TAARE ZAMEEN PAR

Very rarely do I feel really touched by a Hindi Movie.Perhaps I am the biggest critic of the Hindi Movies, I love to hate them, criticize them , rip them apart and finally bury them.
The genre of so called comedies that are being churned out dime a dozen are just a rehash and concoction of an attempt to insult the intelligence of the "esteemed" audience.

Anyway, this is not what I am writing about.Au contraire, I am here to rave about a sensible Hindi Movie I have seen in recent times which gives me some hope that the Hindi Movie Industry is still capable of making sensible cinema.

Last week I saw this extremely sensitive movie called Taare Zameen Par.I havent seen such cinema in Hindi for a very long time.It stayed in my mind long after I left the Theatre, and I am still waiting to get over it.It sure is like an infatuation,(who says you cannot be infatuated by a movie or fall in love with a movie).

Most of my friends came out of the Theatre secretly identifying themselves with the protagonist, Ishan Awasthi, a dyslexic kid. I say secretly, because there still exists a stigma about being identified as abnormal.But how can it be abnormal when most of us confessed to have had learing disorders when were young.We were just normal creatures.The perfect ones( if any) were abnormal.

Most of us were weak in at least one particular subject when at school. Either we couldnt understand what was being taught or failed to see the logic in the subject.Be it English or Maths, we would commit the same mistake over and over, inspite of being corrected at least ten times before.Some kids luckily got over it and devised a new method or trick that would help them stop comitting the mistake but some of the not so lucky ones stuck with the flaws for long.

All of us will have these little skeletons coming out of our little kiddie closets, wherein there would be confessions about difficulty in reading, writing or grasping certain things, which we might have eventually gotten rid of.

What we dont realize we still look down upon or feel sorry about any kid that might have major learning disabilities, when we could have been that kid.We have been there and done that, so instead of looking down upon a dyslexic child , why not for a change instill in him the confidence to move on with the disorder.

These kids are only normal, hyperactive, their brains work very fast and they are intelligent. It is just that they find difficulty is recoganizing alphabets , hence cannot read well, as their memory is not very good.Morover, English is such an illogical language that even normal people cannot understand the logic behind the spellings, how does one expect Dyslexic kids to appriciate the meaningless spellings.

Getting back to the movie, it really is an eye opener to all those people who always heckled slow learners and parents who pressurised their childern or teachers who were rude.

These children can teach you a thing or two about Humanity.

CLOWN...Who me?

Where is da humour......

It is sad that life has become so busy that we hardly find time for a little laugh during the day.... taking some time off just to kid around is considered a sheer waste of time nowadays.....

Gone are those days when we would spend sometime just to fool around , laugh at ourselves, share a few stale jokes and just act silly......

In todays format of living, if you just want to clown around for sometime to ease the stress...you are either stared at or heckled at .....

I used to be Pheobe of the group way back and people actually found me adorable.......

I think actual freedom is when you can act silly at times and still be adored....

Well so much for a lil bit of humour...

Colleagues and Friends!!!!

I still remember the days when Dad used to invite his colleagues and bosses home for some drinks and dinner with family....and all that the men used to do is chill with the family and avoid talking about work......

Colleagues used to be not just colleagues but friends and further still confidants.....that didnt mean that they werent professional enough at work....

In todays date where we tend to take everyting a wee bit too seriously, it is really difficult to maintain a switch on-switch off equation with colleagues.....

You cannot enjoy a family get-together without talking about work.....we have become like parasites viewing every colleague as a host to feed upon....

we have lost the trust in colleagues.......offices have become zoos with animals feeding upon the other of their kinds......

Where has the Trust gone guys!!!!!!

What do I do?

Am back from my self imposed exile.....

Have had oodles of demotivation come my way, my comments page is always empty.....been like dat since i started bloging on Blogger.....well, i have no idea how to increase the visibility of my blogs.....but if anyone wants to advise, you are welcome....

please....answers for this one at least.........

Hutch is now Vodafone

I love the new Vodafone ad that has been splashed all over the city Hoardings.....It has these very beautifully shot young faces and little things they have to say.....one particular hoarding caught my attention, though there aint anythinthig spectacular about it, its simplicity puts you in a "feel good" state of mind.....it said " Revisit your college days, have cutting chai and meet old friends".....another one featuring a trendy teenager with a nose ring mentions" discover your city, visit the museums, and hit the new hangouts"......

