Itz just about Me and My World

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Small is Beautiful

It has always been our habit to love all those things that are in their most basic, primitive and small form. We still have the habit of having small toys of trucks, cars and other things which we dont really attach a lot of importance to. Be it animate or lifeless objects, small is always cute and beautiful at the same time.

Haven't you ever wondered why we like even creatures like pig and monkeys when they are small. Elephants look damn cute when they are small. I collect small pens, minuscule looking accesories and items. To be very specific, i love the small ponds' cold cream and vaseline chota packs that were available during winters across india. More than the economy value, its the size that allured me. Why are people moving from the brick like nokias to small and stylish motorola ?

I have never thought about this fact until my cousin sister gave birth to a baby gal some hours ago. I was one of the first few to take a glimpse of her as sooon as she landed on this holy planet. Mankind in its purest form, she was a joy to watch. While she was crying, all of us were happily smiling and enjoying her first few hours. Rarely you see people smiling, while another crying his/her hearts out. Just the look of her was enough to give me that eternal feeling of satisfaction. I was so used to babies and i just love them. But, It has been a long time since i saw a new born. Never before have i clearly seen such a minuscule homosapien. She was so cute. She would have painlessly fitted into my shirt pocket. She was so small and cho chweeeet. Having beeen soaked in bloood had given her a pinkish colour which increase the alluring effect.

I knew i could not handle her safely as i was not used to small babies. I always prefered looking at them and enjoying the moment from a distance. But, She was my neice and I wanted to hold her in my arms. My hands were trembling. Looked like she will easily fit into my palm. I looked at people around me. All of them were busy looking at her. She was in limelight. Nobody even noticed my presence in chennai at such an odd time in the calendar. she deserved all the attention in the world that she was receiving. I am feeling the happiness which i have never felt before in my life. Words cannot really express everything. But emotions can .... May god bless the new one and give her everything that she desires.

Atlast some one will call me Maama and mean it ....... Nikita ...... She was small, cute and beautiful.

JK

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

A funny take on south Indian movies ....

These will predominantly be about Tamil movies and where ever required other languages are also mocked at. The technology and men have changed in the movie industry over last decade. The theme or cultural shifts have also been seen. Despite attempts to make the movie look different and mixed with a new feel, our movie still get entangled in the inescapable Quagmire.

