Category: opinions

Personal opinion about culture, movies, books.

How to be a Complete Man?

People who are familiar with TV advertisements of 1990s and 2000s might have seen the Raymond’s advertisement where the tagline used to be “The Complete Man”. That tagline has faded now because kids back then used it a lot to make joke about transgenders. Making jokes about them is a complete no-no nowadays. But the phrase ‘The Complete Man’ stayed in mind and turned out to be very much mind-boggling. What is a complete man? What is complete in first place? What traits should a man have which make him complete? Moderately tall physique with slightly fairer than the 3rd level of skin complexion (as measured on Fair & Handsome crème’s fairness meter), highly refined voice with an apt frequency of 1.75 words delivered in a second which can be understood by only those who pay attention or a highly successful career as a Colony level acclaimed sportsperson (Cricket, Football, Hockey, Golf and Badminton) during late 90s and early 2000s are some of the criteria which define an almost complete man. Dimple optional. Enough about me, but still it takes a lot more to be complete.

Before you try to imitate any of the above given features, you must remember the most important trait a complete man has. That is to respect women. Although it is the easiest but still nobody follows this simple rule. Not even I. Err, don’t throw eggs, wait let me explain. In spite of all the good qualities I claim to have, one thing which kept me thinking for some time made me write this.

I travel to my office in a Bangalore metropolitan transport corporation city bus. The office is around 15 KMs from my place and thanks to the dependence on traffic conditions, it can take around 25-75 minutes to reach the destination. So when I say, I will be there in 10 minutes, don’t believe me. Now, the bus has a capacity of, umm, err, say 60 seats, about 20 of them are reserved. 15 reserved for women and 5 for Differently abled people. If you travel in the non-ac BTMC buses, you will find that usually no men occupy the reserved seats. Point to note is that the non-ac buses are mostly used by those people who cannot afford Auto Rickshaw. Frankly, nobody can afford Auto Rickshaw without leasing out your kidneys but still, those are Not-So-Rich class people. So those not-so-rich people do understand that some seats are reserved for women so they better get seated at the rear side general area. However, the Volvo AC Bus, which is usually used by those who are willing to shed some money in order to get the comfort and speed, are not that intelligent enough. People travelling in Volvo grab any seat they find, leaving a lot of ladies standing. Now, before you grab my collar and punch my jaw out, let me clarify that I don’t sit on the reserved seats. I usually go back and find a seat at the back side of the bus, and if there isn’t any, I keep standing.

Now consider the scenario which makes me an almost but not yet complete man. Suppose all the reserved seats are full and there is only 1 seat left vacant in the general area of the bus. Still there is one lady (lady means elder than me in general sense here) and I are in the bus without the seats and we both have equal opportunities to grab that seat. In this predicament, I let the lady to get the seat. Now am I the complete man? No because consider a scenario further.

Suppose there are no seats left in the bus and then a lady boards the bus. Do I get up and offer her the seat? Unless the lady is at least double my age and I am not considerably fresh and alive, I don’t. I had logic for this which has now shattered like career of Boxer Vijendra Singh. I used to think that in a city like Bangalore, both men and women get equal opportunities and earn almost the same (I hope). Also, as I have seen in the office, apart from the gossips about affairs and clothes (haha joking), women work equal to what men do. So, since we both are equals, there is no point in me standing up for a woman in a Volvo AC bus or any bus for that matter for any rich poor class. Just there, I missed my opportunity to be the complete man. My logic falls flat on its face when I realize that a woman’s work doesn’t stop in office alone. Not only she faces the same ordeal a man has to go travelling to and fro from office to home and working for 9 hours, but she also has to take care of the house. And, before you again grab my collar bone (as you already tore my collar off in the Para above) and break my nose, when I say she has to take of the house, is that usually she is the home maker, as she can manage the house in a better way. She has to manage the maids, the cooks, the cleanliness, the kids (if any) and other stuff like spending time on make-up. She does double the work a man does because men just reach home, jump on the sofa and start watching TV while the lady brings him water (talking about my future, heh). Hey, don’t grab me again, I am talking about 21st century only. So, all in all, a woman who is standing in the bus, trying to get a seat deserves more than I do. Be it a woman of any age, she still does more work after going home than an average guy does. <b>And hence, I should always offer her (girl, woman, aunty) the seat</b>. Unless of course, she is not interested in sitting at on the rear side amongst the company of men.

