Is there Any Attempt for Treason?

For past few days I have been reading the articles on JNU issue by left Libs/JNU alumni which occupy editorials at most of the leading media houses, who have cleverly and successfully diverted the public attention from real issue to right of free speech, and people nowhere seem to be discussing the real issue, since they been tactically positioned as higher form of intellectual discourse no one would want to disagree with them to be labeled as lacking intellect. But I do.  

What did those students actually say that led to this brouhaha in already branded intolerant nation? Well, those people shouted two slogans, first was “afzal hum sharminda hain tere katil zinda hai”, which not so eloquently translates into “afzal, we are ashamed that your killers are alive”. So who are the killers? – The judiciary that sentenced him and/or Indian people, who perpetrated his killing. At the outset it just sounds as a Marxist falsification and propaganda, but it is more than that. It is a slogan to incite people to feel guilty of the hanging of Afzal guru and to take revenge in his name; it’s a slogan for violent reaction against this nation, definitely not a peaceful one. when would they be relived of this feeling of guilt and shame – only when they have brought down the judges/ judicial system or have taken revenge from Indian people. I know most of the Leftist wouldn’t agree with me but majorly people would agree these students who were hell-bent on inciting people aren’t innocent as they are being projected by them through media.

Let’s take it further to the second slogan, which was not ambiguous on any count. “Bharat ki barbaadi tak jung rahegi”, it literally translates into war would be waged until destruction of India. This is not just a slogan but a war cry that talks about waging war not only till India disintegrates but also its land & people are destroyed. How can this be tolerable for any citizen of this country, but unfortunately to a small section of this country comprising of left and some so-called “Intellects” this is mere a slogan not much to be interpreted out of it. Well I might have concurred with Leftist for once that their slogans are hollow and empty as their ideology but on this one I can’t.

Most of the leftist/JNU intellects would say that they are just anti-India slogans, these guys don’t mean it and they haven’t done any harm yet, so why put charges on them and bar them from their freedom of expression. This is what they have exactly propagated in media through their controlled editorials in all leading newspapers be it – The Hindu, The Indian Express, Telegraph, HT and many more. Let me simplify this for my countrymen, if there is a man comes to you and says that one day he is going to murder you, will any man or woman take such person for granted after listening to such outrageous comments? wouldn’t any such person be scared of that person and would complain to the Police for such threats. But Left/JNU and intellects would like you to believe that such persons are “intellectuals” and only voicing their opinions and they should be invited to every home and we shouldn’t obstruct their freedom of expression.Since nobody was harmed there can't be any reason for objecting such slogans. Knowing how much we care about our personal lives and less for the country, their task have become easier to portray this case as that of civil liberties believing that Indian people would relent and let such people go scot-free.

Left /Intellect and media have for past few days have been busy to camouflage this as Anti-Government but not anti-National protest. Congress, left and Kejriwal has been bashing Modi and his government for past two years, has there been any hue and cry? Did common people really give damn when Modi was being bashed-up? No, they knew that it was politics, people can differentiate between anti-national and anti-government slogans. But, this isn’t. This is about nation and much above the day to day pity politics. That’s not all, since last week a deliberate attempt is being made to create an impression of victimization of such people in the hands of so-called “Nationalist”.

In one of the widely distributed vidoes, NDTV’s Ravish Kumar argued that “Nationalism” is creation of 19^th century and too much has been made out of it, people are overly passionate about it anyone give certificate on it and snatch it from other, who has proprietary on Nationalism? Well nobody has, but everyone can make out what is against the nation and what against a party. Strangely he talked about nationalism but nothing on so-called and self-proclaimed intellectuals on everything. Who says that intellectuals can’t say dumb and stupid things in their lives and whatever they say is universal truth. How come left has got proprietary over intellect, truth and poor people. Suddenly you see that left leaning sociologist become intellectual in Economics, History, law and what not.

Now there is attempt to suppress the truth in this case by Left through their usual trick of deceit and denial, spread by the so-called intellects all over the media by nobody shouted the slogans and that the video is doctored. Kanahia himself has admitted on various channels post that event that such slogans were shouted but claimed that he wasn’t involved, Umar can be heard on videos of several news channels that what was wrong in those slogans. Now that leftist are caught red handed, they have let their propaganda machine churn intellectual articles in all forms of media that it is right-wing fabrication and no such thing ever happened.  This is exactly what they did in Nandigram and the gang-rape of poor protesters.    

The same bunch of leftist who have been denouncing Supreme Court for Afzal guru hanging now want Judiciary to decide the fate of fate of students in treason case. These people will again be mocking India’s judiciary if the case goes against them, just as they did it in Afzal guru's case. They are already propagating it as witch hunt and as if whole nation is filled with blood thirsty right-wingers.

