Life, Death and Everything

A sense of helplessness, shock, grief and overpowering anger. This is what everyone must be feeling right now. The worst part is, inspite of the losses, we would all go back to our routine lives with a ridiculous ease. We are getting used to this, aren't we? Infact how many of us have deviated from our routine lives even under this situation?

Still it feels good to see people cheering our security forces, prodiving them with snacks and moral support as they die so that we can live.

I just wish I could be in Mumbai.

I am Falling...

Ardent followers of my blog (me, myself and my virtual pet cat, Bimbo) know that I have always accomplished the mammoth task of unravellling the mysteries of life, universe and everything here, be it the deeper meaning of life or the spiritual context of some monkey slapping the other. Now, It's high time I took another small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind - the one that might make people take giant leaps out of their balconies/windows into the nothingness below.
Today I will expose the biggest mistake in the history of mankind:
Long, long ago (in the 1660s), a middle-aged man who had as exciting a social life as that of a dead tree (comparable to mine, but I can atleast talk to myself; being a psycho helps), had nothing else to do on a lazy afternoon. He was meandering across his garden, watching the snails compete on a cross-terrain race, and shouting encouragements, and occasionally glancing at the clouds taking different shapes in the overhead sky. But he didn't stop there, and that's why I have to hit my keyboard hundreds of years later now, when I could have comfortably read out self-decomposed unwritten poems to my virtual companion, Bimbo.
Back in the garden, the guy sat under an apple tree and having been utterly neglected by the snails, started recounting to the tree, the incident when once he was standing at the platform, waiting for his train and was thrown a few yards away by an ill-tempered middle-aged lady who was rushing to catch her train and collided with him on the way. He had struggled back on his feet, taken his pink notebook out and written his sudden realization down: "Every body continues to be in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted on by some unbalanced force to act otherwise", when he was thrown off by a few meters in the other direction by another collision with the same lady who had realised that she was running after the wrong train.
The apple tree was so moved by the story that it wished it had legs to literally move away to save its life, but obviously it coudn't. The ordeal was particularly frustrating for the apple in the lowest branch, nearest to him and his words. As a last ditch effort to put an end to this, it fell.
It just fell and hit His head. He looked up, down, right and left; scratched his head and took his pink notebook out. The rest as they say is history.. er..physics, sorry! He noted down something which he called the law of gravitation which deals with how bodies with mass attract each other. The law, which is not consistent with quantum mechanics and even doesn't have experimental evidence on what actually causes it.
The mistake he made was to look outwards while the answer lay within.

What he didn't realise is that life sucks. It did then, as it does now. His life did, my life does. Gravity is a hoax.
Life sucks the happiness out of you as with apples from a tree. When your expensive vase tips over to fall on the floor and dissolves into a million pieces, when an important sheet of paper disappears into a man-hole, when a Sachin Tendulkar skier lands on Symonds' palms or when people fall (from grace) in love, it's only life's way of reminding us:
Life Sucks.

Acknowledgements: The discussion I had with a friend once and a T-shirt.

Apologies to: All my physics teachers from school/college.

P.S. The race was won by a snail called Appy Singh.

Street Hawk!

In the last few days, my literary adventures have been limited to filling in laptop declaration forms at the entry and exit of my (what Dilbert would call) sensory deprivation chamber. Having been too lazy to look at a workaround (not that it was dancing in front of my eyes, in a kathakali costume), I have been going through the daily routine of writing my name, project details, machine serial numbers, and striking out names of the portable media devices that I don't carry. Occasionally though, I have juggled with the idea of writing Sukumar Ray-esque verses or Didi-esque slogans on the margins to spice up the proceedings, but then I have, till now been successful in fighting that instinct.
It's been a long time since I last blessed cyberspace with my dripping-with-wisdom words and if some people had been celebrating the halt in server space wastage, I have only one thing to say: Sorry to disappoint you folks, but I am back and today I will write about my bicycle.

