It was not just the driver who raped her

It wasn’t just the driver and his accomplices. Such monsters are not raised in a day. It takes meticulous planning. The nation has chalked out plans for this incident for 60 years. The citizens have put intricate details in it which has led to this inevitable feat. We will keep planning. This is not the first time. This is not the end.

While they were raping her, India stood guard. We cheered them as we have cheered such psychopaths a hundred times before. We will cheer them in the future too. After all, we created them.  

Are you not finding it coherent? Let me indulge you.

Politicians

You are the real termites of this country. The fact that the country is completely hollow because of you does not deter you. You still prowl like a blood sucking vampire and won’t be satiated till you drink the last drop of blood of our motherland. You were given a task. You took an oath of nation building. You could have stopped what happened. Long time back. Had you looked away from your money mongering, your own chairs, you would have realised the pitiable state in which the women of this country live. You would have made laws to make their lives better. You would have enforced those laws. But then they were not your vote banks. They could not turn your chair over. And now you call a rape victim ‘Zinda Laash’ (alive corpse)? You are not helping here to make them feel normal and accepted. Stop using a raped woman to advance your political motives. Stop shedding crocodile tears. Sexual harassment law is lingering in the parliament since 2005. If there is an iota of shame in your soulless body, stop being a virus. You have done enough harm. Do we have to carry you like an albatross around our necks for the rest of our lives?

Law enforcers

Your job is not to scare citizens. Your job is not to harass a rape victim. Your job is not to pass comments on the morality of women when they come to you for help. You are no better than the politicians. The very people whom you should be protecting are scared to come to you. You think that the women who report rape eye monetary advancements out of it. You think they are of loose moral values. And sometimes you even rape an already raped woman who has come to you for help. It is because of law enforcers like you that we are in this state. It is because of you that these rapes happen unabated, because you lack the will to protect. Because you have no idea what your job entails. Because you treat your job as a money-making machine. That girl is fighting for her life in a hospital because of the shameful negligence with which you have carried out your responsibilities over the last 60 years.

Media

You have already pushed the news to page 4 after Narendra Modi’s win in Gujrat. It shows where your concern lie. A story is masala for a few days till a bigger one washes it away. You would have kept the candle burning. You would have encouraged the people to bring the outcry to a logical end. But like the law enforcers, you have sold yourself to the termites.

And Bollywood – Congratulations for providing the much-needed objectifying of a woman’s body through the media. Yes, that is exactly what this sexually oppressed nation wants for entertainment. With all your Chikni Chamelis and Halkat Jawanis, you have done the harm. So, do us a favour. Do not shed crocodile tears for that girl lying in the hospital because you are equally responsible for raising those monsters that night. You have been brainwashing this country since decades – propagating sexual harassment euphemistically as eve-teasing. You have so menacingly raised those street-side Romeos who then splash acid on a girl because they could not differentiate between reality and cinema. Knowing very well that this is a powerful media, you could have changed the course, taken up responsibility. But you too, like the rest, turned things to your advantage. You kicked an already regressive society into the pit of regression in the name of masala entertainment.

And stop portraying rape victims as unwanted and shunned by society. Grow up and snap out of that money-making brain of yours.

We, the Citizens

Yes, we are the worse offenders. The citizens of this nation. Every time we treat our mothers, sisters, daughters and wives as secondary, we contribute towards this choking patriarchal society which then acts as an umbilical chord that feed those monsters. Every time we tell our daughters that they are weaker than boys, we stomp their mind with self-doubts. Every time we stop the education of our daughters because our son has to study, we help those monsters grow manifold. Putting our daughter-in-laws in place, killing girls in the womb, putting restrictions on women, not allowing them to follow their dreams – all these acts have fuelled the events to culminate to the mess we are in right now. We even have the audacity to question the morals and circumstances of a victim since she is not related to us. We have turned into selfish creeps who stand and stare at acts of crime. We tsk tsk rape victims as if it was their fault.

We have been doing this from the last 60 years. Have we not raised these silent equivalent of terrorist camps in our own houses? We have been drawing a dividing line and now it is permanent, raising Frankensteins one after another. Why are we recoiling now? It was we who gave courage to that man to insert a rod in a woman’s vagina.

A society which comes to this does not deserve a second chance. How I wish the Mayans were right.

Mother India has been continuously raped since our independence – by politicians, by law enforcers, by media and by us. She is wounded with bruises filled with pus. And we are that pus. Feeding on her. Killing her slowly.  Her own children.

