Deeper down...

I walk back to my room with drooping shoulders after spending eleven and half hours at office doing material estimation like a machine, opening multiple windows in SAP and running half a dozen code searches before ascertaining the availability of little component in a whole huge piping scheme. Life continues mocking me and keeps taking me to the edge every evening while I languish alone in my room with books and magazines opened around me. My eyes refuse to read the newspaper, I truly feel dead, if ever there was any feeling like that.

Even after spending more than 7 hours in the bed under a blanket I am just as tired as I was the previous evening. The fatigue seems to have a cumulative effect on the mind and the body. No effort seems to freshen me up. As I stand under the cold spray for the customary 5 to ten minutes, there is no effect. I just stand there like a corpse propped up with poles. And then I take out a shirt, a pair of trousers and clean socks. As dead as ever I walk off to the mess for a breakfast and finally board someone's car and go to office. I am scared for driving my bike lest I drove it faster than I could control. I have decided to take lifts till I feel more alive again.

Once I am in office, the reticence to talk to people or socialize return. I work as long as I sanely can and then I go insane. The same things go over my head, over and over again. I don't read mails, I don't reply to them, I am just indifferent to people and why shouldn't I be?

Only I am responsible for the mess I am in today and no one can really bring me back to life, therefore where's the point? where's the point in putting up a facade when I am not that good an actor off the stage?

There is no positivity anywhere... there is nothing good happening.

I have started accepting it now, everyday as I walk back to my room with the drooping shoulders, I am dead. truly, dead.

Relapse

Just when you start taking the wind under your wings for granted, one little jolt grounds you with sudden devastation of getting hit by a sledge hammer. Life is fine as long as you are looking at it within a fixed framework of people, job, salary, expertise and skill. The moment something from the outside probes the walls of the fragile comfort zone you had started building around yourself, the discomfort returns.
The feeling that eats you away from within, leaving behind an empty shell, devoid of a soul; a canister empty of its contents. The contents that have been burned away by circumstances, luck, fear and at times, even misplaced trust and thoughtless ambitions. Groping for the good old past and refusing to accept a dim future, you tread your present like a zombie, confounding every second of a life that would better not be there, since its being wasted anyways. When twenty three years of existence gives you only 3 and a half years worth of memories, there’s absolutely nothing to feel great about. Such a life is a failure.
There will come a time when you’ll not be able to get in touch with your peers because they are much more advanced and socially acceptable than the rustic vagabond that you have made yourself.

But then its too late now, isn’t it. There’s no turning back and you can already see life sporting that mocking grin as the sun rises to herald another day you have to live through to make the journey a day shorter, desperately groping for something to remember, a little conversation, something to remember. Something to take to your grave. Because life, as it is being lived, will not last too long.

As good as it gets...

The last time I saw this movie from beginning to end without moving the mouse to the progress bar was at Sujan and Aney’s Flat, in Bangalore on Deepti’s Computer along with Bhargav and Sikandar. That was the last time we buggers spent some time together before being thrown to corners of two different countries.
But as Andy puts it,
“Hope… is a good thing, maybe the best thing” And I am still hoping that the day will come when all of us will sit around a table and see this movie once again.

This time however I viewed it on Shobhith’s computer in a Hostel room along with Shobhith and Patel. But this time the hope line had receded in the back ground, guess I have already put it into my system…. The fact that hope is probably the best thing.
The lines that caught my attention this time were,
“Some birds just cannot be caged, their wings are too bright”
I hope to fly away someday to a better place, a better neighbourhood… to a better life and not become institutionalized as would be the case if I did hang on for too long.

The one movie that everyone should see: Shawshank Redemption, because “Salvation lies within”.

blah!

And then again.... after the fun comes the time of reckoning.
I remember in Class three I had a teacher called Mrs. Gayner who was probably one of the best teachers one could have when he is in third standard. She would let us go and play around and still make sure we never broke those formations we were made to walk around in.
But that is not the point, the subject of this post is something that she had said in the broken hindi with a thick Irish accent,
"Pehle majaa, phir sajaa".
Sometimes things remain with you for eternity, I haven't seen Mrs. Gayner for more than 14 years now, but everytime I think how bad I feel now that I have to work so much after those carefree days in College, I always come up with that one sentence,
"Pehle Majaa, phir sajaa"!

Honeymoon Travails

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed, questions raised and comments made in the following article are completely my own and should not be interpreted to represent the view of anyone related to me.

