Change the system!

Rang de Basanti….. is to awaken the youth and steer them into action.

The messages that this film expresses are very clear:

1. It is not about film making, it is a juxtaposition of India 60 years back and today. Are things any different? Any better? Any worse? These are contemplations the film poses to its viewers.
2. Youth is where issues always bank on, only youth can creep in changes, be it good or bad
Politicians and political party ideologies are all just for media, campaigning and newspapers. The film indicates a party that campaigns using religion as the ideology is extremely hollow from inside. And how there is no ethics or values in politics. Basically that it is a as good as gambling in Las Vegas!
3. It is a soother for those parents who lost their beloved sons and daughters in MiG crashes, petrol scams, land scams and such manipulations in the administration.
4. Reminds people that life here for us Indians is values at very cheap rates and that the govt doesn’t care.
For the youth, the message is clear – if we make want a ‘free’ India, we have to dig out the filth, give our lives, end corruption brutally and form our own transparent govt.
5. “don’t make comments standing in the peripheral” - is another noteworthy message

I agree with all the above. For example, when I asked Arun Jaitley, a profound question on the political ideology of BJP, he had no answer and evaded my main point. I am not a congressman either, but I think Indian politics is a game, they manipulate, eat, enjoy and leave the seat….all of them!

Go watch the movie in the hall, the lyrics and hilarious. Aamir can move one to tears and the rest look really good. Just ignore Soha's rona, she has tried her best !

Salarjang Museum Drudgery

Tickets were to be bought, I bought them and entered. The entry was ‘genderly’ divided. If you’re wondering why, it was because all of us were going to be frisked inside. Remember: AP… Hyderabad… Naxalite movements….yes.

Inside - massive hall and bare pillars. I slowly started to understand the topography. It was a kind of circular atrium with rooms on the circumference, some 4 odd floors. We started with the ground floor on the left side. The artefacts were arranged genre wise in different rooms with a one word introduction at each door.

First few rooms were captivating. After some distance inside, Salarjung’s family was introduced through oil paintings. I then realised that he was a person who collected these things out of sheer hobby. Amazing! Huge array of stuff, miniature toys, birds, carpets, furniture, paintings, china, ceramic, Italian marble statures, silverware, even the Nizams Jewels, name it, its there. The first floor was good. I had to go on to the next floor. How to get there? No floor maps at all!

This is when I started negating the system and maintenance.

Each of those antiques was kept callously. Visualise the enclosures – iron boxes made with one side or all sides of glass, corners supported with either iron or wood, all painted in a light yellow or light yellowish green paint with rusty hinges. They oddly blended with the uninteresting walls, painted with the typical ‘govt. hospital’ white colour and the red oxide flooring.

The most unfortunate was a mesmerising European lady of the 17-century carved in Italian marble, with a robe and a veil flowing on her face revealing her chiselled features. She was white as milk, and smooth as cheese. She was the most beautiful lady I had seen till date. She was standing inside a dull dilapidated structure; the glass that revealed her had traces of new paint wiped off of it. She looked more depressed than she could ever be!

Going around each room one after the other, somewhere in my head, I felt like I was back in my history class, 9th grade, drowsy. From then on I just kept finding fault and then started to find jocular angles to everything that I found, like a juvenile!

I recalled the same story happened with me when I visited the dolls museum in Delhi.

Do they have the right?

http://www.ibnlive.com/features/femalefoeticide/3.php

The above link is for those who remain in bliss about today’s real India. Save the girl child, female foeticide is a crime, sex ratio is in decline and Punjab is a shame in these terms…

These are all headlines to explain the pathetic condition figuratively in various newspapers and websites. There are some fundamental questions yet to be asked and then answered.