It has got two tyres, a seat, derailleurs, handle bars and a sense of humour.
In the early nineties when people my age were crazy about cycles with thick-as-a-boa constrictor tyres and herculean frames, I got myself a black, sleek, "super light city bike" - as it used to be advertised. I learnt cycling on it, something which the wise men advise against. This learning business, according to them, is best done on other's machines, for it's quite taxing on the vehicle.
My bicycle took the blows generously. I have always been a fair weather friend to it, always slipping away at the last moment whenever I sensed a tumble, specially while learning to get down. I have banged on walls while trying stunts, on other cyclists while trying I dont know what; I have skid through the road while trying to swap hands on the handlebars (try it, it's not that easy) and knifed through every pool of stagnant water on the road just for the fun of it. But it has never complained, except for making strange noises, especially after a mud-bath.
Oh and yes, it has got a wicked brain too.
Whenever I'd be on the middle of a crossing with vehicles charging in from all directions:
1. The brakes would stop working.
2. The bell would get jammed.
And I would invariably have to:
1. Throw my legs at the ground to get some friction so that I can bring it to halt before I bring someone down on the road.
2. Be amazed at how smooth the brakes and bell would work just at the next moment when not needed. Especially infront of the mechanic who would, in turn be amazed at someone bringing a cycle with perfectly functioning parts for repair.
But riding it was/is great fun. You cannot compare anything to the feeling of the breeze sliding through the crew-cut hair (specially the region above the ears and back of the head!) while pedalling through the beautiful roads of my hometown.
Our relationship has suffered many lows, like the one when one of my friends rode it to meet his girlfriend (you don't need to lend things to school buddies, they just get them from you when they want! ) in a cybercafe and completely forgetting about it's existence, took a romantic rickshaw ride out of the shop to her home. The next afternoon saw a whirlwind of activities including:
1. My calling him to get my cycle back and his rushing to my place and declaring that it was left in front of some cybercafe.
2. The two of us rushing to the cybercafe, obviously not finding my cycle outside, quizzing the security guard, being told that probably it might have been picked up my some mobile police van and that we need to go to the police to have any hopes of getting it back.
3. Under the advice of the security guard, going to the nearest police station, meeting the Kader Khan look-alike inspector and his taking out a map of the city and after many minutes of pan-chewing, telling us that area falls under some other police station.
4. Our calling up an uncle of my friend who besides being a blind Ganguly fan is some high official in the police force, his tracking the cycle down to some police station, and finally our reaching there, finding it reclining against a cell and getting it without much hassles, thanks to the background work done by our beloved "Ganguly-Uncle".
5. My kicking that friend on his backside - one that would make Roberto Carlos proud (Well, not really. I was infact too relieved to get my black beauty back. So much so, that I even dropped him home, on it of course).

It's still there. The roads, though changing quite fast, are still quite pretty and the air too has more of oxygen than carbon monoxide. Even now, whenever I go home, I take it out, dust it and go out on my royal excursions.

As one wise man had once remarked:

If you have a perfectly conditioned cycle, you don't need a girlfriend.

(Go hang yourself if you haven't yet figured out who that wise man is!)

Acknowledgements:

1. NC for that rickshaw ride and the discussion on rickshaws and bringing back memories of my black beauty.
2. Hero cycles for making "Impact". As you can see, that had quite an impact!

Imported Wisdom

Here's something a friend wrote. I am her first publisher!

The red lights blazed across the inky black sky-a devilish concoction
Down on the street the mobs swarmed out in hoardes
Painted faces, macabre masks
Loud banners screaming freedom
there was nothing subtle about this independence
A stupid boy raised his voice above the blaring horns
Are we really free he asked a sea of callous faces
They shoved him, pushed him, pulled out his unstained shirt
Another aberration with the order of chaos
Traitor Traitor-the crowd rose to a crescendo
they read out his order of execution -the justice of the mob
The neon lights blazed brighter-
the devil loved the stench of human blood
-- RR

Paranoid Celluloid

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.



