Yosemite.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Science fiction while growing up

This was the science fiction in the good'ol days of Doordarshan.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Vegetarian? Vegetarian?

"Vegetarian? Is this Vegetarian? Veggie?" a short dark balding man in an oversized leather jacket asks the waitress at a Thai restaurant pointing at a picture in the menu. The lady is used to many Indians coming to her joint because its cheap and close to a major software consulting company. The employees are mainly underpaid FOBs, in the US on a couple years' assignment. Some have been here for many more years but are still just as curious as the FOBs. Many can't afford a car yet so its nice to be able to just walk to the restaurant. A welcome break from the drudgery of boring work and idiotic bosses. Plus Thai food is so much like Indian food; what with the coconuts and the spices.  They lady says impatiently "No meat. Order?". She has many customers to attend to. He orders a veggie fried rice.
He waits for his food to arrive and glances at other tables. Some occupied by singletons like himself, others with people in groups, lucky them. He can't seem to recollect even a single time he ate alone in India. A few tables away is a group of four Indian girls talking excitedly and giggling. He tries to catch their eyes. He succeeds with one. He smiles at her. She rolls her eyes and whispers something to the other girls. They all turn around, look at him and break into another giggle. He smiles to himself, thinking, Indian girls are so beautiful and innocent, not like the American ones. Oh wait, he looks closely. There is beer bottle on their table. And, also a pack of Marlboro! Shee, no culture only! Indian girls are very spoilt he concludes.
He overhears a conversation on the table next to him. Two guys, one Desi and the other American, are discussing the recent housing market collapse. The Desi is confident and the loudest most obnoxious person in the restaurant. "THIS IS THE RIGHT TIME TO BUY, IF YOU HAVE A MILLION YOU SHOULD BUY A HOUSE IN CUPERTINO, BEST SCHOOL DISTRICT!". Our man has been hearing about house prices and stock market every place he goes to. It seems all that people talk about here is fucking houses and stocks. Cupertino, he makes a mental note, good school district. But he is not interested in houses for now. He is just struggling to send the monthly payments to his parents in Hyderabad. He takes comfort in knowing that his parents are being taken care of. House, maybe some other day.
His food arrives. Ah, the smell of hot and spicy fried rice. He wants to eat with his fingers but resists the temptation and picks up the spoon instead. While munching he gazes through the window at the street outside. An old Indian lady with a walking stick wearing an old sweater over a punjabi dress and tennis shoes is hobbling down the footpath. The area has a few redneck car dealers. Monster sized trucks and SUVs whiz past the old lady at high speeds. The noise and vibrations emitted by these great American engines make the lady tremble. Our man gets a little concerned. But she'll get used to it, he thinks. After all, when he first got here he regularly walked three miles on the interstate highway to get to the nearest Walmart. He still gets the jitters thinking about the roar of the passing 18-wheeler trucks and their loud angry honks.
The lady comes to a stop at a bus-stop nearby. Two Indian guys are waiting there carrying a few plastic bags filled with grocery items, looking completely out of place. Green vegetables, tortillas, milk, eggs. Waiting for the bus to arrive, wondering who the heck did their grocery in India or for that matter who cleaned their houses or washed their clothes or cooked their food or cleaned their dirty dishes or paid their bills. One guy has forgotten his jacket at home and is now shivering uncontrollably. His partner pays no attention to him and keeps staring blankly in the direction of the arriving bus. A relationship run efficiently, just like a business. He had never imagined that cold could be this devastating to your body and soul. In movies they showed people dancing on snow capped mountains and then lighting a campfire and getting horny and then wham! bam! thank you ma'am! Not like that here.
The bus arrives, the Indian posse gets in. Our man finishes the last grain of fried rice in his plate. He takes a sip of water and rinses his mouth making a little gurgling sound. The loud Desi on the other table hears this and contorts his face displaying mild disgust. Saala desihe thinks and continues his solo speech "SO THE GOOGLE STOCK IS DOING GOOD. IF YOU HAVE SOME SPARE MONEY YOU SHOULD INVEST IN IT!".
Our man gets out of the restaurant. It has gotten much colder. "Oh bhennnnchod" he screams and sprints towards his office. He thinks of calling his roommate to pick him up from work tonight. Can't walk home in this biting cold. Fucking roommate, counts every penny, even gas for a ride, efficiently running a relationship, like a business.
Samaapt. Dhanayad.
p.s. A hilarious paragraph from Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City, where he talks about his immigrant childhood -  

I missed saying bhenchod to people who understood it. It does not mean 'sister fucker'. That is too literal, too crude. It is, rather, punctuation, or emphasis, as innocuous a word as 'shit' or 'damn'. The different countries of India can be identified by the way each pronounces this word - from the Punjabi bhaenchod to the thin Bambaiyya  pinchud to the Gujarati bhenchow to the Bhopali elaboration bhen-ka-lowda. Parsis use it all the time, grandmothers, five-year-olds, casually and without any discernible purpose except as filler: 'Here,bhenchod, get me a glass of water.' 'Arrebhenchod, I went to the bhenchod bank today.'
In my first New York winter, wearing a foam jacket my parents had bought in Bombay which actually dispersed my body heat out to the atmosphere instead of preserving it, and sucking in the freezing winds during my mile-long walk to school and drawing them to my body, I found I could generate warmth by screaming out this word. Walking into the wind and the snowdrifts, my head down, I would roar, 'Bhenchod! Bheyyyyyn-chod!' The walk to school led through quiet Queens residential streets, and the good Irish, Italian, and Polish senior citizens who happened to be home in the daytime much have heard this word on very cold days, screamed out loudly by a small brown boy dressed inappropriately for the weather.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Go Bobby Jindal Go !

