The Town - Well Done Ben!

"Driver's name is Arthur Shea. Former Metro Police officer, fifty-seven years old. Soon as his partner leaves with the coal bag, Artie cracks a Herald, and he don't look up 'til the guy gets back. Marty Maguire. Cummins Armored courier. Five-ten, two-twenty, fifty-two years old. Picks up every Wednesday and Friday at exactly 8:12, makes a hundred and ten dollars a day, carries a Sig nine. And he's about to get robbed." - Doug McRay


Ben Affleck is often associated with bad career choices such as Daredevil, Paycheck, and the worst of them all Gigli (although I found it to be an enjoyable watch) and probably the best career choice of all- an affair with Jennifer Lopez. His name is often synonymous with the actors who look good but can't act, Keanu Reeves comes a close second. His stock had dipped so low that people had forgotten that he was an academy award winning screenplay writer for Good Will Hunting (Along with childhood friend Matt Damon). But over the past couple of years Affleck has turned the tables and has won over his lost fan base with a bold career change as a director, he debuted with Gone Baby Gone a gripping thriller and now has reinforced his status as a director to watch out for with his new venture The Town , proving that he is no one movie wonder.


Much like GBG, The Town has Boston as the backdrop; a city where Affleck was brought up in. The opening title card introduces the viewer to the fact that the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston is renowned for churning out a high number of armed robbers, so much so that this occupation is passed on from fathers to sons, from generation to generation. The movie takes the viewer right into the action in the opening few minutes of the scene where a group of robbers headed by Doug McRay (Affleck) take down a bank wearing Skeletor masks. Jem ( a brilliant Jeremy Renner), the hot headed trigger-happy member of the four-man crew takes Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as the hostage much to McRay's chagrin. They release Claire unharmed, but later find out that she lives in the same neighborhood as theirs. Doug befriends her to find out how much she knows, and how much she has told to the FBI which is headed by Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm, Mad Men), a shrewd and relentless pursuer. What follows is a predictable story line where McRay falls for Claire and undergoes a change of heart and decides to give up his profession to start a new life. But some clever writing and some pulsating moments never makes the viewer feel bored. 


Jem treats Doug as his brother, someone with whom he had grown up as a kid. He dreams of seeing Doug start a family with Krista, Jem's sister. But when Jem comes to know that Doug is willing to forsake everything, the job, the neighborhood, the friends for Claire, all hell breaks loose. Renner shines as the mean and psychotic Jem, faithful to Doug but also fearless to stand up to him. The movie may seem similar to the epic crime saga Heat, what with a cop chasing a criminal who plans to come through clean after his last job. But Affleck has deftly handled the story with a clever subplot in which McRay tries to find out the truth about his mother who had abandoned him as a child, which leads him to confront his father Stephen McRay (Chris Cooper in a blink-and-miss cameo). Pete Postlethwaite ( The Usual Suspects, In the Name of the Father) plays the ruthless Fergie Colm for whom Doug and his crew work, who in an explosive scene forces Doug to do the "one last job". Will Doug come out alive? Will he find out the truth about his mother? Will he end up with Claire? All these questions form a build up to the thrilling finale of the film. 


The bank robbery scenes are pivotal to the movie which keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats. The heist scenes are raw and intense and seem realistic when taken with the hand held camera. Ben Affleck has joined the league of Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford, actors who have earned more success as directors. The Town is proof enough that Ben Affleck should wield the megaphone more regularly and put his acting career to a pause mode.

