Eureka?  I Reka....

Funny how our mind works.  Also funny is what we find funny and what we pretend to find funny and unfunny, but that’s a boring blog for another day.   We create, basic, organic hurdles for ourselves so that we have the illusion of feeling challenged.

   Some of us may like to be challenged.  But almost all of us love the idea of being challenged and beating it.  Even when our minds know it is a farce, a charade, we like to feel proud.  Don’t give us the answer.  But don’t hold us in the dark.  Lead us there.  Drop hints and clues.  Our minds will take care of the rest.  We will pretend that we never needed the hinds, the guidance.  That we could’ve arrived at the answer by our own selves.  And that is something that effective marketers often exploit.  They will tease you.  They will make a children’s colouring book puzzle out to be a veritable Gordian Knot.  And then they will lead you to the answer.  An answer that works out in their favour.  And you will crown yourself the champion and your mind releases feel good hormones and voila, they have a willing customer.  That’s how successful thrillers work too.  They lead you on just enough to challenge you a little bit.  And in the end, even when your prediction goes wrong, the outcome was one of the alternatives you thought possible and you get to say “I knew it”.  That’s how you get commercially successful thrillers of course, not necessarily good ones.  Hell, that’s how T shirt one liners work too.  The ones where you figure out the meaning or get the joke in just the right time.  Nothing too obvious, but nothing that needs to be explained. 

We would rather appear smart in a world where everyone appears to be equally smart than actually try and find out.  The thing about IQ is, it’s made out to be everything.  Maturity, EQ, wit rarely counts for anything officially speaking.  Anyway, SNAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone…..

            Dirty Little Secret

We often happen to stumble upon lesser known or obscure things.  A beautiful song that people around you don’t know of, an astounding little movie, maybe foreign language, maybe an indie flick that you happen to tumble across while WebHiking (A silly term I coined for randomly cliking links on a page and then links of those pages and so on….for all I know there may actually be a technical term for it), or a mindblowing/numbing book that you feel is a must read.  And often we immediately go and show it to other people and share it with them.  And at other times, we just don’t.  We keep it to ourselves, as our special secret that only we can enjoy.  It’s like Alice’s entrance to the wonderland, a special secret she had among her friends and family that made her mundane, dreary life a little more bearable.

   The same things get shared on the social networking sites.  The same meme, the same joke, the same dumb video, the same nonsensical, nasal twanged, irritating song (wha?? Kolaveri? What’s that?).  Everyone is talking about the same things, liking and discussing and sharing the same stuff.  That’s why we like to hold onto our little discoveries, our little secrets that we begin to hold dear.

We often even tend to lose sight of what are our original tastes.  Our actual likes and dislikes.  Whatever happens to be different and hitherto undiscovered, it becomes dear to us.  We may not actually even like it.  But we hold it dear all the same only because it creates a delusional, ectoplasmic curtain that separates us from the others.  In averting an identity crisis, we slip into any available identity that is outwardly unique.  And that, I believe, is the fatal mistake.  Because not being influenced by others also means not being negatively influenced.  If apathy is bad, overreacting is equally dangerous.

We Get the Massage


Ego Massage. That's what most traditions are about. From ragging to hazing to initiations and lots of more complex rituals and traditions. Its because someone gets to feel important at that time. The origin or the nature of the act is lost to everyone. The primary motive is forgotten and the act itself becomes a twisted perversion, a baseless caricature of itself.

Take club initiations or ragging for instance. What were rituals to select appropriateness of candidature or a mode of interaction and getting settled in now become a source of fun and ego massage for the people who hold what the deem is a form of power over the powerless. It's about reassuring themselves about their importance.

That is what most often happens in the name of traditions. People obeying like sheep to mindless rituals because they are too stupid to rebel or think differently or simply too afraid. And then they get in that position of power sometime or the other and exploit that same fear or stupidity in others. The never ending circle - Fear, Stupidity and Payback doing their three way tango for all of eternity.


