Newsletter

NEWSLETTER

15th July 2006

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SCHOOL WATCH

Monday 3rd July - School reopens
Monday 10th July - Class 4 began preparation for overnight stay at Agra
Wednesday12th July - Class 9 display flash animation
Thursday 13th July- Science essay prize
Friday 14th July - Class 7 display flash animation

Sport - Movie of the Season

The greatest summer the history of sport has ever seen. This is a fact and it stands undisputed. A summer which encompassed the French Open, closely followed by Wimbledon, interspersed with Formula One racing, backed up by non-stop, thrilling cricket and dominated by football at the highest level. The very fact that we had the finals of the football world cup on the same day as the finals of Wimbledon is testament to how closely packed this summer truly was. Not to detract at all from Federer’s flawless and stellar performance, for winning Wimbledon 4 years in a row is a feat enjoyed by a mere handful of tennis greats, but considering the football world cup only happens every 4 years it did take centre stage.
I’m sure many of you were in the same predicament that I was in, that of fluctuating between Star Sports, ESPN and Ten Sports in order to get a glimpse of all the action. I’ve always wondered what it is exactly that compels us to watch grown men or women take out each other on live television. The fact of the matter is, that sports is probably the most absorbing, self-satisfying and holistic “movie” ever made, not to mention the best directed. It has all the ingredients to keep us glued to the television, be it tragedy, elation, conspiracies, courage, bravado, aggression, disappointment and all the emotions that constitute the perfect plot. At some distant level we also seem to connect with the “story”, perhaps not in a relatable way but because it deals with human emotions and feelings. From the massive pull of Sharapova, the allegations against Juventus, Schumacher’s attempt at retribution or the underdogs in the form of the world cup winning Italy.It’s the complete package, a telling story that can swing either way with some really attractive actors and actresses, and all the emotions, passion and twists that fascinate and enthral the masses.
So here’s to a summer of complete, absolute entertainment, in the hope that we might see something reminiscent of this in the near future.

By Arjun SriHari. (12)

HAIR DO’S AND DONT'S

I stand before you today not as Nakul Dev, but as a representative of all my brothers, all my “bromies,” every student of Vasant Valley School with an Adam’s apple, who has been forced to chop off long locks of hair, massacre his own keratin, destroy his dreadlocks, give up his goatee, finish of his French beard or shave his soul. I stand before you not in contempt or in the spirit of a rebellious teenager, but for what I believe is right. I stand for reason. Like many of you, I’ve been through it all. Told off a million times by a million and one different teachers (including some in very high places) about the length of my mane, threatened with the good ol’, “If you don’t get your hair cut by tomorrow Nakul Dev, I swear to god I’ll cut it all off myself”, sent to the barber during school hours and even made to make unaesthetic alterations to my facial hair once every now and then. The reason we are provided with every single time, without fail is that it makes us look tidy and respectable as opposed to someone off the street.
So here is my question to all who propagate this heinous crime against humanity. Is the president of our nation not tidy and respectable? His hair is of a questionable length, yet he seems to look nothing like someone picked up from the street. And what about the legendary Bhagat Singh? His facial hair would have gotten us all expelled. Yet he seems to be pretty widely respected. My point here is simple. It is our actions that determine whether we are respectable and decent human beings, not the length of our hair. Another reason why I think that the youth of our school should be allowed to choose the way they look is the age old argument of individuality versus conformity. Our school is one which prides itself on developing young, thinking individuals, each unique and special in his or her own way. Then why should we all be made to look the same when we are all so obviously different and inimitable? At the age of sixteen and seventeen years, should we all not be considered responsible enough to choose the way we want to look and present ourselves to the world? There is another very important observation that I made. This summer, as soon as we were under no compulsion of cutting our hair and were given the freedom to grow it, many of us went bald. This may seem very strange to the untrained eye, but in sooth it is the fundamental Psychological concept of reverse psychology. It is the fault of our rebellious teen hormones that make us want to go against the system, which in this case tells us to have hair of a particular length. Once we are given the freedom to grow our hair to whatever lengths we deem fit, the adrenalin rush experienced at disobeying rules will be taken away from us and a good 90 % or so would decide that they don’t really want long hair and a beard after all. (It’s difficult to manage and makes you feel hotter than the sun in summer). So basically, if we are allowed to grow our hair, we won’t want to so bad. It may sound silly, but it isn’t. It really isn’t. So my suggestion is this, let the kids let their hair down (pardon the pun), let it hang to our ankles and let us grow ‘Osama’ beards. Not because we want to, but because it’s our actions that deem us decent and not our appearances, because it will harbour creativity and individuality in our impressionable minds, and because if you let us do it, we really won’t want to so bad anymore. In parting I leave you with a few words from a very profound and famous song:

