Sanity Insanity and Moi

December 19, 2008 …

I didn’t expect to write this second part the very next day. But something really funny happened that i had to write about day 2.

After taking the session to a crowd, that enrolled itself for the advanced training, for something that they didn’t know, i was quite exhausted. Every time i finish a slide i’d ask them, “Did u guys understand that?”. They all will then have that look like Katrina Kaif just asked them out. Interestingly the only girl in the session, was trying out the student exercises and was cursing big time - “Yeh, kitna ghatiya system hai…”. With all that, i needed a break.

I decided to walk it up to the guest house. After all it was just a 15 min walk from the office. Got out to the main road and got on to a cycle rickshaw. I was told by my friend from Delhi that one of things to try out in Delhi was to take a ride in one of the cycle rickshaws. Hopped on to one of them and as i was nearing my guest house, i changed my plan.

(translation of my conversation with the rickshaw guy)

“Do you know any shopping malls near by..”

“Yes sir”

“Can you take me there?”

“Ok”

So he started peddling. On and on and on. On the way i see one Grand Mall, he didn’t stop there. Then i see a Mega Mall. he didnt stop there either. I asked him why he didn’t stop any where there? He replied that he will take me to a better place. 20 minutes into the ride i end up in a place like the BDA Complex in Bangalore and there was a big red board on top of that building and on it was written in white Arial Bold font - “DLF Shopping Mall”. Yes! he took me to a building named shopping mall. I just couldn’t stop laughing at myself. Paid the rickshaw guy and walked back to Mega Mall. All the way laughing at myself.

So if u ever end up in Delhi/Gurgaon/any NCR region, dont ask for shopping malls. Just ask for ‘malls’. I must warn you, if u cant say ‘mall’ with the ‘o’, and can only say that with an ‘a’; Oops! My advice - stay at home, Delhi is not the place for you. Or may be if you are lucky enough the mall can get you to a place full of ‘mall’.

I was shocked to see this advt. from the Dec 5th edition of The Times of India.

If you are still wondering what’s wrong with the advt. Look at the soldiers. They are not even Indian. They are bloody US Maries sporting M4 Carbine. Even the tank that they show is not one that used by the Indian Army.

The so called Sainik Welfare people from Karnataka, Salute the World’s best Armed Forces and puts up US soldiers pic. If they cant get their advts right, i have no idea what they are so proud of. I wish they were among the ones killed in Mumbai.

Shame!!!

My Country is burning…

My Country Men are burning…

They are Laughing…

Mark my words: for the last time ever!!!

I dont know what else i should do other than sitting here and getting furious.

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Wishing everyone a very Happy Onam

If this is the kind of english that DNA is going to report news on, then i’d better never read their paper.

“If Sepang can host a F1 race, why can’t Bangalore?”

You gotta abe kidding me

Its a beautiful Monday morning … YAWN!!!!!!!!

I dont want to talk about Monday mornings. Like all other Monday mornings, today i was late to get up, slept through the ‘wake-up’ time.

Today i found something that was my time-pass to the way to office in the morning. With all the damned jams and slow moving traffic, these were real amusing…

• An auto that had no inch left to be decorated with multi-colored stickers, looked like a Pharaoh’s 21st century ride
• Every damn guys is late and its jammed
• The chick behind the bike always looks cute on a Monday morning and her beauty-quotient drops as we move to Friday
• This applies to all the days - 80% of chicks riding a 2-wheeler wear a jacket with either/both the shades of Blue / Red. Its like their universal code.
• On any given working day, the average body area of a lady covered with clothes, scarfs, helmet etc. etc. beats that of a lady from Taliban lead Afghanistan.
• The BMTC bus jams the road at exactly the same spot every Monday

and i’m always half crazy on Mondays…

(This post was done on August 19, 2008 at 1:35 am, which is a Tuesday…)

Blog Response to - If you can’t beat them, learn Kannada

There can’t be more than a handful of north-indians actually putting an effort to learn the language of the southies. If they are made to swear in the native language, or if they are forced to learn the native language then its only because they have forced it on themselves. So whats the big deal in Delhiites and Punjabis learning the local language. That’s not something to be hailed as their broadmindedness. But rather the result of their indifference and prejudice towards the southern states and their culture.

