• A Shark’s Tale

    Disclaimer : For those expecting a children’s movie review, uh uh!!

    For years and years he had roamed the high seas, though his movements were restricted to only the ones near to this subcontinent. he had migrated from an ocean elsewhere, he could only remember that it was westwards. well, he could also remember that survival was much easier there, and then.. and that he had left the place because there were too many like him there.
    around the time, he got here, times were good, because there were thousands of poor people who were forced to come to sea to feed themselves and take of other needs, theirs and their families’. also, the seas were extremely useful for trade.thus, for various reasons, people slowly got used to being at sea, they then ventured farther out, and the more they ventured, the more they got used, and the cycle continued. all the better for him, because the more they ventured out, the brighter his chances became.
    then suddenly, times started to change. an old, bald man with a stick came on the scene, taught them to weave and be self sufficient, slowly people stopped venturing out to sea.
    there were still some who did, but then the factories started coming up, industries blossomed and the people could feed themselves without going out to the sea. people were satisfied with the choices they had, and those who werent always found ways to smuggle things in.
    times got so bad that he had considered going back westwards where (he had heard) things were much better, but then some new phenomena started coming to this land, and suddenly things started getting better, because these phenomena brought with them a whole lot of choices, and suddenly the people found they no longer could be self sufficient. they started contemplating the sea again, and just when he thought it couldnt get better, he suddenly found a new and a much more subtle but shrewd ally..they called it a credit card..
    a major portion of people who used it ended up venturing into the sea, enjoying it momentarily before reaching a stage, when they were totally at sea…..
    a smile found its way back to his face, for you see, he was no ordinary shark, he was a loan shark!!
    until next time, take the credit !!

  • The games people Play

    Monopoly, yup, the board game alright. One of my fave games ever, though there are some uncharitable people who call it a game that gets you bored. A couple of months back, i had bought the computer version of the game, and have been addicted since. this weekend, i finished the 15th and final level, so i thought i had to write a post on it, thereby slightly altering the ‘introspection’ scheme of things to the ‘my diary’ kind…but let me assure you that its only a temporary aberration, which shall be rectified in this post itself…
    hmm, back to monopoly, for those who are regulars, the comp version is slightly different coz there are different levels, with each level having a different objective. also some things like having to own all locations of the same color before starting construction have been bypassed, which actually makes it much better.
    as with all the games i play, i tried to find a link between me, the person, and the game i am playing…. monopoly allows you to completely destroy your opponent, using whatever cheap trick (read strategy) that you can think of, it allows you to toy with your opponent’s future and plans, and if you are real good at the game, put him in situations that will make him do exactly what you want him to do… all of which are things that get done in today’s world….but fortunately or unfortunately not the things i could bring myself to do in my current ‘love and peace to all’ avtar (which looks to be more and more a permanent state of affairs)..hehe…
    and so, do i like games like monopoly, delta force, unreal etc coz they allow me to be someone i am not, manifest myself in a form that i cannot be ‘really’… and so again, is it possible for all of us to find our own games, take out the rage , frustration, deviousness etc on the game, so that we can stop playing games on other people??
    until next time, keep playing

  • Choice of joys

    Please consider this hypothetical question – If God gave you a choice between 30 (no more, no less) years of life with only joys/happiness and 60 years of life of joys and sorrows, which one would you choose?
    that was a serious question, but this

    Should However Invoke Tickles
    Little Johnny was sitting in class doing math problems when his teacher picked him to answer a question, “Johnny, if there were five birds sitting on a fence and you shot one with your gun, how many would be left?”
    “None,” replied Johnny, “cause the rest would fly away.”
    “Well, the answer is four,” said the teacher, “but I like the way you’re thinking.”
    Little Johnny says, “I have a question for you. If there were three women eating ice cream cones in a shop, one was licking her cone, the second was biting her cone and the third was sucking her cone, which one is married?”
    “Well,” said the teacher nervously, “I guess the one sucking the cone.”
    “No,” said Little Johnny, “the one with the wedding ring on her finger, but I like the way you’re thinking.”

    and someone’s humble contribution to the Taj’s birthday –

    Taj Mahal kya cheez hai
    main to usse bhi bada mahal banaoonga,
    aree Mumtaz to marke dafan hui thi,
    main to tujhe zinda hi dafna doonga.

    until next time, bury the thoughts….

  • Bloggywood

    Bollywood – where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely getrevealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(for that matter, any ‘ollywood’ – B, H, K…)
    in the beginning, almost every movie made had a fresh storyline which made people see it. then we had formula movies, which tried to recreate the same magic as its successful predecessor, most failed, coz people could see the same thing only so many times… the search for keeping viewers happy continued.. for some time, fresh faces were the mantra, and love stories were churned out like there was no tomorrow (maybe there wasnt).but then even love could only keep interest that long..
    action, romance, mystery, sex …a time when every idea has been thrashed out , thrashed in, and thrashed inside out… then the varied treatments began… “its the same story, but my treatment is different”…. somewhere in between there was also the “for the first time in bollywood” wave, which included phirang heroes and heroines, and special effects… we also had, maybe still have movies made for the niche audience…the cross over movies…’grey’ heroes and heroines, literally and otherwise..none of this making much of a difference…..every time a fresh face is launched with reasonable fanfare, there is an interest, but itisnt sustained… there are not enough viewers, except for very rare cases…
    but yup, you are right, bollywood and the other woods still go on, movies are being made, we still watch them, but the standard of movies has reached rock bottom, and is still digging (that would explain the underworld involvement 😉 ),the chances of watching a good movie are infinitesimally small… the consolation is that there are still some who experiment, and make movies about stuffthey believe in, and that belief many a time makes the movie a success… but they are too few to change the general phenomenon………..
    Blogs- where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely get revealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(rediffblogs, blogspot, blogdrive…..)
    in the beginning……………
    do we see bloggywood happening?
    until next time, keep believing, keep blogging….

  • Relative Values

    These days, i find i am ‘doing’ the things that ‘happened’ to me in childhood, to this generation of kids (perverts, mind your mind !!)..simply because i am reaching the stage of life that my relatives were in,at that time…Relatives were important initially coz of the attention they gave, and perhaps also because of the favourable comparisons (favourable to me, that is..hehe) they made with their offspring…. and it was only a sidenote that they used to give pocket money when they left….
    unfortunately, increased exposure to the material world gradually converted the sidenote to a headline..well, thats the excuse..:)..gradually their visits became important because they became a major source of revenue… i will refrain from commenting on the status of the comparisons…
    On my last visit to kerala, i ended up on the ‘relative’ side of things… quite obviously, i wasnt so naive that i couldnt understand the relatively low value of affection(for the kids, that is)… i was smug in the knowledge that, at the time of saying bye, i would be bestowing some surprise pocket money on the ‘kids’…. but i realised how ‘out of touch’ i was with the world, when hours before departure, the ‘kids’started asking me how much i planned to give them…. the only solace was that i had matched their expectations in value…at least i think i did… shudder to think of comparisons!! Innocence was not lost, it wasnt there at all!! …*sulk*
    until next time, get some values!!