SUR"REAL" CELLULOID

APARICHIT- THE STRANGER, THE STEP UP FRANCHISE, NEVER BACK DOWN, KILL BILL (1& 2), YES MAN, KYUNKI....MAIN JHUTH NAHI BOLTA, RAB NE BANA DI JODI, RIGHT YA WRONG. Just naming a couple of films here, films which are not actually merely films for me, these are pieces of art that I can keep watching endlessly over & over again! Yup, I know they are as diverse as they can get but I can never get tired of watching them! I have even lost track of the number of times Dad has seen me engrossed deeply in watching something and thinking that it's a new movie, come along only to find out it's the umpteenth time I am watching the same movie with the same excitement. He is highly amused at this obsession of mine with these films. How can the same subject, which I know so well as though I am the scriptwriter/director of the film, still hold the same amount of attention drawing power after countless viewings? I couldn't answer him initially, but now I think I got an answer! Dad, this one's for you!
I am a Media postgraduate and for the last two years, films have been as common a part of my life as eating food and sleeping, though I have lesser of the latter due to films.The length & breadth of films that I have seen over these last two years is something like, to give a very horrible metaphor, like Buddha attaining Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree! There are so many stories to be told, there is so much that happens around the globe, there are so many types of people and most of the times & most importantly, it's the escapism that these films offer or the cathartic release they give that is the most satiating experience! Until now I have had such a restricted definition of a 'Hero' or a 'Heroine' is. But now I see a hero in everyone. I see a villain in everyone, I see everything in everyone, including of course myself!
We think of our lives to be so mundane at times, everyday from getting up from to sleeping back on the bed we have pretty uniformly structured lives. The structure may change from time to time but the uniformity remains. Every lifestyle is permanent for a temporary span of time, if you know what I mean. But it's only when the camera zooms into one such character who leads an almost similar lifestyle as ours that we begin to view the same lifestyle differently. We want our lifestyle to follow a similar trajectory, we become the character just as the character becomes us and for those two-three hours, we enjoy the spotlight shining on us. Yes, we all want the spotlight on us, don't we? We do want our stories to be told, we do want our experiences to be shared, our views to be aired, our dreams to culminate in that ultimate realization which possibly we might not realize. And that is the most endearing quality of cinema for me. That is impartial to people and societies. The most remote part of the world also gets its place here, be it an eskimo in Antarctica (Nanook Of the North), a boy in a Brazilian ghetto ( City Of God), the hip, modern New Yorker who walks by the street with a hotdog & coffee in his hand, dreams in his eyes and money on his mind(countless movies), a slum boy from India, strugglers, winners, losers, people rising from rags to riches & vice versa, a wronged civilian, an 'eccentric', all have a chance to tell their story and express themselves. And we identify, we identify with each one of them, because we are all of them. We probably would do what they do in tat situation, at that time even though we might detest them initially. I remember one of my teacher looking at me straight into my face and asking me, " Do you think you could be a rapist? Do you think you can commit suicide someday?" and I was blank. A brief silence and some subtle laughter in the background later, I softly mumbled, "No sir". "No?! Of course you can be!! You can be a rapist and you can very well commit suicide as well! It's a just a matter of time & a mental conditioning that is a result of that time!" and I couldn't deny the veracity of his claim. It was surprising yet true!


Chetan Bhagat says, "The world's most smart person & the biggest idiot on this planet are both you". So take your pick, you can be Daniel Ocean, Bruce Wayne, The Joker, Peter Parker, Macbeth or whoever you want to be, they are all in you.

BACK & FORTH....