Hats off to the makers.

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free..."

It is difficult. Trust me, it's damn difficult to create that kind of an impact again.

He chances upon, amidst hundreds of books, a long playing record. He slides it out of the blue cover, blows off the dust and carefully places it on the player. The officer, busy with attending nature's call is caught totally unawares as Mozart starts flowing and filling up the space. The officer calls out to him. He, by then, is in another world altogether. He locks the restroom from the outside, with the officer caught within, switches on the public address system and brings the microphone close to the record player.

Music fills the air in the prison. His fellow prisoners, who were on with their daily bone-crushing jobs stopped for a while, amazed, staring at the loudspeaker which till then had only blared out orders, abuse and the siren. The warden, with the other officers rushes to his office and finds it locked from the inside. Through the glass pane he was visible. Sitting, leaning back on a chair, his hands behind his head and legs crossed on the table. And with a smile on his lips.
The warden barks at him; asks him to open the door.
He leans forward, turns the volume higher and looks up at the warden. At this moment you can catch a glimpse of the sparkle in his eyes. The smile has broadened.

Yes, they broke the door open and he was switched from his prison cell to solitary confinement for two weeks. But even there, as he says later, he had Mr. Mozart for company.
But how? They surely wouldn't have left him the record player in the "hole", as solitary confinement cells are known.
He taps his head and his heart and smiles. and says "I have it in here".

One of the best cinematic moments ever, this definitely would have had Mozart smiling from the heavens. Also the Lumiere brothers and definitely me. In my case, though, from my room. (Not that it can't be called heaven. After all this is where I sleep hours together, keep staring at the ceiling, day dream, get nightmares, and keep making plans for taking over the world.)
Was it the sheer defiance or the celebration of freedom that makes it this special?
It has to be both.
For those few moments, the man was nobody's prisoner. He could unplug from the constraints thrust upon him by life and create a momentary world which was entirely his own. That is freedom at its unadulterated, purest form.
Probably therein lies the lesson for all who keep being led by life rather leading their own lives. It's always a free choice whether to create "the prison" around, or to dissolve the constraints or rules that tie us down.
There can be no 'statue of liberty'. Liberty is alive and fluid, like the red viscous liquid in our veins.

And squeezing out even one such moment would be enough for a lifetime.

What cannot be helped...

Let us all observe a two-minute silence.

The world deserved better.

Montu, Kanti Shah and Lenny

These days, when I am not sleeping or thinking about sleeping or recovering from oversleep fatigue, I am mostly watching.

Well, I am allegedly working on weekdays and on nights apparently solving puzzles on paper napkins in a South Indian restaurant run by unarguably the most mild mannered North Indian homo sapiens I have ever met.

But I am mostly watching.

And here's the round up:

Sarkar Raj is extremely ordinary.

Aamir is extra-ordinary. Hats off to the debutant director and his debutant team.

The Happening is good. Definitely better than Shyamalan's last few movies.

Blood Brothers, Vishal Bharadwaj's short film on AIDS awareness, was extremely disappointing. People might prefer the disease to this movie.

Ironman, to put it simply, is the best superhero movie to have come out in years. Far off from the usual syrupy stuff, this one has a tangy flavour of its own, and a brand of sarcasm that yours truly and a few other like minded demented souls devour.

Ghatotkatch puzzled me. I had trouble believing that Singeetham Srinivas Rao, the same man who gave us that Kamal Haasan gem, "Pushpak" could make such an apology of a film. The animation is of the tackiest imaginable variety. Any guy with a desktop and Macromedia Flash can do better, sitting in his drawing room. In fact, even the primitive cave-dwellers with stone hammers would have. Everything from the script to the treatment to the musical score, smells of disrespect to the intended target audience for the film - the kids.

Mr. Rao, making a children's film is no child's play. We don't expect you to do what the geniuses at Disney and Pixar are doing, but please don't do this either.

