was going thru the idiot box yesterday after a gap of 7 days! well , was pleasantly surprised that all things were the same as i had left them :P. its clished yet, a truism , that nothing changess on telly in years!!! well sony has been changing though!! almost every month now isnce may !! a revamp, a slwe of new offerings , most of which fell flat on their face just three weeks into their run time! and yet again itis changing its content!
watching sony these days makes me reach out to the phone and call the bosses there to tell them that i DO NOT wanna watch cid all thru the day! and neither does india! lol!!
but sony isnt what got me to write after such a long gap!
its big boss 3 instead! yes , that popular show on the new number one h gec colours!
yesterdays episode had the obivously gay ( id rather call him transgendered , not in a derogatory way of course) designer was crying his ( or is it her) heart out , post a fight with vindu!!

it made me cringe!! yes , i mean i agree we r indians and we wear our emotions on our sleaves and our movies are all about "family" and long long teary dialogues, yet this is taking things too far! reality tv , neednt be this irritating right? its pretty much disgusting watch grown up people bitching around , plotting against each other .
the whole idea of big boss itself, teeters on the voyvuertistic. putting a bunch of poeple from disparate backgrounds , into the same house , is traumatic. even within a family, there exist many frissions and opportunities to erupt! yet our family syste ensures that pressures are contained and tempers are minded. there are checks and limits to the freeodm one can excersise in the great indian family.
big bosse's pr managers want us tobelieve this is a replication of our now dying joint family system. then why does it have the support systems and checks absent?
why is a person like the designer , allowed to be humiliated on national television? albeit the whole episode cudve been stage managed, taking thing son face value for once, i really felt bad for the guy! i mean , as it is gays are not winning any prizes in popularity stakes all over the nation. and now this??
i wudnt say its ok for straight men or women to go up and abuse/cry/get into drama-queen mode on tv, but i guess its all the more not ok fro someone from the lgbt community! it is required that they get a national identity , but this shud be a positive one. big boss sadly is just reinforcing steroetypes and entrenching the midset that gays are worth ridicule and mockery!!

i aint no flag carrying supporter of the community , but from the pure humanitarian point of view , entirely outside the debate of lgbt vs straight society, i believe every human deserves dignity! and that is bing violated day in and day out on big boss 3!

bracethy self my blog,for i am here again!

as is the wont,am back after along break .thebreak this time was less self-inflicted and more a product of unavoidable circumstances .anyways , id rather not dwell on those ,as heavier matters await my undivided attention.

of late ihave been on a path of self realisation, a phase, i am told all have, and i am long overdue!anyways out of all the churning and thinking that i have been into lately , 0ne conclusion screams its throat hoarse out at me.that i would be only as happy or as sad as i let myself be!! high thoughts those are for sure coming out of my mind, but theni think this makes sense. i have been trying to look for happiness all arround.making things work for others at the cost of my interests most of the time in the foolish hope that i ammaking someone happy and there lies real peaceofmind!!! it might for many,it doesn for me anymore ,not for now atleast
!

soi am out of a bad situation. ( it was bad but had its high points!!)and am starting afresh , on a clean slate!hoping that i do not repeat the foolhardiness that i wasuptothe last time.

in pursuit of happiness,i set along anewjourney. the past isneither forgotten norforgiven, yet asthey say, living on inyesterdays wouldnt secure my tommorrows!!

