A creaking noise echoed as his designer leather shoes rubbed against the uncarpeted wooden floor. He got accustomed to the sound, as much as a dog’s master would to its barking in midnight. Nevertheless, he isn’t bothered as long as he is warm and is protected from bone chilling cold of Arctic outside.

It has been three months since he was deployed as a support guy for his company’s software services to a client in remote town in Arctic region. All he needs to do is press the F5 button 5 times in a day, 5 times a week. He earns handsomely, so he did not mind. And little did he know that he is going to create history today- we will tell you how.

AGCGFTS (Acquired Genetic Code Goes For a Toss Syndrome) is a virus that spreads from computers to humans (if you do unprotected coding with your computer, whatever that means !) and randomly erases certain lines of genetic code of its host, rendering him/her into an altogether new living being. Softesh, not knowing that the virus is prevalent in his client’s system has nonchalantly pressed the F5 button. The virus entered him, a few cinematic lights and sounds and some smoke and Softesh’s genetic code has been modified into a cockroach! It is a different fact that Norton Anti-Virus installed on the machine was able to quarantine it almost immediately. But the damage was done by then!

Just as Softesh was wondering what just happened to him, a lady who was supposed to be a pest control specialist just entered the area and sprayed a copious amount of neurotoxins on him. This sent him into a permanent state of limbo (aka inception); unless someone repairs the MBR of his genetic code, which requires a re-boot, he would remain a cockroach forever.

Soon the cockroach was thrown into the Arctic ice and was fossilified! And a few decades later was collected along with the “last samples of Arctic Ice” for display at France’s Musee de Louvre alongside Monalisa.

A FEW HUNDRED YEARS LATER:

After watching Dhoom 35 (which starred SRK’s great grandchild and Aishwarya’s adopted (due to a technical snag) great grandchild) Dingesh turned kleptomaniac. With his quest he started from Ambala on his Royal Enfield bullet to Paris (all VISAS were lifted in 2501 and whole world was open for terrorists)

To cut a long story short, when trying to steal the Monalisa from the museum he activated the laser beams, which not only melted the “Last samples of Arctic Ice” but also repaired the MBR of genetic code of the cockroach. So Softesh who dematerialized in an Arctic town now materialized in a museum in France in his same Designer leather shoes, which incidentally are a fashion even in this period too.

Soon, the museum authorities put the water from Arctic into a deep freezer and sent Softesh and Dingesh out.

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Softesh had a casual chat with Dingesh and found the following interesting events happened between his materialization and dematerialization:

• Sachin played cricket until age of 132 and retired and with due respect to him, everyone else stopped playing cricket after that.
• In the worst 3D TV disaster ever recorded, more than a million people died of heart attack, when Arnab Goswami habitually jumped towards the camera in his very first 3D news discussion.
• Ram, Allah, Jesus, Buddha and a few others returned to earth.
• Apple sued all of them for copying their iRobot design, so they all disappeared.
• The whole world then turned to Pappusim, where everyone is disillusioned and cynical.
• India became a Super Power and now gives huge debts to US.
• Robots have eventually been added into human kind and initially faced a lot of discrimination especially on Indian roads.
• Robot Hazare, a legendary Robotic rights activist staged a discharge onto death movement for the civil rights of Robots and eventually succeeded.
• Rajanikanth, a robot named after a legendary hero became the first robotic PM of India and in history. He belonged to Bharatiya Yantra Party!
• India’s population fell to 1 billion when a record 3 billion people died in road accidents, most of them happened in Pune.
• The high profile project (iBPN) after the launch of which, his girl friend promised to marry him, was never launched.

Dingesh then gave a ride to Softesh until Ambala and from there Softesh returned to Pune, his hometown. Again to cut a long story short, Softesh was recruited into an IT company. He worked hard for a month and hardly thereafter. He got bored of the boredom and sick of appraisals, so he grew a long beard and started a new movement- Democracy in Corporate world.

He prepared the following speech:

Brothers and beautiful ladies,

It is ironical that in an IT company where the resources are the bread and butter of the company, we cannot choose our own leader. How long should we be fed to the bloody politics? Can’t we elect our own PM’s and PLs and DMs? How long should we be controlled by someone else? Elect me as your PM, I will send each one of you to onsite. I will approve all your attendance regularizations without any hassles; I will approve all your weekend allowances.

He made the above speech in canteen, bus stop, games zone day in and day out. In one such meeting he got a call from his manager.

M: Where are you?

S: I am busy.

M: I am sitting in your campaign for Democracy.

S:

M:

S: Coughs!!

M: We are sending you onsite.

S: I don’t want to go.

M: We are not asking you.

After VISA stamping, shopping, flight, whisky and taxi he was in Arctic again. This time he did not have to wait for three months before he got converted into cockroach. AGCFTS stuck him the very first day when he pressed the F5 button. And this time too, the cockroach was thrown into “Arctic waters”.

Today morning, while I was driving to office, I yet again had to be a part of this crawling traffic. This is when I get to see the moronic wealth of this world, it hurts me a lot when people jump lines and cut me ahead, my blood boils and I hate my helplessness and let it engulf me in it grandiose numbness inducing fashion. I wage a meek battle by honking and let the bugger go, like the Swift guys, whom I find generally hopeless and less rule abiding.

But today morning was different; I was stuck between a bus on my left side which want o cut to its right before me and a Ritz that wants to cut to its left(because there is something obstructing its way). I chose the easiest way and went into the way of Ritz; he did not budge and ended up scraping against my front bumper.

Now starts the drama, the co-driver of the car barges out and start hurling abuses against me. I look at him and my wife- remember the compulsive obsession to be critical- I really cannot hurl abuses back, my wife is a sweet being who is disturbed even if I get a bit angry, but I do look at him, my wild side boiling, dying to answer his repetitive “kya karlega?” with a cold gun shot or may be a heavy thump with my fist on his head.

Mean while, the driver comes out straight to my car, oblivious of the traffic he is holding with a selfish motive to showcase his power to me. I have a central locking system, my car does not open and in the meanwhile a cop arrives. He quickly takes the two licenses and asks us to pull to the shoulder, just as I was about to; the other guy grabs his license and moves away.

The cop then gets back to me; my wife still terrified, and returns the license and asks me to leave too. What I did not understand in the whole episode is why was I stopped? Why was I asked to leave all at the disposal of an erring guy? Is this what I have to bear with? Being on the right side of law does not help me; it harasses me, teases me, abuses me and may be even hits me if there is a chance? Is this something I should put up with?

Can you imagine my dilemma on which side to take? Should I be a fearful, submissive person that I never was and never could be just because I have a family to care for? Or should I unleash the beast in me and give the, literate, uneducated, barbaric, rich idiots, my piece of mind. This unrest kills me; I somehow wish I never developed that common-sense. Or may be I need the advice of gurus who had been there and done that on how to handle this!!

I know most say forget and forgive, but it is becoming excessively difficult for me to control.

I still freshly remember my feelings when I came out of the theater after watching Aamir, a brilliant movie by Mr. Raj Kumar Gupta. So when I heard about this movie no “one killed Jessica” (actually a news headline from a popular news paper) I had to watch this movie.

The movie starts with a phone call to Sabrina (Vidya) early in the morning; she is sleeping and refuses to wake up. She refuses to wake up even when she was informed that her sister Jessica is hurt and not until she was informed that “Jessica ko goli lagi hain”. I could not have asked for a better start than that, but unfortunately for me the movie never took off from there, even if I am to think that I reached the maximum heights there, I was thrown off from there in, in a distasteful manner.

Now what went wrong? When you are making a movie from the story based on real incidents and especially if most of the public know what the movie is, one expects the movie to be binding with a tight screenplay, powerful and haunting dialogues that make you ponder and more often than not performances that compel you to relate with them.

Unfortunately, the movie failed in all the above consistently. Take Vidya Balan for instance; with the power packed performances from her previous movies, I expected a lot of scope for her in this role as Sabrina. But unfortunately for me Vidya did not score, she more often than not seemed under prepared and I don’t think twice to say that she has been wasted. Because as an audience I did not connect with Vidya, she never commanded my interest it was just that she materializes and dematerializes on the screen.

When I say scope, I mean the feelings that you can induce into the audience. Now we have Sabrina, whose sister got killed, who was denied justice, who lost her parents in her battle for the same. But do we feel her agony? No! Not a bit.

The less I talk about Rani the better it would be. She just did not fit into the role, thanks to the cheesy lines that were never meant for her. Meera (played by Rani) is supposed to be a personification of what we call “modern independent woman”. She hurls abuses, has sex and does not care about her boss, she just does what she thinks is right. But did she excel? NO.

The problem with Rani’s role is though she did a wonderful job in getting into the shoes, unfortunately the shoes were never stitched for her, period! Whoever casted Rani and whoever wrote the dialogue for her had no clue about Rani’s personality and the gap is seen all over the movie. Consider this, we all know how Preeti’s role won her acclaim in Lakshya, can you imagine her unnecessarily using the F word and walking around tom boyishly? If one wants to portray an abusive but confident woman through Rani, they definitely did not do the justice to their job. It was awful to see her scream on top of her voice!! Remember, Rani worked hard, she did a splendid job, but unfortunately the role was not crafted for her. In fact, at the end of it all I thought she should have played Sabrina and Vidya could have played Meera.

The investigating cop (Mr. Rajesh Kumar) though did a splendid job, but his role’s emotions too were under tapped. We have a cop who took 70 lakhs as bribe and tries to justify himself by saying “har koyi leta hain, par farq bus isme hain ki kiskeliye leta hai” but all we see is that he is sadly following news channel and occasionally staring at his wife and kid; whatever the director means to convey.

There are numerous examples of shallow characterization like the lawyer Pandit who defends the Manu Sharma. Pandit comes down as a pain in your neck; you just cannot bear his presence. No, he did not have any villainous demeanor (which I would have loved to have) but he comes across as a useless actor and the way he fakes English accented Hindi is gruesome to say the least.

Not just the characters, the movie failed to impress me even in the way the screenplay was written. This being a crime drama based on the real incidents, I did not feel the pinch when the murderer’s political support is eliminating the witnesses one by one. This stage passes off without making any impact, shameful!

The court scenes which should be the heart of this movie, were badly made to say the least. They are a disaster, and it is clearly evident that there is not much work gone into it. Bland lighting where most of the time artificial lights were used did not help the director’s cause. Most of the time you feel as if you are seeing some marriage video party has been used for cinematography. The close up shots were too many and none of them at the right time. I am really not a great fan of close up shot when someone is talking. If they are musing, I can bear but not when talking that too when their faces are illuminated with artificial unfiltered lights!!

Art department hardly did any work either. There was no color coding to induce the feelings, for the whole movie I never felt the mood it should induce me into and I do have to blame art for this.

Amit Trivedi’s music was good, in fact brilliant in isolation, but I don’t think he really had any idea about the mood it has it induce. It was like the director chose some pre composed tunes and used them.

All in all, did I connect with Jessica at the end of the movie? No. Did I connect with Sabrina? No. Meera? NO!! I as an audience did not connect any more with the characters than I already could as a person who intently followed the news. This makes”no one killed Jessica” a below average movie, which is a onetime watch. But if you go there with high expectations it disappoints you.

Now don’t get me wrong, but I will have to give a few references to Mr Satyajit Ray, this does not mean that I am really comparing Kiran’s work with Mr.Ray’s, but this work does scratch the surface of what Mr.Ray did. I will tell you why.

The movie had got no story, yes it does not. It just introduces us to four different characters from different strata of society and a few phases of their lives and how they affect at least one other character.

So my reference to Mr.Ray comes to the way the characters are introduced. Kiran here takes her own sweet time to introduce the each character and how she does that is the one of the main reasons one should watch the movie. You just do need to be told any story about someone, there are no melodramatic moments, no need of cooked up humor tracks, in fact there was no back ground score for most part of the movie.

In spite of all of this, within moments of introduction of each character you start feeling like them. Like for example in the very first scene where Arun, a modern painter played Aamir meets Shia, an investment banker in US who is on sabbatical to pursue her passion of photography. They have sex that night and that next morning Arun wakes up before Shia and starts musing. You start thinking like Arun the moment he is shown on the screen, you know that he is uneasy, he did not like what happened, he just apologizes to Shia and she moves away pissed. You instantly connect to Arun and at the same time empathize with Shia, it is not a one night stand but you are left with a desire to know why these two characters acted like the way they did.

Incidentally, all the main characters in this movie have an artistic inclination. I have already introduced you to a painter and a photographer, and they are relatively well to do. The other two are from the other end of spectrum and become muses to each of the above.

The first one of the muse is Yasmin (played by Kriti Malhotra). She is not an artist, but turns into one when she gets hold of a video camera. The beauty of the character is that, you will get to know about her whole life, her dreams, her feelings through her innocent video letters to her brother, which never get posted. Arun gets hold of them and watches them, when I say he watches them it is not mere watching; you actually get to know how he is feeling when he is watching those very personal video memoirs.

The beauty of the movie is that you could see yourself reacting through Arun, the moment you see a video memoir of Yasmin, your reactions would be instantly seen through Arun the painter. These are the moments that I was talking about in the beginning of the review; these are the moments that make Dhobi Ghat a special occasion in your life. You inadvertently get interested in Yasmin, what she is going through and why she never been able to deliver those “video letters” as she calls them to her brother. And you get just swept away with artistic brilliance when Arun completes the painting with inspiration of those “video letters”.

The second muse is Munna (played by Prateik Babbar) Dhobi in the morning, a rat killer in the night and an actor in his dreams. Shai wants to make his profession as her theme for photography and what transpires is an immaculate comparision between what Arun experiences with those Video letters and what Shai and Munna experience with each other.

Do you see Aamir Khan, Prateik Babbar, Monica Dogra, Kriti Malhotra in the movie? NO! What you see is Arun, Shai, Yasmin and Munna, how they feel, what they feel and in the process you inadvertently feel the fifth character that is Mumbai.

It is evident that there is a huge amount of thought that went into this movie. Say for example the cinematography the way director shows how Yasmin records her memoirs is really touching and involving. Even the painting that Arun finishes actually opens up a vacuum somewhere deep inside you. Now that is really some art! All the scenes involving rain were shot when it was actually raining, there were no sets, no jazzy lights, when you see each character you feel as if you are there along with them and this I must say is a great achievement.

There was hardly any background score, but whenever it is there it goes along with the mood. I feel Dhobi Ghat is not a movie, it is an assortment of feelings of the characters who are artistically inclined. If you are one with a healthy heart that aches to come out of the vacuum that it gets sucked into more often than not, Dhobi Ghat is for you. If you do not understand why your friend is so passionate about photography, or if you laugh at a person who madly goes to art exhibitions or the one who savor soap boxes then Dhobi Ghat is not for you.

He looked at the phone and it was the phone call he was waiting for! He answered the call and heard discretely “meet me at my place” and before he could even say something the phone beeped at him. He checked the time it was two in the morning. He laid there for almost 36 hours doing nothing; his blood boiling with feelings of deception. But more than that, he was trying to reconcile! Trying to justify his acts, his overt reactions, but then may be he was justified.

These thoughts ran in his head in an infinite loop. Crumbling him in the process and he decided to do nothing about. May be he did more than what was necessary. Or may be what he did was apt; he wished someone could decide that for him. But he knew, he was the best judge!

He woke up, he hardly could stand! There was this numb feeling in the most parts of body and his brain got settled so much that he felt the aversion of the change in inertia. Soon there was blood flow, and he pulled himself to the parking lot and got into the vehicle.

The “words meet at my place” echoed in his brain. While he was driving, his brain pushed itself back into the contemplation. It knows it suspects a tad bit too much, it knows it is provocative and has the tendency to go off the tangent, it knows a million other things about itself, but it also settled rather liked itself to believe that it cannot to do anything about it. So it keeps creating in itself a world where it makes itself to believe that whatever it does was right. He was but just a pawn!

Soon he reached the friend’s place. He was almost reluctant to meet, somewhere deep down in his heart he liked to believe that what he did was right. But then again, it was his best friend; he valued the friendship so he went ahead! Soon he reached the door and pressed at the call button reluctantly.

What followed was a deafening silence! But thankfully it got over when the door opened. But it all happened in a split second. He could not remember what happened first.

Did he hear those words screaming into his ears “Now would you believe I did not do it? There is no other way!”

Or did he feel the warm liquid falling on his face with an unusual gush! Or did he see first a beheaded body struggling in pain?

********************************************************************************************************************

Karan was flicking through the channels, he was rather bored to see all channels show the gory images of two beheaded bodies found in an apartment of the city. He sighed heavily and put on his favorite cartoon channel!

You soon would turn avert to discos and seek the comfort of lounges and pubs.

And your music tastes get picky and mostly turn obsolete by the standard of “youth”!

So when I was at it, I had this opportunity to venture into a disco in the recent past. I think it was one of those rare occasions when I am just watching the action and what I saw did amuse me!

So now that I told you rather briefly, how I ended up on the other side of the dancing fence, let me now elaborate on the type of dancers. I think the dancing fraternity could easily be divided into following non-exhaustive non-limiting list:

1) Dancing desperados!

2) The unsure uber cools

3) The xenophobic chicks

4) Mad nomads!

Well the first group as the name suggests are desperate and how! You generally find these types in college parties, where people consider dancing is the only way to impress the opposite sex. The good thing is that they know a few steps- the neck curls, the hip shakes et al. The bad thing is girls are all over them. I mean I haven’t seen anyone enjoying so much attention after I had seen that elephant dancing at a circus. Sometimes things get over board and you really have to control a lot to not to take a video of it and share it on the youtube (yay!).

The unsure uber-cools are the ones you watch almost instantly as they are the ones in the perimeter. Normally they accompany the dancing desperados (DD) or the xenophobic chicks and they are kind of scavengers of the dancing food chain. They thrive on those 15 seconds of time when the DDs stop to revise their new steps or may be even for some breathe!

The thing is that the uber-cools are an eye sore to watch while dancing. They and dance are like oil and water and watching them dance is worse than seeing a bald headed guy combing his hair, they are just hideous. Their finger snatches and hip shakings would feel like eating roti with a knife and fork. They do not seem to dance to the beat and seem like a hallucinogen induced drummer dancing to his own imaginary beat! And the worst is that they often get mopped off by the mad nomads and generally occupy the perimeter of the crowd and most of the times seem like lifting some imaginary thing collectively with their snaps!

The xenophobic chicks as the name suggests come pre-planned to the disc. They choose a few uber cools and some times the dancing nomads and successfully build a human fort around them and dance within that. Their dancing steps, like film-fare awards and role change exercises, are rigged and pre-planned. It does not matter what song is being played they just form a circle and move in and out of the center as if they are doing some ritual. And when they are not doing that they keep pointing their finger at the sky, bite their lips and vacillate their hips, they often end up at the same place where they started and seldom sweat!

And the last but not least the most feared group on the floor are dancing nomads. They do not have any specific aim on the floor, they instantly groove into the beat and may even confuse to that extent that you start wondering if the music is coming from them. They, as described before, generally seem to be imitating the last seen animal or snake while dancing alone or make themselves into a centipede or millipede when in group and start going around the floor in a very haphazard way typical only to a biker on the road!

They also act as shepherd dogs chasing away the uber cools if at all they venture their way into the floor, you must pray that they should not around you while dancing lest you make have a punctured nose or a fractured ear. All said and done they just rock the dance floor!

Well folks, I would end this here. Hope I did not bore you!

However, in all the previous occasions I had no reasons; so I happily blamed my project manager for my not so cool career and my inexplicable 4 years of job in a single project without a single trip onsite(blasphemy of my time), I mean not even to pee, like most of my team mates used to go for!

So what happens in such occasions is peer pressure develops and your primordial instincts (don’t get second thoughts, eh?) take the better part of you, so you complain with all the restrain only possible for a frustrated soul when you are not intoxicated and even the slightest hint of intoxication of any form would take you off the tangent and the result was popularly penned (in an opposite sense though) as the song Pappu can’t dance sala! Which of course has been often re-mixed by irate people, who hate what I write, into various forms!

So can I dance?

Around ten years ago, it used to be virtually impossible for a middle class Telugu sixteen year old (read studying Engineering in XYZ college) to go to a disco and dance! The reason is simple- there are no discotheques! So all we would do is assemble on a terrace and gulp a few ounces of “this and that” and do your best to imitate Sridevi in Chandani as much as possible on feet if the condition permits or on the floor if things went out of control, which they used to be more often than not!

So dancing skills came to us as naturally as spin bowling came to Anil Kumble (I request the reader to jump out of the chair and laugh for a moment!) Moreover, the unshaven look, un-tucked shirt with its first few buttons unfastened for more air to pass and few other typical gestures would have made us a pretty odd customer at a disc, so we restricted ourselves to terraces and dhabas!

Now things change and we generally forget how quick they did, unless you are writing CAT exams every year! So when I was a fresher at Infosys and came to know that there is a DJ night being arranged, I got excited naturally. And what happened that night was completely forgotten!

I however gathered from the local gossip, that I went mad dancing and in the process became an uncontrollable bull and thumped many a feet before being targeted by bunch of we-don’t-know-what-we-do-when-girls-are-around class of guys who found a soft target in me to instantly lift me up and made me a make-shift ball, notwithstanding my shape!

Since then there was no looking back; in fact, yours truly literally ripped off many a dance floor. There were even a few occasions when my randomly moving hand, trying to imitate the last seen animal/reptile, ferociously attacked the beautiful cocktail glasses decorated by those colorful umbrellas. Of course, I was even a witness to a few glorious scenes of this beautiful umbrella used as a weapon of mass destruction! Girls and drinks are a lethal combination, I tell you!

The dance rage continued and as it did, my name has become synonymous to dance. I mean I had all that is required for a great dancer, I could bend backwards and touch my feet with my head and continuously rotate at 1500 rpm constantly, so much so that there could be come electricity produced from me. And if I were to be alive in early days deodorants would have been invented much before the wheel, I used to sweat so much!

While my dancing antiques were much appreciated by my male colleagues, I eventually topped the 10-things-to-avoid-on-dance-floor-for-girls list. I mean who would want to dance with a reptile imitating, constantly rotating guy who sweats like a pig? So it was time to sit under the peepal tree for me, for that ever waiting first light of realization!

Now this realization, my dear friends is not normal. Ask your 20 something friends if they really care about their image on dance floor, no one would! But once when you cross 25 and those areas of your head which used to be covered by thick hair once, starts seeing the sunlight, your maturity sensors get activated! You start feeling the whole world is a mess and “youth” now a days are senseless (wow! that rhymed if you did not yet observe!)! And when you realize that, you could not help but feel that bitter taste in mouth which is the effect of realization that you are not anymore a part of “youth”!

Other indicators include those instances like during a train journey, the naughty kid in the next berth would address you as “uncle”, for first few times your heart would do a bungee jumping into your stomach and your eyes would bleed tears, but then you would get used to it as more and more 5-10 year old call you so. Of course, if you are lucky enough and are from Mumbai even a 20 year old could call you uncle! But that is besides the point!

Well this is getting too long, I will continue this based on the readership

There is nothing more worthwhile than social service, I am not sure who said so, but here I am following the adage (is it an adage or what?) on a weekend while I could be potentially doing a million other things than writing the review for this god forbidden blasphemy of cinema of any kind!

OK, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, let us call it OUT for simplicity purposes. OUT, as most of you know is claimed to be a re-visit to the much forgotten X-files of Mumbai underworld. My wife told me that there quite a few reviews which compared it to Satya and Company. I was all excited hearing this and was ready to put all my biases against the shit-piling machine of the idiot box and drilled a small hole into my pocket and booked the tickets for the show, more so because I loved the movie LSD, so I thought may be I should give it a chance! How I wish I was wrong!

Five minutes into the movie I was having this incredible urge to leave the movie hall from the nearest exit possible. May be I would not mind if that means I had to jump off the building or such similar life and limb threatening actions, but some part of me stopped me. I was hoping against all the hopes that the movie would change, I mean I was there for a Gangster movie (which incidentally is my most favorite genre) and what I see is anything but dark. Of course, there was darkness but nothing on the screen whatsoever.

Let me just give you a glimpse of how the movie starts- A police office, Mr Hooda, tries to commit suicide and somehow survives the attempt. So he narrates his story to his higher up on why he tries to commit suicide. And the story is about a Gangster called Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgan) and his associate Shoaib (Emraan Hashmi). Now do not ask me why Mr. Hooda’s senior does not have a clue about any of these gangsters, we are talking about a movie by Ekta Kapoor, so anything is possible.

