What then?

The money minter? The pleasure hunter? The absolute crazy romantic?

Desire knows not, only confuses. The destinations are often disparate, the journeys sometimes identical. They be lucky souls for they proverbially have the cake and eat it too. But what about them lesser humans? All puppets of the supreme fate? Seems an unfair bargain this. The choice is almost automatic, the sacrifice without condolences.
Yet circumstances are often a scapegoat. The fault lies in the individual; in the inability to recognise the true calling. Priorities change too fast one can argue. When the time comes, there is little to debate. We become silent victims of our own short sightedness. Such cruel apathy!
Adjust, cooperate, sulk? Is this then the start of eternal dissatisfaction or just a small roadblock? We can only wish for the latter.
The larger world is always clueless. It's convenient to be misled and it's not as if we help that much. The glitter is allowed to dazzle the audience, the gloom quietly hides behind. Not the best recourse yet amazingly preferred almost always. Then there are of course the genuine empathisers and god forbid they see through the act.
Such hypocrites!
Bon voyage, you idiot!

Temporal hatred

There are times when almost all of human kind seems intolerable - all intelligent and articulate beings of vile descent. I have, on several occasions, labelled myself a 'human hater' and not without reason. 

It is during such moments that you wish to hide from human contact, tucked away safe under a bed sheet somewhere. On careful rumination for sometime, the thoughts change slightly. The entirety of the odious human race separates itself into 2 distinct groups- the friend and the enemy. Their composition solely determined by the overriding influence of the present scenario. The 'friends' then starting having a calming effect and invite us into their care. It's almost impossible to not submit then. There's little else that seems even close to as right. We give in.

Admissions of an Accidental Lover

I talk to this blog often; many a often. A blank screen can be a great listener- it doesn't judge, doesn't advise and doesn't let banal principles of objective rationality get in the way of a weak moment.

Life is insanely simple to understand when it is completely objective - a figure against a currency symbol, a number on performance assessment sheet. These objective parameters reek of human intelligence, blunt non-emotion and passive brilliance. Good or bad, happy or sad- all clearly defined. We get conditioned to stick to these objective indicators, make them the cornerstone of the yardstick of our well-being and future aspirations. Deviators are mocked- denounced 'romantic fools'. I have been no different- one among the intelligent know-alls.

And I have done well. A supernova of sorts among the brightest stars of the over-achieving human kind. I have towed the line my peers and predecessors have drawn unerringly. The numbers have all fallen in the right bracket. 

"What then be the problem?", you ask. The problem my friend lies in asking for more than what the numbers can promise. And therein lies the audacity of the 'emotional fool'- that vile race of unintelligible no-goods. I wasn't always a part of this foul breed though; in fact, I looked down upon them. Crushed them under my feet whenever the opportunity presented itself. Yet, now I am one of them. One among the useless nobodies. Oh what a ghastly tragedy!

So here's reporting from the other side of the barbed wire. Guess what? It isn't that bad. The living brains haven't been sucked out of me. Numbers are still important though. Teething problems or innate obdurateness? Don't know. May be it wasn't so much the 'either or' we thought. I dare not point fingers at the sacristy of the rational thinkers, but I seem to be garnering proof to the contrary. 

What now? The transition is difficult, strange, scary. In fact a complete switch is beyond the realm of possibility it would seem. At least that's what the rational self suggests. 

But to have a foot on either side is what I seem to be striving towards. Trying desperately to reach that perfect balance, that stable equilibrium. Yet it's more difficult from this side. Not so simple as the objective world, no. More nonsensical, irrational, stupid. I have not been prepared for this. I am struggling to stay afloat. It's too foggy, too grey for my comfort. Yet the grey is the source of seduction. The road ahead has low visibility, uncorroborated promises of supreme joy, no clear directions and way too many possibilities. I don't know whether to step forward or back. I am waiting for help. The shining North star. Does it appear on this side?

(scribbled on-board a flight from Mumbai to Kolkata)

My Unsolicited Two Cents on Ra.One

At the outset, let me state that I have not read any reviews of the movie. I had decided to this as a matter of principle. I have figured that reading other reviews before penning my own introduces additional colour in my thoughts and that element of artificiality to my writing. So this review comes straight from the heart, minutes after I have finished watching SRK’s much marketed sci-fi offering.

