For those who loved ‘Awaara Pagal Deewana‘ this is just a few notches lower and hence you may be able to tolerate it. For the rest, read this and save yourself money and time. We are pleased that the movie is going to tank badly for we were betting on Khiladi Kumar pulling out
three-of-a-kind
in flops
this yearpulling out three-of-a-kind in flops this year after pulling a flush of hits last year. The Tamil version though a moderate hit is still a must-watch each time it is aired on TV for the raw accent and brilliant lines apart from the comic timing of Kamal Hassan. Here we have some comic timing but it’s killed by a horrible punjabi-meets-LA accent and some pathetic writing. It’s not like we don’t appreciate toilet humor but breaking wind in someone’s face is way below even our levels of cheap humor. There are some laughable moments and you might survive through the end despite squirming in your seat. However when something is billed as the biggest family entertainer of the summer and expected to bailout the entire industry recovering from lost business due to the strike, one is disappointed. There’s nothing much to comment on the story for there ought to be one in the first place and hence we have a two stunt-men friends one of whom gets married to a lingerie model whose best friend is a supermodel/surgeon.  I actually fail to recollect when I’ve heard the B-word used on a woman repeatedly even in the WWE, but here it’s in double digits. One tends to imagine what substance could the writers have been smoking when they decided that the female lead be a wannabe-surgeon who pays for her education by walking the ramp as a supermodel. It may be hard to believe but what’s even harder is the hemlines that barely cover their petite bottoms. With surgeons wearing stuff like that under scrubs, I’d walk into the emergency room any day! The story could have been set anywhere and it wouldn’t have made any difference, unlike the makers claim that the Hollywod cameos are central to the story and the script demanded them. Just like the ICL that provided discards and retirees a new avenue to make some bucks, Kambakkht Ishq opens the doors of Bollywood to failed actors and once-upon-a-tie hotshots a chance to face the arclights again!

Akshay is a misogynist stuntman who lives in a palatial villa over looking a beach enjoying benefits such as flying first-class, an assistant making protein shakes and a masseuse for his feet. Well maybe stuntmen in Hollywood do make that kind of dough but where in the world do surgeons strut as supermodels? The reason I earlier mentioned ‘Awaara pagal deewana’ was because Amrita and Aftab pick up their charade of wwwabbit and chweety pie. It sure is nauseating but then she justifies her character as a lingerie model by foaming herself whilst washing the car and cooling her legs in the pool. Aftab like usual is quite unsure of what he is doing but since he is neither in a swimsuit nor are we interested in men, it doesn’t matter to us. You have Javed Jaffery as Mr.Case-wani who is out to become ‘Amrika ka sabse bada suer‘, oh come on you’re supposed to laugh for that! Then there is Bebo Kapoor in an even more irritating avtaar that beats K3G as a model with a hideous watch that chimes mantras every hour. Having seen the other Nadiadwala flicks we didn’t expect much except for heavy budgets and foreign locales like Venice etc. Witnessing Denise Richards emerge out of a pool in a 2-piece looking like a crack-whore was quite depressing and for once we had to look elsewhere. However when she evinced interest in making ‘golden babies’ with Akshay Kumar, it brought back memories of Goldmember and mental images of a golden you-know-what! Only if we had someone to un-button the image out of our head, but it wasn’t meant to be.

We actually enjoyed part of it and could help but laugh at a few gags. They were however very minuscule wen compared when compared the the glaring holes in logic and reason. How else do you explain an award acceptance speech in Punjabi on the lines of ‘Action hero guru daivo namahahAction hero guru daivo namahah‘. It basically translates to how a kid in Amritsar or thereabouts idolized Stallone like ‘Ekalavya and Drona from the Mahabharata‘ and ended up as his stunt double. I think we are lucky that he didn’t say the ‘Abhivadaye‘ and prostrate before Stallone, he touches his feet however. So then we have cliches like a drunk girl waking up naked in the morning only to find out that nothing happened and even in the ‘videsh‘ people have hearts from the ‘desh‘. The ghost of DDLJ continues to haunt us to this very day with loud aunts on a single mission to get their nieces married. You realize that you’ve had enough when Sylvester Stallone pulls out a parking meter to whip a bunch of baddies, brings back memories of Sunny Deol and the water pump scene in Gaddar doesn’t it? Well actually when you’ve reached this point, you give up trying so it doesn’t really matter.

(Images courtesy: indiafm, santabanta and nighi)

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When your male star is horrifyingly named Jackky, you tend to sympathize with him. Imagine all the hazing he’d have faced in school, and if he ever did goto college his seniors would have a whale of a time. Well atleast in my college with a name like that, you’d have your
face
in a
pile of dog poophave your face in a pile of dog poop. Oh wait I’ve got another one, if he had an extra ‘K’ in his name, he’d be behind bars in another country. I think I can slip in another one, Jackky could give Harman Baweja serious competition for president of the #failedstarkidsdebut club! Share a glass of single malt whiskey on the rocks and crib about whose debut was more disastrous! He actually reminds me of a cross between Uday Chopra and Shakti Kapoor. Well now that I think about it, Uday Chopra looks like George Clooney while compared to Jackky boy! Then however this movie isn’t about a story, or any of the elements that go into movie making. It’s all about showing off the scion of the Bhagnani clan as a pedigree stud to us poor souls. So they show us how he can sing, dance, fight, lift weights, fly in the air, run around trees and sing songs on the college quad. Fine, I promise I’ll stop but wait we haven’t even got the the female lead, ok that demands another paragraph.