Jimmy: Aha! Finally I managed watching this. There is an old urban legend that when I was born, the first word I said wasn't either Ma, Baba or Rahman. It was "Jimmy". I was born so that quarter of a century later I could finally see what would be nothing less than Lord Vishnu's 11th avatar's leela.

And divine it surely is.

It is so invigorating, that show it to the physically challenged; they would get up from their wheel chairs and run. Screen it for the dead; they'd get up and curse you for bringing them back to life and beg you to turn it off.

And Mimoh? With his lampost-level expressions and oh-my-god-i-have-got-ants-in-my-pants brand of dancing, he is serious competition for all the cartoon characters you can think of. The fact that despite this movie Mithunda hasn't disowned him is probably due to the fact that Mimoh didn't disown him as his father 10 years back after his masterpiece called "Gunda".

Gunda: There is a theory that life originated from unicellular protein based beings and through successive multiplication and evolution life has reached where it has now. Let's call our ancestor, the first unicellular being, "Montu", for convenience. There would definitely have come a point in Montu's life when it had that weird butterflies-in-his-mitochondria feeling before he split into Ghontu and Jhontu and set the ball rolling for amphibians, monkeys and cave-dwellers to subsequently appear. The cave dwellers would evolve into city dwellers and some would turn out to be filmmakers. Like director Kanti Shah did. Had Montu been blessed with foresight and had he seen what millions of years later Kanti Shah would do along with Bengal tiger, He-Man's grandfather, Mithunda, then our unicellular ancestor would have preferred commiting suicide to giving into that causing-Kanti-Shah-a-million-years-later cell-division.

Want a detailed review?

Words fail me.

Oh, and yes. I watched that movie also, which made me pace my 12X12 room for around half an hour after it ended. And now, 12 hours later, I am still under influence.

I have seen very few films where the power of the medium called "cinema" has fully been utilized. And I have seen fewer films which challenge you mentally. And this is one of them. It's not like telling a story; it's like laying out a puzzle with clues deliberately thrown here and there. It's like involving the viewer into the proceedings. It's like throwing convention to the winds and creating a never-seen-before visual space. Where there is enough space for your imagination and interpretation. This is movie making at its best. Director Christopher Nolan, take 10/10 for Memento.

It's good that Montu multiplied after all.

Why...

Trams have never been so unromantic. These ones are trendy, sleek, popular and they refuse to get overtaken by every other pedestrian, or cyclist or an enthusiastic snail. I have got a pass made, to travel within 2 zones from the industrial hub and that takes care of my daily transportation. Even the pass looks quite nice and trendy and sleek, except for the part where it has a photo pasted to it.
This is about that photo. More precisely, about the face in that photo.

Okay, so we all have heard about phi, the "golden ratio" and that it's omnipresent in the different aspects of life. Be it architecture, science, or biology. They even say that conventional good looks have a lot to do with this ratio between the length of the face to the length of the part from the nose to the chin and a lot of similar mumbo-jumbo.
What many people don't know, is about the existence of another mathematical constant called why. Actually, it's better to call it a concept than a constant. This, like phi is omnipresent as well, but unlike the former, is not that talked about; neither written about by alleged plagiarists. Why is present in every shape that doesn't suit the eye or any harmony or symmetry. It actually exists as an interrogative as to why (don't confuse with why) that thing would exist.

Probably, to counterbalance the symmetry, the harmony, or similar so-called "nice" things.

Why in its most unadulterated form is found in the pass I got made. Precisely that the part where people stick up their photos. Actually not people, but the lady in that GVB counter does. Not her photo, but people's photo. My photo, in this specific case.

