Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching and Listening to the Week of My Father’s Birthday?

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Birthday week continues!  On and on and on and on.  Anyway, now it’s Wednesday, time to talk about what we are all consuming this week and so on!

I’ll start!

Reading: I am considering if it is now far enough into the winter for my traditional retreat to romance novels.  And if it has been long enough since I read Noble Intentions that I can reread it without remembering it too well.

Thinking: I’m visiting my sister!  For a flying little visit.  What movie should I make my brother-in-law watch?  Raid, or Gold?

Watching: Raju Ban Gaye Gentleman!  In preparing for Friday.  I’m piecing it out in little bits day by day.

Listening: Still on my “best of Shahrukh” playlist from his birthday week.  You know what soundtrack holds up surprisingly well?  Dilwale!

 

 

 

And, question for you!  Two questions really, you can answer one or both:

For Juhi’s birthday week, a Juhi question!  What kind of role would you like to see her in next?

For me, I think I want to see her come back in a comedy.  She always excelled at comedy, but she keeps being shoved into these “serious” roles now that she is older and works less.  A fun thing like, she and Shahrukh are principals of rival schools and keep playing pranks and competing until the local town threatens to shut down both schools and they have to work together.

 

And for just general advice, a Dog Hazel question: Christmas sweater or Santa hat, which would be cuter?

See, I already have a Christmas sweater, so we could match.  But on the other hand, I do like hats on dogs.  Obviously she only has to wear it for 30 seconds so I can take a picture to share with you all, I’m not gonna make her suffer in holiday wear all day.

65 thoughts on “Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching and Listening to the Week of My Father’s Birthday?”

  2. Reading: Is Noble Intentions a romance novel? Don’t recognize the title but they all run together for me. I’m reading Jenny Colgan’s Isle of Mure trilogy. On the second one now so that I can read the Christmas one before Christmas. Cozy UK women’s fiction always appeals to me in the winter, too.

    Watching: I saw Colette with Keira Knightly last night. It was a little slow and Keira Knightley basically gives the same performance in every film she does but the costumes were great and it made me want to read her novels someday.

    Thinking: how stressed I already am about holiday social engagements, shopping, etc.

    I’d pick Raid over Gold because I’ve seen Gold three times in the last week:)

    Juhi should be in any film where she has a normal adult romantic plot. No more sad wife or wacky fortune teller roles!

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    • Noble Intentions is Katie McAlister’s first book (I think), it came out years and years ago but I think it’s better than her more recent stuff and well worth tracking down a copy.

      I am also stressed about holiday social engagements etc! I am so glad I am doing a lowkey Thanksgiving so I have a whole nice 4 day weekend to get all my ducks in a row before the December insanity.

      I loved her as the wacky fortune teller in Kismat Konnection! But it was definitely a waste of her talents. I’d accept her as a wacky fortune teller who is the lead character and has a romance though.

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  3. I vote for Raid and Christmas sweater. I agree about the Dilwale soundtrack. I especially like Daayre.

    Juhi–I’d love to see her do a murder mystery series akin to Miss Fisher’s murders or The Mrs. Bradley mysteries. Where she’s a femme fatale who flaunts societies rules but gets away with it because she’s filthy rich and independent, and she defends the defenseless and solves murders on the way. With a great chauffer and/or butler, a keen junior assistant–also a woman–and lots of quirky friends from her adventures throughout India. (could be a great way to feature different regions, festivals, foods, music). You hear me, Netflix India? 🙂

    Thinking: our doggie has become quite ill quite suddenly, and we’re going to have to make some hard decisions in the next few days.

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    • I’d go with Juhi in a mystery series, but instead of a wealthy femme fatale, more a young widow starting a second career. Oh! Or divorcee (so it’s less sad)! Maybe she somehow ended up with a detective agency in the divorce? And she brings in her old bossy housekeeper (Kirron Kher) to help run it, and constantly clashes with the local police chief.

      And you are thinking such sad things!!!! Remember Shahrukh is always there for you if you need an escape from the world.

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      • How about a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency type scenario? What if she always wanted to be a detective but kept it a secret and stayed a demure traditional lady (never married? widowed or divorced young?). Then once her father dies she takes her inheritance and opens up her agency. And uses her super housewife skills (reading people, knowing all the local secrets, seeming innocuous so she can get close to the bad guys) to solve mysteries.

