Two Thumbs Up (With Vodka) !!!

I just watched Dev D last night. Dev D is an offence to your senses and to everything the Indian Cinema has always stood for, and that’s what makes it a killer!!

The movie claims that it is Loosely Inspired from Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Novel and it is exactly that only loosely inspired. It’s far detached from other adaptations of the novel there are no grand dance sequences, no heavy dialogues, no lavish sets. The movie takes place in very contemporary India and the characters are very realistic.

Personally I think both the girls steal the show, mostly because of their bold portrayals and never seen before antics in Indian Cinema. But most of the movie is devoted to Abhay Deol who plays the titular Devender Singh Dhillon or Dev D. He has underplayed the character too much for my taste but the angst in his eyes when he downs peg after peg of vodka is very real, the way he throws the glass, the way he asks he asks "Kya hua ? Bar Band ? Ek aur nahi milega kya ?" reminds me of many people I know, including myself.

But the most hard hitting scene I felt was when he hits the bar with a vengeance with Emotional Attyachaar (Rock Version) playing in the background. He downs shots after shot like he is angry at the booze when perhaps he is angry at himself for being a fool and is trying to convince himself that he is angry at Paro, though no matter how hard he tries he cannot be. It’s like trying to put out a fire by pouring fuel over it, the more you put the more the flames rise and you put more fuel on it to douse the fire. I have been through the exact phase so I know what it feels like. Its self destructive but you do not have much of a choice.

That scene is followed closely in my liking by the one which he narrowly misses a car and realizes that he is lucky he survived, and he has his whole life to look forward to.

It's a very realistic movie, rather too realistic for me. Seen most of it with my own eyes I get too uncomfortable seeing it, probably that’s why I didn’t like all that much. Dev's drinking till he vomits blood and then asking for more, his going to Chanda for nothing more than her company and her not judging him. Many people I know went to Bar Girls not to sleep with them but because of the company offered, and being no saints themselves they never judged them and they could be themselves. Bangalore has shown me a lot I think.
.
The music is very experimental and like all experiments sometimes it pure bliss and sometimes it fails miserably. Sometimes the music sets the mood and sometimes it upsets it.

The camera work in the drugs scene is very psychedelic and heady. Courtesy Mr Danny Boyle of the Slumdog Millionaire fame whose best movie I think is 'Trainspotting' from which the camera work has been taken. It really gets my pulse going.

The movie also puts my worst fear to flesh. If you are roaming/driving around that drunk and alone only two things will happen to you, either you are getting mugged or you are going to run over somebody. Scary !

The movie though has too sweet a ending for such a dark movie. I was mentally prepared to see Dev drink himself do death and Paro realizing too late what she had let him become. But probably Anurag Kashyap wanted him to 'Move On' or rather all 3 of the characters.

But overall I think this movie is path breaking. Hindi Cinema will never be the same again.
Overall i give it Two Thumbs Up (with vodka) !!

New Year Jinx

A jinx, in popular superstition and folklore, is:

• A sort of curse placed on a person that makes them prey to large numbers of minor misfortunes and other forms of bad luck;
• A person afflicted with a similar curse, who, while not directly subject to a series of misfortunes, seems to attract them to anyone in his general area.
• An object that brings bad luck.

Did I tell you that my New Years is Jinxed?

If you know me well I probably would have. I don’t know why it is so, or what I did to deserve it, but it is the way it is.

I don’t remember a good New Year’s Eve party ever, I remember one where my elder brother got really angry and ruined his and my new year’s eve and I remember one where was the party we went was so boring that we had to actually had to walk out of it much before midnight. But these are only childhood one, the last 5 ones I remember vividly (people tend to remember their bad experiences pretty well).

New Year’s Eve 1 (31st Dec 2003) -

The first year in college and the first one in Bangalore. I’m all excited that I’m out of home now and can have a REAL New Year Bash.

Luck is supposed to favoring me too. See the thing is my friends have made plans for one of the hottest bashes in town, the party is supposed to be big and real fun. My friend (let’s call him A) is good friends with the ‘localites’ of the city so he makes plans for them and being a good friend of mine asks me to come. He has also asked a girl to come with me as my date; the girl has bought my ticket and is very much willing to go. Only thing left to me is that I have to arrange a Car for the night, or rather rent one for tonight. Piece of cake! My brother rents car from this guy all the time and he said no issues, he will go with me to get that car. So assured I chill out and say to my friends that their work is done and we are all set to go.

