Mov(i)e on, Move(i) on

I am not a big fan of movies. I just watch them, when there is nothing better to do or turn on the TV when I need some background music while completing my journals. Barring a few movies I really hate the stuff people put on big screen and tell it's a super hit. This is a time of recession (or so I am being told, I swear I have never seen one gold shop empty since past two years) then where do they get the money to pay more than a 10 million to the actors. Or rather people who say they are actors. Again I don’t believe all the actors can act only a very few really do know their job and they are never given more credit than the super-star thespians.

What I actually wanted to say is I was totally surprised to find pathetic movies being shot and shown on TV within 3 weeks of their release in theatre (read Kites, Raavan). Due to my schedule, I get time to watch movies only two weeks after their release as I have to time my studies and the good reviews from my friends and then only I drag myself to the nearest multiplex. Needless to say, I have not watched a movie since 3 idiots was released.

I was really disappointed by the lack of ideas and imagination in the top producers and writers. Are they really going to think we will believe all the crap they stuff down our throats? I can’t blame the actors for acting without reading the script, because they are in so desperate need of money to oil their Ferraris with the fuel hike. Though why would anyone act with Himesh is beyond me. But seriously, even the songs are not original and the majority hit songs in the past month are remixes from older songs. While it is good to immortalize the old songs by adding some English tracks and strip tease, it's also important to produce songs which will be immortalized in future by doing god knows what. Use your imagination. Or don’t.

So I now take this opportunity to thank the film industry for making me a social leper by not allowing me to go to watch movies with my friends and also making me save money by not spending it in multiplexes over popcorn and sodas, thus making me more lean and healthy these days. Hence I get more lines and ‘come-over-here’ stares whenever I go out and really pathetic wannabe Indian idols singing out the remix versions when I am out of mind trying to figure out how much to tip the waiter in coffee shop (as it involves math, not one of my strong points). Thank you so much. I am really indebted to you.

Famous or Not?

Yet another day has gone by, and my effort to stir an interest in concerning about recycling was met with blank stares. Again. Looks like my friend was true, really hardly anyone cares about it. Oh well.

Having a sleepless week due to exams and the increasing hostility from others towards my actions (including my own family) had really put me in a foul mood. And above that I had to visit a patient in a hospital, because even though hospitals depresses me, she needed my motivation and cheering up spirit, so how can I say no, and who would I run across there? But, of course, a famous celebrity who receives such a preferential treatment above all, it really irks me to the core. I wouldn’t mind if they would do more for our world than just gaining publicity, but then no one wants to meet the fate like Aamir did aka Narmada fiasco (though I know and believe there is no such thing as bad publicity)

Yeah, I know what you all will say, that I am envious of them being famous. And I will reply that it's partly true, I am envious of the position they are in, the power they have and the effect they can have and can create with a single statement. I sincerely wish I could have that power (but I doubt my family will listen to my naggings even then, but whatever). All of the celebs are not same I know; I even talk to a few of them regularly when we bump into each other, but it's not like I am in their groupie or anything like that. I am included under the Hello, how are you and end of story, move on group. Next second they won’t remember who I was until I run into them again probably in the same place (hospital) because the ghajini effect is more common than you think.

However, when I was brooding over this, I happened to come across some people whom I met during my hospital admission those whom I knew well, which included doctors, nurses, some patients, security and even the cleaning staff. Except maybe the doctors and a few nurses, I never expected anyone to remember me (also I look totally different as I have lost 65+ kilos since I was admitted). But I was very, very much surprised when everyone called me to meet them and talk to them.

To a doctor, a patient is just a bed number. It's totally true; I have seen it with my own eyes. Any doctor in a major hospital will vouch for it. But for me, even the doctors who used to visit my neighbor’s bed knew me by my name even though we hadn’t met since a long time called me up today and asked if I still hadn’t given up my concern for the disposal of bio-medical waste (no I haven’t). The other resident doctors, nurses, security also called me up and chatted with me. Some other people’s relatives also came up and talked to me, saying they were really thankful to me for giving THEM courage during their trying times, even though I was the one who was in the hospital bed and I would probably need encouraging, not the other way round. I was totally touched. I really never expected anyone to remember me, or say thank you for what I may have done by my force of habit and nature.

