Suddenly this thought has hit me that what is so new about the new year? Why is there such a brouhaha about this day - the 1st of January, every year? What exactly has changed at the stroke of the midnight? The only universal answer is probably, the Date. And even that changes at different times in different parts of the world.
Now, you might be wondering, why is this eternal pessimist ruining our ephemeral sense of euphoria? On the contrary, I am not being a pessimist but an optimist. My point is that, there is nothing to stop us from celebrating with the same zeal every other day. Someone arbitrarily chose a particular day 2009 years ago and decreed, "From now on we are going to be happy and optimistic about something new and better every 365th day. And because the mathematics is a bit complicated and the earth moves a bit strangely, every 4th year(that is the 4th period of 365 days) we will wait for one more day before we can celebrate again. Except that every 400th year we will again not wait that one day extra. And sometimes we may have some more problems and we will keep adjusting the time when you may be happy that something new lies ahead. So, err I hope you get it. Happy new year."
So it is we who decide if something new is going to happen or not. Any time.
And for your information, 1 second extra was added yesterday. :)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Monday, December 15, 2008
Gym mein bheja fry!
English: "Driven to nuts in the gym"
I quite enjoy translating such idioms from Hindi to English and vice-versa for two reasons.
1) I enjoy being able to. It gives me immense relief to know that I am proficient in atleast two languages.
2) It always amazes me that even though word for word, the meanings are so different, still analogues always exist.
If you know of a better translation (either way), please enlighten me.
This post, however, is not about random linguistic facts. This post is a true story of how a poor soul, whose only intention was to exercise honestly in the gym for an hour or so, was bothered, nay tormented by a crackpot in the true sense of the word.
It so occured that I was jogging on the treadmill, panting and heaving, huffing and puffing, and trying to complete my daily target. In came the defending champion and three times runner up of Grasim Mr. India contest (or so it seemed from the airs he had, not from his physique, mind you). Unfortunately the treadmill next to me was unoccupied and he happily jumped on to it (literally). Now, it would not have been such a tragedy had he been a harmless stranger. That was not to be. The clown was an acquaintance of mine. He smiled at me and I returned it in good measure, quite unaware of the fact that that particular gentelman was not going to let me have any peace for the next hour or so.
Within half a minute of ascending the treadmill, this bufoon sped up to an unmaintainable speed. Now I had been jogging for about 25 minutes and hence was merely trundling forth at a speed which can neither be called walking nor running. It was then that the bird brain blurted - "Yaar...huff..puff..if you run so slowly then whats the use?". More huffs and puffs followed alongwith a sudden decrease in speed. I was surprised by such an attack on my method of exercising and naturally tried to defend myself - "I have to run for longer, so naturally I will have to be slower". The master of unintelligent repartee was ready - "You should not run for so long. 8 - 10 minutes is sufficient. Otherwise all the energy will be sapped and you will not be left with any for other work outs." Now it so happened that I was following instructions from the trainer while he was quite obviously self taught. I merely nodded and faced the other way.
By the by, I went on to the next exercise - "Push ups". I have only recently started doing this exercise and am far from proficient at it. I donot however, like being reminded of the fact with every single descent of my expansive derierre. And ofcourse, this was exactly what Superman thought I needed to hear. "Yaar chest should touch the floor tangentially", "yaar your hands are too far apart", "try sitting on your knees and doing it for some days" and who knows what else. After some time I gave up and asked him to give a demonstration. This request did not elicit the enthusiastic response that I was expecting but a pitiful - "Arrey I have come to the gym after many days, let me get into shape and I will show you in a few days...hehehehe".
I was just standing and getting a breather before the next exercise when a strikingly beautiful maiden happened to grace the gym with her illuminating presence. What bussiness she had in the abode of ugly misshapen humans, I could not fathom and nor was I allowed to ruminate on this subject for long. A sound for which my ears had started forming a distinct hatred by now fell upon their drums and I was woken up from my reverie by who else - Sunny Deol fan no. 1.
"You should start doing weights!" he spoke with gusto. "Huh?", was my passionless reply. It did not dampen his spirits in the least. "Weights!", he lifted his left arm and displayed a dumbbell. I laughed in my heart, no wonder he liked a dumbbell. "No thanks...", I muttered and went on for some abs exercises. He was adamant. Sitting beside me in a kneeling position while I went back and forth, exhaling air from my lungs with my hands behind my back, he carried on, unmindful of my utter disregard for his suggestions. "Arrey all these are foolish totkaas. Whats the big deal in becoming thin? Just don't eat for a month or so. Real exercise is pumping iron". "Yeah, I will think about it once I lose some of my body fat", I said a bit irritatedly. His eyes lit up. "Lets start from today itself."
