When a movie comes to the rescue.

There has been a sudden and absolute low. I may not really want to elaborate on the low point but it sure feels as bad as an after drug cold turkey. I didnt know what to do for a long while. I fretted around for a while till I switched on my computer trying to seek solace in the digital world.
And guess what I did to perk things up a little bit. I watched "The Pursuit of Happyness". Will Smith turned out to be the truest friend around. Although i was feeling as low as ever yet somehow I felt stronger. A good movie always works wonders. I hit a low...Chris Gardner didnt have a home!! I mean pychiatrists can take this as a prescription. If you are low, lonely, disappointed, depressed, in need of support....do yourself the following favour: Make yourself something nice to munch on, grab your favourite drink and settle down to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness". There's no need to run to your boy/girlfriend, husband, wife, mummy or daddy. You can do it alone!!

So ladies and gentlemen here's one to "happyness". CHEERS!! :)

Happily Anonymous

I've just started blogging and it seems like a whole lot of fun. Its like being able to speak out whatever i feel like, whenever i feel like. Its like talking to myself. It doesnt matter who is reading it. It doesnt matter who feels what about what i write. I can talk here and feel relieved that i spoke about something which i cant tell anyone. And look at the irony over here. I am potentially telling the world about what i have to say.
I dont have to worry about whether anyone wants to read about it or not. I dont have to worry about the linguistic or grammatical sanctity of what i'm saying. I can remove my post any day i want like i never said it.
You know what its like. Its like singing your worst bathroom song in your worst voice right in the middle of a busy market, at the top of your voice, and not have to worry about whether anyone heard it or not.

Delhi-6, Slumdog and Bejamin Button

Unrelated:
Wait hold on a second. Here's something: The first time i tried finding out the exact meaning of the word flurry here's what i found in a particular website:

Flurry Meaning and Definition. (n.) The violent spasms of a dying whale. (n.) Violent agitation.......

Just putting it out there. Interesting stuff.

Delhi-6
Seemed like a poetic love story about an old princess called Delhi. The best thing i liked about the movie was that somehow all those major stars didnt seem to take hold of the screen space. It was Delhi all the way. And that, i must say, is wonderful film making. The songs were "MINDBLOWING". Masakali and Rehna tu were absolutely dream-like, especially Rehna Tu. I like the melody,the sound, the lyrics, the arrangement...everything was totally mesmerising about Rehna Tu. No song can be a better serenade to old Delhi. Every actor did a great job. Sonam Kapoor looked very beautiful.
There were a few wierd points in the film which looked a little jarring. Abhishek Bacchan's parkour(clearing urban obstacles) came across as too far fetched and almost seemed like something forcefully fitted into the film so that he could convincingly be the "kala bandar" in the end.
But yes, i totally loved the film. It was nice. Great visuals. I wouldnt say its a classic that people will talk about for a very long time. But it was really wonderful. Value for money and much more.

Slumdog Millionaire
Oh yes. Thousands of people have written about it. Its a great movie too. But somehow not that great to win the oscars. Congratulations to Rahman. The music was wonderful. But if this won him an oscar then he should have probably got 15 oscars by now. The cinematography was absolutely great, so was the story telling. I personally believe that the one main reason that this movie won the oscar was because it celebrated the triumph of human invincibility, the unbreakable human spirit and its display of reality. Yes it has been done at the cost of India. But lets not be too touchy about it. Its just a movie and nothing else. Its a work of art and it should not be given more importance than it deserves. It should be enjoyed and thats it. One movie cannot re-define what India is and will be. India is India and it doesnt matter who thinks what about India after watching the movie. But its a beautifully made movie. Tight and precise without unnecesary frills and redundant dialogues. Some of the characters in the movie were unreal. Anil Kapoor's role was TOTALLY unreal. It was not necessary. I agree that the character was added simply to amplify Jamaal's plight but it could've definitely been made more realistic.
On the whole: Great movie. But not totally oscar material from a cinematic point of view. Yes, the cause was definitely noble. Human spirit it is!! But then so was Lagaan. Same human spirit. Same cinematography. If the songs had been removed from Lagaan then probably it should've got an oscar too. But then who cares. Pay and watch. And have fun.

