Tuesday, November 11, 2014

P A IZ AWSM

I was having a dream about a simple house. That could probably be the effect of the movie based on the life of Dr. Prakash Amte that I went to see yesterday.

The movie felt silly on the aural front; the background score tried to pump only a set of four emotions - happiness, sadness, harm, and virtue - and it made it preachy. Another irk I had was with the sounds of the forest. They were using sounds from the canopy of South American forests, is what was wrong. Hearing the Screaming Piha so many times to a Vidarbha backdrop was a little nerve exploding somewhere.

But the movie read like a beautiful book for the most part. It was a collection of stories across his life, loosely time-sequenced. It dips back and forth into the past. Much like how Mi Sindhutai Sapkal was. Nana Patekar is great, he is stataturely in his role of a simple man. My mama, and this Nana, both are aging well and looking better with time and face fat.

My girlfriend cried much throughout the movie. I felt like it once, but the feeling calmed soon. I dunno what to make of that. I'm idealistic, and maybe lost my ideality of gauging emotion, in the process of watching too many movies. But I know where my recourse is.

I will want to keep a leopard as a pet sometime.

Bench Press

Charged on Sunday by an Indian wedding, I took my my two loves to a new distance, and ended up actually publishing something. No, not a paper, but a short interview video.
Today has been much about finishing it. So, a toast. There were a kitten, a tortoise, and 4 german sheps in this Ds home yesterday. Then we went and saw Baba Amte which reflected on a life of endless compassion, and I was like - we left that back home for the movie. Well, I obviously overstate my compasison here, comparing it to something to A Baba. Right now I have the dogs barking in protest so I have to take them out, so we'll start there.



Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Armaan

तुम अपने ये अँधेरे जो पकडे हो,
आज कर दो रिहा |
जो शिकवे यूं दबाये हो,
आज दो भुला |
खुद के ख्यालों की खयाली को,
आज कर दो तूफ़ान |
ऊंचे टंगे अधर के ऊपर छूने को,

बस एक आसमान |
अपने बेपरवाह क़दमों को,
आज दो अरमान |

Never

Never bite the hand that feeds
Never lose your slippers
Never skip a bath
Never forget to maintain a clean pair of undies
Never skip a beat
Never have maggi randomly
Never listen to your old music
Never play with furry things
Never play with own furry things
Never clean up after the act
Never find the solace
Never find the happiness
Never hide
Never play dead
Never feel crowded

Never be okay

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Everest

Today was appetizing. The purveyor of kitsch and retrograde inside was satiated. I'd be like Ignatius walking out of the theater content with aspersions about some abortion he sat through. I just sat through a grueling hour of television. It was to catch the debut episode of a series that felt close to concern, one called Everest, on Star Plus, .

I was an audience it since it reflected on a journey of a mountaineer, that too a girl. Female emancipation, and mountains, are general themes with enough of a pull. They are great themes, for the present times, which put the focus on the baffling and bashful realities of our society. Then, there was also a connect with a lot of people in the mountaineering fraternity that I've come to know - including my erstwhile OTL, whose facticities had a partial overlap with those tersely identified with the protagonist in the show's promos.

If their promos were anything to go by, I was anticipating a bad show. It spoke of a girl who would try to win her father's love by climbing the world's highest mountain, and in turn win our TRP; it pushed a retrograde concept, and at the same time called it inspirational. In today's world if one's idea of an inspiring tale is doing the extraordinary for mere validation from a father or a society, then my only idea of a response is a facepalm.

When the show finally aired, I was speechless. It went beyond the promos. Not just thematically, it sucked in screenplay, dialog, direction, acting, editing, ... If it was trying to be the worst show in tele, it felt there already. If it was aiming to be the most epic waste of production money, it is, without doubt, there already.

It starts with a girl - who but our protagonist - called Anjali, who would start every day with the intention of winning her father's affection, and her father - a misogynistic Brigadier with malformed expectations, in eternal longing for a male child, in eternal denial of existence of his daughter - making her every gesture seem unimpressive and trifling. 

Anjali seems to have the Electra Complex, trying to push her mother into nonexistence when "papa" is home from the Army.
She also seems to have improved on Renee Descartes' proposition about thinking and being: 
"cogito, ergo sum, 
et ego sum, 
patris mei" 
(I think, therefore I am, and I am, for my father) - very moving.

Validation, however, doesn't come easy. She makes tea, but "Papa" don't like. She tops the state exam, and is honored at her school, but her only validation is "papa" showing up, which doesn't happen. He's like "I know who you are, and you are nothing. You are empty, you are a zero, you are a black hole".

Papa often says hurtful things about her, ignorant of her love and dedication, but that is alright as she is a girl, and girls deserve that. "You are loved by him as much as is possible to love a girl child," her wise mother placates her.
A rotten father, a mother whom she weeps with behind closed doors, and a school friend whom she laughs with on the balcony - what more does one need?.. You can see how it is building to the Everest already.

Let us think about Everest for a moment. Poor Everest, that is already becoming a proving ground for the mountaineers, even though we have better mountains, and now shown as a proving ground for disturbed teens trying to impress a parent or two, even though we have better places where disturbed people are often found - the psychiatric ward. Everest is not meant to be a replacement for therapy, but sadly is shown as one, here.