Imagine all the children,
With hair down to their knees,
Imagine all the young boys,
Free to grow goatees,
Imagine there’s no barber,
It’s easy if you try,
No fear for us to harbour,
Let the facial hair lie
Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhair.

By Nakul Dev (12)

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The Bible Code

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end”
-Book of Daniel 12:4

In 1994, an Israeli mathematician sent a letter to the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin saying that he had discovered a hidden code in the Bible that appeared to reveal the details of events which took place thousands of years after the Bible was written. The reason he sent this letter to him was because the only time the Prime Ministers full name appeared in the Bible (or Torah as it is called in the Middle East), the words ‘assassin that will assassinate’ crossed his name.”

The atheist and fatalist Prime Minister ignored the warning. On November 4th 1995, came the terrible confirmation of the code. A shot in the back from a man who believed he was on a mission from God. The murder was encoded in the Bible 3000 years before it actually happened.

It is not only this incident. The Gulf War, Clinton’s win in the Presidential elections, Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, the World Wars, and even terrorist attacks, with the exact dates and locations are all encoded in the Bible.

Isaac Newton tried to figure it out, but he failed, as is predicted in the Book of Daniel. The time of the end or the year 2000 as was also predicted by Jesus Christ (this was eventually found to be the end of the Age of Aquarius which had been going on for the past 4000 years). In the Book of Revelation, and in the Book of Daniel, there is a reference to a “sealed book” that can be opened only by the Messiah(a messiah, Kalki is also predicted in the Bhagvad Gita. He is said to be the tenth incarnation of Vishnu): “And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And no man in Heaven, nor in Earth, neither under the Earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.”

To find the code, Dr. Eli Rips, the Israeli mathematician, eliminated all the spaces between the words of the Bible, and turned the entire original Bible into one continuous letter strand, 304805 letters long. In doing that he was restoring the Bible into what according to legend is its original form which is how it is believed to have first been dictated to Moses by God “Contiguous, without break of words”. The computer searches this strand of letters for names, phrases, dates(by the Hebrew calendar), and words hidden by the skip code (Rips Expl AineD- Hidden message “READ”). It starts at the first letter of the Bible and searches for every possible skip sequence, words spelled even with skips of several thousand, and then it repeats the search starting from the second letter, and keeps searching until it reaches the last letter of the Bible. When it finds a phrase, it shows a crossword with the phrase in the centre of the matrix. By going on circulating the letters of the Bible, the computer can find hidden messages written 3000 years ago. Thus this entire “sealed book” was the Bible Code, with a time lock (it could only be opened with the invention of the modern computer).

It has been hypothesized that this God, who apparently read the Bible out to Moses, could have been a creature from a highly advanced race. If it was actually God the omnipotent who encoded these messages in the Bible, then why didn’t he just come and stop the apocalypse himself? He was obviously a wellwisher, though not omnipotent, thus giving us the close encounter with outside intelligence for which scientists have been looking for so many years.
The Bible Code is actually real, and that is something we know for sure, but whether or not God is real, is something we will never be able to tell for sure.

“The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent”
-Albert Einstein, 1955
By Kunal Datta (9)

The joys of being trapped in an airplane

Disclaimer: All events in this story are true. They may be fragments of various things that I have seen over the years combined together and might be a little over exaggerated but they are true.