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        • That could work! Maybe she secretly read detective stories all her life as a housewife. And the police detective is at first irritated, but then falls in love as he sees how brilliant she is.

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          • I would prefer the widow idea…her husband has a private dedective agency in Mumbai and is killed…she takes it over and her first commitment is to solve the murder of her husband working closely with a cop-detective (ShahRukh)…the serie will tell how they work together on different cases…there should be humour and action and drama…and love with a wedding at the end… a masala serie where the cop detective often has to trick collegues or even superiors because of the corruption in the police department…ha!

            Procratinatrix, I am sad for you, I know how hard it is…had to do it twice – after many years of companionship…now, I don’t want a dog/pet anymore.

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  5. Everybody I see on twitter and instagram, news channels are all waiting for Deepika and Ranveer’s wedding pics it seems. The longer it takes, crazier everybody seems to get. I know this is kind of out of topic but everybody else’s excitement is rubbing off on me as well.

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    • I am so glad they are getting married in Italy. Following gossip stories in the Indian press, especially party arrival type stories, is exhausting! All those arrivals and official photos versus papparazzi and so on. But this is all nice and clean, we just wait for the official photos.

      The reception is going to be a nightmare. At least, from the perspective of me, trying to sort out the real versus not real photos and stories as they come fast and furious.

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  6. I listened to this podcast last night and it kind of blew my mind because it gave me a lot of insight into the culture around Bollywood stars and why the Khans are struggling.

    One of the big insights was a comment that when Hollywood uses CGI they are trying to create something that is as close to “reality” as possible even when it clearly isn’t reality (superheroes, Middle Earth). While Indian film doesn’t care about whether or not the look of the film is real because (and this is what I got out of the discussion) it’s taking place in a mythological universe so questions of real vs. not real don’t apply. And as a result reviewers who are coming to these films with a Western lens often denigrate the quality of the films because they don’t understand the culture or aesthetic they are coming from. It’s similar to previous discussions we’ve had about magic realism in novels, which is a Western term and not how people in Latin America think about the literature, that for them it’s just realism, that their baseline assumptions about reality are radically different from those in the U.S.

    Another thing that was fascinating is that Amitabh gets criticized for having an inauthentic social media voice but one of the participants points out that Amitabh is a very wealthy man and comes from a higher caste and so forth, so his social media voice is authentic to who he really is but not to what his persona is based on his acting parts. And the public really struggles with the disconnect.

    It also became real to me in a way it hasn’t before that the Khans and Amitabh aren’t simply successful movie stars the way someone like Akshay Kumar is, they are mythological figures with hopes, dreams and expectations projected onto them in a way that has an almost religious tinge to it, which explains the anger against Aamir for ToH.

    Oh one more thing I learned: Aamir’s nickname in China is Male God! He has the worship in China that SRK and Salman have in India.

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    • Since Amitabh and the Khans are at that Godlike level, there is also the kind of resentment we have towards a God. Why do you let war, famine, bad things happen in the world? If you look at the expectations of the Khans and Amitabh, it’s not just that they will make good movies, but they will heal the sick, prevent hunger, solve all the problems of the world. And when they do that, the response is “well sure it’s the least you can do”. And when they don’t, the response is frustration and anger.

      This is so odd for me to understand from a Western perspective, the idea that the response to Amitabh ending Polio in India is “well yeah, of course, but what has he done for us lately?” instead of “He CURED POLIO!!!! One human man ended a disease that affected millions!”

      They have almost limitless power, but it does have limits, and I think the limits might be what it is harder for the Indian audience to grasp, while it is the almost limitless part that outsiders struggle with. I can understand that Aamir does not have the ability to control everything about his movie and at some point other people take a little control. But the idea of Aamir being able to do one TV show and radically change the whole way Indian society works and talks about issues that affect billions of people blows my mind. But on the other hand, I have heard people from the Indian side of things complain not just that Aamir has made a flawed movie, but that he hasn’t completely solved this or that social problem.

      And then of course in the southern industries it is a whole different thing with the movie stars actually controlling the power of the state. Every aspect of government is truly under their control so it’s almost legitimate to say “I am thirsty and there is no water, I will call on Rajinikanth for help”.

