Whatever happened to the *** box?

So, we thought the Indian showbiz industry and the audience had come of age when they accepted an adult movie star as their lead female actor, and when the characters in movies like GoW blurted out profanities galore. Yet, all this while, the untiring attempt by the holier-than-thou censor board to shield its tender audience was penetrating deeper levels.

Yes, we were always used to "bad" words being muted (and I was more than made aware of this custom in the one odd season of Roadies that I saw back then!). However, the definition of what qualifies as not-so-discreet only seems to have grown broader by the day. Firstly, it kills my television viewing experience. Also, it perturbs me to see how virtuousness (well, someone's idea of the same) is being enforced on people.

As far as my reading goes, this rule only applies to the videshi channels, because, well, they are the ones contaminating our innocent people, aren't they? This, after a generation of our urban youth has grown up laughing to Friends, and admiring the guy who made the 21st Century Fox logo so majestic!

Now, these days, I am accustomed to switching on the TV on getting back from office, which is rather late. Unsurprisingly, there is hardly anything delectable on the Sony's, Zee's of the world (atleast at that time of the night), and so I prefer watching the sitcoms playing on Star World/Zee Cafe/CC. I believe, these days, all of these channels display subtitles, which I am happy about (though mostly it is distracting, and worst of all, gives out the joke before it has been cracked). The first time I heard a word muted (uh-oh, the maine Mr. India ko dekha paradox) was when they muted and starred the word ***.

It killed the scene, but then ***, however often used by me and people around me on a day-to-day basis, IS an offensive word. I was like, "Stop ***ing around with my TV watching!". And then I realized that every second-third sentence had a seemingly offensive word, like - "I have been working like an ***!", "What a glorious piece of ***" (multiple usage!). And then slapping all advocates of proper *** education for the young, they muted ***. I mean seriously. Every *** movie, they are seeing it. And what is wrong with knowing and/or saying the word ***?

Thinking of a censor-able name, I came up with two!

And then they go about bowdlerizing every other random thing. So, it'll be like - "What are you going to do now?". The other guy says - "Mari***". And the audience goes - "Uh, Marry who?". The worst part is this kind of censorship goes out of the window when it comes to Hindi soaps. Of course, they are allowed to show extra-marital affairs, women being mistreated (yes, yes, I see that disclaimer in the end too! It doesn't change anything). And obviously, gaudily made up women can abuse their daughter-in-laws (For some reason, I have the words kulacchini and kulta in my head). Also, I wonder, doesn't saying bhaad mein jaa a lot like saying "Go, *** yourself!".

And if kids is who we are shielding from these, one must really see the kind of stuff that happens in the cartoons that feature on TV these days. I see my nephews and nieces, and the conversation their favourite cartoon characters have, and I remember Tom & Jerry who never uttered a word, and Hewey, Dewey, Lewy/Louis who were so da- innocent.

Point being, I believe most of it is rather unnecessary. I really don't give two *** as to what the moral police thinks. There is a line post which one will have to trust the young minds from creating their own filters. Growing up, as they say, is an 'immutable' law.

Barfi! and why I am not drooling over it...

Back off Raymond. Now, Everybody loves Barfi. I do not happen to belong to this everybody clan, and I choose to write about it, as I have little else to write about!

I saw Barfi the exact same weekend it released, and having read internet reviews and seen people extolling it over their status messages, I could barely control my excitement on my way to the theatre. There couldn't have been a better start than the movie being preceded by the trailer for 'Makkhi'. Those five minutes of daredevilry by a 'not-so'-common housefly literally cracked me up. I later acknowledged that that was the most fun I had in the three hours that followed.

The movie had a rather pleasing first half with Ranbir doing a neat job, and Ileana effortlessly looking the copious amounts of 'cute' she is. The tom-foolery, interspersed with refreshing melodies ('Main kya karoon', and not to forget the 'Pichchur shuru' during the credits being personal favorites) was quite endearing. Here is where I begin to deviate from consensus.

I did not find Priyanka Chopra's portrayal of 'Jhilmil' very attractive. Anyway, I am not a very huge fan of the actor. And also, people who claim they could not even figure out Jhilmil was Piggy Chops during the first half or so, are dimwits. If you have seen Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bacchan in 'Koshish' playing mutes, or say the kid in the 90s 'Anjali', her depiction, though fair in its own right, was not a revelation. My favourite scene featuring her was when she is sitting with her dying Grandpa who teases her with a crystal ball. Needless to say, I loved the sequence because of the ever-so-sweet Grandpa, who reminded me of my own.

