Infections of an unwashed hind

Colder still

2012-02-09T14:39:00.000+05:30

Cold, youreturn with vengeance.

I see youreyes as they meet mine while I arise to see you smirk at me to say that you’rehere again before you go back away for quite some time. I am not going anywhere,you seem to growl. I was afraid. I was afraid that you had left for good thistime. That I had consumed an entire spell of yours and was staring down theprospect of meeting the blazing rays of the sun without the comfort of theknowledge that you are around to compensate.

You makethe sun desirable. I will for him to stay on a while after dusk for I am afraid that without him, you would run wild and put me to sleep for good. Without you, the sun merely exists as an imperative. Withyou, it flourishes. I chase the sun’s rays to bask in its glory as you bareyour vicious fangs at me.

The sky is as blue as if god himself had spilled anenormous bottle of indigo all across his floor. Jets scramble across the sky,leaving behind trails of white smoke coughed out of their engine’s lungs.

Trees standominously with only the deep blue sky as the milieu. You make the air seemvirgin. Withered leaves lie lifeless with open eyes waiting patiently for feetto crumple them like crackers on a parrot’s beak. The wind whistlesboisterously in my ears, holding me by my shoulders and shouting to ask if Ifeel your breath on the nape of my neck.

I knew thatyou would come back before leaving for good. I knew that you wouldn’t leave meall alone to perish amidst the shambles of whatever is left of this planetwhile you went someplace else to turn another sky blue.

I am notgiving up my blue sky. Not yet.

Chill medown to my spine; numb my feet and my fingertips. Render me immobile. Stagnatemy being. Sweep me away in your might and paralyze me. Strike down with fury,cold. Chortle, laugh and guffaw. Stare me down and make me feel purposeless forthat is what was intended for me to be. Assure me with conviction that yourvigor is unassailable.

That untilthe next time you arrive, I can look back at the sun and ask him to watch.

For his days are numbered too.

I swear to god that I'll watch RaOne

2011-10-23T08:16:00.002+05:30

I feel like Shah Rukh Khan is going to be sworn in as Prime Minister this Friday. I think this time there's no Diwali. There's only Ra One day and that its a national holiday so that people could go and watch it. People are buying sweets to celebrate Ra.One's release. Gujaratis and Pujabis are taking off to the Middle East or 'Yourope' on RaOne vacation after watching the movie and watching a re-run on the flight with Shah Rukh's automated voice announcing the weekend collections,live over the PAS.

Muaamar Gadhaafi got himself caught and shot at so that the rebels can head home and take their families out to Ra.One in time by next Friday. PVR's stock holdings has risen so high that it has now beaten Apple in the international market. Salman Butt , Mohammad Aamir and Kamran Akmal will all play a charity match to raise money for bail on Friday as the PCB believes that the international media will be busy relaying records created by RaOne's opening and that no one would notice.

MS Dhoni is going to wear the RaOne t shirt to play the 1st T20 against England. Salman will wear a t shirt saying ' Being RaOne". RaOne is the secret 8th book in the Harry Potter series. Barack Obama's twitter display picture is a RaOne poster. Hillary Clinton is reaching Pakistan from over the weekend to promote RaOne in Lahore on behalf of Shah Rukh. Hugo Chavez did not have Chemotherapy in Cuba. He went to a special screening of RaOne arranged by Shah Rukh Khan, Gautam Gambhir, Jacques Kallis and Fidel Castro.Rahul Dravid has legally modified his first name to accomodate his son's request.

I swear by everything I've got to live for that I'll watch Raone. I really really do. Do you see a huge blob rolling beneath a poster of a blue Shah Rukh like being carrying a gorgeous woman in red saree? That's me. I am begging you to stop with all the promos. I'll wear RaOne glasses to important presentations. I will name my son G One. I will tell him that Avatar was RaOne's trailer. Cameroon was Shah Rukh's marketing manager and that this was the real deal.

Shah Rukh, you are Optimus Prime. You are everything. You should be declared a core sector by the Union Government. Next time, just like have South Block broadcast a message in National Interest that a Shah Rukh movie is releasing. We'll all go watch it. With candles in our hands and hoods on our heads. You are the Lord who wears all the rings.

I got to go. You don't have to remind me again to go watch it. Its all right, you've got to learn to trust. Go away. Tell Akon he did wel too. Go now..

Of turtles and canines

2011-08-06T18:43:00.005+05:30

My dog passed away last fortnight. He was more than 15 years old. In human age , that's like 130 odd years. Raja had lived a contended and happy dog life. When it was his time to go, we could almost sense he didn't want to leave us. In his mind, he could still jump over fences with the same vigour and bark at passing cattle with the same alacrity,barely managing to maneuver his long nose through the small gap in the gate that he was used to doing all his life.

Only in his mind.

His body had given up though. He could recognize my presence but barely acknowledge it. Usually, he'd trod on out of his room as soon as he heard my voice and twirl his tiny face around my legs as he tried to almost blend into my feet to show his appreciation for me making it home after so long.

Now, he'd just limp towards me and lean by my feet and stare away into space. Am not sure he could even see me clearly but I assume he could still make out my silhouette.

If he was any younger, he'd will himself to climb on after me, upstairs in our home, where my room is and stay with me till I either got bored of not being able to sleep owing to the sound he'd make with his overgrown fingernails as he kept moving around restlessly not wanting me to nod off but entertain him, or till he got hungry and ran off downstairs himself, either bored or hungry. Or both.

Now, he would just look on haplessly as I climbed the flight of stairs to my room, unable to make the climb with the permanently dislocated hips, almost pleading me to not leave him alone as the lights reflected off his pupils blinded by layers of cataract. In heart , he was the exact same dog I'd grown up with till the very moment he breathed his last.

His death made me think about why dogs have relatively lower life spans as compared to huma

n beings. Or much lower compared to other species of animals;especially turtles. Turtles live for an average of 150 plus years. The question is why?

I mean, all the Darwin- Schmarmin aside, why do the most loyal and by far the most loving creatures man has ever known, not even live on as long or even half as long as he himself is supposed to? Who gives a shit about turtles anyway? When was the last time someone cut a cake for a tortoise who turned any 'x' years old?If you did, you deserve an even lower lifespan than that of a dogs'.Would you lose a wink over the neighborhood tortoise who got whacked by a fire truck? No. Cuz they have their damn shells. Motherfucking shells.

They're gifted an iron-clad defense system by nature to save their lives that no one, possibly not even they themselves, would possibly have any value for only so they just keep on living close to or more than two fucking centuries. I mean this is just not done. Someone's got to kill all the tortoises, take up all their remaining life span and distribute it evenly amongst all the dogs alive on earth. Even the stray ones.

Do you know why stray rabid dogs bite? Because they're pissed off at turtles. Am sure a rabid dog would see more value to an extra 20 years to his life and vow not to ever bite another guy in the ass or chase down another biker if he were to be told that the tortoise that just laid still inside the well down the road, gifted away part of his insane length of life to him, so he could actually make something of it . Like E.M.O.T.E. for the love of god.

I don't understand when people make a big deal out of "save this fucking endangered species of turtles", or " oh fucking oil spills are killing the great Red motherfucking Asian turtle" or some other goofy ass environmental catastrophe shit. Let the bitches die for Pete's sake( ah, the irony!). They don't make a difference to either us or any other damn thing in the food chain.

They lay millions of eggs for each of those eggs to give hatch into more fucking turtles who lay even stiller and continue laying still for 2 centuries. I WILL NOT, I swear, will not, give a reptile's ass to whether or not I can gauge a turtle's age by the number of scales on its shell. I don't give a FUCK.

Motherfucking turtles. I hate them. I should've fed my dog some turtle eggs before he went away just to make a point to all the turtles on earth. Or not.

Turtles blow because they live on for 200 years doing absolutely nothing except retracting and emerging out of their shells like it's supposed to be some genius fucking magic trick. Tadaa! Hey look what I can do with my magic shell.

BOOM! Shotgun blast to the nuts. Awwww..what happened? No shell to protect the marbles?Too bad.

Who taught you?

2010-09-05T19:44:00.004+05:30

I have never believed that parents deserve special treatment or even mention for only one specific day out of an entire year to salute them for the contribution they’ve made in fulfilling their respective roles in society.The same stands for the cause of protecting the environment, for asking people to give up smoking or practice safer sex.