      There’s a beautiful movie, Dhadak, about a little boy who is going blind and his sister who decides to take him to Shahrukh to cure him. They visit a Guru who asks why they aren’t asking God for help, and they explain that God never did anything for them, but they know Shahrukh will.

      On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 10:24 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Another fascinating point in the podcast: The public thinks of Hollywood films as made for everyone (not true but roll with it) but they think of Bollywood films as “our” films, made for Indians. But now the international market is a huge factor, for Aamir’s films in particular but also other films as producers try to reproduce Aamir’s success in China. Apparently the ToH poster was designed to evoke Chinese films, which is fascinating. And as was pointed out by the podcasters, even if the film is an enormous flop in India it may be a huge success in China the way Secret Superstar was. So Bollywood is going to increasingly evolve to be less uniquely Indian as people aim at the international, non-NRI market.

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        • Oh wow, looking at Thugs for the Chinese market makes it suddenly a lot clearer. For one thing, that particular point in the colonial journey lines up very nicely with China’s experience of colonialism (merchants and soldiers, no great empire building trains for them). I am not an expert on Chinese film AT ALL, but from the little I have seen, there are also a few more sort of morally ambiguous heroes versus India’s strict hero-villain dividing line.

          Indian film has been struggling with the NRI/home audience for the past few years, the comparative failure at home of movies like Lagaan and My Name is Khan and their success overseas, I was hoping that was finally resolved with more movies like Stree, Badhai Ho, etc. being nicely similar at home and abroad. But if China is the new market to go after, that brings in a new division in the audience that needs to be straddled.

          On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 11:12 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • It will be interesting to see if Thugs releases here in Japan. As I’ve mentioned, they love Aamir here, and they love Chinese action films, so it could happen.

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    • Huh. Could be correct, but I’m cautious just because these articles have been written for 18 years with just the names and details changed up (first Hrithik, then Shahid, then Viviek, then Imraan, and on and on).

      What do you think?

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      • I’m so new to all this but it feels like there’s a generational shift going on. The Khans are 53, it’s inevitable that others are going to step up. Plus you have huge technological disruption with the dissemination of cell phones and YouTube. A god on screen is very different from a god you can hold in your hand. The god is diminished but also the phone is too small to adequately hold him. The Khans may just be too big to fit anymore and people are angry because they still worship them but the gods don’t fit into the new picture.

        This is a bit grandiose but it feels like Lord of the Rings with the elves diminishing and going to the west and men taking over Middle Earth.

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        • Yep yep. The only thing I would add is the technological/class divide. The vast majority of people in India still consume stars as distant figures. But they are providing an increasingly small percentage of film profits (as the ticket price divide between single screen and multiplex grows and grows) and they are invisible in the written record. So you end up with a small proportion of the population holding the rest of the country hostage. That’s the frustration that we are expressing in the comments sometimes about films being called “flops” even by their stars, when in fact they were very popular. Just not popular at the multiplexes where the money comes from or in the English language internet that is most vocal. And conversely films being called “hits” that were really only popular with a tiny tiny percentage.

          In a very small way, it is similar to the protest movement in America now. You cannot ignore people in the streets, it is the only way to overwhelm coordinated media coverage or slanted social media representation. The internet says “the stars are dead”, and then you flip the page and there is a photo of thousands of people gathered outside Shahrukh’s house for his birthday. Rajesh Khanna was a massive star that “everyone” said no longer mattered and the people had moved on and so on and so forth, and then he died and his funeral shut down the city.

          The same thing used to be true for the international market, Indian films have been in the international market since the beginning. But it wasn’t recorded or reported anywhere, so the films were not made with that market in mind necessarily, it wasn’t thought of as important. What has changed now is both that the international market is larger and that it is being reported far more carefully and accurately. The only way of knowing what the international market was like was to see on the ground the masses of people turning out for the movies (when DDLJ released for instance, theaters in LA had to add on 3am shows because the 3pm, 9pm, and midnight shows sold out and they still had people sitting in the lobby waiting to get in. But the distributors didn’t pay for ticket tracking, or publicize it, so the only record are these stories).

          On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 12:26 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • You’re not wrong. These articles pop up ALL the time and most of them hang on the idea of the finding the “next SRK.” Many next SRKs have already come and gone while the original is still here. Everyone from Hrithik to Vivek Oberoi to the recent Kartik Aryan have had articles written like this comparing them to SRK.

