AKS

May the year 2009 fulfill all that you have longed for!
Happy New Year!!!

Sometimes the strong cogent reason, call it a purpose, raison d’etre, goal or motive of our life is missing. And we end up wandering, trying out things: hitting: jilting: falling: jumping back: regaining our path. At a point all the meandering seems meaningless and worthless. It is we who complicate our lives, if we know what we are heading for we will fabricate our actions accordingly. But if we are clueless we face a bumpy ride all the way. And then we have to settle for certain things which are beyond our Scope of preference ---and accept it responsibly as our destination or blame it loosely on our destiny!


…..By Me!

Pardon my discretion but what the f#$k was “the perfectionist” Aamir Khan thinking when he signed on the dotted lines for Ghajini. Between catching winks and the giggles and the ohhhhhhh- aaaaahhhhs(Girls still go all ga ga over Aamir) of my hostel mates I was forced to watch this movie yesterday! If I have to frame my Ghajini experience in one word, It has to spell DISASTER.
The Director Murugadoss has copied the 2006 Ghajini Tamil frame to frame. I think he didn’t even bother to change the look and feel of his movie for the Hindi movie-goers.

I have a few points against Ghajini, don’t worry I have a handful of good ones too.
First of all, for all these months I was under the impression (Like thousands of others) that Ghajini is the title role that Aamir Khan plays. But Lo and behold, Ghajini seems to be the name of a South Indian Villain who talks in a Hariyanvi accent (wow we have started getting cosmopolitan villains. Isn’t this display of national integrity at the wrong place?) and who seems to be getting a high out of playing iron-rod head-banging (literally) rather than smoking weed. Now we get a movie named after a Villain who is vaguely the central character of the movie. Was this supposed to be funny, coz it’s absolutely not!! Why Ghajini, it could have been Sanjay Sanghvi ki Amar Dastaan or whatever!!! We still wouldn’t have cared less. But my persistent question continues- Why Ghajini of all?

The new Hindi debutante Asin looks exceptionally beautiful in plain dresses while playing a simple happy-go-lucky girl. But in a private confession, I accept that her acting (overacting) was way too overboard for Bollywood standards. Sorry dear Asin, no favourism here! Gotta be honest! She still has a lot to learn. Her expressions were way too loud, however I did like her act in her death scene. She just needs to understand that acting in movies demands a certain depth or as they say thehrav which is very different and demanding than selling hair oils and soaps on commercials.

Jiah Khan(Do you remember her, the one that got luck with Amitabh Bacchan in the notorious Nishabdha) AAAH the same Jiah Khan is absolutely wasted in the Movie. I don’t understand why she was so furious when she was excluded from the films publicity, she should be happy bout it! She ends up doing a next to nothing kind of a role of a medical student and wraps up as a negligible character who we hardly take a notice of. I mean I noticed the bloody iron-rod more than I noticed her, for Christ Sake. You can certainly do better than playing a side-kick Jiah!

The action sequences are gory enough to make you puke(Suggestion: carry a brown paper bag). The blood oozing from the tap in stomach sequence churned my tummy and the death scene of Asin(though mellowed down after the intervention by our censor board) got me goose bumps. There are many such sequences, especially when Aamir becomes a patient of short term memory loss. At a point you start thinking is such kind of mental inability inversely related to the physical horse power of your body? Coz he seems to be unstoppable after his memory loss!

Though the hype surrounding the movie, I am brushing off the idea that the movie is worth spending 150 hard earned bucks in a Multiplex.
The acting, dialogue delivery looks like it’s for Tolly-wood and not Bollywood. I was tormented with a continuous feeling that I was watching a cheap dubbed movie- which was South-Indian at heart and Hindi at words. The only saving grace of the movie is perhaps the good storyline though the premise has not been excellently exploited. We are taken in and out of flash back sequences with the help of diaries. Another and perhaps the most important reason that will bail this movie out is the mature and seasoned acting by Aamir Khan otherwise the movie has gone for complete doldrums. The musical score of this movie is hitting high on the chart busters and seems to have caught the audience fancy. Also, the songs are shot in lush foreign locales and in deserts (reminds you of Suraj hua madham from KKKG) which help to bring in the masala quotient.