It is for that very reason that I will not support the cause of picking out a day from out of 365 of them to remember the people that have honed me into what I am today.Because honestly they deserve much more respect and gratitude than a passing wave or a hand shake accompanied by a vague grin.

But if nothing else is plausible in the era of wishing even your closest friends with a 4 sec punch of the keyboards on a machine on their birthdays, the slightest that could be done now is at least try and reflect on the values we’ve inherited from the many tutors we’ve encountered in our lives.

I sincerely think the concept of the ancient Indian tradition of “Guru-Shishaya” still stands true today.I tried thinking about the different personalities who have tutored me in myriad fields of interest or otherwise and discovered that at some level, each of them made an impact in tuning the frequency of my thought waves.

Enough has been said and written about the way education is defined in the Indian scenario where every day machines are doled out batch number et al. out of “facilities” as opposed to fine tuning individuals with inherent personality traits in order to enable them to “reach-out” instead of “sell” to the future generations.

Has the concept of pedagogy so over simplified that only classrooms; albeit virtual also if it might gratify political correctness, are today recognized as a channel or an interface medium for an individual of knowledge in a domain to pass it on to prospective thought leaders themselves?

What is bothersome is that in this hurry for selling and convincing, one very important domain that we should ideally strive for to be perfect, for which this entire process of selling and convincing was only an accessory initially is now killing the concept of benevolence and empathy by being the sole premise of self-attainment.

In a setup where it is necessary to adapt to conditions prevailing in order to survive as has been the case since evolution ever began, shouldn’t the larger good also somewhere figure in the complex process of deliberating the most suitable way to make a living?

If not, what good does all the fortune and the chutzpah of the world do to satiating an individual’s need for contentment? Does it still matter to us if everything we strive for to be today is ultimately only a fraction of what we should ideally be doing in a time zone having nothing in common with the times of the present?

What is the one thing we should be ready to give up our lives for? For only that question will truly give us an estimate of how much our existence measures up in our own eyes.These questions are difficult to answer with theoretically, while incredible easy to counter with one that is pragmatic.

It is this very reason that i think we should seriously consider evaluating the boundaries of pedagogy and those that influence minds of the young.Everyone encounters different thinkers and people with different mindsets talking to them about their views on how things were, are or could be.The influence of a teacher thus needs to be treated with due allegiance.

We must respect thinkers, learn from them and try with a genuine purpose of giving to as many in whatever form of thought that could aid an individual’s thought process and believe that in return it spreads on to more groups and help the “system” consolidate on a unified theme of social reform that helps everyone in finding contentment.

Happy teacher’s day.Let’s make what it stands for count for many more.

My problem is Khan't Act !

2009-12-30T18:12:00.009+05:30

In a valiant effort to distance myself from the usual(yet precise) outright rubbishing of amateur attempts at movie making after I watch them,I decided to do something new this time around-review the most promising movie of the new year-My name is Khan,even before it releases.

The reason for this is simple.First,I don't think there'll be anything more to "discover" as such after going through 5 agonizing hours of watching Shahrukh Khan stammer his way across the Golden Gate or use the most advanced GPS device to climb down Lombard street or for that matter analyze with intense hope a "moaning here,a giggling there" Kajol trying to slash off a couple of decades of her real age with some retina impairing chiffons.

You see when some one from old tinsel town tries to do a Tom Hanks and unfortunately a Forrest Gump Tom Hanks at that,and when the best possible candidate for that job seems to be our "dard-e-disco" SRK(an SRK with more skeletonia than flesh on the cheeks after decades of harmless nicotene),trying to salvage a reputation for not being able to give the other Khans or the Hrithiks a run for their money with acting and acting only,and unfortunately when that needs to be pulled off with a team headed by Karan Johar lingering shyly in the background,fondling his chest hair everytime SRK does a "k-k-k",you have one recipe and one recipe only- D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

In the post "Taare Zameen Par" era of neurological disorders,Mr.Khan is apparently suffering from a rare psychological disorder known as Asperger Syndrome which is defined as a disorder which causes people to behave weird socially along with repetitive patterns in behavior.And I thought the "k-k-k"s and the constipated "on-one-knee-mother in law-convincing" in every other Johar or Yash Chopra movie was a mere co-incidence.

SRK has always had Aspergers.In fact,if anything,it should've been called the Raj Malhotra syndrome.

Anyway,so this guy falls in love,marries her,she loves him inspite of him,blah-blah-blah,leaves him,he travels cross-country,spreads joy,gains and spreads perspective and wins her back.God damn!O&M looking for creative heads of agencies for their European Operations?And they left out Mumbai in their search?..Zzzzzz

SRK's problem is not that he can't act.The problem I guess is that he isn't amazing friends with the Shimit Amins or may be he pissed off Gowariker's kid real bad with all the blinding optimism when the kid flunked a test.All said,I'll still watch My name is Khan and have one job less to carry out after that.I'll have alleviated some of the pain of the saner public who would've hesistated their way into their back row recliners in the hope that may be the songs and the dance sequences or all the color might make up for the horriblly loose plot or the lame attempt at re-making a legendary classic.

I would've loved to see Kabir Khan 2 or even anticipated with aplomb,a well-planned 500 episode long tele-series with Mohan Bhargav as the only member of the cast.Am anticipating with bated breath to see the plight of My name is Khan too;not the box-office results because us morons and the millions of NRIs will have multiple orgasms at Johar's attempt at sad drama and melancholy.

Am more excited at the prospect of everyone on this page paying me homage once they watch the movie as to how right I was.Again.

Where are the bharadwaj's'?!

2009-08-23T01:27:00.008+05:30

Once every time the Haley's comet is visible from the earth,film makers from India come up with such works of passion that it leaves me stunned to think we have such a deep pool of class and we still refuse to transcend beyond the "Chandni Chowks" or the "Kambhaqt Ishqs".Isn't it quite obvious now that the formula that once worked wonders for producers and distributors and all the other guys involved with the finances isn't being accepted anymore?

Even my 6 year old labrador could figure out by now that people are getting more variety to choose from and they did rather rent a classic or watch a film they'd have watched already than go through the ordeal of watching Akshay Kumar with yet another bad hair cut romancing a heavily "barbied up" Katrina Kaif muscling his way through deplorable works of pseudo 'masala' cinema.

How difficult is it to rather spend 3/4ths the budget on less appealing locations like say 'real life' places like a bus stand or a railway station or a room and on less expensive and more talented actors and technicians like a Naseerudin Shah or a Nana Patekar or instead hone talents like Rajkumar Gupta managed to do with Rajeev Khandelwal in 'Aamir'.This is not to imply that an Akshay Kumar or other tried and tested formula workers are any less talented.They have performed superficially well in areas most from the industry wouldn't dare tread and with close to no backing to fall back back on either when starting off.But that still brings me back to the point I started off with.What do people care about now?

If Vishal Bharadwaj could make someone like a Shahid Kapoor appeal as an actor to the audience,I think it wouldn't be too difficult for the lay to grasp that the audience is getting smarter and obviously wants to watch a movie to not only get entertained but to see a point other than watching yet another climax all unravel into chaos and sleazy double meaninged sex comedies?I won't contest the debate of 'Kaminey' being a good film or not,but one thing I'd swear on my great grandma's dead body, is that it was an attempt at quality cinema.And I'd take on anyone for a grand to contest that opinion.

There's no dearth of talent in the industry.What someone makes out of them is up to the mass.With changing trends and leanings for better cinema,naturally the kind of trailers for forth coming films show more movies to look forward to than a Nadiadwala home production.But how long is this phase out going to last?How long is it going to take until,instead of the producers it'll be us-the audience,that'll go on a strike and beg to see a Nana Patekar set the screen on fire with a Naseerudin Shah or a made over Shahid Kapoor on a less inviting backdrop like a Scandinavian mountain with VFX enhanced waterfalls and thighs and calves galore?!

The day Nadiadwala runs out of money to make more movies is the day someone other than an AR Rahman would have even the remotest of chances to make it at the Academy awards(not a measure of talent but nevertheless) or likewise.Until then,Sylvester Stallone shall haunt me every day with a horribly toned up Kareena screeching her 'size 0' lungs off in the background,all the while looking for a way to pronounce "Kambhaqt Ishq" like an ape.