From now on, I expect myself to follow this simple principle and try to be a complete man from now on. Let’s see.

April 25, 2013
#NSFWComic: Shampoo

Shampoo

April 19, 2013
#NSFWComic – Adverse Effects

Adverse Effects

April 18, 2013
When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth

It was sometime in ’93 or ’94 when my uncle took me to Premprakash Cinema Hall in Jaipur. We tried to get the seats but apparently it was House Full. We had already given up but then my uncle thought of giving one more chance and tried our luck at Lower Dress Circle window. Luckily, there were 2 tickets available of the front row seats. The tickets were small chits of Pink Color, 14 Rupees each probably (and the parking chit was yellow in color, 3 Rupees), if I can guess correctly, give or take 5-10 Rupees here and there. Then I got to see, probably my first English movie (dubbed in Hindi obviously) in a cinema hall, and the movie was called Jurassic Park.

Now when you see a movie, that too an action-adventure genre, from the front row seats, everything looks real. Jurassic Park that time was watched without 3D, without IMAX and surely without Dolby Digital Surround system as well. So, what was shown on the screen was unadulterated loud and on your face fun! I was thrilled, I was frightened, I was amazed and I became its life long fan. When I was coming back from the theater, sitting on the pillion seat of the Blue colored Bajaj Chetak, we went past many camels on the way home. Those camels looked as frightening as the velociraptors. I bought dinosaurs merchandize later, along with one 10 inch tall plastic each-part-detachable skeleton of T-Rex, which was later hidden away somewhere by my mother because, unusually, it happened to be unlucky somehow. When the skeleton was sitting pretty and handsomely on the TV Trolley, my brother got his hand fractured and my father’s car got hit. So the toy went underground soon. Still, the love for Dinosaurs and JP never stopped. I went on to see The Lost World (1997) thrice in cinema hall (and it was the first movie I was allowed to watch alone in theaters with friends). Even our school took us to watch that movie. Meanwhile, whenever Jurassic Park was aired on TV, I watched it. From 1994 till 2013, if it had been shown 200 times, I would have watched 100 times at least. I stopped counting after the century.

Now on 6th April 2013, I got another chance to see the magic on big screen again. That too in IMAX 3D at Bangalore. I went to the theater and saw kids who weren’t even born in 1994 flocking in with their parents. It gave a sense of aging. Sigh. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie on the screen as much as I had done 19 years ago.

The movie had so much effect on me that I had even decided to become a paleontologist when I grew up. (Although I didn’t end up being one).

I can still remember the white shorts and jungle-scene shirt, I had worn on that day because after few days when those clothes got washed, the upper pocket of the shirt still had the crumbled pink chits.

Here’s a small tribute poster I have made for the movie:

Jurassic Park Minimal Poster

April 13, 2013
The new JEE
Not just Sherlock Holmes, but we all think and react in subtitles, citations and labels. I mean whenever we meet someone, we draw conclusions (or rather our hypothesis) out of the people, first, by their physical appearances, and then by their voice and lastly by their names. Tool-tips emerge from all the places possible from the person we’re interacting with which enables to us make an impression of that person in our mind. No? Try imagining at least for author’s sake. Now this mental picture of stereotyping was pretty fine and fairly accurate till the time we decided to jot them down, in our so-called religious text and named the Chapter as ‘The Classification of People’. In India, we conveniently call it ‘The Caste System’. Basically, the Hindus were divided into 4 classes, namely:
1. Brahmins
2. Kshtriyas
3. Vaishyas
4. Shudras
Of course the list is in order of their decreasing importance in status. Now I am not going into their history and its pros and cons. There have been disastrously long debates over need of reservations and all that. But just recently, I came across one Twitpic which showed ‘some’ people in a ‘certain’ city were following a weird filter to allow only Brahmins to buy property. There are societies everywhere who want to have people of a certain castes living as neighbors. Totally thumbs up, yo!

Only Brahmins

Unlike other bloggers and intellectual people, I am not here to show my outrage against this, for the record I find this as narrow minded as rivers of Rajasthan during summers. Rather, I am here to help people discriminate others in a better and systematic way on the basis of their color, religion, caste, creed or sex, etc. which we had studied in Civics. Yep, you read correctly, I am here to help people differentiate people.

