MIHYAP Contest #1

So, the book has its first contest and some are being given away from free, a gesture always appreciated by students in perennially impecunious situations. Dear GB, when selecting the winners, do remember your fan base who go day after day barely surviving on hostel food. They are the salt of the earth, the ones who unblushingly aspire for pirated copies.

OK, I am not really sure what I meant to write as an introduction. I tend to digress a lot when it comes to hostel food.


The rules can be found here.

My top ten favourite movie lines are:

1. Well, say something! You lousy bunch of bleedin' hearts. You're not goin' to intimidate me! I'm entitled to my own opinion! Rotten kids... you work your life out! No. Not guilty. Not guilty! (12 Angry Men)
2. I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: 'Love thy neighbor.'... And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them, like a man we both knew, Mr. Paine.You think I'm licked.You all think I'm licked.Well, I am not licked!I'll stay and fight for this lost cause. Even if this room gets filled with lies like these; and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place.. Somebody will listen to me. (Mr. Smith goes to Washington)
3. I've never been alone with a man before, even with my dress on. With my dress off, it's MOST unusual. (Roman Holiday)
4. Tonight, a comedian died in New York. (Watchmen)
5. I guess that's how it crumbles, cookiewise. (The Apartment)
6. I'll never be hungry again. (Gone with the wind) (Also, newly favoured due to the hostel food horror)
7. I am Death (Seventh Seal)
8. The Dude abides (Big Lebowski)
9. Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room! (Dr. Strangelove)
10. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super, no one will be (The Incredibles)

I would like to thank Akasuna no sasori for tagging me with this. I also tag elfin void, amazing greys, What's in a name, Doleful Doledrums, arsenik. Those who do, please note :

a. On your blog, provide a link to this page. (http://greatbong.net/book) and tag 5 people.
b. Come over to the comment-space of this post and post your blog’s link so it can be read.

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I have been tagged, and by tagged, I mean properly tagged and not a tag stolen from someone else's blog. Though originally tagged in Facebook, I prefer limiting tags to blogs, where no one really knows me and therefore, would not bring it up against me next time we meet. The tagger, Vanilla Sky, defines this tag as

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. If I stare at a person long enough, listen to their conversation and not say a word, the person eventually ends up betraying all their innermost secrets to me. I attribute this to an unwavering stare. Blackmail, therefore, is a very effective career option.
2. I adore shoes. I buy them in hordes. But the only shoe I ever wear is a very worn out pair of 'Ketoes'.
3. I get very excited at the sight of policemen, police jeeps, police stations or vans carrying criminals. I do not know why. My mum thinks that is the reason I happily lose my identity cards.
4. I am possibly the only person on earth who has sprained a foot while dancing to 'Safety Dance'.
5. My favourite sort of movies are musicals, specially the type where things are bound to end happily and the songs are popular ditties. Sweeney Todd does not fall under this category. Nor does High School Musical.
   
6. The only time I have had a crush on a real person (defined as people you actually know and who know you back and you have conversations and hang out in general) was when I lost a classmate's pen and he laughed when I tried to apologize for it. By the end of three years, I had begun to dislike him intently for trying to steal my thunder.
7. I have elaborate dream sequences, most of which would make very gripping thrillers. The last one was a murder of a newly wed man and Bobby Deol happened to be the detective in charge. He goes and asks the bride if she had had something silvery grasped in her palms at the time of death and whether the victim was humming to himself at that moment. The bride opens her palms to see a silver foil attached to it. It was clearly the defining moment. Then the alarm bell rang. I hate my alarm very, very much.
8. I am a terribly messy person. The sort of person who would not clean her bed and would rather sleep on the mess, and, if the mess happens to be uncomfortable, on the floor. But I am obsessed about clean sinks. I often spend my time in dinner parties cleaning the sink.
   
9. I never understand the business section of the paper. I blame it on the Economics degree. Everything works completely against all the laws proposed.
10. I have a maroon top. If I wear it and it rains, the umbrella turns inside out and I get soaked. It is uncanny.
11. The first actor I ever fell in love with was Rupert Grint. The fact that Ronald Weasley and I shared birthdays just proved the fact that we were soulmates.
12. My favourite word is 'preposterous'. As a nineteen year old, one of my deepest wishes was to become a princess, and say preposterous all the time while randomly ordering people to be beheaded, not unlike the Queen of Hearts.
13. I think Anne Hathaway has the most beautiful smile ever.
14. The Air India Maharajah scares me.
    