The view of left is totally incongruent to the views of most of the people in this country. Anybody in this country who is working so hard would definitely like to see changes, transformation and betterment of everyone in the society.  People want students coming from modest backgrounds with opportunity to study at such institutions to succeed. People like me who pay taxes on almost everything so that education of less privileged people can get funded through such institutions like JNU without bothering about their caste, creed and political affiliation. Those students definitely right to have political views no matter how different from us, but calling for destruction of that very nation and its nationals is just not a change. We people don’t deserve such intellectuals, who fancy destroying the nation and its nationals who are contributing for uplifting their lives.

Trouble in Desi Love - my 2015 webmark

Climate change had huge impact in 2015, Hollywood, the amazon of global movie makers, remained dry for whole year, while Bollywood had unusual drizzle of movies, I couldn’t believe that I ended up watching some of them.

Bollywood is quintessentially dishes out masala and romantic movies, most of the movies unwittingly have similar stories cleverly repackaged time again and again. A lot of stories and aspect of romance and life never see light of day as maker are not confident about viewer’s response and ROM  (Return on Movies).  This year two of the movies that dealt with romance in different phases of life had all the usual masalas.

Masaan – one of those hindi movies that we see occasionally in a decade. Masaan has both heart and soul in place and right amount of emotions, fun, romance and tragedy as its ingredient. It is a movie about perils of love in a small town India, revolving around two couples and the difficulty love brings. How unfortunate an intimate liaison would consequently turnout to be and how difficult courtship can be in a society divided on the lines of class and caste, is well depicted in the movie. Despite the seriousness of the theme movie blends light hearted romance of young generation. Life and lifestyle of small town is brilliantly portrayed by all the characters, last such movie that effectively covered the panorama with depth & variety in the story was 2011 movie Engaeyum Eppothum, which had a different take on love life in small town Tamil Nadu. Masaan doesn’t provide instant gratification like Maggi noodles, its only afterwards you realized what was served to you.

Tanu Weds Manu Returns – As love-life sometimes can turn out to be chaotic, unpredictable and devoid of all reasons and monotonous married life can be, the sum result you expect is disaster and stupidity amplified in a movie. Like all romcom movies that exaggerate the events and scenarios in life, this movie is no different from other. The movie also has almost all the elements of Woody Allen movie – characters are emotional, irrational and in search for elusive love, the only point that this movie differs is philosophical introspection and loud scenes, which makes it perfect for Bollywood. It fills all the holes with shoot & go punch-lines and impeccable comic timings of ensemble cast. For a movie to explore and perfectly mix a dreaded phase of married life with keeping Bollywood element alive is sure rare and unusual. The very reason this movie stands out among the other movies regularly dished out by Bollywood.

     

Delhi Metro Guys

Being new to delhi, metro ride throws you fascinating facets of delhi. The Delhi metro is microcosm of delhities and a ride in to the metro throws light on one interesting Species- Delhite-Men. This specie is not much different from most of male species in the country but when the landscape is of big metro cities then their public actions are rather incomparable.

On metro train it is mostly funny as you can witness Wimbeldon effect whenever a woman enters the tube filled with men but sometimes highlight the scary aspect of gender behavior. If you have an eye for detail may be you can catch some these species in action.  

The big eye ball Guy: Many of such species are visible every day on metro but what amazes me is the surprise in their eyes every time they see fairer sex as if they have seen it first time in their lives. Their reaction is very predictable, it’s like “oh, my god they do exists”. If a young female in professional attire walks in then it is fun to watch their big eye scan.

Pole dancing guys: The uniquely set of talented guys who have created new form of dancing “gazealooko” by twisting their body on the pole to get a better look of every female going in and out of the tube, though haven’t seen anybody trying upside down act. I really think these Delhi guys should get some amount of credit for the origins of twearking.

The Immobile Guys: These are totally contrasting set of guys compared to pole dancing guys, they don’t move. In fact you won’t see them moving an inch no matter who passes by, if some girl passes by then they don’t bother to step aside, you can see how pleased they are to be brushed sideways.

Goggles Wala is an evolutionary breed, one of my favourites at Delhi Metro. After their numerous rolling eyes misadventures received keep-your-disgust-to-yourself feedback, these guys smarted to a peaceful solution of glares for gaze. I sense they are the most harmless guys of the lot who actually want to remain invisible to everyone’s eyes. The only time you can catch their presence when they have to continuously turn their heads to make a dekho.

