes (which simply put felt like sweet corn soup boiled till all the liquid evaporates and then deep fried in chunks!), Vegetable Salt and Pepper (which need not introduction) and some Sichuan Chilly Chicken (introduction needed?). and for the main course, there was some Oriental Greens Teppanyaki style, some vegetables (vrat style) and some Diced Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce and boiled rice.

The food was excellent. The vegetables were fresh and looked very vibrant and of course appetizing. There wasn’t this feeling of there being too much oil or colour in the food which often makes it resemble something that comes from a Halwai! And the chicken was very well done. Soft and succulent! Delectable!

The point of all this is that even though there isn’t much to look at and there isn’t anything that can be defined as ambience and neither does the place look like it’s worth a visit, the food that they serve there is well worth the visit…and then some!

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A little over a week back, since Sundays are usually spent in a very mundane manner in my household, we decided that we’ll all go out for lunch to this new pigeon-hole my parents were introduced to a few months back, called THE OAK TREE. It’s in gurgaon, near the Galleria complex, but it’s in the shopping complex that comes on the way to Galleria if you’re coming from Phase-4 or 5 Gurgaon. Anyway, the only land mark I can give is that there are lots of supermarkets and it’s right opposite NEEDS.

So we went there for Brunch. The brunch menu consists of live stations of salad, pasta, cold-cuts, cheeses and desserts, and an a la cart menu of the main course with unlimited alcohol all for INR. 700 per head. We sat down and ordered our drinks, three beers and a diet coke (for my mom) and the waiter replied by saying “Sorry Ma’am we don’t have diet coke. But we do have Sprite”. So my dad suggested that they just go across the alcove and into the supermarket and just buy two cans for us! Since it was the most logical suggestion, the waiter had no choice but to comply.

We started out with salad, since it was a live station you can get them to make the salad as per your preference and whims! I asked for a mixed-meats salad with lots of greens and olives and feta cheese (my two weaknesses- olives and feta cheese). Oddly they had 3 types of salad dressings, Caesar, Honey-Mustard and Blue Cheese (these are the three typical salad dressings which one can get in a bottle from any supermarket) and last squeeze bottle of cream (what the hell kind of an idiot puts cream in a salad? That’s wrong on so many levels I can’t even begin to describe!). The oddity doesn’t end here, I do hope that the owner and the manager knows that there are more salad dressings available in the world and most of them are easy to make in two minutes. And the most popular salad might be Caesar, but the most popular and most versatile dressing is definitely the vinaigrette. You can manipulate it in whatever fashion you want, that’s the beauty of the dressing!

The cold cuts were served right to our table while the cheese we could go and slice out ourselves. The smoked cheese tasted less smoked and more rubbery, the blue cheese was absolutely perfect, the feta was divine and the rest –Gouda, Edam, Swiss (I think, are a acquired taste and I am yet to acquire it!) besides, they looked too unappetizing to sample. The cold cuts were average to not-so-great. I mean you go to a place like Le Marche (in Gurgaon or Select City Walk or Priya complex) and there you will definitely find some of the most delectable cold cuts!

The pasta station was first of all, very badly lit. You could barely see the sauces, even though the ingredients were in clear sight. But the problem there was that the raw ingredients which were laying there should have ideally been at the salad counter. Who the hell puts jalapenos in their pasta? And who on earth would want to put carrots in their pasta? The choice of sauces were tomato, green pesto, and cream (which I think was supposed to be for the carbonara or mushroom sauce), the other thing about pasta (of any kind) is that al dente means that no more than 7/8th needs to be cooked when boiling. Once added to the sauce the pasta gets cooked perfectly. These guys left their pasta 6/8th done and when added to the sauce there wasn’t enough time for all of it to cook and so most of us ended up getting pasta which was not nearly as soft as it should be. The tomato sauce was pretty raw, I mean it didn’t mix together well. In the green pesto, luckily I told the “chef” that the previous pasta was slightly raw and needed more time on the fire to get cooked and I’m also glad that I stopped him just as he was about to add cream into my pasta. The thing about green pesto is that it’s essentially made of basil, pine nuts and olive oil. The sauce doesn’t need any other form of fat added to it.

