A Death Without Dignity

He dreamed of a love, that remained unfulfilled,

of the riches that he never earned,

but a family that loved him still.

He dreamed of a life that was cut short,

by the flames and shrapnel that took his limbs apart.

He was a father, a friend, a husband, a son

a man with a heart, a decent human.

He was a victim of vengeance, of hatred and ignorance

a lifeless statistic lost in the realms of indifference.

He had a name, which we may never know

memories and moments which won’t be shared.

He lived a life of which we were unaware,

now his death puts us in fear and in despair.

We will rant of him and the dead through our online avatars,

as we remain helpless as prisoners of war.

Living in fear of a painful death,

we will light a candle or two as a mark of respect.

Days will pass, and as months go by,

he will remain just a prime-time topic, a T.V dinner debate.

We will have moved on as we have our lives to live,

we will bitch, we will moan while surrendering to our fate.

There is not much we ask, and there is not much we want,

we are easy to please, we too are human after all.

We may not live like Kings, yet we don’t yearn for any pity,

all we ask for is a death with some dignity.

Kyunki..... We Are Like This Only Bhen%#@!

We are a generation misrepresented in cinema, thanks to Yash Chopra, Karan Johar, the Barjatyas and that guy who directed Baghban. We were shown as the Prems, the Rahuls, the Rajs who always listened to their parents, who believed in maan, maryaada and were just happy holding hands with their girlfriends and felt that first base could only be reached after marriage. We were shown as guys (read sissies) for whom "dosti" meant fondly referring to their friends as "saale" and nothing beyond that. There were a few obscure movies which portrayed the youth like they really where, but they were lost in the crowd of unknown foreign festivals. These were the little guys we never took notice of. But it is when the Bigger Men speak that we sit up and realize that "Hell yeah! What he says is true!" because we know deep down that's what we are. We yearn to do a lot more than holding hands with our girlfriends, we secretly search for smut in the office computer, we call our friends a lot more and much worse than "saale" and get away with it because our friends know that when the shit hits the fan, we will always be right behind them holding an umbrella. With "Delhi Belly", Aamir Khan - The Little Big Man of Bollywood has spoken. Mainstream Hindi cinema has finally accepted the youth for what they are - brash, uncouth, conniving - yet with their heart in the right place.

With a runtime of ninety minutes "Delhi Belly" plays out like a homage to the seventies with various references, be it in the opening sequence - where we see a young Rishi Kapoor "Wakaow"ing to a late seventies disco beat to the end credits where Aamir Khan is seen jiggling as "Disco Killer". Never does the toilet-humor feel over the top or the crass language seem unwanted as they all fit in the right place and what's more, they even add to the story. "Delhi Belly" is that dark comedy which has the brains and the balls to show us what we want to see at a time when charades like "Ready", "Double Dhamaal", "Tees Maar Khan", and other Akshay Kumar mind-numbing brainless humor is shoved down our throats all in the name of comedy. Delhi Belly is slick, smart and has the attitude that reminds us of Guy Ritchie's Snatch - a similar movie with a plot laced with dark humor that DB could very well be an ode to Ritchie's classic.

Tashi a small time reporter (Imran Khan), Nikhil his unkempt photographer (Kunal Roy Kapoor) and Arun a gullible cartoonist unsatisfied with his job (Vir Das) are three slobs residing in a dingy and dilapidated Delhi apartment who argue over who gets to open the door or whose turn it is to turn off the tap. Much like the tagline of the movie - Shit happens, when Tashi's fiancee (Shenaz) asks him to deliver a package to an address that gets mixed up with Nitin's stool sample and gets delivered to a gangster - Somayajulu (Vijay Raaz) by Arun. Chaos reigns supreme when the gangster starts to hunt them down with the trio on the run. Throw along with it the simmering chemistry between Tashi and Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan) his colleague, and a heartbroken Arun who is dumped by his girlfriend, and you are all set for a heady climax.

The casting is perfect with all the actors playing their roles with aplomb, with Kunal Roy Kapoor stealing the show as the devious and sordid Nikhil who blackmails his landlord by mailing him pictures of his steamy tryst with a prostitute. Imran Khan sheds off his chocolate boy image and puts his acting genes to good use, Vir Das a stand-up comic is solid and hilarious even in his moments of desperation and bring out the laughs. The three friends share a great chemistry and remind us of those close chums of us whom we know and are very brash and open with. Even the support cast led by the seasoned Vijay Raaz plays his part well of a dreaded gangster who bosses over his dim-witted cronies, Shenaz the once-upon-a-time VJ who used to get on our nerves with her saccharine coated sweetness, plays her role maturedly and for once does not make you tear your hair apart.

