KK

An entire generation of Indians aged a decade yesterday, when they heard the news of KK passing away. For most Indians, KK was a soulful singer. Someone who could breathe life and emotions into a song. Who could elevate a song from the mundane to the mystical. A magician with a mike. 

But KK was personal to me. More than a decade ago, I had decided to learn to play the guitar. It was a childhood dream of mine, and I was a bits-and-pieces singer at school. When I first held the guitar, it was overwhelming. Where should I begin? Which song do I choose? There were the legends of the West – Eagles and Beatles and Scorpions. And then there were the icons of the East – Nusrat and Mohd. Rafi and Sonu Nigam. Where was I supposed to begin? Whose songs could I grasp on to, under confident as I was with both my voice and my guitar skills. And that is when I realised the beauty of KK’s songs. 

Ask any friend who has ever dabbled with the guitar, and they’ll tell you what they think of KK. KK’s songs did not come with the baggage of classical training, like the likes of Kailash Kher, Daler Mehndi, or Sukhwinder. They were easy to strum along to. KK never attempted to complicate his songs with unnecessary harkatein or aalaps. He made beautiful songs accessible. 

Of course, it was a different matter that when you actually got down to sing his songs, you realised how complicated they were. How high the high notes were, how difficult the notes that he seemed to glide over actually were. KK took the complicated, the complex – and made it seem within reach. As he effortlessly slid from note to note, his voice encouraged you to skate along. 

By the time KK burst into the scene, India already had a gamut of playback superstars. Our parents swore on Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh. Kumar Sanu was the voice of the early and mid 90s. Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam had firmly entrenched themselves as leading singers of the time. KK well and truly belonged to the piracy generation. A generation that grew up around Cable TV – that chose to ‘watch’ their songs instead of merely listening to them. A generation who listened to songs on new FM radio stations, on pirated MP3 CDs, or illegally downloaded from songs.pk or gaanaworld.com. 

As I made myself familiar with his discography, I realised that KK had also sung a number of Telugu songs that I had jived to without knowing the name of the singer. There was Allu Arjun’s Feel my love from Arya. There was Paataku Pranam in which Venkatesh aimed to connect to the youth of the country while playing a guitar, wearing beach shirts, rocking rock concerts – all the while managing to keep his wig intact. I found that KK had sung songs by Rahman before he became the phenomenon he is today. With DSP before he became as enjoyable as his namesake – Directors’ Special whiskey. 

But that’s the thing about KK’s voice. It didn’t try to stand out, to grab your attention. It melded into the vision of the director. Even though he was classically trained, KK’s voice was easy on the ears. He felt no need to peacock his skills in every song. He made difficult songs seem like childhood friends. Even though he was a performer par excellence, his songs could be hummed by even the most tone-deaf person in the room. It’s no wonder that his songs became the anthems for love and friendship for an entire generation. 

As I scroll through his discography, something else strikes me. KK was never attached to any particular actor. His chameleon-like voice could go with just about anybody. Whether it was a Shah Rukh Khan at the peak of his Rio de Janeiro charm, or Allu Arjun before he started shaving. Whether it was Shiney Ahuja, Emraan Hashmi, or Saif Ali Khan – KK’s voice melded into the voice of the star. I dare say having KK sing for you made the actors look cooler. This was because KK could pull off complicated songs easily, but also have a blast with dumb, commercial songs. Check out Bardasht Nahi Kar Sakta or Ding Dong Ding Dole. In fact, such was the versatility of the dude, that even when Himesh Mania was at its peak, Lord Himesh would sing every song in his album, but leave one song for KK. For even the Lord nose! 

*

Gradually, the tone of Bollywood music began to change. While Pritam survived the transition successfully, musicians like Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Vishal – Shekar and even Rahman to an extent find work hard to come by. We gradually went from a soulful music industry to one where robots pick a song from the previous decade and proceed to decimate it carefully. 

But even as the songs dried up, KK never fought to remain in the limelight. He never judged a reality show, or made a controversial statement. Singers today have opinions on everything under the sun, but KK was too cool for Twitter. No drama, no shocking interviews. You’ll find clips of him talking to people while chilling on a couch, or of jamming with college students before or after a show. It seemed like the stage was really where KK belonged. 

*

I once attended a KK concert, and I shall never forget the night. 

One of the pastimes that me and my drunken friends indulge in, is to check how 90s singers have aged. I firmly believe that live singing is the more exciting, more difficult form of singing, especially in the age of auto-tune and high-def musical technology. We used to spend hours checking out live videos of singers from our childhood. 

While age has come his way, Udit Narayan still manages to turn on his charm at shows. Kumar Sanu – in spite of his voice getting a little shaky – has a huge repertoire of slow romantic songs of the 90s. Abhijeet was the pleasant surprise, managing to retain the honey-coated voice that he used to croon for Shah Rukh Khan, and to speak against the use of Pakistani singers. Sonu Nigam is still pretty solid in live performances. 

But KK is something else. If you had the chance to go to a live KK concert, you’ll know that he had an enviable list of super hit songs – each one a banger, each one better than the previous one. While other singers try to pump up the crowd during a concert, it came naturally to KK. He’d sing a few lines, walk up to the crowd, shake their hands, whisper a few instructions to the sound engineer, turn around, glide through the high notes of a song – to send the audience into a mad tizzy. 

KK knew how to put up a show; it came naturally to him. That night, he sent the audience home sweating, dancing, crying and hugging. I remember going back home after the concert shaking my head a few times – wondering how a person could change a barren exhibition ground into a well of humans charged with emotions. 

While it is incredibly sad that he had to pass away, I am inclined to look for the silver linings. In a way, KK will be forever young in our minds. He’ll remain the cool, hip rock star who sang to an entire generation about love, friendship and life. 

I hope he reaches heaven safely, and finds Irrfan Khan. I hope they both sit on top of a high-rise building in heaven. And just as Irrfan is about to light a joint, KK begins to hum ‘Alvida’…

*****

Spider-Man and the Question of ‘Real’ Cinema

I have been reviewing films since 2008.

I started by reviewing on this blog, and later reviewed films for magazines and newspapers. Today, I work with Film Companion – probably the nation’s most respected film journalism portal.

And yet, there is one question that I keep getting – ‘According to you, what is good cinema?’. It is a question I have no real answer to. It’s a question I doubt anybody can have a decent answer to. It’s like asking someone what a good painting is, or what a good song sounds like.

After more than a decade of reviewing films, I have come to the conclusion that there really is no way to slot films into good, bad, and artistic. Cinema is truly an unique art form. It is not like painting, or music. It is not dance, or standup comedy. No other art form incorporates dozens of other art forms within it. No other art form lets you pick and choose aspects of itself – you could hate a film’s story, and yet be bedazzled by its cinematography. You could abhor an actor and his craft in a film, and yet be bowled over by the background score, or sound design. So when people dismiss films as bad or mediocre, it shoots a tinge of sadness through my heart.

A few months ago, Martin Scorsese raised a furore among cinema buffs when he declared that Marvel films weren’t really cinema. A number of opinions were thrown up among fans and detractors, and it is something that set me thinking. Is Marvel really cinema? Or is it not??

I have never been a huge fan of Marvel. The one film I truly enjoyed was the first Ironman, for the manner in which they shattered the stereotype of the superhero’s alibi. When Robert Downey Jr. flashes a smile to the press and declares ‘I am Ironman’ (ironically the last line he ever speaks), it made me gush ‘That’s so cool!’.

But since then, I have never really gushed over any Marvel film. I have had to review the Avengers films for Film Companion, and frankly, I found it to be underwhelming. The films that are usually hyped up – like Deadpool – make me want to yawn and throw up at the same time. Every Marvel film essentially has the same format. A self-aware superhero jacked up with superpowers and wisecracks, a few laughs strung into the script till the supervillain appears. A moral lesson (Power, responsibility, duty) that is used in the ending that culminates in an orgasm of VFX.

Over the years, I have watched nearly every Marvel movie that has released (thanks to fanatics posing as friends, and lovers who would rather stare at a screen than look at me). I did appreciate the jokes, and the self-awareness, but I found it hard to take the films seriously.

