Getting Old at 24

To some people, the age of 24 years might seem as far away from being termed old as it could possibly be. But getting old is more of a mental state of being than a physical one. You could still be able to walk miles at a stretch and not feel tired, but even as you walk, the past and future haunt you even as the present seems uncertain. 

And not so long ago, I found the whole concept of a Mid-life crisis a bit vague and out of place.

I guess I am beginning to enter that age when nothing on Facebook seems interesting anymore. My friends keep requesting me to get out there and solve some criminal cases, perhaps play some Poker, but I guess I am too old for games now...maybe in a few months my Facebook Timeline will look like that of all the other "old people" who maintain Facebook pages for God knows what reason!

Instead, all I ever seem to want on a weekend is a good book to read and a nice, peaceful nap that goes on and on.

It doesn't hit you like a brickbat, mind you. It creeps up onto you and before you realize  you are introduced as "uncle" to small kids, and addressed similarly by certain ladies with a distorted sense of the passage of time.

It occurs around the time you file your first Income Tax Return. Your family starts taking you seriously and your advice on financial and social matters is eagerly sought and duly noted, instead of being brushed off as immature as should have been the rule before having filed said return.

Money matters take the first hit. Unlike earlier, when money would have at best been associated with a smartphone or laptop budget, you start contemplating your investment portfolio and devising tax-saving schemes to save some hard-earned money from ending up in government coffers.

Then come fairly small, almost unnoticeable things. One day you miss an eagerly awaited cricket match due to work, and the next thing you know, you have lost all interest in such childish pursuits. I do not even remember the last time I watched a cricket match on Television or even cared to turn to the Sports page at the end of the newspaper.

It is the time when you contemplate life-altering decisions while walking to office eating an apple, standing in the shower, waiting for your Burger at Mc Donald’s (on second thoughts, they have a pretty decent service and plenty of distractions (:P) around so let us count that out). You no longer care about the stares from the onlookers while you stare straight ahead of you deep in thought like a perpetual visionary.

Well, to be fair, I have always been a bit out of place for my age group. My idea of "Aaj Kuch Toofani karte hain" (Let's do something rash today!) still involves reaching the Bus Stop 5 minutes earlier instead of the standard waiting time of 15 minutes. Minus all the Harry Potter, Disney and Batman movies, I am a pretty intense character.

It is just that for the first time in my life I am missing the innocence of my childhood. Back then, life was pretty simple, you do your homework on time, watch Disney Hour, write your exams, and play for 1 hour in the evening.

But now, there are such a large number of variables involved in my life, I can’t comprehend the order of the differential equation that shall solve my woes! And all this when the most potent complexity (or so I have been told), the Female conundrum is yet to hit me!

I hope that this complex, uncertain phase ends as quickly as it began. But for now, it seems like a particularly long wait!

The Star Wars Conundrum

The Star Wars movie series is widely believed to be one of the greatest movie franchises ever created. So, when in my Third year of Engineering I finally decided to give it a shot, I was faced with a rather awkward question: Where do I start from?

For the uninitiated, George Lucas, the creative “Force” behind the Star Wars released the movies in two installments of three movies each over a period of 2 decades, with the last three movies serving as a prelude to the once released in the mid-80s.

The films in chronological order of their respective releases are:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope                                       May 25, 1977

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back                     May 21, 1980

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi                               May 25, 1983

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace                           May 19, 1999

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones                            May 16, 2002

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith                             May 19, 2005

So, for someone beginning a decade too late, this question becomes a bit difficult to answer.

The people who watched the movies in their intended order, who should now be in their mid-thirties are obviously biased towards the 80s movies that they grew up around. Though low on the technology front by today’s standards, the old Star Wars movies must have been visual marvels in their time.

But for all of their originality, these movies had a very simplistic and predictable narrative, out of tune with the complex, multi-dimensional stories of movies like Inception and The Dark Knight.

The relatively younger crowd, of which I am a part as well, that saw the last three movies released in the 21^st century first and watched the so-called “sequels” only out of curiousity, we are obviously enamoured by the superior use of technology and better, more complex narrative in the recent movies, which are almost unanimously panned by the older generation.

Having made my preference towards the recent movies clear, I shall give you an example that will help you in your choice for the sequence of Star Wars movies you wish to see.

For doing that, I shall make an assumption. That you have already seen another one of the greatest movie franchises of all time: the Harry Potter series. The next assumption is that you liked them and are a crazy fan like me.

