Acting Shacting

the list includes only male actors, and a separate list will be devoted to actresses. the actors including aren't including solely on the basis of their acting skills, but also for the quality of their work. and sometimes, even more so for the quality of their work.

vinay pathak: dasvidaniya is an epic film, and most of the credit lies with pathak. bheja fry is a 'copy' of a french film, but that shouldn't take too much away from pathak's performance. even when he's doing a smaller role e.g. in khosla ka ghosla, pathak just hooks the audience onto him. he's made quite a few films that he had no business being in, but he still deserves to make the list.

paresh rawal: absolute genius. especially when he teams up with priyadarshan. baburao ganpatrao apte is a legend. and for once, hearing a man say "jai maharashtra" is profoundly funny.

abhay deol: certainly a debatable entry. but from the choice of his films, especially manorama and oye lucky, one can safely say that the man isn't a sellout. he's a thinking actor trying to bring worthy stories, told innovatively, to the screen.

anupam kher: some very good performances in the recent past. wednesday, khosla ka ghosla, maine gandhi ko nahin maara.

naseeruddin shah and om puri: while they're recent performances don't compare to their films of the 70s and 80s (nishant, mirch masala, bazaar, ardh satya, the list goes on) they're still rolling out performances where u can't imagine another actor filling their shoes once you've seen the film (a wednesday,rang de, yuva, maqbool,iqbal, etc)

aamir khan: mostly for his recent work post (and including) dil chahta hai. lagaan. rang de basanti. taare zameen par. earlier commendable works include 1947 earth, sarfarosh, ghulam and rangeela.

sanjay dutt: it's hard to include sanjay in the list without including arshad warsi. he makes the list for his performances in vaastav and lage raho (not the first munnabhai). for the simple reason, that no other actor could pull off those performances and still retain their image of 'dil ka bhala insaan' that he holds in our eyes. the man possessed an ak-56 that salem gave him, and yet we still love sanjubaba and just wish he were innocent. that says a lot about the work he's done (naam,sadak,etc). his obsession with the don/bhai character can be a drag at times.

pankaj kapoor: this was the easiest name to include. although we'd seen him in jaane bhi do yaaron (alongside both naseer and om) we didn't see the man's immense talent reach its full potential before we saw him alongside them again in maqbool. office office, karamchand, and zabaan sambhal warrant his inclusion as well. halla bol isn't a great film but pankaj kapoor is around for the few worthy scenes. the blue umbrella is a sweet film that kids should definitely watch.

questons: should shreyas talpade make the list? he was very good in iqbal, sublime in sajjanpur, and has even starred in a big box office sell out (om shanti om).

should nana patekar? the man makes this list because he is an institution in himself. without him, indian standup would be lacklustre and sunil pal would not be funny.

should atul lulkarni? for range de, chandni bar and hey ram?

kay kay menon deserves to be on the list if we judge the actor on his ability to choose films. and roles. he is best when he underplays. his weaknesses are only revealed in his superfluous performances, and a good director would do well to cut his performances down a notch (e.g. editing out the scene when dukey bana is alone in the frame, screaming into the camera makes menon's performance as good as any other. leaving it in, rated his performance below mumbai meri jaan and hazaaron)

should hrithik? for the sincerity with which he acts. and for lakshya, mission kashmir and fiza.
amitabh shouldn't make the list, because including him would require me to include shashi kapoor, and dilip kumar, amjad khan and so on.

Xavier's Quiz

Barry O'Brien is an epic and pompous bore, but two people that share his last name have given more to quizzing than most Calcuttans. My guess is that the questions that make you doubt your 'Xaverian-ness,' largely due to the man's inability to comprehend that time is not static and his utter lack of humour, are compiled by Bartholomew (I don't really know if that's his name, but I think it suits his massive 'jawler-tanki' frame), and the ones that leave you feeling you've learnt something more about a place you cherish are by Neil.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090122/jsp/calcutta/story_104264522.jsp

Malnutrition in India

Someone famously said that in India for whatever is true, the opposite is also true. However, in certain cases, truths simply don't have opposites. Every once in a while, I learn something about the people of the nation that leaves me convinced that the popular mainstream narrative about India's 'success' leaves much to be desired. The country has grown at at least 7% or more for almost all of the past decade, and that is approximately the amount of time that it takes an economy to double at that growth rate.

Yet, according to World Bank estimates, 456 million Indians (42% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of $1.25 per day (PPP). The Planning Commission puts the figure at 27.5% (2005), an improvement from 36% (1994) a decade earlier.

This means that the collective income of 27% of India i.e. 300 million people (about the population of the U.S.) in 2005 was less than $137 billion (PPP). In the years between 2000 and 2004 alone, the economy expanded by $1228 billion. Hence, if these 300 million people had started with $137 billion in 2000, and had received 1/9 (11 %) of the $1228 billion increase in income, then their collective income could have doubled!

Even those who are aware of these figures, and have grown up in pockets of relative economic stability surrounded by urban poverty (like myself), the face of abject rural poverty is one they have only seen in films, read in books, or caught fleeting glimpses of in real life. If Bangalore is the flagship of India's 'success,' then the body, hearts, and souls in this New York Times Slideshow, are certainly emblematic of the nation's collective 'failure.'

Attached below is a graph of the rate of poverty alleviation in India over the past 30 years as calculated by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation. And here is the link to the NYTimes article that accompanied the slideshow.