So life continued as usual and the summer holidays dawned upon me. I spent my holidays desperately trying to finish my summer projects (Which im sure will be done by August) and evaporating in the heat. Anyway we (my family and I) decide to leave on a holiday to Malaysia. This trip went smoothly and I savored every minute of it knowing that soon I shall be back in the 100-degree heat. However nothing prepared me for the chaos to come…It all started on the flight back home. We didn’t get the tickets for Malaysian Airline so we had to travel on the infamous Air India (that’s not REALLY a bad thing actually) I find my seat (which is hard owing to the fact that I keep being led to the wrong one) and sit down. After everyone manages to shove their ten kg handbags into the overhead compartment they settle down and the flight lifts off. I put on my headphones hoping to drift of to sleep until the in-flight movie plays. The soothing tones of green day are suddenly interrupted by very odd wedding music. I look up and a family is singing and dancing in a way I am very familiar to. I groan in despair as I realize that the Indian wedding has followed me fifty thousand feet it the air. Suddenly a voice over the intercom tells everyone to sit down (which surprisingly they do) and we experience a few minutes of turbulence, which happens all the time. I start putting my headphones on again when a wailing voice from the first row cries out “ Ai ma rabba!! Mai to mar gayi..Bola tha gari mai ana tha !!! I see that an old lady is bawling her eyes out and the crew is trying to comfort her. At this point I decide to turn my headphones all the way to the top to block out the surrounding noise. After about half an hour I realize that the place has become amazingly quiet. I see bluffmaster playing on the screen in front of me and I understand why a sudden hush has spread. I plug my headphones into the given socket (Airplane headphones give me rashes) and begin to enjoy the movie. Everything goes well till the movie ends and then the cabin crew start serving the food. At this point everything goes absolutely haywire. A man starts arguing with the crew that he specifically “ordered” paneer tikka when he came on board and he is being served something else. The lady tries to reason with the man but is interrupted my a little child who wants to go to the bathroom. She tries moving her trolley out of the way but the man starts yelling again. This goes for about fifteen minutes and the child ends up wetting his pants. After eating a good meal (Even with the absence of paneer tikka it is quite nice) I dose off and when I wake up I realize that we are about half an hour away from I.N.A.
To be continued…. By Bhavik Singh (9)

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Bite of Bittersweet Bread

As a topic of conversation that appeals to all, “food” is the one thing that nourishes one’s body as much as knowledge nourishes one’s mind, and belief one’s soul. With caterers changing every month, we can hardly complain about the variety (or lack thereof), of our school lunch menu. Now and then, we actually get something edible to prelude our much sought after “dessert” which ranges from a delicate apple crumble to an overripe banana. And though unspeakable of, the amount of floating oil and butter (though thankfully not both together), has never really been the cause for violent student demonstrations. Overeducated simpletons like us might criticize excessively about our school food, but if an outsider voiced some of the same objections (though hopefully in a politer tone), we would react very much as a loving mother who was interrupted from breathing in the scent of her little prodigy’s thoughtful gift of roses, to be candidly informed that her little brat had been spoiling the neighbor’s rose garden. Soon we will reach the end of the hourglass hour that marks not how much time we have yet to spend in school, but the meager amount of sand signifying how much time is left instead.
Soon the endemic cynicism will evolve into nostalgia as we realize the bittersweet truth: that one day, we shall have to cook for ourselves.
By Samvida Nanda (XII)