Curious case of Benjamin Button

"It was like reading through a novel". Someone very dear to me said that when i watched the movie. Yes it was just that. IMMENSELY entertaining. Terrific costumes and make up. And Mr B.Pitt and Miss C.Blanchett were terrific as usual. Although a trifle long, it was wonderful nevertheless. The movie was filled with curious people. There were points in the movie where the pace seemed to trickle down a bit but it kept picking up pace each time. Heart-breaking, funny, wierd and very entertaining. Please watch it if you can sit for 166 minutes. :)

Happiness

Man has not learnt to do one basic thing. To be happy!! There have been thousands and thousands of philosophies and religions talking about rules and ways of life, about yoga, about "karma"(which the western world uses with elan without having the slightest idea about what it's all about), about money, the excess and the lack of it. I really dont understand it. Why isnt it there in the capacity of the human brain to experience unconditional happiness. Why do we have to "do certain things" or "follow a way of life" or "believe in something" to be happy? There is no inherent happiness. Man is not programmed to be happy. He is pre-programmed to eat, to sleep, to fornicate, to feel jealous, to want more, to think, to invent, to do a world of complicated things but is never pre-programmed to be happy. Why cant a human be happy just by his own self without any help from anything or anyone? Perhaps the ability to "think" took away man's ability to be happy. Because when he learnt to think he swiftly set about to find reasons to be happy although ideally there shouldnt have been any reason at all in the first place. He couldnt find reasons to be happy so he made reasons to be happy. He made big buildings to make him feel happy. He invented the concept of money so that there could be relatively "more" money or "less" money and hence people would feel happy about this relativism. He did a whole lot of things to simply conjure reasons to be happy, all the while pretending that he really needed those reasons. And finally he actually did become dependant. Hopelessly dependant. Terribly dependant. He finally invented the concept of "we are an unhappy people". And so here i am unhappily writing something in my blog, wishing i was happy!!....and complaining that i am not!!

Neon: Chapter 2

It wasn’t a particularly handsome day. It was a day in July. Such days in Bangalore had a weird tendency to cry, or almost cry and then just shed a tear at the end of the day! There would be various shades in the sky and it would seem that perhaps just a pinprick on one of those fat clouds would be enough to make them rain. Those old trees in Bangalore would prepare for battle against the winds and swish their manes in challenge. Dhrupad would stand at the window and take on the wind full blast on his face and pretend he is on a speeding ship. He still had a few childish “imagine” games left in his head. He still loved to pretend weird things sometimes. Chilli would be sitting on the bed with a cigarette held between his lips, trying to tune the guitar. He would have bunked classes again that day and so would have Dhrupad. Dhrupad’s attendance would invariably be lower than Chilli’s but he never would think twice about bunking classes with Chilli. After watching Dhrupad stand like a lonesome romantic near the window for around 15 minutes, Chilli would quietly get up and plant a solid kick on the Dhrupad’s posterior. It would already be pouring by then. Dhrupad would turn and give Chilli “the look”. After pretending for a while that Dhrupad did not exist, Chilli would come up with a novel (and horribly oft repeated) idea of heading off to the nearest booze hangout.

“Hey Saap!” he would say.

“Yeah what?” Saap would reply nonchalantly, still immersed in the beauty of the pouring rain and the almost faint daytime light struggling desperately against the bulk of the rain clouds.

“VB!” Chilli would say checking his watch, which he wore at all times of the day except perhaps when he was dumping his toxic waste on the surface of the earth. The time said 11 AM. Next thing that one would see, and least expect would be Chilli and Dhrupad stomping down to Vijay Bar, holding up their jeans and getting thoroughly wet. There would be some fierce calculations regarding the logistics of the payment plan and the funds thereof and finally there would be a holler, “Manja!! Yerad quarter old monk kudi. Bega”(Manja! Get two quarters of old monk. Quick). Manja would come running to the table with the two bottles. He would give his characteristic wide-angle smile, place the two bottles on the table and ask airily whether the young sirs would like to have something to wet their throats with, now that they are here. Chilli and Saap would look out of the window and see the absolutely pouring rain, look back at each other and instantaneously decide to stay back till the rain went down a little bit, very conveniently forgetting that they were already soaking wet and there was nothing dry left on them for the rain to wet except perhaps their throats!! And the throats they would wet by grandly ordering two large pegs of rum or whiskey and happily stretch back on those simple Vijay Bar chairs, with their young faces glowing in the dim bar lights and a cigarette dangling precariously at a corner of their lips. The bottles would be packed up so that they could be suitably honored in their hostel room. Such were the rains in Bangalore!