the return of the blogger,,,
yes laugh your brains out but thats what i term my comeback , yet again, to blogosphere. I must say this spell of self imposed exile was a bit shorter than the earlier ones. Am sure i am learning to delink the blog posts with my mental state of affairs and keep dishing out nonsense for , well mostly , no one but me to read . lolz
iron man cometh,,
sounds like sand man coming in from spiderman 3 ? well outlook screamed the arrival of iron man advani in the PMO last week. Now now really! Takes leaps of imagination for me to fathom and digest this octogenarian taking to the high office. He has dreamt of it for long. I hope and pray he never manages to go beyond the deputy pm post that he had prior to 2004 and India shining. Aamen to that .
India shining to India achieving,,,
BJP said India was shining when it clearly wasn’t for a lot many . Congress now wants us to believe India is achieving . even now not many seem to share the dull yet un missable buzz that the grand old party is trying ti build around this notion of a growing nation on the march to duperpowerdom. From a high 9 % growth to this years projected 5 % growth , much of the achievement we had ahs been eroded off by the recession. yes we have the costliest and cheapest car being made by our own company , the largest cotton bounty in the world, the best monsoon spells in recent memory , yet what has refused to change is the fact that we still are struggling to get our growth story on track. The bubbles fast bursting for the economy, and soon the shine shall wear off our currency. Then what will the political class come up with ? Indian healing??
Bad omen on the horizon,,,
Aprils gonna be a dry month for multiplexes . yes i have talked of this to all i can see since a week now yet i cant make myself to move over this misery. No hindi releases in april coz of the producers-exhibitors strike. What on earth makes them do this injustice to film hungry delinquents like me is beyond my comprehension. Dont they have a heart? Don’t they have kids who go gaga over shah rukh and oooh la la over deepika ?? as if the Indian summer wasn’t enough to make life difficult ! any ideas to mediate and break the impasse?? Till i blog again , pray for the safe release of all hindi films on time !

a month old , and already tiring,,,

i am already a month into this new year . the so called honeymoon with the new years done. two festivals wrapped up already! fatigue has set in! i mean the new year is old already! come to think of it i really don understand whats new in a new year? the same old month of jan the same rigmarole of festivals and spring arrival, the same republic day parade speeches the same exam fears for the third month of the year! why do we even celebrate january??

who deserves the lotus?

also , whats not new about the new year is the controversy over the national civillian awards, the padma's! time was when it was considered indecent top public announce your displeasure at being left out by the hi-offices of north block , and finding your name missing from the years list was meant to be taken silently in stride as a bitter pill. not now anymore! while the govt plans to bestow the lotuses to anyone who makes for good photo-ops on front pages ( i do not find another reason why ash and akki got the honour this year ) the people who get left out screm from roof-tops that the grapes are sour. we vote for eveything thses dyas in India. why not have sms polls on the padma awards too? see shahrukh might even perform ont eh ceremony, and doordarshan can make money telecasting the otherwise sombre proceedings at rashtrapati bhavan! when i get mine, i sure would want some jazz -razzmatazz at the venue!

from foot- in -mouth to tongue- in- cheek

bushes are out of the white house , the colour of the hour is black in america. both metaphorically and literally! so while americans get the taste of a new dispensation at the helm, the rest of the world , thsoe strange lands that bush loved talking of, seem to have nothing muc different to look forward to. if one had his foot in his mouth perprtually, the current one has his tongue firmly in cheek as he makes all the right innaugural noises , his administration silently continues with the policies left behind by the predecessor. change is what obama pormised . how long would the change take to be visible on the ground o one knows. chances are , not too soon .

oscar dreams:

finally we have somehting to look forward to on feb22 nd at the kodak theatre . will rehmaan saar make it or not? if it were filmfares, with three nominations saar would be assured of atleast one black lady to walk home with. but the oscars are a different ball game all together. all our hopes and prayers for this lil genius . jai ho aint exactly something that would set the indian charts on fire. but what the hell, as long as its oscar nominated , anything goes!

A new beginning ?,,,,

Life’s been hectic of late, leaving me not much time to write about anything . so in keeping with the trend of abridged clipped communication , my mind suggests cruising through a lot many thoughts at break neck speed without the usual munching that goes prior to a piece on this unread anonymous web log of mine. So snapshots it is for now,,,,

Oh Kolkata!!!

