Aiyyyyyyyyyya........... Aiyyyyyooooooo

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

 Somethings make a big time change in our lives. They could be real uninteresting paltry things which we would normally ignore yet they can do wonders. In my case a STUPID movie got me back to updating my blog after almost a year.

The movie is Aiyyya and  yes as my tweet said earlier:

 "It is the most torturous thing that has happened to any Indian since Jalianwala Baug" 

If you think I am exaggerating I suggest you brave going and watching it in the theater. I consider myself really very brave. I can watch three Sunny Deol movies back to back without so much a complain and even make myself enjoy it. Not to mention Deepak Parasher and Jeetedra movies (dancing between pots) which I have seen with a smile........ BUT AIYAAAAAA........ I suddenly conformed........ prayed to all the God's........ some I didn't even know...... and prayed for deliverance from my sins. Just so I don't have to watch anything like this in any part of the rest of my life. Like the precaution that they kept showing all thru the movie at regular intervals :

 "Statutory warning : Smoking is injurious to health". 

Similarly they should also put in a statutory warning saying:

"Watch Aiyyaaa at your own risk". 

Believe me if it hadn't been so I wouldn't have been blogging at 1230 in the night to get that disgusted thing out of my head.

The story is of Meenakshi who lives in a cluttered house by a dumpster and her life stinks as that of the dumpster. But she makes her life beautiful by dreaming of beautiful things like movies. It makes everything alright in her life. The only things that she wants in life is a nice smelling room and a book to read and peace. But she is surrounded by eccentric people. Her family members are eccentric. Dad smokes three cigarettes at one time (therefore the ciggy warning), Grandmother is wheelchair bound and has a full set of gold teeth, Brother a crazy dog lover and mom just wants her daughter married hook or crook. Her co workers drink vodka from a water-bottle...... at work and dance to rowdy Bollywood numbers and swoon over John Abraham's undies. 

Her life changes with the entry of the sweet smelling Surya Iyer (Prithviraj)...... who she is enamored by. All this happens in the first 10 mins of the movie and the rest of the movie (ie 2 and half hours of freaking time) all she does is SNIFFS (yeah..... like a DOG) her way around the hero, who has no dialogues in the movie. The guy does not even lip-sync in the songs. You wait and wait and wait for him to say something but NAHHHHHHHH...... does he utter a word........... No!!!!......... and he isn't even challenged. 

The subtle nuances of the main protagonist of living in chaos and a dumpster and settling for the sweet smelling but not stable hero over the organised and stable could-have-been life partner, are totally lost and not highlighted. I understand that in retrospective if they had handled the story literally it would have been a sad old Sulochana saga but what they actually made it to was ever more sadder.......... very very very very very SAD!!!!!!!

After this movie Meenakshi can very easily get the job of a sniffer dog in the police dept. I hear the dogs there are over worked and are planning on retiring. Why would she do a movie like that???? I am still stunned by the audacity of the director to even release a movie like that. The hero, a well known name in South Indian movies, does nothing except walk through streets of Pune and dance to raunchy Hindi-Tamil numbers in Meenakshi's dream sequences....... displaying his washboard abs and NOT LIP-SYNCING. What is that about???? As far as chemistry goes........ all I can say is......... has this been part of Ekta Kapoor's saas-bahu serials, Rani Mukherjee would definitely be playing the role of grandmother to Prithviraj. ( The Hero). Aiyaaaaaa is probably Rani Mukherjee's Aiyyyooo to the world.

The movie is a fabulous example of execution of a decent plot......... going berserk. Maybe the plot itself was bad and I am trying to save face for the Rs 500 that I spent. All through the movie I kept looking for something nice but I FOUND NAUGHT. Even the popcorn tasted bad. Now I have to watch another movie to get over this one. Hoping this one will be better!!!! "Keeping my fingers crossed"

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

"Its been a good enough life"

Yesterday evening as I browsed through the newspaper the news of a techie couple committing suicide in Goa caught my eye. You can read the article here. I normally just read through and move on....... but it was this very trait of mine that made me pause and think again so much that it disturbed me.

