Maybe on Mother’s Day we can try taking one step towards respecting women. Yes.

I know. I know. Some of you might frown and say “not another article on this, no not again!” however I shall say that now is the perfect time to write about this.

Tell me. The Delhi Braveheart died. From being a successful future doctor, in ten days her world ended. Its over for her. The game has ended. And what about her rapists? Oh they shall rot in some jail of the country for a decade or more enjoying all three meals a day, the correct number of hours outdoors for their health (for its crucial to maintain good standards in a good prison) while their court case goes on and on..and on. For god knows how many years.

 

A sweet little five year old left home to play hopscotch and ended up with a candle in her vagina. Can any one of us even fathom how inexplicably horrifying that is? She lay, wounded, in a pool of her own blood, for two whole days without food or water while the great Indian police tried paying a bribe of  … (drum-roll) … Rs.2000 to her father to drop it. I buy boots for Rs.2000. We have a sunday trip to the mall at Rs.2000. Weekly groceries, and vegetables (thanks to inflation) cost Rs.2000. And the police valued her life, the grotesque agony and violence done to her at Rs.2000.

What about the man (and I understand there was a companion too) who left her to her own slow death and fled? What about the man who came as a tenant to that residential complex one week before kidnapping her? (I wouldn’t put it beyond him to have taken his time studying her movements, to have carefully plotted. These are psychopaths, yes they are)

What about him?

I am sorry. I don’t know. Because my national news-provider has found better things to keep me updated about. Ministers getting sacked. Some celebrity spending quality time with his daughter. Bla bla blah.

Because as a country, shamelessly, we have moved on.

Do you see that several other cases that surfaced didn’t even create such an outcry? Do you see that several cases aren’t surfacing at all? Because the very people who are supposed to protect us are hardly bothered. (A woman cop, whose name shall remain undisclosed, refused to lodge an FIR and told the victim that her face didn’t “look” like she had been raped.)

Because people who are in power are more interested in pointing the finger at the girl for dressing wrong. For not doing this or doing that. And NOT at the man. Not at the guy who couldn’t keep himself in check. They need to target an attitude change among men. But hell, how would that happen when we grow up listening to great bollywood numbers like ‘Munni badnaam hui, darling tere liye’ or ‘choli ke piche kya hai’?

I read on facebook: Even if I am walking nude on the street, you have no business to even touch me. You have no right to objectify me. You can’t rape me.

I don’t think we lack laws. I don’t think we lack awareness. Every man knows its wrong to rape. He wouldn’t want it happening to his sister or his wife. But when he sees a vulnerable girl in the bus?

 

How do the big-shots of this country, who are responsible for running it on our behalf but have unfortunately failed badly on this front and have even suggested that a girl get married at 16 to prevent rapes, expect me to walk fearlessly with my head held high when I know I could have been that Amanat. Because I go out to watch movies too! I mean, who doesn’t!

 

I feel hopeless and helpless. As a girl in this country, I do.

And pray will someone tell me what to do about it?

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Each one of us lives a different life.

Yes, there’s a specific word for that very realization - that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. It’s called sonder.

The definition of the word itself is so surrealistically real, that you’re enchanted when you get to know that you’ve been struck by sonder since childhood. You read books, watch movies, travel, talk to people, all because you want to live different lives. It’s nice to get out of your own monotonous system for a while. Like a down-to-earth out-of-body experience.

Sarah Kay has re-united me with my long lost love of poetry ever since I’ve been introduced to her spoken word poetry on TED, and then stalked her on Youtube further. You might want to check out the videos. How she popped into my mind? Oh well, her TED talk- How many lives can you live? is ditto what I’m talking of.

She says, that she could not understand the concept of living just one life, restricted by age, gender, period of history. She was jealous that there were entire lives she was missing out upon. And how many in the world were missing out on her life. And that, is perhaps the subconscious reason we all want to share our stories with others. Because we’d want to know theirs.

Also, an online start-up on similar lines- The Listserve. It has over 20,000 subscribers through e-mail Each day, a lottery allows a random person to send a mail to the others. I like reading about complete random lives from entirely different corners of the globe- what they would like to share if given such a platform. Those of you interested might try and give it a shot.

The next time you’re bored and alone, sitting in some busy crowded place, start looking at people. There’d be a person laughing while talking on the phone( perhaps a joke? some good news?), a boy and a girl walking away silently ( a regular romantic spat? siblings with a communication gap?), try guessing at what the others live.

A cat lives nine lives. We can live up to infinite if we wanted to.

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The Alternate Universe

We cannot afford countless number of deaths in the jails of the two countries justifying “they” killed “our” men, so “we” kill “theirs”. Until, the nationalism of “my” country (which lies deep down in a 60 feet bore well, where Prince, the kid you might remember, had fallen some years ago, wait, do you?) surpasses humanism, let alone the talks about “their” nationalism.

