Some thoughts......

The thoughts I will put forward have been held for long in my memory. I still don't know, what stopped me from wording them.

Lately much of my energies have been diverted to cinema. Having an enviable collection is not enough. Though it gives me great pleasure when I think of the great works which I possess, and what an honour it is.

And the story doesn't end here. The collection is still growing, though the pace has slackened considerably over the past couple of months. Yet the ones I get, are those which I have cherished for long or those which need to be added for the betterment of collection.

My pace of watching movies has also grown significantly. Lately, every alternate day I try to watch a movie. A small desire in the initial days has matured into an insatiable hunger for more and more and more...

Yesterday I saw Kal Ho Naa Ho. But for the songs, the movie was heart-rendering. Songs were good, no doubt, but they dampen the momentum of the movie, and in some cases just bring it to a stand-still. That's the major problem with Bollywood movies today. Another bone of contention was Saif Ali Khan's lack lustre performance. He is just not fit for emotional roles. Look at Parineeta, Hum Tum and the climactic scenes of Kal Ho Naa Ho. He has failed miserably and is only good at doing comical roles or the likes of Dil Chahta Hai.

Much to my dismay, I try to extricate thematic elements from every movie and that too while watching. It gets boring very often. For instance when Naina's mother was explaining the meaning of relationships to her, I was busy putting those moral values in a larger frame of reference. A thought occurred to me(and occurs very often after watching a Bollywood film) that most of the Hindi films deal with relationships, love and marriage. Although they may differ on certain aspects, but more or less they pertain to the general concept of relations.

This "Analyzing.." business may not be so boring for Western movies though. All the more, it makes sense to analyze them, and a good movie may require a certain level of intellect to deal with them. Rear Window was one such case. This Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece is pretty complicated as far as relation between the protagonist(played by Cary Grant) and his girl-friend Lisa are concerned. I was only able to acknowledge the theme of ethics of voyeurism and marriage in the movie. But Wikipedia told me that the movie had much more food for thought than I could possibly imagine. I was bewildered that people had done so much research on a not-so-interesting movie.

Anyway, my passion for cinema is still amateur and I have to travel many miles before I can confidently put forth my prowess in Cinema. The beauty of cinema is not an easy thing to admire. But I am prepared to devote unbounded time towards this beautiful art and wish to gain as much as I can.

I proposed, I don't know who disposed...

Circumstances demand that I should be a little more regular in the noble art of blogging.

I have been generous enough(to whom?) to update this blog with the latest movie or the book. But the main point of creating a blog seems to have lost its purpose.

For instance, just before doing the honours I was building up a chain of thoughts to be translated into words over here. But as I type, each link breaks open and this is what I am writing.

Just to give this entry a more important look, let me inform the respectable reader that I last saw Chak De! India and am currently reading The Story of My Experiments With Truth by M.K. Gandhi.

Gandhiji has brilliantly put forward his life's journey, and with inspirational candidness has succeeded in mentioning his short-comings as well as all his juvenile wrong-doings. It's very rare these days to find someone admitting his/her faults and weaknesses. Such display of honesty has touched my heart. Though the pace of the book has been a little sluggish till now, nonetheless I'm hoping that it'll turn out to be a great read.

That's the problem. As I write, a feeling of sleepiness creeps in. This problem has definitely played a major role in abstaining me from blogging. Bah....

UK goes the Brown way

After months of speculation, Tony Blair finally submitted his resignation to the Queen. His popularity had been dwindling since quite some time. Many attribute this to the policies which he had followed during his tenure. People were angry that the country had been dragged into the genocidal Iraq war.

I was surprised that how a person at such a lucrative post, could resign so gracefully. Such a 'miracle' is not possible in a country like India. Though Tony Blair was emotional during his last speech in the Parliament, nonetheless, it was done honourably and with a certain grace which is remniscient of old warriors who relinquished their title. Perhaps, this reflects the depth of democracy in UK.