  • Movie should always begin with the idol of a god and some old lady (preferably the mom of the producer), who is about to die any minute will shower flowers on the idol with extraordinary difficulty.
  • The hero worship has to begin right from the title card. This had been a fever that was started by rajni and aggravated by simbhu.
  • The Fact that “the movie should be different” is misunderstood by the directors. The first scene of many new movies has no relation to what the movie is all about.(Eg. Manmadan’s intro scene and several balakrishna’s movie. I still remember one funny first scene of a telugu movie, where Balakrishna attired in Reid and tailor suit rides a white horse all the way into an uninhabited desert and saves the skimplily clad make-shift heroine or a vamp from the villain who had been waiting all the while to rape the lady.)
  • A villain never wins and it’s a universal rule. Villain will always be well equipped with weapons, but our hero is given a matchless power to grab all the bombs and bullets with his hands and throw them back.
  • Villain gets hold of the gal and takes her away. He could have raped her right then and I guess it would harldy take him a few minutes to do so. But he will not do it. He will carry her off to a isolated bungalow in his horse-cart. Only god knows how the hero gets to know the place of bungalow. When the villain just strips the heroine’s sareee, the hero will break open the glass of the room in the fourth floor in his motorcycle(the theater gives him a standing ovation) and beats the villain up. In the next scene, he will land up doing everything possible with the heroine he saved, of which I bet the villain would not have done even 10 %.
  • Villain will get 10 odd opportunities to shoot the hero and viceversa. Both of them will never do it as the audience is not prepared for a 10 minute movie.
  • When Vijayakath is the hero, villain is always a pakistaani and if not he will atleast be remotely connected to Kashmir issue.
  • When Manirathnam is the director, people are nocturnal …. The hero and villain never meet in day light.
  • When Shankar is the director and there is a scene of hero entering a rest room … He will make sure that the rest room built is of size 2000 Sq.Ft and it is fitted with plush 5 Grand Closets and furnished with teak wood and Belgium glass with shave finish. All this will cost around 40 Lakhs and if the movie flops, director will have to use only the public toilet as his restroom.
  • When TR is the man, even the most insignificant dialogues need to be rhymed. He needs to madly shake his head when he speaks them with his hair flowing till his mouth. (The funda is audience should not be frightened looking at his face).
  • When there is train / bus is involved, the TTR / Comductor is a comedian. They will definitely get beaten or bakra-ed by the hero.
  • When ever there is a drinking session, the topic of discussion is always love failure of the hero. All the friends sitting around would be pulping while our hero is busy gulping.
  • Hero will have a mother or sister who will be killed or raped by the villain. This is the element of revenge. If both of them are missing, then there will be a close childhood friend who gets killed 30 minutes before the movie ends.
  • Atleast one of the Hero's family member will have to be sacrificed for the hero's love. After all, atleast one have to die from the hero's side for every 100 deaths from the villain's side(an essence of fairness).
  • If Sarath kumar is the hero, then there should at least be a few scenes he removes his shirt and do pushups … He lifts the heroines ….. Removes his shirt to intimidate the poor villain (all he has is a beer-belly).
  • If Sathyaraj is the hero, u don’t really have to watch the movie…. It will be just as funny as a 160 minute lollu sabha …. This is the only place in the world, where Screenplay and Editing synchronizes.
  • If Goundamani is there, then there have to be senthil or someone as funny and peculiar as him who is waiting there to get his ass kicked.
  • Second heroine is brought in not because the storyline needs her, its only because the actual heroine is not keen on exposing.
  • If the hero is a college student, then all the friends will always be the same. Be it 1997 or 2005, its still daamu and vivek who are the college going kids.
  • If hero is a professor, then heroine is his student and if he is a watchman, she stays in the apartment where he is in Duty.
  • Heroine will be rich and she can readily fall in love with any autowalla, taxi driver,peon, plumber and what not ?? She will never have brains and all the hero needs to do it to catch hold of her when is falling from the fifth floor or beat up some heavy looking rowdies in front of her.
  • Again, rowdies can never be lean. For them to look menacing, they need to be heavy. But even an unbelievable thin guy like Danush will make them bleed. Poor men.
  • Hero need not be handsome or good looking. All he needs to have is some peculiar looks so that he stands out on screen. If u don’t believe in this, please go and watch some kannada movies.
  • Horse is the sex symbol in Indian film industry. When ever there is some erotic mood switches, there will be a horse in the background and the hero and heroine land up pressing and squeezing the horse for no reasons. Again, in those not-showable bedroom scenes, when the hero is about to remove the heroine’s saree, the camera will shift its angle and show some dumb picture of some horses running. When the camera regains its position back, the heroine will be crying(god knows why ?)
  • Politicians are evil men and so are policemen. When police is nice, it’s the hero himself or else, this nice policeman gets killed early in the movie by the notorious villain.
