It's Sheer Blasphemy

While blog hopping (going from one blog to another), I came across a series of blogposts about Chyetanya Kunte's NDTV fiasco. My very first reaction, I really live the life of an ignorant fool, because how else do I explain my not knowing about this for such a long time. Second, third, and all the reactions that follow till I am exhausted are nothing but of shock and disgust. It's been quite sometime that I have been wanting to make a post about my personal opinion about 'The Ms. Barkha Dutta.' However, I think, after finding about CK and NDTV I am left with no words. I infact feel sad about the lady and the channel that flaunts itself raising the 'free speech' flag all the time. But reading about the Chyetanya Kunte's case, I am appalled at NDTV and at Ms. Dutt, more than I ever was.

I think may be, just may be, someone needs to clarify the meanings of 'free speech' and of 'double standards,' to both NDTV and Barkha Dutt. I agree Chyetanya Kunte's post 'Shoddy-Journalism' was not really professional and lacked facts, but it said nothing to evoke the kind of action that was taken by petty NDTV folks and Ms. Dutt. The apology surely stinks of the double standards that both the entities (NDTV & Dutt) reak of and presents the Indian Media in a new light. 

Yet Another Hour Of Office Time!

Is The Honeymoon Over??

I went to watch Slumdog Millionaire last Tuesday. With all the shiny golden awards that the film bagged, I and KT went in with a lot of expectations. 

We hated the fact that we missed the first 2 minutes of the movie. All settled into our seats, we began the journey of Slumdog. I infact quite liked the portion where they extensively show Dharaavi and the kids navigating through the mysterious lanes and by lanes. Then in a very small period of time comes a series of things that any foreign eye thinks is quintessential India - Gallee cricket matches on runways, policemen chasing slum kids, the fan frenzy for Amitabh, the communal riot, the bad beggar gangs, childhood love, if anything was missing Danny Boyle completed it with the last dance number in bollywood ishtyle Jai Ho....though Kudos to AR Rehman for the fantastic music. 

Many might think that I have a problem with foreign directors like Boyle showcasing only the worst of India. But trust me I have no such issues, I am not ashamed of saying or seeing what is my own (I know, i can say this easily, as I don't physically belong any of these spaces), and if I get awards and fame for it....what could be better. But if anyone is to ask me, whether or not I liked the movie....I would say, it was just OK. A mediocre film for me, that did not really transport my movie watching experience to something I had never experienced before. I perhaps wanted to like the movie, so much, that I felt guilty for getting bored. Since then, I have spoken to quite a few of my colleagues, friends, and family who watched the movie and each one of them is a little dissappointed with the fact that the movie was just OK for them too. Why so? What went wrong with the movie releasing in India, when it won such high remarks outside?

To give a very amateur opinion, I think, the whole content of the movie is for a foreign audience, who finds shock and surprise at the sight of a place like Dharavi, seeing all that makes a slum in India. With kids fighting their own way to adulthood, with a child being exposed to the malice of the grown up world, they watch all this in awe and perhaps feel pity. I think, it is all very unrealistic for a foreign eye and therefore, they enjoy experiencing something out of their own worlds. But for us, there is nothing new, we see such scenes everyday. This is where, I think, the movie fails. 

For us, it is a way of life in India. Many of us may be even want to do something to help them. But still we very much accept the fact of their existence and the conditions in which they live. But for the world of America and Britain...it is beyond imagination, leave apart acceptance, to think of this way of life. I think this is where the movie is such a hit outside of India. Talking about cinematic brilliance, I could not really find many of such moments in the entire movie. It is more or less like a very good documentary cinema, if we can place it in that genre. May be the end dance & song number was only to make the audience feel that they were watching a mainstream cinema, may be even the love story was there for this very reason. Though, personally for me, it completely lacks any spark, chemistry, or even reason :)

But I do give points to Danny Boyle, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto for surviving India and Dharavi without a scratch. Also, I think, I will give points to Dev Patel and Freida Pinto for going on and on giving interviews about SDM, without stopping to think...hellos people, you literally had no role in the movie....I am angry that Salim has been completly forgotten...

