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February 26 Loving itThe one question whose answer has been eluding crisp definition is “how do u know when you are in love?”. It is a question that can fire off a debate lasting hours and still leave all the participants in a state of mutual resentment or a state in which they agree to disagree. I am not even attempting to stake claim for having found the elusive answer. Pardon me if this blog is a little too cheesy or clichéd. After all romance is the most clichéd yet most sought after entity in the whole world. They say, you are in love with someone when you want to be with him not because you can live with him, but because you cannot live without him. You spend hours and hours with him and yet the moment he leaves, you miss him. You cannot stop thinking of him when he is away. When you hear your phone ring or beep, you hope, it is him. Love turns you- the you who used to snore at the sight of a bed- into a raging insomniac. You toss and turn building sand castles in the air. And then with a sudden thud, the sand castle collapses when you realize you have turned into the kinda girl you love to hate. The romantic mushy fulla shit heroine of the Hindi movies. You just laugh off your frivolousness and blame it on temporary insanity. The phone rings again and you find yourself hoping it is him but tell yourself it is just a crush or it is just your hormones acting up. So this is not love??? They say, love is when you know his flaws and still love him the same. That would mean you don’t flinch when he picks his teeth in front of you or your friends. You know that he is gonna make a racket with the cutlery, dragging a squeaking fork across the best of your china , yet you don’t look apologetic or angry. You don’t mind when he chews like a cow with half masticated food hanging off his mouth, chomping loudly and displaying the food for all to see. The burp that comes after the food does not surprise you. You don’t mind when he scratches his privates in public. You even find it adorable that he is wearing the same underwear for the past 3 days because you said he looks sexy in it. When you think you are about to fall in love, you must also practice carrying on a conversation with yourself because half of what you say to your boyfriend falls on deaf ears and he is not gonna respond either because it is beyond the scope of his emotion challenged brain or he is not listening. (Shhh… 90% of the time it is the latter, but guys claim it is the former) You love it when his ego flares up outta the blue and hit you on the face and he starts acting like a jerk. You adore his know-it-all seen-it-all attitude. Damn if this is love, I am better off without it. (In case you were wondering why most of the exemplary behavior revolves around food, I am yet to lay my eyes upon an interesting guy with good table manners. Most men eat like pigs. Period.) How the fucking hell do you know when you are in love???? Someone tell me!!!!! Till then I shall continue to believe that love is an illusion. February 18 Controversies GaloreThe recent trend in bollywood is “if you don’t create a controversy, you are a non entity”. Every other movie hitting the screen is plagued by controversy of one form or the other. Latest in the list is Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodhaa Akbar- a mughal romance. The charges leveled against the magnum opus starring Hrithik and Aishwarya is ‘misrepresentation of history’. I have not watched the movie and hence I do not have any right to comment on the movie or the allegers. However the juicy nature of the allegations make it hard to keep mum. So let me chip in my view too into the cacophony of views out there.
This movie is centered around the relation between Jalaludiin Akbar- the mughal emperor and Rani Jodhaa Bhai- a Rajput princess. It is an undisputed fact that Akbar did have a Hindu wife. She may not have been called Jodhaa. The film and the maker acknowledges that. However, there are references of the queen having been referred to as Jodha Bhai posthumously. So is the controversy all about a name? what is in a name?
The marketing for this movie was a first of it’s kind in bollywood in my view. The focus was on the romance rather than the grandeur of the sets and the big names starring in it. It was not marketed as Aishwarya Rai Bacchan’s movie or Hrithik’s movie but as a Mughal love story. Very rarely, do you get to see the marketing campaigns looking beyond the glitz and glamour into the core- A marriage of alliance or convenience to avoid a war turning into a romance that transcends time. Just for that one reason, the movie deserves a standing ovation. Set aside the views of pundits of history; set aside the reasoning that the movie is fiction, a work of art allowing the artist his form of expression; set aside Rani Padmini Devi’s (descendent of princess Jodhaa) comment on the authentic treatment given to Rajput history in the movie; set aside every single thread of reasoning and logic; Can we not just enjoy it as a movie should be? Just sit back with a pop corn and share the joy and pain of the tinsel town heros. Have we turned into a discerning audience who are no longer ready to take what is dished out to them without questioning? I doubt that. The very same junta lapped up the bizarre servings of OSO, but questioned the intention of Deepa Mehta’s Water. They could not digest the ideas and ideologies in Fire but did not have any issues believing that Sharukh Khan could re-incarnate to fight the evil. They set fire and blasted bombs in a theater screening Jo Bhole So Nihal. They destroyed the sets of Water because it portrayed India and Hinduism in a bad light. All this makes me wonder what would have happened to Vatsyayana and his Kamasutra if it were to be created in today’s India? It would not have seen the light of the day for many reasons. Censor board would have edited out most of the “offending “ parts. It would then brand