Schrödinger's cat?

Life is a bit weird. Not much but a bit for sure.

I was alone in the apartment with nothing to do. So I watched ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ in the afternoon yesterday. The movie is good and gets you thinking. Later in the night (very late, at around 1200 midnight), I thought of watching Nolan’s Insomnia, there by completing all of his finally (ESOTSM is not his BTW) in the living room. The movie again, though not as grueling for mind as the other movies of his, but indeed thought provoking. I had switched off the lights to get a better viewing experience as well. In the middle of the movie, I heard a small thudd outside the door. I ignored it once but when I heard it again, I went outside to find no one. Thinking that it might be just wind blowing across, I continued with the movie.

The movie ended up at around 2:00 AM. I shut the laptop off and I switched the lights on. As soon as I entered my room, I find a dark brownish cat sitting on one side of the bed. As it happens, when you switch the light on after spending some good time in darkness, eyes take a while to adjust to the brightness so I was caught startled. I mean, if you don’t have a pet, who expects a cat sitting on your bed at 2.00 AM in the night. Like myself, the cat too got surprised and jumped off to run away. It went into the living room and jumped out of the window which was, say 20%, opened and ran away. It was not scary but laughable. I cleaned up the bed to check if it had not done some shit and made my Saturday Caturday! It hadn’t.

So I slipped into the blanket (Bangalore is a hill-less-hill-station, remember?) which felt unusually warm on right bottom side (and it was not warm as in Wet warm) and tried to sleep which I could only after an hour later. The mind itself keeps imagining things, no?

Now whenever I will enter my room, I will check once if there is a cat or not. It could be there, it could not be there.

–—

Update: 28 November 2012

Found the cat alive, sitting on a bundle of newspaper at 3.30 AM making scratching noises in the apartment (again). Thrilled.

Unboxing Nikon D3100

Ya ya all of you already have DSLRs and I am the last one to buy one, it is OK. I was as excited to finally own it like I was happy while riding the bicycle without side wheels for the first time alone. So here are the unboxing pictures.

Also, Happy Birthday to me!

Few promises:

I won’t click:

  1. Black & White pictures of old wrinkled faces.
  2. Self-Picture looking into the viewfinder standing in front of the mirror.
  3. Pics of toes because that phase is now over.

Pakistan Open

Islamabad: As a spontaneous reaction to the 31st May’s Bharat-Bandh in the friendly neighborhood country India because of the Petrol Price hike, Pakistan has decided to call a Nation-wide Open on 1st June in their country. They have decided to keep open all the roads, cinema theaters, schools & colleges, restaurants, shops, hospitals, Courts and their Senate and National Assembly which usually are closed owing to the threats from local nuisance creating groups. Also, the government institutions are generally shut down because of the callous and laid back attitude of the people working in these places as they don’t know who is in charge, the government or the army, rightly so, they shouldn’t be blamed. All the mentioned places and institutions will resume their services at wee hours of the morning and continue to remain open till the late hours of 1st June 2012. The local police authorities (heh) have cascaded this information among all the facets of the society, both terrorists and non-so-harmful-civilian population of the state.

A majority of the civilian population has welcomed this gesture by the government because they are happy that for the first time Government has decided to open and work. Prof. Qureshi, a well-known name in Pakistan’s Political Studies forum, and a regular in Times Now show with Arnab Goswami, from Lahore had this to say, “These Indians are always up to something notorious. Creating all possible measures to make Pakistan look like a minion. Which we are not. Yes. So this move by the government to open up against Bandh in India is a great way to show to the US that we want development here! They might give us some economic aid as a result. Nowadays, khafa khafa se sarkaar nazar aate hain. Hilary came to Asia but didn’t announce anything good for us. Tcha!”. Hina Rabbani Khar has decided to do a road show in Karachi to attract camera persons from media from all over the world and especially from India to let know that Pakistan can do whatever Indian can in a better manner and with a pinch of glamour too. But certain eminent personalities in the society are afraid that Indian Government might use up this working opportunity to create some mischievousness again. Mrs. Fatima Rehman, a women’s rights social activist said that “This useless Government always wants to compete with India. What is the need? They make missiles, we will make 2 missiles. They make Agni, we will make HATF, Arrey WTF, what was the need of this Open-Day? We are trying to be peaceful since some days now and now when everything will open, people will come out on the roads, some body mua from RAW will again disrupt the peaceful country of ours. We are happy this way!”.

Ex-Pakistani Cricketer, now a British citizen was also wary of this Open day concept. He has rather suggested to counter India by creating a Cricket league of their (Pakistan he said to clarify) own and try to attract the sponsors. He said that whatever he is saying, it is because of the fact that he considers himself a brand ambassador of Pakistan in the UK. He said that he is getting lot of moolah by playing in IPL as an export from England but he feels that  Pakistan can compete with India by creating a League where no Indian Cricketer is allowed to play. Though he suggests that Pakistan should not be showing too much arrogance and should allow Ravi Shastri as a Commentator and Mohinder Amarnath as a bowling coach because IPL also allowed Rameez Raja and Wasim Bhai there. Imran Khan has appreciated the ex-Pakistani and now a British citizen (like most of the Pakistani cricketers).

