Midweek Masala

• Shammi Kapoor is going to be back on screen soon. Imtiaz Ali convinced Kapoor to work in his upcoming movie Rockstar which also stars Ranbir Kapoor! Kapoor says Imtiaz told him he would take full responsibility of Kapoor’s health on the sets. Bless you Imtiaz!

• Are you among the people who are fed up with celeb tweets flooding your page? Picture this. AB baby says he completed 10 years in the industry, Priyanka, Mugdha and Neil talk about rains lashing Mumbai, Big B as usual brags about some new movie and some hotshot he is working with, Ram Gopal Verma and Madhur Bhandarkar spout some profound wisdom, and Karan Johar is in perpetual sell-I-Hate-Love-Storys mode. Take your pick!

• Kirron Kher was recently heard complaining about how most serious movies are male-oriented. She says she wants to work with really serious film makers like Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali but, “The problem is they are only being made with centering men in focus”, she says. We hear you Kirron. If only these filmmakers did too.

• Did you know that Genelia has been crowned the Ambassador of the Year by CNBC AWAAZ Consumer Awards? Did you know there was an award like that? Well, is it any wonder that she was awarded that considering she is indiscriminately appearing in ads for products from a pen to luxury cars! But what I fail to understand is how she usurped the ad king of India, Navratan Tel top salesman apna Big B?

• All it takes is to have a popular dad! At least in Bollywood. Turns out, despite his horrendous performance as Raavan AB baby has been offered a BIG movie by Raj Kumar Santoshi and has signed it for Rs. 7 crore! Some people have it all, popular dad, sundar biwi, big directors, bhadhiya hain!

• AB reminds me to ask you all if you think AB baby is ever going to grow up and if Big B is ever going to stop fighting the baby’s battles? Also, when will the Bachchan family get over their self-importance?

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Sports fever….

….has gripped our apartment.

Note: if you are a fan, and don’t like your football mixed up in trivialities like the ones presented below, ignore this post!

When it is not the World Cup, it is Wimbledon. I can handle Tennis fine, I mean, I can watch a couple of matches in a row(or one match that goes on for 4 days), but football is a whole new story. My contribution to the proceedings is to make emotional/sentimental comments and generally pass judgments on the quality of play.

• Ghana or US? I was for the US, until I heard the commentators say that Ghana was the only African country still in contention, I promptly changed my loyalties to Ghana.

• I have tears in my eyes for EACH AND EVERY anthem that is played. I cannot imagine my state should the Indian anthem be played. I would bawl my eyes out.

• Countries whose National Anthem was played first lost. US, Mexico, and England. (Also, why is the British anthem God save the queen? )

• Football players are the worst actors on earth. Even Aishwarya Rai can act better than them! Case in point? When they are accidentally knocked over or hit by a player from the opposing team, they hold their head in their hands and smoothly roll on the grass and lay crouching till the referee steps in and gives a penalty or a yellow card! The yellow cards might have become brown thanks to the rate at which they are being whipped out.

• (Aside: did you know that WordPress spell check suggests “dishwater/dishwasher” instead of Aishwarya? Is that a wink-wink to her acting abilities?)

• What is it with FIFA and no replays? During the England-Germany match, even a non-fan like me could see that it was a goal, and just because the referee couldn’t see if the ball bounced into the goal line or not, he does not give a goal? And when the whole world watches on replays that the ball was at least a couple of feet in, FIFA and the referee look like idiots.

• Most players from the Latin American countries have a mooch(mustache), consequently they look a good 10 years older than they really are. Not that it matters, anyway.

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I have a long history of….

….aa bail mujhe maar.

Remember that Amol Palekar serial on DD? I am a chalta phirta example of the kahavat. I had blogged about this incident in the past. Today’s post is about a big decision I made in haste, that haunted me for a long time.

The year was 2002 and I had just joined my first job in a HUGE IT company. All the new recruits were sent to a South Indian city for training. It was my first time ever being away from home, all by myself, and I expected that I would be homesick and miss my parents and sister a lot. But this training center was like a huge hostel, where I met some very interesting group of people and we made a nice big group that had a lot of fun. I would get up in the morning, get ready for ‘work’ (classes actually) and wait for one of the company buses to take us to the training center. I would sit outside on the hostel steps, with the day’s The Hindu in hand, trying to get a start on the daily crossword. Tell me, can a day that starts so wonderfully ever be bad?