I just read an article by Shashi Tharoor about Bobby Jindal. I am joining the party late but, what the heck, I'll say it anyway. So Bobby Jindal is now the Governor of The State of Louisiana. The Desi community here and in India are all jumping with joy like teenage cheerleaders. They held prayers before the election. After the elections they celebrated like they just won a lottery. Wow, first Indian American to reach such a high position in the US government. The future sure looks bright for us here. We mastered technology, business, medicine, motels and now politics. America is truly a melting pot. But wait a minute. Do we even know what Bobby Jindal stands for? When little, the boy was named Piyush but he decided to change his name to Bobby, apparently getting inspired to be white after watching a TV show called "The Brady Bunch". He converted to Catholicism and made his wife do it too; they are regular church goers. Nothing against the religion, I've got great Catholic Desi friends, but what would be the reason he would (and make his family) convert? Possibly to appease the white folks? He stands for the Republicans. Nothing against the Republicans (I am one) but considering his parents were immigrants and knowing the hard stand of Republicans against immigration and their inherent xenophobia you would assume that the dude would be a little liberal on things sensitive to the immigrant community. He is anti-abortion, anti-gay (have to validate that), anti-gun control, and what not. All that a typical desi would stand for, Bobby Jindal stands against. The fucker is smart, no doubt about that. He is not obligated to show his Indian-ness but saala he takes money and support from Indians for his campaigns and in his speech to the Indian community he totally flips over and talks about how great the Indian culture is but makes no reference to actual policies for the benefits of immigrants or on any of his hard stands. We are so gullible. Bobby almost screams out that to succeed here you have to change your identity and be like John "Chevrolet" Doe.
Anyway, the full article is published here from TOI as follows.
*********************************************************************************

The election of Bobby Jindal as governor of the US state of Louisiana has been greeted exultantly by Indians and Indian-Americans around the world. There’s no question that this is an extraordinary accomplishment: a young Indian-American, just 36 years old, not merely winning an election but doing so on the first ballot by receiving more votes than his 11 rivals combined, and that too in a state not noticeably friendly to minorities. Bobby Jindal will now be the first Indian-American governor in US history, and the youngest currently serving chief executive of an American state. These are distinctions of which he can legitimately be proud, and it is not surprising that Indians too feel a vicarious sense of shared pride in his remarkable ascent.
But is our pride misplaced? Who is Bobby Jindal and what does he really stand for?
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of Indian migrants in America: though no sociologist, i’ll call them the atavists and the assimilationists. The atavists hold on to their original identities as much as possible, especially outside the workplace; in speech, dress, food habits, cultural preferences, they are still much more Indian than American. The assimilationists, on the other hand, seek assiduously to merge into the American mainstream; they acquire a new accent along with their visa, and adopt the ways, clothes, diet and recreational preferences of the Americans they see around them. (Of course, there are the in-betweens, but we’ll leave them aside for now.) Class has something to do with which of the two major categories an Indian immigrant falls into; so does age, since the newer generation of Indians, especially those born in America, inevitably tend to gravitate to the latter category.
Bobby Jindal is an assimilationist’s dream. Born to relatively affluent professionals in Louisiana, he rejected his Indian name (Piyush) as a very young child, insisting that he be called Bobby, after a (white) character on the popular TV show ‘The Brady Bunch’. His desire to fit in to the majority-white society he saw around him soon manifested itself in another act of rejection: Bobby spurned the Hindusim into which he was born and, as a teenager, converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith of most white Louisianans. There is, of course, nothing wrong with any of this, and it is a measure of his precocity that his parents did not balk at his wishes despite his extreme youth. The boy was clearly gifted, and he soon had a Rhodes scholarship to prove it. But he was also ambivalent about his identity: he wanted to be seen as a Louisianan, but his mirror told him he was also an Indian. The two of us won something called an ‘Excelsior Award’ once from the
Network of Indian Professionals in the US, and his acceptance speech on the occasion was striking — obligatory references to the Indian values of his parents, but a speech so American in tone and intonation that he mangled the Indian name of his own brother. There was no doubt which half of the hyphen this Indian-American leaned towards.
But there are many ways to be American, and it’s interesting which one Bobby chose. Many Indians born in America have tended to sympathise with other people of colour, identifying their lot with other immigrants, the poor, the underclass. Vinita Gupta, in Oklahoma, another largely white state, won her reputation as a crusading lawyer by taking up the case of illegal immigrants exploited by a factory owner (her story will shortly be depicted by Hollywood, with Halle Berry playing the Indian heroine). Bhairavi Desai leads a taxi drivers’ union; Preeta Bansal, who grew up as the only non-white child in her school in Nebraska, became New York’s Solicitor General and now serves on the Commission for Religious Freedom. None of this for Bobby. Louisiana’s most famous city, New Orleans, was a majority black town, at least until Hurricane Katrina destroyed so many black lives and homes, but there is no record of Bobby identifying himself with the needs or issues of his state’s black people. Instead, he sought, in a state with fewer than 10,000 Indians, not to draw attention to his race by supporting racial causes. Indeed, he went well beyond trying to be non-racial (in a state that harboured notorious racists like the Ku Klux Klansman David Duke); he cultivated the most conservative elements of white Louisiana society. With his widely-advertised piety (he asked his Indian wife, Supriya, to convert as well, and the two are regular churchgoers), Bobby Jindal adopted positions on hot-button issues that place him on the most conservative fringe of the Republican Party. Most Indian-Americans are in favour of gun control, support a woman’s right to choose abortion, advocate immigrants’ rights, and oppose school prayer (for fear that it would marginalise non-Christians). On every one of these issues, Bobby Jindal is on the opposite side. He’s not just conservative; on these questions, he is well to the right of his own party.
That hasn’t stopped him, however, from seeking the support of Indian-Americans. Bobby Jindal has raised a small fortune from them, and when he last ran (unsuccessfully) for governor in 2004, an army of Indian-American volunteers from outside the state turned up to campaign for him. Many seemed unaware of his political views; it was enough for them that he was Indian. At his Indian-American fundraising events, Bobby is careful to downplay his extreme positions and play up his heritage, a heritage that plays little part in his appeal to the Louisiana electorate. Indian-Americans, by and large, accept this as the price of political success in white America: it’s just good to have “someone like us” in such high office, whatever views he professes to get himself there.
So Indians beam proudly at another Indian-American success story to go along with Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams, Hargobind Khorana and Subramaniam Chandrasekhar, Kal Penn and Jhumpa Lahiri. But none of these Indian Americans expressed attitudes and beliefs so much at variance with the prevailing values of their community. Let us be proud that a brown-skinned man with an Indian name has achieved what Bobby Jindal has. But let us not make the mistake of thinking that we should be proud of what he stands for.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Its getting cold out there

To all my east coast and surrounding area friends, I hear its getting ridiculously cold out there. Dirty snow, slippery roads, multi-layered jackets, you haven't showered in ages, holed up in crappy apartments all day long. I've got a song to cheer you up...

When it gets dark and lonely,
and its always freaking cold only.
You are thinking of sunny days,
but God has her funny ways,
The snow outsite climbs in inches,
maa kasam the thandi pinches.
All you crave is chai-garam,
but your spirit is totally naram.
East coast, about its culture, does boast,
chaila, now you are dreaming of the west coast?