The Notebook Girls

– the sisterhood of the traveling composition book
C2 Once again - and this seems to be becoming quite a habit with me - this is not a review, for the simple reason that I have not finished my reading of The Notebook Girls. Not because it bored me or anything. Nor was I hungry or sleepy. And the World Cup hadn’t started either. I put down the Notebook Girls by Julia Baskin, Lindsey Newman, Sophie Pollit Cohen and Courtney Toombs just about a minute ago, simply because I had to share with the world the joy of reading an original, entertaining, extraordinary, funny, refreshing piece of work. What initially made me want to read this book was the history behind it – the authors; four newly minted ninth graders entered Stuyvesant High School in New York City. So as to feel less intimidated, less alone, they bought a notebook and began taking turns to write in it – like a shared diary. They devised the notebook as a way to keep in contact when their conflicting schedules denied them each others company. The notebook also served as a much needed distraction during double period biology at 8 a.m. When one of their fathers learned of the idea, 2 years and several notebooks later, he saw potential for publication and contacted an agent.
The result: crafted to look like an actual notebook, down to its mottled black and white cover, the book is almost compulsively readable – a breezy, voyeuristic delight packed with the four friends’ true tales of their high school experiences. The girls’ handwritings, interspersed with doodles and photographs can be almost illegible.
The entire concept of diary-sharing means that the reader is very often exposed to four different points of view on the same issue. Although the content of the notebook is not always very intellectually profound, many entries are mature and insightful, traversing the typical American teenage girl terrain to tackle topics such as racism, sexism, sexual orientation and religion. Other resonating passages are those involving September 11th 2001, which looms large in the girls’ heads in part because they had to evacuate their school, which was mere blocks from the Twin Towers.
The Notebook Girls are four ordinary teenagers, each with her own ordinary teenage life and its issues – self confidence, acceptance, obsession, heartache, sexuality and loneliness. What’s extraordinary about them is the manner in which they mature, using the notebook not only to open up to their friends, but also to learn more about themselves. The notebook provides an atmosphere of completely uncensored thoughts and feelings, where the girls help each other deal with life’s injustices through advice, responses, and the most effective remedy, laughter.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my reading.
P.S. The authors recommend the book at ages 13 and above.
By Sara Chatterjee (9)

HOROSCOPES

Aquarius: Your dentist will turn out to be drunk right before your root canal. Hence, we suggest that you befriend a couple of the country’s best plastisc surgeons.
Pisces: Beware the ides of March and cloaked people with knives. Even if you’re not Julius Caesar, better safe than sorry.
Aries: This month planet Krypton reigns over your sign. You shall meet with a caped, tall, robusque young man who wears his underwear over his pants.
Taurus: You are going to have a rather depressing month so it is advisable that you read the book “Being a happy teenager” I promise it will change your life as it has ours.
Gemini: Beware of the hippopotamus with a stick up his nose. He is your evil twin.
Cancer: You shall awaken with a terrible zit right in the middle of your nose. If you don’t happen to have a bottle of that new Garnier pimple thingy, you will suffer the consequences. BUY SOME NOWWWW!!!!
Leo: You shall meet a man with no intellectual capacity, a rather ugly black cape and the ability to jump unnecessarily high. You shall unfortunately also fall head over heels for him.
Virgo: You will get a sty. Due to the excruciating pain, you will not be able to perform well in your math review. You will fail. MISERABLY. We’re talking PSR bad.
Libra: You will suffer from a terrible bout of Disco Fever. Whenever you close your eyes, all you will see is John Travolta in flared trousers and clogs, dancing the night away. We suggest, therefore, that you keep your eyes WIDE open.
Scorpio: Your childhood favorite Barbie / G.I.JOE shall fall of your balcony and its head will split. Inside it, you will find a key to the greatest treasure in the world.
Sagittarius: You shall kill all your Libran friends, as you cant stand the BeeGees. Or John Travolta. Or flared trousers & clogs, for that matter.
Capricorn: We decided not to write anything in this column as your life can’t get any worse…
By Bhavik, Sara, Vanshika, Ashrika, Anandini and Kunal (9)

Lighten Up!