Now, suppose, after 10-15 years, Warner Brothers comes out with a movie franchise that traces the childhood and life of Tom Riddle until the time he turns into Lord Voldemort. The movies, with the strength of hindsight and superior technology, shall obviously boast of a stellar, more intelligent and complex narrative and a visual extravaganza.

Now, for people like us, who have already been witness to Lord Voldemort’s cruelty and have had our childhoods and adolescence years filled with happy memories of Harry Potter’s adventures, many of us might still prefer the original Harry Potter series, and shall obviously recommend them to be seen first to a beginner.

But would it not still be awesome for the stranger to find out for himself how a seemingly innocent kid first discovers magic and then turns into a fearsome Dark Lord, before moving on to, out of curiousity of course, what happens next, when a similar kid endeavours to bring him down.

Now, you have to choose, what you would rather see first in such a circumstance and apply the same logic to Star Wars. Believe it or not, you will find the analogy strangely similar.

A word of caution: The Star Wars movie series is going to blow your mind, whichever way you watch it!

Vishwa-BAN-am

Okay, so I will come out clean right at the beginning. I have seen only three Kamal Haasan movies in my life-Chachi 420, Hey Ram and Hindustani. I did like them at the time, but not the way I like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars now. This clarification was made to serve 2 purposes. One, I am not a raving Kamal Haasan fan who shall stand by him come what may. Second, that I admit I am not a movie expert (those self-professed experts who tell you which movie to see based on a highly complex and mysterious mathematical function).

So, this afternoon, just as I was going through the news, the reporter told that a PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court complaining about the recent Kamal Haasan movie Vishwaroopam hurting Christian feelings.

And I realized, this ought to be one of the biggest moments for Indian Cinema!

For, believe it or not, Kamal Haasan has accomplished the rare feat of making an out and out action movie that has managed to somehow hurt religious feelings of the two religions (which are generally seen at each others’ throats) that make roughly 55% of world population.

Personally, being a Hindu I feel a bit left out of the party. Let us hope that some enlightened Hindu organisation is able to find some flaw that ought to hurt my feelings. Then, that would make us a truly united and secular country. Isn’t that what reverse engineering is all about? If you can’t get secular by agreeing to each other, you find a way of agreeing to disagree with somebody else.

The most incredible thing about this episode is that the said film is not even a Historical drama (say about Shivaji and the Mughals), or about Christian missionaries, or about the many religious riots that have taken place in our country where there is ample scope of distorting or presenting an alternative view of history that may inevitably hurt someone.

No, nobody in this country is stupid enough to make a movie like that. That is why, unlike Hollywood which idolises history, both the good like Lincoln or the bad like the Holocaust, Indian children do not learn about their history from racy historical dramas; they learn how to flaunt their disturbing attitude from B-grade movies like Dabangg and Ready that end up getting 4 star reviews and a multitude of awards, while their imagination is ably restricted by katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor instead of effective Story telling, High quality animation or Science fiction.

No, because if somebody makes a movie about Akbar, Ashoka, or Mangal Pandey, we ought to step in and offer our expertise to right the wrong that has been done. Can’t Indians just sit quietly in their homes and not fret about what the neighbour or his distant relative might end up thinking when the movie portrays an opinion not shared by us? No, we ought to ban the stuff, coz we are an illiterate, aimless people that might end up in a theatre paying for a movie that we might not like. Or perhaps we didn’t like a movie and that’s why we wish to ensure we do not end up watching said movie again.

My point is, why keep up this hideous mask of secular, democratic, free thinking nation? With this attitude, does our country ought not to be compared to a state like Pakistan. At least they are so used to their negative portrayal throughout the world that they have stopped complaining. Did we hear people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, heck even the Taliban complaining about this movie? Afterall, from the trailers, it seems they are the guys being shot around in the movie.

My advice to Mr. Haasan is: By all means, go and live a better life in a First World country. If you are a good filmmaker, you will become incredibly famous, perhaps may even get a real Oscar. If not, there’s always the possibility of flinging a hundred bad guys (don’t mention their religion please) in the air single-handedly back in India. We seem to be kind of into that stuff. That doesn’t seem to hurt our sensibilities.

Sense amidst outrage

Over the past few days, the nation erupted in anger over the heinous crime committed in the national capital by a couple of goons on an unfortunate girl. I call her unfortunate because it could have been anyone. With such madmen prowling our streets a disaster was only waiting to happen.


Until now, I tried to keep away from writing about this particular incident. I didn’t want to express my views about this incident because writing about social issues generally ends up being rhetoric. I am neither an elitist nor an activist who would cry hoarse just in order to be heard. I do not like to preach because I know that the people who will be at the receiving end  are already quite harmless, those who are so inclined won’t take much out of it anyways, and those who need it, don’t have access to a platform like internet. Do you really feel that someone like that bus driver could be talked in some sense by anybody? But with the constant media bombardment, I just can’t get the thought of the girl out of my mind.



