The three taboo subjects.

One of the very first trainings of the corporate world included ‘personality development’ (Yeah right, you see for 23 long years I had no idea that the way I talked, smiled, sat, stood, walked, ate was all wrong! Great revelation at such age). So we received a lecture on how to do all the aforementioned things properly i.e. in a way which should be acceptable globally, which means that if I am in UK I should hold the fork in the left hand and if in US it should be in right hand. (Or was it vice versa?) It was a grueling session after which I literally had to open the faucet (or is it the age old tap?) to pour some water on my head to cool it. (Okay I just added this line to reinforce how I felt at the end of it, Confused!!) The point is (what was my point exactly?) that if for time immemorial the British and the Americans cannot come to a single usage of their very own language, why should I bother to be technically correct?


Another fact which I vividly remember from that training was this: (Now comes a bit of story telling for better visualization)

The trainer in its (I’m using neutral gender to make it more of a fictional account, not to be taken personally!) flamboyant style gave out a statement which was as follows, I remember it verbatim, What it said was- “There are three things one should not discuss in public- Religion, Sex and Politics.”

So am bit confused here okay, I agree with the viewpoint that they are all kind of provocative subjects which can lead to altercations. But then there’s another side to it. Come to think of it, if all of our generation, 16-36yrs old, counting from the time of 1991 when the government opened gates to global companies after the 21% devaluation of Rupee opened their eyes and a man who is a great economist (but sadly not-so-great PM) piloted our country to a better path. So this age group was re- taught the global ways that included staying away from the taboo subjects. I am not exactly against the globalization but somehow that one statement refuses to leave my mind. The way I understood it, and I may be wrong, what the trainer implied was that to come out as a civilized, well-behaved executive representing a global company one should not discuss such things. Point taken. But again, picture this.

1. The crime rate in India, especially the crime against women is quite high. One of the contributing factors to this statistics is the lack of education, no freedom of expression and yeah right, the hushed tones! (We are civilized remember?)

2. The years marked in red: 1947, 1984, 2002 etc by the communal riots. The reason being the lack of tolerance in general public.

3. And our current state politically!

But what we have is indifference, because that’s what we have been taught. And no amount of bollywood flicks and sporadic missions initiated with vigor by activists and conveniently forgotten later is going to change the basic indifference. We are in fact stuck with an educated young population too busy in making their mark, an over active media too busy in scandalizing and some selected few who know how to make the above two dance to their tunes.

So now a quick list of things I should let go:

I am supposed to be indifferent to the recent terror attacks, the root cause of which is corruption, what else can be the reason for the frequent attacks, why is it that the US of A had just one after which no one can touch them but we are the punching bags? We are supposed to be a young nation with just 63 years of independence, where’s the patriotism gone? It again can be connected to politics so no talking of that please.

The cases pending from the riots of 1984 are still on, but no talking of that again, what if its 26 years too late.

Recently, Rahul Gandhi politically tried to brave the regional politics, there was a lot of politics involved, so yeah we all watched it on the tele and maintained safe distance, but he said something while addressing the students in Kerala, what he said was this, “I don’t expect the majority of you to spend most of your time in politics, but be aware, just awareness of the fact that in our country two different ideologies exist, one which says and sticks to ‘we all are Indians’ and that everyone has the right to be wherever they want to be and the other ideology that brings disharmony.”

Apart from the politics of the whole issue I liked this particular part which at least talked about changing the indifference to awareness.

I hope that in the rat race to come out as the civilized beings who maintain decorum we don’t lose our opinions, our ideologies and our morals. That would be too much of loss and not worth it.

So seriously, lets start talking about the taboo subjects.

All it takes is a disclaimer..

Before I get into the main story... a bit of background about how I landed up there. It started with the release of New Moon (the Twilight saga) and me listening to the OST of the movie and me again falling in love with the track “I belong to you…”by Muse.( Awesome song, listen it here: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=LMQuOkQyezU&feature=related) Like all other things I was impatient to share this song with my friends. So a week back, when I met them and we had hit the highway, it seemed like the perfect setting to unleash the greatness of the song to them, unfortunately I had already killed the battery of my motou9 (its not good on battery backup) by overenthusiastically listening to that Muse song about twenty times from the morning (and I am not exaggerating!)


