While browsing through the comments list on my posts, I landed to saim’ blog http://cataclysmofreality.blogspot.com/. Suddenly a song has caught my attention. And I was surprised to hear it coming from my lappie. To confirm, I increased the volume and then realized it’s playing on his website. It was one of those pleasant song from school hood, a song that am still growing up on. I rather kept the volume and plugged in my headphone.

Whoever says that Hindi film songs have lost their charm, essence and melody, have definitely not heard new songs, this song in particular. No doubt that the old songs are still a great celebration of music and meaningfulness. But it is not fair to completely write off new songs. For still there are some songs that not just inspire listening but actually grow up on you.

One such song is “Mujhse naaraj ho to ho jao” from the movie- “Papa Kehte hai”. I still remember how in school we used to wait for a new movie’ audio cassette to hit in stores and hurriedly used to buy one on mere virtue of watching the trailers on TV. “Papa kehte hai” was one such release …The much hyped movie of Mahesh Bhatt though failed to entertain cinegoers but in true “Bhatt” style, its songs were done in great taste.

What was so special about the song? Well read it and find yourself-

"Mujhse Naaraj ho to ho jao
Khud se lekin khafa khafa na raho
Mujhse tum door jao to jao
Aap apne se tum juda na raho

Mujhpe chaho yakeen karo ya na karo
Tumko khud pe magar yakeen rahe
Sar pe ho aasma ya na ho, pair ke neeche yeh zameen rahe
Mujhko tum bewafa kaho to kaho
Tum magar khud se beawafa na raho
Mujhse Naaraj…

Aao ek baat mein kahoon tumse
Jaane Phir koi yeh kahe na kahe
Tum ko apni talaash karni hai
Humsafar koi, rahe na rahe
Tumhe apne sahare jeena hai
Dhoondti koi aasra na raho
Mujhse Naraaj…"

[This may not capture the actual essence, but translating for my non Hindi speaking friends]

If you want to be upset with me, you can be
But don’t get upset with yourself
If you want to go away from me, you can go
But don’t run away from yourself
Whether you want to trust me or not
But do keep your trust on yourself
Whether there is sky above your head or not
But you should have ground under your feet
You can call me a traitor or no
But don’t betray yourself
If you want to be upset with me, you can be
But don’t get upset with yourself
Come let me tell you something
Later maybe someone tell you this or not
You have to search yourself first
Whether there is someone else or not
You have to live on your own
Rather than searching for any external support
Now, If you want to be upset with me, you can be
But don’t get upset with yourself

Soulful!!! Isn’t it?

Came across this beautiful musing, thought of sharing...

The heart dies a slow death
Shedding each hope as a leaf
Until there is nothing left
Nothing remains
She paints her face to hide her face
Her eyes are deep water
It is not for her to want
It is not for her to feel
She is an artist of the floating world
She dances, she sings, she entertains you whatever you want
The rest is shadows
The rest is secret

By now, most of us must have seen the multiple TV campaigns on reinstating the importance of Indian hospitality and generosity to its tourists.

Well stated messages, efficiently conveyed by various protagonists and even celebrities like Amir Khan, who have come forth to cause other than colas.

It makes an interesting watch though. But the question is whether it would reduce to mere an on air promo or go beyond that? Well, the answer is within us. Do we still believe in virtues like preserving Indian hospitality, its culture, its invaluable monuments and above all human Integrity? And if the answer is yes, then what is that can we do to give the movement a due momentum and add other feather in our “king-sized cap”.

Oh yes, a lot of us do have limited means and powers. But still a lot could be achieved even through that. And how?

Protest we must!!! Yes, the first thing we can do is to come out of our ivory towers, tether out our fear and raise our voice anytime when we see-
- Any tourist being taken for granted by any local misanthropes
- Any Majnu or Ranjha scribbling his name on the historical monuments, train compartments or even trees in the university campus
- Any passers by littering the city roads, parks or street with things that are meant for dust bin
- Heroes treating the common passages, roads, tracks as universal urinals, spittoons and the works

It’s high time, let’s get out of our “this is not meant for us” mentality and strive to make our roads, streets, city and country a better and hygienic place to live.

After all, won’t you love a pleasant ride down in monsoon, clean rivers/lakes, cleaner passages and healthier you?

Run an eye through the matrimonial column of any Newspaper- Wanted Bride- Fair complexion comes screaming at you…

Run a finger around Television remote and the TVCs on “I am fair; I am lovely” comes flooding in your screen

We Indians nurture a great fixation with fairness. No matter the internal beauty, our ‘dark knights” are ever intrigued with fair skinned glories…

If you are a wannabe model, Indian idol, actress, dancer or even a cricket commentator, and you have a complexion which doesn’t read as fair? Then your ambitions are reduced to the significance of black tea served at local Chai stall-Healthy proposition but immaterial!!! Unless one day you get inspired from divas in fairness ad and decide to add magic little whitener into your capability concoction, you will be used only for combating hangovers.