That is, until I watched Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I am not steeped in superhero culture. I haven’t read too many comics featuring the origin stories. I cannot rattle off names of heroes and villains. In fact, I have spent more time watching Shaktimaan than any of the Western superheroes that began invading our country after liberalisation.

But there was something about the film that drew me in. Perhaps it was the flipping of the trope of the hero’s double life. The film begins with Peter Parker’s identity exposed. Perhaps it was because the hero had to deal with a real-word problem – getting through a college admission. Or perhaps it was because I went in for the first day-first show – surrounded by maniacs across age groups.

(SPOILERS AHEAD: KINDLY AVOID IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE FILM)

But it was when Tobey Maguire appeared on the screen did I well and truly lose my shit. Tobey was the first superhero that I loved. Not enough has been written about the original Spider-Man movies.

For the first time, a superhero wasn’t jacked up on steroids and arrogance. Tobey’s Spider-Man was a geeky loser who hung out around chemistry labs and magazine offices. He briefly gets the girl, but quickly loses her to his best friend – the son of a rich, illustrious supervillain. He delivered pizza and got bullied at school. As a school kid, I connected to Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man like no other before, or since.

Such was the impact of Spiderman in my life – I was in school and got bitten by a spider during the lunch break. I waited for everybody to leave for the classes, and ran up to my room. I closed the doors (didn’t want people to know of my powers), and switched off the fan (with great power comes great responsibility to save electricity). I then went up on my toes, and jumped! Nothing happened, of course.

Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman revived a whole genre. Before him, superhero films were campy and clunky. They took themselves too seriously, and the VFX made you suspect your nephew was the Creative Director.

I’m Batman…and I’ve got big, rubber nipples.

To see the man on screen again – his warm face having smudged around the edges, his shoulders drooping, his eyes tired – made me feel a number of things deep within.

And this is where Marvel showed its coolness. They didn’t portray him as Akshay Kumar – a 45 year old trying to compete with teenagers. They showed him having back pains. As a man who hides his superhero costumes under pullovers, jeans and sneakers. When he speaks to the Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, he doesn’t inspire him to smash the villains, but rather to be kind to himself.

Exactly a decade ago, a friend showed me a video on YouTube. It was the CEO of Marvel, discussing the company’s plans for the next 10 years. It was the first time I heard of names like Black Panther and Dr. Strange, and I remember scoffing at the idea of heroes who did magic and used a flying hammer to defeat heroes.

For years since, I harboured a grudge that Marvel had completely destroyed the superhero genre. But watching the latest version of the film made me realise that they had taken a hackneyed genre and elevated it. The heroes in Marvel do not merely want to capture the villain anymore. They are battling their inner demons, or seeking answers to questions like ‘What is the point of life?’. In that sense, they could be hanging out with Ramana Maharishi even as they are battling Thanos.

But what really stayed with me was the experience of watching the film. In front of me, a man in his 40s stood up and cheered when Tobey Maguire appeared on screen. Behind me, 10 year old kids stood up on the chair and clapped when Andrew Garfield appeared – all confused and guilt-ridden.

When the three of them worked together in the climax, the theatre was a sight to behold. Youngsters and old people alike – hooting and clapping. And it was precisely at that moment that I thought – ‘Isn’t this cinema?’

The ability to make people purchase tickets, come to a hall, to hoot, cheer, laugh and cry. To have people across age groups rooting for fictional characters. To have films that are mostly actors jumping in front of green screens – and yet connecting to people across the globe.

Why is this not cinema?

Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. While I might personally find that all his recent films are merely rehashes of each other – he will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time.

And yet, when he made Taxi Driver, similar arguments were thrown up by the filmmakers of the 70s. They cried that this was not cinema – this was a perversion, an excuse to show blood, gore and sex on screen. They were as wrong as Mr. Scorsese is today.

I doubt there could be a concrete definition of what cinema truly is. But on that Thursday, as I walked out of the theatre with emotional children and satisfied fathers around me, I realised that cinema is more than just good frames and great lines.

It is also about giving people an experience that they will cherish all their lives.

Kindly Shut the Fuck Up about Mental Health

Ever since Sushanth Singh Rajput’s demise, I have been getting a number of phone calls from forgotten college friends. ‘Long time, man’, they say, masking their concern with friendly nostalgia. Their concern stems from my being a comedian, and unmarried. 

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was as far from Bollywood as Chunkey Pandey to the White House. The gesture was sweet of course, but after the 7th call, it got infuriating! I was not depressed, but a few more of these calls would make me run up to the terrace. 

The suicide also sparked a new wave of hysteria on that dark, dystopian platform from hell – Twitter. Every time a celebrity commits suicide, the world spews out a set of cliched responses: 

(i) Gone too soon!

(ii) Please don’t take the extreme step. 

(iii) You can talk to me anytime you want.

As I said in my column for The New Indian Express last week, those are useless messages. The word ‘depression’ casts a long shadow – along with words like death, decay and destruction. The word ‘mental health’ conjures up images of Salman Khan in Tere Naam – Bhai’s hands chained to the walls, crying to the heavens for help. The discourse around depression cannot change as long as the vocabulary around it remains the same.

The real problem with suicide is the attitude we have against it – a condescending gaze. Even though we don’t expressly say it out, we look down upon people who consider or commit suicide. Look at the words used in these posts – strength, support, saving. It is clear that we look at suicide as a sign of weakness, of desperation.

But I have always had a completely different view of suicide. I have been understanding of it. If someone has decided to end their lives, it is because THEY felt they’d had enough. They probably could have fought it, they probably were too young to know that life evens itself along the way. But the choice was theirs to make.

It is one of the only real powers we have as human beings – to end it all. A wonderful Exit button that we all possess. The people who committed suicide were aware that they could have fought harder, they could have tried to overcome their odds. They were aware that a suicide would put a full stop to their story, and bring misery to their loved ones. And yet, they chose to do it.

The thing that pisses me off the most though, is the preachiness around suicide. Within days, everybody on my list became a mental health expert. ‘You can come speak to me’, the messages all read, ‘even though I don’t read books, and have NO experience with counseling. I spend my days consuming shallow shit that surfaces on the Internet and use it to form my fuck-all opinions, but sure, you can speak to me’.

No, Suresh. They cannot come speak to you. Counseling is supposed to be done by professionals, not well-meaning friends. People take courses and practice for years to earn the right to counsel people going through depression. It requires patience, therapy, and sometimes even medication. Depression is not a bad mood that can go away by speaking to a friend. It’s like saying ‘If you find a lump on your breast, come see me. I like tits’.

*

EVERYBODY IS A THERAPIST

And let’s assume the friend DOES come to speak to you about something they’re facing – what then? Are you equipped to deal with their issues? Do you possess a list of counselors to refer them to, just in case your magic-wand of a personality doesn’t solve their problem?

The truth is that most people who preach about depression on social media have a stock set of solutions they offer: 

a. Workout

b. Meditate

c. Inculcate Discipline

Every time I read such messages, I pray for a Corona vaccine to be invented, so that the lockdown is called off and Udipi Tiffin Centres open, so I can smash their faces into bowls of sambar vada. But since we all have ample time on our hands, let us dissect each of those points one after the other. 

1 – ‘You should workout’: 

This suggestion comes from a neanderthal understanding of a problem. That you can solve depression by using brute force. By huffing and puffing, by sweating it out in the gym. This suggestion is usually recommended by people who find it hard to grasp the concept that the mind and body are two different components. For their benefit, here’s a ready reckoner: 

These people believe that when you burn calories, the blood goes into your brain and destroys all the negative thoughts. It believes that when you lift weights, you are lifting a burden off your mind. 

How the fuck is working out going to help someone with depression? Sushanth Singh Rajput used to workout – in fact the last picture of him showed him stepping out of the gym. Fighting depression is not like fighting fat. You cannot wear boxing gloves to a chess match.

2 – ‘You should meditate’: 

This school of thought looks at the problem like a mythological story. A ritual where you sit and control your body and mind, and God appears in front of you and grants you a boon. Some sort of a miraculous, Vedic solution to mental health problems. 

