SoothSayer

For the moments when things, people get under your skin. Listen to this.  

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Unknown territories.

Today, I touched new heights of being forever alone.  Its not everyday that I would gather myself to go to a movie alone. From being someone who could not dream about  drinking a glass of water alone, to eating, talking and now watching a movie alone. Such strange turn of events, life has brought me. As far as the experience goes, I did not mind it much. It was a monday morning. Only a few couples and me in the theatre. Not awkward at all.
So here's a sharp take on the movie  Superman:Man of Steel

5. Lack of chemistry between Henry Cavill (Clark Kent) and Amy Adams (Lois Lane). He's gorgeous, she's lovely. But sometimes, people who look great individually fail to create spark with one another. It's bad enough that there was no chemistry between the two actors to begin with. But it's worse when they don't have any good lines to throw at each other to at least amuse the viewers.

4. Why push the S meaning? So the "S" in Superman's costume actually means hope in Krypton. Or at least that's the 2013 storytellers would like to tell the audience. Was it necessary? It's just pushing too much drama where there's so much void elsewhere: in wit, in thrill, in a little broader character and relationships development.

3. Who's rooting for Superman? Goyer et al did well on their modern day take on Jor-El and General Zod. But it was a good prelude that did not quite deliver on its promise. For many points in the film, viewers would realize Russel Crowe and Michael Shannon are having more powerful stuff going on than Henry Cavill.

2. Why mess up the human mum and dad? Superman is a classic that won millions of hearts for the alien hero's relationships with humans. Having a dad who chose to die than be rescued by his superhero son - after a rather bitter argument, that is - is not part of the long-standing comics history. Mum commenting on, instead of creating the costume is not very touching, too. Not even amusing.

1. Awkward, shabby, stiff dialogue. Everyone is taking themselves too seriously. No sharp and witty lines, let alone punchlines to break the sleepiness throughout the film. Someone finally tries to make the audience laugh by saying, "I just think he's so hot," but it was towards the last moments of the film.

That said, Man of Steel viewers leave the theatres like something was taken from them (aside from the money). You don't bring home anything with you, just the problems you wished Superman could have fixed.

Verdict:2.5/5

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Reminiscing the good old days

Back in my childhood, we had an old, black and white television. Konark was the company, and Gitanjali was the brand.

Like a high school romance, the television was not the best around. But it belonged to me, and my heart belonged to it. It had a knob that you could turn to access 12 channels – a cruel mockery that the government only allowed it one. Under the knob, were three buttons – On/Off and Volume, Brightness, and Contrast. It had a red box, but that was all the colour it had.

I was used to it. To its timings, and to its tantrums. I knew what to do if the picture was blurred (run up to the balcony and shoo away the crow on the antenna), and what to do if it rained (pray to God and promise not to think about Juhi Chawla). We were cool friends – me and the television.

So imagine my surprise one day, when I randomly turned the knob, and found there was a second channel slowly appearing on the screen.

DD Metro.

My world opened up. No more did I have to endure the sober, sedated programs on National. This channel looked a lot cooler, the people wore dresses I could see on the streets, and a language I didn’t feel alienated by.

It was on this wonderful channel, DD Metro, that I saw a young girl sitting on a throne.

She was unlike any other actress I had seen. What right did she have to be singing a song if she wasn’t an actress? And what was with those crazy scenes? One moment it was a durbar, the next there was a snake crawling across the floor, then someone doing yoga.

I hated it. But I watched on like a man transfixed.

**************************

The 90’s are often seen as the years when the floodgates were being opened for the rest of the world. But for us who were too young to figure anything out, all the liberalisation and privatisation didn’t make any sense.

Our revolutions happened in our television sets.

Made in India, the song whose audacity I couldn’t take, but whose tunes I couldn’t wish away, was just the beginning. What followed was a hurricane – Baba Sehgal appeared in the Jumpin ad, Daler Mehndi was making the entire country blabber Punjabi, and a young boy with long hair was singing about the pangs of a lonely heart.

Indipop not only changed the way we listened to music. It also changed the way we watched television.

For the first time, there was no heroine gyrating in the rain, or singing out songs of pain about her love. The tone was spunky, the tunes funky. While television was slotted earlier – the mornings and evenings for news, the afternoon for soap operas, Sundays for films – indipop meant you could watch anything you want. And the earth didn’t come crashing down on you if you walked out of the room and came back ten minutes later.

I remember watching television those days with a sense of awe. I never knew what was going to come up. Since these were not films, no one knew the artists, or the genres they were going to play. What resulted was a heady mix of genres and styles.

If there was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing about Lisa Ray in a bad blouse, there was a gawky Shahid Kapoor saving money to buy Hrishita Bhatt a dress. Dooba Dooba had a band that was slowly sinking into water to symbolise that the singer was drowning in her eyes – tacky now, earth shatteringly profound back then.