I was on the point of shouting "What have I done dude? Why are you so hell bent on trying out all your ideas on me?". But as you might know, the polite soul that I am, I gave in and followed him. Soon I realized what his idea of "doing weights" together was. He lay down on a bench and asked me to hand him the barbell which was supported by a rod directly above his head. Then he would go on to lift it 3-4 times before turning a deep shade of blue and frantically signalling me to help him place the barbell back on the support rod. This I enjoyed thourougly for a few minutes. :)
Then seeing that there was no chance of getting in even a couple of sets of any exercise, I decided to get the hell out of there. To this he said, "What leaving already? Abhi to warmup shuru hua hai!". "Yeah, sorry got some work to do yaar", I half shouted as I almost ran out of the gym. He followed me to the door and shouted back, "Ok see you same time tomorrow hehehe"
And now I'll have to change my gym timings. What rotten luck I say.
I quite enjoy translating such idioms from Hindi to English and vice-versa for two reasons.
1) I enjoy being able to. It gives me immense relief to know that I am proficient in atleast two languages.
2) It always amazes me that even though word for word, the meanings are so different, still analogues always exist.
If you know of a better translation (either way), please enlighten me.
This post, however, is not about random linguistic facts. This post is a true story of how a poor soul, whose only intention was to exercise honestly in the gym for an hour or so, was bothered, nay tormented by a crackpot in the true sense of the word.
It so occured that I was jogging on the treadmill, panting and heaving, huffing and puffing, and trying to complete my daily target. In came the defending champion and three times runner up of Grasim Mr. India contest (or so it seemed from the airs he had, not from his physique, mind you). Unfortunately the treadmill next to me was unoccupied and he happily jumped on to it (literally). Now, it would not have been such a tragedy had he been a harmless stranger. That was not to be. The clown was an acquaintance of mine. He smiled at me and I returned it in good measure, quite unaware of the fact that that particular gentelman was not going to let me have any peace for the next hour or so.
Within half a minute of ascending the treadmill, this bufoon sped up to an unmaintainable speed. Now I had been jogging for about 25 minutes and hence was merely trundling forth at a speed which can neither be called walking nor running. It was then that the bird brain blurted - "Yaar...huff..puff..if you run so slowly then whats the use?". More huffs and puffs followed alongwith a sudden decrease in speed. I was surprised by such an attack on my method of exercising and naturally tried to defend myself - "I have to run for longer, so naturally I will have to be slower". The master of unintelligent repartee was ready - "You should not run for so long. 8 - 10 minutes is sufficient. Otherwise all the energy will be sapped and you will not be left with any for other work outs." Now it so happened that I was following instructions from the trainer while he was quite obviously self taught. I merely nodded and faced the other way.
By the by, I went on to the next exercise - "Push ups". I have only recently started doing this exercise and am far from proficient at it. I donot however, like being reminded of the fact with every single descent of my expansive derierre. And ofcourse, this was exactly what Superman thought I needed to hear. "Yaar chest should touch the floor tangentially", "yaar your hands are too far apart", "try sitting on your knees and doing it for some days" and who knows what else. After some time I gave up and asked him to give a demonstration. This request did not elicit the enthusiastic response that I was expecting but a pitiful - "Arrey I have come to the gym after many days, let me get into shape and I will show you in a few days...hehehehe".
I was just standing and getting a breather before the next exercise when a strikingly beautiful maiden happened to grace the gym with her illuminating presence. What bussiness she had in the abode of ugly misshapen humans, I could not fathom and nor was I allowed to ruminate on this subject for long. A sound for which my ears had started forming a distinct hatred by now fell upon their drums and I was woken up from my reverie by who else - Sunny Deol fan no. 1.
"You should start doing weights!" he spoke with gusto. "Huh?", was my passionless reply. It did not dampen his spirits in the least. "Weights!", he lifted his left arm and displayed a dumbbell. I laughed in my heart, no wonder he liked a dumbbell. "No thanks...", I muttered and went on for some abs exercises. He was adamant. Sitting beside me in a kneeling position while I went back and forth, exhaling air from my lungs with my hands behind my back, he carried on, unmindful of my utter disregard for his suggestions. "Arrey all these are foolish totkaas. Whats the big deal in becoming thin? Just don't eat for a month or so. Real exercise is pumping iron". "Yeah, I will think about it once I lose some of my body fat", I said a bit irritatedly. His eyes lit up. "Lets start from today itself."