The terrorists clan of Pakistan has welcomed this decision and have issued a fatwa to not to kill anyone just like that, only if needed. They want to show that Pakistan can do a better job in Kashmir so they have planned to show off their strength by spilling petrol on the roads of POK, which they call Azad Kashmir, because petrol is just around Rs. 60 there in Pakistan.

(Disclaimer: It’s only a rumour that Pakistan is trying to stage a Pakistan Khulla. Their actual motive is to make India buy fuels from them and topple the Indian economy face first)

Love, Wrinkle-Free Post

Ladies and ladies (the only readership of this blog) okay, gentlemen too,

Feeling proud to announce that I got a chance to make official posters (Minimalistic) for the indie movie ‘Love, Wrinkle-Free’ releasing on May 25th. Posting some of the finalized designs here. Don’t forget to watch the movie this weekend in PVR in about 10 cities in India. To know more about Indian indie scene and Love Wrinkle Free, do check out this And let me know which of the following is your favorite:

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Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/LoveWrinkleFree

Website: www.LoveWrinkleFree.com

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Lovewrinklefreemovie

Critically Act Lame Post

Since the day I’ve became famous (heh, I’ve still got a bit of humor left in me) and was adjudged a movie buff, I’ve come across plenty of people/bloggers who kind of consider themselves as movie reviewers. Not that this is a new practice or path breaking stuff, people used to share their takes on the movies they watched earlier too, peacefully. I also shared my expert opinion about Tashan once and how much I enjoyed it but everyone is a reviewer now. Whenever a new movie, music album, TV show or even a trailer hits the web/TV, they come out and start pimping their expert reviews about the subject with the word go. This pimping continues every <insert your desperation limit> minutes on Twitter and other social media platforms till <insert your tolerance limit> until you click to read the review finally. And I have a problem with all that jazz.

Firstly, anything which is shoved up your face that read my review on this and that, becomes a turn off. But since we are on Twitter so I should better stay away from this practice.

Secondly, I firmly believe that nobody has any right to hold back anyone from sharing their opinion. Everyone is entitled to say what they feel where ever they want, whenever they want, how many times they want. My problem is just that while they are sharing their opinions, they forget that it is ‘their’ opinion and ‘their’ opinion only. I look for certain words and phrases in their blog posts which range from: in my opinion, i feel, i think, it looked like to me, my point of view is that, my conclusion, etc. And I found none. Nobody owns any copyright (heh) or any qualification to become a reviewer but point to note that it is you who is giving your opinion about a certain thing. What you have concluded cannot be the final judgement. Look around, the movies you had written off, say Housefull 2, to be a circus of non sense scenes and full of idiots, has earned more than what you could ever dream of. (I have not watched that movie and have no intention to watch crap) In a country of ours where opinions are so much divided that people can fight even over anything, even the way one glanced the other, how can you be so sure that your take will be even given any respect. You talk about technical details? Take a look at your own blog Sir/Madam and the aesthetics of the space from where you are announcing that the movie is a unedited series of ham videos not even worth of being shown in Bangladesh’s Funniest Videos but the movie ends up being a hit and the normal people actually enjoying it whole heartedly? What sense do you make out it?

Like they say, the best way to become famous now is to hit below the belt and when the person cries out in pain, take pics of him and put it on 9gag. Similarly, to become a critic, blast the movie off. Don’t become a constructive reviewer, no no no no no, how will you be famous then, just make fun of it, that is the right way, no? The most hilarious thing is the stars or thumbs up these reviewers give. This movie had bad direction, lets cut 1.523454 stars out of 5, this actor had slept with the producer’s wife, lets add 0.69 stars to it. This movie had brilliant music but all inspired from Asian and Arabic music, lets cut the stars from the rating by 2 bilangs.

Try doing something creative and let others judge you. Then review whatever you can.

That is my opinion. And i don’t expect you to follow it. But you should.

The Story of Minimal Movie Posters India

When in life, one goes to a rock concert, the feeling of envy creeps into the skin. You immediately want to be the one who is throwing his head with a microphone in the hand. You want to be that guitarist who is making the crowd go crazy. While you actual sit in a lame seat in one side of the stage only able to tap your foot with the thumping beats of the drums, you mentally want to jump on to the stage to sing that number which you sing the best in turn making the fans shout out your name loud and girls screaming at the top of their voices.

When you see someone dance on the stage with poise and style, moving elegantly, each move calculated and brilliantly performed, you want to be that person and win the hearts of the viewers by doing those lovely steps. In your mind, you imagine your entrance into the scene and making the auditorium go berserk with fans whistling and hooting for you while in reality you are just tapping your fingers and thinking of what could have been a better step which the dancer missed. You want to hold the dance partner in your arms and make people give oohs and aahs while watching you two dance in tandem.