Now that the premise is set, though it is based on a very feeble and unforgivable reasoning, I still was hoping against the hopes, what a loser I am! Now we have seen many movies on Gangster stories, right from the international range Marty boy’s classics where he ruthlessly explores the darkest mindsets of the underworld to our very old desi versions like Nayakudu by Mani Ratnam in telugu or even the numerous versions of almost the same story by bollywood’s very own once-upon-a-time-sane RGV.

All these stories had a numerous factors acting in sync to make the movie a treat to watch time-less classics. But OUT seriously lacks something, you will get to know it from the very beginning. Even an untrained eye would easily spot that Ajay Devgan is really struggling with all his faculties to make the character work, but after all even the great actor has his limitations. Sultan Mirza’s character lacks depth to say the least, it just does not happen, I mean he is Gangster for god’s sake not a middle class middle aged uncle looking for some daily gossip news from his wife before he lays down to sleep.

Emraan Hashmi’s character sounds like a cheap China dummy of an i-phone. I mean we reluctantly have to agree that the director is desperately trying to imitate the Jake La Motta of Raging Bull. But guys, I wanted to puke, I am not joking here. I mean there is a limit for everything, no? Would you opt for Chinese mall for your medicines? Tell me friends! Again, I don’t blame Mr. Hashmi here, there is little he could do in a plot that is so lifeless and blatantly executed.

Randeep Hooda too proved that he has got a lot of potential, but alas he is but the pawn of the story! If I were to given a chance I would ban the person who wrote the dialogue permanently from writing for the movies ( Rajat Arora), incidentally he is the one who wrote the story and screenplay, a desperate attempt which failed miserably I say.

The direction did not help any bit either, with a desperate and a miserably failed attempt to add a mush angle to a gangster where the scenes like Sultan as a child labor donates his one paisa to another beggar when he is already in a miserable situation and the starting scene when Sultan removes railway track to make his pick up truck move are out right ridiculous to say the least.

The cinematography, though did a decent job in showing Bombay of early nineties. And Pritam’s music is as always great (though I am not sure where it is copied from ).

All in all, OUT is pathetic. It does not even deserve this review, but as I said I wanted to warn you all and wanted to save you from an inevitable head ache that you would contract if you watched the movie. It is a classic example of how a cinema should not be made.

This is for the TOI reviewer who compared this movie to Satya and Company- BALLS TO YOU!

Objective: It is a well known fact (with a few controversies) that man evolved from monkey. As he evolved there were many CRs that were raised and design changes implemented. You must be aware that we have made and have been making considerable changes to the code “Project Homo Sapiens” Of late our support team is getting a lot of complaints on the performance of Human body.

Our design team has done a gap analysis and has come out with a few recommendations; rather it is just one recommendation- To uncomment the code that includes tail in the human body. This business case discusses the advantages of adding tail to the Humans.

Problem analysis:

It is found that the levels of stupidity in this world are increasing manifold and the comparatively self claimed more intelligent people are finding it tough to get along with rather stupid people and vice versa. We will analyze under various heads the advantages of and how adding a tail would attempt to solve these problems.

At office:

A tail added to the human body is immediately found to have increased the productivity in manufacturing industry. A tail is an additional body part capable of handling things and effectively used this can invariably increase the amount of work done per unit time and hence enhancing the productivity, please note that this may decrease the general waiting time for machines like cars, bikes etc.

In software industry too, this will increase the productivity as tail could be used to type code. Assuming that most of the code written is not copy pasted, using tail in conjunction with fingers could drastically decrease the turn around time for writing code.

For solution designers this is a boon! They could do all the stupid design work by typing with tail and use their hands for more productive work like styling their hair or drawing UML diagrams, this may need software companies to allocate two systems to each employee, however that is not in purview, even you cannot have a say in their business demands!

Other uses include blocking someone from barging into lines at food court and dish landing queues; this may increase the average disciplinary levels in countries like Bindia!

During driving:

The greatest use of a tail is found to have been in area of driving. With the advent of cell phone one hand you provided the Humans is rendered useless for all other activities leaving severe dearth for that extra part that could fill in the gap.

While driving a four wheeler, a tail may be the most helpful for human beings. If used properly and with proper training, a tail could easily be trained to change gears and FM radio channels and hence could help the Human being concentrate on the steering wheel with both the hands. Studies are going on, which analyze the increase in resultant safety levels and results seem to be positive.

Also we suggest including a design to make the tail curl down like a spring under the influence of alcohol, this would help traffic police a lot.

A tail as we see is the most beneficial for two wheeler riders especially when raining. A tail could be use to hold an umbrella while the two hands could concentrate on the handle bar. Again, the less we talk about how tail could be used to hold the cell phone while driving the better, after reading this even you might want to have tail (please don’t get angry on this, I know you could have another hand if you want).

Also, a tail would be very helpful for traffic police men at junctions to catch people jumping signals; however we should make huge changes to code to make its length infinitely controllable.

Safety:

In this world of decreasing safety levels due to morons, it would be very safe for a certain species of humans to have tails, you know how! I really don’t want to talk more about this.

Apart from above the tail could be used in many other scenarios which I quite can’t describe here, kindly understand.

Design Recommendations:

Our team of designers has come up with following designs:

• The tail could change its colors (to avoid racial discrimination)
• The tail has fur so that it could be cut and designs could be made of it during foot ball matches and cricket matches (one of our designer is a foot ball freak, could not help it, you can make it optional)
• Different tail texture for males and females, this would make tail more pleasurable for them and they would not resist the change.

Impact analysis:

A rapid impact analysis shows that most of the code we used for monkeys could be used as is with minor changes; we would not need any more resources. We would not recommend our client to implement these changes as we have information that the company is not paying its employees. We would not want to risk the possibility of some ugly looking creatures on Earth.

I have raised the design story on the system, kindly approve it. Also, kindly approve the pending travel bills; they are pending since a decade.

And it did turn out to be a movie which met my expectations. Why I said just “met my expectations” because it is not a commercial movie, I did not just sit and enjoy the movie. Rather I found how straight from the director’s heart the movie came from.

Let me just throw some light when I say it is not a commercial movie. Of all the movies that AK has made (I cannot but refer to Ak’s hand in here, the director is obviously from his school of thought and there is Ak’s mark everywhere) Dev D is the most entertaining plainly because people rather the mass audience tend to connect with it almost instantaneously.

The others like Gulaal or The black Friday though brilliant are definitely not made for larger audience, they are made because the director wanted to make the movie notwithstanding the repercussions of how it might fare at the box-office. Paanch, which never got released, too is a good movie. And Udaan is not different.

Mr. Motwani knows what he has as a script and what he wants to do with it. He definitely did not want to dilute the cinema by making it an entertaining version. Now you might ask me, dude! Can’t an entertaining cinema be a good one? Like the “Three idiots”. My answer is that the subject did not have a scope for making it entertaining, or may be so I felt.

What is so special with Udaan then? The answer is simple, it is simple. Yes the narrative is straight if you have the eye; the movie actually grows on you with the time. It tends to be loosing momentum in the ending of the first half, but it picks up well!

And like other movies from the producer, Udaan too has a penchant for the imagery. It is the imagery that actually sets the tone of the movie for you. Like for example when Rohan reaches the home, the director chose to put a barb wire in focus and then focuses on to the face of the youngster. Also there is this scene when the protagonist enters the house for the first time in eight years and there are a few bottles of alcohol greeting him. But we never get to see them because they lie out of focus for the whole scene.

What does Udaan wants to put forth? A simple fact that adolescents need love. There is no use discussing the minute things about the script, for that matter I would not really mind the concept it similar to that of Wake up Sid. But here the kid knows what he wants, he is a mature chap who has a clear vision and is not spoilt by the riches. But the huge difference here is that the director did not want to dilute the whole thing. He does not make it easy for the protagonist. In fact, the protagonist at one stage of movie indeed seems to be getting in terms with his dad; he tries his best to be in terms with reality.

But how Udaan happens remains to be seen and felt. However, I warn you guys. Be true to yourself; do not consider this as an entertainment. It does not amuse you, it only makes you think and feel for the character. And in my view there is nothing much I can ask from a movie.

I always have this difficulty in Mathematics, as I never was able to “feel” the numbers. I mean I never understood how one added to one makes it two, and more so the concept of infinity limits etcetera.

I know, I am supposed to review a movie and why am I talking here about Mathematics, simply because dreams too are something which never made sense to me. I mean I know I see them but the whole lot of dynamics on how and why I see a particular dream is always beyond imagination, no matter however much the little bit of research done in this field tries to prove otherwise.

Now, imagine someone making a movie on the concept of dreams, imagine the amount of imagination (I know the sentence is tricky) that should go into film making if they are making a movie about dreams! If you cannot, let me tell you it is humongous. For starters try explaining the concept of infinity to a third standard student and show and tell him why any number divided by zero yields infinity.

I have ceased being fans of Sci-fi movies for the only reason that they force us into a corner and leaves us with no choice but to be dumb, I mean more often than not it is not a pleasurable experience especially for someone who boasts about a very good basic knowledge about Physics.

Inception is anything but that. Inception actually gives us a great pleasure of sitting in a corner like a dumb person seeing the whole movie unravel in its grandiose. With each frame you see quizzing the best of your grey cells. But is it just that? Is inception is a great movie just because of the concept chosen? Are there no cinematic values?

Well, wait! Do not drift too further in the concept it self. While every one agrees the concept itself is intriguing, you should just see the movie to see how intriguing the viewing experience is. Thanks to a very intelligent narration which makes the life of the audience for those 148 minutes anything but simple. Inception is like solving those Physics problems from I.E. Irodov (IIT aspirants from my time would know this!). And believe most of us could not solve the question in the first attempt!

So it is little wonder if there are a few girls who walked away calling it a dumb movie and if I tell you that the middle aged aunty sitting beside me dozed off 30 minutes into the movie and the dude ahead of movie gave the dirties look I ever knew when I laughed at a perceived joke! Does that mean I got what the movie is, I do not know, I will definitely have to see it again to bolster my initial thoughts about the movie.

What further strengthens movie apart from the whacky subject and a lucid narrative is the imagery used. Some of the imagery used (mostly graphics) is so vivid that you actually think of all the dreams you have seen so far and you might actually get drifted away from the movie thinking about your dream and suddenly get to the movie wondering what did you miss in those nano seconds.

Well, I have nothing more to write about this gem of a movie, if you chose to read this so far, take my word the movie would be infinite times more interesting! Actually!

Over the last decade nothing new happened in Telugu cinema. I agree there were many good movies, but they boringly and repetitively bore a striking similarity among them, while the action genre got bloodier the love stories were so pinkish that more often than not one wants to puke. I agree there have been some nice movies, but all of them are entertainers. Gone are the good old days of philosophical and insightful telugu cinema. Remember Sagara sangamam, shankarabharanam, vasntha kokila, geetnajali, shiva, antham.

I am not saying that the recent movies are bad, they are good entertainers, but they did not have the soul, they aim at nothing. All had a formula, fights, duets in foreign locations, skin showing item numbers, that’s all, nothing more than that. Vedam changed it all.

Krish (Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi), the director of this movie showed that he is a sensible lad in his previous movie, his philosophical inclinations and insightful scenes that aim at showing the actual purpose of life are laudable. Vedam, is a very intelligent remake of the previous movie Gamyam. The main intent of the movie remains intact, albeit a few additions to the characters and may be a a little bit more of screen presence for a few characters which were not used to the core in the previous movie.

Another great thing that Krish managed to introduce to the telugu audience, especially the ones that are not so used to English cinema is the Quentin Tarantino styled narration. The movie starts with introducing all the important characters of the movie, their dreams, necessities and ambitions, and later all these characters cross each other change each others’ lives and may their outlook towards the life. The best part is how each of these characters look at life is so deftly put forth that some of these characters leave an indelible impression on us.

The screenplay is not so taut, lets face it. Somewhere the scenes chosen for the transition from one character are not so well defined and engrossing that you may end up a bit irritated. However, it is almost a non issue, considering how the director successfully managed to navigate us through his thought processes, his ideology of what he thinks life is, it is a bit preachy, but I did not mind.

Coming to the performances, let me at the very outset give complete praise to Allu Arjun and Anushka Shetty for agreeing to play their respective roles. I mean I strongly feel that these two roles would definitely leave a lasting effect on how telugu movies should be made. Allu Arjun’s introduction scene is really awesome, clearly Cable Raju is analogous to Gali Seenu, albeit this version is a bit more glamorous and has fancy ideas about life and thinks that money is everything for one to survive. Allu Arjun’s performance was mind blowing, especially <spoiler> when he returns the money he stole from the Ramulayya, the poor weaver.<spoiler>.

He could however have performed much better, could some one tell him that rolling his eyes is pretty disgusting to look at and he might be better off

However, Anushka’s character is not well etched, it is a bit too raw and lacked depth. No where is the psychology of a prostitute explored. It looked as if the character, in spite of what it was meant for, was mainly intended to be glamorous. I do not have any problem with being glamorous, but it lacked the depth and did not explore the potential that the role has.

My personal favorite of the whole movie is Manchu Manoj Kumar, I really have to appreciate the director for pulling out such a fantastic performance from him. The role of Vijay is clearly analogous to Abhi in gamyam. With a few tweakings, of course. The opening scene of the second half is so mind blowing that I could not stop from clapping, it was clearly evident that the character was completely felt to the soul by Manoj.

Manoj Bajpai too has done a decent job. What I really loved about the movie, is how the director has used the current affairs in his story. The ugly face of moral policing on youth, harassment on Muslims, terrorism (please note that naxalism was touched upon in Gamyam), body organ trading, child labor, prostitution were all deftly added into the story.

The movie has no separate comedy track, although Brahmanandam is seen for a few minutes. However, the comedy was well managed by Allu Arjun and his companion in the movie.

The music by Keeravani was engrossing and heart touching. However the editing could have been better, but I understand it is a very tough job considering so many stories intertwining.

The greatest part of the movie is how the five main characters and hence their stories culminate into the ending. The ending is good that it balances for all the drawbacks that were being discussed above, I could not help but feel the allusions to the movie Rang De Basanti. But Vedam will definitely be a new celebrating face of the Telugu movie industry. I will rate it at 4*.

He kept mum for sometime, during which he drove dangerously close to a big truck and stayed there for so long that an interested Mechanical Engineering student could otherwise do a close study of how the truck’s differential, suspension, transmission and braking systems would work.

My heart dropt into my stomach and I was not sure if it was working, which was when a two wheeler started honking as if I just plucked his balls (of his eyes of course!) and squeezed his way through. For a moment the world spun around me and I almost thought my heart escaped through my trousers, may be this is what they called s**t scared!

The guy though silent, seemed to be observing me a lot. He was keen like an HR guy interviewing his probable employee, the expressions on the face would translate to:

1)     Is he a thief?

2)     Does he respect women?

3)     What if he blogs against the HR policies?

4)     But I am not supposed to talk about the HR thing, it was just an example!

5)     May be the author is a bit too disoriented.

6)     Oh stop staring at me like that you dumb fool!

As I was translating his face expressions, he finally spoke again!

How is your growth! He asked, as if he was not too sure about asking it.

 
photo credit: jontunn

above is the gym where I DONT worl out at!!

Well sir, it has been terrible, especially after I joined that gym last year!

You work in a gym?

Of course not! Do I look like I work in gym?? I enquired half excited half depressed!

Then what has the gym got to do with your growth?

Of course, I put on 10 kilos hence and my waist line grew by 5 inches!!!

What? I was not asking about your waist line? He did not frown this time. I did a mental high five with myself and asked innocently “Then”.

About your finances, how is it hanging?

I mentally laughed at the double meaning sentence and made my best efforts not to show it on my face, I just can’t afford it! I really started getting this feeling that he is a HR guy, who else does not know about Oie and he is asking about finances!!! I made up my mind to be more careful and evasive! So I replied:

Well, finances are a disaster! You know I invested a lot in branded trousers of waist size 28, now I am 33 and none of the trousers fits in. I am doomed! Moreover I am unable to cope with the EMIs I have to pay to save my hair!

It was awesome, no? That would be a befitting reply if he is an undercover HR guy. And he would definitely recommend me for the post of Solution Designer; I must make it a note to tell him somehow the name of my manager!

The situation is getting trickier by the time, my panicky brain is calculating all the possibilities, I decided to start shouting if he drives past the Wakad bridge, I also considered to tell a different name to him and quickly claim that I was AKP’s impostor and my actual name is <The person whom I hate most>.

 I have not yet decided the name. I for a moment wanted to tell that I am Ram Gopal Verma or something like that, but it seemed too improbable for him to buy that! 

Meanwhile he spoke; he spoke things about his personal life. He told me how his wife passed away due to heart attack when she was watching idea sare gama pa! And how his son ran away to become a roadie and how he disowned his daughter after she did some incomprehensible things on Splitsvilla on MTV. He rather used some choicest of expletives targeting the mothers and siblings of whoever is associated with the reality TV!

A tear, or may be even two rolled down my cheek. It was too tragic, as a matter of respect I decided not to blog about this. And then came the stunner, he turned and looked directly into my eyes. I was instantly worried about the dog that was crossing the road, as he drove past, all that remained of the dog were a few last scowls. He remained unmoved and said to me in a stern voice

I have an offer which you cannot reject!!

Godfather! ??$*(^($

The world spun around me, again!

My phone alarm started ringing, I was to send a good morning message to my girl friend, but the person who used to daily send me the SMS has not sent it to me yet, so I snoozed the alarm and tried to concentrate at the problem at hand.

While I was allowing myself to react to this moment of Universal disaster, he handed me what seemed like a small note of paper with something scribbled on it!

It had the following information

Lord of the World, scratch.

Lord of the Heavens, scratch

Sun, 3 so far

Lord of the Earth, 3 so far

Hundred faces, 6 so far

Creeper, 8 so far

Lovely creeper, 7 so far

Air’s Son, 4 so far

World saver; 4 so far

Prices: 5-3, Lord of the World, Lord of the Heavens; 3-1, Sun, Lord of the earth; 6-1 Hundred faces, Creeper, Lovely Creeper; 9-2 Air’s Son and World Saver.

I looked at it and wanted to Puke instantly, I did not make anything out of it, I was really wondering what is this about, did I really get into a trouble, should I jump out of the car, why do I always get into these kind of trouble just before the appraisal, my brain got into its favorite mode- The panic mode!

(to be continued subject to comments )

As the blue smoke escaped my nostrils and the bitter taste of coffee submerged my tongue, I thought. I needed to think about something that would bring me out of this sad mood, so I thought that death would be an amazing topic.

And so I thought, how the very thought of death sends jitters to many. Why are we afraid of death, I thought. The answer was simple, because we would not know what would happen to us after it. It is the sheer magnitude of uncontrollable and unpredictable aftermaths that makes a human go crazy on his feet on hearing about death.

Then I thought how death has been used in our societies to instill order. Someone comfortably postulated that whatever you do through your life is counted and your life after death is dependent on what you do through your life! Amazing concept, I thought.

But my immediate question was what if there is no life after death?

Yeah I continued to ponder, what if there is nothing after our death. What if we die in an attempt to liberate our souls and nothing happens? What if all we get is JUST ONE LIFE? What if all this morals and ethics stuff is just to frighten people and make them live without creating any hassles. Now should I really be counting on my sins and good deeds? What if there is no soul at all? What if we are here by pure chance, by an act of probability where in a group of chemicals is working in tandem such that we could know what is happening, what if all life is just chemical reactions and we are not able to understand what else is going on! What if there is another universe?

By this moment, I completed the long walk from the smoking area to my desktop. I opened wiki and searched for Multiverse, amazed at the very magnitude of thought processes being presented there. I did not care, I thought what if I want to call all the infinite Universes together as a single universe and name each Universe as a sub-verse or something.

Then I thought, if there exists a smallest particle, would there be a largest particle. Am I a small constituent of a very big particle? The thought frightened me, I like to think I am free, a liberated person. So I chucked this stuff, death seemed more romantic for me!

So I continued to wonder, why even though we are mere chemical reactions, we have so much affinity towards life, towards our sustenance. What makes the termination of the chemical reaction a big and frightening affair for man? I found the answer in Love. Then I wondered, what is love?

Isn’t it man’s manifestation of his desire to sustain? But if all love is amorous, how do we explain other platonic relationships. Yes the primordial prime mover for Love is the need to reproduce, just a few chemicals at work, a weird concept like Magnetism and Electricity. But since other forms of love do exist, I thought there should be something else which drives love, what is it? A desire to live? I could not find the answer.

Then I thought how love manipulates science to manifest death. Then I came across Cryonics in Wikipedia. For the uninitiated, Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. Currently, human cryopreservation is not reversible, which means that it is not currently possible to bring people out of cryopreservation alive. The rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by the current legal or medical definitions will not necessarily be dead by future standards – the most stringent standard being the information-theoretic definition of death[1] – and that such people could be brought out of cryopreservation in the future.

This excited me it seems there is something called clinical and legal death. I was amazed to know that all the knowledge we gain in the life time stays preserved in out brains, as long as the cells and tissues are intact.

I then thought, what would if a person who is fed up of this world, opts for cryonics and stays mum for 200 years and then spring back to life when the science is developed enough . The said person would wake up as young but in an altogether different time, Isn’t this another form of time travel? If this is possible, aren’t we challenging fate? The very idea excited me, I could feel some chemical reactions in me, a few mails and a few more phone calls, I was back to work!

and a one legged man’s desire to dance

like a key trying to find its lost lock

and a white board’s yearning for a white chalk

Like a star’s search for moon on new moon night

and the untold things lost in a pointless fight

like a wrong letter trying to find the right address

and the new love’s passionate desire to undress.

Like a loser’s list of things he wanted to undo

and all those dreams which I wished were true.

All I wanted was to find myself again before I die,

love, my search ended when I looked into your eye!

Speaking, tell me.

Yes, I am at the new year party, why?

Why should I go back?

What do you mean you are not coming, of course you should come!

No come on, I have made so many plans, how can you tell me that you are not coming, this is unfair!

So what should I do?

But he handed over the things, he also said you will be taking over…..

What do you mean you can’t take over, you can’t be so rude to me. No one has ever been so rude to me, not even my girl friend!

You cant say you don’t care! Of course you should care! I have planned my marriage, my promotion is due, I am planning to buy a car, all dependent on you, now you just come and say that you are not coming … it is not done….

Of course I can shout!

What? Know I can’t, this year was so damn bad for me. Even my company security guard used behave so rudely to me, I cant….

What, you want to go for the party? Wait don’t hang up… hello? Hello?

***********************************************************************************************************

Who is it darling?

Nisha, Nisha, (sobbing)

Hey, why are you crying? Who called you?

New year

New year?

Yeah, New Year!

New Year???????

Yeah! New year! Lots of greeting cards, even more parties, getting drunk and throwing up and waking up with a heavy head….. New year!!!

So what did he say?

Well, he is not coming!

What does he mean he is not coming!

He means he is not coming!

Are you high? Stopping puffing that Ganja!

Oh! Never mind about Ganja, I never started it, my life is ruined.

Ruined? Why?

I have to relive the whole year again!!

You mean, you would go back to January 2009 after 0 hours.

Yes precisely! And you have  a happy new year!

Direction: Shashanka Ghosh

Script: Rajesh Devraj

Cast: Dr, Rajendra Prasad, Rambha, Nasser

Runtime: 97 godly minutes!

Rating: *****

Let me tell you that I walked out of movie with a bad stomach ache. I was laughing so much, all through the movie.

QGM is a stupid movie; stupid in the sense that there is nothing brainy in there. Right from the first shot the director shouts aloud at you, Guys this is a no brains movie, just sit and do your best to relax and enjoy the movie, it is meant for nothing else!

Yes, truly. The movie is nothing but a ninety seven minute hilarious journey. I am really amazed to see that a plot so stupid as that of QMG’s could be presented in so brilliant manner that you cannot help but appreciate this marvelous piece.

Now what made this movie brilliant? It is an assortment of various departments’ very well done work. Take for example the characterization, all the characters here are dramatic, in reality you don’t see them the way they appear on the screen. You know they all are fake, they all are dramatic; and I attribute this to sheer intelligence of director. He made sure that the audience would not relate to even a single character to their real life. All they could do is enjoy what the character is doing.

And what the characters did is indeed enjoyable; enjoyable not because you like it, but because they make you helpless in terms of how you react to the scenes. No matter what happens in the movie, whether the villain kills someone in cold blood, or kidnaps a few innocent people or the protagonist romances the lead lady or for anything that was shown on the screen, you have but one expression-to chuckle. Now that is what humor is, isn’t it?

And what made this humor? It is again the stupidity. I mean, you have people shooting at each other and the QGM is so quick that he could dodge the bullet, or may be a dozen bullets; if you think that there are some hundreds of Graphic Engineers working on this, you are mistaken. QGM just shoves himself off the direction of bullets; believe me you will have to see it to understand how hilarious it is.

