Metro

Move over American Beauty and other narratives of dysfunctional societies, we have our very own Metro now.

Did you ever try that horse-ride in a sehra into a mumbai local station?

How about a 38 year old virgin who looks at a 30 year old virgin at the 'wrong' place, says he did so because he'd never properly touched a girl in all those 38 years. She rejects him because of that, by the way.

A career focussed guy twiches when the object of his affection sleeps with his boss in his flat (pardon the confusion about the male pronoun and watch the movie for clarification, at your own risk of course), but backs the boss. Promotions and venture funding are more important. Suddenly has pangs of conscience, doesn't mind the no money and no work, goes after the girl. Coincidentally, the girl realises she's found true love in him at the same time.

The wife feels so sorry that she almost slept with another man, while the husband has been fucking around without regrets.

A bunch of guys with heads full of hair break into song and guitar routines out of nowhere. I take a personal objection to that, and the hair. (the songs complement the movie's moods, true, but there are just tooo many of them)

(the scenes above are introduced in a random order, to let some interest remain in the movie)

Metro actually makes for a good watch till the intermission. Beyond that, somethings go awefully wrong. You can see the movie wane, and what i mention below characterises the nadir.

Irrfan Khan conveniently walks out of his marriage to be; while Shilpa chooses to stay in a practically nonexistent wedlock, a bastard husband notwithstanding. So much for chauvinism! Feminist talk? Naah, i'm a plain individualist. But following one's heart doesn't mean stampeding on others'.

Mr. Anurag Basu, you got the idea just right. Stray stories, however, do not always interweave seamlessly. And when you try to force them together, they do not forge into an urban classic.

Wild(e) Quote

"Each man kills the thing he loves"
Oscar Wilde

Kashish...

रेत की थी वो इबाऱत, हवा ने मिटा दिया
कब तक चलें हम उसके परस्‍त, न मंज़िल रही न रास्‍ता रहा

Reth ki thi woh ibarat, hawa ne mita dia
Kab tak chalein hum unke parast, na manzil rahi na rasta raha

Plastic

Not the stuff a bag of vegetables is made of. Off the topic, i'm carrying some home these days. And i hate them too, you know they can clog drains and choke animals trying to peek and bite!

I, however, choked on a lot of other plastic tonight. Here's some.

Plastic smiles, gave away the lovely faces and hot bodies. Oh, i've been watching a premier fashion pageant for the last 3 hours, excuse me. And the models had a trainer each for dance, diction, grooming, hair, nutrition, skin, walk, yoga; ughh, i missed some. And of course, smile - lips 7.68 mm apart with 4.36 mm and 3.32 mm of lower and upper teeth visible respectively. Heads tilted 8 degrees from the vertical as they walked. Should stop here, i love you all. Anyway, you did what you were told to, starry eyed for that moment of glory (Words Courtesy: Moana Sing, jessi koi nai). But may be the organisers could select 25 unmarried Indian girls between 18-25 years and taller than 5'7" who set the ramp on fire without being turned into (plastic) clones of each other, so much for individuality!

A Page 3 Bandar(kar) staring (plastically) at the contestants, did he see a potential Pretty Jain there?

Repeated (plastic) announcements of the 'host n dost' that i'm watching the show live, and when the pre(SET) channel took one of its 10 minutes commercial break, turned on some news that showed the winners in their moment of glory (Words Courtesy: Moana Sing, jessi koi nai). By the way 'host n dost' sir, your humor was stale. Did it go down the drain that was clogged by plastic?

Ladies, i had a wonderful night, i love you all!

Reservation Speak

Never exploited.. never seen them get exploited... why should i bear the brunt of their "upliftment"!! Says an ignorant brat with a profoundly constrained perspective.

I have friends from The Categories. Seemingly normal men and women who have been the same as their unreserved mates for long, actually excelled the latter on many occasions... sometimes without the benefit of Affirmative Action, denied by choice. Being discriminated against, ever, is the last charge they'd lay on anyone; even as most could not resist the freebies doled out to them. None would say they were not given The opportunity.

May be i'm talking about a limited set of people - shunned on caste, but annointed by birth to assured non-deprivation - the so called creamy layer. Not by definition, but then these are my peers, peers of a brahmin, must be the cream of their kind!!

Widen the scope, strip things down to what they are, and we're talking about a cascading effect. Primary to middle to high schools, graduation, postgrad, maybe jobs et al.
Last year I was at AIIMS, medical students of 5 colleges relentlessly protested against reservation. I saw people faint of not eating for days, i saw others fill in their places right away. Their sole cause was that students should not be given special status in postgrad since they already benefitted from reservation during graduation.
If someone gets good elementary education owing to her reserved status, isn't she equipped enough to set ahead on her own, given financial worthiness?
For people who still ask for it at every stage, is backwardness a shining mark on your foreheads? Would you rather get rid of it, or it makes you proud?

That reminds me of the basis of reservation as per Indian constitution. It's social, rather than economic; assumption - a backward is a backward, culturally, monetarily. This equation between social and economic levels is dynamic in the present context, has not been looked at as such.

If you increase the quota at IIMs, how many people can really avail it? The next step you would want to take is initiate the CAT in local languages!!!
I wouldn't oppose affirmative action where it's actually needed. A lot of children miss out on education as it truly is, owing to their economic, geographic, social strata. This needs proactive reform.

Stratifying a society, casteism, is as disturbing as racism. It will restrain India from emerging as a nation forever.

Lost Thoughts

I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You won't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.
There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.
If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?

-Agha Shahid Ali

some answers to The Quest

Life's simple, he said, we make it complicated.

Is it plain perception or we actually turn things worse than they are?
A ghost cannot be without a dead man.

Ah, so you let the man live?
Yes, live for what life is, live without tomorrows. Dispel fear, it kills the spirit of man and creates impossibilities.

But he's a mortal, how can he be without fear?
He can't, and That makes him mortal.

Different Drums and Different Drummers

Read this somewhere...

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.
Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

If you allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that someday these ways of mine may not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right - for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.