Bollywood, Tollywood, Don, Bile and Pontification

There are times when the urge to pontificate overtakes one. To be truthful, the urge does overtake be rather frequently. This is one such time. Therefore, without much ado, I proceed to pontificate.

There was once a nice, quaint commercial Bengali movie industry. I do not use the was qualifier because the industry has disappeared. I do so because the sad fact is that it is no longer nice, quaint and entertaining. Also, I do not intend to express the view that all fare produced by this erstwhile entity was stupendous. Even during the its better days, Tollywood, (as it was called during those days) would produce its share of horrendous, tolerable, nice and lovely movies. Now they are just cheesy and embarrassing. The reason why they are so is rather simple. From being a original and Bengali affair, it went on to become a poor man's Bollywood -- a pathetic wannabe for the consumption of the tough eggs who craved for some Bollywood action the Bengali way. They are very bad Hindi movies made in Bengali. That is all I have to say about the Bollywood Tollywood thingy.

I just happened to watch Don a few days back, and am sorry to say that I found the movie to be rather horrible. I can envisage the Nike heeled, lovers-of-Anurag-Mathur hissing in anger at such an unfair judgement, but let me assure you that it truly is a bad movie. You just do not realize it is bad because you are the target audience -- the semi-literate tough eggs who speak in bad and broken english and who want some of that Hollywood action the Bollywood way. For you, it is a good movie and so you may calmly un-hiss.

Now I shall proceed to unship some advice for the benefit of the nitwit who is the scriptwriter for the cinematic abomination that is Don.
Dear Scriptwriter,
When you proceed to write the script of a movie in a particular language, you are assumed to posses a fair command over the language. Thinking up witty lines in English and then, mindlessly translating them to Urdu or Hindi does not make a witty line in Hindi or Urdu. For example, the direct translation of "You forgot to say please..." in Hindi does not make a witty line, it makes a tardy one. The same could be said about "I might just change my mind about you." I could have cited numerous other examples but I really did not think the movie was worth paying attention to. If you cannot think in Hindi or Urdu, I would advise you to write scripts in English. Please do not burden us with your pidgin Hindi. It is jarring.
Yours faithfully
A Lover of Hindi Movies

There are and will be paeans sung in praise of Don the movie -- on the high production values and how cool it looks. The truth however is much sadder. The movie is what it is --- It is a cheap, cheesy, outlandish and laughably bad Hollywood movie. The only difference is that the characters happen to speak in very bad Hindi, very much like the bad Tollywood Hindi movie in Bengali.

Word Verification

It was a lovely nippy morning. Just the morning to sip some (free) coffee at work and surf the (free) Internet and post a few inconsequential comments on some markedly horrible blogs.

Commenting on blogs is a lowly, but well established method of wasting productive time. To add some consequence and weight to this activity, blogger.com has introduced the system of word verification. Word verification claims to keep the spam out of the comments. The actual purpose of it all however is to add to the otherwise useless activity of commenting on blogs, a certain grandeur and importance -- a sentiment and motive I have wholesome respect for. I am therefore extremely sad to announce that this very morning, my esteem for the whole word verification thingy has been subjected to some damage.

I was, in my harmless and inconsequential nature, posting a redundant comment on an equally redundant blog when it happened. Without any prior warning or any discernable motive, blogger.com confronted me this monstrosity:

The trauma caused during the decipherment of the number of w-s and v-s in the whole thingy has been considerable. After duly posting the comment, I had to rapidly suck in two cups of very strong (free) coffee to fully recuperate so that I could resume dutifully dawdling over my work.

Word verification for me does not hold that same golden stature of glory that it did in its days of yore.

Haiku

A rather feeble attempt at some Haiku. The images of nature are from the north-east and the north of India where I have lived and grown up in. My visits to Japan have been too short and hectic to actually spend any time alone with nature.

Silent rose shaped cloud.
A cold winter afternoon --
My long lost childhood.
-------
Sultry humid night.
First short, cold monsoon shower --
Fresh sheet. New poem.
-------
Slow rain on the trees,
gently washing drooping leaves --
Cleaning memories.
-------
Warm, whispering winds,
mourn in the bamboo forest --
Her last fading breath.

One Act Play

Dramatis Personæ

Bald Monkey, a code monkey from India.
The Other Code Monkey, another code monkey from India.
The Subway Lady, the sandwich artist at Subway.

ACT I

Scene I -- At a Subway franchisee in a mall in Maryland. The Other Code Monkey and Bald Monkey are in queue. The Other Code Monkey is in front of Bald Monkey.

The Other Code Monkey: Can I have some of that capsicum in my sandwich ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. What was that ?
The Other Code Monkey: Some capsicum ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. I dont know that.
The Other Code Monkey: Some capsicum ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. I dont know that.
The Other Code Monkey: Some capsicum ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. I dont know that.

[Repeat for five minutes]

The Other Code Monkey: Some capsicum ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. I dont know that.
Bald Monkey (to himself): Bollocks !
The Other Code Monkey: Some capsicum ?
The Subway Lady: Sorry. I dont know that.
Bald Monkey: The green peppers please ?
The Subway Lady: Aaah. The green peppers ! Here you are.
The Other Code Monkey: Thank you.
[Exeunt The Other Code Monkey]

[Bald Monkey finally gets his lunch and does happy dance.]

Cingular

Raising the fubar...

Coming To America

History, of course is rife with examples of extremely weighty reasons for hearty souls making a beeline for the United States of America.

Christopher Columbus did so in the process of making a spectacular mistake. Arnold Schwarzenegger made the journey for his undivided love for acting. After successfully executing a bunch of superb movies, he came to the sad conclusion that the movies thingy was not exactly where one could unleash one's acting skills. He therefore in an act of extreme prudence, joined politics -- where the real acting is required.

My reasons for temporarily coming to the USA however are infinitely more mundane. After one's markedly sordid (but fulfilling) experiments with truth, one realizes that although such intrepid acts do behoove the broad brave man, they also tend to tire him. With G. happily imbibing Burrito Bols at Chipotle and Yankee twangs at work, it does get a wee lonely in Bangalore dawdling over that Masala Dosa in silent solitude. Also, in my truthful nature I cannot deny the fact that clean, white sheets and simple, warm meals do have their merits. Therefore, in an act of Schwarzenegger-esque prudence and home-grown pusillanamity, I decided to forsake my rugged life on the frontiers of Bangalore and adopt the cushy compromise of regular warm meals and moderation. I too made a beeline for the United States of America. G. has been taken by surprise. She still does not know as to what has hit her.

My sombre and distinguished readership much accustomed to my extremely informative posts must be rather appalled at all this senseless drivel surrounding warm meals and clean sheets. I do understand. They would expect, (as they are wont to have) incisive and intelligent insights into the life and times of the American people. I too, in my responsible nature, aim to please my scant readership. The sad news however is that I have not had the opportunity to observe, and as a consequence, remark on the American. My failure emanates from the fact that he never gets out of his car. That is his natural habitat and is not seen anywhere else. The rest of the nation is deserted.

I would however urge my readership not to lose heart at such an unexpected turn of events. I shall follow the path much trodden by similar shameless, untalented, ridiculous hacks and at regular intervals shall produce shallow, inconsequential observations based on vignettes scavenged from television and the tabloids. Please do watch this space for some bad journalism. One is urged not to hold one's breath since my stuff is just not worth it and also, it is not a particularly easy thing to do.

Profound Words

"A child who has not travelled says that his mother is the best cook."