And Lucky Ali! That man with the husky voice, and dreamy lyrics, and those crazy, beautiful videos that were shot in locations that made our televisions look really posh.

If there was something about Indipop that made it such a rage, it was that it catered to every category. Tunak Tunak Tun would be followed by Tanha Dil, which would be followed by Ab Ke Saawan. My ears and brain had multiple orgasms on a daily basis.

It also changed the way I listened to music. Belonging to a family that would make a Khap panchayat beam with pride, I had no access to any films or film music. Which meant that I had to wait for someone to get married in my lane so I could listen to songs being played and mug them up heart. Or go to a friend’s place to watch television or music. Or wait till a kind uncle gave me some money so I could go to a cassette shop.

Oh, those cassette shops!

Side A would have one film, and Side B would have another. You listened to all the songs on one side, and flipped the cassette over. God forbid you left the cassette lying around, and the tape would come out like a snake from Pandora’s Box, and the next few days were spent in screwing the cassette with a Reynold 045 Fine Carbure jammed into it. All this trouble for listening to an Anu Malik song that sounded like two mules mating.

But with Indipop, there was no such trouble. Neelam, or Malaika decided the songs for you, spoke in English, and kept you glued till the song came on. And how they came on!

But obviously, everything couldn’t be so smooth.

For Bollywood, that hydra headed monster was watching. Very soon, it would plan its deadly attack.

**********************

While the Bollywood of the early 90s was an outdated, embarrassingly loud rogue, the Bollywood of the mid and late 90s tried to win back the hearts of the nation.

DDLJ had happened, and India had a hero who did not bash three Pakistanis per second. DDLJ was followed by KKHH, and then DTPH. If the bonfire was slowly dying out, these three films, in one go, put the wood back in Bollywood.

From then on, Bollywood went out of its way to woo the audience everywhere. Songs began to be shot in locations abroad, and the youth reconnected with the films.

Slowly, everybody who was anybody in Indipop started drifting to Bollywood. Shaan, KK, and Sonu Nigam became a part of the Bollywood stable. Baba Sehgal, who had inspired a generation of rappers (even though the elders felt it was gangrap of their music aesthetics), stopped cutting albums.

Hariharan, one half of the beautiful Colonial Cousins, started singing in films. Lucky Ali smoked a lot of pot and moved to New Zealand and married thrice. Palash Sen acted in a film with Sushmita Sen and Daler Mehndi would pave way for his younger brother, someone with such an appreciation of beauty that he had to forcibly kiss Rakhi Sawant at a party.

Slowly but surely, like an octopus patrolling a sea, Bollywood ate up everything that came in its way.

What was a delight on television, slowly became a pain.

Indipop gave way to the Remix Scene. Crappy remakes or crappy songs. With 25 year old girls wearing the clothes of 15 year olds and dancing like 65 year olds.

Magnasound, that record label that started it all, got sued by Asha Bhonsle and filed for bankruptcy. Bollywood started making snazzy videos to entice the youth, who had already been dumbed down when Bournvita Quiz Contest was pulled off air and Derek O Brain went to join Mamta Banerjee’s political party.

Just like that, the dream was shattered.

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poetry i read

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Follow your passion, RESIGN!!

A Cambridgeshire man recently gave notice with a message piped on top of a passion cake. A half-baked idea, or a generous parting gift for the office?

Resignation by cake: the sweetest way to say goodbye

Chris Holmes' resignation cake: 'I now realise how precious life is.' Photograph: Twitter

As resignations go, it takes the biscuit. Chris Holmes, an immigration officer for Border Force at Stansted Airport, handed in his resignation yesterday on a cake, beautifully piped in neat black letters on a flawless page of white royal icing. "The writing was quite fiddly," he says (he had practised on a sheet of paper). "I would have done it a bit neater if I'd known it was going to go viral."

Addressing his letter "To The Management", Holmes writes in upright and looping script: "Having recently become a father I now realise how precious life is and how important it is to spend my time doing something that makes me, and other people, happy. For that reason, I hereby give notice of my resignation, in order that I may devote my time and energy to my family, and my cake business."

Holmes, 31, who lives in Sawston, Cambridgeshire, is otherwise known asMr Cake, in the baking business that he has been building up in his spare time over the past two or three years. He arrived for his day job at Stansted on Monday with his large rectangular passion cake in a box – "a spiced carrot cake with pecans and sultanas and coconut" – and a resignation letter, and handed over both at once to the duty manager sitting on the podium behind the immigration desks. The manager and his colleagues "were surprised and amazed", Holmes says. "But they took it very well. It was a huge cake. Ten by 12 inches, with about 18 eggs in it." He made it in two parts, splicing them together with orange icing. "The people who tasted it say it was very nice," said Toby Allanson, a spokesman for Border Force.