Today, summoning up some courage I asked them all, how come they remembered me till now? I am not a celebrity, how come they know me and my words I spoke over a year ago? Their answers were so surprising I couldn’t believe it.

In the words of them all I have summed it up, and here is the reason: “you were in hospital, seriously ill. A normal person in your place would rather lose hope and count the minutes until they die, but you never lost hope. You used to argue and wittingly win the debate with us on all topics and even challenge our theories and opinions (general topics, as I do not know anything about the medical surgery topics). You regularly read the newspapers with your morning breakfast and kept abreast of the latest happenings and solved the Su-Do-Ku and crosswords religiously and kept the quotes in papers neatly tucked under your pillow. You swallowed books by the dozens and even marked any errors or words you didn’t know and said you will look up the dictionary once anyone brings you one. You never forgot to love your life and live it fully and when you got the chance (while I was in general ward) you used to give hope and talk to all other people who needed hope. There is no way we can ever forget you.”

Because I know how perfectly heinous it feels when everyone ignores you, it's my habit to encourage people a lot and talk to them if they need my help. For topics you need ice-breakers like the latest happenings, and I just love for some reason finding new words and errors in a book and making a neat file for quotes and proverbs. I never realized, people actually noticed it and thought it was unusual. I always felt that people thought I am retarded for being so anxious about what is happening in the world even though I was in hospital. Why would a patient care about anything else, except getting better? I simply knew I would get better and hence concentrated on bigger topics like endangered species and disposal of medical waste.

Which just contradicts my previous thinking; people do know me and I can help and influence many people. Maybe people know me not for the reason other popular faces are famous for, but maybe for something entirely else. And maybe, people do get influenced by what I say, but not for what I am concerned and nag people to do it, but for something far more important than that. I guess I am not as un-famous as I thought I was.

Welcome to La-La Land!

Tweet, tweet, Dummy!

Yeah, more than two years since my last post, been keeping busy a lot. A long story, which I may reveal in my updates. (Yeah sorry for the people who were in touch with me during this time, because the stories won’t match. As I firmly believe, you never stop learning. Good times give you photos, bad times gives you blogs)

So what’s going on since the past two years of my sabbatical? A lot. Forget the past, what is the latest? Blackberry ban I hear? For what? There is no need for me to tell you. You can Google it. Where did I hear about it? Oh, let me tell you from a LOT of places. But you want top news? Go to Google or twitter. You will get the news and the reaction.

Unlike most people I am there on twitter but rarely tweet. My friend hooked me on to it recently and for a month maybe I tweeted, uploaded pics and what not. It took me around seven minutes to figure out how it worked as I was not there a regular. And it took me seven days to get bored of it. It fascinated me seeing the celebrities having followers and the non celebrities even having more followers. People begging to follow you and tweeting just for the heck of it, and that a lot of heck let me tell you. Websites dedicated to get more followers or who un-followed you. (This is such a big thing, un-following I mean, on twitter it makes me rofl) If I talk to myself I will be termed as a schizophrenic but if I tweet and I don’t get any replies, no one even blinks an eye. It just means my tweet wasn’t “twitterific” enough to catch interest or I didn’t use # before a keyword and hence didn’t show up in the search result.

I tweeted (ok chatted) with a lot (ok maybe a couple, I am bad at math) of random people, met a few nice peeps too. But I feel weird talking to them. Especially on an open internet portal. I am a very, very private person (just over 500 tweets I think and I did not celebrate like the people on twitter do by dedicating to celebs or someone else. My feeling is every tweet I make is and should be a celebration.) Just the thought that everyone will know what I am talking and thinking about gave me sleepless nights. I do not want everyone to know how much of a chocolate addict I am (yes I am declaring it officially now) only just to my friends, and if they are my friends they know it already. Big deal.