15. The more I see of Dustin Hoffman, the more I like him. I really wish to see him in Death of a Salesman, a very favourite play of mine.
16. The English Patient is the only book/movie combo I like, rather, admire and love, despite the fact they both are very different.
17. I wish to dress up as a witch someday, get dressed in floating, flowing, wispy clothes and cackle.
18. The only people I bond very well with are twelve year old girls. They immediately like me and say I am the nicest person they have ever known. Not many people say that. The world needs more twelve year old girls to be a happier place.
19. If I ever write a novel, I want it to be a tragedy. Everyone in it must die lonely, painful, lingering deaths. There will also be a family ghost, a woman with a haunted past and a retired acrobat. They will all die too. Except for the family ghost, since it is already dead.
    
20. I have an Oscar acceptance speech prepared.
21. I often wake up in the middle of the night due to sheer panic. Most of these are caused by the fact that I have forgotten whether Obama is republican or democrat, the meaning of allegory or whether I had cleaned the sink before sleeping. Whenever this happens, I end up sweeping.
22. I want a hat. A floppy, large brimmed hat with grapes on it. I will distribute grapes from it to people I meet.
    
23. I chew my hair when distressed. It is not very good for the hair.
    
24. I love it when I find some of my favourite songs in movie soundtracks. Like Saif singing Heartbreak Hotel in Parineeta. Or More Than a Feeling being played in Madagascar 2.
    
25. I believe the best entrance ever in a movie was made by Akshay Kumar in Tashan. Yes, I have watched Tashan. I watch everything. Except Ghajini.
    

I am still rather surprised by the fact that I have finished this. I tag everyone who has not done this but wants to.

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Pride and Prejudice- The movie

This is for the people who have been searching around Google to know when Part-2 of Pride and Prejudice might be shown on Zee Studio and being guided here, furthering their anguish and disappointment. Dear people, fear not, Zee Studio has not been playing fast and loose with your hopes and dreams. Switch on the television at 10:30 tonight and stock yourself up with oranges. Is there also a Part- 3? I do not know. In case there is, you may safely assume next Friday is the happy day they will be airing it.

Apart from providing news Zee Studio should start paying me for, Colin Firth makes a wonderful Darcy. Not the Darcy my first copy of P&P was illustrated with, but a Darcy who does not make me cringe. When you see him gazing at Elizabeth- immobile, expressionless- he makes you realize what the British stoicalness is all about. Did I mention Darcy is battling Berry Conway for the fourth spot in my list of the kind of people I want to marry?

Elizabeth, undoubtedly, is one of the most delightful women whom I have come across. She is charming, insane, witty, kindred-everything you want your best friend to be. Unfortunately, she is not Elizabeth. But her utterly wonderful smile makes up for everything- sometimes.

No, the movie is not worth one line judgements on the lead characters. It deserves much, much more. Might flit by later.

p.s. Does not Brando look as if he is Ken come to life?

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For Austen aficionados

If you
a) have the time
b)live in the same timezone as I do
c) own a TV
which actually does have
i) Zee Studio

they will be airing BBC's Pride and Prejudice at 10:30 PM tomorrow night. Do try to catch it, if only for the only believable Darcy cinema has ever been able to produce.

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The World of ad libber

Recently, with economic problems aplenty, I have found myself trying to explain away most of the policies and actions, trying to justify them to my economist mind, so to speak. It was rather comfortable to feel that I could actually fit in a theory with every random policy the government could inflict on the world. Therefore, it was extremely disappointing to know the government had not actually fitted any theories and did what they did because they do so every decade or so. Sometimes, I think, Economics is nothing but an accident.

My professor tells me the present crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Things are going to worsen and we are all going to end up as paupers. But, on a happier note, economists will always be in demand, as modern Cassandras foretelling gloom and despair, aware of the horrors waiting to face us, yet unable to persuade the common people of them. The lot of an economist...but then you know how the line ends.