Stare-you Guys: These guys are not necessarily the ones with big eye balls. Their game is simple, just stare the fairer sex in front of them and continuously do so for the whole damn time. These guys are not amused at women, but women indeed are.  I don’t know if they find it the best way to kill the time or consider it the most entertaining part of the journey but they definitely seem to scare the female species.

These species aren’t much exclusive to Delhi, It is not much of difficult to find them in any other city, but is easier to find them in Delhi.

I find it difficult to understand guys in Delhi on the average have good looks & built and have good sense of dressing much like other men in metros, but their desperation is quite evident than men in other cities. Some of Delhi guys are much more like “Delhi Rickshawalas” who literally jump on their prospects even though they have multiple possibilities to get hitched. May be its desperation to get hitched or may its sudden rush of blood to the small brain which makes them ‘Love- Junkies’.

I don’t know it could be either, but what’s really funny that they still act like the men in 80s movies, probably Delhi Metro is more modern than large section of delhi-men.                

Prince of Picnic - Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi is probably an ultimate dream for a rookie, the only difference is that for most of the rookies it would be a dream to have a decade carved out for internship and even a bigger fantasy would be to be continuously promoted despite all failures, but for Rahul Gandhi it is real and regular life.

In a span of almost a decade, he has continued as a member of parliament without any significant contribution, not that I have high expectations from every new comer, but specially the one who has been pushed on to top party posting and hailed by the incumbent prime minister as future prime minister, it makes sense to expect some legislative proposal. Have we seen that happening in last eight years? Isn’t that expected out of a future PM to have a strong skill in proposing and drafting legislation to solve country’s problem and take it to the future? Is there any dearth of issues in this country?

He could have showcased his talent by proposing a number of legislation on wide ranging of issues such as decriminalization of politics, administrative reforms and economic reforms. It would have given public an opportunity to see his talent and skills. But he didn’t, eight years of parliament, where person could have brought changes in country got wasted. If parliament is not the right place for him to bring in the changes then where else can he? He keeps on talking about his vision to change the politics but does he really have any vision?

Well, his great grandfather had vision on industrialization, his grandmother had her fascist views on governance, his father, considered most naïve for any political thought did his best in copy pasting the best West had to offer at that point of time. What does one hear about Rahul Gandhi’s vision? It doesn’t take much time to know as we are constantly bombarded with sponsored news all the time. He keeps on talking about cleaning politics (read his party Congress) & giving prominence to youth and other being reviving congress party…..well he has never talked of doing anything directly for the benefit of this nation, and you know why? Because, it doesn’t benefit him any way, rebuilding his congress empire sure does.

In last eight years he has only talked about cleaning his party which has been dominated by a few families, well Congress still remains under the clutches of those families, if you saw the recent election it wasn’t difficult to know the relationship between those fighting election and the ones holding party position. His talk of giving prominence to youth in the party can well be examined; UPA 1 hardly had any youth prominence in governance and political decision making. In UPA2, the youth presence canvassed by media is filled only of those second rung political scions of congress party, whose positioned have been bargained by their parents as a legitimate argument against Rahul Gandhi’s coronation as General Secretary. In fact Jagan mohan reddy, the overambitious son of ex-Congress CM in Andhra Pradesh pointed out the same thing.

In last three years there would not have been a single week where you wouldn’t have read or watched Rahul Gandhi talking about reviving Congress party especially in the state of UP. Well, elections in UP got concluded and his party remained in the same position where it was! Amazingly, her mother who is Congress party’s biggest leader and her group of sycophants stressed that Rahul Gandhi didn’t fail but it was lack of organizational structure that failed the party in the elections. Well, then who was supposed to be building that organizational structure for last four years?? You won’t see anyone in media ever asking this question for the reasons that you are already aware of, but if congress and Rahul Gandhi instead of wasting so much of money on feeding us with the news that he was rebuilding the party had sincerely done something it would have been a different case, but sincerity is not something you should expect from somebody who merely believes in political antics and that political tourism at poorman’s door brings change.

Rahul Gandhi thought he had re-invented politics by becoming entertainer and attention seeker to the masses, he never realized that lalu yadav too had attempted the same but failed miserably after some time. I don’t know who gave him idea that talent hunt shows and cricket tournaments were the right platform to get new leaders, but his approach did reflect the level of seriousness towards political matters. Walking on with empty basket on head with women carrying boulders on head would have been a totally inventive idea to understand the difficulties of poor people had people just looked at his face. He thought he could also fake his identity by calling himself common man when everyone could see that not just him but also a non political entity like his brother-in-law enjoys diplomatic immunity from being searched anywhere in the world the privilege that even our defense heads and ex-president like APJ Kalam don’t enjoy, how can he understands what it means to be common.