Ra.One is ambitious. That’s the least I can say for superhero sci-fi attempted by the ever ‘lover next door’ in a country where nothing but ‘love fiction’ sells. Science or a distant caricature of it hasn’t been handled well historically by the Indian film maker. And so, let me start critiquing this movie by declaring this the best ever science fiction movie made in India. That’s not saying much really. Most previous attempts at this have been made by incompetent directors on a tight budget or either of those two. In fact, the only semi science fiction movie which I can think of as a wholesome entertainer would be Mr.India. But then Mr.India wasn’t so much about stunts as a heart-warming tale with a lot of children to go. So a comparison isn’t fair.

What I was most curious to find out about this movie is how good a balance it strikes between Bollywood and sci-fi. Let’s face it; an outright sci-fi movie can’t be sold in India. It might attract the astute critic’s standing ovation but that’s not enough to recover the couple of hundred odd crores that have been spent in making this magnum opus. The multiplex audience is good enough for a low budget ‘reality bite’, but not this. On this parameter, I think the makers have done an averagely decent job.  The quirky moments in the first half of the movie involved duplication of oft used situational humour, but was tasteful and cute for most parts. It served to mask well, the mundane yet necessary explanatory scenes prefacing the main storyline. Similar attempts in the second half, though, didn’t go down well with me. Forceful introduction of childish humour with unnecessary redundancies like a peek-a-boo of Rajnikanth spoiled the momentum gathered by the action sequences on far too many occasions. The emotional quotient too was a little high in the second half. All this distracted the viewer from the main draw of the movie which was its technical brilliance. The latter half of the movie could have been packed more with high voltage action. Characters like that of Satish Shah were irritating to say the least. The overall screenplay was impressive. Songs too were nicely fitted into the narrative in most cases.

Shahrukh’s character baffled me to a considerable extent. It seemed confused to say the least. The first half of the movie saw him play an uncannily childish Tamil computer scientist who could speak fluent Hindi. Too many clichéd attempts at humour were made. The second half, which saw him in his super hero avatar left a lot to be desired. Admittedly Arjun Rampal, with his expression-less face seemed a lot more convincing as a video game character than SRK who just couldn’t seem to let go of his signature moves even when they were terribly out of place. Surprisingly though, for those who were apprehensive about Shahrukh looking the part, he did in fact pull that off quiet well.

Credit, in fact is due to all who worked on the visual aspects of the movie. All the characters were presented brilliantly well. The city backdrop, the flying cars, the collapsing buildings, etc were all done to perfection. From the technical standpoint, it’s difficult to find flaws in the movie making. It is of a level that Indian audiences have only known to exist in movies from across the Atlantic. For this reason alone, the film deserves a special mention in the pages of Bollywood history.

There is a considerably large population of sceptics who, not amused by “Chammak Challo” had written this movie off long before this release. The extended and almost nauseating marketing stunts have given some audiences reason to pre judge the film. This could be both a good and a bad thing. I expect mixed reactions from Indian viewers with a sizable number tending to either extreme in their reviews. All in all, I give the movie full points for making the attempt. This genre, a hugely lucrative one in the west, will take its time to roll with the Indian audiences but this is by far the best effort in that space. The movie has its flaws but for most parts succeeds in doing justice to both its technical investment and its fundamentally Indian character. Three cheers to that!

Killing Time since 1988 ..

.. and still going strong.

A part of me wishes this were not true. It seems incredibly futile to be like this almost all the time. I have been in what may be called a sedentary limbo for ever since I can remember. For as back as I can think, I have been, in the most simplest of terms, "whiling away time". It baffles and amazes me to think of how little productivity I have spewed on the face of the earth in the 22 years of my brazenly meaningless existence. But what surprises me more is that I have survived. In a society where people are dripping sweat and blood by the gallons to earn their daily bread, I seem to have done enough by doing nothing.

It's not that I like it being this way all the time. I mean, who doesn't like a week off rocking on a hammock on a beach all by themselves. But year after year of absolute nothingness? To say the truth, I would never have complained about this earlier. Hell, I loved my time off doing nothing. Being a couch potato suited me fine. I could even watch "saas bahu" and Grey's Anatomy for hours at end and still feel good about myself. After all, the temporary respite then threatened to be exactly that - "temporary". Who would  bet on it becoming everything in itself?

