Thursday, December 6, 2007

Fred : "Just a couple of drops of Ageing Potion would do "

In Potterworld you come of age at 17 only.Savvy,eh? In India though, you have to be at least 18 to have that feel of 'a legitimate teenager',well, if not in India then at least in Pune or hell at least in my case definitely! Neway the thing is when you are 21,have a decent job offer in hand(apparently!) and at least a cloudy,hazy shape of an idea of what your next 2-3 years are going to be you tend to feel a little 'grown up',start having those ideas about breaking out of the caccoon and doing something 'grown up' style...the best time to do it would definitely be the end of a yet another loong,tiring exam...Well here's a scene of how i think one of those ..hhmmmm...."events" would go, mind you there are no names mentioned, its almost imaginary but unlike every other imaginations this might just have a bit too much of a realistic base,its almost like it has happened.....<:-P ....

The Players :-

the guy who-thinks-he-is-not-drunk-but-he-is-a-little-bit

the guy who-wants-to-avoid-puking-at-all-costs.....past experiences do count,see... sigh...a lost cause in the end though

the guy who-is-dead-drunk-and-wants-to-prove-that-he-is-not-that-drunk

the guy who-has-had-maximum-to-drink-and-yet-shows-no-visible-'effects' ....obviously the one who everyone else secretely envies....

the Host who himself doesn't drink but doesn't mind others drinking in his house when-parents-are-gone
......one couldn't have wished for a better set-up,
a place just waiting to be trashed down,wassay?

and lastly the guy who doesn't like drinking but is present there to see others get drunk and have himself a few good laughs....

Now with this stage set,how would the events unfold....predictably i guess...there would be the unmistakable thrashing of all past bad teachers and proffessors...the nostalgic moments of bunked lectures and 'worst till' submissions,remembering again about the narrow escapes from teachers,lab assistants and hell even traffic police, and of course last but not the least 'girls'!! Well the two guys who are not drinking would have 'a considerable advantage' over others of being able to steer conversation away from their 'muses' without others realising it quickly :-P.And once the "4 Musketeers" are enough overwhelmed, man the two sane ones could just make them dance,sing,sit on stupid stools ,something that they as 'grown ups' would rather avoid....In the end though it might just unintentionally take a wrong turn and someone might just end up crying as he could no longer keep the conflicting emotions bottled up....

Is this growing up? Or is this wrong on all possible levels?Well i'm not talking about whether drinking is Ok or not ,its a different ball game completely and what I think about drinking isn't going to change anyone else's opinion about it nor do I want to. Secondly, 'I haven't done this till today so I must do it at least once' instinct is considerably dominating in these years.

So doing something crazy is not bad, even when we grow up though what matters is you should be able to tell when to, how to and up to what limit, even realizing that you have a choice to say 'no' and sticking to it is crazy enough......You know deciding not to act crazy when given a choice is itself crazy in some crazy way!!Ok,trust me, I'm not drinking while writing this.....So in the end I would quote JD from Scrubs as he has said it better and in fewer words what I wanted to say......."I always assumed growing up happened automatically as you got older ..but its really something you have to choose to do......"

here's a fitting sequel to the story,its the 'next chapter' done by one of the sober ones.. :-P

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A generation tussle ?

For the older generation the new generation always appears less commited, less patriotic, too materialistic , too self-obsessed and what not.This is completely accepatable ,hell i don't know how pissed off i would be if my kids say that they're off to Mars for the weekend or something :-P...neway the point is Generation Gap's not only about 'amachya weli asa navhata' and 'ata te diwas gele' though somewhat irritatingly its definitely the most visible manifestation of it...:-P,:D. Its about knowing that because the circumstances are like A to Z different the things that were rational and 'good' in all senses of the word in those days might not be 'hip' or 'trendy' or whatever it is now.So in those days we as kids might have made the same calls that our parents did ,but the fact that we don't do that today itself means not that our mentality is different but we have adopted to this world just like they had done long bac and lets face it , its definitely won't be easy to adopt to or to assimilate something new in later life,right?

