ODing

I’m going to see My Name is Khan in a couple of hours. But before I watch the movie (and then give opinionated gyan about it here) I wanted to get one thing clear – no matter how good, bad or simply annoying, the film turns out to be, I’m a tad bit fed up of the movie already. I mean, it’s everywhere you turn.

So there are the usual PR tricks and gimmicks and promotional tours happening on all forms of mass media. But then a political party had to throw themselves into the circus and everyone went into verbal diarrhoea mode. Especially SRK, who decided to do it on Twitter, and honestly, ended up sounding like he was stoned and depressed. That, or someone had stolen his identity. And then, all Bollywood personnel on Twitter were going gaga over the movie and its makers and joined the bandwagon. Oh, and not to be left behind (I mean it is a journey after all right?) everyone from travel agents to suitcase companies and shoe makers is latching on, making the whole thing beyond anything.

And so, even though I love technology and all the joy that it brings with it, I’ve been really wishing I lived in the age before television, radio and twitter. At least that way I wouldn’t have to OD on MNIK (and Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega. But that’s a whole new post).

Bills and Banging My Head

(Day 95 of 112)

The post title says it all. I come back home after a month and all I’m faced with are stupid phone bills. Stupid, because they don’t make any sense. I mean I’m sure they make sense, but since it’s all in Hindi, and I don’t understand all the technical words they use (I’m honest enough to mention this very shameful fact), all I see are random numbers which differ vastly from the total printed at the bottom of the sheet (yes yes I know about taxes. It’s just that here the taxes seem to be more than the actual amount owed!)

So all day today I was trying to make sense of the bills and figure out what broadband plan we have (to know how much the bill should really be), talking to the uncle to check whether payments had been made in my absence and repeatedly calling the Fellow and getting things explained slowly, as befitting my slightly neurotic, thus, stubborn brain.

This last bit was really important, mainly for my pride. You see I plan on going and confronting the phone people on the morrow and I don’t want to sound ignorant with half baked knowledge. I like to be fully prepared when going in for the offense, especially when I’m doing it alone (yay for brave me).

Of course chances are that all my preparation and guaranteed to make you wither speeches all come to nothing. After all it’s a little difficult to make an impression when no one understands what you’re saying and you end up struggling to find words in the right language. The overall effect is a lot like banging your head against a wall.

I knew I should have spent more time watching Doordarshan. Damn cable television.

Some Things are Priceless

I love the MasterCard commercials on television and each one is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. This gets me making a storyboard out of my life…

Autorikshaw to the station – Rs. 20
Train Ticket to Churchgate (return) – Rs. 16
Mid-day at the platform – Rs. 2
Getting an empty fast train at peak time – Priceless

Chemistry text book – Rs. 40
Photocopying notes – Rs. 80
Digene tablets – Rs. 10
Heavy rains cancelling chemistry exam – Priceless

The Diary of Anne Frank – Rs. 250
Bridget Jones’ Diary – Rs. 299
The Prison Diary – Rs. 350
Finding my teenage diary hidden someplace – Priceless

Vegetable Sandwich – Rs. 12
Toast Sandwich – Rs. 15
Masala Toast – Rs. 15
Getting unlimited potato with butter and masala – Priceless

Cab to the hospital – Rs. 35
Doctors fee – Rs. 500
Medicine cost – Rs. 1340
Being able to read your doctor’s handwriting – Priceless

Booking movie tickets online – Rs. 300
Travelling to the theatre – Rs. 40
Popcorn and Pepsi – Rs. 100
Being in time for the movie – Priceless

Writing a blog post - 20 minutes

Uploading it to the blog - 3.5 minutes

Formatting it - 2 minutes

People reading it - Priceless

Shudder

Just saw Baba Sehgal on TV while channel surfing.

Brought back memories of childhood when 'Thanda Thanda Pani' was the hippest song on air.

I seriously had a weird childhood, not to speak of traumatised.

Yay for growing up!

PS: Of course songs part of my adulthood are not inspiring either. Evidence: 'Very happy in my heart, Dil dance maare' .

Money or Masochism?

Can you put a price on self esteem?

Apparently you can. Ask any of the producers of any of these reality shows on any of these ever-increasing TV channels.

Or ask the participants on these shows.

Who would want to stand on national television and willingly be told that you dance worse than the domestic help that comes to that judges house (of course this is a very classist comment – who said domestic help can’t dance? Is dancing a skill that comes only with money?). Or be part of ,what can only be termed a juvenile sense of sport, a competetion that has girls vs boys (i mean, we did that in school at age 9 when all boys were so sick, and the girls were all ewwww). Why would you willingly want to be on a show on TV that is going to make you whine and complain and bitch and fight (all in the script dahlings)?!

There has to be a streak of masochism is all these people who agree to appear on these reality shows, especially if the format includes, from the beginning, the judges stripping you of all pride and dignity and revelling in it.

Or the fact that there are only so many saas-bahu* shows on television and there has to be a way to showcase all the talent there is in the field of drama and tears…oh and bad costumes and makeup!