Moreover, the humor is not due to the circumstances. There are no funny situations or goof ups. The scenes are otherwise normal and if it were not for the presentation, they would have seemed extremely boring. But somewhere, the director managed to pump in that humor. May be through the characterization, or may be it is crisp editing or a brilliant screenplay or may be the spoofs that were chosen. Well, I do not want to put much brain into review as such. All I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Guys do yourself a favor, if you are desperate for those laughs, go watch QGM, mind it!

Added later: The music is just mind blowing. It must be very innovative of the music director to pick up a few dialouges from the movie and make them into awesome numbers!! And the best part is when you read the english subtitles when the tamil language is used. Specially during the songs!!

Yeah! I run for my bus everyday. I declared almost very proudly.

She smirked, it was the same kind of smirk people give me when I claim ownership of my articles. A sarcastic one which in smirking language would translate to-stop those sick jokes you kiddo and go get a life!

I meant to ask whether you do gymming or such activities! She retorted showing her stern determination to ignore my face while she scribbled something.

Now, this is a tricky question considering my lean personality. There is a remote possibility that any sane person would even dare to ask such questions. So I persevered.

I run daily for my bus. Some two minutes, give or take thirty seconds. I continued enthusiastically, trying my best to convince her that it should be considered as a physical activity.

She ignored my blabber, in a way similar to my history teacher used to in my school when I used to bargain for a half more mark or so.

She tore the prescription and added in an utterly indifferent tone, otherwise typical to those mamus who catch you offending an odd traffic rule, try to involve in some physical activity like sports or gym and ignored my physical presence almost instantly.

I am not too sure if I can put this in a public forum, but I must admit that I get a bit finicky when someone ignores me like that. My BP, if it ever existed, rose almost instantly and my brain sent out those neurons which generally make me stubborn. I almost decided that I would sit there and convince her that running for bus is indeed a physical activity. However, the saner part of me paid the fees before excusing myself from the clinic.

This later made me think about the physical activity I have ever had in the recent past. My brain sent a query to the database and the server sent out almost zero results in less than a nano second. I mean I hardly had any physical activity after those elevators became operational in my office, this is sans running for the bus, mind you! Introspection dawned upon and yours truly was set out on a mission to have some physical activity.

For next two or three weeks, I did nothing but sit before my laptop and research about the best physical activity that suits me. In the process I used to be so late for the bus I want to catch that I am too early for the next bus and used to stroll to the bus stop.

All this resulted in a net weight gain of about four hundred grams. While I gained five hundred grams (of which 100 grams appeared as acne), I lost hundred grams of hair worrying about the gain! Life’s lessons, I tell you.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She came so close to me that the warmth of her breath ignited the passion in me, she smelt like flowers and her gleaming skin gave an impression that she would be much more delicate than flowers. I touched her, and with in a few seconds I found out that her µ (frictional co-efficient) was zero! It was like acting in one of those santoor soap ads!

I got lost in her soft black hair and found in her intoxicating eyes, only to realize that she is trying to whisper something in my ears!

Play badminton she said in the huskiest and sexiest voices I ever heard. And she started moving away from me with a speed that I could never reach!

Deepikaaaaa! I shouted and caught hold of a hand, I am not sure if it was the same hand but I was sure the µ was definitely more than zero. Forget about feeling like flowers, I could actually feel hair. I woke up! All it took was a few milli seconds for me to realize that I was in a bus and I caught the hand of a huge a guy who took the seat beside me.

I am not a gay! I said in the most apologetic of my tones and added one of those sheepish smiles of mine!

I am not Deepika either! He replied as enthusiastically.

I blinked and made a few faces which did not dare him to break the ice. I sighed and slept again.

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If you are wondering who that Deepika was, I must tell you it is Ms. Padukone. Now, if you are making one of those faces and trying to tell me to stop this non-sense, I would shrug and ask you to wait till I publish the next part.

Movie: Kaminey
Cast: Shahid Kapoor (double role), Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte etc.
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Run Time: 130 minutes
My rating: ***

Do I really have to compare Kaminey with Omkara? I mean, can anything ever be a comparison to that million dollar starting lines (bewkoof aur ch…..) of Omkara? May be I should accept it as a typical Vishal start to have a few punch packed lines in the beginning. But! Ah! The quintessential critical self!

Kaminey starts with an introduction, a stylish one at that, of Charlie about himself which is a brief about his character, his views on life, his speech disabilities, his ambitions. It then culminates into a one liner, a typical Vishal Bhardwaj one liner.

Kaminey, unlike the name, is a mixture of some extra ordinary works of geniuses, with the cinematography and music departments turning out to be the best. Take for example the Charlie’s introduction scene where he inadvertently follows a flying currency note. And while he does that, everything else on the screen goes dark with light just on Charlie and the currency note that he follows. The scene speaks volumes about the characterization, it out right tells you about the character Charlie; how he forgets the whole world in the matters of money. And just as you are about to recover from the awe inspiring scene, some excellent music score and even better screenplay of a chase scene elevates you into even higher horizons.

I was really eager to see how Vishal executed the movie because the plot got leaked much before. And believe me this did have a subsiding effect on me. May be I should have opted out of choosing to read the plot published in Times of India. But nevertheless, the overall feel was good.

At 130 minutes, Kaminey should not be seen as a movie. It should be seen as an assortment of extremely well made scenes which knit together so well that they complete the movie. Rain is used extensively throughout the movie which made a huge difference to overall feel. There is this scene where Mikhail (Chandan Roy Sanyal) comes in his car to meet Charlie. There is a deal that was to be made. Mikhail sings the song from Spider Man dancing in the rain only to be followed by Charlie! The rain, the music, the lighting all were so spectacularly done that the scene still haunts me. And then there is a scene in the climax where Charlie changed by circumstances decides to put off the diamonds back into the hands of the bad guys, and the moment he does that he was shot. This scene too is excellently done, there are a dozen such scenes which enhance the viewer experience, which elevate the mood of the movie into new spaces(I am refraining to discuss some characters here for fear of spoiling, will update the same soon!).

Then there are characterisations, some deep, some shallow and some just right. Vishal chose to add a regional touch to his characters this time. He explored the fraternity of Bengalis, where they would do anything for the sake of brotherhood. Vishal then roped in Amol Gupte to show the intricacies of Marathi-manoos. Priyanka did an excellent job as the sister (Sweety) of a young and ambitious politician. Sweety’s character is one of the best and demands applause. The desperation to set herself free and harmless guile with which she traps the people around her are all well captured by Priyanka Chopra.

I do not want to spoil fun by speaking much about Guddu and Charlie, go and watch to know more. However, I strongly felt that Tashi’s (Tenzing Nima) character was under utilized. And so was Mikhail’s. From the trailers I was expecting so much from these two characters, which for me were not up to the mark.

It is Vishal’s trademark to deal with human emotions. And Kaminey is no exception. As I have said Sweety’s love for Guddu was just awesome. There is selfishness, desperation, possessiveness, white lies, desire, innocence, anger, helplessness all packed into this love story. The chemistry between Guddu and Sweety is sweet. And then comes Charlie. Especially in the particular scene where Guddu meets Charlie, what a scene it was. The helplessness of Charlie when Guddu walks away daring Charlie to shoot him gave me Goosebumps. Full marks for Shahid Kapoor for adeptly transitioning from the guy-next-door type Guddu to the punter and dashing type Charlie. He was effortless when he shifted from a stammering character to the lisp.

Another commendable part of the movie is the subtle humour it effortlessly engineers into itself. There is no separate comedy track in Kaminey. There are no comedians used, it is just those typical Vishal one-liners that imbibe humour into the movie. The speech disabilities of Charlie, Guddu and Sweety, no matter how much the director disclaimed in his movie promotions, did create humour. When Charlie says “life faale kutti cheez hain” or when Guddu and Sweety stammer in their cute conversations, you can’t help but smile.

The music, as I reviewed earlier is just awesome. Charlie’s theme took all the chase sequences to a new horizon. They just take you off! However, Kaminey track was not used completely and Pehli Baar was sent to the end.

I always maintain that if there is one actor in Bollywood who can make it to Hollywood it is Hrithik and now if there is one director who could make it to Hollywood it is Vishal Bhardwaj. Kaminey is by no standards less than any of those Hollywood flicks.

In spite of all this, Kaminey didn’t satisfy me. It left me with thirst for more. One reason may be the pace and length of the movie. Another may be the Bollywoodish climax which played spoilsport for the movie. Vishal seemed to put deliberate efforts to not to make it darker. The script has the potential and the story belongs to the director, he played with the concept, created new dimensions to the characters, did a great screen play but somewhere forgot to “dil nichodna” because if he wanted the movie’s true dark side would have been aptly portrayed, which did not happen in this Kaminey. At the end of it all I felt Kaminey was not Kamina enough.

photo credit: fancycwabs

I am right now experimenting with look and feel of my blog. The old settings are safely saved and, if need be, would reverted back to. Kindly leave your comments on how you like the new look.

Movie: Love aaj kal

Director: Imtiaaz Ali

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Dumbika Padukone, Rishi Kapoor

Rating: 2.5 *

Bakwaas. K, with whom P and me were watching the movie, scowled.

K is the most practical of us three and is a logical  guy. It was quintessential for him to get frustrated but, what worried me was he was angry too! Cursing why he chose to come to the movie. He quickly spat a few colourful abuses and excused himself out of the gent’s room.

Relax mate. I tried to sooth him. Mainly because the movie was OK, to be frank I liked it very much. It is not that bad as you are projecting it to be. I protested.

Shut up A, this is utter non sense. He resisted! Ha! Time pass movie hain! It was P’s time to give his 5 cents.

I donno, I liked the movie. May be because, there were questions at the very beginning. I did not like how ye dooriyan  was wasted. But as soon as the questions were being answered I was in. I do not have any complain K, now stop being so critical about the movie. Just enjoy it dude! I said in the cheeriest of my voices.

Ha time pass movie hain! P interrepted again!

Enjoy? Time pass? What is the concept here? The guy and the girl are too practical and decide to part ways as life pulls them off, trying to be practical and all. And when they are successfully off, an  old man tries to make them realize what love is! My foot! This is utter garbage; I’d seen hell lot of movies like this till now, why cant we just get something fresh and out of the box man? said K grabbing some pop corn and coke and marching into the theatre. He did not seem to have enjoyed the first half at all.

You never were in love, were you?

No, SO?

May be you are not able to relate yourself to  the movie.

Stop being so stupid A. If romantic movies are meant for people only in love then most of them would never be successful commercially. Or I never would have liked the movies DDLJ or for that matter JTYJN . Now stop being so idiotic.

But the movie is so cool, nice humour, Saif is sounding so funny man! Good dialouge delivery, nice cheeky lines. All laughs; what else you want? More over Rishi uncle is awesome isn’t he?

Ha yaar! time pass movie hain!

Are you nuts A? Dont you realize the movie is so similar to Jaane Tu ya Jaane na? It is stale, there is nothing new here! I dont need to pay so much to watch this nincompoopery! And look at Deepika! What does she think? She looks as if she was surprised by the camera when she was doing her daily routine, we have so many talented artists why do we just go mad behind all these stars man! And that other tall and lean girl, I donno her name, she is so clumsy. Why do these directors take us audiences for granted, damn it!

NO! It is not similar to Jaane tu….. I protested meekly as we settled in the theatre. The second half of the movie started.

And all it took was some 10 minutes for me to realize that it is indeed similar to Jaane tu ya jaane na. I kept mum as I too started believing more and more that there is no plot at all and it is just an old wine in new bottle. The more the movie progressed the less I wanted to convince K, I somehow got the feeling that he must be right.

The movie did not seem to strike the correct note with ferocious K and I did not intend to start any conversation with him. There is no use to discussing the movie with P he is bad at judging and is very sensitive. So I called my friend S who watched the movie already.

Note: Spoilers ahead!

Me: hello how are you doing?

S: Heyyyyyyyyyyyy! How was the movieeeeeeeee?

yeah the mov……

I liked the first haalf sooooo much man!

ha the first ha………

but the second half was sooo bakwaas, it was so unecessarily dramatic man!

actually the second half wa…….

you know what? I wished the movie ended after that dinner party when Meera tells Jay that her boyfriend proposed her for marriage.

but that would be pretty short movie na! I managed to complete the sentence this time.

yaaaa! but what was shown was soo unreal man! no girl would break her marriage for her ex boy friend who is not even sure whether or not he loves her. But Deepika so gorgeous, no?

yeah yeah! but she wa…..

And didn’t I tell you? All the songs would fit in fine and jolly good they did! Except for that stupid main kya hoon by KK, that song was stupidly made. I felt Dooriyan was wasted and Choor Bazaari was not that well picturized. Aaj din Chadeya was too good though! no? Ahun! was put at the end though, not that it could fit else where!

Yeah! I agree! But you know what? The transition from past story track to present story track was improper. May be Ismail would have used some different colour scheme. Reverse chronological narration of present story just added to the trouble and some one forgot to edit the whole thing properly! Add it up with dismal performances by Deepika and the other lead lady, the movie did not have live up to the expectations.

Yeah man! I am better off watching Jab we met again. More so, Kareena would have been a better option than Deepika, what say?

Yeah! Even I thought so. But we can definitely watch once, can’t we?

Yeah, if we are prepared for the boring second half. I would rate it at 3/5 you?

I would rate it at 2.5/5, can’t be more than that! How about dinner today evening?

Oh! I am so sorry A, I am busy. Why K and P are busy is it?

Hey! I just remembered, even I am busy. I will have to write a review for my blog!

Note: All the characters in the review are fictious and I dont care even if they resemble someone

photo credit: Vagabond Shutterbug

There is something about Vishal Bharadwaj that you cannot miss, you just cannot afford to miss him as an entertainer. To be frank I am still head over heels for his movie Omkara, which for me is one of the best movies Bollywood ever produced. What enriches the Vishal experience is that he composes his own tunes, so his songs are so carefully done that they penetrate you in ruthless way and make their home deep down in your heart.

So there is little wonder that I am having very high expectations for the Vishals latest flick Kaminey. Though it has been more than a week since the music got released I am waiting for the songs to sink in and believe me I am not at all disappointed.

The much publicised dhan te nan is an awesome number. The song starts with a saxophone rendering and then a few single strokes of guitar is all that was needed to take off and the rest of the journey takes to you to new highs. As you might have observed, it is real tough to sit still when the song plays around, you inadvertently start shaking your head and tapping your feet when Sukhwinder Singh andVishal Dadlani sing this song with utmost passion. So much passion that you would not like to listen to other songs for a while. There is so much force in the vocal strength of these two that you just get washed away as they compete with each other to show the passion that the number churns.

The good news is that there are three tracks in that album that are of same tune including the original one- the remix version and the theme music too are of the same tune. However, I did not find the remix version as exciting as the original version, some where the madness and the passion got subsided in the attempt. The theme music though was enthralling.

That brings us to the next track pehli baar, a ballad by Mohit Chauhan. To be frank, I am falling short of words to aptly describe this number. The composition, lyrically and musically, is flawless and is as well executed by Mohit Chauhan, when he elevates his pitch to render the composition it resonates in your heart, you feel the pain and the wonderful words used by Gulzar would only elevate the feeling. However, I somehow feel the song is similar to Ooooo Saathi re… of Omkara. Nevertheless, a treat to ears!

You would then quickly traverse to the next track Raat ke dhai baje a dance number. It is one of those songs for which you would like to bite your lips, shake your hip with your fists punching the air. The song’s lyrics would quickly change into pehli baar after the first stanza. To be frank the original version is not that great and might as well bore you if you get an over dose. I suppose this would be in the lines of beedi jalai re though this one is not as tangy (?) if I may call it so!

The next track is Fatak performed again with passion and zeal by Sukhwinder and Kahilesh, however this song is kind of a fusion with fatak all over the song. It sounds more like an motivational song, I felt like walking briskly when I heard that song. I am not too sure how to judge this; I am not able to declare this as bad, may be this is what you call ‘not bad’.

As I have said earlier, what makes Vishal’s work special for me is that the songs are inherent part of the movie. They are not fillers but are the pillars for the movie, they define the movie, they complete the movie. One such pillar, I feel, for Kaminey is the song Kaminey. It is sung by Vishal himself, believe me he made it look so awfully simple for a swear word to sound extra-ordinarily poetic and melodious, the song has some very deep meaning trying to bring out the philosophical meaning of the life of the protagonist. I guess it should be at a very critical point of the plot.

All in all, Kaminey is definitely better than to be called as a good album. It is complete with wonderful compositions by Gulzar and the songs are executed with omnipresent passion. However, apart from the three tracks dhan te nan, pehli baar and kameene, the other tracks are forgettable and do not have a lasting effect. But that is decent, isn’t it? Three excellent tracks from a single album. Which is why I rate the Kameeny album at 3.5/5.

The other day I was reading my own posts and observed that most of my posts start with ‘I’. I am not too sure if others do the same maybe because I’d never visited more than few a blogs. However, of late I’d been trying to hop here and there to see how blogs draw their audience and stuff like that. And the result is that I’ve been tagged by this blogger. Being the narcissist that I am, I don’t think this should really be a problem. OK here we go :

1)The first thing I love about myself is that I am a human. Being a human is a great thing to be! I would leave the rest to reader .
2)I can read and write!
3)My humor. I really like my jokes. No, seriously!
4)My attitude towards life! Duh!
5)I think its the way I flirt

Alright! breathe now! I am passing the baton to Priya Tikoo

Disclaimer: This is a pure fictional story based on real incidents. All the tigers in this story are completely fictional and bear no resemblance to any of the living, dead or extinct tigers. Any such resemblance shall be taken with a pinch of salt and if possible pepper too.

I have started believing more and more that writing humor is a bit of uphill task; may be because of my handicap in maintaining my genre as satire/humor. I keep hopping on and off my style trying odd stuff here and there. This often leaves my audience confused (though the poems which I recently wrote may instill laughter, you cannot call them as humor; even if you call them so, don’t tell me OK?)

 My point is that, I like to laugh at whatever life throws at me; though this is a very innovative thing to do, you always are at risk of being called loony and all. So when I write stuff like “the other day I almost had a fracture on my hip bone when I tried to kill a mosquito”, and get comments like “Oh man! I am so sorry, how is your hip bone now?” I will have to look at myself in a rather pitiful manner.

 So when I decided to write about a day in my life, I thought I would rather comfort my audience by making it clear that I wrote the stuff to sound funny and all. So later in this article if you are at an ethical dilemma of whether or not to laugh at the protagonist’s sorry state of affairs, feel free to bring out that sadist in you to rule the roost and have a comfortable laugh, no seriously!

So here we go-

 It all started by twelve midnight or so. I generally have few expectations from life, at least, so I claim. But, it is difficult for me to hide excitement when I come into lime light and all. Just at the right moment, my heart starts making sounds like an old refrigerator- making continuous humming noises, sometimes which end up vibrating me to the effect that people think that I am sick!

 So when that night, when I knew something I did before would bring me to limelight, I was being my quintessential self. It was past midnight and I never remembered staring so much at my phone (though the lady who sits opposite to me at my workplace has other opinions, no not about my phone though). If I was a beggar and my phone was an average person crossing the road, the stare would have earned me at least fifty rupees or so! You get the picture right? I was looking at my phone with my most pitiful face ever. My acne just helped my cause.

 I did not know when I slept off that night but knew when I woke up, as my heart became the refrigerator again- making those humming noises. Before I could realize what was wrong with me, memory dawned.

The problem my dear reader was that last year on my birthday when I was sitting hopeless and disinterested, like a young calf waiting for its mother to come back, expecting hardly anything but a few calls from my closest friends, I’d received some hundred odd calls from all corners of the world wishing me a happy birthday and all sorts of things.

Though I was on roaming then, I was more than happy to use my high end Nokia for its main purpose-TALK (yours truly has an indelible affinity towards high end phone and ends up using them for anything except talking, creating a serious identity crisis for phone). Though my heart sank to deeper depths when I had to pay the bill, I never repented.

So for this birthday in order to save those extra bucks spent on my roaming bill, I’d made it a point to stay ‘local’ in spite of the fact that it was a weekend and was all set to celebrate my birthday in a cost-effective manner. And this, unfortunately or fortunately for me, turned out to be the anticlimax for the year long, nonexistent, birthday bash plans. I will tell you why.

Among many mistakes done by the God, one mistake is to schedule this year’s birthday on a weekend. For an average SE weekend is the biggest festival. One might forget his girl friend’s birthday, his wife’s birthday, for that matter, even his own birthday, but one could never forget the weekend. So in all the weekend excitement my birthday was sidelined like a pedestrian on Indian roads. As expected, no celebrations happened for me; no cakes cut, and there by nothing was applied to my face and hair, thereby increasing the life of a few wisps of my hair which are always eager to succumb to gravity, or so they seem!

I will pass on briskly and will excuse you with those details of how I flowed in and out of my bathroom and got ready, only to go for a breakfast. It was when I was forcing myself to enjoy a plate of pale yellow poha (a preparation made of rice flakes) that my phone started ringing.

Within a moment I felt like a digital camera which has been shifted from night mode to vivid color mode. The pale yellow poha turned bright yellow. The sun seemed more beautiful, flies looked like butterflies and the glass of chai looked like coke. It was Nikhil, my roommate.

Me: Hello

Nikhil: Where are you?

How does that matter? You tell, you tell (I repeat my sentences when I am extra excited)

Tell me where you are

(Thinking what has that got to do with wishing happy birthday) I am having breakfast. Why?

Could you get me a packet of Dove soap, blue color pack?

I hung up instantly. The poha returned to its pale yellow color, the sun started scorching and the flies started irritating me again.

Things remained particularly unchanged until noon and I started feeling like the watchman of an unused ATM in a remote village of Bihar. But not after my phone started ringing again. It was Little Johnny (name changed to protect myself). Before actually going any further, I will have to quickly introduce Little Johnny to you.

Little Johnny, if you do not know him, is more remarkable for his irritating manners than anything else. If a naughty child has ever met Little Johnny, all you need to do to put the child to task is to tell him that he will have to meet Little Johnny (LJ). You get the drift right?

LJ’s figure would just help his cause. He is five feet six inches high and would give you a feeling that he must be as wide. When I first met LJ, he already had this notorious popularity of being the most irritating moron within the measured kilometer radius; it did not matter where he was. But my sphere of influence being 2 km, I was able to gel with him very well. The science ladies call it ecological niche or something like that. But sooner I evolved as a better human being and reduced my irritating sphere of influence to a few meters. But LJ persevered with all the conviction of a determined soul and I avoided him as much.

So when I saw that it was LJ calling me, I was in double mind. I knew answering the call means putting your finger into a plug hole to test electricity. No sane person would ever dare to do that, but in the kind of situation I was in, risk is a biscuit. I was ready to watch MTV girl talk incessantly if someone wished me and so I answered the call.

Hello?

How are you mate?

Oh yeah, fine so far. I mean, yeah! Fine.

Where are you?

Home (how does that matter, wish me you moron!)

You know how to configure outlook?

 Configure what?

Outlook.

An unsuspecting onlooker would have undoubtedly betted his month’s salary on a claim that I was a chameleon. Yeah, on hearing this I turned scarlet red, then a tint of pale yellow and then may be of paper white, before restoring to my skin color.

The next 30 minutes were the longest of my life; of course, only if he doesn’t call me on my next birthday to ask me how to brush his dog’s teeth or other such interesting things. I shall agree that, at this moment, I hated myself more than anyone else did or could do.

Time flew and my plight deteriorated. It was pathetic. It was like the whole universe has conspired and erased my birth details from each and every human brain ever lived. There was me, who was determined to be wished on my birthday and there was rest of the world who seem to be ruthlessly determined to not to wish me. And nature seemed to be with the rest of the world.

I almost decided to catch a few cockroaches and make them wish me when Chirpika (name not changed) called me. I would not describe Chirpika for fear of sounding pornographic and all. I hope it would suffice when I say that I was more than excited to see her calling. But the excitement did not last long.

The first ten minutes were spent giggling. It was a tacit understanding for us to giggle if we did not understand what the other person had to say. So when I blabbered incessantly she reciprocated by giggling as much. The whole thing looked like a French man talking to a German in Marathi, a true treat to ears!

She then got into her natural form and spoke about wide variety of things ranging from her nail polish to how her mother has taken to some primitive form of pagan worship and started worshipping ants. From what I gathered she had been praying incessantly to ants and wishing for Chirpika’s marriage! She spoke about anything but my birthday!! For first time in life, I have started believing in God without any caveats, I mean it is a complete sign off.

With this I lost all hopes. I photographed myself in various angles and hoped for the best.

