Saturday, June 27, 2009

Roadpati se Karodepati

Imagine you're sitting in front of Anil Kapoor trying not to look at his repulsive moustache. You're on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. He asks you questions whose answers eerily fit into your past life. You know the answer to Question 1: "Name a popular three wheeled mode of conveyance found on Indian streets?", only because you almost collided with a rickshaw on your way to work. Question 2: "What is two plus two?" escapes you because your office is five miles from your home and not four.
Slumdog Millionaire expects us to believe a street child speaks English with Received Pronunciation when he grows up. It expects us to believe that Anil Kapoor can actually pull of even the easiest roles in which he has but to assume his natural expression, that of dumbfounded amazement with his moustache underlining his most odius physical feature. It also expects us to believe that Alexandre Dumas is taught in run down municipal schools, and that the school teacher actually gives a shit.
Here's a smooth segue into a joke. What do you call a man who has sex with a lot of women for money, and makes millions? SlumDONG Miliionaire. Well, at least the movie's worse than the joke.
When the hell have you seen Bombay come to a complete standstill? Well personally, i've seen it only in the aftermath of the horrible attacks on 26/11. It certainly won't halt everything just to watch some moron will a crore rupees while most of the city starves.
Girl: Mom, look he's gonna win a crore rupees!!!!
Mom: Sit still beta while i extract enough blood from your arm so that i can sell it and we can have some food today.
If you go to the average Mumbaikar and tell him to drop everything and go watch some TV, he'll probably say, "Kyun bey maaderchod? Teri shaadi hai kya??"
Most of the things shown in the movie absolutely never happen. First of all, you can't expect to dance on VT station and expect to get away with it. A girl whom you abandoned ten years ago doesn't welcome you with open arms. More likely with a left hook to the jaw. It is impossible to run through a Bombay train station during rush hour at the speed shown. There are too many people to negotiate. Amitabh Bachchan doesn't visit transit camps. Nobody in their right mind would jump into a pile of doo doo just to get a fuckin' autograph. Oh by the way, the word 'slumdog' is a direct transliteration of the Hindi term 'galli ka kutta'.
I hate the cocksure condescending attitude that the West adopts towards India. Probably the best made movie about India, made by Hollywood is Gandhi. I'm sure a lot of money changed hands within the Academy to make the printer look the other way while the words 'Slumdog Millionaire' were printed on all the envelopes. In their hurry, they likely missed a few, and that is why Benjamin Button and Milk could scrape a few notches on their walls. The Academy is headed down a steep slope if it consciously chose to get rid of its Oscar statuettes to that monstrosity. I mean, if you don't want the statuettes, melt then and send them to Fort Knox man!! What'll movie lovers like me do if Hollywood goes down the poop pipe?

Friday, June 26, 2009

Failures, Hopelessness and Cream Pie

I'm twenty now, and my list of failures in life has reached alarming proportions. I was probably one of the first people to scoff at the term 'quarter life crisis'. I thought it was a neologism thrust upon us by greedy faceless money churning corporations so that they could squeeze every penny from us by making us buy droves of useless paraphernalia. But it apparently is very much alive and pumping. I seemed to have avoided this landmine though. My friends seem to have been hit hard. While i sing like a canary and look for unsuspecting god fearing citizens on whom i might inflict my 'Good deed for the day', my friends are mired in a cesspool of their own negative energies. I inhale ice cream by the gallon while they choke on every morsel. I skip (the annoying kind) to the bus stop while my friends can't seem to drag their poor helpless bodies out of bed. Feeling left out of all the group solidarity, i have decided to present a compilation of my failures.

1. Hit an all time low as far as prowess on the football field is concerned. The team i get chosen into makes no secret about their displeasure about being stuck with me and conveniently tells me to wait outside so that i don't get hurt. I don't blame them

2. Came in sixteenth in a nine mile marathon.

3. Never can i get a waiter to pay attention to me. I'm always left jabbing my finger in the air like I'm gauging the wind direction. Of course, this always happens when there are girls at the table.

4. My GPA finally said, " Its getting hard to breathe up here. Houston, I'm bringin' 'er down." I went from a robust 9.7 to a ghastly..no..my cultured education doesn't permit me to utter it's negligible magnitude.

5. My guitar playing sounds as if someone just gassed a whole chamber of cats in heat. Simple chords escape me. I try to play a C and it comes out a G#.

6. I'm twenty and not that magical age of ten. Must obtain secret from Peter Pan

7. I'm the butt of all jokes. On a good day, I spot a joke I could have been made the butt of , but nobody else does, so they let it pass.

8. I can't drive a car. Neither can i ride a bike. I can walk though.

9. I'm twenty.

10. My frantic chants and yells seem to make the Indian Cricket Juggernaut sputter and retire with an Aspirin by its bedside. Why don't they worrrrk?????

11. My two minute noodles get done within the specified time, but it takes another ten, to scrape them from the vessel.

12. I sing like a rake on chalkboard.

13. I'm born on the longest day of the year.

The above list will regularly be updated so my imaginary readers may enjoy new material.