Blame it on Darwin

Sometimes, thoughts really need not reflect what is going on in your mind. This is one of those times. Being in the “eligible for beginning a shared life” zone, certain observations do come across. These may not be personal experiences but milestones which define the road I take. I am in that phase of my life where people around me are getting into, getting out of or desperately seeking relationshipsJ. Every conversation with a friend, family or relative hints at, “So, whats going in your personal life?”. Just to clear the air so that we can get on with the main reason for this article, nothing is going on in my life.

A couple of things that I would like shed light upon. We often say that the Western Culture (getting to realize its true expanse) is far different from our Indian Culture. Firstly, the culture which we have been brought up in, or at least my generation cannot be classified as Indian culture, in its true sense. Indian culture is now a compromise between what parts of the western culture can be integrated whilst drawing the “lakshman rekha” on absolute no-no’s. Live-in Relationships and inter-caste marriages are some of these outer bounds. However, the traditional Indian families have become a little more forgiving towards pre-marital relationships.

I hope my friend’s friend forgives me for stealing his line but he put it very succinctly. In his own words, “The Indian Population today is stuck in a limbo between the Indian and the American Culture. They all want to be in a relationship but cannot handle break-ups”. Indian values can be sacrificed when it comes to getting involved. But when things go wrong, it takes merely minutes to transform in to “Sati Savitri (or her male counterpart)”. You see that in our movies, our TV serials too. From being dominated in the household, women now have the liberty to fiddle around with their social lives. Only when the world comes crashing down, suddenly everyone around them would take the “You have shamed our name. Is this what we taught you?” defense. You very well gave the liberty to fool around in the first place, didn’t you? What is the point in crying over spilt milk? One thing I would like to note is that the doer is equally faulty in this.

But we need somebody to blame for all this, so I figured out who is the culprit. Its Charles Darwin. A common wildebeest will never graze at the same place, he will move to greener lands. This is the sole reason why people with different cultures tried to mix and match and got the recipe dreadfully wrong. We could not be satisfied with what we have, we thought we must move forward with the time, and now we have a problem with it. And in this entire “khichadi” of cultures, couples blame each other over break-ups. You don’t mind if your partner bends the rules for you, but he/she should not for anybody else. All that your partner did was follow Darwin. He/She did not do anything wrong to be honest, just that, “It’s not morally right to do so. It’s just not in my culture that anyone can do such a thing. How can he/she do this to me?”. Do what? Try to evolve into a better human being (not every action has to be just, instinct can lead to mistakes. Only in our case, unlike animals, are not fatal)?. As I said, blame it on Darwin. J

The Dirty Review

In my last blog, I briefly applauded the movie so I thought I should give I some justice. BTW, this one was long overdue. First and foremost, RESPECT !!! \m/

I must be honest when I say that I judged the movie by its trailers; something I often never do. Nonetheless, when I heard there is this movie in which Vidya Balan shows her skin as a peacock shows of its feathers, I was far too discouraged to even bother to watch this movie. I am glad I put that apprehension to rest. This is amazing movie and this article will pretty much sum that up.

The movie is a tribute to Silk Smitha, a “B-grade” movie actress but the character Vidya Balan has portrayed is far from that. If Vidya Balan has even acted 50% of what Silk Smitha was in real life, then the movie industry mistook a diamond for something that can sparkle in the sun. The ESP of the movie in my opinion is indeed the skin. But think about it, the same “B-Grade” movies that we shun for its sleaze and cheap sex is something that titillated the masses all over India.

The formula of the movie is pretty much simple. It is the story of a poor star-struck girl who chose to market her body than her talent to reach stardom. But what won me over is the power-packed script and the witty comebacks by Miss Balan. Two of the climaxes of the movie were her first encounter with the serial kisser (Emran Hashmi – undoubtedly gets more talentless by the minute) and the way Silk works her charm. It was like watching Guru, only a much more sexier version of it. The naughtiness and the skin-show have class, truly they were so OOO LAA LAA….

Vidya Balan has won me over. From the idealist but emotionally passionate Lalita in Parineeta, the bitingly witty in Guru, the spectacularly scary in Bhool Bhulaiya, the mentally pragmatic in Halla Bol, the steamingly hot in Ishquiya, the truly magnificent in No one killed Jessica to the spectacularly dazzling in the dirty picture, Vidya Balan is an actress par excellence.

