We are being desecrated, our creativity pillaged by the Indian sitcom and movies. Media plays such an important role in moulding a society that it could procreate a Yudhisthir out of every Duryodhana; instead we have a media that is hell bent on creating millions of Romeo and Juliette….pardon me Raj and Simran! We claim to have the biggest movie industry in the world in terms of churning out movies. 99% of those are crappy love stories. Every time the boom is thrust onto a newbie’s face; you can hear them mumbling the same script “mera character zara different hain…yeh story zara hatke hain.” You watch the movie and it’s the same old single layered monotonous, moth eaten tale of a youngster who falls in love with a dewy eyed, dove like ‘dumbo’ who can give away her ‘jaan’ for him. Usually this ‘dumbo’ is the daughter of a Dad who can put Lakshmi Mittal to shame as far as pampering his kiddo is concerned. Generally the girl’s pa hams all the way. Usually what follow are a dozen songs and our protagonist slogs and hams his way into Pa’s ‘dil’ and steals away the ‘dulhaniya’. Pa finally gives into peer and ‘puthri’ pressure and also claims that – tera pa bhi tere liye aisa ladka nahi dhoondh sakta! Oh MY God!! I just disclosed so many Bollywood stories here. But mind you, there can be variations too; you would generally miss those if you are not an avid Indian movie fan. Seriously, Indian film industry should be ashamed of blaming the entire society but it for this debacle. Good movies are seldom produced. No new creativity is ever encouraged. If we don’t experiment how are we going to learn? While Hollywood movies are also about space exploration and terrorism (in the most realistic way); we are still reeling behind dealing with matters pertaining to heart and worse we still don’t mention family planning or safe sex. 50 years of movies and we still allude to matters where eroticism erupts; we also refrain from swearing onscreen.

As if this wasn’t enough, we have a linguistic partisanship in the film industry. Bollywood produces only Hindi movies, yep originally ‘trite’. Hindi is the national language, yep. But why is there always a ‘Punjab’ifying of movies and ‘Gujarati’fying of TV serials?!! We loved Punjab in DDLJ and in movies before it but I find this ‘aping’ by the creative lot increasingly idiotic and unbearably unpleasant. We are tired of our belle’s dash through the grange signifying vivacity and ‘idiosyncrasy’(yeah!). I am sure even girls in Punjab find that dash idiotic. My point is that there are 28 states in India. We claim Bollywood is Indian movies. Why is there only Punjab in Indian movies? Thank you Priyadarshan Sir, for all your efforts in bringing forth the Maharashtrian spirit through movies such as Hera Pheri and Virasat. We have a start there,hurrah!!!

We are a country with 28 states and the number of languages and dialects..... only God knows how many! A layman in Delhi still doesn’t know the difference between a Tamilian and a Keralite. Likewise, a layman in Mumbai doesn’t know the difference between a Haryanvi and a UP guy. For him everyone is a BHAIYAA! Who is to blame for this?? Of course BOLLYWOOD!! If they represent people appropriately, confusions won’t erupt and India would be closer than ever. It is impossible to create a movie with only ‘Indian’ness in it because each of us has a ‘MAA ki tongue’. We are subconsciously closer to that than our national language e.g Yash Chopra infusing Punjabi into everything; all characters are essentially Punjabis as if people from other states never fall in love; Raj Thackerey locking horns for the Marathi Manoos, Amitabh Bacchan contesting elections from Allahabad.

Lets pour some Orissa, some Nagaland, some Mizoram, some Assam, some Haryana, some Jammu &Kashmir…..we have loads of them, right?!! Let’s narrate these stories in Hindi! Wouldn’t that be true merging using language? We need to have movies which are creative in thought, which have some substance …some element of mystery thrown in, atleast a pinch of true science, a spoonful of social message strewn over a stew of emotion and action. You don’t require a mindful of thought, just a handful of proactivity would be enough to start with. We don’t expect a Titanic or Star Trek from you; we would be content with an original idea. There are so many good authors (read book writers) in India. Why can’t we simply adapt a good book into movie?! Yaah yaah I know about Chetan Bhagat’s books being adapted into movies. I sincerely hope that the trend flourishes and is followed religiously.

Love-ology!

