Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me.

A Tangled Yarn of Thoughts Being Unravelled…

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  • Lady in the Water was way too watery!!

    Shyamalan’s been making movies which cater to the preternatural in the scheme of things. But this last movie of his may end up biting the dust.
    For one thing, it’s slower than a slug and the other is that it doesn;t build up pace so picking it up later is somewhat difficult.
    Fairy tales can and do tempt, entertain people of all ages but its not the elements of it merely but also the mode of narration.
    While the movie employs characters which bring comic relief, angst et al in their wake; after a point it someone falls flat. And you are felt of a feeling of what the hell happened here?

    The characters of Paul Giamatti (who is seriously looking to be typecast after Sideways), and the water sprite girl fail to hold interest. Sarita Choudhary and Shyamalan (he has very pretty eyes) add some kind of flavor to the movie, but it’s flailing and not tangy enough.

    It seemed to me that Shyamalan made this movie purely because he wanted to and not because he wanted to play to the galleries entirely. Which is fine. The movie, however, is not.

  • movie review-omkara

    Hyperbole killed the fun. 
    The movie was definitely NOT usual bollywood fare. But the over-enthusiastic responses that I’d  got from my pals had made me so agog. too agog I think.
    These are the things that I was thinking while watching it-
    1)Who told Ajay Devgan that being monosyllabic was the way to establish that you’re the serious type and are all business?

    2)Why was Ajay walking around like he had a major hardon? The man couldn’t walk straight in any scene in the movie?

    3)Why did people go blue in the face talking about the gaali-factor of the movie? Anyone who knows UPites, Haryanvis, Delhites will know that the profanities have been worked into the script to preserve it’s natural tone. It definitely was not over the top.

    4)Kareena looks innocent when she cries, but playing a deglamed role doesn’t necessarily constitute acting per se. She should stick to the “Poo” roles. She was born to be fluffy-headed.

    5)Vivek Oberoi honestly didn’t have a role. But being associated with this kind of a line-up will give a boost in his excuse for a film career.

    6)Saif- the man has gone through a total metamorphosis since his initial days as a second lead. He can adapt, get into the skin of the character and delivers a very credible performance.

    7)The man of the moment- Vishal Bhardwarj. Few people can make the transition from a music director to a film director and churn out fare that people have to chew before being able to appreciate the taste. His isn’t the stuff that you can chug down straightaway. His series on Shakespeare and the delightful Makdee just goes to show that there are no limits on creativity at all!

    This movie is worth a looksee just for the music and also to see what a “different” and good Hindi movie looks like.

  • maelstorm of emotions

    Something very distasteful and extremely upsetting was conveyed to me today morning. My aunt is a mathematics professor since the last 30 odds years. She has been teaching in a suburban college of West Bengal (WB) for a while now.
    She is not just a person whom I’m terribly fond of, she is genuinely a good teacher and loves to teach and will devote all her time if need be, to her students. 
    The incident occured two days ago- admissions for the next year were being held in her college and they had been completed with when a large group of students (read Congress Party thugs in the guise of overgrown, overaged students) came charging in and demanded to be accomodated in the following academic year. 
    On being told that there were no vacancies, they expressed their dissatisfaction in the following manner:

    -they went on a rampage
    -they tore up books
    -they broke furniture
    -they physically assaulted the faculty (one of whom was my aunt)
    -they used filthy, abusive language (the least severe of their offences).

    The shit-for-brains, no-balled,pathetic-excuse-for-a-human-being principal refused to lodge a complaint with the police bcause he feared the reprisal and a political imbroglio would probably have put paid to his tenure at the college.
    So now, you have people threatening the lives of our educators in the name of “right to education”. These student union top brasses themselves are  people who have seldom finished their education. They usually drift into politics because of the hold they have over the students or their oratory skills and continue to be the leader of the youth wing long after the sweet bird of youth has flown the coop!

    And what about the people they terrorise in the name of freedom of speech and the plethora of freedoms provided under the umbrella of democracy? Well, they get twisted and turned to each individual’s convenience, while the party honchos willingly look the other way to keep the vote bank alive.

    i’ve always wondered where the need arose to have so much of hoopla about students and their unions in an educational institution? You’ve come to study. Fine! Study,get your damn degree and be on your way. Why propogate party tenets any established political party in the name of “being there for the students”?
    What is even more painful for me to swallow is that my home state is in a state of decline. It’s not that politicking and hooliganism doesn’t occur in all states of India. But few states are as deeply entrenched in the age old clutches of politics as WB.
    The state has seen more than it’s share of misery due to its age-old handshake with the CPM government. The Naxal movement occured and people watched from the sidelines. True, there were reactions against it, but look at Naxalites flourishing even today and look at the havoc they create! Regular encounters with the police lead to a one-upmanship among the two on a daily basis practically. And the body count keeps piling up. 

    I am so revolted today, so angry and disillusioned that it actually hurts. Melodramatic? maybe but losing faith never came easy to anyone.
    I just wish there was a way there was to still salvage something from all this.
    But personally, for the time being, swift and painful retribution will suffice.

  • Oh You Men!!!