Contrast to this, we pretend to be unaware of the Chinese intrusion into “our borders”. Then, we have Narendra Modi as innocent as any psychological terrorist who is ready to contest for the office of PM. Given he is a development man who is twice as capable as Ram himself, to appear on the iPads of hindutva, the country should forget that Muslims who died in 2002 were as human as Hindus. Easy Peasy? Or, should we wait for one Md. Ghori from the past to contest against him? One of us might argue that NaMo is going to be a “paradigmatic” departure from brutal Nationalism, taking the fact for granted that no more killings in the jails would happen and the new –ism in the dictionary should be religionism. After all, Ashoka did migrate to Buddhism in the end. Didn’t he?

Here rhymes hypocrisy with democracy. And, every pillar is equally a hypocrite. Or, the alternate case, we are a confused mobocracy. We must define to ourselves first, just as Gramsci once did, what do we mean by “our men”? Indians? NRIs? Americans? Hindus? Sikhs? Muslims? Rapists? Humans? And, how do we see the Chinese intrusion in this state of political instability while cheering for our favourite IPL team?

Or, do we see it at all?

(Views expressed in this article are personal views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts, opinions and intentions of the website)

Pic courtesy: http://goo.gl/IgMYs

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Nautanki Sala: What royal waste of time, money and Mr. Khuranna!

Okay, when was the last time I saw  a badly crafted movie? Ah yes, Ek thi Dayan. But it wasn't bad enough to break this writing hiatus of mine on aS and bitch talk about a movie which, in contrast to the sky high pre release  expectations fell on its face onscreen.

That said, I would definitely praise Ayushmann Khuranna for the single handed steer he has given to the otherwise sad movie. He's clearly an actor class apart, and deserves better movies.

Bottomline? The movie's a drag. Reason? The disasterous acting by the other actors in the movie. All the three ladies disappoint in the acting department, though Evelyn Sharma (Sita) must be given extra brownie points for being the eye candy that she was in the movie.  Gaelyn Mendonca (Chitra) remains confused throughout the movie  although her character at times seems to hint that she was supposed to be the strongest lady in the movie. Pooja Salvi (Nandhini) has been presented as a complete bimbo who is easily manipulated by almost all the male characters in the movie and truth be told she disappoints us in portraying this too.

One spark in the movie was definitely Kunal Roy Kapur, but he has been heavily stereotyped, and at times chokes you with his rotlu fatso image onscreen.

However, the thing that disappoints the most is the way the characters develop. There is no depth in the way things happen, you just can't connect to the way things unfold. Add to that the sporadic scintillations in the form of some motherhood statement-dialogs coming again, which could, on their own be termed brilliant literary pieces, but their timing and way of delivery in the movie kills you.

E.g. "Don't try to play God, Ram."

Scene after scene you miserably try to praise the backdrop of theatre and the integration of the Ramayana. I'd just say, the concept was great but the screenplay was badly written and the cast made it even more pathetic. If you haven't watched this movie, please don't; and if you have, well, shit happens.

Alok K.

Sunday, April 27th, 2013

P.S. and no, the 'Dhak Dhak karne laga' song is not shown in the movie save a couple of scenes with Ayushmann and Kunal climbing up to the bimbo's balcony. Another disappointment, but then there's youtube. ;)

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Kai Po Che: Beyond the 3 Mistakes

Bundled with the frames of crude Ahmdawaad and set in the 2000s, Kai Po Che sensitively touches the political scene of Godhra riots, yet trying to be “fair” enough to cross the boundaries of the censor board and the kesariya and green flagged “institutions”. The film is one of the best cinematic adaptations of an Indian novel done by an Indian filmmaker, in the boundaries of course. For those who have already read Bhagat’s “The Three Mistakes of my Life”, it should be a motion picture of every word written in the book (except the climax which makes it better than the novel), as if it was written to be adapted into the screenplay by default. The small sports shop set against the backdrop of the mammoth temple in the film impeccably concretized the picture that I had drawn while reading it.

The film promises nothing over the top. We have three average Gujarati fellows who are fighting out their everyday conflicts and who are forced into a political war. Like all of us. The divide of religion claims the lives of their loved ones and like our everyday lives, the political agenda of mere [dharm ke] log, tere [dhram ke] log that is pushed through this war is too ridiculous to help them in any logical way. While leaving the theater, I asked myself, how far do I identify myself with these political agendas and “aspirations”? I do find Ish, Govi and Omi around myself in every part of the country and we commit the same mistakes under the influence of ideological fallacy forced upon us by politicos in the name of caste, creed, religion and all such non issues. Kai Po Che makes one think over it one more time.

That was about the narrative. This narrative has been translated beautifully on screen into a two and a half hour long entertainment flick. We see beautiful shots and brilliantly used colourful lights to show different shades of the characters. The hardish tone used in the flashback story gives a perfect look to the Gujarat of 2000s. The characters are well justified by all the three actors. Rajkumar Yadav (Govi) has stolen the show completely. The raw Gujarati background score by Hitesh Sonik is as good as the music by Amit Trivedi.

