Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Rant

=>Is there anything worser than sitting at office when u have truckload of new
books sitting at home beckoning slyly at you. if there is I sure dont know. So here I am sitting at office, not able to concentrate on my work and not able to read the books either.. Wahhhh!!!


=> Heard of Transport Jinxes? For some reason yesterday, all my means of transport got jinxed. Wanted to take the metro bus for a change and got into one after 15 minutes of wait. The bus was soooo crowded that I got stomped, groped, screamed at, even had a guy doing some heavy breathing down my neck (ohhhhh! yuck!!!!) and the bus was crawling so slowly, that it took 40 minutes to reach two stops away (my office being 15 or so stops from home). Disgusted, I got down the bus and got into an Auto (for an atrocious amount) which broke down after going some 2/3rd of the distance. My luck was holding good and I could not get any other means of transportation from that place. So had to walk half a mile to the nearest railway station to get a share auto to office. What takes me generally 20 minutes took 1.45 hours and I literally had to drag myself up to my office to flop tiredly. (I shan't even start on how I came back home .. *phew*)


=> Its bad enough being underutilized. but it really gets my goat, when these folks talk intelligibly (read stupidly) on stuff they have no idea about and expect us to take their word as gospel.


=> Well! whaddya know, I seem to have got a following at office. I wouldn't mind it so much if these guys were single too.. hmph!!!!

Saturday, January 09, 2010

3 idiots

I am not a movie buff, I can take or leave it and most of the times I leave it. Hence I had this mild curiousity towards 3 idiots. It had Aamir and was getting all these rave reviews and Chetan Bhagat was upset because his mom cried when he did not get enough credits for the movie and that made "the people" upset. (I actually know one of these upset people too :-O).

So anyways when my team were planning to go to this movie, I snapped up the opportunity to see it.
And I was mildly...hmm! dissatisfied?!

If you are the kind of person who goes to a movie with expectations of depth in the story then this is not the movie for you.

It was 3 hours of laughter riot (with lots of jokes taken from internet and mail forwards) but no real depth.

I don't know how many of you saw the movie Santhosh Subramaniam. In this movie Genelia was supposed to be this really cutesy bubbly naive innocent blah blah character and she ended up acting like a slightly mentally challenged person.

In some scenes in 3 idiots I felt Aamir was doing a Genelia from SS. His wide eyed, over bright expressions were mildly annoying. And oh yeah! whatever Glycerine was left out after Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Ghum was used up in this movie.

I have this aversion to Kareena Kapoor, especially since I had the misfortune to see Kambaqt Ishq, but she had surprisingly done a decent job here.

Anyways if you want to ditch all your worries and laugh and have fun for 3 hours , then be sure to check out 3 idiots.

PS: The last movie I saw was "Achamundu Achamundu", a movie on child abuse taken by an NRI, which was surprisingly tastefully told and got its point across very well. I came back with the satisfaction of having seen a good movie and more ....wanting to do something to change the situation. Wanted to write a separate post on this movie, but somehow never got around to doing it.

Humanity.. where can we buy it?

Its pathetic how inhuman we humans have become. A dying man does not get help, but everyone around him takes great glee in taking photos and video of his suffering until he dies.
Two recent bits of news has disturbed me greatly.

One of the Sub Inspector who was brutally murdered in front of 2 ministers and their entourage which consisted of many of the dying man's own brethren and not a soul to help. The ministers even refused to come near the wounded. There was a great big crowd of people, one guy taking photos of the man bleeding and crying pitiably for help and moaning in pain and not one person felt the need to help. There was another taking a video of the whole thing, which is now being put up as breaking news in all the new channels to pour oil in the political in fighting.
It was only when the Collector came to the site that he called for an ambulance, by which time the police man had died. The ministers find nothing wrong in not helping and the government has promised to pay 7 lakhs and a job to the dead man's family. So the case is closed and everyone is happy. Especially the news channels for some days as they can use this to increase their TRP.