So it has come to my notice that people are not able to differentiate people properly. People can judge others instantly but not always they’re right. You can get a lot if you get to know a person’s name. The mind traverses the binary tree of your whole khandaan instantly after your name is fully heard. Here’s an example.

If you hear the name, you first think about the surname. North Indian, South Indian, East Indian or West Indian. Now suppose the person has a name which is less than 20 characters. Then, the person surely is from North. If the person has all the gods name in their name, South Indian. Now, the person could be amongst BKV or S (caste-wise). Ok, Brahmin. Which kind of brahmin? Because, yes, there are millions of kinds of Brahmins. Heh, and all think that they are superior brahmins than the other. OK, you are superior, fine. What’s your Gotra now? Ooh, you don’t know? Tch. There are millions of Gotras too which further classify the kind of Brahmins. I am sure, this has something to do with structure of Universe and Atom. First you are a Brahmin, then, Vaishnav Brahmin, then Bharadwaj Gotra, then some Sub Gotra A, then Sub Sub Gotra B and so on, just like Galaxy, Solay System, Planets, Atoms, Nucleus, mesons, quarks, etc. Posh, totally. So if you planning to fall in love, make sure the person you are going to like falls in your caste. Another point, just the caste should be same, not the gotras. If Gotras are same, your young ones might be born with super human capabilities or x-men types nature. If you are planning to give house on rent, make sure the new tenants are of your same caste, otherwise whole vastu can conspire to bring your name down in the society. Make sure, when you go to a restaurant, the cook who has prepared food for you is of your same caste too. The chicken you have ordered, should be born and brought up in the house of the person of the same caste. And even the chicken itself should be of same caste, gotra optional.

But sadly, many young people don’t know all this. Blame it on their school or Facebook. They have totally absurd perception about castes and sects. Like in Western-Central and Southern India, some people generally believe that if a person doesn’t want onion in their food, they are asking for Jain food. Utterly wrong. I am not a Jain, I kill insects. But still I am a vegetarian and don’t want onion and garlic in my food, officially. While, many Jains I know have onion and garlic compulsorily in their diet. Will they go to hell? Time will tell.

So I have come up with an idea of Entrance Test. Entrance Exam for Castes. We can call it JEE only. ‘Jaatpaat Entrance Examination’ or ‘Jaathpaath Entrance Examination’ to make South Indian people understand. This should be a written test and only if one is able to score 75%, then only one should be allowed to called a certain caste person. After passing the written test, one might go for further verbal session where you have to display your mettle verbally too. Suppose you are a Brahmin and you are Yagyopaveet (thread) wearing one, you have to show all the kreeyas which you are supposed to do. There are many kreeyas but most popular ones are Early morning, brahma muhurat one and one sandhya vandan. If you are not doing this, your brahmin title can be relinquished. Now, suppose you are a lower caste person and want to upgrade your caste. Well buddy, that is not possible in this birth but unofficially, you can pwn the upper caste person by using the magic wand called as Reservation for SC/ST and OBC. That helps and you can use the same wand for your kids, even if you don’t need it financially but who cares, caste is important.

For those, who want to capitalize on this and open coaching centers, please contact me. I have many people around who excel in telling the religion and castes of people just by looking at their shoes or nails if the person is not wearing any shoes. Also, thinking of creating a startup who supports IVR which helps people in determining each other’s caste before getting into a phone based Long Distance Relationship.

And oh, what is your caste anyways? If you are not eligible, I demand you to unread this blog now itself.

Related:

https://www.quora.com/Indian-Caste-System/What-is-the-Indian-caste-system-How-does-it-work
April 11, 2013
Batua

जेब छोटी थी, बटुआ बड़ा। बड़ा भाई रखता था तोह मेरी भी इच्छा होती थी। एक दिन मैं अपने दादा जी के पास गया। बोला कि मेरे बटुए मैं पैसे नहीं हैं, भाई के तोह पास बहुत सारे हैं। उन्होंने हंस के 10 का नोट दे दिया। मैंने वोह 10 का नोट, संभाल के पर्स की सबसे अन्दर वाली जेब में रख दिया।