There are reams of paper dedicated to dissecting meditation, but nobody defines it at its simplest. That it is an attempt to free the mind from thoughts. Temporarily. And that it is fucking hard to practice. That the thoughts will eventually return. That it works for some, but is not for everybody. And certainly not permanently.

But no, speak to a friend and they’d recommend you meditate. It worked for Agastya Muni, so why shouldn’t it work for you??

3 – ‘Inculcate Discipline

The third suggestion revolves around creating a daily schedule. Keep yourself busy, walk around, do stuff. They believe that by infusing into our lives a passion, a calling, some sort of love for everyday life – we can be free from our thoughts. Because your problems are like mosquitoes. They will vanish when they notice you’re busy.

What people don’t understand is that people like Sushant Singh Rajput, Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain – were globetrotting superstars. They had schedules, and managers and assistants to take care of every minute of their waking time. They had timelines and discipline and schedules. And it didn’t make a rat’s ass of a difference.

*

Depression is a difficult subject to broach, let alone discuss with someone. Depression doesn’t come tallied like a Balance Sheet – with symptoms, causes and effects. People who go through it might not have fully grasped what they’re going through in the first place. 

There are experts around the world who have been trying to study depression for decades, but cannot predict patterns with certainty. The only known methods of dealing with depression in the world right now are counseling, therapy and medication.

And guess what? You’re not equipped to help with any of those solutions. Cliched as it may sound, depression really is a state of that person’s mind. It is not necessarily brought about by a lack of money, friends, fitness or routine.

If you’re really concerned, point your friends to counselors. Finding the right counselor is tougher than finding a girlfriend on Tinder in Puttaparthi. It involves making a number of appointments, and several hits and misses. If you really want to help, make that search for your friends easier – direct them to the right people.

But till then, for the love of god, kindly shut the fuck up about mental health!

***

Fuck the Left, Fuck the Right!

I stopped blogging about politics in 2016.

As a frantic consumer of news and a student of journalism, I was disheartened by the clear political slants in news organisations. It seemed unfair and unethical to my younger self. I felt cheated; like someone had taken my deepest beliefs and turned them into a David Dhawanian farce.

But five years down the line, I have reconciled to the future of mainstream news. I understand that news organisations will no more position themselves as beacons of neutrality. It took me some time, but I have made my peace with it. Over the last few years, I steered clear of journalism and politics, choosing instead to pursue a career in comedy, satire and stand-up – a field that is more honest and neutral than actual news portals of today.

The last few years have also taught me something else. That both the Left and the Right in India are run by myopic nutjobs.

To get a better idea of my context, you need to know a little more about my life. I spent the first 15 years of my life growing up in a conservative, god-fearing environment. My school was a gurukul-ashram masquerading as a modern educational institute. Our uniform comprised of a white shirt and white trouser; no footwear or ties. The day began and ended by chanting prayers, shlokas and vedas. My childhood aims (and I am not exaggerating here) were: 

1. Becoming a Bhajan singer 
2. Doing an MBA and then a PhD in Mahabharata!
3. Joining the university band and spending my entire life spreading the message of god. 

While it might seem laughable today, these were the only things I could imagine back then. My parents trusted God more than common sense, and when I was kicked out of my school, my mother left me in Whitefield, Bangalore to ‘fend for myself’. I was 15, and brought back home by a kind Odiya couple who took pity on me. That was my upbringing. One in which there was no space for logic or debate. 

It was the kind of upbringing in which watching cricket was frowned upon. My Sportstar and Cricket Talk magazines – a treasure trove worthy of documentation today – were thrown away or burnt in front of my eyes. Novels (even harmless ones like Sherlock Holmes and Hardy Boys) were frowned upon. Watching cricket was considered a waste of time. 

I hadn’t entered a cinema till 2002. 

It is perhaps an act of rebellion that I am involved in all of the above fields today. I am an aspiring novelist, a humour column writer for The New Indian Express, a standup comedian, and a film critic. Perhaps in my own way, I’m living my life defying the rules that were imposed on me as a child. But that was my upbringing till I said ‘Fuck it!’ and cut off my connection with my parents. 

I spent the next ten years in a Leftist environment. I had been working as a copywriter in an ad agency for nearly three years, and I saw no future for myself in that field. You know how you sometimes know that you’re terrible at a job, and yet can do nothing about it? 

I had gotten into Advertising because I was smitten by the glossy papers of Brand Equity in The Economic Times. I liked reading articles by Santhosh Desai, and was fascinated by the ad campaigns initiated by Prasoon Joshi. My boss at the agency – the greatest boss I’ve worked under – remains a friend to this day, and continues to advise me on matters of life. 

But it took me a year to realise that I was miserable at the job. I realised I could come up with witty lines when there was no demand (or need) for them. But when it came to actual brands and real targets, my mind froze! I spoke to a friend of mine and he offered me his place to stay for a few days. One thing led to the other, and I joined the Journalism course in a Central University. 

In the beginning, it was Utopia. Suddenly, all the skills I’d considered to be of no value actually turned out to be productive. My ability to write, to convey my deepest feelings, to speak freely on topics, to take a stance on things that felt unfair – these were all credit points in my course. 

It took me but a few months to develop a God Complex. I graduated from the course with a specialisation in Print Journalism and New Media. Around that time, my blog took off in a big way, and I gained the confidence to pursue a career in writing. I spent a year and a half working as a teacher in Kurnool, and then joined the University again to pursue an MPhil. 

Unbeknownst to me, I was getting sucked into a Leftist environment. 

It is easy to notice the telltale signs of a Right-wing environment. There is brazen devotion to the country, to God, and an overt pride in one’s beliefs and practices. It is much harder to discern recognise the signs of being drowned in a Leftist environment. 

For one, there is more self-awareness. On the surface, you’re doing it under the garb of enlightenment. Look at the posts of any Leftist, and the first thing that strikes you is the sanctimonious tone. Every post, every message is coated in humility, a sense of humour, a self-aware recognition of one’s privilege. 

But scratch the surface, and you’ll find it is the same shit. A myopic view of the world. A hatred that has seeped so deep into their soul that anything pertaining to the nation, or religion has to be met with stiff opposition. 

Dig deeper, and you’ll find a deep-rooted bias towards Islam. A patronising bias that stems from the need to protect the seemingly ‘voiceless’ and ‘downtrodden’. A bias that has shut them up to any criticism. You’ll also find a condescending outlook towards anybody that practices religion. A seemingly neutral, polite voice that is too blind to see its own bias. 

I spent 10 years amidst University folks, pandering to their world-view. Agreeing to their opinions because I wanted to fit in. It was then that I noticed a few cracks in this seemingly perfect marble palace. 

When I would crack a joke at the Right-wingers, I was met with applause. But when I cracked a joke on left-wingers, I was met with a frozen silence. A jab at Hindutva would get me action on the top of a terrace. But a joke on Islam would get me blocked across all platforms by the same girl. 

Thankfully, Stand-up Comedy entered my life to rescue me from this condition. Around 2016, I began to perform professionally. Standup comedy was a much more democratic field. It consisted of engineers, journalists, poets, social outcasts, retired professionals, NRIs, teenagers who refused to fit in at their schools – in spite of a small number, the diversity in stand-up was fascinating. 

Stand-up Comedy is democratic in another way. There is no clear political slant. The emphasis is on making a point, on delivering a laugh. In the beginning, I was shocked to find comedians have a Right-Wing slant one day, and a Left-wing slant the next day. Indoctrinated as I was in steel-cage ideologies, my mind’s first response was ‘Ha! Hypocrite!!’. It took me a while to understand that Standup Comedy was more journalistic than the journalism followed in our country. There was an emphasis on facts, and an audience that could laugh at themselves. 

The last few years have also taught me something more important. 

That the Left-wing and Right-wing actually have more in common than you think. While they may seem to occupy opposite ends of the spectrum, they share more in common than they differ. 

They both depend on 100% loyalty to their ideology. You cannot flirt with the other side, for you stand to lose your friends and peers on this side. While the tone, grammar and subtlety might differ, they are both toxic schools of thought that thrive on trolling – the cheapest of all human behaviour in the modern, digital world. 

