A Piece of My Mind

Gods on a Tennis Court

2012-01-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

There are some of us who hate the spotlight, all that attention when we get when we are the crowd’s focus. Some of us won’t know how to handle a thousand gazes and end up looking awkward, like that couple in their wedding who pose for the cameras. Some carry it off gracefully, with a calm panache–like an emotionless supermodel or a movie star who just flaunt their Versaces and their Guccis on the red carpet and let their clothes do the talking. Some of us are so caught up in the moment when the vibe gets to us that we end up looking animated, be it in agony or in ecstasy. To watch Novak Djokovic tear his shirt apart and roar like a man who had hunted down a beast after a bloody battle made me crave for a moment like that in front of the shutterbugs and those thousands of screaming fans who witnessed history being made. In a matter of seconds he had transformed from a tennis player to a bare chested boxer to a rockstar who had just hit a high pitch. I guess that is the beauty of sport, it sweats you out, sucks your blood, grinds your soul, breaks your bones, yet it does not promise you of victory, but what it offers will change you forever. It changed Djokovic who let his emotions flow after a six-hour epic battle with Rafael Nadal with a blood curdling scream while the vanquished sunk to his knees. The word “Epic” is such a poorly used term in today’s lingo that we associate it with everything above average that captures our imagination. It is to describe events like these in a single word that “Epic” was coined. Such was the magnitude of the game that to term Djokovic a “winner” and Nadal a “loser would only reduce this magnificent spectacle to something less. What had happened in Melbourne was beyond sport, it was two gladiators who were dealing body blows with their swords to see who bled the most. As the two men scaled the lengths and breadths of the court serving the backhands and the forehands, outsmarting each other with their strength, speed and skill, it slowly changed me from a laidback viewer with no emotional investment in the game to someone who sat at the edge of his seat as if witnessing a murder mystery that had one twist after the other. And this is someone who could not tell the difference between a matchpoint and a breakpoint.

Sports like music does not require knowledge of the rules or the language to be enjoyed. I had known nothing about tennis, or Djokovic for that matter, hell I even had to look up his name in the internet to know how to spell it. I although knew Nadal was that Spaniard whom girls were crazy after, with that Greek god looks and an accent like that it was not surprising why women craved for him, the way he handled his racquet would only make you wonder how he handled his women. After having watched a substandard Indian team getting beaten to pulp day after day by the Aussies, this epic battle which involved oohs aahs and grunts was like music to the ears. I had no idea of what they were singing, I could not make out the words, I had no clue of the instrument being used, I knew nothing of the musicians, but by god it was one heck of a concert! Maybe it was my non-affiliation towards either of the athletes who were involved that fueled my involvement, for I knew that if either of them lost I would not spend my night in bed tossing and turning wondering why the hell he played that shot. But then, as the minutes passed into hours, point by point, grunt by grunt, set by set I found a sense of loyalty developing. It was in its embryo stages having neither shape nor size still undecided on which player to choose from, which was quite easy for a mere spectator who had no emotional stakes in the game, sitting on the fence picking either of the players involved who were equally agile and almost exactly built, and were dishing it out to each other in equal doses.

As I started picking sides I felt that familiar feeling of emotion creep in–an allegiance, that sense of foreboding that arises in the pit of your stomach during a close game that asks you the question “What if your guy loses?”, something which those Man U and Arsenal fanatics could relate to, those clubs do not belong to our country, yet there are many of us who are emotionally attached to those teams. Heroes do not belong to any individual country or a certain section of society, they belong to the whole of humanity for they display something during tough times that many do not-they get back up on their feet even when beaten up within an inch of their lives and show stomach for another bloody duel. Batman doesn't belong just to Gotham, he belongs to all of us. In the last month where defeat was so easily embraced by eleven men without as much aiming for a weak punch, here were two warriors in a tennis court who were not willing to go down no matter how much wear and tear their bodies suffered. If one hit with a rock, the other came back with a knife, if the other attacked with a knife, the other came with a sword. It was as if fate were busy watching these two men carve their own destiny and decided to take a break.

I had been going through a slump blogging wise, there was nothing I had experienced in the past one month which was blogworthy, there was nothing that had moved me. There are some events that when you witness shake you to your core, it gets you out of your slumber and makes you do what you do best–spread the word. The Djokovic v Nadal thriller was something that had blown my mind and left me agape, there was no CGI nor any retakes involved in it. It was these two players who had scripted their own opera, we witnessed real emotion-uncensored, unadulterated and raw. Maybe that is what sports is all about, in the moment of battle supreme athletes shed their limitations, their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. In the quest for victory they become Gods. And tonight, I was lucky enough to watch two of them.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Senseless Mayhem

2011-12-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

Ethan Hunt: Mission accomplished!

When Brian De Palma brought the TV series of the same name to the big screen way back in 1996, he introduced us to a new breed of super spy far different from his British counterpart–he was American, he doesn’t bed random women, he doesn’t drive an Aston Martin only to let it crash and burn, he worked as a team, his stunts were jaw-dropping and the most important of all–we were introduced to his personal life, he was more flesh and blood and when cut bled, unlike that cold and business -like James Bond who possessed that dry British humor and rarely had a scratch on his face even after a sword fight. The template of making a spy movie has been the same from the days of the yore, two powerful nations Russia and America mostly, are forced on to the brink of a nuclear war incited by a megalomaniac while a secret agent from either America or Britain, goes all out to stop the war. After blowing up buildings and rummaging fancy cars through walls and performing some eye-popping stunts the hero manages to defuse the bomb two seconds before it is about to blow. He saves the world yet again. M.I: 4 stays true to this template with Ethan Hunt being the hunted, falsely implicated as a terrorist after a mission goes wrong, Ethan Hunt and his team race against time to clear their name and save the world from falling prey to another World War.

The Mission Impossible series had been helmed by top notch directors who had brought in their own brand of cinema to further evolve the franchise. If De Palma’s Mission Impossible was a balance of style and substance in the sensible 90’s, John Woo brought in the Asian factor with an overdose of mindless action that was high on style and low on substance in the early 2000’s, J. J. Abrams took over the franchise, and we were introduced to a newer version of Ethan Hunt. We saw the Everyday Man in Hunt, he fell in love, got married, cried when he got hurt, he was fallible. But yet when pushed to a wall he turned back and retaliated. There were a lot of expectations when it was announced that Brad Bird would be taking over the project, his short resume boasted of two Oscar award-winning animation flicks in “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille”. MI:4 was his first live-action feature film, and he lives up to the expectations, well almost, when he directs a high-on-adrenaline first half that shows one brilliantly filmed action scene after the other. Be it the opening jail-break scene, or the Kremlin infiltration or that breathtaking scene in the Burj, the action takes place in such a grand scale that it never lets you sit back and relax, but instead keeps you on the edge of your seats. By the time the first half ends Brad Bird sets you up in the high towers of the Burj for what you would expect to be a fantastic glide, sadly once the action shifts from Dubai, the story nosedives from the high rises and only plummets into being just another spy movie with action and fancy gadgets. The “oohs” and “aahs” that you exclaim whilst you munch your popcorn only turn into a “meh” when it all ends at a parking lot supposedly shot in India.

There are newer additions to the team along with Benji (Simon Pegg) who has a substantial role to play and enough wisecracks to share when there is not enough action going on, there is Jane (Paula Patton) a femme fatale with a no nonsense approach, and an IMF analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner)–a man whose mysterious past is linked to Hunt’s. Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt has put in every inch of his sweat and blood into this role, as he scales the heights of the Burj Khalifa, slipping at times yet steadying himself at the last moment, he leaves you breathless and in awe of his commitment. This franchise is his own baby and the way he has nursed it through the years can be seen with the wide range of stunts he has performed, be it hanging out of a speeding train or scaling the Grand Canyon, Cruise never ceases to amaze. The inclusion of Renner into this franchise only indicates that he may soon be handed over the reins, (hanging out inches above the ground with arms and legs afloat, a style famously belonging to Cruise is now Renner’s move, if that doesn’t convince you, then what will?) if and when that happens he sure will have bigger boots to fill. Probably the weakest character of the movie has to be Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) the villain, poorly etched out and with no reason known for his motive to start a war, we feel unmoved by his presence for we know that he will be defeated. He is merely reduced to a cardboard cutout who has to run when being chased, and is lucky enough to land a few blows in a fistfight with Hunt. The lack of a more potent villain, like the one so chillingly portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the previous edition leaves you with an incomplete feeling. Anil Kapoor’s much hyped role in a major blockbuster lasts as long as that freshly splattered butter on your popcorn, playing a caricatured sleazeball Indian billionaire named Brij Nath he has nothing much to do except get seduced and end up being beaten up by Jane.

M.I:4 offers you a visual treat that you expect from a big budget Hollywood potboiler. From vertigo-inducing action sequences to technology and gadgets that would leave your brain in a tizzy, Brad Bird and his technical team deserve all praise for making this one of the best action entertainers of the year. Yet you feel beyond those explosions and chases and gravity defying leaps Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol only flatters to deceive.

Force – Leaves No Impact

2011-12-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

When I watched Gautham Menon’s “Kaakha Kaakha” on the local cable network eight years ago, I was blown away inspite of that scene which seemed to have been “inspired” from Se7en, and that song picturisation starring Ramya Krishnan which “coincidentally” resembled Madonna’s “Die Another Day”, and a menacing Mumbai-returned Madraasi gangster named “Pandia” who abuses in Hindi with a heavy Tamil accent just to show that he is a Mumbai-returned dreaded gangster. Inspite of these little nagging issues Kaakha Kaakha was simple, stylish, slick and very gritty–something which cannot be said of its Bollywood version “Force”.

“Force” is the result of what would have happened if Barbie doll was kidnapped by Mojo Jojo and her boyfriend Ken went on a mission to hunt him down and win her back. Yes, the characters are that artificial, albeit one. Nishikanth Kamath who had directed the acclaimed “Dombivili Fast” in Marathi (Inspired from the Michael Douglas starrer “Falling Down”), and its gripping Tamil version “Evano Oruvan” this time has attempted to make a masala entertainer, within the first few minutes as the story unfolds you realize that this was a bad move. John Abraham is Yashwardhan, a beefed-up heavily tattooed undercover narcotics cop posing as a drug peddler (the tattoo affirms his bad-assery and the fact that drug peddlers are cooler than regular people) who keeps to himself because the nature of his job does not allow him to mingle with women for they may end up on the wrong side of the gun. During one of his pummeling sessions with a few goons he catches the eye of the ebullient, chirpy and oh-so-irritating-that-she-makes-you-wanna-choke-her-to-death Maya, an NGO worker played by Genelia D’souza –who has won the copyrights to play all bubbly characters portrayed in Bollywood. Her enthusiasm towards life, love and having a jolly good time can make Santa Claus look as depressing as your high school math teacher.