Or else, some lucky you might get starred as in next “dark and dutiful” protagonist of some sitcom where your fair counterpart will win her way to the hero’ heart and you- public sympathy and off course tele-votes.

It doesn’t just boil simmers and sieve down to the female motley. With the sudden emergence of ubercool, metrosexual clan, male brigade is leaving no [pumice] stone unturned to scrub their cheeks off in to the fairness whirlpool. For gone are the days of princess kiss frogs-turn into beautiful prince days. Today they toad their way from “Fairy Tales” to “Fairness tells”!!!

When I first saw the campaign of “Fair and handsome” I mocked it down as the just another stupid product targeted to the mass which will die its natural death in the local saloons. I was so wrong. Unless I saw it in shelf of one of my very charming friend who advocated his cause as a conquest for 'bride hunt' - read fair & beautiful[was he trying to tell me something??!?!?]. Guess, should have rather asked me[am i trying to tell him something???!!?? Naaah]

As per a research by a leading cosmetic company, a major part of the Indian population buys fairness products and surprisingly a lot of them are males. I wonder whether girls should now thanks consumerism for making men conscious about their self appearance or appreciate it for giving them a “way to life, love and professional success”.

But yeah, am still heart broken to see my friend falling prey to fair brigade [gives rise to my already surmounting inferiority complex, where comparitive complexion was a plus point u see]… Now less mortal like me are left with an unkind option to either perish or switch to mot juste!!!

[If you think it’s quite late to write on this; read again…]

It all started when V. Devji from Indiatimes, called in to check if he can drop in at my office to discuss a probable tie up for an upcoming promotion. It was somewhere in the year 2005.

The film he wanted to co-promote was a big Telugu movie with star casts like Prabhu Deva, Chiranjeevi, and works. I couldn’t recall the name though but would like to share some memoirs from my good old marketing days.

I eventually couldn’t go ahead with the idea as they couldn’t manage to rope the above two celebrity to meet my Indicom customers. Not ready to settle for less, I parked the promotional contest from my kitty to the magnanimity of corporate team and moved on to find another cost-effective idea to enhance customer’s participation and align my revenue KRAs

My boss then suggested “Biryani with Sangeetha”, telecom’ typical ‘meet and dine with celebrity” based contest. Sangeetha was an upcoming actress, based known for “I love you Rasna” campaign of the yesteryears. [Remember the child actress mouthing one of the cheesiest tagline of Indian advertisement- Coffee- papa ko nahi chahiye; Chai- papa ko nahi chahiye. Papa ko phir kya chahiye? Rasna- I love you Rasna. Ab chaar naye flavor mein].

Yup, the same cutie pie, who was lost into oblivion only to surface back on south Indian cinemascope. So, did we go ahead with our biryani campaign? Well No! For the price, our little starlet was demanding was quite high considering her non-descript popularity to run an expensive campaign around. My team saw the logic, negotiations dropped and onus returned back to me.

Its then I decided to go for my usual SMS based quiz contest on any recent blockbuster of Andhra hinterland. Which blockbuster? Well, bosses said- “you decide” but make it more drawing than “Biryani” proposition.

Ghazini was the outcome of my casual “ask ur localites-colleague” poll and Internet-based secondary research on blockbusters. I studied the film, researched the production, designed 10 questions on multiple choice format and launched the contest. Surprisingly, the internal launch mail stirred a lot of curiosity from my colleagues and I was invited to a lot of coffee breaks to share my newly recognized passion for south Indian movies.

And then one day, I heard they are re-making Ghazini in Hindi. With so much of fanfare and hype built around, the movie, unfortunately, failed to deliver as much as it’s down south counterpart. Or maybe it was the sad progression of a lovely love story that made us sad. Well, Love’s like that!!! But still, kudos to the team for bringing in such a novel idea and adaptation. Impressive starcast, loveable songs and I had an amazing experience watching this movie. Apart from being my first movie in Mumbai, it was one of the movies which kept me awake whole night with reflections of a mere one scene. [No price for guessing- The cruel murder scene where the villain brutally hammers the actress to death. Asin has emoted brilliantly through her eyes; you could feel the combined helplessness. Life’ like that!!!]

And today, when I read about the high revenue the movie is registering at turnstiles. Sigh, I really hoped if I wouldn’t have let go of my product mgt role, would have made quite some cash registers ringing for my application based contests too and not just being a silent viewer of “meet ghazini stars” [ a contest ran by Corporate] Talking about life coming to full circle and missed opportunities.