Dhrupad off course was doing none of that at the moment. He was merely holding a toothbrush in his mouth looking sleepily at the sky, which had again taken up that familiar watery tinge. He kept moving his right hand to and fro while his left hand rested on the 2nd floor common washbasin. There was a mirror infront of him happily twisting his face into weird contortions. This was the same mirror where he had styled his hair a hundred times with some borrowed hair gel before going off to meet his girlfriend. The heavy pregnant sky did not depress him in any way. He never got depressed with rain. He never got depressed with the cloudy skies. He simply disliked the heat and every other aspect of rain or pre-rain delighted him. And right now he was letting the rainy breeze slowly wake him up. For some reason he was desperately trying not to wake up, almost in an attempt to test the mettle of the rainy breezes. He didn’t want to wake up, yet he wanted someone or something to take the trouble on his behalf and wake him up for him. The occasional jolt of the rain gusts wet his face. A junior walking by hollered at him and asked him if he had done Chapter 2 of Digital Signal Processing. That was the exam tomorrow. Dhrupad was appearing for it with his juniors in hostel for the second time. None of his batch mates were around. All of them had headed home now that their final year exams were over. There would all troop back to Bangalore once their company joining dates start closing in. Dhrupad was left behind. He was left far behind. He had given his final year exams too but he had to stay back to finish his leftover papers from his earlier years in engineering. Three of them to be precise. Electrical Machine Design, Advanced Control Systems and Digital Signal Processing. His recruitment in one of the most prestigious Indian software companies stood almost cancelled. He had however managed to email the HR people in that company and get his joining date postponed till November. That would give sufficient time for the late results to come out. So Dhrupad basically had to stay alone for a few days more, sit for exams with his juniors, somehow clear them and then head home till the results came out.

Dhrupad was never really academically brilliant. All his teachers and professors told him he “had it in him” to make it big. They told him that he should put in enough hard work to actually “prove” it. Because in India there is only one sure shot way of proving one’s mettle and that was to get spectacular degrees with spectacular grades. Those who didn’t have them were pretty much doomed. They had lost the battle. They belonged to a lower strata of humans and their birth was basically a mistake! That’s what Dhrupad had come to know from childhood and that’s what he had quietly rebelled against since then. Dhrupad was never academically brilliant because...well there was no because. He didn't like it. For some stuck up and unexplainable reason he could never get himself to “study” for an exam. It was his weakness. He could never make a conscious and concentrated effort to round up the things that he had learned and then sit for 3 hours and puke it out on the answer sheet. He would be far happier trying to make a circuit or welding or maybe carving out something on the lathe. This was a great weakness he had and kept trying to justify that by telling himself that engineering is all about application and not just exams. He spent his last three years faring badly in his exams, bunking classes rampantly because he was bored and tired of the way he was being taught in college. He did not like one bit of it. His time in class was a long numb period from which there was no escape. It was a nightmare for him, filled with professors squawking loudly, telling the students about what questions were important for the exams or which part of the syllabus could be skipped or those endless sessions of reproducing word to word from the textbook or a bunch of old, museum-yellow notes. Such were his classes. He simply couldn’t get himself to conform to all this although he knew that he would be doomed if he didn’t. Then again he was too lazy to at least try to conform. Instead, he tried to justify his dismal performance. What he didn’t realize was that he was too idealistic to actually make any difference. All his tall talk about engineering not being just a series of exams wasn’t getting him anywhere. He was stuck there, depressed, angry, lonely and helpless. He was stuck there with the ignominy of having to appear for his old exams with his juniors. He was stuck there with a bruised ego.