If you still are having second thoughts about the movie, trust my words, it’s a movie you SHOULD watch with your parents and be in awe of the woman who has proved to you that there can be beauty in sleaze.

Nudity in movies

The plan to write this article came to my mind long back but I never knew that “The Dirty Picture” would play such a party-pooper to my plans (a.k.a RESPECT!!!). Nonetheless, I shall go rambling about my point.

I have always failed to understand why Nudity in movies has increasingly become the ESP of the movie, why movies are rated based on the amount of sensuality of the movie and why every review mentions the number of kisses and sex scenes in the movie. Conveniently so, we always accuse “the WEST” for this. Inherently, this is what we always wanted. It is now analogous to having salt on your plate.

But I believe its not really so. “The WEST” does have more ROMCOM (Romantic Comedy – another acronym for sleazy stories and toilet humour) movies than character-oriented movies but they have started focusing on different genres now. Somehow, we are still stuck in the limbo between musicals and cheap entertainment. A few friends of mine have the opinion that you go to the movies to get entertained, you are going there with a shut mind and you really want to have “a fun time”, a little sex and no storyline goes hand in hand. Honestly, if that were the case, you really wasted your time. You could have gone on a trek, pursued your hobby, met up with friends, etc. But then that involves too much investment of time, and “Oh my god, you want me to go out in that traffic”; in short it’s a gadfly loop.

I don’t blame the producers for this. Their motto is “Jo Dikhta hain, who bikhta hain”. Sleaze is now the ESP of the movie. Any publicity is good publicity. Anything that can keep your attention off your eyes munching your popcorn will sell like hot brownies. The end result, you came back home with a rotten brain rather than getting entertained. You basically saw monkeys jumping on and off screen without a purpose. And not to mention, every movie must have a sad sequence otherwise you really did not strike the right chord with the audience. My point is you are eating the same chocolate with a different wrapper. You aren’t entertaining yourself, you are simply stagnating.

Movies are a form of art. Not every tom, dick and harry is an actor. Acting is a skill and to make your emotion reach every corner in the audience is your talent. Watch movies that motivate, that make you think out of the box. You are not stressing your mind when you see emotional dramas, you are made aware of how lucky and god-blessed you are. The “dhishum-dhishum” movies tell you that the small box you call “My world” is a figment of your imagination. There is so much social disharmony and it addresses you to introspect your own ideas about your society and beg to you to change the way you think. I am not against ROMCOM’s, it is not my cup of tea. But don’t say you want to shut your mind and get entertained, you are not.

Of Cynics and Hypocrits

Here is some food for thought and not a means to safeguard me and my blog. Often the term Cynic and Hypocrite are used in a manner which is meant to display a negative emotion. I do not have to illustrate how often these words have come in our vocabulary. So I thought I should dig deep into these words a little. My quest for “The knowledge” makes me do so {Something I have been advised against, but you don’t listen to all the advices in life, do you ? J} So let’s begin the journey of a cynic.

Contrary to our general knowledge about an individual being a cynic, in the truest form a cynic is a person who seeks happiness in suffering. I am not making a statement; Wikipedia backs me up on this. A cynic is that person who leads a happy life based on the laws of nature, a person with great mental strength and devoid of worldly worries. To sum it up, I would say great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa to the immortal Siddhartha {fondly known as Gautam Buddha} are the most ideal paradigms of a cynical individual. Funny thing is that any individual who calls a cynic a “cynic” in a mocking/insulting way is a hypocrite.

Based on our highly-active assumption powers, I am pretty sure you never double-checked this before. If you did, “Sigh, what a cynic you are indeed.”

Continuing on the lines of my post regarding 'A letter to the corrupt'

A follow-up my latest blog

http://www.corruptionfree.in/

I salute these kids. They are in the true sense, Indian Idols.

RESPECT.....

P.S. Thanks Aditya.

