Haven’t written a post in some while now, though have written some drafts that couldn’t quite be finished. I guess that’s why they are called ‘drafts’ 
Anyways, had a few post ideas, but couldn’t quite convince myself that each of them needed a separate post, so i thought that I might as well post them as ‘random blabberings’ which makes it sound cool. Either that or that I have mental disease.
So where was I? Yes, random. Blabberings. Okay.
Behti Hawa Sa Tha Woh is the gayest song I have heard in a while. Make that in years. Gay as in “aadmi hoon aadmi se pyaar karta hoon” gay, not “happy” wala gay. I mean, the singer is a guy who is singing paeans about another guy, in a very happy happy way. Freaks me out. No. Actually, it makes me want to puke every time i hear it on the radio or when my roomie plays it. Which is not very often, coz I live in telugu land( or is it telangana land?) and my roomie is not too hung over 3 Idiots either, respectively.
Which brings me to another thing, this 3 idiots ka idiocy. I do not see what about the film people liked so much as to have made it such a hit. Its mostly recycled old email jokes, a bit of 5PointSomeone and that ‘All izz well’ crap. The only thing I liked is that sequence when the haughty teacher’s pet delivers that hilarious speech. The writers stretched it a bit far with the heroine still getting back with the hero after 10 years. She waited for him for 10 years! And all this, in an age when a girl will take up with another guy 10 minutes before after she dumps the first one
Haven’t seen Avatar till now. The IMAX here is fully booked for the entire month. Looks like I’ll not be catching that movie for some more time. Thinking of which, I generally don’t get to catch any of the massively blockbuster movies at all.
I saw ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ 12 years after it was released. And that too because it was on TV. I regret watching it to this day. And wondering why people were shelling out 1000 rupees to buy tickets in black for that film. Haven’t seen Dil Toh Pagal Hai till now. Have it on my HDD, but haven’t gathered the courage to watch it. I fear I might start breaking things. Or jump in front of a truck.
Ah well, that was random. There’ll be a list to compensate for this in the next blog post(s). And now that I have done this pronouncement here, I doubt that there ever will be a list. Something about me not wanting to conform or something. Sigh.
Just what made me go and watch Pyaar Impossible is something best left to the vagaries of fate. Maybe I was meant to watch it. It must be part of some sort of penance that I have to do for my pichle janmon ke paap.
The first 5 minutes of the movie does make you wonder if its going to be one of those hatke films. You know, the kind where you come out of the theatre and say, “Wow. That was different.” The words I was mouthing at the end were on the lines of “Give me my two and a half hours back” and some mumbling about Program Files. You’ll understand about the program files part if you go watch the movie.
Its the geek and beauty story. You know, the geek who is the nicest guy in college, does all the work for everybody but is mostly invisible to all. Especially the beauty. The story was good and so many things could have been done with it. But all we got was Program Files, a spoilt brat for a kid and some serious skin show from Priyanka Chopra.
Program Files: Stealing an operating system has never been so easy. All you need to do is to copy the Program Files. I wonder who the IT Consultant for this movie was. I want to go and smack him on the back of the head and teach him some concepts. Idiot. Its like they never expected IT professionals to watch the movie. Now you will have incidents where people will try to copy Program Files of Windows in order to steal it from someone’s computer.
Clothes: I think there was a per dress limit of cloth that was imposed for Priyanka Chopra’s wardrobe in the movie. Or that she wore clothes meant for the kid. Either ways, you know how you get sick of chocolate after having say 2 kilos of it. It was the same with Priyanka Chopra. You get tired of seeing the long legs after some point. I have boxers that are longer than the shorts she wears in almost every other scene in the movie. Enough said.
Acting: Priyanka Chopra was okay. But I think no one noticed her acting anyways. Uday Chopra tried hard, as always, but fails. One can’t do much with two and a half expressions. Dino Morea with his one expression is the bad guy. I think his acting was the best in the movie. And when one says that, you know how badly the others have acted. The kid is irritating but cute, as most kids are. Anupam Kher is good in a brief cameo, as always.
First movie of the year for me. And this is what I get. I fear what atrocities the rest of the year may bear upon me. Sigh. I fear more copying of Program Files
He will not forgive. But he wills himself to forget.
Forgiveness is hard. Forgiving someone takes strength. It demands sacrifice. Sacrifice of the right to hate, to abhor someone. He is not strong. And he needs the right to hate.