And that is her curse.

No, it wasn’t just the driver and his accomplices who raped the girl that night. And they are not the only one who should be hanged.

Harry Potter and the half blood prince – Movie Review

I was quite adamant to see this movie on IMAX and in 3D and not in some ordinary theatre. What surprised me was that the booking of the movie opened last month on the 15th. Yes, you read it right! That is when the enormity of the mania hit me. And to make things worse, the seats of the first week’s shows were filled within seven days! Yeah! Harry Potter is Britain’s Rajnikant.

*I don’t know why but I just imagined Harry wearing his glasses in Rajni’s style. Uff! That’s dizzying!*

Anyways, back to topic. So, how did I manage to get the tickets, you may ask. Well, none of my flatmates are remotely interested in Harry Potter series. Yeah! I know! Just don’t get me started on this. Its as if they have just been freshly transported from Mars. And, then I decided to go alone. Believe me searching for a single ticket is much simpler because there are always one or two single seats left here and there. And, so, I booked my sole ticket on the 1st of July.

I haven’t read the books. Now wait a second before you raise your eyebrows and widen your eyes. Its always better this way. A movie can rarely compete with a book. So its always good to watch the movie and then read the books. That way the movie won’t disappoint you. And that is why this movie was not at all disappointing.

The first 15-20 minutes of the movie are in 3D. So, if you have a 3D theatre near your house, its worth watching the movie there. Its amazing! Although frankly speaking, I don’t understand why the whole movie was not in 3D? Atleast the climax should have been.

Now, coming to how the movie was.

The trailer of the movie might have given you an impression that its a very fast paced and dark movie. Apparently, its not. Infact, this might be the only movie of the series which was devoid of an over-doze of wizardry and action. It was more like a prelude of the sharp twists and turns which are about to come in the last two movies. I had a feeling that the director deliberately played it down. The climax was subtle, not rising to the chilling crescendo it reached in the previous installments. It was like the lull before the actual storm begins.

There was more romance in the movie. The kids acted well! The sets were beautiful. I loved the scene where Ron is kissed by Lavender Brown, much to Hermione’s distress. She walks away and sits in a stairway and Harry comes and sit with her. She had birds fluttering over her head whom she throw towards Ron as darts. Then, there was this scene where Harry gets a smack on the head for saying – “But I am the chosen one!”. There was definitely a substantial amount of humor, love potions and weird coloured glasses.

No. The movie was not boring. It had its own pace and you start enjoying it after some time. The story dwells into Voldemort’s past when he was a student at Hogwarts, the creation of the Horcruxes, Draco’s secret plans and Ginny’s and Harry’s love story(which started sooner than that in the book, they say) and the death of you-know-who. And yes, the tussle between Ron and Hermione continues with Lavender playing the third angle.

Not the most brilliant of them all, but worth watching none the less. And, oh yes, I missed the animated creatures. There were none except for a huge dead spider!

Rating – 3.5/5

Directed by – David Yates

Official Website – http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/harrypotterandthehalf-bloodprince/

The Animation Mania

Anastasia!

That was the name of the girl who opened the door. Of course, Mickey and Donald and Tom and Jerry have always been there, but Anastasia was the one who made me fall in love with Animation movies. She still remains my first love. 🙂

Then I saw something drastically different. It completely bowled me over. I was surprised beyond imagination that someone can do something like that in an animation movies. The movie was Final Fantasy:The spirits within. Although the movie was a flop, I consider it a classic. *All classics are flop*

I was so fascinated by the world of animation that there was a time when I was on the verge of taking up a 1.5 years animation course. I had the forms. I just had to fill them but then something else happened and I drifted away. The Animation industry had not turned into the huge Goliath which it is now. I was not sure whether it could accommodate me. Its funny how we are asked to take decisions of our life at an age when we don’t have the experience to take them. Anyways…

Over the last few years we have seen a huge boom in the industry which has swelled to $100 billion+ market. Earlier, the only well established animation studio used to be Walt Disney Animation Studio which gave us some masterpieces like The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Tarzan, Alladin, The Little Mermaid and so many others, but in the past decade there has been a boom in the Animation market.

There is Dreamworks, which has been busy churning hits one after another. Antz was the first Dreamwork movie I saw. I still think that the huge shoe scene was the best one in the movie. Shrek has been the most successful series of the studio with a total gross of $2 billion+ right now. I believe that “The donkey” has played a huge part in the success. Then there is Madagascar(another big success), Kung Fu Panda, Wallace and Gromit:The Curse of the Were Rabbit, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Shark Tale and the recently released Monsters vs Aliens(the first movie to be directly created in the 3D format).

