Puli varunne Puli varunne!!!

If at all there was a possibility that I was not a firm believer in Murphy's  law ,even the possibility of the existence of such a possibility has been thrown out of the window due to one of my recent experience with THE LAW

The GD that was part of TRW(that would be technical report writing..)was looming.This is how the GD  works.The whole class was divided into groups.Every Friday morning we have the tutorials during which  the GD would be held.Although I have no illusions about my capability at public speaking,I don’t consider myself a mug either .So logically I was not apprehensive about my chances at the GD.In fact  I was even  bullish about my prospects.

 For people like me who don’t believe in attending classes or sleeping before 4,waking up and dragging yourself for a 8 am class is like mission impossible.Anyways  what allows me to do a la Ethan hunt are responsible neighbours,a highly efficient and responsible group leader and above all the greatest invention mankind has ever known:the  snooze button .You see what the snooze button does is that it gives you more options.Where the decision making process was binary ,what snooze button has done is that it has introduced third option:a delay option.Its like an obedient servant who comes and says

” Monsieur ,you probably would want to wake up”

 “GET LOST”

 “Shall I call you after 5 minutes”

 “Yeah that would be perfect ..now piss off“.

Anyways every Thursday night(or Friday morning,effectively) ,there is great deal of pressure to wake up .Hence its  infuriating   when Ma’ m would say “Today its XXX groups turn”(we are( XXX)’ i.e anything but XXX).The whole exercise got to the point where waking up at 7 30 on Friday was like cake walk to me,(  but hey  waking up at 11 is still not !!!).....

(couple of weeks later...)

“Hey, our GD is on 3^rd April”...perfect!!! no more pressure cooker Fridays

(couple of days later)

.The beauty of a ‘morning nap’ is that you dream a lot with the awareness that you are dreaming!!Well a ‘morning nap’ is not like oversleeping .Its when you wake up early enough,and again  go to sleep at around 10,basically that part of morning which is bordering into the disputed territories of afternoon(in BITS  it is disputed)) So here I was, enjoying my ‘palliurakkam’ in MoA(Morning occupied Afternoon! Any resemblance with MoU is regretted).I felt a vibration in my stomach,and the thing with dream is that whatever happens in real time would somehow be a part of the dream,I would not be explaining how the vibrations of the phone manifested in my dreams J.Finally I picked it up,”Dude..your GD is happening..come fast” Three letters came out of my mouth:WTF.It was not a Friday and we had our GD fixed on 3^rd...then what kind of ma***tharam   is this???I put on a shirt and ran to the class,a customary glance at the cell showed”3 missed calls 2 messages”..shit!!! All the messages had the word GD and lot of exclamations!!!

 I reached the class .

One of the friends said “The topic is Success versus satisfaction” “how much time have I got before it starts” 

“Dude ,the chair at the extreme end is yours”.Yeah the GD had started and the chairs were put in the customary circular manner.

....“So Joe is absent.huh?”

“No ma’m “

..........................

“Try not to become a man of success ..but become a man of value..this was said by Albert Einstein”...people were  literally turning it on,some were even giving long speeches ...and  my mind was completely blank and it was my turn to speak...I just said something of which I had absolutely no clue of ,I was desperately hoping that the timekeeper would come up with those magic words”TIME UP”....because of the lack of content and because of inability to blabber on ..my show came to an abrupt end.

When my second turn came I had already decided that I would blindly oppose whatever the other person said..........”and therefore  I believe that there should not be any long term plan.”Dachshund** had finally came to a stop ...It  was my turn to speak next,and  the following were my opening lines:

“I think what dachshund just said was something close to absolute rubbish!”take that for courtesy..At the back of my mind I knew that you cannot use phrases like “I disagree” and what did I come up with!!....wasn’t that a masterstroke?

 

My only hope was that I had mumbled something and people didn’t actually hear it.Out went even the faintest glimmer of that hope when the I heard one of my group members giggling,that was followed by  the entire class doing Oohs and aahs!!

One of those occasions where you dearly wished you could take back those words....but the thing with words is that once it’s out there...there is very little one can do about it...!The worst thing:I didn’t even hear the words of the guy whose ideas I was supposedly refuting vehemently.

After the GD was over Ma’m was giving her comments..I knew what was coming  .......

“ You would never be successful in a GD...you have an attitude problem”

I nodded in agreement  ...