What I love in the movie is the way, the kids have acted.  Hats off to whoever made them act so naturally. I love Salim's character in the movie, it is the best developed character in the film. I think....more people should be talking about the kid, the guy, and the character who played Salim, than the typical NRI looking Dev Patel, whom if you want you can completly ignore in the movie, or better place anyones face instead of his...and the movie will make no difference at all.

All this said and done, I think the Honeymoon is over for SDM atleast in India! Also, I think this will make no difference to the Oscar nominations or results. Big deal, if the movie is all about India....and a bigger deal if it wasn't really a hit in India, who cares....let's lobby for the film...since very few Indian(ummmm, if we can call it that) films reach the Oscars.....three cheers for Oscars....hip hip horray!

One word for going mad with boxes (9)

The answer is CROSSWORD!

Over the long weekend, I managed to acquire a new hobby...no prizes for guessing. It indeed is crosswords. All my life, untill the past weekend, I hated doing crosswords and thought it to be a sheer waste of time and efforts. Mostly, coz whenever I tried to solve them, I failed miserably. So, much so that, I would forget the simplest of english synonyms. As a kid, I even thought it to be some kind of a monster, which makes you forget your words and spellings :O

But to every crossword solvers relief, I have overcome my fear for them and infact I love them now. Last saturday, I dug out all the supplements for MetroPlus (Hindu's daily supplement, except for Fridays) and tried my hands at around 20 crossword puzzles, loving each one of them. Though in the process, I almost ate up KTs brain asking his help on every second word. And KT being the superman when it comes to crosswords, did not really like getting disturbed between his Tennis, Mahabharat, Enter the Dragon, and other stuff. So, mostly I left many of the puzzles 50%-60% complete, after I got the "eyes rolling, chuckling to self" expressions. However, last night KT and me attempted to complete one old one :)I also completed one at work today with all the online help I could take and with the benevolent Meisters help. Yay! but I completed it all alone(since there was no physical being next to me ;)....kudos to me! But I do not like doing the online version much, and prefer the old school pen and newspaper :)

P.S - Have flicked today's Metroplus from office for a nice brain wrestling tournament at home :)

For Federer!

Have been wanting to blog for a while. But then far too many things at work and work in itself has been overwhelming for a few days. 

So, thought a small post about something new I watched on television last weekend. I am really bad when it comes to choosing what to see on television. I choose the most saddest of Ekta Kappoor operas and watch it, inspite of the fact that they make no sense to me. As, I watch TV once in a week or two may be. So, my room-mate and my boyfriend, usually try to show off their talents in this area. Though, I make my unhappiness with grunts and my constant trials to reach for the remote. I hope neither of them chance to read this, because the moment they do, my TV watching hours are so gonna reduce :(

Coming back to, to why I have suppplemented this post with Federer's pic :)I succumbed to KT choosing to watch one of those history captured series on FOX (a channel covering all these things that are past, present, and future). The show was showing, Federer's journey as a tennis-star. Glimpses from his matches from the past. I really liked what was shown as Federer to me (coz I somewhere identify with his never say die attitude he has as a sportsman) and decided, that if ever anyone asks me who my fav tennis player is, I would grin and say "Federer."

P.S - Post that day, I am trying to keep myself informed about my fav Tennis Player :)New Hobbie you see

Hindi Movie Posters...

A coincidence it might be, but the topic seems to be swirling around my conversations with my  friends and cab mates off late. So, what better than making a post about it.

In our conversations, I realized that hindi movie posters seem to have come a long way. Going back to one of the first image-less posters of the film Raja Harishchandra to the recent glossy posters for the Rock Ons and the Gajni's of our times. I remember having seen some of the hand-painted posters of the movies from 60s through the 80s, all stained with paan. Be it then, the colourful and yet crowded posters, with every main character on it, for Mera Naam Joker or the sole strong face of Amitabh Bacchan dominating it for almost all of his films in the 70s. The hindi movie posters have indeed come a long way. 

When I was a kid, it was an awaited event for every thrusdays. When with my friends or cousins, I would take the most famous galees where the new movie posters would appear for the three cinema halls we had in our town back then. We would wait a minute or two staring at them, soaking in every detail, and only then would we continue our walk to see the same poster again in the next lane. Finally, we would come to decide on a day for watching. 