Let me clear out, I am not talking about blogging, I am talking about tweeting. Because this is strictly my view as I want to put it out and when I want to put it out. Also how and what I want people to read. (I have no need to mention the word why, if you have ended up reading this, you already know the answer)

People love letting others know what they are doing, and if you are in love with your fav celeb and he/she is a regular tweeter on twitter, it feels like you are basically living in with them (yes, people tweet when and how they are having sex too. Um, TMI much?) I just yawned and moved on. I am not famous yet and I don’t need the publicity by tweeting, so I have kept my account on a backburner.

What I wanted to point out so far, is not my lack of interest in twitter or my scorn of celebs, but the way how pathetically we as humans are lacking real company and real conversations with in-depth analysis on each topic. It's clearly a minority in the tweet world. As a human nature observer, I really feel sad for our times. Is this what we are going to tell our grandchildren when they what we did when we were their age, that we sat glued to our seats or nose in our cells tweeting what and where we were, but forgetting to actually notice it or to enjoy it?

Very few people use it constructively. An average celebrity has more than 20,000 followers in the lowest denominator (even the non-celebs and which are famous for knowing a famous person is included) All they tweet is what they are doing or giving advice or quoting quotes, which a real enthusiast may have already read it. But what about the Greenpeace foundation? How many followers they have? Less than Sachin I can bet without even looking it up. And I really doubt Sachin knows about Greenpeace even though he did that tiger ad. (he may know, but he might have forgotten about it as he is busy doing other ads) I really wish, people, especially celebs would tweet more or be concerned more about global warming and endangered species saving program. They should use their celebrity status and portal to encourage people to be concerned about it and try to rescue our fragile planet (yes even though the ads have stopped, the tigers are STILL endangered)

But then again after re-reading my post, I feel I am fighting a losing battle, as just the other day my friend and I were having an argument on a similar thing and as he very wisely pointed out, “no one cares about Greenpeace as you do because everyone thinks how to make someone fall in love with you or worrying why hasn’t my friend called me yet is more important than worrying about my carbon footprint because anyway everyone will be dead after next 40 years (thanks to the alcohol and drug abuse) so who wants to care about what will happen if we won’t act now?”

Or in more modern lingo or tweeting capacity, everyone would just tell me, DILLIGAF (look it up)

Personality

http://www.41q.com/type.41q?p=23674546

Reel Reality

You think Indian Idol is the worst you can get close to reality? Think again. I thought I had finally had enough of singing competition with its last season. But no, the “audition bus” is apparently doing rounds all over India. They chose the contestants and bring them on stage and make them cry and laugh and give them laurels and then what? Nothing, season over, you are old news. NEXT! Why do people like to vote to see people grovel on screen is completely beyond me. But I guess it gives them a feeling of self importance to see they have the POWER over people. Like the president or something. Oh such a great reality!!!

Not only that we are supposed to have mini versions of it too. I thought one hit season was enough and it will be all I see of it. Hmm… well, I was wrong again (so what else is new?) let me count, chotte ustad, lil champs, (frankly whats the difference except for the channel and the insanity level of the viewers) and now I hear there is another stupid show (don’t ask me the name, I beg you) which is building a competition (don’t ask me which) between gav ke bacche and sheher ke bacche. What the… ? if this doesnt promote cultural differences then what will?? We do protests for having reservations in medical quota and we do world wide campaign over this thing. Wow. Amazing dude!! Whatta a show. By the way does the president know about this thing? I mean the First Lady! (I think not… Bing Bing Bing… we have a winner)

Hmmm and don’t lemme start on the dance shows. Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! There are so many of them. I cant even count them. Hello. Like who cares to see celebs dancing, singing, waving, groveling and screaming for votes. Like they aren’t popular enough already! And do they have a need for it? I mean really? Don’t they have enough to get along with already. Like having a boob job done or a brain transplant. (I am wrong again, no they don’t care)

One last line. You wanna see reality TV? Watch me barf when I turn on one of the show and take a close up of it. You cannot get closer than this to “reality TV” I can bet you!