The problem with Rahul Gandhi is not that he fakes, which a lot of politicians do, but his lack of sincerity and commitment for any responsibility. He is one those whose politics doesn’t have any principal or credibility. He wants to enjoy what his grandparents have reaped and harvest on congressmen’s fear of loss of power without powerful brand.

Rahul Gandhi not winning the election is not a major concern but the bigger concern is the day when he becomes Prime Minister. Everybody in this country knows that at some point of time he would become Prime Minister due to political circumstances notwithstanding his political acumen. His arrogance & lack of interest to learn, his Hippocratic stance on political reforms & change, pretentious act of sympathizing with people without any empathy and even worse the selection of a looser as his teacher & sycophants as his political guide would put this country to even a bigger danger and his joyous picnic would cost us dearly.

Colours of Change

Super harmless organic colours made out of flowers by inmates of Tihar Jail. what a reform from dark side to bright side !!

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.

The Dragon Tattoo Girl

Girl with the Dragon Tatto is one of thriller movie that also turns out to be hard hitting unlikely take on religious prosecution, misogyny, sexual exploitation and dealing with fascist family past. Movie revolves around an idealist journalist entrapped in his own scoop against a company and awaiting his impending imprisonment. He is invited by a living industrialist living on a private island who wants the journalist to investigate supposed disappearance/ murder of his niece that happened 40 years back.

Jurno is struck by the challenge to investigate a 40 year old case totally written off. He tries to investigate the case but finds no headway but realizes that his computer has been hacked when computer hacker provides him with lead that seems to have connotation of religious persecution. He confronts his computer hacker who turns out to be a young girl with troubled past, he offers the case which is reluctantly accepted by her. They move together to resolve the case.

The movie is slightly slow in nature and takes its own time to establish all the characters and set up and sometimes you wonder where all this is leading to but it doesn’t looses grip. Even the industrialist and his family members who themselves are part of suspects are painfully described and their embrace of Nazi philosophy.

The discovery of religious quotation as inspiration for similar murders in the past sets the movie into investigative mode and much like investigative journalism it relies on past records of public events and audits of financial transactions of a company dating back to 40 years to track the movement of suspects, which I believe would have only been possible in a developed country.

Finally the jurno with help of his unconventional hacker cracks the case, but if it disappearance or murders that is thrill to watch. Amazingly the movie has very old school treatment as it doesn’t end there but it resolves all the conflicts of the characters and subplots at the end be it jurno’s revenge at the dubious corporate house or the hacker’s resolve of family past.

I read that Hollywood is going to remake this classic move in its own fast paced style which may skip some of the brilliant episodes of the movie and its gritty portrayal of characters, I know movie would become a hit but people may never be able to watch the original cult movie simply because it is unheard in non-hollywood environment.

The Shallow Life of Camera Pics

It was airport and two guys were sitting asideme with some distance. They were waiting for their flight just like me, to kill the boredom they took out their camera and aimed it on themselves to make it look cooler- their boring lives. They picked up poses one after another, put on their shades, little brood and there it was the pics that they wanted to put on social networking site to show the world how cool their lives and times were. It was apalling but not unusual.

Just sometime back on friendship day I was passing by a mall near our office, there was group of school kids celebrating friendship day, which involved taking pics of themselves, a guy was busy adjusting rose in a fashionable way between the lips (I still don’t know why loosers use red roses on friendship day) and his PYT on one hand, the moment he clicked his pic I knew he got it, the coolest pic for online snob..to get trail of comments and to boast how cool it the moment was. They all seemed busy in making their moments look cool rather than making it cool.

In last few years ever since digital camera have invaded our personal space with shoot, store and forget mode made it easy to click numerous photos and moblie phone cameras have added to the woes even more. Every one nowadays clicks more photographs than usual even at the times uncalled for, even i have done it on some ocassions and we all have developed a habit of piling up photographs. Social networking sites banking clicking frenzy of this generation allow uncontrolled numbers of uploads.

As a result you go anywhere you would find someone busy clicking pics, you go to restaurant/pubs/parks and you would see not just teenagers but everyone (except the really old fellas) busy clicking pics. Now everyone is so much busy in faking the moments on camera that they less about enjoying the moment. Not long back I could look into pictuers and fondly remember the event or the moment, it didn’t matter if I had posed for it or not, a simple photograph used to remind all about the event even those which we forgot or missed to catch it on camera, but now it doesn’t seem to me that people would be able to recall their moments as we care less about it and more about the people would be watching those pictures. Now people are clicking picuters to make it memorable to others than to themselves; it used to be said picture would tell you thousand stories, not any more.

