After delivering fine cinematic embellishements with Maqbool, Omkara and Maqdee, directer Vishal Bharadwaj is back with Blue Umbrella, based on a novella by Ruskin Bond.

Blue Umbrella is a simple story of a girl Biniya (Shreya Sharma) discovering the enchanting blue umbrella and getting spell-bound with its beauty. The movie has another character called Nandkishore (Pankaj Kapur), a lazy old man and owner of a small tea stall in the village. Nandkishore is fond of pickles and also exhibit great skills in conning children off their possessions.

As the story unfolds itself, the blue umbrella becomes the centre of attraction for all the villagers and this doesn’t come without the desire to wrest the umbrella from Biniya. Nandkishore is one among them and tries all his conning skills to get the umbrella from the girl but with no success.

The movie which proceed rather slowly faces a turning point when all of a sudden the umbrella disappears. The villagers are sympathetic towards the girl’s loss but also blames her carelessness for the loss of the umbrella. From here onwards, Biniya and Nandkishore embark on a journey into the discovery of truth and wisdom, coming above the micro-issue of the missing umbrella to the larger social realization.

Pankaj Kapur is brilliant as ever in playing the miserly character of Nandkishore, where Shreya Sharma playing the role of Biniya equally compliments his performance.

With Blue Umbrella being a metophorical tale showcasing man’s basic desire to gain superiority over the other and raising questions on the idea of material happiness and the absolute meaniglessness of it, Vishal superb direction grips you in a spell which breaks only with a smile and feeling of great contentment.

Blue Umbrella has a touching sensibilty in it which not only incaptivates the children but also has the potential to impart a lesson among the adults.

With Pottermania still filling up the air, and the thrill to read and reach the climax of the newly released “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows,” the last book of the Potter series, one would like to think - what next?

This is the tragedy of all mystery books, perhaps. One may or may not like to go back to it in future for there lies no suspense in it anymore. The books find a place high up on the book shelf where one can look at it and smile and be proud that once when you read it , it’d send ripples through your skin.

Well, good news! The book could be made into a good workout exercise by daily bringing it down from the shelf and repeating the exercise to tone up those arm muscles.

Now one could seriously imagine it to work, considering how much a single copy of a Harry Potter book weighs... Phew!

Moonstruck Light is for all those who are tired of their boring white walls. These lights not only serve the purpose of lighting up your room but also creats beautiful patterns on your walls.

The Moonstruck Light are available in two designs - flowers and circles. These are basically perforated coverings on your lightbulb and create designs on the wall as soon as light passes through them.

Available at a whooping price of 240-320 euro, these lights could be directly accessed from their manufacturer’s site, Feinedinge, which is an Austrian design company.

These Moonstruck Lights, if one could afford them, apart from burning a hole in your pocket, would definitely give your room a plush ambience.
Luxury certainly comes at a price!

A little Atlantic green turtle caught entangled in the fishing line on the South Padre Island in Texas was rescued by two men fly fishing on the south side of the island.

Ed Stoddard, who has been working with the Reuters, was at the South Padre Island to do a story on turtle rescue missions carried on the island by certain volunteer organisations. Ed and Shane Wilson, the president of Sea Turtles Inc. which initiates methods to rescue the Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and also the other injured and stranded turtles, went on for fly fishing where they found the little atlantic green turtle caught in the fishing line and making failed attempts to free itself.
Ed and Wilson moved with the turtle’s efforts to free itself and also with the fondness which they equally share for the turtles, instantly began to make efforts to save the turtle’s life who was struggling to breathe by bringing its head above the water. They both tried Ed’s fly rod to pull the fishing line and the turtle with it but when the attempt failed, Wilson jumped into the water and swam to the creature to free it.

The turtle was brought to the shore and taken to the cares of the Sea Turtle’s facility where 20 such turtles of different species were already being cared after. The curator of the centre Jeff George weighed the turtle (4 kg) and gave it some antibiotic to recover. It is said by the curator that the turtle will be fit to be returned to the sea within three weeks of time.

The turtle population all over the world is being adversely affected by commercial netting operations. The work of such volunteer organisations like Sea Turtle Inc. is to locate the nests of these turtles and preserve their eggs during their laying season. The eggs are then taken to a pen for incubation. Once the eggs hatch, the young turtles are taken to the sea away from the birds who could harm them.

With the help of such volunteer organisation many of the species like the Kemp’s ridley which were at the verge of extinction
with only 300 females left , have been saved and fortunately, their number has now gone upto 11,000, which build around 15,000 nests every year.

Ed and Wilson were thrilled with enthusiam for the little life they managed to save. “There’s no room in the inn so we’ll put him in the stable,” Jeff George later told them and amusingly named the turtle Ed.

Rober Iger, the Chief Executive of Disney took a vow depicting his concern towards the hazards of smoking in a letter to the U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass, chairman of the House Telecommunications and the Internet Sub-committee.

Iger wrote, “The Walt Disney Co. shares your concern regarding deaths due to cigarette smoking.”

Iger, also reported as saying that there would be public announcement included in DVD of any film which endorses cigrettes and that there would be anti-smoking messages before the screening of such films in theatres.

The Universal Pictures also supported the cause on Wednesday to reduce smoking on screen.

The Chairman of the Universal Studios, Ron Meyer stated “We believe it’s possible to do that while respecting filmmakers’ creative choices and we are committed to partnering with them in this effort,”

The Motion Pictures of America also instigated of bringing smoking as a factor to rate films.

Markey, who recently held a meeting on this topic praised Disney’s effors.

Markey said “Now it’s time for other media companies to similarly kick the habit and follow Disney’s lead.”

Fact remains, how many would take these anti-smoking messages seriously and realize how “uncool” cigrettes really are.