1. Why would you, (anyone for that matter) want to go on a Honeymoon with a bus full of other couples who are perfect strangers?

2. What kind of people bark and purr on the first night on honeymoon?

3. How often do honeymooning couples from all over the country, across communities travel in the same bus for honeymoon?

4. How does a Gay Indian man differ from a Gay NRI?

5. How does a Bengali woman drape her saree so that it comes off at every half chance?

6.When do superheroes find superheroes to marry?

7. How do you follow a bus on an imported sports bike without being noticed?

And last question....

8. How do you define a totally mindless comedy?

Your answer lies in the heading... go watch the movie and before you set out for the theatre, please extract your brains and leave it well preserved in the house. Exposing it to so much anomaly can take its toll!

Disappointing silence

The woman is brilliant. That is, she's brilliant considering three things, one, She's from the U.S.A, two, She's a newcomer and this is her first silverscreen appearance and three, she's just a kid!

The storyline is non existent. There is no story, as expected though. The whole film rides on the theme. There's nothing much supporting it. The story of a man falling in love with a girl less than a third of his age is too big a first statement for the director to attach something to it in the form of a well thoughtout story line, proper characterization of the supporting actors or even a thoughtful end to the story. Someone has to tell our man that silence is not a great medicine for all circumstances. The same silence that awed the audience in Sarkar seems overused throughout the movie and even thrust on the actors at certain places. Just like you shouldn't typecast an actor, you shouldn't typecast an art, in this case, the art of using silence to higlight emotions... at times it just doesn't fit.

Jiah Khan impresses alright. But the character is essentially flawed. She plays an estraged kid traumatised by the loss of a father and an extramarital relationship her mother is involved in. The fact that her attraction to Vijay could even be a daughterly inclination has been grossly overlooked to give the movie a 'Lolita' angle. It would hae been a more complete portrayal of the situation had that angle been explored in a couple of scenes.

The character of the wife and her brother looked really stiff. Except for the one places where she loses her cool, Vijay's wife is just another suspecting Indian woman who gives up everything for the family and expects the family to give up everything for her, in turn.

And finally, the trauma of a girl when she finds out about her father having an affair with her friend is also underplayed. There could be two reasons for it, either the person playing the role wasn't upto it or the role itself was weakened to highlight 'the other woman'. Eitherways, these are some points which could have been explored more at the expense of the long Nishabdh scenes which were meant for the audience to track the path of Amitabh Bachchan's tears as they roll down his cheek.

There's no point talking about the man himself for he's made a habit of surpassing all his previous performances in every new film he does and whether its weeping for a seperated wife in Baghban or shedding tears for an 18 year older lover in Nishabdh he does it with equal wizardry.

All said and done, Nishabh would have been a great watch had there been a little more shabdh in it.

Saturday

There was no hangover! I slept like a kid till eight in the morning and since the guys hadn't awakened by eight, I had to sleep for another couple of hours before it was time for the "household" to rise and decide to conquer PVR. Yeah, thats exactly what was decided!

We (thats suhel, Arjun and I) decided on a Goan Lunch at Bernardo's (which turned out to be the best lunch I have had in more than six months. The last time happened to be our farewell lunch at Inchara in Bangalore) and go watch Nishabdh and The Last King of Scotland.

By the time we decide to leave the flat, time was already running out. The lunch was ordered in a hurry and gobbled up in 10 minutes flat.

The other two people would agree that we didn't talk too much while having our lunch, especially after making the error of assuming someone else's lunch to be ours and smirking to ourselves when we figured the truth, while that someone else, rather, the two 'someone' elses considered us to be nothing less than hungry hogs.

Nishabdh couldn't live up to expectations and by interval we were sure that we wanted to watch something else to lift our mood before we went in for Forrest Whitaker's magnum opus.

Therefore, the decision to go in for Honeymoon Travels Private Limited was made and the tickets, procured in a jiffy. I was lined up for my first true movie marathon of my life! (Three Shows starting at 3:40, 5:15 and 8:45 respectively!)

Honeymoon travels wasn't too bad a movie as long as you left your brains at home and sat there to enjoy the mindless comedy, but then again, you would need your brains to appreciate the brilliance of Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi. And if you were planning to get into the theatre for another movie called The Last King of Scotland, you had better run home and get your brains, whatever little bit of it you have.

We walked out of PVR at 11 in the night and I can bet that beside the movies, I probably had the greatest variety of flesh I ever had in one day. Starting with hot and sour fish, Goanese style Chicken cooked in coconut paste and spicy pork, moving on to chicken Hotdog at the theatre and ending the day with half a grilled chicken! Thats a lot of flesh and I can say with full conviction that I enjoyed every last bit of it!