Mr. Murugadoss, please understand no level of strange hair-cuts, heroine and story line controversies, steroid pumped eight pack abs of heroes or outlandish publicity stunts are going to compensate for an almost average film!!! You will get all the publicity but will you get the audience? I have my own doubts. Over all I give 2 stars out of 5 for Ghajini! Only for a creative story-line and of-course “Our Man” Aamir Khan!!

I fall short of words (bad ones actually) when it comes to expressing my angst against people who forward me these emotionally blackmailing chain mails. Usually I delete the blackmailing lines and then forward these messages. But I am still up in arms against them. Such mails catch you off guard where the headlines are mostly Miracle, Full-fill all your wishes, Believe it to be true, See it carefully, See it to believe it. Then there is a picture of some deity and its importance. At the bottom of which begins a long list of examples of how the deity in the picture blesses those who forwarded them to 20 people, 30 people, even infinite people. How a man got his lost job, how a girl go her love back, how it cured a Man’s disease, Blessed couple with a child and the list continues.


And then comes the flip side, marked in red ink and bold font are the terrible repercussions of what doom will befall us if we do not forward the mail to others. Or even practically delete the mail from our inbox. There are short stories of how one lost his love, his leg, his job, his son and practically everything he owned including his dentures because he took this mail very lightly and was too ignorant to forward it!


Frankly when I read this sentence, I relate it to some gangster forcing me to shell out my expensive belongings at gun point! The undertone of the mail is if you don’t forward it then you pay!! And you pay big-time for it!

And then you end up harassing your other poor friends in return by sending them the message to save your ass and set theirs on fire! Once forwarded, you get a soothing relaxed feeling that probably Atlas would have got after he kept the earth down from his shoulders. It’s then the problem of the people whom now you have passed the heavy emotional burden.


I get at least a dozen of these mails every week and I finally decided to voice my opinions brutally against this enforced cruelty. So when I got such a mail today, I gave it back royally to the person in question. I just sent him a mail, the content of which was as follows:-

Thanks for considering me the lucky one (or the vulnerable one) to be part of your prestigious chain mail group. I am forwarding this message back to you, as I think it’s my duty after the huge help you have been doing mankind in spreading wrong stories about our gods

and killing your productive time at work behind this entire time pass even in the days of recession when our jobs need to be guarded the most.

If you don’t forward this same message to yourself 50 times then something terrible might happen to you!

The probable list of which is as follows:-

Your husband might run away with your servant

You might go blank in midst of a presentation in front of your MD

Your new car will start giving less average everyday

Your cat will turn out to be gay and will fall in love with the neighbor’s Pit bull

You will have a bi-polar boss as a new year’s gift

Your atm card will get stolen on your Salary Day

You will have a 500 Rs. note and the Autowala won’t have any change

The guy you love will fall for your best friend

Your expensive Reebok shoes will be stolen from a temple

Your promotion will be given to your assistant

You will be transferred to Pakistan on official duty

Your inherited jewelry with turn out to be a faux pas bought from Crawford Market

Your wife will catch you with a porn magazine AGAIN!!!

You get selected in Dus Ka Dum and loose badly to a 6 year old child

You will be the lead model but for a Viagra ad

You will pay hi-taxes for the next 5 years

You will become bald but beautiful

I am not a skeptic, I believe in god and his goodness and that whatever happens happens for the best! But I find it hard imagining the gods sitting up and relaxing in heaven really deriving great pleasure in scaring poor mortal souls and punishing them for not forwarding their messages. I think they are too occupied with other important issues rather than resorting to these kind of self- promoting endeavors! And I thought this was a prerogative of our Politicians……….or wasn’t it? : )

Members of Aastha Breast Cancer Association

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves
-Carol Lynn Pearson
American writer and poet

My Saturday evenings are generally spent taking lift on my colleague’s bikes or in cars as bus get stuck up at railways crossings for hours at a stretch. The aim is to hit Pune station as fast as I can to catch up the speed-express Intercity to take me home to enjoy my frugal weekends. But this Saturday was special; I decided to take a break from my usually jam-packed hush-hush weekend schedule and opted on staying back. Since I had time on my hand I went to attend the Aastha Breast Cancer Associations function at the IMA Hall, on Tilak Road. They were felicitating Dr. Rajan Badwe for his huge and relentless contribution to the field of Breast Cancer.