That or you’re given a bundle of money (and it better be a hu-uge bundle) to strip yourself of all dignity, self-esteem, intelligence and perhaps common sense.

Nah...it has to be the masochism.

* - Saas-bahu shows are the staple diet of Indian television, mainly revolving around stories of women hell bent on ruining either the other women in their life, the men in their life, someone else’s children, steal someone else’s husband, try and seduce their own husbands, kill some one, try and hide the fact that they killed someone, bribe people to kill for them, have extra-marital affairs, cry, weep, howl, faint, fast, pray, dance, so on and so forth, all the while wearing at least three quarters of the gold in India coupled with some of the most garish outfits money can buy.

Bhaago......

Since writing the post below, i have had a sighting of the main perpetuator of all the sins and crimes and bahus and saases (is that correct usage?) and glycerine consumption that can be see on TV.

Actually if i could be bothered to step out of the house anytime between 2pm and 6pm on any day, i could see her jogging (trudging) away resolutely on the barely there road, amidst rubble and dirt and mud and cars and people and everything else in Juhu Scheme.

Oh and she never does it alone. Alongside her run her bodygaurd and her manservant. One with a gun, the other with her phones. In fact there are two manservants. One on either end of the stretch she covers. They take turns you see, although the pained expressions on their faces are pretty identical - maybe owing to the fact that they run in safari suits and bata shoes.

All i can say is that the reigning queen of sob is now a daily feature and almost a tourist attraction in juhu with people flocking the illegal jhunka bhakar stands and the roadside chaiwala dukaan to watch her waddle to and fro. So anybody looking for a quick way of ending the K-saga you know where and when to find her.

Aaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If all that was written about a certain Ms. K and her status as Queen of telly-land and the work she sent out into the universe was collected in one place, it would definitely fill up several high ceilinged rooms in havelis belonging to the age of huge houses and big courtyards with cows in one corner.

But I can’t resist. She makes it impossible to do so. Several minutes watching one of her concoctions is enough to make you barf, look speechlessly at anyone watching the show voluntarily, and hurry to the keyboard to clatter out the several hundreds of thoughts zooming past in your head.

Why was I watching even a few minutes of her shows? Sheer laziness – I didn’t want to get up and move from the comfortable position I was in on the couch, and my maids didn’t think that my presence should deprive them of their daily afternoon quota of glycerine induced tears, evil giant bindi and scary sari wearing vamps, simpering new bahus, manipulative husbands, grandmothers who have drunk from the fountain of eternal youth (or mortality), memory loss, divorce, and doddering old pandits predicting the meeting of rahu and ketu.

It is this last element that gets me huffing and puffing to my computer today.
In the 3 minutes that I paid attention to the simpering falsettos and highly rude language on the screen, I heard a dhoti-clad pandit warning a wife about the eminent danger her husband was in that night and that he would be betrayed by people he trusted and that her presence was the only factor that would protect him and she shouldn’t let him out of her sight. So now our annoying voiced wife decides to pace the palatial house thinking of ways of tying her husband to her pallu. In this she is aided by a woman, who till 2 months back on the show, was in love with the aforementioned husband. Keeping up so far? It gets better. The husband is manipulated by a man he trusts (pandit is proven right!) into leaving his wife’s side. She hears about his going away and goes in “nahiiiiiiin” mode.

At this point, thankfully, Reliance energy came to the rescue with a power cut, and here I am typing this out at full speed with the last few minutes of my battery life in my laptop.

Telly Woes

So I’m in front of the television channel surfing looking for something reasonably sensible to watch (I can’t hope for anything intelligent anymore really). I zoom through the hindi channels with my brain faintly registering words such as bahu, saas, mata, beti, sasural…and cringing.

I move onto movie channels. The less said the better. It being the weekend, a happy joint family saga is bound to be on with the regular band of characters: an adopted son, ungrateful children whom the mother wonders why she had, weeping fathers, a 5 star house, the faithful manservant (making eyes at the doodhwali), the family pet who happens to be the most intelligent member of the cast, a bad story and even worse songs.

English movie channels. Oh well, they probably assume that our choice in movies is pretty bad (based on the aforementioned) and so we’re reduced to watching Snakes on a Plane and the like! Why o why?!

The other channels (including news) are all devoted to reality shows. I was so bored that I made a list of everything they have made reality shows on:

Fashion designing
Interior designing
Construction
Car/Bike making
Tattooing
Hair styling
Singing
Dancing
Singing and dancing
Acting
Comedy
Film making
Cooking
Learning to cook
Living together in one house
Modelling
Learning what clothes to wear
Travelling
Surviving the wild (supposedly)
Living somebody else’s life
Etc.

I’m sure anybody reading this can add a few more.

Sigh.

News or Nonsense (i choose nonsense)

A couple of days back I realised that in all my TV watching, I wasn’t devoting much time to the news channels. I figured should keep updated with current events and latest happenings in and around the world. So with that good intention in mind, I moved from the English movie channels to news channels. I surfed through a couple of them to stop at a reputed channel (at least that’s what I’d heard). What I saw/heard was something that first had me shocked, then in disbelief, and then plain disgust.