Like how all love stories begin when the hero sets his eyes on the heroine, our hero too while beating up the goon pauses whilst the camera in slow motion shows him dreamy-eyed and wooden faced looking towards Maya who is clearly shocked to see the savagery of our hero. Add to it a woman in the background singing “aaahhh ahhh ahhh” (like an Opera singer) and what you would have witnessed is how all men fall in love with the woman for the first time. Everything happens in slow motion. Our lady is clearly not impressed with the hero’s violent nature, and dislikes him. Indian cinema has always been dependent on chance encounters and on the adage that “The world is a small place”, and with a few chance encounters and other incidents Maya gets to know the true nature of Yashwardhan and on why he prefers to live alone and unattached. But naturally, when an expressionless man and a woman who has got too many expressions meet love is bound to happen. And fall in love do they when in one scene Maya borrows lines from trashy romance novels about making love and growing old and dying in her beloved’s arms, listening to which Yashwardhan subsequently professes his love towards her.

What they are not aware of is the danger in the form of Vishnu (Vidyut Jamval) lurking in the corner, a ruthless, lean, mean, parkour-skilled gangster who is baying for the blood of Yashwardhan and his task force who had gunned down his brother Reddy. Vidyut Jamval as Vishnu is the only watchable character in the film who gets your attention every time he is on screen. With good looks and an intimidating screen presence Vidyut Jamval steals the thunder from John Abraham, whose role even Johnny Bravo would have excelled–atleast that cartoon character twitches his eyebrows, which John Abraham seems to be incapable of.

How Vishnu exacts his revenge on Yashwardhan and his team, with Yashwardhan in pursuit to save the kidnapped Maya from Vishnu forms rest of the story. In Vishnu, Yashwardhan finds a clean-shaven (a far cry from the days of Sathya’s unkempt Bhiku Mhatre), lithe, ruthless chocolate boy gangster who masterminds the uprising of his elder brother’s gang in Mumbai’s drug cartel, a man with such gymnastic abilities that he beats the shit out of a dozen armed drug dealers in Mombasa, someone who does not hesitate to pull the trigger to prove a point. Sadly, Vishnu is the only strongly written character in the film. For a movie titled “Force” it has the mass in John Abraham’s heavily-built body and the acceleration in a racy narrative, yet it completely loses the direction on where it is going and ends up being all over the place.

For the love of God! Stop the madness!!

Image courtesy: http://www.glamsham.com/

What The Fuss?

2011-12-05T10:06:00.000-08:00

Today, during one of my regular routines of drinking morning coffee at my workplace a good friend of mine shoved her arm across my face and said "Look, Ginger bit me!” She was the lone lady amidst the company of two other guys apart from me, one of whom raised his eyebrows with a look of disbelief whilst the other chided her with his thick Mallu accent "Good da, I should give Gyinger ya treat at Kay Yef Cee four biting yew", she turned and looked towards me expectantly to say something more that involved less eyebrow raising and more of words coated with warmth that radiated a genuine concern. But alas, all I could muster was a shrug of my shoulders that might have translated to "Ok, so?” The next few minutes were spent with me sipping my coffee as she alleged me of being completely self-absorbed with myself and having a complete disregard for the friendship that we had built over the last couple of years. After her tirade I wondered what the fuss was all about.

Ginger was her six-year old dog.... or was he seven? Well, anyway my point is that no dog named "Ginger" could rip you apart in such a way that would leave you inches away from death. By naming your dog "Ginger" you completely take away his ferociousness, you take away his canine-mojo, * Don’t believe Shakespeare, it is all in the name*. Even a Pomeranian named "Tyson" would be more feared than a Basset Hound who is named "Ginger", you negate all the ferocity that he possesses in his claws by christening him with such a limp-dick sounding name (for the lack of a better word) that it reduces him to a pussy (no, not the cat). So when she thrust that minutely scratched hand of hers across my face, I could all but say "Meh" when I heard the name of the culprit. Maybe if it were someone named "Caesar" or "Brute" I might have suggested her to go get a rabies injection, I would have also suggested her to write a novel on how she survived Caesar's assault and maybe sell it to Warner Brothers so that they might make a movie out of it and make her look like Erin Brokovich against the Canine uprising. But then, it was a "Ginger" and not a "Caesar".

I blamed my indifference on the canine's lack of a more masculine name, but as I prodded further into my psyche in my journey back home from work, I realized that maybe it all had to do with my lackadaisical attitude towards relationships with women, which were primarily restricted to friendship (You see if I were in a real relationship, I would not be blogging here). Women are wonderful creatures - graceful, kind, forgiving, and generous in a way that you would love to be more than friends with them. Yet they are nitpicky, petulant, annoying and obstinate that once in a relationship with them you would wonder why you can’t go back to being friends. They love to blow things out of proportion much like that aforementioned incident; they can't take a joke when you say that they want their boyfriends to stop smoking because they would not want to suck his nicotine-laced blood.

Through my teens and into my early twenties I had tried every trick in the book to woo women, be it riding a bicycle without holding the handle bar or topping up a phone number a dozen times in a week or penning a badly written poem in their honor or pretending to nurse a broken heart to get their sympathy. I was pretty much the fox that tried too hard to reach those grapes at the orchard that after my umpteen tries, now in my mid-twenties I have realized that the grapes are sour. I have misread every clean, sexless indicator of friendship from them to be a sign of love - their willingness to get into a relationship with me just because they smiled at me when I held open a door for them or a smiley at the end of their every sms was only a proof of my gullibility.

"What even made you think that I am in love with you!!??"

"But I paused my videogame just to text you back"

"Yeah, so? You expect me to marry YOU!?"

"But that's what was said in that Facebook image"

You get the picture right?

I am now more wizened by my mistakes, from being the "soup boy" - a nomenclature for boys who have ended up heartbroken coined by that Kolaveri video (If you are from the west, do Youtube it) I now have graduated into the "salad king" (pardon the pun) - the guy who may not know how to get into a relationship, but sure knows how to get out of it. A little more than a year ago, I used to believe in Ted Mosby that never-say-die romantic from "How I Met Your Mother". I liked his idea of meeting that special someone in a coffee shop– we might meet as if the whole universe conspired to make us meet, we might exchange our numbers, catch up for a movie, and might spend an evening at Central Park walking around whilst holding hands (I chose New York because there are no good parks in India where you can walk around holding your hands with your girlfriend, without you getting beaten up or her getting molested).

But right now, I don’t see what the fuss about being in a relationship is. I just want to stand in line and get my cup of coffee.

Image courtesy: http://www.buzzfeed.com/koolnewsblog/if-a-guy-pauses-a-video-game-1dgl

The Adventures of Tintin – Oh, What Joy!

2011-11-19T23:42:00.000-08:00

“The bad news is that we have one bullet, the good news is that we have a bullet”

- Tintin

It is always a treat to watch fading legends we adore prove us wrong, as they dole out one more work of genius and sweep us off our feet. Spielberg is a legend, but by no means is he a “fading legend”. All doubts that were raised over his waning powers of direction, judging by his last few releases have now been put to rest with his latest release “The Adventures of Tintin- Secret of the Unicorn”. Herge’s baby-faced reporter Tintin and his faithful pocket-dynamo of a pup Snowy make a grand debut under the collaboration of industry heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. No strangers to technical innovation themselves, Spielberg and Jackson go all out letting their creativity run wild as they capture the cast and the gorgeous locales in live action motion-capture 3-D.

Right from its stunning opening credits that look similar to “Catch Me If You Can” to the final scene which hints at a sequel, there never is a dull moment. From the minutest of colors and expressions, to the larger-than-life action and explosions, each detail is finely captured and brought onto the big screen. Spielberg’s Tintin is one of his most weakly written characters but for a purpose, unlike Indiana Jones a Tintin like thrill-seeker for whom enough character detail had to be etched out for the viewers to have any sort of emotional connection. Spielberg in this case relies on Herge’s already created legend and throws us right into the action, which could irk die-hard fanboys of Tintin if they expected his story to be told right from fleshing out his character detail. I as a complete stranger to the world of Tintin was not much perturbed by being unaware of his exploits, I was not aware of the newspaper he worked for, I was blissfully unaware of his last name, if ever there was one, I had no idea of what his life was like, I had no clue of what drove him for his thirst of adventure. Yet, from the moment our hero is introduced I could not help but be enamored by his boyish looks and innocent charm, throw in the oh-so-cute Snowy who bowls you over with his antics into the picture and you could feel yourself rooting for this wonderful duo.

Tintin (Jamie Bell) is an inquisitive reporter whose purchase of a miniature ship earns him an enemy in Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig), for the ship holds the key to a lost treasure that he feels is a rightful heir to. The location of the buried treasure is known only to the perpetually inebriated Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis in his second motion-captured performance of the year) a man whose alcohol induced stupor earns the disgust of Tintin and also saves his life. It is Captain Haddock’s strongly written character that drives the story forward, belonging to the lineage of Sir Francis Haddock (Andy Serkis) who in his attempt to save his men and the treasure earns the curse of Red Rakham (Daniel Craig). Captain Haddock recollects his grandfather’s folklore in a brilliant scene where the past and the present intersperse with one of the best scene transitions seen in recent times. If the first half introduces us to the failed Captain Haddock who believes has let down his family name with his wayward actions, the second half takes place in the gorgeous Morocco where Tintin helps Captain Haddock redeem himself. With fluid action sequences that has you on the edge-of-your-seats and beautiful imagery that leaves your eyes rich with colors, it is no crime if you go back to being a child whilst clapping and cheering for the trio of Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock.

If the visuals are a feast for the eyes, then Spielberg regular John Williams’ score is a treat to the ears , right from the credits sequence it shifts the mood from tense, to racy to comical. Albeit there is no catchable theme music like there was for Indian Jones, the background score underlines the fact that it is film for all ages. The writing boasts of Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and Steven Moffat (The T.V series Sherlock) who infuse British humor and comic relief in all characters and especially in the bumbling policmen Thomson and Thompson (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg).

Spielberg is a master director who has done it all. He made us fear the sea, he made us love an extra terrestrial, he took us back to the early years when Dinosaurs roamed the earth free, he showed us the horrors of war, he made us root a conman, he left us teary-eyed as he narrated the story of one man’s fight to save a race against the Nazis. As the lights came back while the end credits started to roll, I felt Spielberg had this time introduced a hall of men and women to their childhood. Go on, watch this movie with your loved ones and go back to being a child, clap your hands and whoop with joy and guffaw like no one is watching. By the end of it all you will realize it was worth it.