I was on the point of shouting "What have I done dude? Why are you so hell bent on trying out all your ideas on me?". But as you might know, the polite soul that I am, I gave in and followed him. Soon I realized what his idea of "doing weights" together was. He lay down on a bench and asked me to hand him the barbell which was supported by a rod directly above his head. Then he would go on to lift it 3-4 times before turning a deep shade of blue and frantically signalling me to help him place the barbell back on the support rod. This I enjoyed thourougly for a few minutes. :)
Then seeing that there was no chance of getting in even a couple of sets of any exercise, I decided to get the hell out of there. To this he said, "What leaving already? Abhi to warmup shuru hua hai!". "Yeah, sorry got some work to do yaar", I half shouted as I almost ran out of the gym. He followed me to the door and shouted back, "Ok see you same time tomorrow hehehe"
And now I'll have to change my gym timings. What rotten luck I say.
Monday, December 8, 2008
For a long time I have been neglecting this blog. I have been itching to write something but the great ideas just don't come. So I have decided (not for the first time but yet again) that just like batsmen need to spend some time in the middle when they are out of form, I need to spend some time writing before the ideas arrive. We will neglect the small detail that batsmen who have never shown promise don't get any time in the middle. Since this is my blog its like that street match in which I am the kid with the bat and ball. I get as many innings as I want :)
So as the ideation engine is just outputting garbage, there is only just one way to go. Write about a cliched topic, which every tom,dick and harry has written about (and Sarang is about to be added to that list).
26/11, India was attacked yet again by terrorists. More importantly Mumbai was attacked yet again. Between the rains, the Raj and the ruffians, it looks like the city is soon going to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The terrorists are bad and yes, it is a shameful thing to do and all that. The thing that comes most to my notice is that the sense of outrage is so much more because they attacked the centers of elite prodigality. When I see all those theatre personalities and socialites sitting on the news channels talking about taking radical measures, I only see their mouths opening and closing but not really the words they emit. What I hear instead is, "How the hell did they dare attack the Taj Hotel? See we are all peace-loving Gandhi followers as far as you bomb those ruddy local trains and create havoc in murky back lanes of Pan Bazaar in faroff Guwahati or even in the parliament. But attack 5star hotels, disturb our cozy repasts with foreign businessmen and you have crossed a line. Lets just bloddy carpet bomb Pakistan."
Seriously, all this talk about waking up of the middle class angers and frustrates me more than the attack itself. The news channels are in it just for the moolah. Why are Simi Garewaal and Kunal Kohli talking about what India's strategy should be now. And who in hell is listening to them anyways. Much ado about nothing.
What is even more exasperating is the venom venting that some people start after such incidents.
E.g -:
1) Lets just kill all their families. They are not afraid themselves but the only thing that scares them is potential harm to their families.
Yeah sure! Great Idea. But who exactly are they here? If we had any clue of that it would be a better option to catch them in the first place. And yeah, in case you don't remeber, some have already tried this option. Remember Gujarat?? Yeah that helped a lot, thanx.
Now you might ask, what do you have to offer in way of a solution??
I might not have some big plans like carpet bombing Pakistan or declaring war, but I know two things. The motives of the terrorists are two-fold -:
1) To disrupt our lives, and scare us away from venturing out of our homes and also maybe scaring away potential foreign businesses from coming here ultimately denting our economy.
2) Divide us up, make us do foolish things and gain legitimacy for their actions.
I think that as individuals we donot have the power to bring about a sudden change. What we are capable of is, a) A slight bravery - Instead of being afraid of the next attack and playing into their hands we need to be defiant. I think most of us are. Its natural to be scared but not cowardly. And b) Not listen to the devil's advocates and be united.
It is such simple acts which will help us not only recover but make their jobs more difficult.
The setting up of a dedicated Intelligence department and carrying out of covert ops behind enemy lines should be left to the experts. If you want to contribute, then choose your leaders wisely, instead of just blindly going forward and choosing someone who is a co-religionist, speaks your language or is a champion of your caste. If more then become a leader yourself. Appearing on television and talking seriously, as if you are the director, CIA doesn't help.
So as the ideation engine is just outputting garbage, there is only just one way to go. Write about a cliched topic, which every tom,dick and harry has written about (and Sarang is about to be added to that list).