My parents ordered the grilled fish which was slightly under salted, my brother ordered a burger and I ordered the grilled chicken, which I must admit was the high point of the meal. The dessert spread was nothing to write home about at all. The dessert section lay right next to the cheeses and directly under the air conditioning and all that was available went pretty dry by the time we got to it.

I guess I didn’t enjoy it too much because I knew that most of the food they were serving, I could do it much better and I have in the past, even though I don’t have a restaurant and I’m not a trained chef, my passion is solely food and cooking and I love experimenting in the kitchen and this experience has left me feeling disheartened. The concept is absolutely brilliant if I may say so myself. The live counters and the cold food sections is a refreshing change from all the quintessential and mundane same and mixed and fusion cuisine that seems to be rampant in this city! And one can eat a leisurely pace and sit there, have conversations and just feel content and relaxed. No waiters coming to hound you to leave on the pretext of offering you any more food!

It’s definitely worth a visit on one of those lazy Sunday afternoons, easy on the pocket and lighter on the stomach. You can eat as much or as little as you want and still pay the same price either way!

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Lately, there have been many a-new additions to the eateries and the choice of food, cuisines and styles when it comes to eating out, available in the capital. My latest encounter has been one which left me feeling very…how-should-I-put-it?…incomplete, not at all satiated and very confused after the experience.

Now when eating out, one musn’t always look at the food, the ambience, the price (very important) and the overall feeling of satisfaction must be kept in mind. My association with the Taj Mansingh Hotel goes way back into my childhood. Every (extended) family dinner or celebration would take place either at the Taj Mansingh Hotel or Maurya Sheraton. The reason being that both places had the best “Coffee Shops” where the variety of food and dishes available were so vast and varied that they offered something for everyone! Be it Indian, Italian, American (if that can indeed be considered a cuisine!), some oriental food etc. So I loved going there. Especially Machaan (if I spelt it right), at the Taj. Plus my parents told me that they used to rendezvous there when they were courting each other!

But of late, the experience and the food at the Machaan was also just about average and since Khan Market (a stone’s throw away) offered more choice, comparatively cheaper places and more variety, Taj Mansingh Hotel became a place that is back to being a “Family Dinner/ Outing for Special Occasions”.

The recent additions to the Taj Mansingh Hotel, include Wasabi (a Japanese food restaurant, sushi bar and teppanyaki station), Varq (Royal Indian food!). Since I had told my mom that I wanted to go out for lunch and wanted to have good sushi; now sushi isn’t just the raw fish with rice, I’ve actually fallen in love with Wasabi (no, not the restaurant, but the Japanese horseradish that Wasabi comes from!) and hence she decided that we would venture in the direction of Taj Mansingh and experience sushi at Wasabi.

Wasabi (the restaurant) is located in the lower ground floor of the hotel. Since I reached before my mom, I went and found a seat at the teppanyaki station. We instead of ordering the sushi platters individually, went for the lunch menu which included a miso soup, a Japanese salad and a teppanyaki meat/ vegetarian, made right in front of you). Since sushi isn’t a part of that lunch menu, I ordered a platter of spicy shrimp sushi as well.

The FOOD: since The Taj Mansingh comes under the high-end hotels in India, especially Delhi, the food wasn’t going to be cheap! And indeed it wasn’t! We paid close to an arm and two legs for a meal which was just about average! Here’s why…the Japanese salad was not much Japanese! I mean they threw together some iceberg lettuce (which is not the best lettuce of them all) with a salty vinaigrette dressing and some dry fish shavings which tasted more like beef than fish. Then the miso soup, my mom loved the soup, but if you’re not acclimatized to the taste, you’re going to want to add all the Chinese flavourings to it just so that it tastes like soup! The Teppanyaki was one chicken and one shrimp. The chicken was good. It was tender, succulent, soft and had a very nicely done. The shrimp, unfortunately was done in the exact same manner and it was slightly rubbery. Furthermore, there was all of 3 pieces of shrimp in a dish that was supposed to cost as much as 2 kgs of fresh raw shrimp at a fish market. All teppanyaki dishes are served with a bowl of sticky rice. Now we come to the best part of the meal – THE SUSHI! Firstly, (bear with me) I need to emphasize on the fact that the waitress kept pronouncing SU-SHI as SHOO-SHEE, I had half a mind to tell her that “Woman, you’re working in a Japanese food restaurant and you’re calling one of your main dishes wrong! Anyway, coming back to the SHOO-SHEE, it was fantastic! Soft sticky rice with some sesame seeds and fish sauce, with cool, well-marinated shrimp on the inside served with fresh Wasabi and an excellent soy sauce and perfectly pickled ginger (Sigh, heaven!).