    I had a discussion  once with a friend of mine regarding a couple who is known to us both. 
    He not only found the man to be in a wrong kind of relationship, with the absolute wrong kind of woman, he found him to be henpecked to the core!! His evidence towards the aforesaid pecking of the fowl kind (E.T.P) culminated in a diatribe against this girl who like her apartment a certain way and used to point this out to her man and often critized him for not listening to her. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back in my friend’s eye was this man having to submit himself to the “shameful” nick of “cookie”!!

    The heavens above!! Surely a man who allows his woman to call him by a name anything less than butch in nature is a pansy or must be henpecked. Now we get to the fun part. When my outraged friend was frothing at the mouth about this vixen who was robbing his friend’s manhood, he very conveniently forgot the names his girl had bestowed upon him and to which he’d ALWAYS respond in a manner that’d make Pavlov wonder why he took dogs for his study instead of Man.

    The names Mr.Thou-Shalt-Not-Call-Me-By-Cute-Names, would go by are as follows- Googlybear (his girl loved Monsters Inc.), Pwesshuss (his girl was deeply influenced by gollum), Chubbywubby (his girl just love to rhyme) and the list goes on. Our dear lady had a name according to the mood and situation practically and our man would look upon his beloved with undisguised love in his eyes and even sign his letters with the sobriquets bestowed upon him.

    On this point being brought up, he turned a not-unbecoming shade of magenta and mumbled something to the effect of how that was different and it showed creativity and affection whereas his friend was just henpecked! With the nickname forming the crux of it all! He also accused me of trying to change the topic because I was obviously on the girl’s side and now women didn’t get what the wrong kind of name could do to a man. While he huffed and puffed and blew my house down I was still laughing about the new set of names he stands to get the next time around.

    Btw, did I tell you about the one where another friend of mine let’s his girlfriend call him Mimi? 
    :oD

  • coming back full circle

    Had a lovely time with the mater and pater today. After a long, long while my dad was available without the phone ringing off the hook, files piling up and all the blah stuff that consumes post-middleaged execs.
    Anyhow, we took a trip together and it turned out to be a memorable day in the family chronicles.
    The gist of which is this- during lunch, something seemingly innocuous happened and my parents looked at each other and burst out laughning. Loudly!
    It seems that when I was a cute lil tot, my mom would ask my dad to make sure I drank all my milk. Naturally, that did not occur. So he would wheedle, bug, threaten me until I drank and few sips and finish off the rest himself and tell my mom he’d got the job done! All because he couldn’t stave off his impatience.
    Today, i was toying with my beer and writing some thing out during lunch. My dad had finished off his drink and my mother was eager to make a move back for the city. He downed my beer and got up. Again trying to goad me into action. 
    They both thought the same thing and burst out laughing. It seems things don’t really change all that much.
    Thank goodness for that!

  • college coven

    The rains brought to mind another memory from the days of rapture, hedonism and carelessness aka college days.
    Four of us had planned a sleepover in one of our houses. The rains came down, the lights went off and we sat on Viji’s bed with a big candle keeping the room aglow and mugs of hot coffee keeping us warm.
    See there emerge certain trends in relationships, one is a facilitator, one is a leader, one is the clown (moi) and one is a wonderer (i.e. asks questions which sets everything else in motion). Well, our wonderer didn’t let us down and let loose one of her ever-present queries viz, “Guys, how is penis pronounced?”
    She was under the impression (which had been strongly fostered by her Punju science teacher) that it was pen-is and rhymed with dennis. When we all started to laugh, she got a tad bit annoyed and got determined about getting the pronunciation down pat!
    So there we were, 10ish at night, 4 girls in long, sleepshirts, hair open and streaming down our backs, a candle in our midst and 4 different voices chanting “penis” at different pitches, trying to get out the perfect pronunciation. We were so earnest about it that we had totally forgotten to take into account that Viji’s Paati (granny), Taataa (grandfather) and Chittappa (uncle) were just next door and quite possibly overhearing us.
    Light dawned (literally&figuratively) when Viji’s cousin called to out us from the window, saying ” I think she would have learnt the word by now, if she still hasn’t then too bad! Just stop saying “it” so many times, appa’s come here to get the car thrice and gone back because you girls kept saying penis in those weird tones!!”
    OH LORD!! mortification galore! especially since dinner was yet to be had, and that too with those same people we’d driven away with our chanting.
    In a way I guess we did cast a spell of sorts. We’d kept all the penis-walas away!!
    And did my friend finally learn to pronounce the word? Yup she did! She threatens to cut off each mard’s penis every time she gets cheesed off with them!!

  • am gurling in the raaaaaaaaain!!

    As opposed to singing in it.
    It’s been raining whalies and ellies in hyd’bad for the past few days now and each time I look up at the sky (hoping to catch a few raindrops on my face) I end up getting the whole cloudburst treatment.
    but it’s FUN!! squishing around on the muddy roads, splashing the other cars while I go to work, giving the students the EYE because they were late in the rain…good fun!!
    But it’s been getting cold too. I’ve been using my fav, long-abused manipuri blanket and am getting out the flannel jammies tonight. 
    They are cozy and all that but look like an overgrown tot in them ;o)
    Oh well, gotta go and catch those students tracking in mud on the floor and generally doing the rain dance from mohra before i settle down with my cuppa.

