Run to the hills !!

Boredom can take a heavy toll on one. After my not so exciting last semester of college, checking mail and ‘facebook-ing’ had become my primary activities during the day, while sitting, or more specifically rotting at home. Lethargy had sunk right deep inside my unused brain; saving grace being I WASN’T ALONE!!
So we trio (me, Amod & Para) decided to do something. Original plan included many more; but due to some other ‘prior’ commitments of others, the group narrowed down to just the three of us. At the beginning, everyone (I, atleast) was gung-ho about going to a place called The Valley of Flowers, frozen lakes of Hemkunthsahib and the river rafting experience. This was according to our plan (which later on was destined to fail miserably).Our rail booking was Tatkal truly portraying our last minute attitude towards things in life. Fortunate for us, we got it confirmed; albeit a last minute rush from my dear friend Amod made him learn a valuable experience of not trusting GIFT bags received as rewards from credit card companies as they show their ‘bursting open’ point truly at the eleventh hour.
Our (me & Amod) Delhi to Haridwar bus journey was the onset of our unfortunate set of events. We had an unwise altercation with a not so “traveler friendly” bus conductor who argued with me over a Rs. 500 note that didn’t belong to me. When the matter was taken to the cops after halting at a local police station, the conductor seemed gentle when compared to the belligerent inspector. After the whole drama, we concluded that we were pure victims of bad luck. Moral of the story: Always carry enough change; coz you never know when you’re traveling with hostile conductors.
We three met at Haridwar at a local restaurant with AC facility (as it was horrid hot) for cold drinks. Soon we caught a bus to Rishikesh and thereafter stayed in a hotel with an unnecessary huge room for 3 people, as we didn’t have any option because the room seemed nice and we were freaking exhausted. Next day was one of the marvelous experiences of my life. We were ready for river rafting on the Ganges, which meant taking us to the upper section of the river enabling a flow downhill. The 40 minute travel to the starting point of rafting would have made chickens being sent to meat-shops laugh at our misery. We were 10 (I guess) packed inside a back of an open SUV in a space meant for keeping goods. The pain was aggravated by the rough & bumpy road, which was literally injuring us. Finally we reached the starting point. After a quick briefing on instructions to be followed during rafting by the experts, we began our thrilling endeavor. There came several capsizing moments, read ‘rapids’ of different grades depending on the intensity to topple our raft. Then, there was this 22 ft jump from a cliff which was must say pure adrenaline rush. One could also swim across the journey a couple of times. An upstream swim against the river would utterly exhaust you; so one should be careful to swim close to the raft.
From here on, came the unplanned part. Further trip was on sole recommendation by a tour operator to go to a place called Chopta, some 8-9 hours away. Distances in hilly areas are always given (or to be asked) in hours rather than kms as a 25 km journey could easily take around 1.5 hrs. The humble guy just forgot to give us some “VERY IMPORTANT” disclaimers which made us have a tough time. Disclaimer 1: Availability of vehicles is subjected to time, which is to say they are only available in the morning. Translation: It isn’t possible to cover the entire journey in one go, which was certainly (at first) unacceptable!! Disclaimer 2: As you go interior inside Uttarakhand, the quality of rooms exponentially becomes more pathetic.
We started early morning the next day to Rudraprayag, a town connecting many important pilgrimage sites. Rudraprayag is where we reconfirmed our belief in having fun in Chopta. Till now we were really uncertain on whether the risk of going to Chopta was worth it. A pleasant hotel owner assured us that we will receive “Aanand” after reaching Chopta. Our overcrowded Sumo got punctured along the way, which when discovered by the driver, drove for another 2 kms till he found one garage. I guess this act of imposing risk of accident on the passengers is everyday business. Nevertheless we reached a place called Ukhimath and the “risk” of an unplanned journey caught us. As mentioned earlier there were no vehicles in the afternoon. The only option was to book a Sumo privately by paying 600 (completely non-negotiable) bucks for a 15 km stretch. Needless to say, we refused and hence had to spend a night in this tiny village. A hotel owner eventually convinced us to stay in his “lodge” which charged extra for attached restroom. So we took the room without one and headed in search of a much needed liquor bottle. Our 5 km search yielded a splendid and deserving euphoria in the 10 degree Celsius environment at night. We realized that going to restroom for the bigger nature call is extremely painful for obvious reasons during such a chilly weather and freezing water.
We went early morning next day to our final destination in the tour – Chopta. Chopta is a hilly village with a tourist attraction of Tungnath temple situated 3.5 kms atop a mountain. The catchy part is that these 3.5 kms are along a route which is 3500 ft high. Also there is a point further above it, named Chandrashila which gives a fantastic view of the Himalayas but on that day unfortunately marred by heavy clouds blocking the view. Rooms in Chopta are 600 bucks with attached restroom facility. If you just want a shed to cover your head at night, its 200 bucks. After a much troubled bath, we headed to hike. One could notice beautiful landscapes along the way with cattle grazing. After 3 kms, the air being dense gave us a heavy fatigue every 15 steps we trod. Finally we reached the top. The panoramic view was undoubtedly breath-taking. Snow capped mountains, defining landscape and the sheer mammoth attitude left us fully satiated. And then came the second wonder; a fierce hailstorm which almost covered the hill left us seeking shelter in a small room nearby. Hot tea couldn’t beat the chilling winds outside as it was raining ‘hailstones’ cats and dogs. After a while, we gorged ourselves on Maggi noodles. The rate of disappearance of Maggi from our plates was unbelievable. We ate like 3 famine-struck people with no shame whatsoever. And it costs us only 25 per Maggi plate; making my college canteen look devilish for charging us 20 bucks vis-à-vis this one serving at 3500 m above sea level. We wore these 15 bucks raincoats while trailing down defending ourselves from rain, but in vain. Clouds settling along made it look more like taking a walk in heaven.
We never realized how an unplanned trip like this across the mountains of Uttarakhand can make one feel ecstatic. The ideal no. of people should have been more to avoid mainly transportation problems (8 atleast), but nonetheless we trio deeply believe the enjoyment and fun was genuine and heartfelt.