वक़्त बीता, मैं कमाने लग गया । बटुआ अभी भी वही था।

आज सोचा कि नया बटुआ लूं। पुराने को यहीं कहीं किसी कोने में डालने ही वाला था की ध्यान आया कि उसके अन्दर एक 10 का नोट पड़ा हुआ है। आज दादाजी नहीं हैं। नोट को देखने की हिम्मत नहीं हुई और अब बटुआ पड़ा हुआ है अलमारी की अन्दर। सुरक्षित।

P.S.: Inspired by https://twitter.com/angrykopite/status/301390756751482881

February 12, 2013
Zubaan badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi

सिटी बसों में दफ्तर जाने से काफी कुछ सीखने को मिलता है । आगे पीछे, आमने सामने, भांति भांति के लोगो से पाला पड़ता है । बैंक में आपके कितना भी बैलेंस हो, दफ्तर में आपका कोई भी औदा हो । जब सीट नहीं होती, तोह आपको खड़े रहना पड़ता है । भले ही नयी वाली ‘दम मारो दम’ का टाइटल सोंग जो की दीपिका पे फिल्माया गया था कितना भी ओछा हो, लेकिन सच्चाई बता जाता है। आपके साथ वालों से जो, हेह, गंध आती है, उस से आपके सस्ते महंगे दो परफ्यूम का प्रभाव शून्य होजाता है । वोह गंध आप पर तब तक चढ़ी रहती है जब तक आप ऑफिस के एयर कंडीशनर वाले गलियारों में नहीं पहुँचते । ऑफिस में भले ही आप अपनी पोषता का बखान करते फिरते हो, लेकिन सड़क पे आपकी औकात उतनी ही है जितनी की एक बिजली की खम्बे की। आपको बस इतना प्रयत्न करना है की आपको कोई जानवर गीला न करदे ।

ऐसे ही कल की ही बात है, में अपने सवा 9 घंटे की आवश्यक, हेह, शिफ्ट ख़त्म करके ऑफिस से निकला और निकलते ही सामने से आती बस में चढ़ गया । शाम के वक़्त बस थोड़ी ओवरलोडेड होती है, सबको घर जाने की जल्दी जो रहती है। मेरेको सीट नहीं मिली तोह मैं दरवाज़े के पास ही खड़ा होगया क्यूंकि मेरेको किसी काम से अगले ही स्टॉप पे उतना था । जब से थोडा कमान शुरू किया है, और चूंकि, घर थोड़ी से ज्यादा दूरी पे है, मैं ज्यादातर वॉल्वो बस में ही चढ़ता हूँ । लेकिन जैसा की मुझे आगे थोडा काम था, मैं सामान्य में ही चढ़ गया। जब एक बार आप सीट पे बैठ जाते हो, तोह ज़्यादातर आपका ध्यान खिड़की से बाहर होता है। लेकिन अगर आपको अपना सफ़र खड़े रह कर काटना है तोह आप हर आगे पीछे खड़े बैठे वालो पे ध्यान दे सकते हो। टाइमपास के लिए और क्या पता की कोई ऐसा चेहरा दिख जाए जो आँखों को थोडा अच्छा लगे। गौरतलब है की किसी को देखना और निहारना अलग बात है, और किसी को गौरना अलग। इसी बात की तोह आजकल बड़ी डिबेट चल रही है। आप एक क्षण किसी को देख ज़रूर सकते हैं और जब जेम्स ब्लंट का ‘योर ब्यूटीफुल’ सुनते वक़्त उस पल को याद कर सकते हैं। और आप किसी को लगातार इतना घूर सकते हैं की सामने वालो को ग्लानि सी महसूस होने है की ऐसा क्या है उसके चेहरे पे (या थोडा नीचे) कि  सामने वाला अपनी नज़र ही नहीं हटा रहा। ऐसा नहीं है की देखने वाला हमेशा ही गलत विचार से देख रहा हो, लेकिन ज्यादातर तोह सबके भीतर विचार गलत ही आते हैं। तोह हुआ यह, कि मैं खड़ा हो कर, बैठे हुए लोगों को हल्का फुल्का परख रहा था। सामने देखता हूँ, की एक बन्दा अपने मोबाइल फ़ोन से झुक कर कुछ कर रहा है। जल्द ही समझ आया कि वोह कैमरे से कुछ करना चाह रहा है। शायद खुदकी बस में बैठे हुए एक तस्वीर। सेल्फ-शॉट प्रोफाइल पिक्चर। उसका मोबाइल तोह ठीक सा लग रहा था, लेकिन शकल ऐसी नहीं लगी की ट्विटर वाला बाँदा हो। हाँ फेसबुक टाइप ज़रूर लगा . और इतना स्पेसिफिक stereotyping कर ही रहे हैं तोह उसको ओरकुटिया कहना बेहतर होगा। फिर मेरी नज़र उस से 3 फीट दूर बैठी एक लड़की पर गयी। वोह लड़का शायद उस लड़की की ही पिक्चर लेने की कोशिश कर रहा था। साफ़ बात थी की वोह लड़की उसके साथ नहीं थी। चूंकि में बैंगलोर में हूँ जहाँ सभी लोग हिंदी भाषी नहीं हैं, हाँ, लेकिन थोड़ी इंग्लिश सब जानते हैं। थोडा जिझक के में हिंदी में ही चिल्लाया,