It made me dig deeper and by morning I had read all about it including all the stuff other people had to speak about it. I agree with some questions posed by the speaking tree you can read it here and by the Telegraph who analysed the more psychological and sociological aspects of the story.

Anand and Deepa led a quiet life. I'm sure they would not want to be analysed like this or is it that they wanted and maybe people around did not care enough??? They had achieved all that they wanted to in life materially was this why life held no meaning for them??? Were they disillusioned by family ties and friends??? The circumstances of their death and their note in which they say

"We have lived a very eventful and happy life together, We’ve travelled the world, lived in different countries, made more money than we ever thought possible, and enjoyed spending as much of it as we could on things that brought us joy and satisfaction. We believe in the philosophy that our life belongs to us and only us, and we have the right to choose to die as much as we have the right to live. We leave behind no debts or liabilities.”"

Or were they so successful that they wished to control their own deaths as they had their lives??? The fact that they tore up all that they read and threw away all that they saw makes me think that they undoubtedly tried to find meaning in their life and then tore them up because all that they read were nothing but lies and made no sense to them. Eventually they went as they came.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs states that self realization is the last step in the pyramid of needs. When we reach that we are pretty much old and have lived through so much that though life has a totally new meaning by itself. My Ma for example when I regale her with stories everyday about things that are happening and stuff people do around me..... she just smiles and tells me stuff like this does not even warrant a comment from me........ it is ridiculous. It is just like the stuff I say to my niece when she tells me that she fought with some friend of hers over some real trivial matter. I guess when Maslow suggested his heirarchy of needs he timed self realisation at a time when people's experiences made them handle things differently. In Anand and Deepa's case as with most techies that I have seen........ people get a lot of money and a lot of success by the time they are in their late twenties so then after that they travel the world to get some zing and when that is even over they try to find something new...... they rely on family and friends for support and when they are disillusioned (not IF..... they always are). They take extreme steps. Trying to finding a purpose for life or finding a new meaning for life loses its charm..... Nothing surprises you....... everything seems same...... you are not shocked or excited by anything new....... and all this when you are in your twenties.

Recently a blog of mine found its place in "judges also liked this" not the first not the second or third but it was the first time that somebody thought something of my blog. Just last week my pic took second place in a flower pic challenge. In both cases I was so happy and wanted to share it with somebody and I realized that I had nobody to do it with...... It was just another thing that I would have to file into memory. Was I looking for gratification when I entered these blogs into contests??? I analysed this fact and realized that blogging and taking pics was getting boring and I wanted to feel I was going somewhere so I put it up. My question is if I don't have anybody to share my happiness with who will I share my fears, my anxiety, my troubles and my unhappiness with????


Quoting from the article

“With each success, there is a feeling of loss — loss of time and loss of value-based relationships. This is when guilt pangs work and people get depressed despite their achievements,”

It is this desolation something like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods trying to make some kind of meaning to their situation. The feeling that maybe nothing better can ever happen. I am an average person and this happened to me just a little while ago. Isn't this happening with everyone else as well???......... isn't it clear why more and more people are folding in the realms of the god men and spiritual leaders or downright declaring themselves as atheists??? Isn't our social structure crumbling??? Are we becoming more and more jealous of each other or un-tolerant of each other that we cant support each other??? Or are we so nuclear today that something or anything that does not happen to just our loved ones does not concern us???

I am not justifying their act just trying to find a reason....... something of a closure. We cant judge them because we don't have their version of the story. Concluding with a saying from OSHO something my friend Dhir put up on his FB status:

‎"Make your life... Find out why you are feeling bored. Change. It is such a small life. Take risks, be a gambler -- what can you lose? We come with empty hands, we go with empty hands. There is nothing to lose. Just a little time to be playful, to sing a beautiful song, and the time is gone. Each moment is so precious. If you are silent, if you are creative, if you are loving, if you are sensitive to beauty, if you are grateful to this vast universe... There are millions of stars, which are dead -- and you are so small, yet you have the most precious thing in existence... LIFE. And not only life, but the possibility of becoming a consciousness, of becoming enlightened, of coming to a space where death has never entered." - OSHO

Happy Diwali to All

Festivitie​s and what they mean to us

A long weekend for us in India and that too a weekend full of festivities: Rakshabandhan and Independence day.