him a pervert (which I think he was anyways)Some one would find a line or word that offends some caste, creed or sex. India would have lost it’s most famous contribution to the world of carnal matters. That would have been a disaster. Let us all rest in peace in a disaster averted. Let us sit back and enjoy the movies rather than complain about them. February 15 A Wor(l)d of AdviceNo matter what stage in life you are at, the only constant factor is the torrents of advice pouring in. Everyone has a better idea on how to run my life. Be it career, dressing, food, driving directions or even the way I breathe, someone would have their two cents to offer me. If these 2 cents offered to me were even worth their name sake, I would have been a millionaire. The advice marathon begins right from the time you are born; Aunties and grannies advising mom on how to handle the new born brat, uncles advising dad on how to secure the child’s future, doctor on how to use the child to improve pharmaceutical sales. “Eat the egg yolk. It makes you strong”, “Read the answer paper again before submitting”, “do not make spelling mistakes”- that was the flavor of my child hood. As I grew up so did the gravity of the advice. People asked me to study the subjects they felt were important- the subjects that would get me a fat pay cheque in their opinion. They asked me to wear clothes that they thought would make me look better. They advised me on the hobbies I should be “investing” my time on - “Why are you so interested in cars and bikes? Girls should be doing girly things” . They even charted out my future for me. They decided which college I should go to, What kind of person I should marry and how many kids I should have- all while i was still battling with the challenge of crawling on all four in my nappies. I learned early in life not to let the advice get to me. I would just let the advisor do his talking and do absolutely nothing about it. But then came college and the world changed. The unsolicited advisors started taking offense when I refused to put their words of wisdom into action. This took a turn for worse when I started working. Career advice I believe is the easiest to give and the advice you are most likely to receive. “Change teams”, “pro-actively take part in the process”, “Improve your X,Y,Z”. The list is endless. I never introduced the advices to my life, They remained strangers and still do.But i did feel the despair. I could not help but think, why is everyone advising me? is their something grossly wrong? I would not be surprised. I have always had this inkling that i am not wht i am supposed to be. Advice makes me feel more and more like a sore thumb sticking out in a world of perfect thumbs- Nothing I do ever seems right. Nothing I wear is right. Nothing I say is right. As the Bard said, the world is a stage and each one gets to play the part of an advisee and advisor at some point in life. I plead guilty of advising too. Advice in itself is not the problem. The problem starts when the advice is uncalled for; When the advice is binding upon you. It starts making you feel inadequate and ill equipped to face life. Why do people employ themselves as the guardian angel? I want to make my own mistakes. I want to live my own life on my own terms. When I want your advice, I shall ask you and even then I am not telling you I am gonna take it. I am insolent and I think for myself. I am indecisive but I am not a puppet. So quit thinking I am gonna be the putty in your hands. So here is my advice to the advisors- please keep that shit to yourself. I make my own crap February 07 Quarter Life CrisisI get up with a groan and a song on my lips –“I hate the world today” - 10 minutes too late for work, on an unmade bed. I fish out my mobile from under me while disentangling myself from the laptop charger cable or the iPod ear phones. If I have had an exceptionally bad week, there may even be a box of takeaway food along with piles of clothes in the frame. As if mornings are not bad enough, I manage to pull off at least one minor disaster- an empty tooth paste tube, a burned toast, a coffee spill- every day I find something new. This is a day in my life. No I take that back. This is EVERY single day in my twenty something year old life.
Only thing I hate more than my job, is the annual review process. Everyone around me appears to be conjuring up that secret concoction to save that million dollar revenue, breaking out into cash cow innovative ideas, improving the pro-fucking-cess, doing everything right and scrambling up the career ladder while they leave the making the mistakes part to me. After each meeting the word on the top of my mind is resignation. I wanna resign from my job but I can’t so I am resigned to my fate. I work my butt off scaling new heights of endurance and sleeplessness. I have a pay cheque that would have got a few oohs and aahs from me a year or 2 ago and yet my account is perennially in the red. I live from pay cheque to pay cheque. Investment is the new fairy tale with happy endings. I never believed in fairy tales- not then, not now. Did I mention that I am in love with some one? Erm on second thoughts I am not too sure. It is just another roller coaster ride. A he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not game. I would have pulled my hair out in frustration if it was not for the fear of being bald and adding to my bad looks.
WHAT is wrong?? Where is the rosy world of the corporate professional that I saw while I was in college? Am I just a social misfit? I know no one.. Not a single person.. Of my age, who is happy with himself and his job. Everyone is getting through life like it is an obligation. Has the world suddenly turned hostile to the “Post-Teen-Neo-Adults”? Or are we just a hard to please generation who forgot how to be happy and satisfied?
Is it just the Quarter Life Crisis? If yes I don’t even wanna get to the mid life one. |
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