It is the wedding season again and fish fry filled weddings beckon enticingly. Nowadays, they have started to get fancier with lobsters and pasta heading the list. All I say is, a wedding without fish fries is positively illegal and the couple is living in sin. However, present wedding scares include the diminishing difference in age between the bride and me. As I get older and they start becoming people I have grown up with, attending weddings has become less about fish fries and more about gaping horrified at the bride and blubbering at the your drink, which is, invariably, instant coffee.

Back in the world of Economics, misguided professors expect students to write essays on important economic topics, possibly to discourage them from writing theses later on, one presumes. Yours truly has been given the world shattering topic of Imperialism and what it did to Indian agriculture and I have immediately proceeded to write something on the lines of a novel by Shobhaa De, an essay so outspoken that it would bring the blush on the cheeks of the most hardened of examiners. But there is only so much you can do with Indian agriculture, a subject which provides no inspiration whatsoever in a writer. Not once have I found an opportunity to introduce the technique of Dance of the Seven Veils to divert attention from some particularly dull bit about farmer oppression.

In the world of humans, classmates can now be divided into two parts. People who will be giving the CAT and people who will remain poverty stricken for life. The section belonging to the latter has suddenly started scraping acquaintances with people belonging to the former. Beautiful friendships are sprouting at every corner between people who are going to make it and people who are going to make their mark. It is, apparently, not possible to do both. It is also, remarks the HOD, a criminal offense if you do not do either. If you can not win the Nobel, says he, make some money. A principle most people seem to be happy giving in to. Random comments centering around the theme, "I think I will give up all this and study social anthropology" is not something people around me take kindly to. Especially since no one really knows what it means and dislikes admitting that.

In the world of animals, I tried to kidnap a puppy, since my mother refuses to give me one. The puppy, unfortunately, disappeared (not due to the exertions of being kidnapped, but due to rather overbearing siblings, not mine, the puppy's) and I am a shadow of my former self, my heart an empty hollow. It is definitely not better to have loved and lost. Nowadays, I seem to be entering into a lot of debates about whether one should get a baby or a puppy. In the same note, I also seem to be entering into a lot of debates about whether Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is a better movie than Tashan. I pitch for JBJ every time. I also pitch for the puppy. But, if given a choice among anything on earth, all I would really, really want from life, is a baby elephant.

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Who has got a new tag?

I do, I do! :D

I have, as is obvious, decided to collect tags the way people collect stamps, coins, butterflies, weight and notches on the bedpost. This is Doubletake's contribution to the Tiggery Pokery (which is what I have decided to name my collection) and she is duly thanked and wept on.

4 Jobs I’ve had (in chronological order):
As 2 year old, was responsible for getting my dad the paper. Yes, I was the family puppy. Overcome by the fact that I was actually given a responsibility, I crawled all the way into the chair and still have the scar to show for my efforts.
As a 3 year old, my mum made me watch over my sister. I watched her fall right off the bed. People keep on alluding to that incident.
As a 20 year old, my friends send me to get photocopies done. I am also responsible for dividing the food bill so that I am the only one who does not have to pay the VAT.

4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
My Fair Lady
Pulp Fiction
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Dr. Strangelove

4 Places I have lived in (in order) :
I distinctly remember answering this in some other tag.

4 TV shows I like
Scrubs
Friends
Hope and Faith
That's So Raven (Does Disney count?)

4 favourite foods:

Vada Pao
Aam ka achaar
Fried chicken
Chocolate Cake

4 Places I would rather be:
Right now?
At Pingu's place, with friends, food and lots of tears and laughters and playing with barbie dolls.
With my mentor, being comforted and told that life sucks and I should get married. Thats his solution to everything. Even when I tell him that I burnt Maggi.
My library. I realize I have seven books due. For more than 15 days. And I keep on forgetting to call them up to reissue.
At Ladakh. Away. Happy.

4 People I am tagging:

Hate doing this. Everyone is tagged.