Rakshabandhan is a celebration of the relationship between a brother and a sister. I don't have any brothers. Since I was little, I remember envying girls with brothers mostly for the gifts that they got on this day from their brothers and also the festivities that they got to be part of. Ma made us sisters, tie the rakhi, the holy thread of protection to God. I have done that for years since, but as I was growing older I also wished that I would have a "mushtanda" for a brother who would protect me and keep all other guys at bay. He would have to be really tall and very dark and evil looking something like Khalli, who would be sinister and of whom guys would get really scared of.

Those days the number of guys who wanted to be my brother grew in numbers, so much that I was really baffled whether I needed protection at all...... all of them were after all my "rakhi brothers". I should have felt safer with soooooo many brothers in tow but I was stupid because soon a month or so after that the brothers would want to become something totally different. "Pehle bhaiyya phir saiyya". The phenomenon of having rakhi brothers lost its meaning and I now needed serious protection from this new clan of never before known to me "rakhi brothers". A problem that I had created by my own self.

The festival is not to blame. The stories attached to the festival of rakshabandhan depict the love between a brother and sister and the sanctity of the relationship where the brother promises love and protection to his sister. It is the opportunists like the so called brothers of mine who have marred it. In future I saw a lot of these rakhi brothers and sisters get married with the happily ever after but the sanctity of the relation was lost to me. I do not believe in having "rakhi brothers" anymore and I still meticulously tie rakhis only to the idols of Gods.

My doctor who is the youngest of five sisters told me one day that she didn't celebrate the festival as she didn't have a brother and her husband didn't have sisters and her daughter did not have a brother. When asked about "rakhi brothers" she says "They all disappeared after I got married."

August 15th is the day when after 200 years of oppression and lakhs and lakhs of known and unknown sacrifices we finally got independent of the British regime. Our grandfathers, great grandfathers and great great grandfathers have borne the brunt and it is after their selfless sacrifices that today we live a life of saying what we want, doing what we want, going where we want, etc etc. We live in a secular, part socialist, part capitalist, democratic nation and to reach here we have striven hard. How many countries in the world can claim to do what we have done in a span of 64 years? Which country of our size and stature can claim to be as liberal as we are? Yet we choose to ignore all of this.

Years ago we made a tryst with destiny and awoke to life and freedom and 64 yrs later what have we made of it: Corruption at every stage, Terrorism, Illiteracy, Poverty, Female infanticide, child marriage, deforestation, pollution, Crime against women and children to name a few. Our grandfathers left us a legacy of freedom what are we going to leave our children?

Patriotism has now found a new meaning...... cricket matches!!! Is that the only time when we feel for our country? Why should our own people find solace in other countries..... why should they feel safer elsewhere other than in their own home???

What do these festivities mean to us??? An extended weekend means holidays, shopping, picnics. Most people I know are planning a holiday someplace or the other. The meaning of festivals is rapidly changing so is the social structure. I think that the whole social structure on which we were so proud of is slowly crumbling and giving way to so called bohemian thinking. We no longer wish to eradicate evils but are learning to live with them. The acceptance that we were so proud of is now taking a whole new meaning and we are learning to live with evils that our society has created.

We need to go back to our roots and uproot things from where they got wrong. Refuse to be held at ransom to evils because it is the easy way out. A revolution is the need for the day. A revolution like the ones our grandfathers brought about......... only this one to eliminate and cleanse the evils from our society.