Neon: Chapter 1

It was sometime in July, probably towards the end of that month, on a weird morning that we happen to find Dhrupad curled up on his bed with a blanket wrapped all around him in impossible curves. A leg sticks out from that mass of Dhrupad, blanket, blanket cover and pillow. It isn’t really cold or anything. Infact it’s pretty hot but for some reason Dhrupad loves using that old blanket of his and he enjoys sweating under it. He thinks that the evaporating sweat provides him with an air-conditioning effect and he religiously sticks to his weird doctrine. The room surrounding this spectacle looks on with quiet resignation!! Room No-226, a.k.a the music headquarters of the college campus. Essentially this room itself could be introduced as a character in this particular story. But then probably I’ll just stick to simplicity and not exactly stretch imagination too far. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about the room. It was just like any other room in that massive hostel. Decent sized, ceramic tiled floors, an old cabinet to keep clothing, two windows from which numerous empty beer bottles had been chucked out (much to the peril of the passerby), interior decorated with cobwebs and showpiece spiders, two tables one of which supports a majestic computer, two plastic chairs, two beds (joined together for better rolling space!) and two inhabitants one of whom is our Dhrupad with his air-conditioning blanket wrapped around him.
“SAAP!! Oye Saap! Wake up you sleepy bitch!” hollered another denizen of the hostel.
Oh, by the way, Saap is Dhrupad and Dhrupad is Saap. That’s his nickname in the hostel. He is sometimes called Snake, sometimes Saap and sometimes “Jol Dhora” which in Bengali is the name of a rather harmless water snake. The last nickname is used only by his roommate (who is also his best friend) during moments of drunken mirth and the usual leg pulling that is associated in most general cases! Dhrupad’s roommate is characteristically almost identical to Dhrupad. You could add a few extra dollops of determination, impatience, musical sense, height, reduce body mass to half and bingo you have the new and improved Dhrupad Version 1.1. Yes, both the roommates share the same name. For clarity we’ll call Dhrupad Version 1.1 as Chilli. The name Chilli is a gift from the hostel that will stick with him for the rest of his life, something similar to Snake. I mean you could possibly have a balding potbellied Saap in his miserable late thirties calling out to a familiar face in a crowd and another thin, slightly tired looking Chilli waving back vigorously from a line of fathers trying to get their sons admission to a good school! Whatever might the case be, the names “Chilli” and “Snake” are never going to get old, let alone forgotten. Well the package isn’t quite over yet. Chilli and Snake are, in effect, a part of a group of tightly knit, musical, intelligent, frequently drunk, wild, argumentative “would-be-engineers”. There is the “O fat one”, the one who never drinks, the one who never smokes, the one who always says cheers with a glass of cola, the one who smiles and gives off a thick laugh which oozes with sentimentality and the one who never gives up on you. Mesdames et Messieurs put your hands together and welcome the one and only Varun on stage!! He is also known as “Barunaxx” for some weird drunk reason that no one remembers. Next in line is the one who goes by the name of Anup. Anup is physically small, large eyed, had long hair at one point in time when the group was at its rowdy best and permanently in desperate love with whiskey. You would barely notice him till he starts singing songs and talking about music. He is a veritable gold mine of music, bands, composers, lyrics and you name it. Anup believes in frugality of words and takes his time and utters each word in a precise and accurate manner, which in most cases totally slices through the listener. Our man has this habit of looking at you with his severe big eyes and concoct an expression that will make you feel totally miserable about yourself. They call it the “Snoof Look”. A deadly look that we could use as a cool offensive to batter the opponent’s morale beyond recognition. Snoof doesn’t have too many complications in life. That off course, to the average bystander, is the apparent picture. Give him music, give him whiskey and he is happy to exist! Then comes the tall, lanky, massive toothed, intermittently available drummer Ketan. The Ketan!! Passionate and dead sure of what he wants out of a given situation. Situations, finally add up to form what we call “life” in general. Ketan has never really faltered, never seemed sad, never gave in and always lived with loads of things to look forward to. Only once, had he ever broken down. Only once, he was hurt and confused enough to cry (fuelled off course with large quantities of alcohol). That time was a rather rainy night at a place called Hockey Club in one of the posh areas of Bangalore. No I am not at all being melodramatic. It was actually raining and raining pretty hard. Everyone had coaxed Varun into getting them inside the club since he had a dependant membership. That was the time when Ketan had broken down and mentioned