26/11, India was attacked yet again by terrorists. More importantly Mumbai was attacked yet again. Between the rains, the Raj and the ruffians, it looks like the city is soon going to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The terrorists are bad and yes, it is a shameful thing to do and all that. The thing that comes most to my notice is that the sense of outrage is so much more because they attacked the centers of elite prodigality. When I see all those theatre personalities and socialites sitting on the news channels talking about taking radical measures, I only see their mouths opening and closing but not really the words they emit. What I hear instead is, "How the hell did they dare attack the Taj Hotel? See we are all peace-loving Gandhi followers as far as you bomb those ruddy local trains and create havoc in murky back lanes of Pan Bazaar in faroff Guwahati or even in the parliament. But attack 5star hotels, disturb our cozy repasts with foreign businessmen and you have crossed a line. Lets just bloddy carpet bomb Pakistan."
Seriously, all this talk about waking up of the middle class angers and frustrates me more than the attack itself. The news channels are in it just for the moolah. Why are Simi Garewaal and Kunal Kohli talking about what India's strategy should be now. And who in hell is listening to them anyways. Much ado about nothing.
What is even more exasperating is the venom venting that some people start after such incidents.
E.g -:
1) Lets just kill all their families. They are not afraid themselves but the only thing that scares them is potential harm to their families.
Yeah sure! Great Idea. But who exactly are they here? If we had any clue of that it would be a better option to catch them in the first place. And yeah, in case you don't remeber, some have already tried this option. Remember Gujarat?? Yeah that helped a lot, thanx.
Now you might ask, what do you have to offer in way of a solution??
I might not have some big plans like carpet bombing Pakistan or declaring war, but I know two things. The motives of the terrorists are two-fold -:
1) To disrupt our lives, and scare us away from venturing out of our homes and also maybe scaring away potential foreign businesses from coming here ultimately denting our economy.
2) Divide us up, make us do foolish things and gain legitimacy for their actions.
I think that as individuals we donot have the power to bring about a sudden change. What we are capable of is, a) A slight bravery - Instead of being afraid of the next attack and playing into their hands we need to be defiant. I think most of us are. Its natural to be scared but not cowardly. And b) Not listen to the devil's advocates and be united.
It is such simple acts which will help us not only recover but make their jobs more difficult.
The setting up of a dedicated Intelligence department and carrying out of covert ops behind enemy lines should be left to the experts. If you want to contribute, then choose your leaders wisely, instead of just blindly going forward and choosing someone who is a co-religionist, speaks your language or is a champion of your caste. If more then become a leader yourself. Appearing on television and talking seriously, as if you are the director, CIA doesn't help.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Recent Developments ...
I guess we are all aware of the recent upheavel in the financial world. There was a lot of media coverage and a lot of people got scared as hunted rabbits. Banks and other financial institutions either started falling like nine pins or were badly shaken up. Personally however I don't know a soul who has been badly affected. It could be plain coincidence or I just don't know enough people.
Now you must be thinking, "Ok! whats the point wise guy?". Well I donot really have a point. Or I should say that whatever I have will probably not be considered much of a point.
Well immediately after the meltdown there were news reports of people who had been badly affected commiting suicide or worse, killing off their families and then themselves. These were people who were just like us. Middle class employees of reputable firms which had ceased to exist. Ofcourse such news shocked us badly.
I will cut to the chase now. Enough beating around the proverbial bush. In India, we have a lot of farmers who are extremely poor. It is not my aim to highlight their plight nor am I any champion of the oppressed. I just wish to juxtapose two similar situations here.
So where were we, right the poor farmers. Now for many years poor and highly debt ridden farmers of India have been resorting to taking their and their family's lives. There are random news articles about these events and some NGOs try and bring their misery to the front pages. Also several times the politicians announce loan waver schemes to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. It does little to help the farmer's cause as obiliterating previous debt does not imply that the reason for that debt is removed as well. However everytime such a waver is announced there is a lot of hue and cry against it in the corporate world. Its bad economics they claim.
Cut to the recent "meltdown" and we see many airlines asking the governement for financial aid. And ofcourse everybody is quite ready to admit that what else is the governement for if not to aid in troubled times. In the US, the government already has given massive aid to several ailing banks.
However if you reflect a little, all these loan waivers and aids to airlines are actually indirectly funded by us - the taxpayers. And its us, the middle class, who pay most of the taxes. So I think we need to reflect what is more important - agriculture or aviation.
The finance minister has come up with a brilliant idea - creating a soverign state sponsored fund of $20 billion for shoring up the stock market. What this means in lay man terms is that taxpayers money is going to be used to increase share prices, bringing the sensex back to a rosy red figure.
So millions of poor farmers die, if you provide for them its bad economics and if you spend money so corporate shares rocket thats good economics.
I don't know about you but to me this economics subject looks a bit dicey.