Image source: http://impawards.com/

...And the Buck Stoppeth Here

2011-11-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

I have been an avid armchair cricket buff for long, the fascinating duel between a fast bowler running at 100 miles an hour, hurling a ball at a man standing twenty-two yards away with a bat in his hand who is trying to hold his own is one of the most testosterone-charged sights that any sports could offer. But what I find more captivating than the sights and sounds of this wonderful game is the way it has been captured into words by the ones who write about it. Cricinfo is a premier website on cricket that not just boasts of great content but is also blessed with a wonderful team of insightful writers from all over the cricketing world. When I read about the passing away of Peter Roebuck–one of Cricinfo’s most hard-hitting and widely read writers, it left me saddened for I had lost someone who with his incisive and to-the-point articles educated me and millions of other readers about the rights and wrongs that were happening on and off the field.

Journalists are superheroes in their own rights, for with the might of their keyboards and with the gift of their intellect they have the power to change the way the world thinks. There are those who shy away from calling a spade a spade, fearing the powerful enemies they might make, and then there are those like Peter Roebuck. Honest, with a no-nonsense approach and with a genuine affection for the game that was his bread and butter, Mr. Roebuck breathed life into words going on to be one of the most celebrated sports writers. He pooh-poohed cricket's governing body and never feared in chastising those who brought disrepute to the game. After the controversial Sydney test in 2008, Peter Roebuck in a scathing article for the Sydney Morning Herald had called for the head of Ricky Ponting. For a man who always believed that nationalism should not come into play while writing about sports for it corroded your views, Mr. Roebuck wrote blunt and unbiased columns that earned him bouquets and brickbats, admirers and detesters.

Be it the ugly hood of match-fixing that when struck had poisoned the game, or the advent of the hit-and-miss format of T20 that threatened to take the life out of cricket’s ultimate Battle Royale- Test Match Cricket, or even the Zimbabwe cricket crisis, Roebuck with his articulate and a school-headmaster like tone of writing shook the souls of players, and the foundations of behemoth cricketing boards. A David who took on the might of the Goliaths of cricket with a laptop and his arsenal of words as his only weapon, Roebuck carved an image of a prophet for himself amidst cricket enthusiasts of all kind. Every time I browsed through Cricinfo or “The Hindu”–where he was often published, any article that carried Roebuck’s name beside it indulged me into opening the doors to a whole new world of insights and opinions on matters that were hotly debated in the cricketing circles. Be it the emergence of a new cricketer or the prelude to an exciting series, or an article criticizing the functioning of ICC, Roebuck’s piercing analysis served me often as a lens with which I viewed the finer details of the game.

With his untimely death under the most heartbreaking of ways – a suicide, the reasons for which are unknown, the lovers of the game have been robbed off of a brilliant and respected writer. Cricket has lost one of its sanest and stoic voices that raised issues with no fear of being diminished. He may now have retired to the pavilions of Heaven, but we shall all be thankful for Mr. Roebuck as he leaves behind his voice in those rich literatures that with every written word brings us closer to cricket.

Image Source: http://www.topnews.in/sports/bollinger-beerandsawdust-man-far-removed-sipping-sherry-roebuck-27959

Save the Blogger Screw the Tiger

2011-11-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: No tigers were harmed during the making of this post, although my crotch whom I fondly refer to as "tiger" was scratched occasionally while writing.

Tigers for long have been synonymous with terms such as "Bravery", "Fiery", and "Majestic", so much so that at times even the persona of an individual is compared to that of a tiger in situations that exhibit the individual's magnanimity. They have starred in movies and have been mentioned in poetry, the beauty of a tiger has been brilliantly summed up in William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins with the legendary opening lines "Tiger tiger burning bright".

They have also been used in sporting parlance to signify an athelete's grace and stamina.

"He was a tiger on the field" - Ravi Shastri on Viv Richards

"He fought them as brave as a tiger" - Ravi Shastri on Viv Richards.

"I just get the feeling... that he is a tiger in bed !" - Ravi Shastri on Viv Richards.

Tigers hold a fond place in our hearts, we call our loved ones fondly as "tiger" which is pretty much a sobriquet for their valor and large-heartedness, its a nickname that demands respect. We name our dogs as "Tiger" or "Sheru", Jackie Shroff is probably one individual who got confused between his dog and his son and went on to name his son as "Tiger Shroff" instead. It is a given, that anybody named Tiger always has the unfair advantage of scoring with women because people tend to have this wrong perception that your name speaks of your prowess in bed.

Exhibit A: Tiger Woods the man is no Greek god, and he plays one of the yawn-inducing games mankind has ever invented. Ever wondered how he hooked up with that many hookers with nothing to show for except a thick wallet? Its in his name Tiger... and a surname like Woods furthers the cause too. Who wouldn't want to do it with a rich man named Tiger who has a Woodie?

People find the tiger to be a dwindling species, many a campaigns were launched to save the tiger, with celebrities from varying fields throwing in their two cents on why the tiger needs to be saved. But when the word "blogger" is thrown around, you picture a bespectacled guy with freckles on his face who bitches and moans about all that is wrong with his life. His inability to get laid turns him into a poet who finds little joys in the first rays of the sun scything through a wet blade of grass and other pointless things like that which they pretend to show it in a profound way in their blogposts. And all they yearn for is few likes and a few shares and the odd occasional comments. But sadly, the lack of these virtual gestures make them doubt their own ability, and they end up stagnating their blog by taking an indefinite sabbatical and find solace whilst browsing through Youporn or much worse, in search of the real deal get hitched. Nobody names their dog or their son after a blogger, even after they bare their lives open by sharing their minutest of details that makes you feel better about your sorry-ass existence. Damn readers have no gratitude.

Bloggers have never received their due for the services that they provide to the society, from what phone to buy to which movie to watch to how to keep your illicit affair a secret, a blogger warns and advices you based on the screw ups that s/he has made so that you do the right thing when faced with such situations. Given below are the reasons why a blogger's presence needs to be appreciated.

Reason 1: Bloggers have no sanctuaries, tigers have. There are thirty-nine tiger reserves in India when I last checked in wikipedia, and not one for a blogger.

Reason 2: When you lock two tigers of opposite sex in a room, they would eventually screw each other for the continuation for their species. You put two bloggers of opposite sex in a room, they would only end up arguing over which is better - Blogger or Wordpress. Never put two bloggers in the same room.

Reason 3: There have been movies made on tigers, there is none made on Bloggers. Yeah they made one on Facebook, but that guy was not primarily a blogger.

Reason 4: Nobody cares if a tiger got dumped or was fired from his job.

Reason 5: Tigers can't promote a brand for nuts. When a new product is launched, everyone bows down to the tech bloggers for reviewing their products.

Reason 6: What the hell do tigers know about movie critiquing?

Reason 7: Tigers can't write open letters.

Reason 8: The first thing you check once you log in to work after your Facebook notifications is any interesting blog or meme to share. In a nine-to-five job since you are not allowed to watch porn at work, you depend on blogposts to shake you off of your drudgery. Reading our blogs and having a hearty laugh is the only high-point of your corporate life.

Reaction 9: Be it "Save the earth" or "Save the democracy" its our inciting posts that shake the society and wakes it up from its slumber.

So if you have a blogger friend who seems to have lost their magic touch lately, go on and wake them up off their reverie. Tell em' how good they are at what they do, tell em' to get back to do what they do best. Hit a "like", click a "share". Let them know you are reading and you care, the tigers can wait.

The Cornerstone of a Nutritious Tambrahm Lunch

2011-10-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Singularity

2011-10-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

Our society is quite cruel to the single people, they may not raise any furor over Kasab living of off their taxes, but they CAN NOT see a single person living his/her life to the fullest. They would go to the extent of personally tightening the noose made of a wedding garland over his neck. Little do they know that behind every individual’s decision to stay single there is a wounded heart, a heart that once dreamt of living the typical Indian dream of buying an apartment near a tech park and paying the EMI for it every month while dreaming of their children becoming all that they could not become. In short, we too wanted to be like our parents.

It’s even tougher to venture out in family gatherings, there is always a fear of being thrown into the center of a conversation without any warning– what with the innumerable peripas and perimas, chitapas, chittis, who try to play Cupid lurking around in the background, enough foreplay is performed as the elders of the family beat around the bush about various trivial gossip before the crosshairs are aimed at you. It is only inevitable that you fall into their neatly laid trap. Our relatives have the uncanny ability of connecting two vastly different topics with your current relationship status.

Sample this:

“Did you watch the kirket match yesterday?” Ambi mama asks.

“Yes mama, I did”

“This Dhoni romba nanna captaining pannan da yesterday” he comments.

You breathe easy thinking this topic is way off the radar and has no chance of coming back to bite you in the ass.

“Yeah, his field placements were good, correcta he shuffled his bowlers also, he never let Pietersen settle.” You quip some comments you read on Cricinfo.

“World Cup win pannan, IPL also he win pannan, after marriage his stars have completely changed da” he slowly comes to the topic.

“Uh-oh” you realize that it’s too late to avoid his bouncer.

“So kanna, when are you going to get married? Kalyanam saapadu saaptu romba naal aachu da” (loosely translates to: “It’s been a long time since there has been a reason to celebrate in the family”)

You duck the bouncer, only to realize that you’ve been yorked. Your middle stump is sent back cart-wheeling.

                                                        * * * * * * *
The topic of matrimony is centered on any individual who is in their mid-twenties, earning, single, and virile - names of long distant relatives who have daughters who are nubile, or in the words of Borat Sagdiyev -"can be ploughed" are rattled off as a suitable match. They cite the example of their elder son who is settled in America with his wife and child, heading a major project, and is leading a happily married life as they cradle their grandson from their daughter to sleep in their arms. Your parents longingly look at the sleeping child wondering when would they ever get a grandson of their own, an organism that was born as a result of your orgasm, someone whom they could pamper, whose poop and piss they would teach you how to clean. Their eyes sparkle with a hope that asks in capital letters "WHEN WILL OUR TIME COME?” You try to avoid their gaze and take out your mobile as you log into Facebook whilst your peripa murmurs in your ear:

"Kanna it is better to marry by the age of twenty-seven maximum. Nobody gives girls to guys who are beyond twenty-eight or twenty-nine, you will lose all your hair by then, its better you schedule an appointment with Dr. Batra". You silently nod your head, biting your tongue from asking where from do they get these facts.

As you log into Facebook you see:

“Rahul is married to Anjali” that has a 29 likes from people he hadn’t invited to the wedding.