I won’t RIP her, to show others that I subscribe to her cause or perhaps satisfy my conscience. There was nothing peaceful about her death. There is no point in me lying to myself. I won’t hang my head in shame, because I didn’t do any wrong. I know that I am different from those men, and that knowledge is more comforting than the feeling of shame over what others of my gender end up doing.



To be honest, I do not believe anyone could have imagined the outrage that spontaneously erupted. Perhaps it was the brutality of the crime or the symbolism of it happening to a well-educated girl in the National Capital. However, I do not believe that such an outrage would have been seen if an incident like this happened anywhere else in the country, perhaps a remote town or village.


People, including many celebrities posted on Facebook, Twitter and various blogs demanded how the culprits should be stoned to death, hanged publicly, burnt to death etc. I do not believe in stooping to their level of barbarism for some sense of closure; That’s not punishment, that’s revenge. However, I do hope that these criminals at best get the death sentence and at worst imprisonment for life, so that such bestiality is never allowed to happen on our streets anymore.


That said, I am uncertain what we are taking back from this incident as a society. I am pretty sure that the thousands who gathered at Delhi and faced water cannons and Lathis have been, if they weren’t already, have been sensitised about the trauma that a man’s apparent urge for domination turns out to be for the affected girl. But what of the policemen and lawmakers who come to work with their own set prejudices, who will educate them?


And something, I am still critical of is the sensitisation of the sections of society living in remote closed-off areas or marginalised neighbourhoods of our metros who still find some fault with the girl in this entire episode. When this public enters our liberated cities, they bring with themselves their prejudices and distorted opinions of male supremacy and female subjugation. How, do we educate this class? We cannot wish them away. Perhaps the only possible way is to bring them at par with ourselves, and that is only possible with nationwide women empowerment.


Until these issues get resolved, we can only hope that stronger laws and our collective awakening are able to ward off such incidents in the future.

Mythical Movie Blunders

All right, this post comprises a small yet heavily detailed account of the typical Mythical/Fantasy/Epic Movie stereotypes. So, without much ado, read on.

Wait, in this post for the purpose of convenience, The Supreme Hero (Singular main Goody-Good Guy) shall henceforth be called as, well the Supreme Hero, and The Supreme Villain (The Big Daddy of all bad guys on Earth) shall be referred to as Supreme Villain.

• There is a SEC (Supreme Evil Creature) that has its jurisdiction in a varying number of nearby lands that lives in absolute darkness and in caves with deep chasms and very narrow and weak wooden/stone bridges with insufficient supporting and weak structural integrity connecting the ends that some architect gets built (yes, a man with an ability to design and build staircases and wooden/stone bridges in such difficult terrain gets out of the safety of the city in search of challenging architecture in such far-off and otherwise impenetrable lands and of course supposedly no monetary compensation in return for the said construction) for brave warriors in case they come to vanquish the said creature.

• However, as this author later researched, it is also possible that such construction is actually accomplished by the SEC itself in its free time in order to ease the accessibility for such BWs (Brave Warriors) to reach it at which time the said creature will show its might by destroying such bridges and gobbling up the warriors if they are unable to vanquish it.

• It just so happens that such caverns are strategically situated such that they become shortcuts to the destination that our warriors seek, and that the warriors have just enough time (poor project management on their part) that they absolutely cannot take the longer yet safer path, for any delay will result in end of the world.

• There are also times when the SEC in utter futility and lack of foresight, captures and imprisons the fairest and most beautiful maiden of the lands in the tallest tower of its custom-built abode. On further deep thought, the author realised that said fair maiden may have been captured as insurance for the time when the evil dark creature (previously referred to as SEC) gets old and unable to hunt on its own, to relish a last "hearty" meal; since being of different species and vastly differing physical attributes, starting a family with the said fair maiden does not seem practical. Also, as a result of her unique predicament, the said fair maiden gets an alternative terminology, that of DID (Damsel in Distress).

• It just so happens that the group of BWs (Brave Warriors) in question end up defeating or otherwise killing the dark creature (also called SEC) which had otherwise been so indomitable in the past that no other living soul entered the creature’s abode and lived to tell the tale.

• The structural stability of the entire cavern inhabited by the SEC is such that just when the said creature is slayed, rocks and boulders begin to fall from the roof, and the cavern that had otherwise been standing for a thousand years gets destroyed. Now, that’s called Extreme Engineering.