One hell of a Saturday!

A Beginning...

The get away seems to be working perfectly. Imagine how the expectations would shoot when a weekend starts with the teacher's scotch whiskey, two perfect strangers who don't remain strangers the first time they talk. Endless chat sessions about Simon and Garfunkel, Floyd and everything under the sun that we have talked about at lengths in college. Sitting with the tall glasses under a star lit Gurgaon sky, for a moment I thought there are too many other things in life which i am either ignoring or am totally ignorant about... lets hope the next 48 hours help me discover at least something that I might be missing.
A rocking start to what promises to be one of those few remarkable weekends that somehow manage to leave a lasting mark on your life.

Its an ordeal...

to leave the past in the past and move ahead. To accept that the past is all that was and never will be again. To teach the self that how much ever you try to go back to the past, you'll only end up hurting yourself.

To deny the present is a crime, the resist the future is a greater crime... but to yearn for the past is the greatest.

What was there, will always remain, whats there now will move into the "was" account with the setting of the sun and the turning of the wheels and what's still there will silently pass us by to become a part of the "was" while we still try to get back to it and salvage some happy memories...

This'll sound pure gibberish, but its an ordeal all the same.

They Banned Orkut!!!

Finally the penultimate nail in the coffin of my newfound communication enthusiasm was hammered home by the systems administrator. Officially orkut has been banned at Mathura Refinery.

Come to think of it, its a good thing for people like others who spent a lot of time on orkut, but not the honest and sincere officers like me who would indulge in a little harmless flirting every now and then! Maybe its a blessing in disguise.. I'll at least use my net surfing time for more productive causes...

But let this be the commemorative post marking the sudden removal of orkut from my otherwise mundane life.

And I will be totally cut off the day they decide to cut Blogger out... Maybe I should start thinking about an alternate blog already.

Another one of those days...

This again used to be another one of those days when the man suddenly felt how stoic he had been in ignoring this one day with all his might. He never quite had any plans for this day, never had time to see if anything could be done about the fact that he never have time for the day and never thought the reason for not finding time was the simple fact that he never had anyone to spend that time with.

Since the day the knowledge about this brilliantly expensive day was registered in his brain he tried to think about a lot of different ways in which he would like to spend (on) the day, but the only gap that remained was the absence of a human entity to spend the day with him. Slowly the boy grew up into a man, the little bit of hope that still remained in him turned into stark cynicism and the man decided that he had had enough of stupid "western" traditions and that he would join Shiv Sena if he didn't find himself a girlfriend within a certain timeframe.But then, our man wasn't as thoughtless as he thought he was and he finally managed to do neither of the two things he thought he would do. Neither did he join Shiv Sena, nor did he find a girlfriend.

In fact, it was she who found him.

And yet, the story doesn't end here.. whether they lived happily ever after or they just finished off after a tea break still remains to be seen.

Rain drops keep falling on my helmet...

Finally, I could summon enough courage to drive to office on a rainy morning. The glistening higway gave the impression of the typical "slippery" surface that all the moms in the world will ask you to avoid. The trucks and cars drove past me like shooting stars! And the pitter-patter of the raindrops on my helmet reminded me of Simon and Ganfunkel...

Even before I started out on the bike, I had this feeling that I might get terribly drenched even before I was halfway through, but somehow, the "freedom" idea got better of me and the final decision was taken the moment the engine roared to life, the first time I kicked it!

By the time I reached the highway, it had started poring.

The dark, forboding sky overhung like the sulky attendant you find in most of those second grade restaurants. The cars and trucks zooming past me left, right and center didn't increase the comfort level either. The landscape however was a treat for the eyes. The usually greyish leaves on the babul trees lining the sides of the higway wore a rich green hue, as did the shrubbery covering most of the otherwise barren landscape. The kind of thing that makes you wonder, "This place isn't as bad as I though it would be!"

The dripping visor of the helmet, the drenched trousers and same raindrops pricking the uncovered tips of my fingers with the severity of surgical needles somehow made the whole experience worth it...

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red

Cryin's not for me

'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'

Because I'm free

Nothin's worryin' me

This one's for my little girl.

Another Week...

I know its become more of a rule than exception now. But I came to office on a Sunday yet again. This time however, the work had to be done before I got my sense tickled by the blood sucking contractors again. Therefore, I decided to make the 6 km trip on the highway to office for one good reason, to make preparations to issue as much material as possible to keep my contractors busy.