YEKE YEKE!! Mory Kante's amazing smash hit plays ecstatically in my ears & I can see Amitabh Bachchan on the yacht, heading towards Mandwa in his white suit on a sunny afternoon. looking heroically & almost awe-inspiringly towards the blue carpet of water spread vastly around him. Blue & white, the colours look resplendent. Oh, a small trivia: The song I talked about plays itself when Amitabh Bachchan is going to meet Kancha in Mandwa for the first time. It's this sleek montage of Amitabh getting ready & heading towards the island. From a chartered plane to the yacht & then on towards the island, his gaze is sharp, looking on determinedly. The song plays in the background, somehow brilliantly gelling with the visuals. Then a bomb is dropped on the yacht & boom! You think Amitabh's gone, or at least so thinks Kancha for a short while as Amitabh emerges from the ocean suddenly, his white more splendid, his persona even sexier. I bet Daniel Craig must have copiously taken down notes as a teenager then for that Casino Royale introduction he would do in the future. Now you know where it just might have come from! ;)   Although I can hardly decipher the meaning of whatever is being said, the Zulu language, don't know nothing about it. But that's the best part about music, right? You don't have to know anything about what someone is saying. Sometimes, the music just communicates with you. Some part of the composition just strikes you & you develop that bond with the song! 

I am just back from this fabulous semi-date with my best friend/semi girlfriend! We have caught up in person after quite some time, although we chat away to glory on Whatsapp almost everyday. It feels awesomely amazing & worth the week long wait & three cancelled dates. I am super fresh & energetic right now, although it's almost 11:30 in the night. I wanted more time, we needed more time, there was so much more to talk about! Anyways, we will catch up soon again. It's just her company that works wonders man! One time college colleagues, today we are still very much in touch despite all distances & work. Career concerns, crushes on girls & boys, amazing, silly & hilarious memories of college, problems, future aspirations, plans for fun, everything is laid out & tackled in quite detail.  I realise her value so much more now, never thought as much about it in college. I realise how much we have changed, except with each other that is. I think after graduation, we have got to know each other so much better than in those three years. It's like those three years were OCEANS ELEVEN & now its OCEANS TWELVE! She is pretty much the same, although a bright future looks at her from a distance. We both aspire to be these hotshots in the industry & then we will be giving interviews together telling the scribes the whole story of those foundation years in Hislop & then keeping touch, having stupid little quarrels in between but ultimately coming closer, planning all these glory days in lounges & cafes to then realising it. Hell yeah, we should make this happen, just the thought of it actually happening! Oh yeah!! There's a blockbuster story right there!

I am having this surge & urge to write, something I haven't experienced in a while now! This is good, like GOOD! This is how it happens every time it does, of the 30 blogs I wrote, some of the best (strictly personally speaking) have come from this kind of spontaneous surge & urge! There was this gloomy cloud in between over me, nothing felt like to write, to talk about. It was like yeah-so-what's-there-to-talk-about-it kinda thing happening with me.  I didn't care to explore the reasons behind it for the plain reason that it's fruitless. I have been waiting for just some things to happen, thinking that they will make things very different but maybe it's not only about those things.  Maybe it's just that I need to hang on a bit more & things will just fall into place. Too much contemplation, too much running around exploring things, probably that is not what I need right now. I need a calm, focused & steady approach. I am at home, and it already, like every time feels like bliss. College is just on the very brink of ending, yes it has been quite the journey I wanted! Seen so much, heard so much & learnt so much more, it's the perfect time to move ahead now. Which is why I guess I am not too sad at the prospect of leaving it now. Of course I can't be completely emotionally detached & say I won't remember it. It will be one of the deepest memories I'll ever have. And it will be the people at certain points of time, the sights & the experiences that will remain. But this departure doesn't seem heartbreaking, it doesn't. It seems logical. it seems natural. A naive, slightly clueless, dependent boy has given way to a not-as-naive, purposeful, mature-er, more open minded and stronger boy. 

On an ending note, I was seeing KOI MIL GAYA in the afternoon and nostalgia crept in wide & fast as I remembered seeing the first look of the movie as an amusing 14 year old. Hrithik Roshan was Krish for me right from Kaho Na Pyar Hai & then I see the first look of this movie, Hrithik sitting on some rocks, sobbing, an evening set up, looking as if something's wrong with him mentally & then the movie caption. It might be noted here that this scene was NOT a part of the movie! It was strictly promotional. And I was like, why is he acting like that? This is no hero! Make him the hero again! I was dead sure this film was gonna flop, of course it would, look at how they are showing Hrithik! Sweet teenage naivety! How wrong was I! The film not only truly heralded the Indian sci-fi genre but now in hindsight, but is the best of the trilogy. I think the Krish series doesn't have the simplicity of Koi Mil Gaya. There is some cinematic brilliance in the latter, which translated into technical in the former & the attention shifted from story to special effects. Rohit Mehra was the societal reject who any reject in any degree identified with, not to forget those who were not the rejects as well. We need to abolish this concept of the reject, it is very narrow minded of us. Look at Michael Jackson! The King Of Pop, a pioneer, a genius, a charitable, soft spoken, shy eccentric( not offensively but naturally), controversial, vulnerable & a bit indecisive. With literally the whole world at his feet for two decades, he was suddenly the biggest reject there ever was! And what did that result in? Yup, death! His rejection led to his death! The drugs were just a catalyst. Remember, you only despise someone until you become that someone!