Vaishali, for those who don’t know shares her last name with the swashbuckling late Manmohan Desai. Not very frequently do we see two star kids debuting in the same movie and quite ironically most of them have turned out to be duds. So Ms.Desai will soon join the elite list of female debut starlets who fade away into oblivion a few months after their disastrous debuts. Let’s see Rinkie and Twinkle Khanna, Pooja Bhatt and her namesake Bedi oh we could go on! But I fail to understand as to why people still use the age old contrived formula of snooty rich girl falling for middle class guy with a heart of gold. So here is our snobbish heroine with her high society friends and parties who apart from being the queen bee of the college, loves to insult and treat every one else like Egyptian slaves. The moment our ever smiling hero drops her home after she passes out and saves her from a bomb scare the following day she turns a new leaf. Remember the 90s where heroines would be all modern ‘aaj-ki ladki‘ in the first half wearing tank tops, mini skirts, halter necks, and slapping boys while chewing gum. Post intermission you get to see a ‘bharatiya-naari‘ look in either a salwar or a saree with the pallu/dupatta over the head attending some family puja. We have pretty much the same happening here, only difference being that someone forgot to remind them that it’s no longer 1992!

Now that we’ve got it out of our system let’s look at the other cast as well. Let’s see you have Ritesh Deshmukh playing a comic baddie. I see it’s hard to find work when your father is no longer a Chief Ministeryour father is no longer a Chief Minister. Then you have Juhi Chawla who is in and out even before they could decide which wire to cut on the bomb. It’s only when you see her name on the credits, you’re assured that it wasn’t a mimic artiste. Then you also have Rajpal Yadav, who tries to remind you of the Asrani act from Sholay as he reprises the role of a jailer. Well you forget him the minute the scene is over, and you’re making a note on your PDA to remind you to check the credits again! Rahul Dev must have probably got tired of doing the same role again and again, and sometimes he has to mouth the same lines as well! Only if either he or the viewer knew what his real motives were for unleashing terror in the city. What boggles us the most is how long it will take for writers to get even remotely close to reality while writing a script. I mean what was somebody thinking when the decided to weave a story around a physics professor turning rogue and making circuitry for bombs. Also which Prof gives his students a project to help him figure out current flows in bomb circuits? Not discounting jammers made from video game consoles and cars rigged with explosives jumping out of a hotel parking lot onto a yatch! When Rishi Kapoor says that he is sorry in the very last scene, I think he meant it to himself for singing on the dotted line!

And. by the way if you haven’t figured it out from the title, the guy in the movie can foresee the future!

(Images courtesy: nowrunning.com)

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——————————————————————————–

Just two decades back, owning a cell phone handset was like treasuring a stone of Diamond – one longed to possess it but dared not display it. With Rs.17/- for every incoming and outgoing call, the cell telephone numbers were whispered only in the ears of a few chosen friends.  Today, even those who walk barefoot, carry a mobile phone in their pocket. A cell
phone
now is
not a status
symbol, but
our sixth fingerA cell phone now is not a status symbol, but our sixth finger.

A generation earlier, Main Frame Computers needed a large room  and dust-free and controlled temperature to run. Today, desk tops decorate our tables or lap tops hang from our shoulders in black rexene bags or we carry them in sleek brief cases.

When Captain Gopinath entered the aviation field, there were only two Airlines Companies – the State owned Indian Airlines and Government’s then blue eyed boy, Jet Airways, in the domestic sector. These two were well entrenched in the sector and there was very little space for any body else. And yet, Captain Gopinath was not overawed. He didn’t consider the other two airlines as competitors at all. Instead, he successfully weaned away the Air-conditioned class railway passengers. As they could travel by air within hours, they gladly accepted Captain Gopinath’s offer to fly frills-free aircrafts.  The credit for picking large number of first time flyers certainly goes to Captain Gopinath.  It is rather ironic that the champion of ‘exclusiveness’ became a partner of Captain Gopinath and negated all the achievements of the Captain.

Why these transformations? The answer is ‘Bottom of the Pyramid‘.  Peter Drucker said, ‘the bottle neck is always at the top’.  But Drucker did not say that the bottom of the pyramid is wide. Our own C.F.Prahlad,  brought it to light that the bottom of the pyramid is wide and he appealed to the MNCs and Industrial classes to cater to the needs of those at the bottom of the pyramid of the economy.

The need at the bottom is large and therefore one can market one’s products and services easily. Shampoo in sachet, three biscuits for a rupee and just enough soap powder for the wash of a few clothes for a pair of rupees, can one escape the temptation?  No wonder, millions of scooter users would graduate to a ‘Nano’ as and when it comes out of the show room.  Perhaps, many would recall that it was the ‘Piramals‘ who started the Mall culture, but they could not scale the height which a Big Bazaar could do.  This is because Big Bazzar looked at the bottom of the pyramid. One can literally see some barefooted shoppers in Big Bazar.  Piramals wanted the shoppers to flaunt their wallets or credit cards to affirm their determination to buy and lo! Many didn’t turn up at all. A Lexi five for Rs.5/- leads the way, leaving Parkers and Pilots miles behind, notwithstanding the endorsement by legendary Amitabh Bacchan.

Recently builders in Mumbai switched over from catering to the needs of the elite to that of the middle and lower class and they now report that they have been able to sell a number of dwelling units.  The secret of marketing lies in identifying needs and effectively meeting those needs.  Should we not look for barefoot to sell our shoes and bare chests that our clothes can drape? Udipi Hotels certainly play the Pied Piper Role.

‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number‘ the Utilitarian Philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill announced from the housetop. ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ theory is continuation of the Utilitarian Philosophers’ call and let the market take it to its logical ends. Mobile Phones and Plastic Sachets show us the way.