2010 OUT....ONWARD TO 1111 (1/1/2011)

ExpressionLESS


expressionism is everything. People have half a thought in their heads and they don't let it simmer, let it form properly. It's immediately a Facebook Update. Or a MySpace tagline. Or
a messenger status. Whatever happened to thinking things over? The urge to make themselves be heard is becoming everything. No one wants to weigh the pros and cons or let the thought mature into something better into something more beautiful. Imagine if that is what poets did. Weird couplets and lazy limericks would be all that we ever had. And we would have no epics or sagas or novels. Just simple short stories at best. People no longer realise the beauty of letting an idea take root and germinate, grow and expand and finally turn into a well formed observation.

There are deeper things at work. There are actions and consequences and motivations and the parallel impacts and tangential implications and millions of other things to consider. Often if we ruminate we find our opinion changing or it undergoes metamorphosis into something entirely different. But we never stop and consider. Hence we enter the age of minor witticisms but nothing that is deep or thought provoking.

Review: PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME


So yeah, yet another video game franchise has been adapted to the cinema. Well, the writers didnt want to be boxed in with an already vast storyline so they decided to go their own way. Wait, what? so the story is not the game fans are familiar with? and you cannot control the characters with ur keyboard/mouse or console? So what's in it for the game fans? Just the name I'm afraid. Unless they find Jake Gyllenhaal's bare torso appealing.

So we have the name. And to justify it there has to be ancient persia and a prince. I like the touch that the prince was an orphan adopted by the king. But thats shades of Alladin. And not to mention the pet thing that everyone wants to draw parallels to these days. The American Imperialistic stance. Mostly its done covertly or subtly with glimpses here and there. But here it is in your face. Sample this: Attack on a small neutral kingdom under the guise of mass weapons being forged there. Sound familiar? Or someone moving away to set up illegal industry to evade taxes. And then being lured to help with promise of tax free gold. Too much I tell you. Maybe they should have saved some of it for the sequels.

Now we know that wise characters in fantasy are supposed to speak with a british accent. Apparently it gives the procceedings a touch of class. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gandalf etc. But the street orphan and the princes and outlaws ...in fact, almost everyone here sporting a British accent? What were they thinking? Maybe they thought it would make it a touch more persian. Thank God they didnt throw in carpets galore. If theyre already speaking English, authenticity is pretty much out of the window. Might as well carry on with an american accent. It's truly infuriating to see Jake struggle through a British accent. And as if to encroach a bit on
another popular Ubisoft franchise Assassin's Creed they even threw in Hassassin's for good measure. Anachronistically and with completely misplaced origins of course. At the pace with which the secondary characters start winding up dead you can pretty much surmise what is going to happen in the end.

I will give the makers brownie points for not trying to foist digital 3D on us for a change. The visuals are nice, its an enjoyable ride. For those who consider themselves intellectuals but are pathetic enough to derive their intellectual stimulation exclusively through works of fiction and cinematic works, too bad. Go read a really deep and meaningful comic book I guess. Those who live their life, have a life and are looking for some entertainment - I guess it could be worth a watch.

A tip: Do not sit next to crazed teenage girls. They will ooh and aaah, pretend to be disgusted at the kissing scenes. Wince and tut loudly at even PG rated violence. In fact, for once I found myself siding with the hecklers who ended up hecking these two irritating girls I was unfortunate enough to be seated next to.

How to Meet an Alien Contingent

Patriotism. A fervor of nationalistic pride that drives us to make our country better than the rest. Yeah, right. Advancement and betterment is the last thing on our minds. Certainly not through our actions. It is as absurd as supporting a sports team because it belongs to a particular place or region. When was the last time any of the jingoistic people contributed positively or constructively towards improving conditions in their country? Politicians of course promote this tendency. For some, it is only regional politics that gives them any value. That particular region, that small piece of land is what they associate their identity with. All their power is derived from that.

Being born in a place is not a concious decision. We do not choose our place of birth. Do we ever stop and think what makes our land more special than any other? We feel that ours is the best. And somewhere someone else feels the same about his own piece. Can both be right? The philosophy that would better suit is MY PIECE OF LAND SHOULD BE THE BEST. But that would involve taking a look at the flaws and working towards rectifying them. And that is altoghether too much work. So we adapt easily to the philosophy of mindless unquestioning jingoism. The very notion that you could appreciate some other place or something that was a part of what can be considered a 'rival' nation is unacceptable, sacrilege. Unpatriotic. We hate having things thrust upon them. Even the concept of religion is questioned by people and not just accepted wholeheartedly without question. We pick and choose everything. Life has become more and more like a supermarket. But anything that appeals to the bestial nature, the more basic of instincts can overrule reason. Religion is still that for some people. Jingoism is that mantra for many people.