It has been the story of the birth of a new superhero. Armed with his photo, who could and would change the world. One flashing of the pass would ensure a hearty smile and "Dunk u wel". But then any knowledgeable person would know that behind that smile is a heartstopping dread at the sight of something which could make the mirror turn its silvered side and cause clocks to move anticlockwise and even cause sunset at 12 noon.
Powered by that WMD, I go on routine excursions...saving the world from all symmetry and beauty; fighting crime and injustice and similar stuff which comes within the job description of any superhero, knickers out or in.
No one risks prolonged exposure to the upper half of the inside of the left flap of the pass where the lady in that GVB counter stuck up my photo.
In the last few days we have had Green Goblin turning blue, Lex Luthor turning to bee-keeping and other petty villains lining up in front of the missionaries of charity for parttime jobs.

...It's again the moment of truth. The judgement day. An approaching monster opens its jaws, threatening humanity and world peace and similar important sounding words and its again me jumping to the occasion with lightning fast reflexes. Faster than a speeding bullet, lighter than a floating butterfly, I fish the pass out of my pocket and flash it open...


The hearty smile and "Dunk u wel"

Inside at the Outside

" How to act: Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don't dress up your thoughts. No surplus words or unnecessary actions.
Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler.
Taking up his post like a soldier and patiently awaiting his recall from life.
Needing no oath or witness.

Cheerfulness, without requiring other people's help. Or serenity supplied by others.

To stand up straight - not straightened. "

A skeptic is enjoying these words and many more, in his exclusive moments. Inspite of his reactions having been acidified with time and numbed by experience, sometimes he unknowingly drops his doubts and peeps out of his shell. To be influenced. To be taken for a ride.

Sometimes it becomes a refreshing act. Taking things at face value. Arguing against arguments. Trusting someone. Finding a significance. Appreciating glory.

This whole business of believing.

Broken News

What made it even tougher for the home team was the pathetic fielding. Lux-me Ratan Shukla and U-mar Gool were guilty of letting through some regulation hits. If that was not enough, Mahaakash Chopra — a strange inclusion — and Gourav ran on to each other in the deep in comical fashion before flooring a catch.

--- The Tell-e-graph (26th May, 2008)

A lot of newsprint has been wasted in the last few weeks about a few players being picked again and again, inspite of their far-from-impressive performances. Experts have scratched their heads, beards, microphones, wallets and each other's backs, thinking their brains dry to explain why some people would be repeatedly selected in the team inspite of their sincerest efforts to contribute to the team's win - the opponent team's, that is.
We caught up with the greatest expert to have ever walked this Earth and probably Mars too, ace Roy-terse correspondent, Purr-knob, to throw some light on the matter.

Purr-knob writes:

We know now. Even the Eucalyptuses in my prince-mega-tonne campus know.
That IPL for Gourav stands for I Profess my Love (for Mahakaash). The manner in which they became inseparable entities, both on and off the field, reminds me of the great legends of Row-meaow and Julie-ate. The conclusive evidence was found in the last match, ably reported by a renowned daily, where the two of them, ran in perfect slow motion towards each other, without a care in the world and with eyes only for each other. Damn the ball. Damn the dropped catch.
You could almost visualise them running through the lush gardens of Europe or mustard fields of Punjab a la Yash Raj films, accompanied by a typical romantic background score. Then they collide, and sparks fly (in this case, the ball flies).

Their jodi is made in heaven; sanctified by Bow-canon.

As one great poet has said:

Teams win, teams lose,
But to love you need no excuse;
Non-performance is of one's volition,
Long live, mid-air collision.

This is where Purr-knob ended his article.
When we asked him about the poet he quoted, he gave us a dirty look and said,
"Don't you see the stamp of class? I would have got the "no-bail" and not Tagore, had my manuscript reached on time. "
"How old are you?" we asked.
"It's not about the age, it's the mileage!" he said.

As we were wondering where we had heard this dialogue before, Purr-knob started running to catch his personal aircraft and collided mid-way with Mahakaash, who, incidentally was running to catch the next UFO to where he came from.

...