Trailer: The Town

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Haven't we all as kids stood in front of the mirror, held a bottle of perfume/shampoo and orated our own version of the "I would like to thank the Academy...." speech just like they do in the Oscars and the Emmys? I have done this quite a few times while growing up. I would be there in a crowded auditorium right under the spotlight with a golden statuette, thanking everybody right from Martin Scorsese to my dog walker after I had won an Oscar for playing a boxer who rises from being a Vanquished to having emerged as a Victor. That was my fifteen minutes of fame. As time passed by, better sense prevailed and I became mature enough to not indulge in such eccentric acts, although I still day dream of something like that happening. Now thanks to IndiBlogger and the theatre group Stray Factory I feel like I am finally having my moment. My blog post "A Truth Stranger Than Fiction" is being made into a short play. And none of this would have happened if not for the people mentioned below whose support has only fueled me enough to come up with better posts.

Thanks to Renie Ravin and his people at IndiBlogger for having opened up a world full of opportunities for bloggers and aspiring writers such as the Blogologues. And a special mention to their IndiBlogger meets which have given us bloggers a chance to network with one another, and also to have blessed me with a few good friends.

Thanks to Mathi and the Stray Factory team for making us bloggers feel wanted and important. A special thanks to Rajiv Rajaram, the director for having taken up this project, thank you for all those phone calls and google chat messages and the effort taken in sharing the nitty gritty of the script, inspite of never having met yet! to you I say in Vijaykanth ishtyle WE WILL MEET! WILL MEET! MEET!

And now I move on to the lady about whom the whole post is about, thanks for making me famous. Had you not said "No", none of this would have happened. Thanks to Manasa for having the patience to go through all my posts and coming up with your comments and strong worded feedback, you are a good critic and a great editor and shukriya very much for being a regular reader.

Thanks to Ranjani chitti for having spread the word about my blog, now I must confess to you that a few of my blog posts were written when I was working at your office.

Thanks to the friends I made at the IndiBlogger meet- Sandhya, Venkat and Gitanjali, birds of the same feather flock together. Now that I am a little famous please add me in your blogroll!

Thanks to Arun, someone whom I have never met yet have this feeling that I have known him for a while. Its funny how Facebook can bridge the gap between two people who live in Mumbai and Chennai. I hope you make it big as a film maker one day.

Thank you Swarna for always agreeing with whatever I had to write, be it about ear muffs or about a story on topping up for a girl.

Thanks to Harsh and Babu for being my Chandler and Joey, though you guys poke fun at the numerous crushes I have had, you guys have always been there to share my fears and dreams and DVDs which I cannot name here.


Thank you Vaishnavi for having taken up blogging, I feel humbled whenever you ask me questions about blogging. I now feel like Dronacharya, I do expect my Guru Dakshina though.

Thank you to Kavya, Shobana and Vidhya, our group meet has been pending for a long time and now we even have a reason to celebrate. I am willing to pay the bill  pay my share of the bill. Shobana, atleast now you can entertain thoughts of hooking up with me!

Thanks to Bharathi, a great boss, and a good friend, we may have our cold war between Mondays and Fridays but thanks for spreading the word to others about my blog. Maybe when I write about you, someone would make it into a movie someday.

A big Thank You to all my wise and vayasanna family members in Bangalore and Coimbatore for going through my blog posts and giving my mother a good feedback. And to my cousins - please do not judge me by my quirky posts. I am a sane guy.

Now come the people closer to home

Thanks to Nandu, my in-house editor and adviser who gets to read my blogs even before it gets published.

Thanks to Amma, a critic with whom I have never won an argument so far. I have taken up your advice and have brought down the profanity level in my blog to a non-existent level. You may no more use that as a reason for not reading my blogs. Your suggestions are always welcome, but I prefer doing it over a cup of tea on a lazy Sunday afternoon than on a taxing Monday evening.

A big thank you to Daddy, a good friend,  a fine philosopher and a great publicist. Probably the one person who treats me like John Grisham and spreads the word about my blog to his clients, friends and every stranger he meets while travelling. A word of advice, have my blog link printed on your business card.

And finally, thank you to all my regular readers, and my followers. In a way, it is your repeat visits to my blog that has always motivated me to come up with posts. Some of them may not make sense, and some do. But still, thank you for having me in your blog roll. And please do leave your comments, it would help me a great deal in bettering myself. There is a long way to go, and lots of dreams to realize.