The Ahmdawaadis

And yes, the best part of the film is its climax. It ends in an unexpected mournful manner and leaves you in utter shock putting the questions-that-you-already-know over our democracy. And, the answers? Well, you already know.

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Rise of an Underdog: Nawazuddin Siddiqui

You must have watched Sarfarosh that came in 1999. Remember that police interrogation scene where Inspector Salim (our very own Bulla) bullies two helpless & hapless malnutritioned locals of the nightclub area of Mumbai for some information? One of the guys breaks and accepts to turn informer. The camera then zooms to a triumphant, radiant Aamir Khan, who asks Salim to herd away the others.

You don't? Watch this.

 

Saab, mat maaro saab!

 

Some 13 years later a Godfatherishly authoritarian & equally merciless Faizal Khan rises out of that backless wretched soul. Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui deserves respect. He has earned it through some back to back strong performances, real hard work and a never say die attitude. Ah those golden and glamorous words of an overwhelmed biographer's dictionary! (On second thoughts, I AM an overwhelmed fan of Nawaz, so, pardon these glorious adjectives!)

But seriously, just have a look on Nawazuddin's struggle in Indian cinema, and compare it with, let's say a chocolaty hero like Shahid Kapoor who was a Complan boy from day 1!

A very average looking person who neither had the height of Amitabh/Abhishek, nor the musculature of Salman/ Hrithik, nor the face of a Shahid/ Shahrukh and not even a family which could afford a barely comfortable life in Mumbai, Nawaz was not meant to be even the lead villain by the Indian stereotype of movie characters. No wonder a character role here or there with the hero beating him up black and blue was all he was getting. But he acted and the audience watched. Sarfarsosh's nameless character struggled hard for the next 5 years to even get a name in the script. (Having a name in the movie is important. For the actor, for the audience, for the story). 2003 came and went with an excellent short story called "The bypass" in which he starred alongside 'The Irrfan Khan' who had already won the Filmfare best villain award for Haasil. Still no glory for the underdog. Things went even worse as Nawaz literally had no roles offered to him between 2003-2005. Not even those nameless, faceless, spineless ones!

Then what happened?

Black Friday happened.

Enter Anurag Kashyap, a struggling movie director who had shown his scriptwriting brilliance in Satya (1998), but still had not directed anything worth praise (or better put, hadn't got a chance to do so yet!). Black Friday was released in India in 2007 after a long legal battle, and Nawaz, for the first time got both a name and some balls (reel ones) as Asgar Mukaddam. Strong performance now made some sense. There dawned a ray of hope on the horizon, or that's what must have occurred to a now hopeful Nawaz.

But the ray of hope happened to be a drunk light of a circus blitzkrieg. 2009 saw Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Rangila ( alongside Rasila), as they together formed the 'Patna ke Presley' band onscreen, and mouthed the 'Emosanal Attyachar' song in Dev D.

I sometimes feel it must be real cruel for an actor to go through all these nonsensical roles, especially if you have been trained in Bhartendu Natya Academy, Lucknow, and the National School of Drama, New Delhi. That's when you realise how important it is to be a khan or a kapoor or a complan boy, for God's sake! All Anurag Kashyap did was to give a name to Nawaz's character in Black Friday, and then turned him into a circus joker. (I think I shouldn't be harsh on AK. May be he was waiting for the right time to deliver a promise.)

Life has a strange way of working in circles. Aamir Khan decided to produce Peepli Live in 2010, and we saw a disoriented reporter out of Nawaz performing so brilliantly that it brought him to the limelight for the first time. (In retrospection, I must say that it should be Peepli Live's starcasting team which should be given some credit for Nawaz's ultimate recognition. After all, when the movie ends, you strain hard about who died finally in the movie that was all about dying. Who else, but Nawaz!)

Another strange twist of fate happened when our own Ramadheer Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia) decided to make a Paan Singh Tomar in 2010. Nawaz was Gopi, the police informer. A brilliantly put work, as always. Things brightened up with Kahaani by Sujoy Ghosh in 2012, as we all saw a 5'6" lean and thin Intelligence Bureau official, Officer Khan, who took the plot and the audience by storm. Every Tom, dick and Hari going to the theatres now recognised Nawaj's face. IB Officer Khan. What a dominating character portrayal, and what a class act!

And then, Gangs of Wasseypur 1 and 2 happened. Anurag Kashyap delivered his promise. If you have had the patience of reading all the above till now, and then see the  concluding scene of GoW II, when our hero, Faizal Khan uses unprecedented brutality in the history of Indian cinema to shoot the villain from point blank range using all kinds of firearms, you will smile; for you will feel what Nawaz must have felt while shooting that scene.

"Keh ke Loonga." Indeed.