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Hello 98210262612 BPL? cha!
Arre 98200262635 maxtouch? cha!
Yaar jis ladki ko patane ka
Wohi phone pe nahi aati kya

What is mobile number, What is your smile number
Karni hain private baatein, What is your private number
Kaha se tu aati hain darling kaha ko tu jaati hain
Aake jaake aaise kyo dil ko tapdati hain

What is your style number, Karu kya dial number
Hoga phir aana jaana, Dede koi easy number
Kaha se tu aata hain darling kaha ko tu jaata hain
Aake jaake aaise kyo dil ko tapdata hain

For the unaware, this song was a rage back in the days. Well so was David Dhawan and his team of tomfoolery. The reason for this popularity was that it coincided with the release of mobile phones in India and was touted as an accessory of the elite. As an indicator of the wealth of a character, a mobile phone was a must as they would hold those
bulky
hideous deviceshold those bulky hideous devices and strike a a pose. Now this reference is quite important to the context of this post as we look at how times have changed. Earlier a device that complimented the luxury of being rich something characteristic to the Seth Dhanirams of yore is now an absolute necessity of push-cart fruit seller. He calls up the driver of his stock to inquire why the bags of fruit haven’t reached the wholesale market. Elsewhere Sakhubai receives an SMS from her memsaab who is expecting guests and wants sakhubai to be available for the whole day. Mrs.Bannerjee calls her gardener on his Nokia 1100 reminding him to get some lilly bulbs from the nursery for her garden. With some network operators these days bringing down airtime charges to less than a rupee, a few are even going a step further and pay you for receiving calls. The mobile phone is no longer a luxury but a necessity with devices flooding the grey market and kids getting phones even before they get an email address. Gone are the times when you had to pay for incoming and boast of the snake game in your phone. It’s now all about using your phone for email, facebook, cricket scores, music and bluetooth file sharing.

Kamakshi is at CCD updating her facebook status from her MotoRokr and confirming attendance to an event so that her friends can join her at the cafe. Anjali is stuck in traffic and is publicizing her angst on the
road sensepublicizing her angst on the road sense by tweeting from her N95. Sheetal is bored waiting for her boy at the multiplex and is checking her mails while trying to kill time on her Bird phone she got from Singapore. Alisha is bored waiting for her bus at the depot and forgot to sync new songs to her phone, she tunes in to 98.3FM to listen to her favorite RJ belt out the latest chart busters. Amitesh is battling sleep in a meeting with an endless barrage of powerpoint presentations when it suddenly strikes him that there is a match going on in England, out comes his blackberry as he fires up cricinfo. Sirisha just bought a new bluetooth dongle and earpiece for her phone, she now syncs her ear piece while on the go and also hooks her phone to the car audio while driving. Preethi is excited and can’t wait for the new semester to begin, her dad got her a smuggled jailbroken iphone from the grey market which she can flaunt in front of the whole college!

There is something that connects all the above mentioned characters irrespective of gargantuan levels in class and social status and that is the freedom to go mobile. With India standing head and shoulders above the other major countries when it comes to the number of mobile subscribers, our huge population with a heavy middle class pushes the numbers way beyond the competition. Freedom means many things to different people, some love to smoke and leave cigarette butts under a sign that says ‘No smoking’. Despite the ability to hold the bladder we love our freedom of spraying on the wallsfreedom of spraying on the walls. The pleasure of spraying on walls/trees and acting like one suffering from renal disorders is probably unparalleled which the west will never understand. Despite having trash cans in public places like parks n cinema halls dressed like circus animals with an inviting ‘use-me’ emblazoned on them, we love our freedom to hurl trash on the roads. Of course can’t take away paan/gutkha chewing responsible citizens who ensure to spit only in public urinals and paint them red. Ha! who in the west has ever heard of gutkha and zarda paan! Aren’t zebra crossings meant for school kids nuns? We love to cross the road anytime anywhere with aa simple ‘look left and lok right’. We do use the zebra crossing but only to help an old lady across the road while the girl we are trying to impress is coyly watching. Red lights and no-entry signs are just meant for learning boards in driving schools, as the popular saying goes we’d even fit an armoured tank in a cycle gap! These are somethings we love our freedom for and sigh upon the so-called developed countries for missing out on them.

PS: Title inspired by a Pepsi jingle to commemorate 50yrs of independence called ‘Freedom to be, Azadi dil ki‘.

PPS: Here is the song that has the above verse with Govinda in sublime form.

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PS: Title of this post inspired by this song

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Mothers have had a strong presence in our movies as well, heck how can they be left behind. Lets begin with a mother who not only accepted the fact that her son was gay but also left us
with
the immortal
words ‘Phoolon phalo
khair chodo’left us with the immortal words ‘Phoolon phalo khair chodo’. In another movie the very same mother had such a strong resolve that her son was reborn once again as she waited for him to return. There was a mother who could hear her son alight from a helicopter a few hundred meters away in the midst of celebration and walk towards the door to welcome him. The same mother in a different movie embraced the love-child of her husband with another woman as he shot himself unable to bear the guilt. More recently the mother stayed away from her son whose life was endangered by an evil sorcerer and was turned to stone by him when her son finally came to meet her. There was the mother who gave up everything to raise a kid in a village on the words of a silly doctor only to return 25 years later to the city and not recognize his birth-parents! She was also the mother who in another movie shot her gangster-son in the very last scene as a symbol of freeing him from the earthly ties. Oh how can we forget the mother who not only lost her husband but had the words traitor tattooed on her forehead and wait by a temple for her son to avenge the humiliation 25 years later. I guess this mother liked roles with apathy for elsewhere her two sons were butchered in front of her eyes but were reborn and take the baddie to task for the gross injustice. Oh we are so not done, for in another movie her husbands confidante cheats them of their property and hence again 25 years later the proud mothers son entraps the cheaters daughter, bumps her off the terrace, romances his younger daughter and finally ends up killing himself and the cheater. Something about winning despite losing, what crap moron you are dead!

