I wish facebook was real!

I wish facebook, much like Harry Potter and Hogwarts School of Magic, was as real as it is alluring. Here is why I would be a completely changed man because of it!

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I: Today I did this ,
Friend 1: Like
Friend 2: Like
Friend 3: This is wonderful! Keep it up!
Friend 4: Like
Friend 5: Share with other friends
....

If I had so much pro-active positive reinforcement in actual life, I wouldn't have been so socially awkward! Who doesn't like surrounding themselves with friends who not only agree with you, but like you 90% of the times!

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Day 1:

Friend 1: Today I found this
I: I don't agree, that shouldn't happen
Friend 2: Why shouldn't it happen? ...
I: Oh come on, are you out of your mind?
Friend 1: Anybody who agrees must not have brains of their own!
Friend 3: What's the big deal?
I: It is a big deal, how can you be so &^%$^?
Friend 1,2,3: Quit being such a ^%*&%#


Day 2:
---
I: Today I did this ,
Friend 1: Like
Friend 2: Like
Friend 3: This is wonderful! Keep it up!
Friend 4: Like
Friend 5: Share with other friends
....

Facebook must be either adding 10 layers of thick skin, or triggering amnesia. Either way, aren't these exactly the kinds of friends you'd want?

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I: Happy birthday
Friend 1: Thank you!
Friend 2: Happy birthday
....
Friend 1: Thank you all for your good wishes!

(what actually happened: I logged on facebook, it reminded me so I posted on the wall).



Can you imagine if I had a reminder on my actual calendar to wish my wife "Happy anniversary"? Enough said.

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Day 1:  I open a facebook account, add 2 friends
Day 2: Facebook asks "do you know these people? I say "yes", now I have 4 friends.
Day 3: Facebook asks "do you know these people? I say "yes", now I have 13 friends.
...
Day 10:
Friend 1: Happy birthday!
..
Day 10.5:
I have 83 birthday wishes from people who all like me.

...
My real life experience is similar but ongoing, and "day" should be "year". And a simple "yes" didn't win me a single friend even in kindergarten.

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I: (Pasted from hallmark.com or a forward) I love you . You are the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't be here without you, and I wish we are together till eternity.
Friend 1: Like
Friend 2: Oh, that's so sweet! Keep it up!
Friend 3: Sahi
Friend 4: Best of luck! Very nice!
Friend 5: How romantic!
I: Thank you everybody!
...

Real life:
I (reading in a dramatic voice from a card I brought) : I love you . You are...

The room bursts into giggles and laughter... and there are only 4 other people! I smile sheepishly and hand her the card, vowing never to try being romantic again.
--------------------

Friend 1: I did this today
I: Oh how wonderful (sarcastically)
Friend 1:
I: (Delete comment)

...
Really, our tongues and brains should evolve into having an undo button!

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Friend 1: X celebrity is marrying Y!
I: That's wonderful!
Friend 2: I'm jealous!
Friend 3: Oh, I thought Y was with Z?
Friend 1: Yes, but Z was seen with A...


Real life:
I: Did you know X celebrity is marrying Y!
Friend: Hehehehe, you read page 3!

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I: Vacation on the beach!
Friend 1: Keep it up!
Wife/girlfriend: Thank you! it was so much fun!
Friend 2: Great, I'm jealous.
Friend 3: You should try X next, we went there last year and had a blast!

Real life:
I: This is a great photo, I'm going to put it up on my office door.
Wife/girlfriend: Are you crazy?!
Friend : So, how was the vacation? Wink, wink


--------------------


And for those reasons folks, you will rarely catch me on Facebook! I'm not very social, but I'm not a closet socialite either :-)

The headless chickens

I love Andaz Apna Apna! Amar (Aamir Khan) is the one who has the ideas, constantly changing his tune and plot to woo Raveena (played by Raveena Tandon, who pretends she is Raveena but is actually Karishma). Prem (Salman Khan) on the other hand mostly improvises and mimics what Amar does, first to outdo him and later to support him. Somehow he loses to Amar's tactics and yet ends up winning the race to Raveena (played by Karishma Kapoor who pretends she is Karishma). The climax is especially funny: Amar acts as the diabolical villain who planned the whole thing, until Prem reveals sheepishly that the revolver is empty. They then beat each other before beating everybody else, much to the audience's delight!