List of ten things to do that will brighten your day:
1. Try saying a dialogue of a Spanish Soap Opera with a straight face.
2. Sing “ I will survive” on the top of your lungs in the shower and
tell your neighbours that it was your Mom instead.
3. Go for a swim and pretend to drown, and when somebody rescues
you, irritably explain to them that you were just practising your Yoga.
4. Call up your guidance counsellor and say that you have an identity
crisis, when he/she arrives, say that you mistook her number for the
Pizza Hut hotline.
5. Call the Pizza Hut hotline and say that you have an identity crisis
and under the guidance of Charter: 303 of the United Nations you
are entitled to a free pizza.
6. On every Monday, in the middle of the night jump up and switch on
all the bulbs in your house shouting, “ Let there be Light”
7. Ask people what they think of your nose and burst into tears if they
take more than 10 seconds to answer.
8. While your parents are reading the morning paper, badger them about
the necessity to dye your hair pink and how black/brown isn’t really
your colour.
9. Give important instructions in a foreign language (or gibberish, if
you don’t know a foreign language) and rant and rave at the person
who didn’t carry them out properly.
10. Just go out into the real world and help somebody expecting nothing
in return.
By Svati Goyal (12)

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GOLD FEVER

The two favourite football colours (at least till they got knocked out by ’les bleus’ who are the oldest team playing). Gold and blue. No, I’m not talking about Sweden, I am talking about Brazil, the ex-champions, ‘The country which has taken India by storm’. So popular are our South American friends that a village in Gujarat has been named after them. ’Little Brazil’ has painted its cows golden and blue. Still seem normal? Alright then, case number two. A statue of football legend Pele (now if you don’t know who that is stop reading this now and never show your face in public again) has been constructed in Bangalore. So just maybe, I think it’s fair to say Indians like Brazil. Now brace yourself all Brazilian fans. Brace yourselves as you shall now witness the harshest comment against you ever. ‘All those who support Brazil know nothing about football.’ Yes, you know I’m right. Now you must be saying I’m nobody to make a statement like that. You are absolutely right. But after living in England for five and a half years, in a country where football is religion, I have developed a love for the game. And to be honest, I do know quite a lot about it (quiz me if you dare). This time around something made me an Argentinia. Once I announced this to the world I was bombarded with comments from people ( who shall not be named...my life hangs in the balance) that Argentina is not a good team. Nothing when compared to the ‘mighty’ Brazil. Well my Brazilian supporting friends, in your face(s). Brazil have displaced England as favourites (the fact that both are now out of the cup tells us how good we are at telling favourites) but after watching both teams play this year I have to say that perhaps England were the better team. Ronaldinho barely got the ball. Now that’s only helping the other team. I for one feel the country should have got together and supported our Asian brethren like South Korea or Japan. Not that it would have happened (It’s all about the eyes). As I may have mentioned earlier, Brazil may just be popular.
By Akbar Iqbal (10)

HIMESH BESHARMIYA-An Epidemic

Do you notice that as you drive down the street car stereos blare his songs, when you go to your local grocer all the radio seems to play is him, as you watch a class act, He’s there! The omnipresent, the disease, the fear of all who have some hearing capacity is the one and only Himesh Reshamiyya (who my friends and I not-so-fondly refer to as animesh, don’t ask me why). With his nasal voice repetitive tune and lack of original lyrics his songs seem to be at the pinnacle of every music chart. The question is why? Are the masses of Indians (domestic and surprisingly foreign as well) so starved of music they can appreciate?. Is there actually such a dearth of talent that people actually pay to here nasal monotones delivered via a baseball cap adorned messiah? Or is it the case of mass identity wherein we can only identify ourselves only if there are a billion people like us. Is individuality out of the window and a clone-ish approach to life in? Till that question is answered we’ll still have to hear the nasal brays of Himesh resonate through the annals of the World.
Nivedita Venkateish (XII)