But when 31st arrives and I call the car guy asking for a car he says that today is 31st and all the cars are already rented (Apparently there are other Wise guys like me). Now I start to panic. Brother says don’t worry I will get you one, let me talk to that guy. So he talks to him and argues for half an hour, after stomach churning (for me) half an hour he says that he arranged one car for me, the car is not in top shape but hey! Beggars are not choosers!

So I call up my friends that I got the car and will be there in an hour, they ask me to hurry up as we are already getting late. I assure them and head to Johnson Market to get the car. When I reach there I realize that car is not there and will be there in some time (which turns out to be an hour or so).

A is a punctual guy by nature and even after adjusting for my lackadaisical approach he is furious at me and says we are very late. After what looked like an endless wait the car arrives and we head back to college to pick 'A. I call him and say that I’m on my way, call everyone and tell them to be ready.

We fill up lot of Petrol (I want to be extra cautious, its new year’s eve and I don’t wanna screw this up) and head back. As soon we leave the petrol bunk tragedy strikes! Car dies in middle of ‘MG Road’ and won’t start! Now if you have ever been to Bangalore or any of the big cities you would know what the traffic is on the busiest road of the city on New Year’s Eve. It is your worst nightmare comes true.

Traffic Piles up behind the car and I have people honking, shouting, cursing and basically doing everything short of bashing me up. I get a traffic cop shouting at me, asking me to remove the car and I have a tough time to explain him the car won’t start, that’s why I am here in the first place. We call all ‘Car Help Lines’ and even they Guy who gave me the car. But hey, its new year’s eve all the lines are either jammed or nobody picks up.

Frustrated I call up A and tell him I won’t be able to make it and ask him to take a ‘City Taxi instead, he asks what about that girl, I reply “Find a replacement guy also, there would be some loser who hasn’t made any plans yet”.

So Finally I push the car to the nearest empty parking slot and head out to a bar to drink. After being turned out from a couple of places we finally reach one place and stand there whole night and drink to drive away the blues.

‘A’ told me next day that was the party was Rocking! And my ‘could have been date’ got really drunk and made out big time with my substitute (which could have me according to him).


New Year’s Eve 2 (31st Dec 2004)-

Don’t remember much but it wasn’t pretty either.


New Year’s Eve 3 (31st Dec 2005) -

My third year in Bangalore and my third year exams are about to begin. Normally that wouldn’t stop me from partying but I had also fought with my friend. Let’s call her ‘P’. So my mood was off and I was sitting in my room and was trying to study. My other Room mate ‘T’ was is in the other room, he was partying with his girl friend and her friends with the door shut. Two of P’s friends said they would be coming to our house in the night. They both used to go around once, but I didn’t know that then.

Now they were supposed to come well after midnight. But I was surprised when there was a knock on the door at around 11 and ‘R’ walked in. His words were something like “Arey Andy ye kya hai ? Main to soch raha tha kee Full volume pae music baj raha hoga. Daaru beh rahi hogi. Main andar aate hee dance karna shuru kar dunga. Par ye sab kya hai ?”

Then Surprise of Surprises! Another one of P’s friend ‘S’ walks in. And she was supposed to come after the party at around 2 or so. What a COINCIDENCE! So inspired by the above dialogue and appearance of the above two I get into party mode, get dressed and head out to buy booze. I come back in a 15 mins, happy that my new year is saved from being ruined and with big plans.

We start drinking and after sometime both R and S disappear. After some time I realize that they both have been gone long time, so when I look for them I find them in the kitchen talking, they say they will be right with me in a few minutes. When I return that I find P has also slept and I’m left all alone to drink.

Great!

So frustrated I go to sleep too.

After a year or so ‘S’ told me that they both got back together that night and she wanted to thank me for it. (And maybe all the coincidence was pre-planned) Well anyways, Glad to be of any help.


New Year’s Eve 4 (31st Dec 2006) -

My Final year in Bangalore and things isn’t going great with me. It was just that I was not getting along with 'P' very well. So anyways I tell my friends that I’m not in a mood to party and my New Year’s Eve is jinxed so I won’t make any plans.

I get treated to dialogues like “Andy bhaai app to party animal ho, aap hee party ke liye mana karoge to kaise chalega?” and “Andy bhaai aap load mat lo, aapka New Year hum accha karaayenge” and “Andy saale tu tension mat le, bhaa tere saath hai, tu daaru pee aaj, bhaai tere liye baat karega” I shrug them off. But when Big Brother calls and asks me to make a plan I can’t say No.