There in his address to the crowd, Dr. Rajan Badwe narrated a very touching incident. He said that more than the cancer, it’s the reaction to the cancer that matters the most. He recollected a memoir where a Lady was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in Mammography and he had just disclosed the findings to her. Tears had rolled in her eyes as she stared in the vacuum with vacant eyes void of expressions. She was not receptive to what the Dr. Badwe was explaining. Obviously when hell breaks loose on someone the initial reaction is of denial, loss, apprehension about future and “why me” approach. Since the medical process that she needed to follow was not deciphering in her brains the doctor requested her to go and sit outside, compose herself and then comeback. The lady left tearfully. After sometime when the lady returned she was beaming with joy. This put the doctor in a complete perplex. He asked her the reason of her sudden metamorphosis. The lady’s reply almost stunned me. She said that while waiting in the lobby she read that out of every 30 ladies in India only 1 gets Breast Cancer. This implies that if she has got the disease the rest 29 won’t be affected by it. And she was very happy for them. I couldn’t help clapping when doctor narrated this incident.

Such brave selfless attitude to put our own griefs behind and to embrace happiness for others is something that has inspired me a lot. I think there is a lot to learn from this story. My inference is that it is not the adversity which affects us our attitude towards it that makes all the difference. We can choose our reaction and decide whether to let it affect us positively or negatively.

I saw the patient volunteers of the NGO who had steered clear of the disease and were helping other women who were entrapped in the clutches of this curable but deadly disease. It was so encouraging to see all these ladies arranging free mammography tests, helping the poor ladies who couldn’t afford the expensive treatment, holding free of cost camps for the awareness, inviting a panel of expert doctors to speak on the same and more importantly providing the mental and emotional support that a lady requires on discovery of the Breast Cancer.

One look at them, and you could never think as they have fought such a ghastly malignant disease. All of them radiated with joy and enthusiasm.

One could see the level of efforts that they had put in to make the program a grand success. They even read a poem about giving up ignorance and spreading awareness in the public. One thing that the cancer had left unaffected was their incandescent sprit with a huge jest for life, all of them looked so accomplished and happy. One lady among them in particular has always helped me in my testing times. She has inspired me to be happy come what may and to have a stiff back-bone to stare the world in its eyes …She has helped me immensely in gaining back my lost self-worth... I admire her a lot! She has been a continuous source of inspiration in putting my pain behind and working towards a larger and more fulfilling goal. I have deep reverence for her.

Every day in life, we come across people who are heroes in their own right. Who have distinctly survived an adversity and have taken life with its lapels and driven it in their chosen direction. These Breast Cancer patients have fought a very painful emotional and physical battle. Their endurance shows in a constant smile that graces their face……these ladies are my heroes because they have trodden a painful path and yet have chosen to put it all behind and act torch bearers to many others……I walked away feeling enriched with so many valuable Life’s big lessons in a small scoop that day!!!

I salute thee brave hearts…..hats off to the courage and optimism that you personify!!!!!

Breathing Song : Dream of Me

Yesterday I was aimlessly browsing through the plethora of channels on television when I came across a very interesting 2001 Movie “Get over it” on Star Movies.
Its an overall good teenage “GET OVER YOUR BREAK-UP” movie but the best part is it has CISQO (Whom I didn’t knew till yesterday but his performance prompted me to search for his details) who fared exceptionally well.
I came across a song featuring Kristen Dunst as Helena in Shakespeare’s Midnight Summer’s Dream. It’s absolutely beautiful, please see the lyrics as below and watch the magical melody unfold here http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=92Eu0IxEV8M

DREAM OF ME

oh weary night, abate thy hours
steal me away a while for my own company
Let me sleep
For when I sleep I dream that you're here
You're mine and all my fears are left behind
I float on air the nightingale sings gentle lullabies
So let me close my eyes
And sleep, a chance to dream
So I can see the face I long to touch, to kiss
But only dreams can bring me this
so let the moon shine softly on the boy I long to see
And maybe when he dreams he'll dream of me

I hide beneath the clouds
and whisper to the evening stars
They tell me love is just a dream away, dream away
A dream away

So let the moon shine softly on the boy I long to see
And maybe when he dreams he'll dream of me
Oh dream of me

oh oh oh oh oh oh oh dream of me

Sometimes the tears in our eyes freeze in contempt of the silence of our voice. And the only sound that fills the void is perhaps the ensuing chaos that slowly clutters our heart and invades our spirit…thus leaving it in a desperate state of wanting more……..more and more of these painful memories……

……By Me

Down the painful memory lane again!