So the next thing I did was remove the memory card of my cell and try to place it into my friend’s cell, one thing led to another and to cut a long story short, my memory card was stuck in her Nokia cell and for the week that followed and still is following I was left with my Motou9 minus the amazing songs and a FM radio..

Woof... that’s the background about how I landed up listening to FM in the first place!

So now, the three choices of FM I tuned into:

1. The all ad channel
2. The we are different channel
3. The promote us and get insulted channel.

And the reasons I was put off by each one of them

1. lots of ads with repetitive songs
2. Lots of ad about the fact that they don’t really repeat any song
3. Lousy, down-market language.

So now the sequence in which I got put off,

1. The promote us and get insulted channel: While it started with a disclaimer that they don’t intend to insult/hurt/ offend the sentiments of the said celebrities, whose voices they use to apparently promote their channel. I heard two such voices, but in spite of the disclaimer I was offended by the way the promo was aired. I mean it has some stupid loser going on and on about the acting talent of the said celebrity and the personal relationship etc etc. Point is, call me a bit held up but there’s a thin line between fun and vulgarity and from my perspective the said channel crossed it. Enough for me to move on…

2. The all ad channel: Now this is pure nostalgia, Eight years back when I had come to Pune, this channel was new. I remember that back then, radio culture was dead and this channel kinda revived it. I also remember that back in my PG accommodation, it was on all the time. It played some brilliant tracks and was a perfect mix of all the old bollywood melodies which I had forgotten so I got to listen to” Aisa na mujhe tum dekho..” and “Mujhe Pyaar tumse nahi hai nahi hai..” after many years on this channel alongwith the typical BoyZone, Backstreet Boys tracks and the Dil Se, Deewana tracks which were huge then. Now as I went back to it, it was just too much of ads and a long wait to listen to a song... maybe my timing was wrong.

3. The we are different channel: The longest I Was tuned in to is this. But the next time they say that they don’t repeat any song unlike other radio stations I am going to smash my FM... Seriously, Point taken, can we move on?

So that’s my experience on the radio scene these days, I am not a regular listener and still am waiting eagerly to get my memory card back so that I can go back to the repetitive songs of my play list. But the whole experience made me think about the competition in today’s world and the heights to which the media goes to claim the top slot. Also, what happened to the good old humor where the fun was not on somebody else’s expense but was subtle which left a smile on the face without having to insult someone? I may enjoy the Bakra on MTV but given a choice will watch “chupke chupke” happily for the 100th time.

Call me old fashioned, but I seriously will thank a said celebrity if he/she promotes my work rather than pass comments on their work, is it even humor? Apparently, all it takes is a disclaimer before we start assaulting someone in today’s world.

