Dozen tips for SRK… what he should do next...

Is official now: you need to be a complete retard to watch the movie RAOne…and unfortunately, dis Sunday, I was a perfect example of one (retard)…

After watching the debacle called RA One and claiming temporary insanity for the same, I now feel that the disaster that is SRK needs to revive to its former K-K-K-K..KKKiran glory…  So here are a dozen tips which will hopefully help SRK find the lost tag of Baadshah of Bollywood once again…

1)    Change his name to Salmaan Khan

2)    Make sure Rajni Saar is part of all his future movies…

3)    Visit every house in every village in India, creating a propaganda against Salmaan Khan

4)    While shooting, always be on save-d-ass mode…

5)    Get Team Anna to promote his future movies

6)    Produce Marathi movies in support of Shiv Sena and MNS violence. Create RAOne type avatars of Raj and Bal Thackeray for a Playstation game, depicting them as superheros …or supervillians… BAL.One and RAJ.One

7)    Bribe every Indian to watch his next film…take help of Suresh Kalmadi and A Raja for the same..

8)    Create fake Twitter and Facebook accounts and write great reviews of his movies

9)    Thrash Metallica's equipment in concerts so that more people are forced to watch Ra.One

10)  Agree to do a family's chores for a week for free if they watch the movie; once in 3D and twice in 2D

11) Get Kolkata Knight Riders Team to wear RAOne/G.One attires for all IPL matches…

12) Declare World War III and threaten that the only way to avoid the war is if all the world citizens’ end up each buying a ticket of RA.One in both 2D and 3D versions… get Digvijay Singh and Parvez Musharaf to support him…

Note: All these tips have been written with a serious heartache and intend no sarcasm to the human race and fans of SRK… Wishing him luck and another Chak De for Don 2…

For the not so faint hearted people who have managed to watch RA.One and survive the ordeal…. I salute and bow to u in deep respect...both at the same time, and leave you with the following RA.One jokes I found on the net*…

·         Govt has declared 26th October as a public holiday to celebrate the end of Ra.One promotion!

·         Govt of India just announced Rs 50,000 relief to all those who watched Ra.One. Rs.25,000 for those who left atinterval.

·         rocin, Disprin, Combiflam, Adol Panadol, Diclomol and all painkiller out-of-stock after Ra.One release.

·         Salman to SRK after watching Ra.One: "Mujh par ekehsaan karna, dubara aisi movie mat banana"

·         Even Ra.mu doesn’t want to waste time by watchin Ra.one!

·         Ra.One gives more pain than a wife - HARD TO BELIVE BUT TRUE.

·         Get Ra.One under Lokpal bill…! Put people who made such movie behind bars.

·         Ra.One was shown on an airplane. People still walked out.

·         RA1 is like Titanic. Massive size, unmatched luxury, same old story, and, at last, a total waste of money and complete Fail.

*Source: http://www.newsbullet.in/movies/25-more/20394-jokes-on-srk-as-raone-inspires-online-wisecracks

Torture of a tortured soul: my lifetime lesson in patience

I am just in the process of completing my thesis on “how-to –tolerate-crap-movies” and yesterday I had d ultimate lesson…Thanks to a stupendously flop Mausam; I now feel that I will be able to complete my Phd thesis very shortly… infact if you have managed to watch this movie in its entirety at one shot- you should get much much more than a PHd… a Nobel Peace prize and a Bharat Ratna for “Outstanding achievement in Indian cinema” should do it…or maybe just about…

And mind it- that would be significant in itself… assuming that you can still remain a follower of our Gandhian non-violence principles and receive Bharat Ratna for just being a audience…

Discounting the fact that I am incorrigibly attracted to Sonam Kapoor , I think the word timepass got a new dimension in Mausam. Thankfully, there aren’t any movie theatres in the vicinity of 20kms where I reside in Sangamner… or else I would surely have wasted a Rs 20/40 on this movie when it had released…but considering that I wasted 3 hrs on dis awesome creation, and equating it to d Time value of money and blah blah…. I seem to have spent a fortune…My Gwadddd….such a waste- please forgive me LORD…

Sample this- the story covers a span of some 17 odd years and the lovers have an incredible habit of getting separated every time they meet. The coincidence of their coincidental meetings in their coincidental lives is too much of a coincidence…I split with my girl friend 5-6 years (?) back and although am willing to auction both my kidneys just for a chance to bump into her again- such things never happen… shucks… movie life mast hain yaar…

Shahid Kapoor does his best to behave like an Air Force squadron leader…but looks too macho, boyish and artificial at the same time- that mustache doesn’t make you a man my boy(!)..  Sonaam Kapoor (- okay I know she isn’t d best of actors) looks enchanting… so no grievances in that Dept… even her artificial in-your-face blatant attempt to act is pardonable… Supriya Pathak- Sonam’s mother in d movie sulks the entire period- not sure how anyone can be so consistently sad and Anupan Kher is wasted with a blink and you miss role…