Waiting to see more of Nawazuddin Siddiqui in meaningful and strong roles. Though Chittagong (2012) was a brilliantly directed movie, Nawazuddin’s character was not done justice to, neither was it given enough screen share. Talaash as a movie disappointed, although Nawaz did some solid acting, and received Filmfare award nomination for best supporting actor. Looking forward to Dabba, Mountain Man and Black currency. Nawaz can't afford to go back to where he came from. He needs to deliver all the more now. Sarfarosh's informer has turned out to be a Batman of acting, and this industry does deserve a better class of actors. More than ever.

Alok K.

P.S. While roaming around in Copenhagen in the bright European October last year, I saw this poster stuck on a roadside.

Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Respect.

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Cheers to a new You, Me aur Hum

At the onset, let me provide a disclaimer: this article is not about a sequel to Kajol’s movie which I have figured out by eavesdropping in CCD while she was sharing a cup of coffee with KJo. Its about Yoga. Ah, are you sighing in disappointment? Well, I hope I can change your views if you bear with me and read on. Actually, the very clichéd response yoga gathers from several people prevented me from having that word in the title!

                      

Personally, I feel we all misinterpret the word and all the various meanings it can have. I’ll tell you why and how. Don’t you want a stress-free, productive life where you are happy, spending quality time with loved ones, having a positive/optimistic outlook towards life and are healthy even at 50-60-70? I call that Yoga. Yes, a lifestyle where one is efficient and sincere, enjoys all the small moments and is basically content despite all the hurdles that everyone of us faces in different scales at different stages. It is not just a set of body postures.

These are adjectives we unknowingly associate with our wishlist for a dream-like utopian life while growing up on a land as rich as India in terms of cultural heritage. It takes me a tad by surprise when I find friends popping tons of pills while googling brings me face-to-face with tons more of foreigners preaching about this ancient science.

                   

Please realise that I am not asking you to force yourself to a cabbage-juice diet , or give up your favourite bucket of chicken at KFC. Instead, I believe that when you are sufficiently engrossed in yoga (mind, body and soul), you will WANT to wake up for an early morning jog or find time in your hectic schedule for a 10 minute workout, possibly even just meditation while looking out of the window!

                         

Yoga is a state of mind. Striving for better-ment and perfection. Have you read Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Pick it up the next time you cross a bookstand while waiting for your train.

When you spend hours and hours over a submission, it is yoga. Or when you dedicate time for your cherished hobbies. When you innovate and ideate. When you handle your appointments in the day with punctuality and a smile on your face, never losing your calm.

It is about discovering a new you. Each body/mind is different. Everyone of us has a different, unique personality. I urge you to not go by what others do. Observe, but personalise. Listen to the signals your body/mind is giving at each step.

It’ll start with aasanas or simple pranayamas. And within no time, you will be enveloped in this bubble space of positive energy that percolates into every action of your day! You will smile more, feel better, fall sick less often, be stronger, be healthier – mentally and physically. This will invariably help you achieve all your goals, short or long term, successfully. All this without a gruelling exercise regimen. For practising such a style of living is in itself an exercise!

                                

Your body/mind is the most important gift this nature has bestowed upon you. Don’t you want to celebrate it and pamper it royally?

So, dear friend, if you are no longer going to mock and raise eyebrows at someone who swears by such things and don’t consider them a poor nutcase thanks to this crazy world, give Yoga-losophy a try. And see for yourself. I assure you, you won’t be disappointed. The energy of the cosmos CAN be harnessed. Trust me.

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Global Desis: Stitching our cultural past with modern lifestyles

               

Sitting casually in the balcony on a holiday morning, my weary eye leaves the newspaper and the depressing headlines that have been exploding on us 24x7 of late and wanders. Having shifted to a hostel, my time at home presently clocks to just about a fraction of what it was earlier. Add to that the fact that the family moved cities. I notice new things around me!

The beautiful Sankheda furniture with the delicately imprinted patterns. The gold-leaves on the Thanjavurs. The meticulous effort gone behind the grand Cauvery Handicrafts’ wood carving. The colourful batiks and Rajasthani jewellery my mother adorns herself in as she rushes to the office. And finally, they rest on my favourite – an exquisite panchloha Nataraja, the Lord of Dance. Priceless!

                              

lord ganesha, thanjavur painting

But of course, the Lord is seated on a glossy glass-and-metal multipurpose stand which in turn is hiding a flashy American Tourister travel bag.  On Round-2 I spot the digital clock-cum-photo frame, the iPad and laptops, the induction stove. The sleek home-theatre system dominates the living space even as dad’s newly bought plastic-art, an attempt at starting a modern collection, coyly peeps from the study.

In an age when even KFC is bringing out an Indian Tadka menu, what does this new year forecast for our Global Desi houses I wonder.