My fictional world

One of my all time favourite books, "Alice in Wonderland" and one of my favourite fictional chracters the Cheshire cat. I loved the madness and the grin. The cat is also famous for the logic and the conversations it has with Alice(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cheshire_Cat).
I personally like the "we all are mad here" quote. Its just a matter of perspective, is it not?
Another favourite character from the same author is Humpty Dumpty and his nonsensical talk with Alice in "through the looking glass". Especially when he remarks that, "When I choose to use a word, it means only what i choose it to mean, nothing more, nothing less." Kinda egotistical, but lovable.
Lewis Caroll made the two characters totally lovable and its silly but i like them better than Alice.
If i may say so, the cheshire cat is my idol and a fond remembrance to stay mad.
Whenever my sense of humor gets to the verge of exasperation I love to hear "you're mad" so that I can reply with "We all are mad here." I have a customised Tee ordered and to be delivered soon, which reads we all are mad here.
The characters are also a reminder to stay young at heart, in fact the book can cure one of any level of depression, trust me on this! I have a record of staying depressed for about 10/12.
Another era, another author, another genre. I am lately getting addicted to Nick Hornby. After watching "high fidelity" which i saw for John Cusack and "about a boy" which was for hugh grant, I finally discovered Hornby and he is one another person who makes one forget the woes of life. The words just flow like an conversation from his pen and i have finished all his fiction but i keep going back, especially to the opening paragraphs of High fidelity where the guy lists down his all time top five breakups. worth a read anytime!
Coming to the serious world, I had a serious crush on Howard Roark, he is too idealistic, but I love him for his ego and his belief in himself. and for the quotes, be it his conversation with his principal or the place where Toohey asks him what he thinks of him and  he replies with "But i dont think of you."  Then theres my favourite quote of the book, where he tells dominique to not get too attached to his work, I dont remember the exact words (and this write up is from memory so yeah am lazy and i refuse to pick the fountainhead up from the bedside even when right now am about an hand away from it) but Roark says something like" it effects me to a certain level, and then i feel nothing, and i am good till that something in me remains untouched. i cant feel too bad"(ok i ruined it). but i love the dialogue specially the something untouched part.

Next on the list has to be the "Wuthering Heights". I kinda struggled to finish it. The classics always put me to deep slumber but thats my new year resolution to finish off as many classics as i can which translates to a lot of sleep this year. Back to the heights, I loved the dark, deep, stormy connection between Catherine and Heathcliff. The quotes: When Heathcliff says that he wont have hurt Edgar though he hated him, but once Catherine's regard for Edgar ceased, he would have torn his heart and drunk his blood. grotesque!!

Blind Faith: though I hate the author (not because she is beautiful, sucessful and a published author, all the things that i aspire to be) but because she wrote blind faith which was good and she owes me 500 bucks coz i bought gin drinkers and its the most stupid book i ever read. but not blind faith. I loved it. It magnifies my fav character from Mahabharata "karna" but its not just tht, i was once compared to the main character in the book, indi, which made me read the book and i was an instant fan! she was the female Howard Roark. and definately not me.
This exhausts my list of fav fictional characters to whom i keep returning to, when reality gets too much to handle, the fictional world is the only escape.
Where are my sanity pills again??

The Power of the Supernatural

This is in extension to the earlier post of "The Era of fantasy". Guess I never overcame the fixation with the paranormal, the supernatural. Why does it interest me so much?

I decided to ponder over it a bit and came up with recent supernatural stuff I have seen/read which kind of brought Goosebumps. Not that I loved it but I was fascinated by it. On the top of the list is the most recent one, so here we go:

1. The Twilight saga: A 4 book vampire series by Stephanie Meyer, followed by a movie of the same name staring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. The reason of my fixation? A nicely written first book that makes you go back to the romanticism of the teens and the movie which had some good looking characters to ogle upon. It actually triggered a series of Google/ wiki searches. So I ended up watching and reading 'interview with a vampire' which was okay, because it did not romanticize the gothic vampire character the way Twilight did. Then I read the short story "The Vampyre" by John Polidori, which was okay too. I remember having sleepless nights after watching Van Helsing, while atleast Twilight cured me of that.
Before I'm seen as a vampire-addicted fan girl, I will move on.

2. The Butterfly Effect: The Ashton Kutcher starrer movie, the idea was cool (I need to improve my vocabulary; I usually come up with "cool" when I need to describe something.) The subsequent sequels (sequels are subsequent rgt? ) were boring but the first movie was for a want of better word cool. The time travel and the ability to change the past and land up in alternate future lines was interesting. What the movie lacked was the typical Indian climax. But who's complaining?

3. Deja vu: Again, the movie. The whole set-up was outstanding. My favorite scene is when Washington points a light at the screen and the heroine in past time reacts. The idea was fascinating. Makes me remember another old movie based on time travel 'Back to future'. I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the movie.

