Movies I like

One can categorize movie watchers into the following groups:

The one who like the Action/ Sci Fi, in short, fast paced movies with no brainer or something so technically advanced that they can get totally immersed and actually love the so called scientific concepts in the movie.

There is another class which likes the Oscar movies with intense drama and deep thought provoking theme.

There is the widest class which like any movie with a great star cast, lots of style, lots of romance angle even if it is action (Spidey 2) and which are generally hit even before they release.

I fall in class 3. But somehow there is sometimes a thin line between category 1 and category 3. An example will be the recent Iron Man or the National Treasure 2. For the same reasons mentioned above, I chose to go for both of these. But I was disappointed.

Or was I? Actually not. I was motivated. Motivated to watch more of “Tanananananaaa… Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham” kind of movies where Shahrukh stammers, Amitabh gives well punctuated but long dialog deliveries and the heroines do a virtual fashion show with Manish Malhotra clothes. Off late, Kabhi khushi kabhi gham has become a benchmark for me. It lies in the critical region below which any movie can become unwatchable. Example: Veer Zaara, KANK, Tara Rum Pum, Aaja Nachle. Movies which barely cross it on the other side will be No Entry, Laaga Chunari mein daag, Om shanti om and even bhootnaath.

Amongst the English ones, I guess such a movie will be “The Departed”. It lies in the better side of the movies but for English movie, the criteria are totally different. There has to be a good story, because if there is no good story, I will again rather watch des ki movie…tanaanaaanaana….with loads of songs and dances.

You might be wondering why “The Departed”, its because it has all the factors I consider important : An A1 star cast, a wonderful story and not so sci fi-ish. However where it fails is the use of swear words. I can understand, to give the true picture, you do need to be realistic, use the language of the people. But then you also have to keep in mind that movie is a mass medium, and however common in lingo, swear words can never be good and should be consciously avoided. A classic example of such a movie will be “Omkara” which had to have some bad words, but they were kept to the minimum required.

Now the interesting comparison. Movies above and below “The Departed”. The ones that are bad : Iron Man, National Treasure 2, Oceans 12, Pirates 3, Beowulf etc etc. Movies better: All HPs ( the best story in the world), Atonement, Oceans 11 and 13, Spidey 2, Lions for lambs, Charlie Wilson’s war etc.

Hehhe, again a post so full of me comes to an end. I know this will end up with no comments. But I can’t stop myself from copying Bachi Karkaria at this stage. Bachi always quotes a certain Alec Smart ( Interestingly, when wikied, Smart Alc refers to a person who is regarded as obnoxiously self-assertive and an impudent person. Anyway, so here we go:

Alec Smart says “ I started enjoying Rajnikanth movies from the day I saw ‘The Transporter’”

The Scared Blogger

Well I am scared and not just as blogger. The whole freedom of expression definition needs to be changed. This freedom of expression issue started with the M.F. Hussain pictures. Then came Taslima's books. Well, well, we can argue for both sides for hours. Not long before it cooled down, there came the Message by some Gurgaon guy about Sonia Gandhi. Well can you say anything about any person? May be yes, may be not.

For me, it will be this: If the person is not talking directly to me, he/she can say whatever he wants. If saying about me to a person who cares about me, that person should be smart enough to not get angry by some stupid saying something about a person you like. And finally, if the person is saying bad things to me with me, good enough, let's sort it out. No way, you can complain to a court. That too, here the case was scenario 2. I guess, this was just another of those futile attempts to get into the good books of N-G family.
As for me, whenever I tell someone that I am a big fan of Bipasha, they immediately say: " But dude, she is a B****. She had 4 boyfriends in the past". Expecting a angry reply or a defensive statement form me, what they get really shuts them up: " Hey, can you find me a more gorgeous B****?" This really shuts everybody up and then they come up wit meek replies like "Whatever, I don't like her", and I reply "ur wish, I never asked you to. The lesser the better"
I wish the fans of Sonia were as smart as me (eh!!)