Then there was the big decision to make... whether to have lunch at Mac'Donald's or drive all the way back to the mess for the Sunday lunch of chicken and steaming rice? (The kind of difficult decisions one is forced to make when there's absolutely nothing important happening in his life!)

The bike made the decision for me. I hadn't been riding it too much and have to clock at least 300 kms before the first service date which happens to be the fifteenth of this month. Therefore, an extra dozen of kilometers were clocked and lunch was consumed at the mess with the usual gay gluttony and an extra bowl of the spicy gravy!

The second half at office was more productive than I had thought it would be and by the time I was satisfied with the day's work it was already past four thirty! Another ride back home, a couple of rounds in the township and a piping hot cup of tea in the windy morose weather punctuated the evening.

Ended up watching American Pie yet again at night and slept off feeling really good :)

A nice Sunday, even though I went to office!

My Country...

My Country...

Words will pollute the sanctity of pictures, click here for more

From Good Morning to Namaste

The metamorphosis of the Missionary School-educated, English bugger continues...

There was a time when we were taught that we have to wish our teachers wherever we saw them, be it the corridors in school or the famous stinky Maach Bajar near the Burnpur Railway Station. There were instances the the fear or awe of a teacher made me forget the time of the day and blabber a poorly articulated "Good Morning" standing under a street light at seven in the evening.

But that was a long time back, by the time I reached college I had perfected the art of wishing anyone who looked like a professor and at times I was even lucky enough to get replies from some of them. I can still remember hearing a faint "Good Morning" from Dr. M Ganesh everytime I met him in the dark corridors of Faculty Division III... But again, these incidents belong to a fast fading past. I am still in the process of getting into my present life.

When I stepped into my present role of an officer in a Nationalised company where every bit of official communication has to happen in Hindi as well as English, the futility of my Proficiency in the Art of Good Morning slowly dawned upon me. Except the handful of people at office who still accept english as a mean of official communication, its really difficult not to feel a bit disillusioned about the fact that the first eighteen years of my life were spent off in learning a foreign custom! All you have to say here to get noticed and nodded at is Namaste, whether its a workman, an officer, a stranger or even the Big Boss.

The sweeper who wipes the floor says "Saab Namaste"and the casual labourer who usually fills my jug from the cooler says, "Namashkar Sir" with the Sir trailing off into silence as if the utterance of one english word scathes his soul.

I guess I am just getting absorbed into the Indian Customs of which I was never a part, and its about time I did.

GURU : A review

GURU is the story of one man who dared to dream, and dream big. Through and through its a celebration of the human ego, the perception of being intensely alive and intensely aware of the fact that we just cannot stop at one point of time and tell ourselves, "this is enough, this is what I had bargained for, nothing more and nothing less", for there is no limit for more.

This is probably the first time that an Indian movie has dared to move away from the beaten track of "love and truth and the ultimate victory of both". The fact that neither love nor truth form an indispensible part of our everyday existence is underlined time and again in GURU. For a change we have been able to bridge the gap between idealism and realism through GURU, and the film is commendable for that bare fact, if nothing else. Another aspect of the film is the sublte yet positive treatment of capitalism. In the present scenario where we can see a steady decline in the communist sentiments all across the world and more so in India, perhaps this emphasis on the ultimate importance of profit could not have been timed better. Munafa is all that matters and thats exactly what has been pointed out. Even though the moral issues have been slightly undermined, I can only recall what Mario Puzo quoted in the beginning of his magnum opus, The Godfather, "Behind every Great fortune, there a Great Crime"- Balzac.

Coming to the film itself, this is definitely the comeback vehicle for Abhishek Bachchan, even though some people claim Sarkar to be the the movie that turned him around, we have to understand that after Yuva this is the first movie where he hasn't shared screen space with his dad and still delivered a powerhouse performance. Definitely the big B's pride is not un called for. In Abhishek's portrayal of Gurubhai, one could see the emergence of one of the most prolific and resourceful actors of the present day. We can only hope that this is just the beginning of a long and entertaining career. Aishwarya Rai is brilliant in her role as the wife of a business tycoon, rising above the normal cravings of a lower middle class woman to fulfill the needs of her dreaming husband. Mithun Chakraborty, Vidhya Balan and Madhavan did their bits convincingly, but every bit of brilliant acting complemented each other and made the experience really enriching. No mention needs be made of Rahman's music. Its brilliant, but then thats routine. His consistency is enviable, though there is a scarcity of humable tunes in this particular album. The cinematography is also crisp and a treat for the eyes.

