kaal

The cover of the movie says "There has never been a horror movie quite like this one". They're right!

From the beginning it follows the typical Indian movie formula of dancing and singing. Then it drops into the movie. Its unclear to me (having watched it) if its a horror or a satire (of even a kind of comedy?). Well its been done before, but movies like Evil Dead were at least funny!

This is not quite a movie review and not quite spoilers, but since Kaal is not quite a horror movie, nor not quite a comedy then I figure that this is OK

In Kaal is quite a strange movie, I suspect that the joke is only known to those who have visited india and been pestered by people wanting to be your guide (like at the Taj Mahal or indeed any indian monument) ohh ... perhaps I've given away the ending already.

The movie was reduced to 69 rupee (about €1) which is pretty cheap by anyones standards, but then hey, this is a cheap movie.

Without a doubt, my vote for best actor in the entire film goes to the monkey. I realise he's only a supporting role, but he appears in a few places. Perhaps its best to think of him as just another person, or perhaps (better yet) think of the entire production as being a monkeys?

Anyway ...

One of the theme's of the movie is illegal hunting, naturally one the characters quiclky outs himself as a "keen hunter" (and pulls a .22 caliber semi auto pistol out of his pants). Right ... you'll be doing lots of big game hunting with that! So, anyway, later in the movie he takes the "jeep off into the Jungle" to do some hunting. Mysteriously he comes across some white bunny rabbits in the middle of the jungle.


With a grin on his face of "I've found game" he pulls out his .22 pistol and heads off in pursuit.


Right about now I'm wondering ... is this movie pulling the piss or are they on drugs?

It gets worse .... as the director introduces the 'fake' tension scenes. Like this one; the "hunter" has just mysteriously slipped (on a rock) and been pulled down into this valley by some mysterious force (gravity it seems works). After picking himself up he is standing before the camera sweating with tense music building ... slowly a straining hand reaches from his right ...


then with a crescendo we find ...


its his own hand. WTF?

I don't know if the director is attempting to pull the piss out of horror movies, insult the intelligence of the audience, or is the director genuinely that dumb himself.

Anyway, their guide gets killed, and everyone wants to go home. So off they drive and get held up by a 'freak' landslide blocking the road. From out of nowhere comes Kaal ...




he'd saved them from tigers before (when their guide got them stuck) by appearing from nowhere, again he appears from nowhere and offers them help.

This (I suspect) is where the horror is. You see, when you walk about in parks or famous monuments like Red Fort in Agra, you get pestered by people wanting to 'guide you'. It starts out at 300 rupee, then gets dropped down to as low as 100 or "pay me as you like" when you keep saying no. Then (eventually) the sting comes at the end. We had one fellow who tried a cunning adaptation on this and said "no, I don't take any money, this is my duty!" (at first). Then after showing us around he wanted to take us one more place (around the corner) mumbling about showing us a hidden secret. When we refused he then demanded to be paid "as you like" for his services.

you should have seen his face when I offered him 1 rupee :-)

So anyway ... I won't spoil this with the ending, just keep the pestering guides in mind when you watch the movie. There is the real 'horror' of this movie.

desperate and pointless

you know, I really will have to condemn the Australian to being a rag ... just how did this make it into the newspaper? Not to mention why did police bother with it in the first place.

No jail for dope-dealing monk


I mean when you read the details, facts such as:

• the Guy is 63 years old
• He was caught selling $10 worth of the drug
• A police search of the premises uncovered further stashes of 63.7g and 19.5g of cannabis, as well as "other paraphernalia such as plastic bags"
• he has medical issues which cause him to seek pain relief
  

Say what ... he had how much?

Yep, a total of zero point zero nine kilograms (0.09Kg), talk about a major bust. Wow and plastic bags too (I bet they were zip seal too ;-)

I wonder how many officers were involved in that?

Perhaps I've been in Europe too long. I know the law is the law, but come on guys, haven't you got anything better to do than hassle some old monk for a tiny bit of dope? (evidently not)

central planning or free market?

I was just reading the Australian (I know, again ...) and found this pearl of wisdom

Charge more for guzzlers

well gosh, isn't that what rising petrol prices are doing?

While building an argument for his ultimate point "The most effective ways to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions over the long term seems to be to introduce mandatory vehicle fuel consumption legislation"

but then he reminds us that: "The US has tried to regulate vehicle fuel consumption since 1975 through its federal corporate average fuel economy legislation for new vehicles in each manufacturer's fleet."

So he makes clear how central regulation has failed before. But if at first you don't succeed try try again .. right? Well I guess that's good news for increasing administration overheads but bad news for innovation and free markets.