Did I say something about an ending note? Uh.....well....yeah...it ends here.             

SCATTERED....

I missed this. On the street at 7 pm in the evening and there is pin drop silence, if you ever wanted to hear what silence sounds like, you could do it in that instant. Oh yes, this street is super familiar as well, it is the street I have traveled on for so many years. Hell yeah, everything's awesome. I am home!! Although I have been in & out if this awesome city umpteen times in the last two years, the breaks have not been like long enough. Five-six days at the most. Sometimes a week. But this time it's longer, almost two weeks. The next time, it will be eternal. Yup, college is done, and the Symbiosis chapter ends very soon.

I hear various people in my class utter varying thoughts about it. Some can't believe it's ending, some are neutral to it & some are happy as hell. Me? I am a mixture of the three in varying degrees, the first one being the minutest for I sure can believe it's ending! I have become quite neutral to it considering my last two semesters were largely a mixed bag, although in hindsight, they were not what I wanted them to be and I am happy as hell about the journey, that has been covered and what remains to be covered. I am happy to have come a long way from what I used to be, I am surprisingly happy to have committed the mistakes I committed. I think we sometimes unnecessarily lament over a time that is about to end, like how some of my friends are sad about leaving college. I mean of course it is indeed sad to be doing that but seriously, this is THE time to do it! We will always be learning something everyday, even when we go from here.

Oh sorry, I drifted away from what I was talking about. But frankly, I am in one of my most occupied phases right now! A million thoughts & subsequent actions occupy my mind right now. I am restless. I have my eye and my heart on this one job opportunity that has come my way and I really want it to happen and work out for me! I want to party hard & celebrate getting that job & dance the night away at some lounge to awesome music. I want to party so bad! I am so blah about the notion of falling in love considering it never seems to work out & I am thinking about the scenario some 5-6 years later where I'll be meeting up this girl found for me by someone & I'll eventually have an arranged marriage! Not bad but not what I want either. But who cares right now? I am coming to terms with the fact that I looked and felt miserable for a large part of my third & fourth semester & that I was way below my level of performance. Of course I'll be setting that straight. I am making up these surreal plans with some of the coolest people in my life about the future & how I want to make things happen. I have so much to talk but I can't see anyone willing to listen!!

Phew!! It's exhausting & at the end of it, wow, I have managed quite a random post!I don't think I should write any further as of now, because I don't know what will come next! Art imitating life! Okay that's it!!

FAIRLY UNFAIRLY FAIR

'That's not fair!', said the new born child born on the road I used to go to my college on, under a makeshift poor excuse for a home.

'That's not fair!', said another child who was born blind.

'That's not fair!', said the able and qualified employee who never got his chance to work in his/her dream company because the son of Mr. Rich & Famous showed the employee the nameplate outisde his house.

'That's not fair!', said the boy who every time when he tried to find love & understanding, failed and never got the chance to love & be loved.

"Everyone's right!! It is really not fair! What have they done to deserve such a start to their life or to not get a chance to change it? Unfair was supposed to mean wrong, a wrong is supposed to be corrected, right?" I asked.

"Child! I see where you come from. Afterall you get all such notions & concepts through my teachings only. But you fail to understand, never did  I say life is a bed of roses nor did I say life is fair, LIFE IS UNFAIR!! It may be unfair, but it is NOT wrong." He said the last statement with the same innocence of a child as he addresses me. I could only look back at Him with eyes of surprise. 

