The Monologue of a sissy

Disclaimer: Completely imaginary and original work of expression.

I wiped my tears and continued to walk as fast as I could. My legs hurt - not because I was walking fast but because the football that had hit me, had hit me hard. I don't know whether I was limping for I don't remember. All I remember is my attempts to hide the fact that I was crying. The boys laughed and sneered on the football ground as they told me what a wimp I was.

Months later, my brother said he was utterly disgusted to see me watching a daily soap on television. He thought it was really really sissy of me!! A few days later, I remembered that he was also among the group of boys who had purposefully hit me with the football some months ago.

People seemed to have a problem with the way I walked, the way I used my hands while speaking.. in fact with the way I spoke!

When I entered a classroom, there would be muffled giggles. When this happened over and over again for months together, my confidence had shattered to pieces. I could never enter a room full of people without feeling embarrassed.

The physical training classes were a nightmare for me as I could hardly complete half a lap when everyone else was close to finishing the second. The physical training instructor joined the gang of boys that laughed at me...

Each time I moved in public, I could hear people laughing - some for real, many a fiction of my mind. I started staying indoors, didn't move around with people, stayed in my room for days together.

So deep was the feeling of inferiority about myself that I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I was scared to acknowledge my own traits - my hand movements, my smile, my gait.

**


Today I stand in front of the same mirror rehearsing my speech for the film awards function tonight. I look into my eyes, hypnotized by my own charisma.

Today, the boys who hit me with their football tell their kids that I was their childhood friend.

Today, my brother asks me for the entry passes to the movie premiere of my directorial venture.

Today, I am 'manly' enough to tell the world... Yes, I am a 'sissy'!

Khandan ki izzat and sentiments

On the lines of 'fast food', I have 'fast blogposts'. These blogposts come to me as small sparks of thoughts - it takes me less time to type them and you to read them! So, keep reading my blog on the go...

These days, sentiments of racial/religious groups are more fragile than what is traditionally the benchmark of fragility in the Bollywood language - 'Khandaan ki izzat'.

In 99% Bollywood movies, (the 1% comprises of Mahesh Bhatt movies where extra-marital relationships are as normal as 'doodh mein paani ki milaawat') 'Khaandan ki izzat' is the most fragile thing. Your daughter marries your driver's son and you 'wash hands off' your khandan ki izzat! (A VERY cheap translation of 'khaandan ki izzat se haath dho baithoge'. Used here for the humorous effect only). In fact, the khandan ki izzat is like a soap which every family ends up washing their hands off by the time the movie reaches the intermission portions.

The sentiments of racial/religious groups have now surpassed this gold standard of fragility. Be it the title of a SRK film creating ripples in the 'hair-stylist' community because a derogatory word 'Barber' was used for them ... or be it the wrath that the makers of 'Kaminey' faced because they used a proverb 'Apna Haath Jagannath'. (This proverb has been used for decades. In fact, it does not really represent any particular deity in Orissa - it refers to 'Jagannath' just as God, only to rhyme it with 'Haath'.)

Have the filmmakers really become insensitive - or has the tolerance level of these racial/religious groups really gone down? Till when are we going to subject creativity to this kind of moral policing?

Maati-maay

I saw this Marathi film 'Maati-maay' starring Atul Kulkarni and Nandita Das. The movie took me to an unimaginable world where characters I cannot identify with are thrown into situations I could've never thought of. Such is the power of the film that despite all this, the film shook me completely. A very 'arty' film it is, complete with the 'brutal honesty' that the movies of this genre have. The strong human emotions touched me.

Here is my interpretation of a scene in the movie:

Disclaimer: Original work of expression. I describe, in my own words, a scene from a marathi movie 'Maati-maay'. Tried to cover the entire story of the movie through the description of this one scene.

She leant against the lake to drink water - she indeed looked like an animal. It was not just the way she was drinking water. There was something more that made her 'animalish'. Her distraught hair, her dirty brick-brown sari, her pale face - everything made her look so different from a human being. For the village where she lived earlier, she was in fact an animal - an animal who roamed around alone in the outskirts of the village, an animal who scared children away. A grave-keeper at one point of time, now she was allegedly a witch who killed children.

She saw the boy on the surface of the lake water. She knew he was standing behind her. Her body contracted. What would people say if they saw him with her? Would people outcast him too, she wondered?

The boy, all of ten, handed her a dry leaf that contained a piece of mutton that was cooked last night. She grabbed hold of it - it was after long that she was going to eat cooked food. She looked at it hungrily as a tear trickled down her cheek without her knowledge.

She stood up. The boy, in a white shirt and khaki shorts looked at this lady - this witch.

She was looking at him for the first time. Because she was told that she would kill any child she would look at.... She had begun to believe all the rumours that were spread about her....

Today, she was looking at him in the eye - with so much to say. The way he looked at her, she was scared. Did he get to know about her? Her eyes could not meet his. She stepped back. She walked away....

He stood there still. He felt proud. The mutton was cooked last night because he had done well at school. And he felt proud that he had shared it with his mother... The illiteracy of the village made the villagers see the 'witch' in her. It was his education that helped him see the person in the witch who was his mother.....

Kuttey

Note: A very Hinglish post. Arbit rubbish. I'm learning to do that mannnn!!!

Ruko ruko... Before some of you try to sue me for abusing the netizens so openly, lemme clarify and justify and......testify the title! Arre bhai, if someone can name his movie 'Kaminey', why can't I call my blogpost 'Kuttey'?! After all, Bollywood ki dictionary mein 'Kuttey.... kaminey' are as together as 'Ram aur Shyam', 'Ram aur Lakhan' and 'Seeta aur Geeta'...!!