And everything at our convinience mind you. We would not support a Dempo or a Mohun Bagan Bengal. It has to be Manchester United (I certainly do) or an Arsenal or a Barcelona. But anything where India has a competent chance we have to support India. Cricket for example. We are hypocritical enough to still keep calling hockey our national game. And of course cricket isnt a game here. Its a religion. You have to support the national team of course. After all they were born where you were. Merit be damned. Sport fanatics are not about merit. Its mindless animalistic jingoism.

We talk about globalisation, about world becoming a global village. And on the other hand we cannot get beyond regional differences let alone national ones. Support your national team. Of course my country is the best. I am blind to all its flaws even as I tout historic gloriousness as if they were my own achievements. The only way to categorically analyse is to look objectively. And jingoism is hardly objective.


We look for extraterrestial life. We fervently search for signs of intelligence life elsewhere. An important point to note about most science fiction epics. In the future when we do make first contact, the world is conviniently under a global unified leadership. Even the several worlds of star wars have single leaderships. Just saying. Can we honestly persent a globalised unified face? If an alien contingent were to present itself would we be able to greet it unanimously? Improbable I think. We would be squabbling over who gets to garland them. Who gets to welcome them. And if Lalit Modi has his way, there would be a bidding war over who gets to be part of the delegation. We might be successful in our quest for intelligence life on other planets. The unfortunate aliens who would meet us would sadly be disappointed on that count.

What would it take to unite us beyond petty differences? Sadly a bigger problem. Maybe an alien invasion? And uniting in face of bigger problems is always temporary. Actively working to make something worth being proud of. To be able to make an honest assessment without letting reason being obscured and then working to remove the flaws. Or am I being too optimistic?

I Candy = Idiot Candy

Recently, Hollywood, at least as far as the critics and intelligent moviegoers were concerned, experienced a phenomenon where they finally grew fed up of the mindnumbing, brain battering assault of CGI extravaganza. A new tool and element which should have added to their storytelling arsenal, it was exploited as an end unto itself. All manner of story, coherence went

out of the window as film after film piled situations to exploit their Fantasy world creating and visual extravaganza fueled scenarios.

Until of course, Avatar came along. It took technological exploits to new heights, raised the benchmark in CGI inspired storytelling and introduced some groundbreaking visual effects and techniques. 3D effects and CGI were used not for their gimmicky value but because they were integral to storytelling. Cameron put the effects to genuine use to tell a story that would have been impossible to tell some years back - at least not with such grandeur.

But to the average Indian viewer it was just another special effects extravaganza. They embraced previous efforts like Transformers, 2012 because of all the eyecandy. But they failed to notice that Avatar was special among them. To them, it was just another CGI loaded film. And thats just like saying Na'avi Blue and Navy blue are the same. They are not. Only a

fool would not get the not-so-subtle takes on the American Economic-Imperialist tendencies or the climate issue. Or maybe they didnt find the subtexts because they have been brainwashed by nonsensical hindi films to not bother looking for underlined issues/causes. Escapism at work again.

Escapism is not only appreciated, it is revered and preferred. People would rather have a series of Deus Ex Machina, a series of oh so fortunate coincidences. Coincidences that would put Archer's epic novels to shame. A new trend is starting up. The discover yourself genre. Which is an improvement over other trends seen in our film industry. But sadly the genre conveys nothing worthwhile. No useful message. No helpful advice. Lets take Wake Up Sid. Super rich boy, purpotedly lazy and a procastinator. If the journey is about finding yourself about discovering your talents and aptitude, put some effort into it. Make it a worthwhile, gruelling journey like it always is. Within days chappie meets girl, discovers life, and turns photography hobby into a career, starting as intern at a prestigous magazine/weekly or whatever. ABE HALWAA HAI KYAA SAALON????!!!!!! People change courses several times and yet are unable to find their true aptitude. The struggles and fears that they face even when they know their calling, because it is a lesser trodden path - those aspects are conviniently swept under the proverbial rug. How ruggedly Rughoo like, all talk and no substance.

