Roster

Things looking up

I handled a crisis without letting fear creep in
I called up three friends I hadn’t spoken to for some time – just like that
I have friends to bail me out
I didn’t call someone I desperately wanted to
I got out of something cleanly
I wrote something I liked
I called up home more regularly

Things still looking down

I couldn’t control my temper at the office
I was part of office gossip again
I didn’t call some friends I should have
I snapped at my mom jut coz I was in a crappy mood
I was not prepared for a trip
I still don’t have a fucking clue of what to do with myself
I am still miles away from becoming a person who can bail someone out

Things I did that I hadn’t
I made rotis – twice. One of them turned out to be perfect.
I cleaned up my place

Things I did that I always do

I slept late
I half-listened, half dreamed

Comment on American conservatism

"If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction" - Shelly

This is a comment from a blog on atheism -

I am totally overwhelmed by Mr. Pierce Butler's pithy intellect.

In the United States, a carefully-cultivated cultural schism includes not only the evangelical religious revival you speak of and a wider ideology with its own "reality" and agenda. This viewpoint, which with typical dishonesty calls itself "conservatism", is hard to delineate because of its frequent shifts and dishonesty: perhaps prototypical is an account in Time during the first Clinton administration, describing a daily talking-points fax series from the Republican National Committee to talk-radio hosts, which one day would describe Hillary Clinton as a nymphomaniac, the next day as frigid, and the next as a lesbian.

Now read this!!!

Incoherent intellectually

but well-organized politically,

this movement relies on

repetition and emotion.

I'm going to print this and pin it to my cubicle!!

Its components include a massive metanetwork of media outlets, numerous churches, think tanks and political organizations, and a followership with numerous legitimate grievances and no comprehension of how its anxieties are being manipulated for an elitist seizure of power. Essentially fascistic, this crusade is possibly unique among its kind for the absence of a central "strongman" leader: though GW Bush may seem to fill that role at present, even if he truly made White House policy decisions he would still be a figurehead, as this movement was quite powerful before anyone outside of Texas had heard of him and will be powerful after he's gone.The resurgence of religiosity in the US these days is only part of a surge of commitment to belief in the counterfactual: consider the high percentages of citizens who firmly believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks and was preparing to hit America with "weapons of mass destruction"; that "just say no" programs could end drug abuse, teen pregnancy, etc; that foreign aid and welfare are the major causes of the federal deficit; that blacks commit most of the crimes around the country; that all gays prey on children; that abortion causes breast cancer; that the people of Haiti, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, etc, etc, even Iraq, are grateful to the US for having been liberated by our troops; that universities are monolithic citadels of anti-American indoctrination; and so on endlessly (I didn't even mention myths regarding the "liberal media", feminists, environmentalists, most racial minorities, lawyers, teachers, unions, global warming, and countless other targets of disinformation and scapegoating).This isn't a Great Swoon, it's a Great Delirium - and it's not the result of blind impersonal historical cycles.

Strike me dead God! I am a budding criminal!

This website is so ridiculous taht I half expect it to be a mock.


Here, the site argues how crime is a direct result of - hold your breath - masturbation!


It even presents an interesting graph - I would really love to know where it picked the red line statistics from.

Read it here.

Three movies you might have missed

This is my 100th post in this blog. :)

Upside of Anger

Having been raised in a family of primarily daughters and mothers, the dialogues of this movie are some of the best I have heard in a long time. The scenes between the four daughters and Joan Allen are so natural tha you almost forget that you're watching a movie.

And what a performance by Joan Allen - what a performance!The scenes where she tells the daughters about their father's infidelity and the cheshire cat smile she puts as she imagines decapitating the 50 year old DJ (the director of the movie) sleeping with her 18 year old daughter should have brought the Oscars at her doorstep. Shame.

Watch this movie for her, the so so good Kevin Costner and a brilliant script.

Pity. Terms of Endearment - that had nothing to offer besides Jack Nicholson - with bad cinematography, tardy script, over-the-top and highly self-conscious fare by the leading ladies - should have swept the Oscars and this movie be ignored.

The Ice Harvest

The problem with this movie is taht it wastes its best portion for a cheap tawdry "twist" narrative. Cusack sleepwalks through his cool ordinary guy thing; but I can see him do that till eternity:). The half an hour of Oliver Platt and Cusack together , from the bar to the Christmas dinner to the bar again (Platt's confrontation with the jockey BF was too good!) to the apartment - is good enough to recommend this movie.

Little Children

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations. - IMDB

I used that because I really don't know how to describe this tour de force. I might say it's about middle age crisis, our insecurities, adult world, everything. But I think it's really about how we have complicated everything for ourselves and can't even scream - and taht's when we're touching middle age.