“अबे ओये, क्या कर रहा है बे! लड़की की फोटो उस से बिना पूछे कैसे लेता  है? इतना दिखाया है TV पे की अपना हम आदमियों को ही अपना attitude बदलना होगा वरना इस देश में औरतों के साथ बुरा ही होगा! समझ नहीं आया तुझे? चल माफ़ी मांग उस लड़की से और सारी फोटो डिलीट मार!”

फिर ध्यान आया की मेरी आवाज़ नहीं निकली है। मैं यह अपने दिमाग के अन्दर ही चिल्लाया। फिर दिमाग हिस्से के एक हिस्से से आवाज़ आई, की हो सकता है उस लड़की को कोई दिक्कत न हो। और शाम से वक़्त वैसे भी बस में अँधेरा ही होता है तोह वैसे भी ढंग की पिक्चर नहीं आएगी। और मुझे क्या कोई किसी की पिक्चर पूछ के ले या बिना पूछे। हाँ अगर वोह लड़की से बद्तामीजी करके तोह मेरा फ़र्ज़ है की मैं उसको रोकूँ। और उम्मीद रहती है की ऐसी नौबत ना ही आये। यह तोह TV वालों ने थोड़े दिन उम्मीद जगाई थी की सब सुपर हीरो बन सकते हैं। कहना आसान है, करना मुश्किल। 2 ही मिनट में वोह लड़की बस से उतर गयी। उसको पता भी नहीं चला होगा की शायद एक ओरकुटिया बन्दा उसकी वजह से शायद सेल्फ-juicing करेगा। सेफ का सेफ और किसी को कोई चोट नहीं पहुंची। कुछेक के सम्मान को शायद पहुंची होगी लेकिन सड़क पे क्या सम्मान। वैसे भी नार्थ में बस में लिखा होता था की ‘अपने सम्मान की रक्षा स्वयं करें ‘। इधर भी लिखा होता है लेकिन कन्नड़ में, तोह समझ के बाहर  है। फिर अगला स्टॉप मेरा था, मैं भी उतर गया और यह बात भूल गया। रात को शान्ति में थोडा फ्लैशबैक हुआ तोह लिख दिया।

अपनी बात ज़ोर से बोलने की कोई तो तरकीब होती होगी, जो की मेरेको सीखनी बाकी है । जो बात में 2 लाइन लिख के भी कह सकता था, उसके लिए इतना सब लिखा ताकि मेरी गलती कहीं छुप सके। येही तोह सीखा है अब तक।

February 2, 2013
Find someone your own size

Man is an animal. Social or not, is still being researched in labs. But animal nonetheless. What do animals do when they don’t agree on stuff? They fight. But somehow this got twisted. Earlier when men disagreed, they used to sort it out by debating, arguing and even then if the matter still did not solve, they resorted to physical way of sorting their stuffs. But that was then. Now, there are people who earn money by arguing for the people involved in a disagreement and then they seek the final ruling from a person who keeps publishing judgements by referring to a book some learned people wrote a while back. But how long an animal can remain tamed? There is a limit no! You just loosen your pet’s rope, your pet won’t take much time to go 9211. Same way, it has been a long time, man has been kept tamed by the books. When I say man, I mean man.