Well I don’t subscribe to the idea of a single day dedicated to mothers all over the world but then I’m not against it. Also don’t we think of our mothers all the time especially in pain and sickness, then why just tell them that on one day? Who do you call out to when you slip and take a fall or bang your toe against the table? You actually don’t need a calendar to remind you to tell your mother how much she means to you, and if you do then that’s pretty sad. Forget the movies, forget mythology and even those silly cards they sell for every occasion, instead pick up the phone and give you mother a call. I did the same and boy did I feel great or what, trust me you’ll feel the same as well. Sorry ladeej but you won’t understand, it’s a guy thing and oh it’s super cool as well. It’s always been momma’s boys and daddy’s princesses and maybe the girls grow up and act all mature but us boys will always remain the same for we choose to….

PS: The opening  verse is from Pink Floyd’s Wall and this post was supposed to coincide with mother’s day if it’s not quite evident by now!

(Image Courtesy: memsaab)

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There were three levels of competition and here’s what bagged the prize at the elementary school level.

1st Place: “My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)”

Cassidy Turnbull (grade 5) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle and the monkeys. She tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them. Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey

Oh how we wish, the Turbanator could have read this before his trial in monkey-gate! All he needed would have been to feed Symmo a bunch of bananas and any signs other than snatching the bunch and running away would result in the inference that Symmo was no monkey! It would also help resurrect the falling fortunes and empty cash registers for Delhi-6, all they had to do is feed Jr.AB a bunch of bananas and refusal to eat them would clearly evince the fact that he was no monkey-man! That would spare moviegoers the extra 10mins of footage of seeing two dudes share a jalebi in heaven!

Well if you wished to ignore a 5th grader, after all they are smarter than a majority of us according to the great saarugan! Here’s what the middle school level winner threw up.

1st Place: “Life Doesn’t Come From Non-Life”

Patricia Lewis (grade 8 ) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life. Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life – carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) – into a sealed glass jar. The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks. (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.) No life evolved. This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes.

Isn’t that a beauty,and what sheer brilliance to discredit the theory of evolution! How I wish kids like these sat for the IIT, that would ensure duds like me sailing into Powai or Kharagpur. Since when did a multi-vitamin tablet become a rich source of assorted minerals? Mind you, this is 8th grade we’re talking about here! It reminds me of a girl in school who after discovering that there is no tooth fairy, decided to bury her teeth and wailed when nothing germinated! So I assume we are supposed to believe that seeds germinate into plants only via divine intervention, and it must also hold true for rocks to sprout saplings via prayers!

The high school project however takes the cake in this case, with some mind boggling findings!

1st Place: “Using Prayer To Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance In Bacteria”

Eileen Hyde and Lynda Morgan (grades 10 & 11) did a project showing how the power of prayer can unlock the latent genes in bacteria, allowing them to microevolve antibiotic resistance. Escherichia coli bacteria cultured in agar filled petri dishes were subjected to the antibiotics tetracycline and chlorotetracycline. The bacteria cultures were divided into two groups, one group (A) received prayer while the other (B) didn’t. The prayer was as follows: “Dear Lord, please allow the bacteria in Group A to unlock the antibiotic-resistant genes that You saw fit to give them at the time of Creation. Amen.” The process was repeated for five generations, with the prayer being given at the start of each generation. In the end, Group A was significantly more resistant than Group B to both antibiotics.

Such eloquence and that to from Xth graders is so overwhelming I say. At a time when we were writing about nuclear fusion in our exams, kids here have superior levels of intelligence to research antibiotic resistance. Subjecting bacteria to antibiotics and then using prayer to improve their resistance is purely unparalleled. It’s quite ingenious we must say to even come up with such theories, let alone proving them.

This past week the AC adapter of my laptop conked out, leading to an exercise that involved retrieving my old laptop and restoring it to a minimal working condition. Its a 64-Bit AMD chip with a 1-gig RAM machine, nothing spectacular considering the fact that it’s three years old. Now for the technically challenged, it means that the dame turns into burning coal within minutes and using it without a pillow will lead to your progeny being born with burn scars on their face! The feisty dame was exceedingly slow to boot up and was heating up and shutting down every ten minutes. In a moment of absolute stupidity it occurred to me that a fresh install of the operating system might help. Now in the geek world this may seem a routine procedure but when you have a machine that is acting weirder than Britney Spears it’s not quite as simple. So in went the WinXP disc and there began the trip down la-la-land as once the install began she shutdown owing to the heat. So here I am with one laptop whose adapter has given up and another which is is devoid an operating system. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, one of which included placing it right near the vent of the air conditioner on full blast I looked up towards the skies. Inspired by the above experiments, we decided to seek divine intervention and try out our own experiment though unworthy of a science fair entry! In a momentary lapse of reason it struck me that the coolest option on hand would be my refrigerator. The pic above should serve as evidence for the dastardly act as I shoved her into the lowest rack, but in vain. But two failed attempts after 52% led me to believe that even the fridge is no good for this hottie. Well the only other cooler place I could possibly think of was the freezer and there she went! After some prayer, for that was the last resort the cold air finally balanced out the heat emanating from the processor. This ain’t no joke but for real and only in the controlled environment of Mr.Freeze did she condescend and install. That my folks reassures our faith in the almighty and also goes to prove the title of this post that ‘There exists a god in the freezer‘!