Pixar is one studio which stands apart from the rest, largely because of the kind of movies they have churned out. Each movie is not just to entertain but it sets a benchmark in animation. And the best part is that the benchmark goes higher and higher with each release. The studio started with Toy Story in 1995 and followed up with incredible movies like A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and the latest Up. Impressive! Isn’t it? Walt Disney bought Pixar in 2006.

There are other studios like Blue Sky which gave us Ice Age and Horton hears a Who!, Animal Logic which came up with Happy Feet(and which has produced special effects in the biggest Hollywood blockbusters), Image Movers Digital(again bought by Disney) which gave us The Polar Express, Monster House and Beowulf.

Besides all the Big Budget Animation movies, there have been some others which don’t have the “cutting edge” technology, but have been equally mesmerising. Spirited Away(This movie holds the record of the highest grossing movie in Japan), Persepolis(the story of a small girl set during the Iranian Revolution), Corpse Bride and Animatrix(9 short stories set in the fictional world of The Matrix), to name a few. After all, the story matters!

I believe that animation movies are the epitome of Human creativity and imagination. They bring so many things to life and they will always make you smile. You can see fish dancing in water with mermaids, you can see a rat preparing an exiquisite dish in a restaurant, you can see cars talk to each other, you can see people flying on magic carpets, an Ogre falling in love with a princess, you can see the place where all the monsters are kept…the list is endless because human imagination is endless. Its a proof that we have in us to make beautiful things.

Animation Movies are a never ending love for me. I don’t understand people who don’t like them(although I haven’t met any such person). 🙂

What about all of you? Have you seen all the movies I have listed here? Did I miss a very good movie?

And now I leave you with the images from the movie which started it all.

Randomizer : Eurovision, Dances with Wolves & IPod touch

• A few of my British colleagues introduced me to Eurovision  just before the semifinals started this year. I was quite surprised that I have never heard of this contest before. When something has been going on from the last 50 years, you are bound to hear about it sometime. My faith in my “already gone to the dogs” general knowledge was yet again shaken and stirred. Anyways, Eurovision is a song competition in which all the active members of the European Broadcasting Union participate.

Right now, EBU spans 75 broadcasting organizations from 56 countries. Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television. People from all the countries vote for their favorite songs. You can’t vote for your own country. 😉 The program broadcasts each year since its inception in 1956 and is the most watched non sporting event in the world. Believe me, the statistics are mind boggling! An estimated 100-600 million people watch the show. 

This year’s Eurovision was held in Moscow and was a bit special. 42 countries participated this year with 25 countries reaching the finals. You can watch the 25 entries that made it to the finals here. The contest was finally won by 23 year old Alexander Rybak from Norway for his song “Fairytale”. The song was written and composed by him and Alexander won by a whooping 387 points, the highest ever in the 50+ year history of the Eurovision contest.

UK somehow managed to bag the fifth spot, which was very good(according to my colleagues here) because the country has been on a downslide from the past few years. I was a little taken aback when I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber playing the piano while Jade Ewen sang “Its my time”. That is when the enormity of the contest hit me. 🙂

“Fairytale” is a beautiful song and it has that old world charm. If you listen to all the 25 finalists, this one stands apart. I personally also liked Croatia’s entry “Lijepa Tena” for its “Kaun hai jo”-ish tune from Jhuk Gaya Aasmaan and Germany’s “Miss Kiss Kiss Bang” for obvious reasons. 😉 Do watch this performance by the 23 year old winner:

• Besides the usual popcorn flicks like XMen Origins(3/5), StarTrek(4/5) and Angels & Demons(2/5) I saw quite a few noteworthy movies last month. Dances with Wolves was one such movie. When I finished watching the movie, I realized what an Idiot I was for not watching it earlier. It has been lying in my laptop from almost a year now. 😐 Beautifully shot, its a story of a Civil War-era United States Army lieutenant who is sent to an American Frontier to find a military post. The story evolves around with his friendship with the local Sioux tribe. Most of the dialogues are in Lakota language. Do watch this movie if you haven’t seen it yet. Another notable movie was the German movie titled Das Leben der Anderen(The lives of Others). Its the story of a Stasi agent named Wiesler in East Germany of 1984. He is assigned to spy on a playwright named Georg Dreyman, who is a suspect because of his Western contacts. The movie has a very interesting screenplay and the end is just perfect. A must watch!