  • Black colored syntex cans should be used when there is some liquor brewing scene and guy who is brewing should be rustically dressed.
  • Hero is always a superhuman and villain will be a most stupid comedian.Hero will rarely be armed, but still would escape from any number of henchmen with deadly weapons.
    There can be no fight sequence without breaking a dozen of glasses.
  • Hero can talk with animals and can get the help of a monkey to him get out of the jail.
    The climax will always be preceeded by a dance by the hero(preferably with a vamp).
  • The hero will confront the villian with an extra scar or beard. The villian can never find this out, when even the stupidest of the audience can get a feel of what is going on.
  • For every car chase, there is a 100 % possiblity of breaking all of them except the hero's car. Sometimes even the heros car will be torn apart, but he will emerge out of it without even a smallest cut.
  • The hero can run non-stop from madras to pondicherry(140 Kms) and still sing a duet sequence with ounces of energy.
  • Every horrible villian or an action hero will have a damn funny flashback.
  • Every dual hero subjects will have a flashback where the heros got seperated in a train journey(The train left when one of the twins got down from it). So far, I have a never seen(have not even heard about) a twin looking like photocopies(??)
  • Hero can run across the villains' henchmen armed with AK-47(The only machine gun code known to tamil movie viewers). All of them will shoot simultanesously. But the hero can run in such a way that the bullets fall an inch behind his leg.
  • Not every henchman will confront the hero together. They will give him a concession. They will stand in a line and attack him only when the the guy who went last is down on the ground.
  • The Action sequences in any action movie will have only one reason : Love or revenge.
  • The terrorist will always be a pakistani(accoridng to india, its the only country where terrorists reside). He would have no other job and will come all the way to chennai and rape the hero's sister/girl friend. Nothing can beat the repercussions .... The hero will go to kashmir to kill him and will talk patriotic punch-lines when the real intentions happens to be different.
  • when the flashback is set to begin, who ever tells it has to look above with a sudden lull in the music level. The Flash back should have a song , preferably in a village fest atmosphere.
  • village panchayaths cannot run without a brass cup(we call it sombu), banyan tree and some useless old men.
  • If the story is village based, hero will be the head of the village. The hero will be repescted as an epitome of perfection. Villain will screw his image and the story will be fabricated around how the hero gains the respect back.
  • Every village movie will introduce some brilliant new concept like ....
  1. kummi adikarathu(women dancing around a mud pot for a lousy number)
  2. kolavai satham(a vocal instrument that signifies the entry of hero)
  3. kuthu dance(fast dance with an excessive use of drums)
  4. uri adi(hitting the pot with water tied at a height of 13 feet ... only the hero can do it)
  5. silambam(resembles the name simbhu(silambarasan) .. winner's prize includes gals)
  6. villu paatu (old men opening their mouth over a long string to tell unnecessary bedtime stories to public)
  7. kozhi sandai(cock fight)
  8. kozhaiyadi chandai(fighting for water near the pipes and using awesome language)
  9. karakaatam(only ramrajan can dance to all funny numbers without the sombu balanced on his headwithout falling down)
  10. theiva kutham(an act against the god ... heroine has to either dance in red and yellow sareee, preferably with around 100 odd women or a virgin gal has to come around the village nude ... but they never show anything .. sob sob)
  11. komanam(tear and wear as against the traditional wear and tear... this is purely for the purpose of uplifting masses ... no pun intended)
  12. maatu vandi/ millu vandi (cart of the hero and every one will hide the cloth in their armpit and respect the hero when he drives this man made mercedes)
  13. karupu saaami ( also known as muniswaran and muthukarupan, he stands amidst some big horses .. prefered for the climax fight where muniswaran will lend his armour to help the hero)
  14. aruvaa (long knife bend at the end to scratch the heros' back ... he puts it behind his shirt for the same purpose)
  15. naatamai(the man who spits and drinks water from the same pot and speaks an incomprehensible language and chases people out of the village for crimes ranging from not wearing a komanam till removing the same for rape scenes)
  16. vettiyaan(the man who clears all those passed out citizens)
  17. ponnuthaayi vayasuku vathutaa(the gal will be locked in a suffocating hut until her uncle comes and gives her some gifts ... what a fuckin concept)
  18. Manja thanni oothum festival(all unmarried and desperate women try to get guys by pouring yellow coloured fluid ... only color is yellow ... not that one ;) )
  • Nothing can beat the duet songs in tamil movies. They will travel to some weird countries and then dance in the center of the road amidst busy traffic in the most colorful costume. The pride in the veiwers face knows no limits. Most of us dont notice the "yuck"expression that the onlookers in that country give our protagonists.
  • most of these songs will be dream sequence with either the hero or the heroine dreaming. One movie broke this tradition... Ei, Nee romba azhaga iruka - has the heroines' mom dreaming about her daughter doing "those" things with the hero ... Wow .. what a mom ??
More to come .... Watch out for this space.