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SR: Ha, like I have a choice. Thank you for inviting me though. Like you mentioned in my introduction I could only chose the path of righteousness hoping it would lead to the right doors. Fate has it that I’m remembered for murkier things as the years go by.

BB: C’mon you don’t have to say that people remember you for the good things you’ve done. Promises of good governance are made and are called as ‘Raam Rajya‘. The Ramayan is read in homes by all elders and you story is enacted every year by ‘Ramlila‘ troupes across northern India.

SR: At what cost? They call it ‘Raam Rajya‘ and present a corrupt and hollow system it often leads people to think that that probably was how times were under my rule. The Ramayan is
read
only in K-serialsRamayan is read only in K-serials by the oldest character in the daily soap and it is only a decoy as they snoop and eavesdrop on the household gossip. The ‘Ramlila‘ is no longer a popular event and is reduced to churning revenue less than a local village fair. Heck I believe they used it as a running theme in a movie and even the movie bombed, so tell me Baba what are you referring to?

BB: Ok you seem to be way smarter than you look and are well versed in current affairs, so lets move to a more comfortable area and talk about your life. How did you exactly feel at the precise moment when you father asked you to leave the kingdom and go into exile?

SR: I see you are a fan of that Barkha female , what are you expecting I’d answer. Its not rocket science to expect that I’d be shocked out of my wits and heartbroken. I was crowned king in the morning and then stripped of my throne later in the day. What were you expecting I’d say, do I look like WWF special envoy who’d clap his hands in joy at the very mention of the forest? Also I wasn’t going camping over the weekend, I was being exiled for fourteen years that’s three soccer world cups if you know!

BB: Well that more sounds like an Olympic gold medalist being strippedOlympic gold medalist being stripped of his medal after failing a dope test the following evening. All I ask is because the Ramanand Sagar version showed you embrace your fathers orders and leave the kingdom with a smile on your lips and a tear in your eyes.

SR: Oye, welcome to the world of television Baba. You think if they’d shown me stomping out of the kingdom it would have earned the same TRP? The smile on the face and tear in the eye scene enabled hem to play out close up scenes and sad music and stretch it for 20 minutes in slow motion. Add to this the numerous commercial breaks and gut wrenching drama that had viewers stuck to their seats and forgo their Sunday breakfast!

BB: You make a valid point after all you are from the illustrious Raghuvamsha! Let’s move to the abduction of your wife. You think that episode could have totally been averted had your brother not cut off Soorpanaka’s nose?

SR: Ah the famous nose-cut fiasco, I knew you’d bring it up. Well see Laxman did not literally chop her nose it was more metaphorically as they say in Hindi ‘Naak kaatna‘ which translates to insulting someone. You see he was away from his wife and missed her badly and when he saw this rakshasi in the guise of a beautiful damsel he was done by her charms and soon landed in her arms. What followed is PG-13 but you can imagine the rest. Trouble occurred when at a crucial point she asked him to ‘Say her name‘ and he blurted out ‘Urmila Urmila‘. This incensed her and she felt insulted, so you can’t blame a married man missing his wife to fantasize her!

BB: Whoa, They didn’t show this version either nor is it in any of the books. But then I’d take it since it’s form you. It’s funny how Laxman fantasized Urmila while in Soorpanakha’s arms for in our time we had a certain Ramu who fantasized a ravishing Urmila! That’s another story but you must share with our readers your feelings when you realized that your wife was missing. Did you know she was abducted or did you fear the worst, what was exactly running through your head?

SR: A man these days hits the bars and clubs when his wife goes to visit her parents for a couple of weeks. Here my wife was not even
in the same
country codemy wife was not even in the same country code without a return ticket and clearance at port-of-entry! Given a chance I’d down a few Long Islands, but then it soon get lonely in a forest without a women especially when you hear the animals making weird sounds. So after a day of merry making I began to miss the nagging and then set out to find her. Ofcourse they can’t tell you that so they must have told you that I was distraught, broke down and my tears created puddles. I swore on the mud that her feet had last touched to track her down irrespective of which timezone she was in and take down her abductor. This version sounds more better and TRP friendly so let’s take the other one off-record shall we?

BB: Nothing better than have another man take away your problems and double his eh? If making a marriage work was harrowing enough he had invited troubles by abducting another mans wife. You however had to seek the support of simians to form an army and march towards the south. How did that happen?

SR: I had no choice, every sane man thought I had lost it when I begged them to help me track my wife. I sent hundreds of messages to kingdoms seeking help to find my wife, I received twice the number of replies saying ‘Take mine‘. I was forced to turn to the less intelligent simians and cook up a sob story of how I missed my dear wifey who was held captive by a treacherous beast. Do you have any idea how hard it is to teach a bunch of monkeys warfare and make them foot soldiers? Damn I could have taught them the ‘Complete Reference Java‘ end-to-end and made them Sun Certified professional in any sweatshop with one tenth the effort.

BB: Talking of effort, you shot at Vaali who was fighting Sugriva while hiding behind a pillar. That doesn’t augur well for a man known for his righteousness, what do you have to say about that?

SR: Cut me some slack OK. They say all is fair in love and war, I was deeply in love with my wife and I wanted war. You are not married and hence you are unaware of the pain of separation. Vali had taken Sugriva’s wife captive and I could not see another man go through what I was going through. Plus he had wronged by stealing his brothers wife, you don’t seem to hold me responsible for killing the man that stole my wife though. Also try facing a raging 6ft monkey-mantry facing a raging 6ft monkey-man and shooting an arrow directly and then come to me before you ask me another of your smart questions.