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Chronicles of Part-2 Exams: Bollywood, the Student and the Free SMS Scheme

From: Bonky
To: Everyone

Seedhi Zabaat zindagi bawal ho gayi
ho teri ek nazar se zindagi nihal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
etc etc

From: Me
To: Bonky

ya se...
Ye mera dil pyar ka diwana..(add appropriate sounds here)
Diwana, diwana, pyar ka parwana

Why are we doing this?

From: Bonky
To: Me

Neele, neele ambar par chand jab chaaye,
pyar barsaye, humko tarsaye

Pingu and Jo insist on spending all the free sms on their boyfriends. So I am reduced to this.

From: Me
To: Everyone

I finally have understood Cournot after like 3 weeks :D
I am so delighted I could weep, weep, weep. In fact, I will do so
(weep, weep, weep)

From: Jo
To: Me

Isn't Cournot, like, one page? In fact, even I have finished Macroeconomics. I am so delighted, I am going shopping tomorrow.

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

From: Bonky
To: Me

I have decided to spend all me free sms on you. So what's up?

From: Me
To: Bonky

Great, now even I will start wondering if I am a lesbian. Right now, I am having fried chicken. Diet be damned.

From: Bonky
To: Me

#@$#, I know. My regime has gone for a toss. My life looks so bleak I spent the whole afternoon watching Vivah today.

From: Me
To: Bonky

You too :D
We are such soulmates. In fact, I alternated between that and Swarg. Swarg has Govinda and Juhi. Govinda is Juhi's servant, then becomes all glamorous and Juhi falls for him. If our servant becomes rich, would we marry him?
(p.s., wish Mithun and Govinda had mated and produced a kid. He would be the greatest dancer on earth)
(p.s.2 OK, I have a crush on Govinda)

(n.b. I write long sms)
(n.b. 2 What is the plural form of sms?)

From: Bonky
To: Me

My heart is set on Mimoh. I doubt I would want any other son of Mithun, even if he is a hybrid of Govinda..am a loyal lover...

From: Me
To: Bonky

Mimoh is mine, woman :O
You always want my men. Mimoh is the only one who makes me see unicorns and rainbows when he dances. You know, I thought I would never know love. I never realized it would come to me in this form where my beloved is sundered apart by cities and superstardom. But someday, we will gaze into each other's eyes and realization will strike him and he will dance. He will dance Bonky like he has never danced before and love will envelope us. Then we will have a son and call him Gomoh.

From: Pingu
To: Everyone

I was playing diner dash on my cell phone and lost for the 12th time in a row. I was so frustrated I banged my head on the floor and now I am dizzy. Stop studying till I feel better.

From: Me
To: Pingu

Heh, I am busy telling Bonky my love story with Mimoh. You have no fear from us.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Mimoh is gay toh :O

From: Me
To: Pingu

Ki jata :O
More somman is expected from a Bengali towards Mithun's son. Of course, most people I fall for do turn out to be gay, so won't protest much.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Of course! Should have got the link. But there are better gays man. What is wrong with your taste? Jo ladki kabhi Karan Johar ke kwhab dekhti thi, woh aaj Mimoh pe utar aayi? Ghor kalyug!!

From: Me
To: Everyone

I am leaving Oligopoly. It has stopped making any sense. Nash can go screw himself.

From: Jo
To: Me

Oh, but that is the most major chapter. I have just finished Duality. I also bought (long list follows)..And is not Nash dead or something?

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

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The Dudes Abide

It is very easy to recognize economists when the budget season nears. They go about looking pale and sickly, heedless of all sights and sounds, except when wincing painfully at the sight of a copy of The Economic Times. It is not hard to reason why. Most economists forget all they have learned ten minutes after they get their degrees. Some do not even wait till the end of the examinations. After that, all theories propounded by them are a result of assumptions made and an imagination active. Many are the theories I myself have created on ill prepared examinations. Three of the papers easily deserve a Nobel. John Nash is a classic case of famous economists. No one but he could have created something which reads "Complementarity is the source of multiplicity in the Nash equilibrium". One requires the aid of an imagination fueled idea and a psychological disease to make up that.