Now you must be thinking, "Ok! whats the point wise guy?". Well I donot really have a point. Or I should say that whatever I have will probably not be considered much of a point.
Well immediately after the meltdown there were news reports of people who had been badly affected commiting suicide or worse, killing off their families and then themselves. These were people who were just like us. Middle class employees of reputable firms which had ceased to exist. Ofcourse such news shocked us badly.
I will cut to the chase now. Enough beating around the proverbial bush. In India, we have a lot of farmers who are extremely poor. It is not my aim to highlight their plight nor am I any champion of the oppressed. I just wish to juxtapose two similar situations here.
So where were we, right the poor farmers. Now for many years poor and highly debt ridden farmers of India have been resorting to taking their and their family's lives. There are random news articles about these events and some NGOs try and bring their misery to the front pages. Also several times the politicians announce loan waver schemes to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. It does little to help the farmer's cause as obiliterating previous debt does not imply that the reason for that debt is removed as well. However everytime such a waver is announced there is a lot of hue and cry against it in the corporate world. Its bad economics they claim.
Cut to the recent "meltdown" and we see many airlines asking the governement for financial aid. And ofcourse everybody is quite ready to admit that what else is the governement for if not to aid in troubled times. In the US, the government already has given massive aid to several ailing banks.
However if you reflect a little, all these loan waivers and aids to airlines are actually indirectly funded by us - the taxpayers. And its us, the middle class, who pay most of the taxes. So I think we need to reflect what is more important - agriculture or aviation.
The finance minister has come up with a brilliant idea - creating a soverign state sponsored fund of $20 billion for shoring up the stock market. What this means in lay man terms is that taxpayers money is going to be used to increase share prices, bringing the sensex back to a rosy red figure.
So millions of poor farmers die, if you provide for them its bad economics and if you spend money so corporate shares rocket thats good economics.
I don't know about you but to me this economics subject looks a bit dicey.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
अंकित का आतंक
मेरे कॉलेज आई आई टी गौहाटी की मेस सेवा से अक्सर लोग खफ़ा ही पाये जाते हैं| वही घिसी पिटी पुरानी आलू की सब्ज़ी या वही साम्भर चावल| लेकिन मेरे दोस्त अंकित को सब्ज़ियों से कोई गिला शिकवा नही| उसे परेशानी है तो सिर्फ़ रोटियों से| आम तौर पर शांत रहने वाला यह बालक रोटियों के मामले में कोई समझौता पसंद नही करता| और सामनाय्तः सबसे प्यार से बात करने वाला यह लड़का मेस कर्मचारियों पर बरसने में किसी किस्म का तकल्लुफ़ भी नही करता| "क्या भैय्या यह रोटी है की आटा? अच्छे से सिक्वा के लाओ" जैसे आदेश तो अब पुराने हो चुके हैं| आज तो हद ही हो गई - मेस कर्मचारी अन्दर से दो बार रोटी ले कर आया और तब भी अंकित ने उन्हें ठुकरा दिया| तीसरी बार ख़ास अंकित के लिए फूली हुई रोटियाँ आयीं तब जाके अंकित ने स्वीकारी|
अंकित के यह बड़े हुए नखरे देख मैं सोचने लगा की क्या अंकित की बीवी उसके यह सब नखरे सहेगी! जब मैंने उससे यह बात पूछी तोह उसने कहा - " कैसे नही सहेगी! और वैसे भी यह कोई नखरे नही हैं, इंसान को और कुछ मिले या न मिले, ढंग की रोटी तो नसीब होनी ही चाहिए!!" इसपर मैंने कहा - " यार मुझे लग रहा है की अगर तू अपनी बीवी को ऐसे नखरे दिखायेगा तो वोह रोटी तेरे मुहँ पे मार के कहेगी की "खानी है तो खाओ नही तो भाड़ में जाओ!", और फिर तुझे ढाबे पर खाना खाना होगा..." अंकित ने इसका जवाब दिया - " तो छोड़ दूँगा ऐसी औरत को मैं जो ठीक से रोटी भी न बना पाये!!"
तब मैंने सोचना शुरू किया की फिर अंकित अख़बार में शादी के इश्तेहार कैसे देगा -:
"चाहिए एक नर्म, फूली हुई और सिकी हुई लड़की ...... नहीं, रोटी बनाना जानने वाली लड़की..." , या फिर " चाहिए एक ऐसी सुकन्या जो पहचानती हो आटे और रोटी में फ़र्क!"
इस ही दौरान अंकित फिर चिल्लाया " भैय्या रोटी!", और उसकी पुकार सुनकर सभी मेस कर्मचारी तिथर बिथर हो गये!