Say no to Suicide.

It’s really bad enough to hear SSC and HSC and now even a TYBA student committing suicide, but when I read that an FYJC student attempted to commit suicide, I really felt I should share my experience.

I wanted to become a doctor as every good scorer in SSC would wish to be. Only it was my life long dream, ever since I was small. I used to play doctor doctor with my friends and family. But as luck would have it, I couldn’t get admission in college and I missed by very few ranks. A “normal” student would have committed suicide, but me being the abnormal one went on for BSC with a grin on my face. I gave intermediate exam to see if I am good enough to go for fashion designing, but even that didn’t turn out. Along with BSC I was doing an animation course which was lovely and I had to take a break because of my last year in BSC. Even this career option is open for me.

I am in TYBSC right now, and many of you may not know, but our university exams are going on. Right a week before my exams (practical) commenced I had a viral attack and was admitted to hospital. For 22 days. Needless to say I missed my exams. And now I am supposed to give them in October. I had also given MBA CET entrance, just like that, because I wanted to pursue it next year so I thought lets get a feel of the exam. I got 85 percentile. What’s the use of it? I am not a graduate I won’t be able to get admission in a college. What did I do when in the hospital I realized that I won’t be able to give exams? Nick out medicines which were administered to me and take an overdose of it? Wish every second, with every injection and with every tube they poked inside me that I would die? No of course not!!! Infact I am glad of not being a doctor. Because (not being personal) if I were a doctor, I would not like the bad words thrown at me by the patient in his/her mind. I am better off not being a doctor. I would have never been able to take the stress.

Of course all these suicides are a result of lack of communication with family, the extreme pressure of high standards in society. I think it’s high time that a change is made in the education system which gives prime importance to every field and not just selected fields. Career counseling and psychiatric help is a must to every student. And against contrary belief, that only mad people go, you should go to a shrink, if you think you need to talk to someone who understands. Parents should encourage too.

In the end I would like to say that I had so many missed attempts yet I didn’t give up. And I wont. Ever. Failure is not the word for me. Failure is for those who give up when they fall down. And I got up. You have got to get up after every time you fall down. That is true success and achievement in your life.

Mumbai's cool side!

We have all heard about the woes, of traveling trains, during peak hours. But traveling in trains in off peak hours that is early in the morning is just as interesting, thanks to our exam timings we get to see, the early morning side of Mumbai locals!!

First of all it takes some getting used to the empty compartments from Borivli itself where I live! During peak hours its really impossible to get a good place to stand without being trampled upon by the Andheri getting-down crowd if you are 10 seconds late! But during the early morning, its quite a surprise to get the most sought after seat beside the window even though you are half a minute late! Even the book sellers are up early, and you get to glance through the books. And even the newspaper vendors are not shouting on top of their voices and you can get yourself to hear for once if you want to buy a newspaper.

The even more amazing part is the people you get to see. The ladies which are in their grumpiest mood and ready to lash out during peak hours will willingly give you a small smile when you come in. even though the rainy season is not here yet, the heavy rains make the seats quite wet as no one is there to shut the windows early in the morning when the rains pour down. The ladies have willingly given their umbrellas to wipe off the water off the seats, to us college students, when they crowd frowning at the wet seat because they cant sit and study a bit during the journey, assuring us it was fine and they would dry their umbrellas when they get off in the office. Sometimes I have even seen, inspite of myself, ladies doing yoga and pranayam sitting in their seats with their legs folded!(I swear I am not kidding) Which without my mentioning is quite fascinating to watch and wonder that people in Mumbai find time to stay fit no matter what!

Also its real fun to sit down the whole journey till Vile Parle as hardly anyone gets in at Andheri. And instead of getting pushed out unceremoniously of the compartment, people usually allow to get you first and wait for a bit while you pass through!

Mumbai locals are real fun just as Mumbai is! And I am really thankful to my exams for allowing me to see such a beautiful side of Mumbai trains!