The lot of an economist is a hard one. In the olden days, most people would join the Foreign legions to help them forget. With the legions having now been disbanded, they try to fall in love. Love after all, always makes you forget everything. However, most economists are a bunch of snobs, assuming (which is their business) that every other human is inferior to them intellectually and they deserve no less than Fellows from Oxford. Of course they do not get them. But economists are extremely persistent. If nothing else works, they go and take to drink. And they forget.

(N.B. If the economist is a female, she does not even need to take to drink, she takes to weight loss. That makes her forget everything, including love and foreign legions. It is an unstated general rule that female economists who take the subject seriously are fat. The fact that there are not enough female economists proves it. Who really wants to remain fat nowadays?)

But then drink brings out all that is base in man. Which is why perhaps when we got drunk, all we could do was whine about "Cournot equilibrium" and "Todaro-Harris model" and then sob in a corner.

But I digress.

(Click to enlarge)

Every man meets his Waterloo. And economists, despite all rumours, are humans. Albeit with slightly different Waterloos. While the misogynist finds the woman of his dreams, business tycoons find brothers constantly reminding them of their share in the business, politicians find unsuitable son-in-laws, economists have the budget thrust upon their unwary faces.

For in this world, there still remain a few of little faith. Judas is the name which comes to the mind as an example. Some who do not trust enough in the healing power of forgetfulness. And they keep on remembering. Then they go join newspapers as columnists. Or the "Gor-ment" as financial advisors.

It can never be a very pleasing sensation when served with your early morning coffee are the screaming headlines referring to cost push inflation. The Fates band up against you and you realize there is a family member looking down expectantly and asking you to explain the meaning of cost push inflation as opposed to other kinds of inflation. The hurriedly mumbled line defining cost push inflation as inflation pushed by cost, rather than by other, say, non cost, what do you call it, thing, is not accepted in a spirited manner and the economist goes back to face the world, a mere shadow of his former, jubilant, coffee sipping self. The Fates are a cruel lot though, once aroused by the Furies, and questions regarding the subtle difference between fiscal and revenue deficit haunts the economist's mind till he receives the next day's paper, which speaks glibly of various anti inflationary measures and waiving of farmers' loans.

However, the budget question, once admirably settled, does not raise its head again for a considerable time. No more is the economist tormented by the general, misguided public to explain something the general, misguided public happily imagines the economist knows about. The economist, what with the daily cares of the world on his shoulders and the severe concern for the income of various alcohol fermentators, gets involved in the grind again. And forgets. Time, as usual, remains the best healer. And the economists, as spelled out by this very fascinating movie called The Big Lebowski, abide.

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It is That Time of the Year Again

1) When colleges close up within a few hours notice. When you may suddenly end up in the first page of newspapers. When you might switch on the TV and see your classmate being beaten up. When everyone is fawning over you.

For College Elections have come to town.

I frankly pity students who have never studied in a politically inclined college. Nothing, nothing beats the news of college being closed down because policemen have gheraoed the area. And, of course, if you have ever had a crush on one of those politicians who would never deign to look at an unpolitical mite as you, this is the perfect time for the come-hither looks.

Let the Chinese have their New Years. Let the lovers have their Valentine Days. Let the chickens have their flus. I have more involved, passionate and dangerous events to look forward to.

2) When one realizes its about time one comes to term with reality and starts taking her graduation seriously. So the first thing one goes and does is watch Dr. Strangelove. Of course, after such an experience, it is hard to take anything seriously. Plans are in the offing to watch Elizabeth next. The probable inspiration one looks forward to is declare to the whole world one is illegitimate and go tell Bilawal Bhutto that one is the rightful heir to Pakistan's throne. Then again, it is not right to assume brotherly feelings for him after having lusted for that aquiline nose for months.

Then again, as discussed so minutely in the last post(specially the comment section), I am probably about to be declared non-collegiate. So do not think it is worth taking the pressure of examinations for.

3) Valentine's Day. When happy couples spend money on each other and single people go around protesting that its just a marketing gimmick. Of course, I do not believe in Valentine's Day. It is a marketing gimmick.