        The only difference now is of course that SRK is 53. There is always an age limit for mainstream roles and he will eventually have to move to doing what Bachchan does now. It won’t because anyone replaced him but simply because he had to abdicate due to age.

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        • One thing Anupama pointed out in her SRK book and Susmita Dasgupta also pointed towards in her AB book is that the Khans themselves only rose up because Amitabh abdicated, it wasn’t until he voluntarily took a break in order to focus on his corporation that there was space for the Khans. They didn’t really “topple” him, he was in decline but not out, it was that he left and then they could take over.

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  8. I started watching Nadodi kattu, because I didn’t get sleep yesterday. Hopefully I can finish it off today

    I got triggered to watch it because here in chennai the north east monsoon is being its unpredictable best (worst?)

    first it unusually rained a lot in sep end, creating huge expectation of early onset
    then entire october month was dry because of two unexpected cyclones that went to orissa and yemen
    now there is a new cyclone Gaja, that first teased to bring rains to chennai, but instead it is pointing more south now. It might eventually cross over to other side of the coast (Cochin) and reforn as a fresh cyclone headed towards the gulf countries

    in the Tamil version of the movie, a smuggler ‘Ghaja’ promises to take the heros to dubai but dumps them in Cochin ! (hence the punchline *oh no! Gaja has cheated us!!*)
    In the malayalam original ‘Ghafoor’ tricks the heroes and drops them of in Chennai instead of the arabic gulf

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  9. For me all last week was 96′ week. I saw it on Friday and it was so beautiful I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and so few days later I watched it again (and it’s rare because I never watch the same movie twice in one week). This second watch only deepened my love, and the next day I started listening to the music, and now I listen to the background score. I’ve never listened to the background score of any film, but this one is wonderful and gives me goosebumbs. Now I’m thinking which melody I should chose as my rightone, so as you see I’m pretty obsessed.

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    • I saw papparazzi photos a little bit ago, taken with a telephoto lens and very confidently identifying people and I thought “oh you have no idea who those people are, you are just picking names out of a hat to go with the tiny tiny figures!”

      On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • Speaking of Deepveer wedding, the media was reporting that SRK, Farah and Bhansali were invited and that very close sources from the family were saying they would arrive by 9 AM before the wedding ceremony. This was being reported by ANI which is a big press agency.

      Annnnnddd, nope. SRK was literally in Mumbai hanging out at Mannat with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter. Farah was also at Mannat hanging out with Gauri separately.

      India Today even reported that Jack wanted to meet SRK since he had put it on Twitter. But they actually came with a story of how he wasn’t able to meet since SRK had left for the wedding!!

      The Indian media is unbelievable. I don’t know how any bigger news can be believed when they can’t even get simple things about the entertainment industry correct. How is it even possible to be so wrong all the time about everything? Even by fluke, you should be correct sometimes!

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  11. Watching: Watched NOTA, very similar to Bharat nene.. and the first half was good. Second half got a little boring though. But Vijay Devarakonda was good! It never felt like he was in working in a language he was new to. Even with actors like Sathyaraj and Nasser were on screen, he catches your eye. he has amazing screen presence! Also the actress who played the opposition leader’s daughter was v good. Dunno why Mehreen Pirazada was in the movie. She had absolutely no role.
    Thinking: A little bored with all the Ranveer-Deepika wedding news honestly. I feel if they don’t want me to see their pics, I shouldn’t spend my mind space on them at all hmpfh.. ya that’ll teach them lol

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    • I am so glad I was busy at work and missed the Ranveer-Dips wedding build up. Now once the photos come out, they can be new and fresh and exciting for me, instead of my being exhausted by all the pre-game coverage.

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  12. Both (sweater and hat)…let her choose between sport or cop…

    Myself: reading = German thrillers situated in German regions in German language (exciting & fun); in English the last Grisham, last Scott Turow, last Val McDermid, last Michael Robotham, last Donna Leon, last Minette Walters, last Elizabeth George, last Micheal Connelly…I have ordered them at a German used books portal which also sells foreign language books (often still looking new) and will have long nights (if I’m not writing on the laptop.

