The Daily Travellers!

Traveling to office every morning covering a stretch of almost 15 kms in about 1.5 hrs does give me enough time to do a lot of  worthless work and guess I am mastering that art pretty nicely;) In the last couple of months I have been locomoting,I have figured out the different categories of people who travel by bus. I am sure the ones who frequent local train and metro trains can also relate to it.

The Radio Listeners: They form a major chunk of the population. They will have ear buds plugged in and they don't give a damn as to what the world is up to. They will never remove them, and still are able to hear each and every thing directed at them. They simply cannot travel without it and it remains plugged into their ears till the time they occupy their office seats.

The Intellectuals: They are generally the ones on the wrong side of their Forties,and they will always carry a newspaper or a book along. They will be one of the first to occupy the seat in the bus, will make themselves comfortable and make it a point to read the material in the entire stretch of the journey. 

The Social Media Addicts: These are the ones in their teens and twenties and will be engaged in their smart phones as soon as they board the bus. Usually the last ones to board the bus and they occupy a corner in the transport. You can often find them laughing and smiling with their eyes fixed on their cell phones while you wonder something's wrong with them!

The Boyfriend/Girlfriend type: If they are on a call throughout the journey, and you aren't able to listen what he/she is talking, though you are seated next to him/her, you can be safely put them in this category.

The Workaholics: Here are the ways to identify the workaholics. Either they will be busy talking on a phone loudly giving or taking instructions about what is to be done next, or they will be catching up a quick nap or finishing off their breakfast/lunch/dinner, because they have a long day at work and cannot afford to while away their precious time in the less important and petty worldly affairs.

The All in One type: They will be the ones who will have the ear phones plugged in, eyes on their mobile screen, taking calls in between and would also be carrying some reading material with them, which does come out of their bag, but usually remains closed!

The Gang of Girls/Boys: They will usually be on their way to the college, tuition or way back home. They will all be carrying notebooks in their hand and you can hear them bitching about others, talking about the latest movies, the latest addition to their wardrobe and often bringing in each others mothers and sisters in the midst of the conversation (usually in case of boys) oblivious to the fact that they are in a public transport.

The Exceptions: If you do not fall in the above types, then I am afraid you are an exception, and you can have all the time in the world to testify the above classification.

P.S: Do let me know which category you fall in.

Signing Off,
Nirvaan

Barfi!..class apart!

Picture Shuru...Ho gayi Picture Shuru

Picture me aaju baju walo ka khayal rakhna,

Picture me saamne ki kursi pe na pao rakhna

Picture me mobile aur bachhe dono off rakhna

Picture Shuru...Picture Shuru! 

The movie took off with the above notice, and certainly brought smiles to the faces of audience, which they kept wearing till the end. Very rarely, do you see a movie, which ends with an applause, a round of cheer by almost everyone present (Not the, Sunny Deol or Salman Khan types). Barfi!, for one, is a part of that privileged genre. Yes, he is deaf and dumb, she is autistic, but the equation they share is unparalleled. Already enough has been said and written about the classic roles essayed by versatile Ranbir, gutsy Priyanka and beautiful Ileana (I loved her Bong Bahu look!), and of course the vision of craft master Anurag Basu (Yes, the same guy who made Kites), but I can't help writing even more. There are moments which leave you smiling, which leaves your eyes moist, but in the end this movie makes you happy!How a person riddled with so many troubles manages to stay happy and give away his signature smile even in the worst of circumstances, makes you forget your miseries. I know, it might sound a bit cheesy, but yes, that's the effect it has!

They deserve all the accolades and the appreciation they are getting, and the audience are loving it. What I hope is, this movie goes on to be a mega hit, just like the Singhams' and Ek Tha Tigers' and the BodyGuards',(in fact it deserves to be much bigger than those), but as I write this I know this is not going to be. If it does, it will certainly motivate the directors, and more importantly the producers to invest in such scripts, the 'hatke' one's, not the so called mainstream cinema. Although there has been a lot of such films making waves (along with money) in the recent past, the likes of Kahaani, Vicky Donor, Wasseypur topping the list.

Succinctly I would say this is impeccable cinema, completely Hollywood material. (May be I am overrating it, but then that's what I feel!)Barfi might give away some traces of Charlie Chaplin, Mr. Beans, or Raj Kapoor but then what matters is, it's simplicity and silence subtly manages to tickle you and touch 'that' corner in your heart!

P.S: Darjeeling is my favorite hill station, and the Chhau Dance sequence was terrific. And yes, I hoped to see the 'Fatafati' number in the end, but alas!

 

 

 

The WIngs Of Silence!