Another “high on hormone” baba has been arrested for allegedly molesting women on pretext of helping them with their conceiving problems.

As I read through this another news on sordid “state of affairs” of miscreant babas and their baba-giris, I could not stop wondering on the “blessed powers” of such babas, who merrily go against the law of nature and help one conceive through their spiritual entities??!??

I mean, with my limited biology knowledge, I could not understand that how come these “babas” and “swamijis”, as a last “resorts”, helps a female to conceive a child? Do they run some kind of spiritual IVF clinics or give special “failure proof” tutorials on “Art of making babies”…ahem!!!

Don’t misunderstand me but from tales of yore, I’ve been hearing that women from queens to commoners knocked swami’ doors for their much awaited heir. And most of them even come back “happily preggers”. But then what happened to those, who babas could not possibly bless with their super powers and have to return empty fetus? I mean, did babas run of their stock of “storks” or the otherwise philanthropic babas got population conscious?

In this particular news incident, the lady who got the poor baba arrested is now 7 months pregnant [What her combined effort with her Mr. couldn’t deliver in 3 years, the testereonic baba delivered in a visit. And you still blaming the poor baba???!!??]

Is this really a fault of a baba or the illiteracy rate or lack of proper practical education to be blamed? What on earth was the woman expecting from the chap? “An increase your fertility bhabhoot” [ash] or a free copy of the famous literature by Mr. Vatsayan. In latter case, she [along with other women of the same beliefs] visited a wrong publication house. And in former scenario, the bhabhoot turned out to be the “narcotic substance” babas are famous for.

Poor baba!!! He either got too tempted to get a disclaimer done or probably ran out of his “regular followers”. Cause if you tell me that an illiterate woman in a sleepy village got her lack of awareness befooled her motherly ambitions, I can still understand. But how come city breeds runs to swami corpus?

This doesn’t just ends here. It also culminates to some introspective exercise that our society at large has to “conceive and deliver”. What are our best diplomatic answers for-

- How many babas do we need to arrest to curb or prevent such tragic and shameful acts of babagiris?
- How many more such physical abuse or rape cases do gullible women have to go through before society works hard to inculcate basic awareness or “sex education” amongst all?
- How many female infanticide do we need to let happen before we strictly instill that women are not just a piece of flesh and this society is secure for them to live and thrive?

Wake up guys!!! The lecture is over…Though am not sure if it just remains at being so. Beware! There are some women in everybody’s home.

Disclaimer: I am writing in here only on the "creative" & "entertaining" aspect of the movie.

Slumdog Millionaire is a well made movie and I really liked it. Half of my friends apprehensively calls it as an “anti Indian” movie.

Yes, in the beginning I too was apprehensive about its “entertainment quotient” and took tickets with lesser interest, but cut to 1st two scenes, I began to like the theme. I could not understand that why certain people esp. one of my favorite actor Mr. Amitabh Bachchan has disapprovals towards this well narrated, work of fiction. But the simple reasons for why I liked this movie are-

- The plot: the brilliantly interwoven tale of a slum dwelling boy, his struggle and the striking correlation between his life and every question on his journey through the millionaire trail.
- At least, it had a story guys!!! A cohesive story sans larger than life characters
- The real to character performance by all actors esp. the three stages of Jamal
- The guided tour to Taj
- The interesting translation of 3 musketeers towards grand finale
- No flashy showbiz, just a honest effort to tell a story
- Happy ending where you walk out a theatre with a happy feeling


Phew pals, it was just a movie and a work of fiction and just a representation of some characters in a slum and not the entire country. Unless I turn a nerdy, moron jingoist tomorrow, under no circumstance I would allow myself to believe that one tiny of movie can ever represent my entire country.

It’s like giving it unnecessary spankings, allegedly for being a mass destruction of all the achievements and glory India has ever stood for, locally and globally.

It’s like letting people accept that we do not have JRD Tata, Ratan Tata, Vinod dham, Narayan Murthy, LN Mittal, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Azim Premji, Preeta bansal, Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Dr. BK Sethi, Mahatma Gandhi, Lata Mangeshkar, Dr. V kurien, Dr. Abul Kalam Azad, Vikram Sarabhai and an endless list of Indians to be devoid of their achievements of giving a good picture of India.

It’s like approving that when our stupidly air brushed actors, wearing skimpy cloths dance around the foreign locales singing- You are my vada pav and the works, is a better representation of the country and it’s creative culture??!!??