YOU COULD NEVER KNOW IF I HAD SWINE FLU.

2009-05-13T01:59:00.023+05:30

That's right folks.I mean there are better things to worry about than trivialities like financial crises and people dying of hunger right?Those things are everyday news.People don't care about that anymore,now do they?And it's been more than a year since everyone turned on the morning news to see some other big shot corporate honcho going bust.So here's what the everyone(read:media) thought out.Let's give people something else to worry about.

Let's create a hype around the newly discovered 'H1N1' virus(a new techno word to something as simple as the common cold;difference being that people die with this one,still who cares?) and call it something very dangerous and scary sounding and flash it all over TV and town---

Immigration at airports is harder now.Governments have come up with novel ways of detecting the quickly engulfing pandemic with hardcore measures-put up stalls everywhere with signs that read-"do you experience coughing,wheezing,fever,shivering"?"Have you visited USA,Mexico or Canada in the last 10 months?".Government of ___ wants to make sure you're safe.Please move on to these stalls and get yourself checked.

For an average of three long haulers with a few medium range jets landing every hour or two at airports everywhere,clearing populations in excess of 500 everywhere with 5 stalls and a clueless intern in each of them,it takes about 3-sometime longer than the duration of the entire damn flight to clear immigration and then collect baggage,for each passenger.And how is a diagnosis proposed for the biggest thing to hit the world since the plague or chicken guinea?

Simple-you're asked the same damn questions and checked for the same symptoms that you'd be checked for if you'd complained of common cold a couple of months back.So I decided to make my own little comprehensive analysis for you,something like a 'do it yourself' kit to know if you have the swine flu.Oh and also as bonus,you also get to find out how much of bull shit the government/media spews everyday.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE:--

see?I told you.there's no way in hell i was falling for that mound.immigration sucks.

Current affairs or not,you're an asshole.

2009-04-16T02:06:00.007+05:30

Why does everyone around me have to be involved with current affairs all the time i just can't stop wondering.The last 8 odd months have been particularly arduous.To get into a good MBA college,you need to keep yourself aware of scenarios in the present-that much I can understand.But why it is more important to let the people around you know of your space shuttle launch graph of ever increasing knowledge base that you struggle to keep confined to your fractured head in order to establish importance,is something beyond me.

I know people are going to say Hey Vasant the answer lies in your very statement.That people do it to prove superiority.That it is not merely enough for them to let us know they ARE assholes without them opening their mouth but also to comprehensively prove it on a piece of stamp to what magnitude their holes spread out as well.

So here's the deal.Everywhere I kept going for interviews,as much as I hated the idea of sitting beside someone dressed in blazers,knowing that they guy in it felt invincible and oh so "corporate",I also had to put up with this horn-rimmed glass donning empty suit of a sumbitch,hands crossed on lap,smiling cockily,thinking he owns the world just because he was called in for interview at a place allegedly meant only for smart people.

So this guy tries hard to distract attention by coughing,clearing his throat,tugging at his excuse for a tie and pulling off all kinds of stunts and finally when he realizes no one cares,he latches on to the next immediate prey and asks him about his background and as soon as some level of comfort is reached,he lets loose his knowledge of current affairs with obama,sri lanka,sudan unesco and fuck knows what else.The worst part-I knew this guy fitted the bill as soon as I saw hi, and the more worse part is that I was right.Unfortunately.

Empty fucking suits everywhere.Man the world just can't seem to have enough.

Here's an idea for you the next time you come across an empty suit who just can't shut the hell up.Hell he doesn't even need to speak.If you spot a blazer in an interview,walking confidently with a folder tucked neatly in his/her hands and you just can't stand the bitch for whatever reason be,stand up,go to the monkey,introduce yourself and punch the hell out of his face.With a bleeding nose and a crushed up ego,no one would have to put up with more general awareness barrage anymore.Certainly not any that one wouldn't have bargained for.

If you yourself are one of them,and considering the fact that you'll pretend you're not,I hope you die.

Moods of a Jackass

2009-04-14T08:39:00.008+05:30

wonders of me,the world knows not
what they make of me..
death to us all comes comes but one day sure
wisdom beyond me,how can i so find

to know you is what i want
its me who could do it if to be done so
if it weren't for me,could it be so true-so lovely
there's nothing more pretty than the way it doesn't look to be baby

didn't chase a farce called dream,didn't call insanity
for once in life,i spread my arms for all that you want me to be
this is it,this is all...
what more can i do to ask you to leave me alone
butterworth or cheeze i stopped them from seeing
marooning despair is all i was left to be

the air i inhaled or the water i drank
nothing came close to come out of what you made of me..
me-an excuse for one man
conquer something improbable is what you set me out to
all that was left behind was 0,1 and 2 :|

colonies,societies,locales
stuck inside my ragged immature ass
am losing it now ain't i?
go fuck yourself..die,die,die
poem it started out as
now all that's left of it is me looking like a jackass.

FUCK You.FucK you Hard.
may all your children be fucking retards :)

The Lead India campaign is a slithering mound of manure

2009-03-31T13:28:00.006+05:30

Remember how I talked bout the Times of India last year and how desperately it remained committed to ruining my day?Well,this is it's continuation.But only more specific.Last year it came up with a campaign called 'Lead India' as most of you abominable youth out there would already be aware.

As with most of its sorry ass "mass awakening" campaigns,I knew then that even this would go only so far as to make me snore out loud while the Times calculated how much of people's time it wasted by making 4 ugly ass candidates stand up looking as lost as monkeys in the Sahara.I knew the hype was all shit and it would eventually come down to more Khadi,more slogans and more bull and no end result in the end.

While I shouted and screamed and asked assholes to switch off their television sets and boycott Arnab Goswami rambling on like an idiot on how "differently" these highly educated citizens would change the way the world looked at politics,people were busy making notes on how easy health care education etc. would become if they really did help these guys come to power.

Power?What power someone might wonder.And that's exactly what I did too.I asked myself and then people around me one question I thought was reasonably logical.I thought these men who allegedly held the future of India in their hands had no first hand experience of politics and if merely being educated was the key to being a good "leader",most of the graduates from the IIMs and the IITs and IAS officers would've made for a sweeping rebellion in the country.Has it happened yet?NO.Am I being so negative you wish you could rip my balls off and feed it to a goat?Well,kiss my ass I say.

I know people are only going to moan more and say "Hey Vasant,at least some one took a step".I say that is so much bullshit,I could actually fertilize all the tillable land in India with it.Merely wearing Khadi and putting on an air of intelligence by donning rimless spectacles goes only so far as to saying "I am smart.But that still leaves me being a presumptuous coward."Look at what happened to RK Mishra.He was elected by the "people" right.Lead India was actually created with a vision so as to eliminate corruption and poverty and other evils as governments in power as well as their oppositions are all corrupted and guess what.He went ahead and joined the BJP.

Why not start a new political party where in only educated people are taken in with no criminal records and exemplary track records? Cliched?Hasn't worked yet so why will it work now?Negativity did some on say?Too much of an inconvenience putting up all of that for a better world or a future for the next generation of Indians?You betcher ass.

Now people could be ready with more shit barricades to stop me from bringing out reality like a true warrior with "but we need more people like him.He's educated and so will change the way the BJP works",only to be confronted with a round hose kick from me so hard,it turns their faces inside out.Most people even forgot what that highly educated revolutionary looked like till now and that too only because he joined the BJP and hence was in the news.I mean ask yourself.Would you care if Lead India shut the hell up already?

You might again say "but it's only growing.We have to help it achieve national importance."Why should I?Would you?Does anyone really care?No.Merely staying patriotic and not doing shit about it isn't going to change a thing.Just like Lead India hasn't yet and won't.What RK Mishra might have managed after half a million votes or more and his villager empowering stunts,and other puny bull shit is managed by most NGOs everyday.And they don't get airtime on TV.They don't moan about how important it is to be aggressively patriotic.So who needs this shit anyway?

Ya bitches bring out more contemporary looking advertisements with poor looking bank clerks swearing with their hands on their children's heads and saying "I swear.I will wipe out..." Oh give me a break.Lead India sucks.And there's no two ways about it.Before you decide to contest this,take a deep breath and think about it.RK Mishra or for that matter all those guys are no where right now.And even if they are,the only guys benefiting from it all is they themselves.