But hey,things are not that simple.We don't evolve in 50 years.Man if it took 5000 years for 'a tail' to vanish , think about all the cultural and social aspects that are unmistakably so closely tied up with our perceptions of 'being ethical' and 'being moral' that anything anyone does thats 'out of the ordinary' as they call it these days is frowned upon.

A scenario : group of 3 adult couples discussing about the 'apparent escapades' of the daughter of one of their NRI friends, They all agree that she is very intelligent and hardworking and homely (SHIT ,why is this still looked upon as a necessary quality of a girl...neway thats another hot( :P ) topic...lolzzz ) ,you know the whole nine yards.. :P( man why are such discussions invariably about girls? guess intelligent and hardworking together is too much for a guy to handle neway :P).So she has done engineering(s/w of course :P) ,has a good job.Fine things going smoothly right,now here comes the kicker.An year later,she realised that she no longer liked what she was doing she felt lost and helpless wondering whats going on.So she's decided to become a doctor(man a BIG KICK even for me).Thats it."This is completely stupid and irresponsible and ACHARAT",the unanimous agreement between all.Hell,even I agreed a bit....

But now,Im thinking whats wrong?I mean lets keep the money issue aside.She is at least honest enough to listen to her 'inner self' or whatever , she definitely takes her life seriously her career seriously so how come she's IRRESPONSIBLE or insane? Hell I don't know how many of us are honest enough about what we like and whether we are really happy in doing what we are doing.We hate slogging , we hate mugging up ,we hate those 8 hours of boring collages and everything,yet we do it.Some times we don't have a choice ..we have a responsibility to do something ,some of us might be accountable for others and hell we choose again and again the things that sometime later are going to make our life easy.Theres nothing wrong in this, not at all. Come on we even think twice before lying just so that our 'afterlife' in heaven is peaceful.So yes even though 'sacrifice' is a big word for all this , it somehow seems fitting,i dunno it does.So even the girl in the story is sacrificing something, maybe her belief of not to listen to herself honestly,wassay??

So here's my point, generation gap is a definite two-way traffic ,but not that both are going in opposite directions , both are heading the same way , its just 'the divider' is too big........yessss managed a bit poetic twist to end it pretty rudimentary though......lollzzzz....

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Being Impulsively Impulsive

Well no particular reason for the second order sentence i was just being impulsive.... :P Well i'm not exactly one of those lets-just-do-it-what-difference-does-it-makes types on the contrary actually....I'm the kind of guy who would rather delay making a decision that i am uncomfortable with to such an extent that situation will eventually make it for me..like bunking a lecture..take such a pathetically long time for deciding that finally ur so late that no
self-respecting teacher would allow me to sit neways.....man that was close...:D..yess i know its a bad quality, a very bad one in fact so the solution ... lets be Impulsive people....:D :D

Sometimes time doesn't give you a choice it constraints you,forces you,compels you ,you just can't run, you have to put your act together and do something ;this is not "impulsive" in a true sense.If u don't hurry u might just screw up everything there ..what happened to making a choice to be reckless,nope not here....So its when the situation doesn't necessarily demand and still u do it..thats the case im talking about...

Sometimes the mind sort of 'conditions' u to just go ahead and do it..Psychologically it might be the feeling that 'i've never been impulsive lets be one now'.tats just an attempt for self-redemption of some sort i guess might even be an ego boost or just a way to prove something.The main problem here is that when we r making the actual decision we'r not so concerned or bothered about the outcome ,we are only focussed around making a decision and even if we are serious about what would happen take solace in convincing ourselves hey it was impulsive u know..So its almost like we create a sort of cushioning to protect ourselves....... ..psychologically..

In a sense its paradoxial at its root..how can u be objectively,cool-headedly,thinking-it-over decide to be impulsive?I mean you are aware that there are plenty of chances that ur decision might just be completely disastrous that you might have to actually start agreeing a bit with ur friends about their view that 'this dude's completely off the rocker..',its the fact that you take into account all the consequences and everything and yet the actual decision making process must be impulsive..yess the consequences do form a major part of any decision making process
but u r not gonna think about WHAT the consequences are going to be as such, what you do is just tell urself that things may well be messed up later...i think when u do that u r not afraid to be impulsive or feel compulsive to be impulsive or feel a need to conveince urself that its OK to go wrong , u already know that thank you ... :-P

I think thats the point i wanted to make, being impulsive just for the sake of being one,not because time demands,not because others think ,not because u feel u should be at least by now, because in these cases u don't have a choice....and so u sulk,u complain(at least i definitely do.. :P)..and i know whats-the-use-of-doing-this-crap type of people might just find it stupid but i found it quite funny,entertaining and to some extend satisfying...