The persepctive of the movie comes from people who ae going down under the system - successful in absolute terms - but underachievers in terms of themselves - part of which stems from the fact taht they really don't believe in the sanctity of the system but are too small an weak to do anything about it than fail. Something I can relate to.

Forget her nude scenes, the numero uno reason for the movie's success for many, watch Kate Winslet for her lost Sarah. My only grouse was that Connelly was wasted and Sarah's hubby and the panty thingee was too much of a 2D caricature.

But the Oscars be damned for denying Jackie Haley his due as the sex offender for the not very impressive (to me) Tom Arkins(?) for Little Miss Sunshine. Haley's performance - his watery and hungry eyes - make me do something that not even Lolita could do - empathize with a child molester. Entering midway into the movie - he takes it by the fine hair and chews off the heavy star cast - Right from the pool, the date scene to the scene where his mother dies. His own tragic story had a deep impact on his performance - and that is so evident.

This is a masterpiece - not to be missed.

Baba Ramadoss

"Apparently hitting back at Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on Friday said public icons who passed off smoking on screens as 'creative liberty' should take a leaf out of the book of actors like Aamir Khan how to use the artistic tool.
"Creative liberty should be used to improve society and not kill mankind," Ramadoss said in response to a query on public icons supporting smoking on screen as their right to creative liberty.
"Look at Taare Zammen Pe," he said, saying the film has helped in changing the mindset of thousands of teachers and parents in looking at the problem of dyslexia.
"That is what creative liberty should do," he said.
Shah Rukh had recently defended in Delhi on-screen smoking saying it was a creative liberty of artistes."

Baba Ramadoss has opened my eyes.
He has defined liberty in terms of constraints - a supremely paradoxical feat.
Of course, the paradox of a politician talking about creative liberty is not that surprising: hasn't he shown it enough in changing the constitution of a country of 1.2 billion to target(or rather, AIIM) one man?

Baba Ramadoss has spoken
His Ten Commandments

1. The Orwellian Ministry of Health is now your one and only God.
2. Thou shalt not have any more strange Gods before this God: like those mad ranting hippies trying to show the society its mirror a la Oliver Stone, Coppolla, Nihlani and Scorcese.
3. Movies like Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Fight Club, Paanch which do not deal with dyslexic kids and definitely show a lot of smoking and, shockingly, acknowledge sex, sleaze and the dark forces as major influences of the human condition are henceforth banned. Or at least stamped with the statutory warning.
4. Hence forth, all creative liberty has to be wholesome.
5. Henceforth, Mr. Aamir Khan owns the exclusive titles to creative liberty.
6. In the known absence of Aamir Khan for years altogether, the wholesomeness and creative liberty will be defined by an expert committee of Suraj Barjatya, Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra .
7. Going back to the Ed Sullivan era and the King, no body part below the waist will be shown in movies.
8. In fact, no body part will be shown since kids will be able to put two and two together and attaching missing parts to whatever parts escape the censor's scissors.
9. The only scripts approved henceforth are the Ramayana (even Mahabharata has too much gore and moral ambiguity).
10. Ram has to be shown eating an Apple all the time in any movie in this new gusty era of creative liberty.

I think the dyslexic condition of our Health Minister which is forcing him to comment into something much beyond governments and societies, leave alone venal politicians, can be corrected only by feeding a strong dose of nicotine mixed in a concoction of whisky and rum - rectally.

I have a "creative" and wholesome script, Minister.

All the world's politicians are brought on to an island. There their nuts are ripped off in a manner to ensure death by either pain or bleeding, and fed to hungry pie dogs. Solves two problems - no more politicians. No more hungry pie dogs - for a day, at least. None of the pie dogs will be shown smoking. But we might put some lighted cigarettes into the mouths of the screaming and dying politicians for a brilliantly creative symbolism showing how death and cigarettes go hand in hand.

Please tell Mr. Khan to drop by my house for the script next time he's in town.

Rediff Movies - 17 Feb

The new Rambo

I did not see Rocky Balboa.

In fact the last time I paid to see Stallone was in the atrocious Specialist: and in my sex-starved teens, he was not the reason that brought me to the Mayfair that evening.

I went to Rambo dreading that the new Rambo might not have grown amore mature and realistic political perspective; and might just be an excuse for another body count flick of the 90s; albeit with the special effects advances post-Terminator 2.

Alas! My fears came true.

I can't help compare Stallone right now with two other actors who went on to become directors: Eastwood and Mel Gibson.