BB: So now two wrongs make a right eh, well if you say so! Talking of monkey-men reminds me of a movie that came out recently I see they were a menace in you times as well. Movies also remind me that there is one being made on your arch enemy, The news is that they show him in a different light and the woman he abducts apparently falls for him! Your thoughts please…

SR: Ah brilliant, you not only celebrate him and make ballads but now even make movies glorifying him. Damn he gets to steal my wife, die bravely in war and yet walk away with all the sympathy and accolades. What do I get instead? years of separation from the missus and then having to banish her after a washerman spoke ill of me and then seeing her being swallowed by an earthquake and bring up the kids alone! Despite all this you make him a hero now and even add a supposed love track, damn you people!

BB: That didn’t seem to go down as expected, so lets shift tracks here. What’s your take on this new breed of vigilante who seem to uphold culture in your name. they beat up women for indecent behavior and received truckloads of pink underwear. You were sort of a chauvinist in your time weren’t you?

SR: Hold it there I say, My wife didn’t leave me for another man and infact was abducted. These idiots are using my name to carry out their fanaticism and fuel their own political ambitions. I have nothing to do with their despicable acts and should infact file for a copyright and defamation case. Who gave them the right to be called as my army, my monkeys were far more intelligent than these guys. I think I need to get on twitter and gather a billion followersget on twitter and gather a billion followers and then launch a scathing attack on these morons who tarnish my image.

BB: You surely will take responsibility for the burning of a train full of your supporters and the shameful event of a mosque demolition. Hadn’t they taken your name that train would have gone through peacefully and the same hold for your fanatics who brought down a mosque. Tell us, was there really a temple that stood there?

SR: You love to put me in the line of fire don’t you? Are you holding me responsible for a bunch of lunatics who razed a place of worship under the pretext that there stood my temple centuries ago. Without an iota of  proof or any common sense a rabid gang of lunatics were polarized into believing that there was a temple and went on with one of  the most despicable acts ever seen. Now you ask me if there was ever a temple there, what purpose does it serve? Will it bring back the mosque or the millions affected by the aftermath, will it get rid of the hatred or will people stop and not look for another issue to rake up? It doesn’t change a thing expect for a silly news flash, a bunch of panel discussions, some victory processions and even more hatred and religious tensions. You go on to claim that hadn’t the kar-sevaks chanted my name the Godhra carnage and its aftermath could be avoided. We never ask you to chant our names or build temples for us. We’ve never asked you to burn each other nor do we ask you to destroy places of worship. A few do it for their own selfish motives and the rest are just pawns in this game of power and religious narcissism. So please don’t drag us into this and especially me, I’ve already had my share and wish to stay clear of this mess.

BB: Ah trying to bridge the gap between religion and logic are we. I like the way you think though it doesn’t answer my questions but you’ve evaded them brilliantly. Talking of bridges reminds me of the one you built. There a huge controversy over a bridge like structure that connects Lanka to India and it is said to symbolize the one you built while you marched with your simian army. The starking resemblance it has to the one mentioned in mythology makes it a bizarre case and heavily believable. Do tell our readers the truth behind it and if it is really yours.

SR: I had a haunch you’d save this for the end. You’ve been catching me on the wrong foot ever since we began and now you come for the kill like a fast bowler coming hardlike a fast bowler coming hard at the tail with a sting in his deliveries. There is a section that wants to dredge the said bridge in favor of its rational beliefs and generate revenue to its ports via tolls. There is another section that wants to oppose it  sighting its mention in the scriptures and drive home the vote bank advantage. In the midst of all this political mileage my very existence is being questioned and I’m being asked to provide my Bachelors Degree and official transcripts. Look, I frankly don’t care who you chose to form the government just don’t drag my name into this imbroglio. Who cares if the bridge ever was built of the structure you see are it’s remains, does that light up a village. Will proving my existence bring water to the parched throats or a morsel to the under nourished? Will an official copy of my transcripts educate the millions or uplift those without basic amenities? How can you call it ‘Ram Rajya‘ while women are ill treated and children still prone to disease? Why are we even having this discussion in the first place? There is as much truth in the bridge and everything else as there is in this very interview taking place. It’s all about faith and upto you to chose what you wish to believe.

(Image Courtesy: hindujagruti)

PS: Title inspired by this song

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We now are aware of the imbalance but then what is the real cause for
such dwindling numbersreal cause for such dwindling numbers? The answer lies in the sudden race to get hitched and all over people seem to be getting picked up. The falling numbers are a result of high paced courtship for no one wants to get left out, its like everyone has realized that out of 1000 men 150 will easily remain single and everyone now wants to be part of the 850! Let us put our hypothesis to the social media test. This prompts us to look up our favorite social media tool which is largely popular among the fraandhips-making gentry of the nation. Yes it’s orkut where the coolest dudes sport smuggled imitation eyewear and heavily gelled hair in their profile pics! Apparently since this is where todays youth connects lets take a closer look to get some feelers. Let us randomly pull up 100 profiles each of the so-called cool dudes and dudettes and line up the statistics. One look at the relationship status column will tell you that close to 80% of the guys and 40% of the girls would be listed as single. Which in lay man terms means that for every 40 single girls out there, there are 80 morons chasing them. Also since the sex ratio stands at 85:100 that takes down our number to 34 while the guys remain at 80. This deep chasm will give you an idea of how it is out there and add to that the fact that kids these days are in relationships even before they clear high school.