If you did not follow the above hackneyed plot or if you enjoyed it, it may be playing out in real life! And that makes the plot both funny and sad at the same time.

The Prem in real-life is the Congress party. It runs around, plotting something and then changing its plot, both for reasons and objectives unknown (they, like Prem, are also very bad actors). Somehow they end up winning elections in the end, much like Amar-Prem, because they have no competition in stupidity. Amar in real-life is Rahul Baba, morphing between the clueless, refreshingly smart and stereotyped. In the latest climax of this story, the Congress party did a U-turn on its stand on the ordinance, after "Rahul Baba" came out vociferously against it.

The fun probably won't stop here, but it didn't start here either.

The ordinance itself is a template of shamelessness. "For political reasons" the Congress party decided that it is not OK to ban convicted people from holding seats in power. The party had the epiphany of making public and official what was always a tacit practice. Like a group of misguided school children, they then proceeded to attack the opposition saying "everybody does it! Why are you opposing it?" They devoted their entire media machine selling this, acknowledging that it is both against what the Supreme Court said, and any argument of logic and morals.

Then came the dissent, culminating in the revered Rahul Baba coming out against it. Within minutes, the entire party reversed its stand saying "its probably not a good idea". Even headless chickens may be more nuanced at navigating!

The whole thing is so mind-numbing and stupid, it almost looks staged. Much like the plot of Andaz Apna Apna-- "we will kidnap Ram Gopal Bajaj, and then we will rescue him becoming heroes in his eyes!", this may well be an exercise in showing the world how sane and fair Rahul Gandhi is. First commit a gaffe, then have Rahul Baba come out favoring morals over party, and then take it back.

Reason and logic tells me that a person can be extremely self-centered, cunning and even sociopathic, but personal pride trumps all. Which is why I am confounded about how our Prime Minister and the Congress party spokesman must be living with themselves. How loyal does one have to be to label oneself as #$@%! on national tv and print media? At least our poor PM has mastered the act of being mum most of the times with occasional flashes of pathetic platitudes. The spokesperson on the other hand has the unenviable task of wearing a "gadha idhar hai" poster on his chest.

But who are Karishma and Raveena in this sad comedy? Unfortunately it is us voters. Who we are continuously confuses those who seek our votes (are we intelligent, are we so dumb that we will let anything pass, can we be distracted like babies so that they can get away with anything?). Before the election we are Raveena, the daughter of the filthy rich man, after the election we're Karishma, the munim's daughter worth nothing.

But the comparison doesn't end here! Guess who "Crime master Gogo" is? That role has to go to the BJP. For mysterious reasons the ruling party fears them. Gogo is after the same prize that everybody else is. Like the climax, Gogo, Amar, Prem and everybody else take potshots at each other while puzzled Raveena and Karishma look on...

News sources: please show and allow discretion

This morning with my son in my lap I briefly accessed my favorite news website. And was instantly disturbed by its main headline. Struggling to get it out of my mind...

I hope someone in the news media is reading this. Please show some discretion in what you put in your headline, or in the short blurb below it. Unsuspecting viewers like me who would never click on such disturbing news don't even get a chance to make that choice and walk away. Its right there staring us in the face...on websites that overall, we trust.

There are millions of viewers who would read such stuff and not be bothered by it. Many times its me too. Yet I'm not sure why this particular item disturbed me, which is the problem. My only choices are to live with the possibility that this may happen unpredictably, or wean myself off the website totally. I don't like either option: I'm sure the news media don't like them either.

We know advertising is important, and traffic is important to sustain it. But it is unbecoming of someone aiming to be a respectable source of news.

The doppleganger bhajans

Here it is...Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram "disco style". The newest song on the filmy block, from the movie Krissh 3. I just saw it yesterday.

This particular line of the bhajan has been morphed 3 ways in the last two decades.

1. The half-bhajan half rock song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
2. The call for agitation version from Satyagraha.
3. The disco song from Krissh 3.