The story they were running was titled “Kitne door kitne paas”, and no it wasn’t a political piece on a certain Mr. Singh and Mrs. Gandhi. It was, if it can be believed, a story on the ‘badshah’ and the ‘shehenshah’ (as the dramatic voice on the screen told me). For 10 minutes (probably longer but I wouldn’t know coz I moved to a different channel) the annoyingly melodramatic voice told audiences how Karan Johar’s (!!) birthday part was given a miss by Mr. B while Mr. K attended it yada yada yada. The whole effect was sealed with them playing a clip from a movie with a weepy sonundtrack!! Aarrgghh!!!

So I change channels. There I get the “Aarushi Hatyakand”. Ok. Maybe some new leads since they’re flashing ‘Breaking News’ (I know, misplaced hope), but no. They never fail to deliver. The news this time was the emergence of a former servant and alleged suspect in the murders (which was improbable since he was in Nepal). So basically it was media hog getting the attention of a bored and stupid media who kept flashing ‘Mil gaya Inder’ all over their channel!!

So then I move to another channel, by now hoping for a miracle. And lo behold! I get one. In some mandir in some part of India, there had emerged a water stain in the shape of ‘om’ under the idol of Sai baba. That was the latest breaking news with devotees flocking to see the miracle water stain!!!!!! Is it ok for me to sue the media?

I then gather my courage and move onto another news channel. There I see the words “Saas-bahu ke kanoon badle” and move on. I didn’t even want to know what that was about.

My final attempt bought me closer to news than anything. I was finally beginning to feel relieved when it all came crashing down. Headlines started off with the Gujjar scene in Rajasthan, the Noida double murders, BJP win down South, and then the biggest story: The Bachchan family (mummy, papa, beta, bahu) walking barefoot to Siddhivinayak temple early in the morning to pray for their new movie.

One thing is obvious. The only praying that needs to be done is by the audience.

अवंतिका Inked

Anyone watching the show Miami Ink (Discovery TLC) should do so at their own risk. Not that i have anything against the show. I love it. Can even be described as a fan. But the long term effects of doing so can only be described as...well...painful.

For the uninitiated, MI is all about tattooing. Actually its about people who make the entire process of getting a tattoo seem superbly simple and thereby instill in the viewer an intense desire to get one too. I too happened to be one of the awed and impressionable viewers. And thus the adjective 'painful'.

What i wanted to say essentially was that I am now the proud (and slightly sore) owner of a tattoo. After months of deliberation and reading up on tattoos on Wikipedia (whatever anyone might say, they do have some comprehensive and detailed info on stuff) and other Google offerings, i finally got myself inked. I voluntarily payed someone a lot of money to puncture my skin with a needle that went in and out about a hundred times a second (this is an arbitrary figure based entirely on the pain). I sat through 25 mins as if in a dream. An out of body experience. It felt like i was watching someone else getting tattoed, except for the pain. That was all mine.

It is that pain in fact that makes this tattoo worth it. Like ive been telling friends, my tattoo's small. But its a real tattoo. Its a pain inducing, skin puncturing, ink inserting, permanently staying tattoo. And its mine. And im proud of it. And myself.

Note: I cant wait to get another one!!

Really Real!

How real is real?
Is the world we live in real enough?
Do we get enough real in our daily lives?
Or do we fulfill our need for the real and ordinary by watching shows on TV claiming to bring you the really real there is to see??

I personally feel there has to be a streak of sadism in anyone who voluntarily watches the newest reality show on the idiot box: Biggest loser something or the other. I happened to catch some 10 mins of it (in my defense im in pain and have been tied to my bed for sometime now, so this momentary loss of intelligence and taste should be pardoned).
And all of the 10 mins i was wondering:

a) Why would someone reach the incredible weight of 132kgs without doing something about it?
b) Having reached that weight why would someone agree to appear on television? (dont they know the camera adds 10 pounds?)
c) Having agreed to appear on television, why would they open their mouths and make statements like "kutte/ kutti bhuankte hain. Bhaunkne do. Kuch farak nahi padta." Like really???
d) Being that size (XXXXXL) why would the men even dream of getting into swimming trunks???? Like get a mirror guys! Really! Man breasts!!! ughhh!!

And then you have the other extreme.
From the really big (politically correct substitute for really fat) to the anorexic (or is it the weight challenged?).
Ever watched the Simple Life? I did. Once. To try and make sense of the whole hoopla! Didnt understand it. Not even a tiny bit. All i made of it was that these two young ladies were bored with having so much money and nothing to do with it. So they decided to go on TV and fool people into believing that they can do stuff that normal people do (read: wear no make up and work for a living)!!

And then there was the whole Big Boss/Big Brother syndrome going around. I dont even want to get into that! Really!! The media has made sure that we dont forget these anytime soon! (Shudders)

Seriously people. Get a life. And if it isnt real enough, get a web cam and watch yourself pick your nose. Better than seeing Rakhi Sawant doing it!