The Limitless of Awakening

Limitless is one of the most exciting movies that I have seen this year, it comes with an interesting plot, a looser & wannabe writer gets soon to be released wonder pill that awakens his unused part of brain energizing his mind and body to realize his new potential. So our looser guy “Eddie Morra” writes his first draft of the book and gives it publishers, who likes it a lot. But then Eddie realizes that effect of the wonder pill is gone and he is looser again. He meets his ex-brother-in-law to only to know that it is highly priced underground contraband sold exclusively to few people, as events spiral he gets the drug but his ex-bro-in-law looses life to make things sinister about the drug.

Eddie uses his stash of drugs to write his book, gain confidence, learn new things and gauges his new potential while charming people and ladies falling on his lap even when he is rekindling romance with ex-girlfriend. He takes money from loan sharks to work on his new found ambition. Soon he is apple-of-eye of every one and his success chases him into spotlight of the people who deal with this drug Eddie has stolen.

At first, i thought that story was written by some crack-head who definitely fantasized the effects of drugs in making you happy, cheerful and energized every time you take it and make you feel that you can do wonders with your life when high-on drugs. But, this is movie is not about drugs its effects and side-effect of drugs, though our guy Eddie indeed has to go through the process of drug abuse, in this case the wonder drug side effect actually kill the person very fast.

Faced with the consequence of depleting drug & its horrific side effects, our guy’s life is messed up with corporate guys, loan sharks and drug dealers chasing him, plus he gets accused of murder of socialite while being on high. If all these scenarios don’t kill him then his drug will surely kill him.

Now our guy needs to find solutions to all the problems in his life and get off the drug and and that not all, he is still thinking about his achieving his biggest ambition of life, while the drug is killing him from inside and our guy is toying with idea of suicide as better option to all the problems. Do the greed of life and his super awakened brain save him, that’s exactly how this thriller unfolds.

Notion or Nation of Blind Drivers ?

There is no doubt about the driving skills of Indians, it ranges from weird to disgusting. I can’t talk about road manners as we don’t have it; most of Indians are bully on roads. But the most dangerous trait of Indian drivers are any of these, its blind driving that Indians indulge in is most dangerous.

Most of the people will disagree with it saying that Indians have habit of meandering on road especially driving on both sides of the lane bar just to redeem every penny spent on road tax. Indians, actually don’t have much understanding on driving on their lane because lanes almost didn’t existed in most of the places and wherever they did people really never cared about.

Our country men are so damn blind drivers that they slip from one lane to another, you constantly have to honk to thinking you need to wake people up, sorry, and it’s actually not waking them up. I realized it big time when my car horn suddenly stopped working while I was driving. Indians drivers are like bats with car horn and ears acting sonar instrument, Indians actually don’t see and drive, Indians hear and drive. When the sound of the horn hits their ears Indian drivers decide if they are off the track. If you don’t honk most of the Indian drivers would have changed three lanes even without realizing it.

Most of the people would give damn only if you honk more than twice because their sonar radar ears have become weak over the period of time and some case their radar is so weak that you have to pray to god to save you and may be your car. Another thing that you have to constantly remind of your existence is because if an Indian driver realizes that there are no vehicles in front of a side lane then Indians instantly conclude that no one is coming from behind, and if you don’t honk your existence then there are chances you will repent your existence.

The only occasion when the blind Indian drivers actually start looking with their eyes happens when its starts raining. Then, Indian men’s sonar ears don’t work well with sound of rain pouncing upon the car. It was my lucky day that it rained and rained badly, so almost everyone got in the lane, no one was meandering; otherwise it would have been hell of ride to home driving whole stretch with blind drivers who actually can’t see you around.

The NoMore Freebie that I Love

finally, something for mother earth to cheer about...never thought retailers would implement this government order.

sad days for those people who keep on asking for extra plastic bag. BIG Boo to those who still keep on piling up plastic pouches while buying vegitables.

Make Me Dumb

There has been number of innovations and invention in last many years and they have been presented as pathbreaking and something which is bound to bring changes and make you believe that they are extremely useful. I beg to differ on several such innovations which I see some of them as useless, totally irrelevant and never required at first place. They are just there to make you dumb.

Tablet computers, to be frank it is really good improvised invention of e-book reader but badly intended for individual consumption. I don’t get the point, why another portable instrument for internet, VOIP, watching movies, pics and running same application that you run on smart phone. Just because its screen size is bigger than that of mobile phone and you have to less strain your eyes for watching movies. I don’t see much any major motive for personal consumption for tablet computers. Tablets for the fact are designed for recreational purposes not much for extensive work or education purpose. I don’t know how many people would like to carry two devices which are grossly similar to each other, infact large number of 3G tablets can make phone call through mobile networks which reduces unique application for personal consumption for a person who is carrying a smart phone. I’m not sure how long will this fad for tablets will continue considering mobile phones itself have 32Gb memory and dual core processor blurring the capability leap of tablets. I must say tablets in coming years would have great application in numerous businesses which seem to be not at all promoted at the moment.