The movie covers all the major riots n religious warfare in the last 2 decades but fails to state any purpose for the same… Pankaj Kapoor’s direction makes you realize your worst nightmares and music is trashy… clearly Pritam has lost the entire original soundtrack collection from which he plagiarizes and is currently going through a UPA2 like crunch period… clearly India’s most brilliant actor Pankaj Kapoor should stick to acting unless he wants to turn a 2^nd class film director to obtain a gatepass for the Big Boss house…

The dialogues in the film is mostly forgettable  and ends with something as shady as:

“kuch maine khoya hain ,kuch tumhne khoya hain aur kuch yeh mausum ne khoy hain...chalo milkar eek ghar basaye……..”

ewwwwwww…unka toh ghar baas gaya- lekin mera dimaag ka kya?

Most importantly the film is 2.5 hrs long..and not even a period drama…. Who makes 2.5 hr movies these days?

I leave you with this:

I spent 5 hrs, innumerable pauses, a year’s worth of patience, half a packet smokes, interspersed with innumerable FB chats, to be resolute enough to watch the whole film… so unless you feel masochistic please avoid this torture at any cost…

PS: my first attempted Film review- temme how boring it is…

Khwabon ke Parindey

I wish I could think or write like a poet….or atleast I wish I could pen down a few lines of poetry whenever I wanted to or felt like …not that I have ever aspired to be one…just that off late I have been understanding and learning to appreciate the miraculous manner in which poets can join words into a beautiful flow, giving rhyme and rhythm to their sequence of thoughts…to compress their ideas to a few lines which touches us so easily… 

And there is always the other side…usual convention is that girls like d macho guys …. Girls somehow also swoon over even those few chalta hain type of poets….

 WTF…I always found poetry boring and an utter nuisance in school…never could understand a single line of what the poet meant (not sure whether i even cared what (s)he meant?); but I was expected to quote those lines in my English and Bengali exams…yucks…and now i feel inadequate to write a few of those lines which I always hated………life can change you…or watevah… but somehow it also makes you wish you were much much more that what you are….

 Possibly one more flaw of our education system is, it make you fail to understand and appreciate the good things in life… or possibly when you are in your teens, you are too immature to comprehend these subtle nuances, considering your interests and priorities are quite different at that time… but then life has its own balancing act for our own human frailties.... till I learn to understand them…i guess I will continue to feel a bit poignant with my own inability…

Leave you tonight with these lines from the song khwabon ke parindey- no guesses who wrote them am sure…

Ude, khule aasaman mein khwabon ke parindey
Ude, dil ke jahaan main khaabon ke parinday
Oho, kya pata, jaayenge kahan….

Rapist on the loose

House hunting is always difficult…but  now it seems I can get through to IIMs with lesser effort than this… after 6 weeks of  attempts outnumbering the hair in my head, and turning up with miserable results every time, it seems like we have attempted the mere impossible… I wouldn’t be surprised if India wins the hockey gold medal in London 2012 Olympics*, but I will be terribly surprised if I find a room in Sangamner in the next two weeks…

And with that, I am now realistically facing the prospects of being homeless in the very  near future…

The enormity of this challenge is compounded by several factors which count against me…

                                                           

1)      I am single…* and I used to be glad bout it!*… (sigh)..

2)      I am manageable to look at…and have a skin complexion which clearly discriminates me according to their standards...

3)      I have a criterion of a clean lavatory to be available either attached or near the room….

Now I can still compromise in the 3^rd factor…but on the first two, I have no control…. I just can’t help it… While house hunting in Sangamner, the first thing people ask is whether I am single or married… and can you even comprehend the shame of a 26 year guy having to say he is still a bachelor? There definitely must be something wrong about this guy which he isn’t revealing….

A typical conversation with a potential landlord goes like this:

Me: Do you have a room?

Landlord (potential) : are you bachelor or married?

Me (smiling): I am a bachelor (sic)

Landlord (potential) : what’s your age?

Me(faking another smile): 26 years

Landlord (potential) : *looks away…thinks for a few sec-the guy is 26 and unmarried-must have some past history which he isn’t revealing*… and you still aren’t married?

Me (another fake smile): No

Landlord (potential) : Sorry I can’t rent out my house to a bachelor…I have a daughter/mother/sister/wife/or any female relationship which you can care to think of…..

Me (frowning and thinking): *WTF…am I a bloody rapist on the loose or what?*

But honestly I don’t blame these guys… they belong to a section of society where guys marry at 22, girls mostly marry even younger … one interesting observation which stuck me a few days back is: in the last 1 month or so…the villages I have been to, I have either seen girls in school dresses (if they have one) carrying books, or I have seen girls tugging their kids along…. There just doesn’t seem to be any girl which doesn’t belong to any other category….at least not in public places… weird? expected? Something to worry about?