I have not resisted change, never shied away from engaging in what needs to be engaged in. Yet, I haven't felt the stretch. Every minute average utilized has invariably been followed by five simply let by. And that doesn't seem right. It gets even scarier when in a conversation with colleagues and friends, they proclaim to be "busy", 'really really busy" and the like. It breaks my heart that, maligns my seemingly non-existent purpose of living. What heinous crime did I commit in my past lives to be stamped with this "available" tag for life? It's just not fair.

But I haven't given up yet. I have vowed to add meaning to me. If hours on Facebook or days of watching Big Boss on television be required to be done in the process, I am prepared. As the guy with a stick on the spirit label says, I shall "Keep Walking", err, "Keep Sleeping".

Rant

I am not the most discerning movie goer. In fact, I had always believed that I could potentially spend up to 3 hours inside a movie theater watching any movie in just about any language. That, until last Sunday happened.

My expectations from Faltu (the name almost mocks me and my bank account every time I say it, so I will not mention it any more in this post) were minimal to say the least. Stupid slapstick comedy, air conditioning, reclining seats, popcorn and fountain coke- that's all I asked for. And it seemed a fair bet, Arshad Warsi, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Hard Core Kaur, etc. I was prepared for the worst. That the worst could go down to such never before experienced levels was a revelation, however, that I possibly could have done without.

Now believe me when I tell you that I have seen my share of bad Hindi movies even with the knowledge or suspicion of them turning out to be so. Jaani Dushman, Deshdrohi, Tees Mar Khan, Om Shanti Om- heck I have seen them all and dare I say, loved them. For in all these movies, deep down somewhere I felt the makers knew that they were making a hideous caricature and went ahead with it simply because it was fun and relieving. I respected them for their honesty, for their courage at being able to make such jokes on themselves. Yet my years of exposure to such enormous, odious bull crap had not prepared me for the monstrosity I was made to endure on Sunday.

I will reiterate that I was by no means disillusioned about what the level of brilliance that the movie could offer. Producer pumping money and in the hope of pumping some self confidence into good-for-nothing child, we have seen that many a often. Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Uday Chopra, there's nothing shameful about it any more. Choreographer being made to believe dancing and movie-making are two sides of the same moonwalking coin is nothing new other. Farah Khan indeed. Hard f**king Kaur, not so pretty retarded newbie, model testing acting waters, inane 'college masti', I had taken all of it into cognizance. My expectations had been suitably molded to allow room for any more slightly insidious twists. 

To be fair, the first half was actually palatable. I discovered that the chick was not pretty, that the star son had still not learnt shit and that the comic timing was just as precise as Karan Johar is straight. Expectations further lowered, popcorns munched, Coke sipped- a decent Sunday beckoned.What transpired in the second half, however,  was monstrosity of the order I cannot verbalize. It was more gut wrenching than fat ass African Americans puking cow shit, as nauseating as a dozen long nails being scratched on a bare blackboard, as surreal as a cute blonde with male body parts and as mind-numbing as a room full of babies crying in chorus at the top of their voices. For the first time in a movie theater, I could not bare to see what I was seeing, could  not dare to not plug my ears with my fingers and just could not suppress the idea of wanting to club the director to death with a hockey stick while doing the garba around him.

The problem with the movie is simple. When an incompetent director sets out to make a slapstick comedy with a lead cast having as much talent as Feroz Khan as hairs on his head, he should stick to basics- hot actresses to cater to the audience which doesn't give a crap, item song to just make sure people know the name of the movie, peppy college setting to get the "I'm hot. I'm dumb. College's fun" gang in, and a happy ending to not leave a sour taste and hence get good feedback. What an incompetent, astoundingly retarded director should not do is try to even hint at a Social Message. No! No! That was the cardinal sin that our man with the moves and a hollow brain committed and did it ever so snobbishly. The absolute manslaughter of an attempted dig at the "Indian Educational System" was obviously inspired by the likes of 3 Idiots, which in itself was a logic-less movie saved by a clever director and solid actors. Remo "I am going to get away with doing a sensational moonwalk jig every 5 minutes of the movie" Fernadez had no saviors to rescue his fast sinking ship. Admittedly, the blame cannot be squarely placed on him, for hogging maximum was the inept actor financier's son. Something, I don't suppose he could have done much about. Arshad Warsi and Ritiesh Deshmukh are good at being funny but expecting them cover up for all the other nonsense like poor dialogues, unfunny situations, senseless plot and then carrying the film on the shoulders is asking for too much. 