India is claimed to be the biggest democracy in the world. But this honour is only quantity-wise. There maybe democracy as far as Lok Sabha elections or State elections are concerned. But when it comes to a political party there is no such thing as democracy. If Congress wins then Sonia Gandhi has to be the PM. If not then the person who will be PM has to be the puppet in her hands. If BJP is in power then L.K. Advani or Atal Bihari Vajpayee has to be the PM.

Unlike UK the political parties here work on undemocratic principles. Each political party here is characterized only by one or two leaders. The rest of the politicians are merely there for the sake of it. In UK each member of the political party has his/her say in the proceedings of the party. So the most efficient man gets the top job. Moreover if during the course of his/her term as PM , the members are not satisfied by his /her policies then he/she has to resign and give way to the more popular candidate.

Why can't such a democratically sound system be implemented in India? Even aftre 60 years of independence, we are far away from being a true democracy. Then why carry this ostentatious tag of being the world's greatest democracy?

Meanwhile, Tony Blair is seemingly feeling the pangs of being a common man once more. But after being touted as the successor of Paul Wolfowitz as the chief of World Bank, he has been chosen as representative of the Quartet(comprising of US, UN, EU and Russia) in the Middle East as some kind of a 'peace broker'. What a pretentious post to give, which has little significance and almost negligible consequence. What little he can offer, remains to be seen.

As fas as Gordon Brown is concerned, he will be really pleased with himself for shiting his base to 10 Downing Street. After all he got the job after a wait of more than a decade. He has two years to prove his mettle and reform public opinion. May be he can help his party to gain the reputation which has suffered in the hands of the ex-PM.

If anybody has an inkling as to what Gordon Brown will offer has PM, please do tell me. I have very little knowledge about it. Anyway, one can wait and watch. I am particularly interested in how it will benefit the Anglo-Indian relationship. My fingers are crossed and I hope that yours' are too.

Yipee! It's the Harry Potter month!

After two years of waiting all the Harry Potter fans will be finally rewarded on 21st July. The most awaited book in the world Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will roll out in a festival like opening ceremony. Being a great Harry Potter fan, only I know how is it to wait for a book. Each passing day, is making the wait all the more tougher.

As I have written before, there a few mysteries which J.K. Rowling has to unravel. For instance, in the third year Harry helped Peter Pettigrew, who then escaped Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Later Dumbeldore explained Harry that when a wizard helps another one, there is a certain bond which forms between them. So this bond is yet to be explained by the author. Another point is that whether there has been any chemistry between Severus Snape and Lily Potter. I am an avid Harry Potter fan. So I constantly keep in touch with sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Veritaserum. There I got to know that some rumours were strife about the two. I have been thinking about visiting this site called Mugglenet.com. It is supposed to be good.

And there are some trash websites too. Dumbledoreisnotdead.com is one such site. Even to think about Dumbledore not being dead is ridiculous. It is very well known that some authors go to any extent to revive ceratin important characters deemed dead long ago. But Dumbledore was killed using an Unforgivable Curse- Avada Kedavra. He clearly dies and is thrown down the Astronomy Tower. So such theories like he is not dead and then to support them by showing logical fallacies is balderdash.

Besides, the journey of Harry potter becomes most perilous. He may be accompanied by Ron and Hermione. But it requires high amount of mettle to threaten him, nevertheless. Snape has to definitely help him out. Otherwise, it is nearly impossible with all these dark curses surrounding Horcruxes. Oh! I am just holding my breath.

There is another surprise too. The fifth installment in Harry Potter movie series is realeasing world-wide on 13th of this month. Perhaps, due to double bonanza I have coined this month, The Harry Potter month. Anyway, never in the future a book and a movie are going to be released together. I will miss it so much. There will be a tiny void in my heart for this great legend. Through these years I have come to admire this hero so much that it is impossible to think about an existence without him.

I hope that history repeats itself, sometime in the future and there comes another great being as Harry Potter.

All that I left behind...