Numbered

He woke up even before the alarm clock chimed 5:15 a.m, he gazed at the ceiling as the fan above his head kept clunking. It was a wonder how he could sleep with a fan that was nothing less than a Damocles’ sword hanging above his head; the bloody thing looked like it could fall on his face any minute.

“Clunk clunk clunk clunk” the blades of the fan kept running.

Sid increased the speed of the fan.

“Clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk” the fan started gyrating dangerously.

Sid moved the knob from 4 to 5

The revolutions of the fan started getting bigger and bigger with every passing second as it slowly loosened from the ceiling. And before you know it, the sword came falling on Sid’s head.

Sid opened his eyes, his digital clock showed the time 5:05

It was just a nightmare, but for Sid the blade of the fan piercing through his head felt like being caressed with a feather. For Sid it felt like a dream. But Sid was alive and it was still a Monday. How he wished to have his head split by the blades of a fan than logging in at work on a Monday morning. He got up from his bed unwillingly and got ready for work.

It was 7:30 a.m when he left for work. He passed by a bunch of school going children one of whom shrieked “Oh Shit yaar Maths ka homework nahi kiya! Geeta maam maar dalegi!"

“Want to trade lives?” Sid wondered.

 He punched in his card fifteen minutes before 9:00 people were slowly trudging in to work. Some were chirpy, for some it was a new day, it was a new week. For some it felt like the previous week was copied and pasted:  same work routine to be followed, same reports to be sent, same people to report to, same questions asked and same old answers to be given.

Half of Sid’s Mondays were spent preparing reports to be sent, performances were evaluated by this report. The report consisted of numbers that would determine the effort put in by him in the last week. Higher the numbers- higher the utilization of the “resource”. Higher the utilization, higher the efficiency. Higher the efficiency, lesser the number of questions asked. “Weekly target met! Congratulations! Keep it going!”  and a scattered applause.  And it all depended on the percentage, the metrics, and the numbers. Higher the percentage louder the applause, lesser the percentage harder the brickbats fell on your face.

When you come to think of it, we all are judged by the numbers we churn out. Teachers judge a student by the numbers he scores in exams, a cricketer is judged by the runs he makes, the wickets he takes, the catches he hangs on to. A woman is judged by men on the basis of her figure a 34-26-36, a prospective groom by the numbers he has in his bank account, a music artist is judged by the number of copies he has sold worldwide. A movie is branded as a hit or a flop by the amount of money it made in its run at the box office.

 Love it or hate it but we cannot deny the fact that numbers make us and numbers break us.

And it was the numbers that Sid churned out last week that would decide his fate this week. Another bad performance then he may be dealt with sternly, it all depended on the percentages and the numbers. But Sid knew deep within that there was nothing worth showing for in the last week. His performance was not up to the mark, his percentages were not good, and his efficiency was debatable. Sid had to come up with convincing answers, and when he checked his manager’s mail in the inbox that ended with “I am looking for reasons!” he realized that he had to come up with convincing answers fast.

Hell of a way to start a Monday.

His boss who was an otherwise jolly good fellow, on seeing low numbers would turn into much like a bull that has seen red – crazy and untamable. But Sid was not a good matador.  An hour later his boss waltzed in with a smile on his face as he chimed “Good Morning guys!”, but Sid knew that the smile was just a decoy, it was covering up a sea of emotions and questions that would soon be unleashed upon him. And Sid was still searching for his life jacket.

Pleasantries were exchanged between the team, jokes were cracked as Sid tried harder to laugh to ease his nerves. But he knew he was just being fattened up for the kill.

Half an hour had passed without anything having happened, and then it did. His boss walked over towards him “What the hell happened last week?” the boss questioned.

“I worked hard, I did put in a lot of effort”

“Then where are the numbers to show for it!?”