                                  

lord nataraja in all his glory

 

Things are definitely changing, with several manufacturers waiting to decorate our lifestyles with their products. Our sundays are no longer spent making sweets with the grandmother and we don’t sit in the open verandah of our houses while exchanging gossipy tit-bits with the neighbour as dusk descends. We live in intelligent apartments where, sitting in the office, the parent can check if the kitchen is child-safe by the time kids come from school. Smart gadgets enrich us while newer and newer trends dictate our choices.

                                   

sankheda furniture

 

It is not about whether it is good or bad. It is happening, you will acknowledge, even while watching the Ad for a new milk supplement for expectant mothers possibly taking over from the age-old potion. And as the new year dawns, we can promise ourselves to walk into the future taking the golden past with us.

My heart bursts with glee when I see those monthly exhibitions in cities which give an opportunity to those talented artisans. Or when I come across those websites which now let us possess invaluable pieces of our glorious culture in our very homes with just a click. No hassles of having to go search for authentic craftsmen, while having the satisfaction that you are giving a new chance for dying traditions.

Very few countries are as unique as ours, full of wonderful stories and so amazingly rich in history! It should fill each Indian with pride – the danceforms, the arts and handicrafts, the music and various gharanas, the wonderful spices and cuisine, just about everything about India.

              

delicately carved ivory

                       

                        

lepakshi kuchipudi dancing doll

 

Yeah, there are things you don’t like so much too – the traffic, the lack of infrastructure, the burgeoning social divide etc. – as sophisticated urban members. But they are small things we can set right with time. However, this culture once lost, will never come back. Can you or I sit and weave a fabric so thin that it can be fit into a matchbox?

     

textiles: every state has its own story

                                

beautiful jewellery

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On courts and castration: Need for speed, rapists unleashed

The rancorous rape that happened has certainly stirred up the mass of India.I can sense the emerging odium in the society against whatever is wrong and movements to improve it.

But again a part of me feels insecure- till when? I presume, that by the day after tomorrow, you know- the 'end of the world', all social networking sites, media, talks will plummet to talks of no significance- we survived, i told you it would never happen, let's party. Only a faction will remain that will remember the never ending horror the rape capital has been facing.

Even more disgusting it was, to see a video of an AajTak reporter being eve teased while reporting the incident. Delhi is marring its image as the capital of India.

I feel no need to make this post fulsomely elaborated with solutions to the problem. Enough is being said in the media for the government and the police to act upon.

However, one solution, I feel is extremely necessary to come into action. The implementation of fast track courts. To quote facts and figures- there are about 890 pending rape cases in trial court till date.

http://phillipbantz.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/gavel.jpg

Isn't that as disappointing as some one like Kasab, a mass murderer, with evidence on a CCTV camera being punished after about 4 years?

These sagacious fast track courts should be set up as soon as possible and put in action.The Delhi High Court has already approved 5 such courts for rape cases in the city. But the requirement remains across the nation.

Over the debate of chemical castration, I feel that a rapist is some one who cannot and should not be given a second chance. Reducing the testosterone level won't affect his chauvinist mental state of disorder and his belief that he can do anything to a woman for his own pleasure.

The girl endures the torture, while the man is released just by reducing his libido? Fair punishment? Hell no.

And while we're talking about it- bail? Bail in a rape case? The judge that allows it should get the 'dumbness unlimited' award!

It is upon the government and the police, to ensure that the city remains a safe place for women, and upon us and the media to make sure this incident does not go into a dusty old newspaper after we survive the apocalypse, without making an impact on the country.

http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121218/protest6_20121218_1.jpg

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Quora?

Those who have been to Quora already know how simply awesomeness flows from it. For those who haven’t been on it as yet- you’ll realize it soon. To answer the basic question- What is Quora? I take liberty in getting a cue from an answer well put for one of the questions on Quora itself-  Add 70 IQ points to yahoo answers.

(Source- Quora)

We all have that little curious child in us- wanting to know more about some specific fields of interest, or explore more subjects unheard of. Quora is the perfect platform for that.

How it works? Follow. You follow a topic that interests you. Some guy has a doubt relating to it, and posts a question. People start answering. You can follow the question too by the way. People vote up the answers, vote down the answers, discuss, interact- Quora gives you the perfect space for an intellectual discussion- which perhaps have been missing ever since the trolls and lols invaded facebook.

Actually the very reason why I’m into quora right now is because the count of users is not many, stupid facebook sort shares are less and while ‘Quora’ing I actually feel that I’m doing something productive on the internet. My knowledge expanse gets a space to grow further. I have a new topic to discuss amongst friends.

The best part of it- People come into their senses. They talk sense. Any random answer is downvoted. Only the upvoted ones are appreciated making a pool of proper questions and answers.

No offense against Facebook, but recently, it has been getting on my nerves. I keep scrolling down the ever increasing pile of shared jpegs ( You have the troll faces, engineer PJs, 9gag style, gangnam style and the list goes on - which, fortunately for you my dear reader, I refrain from mentioning further ; to avoid making aS a database of facebook shares). Only once in a while does a Time magazine, NY times, TED page (etc. etc.) share something that captures my eye and satisfies my hungry brain.