Kabeera Khada Bazaar Mein

Maange Sabki Khair

Na Kahu Se Dosti

Na Kahu Se Bair

Zero

Music, they say, is like painting with sound. Nature plays with music in its different sounds. There is a pattern, an unmistakably shrewd play of notes and tones in everything around us.

And then there is silence.

This isn’t the silence that only comes as a welcome relief after the neighbourhood loudspeakers stop blaring, or the sense of reclaimed sanity after that capped, bearded guy gives us a temporary respite.

This is soundlessness in general.

To say that there is music in silence would probably be too abstract an assertion and it does contradict how music is classically defined. But then, aren’t art forms to be felt rather than defined? Call it an extension of Aleatoric music, or a corollary to the concepts of divine silence in Zen Buddhism; when there is no commotion around, that is when you speak to yourself. What can be sweeter?

With time, this is becoming a rarer and hence all the more precious a pleasure. Away from the noise and the distractions, a little spell of calm sounds no less than Mozart or Rahman!

In popular music too, silence has been immortalized by the maverick composer John Cage with his experimental and controversial piece 4’33’’ in which the performer just sits in front of the piano or any instrument and does nothing for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The time span actually amounts to 273 seconds and it was his tribute to the concept of absolute zero at – 273K, the theoretical freezing point of all motion.

That may have been too esoteric an effort, but in our own small ways, we can raise a toast to this purest form of auditory pleasure by probably sometimes switching off the FM monstrosities, unplugging the TV, turning the mobile off and holding our breath under a starry sky and listening to our own self.

Breaking News

Last week, the galaxies came to a standstill, buses and trains came to a halt, Reshammiya choked and Rajnikanth's heart skipped a beat.
All because a slap was heard.
Ace Roy-terse correspondent, Purr-knob, after much coaxing, has finally agreed to share the inside report on what had actually transpired between the two gentle-most cricketers of our time, Freesanth and Bhaaji. Here it is, in his own words:

So, I was wearing my Hay-banned glasses (the ones from my prince-mega-tonne days) and watching the match. The match which I would use to light my see-gar (the one gifted by Fidel Castro, of course). I kept watching it, trying to figure out how it works. Someone helped me out by breathing fire. Literally. Freesanth took the see-gar and just breathed on to it. And then it lit up. I always knew that the guy had a lot of fire. He was on his way to the ground for start of play.

When the match started (the cricket match, dumbheads!), I could see him staring, growling and bowling. In that order. Legend has it that Freesanth can make your ancestors turn in their graves just by talking to you. But I tell you, he is much more than that. He can make steel melt just by looking. It's no wonder then, that the opposition would feel a little high and dry, with him around.

Now to the question as to what had actually happened after the match. I caught up with Freesanth after the incident. To help me light another see-gar of course! Asked him about the slap-stick incident too. Now, Free said it was just another case of his elder brother coming up to him after the match and giving him feedback and hugs and sweet nothings and so on. Bhaaji, his "big brother" had been "watching him" and told him that he was disappointed at Freesanth's unidirectional lexical outbursts. That Freesanth needed more variety in his vocab and more expressions on his face. Free was touched. Figuratively, not literally. But then Bhaaji allegedly also said that Free reminded him of Die-monds, that old friend of his. Bhaaji's words as if slapped his conscience and he broke down. This, mind you, is extremely sensitive information and not to be disclosed to anyone. It's so sensitive that I have wetted the hanky gifted to me lady Die-ana with my tears, as i am preparing this report.

Later on. I caught up with Bhaaji after the incident and here's the transcript of the interview:

Purr-knob: What did actually happen Bhaaji?

Bhajji: (Eyes wide open, bends forward, lands a tight slap on Purr-knob) Don't you know what happened? I was just talking to my younger brother. We both just got a tad too emotional. Free was always the touchy-type. Didn't you see Bharat cry in the Ram-Bharat milaap scene?

Purr-knob: (purring) Oh yes.

Bhaaji: Why do you guys make somethings out of nothings? Why target peaceful people like us?