We were on Tekdi. About a couple of minutes after we reached 'Khaan'(20 minutes of walking....this definitely exceeds expectations epsecially on a Sunday :P) a friend said...'hey look over there thats ****'(i am not writing her name because our focus of attention changes every other day so whats the point) and the two of us just went back...not sitting a bit to enjoy the beautiful sunset and stupid enough to turn our back on the refreshing 'non-AC' wind ,just hurrying back as fast as we could only to later realise that we had of course missed her... :(
.. well even if we had caught up with her , we wouldn't have done nething but spare an occasional glance out of the corner of the eyes anyway .. but still.. ..So now we had no other option but to wait in the stuffy place near ARAI road for 30 minutes untill our friends come back( they weren't going to take pity on us and come back asap neways ) so in a nutshell it turned out to be a fiasco...And as we sat there laughing our way through those 30 minutes i realised that never once did i get a thought like 'maybe i shouldn't have done it'... Perhaps making the wrong decision for once didn't bothered me much..of course this is so much a trivial matter but even if i manage to extend at least 5% of that feeling in any important decisions that go wrong and theres a good chance that they do :P

..well here's to hope that i will.. :D:D...

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Chakachak Chak De!


Finally after Swades a movie of SRK that i can admit openly i liked, without being laughed at or looked upon as a sentimentalist. The king Khan's still got a long way to go it seems....as expected
:P

Entwining a tale about nationalism with a narrative focussed around the neglected state of the Indian women's Hockey team.Yes its old wine in a new bottle but definitely a better one. The tale about the stereotypical indifference,the discrimination,the so well-known gender bias is for the first time brought to the center stage with just the right amount of glamor.And SRK's definitely done a good job not only acting wise but even the "in-character" persona achieved is convincing.For one thing he doesn't shy away from those white hair from that beard of his...surely a wise decision ..

The identity ,culture issues are tackled reasonably well without any excessive SRK factor.And convincingly its the small things which matter and the movie definitely takes those into account..like after a hard session of practice the team must surely retire in a dingy bathroom,its only when the extraordinary happens that sponsors drop in to ride on their success,the awe that indian players feel after watching the australian babes (yeah.. :P) working out in a high-tech gym and even the fact that they won't stop bickering with the auto-wala even after winning the cup.. :P

At least what i think is one thing that Chak De might have done without are the constant jibes at cricket.The film blames cricket for the dire state of Hockey here.It might just be me but i got the feeling that the snobbish Indian vice-captain portrayed in the film was there to universalize this role for cricketers.

Thats what i felt.Chak De is unsuccessful in understanding why cricket has taken a surge over Hockey.And i agree with The Times of India ,the answer lies in the film itself - the timing of the growth of the sensationalist media especially around 1983 triumph.

All in all a good film. And yeah i was saving this for last.....Preeti Sabarwal a.k.a. Sagarika Ghatge(marathi ,sahi na!!) rox!!

Sunday, August 12, 2007

One more Judgement Day down..(phew)

well the result's finally out..and yesss 75% of engg is over..one more year of this and i'll b a graduate!!!an Engineer....by god's gracious gift (by god i also mean the university and others of course) this time i managed to become a UT yuppee ....congrats to ME!! ..seeing as this result hardly counts now that placments r over and barely 50% of the students actually turned up to collect the result at the prescribed hour...congratulating myself seemed a fair thing to do..neway im not one of those types who change their orkut names to "Topper" or something(no
offence meant here .. :P) i understood one thing yesterday its always a great deal of help to step back and look at yourself from your own point of view....