Another make me dumb innovation is playing movies on mobile phones. It is extremely atrocious innovation for a movie buff to watch really shrunk images for hours. Movie makers spend millions of dollars to I know the big leap of this application came when ipod was search for newer avenues to keep ever bored consumer and make people buy same device again & again. Mr jobs pushed it hard as a unattended solution for human gratification of watching shrunk images. Yeah, it is much shameful for a person who himself owns a movie studio making animated movie, but obviously what makes more money was his concern not your burnt eye or creative work becoming invisible. The only reason you watch movie on mobile phones or ipod because you are desperate and not really looking for entertainment, which this application actually kills it.

Segway is an innovation for fun and sometimes with real utility. I hate this machine for the fact that it is designed for short distance usage, which is appalling for our generation which hardly does manual work and any exercise to keep body fit, segway is killer innovation for lazy generation which even wants to avoid walking even short distances. Though, it is extremely useful for aging population.

Social networks have replaced email and are killing it, this is usual announcement and future prediction that emails are dying and eventually would be extinct in future. I couldn’t more disagree with big daddy of social networking ‘facebook’ starting email service. Emails are the safety way to get connected to anyone in the world without losing much privacy and personal information compared to social network sites. Also its almost difficult to reach out to unknown people without email, which is safest bet for such interactions compared to adding a person on your network and then there is no limitation to number of email address people you can distribute but you surely can’t add that number of people to you network. So, I don’t buy the argument to shift my email usage to a social network sites which eventually start providing emails and messenger services, the oldest way to communicate over internet.

It's Different

The first and obvious answer to how it felt being married for so many years was good. What else you here from a married man caught between marriage and question on marriage. Well after some introspection there seems to be an answer to the question, it’s different.

It might be called clichéd comment coming out of desperate need to create some distinction in your married life, but I would insist it is really different. I know most of the people count similarities in married person’s life….well to begin with its called dead. People count numerous similarities in life of several married couples everything from bored life to similar family responsibilities that make people believe that your marriage can’t be different.

Well, it might not be wrong to say that married couples face similar situations and scenarios across the globe but to infer that everyone has similar experience and hence same married life would be mistake. Situations may remain same but people are always different, so every couple would have its share of arguments and fights but when it comes to my life its always different because same situations don’t yield similar solutions and outcomes, to expect my wife never reacts on expected lines, this brings element of surprise and fun in my life. You go home thinking that you have already won the battle but when you enter the house you realize that it has turned upside down.

It amazing that when people make you believe that your life is not going to be different, marriage turns yours life on unexpected lines. Marriage is a surprise mathematical equation, almost everyone knows the question and in fact they also know the outcome but surprise is the infinite number of ways that people take to solve it or mess it up, and believe me everyone takes his own route despite being told otherwise. In the end it may sound like ketchup slogan but its always different.

Comfortably Numb

It is surprising that we seemingly start becoming indifferent as we start growing old. We become too conscious of our environment and society and its limits even worse the perceived limits that we create. We start with our surroundings, when we don’t know the matter we don’t try to interfere in others’ arguments. Well it’s not entirely bad thing to do as we start implementing in beginning. Then we start enlarging this option and apply it more places at personal discretion wondering whether we have right to interfere and authority to do so.

As we continue to apply this non-interfering policy indiscriminately we start creating self perceived boundaries everywhere. As a result if we see some people indulging in heated argument we keep ourselves off that issue and if we see someone getting threatened or abused, we unfortunately use the same discretion to avoid being caught in a situation. Even more heinous act is when someone getting threatened or abused calls for help people back-off using the same pretext or may be its more smart to just bother about yourself. Then, we just go on to mind our own business and nothing else and nothing till it really hits us.

I used to think that this happens in India only and not elsewhere, unfortunately people across the globe have same tendency when met with similar situation. Since last we everyone has continuously watched one psycho’s greed for power has led him to butcher his own people and he doesn’t mind even firing missiles, dropping bombs from fighter planes to protect his hegemony. What people around the world do, nothing. Everyone is clueless, “can we intervene? Does that amount to interfering in a country’s private business? Do we actually have any right to do so?” world leaders can sit at UN and gossip about the situation in Libya but claim not having enough right to do anything or may be no one is bothered because it doesn’t affect them.

Politically speaking: In my country all secular parities, communist and muslim groups go on for protest if America launches any attack on a muslim nation but they all remain silent if it is by another muslim, because people care least for the lives more for the politics. All such groups are slient today in my country, I don’t want bring down the question about lives of people to a religious one, but it seems muslim life has a value only when issue involves a non-muslim on the other side.