The other scary thing happening is Aamir and Amitabh writing. Amitabh is just defending himself from the many many things that have been written about him. His latest style (as of day 34) is scan the newspaper and critique everyline. Do read his defense to Shobhaa Dey for Aishwarya's creased dress in first day at Cannes 08. It goes like this:

" Oh ! About the creases on Aishwarya’s dress, I never noticed any and it is hardly expected of a team of 15 stylists, dress makers and make up professionals from Armani to L’Oreal working on her for hours since the morning of the event, to have overlooked such obvious detail. The protocol at the venue is strict and disciplined. Celebrities are seated in respective special Festival cars to ride in a motorcade almost 50 meters long to a destination just 100 meters away; the crowds, and traffic and paparazzi making this innocuous little journey an hour long ! Sitting on any dress this long would crease.

I am disappointed though that your customary wit failed to notice the creases that needed repair on the faces of many of the other celebrated stars from Hollywood. Whither patriotism ??"

Well well, Amitabhji, you are surely a role model. every bahu will be proud of you. You have redefined Sasur Bahu relationship. Is Ekta listening?

The other thing was Amitabh defending rather denying Aish/Abhi's premarriage temple tours being anything to do with Aish being Mangalik. Well Sir ( as most people call him), you need not defend, infact, it shows rays of hopes to the hundreds of lovers whose stories are not going further because of this issue. Now they really dont care of they have to marry trees et al to get to their loved ones.

Aamir aamir. poor guy, innocent humor turned so costly. I know your fan base is mostly concentrated on a web based so called educated young generation making yours the highest membered community on Orkut and making your movies like RDB and TZP rise to levels it should not. But you know and I know, even a KKKirrran or a "taaanannanana, kabhi khhushie..kabhie gham" kind of hamming can shake u off the chair.

Extending what one of my colleagues commented today on Bush (apparently Bush has a cat called India), what if aamir's dog pees on him? It will be " Shahrukh peed of Aamir."

Lolz...

Justifying being Bips fan

Haha. Since this seems to be an argumentative topic, the first question that you might ask will be why justify if you truly like her? Well, I don't have the answer except that there will be somme sense of self praise tat will go on in the following paragraphs.

Nobody can deny that you ought to have a favorite movie actress though orkut has not introduced it yet(preferably one in hollywood and one in bollywood). You can definitely like all the heroines but like favorites in anything (sports, politics, travel) you do have favorites in movies too.

My choosing favorite heroines had started long back when I used to say 'fyavrit' for favorite. The first one was hema and then it was Juhi for a long long time and she is still my favorite only that she is doing roles of sisters and middle aged women nowadays. That was followed by Urmila after her famous dances in Rangeela and chamma chamma. I liked her in all the movies but somehow she turned into a similar role witha bhoot types looks with specialization in scenes in which she has to act scared.

After Urmila age which ended in around early 2000's, there was a time when the favorites kept changing and then it settled on Bipasha.

Well, I have to say I am alone in this new choice. My friends not only have other favorites but they really hate her. Many of them tend to go towards the homely looking "Amrita Rao" who simply reminds me of Mallika Sherawat's comment "If you want to see a girl next door, go next door". My friends are predominantly marathis and they like Sonali Bendre a lot, I guess because she has a typical marathi face. The majority though still crave for Aishwarya. Well my point is: It is a fact that she is the most beautiful woman on earth. I think ash can't be somebody's favorite the same way sachin can be nobody's favorite. These two people are beyond comparison.

Well, and that is the starting point of liking Bipasha. You tend to like someone who is hatke. Bipasha is sexy but she is not the usual league of Neha Dhupiya, Amrita Arora and Mallika Sherawats. Bipasha can never be the typical Yash Raj/Karan Johar women like Rani or Preity. She is also not as rare as Chitrangada and nor is she as artistic as Konkona who tends to act more when more money is paid. Well that leaves me with 2 choices: Kareena and Bipasha, and naturally I choose Bipasha.

There is something about her that is so enchanting and inspite of me being a "fairness ka pujari", I just can't take my eyes of her. I also like the way she portrays herself. She takes acting as a profession and does things similar to what we do to improve our resumes. She acts in different kinds of movies to have a hold on all of them. Her voice is the other thing that charms me. It's so different from the rest of the people.

Ok enuf, I just realized that this is the crappiest post am ever writing and the justifications above won't even change the views of a single person. Signing off on a lazy sunday....

Current Reality Shows on Indian Television

Well, to my defense (or should I), I do follow a few American reality shows like American Idol, So you think you can dance and Hell’s Kitchen, but it is the Indian shows that I like the most. In the past, I have compared the reality based Indian Idol 3 and the most unrealistic show Koffee with Karan.