 

• Now since this is one of those I-will-blabber posts , The Great Indian elections left me with mixed feelings. I was expecting nothing less than a 90% turnout in Delhi and Mumbai because of what both the cities have gone through the past year and because of the ubiquitous Lead India initiative but the results were shocking. Somehow the Delhi crowd is too smart. They knew that even if its a 10% turnout, no one would ever let BJP win. So there. But, yes, it somehow made one thing very clear. The average citizen is tired. Tired of the foolery they are subjected to now and then.
• Well, in the end, some good news from my own life. No I am not getting married. 😐 Be a little less predictable. 😛 Ok. Here goes. I was awarded the Blog-o-laureate award by Arpit a few days back. Thanks Arpit for considering me for the honour!

Also, I got my own Ipod Touch and Camera. Something very funny happened with my IPod touch after a month it was purchased. A thin horizontal line started appearing on the screen, which made me instantly sweat. I went to the nearest Apple store and they asked me to take an appointment. 😐 Appointment?!?

Anyways, I took the next day’s appointment and reached there 10 minutes late. The appointment was missed and the chewing gum chewing blonde asked me to fix an appointment for the next day! I grabbed her it for the next day and was there on time. Phew! I was expecting that the technical staff would have a look and probably keep the Ipod to find out what the problem was. Instead the guy looked at it for a few seconds, plugged it into his Mac and checked it again and coolly told me that he will be giving me a new piece. I stared at him for a good 10 seconds. And then ladies and gentlemen, I came back home with a brand new Ipod. 😉 It is definitely the coolest application made by Homo Sapiens. 

And, about my camera…well all of you have seen the results! All the flowers in my previous post were shot by it. If you still want to have a look, click here.
And now with great sadness, I announce the end of this blabber post. Over and Out!

Mumbai Attacks : The week that was

It has been a week now since the ruthless attacks. Public anger has never been so omnipresent and neither have our politicians come under such a heavy scrutiny(no wonder they have been royally goofing up and giving tactless statements which is doing nothing less than fuelling the fire). Targeting foreign nationals in the attacks was one foolish move by the terrorists because the whole world is now upon them like red ants. Statements which included words like “Stateless actors” which intended on shrugging off the responsibilities were not bought by anyone and laughed at. Incidences like a movie director taking a walk in the burnt down Taj were blown out of proportion by the media while the public gulped the news in disbelief(Sometimes the media do comes handy).

THE GREAT INDIAN FUMBLE

It had been a week of revelations. A coup de theatre beyond an equal. Two days into the ghastly event and three statements made by our politicians were elemental in converting the tide into a tsunami. 
R.R Patil made a juvenile statement about the incident being a “small one” and dug the grave of his political career. 
BJP Vice President Abbas Naqvi puddled in troubled waters when he made the “women wearing powder and lipstick and burning candles” remark. The audacity of it was that he himself was wearing a coat while he defamed the Indians for aping the west and its an entirely different story that he was asked to comment on something else.  
The icing on the cake came from Kerela’s CM V.S. Achuthanandan who ended up making a statement which could be considered the worst insult someone can inflict on a martyr’s family. Of course, a lot of pressure went into making him apologize but the harm was already done. Sample this:

On the other hand, the attacks opened up the Pandora’s box and everyone from the Intelligence Agencies to the Maharashtra Government and the Center turned a beetroot red. Our PM mumbled a few inaudible statements about setting up a federal spy agency and creating four NSG hubs while the nation came in terms with the fact that the Navy and the Coast Guard ignored the intercept from RAW that these attacks were expected, that the intelligence agencies had informed a year ago that such an attack was in the pipeline and that the U.S. informed India twice about the upcoming sea attack on Mumbai. The Government gave a jaw dropping performance making the citizens realize that their lives really don’t matter. The word politician ended up becoming a swear word and the nation realized that human life was the cheapest commodity in our country.
The way the whole operation was handled also came under the scanner. A minister taking 90 minutes to respond to such a critical situation, the NSG commandos transported from airport in BEST buses and shoved in the 1500 room Taj without any night vision equipment knowing very well that there was no electricity in the hotel and policemen wearing outdated bullet proof jackets was something which the common man was not ready to watch on live television. The crudity of it all was hard hitting.