Bonky and I happen to be the only unattached (or as we prefer calling ourselves, detached) people remaining in possibly this entire world. And no, we have not had any lesbian tendencies. But it is a sad week for both of us while we take advantage of the Valentine sales to buy chocolates and wristwatches for ourselves. But we are a kindly lot. We want the other to be happily settled in commitment bliss. Which is why the following conversation took place

Bonky and Pongo, taking another never ending bus ride home. Pongo is immersed in a book. Bonky is immersed in watching cute guys. They are thrown together so much anyway that they have hardly anything left to talk about. Next time I make friends, I will go for the ones with commitment phobia. At least it will not lead to my mother harbouring doubts about my orientation, seeing that I only have one friend I spent most of my time with. The others are too occupied with their better halves.

B: Damn, not one cute guy. Oooh, Ritika, you got to look, it is your soulmate.
P (By now used to this occurrence): Oh, indeed? Long hair?
B: Check
P: Tall?
B: Check
P: Earrings?
B: Only on one ear.
P: Perfect. Unshaven for a day or so?
B: Yes. An out and out aantel. Plus, he is carrying a bag which looks as if it might carry books.
P(suddenly animated): You have got to be kidding me. You found my soulmate!! Where is he?
B:Oooohhhh
P(tremulous): Hot girlfriend?
B( nodding sadly): Check.

4) I grow older. With a difference. I will never be a teen anymore. I leave my teens with regrets, having never done a thing teens are supposed to do. No wild romances, no overnight wild blings(or is it bilge, anyway, something) and certainly no pyjama parties either. At 19, I am growing up to be a dowdy 30 year old.

Though there is still about a month left. A whole month to fill it up with all the wildness of seven years.

I think I will end up being a dowdy thirty year old twenty year old. I have had more fun that way in all these years anyway.

Valentine's Day is not only for couples. Its for all loved ones. I love you all for actually taking time out and visiting my blog. So, here is wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day.
Also, please dress in black on fourteenth. We will have a collective mourning for Mr. Wodehouse.

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Dead Turtles

Which was mostly what the weekend has been about. Dead turtles lined up in a broken line, buried ostrich-like in an otherwise pristine beach. At twilight hour, a lone turtle being washed up on the shore, a lone moon directly above me with a lone star underneath and I, plopped down on the golden, silky sand, the sound of the sea enveloping all other sounds and the wind in my hair, the best caress one could ever receive. A seemingly endless beach with two occupants, one of them, sadly, dead and the other, feeling the waves lap at her feet.

And highlights from the world of Television :

• I watched Apna Sapna Money Money for the third time. Watching it for the first time somehow numbed me from actually providing an opinion. Decided to watch it a second time and write a review. The third time was accidental. However, the sneaking suspicion drew on me that I was starting to enjoy the experience. My system is not only immune to ASMM, but considers a regular dosage of it a health option. Is ASMM to me what Gunda is to Greatbong? Or Ingrid Bergman to Alfred Hitchcock? Or Shahrukh Khan to Karan Johar (more on this later in this post)?
• The trip was on a bus which played (horrors) videos. My poor earphones knew when they had been outnumbered. The insomniac in me gave way helplessly to songs from Muskaan, Kasoor, Raaz and songs from a similar genre. Of course, newer movies did get a chance with special preference to Fool 'n Final. Needless to say, today, I am a changed girl and will never ever abuse Himesh Reshammiya again. FnF has shown me light. In fact, while I type this, I am downloading three of its songs.
• Spent a Saturday evening morosely biting a biscuit and watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum for what seems like the 42nd time in the last six months. Its when you do this that you begin to wonder whether this is how you thought you would end up once in college.
  
  Then again, you forget all about wondering that and begin wondering why you find Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum so morbidly fascinating. You just stay numb and watch the idle rich fight the injustice they face from the world, the dictates of their hearts, moribund traditions and, of course, their sacrificial, all suffering parents who do not seem troubled watching their sons, husbands or even the occasional elderly father practically making out with the neighbour's daughter, but take offense at the slightest hint of theirs wishing to make the affair legal by the sacred ties of matrimony.
  