  • memories

    woke up today morning to the sound of bells tolling but not the loud clanging kind. they were more the kind of smaller bells, the kind my grandmother (dad’s mom) used to ring every morning and evening while the puja for the family deity was conducted.
    that used to be her contribution to the family. barring that, she didn’t really exist. she preferred it that way. free to do her own, thing, roam around here and there and just snatch up moments which gave her pleasure.
    at times when i’m being very irresponsible (in my mother’s eyes) she (ma) likens me to my granny.
    anyhow, the sound of the bells made me wake up and when i did it was with the strange kind of conviction that my grandmother was still there. she’d taken pity on the family and shuffled off in ’90.
    and some old synapses somewhere must have started firing because i could have sworn that if i walked down the stairs she’d be there ringing the bell.
    the sound was actually originating from another contraption, but it had never struck me as anything else but mechanical sounds of bells before. i stood there staring at the empty space where i imagined ye old buddhi amma might have stood and mom came and shook me out of my reverie.
    kept thinking about my grandmother all day long though. weird coz i dont even like her much.

    ma had a similarish kind of experience today evening. i do freelance work for a website in town and was out covering a location for an article. mom came along for the ride coz she wanted to photograph anything which caught her eye. anyhow, while she was getting back in the car she somehow tore the strap of her sandals and kind of froze in the process.
    when i shook her after a while she started to tell me how she’d had those shoes for ages and all of a sudden she remembered so many occasions where she had worn them. one was my grandmother’s (her mother’s) funeral, the day something good had happened to someone important to her and a few more recollections.
    she then smiled wistfully and said she hadnt known she would remember shoes of all things out of incidents which stood out because of their intensity. she’d been wearing those shoes for so long, they’d become things she’d walk past, wear out just about anywhere and not even remember having worn them at all.

    my mother and i have these “events” where we can kind of tap into each others’  feelings, thoughts and often preempt each others’ talk. and when i told her my recollections today she was kind of surprised that we both had such deep associative recollections that had shaken us into silence.

    the shoe is being retired. i dont think she’ll throw it out mercilessly now. and now that i know my grandmother isnt going to come back and pinch at me for slouching or doing things she considers unfeminine, i’ll just turn over and sleep for another spell. those bells can go on tolling away.

  • ode to a wine bottle cork

    Germans are known for their precision in all things. This quality has not escaped their wine corks, which have an ability to jump up like champagne corks, hit on right on the cute lil pug nose and knock out all whimsical notions out of you!!
    Had spent yesterday in great leisure. Had rolled about, stretched and generally indulged myself thoroughly. It then began to seem to be that this is how things could be and should be FOREVER!!! 
    See, the “F” word is very dicey. Even if you’re onto a sure thing, it can still rebound on you in the most unexpected way and make those rose-tinted glasses seem a tad bit obscuring!!
    So, there I was happily opening the white wine for dinner and tra-la-laing to myself and then it happened!! RIGHT on the nose!! Literally. 
    It was a very sober moi who sipped the wine and ate the dinner last night.

  • un-fucking believable!!

    Management students! BAH! HUMBUG!
    I don’t want to sound prissy when I say this but we weren’t like this when we were studying. While being goody-goody DID NOT enter the picture, the level of ignorance, lethargy and the maha lackadaisical attiudes that these people manifest is honestly sickening!!
    Time management is alien to the majority, sleeping is THE thing to DO and ass-kissing is the subject they’ll all be doing their Ph.D in I’m sure!
    These “future leaders of the industry” are supposed to report to me to get instructions about their interviews and GDs. Now, with 700 students it’s more than slightly tough to schedule both in such a manner that none of the dates clash, none of the classes get missed and more importantly, things get done in time so they get through their courses and get good placements. BUT NOOOO! they HAVE to be late lateefs, they HAVE to come up with lame ass excuses, they HAVE to wring their hands at the end of it and many resort to a misplaced sense of community-feeling by starting off in my native language so I’ll cut them some slack. YEAH RIGHT!!!!
    You ask them some regular stuff, just current affairs and DUH-NESS starts to emanate from them and stink up the place! 
    Arcelor? Was he a character in LOTR?
    Blossom Kochchar as an entrepreneur? Woh kaun hai?
    Missed a class? Ma’am I dint see the notice about the guest lecture. But i saw the one next to it about the SPICMACAY concert. DUH! DUH! DUH!!
    Where’s the signature?. Ma’am like, I gave my pen to my friend Ma’am and like he’s not yet given it back to me so like I couldn’t sign there Ma’am.
    Please write the GD topics- MA’AM, like kahan pe do we write the GD topic? (Reply) Where it says GD TOPIC and has a BIG LINE DRAWN. (Student) Like, OH!

    LORD, either up their IQs or bring mine down a notch so we can all talk to each other and be understoof. Am feeling enough of an alien as it is. The Indian economy and corporations aint seen nothing yet. The (corporate) devil’s rejects are coming to claim their prey!!