It seems that noone recalls how effectively we've seen centralised planing fail in our own past let alone existing examples. Heck, even the last bastions of centralized planning (Soviet Union, Peoples Republic of China) are moving towards a freer economic basis.

It all seems to drive on the punishment principle ... charge us more and we'll stop. Pitty the economy in general is so linked to transport, we'd all want our bread and milk to cost more wouldn't we now...

then the next stunner "This would only decrease fuel consumption and greenhouse gases by a miserable 1 per cent to 2per cent in the short term and can be compared with the 30 per cent reduction in fuel consumption if traffic on stop-start arterial roads is transferred to uninterrupted travel on new freeways"

I lived in Tokyo for over 2 years and (coming from Australia) was quickly weaned of car dependence and moved onto the excellent (and well used) public transport systems that exist there. Small streets when navigated by bicycle or foot were able to carry more people per meter/minute than the same streets crammed with (apparently parked) cars, no matter how 'fuel effective' they may be on test tracks. Ohh and road trauma is markedly reduced as a side effect when people are just walking / public tranporting / cycling on inner city roads.

Perhaps if the direction of policy was to drive alternatives that were cheaper and or more effective, such as (gosh) effective public transport or preventing unnecessary car traffic in city centers we might actually give up using fuel guzzling cars and 4WD's (really meant for getting you to camping locations or outdoor work) to take the kids to school.

As I see it, if government would become proactive in fostering and perhaps facilitating for alternatives, rather than spanking us for not having alternatives we might get somewhere.

I guess that Nanny isn't good at being a forward thinker.

---

On a side note the author makes the point: "Further vehicle regulations have reduced car emissions to 10 per cent of those in the 1970s."

Right, well I guess it depends on which specific tunnel vision you have on emissions, last I looked CO2 was a significant emission.

For example, our 1979 volvo 2.4L6 cylinder diesel station wagon uses 6L/100Km, yet a mates latest model Volkswagen 1.9 turbo diesel 4cylinder diesl station wagon uses 5L/100Km.

So tell me agin how we're emitting only 10% of the complete emission set (like CO2)? We've barely reduced those emissions to about 75%, or by 25%. Far less impressive.

So its lies, bloody lies then statistics ....

The next worthy statement is: "with the deadly 10 micron particulate emissions reducing from 1.1gm/km in 1990 to less than 0.1gm/km now" wouhh ... deadly ... gosh! Lucky Nanny is looking after me.

Well recent research seems to be showing that the filters are resulting in even smaller particles (which aren't legislated for) which have even more serious health effects, not to mention increased fuel consumption on filtered vehicles.(wiser people suggest that its more complex: "It becomes more and more obvious that the mass of the particulates may not be the most relevant index of exposure since the health effects are probably more linked to surface properties of the particles or to their number than to their weight.")

Aren't you glad we've moved forward there ... good one central planning, and thanks so much for looking after our interests there Nanny.

Hotel near Amber Fort

Of the places and hotels we stayed in, the one which I liked the most was near Jaipur called Amer View (no idea why not Amber view ... perhaps it was taken?)

While nothing much to distinguish it from the outside; the interior decoration, quality of rooms,
nice bathrooms and friendly staff were a nice change. As an Australian (and my partner is a Finn) tipping is not something customary. To us, the whole idea is just an indication that staff are not paid properly and need to pester visitors for a proper salary.

Here at Amer view we didn't get the "hanging around like flies" type of staff to carry your bag for 5 feet then stick their hand out for money. Sure, people helped and were friendly, but quickly turned off to go about other business before we could even think about getting money out (having been conditioned into tipping for meaningless tasks already)

One of the nice things there was the roof top dining (not really a restaurant, but the kitchen was up there too). It was refreshing to have dinner up there in the (relatively) cool breezes and enjoy the views of the town at night.

The food was well priced and the Kingfisher was cold!

Not much more that you can ask for after a days walkin around in the heat if you ask me. Well ... now that I mention it ... relief from the heat would be nice. I makes eating a big meal (and the food certainly deserved it) harder.

The interior was nicely (but sparsely) decorated with paintings of Rajasthan culturally significant icons.

Because of our "package tour", knowing the actual prices of the hotel is nearly impossible to guage. This is annoying as why shouldn't (as a consumer) I have some idea what things cost?

Actually this point is a common issue in India, hotels regularly seem to list one price on their WWW sites, but charge another when you walk up (or call from a local Indian mobile) and ask for the prices.

Back to the Hotel, the views from the roof top both day and night are great. Walking around the local area (up towards the fort) was not only visually, but filled with all sorts of great small food and fresh vegetable markets.

I really wish we'd spent more time here ....




So, if you go to Jaipur, I recommend this place to stay!