THE REACTIONS

Israel offered help but India denied it without a second thought. Pakistan Government and media were busy vehemently denying any connection with the attacks. It was not surprising that Pakistan rejected the list sent by India stating that they wanted more proofs. I am sure that even if we dance in front of them with proof in our hands, they will even go to the extend of putting hot rods in their eyes to ignore us. The main accused of the 1993 blasts is still to be handed to us, even after ample proof of his involvement and whereabouts in his plush bungalow in Pakistan, so we can expect some action on this recent event in another 20 years. Ofcourse, there were some sane people who understood the gravity of the situation. You can read three very balanced articles by eminent Pakistani columnists here.

Although people have been dying left right and center in India since ages, the whole world suddenly woke up to the fact because this time the target were foreign nationals too. Atleast 26 of them lost their lives and although Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmadabad had gone through such similar attacks this year, the repercussion which the Mumbai attacks created were something else. Its good in many ways because this time, the “Rice” boiled with a lot of pressure over Pakistan. Lets just hope that the pressure mounts instead of subsiding.

WE THE PEOPLE

I don’t think India has seen such massive reaction from the citizens since a long time. People flooded the roads and the media projected the anger beautifully. For the first time I thought that they were doing something constructive, no matter how melodramatically. Its not just that we are condemning Pakistan(maybe we are too tired to do that now, because its of no use), but this time we were questioning our own security system. I just saw an operation done by a news channel where they were checking the security at one of the Delhi Railway Stations. Nothing has been done and its as vulnerable as it was earlier and that too when there have been reports that Delhi is the next target. A similar operation was done in Mumbai and the policemen were caught napping as a revolver was taken inside the railway station.

We have been pointing fingers at the politicians about being irresponsible but how much cliched it might sound, we have to be the change we want to see. We, as citizens of this nation, are also irresponsible at the grassroot level. Leave alone taking responsibilities about important issues, how many of us don’t bribe traffic police officers, litter of the road, do illegal constructions and break traffic rules? Did we succeed as a generation who considers themselves as Indians first and then something else? Isn’t it ironical that we need a tragedy of such humongous scale to unite us? Oscillating the Government from BJP to Congress and back to BJP is not going to play the trick and we all know that. Both the parties have an equally bad track record. Its the “people” of this nation who have to change, and those “people” include the “politicians” and “all of us”. 

Lets not become this guy who spit all his venom on a Jet air-hostess. Generalizing and putting a whole community in a box is the last thing which we should indulge in right now. Hats off to all those who stood up and actually did something to help the victims. I know one of them and you can find her here. 

FINALLY

Even though India has a go ahead for the air attacks in case the Pakistan Government fails to raise the terrorist camps to the ground, I am not sure if the Indian Government might actually take the step. I hope we don’t forget this incidence like so many other and our Government take the necessary steps without wasting ages to ponder over them. We don’t have that liberty left and it definitely doesn’t work when we end up being called “a known softie”.

Some interesting reads:

Dear Mr. Terrorist

Reflecting on Mumbai

For Heroes of Mumbai, Terror was a call to action

[photograph courtesy Times of India]

Terrorism, Mumbai and the Jealous Kid

During the 1980s, when Punjab was in the claws of Terrorism, I was watching Doordarshan when something came up which I would never forget. I was a kid at that time but the visuals left a lasting impact. They were interviewing a Sikh boy(not more that 14-15 years of age) whose whole family was killed in their own house by the terrorists. The boy saved himself by hiding behind the sofa from where he saw terrorists raping his sister throughout the night and shooting her while leaving in the morning. 

I could never forget the face of that boy.

Mumbai terrorist attack which continued almost for 3 days, brought back all the bitter memories. I used to think that we are fortunate that we have not seen the atrocities of the partition, but I am not sure now. All of us have seen some incidences which we will never forget our entire lives. It was the way these attacks were carried out, the brutality of it all, that left me stunned. My paternal Uncle works in Oberoi and it was his lucky day. He had a morning shift next day and left in the evening before it all started. 

What surprised me was that when the terrorists entered the hotels, they asked for people having U.S and UK passports. They just made the reason of the attack so obvious. They are not asking for Kashmir anymore. I don’t think that is the motto anymore because they must have realized that they are not going to get it anyways. The reason has shifted. Its plain Jealousy.

Pakistan and India were born together. But 50 years down the line, India is seen as a potential superpower. There are reports that project India and China as the next emerging powers of the world. And where is our neighbouring country? Nowhere! Its just a terrorist state which breed Terrorism and make the life of the neighbouring countries miserable. They would have equalled India if probably they would have channeled their brains towards the development of their country rather that breeding Terrorists and planning coups. India is at this stage today because we “wanted” our nation to be here. We were not busy planning how to kill people in other countries. And what is happening in Pakistan now? Terrorists fighting amongst each other??