Anyhow, I can totally relate to you. Its freaking 75 F here on the west coast today. I am thinking of putting on my shorts and going for a jog. Ah, the good life.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Out

Out of ideas.
phus. 
phuskey.
atom bomb at first, then lavangi.
sayonara.
kaltis.
dukaan bandh.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

The Doors - Touch me baby

One of the greatest songs of all times.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Bharatanatyam

The stage is minimally decorated. A few flower garlands are placed alongside a plain banner that simply states the purpose of this event - "Annual Fine Arts Festival - 2003" in a school somewhere in Tamil Nadu. In one corner are two plain-jane ladies with giant square spectacles, well-oiled hair, sandalwood teekas on their foreheads, sitting cross legged on the floor, each facing a microphone. Two men in equally big spectacles and even bigger teekas are sitting next to them, one tuning a mridangam (a tabla type precussion instrument) and another a violin. The audience is murmuring and a few children are screaming and running around in aisles playing pakdaa-pakdee. Everybody seems strangely at peace with themselves; not hard to comprehend considering the total lack of sexual tension in the atmosphere. No show-baaji like garba or bhangra.
Then, she enters the stage. A girl, about 14, draped in a bright purple-yellow-orange colored silk outfit that looks like a combination of a tightly wrapped saree on the upper half and a snug salwaar on the lower. The colors are bright but they blend well. The dress is tight but not vulgar. Multiple golden ornaments adorn her face, her feet, her arms and her hair. Her hair is jet-black, just like her giant eyes, tied in one long plait embellished with flowers and clamped to her dress at the back. A lot of attention has gone into ensuring that she remain as flexible and aerodynamic as possible and at the same time look femininely delicate. The audience immediately takes notice. Most of the kids return to their seats, some don't. Parents of those unruly kids order them to get back promising, with angry hand gestures, great spankings if they didn't.
With almost a violent jerk the bored ladies and men on the stage erupt into a loud musical recital. No one would've imagined that these quiet-looking people could make this loud a noise. At precisely the same instant, as if they were synchronised electronically, the girl springs into an energetic but tender dance. The plain-janes seem to have just discovered what they were born to do. They sing effortlessly and in perfect sync with each other. They are loud but strangely pleasing to your ears. They are not afraid of their voices and present every variation within their infinite vocal range vividly to the spellbound audience. Its almost as if they don't care about anything anymore. They seem to be narrating a story which you strain to understand. Something Vinaayaka, Vinaayaka. Being the dumbass that you are , you don't get it.
The men are not to be left behind. The mridangam walla is vigorously tapping his palms and fingers on his instrument but it does not take over as the dominanting sound in the performance. It only adds to the ongoing harmony. The violinwalla also seems to track the melody with his instrument. Each is doing their own thing but collectively they appear to be one. Like chaar badan ek jaan. Like everybody knows what everybody else is thinking, what their next moves are going to be and then adapting to those moves. The entire ambience is transformed in an instant, like going from 0 to 100 mph in half a second. Many a times these performers don't even rehearse together until they start performing in front of a live audience. Its like years of practice have given them a magical sense of understanding of another musician's frame of mind.
The girl's dance is a whole different phenomenon. Some parts of her body are moving in sync with the mridangam, some with the violin and others with the musical narration. Her fingers, palms, forearms, shoulders, feet, ankles, knees, hips, torso and most importantly her countenance seem to be taken over by the music. Her feet are synced to the mridangam's percussions. The faster the mridangam thumps the faster her feet move. Sometimes your eyes just can't keep up with her pace. Her face shows varied emotions that change with the tempo of the song. She seems to be following the sequence of the story, sometimes acting like a Godess, sometimes a mother, sometimes a flirtatious lover, sometimes a hapless victim, sometimes a mischievious child, sometimes a monster, sometimes a saint, sometimes a human and sometimes an animal. She glides from one character and emotion to another effortlessly. There is not an emotion out there that she cannot present without uttering a single word. She has taken over your mind. You don't matter anymore. Each twist, each action has a purpose. Not a single move is out-of-place or wasted. It all makes sense within the narration. How different parts of her body perform different artistic manoeuvres at any given instant is a frustrating mystery. Heck, you can't even simultaneously tap your head with one hand and rub your stomach with the other.
After a couple hours of vigorous upheavals the music stops, the musicians go quiet, back to their bored idle states as if nothing happened. The little girl gently bows to the audience which is still hypnotized by her presence and exits the stage. You can't help but wonder how many centuries of refinement and education have gone into Indian classical dance and music to have arrived at such a brilliant form. And this is just one instance. There are dozens more, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi, all uniquely different but equally mesmerizing. There is no end to this. When people say Indian culture is great, this is what they probably mean. There is not a single other culture in this world with so much variety, depth and vibrancy. The Chinese come close but not quite.
In the good old days of Doordarshan they used to run classical music and dance performances when there was nothing else to show. You wouldn't wanna be caught dead watching any of that stuff. Just wasn't cool. How ignorant.
For your viewing pleasure here is one of Medha Hari's performances and some random stills from the web.







Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Desi American Idol Audition

It was the summer of 2001. I was walking home back from school in the scorching dry Texas heat, cursing Mother Nature for inflicting so much pain on poor car-less students. America was supposed to be nice and cold just like in the movies, not like this furnace I was in. The only saving grace was that the heat caused the babes to shed their clothes and emerge almost nangi-poongi. There I was, an unshaven desi, walking on the footpath, taking my own sweet time oogling at the shiny slithering legs, wondering where my life was going. Engineering wasn't as exciting (in terms of the type of work and the quality of girls) as I had imagined. My MS research was going nowhere. I was dreaming of an alternate career. I wanted to be a singer. I had always prided myself of possessing a brilliant singing talent which no one seemed to appreciate. People around me were jealous of my voice. They tried very hard to put me down. They praised other guys for their singing but never mine. The girls went gaga over one particular punk's voice. I will not disclose his name here (you know who you are). But I kept on. I sang. I sang when I was alone. I sang when I was happy. I sang when I was sad. I sang in bathrooms and I sang while hanging out of trains. I even added my own jhankar beats and pelvic thrusts to make it more palatable. Like dhaak-cheek-dhaak-cheek. I dreamnt of a music producer hearing my songs and signing me up for his next album and then making it big. FYI that didn't happen.
Back to the story. Halfway through my journey home I saw a little flier stuck on a lamp post. It read "ATTENTION SINGERS. WE ARE NOW CONDUCTING AUDITIONS FOR THE BIGGEST MUSICAL EVENT. ANY AGE WELCOME. PRIOR EXPERIENCE NOT NECCESSARY....BLAH BLAH BLAH." Somewhere in this loud notice I missed that it was meant for the Choir. If you dont know what a Choir is check Wikipedia. In short its a bunch of prudes, well-dressed, mainly in a church, who go "OOO AAA EEE" in chorus. See photo. There is no place for dhaak-cheek-dhaak here. Heck , who knew it then.