Today I followed 3 reality shows almost back to back.

Let’s start with “Kya aap paanchvi paas se tez hai”. Copied from “Are you smarter than a fifth grader”, though some liked it YET, I can’t guarantee that I won’t like it later. First thing was the concept was not new to me. Secondly, I expected that Shahrukh will give a totally new dimension to the show, but he was almost enacting his KBC only not sitting in a chair this time. Te children gave it away. Though all of them were selected to be nice smart and cute, it was very apparent that they were trained to act so. I bet even their dialogs were scripted. But the funniest part of the entire show was the first contestant. The lady from Jharsuguda. She looked like she is just out of the “Saas Bahu” serial sets. Her all actions reminded me of Tulsi of KSBKBT (the only show I saw some 10 episodes of). She wore bangles till elbows in both hands and the saari also looked like one from the sets. The way she put hands in the ears and kissed the kids, all looked like copied from the ‘Saas Bahu’ serial. But I guess we cannot blame her. I have seen a few samples before my eyes and this one from TV who have made me believe that the new Indian Housewife, or new indan wife who watces this saas bahu serials try to enact them consciously r subconsciously. So its not the Bipashas, Kareenas and Aishwaryas who are defining styles of modern women but the Kkusums, Gangas and Tulsis.

Moving on to reality show II: MTV roadies 5.0. Well, this is the reason for the YET in capitals in the previous paragraph. Just a few blogs back I had thrashed this show simply because I had seen an unedited version of behind the scenes in the MTV website where they did not censor the swearing. Apparently, they are censored in the main show. The game is all about politics and the ladies bitch a lot. That does add lot of spice to the show. The tasks are not very easy and cover all sorts. It’s the true DARE tasks one may think of in Truth and Dare. They ask them to strip, dance with shaved legs, eat snakes and roaches, sleep with moving saw below, jump form high spots etc. What makes t more exciting that though people do all these tasks, it doesn’t ensure them a chance in next round. That is entirely dependent on the contestants. And I guess the Saas bahu effect has reached me. I can’t leave the show midway.

The third one is the most passionate one. People won’t call it reality show, but I do. The Indian Premiere League or IPL. Since day 1 it has been dramas and they never seem to end. The day the bidding started with Shahrukh, Juhi and Preity falling into cricket business, it got the required entertainment factor. Just when things were beginning to get sporty, Shahrukh came up with Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo re and soon Preity, Akshay, Katrina, Hrithik started singing and dancing for their own teams. Next came the cheer leaders’ episode. I don’t have any views on whether it’s good for the Indian society or not but I have one comment. Either let them as they are, or eliminate them with Bhangra, Koknaki and Lawni dances but please don’t make them wear long clothes and continue the same.

But this is not the end of the drama. To add the sent plot to it, bhajji slaps sreesanth and worse: he starts crying in front of TV. If this was not setup beforehand like all reality shows do, surely the 10 match ban was a setup. Even if that is not, the Ganguly- Warne one has to be one. And the usual spice is there too. Rediff didn’t delay a bit in coming up with stories with the Katrina and Akshay pictures. If that is not enough there is all the hoopla with Priety hugging only the star players. Surely, it is the baap of all reality shows.

Unaccustomed Earth; A review from a Jhumpa Fan;

There are few people whose opinion I value and I change my adamant stance about my thoughts and views only based on these selected people. One of them told me that Jhumpa writes too much about Bengalis immigrated to US and their lifestyle. I believed and the next day, Jhumpa was out of my orkut community which I have diligently kept to a small number of 13 which identifies my past and my passions.

But still I could not resist the weekend “Unaccustomed Earth” was released. It was released on Friday the 4^th April and I bought the book on the 6^th from Barnes and Nobles, the counter lady telling me that the book is becoming very popular. Well I didn’t care because something told me, I have to read this. I have this knack of following authors and reading all of their work; so far have finished Jane Austen and Mario Puzo. From the goddess (JKR) and the queen (Jhumpa), I expect many more but I guarantee I will follow all of their works.