A new movie has come up Three Idiots. As I am yet to see, i shall reserve my comments. But I must say this - It is ironical, that the people who enjoy these self discovery movies about people overcoming pessimism, self doubt or whatever weaknesses, are best enjoyed by talented, happy go lucky, naturally gifted people who happen to be well settled in life for one reason or the other. True strugglers can only laugh their mirthless ironic laughter. We dont empathise with such films. (And in any case while I am looking forward to seeing it, I am looking forward to Sherlock Holmes much more). Its like the classic throwback to eighties cinema. Where the plight of the poor, streetsmart common man was "accurately depicted" and all the middle and upper class enjoyed watching it over a tub of popcorn.

On an unrelated note, Mr. Bhagat quit whining over the credits in the movie. You deserve no credit. If the movie were actually faithful to you book, it would have been the most sinfully boring, pompous, self centred, OOH ME IIT, ME IIM, ME SO GREAT, type of movie that woudlnt be worth the 15 second promo that heralded it. And lastly, to all those gleefully

celebrating the decade end. The new milleneum started with 2001 and so the first decade ends with 2010, not 2009. Samir and his ordinal, cardinal, ordinance, cardiac, oracle, cuticle, cardinal sinfully boring theories be damned. Crappy New Year for me most probably, Hopefully a Happy one for you guys. See ya next year.

Review by the Female Species are oft More Deadbeat Than the Male

Why female movie reviewers suck. Female movie reviewers suck. I know what you are going to say. That I say this because I only like the mindless, CGI loaded action/thrillers. In which case you would be wrong. My reasons are entirely different.

Females have this habit of turning everything into gossip and idle chatter. To see how terrible they are, try catching the Sony Pix show Chicks on Flicks. Only thing worse than a female reviewer is two female reviewers sitting together, wearing skimpy skirts and then crossing and huddling their knees together so as to not overexpose to the camera. Goes to show how bloody brilliant they are to begin with.

With a good review, you get some idea about the movie, and whether you would want to watch it. With female reviewers, you get a female perspective on things. What one wants is a reason to see or not see the movie and decent reviews provide that perspective. But with female reviewers all you get is why they wouldn't watch it or why they would drool all over it. Maybe its their latent passive aggressive tendencies to fight against what they percieve as a male dominant entertainment industry, which manifests as a need to show everything from a female tinted glass (okay, i dunno what that is exactly but you get the point.). And when you do get perspective, its a narrow biased perspective. They probably overcompensate for not getting

their voices heard so often. And end up ruining their one chance to shine. And, true to their penchant for impracticality they will let absurd personal biases hinder them from delivering a neutral stance. In short, the resultant opinion is skewered in so many ways, you end up being more confused and frustrated than you would if you were to watch a rehash of RGV's Aag interspersed with Akshay Kumar scenes from Tashan and CC2C.

Another instance of their malfeasance occured when they were reviewing a decent to average action flick and a mediocre romantic comedy. They ended up vouching for the romantic comedy and trashing the action flick, even though on an unbiased level, the action movie was overall much better. But hey, female perspective right? Trust me, irritating people are quite irritating in general, but nothing irks more than an irritating female. The most irritating of those irritating qualities is probably the fact that they pretend to talk like they actually know what they are talking about. Barring the old veteran female reviewers who happen to write for The New York Times and other such dailies, these women are immature bubbleheads picked more for their looks than their ability to critique the cinematic arts. They have no knowledge of real cinema to

compare from, no idea of what constitutes a good or a bad film and hence no benchmark to go by. They are as lost as the characters in....well, Lost. Sugar coating and candy floss is fine, but let it stick to the movies. Not the reviews.

Someone needs to teach women the difference between Chat Show and Opinion. And between opinions and useful opinions.

I Feel Lazy, Send in My Avatar

Some time ago, a sci fi movie Surrogates, based on a cyberpunk graphic novel of the same name was released. Bruce Willis toplined the feature. It came and went, largely unnoticed. But the frightening fact is, the plot of the movie, or rather the crux of it, could soon be a reality.

It deals with a future where humans live in isolation from the rest of the world and communicate externally through the use of SURROGATES (hence the title, in case ya didnt realise).