Go Green - With Fewer People

On the occasion of World Environment Day, a lot has been said about the methodologies one can adopt to halt carbon emissions. All these steps seem to change our environment but our jobs, as Al Gore rightly says, depend on not changing them. So is the task really so formidable? One thing is for certain that our future is a function of our current actions. Every small step taken en masse would lead to lead to desirable or catastrophic results either way. If one would probe into the seriousness of global warming, one may find that its so-called caveats are indeed worth introspecting upon. Steps like planting a tree, or car pooling are too small compared to what one major personal decision of an individual can bring about. And that decision is to stick to having one child only.

India is a land of young people, which means more bachelors and young married couples than any other country. Today being the 2^nd most populated in the world, we are growing at around 1.6 crores every year. To the outside world, we may pose as 1.2 billion opportunities thereby attracting FDI, but to our economy we are countless mouths to be fed with our valuable and depleting natural resources. One may notice that the root of global warming lies in industrial production and utilization of resources in an inefficient manner. The more the population of a country, the more it has to produce and thus more pollute. Contrastingly fewer wants may not necessarily lead to lesser revenues as India being low on consumerism could start getting seriously export-oriented in nature.

Every newborn brings along with it a long list of necessities that needs to be fulfilled in the course of its lifespan. The industry produces products in response to these wants. With modern lifestyles improving, the output seems to grow each year as we head towards adopting western culture. We could swear on our motherland to not add any additional burden to this existing ecosystem by having more than one kid. Although this decision will have moral and emotional barriers, this simple yet prudent step could act as a huge savior in the future. Imagine the drastic decrease in the demography if this decision is taken collectively! Instead of government enforced mass sterilization drives, a simple tax waiver would act as a huge incentive for years to come to every individual. Today this option may seem a bit harsh, but could spell a disaster otherwise. Wisdom is to act in present rather than in hindsight.

After all, what is the point in making the future of both your kids bleak, when you have the current opportunity to make at least one’s bright.

Sad but true !!

A few days ago, the gravest concern for an MBA (including me) was the nature of job one might land up with considering the gravity of the US-led financial turmoil that the world is going through. Its consequences on the job market in India in particular were the talk of the town across industries and colleges. I would have been satisfied with a lucrative pay-packet and a job crafted for me in the wake of this historic recession, considering that it would have been one of the most commendable achievements in my life. After the tragic Mumbai terror hold-ups, I just added one more wish to my wish-list; while I may have been minting money, I had to stay alive too. 