Anyway, with an opened mind, I read through the stories. As always, the language so simple yet so elegant made me fly though the stories. Here each story was quite different from the other, all dealing with some form of complicated relationships. The base was still the same though (Immigrant Bengalis) but now it was all about the GENNEXT: The first generation immigrants. Some of the views really opened new windows of thoughts. Once she mentions how the Indian parents always tell about the hardships they faced before coming to the US but never do the children tell about the humiliation they have to go through in the schools for their strange habits of greasy lunch boxes and unfamiliar rituals. The parents do not like when the children fall for a non-Indian partner leaving their parents speechless and heart-broken but did the parents realize that they have done far worse to their parents leaving them 10’s of thousands of miles away?

Another nice part I liked and this has to be personal is the location. All the stories are primarily based in and outskirts of Boston. Cambridge, Wayland, Marlborough, Peabody and even my present place Natick. To all the readers of this blog who know me, please read this book just for the sake of the description of New England, the weather, the people etc. Just yesterday for the first time, I went to one of my family friends place on their anniversary. It was full of Bengali people and pages from Jhumpa’s book just flashed before my eyes. The kids speaking with rolling r’s and not eating the elaborate 7 course meal and instead savoring the cheese pizza. The parents discussing the school they have put the children into, the grading etc. It was just like they were acting on Jhumpa's directions.

But the masterpiece of the book is surely the 3^rd part, consisting of three short stories jointly called “Kaushik and Hema”. It can surely be made into another of those movies like The Namesake. And this should be an eye opener for all the people who criticize of her choice of topic. Though the story is still about immigrant Bengalis, it is not about their lifestyle. It’s a story; I feel is ageless and location less too. Infact, still leaving the characters to be Bengali Immigrants, she just proves her literary superiority. The flow of the story so elegant and so different from the other Bookers I read where I spend almost 50% of the book before I get glued to it.

Again, for the readers, who know me personally; if you decide to read this book, let me know. I will be truly happy to gift one copy. (Well, a few don’t have a choice : ) )

Of birthdays and birthday gifts

Today (In India)/ Tomorrow(here) (i.e. 7^th April) is Umesh Bude’s birthday. Happy Birthday Doobs. When I called him, his phone was busy and instead he called me in sometime. This is one of the firsts oh this kind. Generally people (me included) generally don’t give calls to others on their own on the birthday. But it does sound like a good idea. What he explained to me was that there was a brief gap between his calls and he thought of maximizing his efficiency by himself calling up other people. Good Idea Doobs, will surely implement it from next time.

Somehow I have always enjoyed friends birthdays more than my own. Over the top of my head, I remember these few:

1) Mana’s birthdays: They were always fun with me going a bit early to help in the decorations. And Mana always got an amazing number of Sketch Pens as birthday gifts.

2) Sumit’s Birthday: Sumit’s birthday in 2000, the last one before I left home was a fun. It was one of those last get togethers we school people had. We both wore Kurtas instead of usual clothes just to be different and did soil it thoroughly.

3) Doob’s birthdays in college: It was rare that we brought cakes for friends birthdays. I bought one this time. But what I remember that for is that was one of the worst cakes ever. The icing was too sweet and non-soft. The cake was dry too. But we were all so hungry that we finished all.

4) Vikram’s birthday in 2^nd year: Vikram likes his birthdays low key. But somehow that day was some function at college open theater and when everybody knew he was thrown his birthyear times in the air and every time it was around 20 feet into the air.

If I try remembering now, I would rate my 2005 birthday as the best because what happened was totally unexpected. And I was actually cribbing that how my past birthdays were and how I am stuck up in such a faraway land this year when suddenly 20+ people come in with a huge cake. And it ended with me in almost zero degree water(that time zero degree as still cold, now its warm). It was certainly the most pleasantly surprised birthdays.

Now coming to gifts. Even though the most popular gifts evolved over the ages, since for some reason I never celebrated my birthdays, I never got any. Till I was 6-7, the traditional gifts were always vessels (tumblers, plates or bowls) wrapped in Magenta color papers and with to and fro names etched on it. Most of the tumblers at my home still have “Tua ke.. xyz”. Still don’t know why there was no “Tublu ke..”

Then times changed and plastic took over steel. The gifts: Pencil Boxes, tiffin boxes (especially the one with spoons with it) and of course The Sketch Pen set. People would get 6-7 sketchpen sets on birthdays but by default, still a month later, you will make your dad go to the store and get another set. Sketchpens are meant for losing.