Purr-knob: (rubbing his cheeks) You know, you reminded me of a young Mohammad Ali when I interviewed him just after his first world championship win. He punched me just as hard. But of course the blow was nothing compared to what Ravi Shankar gave me with his sitar after his first Woodstock when I complimented him on his uncanny proficiency with that longish, odd-looking guitar as I had knowledgeably termed that. But even you are quite good with your paw.

Bhaaji: (picks up his cricket bat)

Purr-knob: (jumps out of the window, runs and shouts) Paw-Bhaaji! Paw-Bhaaji!

P.S. Another piece of exclusive news from Purr-knob's secret files of the Bhaaji case down under where Bhaaji was accused of making racist comments to a certain And-rue Die-monds:
During the hearing by the appeals commission, a monkey was paraded in front of the panel. Everyone exclaimed "Die-monds" seeing him. The judge saw the point and Bhaaji was set free.

More on that later.

I know what GOD did many summers back

He had a bad headache and started playing with his coins. He wanted to transfer this head-splitting feeling to something tangible and biased the coins to result in pseudo-random outcomes which followed the simple rule:
Tails if Heads expected/wanted and vice-versa.
He plotted the outcomes, and did some N-dimentional curve fitting and noticed with surprise that his headache was getting better. I mean, his head was getting better as the ache was subsiding. The N-dimentional close-ended crap that resulted in was called Life. The acronym was expanded as Look! It's a Foolish Experiment because thats precisely what he exclaimed after he had a close look at what he had created.

The N-dimentional graph was the space-time variation of GOD's headache. This contraption called Life is the perfect example of a vicious circle. Chasing what you dont have and getting what you dont want. Inside this cycle, in nested loops, Life has only power-cuts, traffic-jam and bird droppings on offer.

All those times when you wondered whether you were living someone else's nightmares, you were actually very close to the reality. We all are living someone else's headache.

But it's a great learning experience. You finally learn that nothing matters. And that everything is a hoax. So, you go through your entire life just to find out that it is inconsequential.
And just think about it, in the end, it kills you.

RGV ki AAG bujhti hi nahi!

It seems RGV is re-remaking SHOLAY, by remaking RGV ki AAG. Big B this time has decided to stay away from the potential scary movie! This recent report reminded me of the sublime experience of being among the distinguished few who had the good fortune of watching that poetry-in-loose-motion kind of a movie. Here's what my thoughts were on that ocassion. Worth a re-visit:

RGV ki AAG: Must Watch

Don’t go by what the critics are saying. They are the same people who wrote Sholay off on its release 32 years back

Don’t go by box-office reports. After all, when have good movies had a good run?

Ram Gopal Varma has weaved magic in celluloid with his latest offering.

RGV ki AAG is a statement on state-of-the-art direction, performances and the nuances of filmmaking. Only this time, the mastery is so deliberately subtle that it might fool the ordinary viewer into believing that he is watching a C-grade (actually, a don’t see grade) film. Ramu, a self-proclaimed Sholay fan, has paid tribute to his favourite movie in a style that we might call the “reverse illumination technique”. This esoteric method is based on this old jungle saying: we know what day is only because we know what night is.

Put beside Sholay, RGV ki AAG looks so charmingly stale, that it only accentuates the original’s impact. That’s where RGV, the Sholay fan succeeds. Ramu stays clear from the easy temptation to cast the actors in roles that may have conventionally suited them. Leading the pack is Nisha Kothari as Basanti, who is as convincing and believable as Rajnikant would be as a physics professor. The other actors too, have delivered controlled performances as perfectly lifeless caricatures lest we start liking them and forget the original cast. Big B’s Babban Singh is more of Agneepath’s Vijay Dinanath Chauhan than anything else. Even he was meticulous with his performance by way of making it too loud and theatrical to look convincing. After all, could he have risked undermining Amjad Gabbar Khan’s impact?