(Source- Facebook)

Why am I so fond of Quora? I don’t want people to miss out. I’ve been telling them about it ever since I got to know about it.

What made me so eager to post about it? Well I went through some questions- the gist of which I can share so that you guys can sign up, and search for them ( I know what you’re thinking. No. Quora does not pay me for advertising).

I read a question about the Chakravyuh formation Abhimanyu was trapped in (part of Hindu mythological epic- Mahabharata). A software engineer types down a detailed analysis of the formations with an explanation embellished with diagrams, so much so- that I’m positive it will never leave my mind. And it gave me something to think about.

Five minutes you think, and your brain realizes it can. That sets off your wheels for further action. It’s all in the mind.

I read a question calling for most beautiful phrases. Some were beautiful. Some were unheard of, yet blissfully engaging. Some of another language- all the more -touching.

I read one calling for poems. Short poems. Extremely short poems. “Lighght”, “Me,We”, “Adam, had ‘em”- shortest poems of all time.

Jokes. Nerdy jokes. Witty jokes. Jokes that require intellect. “A mathematician, a biologist, a database administrator, and an astronomer were travelling north by train. They had just crossed the border into Scotland when the astronomer looked out of the window and saw a single black sheep in the middle of a field. "Interesting. Scottish sheep are black," he remarked. "Not so fast," replied the biologist. "We'll need to see the others before we can make such a claim."The database administrator grew suspicious. "Is there just one, or are there many?  It looks to me like Scotland's only sheep is black.""Black on at least one side," said the mathematician.” Lame. Yet funny enough to make you smile.

So maybe these were kinds of examples that might make you believe its all about lame stuff. But it is your choice whether to follow those topics. There are others like Life tips and tricks. What an undergrad student should do during his college years? How to be an entrepreneur? What advice do you give to a student? And the answers are given by MIT grads, Successful businessmen and even say, Chris Putnam!( He gave an answer to a question asking how he got the job at facebook.)

Long story short-

Food for thought- Quora is a luxury buffet. Facebook is like a hostel mess.

If you’re stuck in Rome with Romans and its been a while,

All we are saying- is give Greece a chance

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Nature’s Sparkling Brilliance: Fjord Tour, Norway

“Fjord tour? What on earth are these Fjords? At least tell me how to pronounce them? Is it F-silent or J-silent?”

That’s how it all began. Four Indian friends on their exchange study programme in France talking about taking a random series of train, ferry and bus rides between two cities of Norway: Oslo and Bergen in the month of October.

Some 10 days later, after a meticulous planning and a long, tiring train journey into the Scandinavian countries, when I took the morning train from Oslo to Myrdal, I asked these questions again to myself. By this time, I did know the dictionary meaning of the Fjords, but honestly, I still had no clue of what was about to come in this weird sounding day long tour, and that too in friggin’ Norway, of all countries!

Okay, let us talk Fjords first. Fjords are long, narrow inlets with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity (yeah yeah, hail Wikipedia!). Boring as the definition might sound, the Fjords are one of the most beautiful natural creations on earth, and a delight to the eyes if you crave nature as much as I do.

This, my friend, is a Fjord.

In order to reach the Fjords, one has to start with a regular train, then a private tour train and then take a ferry. We started from Oslo, and took a regular train to Myrdal. Thanks to our Eurorail passes, we paid cipher. The show began early as the train snaked along snowy valleys and ice-capped mountains. I leached the free wifi and updated my facebook status message:

“A cup of hot coffee inside a European train with snow capped mountains passing by, coloring the big, sunlit windows with all shades of delight. Some moments you just can't capture with 14 megapixel devices. :)”

30 odd likes followed in a jiffy!

The train stopped midway on a station, and I couldn’t stop myself from getting down and holding snow in my hands for the first time in my life!

Helpless Sun, Beautiful Cold.

It was only when I returned to the train did I realize that I had left the warm jacket on the seat (thanks to that couple of hours long air conditioned train ride.)

“That’s how, kids, I enjoyed my first sub-zero experience – without a Jacket”, said Ted Mosby.

The next ride was a private tourist train to Flam. It had wooden interiors and a public address system which kept on disturbing us as we took hundreds of photographs of the green-white mountains, and at times, of the train itself!

  Looking into a Wallpaper.

We reached Flam. A small, beautiful village in the heart of Norway. This was our gate to the Fjords (yeah, they were still to come, and I had already filled up my cam with lots of wallpaper stuff.) After around an hour of exploring the village, we got into the Ferry. “Students need to pay only half the price!”, said the captain. I yelled ‘Yay!’ in my mind. This was supposedly the last year of my student- life. We entered the ferry and climbed up to the uppermost deck.