Lola Kutty in one of the episodes of Channel [V] I.Q. popped the question - Where is Kerala? Most of the answers were - ‘Somewhere in Tamil Nadu’. Now, how bad can it get. Civilized folks giving such a reply! That itself speaks about the apathy towards ‘Madarasis’. Ask an average office goer from south, the difference between a Punjabi and a Bihari, they would be witty enough to point out our Railway Minister and our PM.

Hindi is our National Language and folks from south did make an effort in learning the language. But i’m sorry, if they have a thick Malayali or Tamilian accent or if they add a ‘da’ to the end of every known question to man. Its utterly ridiculous to make fun of a person if he/she has an accent. You’re not British, you too have got a bloody crisp ‘d’, as in doe, doe-saa accent for ‘dosa’.

No language is enforced on anyone. Be polite to the hard earning auto-drivers and tell’em that you don’t know Kannada and they will help you. Rather than using your ‘decent-enough’ knowledge of the native language to get in and out of fights.

Hey wait a sec, lets talk about the cream of the industry, the IT world. You are taught to co-ordinate and collaborate towards a common goal. So lets all start to converse in English or rather Hinglish or Manglish or Tanglish. Down south an accent is not a big deal and nobody brags about it.

Scene 1 : One fine day, you are with your ‘good-english’ speaking northie friend and happen to meet a friend from your place. You speak to your friend in your tongue and the good northie samaritan aloo-paratha asks if you could make it in a common language. You and your friend struggle with the oddity of having to speak in a mixture of English+Hindi, just to make the other friend feel comfortable and not to make him feel like the odd one out.

Scene 2 : One fine evening, you join your good northie friend for a cup of tea. In walks his friend, they take off in hindi and you try to put the message across, the same way he did. 2 min into the conversation, your friend says, ‘Hey, you got a thick tamilian accent, its doe-saa and not dosha“.

Scene 3 : All four happen to meet at the same time. Northies take off in hindi and rambles on. You say a single line in your mother-tongue, Objection Your Honour!, ‘What are you guys talking about? All we can make out is pada-pada-pada-pada-pada-pada!!!’ or even worse ‘What are you guys talking about? All we can make out is - idly vada idly vada idly vada’

Now why is there such a sick behavior. Its not that we don’t know your language. Trust me down south 80% of the people in cities that you happen to come to, know Hindi, to a level that they follow you even if you are a Bihari or a Delhiite. Even still they simply choose to ignore as they feel, you come down south and ridicule them for what they are.

Bangalore would have been a truly international city, if the people who landed here could have given a little consideration to the local culture and people and rather not treat them as trash.

(Cross-posted here)

A friend of mine once said, when you are watching the movie ‘Partner’, leave your logic at home and the movie is entertaining. So it follows that, at times when my friends invite me to watch a Hindi movie, i just pack-off my logic to a holiday at the Bahamas. It applies to all mindless comedies that have come out in the name of entertainment. Some makes it through, but some just fail.

Of late Akshay has had a string of comedy movies under his belt and most of them were with the gorgeous Katrina Kaif. Singh is Kinng is no different, but there is something fresh about the comedy and it really makes sense.

Lets just say that the movie does justice to itself. Its a very simple story of Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar), who would just do anything to help you out.Happy is there to help you if you need it or not. But there is a problem, he has got a negative ‘Midas touche’. He leaves a trail of destruction when he sets out to help someone. Its his golden heart that wins him other’s hearts. Rangeela (Om Puri) and the rest of the villagers like Happy, but Happy’s helping hand is now everyone’s headache.

Then there is Lucky Singh(Sonu Sood) a.k.a King, who is a Don in Australia. King has had many close calls on his life. One fine day when King’s dad fall sick, Rangeela makes a plan to get rid of Happy by sending him to Australia to get King, but finds himself having to join Happy. With some sudden turn of events Happy and Rangeela find themselves in Egypt, where he meets Sonia (Katrina Kaif).

What follows is some nicely scripted comedy and the events that make Happy to be the new King! Nothing more to add to the spoilers, so guys enjoy Happy’s journey to Australia. It will sure tickle you to the bones.