We are imperceptibly, gradually getting socially detached. Ironic, considering the array of stay in touch gadgets/widgets splayed at our disposal. Personal contact, face to face interaction is slowly subsiding as video conferencing, chatting and virtual socialising come to the forefront. People shy away from all forms of actual interaction and then promptly enroll in contactotherapy as a cure for their chronic "shyness'. We prefer to go out and socialise using Second Life Avatars. A culture that was possibly parodied intentionally or unintentionally in James Cameron's Avatar.

Slowly and surely we are building a shell around ourselves, brainwashed by mindless entertainment, kept busy by silly fade-in-a-minute crazes and fads. And its not like we are utilising this privacy, this time away from the maddening crowd to self analyse or introspect. We are busy dulling our brains on gimmicks created out of boredom by other numbskulls.

We can exist days, even months, on end without leaving our house. We have almost everything delivered at our doorstep. With almost everything and accessible through the web many of us can and in fact do work from home. Actual interaction with the outside world is not at all necessary to survive - at least, in theory. And if we could have and experience all the pleasures and joy in life from the relative comfort of our own abode, why wouldn't we. As far as we can percieve, there seem to be no pitfalls or flipsides to such an arrangement.

Pleasure and comfort are the hardest to resist. Which explains the influx of entertainment and comfort technologies that we welcome eagerly into the fold. Adaptation to such will of course leave us weak and incapable of facing anything but the mildest and meekest of climate/environment. The illusion of being able to control our world and surroundings is what is at the core of this fatal attraction.

So, I hypothesize that we will all end up staying at home, waiting for the next bit of pleasure to come our way, indirectly interacting with others (but viciously so, because the pleasures of commenting and status updating are overpowering to most). Indulging in artificial exercise and therapy to keep ourselves fit and natural and sustained. And no doubt, some enterprising blighter will use this opportunity to invent an interaction simulation, where we will gladly and gleefully indulge in "realistic and immersive" interaction with other beings.

Phoren Tadka ( Exotic Spices)



Indians like foreign stuff. As long as you properly Indianise them. They want the phirangi stuff drenched in Indian sensibilities. Dish should be foreign, but garnished with local spices. Ok, ok, enough of bad puns, ill elaborate further. They basically want to play it safe but at the same time pretend to project an aura of sophistication.

They think they like Chinese and Italian. But that is only because they have eaten the street side vendor spicy Chinese, or the thick cheese pizza on hard crust bread at the local fast food outlet. Authentic food, with its weird often smelly ingredients and sometimes bland taste would leave them disgusted. And this i say only about the conventional items. I am not even going to speak of acquired taste items like Frog or snakes that might present themselves on the menu. Which reminds me of a funny incident at a Hong Kong breakfast buffet. I took some meatballs on my plate and as I headed back to the table I thought it wise to check the contents in case it was pork. I asked an idle waiter if the contents were chicken or pork. He said something that sounded like pork. Further prodding made him enunciate it equally unintelligibly albeit a little louder. Imagine my horror when I realised the word he was spouting was FROG.

This is not relegated to just food items. They take whatever aspects of foreign culture they like and then Indianise it. The result is not always pretty. Torn jeans that have gaudy glitter patterns on the backside, worn with atrociously loud t shirts. You have to pretend to like exotic stuff. And so you are always searching for exotica. Because at some point the exotic stuff becomes common place. And once everybody else likes it, you have to discard it and move on in search of other exotic stuff. Because, lets face it, there are pretenses to be kept up with.

All this while, the other cultures are discovering the good about our culture. Yoga, vegetarianism and Herbal tea to name a few. Ironically, some of these things became popular only after the West found it cool and hip.


They like modernism, freedom of expressions and casual, open minded approach. They imitate it. But only to a certain extent. Social and class distinctions, communalism have not been discarded. The youth there take up odd end jobs to earn their pocket money. Most of the work here is considered

below standards, sanctity of work has no respect here. So we continue to take and mould, adapt whatever catches our fancy to our convenience. The gadgets, playstations, ipods are all there. Of course wifi zones are scarce. The casual workclothes, and young urban attitude is there, but alternative careers find no takers. We don't move beyond, doctors, engineers, lawyers and MBA.






enough of bad puns, ill elaborate further. They basically want to play it safe but at the same time pretend to project an aura of sophistication.