Bollywood movie Dus Kahaniyan did not set the U.S. box afire but didn’t do that badly either considering it’s an offbeat Hindi movie.

Dus Kahaniyan rolled in at No-25 at the U.S. box office for the December 7-9, 2007 weekend with a gross of $176,726.

Released in 55 theaters in the U.S, Dus Kahaniyan had an average gross of $3,213.

When we watched Dus Kahaniyan at Regal E-Walk theater on W.42nd St (near Times Square) in New York City on Saturday afternoon, we counted a total of 14 people in the hall.

Dus Kahaniyan is one of those better films to emerge out of the stinking sewers of Bollywood.

Unlike most Bollywood movie makers, who usually steal or rehash successful stories, throw in some big-name stars who usually can’t act and then desperately pray for success, Dus Kahaniyan takes a different tack.

The folks behind Dus Kahaniyan seem to have made a genuine effort to break out of the same-old, same-old box and bring something new to Bollywood fans.

Unlike most lengthy Bollywood nightmares, Dus Kahaniyan is a collection of 10 short films.

Most of the films in this collection have an unexpected twist in the ending a la a an O.Henry short story. 

We considered all the short films in Dus Kahaniyan to be decent, albeit some more so than the others.

Our favorite movies in Dus Kahaniyan were Pooranmasi and Gubbare.

Directed by Meghna Gulzar, Pooranmasi features that talented actress Amrita Singh in a moving film that has a tragic end.

Gubbare is directed by Sanjay Gupta and features Nana Patekar, one of the few Bollywood actors to understand the meaning of acting. This is again a touching film with much of the movie actually happening during a short bus journey.

Although we liked Naseeruddin Shah in Rice Plate, we weren’t too pleased with Shabana Azmi’s performance in this movie that explores the interaction between an elderly Hindu woman and an old Muslim man in an unusual way. We thought Shabana grossly overdid the Tamil accent.

One of the most awaited Tamil movies of 2007 - Billa - is finally hitting the big screen on December 14 (Click here for Billa movie showtimes in USA).

Featuring Ajith, Nayantara and Namitha, the new Billa is a remake of the old Billa (itself a remake of the Hindi film Don) starring Rajnikant and Sripriya.

The new Billa is directed by Vishnuvardhan and produced by L Suresh Balaji. Yuvan Shankar Raja is the music director.

Much of new Billa of the movie was filmed in Malaysia at Langkawi island, Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur’s Little India - the Jalan Masjid area.

Released in 1981, the old Billa went on to become a big hit.

Let’s see how the new Billa fares.

Last year, Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan starred in a remake of the Don.

Click Here for Billa Review 

Ajith Fans, here are the latest showtimes for the much anticipated Billa movie starring Ajith, Nayantara and Namitha in USA.

Billa was released on December 14 in New Jersey and other centers.

Billa Showtimes in USA

Bay Area

Century Berryessa
1171 North Capitol Ave
San Jose, CA  95132

Jan 10 |  3:00 PM  | 6:30 PM | 10:00 PM | 11:30 PM
Jan 11 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 12 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 13 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 14 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 15 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 16 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM
Jan 17 | 12:30 PM | 3:45 PM |   7:00 PM | 10:15 PM

Portland

Cornelius 9 Cinema
200 North 26th Ave
Cornelius, OR  97113

Jan 13 | 2:00 PM

Silver Spring

P and G Wheaton Plaza 11
11160 Viers Mill Rd
Silver Spring (MD), MD  20902

Jan 04 | 8:30 PM
Jan 05 | 1:30 PM | 4:45 PM | 8:45 PM
Jan 06 | 1:30 PM | 4:45 PM | 8:45 PM
Jan 07 | 7:30 PM
Jan 08 | 7:30 PM
Jan 09 | 7:30 PM
Jan 10 | 7:30 PM
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Billa Movie Showtimes in Canada

Toronto Area, Canada

Famous Players SilverCity - Brampton
Highway 410 at Bovaird Drive
Brampton, ON L6Z 2S8
 
Jan 10 |  6:00 PM | 9:50 PM
Jan 11 | 10:00 PM
Jan 12 | 10:00 PM
Jan 13 | 10:00 PM
Jan 14 |  9:00 PM
Jan 15 |  9:00 PM
Jan 16 |  9:00 PM
Jan 17 |  9:00 PM

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CO Eglinton Town Centre
22 Lebovic Ave.
Scarborough, ON M1V 4V9
 
Jan 10 | 6:00 PM | 9:40 PM
Jan 11 | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 12 | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 13 | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 14 | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 15 | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 16 | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM
Jan 17 | 6:00 PM | 9:35 PM

Please confirm the movie timings with the theater before going.

Like an uxorious husband, we are inordinately fond of Latin.

We’ve been dropping Latin phrases into our spoken and written English for as long as we can remember.

Besides making us seem smarter than we really are, Latin has a certain cachet that plain vanilla English lacks.

SearchIndia.com will bring you some of our favorite Latin expressions.

Let’s start with in vino veritas.

In vino veritas translates into English as there is truth in wine, a mid-16th century proverbial saying.

In vino veritas means that people are likely to be honest under the influence of alcohol.

This Latin expression goes back to ancient Greece and is attributed to the lyric poet Alcaeus (c620-580 BC) from the island of Lesbos.

We remember it all as if it happened just yesterday.

But it was actually 1992.

IBM reentered India through a joint venture with the Indian conglomerate Tata called Tata Information Systems Ltd (subsequently changed to Tata-IBM and later to IBM after Tata and IBM parted ways in 1999).

And Mike Klein, the Bullet motorcycle-riding IBM expat, was the first CEO of Tata Information Systems Ltd, which those days had a small office at the Golden Enclave building on Airport Road in Bangalore.

Besides Mike Klein, other IBM executives who played a key role in laying a solid foundation for the company’s rapid growth in India included John Whiting, marketing whiz Venky Raman, software chief Yogi Singh and Gul Iqbal.

Those days, the company was peddling mainframes, AS/400 systems to the banks, RS6000 workstations, AIX servers and PCs as well as handling some small software development jobs for the parent company.

At the time, it seemed like just one more new MNC coming into the country for those too young to remember IBM’s departure in 1978 over an Indian law requiring foreign companies to dilute their equity stake.

But this was a different IBM, a hungry corporation that had gone through a near-death experience and the wrenching turmoil of laying off tens of thousands of employees worldwide.

In India, IBM expanded its operations acros the country - setting up a PC manufacturing center in Pondicherry, a Linux center in Bangalore, an e-Governance center in Gurgaon, BPO centers in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, offices in different corners of the nation and grew its IBM Global Services business significantly.  

Fast forward to 2007.

IBM is now forecasting sales of nearly $1 billion dollar from India this year, up from $700 million last year.

It seems sales of hardware, software and services in India has increased 39 percent in the first three quarters.

If you think IBM has been growing gangbusters in India, it’s even better than you think because the company excludes revenues from the lucrative outsourcing business managed in India as those are accounted for in the countries where the contracts are sold.

IBM now has 53,000 employees in India, up from just a few hundred in 1992.