I checked the date. Oh crap the auditions were happening today! I was excited. I saw this as a chance to revamp my miserable life. I ran like a wild goose towards the audition hall although not once losing sight of the nangi-poongis. My happiness knew no bounds. I reached the advertized location. It was calm and serene there. Many well dressed students were waiting in a line outside a closed door, talking in whispers. All that running had made the chappal-wearing desi sweat like a pig. But what the heck, its my voice they want, not my appearance. My competitors were practising breathing, meditation and were reading from some loose sheets. I was silently ridiculing them; who reads before singing? Losers! I knew this was going to be a dhamaka for the western world, an Indian beating Americans in their own songs. For the audition I decided to present them with "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. It had my kind of beats and low-class mentality.
The line grew shorter. After about an hour of memorising the lyrics I was confident and ready to kick ass. The door opened. The previous guy walked out; not looking very happy. Ha! I walked in. It was a huge hall, draped with maroon velvety curtains, decked with impressive chandeliers and soft lights. Pin drop silence. At the far end of the hall was a royal looking piano. A blonde lady in her thirties was perched behind it, prim and proper. I walked up to her hoping she doesn't catch the whiff of desi paseena and praying that she be one of those who value inner beauty and talent over sickening body odour. She handed me a bunch of sheets that looked similar to what people were browsing outside. It had those high and low musical symbols on multiple lines across the page. Some chords or shit like that. I was dumbfounded. Looking at my bewilderment she asked whether I knew how to read these musical notes. What do I know, kaalaa akshar bhais barabar. I told her no but I am a good singer and I can also add my own beats while singing. She said this is for the choir and you need to know how to read these notes and they don't need any beats. I said I can master these notes in a few days. No big deal. Tu piano bajaa re, teri maa ki. She asked what do you want to sing. I said Uptown Girl. She hesitatingly agreed, not knowing where this was going to lead. I started to sing....
"Uptown girl, dhaak-cheek-dhaak"
"She's been living in her uptown world, dhaak-dhaak-dhaak,"
"I bet she never had a back street guy"
"I bet her mama never told her why."
...
and I ended the rendition with an emphatic "DHAAK-CHEEK-DHAAK !"
Bam! This was undoubtedly the best performance of my life. I knew I had clinched the deal. The lady looked up from the piano. She looked confused, shaken up and out of words. I knew I had roused her emotions and left her speechless. She thanked me and told me that they will contact me if anything materializes. Just a formality, I thought. I gave her my email address and headed towards the door. On my way out I saw the poor souls waiting in line not knowing that they had already lost the competition.
But its kinda strange that I didn't hear back from them. Its possible that they lost my contact information. On second thoughts, maybe I should just stick to engineering.

Friday, November 2, 2007

The train rolls in

Its 8.30 am. The peak hour. Nopes, its not some lame Churchgate to Borivli local in the opposite direction with a few smug window-seating aunties enjoying the morning breeze. I am talking about the real deal here. You are waiting for the 8.30 am Borivli to Churchgate local to arrive at your platform. You are standing near the edge of the platform, surrounded by hordes of people, packed to the brim, nudging each other, waiting impatiently. The men and women regions are clearly separated. The office ladies have their saree pallus tucked in. The college going girls have their bagpacks snugly covering their chests because the men in the arriving trains sometimes slap their breasts. Bhen***ds. The macchi-waali has her catch of promfrets in a tokri balancing precariously on her head, dripping a mysterious pungent fluid on a miss-goody-two-shoe's mini skirt. Some men are busy gawking at the ladies, some digging their noses, some scratching their butts, some lazily adjusting their crotches, some reading the latest business news, some catching a quick smoke and others discussing answers to mathematical integration problems. They say that you can see the Great Wall of China from the moon. I say, try focussing that satellite on Borivli station sometime. You will see a humongous black oily mass, moving up, down and sideways, formed by bobbing heads trying to catch a glimpse of the arriving train.
There! You see it appear at a distance. The giant metallic reptile rolling slowly towards your platform. As always, a bunch of people are hanging out from each compartment. The nudging around you gets harsher, the nose digging picks up pace and the crotch adjustments get vigorous in anticipation of whats going to happen next. Every square inch of your body is in close contact with the people around you. I wonder what happens at the men-women border; never been there. It doesn't matter whether you are a college student, a rich stock broker or a mochi. All are treated equally and shabbily. Some adventurous guys take their positions, periliously close to the edge, hoping to catch the window seat. But no window seat today. In fact, no seat only today! The train had stopped at Kandivli earlier and is going to be jam packed with "return " passengers. If you hadn't seen such a massive humanity before you would almost pee in your chaddees. The train slows to a crawl but its still moving. The human mass starts shifting towards the doors. Oh crap, first class dabba aaya idhar! The motorman did not park at the right place. You curse his mother and lunge towards the second class compartment. They used to also have a third class compartment earlier, but travellers complained that third class sounds too derogatory and hence it was removed. I think its probably the luggage compartment now.
The collective mass starts pushing you in. People hanging out of the doors try their best to push you back out. The collective mass wins and you all go in with one big giant push. Some passengers who need to get off at the station (the guys travelling in the opposite direction) cannot do so; serves them right! Some elbowing, screaming, cursing and punching follows and you are finally inside. Oh yeah, baby ! Eventually everybody settles in the compartment like sand settles in a bottle. One fat amateur student is left out and he looks pleadingly at the guys in the compartment who pity him and let him in too. Even air cannot penetrate this compartment now. But not to worry, you have a few other things to breathe depending on the guy attached to your front side. If he is shorter than you , you get to smell the brand of chameli oil he is wearing today. If he is taller you get to smell his armpits. God forbid, if he is exactly of your height the possibilities are endless. That is a story for some other time. For now all that matters is that you are in. Mission accomplished.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Happy Halloween !