So why is the blogpost titled 'Kuttey'? Is it because I was once chased by a stray dog and I ran for my life for almost three minutes? ( Tacky experiences make tacky confessions, hai na?!) No no no...

It is because I see that 'Kuttey's are all over the news today...! No baba, there is no 'canine flu' on the lines of 'swine flu' in the market these days.... But somehow, today's newspaper carries ek nahi, do nahi, teen teen kuttey-wali khabrein...

News 1 is Farah Khan being sued by a Chembur-based businessman because she made a statement on the show 'Dus Ka Dum' (hosted by Salman Khan at his 'basti-ka-laadla' best behaviour.). She said things like, "Mard kuttey hi hote hain. Aur wafaadar bhi nahi hote!" Sunne mein aaya hai ki Farah is very happy about the news! After all, she needs something to come into the limelight after her bombed 'judging' in 'Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega'!

News 2 is Sunny Deol to sue BIG FM for making fun of him and his father in a radio show 'Son sunny'. Before Sunny Deol sues me too, let me clarify that the only 'Kuttey' connection here is the fact that 'Kutte Kaminey.. main tera khoon pee jaaunga" is Dharmendra's dialogue. (Us se yaad aaya... Dharmendra restaurant mein jaake 'Fresh lime soda' ki tarah 'Fresh khoon soda' maangta hoga! Aur waiter jis tarah Fresh lime soda ke liye "sweet" or "Salty" poochta hai, waiter unko "A", "B", "O" or "AB" poochta hoga.... omg. This was the worst one from me in a long long time!!)

Enough of sue-sueing. Btw, kutteys have a definite style of sue-sueing in public. And this style reminds me of the way many Bollywood heroines dance and twist and turn in those so-called raunchy numbers.... :-p

Last news 3 is about Salman Khan's personal gym being given away to his pet dogs while Salman works out at a 'public' gym! Salman Khan ne jaanwaron ke prati prem ki ek nayi missile.. oops misaal kaayam ki hai!... But going by his gloated body in the recent times, I doubt if Salman was even using that gym!!! Chalo, ghar ki jagah kuch kaam toh aayi.. Waise bhi Katrina udhar gym ki jagah ko farsaanwale ko rent pe dene ki soch rahi thi...

Never mind, Kuttey blogpost khatam hua... Phir kabhi 'Kaminey' par likhunga.... No no no, it will not be about any corrupt politicians or some cheap reality show-wallahs .. It'll be a movie review of Vishal Bharadwaj's 'Kaminey'.. So, watch out this space!!

God shopping

The kid walked up to the shop, rested his palms on the counter and pulled himself upwards as his soles were lifted off the ground.

"Can I have God?", the little boy asked the shopkeeper.

"Ya, but which one?"

"As in?"

"We have Gods in colours - orange, green, blue and white.. which one do you want?", the shopkeeper replied.

"Can I have them all?"

"No! You must choose what you want! You can't have a group of Gods. In fact, if you buy the God of one colour, you have to fight with everyone who has a God of another colour."

"But why?", the kid asked inquisitively.

"That's how it is!"

"Do these Gods fight with each other too?", the kid asked, "If the colours of these Gods are different, is the colour of their followers different too?"

"Uhmmm...", the shopkeeper fumbled.

"We are all made of flesh and blood, aren't we?!", the kid asked.


"The Gods are within all of us, child", a spiritually enlightened person came there.

"Is that why more Gods are required, Sir?", the kid asked him.

"In fact, all of us have an element of God within us.", the person said.

"The number of people in the world is increasing so much. If there's God within all of us, why is the 'God'ness of the world reducing so much, Sir?", the kid asked again.

The person had no answer...

"Hey! You want God, buy God.. otherwise leave!", the shopkeeper interrupted. He couldn't have two people talking to each other at his counter.

"Give me a God that is transparent. A God that has no colour, sees no colour. If you have such a God, I'll have him. Else, I am fine...", the kid walked off the shop...

Love Aaj kal - Review

This movie review starts off with being presented in the form of 'you are watching a X's movie when...'.

You are watching an Imtiaz Ali movie when...

1) The name is a twisted mix of Hindi and English words. After 'Jab we met' and 'Love aaj kal'...

2) There is a song in the courtyard of a house where the old members sit and the jawaan generation dance.. naach basanti naach... (There is a similar song in this film too.)

3) The marriages that get fixed in the course of the movie are just for timepass - just to stretch the anxiety of the audience. This happened in IA's first film 'Aahista Aahista', in 'JWM' and now in 'LAK' also...

Now, specifics about Love Aaj kal..

1) Saif and Deepika have delivered good performances.

2) The dialogues and screenplay possess a very 'contemporary' and realistic feel to them. The characters react and speak dialogues that we expect 'real' people to do and say.

3) 'Aahun aahun' is picturized very nicely - like those typical 'end credits' songs.

4) The movie is like a breeze - pleasant, fun yet there's nothing you take back, no specific scene or trait that you remember.

5) Rahul Khanna gives the expression of a tree trunk. (Don't laugh! Aishwarya Rai had to marry a tree before Abhishek Bachhan to clear some astrological issues.... Was Rahul the tree trunk they were talking about? ) But you feel pity for this tree trunk when his newly-wed wife Deepika tells him that she loves someone else. Especially with the amazingly constipated expressions that Rahul Khanna gives in this particular scene...

6) The 'Twist' song is pressed into the film for NO REASON (completely adhering to Bollywood's principles of 'blending' masala songs into the film.)

7) Beyond a point, you KNOW that finally the hero and the heroine are going to reunite. So, the proceedings don't really surprise you. Especially when the hero goes to Vikram Joshi's house to meet his wife. This is the weakness of the screenplay.

Overall, the movie is a 'MAYBE watch' as opposed to a 'must-watch'...