I hope I am not forced to reply to comments to this post where people come up with stats as to what exactly RK Mishra has done in the last year.Or more septic stuff like "he'll only work if we help him".NO.I've got better things to do.Like sleep.Or stare at space.Or give a squirrel a bath.Either ways,all these things give me more value for time than making the Times a richer franchise.

(Imaging the following line set against a black and white back-drop of Marine drive or the gateway of India with pigeons flying in the back ground and the hustle bustle of fellow commuters.And me holding a copy of the times against my ass,pants down,looking serious and committed to the cause of the "new India")---

I SWEAR....TO WIPE MY ASS CLEAN EVERY MORNING WITH A COPY OF THE TIMES OF INDIA.RK MISHRA CAN HOLD MY BALLS WHILE I GIVE HIM A POWER BOMB.

How I learnt to compete and enjoy it.

2009-03-27T11:42:00.006+05:30

I've wondered many times in my life until now as to why I never could muster enough strength when someone in my class at school or college just walked past me may it be academics or extra curricular activities or even sports to go up to them and tell any of them that I was just as good at something I didn't know I had and do it better than any of them.I just couldn't.Because I never took the pain to bother.I didn't care.

I had my own world.I had my friends.They loved me,my behavior with them and they probably felt nice to be with me because I constantly reminded them of the fact that here is this guy who has nothing with him and yet chooses to make a complete jackass of himself everywhere he went.It's not to say that some people didn't have faith in me or my potential.They did.The only problem was just like me,most of them didn't know what that potential really was.

My mother has always been an exceptional parent and the one thing that she has really cared about it what I was doing with my life, basically with education.And every time she used to ask me this question,I came up with "all right mom not again.fix me some breakfast/after-break before lunch snack/lunch/mid afternoon siesta/evening twilight time pass crunches/dinner/mid night snack"-you get the idea!I always believed her along with everyone else's words just didn't affect me.It wasn't that I believed I'd come good someday-no.I just chose to ignore reality and run away from truth all the time,all the while hiding all my sub conscious worries deep inside my psychotic buffoonery.

I thought it could go on like this forever.Dodge and run.I was wrong.The trouble with that is I knew somewhere down the line,I would be wrong.

The whole point of this post is actually against my belief system wherein I've never really posted anything about myself,because of one very simple reason.No one cares.And neither do I.I mean why would you waste a chunk of your time reading what i did since getting up in the morning till I took my morning shit and how I dozed off.Do you care?No.Just as no one cares about what you did all day.The point is I want to tell you guys,as much as I hate the word motivation from someone else or pep-talk that if there is something you want more dearly than life itself,you'll get it no matter how bad the odds are stacked against you.Well,mostly.If not today then tomorrow or the day after.But every fucking dog has his day.

I stood last in a class of 120+ students while at engineering and all though I laughed at it in my own mocking way,something deep inside told me it just wasn't funny anymore.

And I hate advices myself so am not going to give you any.But this is what I've learnt in the course of the last 10 odd months.And I want you to know that if Vasant Iyer can do something really good,any body can do something equivalent or even better.Am not underplaying myself either so put your sword back into your scabbard monkey asses!

The point is I found my love,I found interest and I chased it hard.It's not to say I could've not succeeded this time around.May be yes.I was lucky at times.But factors like luck help you once you take a step.And I took my first step in 21 years.And trust me,the feeling is dizzying.

The most important thing I've learnt in the last year or so is the need of attaining humility.I've competed with some of the best in the country for close to 3 and a half months now(the interviews,before that with close to 3 lacs for CAT) and there are people out there I had no match for.But allthough,that put pressure on me,i decided to deal with it the smarter way.To accept that fact and move on.May be I am good at something they're not or may be not.It doesn't matter.The thing I understood is that I am such a tiny fucking drop in the ocean that even a sea horse couldn't wipe it's ass with me,after taking a shit!

And that understanding comes only with experience.So i decided to not put pressure on myself to perform and rather decided to take the whole damn thing one freaking interview/exam/adventure at a time.And it sure as hell worked.

I learnt the urge to compete.It's massive.Finding your love and competing with the best there are and not pussying out gives you a feeling that doesn't even probably come in the same perimeter as sex.Trust me on this monkey asses!Finding that thing you like might take some time.You don't need to find it tomorrow or next week.There's no time frame to this.Identifying what your ass is worth and sticking to it makes you bigger.Bigger by heart.Not by worth.Stay rooted and go for it.

Remember,if Vasant fucking Iyer can do it,SO CAN YOU!

The audacity of self-assurance

2009-02-06T19:48:00.005+05:30

Waiting at airports or railway stations and catching a fellow passenger with a book in hand without Barack Obama's face or silhouette on the cover page makes me want to walk up to the person,hug him and weep out loudly for as long as possible.Or at least until the next person walks in,trolley in-tow,the "serenest" of confident smiles on face,with one of the many million copies of a book on or about the new President of the "you-knighted" states,as people more fondly and with the most profound over-pronunciations,refer to him as with the satisfaction of having just delivered a sermon in the Vatican with the Pope himself nodding on in approval.

After all that I will have said here by the end of this page,one thing will be more obvious than anything else.Whatever point I make,it'll hold true that even I have succumbed to talking about the Obama tide that has swept over the globe like no other personality in recent human memory.

But like the very few of you who might share my view on this or like most of you,who might get horribly offended at me taking a predictably different stand on this phenomenon,let me be clear on one thing.I am not going to waste web-space over trying to talk about something the entire universe is tirelessly making a house-hold name,oh hell,a virtual family member as a matter of fact and over someone,no one might care to read after all the hep shot articles in world leading magazines,least of all in a poor man's page like mine.

People like a Barack Obama or an Aamir Khan or a Dhirubhai Ambani are individuals of a very specific breed.They are created in singular numbers.Not every month or a year or a decade.These people are special individuals.It's not to say that everyone doesn't understand this but what baffles me is when people get ready to cheat their very souls into convincing themselves that if a single person with zip for a back ground and nothing to hang on to,could travel with his community,more than half the globe and go on to become the most celebrated human being on the face of the earth,talking all the while of having made his mark on only 'hope',the least they could do for themselves or their family is to come remotely close.

For as much as I have been observing the surreal madness,one very common facet that has stood out in the "Obamania" is people's willingness to sell present but obvious reality to buy their dreams for a very eerie yet finite period of time.And the people who have benefited the most in this gullibility of the common man all over the world are people running the media.TIME has made Obama the man of every nano-second of the past year if not to suffice the year in itself.And so has "time" itself.

It's not me to be quixotic or Utopian in expecting people including myself to accept and swallow reality at the drop of a hat,because,quite simply,human beings are not designed to perform in that manner.It's absolutely acceptable for us to expect ourselves to chance upon a fortune some way down the line or work our way toward achieving even a fraction of what these stalwarts have,but who are we kidding?

Our lives are genuinely cramped up with chores of such meager proportions that heading a company,fifteen years from now,while already pushing the uglier side of the 40s,with nothing more than a pay-cheque in hand every month that barely takes care of the groceries,college tuition and family medical expenses,seems outrageously self-punishing.

The point is Barack Obama's endorsement for his much hyped black berry is virtually worth 40 million dollars.No one even has the faintest idea of how much Mr.President would've made selling dreams to people in his books.People,who would've probably had a difficult time grasping the fact that the word "audacity" could have had such a wider frame of sense,coming from a man,they think personifies their dream future.

What does it all mean?What does the future hold for the common man,whose image has been transformed into a wild demon of sorts who could seem to achieve whatever he sets out to?Basically the fact that he cannot.There are individuals and then there is a group.A common swarm.A breed of people,not very different from one another.They can't simply hold an audience captive or make them clap like they've just seen JFK catch the bullet in time with bare hands and throw it back at the second storey,in the most perfectly reversed trajectories.Or neither can they create universes of giant refineries from snack stalls.People simply can't.

Obama will continue holding his thumb up while addressing a group of people from south Milwaukee;his clan of people,continue to speak with the smartest,most assured of smirks,the most calming chins resting on intertwine fingers.But he is,and rightly so,the President of the United States.He is a magnificent individual and may time permit,prove to be a self less leader of the human clan.