  I seem to have mixed up too many movies in this description, but then, who has not watched these movies. You may pretend to like Apocalypse Now and cry over Casablanca and argue about the significance of title of The Streetcar Named Desire, but you have, on the sly, watched all of Karan Johar's movies and have caught yourself laughing and sighing along with it. There is no solution to the eternal problem named Karan Johar. But its scary to think that a hundred years later, a new generation would be looking at our world and its culture through his eyes and find similarities between the the Greek and the Indian culture. Greece had its Helen, Menelaus and Paris. Our country had Shahrukh Khan, the rest of the world and Karan Johar.
• Kyle XY now has an additional character who looks uncannily like Michael Jackson and claims to be a female in love with Kyle. All this is obviously a diabolical plot by the producers to prove that Michael Jackson is actually a female android which is the reason he feels attracted to young boys. Boys because his soul is of a girl. Young because as an android, he lost out on the first 16 years of his life. Its a compensation for a lost youth spent under microscopes and brain scanners.
  

Okay, so I have just watched TV endlessly for the past few days and have nothing to write about and just desperately want to update this blog thing of mine.

Oh, I caught an oyster at the beach. It did not have anything in it sadly.

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The Year That Will Be

One of the few facts I have managed to retain from long forgotten History lessons is that Akbar was made Emperor at the tender young age of 13 and until he came of age, Bairam Khan, his general, ruled on his behalf. Possibly, all it does purport to mean is, fifty years down the line, Gowarikar's son might be casting Hrithik's grandson in the lead role of his movie Bilawal-(enter future wife's name here), with A.R. Rahman's son giving music rehashed from his father's incomplete works. It might also mean the Mughal empire was a democracy and one failed to understand it.

The only fact one can grasp here is, here is a 19 year old, with an entire country's reins falling into his laps, and here is another, musing on what the young inheritor's mother might have meant? What Times of India (yes, I proudly and unflinchingly proclaim I read it, and actually read Calcutta Times before heading for the headlines, if at all) displays boldly as a quotable quote has me fumbling for answers. What did the Benazir Bhutto mean when she said Democracy is the best revenge? Revenge against what? And why revenge? Would not it have been easier focusing on a few salient issues like actually bringing in the democracy for the betterment of the countrymen and countrywomen?

Then again, I never did really understand politics and possibly all the hidden agendas elude my flighty little brain. For how can I possibly deny the whole Bhutto tragedy caught my eye because

1)Bilawal Bhutto is hot. Period.
2) My young, inexperienced life has not seen many assassinations and one so close home always generates excitement.

God bless her soul though. She might have treated the idea of being killed philosophically, but it must have been rather a nasty surprise.

When Shakespeare did say what's in a name, he must have said it in an unthoughtful, unreflective moment, possibly just after giving a series of autographs and wondering how good a name Rob Ray would have been. For there is something about the name Akbar which makes the beholder of the name greater than mere mortals. Though the original Akbar did shy away from forcing his own religion upon his subjects, one of the few things he abstained from, his namesake, Akbar Khan, however, can apparently do anything. He is planning to re release Taj Mahal. Some kind of a Valentine's Day surprise to the unsuspecting world. Of course, all this might be a stepping stone to greater deeds like Ram Gopal Varma releasing a director's cut of RGV ki Aag as a Halloween surprise or on the death anniversary of Veerappan.Which might lead to the sales of a special DVD collection of Fardeen Khan's earlier movies. One fears the worse and actually goes on to wondering whether this might all lead to a Tushar Kapoor starring Yash Chopra movie, but one remains hopeful.

A.R. Rahman turns another year older today. I will always revere the man. For creating the two most perfect pieces of music ever. Parts of two separate songs. But when confronted with it, one does realize what perfection is. For then it does make you feel how absolutely small you are. How completely insignificant. And how wonderfully lucky. For some very curious reason, Bhojpuri movies make me feel the same way. As if in the presence of some greater god. Or perhaps the Messiah of a long lost, dignified, reawakened religion. Perfection, again, is such a subjective topic.

I bring in the New Year, as usual, with forgotten resolutions and a horrible tummy ache from over eating. Realization also strikes that 3 a.m. in the morning is not the time to churn out my thoughts in form of a blog post. What should have been random is strangely confessional (I did not mean to admit that despite Greatbong's tirade, Bhojpuri movies still hold a compelling fascination for me) and that is never a very comfortable thought to go to sleep with.