अंकित के यह बड़े हुए नखरे देख मैं सोचने लगा की क्या अंकित की बीवी उसके यह सब नखरे सहेगी! जब मैंने उससे यह बात पूछी तोह उसने कहा - " कैसे नही सहेगी! और वैसे भी यह कोई नखरे नही हैं, इंसान को और कुछ मिले या न मिले, ढंग की रोटी तो नसीब होनी ही चाहिए!!" इसपर मैंने कहा - " यार मुझे लग रहा है की अगर तू अपनी बीवी को ऐसे नखरे दिखायेगा तो वोह रोटी तेरे मुहँ पे मार के कहेगी की "खानी है तो खाओ नही तो भाड़ में जाओ!", और फिर तुझे ढाबे पर खाना खाना होगा..." अंकित ने इसका जवाब दिया - " तो छोड़ दूँगा ऐसी औरत को मैं जो ठीक से रोटी भी न बना पाये!!"
तब मैंने सोचना शुरू किया की फिर अंकित अख़बार में शादी के इश्तेहार कैसे देगा -:
"चाहिए एक नर्म, फूली हुई और सिकी हुई लड़की ...... नहीं, रोटी बनाना जानने वाली लड़की..." , या फिर " चाहिए एक ऐसी सुकन्या जो पहचानती हो आटे और रोटी में फ़र्क!"
इस ही दौरान अंकित फिर चिल्लाया " भैय्या रोटी!", और उसकी पुकार सुनकर सभी मेस कर्मचारी तिथर बिथर हो गये!
Telephonophobia
I have always believed that in the course of our daily lives we accomplish many tasks which before we have accomplished them, look insurmountable. These tasks could be taking a bath (for some) or attending labs and lectures (for most) but for me it is talking on the telephone. I do not find every call a grueling experience but some I positively abhor. I am not afraid of talking on the phone but of running out of things to talk about. Now some people can talk about anything and everything on the phone but I am always scared to death of boring the poor guy on the other side. I do not understand how some people can talk about the latest way they have found of tying their shoe laces or the latest litter of the bitch “just” three houses away. They jump from one “exhilarating” experience to another without giving a damn about the worth of the other poor guy’s time.
Take for example the call I recently made to an old friend of mine. It took us about 3 minutes to exchange the latest in our lives and then we had practically run out of any sensible comments. On occasions such as these the last resort left to us non believers in the art of telephony is to come up with a drab statement like “So, what else is new?”. I regard this sentence to be a sort of signal which means that it is time for the conversation to end. My friend however belonged to an opposite school of thought. From the rest of his speech I could only gather that he understood my “signal” to mean that he had my full attention and I was ready to hear all about his daily rigmarole. He proceeded to tell me in great detail about how he had forgotten his bus pass at home and had had to pay for his ticket, how his girl friend had soundly lambasted him for such forgetfulness and how she was always nagging him about something or the other. By the end of it all I was flabbergasted. He went on and on for 12 minutes at least. Now it was my turn to speak, but I had already exhausted my quota of topics. I was tongue tied and on the phone one’s tongue is pretty much all one has so I was rather embarrassed. After such a long diatribe I could not even go back to my standard question and anyways it had produced highly unsatisfactory results. With great caution I began to recount a small incident about my encounter with a certain professor. Though I knew that the incident was hardly what one terms amusing, I had at least hoped that its simplicity would help conclude the discussion. The outcome was however most bewildering. My friend laughed at all the wrong points in my story and at the end of it started describing a similar encounter of his own. In the end I just managed to get rid of him by saying that I had to go for dinner otherwise who knows how long he would have gone on for.
One of my close friends at IITG has suddenly switched from my camp to the other one. He was like me a simpleton and an amateur in this stupid art. In fact he was even worse than I am. A telephone call from a childhood sweetheart and three months later he has now become a pro. In the initial stages his girlfriend was always complaining that he hardly said anything and now he regularly talks for four and a half hours on the trot and his monthly bill is always four figured. God knows what he talks about daily for so long but he was once heard describing how he fancied ripping someone’s finger nails off and that too in gory detail!!!