Somehow, I felt uneasy. Something was asphyxiating me. Was it lack of air? May be. It is that air which others also breathe. I didn’t know what to do. They call it presence of mind. But groping madly in the darkness to tell others that they deprived me of oxygen isn’t exactly presence of mind. They were so very mean. Never before in my all these years of existence had I seen such people. Were they the same people who surrounded me and smiled when I looked at them and sympathized with me when I was sad? I believe it is my fault. My mind had been shrouded by gullibility all these years. Oh boy! What agony it was… How am I ever to feel better while carrying this mental stigma with me? As an infant the air was all around me. I used to feel it inside me, in my veins, my heart, my mind and my soul. But now? Things have changed so much. I longed to go back to those wonderful days of existence. Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t do that too. I opened my eyes and felt the metamorphosis. There was an infinite wall that separated me from that side of the world. I noticed my faint reflection in that transparent wall. The monster I had become, horrified me out of my wits. I looked around me and found everyone to be the same. There was hatred, jealousy, greed, and anguish all around. They detest me from what I am and what I am going to be. Perhaps, I can do without air in this environment or may be I will learn to live without it. Only time will tell. The symptoms are suggestive of that. Will it be difficult? I don’t know. I only know that this is the order of the world. Like it or not. It’s not my choice. They wanted me to become like that. God knows what the future holds for me. I can only hope for the best and that’s what I am hoping.

Too hot to handle!

It is too hot these days. The month of May was unexpectedly pleasant. But June is turning out to be a genuine torture. I have to go to institute these days for project work. Standing at the bus-stop, the piercing sunbeams are awful. By the time I get into the bus, my back is drenched and beads of perspiration start dripping onto the ground from my face.

What next awaits me is a seemingly long and dispiriting journey to the IIT bus-stop. Morning is the time when one realizes that how populous Delhi is! As a result, my incapability to find a seat, leads me to stand in utter despair. The jostling and shoving crowd gets on my nerves. By the time I reach institute, I have had the worst time of my life.

To make the matters worse still, even a short walk from the bus-stop to the Main Building is heavily taxing. Sweating profusely, I pave my way to the lab where I am supposed to do my project.

There’s no place like home. That’s right! But these days I have rather become critical to this fact. I am not having a good time even at home. Everything that I touch is hot. Or if it is cold then the nature and my grasp do everything to take away its coldness, something like the Midas touch. The water flowing through the taps is geyser-hot. I wonder if there is any hot spring near by which may contribute to this effect. Even to think about a bath is a terrible notion. Moreover, I am too tired of getting up every 15 minutes for a glass of water, how refreshing the end result may be.

Perhaps the afternoon hours are the most burdensome. Accompanying the torment are the typical summer season winds known as loo. It slaps my face with sheer disregard of my plight and leaves me cursing the season.

Newspapers are flooded with articles on global-warming these days. Suddenly the media has woken up to this issue and seems hell bent upon informing each and every person about it. Or may be is it that the authorities have woken up to this fact that something needs to be done at this stage to ensure a safe future for the generations, yet to come? Only time will tell so. A recent development is that all the countries in the world are imploring Uncle Sam to cut down its Carbon emission (which is humongous). But it doesn’t seem to be paying off.

I think that the pangs of global-warming are too obvious to be described. They can felt everywhere. Perhaps the heat is all around and has even ‘heated’ the people. Look around and one can notice the unrest anywhere. After the tiff between Dera Sacha Sauda and Akal Takht in Punjab came the unsettling feud between the government and the Gujjar community. The unrest spread from Rajasthan to the adjoining states only to be called off in time after a meeting between the Gujjar community and the BJP govt. in the state. Though the meeting made an headway, but at a cost. The cost was the lives of many innocent people and the inconvenience which was faced by the commuters.

To return back to my plight, no amount of ice-cream, AC or iced-tea can work against this sweltering heat. As a result, I have been feeling more ‘heat’. Even the simple act of thinking about heat, leaves me disgruntled. The only thing I can do is to wait, and wait for the Rain God to be generous and sing bhajans to appease him.