Who killed the Music Channel?

Now everytime you tune to your music channel you are surprised that it hardly has any music. It has been quite some time that most of music channels have turned to reality and youth programming and have almost shunned the music which they used to concentrate on. It had started last year when most of the biggie music channels started focusing more on youth related reality tv programs.

Most of the music channels for long time were suffering dearth of music related programs; music companies were bankurpt of reapated remix albums that they had dishedout for almost a decade (most of which had remained unsold) and then item gals who had seduced buyers to boring remixes had moved on their skimpy showcase to reality tv.

Music companies had stopped producing independent music which resulted in vanishing music stars, their stingy sound bites about their album & music videos. So, music channels had lost their item gals, trashy pop music videos and they were left with bollywood movies and music.

Music channels turned with vengence towards bollywood and then almost every channel had similar programming, literally a killing proposition for viewers as they were left with watching same movie promo and movie related programs distruted by movie producers. After a while, music channels were reduced to bollywood promo channels and music was replaced with snippets from latest movie songs.

Unfortunately, almost all news channel, entertainment channel and gossips channels were broadcasting the same program. Music channels had to make last ditch attempt to save themselves so they ditched music to stick with their viewers. Music Channels died so that channels can survive.

Auto Drivers Customer Support Message

Bangalore Auto drivers message to its patrons post fare hike !!

Humpty Dumpty and Humpday

An artist (Andrew) knocks the door of his old pal, Ben,a married man, instantly reconnects with him baffling his wife. His wife tries to comes to in terms with being sidelined in her own home, while the guys bond over conversation. This is amongst the movies which are largely build around conversation, also my major motive of watching this movie. Most of the conversation based movies are largely upredicatble, you don't know where conversation would take the movie to, but in this case, you do.

The couple in the movie are conventional people, who are brought up on conventional line of thinking and living such life, i.e. Finding job/other half, getting married, buying house and planning kids. Suddenly, our pal Ben is overwhelmed with the life, lifestyle and work opportunities of his artist friend; in comparison his life is pale.

Ben warms upto the life of artists and over the conversation decides to be part of the of a movie made exclusively for a film festival that no one has heard of, all he got to do it tell his wife and if she is okay with it. One conversation leads to another and the baffled wife comes to know her hubby wants to make an “porn movie” and amazingly she is the one who tells that the movie fest is all about pornography least about art, which our fren Ben defends as artist's reinvention of pornography as art, an “alternate porn or art porn”. She asks her husband why he suddenly wants to make a porn movie, and like all normal people who are trapped in their conventional role and life, her husband is totally clueless why he wants to make an porn movie.

The most freaky part of the movie: the last part of the movie turns out to be the most freaky part of the movie. The two guys meet to make their porn. Well, i didn't tell you the kind of porn they want to make for art's sake; it's straight guy gay porn, yes, if this sounds freaky to you then you should see the last part. I was praying for lack of action, which would have made it kind of difficult to watch and digest. You would have to watch it to know if my prayers were answered or not. The two straight guys talking about ways to ignite chemistry create attraction and the reason & necessity for making such movie makes even more freaky conversation.

The Smartest thing: the whole damn movie is about a person's or writer's idea about two straight guys attempt to make gay porn for art's sake and the whole conversation which any one would have gone through while pushing this idea and the director amazingly turns this whole idea and conversation into a movie.

And finally, i really never heard of this art porns, i was really laughing at it being casting couch tapes of indie movie producers (anyways all porno producers are independent). But, damn if anyone has, please bring it to light.

Edge of darkness

Edge of darkness (EoD) is definiltely not the most awaited movie but what made me watch this movie was the name associated wiht it, it's Mel Gibson movie. In past few years Mel Gibson's name is more or less associated with gritty, violent, gorry and dark drama kind of movies.

EoD unlike such movies in many ways, its neither dark nor that violent, though it has some blood sprouting scenes in the movie. The movie largely deals wiht Mel's character coming in terms with his daughter's murder, pyschic-spiritual angle, which involves hallucination.

The other angle involves Mel's attempt to investigate his daugther's murder, which turns boring. The most amazing point of the movie is one of the sub-plots, US government sponsored company assembling nuclear arsenal with material brough from other countries, thus absolving US from blame in case such weapons are used.

Frankly, nuclear weapon could have been major portion of the movie, it would have been more gripping movie. But the movies losses its steam by focusing on Mel Gibson's coming in terms with daughter's demise and really slow pace of investigation. At end of days EoD is long boring movie, it's definitely not for those who want to catch up typical clone of Mel Gibson movie.