You wished Facebook came with an added message: “….as a result Rahul’s life is screwed.”
You heave a sigh of despair. You logout.

Peripa continues buzzing in your ears “Buy a home in Velachery near your office, your office will be closer to home and you can also go for lunch.”

“If at all you are marrying a working girl, marry a teacher, not much pressure also and she doesn’t have to stay back for extra work also” paati throws in her hat into the ring.
You nod along wondering what to order next from Flipkart.

“Why don’t you create a profile for Raju at shaadi.com?” suggests Perima to your parents.
Now you are reduced to that commodity that you planned to order from Flipkart.

                                                 * * * * * *

You realize family may be tougher to hang out with, but you have no clue of how socially stunted your friends might make you feel. Especially when people around you are getting married or are in the process of becoming a parent, or are having thoughts of throwing in the towel and getting into a relationship, it becomes tougher to even log into Facebook when all you can see is them hanging out with their better halves in the beaches and parks and in the malls as they do all the cheesy stuff that lovers do. And to top it all, they share a snap of them eating out of a single cotton candy as the profile picture.

What you may not know is that the average duration of your profile picture of you and your better half lasts only till the first two months of your relationship after which you guys would put on weight due to lack of sex and excess of outside food and remove it as your profile picture.

The singulars when amidst their committed friends realize that they are in the presence of people who have reached a different level in life, it’s a mature stage of life where they are no more plagued by all those little things that used to plague us in our school/college days. They take this meet as a chance to make us realize of our hollowed existence and superficial pursuits and trivial achievements. All that the singulars have achieved amounts to nothing, for the committed men and women have embarked on a journey in the sea of life on their swanky cruise ship, while the single guy is pedaling the oar of his lifeboat that seems to be busted out of air and is gasping for its own life.

They boast of their vacation they had in Mauritius.

The singular boasts of how he completed a 900-page book, a vacation that lasted three months.

They boast of their new car that they have bought.

The singular boasts of the new version of Need for Speed that he has bought for his PS3.

They boast of how their kid had started to walk without the need of a pram.

The singular boast of how he has watched six episodes of Dexter back-to-back…. In a 17-inch computer screen…… WITHOUT SUBTITLES!

* * * * * *

As the clock keeps ticking by and those glances of judging passersby in a crowded mall pierces through you for sitting all by yourself on the bench, you need to give up the dreams of bumping into the Chosen One in a coffee shop. You need to realize that you are not living in a Sitcom set in New York. We all can’t be Ted Mosby, for all those who can’t be…. there is Bharatmatrimony.com. But as of now it’s okay to keep dreaming.

An Awkward Farewell

2011-10-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

There are friendships that begin with an awkward "hello", as you take measured steps towards knowing the other person, with the passage of time you build a bond with the bricks of moments that are shared, that are cemented stronger by bearing witness to each other's various emotions. And before we know it the measured steps become an instinctive jog with every passing day as we take those steps towards each others worlds whilst we lay bare our fears, joys, guilt and anger, those secrets that we have locked deep within to each other. Last night on a crowded street, I bid adieu to a close friend of our gang as we took our last snap - by stopping a passer-by and posing in front of a building with onlookers giving us weird looks during rush hour. At that moment none of the looks nor what others thought mattered, for that could probably be the last snap we might take for a long time. On a Friday evening we wished my friend the best for his new endeavor in a new land and parted our own ways, knowing that he will be missed in our weekend hangouts at the multiplex where we ogle at the girlfriends of other guys.

When the evening began, we were stuck amidst the Friday rush hour with no proper schedule planned and short of a farewell gift, and short of money in our wallets, more the reason to recruit a woman in the group to bring order among chaos. Moreover, ordering an exotic mint tea that could have made Listerine taste like the elixir from Fountain of Youth did not help the cause. Due to lack of a proper ambience we shifted to Coffee Day, where we spent more time gossiping about our colleagues at work and yanking each other's chain all in good humor, while we spent lesser time in deciding on what we wanted to eat. I feel our complete lack of regard towards our expanding paunches played a vital part in speeding up our decision down to the most fattening yet drool-worthy drink they had to offer. (Mental Note: Must wake up at ~~5 a.m 6 a.m~~ 7 a.m on Sunday for a ~~long 3 kilometer jog~~ short fifteen minute walk). We were thankful that there were no girls involved in our evening, not that we are spoilt for choices when it comes to women, but still - the ones who wanted to be a part of our evening thankfully turned it down as it dawned on them that they had better things to do than to hang out with a bunch of guys who pay their bills at Coffee Day through Sodexho coupons (Divine intervention exists!). Amidst women, our evenings might have been well-planned and controlled, what with them in charge and calling the shots, yet our topics would have been limited to the more articulate stuff like Ra.One, Harry Potter, Justin Bieber and the job opportunities that the companies would offer for my friend who is off to do higher studies abroad, instead of the "job" offers he could avail from the women in his campus. And thankfully, we did discuss a bit on the latter topic (kidding, we discussed a lot on the latter option).

With no proper gift to buy him we ended up taking our friend to Landmark as we shopped for something proper to gift him, as one of us diverted him by taking him towards the most expensive goods section and humored him with loose talk of how tempting the products seem, I and another friend fled to other section, thus quashing all his hopes of getting a costly gift (yeah, we are smart and classy like that). With a book titled "101 ways to get girls" not having published yet, and my idea of buying him a wind chime labelled as "something girly" we decided to stick with gifting him something manly. No, not a Swiss army knife. As the last few minutes of us being together neared, I realized that friends do not need a dimly lit, air-conditioned ambience where you have someone at your beck and call to take your orders on the overpriced stuff that you want to eat. All that you need to have a good time is a couch, a cup of coffee and your close friends who accept you for the way you are. As for the topic, who needs one when you are with friends?

Honey, he shrunk the world!

2011-10-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

There have been very few brands worldwide that command a loyal fan base like Apple, for Apple a fruit that was considered to be forbidden, as a brand is today synonymous with innovation, and is regarded as a pioneer in its market, we all have rested under the shade of the Brand Apple tree and have been enamored by its global fan following. It’s been ages since the world had witnessed an innovator with the caliber of Steve Jobs–ours is a generation that never lived during the times of the invention of T.V or the telephone or the computer and we have only read about the brilliance of Graham Bell and Edison, and I doubt if there are were videos of them speaking in business/school/college conventions. So when we witnessed a gadget that redefined the way in which we listened to music, and communicated with people it left us wide-eyed and envious of those who possessed it. In Steve Jobs we had the digital era’s Messiah, a man who invented and reinvented as he rose the bar challenging his competitors to come up with anything that could match the gadgets that Apple manufactured chip for chip. From accessing music in a gadget that boasts of a hard drive of more than a hundred GB to watching videos and getting in touch with your loved ones on a portable tablet, Steve Jobs’ Apple had brought the world closer. In the corporate world he was the boss everyone wanted to be, a man who was looked up to by everyone from a college student to a company CEO, he was the mentor everyone dreamt of having a tete`-a-tete´with.

I by no means am a techno geek, I have no idea how many GB RAM my system has nor do I know the name of the graphic card that supports the games I play. And when it comes to discussing the nitty gritties of a gadget, I am as clueless as a deer caught in the headlights. But I am a consumer of the modern day inventions who is thankful for the way life simplifies with the push of a button. I am thankful for the internet that had reduced everything from stalking my high school crush on Facebook to gathering information on the Renaissance period to just the click of a button. I am thankful for the electric trimmer that with the push of a button shaves off the hair from my head with a calculated precision, I am thankful for the mobile phone that has brought us closer to our loved ones and to those who owe money to us. But of all my few prized gadgets the Ipod tops the list–having lived in a time when storing 3000 songs in a music player was unheard of, the Ipod captured our imagination, it dared us to dream, it not just changed what we listened to but also how we listened to it.

There are many a cheap doppelgangers that are available in the chor bazaars, yet the product with the half-bitten apple as its emblem is the real deal. There were other top players in the market who competed with Apple from PCs to mobile phones, to music players to tablets–yet brandishing an Apple product in public grabbed eyeballs and was the owner’s pride. Never has an innovator/industry captain’s loss evoked such pathos from the different stratum of society, from two-page eulogies read out by nation heads to a tribute of a hundred and forty characters tweeted by tech geeks and Apple owners, news channels and social networks alike paid their respects to one of the i-Cons of the Digital Age. Steve Jobs was to brand Apple, what a quarterback is to his football team, he was its face, its heart and all that he stood for. All those humane factors that Steve Jobs personified, be it his simplicity, his large-heartedness, or his creativity was replicated in his brainchild. In one of his most poignant speeches made at Stanford, Jobs shared his rags-to-riches stories as he philosophized about life, love and death. He highlighted his code for living life - to stay hungry and to stay foolish. Hungry enough to strive to achieve what we want, and foolish enough to make mistakes, for how could we improve if we made no mistakes?

Be it the iTunes installed in our system, or the iPads and iPhones which are the playmates of the techno-savvy, we all have had a bite of the Apple and owe a bit of gratitude to the gardener who planted a seed and watched it grow into a tree, he shared his garden of dreams with us inviting us to have a larger bite of what he had so fondly grown. He amazed us with all that he offered, he teased our imagination, and he brought the world closer. For if it weren’t for this gardener the world would never have known to dream bigger.

Image Courtesy: http://fernexpress.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/

Of Enema and Anesthesia

2011-10-02T00:48:00.000-07:00

There is not much of a difference between cooking a chicken and getting a patient ready for an operation.

While you skin the feathers off of a chicken, they skin the hair off of a patient, you marinate the chicken in juices that are a concoction of spicy flavors, whereas they inject medicines and drips of various levels into the patient’s veins. The chicken is laid on a plate and sent into the microwave while the patient is laid on a stretcher and sent into the operation hall.

Now, I may not sound much of a competitor for Masterchef, but I sure have come under the surgeon’s scissors and knives more than once to know what a chicken might feel like when it is being stuffed and cooked. And needless to say, it feels horrible and painful and embarrassing in the same way when a straight man bends over to pick up a fallen bar of soap from a public bathroom in prison.

Undergoing an operation is more like driving towards a destination - the destination being the Operation Theater, the roads to which are filled with potholes, what I am trying to say with my fake Tibetan philosophy is that the roads will be bumpy, there will be hitchhikers (read compounders) who will rob you off your chest hairs and the hairs that is grown elsewhere, you will be given liquids with needles that pierce through your veins - that definitely does not sound like something that raises your spirits. But the journey is made bearable when you got a co-passenger with you who keeps assuring you that you will reach your destination safe and sound. In this case it was my father who stayed with me throughout comforting me and keeping my mind off of the operation and the pain I would have to bear once the effects of the anesthesia wear down. Due credit should be given to my mother who spent a day beside me correcting her answer papers whilst giving subtle hints that after I get treated and become accepted in the society as a normal and healthy human being, the next logical thing to do would be to open an account at shaadi.com.