The Mumbai horror has reminded me of a fact that India is not just vulnerable to economic recession, courtesy its integration with the world markets and export-oriented service industry, but also forcibly fettered to combating a battery of consistent & incessant terrorist strikes to safeguard domestic security. Terrorists have been using our country’s prosperity and harmony as a challenge to create upheavals into. This horrendous act of killing has left many pondering about the true intentions behind these gruesome attacks. Some say Kashmir, some may say Gujrat; I think its India. Gujrat and Kashmir have caused more pain to the Indian muslims (if so to say). Time and again, the attacks are orchestrated by Pakistani outfits that are in the business of indoctrinating the imbecile and halfwits to carry out dare-devil acts of brutal and heartless carnage. The pawns used are of Pakistani origin and their accent also further vindicates the fact. The outfits have also openly shown their resentment towards Indian maulvis in keeping patient over the past violence caused to Muslim brethren in a call to the Hindi news channel. Clearly, their motive is to cultivate feeling of hatred and anguish over the entire Indian state. And the most favourable opportunity in the SWOT analysis of their project is: India doesn’t care.

India being a soft state, likes to go around debating more, enforcing less. Probably it’s one of the most hapless nations in the world to have no consensus on issues of national security. India today possesses the wherewithal to launch a strategic and disciplined strike at the POK areas which are the HQ’s of these factions. What it severely lacks and badly requires is the political will. The thing we need is a strong-will that transcends international diplomatic pressures, domestic holdbacks, resulting in an audacious and confident military intent to wipe out terrorism for good. Although the cost of war is too high, so is the cost of staying mum and waiting for the next attack to strike. What we have instead is political rhetoric and media hijack on core issues to individual tragedy stories. It’s such a shame for us to think of India as the next economic super-giant by 2025, when government can’t assure the number of people left by then to enjoy that momentous occasion. How could one dream of a growing economy, when there is a clear and present danger to the existence of the citizens at large? It is a tom-foolery by the state to hoodwink the aspirations of the public by such flagrant display of cowardice over national security concerns. It’s the public silence that is being misinterpreted as public neglect. The people at large want a affirmative and permanent solution and not just plain CBM’s (confidence building measures) It’s about time we take our vengeance plan more seriously. It’s a nation at war, and not just metropolitan insurgencies. People are fed up to go out on the streets living under the phobia of being a victim of a random number of an ugly plan hatched by the terrorists to kill innocent lives.

Killer Serials

There are a few noteworthy observations regarding 'saas-bahu' serials that I would also bring to light for the discerning readers.

First of all our characters are formally dressed from dawn to dusk (even in their spick and span homes). The characters must be aggressive promoters of anti-ageing creams and lotions (or rather anti-dying) because they neither age nor die (immortality pills must be handy, it seems!) They are never seen without make-up even in a scene of getting up from bed (even after attending to nature's call)

A strange reaction or gesture from an individual is greeted with a shock (multiplied by three) from all the characters present in the room (even irrelevant ones). The corporate head honchos seem to mastermind more conspiracies than attend business meetings and the housewives are one step ahead by controlling family politics for power and money (even though they seem to have both in abundance) There has to be atleast one person who is hell-bent to destroy the peace loving family no matter how much you keep him contended. Family weddings and celebrations are more than 10 serials long actually surpassing the real time. The reason being every occasion is preceded and followed by atleast 4 serials.

All characters speak more in their minds than in dialogues and every dialogue is accompanied by some jarring metal sound or some other effect regardless of its importance. The script is quasi-static. You can visualize what might have happened in the last 15 episodes by viewing just two. The Censor board should censor some scenes regarding them as "beyond human comprehension and misleading". Above all, what is left to say when the grandpa, father and son look like two pals with a senior colleague.

No matter what, somehow all these serials have a similar storyline, after all being a product of the Eakkttaa (typo intended!) company. The serials neither are entertaining nor comprehensible in the tiniest sense to any person of my generation inspite having high TRP's (I am yet to meet one)

I never wondered I could actually make out all this just by watching them during my meals!! (courtesy to my mother for the enforcement)

Floyd and Aamir

A long hiatus or plain procrastination….whatever one might call it; it’s good to be back to blogging. Well I had been a bit busy due to a small thing called MBA, I have been doing lately. My college treats students as ‘fatigueless-mules’- ….(saala Sunday ko bhi no holiday!!)…which pretty much reminds me how that pisses everyone off!! I just hope (along with many here) that the juice be better worth the squeeze!!