Two days later, my roommate took me to bakery and asked me to select a cake. I asked for who it was with a grudging voice. He named one of our roommates.  I never remembered when I stared any one with so much vengeance before.

It later turned out that I was choosing my own birthday cake. I am not sure how much I could make you enjoy this extremely long piece of nincompoopery, but the whole experience taught me one thing- You need not give any particular importance to the first day of a year. Each day is important, live it to the fullest.

My birthday cake

P.S: If I could celebrate by birthday 2 days later, why can’t I name my post as anything I like and disclaim any random thing?

The adrenaline rush into the blood because of his anxiety to know the reason behind his current state caused a severe pain in his head; he was feeling as if he is being sledge hammered mercilessly by an invisible force. A dry feeling in his throat made him gulp his own saliva, as the ambulance rushed leaving a trail of dust behind.

He tried to recollect what happened, he could not. He did not seem to have remembered anything. He is straining his brain so much to recollect that he wanted to respond to the stimuli by shouting out aloud, he tried to shout but soon realized that he has no control over his mouth. This frustrated him all the more, he is desperate now, and he wanted to know what happened to him.

He tried hard as memories, razor sharp memories, which seemed to be cutting his nerves off, started coming back to him. He tried hard and persevered as he could see patches of his past.

“Run” shouted Naresh as he adeptly synchronized his right pair of limbs to get into an accelerating bus.

“Catch this bag” he shouted as he tried to race himself with an immensely accelerating bus. But Naresh could not catch the bag. So, he continued running carrying the back sack on a single strap.

He was getting breathless, both in his memories and in his physical sense. He was running and running and running trying to synchronize himself with the bus. Just as the speed seemed to be enough, he tried to raise his right leg and land it on the bus’ footboard, this shall complete his ordeal. But he slipped!

He could not properly land his right because he lost his balance as he pulled his left one a tad bit faster to meet the pace of the bus, all this happened in a matter of seconds. Since he already lifted his left foot before he could land his right his both legs were in air for a moment as he cantilevered himself to the bus with his right hand, which also gave up the strenuous task of holding his body to the bus.

He was in air for a few seconds, the way in which great cricket fielders dive to stop or catch a ball, his brain works best when it is under pressure and in this moment of shock it did. He, with a momentary gush of intuition, pulled forth his back sack just at the right moment, nano seconds before he crash landed on a gravel top road. He jerked violently on his bed.

He forgot that it was memories springing back to him and reacted to the dive on his strapped ambulance bed and started making violent moments. He was trying to get up, he thought he just experienced that accident, his friend Abhilash proved him wrong by putting a firm hand on him, he half opened his eyes. In a few seconds he realized that this state of his’ has got nothing to do with the memories of the accident that just flashed back to him. Those memories were far too old, moreover the memories of he getting up from the road and giving a sheepish smile sprang back to him.

Just as they did, he gave up the urge for the violent reactions by meekly surrendering to the powerful grip of his friend. He started feeling his body again, the sledge hammering continued, his throat became drier. He gave up swallowing his own saliva, primarily because there was nothing left.

But his urge to recollect his past did not die. He had to know it; he had always been an inquisitive person. His brain always ran a thousand odd questions whenever he saw something unusual or new. And when he is not able to recollect his own past, he was not able to meet the pace of the thoughts of his brain. He knew it was too unusual for him to not to be able to pace with his thoughts, he tried to move his hands, but he could not. Something was wrong!

He concentrated, he tried hard, and he was almost dying with pain when he was trying to do so. But he has always been a fighter and this fight seemed too special for him to give up, he remembered how to breathe and he should recollect everything else.

He continued to strain his brain, with in a few seconds he was successful, there were discrete memories of his childhood coming back, dogs chasing him, his first kiss, his fights with his girl friends, his achievements. But he selectively rejected them; he needs accidents, major ones that could cause a mishap.

Then he thought he caught the right memory. He tried to replay it. He was there in his swimming costume. A rocky terrain where there is incessant flow of water. It is a waterfall, yes a very beautiful one, the heavy gush of water cutting the rocks is making a deafening noise and hitting the rocks with so great a force that the moment it touched the rock it split into a million smaller fine droplets creating a fine mist, which when bathed by sunlight ripped it apart displaying its amazing seven colors. All this when it happens at a depth of thousand feet, excites any soul to craziness.

“Do not go there, it is quite slippery” shouted Rohit trying to win against the heavy gush of water.

He would not listen, he had always been a person who is too inquisitive trying to explore new things, and he liked exploring. Innovation excites him, it gives him a kick. So he advanced, jumping from a rock to rock, as if he belonged there, he had no aim, just to reach as far as it is humanly possible.

He dodged the pools of water formed as a result of water’s perseverance to flow through the stones; he averted the huge algae colonies. But he could not do that forever, he slipped off when he tried jump from one rock to other. His feet landed on a wet slippery surface as his friends shocked watching him slip.

He slipped as the land beneath him could not support his fast moving feet. He landed on hit butt and extended his arms to claw the rocks so that he would not slip. Bit it did not help, he hurt his nails, he was bleeding as he was slipping through the rock, death was his first thought.

He started moving violently again. His heart paced, his Adam’s apple whirled. He could feel the pain again; it is having a domino effect with each passing second. He was seeing himself slipping down into valley of death, but before his brain could strain itself more, he remembered the discrete scenes of him landing safely in a shallow pool of mud. He knew he survived and there were no injuries too. So this was not the accident that caused injuries to him. He was relieved, but was frustrated too. What happened to him, he wanted to shout out aloud on top of his lungs, but he could not even whisper. He wanted to open his eyes and talk to his friends, but he could not. Helplessness is killing him!

He gave up. And then he did he overheard his friends’ conversation-

I told him to be careful with house keeping guys.

What happened exactly?

He was descending the stairs and was trying to cross a housekeeping guy who was blissfully engrossed in cleaning the steps.

Then?

What then? The broom got entangled between his legs, he then toppled, rolled, bounced and bumped down three floors!

Ah!

There was a chuckle; the sound was that of last drops of water escaping into the drainage pipe in your bathroom.

He remembered that he had a very important call to attend this afternoon; he has to get the sign off for what he had been working on since last quarter. He started moving violently again, his friends continued praying. 

But the problem, my dear reader, is that most of the good blogs are sparsely or hardly commented. Rather, generally the most commented blogs should be emanating Methane, you know what I mean, don’t you?

Now let me for simplicity sake take you a mini tour of such blogs.

Here goes a blog account of a GB (great blogger):

Yesterday was Sunday. Even then Sun came. You must wonder because there was never any Mon, Tues, Wednes, Thurs, Fri or Satur that has come on the other days. So I felt very happy and went for shipping, no, no sorry, it’s fishing. I sat there for hours together and caught what I think is a very rare species of fish. It was black in color and did not look spherical contradicting my expectations. Unfortunately it did not move after I caught it, I am now wearing it on my left feet and still waiting here for its friend to get hooked, I am really eager to wear fish on my feet.

Posted from my i-Phone.

Comments :

C1: Oh man, you are truly amazing; I did not understand what you wrote when I read it for first time. Only after reading after 2.5 times did I realize what a metamorphic genius your post is. You are simply awesome! I am really proud to know you! Keep them coming!

C2: Great stuff man, I nearly wept reading your post! Seriously man, my empathies with you.

G.B : @C1 thank you very much (wo)man, just pray that I will find the second shoe fish. @C2: let’s meet up for coffee. You are having my room keys right?

C3: Oh wow! You went for shopping? What did you buy?

GB: @C3 hehehe, i like your sense of humor!

C45: For better fishing encounters read my blog at www.morenincompooery.com.

…….. The list goes on.

Now, after spending three days envying such blogs, I have come up with an idiots guide to monger comments. The tips would be very useful to all the upcoming bloggers to get comments on their posts.

The first tip is tele-marketing.

A worked out example for your sake.

(Upcoming blogger)UB: (calls up his friend) hey man! How are you? long time, no see.

(Unsuspecting friend)UF: Oh yeah, hi, how are you Rajesh.

 I am not Rajesh

Yeah, tell me Rakesh.

I am not Rakesh either.

Then why did you call me?

Dude, you are supposed to comment on my blog!

Oh yeah! Man your blog is ssoooooooo bor-

Hello, I am not able to hear you

Hallo!

Listen, looks like my signal is weak, you are getting it?

Yeah!

Are you able to hear clearly that my signal is weak?

Yeah! Yeah!

Then why don’t you leave the comment on my blog, ok?

Yeah!

Sure?

Yeah!

Beep beep beep…….

This way you are making sure that the comment is coming.

Now look at the second way. The barter system

Smart Friend (SF): Man I need to borrow money, you have some 20K?

Unsuspecting Upcoming Blogger (UUB): NO man, I am out of cash!

Hey, I read your blog.

Is it?

It’s too cool man. I liked your style. See if you can manage the money.

Oh! By jove! I am saving it for an occasion, I think, I can……

Hey, I left a comment on your blog, did you check?

HEY! I think I have some cash in my locker, you can take it right away!

 
Things get simpler if you have a kid.

Kid: Dad, can you sign on my progress report.

Dad: How much did you get?

Well 65%

That’s appalling, you must have studied harder, I will not sign.

Dad! I read your recent post, it is good.

Oh! Yeah?

My friends liked it too, they are thinking of commenting on it!

Oh? Gimme your report, 65% is good man! You know I got even less in my engineering? Don’t forget to comment, OK?

These are just samples, if you liked this I will start writing the book. And please do not comment,

Breakfast:

Eat poha, drink tea, and think about the topic for a poem.

Lunch:

Escape into the dungeon (my food court) munch on mysterious things that they christened thali and think about the poem.

Tea:

Drink tea with some samosa and think about the poem.

 Dinner:

Eat Aloo paratha, drink lassi and think about the poem. Write it and publish it in your god forbidden blog, tweet it, update the link on facebook and orkut and voila! I am done!

I would then sleep and dream about the poems. And if insomnia supervenes read the poems that I had written so far and then risk sleeping forever. 

Believe me my reader, I have made it look awfully simple for your cause, but writing poetry is pain in the . The problem with poetry, and the reason why my otherwise kind and broad minded people wait in the corner just to hit it on the head with huge club the moment poem pops out, is the presumption that writing poetry is as easy as laying eggs.

If you think that poetry

Means breaking the prose

Into many small lines and

Forcing that darned stuff

to Rhyme; then you know

That you are mistaken.

Poetry for many people is verses that rhyme, that has metrification, that looks good and that which sounds blissfully soul liberating.

But the problem is that English, the language which I chose to write poetry, is a very funny language. There would be many a time where your pronunciation would force you to rhyme ‘east’ with ‘paste’ or ‘breaks’ with ‘snacks’ and then shamelessly publish the miserable doggerel hoping that it would be instant passport to the country of poets.

 Now if you are among those who have cursed an upcoming poet for nincompoopery please think again as I quote P.G Wodehouse here- “Whoever invented the English language must have been a prose-writer, not a versifier; for he has made meager provision for the poets.”

He is indeed true in his being frustrated because English leaves us with very few options. Take for example my previous poem where a line ends with ‘answers’ now there are not many sensible words that rhymes with ‘answers’ like ‘helicopters‘ and may be ‘tractors‘. Now tell me my dear reader, do you really appreciate the lines if they look like this

She couldn’t stay calm, she owes him answers

He is the rich one who has many helicopters

Or

She couldn’t stay calm, she owes him answers

He is a farmer and he owns three tractors

The chances are that you once for all abandon the faith on literature or you would call me if you are practicing psychiatrist struggling to survive.

Now speaking about complicating things further, the ELDT (The English Language Design Team), I confidently speculate , should be biased against poets for it to use a vowel ending monosyllable word to define the world’s most manipulated and commercially used emotion- Love. I mean why should they use Love for the emotion man? They should have used lantern or puchuk or may be other sounds which could easily rhyme with other sensible words.

Love, as you know rhymes with now, how, dove, bow and arrow, cow, crow, plough. How could a poet possibly write sensible poetry using love and still rhyme it with the possible rhymes it has.

But even then, poets survived the ordeal, they evolved and continued rhyming love with ‘now and how’ and  still made sense, while others chucked the rhyming and made sense while others stuck to rhyming and never made sense.

She sat there pondering on a chair

About the failure of her recent affair

Her mind had not a word to draw

It was tough to admit, it was her flaw.

She is bemused, she is an escapee

She acts blind when he begs her to see

But her gifts, a cute teddy, a driver’s glove

Ask her what’s wrong, why can’t you love?

She has no answer, but just priorities

Love for her is too far from reality

Memories stay as long as you can remember

Keep them if you like or forget if you prefer.

She couldn’t stay calm, she owes an answer

She has to be forgotten like a silent prayer

But it is not so easy to answer a broken heart

Guile is what you need, you can’t just act smart.

She finally met him and put him at ease

And explained that she is not what he sees

He looked into her eyes with awe and fear

It was all over and there is nothing to repair.

He wished to hell and heaven that it was false

But he knew he was left with no choice.

When she can’t be the person he wants her to be

All he could do is forgive her and set her free.

I wish I could love
I wish you are with me now.

I go for a walk on a wonderful Sunday
I see couples hand in hand, happy and gay
I feel a vacuum between my stomach and heart
Nothing to fill the void, I am afraid even to start.

I wish I could love
But I really wonder how?

When I see beauty or read a wonderful poem
I compare it to your eyes and the beauty of your name.
I took to art; it’s the best form of expression
No words to explain my pain, there’s no inspiration.

I wish I could love
I’m not sure if I can now.

 I am relatively new to this company and I was not sure whether I can listen to songs when I am working. So I looked at the guy apologetically and removed my earphones and adeptly put them into the locker, hoping that he would not siege them.

 However, the shouts continued.

 ”REMOVE, REMOVE, REMOVE.” the guy shouted pointing his hands to me.

 I shall admit that my otherwise solid nervous system had gone for a toss. For a minute I started believing that my worst fears would have come true- Some one is trying to molest me! Holy god! Why he is he asking me to remove my clothes? I never picked up a fight with any local. “I am not from north, may be I look like one and my name might suggest otherwise, but please I am not from north” I prepared my speech in case things went out of my bound.

 But he continued “REMOVE, REMOVE, REMOVE”

 ”bhaiyya, please stop talking in block letters and please tell me what should I remove” I asked gathering all my courage.

 ”REMOVE THE FLOOR” he shouted.

 My eyes widened in amazement and I started hyperventilating. Removing the floor is not a simple task and more over I sit on fourth floor and probably the guys in the third floor would not like their ceiling to be removed moreover how can I remove the floor while standing on it? But I did not have time for so much of calculation. The guy who was shouting at me looked much like Bhajji after claiming his 9^th wicket of innings, running aimlessly towards an imaginary wall with a stern determination to head butt it!

 But before I could react, I saw other employees strolling out of the fire exit in a relaxed way, only then did I observe the fire alarm making some tweeting sounds. Ah! I looked at the guy and said “Evacuate?”

 He gave a cold look and started shouting again “REMOVE THE FLOOR”.

 Before some unsuspecting employee could start venturing to remove the floor, I exited.

 But the real fun started then. I mean we have a mock fire drill happening in the building and we are supposed to calculate the time required for evacuating the building in case of emergency and then I see a guy whose deeds would translate to the following.

 “Dear Security Manager or even the guy shouting at us to “Remove the floor”,

 We are Indians. When I say we are Indians, I mean we are bunch of cool looking Software Engineers who romance with bombs every day, who travel on bikes deftly averting the most dangerous Indicas which are hell bent to overtake from left, we cross roads, we do a hell lot of other interesting things which are otherwise categorized as unsafe in other parts of worlds. So with such an expertise you think we cannot handle a fire in the building? By the way we have Sharukh Khan on the floor who can single handedly evacuate by making us jump off the balcony behind this exit. So to me this fire drill is just another attempt to make us go into the sun and switch off the A/C to cut costs, eh?”

 You might be wondering what he was doing; he was blocking the fire exit to take photographs of the people evacuating the floor. I almost jumped with joy; you do not get to be photographed in such situations, do you?

 It took 50 times more time than it generally takes for me (I do not use elevator, rather I cannot use it!). As I exited I was welcomed by the real fire- Sun. With each minute I felt as if an invisible force sucking off all my energy like the way it’s shown in the glucose ad.

 A few We-care-a-damn-to-mock-fire-drills clad people escaped to get their daily dose of nicotine and caffeine as I wandered like a monkey whose tail has just been run over by a 12-wheel truck. After a record time, which in case of a real fire would have reduced at least 70% of people to chars, the whole building was evacuate and to my utter amazement I found that I was ahead of the crowd when it was announced that we could get back to work.

 I ran like a tiger released from the cage, to get into the safe air conditioned enclosure called my cubicle. And in all this excitement I ascended two extra floors

We have this internal newsletter type of a thing where they publish general happenings about the company and its employees, where I found a small article about one Mr. Himanshu Bhatnagar winning an award in a mobile film making competition and I thought I should promote this.It was an online international mobile film making competition where 75 entries across the globe were selected for the festival and only 24 were selected for the final round. He later made it to top 5 where he was given a special jury award for his film on SAVE WATER. The film depicts the story of 5 guys in men’s room and how do they manage without water.

 He received Kieslowski award for his humorous touch in handling the serious environmental issue of water problems in India.

Jury includes filmmaker like Hansal Mehta, Amol Gupte, Anurag Kashyap, Santosh Sivan, and Suparn Verma.

As a prize, he will get to remake the same film with proper esthetic values which will be produced by Hansal Mehta and a chance to assist in direction for a Hindi Feature Film.

Organizers are planning to air this short film on channels like M TV and channel V. Good, no?

Watch the video and do let me know your coments!

I will tell you why-

Electricity cannot be stored; it should be consumed as soon and as much as it is produced. In that case, how would putting off lights would help our case, if we were to be serious we should be laying our concerned hands on the nice thermal or gas power plants (hydel and nuclear are supposed to be environmental friendly).

At the same time I cannot outright dismiss a worldwide event, so I made a little research and brushed my never existing Electrical Engineering skills. To my utter surprise, I was right; no may be partially right!

It works like this:

The power generated at the plant is first sent to the distribution company which will then distribute to the grids. Now at grids we have some state-of-the-art technology which stores the data on how a particular area has been consuming power with deep data analytics like time vs. consumption graphs and all. The power distribution is governed by the system which is uses software’s forecast of the consumption based on the past records.

So what would have happened during the earth hour? The grid operator would have observed an unprecedented dip in the usage of power in a few branches of the network of his grid. What he would do then is redistribute the power available to other branches of the grid, if those branches are not using that power either, it would at the maximum be used  by confused bats to reduce themselves to dead bodies, while looking for a good nap on the power lines. To summarize the power saved during the earth hour would have just been wasted on the electrical lines. Unless, the power saved was so high to put off/reduce the production at the thermal power plant, which I doubt! (Could someone confirm this to me?)

Alright, I have got answer to this on the FAQs on the Earth Hour website:

Is it correct that most large coal fired power station operate 24/7 and while there maybe less energy used on the night the power stations will still be running at the same capacity?

In summary, the effect of Earth Hour will be to reduce electricity demand. Output from power plants will reduce (coal fired plant, gas fired plant and hydro plants). Which ones will reduce are dependent on what is operating at the time and what is determined by the electricity market(NEMMCO). Based on the time and day that the Earth Hour event is planned, it is very likely Earth Hour will cause a reduction in fossil energy power generation.

It is correct, however…when demand changes (i.e. lights and other electrical devices being turned on/off) power generation plants regulate their output accordingly. So in the case of coal fired plants, they will have to consequently increase or reduce their coal usage (in the case of Earth Hour this would be a reduction). Other types generators, such as gas fired plants and hydro plants also have to do the same thing.

Now see what Jennifer Marohasy, progressive environmentalist and proprietor of the Politics and Environment Blog explains:

Earth Hour was held during a time of peak electrical load, so any electricity generation displaced would be peak load, probably running on natural gas. Such generation produces about 500 grams of CO2 for every kilowatt-hour.

So turning a 100 watt light bulb off for an hour saves 50 grams of CO2, or 13 grams of carbon. A candle is mostly carbon by weight, and candle wax is only moderately less dense than water at room temperature. This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO2 than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there’s to be a net reduction in CO2.

So there are questions to be answered, like: Did anyone establish the fact that there has been more carbon saved than that would have been consumed if the lights didn’t go off? People would have most probably switched to candles which burn paraffin, which on burning would produce more carbon than a 100W CFL powered by Natural gas power plant. Also, is Carbon the real culprit of Global Warming?

 In fact there are a few people who think Global Warming is actually cool, no really!

There is nothing new or to fear about global warming. It is not caused by man’s industrialization, by over-development or “over-population”.

Global warming is a perfectly natural phenomenon. Ten-thousand-year global warming periods followed by 100,000-year ice ages have occurred with some regularity for the last two million years and probably throughout much of the 4.5 billion years of life on Earth.

What causes climate change is the Earth’s varying tilt and elliptical orbit around the sun and our solar system’s long journey through the Milky Way, together with cosmic radiation from exploding stars. Most of this basic science has been known for 100 years.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not an environmental poison but has been named by 10 generations of scientists as “the gas of life” which, by photosynthesis in green plants, gets converted to organic matter. The small additional carbon dioxide produced by industrial man is a bonus, not a threat to life.

Our rainforest climate is Earth’s best example of the tremendous benefits of global warming and higher levels of CO2. Malaysia’s constantly warm climate, high rainfall, abundant sunshine and high natural CO2 levels, caused by plentiful rotting vegetation, combine to produce the highest rate of biomass production in the world.

 No, I am not asking people to waste electricity as the above article provokes, neither do I really want you people to go enmasse with that stupid WWF campaign for Earth-hour. In fact this resolve to save electricity has always been with Indians, not with love for environment, but with love for money. But the matter of the fact is that facts matter. Just because some fear mongering lobbyist do some publicity gimmick we do not need to go mad after it, like most CEOs in India Inc are going gaga about doing this and that about environment; if you really want to save environment please stop using your cars and use public transport. Or devise ways to facilitate work from home in India.

Now for the fun part. (I can’t help this you know)

Ever since the earth hour, this blog has recieved hundreds of questions about environment and how to save it, We have compiled what you call the most Frequently Asked Questions:

1) Can I crap?

a) How can we know? As an afterthought, can you crap?

2) NO, people say that flushing is bad and all, so what should I do?

a) SLAP, shut up! this is a FAQ section, we cannot chat here!

3) Is it OK if I flush my toilet just once a day?

a) It depends on what your family thinks.

4) No I am single!

a) Go fuck yourself, I told you we cannot chat here!

5) Can I shave? Does it effect environment?

a) You can shave as long as you have hair, it does not effect environment unless you have a few sparrows living in your hairs. BTW, where do you want to shave?

6) Can I have sex?

a) Ask a sexpert. BTW are you a woman? if yes please mail me. Please dont talk nasty, yeek!

7) Is having sex dangerous for environment?

a) Yes sex is hot, it causes global warming, Please stop copulating! How would I know? I am still a virgin!

I smack my toes against my door everyday, should I stop using doors?

a) Please switch on lights.

9) Why can’t I use candles?

a) NO, candles are for Bharka Dutt, let her use them to screw the politicians. And for fuck’s sake stop this chat session!

If you had fun reading this, please do your part by cutting off the unnecessary usage of electricity, please do not use cars; decrease in usage of fossil fuels is good. Decrease in demand is always good, but please do not get carried away with some brainless publicity stunts.

The established system of thoughts

That which would render a person helpless

And expose their intense, innate madness.

I am that you would not like to see every day,

I am the insane change, against which you pray.

I destroy the prism through which you see this world

And force you to think all that glitters is not gold

I am the fun which you always desired but never had

I am the child who never grew and was always glad

I am the light that you long to see in the darkness

I am hope, I am the fuel that drives humans.

By the way, it is official now that I am facing the writer’s block. May be I do not have the inspiration now to write (I miss the bulletin board of my previous employer) as there is no particular forum to adress, I am struggling now; confused and not too sure whether I have stereotyped myself to stories with ironic ends or humor filled with sarcasm and mockery, may be my niche is that or may be it is my limitation, may be I can extend beyond this, may be not. Only time can tell me, till I realize what to do with myself! Until then, I hope you enjoy my tryst with poetry, it may be weird but I have no choice, I cannot insert porn videos here you know?

Yesterday, I logged into my blog and to my utter surprise I found that there are around 100 comments waiting to be approved for the masterpiece that is there below. I could not believe it; and just as I was making sure that it was true, my room mate woke me up!

Well, it is not that bad for me either; and to be frank I am pretty excited. The last time I felt the same was when my bench-mate told me that I was in love with that hot, steaming mallu chick who sits behind me, I was in 9th then!