Love …what is love? Is it the most amazing experience ever? In Devil's Advocate, devil compares love to eating thousands of chocolate at once.Why? Do people really sacrifice or stalk when under the 'influence' of love? It seems like just another emotion but yet has been projected as ‘so powerful’! The word 'Love' has its origins in Germanic forms of Sanskrit term ‘lubh’ which means desire. Philosophy describes as love as ‘ejection of emotions’. Biology describes it as a state where there is an increased secretion of dopamine by hypothalamus. It says that the secretion is higher than in case of lust. It is said that you can simply switch off the sexual urge but never a romantic surge. Now….now…if a biologist-playwright was to describe Heer’s ‘love for Ranjha; he would put it something like – there she (Heer) saw him (Ranjha), the gait so graceful that her dopamine secretion increased and went into overdrive.

If you ask someone who had just had an increased dopamine secretion (I mean… fell in love) about his/her sweetheart, their eyes would glow up like thousand lamps just lit up even the most masculine men would blush like a princess and softer genders blush like…hmmm…hmm…I don’t know. If granted a wish, they would wish for….no not world peace…they just always wish to be by their darling, their inamorata, their beau…..they would also add that …they would just want to sit beside their loved one and peek into their eyes and that they could just fritter away their entire life lauding their ‘beloveds’ beauty and poetizing it.

But I am sure something happens after that because lust does ensue love (def. not talking about parental affection). Lust is due to sex hormones which are triggered by dopamine. Love also leads to increased oxytocin which leads to cuddling and which generally culminates in sex.

I have a friend who falls in love every other month and gets laid too (he is not Indian); I am sure this guy has a serotonin transporter gene. People with such a gene often mistake the initial thrills and anxiety for love and go for it. So what happens to his previous love(s) and associated hormones?? I don’t know about the ‘girls’ but his 'love' hormones are replaced by endorphins. As far as I am concerned, I am sure I am completely devoid of this gene. Even if I ever happen to fall in love I would skillfully parry those feelings regarding them as anxiety and thrills.

Ever heard of the phrase PYAAR TO ANDHAA HOTA HAIN RE! Love is blind…..RE!! People actually fail reality test. It has been seen that people notice only good things about their partners in the first 2 to 4 years of relationship; that is because of the enzyme Phenyethylamine. After four years the levels of this enzyme come down. That is why Americans live with their partner for at least five years before they get married to them. Now don’t ask me about the high divorce rates in USA. I don’t know:). It is very true that you have to live with a person to know him/her.There is nothing such as love at first sight but there, sure, is lust at first sight.Some goody two shoes argue that only men know of such a thing.Others wont argue because they know the truth.

It is natural that lust must ensue love but in some civilization like ‘ours’..love ensues lust. ..yaah pehle suhaag raat phir pyaar ;) . A civilization where girls set high standards for the groom and finally settle for the one that their parents point out to.Yaah yaah even the goody two shoes!!I would really like to study that phenomenon but I am short of candidates and devoid of an experimental model.

A Rendezvous 2 ..

J: I am gay .
I wasn’t sure yet, so I asked him a very stupid question.

I: What kind of gay are you? ..a straight gay (for tonight only) or a gay gay.(ended that with a smirk)
He looked at me, his lips stretched to right as if about to give me a partial grin but …then they retracted. So …I had heard it right ….after all.

I: I don’t like homosexuality.(I don’t know as to why I said that.)

J: No one asked you to like it.
One couldn’t feel more stupid but I persisted. And I was nervous as hell, too!! If I were barefooted you could have seen me drawing cyanocobalamines and Taj mahals with my toe.

I: See, if god wished homosexuality, he would have created Steve not Eve.
(Oh my god! I had crossed the limit. I could feel the adrenaline surge....no, not in me but in him, I could see that in his eyes.)
I looked at his burly large fingers that wrapped the glass. He shifted the snifter to his left hand. With his cold n dank digits, he tapped me on my shoulders and gestured a bathroom break. I was like …..is that it ?!!!!Ohhh …that was not the adrenaline surge but his expression for nature’s calls…phew. Histrionics…ehh!!

I looked around and saw the same bartender; she was sauntering through throngs of bunny hoppers (read awful dancers) with a tray in one hand. She walked towards me and tapped on my wrist. It seems I was looking elsewhere...possibly her cleavage. But I was too clouded with other thoughts to even relish the luring schism.
Holding the tray closer to her bosom she asked “Sir, you want this?”
I wasn’t in a mood for an innuendo and I heard myself saying... “I don’t want either….”.
She gave me a befuddled look and walked away.
J returned.

J: So you are not gay?

I: Do I look like one?

J: Your looks don’t define your homosexuality; your orientation does. No man is 100% straight. Every person yup every person has some ‘gayness’ in him.