So majority of men are not in agreement with their fates. Each and everyday, man gets frustrated. This frustration is sometimes because of the book which his uncles wrote, which was supposed to bring equality and justice to him but it failed. It failed because of other men who had better brains and pro-active traits used the book to their benefits. Darwin’s survival of the fittest is one of the best known facts on this planet. No matter what the era is, only the fit will survive. Nowadays fitness is measured by the amount of that specially minted paper you have in your pocket. So those who don’t have such stuff, shouldn’t feel frustrated for this is just science. But then, men also have this emotional harmones in their brains. So they get frustrated. They cannot help but get bogged down because of the things which happen around them. They get frustrated because of no monies in their pocket, no hope of any decently earning job, no hope from the government, no appreciation from their boss, no sense of driving on the road, no replies from that girl, no hope in anything.

A man keeps accumulating this frustration till the brim and finally one day it spills out. Mostly on the physically weaker counterpart of the man. On those who won’t retaliate. Beating up wives is the easiest thing to do a man can think of. Scolding his kid for everything and anything and eventually going physical is the way to go. Beat, thrash and scold the people you know. Best way to take your frustrations out. Because when they suffer, you suffer (remember Stan?) and it becomes an addiction. Wash, rinse, repeat. Replace water with the people you think cannot fight back. Or if you are on the road, take your anger out on the fellow driver. Abuse, go physical, do whatever you can to transfer your anger to the other guy.

Then there is one more way. Go out and eve tease any female you see. It is the easiest thing to do in this country. Not only, you will be able to curb your desires but also, your frustrations will feel soothing. Moreover, now a days this is in Fashion as well. So have your chance, do the due.

But, wait, wait.. before you do any harm to anyone else, I have an idea. Actually the idea is Tyler Durden’s. But I also have the same idea. Why don’t you find people who are frustrated like you are? Find them, ask them to come to a safe place at the night after work (or if you are unemployed, anytime is good). Start. Beat the hell out of each other. Bring out your masculinity there. Bring out the real you, the untamed wild animal who was never tamed but just dormant-ed because of some hypocrisy. The blood you will see on other’s face will help to calm down your frustrations. Start a Fight Club I say. This will not only do a hell lot of good to you, except some bruises or worst case you dead but at least you will not hurt the weaker people who cannot retaliate against you. Just pick up someone your own size, to be precise. Just in case you feel guilty after hurting the minnows.

The only other thing which can tame a man, is education. Not schooling, but education. So either we need to educate people or let them start a fight club. No other solution to this system.

P.S.: If this doesn’t make sense to you, its okay. If there are grammatical mistakes in this, still okay. Nobody bothers. I had to take my frustration out, so I puked it over here.

January 30, 2013
I'm not a movie buff

Yes, I am not a movie buff. I don’t watch movies much nor do I remember them for long. I think I stopped taking movies seriously after 1994. I last danced (without being pulled over in a baraat or DJ in college) on Pak-Chik-Pak-Raja-Babu (The song lifted from Chikku-Bukku-Raile and made ‘awesome’ by Govinda by wearing Michael Jackson’s Bad attire) on my own by doing all those moves and rolling over the floor dancing / ROFD. I could also do that stuff kids used to do back then which was imitating a fan by rotating one of your legs squatting on another leg while dancing. I have seen Allu Arjun do the same recently. He only got to know about it now? Poor chap.

When I was growing up I was told that watching movies is not a good thing at all. Instead, it was taught that one should concentrate on studies. I used to play a lot and watched Cricket at odd times. But no movies. Probably because my experience of watching movies was weird. Once I had to gone to watch the movie Dil along with my uncle when I was just 3.5 ft tall in a nearby movie theater called as ‘Lakshmi Mandir’ in Jaipur. Now they show only 18+ movies there sadly. Or rather good for some. While I was entering the hall, because of it being crowded, I got lost in the darkness. When my uncle finally found me after 10 minutes, my cheeks were all wet because of tears. I mean how can a 3.5 ft tall guy tolerate being lost in darkness while Saeed Jaffrey unleash wrath on Aamir Khan and Madhuri. Then once I went to see Bol Radha Bol with my parents (I think that was the last movie I saw with my father and mother together in a theater). Sadly, we couldn’t see the climax because my younger brother kept on weeping throughout the movie and father decided to go home because he didn’t want others to get disturbed. I felt so bad that I told them that ‘leave me and go, I will come back on my own’. He instantly declined the plea because it was a night show and I was just 3.7 ft tall. Later, I got the video cassette of the movie and watched it on VCR at home itself. I loved the movie by the way. During the period from ’94 till ’98, I just watched very less Hindi movies and usually Animated movies or Jurassic Park sequels only in theaters. Including Godzilla.