Let me just illustrate how Murphy's law was in play here

1.The GD which was supposed to be held on April 3^rd was held on a random date

2.Of all the days , I had to sleep at 11 o’ clock on that very day

3 My phone is rarely in silent mode.That day it was.

4 .It could have been anyone else’ GD ..

5.Normally I have to repeat whatever I say  because  I have this habit of mumbling  when I speak...but whatever I said that day was crystal clear

On the lighter side I was about to say “..absolute bullshit”..but maybe not everything  would not go totally wrong!!

**Names have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals involved.

 

Anathema

81^st  annual academy awards generated unprecedented interest in India .The reason :Slumdog millionaire ,a movie which had something to do with India ,had a more than realistic chance in   almost every category ,and boy didn’t they pull off something close to a cleansweep.However  on analyzing my  thought process ,I found the conclusion  a bit disturbing.

First thing,how ‘Indian’ was Slumdog?almost the entire crew if  you exclude the music director were british.

The actors ?yes..but then it would not have made much sense to have a movie based on India having some caucasian actors in the lead.So what was all the excitement about when the movie got  best director, best movie ,best adaptation awards..... Certainly it was not a landmark Indian movie  and it certainly wasn’t  the movie that would make me stand up and sing vande mataram .The worst thing is that it would even make the foreign  tourists a bit circumspect when they think about coming here.

SO what was all the ‘funda’ about ?was it the fact that a movie which had something to do with India was being recognised at the global level.For christ’s sake we are not some gautamala or somalia.We dont need to take solace from the fact that someone is taking note of us or from the fact that the ‘world’ is recognising us.What could be  the frigging logic behind all this tamasha?That the image  of a versatile India  with its tough and adapatable  population  are finally bought by the ‘world’.Let me just ask the  :the world who?US population..  .Maybe the fact that we India as a nation command more respect at the international level hasnt really sunk in.The only image I thought the movie conveyed was that of a nation which was a functioning anarchy! Not entirely baseless, however what is entirely incomprehendible is the cheering that it received  from us.The media no doubt has played a very important role,sometimes thats what media does..it does the judgement part for you and forms the opinion for you too.

The movie ?personally i felt the movie wasn’t  anything  to rave about,if for a moment  , you are able to forget the tremendous cinematography and some of those striking images presented to us in the first half.That, along with some tremendous soundtrack was what made the movie tick at the box office and what I thought was the  fine line of difference between a bollywood masala and a visually engrossing and ultimately a  highly successful movie.If you had watched the second half of the movie in isolation,you would not be blamed  for thinking it was a B class bollywood movie with relatively unknown actors. The railways station scenes where the girl is kidnapped,...’ breathtakingly fresh idea’ of two brothers .. one being  a local don ..and the protagonist becoming an innocent smart person....does it ring any bells?

Hypothetically,assume that the movie wasn’t directed by  danny boyle ,the director of severally critically acclaimed movies like ‘trainspotting’  and instead had a good Indian director at the helm.Would it have been this successful globally? Would it have caught international attention in the first place and would it have been able to generate the sort of unprecedented hype it managed to ,even months before the official release despite having  no major stars? My guess:most probably not!

In an industry saturated with teen flick ,pointless action drama and techie movies slumdog turned out to be a wisp of fresh air.A lot of movies has been done by Indians  on its slums ,however most of them had a tinge of melancholy to it....this one took us along the fun ride. To the aforementioned audience it was something new, a celebration of human life  ,helped them to appreciate human life...blah blah blah.....To us Indians it was a a celebration of ‘Indianness’ .At least thats what the media made us to believe with headline like “ITS JAI HO AT GLODEN GLOBES” and beaming images of Anil kapoor.Correct if I am wrong :anil kappor didn’t win anything.So wasn’t it obvious that the media was doing everything it could do to strike some kind of emotional chord with the Indian audience. Fortunately there was no official pat on the back  from the bureaucracy ???.

And lastly ,I found it most disturbing when i became aware of the fact that it took us , the supposed recognition of the ‘entire world’ to appreciate the genius of A R Rehman.The fact sunk in when I saw that almost all the dance performances in our cultural festival ‘tried to pay a tribute to Rehman’ .Hello !!what were you guys waiting for ?a green signal from the academy?.People should have some kind of judgement,should be able to think for themselves.Honestly I  wouldn’t be able to live with the fact that some channel or some movie review site is forming my opinions.

Finally I thought it would have been fitting if Jamal had missed the last question    ... he only gets  what he values the most ,maybe it was too happy an ending   J