Its not so much religious or moral blasphemy as it is musical harakiri. I'm not outraged, I am just disappointed. It is like the concept of "Christian Yoga": one is outraged for what it stands for (supposed Hindu proselytization), and yet one uses it in name and spirit for marketing purposes (why else would you continue to call it yoga?)

I'm hoping the song actually has a viable context that justifies the use of "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", but I'm not waiting with bated breath. Why use the popular line of a song if one means to present it in a completely different context and tempo? I have nothing against dance music and thumping beats, and am awestruck once again at Hrithik Roshan's warp-speed dancing. But its difficult to find a reason other than cheap marketing that they used this line.

The reason I'm disappointed with this is the same reason I'm disappointed with most remixed songs. Similar to how we remember legendary tunes in their context, the remixed sounds become the new context. For some listeners, "Dum Maaro Dum" may now be the song that has the phrase "...potty pe baithe nanga", "Tumhi ho bandhu sakha tumhi" is a beach song.

But even those who don't know the bhajan, here is the new context to this line: the lyrics of this song from Krishh 3: http://www.lyricsmint.com/2013/09/raghupati-raghav-krrish-3.html.

Compare that to the lyrics from Satyagraha: http://www.lyricstaal.com/satyagraha-title-song-lyrics/

Both start from the same line: one morphs into a party song, the other into a call for agitation. Which context do you think is more faithful to the spirit of the original one? And why should we care about faithfulness? Because most listeners associate a song with the context set by its words, music and what they were doing when they heard it. "Mere Desh ki dharti" is an unabashedly patriotic song even though I have never worked in a field, "Airanichya deva tula..." is one of my favorite Marathi songs not because I was once an ironsmith, but because I heard that song most often and saw that movie at my grandparents' house.  Presenting an existing piece of music in a completely different context does more than making it accessible to the current generation. It renders that accessibility meaningless because the context is garbled.

Lootera: the review

Lootera is a story set in the 1950's, soon after India's independence. The main story is in two times, separated by a year and an intermission. It tells the story of a zamindar's daughter falling in love with an archeologist, how they fall in love before falling apart, only to run into each other again. The film is an adaptation of the Last Leaf, which thankfully the movie duly acknowledges in the end credits.

The film does a pretty good job of transporting the viewer into the 1950s. Every frame screams a simpler, quieter time set in rural India. The props, the makeup and the sets are all authentic, and a sight for sore eyes. The pace of the story matches the slowness of the time, but in a pleasant way.

The performances of Ranvir Singh and Sonakshi Sinha can be described as fairly decent, but not spectacular. This is the only movie of Ranvir Singh I have seen since Band Baja Baraat, so he had a reputation to live up to. This role is completely different from his earlier ones, and he does not disappoint. As I said, decent but not spectacular. He is yet another example of an Indian male actor who looks far better with shorter hair than with long tresses (I haven't found an exception yet). Sonakshi Sinha on the other hand, has a history of such low-ball movies that it is difficult not to meet that bar. Thanks to the role, the makeup and her performance, she finally shows some semblance of an acting spark in her. Her face is strangely suited more for frowns and grimaces than big grins (reminding me yet again of Reena Roy), which is why I think she suits this role more. It is definitely a step up for her, even if the slope is low.

The director and music composer deserve some special mention. Unlike the popular and critical opinions, I absolutely hated this director's last movie: Udaan. So this movie is to me, an improvement of his record. Udaan was just different, this one is different and for the most part, nice. He does a good job at going back in time and keeping us there. The music is quite hummable. My favourite song is Ankahee. The songs are not period-drama masterpieces like Lagaan and Jodha Akbar, but they are genuine and fit well with the story.

Where this film failed the most is its erroneous marketing. The name "Lootera" pretty much gives away most of the plot. To make matters worse, the promos of the movie eliminate any possibility of the title having a metaphorical meaning rather than a literal one. That it was an adaptation of the Last Leaf further minimized intrigue (I had not heard of this book before, but a simple google search spilled the beans about its plot). With all this, the only saving grace would have been an outstanding plot and superlative star-studded performances. Only then can a movie whose plot has nothing mysterious would still mystify the audience enough to go see it. And this movie has neither: the plot is decent but not groundbreaking, and so are the performances. Therefore it all averages out to an average movie rating from me.