Also, the whole kidnapping fiasco, was unnecessary. The tossing of the shoe was rather cute, till the director chose to overuse it to dramatize the climax in the orphanage. Moreover, it beat me how Barfi began to really care for Jhilmil. There was little leading up to the juncture where he began ignoring his old muse Ileana and yearned for Jhilmil.

I shall not delve into all the hullabaloo being created around how sequences, concepts, tunes have been copied/inspired from various other movies. An assortment of known flavours can still be delicious. Why this particular movie was chosen to be sent to the Oscars will always perplex me. The other day one of my colleagues justified it by commenting on how 'Lagaan' with its cricketing context (and thus, very Indian!) could have never appealed to the 'phorener' Oscar jury, and Barfi with its universal (read 'Hollywood') character might end up doing so.

In this case, I have always believed otherwise. In the foreign movie category, movies with a dab of their own culture must be preferred (not to imply that I stood by 'Paheli's inclusion). In all, I hope the Oscar jury is erudite enough to look beyond the regional references that they might not understand, and judge the nominations on a like scale.

Barfi. It left me asking for more, and sometimes, that is not a good thing!

Of love... (and some rhyming words)

Countless poets and songwriters have been born,
Of men and women with hearts lovelorn.
Playing with a pen the chords of their heart,
Mightier than the sword, say some, and vicious as a poisoned dart.

'Tis the beauty of true love, it fails to die,
It lingers in the morning drizzle, and the mournful sigh.
Not till then you realize, how the heart can ache,
It does, and literally so, till that is all one can take.

Pain brings out the creative in you, they say,
The judge, of what's good, in the audience does lay.
They applaud, for, sometime, they have felt the anguish,
The others, they never in love's cove did languish.

Of late nights and sleepy mornings...

The title to this post couldn't have been any more misleading. The 'life is a party' picture is so not what I want to paint with this one. I am not in college anymore! With work, life becomes a recurring loop of five day waits for weekends, and two days of not being able to squeeze out what one had in mind for the weekend. 

Amply aware of the digressions I am capable of, I will now consciously move to the idea of this post. I write this post at 00:00 (Thursday midnight), and of course, I have work beginning 7:30 tomorrow. Posting this right now is as avoidable as all the random surfing and song listening I have been upto for the last two hours. Yet, this is a story I see repeating every night for me.

At 11:30, I am like - another half an hour, must sleep by 12. At 12 I go, what's wrong with another half maybe. At 12:30, I do the math and find I have another six and a half hours to sleep. Then I quietly pick up my phone, and delay the alarm by another 5 minutes - w00t w00t! I made myself some time. I can always rush through some of the morning chores!

Fast forward to next morning. My biological clock makes sure I wake up around half an hour before the alarm is supposed to go off. The chirping of birds and the intensity of sunlight is enough to tell me that I don't have much time left. I do the horrible error of checking time, and my fears are confirmed. I pull my bedsheet over my head, and force myself to enjoy the few minutes of sleeping time left. It's hard to imagine how annoying it is.

Suddenly, all the sounds around you seem to amplify a thousand times. All of a sudden a distant bird realizes it is time to chirp periodically. Then there is always this newspaper/book lying open somewhere in your room whose pages decide to flutter. Or the alarm belonging to one of your flatmates, who has vowed to get up early to jog or something, goes off in the other room, nearly two hours before he would finally wake up (obviously this alarm, though right next to his ear, fails to wake him up).

Then, it is time one's own alarm sounds the death knell. I usually prefer to keep it at a time when I have no option but to pop out of bed. I mutter myself some abuses for keeping up late the previous night, and promise myself to come back and sleep early that night. Today morning was no exception!

A tale of two disasters

OR How to spoil your weekend mornings 101

After my last post (which got appreciated and shared for reasons much different than what I had intended for!), I had planned to be more regular with my blogging activity. However, a break there was, as it was a busy phase at work, but more so because I really had little to write about! Some events this weekend, though, seem to be fodder enough to spend some time out of the really valuable 48 hours that form the weekend. Over the last few weeks, our utilization of these hours has 'improved' with our newfound regimen of an early morning jog, followed by a sumptuous breakfast, and then feeling happy over how many hours we still have in the day. Why we wake up early morning to do all this, when the rest of the week is spent ruing over the little sleep we get, is a point that beats us. The reader might want to take a shot at judging our psyche and help us out!