• Our BWs (Brave Warriors) time their exit from the said cavern such that just when they all come out of the said structure safely, it collapses into a great valley, with the hero doing the honors of pulling up one of his companions from near certain death.

• During battle with a large army (with the hostile army counting at least 3 to 1 to that of the Supreme Hero’s), the Supreme Hero seems to repel all the arrows aimed at him or in his general direction by the enemy archers, keeping his face and general body posture such that all the arrows miss his body by mere millimeters. However, that is not the case with the unfortunate enemy foot soldiers who mistakenly come within his near infinite range for our Supreme Hero, being one of the best warriors since the Dawn Of  History in the use of a sword, a bow and arrow or just plain hand to hand combat,  has an excellent aim and just a single arrow is almost always sufficient in killing his target.

• It is worth mentioning that our Supreme Warrior (previously referred to as Supreme Hero) has incredible stamina, since he just defeated most of the army/minions/cronies of the said Supreme Villain before beginning the ultimate battle between Good and Evil, and even though the Supreme Villain is a great sorcerer with enormous power, and near-infinite knowledge, he almost certainly ends up getting killed by the Supreme Hero.

• On at least one occasion, there comes a time when the Supreme Hero has to choose between saving the DID (Damsel In Distress) who also happens to be the love of his life, and saving the world from destruction and utter chaos; and our supreme hero, in all the stupidity befitting well, a Supreme Hero, chooses to save the damsel. But almost always, things work out fine and the world is saved by some fluke incident.

• There almost always is a SS (Special/Supreme Sword) with the unique distinction of being one of its kind (for when it was being forged by a special heat treatment process which was way too advanced for its time, the metallurgist decided to make just a single piece, not accounting for the off chance the sword might fall off into one of the hundreds of valleys frequented by our Supreme Hero, or just go missing out of sheer negligence on his part). It also so happens that the said sword can never be built again and you have to search through the entire world for where the last Supreme Hero left it after leaving weird instructions to locate it which are difficult to comprehend for an ordinary mind. Anyways, so this sword is the only one that can vanquish the great evil plaguing the lands and like always is the case, the metallurgy of the sword and the legend behind it proves just right, for when the Supreme Hero confronts the great evil with said sword he always succeeds in vanquishing the evil using this sword.

• And finally, there is the case of the Supreme Hero and the Supreme Villain who come prepared having memorised well-crafted speeches that they recite to each other during their pre- and post-battle verbal jostle. There almost always comes a time during the course of the battle when it seems that the villain has gotten the upper hand, at which time he gets all boastful in front of the Supreme Hero, who utilizes this time to catch his breath before surprising the villain with a sudden attack and an awesome punch line before vanquishing him once and for all.

That's all I could think of for now. Do contribute to this discussion if you can think of something else. 

Ta Ta.

The Nolanification of Hollywood

"Look, up in the sky!"

"It's a bird."

"It's a plane".

"It's Superman!"

That is how I remember Superman from my childhood. The ultimate symbol of super-strength. And as far as this eight year old was concerned, Superman easily obliterated Batman and Spiderman put together simply using his Heat vision.

That was the time when there were essentially three characters in the average superhero movie. The superhero himself, of course, occupied the prime spot. He would single-handedly bash up the cronies/minnions of the villain, give a lecture or two to the repeat offender of a villain before beating him up too and saving the damsel in distress as the cops looked on or cheered. There were a few minor details here and there about the superhero's parallel life as a simpleton, but that's about all there was to the movie.

In a way, everyone in the superhero movie functioned essentially as 10 year olds. And so the movie itself was meant for the 10 year olds.

  

                                       

That innocence has all but died. Come 2013, and we are going to be in another world. A world where nobody will look up into the sky and guess stupidly about planes and birds before finally getting it right. A world where Clark Kent has to ask himself,"Is the world ready for Superman?" It is like asking,"Is the world ready for incredible awesomeness?" It sounds incredibly lame.

This is the new world that we live in. A world of superheroes inspired by the creative brilliance of Christopher Nolan. A man who has given depth and meaning to these out-of-the-world characters, thus making them and their villains, well much more life-like.

The average superhero today does not just beat up the bad guy. He has a complicated life of his own, as does the villain. The Hero has become a selfless guardian who needs to comprehend the morality and consequences of his actions on the city, despite all the inherent good intentions.

We have a villain with a scary, yet noble vision for the failing city. An evil, violent man with a philosophy of his own on how the world should function.

There are times when the villain seems much more relatable, much more human. Even the average guy on the street has deep insights to offer. Every character has a shade of grey and the viewer is left flummoxed whom to root for.