i dont mean the big introspection stuff here...come on, i dont think i can ever b completely unbiased when it comes to judging myself seeing as i can't even manage 2 b one about appraising the football club i support ... no i just meant LOOKING at yourself..to view where I stand...i mean come on two decades of life is over...and the ideas or the dreams i had are still hardly anything more than ideas and dreams only....

as it turns out there are many things to blame this on(excluding me of course.. :P)...i choose emmm...dunno all the things are so interconnected and follow one after the other that you'll just end up blaming everything on everything :P ...and the problem is for those hypocrites like me (:P) who are just gifted to find faults ....never seem to come up with a solution...while some say there is none..others claim that realising the problem itself is a step towards solution
(savvy eh?)

i feel the hitch is with the fact that 'the compulsive nature of our lives to continuing to
prove ourselves..constantly, relentlessly' it starts what like when u r 5 yrs of age i guess.the parents will have to give the interview first..this is complete bullshit at least in my opinion(screw the child psychologists)..then the 1st standard exam suddenly starts appearing like a great threat to our identity and worthy of giving up the playtime also..man its nobody's fault actually ...the peer pressure just climbs up recursively with infinite system stack space(well i gotta show i study somewhere right..:P)and this is with the external factors excluding

why is it that every exam and result day feels like friday the 13th and we no longer fear the actual one(:P come on wht could b worse than this huh?)i guess its wont change now...will go on becoming worse more likely...and no matter how much i brag about the evil nature of exams and stuff i must admit i am a firm follower of those...i do fear a little every exam,every prac an every oral an every class test(although these are bygones since engg stated)

so here's the crux of the post - whether the result's good or bad just look at the big picture...bcuz at least for me this is the only time when i do .. :P

and just like everything else regarding THIS matter ,even the post is turned out to be messy!! (exactly my point ,see...<:-) )

Sunday, July 29, 2007

History Asphyxiated!!


Learning or reading history just for the sake of it is probably wrong..one is supposed to read between the lines there..to assimilate the past doesn't mean to blindly remember the dates and the years but to know why these dates and the years are worth remembering.....neway retrospectively though telling history just for the sake of it would in my opinion be the right thing to do....i mean lets face it ..the manner in which history is told or the tone or the way of telling all these things make a difference in interpreting it..the point is not whether they make a good effect or bad the point is they destroy the main essence of learning history...u gotta make your own interpretations of things... i mean reading the allies' orchestrated books about Nazi psychology would hardly aim at capturing the real picture of the party( guess it would be more gruesome than normal beings like us could handle neway :P but still....)

So its probably the moral or ethical or whatever responsibility of the guys who have the liberty to decide what history to tell others ,its definitely for them to be more impartial...im not talking about the NCERT debate over their recent history book syllabus fiasco..hell nobody learns history from school books neways....

Couple of weeks ago i was in Delhi seating literally in the "middle of the Red Fort" surrounded by the grandeur of Mughal empire the "Diwanni-E-Khaas" making me just realise the meaning of the word "surreal" , heavenly. The much hyped light and music show was finally about to commence(just 20 minutes late..... no sweat :P).This is surely the center of India's history....the place still crowned to be the highest echelon when the Prime Minister gives his speech every Independence Day....What i expected was an unbiased,well documented story of history..but what followed was a total letdown here are few things that i found really disturbing -

1. No mention of Akbar...come on guys fine he wasn't a typical Mughal king ...he had Hindu and Rajput friends ,had quite an eye for the future....and he didn't kill that many people just for not being islamic....so you just delete the greatest Mughal king huh?

2. Shivaji sidetracked completely...i mean this is getting too much.....the Red Fort wasn't only about the Song and the dances and the Shayari ..hell it was a capital of a huge empire..doesn't history necessarily involve ups and down....

3. And the most disturbing fact..Nothing about Sadashiwarao Bhau Peshawa or even Ahamadashah Abdali...SHIT this is the limit..i mean wasn't the great battle of Panipat fought for the sole purpose of protecting Delhi from Abdali??It claimed millions and not just men.....But no the show spends 30 minutes of its 45 sickeningly about the Begmas and the diamonds (which were stolen later by Abdali himself) and the madira and how difficult it was to bring all the marble from Persia....wow this is history of Red Fort huh??

