We Indians...

Exhibit 1
Slumdog Millionaire wins a few Golden Globe awards. This includes A.R.Rehman for the soundtrack of the film (which is great, no doubt about it). Slumdog Millionaire is a film made by a British director although it is based in India. A good story and a well-made film. But it still is essentially is a British film. But just look at the speed at which it has been adopted by us Indians, as if this was our own film. Some people have gone overboard in praising it while there are others who have been outraged by the depiction of India as country of slums and poverty (well, thats not entirely untrue). But both sides do have one thing in common. They are taking pride in India. The first set of people are proud that India has been noticed on the world stage. Indian actors and music is being appreciated by the world. While the other set is outraged that only negatives are being depicted.

Exhibit 2
Matthew Hayden announces retirement. ICC ratings show that he is amongst the ten greatest batsmen of all time. But Indians are outraged. Our legend (sorry, GOD) Sachin is not even in the Top-25. Media starts carpet-bombing (cant think of any other word to describe how our media "breaks" news) the news. Renowned experts come in and start barking for all their worth that this is a travesty of the mightiest proportions. A rating system without Sachin as the top batsmen is not worth even looking at. But then media does tend to misguide. Firstly the current ratings system has been in place for quite some time now. And the ratings depicted are the peak that any player might have achieved at any point in his career. The peak can be simply due to an outstanding run over a small period of time but not necessarily over the entire career. But nobody bothered going into such detail. Only one point was clear. Our GOD has been insulted. And our collective pride had been deeply hurt.

The above examples may seem unconnected. But they have a lot in common. Both show the sense of pride that is embedded in our collective conscience with regards to our country. The collective pride we take in even trivial achievements (e.g. Somdev Devvarman's reaching Chennai Open finals) shows that whatever our faults we still feel Indian. And any slight to our heroes is like a personal insult to us. Whatever our other faults (and there are many), WE INDIANS do have a sense of collective pride.

P.S. After reading Robin's comment to this post, got down to some thinking. Well, I am not too sure about the common people but our media (specially the news channels) does suffer from collective hysteria and sensationalization.

Emotional Attyachaar

Came across this song from the forthcoming film Dev D. Whatever others may have to say about it but I absolutely love this song. The "Patna Ke Presleys" are outstanding (maybe I connect to Patna). And unlike the song title (lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya) the song is definetely not an "emotional attyachaar". Both the versions (Brass Band & Rock) are quite cool (there is no other word for it). Some of the sample lines

Ek.. Do... Teen... Char.......Chheh .........(the opening of the song)
Smoking Smoking nikle re dhuan .......(wow)

and in the midst of all this
bol-bol why did you ditch me,
zindagi bhi lele yaar kill me

With such lyrics has to be the first hit song of the year


The promo video is here.

The Little Things

We always aspire for the biggest things in life. Generally the aspirations (for a guy anyways) can be stated simply as wanting the 3 B's in life; namely

• Bikes (or a Big Car as you please)
• Babes (Blonde/Brunette... take your pick)
• Billions (no doubts in this regard)

But in these aspirations/dreams we sometimes forget about the little things. By the little things I refer to the things which we have taken more or less as granted in our lives. However when they are missing our whole schedule goes haywire.
As an example running water in our homes. This is something that we have more or less taken for granted. However for four consecutive days there was no running water at my apartment. For the daily basic needs, I had to go down to the water tank and carry the buckets full of water to my 14th floor flat, a not particularly enjoyable task. Saturday evening, on my way back from office, I got a text message from my flatmate "Paani Aaa Gaya :)". Instant reaction was one of relief. Reaching home the first thing I did was to open the tap. The sight of running water brought with it a really wonderful feeling. (Maybe the same feeling as the ones the villagers in "Swades" got on seeing the electri bulb lit up).
Learning through the whole experience. Its not the big things but the little things in life which matter.

Awesomely Pathetic Lives: The New Year Water Crisis

First of all a very Happy 2009 to everyone who is reading this post.

After the reader response that I got (1 comment :)), decided to write more about the adventures of our awesomely pathetic trio of heroes i.e. Niku, Funkaz & Deyus.

Disclaimer:
What follows has been exaggerated to make it more realistic. Otherwise readers might think that this account is a figment of my imagination :P

Now it was New year's Eve. Normally people go out, party, hang out with friends and do other exciting things at this point of time. But then our heroes are not exactly like any normal people. They have to do things differently. They did go out. But as the stroke of midnight approached they went back to their high abode. They were facing a crisis. Shortage of water, the most important need for mankind. So with their empty buckets they went down and brought up some water for extreme emergencies. New year was ushered in during this exercise. The customary new year wishes exchanged but carrying heavy buckets wasn't exactly the proper way to do it. Worse was to follow on new year's day. The first thing our heroes did on new year was to run off to a friend's place in Purani Dumbai area to take a bath (Deyus was to be credited for making this arrangement).

P.S. Interesting old story
Once Niku & Funkaz were coming up to their flat. They were once again terrorized by the girl with the big dog. However once out of earshot and inside the safe confines of their high abode, Niku came up with this gem, (referring to the four legged creature terrorizing them) "Is that a b***h or a son-of-a-b***h?"