When we hear someone say “I had a surgery” we feel sorry for the person because the first image that comes to their mind is s/he lying on a stretcher whilst the doctor is poking them with scissors and knives with varying degrees of sharpness. That actually is the easiest part. The real harrowing experience lies when you are being prepared for the operation, a procedure that would freak even Maximus Decimus Meridius. Who wouldn't freak out when your testicles are in the grasp of a man who holds a razor in his right hand and inspects them like he is going to paint the Sistine Chapel? After having lost half of my libido by the loss of my chest hair and reduced to a mere mortal, I was poked, not in the facebook sense with needles and tubes in every opening that is present in the human body, except the ears. Before you enter the operation theater a patient is filled with enema, a liquid that is injected into your body so that it flushes your bowels and makes it spic-and-span with a thoroughness that would put even your kaamwali bai to shame. And by injected I mean that it is forcibly stuffed through your rectum via a tube that makes sure that everything you had for breakfast and lunch and dinner today and the day before comes out whilst you conduct your symphony in the loo. At the end of it all you are anally violated and left with an empty stomach.

My operation lasted for hardly half-an-hour, fifteen minutes of which were spent in changing my attire to a loosely fitting patient’s dress after which I was lifted up from my hospital bed and deposited on the stretcher. As I was wheeled towards the operation theatre, I couldn’t help but think of myself as an astronaut in a Jerry Bruckheimer production who was preparing for a launch into outer space. All that was needed was the theme music from “Apollo-13” to be played in the background, I duly gave my dad a thumbs-up sign as if I were being launched into space to prevent asteroids from hitting earth and might never see him again. The truth is when you enter an operation theater you cannot help but think of all that could go wrong.

We live in a world where quirky headlines catch our eye than real serious issues. And sometimes even real serious issues are presented with a quirky headline. We have read in newspapers and have seen in televisions where simple surgeries have gone wrong, sometimes your records might get interchanged with another patient’s and you might end up getting circumcised while actually your problem was with your nose. What would happen if the lights went out in the operation theatre? Do they have back up power supply? A UPS atleast? What if the doctors sew their cellphones up my butt? The last thing I would need is my ass to start singing “Maa da ladla bigad gaya” while someone makes a call. All my fears were dissolved once I received the first shot of anesthesia. I am someone who had never gotten high, I have no clue how weed feels like and always wondered what’s the big deal about grass that made songwriters drown themselves in its fumes for inspiration. Having anesthesia flowing within my nerves was the closest I could come to getting high as it left me numb, senseless and pain-free as the doctors went about their business in the area of concern. And that’s what being high is all about right? Being numb, senseless and pain-free?

A three week leave sanctioned from my office sure raised some eyebrows, as I was tight-lipped over my reason for the leave, shots in the dark were taken–theories were thrown that ranged from a probable change of job to scary ones like me getting married. And if people reading this at work right now are envying me over my mini-vacation please don’t because-

a. It’s not a vacation. Lying on the bed with a heavily band-aided “area of concern” is not considered a vacation.

2. It’s not a vacation where you venture out to meet the doctor who pokes your “area of concern” with a scissor applying a piece of cotton swabbed with ointment whilst he advises you to relax. Somebody should stick a knife up his ass and see if he puckers his asshole up or relaxes them.

iii. It’s definitely not a vacation when there is a powercut between 2 p.m to 6 p.m – a time invented by man for siestas. Damn Third World problems!

I for some strange reason have been missing work, it’s got nothing to do with the job that I do, it’s not the office coffee, neither is it the office gossip but yeah a little bit may be about the female colleagues, but only a little bit. But what I miss the most is that I am doing nothing concrete at home apart from taking my medications, it’s as bad as being unemployed. Even this blog has been written over a period of one week–a paragraph a day. All that I had planned to do, from having finished watching a season of House M.D and Dexter to finishing “Life of Pi” and Uncharted 2 on the PS3 have been put on the backburner. Because when you are at home in the midst of books, games, porn, internet, video-games, T.V, Ipod… and have I mentioned porn? You end up being spoilt for choice that you do none of your planned things completely. Whereas in office you have nothing else to do other than work. And speaking of work, the ones who borrowed my Sodexho coupons liberally please be prepared to be seriously haunted if and when my time comes. Not a text, nor a call asking how I am doing. Urrgggh you guys are gonna pay for this!

The Forgotten Hero

2011-08-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

The Phantom strikes like a thunderbolt but moves softer than a stalking great cat.

- Old Jungle Saying

As we grow older, our tastes evolve, our hobbies mature, we embrace the upgraded version of our pastimes. We quit playing Mario in those archaic Sega consoles and move on to playing Modern Warfare in the highly sophisticated PS3s and X-boxes. We turn our Walkmans off and switch on to our I-pods, I am running out of metaphors here, but you get the picture right?

In this Digital Age where a revolution is born within a hundred and forty characters, and the crowd for an uprising is gathered in our Facebook walls, everything that we do has a digital signature to it. Even the art of reading has evolved - from flipping the pages of a book whilst taking in its smell, that tells the age of a book, just like the taste does for a wine - it is now all about pressing the navigation keys or maneuvering the screen through a touch screen. Our PDAs and tablets do not possess the soul and essence of a book, they are cold, hard and metallic - they are what they are: an object, unlike a book that in our hands feels like a living creature which moves and breathes, that has a smell and a taste of its own. Every now and then we need to go back a few years to a time when things were much simpler, when reading a book was only about flipping pages where with every new page we got closer to the lives of the people that resided within it. A few days back during one of my day-dreaming sessions at work I had mentally visited that part of my life where I had first made friends with books. Or a more adolescent and colorful version of a book which is known as comic books.

Having a parent as a school teacher inspite of a few pitfalls has one positive, it gives you access to the school library without the pressure of having to return the books within the two-week period. And it was in the summer vacation of 1992 that I had befriended comic world's first superhero, Lee Falk's "Phantom". Dubbed as "The Man Who Cannot Die" and the "Ghost Who Walks" by the jungle tribe of the fictitious nation named Bengalla, the Phantom fought crimelords and pirates who tried to disrupt the sanctity of the jungle and its tribesfolk. Two decades back Phantom was the most widely read superhero in the Indian hemisphere, as the first real contact a child could have with a man who fights evil within the pages of a book, he had captured our imagination like no other character could have. It wasn't Batman nor was it Superman who had pushed me to the fanboy extreme, but it was Phantom - whose skin-tight purple colored costume made me do the deluded act of wearing my underwear over my pants at the age of six.

Phantom did not possess the superhero powers of a Superman, neither was he bitten by a spider to be gifted with freak-like abilities. He was more like Batman or infact Batman was more like the Phantom who used his intellect, his strength and his legend of being an immortal to spook and strike at his enemies. Another similarity between the two masked vigilantes was that they never killed their enemies, while Batman used his boomerang based Batarang to disarm his enemies, the Phantom used his gun to disarm his foes by shooting their weapons out of their hands.

He was a protector and an avenger, the duality of which was symbolized with his two rings. The Skull Ring on his right hand when punched on his adversary's face left an indelible impression of the skull on their face, and the ring of Crossed Swords which was a symbol of the Phantom's goodwill towards those who had it stamped on their hand. The Phantom also had the support of his trusted steed Hero, and Devil - his wolf who is always mistaken as a dog by the villains. He also doubles up as the Commander of the Jungle Patrol - an elite crime fighting unit in the jungles of Bengalla, and surprisingly also keeps his identity as a secret only to be known within the unit as a man they have heard of but never seen. Phantom's real identity was Kit Walker, a man who stayed away from alcohol and always preferred milk in bars when he visited the city to meet his lady love Diana Palmer.

In this day and age where lesser enigmatic superheroes like Captain America, Thor and the Green Lantern are revived by the Marvel and DC Comic franchises, its disheartening to see Phantom - the world's first ever comic book hero to not find a suitable relaunch in the cinemas. I say relaunch because there was a movie made on The Phantom in 1997 which starred that guy Billy Zane (#youremember) who loses Kate Winslet to Leo Dicaprio in the movie Titanic as the Phantom. A flop it may have been, nevertheless it didn't stop me from watching my favorite purple-colored-figure-hugging-tights-wearing crime fighter kick some ass on the big screen, whilst my parents were watching Se7en on the other screen. If I were an eleven-year old, I would recommend the movie to you as a mad fanboy, but more than a decade has passed and sanity has prevailed within me as I wear my pants over my underwear these days. Yet, I wish I could go back to being a six-year old in my summer vacations reading the legend of Phantom, immersed in the vivid imagery, as Lee Falk gifted me with a superhero who true to the legend is immortal for he still resides in my memories.

Image Sources:

http://deepwoods.org/diaries.html

http://quadradinhos.blogspot.com/2005/05/phantom-o-fantasma.html

http://ovshake.blogspot.com/2010/03/ode-to-arvind.html

http://debarth.blogspot.com/

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=832

http://www.weeklycrisis.com/2010/08/top-10-tuesdays-10-comic-character.html

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - All Hail Caesar!

2011-08-22T02:50:00.000-07:00

Caesar *is* home

Every revolution needs a leader, a leader who grasps your palm and leads you forward, a leader with a voice of authority, a leader with a rage to break the shackles, a leader who commands respect from allies and enemies alike. The rise of leaders has been done in Hollywood before from Spartacus, to Braveheart, to Gladiator – in Rise of the Planet of the Apes it shows the rise of a primate who is aptly titled Caesar. It not just portrays the rise of a leader but also peels the various layers that come with it, the reason for inciting a revolution, the flipside of playing God when you mess with evolution, the conflict of an animal on where it belongs – among people of its own kind or amidst humans as a pet. Rise of the Planet of the Apes does seem like a ludicrous title, the plot may seem laughable what with the apes versus humans theme, but the execution is one to behold.

Rupert Wyatt has not only given us a fitting prequel to the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes, but has also revived the franchise that had been dead and buried after Tim Burton’s failed reboot of the 1968 version. The story opens in the labs of a drug company named Genesys where Will Rodman (James Franco) has finds a cure for Alzheimer’s through the drug ALZ112, but when a test on one of its subjects (a monkey named Bright Eyes) goes wrong the whole process is forced to shut down with the rest of the monkeys asked to be “put down” by Will’s money-minded boss Steven Jacobs. Unwilling to see an infant chimp end in a body bag with the rest of its kin, Will raises him along with his Alzheimer’s- affected father Charles (John Lithgow) who names him Caesar. With his mother Bright Eyes’ drug-tested genes within him, Caesar grows on to become a far more superior and highly intelligent primate than any of his kind. With a positive response to the drug this time with no apparent side-effects Will injects the drug on his father who responds well, but Will’s hopes are dashed when Charles once more starts regressing, his disorder too advanced to have been permanently cured.