Saturday (Not a sequel to Miss Black's work of genius)

Cut to this weekend, and we decided to push things further. Not only did we get up early and complete our morning rituals, we also booked tickets for a 10am show for the newly released 'Prometheus'. We were obviously beyond ourselves with delight over having packed so much in such little time. The movie began well, atleast well enough to make us hope for a good two hours. Then it degraded into one of the regular sci-fi dump that the west is so good at, well, dumping on us. The script was convoluted, the effects were good but way short of stellar, the only female close to being described as 'good-looking' (Charlize Theron) was cast in the most un-glam and horrible of roles, and the "chic" 3D glasses we sported were barely useful as the most I saw of the third dimension was during the titles.

Needless to say, we got out at noon feeling a lot less happy about ourselves, with a lot of groans over some of the other movies we could have chosen to watch. However, I am sure we managed to sleep over the disappointment in the afternoon.

Sunday

The morning weather has hardly been better since I set foot in this city, and it's been over two months now). There was intermittent rainfall, and a semi-cool breeze. We had given the morning jog a miss, but still got up for a timely breakfast. Now, our usual breakfast haunt is this rather simple, pure-vegetarian place right next to where we live. When we reached there, some of us felt like having a toast and an omelette (preferable accompanied by tea, I added). So we firmly decided to explore and find a nice, little cafe to indulge in what we call the 'English' breakfast. Calls were made to JustDial, cab drivers were asked their opinion, but none of them yielded any concrete information on an omelette-serving place nearby open at 10am. So we hired a cab and set out. Brushing aside details of the journey, we finally settled for a plush hotel, where I am sure we, in worn out tees and shorts, looked like Joe Satriani in a hair saloon.

All we ordered were three omelettes, and were asked to separately order for six slices of toast. We were being indulgent and were definitely prepared to shell out an amount commensurate to the luxury. However, the sum was surely enough to freeze our brain cells. The six pieces of toast had cost us more than the sumptuous chicken dish and sizzler we had gorged on in a mall yesterday. And so we left the place feeling rather stupid (and hungry), and stopped over to pick up sambhar-vada and tea from our usual eating place.

"Well, on the lines of Edison and his failures with the light bulb, I now know one place I will definitely never go to for breakfast", I remarked. The quip wasn't very well received.

Date a guy who went to IIM Calcutta

“The title looks inspired!” – Captain Obvious

Date a guy who went to IIM Calcutta. Date a guy who spent two years in Didi’s land, and came out skilled in the art of Management. The guy who relishes narrating anecdotes about his friends back in college, and calls half of them ‘Dada’. Date a guy who knows that it is never too late to type in one’s entry for ‘attendance@5’.

Find a guy who went to IIMC. You will know he did when you discover a tattered blue washer label threaded to the back of his collar which he conveniently ignored to take off. He says he was never the sporty kind but still effortlessly manages to control a ball using any darn part of his body. That’s your guy. Try him, he might understand why having the ball in your court is important to you at times.

He’s the guy who saves up on his ‘allowed leave’ in office for a brief getaway to Joka towards the end of December. He’s the guy who joins applause by thumping the table in front, looks around to see everyone clapping, but continues anyway. You can be rude to him or make a snide remark in jest, and he will forgive you. If only you append a smiling NOMs to it. Be mindful. Make the ‘sss’ linger. It helps.

Take him out shopping. Be curious when he smirks when the salesperson shows him a XL-sized shirt. Admire the passion when he tells you innumerable stories of David-Goliath encounters, where, remarkably, Goliath lynched David every single time. Be surprised to see the passion back again as he wanders into a reverie on seeing a huge tyre stuck in the slush. Passion is important, ain’t it?

Be there for him when he is down in the dumps, but let him have his space. He can surely manage himself and come out stronger. Damn, he has, most definitely, completed an entire course on that when he was junger, er… younger. He’s the guy who will wade out smiling after being pushed into a lake (or is it sea?) of troubles. Rather, when the heavens give you sh*t, he will hold an umbrella for you. Experience matters, girl!

Ask him. Ask if he thinks you are the prettiest girl he knows. Flutter your eyes when he says he Couldn’t Agree More with you. A guy who went to IIMC knows relationships are built on deriving synergies between the two stakeholders. With him, there is no due diligence required. Let him acquire your heart, and add value (not to forget a whole lotta love!) to your lives.