Whatever it is…seems like homelessness is the only option I am staring at right now…so incase you know anyone or have any contacts in Sangamner who is willing to rent a house…please let me know…till then, the only thing I can do is curse Nepolean…. It was easy for him to say the word impossible doesn’t exist in his dictionary….but then...Clearly he had never hunted for a rented house in Sangamner….

*India is still struggling to qualify for hockey in London Olympics 2012, but hopefully they will qualify and go on to give us a Chak De moment to cherish…

All I Need Is To Be Free

“A Little Sweet, A Little Sour
A Little Close Not Too Far
All I Need, All I Need
All I Need Is To Be Free”*

An incomprehensible concept...I am yet to grasp the true nature of the word Freedom....why is it so important to us all? Why do we keep reminding ourselves of this concept every now and then?

I don’t know...whenever I think , I feel that Freedom means different things to different people...and it is often a more overhyped word than it should be...but then that’s my opinion....

Sample this- during this year's Independence Day, I was in a village called Tirpad in Ambegaon Block of Pune. Usual village obsequiousness resulted in me being requested to deliver a speech at the local primary+ high school compound during the flag hoisting ceremony…

For those who know me well enough, you know I hate public speaking…so having little idea what to say (as is usual with me all the time) to those huge number of expectant faces I started with the question “what is the significance of 15^th August? And what does it mean to you?”

Though someone was kind enough to translate it to Marathi, not a single kid from the crowd responded… not a single one???????????? infact they were possibly looking disappointed that I dint take out my Harry Potter like wand and tell them some of the dark conspiring secrets of sorcery, or whether SRK was indeed having an affair with Priyanka Chopra…shucks…

I realized that all that we had been taught about country, independence etc mean little to us really… as in we love our country on a more broader and academic sense….but we never really understand what freedom means… atleast I never did… neither did any amongst the crowd of 350-400 people who had gathered in the village school compound that day… does it really matter?

Today evening, I was on Google chatting away with one of my friends who happened to mention that she is contemplating applying for higher studies, that too outside Kolkata as it will provide her the much needed incentive called freedom (from her over protective Bong parents in this case)..which lead me to think all this...

I guess freedom is a more panoptic notion than we care to understand… simply put- I guess the way each of us will describe the word is “ability to do what we want to do…” “Not having any restraints”etc… but if we allow such a scenario in the world then wouldn’t that lead to total chaos, anarchy and arbitrary behavior? So what is the solution then? I guess it is to behave in a way which is fitting enough for the society…ensuring everyone has equal rights etc etc… 

but WTH…isn’t this against the very idea of the word Freedom? The concept of doing what I feel like? I don’t know…seems contradictory to me…..and makes me think that Freedom as we know ,exists in a more mild or moderated version of the original word… a subjective principle; which we are so fond of believing that, we tend to believe in its totality… Absolute freedom seems to be an impossible concept..I may be wrong over here…but does it matter?

Anyways….i wasn’t lecturing… I usually do that with a live audience and when I have had a few shots… so incase you wish I hadn’t bored you and that I need to end this essay better …just hear this song- one of my a favorites of all time…

*Source: Song Mera Jahan from movie Taare Zameen Par

Making of my life...

Was watching Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara today for the second time and was touched with this piece of poetry at the ending.. a little bit of googling tells me that Javed Akthar has penned it (ofcourse-who can can write such beautiful stuff?)....check it out:

Dilon mein tum apni
Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Nazar mein khwabon ki
Bijliyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise
Aazad rehno sikho
Tum ek dariya ke jaise
Lehron mein behna sikho
Har ek lamhe se tum milo
Khole apni bhaayein
Har ek pal ek naya samha
Dekhen yeh nigahaein
Jo apni aankhon mein
Hairaniyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Dilon mein tum apni
Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum

A few months back i was undergoing a dilemma about my life on similar lines...I have always wondered  what i wanna achieve in life...and like everyone else with time my answer keeps changing...however, one thing i realized is that i want to experiment..its my life..and for some reason i dont want it to be the boring corporate types i was leading...i needed a change and a fresh new perspective to it...

I have always been interested in working in the social sector (not that i am too fond of the term "social")...and I came across an opportunity to experience this sector first hand through a Fellowship program i got selected into...I was scared...believe me... quitting a job which I enjoyed and absolutely loved doing was not the exact plan i had in mind (but honestly i dint have any plans in mind)...

Somehow i made the decision and here I am... 2 months down and i am absolutely cherishing the experience so far....With hindsight now i think i should have done this earlier...the freedom, the flexibility and the passion with which i manage my work now is incredible...

Finally, i think i am knowingly or unknowingly breaking away form that cocoon in which i had isolated myself...i can feel it..i know it deep inside me....and it helps...possibly staying and working with the grass root people disciplines and humbles you a bit ... 

I was always impatient at heart... but finally I am seeing those dreams which urges me forward each day....

finally, i am learning to live life like the free waves of wind which the poet talks about...to receive every moment in life with open arms and view them as new opportunity and new beginnings...

I can possibly safely say "Zinda hoon mein"...so don't just count me out...not just yet...