Take recent instances for example. Right Wingers bay for the blood of Muslims on Twitter on a daily basis. And if you thought the Left was more graceful, you should check out how they celebrated Boris Johnson contracted the Coronavirus. Hundreds of tweets wished he’d die of the disease that is killing thousands of people around the world. 

And you know what’s the fucked up part? There really isn’t any Right or Left wing in the truest sense. The most common perception of the difference between the two is on ideological grounds. But in India, every party doles out subsidies and benefits to people. If you go purely by economic policies over the last 20 years, it’ll be hard to tell the UPA governments from the NDA governments. 

Which means that in India, the only line of difference is Religion. In their own way, the two sides have legitimised Religion in our everyday consciousness. And yet they are both too stupid to recognise that they’re both idiots. 

This is something that has rankled me for long. How come there hasn’t been a truly Centrist voice in India? And by Centrist, I don’t mean the hollow, spineless political model of the Indian National Congress. I mean an ideology that gives you the freedom to choose what you want from either the Right or the Left. 

An ideology that allows you to appreciate the other side, and criticise your own side. Is it too Utopian an idea to imagine in 2020? I think not. 

And that, Dear Reader, shall be the pursuit of this blog going forward. And my rally cry shall remain the headline of this article. One that needs to be ingrained into your consciousness if you wish to remain sane in the world of social media and 24/7 news channels – Fuck the Left, Fuck the Right! 

Why I am not a part of any ‘movement’ anymore

Long, long ago, when you couldn’t disable the Blue Tick on Whatsapp, there was a time when I used to ‘feel’ strongly about things.

It’s probably got to do with being in one’s 20s. Feelings ran through me like surplus blood being pumped from the heart to important parts of the body. Happenings around the world would make me feel things.

Issues angereme and news moved me. I stared into the distance as scrambled thoughts slowly fell into place like an expert Tetris player – forming a sequence of actions that I must engage in.

I would stay up at night thinking about it. After a hurried breakfast and a quick morning-joint, I would sit down and type out what I felt about the issue. There was no external motivation to write those blogs – I wasn’t paid, and prior to social media, nobody really knew me to provide instant validation. The only impetus to keep writing was how issues made me feel.

Unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to feel like that anymore. Since I’m someone who looks at almost everything through the lens of age, I initially dismissed it as a by-product of being in one’s 30s. A general world-weariness that reminds you that it’s better to jack off and sleep than worry about this slowly-burning world.

But I realise there could be another layer to it.

I cannot bring myself to be a part of any movement as the entire process has become exhausting. Every movement, every issue and cause is raked up using anger, vitriol, and trolling. To spread the word about something – somebody needs to be brought down.

This wasn’t the case a few years ago. I remember when the Anna Hazare movement was at its peak. I was cynical about the movement and refused to be a part of it. But the general tone back then was not one of anger. People mostly joined candle marches, shared articles on their Facebook walls, and went about their work. Good times!

Today, everybody is a troll. The most popular news channel of our time is that noise-monger who reduces journalistic ethics to Khushwant Singh’s Book of Jokes Vol. 7. Our politicians sound like teenage Twitter trolls. Every movement is based on anger and resentment.

Look at the Communist movement. Most of the Communists you’ll meet in your life are affluent, urban people guilty of their privilege. They are grasping on to a hollow ideology to wash some of the guilt off their souls. The Ambedkarite movement, in spite of being founded by a true progressive visionary as BR Ambedkar – has also been reduced to hate-mongering. The MeToo movement was also reduced to mud-slinging and anger after a point.

Even more shocking was the recent Ecological Movement (or whatever the fuck it’s called) – the one where celebrities and rich people told us that the world is ending. I find it laughable when celebrities who live lavish lives and consume fuel and labour that could feed entire colonies – suddenly wake up to the crumbling state of the world.

Get off your fucking Hummer and take the bus, asshole. Or stop the pontification just because you read an article on BuzzFeed.

The recent face of the Climate Change movement – Greta Iceberg – even her tone is one of anger and resentment. How dare you! – she screams at strangers in a stranger country. I doubt a 12 year old could be filled with such seething anger. Unfortunately, we have convinced ourselves that the only way to raise one’s voice for an issue is through anger, trolling, slinging mud at others. That there is no more space for discussions, or gentle humour, or erudite editorials.

And that is why I do not feel connected to any movement these days, no matter how crucial it is to our existence. It’s too stressful on my delicate mind.

Let me know if there’s a movement built around discussions and memes. I’ll become the face of that movement. Till then, lemme quickly go roll one and watch another Greta Iceberg meltdown…

Something Creepy That Happened to Me Recently

At the onset, let me clarify that I am not among those who throw around the word ‘creepy’ easily.

If someone asks uncomfortable questions, I don’t call them ‘creepy’. I am also perfectly fine with people with serial-killer smiles. I am also completely at home with reptiles, gore, and horror.

With the disclaimer done, let me begin at where it all began.

*

I am freelancing at an office these days, and from the campus I live in, the journey is an excruciating 20 kms ride through the most crowded road in Hyderabad.

To avoid it, I take a detour through the Mumbai Highway, taking the steep road from Dargah to Film Nagar. Unnecessary details, I know, but allow me to go on.

The road I am talking about is a steep slope with curves like Sunny Leone’s, exciting and dangerous at the same time. Across the road lies the pristine Whisper Valley, where lights glimmer like fireflies once the sun has set. It used to be a beautiful location once, but with all the waste from corporate hospitals, the place could be rechristened Stayfree Valley.

The road is a true test of the fitness of your bike.

If you have a fully functional Bullet, you will love the ride.

I, unfortunately, ride a fucking Discover.

My bike is like me – lazy, sluggish, shabby, and reluctant to try anything risky. It croaks and groans every single day, as I hum my favourite tunes, praying that the clutch wire doesn’t slip out of my clutch.

On this particular day, I took a turn from Dargah and was beginning to take the slope, when I saw a little kid stretch his hand out for a lift. He had a school bag on his back, and a tiffin box in his left hand. His face glistened with sweat, and shone with the excitement of going home.

Having never owned a bicycle or vehicle earlier, I have firmly believed in the Brotherhood of Lift-givers. I can’t remember a single time I have denied someone a lift (except when a lady is waiting in her room, pissed off with me for being late).

I duly pulled up next to him, and asked him to hop on my bike.

*

On regular days, I like to strike up conversations with the people I offer a lift to.

Some of them are eager to talk, others hold back as much information as possible. Some are thankful for the lift, and go through the entire conversation with a plasticky smile on their faces.

That day, I was in no mood to talk, so I kept listening to songs on my phone. ‘What are you listening to?’ I heard the kid ask.

I wanted to tell him about ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, explain the epic tribute of love and friendship by Pink Floyd. But I chose not to. I told him I was listening to some songs, and asked him what he studied.

He told me he was in Class 8, and we continued on the road through potholes, speed breakers, and cops waiting at tricky corners for a biker to goof up. As my bike coughed and shrugged, the kid held on to me tightly.

*

Every time I turned, I felt the boy’s hand tighten around my waist, and it made me uncomfortable. I kept silent for a while, and adjusted the rearview mirror to look at him. He was looking at the world below him, a mix of wonder and amazement writ large on his face.

‘What a world we live in,’ I thought, ‘that even the touch of a little boy makes us feel uncomfortable’.

The slope got steeper as we climbed up the road, as the boy loosened his grip and tightened it again.

And then, I felt it. Slowly, his hands slipped down to my thighs, ever so slowly, till he found my crotch.

I froze. My mind was blank, my face flush with embarrassment.

I thought up things to say to him – ‘Don’t do that’, ‘You shouldn’t be doing that to people’, ‘Who taught you to do that?’

But my mind, like Sehwag on a crucial final, just refused to budge.

His hands were now firmly on my crotch, as he rubbed his hands like I was a girl and he was masturbating me.

We rode on, till we reached his destination.

He looked straight at me in the rear view mirror, smiled, and gave my cock a final tug.

‘Thanks, bhaiyya’, he said, and hopped off the bike.