We scarf down our meal and asked for the cheque. The food cost us a very princely sum of Rs. 5000 (approx including tax and tip). We paid and left. On the way out my mom and I exchanged looks of being ripped off. I mean I know it was an experience and we did enjoy the SHOO-SHEE, but lets face it, these guys are the only ones in town who do a half decent job, and they charge so much because they know that they’re the only ones who serve it well and have the widest variety so far.

Anyway, I would probably not go back in the near future, I would however, go to Side Wok when I want to have Sushi, even though they have a limited variety, it’s more value for money than the rip-off joint called the Taj Hotel!

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The PERFECT LASAGNA

I know that often when I go out to dinner, my dad and brother have this odd habit of wanting to eat lasagna and very often when they order it they get a heavy lump of mushy goop on their plate which masquerades as lasagna! And every time they look at it unappetizingly I constantly comment on how it’s a delicate art getting lasagna right and how not too many restaurants can because the level of attention to detail is immense when making a bake!

So since I always make comments on how lasagna is not everybody’s cup of tea, they decided to challenge me in a sense. So on a Sunday which was mundane and nothing exciting was planned (I’d say the average Sunday like every other), my dad asked me to lasagna! And I said ok! Why not?! So I decided to finally to give all Italian food restaurants a run for their money! And guess what, I have! I don’t mean to gloat (too much) but I have never had better Italian food than the stuff I make at home!

So coming back to my PERFECT LASAGNA, the ingredients needed are-

For the Bolognese sauce-
Chopped garlic – lots of it! (Though 6-8 cloves would be enough, but I love garlic so I ended up using almost 15 cloves!)
500 gms – Mutton (mince)
2-3 boxes - Tomato Puree
2 tomatoes made into paste (you need fresh ingredients as well!)
2 onions made into a paste
1 cup Fresh Holy Basil (the more the merrier)
½ cup Fresh Parsley – chopped (preferably flat leaf, but any kind will do)
5-7 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt to taste
2 tsp pepper
Red chilies (optional)
Sun dried tomatoes – 3-4 finely chopped
Sugar – 2-3 pinches

For the Cheese sauce –
Fresh cream – 1box
Parmesan cheese – 2 cups
1/4th cup - milk
Salt to taste
Pepper – 1 tbsp
Fresh Parsley chopped – 1 tbsp
Mushrooms (optional)
Garlic (optional)

Lasagna sheets – 3 per person (approx)
12 for 4 people (I doubt you can eat more than that in one sitting!)

For the Garnish-
1 tomato
Some basil leaves
Parmesan cheese
Mozzarella cheese

•    So for the Bolognese sauce, fry the mutton with garlic and let it cook for 15 minutes.
•    In a separate pan add all the ingredients for the Bolognese sauce till the water from the tomatoes evaporates. And then add to the meat sauce and let it cook for another 10-15 minutes. (Same amount of cooking time for meat and tomatoes). Taste to see if anything is missing, or needs to be added.
•    In a bowl, mix the cream with milk and parmesan cheese and add salt, pepper and parsley. If using the mushrooms, sauté them with a bit of olive oil and garlic till they cook 3/4th way, then add to the cream and cheese mixture. Again, taste a little to see if everything is perfect! 
•    Heat a pan of water and let it come to a boil. Pour it into a flat dish and lay the lasagna sheets into it for 2-3 minutes.
•    Grease a baking dish with olive oil and lay down the first layer of lasagna sheets.
•    Pour over the Bolognese sauce and press down (with a spoon) to spread evenly.
•    Then add another layer of lasagna sheets and add a layer of the cheese sauce.
•    Alternate till you reach the top of the dish.
•    Top the dish with grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese and garnish with sliced tomato and fresh basil leaves.
•    Cover with a foil.
•    Bake at 300-350 degrees (or the highest setting) for 20-25 minutes (or till the cheese turns slightly brown).
•    Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes.

Voila! The PERFECT LASAGNA!