And this time it is the reader from Africa who did the trick! Yeah! if you just tilt your head towards your left, there is a world map with small red dots, the dot represents the traffic from that part of the world. You would find a lot of dots on N&S Americas, Asia, Europe,Australia, but none on Africa and Antarctica. Now, Africa dumped its old friend, I have a single hit from Africa today, hehehehe! See there are people who read my poems! More poems and my blog would be read in Antarctica too, though I wonder if they have internet there! I knew about Penguins and melting glaciers, but never heard about internet in Antarctica (Does Antarctica belong to China? *-)).

BTW, recently A Knowledgeable Person (AKP, not me ah!)do after quitting Infosys, have realized that he has been paying a huge amount for big buildings, lifts that work, toilets with tissue papers, lifts that work, huge green campuses, lifts that work, hot babes, lifts that work, huge food courts, lifts that work, free shows in the bus, lifts that work. So if you are ready to forgo these EXTRA FACILITIES your salary could be increased by up to 200% (author’s request: please laugh out loudly here). Especially if you agree to ascend four floors four times a day, with 26 steps for each floor. 420 steps per day! Let me breathe here

Parting note: I celebrated Jarnail Singh’s achievement, I had the first mango of the season today! burp! burp! Remembering my childhood play circles, I wish I could sing to PC “manchi pani ayyindhi abbayiki” Translation: It’s nice that it happened to you, PC. By the way how was the shoe? Was it hard? Was it a leather shoe or Sports shoe? Did it smell bad? No, I mean really, did it smell bad? Now I know why IPL moved out, sigh!

BTW I am still single, straight straight and earning a lot more, so if you are tall, fair and handsome beautiful, convent-educated girl, who can take care of my 3 bed room flat, please leave a comment. Too long a parting note, ain’t it?

Boys, please comment and get a beer free and girls please comment and get the above boys free!

OK see you soon if I do not slip off climbing those plethora of steps.

Only to see the path that I took is on fire.

As the things that I wished I never done

Laughed at me and made me their fun

I stand here wishing they were untrue

But in life’s dictionary there is no ‘undo’.

I look into the future, nothing is clear

Hoping that, I would not turn back in fear.

May be I would be what I wanted to be

Or end up as just another fish in the sea

I stand here frightened to wish and hope

May be I am not too sure if I can cope.

When all I could look at is ‘now’

I don’t care to question, I don’t ask how.

I follow my heart, I follow my spirit

 I hunt each dream of mine and achieve it

Live for your dreams not for any morrow

Live the moment, and you would be your hero!

Last stanza had been updated from:

When all I could look at is ‘now’

I don’t care to question, I don’t ask how.

I follow my heart, I follow my spirit

Do I really care to fear, damn it!

After all, the idea that there is no tomorrow

Brings the best in you and makes you a hero!

I am sure Lalit Modi would be shouting to himself, though not the same words, but something similar to it. Imagine PC and a bunch of others sitting in the enquiry panel, you have a picture perfect replication of Guru. Albeit, this time it is not selling poly-ester but it’s all about selling cricket. In a way it is true that a few years ago, it was an impossible dream to make it big for an average cricketer, Lalit Modi changed it all. He made money for himself, for sponsors and for cricketers too. Before I could actually react to IPL moving out of India, let me tell you a small story.

Once upon time, there used to be a jungle which used to be ruled by a pack of Lions. The lions followed simple laws of nature, used to hunt when they were hungry and let others hunt when they were hungry. The Lions were powerful and this power was not acceptable for animals like foxes and hyenas. So what did they do? They have provoked the rest of Jungle to overthrow Lions from power. They said that the Jungle should be ruled by that animal chosen by the Jungle, they called it Junglocracy. You must be smart enough to know who won the elections, foxes and hyenas. Now these creatures made new rules, they said every creature that hunts shall leave a part of its prey to the rest of Jungle and the “rulers” would best distribute it for the welfare of unprivileged in the jungle.

The Lions said fine and started hunting more. Gave their share to the Jungle and tried to make their living. But foxes are cunning creatures; they need to ‘showcase’ their power and asked the Lions not to hunt in the Jungle and asked them to move to another Jungle. The Lions survived, but the Jungle which they left turned into a chaos, people who were dependent on food hunted by Lions did not know what to do. There was population explosion of species on which the Lions used to hunt, too many consumers and too less supply.

The story does not have a moral, because it is against the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest. I do not say Lions are good; they are not indeed, they kill you and make you their food. But neither are foxes and hyenas. So if there is one thing I could say for sure is that the Jungle is foolish enough to accept someone else’s leadership, they are spineless and were blindly relying on someone else’s misplaced sense of greed which they thought as leadership. I would end the story here; it is open for your own interpretation.

Coming back to the case of IPL moving out. I still clearly remember what PC told Bharka in an interview: “I don’t have a problem in providing the security, but I do not want my forces to be stretched”. What does he mean? He means that the country’s security forces would be so stretched to that an extent that they would not be able to provide security for an event for four hours a day for some sixty days spread across a dozen odd locations? Well I would believe that if I were to be in LKG, or may be my toes are a better audience to have more credibility.

http://ncrb.nic.in/cii2007/cii-2007/table17.htm

If you have observed above AP and MAH are among the states with least percentage difference between actual and sanctioned forces with AP having 9.2% deficit and MAH having 14% deficit. Whereas, states with deficits as high as 28% (WB) and 16.8% (KAR) had no problems to provide the security to the matches.

Other figiures for per capita distribution of forces are also available at http://ncrb.nic.in/cii2007/cii-2007/Table%2017.5.pdf

Just in case you did not know, India’s armed forces are 3^rd largest in the world. Our defense budget is 2% of our GDP and we still struggle to give the correct replies to the correct people at correct time, foxes you know?

Someone once said “When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake.”And a few other ‘someones’ related to that someone now complain about someone else’s “ANTI SECULAR” tendencies. I am not supporting anyone here I am just trying to make a point, may be it is a wrong character to quote, but I can’t help but remember what KK Menon says in Shourya: “Bloody Democracy”.

All in all, once again the foxes peed on the whole of jungle and the jungle remained silent, the silence is of eunuchs, of incomepetents, it is my silence! Our silence! As typical as it could get. And in this junglocracy IPL2 has moved out. What a shame! Yes PC it is a SHAME!

Disclaimer: All the work in this post is meant for sarcasm and not to demean anyone. I would rather agree that the author have painted too lurid colors about future of Country, but at the same time one cannot escape the fact that the author is a diehard patriot and loves everything about the country and has very serious thoughts on terrorism. So please do not send me hate mail.

2013, Friday the 13^th:

Today is a very important day in the world history. NO! We did not find any cure for AIDS yet and NO we did not find ET life; but today is India vs. Pakistan cricket match; a match that would be played after four years of violent battle.

Well, the match itself is not so great an event that it would leave a mark in history, so let’s quickly track the events leading to this historic moment.

The prologue:

In the bid to get Gandhi’s belongings from James Otis, the newly elected government had forgone defense budget to meet James’ demands. The result was that India was without any defense. This was just the right opportunity for terror infrastructure to do the needful.

A few months before the cricket match:

One fine day, the whole India woke up to shocking “breaking news” that Pakistan invaded India. And by afternoon, almost whole of India mistook the holiday declared on account of national emergency. Every household was preparing themselves to do various activities, ranging from watching the SRK’s newly released block buster to dancing themselves to glory in a pub and then hoping to not to be beaten up by hooligans with a misplaced sense of conscience.

However, the news channels beamed the most horrific news ever: India is not under the heels of a single invader but six.

The groups that invaded India were (incidentally all of them wanted to attack Mumbai):

•          The All Pakistan United Terrorist Organization (PUTO) (please suffix/prefix ‘al’  and ‘mujahideen’ if you did not get the feel, eh? ) headed by General Musharraf and General Kiyani.
•          Osama Bin Laden and his army.
•          The Chinese Army headed by Mr. Ping Pong.
•          Bangladeshi mutiny along with all terrorist groups in North East.
•          Dawood Ibrahim and his army.
•          The LTTE.

PUTO, under the leadership of the revered generals, made a safe landing in Gujarat; the attack was so sudden that there was barely any resistance to the plethora of dinghies entered the gulf, most of them were lungi clad and had a colorful handkerchief tied around their neck, this made them look like a dance troop from Andhra Pradesh getting ready for shooting one of those exotic songs which are a must in anyone’s porn video dance video collection.

However, they were surprised to see that most of coastal villages were empty. It was too late for them when they realized that there were communal riots going on; before they could even contact each other through the satellite phones they were set ablaze by an angry Hindu mob. Most of them died on the spot, whoever remained committed suicide after three days, unable to answer the questions from media on how the whole incident happened.

Osama Bin Laden booked a whole troop of military jeeps and entered the Indian border at Punjab. The local youth, who seemed to be extremely excited about sighting the legendary, took out their mobile phones and made the most of the opportunity.

Soon the internet was flooded with Osama’s videos on youtube. There was many a profile on face-book with status ‘so-and-so is meeting Osama’. There was also a game created for face-book which checks your compatibility with Osama, other games included date with Osama among others.

Osama seemed to have relished the kind of welcome and trying to capitulate on his demand, he followed his prime advisors’ advise and started charging Rs. 100/- per photograph. He became a billionaire before he could reach Delhi (some software engineer hacked his GPS device to show Delhi as Mumbai).

The moment he reached Delhi, Barkha Dutt approached him for an interview on NDTV offering him a huge amount of money. Pepsi, ITC and Unilever followed. Soon Osama was the TV figure of India; drinking Pepsi with Deepika Padukone and flaunting his silky beard and thanking Clinic All clear for the same; he however rejected to do the Kamasutra ad stating that it was against his religious sentiments. He then indefinitely suspended his attack on Mumbai; this popularity was too good to be sacrificed on the name of jihad. Little did he knew that he was digging his own grave.

Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi Mutiny along with the NETO (north east terrorist organization) made a great progress in India. They decided to march their way into Bihar amidst rustic groups of people who assembled with their mouths agape to watch the incoming mutiny. A few smart people started charging a nominal fee of 10/- per head to watch the mutiny.

The mutiny decided to camp in Jamajambalgapruppur, a remote village in Bihar. Tents were made and huge farmlands were occupied. No one complained, none cared; until one of the mutiny member peed in a wrong place.

This resulted in communal riots between the lower caste and the higher caste and almost 50% of the mutiny was killed in the riots. Whoever remained got washed away when Kosi changed its course and submerged all of the camp in its trademark Flash Floods. The TV correspondent covering it on the TV who was an erstwhile movie critic commented, “Will the real terrorists stand up” and laughed out loudly embarrassing a group of hyenas.

The Chinese army, under the esteemed guidance of Prince Ping Pong, made an adept and a rather clandestine entry into Pune. The reporter reporting the incident reflected that he has seen the Prince asking for directions in Chinese and the local public fanatically and enthusiastically answering them in fluent Marathi, it was agreed unanimously that it was a treat to ears.

Ping Pong decided to walk their way to Hinjewadi and as expected reached faster than the vehicles. They then feverishly flocked to the local Chinese restaurants where the Chinki looking youth tossed the oil filled ‘new-dulls’ fanatically into the air. The local legend has it that the higher the noodles are tossed the better they would taste.

To their agony, the Chinese found out that the food is light years away from being called Chinese. They instantly developed intense gastroenteritis, while most of the army vanished in the diarrhea that ensued; the rest of the army consulted a doctor who prescribed them Anti-diarrheal agents: one potion if you buy Indian medicine and four potions if the ‘maal’ is Chinese.

The Chinese got confused and took 4 each of the tablets instead of one; this resulted in acute constipation. What followed could be called as a mini Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the excessive cabbage used did the trick. Let me close my nose here!

In the mean time, the LTTE entered the Indian Territory at Chennai. The entry was almost effortless with hardly any resistance, as the local people mistook the LTTE for a group of Rajni fans going around in a rally. However, the LTTE were not so prepared for the Chennai heat; the whole army which was dressed for winter started feeling the oppressive Chennai summer heat in mid December. They immediately fled in the same boats from which they have arrived, of course towards the Australia, they needed a break and they could not possibly go back to Sri Lanka. “A great tragedy averted” noted Srinivasan Jain, not making sure for whom, he called for a break where Osama Bin Laden was back again; this time promoting Parachute hair gel, of course , using his beard again!

Dawood, was the first person to reach Mumbai. He was immediately briefed about the fame and money that Osama was gaining each day. Unofficial sources put Osama’s remuneration at 15 crore per ad. Dawood, a man who believes just in business, wrote to him 11000 pages letter explaining why Osama has to pay ‘protection money’ to Dawood. Osama tore the unread letter into million pieces and fed his goat with it.

This enraged Chota Shakeel. In his e-mail to Dawood, which was apparently leaked to NDTV, he wrote: “How many people should I handle? I am usually good for a dozen of them. How many of them are dead? I can handle any number of dead people (Unless they died seeing Ramu’s movies, heheehe)!”

Tension mounted when Ramu booked Osama for a whopping 50 crores for a remake of a famous Shakeela movie. He immediately gone for an IPO and his shares ruled the market for months together. Dawood sent an ultimatum to Osama, which again was fed to his goat. This was the final nail in the coffin.

What followed was history and all that’s worth noting is that the world got rid of the most dangerous people ever lived. Things were back to normal with a few weeks and the first thing that was thought about when Indo-Pak ties were back to normalcy was the CRICKET MATCH.

And just as everything seem to be falling into place, Sachin Tendulkar had dropped three catches and India lost miserably to Pakistan. Prannay Roy saw a great opportunity in this and held a special news bulletin, where he invited Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and bashed Tendulkar black and blue. This infuriated Sachin’s fans (and also Dravid’s and Ganguly’s fans as they had nothing better to do) and resulted in a huge attack on NDTV. This was then followed by a candle march by Barkha which as well was attacked. The communal riots started again.

Danny Boyle, saw a big opportunity in this and made another movie. The cast was same; Dev Patil played Osama Bin Laden. AR Rahman, out sourced the music to his team in Chennai; who bought a few drums and beat them incessantly in a Geometric Progression, and claimed to have produced soul stirring music. The movie won 48 Oscars, a record for any film so far. The movie was named: mera bharat mahaan.

Mr. Mehra seems to have a compulsive simile disorder. Yeah he is desperately looking for a story in past to relate it with a current scenario. We understand the desperation considering the great success of RDB whose basic foundation is drawing a parallel between two stories. But we do not understand why he has to do it, if he could not deliver it as effectively if not better. My first impression is that Mr. Mehra is too busy with his personal work and has done this movie only to pass his time, it is too lack-luster to show any dedication.

The movie starts with a person peeing in his compound, the audience would realize that it is an apt start with in fifteen minutes. Yes, you get pissed! As I have said there is desperation to link two stories, one of a past to the one of current scenario. This time, Mr. Mehra chose to draw a parallelism to lanka khanda of Ramayana. Where, Lord Hanuman (representative of good) gets proactive and sets lanka(place of evil) fire. Very good story chosen, but the problem is with the way the story is linked to the today’s world.

I must say that Mr.Mehra has completely messed it up. The audience fails to understand the relation between hanuman and the Kala Bandar portrayed in the movie. There was an ominous greed to include too many issues like Indian culture, our unity in diversity, how an NRI would look at it, communal riots; I am sure there must be a dozen others which might have gone unnoticed in the boredom. In all this greed, you are lost. And to add to the carcinogenic agony, you will realize that there is another simile too. The director was audacious enough to draw another analogy between a pigeon whose wings are clipped and young women of middle class in India. I did not have any problem with this, thankfully it did not add to the boredom.

What was even more frustrating was the way the music was used all along the movie, there was no connect. I felt as if there was a lucky draw to fit the song at particular scene, which I feel is again selected with no logic. I was utterly disappointed with the way Genda Phool was picturized, it all looked as if the characters were doing some sing along performance while feigning the non-existent knowledge of lyrics. Just imagine how frustrating would it be to find that the best song in the album was so carelessly picturised that the lip moment of the characters does not sync with the song. If there is anything good about the movie it is just the presence of Sonam Kapoor, also Dil gira dafatan was picturized in a great way. Last 40 minutes grips you, but that doesn’t do the trick as it was negligible compared to the orgy with which you had to fight against the boredom that was forced down your throat till then.

All in all Delhi-6 is a huge disappointment; you are better off listening to the album for 2.5 hours rather than going for the movie. The whole movie looked like an advertising campaign for Motorola phones and Indian Idol music show, and the worst part is you have to pay to see that. I would not recommend it at any cost.

Someone told me that humans are very sentimental about last days, I came to know that they do a lot of things like shaking hands, hugging, slapping, spanking and a few other incomprehensible activities beyond the scope of my intelligence (I presume I have some).

Before actually I could do the above virtually over here let me just brief you with history of my stint with this office.

I really do not know when it started, because I recollect that I had no intelligence then. I was shown my seat and briefed about my responsibilities. All I had to do was to deliver everything that my client asked me to; it was a pretty easy job, as long as I have the resources to do so. So let me not talk much about my job, it’s (or is it was?) kind of boring!

What is really exciting to share is the work environment I was (I shall start getting used to use past tense, sob… sob…) in. My work load had no particular peaks as there were many intersecting sections of my clients spread over the whole day, thanks to shifts. The worst part of my job was that I had to work when everyone else was taking break. However, being an ardent observer that I am, I made the most of this opportunity.

There were many people who come to me while I work and they do wide variety of activities ranging from reading news papers to bitching about each others’ bosses to what not? Of all these activities, the one which really amused me was a particular class of people who talk on phone. These guys position their phone normally when they listen, but move it swiftly in a circle with their mouth as the center and make the phone parallel to their face, as if they are about to kiss the phone and then talk. I could not comprehend a logical reason out of it, I think they must have worked in Army or got too used to walkie talkies, whatever it may be this class of people really amused me. After all, there is nothing better in this in world than something you can laugh at.

The other type is I-please-my-girlfriend(s)-come-what-may types. I had seen these types catching 2-3 coffee mugs in one hand and a chips packet in the other hand, while the girls who accompanied him chat themselves to glory as they make infinite curls out of their hair. I wonder what would happen to all the waiters in hotels if these chaps were to lose their job like me, oops you dint read anything now, thooch!

Now, come closer, no! Not that part! Give me your ear, let me tell you a secret; closer, closer, I will have to whisper; I had even seen a couple kissing in the privacy of my office.

“No story is complete with out something that induces anger in you” once said a great writer, his name I forgot! Was it PAK or KPA, whoever it is, I will now have to make you all angry to make my story interesting. Let me try now: Slumdog Millionaire, Jai ho!

Yippie! I did it, your blood boiled, didn’t it? Well the movie shall win the Oscar at least for this triumph. Quintessential digression! Let me take you back to my story. So with all the masala around, my work place was fun to be.

However, the recent recession has turned the tables for me. Suddenly I was supplied short of resources and couldn’t serve my clients. I still remember the days I used to be cured of any ailment within hours and used to be back to work in less than a day. But this time around, after two cockroaches fell off me when a rather frustrated client hit me on my face, my company has decided to lay me off.

I talked to my friends in other companies, looks like things are worse there. In fact, one of my friends reported me a weird incident where its clients are inserting their hands into the pockets, when they have to shake hands after they come out of the loo. My friend initially suspected a skin infection, but later it was found that tissue papers were laid off.

OK, I will have to go now, Internet connection, my other friend who has been laid off is calling. I hope we meet again. Please keep in touch, my mail id is:

Coffeemachine@gmail.com

Yours sincerely

Coffee machine

come again another day

pappu has other songs to play

Ghenda Phool Ghenda Phool go away

        Well, I could tell you my success story in just two words- I drank. But it is not that simple, you know? The story has its share of twists and turns that you could expect, imagine as much as your brain permits. So now let’s go ahead.

        The whole thing stole upon me gradually, unlike in the movie Dev D where the hero has more reels of drinking alcohol than speaking anything. I still remember the day when I tasted some King Fisher strong, it did not grip me then. The only reaction I could remember now is that I was brushing my teeth for next 4 hours to do away with the bitter flavor. It is different fact that I have an artificial set of teeth now.

        It all started when I had to stay out of my house, for my studies of course! Though I really am not sure what I have studied, I made acquaintance with the awful power of ridicule. My friends were people who tied hand kerchiefs to their heads and who danced like hell at the movie theatres. Though, it seemed to me as if they were collectively pushing an imaginary object into the air. But the strange things that I have observed did not end there until they celebrated the birthday of one of our gang members.

                I could still vividly remember the crate of tins that had innumerable tins of – I even despise to say what it was. They offered me the tin, I refused. They laughed at me, ridiculed me. I was just 20 then, my character under developed and so I could not stand their scorn. I marched like person in trance towards the crate and drank. It tasted like cold hair oil. Not that I ever tasted hair oil, but I had a strong gut feeling that it should taste something like that.

        However, I stuck to it. I could not turn down the esteem that I had won from my friends. I wondered with squinted eyes the feverish pace with which each of them gulped down the drink. I set my teeth, persevered and completed my first drink. I ordered one more round, more rounds and tons and tons of peanuts have been emptied, so many peanuts that if you put one peanut on another, the stack would reach half way to moon. What followed has been copied in Dev D, with minor changes of course (my parents might be reading this, you never know!).

        The next morning brought pains, physical (especially stomach) and mental. But I could not draw back; I was too weak to dispense my popularity for a silly stomach ache. I continued and my friends praised me about my valor and I felt nothing could be an excessive payment for such an honor.

And I got the habit!

        I will pass briefly over the next few years, where I continued to sink deeper into the trap. I knew all the stores that sold this drink in Pune and I knew the names of their owners too and the worse they know me too. All I have to do is to tender a currency note and say “Regular one” and then I have the tin in my hand.

        But gradually my health seemed to decline; I spent more time in bath room than outside. There were times when I could not go to office for obvious reasons and used to sleep with my lungi on incessantly staring at the patches on the wall. I knew I was losing my grip. I could not concentrate on work, I had dizzy spells and got caught napping on the keyboard. I became nervous and distrait. I eventually visited a doctor.

“If I am to do you any good,” he said, “you must tell me all. You must hold no secrets from me.”

“Doctor,” I said, covering my face with my hands, “I am a confirmed Amul-Masti fiend.”

“Aaaaaah! Nature ka nashaaaaaaaa?” echoed the doctor

………….to be continued

In whichever way you look at them, you cannot do a thing about cultural changes. It is the way it has been happening since millions of centuries. If it were not, we would still be wearing animal hides and would be living in caves, in spite of all the technological developments.

There has been always an occasional hue and cry about westernization of Indian culture and this has always been a short cut to the center position in a few inches of news reel for a few days. But what we fail to think amidst all of this is the question of whether this really is possible- Preventing change.

Now this reminds me of an old paradox- If a tree falls in a forest, does that really make a sound? I mean, is fact a fact if no one observes it?

Lets, for argument’s sake, consider that Pramod Muttalik or whoever succeeds in his attempt to prevent this change. Then in next few decades, our lungi clad men would be thinking: was the culture changing at the first place? And how can we stop Rajdeep Sardesai’s grandson from making a sensational point that moral policing is nothing but a hoax call to deprive urban India of its enormous riches. Jokes apart; in a world which is as close as it is now because of technological advancements, it is tough to be 50 years behind the rest of the world.

Imagine that you are riding to office in bullock cart whilst you are fiddling with your PDA. Silly, isn’t it? I hope Pramod reads this, damn him!

On the other hand, say we do nothing to save our heritage. Say we have become docile enough to boot lick the western culture so much that we find a sixty year old woman from a remote rural village bleaching her hair to keep herself up to date in fashion and Pramod’s grandson doing grass in a cave near a beach in Goa. Whatever is left of our culture is busy listening to western non-sense- A scenario which our hero Pramod claims to be fighting against.

Common sense says that, neither of these situations is feasible.

According to me, culture, for that matter, anything in universe follows the Darwinian theory of survival of fittest. However, I would disagree that pubs are alien to Indian culture. There are many references to these kinds of activities where people have alcohols like Sura and Soma. Pubs, as they occur in India, are just a hybrid version of Western and Indian cultures.

Not a single sociologist argues that cultures do not change. You do not see a single example where a culture has been preserved for millions of years, unless it has been fossilified. Anything that has life in it would change.

If you are arguing that culture should not change, you are in essence arguing that the current culture is wrong. Because nothing that is there now is same as what it was.

I wish people understand this and I would be more than happy if the youth who are involved in this Sene would use their energies for upliftment of 500 million Indians. After all, there are very few women in India who are empowered enough to go to a pub. So let them live J

I am a person who believe in theory of diminishing utility. The more something is available for the public consumption, the lesser is its value. I believe it is the unavailability of AR Rahman that made him a legend of our time. So when I first came to know about ARR’s association with Delhi 6 project I was a bit apprehensive, there was too much of ARR for me, more than ever, during 2008.
Of course, its my sheer gut that ARR can never be “average” made me wait before I could review the music for Delhi 6. Its typical of ARR music to settle ‘late’ in you.