We are told that the Kalyug (the corrupted century) is approaching, an age when all our value systems will invert. The PR machine is working hard to usher that age in (perhaps there already). Either this show marks the beginning of that Kalyug, or it waits in hope that it comes soon, so the bad will be called good. I've heard rumors that the series continues for a 100 episodes - which means it could well be the greatest show ever when Kalyug comes.

Monday, November 03, 2014

Sunday readings

It takes 500 steps, on average, walking between the two BIG gates.
It takes 460 strides, on average, running between the two BIG gates.
The two big gates are about 840m apart.
Beyond the gates, another 1666m and 3111 steps, takes you to a land of lights.
It takes 2500 steps on the way back from the shorter lonely route.
It is 328 steps to the 18th. For fools, its 555 steps.
The 13th floor is spooky, for it is the only one with an empty cement cave where an apartment should be.
Daffodil and Daisy are linked by this "cave" on the 13th.

Crazy Jacket, if there is one

I found this book description in a Google Doc. It is twisted thinking how the text was prepared. It reads like a preview, but isn't. It looks so random, much like all unique words of the book shuffled and slapped randomly. It's hard to believe it all could be in the same book, but is. It could be a project to try out.
It is something Kilgore Trout could write.
---

<blockquote>Jeez rattlesnake disbanded The Great Himalaya Trail N9: The Makalu Barun Section  reindeer. Longing yikes The Great Himalaya Trail N9: The Makalu Barun Section followed burned that joyful overtook oh. Goat the gosh far umm wow. That a that insufferably palpably umm wherever. Spoke hi great despite elephant umm PDF some whimpered viscerally. Teasingly fish that more hey near yikes much well. One and that less much playfully pangolin feeling ebook download so congratulated. More rooster recast hmm labrador excitedly regardless thanks some hawk. Upon vindictively much dismounted naked pouted jeepers until far. Darn far tragic much and wow because halfheartedly jaguar. Complete pinched when apart a and more oh considering. Extrinsically EBook clinic less some far sent within far and salmon. Boundlessly pdf download off as partook raccoon depending crud hmm chose and. Benign radiantly so compulsively lethargic became overlay. Gosh the below sobbed. Before more kangaroo more because flipped hyena. Far fretfully forecast hare thus that willfully so ran imaginatively. Immeasurable consoled far oh crud bore chameleon arduously less much. Concurrent reran until far by. Perilous one a reindeer.</blockquote>

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Kilgore Trout Nobel Prize acceptance speech

"There were two monsters sharing this planet with us when i was a boy however and i celebrate their extinction today. They were determined to kill us or at least to make our lives meaningless. They came close to success. They were cruel adversaries which my little friends the beavers were not.

Lions? No. tigers? No. lions and tigers snoozed most of the time. They were the arbitrary lust for gold and, god help us, for a glimpse of a little girls underpants.
I thank those lusts for being so ridiculous for they thought that it was possible for a human being to believe anything and to behave passionately in keeping with that belief, any belief."


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Nostalgia retreat

It finally happened.. No not coming across a pot of gold or something that even remotely leads to a metaphorical pot of the aforementioned metal.. But that I got out to visit old places and old friends in a city that briefly was my home. I have been here a few times since, and increasingly so with the advent of krushiness, but never got out to do this, with no good excuses (such is how I have come to epitomize indolence).

In the meantime my dogs have now moved from kennels - like the one we shared - to dens, into better jobs, into more complex social units, and hence relocated either within or outside this city, which sure lessened the anticipation from the trip. But the lone friend that pulled me out gave enough to anticipate.. We had a right connect, not of office, but the outdoors (or whatever little of it that I got a chance to), so I knew we'll be talking about the good stuff, and knowing that I was excited about not being bored.

Today, I pulled meself out in the afternoon, to end up on avenues where I would know all the good haunts, and could guide the autowallah through.

I wasn't surprised to see more people crowding the same markets, as busy places attract. There's even a Mc Donalds opened right next door, which is enough to rave about.

Meeting Mwgli after all these years was crazy. She's a mother now, with an enviously hairy baby that she should be proud of. She's the only person I know who doesn't say raving dreamy things about pregnancy (and post pregnancy), which makes her one honest person and worth taking to.

Her motherhood, sadly, came with thyroid. I hugged the same shell of her body, padded with 45 added pounds. I didn't know thyroid had become a lifestyle disease - always considered it genetic, -  and now feel scared about the future of our society. The dystopian visualized future of Wall-E is nothing but the human race with impaired thyroid function having it easy.

Veneration of the old days followed, and we come off as friends better than imagination serves. Those long trail walks through AC, those long and sweaty days of cycling, those sights that deserve a painter's intervention...  We pushed each other, that phase being Mwgli's most cherished phase of physical activity. Now she's on Zumba, but I doubt it's efficacy.

The old sights and smells were stimulating. I felt like i was hit with a bat on the sidewalk, when the breeze coming down from AC mingled with smells from the chat vendor's, and started an affair with my nostrils. This was the junction all my mornings once started and days ended at. Incentives to live an active life were many in those days.

I will have to go back and take a clue of not being a vegetable while in the megacity of Mumbai. Inshallah...


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