I turned to see him, his bag weighing him down, his tiffin box held gingerly, his dark skinny thighs in the summer sun. He looked this way and that, and darted across the road.

*****

Why Is Aamir Khan Such a Pretentious Prick

Once upon a time in India, Lagaan released.

The film was a smash hit, was sent as our choice for the Oscars (but couldn’t win, as the jury grew old and died during the interval) and Aamir Khan suddenly became the thinking man’s conscience. The guy who would never attend film awards because he didn’t believe in them, suddenly seemed to be jumping up and down the red carpet, promoting his film. But of course, he was doing it for the nation.

When Lagaan lost out to No Man’s Land, Aamir Khan told the press that the other film deserved to win. When I saw it, said Khan, I knew that it was better than ours. From that moment on, Aamir Khan has somehow projected and marketed himself as the voice of the nation/youth/continent/solar system.

And it’s fucking annoying.

*

Alright, so he chooses to do one movie at a time, reads his scripts, and does extensive preparation for it. But all that is fucking expected from an actor in the first place. Just because ours is a hare-brained industry, doesn’t make someone a goddamn Socrates.

A few months before the release of Rang De Basanti, Aamir Khan sat with the Narmada Bachao Andolan protesters to speak up for their rights. Since then, there has been no word of his involvement with the issue whatsoever.

He then made a film on Mangal Pandey, and has been on a Bhagat Singh trip since, telling the nation what’s right, and what’s offensive. In Taare Zameen Par, he showed us how we are all a cruel, insensitive nation that doesn’t know how to deal with special children. In 3 Idiots, he showed us what is wrong with our education system. In PK, he showed us the problems with religion and godmen.

And tactful and insightful that our media is, we made him the voice of the nation. Aamir Khan tells the nation not to litter. Aamir Khan tells the nation to be nice to foreigners. Aamir Khan tells the nation to be nice to foreigners.

Aamir Khan is a thinking man. How? Because all his films have long shots of him staring into the distance, thinking about the welfare of the cosmos. Aamir Khan is a perfectionist. Why? Because he undergoes a physical transformation for every role (which, as any theatre actor will tell you, is the fucking basic thing to do. Also, he gets paid crores for every film). Aamir Khan is a socially aware star. How? Because he blogs about issues.

However, as we all know, even Vishwamitra’s penance was disturbed. So Aamir Khan, the ever-aware thinking man’s Gautam Buddha slipped out of character and blogged about Shah Rukh Khan licking his toes while he sat on his table.

And of course, there is Satyameva Jayate. Now, I personally have no problems with the show. A star like Aamir Khan talking about issues that we Indians never bother to speak about, is commendable. Kudos.

I also have no problem with him projecting himself as this new-age Carl Shehnanigan who tells the nation how to live – much of an actor’s image comes from this. It is no different from Salman Khan being the large-hearted bhai, Ranveer Singh being a horny guy, and Honey Singh the nation’s Mahalingam. I have no problems with that.

Look at my tears…so pure, so pristine. Just like my soul. Which is pure white. Just like the clouds there. I am the sun. Sun and clouds. Deep.

My only problem is with Aamir Khan’s opinions on other artists. You see, Mr. Perfectionist doesn’t give a fuck about other artists. His work is sublime and pure and unadulterated and heavenly. The rest can go fuck themselves.

Can you see the concern in my eyes? No? Well, that’s none of my concern. I am sensitive. I hope you can sense my sensitivity.

Take for example the controversy regarding 3 Idiots.

Now, even though Chetan Bhagat is the Rakhi Sawant of Indian literature, he wrote the book and sold millions, and no one can take that away from him. If you’ve read 5 Point Someone, and watched 3 Idiots, and you possess the IQ of a garden lizard, you’ll know that the film is more or less an adaptation of the book. However, since it is Bollywood (and fuck writers!), Bhagat wasn’t given opening credits. He raked up the issue and Vidhu Vinod Chopra asked a journalist to ‘Shut Up’. Which is at least an honest response.

Mr. Khan, however, using his special 8^th Sense, somehow had it all figured out. He told Bhagat off in public, calling him a cheapskate who will do anything for publicity. Which is fine, till someone asked him if he’s read the book. To which his response was – ‘Ahem, no.’

How the fuck do you know that it isn’t an adaptation, if you haven’t even read the goddamn book? But Aamir Khan, yo. Intellectual actor.

When he released Delhi Belly, he appeared on Aap Ki Adalat (that classy, artful show with a completely non-creepy looking host), and justified the language in the film. His logic was, the youth of the nation today talk in that manner. If you can not stand such language, please don’t watch the film. All good.

Now, the AIB controversy. Since our media has no fucking work, they went and asked Aamir Khan, the brahmaguru of wisdom, what he thought. Aamir Khan first looked at the sky, blinked seven times, sipped some water, and then gave out his thoughts. That the show was offensive, hurt people’s sentiments, blah blah blah.

But then, here’s the key – HE HASN’T WATCHED THE FUCKING SHOW.

If you haven’t watched the show, and someone randomly told you there were jokes on body shape, sexuality, and religion without providing any context, it’s the partial truth. You’re like the blind man of Hindustan who held the elephant’s ass and thought that’s what an elephant looks like.

But no. Aamir Khan ko kaun samjhaye? He is the voice of the cosmos.

The universe works in perfect motion because he approves of it. Every time Aamir Khan sheds a tear, a kid in Africa gets cured of AIDS.

It’s bloody annoying.

*

Dear Aamir Khan, This isn’t the 60s. Where you could do a few patriotic movies and become a national hero. The audience you deal with is thirty years younger to you, a completely different generation.

They understand subtleties, read between the lines, and can tell an actor from a chutiya. Just because you did regressive shit for 20 years, and suddenly conscience struck you like lightning, doesn’t mean the rest of the nation is a bunch of chimpanzees.

Also, like Russel Peters said, you are an actor. You appear on the set, mouth lines written by others, get numerous takes to perfect your craft, and get paid a bomb for it. Which is all fine.

But just like you’re an artist, there are others too. Who are attempting to make an honest living by pursuing what they think is art. If you really are an artist, at least have the fucking decency to look up their work before commenting.

Like I said, you’re not fooling anybody. This is a generation that sees through bullshit. And right now, for all your decades of carefully constructed PR, you come across as an aging douchebag.

I hope you aren’t offended by this blog. But if you are, I hope you at least read it before getting offended.

 

A funny blog about Islam

My new favourite state.

I have a new favourite state, and I do not mean ‘intoxicated’.

Himachal Pradesh.

Having spent the last two weeks in five states – Goa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (see what KCR did there?), I have arrived at the conclusion that Himachal Pradesh is undoubtedly the most beautiful state there is in the country.

Granted, a few of you will say ‘Kashmir’, but Kashmir has other issues, and I would rather spend my time speaking to Shiva than meeting him in person. And so it is with the confidence and the deep knowledge of someone who has spent exactly one single day in the state, that I declare Himachal Pradesh as my favourite state.

Which takes me back to the seedy Social Science text books that we learnt from in school. When I think of Himachal Pradesh, the images that came to mind were – Apples, boys and girls wearing cute traditional gowns, and … ahem, nothing else.

Another point in HP’s benefit was that we had spent the previous two days at Punjab. Which, by the way, was a KLPD of Sabu-ean proportions.

Now, think of everything that I knew about Punjab – lots of fields, lots of Rajs and Simrans, pretty girls, dhabas with friendly Punjabi men serving delicious tandoori chicken, etc.

However, Chandigarh was a gigantic disappointment. Primarily because of everybody’s insistence to go check out ‘Sector 17’. Sector 17 apparently has the hottest women of Chandigarh frolicking about like Biblical princesses, and everybody we met spoke about it.

Now, I am no greek god and cannot claim to have wooed women merely by my looks, but I have always wondered what is the point of the exercise. What does one do at these places where there are pretty women around?

We don’t live in a culture where we can walk up to women and ask for their number. Even if you did, there’s a good possibility the woman might shriek, and Ramu Kaka from across the road might smash your head to pulp, while asking if there are any female members in your house.

