Last night to distract myself from insomnia (I was attempting to finish reading Seamus Heaney's "District & Circle"), I decided to watch the DVD of "Downfall" ("Der Untergang" in German) that I had checked out last weekend from the library.

It was as powerful a movie as the reviews I had read indicated it was. And Bruno Ganz is extremely compelling to watch as Adolf Hitler as he spirals into madness in the death thores of the Third Reich, while the Battle of Berlin rages outside the Führerbunker. The most compelling, and thus the chilling, scence of the movie for me, was the one in which Madga Goebbels, basically, murders her children with cyanide after drugging them with morphine.

It was only a few months ago that I had read Antony Beevor's masterful account "The Fall of Berlin 1945" (his "Stalingrad" is excellent too), and I had then wondered about the macabreness Beevor had written about in the Reich's final moments. And "Downfall" recreates, compellingly, how it would have been down there, in that bunker. I recommend that you watch it too, kind readers, for this movie may keep you up nearly all night.

Now I was hoping this meme virus will pass by the rock I live under without touching me. But alas this was not to be, for Gaurav, who after heroically failing to coax folks (most of them must have been babes, I am guessing) to post silly photos of self, sent the meme in this westwards direction. Until a few months ago, when I still had a Flickr Pro account and was making pixels like crazy, this meme would have been easy to comply with. But now I had to undertake a torturous excavation to show myself in a silly photo. And kind readers, I have to report that this expedition failed.

I mostly look like a bum, a bookworm (the library belongs to my poetry guruji who allows me to drool all over it from time to time), a pensive person waiting for Godot-gandu, an understudy to Hannibal Lecter, or a pervert who should be arrested for eve-teasing. The closest I have come to a silly photo is this one, taken after a hard run, and in which I was imagining myself running across a Swiss meadow into the open arms of Scarlett Johansson* (I, the great ishq-frusth-iqi, can dream irrationally too, dudes!).

I suppose this satisfies the meme. Oh! And further infection will require some thought on my part.

...

Update: I tag Sharanya and Khush.

*Since I have lost all hope of "scoring", I am thinking of opening a kisok over at Shaadi.com. So at this point, I might as well take a poll regarding which of the above photos should I use to peddle myself. Kind readers, pliss be telling me that as well, okay?