Cheers

JK

Same time ... Last year …

It had relatively been the same time last year … Memories have been quite nostalgic. I was working with Cognizant then. The clients have come and the team was going through a packed schedule of knowledge transfer of the sytem that we would be taking over in a few days. It was then, I had a call from XLRI for BM. I had my interview on March 7th at 4.00 AM. I somehow managed to ace the interview and get into a place which had always been my distant dream.

Almost a year has passed by and I was returning back home for a short break. I was sitting in the Calcutta airport rather jobless and those memories of preparing for interviews an year ago began to haunt me. I took out my laptop and started scribbling all those arbit thoughts that lingered around my mind.

It has been a year since I had come here. This is the first place to have given me everything and have seen me in every possible emotional frame of mind. A month after my interview, I was waitlisted for my admissions at XLRI and I got a confirmed call 2 weeks later. A pride of some sense crept in mind. A lot of people around me started looking for me to set standards … I and, I alone knew that I can never be a role model to any human being on earth. It has always been a trial and error life for me. I do think a lot before taking any decision, but never really plan for anything to happen. I always take life as it comes and give seriousness only to issues that deserve it.

It took some time for me to land back in ground to realize that the task has just begun and I have not really moved anywhere. I was wondering how tough MBA life would be. After having met some seniors, I was under an impression that XLRI is a tough place to live in. Fear gripped and the day arrived. I set foot in Jamshedpur. The campus was too cute and city was very graceful than the Bihari town that I had imagined it would be.

I had always been the lucky one …. Eventhough, I had worked hard and have earned the things the tougher way, I had always been Lucky in the sense that, things had been happening to me when I really want them to happen. XLRI came at the right time when I was feeling really guilty of doing some technical work, when my real goal was of being a manager. I had a bad hindi and I was out of home for the first ever time in life. I am a chatterbox and will hardly remain silent. Lucky as I was, I had a tamil roomie. Had it been a hindi roomie, I would have leant hindi faster, but would have found it hard to adapt myself to a new world.

Not just a roomie, I had some nice bunch of friends who I got extremely close with over a period of time. I got nice people, fairly decent dosas, good south Indian thaali (atleast once a week), etc … Jamshedpur was not the best of the places, but XLRI was. It was a learning experience in itself. You see varied personalities flocking from all over India to do their MBAs. You understand, how people work and hence how organizations work. Life began rather slow and I had to flex every muscle of mine to adapt to rather demanding culture and schedules. XLRI is not all about education. Eventually reading and working hard is always a personal choice that you had to make at one point or other. XLRI does not really put in deadlines or schedules. They are just laid down and there was always an option of bye-passing them. XLRI made me change a lot of my personal habits and attributes.

Frankly, I had always been a conservative Chennai-ite who has a very well defined value system. I firmly believed that what I understood was universal. XLRI was initially a culture shock for me when I had encountered men and women drinking together (In Chennai, even men drinking alone was look down at). For the first time in my life, I came upon women chain smokers. In Venky, there will be around 10 % who smoke. Here 50 % of the junta smokes of which 60 % are chain smokers. Life looked different to me.

Men into women hostels are still controlled in different part of India (not just in Chennai). Here it was different … men and women can walk into any hostel at any point of time. The things that once looked vague for me because of my own prejudices looked clear to me now. I myself was gifted with two very close friends(rakhi sisters) by the institute.

I was going thro a lot of confusion if those that happened around me were right or wrong, but I was sure of one thing – “I am changing for Good”.

Balanced, as it had been XLRI also had my share of tough times. I have seen few of my best friends going through terrible emotions of love…. Some managed to get out and some did not have the heart to forget. Some where successful and some had their fate elsewhere. Having seen their emotions closely, those were some really disturbing moments.

The disappointments sometimes lasted long and sometimes they dint last even for hours. Former was a case of being knocked out of the junior SAC because of a foolish question that one stupid mate of mine had come up with. It took me 7 full months to make it into SAC again. SIP started of on a nice note with a Hewitt shortlist and a fabulous GD, but later followed up with pathetic shortlists. Life looked tooo glooomy for me in just a few days ... Thankfully, it all ended in a few days when I was among the first few to sign out with priced offer from HLL.

XLRI was not what I expected. May be that was what made it special in my life. Had the seniors presented a rosy picture, the story might have been different. It reinforced my principle again: “Expect the Least out of life … You will never be disappointed”. Having been with a new group and having tired every new thing, life sometimes looked empty.

Having looked at the past, everything seems like, it has happened for Good. I had never regretted when I look back the way I had lived. This is what gives me immense satisfaction. XLRI may or may not make me a CEO …. But It had made me a MAN.

One more year to enjoy at “My XLRI”…I will miss you for another week.

JK