Share the little pleasures of life with him. He understands the delight of enjoying a cup of hot chai on a jetty with the cool breeze caressing your cheeks. He knows the value of building bridges, go to the other side, or, at times, just stop right in the middle to relish the setting sun. This is a guy who is mindful of his business casuals and formals, but would eagerly jump out in the rain and experience the rain. Why? Because he knows how to have fun too. He would want you to be a part of these moments. Say yes!

They say, “Date a girl who reads”. Rather, date a girl who writes, they add.

Date a guy who went to IIM Calcutta, I retort. Or better still, date a guy who went to IIM Calcutta, and writes.

_____________________________________________________________

Reference to context (Ah! CBSE :P) - http://thehealthywarrior.tumblr.com/post/12643733123/date-a-girl-who-reads-by-rosemarie-urquico-in

Postcards from Mumbai - Episode I

A little over a week in Mumbai, and it is hard to remember how different life was just a fortnight ago. Suddenly there is an incredible amount of discipline and routine largely evident in ever single day. It doesn't help that office starts before 8 am each day.

By 9-10, it already seems you are well into the day (fancy thinking that till very recently this was hardly wake up time!). Breakfast at the desk, accompanied by coffee. Going through statements of one firm after the other trying to understand their fundamentals - steel this, regulation that! Keeping tabs on all alerts for stock moving events, missing them at times and then making amends.

Surprisingly, I have taken a liking to following the market movements. Interesting times for metal stocks these days! Sonia Shenoy and the others on CNBC ensure that even news of falling stocks is pleasant to see, er, listen to. Anyway, lunch time, food and some chit-chat with other associates. It's nice to see that atmosphere on the desk has been peaceful and friendly. Leave office by 8.

At times the most uncanny of elements can bring that much wanted change in this rut of things. So one fine evening, on my way back from office, I happen to meet this taxi driver who seemed almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a cabbie. His perfect command over Hindi made me ask him if he was from U.P. or the like. And of course he was!

I told him of the good number of years I have spent in Meerut and Kanpur, and thus sparked off a barrage of witticisms, anecdotes and profound analogies from him, some of which deserve to be recorded here:

1. On the fact that loads of people come to Mumbai to struggle and seek a livelihood -

इस शहर के समुद्र की लहरें जब पत्थरों से टकराती हैं तो यह कहती जाती हैं की चाहे जो कठिनाई आये संघर्ष करते चलो! मैं यू.पी में बहती गंगा से सीखा की निरंतर बहते चलो, और यही पल्ले बाँध कर मैं वहां से एम्.पी और आगे मुंबई आ गया |
(The waves of the sea crashing against the rocks teach us to struggle inspite of all odds. Having seen the unimpeded flow of the Ganges in U.P, I learnt that one needs to go with the flow of life, and that is what brought me all the way to this city.)

2. On how the educated can potentially be a cause of greater ruin than the illiterate -

Here he quoted a Sanskrit phrase: साक्षर: विपरीता राक्षस: भवती ||
This is a clever play on the word साक्षर: (Literate) which when reversed turns to राक्षस: (Demon), signifying how an educated mind, if it turns devious, can serve to cause havoc like a demon.

The guy mentioned how he was a little dissatisfied with his current occupation, yet spent his free time reading everything from religious books to stories from the likes of Premchand, Jaishankar Prasad. He had quite a few comments to make on the political scene (coincidentally his name was Akhilesh Yadav which led me to talk of how another Akhilesh is rocking the UP political scene), on how Mumbai takes everyone and anyone in its folds and feeds them...

It was truly refreshing to meet a guy like that in the most unlikely of positions. And a brilliant motivator after a tiring day at work! :) It's often nice to be in a city like Mumbai - a veritable melting pot, offering these unique experiences, anytime, anywhere!

Saying Goodbye!

It's one of those junctures in life again when one has to say goodbye to a lifestyle they had grown so used to (loving a lot of it, hating a few things here or there!). Ans suddenly, one sees life standing at the beginning of a road yet untraveled.

I saw one such moment when I was leaving IITK nearly 2 years back. The bonds were strong - four years after all. But well, maybe we knew we were just starting out in the world. There will be tons of opportunities to meet (and relive the fun times, as one might say). Personally for me, I was content on entering another campus, and though it was a more 'professional' degree, I knew hostel life could not be a dampener.