I spent the hour long post interval part of the movie trying in vain to doze off and block my ears at the same time. I resolved to not get up and leave. Don't ask why. Well, personal challenge maybe. I also looked around the theater to examine the reactions. While a few auntys gazed on intently, for most of the rest, the disinterest was palpable. Relief indeed. I looked back to find the two people who I am sure enjoyed the movie most that evening. Giving two hoots for moral inspectors, social taboos, the two of them spent most the three hours with the their tongues swirled around each others. That too in the middle aisle of a multiplex theater. If there was anything in that room making a statement against established social/educational norms, it was their indiscriminate Public Display of Affection. And there was perhaps that faint silver lining.

Of Bangladesh

Many distinct threads connect me to Bangladesh. For starters, I share my mother tongue with the population of this country. Though the Bangladeshi version of Bengali (also called Bangal bhasha) is weirdly accented, veritably nauseating and outright funny, it's called Bengali all the same. But my nexus with Bangladesh extends much beyond that.

I have a number of relatives in that part of the globe-scattered mostly across Dhaka and Chittagong. It is for this reason that I visited Bangladesh-once in 1994 and again in 1998. Both these trips were interesting in their own right. I was probably too young in '94 to realize the absurdity of the entire exercise, but we actually traveled to Dhaka by air. I remember my first Bangladesh trip primarily because this was my first time on a flight as a grown-up child. The flight from Calcutta to Dhaka was a Biman Bangladesh one and it lasted all of thirty long minutes. I didn't mind it then. Amidst all the flight sickness and vomiting, I felt I as if I had encircled the globe. All of it in half an hour. I was pleasantly surprised when I landed in Dhaka. Blame it on my communist Calcutta upbringing or the dismally low expectations from the trip, but Dhaka came across as a remarkably developed city. Having been brought up on a diet of yellow Ambassadors and unexciting Marutis, the omnipresence of Toyota and Mitsubishi cars on the streets of Dhaka filled me with awe. There were also a number of skyscrapers around. For a country staking claim to the title of the poorest in the world, this was surely not appropriate advertisement. Even otherwise, Dhaka was a great experience made even more special by my first and last win at a Lotto machine. I vividly remember that moment in Wonderland (no wonder!) when I hit the elusive Jackpot (Yay!! OMG ! OMG !! I can't believe it!!) in the company of shocked cousins who exclaimed, "Wow, you are so lucky !" in chorus. I basked in the glory of victory that night. Bangladesh had won my heart.

There was, of course, plenty to eat. I had Hilsa, Pomphret and every other fish that ever lived in the waters of the Paddya. If Dhaka wasn't impressive enough, Chittagong left me gasping for air. Now, either Cox Bazar is the most God-damn amazingly picturesque place in the world or I was just too dazed from my triumph at Wonderland. Either way, it was a delightful experience. So was the drive up Butter Hill. I couldn't have asked for more.

Now as heart-warming as my first visit to Bangladesh was, the second was just as gut-wrenching. By the time I made that ill-fated trip, I had discovered the evils of social gatherings. It was almost a cruel twist of fate that the second trip was made for the purpose of attending a wedding. So post the Biman landing before taking off and Dhaka looking strikingly duller than four years before, I found myself amidst a sea of mascara-clad Bangals. The big, fat, orange Bangladeshi wedding was, in one word, scary. The traumatic experience of that wedding left an indelible mark. Even today, when that song from Main Khiladi Tu Anari (remember "Churake dil mera" and Akshay 'Jumping Jack' Kumar?) plays, it reminds me of orange saris, red lipstick and a deluge of people speaking a funny language. Oh, the horror ! The word marriage would never sound the same.

I have never been to Bangladesh post that. The country, however, hasn't seized to be a part of proceedings in some way or the other. Bangladeshi cricketers (Tiger Murtaza and the last over heroics for KKR), Bangladeshi migrants (who come to Calcutta on just about any pretext ranging from a dentist's appointment to drug peddling) and more recently this mind-blowing Bangledeshi rapper.

Most things Bangladeshi amaze and amuse me. I do hope to visit the country again someday. Till then, I'll pay my tribute to this wonderful nation by singing along with my man GaliB, The Bangla Rapper.

"Aami dal-bhaat khai nigga,

Aami bangla rap kori nigga"