Its New Year time and memories have flooded my mind again. This photo just reminds me of someone……….I am trying desperately to forget…

The sad co-incidence is that this picture which is on web is also named as “the last dance”……..That has provided inspiration to the title of this post……….

Last year on New Year’s Eve I had a blast…….danced away in the night, had great booze and food with the person I loved so dearly by my side. Felt like heaven on earth………when a new year began with a kiss from someone who was my life………..

…..

If only wishes would come true……………

If only……….



For you my love, I have died a thousand deaths every hour, every second of the day……..

And that is not love for thou, for I am just a big mistake adding to your dismay………

May Luck and glory kiss your feet always……..

And may the happiness that you seek always be with you after we part ways……..

Act of Kindness!!
Today a strange incident happened! At about 7 pm I was loitering in the Panch Pakadi Area of Thane with my parents visiting some furniture shops to locate the perfect shoe rack ever!! We were enjoying our usual chats, occasionally checking out the decoration in the display windows for the new year. When I spotted a completely nude man on the road! Many chose to ignore his existence, some made disgusting faces at him, few winced at his sorry state and a handful of them laughed on his face!
The man whose skin had been darkened and completely tanned was speaking to himself! It looked as if this poor insane soul had no idea that he was completely monty with no piece of clothing to cover even his bare essentials!!
He was meandering in his own mindless fervour when a young man in his early twenties came on his bike! He had got something for the man. It was a shirt and a pant! He gave it to the poor man! The man smiled! We had passed them both till that time. I do not know whether our person in question wore the clothes brought by our hero!!
I do not know whether this act was out of shame or charity! In an age when no one has the time or the thought process to think about helping others, this youth had chosen to step up and help this poor insane fellow! I felt a sense of immense respect and gratitude towards him!!It is sad and ironic to recollect how many of us stop by to help people even though we have the capability to do so? What the youth did was highly commendable! May God Bless the youth for his act of kindness!

AAAAAAAAHHHH Welcome 2009!!
Its just 15 days for 2008 to get over and you all must have already started making elaborate private plans and resolutions for the new year. Lets take a quick review of the incidents that occurred in my life in 2008.

I anticipated great expectations from 2008, what I got in return was completely different......You can say a shocking volte-foce that hit my life suddenly! It caught me off guard and left me paralysed for a few months before nature got its best healer time to put me back in my place!

Loss :(

Bajirao my pet kitten passed away in April 2008 thus triggering a downward spiral of my life!

Immensurable loss of one-sided love, leading to a depletion of self-respect, self-worth and ultimately depression because of a lot of mud-slinging from someone I called my own! Shock, distrust, rejection had all culminated into almost destroying me.

What 2008 gave me( I believe this is more important than the loss section) :)

Lasting friendships and bonds, Strong inter-personal relations, Valuable realisations, Lot of experience, Scope for change, Immense strength to fight back difficult situations, Optimistic and progressive attitude, Independence and sense of responsibility, Furtive opportunities to proove myself, Pragmatism, Inclination towards Meta-physics, Cherishing what I have rather than lamenting a silly loss, True meaning of love, Respect for my indiviuality, To smile no matter what, Iron - maiden vigour to bounce back from an adversity but more importantly it has awarded me with something that I feel I missed all these years a solid purpose and focus in life!

I say Thank You 2008 for showering me with so many important gifts in life! As a return gift, I vouch to continue working on what 2008 has taught me! The loss I guess acted like a catalyst in changing me for the best!!! : )

I await thee 2009........I await thee to be a harbinger of my happiness!! : )