ZIZOU

When we don’t know what to do, we just give the ball to Zizou and he works something out.” – Bixente Lizarazu
It all began on the “Place Tartane”, amidst a little gathering of buildings, the kind of place where children play all afternoon until they hear their mothers screaming from the window that it’s dinnertime. One of those little squares where the only distraction happens to be the little boys and their football, their passes, their dribbles, and their goals. That’s where Zinédine Zidane entered the world of football for the first time.
They say that if any aspiring footballer must have dreams of achieving something, he cannot look beyond emulating the great Zizou. They call him one of the most skilful and technically gifted players in the game. They wail that the world is losing an artist, and a great talent, a man who has left his mark on world football.
Zidane, a determined, confident, and experienced footballer, ready to give his all to make his last game worth remembering left us on July 9th, his last move as a professional a shocking one. Yet, the world understood that a player as great as he deserved to be forgiven. And so he was. He left the world of professional football behind him with the Golden Ball as a memory of his talent, and his achievements.
France thanked him for all that he brought them, milling about the Champs Elysées, beneath the images of the player projected on The Arc De Triomphe, along with the words “Zizou, we love you”. It is important to note that as the son of Algerian immigrants who arrived in Paris before moving to Marseilles in the 1960s, Zinédine Yazid Zidane has had to fight oppression all his life. The severity of conditions he faced in the impoverished suburb of Marseilles, where he was born and raised ensured that life would be something of a battle for him. After all of this, instead of having the world look upon him with contempt, Zidane deserves to walk away from the world of football with honour, pride, and the love of his fans.
By Sara Chatterjee IX-B

It’s a Toon’s World

We’re sure that all of you have been told off when you were younger about watching cartoons. It has been an age-old suspicion that cartoons were created by Martians to make people dumber and thus lower Earth’s defenses so that we can become their slaves. But, despite what your parents tell you or what the Martians intend to do with you, there are cartoons that have been created for the uncomplicated amusement of children, age no bar. Many parents say that cartoons are not good for you. This is because, either parent is too busy to enjoy the simple but entertaining chaos that is Tom & Jerry, or, because they do not understand the comic genius that has been used to make only children understand. There are in fact many things we can learn from cartoons.
Our parents often complain that we will never learn what classical music is because we have never heard any. However, we beg to differ. The Looney Toons show, starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig etc., are considered to be constantly beating each other’s brains out, and that all we can learn is that Bugs Bunny always gets away & the Coyote always falls into the canyon. Actually, these cartoons feature classical music from world famous composers such as Mozart and Beethoven (even if it’s Bugs is the conductor). Toons teach us about the value of friendship, & continuously dish out morals that young eager minds of children absorb. Sure, sometimes there is mindless violence, but haven’t you noticed… kids like that!
Grandparents often say that children are not instilled with family values, or the importance of a united family. Once again, our learned elders are mistaken. Who hasn’t seen the heartwarming family cartoon that is the Flintstones? The love shown between Fred, Wilma, Dino and cute little Pebbles is comparable only to the neighborly affection with the Rubbles.
That’s not all cartoons are good for. I (Soumya) only spoke Hindi & Bengali till I was 4 years old. Then I went to England where I was exposed to Cartoon Network. And my parents happily reminisce about how it was the reason I learnt English.
So you see, cartoons aren’t all that bad. They are a part of being a kid, which should be included in every toddler/child/ or even adults’ life.
By Soumya Dasgupta and Jahan Nargolwala (10)

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Krrish

There were irritatingly long songs, plagiarized background music, childishly foolish end, and apparently all the stunts were a taken from Spider-Man, Matrix, Batman (We might have missed some names). Yet Krrish remains the highest grossing movie in the past six months.
Whatever may be your grudges against the movie, you have to credit some of the performances- Hrithik Roshan’s for example (though Priyanka Chopra was horrible and probably can’t get worse!). There was some comedy, some ancestral morals, a lot of romance, and an hour long stunts sequence, but how else do you make a three hour movie more interesting..
The stunts were shockingly realistic (after all he actually did them). Though all the stunts seemed to be a copy of some Hollywood movie, let’s celebrate the fact that the movie has introduced a new genre of cinema in Bollywood. We can hope for such movies to free us from the conventional, melodramatic romantic movies.
Now, there has to be a reason why Hollywood magazine like Variety have been mentioning Krrish, while Superman Returns s just round the corner; so whatever your friends or the newspapers may say, the movie is still worth a watch.
By Tarunima Prabhakar (10)