Since time unknown we have a legacy of compassion and tolerance. We need to weed out the undesirable elements from the society and put them through a correction program rather than eliminating them thereby cleaning the evil and not the doer of the evil. We really need to show more respect for the festivities as they are: like spending a few moments thinking about things that one can make right however meager it may be and refusing to be held at ransom by any evil. I know that one person making a change will not change anything....... but it will. There is always a chain reaction to everything u do and it will come back to you somehow....... remember a few lines

hum akele chale the janibe manzil
log saath aate rahe karvaan banta gaya.....

Why not for a change give a new meaning to these days and do something our country will be proud of??? Why not give a new meaning to these holidays??? Why not contribute in our own small way just a thought, a small action is all that is required with our kind of population can u imagine what can happen if everyone does their own very very minuscule bit of change!!!

Fusion music

I love music of any kind and creed no language barriers. I am especially partial to Indian folk. I simply love folk. Bengali folk is my favorite: The bhatialis and Bouls. The coke studio @ MTV is something that was probably made for the likes of me. Especially this fusion number...... I have always been a fan of bihu and Bhupen Hazarika but this song has made me a total fan of Khagen Gogoi as well. I have no idea what he is singing about but the music is wonderful!!! It feels like the fresh wind from the hills. It is sooo soft with no edges it is fluid!!! soft smooth and extremely curvy no bones!!! The sounds of drums with dhol and kartal flute and gogona. Simply mind blowing !!!! You can almost see the women dancing the bihu to this number!!!

The Bhatiali fusion with Majhi re was also good but could have been better!!! The others were also good...... also liked the fusion of qawwali but this was my favoritest!!! I watched the others tapped feet on some but with this one I danced!!!

A song is always better than words

Na hai ye pana

Na khona hi hai

Tera na hona, jaane

Kyon hona hi hai

Tumse hi din hota hai

Surmayi shaam aati hai

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Har ghadi saans aati hai

Zindagi kehlati hai

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Aankho mein aankhe teri

Baho mein Bahe teri

Mera na mujh mein kuch raha..... Hua kya

Baton mein batein teri

Rathe saugate teri

Kyon tera sab yeh ho gaya....... Hua kya

Mein kahin bhi jaata hun

Tumse hi mil jata hu

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Shor mein khamoshi hai

Thodi si behoshi hai

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Aadha sa vaada kabhi

Aadhe se zyada kabhi

Jee chahe karlu is tarah..... Wafa ka

Chode na chute kabhi

Tode na toote kabhi

Jo dhaaga tum se jud gaya..... Wafa ka

Mein tera sarmaya hun

Jo bhi main ban paya hun

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Raaste mil jate hai

Manzile mil jati hai

Tumse hi..... Tumse hi

Alienation and hate

Alienation and hate make loners of people. Time and again in life I have been alienated…….. sometimes because I was not the right color or the right gender or the right person what people expected of me. Did that hurt me??? Initially yes….. I think the first I remember is when a friend’s mother forbade her to play with me. Reason: I used a bad/foul word. I can’t exactly remember the bad word or the context that it was mentioned in but yeah I remember feeling very bad. I remember feeling very shamed and crying and feeling very alone and not being able to talk about it. That is the first time in my life when I wished that I had died and did not live. I was four or five years of age then. I don’t think that I have ever mentioned this to anybody in life ever but yeah that hurt I can still feel. The hate is still fresh and the way I hated myself still there. It’s like going in a time machine and years of your life just vanishing and I am that same little girl. I had never before that day felt that kind of pain before that sense of condemn.

Years later when in school when a teacher wrongly picked me for something I had not done only because somebody wanted to hurt me because they did not like me, the teacher told everybody to do without me and told me that she wanted to see how far I could go without help. I took the challenge and did much better than most but the sense of alienation never left me. It hurt when friends singled me out for something I did not do. I don’t think the teacher or the classmate of mine who did that to me can ever imagine what that did to me. Yeah it made a loner of me for life!!!! Today I feel more comfortable typing on my computer than ever talking about it and even when people tell me that they hate me I soooo readily accept it……. It is kind of amazing. I don’t take that of another issue.