We're individuals too.But of a different kind.Ironically too,we're all people of a very similar kind.We fight for our existence.We dream of marvelous futures.We envision;that someday,even we,just with hope and hope alone,will achieve something out of the ordinary.That we shall turn wild success dream fables into reality and may be someday,we too shall adorn,at least a caption of the last third page of a local district newspaper if not TIME.It's difficult to not fall for people riding the band-wagon and trying to sell their waves,clinging on to someone else's victory march.But then,we're again not designed to think rationally at all times.

The Obama/Aamir/Ambani dreams will continue to sell.If not through themselves,then through people,least associated with any of them.We're no perfectionists,nor are we mass leaders.If in our stagnant lives,hope has taken precedence over more important words like hard work,integrity or practical logic,it is to blame no one but us,that we have forced ourselves to become victims of self-assurances and fickle solace deriving books and articles that look good merely in print or with symphonies playing in the background.

Unless there is a new wave of accepting reality as an ideal in itself,people of the arriving generation might not even be blamed for being "audacious" enough to trust in hope more than the other actually important ingredients for success and instead smile and punch the air every time a new orator is elected as president or a film maker puts on a ton of muscle and dream of themselves following suit only because a single Afro-American man proved people wrong.It happens to select individuals of immense capability.

Barack Obama might say he has made it possible on merely hope and hard work.But even he knows,what he has achieved might not even be possible for him,himself if he set out again,least of all to us,striving every passing day to make night into light without wanting to let our kids shudder in the cold.

After all,not even hope can trust only in itself to assure people of success.The sooner this frugal concept is understood,the better for us "potential world beaters".

Rahman finally gets his due

2009-01-22T22:45:00.007+05:30

It's not often that 25 year old background music assistants in big-shot composer groups get calls on lazy mornings from a man most people know by the name Mani Ratnam,asking the person at the other end of the phone if he would be kind enough to jostle up some tracks for his film,Roja.Mani Ratnam had then,only 4 years ago,managed a film which is to date regarded by TIME as one of the 100 best movies of all time-Nayakan.

Neither him nor the cherubic 'wannabe' composer could've known that the proposal,later accepted, would result into one of the finest pieces of art to touch human ears.And also,just to add to the tale,a National award for best music director.Roja was to be that 25 year old music composer's debut film.The first time,a man had won the National honor on debut.One of a million more to come.

Mani Ratnam and AR Rahman would later after Roja,go on to make 7 more films in collaboration.But not many could've predicted before 1991,that gradually,most of the films in the latter part of that list,would work more as the Rahman-Ratnam tag team than the obvious reverse.

His understanding of versatility was probably learnt from a private school or college,only he attended and taught in himself.World music,hollywood,Andrew-Loyd Webber,Lord of the rings,Japanese classical fusion,Mandarin language movies,his own band-"Nemesis avenue",he made it all possible.Rahman conceived music with painfully precision,brilliance,consistency and variety.

He introduced India and the world to music they never thought could be manufactured.His faithful servants aka Sivamani,Ranjit Barot and his arrangers by him,Rahman's already created and released Hindi music sound tracks on were borrowed for blockbuster western film title tracks.The National Anthem by him,produced goose bumps of never-before seen intensities on people's bodies,even in movie theatres before the titles rolled.It almost made people ponder career changes into the army,completely oblivious of the first few minutes of the already rolling cinema print before them.

4 National awards for best music composer would sound alarming to some,disturbing to others and shocking to most.But statistics are drawn merely to impress humans.To interest them.To intrigue them.People with genuine talent rarely imagine themselves receiving honors and recognition in different parts of the world,in spaces of days,badly jet-lagging,stammering,hurling themselves from one plane to the other just so they could go to yet another stage,tuxedos et.all,smile,pose,shake hands,give interviews,talk global recognition not for themselves but for the countries they come from.Rahman has been no different.

At least in one very rare philosophical arena,he hasn't.

Awards are not what Rahman makes.He deserves them,sure.But like most great men,he moves on.In search of more.In search of something which makes him get up from sleep like in a fairy-tale talent haven,open the creaky door to his basement room and get to work on his humanely-insane looking synthesizers and never-ending keyboards.How he flips through them so fast,so slickly,so masterfully,one can only wonder.And that's how Rahman chooses to make a living.He doesn't just entertain people.He makes them suffer.Suffer in silence at why they couldn't be just so talented.He might be one of only a select breed of people who make people not just listen to music,but see it;touch it.And later,cry over it.

Awards and recognitions do not define the life a man may have lived.They do not fully stand testimony to the character of the person.Rahman won't have to prove his worth to India by converting either of his nominations into a more than likely possibility of final awards.We know he's more than just our fellow citizen.He's our personal pride.He's a gem we would all,with equal possessiveness hold in our heart's lockers wielding batons against evil eyes!

At the Golden Globes,he didn't look like he was at home amidst veteran,multiple time award winners,taking out a little letter to thank the almighty while everyone stood to applaud a man they might have heard as a rare Indian musical prodigy,but many of them seeing what the biggest name in the Indian music industry looked like at 5 feet,7-8 inches,cheeks blushing galore.But that was the charm of the occasion.Rahman didn't look at home.And charmingly so.

He was a 24 hour flight away from his home in India.

He's already No.6 in the list of all time highest cassette/CD sellers,with most or all of the others above him having made their marks at a time,where no one had to be scared of their music reaching people's sub-woofer systems through words like "live streaming" and "save target as" before the seek bar stopped playing at the composer's home for the first time.But statistics again won't do Rahman justice.He's way above all that.He won't believe he is.But we know better.Oscars or not,Rahman's worth more than exceeds his weight in gold.

AR Rahman is the quintessential son that a mom or a wife would want for her family.Successful,calm,woefully humble and patriotic.And to top it all,blissfully indifferent.If the nominations convert into final awards,Rahman will even then,dedicate the awards to the 1000 million people back home,a trend the Americans wouldn't be too familiar with.They're more used to hearing "I thank my family,the producers and the people associated with this film....they made this possible."Rahman might end up saying the people of India made it possible for him.

If he does,it might not be entirely true.Rahman has built his forte all by himself.But he loves the place he belongs to.As do all of us.He might well be the first "fully Indian" person to stand at the mic at the Kodak Theatre in front of a billion blood shot eyes back home in India,glued to their sets.If it doesn't we'll still stand and applaud at the airport when he lands back.

Like a select few Indians,he's taught us to dream.He's taught us to stay put to our roots after all the hoopla.We might never be as successful as he is.But all that is fine,because he's also taught us to be romantic,yes;but cautiously so.

As long as Rahman fills the world's ears with his notes,India will more than gladly see and live success and pride through his eyes,fingers and chords.Jai Ho!!

CC2C is awfully entertaining.

2009-01-18T19:57:00.009+05:30

Times of India(the prefixing 'the' was purposely omitted)gave me one more reason to hate it the day before when Nikhat Kazmi zoomed in with yet another of her corrupted review s on a film.Firstly,I would like to address the other pressing issue at hand-Kazmi is sold out on reviews.I haven't seen one proper film review from her in the last 3 years that has been guaranteed to be even remotely the same way as she rates them.Om shanti Om,according to her "expert opinion" deserved three and a half stars while CC2C,while probably being the most different concept Indian cinema has seen in the last 5 years apart from Kamal Hasan's 'Dasavatharam',managed to earn a respectable one and a half.

The stars and the ratings can go down well to hell.This article is not so much about to what extent Kazmi's pen is sold out to big budget horse piles,as it is about how awfully satisfied I was,when i left the theatre after Chandni Chowk to China.Oh and I almost forgot; Dostana scored a cool 4 stars.And John and Abhishek didn't even have to act.They just played themselves.

Anyway,back to the film,apart from a scene or two where you could easily spot the strings holding the guys performing the stunts in mid-air,and of course Deepika Padukone,CC2C worked for me on the mere merit of Akshay Kumar being in it.Hold on to your biased rectum before you can hiss at me Nikhat,cuz am not saying the movie worked only because Akshay Kumar kicks ass,unlike you, who just wouldn't stop licking ass when Welcome or Singh is King rolled out.Those were neither unique nor interesting to me.CC2C is both.And obviously only my opinion counts.The movie may not kick ass.But I was entertained.And at least that stands for something,cuz I am not saying this after accepting a wad of currency from Karan Johar,Yash Chopra or Aneez Bazmee like you do,every time before coming out in print your shit.