Wings of Silence, a very apt title for a tale marked by some of the most subtle feelings of humans. This is one of the finest tales, never heard of. The relations has brought alive by the author. It doesn’t speak just about the relation between two brothers, it’s about almost all the relations existent in a Hindu family, whether it be a father-son, mother daughter, cousins, aunt, grandparents and even the relationship of humanity! One might just say that this would have never happened in real life, a brother sacrificing his career for one, who was completely worthless, but then the author, shapes up and builds the story and the characters, in such a way it compels you to believe it can! Each and every protagonist is very finely described, a soft, strong willed Raj Sethi, who hardly (in fact never, save for his diary and after winning the Gold!) displays his emotion, the winner, the topper, Mr. perfect Saurav Sethi, the smart, beautiful, caring, Shalini, and the disciplinarian Akshay Sethi. In the beginning it seemed like the book would revolve around the life of Saurav Sethi, through whose eyes the entire description is done, but gradually, after the girl of her dreams came into his life, he was a changes man. He was more concerned for his brother, who was a loner, who craved for company, but never told (or signed). He understood that there is much more to life than just medals, and being the centre of attraction. He had to give a life to his brother first. Some of the portions, like running away from family and the wallet being stolen from goons, did seem straight out of the movies, but when the parts before and after it are so absorbing, you hardly care. I went through this book in straight eight hours and felt a lot of emotions creeping in and making eyes moist. The part where Akshay hugs Raj, Raj not leaving Saurav after winning the medal and placing his medal on his neck were some of the best moments! Apart from the above characters, I loved the character of Ekta, and Aunt Sheelu. They completely symbolize the essence of a joint Hindu family. On Saurav’s part it was definitely a very bold decision, to against his parents, to go against himself, and I also tried asking myself the same question after reading his situation, but I am afraid you actually need to be in his shoes to answer such a question. What he did was something commendable, and was probably out of the fear that he would lose his new friend, his brother. In one sense, this was more because he couldn’t imagine his life without Raj, and although he thought winning an Olympic gold would bring redemption to Raj, he knew it was too much to ask for. The love angle between Shalini and Saurav was cute, and so was between Olga and Raj (however short it may be), and Sheelu aunty teasing them added a bit of spice, but I am glad it was not overdone! However, I just wished Saurav would have also gone on to win the Wimbledon, but then, it surely would have been too ‘Bollywoodish’.

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Google It...!!Really??

I saw this man on television answering questions on the Infosys debacle, I had seen him but wasn't able to recollect who he was. After about 2 minutes, I put my mind to rest and pulled out the weapon which has all the answers. Google!Turned out the man in question was the Co-Chairman of the company Kris Gopalachari.

The question which struck me was "Is Google making us dumb??" or maybe "dumber"

I started pondering over this thought and developed two contradictory set of theories.

NO: 

We grew up in the time of video cassettes and Floppy discs, Computers were a luxury back then and search meant searching through the dark recess of cupboard for our best pair of clothes. Britannica was the answer to all our questions, and Oxford used to be give us the meanings! As of today, in this fast paced world, it is really hard to ignore the infinite collection of information available on Google. It has an answer to everything! You want a recipe, or you want to research about the Mayans, you'll get it all. All the facets of today's world: humor, politics, economics, entertainment etc. is available with it. It has answers to questions no one else probably would have. I am not advocating copying or cheating or plagiarism and am not telling you to find the easy way out, but you just cannot ignore looking out for a library which stocks everything under the sun. It doesn't matter whether you are 16 or 60, your cast creed or religion, modern technology insures knowledge is at your tips. One is only as dumb as he wants to be. Most of us are certainly smarter than that!

YES:
This argument stems from the basic assumption, that we were smart earlier. But then that's a debate another day. Google is making us dumb, in fact dumber, if I can be politically  incorrect. Do you remember the last time you applied your mind to a thought? All our brains work today is think "How do we Google it"? PC or on phone?

Our grey cells are slowly and steadily rusting, thanks to google, and with the advent of social networking, the dumb quotient has hit an all time low. We don't even google it now. It's just a tweet and the Twitterati replies with an answer! We have successfully added a whole new step to an otherwise prosaic process. Just for argument sake let's say that Google indeed has made us smarter and we have a high IQ to support the fact. 

But then, where did you check your IQ?

The Australian factor..!

By this time, I guess it is pretty clear from my diary entries that I am a "Late to bed, late to rise" person, but I don't mind waking up early if I have a Cricket Match to catch up..;). Jokes apart, saw the English Premier league decider, and interestingly the season is all set for a nail biting finish, with both the Manchester Clubs vying for the No. 1 spot! Coming back to cricket, I guess it's time Dada needs to sit down and think what's best for him. I hope he doesn't end up kicked in the midst of the series from the Pune franchise. He is simply not working for them, and being on the wrong side of the thirties, he certainly is not fit for the format (I know there are exceptions, but he certainly is not one!).

On the other end, the BCCI needs to ban Sehwag from playing the rest of the IPL. He is simply killing all the competition and fun! Initially it was believed that he is not a player who follows the textbook, but what the hell!!You are not supposed to hit 5 consecutive fifties in and that too at a strike rate of over 160!! He has to think about the other teams as well, who are fighting hard to be on the remaining upper half of the table.

The new entrants in the form of Australians, Michael Clarke and Shane Watson, who both returned from the Australia-West Indies series, could not do anything spectacular with both ending on the losing side. Never mind, hope to see a more competitive encounter tomorrow!

Signing Off

Nirvaan Baid