I : Cant we change topic? I didn’t come here to discover my hidden homosexuality.
He continued…..he chose to ignore me.

J: So you like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt?

I: I like Megan Fox, I like Vida Guerra. I like Kelly Brook. I don’t like Angelina Jolie.

He continued.
J: I can see that you are into workout. So when in gym do you look at guys?

I: If I say no, that would be a lie. I do but ‘looking at’ is a negative word, ‘spotting’ is perhaps apt because I don’t ogle at them. It’s camaraderie…you know.

I knew he understood. There doesn’t seem to be much he could do about the umbrage than take it but he was trying to derive something. He went on.

J: Ok sir….So you are not gay. Are you vegetarian?

I: No.

J: Do you have problem with veggies or vegans?

I: No

J: Then why the heck do you have problem with someone being gay? It is our choice. This does not even bother you. I won’t even compete with you for your girl. I would, perhaps, be the best person your sister would be safe with. We run parallel to each other like banks of a river or rail lines. Our paths would never cross. Do you know how difficult it is to be gay? It is not even a choice. It is inherent. I can’t explain. From the day we discover that we are gay….(he paused..looked me in the eye)….its a battle with ourselves and everybody. Do you know how difficult it is to tell your loved ones that you are gay …have you ever realized that? Have you ever failed in life? Have you ever faced with a situation where you had to tell someone that you are not good enough…..Do you understand how difficult it is …to come out of the closet? How difficult it is …to tell ma n pa… that..…their son is into men?
And he left.

I had hurt him. I felt those pangs. I had lost a friend before I had one.

All those questions …still echo in my ears. Those words are almost tangible. I would never know how he feels but …



GIST:
Its difficult to be in somebody else's shoes but thank god for what you are.There is always a person out there who wishes he were you, he had what you have …..Thank god for what you are.

A Rendezvous 1...

Few moons ago I had been to pub ……generally I frequent clubs…..but this time around I felt like ‘pubbing’. Actually, the reason for ‘pubbing’ was one of my newer friends. He was leaving Boston for good and therefore, was throwing a party. I reached there….. .10.30 ish. In order to bypass the bee line (pun intended), I approached the bouncer and made a ‘hand shake’ gesture. He approached me and before long I was wiggling to Sean Paul’s Temperature. Yaah!!!! Even I thought the same…10.45 pm was too early for this number.The dance floor seemed like a kaleidoscope of races and colors. While some seemed sober others seemed ready to be on the wagon. That is when I saw my friend waving at me, sometimes pushing …sometimes nudging….sometimes prodding gently (if that’s possible) I finally reached them. He is Italian and had his native cronies with him. All of them were warm and tall!! I settled on my stool besides a very handsome man with tresses but those tresses suited him. His built was envious, his confidence…very tangible, with piercing gaze …he extended his arm for a handshake. We shook hands like men. Surprisingly, my handshake seemed firmer. I turned my head and found a sexy bar tender (flaunting a sweet cleavage) waiting for my order. I ordered for a call drink (Bacardi and coke). She made my drink, deftly boxed it and then slid it towards me with a naughty smile on her face (probably…they are trained to give that smile…..probably ehh).I turned to this man again. We introduced each other; his name was Jilliano-a doctoral candidate from MIT. He had a strong European accent to his English. By now I was riding on my fourth drink. Just then I saw an average looking ‘beauty’ (after I get drunk there are only two categories of women: beautiful and very beautiful) walking towards me. Brushing against me she said something in Spanish slyly. I blurted out “Hey, I am learning Spanish…but I am not good at it yet.” and ended that with a quick smile. She patted me on my cheeks and left. I repented as soon as the DJ hit Low by Flo Rida; that was even before the whiff of her fragrance had left me. I felt the urge to dance….something like feeling the urge to pee…..yaah very similar. I tapped Jilliano on the shoulder and approached this beautiful (literally) Caublasian who was sitting there all by herself. I bent, looked her in the eye and said “My friend, there, (hinting at Jilliano) thinks I am attracted to you.” She smiled at me ……wow …..I held out my hands, she cupped it. We boogied for around 10 min and I returned to Jilliano.
J: I thought she was your pick for the nighth (in his Italian accent)
I: Actually, Indians come to club just for momentary…can I put it that way…..enjoyment. Well, also…. also…I cannot generalize anything about Indians coz there is a billion of us out there. Many of us do pick up girls but not me.
J: I like Indians. They are cute. Even my boyfriend likes them.
Wait …..did I hear it wrong?!!! Boyfriend…I looked at him askew and gestured a bathroom break. He nodded. I left him at the counter. As I walked towards the restroom, I could feel the booming music blur away out of my mind and the word ‘boyfriend’ reverberating in my ears. I returned and he resumed.J: I am gay .
To be continued…..