Structurally, the story is the same. Only the backdrop has shifted to Mumbai. There are only a few inconsequential changes in the characterization. AAG is about a Ganglord versus two hitmen. Or to put it mildly, RGV versus your intense desire to like the movie.

Ramu has taken painstaking care to make the movie technically as shoddy as possible. The cartoon-like close combat scenes, the nauseatingly alternating pan-zoom of the camera and the color filters all add to the aesthetic appeal of this masterpiece. Musically, it’s sheer sound pollution. The editing is as smooth as a knife through concrete. The dialogues make even the TLV Prasad - Mithun potboilers look like art-house cinema in comparison. Undeniably, Mohanlal, in his heavily accented tone, saying “Lauha Geram hey” takes the cake.

All of these fall perfectly in the right places for a pattern to emerge out for an observant viewer.

Unmistakably, AAG is Ramu's clever tribute to India’s most successful movie ever, in the way that he showed that Sholay cannot be remade, that how bad Sholay could have been but didn't be and that how silly all the comparison is. He succeeded in getting a sizable number of people to leave the hall by interval. This observant correspondent believes that they marched off to the nearest outlet to buy Sholay VCDs or DVDs.

Moreover, hopefully there will be a sequel to AAG with Nisha Kothari in a triple role and all other actors “plutoed” to mere blink-and-you-miss roles. Let’s keep our fingers firmly crossed for RGV ki AAGAMI. After all, every silver lining has a dark cloud.

Of rabbit holes and pills

It's strange what the feeling of having a choice can do to people. As long as life goes on, pulling you through a tunnel with only the other end visible, it's all fine. But once you start getting aware of the alternate routes, it complicates life; at least your thinking.
It's like taking the blue pill everyday (not sildenafil citrate, silly!) but still being aware that the red pill exists. It's out there for anyone who would dare taking it.

The uncharted territory has a romanticism of its own.
Risks too.
That's what makes the prospect even more interesting.

Morpheus, are you listening?

A few teasers

1. There is a hypothetical creature X. The probability that X splits into two offsprings is p and that it dies without producing any offspring is 1-p. What is the probability that the family tree of X will go on forever?

2. If the sum of a set of positive integers is 2000. What can be the maximum possible product of the constituent integers?

3. A and B decide to meet up in front of city centre on 25^th April. They decide that each should arrive between 5PM and 6PM and whoever arrives first, will wait for 15 minutes for the other to turn up. If the other doesn’t turn up within those 15 minutes, he will leave. What is the probability that they successfully meet each other?

4. There are 124 prisoners. The jailor one day tells all of them, that he has a room which has a light bulb connected to a switch. The bulb is initially off and the room is not visible from any of the cells. He also said that next day onwards, the prisoners will be put in solitary confinement cells and there will be no communication of any sort possible between them. The jailor will each day, pick one prisoner at random and send him to that room with the bulb. He has the option of switching it on/off if he wishes. He also has the option of confirming to the jailor whether all 124 prisoners have been there in the room at least once. If he is correct, all of them would be set free. In case he is wrong with his assertion, all would be shot. The prisoners are then allowed to have a meeting to decide on a strategy before they are sent to the solitary confinement cells. What can be a strategy that the prisoners can decide on, which would guarantee their freedom?

5. There are three identical boxes with two coins in each. One has two gold coins, another has two silver coins and the third one has one gold and a silver coin. You pick one box at random and without peeping in, take a coin out. It turns out to be a gold coin. What is the probability that the other coin in the same box will also be a gold coin?

Frequently Unasked Questions

Why Now?

Never had the drive for anything but was bored beyond boredom in the last two days of forced break from work. Not that i don't get bored at work either.

Why the dark look?

No deep rooted philosophy. It's easier on the eyes. Saves power too!

Why should people read this blog?

When did i say they should anyway?

-3, -2, -1, Here we go!

This was more of a Scott Adams-ian realisation.
These days, it seems, any idiot with a computer and an internet connection is writing blogs.

So, here I am. Doing the same.