In such a scenario, what does one really do at Sector 17? It’s not like one can have intercourse merely by staring at someone. I am yet to meet a single man who stared at a woman till she came, and then flushed, and slipped him a note saying ‘It was great. We should stare at each other again. Here’s my number.’

Not surprisingly, Sector 17 contained other chutiyas like us, who had gone to ogle at the pretty women.

The next thing on my list was to eat at a dhaba. The kind of dhaba they show us in Bollywood movies – a cot on the outside, trucks whizzing past, a cold beer by the side. Turns out, ‘dhaba’ is a generic word for restaurants.

The ‘dhabas’ are just restaurants with tables, chairs, and annoying posters of babies laughing for no reason. Determined to get the true Punjabi dhaba experience, we went to a dhaba on the outskirts, by the way, which had cots laid out in the front. Gurdaas Maan invited us into ‘Sethi ka dhaba’.

Once inside, we realized what a massive fan of Gurdaas Maan the owner of the dhaba was. All along the walls, were pictures of Gurdaas Maan singing, Gurdaas Maan dancing, Gurdaas Maan playing cricket, Gurdaas Maan being Gurdaas Maan.

The food of course, wasn’t much of a disappointment. And in my extremely short stay at Punjab, the food was the only saving grace. Which also makes you realize, that the food being passed off as ‘Punjabi’ food in Hyderabad is not really Punjabi in any way. It is an extremely poor attempt at replication – like Aurangzeb trying to pass off as Pope Francis.

Tired of all the disappointments that Chandigarh handed us, we decided we must visit Himachal Pradesh.

*

Himachal Pradesh, my friends, is pretty.

Everything in Himachal Pradesh is beautiful. The mountains, the houses on the mountains, the people who live in the houses on the mountains. The hash smells like someone stole it from Shiva’s chillum. The stray dogs look like they came off a shoot in TLC, women look pretty without looking like Sonakshi Sinha. Babas look like they are on a BBC documentary, roads look like they belong to a different era.

Even a gutter in Himachal Pradesh is beautiful.

Because, Himachal Pradesh.

It is commonly believed that to enjoy HP in all its beauty, one must carry Shiva along. However, what they don’t tell you is that just by himself, Shiva is not much use. One also needs Lakshmi, and Durga.

And armed with Lakshmi, Shiva, Durga, the three of us stood near the mountains and turned around to see the mountains change colours every few minutes. We watched as clouds formed beautiful shapes, we listened as birds and trees and streams came together in a beautiful symphony.

As we zooming down the zig-zag roads, and our Punjabi driver was educating us on the amazing therapeutic effects of opium, I said goodbye to Himachal Pradesh.

Probably my opinion is coloured in pink because my stay there was extremely short-lived. May be there are people in HP too who scratch their balls when they see women, and shit by the side of the roads.

But I wasn’t there for long enough to see them.

And that is why Himachal Pradesh is my new favourite state in the country.

On Losing My Smartphone

The sun wasn’t out yet. 5.30 is still dark in winters.

When I walked into the station, I noticed many people slept outside Platform No.1, shapes of bodies visible on the bed sheets covering the bodies from the cold. The few who were awake were on the platforms. I ran to Platform No. 3 and boarded the Prashanti Express – S-11.

This train has been an important part of my childhood memories – every year, we would take this train to our school and back for the vacations. I have always loved trains, stations – and the multitude of experiences that a single journey opens you up to.

And so as with any train journey when you have settled and the train has begun to chug off from the station, I had a slight, warm feeling in my heart.

I took out my phone and began to scroll through my news feed. I found a Greatbong article on the RaNab interview, and smiled. I clicked on it, and it opened up, in typical 1.5G speed, and I double tapped on it and the letters got bigger, and I began to read –

A dark hand flashes in front of me. My phone is snatched out of my hand. A guy jumps out of the door behind me. The light from my phone shining in his hands.

And just like that my phone was snatched away from me.

*

It has been more than a week since my phone went missing.

Sometimes, I still recall that moment – that split second when the phone vanished from my hands, cruelly snatched away in a manner that Amrish Puri would snatch little children from their mothers in the 90’s.

Of course, like any other phone user, I felt anger and sorrow.

But you see, I wasn’t any other phone user.

I had spent a year without a phone, and then used a Nokia for a few months, and then got into a job and bought a phone. It was a terrible phone – HTC Explorer – but I chose to look beyond its Chacha Chaudhry-esque abilities and at the larger picture of the wonderful benefits of technology. I sold that phone to get another one – LG Optimus. This phone dropped from my hand in the toilet of a bar and simply refused to work. The highly efficient folks at LG Customer Care ensured I couldn’t ever use it again. I then got myself a Galaxy Grand.

Considering I hung out with people who had the ascetic opinions on technology as me, I played the turncloack with a vengeance. I showed them all the wonderful things they could do, and I did push it a little bit.

Like when they asked me about a particular place, I would open up Maps and tell them how far it is, how they could reach it (By bus, by cab, or by walk), and how much time it would take them in each of those methods.

I wasn’t the usual mail checking, Facebook poking, smartphone user. I wrote on my phone. Every blog, every story, almost everything I had written in the last one year was written on my phone. I read on my phone. Not just news and magazines, but entire books. I must have read at least 70 books on Aldiko in the last one year.

I used my phone to go to sleep at night, and to wake up in the mornings. I used it to make posters, to record stories that I narrated out. I used it to do push ups, used the Anti-mosquito for late night escapedes, was learning Spanish from Duolingo, music instruments, calligraphy, saving stuff on Evernote, to manage my daily expenses – and all this on a daily basis.

If Steve Jobs was looking down at me from the heavens, he would smile. Yes, I was on Android, but when you’re in heaven, these trivialities don’t matter much.

*

I have gone back to my older Nokia phone. I love how Nokia makes these phones that you can use when your smartphone gets stolen.

I have introspected about my feelings towards my phone.

I have realised that smart phones aren’t really smart. If it was, it would find a way to come back to me. Smart for me will always be someone who’s quick on their feet, someone who can think off the hook, get by in tough situations.

Our smartphones are more like wizened university professors. They can give you a vast ocean of information, but they can’t find their way back home by the bus.

Smart phones are doing a lot of things right, but one still gets the feeling that a lot more could be done. Hasn’t it struck you sometimes? That nobody has thought of this shit. Like, 5 touch capacitative touch feature (shall refrain from making Draupadi joke here…oh damn!) 5 touch capacitative is fine, but what happens when it rains?

Also, how does one carry a phone that is so big, in one’s pocket. May be jeans companies need to come up with large cool pockets for phones. Also, has anybody thought about how they can keep phones safe?

We are the fastest growing mobile market in the world, and we also have a well established chain snatcher market. Why doesn’t someone invent a device that keeps your phone safe?

*

I have moved on. Sometimes when I’m bored, I look around and stretch my hand out towards my phantom phone. And those dark fingers flash in front of me again and I look at my Nokia phone with a depressed expression on my face.

As for the thief, I don’t know.

I hope one of these nights, when he’s in bed with his wife, and the phone is on charge, he receives a call. He answers the call, and the phone explodes, and the house catches fire.

The thief tries to put out the fire, but it keeps spreading. Very soon, the entire chawl is ablaze in the flames. People are running helter skelter, pouring buckets of water, trying to douse the fire, to no avail. And then, the entire place is burnt to ashes.

Yes. That would be give me satisfaction.

*

5 Fairy Tales for the Modern Indian Man

At the onset, let me do a Pritam.

This is not completely my idea. A post has gone viral on Tumblr, titled ‘6 Fairy Tales for the Modern Woman’. This is a take on it.

Mind you, I have not copied that post. I have merely been ‘inspired’ by it. Which means that I can take the essence of it and reproduce it for my own benefit, and still get the credit for it.

God bless Pritamda.

Now, being the Modern Indian Man is a tough thing, what with the skewed up sex ratio that begins from 618 women per 1000 men. While the rest of the country on average fares slightly better, there are other issues to deal with – so many religions, so many languages, and so many cultures. In such a scenario, is it possible to have a fairy tale?

If you have watched a Karan Johar film, you will thump your bottle of Gatorade on the table and say an emphatic ‘Yes’. So how would the fairy tale go? I made a few guesses.