And the worst part is i could point out these things just because i know a little bit about Maharashtra's history....what about the Rajput's and the Jat's ...i mean whats the aim of giving such a lopsided view?? do they really think people don't know the enmity that existed or that a realistic account of history for once would be a political mistake??probably...people would rather shirk away from the truth than facing it....no problem i might also do the same thing who knows....
but for God's sake please let ME make that choice!! let me walk out....maybe indians just might prove to be better at handling the bloody past than everyone thinks.....

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The End of a Great Era...........

OK one fact before i begin anything.................
IM THE GREATEST FAN OF HARRY POTTER ..............................(means i'm probably one of the millions who think the same :P..LOLLLZZZ......)

I live HP,I talk HP, in short HP is in my blood(sort of like the Quidditch in harry's i guess...)

Anyway,
Rather than talk about the 7th book, since a few of my friends are still in progress, I have some thoughts about the series in general.

The thing that has most impressed me about the series has been the complexity. Characters aren't completely good or evil.(Move over फास्तर फेने ) Harry gets whiny and angsty, Ron is a bit of a jerk throughout the series. Fred and George can be disturbingly cold and calculating, Wormtail is more pathetic than bad, Draco is pitiable with hints of a truly ominous home life, etc. Too many books and movies, for kids and adults, shy away from complexity, as if we wouldn't get it if they didn't attached big "GOOD GUY" and "BAD GUY" signs to everything. The success of this series proves to me that people, especially kids, don't need things dumbed down like that.

I also really like the realism of it. Yes, the magic is outlandish, and yes, Hermione explaining the background of everything via "Hogwarts: A History" is frequently contrived, but for the most part the characters and their interactions with each other are very real.(Yeah this is the first time in my life that im criticising something remotely related to Hermione...never again though surely.......Its an unbreakable vow then.. ;P) I'm sure that everyone read some portion of Harry being locked in the cellar or his room by his family, or being ostracized and feared by his classmates, and didn't relate to his isolation on some level. Everyone, particularly at this age, feels alone, and Harry's story captured that feeling very well, even if in more extreme circumstances (hopefully!) than most of us have been though ourselves.

I'm incredibly impressed with J.K. R's attention to detail and patience. Hints are dropped and important points set up books in advance, and while I know there are some consistency errors here and there (with that many pages total in all the books, there would have to be!) she did a fantastic job of making all seven books a consistent whole. I mean i still remember the evening before the big day confidently agreeing with Praju that "all the questions from the first book are now definitely answered !!" Shit..... can anyone BE more mistaken(as Chandler would say ..... :P)


You know i don't even mind mocked for being so much into children's books ,the truth is HP series is not childrens' and it takes an adult to realise that(:P).........

Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Beginning

Let there be a blog and there was one...:P wow i wish it was that simple.well.. still, here goes nothing............

i find myself thinking, the only difficult fact about blogging is you get a feeling that you are sort of talking in front of invisible crowd...i mean i would rather prefer to have a look at their frowns rather than typing myself away into nothing neways if i start looking at it from a different perspective then it seems to be a good thing... yesss.... i can finally blabber about nething without caring a bit what the git in front of me thinks about it......kewl thought actually ..and its this tinsy little thought that finally made me write a post here (i had actually created this blog like a month ago but just couldn't bring myself to type down anything)

its like being taken to a GIJOE shop and told that i HAVE to buy something...i mean come on can't i just look around relishing the position of power that i can have whatever i want,the anxious look on the shopkeeper's face dreading about what the hell this guy wants, the moment you decide what u want the ball's no longer in your court.......

neway i'm not good with similes (or was it metaphor......forget it) and definitely not with philosophy and stuff (i guess its easy to find what you are bad at rather than what are you are good at :P)

well i don't know in what exact context the verb 'blogging' is used i mean now that i am starting a blog should I expect to receive a card saying 'happy blogging!!' or something ;P
well here's my neologism(don't worry about the word its the GRE aftermath...we all suffer from it...it'll wear off in a few weeks though :P )....................
its Salil's blog - Blog at your own risk....