Well, much to your knowledge, the Masakali sits on your tongue instantly. There is a naughty touch to the tune and Mohit Chauhan did a great a job to bring that naughtiness to the song. The best part of the song is that it makes you smile, it churns out that happiness out of the soul. I was inadvertantly smiling and banging my head as I hear Mohit Chauhan performing the tounge twisting composition. Masakali is for sure a song that would haunt you for next few months. Fresh and very AR Rahman.

The next track Arziyan reminded me of khwaza mere kjwaaza. As expected from these genres, the metallic voice Khailash Kher and melodious Javed Ali competing voices will take you into trance. The song takes some time for settling on you, but once it does so, it creates its own space. Prasoon Joshi did a good job with lyrics.

The next track Dilli-6 seriously sounded like Paatshaala types. The beats are simple and good and there was a good fusion with some rapping mixed with metal and alternate rock. Blaaze, Benny Dayal, Vivinenne, Tanvi and Claire really did a good job. The song is very young and I guess its a definite disco mix. I guess this song will be played as in bits and pieces all over the movie especially “yeh Delhi hain meri yaar”. The transition from one genre to another was performed effortlessly and the song would be a definite chart buster.

You would then come to what I think is the best song of the album. Rehna Tu starts with a a very groovy beat and in no time Rahman intrudes and the next six minutes he would take you to an altogether a different world. Your heart just flows along with the song as Rahman plays with swaras, the song ends with a flute performance, the flute was played at a very base level then picks up very high notes with Rahman humming in the back ground ocassionally, this is what made the song special to me, this is definitely scores better than Masakali. Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics were just perfect for the romantic wonder.

Hey Kalaa Bandar again is in lines with Dilli-6 a good dance number, the beats are groovy though the song is not fresh it makes your feet tap.

Dil Gira Dafatan sounds more like poetry sung slowly with some guitar and really takes a very long time to settle in you. Each and every note of the song touches your heart, the guitar work is so awesome that it altogether takes you to another world. I am expecting this song to be the Tu bin bataye type used by Om Prakash. This song definitely has a special aura that flawlessly mesmerizes you to feel the romance. There is this one part of the song where the notes go pretty high, this part was performed very well by Ash King and the ocassional humming by Chinmayee added nice flavor to the song.

Ghenda Phool is a pleasant surprise for me. For the first few seconds it sounds like a folk song that was there in Saathiya but within no time ARR’s genius steps in with an awesome western fusion. The song is fun to listen and you thoroughly enjoy the song. A typical close-your-eyes-bite-your-lips-and-tap-your-feet type song. Will be remembered for quite some time.

Bhor Bhaye is a Ghulam Ali composition, so not many comments from me and neither are any for Aarti.

Overall, Delhi-6 is a pleasant surprise for me. ARR did not disappoint me if not bettered his own scores that he earned in his recent releases. Prasoon Joshi did justice to wonderful compositon. I rate the music at 4 out of 5.

My picks: Masakali, Rehna tu, Ghenda Phool, Dil Gira Dafatan

I packed my things in back pack and got ready for a 2 hour joy ride in a bus (there is no helipad at the destination so could not use my copter). Now an ardent follower of my blog would instantly understand the affinity I have for the government buses.

                The moment we entered the bus station, a couple of khaki clad men started lobbying about a bus that would not stop before our destination, and they promised to drop us there in less than two hours, once they cross the city. Given the unsuspecting nature of our parents, I ended up in a 2X2 seater, which is generally used for intra city shuttling.

                The bus was half filled when we entered, with an occasional nylon gunny bag blocking the way. My parents settled in an empty two seater and I settled beside them in an Aisle side seat as the window one was already occupied. Our khaki clad men were talented they poached upon a lot of customers and the bus was more than full now. Both of them kept on shouting non-stop incessantly. It worked, as there were lots of passengers flocking the bus like the flies flock to jaggery.

                For the next fifteen minutes, the bus stopped at any place that the bus could stop and the khaki clad men, the driver and the conductor, kept on shouting ‘non-stop’. The more they shouted non-stop more people started boarding the bus. Soon my parents went out of my sight, as the space between us was filled by a family of eight. There was a father, two mothers (my assumption) and five kids. The family happily settled on the floor and occupied the space between my limbs and my body. It’s like I immersed my left leg and left hand into the sea of people, you get the picture?

                The bus stopped again, the men shouted non-stop incessantly and the cycle continued. This time there were more people, I felt as if I was going to be part of team that won Guinness record for accommodating maximum number of humans in a small area. A space which was once occupied by just three people is now occupied by more than twenty people and some uncountable bags of God knows what. There were three people between my left hand and left leg, four kids between my legs, two bags and a person between my right leg and right hand. My shoulders and head were spared as I was wearing a T-shirt.

                The bus stopped again. I gave up and took a mental note to change the meaning of the word ‘non-stop’ as the driver shouted the word again. In a few minutes the buildings of the concrete jungle that spawned along the road were replaced by greenery. Not knowing exactly where my body parts were there, I decided to take a nap, I was almost successful if I were not to smell the aroma of under arm of one of the person surrounding me. The distance between my nose and his armpit was second only to the record set by a gentleman when I was travelling in a Mumbai local, another difference was that the gentleman used a deodorant.

                There is one more thing that is typical of buses in long journeys in our part of the world, people throwing up. There is no problem if they throw up once, but they do it as if they are paid by someone if they sporadically shout Oaaaak with special long emphasis on O and extra stress on K, hearing it for three or four times would automatically induce a nauseating feeling only amplified by the gentleman’s armpit.

                The bus stopped again, after a long interval though. When I said the bus stopped, it is not the normal stopping, where we see a bus loaded with people dashes its way into a thousand passengers waiting anxiously in the bus stop, where an undoubting onlooker would die of tension, speculating on how many would be crushed to death by those hefty tires. But this time the bus came to a screeching halt. Like in many places in India, animals like cows, buffaloes and goats pay road taxes; at least they behave so, when they use the road in a direction perpendicular to the normal crossing roads at incredibly slow speeds. Our bus encountered one such herd of lazy buffaloes. Within seconds the demography of the bus changed as if it was a migration season. The family of eight surrounding my body had been replaced by a smaller family and few nylon gunny bags, I am not sure if there had been any expulsions out of the bus. Before even I could think about the law of conservation of mass, the bus accelerated and the small family and gunny bags were again got replaced by the family of eight; I breathed.

Meanwhile, the gentleman sitting beside me, after hitting my shoulder with his head a few times, found a comfortable position on my shoulder to take a power nap, which of course I disturbed almost immediately. I don’t like oil patches on my T-shirt. However, I could not stop him from collapsing into my lap, which acted as a blessing in disguise s he woke up and found a resting shoulder on the glass window.

                The deep orange light that lit the horizons a while ago was then replaced by twinkles of stars. The greenery was then replaced by an occasional hut. After a few more stops of ‘non-stop’ bus, it became almost empty. I could see my parents again. The cycle was complete, we alighted the bus.

…… to be continued.

I settled in the seat, the one which I reserved. There is something peculiar about travelling in trains. It instantly gives you the sneak peek into the much talked about the rising affluence of Indian middle class. Now there is a catch with this, by rising affluence I mean there is richness in everything, I mean what is once accessible only to rich and powerful is now available to masses. So rising affluence means there are more people everywhere.

The A/C compartment in which I was travelling is no exception. There are people everywhere; I mean there are more people without reservation in the compartment than there are people with reservation. Chaos was the word!

A few minutes into the journey, things settled down. Now is the time for please-look-at-me-I have-a-mobile clad people to show off their pseudo affluence to others, so there are a few dudes who pulled out  a mobile and the whole atmosphere was filled out with a tweeting sound everywhere. There was one such person beside me.

Now, this guy is a real dude. He pulled out a laptop and much to his expectations the girl opposite dropped her jaw and bit the back of her palm. His eyes twinkled as the lappie made the standard windows login sound. After all the hush-hush about the machine settled, the media player beamed out a few noises, it’s a movie; a new one too.

                I was in no mood to watch a movie. Primarily there were questions about personal choices; I was not too happy to watch a movie and secondarily there were question of conscience- the movie seemed pirated. But I peeked into the screen and believe me my friends, I engulfed by the movie for next hundred twenty minutes.

                When I started watching, I saw a few kids playing cricket on the edge of a runway and police chasing them; an awesome score of music from behind. It went on O saya…. The song was great to say the least; it instilled in you the spirit of freedom.

                A few minutes into the movie, I realized that a teenage guy was being interrogated by policemen. Apparently, he was suspected of a fraud in a show and earned around 10 million rupees. As the police interrogate Jamal Malik looking at the video of the show so far, we see the movie through the eyes of Jamal. How he answered each of the question from his life experiences to become a millionaire.

                I laughed my heart out looking at how Jamal, as a kid, gets the autograph of Amitabh; the experience which helped him answers the very first question. The gripping screenplay completely engrossed me here as I enjoyed the childhood of Jamal and his elder brother Salim. The movie then changed the gear from subtle humor to thought provoking and sensitive mood as Jamal explained how communal riots took his mother’s life to teach him that lord Rama carries a bow and arrow in his right arm, the answer to the next question. Also, at this juncture Jamal sowed the seeds for his future love, he introduced Latika here.

                The train stopped, I looked out of the window for a moment only to see scores of beggars, most of them children, flocking the windows of the train. They were begging alms showing much younger people in their arms. I could instantly relate to Jamal’s narration of how he knew the answer to the question about the author of a song “darshan do ghanshaym“. The movie gave intricate details about how a begging racket works.

                The sympathies and disgust that the communal riots instilled in me slowly metamorphosed to anger as Jamal told the inspector how he had to lose Latika and almost his eyes to know the answer for the next question. 

Just as I thought the movie got serious, Jamal and Salim grew up and Jamal took me through how he tasted the dollars as he and his brother Salim cheated foreigners as fake guides at the Taj Mahal. And Jamal answers the question on American Dollar to become a millionaire.

                I looked around, there was a young couple talking to each other with just eyes. I looked around only to see humans paired up with their loved ones; they are talking, smiling, conversing, worrying but all of them had one thing in common- love. Its love; love in its purest form devoid of all materialistic desire.

This is what you feel when teenage Jamal, along with his elder brother Salim, returns to Mumbai just in search of Latika. Here Jamal is exposed to another evil of the Indian society-flesh trade. Jamal comes to know that young Latika was forced into prostitution. Your blood boils.

                My anger amplified when someone from the corner of the seat made an angry gesture to reduce the volume, he had a logic in his demand. But it was not the time for logic, the movie engrosses you so much that instigates revenge in you.

                Your anger subsides when Salim pulls out a colt 45 revolver and kills the racketeer. Salim would later be befriended by a local don and becomes a small don himself. Jamal loses Latika again, this time to his own brother. He then leads the life of an assistant at a call center.

                The remaining movie thrives upon how Jamal gets on to the show just to make sure that Latika sees and comes to him. To know how this happens, you will have to see the movie.

Dev Patil, Tanay Chheda, Ayush Khedkar- the three characters who played Jamal at various stages were simply great. The director got the best out of them, I liked the kid Jamal (Ayush) the most; innocent, sweet and very expressi
ve. The screen play was so gripping that your mood changes along with the movie for each scene, you feel what Jamal feels as he narrates his story. The music, though I could not figure out much, sounded great during a few songs like O saya and Ringa…Ringa.

Overall, Slumdog millionaire is the first great thing to happen to me this new year, I am really happy that I watched this movie and it is beyond any doubt that it is one of the best movies I’d ever seen. It is a must watch for everyone.

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The expectations that are set by the immaculate marketing campaign, the trade mark of Aamir would just rise when you look at the titles, which look like sneak peek into the human brain. The next ten minutes were spent in comparing the movie to the Telugu version. In fact I was a bit disappointed to realize that to an extent it was a screen to screen copy of the Telugu version. However, the director quickly pulls you in by some nerve tickling humor and from then, no looking back as the movie goes ahead with each scene promising that there is more to come.

Anyone who says that Ghajni is a standard revenge type movie where hero chases the villain to death, they surely have missed a lot of the movie. The movie has all the aspects that a good entertainer should have. It starts with humor that Kalpana(Asin) churns in while Sanjay (Aamir) falls for her is really good. Kalpana is a smart, innocent, talkative, independent, ambitious and socially responsible girl who is good enough to attract the Harvard graduate business man Sanjay.

The plot unfolds showing how Sanjay who was once a smart young business man who balances his life to heed to his innocent girl friend now becomes a brute force killing machine. Sanjay as the short term memory loss patient hardly has any dialogues. His eyes spoke everything; in fact the best part of the movie is to feel along with Sanjay the pain of losing a loved one and how that pain becomes uncontrollable and turns into revenge, all this happens as you look into eyes of Aamir and you cheer each time Sanjay kills one each from the villain’s gang.

The performances were all fabulous, the screen play was awesome, the fights were well designed, and last but not the least AR Rahman’s music was great to say the least. One thing that came to me as a pleasant surprise was that the climax was different from the Telugu version. All in all Ghajni has come out well, the emotions of person who lost his love- the theme of the movie- came out sound and healthy. For all this, Ghajni is a definite paisa vasool and so a must watch.

So when I was waiting like sulking child waiting for an opportunity to vent out this anger, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Though I wished the guy messed with me so that I could give it back to him amplified (please note that I am still straight), the feeling waned in a matter of a few seconds as my brain responded to the stimuli and recognized that my phone was ringing. I carefully reached for it; it was Muley- my room mate.

Of late we have been practicing a lot for the ‘World’s laziest bum’ contest. So as a part of the practice we have decided to work on our dinner plans and decided to pick a parcel on our way. I agreed half heartedly as this means a few extra steps with my newly bought designer Italian shoes (for all those who do not know how I look, the next time you observe a tall fair guy with shoes that are too long, too slim and too shiny, like the ones the hero in the fairy tales wear…… errr that SRK wears, you can safely conclude that its me).

So as I carefully ascended the steps of our take home biryani center, my concentration was instantly bought by the owner who seem to be extremely interested in my ID card. There is nothing more contending than some attention for an average SE engineer. So I moved the ID into and away from his line of vision and enjoying the way he hypnotically craned his neck like a pendulum (as I am writing this I am cursing myself for having not concentrating on my new shoes ). Things got more exciting when he did not move away from the ID, for first I was a bit worried about getting mugged, but that was a very stupid thought. I instantly praised my laziness for not being able to thought further.

As the next few seconds were spent in trying to control the adrenaline rush into the blood, the excitation peaked when the owner approached me and took hold of my ID. I widened my eyes; and even a child observing me would have concluded that I had a throat infection by looking at my upper throat; I opened my mouth so much. I gave up my oath to laziness and started thinking about the possible reasons for the owner’s interest in my ID card. My brain started calculating all the possibilities- Is the guy a big fan of Infosys? Is he going to offer us some exorbitant discounts? Or DOES HE READ MY BLOG? DID HE RECONGNIZE THE GREAT AKP? I stopped breathing at this instant. I needed to listen to his intentions to choke myself back to breathing.

He said “Hamare paas aisa bhi kuch hona chahiye”.

I flushed instantly; he apparently wants to issue this kind of ID cards to his staff too. My face turned pale, to control the bile I had to cancel the order we placed and rush off the center taking enough care not to damage my new Italian designer shoes.

The first half was spent in spasmodic slumber. While the ‘not so real’ emotions are grinded upon you in completely unreal sets which are a pain to see, it is just the occasional funny one liners that wake you up as the theatre explodes into an occasional burst of laughter. In fact things get so boring that people did not laugh at what I think as the best line of the whole movie-mera naam hain Raj, naam tho suna hoga? While audience start doubting their intelligence when the questions like why can’t Suri be as fluid as Raj pop up, I felt like a sheep for being taken granted so much that I was made to believe that Tanee could not make out the difference between Raj and Suri.

Most of you know that the screenplay sucked and the storyline was as boring as Russian romantic novels where nothing happens till page number 380 where the hero decides to commit suicide. So I will not talk about it, what irritated me the most is the spineless nature of both the characters Raj and Suri. Both are idiotic enough to dance to the tunes of an emotionally tortured woman whose ideal world is far from reality. Though there is logic behind the concept that Suri wanted to know if Tanee loves the extrovert Raj or introvert Suri, the concept makes sense only if both are different. The whole movie for sometime seemed like an extension of kabhi alvida na kehna, the story was lack logic, the screenplay sucked is an understatement, art direction was no better and the movie was so long that I contemplated walking out.

Coming to the performances, Sharukh was fabulous; his talent was for sure wasted here. I am not sure how much more did he charge for wearing those please-look-at-me-and-puke-instantly clothes. Neon yellow t shirt, blue track suit and red shoes! Anushka was awesome, each and every inch of reel of hers in the movie has come out with the correct emotion, and I seriously feel that she has got a great career ahead. Vinay as usual is good. Overall if you are a smart person and hate emotional manipulations you can instantly avoid this movie. However, if you are a mushy person or an introvert who feel extra uncomfortable talking your feelings to girls, then maybe you can give it a try.

Well, keeping aside my reasoning on why I stuch back, I just thought I will celebrate my diwali in the most satisfying way possible: scribbling a few lines in my blog.

It has been quite sometime since I have last visited my blog. Honestly I am not finding time to write, though there are quite some ideas. But as of now, I have a mission- MBA. So I am putting everything else in back seat, however I thought I will celebrate my diwali by blogging, I just read a few of my blogs again, I found that there are more grammatical errors than there are words; thanks to GMAT SC.

I have become quite incoherent, didn’t I? Anyways, the vacuum that was created since morning has been filled up, I felt that I have celebrated. Guys a very happy deepawali.

Looks like VRL travels has hired Veeru and Jai, take a closer look at the screen grab.

Well, the analogy between “the god father” and “A Wednesday” ends there. But these are powerful enough fewlines to describe the whole movie.

My friend who is a teetotaler came out and said, is this what getting high all about?

The movie has the wall paper of terrorism, an all the more common theme in India , but it comes out with a surprisingly gripping pliot line, which just rips your adrenaline glands off.

The movie basically acts like a voice to a common man and almost acts as crater to vent out your frustration on the anti social elements who play with normal people for no mistake of theirs. I do not intend to discuss any more on the plot of the movie becuase it falls under those categoury whose plot needs to be kept a secret for a person to enjoy the movie.

Coming to the performances, Naseeruddin Shah was stunning to say the least, his climax speech is a classic and takes the audience to a level higher. Anupam Kher, Jimmy Shergill and Abbas were as lucid in their roles as anyone could get.

The best part of the movie is that there are no songs. Phew! What a relief!! All in all the movie is a class apart though its roots can be traced to Die Hard 4. I rate the movie with three stars as this is a very good one timer. But do watch the movie, its worth it.

If you do get crazy over fried legs of a chicken or roasted pair of wings think again, eating chicken or for that matter any form of non-vegetarian food would help you add to the global carbon foot print.

According to this article 18% of world’s total carbon emissions are due to meat production. Every stage of meat production, ranging from clearing forest for farms to burining fossil fuel for farm vehicles to animal wastes contribute to this 18%.

So friends, next time you lay your greedy hand on a plate of yummy chicken biryani, think again.

I do not know the chinese lyrics of the song oh jaane jaa

However, I have recently contemplated to read some of these stars’ blogs and I did read them. AB’s, AK’s etc. The first thing I have noticed, and did so with envy, is that these blogs have thousands of comments, though most of them are “Hello AK uncle, I am 12 year old” types, the comments are there. And that made me envious.

A regular visitor to my blog, if he/she still survived by a stroke of luck, would be quick to grasp that comments on my blogs are as rare as a student who doesn’t copy, or you might even want to say as rare as a girl in a Mechanical Engineering class or even as rare as good looking female in my project. What so ever, I made best efforts to market my blog as much as possible with all those funky gadgets on your right. I also wonder what would have happened if I were to be modest. Damn it, this IT industry did teach me something, show casing, eh!

Coming back to those celebrity’s blogs, I wonder what AK thinks when he sees those comments, the “Hello AK uncle, I am 12 year old” types; he might just bring TZP kid in and asks him “should I reply him saying that I am AK uncle and I cannot quite disclose my age?” Or he might just blink and smile benevolently and muse over why a 12 year old kid started thinking about his own age so early and eventually imagines a bored house wife making the best use of her broadband connection, after all she cannot keep watching porn youtube.

What is more important is that the content of the blogs, these are completely e-journals of what these stars do day to day and what they think about what they do and in the attempt to do so they try to sound modest about (quite obvious, they cannot say “I am great and hence the great fan following”) their stardom.

For a moment I thought and pondered upon a few ‘what if’s
like:
1) What if I also write about what I do every day. (a few of my body parts started disowning me immediately and considered parasiting upon my lesser mortal roomies).
2) What if my PM reads my blog on what I do? (my ID immediately called its insurance agent)
3) Worst of all, what if my client reads my blog on what I do everyday?? (I could almost imagine a few CEOs approaching Vito Corleone to save their businesses ).

The gist of the article is that, we live a boring life. And I am sure talking about the fights we have to get the access to the Bathroom in the morning or the way we run to the bus stop JIT or for that matter the snoring patterns of our room mates would only make the blog as boring as our life is and I am sure if I were to talk about what my projects are or how I got moved by a certain incident no one cares a hoot. Of course, it is a different thing that you will be very famous if it is a video on you cozying yourself with your girl.

If you are still wondering why I wrote this or searching for something funny in this, I guess your search should end here and I suggest you laugh out loudly for me/with me/at me and wait till I pull out something better.

Meanwhile, rumours about the iPhone’s next version coming up have swarmed the net. The next version is claimed to have the capability to increase the average intelligence for any one who uses it. It has a host of other customized features which include features like helping you look more attractive to the opposite sex, increasing your chances to get selected for a reality show if you send the SMS from your phone, and an all new lie detector to know whether your girl friend is cheating or not. You can also buy and download third party software, installing which will help you know whether or not a new release will be a hit by just typing its name.

Our sources had an opportunity to discuss about a very secret project for Apple inc., known as ePhone. An over excited Apple employee spilled the beans about this Z+ generation phone. The e-phone is claimed to be boon to all the corporate employees in the world, it is expected to bring reprieve from the bosses. “We are researching on the boss detector feature, with this feature the phone will be able to detect the boss within range of 5 meters and gives him a small but an uncomfortable shock.” says the unnamed Apple employee.”Bosses then associate the pain with approaching the employee and over a period of time will avoid the employee”. he said with beaming eyes. “The other options are….” are the only final words we could manage from the employee as another employee pulled him in catching his collar. We are assuming the second employee is his boss.

Mean while, there are speculations that e-Phone will be launched in India first with the collaboration of Reliance. The price is expected to 200Rs per piece. That is the only way to show the world that we are as good as US said a beaming RelComm employee who refused to name himself.

I am not finding time to write, I know I have complained about this earlier, but I guess it is a cycle. But, I do not want this blog to be inactive for too long, lest I will have to budge into the requests asking me to sell my blog for $2.

So, just a few updates from my side.

Apart from the boring routine of brushing the same old teeth and bathing the same old body I have tried to see a few movies, apart from getting poorer by a few hundred bucks nothing substantial happened as the movies were far more routine than the above mentioned activities.

Yours truly have failed again, though not miserably, in his recent attempt to cover up for his ever falling hair which is affecting his otherwise charming personality. The finer details like what that attempt was and how miserably he failed are kept as a secret fearing the loss of market segment to his arch rivals.

Well, if you are to know me better, you will safely assume that failures hardly bother me. I guess that is the main reason I fail, there is no fear of failure for me.

I just wanted to quote a few lines from the Godfather here.

“in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his
eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful.”

That should end this post. I know this is too abrupt, but I seriously do not know how to end things, which is why I am still writing.

Observing people in lifts is a great stress buster; it takes you into newer worlds with a greater insight into psychology, if it ever existed.

Yours truly considers himself to be pretty good at observation and has come up with a good classification of the lift users under which the above mentioned could be easily elaborated upon.

· The callers, classification on how people call the lifts.
· The people who board, classification on how people board the lift
· The people who alight,

The callers:

Among other boring types, the most interesting fall into two categories:

The go getters: These people are those who are not too comfortable with the idea of things not in their control. Let’s see the following conversation near a lift:

She: blah blah blah blah (continuously pressing the lift button).
He: (after a long hiatus) darling! Why are we pressing the call button so many times? my PM told me its enough if we press the button twice or thrice.
She: Oh! You dumbo! (Speaking as she presses the button continuously) you don’t know? The more the number of times you press the button the faster the lift comes down.
He: Ooooh! I never knew this.