Now, when I am in hyderabad, a friend reminds me of those posters in a casual conversation, and in my 23 km drive from my house to my office, my eyes search longingly for a single movie poster in one of those forgotten  and wretched walls. To my surprise, the only posters I see are for the recent Telugu movies. Most of those are more like hoardings hung on huge billboards. I am forced to talk to my cab-mates about my fond memories of Amitabh, Mithun, or Govinda staring out of the old posters like Greek Gods, suited only for Indian fantasies. I remember, some of my girl friends staring longingly at them. Alas! I have to admit, the era for not just the hand-painted posters is gone, but so also the era for posters on every obscure wall is gone. Sadly enough, I only realized it far too late. I wonder, why such gradual disappearance, so sudden I surely can't call them?

Various answers flash through my head, may be too many TV advertisements for the upcoming new movies, internet bookings, various resources we now have to find out about the new releases. But could it be also because of the changing spaces we live in today. Who did these posters cater to? Who were their audience...? The general mass....

Has there then been a disconnect then in what constituted earlier the general mass?Perhaps yes, we can now divide the mass of any metropolis into - the Urban and the not so urban mass. The urban, looks at the multi-plexes and the internet for movie information and perhaps the not so urban mass is fast catching up. But how about the telugu movies, I grudge them for having the very boisterous posters, though not so appealing to me, staring out and making me all the more nostalgic about my lovely old hindi film posters. Why do they continue having them, and not just posters, but hoardings too. Who is the then the audience for these films? Do they still remain the naive youngster or rather the teenager that I was a decade back? Apart from innocence and such facades that I just used for my past, I think, there indeed is a serius disparity between the masses that watch the telugu and the hindi movies in Hyderabad. Because, just like the telugu posters, back home we still have these occasional hindi movie poster being stained every minute.

I think, merely for the fact that I choose to live in a metro-city, I will have to say goodbye to those celluloid moments, captured for eternity in a frame and live sulking with the glossy, rich multiplex posters.

For Bubloo & Tukun Da

Ankhon mein masti sharab ki...

kali zulfon mein ratein shabab ki

Jane aayi kahan se tut ke

Mere daman mein pankhudi gulab ki, haye....

Chand ka tukda kahoon ya

Husn ki duniya kahoon

preet ki sargam kahu ya

pyar ka sapna kahu

Sochta hoon kya kahoon

is shokh ko mein kya kahoon...

Still remember the room, the red bucket, the bottles, the voices, and all that is ours...

Conversations...

UG came over the last thursday to my house...it was a nice night of conversations and revealations. On second thoughts, conversations ofter lead to the latter. For me, it lead to a lot of re-revealations of me...

1. For me 'I' is very important, much much more than I have seen it in anyone around me.

2. I have lived alone for far too long and I guard my space like a treasure. Sometimes, accomodating people in it is a pain.

3. I realized people who enter my realm are only those whom I allow, that too very restrictively. 

4. I have a conscious habit of being extra careful while placing two words next to each other....many times it shows. But most times it looks beautiful as well.

5. I was reminded of my mother's teaching once again, "never say or do things consciously to hurt others..."

6. I can be a good listener when I want to be. 

7. I can choose to keep the real me hidden for a very long time, till I feel the need to or otherwise.

8. I love talking  to UG.

9. I adore the way serendipiduous writes and I love its content too.

10. I am a snob in my own way.

11. I wish to write more.

12. The world is much much more that I ever could anticipate in my dreams.

13. I am so thankful to Tukun da for those times when he read the endless pages my register and corrected me.

14. I love him otherwise as well.

All these and much more. But thoughts as with anything else is temporal....so I could feel just something altogether different in another such nights where we talk...

A Jealous Snake

I sit on my window sill
and see the children
laughing and playing
I see their smiling faces,
their merry lives,
and I writhe in pain...

Why could I not be
Happy
Alive
and More...


But Instead,
I crawl slow,
very slow.
Like a jealous snake
on a window sill...

No Title Apt For This...

There is no real reason to write, nothing at all. But perhaps, after reading Premankur's eloquent posts, I want to write something even an ounce as good as he does.

May be I cannot. Writing rests as a forgotten memory which you remember only when you chance to come across some old picture of yours in an old, ragged family album. You try to fondle the memory by talking about it. You may even try to remember the names of all those captured in that memory. Sometimes, if leisure permits, you will try imitating the expressions lost and forgotten. But the end of it all is that you dust the album and shove it right back towards that end of the almirah where yours eyes hardly reach.

