Wednesday, October 17, 2012

A photo worth ten

Actress Mandira Bedi paying obeisance at Golden Temple in Amritsar. (PTI)

Monday, October 01, 2012

I see you on my buddy list.
I know you have a family - and close friends
Tucked somewhere.
But if we ever meet
What will we ever talk about
Beyond the banalities?
Would I ever break
A lunch date
The morning I hear of your death?
Would you?
Are you a business-card
I hoard then?
A scratch-a-back coupon?
Or a broken thread from
The cluttered tapestry of my past
I cannot let go?
The day before my birthday
I change the date
To not receive your wish.
To not be burdened
With these ceremonies.
To not receive these gratuitous
Kindness of strangers.

Jaane Bhi Do yaaron remake

Rohit Shetty, known for his rim-tickling comedies, announced that he would be remaking JBDY at the launch of Anu Malik's new album - Kishore: In my voice. The cast is:

Rohit disclosed that this is his tribute to the classic and might feature cameos from Aftab Shivdasani, Abhishek Bachhan, Vivek Oberoi, Amrita Arora and other Bollywood legends.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Pre-planned, heh?

What does pre-planned mean? If it's planned on the go, it's not a plan: it's an improvization.

On a similar vein, मुझे पहले से पता था can be truncated to मुझे पता था. Of course, the stress is more often used when the speaker wants to really convince you that (s)he had seen the whole thing coming much, much before.

And what is pre-recorded? Either it is recorded or live - those are the only two options. There is no third unless we can gaze into the future.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Male married stars have more fun

When we see star-wives in ads, usually they feature alone, with kids, or with their hubbies. It's a golden marketing rule that nothing remotely romantic can be suggested with any other male - and heaven forbid a black-alpha male .

But this does not apply to the celebrity hubbies. They can go on scoring goals with girls half their age in umpteen ads and have the equivalent of those black-studs, blondes, press their lips to their grinning cheeks. (See ad below)

Nothing wrong with that really, it's all make-believe, but it's make-believe that sells only one-way and it tells us about our hypocritical society.

This is one of the reasons why we have so many young teens raping without qualms. Women are either bimbettes or pativrataas, men evergreen studs. I do believe we'll have a lot lesser rapes the day we can sell shoes without these chauvinistic displays of virility or, sell an equal number with Madhuri Dixit or Kajol surrounded by a bunch of teens and winking at the camera as they suggestively pinch the bubble-butts of one of them.