“You have to understand, every week cannot be the same, and it’s not possible to calculate the effort put in by numbers” he said coyly.

“Do not come up with such silly explanations! Am I supposed to give such reasons to my managers!?” the boss bellowed.

He was being gunned down in front of everyone around him, people who did not know him, people who knew him. But they all would be glad that they were not him. What a way to be known on the floor! Very soon he might be referred to as “the guy who did not churn out the numbers” during office gossips that happened near the coffee machines.

Sid could do nothing but look down wishing the earth split wide open and sucked him in. He tried to focus on pleasant things, he tried to drown away the shrill voice of his boss by focusing on cute little pups, a sunny beach, a rainy day, a walk in the park. But it did not help.

“You better come up with an action plan to what you are going to do this week, I cannot take such kind of incompetency from you again” saying this, his boss walked away.

He heaved a sigh of relief and got back to work again, he looked around to see that people were glued to the monitors pretending to be oblivious of everything that was happening around them. But then he knew the word would have spread that Sid had become the Monday Morning Scapegoat (MMS) through chat messages and e-mails. He would be the butt of all jokes until he proved his worth all over again. But for this week Sid had to retreat back to his shell, he had to stay there and focus on work, his friends may come over and offer a kind word because that is all they could do. They may invite him to a cup of coffee and would ask him to talk about it to ease all his pain away. But Sid would say “Thanks, but no thanks”, he wanted the pain to remain. He wanted the wounds to remain unhealed so that they serve him as a reminder of the humiliation he had suffered. He would now work with a vengeance, he had a point to prove, he would take the bull by the horns. He died this Monday, but come next Monday he will redeem himself.

                                                * * * * *

It was a Friday evening, he felt like a long week was coming to an end. Yet he did not feel burnt out with all the work he had been doing. He was minutes away from wrapping up a tough week, it began with a Monday that raised questions on his capabilities, he was dead and buried. And by the time Friday had ended he knew he had found all the answers, he had the right numbers. He just could not wait for the following Monday, like a phoenix he would rise from the ashes. There was a smile on his face as he clicked “Turn Off” on his computer.

The Things We Own

It used to be a much simpler world, but then man evolved and so did his needs, then there were men of much greater intelligence amongst us who invented materials which we never thought would exist.  Would a Neanderthal living in the Stone Age have ever wondered how he will ever get rid of the long stresses of hair that has grown all over his head, and also his bushy chest? Would a college professor in the 60’s have ever wondered how he would gather his teaching materials on Electromagnetic Radiation just by going through all those never ending pages of an old fat book that was gathering dust at the library? Would a commuter in the crowded local trains in the 80’s have ever wondered if his rustic radio would ever play the songs that he wanted to listen to and not some bhoole bisre geet that some RJ was playing? Many centuries and a few years after that, these men did get their reply. The Neanderthal, who has now evolved into cargos and t-shirt wearing youngster, has a got a Hair Trimmer as the answer to all his problems, the college professor in the 60’s is now a hep and happening educationalist who tweets college syllabuses and solves the doubts of his students on Facebook, the haggard commuter is now a middle aged man returning from work in a crowded local train who doesn’t mind giving away his seat because he has an I-pod plugged in his ears that plays the songs that he wants. Deep down he must be thanking Steve Jobs for it. We all got what we wanted, and we haven’t had enough. Michael Jackson had once crooned “Don’t stop till you get enough” maybe because he knew that the human race is hard to please. We can’t have enough of love, we can’t have enough of memory space in our PCs and we can’t have enough of making life simple for ourselves. We just want more. A Blackberry was not enough, so came the I-touch. Numbered keypads became passé and touch keypads became the “in thing”. Books occupy too much space, the Kindle has become the new Book. We don’t want to kick start our bikes, we want our engines to roar by the push of a button.  We don’t write our opinions about current affairs to editors of news magazines, we tweet them in the virtual world, a world where everyone can share their opinion uncensored. 