Certain scenes are non-sensical like the unwanted TSN spoofs and the translator gadget.But that's the fun element.The movie is so non-sensical that it makes you laugh without caring.The stunts and fight sequences are amazingly choreographed at most times when not done with absurd and easily pickable computer graphics and it kicks ass anyday by Bollywood standards.Am not a guy who usually appreciates efforts,when the end result is lame.But the concept was fabulously unique and some of the scenes tickled my ribs till I cried.

You(Kazmi)ask Kumar to take a break from repeating his cliched comic gimmicks and go back and pull off something similar to a 'Hera-Pheri'.Here's a piece of advice for you-Stop breathing.Or atleast stop writing.You suck.When was the last time someone laughed non-stop because you wrote something exceptionally humorous or did a kung-fu move without breaking your hip in a million bits.Sounds like an unrelated rant doesn't it?Well so are every single one of your sold out reviews.Let's see you making 730 million rupees off writing 30 million reviews,let alone 3 films.I know what the counter is going to be.."But I never had anything against Akshay,it was just the film.",which again is pathetic so shut the hell up.

CC2C is a must watch.It is awesomely entertaining and I would've given it a 3 and a half rightfully deserved stars if she hadn't pissed me off so bad.Just so i make myself clear,am gonna give it a 10 out of five.And let's see who the hell cares.Just like no one did when she came out with her diarrhea.I hate Nikhat Kazmi and "the times".To hell with them.

CC2C rating--

Courage under fire

2008-11-29T17:18:00.028+05:30

If it weren't for the hideousness that the last few days have come to be in the financial heart of one of the world's fastest growing economies,the opening line could have well passed off as just a title to a famous hollywood flick.

But sadly enough, it won't.India has been attacked.It has been held hostage.It has been weakened from its knees time and again and once more,on yet another cursed 26th of a month,it has been put through one of the worst smelling tests for 60 hours and more and the results couldn't even come close to declaring all of it a national disgrace.

This is not just about shame.Not about politics.Not least only about the bravest of men and women in and out of uniform laying down their lives,so people like Raj Thackeray and his brigade could snuggle up inside their "made in Maharashtra" blankets,trying hard not to pee in bed at the prospect of spending close to 3 days locked down in a dark 5 star hotel room,feeling the cold muzzle of a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle pushed against their empty temples,unlike others who actually had the misfortune of living through it while many many couldn't even be that "unfortunate".

This is not about a dozen barely "out of teens" punks riding into the coast of Mumbai possessing enough weapons and ammunition to send mother nature to orbit calling themselves "Deccan Mujahideen",as if it were merely another IPL franchisee.Kids who couldn't be able to pick up a copy of the 'Koran' from a hoard of others if not labelled in block letters,but be more than willing to lodge a piece of their artillery slyly inside your cranium,if you make the mistake of trying to reason with them.

This is not about these brave hearts not knowing any other religion except one very cliched and hackneyed sense of unity held on closer to their bodies and minds with bigger conviction than a 3 year old holding on to his candy-bar.The one religion they could give up their lives for again if given a chance tomorrow.They didn't have the power to comprehend the possibility of there being something beyond laying their lives down to guard the people they didn't even know existed somewhere.They knew together and they knew well.There was nothing bigger than the Nation.They didn't allow themselves to be divided by mark of a line separating a state from another.They never could have.For them,their nationality was unique,and nothing else mattered.They just happened to belong to one very proud country knowing many religions and languages,yet speaking just one.They just happened to belong to India.

Battle grounds and wars aside,all these terminologies don't even come close to the magnitude of the problem confronting us.How easy has it become for a bunch of college grads to load up their country made ships with the heaviest and the most powerful weapons,have a fully detailed lay-out of the most prestigious landmarks of Mumbai,walk into stations and roads,remorse-lessly start firing from sub-machine guns and walk away from one location to another with the most devious of glint in their eyes and hold close to 6 and a half billion people at ransom?

That's right.Not just the people holed up inside the places and the helpless and decimated people sitting in front of their television sets hoping against hope,to see one message in the marquees saying their wives/husbands/children/relatives are safe.Surely not just them.These fanatics held at ransom the whole world waiting with bated breath,cursing politicians or anyone who crosses their immediate thoughts and grinding their teeth with all their might,hoping for the ordeal to come to a happy ending with no hostages killed or at least the fewest possible causalities with the commandos walking away into the sunset,leaving people assured that everything is under control.Why this isn't re-assuring is because people know that the truth is a mockery of all that.

This is about all of us getting emotionally charged at first at all the happenings around us and rightfully so.We're all very patriotic.We all love our people and our mother-land.What the real pressing issue though is the question that mostly all of us will dodge.Either for the moment,or decide to bury the question,deep into the earth's crust so it would never come back to haunt us.But it will.Truth always does.

The question of how far will we go to ensure something of this magnitude would not happen again?How much do we genuinely care?It doesn't necessitate joining the NSG or the Army ourselves.It surely doesn't involve us trying hard to change our leaderships and everyone else who could be the easy scape goat right now.It's easy to talk politics sitting on a bed,playing with our dogs and washing our daughter's hair while getting her ready for the next day's kindergarten school play.It's an entirely different game while having been given the job of defending and safe-guarding the lives of a billion plus people while moving around in a convoy feeling like your death would mean the end of the world.

My intentions are not at all to defend the mostly corrupt officers,bureaucrats and the much hated and the immediate hot picks-the politicians.My point is when was the last time we went to the entrance of a mall and not make a face at the experience of having an unknown man running his hands through our bodies merely for a formality and instead asked the security in charge to scrutinize our own pockets thoroughly in front of everyone else with the hopes that may be someone would spot all this and realize it's his duty too?

When was the last time we called in a bag lying down at a station unguarded or a dead body lying in the middle of a street like one would've bothered more if it were a wallet,and yawned instead at the the thought of having to go through all the formalities of filling up forms and the endless questionnaire and decided instead to call up a buddy to inquire about the possibility of dinner tonight while that very bag could render many families to even forget the prospect of one for a lifetime?

Too far fetched a prospect to compare with terrorism?Well,so too,might the men have thought sitting under top-secret bunkers under heavy surveillance wires running through the most sophisticated intelligence gathering systems trying hard to zero-in on one tiny dot on their radars, from a sea of more than 6 and a half billion trying to sneak through their country's borders.

It's easier to neglect the possibilities of the smallest of assistance we could provide authorities or uncaring officials who may cringe on being forced to ruin their siestas while at offices for being disturbed on a potentially useless piece of information,or one which could save many from having to spend a good portion of their after life 6 ft beneath the earth.But if that's how it works,that's how it will.Hope is the only and truly remaining option we have left with us.

It's only hope and positivity which will help us lead a safer life,not just for us but our future generations as well.It's time to think right now more than it's necessary to act later.Being emotionally pumped up after a massacre on the country is totally acceptable and right too.But it shouldn't all end within a fort-night,with us having trouble trying to place a certain "Karkare" or an "Unnikrishnan".

These people have laid down their lives with the hopes of their deaths bringing a better future to India.May be they didn't even have the time to visualize such possibilities before slowly losing their vision and breath permanently,courtesy of three gaping wounds the size of a crater through their chests and brains.But that's the least we could give them back in return.That's the only real salvo they deserve and not merely gun shots and national anthems blaring out from trumpets.These men were larger than lives.But more importantly so are our families to us.What have we done in ensuring their security?

Commendations,salutes and heart-felt gratitude gestures are all fine and justified.Let's hope the country is able to guard itself better as a result of small pro-active rather than reactive measures taken by citizens as a singular force.Let's hope all the hate logged inside the minds of these brain washed kids diminishes and is replaced with compassion.Let's hope India continues to remain a nation held together by the spirit of WE-The People than ME-The Individual.Let's just hope that all that these soldiers have done doesn't go down in history as just another date that happened to be the 26th of a month.

We can only hope.