While Clint debunked his own Blondie myth in (my opinion) the greatest movie of all times, Stallone is the Hollywood Mr. Bharat and DevAnand reincarnaton and can't seem to get over the fact taht world might have passed him by. He seems to have suddenly woken up to the fact taht Neo and Bourne might have displaced his legends of Rambo and Rocky. I can almost see him grunt the script out to an erstwhile KingOfPop in a PulpFiction-esque restaurant who, in turn, thumps out his latest beats for his re-re-launch featuring the coffin of Brando.

Grow out of it, Stallone.
First of all, your politics is as naive as Bush's (remember the Russian boxer in RamboIV and the America-loving mujaheddins in Rambo3 ?) . And, thankfully, the world has moved beyond the days of the DeerHunter-esque screaming Indochinese butchers in a raining Cambodian jungle. Throwing in a few screaming old women, kids being buggered and villages being wiped out ala ApocalypseNow might have passed muster for realism in 1972: but this is 2008.

Our economies as stronger enough too to protest this farce of humanism to portray a blood bath of bodies, heads and limbs being ripped off landmines, mortars, sniper guns; when not being hungrily devoured by pigs. Do you really know, and care, about Burma and what's happening there?

In fact, Stallone is a perfect example of the UnglyAmerican : a prescient book of the 50s followed by a great movie starring Brando, about the damages taht American ignorance is wreaking in international politics.

I never liked Stallone. But I didn't hate him: he did write the Rocky script after all.

But tonight I pity him. Someone much past his expiration date who needs to be put to sleep immediately: along with all the SouthIndian "legends", Dev Anand and Manoj Kumars.

Look at what Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson have offered us in the past few years - Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Braveheart, Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto and the amazing Mystic River.

Look at what Mr. Stallone has offered in the past one year - memorable lines like "It ain't over till it's over" and this - Rambo 2 Redux.

I pity him because he's the guy who had his peak 32 years ago - bolstered by heavy marketing gimmicry that sailed it past the Oscars overcoming (hold your breath) TaxiDriver!

In the last scene of this movie, Rambo walks back to his father's place in Arizona.

I can only hope that the old man has strength enough to lift a shotgun, steady his aim and blast the head off this "legend" for once and for all.

Otherwise, if not the screaming jungles of Cambodia, Thailand or Burma (all the same to Mr. Stallone), we might see him again killing a few thousand mujaheddins from Iran to Kashmir and suffering from a paper-cut - a stroke of genius wherein the human side of Rambo is finally shown.

Twisted thots

There are some people in my life taht i loved once, some of them I still do, but I find boring now. They have just stopped and run out of the ideas to keep me entertained.

I am not saying that they became boring in absolute terms - just for me. And it might be that it's I who's stopped and they have moved on. Whatever. But we are no longer on the same road.

I have not figured big in anyone's life so far: and likewise.

I respect the elders who were kind to me - my mom esp. - and I don't need to be entertained from them.

But that's it.

There are two things that are pulling me here - I want to be a decent person; but I want to be an honest person too.

I don't want to hang on to phone conversation that is boring me; but I don't want to hang up and be rude.

Decency and honesty.

There is the other thing too of course.

Why I can't be more normal?
Why this constant appetite for ideas? When I many a times ignore the details.
Why do tales repeated ad infinitum give me the feeling of stagnation.

I love people - I really do - but this boredom, this craving for something new new new - makes me a restless insensitive person.

I hear this crescendo in my favorite song, I read this line of my favorite book and I see this scene - and I want to just soar, soar and soar till I have feasted my eyes on the entire beauty and truth of the bluewaterypinprick of a planet.

How can I soar if I do not walk first?
What paradox this bursting heart poses in front of my insensitivity to others?

And I really can't figure out if I suffer from a bloated superiority complex? Or a heart-wrenching inferiority complex?
Are the wings I seek the wings I think I deserve - or wish I deserved?

I hope the phone does not ring...
I hope somebody does not want to know how I spent my day...
I hope somebody does not tell me how they spent theirs...

I want the phone to ring...
I want somebody to tell me the story they just thought of...
I want somebody to invite me to an adventure camp...

But I want to be the person who can tell and listen tales that carry no climax, no twist, no hint of anarchy.

Thots for a Sunday Afternoon

1. Choices are an illusion.
2. Lack of imagination is not stability.
3. We will always be what we want; and not what are.

Where there is God

My landlord's only request, besides the bankrupting rent requested, was that a simple plaque on the door be left in its slightly damaded condition, with no further damages of course.

I have looked at this plaque for three months and an odd nagging feeling (similar to the one that I have that movie stars are making a lot of moolah) in me insists that the words in the plaque are incomplete.

Hence, I will try to complete the words.

Where there is no need,

there is no desire;

Where there is no desire,

there are "Not tonight Honey! I have a headache";

Where there are headaches,

there is frustration;

Where there is frustration,

There is adultery.

Hence, faith and adultery are two sides to the same coin.

Q.E.D