Fully grown Indians dressed up in ridiculous Halloween costumes acting as if you are having a lot of fun; totally not cool. You look weird. Take it off. You are not 10 anymore. Even at 10 you didn't dress like that. Take a look at yourself. How low can you go? And please do not wish me Happy Halloween or Happy 4th July. I will slap you silly. And puh-lease, enough with the pirate costumes.
As a side note, we Indians also have our own Halloween costumes. Printed gujju-chaap silk shirts that snugly follow and amplify our body contours (formed by massive amounts of charbee) and loose baggy formal pants with spanking new white tennis shoes. Scared of a gujju? Boo!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Earthquake

    Yeah sure you've been to Europe and New Zealand but you are not a complete man if you haven't been in an earthquake. I have been in an earthquake. Thats right, an earthquake. It hit the Bay area yesterday, October 30th 2007. Magnitude 5.6 on the Ritcher scale. I, Pulkit Desai, was there. And I survived. I am a survivor.
    Life was good before the earthquake, I tell ya. As usual my evening was packed with totally exciting possibilities. I was sitting on my couch contemplating whether to spend my time cutting my overgrown nails or reading random people's scraps on Orkut or making blank calls to my childhood crush who never liked me and is now married with a few kids. And as usual the guy in the apartment above mine was walking with a heavy foot, thumping my ceiling (I hope he dies soon) . Suddenly the apartment started shaking violently as if a ghost had possessed it. For a moment I thought the guy above me was just walking extra heavy this time but then the shaking was too powerful to be caused by a single person. Then it hit me, it was a freaking earthquake! The couch was shaking vigorously with me holding on to it. The paintings were swivelling around their hooks like rectangular pendulums. Its a good thing most of my paintings are sitting on the floor instead of being on the wall. (To know why read this post). My entire life flashed before my eyes. The little kid to whom I had taught a lot of gaalis a long time ago suddenly jumped out of nowhere and started laughing at my plight. I decided to get the hell out of there. I rushed out. The guy from upstairs was getting out too, without a shirt on. Oh wait, I didn't have one on too. I rushed back in, put on a tshirt, oops, wrong color, picked another one and rushed out. The other guy was screaming as if someone in his family had just died. He continued screaming long after the earthquake had subsided. It really traumatized him (I wish it would have killed him). The earthquake lasted for less than a minute. I entered the house again, everything was in place, no damage. The seismology deparment says there will be aftershocks in the next few days but no specific times have been provided. I just hope it doesn't happen when I am sleeping. I hate people checking me out in my nightdress.
    All in all, I feel like I have changed after this disaster. I feel insignificant in front of Mother Nature. I feel more at peace with myself. I am not as cynical anymore. I promise to be nice to people from now on. I hope the guy above me dies soon.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Salman Khan

I see many pics of Salman Khan on Orkut albums. Girls just love him. They have his pics saying "awsaam, awesomm, AwEsoME only he is, only he rocks". He drives them crazy. Many fully grown men are also mad about him. Salman is an absolute gaandu, a murderer, jerk, violent, goondaa, uneducated, woman-beating punk. The guy has only negative qualities. But he is a hit. The country loves him. Unbelievable.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Old friends

Meeting old friends is an art. How do you greet them when you guys meet for the first time in fifteen years? I mean you were tight and all back then. Now its been a while and not really consequential anymore. Who da phuck imagined this little punk, your friend, has grown into this man with a hairless head, hairy legs, a moustache and a kid ! Its almost as shocking as seeing your little brother grow from a cute little baby into this towering monster casting his heavy weight around, but mentally still gentle as a lamb. I digress. How do you greet old friends? Hey, Amit, how you doing?Hey, Pulkit, how are you? All this while you are just replaying in your mind the kind of shit you guys pulled off when you were little. Stuff that would make the elders wanna commit mass suicide. But that is a story for some other time. And Amit, here you are with a kid? What do you tell him?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Social work.

A peasant Marathi couple receives some training in basic computer skills and the English language from a non-profit organization. In a village of illiterates these are the only seemingly advanced people. These days the family talks like they are the Gods because sometimes they attempt to fix the old turtle-ass windoze'95 computer in the local dawaa-khaana, the only computer in the village of five thousand people. They are the talk of the town. Not much happening down there. But a peaceful life, no magaj-maari. The exciting part of their evenings is discussing how they managed to repair the computer and how smalltown gaavtis are conquering the tech world. Following is one such late evening conversation between Barkya-the son, Meeta-the oversweet daughter, Champa-the mother and Gopi-the father. The family is gathered around the tiny kitchen illuminated by a dim light bulb, clothes hanging from various hooks in the wall, paint peeling off from the ceiling, Gopi and Barkya in ganjees riddled with holes and chaddees with colorful line patterns that only Marathi men can be seen wearing.

Champa : Arrey, tey Baarkya chaa maitrini's wife got pregnant disk. hee hee sorry, fragment disk. I forgot how to repair. Something defrock, defraack, techya maaila!
Punk-ass son Barkya: Defrog, defraaag, kaai-tari pan! Vedi zaali kaa?
Extra sweet daughter Meeta : Disk Defragmentor !
Half-drunk Gopi : waah waah ! chaan chaan!
Gopi : Tumhala kaai maahit naahi! I go today to fix the hard problem. Blue screen !
Everybody : aga baaya! Kaay saanghtaas kaay ?
Gopi : Blue screen. Looking at me. Laughing at me.
Barkya : Feku nako re ! Fukat chaa tension.
Champa : Gup bus rey baarkya, tujha maaila!
Barkya : Manjhe tula naa, aai?
Champa : GUP BUS !
Champa : Tar kaay kela tumhi ? Laavli vaat Bill Gates chee ?
Gopi : Arrey, Bill Gates laa mee ek kaan-phaadi deeli. Billia, bagh, maazaa shee nako bhaandan karu. Tula mee karel...... reboot ! Gelaa blue screen, hoy kee!
Everybody : lai besht ! lai besht!
Everybody : clap ! clap !
The entire village is thrilled about how the super-family continuously solve caampooter problems. The villagers have seen the caampooter but they don't know what the heck is it for. They have seen things move on it, some photos, some color but mostly they are terrified by it. Not to worry. The super-duper-family will be there for the rescue. Lots of progress.
What triggered this vision is a real life "help the gaav-waala" effort I participated in when in college. I saw a flyer in the Juhu area and decided to join-in. They were trying to make a village computer-literate. It was a remote place, a 4 hour train journey from Dadar. I was expecting some idelogical nerds to lead the effort, instead I saw rich hot housewives from Juhu and even hotter daughters and sons in charge. The village was decorated as if a royalty was about to arrive. The village girls performed a pooja, a dance, we had some delicious food, some ribbon cutting and nonsensical speeches by pretty aunties and their kids. For quite a while I did not see the computer. Eventually I saw it. It was an old machine donated by one of the rich aunties. Nobody knew whether it worked or not. They turned it on, windows booted after an hour or so. That aunty's son had probably downloaded a truckload of porn causing it to slow down. One family in the village (Gopi's) was appointed to look after the computer. Nobody told them what to do with the computer. The remainder of the evening was spent lazing around the village and getting served by the gaavwaalas. I don't know if that computer was ever turned on again or if it did anything useful. And I kept wondering throughout the outing, why would the aunties take so much pain to travel all the way from Juhu to God-knows-where. They were too glamourous for social service. Ok granted that social workers need not neccessarily look dorky, but they usually are. The thinking probably goes as "I am a total dork so I will help others to heal my pain". (no offence meant; Asha, AID, Saheli you guys rock,serious) But these aunties? What the hell were they thinking? Maybe their husbands were conspiring to take over the village zameen. Maybe they wanted to show their kids how lucky they were to be born in a rich family. What did they want from all this tamasha? Its drives me nuts !