Are the illiterate murderers aware that a foetus’s gender is a contribution of the male reproductive system and potency and not in the hands of females?
There are a million quotes from hard-hearted men who say that 'I don’t care and I shall kill till I am blessed with a son', why don’t the legal authorities take these seriously?
There are men who remarry to have a son. Are these marriages legal? If media can do so much and dig out these outrageous cases, why the authorities are not involved in straightening these men? Isn’t there sufficient corroboration for necessary action?
Morally, these people, both men and women should be subjected to sterilisation as a punishment! Because then, there wont be a question of remarrying! Don’t you think so?
How less are women to men today? Whether or not they are educated doesn’t cause gender differences. Women are physically and mentally as strong as men to work, I believe.

These incidents makes one feel that Indians have become so much more weaker over the years and lost the mental strength to be – ‘Krantikaries’. As said in 'Rang de Basanti’, all those who do embark on such ‘good for society activities’ face brutal deaths and their parents arrive on TV for a while and the issue dissolves.

Nevertheless, I know one thing for sure, foeticide is shamelessly committed even by those in ostentatious homes with flashy cars. I have just one message for such people - you still exist in the lowest strata of the society!!

And I ask one thing of God - Punish those who sin as they sin!

Rahul always in dreams

Dreams were born with me, every night I don’t sleep without one dream atleast.

Last night, I felt dreary and slept a very disturbed sleep. At four, my lil’ sister put on the light to start studying while I was still dreaming…on the out set, my sister saw me grimacing, saying “no, no,” and then smiling…. What was that about?

“I was shopping in a market place like those in Thailand where meat and veggies are sold, maybe some sort of Pallika replica. Topographically very confusing. I had just picked up some book and had a hand full of luggage. For those who don’t know me, I am always physically present and mentally elsewhere….I am a thinker you know!

In the next shop, rather a commercial venture constructed on four bamboo staves resting on the ground bearing a water proof sheet on top of them, with a high rise platform on the inside for display of the keeper’s various ‘brands’. What a drudgery life in India is, I thought!

The next moment I was pleasantly surprised. That shop was visited by the one and only – the Achilles – of India’s cricket team, Rahul Dravid along with another player!! He was shopping there, humbly cute he looked in his white attire with that cap. There wasn’t any hustle bustle on his presence today? How lucky I am, I thought. “Hello Rahul. How are you? I am 'so and so'…” “Hi” he said listening to me with interest. “You know, I am a big fan, I think you look absolutely gorgeous on the field. I like you so much…” he passed one of those adorable smiles, sheepishly and continued his chore. I continued mine, thinking hard, what next I should say.

Then I came up with the most disastrous statement of my entire life… “You know Rahul, I am actually from the media fraternity and umm..” I looked up at him. He seemed to have dropped what he was holding, his face suddenly turned pale and intimidated for some reason. He turned back and ran the fastest he would have ever run between the wickets. I shouted at him, “But Rahul, please listen to me…” he had vanished between the alleys, disappearing in a heart beat. I ran after…probably nothing….even then….i wanted to find him and tell him. “I am not paparazzi, I am on the editorial desk of Jetwings, soft journalism…. I won’t harm you…”

Tears felt in the corner of my eyes, I felt like finding a granite stone to bang my head on, why am I in this godforsaken business anyway? And most of all, why did I tell that to him? “Would you stop being a dork?” I asked myself.

Anyway, life is never always fair. If God wanted me to be acquainted with Rahul, he’d see to it that I am. I reconciled after so much of self-whining. I entered a store that had two entrances to it. Started rambling around looking for something in vain, Rahul’s cute face hovering in all corners of my mind. And there he was, entering from the other side into the same shop. He was destined to hear my defence, I thought. “Rahul,” I called out, he looked at me as if I were some gothic ‘JK Rowling’ monster who was going to dissolve his blood in a potpourri preparation of a deadly liquid in a cauldron cooking to recreate an evil wizard that was going to destroy his family.
He ran the race of his life, slipping away from me again. I looked at myself on the mirror nearby. All I could do now was to laugh it out!