Had been to the city of joy past month. 6 yrs since i last went there and nothing much has changed .yes , my bong friends efficiently counter my point in that adamant leftist swagger that karat and co have now made famous, citing new flyovers roads turns bridges buildings the works that have come up since i last set foot here. Yet for an outsider not affected by that blinding love for this ageing metro, the change has blended right in with the old. Its the same all-encompassing black soot covered old rickety city, with people non chalantly going about with life , forever stooped in misthi- maacher jhol and memories of yore.
Come to think of it , as a coloumnist in another unchabged relic of this city ,telegraph says, it is in the very DNA of the Bengali bhodrolok not to let go of the past. To continue living in an antiquated vaccum afraid of what change might hav eins tore , content with what the old still has to offer. By the way , Mumbai’s DNA , the newspaper, has entered the Kolkata markets this year. Change , i guess cant be kept at bay for too long. Budho daa at writers building sure has started realising this.

Battle ready India.

No , i aint referring to the now-on-now-off Indo-Pak war of words. Time to move on from 26/11, cause its time for the Great Indian Ballot Tamaasha. 2009 , is an election year . and polls are bang on schedule thanks to the sombre sullen mood prevailing all over that holds the UPA form doing another “India Shining” ala NDA. Frankly does anyone really think Sonia-manmohan duo could have pulle doff what vajpai-mahajan did back in 2004? Could they have built a bubble , an illusion of UPA returning to power , like the saffron brigade led everyone to believe the last time we went voting?
Irrespective of the economy looking permanently south bound and terror being our resident evil, no one doubts the capacity of the congress to have the spine ( foolhardiness some would say) that the BJP had , of celebrating victory even before crossing even the first hurdle. Confidence( occasionally bordering on arrogance )is essential for a leader these days . with vajpai out, manmohan as irrelevant as he was 5 years back, no wonder faint cries of Modi-fying India are gaining currency.
A scary thought though , having ablood-stained tyrant ruling a bleeding nation soon.
By the way jaagore.com of janaagraha makes registering to vote very easy and simple. Indian democracy is coming of age !

Roy gives no joy!

Outlook ‘s back this week. Oddly, for no clear reason, it doesn’t have an issue int he first week of the new year! As i had feared , in response to the last issue’s article , readers have poured out their angst in the choicest of words against ms. Arundhati roy , that self appointed anti national moral compass . i ma not particularly fond of her and her writing ( a god of small things is still just a means to sound hi-brow in a gathering ) still i cant escape the fact that under her maverick play of words lies some logic , unintentional or other wise. While she makes whoopee slinging mud at the Indian state, one cant but agree with her when she says that as mush as terror is imported form across the border, our own domestic record of equality and justice ( rather the lack of it ) is responsible for our current state of insecurity. Not many have hte gumption to accept this. Not for sure the t.v. wallahs . they are making merry planning areas to be bombed on behalf of the Indian army. Outsourcing desi style !
Meanwhile outlook’s moved on to weightier issues. Its annual sex survey htis the stands this Monday . interesting week ahead !

Jhingalala at the khan camp!

And finally , my new year was brought in with the two king khans of bollywood. Ghajini and rab ne bana di Jodi were the onle films running at every theatre in my small city , it seems they still are. None dared clash witht he khans, specially aamir. After trouncing Harman –gay-baweja with is production early last year , he was back bashing goons as if it were balloons at aparty for kids from TZP.
Theres a lesson to learn form this guy though. Do any thing go to any level till people are forced to eat off your hands , seems to be his mantra. He carpet bombed the entire media space with a very average Hollywood inspired kollywood copied remake of an average efilm , turning it into the biggest grosser ever in history. So much so that after being a captive audience of his screams at the gym all thru a week on tata-sky, i saw the film just so i could tell him enough ! i saw ure film , paid the ticket ka paisa now spare me and my idiot box!
Akshay kumar’s learnt that lesson too. So i have my bags packed for a trip to china thru chandni chowk . so long then !