And then came the time of show-pieces. These were the most nonsense gifts one could think of and added no value but were considered very up class. It was mostly black metal photo frames or Natraj or Ganesh.

Then things changed to perfumes and deos (and this was not so long ago) when somebody told me that these gifts are just meant for girlfriends and boyfriends. So since I have none, that was also out of question.

And at this time, I realized that books are the safest gifts. I have received a “Blandings Castle” every year during my undergrad from dada. When I started gifting people, my favorite was Pride and Prejudice. I have gifted it to atleast 10+ people. Books are still my favorite gift items to be given because its easily available and offers such a variety, that it can often be considered “oh so thoughtful”

The most selfish gift I ever bought was a headphone to enable a friend for voice chatting so that telephone minutes could be saved.

Anyway, can anyone suggest more ideas? To a girl you can give flowers, plants if not books. What do you buy for guys?

Control system and the present state of nation

Certainly this is something big. Same day in Times of India, there are four columns by Bachi Karkaria, Jug Suraiya, Shashi Tharoor and Taurn Vijay. All lashing out against oust of Taslima Nasreen from India. Apart from the slight Hindu angle by Tarun Vijay (which is expected) all others speak of freedom of expression at different levels.

The root problem is that we are succumbing to a very small group of people. And the reason is obvious. Because this small group of people always vote. (or are they made to vote?) I still remember my mom voted only once and that too because a local party worker provided her and her friends a ride to the polling booth. Well, we so called educated people feel lazy to vote. We need some stimuli which will make us vote. Certainly the poorer classes of the people get those stimuli. They are targeted by the politicians during the run up to elections that their needs will be met. They are the people who attend the mass rallies. We conveniently sit in our couches and listen to the Sagarikas and the Barkhas. Whatever they present to us, we discuss all about it but on the crucial day we chicken out. I have heard during elections, politicians do come door to door to ask for vote. But I have never seen anybody at my door asking my parents to come and vote. Only once did the local municipal leader come and that was the only time Maa voted. Is it the way the politicians treat us or the way we treat the politicians that has made the middle middle class and upper middle class disconnected from politics. Worse still is with India Shining, this middle middle class and upper middle class is increasing. And so we are seeing a growing political disinterest amongst people. And sure enough, politicians are all out to woo the lower middle class and the poor and not in a proper way but the cheap tactics. The result: 60000 Cr loans, Oust of Taslima and many many more. By the way, the tax slabs are such that the lower middle class and lower class doesn’t pay taxes.

What’s the end result? The taxpayers’ money goes towards cheap appeasement and creating vote bank of the non tax payers. It doesn’t need a control system engineer to say that this is an unstable system. It needs a feedback loop (well the control engineer in me says that open loops can be stable too and closed loops can still be unstable).

Well how did this happen? Let’s say that the open loop system was stable and the transient responses (independence, emergency) being over, it was the steady state responses that were taking effect. This system can now go unstable because of some external disturbances. I don’t know the creator of disturbances, but I can see the kind of disturbances. It’s religion. I have been taught all along that all religions are equal and I believed it without even questioning it. And so did everybody. We all thought Sanskrit as an ancient language which defines India. Was it so Hindu? We all learnt shlokas as a part of pur curriculum. So did we learn the stories of Jesus and all the Muslim soofis. We learnt ramayan and mahabharat as stories. I enjoyed the complex characters, the wars and every bit of it. I bet all of my Christian and Muslim friends did too. After all it was a nice story, and the way it was presented was a story and we didn’t sit with flowers and agarbattis in our hands to read these books. So were the stories from old testaments and Akbar and Mughals. It all came to us as a natural course. We never thought of it as religion. But then one day (thankfully after I passed out of school) some moron politician started rethinking the curriculum. They thought Mughal portion is more and it should be otherwise. Well it started with that. The other party came to power and not only vetoed this decision but also made sure that vande Mataram is not sung in schools. Saraswati is a hindu goddess and not the goddess of knowledge. I think soon the Ramayan and mahabharat will be banned from school and our morning prayers, though still will have

“Vatan ke waaste hi jeena, watan ke waaste hi marna”, it won’t have “Sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu niramayah, sarve bhadrani pashyantu, Ma kashchid dukhbhagbhavet, om shant shanty shantihi”.