So I start making the arrangements, I want to have a decent enough party so that I can drive away from my blues. So when my plans are well under way ‘P’ walks in with a load of her friends including ‘Q’ and a case of beer and few other bottles of booze. To say the least I wasn’t very crazy about Q, so enraged (at nobody in particular, after all it was P’s house too and Q was her friend, I should have thought about it) I walk out of my house.


New Year’s Eve 5 (31st Dec 2007) -

I have left Bangalore and in Kota now. I have no plans when my two of my School friends call me and say they are in town and say that we’ll party. I’m meeting them after few months so I can’t say No. So hesitating I say yes.

Then I wait, wait and then wait some more for them to come pick me up from home. After calling ten times I realize that one hasn’t reached Kota yet and the other one is busy in his factory.

Finally they come after 12 when I have had dinner and am so pissed off that I want to strangle the first person I see. ‘B’ says that was himself stranded by ‘D’ and one other guy who were supposed to pick him since morning and didn’t so he had to come in a bus finally. And 'D' makes some silly excuses that how he had very important work in his factory. By this time I am sick of his excuses and too pissed of to argue further.

Now it’s well past 12 and nothing is open in Kota city, leave alone a liquor shop. So we roam around for an hour in the deserted streets of Kota with nothing to do. And then one guy says he has to go back home. So we drop him off and then everybody goes home.

Super Ending to a Super Year!

P.S. - This year wasn’t a tragedy of this proportion but it wasn’t great either.

Rest In Peace

Writing your own obituary used to part if the curriculum of many college courses, even in B Schools. And I was quite looking forward to it here in IMI, not that I wish I was dead, at least not yet. But alas, it wasn't in the curriculum here.

Not many people know why Alfred Nobel started the Nobel Prize. And also that He owned Bofors (of the bofors scam fame), a major armaments manufacturer, which he had redirected from its previous role as an iron and steel mill.

When Nobel's brother, Ludvig, died in 1888, a French newspaper inadvertently published an obituary about Alfred, who was most famous at the time for having invented dynamite. The translated headline read, "The merchant of death is dead."
This shocked Nobel, he realized that this was the way he was going to be remembered. So he decided to put in his life saving in starting the Nobel Prize. Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. He died of a stroke on 10 December 1896 at Sanremo, Italy. He left 31 million kronor to fund the prizes which, allowing for inflation would be hundreds of millions of US dollars today.

But not all people are so lucky to see their own obituary, most can only speculate.

And here's my speculation -
Anirudh Singh Chauhan, the famous businessman, Restaurateur and owner of the Bar Chain - "The Watering Hole" died yesterday after crashing his brand new Lamborghini in the Hangar while racing his own plane. He was 75.
Born in Rajasthan, Chauhan graduated from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore and then completed his MBA from International Management Institute, New Delhi before joining General Motors in 2010. He spent the next 5 years working as a manager in GM India which he then quit to start his chain of Bars with two of College Classmates.

In 2015, he opened his first Bar in Bangalore. Followed by the 2nd in 2019 in Mumbai and then soon in all the major cities of India. At 2030 he opened his first international Bar in Singapore.

"I can see everybody having a good time in my bar, a place where leave their worries behind and live in the present, like I tried all my life" Chauhan once said.

Chauhan was also an avid music fan and a collector; he had items like a burnt Jimi Hendrix Guitar, Drum Kit of Lars Ulrich of Metallica and others. When 50, he also wrote his memoirs titled ***** (Haven't thought of the name yet), which went to become a best seller.

Chauhan was considered Richard Branson of his times, and was a connoisseur of Race Cars, Watches, Old Bi - planes and Scotch whisky.

Chauhan is survived by his wife and one son. In his final years, he stayed in his Villa in Goa, and enjoyed sailing and the playing the Guitar.

The Bucket List

After watching Dasvidaniya and The Bucket List (and probably because of Scent of a Woman) I started thinking about my death. Not that I'm in a hurry to go or afraid so but I just started contemplating(I sometimes do that) what if I had got only three months to live. What do I wanna do and how will I wanna be remembered if I kicked the bucket.