4. The Horror shows of yester year’s television: The 9.30 pm slot of Zee Horror show, the title music of the show which even today brings a sense of unease. Looking back, the show was gross. I did enjoy the ‘Aahat’ show on Sony though. The stories were a bit eerie but they were unbelievably believable, whatever that means. I still remember one episode where an unbelieving character is told by a fortune teller that he is going to die in a month after witnessing some signs which would guarantee his death, the signs were: 1. Blue roses, a man with three hands, Number seven and a Tiger which emits fire from his mouth. Well we all know that such things don’t exist, the plot progressed with the character seeing blue painted roses on a curtain, a man holding a sitting mannequin which looked like he had three hands (1 of the mannequin) and Navratra celebration where a performer is dressed in a tiger’s costume and giving out fire from his mouth. That sure was scary!

The fact that I still remember all of it proves that we get attracted to the unnatural. But the twist is that I have never come across a nice Indian movie based on supernatural like Butterfly Effect or Déjà vu or even Final Destination series(Not that I liked it). What we got in name of time travel was the unmentionable Love story 2050. Ditto with literature, Gothic literature is famous all over the world, but in India we still read how certain group of boys cleared their IIT exams or the usual emotional stuff. Where’s the element of fun? Is it because we are too practical or do we not believe in it enough when India is seen as a land of ghosts, ghost stories and mystic. I just don’t know.

Thinking of it, I am planning to pen a novella based on supernatural. I don’t know how much its going to be sneered at but I need the escape to fantasy to be able to deal with the mundane reality of my life where I spend nine hours analyzing material properties, MS, GCI, etc.

Mediocrity Vs Perfection

I have always held a high opinion of myself attributed to my own vanity and a bit of childhood pampering. Many things dragged me down to earth too, but that did not stop me from soaring high.
There are many things which I can confidently claim to know (know not excel). But something made me do a reality check lately:
1. I'm a mechanical Engineer, but I dont know many things, even in the field where I invested three years post my graduation. The remedy perhaps is to go for masters, but then I have access to all the literature which may make me excel but something holds me back, something which I call 'laziness' or guess I am waiting for the time till its absolutely essential to know those details. Till that time, guess not knowing how to find the elastic center of the system can wait.
On second thoughts, I dont want to lie on my death-bed still thinking of how to find the elastic center of the system.
2. I had a fixation with Guitar since childhood. My twelfth birthday saw my birthday cake shaped in form of a guitar, my uncle gifted me a silver guitar. My mother gifted me a real guitar on my eighteenth birthday. I found a tutor and since past four years I am learning to play. I quitted for two years out of the four years, but then rejoined again. My tutor tells me, "I can only teach you, I cannot make you learn". Fair enough. He cannot battle my lack of dedication, I have to do that on my own. As a result, I can play a few songs on tabs and am struck on getting the basic C Major Chord right. Bottomline: I can play guitar but I am not perfect.
3. I have always enjoyed writing, its like giving vent to all those scrambled messages in my brain. I have toyed with poetry as a kid, moved on to short stories and currently am attempting to write a novel. But still I remember someone asking me what छंद in hindi poetry means and I did not know. So guess writing is just a hobby and I never cared to get the basics right. On second thoughts, is it so necessary to understand every aspect of everything before we attempt it?
The list is endless, be it dancing, singing, badminton, chess. I have taken up and quitted on many things and if I would have to name one thing I excel in I would come up with a blank. Its like the cliched 'Jack-of-all-trades' symptom. Is it too bad? Being a jack and not a king?
I have seen people devoutly following their dream, I envy and admire such people. I dont know which hormone I lack which prevents me from being that person who dreams and then gets it.OTOH, I am someone who dreams and then lets it go.
Wow... it all sounds depressing as I read it now. So I am going to concentrate on other things which I plan to be mediocre in...
1. Rap singing
2. Chess: I want to beat atleast one good player.
3. Dancing: Bharatnatyam? (Am I too old?) Salsa (Right...ha..ha..) Still to decide, will get back to it.
4. Badminton: Again want to beat atleast one good player.
5.Learn French, Spanish, Sanskrit and Urdu.
6. Surfing(not the internet)
There are many things, guess I will keep on adding to the list, for now I am complacent in knowing that mediocrity works most of the times. I am not an expert Mechanical Engineer, but go find me a person who knows everything from what he/she studied in, can make decent music, shake a leg, jot few words down lyrically, play chess, beat me in badminton, speak a foriegn language and basically be me. You wont suceed, but you may suceed in finding someone who has a different set of talents. So that makes me realise that it just does not matter, we may be good at somethings and suck at others but as I rightly discovered few days back, we are travelling towards perfection, the universe is expanding to be of the perfect size and the only thing worth doing is enjoying the journey while we strive to attain perfection.
PS: if someone finds the above mentioned qualites(highlighted in red) I expect an email id and phone number(only if its a guy!)