Superman Returns

Superman has returned, more powerful than ever and able to make the impossible possible. Once again, Lex Luther returns with a hankering for world domination and as usual no one can stop him except our very own superman. Hollywood newbie Brandon Routh is the new superman, along with the stalwart Kevin Spacey as Lex Luther (the antagonist), along with Kate Bosworth (Lois Lane) and James Marsden (Richard White) as supporting actors.
The movie’s plot has a good story for a base, but the director has not made the movie fast paced or crisp for an action movie, letting the story drag on and on. What the movie does represent is an evolution in cinematography and well-etched characters, and superman’s personal story of being humanity’s savior in face of evils that threaten their existence. The production values are par excellence. Clark Kent (a.k.a Superman) is the mild mannered journalist who has been in love with Lois Lane ever since he left 5 years ago to rediscover his past by traveling to the remnants of his home planet, only to return to find that she’s happily married to Richard White with a child. He manages to find a job with The Daily Planet once again. Meanwhile, Lex Luther has figured out how to use Kryptonite, and has unlocked the mysterious secrets that unveil a technology light years ahead of what humanity possess. With these crystals he would be able to do the impossible, the movie suggests that even superman would not be able to counter Lex Luther’s technology.
From saving airplanes, to listening to cries for help from outer space, superman pulls off the most extraordinary of feats. Bullets cannot harm him and lifting up space shuttles seems all too easy for him. The special effects are nothing short of spectacular and the portrayal and unfolding of superman’s character and story are handled well for most of the part. To be critical, the fact that superman has an uncanny resemblance to Clarke Kent and that he does not wear a mask to hide his face, makes it seem unbelievable that people aren’t able to recognize that Clark Kent is in fact superman (people cannot identify Spiderman to be Peter Parker as he wears a mask). The movie needs a good hour of editing; too many unnecessary dialogues and sequences make the movie sometimes a laborious experience to watch. Overall, a triumphant return for the world’s most famous super hero, and if you do not mind sitting through a long movie filled with superhuman feats check it out. Don’t be surprised if you step out when the credits roll wishing that it were only shorter.
By Samad Ali (12)

SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Is it a fat Mexican Wrestler? No, it’s Krrish!! Actually, it’s pretty much all of them flying into theatres this summer except the bird though (it just wasn’t famous enough to make the cut). This years movie line-up is definitely much more anticipated than all the rest.So if you’re an action fan, there’s plenty in store for you. If you’re a die-hard comic book fan then look no further, both X Men: the Last Stand and Superman Returns will not fail to surprise and definitely won’t disappoint the true comic fan. We would’ve mentioned Krrish in this genre but we felt it had a place in the comedy movies (what we don’t understand is why Hrithik Roshan has to be a superhero to do all the moves that a normal Hindi movie hero can do as a roadside Romeo). If you’re looking for something a bit more fast-paced, then The fast and the furious-Tokyo drift , Poseidon and Mission Impossible 3 are just the tickets. And truly the most anticipated movie of the year is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Moving on, if you’re looking for laughs, a few tear-jerking moments and a little bit of action then look out for the cutest animated movies yet, “Cars” (considered to be the summer’s best movie) and Over the Hedge are must-sees. If comedy is your movie staple, then order up some a la “Nacho Libre”- whose key ingredient for laughs is Jack Black. Don’t miss Click where Adam Sandler takes time into his own hands and if you like ‘chick flicks’ then watch Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway’s fashion wars in the Devil wears Prada. Also, watch the hand of fate strike Lindsay Lohan in the new film ‘Just my Luck’. No matter what your genre, no matter what your choice, there is a movie for you this summer. So, wear your stretchy red underwear over of your pants and get ready, its time for the movies.
Anandini Rathore, Kunal Datta Rhea Sadh &
Ashwath Srihari. (9)