One quick tip – constantly tasting the food makes you aware of what’s missing or there in abundance.
If you add too much salt or spice, the way to balance it out is by adding a bit of sugar and sum water. And in some cases some more tomato paste (if tomato paste is being used in the cooking process).

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So since the IPL had been on for the last month or so, movies had just stopped coming out in the theatres. I mean I can’t really recall the last movie I saw in the halls before the IPL began! Anyway, to break this “dry period” I went to see “99”.

The cast of 99 consists of Kunal Khemu, Soha Ali Khan, Cyrus Brocha, Boman Irani, Vinod Khanna and Mahesh Manjrekar.

The movie is set in 1999 where these two guys Sachin (Kunal Khemu) and Zaramud (Cyrus Brocha) have a business of duplicating SIM cards and are trying to escape getting caught by the police. To escape, they steal a Mercedes which unfortunately belongs to this bookie in Mumbai – AGM (Manjrekar). He hires them to collect money from the guys who place bets on cricket matches. They are sent to Delhi to collect the money from this Rahul character (Irani) who has an addiction to gambling. They ultimately end up befriending him, but that’s later. This Rahul guy is already indebted to this guy called Kuber who has the funniest sidekick- Dimple! So when they come to Delhi, they stay in a big fancy hotel and meet Pooja and Sachin falls in love with her. With some scheming and some conning and some more running around they manage to get all the money which they owe AGM and live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, at the end of the movie, I couldn’t decide whether movie was more pointless than boring or more boring than pointless! The acting is good and they have portrayed the characters well, but the story seemed to drag on and on and on. I started looking at my watch right after the first 20 minutes ended. The comedy is forced and the scenes are far too long and stretched. Even the bad mockery they made of people talking in bad English was odd and pointless. The first time it happened it was funny, but after that it just felt so futile.

Maybe because they have so many stories running side by side or maybe they don’t have a strong enough star cast to keep the audience’s attention, either way I felt that these were those 2 hours of my life I would definitely not be getting back.

It was so bad that the only thing I found cute was that Kuber guy and that big goon of a man whose name was “Dimple”!

They made some stereotypical comments about Delhi in the movie like how every second girl’s name is either Neha or Pooja; how Delhi boys drive around with their windows rolled down with the music playing very loud etc.

I also noticed that whoever did the costumes was unaware of the time period this movie is set in because the clothes, shoes and styles that everyone was wearing was very 2008-09 and nothing about them was even remotely 1999!

Movie isn’t worth a watch. If you haven’t seen it yet, good! Wait for Angels and Demons!

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One of the most awaited movies of this year has finally hit the screens, unfortunately there are just a handful number of screens that are playing the flick because PVR does not figure on that list! Anyway, since the book was captivating and was one of those un-put-downable-books I had read, I knew that I had to watch both Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons when they came out. Sure enough, after finding out that PVR had not released them at any of their halls, I went ahead and bought tickets at 3C’s.

The movie is absolutely brilliant. I mean the book was awesome and absolutely fantastic, the movie has definitely done justice to the book! I’m sure I don’t need to go into the details of the story and or even need to introduce anyone to the concept of the movie, since Dan Brown’s books became a worldwide phenomenon to almost cult (if I can be so brave as to call it that)!

The plot - The Pope and a Scientist by the name of Leonard Vettra are murdered (simultaneously) and one of Vettra’s recent research projects is stolen from his lab in Geneva. The Camerlengo (the priest who is the closest to the Pope) calls Vittoria Vettra and Robert Langdon for help. Robert Langdon, in spite of his unfavourable relationship with the Vatican is called since he’s an expert of the subject. And Vettra is not only a colleague of Leonardo Vettra, but also his daughter. Upon arriving they are informed that the Preferitti – the favourable candidates for the next Pope – have been kidnapped, and the kidnapper claims he belongs to an old controversial secret society called “The Illuminati”. The Illuminati were men of science who believed that the theories propounded by the church were inaccurate and misleading, and believed it their duty to enlighten the world. Unfortunately the hold of the church was so strong that they were forced to repress their ideas from becoming public knowledge and had to leave behind clues for unveiling the truth to those who seek it without the knowledge of the Church.