The message which the terrorists wanted to send out via the attacks was very clear – India is as unsafe as any of her neighbours. So why the hell are the Foreign companies investing in India? How can the whole world lend a hand in India’s stupendous development when there is no life safety there? Why doesn’t the world look towards its adjoining neighbours? The whole act reminds me of a kid who one day sees his neighbouring kid having a bright shiny bike and feels so miserable and helpless that he goes and breaks that bike just because his loser father does not have the brains to afford one. The kid thinks that this act would satisfy the jealousy, but at the end of the day, he still does not have the bike! No matter what the terrorist wanted, they have just made the world underline the negative mindset which they had of their country. 

If India wanted, we could have been doubly malicious. But we have always been very forgiving. Since we can’t stoop to such a low levels by sending militant groups to our neighbouring countries to kill people there, we need to tighten our own security. 

Its time that the Indian Government acts. For once, the political parties need to STOP using terrorism as an excuse to hit on each other. Please, anything else but terrorism. All the parties and people have to come together when this word is uttered. We have to stand united on this one otherwise GOD knows what more we might have to go through. We all have had enough of tension and drama in the last three days to last a lifetime. It was disheartening to see BJP coming up with slogans against Congress regarding this terrorist attack even before the operation was over. I urge all the political parties to cut the crap and DO something constructive. Something which will make sure that the next time the jealous kid tries to break the bike, we can kick his butt real hard.

Addicted to Himesh

Ever since Camera Phones were banned in my account in office because of increased security and because the Client raised concerns over security, I have been constantly taking cognisance of what my senses had to offer and the conscious movement of my mind to a plane about which I was completely unaware of. I don’t know what I am writing! I am in a trance! 😐

So, my beautiful-still-brand-new Motorokr E6 was snatched away from my hands by fate and the mobile landed up in my sis’s lap who was anyways going to buy a new one. Some people are so darn lucky! I had to buy a new “cheap” mobile which was not supposed to have a Camera. It was hard to move back to the stone age but somehow I did it and finally bought a Sony Ericsson’s mobile which atleast had an FM. I had a one GB card in my earlier phone which was choc-a-bloc with songs of my choice but now I was completely and helplessly on the mercy of 91.1, 92.7, 95.0, 93.8, 104.0 blah blah blah. 

The only nightmare I could for-see was being subjected to Himesh’s songs. Believe me, I haven’t listened to a single one completely. Two lines into the song and I get all panicky as my brain cells start revolting and threaten me that they would stop working! I can’t stand that nasal twang and those lung exploding histrionics. But fate, it seems, can’t work without an irony. So, while listening to FM, the first song which I came across was from Karzzzz titled Tandoori Nights. For a second, my mind went completely blank. Who the hell wrote that atrocity anyways???

Surprisingly, I didn’t flick the channel but sat through the whole song(something I still don’t believe I did). And soon I realised that I sorta…….kinda………errrr……. liked it. OK WAIT!! Its not exactly “liked it” but its hard to explain how I felt. It was the same kind of feeling one has when one bite nails or pick nose. You know you are not supposed to do it but you still do it. Its the urge which you can’t stop, can’t control. I don’t know why I sat through it, but I did!

Now a days, I listen to the song almost every day while returning from home because its always there on one channel or another. I feel I am being hypnotised by the song. There is something incredibly incredulously insane about it. Infact, I don’t believe I have written a post about it!! What are my friends going to say when they read this confession? My family is going to debar me….

Know what, we should just pretend that this never happened. I never wrote this post and you never read it. Lets just erase it from our minds. Lets not ever talk about this. Lets this be one of our dirty little secret which we would take to our graves.

Oh!!! They are again playing it on the FM. Have to run and enjoy/love/hate/like/abhor the song. I AM SO CONFUSED! 😐

Raping bonanza in Orissa!!!