Confined within four walls, his natural curiosity to explore the outside world only gets Caesar into trouble with the neighbors frequently. When one such incident goes horribly wrong, Caesar is handed over to a primate shelter run by the father-son duo of John Landon (Brian Cox) and the twisted Dodge Landon (Tom Felton). And it is from here on that we witness the birth of a leader in Caesar– caged, abused and trying to fit in with people of his own kind, the fury within Caesar gets the better of him as he sparks a revolt. The politics of rise to power is subtly yet wonderfully depicted within the apes when in one scene Caesar uses his wits by befriending a caged gorilla and uses him as a muscle to threaten another monkey who had been bullying him. We cheer for Caesar as he grows from a loving and cuddly antic-performing monkey who steals cookies to a shrewd politicking, havoc-wreaking, alpha-primate who retaliates when subjugated to the whims of the brat Dodge Landon. We understand the conflict that burns within Caesar who tries to understand his place where he belongs – in the jungle among people of his own as a King or amidst humans as a mere animal who is caged and subjected to tests and treacheries of man. Wyatt sets up a thrilling finale of the San Francisco takedown by the army of apes by building up Caesar’s evolution from a chimp to a champ, throughout the whole of first half and the initial part of second half. A minute yet symbolic shot of leaves falling from trees signals the beginning of a revolution, and from thereon the film hurtles towards a brilliant climax where we end up cheering for the apes.

James Franco as Will Rodman merely plays out a supporting role whose star power is used to bring in the crowd. Yet as Will he plays out an underlying performance of a man who starts out by giving shelter to an orphaned chimp, who raises him with love and care and teaches him of the ways of the world dominated by humans – like a father, but who ends up as someone who reasons with his adopted primate to stop the carnage and come back home. John Lithgow as Charles plays the role of Will’s Alzheimer-stricken father with a dignity, forgetful of his own car and on the basics of how to use a knife and a fork his portrayal of a helpless man tugs at our emotional chord. Frieda Pinto plays a primatologist, as Will Rodman’s love interest she supports his same enthusiasm for Caesar and shares his grief when Caesar is taken away from him. The veteran Brian Cox does a decent job of the caretaker of the facility, whilst as his on-screen son Tom Felton as Dodge Landon earns our hatred and applause when he gets a taste of his own medicine.

But the star of the show is Caesar played by a motion-captured Andy Serkis. Having already played as a motion-captured schizophrenic named Smeagol in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis’ every emotion and facial contortion is beautifully converted to the face of Caesar the ape. From his endearing eyes that reflect mischief as an adolescent to a pride and rage that glow on his face, Serkis’ Caesar is the selling point of the movie. The movie takes its time to develop as it chronicles the birth of a leader, his special gift, his conflict of emotions and in the end his emergence as the leader of the pack. Thanks to the watertight screenplay and brilliant direction by Wyatt the movie never tends to feel too long as most of the scenes are pivotal to the development of the character and keeps us engaged.

The ending leaves us with a hope of a sequel, and what with Caesar and his band of apes having conquered the Golden Gate the next stop seems to be New York. Watch out New York, for the apes have truly risen!

For The Sake Of Fraandsheep

2011-08-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

"One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention." - Clifton Fadiman

Its a strange custom this "Friendship Day", it is on this day that an innocent friendship blossoms between a boy and a girl - and it ends on Valentine's Day when the boy gets rejected by the girl after he proclaims his love. I honestly don't get what the big deal is about friendship day, why do you need a day to state the bleeding obvious - to proclaim your loyalty, devotion, love, and faith towards someone whom you know well enough or are acquainted to? Why the formality I ask! The only people who benefit from having such kind of moronic customs are the greeting card companies and Zee Cafe and Star World. While Hallmark and Archies sell "Friendship Band", which during my college days was a symbol of popularity - the more you had the more popular you were, I can't believe they still do that, whereas the Star Worlds and Zee Cafes run a seven hour marathon of F.R.I.E.N.D.S - a sitcom which is normally telecasted on a weekday for half-an-hour.

And what's with tagging people on photos on Facebook? Its not like its a group photo where you can see your face, its not a forgotten poignant moment which you had captured in your camera that you shared with your friends - its a bloody .jpg image of a greeting card with "FRIENDS FOREVER" or a couplet inscribed in it - which you probably had google searched, how thoughtful and how imaginative! Do you think people find it touching to have their profile tagged to some random photo which is "liked" by a bunch of idiots and commented on by dozen other morons who at the most respond with "Happy friendship day :-) " Well I have news for you, you just spammed their mailbox which now will be flooded with notifications from Facebook about some Tom, Dick or Harry whom you had tagged in that photo. Do yourself a favor, stop shouting over the rooftops about how true and everlasting friendship is, most of the true and everlasting ones are forged with a bond that is not spoken of, but are displayed - in those minute gestures that go unnoticed by our eyes but are safely deposited within the treasury of our heart.

Its in those little moments where you share a cup of coffee with your friends whilst you bitch about your job, you have heard your friend say it before but you lend them your ear because you know they'd do the same if it were you. Its in those long-distance phonecalls that last an hour where you talked of nothing that made sense, yet it was something that made you feel belonged - a reassuring feeling that distance and time will not corrode what you share. It is in that gesture when you save a seat for your friend on a crowded bus, it may not speak much - but it for sure says "I am here for you". They are hidden within those human contacts which we have taken for granted be it that bear hug that we get, or that ruffle of our hair, that arm around our shoulder or that prank that we play. It is engraved in the liberty that we have with our friends, we count on them to finish off our lunch that we hate to eat, we count on them to share our grief, we count on them to be there at our moment of glory, we count on them to be watching our back in our time of despair.

Over the years I have been blessed with friends and have forged relationships for which I am grateful, some have lasted and some have withered away thanks to a juvenility and indifference of my own, which may not make me the right person to speak about the sanctity of such relationship, but then haven't we all been let down and have let down the ones whom we believed in? Yet, what it had in common while it blossomed was those moments of togetherness and the feeling that this would last forever. Its after the seeds of friendship have planted that one needs to groom it with care. So, stop abusing the emotions involved in this relationship, stop being a prey to greedy corporations that play you like a violin with their "Friendship Day" offers, stop updating your walls, quit sending cheesy smses, and for the love of God - stop tagging people on artificial soulless photos that will be forgotten as the days go by. For the sake of fraandsheep, be there for them when you need them, that in itself is a testament of what you share.

Sweat and Steel

2011-08-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every man's life when he looks at himself in the mirror and is not pleased with what he sees. That ever-so-slightly increasing paunch–that is attached to his body like a pitcher's mound makes him say out one of those two things that every man would have said to himself at some point of time in his life–"I need to start working out". The other thing being “I will stop watching porn”. We live our lives at a desk job where the only muscle we get to move is that of our index finger while clicking the mouse button. And let's face it - the number of keys we type while updating our status on Facebook and Twitter is more than the number of keys we have used to type a code. We have taken the term "Don't sweat over it" too seriously, the process of sweating itself is looked upon with disgust. The physical process of sweating is as manly a task as matadoring (that is if you don't consider those tight fitting clothes of a matador), thanks to these deodorant advertisements we are made to feel that men who sweat a lot need to be stayed away from.

Men are normally non-jealous creatures, he is happy with what he gets - that badly cooked lunch, his job, his bike, his low-tech mobile phone. He never looks at another man and says "Oh boy how I wish I have what he has"–except occasionally if the other man's girl is very hot. But there always comes a time when a man looks at another well-built man who flaunts around his carved body, and shows off his washboard abs that makes him wish he had one of those. If there is one place in the world that can make a man feel insecure and make him hate his very existence - it has got to be the gym. Picture this–in a room full of men who seem to be sculpted out of gold you are the only guy unevenly shaped. In a place filled with hard-bodied men who look descendants of Zeus and Hercules you look like someone whose head is the size of their biceps.

I began my stint at a gym lately only after a lot of cajoling from my father who had gotten carried away looking at the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Jason Statham, initially I resisted, but he still persisted. I said gymming involved too much dedication and had more chances of me breaking bones of my own than building biceps. He changed his tune and started pitching the idea of Baba Ramdev and the miracles of yoga, which made me wonder when was the last time Baba Ramdev would have gotten laid. "Mark Wahlberg and gymming it is!" I declared, hoping my father stuck with Arnab and Newshour rather than HBO and WB movies.

Talk to the hand!

My hunt for gym led me to various fitness houses that had muscular men doubling up as salesmen who tried to sell me the benefits of having bulging biceps and a neatly cut out chest. They were less convincing than a fitness-freak friend of mine who cited the examples of books and movies - those porn movies that had men with a sculpted body acting.... or performing. And the cover of any Nalini Singh novel. Almost every gym that I had stepped into either had a large board of a ridiculously muscular white man who seemed to have gigantic cuts and biceps on his body than a sculpture of Achilles or a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became a Governor whilst secretly raising a lovechild. I finally zeroed in on a gym that was pretty closer to home, which was much cheaper but way less fancier than the glamorous fitness houses that had cropped up in the city. As I settled down in the gym during the initial few days, I could see there were men who didn’t do any exercise but just inspected their body with a pride that said “You see this! I worked hard for this. You think you can better my washboard abs?” there were men who belonged to different walks of life, outside the gym they were just ordinary men–students, security guards, drivers, engineers, probably plagued with issues of their own, normal looking men whom you wouldn’t care to give a second look when they have their shirts on, ordinary men who were probably bossed around. But it is within the gym surrounded by all the steel equipments that they change to a different self. From everyday men they change to men with a passion that powers them to give that one extra push-up, as they dig deep to summon that ounce of strength–that moment when the mind takes control over body making it believe that it had the strength for one final heave-ho.

There is something liberating once you step out of a gym after an intense workout, it’s not just the breeze that washes away all the sweat and the heat from your body, but much like a good book that is like chicken soup for your senses–an intense workout is that shot of drug you need to revitalize your body and soul. One of the greatest mysteries of our bodies is to know how much we can endure, and the best way to know it is to push our body to as much as it can take in a gym. I feel it’s always an advantage to have a good physique– people agree to whatever you say, they give you some space to sit in a crowded train, nobody messes with you and the best part is that you feel good about yourself. But jokes apart, the sweat that drains from our face and our body and embraces the fabric of our t-shirt is a testament to the will to endure the pain that would make us feel better about ourselves. In a life where the same mundane job has left many of us questioning our purpose, and left us like rudderless boats– it’s probably within a sweaty and steaming gym that I find an answer. Within a gym, I know what I am doing, I know what I want to be in another six months from now. I don’t just lift weights, nor do I just run the treadmill–I lift the weights knowing what I want to become, I run the treadmill knowing where I am going.