untitled blog:)

Well ….of late I have been rejecting a lot of alliances. One day my dad called me “…beta, what kind of girl do you want?”
Now..now…I couldn’t tell him this – dad, her a#$e should be like Vida Guerra’s ..her waist to hips ratio must be 0.7 …no more no less…..she should be as intelligent as Indra Nooyi …and more graphic about other parts.
Instead I heard myself saying “Dad, she should be my ‘types’.” He retorted “I know what is your ‘types’, but, beta, this is arranged marriage and brides, unlike cars, cannot be custom made.”

Strange are the ways, we describe beauty; it has changed ever so drastically. Sense never danced attendance to semantic collocation where admiring female body was concerned. Poets have compared female body to anything and everything they could compare it to; some compared their eyes and gait to that of deer. Yaah …of course I know they meant shape but just close your eyes and imagine your girlfriend with deer’s eyes. The thought itself curls my lips and gives me horrible horripilation. And when they compared gait, they meant graceful. Of course deer look cute and I have no personal grudge against them.

Another thing that was compared consistently was their neck but poets played fast and loose on this part. Hips and waist have always been considered to be very important. Indians, unlike their Oriental cousins, have always stressed on low waist to hips ratio. I have always had firm faith in our ancestors’ assumptions; except for the caste system (now don’t get me started on the latter). Look at all the sculptures; they have hour glass figures, it’s not because large stones were available in bulk and that there were no Hiranandanis and Lokhandwalas; our ancestors believed that curvaceous women gave birth to more intelligent children and would themselves be generally more intelligent. Modern medical science has proved just that; ‘seat’ fat contains polyunsaturated fatty acids (Omega-3) essential for the development of the fetus’s brain. Now you know, why they had curvaceous actresses in Mahabharata serial…..:)
So we can be certain that when poets compared contours to hour glass, they were right.

Another feature that stands out is ….hair. A poet would describe- her hair so long , creepers they resembled , serpents they were…. hugging her body ever so……..-Wow…creepers…. that is so ‘creepy’. I would never marry a girl with ‘creeper’ hair; those figurative serpents would give me nightmares during the good times of the better part of my married life.

Another fact that puzzles me to no end is the comparison of face with the moon. When I was a child I remember my mom referring to moon as her distant cousin (remember chanda mama!)…now …after I grew up I discovered that poets compared moon to beloved’s face….isn’t that weird? That would be ‘Gay Incest’ (from a man’s point of view), conflict of ideas and creativity and ofcourse sense!

Over the years, tagging of feminine contours and projections has changed crudely and tastelessly. I wish I could lay out all the slang that is frothing and sloshing inside of me but ………


Gist:
Look for a woman with WHR (waist to hip ratio) : 0.7 but remember as one philosopher spoketh ‘…….eyes reflect person’s inner…’ and another poet says ‘more beautiful the hair …more systematic the woman’
So again WHR, eyes and hair…or damn ! Simply go for the one you love….you will be happy all your life.