A letter to the corrupt

Spoiler Alert: This is not an article to fuel a political fire. I am not here to “Government Bash” or to support the opposition {they are after all, two sides of the same coin}. This is also not a pro-Anna {RESPECT} dissertation of how our country should reform. Dr. Hazare and his baby-project are idly waiting in the pipeline for Amar singh, kalmadi and several other gossip stories to clear up before the media has nothing else but to telecast what has now become “TRP-less coverage” for the time being. If there is something I want to speak out against, it’s the news channels. A sincere request, if you really want to give us expert advice, let it be on how we can work towards making a better tomorrow. Madhuri dixit’s return to India is NOT Breaking News. More on that later.

Getting back to context, I wish to speak my mind out to you today. Everytime we read/watch the news about a certain aberration in our government, any scandal or malpractice, it hurts to know that “My own hard-earned money” is being misused. Our country is facing a series of national security level problems. Ironically speaking, even though we get patriotically stirred when something happens right in our own backyard, we are still impassive if not as heartless as the miscreants responsible. “Kashmir mein toh har din jawaan apni jaan kurbaan kar rahe hain, I salute the brave who are selflessly throwing their lives.” And that’s the end of the topic there. The world goes on. But when the Mumbai blasts happened, we had candlelight marches for over a month and a two year long trial of one of the biggest celebrities of our country, a certain Mr. Ajmal Kasab. So tell me, are you really patriotic??? I do not question candle marches, I am not questioning whether they make a difference or not, but do you think your duty as a citizen of India ends after a candle march???

Now I get back to the central point which is Corruption. It is no surprise to any person residing in India or abroad regarding the corruption problem in our country. It is acute and something which has worsened by the day. The amount of black money which has been kept under wraps can reform villages, make us financially the 12^th richest country, solve road problems and I can illustrate 20 more facts with regards to this. My question is: Do you really want to get rid of corruption??? Is it important to get rid of corruption only at the administrative level?? I know by now you may be of the opinion that the government has to be inhuman and heartless for being responsible for such high levels of corruption. But this is the “Mr. Hyde” which we ourselves have created today. Today, bribe s looked as a mode of convenience rather than a illegal infraction. What is the harm in bribing a cop just to skip the legal hassle and doing rounds at the police station, what is wrong if you get a government document pushed a little quicker than standard protocol? We are after all the “common man”, the same oppressed common man who is tired of the corruption, tired of bad roads, tired of the crowds in buses & trains, tired of waiting for his/her pension, tired of trying to make ends meet in the legal and correct way. So we bending the law just to make sure we can make ends meet should not be looked upon as grass-root level corruption, it should be looked upon as an a righteous act. Shouldn’t it?

And then we vote and get our candidates a seat because we believe he is clean or rather, cleaner than the rest. Well, even if you have given Rs.1 as a bribe in your life, your candidate is already worth Rs.1000. The point is that if we are not clean ourselves, don’t expect the person who administers the law for you to be clean. Today, our system is corrupt because of us. The government is just a reflection of us. We are a democracy and the government we create is a reflection of our minds. But when something goes against “our plan”, all we do is talk. This has to stop. Till you don’t eliminate corruption at your personal level, you cannot expect any government elected by you to be non-corrupt. And till you cannot get this beast out of your life, don’t vote. Yes, this is the strongest statement I am making. DON’T VOTE. If you cannot reform your own mind, you do not have the right to pick a government to take care of our country.

Yes, I am also talking right now. But this is the last time I am going to do so. I have to make an earnest effort to get this devil out of my life. Yes, my country has bad roads today. Yes, my country’s government is busy fighting its own internal conflicts than looking at its people’s welfare. But there has to be change and there will be. This is not a lecture I am giving you. It is something I have been telling myself for quite some time now. And you should too. We are the “Gen-next” as they call it. If we can make sure we ourselves are non-corrupt, then our candidates by default will be non-corrupt. Then only can you expect to have a non-corrupt government. You are the solution to all problems of our country, not literacy, not population awareness, not employment and not the economic divide. It is time to bring it in to effect.

I apologize if I said something that offends you because these thoughts are a result of my own introspection. I am flawed, but I am ready to change. If I can change, we can change.

This is to inform everyone that I am sort-of revamping my Blog. All the old topics haven been removed. The older thoughts now rest in the archives of my own mind now.

Times change and thoughts change and I do not see myself thinking the way I did in the past. Hence, for all you readers, I will hopefully be coming up with more creative writing than usual.

More about this in the days to come. I will let my actions and my words speak for myself.