I don’t want to have a six-pack abs and bulging biceps to beat up goons during a fight, I don’t want to look intimidating as I walk the streets but then I don’t want to end up with a paunch and loathe the men with a lithe frame on the advertisements of Jockey. I just want to feel better about myself, I want to feel healthy, we all have our ways of feeling better about ourselves, finally I have found mine. Now, when I look myself at the mirror I kinda like the face that stares back at me.

A Death Without Dignity

2011-07-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

He dreamed of a love, that remained unfulfilled,

of the riches that he never earned,

but a family that loved him still.

He dreamed of a life that was cut short,

by the flames and shrapnel that took his limbs apart.

He was a father, a friend, a husband, a son

a man with a heart, a decent human.

He was a victim of vengeance, of hatred and ignorance

a lifeless statistic lost in the realms of indifference.

He had a name, which we may never know

memories and moments which won’t be shared.

He lived a life of which we were unaware,

now his death puts us in fear and in despair.

We will rant of him and the dead through our online avatars,

as we remain helpless as prisoners of war.

Living in fear of a painful death,

we will light a candle or two as a mark of respect.

Days will pass, and as months go by,

he will remain just a prime-time topic, a T.V dinner debate.

We will have moved on as we have our lives to live,

we will bitch, we will moan while surrendering to our fate.

There is not much we ask, and there is not much we want,

we are easy to please, we too are human after all.

We may not live like Kings, yet we don’t yearn for any pity,

all we ask for is a death with some dignity.

Kyunki..... We Are Like This Only Bhen%#@!

2011-07-03T06:19:00.000-07:00

We are a generation misrepresented in cinema, thanks to Yash Chopra, Karan Johar, the Barjatyas and that guy who directed Baghban. We were shown as the Prems, the Rahuls, the Rajs who always listened to their parents, who believed in maan, maryaada and were just happy holding hands with their girlfriends and felt that first base could only be reached after marriage. We were shown as guys (read sissies) for whom "dosti" meant fondly referring to their friends as "saale" and nothing beyond that. There were a few obscure movies which portrayed the youth like they really where, but they were lost in the crowd of unknown foreign festivals. These were the little guys we never took notice of. But it is when the Bigger Men speak that we sit up and realize that "Hell yeah! What he says is true!" because we know deep down that's what we are. We yearn to do a lot more than holding hands with our girlfriends, we secretly search for smut in the office computer, we call our friends a lot more and much worse than "saale" and get away with it because our friends know that when the shit hits the fan, we will always be right behind them holding an umbrella. With "Delhi Belly", Aamir Khan - The Little Big Man of Bollywood has spoken. Mainstream Hindi cinema has finally accepted the youth for what they are - brash, uncouth, conniving - yet with their heart in the right place.

With a runtime of ninety minutes "Delhi Belly" plays out like a homage to the seventies with various references, be it in the opening sequence - where we see a young Rishi Kapoor "Wakaow"ing to a late seventies disco beat to the end credits where Aamir Khan is seen jiggling as "Disco Killer". Never does the toilet-humor feel over the top or the crass language seem unwanted as they all fit in the right place and what's more, they even add to the story. "Delhi Belly" is that dark comedy which has the brains and the balls to show us what we want to see at a time when charades like "Ready", "Double Dhamaal", "Tees Maar Khan", and other Akshay Kumar mind-numbing brainless humor is shoved down our throats all in the name of comedy. Delhi Belly is slick, smart and has the attitude that reminds us of Guy Ritchie's Snatch - a similar movie with a plot laced with dark humor that DB could very well be an ode to Ritchie's classic.

Tashi a small time reporter (Imran Khan), Nikhil his unkempt photographer (Kunal Roy Kapoor) and Arun a gullible cartoonist unsatisfied with his job (Vir Das) are three slobs residing in a dingy and dilapidated Delhi apartment who argue over who gets to open the door or whose turn it is to turn off the tap. Much like the tagline of the movie - Shit happens, when Tashi's fiancee (Shenaz) asks him to deliver a package to an address that gets mixed up with Nitin's stool sample and gets delivered to a gangster - Somayajulu (Vijay Raaz) by Arun. Chaos reigns supreme when the gangster starts to hunt them down with the trio on the run. Throw along with it the simmering chemistry between Tashi and Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan) his colleague, and a heartbroken Arun who is dumped by his girlfriend, and you are all set for a heady climax.

The casting is perfect with all the actors playing their roles with aplomb, with Kunal Roy Kapoor stealing the show as the devious and sordid Nikhil who blackmails his landlord by mailing him pictures of his steamy tryst with a prostitute. Imran Khan sheds off his chocolate boy image and puts his acting genes to good use, Vir Das a stand-up comic is solid and hilarious even in his moments of desperation and bring out the laughs. The three friends share a great chemistry and remind us of those close chums of us whom we know and are very brash and open with. Even the support cast led by the seasoned Vijay Raaz plays his part well of a dreaded gangster who bosses over his dim-witted cronies, Shenaz the once-upon-a-time VJ who used to get on our nerves with her saccharine coated sweetness, plays her role maturedly and for once does not make you tear your hair apart.

There are scenes that are shocking and have never been seen before in Indian commercial cinema, which would make me suggest that you watch it with your langotiya yaars, watching it with your gal pal could be much worse than watching it with your family. The heavyweight production house and the names involved in the making of this movie make sure that the raunchiness and wickedness of this film are not tampered with by the censor board. To label Delhi Belly as a raunchy adult movie would be a gross injustice to the smart storyline and adept direction that makes the movie click. Abhinay Deo has recovered from his box office debut dud "Game" and has delivered a winner this time thanks to Akshat Varma's script that is in sync with today's generation.

Every generation needs a movie that defines it, "Delhi Belly" is fast becoming a cult, a fillum that has made Bollywood come out of its pubescent stage and transformed it into an Adult. Aamir Khan, that brilliant student of cinema - deserves credit for having put his faith in a project which not only has raised many eyebrows thanks to its bold content but has also made the junta come out of the cinema halls with their tummies aching with laughter.

This Age

2011-06-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

'Tis a precarious age this - Twenty five,

Should I behave as a boy? Or have I grown into a man?

Shall I try to get the best out of the two worlds?

Should I try to act matured as far as I can?

'Tis a crazy age this - Twenty five,

you think my juvenile heart will learn - but no he won't.

He dreams of someone special, fathering false hopes,

he still dreams of that walk in the woods, with a hand to hold.

'Tis a confusing age this - Twenty five,

as I try to forget about all those bridges I broke,

And those friends I ignore for no fault of their own.

I see their lives reflected on other people's wall,

I wonder how things would be if I gave them a call.

'Tis a scary age this - Twenty five,

as I compare lives with my accomplished peers,

their jobs, their loves, and the growth in their careers.

My resume of Life, may still look empty,

But hey, I am just Twenty-five. The life ahead is aplenty!

Mane Oh Mane!

2011-06-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Looking back at old photos brings me back all those nostalgic memories of those moments I shared and the people I shared it along with, but also what I miss the most is those days when I had a lot of hair on my head. Yes, there has been a steady disappearance of hair from my once richly blessed mane, and that loss is rubbed in by my parents where this current phenomenon of my receding hairline is brought out in every topic of discussion which is sadly limited to - job, commute, and friends who have gotten married.

And out of the blue my mother quips....

"Shaadi kara do, iske baal jhad rahe hain!" she warns my father. (Get him married, he is getting bald)

I have not blogged for over a month now, and it had been irking me. Apart from a few movie reviews which I had planned to do, and a poorly constructed poem that is stored in a draft somewhere, and a book review of a nine-hundred page novel that would be as tedious a task as reading that book itself, I could not find anything worthy to blog about. Even Indiblogger has no interesting topic this time, no offence to their competition going on about "What does real beauty mean to you?" where hundreds of not-so-good-looking bloggers will opine that "Real beauty lies skin deep". But let’s face it - that is just an excuse for ugly people to feel better about themselves. (Psst! Guys at Indiblogger, please don't delete my account, I took this liberty to diss you guys because I know bloggers have a good sense of humor. And also, I have recommended your site to quite a few bloggers.)

So, when I ran my fingers through my hair wondering on what to write, I suddenly had my Eureka moment when I looked at a few solitary strands of hair that were stuck to my palm. "Why don't I write about my extending forehead and transform into a beacon of light, a ray of hope–a Dr.Batra of the virtual world to all bald men?"

Well, I may not suggest any cure for baldness but I will share the confessions of a soon to be bald man as I look back at my hairy days.

I too used to have hair on my head, you know. I had curly stresses of hair as a child, I was a year old when my mother used my pigeon nest of a head as an excuse to make neat locks of it. After a lot of oiling and combing my curly locks would be neatly plaited, pictures of mine in that avatar are rotting somewhere in an old photo album.

I was a trendsetter too, a few years after the movie “Topgun” had been released that catapulted Tom Cruise to superstardom, I had aped his haircut in school that was named by my local barber as the “Cruise Cut”. Heads turned, jaws dropped and enquiries were made about my haircut that had school kids queuing up at the local barber’s shop. Needless to say, the barber laughed all the way to the bank withdrew some cash and bought himself a set of new razors.

When my head was filled aplenty with hair I could do whatever I wanted to do with it. I gelled it, I watered it, I spiked it, I shaved it, I would comb it to the left, I would comb it to the right with gay abandon knowing that the hair that goes today shall come back tomorrow. I had never grown my hair upto shoulder level ala Anniyan for it was considered as a Sanniyan, and moreover made me look like a ragamuffin.

Science has proved that excess stress can damage your stresses of hair and increase your hair-loss dramatically, I had never faced excess stress in my school and college days thanks to my easy-to-please attitude that was happy with scraping through subjects rather than top the class. Although, what’s the point of living a life where there is no stress involved? And that is why I had been facing quite a strenuous time at the corporate world. When faced with pressure, some tackle it, some crumble under it and there are some who lose their hair while doing both of it. I belong to the third kind.