Today I see a completely different inflection point in the trajectory of my life till now. Firstly, we all know we are entering full-time careers now. For nearly all of us, there will hardly be any respite, let alone long summer vacations, etc. from here on. Add to that the fact that our peer group here was rather motley in terms of their life stages. Inspite of that most of us spent our time here as equals. And all around you see batchmates getting married, engaged or trying to be so.

And you realize, life is in full gear now. Yes, we'll have our moments as early twenty somethings, partying away or vacationing with friends. Yet, everyone around would expect more responsibility, greater maturity. Here is where the quandary presents itself. On one hand, you want to cling on to old friends, keep on the attachment, and be a part of their lives. Yet, on the other, you know that to become the person the world outside campus wants you to be, you might have to redefine a lot of relationships.

Time, for one, might never offer itself in such abundance. Hence, hilarious adda sessions would soon constrict themselves to hangouts in restaurants, to finally keeping in touch over watsapp, and peppering it with small get-togethers on the fly. Moreover, as many people enter the 'family' stage of life, one would have to accommodate for them not being the 'boys' and 'girls' you once were close chums with. Emotional attachment and sensitivity, coupled with effective restraint - heavy words, way more difficult to practise.

Anyway, having said all the above, I would acknowledge that most of it is a picture I have sketched from vicarious experiences, and the reality, as some people testify, is not as grim. Probably, all that is essential is to keep one's head when life is zooming past, and maybe reconnect to one's roots/past once in a while.

Here's to a fresh start!

Mr. Tharoor's campus visit

It’s late afternoon, and I sit here typing away at my keyboard after having attended a marathon marketing session on how successful brands differentiate themselves. In another hour, I will have the opportunity to listen to an individual who has done just that. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, I have been told, is on his way to the IIM Calcutta campus, and having keenly followed the vicissitudes of his political career in India, I am looking forward to hear his lecture.
With a more than stellar academic record, his skills as a change-leader with the UN, his brazen commentary on politics and policy, and his uncharacteristic flair – Dr. Tharoor has, in the past few years, become a role model for many. Today he would be talking about his idea of an ‘Indian’ and the dynamics of politics in diversity. Having studied in institutes which were veritable melting pots of the diverse populace of our motherland, I have often pondered over the interplay of these differences. I hope to get a rich, and more informed perspective today. And with this, I must head to the auditorium.
__________
With some difficulty, I manage to grab a well-positioned seat in a jam-packed auditorium. Enter Dr. Tharoor, a picture of poise clad in a kurta and coat, followed closely by his wife. The thunderous applause is quickly followed by the Director’s welcome address. Dr. Tharoor now walks to the dais, smiles at the eager audience, and with a casual flick of hair begins his speech.
__________

It’s a cold evening in Kolkata, and as I ponder over Dr. Tharoor’s words over chai, it is his powerful delivery and impeccable diction I am reminded of first. His clarity of thought, peppered with witty anecdotes, subtle and some not-so-subtle jibes at his party folks, all embellished with words of wisdom picked up from the choicest of writers and leaders, made sure he was able to drive his point home.

“Any truism about India could be contradicted with another truism”, he had remarked. He unabashedly decried the use of caste politics. He cited incidents from his childhood when he had heard the mellifluous mingling of chants of four different places of worship in his neighbourhood. This, he mentioned, is what India stood for.

He remarked that Indian nationalism, as a concept, has stood the test of time in practice, inspite of it seeming a flawed idea in theory, given the multifarious identities constituting the billion-strong populace. He coupled his examples of Muslim presidents, chiefs of defence from minorities with a remark on how his Kashmiri wife had chosen to marry him, a Keralite. One of his analogies that I distinctly remember is how unlike the rest of the secular world, India is not a cultural melting pot, but more like a ‘thali’ where an assortment is laid out without being forced to lose their individual identities.
Dr. Tharoor’s speech was one of the most riveting pieces of oratory I have heard of late, and having been audience to the likes of Mr. Sitaram Yechuri, Ms. Kiran Bedi and HH The Dalai Lama as part of IIM Calcutta’s Institute Lecture Series, that is saying something!

सपनों की दुनिया

वक़्त की माला में कुछ लम्हे हमने पिरोये थे |

यादों के तौलिये आंसुओं में भिगोये थे |

गुज़रे इन सालों में, सपने कुछ हमने भी संझोए थे ||

सपनों की कहानी ही कुछ अजब है,

रात छोडिये, ये दिन में भी हमें सताते हैं ||

कुछ पूरे होते हैं, लाते हैं खुशी,

बाकी बंद आँखों के पीछे छुप जाते हैं ||