Sometimes, I wish I was in a city as quaint as Raigarh or atleast Kolkata. But then, I know people think it is merely an excuse to hide your inability to write. Perhaps, I should atleast begin to admit it...

Amidst the Blue Sky & A Yellow bird

Pikpik, the yellow bird sat gathering the sunny delight of the afternoon. Hopping from one branch to another, she was oblivious that two people were talking about it. The happy yellow bird, underneath the blue sky...

I Don't know...

Sometimes, its very difficult to realize why you are feeling the way you are. There is no justification. In the sense, the recent past events have nothing happening in it to explain your present emotion or the way you feel. Last night, I had a wonderful time with friends, who selflessly indulge me, and yet the morning made me sad. Waking up today, I had this empty feeling in my heart, so empty that it aches of nothingness. 

Hollow,

every morning,

the world becomes a vacuum 

and my heart sucks into the emptiness.

Delighted, it sings songs of misery

Relishes every drop of sad melody

till it can take no more...

no more of what I see

cracked-up faces smiling, false smiles

Social niceties traumatize me

and I see them basking in it

I feel lonely and alienated

Is this how it was supposed to be?

I was supposed to live a happy life

and not get sucked and consumed

by the rest...

It ain't A Game to be Over in a Jiffy...

Life isn't a game that you stop it as and when you like. It is life, you ought to give warnings, warnings, and more of it before you decide to stop. Cruel and unannounced, that can't be the way. No more, I say. 

Death isn't a gift that you just give to someone, without their asking for it. I ask of you to give us a gentle tap, remind us of our time, so we bid adieu. Give us the chance to mend our mistakes, and see lifefull of our loved ones, one last time. Cruel and unannounced, that can't be the way. No more, I say.

I am sorry. I never meant to hurt, but I did. Somewhere, within, I feel, we weren't supposed to be the way we were with each other. We loved, that's all we did. I am sure we did, somewhere deep within, but it got all overshadowed. This time when I meet, I will give you the strangest hug, that will clear out all that was never said, and all that I want to say right now.

Is it Time Yet?

Is it time yet
to play mind games?

It never is perhaps
but yet we do it
incessantly...
I forget all that was Me
And start the game
yet again. This time
I want to learn to cheat lives...
Friends offer generously
So much that I forget it is a game
Perhaps it is...
It is time to go back to what I was
to start and never go back to where it all began...

Sometimes, its hard to let go. Yet that seems to be the only recourse

...Life, Death and Pain

It's not the right time
It's not the time in which one lives
but fear does
Fear about life, death and pain

I do not fear, says the little girl
perhaps she does not know
what life can teach you
just like death teaches you to be brave

It's not heaven that I am hopeful for
the moments spent in tears and prayers
are not for any one god
they just are moments of silence
where I think about well being
of a self, a family and the universe

Perhaps prayers about the universe
fades and is feeble
and so bodies die in pain
souls splatter
like grains on a marble floor

I do not fear says, the little girl
perhaps she knows about life deep within
she is ready to splatter her soul
into infinite pieces
at-least if it answers the prayers of one

The frozen masses join the dance
frenzy
a wild frenzy of splattered souls
plastered in red
sometimes, I lose the color
and the vision gets blurred
anyways its going to be heads, toes and faces
I know, so I let the focus go
blurred visions of the dead, the living
the brave and the unknown
a brother reckons the loss
a mother is broken
a sister listlessly consoles her own grief
a father prepares for the rituals
a pyre is formed
of life, death and pain...

Stories are attemts to write something good, you might end with millions of pages of bad writing...

Stories for me never started with a king and a queen who had a lovely princess. ‘Once upon a time,’ this phrase lost its meaning, when kids started to spend more time in their living rooms, watching intently the extremely simple, yet so convoluted stories of the soap operas. With this, I guess it was the end to the stories that grandmothers tried to keep fresh in their memories, for those sunny afternoons, when schools were shut, and the scorching sun, did not allow us to step out of our houses.