After about 3 months of the training, I realized I really liked staying away from home, and even though I missed my family, I was still happy and having a good time. Little did I know that it was the ‘having a good time’ part that mattered. So after 3 months of training we were to take an exit exam, based on the results of which we would be assigned to one of the many locations in the country. As it turned out, I did pretty well in the exit exam and I was told that I could ‘choose’ wherever I wanted to go. Since I now felt like I could live happily(refer to the realization in the beginning of this paragraph) away from Hyderabad and away from family, and Mumbai sounded like a nice destination for a single girl, I wrote Mumbai as choice #1, Chennai as choice #2 and Hyderabad as choice#3 on my location form. A lot of well-meaning people told me to choose Hyderabad and go back to my parents, especially because I have the choice, and not suffer being all alone in a new city. I brushed them all off as chauvinistic and was happy that I chose to be independent.

Well, we(I and another friend of mine, who, like me, also chose Mumbai, while being offered Hyderabad) landed bright and cheerful at the Mumbai domestic terminal, and the heat and crowds outside hit us bad. We got into a cab and landed at the hotel that was supposed to be our ‘home’ for the next one week. This one was booked by a group of guys who reached a little earlier than us, and was in Dahisar, and was ‘budget mein’ according to them. In short, it was a HORRIBLE place. While the hotel itself was decent, the whole area seemed alien to me. When I think about Mumbai, I think about VT, Fort, Bandra etc. Not Dahisar! Well, we somehow stuck around for a few more days and signed up on a sublease with a girl in Andheri. Little did we know that this was in the worst part of Andheri, and it was rainy season and we had to navigate through questionable waters to get home every day. Needless to say, I used to meet my HR/Manpower Resources person every day and pester him/her to transfer me back to Hyderabad, with a new reason every day. And I used to call my parents every day to tell them I miss them, sigh, and that Mumbai sucks. It was not until I moved into a shiny, new, super awesome, marble floor, gated apartment in Kandivali did I feel at home in Mumbai. And then I never looked back again!

But for the first few months I definitely fit the bill of Aa Bail Mujhe Maar for having forfeited the wonderful opportunity to go back home to my family, rather than languish all by myself in an alien city. And having moved out of home then, I have never gone back home(to live forever) ever!

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Taking a stand

We all have views on current affairs. There is a war in Iraq, we have an opinion on it. A bunch of thugs beat up girls at a bar, of course we have an opinion on it. Sometimes we voice our opinions and sometimes we don’t. The Mangalore incident sure made most (if not all) of us speak out and take a stand. Celebrities are no different. They are just like us, only more popular, richer, and probably more talented(this one is still suspect). I would like my celebrities to take a stand and not maintain a politically correct silence when it matters most(yes I am talking to you, Bachchans).

I was very happy and proud of Sachin when he said he is an Indian first and a Maharashtrian later. That was a very important thing to stand by because Mumbai was being torn apart by divisive forces and someone needed to stand up to them. A lot of people who really get swayed by strong personalities can really get affected by what they say, so it is important for someone big and popular enough to come out and say that they oppose the injustice. And see what happened to Thackeray after that? No one gives a donkey’s behind whatever he said against Sachin, and then he had to stop saying all that because he was getting too big for his boots!

Then there are celebrities who only speak up when it is financially or politically viable for them to do so. SRK for example, started talking about Muslims and their treatment across the world just before MNIK released. So does that mean that he suddenly got passionate about the issue because he became more aware of it thanks to the movie? Possible, but I am going to be cynical here and say that it was good for his bank!

Why do most of them stay mum when the world around them is burning of injustices? Do you like your celebs to take a stand or do you prefer them to not get muddled in issues?

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Day ?? – or as Kabir would have said….

Ati ka bhala na bolna, ati ki bhalee na chup,

Ati ka bhala na barasna, ati ki bhalee na dhoop.

So here ends my quest to post every single day for a month. The reason? Ati. It was getting too much to churn out post after post, day after day, and not feel like a chore. And I was never the one for chores. I quit! So blogging when the heart desires, from now. See you in a few days.

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A very happy (belated) birthday to dear Swaram Hyderabadi 😀 yes that is your new name!

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Day 17 – Who to believe.

So did you guys watch Raavan yet? While we were still debating as to whether we should watch Raavan or Raavanan or Villain(the Telugu version), out come a slew of reviews from rediff.

One review calls itself the rediff review, and gives Raavanan 3 stars and the hindi version 2 stars. Beloved Raja Sen totally trashes the movie and gives it 2 stars, asking his readers to basically skip all versions, and another rediff reviewer Aseem Chabra writes a rave review, giving it 4 stars. Hain? So one person found it totally not worth his time, and another found it totally amazing. Now what are we poor souls, who actually rely on reviews to decide whether  burn their hard earned money on movies are to do?