The moment of truth

The moment of truth arrives when , after a long sweat-consumed workout session, you come home, had an ok day at work, have some spicy Thai Green curry, pour yourself a glass of Guava juice, turn on your 55 inch TV, slouch on your leather couch and play the next nail-biting episode of Office, you realize, life is good, here.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Write sense

Write sense I am being told. I ask what is sense in this world of non-sense ?

Friday, October 19, 2007

One night in a desi cyber cafe.

A new cyber cafe has just opened a few streets away from the ambaawaadi basti. It has 10 cubes in a 10 by 10 kholi. The main patronage is lower middle-class workers and daily wage earners like construction workers, carpentars, chaiwallahs, school going kids and petty Shiv Sena thugs who really don't have much going on for them these days. The customers are not extremely poor; once in a while they can afford to spend 20-30 rupees for pleasure. They arrive at the cyber cafe at around 10 in the night. Most of them have just finished eating their daily meals with their families, many smelling of daal or sambhaar and will now start browsing hardcore pornography in cramped cubes. Not all of them though. You will find an occasional student trying to look up US university rankings (wanting to get the hell out of this shithole) or emailing her friend in America. The tubelights are bright and the cubes are well covered; they have to be, it gets pretty ugly in there sometimes. Its not sound proof though. You can hear noises emanating from the tiny dingy cubes. On their computer screens are white women of various shapes and sizes spread out in various positions in various locations. The dhool that made the laborer's skin pitch dark contrasts starkly with the white bodies flashing vulgarly on their screens. Its heavenly for them in there. Who could have imagined that apnaa Babloo who never got so much as an accidental glance from the neighbourhood jhaadoowaali would be indulging in blonde foreigner women on an island in America. Babloo's story is different though. He is not angootha-chaap like others. He is 10th pass. He can read and write broken English and works as a peon. He wants to reach out to the mysterious heavenly women not just via his eyes but also via his poetic words. He wants to communicate. So he chats. He has been talking to JessicaHotForU, a lady from America he says, for a few months now. Jessica has sent Babloo a picture of hers; it looks like Britney Spears. Wait, it is Britney Spears! Babloo was very excited about Jessica looking so pretty. At this point nobody knows whether Jessica really looks that pretty or if she is really a she at all. Babloo also sent his picture to her; actually Salman Khan's. Hey, everything is fair in love and war. Today Jessica is coming late he proudly tells the cafe attendant. They are all amazed that Babloo is able to communicate with these women. Babloo logs on in his internet room. Jessica is already waiting.
Babloo : hai Jessica. you told you get late today?
Babloo : you are there?
...long silence...
JessicaHotForU : yeah, sorry sweety.
Babloo : hai Jessica.
JessicaHotForU : hi how are you sweetheart?
Babloo : I am enjoying talking to you daily.
JessicaHotForU : me too honey.
.....long silence....
Babloo : you are there?
JessicaHotForU : yes, too many people online today. LOL!
Baboo : how many people you talking?
JessicaHotForU : depends.
Babloo : I only talk you.
JessicaHotForU : awww. How sweet.
Balboo : you liking?
...long silence...
Babloo : What are you wearing today darling?
JessicaHotForU : nothing.
Babloo : Wow. I want to be with you and fuck you now only.
JessicaHotForU : come and get it sugar.
Babloo : I want to come America. But very hard to leave company. My five-star hotel very busy. But I get good money from business. I get tickets to America and live with you. But visa is problem.
JessicaHotForU : You own a five-star hotel? lol !
Babloo : Yes, partnership with friend.
JessicaHotForU : wow. I wanna come and check it out.
Babloo : Yes, yes. Please come to India.
...long silence...
Babloo : You are there?
JessicaHotForU : Yeah.
Babloo : Actually I want to ask question. I never love anybody. Only you. And I know you from 3 month. It is love at first sight.
JessicaHotForU : Me too sweety.
Babloo : Really? Then you want to come and live with me?
JessicaHotForU : Sure. lol !
Babloo : I want to marry you. I have experience your body many times. Now I want to be your husband.
JessicaHotForU : wow. no kidding. LOL.
Babloo : I am very serious. I want to marry you. You will be like queen. Lot of money for you.
...long silence...
Babloo : You want to marry me?
JessicaHotForU : Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? You think I am going to marry a diseased third world towelhead dothead snake-charmer like you?
Babloo : Why you angry? I love you Jessica. You love me too. We not fight after we marry. I wear towel only after bath and not on head, on my body to cover my, heee heee, huge dick, that you like, hee hee. What is dothead darling?
JessicaHotForU : Piss off dumbass.
Babloo : Your language I not like. After marry you change bad language.
JessicaHotForU : Screw you bloody terrorist.
...long silence....
Babloo : Why you quiet darling?
JessicaHotForU : Mother fucker, don't ever talk to me again.
Babloo : I am feeling very bad. I love you. You break my heart if you talk like this. Can you send me another photo of you? My friends say its not right photo. I told, they liars. Now I think they right. You not right.
JessicaHotForU : Ok dude, you are on my ignore list. Tata !
Babloo : What is ignore list?
Babloo : Send me another photo.
Babloo : You are there?
Balboo : Darling?
...long silence...
Babloo : Saali harami.
Babloo logs off. He is heartbroken. This is the fifth time a foreigner woman has played games with his heart. He says he will never fall in love again. He feels used. He pays the 30 rupees to the cyber cafe guy and heads out leaving his friends behind, moaning and groaning in their respective cubes. He goes home, opens the door. The tiny kholi is jam packed with his family sleeping on the floor. He gets to his spot, covers himself up with an old torn bedsheet and cries himself to sleep. On the other side of the world JessicalHotForU shuts down his computer, takes off his skirt, puts his pants back on and goes to work.
Technology has finally united developed and developing nations.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Indians are so loving.