Minu, never had imagined, that the carefully woven urban life would tear apart like this. Being the only child of the Pathak’s, she had the luxury to think of relationships, and master the art of urban living. When, her friends like Shibu, had to work hard to scrape some food to her plate. Minu, had spent a lot of her time, trying to re-conceptualize what the small town, with its un-smitten smell of rotten, thatched roof had taught her. She had managed to manipulate, all that she associated with her bare foot childhood. She thought she eventually had fit in, to this whole plethora of junk that people guiltily called ‘Urban.’

The crowded streets, with its sleek cars, ready to knock any one, in an outrage of heavy traffic, had intrigued her. The bright neon lights at the costly malls, with people flaunting the luxuries, she never had seen, amused and attracted her. The fancy eateries, the avenues that presented itself at every other corner, tempted her to reach out to her long locked, famished capitalist self. She was overwhelmed, how people could be so distant from each others lives, while back at home, shead explain, to not just her family or her neighborhood, but to that of her mothers, about anything she did. She for once had started to feel like the woman, the free bird she had wanted to be. She often dreamt of herself, wearing the red, flimsy gown, standing on the car, like Marlin Monroe. Since, the first glances of the city from Madan uncle’s, cramped car, she had wished hard to try and adopt all that a city had to offer. She practiced hard for an year or two, picking up every bit and piece she could, while her city-bred friend made fun of her naïve and endearing trials.

Amidst the giant buildings, which intimidated the village girl that she once was, she was now happy to be a part of the top floor office, and loved the exorbitant atmosphere, with keyboard keys beating like hear-beats, coffee machines replacing all it could and there she learnt to loose the innocence amidst contorted faces and illuminated screens.

About Nothingness

hmm...sigh...

It is funny when you want to write but have no clue at all about what to write. On second thoughts I feel like scrubbing off the whole plan of writing. But then writing something is always better than nothing. A poem is always an easy and elusive way out. That ways I write something for the satisfaction of the half a reader audience that I have for my blog and always escape the torturous guilt of not writing something for long.

That being an explanation for a shitty post, I think now I can get away with anything worthless.

the only moon that shines
chisels its silhouette with the darkest coal
beneath I stand happy yet sad
to be alone
I do not sigh for the summer night
and try to feel
the crescent that evades
the balmy cool breeze
or perhaps not
yet childhood summer smells
all that is gone by
friends long forgotten
faces never drawn
call me by my kittens name
the mewing grows
and rekindles a spark
I let it smother away painlessly
yet the choking noise suffocates
the summer breeze
I try to think of my favorite river
and remember
it's been long I visited my mothers grave
the grass must have taken her in its lap
sung lullabies till she is asleep
and the moon must be shining as bright over her
as it is over me...

so it is a poem again :(

Shamuka...the only kid I relate to as a daughter

My Girl,
the world you live in
will not be as bad as mine

You will not've to
scream your lungs out
to let people know
pains, a lot of them
and fights, your mother fought
just to give you the Life
you deserve.

By then, I would have lost my voice
making them learn to listen.

You would not've to
beg and plead in delirium
to make people understand
you as a woman
who suffers at every crossroad.

By then, I would have trained
a mile of people who understand a woman.

But, still I cannot promise you
My Girl,
that I 'll be able to reduce your woman-pain,
Yet I promise you this much sweet love
YOU, would not've to
bare your body stark naked
up for a public display,
to satisfy them of the age-old scars
that only this body has suffered.

Till then, I bleed
every drop in me,
like drops of dew from the early winter morning
and I will try to make the world
a much better place for you to live in...

P.S. - I know this poem isn't aesthetically good, rather it can't be called a poem perhaps, still it serves some of my purpose.

About to crash…

Hold the waking up

Let it not announce

A new day

A new way

I live like a pale leaf

And I want to die the same way

Silent

Lonely

And withered

I repeat the images

I repeat my words

I repeat my life

To live it from the beginning

This time promising

To love you better

Love you more

I make a clean start

Fresh like the red wound

And as I start to heel ahead

I fall into a pattern

I think for this hundredth time

The pattern is new

At least the colors

And I believe in the difference

I try to tenderly cultivate it

But I never was like you

And so I forget the beginning

And get lost in the whirlpool

Of thoughts, lives, and loves

I discover towards the end

That I have unwontedly

Lived the very same life

With the very same lies

So I sleep never to wake up

Into a new beginning

Into a new rehearsal

And try to keep company

The remembrances that

I left on the lonely sea shore

And a red rose dipped in acid…