So here goes!

 

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(Image taken from: http://www.inkity.com/shirtdesigner/prints/clipArt1/AVP50317.JPG)

Loha Purush Tritiya – Khade Lund Pe Khatarnak Dhoka

                                  

 

 

 

In our world of global, national, and local superstars, if there are two superheroes who have managed to hold their own in a clutter of good vs. evil, they are Batman and Iron Man.

Dark and brooding, Batman makes the others look like over-emotional Kumar Gauravs. But even though the Batman movies were far better made, I connected more with Iron Man.

May be it was his cynicism, or his hatred for rules, or his ambiguity between good and evil. Or maybe because he wasn’t dressed in blue and red, and subtly telling the world how fuckawesome the US is. He is unpatriotic, iconoclastic, and simply fantastic.

It is probably a sign of times that teeth-gritting, patriotic superheroes are a thing of the past. That they died when Brandan Routh wore the blue costume and circled the earth. That they were irrelevant in today’s times – emotional appendages of a time long gone.

 

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So when I walked into the theatre, I wasn’t expecting great visuals. I wasn’t expecting to be blown by the action. I was looking for more. I was looking to peel off more layers from the person who gave me the most intriguing superhero in recent times.

Sadly, the layers that peeled off were like onion. They weren’t great, and almost reduced me to tears. The third film succeeds in domesticating our wild man. A thought as disturbing as Aruna Irani breastfeeding a snake in Doodh ka Karz.

I don’t generally go about revealing the story of the movie, but this one is so wafer thin, you wouldn’t even mind.

So there is this organisation called Extremis which was intended as a cure for disabled people, but has gone bad. Also, there have been numerous terror attacks which leave no clue, apart from extremely high temperatures at the site. Iron Man has to find these guys, and kick their ass.

The thing is, these terror attacks on superhero films have become so jaded, you cant even take them seriously anymore. I mean, you know there will be this actor (who never got very famous) who plays the villain, who wants to kill people and the hero has to save him. Since the days of Mogambo, heroes’ sole aim in life is to stop these guys, and they never fail to do it. So who are we shitting here?

 

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If I were to point out the two reasons I didn’t enjoy the movie, they would be the following:

 

1. The Iron Man ka Chutiya Villain Theory:

Every Iron Man movie will have a villain. This guy will be played by cult actors. Actors you have seen in movies through the years and you are curious to see what they have in store for you.

But as the movie progresses, you will realise that the aura of Iron Man overshadows the villain, reducing him to a whimpering sidekick whose destiny has been written by the Mayans. It happened to Jeff Bridges in the first, Mickey Rourke in the second, and the same happens to Ben Kingsley in the third.

Mandarin, the villain that Kingsley is supposed to play, was written as a megalomaniac world conqueror. What the makers do with him is a fresh take, but you are expecting something to happen at some point.

In the end, Kingsley’s character is so frivolous, that if Gandhi watched the film, he would slap him, and ask him to show the other cheek.

 

1. 2.     Lack of Progression in Character

Now, comic book fans would always want to know what would happen to Iron Man after The Avengers. In case you went on holiday to Uranus, there was this movie called The Avengers, and it was the mother of all superhero movies. A fantastic effort by the genius who goes by the name of Joss Whedon.

After that, I was looking for some reference, some change in him. But Iron Man is essentially the same. Which makes the series like the Munnabhai series, where the same actors play the same roles, with different settings every time.

How can it be that this person (Tony Stark) goes through the grind of discovering himself, creating his armour, fighting his first battle, saving the earth, being attacked by extra terrestrial animals, and yet there is absolutely no change in the way he looks, feels, and talks?

As the film progressed, the writers did add some layers to the character. Like the bit where they showed him bonding with a little kid. Are you serious? Iron Man, the guy who takes on governments and demigods, making friends with a little kid to help with his work? It’s the cheapest trick in a superhero movie, and I was crestfallen that my favourite superhero had to go through the indignity of tolerating a ten year old who talks too much.

And as the final nail in the coffin, after the clichéd big budget, explosive climax, Iron Man destroys all his suits, and throws away the chest arc reactor into the sea. Because he wants to spend more time with Pepper Potts?

ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? IRON MAN?? DESTROYING HIS SUITS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SPEND TIME WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND??

Why don’t you show him drying the laundry and changing the diapers already?

 

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I don’t generally like to make judgements, but I will make one here. Unless you masturbate to Robert Downey Jr. twice a day, don’t take the trouble of going to the hall.

Wait for it to come on torrents, download it. Encourage piracy, spread some anarchy.

Iron Man is probably playing the piano for his girlfriend in their Italian villa.

Sharing is Caring!

Chicken Soup for the World

I have always thought about it, and if I am unable to publish anything in the next ten years, I will start writing self-help, motivational books.

They are the easiest to write – take some quotes, add some anecdotes, mix it all together with some sloppiness, and serve it four times the price it deserves. You have an instant success.

Since we were banned from reading novels in our school, the only books we could resort to were self-help books. So while my counterparts across the globe were reading about Asterix and Tintin, I was reading Norman Vincent Peale’s pearls of wisdom to the world.

‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’, ‘How to Leave the Toilet without Flushing’, you name it, I had read it. For a while, I tried to follow some of the guidelines in the book. Like, one of the ‘secrets’ that Carnegie graciously revealed to the world was this – ‘Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage’. I felt like telling him that if I was allowed to read a good book on the sexual side of even hippopotamuses, I would have stopped reading his crappy book in the first place.

Somewhere along the line, came the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. They were easier on the brain than the other monologues about the secrets to a good life. A collection of 101 stories contributed by readers who spoke about their experiences. Cute.

Then came Part 2. And then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And then they started catering to niche audiences – Father’s soul, Teenager’s soul, Mother’s soul, Pet Lover’s soul. And you’d think that since there are more than 200 books, they’d start pricing them cheaper, but no. All the books are 300 rupees. I wonder who even buys them!

I thought since there are so many Chicken Soup books, and all of them are so moralising about the lives of people in the mainstream – fathers, teachers, pet lovers etc. What about the unspoken voices? What about that loser you see on the street who lines up in front of the wine shop at 9 AM and lies down in front of the shop by 10 AM? Doesn’t he deserve a Chicken Soup for his soul? Don’t assholes have souls??

So, on behalf of all the unspoken people in the world, I suggest the franchise comes up with some more titles so that the whole world can sit together and read.

I mean, in the end, can’t we all just solve our problems by reading some Chicken Soup for the Soul?

So, here are my contributions..

Does anyone know how I can get through to some publishers?

‘Turning 30’ is extremely shitty

If you saw the trailer, you would think it is a smart, urban movie that talks openly about issues like growing up, sex, and other things. It’s got Gul Panag, who does not generally dance around the trees. You buy the ticket, and two minutes into the start of the movie, you realise you have been swindled.

Turning 30 has got ‘Low budget’ written all over it. Not that that is my grudge against it, but the film is shot so amateurishly, it seems like the final project of the 2010 Direction batch at FTII, Pune. Where do I begin?

Firstly, the film is shot in English, but has been dubbed in Hindi, which makes it look like one of those crappy Hannah Montana shows in Hindi. Add to that, extremely unoriginal writing in the form of the characters. There are the friends who shop, bitch, and apply make up. There is the mother that keeps nagging her daughter to get married. Then, there is the evil boss.

I seriously could not take more than 5 minutes of the movie and tuned out after that. I stood up, turned back to see the lighted, frustrated faces of another hundred guys, and then walked out for five minutes. When I came back into the hall, nothing seemed to have changed at all. It’s that bad a movie.

The story of a woman who is approaching 30, has an advertising job in which her boss gives her hell, and a boyfriend who is facing pressure at home. The woman’s life falls into pieces when the guy dumps her and her work life also gets screwed up.

Now, the problem with the film is that, while it is trying to show women in a progressive light, it fails miserably due to the plot. The woman is heartbroken when the man dumps her for a hot, young girl. She tries to seduce him when he comes home to pick up his stuff, and even asks him the very original question, “Why? Is she better in bed?” By this time, your brain has gone into snooze mood, and you seriously don’t give a rat’s ass if he takes out a gun and shoots the ceiling fan, and they both die, and meet in heaven.