Things to watch out for (or rather not to watch) :

Uff!!!! Katrina, she is gorgeous, she is damn sexy, but she is there just to fit in the role of a heroine. Neha Dupia still gets a fair amount of scenes and dialogues. Katrina’s dialogue is still half-Hindi and half-British and never runs more than half-a-page, even if every line was put together. Even after so many movies, her expressions remind me of the Hollywood actor Steven Segal. With Steven Segal you cant make out what his expression is - he kills, shoots, kisses, cries - all with the same constipated look. With Katrina, oh god, its always the Vogue-cover-model look. Damn it even when she is crying, its the same!

The fun part of the movie is, most of the actors who has been the regular villains and the serious characters, playing a comical role. Ranvir Shorey still pays the unfortunate lover. The song with Snoop Dogg would have been better if the Hindi rap part was done by, say Hard Kaur or Bombay Rockers or somebody else.

Highlights of the Movie :

• Katrina’s gorgeous looks (again and again and again)
• The opening scene of Akshay
• Neha Dupia - all sizzling
• The Hindi version of ‘corn-flakes’ - LOL
• The scene where all of them get to discuss on Happy and Sonia - ROTFLOL
  
• Javed Jaffery

Pritam has come up with some real good songs that have been packed really well, just like the icing on top of the cake. The title track has already made a mark.

ENOUGH! - i wont misguide you any more or get you misguided by the high minded critics in town who fail to appreciate simple things in life and movies, who look for reasons under the earth and beyond the sky to say bad things about any and every movie ever made unless they are paid well enough to say otherwise OR unless they are member of the ‘Bollywood’s Mutual Admiration Society’ or ‘Star Power Sucker’s Club’, and before you fall victim of the vicious process of letting someone else decide what film you should and shouldn’t watch…let me tell you, - Watch the movie without fail! Full Paisa Vasool!

Singh is Kinng!!!

(Cross-posted here)

Ya ya ya, The UPA government won the trust vote. Now everybody is happy, lets say the UPA and its allies are at least happy that the nuclear deal will happen without any glitch.

So whats keeping the Left in the news, well they have dutifully expelled Somnath Chattergee, as of now!!!

And the BJP, the poor saffron brigade had MPs that switched sided, took money etc etc and are finding themselves in their pool of shit.

As for the wanna-be PM or rather the future PM, Rahul Gandhi, his speech at the parliament was meant to be patriotic. Its amazing when somebody out of the blue has a burst of patriotism. The wanna-be PM Lalooji (i will only call him lalooji as he is the only devil around with an angel’s halo - look at the railways), he sure did crack some dialogues and made his point on the Lok Sabha floor. At least he had the balls to say that he wants to be the PM, may be not now but later (great!!!). I would rather see the nation run by him than by Mayawathi.

So you thought that everything is going to settle and die down after the trust vote? That we will have our so called ‘nuclear-deal’, of which half of the debating politicos have no idea what its about, going through and life will go on as normal. I cant believe that somebody as dumb witted as the Muslim League (or one of their clones) comes up the brightest allegation - Nuclear Deal is anti-Muslim!!!.

Well Nuclear-deal is done or rather will be. Now what will i do for my entertainment. At home the trust vote sparked so much of interest that after we lost our borrowed tuner-card back to whom it belonged to, my room mates went on a buying spree. They bought a new internal tuner-card and DAMN!! the thing never worked. They had to cuddle themselves in front of the streaming video that they could salvage out of the Wimax connection. Next day i reach home to find an external tuner-card. Great!!!Perfect!!!

When all my hope was lost - Ram Sethu pops up. Ok! i’m sorry, i thought we done with that controversy a long time ago. Naaahhh, the government needs something to remain in news. The latest news says that Ram nuked the Sethu after he was done with Lanka. So what? Preserve it!!! Preserve something that is speculated to be God’s creation and let the freight ships make a Lanka journey. Let the price of goods carried by the ships to the Bengal coast be more, let the people suffer.

But hey wait a sec!!! why is it that we have controversy and allegation and political drama filling up the air-waves. Guys, just rewind a new weeks back. What was it that hit the news then? INFLATION!!! and we were damn sure that the Government couldn’t do much about it, than sit and watch. The price of a barrel of crude oil just went beyond Mars and there was no stopping the inflation arrow. But what happened???

Aren’t we still in that same phase. Aren’t we still facing the Inflation terror???

Ohh wait!!! the govt has diverted all public attention to Nuclear-deal.. Ohh that’s done.. its Ram Sethu now!!!!

Enjoy the Price Hike!!!!