Imagine yourself standing on a large white ship, sailing forward  on crystal clear water amid vast mountains green on the stem and peaks gone snowy. Seagulls start following you for food. One fellow traveler throws bread crumbs in the air and you slowly see the seagulls catching one by one, every single piece of bread mid-air. You marvel at the vastness of scale and the meticulousness of skill inherent in nature, as the Sun shines bright in your eyes, trying hard to give some warmth to your fingers which have gone numb, partly because of the chilly winds and partly because, you have been clicking breath-taking photographs one after another since the last one hour!

Trust me, this is not merely a figment of imagination of a travel-worn blogger. Here’s a photographic evidence of the ecstasy:

My current desktop wallpaper.

 

The Man, the Sun and the Seagull.

Vibrant reflections.

Now that’s big.

 

And those, small.

(The photograph above, incidentally is a very good subject for tilt-shift photography.)

A Fjordful of Sky.

Needless to say, the Fjord tour was one of my most humbling encounters with nature. It went on for two hours and ended with us reaching Gudvangen, with the colors still vibrating in our eyes.

The next few hours were quick. We took a bus to Voss, and then a couple of hours spent wandering in the cold (and ridiculously expensive!) streets of Voss later, took a night train to Bergen. While the almost empty train chugged along the serpentine route, I let ‘End of the Road’ (Eddie Vedder; Into the Wild) flow softly into my ears, closed my eyes and saw the Fjords again. I saw the vast mountains, the lush green trees and the glaciers above, with streams of silver rivers flowing down to the Fjord. I couldn’t help but wonder about the purpose of this unparalleled beauty. Why should something this inaccessible be this beautiful?

And then it dawned upon me. Maybe answer lay in the reverse.

The Fjords are this beautiful because they are this inaccessible.

Alok K.

Sunday, Oct 14th, 2012

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A search for the hidden Barfi in us

What can I say about a movie that has a rating of 9 on IMDB, is the official Indian entry to Oscars, is directed by Anurag Basu and boasts of Priyanka-Ranbir in the cast that you haven’t come across already in the newspapers, 3 weeks after its release?
I usually don’t like to watch movies that reach such a level of hype within the first few days of their release that everybody has seen-heard-read-commented. More often than not, the movie fails to live upto the raised expectations.
With Barfi!, it was different.
The director has made good use of our sensitivity to emotions, flying high on scenes where sympathy fills our hearts like honey, sweet and touching. The cast has mastered a praise-worthy level of acting – @Ranbir: I didn’t know you could pull off a casual role so seriously that it seems so natural! @Priyanka: You, my lady, are the reigning princess of B-Town when it comes to killer performances, link-ups with SRK or otherwise! @Ileana: Welcome!

A very light-hearted beginning gets you laughing for the ingenious acts of Barfi, our hero. His comedy scenes are simply superb -- where he is apparently painting Ileana, or when the Policeman sees his reflection in the mirror and tries chasing it. Moreover, all the three introductions for the lead roles are well taken. The movie goes back-and-forth in time, taking you to 1972 Darjeeling with its downcast skies and bringing you back to Kolkata which offers characteristic scenes that filmmakers have always banked on to recreate India.

The storyline by itself is a simple love triangle. What makes it stand out however, from Bollywood’s run-of-the-mill masala movies, is the way it has been treated.
Yes, some of the scenes are blatant lift-offs from well-known movies and I don’t understand Basu’s justification that by doing so he is paying a tribute to them. Nevermind. If they didn’t bother our Oscars selection committee, why you! Watch the movie for what it offers.

So, as you know by now, Barfi is deaf and mute. He has a sad childhood, with no mother and a driver father. But this doesn’t stop him from thrusting himself upon society with his crazy antics. One can’t not love him. He is the bubbly, effervescent character who takes life as it comes and makes sure he savours every simple thrill there is to be enjoyed. At times you realise how difficult, or to re-phrase myself – different, life is for Barfi. He can neither hear his own father having an attack, nor can he hear his love calling out to him in the climax. His feelings are solely realised through his actions and heart-touching expressions. Remember that Satyamev Jayate episode? Fretting and complaining about our lives, a convenient escapist trap which I am sure most of us fall into at some point of time in our lives, seems non-sensical from this perspective!

On the other hand there is Priyanka’s Jhilmil. She is innocent, safeguarded from the world’s cruelty and grows up in a home for the challenged. Jhilmil shows Barfi, and us, to alter our materialistic look at this world. For her, just catching a butterfly can be the biggest pleasure. She trusts slowly and carefully. But once she does, its whole-hearted. She loves without thinking, without being constricted by society’s views. Her love is beautiful, worth dying for, whether its for the Maasi or the Daadu, or for Barfi as in the last scene.