Yuvvraaj is Subhash ghai's hangover from Kisna

2008-11-21T20:19:00.007+05:30

That's right.He could have may be put on a couple of more 'Y's and 'J's,but truth be said;Yuvvraaj will need more than just numerology to make it click with people that appreciate cinema and is one of the biggest disappointments of 2008.Not because someone would suddenly expect the magic to somehow rekindle it's romance with the cameras of the showman himself.But mostly for reasons other than that.The creativity and the elegance that started dwindling away during 'Pardes' and lost itself completely between 'Taal' and churned people's mind into a slush in his next 'Yaadien' which slowly started sending out a message to the audience that the grandeur was all but lost and whatever little remained will be used up in a few places in Yuvvraaj and besides that,the rest were shadowy,pale,struggling actors trying to carve themselves out a career aka.Sanjay Dutt from the blockbuster 'Khalnayak'.

What disappoints me about Yuvvraaj more than anything was that only last year with the release of 'Black and White',Ghai showed some promise of resilience.A spirit of fighting against time and fast arriving film-makers into the Hindi film industry,who haven't just started making money out of single digit budgeted movies,but have also on more occasions than one can count,proved that they support meaningful cinema,oh for the heck of it,cinema in general.But all that Yuvvraaj has managed to prove,is that despite all the charm of the locales,all the magnificence of western European countries and sets and varnished cellos played by the 'growing more resplendent by the film' Katrina Kaif,and despite all the machismo of the never ageing Salman Khan,Yuvvraaj lags and lacks excruciatingly painfully for 2 solid hours on one of the most essential parts of film making,that even a layman would agree to-a story line.

Whatever is left of the story line is not even worth getting into and is a re-run of the most hackneyed battering of 'brothers fighting for the family money,all the fighting coming to an end with a re-union with vamps,evil 'mamas',bhabhis,treachery' et. all and except for yet another of Rahman's master strokes,some of the tunes to which you'd simply want to close your eyes and forget you were in the midst of all the turmoil(the movie) and honestly wish the notes flowed for the 2 hours instead of the film with moving wallpapers of Katrina playing the cello and Salman standing right behind in a suave suit with the greenest of freshly shaven faces.

I can't possibly term Katrina's presence in the film as a "waste",cause it wasn't like her acting could be put to any better use,and quite frankly without her and Salman's being in the movie,even the first week-end shows would have to be occupied by only the ushers and their families.Anil Kapoor tries hard and delivers in phases and Salman and Katrina look truly pretty together and the audience are bound to love the few scenes they share.Boman Irani irritates.Besides that,you could well prepare a list of things you cold invest a couple of hundred bucks on a boring Saturday evening and even "buy the neighbourhood brat a cricket ball to break window panes with',would be a better investment than Yuvvraaj.

Strictly for Salman buffs and Rahman fanatics.

Chamku is a good movie regardless of what anyone says.

2008-08-29T17:43:00.010+05:30

I was getting out of the hall at around 5 o clock today(the very day of Chamku's release) along with 6 other people in a hall with a capacity of more than 300.I had the misfortune of overhearing someone saying "saala paisa gir gaya.2 ghante mai khatam?hathoda tha ".I felt saddened;in fact distraught,reflecting on the mind set of Indian audiences.Am talking about Chamku-one of the best films of the year,that I am sure,I will have to watch being ignored as just another film that came and went obsequiously and was buried under another stampede of the ''masala'' craving audience.

I believed in the film's potential when I saw the promos around a fortnight ago and I wasn't even mildly disappointed right from the time i sat down to see the credits roll first to the time they rolled again.

The movie revolves around the psyche of an ex-Naxalite from the interiors of Rajasthan.After being trained to be a naxalite by Danny Dengzongpa(left to die before he 'comes alive' for you),the protagonist(Bobby Deol) is employed by the IB and the RAW of the Indian Government after being saved(captured) from a fake encounter between the cops and some of the extremists,and thus begins the journey of one of the most underrated actors in the Indian film industry-his struggle to come to peace with himself,his past,his only real life wish of avenging the brutal murder of his father by a certain Thakur Pratap Singh(an obnoxiously loud Akhilendra Misra ready to blow into smithereens)and his interactions and encounters with the chief of special operations of some wing in the IB(Irrfan Khan at his cruelly inimitable best) and other socio-political nexuses that unravel as the film progresses.

Priyanka Chopra justifies the point that many people exploring or trying to create good cinema make-that of the superfluous need for a love interest when the film could have moved on so much more smoothly.She is left leaving behind an annoying trail of knotted blouses and plastic giggles.Ritesh Deshmukh looks to be merely returning industry favors and is horridly wasted.

The editing is flawless and certainly left me,at least not wanting to lean back and relax if not on the edge of my seat.The screen writing and direction(Kabeer Kaushik of the acclaimed Sehar fame)is certainly admirable and the director deserves a well-deserved pat on the back for attempting an off-beat(not for the story,but for the way it unravels)film with a cast not guaranteed to rake in the moolah(euphemism at its level best).Gopal Shah does a fine job with the camera and some of the fire-exchange sequences are extremely well conceived at least by Indian standards.At certain points it did strike me as odd as to why so many fake encounter reels needed to be repeated and wasted to drive no real point home.

People,more often than not,after watching yet another of his surely 'going to flop' movies (I am sure of the result because I know people would opt for another Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif brain paralyzer over something that would hold meaning on a weekend) will be heard saying that Deol carries the same demented expression throughout the movie.Well if it weren't for his brooding silence with the barest minimum of dialogues that concealed behind it a suffering known to the victim only(something that has been tried in the past by many optimistic actors and film makers and failed miserably)performed to perfection,the film wouldn't have been any different from the trillions of mega-bucks,cliched 'hero kills villain and dances in a mountain with the heroine' films.

Those guaranteed commercial success but Chamku will be remembered by me at-least until a better movie is released in the year(a notable achievement would be an understatement).Bobby Deol is at his finest ever.And I know that means good cinema to start of with.

I hope more people recognize the invaluable mark that a success of such a film shall leave on an industry frightened at the prospect of making an off-beat film for they fear it might lead to bankruptcy.Stop watching Akshay-Katrina.And if you do,I am guessing you have money enough to blow away on meaningless rants and mockeries of quality cinema.You might as well invest half of that on a morning show and boost the courage and the potential that the industry
is forced to hide.

Mumbai meri jaan:An honest attempt

2008-08-23T01:23:00.008+05:30

I,as a long time supporter of mainstream Indian cinema have always believed that many of the Indian actors and film makers could count themselves amongst the elite the world has seen and produced.And this is a time period where there is a sudden flux of contemporary good quality Indian movies hitting halls like they have only rarely been able to.

Also a huge number of movies centralized in and around Mumbai and the life styles of the people living in it have also been abundantly produced in recent times.After Black Friday,Traffic signal,RGV's personalized gangster flicks and the very recent, earth shatteringly gripping Aamir,Director Nishikant Kamat comes up with a very honestly attempted portrayal of life in Mumbai after the July 11 serial blasts.

Besides Sanjay Jadhav's cinematography of the best possible class and intellect,Mumbai meri jaan promises the everyday movie buff a ride that will linger in his mind at least till he goes home,switches off the lights and goes to sleep.The cast is handpicked and except for very few irregularities,each carve out their respective roles with panache.

KK has once again done justice to his theater reputation and has perfectly pulled off the role of a vagabond,good for nothing pseudo-leader of a "time-pass" gang and more than runs away with certain scenes had the sometimes modestly pictured 'chai-galla' set not been used so frequently as to the tune of us closing our eyes and guessing where he would be sitting while uttering some of his lines. Madhavan is used sparingly and rightly so as he would not have been missed either had he refused to sign for the part.

Soha Ali Khan steps out of the puddle as the self-victimized and derailed journalist whose life primarily revolves around reporting with considerable ease,the pains of other victims while merely making money out of it.Her world turns upside down whose life falls apart after having to report the death of her own fiance and see all of it being sucked up into the huge money grinding timber machine that Mumbai has come to be.The strikingly different performance is complimented well by timely screenplay when the director makes a striking note of the "spice and dice of the truth" that Indian news channels have come to churn out on our faces.