Two phenomena – Pink Floyd and Aamir Khan: you just can’t get enough of them. I lately discovered a few tracks of Pink Floyd which seemed way too better than ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’. These guys simply know the game and they play it well too . Well, for older fans of Floyd, this might seem as trite, but nevertheless, ‘High Hopes’, ‘Coming back to Life’, ‘Wish you were here’ are no less than colossal works of art. When they play the music, they play with it like a toy (pun intended). The entire experience of a great song comes to them as naturally and obvious as a birth of a child. Okay, too much flowery here, but truly, these guys RULE!!

Aamir Khan is another personality who just keeps getting better with time just like an old scotch, unlike SRK who reminds me of my mess food, always the same, never refreshing and sucks till the last bite. Taare Zameen Par might have reminded many of us how we used to be as a child, but I got a different set of clue altogether. Well, I find this argument of connection of many people with Ehsaan to be quite incomprehensible. The kid was having dyslexia – inability to read & write. He wasn’t criticized because he was plain stupid or a dunce. To put very technically, it’s a movie about a kid coping with dyslexia in his normal school life, and battles it with the help of an overwhelmingly helpful teacher who discovers his problem and also helps him to excel in his rediscovered hobby – painting. How do we come to come close to it? A little introspection would make us realize that we definitely don’t fit in Ehsaan’s character in any way. Only dyslexics do; not everyone.

As a matter of fact, TZP is a solid, powerful work of fiction primarily because of its style of execution. Using Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s befitting music accompanied by apt lyrics by Prasoon Joshi, the movie brings this tale closer to countless fact based stories of umpteen kids who might have been neglected due to unavailability of such a co-operative teacher during their childhood. The movie addresses an age-old, yet not-so-talked-out problem (dyslexia) and provides a remedy to it too. Moreover, this age is crucial as they say that a child’s destiny is written in this tender age of 6-8 years. Well, many of us feel today, that our kids should be, what we couldn’t possibly become or always aspired to become as demonstrated by the kids’ parents. And the grooming starts at this age!! A bit of complacency or deferral here could result in an undesirably moulded ball of clay rather than a sculpted masterpiece. Atleast that’s what the notion is!!

That brings me back to the million dollar question. Did we (yes we, not I) lose out on anything in our innocently ignorant childhood or we quasi-achieved what we really wanted and are proud of the person we are currently? Well it’s a million dollar question, and I don’t intend to devalue it by answering either. So go ahead and live the most of present….and let some i-don’t-know-and-i-don’t-care-questions better left unanswered!!

DISCLAIMER: This was a desperate attempt to incite my grey cells, which were in hibernation from a long time. Any section in this post you find utterly boring is highly regretted. Please do not refrain yourself from visiting my blog again, under aforementioned circumstance, since such behaviour will be deemed as extremely erratic and plain prejudice.

What's with Amitabh Bachhan?

Although I turn green seeing Big B holding his guitar in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, the reasons are quite different from the obvious ones. Mainly, the envy is because its a two-neck guitar (a fantabulous invention) and secondly he's in Europe (simply an amazing place to be!!). Besides that, what's with the vivid feathery hat and the ugly salt-n-pepper tresses hanging from behind his neck? As if his repetitive ads for lesser known companies promoting their lesser known products wasn't enough, it looks that he's keen to go a step further.

Amitabh Bachhan is an everlasting legend in Hindi Cinema, but his recent "indulgences" speak volumes of reconsidering this laudatory thought. His taste for doing only quality cinema as evident erstwhile during his stardom, has undoubtedly been diluted over the years distinctively exhibited in his era of life-begins-at-60. Top it up with his recent claims of being a farmer for a Pune land plot, it makes you wonder how an actor like him can do this to himself. Hasn't he been satisfied of bad publicity or rather technically named "black spots on his diligently generated grandeur"?

