Traffic Signals..

Have you ever wondered about the life of street people.. Are they nice, are they smart, are they happy, do they have hopes and dreams which they wish to fulfill?

Madhur Bandharkar's Traffic signal is a moving tale about THAT world, a world unknown to us or rather a world we all choose to IGNORE.. Each time we shoo away a beggar boy and then throw him a coin or two, or buy flowers from a little ragged girl we are adding on to the economy of our country.

I dont want to reveal the plot of this movie because i dont think i will do justice to it.

What really grabbed my attention and kept me on my chair for 2 hours and something minutes, was the smiles on their filthy unwashed faces. Horrible living conditions, people who treat them like dirt and barely enough food for survival does'nt bother these people.

Ever willing to lend a helping hand to their fellow workers and having a good time right in the middle of the road.. taking joy from the little things in life, like having a bath from a leaking water lorry and splashing around in the water fountain of a traffic signal keeps them going.

The message i learnt from Traffic Signal : The rest of us non-street workers are too caught up in our problems that we're forgetting to live our life in all it's splendour and glory. Happiness is all around, but we're all forgetting to just BREATHE it in. And even as i typed that line, i felt like a hypocrite.. because, i was tearing a little thinking about a certain someone and wondering if i'd ever see him again..

The man without fear..

Batman Begins truly leaves a mark on any Batman lover's brain.. It's refreshingly different from all the previous Batman flicks made namely Batman and Robin, Batman Returns and Batman forever.

Batman Begins has no overdose of mushy scenes, no overhype of the superhero himself and NO SCREAMING WOMEN.. Thank god..!

Batman Begins takes us to the man behind the mask and back to his roots.. Bruce Wayne, a small boy who has a fear of bats and whose parents get killed right in front of his eyes.. His goal in life henceforth : Avenge his parent's death and kill the gun-man.. But as fate would have it, someone beats the young man to it.

So he fleds his home town Gotham and associates himself with criminals to learn their ways.. He gets locked up in prison and a nasty brawl brews between the young boy and several other inmates.. He's thrown back into his cell and to his surprise he sees a well dressed man in the shadows who invites him to join an elite group.. "The league of Shadow".

The young Bruce Wayne accepts this invitation, learns many a lesson from his mentor (the well dressed man previously mentioned) and he thus becomes one of his best pupils.

But when his mentor orders him to execute a man, Bruce refuses to do so because of his principles and his passion for justice.. So he burns down the whole place and runs back to his home town Gotham and back to his ever faithful butler, who still has hope burning in his chest for his young Master Wayne.

With the help of his butler, Alfred and a former board member of Wayne enterprises, Lucius Fox, young Bruce Wayne slowly morphs into the man who BECOMES the fear himself.. BATMAN..

What follows next, is Gotham city under the clutches of the League of Shadow who are hell bent on the destruction of Gotham and the Scarecrow who plays a minor role now and then..

Every detail in this movie is an ABSOLUTE treat for the eyes and the imagination.. After watching the final scene of this movie, which involved a Joker Card, i'm restless and impatient.. I want to scream out to the movie makers.. Make the sequel.. FAST..!

The MESSAGE i learn't from Batman Begins : Even heroes have a right to bleed.. All of us fall down with a MIGHTY THUD, but we HAVE TO stand up again and face our demons.. True courage lies only in that.. The world has no place for cowards..

My partner in crime..

When i was 13 years old my father got me a new toy to play with.. An LG computer. I was thrilled as any child would be on getting something new.

I started exploring the parallel world of the internet and I soon became a voracious virtual socialiser.. And i met people.. Many people.. Some nice, some not so nice.

But i'm not going to get into my "virtual socialising" addiction now.. That's a tale of gore which shall be narrated in another post.

Back to my LG system now.. She has been my closest confidante, my partner in crime and my best friend when life was'nt a bed of roses.

A technician from Airtel had come home in the morning, to fix a problem in our broadband. All the while he was here, he kept saying.. "This system is too slow.. You have to upgrade it" He repeated this sentence every 5 minutes with a look of impatience and disgust.

And my brain whispered an order.. PUNCH HIM HARD.. I was surprised at the amount of anger seething through my body.. I could almost see and feel molten lava oozing through every vein.