Ayudha pooja is one of those days where we acknowledge the fact how simple our lives are made by these materials. It may sound silly to someone alien to our customs to know that we perform a pooja for our material possessions so that they keep working longer without any wear and tear. “Wouldn’t a regular servicing and oiling of the appliance suffice?” they may ask.  But it is more than applying kumkum and chandan to our television, motor vehicles and computers. It is paying a tribute to these machines on which our livelihood depends. Newspapers tomorrow won’t be circulating their Sunday edition because their giant publishing machines would be taking a break from printing out news, car drivers would clean their car, shine them till sun rays bounce off their bonnet and adorn their car with garland, much like a family that dresses up the groom and the bride on the day of their wedding. The “Next” showrooms the “Big Bazaars” would have done pooja on their refrigerators and microwave ovens so that they find a good kitchen to be in. The relationship we have with the materials we own is much like being in a relationship with a person. It is emotional, it needs regular attention, and you never know when things go wrong with it, and when things go wrong we end up heartbroken.

Here is a list of secret prayers that I had murmured whilst doing a pooja for the things that I own and have grown dependent on. 

Hair Trimmer:  “May your blades never go blunt, may you keep on whirring nonstop while you do away with all my facial hair and may your batteries be recharged at all times. Thank you for making me look so handsome presentable”.

ADSL Modem: “Dear internet modem. Stop being so unresponsive like those BSNL guys and please get connected on time, and when you do, may your speed never diminish and may you download movies within four hours”.

I-Pod: “My faithful I-pod, thank you for making my work life bearable, may you have a longer battery life and hope there comes a day when I fill all of your 160 GB with songs and movies. I love you more than anything else, but do not tell my mobile and trimmer that I told you so!”

Panasonic 42-Inch Plasma Screen: “Dear big ass giant screen T.V. You have been my friend, my mother and my teacher over the years. You have been caring like my friend, patient like my mother, and have taught me a lot of unwanted stuff like a teacher though I still don’t know in which channel Nat geo and Discovery are on. It is always nice to see pretty women in big screen T.V, they all look so……. BIG!”

Mobile Phone: “Dear Nokia 3110-C, it’s been four years since I bought you. Since then on there were newer versions of you that have flooded the market. They have so much to offer than you, yet I like you for how simple you are. You have been the carrier of my secrets, the treasurer of my dirty jokes and the guardian of all my details of my bank account. May your contact list increase manifold with the numbers of pretty women.”

Personal Computer: “Dear Personal Computer, thanks for having resisted virus attacks for so long, touchwood! Thanks for having such a large memory space to store movies music and videos (and you know what kind, so let’s just keep it between you and me), thank you for putting up with my tantrums whenever I got killed while playing Call of Duty. May you keep working without any glitches and may your DVD drive function smoothly”

I realized after my prayers that how dependent I had become on these gadgets, how would I be able to work without that I-pod plugged in my ears? How would I be able to get the courage and the strength to face the messes I get into without getting in touch with my close friends with the push of the “Call” button in my phone?  How would I pass a day without logging on to Facebook and Twitter? You take that all away from me and I become a man of flesh and bones. I become a corpse with no brain and heart. We can’t live without a functioning air conditioner, we can’t imagine cleaning our clothes without a washing machine, we have moved on so ahead of time that we now look back and wonder how people in the days of the yore would have lived. We have now pampered ourselves with technology to such an extent that we cannot imagine a day without using any of these gadgets. We now have urinals with automatic flushes that cleans up after we leave, is this a sign of making life simple or is this a way of telling that we have become so untrustworthy that we cannot be even trusted to use the flush once we finish up? As Tyler Durden had said “The things we own, end up owning us” that seems about right.