This post answers the first question (Later for the second). So here goes the list (In a not much of a priority order) -

• Learn the Guitar
• Learn to Ball-Dance
• Learn to Slam Dunk (Yes I always wanted to do that)
• Visit Mom Dad and Big Brother.
• Have a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label
• Throw a Grand Party Inviting all of my friends and play the music in it myself.
• Attend a Metallica Concert
• Go on a Eurotrip - Walk the cobbled stone streets of Rome, Take a ride in Gondola in Venice, Look out to the sea sitting on the shore of Athens and wonder is this where the western civilization as we know it grew from. Drink Lager in Berlin, Visit the Red light area of Amsterdam, See the Eiffel Tower lit up in Paris, Order a dram in a pub in London....
• Donate some money to Wikipedia
• Bungee Jump (And I don't mean those sidey jumps from a Crane or something, I mean a real jump from a Helicopter or a Bridge).
• Buy a real Sports Bike and Rip a Highway apart at 180 km/h
• Have a threesome (I know it sounds gross but come on, I'm a guy and every guy wishes this)
• Go on a real Date (In which you wear tuxedos, hire a limo and take the girl to a fancy restaurant and order the most expensive wine bottle available)
• Write a book or atleast some memoirs (Doesn't seem possible now but maybe my dying days will give me inspiration to write on)
• Tell the people Liked and Hated in my life what I felt about them and why.
• Go Hunting
  
• And _____________________ (Intentionally left black)

These are nearly all the things I can think of right now, these are basically all materialistic but maybe I'm a shallow person.

P.S - If you think you really know me then attempt to fill the blank and write in the comments.

Rock On - Part 1

I just watched ‘Rock On’ the second time and I couldn’t help thinking this. If I would borrow a line from the movie itself “Accha hai, par better ho sakta hai, much much better ho sakta hai”. The movie lacked drama; it appeared a very realistic but bland movie.

Then it hit me that probably he meant it that way, or rather that was the way he saw it happen. The movie characters could be found anywhere, four guys out of college who chased a pipe dream and now trying to get to terms with the realities of life.

The Rock Band example may not be very commonplace, at least here in India but you can find the similar theme everywhere. People who thought they had an idea which they tough they can turn in gold, people who thought they will forever be friends, forever 21, forever love someone and be loved. Then one day college ends and they realize everybody needs to go their way, and mostly their paths don’t lead to same place. Suddenly your friends realize they have more important commitments than being friends, ideas going bust, your being good at something isn’t good enough, your love deciding that mommy knows best. And then the struggle….

The struggle to stay alive. The struggle to eat, to pay the rent, pay the bills, to afford the new TV you always wanted, to pay for the Birthday Bash you thought you would throw one day, to show your parents that you are actually not good for nothing. The struggle to be ahead in the rat race, I know what they say about the Rat Race, even if you win you are still a rat, but you are all rats to begin with isn’t it good to be the first among the rats ?

When you once hassled who has the trendiest shoes, who uses the hippest words, who can drink the most, who can drive the fastest. Now you worry about who has the higher salary, who has the bigger office, who landed up with a good catch as Husband/Wife or probably who stays in which locality.

Farhan Akhtar doesn’t look like his acting out as a could have been ‘Rock Star’, I think he was that guy. Who probably had a band, and wanted to make career out of it, but couldn’t.
Many people wanted to be Rock Stars, Cricketers, Actors, Pilots. Army men, Writers but couldn’t. Some listened to there parents, some to the older and more established cousins or neighboring ‘bhaiyas and didis’ who knew which stream had more ‘scope’, some figured out other Safe options and the most practical ones just chucked their dreams for the money.

And the ones who didn’t ? Well “ Idhar campus mae log jaande hai mainu… Dijjay dee itthe koi aukaat hai… Log kehte hai Dijjay mae badi baat hai…. Kuch karega Dijjay…. Lekin … Baaahar duniya mae acche acche Dijjay pis gaye… Laakhon kee bheed mae…”

Those become like the Purab Kohli of ‘Rock On’, with dark circles under their eyes, drink too much, make jokes that nobody laughs at, shout just to show their are still young and loving their life while nothing can be far from it.

So Rock on but don’t rock the boat too much…. The waves you make may be enough to drown you.

So shut up. Wake up and smell the coffin. The party is over. Adjust and Adapt. ‘After all we are just another brick in the wall‘.