Looking at the few scenes that are shown on the television, I want to watch it for AB and Vikram, but want to skip it because Aishwarya’s so-called acting(her making weird faces at the camera) scares the hell out of me! And I secretly pray(I know it is really bad to do so) that Raavan is not the big hit AB and family hope it will be, simply because I don’t want to see their pompous selves strut around come awards time, and don’t want to see them get cosy on stage! Yeah, I am mean like that!

By the way, do any of you believe that reviewers are paid by big production houses to write good stuff about their movies? One person I know never to believe about a movie is Raja Sen. Remember his reviews of MNIK and 3 Idiots? His gist of MNIK was that it was SRK’s gift to humanity and he trashed 3 Idiots. But most people I have spoken to loved 3 Idiots, and we all know exactly how many people liked MNIK. Also, do note that he gave Tashan 3 stars. Now the question is, do we really think Raavan is worse than Tashan? I leave it to you to figure that out. For now, out household is still confused about which version to watch. Suggestions?

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Day 16 – Stop preaching

Duniya me kitna gham hain,

Mera gham kitna kam hain.

Every so often when we crib about something we expect to happen not happening, some  problems in life or something unexpected happening, there is some or the other smart-ass who tells us that people out there have bigger problems, and that you should stop complaining about your rosy life.

If that predicament holds true then no one really has a reason to complain about their problems anymore. If I am sad about not being able to see my parents as often as I want to, I should not complain because there are people out there who have no parents they can see. Well, those people with no parents have no right to feel bad or sad about it because, well, there are people with bigger grief than them, those people with bigger grief in turn are seemingly better off than some others etc, it goes on and on. Where does it stop? Probably at some village in Africa where this little girl has to walk 10 miles everyday to bring drinking water home, and is molested everyday by militia.

It is indeed true that there is so much pain and suffering in the world around us that our small problems seem insignificant in comparison. But then, only I can understand what I am going through, no one else can. I cannot understand how a third person can come and tell me to snap out of my grief because there are worse problems on this earth? What do you think?

PS: This is totally out of the blue, I am not in any grief 🙂

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Day 15 – Nostalgia again

I seem to be living in the past. Just the other day, I was thinking about good old doordarshan. And chanced upon an old episode of Surabhi where they interviewed an up and coming music director from South India, Allah Rakha Rahman. Surabhi was a treat in those days. When vacations only meant going to nani/dadi/ammamma/mama etc’s village, and not getaways to exotic places like Kerala, Cherrapunji or Jammu! Surabhi used to fill that gap for me and thousands of kids like me who liked to roam the world. Every week one of their “Team Directors” took us all on a journey that would send us into a tizzy. Oh and what about sawal jawab? How many competition postcards did we send them in pursuit of that elusive 4 day-5 night free stay in one of them five star hotels at those exotic locales?

Also, did you girls ever drool on Renuka Shahane’s delicious black/white metal jewelry? And her beautiful handloom sarees and salwar kameez? I remember me and mom talking about her pretty jewelry week after week, and my sister and dad being clueless. I also remember that Renuka was the only short-haired woman I knew who wore traditional clothes, and carried them off superbly. She seemed right on the cusp of fashion in those day, didn’t she? And what about Sidharth Kak’s cotton kurtas? He was the older, calmer anchor, while Renuka was the chirpier one with her colourful attire and her toothy smile!

It is a pity there are no shows like that these days. I guess when all the audience wants is reality tv and catty women at each other’s throats, there would be no shows like Surabhi.

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Day 14 – Hawaii flora, a not so wordless wednesday.

Hawaii, with its tropical climate, is home to hundreds of flowering plants and trees that we would normally find in India. A few of them being Bouganvilea, Hibiscus, Crysanthemum, Jasmine, Gulmohar, Plumeria(chapha) etc. We were fortunate enough to click these pictures while walking around the streets of Kona.

PS: All pictures courtesy of the husband’s DSLR.

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Day 13 – Sigh

I am not even half way into the month and bloggers’ fatigue is setting in! I love to blog, but this blog everyday compulsion is making me very weary. The way I roll is to blog when I feel like it, when there is something interesting to be said. So there are days when I don’t even think about blogging, and days when I publish multiple posts on the same day. NaBloPoMo, thus, seems like a not so good idea. I have lots of things to talk about – my favorite recipe website, posting pictures from Hawaii, Midweek Masala, stories from my childhood etc, but words fail me. So today is going to be just this. Cribbing about and regretting this commitment to post everyday. Tomorrow will be a new day…sigh!

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