"So what is it that these people should blame their life on?"

"Destiny." He said.

"What?? That's it?!"

"Yup. Pretty much."

"You know, that's what my friends, relatives & parents too say. I couldn't believe it at times. I thought it has to be something else...."

"Can't help it buddy! That's the way it is & that's why everyone says it."

"But they need a chance...!!"

"And they will get it!" He said and then retracted, "Or maybe not...."

Yes, it's established- Life is not fair and hate it or hate it more, you cannot do anything about it. Accept it and make it a point to steal your chances because you don't always get them. It's destiny! Hah!! Talk about unpredictability!! You need to be lucky and then hard working, committed, determined and true. Just think about this, in your leisure, look back, at your life or others and just see how many questions are left unanswered. There is no answer to them. There just isn't! It was meant to happen is what you say. I find myself at a serious debate over this because I can't seem to disagree with it but I want to. I want to say it's not like I couldn't  do something, I wasn't equipped to do it.

Okay, maybe I am talking nonsense now but it's just that when I look at people and I see how certain things turn out to be for them, and at times when I happen to know them, I can't help but question as to how & why they are where they are despite not being responsible for it. Isn't it surprising that lives are judged and accused without even a full hearing? 

"Well, now can you tell all those people the answer they seek?", He asked.

"No", I said.

"Why?"

"No reason"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You answer all their unanswered questions first, my answer is much simpler", I said.

   

BACK AGAIN...ONE LAST TIME

A beautiful breezy ride back to college in the magic hour, a million brilliant thoughts in mind, amazing music playing in my ears and a resultant smile on my face, but something's remains to be done! What is it, I ask myself. The answer, you need to rush back to your room, switch on your laptop, log on and write a post!! It's the perfect time and it's now!

Yes, it's been a while, quite a while at that since I wrote last. Sometimes at a loss of words, sometimes at a loss of thought and sometimes just lost in myself, I had almost detached from writing, writing for myself, about what I feel. Guilt lay underneath but so many other things lay above it that I couldn't really go under all of them to do something about that guilt. But today, something just felt right, something like a calling and I knew this was when I address that guilt and get typing away, ferociously! And to type , well, I have sufficient!

As my Whatsapp status says, back here...one last time. Indeed, the time arrives! The final months at SIMC. Hmmm, the journey! I have always marveled at it's diversity and velocity! Time, come to think about it didn't really flow away too fast but yeah, it was swift! People incoming, outgoing, roaming, almost like telecom technologies, experiences so rapidly in succession that half a breath later you are not allowed to have the remaining half of it, lessons learnt, sometimes the hard way and two almost two years later, it is almost time now to say adieu. As I have always said to my friends and relatives, life now shall be divided into two broad parts- life pre-SIMC & life post-SIMC. Yes, it's been a major, major game changer, a literally life changing experience! Even after repeating this endlessly, I still feel it with the same intensity. Okay, I have to admit that by the time I will be leaving this place, I won't be missing it as much as I thought I would. It does become mundane, yes, even THIS sort of an atmosphere becomes mundane. But it will be the people.....the people who will be remembered, both for the great and worst times and I think it won't end here, it will go a longer way for at this time, at this juncture, it's not really like a school ending. Well it may or may not either, I don't know. No presumptions, no expectations. Many of my batchmates, maybe including me, would not really recommend this college to other aspirants for it's educational merits because as it stands, the image people have concocted of it and it's reality are far off from each other. But personally, I would probably recommend it for the larger than the classroom experience, the pan-Indian atmosphere, the experience of meeting a country full of people at one spot and live with them for two years and learn about them and eventually about you, I would recommend it for the atmosphere which can inspire, amaze, transform and teach. I would recommend it for the avenues it can open, to explore bigger avenues and I would recommend it for how tremendously exponentially people discover Cupid's existence and make you understand what they mean when they say when the world is actually a small place.  

And...for me, it's still not over yet! It probably never will.....

 

REACT

You think you got me,

But that's just a thought, not a fact.

For as I know and so should you,

It's about how I react and not about how you act.

This cloud of darkness ain't gonna bring me down,

My smile will be permanent, temporary is this frown.

