Am no more a mere statistic

P.S.:

The present writer appreciates your unflinching support throughout the past twelve months. He wants to tell his readers how thankful he is. Next time around you can expect a usual write up.

Uncork the champagne and let it flow unfettered.After all, the year 2006 is coming to an end in a few more hours.On retrospection,personally,2006 has been phenomenal- that is, if the academics are excluded- for me.Those days of low self-esteem are still vividly etched in my usually schizophrenic cerebra.I enter a plush apparel outlet and the guard lets me in only if i have the strength to push the transparent glass showroom myself.Three minutes later the salesman gazes at my ridiculously svelte body and even before i ask to display a pair of jeans he
lets me know the price which, according to his gut instinct, is unaffordable by the most ridiculous of standards by me.Taking umbrage would only mean me pulling the glass door myself albeit sulking. Beggars think of me a part of their brethren.It surely is a moment to rejoice because i
atleast have someone looking forward for me.I guess it might seem funny to you but it is not rocket science when the beggars ask everyone for alms and i am ignored as if am a social pariah. Thankfully,and quite disconcertingly, the hijras find me worth asking. At this instant of low
self-esteem i tried to do the hijra act.

I came out in the open and lifted the sari to show those genitals- which are quite intact-albeit the space here was the blogosphere.And the rest as they say is history- in the making though.Sone pe suhaga was orkut. So, i would like to profess my heartfelt thanks to
some people who have been very instrumental in this metamorphosis of mine. Lo behold...

(the list is alphabetically written)

Acj's interview panel for perceiving me unfit for a seat in their college.

Adwait for being the "international affairs" guy.

An anonymous caller on mtv select who asked for "somewhere i belong" that in turn stoked my interest in english music.

Ayn rand for providing me the air to breathe in this materialistically smothered world.

Bharadwaj rangan for making kick ass a part of my lingo.

Bharat jhurani for commenting on everything.

Bishwanath ghosh for stoking my interest in journalism as a career.

Bitlord for letting me download everything that would make my orkut profile even more attractive.

Dataone for giving me the much needed relief in my moments of ennui.

Devika for being so appreciative and roping many more intelligent readers.

Dittakavi sameera for her technical inputs.

Gautam malkani and hillary swank for making fuck an inextricable part of my lexicon.

Greg chappell and his boys for playing impossibly bad cricket to make me stay away from the game.

Hafeeza for being that initial and still one of the very few readers who religiously visits my blog.

Howard roark for epitomising the "perfect guy".

Jntu examiners for making me fit enough to be unfit for any software job.

Lavanya for being there when i needed u the most and it does not mean that i dont need u now(laughs).

Lindsay lohan for the lugubrious "confessions of a broken heart".

My computer: Trust me it is a heath robinson contraption but hey this blog took birth from the womb of this same equipment.

My mobile for giving me company throughout despite my atrocities committed on it.

Rajeev masand for stoking my interest in international cinema.Dude, you are my dronacharya(my thumb would be intact to give a thumbs up and down).

Saby for keeping my sanity levels intact during my most unproductive period, that is, the last six months.

Sahithi for being that meticulous person with an eye for detail.She had a kick ass awe for my blog. Thanks dear.

Sameera for thinking me worthy enough to shed those precious tears of yours for me quite copiously(if sources are to be believed).

Shanti for being the hardcore RSS pracharak who would latch onto the most slender hook to calumnise me.

Sowmitra for the obvious reasons.

Tarun tejpal for letting me a sneak peek into the cardinal carnal secrets.

And

Vijayalakshmi, my mom, for letting me "BE".

Must watch faces on the telly:

Your heart needs to be made of stone to not get attracted to the enchanting smile of darshana, the channel[v] vj fresher contestant. Gawd, she lights up the surroundings with those thirty two teeth.

The flabbergasted look on the face of "beta" in the motorola flip ad.

The mom and her infant smiling(in the most heart warming way possible) and clapping in unison when the pug comes out of the closet in the new hutch ad.

Movie of the fortnight:

Blow:I guess even a blow job will not be as exciting as this johnny depp and penelope cruz starrer is.

WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR 2007.

Hope to have your patronisation next year and many years to follow. As far as i am concerned, i just hope my dream of manning a pencil and scribbling pad with a jhola hanging from my shoulders covered my a loosely khadi woven kurta with kolhapur chappals covering my feet comes true. Cheers people. C ya..

Pishtoon and dishum are better than gravity defying stunts.

Caveat:
The writer is trying to do a nasreen munni kabir which he knows he cannot. Discrepancies are inevitable and this is NOT a compendium on hindi cinema.
Happy reading..