She has got her ex-boyfriends in the lifts logic design team of OTIS, Mitsubishi and the likes and they apparently discuss, in their annual meeting they have with her, how they are thriving to increase the acceleration of the lifts with each increment in the call count.

The just do it types: These types believe that whatever they do is right.

She: blah blah blah (as she presses both up and down call button for the lift)
He: Hey! Why did you press both the buttons? Isn’t it enough to press just the down arrow button, as we are going down?
She: Are you nuts? The second button is given as back up, if the lift doesn’t come for the first button, then we have to press the second button; up and down my foot, huh!

That’s it; another name has been added to the world’s most enlightened souls’ list. This guy is lucky, isn’t he?

In the meanwhile they board the lift that is going in the opposite direction; her logic was simple- everything that goes has to come back.

The people who board:
The Hollywood type: This type is mostly inspired by Neo, the matrix man (Keanu Reaves) and believes that lifts are just another element of nature that would act according to their whimsy. When this type sees the lift at a considerable distance and when they decide to board it, all they do is just march towards the lift sternly and mechanically with a defiant palm lifted into the air.

This type would succeed unless there is a similar kind already in the lift, who on seeing the first person would press the “door close” button and smiling at the thought of the person crashing at the lift door.

The Indian fast bowler type: This type starts running towards the lift as and when they see it open, the distance just doesn’t matter, they just run with all the conviction of a determined soul, as the people waiting in the lift speculate about their chances of making it, they either run out of their steam and settle in the nearest sofa or change their mind and go towards the staircase.

The people who alight:
Before talking about this type, now that you have reached this far, I presume that you are either not too interested in life or you are too interested in what I write, in either way, I presume that you would not go away to read other intelligent posts on the forum as I quote Aristotle from his work on political philosophy

“If there be some one person whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the virtues of all the rest admit of no comparison with his, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a state; for justice will not be done to the superior. Such a one may truly be deemed a God among men; and for men of pre-eminent virtue there is no law—they are themselves a law. Any (person) would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for them.”

Aristotle in the above message is referring to super heroes, the icons who are above all the law and are considered demigods, a good examples for this is our security, there are at least a dozen such super heroes in our security, these do-gooders, with all due respect for keeping us in safe hands, just need a small reason to scowl at, you forget you tie, they scowl, you try to use the umbrella till the bus, they scowl after all they are super heroes and their managers have told them that smiling is a crime and courtesy is a sin.

I have met one such super hero in the last seat of the bus yesterday(this time it’s an employee); the super hero was engrossed in the music his i-pod is beaming out, with his unbuttoned shirt showing his jewelry and a few things that are beyond description for this point, he just couldn’t wait till his chance to alight the bus, he has a word for his rescue “excuse me” which he used with generosity as he made his way through the people whom he think are going to XYZ phase 3

I have later realized that this guy is the Dark-Knight of [please insert your company name here], who is in a hurry to encounter Joker who was troubling [your company's employees], asking them why they were serious.

“Excuse me” gentleman, are you reading this?

Back to the topic, it is interesting to observe the super hero category in the lifts, especially when the lift is packed, they do not have enough time to wait for their chance, their aim is simple, be the first one get out of the lift as the others are waiting to go into underground using lift.

I wish I mature myself as a good writer and hone my skills and this blog reaches the place which I think it should, wish my blog a very happy birthday!!

“It is so disheartening to see hundreds of mails complaining against these youngsters breaking the queues, hedging the spoons, romancing in the last seat of the bus, I just can’t imagine,that these are the same kids on whom we spent lakhs and lakhs of rupees for training on inter-personal effectiveness” said a sobbing Manavi who later completely broke down.

Our sources, who refused to be named, said that the final nail in the coffin was hit when a senior employee, who was already frustrated for a lot of other things (which includes insufficient leg space in the school bus in which he commutes to office daily) was given a cold look by a guy for sitting beside his girlfriend, unfortunately that was the only available seat. The couple later proceeded to switch on to their basic instincts and romanced the rest of their journey to glory. The senior employee then wrote a lengthy mail to his HR with choicest of words, Manavi who is sensitive and sincere at work, chose to take the blame and resigned citing moral grounds. The senior employee refused to comment.

We have strong proof that the couple was given a pink slip, but were immediately selected by MTV for their upcoming reality show on dating.

India hot destination for Russian defence scientists:

Look out when you cross the roads in India next time, if you are lucky enough you might as well be asked to sign a contract for participating in Russian Defence Research. Russian Defence Research Organization has signed a pact with Indian government allowing them to study the brain patterns of Indian pedestrians and motorbike riders and to map the same in the anti missile technology in their latest combat jets and submarines.

“I have come to India last year on a holiday and was amazed to see the impeccable accuracy with which the Indian pedestrian cross the road without the help of a zebra crossing and I do not have the words to describe the Indian mo bike riders, they are too good for words” said Mr. Purikoshov Bhajishova. He also said that there is a high scope for break through in the said anti missile technology if we can carefully study and understand the brain patterns.

Management graduate proposes a new theory

Sharad Dikhaoo a management freak from a high profile college has proposed a new theory, he named it De-show casing theory.
“I used to find it very difficult to show case, essentially because there is nothing to show case in me, but I cannot sit quiet you know? This is a very competitive world and you need to be on your toes for you to survive and hence I came out with De-show casing theory, its simple, the statement is- if you cannot show case yourself, de-show case others, its nothing new, I am inspired from the childhood riddle of making a line shorter without erasing it- by drawing a line longer than that. I just used the converse and it worked” said a beaming Sharad who recently tested the theory on a *low life* and was able to successfully syphon off the *low life’s* prospective girl friend by using the theory.

The HRD ministry who was pretty impressed with Sharad’s work has promised to nominate his name for igNoble prize under show casing category, however under the caveat that the Prize committee agrees that de-showcasing can be considered as one form of show casing.

On the other hand, the low life on whom the theory was tested was so depressed for being deprived of a girl friend (his 109th attempt) that he complained to Ganeka Mandhi against the theory. Ganeka is currently agitating in front of the HRD’s office for justice. Our sources said tha
t the *low life* was present at the agitation and using all his charms to flirt with Ganeka and impress her. Our blog wishes him all the best.

In totally unrelated news, Indian central government has asked all its state governments to remove all the signal posts in all the road junctions in India. The iron collected from all the posts will be used to build hospitals. There will be no more paint wasted on zebra crossings and road divider markers, they said that the amount saved will be used to compensate the fiscal deficit.

Our sources say that this was expected in these tough days of economic turmoil where we cannot waste money on things that are not put to use, there was an extensive cost benefit analyses carried out by PWC and cost benefit was found to be humongous.

A new reality show:
In this age where every day a new reality show comes out, a recent survey conducted showed that though reality shows excite people, their monotonous nature is boring people to death. So there is a need for a new reality show with fresh look and hence “Kaun banega reality show ki baap” was launched. “We saw a need to have a reality show on reality show, and we stepped in to fill the void” said CEO Mr. Chato.

The program features excerpts from various reality shows and judges will be calling cliched names for the show that is featured, apart from looking at each other and nodding occasionally at each snippet. There will also be opinions from audience on the shows and on the opinion of the judges as well, all the audience watching the show will be given eggs and tomatoes (subject to costs and availability).

“This is so exciting, throwing eggs at someone who shouted at my favorite performer in my favorite singing show is just awesome, I am loving it!” says an excited Pakao Sharma, nibbling at her burger and watching the all new reality show.

MNS strikes again:
The MNS activists yesterday did a lightning attack on PMC. They claim that Kothrud (which in Telugu means new road) may mislead many people to think that there are roads in Kothrud and also it is against the culture to have a name that sounds non-regional.

“Its good to see MNS so concerned about people’s troubles, this will definitely help curbing the rising global crude prices and soaring inflation”, beamed a Puneite who requested anonymity.

Oh fuck!

Been there….

‘Been there’ is an Engineer. The adverb for the adjective engineer could not be finalized because he was not pretty sure what kind of engineer he was, so he thought he was better off being just an Engineer.

Out of the million peculiar qualities which distinguishes him from the lot, the considerable ones are, his ability to confuse the shit out of every person in even the simplest of the situations and his trademark shake of his head to show disagreement, which starts much before a person in the conversation could even say something.

A few minutes of discussion with him gives you an impression that there is nothing possible in this world or you are the most useless person ever born on the face of the earth, both are too serious a wound. And what adds salt to this wound is his immortal penchant to re-phrase whatever you just said in passive voice. Well, if you love it short and sweet he is a pain in the neck.

There is little wonder that he is not married and his professional growth graph is as straight as an arrow. And this made the matters worse, he revamped his marketing strategy , he began marketing himself extensively. He is here, he is there and he is everywhere. And he is not shy to say this, each and every meeting he attends is full of fundas of he being here and he being there; rejecting everything he hears and repeating what ever the other person says with a few more grammatical errors and claiming it to be his idea. Little should I say that this did not help, and what is worth mentioning is, that he is “Been there”.

Done that.
‘Done that’ is a 9-5 girl. Except for a few odd occasions like a fire drill or the first rain of the season where people do not bother about who is around them, “Done that” tries her best to stick to her seat and pretend that she has been working, by fanatically typing the keyboard.

When she is not doing any of the below mentioned activities:
Drinking coffee.
Reading news papers.
Chat.
Forward mails.
Pretending to attend teleconference by plugging on her headphone, but actually listening to music,

she does her best to attend the plethora of meetings, which are never seem to be at scarcity; and when she is bored of all the above, she works.

For her, meetings are analogical to spa houses where the presenter is the therapist who does his/her level best to induce sleep by relieving stress. And in the rare occasion, when she is asked about her opinion, she speaks like a programmed answering machine, repeating the same thing in every meeting- what she has done till now.

Her all the more rare official talk is more of an activity report of what she has done (read- what she wants others to think that she has done) between the current and the last meeting.
Well, my readers are smart enough to infer that, even “Done that” is not married and her career growth has a slope similar to that of “Been that’s”.

The fateful day.

They say that someone somewhere is made for you, I am sure you do not want to read about how crappy I feel about this saying and how I think that if some one somewhere is born for us, why shouldn’t we be born with a small chit with name of our partner and the address in that?

Now that, you want to know what the fateful day is about, let me introduce to you the back drop .

It was Saturday and the location was some temple. Among the other general things, which are common to any temple, what was noticeable was a serious discussion between two beggars.

B1: Why? I mean why should this happen to just me.
B2: What happened?

B1: My career is not progressing, I beg a lot but I dont get anything. But you, you don’t seem to be begging at all, but people just throw alms at you so generously, why-o-why? Why is this world so mean.
B2: Ok let me tell you a trade secret. You are a good beggar, but you miss the guile of the job. Any job in this world requires diversifying. You cannot expect to grow, doing the same thing at same place with same set of people. See, what I do- I go to different temples on different days and pretend a different kind of a disability on each day and when I do that, I don’t need to even beg, people just contribute on their own. Learn to do this, and then you will become the best beggar in this world.

As the second beggar continued his gyan, puffing a beedi and sipping over a cup of tea, a couple, who were incognizant of each other’s presence and who eavesdropped at the beggars’ conversation, started towards each other with their mouths agape and eyes twinkling. Little should I say that they are hell inspired by the beggar’s gyan, and like anything else in this world, the inspiration didn’t come free, it has come along with LOVE.

Yes they fell in love with each other, love at first sight.

And the couple was none other than, “Been there” and “Done that”. Their first meeting was scintillating and they couldn’t wait anymore to compliment each other and they are married within a week of their first meeting.

Five years from now:

Ramu, after a long hectic day at the office, decided to feed himself with some masala news. His job is simple, all he has to do is to switch on the TV set and click a few random numbers for the TV channel, and the chances that he ends up in a masala news channel are almost placed at 1 in 3.

This time he was first time lucky. The first channel he started off with is itself a masala news channel. There was already a scrolling that read “Breaking News: A four year old boy finds out that 1+1=2 “. I don’t want to discuss about what Ramu thought after seeing the news, it’s in our blood, and it will be as good as writing a blog about how to breathe or how to walk.

So, let me just briefly tell you the history behind this news.

Well, after “Been there” and “Done that” were married, they complimented each other so well that they learnt each other’s traits. And hence, they progressed faster than light in their careers, thanks to their innate talent and ofcourse, the beggar’s gyan.

Now, the kid in the news is none other than the son of “Been there” and “Done that”, “I am the best”. He inherited all the great qualities of his parents and at very young age mastered the art of “show casing”. And the result- In one of the math classes, after writing 1+1=2, he was able to hype it so much that it became national news. Of course, there is an enormous amount of support from media fraternity, but even then, “I am the best” has become a hero at a very young age.

Moral of the story: Been there + Done that = I am the best.
–AKP

P.S: In case you don not know the author properly, please be informed that he is obsessed with satire and irony. If you have assumed that the author is supporting the ideology that one should suceed by show casing, then please think again.

P.P.S: The author is not too confident about his satirical abilities.

Especially, the person from Tulsa College Community, Oklahama ( googled Tulsa OK)who seems to be obsessed with my blog. Thanks for your interest!

My dear readers, in case you did not observe, you can now subscribe to my feeds/ newsletter over email. A close look towards the right side of the screen would tell you why and how.

And, the following articles will be coming up shortly…..

1) Been there, done that, I am the best…..

2) A career change….

3) HUGS….

Thank you all for your support. Thanks.

So, I got into an attire which I thought would go well with the weather and mood and reached the parking lot where I parked my Honda and started to pick the person whom I promised to help and headed towards our destination.

Within a few minutes we reached our destination. It was a huge building which was lit up generously as if electricity is as abundant as pollution. However, I should not bother, it is my place of work. I parked my bike and accompanied the person to the work space.

My plan was to complete the work in an hour or two and get back to be a part of nature and enjoy it. And keeping in this mind, we started off the work. My role was just to help the person out, after all it wasn’t my work. There was a passion with which the person carried out the work. It was as if a whole race was performing those tasks for zillions of years only to try and master it. Well, all it took was a few half an hours above my planned time of two hours to realize this. Yes, it was indeed four hours since we are working and given my impatient nature, I was pissed off.

A clever attendant at the work place who has observed me trying to disengage my self from the work as the person whom I was helping got too engrossed with work, came out with a suggestion. He suggested me to wait in a near by room. I obliged instantaneously, only furry creatures from alpha centauri would reject such offers.

I have entered the room and was surprised to see a few unshaved young men, waiting there watching TV with an unfading puzzled look on their face, which boldly shouted out, why was I here? I felt as if I found soul mates, it was blissful to see so many people with same expression on the face and that too when I was feeling the same way. An old gentleman, who seemed to have come to terms with this phenomenon have courteously invited me in and asked me to take some rest and assured me that it would take at least a couple more hours, as if he were a prophet.

I sat down silently on couch and started watching TV, at least there was a consensus with in the room for the channel to be watched, unlike the work which I left in midway where my every decision has been questioned and autopsied ruthlessly so that the work could continue endlessly.

Beedle, Beedle, Beedle, the phone rang, it was not mine. A gentle man, who would look good enough for a Manager, if he were to be clean shaved, picked out the phone, and asked enthusiastically, “are you done?”. The answer, as it seemed, did not quite amuse him, his reply was much of a scowl, he said “But, we were here for last two days!!!”. I was shocked, this guy is here since last two days?? It was a shocker for me and it did shook off my other wise solid nervous system.

I needed water, I headed for a water tumbler, only to see a grotesque scene of a person brushing his teeth and coming out, huh!! What the hell?? Why was he brushing teeth here, of all the places? There is little I could fathom, where I was and what all this frustrating waiting stuff all about. And then I have looked around with an intense sense of observation, and there was a striking coincidence about all the males sitting there, all of them were waiting and doing so for frustratingly looooong time.

I smelt some fish and so I went out and seen what that room was, it was labeled “Waiting room for men who have come with women”.

Yes my dear readers, I went out for shopping with a lady, and the big building which was generously lit was a shopping mall.

People (read ladies) call this barbarous act of lingering around big shelves of clothing, not able to decide what to do as shopping, but I seriously do not want to call that so.

So, what should I be calling this?

P.S: This is a complete work of fiction and has got nothing to do with yours truly hanging around with a girl. The last time yours truly got too close to girl in a shopping mall was when a lady sales executive bothered the hell out of him, when he allocated some 15 minutes to buy himself a pair of cargos. In case you are still doubtful, yours truly is single.

I am an ardent RGV fan. I like audacity with which he takes up his projects. I will keep this short, lots to do today. I have to complete a few tests and rush myself to one of those mega structures which leech me of my money by pretending to show movies in a luxurious way, but in fact the Rs. 100 which we spend for the front rows actually used to cost less than 20 a few years ago.

The Friday fever woke me up at 7:30 Am, if it were not for Friday, I would have safely decided to take the 11o clock bus, but on Friday it should be different. I stood up, I looked like the fast forwarded version of my video taken on non-Friday weekday. I need to leave for my bus-stop by 7:55 Am and I did all I could to do so and of course, making sure that I do not compromise on my looks, after all today is Friday, huh!

Well, to make the story more interesting, all those scenes of me running to the bus stop, getting into the bus, crossing my fingers and praying for a girl to sit beside me, me cursing the guy who stole me of that chance as he sat beside me in spite of many other seats being empty, bus getting stuck in a traffic jam because of a Maruti 800 crashing itself into a truck, are removed from the story and I will take you to directly to the scene post break fast, yeah the swipe in machine.

I swiped in, as usually waiting for my chance amidst all those non-believers in technology who fanatically swipe-in and swipe-out at all the machines available to them. I generally swipe in at only one machine, because I always think that continuous sound of beep-beep-beep might awaken the alien spirits and might even provoke them to attack Infy, so all the people out there thank me for saving you from aliens. Digression!!!!. Let me continue the story- After swiping in, I headed towards my work area, a secure zone which requires me to swipe in.

I happily ramp walked(now a days limping is re-named so) to the swipe machine where I swiped in, beep said the machine, but red LED was too lazy to turn green, I tried again, this time the beep was more of an angry one. I was slowly allowing myself to react. I tried again, no luck and this time around the swipe machine almost called me names with the security in charge there giving me a weird look, I gave her an assuring smile so that she will not mistake me for an in filtered MNS activist. I gathered all my courage and tried my luck for the last time, it was red again. My jaw dropped.

The failure of my last attempt has seen the surprise in my face turn to worry, my worried expressions can be precisely put as one sentence, was I sacked? I could not even reach my manager, I did not know what to do. I did not even want to log into Infosys network, what if I am unable to log onto. My brain started calculating all the necessary next steps, is my resume ready? Will dad be allowing me to sit at home for that long? What will I answer the interview panel of the B-School if they ask the reason for the gap? Will Infosys provide me with an experience letter………..

Just as my brain took me to the verge of madness, my phone rang, it was my room mate, “abbe tera ID kaam kar raha hain kya?” My jaw dropped!!!!
How did he know? I quizzed him with questions about HR approaching him to tell me that I have been sacked and other permutations of the possibilities, he was hell confused, he called me a few names and asked me to see what was the name on the ID card, I obliged, it read Shripad Anirudhha Wangde.

Raj Thackeray has started the divine mission of ethnic cleansing of Maharashtra. It took him quite some years to succeed. But during the gestation period of his success there were some quite interesting things that happened.

Due to the heavy appreciation of rupee, Indian software companies started concentrating on local businesses, the aftermath being a satellite launching station in Harihareshwar. A mission to Space, which is a build, deploy and operate project was taken up Indian IT confederation. And first time in IT industry 5 SE engineers are sent onsite to Space. Sanki is one among them!

So Sanki Sharma along with four others has been sent to Space in a Space shuttle that was designed and developed by a group of software engineers. He left on August 7th 2009 and returned to homeland on August 4th 2014, but shot himself to death on August 7th 2014.

Lets see how the story unfolds……..

4th August 2014

He landed today in Harihareshwar after a week’s journey into space according to the spacecraft’s time. Since he traveled with velocities equal to that of light, Einstein’s time dilation came into play and he returned to earth after 5 years.

Unfortunately the idiots who have designed this craft never knew about something called theory of relativity and hence they never expected them this late. In fact they were so surprised that Indian Air force has sent some 100 missiles, luckily the craft was under autopilot mode and no one bothered to change the trajectory and hence, all the 100 missiles missed the target.

He looked around the moment he set his foot on earth, his inquisitive eyes searching more vigorously than the google search engine for a glimpse of the baby like face of his girl friend, but instead he found surprised officials.

Little did he knew that everyone gave up within a week of his take off. And that his name had been added to the likes of Kalpana Chawla.

And with in an hour, after a heated discussion with the officials, he realized that he was considered dead and his family has been given 30 lakhs compensation after a mock funeral that was conducted over the weekend. And that his brother married his girl friend and bought a flat with those 30 lacs. Depressed he walked out.

As he walked out of the space station, he was in for another surprise- there were no taxis, yes they are replaced with bullock carts. He climbed into one of them when a voice said “hello, how are you” in the most beautiful English he had ever heard, he later found out that he was a retrenched call center employee. He reached home, but was surprised to see the name plate changed, it read Rajesh Apte and actually it should be reading Rajesh Sharma, he was confused but only until he found his surprised mother.

His mother, the moment she saw him, dropt the vessel she was carrying, rounded her eyes to make a perfect zero and inadvertently rose her left arm to bite the back of her palm. Anyone who has head above his shoulders could make up her expressions, they said 30 lakhs. Does she have to pay the compensation amount back? Sanki’s dad, of course, had no similar worry. He was sure that he could sue the IT companies for it or something, so he did not seem to perturbed. He was a lawyer, so Sanki need not worry about lawyer charges.

5th August 2014

Though he did not allow himself to react to the situations around him, reality did its best to dawn upon him and it did succeed. He realized that something was utterly wrong. Questions and more questions popped into his brain. But the situations at home are not all the more honky dory to be fit for a question and answer session.

His parents though happy about he coming back, did not seem to be too amused to share the happiness with every one, the reason might be the four annual death ceremonies conducted at a very social level, with aaj tak giving a complete footage on first ceremony. His brother avoided him for more obvious reasons. His (ex) girl friend too could not face him; it is too much for him to digest in a week’s time. And he almost gave up on the concept called time.

He needed a break, he decided to watch TV. To his utter surprise, it was in a dilapidated state. It seems that no one was watching TV for ages. He switched it on and to his utter disgust he found 5 local channels all telecasting agricultural awareness programs in the local language. He could not understand the regression.

The whole day has been spent on nailing down the possibilities for the current situation, but he could not fathom any. However, his parents after dinner, which is again all the more similar to local style, have managed to tell vaguely about something which the then CM, Raj Thackeray, has started less than a decade ago.

He was surprised, he knew that there was something about this Raj Thackeray guy regarding driving out the non-Marathi people out of Maharashtra, but how could that lead to all this? He could not really fathom anything out of this. And he hardly could sleep that night.

6th August 2014

He had a better discussion with his parents today. They seem to have to come in terms with reality and shooed away their disappointment and are talking to him more openly. He then had a conversation with his dad, which cleared all his doubts on the current situation.

It all started with ethnic cleansing of Mumbai, driving out non local population out of Mumbai. It then spread to other bigger cities of Maharashtra. It was a huge success, at least on papers. People who have no property for themselves in Maharashtra have vacated, but those who had their property here found out a way, they changed their family names. And hence the changed name plate outside his house.

He also came to know that Amitabh Bachan succumbed to the pressure and changed his name to Amitabh Thackeray and also named his grandson as Raj Thackeray Jr. Sharukh could not do so, Sharukh Thackeray was sounding too weird and hence he vacated.

With complete success of this revolution, Sr Raj has to come up with another political issue. This time it was ban of all the non local language cable channels. It then followed by ban of non local newspapers and everything and anything non-local has been banned. In fact in a strange move, Sr Raj has banned all the vehicles as petrol which is not a local entity is deciding the local economy. It was then followed by banning of all non local trade, all the IT companies, BPOs etc have been banned. Every one started farming and pulled bullock carts in free time.

His dad also drew his attention to lack of babies. After the ban of sex education, all the Hindi/English movies have been banned for vulgarity and as the aftermath youth did not know how to copulate and hence no babies.

Raj then adapted non-violence as his next agenda. He banned cricket as it was perceived to be dangerous, throwing a ball and swinging a bat are too dangerous to be handled by people and hence the government settled for a less harmful bridge and chess.

With this, he thought that he had heard enough. Whirlwinds blew through his mind. His heart pumped out blood as if it were a volcano. He just could not stand what has happened, and that too it was too much of a change for him to handle in a week’s time notwithstanding the change management course he has undertaken. With a heavy heart and and blewn up mind he hit the sack.