Besides, there are a large number of back stories of minor characters all supporting the overall narrative. Politics, History, Economics and Foreign Policy are inter-mingled such that the city doesn't function by itself as previously portrayed but instead has a large number of outside factors influencing it.

This is a world where the superhero himself at times seems the reason behind such crazy villains plaguing the city.

So, we have a Joker, telling the sad series of events that happened to his family before he became the psychotic maniac that he is.

We have Rachel Dawes, the Damsel, who after being saved from the jaws of evil, leaves the Superhero in spite of all the muscles and charisma, to be with an average simpleton without superpowers or big money.

We have Alfred the Butler telling his Master how the Gotham city needs Bruce Wayne, his resources and knowledge much more than his alter-ego, the Batman to save the city from the latest villains.

And finally, as this trailer shows, we have a Superman in handcuffs being escorted by a bunch of policemen to prove that even the incorruptible and indomitable Superman isn't above the law.

These are exciting times indeed for the Superhero genre. Hopefully, the best is yet to come.   

Note: This post has been submitted for the Blogathon organised by A Potpourri of Vestiges. If you are a movie buff like me, do check it out, it has some nice reviews.               

       

And it rained Credit Cards!!!

If the people named in this article are in a vengeful mood, then I am in for a lot of trouble. May be they will file an FIR against me and get me arrested; May be that will lead to the media rallying behind me and making me a Hero of the masses. Then, I will be made the Indian Prime Minister. Then, in a crazy fit, I will become a Dark overlord...Mwahahaha!!! 

Don't mind my mindless musings...Read on...

Following the recent expose by IAC activist Arvind Kejriwal regarding the nexus behind accumulation of black money in Swiss banks, the Central Government came up yesterday with a bizarre scheme to check the circulation of black money.

The central government has decided to provide credit card swiping machines as part of a national strategy to integrate the poverty ridden masses and check the flow of black money in the economy.

In a press conference attended by senior UPA leaders Kapil Sibal and P. Chidambaram, the government announced the ambitious scheme. Mr. Chidambaram informed the assembled journalists that the move, the brain-child of Congress’s PM-in-waitng Rahul Gandhi, is aimed to curb the flow of black money in the economy and integrating the lakhs of beggars into the mainstream, besides decreasing the economy's fiscal deficit through taxes from the beggars. The Union minister claimed that in a recent government sponsored survey, it was found that begging, if seen as an organized industry employed the largest number of employees in the country with all transactions in black. The minister claimed that with this scheme the government could recover at least 45% of the black money circulating in the system.

However, political analysts and our sources in various political parties are of the opinion that the move may backfire since nobody likes being taxed more or being taxed at all.

Meanwhile, reactions from various political parties started pouring in by the end of the day.

The BJP spokesperson slammed the government for being insensitive over the issue of poverty by aiming to tax the already poverty-ridden masses.

Apart from the BJP central leadership, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, on campaign trail at a rally in Vadodara claimed that the real Black Money was stored in Madam Sonia’s lockers in Swiss Banks and not minuscule alms obtained by the beggars.

Within an hour of this statement, Information & Broadcasting Minister and Congress spokesperson Mr. Manish Tewari condemned Mr. Modi’s authoritarian attitude, comparing him to Hitler while Ex-cop Sanjiv Bhatt wrote a letter to Modi, asking him to apologise to the nation for the 2002 riots.

The CPM alleged that the UPA government was anti-people and this move by the government was at the behest of the US government in order to benefit their banking institutions and Credit card swiping machine manufacturers.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the government for its anti-people schemes and proposed yet another No confidence motion against the UPA in the Lok Sabha.

SP and BSP leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati threatened to withdraw their outside support from the government if it does not allow reservations for Minorities and Backward classes respectively in this scheme.

Meanwhile, MNS chief Raj Thackrey gave a new direction to the debate, alleging that the beggars hailing from Bihar will eat into the Marathi beggars’ share and challenged that either Marathi beggars should get preference in the allocation of the Credit card swiping machines or beggars from Bihar and other northern states shall be driven away from Mumbai.

Amidst the ensuing political controversy, this reporter had an opportunity to meet a recently upgraded beggar as part of the government’s pilot project before implementing the scheme nationwide. The Beggar, Mr. Ram Das enlightened this reporter about how any donation made to him being electronic in nature shall be exempt from taxation.

On being asked, if the scheme had empowered him or helped improve his and his family's condition, Mr. Das smiled and said,”Let us just say, that now I have to worry about investments and tax saving”.