There are scenes that are shocking and have never been seen before in Indian commercial cinema, which would make me suggest that you watch it with your langotiya yaars, watching it with your gal pal could be much worse than watching it with your family. The heavyweight production house and the names involved in the making of this movie make sure that the raunchiness and wickedness of this film are not tampered with by the censor board. To label Delhi Belly as a raunchy adult movie would be a gross injustice to the smart storyline and adept direction that makes the movie click. Abhinay Deo has recovered from his box office debut dud "Game" and has delivered a winner this time thanks to Akshat Varma's script that is in sync with today's generation.

Every generation needs a movie that defines it, "Delhi Belly" is fast becoming a cult, a fillum that has made Bollywood come out of its pubescent stage and transformed it into an Adult. Aamir Khan, that brilliant student of cinema - deserves credit for having put his faith in a project which not only has raised many eyebrows thanks to its bold content but has also made the junta come out of the cinema halls with their tummies aching with laughter.

This Age

'Tis a precarious age this - Twenty five,

Should I behave as a boy? Or have I grown into a man?

Shall I try to get the best out of the two worlds?

Should I try to act matured as far as I can?

'Tis a crazy age this - Twenty five,

you think my juvenile heart will learn - but no he won't.

He dreams of someone special, fathering false hopes,

he still dreams of that walk in the woods, with a hand to hold.

'Tis a confusing age this - Twenty five,

as I try to forget about all those bridges I broke,

And those friends I ignore for no fault of their own.

I see their lives reflected on other people's wall,

I wonder how things would be if I gave them a call.

'Tis a scary age this - Twenty five,

as I compare lives with my accomplished peers,

their jobs, their loves, and the growth in their careers.

My resume of Life, may still look empty,

But hey, I am just Twenty-five. The life ahead is aplenty!

Mane Oh Mane!

Looking back at old photos brings me back all those nostalgic memories of those moments I shared and the people I shared it along with, but also what I miss the most is those days when I had a lot of hair on my head. Yes, there has been a steady disappearance of hair from my once richly blessed mane, and that loss is rubbed in by my parents where this current phenomenon of my receding hairline is brought out in every topic of discussion which is sadly limited to - job, commute, and friends who have gotten married.

And out of the blue my mother quips.... 

"Shaadi kara do, iske baal jhad rahe hain!" she warns my father. (Get him married, he is getting bald)

I have not blogged for over a month now, and it had been irking me. Apart from a few movie reviews which I had planned to do, and a poorly constructed poem that is stored in a draft somewhere, and a book review of a nine-hundred page novel that would be as tedious a task as reading that book itself, I could not find anything worthy to blog about. Even Indiblogger has no interesting topic this time, no offence to their competition going on about "What does real beauty mean to you?" where hundreds of not-so-good-looking bloggers will opine that "Real beauty lies skin deep". But let’s face it - that is just an excuse for ugly people to feel better about themselves. (Psst! Guys at Indiblogger, please don't delete my account, I took this liberty to diss you guys because I know bloggers have a good sense of humor. And also, I have recommended your site to quite a few bloggers.)

So, when I ran my fingers through my hair wondering on what to write, I suddenly had my Eureka moment when I looked at a few solitary strands of hair that were stuck to my palm. "Why don't I write about my extending forehead and transform into a beacon of light, a ray of hope–a Dr.Batra of the virtual world to all bald men?"

Well, I may not suggest any cure for baldness but I will share the confessions of a soon to be bald man as I look back at my hairy days.

I too used to have hair on my head, you know. I had curly stresses of hair as a child, I was a year old when my mother used my pigeon nest of a head as an excuse to make neat locks of it. After a lot of oiling and combing my curly locks would be neatly plaited, pictures of mine in that avatar are rotting somewhere in an old photo album. 

I was a trendsetter too, a few years after the movie “Topgun” had been released that catapulted Tom Cruise to superstardom, I had aped his haircut in school that was named by my local barber as the “Cruise Cut”. Heads turned, jaws dropped and enquiries were made about my haircut that had school kids queuing up at the local barber’s shop. Needless to say, the barber laughed all the way to the bank withdrew some cash and bought himself a set of new razors.

When my head was filled aplenty with hair I could do whatever I wanted to do with it. I gelled it, I watered it, I spiked it, I shaved it, I would comb it to the left, I would comb it to the right with gay abandon knowing that the hair that goes today shall come back tomorrow. I had never grown my hair upto shoulder level ala Anniyan for it was considered as a Sanniyan, and moreover made me look like a ragamuffin.

Science has proved that excess stress can damage your stresses of hair and increase your hair-loss dramatically, I had never faced excess stress in my school and college days thanks to my easy-to-please attitude that was happy with scraping through subjects rather than top the class. Although, what’s the point of living a life where there is no stress involved? And that is why I had been facing quite a strenuous time at the corporate world. When faced with pressure, some tackle it, some crumble under it and there are some who lose their hair while doing both of it. I belong to the third kind.