    Watching: downloaded movies from einthusan

    Listening: audio books or kids audio plays (mostly disney) or some of my vinyls

    Thinking: Whatever crosses my mind

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    • Conicidentally, when I was looking up Children’s Day, I saw that tomorrow was the Day of the German Speaking Community of Belgium. So it is seasonally appropriate to read German books from German speaking places!

      On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 5:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  13. Thinking: It is Thursday morning here and I guess Deep and Veer are already married; but I didn’t see anything on Twitter this morning so I don’t know what’s going on. Anyway, I am moderately excited about this and waiting to see the details about what she and other people wore. Current coverage consists of people narrating what they think they can see in long-range photographs, over lots of pictures we’ve already seen.

    Watching: I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks to be over, so I can sit down and watch a movie all the way through like a civilized person. I’m currently halfway through Praktan, the Bengali film about a divorced couple who meet by chance on a train. This is a rom-commy sort of treatment in that the people are both gorgeous and there’s a lot of humor, but realistic in the problems that would have driven the couple apart–deciding who moves for whose job, living with inlaws, etc. She seems to have more education and a better career. They have sexual problems also which are briefly but very frankly discussed. It’s good so far except I cannot imagine what Riturparna Sengupta’s hair and makeup people were thinking. She has a mask of orange-brown makeup, which seems worse when she’s not supposed to be wearing any, and her hair is in mid-19th century ringlets framing a low bun.

    Anyway, this is the sort of thing I wish Hindi movies would do more of: realistic look at the highs and lows of a mature romance. And Juhi would be perfect with SRK at this!

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    • I watched Praktan, and yes, it’s good. But hindi industry instead of learn how a good movie should be, just borrowed some things and made Jalebi, which in my opinion is an insult to the original movie.

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    • I don’t understand the Deep-Veer wedding. In some ways it seems like the Anushka-Virat one, reporters kept away and not that big of a guest list, only with this strange semi-coverage because the location leaked in advance and people have a telephoto lens photo. I just want to get official photos and get it over with so we can all move on to the Bombay reception with the official red carpet and all that.

      On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 9:28 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • Yup! I was trying to explain this in my fan theory class in grad school (until I gave up because the teacher was an idiot), that it’s like the old “I root for the Cubs and whoever is playing the White Sox” saying. Which I think is pretty unique to Indian film fandom, obsessively tracking the careers of your star’s rivals because as they fall, your star goes up.

      This is a real leap, but there is a bit of that in how Hinduism works in some ways. As a particular aspect of God gains more popularity and worshippers, according to some texts, they also gain more power. And their rivals lose power.

      On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 1:08 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  15. Excelent news – guys who organized JHMS screening in Sicily last year are still alive 😉 They vanished completely after JHMS and I was afraid they quit but I just saw they made two TOH screenings last week. I don’t care about TOH but this means there is 90% chance they will arrange for Zero! And the shows were in 2 new cinemas which are much better and easier for me to go. Fingers crossed!

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    • Yaaaaay! I am so happy for you! I still feel bad about the lag in your Bahubali viewing, while the whole site/world was talking about it and you had to wait and wait.

      On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 3:24 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Thanks God for youtube channel which upload Baahubali 2 quite fast. They removed the very next day but still.

        And now I’m curious how many people went to see TOH. 2 shows is huge when we think it’s always 0 shows here 😉 I remember they have faith in Salman and did 3 shows of Tublight last year. It was a disaster and after that everything was “Only on screening!”. Then nothing for 15 months – no Tiger zinda hai, no Race 3 , and now suddenly 2 shows of Thugs.

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        • One of the other Europe based commentators (I can’t remember if it was Claudia or someone else) was saying in her country you had to pay very high ticket prices and reserve seats in advance for TOH. Meaning people would have bought tickets before any reviews or word of mouth came out. Maybe that’s the theory for your group too? They assume the holiday and the promotion campaign will be enough to sell advance tickets for multiple shows and they don’t worry about running for longer than that?

          On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 8:29 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • The only thing I know is that they announced it on facebook 8th of November and the first show was the next day so it was very unexpected and there wasn’t much time to book the seats in advance.

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          • Huh. I can’t decide if this should play into my stereotypes about disorganized last minute Italians or disorganized last minute Indians. Some ethnicity that starts with an “I”, definitely.

            On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 11:02 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • LOL it’s the worst of both worlds 😊
            But they made it, and this is what counts. I can’t offend the people who can bring Zero here.

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