Well, i simply loved the fact that these hoardings gave my some ideas on how to possibly spend some of those boring days when Gans wud be travelling to Europe..

Coming back to the ad.....it reminded me of the Hutch ad when it was first launched in bangalore.. ..it had these pictures of people who could be anyone...but the ad was really eye catching back then.....Vodafone took the same concept but added words to the mute ads.....

Somewhere down the line i think the choice of going into an advertisement in the line of the older brand showed that they did want to change the brand image in the minds of the customers, but wanted to maintain the Brand recall of Hutch....same goes with the television advertisement where they used the same dog but different kennels....and the "You and I" signature tune that they they retained but with a dash of jazz in it........

Basically, they want to scream that they are "THE NEW AND IMPROVED HUTCH"......and not very different from the older one.....

However, whether they would eventually break away from The Impressive Brand recall of the MIGHTY HUTCH or not.....one things for sure....they are basking in the glory of the amazing advertising creativity developed by HUTCH......

I-DENT-TITY CRISIS

WANTING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE IS SUCH A WASTE OF THE PERSON YOU ARE !!!
- CURT COBAIN

Why are we constantly trying to be like someone else,look like someone else, act like someone else? Like the Bard himself proclaimed" All the worls a stage ane we are mere actors".....I think this is the case with many of us.......

Well, as for me, lemme be honest about it, I still remember of the days when I thought Vonn Trapp family and their kids were the coolest, loved their lives, wanted to live their lives, daydreamed that I was one of them....was searching for my MARIA, the Governess....Mid school led me to believe I was all of the charecters straight outta the pages of Enid Blytons mysteries and boarding school stories

Grew through my high school days thinking Madonna had the coolest attitude in the whole wide world and I wanted to dress like her, act like her, even think like her......say all those feminist statements she did....look down upon men....in short, she turned me into a typical bra burner types.....

Then down the line i got bored of her and started getting inspired by Lady Di, I cut my hair short like her, practised her smile in the mirror, believed I would do charity like her (ashamed to admit it, but i didnt do a thing on the charity front)........

Then there were those adolescent days with sudden bombardment on knowledge of the opposite sex and the days "BASIC INSTINCT" was the talk of the town, it was very cool to be a Bad Girl, so I started believing that getting an acquired attitude like Sharon Stones would really be fun. It would be hilarious to watch those poor lil boys fumble and go weak in their knees....Miserable bunch of girls we were...all we wanted to do is get a man to drool and then before he tries to get dirty, show him the cold shoulder.....it was fun to break their tender hearts....oh..men can be such fools....little did we realize that we were greater fools!!!!!

We were a trio, Rachana, Swechcha and myself....and it was the time when F.R.I.E.N.D.S started the sitcom trend in India.....we started believing that Rach was Monica, Swech was Racheal and I was the lovably silly Phoebe.....the more we believed we were like them, the more we acted like them........... and the more we acted like them the more we wanted to be like them.......so there goes, another bunch of wannabes.......

Then came Business School and with it a slight seriousness of choice of Role Model, most of the ambitious girls in the college were all floored by the sucessful career women, and as there was a famine of good looks and business accumen in the corporate world those days(or perhaps we werent very aware those days), we started adopting mannerisms of Hilary Clinton, or Sushma Swaraj.

Passing out of B-School and two jobs through it was Kiran Majumdar Shaw, never emulated her in the sense of dress or mannerisms coz i believed that I was better in those aspects, so it was more about wanting to achieve the goals like her, the reason for idealizing were purely Intangible this time....

Two years of marriage and a stuck up in a shitty job( will definately move on to a better one, i believe that) .......and my role model remains Kiran Majumdhar Shaw, still want to start my off something on my own, even if my skills may be confined to being a florist......but the reason has moved beyond frivoulous reasons like wanting to look like her.....the reason is skin deep now...

But I guess for most of us our earliest memory must be of trying to emulate our parents or at least one of them, and trust me, for most of us that wish lasts a lifetime...

Finally one last thought after all this.......WHO AM I?....Just want to say....

WILL THE REAL SLIM SHADY PLEASE STAND UP!!!!!

Interesting Quotes by BOB DYLAN, The God

These are a few of my personal favourites I picked from various songs:

Take care of your memories.For you cannot relive them.
- BOB DYLAN

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.
Bob Dylan

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
Bob Dylan

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Bob Dylan

He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.
Bob Dylan

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.
Bob Dylan

Money doesn't talk, it swears.
Bob Dylan

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.
Bob Dylan