Take for example the call I recently made to an old friend of mine. It took us about 3 minutes to exchange the latest in our lives and then we had practically run out of any sensible comments. On occasions such as these the last resort left to us non believers in the art of telephony is to come up with a drab statement like “So, what else is new?”. I regard this sentence to be a sort of signal which means that it is time for the conversation to end. My friend however belonged to an opposite school of thought. From the rest of his speech I could only gather that he understood my “signal” to mean that he had my full attention and I was ready to hear all about his daily rigmarole. He proceeded to tell me in great detail about how he had forgotten his bus pass at home and had had to pay for his ticket, how his girl friend had soundly lambasted him for such forgetfulness and how she was always nagging him about something or the other. By the end of it all I was flabbergasted. He went on and on for 12 minutes at least. Now it was my turn to speak, but I had already exhausted my quota of topics. I was tongue tied and on the phone one’s tongue is pretty much all one has so I was rather embarrassed. After such a long diatribe I could not even go back to my standard question and anyways it had produced highly unsatisfactory results. With great caution I began to recount a small incident about my encounter with a certain professor. Though I knew that the incident was hardly what one terms amusing, I had at least hoped that its simplicity would help conclude the discussion. The outcome was however most bewildering. My friend laughed at all the wrong points in my story and at the end of it started describing a similar encounter of his own. In the end I just managed to get rid of him by saying that I had to go for dinner otherwise who knows how long he would have gone on for.
One of my close friends at IITG has suddenly switched from my camp to the other one. He was like me a simpleton and an amateur in this stupid art. In fact he was even worse than I am. A telephone call from a childhood sweetheart and three months later he has now become a pro. In the initial stages his girlfriend was always complaining that he hardly said anything and now he regularly talks for four and a half hours on the trot and his monthly bill is always four figured. God knows what he talks about daily for so long but he was once heard describing how he fancied ripping someone’s finger nails off and that too in gory detail!!!
Face you Fears...
I am an extremely infrequent blogger. I suffer from the complex that what I write is just my opinion and why the hell should anyone be interested in it. So I need topics about which I can write from scratch. I mean topics about which you have probably read nothing. This turns out to be a difficult pursuit and so I write rarely. From today onwards, however, I have decided to try and get out of this habit. What am I going to do about it? Well I am going to write about something which I do pretty frequently. I am going to write movie reviews. There are two reasons for this. The first one is pretty obvious I guess, because I will be able to write frequently. The second one is called “facing your fears”. As I fear that people wouldn’t read an article by me if it is not about something new, a film review is hardly what people would be expected to have not heard or read about. So, I am going to acquire a “devil may care attitude”. I will write because I love writing and not because I want people to read what I write. Who knows someday I might just write something worthwhile. The first movie I am going to write about is “Jab we met”. It is this movie that has actually inspired me to do this. Read on to know how (well actually, technically I should not be writing Read on as I don’t care if any one is reading or not but still this is one phrase that I like to use very much, so ….)
Jab we met
I have always considered love stories as balderdash. Apart from DDLJ and Hum Tum, I have never been moved by any love story (happy ones I mean). They are all full of clichés and they are always totally predictable. Love stories suffer from the very big problem that you know the end even before the film has begun. So the story teller can not rely on suspense. It is his narration which must be strong. Fortunately after about 3 years (Hum Tum released in 2004), we have a love story which scores well in this test.
Not once in the 2 hours and 23 minutes does director Imtiaz Ali lose hold of his story. His comic timing is perfect and he knows where to leave one thread of the story and begin another. Anyways the threads are few and the story is very simple. But that is a huge plus point of this film. It does not intend to confuse you but amuse you.
The story is roughly this – Aditya (Shahid Kapur) is a dejected man. His girlfriend is marrying another guy and his company is in doldrums. He doesn’t know what to do and feels completely defeated in life, you know the type. Quite absent mindedly he boards a train going from Bombay to Delhi. On that train he meets Geet (Kareena Kapoor), a full of energy, vivacious chirpy and chatty small town girl who is returning to Bhatinda after completing her education in Bombay. Here begins a tale of unexpected adventures that befall the duo as they do pretty much everything that’s possible – miss trains, evacuate hotels after police raids (the police are trying to bust a prostitution racket), jump into lakes etc. They finally reach Bhatinda, where the girl’s Punjabi family play the perfect hosts to Aditya. Now Geet loves a boy who lives in Manali and is hell bent on marrying him and hence has to run away from home. Aditya runs away with her (he can hardly stay in her house when she has run away) and the family thinks they have eloped together. Aditya then leaves Geet in Manali and goes off to build his life back again. He has learnt a lot from the peppy punjaban (and has actually fallen in love with her) and he goes on to successfully re-establish his business.
This is the point in the story where things take a dramatic turn. Geet’s boyfriend Anshuman refuses to marry her and she can’t return to her family. Aditya takes her back and you know what and how of the story henceforward but mercifully not much is left. Anshuman comes back to claim Geet and provides some fun moments in the story or what is left of it.