very solemnly that he had successfully managed to neglect his friends and the band because he had only one chance of making it to a good master’s school and he had to do what he did. He felt miserable for it. He didn’t want to say sorry because he never says sorry to friends. He just cried his heart out. I suppose in the midst of describing Ketan, I probably mentioned something like “the band”. Well, these boys here had formed a band named “Unicorn”. Chilli was the bassist, Anup the lead singer, Ketan the drummer, a guy named Nandakishore was the lead guitarist, Tim was on the rhythms and Varun, who joined in late replaced Tim when he had to leave the band for a personal reason. And our man, Dhrupad, the sensitive poet was the freelance lyricist who never really got to play in the band, a fact that he rues till date! Chilli knew the technique of getting words out of Dhrupad. Chilli would make a tune and buy a bottle of Old Monk XXX Rum. These two seemingly unrelated activities held the key to the word box that Dhrupad held. “Get Dhrupad drunk” was the motto when there was a dire need of lyrics and Chilli had veritably mastered the technique of getting it done.
“WAKE UP DHRUPAD!!” Said “the denizen” again, vigorously pulling at Dhrupad’s feet. This time the volume had gone up from a holler to a full-fledged shout that rang all around the near empty corridor of the second floor of the hostel building. Dhrupad lazily kicked with that exposed foot of his, murmuring something in his half sleep and clutching at his precious blanket like some refugee. There was an effort to pull off the blanket but it proved to be rather unsuccessful. The wrappings were impossibly complex and Dhrupad was heavy. The last resort was water, which off course was duly brought carefully preserved in the cup of a massive palm (our “denizen” was a big man!). It was then poured into the ears of our protagonist with a care that perhaps was never displayed in the chemistry lab while pouring an indicator. Dhrupad cried out and miraculously seemed to emerge from his blanket in one fluid motion that perhaps only he knew how to accomplish. Our man, “the denizen”, left the room. His head tilted back in loud laughter and apparently highly satisfied with his efforts.
Dhrupad off course never wanted to wake up. The reasons perhaps were more complex than just his love for sleep. In fact, he had gone to sleep last night hoping he never wakes up. Such suicidal tendencies weren’t new to him especially since the last few days. Off course, his suicidal contemplations were only limited to just that, contemplations. Like Anup sometimes says, “Dude! It requires more than a gun to pull the trigger.” Which off course he had plagiarized from some song and twisted the lines a little bit!
The heavy eyelids parted with considerable effort. They were reluctant to allow Dhrupad’s tired eyes to get exposed to the world. They were in love with the eyes and they wanted to protect them by remaining closed for as long as they could. The room all around wasn’t helping in the process one bit. It was 10 am but the room wore a forlorn and dead dress that morning. Completely unlike the state it had been for the past year, the room almost died that morning watching Dhrupad wake up. The cobwebs added a few thousand kilograms to his eyelids and the bright sun and the noise completely irritated him. The computer speakers were still quietly squeaking out some tracks from a Paco de Lucia album that he had queued up in his playlist before going to sleep. He had slept at 4 o clock in the morning. His head was throbbing. His hair was in disarray. On one side of his head it was pressed to the scalp and on the other side it was sticking out. He had slept all of those 6 measly hours on one side. Dhrupad finally looked around appearing to wake up. He surveyed the room with his tired sunk eyes till he found what he wanted. A packet of Wills Navy Cut smokes was lying nearby. Fortunately it was within reach or else Dhrupad would sit like that for another fifteen minutes before he could pollute his lungs. He stretched out his arm, heavy with sleep and fatigue and pulled the packet and the matchbox to him. He looked down upon the packet almost with pity and pulled out a cigarette. Upon giving a slight push with his thumb the matchbox tray came out with a scraping sound displaying its mundane ware of matchsticks. Dhrupad pulled out one unlucky stick and struck it against the side of the box. The head hissed slightly and glowed red before bursting into flames almost trying to have the last laugh at Dhrupad, or so Dhrupad thought. The smell of burning sulphur hit his nostrils. He tilted his head slightly and touched the flames to the cigarette already held against his lips. He sucked at the filter deeply till the humble glow at the tip turned into a defiant red fist worth all of 700 degree Celsius. Dhrupad breathed in the soft blue filtered smoke, deeply, felt a soft twitch on the nape of his neck and exhaled, slightly shuddering, satisfied and content. He then put his arms around his knees and rested his head on them and looked out of the window with his lips slightly twisted into a soft mocking smile. Thus began the day of Dhrupad Chaudhury, romancing the smoke!