I picked up my bib and a bag of goodies ( these were really a bag of goodies; probably recovered my entry fee from the stuff in the bag itself!) from the Expo Centre, at the World Trade Centre, Cuffe Parade.

I was just about to leave the WTC when I encountered a huge crowd oohing and aahing. It turned out that John Abraham (the Bollywood film star) had just arrived to promote the Mumbai Marathon. I caught a glimpse of his bald spot as he was presenting his rear having gone past. (That raises an interesting question: Why do our film stars not bother to cover their rear bald spots?)

I backtracked so that I could click a picture of John Abraham on the podium with my antique phone camera!

Good luck if you can make out John!

I did not wait to hear what he or the sponsors had to say! I do not believe I missed much.

On the way to VT , encountered a young woman (girl?) wearing a tee that read “I’m insane! What’s your excuse?” My riposte “I’m sane in an insane world! That’s my excuse!”

I caught 3 Idiots, the Aamir Khan starrer  at New Empire. Remember New Empire? The movie was good, entertaining in parts, hilarious in parts. But I think it paints a very sorry picture of our education system. There’s an interesting article in today’s HT that talks about the movie. In my opinion, the movie is more about Rancho , than anything else. Also , Rancho , in the end, turns out to be a brilliant scientist, who owns more than 200 patents. Hey, wake up, no single individual without a nurturing environment such as a University, an R&D department funded by a firm, can hope to file so many patents. Patent filing is a time-consuming process and a huge headache. In this day and age, more patents are filed by teams of individuals and IBM is the leader with the no. of patents it creates every year. There are some indictments of our education system that ring true; But until we have more choice as to the kind of careers students can choose from, this is going to remain an endemic problem. So more power to the private institutions, they’re doing their bit even though it may be at the expense of harried parent’s pocketbooks!

So if you wish to draw some lessons from the movie, it should be how can you make an entertaining movie like this or better? Aamir’s plea for a waiver of the entertainment tax for this movie seems to have its  basis more in wishful thinking  than in substance!

Have a good day!