Studies weren’t helping either. Probably I was in 7th and read this beauty of a story in Hindi called as ‘Punchlight (पंच लाइट)’ by Phanishwar Nath ‘Renu’. It was a story about a village where the Punch (village headmen) weren’t able to use a Petromax lamp and then a guy called Godhan (who was considered a useless and छलिया types guy because he used to watch many movies and sing indecent songs from them) helped them because he knew stuffs. Although the story was pro-movie watching as it said that watching movies makes you aware of stuffs but till then I had decided that movie watching is a waste of time.

Now after coming to Bangalore, the only pastime left here is watching movies because there is nothing else to do in this city frankly. In past 2 years, I watched more movies than I had watched all my life. Moreover MMP happened. I got in touch with so many people who are movies aficionados that I feel awkward to comment on anything. I have been often called as a movie buff whenever MMPIndia was featured in newspapers which made me feel bit weird. If one makes some graphics out of movies, that doesn’t mean that he is into movies or anything as such. But. But I don’t hate movies. I just hate useless movies. I admire some cinematic brilliance and want to know more and more about those people and watch all the movies they have made. People can discuss lengths about certain characters portrayal on Twitter and write thousands of words on what they interpreted about certain movies on their blogs. I don’t. I don’t review movies because art is subjective and carrying out discussions over fiction is not my cup of tea till now. The movies which were offered to us in 90s and 2000s kept me at bay as well. When I watch a 70s movie, they look so much better (and so slow but still good) because their content was worth watching. Seriously, if you keep feeding a person with bad quality food, one day he get used to it. And when suddenly you serve him great quality food, he won’t like it at all. The taste of the movies of my friends has moulded in such a way that they can watch Salman Khan movies and like them. I cannot. For me to become a movie buff, I need to see better movies. Better directors who are plenty in number nowadays can do that. There are some great people on Twitter who know a lot about movies and I am keen on learning from that. Being an Indian, one cannot be separated from Movies and Cricket. Hence, I should not get away anyways.

Having said that, if you find out the number of movies an Indian watches on an average, I would still have seen lesser number of movies than that number. And I would like to keep that this way. As they say that if you start watching more and more movies, you begin to explore for more and more about them. I am currently in that phase.

Bol Radha Bol

P.S.: I watched Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola today and liked it instantly. Great quirky and intelligent humor. I recommend it and refrain from giving any rating.

January 13, 2013
Water Cannons vs the drizzle

Read a tweet in the morning that they’re holding a peace protest at Freedom Park, Bangalore at 4 PM and it will continue till night. I decided to go for it. After lunchtime, I thought of getting ready for it. It started to rain. I thought that it is going to be difficult to travel in rain. The good distance of my place from Freedom Park wasn’t helping either. I thought, let it be, what am I going to change by going there anyways so better chuck it. I planned to sit, watch TV, write some angry tweets and move on.

Then realized that I have decided not to go because of Rain. Rain? Rain? Suddenly, mind started throwing pics in front of the eyes. The pictures of Water Cannon being unleashed on young kids up there in Delhi in such cold unbearable weather. Felt ashamed of myself. Then made one poster (last post) to depict shame. Coincidentally, a friend (female) SMSed me to come for the Candle Light Vigil at Freedom Park. The quota of shame for myself was done for the day. I stood up and got ready. It continued to rain, but we went there. Many people were there, speaking all sorts of Indian languages but the message they wanted to send across was clear and heartwarming. We people can still be united, however pessimist you may think. It was so windy and drizzling continuously that the candles were hard to handle. Hot wax was, for the first time in life, falling on the hands giving an uneasy irritation. Plus rain. Plus Bangalore traffic mixed with Rain on the way back. Some wax has fallen on to the Shirt and rest on shoes. Will clean it tomorrow.

Here are some pics from there.

P.S.: 3rd time feeling proud of myself. (After donating blood, attending Anna Hazare Movement and now this) I know nothing is going to change just like that but better to try than to crib. Thank you Kalpana for motivating.

December 30, 2012