Though there are traces of movies like The Godfather (Gurubhai keeps making "offers they can't refuse" and keeps talking to "reasonable men"), The Fountainhead (During the final discourse in the courtroom, I couldn't help seeing glimpses of Howard Roark) and A walk to remember (The poignant story of Maddy and Vidya Balan) in GURU, at the end of the day... its a winner in all the departments, bold theme, powerful acting and the Hallmark of Mani Ratnam's Direction.

A must watch.

Bike... Finally!

That's what my Bike looks like... I am really sorry about the background though.

End of days

Another year comes to an end. Definitely the most eventful one in life till date. Lots of people have come and gone, lots of places have been visited. I have travelled to almost all the corners of the country during the Internship and training periods. Bangalore, Vadodara, Mumbai, Agra, Delhi, Mathura and Pilani. That makes it a little of east, west, north and south of the country.

I have gone through periods of extreme loneliness and isolation, mental turmoil and I have moved from sharing one cubicle with three other people to having one of my own!

I have bought the three basic necessities of solitary living a camera, a laptop and a bike.

And I have successfully managed to push myself to the depths of self pity and come bouncing back to feeling good...

Everything put together its been a year worth remembering for all it had brought along and everything it took away.

Indulgence

Its been a really long time since I had indulged myself like this. One evening I decided to relive one of those innumerable college evenings we'd spent, watching one movie after another. This time however, I had to limit my indulgence to one movie, I chose Khosla ka Ghosla as I hadn't seen it till date and people who'd seen it had a nice thing or two, to say about it. Therefore I decided to rent out the CD, buy some Bhujia and a bar of chocolate ( the kid inside is still painfully alive :P)

I had an early dinner, just like the BITS days and then snuggled under my razai with the computer on my lap, the packets of bhujia on one side of my bed and the munching on the chocolate, I commanded my indulgent self, "Let the movie begin!"

What followed was a watered down version of Jeffrey Archer's Not a penny more, not a penny less, brilliantly Indianised. But now a days, you don't need to do much to Indianise anything, do you? Add a couple of cut shots of the busy and filthy streets, a plan view of a dilapidated Slum area, the typical Indian dream of going abroad, the dad opposed to the idea in principle, the tearful mother and the very familiar helpful neighbours. The formula just cannot backfire. In each of these six elements there's something that each Indian identifies with and therefore all the director has to do is to integrate these elements seamlessly into a story and voila! Even some of the European Classics can be used to portray the Indian Household!

But I shouldn't prevaricate, I would grade the movie at three and a half stars. The performances of Boman Irani and Anupam Kher are commendable, its always a joy to watch these people on the screen. Sometimes you have to accept that the best actors come straight from the theatre.

Ranvir Shorey was brilliant with his accent, not for a moment did it seem that the guy was acting. Everyone else was mediocre, in this regard, a special mention has to be made of Tara Sharma, someone needs to put a knob in her throat to regulate her volume with respect to the dialogue she's delivering.

However, by the time the movie got over, I was happy with the choice of movie. Light hearted comedy with a nice ending. The eprfect choice for stress free viewing.

To Chitra and Arun...

Sometime in March,2004: Two students were sitting in a public car parking outside the grand hyatt at the Bikaji Kama Place in South Delhi and proof reading a sheaf of pages which happened to be the first daft of Cactus Flower, 2004, official magazine of the students’ Union of BITS,Pilani. One of them turned out to be a budding playwright and the other ended up with an engineering job with one of the foremost public sector concerns of the Country.

December, 2006: Two men walked into the lobby of the posh head office of Engineers India Limited. They were on an official tour to EIL to gather some information required for some forthcoming project. Of the two men, one was a fresh graduate and new employee and the other, a veteran in engineering activities in Indian Oil Corporation.

The common string connecting these two isolated incidents is that same boy who happened to land himself an engineering job. Me.
The way life changes your outlook is really amazing. Imagine the same me sitting at a car parking today and reviewing my stress analysis files! I can’t. The place has remained the same. Just that Arun isn’t there with me sitting beside me and pointing out one error after another. People running to office, the early morning hawker selling his ware to whoever has enough time to lend him a ear. The palpable busyness of the area was almost haunting. Somehow I missed my companions of the past too much.
This one is for Chitra and Arun for having made my first Cactus Flower trip unforgettable. The memory remains.