The Anti-Matter that was stolen was a research project that could prove genesis as it involves the creation of (as stated) anti-matter (a creation that can either bind science and religion or cause the downfall of the church). The Anti-Matter needs to be stored in a vacuum canister which is battery operated and if the battery dies, so does the vacuum which will cause the anti-matter to come into contact with matter and cause an explosion which can annihilate an area as large/ small as the Vatican. This anti-matter is hidden somewhere inside the premises of Vatican city (because a wireless camera is transmitting it’s image to the security office) and the battery will die by midnight.

The search begins when Langdon requests a visit to the Vatican archives where in one of the banned books written by Galileo the ‘Path of Illumination’ is revealed (I love this poem!) – From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole, ‘cross Rome the mystic elements unfold. The path of light is laid, the sacred test, let angels guide you on your lofty quest’. Santi is Raphael and hence they reach Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon, because that to a church designed by him. Where bear witness to the corpse of the first murdered and branded cardinal with anagrams of the mystic elements, namely-earth, air, fire and water.

Langdon and Vettra are in a race against time where not only do they need to solve the mystery of the Illuminati’s ‘Path of Illumination’ but also rescue the kidnapped cardinals and secure the Anti-Matter canister before it obliterates the Vatican and the cardinals inside.

Tom Hanks is incredible and looks great, Ewan McGregor looks like he’s actually in his late twenties! (I do not know who the rest of the cast is because I haven’t seen any of their other movies so I shall not comment on their work with respect to their prior projects).

When reading the book Angels and Demons there were a lot images that I could not bring to life and when the illustrated versions came out, there were, still, a few things that were missing, but the movie not only completes those incomplete images, it also brings to life the situations that I had imagined, how they would look like. I had read both Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code when they came out in 2004 and was lucky enough to get an opportunity to visit Italy. I went all over Rome attempting to follow the book and the places mentioned, but watching them unfold on the big screen was a thrill next to no other!  Also because the Church where they find the first cardinal was under renovation back then (so we couldn’t go inside) and it still was stil under renovation in the movie! The second marker was at the Vatican and visible to all. The third one – Fire – was in a church which unfortunately was also under renovation. The fourth one was out in the open at the fountain.

Ron Howard is an incredible director who has captured the essence and portrayed the story just as any reader could have imagined. There are very few directors who can do that to books, but I’m glad that this one is not a disappointment. Giving this movie 5-stars cannot even begin to describe how good it is. I admit that there are a few things that are fast paced and almost rushed, but even the book Angels and Demons is extremely racy and one needs to be fully alert when reading it!

The running time is roughly 2 &1/2 hours, the movie will keep you captivated throughout, at least I was enthralled throughout! I loved the movie and am definitely interested in watching it again!

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Ok, so we’ve all read all the classic fairy tales such as Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty etc. what I am about to do will piss a lot of you off, but today I’m morbid and there is only a gathering of dark clouds above my head with not even a speck or silver, let alone an entire lining!

So we’ve all come across the clichéd ending of “…and they all lived happily ever after.” I would like to know, is there really such a thing as a happily ever after? In my opinion the reason that these endings are sugar coated is because, little children have to be shielded from such harsh realities of life because it’s too early for them to get traumatized! I mean Cinderella and Prince Charming got married, why does the story end there? Why not go on and tell us about how they became fat and fought and or had money trouble? Ok, he was royalty, so money trouble might have been less.

Then Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, she went off and married the prince, what about them? Did they get anything in return for helping her out? I mean she could have easily taken them with her to her castle and made them a part of the king’s court or given them some money or done something nice for them, but nooooooo little miss Snow White only  had brains to think of herself and so she got out of the glass coffin and strode off with the Prince!

And now we have Prince Charming (I think that’s what his name was as well) who had absolutely no issues what-so-ever kissing Sleeping Beauty, who I might add, slept for ages and didn’t wake up with ‘Morning breath’??? I don’t know what’s more shocking, that she slept for all those years and woke up without morning breath, or the fact that he actually kissed her in spite of her having morning breath!

Every fairy tale in every form is misleading. And for some reason, they’re made in a way that they give hope to the audience that tomorrow will be brighter and will probably be better than today, when in reality, the grass is as green or as yellow on any side. We can either take it in our stride or find a way of escaping it in a bottle full of alcohol or maybe a joint or two!

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