Good night, blog world.


Book today: The Story Girl, L.M. Montgomery ( compelling, beautiful and an indelible part of girlhood)
Movie today: Lawrence of Arabia (good, but long. Makes the watching rather arduous for someone who is not much into war movies. Probably means I have no taste)

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Reflections on Oranges, Death and Om Shanti Om

Its five months since my first University examination (yes, this will be a cribbing, moping, depressing post again). They have been an eventful five months. I have been hospitalized, fallen in love twice, have suffered an entire month of joyous celebrations, have convinced my parents that I actually have an ambition by sheer glib talk and have made a foolproof plan of bombing the University building. However, the people in charge of correcting my papers appear to be having an even more eventful time, for the results are still as far off now as they had been five months ago. And there has been not one day since these five months I have not moaned and groaned and wished death on myself. Yes, I have been a pretty depressing company. My university does that to you. For all I know, my examination answer sheets have been recycled as flyers in the Nandigram issue, used to make temporary refuges in the cyclone ravaged areas (bit of a prediction here) or crafted into jhalmuri containers. They may never have been checked. I may not exist in the University registers. Its the sheer madness of uncertainty which actually brings on the severe depression and the forewarnings to close relatives to buy something white this Puja.

It was while I was watching OSO when i suddenly realized what is the implication of death. No its not the reincarnation jazz. My very own personal view of the movie is that its sheer rubbish and watching Budhdha Mar Gaya is more fruitful. At least you know what you are watching will give you the headache of a lifetime. But it did give me food for thought. So I will be more kindly to the movie and agree it has a few amusing moments. And I do wish Shahrukh Khan's hairdresser has that baby and gives him the damned hair cut already. He is beginning to look like a mop.

Death, I realized, is not just the end of troubles, its the end. A simple end of everything you know, wish, love, think and experience. Its not a forced removal of the future, its the discontinuity of the present. The end of the sheer excitement of existence. When I die, it just would not be the things I am looking forward to I would losing out on, even if they are rather nice things like finally getting to watch all the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episodes, actually watch the last episode of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, know why Kyle XY has no bellybutton (I am thinking I watch too much TV), marrying Johnny Depp, and, of course, see how I finally turn out.

But there is so much more to life right now. There are some lovely things to live for even if Johnny Depp never finds me maddeningly attractive. (This post is just another way to convince myself that life is not all about getting a first class, bear with me). So I began listing out all the reasons I enjoy just being alive for. Here is a bit from the last revised draft

• Oranges : They mark the beginning of winter for me, my favourite season. What is winter if not spent on some rooftop, soaking in the afternoon sun, eating orange after orange and doing Maths? (This actually goes in good points about High School. Nowadays, I do maths with the radio on, snuggled in rugs, with mugs of coffee surrounding me).
• Mathematics : Much as I hate the subject, I love the organization which comes with it. It appeals to my messy self like a spirit finite calling to the infinite (I do not know what that means). It has begun affecting my writing style. Now whatever I write has to be bulleted. Its by sheer force of will power that I do not add footnotes.
• Mosaic floors: They have all these small stones where, if you squint slightly, you can actually make out faces. Marble floors are cold, inhumane things which provide us with no imaginary human company. When I have a home of my own, I will keep the marble floors and get a puppy. That, I think, will be slightly less mad.
• A.R. Rahman
• Chalk: I eat them. More accurately, I nibble them. I find the dry texture fascinating, despite the fact I often choke on them. Of course, I mean white chalks. Coloured chalks have a weird bitter taste.

So there you go University Examiners, even if you fail me now, I still win.

You have not broken me.

Yet.

As a byword, in case you watched OSO, they show SRK's reincarnated self was afraid of fire because he had died in a fire. I am afraid of

• fire
• water
• ghosts
• heights
• dogs
  

I am guessing in my previous birth, I died when the ghost of a dog, blazed in flames, attacked me on a rooftop, from where I was forced to jump, falling right in to the middle of a swimming pool where I drowned. Only then do all my rational fears make sense.

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