Can’t find a woman to quench your testosterone buildup?? If you are in India and you could still not find a woman to rape, then you are a fool. Be smart and move to Orissa NOW!!! The Raping festival is in full swing there. On reaching Orissa, whereever you see a mindless, directionless and a salivating mob who is chanting – Bharat “Mata” ki Jai(Long live Mother India) while they run from Church to Church in search of Nuns to rape, go ahead and blend into it. Don’t be afraid!!!! You won’t be caught. While you insert your tool inside the woman pleading on the ground, the police will be standing there, but they will just smoke some cigarettes and watch the whole scene as one watches cheap porn movies and after you have finished the paisa wasool entertainer, they will just move into the bushes to jerk off their pleasures. And wait!!! There is more. You can later strip the Nun completely naked and march her in the streets which shouting – Bharat “Mata” ki Jai! This is important, because that is how you can put a communal color on the whole incidence. THAT is how you can justify the rape. Its for Hindutwa, for our beloved Mother India. Does it sounds ironical? To save an imaginary woman, you are raping a real one? But then how does it matter to you? You satiated your hunger. No one caught you and you had all the right reasons. Nuns belong to a minority group and no one is going to care anyways. The last time it happened, the Orissa Government took 38 days to admit it. If someone asks you the group to which you belong, just name Bajrang Dal or Vishwa Hindu Parishad. No one will touch you with a barge pole after that.

And ofcourse, if you can’t find Nuns, you can rape Hindu girls too. Later, you can just say – “Oops!!! I thought she was a Christian! Sorry!”

No matter how much satire I try to imbibe in the post, I still could not capture an iota of the agony which the Christian community is going through right now. I am a Hindu and I hate the way we arm-twist every minority community in India. I have started hating the whole idea of religion. Is there a minority group which we have spared? Its hard to believe that the most ancient and sacred religion in the world is so fragile that we need to rape women to maintain its sanctity.

All this could have been stopped if there would have been a political will to stop it. But as we all know, it isn’t there. I wonder how the government was so prompt to act on the Delhi Bomb Blasts? Why didn’t it took them 38 days to acknowledge it? Because it was not aimed at the minorities? Because the vote bank was angry? The Center is “Unhappy” with the Naveen Patnaik Government for the violence in the state. Unhappy?? Excuse me?? And then later there was a “pass the muck” competition between the Centre and the State government.

Centre – We sent 7000 personnel of central para-military forces to curb the riots.

State – The forces and helicopters were not sent on “crucial” days.

I felt like puking when I read this. Are these the leaders whom we selected to run our nation? Why do our leaders think too much before taking a decision? By the time the Ministers would stop mulling over whether President’s Rule be imposed or not, do they realise that a number of people would have died? Why do we wait for people to die before spurring to action? Our Ministers are not even capable of taking defensive measures, leave alone an offensive one.

If Mother India ever existed, she would have already drowned in the blood of thousands of “INDIANS” we have already butchered for our own personal gains(and pleasures) while we shouted her name. And we have stained Hinduism so much that we don’t even remember what it meant.

Bharat Mata ki Jai. Indeed!!!

Rock On – Movie Review

Some old photographs in a box – forgotten friends and dreams – a compromised life – success without happiness – a chance meeting with an old friend and nothing to talk – picking up the pieces of an unfinished story – that’s Rock on.

Many of us have gone through such feelings, when we have lost our most dear friends because of reasons beyond our understanding. When we pick up old photographs of those lost friends and find them meaningless and meaningful at the same time. What a time it was!! Did all that happened in this birth? Somehow, that is where this movie connects. Infact, that is why movies like Jaane tu and Dil Chahta Hai connected. All of us saw ourselves right there on the screen.

Rock On is a story of four friends who create a rock band called Magik. Aditya Shroff is the lead vocalist (played by Farhan Akhtar) who pens down unconventional poetry and give the band a unique voice. Joe is the lead guitarist (played by Arjun Rampal) who is very idealistic and does not believe in compromising with his principles or music. He is talented but does not know how to do the lobbying. Kedar Zaveri or K.D. is the drummer (played by Purab Kohli) who is the sole successor of a family of jewelers but prefers his drums to the suffocating family business. He is the joker of the gang and the most lively character in the movie. Rob is the keyboard player (played by Luke Kenny) who is the most level headed member of the band, someone you can rely upon to resolve the problems in minutes.

Everything was going fine and the band won the Channel V contract for an Album when the Band disintegrated and the success story died before its inception. The four of them went their own ways forgetting each other and leading a life which they never wanted to lead till Aditya’s wife (played by Prachi Desai) meets Kedar by chance ten years later and then comes across some long forgotten photographs of her husband’s life about which she was completely unaware. And thus starts the uphill task of the band’s reunion.