Gul Panag, who is generally watchable, tries her best to hold her own, but the ship begins to sink because every other thing in the movie sucks. The other actors are all either cliched, or irritating. If you are with a partner and want to end the relationship, please take him/her with you to the movie. Once its over, say you loved the movie so much, you want to watch it again sometime soon.

You will not hear from that person again. Take that in writing.

Action Replay – Bakwaas Screenplay

It was a dark hall. The screams fell to deaf ears, as the miscreants came closer. Slowly but surely, they proved to be too much of a match. After it was finally over, my brain sat in the corner, crying, after being gang-raped repeatedly.

Action Replay, like the cliche goes, is one of those movies you need to leave your brains home and go watch. Trust me, its for your brain’s good.

Action Replay is the story of a guy ( I don’t even remember his name) who has parents who keep fighting with each other. His father is Akshay Kumar, who owns a big hotel, and his mom, Aish, who keeps spending his money and her time shopping. One day, he sees them fight and decides he needs to stop them from getting a divorce.

Go to a marriage counsellor? Try talking to them about it? No.

He decides to go back to the past and change their equation. Quite conveniently, his girlfriends’s grandfather is working on a Time Machine. This time machine looks like the skeleton of a huge egg with blue lightnings running all over it. The scientist, totally non-cliched, has a beard and wears shabby clothes. So, smart son goes back into the past.

In the past, we see that Akshay Kumar is a loser and Aish the hot chick neighbour who plays pranks on him. Very cute. The guy befriends his father, and helps him woo the girl. I slept off after that, and when I woke up, there was a dance competition going on in which the winner had to sing in many voices. There were quite a few voices in my head, all of them saying two words.

Anyway, so this guy finally wins her heart and the son comes back to the present. All is well. Action Replay ranks among the huge number of crappy films I have watched in movie theatres. The clothes are loud, the characters louder. Not a single scene in this comedy made me laugh. The only entertainment for me was to watch this set of girls laughing away to glory. I was sitting behind them trying to figure out which was the dumbest of the lot. I concluded they were all at par, together stretching the limit of dumbness known to mankind.

Anyway, the film is a sad comedy. Akshay Kumar must have charged three times his fee for the film, going by all the overacting he does in the film. Aishwarya is bearable in the scenes where her cleavage is visible. Neha Dhupia is wasted. The only surprise was Ranvijay. Somewhere in the movie, you wished it was Roadies, and he asked the leads to go and put their heads in a lion’s mouth as a ‘task’.

But even his ‘guy who can sing with two voices’ gag gets repetitive and can’t save the film. The music is not great either.

Do your brain a favour this November, don’t take it to Action Replay. You will be responsible for the violation it will be subjected to. Stay far away from this one.

Inception is Mind-bending!!

Trust Christopher Nolan to play around with your mind. As you would have known after watching Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, you will know Nolan is not the kind of guy who gives you stories that have a logical or chronological happenings of events. If you still liked his movies, you will love this one.

I’ll be honest. When I first watched the movie, I didn’t understand all of it. I found some of the action sequences to be stretched out, and lost track quite a few minutes. But I am yet to meet a person who has understood the film fully on the first viewing.

‘Inception’ is the story of a thief, the highest sort of thief who enters people’s minds and steals their thoughts. Along with his gang of friends (each of them having a special skill of their own), they enter people’s minds through their dreams. As layer after layer of the movie is peeled off, you realise that Di Caprio is scarred by the memory of his wife. And since dreams are an extension of our sub-consciousness, his wife keeps coming in all his dreams.

Cobb (Caprio) wants to end his career and spend time with his children and takes up a last job. This time, he does not have to steal a thought or a secret, but he has to influence the thoughts of a person, by planting an idea in his head. This can be done by suitably altering his sub-consciousness.

I know by now you must be wondering what on earth is going. Thing is, I am not Christopher Nolan. For, when you watch the movie, you get sucked into the plot, incredulous as it may seem now. Without stressing too much on the equipment used for the act (like Hindi films, which emphasise on credibility by showing machines – remember the ballot box kind of musical machine in Koi Mil Gaya??), Nolan concentrates more on the characters, and the visual effects to transport you to another world altogether.

Don’t worry too much about understanding every bit of it. Neither Roger Ebert nor Rajeev Masand did. Watch the movie, and then come out of the hall and peel it off with your friends. But watch this movie, nonetheless. This is a movie that requires extreme patience and rewards you for it at the end. Like all of Nolan’s movies, there are minute details that help you grasp the point. After Memento, Dark Knight, and Prestige, it was expected that he would take things one step forward. He has.

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The Hurt Locker – Review

Walking into the hall, I saw the poster that said “War is a drug”. I didn’t understand what it meant.

‘The Hurt Locker’ is a film about a Bomb Disposal Squad (called EOD) in Iraq. Sergeant William joins an EOD team after their Sergeant dies in an explosion. William, played by Jeremy Renner, is a daredevil. He defies protocol and walks into bomb territory all by himself, much to the chagrin of his teammates the protocol-abiding Sanborn and the newbie in the army Eldridge. In spite of his teammates insisting on following guidelines, William pretty much does his own thing – walks into situations, getting rid of bombs and wires like weeding out grass. In an interesting scene, his teammates ponder killing him and reporting it as a ‘mistake’.

Gradually, the team members bond and get to know each other, as they go from one mission to the other. As the movie progresses, director Kathryn Bigelow shows you the different facets of war. She makes you wonder if the experience is worth it, or if it something that cannot be done without. She makes you wonder if the lives of common people can be sacrificed on the basis of hunches and suspicions.

‘The Hurt Locker’ is neither overwhelming, nor underwhelming. It is a gritty representation of war, and the effect on the many people who are party to it. In the penultimate scene when Sergeant William goes back home and is in a supermarket, totally at sea when he has to choose from a hundred varieties of cereal.

It is then that I understood what the quote meant. For those involved in it, war is after all, a drug. You know it is not the right solution, you know it is something to be condemned. But once you have been in it, you know there cannot be a life without it.

Watch ‘The Hurt Locker’. You might love it, or you might be bored. But you will have something to think about.

Hi

8th August

Hi !

I wanted to tell you this since long. Everything I say to you may not be right. Most of it is what I have gathered from the time I have known you.

You’re not the most popular one. So what ? Others with lesser potential are better than you. But that shouldn’t bog you down. You are destined for great things. That’s because you have the one sure shot ingredient for success – Potential.

You are young And romantic. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You are emotional about people you love and sometimes err.But you have the cushion of the future to learn from. You sometimes get agitated quickly, but that’s alright. At heart, you are loving and tolerant. Sometimes a little too tolerant, so that others take advantage of you. But nevertheless, don;t change. There are others who are taken advantage of because they are arrogant or stupid, You are still better off.

You are emotional. About your people, your loved ones. About their likes, dislikes, choice and tastes. You have had an illustrous past before you. But your future is yours. I am confident it will be enviable.

Look around you. People are changing. Times are changing. Some for the better. Some otherwise. You need to change too.

But which way should you go? Your family ? Friends? Culture? Your aims ? Aspirations? You are confused. You have many options in front of you and sometimes get depressed because you don’t know whats right for you.What about status? Recognition? Your friends achieving more than you.

But remember that the world is vast.Your understanding of the world is the people you know.Your people.Your every step should keep them in mind as they are the ones that matter to you.

Equip yourself with knowledge.Success will come.I can see it.In the way you talk.Your enthusiasm and your behaviour.

There are times when I may have been cross with you.Times when I have complained.I shouldn’t have done that and instead contributed in any small way that was possible.There were times when I laughed with you and others when I laughed at you.

I have never told you this.But I am proud of you.I couldn’t have asked for anything more.You are perfect for me and I count my blessings everyday for having you.

Your birthday falls this Friday.I know most will say that your birthdays are superficial.

But I want this day to be different.I want you to realise your potential and know that I’ll always be there for you.

You turn 60 this year.It doesn’t feel that way.From what I know of you,you have been one,cool, dude.

me.