I mean it. Indians are so loving. Your uncles, aunts etc, they are always concerned about you. You fucking matter. You fall sick you get 10 calls a day. Everybody is available for you at a moment's notice. Here, you have to think twice before asking somebody for help. So freaking formal. Where the fuck are we living? Or maybe not, here I can count so many people who would help any moment. And I am rarely formal. Love America. Proud to be H1-B visa holder. Green Card pending ! Uncle Sam, main aaya aaya aaya ! Dude, get your act together.

Home sweet home

You enter the room, its dark and cold outside. There is nobody around, not a single soul. In India it would be packed to the brim with sabzeewaali, bhaandiwaali, hajaam, gorkha and a little wretched dog who has nowhere to go and nothing to do. Nopes. Its dark and lonely outside your door brother. The door opens, a pile of newspapers is lying besides the door. The freaking paperwaala does not stop delivering no matter what. The house is well furnished but looks totally shabby. No matter how much money you spend on this money-hogger, it never stays fresh. Clothes lying around, shirts, shoes, underwear, whatever. The floor is mostly covered with clothes and you have to constantly navigate through clothes to be careful about clothes that you might wanna wear the next day. Laundry you have not done in months. Freaking your clothes have'nt been washed since months. Cups lying around. Coffee half-drunk. Smells of stale coffee. ewww. WTF is going on brother? Smells of fungus infested juice too. The smell is just disgusting. Ok maybe not that bad. But you get the point barobar? You think this is disgusting? I think its ok. But sometimes, restrooms, they are so freaking disgusting. Oh ma God, do not wanna go there brother. And the kitchen and closet and what not. The point is, you could live like this. Someone I know lives like this. No, its not me. Sorry to ruin your fantasy. Pervert.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Prediction

Abishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai will break up within two years from today. Putting panvati now - om phaat !

Friday, October 5, 2007

Bhaaji and stocks

A day in the life of a Bombay housewife.
6 am . The first bell rings. The doodhwaala is at the door. Already in a sitting position. Ready to spurt milk. Lady yawns in her bed, another freaking day, what a bhangaar life. Without brushing her teeth she walks up straight to the door. Opens the door, lady in gown, doodhwaala liking it, aah haa behen'ji. Lady opens dirty mouth. Bad smell in doodhwaala's face. Doodhwaala getting the hell outta here. Kitna liter? Lady says two, gets her milk, paani kum daalo kal se, she says. Doodhwaala says "arrey behen'ji , paani to hum kabhi nahi daalte". Freaking the same dialogue has been going on between housewives and doodhwaalas since the beginning of time. Somebody please give up !
10 am (After many many bell rings from gorkha, kaamwaali, istree waala, courier, and a little punk who just coming from his morning walk decides to play a prank to ring her bell and run away.Also, after making breakfast for her husband, nice omlettes with no grease,and seeing him off prim-n-proper ) finally she wakes up. Two things are of utmost priority. First making lunch. For herself. No, not for husband, husband typically has lunch outside, not like the good'ol days, nope. What a pain in the butt, cooking for yourself. That is the worst punishment. Second priority is check on the market. Not the bhaaji market. Stock market. Daily ups and downs are monitored just as the price of kaandaa batata. On one hand she is sitting on the floor saaree all rolled up to her thighs, peeling potatos and on the other hand she is making calls to her stock broker to buy Tata, sell Birla, kill Reliance. All the behemoths of the financial world are getting sold by gharwaalis daily. Saala public pareshaan. She probably makes a couple hundred and is happy about it one day and then loses a thousand the next. But hey, gives her something to talk about. Why can't she enjoy gambling. Roll on, sistaa.
Every hour is different. When I was a teenager, one dumbass told me that housewives get bored and are constantly horny for young teenagers. Thats bullshit. They've got the best lives ever. They are very happy. Let them be.
11 am, 12, 1, etc to follow....depending on shocking insights that I get.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

How much time.

How much time do you need to hook two screws into a painting and deck up your bedroom wall? Lift the hammer, pop it in the wall. Like, phataa-phat. 10 minutes. Then your life becomes relaxed, you have these beautiful Monets and MithunDa poster paintings singing you sweet lullabys to put you to sleep. Like Mona Lisa's sweet smile or Mithunda's sweaty laal rumaal, soothing you, hush baba hush. I mean, life will change. Freaking. Then why ! why ! tell me that we have not hooked it up yet? Freaking we got these paintings 6 months ago. Its lying in a half-unpacked box in a very visible corner of the house. No effort is taken to move the paintings, hide them, hook them up, nothing. Guests come and guests go, they all watch it, get a little curious then try to pass it off as if its not a big deal. Probably declaring me as lazy and unorganized, which I am. Sejal is getting to be one too, living with me. After a couple years she will lose it too. Returning to the topic, when will I hook it up? Newsflash. I am not hooking it up. I call it half naked modern art. Freaking.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Gotta have one mindless rant.

Please stop reading this if you cannot tolerate junk talk and filthy language. The best part of life is a bank balance. Of course, the worst part is also a bank balance. Freaking you hate money at one instance and then freaking you love it. I spent a big chunk of my life in Mumbai plus I am a Gujju so everything I do is eventually for money ; everything. I wouldn't take a crap if it didn't save me money in terms of doctor's bills. Ok, going off topic, right about now. For money, becoming a bhai is acceptable too. But then nobody is going to get scared of a balding Gujju bhai, so can't be that. But that brings up another good point, all the top bhais of Mumbai are total chakkhas. Their voices, their looks are so feminine. They wear such colorful clothes. No big bhai looks like a scary movie bhai. Here are a couple, Dawood-anna and Chotee Shakeela....
I digress. Moving on. In search of money. Engineer ban jaa, doctor ke liye terepass dimaag nahi. Engineer banaa to ideological gaandu ban gayaa. Badi badi baat, uski tho. Poverty hatao, politicis gundaa hain, blah blah. US mein MS karne aaya, Nobel prize jeetega. Tera baap baitha hain naa uppar tereko Nobel dega? Ek se ek badhkar baithe hain idhar. Chal phut. Theek hain, ijjat se job karenge, paisa kamaaenge, mast aaram. To waapas, money money money. Bhukkad saala. Phir paisa aaya to its not a big deal. Paisa gayaa to aaila, maa ki aankh! Saala emotional roller-coaster constantly. Hippie Austin mein rahke job karke thoda thanda hua, to company IPO jaati hain. Waapas money money money. Stock uppar uppar jaata hain to dil hoon hoon kare, ghabraaye; khopdi dhan dhan kare, khul jaaye. (song from the movie Rudali, what a junk movie,who makes such movies, ok I haven't watched it yet). Anyway. Phir stock girtaa hain to sapna toot gayaa. Thats a different story alltogether, read the one towards the beginning of my blog. Bola chhod, kaaheko maatha-phodi, kaam karo. To thoda kaam kiya. Waapis thanda hua, money crazy gone, resigned to my fate, to doosri company (ekdum chakaa-chak company bolta hain baap) phone karke nayaa job ka offer. Job change, doosri company gayaa to uskaa stock bhaaga. Saala almost double ho gayaa. Uski maa ki. But can't sell due to restrictions. Waapas, dil hoon hoon. Abhi aaj date hain 2nd october 2007. Idharich bolega. Next year same date pe stock agar double nahi hua to main samajh jaayega, bhagwaan apun ke saath game khel rela hain. Bhagwaan, tu hain, tu hain. Sorry tereko itna ignore maara. Bus kar bhagwan, bus kar. (Collapses with the dumroo tied to his feet. The taandav is over. Dukaan bandh.)