Ileana is the Third person in the movie, her character being our eyes to view the lives of Barfi and Jhilmil. She is easy to relate to; for being one who gets influenced, is not too confident and conveniently sets off to live life as directed by others. Hers is the everyday story. When the time comes for a life-defining choice, she takes the safer option only to spend the rest of her life regretting it and even ruining the choice she did make. “What is the point if you live like her? Don’t”, the director seems to be telling us. “Point noted”, we say. But it isn’t as easy as that, is it? Society. Family. Pressure. Status. Oh, the variables to be considered are way too many and each one of us has a different way of looking at it.
Nevertheless, the way I see it, the message of the movie gets crystallised when we combine the 3 characters’ perspectives. Live happily like Barfi, no matter what is thrown at you. Live a pure life like Jhilmil, taking time out to enjoy all the sweet nothings. Live confidently and be responsible for your decisions, irrespective of what they are.

P.S. The movie has hardly any series of dialogues, if you notice. no noisy interruptions. Its just beautiful music running in the background, one track flowing into the other.

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Rotterdam, Netherlands: Where the eye goes post modern.

What does a city do when a crazy guy called Hitler bombards it to ashes? Why, it turns post-modern!!!

Before I begin: Thanks to my exchange study in a random chill college of France, I have been roaming around in various cities (and countries) a lot lately. My latest trip saw me walking down the plazas and the squares of Luxembourg, Monaco, Bruges, Brussels, Nice, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. All these cities are beautiful (well almost; for Brussels sucks!) and much has been written about the various cities, how to get there, what to see, where to shop and stuff.

My plan is to write on aS travel about the things that strike  me while roaming around in the European streets, the thoughts that these stone pavements evoke and the thought train that follows.

***

So, we were talking about Rotterdam. It’s a beautiful city; it is post-modern, and no, I am not making a sweeping statement here. Since Hitler’s bombardment in the 1940s, the city has stopped following any architectural axioms. Challenging the existing rules, questioning the axioms, and erecting contrasting buildings with even more contrasting elements hitting right in your face is what post modernism is about. Things don’t go haywire. Thoughts do.

Let’s see if my lens is able to show you what I felt like while walking in Rotterdam:

Mind the different types of buildings, standing next to each other in full glory.

 

Exposed brick over exposed concrete. Reminds me of Kahn and his brick-periments in India and Bangladesh.

 

A bright orange building standing right in front of the old City hall which survived Hitler’s bombs. I sometimes wonder whether post-modernism is also about not respecting things that happened before us.

Respect, after all, is also an axiom.

 

That weird structure is a metro station. In your face, Hitler!

 

Just when things started getting uglier and crazier, a wild Doner Kebab shop from Istanbul appeared! Not did it only add craziness to the chaos around, but also gave us something to chew along.

In case you did notice those yellow cube-buildings in the back, well yes, we did get into one of them. They looked like a bunch of kites from the outside.

Trust me, they look even more weird once you get inside.

The Kubuswoningen, or the ‘Cube-houses’ for the lesser mortals. This bunch of residential experiment is like an icing on this whole post-modernism Juggernaut of a city. An otherwise unpopular structuralist architect, Piet Blom designed these houses on the concept of ‘Living as an Urban roof’ (Well, at least that’s what was written in the information poster there!)

The thoughts traversed boundaries. The idea was to create a forest, a village for the people within a city. The 45 degree tilted cubes mounted on the top of these buildings represent trees, and all the houses together form a Jungle.

Oh how very romantic! I don’t know. Jungle was the last thing that came in my mind after seeing these yellow cubes with a pencil shaped building in the background. All I could think about was the sharpness of the spaces.

From the inside, things looked strange, but comfortable. I could reside in such buildings. But not forever. No! Have a look at the interiors:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left the cube houses  and the pencil shaped building in all their glory beneath the blue sky. They were hitting my mind pretty hard. It was time to roam around aimlessly in the city, with a camera hanging from the waist.

What does one do then? Why, click photographs of anything interesting that comes in the way!!!

One last look at the cubes!

 

Yeah. That’s pretty bright and loud for a sunny afternoon street stroll.

 

This whole ambiance was balanced in a strange sort of way. Accidental or deliberate, no idea!

 

The sky was falling. I so knew it was! This stone man saved our day. Thanks Mr. Stone man!!!

 

I seriously have no idea what these barrels full of oil are doing on a street in Amsterdam. They reminded me of Dubai and Qatar, for obvious reasons.

After a couple of hours strolling in the sun, I felt a bit disoriented. What makes a place different? Is it the people, the places or is it the thoughts they all evoke in one’s mind? Rotterdam is a beautiful city to explore, before you move ahead to Amsterdam. At times you need to check your own axioms and re-calibrate your own compass. It’s a great city to start thinking about something new and crazy.

Alok K.

Sept. 23rd 2012

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P.S. Here’s a beautiful picture of a two-sided woman greeting from a trapezoid wall. Can you see that cock on top of the woman’s mind? In retrospect, it looks like a pointer to our journey ahead, to Amsterdam: the sex and weed capital of the world, where I was to find all the weird and explicit paintings and sculptures in the sex museums among other ‘stuff’. But that’s a different story altogether! ;)

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