Rock on does not have the flamboyance of Dil Chahta Hai but is more grounded in reality. It does not reaches the standards set by DCH but is very believable in its own way. Yes, you can draw parallels but then you can do that with 99% of the movies in Bollywood. The movie works at many levels. The strings of your heart will be stirred.

The movie does not belong to a single actor. All the four lead actors never leave the skin of their roles. Arjun Rampal shows a maturity which was unexpected while Farhan is able to bring out the subtle difference in his character during the ten year span even though this is his first movie as an actor. Although he is the most successful of the four members of his band after the split, he is still angry about the way his life has turned up and it shows in his strained relationship with his wife. Prachi is the surprise package of the movie. She acts like a seasoned actress and it does not look at all that this is her first film. The scene in which she tells Aditya that she is pregnant is her best. Shabana Goswami Koel Purie as Joe’s wife is also perfect in her role of a frustrated woman who has to give up her dreams to run the business of her failed husband.

On the negative side, the movie picks up pace in the second half and does not have much of a comic dose which seems to be quite essential for the Indian audience(specially since they are lapping up crude movies with 15 over the top comic sequences). Also the movie trudges too close to the abyss of a typical Bollywood movie towards the end and it is on the verge of loosing its unique identity.

The music composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy is very apt and suits the mood of the movie like a glove. And the concert at the end of the movie will want you to get up and dance. A good story, crazy music, well etched roles and good acting. What else do we want?

Directed by – Abhishek Kapoor

Rating  – 3.5/5

Love Story 2050 – Movie Review

What could have been the first Indian sci-fi movie and a turning point in the Indian cinema turns out to be a damp squib. The movie reminded me of 10,000 B.C. and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. 10,000 B.C. because the promo of the movie were very promising to say the least and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom because I consider that movie a classic example of how a director can castrate a beautiful and fresh story. Love Story 2050 had a story which most of our movies are lacking now a days. It could have turned into one of the best movies of the year, but alas, just showing a “Star Wars” inspired Mumbai does not mean good direction.

Karan(Harman Baweja) is an only son of a multimillionaire who is very much deprived of love and affection as his mother passed away when he was ten and his father has no time for him. Sana(Priyanka Chopra) is a sweet and shy typical Bollywood heroine who is quite opposite to Karan. A few meetings and songs later, both fall in love. Boman Irani plays the eccentric scientist called Dr. Yatinder Khanna who is Karan’s uncle and on the verge of making a time machine. The couple is about to get married when tragedy strikes and Sana dies in an accident and Karan has to take a journey to 2050 to get back his lady love.

The movie takes inspiration from so many Hollywood movies that its mind boggling. Its hard to believe that the Mumbai skyline would undergo such a drastic and sea change in the next 42 years. Maybe the movie should have been titled Love Story 2350. The graphics are straight out of Star Wars with flying cars and laser guns. The female robot is straight out of “Bicentennial Man” while Boo, the robotic teddy bear is copied from the movie “Artificial Intelligence“. Boman Irani’s character reminds one of Dr. Brown from the movie “Back to the Future“. The movie also defies our understanding of reincarnation. If Sana died in 2008, then she must be 42 years old in 2050 after her rebirth, but she is very much a young and successful pop star. Maybe she was taking a break in between and spending some time with our Gods. Dr. Khanna does not find it hard to fix a robot functioning on A.I. in 2050 although the technology has taken giant leaps. And yes, some scenes are shamefully lifted from the the above mentioned movies.

The movie is bearable in the first half when the couple is in 2008 and the love story is developing. It has its own moments although they are very few in number. The second half drags as there are too many unwanted scenes which could have been left at the editor’s table. I could not understand why the Mortal Combat sequence was there in the movie. The movie needs a very heavy editing to make it bearable specially towards the end.

Harman, who is touted as the next superstar, is good enough for his first movie, although its not a dream debut like Hrithik’s. He needs to watch his diction and needs to work on the emotional scenes. His starts squeaking when he cries. Priyanka is passable. Boman Irani overdoes the act a little bit at times although he does not have much of a role. Archana Puran Singh manages to raise a few laughs in her blink-and-she-is-gone role. The music is already topping the charts and is good. “Mausam Achanak ye badla kyun” and “Milo na milo” are certainly above average songs.

A terrific story gone wasted and a terrible amount of money too. But still i would not like to trash it completely as I have seen worse in the past few months. A two out of five as the movie didn’t turn out to be a sheer torture like Tashan. 😀

Rating – 2/5

Director – Harry Baweja

Official Site – http://www.lovestory2050.com/