When you watch that sports match of your school or college from outside the boundary, in your mind, you want to be on the field, you want the crowd to chant your name. You want to take the catch diving and sliding. You want to hit the ball out of the boundary as hard as you can. You want to bowl so fast that the stumps breaks into two. You want to hear the audience scream your name as loud as it can be. But…

But this usually never happens. You live your life like an average person does. You go perform your daily chores thinking that hoping is another thing, reality is another. You believe in fate and give up on your confidence. The peculiar feeling of jealousy and helplessness shadows your mind and you accept it. You assume that not everyone can get fame the way they deserve. You doubt your ability to do the things you like doing. This assumption hinders your mind to think beyond what you could have achieved by thinking a little more. But you assume that this is how life is going to be like so you stay the same. Average.

Hello there! I am talking about myself and you too probably. We are the average guys. We know that we deserve something better and we are not alone to deserve that. But then things happen if we believe in ourself. I am unable to write any motivational blogpost because I don’t want to but this post will tell you something if you haven’t been reading newspapers regularly nowadays.

There is a very rare chance but if you follow this blog then you will know that I started that http://MinimalMoviePostersIndia.tumblr.com blog one fine day on 5th of January 2012 after being inspired by the original Hollywood one whose link I am not sharing here. I had started it for my own pastime but then people started liking and contributing to it. AR Hemant was probably the first person who appreciated the work and then also contributed to it and shared the same with some of his friends. I became we and people liked it. I was very reluctant to publicize it as I thought if it is good enough people will automatically get to know this. Idiotic I say. When you can, you should make full use of the resources to show people your stuff, as many people told me this soon.

I asked few of my online friends like Meghana Kulkarni who had interest in designing and movies to contribute. She also came along and shared her stuff. More people liked it. And then we had enough posters to be called ourself as a website a well fed growing site. More people started contributing and our engine started and we took off.

On 29th February someone from Mumbai Mirror noticed our work and published a small but important story that was our first story that got published in any newspaper. Meghana was pro-active in getting a 10 day slot at Grubshup, Pune to hold our first ever exhibition that helped us gain enough velocity launch into the right orbit. On Twitter, I shared the link of the Golmaal poster because of some #SameGuy tweet to the genius @diogeneb and when he retweeted, the site went viral. We got around 900 odd hits that day. This made us established into the correct orbit.

I being the face of MMPIndia, by chance, got phone calls from Indian Express Pune, Pune Mirror, Hindustan Times Mumbai and DNA Mumbai.  Yahoo!, thanks to AR Hemant again, featured our website on their front page. That was huge! The number of hits on the site amplified and we reached more than 1000 hits that day.

6th March, I went to watch Paan Singh Tomar. After I came back, I made that poster which still half of the world doesn’t understand. Somebody shared the poster link to Anurag Kashyap who shared it with Irrfan Khan. And on that day I got phone calls from both of them. Take a pause. Breathe. Yes. I got actual real phone calls from both of them. I mean wow. Anurag Kashyap said ‘Damn good job’ at least 4 times that day. Irrfan Khan, the PST himself, loved the poster and asked for high resolution copy of it. In the same week, I got to know that my tenure in the client office is about to get over. Bench period was knocking again. But it didn’t happen though.

Next week, I made the Kahaani poster. Somebody again shared the link to Sujoy Ghosh. Somebody was most probably @navjotlive. Sujoy shared it with Vishal Dadlani who wanted the poster for his T Shirt. Same day, Sujoy Ghosh called me on phone and again, I was amazed and still cannot believe it.. Site is on 99 posters as I write and queue already has few posts to be published soon.

Since then we have been featured several times on various websites and newspapers, with and without credit but that happens because it is Internet. We have inspired many people to start up their own Minimal posters pages and some of them didn’t thank us for the inspiration but that’s okay again. Let them enjoy the fame they got because of us but I would certainly like to thank few people, not in any specific order but here are their names: Hemant, Meghana, Hirni, Shaunak , Madhuri, Harshita, Anish, Rajat, Abhishek, Ankur, Sogani, Ojasvi, Vinod Raman, Navjot Gulati and all my friends who saw the work and helped it to become more famous. I cannot write name of everyone but you know it and I know it 🙂

So things for the average guy has been going pretty fine since few days. It was an average day and an average artwork graphically but it was simple and was made with simple intention of bringing few smiles on the faces. We have been able to do it till now. Hoping that this shall continue, before I sign off to make more posters, I would like to dedicate the happenings of last 3 months to few people. They being: Rahul Dravid (for whom I wanted to write the longest ever dedication post but couldn’t do it) and Sachin Tendulkar (for being the God himself, what to say about him) and to all the teetotalers and vegetarians of the world 😉

P.S.: The 100th poster, by number, is shown below.

Minimal Movie Posters India
Minimal Movie Posters India