"Bollywood has come of age","Bollywood is a bigger industry than hollywood","Hindi movies draw larger audience than english movies". These are some of the headlines of those dime a dozen movie magazines. Surely, the journalists have forgot the moot point in this euphoric time. It is because of the FDI and the sapient IT entrpreneurs that movies are becoming blockbusters even with lacklustre screenplay and storyline. A few days back, while confabulating with my friend (name withheld on request), i asked whether she liked old hindi movies. She snapped "NO, they are boring". I was flabbergasted. I gathered myself and further asked if she likes rafi's songs. She quipped "they are toooo slow". That was the final nail in the coffin. This is not a one off case. The GEN X hardly appreciates the golden period of hindi cinema. Balraj sahni is hardly recognised as the marlon brando of hindi cinema. His "do bigha zameen" finds mention in every film critic's "must watch list". These days, every well known film maker , from farhan akhtar to david dhawan, is making a remake of those masala potboiler fares of manmohan desai and prakash mehra. Does this imply that our industry is bereft of original ideas ? Partly yes, partly no.

Its true that the multiplexes have revolutionised hindi cinema. Niche movies like khosla ka ghosla or say jhankaar beats did get appreciation but there are lots of reasons to crib too. Hazaaron khwahishein aisi is a movie which did not get any patronisation from the movie watching audience. Why ?? Well, the sensibilities of the indian audience is nowhere near that of the international one. Howelse can one explain the reason about why slapstick movie like phir hera pheri or a prosaic fare like veer zaara are biggest hits of hindi cinema. Movie watching has transmogrified from hair raising experience(read it as gooseflesh) to dick raising experience. Testosterone levels started getting up many nothces. It is not an apocryphal that after looking at the D cup decolletage and delphic roundness of the derrieres of mallika sherawat in murder a 11 year old kid runs to his mom and says "mummy mummy i got a bone in between my legs". This is a disconcerting fact much to the consternation of this writer and many others.

See through sari, pelvic thrusts and moans, navel groping,booty shaking, metronomic swinging of the "twins", a yawn inducing smooch are the accoutrements of these days songs on screen. Surely an AC NIELSEN team must have dont a pilot survey -on the behalf of filmmakers- among those soozled up and randy guys in kamathipura and come up with their version of wet dreams. In the erstwhile era the heroines like mala sinha, madhubala, sadhana forced guys to learn how to spell gorgeous. Item girls like helen used to sizzle the audience but these days heroines do the job of item girls and only titillate the viewers. The vital parts are more padded up than glenn mc grath when he comes out to bat. Circa 50's until late 70's the camera lens used to be the silent observer and its positioning was as is if it was narrating the whole scene. V.K.Murthy's lens used to be the shadow in the guru dutt's movies and that shadow evoked most amount of pathos. And nowadays, even a binod pradhan camera acts as a mere appendage.

Music of hindi films has undergone a sea change. Coda used to be the piece da resistance but it is no more in vogue. Psychedelic guitar riff accompanied by hoarse high pitched voice with bland jingles are the ring tones of the mobile phones. Lyrics have been reduced to palaver even in a two minute track. dil,pyar,masti are the leitmotif of every song. Even gulzar has been restricted to write without the use of those trademark metaphors. Punjab da puttar, sunny deol, epitomised patriotic jingoism-which became a huge draw- by flexing his throat and flabby muscles. However, he cannot come anywhere near those lines of kaifi azmi in haqeeqat " kat gaye sar hamare to kuch gham nahi sar himalay ka humne na jhukne diya". Anil sharma cannot better this for sure.

Stunt sequences of the "bhish pitamah of bollywood" -amitabh bachchan- are still the best. The sounds pishtoon emanating from the 0.35 mm revolver and dishum from that fist seem believable. These days the hero bungee jumps and catches the villain by the scruff of his neck. All this while defying gravity. I have no problem with a krishh doing superman like stunts but its very disgusting to see those white transparent wires suppprting hrithik while he is on his flight. I appreciate the dialogue in sholay when gabbar singh mouths that " woh do the aur tum teen phir bhi vapas aa gaye khali haath". From this dialogue, we can sum up that the hero to goon ratio used to be 1:1.5. These days it has accrued to a brobdignagian ratio of 1:20. Cool and sexy are increasingly becoming a part of the lexicon to describe male and female actors. In short, in the name of cinema we are being served pure bollocks. Sahir said "woh afsana jise anjaam tak le jana na ho mumkin, use ek khoobsurat mod dekar chodna accha". And sameer says "crazy kiya re". Beware, absolutely beware.
Having said all this, i must admit though that, i loved the smooch in dhoom 2. But but but.. soul patches,louis vuitton hand bangs, FCUK perfumes are better off in those plush page 3 parties.