Wake up sid

Wake up Sid…

It started with Dil Chahta hai… a group of three young, contemporary Indians, the face of modern India, after globalization. The ride was smooth, fun-filled with just the right amount of emotions. Goa was the new holiday destination. The friendship, the love, the arrogance of youth in balanced proportion.

It was a cult film which made everyone dance to its tunes. Then be it the music, the friendly title song which replaced yeh dosti from Sholay or Sonu Nigam crooning Tanhayee, a saviour and anthem which nursed many a breakups.

Then there were the dialogues which are etched in the mind, be it Aamir claiming “Perfection Ko improve karna mushkil hota hai” or Priety asking Aamir to close his eyes and trying to recall people for whom he can come back to life. I don’t need to put on the DVD player, the movie is still fresh in my mind. In my eyes, DCH was perfect except for the starcast which was too old to portray college kids.

Enter Ranbir Kapoor and his group of friends and we get Wake up Sid… What exactly was different in this film?

Nothing.

Sid is an overgrown child who spends his father’s hard earned money, mocks at his uneducated mother, ogles the sexy neighbour and depends on his live-in partner/companion/room-mate/friend for breakfast which he eventually learns to cook and for shelter. Then what was my take-away? Absolutely nothing.

I did enjoy the performace of Konkana sen Sharma who was as usual brilliant and convincing. It was nice to see Anupam Kher play a real role. I still hate him for doing substandard roles in Mohabattein, Beta, that Buddha movie, Apna sapna money money…

Apart from that I don’t remember a thing even when it’s just been hours since I saw it. I really wish when Anupam Kher had a dialogue with Sid after he insults his mother, he should have slapped his son, shook him hard and asked him to Wake up… would have saved the agony of the following hours.

Its true that we today follow off beat careers so Sid and Konkana are into photography and writing resp. But seriously how many people do that? There’s still a thick line between hobbies and career and both of it don’t mix.

So like I said if I have to remember one thing out of Wake up Sid… it would be Supriya Pathak’s eyes, she did not need dialogues to portray what she felt. Konkana’s expressions as she comprehends her feeling for Sid and her stage where she is seen as a child by her mature Jazz loving editor whereas she sees Sid as a child. And Rahul Khanna’s crooked smile… well that was worth the 120 bucks.. Esquare needs to lower the parking rates though.

And seriously, where was Bombay? Mumbai? I don’t remember. That’s whats called perspective.

Illusion

अनगिनत तारे फलक पे छाये हैं,
कुछ उसि तरह जैसे दीद मैंने तेरे पाये हैं,
अब है... और अब नही।
पर मैं भी कुछ बेबस सा हूँ,
छत पर खड़ा देखता हूँ इनको, पर छु नही सकता,
कितना छोटा है मेरा कद जो मुझे इन तक पहुँचा नही सकता,
छत पे उतारा हैं मैंने इनको, एक पानी भरे थाल में- अनुषा,
जानता हूँ, यह सिर्फ़ छलावा है, पर फासला तो कम हुआ...
उसि तरह एक दिन वो फासला भी कम होगा जो सेहरा की तरह छाया हे ...
हम दोनों के बीच...
बस सिर्फ़ इतना देखना को हो ना यह छलावा....