It’s like assuming that if an Indian director makes a crude movie like “Matrubhoomi” or “Kamasutra”, it could be boasted of creative brilliance. But when a foreign director well narrates a story based in India, he is creating a wrong image of the country?

It’s also like fuelling a misconception that since Mr. Ramalinga Raju masterminded one of the biggest scam in India [Satyam], all India based companies are fraud too. Phew!!!

It’s also like concealing a dirty wound instead of healing it. And then denying the existence, gravity of the sore and letting it grow like gangrene.

Come on, let’s grow up. And tell the same to the world who after watching the movie mistakes our country to be only a replica of what portrayed in Slumdog. It was just an art of story telling and not all stories are so pleasant to see.

Just accept it buddy, this movie had bought that International acclaim what our big budgeted, even big hyped productions failed to achieve.

From Monsoon wedding to Lagan to Black to Devdas to TZP, only hype & controversies surrounded bollywood’ entry to Oscars. From the big stars to even bigger controversies, almost everyone boasted about their art & cash collection figures to big world of Oscars and international acclaim. But alas! None of them could shake much as they stirred.

Until one fine day a man from west travelled to the “slums” of Mumbai and found its million dollar baby, an absolute underdog to the bollywood over the top biggie wiggies [ No denials that some of ‘em do entertains as well]. While the world was busy alluring about Big B-hood and ‘K’ovetable Khan clan, a certain Mr. Anil Kapoor, underplayed and silently stole the thunder under everyone’ nose.

But does that say that Bollywood cannot make pleasant sounding stories and sweep off the red carpet? No, it certainly can. Or does it convey that all our Hindi movies aren’t worth a thing? No, they certainly are. The idea is to get novel and be constructively creative!!!

Six months down the line, people will forget Slumdog millionaire. But one shouldn’t forget the lessons learnt out of this film. The lesson that the 3 lead characters and their story gang tried to convey. The lesson that even the slums of India can reproduce millionaire which even the more blessed societies cannot.

Jai Ho!!! To the UNDERDOG Millionaire!!!

Gone are the days of poetry, dancing and gardening. Fast emerging new national time pass [es], here's a glimpse-

1. Busting out myths like what’s better- tea or green tea? Is Eating chocolate, a good stress buster or dark chocolate is a good...

2. Making “different” cinema, multiplexes you see!!
3. Reality shows & SMS based poll opinions
4. Blogging, but off course

What would you do on the day which says- its Friday the 13th?

Hmmm how about a quick ride to a remote, rural terrain in the stark dark??!!??

Well that’s how I adventured this day. It was a smooth ride to Basanti highway. Smooth because the rural road was better than a lot of its urban counter-path. The amazing part was that it was unknown, unplanned trip and still not frightening. But the most amazing part was it was just a left turn from the pulsating urban world to rural hinterland.

Basanti Highway is village just in the city. A wetland estate towards the left of “science city. The road further leads to sonpur, connecting other highway –bhojorhat to rajarhat, the upcoming gurgaon-noida esque hub of Kolkata.

It was atleast a 10 km+ ride into the sleepy and almost empty road. My friend wanted to scare me and even checked my pulse before and after the quick ride. We could have ventured further, amy be towards sonpur but there were two things- One, it was getting late and two, my friend thought I might get jittery, which I wasn’t.

Whatever, the place was quite amazing and am still thrilled at the prospect of it. Am sure you too would. If you stay in Kolkata or visiting here sometime, do take a small ride to the wetland highway. And yes, don’t try to buy any property there even though if it’s offered at dirt cheap price. Because it’s illegal to buy a property there or construct, as the land solely is for creating the ecological balance.

I am a font called ‘Contrary’ or the font Called 'Helvetica'

Helvetica You’re like an industry standard. Classic. Reliable. Okay maybe a bit boring But you don’t let the haters get you down-after all, you’ve still got plenty of friends who thinks you’re the best.

You are contrary Yes, You are contrary. You’re unpredictable, and you don’t fit into you’re weird. You’re refreshing. You’re total freak. You’re so misunderstood.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/helvetica/quiz.html

If you love quizzes, you will love this too!!! And if you want to check out, what font you are, here’ the link. Aha, but you have to promise that you will share your results with me :)

Have you ever wondered what font you are? Sounds strange? Ok…

Well in the past, I have received many mails like what tree you fell from, what animal type you are [Chinese astrology of rat, dog et all], what color you represent et cetera.

Continuing with the trend of fancy astrological, personality, emotional quotient test & off course the amazing MENSA quiz [am yet to find 50% of the answers]. The more bizarre they got, the more excited we get to don our quizzing hats on.

So, when I was confronted with the question of what ‘font’ I am, I couldn’t stop wondering and jumped to this prospect with my quizzing hats on.