Everything we were taught had been dissected. We were not told that Hinduism is a way of living. We just accepted it not as Hinduism but as Indianness. We always liked Christianity not because God is great, but we associated it with God loves children (the pictures showed so) and Christians make cakes which are good to eat. We even had a faint hope of getting fairer. But all that went on in a subconscious level. It is the new age politics which is putting finger in eye and and saying this act is Hindu, this act is muslim and so on. The disturbance made the loop unstable.

The solution? There can be 2 ways: the engineer may want to introduce a feedback loop which will make it stable even against disturbances. But then I guess this loop will be that educationàpolpulation circular loop. Unless we tackle polulation, we can’t educate people, we can’t stop population unless we educate people.

The other solution is cut off the disturbance. After all, its there in Gita:

“Yada yada hi dharmasya ( countrysya) glanirbhavatu bharatah”

“Abhyutthanam adharmasya (bad people) sambhavami yugey yugey” Only this time, it won’t be Kalki, it has to be all of us.

News I am keeping an eye on

Well, yet again, I want to write something but not have anything to write about. So I do the usual, news that I am following nowadays. The comments to the blog have reached an all time low so this post will help me later when I try to think "What was I thinking that time?"

To begin with, the most nonsense piece but which is talked about everywhere but is of least significance I think. US elections. My local friend says US has never withdrawn troops from any country it ever attacked (like even Japan), so no way anybody who comes will have chance to do anything different. The healthcare plan both Obama and Hillary talk about is nonsense. It can never match India's healthcare system where you can afford to go to a doctor even if you sneeze in the morning. And whenever people talk about "First colored President" or "First Woman President", I get reminded of the great president of India who inspite of being the "First woman president of world's largest democracy", fills me with shame. Nobody can deny that she is in noway more talented than our kaamwali bai - Parvatibai Gayakwad.

Next ofcourse is the bloggers favorite: The great 60000 Cr Rs loan waiver to Indian farmers. This topic hurts me lots and I tend to avoid it but so many people constantly writing about it leaves me with no choice but to read. My Take: This may be a bad step, but which govt hasnot done something this foolish before the elections?


Getting on to better topics, IPL. The money game. It cannot be anything other than that. Right now, none of my firnds seem to be too much interested in that but soon they will be. And we will have to choose a team. But I will be waiting for more teams that are planned for future. I will wait for Nagpur team. Let's see when the "Nagpur Narangis" are ready to rock.

WLIFW or Wills LifeStyle India Fashion Week. Offlate it seems that this event is not a yearly but a quarterly event. And ofcourse none of the clothes they have makes any sense to me. But then the best part of every IFW is Bipasha's commitment to fashion industry. She always comes and wears some funny clothes and surely there is John to cheer her up and rediff and Hindol Sengupta of IBNLIVE to cover the news.

Aamir Khan blogs. They have been a news item in themselves as I have seen Times of India and Rediff making news articles out of his blogs. It's utterly funny because Aamir's blog are so amateurish. I guess he doesn't know anything about blogging but still I bet his blogs are most read and most commented (May be in the world)

And ofcourse the evergreen Bipasha Basu. Well, she is never out of news and if Google News is to be believed, she makes it to some news on Times Of India everyday. After her disastrous Dhan Dhana dhan goal, and the splitting and making up stories with John, latest she is in news for her "Classic Bob Cut" and her saucy role in Race. Well, but the funniest of all that was Bipasha saying she doesn't like makeup ( I can't find the link where I read this). And here is the news I just read today. This news is surely written for the visually impaired:

"Bipasha showed her curves in a jersey knit black halter top with a revealing neckline and a short tube skirt. Her top was accented with a satin bow at the center of the V-neckline.

She wore two necklaces with lovely pendants in silver tone and a black wide bracelet in her right arm.

Bipasha's newly acquired bob cut is still in place and continues to look great on her. It compliments her facial cut and gives her an air of confidence."

Well that's all I follow. Thanks rediff, for my complimenting my interests. :)

Obscenities and Moral Policing

I am against both moral policing and the obscenities in public. But when I try to analyze it, I myself stand confused. Let me do a self introspection and writing always helps.