To forget is easy. All it requires is a hate so strong that one’s heart shivers at the prospect of remembrance.
He builds walls to imprison the memory. Walls so high, so wide, so thick that even angels of light fear to thread within. The memory lies within these walls, cold and shivering, forgotten. It will eventually die a quiet, undignified death in the recesses of these walls.
But the walls will remain, just in case.
“So, you sing songs in the toilet, eh?” she asks.
“Yeah. I do”, he answers, not sure if its a thing he should be proud of.
“What songs?”, she asks
*Thinks of something that will make her laugh*
“Hmm, how about ‘Aati Nahin’? ”, he answers
“Old Joke. But that is when you are…er..constipated na…what about the normal times?”
“Oh then. Then I sing, ‘Tum aa gaye ho, noor aa gaya hai…’”
*Peals of laughter at the other end of the line*
Chetan Bhagat’s last book, ‘The Three mistakes of my life’ was more or less of a mistake(fourth?) itself. It read more like a movie script than a book, with improbable story lines, shallow characterization and more than a little melodrama. So, when a friend of mine gave me Bhagat’s new book “Two States” to read, there was somewhat of a doubt if I would be wasting some brain cells reading this one too. But it turned out okay. The book that is.
Bhagat has revived the protagonist of his very first novel(Five Point Someone) for this book. The story is the same old story of most Hindi films. Boy meets girl; they fall in love; families are opposed. That sort of thing. For good measure, Bhagat throws in the North-South divide. And some emotional turbulence in the protagonist’s life (not done too well though). Most of the book is about how the hero and heroine cope with the cultural divide and win over both set of parents. Along the way, Bhagat also manages to do some soul searching (a concept that seems to fascinate the MBA types to no end).
The story may be simple, but the treatment is different. Plus, Bhagat manages to keep the reader’s interest with witty lines sprinkled throughout the book (especially the stereotyping of races). Character development isn’t a priority in Bhagat’s novels, so don’t expect much on that front. Lastly, there are no major “suspend your belief” kind of moments in this book, like in ‘One Night @ Call Centre’ and ‘The Three mistakes of my life’.
All in all, Two States is an okay read. Good enough for the 95 bucks that one will spend on the book. Rating: 3 out of 5.
…nothing is permanent.
Footprints on the sand are dim reminders of people who once walked here. Sand castles built here wither away with time and moisture. Names written on the shore are washed away by the enthusiastic waves. Promises made by the beach are forgotten, their words carried away by the rushing wind.
On the beach, nothing is permanent.
…explained in six compact lines.
hoye zindagi jaise ek radio
Alag alag dhun sunati hai
Kabhi happy kar de
Kabhi sad banaye
KKabhi senti kar de
Kabhi mad banaye…
If only Socrates had known…
[Wrote this back in June. Was sitting in the draft section, making a sad face. Thought that I might as well post it…And this is fiction. Just in case.]
When all the tears have dried up, when all the thoughts come to nil, he figures he has to move on. Finally. Eighteen long months of wondering if he was the one to blame, if he’d gone wrong somewhere; he figures that he’ll never know the answer. Maybe he doesn’t want the answer anymore.
Eighteen months. Of insane schedules, of working late, of working weekends, of working like a machine. Of Excelsheets, Word documents, Visio diagrams, xml comments, cs files, analysis and programming. Just so that he wouldn’t get time to think. Of himself.
Tu nahi raha teri yaad reh gayi, palko mein teri aas reh gayi
Koi toh hoga bahana bata, tujhko bhula dene ka…
She isn’t worth it, he decides. Nobody is, says a voice from inside him. Nobody should be, he says. And smiles.
Once he decides to do it, deleting memories is easy. All you have to do is Shift+Delete and they are all gone. Forever.
They are in the shopping mall after watching the movie. He wants to find out where the Crosswords Bookstore is. He remembers vaguely but can’t seem to locate it.
After moving around the first level, second level and the third level of the mall, looking for the bookshop, he is irritated that he can’t find it.
“Why don’t you ask the mall security? I’m sure they might know”, she chimes in, interrupting his thoughts.
“Can’t”, he says.
“Why?”, she asks.
“I am a man. And men don’t ask for directions”, he says, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Looks like you’ll need a sex change operation to locate that bookstore then”, she replies, a thin smile forming on her lips.