While our sample size is small and we are no champions of opinion pollschampions of opinion polls we can still see a trend and this mad rush. Look around and think of all the women you know, how many of them are single? Think of all the guys you chat with, the singles easily will be twice the previous number. Even simpler, goto a bar on a Friday night and notice the number of hungry hawks scanning the area for a lonely lass. It’s quite simple and they all point in one direction, single women are fast disappearing and may soon outpace the tigers! Like all hypothesis we only propose and explain the problem statement with providing and possible solutions. Heck that’s what academia is built upon, piles of theories rewording the same theory with the addition of minor tweaks. If we began answering questions instead of just posing new ones even academia would be hit by recession then! With the falling numbers of single women the race has sure heated up and that has resulted in fear psychosis. In a state of paranoia we today see guys chasing and courting women who they might have not even glanced upon had it been another day. The current situation exerts tremendous pressure coupled with peer expectations that is forcing many strong willed men to give in. So now, do we save the men from making hasty decisions or do we save the numbers of single women that are drying up?

This post began from a chat conversation and was a inspired by the above comic. We’ve always excelled at spending our resources on nonsensical research and this is no different. By means of this post we hope to polarize the youth to pursue courting each other else face the inevitable singledom black-hole! The capital spent as a result will also benefit the malls, multiplexes, restaurants and bars there by contributing to the tottering economy.
PS: I’m perfectly fine and this was just a matter of discussion and nothing suggestive.

(Image inspired by: IndianChild – Save the girl child)

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Unsupportingly supporting actor – Male

Nominees:
Boman Irani – Love Story 2050
Anil Kapoor – Race
Amitabh Bachchan – Bhoothnath
Om Puri – Mere Baap Pehle Aap
Halla Bol – Pankaj Kapur
The award goes to: Generally all men other than the male lead are reduced to bufoonery and also-rans, very few step up tot he plate in an author backed role and deliver a stand-out performance. What we really mean is that their performances are so pathetic that you are zonked and the main lead begins to seem a lot less torturous. Boman Irani as a bumbling scientist was so horrifying in his Einstein parody that he managed to draw our attention from hating Hrithik to sign LoveStory 2050, wait a minute wasn’t that Harman? We’re glad Anil Kapoor did SDM, for now he can traumatize American TV audiences or atleast star in a revival of Star Wars as Chewbacca, but playing a horny fruit loving detective is way more traumatizing. The BigB ought to stop doing films for production houses on sentimental values, his undead avtaar was so painful that halfway through the movie we were praying for his son to return so that he could attain moksha and spare us the terror! When a seasoned actor like Pankaj Kapur is reduced to a vigilante-turned-nautanki doing streetplays you begin to cringe, however you realise it was his own doing to sign a film that had Ajay Devgan in it of all the people! The award however goes to Om Puri for his atrocious potrayal of a thargi buddha whose jawani ka candle refuses to go out thereby making him hit upon college girls old enough to be his daughter.

Unsupportingly supporting actor – Female

Nominees:
Sameera Reddy – Race
Juhi Chawla – Kismet Konnection
Jaya Bachchan – Drona
Vidya Malvade – Kidnap
Amisha Patel – Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
The award goes to: Ah the women, often caricatured as sisters, mothers or friends of the female lead. Every now and then you see someone in a stellar performance that leaves you in awe. This essentially translates to a uber raunchy item number or someone shrieking till the glass cracks in a jaw-dropping performance. So we have Sameera Reddy as silly milly where all she does is act dumb with a plunging neckline and juggle a few bananas and apples! Juhi Chawla took her astrologer character as ‘haseena bano jaan‘ in Kismet Konnection a bit to serious and went giggling on a tangent that would make any sane man want to slit his wrists. Jaya Bachchan added another achievement to her kitty by playing a stone statue with tears in Drona. Wait, she was stone only in the second half but then you don’t notice the wooden performance at all. Vidya Malvade gave all the soccer moms of the world a huge complex with her deep cleavage and butt hugging suits in Kidnap. The only problem however was that she looked way hotter than her daughter and many at times you’d be confused as to who was playing whom. The award however goes to Amisha Patel for scorching the screen with her silicon valley look in a yellow bikini in Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic. We aren’t the Ram Sene and we’d love to drool over some lazy lamhe in a pool, just that we didn’t expect that in a kids film!

Unplayable screenplay of the year

Nominees:
Drona
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Love Story 2050
Yuvraaj
Mission Istanbul
The award goes to: Well etched characters and great lines is what makes the screenplay memorable. In our case we’re looking at poor characterization and amateurish lines and who better than our elite list. For making the worst superhero movie ever, caricaturing the bad buy, a grumpy looking hero and a hackneyed plot Drona is an easy entrant. When you fail to recognize your husband without a moustache and can even see the almighty but them, it is implied that someone is suffering from serious creative writing deficiency. Time travel is always a dicey proposition and when that is coupled with crazy effects, weird hair, gadgets, talking teddy’s and a debutant it’s a disaster waiting to happen. That is precisely what happened as Love Story 2050 sunk without a trace and along with it the fortunes of the Bawejas. The idea of a news network partnering a terrorist outfit sounds interesting but when it is crippled with patchy lines and illogical sub plots, it finds it’s way here just like Mission Istanbul did. Big names often spring a surprise and this year Subhash Ghai takes the award with the obseletest of screenplays in Yuvraaj. If you still have an iota of doubt then kindly sample the following line, ‘Woh beta nahin hardcore anti-family man hain‘.