What motivated me to write this article is the latest post by Rashmi Bansal. She writes about MTV roadies and channel V hotties. What she wrote and what videos I saw when I did a bit of background check was shocking. They are so narrow-minded; they have just concentrated on the college kids and the fresh out of college generation. I myself don’t swear in common day to day dialogues, but I know it’s pretty natural and I do accept it from others. But it is entirely different if these come on national telecast and that too without beeps. I just saw a video about behind the scenes roadies and the profane obscenities totally shook me. Asking people to roam around in undergarments in a 7 pm show is not really acceptable.

Another thing I dislike more is swear words in public. I know it’s close to reality, but there should be some scale. I didn’t like “Departed” in spite of it being a nice movie is just because though I tried hard, I could not justify the F word in every 10 seconds. In the Indian context, obscenities strike me even more. I can accept if these kinds of shows (Hotties / Roadies) are reserved for after 11, or some other channel. Or even if parents just take care that the child is not watching these. But I myself has once seen that a small kid and his father both watching “Kaanta lagaa” and enjoying it.

Am I being Shiv Senaish? May be. But I still don’t support Sushma Swaraj’s act to ban Fashion TV. Banning is not a solution. But definitely, the parents should be responsible. But who will do that?

And doesn’t this contradict with the fact that I like Bipasha Basu? I definitely wouldn’t have liked Jism to be a movie where whenever John and Bipasha come, they show two flowers.

I guess it is just the beginning phases of a developing nation. In a developed nation, all things are available. But because the people are educated, they themselves can differentiate between right and wrong and take care of their children. On the other hand, in India, the content has come but people are not smart enough to take it wisely. I guess, with time things will settle. Let’s just pass this trend as momentary.

Side Note: Off late, I realize that most of my posts end up in a solution where people have to be more knowledgable and wise? Is this a practical solution? And is it achievable, If so, how?

Immigrants

It all starts by reading these two articles. The Bachi Karkaria one and the Greatbong one. I think I can comment on this new hot topic of immigrants as well. I have been an immigrant all my life. But still I can’t fight FOR the immigrants. There are two reasons for that. First one is, I feel, commenting on immigration problem as an immigrant is like the extremely dirty proverb “Kandhe Pe Chadhao to Kaan mein Mutta hai” ( Take him in your shoulder and he will piss in your ears.) Yuck. I can’t believe I can write this on my blog, but please give me a more apt and decent one. The other day my manager (American) was discussing how he hates the quotas for H1B and how they should be removed. I felt I don’t have the right to speak on that topic.

The second thing is I have seen two of my favorite places ruined because of the influx of immigrants. First one is Bangalore. Undue advantage has been taken on the generally quiet and well mannered Kannada people. Firstly by the Tamils and now by the North Indians. The costs have risen sky high and the traffic jams. Plus this tendency of Indians in general to impose their culture on others. Unlike them becoming like the rest of the Kannadigas, everybody wants their own kind of living. And with the predominantly young software crowd, things are out of hands.

The second case is that of Puri. Did you know it belonged to Orissa? Even if you did, just go there once, you won’t feel it that way. Its Bengalis all around. Even the shopkeepers say only one sentence in Oriya- ‘Dhai Kiri Kiri’ (hurry up, fast fast or something similar) and this too just because for some strange reason Bengalis find it funny. Makes me cry though.

Coming to the recent Marathi Manoos chaos. Technically I can comment because I have been born and brought up in Maharashtra. It’s Maharashtra’s and Nagpur’s generosity/fault that I didn’t learn Marathi because I could survive well without it. Anyway, I think Mumbai is an exception. I have never been to Mumbai but I have been to New york. And if Mumbai is even a bit like it, it’s a city of immigrants. The city thrives on immigrants. And New York was the first place ever I liked the immigrants. I think Mumbai is also the same.

Let Pune be the city of Marathi manoos. And that does not mean immigrants not allowed, but immigrants acting as “In Rome, Do as the Romans Do”. Same has to apply with Bangalore now as it is in irreparable state. Let Mysore be the Pune of Karnataka. As for Kolkata and Chennai, they are different league. Whatever you try to do, they will never change. Kolkata will always be bongy and Chennai be Tamily.

Ok, so as the conclusion was ‘In Rome Do as the Romans do’, a bit of appendage is necessary: ‘To the extent you don’t loom foolish’ and this appendage applies to all those fake American accent putters. J