Slander

There I was …....standing near the pillar completely oblivious to the ‘goings-on’ for which I had actually been there. I was listening to something else …actually eavesdropping (which is bad I know)….If you were there, you would have seen an enrapt homosapien listening to the hash session of two Neanderthal pseudo philosophers. Actually one of them could be tagged ‘on-the-way-to-become-a-homo sapien’ Neanderthal!
For ease of narrating I would name them A and B…and also to save them from disgrace…really!!!
A: Do you know that girl in green salwar?
B: Ohh.. that girl right next to frame? She is PQR. She is a bitch. Actually she is also a slut. I hear she was dating XYZ and it seems he had a good time with her. Then one fine day she dumped him. Now she is with that guy..” as he held his head askew hinting at a man to his right.
A: How do you know this?”
B(with the confidence of a king maker): I have my sources. My friends told me about her.
A: So you don’t know her personally?
B: Nope.
A: Are you an idiot? You are a post graduate student and you don’t even know this much. How can you spread such things when you actually have heard it from someone else and probably your source must have had his sources and so on.
B was quiet for a while; then retorted.
B: Come on. You don’t know that girl.I mean …so what if that is not true…I don’t lose anything .You don’t lose anything. And (B winks at A) she has already lost it (you know what he meant). Friend, probably we are the only ones in this room who are still holding on to it. Seriously, man, I don’t care.
A: Cool. If that was your relative, how would you feel?
B: It isn’t...that way. And I don’t have a sister (B muffling his cackles)
A: Don’t you feel bad when you spread such things?
B: Come on! Don’t play the oracle with me. Everybody does that. Do you remember Mr.L?
A nodded.
B: Do you actually think he is a philanderer? I don’t know much about …but I really don’t think …he is. It was just that he was trying woo the girl I was eyeing. See the procedure is very easy. Girls generally don’t know much about most boys. Most of the girls are gullible (he used chu..). If they know you, you tell them anything about any guy …they will believe you …...definitely (waving the hands and gesturing with his fingers). Do you think that she would actually approach Mr.L and ask him whether he is a flirt or not….oh come on…..THINK….most of the boys are shy and some of them don’t care…exploit the situation, dude. Girls would never tell what they were told and guys will never ask.
A nodded but didn’t seem to be interested in boarding the same boat.
He just gave an excuse and bid good bye. Probably he was good or atleast was playing good.
Suggestion:
So next time someone talks bad about a guy or girl who is stranger to you, just listen to it but do not believe him/her. If uou do ...you might lose a good friend ……even before meeting him.
Happy Socializing!!

Bride HHHuntingggg...!!!

Hahahhaa….so my dad asked me to log on to Shaadi .com…...I asked him …..Why?
He answered “….because its my marriage, beta..” He is one jovial dad! But this blog is not about him. This is also not about my shaadi…..This is about the funniest thingy called the ‘bride hunting’. This is for guys and girls who choose to go the ‘arranged marriage way’…..What is arranged marriage? For starters, arranged marriage can be defined as a marriage which is not arranged by cupid instead it is arranged by parents. Cupid sets in very late… sometimes …it does not come at all and arranged marriage remains an ‘arrangement’. Moreover, arranged marriage can rightly be blamed for the weak ‘genetic make up’ of Indians as compared to other races because we marry within the same caste, sub caste, sub-sub caste like Konkanstha Brahmin (Maharastrian Brahman) and further a Gothram (whatever that means).Thus dominant genes are suppressed by traditions and recessive traits gets triggered again and again; all this and we still complain that we don’t win medals at Olympics. Okay let’s not delve into science!

By the way, last few days have been the funniest for me. I realized that if one wants to have a good time …he/she should just log on to any of the hundreds of matrimony sites on the web. Believe me you will cackle on each left click of the mouse!

Some parents post on behalf of their daughter (bride to be) and half way through they forget that they are role playing. They start writing about themselves. I have come across brides who smoke but wish to have a non smoking groom…imagine! Parents have a cache of adjectives from which they choose. Infact this cache is so limited that matrimony sites could actually get away having built in tabs, on their websites, for these adjectives. The most common ones are beautiful (even if she is ‘one look-and-forget it’ type), fair (we are one color blind country, damn!), homely, god fearing (not god loving), good at cooking ( ?).Then we come across resumes….yaah I mean it! My daughter/ son scored 98/99% in PCM/PCB in 12th. He/She was a topper in college. What has academic brilliance got to do with nuptial happiness? God knows …! If you really believe in ‘pears for heirs’, go for inter caste and give them (your grandchildren) powerful genes!

Other interesting cases arise where kids try to be parents, how to distinguish? They use internet slang on shaadi websites. The ad would be something like ‘Our daughter is one HAPPY GO LUCKY GAL!!’. ‘All we are looking is a SMART, SEXY AND SUAVE groom.’ The sentence construction goes awry half way into the paragraph and it never recovers and there would be words which parents have actually dropped out of their ‘social dictionary’ long ago. The list of wannabes ends with sibling, a brother who writes perfectly and messes it up in the end where he simply wishes to get a ‘BEAUTIFUL AND LOVELY’ groom for his sister. Don’t they proof read, how can they make such blatant errors?

THE GIST: If you need a beautiful wife, go for a love marriage! But, in this case, only you may find your wife beautiful after all beauty lies in the eyes of beholder. If you want a beautiful wife through ‘arranged marriage’, you will actually have to keep your fingers crossed and pray that a beautiful girl exists in the sub sub caste of sub caste of your caste in your state .

HAPPY BRIDE/GROOM Hunting!!