7th August 2014

He woke up with a heavy headache. He had decided over night what has to be done; he could not just get in terms with Sr Raj. He then shot himself on RT road (FC road was renamed so) , his blood splattered all over R
aj Putla, and his brain was forced out and fell on the pavement, an enthusiastic dog made a meal of the same. (Dogs are not yet banned here).

His parents hid his body and his fifth ceremony was conducted. His brother and his ex- girl friend had a sigh of relief. And they both want to make movie of this story and name this as The Dead Man’s suicide. Of course it will be in local language.

Having said that, I thought that I should put on public space, a write up on what I think or made to think the way things should be looked at. This is inspired by this video by Baz Luhrmann:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EReBlwPGECs]

As I see it, there are three types of problems in life:

1) Relationships.
2) Career.
3) Confusion between the above two.

Let me handle each one of them. Relationships, mostly the ones between opposite sex , are the most bothering. People just get too much possessive, obsessive, aggressive and what not. But please remember that, any relationship is just a catalyst for a happy life, they are not constituents of life. A human is born alone and is going to die alone, and if you are not aware, sati is banned in India, Pati is still, god forbid, a concept yet to be developed and suicide, if you have survived, is taken seriously by the Judiciary. So, my dear friends if you are thinking of a perfect partner who will be along with you all the time, think again.

So, the point is that, you might get a boy/girl friend, you might not get one, or you might get ditched or if your luck is still bad, you might even get married to your loved one and if you are lucky enough, you might even get divorced. But, the fact remains that YOU are YOU. So its pretty illogical of you to make your happiness depend on long beautiful hair/long legs/beautiful eyes/sexy six pack/muscular biceps etc., believe me your happiness can be depended on more reliable things.

The best way to avoid the head ache is to love yourself, just love your youth, your brains your whatever you could think of, take a number of pics of yourself and put them everywhere on net you could think of; the world is full of fools and there shall be at least one who would be appreciating the beauty in you. So the bottom line is, do not hurt others and do not be with others who hurt you.

To put it crisply, love can never bring pain and if something is paining you, then it cannot be love and you can safely reject it as poison.

Coming to the career related issues, mostly these are comparative issues, X in spite of being an ass is in a better position than I am. He is my junior, but he earns more than I do etc., take a break people. Jealousy is one of the worst enemies for happiness, the other person never asked you to earn less than him. So understand that some times you are ahead and some times you lag, but at the end of it the race is with yourself, your whole life is about where you wanted to be. So just do not bother yourself with bad appraisals, and do not bother either about a test that you could not crack or a promotion that you missed upon, they really do not matter three years down the line. Your career is what you want it to be.

So forget the insults, remember the compliments and just try doing different things, you might fail but then you will know how to.

And coming to the confusion between career and relation ship, all I have to tell is to master the concept called synergy between Geography and life. If you learn how to maintain ties with your family & friends no matter where you are, you must be a happy person.

Having said that, I conclude.

1) The first type believes that all statistics are right.

2) The second one believes that there is a second type that exists.

Yeah! Java is now recognized as an official language, after the 2067 linguistic based communal riots where SEs belonging to different languages fought with each other. The riots have caused serious damages to IT industry as there were thousands and thousands of monitors broken and even more keyboards hit against the heads, and apart from the property losses, the IT industry had to pump in lots of money as the hospital charges of an employee are covered by the company. The situation didn’t cool down unless the IT minister intervened and promised to declare Java as national language and also promised a new state called Soft Pradesh.

Soft Pradesh has got 2000 year tax holiday, petrol here is completely subsidized and is charged at a petty 50paise per liter. Autowallas are not allowed to charge more than 2 rs irrespective of the distances traveled. Whole of Soft Pradesh is Wi-Fi enabled and communication does not cost you a penny as it is over IP. Power is free. So virtually Soft Pradesh is the Indian improvised version of US.

All was going well in SP (Soft Pradesh) until a disaster struck. What is the disaster? Well the answer to the question is the story of Softesh. (Softesh is the most common name in SP. There are around 100 Softeshs per Sqkm )

Softesh is born to two IT professionals, whose parents and their parents incidentally were IT professionals too; Infact, his whole family for last 7 generations were It professionals. Softesh, little should I say, is an IT professional too.

Before actually getting into Softesh’s problem, let’s just have a quick look at how the roles in IT are demarcated. Any project will have a certain number of SEs allocated apart from the Project Managers (at different level) and People Managers. Project Managers look after the technical aspects of the project and People Managers should see that resources are doing their work.

Also, there are millions and millions of lines of codes available on goosys (yeah the second company took over the first in 2047) all you need to do is to find the correct code customize it and send it across.

Having said that, a typical SEs job has become mind numbingly simple, so simple that the ennui of doing it would force mistakes out of you. So, there are two kinds of SEs people who bend their head and do what is being told and people who protest and people who do neither are deported out of SP. The job of people managers is to identify those SEs who bend their head and do the work, the people will become Project Managers and the second type would become People Managers.

Softesh is a Project Manager material, he has been working incessantly for last 4 months without taking a break, and he has produced millions of lines of code. And on one fine day, he complained of severe head ache and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed for Cerebrocitis.

Cerebrocitis is a medical condition where the brain due to evolutionary deficiencies turns out to be a vestigial organ, like appendix and tail bone. The main causes of Cerebrocitis are using your brain essentially (but not restricted to) for brushing your teeth, shaving etc. So, over the years the brain refuses to recognize its presence and the basic mind numbing activities that human does will be taken over by the Spinal Cord.

Softesh, after years of mind numbing work and due to evolutionary defects where his parents or grand parents or great grand parents have never used their brain, has now developed Cerebrocitis, he is now as good as brain less person. All his essential activities of Cut, copy and paste and drinking coffee before a computer will now be taken over by his spinal cord, it has been evolved to undertake these quintessential activities.

Now there has been sudden out break of Cerebrocitis in SP. Thousands and thousands of youth have now become brain less. Now, SP which is known for its brain power has exposed its ugly side, the news spread and the whole world is waiting and watching to see the plight of SP. As of now the Indian biological department has confirmed that this is a new species and named it as Softo Sapiens.

With ruthless audacity when I ferret
Success is my love and will my worship
If I fight, can I be defeated?

When each encounter on my road to life
Is punched in face with my fist called will
I succeed and I think I should.

It seems that there are some 12,000 species of ants on the face of earth and ants constitute of about 15-25% of animal biomass. But, to me there are only 4 kinds of ants
1) Red ants or biting ants
2) Black ants or tickling ants
3) Big ants or oh my god I have to run now ants
4) Flying ants.

The even numbered categories of above have hardly bothered me; my animosity with them is more of induced type because of their brothers in the odd numbered category.
You would most probably know the reason, unless you are from Antarctica or Greenland or Ice land, where our ant brothers have decided not to go.

The first time I came to know about the lethal nature of these little creatures was when I was around 3 years old when a Big ant decided that it can easily attack my cousin who was one year old then, sitting nude on the ground happily engrossed in eating mud. This big ant went and attacked his….. Well you know. It took around 10 minutes to remove the ant and 15 minutes to remove its head from his……hmmmmm. Since then, I prefer to sleep alone in a grave yard rather than to have an ant around me.

Ants continued to inspire me in their optimism to think that they can easily attack a person several thousand times bigger than them. These attacks resulted in many a crazy act like me dancing in cricket field, much earlier and much better than Sreesanth, and people running towards the nearest tap to get an instant relief from an army of red ants. And so here I am, who declared a war against the ant race and fighting it ferociously for last 22 years and believe me, this war seems to be lasting for eternity.

My mom has been my commander in chief in my war against these creatures; she just hates anything that crawls and god save any creature that catches her sight crawling because it gets the opportunity to feel the heel and the ground simultaneously. Thousands and thousands of insects have been killed and when there was no time there were insect repellents used generously.

But, insect repellents are for those loser insects, ants are different, they are super organisms. And one fine morning the ant optimism rose to new highs when they decided to attack a packet of ant repellent which my mom bought as she has got better things to do like mending her maniac son rather than slapping each ant of the army to death. My mom instantly sued the local Kirana stores and the case is still going on as there is no evidence that the ants have attacked the ant repellant.

The war was going on well, until recently. But, a few days ago, when yours truly was sleepy after a days hectic job of eating and more eating and trying to sleep in between, something happened and I woke up itching maniacally my lower rib.

My mom, who is an ardent follower of those science fiction movies where a normal person sleeps normally but wakes up like a monkey, almost believed that I transformed to a monkey and even tried to confirm by checking whether I developed a tail. But before she could, she saw the boils on my left lower rib. Well, the Red ants attacked me again. I guess these ants are from China, as there are 5 boils on my left lower rib, and the 5 boils looked like the Olympics symbol.

Now I have had enough, and to make matters worse this article tells me that insects do not feel pain when squashed. Considering that I have been insulted by another red ant the other morning, I have sworn to make my war against red ants more vigorous, I need to device a way to bite these ants, they should feel pain, they should get the itches, they should get the boils,they cannot ignore others’ egos, after all I am going to become a manager and I have been told by my ex-manager that I have to heed to others’ egos when I speak and satisfy them for me to grow in an organization.

Of late every thing is on rise, salaries, temperatures, prices, inflation last but not the least the rate at which my hair is falling, but who cares as every one is now bothered about a much bigger issue- global food price rise. It is interesting to note that US was kind enough to attribute the global food demand-supply mismatch to the growing wealth of India and China, I was rolling to laughter when I read the following article
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/04/stories/2008050460790100.htm .
Now Dr. Manmohan Singh should come out and say that the US is the main reason behind global terrorism, global warming and a lot more other global ill-phenomenon.

I hope Bush was not complaining because every human on this face of earth has the right to proper nutrition. And even if he is complaining, who cares? I should say that India has done a great job considering the humongous price increases in crude oil, what was $80-90 per barrel has now soared to around $120-130 per barrel and if it were not to be for the rupee appreciation the inflation in India would have been racing to double figures. Thanks to the sustained exports business growth and flowing dollar reserves.

The positive effect for this is the increased spectrum of what we can call middle class in India and their increased disposable incomes and the pseudo pitfall for this is the pressure this has added on the global food demands. And what Bush commented has really left me introspecting.

India has been witnessing a steady and enviable 8-9 % growth for last few years where as world’s leading economies grew only 2-2.5%. Sadly, the farm sector, which accounts for about one-fifth of India’s gross domestic product, has been growing the slowest. The growth rate in the agricultural sector has been stagnant at about 2.3 to 2.6 per cent per year over the last decade. There is large-scale migration of farmers and farm workers to cities in search of job opportunities. So India’s agrarian crisis is much to do with an imbalanced economic growth whose fruits are unreachable for rural public.

Now, this is a serious concern, in its recent report UN has estimated a whopping 82 countries to be short of food supply, including India and China. Global food prices have soared up from 25-70% in last few months. Mostly attributed to population rise, increased incomes and decreased agricultural productivity. Now the challenge before the world is increased agricultural productivity without increasing the current arable land and water requirements (food production must be increased to feed a world population that is projected to increase from the current 6.4 billion to 9 billion. The challenge is to double world food production output by 2050 using less land, far less water, and fewer nutrients).

So when Bush or his secretary are making some comments in public, they might as well be hinting at us to look at our current capabilities and what is expected out of us.

So this might be the time for us open our eyes and see what has to be done to make India sufficient to meet the global food demands. Unless we do something serious, we are going to starve, for sure.

This blog in its own humorous way has highlighted the idiosyncrasies of IT industry where the fit or misfit of a Mechanical, Chemical or some XYZ engineer was discussed. Everyone knows that most of the jobs in IT industry require customization of an already existing code which requires a group of hard working SEs to slog their weekend off, to meet the targets of ambitious, ineffective marketing guy whose only concern is to meet the target and impress the client so that his stay abroad can get extended by an year or two.

As if the identity crisis of a non computer science back ground engineer is not enough, a demon called appraisal system keeps poking you every six months. Though, an ambiguous engineering degree is nothing but a gate pass for the entry into an IT industry, I guess most guys in IT would agree with me that all you need in this mystic field is a bit of common sense and more honing for the skills you developed through your secondary school education, yes I am talking about cajoling your teacher to get a better mark. If you are yet to hear the word called “Perception” in your appraisal, buddy just go and start licking your manager’s boot. It might just work too well for you.

Yeah, I am supposed to talk about the third side of the coin called appraisal system, so let me start. If you have started wondering what has the first two lines of the article got to do with the appraisal, here is it- We do not elect our PLs, TLs or PMs or SPMs etc, they are there because, the system requires them to be. So this is no democracy, a reverse democracy, if I may call it so, where a leader decides his people, a system by the leaders, of the leaders and for the leaders.

Having said that, consider a scenario where a PM has to be ranked, for simplicity lets us consider there are only 2 ranks. The lower the rank, the better. Now there are 4 cases.

Case 1: Ranked 1 in both the cycles, most eligible for all the goodies. Nothing to be talked about.

Case 2: Ranked 2 in last and 1 in this, now the question, don’t you think in plain percentage point terms, the case 2 guy deserves better than the case1 guy? A person, for whatsoever the reason, who was ranked 2 has done all the good work and has done well enough to be ranked along with the other 1s, should be a better eligible person for anything than a 1-1, for the simple reason that he is more productive.

Case 3: Ranked 1 in last cycle but 2 in this. Now, the question again, in this leader intensive world, where everything including the location you have to work is business driven, read top down flow, what on earth is this guy’s leader doing? Is he laying eggs? if he could not set right or make a previously rank 1 employee to deliver up to the expectations, can he do any business? What I mean to say here is that, every time a rank 1 person fails to deliver, the HR must hold his leader responsible for not being able to put to use a good resource. But this hardly happens.

Case 4: Ranked 2 in both the cycles. Now again, the same question, why could not the leader of this person do something to improve his performance? In this case the onus lies on either the manager to improve the rating or productivity of the person in question or the HR for selecting an incapable guy, in either of the cases, the person who deserves the punishment more is definitely not the person in question.

So that is the third side of the coin, I know this will never be taken care of, because in the corporate world’s pseudo caste system, the upper caste has to dominate the lower caste and the oppressed remains oppressed. But, one good thing about this caste system is that no caste is permanent. The time lines for which a person has to spend in a caste may vary from person to person, but no person remains in the same caste for too long.

Long Long Ago: Oh my god…how could you do this to me. Darling, how could you maroon me like this and go? What about all the promises made that you will be with me no matter what! I feel soul less without you. You cannot leave me alone in this journey called life. sob…sob…sob.weep and deep sigh….I cannot handle this. I am incomplete without you…..

Long ago: Darling…. what have you done? ……sigh…..sob……sob…..weep…..who will cook for me now? Who will take care of our children? Who will clean the house? Oh my god… why did you do this to me?

Ago: sob……sigh…… Pick up the reciever, dial a no, Darling…..she is no more…..I think I have feelings for her. Poor thing. I need you in this moment of despair, lets meet up at our regular place……..sigh………hang up.

Now: uhhhhhhhh……sigh…..picks up a cellular phone…… dials a number……. darling, the female dog is dead,….lets party today evening. Yippieeeeeeeee……..muaaaah….muaaaah. call ended….

My heart, it shouts out in agony
Why it has to realize pain in this way?

Do we really deserve it? You say
Is this really the price I have to pay?

You say “I am stronger than you and it’s easy for me”
it’s easy to say that girl, but its hell to be me.

Because, it’s you that I am defenseless against
And you hold the weapons that pierce through me.

You say I am rude, but if you see, it’s just not me,
Because, the whole episode is about you and me.

If punishment is the only way out you see,
I will take it all, Coz I can’t be what I have to be.

I will take it as an expression of love from you
Because, I hear what ever I shouted at you.

Let’s take back our words, and go back to blissful ignorance
And spare me this hell, and kill this deafening silence.

You are hurting me, I know, and it’s on my name.
But, as I said, I would love to take all the blame.

Now, when I look back and see what did I gain?
Its nothing but these odes of pain, sheer pain.

Considering the fact that there are around three hundred thousand CAT aspirants, I would not make an attempt to introduce this article to you, because logic would say that this article is about a music Video on MTV (you might have guessed my CAT score by now).

Coming back to the topic, washing if it ever were to be called an art, I would have been light years away from being called as an artist and I would have ardently worshipped all the dhobis in this world. Washing is not an art nor am I interested in washing, but my tryst with washing or rather not doing it has seen new highs of late.

An average humanoid blind folded and sent into my 3 bhk flat has high probability of laying his hands on my used garments, considering the fact that I have sold out any thing that can be distantly called as a paper last week at the rate of Rs.6 per k/g, and believe me I am almost as rich as Ambani brothers after the old paper deal. But I promised you that I will be talking about washing clothes, so let me do.

Washing clothes is something which I love, I love it as much as I love to be bitten by a rabies dog, or kicked by an average donkey. However, I managed to avoid washing clothes for first 18 years of my life. Thanks to Suramma, our maid during most of my child hood and a BPL washing machine which deprived her of the most favorite job. Whatsoever the reason, I never thought or even bothered to think about the efforts to be put into undoing the dirtying of clothes the act which I guess I am pretty good at and I never would have bothered to think about washing clothes unless otherwise it is as easy as pressing Ctrl + Z.

But, the world wide web, IT industry and my company had other ideas for me. Though I have been deceived by a jumbo size launder mat, where some weird looking machines just keep washing clothes for eternity, making you feel that you need not even think about the word wash for next 100 years, reality dawned upon me when the honey moon period with my company, what they call training has been completed. Since then, there are many things that have changed like my location, my managers, etc but something that stayed with me always is the pile of dirty clothes on my chair, which of late my room mates are using as a cushion sofa, they claim that it is pretty comfortable.

At this, juncture of the article, all those Dravid bhakts who were hurt by my Tit for Tat post might think, ah you dumbo, why dont you employ a bai or why dont you buy a washing machine. They might also claim that I am wasting their time by writing articles here, the logic behind which my weak brain is yet to understand. But the good news is that, I have tried the above options.

Bai: Many a Bai, have been employed to wash clothes for exorbitant to extra exorbitant amounts, but only to quit the job before even joining as they got frustrated knocking at a door behind which only TV and chairs stay during the weekends, our land lord is strict, he says that no human being shall habitate the flat during weekends. And hence yours truly raids the friends’ flats.
Dhobi: There was a time when everything I used to wear goes to a dhobi for rejuvenation, but after I saw the cleanliness of the water body associated with washing the cloths and after my misplaced 10 pairs took me around 2 months and hell lot of effort, like befriending whole dhobi community, to locate, I had given up on the concept of dhobi.
Washing Machine: Me buying a washing machine would be a bigger joke than Anil Kumble delivering a spin delivery. Considering the fact that I have recently been abused by my savings bank account (abuses have been with held for readability) for molesting it, even the very thought of buying a Washing Machine sends shivers through my spine.

I also have tried different other ways where I used to take all my clothes to my friend’s washing machine, but after one such saga where my 50 odd pairs almost emptied the water tank of the building and my clothes decorated almost whole of his balcony, my friend started suspecting if I have started a side business and even enquired me if I was in urgent need of money and he still asks me how much do I charge for washing clothes.

Having said that, the fact remains that washing is a herculean task for me. I would work out and develop a Hrithik like physique, or would learn to code in Java or learn Mainframes or even try my hands at learning marathi, gujarathi or would even stay in a remote town in East Africa, but washing clothes?

Pehli nazar main …… Atif Aslam started singing from the bottom of Prem’s ……… errrrr………mobile. He answered.

P: Hello?

Caller: Mr. Prem your appointment letter is ready, we have couriered the same to you, hope you received it.

P: Yeah I did, I am not really happy with 8.5% hike, can you make it 9%?

C: Come on Mr. Prem we have already increased it from 8.25% to 8.5%, we can’t increase it anymore, you are too greedy.

P: You call me greedy??

C: Oh no. That was meant for the person sitting beside me, don’t you worry and one more thing our cab will come and pick you up tomorrow sharp 8 am, is that fine with you?

P: Oh why not, that’s fine with me, thank you, and bye.

Prem is on cloud number nine. He has negotiated successfully into a much sought after change, he changed his company and from tomorrow it’s all new, a new place, new people and new responsibilities. And apart from all these things, some thing is going to be proved, some thing that has been bothering him for years together. He couldn’t wait; he scrolled onto his contacts and called Joy baba, his mentor.

P: jai Joy baba.

JB: Hey dude, wassup.

P: Baba, as you have suggested, I have changed my job, are you sure this change would help me realize the truth I sought.

JB: Hey mate, doncha worry man, Duh!, jus believe me, eh!

P: Jai Joy baba.

The time was 1030 hrs, that day Prem drank his break fast, drank his lunch and gulped his dinner and slipped into his bed. Tomorrow would be a great day for him. He is going to understand the most basic fact of life tomorrow.

A few months ago:

The train was moving through a remote village in Maharashtra, green paddy fields, sugar cane fields, blue skies and fresh breeze striking the your face through the window, refreshing. But for him, it was just a piece of earth put to use by men, his heart is raging with a strange feeling, he closed is fist and hit the railing that crossed across the window, a sharp noise and the railing now looked more like a speed breaker ahead symbol.

This weird act caught the attention of a gentleman sitting; he immediately got into a conversation.

GM: hey, what’s wrong with you?

He: Nothing just disturbed.

GM: Oh, strained relationship?

He: Is that so easy for you? I broke up with 9.5 girls till now.

GM: 9.5?

He: The last to last one was not she, I mean I was not sure if she was she or …. You know?

GM: But 9 is a good number, why are you worried?

He: Worried???? I miss girl friends more often than Laxman misses place in the team. I always wanted to have a love marriage…….

Hearing this GM roared, laughing loud and fell on the floor. Our hero could not understand what went wrong, unless our GM started speaking.

Dude, marriage itself is a big mistake and you want a love marriage??

He: But, what’s wrong, I guess that’s in thing now.

GM: That’s for girls, not you.

The next one hour was spent discussing the cons of marriage and more cons of love marriage, there were no pros. And finally…

GM: My name is Baba, Joy Baba.

He: I am Prem, just Prem. (Prem’s parents had a love marriage and fought about whose surname should their son carry, but no one could win and hence Prem remained just Prem). So you mean to say, you will make me understand how boring combination love and marriage would be for a guy in a few months?

GM: This is my number, keep in touch.

Since, that day, Joy Baba has become mentor for Just Prem.

Tomorrow:

to be continued……….

Many of us have been taught in many of our professional training courses the importance of team work behind the success of a project. How team work helps us out of a difficult situation which, otherwise would have been a failure. But the question here is what team work is? Does it work? Rather, when does it work?

A team is nothing but a group of individuals working towards a similar or single goal and they are working towards it because, consciously or unconsciously they know that achieving the team’s goals would help them achieve their goals, say a H1B visa or a role change or a better increment etc.

Now say that we all are playing a game, a game where the primary goal is defined, say a role change. And every one in the team is playing for that. To achieve this goal, we need to do certain things which help others in achieving their goals and since their goals are fulfilled we achieve our’s.

Each of the team members has his /her own strategy, some does good work, others ‘show case’ things to their managers and a few others exploit human weaknesses but each one has his/her own dominant strategy, the strategy might help the wider cause, that is the team’s goal or it might just deceive the whole team that by just pretending that it serving the wider cause.

This is what happens, rather what has been happening in the society since time immemorial and this idea, of farcing the team that you are serving the purpose of the team and hence you should be rewarded by helping you achieve your goal, is good or bad is always a dilemma.

Now let’s say, that we need to play this game say for n times with the same set of players. What happens now is that the mutual knowledge of each other’s strategies exists, previously there was always an element of uncertainty in the mind of at least one player on another because of lack of common knowledge, but now since each is almost cognizant about other’s strategy and this is the point where team work ceases to exist.

The reason for this is that in human society, the concept of rational co-operation exists only if you know less. If the ignorance or uncertainty ceases, the rational co-operation collapses too.

Now, say there exists a team where the individuals are rewarded and the reason behind the rewards does not exist, or a team where there exists no common goal and every one is working towards their personal goals or a team whose team members know each other’s strategies too well do you think any team work exists?

The above mentioned scenarios of different teams constitute at least 70-80% of the teams, every one works for their own motives, we call it selfishness but what I want to conclude is that team work is a farce or at least it would become a farce once we get to know the team better, so why team building exercises and all, let there be a directive, contribute to the company’s growth and help yourselves grow.

The tree was big and the shade was good,
I looked here and there, I needed some food.
I found something to munch, and as I did
Screech was the sound; I turned and I saw a hood.

The hood belonged to a jeep
I guess it’s used to carry sheep.
Four men came out and gave me a peep
They tied me up and put me in the jeep.

After