Then there was this other case that happened couple of months back in AIMS Delhi. Our puppet Prime Minister was visiting the hospital for God Knows what, when a man in critical condition was being rushed in. The PM's security refused to let the man in (because despite his critical condition, what if he got up and shot the puppet) and he died just a stone's throw away from help. The PMO dutifully sent across a press release that they were sorry for the man's demise, with which they washed their hands off any responsibility and the man is ofcourse just another road kill.

I dont understand how people are going to "save the environment" when they cannot be bothered to save their own brethren and be absolutely callous about it too... :-(

Friday, January 08, 2010

Swing

I am not sure what there is about a swing, that brings out the kid in every person who comes across it.

I dusted out the old swing, that my grand pa used to swing on, from the loft and had it hung in the hall. Since then it has become the central point of interest to all our guests and visitors.

Its cute to see my friends' eyes light up when they see it hanging out there. They dont wanna sit on a chair or sofa. Its almost a compulsion to sit on the swing and give it a couple of mighty pushes.

I was really amused when my dads friend, a sexagenarian if not older, got so excited seeing it. Owing to some leg problem, he even had trouble walking, but he absolutely had to sit on the swing and reminiscence on his childhood and his father who had a similar swing for sleeping.

A swing is almost always a representation of care free times and sweet memories. Swinging in parks, with one person standing and the other sitting. Swinging so high that you feel you can almost touch the sky and the downward swing brings ur stomach rushing up into your throat and you want to stop, until the next swing upwards. The dizziness after a good time swinging.

But the children of today somehow do not seem too excited about swings and other simple pleasures of lives. Poor things, dont know what they are missing

PS: Hey waddya know .. I complete 150 Posts with this one :-).

Saturday, January 02, 2010

2 states

I had been hearing so many raving reviews about the latest book by Chetan Bhagat, that I just had to read it. I had read his first two books with some difficulty, but found the third one was beyond me. After I read this book, though my eyes were opened in many ways.
First, I guess I am too mature to read books like this. It felt like some of these gossipy, schmaltzy stories you get to read in women's magazine. (I am glad to say, most of my friends felt this way too)
I had thought apartheid was over and done with. I didnt realise it was still prevalent in the north indian mindset. I hadn't realised being fair was such a great honour and they thought south indians were blackies.. (i guess, thats like saying all north indians are dumb show offs)
The worst part was the judgemental snobish writing that sneers at the Tamil people's interest. Why should tamils enjoy the same way that Punjabis do? where does it say that you have to be totally out there and scream your enjoyment, your love and every emotion. It seems childish to rate one culture with another culture as yardstick or write about something one has no idea of. For God's sake, since when has a love for knowledge become a bad thing?
If kissing in the middle of a crowded shop is the contemperory fun thing to do, I am not sure we will find many such people in Chennai and thank you god for that.

I have an unfortunate habit of finishing any book I start, which I did with this one too and felt disgusted with myself for having wasted my time on it. (and I am now wasting a few more minutes ranting about it.. coz someone triggered me about that book again.)

My Grandma's Tales....

(Happy New Year 2010!!!! :-) )

It was a hot summer night. The night was heavy with the humidity and smell of ripe mangoes and the grandchildren had come down to visit her. They were a joy and she had been looking forward to this time all through the year. But no one could disagree that her four little joys were also four little tail-less monkeys. They had run her ragged throughout the day and had still not wound down. She could hear them screaming and running and it was dinner time, something she was surely not looking forward to.

Looking out the kitchen balcony she could see the beautiful moon rising out from behind the palm trees when it stuck her.

Armed with mixed rice in a vessel, she called down to her monkeys to come up to the terrace for dinner and she would tell them stories that she had had heard from her mother and they could make it a picnic under a beautiful moon...

http://mygrandmatales.blogspot.com/

(The above URL takes you to my new blog, which contains stories mostly from mythology and folklore that I had heard from my Grandma. An erudite lady who has the knack of making her stories so very interesting that she could hold even us terrors, bent on mischief, spellbound. I have always felt sad that people even of my age (leave alone the next gen) do not really know these lovely old stories and hence decided to do something about it and so here goes... )