Banglore Metro Trials

View of Bangalore Metro trails on MG Road from my office.

Mumbaikar in New York

While growing up in Mumbai, the city used to get invariably compared to other cities in the world, one of which always happened to be New York. NY it is better known always had similarity with Mumbai, both are coastal metropolis and also the financial hub of the nation.

Both NY and Mumbai are cosmopolitan cities with hugely diverse population and invites people from both within the nation and abroad as a city with immense opportunity. Mumbai like NY is a center for promoting arts & cultural activity and though NY is not big as Mumbai’s Bollywood when it comes to movies but it still makes movies and is big center for arts.

I couldn’t think of better city to compare with Mumbai until the Prime Minister of this country, Manmohan Singh, declared that he wanted to make Mumbai a ‘Shanghai’! what, who the f**k in India had heard about shanghai. Our aspiration from becoming world class had suddenly crashed to regional class. No offence to Shanghai, which now is a metropolis and hub of all Chinese trading activity. Is that what we all wanted. Mumbai may not be as big as Shanghai but for long it was world famous (not just world famous in Mumbai) as cosmopolitan and cultural center know over the world and invited rockstars and rock song dedications alike; where was shanghai then…nowhere.

Well I didn’t bother much about it as it wasn’t going to change much either our lives. But I got an opportunity to visit New York, very much a dream come true to visit a city which so many of mumbaikars always used to compare. The city seemed familiar, some roads were bumpy as Mumbai and there were some narrow lanes also much like Mumbai (though the only difference is that most of mumbai’s narrow lanes are built by Indians compared to the wide roads left by the britishers in the city). Downtown was crowded as Mumbai and if you got hit by another person in the crowd you would either not bother or would see the sorry face of the passer-by.

Trains were crowded and people less bothered & talkative than in mumbai but coaches much better than our still in 70s train coaches. Stations were similarly ugly though somewhat better managed and people stood in similar fashion awaiting trains as in Mumbai. With so much similarity minus the slums/BMC/corporators&contractors , I felt much at home though couldn’t deny that shanghai probably beat both NY and Mumbai with its massive infrastructure creation. It is not the infrastructure that excites politicians in India but the intention to control lives of people much like in shanghai, unlike the Mumbai and NY ability to attract remain open. Thankfully it worries less for very much non-resident mumbaikar like me as shanghai is shaped by who dictate it but NY and Mumbai is still shaped by the people who make it…well almost.

Gone Days of Vilayat

During my childhood foreign country had its own charm…which was mostly exotic, superior and unreachable for most of the Indians. There was skewed perception of foreign countries be it developed west or improvised east. Foreign country was fondly called ‘Vilayat’ and those came back from such places have numerous names ranging from vilayati Lal, vilayati babu or simply more abusive – vilayati !!

Most of the people knew it through the movies, and favourite among those themes were Indian going to foreign shore or returning after education from western countries. Though a hardly any movies in late 80s or 90s were not made on such subject but a lot of those telecasted on national channel during the period were made between 50s and 70s, the era when Indian looked towards west for everything.

One of most favourite themes used to return of western educated Indian to his homeland, most of it centered on all things wrong with the vilayati babus. So, a vilayati would always be drinking & smoking, bashing up the desi culture most important of all kicking the parents out of home!! Besides vilayat Indians were charmed with other thing vilayati- the gora women aka gori maem (mademoiselle), vilayati lal’s successful sojourn will involve landing up with a gora maem. So, another obvious theme used to vilayati lal returning with gora maem, who characteristically wouldn’t be much different from vilayati lal, doing everything from smoking, drinking and kicking parents. But, more publicized affair was that of vilayati wine than vilayati women.

Lure for vilayat percolated down to everything vilayati in pre90s days. Demand for vilayat made products was very high in India was used to be a matter of prestige to something valyati (yes, besides people the word was also used for objects). People liked to show-off their vilayati products to everyone who felt envious of not having it.

90s effectively killed the charm of vilayati products when liberalization of economy made foreign brands abundantly available in every corner of the country. Everyone with foreign band at home no one was bothered to show-off anymore. Now with everything made in china most of the people don’t actually love vilayati products as the used to be.

New millennium opened one more door and the charm of exotic vilayati locale was lost forever. The far far away land which was inaccessible and out of reach of common man became accessible to a whole new generation of Indian labourers known as ‘software engineer’. Suddenly more people had visas stamped on their passports and the stories about vilayat which once was prerogative of a selected few disappeared in photo albums of middle class people who photographed every nook and corner of vilayat including entry and exit points of airports. A decade later, vilayati governments fight to pitch their locales in bollywood movies as a destination even cheaper than our native hotspots for middleclass. The allure of vilayat is almost gone but not all as for everything else there is vilayati money.