I had to bite my tongue down from screaming.. "Don't tell me what to do with my PC, there's nothing wrong with it"

My computer suddenly seemed like family.. like my younger sister perhaps.. i could'nt stand the thought of an outsider coming home and giving me gyaan on my sister.

Maybe i was just pissed off with being woken up so early in the morning or maybe, the demented book i had been reading lately, about a psychotic mother who treated her daughter like dirt, was lingering in my brain.

But one thing's for sure.. This PC right here has been my life support for the past 8 years.. i love this pile of metal with all my life..!

The evolution of mankind..

When God created Adam and Eve he hoped that they would be good to each other, make loads of babies and live in peace and harmony..

But what did they do..? They ate that DARN APPLE and the happy lazy life they led was history..

And Adam and Eve's kids didnt do much to help the darn apple situation either.. they did'nt undo their parents wrong, instead they continued screwing around, and in no time the world said hello to terrorism, thefts, murders and all those other horrible crimes an insane human being is capable of doing..

The past 3 days ive seen some pretty nasty things.. And i did'nt do anything.. i just stood by and let it unfold before my eyes..

Incident 1
I was at Landmark with a friend, we were walking towards the Exit gate and we saw a fight brewing up between an old watchman and a middle-aged rich looking man.. It was a tongue lashing war and no real harm was done, but after about a minute the youngish man grabbed a cup of coffee the old man was drinking, threw it to the ground and next he pushed him on the ground..

I was shocked.. The wind got knocked out of me.. Patience, tolerance and respect to our elders irrespective of their financial status and standing in the society was something we've all been taught, at school and at home..

Now WHATEVER the old man had done to this middleaged man he should've complained to a higher authority and left it at that.. he had absolutely NO RIGHT to raise his hand at a helpless old man..

Incident 2
I had just finished my workout at the gym and was walking towards my bike at the parking lot.. I noticed a little boy screaming PODA and running away from a middleaged man who was eating something from the
roadside eatery.. This man, yelled back at this little kid and threw stones at him..

The man was well dressed, he was in his office clothes and im sure he was atleast a DEGREE holder.. Havent we been taught NOT to raise our hands at those smaller and weaker than us..?

For both Incident 1 and Incident 2, the UNDERLYING THREAD is that human beings are UNCIVILISED, HEARTLESS, CRUEL and BARBARIC.. Being well qualified, educated and having a good job doesnt really go a long way in making a man a good human being..

If we dont wake up and undo our wrong doings soon enough.. something REALLY BAD is going to happen.. Something MUCH WORSE than the darn apple situation.. And i sure as hell DONT want to be around to see it..

Why do the women in superhero movies scream so much..?

I am a die hard fan of Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Daredevil and all
those other superheroes, u name the boys, i love them all..

When the artists, painters and the movie-makers made these heroes come alive in front of our eyes they had a message to pass on :
There is a superhero in every one of us. So maybe we can't fly or climb walls or smell the rain before it falls on the ground or have supersonic hearing, BUT we're special, each and every single one of us.

That being said, i now move on to the essence of this post, namely, the lady loves of their lives. Why are they degraded and made to look like damsels in distress?

Why in the world do they SCREAM SO MUCH..?! By showing some shots of
her hanging from a ledge or being chased by the bad guy, it is very
clearly established that she is in trouble and therefore the next scene would go as clockwise; our superhero swoops in and rescues
her.

Now logic tells us all.. IF a superhero is in love with a woman, she's obviously got to be someone who is real SPECIAL, someone who's
intelligent, street smart and independent.. and hence a woman like THAT would definetely not scream her guts out over and over AND over again every TWO minutes of a dishum-dishum scene.

On the other hand, instead of screaming and wasting ALL that ENERGY she would in all probability WANT a piece of the action herself.. she would want to get in there and beat the shit out of the bad guys and help our superhero in question in his conquest of saving the world.

Moral of the story : It's a male dominated world both in real life and in the movies/comics. And i dont like it. I dont like it one bit.. "Im disgusted" would be an UNDERSTATEMENT.

Oh where oh where did my baby go..?

While reading this post keep humming Last Kiss by Pearl Jam..