Ranjhanaa: the review

Its been a while since I have seen a movie early enough to post a meaningful review. Thanks to my parents and the cooperation of my kids, we got to see Ranjhanaa, and I'm glad I did.

Ranjhanaa is a love story that works on many levels. It is unpredictable in several parts, predictable in far fewer instances than regular Hindi romantic films. But the success of its script is not in its unpredictability, but in its reality. Its two main characters are as ordinary, human and flawed as one would hope but not expect in a Hindi movie. Complete with good performances and cinematography, Ranjhanaa is definitely worth a watch.

Its heartening to see a movie shot in the Hindi belt of India and not as senseless as Dabaang. Varanasi, whenever included in a Hindi movie, is usually depicted with all its religiosity and depressing one-dimensional realities. In this movie it creates the perfect context for both the main characters. Despite never having traveled to that part of the country, and perhaps even more so because I have been away from India for so long, there is a strange romance about the chaotic existence of the city as depicted in this movie.

This is probably Sonam Kapoor's meatiest role to date. While Aisha seemed to come naturally to her, in this role she is entrusted to break her typical childish image. She puts in a decent performance overall, averaging some impressive scenes with other mediocre ones. While she has honed the skill of playing a bubbly girl (which actress hasn't?), she falls a bit short when it comes to showing her character's greatest flaws. Or perhaps it seems that way because of the actor she shares the screen with.

Dhanush impresses in this movie. This guy looks extremely unlike any other Hindi movie actor in the past decade, as far away from bulging biceps and Greek-god looks as one can be. I must admit I cringed at the thought of a South Indian actor who admits that he does not know Hindi portraying what seems like a "roadside Romeo" character from UP. But apart from a few dialogues where his accent shows in a subtle manner, he has done an impressive job hiding his lack of knowledge of Hindi. His extremely ordinary looks are his greatest asset in playing this character. He carries off the comic scenes and the emotional ones with panache. And if you have seen the promos, this guy can literally shave off years from his face!

He must share at least part of his success with the script writer. His character is both self-aware and wonderfully flawed. He is romantic, idiotic, impulsive and clueless and frankly that is much more multi-dimensional than the fluff Hindi movie heroes are made of. In the end I must crown this as my favorite part of this movie: the contradictory, flawed reality of his character.

The editing is crisp, and the direction is good. Music by AR Rahman is strictly average. But then again, a good script complemented with good performances never need the makeup of music and dance.

Sad or disgusted!

Blogging after a long time...and commenting on something outrageous.

Read this on CNN today: 5-year old shoots 2-year old.

I was reading this with sadness and horror, until I read the details. My overwhelming emotion took a turn towards disgust.

Yes, it is unbelievable, but the 5-year old was given a single-shot rifle as a gift by his mother! When she stepped out of the house for a minute, the 5-year old got the gun and accidentally shot the other kid. My sincere condolences to the family, but I have to honest, I am having a real hard time feeling bad for the mother.

In which alternate dimension is it alright to give a gun as a gift to a 5-year old? This, in the same country where kids are sent home from school because they gestured a gun with their fingers while playing! Over the past few months since the Newton shooting I have read some pretty outlandish comments both for and against gun control, but this really stretches the limit!

How does giving a gun to a child assert one's "God-given" rights? And what does one gain by asserting such a right, besides bone-headed insistence? Background checks would have genuinely not stopped this one: there is no law-certified test for stupidity. A 5-year old, no matter how armed, cannot be expected to stop a home invasion or any other violent crime. So the gun in question was clearly not meant for self-protection.

I'm even more aghast that the gun in question has been made solely for this target population: kids. Okay, so one cannot realistically apprehend all stupid people. But if one can ban people under 21 from drinking and tobacco companies from advertising near schools, surely one can ban expressly marketing ammunition to kids! It is simultaneously feasible, practical and sensible to stop one or more manufacturers from doing this.

Do I really have to inquire the gun status of each household my children go to play? And what other (seemingly endless list of) senseless half-witted possibilities am I expected to know about as a parent?