A Job Half Done

Their first conversation had few words,

But seasoned it was with measured laughter.

They agreed the tea was good, and the weather pleasant,

And decided to meet the weekend after.

He worked his beard a tad carefully that morning,

And bought her a chocolate on the way.

The laughter was louder, the exchanges friendlier,

They both chimed it had been a lovely day.

He loved her big eyes, and the twinkle in them,

She giggled at his occasional flirt.

Their phones had little time to breathe,

Of things to share, there was never any dearth.

With relentless passion, he went about his days,

She confessed she really liked that too.

He talked ardently of music, but little did she know,

His affections were clinging to a subject new.

Months passed, and their lives went by,

Frequent, they remained, their meetings.

He listened to her, and searched for hints,

But, well, one is never sure of these things.

His patience gave way, and on a casual walk,

He bravely laid bare his aching heart.

All the feelings lay strewn, awash with dismay,

For Cupid had but played half his part.

Why Ranbir Kapoor should not be allowed to marry Katrina Kaif

I am sure this topic or its like has been written about, and for a moment I thought I must check and avoid redundancy, if it be. Yet, if one starts going by that logic, writing would become really tough or rather impossible because people these days write about everything. So I passed.

I will begin by giving credit where it is due. The genesis of this 'theory' lies in a light hearted conversation which transpired as we sat staring at the idiot box, and nibbling at what was left of the 'chicken lollipop', in our living room. The exponent happens to be our newly joined flat-mate, who we shall call Newton, because, as you will come to understand, what he said might be far more critical than the knowledge of F = m.a.

Our friend Newton seemed to be having a quiet, happy meal till he abruptly stopped in the middle of a noodle, and uttered these fateful words... 

"Ranbir Kapoor should not be allowed to marry Katrina Kaif."

(which, thanks to lack of creativity is also the title of this post)

Though, for a flurry of different reasons, we agreed with his premise, being products of a generation spurred to be curious by the likes of Arnab Goswami Albert Einstein, we asked, "Why so?".

This is the point where I shift from the narrative to the descriptive, and would demand complete attention of the reader to a theory, the non-acceptance of which could have drastically hurtful socio-cultural consequences.

Assumptions: 

1. If one has read H.G.Wells' Time Machine and those of its ilk, mankind or author-kind has always feared a dystopian society wherein the class-divide has reached gigantic proportions. That, invariably, leads to bitter resentment and an ultimate clash and an end of the world as the society of that time knows it. We shall assume we DO NOT want to push our world to such a state.

2. We will assume Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif to be "good-looking" to the way above average extent. And limit our perception of the individual to that of physical beauty.

Clause:

It is often seen that people of equal beauty or the lack of it (strictly by the rules of the world) end up engaging with each other, and eventually marry, have kids and all that jazz. Now, we remain concerned with this system.

Without wasting my time with more words, I will explain this with the help of pictorial representations.

See what this is leading to? Weirdly lumped pockets of extremely high and low entropy. Things will, eventually, shriek and call out for equilibrium, or annihilation. It will be a brutal war - and mind you, the mascara pencil is not mightier than the sword. 

There is still time. The rules must be laid.

Suggested solution

I am certain there are standard beauty metrics which have been designed by jobless driven purveyors of science. So, use them. Form a world governing council and hand them the task of being judges. When children reach the age of, say, fourteen, they must be presented to the council and rated on a scale of 0-10 (also called the Rakhi-Jolie scale). Fourteen, well, because if one can look beautiful at the onset of puberty, they must be asked no questions.

Then order by decree that no nuptial knots shall violate a sum of 15. Problem solved. In a few years, everyone will have one less thing to worry about. 

No Troy shall burn for Helen!

Movie Review: The Hunger Games - Catching Fire

Release date: 6th Dec 2013 (India)
Director: Gary Ross
Rating: 3.75/5

Movies like these are tough to review. For starters, the team behind the movie cannot be blamed for content/storyline, as almost all of that was taken care of by the book this is based on. Secondly, this being the second movie in the franchise, one is constantly looking to benchmark this with the first part and hoping to be pleasantly surprised. And in this case, the makers had a tough act to follow.

They did a fine job of it. Stories of dystopian socieities, an unexpected hero creating a stir, and a subsequent mass uprising are not new to any of us. The fundamental storyline has never been the basis of the success of the Hunger Games franchise. Yet, the movie manages to hold your attention with edge-of-the-seat adventures, choreographed and shot exceedingly well. All this without the 3D label that has becoming a 'given' in action movies of late, and more often than not adds zero value and more eye torture. Undoubtedly, there are moments when the constant flux of life-threatening elements, the deviousness of the game's creators gets to you, but then again, as stated earlier, that cannot be blamed on the movie per se.

The performance of the central characters remains a highlight of the movie, yet again. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen) and Josh Hutcherson (Peter) do a brilliant job of bringing to life a rather uncharacteristic love story. Lawrence, in particular, pulls off another fine act morphing effortlessly from an astute archer, a fearless woman to a poor girl worried for her family, from a heartless participant to a girl unable to understand her own feelings of love - both the direction and magnitude of it (Bah! who knew it was a vector!). Meanwhile, it's fascinating how the kid from the 2005 'Little Manhattan' has turned out to be a fine young man, finally coming out of his streak of unrequited love.

For people who liked the first part, it is time to get tickets to this one. The thrilling sequences, Katniss' fiery dresses, her ability to look ravishing in the most un-glamorous of roles, the brilliantly crafted sets - make for a fascinating two hours and more.

And with that I sign off.