Paresh Rawal comes out of the closet 15 kilos thinner(something he did especially for the role) and is a contrasting relief to the audience from the cliched "baburao" genre that he has been repeatedly been forced to do by the Priyadarshans and Nadiadwalas.Kamat has finally been able to put to good use,a fine actor capable of portraying landmark roles and has succeeded in creating a role for one of the most under used actors of the Hindi film industry and will probably be known as the one guy who has treated Rawal's potential as a fine actor-a tad too tediously at times but a very finely scripted role nonetheless.

Irrfan Khan is easily the pick of the lot who plays the role of a guy surviving off petty chores and in the process sweeps everyone off their feet,perhaps in the meatiest character he
has pulled off till date and keeps us gasping for more with nerve wrecking ability to convey expressions with least need for audibility.Something that the Indian audience is not used to doing but will surely learn to get used to with this attempt ably serving as a beginning.

The direction and screenplay though lagging at several fronts like repetitive messages being sent out through similar looking scenes like Rawal's tired and "I've had it with this world" look and the hand-held camera painstakingly exploring every inch of his chest hair,mustache and glasses and instances such as his farewell speech wherein,had the scene been a reel shorter,the director himself,had he been watching the film along with me,would have had to hear lesser groans and yawns from the slowly impatient turning audience shouting "all right we get it...what next"?,has its noticeable ups by marking exemplary and magnificent observations and ably putting them forth on screen such as the instance when,even while rushing,Irrfan Khan doesn't forget to collect the change and count it carefully while buying a rose.

Indian cinema is coming of age.And with a roar and a bang that might give the west a run for their money a short decade from now.And in a flavor completely Indian-spicy,original(if i may dare) and noir.Mumbai meri jaan is a definite and recommended 'dekkho',at least for us being part of the revolution that a few,character ripe Indian filmmakers are trying to bring in if not for the regular weekend unwind.A Singh is King would suffice for the latter.

News you couldn't use

2007-11-04T00:15:00.000+05:30

FOR THE PAST few years i have been witnessing a meteoric rise in the number of news channels sprouting everywhere faster than mushrooms.Out of all these channels,the ones which target the local(read Hindi,averagely literate) population are definitely a cause of concern other than annoyance,mere waste of time and basically news no one could really use.These channels,majority of them "dedicated" hindi news channels,wouldn't even bother me so much if it wasn't really making me lose my patience every alternate time i punch the remote button.

To the right of your screen is an original screen shot from the web site of the AAJ TAK news channel.
One of the links directed me to winning a pot of gold,the other "important" news contained three articles of shah rukh khan which was supposed to be breaking news and in some remote part of a country a Venezuelan guy slapped a reporter.I am ready to bet my pay cheque after 5 years,
not even a 4th grader would agree this to be news worthy of national importance.Finally,after a few deep breaths i still kept my cool and tried another site.This time it was INDIA-TV.Again unfortunately i made the mistake of viewing the contents of the programs list and out dropped a pot of genuine, 24 karat,grade-A,piping hot,slithering monkey shit.The programs read,am not kidding you can go to the site to check it out yourself.The thumbnails are original screen shots as i mentioned earlier.So as i said the programs read-
1)ACP Arjun-a program allegedly pointing out the role of criminals and how we could be safe from them.This time i had to go out for fresh air. The other important programs were "BABA RAMDEV KA YOGA",and finally the program which every one cancels appointments to watch---ladies and gentelmen----BHAVISHYAVANI. After this i dropped out of my mid term exams.
What was not on the site is there on TV...LIVE!!!!After midnight,everyday, INDIA TV airs a special program-live,which deals with the sexual problems of the people of the republic of India.It concerns a half asleep,bald,badly aging "anchor"(thats what they call them),receiving phone calls from equally frustrated nerds telling him how they simply can't make love cuz their Johnson quit at the pen-ultimate moment.These questions are then forwarded to a panel of "highly qualified" doctors who themselves dont seem to be casting any sort of a spell on their wifes but nonetheless,these people continue their stupid chit chat while i figure out how to painfully cut off my carotid nerve.

All kidding apart,i try to think deeply,how could such programs actually have viewer ratings?because without them,these programs would have to be called off...If they re not that would only mean that they can afford to run such programs as we ACTUALLY have people who watch these things.I wouldn't even like to say no offence cuz i genuinely mean to offend such people who can not have any thing worthwhile to do than watch ramdev baba swaying his half naked ass in front of 3 million people. Then came the most awaited and planned knock on the door of the website.THE web site to be specific-STAR news.I say it was planned because it took me some real courage and will power in anticipation of what was to come.But i wasn't disappointed...Unfortunately.

The news section in star news contained 'SANSANI',another crime bitch and then-this,i couldn't come to believe.I mean i had imagined everything but i actually spotted a program called 'SAAS BAHU KI SAADISH'.
After the initial recovery from what appeared to be paralysis, i was able to focus clearly again on the description of the show-which i have underlined in red---This program gives our viewers an in depth analysis of the daily soaps and predicts what the outcome could probably be.Now the paralysis fully set in and the pain for the first time felt sweet.

Continuing on,there was 'KAUN HAI'-a program used for analysis of the supposed hauntings spotted at different places and KHABAR FILMI HAI. I again repeat i have marked the descriptions clearly so don't think am shitting.

All said and done,it is really time someone did something about this menace that the news channels have become because it would really be nice if we would just have hourly news channels which could actually have material in it rather than totally money oriented channels who have all the things in their agendas except the one thing that really should be at the top.News.

How great is great?-An article from Wikipedia

2007-11-03T15:33:00.001+05:30

Vasant Iyer born 15th june,1987 (hindi - वसंत) ,in the village of karaikudi,south of tamil nadu is a genius in literature,sports and every possible field ever explored,thought about or discovered.

== Professional Life ==

Born into a family of the zama warrior tribe,Iyer's prodigy was discovered when he single handedly tackled a sabertooth and a T-Rex together at the tender age of 3.After doing so he grew up to a height of 7 and a half feet before joining high school and went on to defeat all the wrestlers,martial artists and kung-fu fighters from all of Asia single handedly either by iron fisted punches or only with his razor sharp eye lashes.Not being satisfied with blunt violence he ventured into motor sports and went on a rampage and won the Formula 1 championships 12 times in a single year.It was said he lapped Micheal Schumacher 23 times driving at mach 3 and hence breaking the sound barrier an equal number of times in the process.After winning the world championship he hit schumacher on the head with his own ferarri and then suffered from diarrhea because he couldn't stop laughing.

Being done with motor sports, he got into tennis and was almost immediately ranked No 1 as a result of winning 901 WTA points in a single match against roger federer,pete sampras,bjorn borg,rod laver,boris becker,John McEnroe in a 6 on 1 handicap tennis match.Being 6-0,6-0 up,in the deciding third set he hit a back-hand so hard it went through each of the 6 opponents rackets and their lungs and he won by forfeiture.He paid for each of their medical expenses and then ate them personally,citing boredom.

He didn't venture into other sports after that as no one was ready to face him despite him being ready to face the Australians alone at the MCG.Ricky ponting retired immediately as soon as he heard Vasant was in town with a proposal to play cricket and got himself injected with some HIV+ serum.

After achieving monumental success in almost everything,Iyer decided to do films.He won the oscar in all the categories and a new category called the academy award for the world's best actor to ever breathe was created for him which he declined saying he was also the best actor in the all of the universe.Producers and directors lined up outside his house from that day on,most of whom were either devoured by his 80 feet pet carnivorous apatasourus who was trained to eat anyone on sight or because they came too close to his 50 ton gorilla.For the next 6 years he won the oscar in a leading role every time he merely signed up for a movie and thus winning it a record total 49 times.He retired later weirdly enough again citing boredom.

After witnessing such prowess,the entire universe bowed to him and he was crowned undisputed champion of the world.His contract would last 30 trillion years after which he is scheduled to take his vacation and then decide on rejoining.

== Personal Life ==

It was said that Vasant had such an aura of irrestibility about him that supermodels,actresses and all the other hot girls from the world beat each other up at the mere mention of his name.He finally married a girl he created himself with all the hotness he could visualize and then killed her after a month.Rumor has it that he had nothing to do that day and his wife kept yammeting on in front of him and he blinked so hard,she simply died.

He then stopped living for 3 years as a new yoga-asan and his accomplishments have since come to halt.