All in all it is an extremely enjoyable film with all its jokes being of the highest standard (which is quite difficult to find in these days of excessive toilet humour). Kareena Kapoor excels in the film and Shahid is strangely bearable. In fact he is good most of the times, but just fails to pull off some of the more difficult scenes (These are the scenes least relevant to the film but necessary for continuity so it doesn’t matter much). But that is ok I guess, nothing is perfect. The supporting cast doesn’t get much to do (with Shahid Kapur’s mother not even getting a dialogue, she has to be content with making obscure faces all the time) but still they do what is required of them well (The guy Anshuman looks as anserine as he is supposed to look.)
The songs are however a disappointment. Most of them are not well placed. Still they are not lacking in melody and if you watch the film in a cinema hall I daresay that you will like them. Though not exactly in the same league as the other two films I have mentioned it is still all in all a very good effort and a refreshing change from all sorts of strange stuff being churned out in the name of creativity these days. In true film critic style I will give the film 3.5 stars (out of 5 of course).
P.S -: Most of the readers of my blog have seen the film with me today so I am not expecting many people to read this but still if you do, then I would be extremely happy to hear out what you have got to say. And yes, how this film inspired me to face my fears, just simply by recreating what we all have seen so many times – A love story, and doing that successfully.
Jab we met
I have always considered love stories as balderdash. Apart from DDLJ and Hum Tum, I have never been moved by any love story (happy ones I mean). They are all full of clichés and they are always totally predictable. Love stories suffer from the very big problem that you know the end even before the film has begun. So the story teller can not rely on suspense. It is his narration which must be strong. Fortunately after about 3 years (Hum Tum released in 2004), we have a love story which scores well in this test.
Not once in the 2 hours and 23 minutes does director Imtiaz Ali lose hold of his story. His comic timing is perfect and he knows where to leave one thread of the story and begin another. Anyways the threads are few and the story is very simple. But that is a huge plus point of this film. It does not intend to confuse you but amuse you.
The story is roughly this – Aditya (Shahid Kapur) is a dejected man. His girlfriend is marrying another guy and his company is in doldrums. He doesn’t know what to do and feels completely defeated in life, you know the type. Quite absent mindedly he boards a train going from Bombay to Delhi. On that train he meets Geet (Kareena Kapoor), a full of energy, vivacious chirpy and chatty small town girl who is returning to Bhatinda after completing her education in Bombay. Here begins a tale of unexpected adventures that befall the duo as they do pretty much everything that’s possible – miss trains, evacuate hotels after police raids (the police are trying to bust a prostitution racket), jump into lakes etc. They finally reach Bhatinda, where the girl’s Punjabi family play the perfect hosts to Aditya. Now Geet loves a boy who lives in Manali and is hell bent on marrying him and hence has to run away from home. Aditya runs away with her (he can hardly stay in her house when she has run away) and the family thinks they have eloped together. Aditya then leaves Geet in Manali and goes off to build his life back again. He has learnt a lot from the peppy punjaban (and has actually fallen in love with her) and he goes on to successfully re-establish his business.
This is the point in the story where things take a dramatic turn. Geet’s boyfriend Anshuman refuses to marry her and she can’t return to her family. Aditya takes her back and you know what and how of the story henceforward but mercifully not much is left. Anshuman comes back to claim Geet and provides some fun moments in the story or what is left of it.
All in all it is an extremely enjoyable film with all its jokes being of the highest standard (which is quite difficult to find in these days of excessive toilet humour). Kareena Kapoor excels in the film and Shahid is strangely bearable. In fact he is good most of the times, but just fails to pull off some of the more difficult scenes (These are the scenes least relevant to the film but necessary for continuity so it doesn’t matter much). But that is ok I guess, nothing is perfect. The supporting cast doesn’t get much to do (with Shahid Kapur’s mother not even getting a dialogue, she has to be content with making obscure faces all the time) but still they do what is required of them well (The guy Anshuman looks as anserine as he is supposed to look.)
The songs are however a disappointment. Most of them are not well placed. Still they are not lacking in melody and if you watch the film in a cinema hall I daresay that you will like them. Though not exactly in the same league as the other two films I have mentioned it is still all in all a very good effort and a refreshing change from all sorts of strange stuff being churned out in the name of creativity these days. In true film critic style I will give the film 3.5 stars (out of 5 of course).
P.S -: Most of the readers of my blog have seen the film with me today so I am not expecting many people to read this but still if you do, then I would be extremely happy to hear out what you have got to say. And yes, how this film inspired me to face my fears, just simply by recreating what we all have seen so many times – A love story, and doing that successfully.
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