Non-existent story of the year

Nominees:
Mehbooba
Mere Baap Pehle Aap
Race
Kidnap
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
The award goes to: We always maintain that the story is the crux of a film though many like to disagree with us. To get on our list though all you need is to come up with the craziest of plots that is light years away from common sense and logic. Mehbooba is a classic example where a woman seeks solace and falls for a man unaware of the fact that it was his brother she was married to, who treated her badly and ditched her. Mere Baap Pehle Aap isn’t far away where two old men cavort after college girls and a son tries to get his father married so that his route gets cleared. What about Kidnap where a young lad takes revenge for a childhood grudge and holds a man’s daughter captive while she rolls in the sand and stabs him. Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic fared no better with an angel being assigned the duty of a few orphaned kids and then falling in love with their guardian. The kicker however and the eventual winner was Race where everyone was allowed to double cross each other, brothers put a price on the others head and one of them even came back from the dead.

Unbearable actor of the year – Female

Nominees:
Priyanka Chopra – Love Story 2050, Drona, Chamku
Katrina Kaif – Yuvraaj
Mallika Sherawat – Ugly aur Pagli, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam
Isha Koppikar – Ek Vivaah Aisi Bhi
Shriya Saran – Mission Istanbul
The award goes to: All eyes are always fixed on the leading lady and they have to look fantabulous even if they just woke up. Such are the gruelling demands of Indian cinema in addition to dancing, crying at the drop of a hat, emoting beyond normal levels and staying fit. We are huge fans of Katrina Kaif but despite our fascination we just couldn’t look beyond her shortcomings in Yuvraaj, blame then on her lines or maybe it’s just her. Mallika Sherawat decided to keep her clothes on just this once and despite acting drunk and psychotic for half the movie and slapping her boy all the while, she still managed to tumble. The Barjatyas love small town cinema, but Isha Koppikar running her fingers over a harmonium and mouthing lines on culture was a bit too much to tolerate. Southern siren Shriya Saran thought she’d scorch the screens as a dynamic reporter taken hostage in Istanbul, but she only managed to scorch the reels of the film and by snogging Zayed khan, she makes a grand entry! The queen bee however would be Priyanka with three disastrous movies, died in one and came back from the future, almost died in another and why are we even bothered bout the third?

Unbearable actor of the year – Male

Nominees:
Himesh Reshammiya – Karzz
Salman Khan – God Tussi Great Ho, Yuvraaj
Rahul Bose – Shaurya
Abhishek Bachchan – Drona
Bobby Deol – Chamku
The award goes to: The Indian cinema hero is the epitome of manhood, the macho image, the savior, the upholder of justice, the voice of the downtrodden and messiah to the helpless. Salman Khan sets the bar really high with some unbelievably horrible acting in both films and look totally distraught and bored. Abhishek Bachchan was close behind him with the grumpiest looking superhero avtaar where he was outperformed by a CGI blue petal. Rahul Bose tried every bit to wipe out memories of Tom Cruise from our minds and ensured that we’d shudder even when someone mentions the movie ‘Few Good Men’. Bobby Deol never disappoints and once again did what he’d done over the years, roar and shoot a few hundred people as an undercover vigilante. The top dog and the undisputed champion in this category shall be Himes Bhai for his constipated expressions, horrible wig and the best line of the year ‘Bolo Kamini, Bolo Bolo Bolo…‘

Most Disgruntled Director of the year

Nominees:
Ajay Devgan – You Me Aur Hum
Subhash Ghai – Yuvraaj
Kunal Kohli – Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Goldie Behl – Drona
Satish Kaushik – Karzz
The award goes to: The director is the captain of the ship and commands the cast and crew to sail in the right direction. A success is attributed to the team but failure enlists the director as the sole culprit. Ajay Devgan attempted to use his home production as his debut venture and failed miserably. The audience were as clueless as the lizard on the wall that kept drawing Kajol’s attention. The showman pulled out a story form his archives and got ARR to score the audio but that nor a flopless Katrina could revive this crappy plot that had hit its expiry date 20yrs ago. An angel coming to answer the prayers of a few orphans may have seemed promising to Kunal Kohli, but some poor lines, bad acting and a boring storyline ensured that the crowds stayed away. Drona was Goldie Behl’s dream project but this heavy on graphics movie lacked almost everything right form a believable superhero to a decent plot. But for having the gall to remake Karz and that to with Himes bhai beats everyone else to the award. It’s like introducing a diamond in a game of rock-paper-scissors which wins hands down.

Most treacherous film of the year

Nominees:
Hello
Karzzz
Drona
God Tussi Great Ho
Tashan
The award goes to: Here we come to the last award of the day and the biggest of them all. A film encompasses all the above markers and packages them together. We’ve never read Chetan Bhagat’s book but if this movie was even 10% close to the print version then we’d consider ourselves lucky to have missed the book. Silly stereotypes, silly subplots, tacky sets, out of place lines, Hello had every thing go wrong. Karz was a movie that should never have been made in the first place and most certainly not with Himes bhai. They then took the story and set it in South Africa but still maintain a Kali-ka-mandir apart from other mindless things. If Drona is supposed to be setting a trend then we’d pray that superhero movies not be made at all. It’s a bit confusing when your hero is the scary grumpy guy while your villain is the bufoon. Tashan was a movie so silly that some actually began enjoying it. A stylish bhojpuri movie being sold as an A-grade Hindi movie was hard to digest though. The pick of the lot would be God Tussi Great Ho for the worst ever adaption ever possible. Even if they’d made the original frame-to-frame it’d be watchable. Instead they add terrorists, an office rivalry and other subplots.

PS: We hope you enjoyed these awards as much as we did bringing them to you!

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