I know I have been honest, I know I have been true

I know I have done all to always please you.

But I was never a priority because you chose you,

You did what you did, now see what I do.

Undeserved failures, one too many,

At first it seemed so but now it's not even funny.

Success awaits me and realisation for you

Had you known better , you could have been a part of it too.  

My way or the highway, come what may,

Was something I'd never say.

But I guess the highway's been too smooth and breezy

It's made it hard for me but for you it's easy.

I will have what I and how I want,

Now there is nothing to bother, there is nothing to haunt.

Your regulations, your discouragement, even your attitude so cavalier

None of it is gonna make any difference here!

Difference even if any, the fact remains a fact,

It's about how I react and not about how you act.

SOME DREAMS!!!....OR ARE THEY??!

The sticky note on my desktop tells me it's five days to go for my exams to end!That was two days ago,a measure to help me keep going and keep me studying for trust me, I have lost all motivation and inspiration to really study like I did in my graduation years and score the sky.Not that I ever have but I have to say my graduation years comprised of purposeful studying, something that went a bit ahead of the mere classroom teaching. Healthy debates with the teacher, information of the world, how a Chinese and simultaneously an American boy my age must be living in their country with a completely different administrative system shaping them, understanding Shakespeare(though that seemed,sorry,seemeth a task at times!)and reading and understanding wonderful elegies and poems by Shelley,Keats and Milton. Working for the college magazine under a wonderful team, writing articles and selecting them for the magazine along with ma'am and my best friend who also happened to be a part of my team, hanging out in the cool cafe opposite college, parties, exams. Damn, those were the years that shaped me! I have learnt so much from those days. 

But we have had some really good times here too, haven't we? Just the other day, I was flipping through all the photos and videos of me and my friends on Facebook and man, it was such a trip down memory lane!! Everyone looks different though we have seen each other everyday for almost 12 of the 24 hours each day for the past one and a half years and more, we have danced like drunkards in the classroom, we have sat on the front bench and had register chats while pretending to be scholars with invisible broad rimmed spectacles on our eyes, we have exchanged glances everytime a particular song has played and smiled or laughed on the lyrics, tune and sound of the singer, we have had completely useless idiotic philosophical talks over matters ranging from religion to sex(both the kinds),we have randomly allotted female roommates to their male counterparts making hilarious combinations of people who haven't even properly spoken to each other, we have gone bonkers when a camera is rolling, talking nonsense into it and interfering each other(fly on the wall style!)every other place in the campus or city has some memory attached with it and everytime we pass by it,we remind ourselves of what happened there. We abuse each other with the choicest of expletives, we have signature lines and mannerisms, we imitate each other in the sorriest way possible and crack up. We suddenly remind ourselves that very soon we won't be hanging out like this and become all silent and cranky. And then we also study and manage to pass every semester, expressing shock while holding the mark sheet telling each other how we never thought we would score as much. Wow, never thought much about these moments! They strike particularly hard now that I reach the end of a journey I started with a completely blank slate. There were so many phases, so many events, people who influenced, people who mattered. I have always found this thought of this college amazing, a country full of people, some from the same city, who otherwise would never have met or thought of each other will depart knowing and befriending and loving such a variety of people!

There are these different images imprinted in my mind of how I would bump into these people at some point in my life later and how we would be successful professionals, we would make up plans to catch up at a cafe over coffee or how I would treat a friend over dinner at this expensive hotel where she and I can only imagine to be eating,and then with another friend how we would have a race on the streets of Mumbai late at night, where she would be driving her BMW 530i and I would be in my Mercedes SLK Roadster and then when it comes to directing my first film, how I would call up my friend and ask her/him to be the cinematographer or editor or scriptwriter for it and then when the film is successful, we would give interviews together to a journalist from a prominent newspaper or channel who would also happen to be one of my friend from the Journalsim batch and I would boast of how we started out in college, making crappy short films, making plans to collaborate on projects in the future and then how we made such a masterpiece together and then my Journalst friend would be interviewing us!If not for anything else,just for the sake of these amazing images, I will work as hard as possible to make them come true! Guys, let's make it happen!!