Padmaavat review

Such were the quality of movies in 2017, that Pink was the only one I saw in a theatre.

#Padmaavat was the first 2018 Hindi movie that I went with family to watch. My observation in bullets:

• Too lengthy at 2 hrs 45 minutes. As a result, parts of the movie dragged. Could have easily crunched it to 2 hours. 
• Sanjay Leela Bhansali needs to move away from the period drama genre. I think he himself is bored with this kind of cinema
• What was the purpose of making it 3D? Unless the content is gripping, 3D for such stories are a painful way to watch the movie
• My take on the 3 main actors:
• Deepika - main idea was to look good, and she did a fine job of it. Nothing else
• Shahid - His role could have been given more focus - but he was royalty personified
• Ranveer - A lot of people are raving about his acting. But for me, this was an extension or variation of Bajirao. Good, not brilliant
• Overall, a watchable film
• Finally a question to SLB - if Gaffoor could shoot arrows at Shahid, why didn't the Rajputs do the same and shoot Ranvir?

Dubai airport is expensive

After a long time, I got the opportunity of transiting through the famous DXB airport. The last few years, I've been using Europe to transit to the US, but my crazy travel itinerary forced me to route via Dubai.

It's an incredibly busy airport and probably has the most global connections compared to any other airport. But sweet heavens, it is quite expensive. Sample this, a cup of ordinary coffee is $5.50 and everyone carries only Evian water, which sets you back by another $7. That's quite something to pay for coffee and water.

I wonder why it's so expensive. Perhaps the rental is high at the airport? Or the restaurants pay a hefty transaction fee to the airport? Who knows, but the airport feels like a pocket pincher.

Wonder if other transiters feel the same?