Saturday, September 26, 2009

et al

Could'nt think of a name this time around!

first things first. Rahul Mahajan's Swayamvar!! Really? I mean, a guy with a drug abuse case/ sexual orgy controversy/ serial eater (Bigg Boss)/ human personification of the words "ewww"/ Monica Bedi's doormat really wants to get married. Poor Pramod Mahajan. But the best suggestion I heard was that he should marry apna Rakhi Sawant. Some reasons I think that would be a marriage in Reality Television heaven are

-both are Marathi manoos, they could be a part of the MNS.
-you are effectively saving two other individual lives.
-let's think of it like this, they might actually end up finishing each other!
-they can have a "live" marriage, a new drama with every sunrise..Just imagine!!
-they need not engage in any physical activity to produce offsprings. Words would do the trick.
-they could ask people like Mika, Arnaub goswami and Amar singh to join them and open the World's most bizzare zoo.

Watched "What's your Rashee" yesterday with Pt and felt man, whadda waste. It was tooo long, the songs were too many and I didnt see any point in what was happenning but I liked the premise, could have been made in a better manner. Thank God, it had Priyanka Chopra, imagine if it had Kangana or other bad looker in 12 avataars...Priyanka looked really hot but I felt really sad for Hurman. He looks decent, dances well and acted okay but has no future whatsoever because he resembles a stockier version of Hrithik! Poor chap.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Ostere chaos.

The Government's Austerity drive seems to be doing it more harm than good. An interesting idea handled badly is always dangerous, remember NDA's India Shining which has dug a grave so deep that the BJP seems to be caught in the rut forever? Austerity is a way of life which we Indians have always practiced. When was the last time you threw away your Text Books without thinking of a cousin/neighbor/junior or got a new school uniform when you had an older sibling of the same sex? However, the Gandhi family has always been known for its simple way of living, if you ignore the fact that Motilal Nehru paraded entire fleets of cards outside Oxford University for his son, Jawahar before donating all his wealth for the Independence Struggle.Indira Gandhi got married at Anand Bhavan with her only adornments being flowers from her garden and a sari made out of silk woven by her father in Prison, never mind the fact that the original Mrs G spent all her youth in sanatoriums across Europe receiving treatment for TB. Forget Sanjay Gandhi's high decibel lifestyle during the Emergency and you get our own Rahul baba's simple signature kurta's. While the idea is certainly brilliant, can be legitimately used to cut down extra flab and is highly recommended in this tough times, it has gone completely awry from the word go. From Shashi Tharoor's amazingly tweety tweets to the Shatabhi Express being stoned, it is absolutely abysmal micro management. Maybe Jayanthi Natarajan can take a leave out of her party's notebook and speak less? Any chances??

Also, Rakhi Sawant's latest reality show scares me. You mean there are actually people who would entrust the upkeep of their new born with erm that woman!!

I positively am afraid to watch Times Now during the night, Arnab Goswami makes sure that the only thing you hear is his booming and boisterous babble!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Reading and Re-reading

all the books I've wanted to for a really long time. The only book I have to read again is "Midnight's children" and lose myself in the senile mysticism of Rushdie.
Reading the brilliant "The Unconsoled" by Ishiguro, gifted by Pt and am floored by it. The gaping voids screaming to be filled and the sartorial, almost decadent reluctance to do so is most fetching. Nothing really pulverises and galvanises me in one stroke like Siddarth Dhanvanth Sanghvi's work. It is poetry in Prose. I feel that I can read his work on and on forever. It fills you with a sense of triumphant tranquility which makes things so clear and caustic that you are simply blinded by conflicting desires. I reviewed his latest book and am thrilled by it. The starkness and nudity of the thoughts expressed make me unequivocally comforted!

Then there is Anita Desai whose vast houses of the lost old Delhi on the banks of Yamuna always have yarns to narrate. The pathos revealed in the simplest way, shorn of adornment and emotion makes you wonder about the sheer absence of fuss. I really really hope to meet her sometime and scream loudly/grin madly like I did when I met Amitav Ghosh who's "The Hungry Tide" has to be read to be believed. Then there is another eternal favorite, Harry potter and his magic which has enthralled me for over a decade. The sheer genuis and clarity of complexes engulfs me in a trance whose spell never ceases to lessen. The books...how I wish there was one more to look forward to!

Another absolute favorite whose books I somehow can never read again is Rohinton Mistry. The elegance of writing and the unhurried flow of things in a sequence which can never be disturbed is an unparallel skill. Of course there is always Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton to fall back on..thank goodness!

Wanted to do this post for nearly 4 months now..done done done!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Chopped

There is a buzz in Hyderabad, the loudest I've heard in all my life. From the auto driver who asked me briskly "CM mila Kya" to the vegetable seller who told me "YS tappipoyadanta" everyone is mourning the death of the incumbent Chief Minister. Tv barring News channels has been blacked out, the Radio plays only devotional songs and even the skies have opened up. Ironically only last week did he make a prediction that the Congress would be victorious even in the 2014 election! Like always death managed to outmaneuver life and everyone is tripping over themselves to compose their own epitapths to the fallen leader. Also, the fact that he died when he was at his most powerful and that too mysteriously only adds spice to this already bestseller. Power intoxicates death. Imagine Benazir Bhutto dying a natural death or Princess Diana dying after her beauty faded away...the glamour associated with victory and the scent of an untimely death really captivates public memory.

I aint no Congress fan but two things I will speak in YSR's favor- he was really powerful, powerful enough to end all nonsense about a seperate Telanagana(atleast for the next 5 years),powerful enough to rid us the naxal menace and powerful enough to choke the stony Sonia to make human sounds. Secondly he really stood for the Telugu Pride and I know it's strange but we've not have many people who've done it. Unlike the Tamilians or Bengalis we take no interest in our heritage or culture.He did not worship the ground walked on by the Gandhi's (though he did named a hundred odd projects after them) but still retained the essence of telugu atma sammanam. We prefer English to Telugu and here is someone who still sports the dhoti!

Not to take away from him the most strident criticisms of his tenure- coercive conversions to christianity and corruption. An editor of a weekly magazine in Hyderabad once told me that the CM and his son could easily outstrip the Ambani's in their wealth. A newspaper, TV channel(ironically named "Sakshi"), steel companies, mining rights, cement factories and of course huge chunks of real estate. The wealth accumulated is apparantly astounding.

All said and done, you cannot take away the fact that he has made it to the top on his own. From the rocky and bloody terrains of Rayalseema to the plush Chief minister's camp office at Punjagutta the struggle has been vicious, brutal and tiring. The immense outpouring of grief is a valid testimony that he is one of the last species of vanishing breed called a grass root politician, not a courtier of a durbar. It is indeed a loss.

The King is dead, the fight has started to find a new one.