I have always believed in looking at the positives even when things have not been working my way. In this case where with every passing month I could see my forehead extending, instead of panicking and googling for cures on how to battle hair-loss, I had actually taken it quite sportingly­–unlike my parents who right now are plagued by a fear that would any woman be willing to marry a man who has gone bald even before he is twenty-six, I have taken my premature baldness as a corporate sign. The sign that I am the Chosen One to be designated into a management role. Think about it, how many bosses do you know are bald? Quite a few right? My baldness could get me that managerial post which even my M.B.A degree could never get me. I don’t even have to work hard to scale up the ladder. I could walk right in and say “Hey! I am bald and I want to be a boss!” (Now you know where the term “Mottai Boss” was coined from?)

Baldness is a symbol of authority, it brings that aura of bad-assery which men with hair do not have. You fear the bald man, you give him your seat in a crowded train, you make way for him to stand in front of you when you are in a queue at the grocery store. There is a reason why we have so many important bald figures in our pop culture. There is Shakaal, Goldfinger, Bruce Willis, Professor X, M.S. Dhoni, L. K. Advani and let’s not forget the grand daddy of them all­–Mahatma Gandhi. Had the Mahatma been a mama’s boy kind of a guy with ample hair on his head that was well oiled like a Yamaha-RX100 and neatly combed to both his sides would the Brits have given a rat’s ass about him? No, they wouldn’t have!

Ask those skinheads from American History X or Romper Stomper would the Jews and Asian immigrants have really pissed their pants if they were bullied by regular men with immaculately combed hair like the Italian Mafioso that smelled sweet? No! Bald is Bad! Bald men are the quintessential Alpha Male, nobody messes with them. They do not have to go the gym to have a six-pack and look tough, the absence of hair acts as an extra muscle that shouts out loud –“I am bald! Do not mess with me”. When they have to go out on a party or a on a date (assuming that women date bald men) they do not have to worry about how their hair should look. They just have to decide that their shirts do not match the color of the skin of their head. They do not have to even worry about buying those conditioners and shampoos and hair gels that are loaded with chemicals and acids–mugging the names of which gave me a hard time during my school days. 

Apart from being a symbol of authority the Bald Man is also a sign of intelligence­, a trait on which I have to work no more thanks to the sun rays bouncing on top of my head that affirms my baldness. For what the Bald Man speaketh is true! Nine out of ten times a bald man always wins an argument, the only occasion when he loses is when he is arguing with another bald man. 

When put in a room amidst a bunch of hot blooded individuals with a lot of hair on their heads who are discussing about a serious topic like “Is fast unto death the right way to press for your demands?” the regular people would be expected to explain a lot. They would have to state examples, they would have to quote Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami, they would have to point to statistics to add more validity to their statements. But a bald man does not have to do all that, all he has to say is “Yes” or a “No” and you could see the participants agreeing with him, the bald man with that single word gives a direction to that rudderless argument going on in the room. And he didn’t even try to adjust the sails. He does not have to try hard. And why? Because he is bald! He is the learned one! He is the enlightened one. William Shakespeare, Greek and Roman Philosophers, your Professors and the Dalai Lama how do you think they lost their hair? It was over excessive thinking and wondering on the kind of question paper to set for your exam.

At the end of the day, it’s much like that quote from that Batman movie: “You either die with a lot of hair on your head, or you see yourself become a baldie”

Image Sources: http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2008/06/05/political-pictures-dalai-lama-classy-tibet/

http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2008/06/05/political-pictures-dalai-lama-classy-tibet/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Stavro_Blofeld

http://harshpande.blogspot.com/2009/11/american-history-x-review.html

Tears of Dirt

They glowed and they shone

as the rays bounced of their crown.

They trickled down his sides, crawling like a worm,

slithering through his brows like snakes moving through grass.

They made a path of their own moving through his lids,

his nose, his cheek leaving behind a moist trail of dirt on his dark skin.

As they curved on the bridge of his nose, wetting the hair above his lips,

he felt their salted kiss that tasted of a hard day's work.

They slid through his chin and dived to the ground

like a watery pearl crying "Geronimo" to meet their end.

They died and were born again at his brow, as they made their way through his face.

He stopped breaking the rock as he pulled out a cloth,

a testament to his grit that smelled of his strength, and soaked with his perseverance.

He wiped away the scoundrels that raced through his face,

he then looked at the sky that burned with rage.

As an unforgiving vengeance pierced through his skin

"Is that all you got?" he asked the fiery sphere with a wide grin.

With his chest gleaming with pride, and his arms drenched

he got back to work chiseling the rock with a tune in his lips.

She Is No Different

Warning: Expect no sense to be made from the comic given below. Its a juvenile attempt by the blogger to make himself feel better about himself.

Advise: Take it with a pinch of salt. You got better things to be pissed about.

 Request: Comments and suggestions are welcome, but do refrain from comparing the blogger's persona to unmentionable body parts of a human or of any animal. 

 

Image credit : http://ragemaker.com/

A concept borrowed from Krish Ashok's http://tambrahmrage.tumblr.com/

P.S: "Borrowed" does not mean that it was copied, so does the term "inspired" .