Those mother-daughter talks are nice when one goes through a rough patch.. My mom and i just took a nice half an hour stroll on the terrace.. It was nice and breezy and pitch dark.. And the lump began to form in my throat and it all came gushing out.. memory after memory..

I told her about the only boy who i ever really cared about all through my 20 selfish immature years of life and how he left my world without saying a word..

I told her about how he walked into my life.. like a breath of fresh air.. the 12 hour conversation we had all night long that day, and how we got close to each other over the next couple of months that followed..

I told her about how much i miss him now and the change he brought about in me.. he rubbed off on me by leaving behind his analytical thinking and his pearls of wisdom..

I told mom why he was so special for a 24 year old boy.. He was a modern day Jesus Christ in many ways.. kind, generous, giving and understanding people's fears and needs.. I told her about the conversations we had, with me talking like a 5 year old and him retorting to my goo-goo-gaa-gaa-ing in his wise grandfatherly fashion.. for example..

Me : Hey look at my arms in this picture.. they look like tree trunks..
Him : *grins* what rubbish.. your arms look like clouds drawn by a child..
Me : Hrmph.. Poda monkey
Him : Mmmm.. Sometimes we dont realize that there are people in the world who have no arms..
Me : *sob* yeah.. you're right.. im such an idiot.. :/
Him : *hugs* thats alright.. you're my child.. you didnt realize what you were saying.. :)

Next i told mom that the reason i can't move on with my life is because there is no closure.. he didnt tell me that we were kappish.. that we're through.. the last conversation and the last message i got from him had no signs of it being our LAST conversation and LAST message.. He was not cold, rude or bitter.. he was chirpy, happy, full of life and making smoochey noises on the phone.. or in other words.. he was still the boy who i flipped for..

And finally i told ma that i wanted her to pray with all her heart and soul for him to come back in my life so i can smile once again whole-heartedly, instead of pretending to be happy..

And when i said that, i realized that though he's gone now, a part of him will always be with me and no one can take the memories away..
All i have to do is close my eyes and his voice comes back to my head.. singing for me, preaching to me about the importance of education, telling me how lazy i am and that i'm capable of much greater things in life.. His trust, faith and belief in me scared me at times.. I wondered whether i could ever live up to his expectations..

You will always be on my mind Srivathsan.. each time i see a plane flying through the skies i'll wonder whether you approved of that one..

Happy Woman's Day..

Today is International Woman's day.. the perfect day for me to sort out my head and get my priorities in life right..

For starters.. ive decided to stop under-estimating myself and open my eyes to the world of possibilities.. If i try hard enough i might actually have the power of flight..

Secondly.. I will stop getting friendly with devil worshippers, junkies and loonville musicians.. They only spell trouble with a capital T..

Thirdly.. I will gym harder.. much MUCH harder so that i can loose a zillion kgs and look like an anorexic malnutritioned stick wrapped around with clothes..

Fourthly.. Every time my mind takes me down painful memory lane i will pinch myself and snap out of it..

Fifthly.. I will stop throwing swear words at random careless auto rickshaw drivers, cyclists, pedestrians who try to get themselves killed while i drive..

Sixthly.. Every time a really hot boy eyes me i will mutter in my brain.. "Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" and walk away without throwing him a second glance.. Ive decided to stop looking INSIDE the deep well filled with TOADS and instead look OUTSIDE that well..

Finally.. Women rule.. We're the givers of life and doers of all pure GENUINE honest deeds in this world.. In the words of Meredith Broocks:

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover
I'm a child, I'm a mother
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your hell, I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it any other way

The Truth..

I thought he was an arrogant snob and wanted nothing to do with him.. But then again there was something very alluring about him.. His boyish charm, the head full of curls and his wicked sense of
humour..

Yes, im moonstruck, so God help me..

A long winding conversation about nothing in general through the better half of the night and a one hour conversation in the morning should'nt mean much really..

But here i am thinking about the lad who i barely know, wondering what he's upto and whether we shall ever be friends..

So here's the truth ABOUT the truth.. It hurts.. The expectations and the uncertainty kills you..

P.S : Yes im going through a phase right now.. I'm NOT a WIMP, im just a wee bit more sensitive to people than i usually am.. I think.. :/