If I were to rationalize and count as to how many people I know of who truly hate me I would need a counter and a ticker. Does it bother me……. Yeah it does and if I ever enter a popularity contest I would probably get sub zero votes or even hate votes asking for me to be ousted……… but I don’t cry bucketfuls any more. Yeah but if the list of likes and especially loves start moving to the list of hates then that still takes me back to that first day when I sat alone in my garden in the darkness and cried so that nobody would notice and hoped that I just vanished.

Moral of the story: Don’t judge people whoever they are and whatever they do!!! You never know how much you scar them.

I am a "Nobody"

In life we think that we are invincible and that nobody can hurt us. We backup our reasons for being the way we are or the things we do with reasons that benefit us. But life is a great leveler. Sometimes we have to overlook the things even if we think that they are shortcomings or wrong doings. We have to leave it to life to do the justice that we so seek. I don’t do that..... I think that the onus is on me to right the wrong and very often I pay for the same. The important thing to remember here is that I am...... "A Nobody". Justice and judgment are concepts that take place on their own. What we sow….. We will reap. I do not think that people take rebirth or that we have to take rebirth to pay for our sins. I believe that we pay for the things that we do here and now..... sometimes.... later, but we do pay. All we have is just this one life. We are not invincible and nobody is right or wrong. Somebody’s right is definitely another person’s wrong. It is totally perceptive.

Life is a great master and teacher who evens out everybody. There is nothing we do that can alter our destiny. We have to pay for our sins or be rewarded for our doings. Let life decide who is what. In the yrs that I have lived I have seen life even out people. I will be absolutely micro and say that if we take responsibility of only ourselves should be enough. We really do not need to check or pass judgment over somebody else’s sayings or doings. Life does it for us. But still I am agitated when I am wronged and want things to change. But do things really change??? Yes they do!!! Sooner or later they do whether or not we are there to witness it at that moment or not. Life is definitely a great leveler.

I had a great one yr to live with my parents. I have wanted to do it for a long time. Did I like it???? I realized that I have changed and that circumstances and people are just the same...... It is just my expectations of and from people that have changed. In some cases I expect more and in others I am stunned with what I get. Around me I find people of all shapes and sizes from different aspects of life being judgmental whether or not they are aware of it. The point is to let go and to tell yourself that it is not your place or job to right the things you think are wrong. Its just our alter ego who thinks that we can change anything. They will be taught by the master even you for your snooty self will be brought to task by the master.

Who am I after all to decide? Our invincibility is challenged to the extent and up until the time when we finally agree upon our “nobody” status.

Life without carpets and masks

No carpets !!! Life is scary!!! It means cleaning everyday!!! Now alongwith previously accumulated dirt there is also the new dirt that has to be cleaned everyday. Quite a hassle but the plus point is that you have less breakdowns and less phoenix episodes.

In the begining it was physically reminding myself to be without the carpet. Seeing all the crap around and wanting to clean up all the time. I have a cleanliness disorder!!! Then there was the physically retaliating to the people causing the dirt. Result is that most people who knew me from pre carpet cleaning days are shocked they all think i need to go to a shrink!!! some think i am snooty now because of some stamps on my passport. whatever...... the thing remains that almost all people agree that things have changed and some are even evoking strong emotions.

They dont expect me to be so blunt and obvious. So much that some people have actually come up to hubby and told him that he is really very tolerant. The actual words were: You are like a lamp that is burning to give others light. All the time looking at me. When i look at these sugar coated people I feel like telling them carpet cleaning is going to be next on your agenda. But then doing things underhand

I realise that people cant take truth. They dont like to be told that what they are doing is bad. I usually dont react or talk to people or express my opinions. Also the people who affect me are slowly dwindling and have come to only two...... can you believe it only TWO people in the whole wide world. I am hoping it stays that number because if it comes down to nil there will be trouble!!! it is nice to be held back by somebody!!!