Holmes, who became a father five weeks ago when his son, Benjamin, was born, came up with the plan to bake a resignation cake six months ago, when his wife was still pregnant. He told no one about his idea, but kept it in his head, quietly thinking it over, cooking it through, until it too had reached its full term. "Timing-wise, it's quite a risk [to launch a business] with the economy as it is at the moment. But I have looked at the books time and again and every way I look at it, it is viable as a sole employment." He chose a passion cake, he says, because "it was quite an appropriate choice, given I was following my passion. If it all goes to plan, Ben is to thank for giving me that kick to get on and do something I have a passion for." He will be repaid with a wonderful first birthday cake, already in the planning.

Holmes's phone has been ringing and emails pinging all day, he says. But so far there have been no requests for resignation cakes. At his former employer's office, meanwhile, there is still some cake left. "He leaves with our very best wishes," says the assistant director of Border Force at Stansted.

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Ankahee

I got this strange habit of delving into lyrics of songs i like. sometimes pondering over them for hours.
I strongly believe that giving a sound to poetry is the best way to enrich it.  Here's something that is playing on my mind for a long time now. this is ANKahee from the movie Lootera,  Thank u amit trivedi , and Amitabh Bhattacharya

Kya kabhi savera.. ha ha
Laata hai andhera.. ha ha
Sookhi siyahi
Deti hai gawaahi
Sadiyon puraani
Aisi ik kahaani
Reh gayi, reh gayi
Ankahee..
Ankahee.. (x2)

Kya kabhi, bahaar bhi, peshgi laati hai
Aane wale patjhar ki..
O.. baarishein naaraazagi bhi jataa jaati hain
Kabhi kabhi ambar ki..

Patte jo shaakhon se toote
Bewajah toh nahin roothe, hain sabhi..

Khwabon ka jharokha.. ha ha
Sach tha ya dhokha.. ha ha
Maatha sehla ke
Nindiya churaai
Sadiyon puraani
Aisi ik kahaani
Reh gayi, reh gayi
Ankahee..
O Ankahee..

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AutoDictating.

Boxing was a big deal in 1896, America!

Boxers were making a lot of money. Got a lot of fame and media attention. It was a lucrative path.

But a path full of blood and fractures.

A young boy named Jack Johnson dreamed of becoming the top Boxer in America. But he had just one problem. He was black!

Blacks were not treated well in those days in America.

Jack was not allowed to join any Boxing Academy as he was black. 

But he was allowed to participate in tournaments.

Not in Training but in Tournaments? Yes! The white boxers liked to ridicule the blacks and beat the untrained ones in the ring. They used them as punching bags and for the amusement of the crowd who liked to see black men get knocked out. This was the white's way of saying he is superior!

Jack was sad that he was not allowed to get trained anywhere. But he took this as a opportunity. He realised that only he can train himself not someone else!

He realised that he becomes a boxer when he realises he is one! and not when someone gives him a certificate saying he is a boxer!

Jack did something no black ever tried before.

To get practice. He enrolled in tournaments!

Here he will get beaten up. But he thought this is the only way to learn. To see how the other person manages to win.

In initial days, he was knocked out in the first round. He realised that he was not able study the opponent in just 1 or 2 rounds. He needed to prolong the fight.

So he was prolonging the fight. After a few years, he still never won anything, he was constantly beaten up. The crowd liked that way he got beaten. They used to shout "Yes! Beat that Nigga down!!".

He was now able to prolong the fight till the 20 rounds. This continued for sometime.

Everybody thought he just never gives up fighting and he is too dumb to realise that he cant beat a strong white man. But he was actually studying and learning from his opponents. Looking at their moves.. etc

And then one fine day. He realised the training his over. The best boxing training ever!

He won the World Heavyweight Championship. Beating every strong white men. Knocking them out in the first few rounds. His opponents were just not able to understand how come he reads their minds, the movement they think something, he reacts the opposite way. Jack Johnson did not learn by punching bags, he learned by studying the opponent's body language and moves by becoming a punching bag.

Jack Johnson was considered the greatest fighter in his era and it was his legacy that inspired people like Muhammed Ali.

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What if god smoked cannabis?

A song that is profound,  what if...

If God had long hair
And a goatee,
And if his eyes looked pretty glazed...
If He looked spaced out
Would you buy his story?
Would you believe he had an eye infection?

And yeah, yeah, God looks baked
And yeah, yeah, God smells good,
And yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah...

What if God smoked cannabis?
Hit the bung like some of us?
Drove a tie-dyed microbus,
And he subscribed to Rolling Stones?

When God made this place,
In the beginning,
Did He plant any seeds?
Or did he put them there for Adam and Eve,
So they'd be hungry for the apple that the snake
Was always offering?

Yeah, yeah... God rolls great,
Yeah, yeah, God smells good,
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah...

What if God smoked cannabis?
Do you suppose he had a buzz
When he made the platypus
When he created earth, our home?
Does He like Pearl Jam or the Stones?
And do you think He rolls His own
Up there in heaven on the throne?

And when the saints go marching home,
May be he sit and smoke a bone

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