I have always believed in looking at the positives even when things have not been working my way. In this case where with every passing month I could see my forehead extending, instead of panicking and googling for cures on how to battle hair-loss, I had actually taken it quite sportingly–unlike my parents who right now are plagued by a fear that would any woman be willing to marry a man who has gone bald even before he is twenty-six, I have taken my premature baldness as a corporate sign. The sign that I am the Chosen One to be designated into a management role. Think about it, how many bosses do you know are bald? Quite a few right? My baldness could get me that managerial post which even my M.B.A degree could never get me. I don’t even have to work hard to scale up the ladder. I could walk right in and say “Hey! I am bald and I want to be a boss!” (Now you know where the term “Mottai Boss” was coined from?)

Baldness is a symbol of authority, it brings that aura of bad-assery which men with hair do not have. You fear the bald man, you give him your seat in a crowded train, you make way for him to stand in front of you when you are in a queue at the grocery store. There is a reason why we have so many important bald figures in our pop culture. There is Shakaal, Goldfinger, Bruce Willis, Professor X, M.S. Dhoni, L. K. Advani and let’s not forget the grand daddy of them all–Mahatma Gandhi. Had the Mahatma been a mama’s boy kind of a guy with ample hair on his head that was well oiled like a Yamaha-RX100 and neatly combed to both his sides would the Brits have given a rat’s ass about him? No, they wouldn’t have!

Ask those skinheads from American History X or Romper Stomper would the Jews and Asian immigrants have really pissed their pants if they were bullied by regular men with immaculately combed hair like the Italian Mafioso that smelled sweet? No! Bald is Bad! Bald men are the quintessential Alpha Male, nobody messes with them. They do not have to go the gym to have a six-pack and look tough, the absence of hair acts as an extra muscle that shouts out loud –“I am bald! Do not mess with me”. When they have to go out on a party or a on a date (assuming that women date bald men) they do not have to worry about how their hair should look. They just have to decide that their shirts do not match the color of the skin of their head. They do not have to even worry about buying those conditioners and shampoos and hair gels that are loaded with chemicals and acids–mugging the names of which gave me a hard time during my school days.

Apart from being a symbol of authority the Bald Man is also a sign of intelligence, a trait on which I have to work no more thanks to the sun rays bouncing on top of my head that affirms my baldness. For what the Bald Man speaketh is true! Nine out of ten times a bald man always wins an argument, the only occasion when he loses is when he is arguing with another bald man.

When put in a room amidst a bunch of hot blooded individuals with a lot of hair on their heads who are discussing about a serious topic like “Is fast unto death the right way to press for your demands?” the regular people would be expected to explain a lot. They would have to state examples, they would have to quote Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami, they would have to point to statistics to add more validity to their statements. But a bald man does not have to do all that, all he has to say is “Yes” or a “No” and you could see the participants agreeing with him, the bald man with that single word gives a direction to that rudderless argument going on in the room. And he didn’t even try to adjust the sails. He does not have to try hard. And why? Because he is bald! He is the learned one! He is the enlightened one. William Shakespeare, Greek and Roman Philosophers, your Professors and the Dalai Lama how do you think they lost their hair? It was over excessive thinking and wondering on the kind of question paper to set for your exam.

At the end of the day, it’s much like that quote from that Batman movie: “You either die with a lot of hair on your head, or you see yourself become a baldie”

Image Sources: http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2008/06/05/political-pictures-dalai-lama-classy-tibet/

http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2008/06/05/political-pictures-dalai-lama-classy-tibet/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Stavro_Blofeld

http://harshpande.blogspot.com/2009/11/american-history-x-review.html

Tears of Dirt

2011-05-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

They glowed and they shone

as the rays bounced of their crown.

They trickled down his sides, crawling like a worm,

slithering through his brows like snakes moving through grass.

They made a path of their own moving through his lids,

his nose, his cheek leaving behind a moist trail of dirt on his dark skin.

As they curved on the bridge of his nose, wetting the hair above his lips,

he felt their salted kiss that tasted of a hard day's work.

They slid through his chin and dived to the ground

like a watery pearl crying "Geronimo" to meet their end.

They died and were born again at his brow, as they made their way through his face.

He stopped breaking the rock as he pulled out a cloth,

a testament to his grit that smelled of his strength, and soaked with his perseverance.

He wiped away the scoundrels that raced through his face,

he then looked at the sky that burned with rage.

As an unforgiving vengeance pierced through his skin

"Is that all you got?" he asked the fiery sphere with a wide grin.

With his chest gleaming with pride, and his arms drenched

he got back to work chiseling the rock with a tune in his lips.

She Is No Different

2011-05-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

Warning: Expect no sense to be made from the comic given below. Its a juvenile attempt by the blogger to make himself feel better about himself.

Advise: Take it with a pinch of salt. You got better things to be pissed about.

Request: Comments and suggestions are welcome, but do refrain from comparing the blogger's persona to unmentionable body parts of a human or of any animal.

Image credit : http://ragemaker.com/

A concept borrowed from Krish Ashok's http://tambrahmrage.tumblr.com/

P.S: "Borrowed" does not mean that it was copied, so does the term "inspired" .

A Response

2011-04-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

Her response felt strange,

strange yet true,

true yet bitter,

bitter yet right.

"Its too late now" she declared unwilling to change our plight.

"Where were you when I needed someone more than a friend?" she asked

"I was there hidden under the shadows, knowing you will find someone better" I replied.

"Why did you fall for me so late"?

Little did she know that I had fallen for her at a time,

when she was just a friend as we spoke over the phone late into the night,

as we shared our dreams, and of the things that gave us a fright.

I had fallen for her when she cried to me of the man who broke her heart,

who shattered her faith, and tore her innocence apart.

I had fallen for her when she radiated a warmth, that can leave scarred hearts amend

what a fool I had been to treat her just as a friend !

I bottled my emotions too scared to uncork,

as I rubbished every song I listened to that reminded me of her,

I looked the other way, as she conversed with her eyes that gave out a spark.

I was a shoulder to lean on, when I should have been the hand that held her tight.

I gave her words of comfort, when I could have been the lips that kissed and told her "Everything will be all right".

When the boundary had been crossed, when the barrier had finally been broken,

I ran towards the shore only to find that she had sailed away.

Away into the sunset.

Play While You Play

2011-04-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

I was tired of life lately. I hated everything that it had been reduced to by my peers and elders - "a nine-to-five job, steady pay, work diligently, obey your senior colleagues, flash a smile at them even when you actually loathe them deep within, rush to catch that train back home, wrestle your way through hundred other sweaty, tired, foul-mouthed people for that single seat in a train while on your way home, find a nice girl who will take care of you, buy a home, procreate to extend your bloodline, change their diapers, break your head over which school should they get admitted for learning A B C's and 1 2 3's, and while you are at it stick to your job because that is what pays for that home loan which you borrowed from that bank." The people I grew up with are all married or are in the process of getting hitched, sooner or later they will be following that vicious circle that is defined above.

The very thought of having my life built using the blueprint of probably every other person my parents and I know started irking me. Was that all that our lives were reduced to? Work, Marriage, Spouse and Kids, Mortgage, is that all our life revolves around? Where did Play go? Where was the pleasure of winning in a challenge or in a game? When was the last time I had ever given out a cry of exhilaration? There was a lot of rage built up within me. There was a need to thrash the daylights out of those pricks who drive their vehicles jumping the lights while I try to cross the street, there was a need to tell the HR of how pathetic I find the grammar in their offer letters to be, and the need to tell them where exactly they can roll that piece of letter and shove it in, the need to speak my mind to those clowns who takes advantage of my benign self and deprive me of the privileges which they graciously bestow upon others with no questions asked, the need to keep believing that somewhere down the line the slogging is all worth it. Brick by brick the fury was built, and day by day the foundations became stronger.

Vengeance came at a heavy price and with a neat packaging, and when viewed in HDMI with a 5.1 surround sound I realized that every penny I had paid was worth it. Vengeance had a new name - Playstation 3. No more do I return home cringing and hating the very thought of going back to work the following day, no more do I curse everyone around me for the mistakes that *I* make, no more do I get angered by a seat missed in the train, or for that matter even missing the train that goes home. I have learnt to take criticisms with a smile on my face, I have learnt to face disappointments, and the best thing of all I no more depend on people to give me an emotional stability to calm me down. For I know that once I press the "start" button everything will happen the way I want to happen in this virtual world. Guns will start firing, cars will race at speeds unimaginable, heroes will start flying. Juvenile and ridiculous as I may sound right now but the very thought of going back home and playing a pre-programmed game where my character shoots down aliens, enemy soldiers, throttles the booster powered engines of vehicles, and blasts his way to jaw-dropping awesomeness leaves me on a high. This new piece of equipment has also made me take my job more seriously, it is after all the job that pays for my play.

Have you ever felt so enraged that you feel like putting those people who have rubbed your nose in the ground through a world of pain? Punching your pillow is one way of letting out your angst, but even better is when we gun down enemies in a PS3. There is a sense of power, an adrenaline rush that I get when I get the controller in my hands - the power to kill, the power to destroy, the power to be reborn in the battlefield when I bleed to death. And when I push the square, the circle, the cross and the triangle I know I am in control, the character does what I want to do. In his triumph I find my glory, in his kill I find an awesomeness that was missing. In the virtual world, there are no disappointments, there are no rejections, there are only escapes - an escape from the harsh realities of life, an escape from the endless loop that it is being played on, an escape from the organized chaos. And amidst the sights and sounds of buildings being demolished, villains getting killed, cars getting wrecked, and a mock vengeance getting claimed I could finally hear my own scream of exhilaration.

Coupon Chief.com

2011-04-14T00:29:00.000-07:00

With E-retailing companies like Amazon and E-bay having taken the retail business by storm and providing a whole new shopping experience to consumers, it was only a matter of time before one of the most used tools of consumer purchase made its foray into the digital world - Coupons. Coupon Chief is one of those premier sites that offers online shoppers a great way of saving their money through digital coupons. With more than 50,000 coupons for more than 15,000 retail stores Coupon Chief offers a wide variety of online retailers to choose from which are neatly listed from A to Z. Ranging from Amazon to Atari through EA Sports to Walmart, they offer coupons on products that range from apparels to entertainment. They have also segregated their coupons as per popular tags that makes easier for the users to choose their coupons from.

Using their coupon is simple, all you have to do is:

a. Search for the retailer in their site.
b. Copy the coupon code given
c. Go directly to the retailer site and search for the item you want to buy
d. While checking out after having chosen your product, look for the box that says coupon or promotional code.
e. Submit the coupon code you have copied earlier
f. And see your savings been applied!

If the coupon does not work you can also notify them by clicking on the option "X" which is given next to the coupon. If it does, you can click on the check mark given next to it.

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They also allow users to share their coupons online with three simple steps. All you have to do is:

a. Enter the store name where the coupon will be valid
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