Blindfolded Eyes

She was a head turner the moment she stepped out on the streets, jaws dropped, eyes popped out, everybody wanted to be inside her the moment they set their eyes on her. She was the new air-conditioned luxurious deluxe bus that was launched by the government. She was the envy of the other buses that were on the streets. Every other driver-conductor duo looked at her with a desire to attain her, for she was of a different kind. She was a Volvo deluxe bus and was in pristine condition. Her driver and the conductor were neatly uniformed. There was music playing through the speakers that were installed on its walls. It gave the passengers a feeling that the bus was not being driven, but instead, was being glided. When the ignition was turned on, she purred to life without any fuss. The hydraulic doors opened with a hiss with just a push of a button. And when she left the bus terminus, those outside wished they had enough money in their pockets to go for a ride in her. She was the pride of all the employees who worked at the terminus. She was much like the foreign returned boy in every family of whom the parents spoke of proudly. She was the apple of their eyes.

Within the bus it was a world of comfort, the seats were comfortable and the AC worked like a dream. The highly priced tickets meant that not everyone could afford a ride in her. Thus, she was safe from the hooligans who called themselves “students” and created a ruckus in the other ordinary buses by banging on its sides, whistling, harassing every passenger who travelled in it and dancing to the tunes of some loud and crass Tamil number. But the Volvo was untouched; its beauty remained unblemished, for no sadistic mind would even think of destroying something that looked so regal. There was class written all over her. It had been a few months since she had first captured the people's imagination, she received rave reviews in the dailies, soon she found lots of fans who did not mind shelling out extra money to enjoy a comfortable ride. 

It was a hot Sunday morning as the Man waited for the bus at the terminus, all the buses looked the same- beaten up and looking like they might collapse any moment once you stepped on the accelerator. But the Volvo stood apart from the crowd, the sun was shining off her roof and she looked spotless, her wheels looked brand new. Her sleek headlamps glowed as she teased him to come over and try her out for a ride, he obliged. He fell in love with her the very moment he stepped in, it was as if he had stepped inside a  aircraft. There were a few passengers who were marveling over the Volvo's beauty, and her design. He rested himself in the cushy seat as he took in the plush environment, the engines slowly came to life as the bus began its journey. He got his ticket from the conductor which came out neatly printed from the ticketing machine. Half an hour had passed since the bus stepped out on the road, there was a faint music being played over the bus' sound system, people were busy chatting in hushed tones as there was an air of calm inside the bus which one does not relate with public transports. The silence was broken as an empty beverage bottle rolled off the floor, everybody looked around but could not fathom how it had gotten on the floor. The culprit did not come forward to claim the empty bottle, as the bottle rolled over the floor from left to right back to left with every turn the bus was making.

A few stops had passed and a few more crowd had gotten in as now the passengers started to walk all over the empty bottle which now lay crushed on the floor. Yet no one bothered to take out the bottle from the floor, the conductor was busy issuing tickets, the people were busy gossiping about Commonwealth games, reality shows and Endhiran that was now the talk of the town. No one bothered to take out the crushed bottle which now looked like a blemish on an otherwise beautiful creation. They all had their eyes blindfolded, they had dug their heads within the sand unwilling to see the crushed bottle lying on the floor. "It's not my job, why should I do it? I did not pay thirty bucks just to clean up the bus!" thought one, "I am not picking up the bottle, I did not drop it there" thought another, "If I do it people may think I am trying to become a hero, I don't want to go through this crowd just to pick up a bottle, I may lose my seat!" thought another, "Why don't these people have a dustbin in the bus, they could after all afford to spend so much! ?" thought an elderly gentleman, "They will clean it up when the bus reaches the terminus" thought a woman. The crushed bottle still lay there as the people were busy pretending that they had other important things to do. 

We refuse to cleanup the mess which others make thinking that it is not our job, or that it may belittle us, be it a piece of paper on the road or that beverage bottle in the bus. But when the issue snowballs into a bigger problem we all make sure that we tweet our opinions and point our fingers at others. But do we realize that when we point one finger at others we are pointing three fingers at ourselves?