Recommendation of the fortnight :

Ya rabba(salaam-e-ishq) : kailash kher vocals make this song a must hear. It epitomises the trauma a person goes through after losing the beloved.
Wujud(jilawatan): The guitar strings and the scruffy voice would make any masochist to stand up and applaud for those amazing lyrics.
Banjar(shubha mudgal version): queen of ragas pulls off an adrenaline pumping song. Its a pity that this song does not find mention on screen. Its from kabul express.
Dancer in the dark : Bjork pulls off a stunning performance. Its better to take those tissues along with you.

Let us stop gloating over pyrrhic victories.

P.S: This is not a litany of complaints against the UPA government or a recherche account on the shenanigans of our respectable netas.

If at all vishal bharadwaj ever wants to recreate greek tragedy then i am more than just sure that he will adapt the story within the vicinity of the lutyen's garden. Why ?? Simple. A parliament houses all the seven components required for a greek tragedy. One of the component happened last week. Spectacle. Our cricket team took a sound, must say expected, thrashing in the hands of south africa and that aroused our otherwise laggard MP's. They were demanding answers for the team's debacle.Since when has the parliament become a ground for haranguing a mere cricket match loss. These same MP's were the most insouciant of the lot when our hockey team came 11th out of 12 teams in the recent hockey world cup.

The BCCI president - who also happens to be the agriculture minister- sharad pawar is more keen on getting dilip vengsarkar onto the flight of south africa than debunking the myth of sisyphus which happens atleast twice a day in those erstwhile verdant fields of vidarbha. This falstaffian figure is busy setting up a pedestal for his daughter's ascension as his heiress; so what, if those cadaverous farmer families die. Right, mr.pawar ?

Lets shift attention to our health minister dr.anbumani ramadoss. He can be the brand ambassador of hutch;albeit the punchline has to be "Wherever you go, trouble follows". He invited those crabby tongues of film personalities when he decided to ban smoking on the indian screen. Then that petty fight with the AIIMS director happened. And then he found his nemesis in the aedes mosquito which did not even spare the family of the prime minister. However, even in this melee, ramadoss has loftier plans it seems. He is pretty keen to introduce warnings on the beedi packets. Will someone please tell him that the people who smoke beedis are the ones who have not entered the grotty corridors of the government schools ?

Aniruddha bahal, tarun tejpal must be very digruntled towards our I & B minister, dasmunshi. According to a new I & B bill, if at all sting operations are to be performed then the government should be appraised of the deed beforehand. What did u say, it defies logic ? Try to be in those shoes of dasmunshi, he is simply trying to save his political brethren from any more embarassment. It is not such a big ask or is it ?

A month and a half back, all the newspaper editorials were lavishing praise,almost as freely as those barrage of over pitched devliveries from agarkar, on the UPA goverment for passing the labour bill according to which children below 15 yrs should not be employed. Wow, such an utopian thought. But our mandarins forget the fact that india is a country where rules are flouted as openly as the wardrobe malfunctions in the fashion shows(courtesy : lakme). I celebrated my diwali with the crackers which are most certainly made by those nimble n supple hands of a 10year old kid. The boy who serves me at the pani puri stall is still the same and his gaze remains the same whenever he looks at my cell which was surely manufactured during the period of great depression. Let us suppose that even if these kids are rescued from domestic violence and works, our country simply lacks in the rehabilitation process.

As tarun tejpal very rightly describes in "the alchemy of desire" : A boy below 15 yrs has no hair on his body and he resembles more like a woman with a penis. Thus, they get confined to the lascivious interest of a jerk otherwise known as a paedophile. Girls are tucked away into the stygian and dingy cul-de-sac's of kamathipura. Its gut wrenching, right. But thats what happens with the future of our country.

The UPA government election manifesto was aam aadmi and a week back they have stood by their manifesto. The petrol and diesel prices have been reduced. This is surely manna from heaven for the "aam aadmi". Before you sing paeans to this move, pause a bit. The UPA government did this with the Damocles's sword hanging like a metronome- the uttar pradesh polls. So once these polls are over, the two rupee reduction will surely be removed. You can surely trust murli deora on that.

I guess i am sounding a bit too captious. Critics of this aricle might suggest that this is the same UPA government which introduced the NREG bill. The july 18th nuclear agreement will surely catapult india onto the nuclear scene. But hey, our political edifice is replete with dickensian darkness. Lighted battlements will still not be able to camouflage the edifice. So next time, when you use your suffrage to oust the existing government,dont gloat. Its just a pyrrhic victory. India is truly a gymkhana club where people have membership cards but politticans are the members.

Recommendation of the fortnight:
Watch hard candy. Its about the revenge of a 14 yeard old scamp on a 32 yr old paedophile. Watch it for the sheer bruatlity and the castration scene is surely top notch. Ellen page makes this movie a kick ass kind of movie.