Don't Cry over no shoes

Not that I wasn't a nocturnal earlier but this MBA has kept me up in the nights for the wrong reasons (read Studying or finishing assignments). I have this sad room in Katwaria Sarai (one of the down market places near my college) but the good thing about is that it has a balcony.

I sometimes come out in the balcony whenver i'm taking a break from studying or working and most of the time I miss my old life and always ask myself the question "Why did I come here" "Why did I choose this life of misery for myself" or something like that. When you are alone at 3 o' clock in the night, have no one to talk to (roomie is fast asleep all the time) and generally hate everything around the 'voice in your head' does get very loud.

And at this time I start feeling more miserable than before. But there is this one thing which always gives me hope.

There is this guy who sells 'Paranthas' in my street. He generally starts making the paranthas from around 10 o' clock and continues till about 12:30, after that he puts all of them in a 'Hot-Case' and moves his stuff into one of the streets, thats maybe because the police won't let him remain open through the night. Now Katwaria Sarai is a place which is full of Students and people who work in BPOs in Guragaon nearby and the place sees activity almost through the night, and hence also a demand for 'Paranthas'.

But that doesn't mean he is selling his 'Parantha' like the proverbial 'Hot Cakes'. Most of the night he sits alone waiting for someone to come and buy paranthas from him, or sometimes asking the passers by if they need it, thinking someone would not know of the facilties provided at this time of the night.

Whenever I'm pissed off and standing in that balcony I see him, up all night , with no one to talk to and nothing to do but wait for somebody to come. But he never seems mad at anybody, not at fate or god or himself. And for what ? Maybe 5000 Rs per month, thats the amount I have spent on booze in one night sometimes.

Which always makes me ask myself the question - "Why am I crying over no shoes when there are people with no feet ?"

(P.S. - Its 4 o' clock and i'm tired of studying Marketing and thinking I would have accepted that offer to booze and I can see him standing outside trying to sell a few more Paranthas. Suddenly my life doesn't seem so Grim anymore)

Anarchy

Anarchy means "without leaders"; not "without order"

That’s what V says in 'V for Vendetta' and I think I share his view on these.

In these first few days of my MBA I realized this. Whenever I was put into groups I always fought the leader or rather the emergence of one. Well that’s strange for me because I don’t have any leadership skills nor the desire to be the leader. So why the need for all that? But then I realized that it’s the emergence of leader and not the place of one that I fight. And that’s because I don’t want one, I’m an anarchist.

And that’s where people don’t understand me, either they think that I fight the leader because I want to be one or they think that I prefer some kind of lawless or order less state where there is chaos all around. That they will be no order if there is no leader. But this is where they go wrong. There has to be decisions made and somebody has to take them but you don’t need a leader to take them. If the group is functional it can take them.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it –


Anarchy (from Greek: anarchía, "without ruler") may refer to any of the following: · "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder." · "A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)." · "Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere." It should be noted that "ruler," if used in the context of the third bullet point, has no explicit connection to the term "rules." In an anarchy, as defined by the last bullet point, it is possible to have rules (laws); however, these must be agreed upon by the participants in the system, and not imposed from above by a ruler (leader, authority). Some languages, such as Norwegian have two separate words for the two meanings. A state, free from coercive authority of any kind, is the goal of proponents of the political philosophy of anarchism (anarchists).

You don’t have view people as a herd who have to follow their shepherd to get somewhere, but as parts which come together to build something more than just the sum total of parts. And this body, this machine can go together to the place it likes with no one taking the decision for another and everybody taking decisions for the whole.

And this is what I like; I can get along with people, sacrifice and curb my own sentiments to go along what everyone decides. But what I hate is to be told what to do by someone, especially when I have no say in the decision or the authority to challenge it. And I want the same for others too; I don’t want to tell anything to anyone. But the basic premise here is that the other members in the group are sensible, thinking and value their autonomy as I do mine. Plus they don’t have the herd mentality or need to be told what to do. And of course no real benefits for being the leader.

And these of course are not attainable in real life, or maybe difficult to attain. And this is my fight all about. These things I keep fighting and will continue to do till I can, or maybe till I don’t become the herd or shepherd myself. But my basic fight maybe all about is to make people understand that they don’t need a leader to go somewhere, everybody together can do it as good as any leader.

And to highlight the basic problem in people I quote this dialogue from ‘The Joker’ or Late ‘Heath Ledger’ (May his Soul rest in peace).

“You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. Because it's all part of the plan.. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds!! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair!”