Monday, October 1, 2007

ICICI bank bhaigiri - update

Update to the original blog posted on ICICI bank bhaigiri. After reading my blog ICICI has decided to give the dead man's family 15 lakh rupees. Jo jeetey jee nahi kar sakaa woh markey kar dikhaya. Saali apni Indian economy is so strong, now suicide is also giving good returns. Don't forget to invest in it. Know any poor, depressed, bankrupt people? Want to make money? Are you thinking what I am thinking?

The sky is not falling

Dukh bhare din beetey re bhaiyya. The downslide stopped. Fed reduced interest rates by a whopping 0.5%. Helicopter Bernanke (he once said if there is a cash shortage in the market he will get in a helicopter and throw cash on the streets) finally blinked. In a recent interesting article in the New York Times one analyst talks about how the Fed has to keep pleasing wallstreet just like a mom pacifies its baby. Only the baby here is the rich wallstreet banker who gets scared as soon as he hears the baby next door sneeze. The problem is that the baby is strategically placed and hence needs to be mollified constantly or else it starts pulling out its investments from the market. Then all babies follow causing a domino effect. The markets are jumping higher now. Doesn't matter if reducing interest rates may (note *may*) lead to inflation (or may not) so in short its possible that you will have a lot of money but your money won't be worth much because everybody around you has a lot more too. Who cares about that for now. Enjoy the ride. See your investments grow. Let the good times roll. Kya pataa, kal ho naa ho.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Love the ugly.

This article is not for the faint of heart. Please stop reading this if you cannot tolerate graphic depictions. Imagine a tiny cheap half-broken 10 paise rubber band. Imagine it has been in the hair of atleast twenty-five Indian women until it finally gave way and broke. So the amount of oil and hair stuck on it is significant. Please stop reading now. Now imagine it has been dragged and trampled on in the ladies compartment for about five years straight. Its pretty lifeless but not dead yet; there are still some residual hints of elasticity and color; it was bright yellow at one time now its mostly black with a faint tinge of yellow. If you've come this far, don't go away now. Imagine this somehow gets stuck to a little boy's feet. The boy sees it for the first time;its still stuck to his feet. Mashed up snugly on his heels. Not going anywhere. Just happy to have found a place to die peacefully after all. The boy immediately understands the situation and decides to protect the poor rubber band. He carries it around on his heels for a couple days. He doesn't wash his heels lest the rubber band falls off. He plays with it secretly; plays with whatever is left of its lousy elasticity. Eventually people around him puzzled by his behaviour learn about this activity. They are shocked at the disgusting little piece stuck on the boy's feet. They plead and cajole the boy to give it up. Then they force him to give it up. They replace the ugly rubber band with a brand new shiny one. The boy doesn't like it. He wanted the ugly one. He has avoided rubber bands ever since. Serious.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

ICICI bank bhaigiri

Recently in the news, a simpleminded middleclass marathi manoos took out a Rupees 50,000 loan from ICICI bank but could not repay it. It is alleged that ICICI sent goons after him, harassed his family, asked him to sell everything he has, including his wife and kids and even then if he can't repay the loan, techya maayla, DIE ! Unable to bear the pressure the poor man committed suicide. While reading this the first thought that crossed my mind was, wow my bank is so serious about its money. Great job guys! I own ICICI shares. Ugh.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Bachhe to baghwaan ka roop hote hain.

awww so cute, so sweet. Take all the save-the-drama-for-your-mumma movies made by Karan Johar or Yash Chopra or Yash Raj or all those ridiculous big banner tear-jerker movies. Heck, take any desi movie released within the past 10-15 years and take a close look at those scary little devils that masquerade as child actors. With a straight face you cannot tell me that they are anywhere close to what kids should be or used to be. I seriously have to yet find one movie where the child actor was anything less than absolutely irritating. They act like adults, talk like they know everything, recite complex dialogues that are too sensible to make sense coming out of a 15 year old child's mouth. They dance like adults; fucking Shiamak Davar screwed it all up. His bollywood dance propaganda sucked the natural innocence out of kids and turned them into perfectly synchronized dancing chimpanzees. Give me some creativity, some improvisation. Freaking bollywood. To top it all, the kids still want us to believe that they are just little and cute and innocent. Bullshit! If you act like an adult I am gonna treat you like an adult. Little punk. 
I am sure we all have our choices of the most punkass child actors ever. For me the one that stands out is that little girl Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hain. See pic. Ugh. Anjali khud ko kya shaani samajhti hain? Teri to, saamne aa kabhi, dikhata hoon!

What trigerred this outburst is another mahaa-pakaau movie I saw recently "Vivah". It featured another irritating sample, attached here. To copy that even real-life kids in India are acting like this. You go to the malls or garba or theme-parks or check out their online profiles and you are bound to see such items on display.
The only saving grace in this whole mess is that these child actors remain just that, child actors. Very rarely do they get a big break in the entertainment industry. After a few years they can be seen acting in inconsequetial roles. Ha! Now what happened to you? All your cute wisecracks are over now? Phew ! There is some justice after all. How do their parents even live under the same roof as these scam artists. If I have a kid like that I will...ahem...chal chhod abhi...my better-half reads this blog sometimes. Anyway, the score is Pulkit-1, irritating kid actor-0.