Even today, I find his yesteryear movies very entertaining. Be it Sholay or Deewar, Big B was always his plain SUPERB!! It really pains me to see him in movies during recent times viz. KANK, Mohobattein, Bunty aur Babli,Baghban, etc. I wonder what made him do it. OK , the answer is money; but still at his position, he needs to think beyond that. An iconic status stretching to an image of demi-God, that too in India where superstars are related with the characters they play on-screen surely should give a second thought while accepting offers. When accepting such offers, the argument of 'being after all a human being' simply doesn't hold true. You then become more than just a mere celebrity. Nevertheless it's always a delight to see him in films like Black, Sarkar or even Lakshya. Such movies which showcase the raw talent of the distinguished actor are welcomed by one and all. Big B has this innate ability to entertain people of all generations leaving behind a legacy for others to follow. And I believe there are still many aspects of him waiting to be unearthed.

I definitely don't want to remember this great personality as a performer in trivial ads and meaningless cinema in the remaining days of his glorious career, but as a king who ruled the Indian film industry giving it an eternal recognition and eventually making a graceful exit. As we see in floor gymnastics, almost everyone begins with a good start, a better performance during the feat, but its the landing/exit that makes the gymnast distinctively different from the others. May this actor get a ten on ten on his entire lifetime performance.

The boon of Cartoon!!

Animation is something that has always amused me, taught me (surprisingly true!), inspired me, entertained me and at times even destroyed me (especially during exams). Cartoons can be best described as a blank canvas for the human mind which is put to life. I saw myself (I believe many here..) growing from the humble Tom and Jerry to the unimaginably-intelligent Dexter to the lethargic Garfield and the latest talk-of-the-town, the horrible sociopath racist Eric Cartman from South Park fame. Cartoons had one solid excuse for everything incredible, incomprehensible and probably indigestible things.....they're cartoons!! Imagining Shahrukh's method of wooing the girl (& always winning her despite any circumstances) and Rajnikant's or Mithun’s gravity-defying or rather sanity-defying stunts leave us bewildered in search of logic. Cartoons fortunately don't have to subscribe to logic (which they don't usually), leaving us with stomach-aching laughter and thoroughly entertained. Something else also gives us an ache, albeit this time in our head...BOLLYWOOD MASALA films!!

Bollywood is an industry with annual revenues crossing $ 1 billion, growing at 12.6 % every year approximately and also a major client for advertising industry. With the latest news of Hrithik Roshan being the highest individual taxpayer and many other making it in the top 10, this brings light on the heavy salaries demanded by the country's so-called brightest talent. Films like KANK or the forgettable Krrrrish (I doubt whether I spelt it right!!), aptly shows where the expensive talent is going - in the drains!! If each filmmaker decides to spend the exorbitant amounts that they give to these actors (Shahrukh takes a whopping 5 crore, lucky son-of-a-b****), for something really creative in animation or perhaps in their own films by expending on technology in film stunts or really amazing computer graphics (what's the good use of being a global hub of software professionals when you can't apply that asset in your own country!), then it may work wonders in both entertainment and also fill their pockets. The most common argument of these film-makers in favour of the tried and tested formula of using the same actors repeatedly is that the public likes it. The public never ceases to get tired of ‘hero’ winning the ‘heroine’, then why should we? I guess they are missing an important viewpoint here. It should be noted that Mother India and Do Bigha Zameen which were the epitomes of Indian Cinema were both unconventional in nature.

I agree that most of them are quite antagonistic to this view of meaningful cinema; evident by Mr. Himesh’s growing popularity, but this effort is worth giving a try. People have always liked experiments provided they’re properly packaged and good in content. Jungle Book, Jai Hanuman and the latest to join the bandwagon, Meena as a part of National Literacy Mission are projects that proved our appreciation for the Indian Animation industry. Concerted efforts by involving more participation from bigger players in terms of number and revenues could spell out an animation revolution in a developing nation like India. With more participation, serious quality is bound to emerge (hopefully not in the form of cartoon version of Shaktiman!!) Nevertheless, there is no dearth of talent in India considering India’s young population, and I sincerely hope India could make it big in animation. If not with original ideas, maybe as a provider of business outsourcing illustrations, like the Koreans do for Simpsons.

Animation appeals better due to its universality of crossing language barriers. I still remember guffawing over the famous piano episode of Tom and Jerry. They surely provide an antidote to all the stress and tension one has. Kudos to the animation industry...keep more of it coming!!